#also just remembered that comic five has brown eyes instead of green (like in the show) and i don't know why i'm so obsessed with that fact

[meteor-moon]

me when i am a gazelle and the jungle is my home

[weirdthinkingdragon]

Welcome To The Family (1/???)

Yandere EraserMic household x reader

Finally decided to start writing it! I’ve never babysat in my life, so if this is incredibly wrong I’m sorry. No warnings for now. No idea how many chapters this is going to be right now, but for sure at least 3-5.

I’m on my way to babysit two new children. Well, a child and later in the day a teenager when they get back from school. It’s beyond astonishing somehow being the one selected to babysit two children of heroes. They’re adopted, but that makes it all the more strange. I can’t complain much though. They’re paying a rather large amount and asked me to keep quiet about it. I have to go there early in the morning and be there most of the day. They also warned me some days I may have to babysit them longer than others. They did also warn me a few of their students may come by to hang out with Eri for a bit. 

My fist knocks on the door four times. Yamada- hopefully, I remembered who is who correctly- opens it. He lets me in with a giant and welcoming smile on his face. In the living room were the other three. Eri, and the other which must be Shinsou, look at me cautiously. Eri hides a bit behind the black-haired adult while Shinsou seems rather watchful and wary of me. I crouch down to her level but stay a bit away to introduce myself. “You must be Eri. I’ve heard a lot about you. My name’s Y/N. I hope to get along with you.” This is true, I’ve been informed by the two about what she has been through. 

The black-haired man confirms with a small nod down to her as she looks up at him. Whatever that was supposed to be about, it helped make her take a step away from him and look at me more. 

Aizawa- hopefully, I’m still correct- looks at the clock. “We need to go now.” the blond nods and leaves for their rather expensive-looking black car. Aizawa leaves as well. Shinsou glares at me one last time before he starts to head towards the door as well. “Don’t do anything you will regret.” He threatens and leaves too. 

Eri sits on the couch still timidly staring at me. To say it felt awkward between us is an understatement. “So, Eri, would you like to show me your favorite toys? Or maybe there’s a show you really like we could watch for a while?” Like a lightswitch, her eyes light up like she was just told she could have all the candy in the world. She then takes off up the stairs for presumably her bedroom. I wait in the living room for her return. I take a moment to examine the living room better. There are hardly any pictures on the walls. There’s only one with the four of them and a bunch of teens. Must be his class. They look like a chaotic and lively bunch. The light gray couch is in the middle of the living room with a large flat screen T.V. in front of it. To the left of the couch and a little behind is a matching gray loveseat with a giant cat tree between it and the wall. Huh, so they have a cat or possibly two. Surprised they’re not in the living room. The black stand under the T.V. matches the coffee table in front of it. There’s a door straight from the main entrance I entered from. My guess is either a bathroom or the kitchen. Next to it is a flight of stairs that Eri went up. That must lead to the bedrooms. There’s another door next to the stairs. A closet maybe? Or maybe another bedroom.

Eri comes down a few minutes later with five stuffed animals in her arms. A green rabbit with matching green eyes, a brown teddy bear with beady eyes, a blue galaxy patterned fox with turquoise eyes,  a yellow dog with blue eyes, and a cute tiny light gray unicorn with glittery pink eyes. It looks like her and seems like her favorite with how it seems a little worn. They’re all so adorable that I think my heart might have melted. 

“Aw, what are their names?” She proudly holds them up and says their names. The one that got me was “Deku”. Doesn’t that mean useless? How would a child know that term? More importantly, how are the adults allowing her to name it that? 

“Deku? Why is it named that?” 

“He saved me. I wanted a stuffed animal like him!” She cheerfully says. I’m not going to question why they chose that name. 

“They sound like amazing people! I can’t wait to meet them someday!” She smiles at me. It quickly becomes sad instead. “But I won’t be going to the school with them anymore…” 

I try to think of how to make her feel better. Those two must be the ones her fathers warned me will come over at some point. “Well, maybe I could ask your parents if they can come over someday after school.” She enthusiastically nods. 

It grows quiet between us again as she holds her stuffed animals. 

I look back at the cat tree. “I see you have a cat tree. Do you know where the cat is?” 

“We have three!” she cheerfully informs. 

“Three? Wow! I bet they keep you safe, huh?” I question. She shrugs. “Mochi is too big to even jump on the bed.” 

“Mochi? Cute name!”

“Mrow” came a sudden voice from the cat tree. There’s a box part on the floor I somehow missed earlier. A rather fat cat saunters out of it. “Mochi!” Eri cheerfully yells and goes over to it. It’s an orange tabby. She tries to pick him up and miraculously succeeds. It’s so comical I can’t help but laugh. A child carrying a cat that’s almost as big as her. She waddles over with it and places them on the couch between us. They just yawn, stretch, and lie down right where they were plopped. They roll over to show their belly. I rub the belly of it. How could I not? Once again, it doesn’t seem to care in the slightest. 

“What are the names of the other two?” I ask. 

“Sundae and Oreo! They’re brothers!” 

“Are they as big as Mochi?” She shakes her head. “No. My dads went to buy things that feed the cats when we are not home.” 

“That’s good! Maybe later we could try finding the other two and have a tea party or something.” She looked like she was nearly screaming in excitement at the news. “Only one of my dads likes to do tea parties with me.” 

I smile. “Well, now you have two that do!”

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

Many hours later, she decided she wanted to do the tea party. We were able to find the other two cats which were sleeping on her dads’ bed. Eri told me they were in there since I didn’t go in there out of respect. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring a dress or suit to change into for her. I’ll have to remember that for next week so I can do it when not babysitting. 

Oreo and Sundae were rather difficult to settle down into chairs around the table. They’re tuxedos and an easy way to tell which is who is apparently the white eyebrows on Oreo that makes him look always angry. We just gave up when they decided to sit on the table instead of the chairs.

The tea set is a pastel green with interesting shiny gold lines decorating it. It’s a great contrast to the small dark red table it’s on in her room. She has tons of drawings with her, Shinsou, and the two adults covering her walls. There’s also a few with a green-haired and blond with her. There is nothing in the teacups as she passes one to me. “Why, thank you, Eri!” She smiles and nods. That smile needs to be protected.

It’s hard to think someone could do something so evil to such an innocent bean. I’m beyond glad she’s in a much better home now. I’ve only known her for like half a day, but if something were to happen to her, I’d kill everyone around me and then myself. She looks behind me and lights up more. “Toshi!” 

I turn around to see Shinsou leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed and a glare aimed at me. How long has he been there? Man, he’s incredibly quiet. I understand why he doesn’t trust me yet. I’m still a stranger after all. It would be more concerning if he did trust me immediately. I give him an inviting smile. “Welcome, Shinsou! Why don’t you come to our tea party instead of standing there? I’m sure Eri would be more than happy to have her brother join!” 

“Yes! C’mon Toshi, please?” She begs. He shakes his head. “You two go ahead. I’d rather watch for now.” He says, hardening his glare at me. Eri doesn’t seem to notice his glare and goes back to her chair. How cute though, a protective brother! She deserves nothing less. 

After that, she wanted to show me her favorite show. Shinsou sits rather close to her between us. Seems a bit excessive, but whatever makes him comfortable I guess. Checking the clock above the T.V., it was almost time for me to go. 

Shinsou goes to the bathroom, but something tells me he’s testing me. I mean, I didn't do anything before he came home, and wouldn’t Eri have already run to him if I did do something? Well, with the villains around you can’t be so sure. 

Eri swings her feet while sitting farther up on the couch. “Are you going to come back tomorrow?” 

“Of course! We still have so many things we have to do together!” I reach over and go to rub her head. She flinches so I take my hand away and think for a moment. How can I get her to trust me without any problems occurring? “Hey, Eri?” She looks at me again with trust, yet a hint of unease still in her eyes. Please don’t tell me I just royally screwed up. “How about this. I do to myself what I’m going to do to you, and you can allow it or not. Like this.” I say, and gently rub the top of my head. I bring my hand halfway to her and wait for her reply. 

It takes a moment, but she gives me a small nod. I rub her head, making her give a big smile to me. 

At that moment, the door opened to reveal the two men. They were tense as we locked eyes, but that went away when they noticed Eri was smiling at me. 

“Welcome back you guys! Eri and I had so much fun today. She even brought me to her tea party! Your cats gave us quite a bit of trouble to involve them though.” I inform as Eri goes to hug Yamada and then Aizawa right after. 

Shinsou comes into the room as well. Like a silent conversation, he gives a curt nod to Aizawa, which he returns. 

Yamada smirks at me. “But what’s important is… Did ya succeed?” 

I shrug. “Kind of. We got them to stay on the table instead of the chair.” He snickers. “That’s those devious two!” He looks down at Eri. “Ya must have had a lotta fun, huh? Sad to miss the party!” 

I decide to leave so they get more time as a family before they have to go to bed. I don’t need to interfere with that. I wave to her as I go to the door and put on my shoes. “See you tomorrow, Eri!” She waves back, shocking the two adults. Wonder why they’re shocked about that. Maybe she doesn’t usually trust new people as fast? Well, I’ve always been pretty good with children. 

I wave at the three men as well and leave excited for what tomorrow might bring.

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

I have rather big plans for this story. Hopefully I keep up with it, and I promise it will get better later on. 

[lochrannn]

Physical affection prompts: 1. XD

Apologies, it took me a little while to get round to this XD

As it got a bit longer, I also posted it on AO3.

The prompt was "pats on the head".

-

I

The first time it’s not even really deliberate.

Elliott (who Five had untied only minutes before) thankfully helped her lug Diego’s half-unconscious body from the couch where she’d performed her impromptu emergency surgery on him over to the spare room, and she’s glad to see that the slightly uncoordinated way in which they dropped Diego onto the bed did not reopen his wound, but he’s still clearly not too happy about it. Diego groans loudly, as she lifts his legs up to wrangle him fully onto the covers.

Once she has him there, she plonks down next to him to hold the back of her hand against his cheek, trying to gauge whether he might be running a temperature, but he seems to be relatively cool, if a little sweaty, but she guesses that’ll be the mild torture she put him through.

Diego groans again and lets out a string of curses as he tries to get more comfortable and Lila watches his pinched face while trying to work out what the sensation is that she’s feeling in her chest. It’s sort of tight and uncomfortable, almost like fear.

When he relaxes a little against the pillows, though his brow is still furrowed, Lila lifts her hand from his cheek to his hair and, on instinct, pats the slightly damp, soft messy curls on top of his head.

And as Diego lets out a long breath and his face relaxes, the tightness in her chest unfurls.

-

II

The second time is only a day later.

Diego is sitting on the edge of the bed, sheets strewn messily across the mattress (Lila likes the look of that, it keeps the memory of last night fresh in her mind) and he’s already wearing brown slacks and a white button down shirt and is currently wrestling with the tie around his neck. Elliott’s late father’s blue suit jacket is laid out tidily next to him.

Lila has just stepped into the green satin dress that Elliott found in his parents’ closet and is about to ask Diego to help her zip it up, when he balls his hands into fists, then flexes them letting out a huffy breath.

“I fucking hate these things!” he growls.

Lila tries to keep the amusement out of her voice, ignoring the way he looks like an overgrown, petulant child, when she asks “I thought your dad made you wear uniforms in that mutant school of yours,” and then she bites her tongue when she suddenly realises she can’t actually remember exactly when those comics first came out, but Diego doesn’t seem to notice, instead he just starts fumbling with the tie again.

“Yeah, that’s why I hate them!”

“Here,” Lila offers and takes one end of the tie and pulls on it slowly, so the silk slips along Diego’s collar and she enjoys the way he stares up at her with wide eyes.

Lila loops the tie around her own neck, expertly knots it to achieve the perfect length and then loosens it again, pulls it off over her head and on over Diego’s, before carefully pulling the knot tight around his neck and fixing his collar.

All the while Diego is watching her intently and the inky blackness of his pupils that have mostly swallowed the dark caramel of his irises makes heat pool deep in her belly.

Getting on the girdle and suspender belt was an absolute nightmare, though, so however tempted, Lila really doesn’t want to have to go through that again right now, instead she is already beginning to look forward to after they get back from the consulate.

In an attempt to break the tension between them, she lifts her hand to the top of his head and pats it like he is a particularly well behaved lap dog and says, “All done!”

Diego scowls at her and this time she really can’t suppress the laugh that bubbles up along her throat. His face turns even darker and then his hands suddenly land on her hips.

Before she can really respond, he’s used his grip on her sides to turn her around and all of a sudden he’s standing right behind her, breath ghosting over her neck and Lila’s own breath hitches.

Then she feels his fingers at the bottom of her spine and hears the sound of the zipper on her dress smoothly being closed, and even though he’s doing the opposite of undressing her, she can still feel the heat rising up her chest and neck, and really hopes she isn’t blushing.

-

III

She finds them in a timeline that, according to all of the readings on the briefcase, should be the one they all came from, and yet, when she finds the Hargreeves mansion and stakes it out for a bit, she swiftly realises there’s a completely different set of siblings living there. Panic wells up in her and the sense of loss she feels at the idea that Diego might have been completely wiped out of existence in some freak time travel accident is so unbearable that she simply refuses to think further along those lines.

The profound relief she feels when, only a few minutes after she totally didn’t have a panic attack, she spots two of Diego’s brothers across the road (the big one and the lanky one) staking out the mansion from a different alley, almost knocks her off her feet.

She stops watching the house entirely and just watches them and after about an hour they leave and she tails them. She follows the two of them at a safe distance (although she’s endlessly curious about them now, is straining her ears to try and listen in on their bickering) until they arrive at a dingy motel in what looks to be a seedy part of town.

She watches them walk up the stairs to the second floor landing and they knock on the door of room 7. Diego’s sister opens the door for them, the one she almost suffocated in her blind rage, Lila remembers a bit guiltily. Raised voices and comfortable orange light filter out into the damp and cold dusk that surrounds her. And then they all head inside and the door closes and Lila feels a longing so strong she only ever remembers feeling it for her mum. Her real one. She wants to be in there, where there’s family and company. And where Diego is.

It takes her a few minutes to gather up the courage to make her way to room no. 7 and then another moment of hesitation before she raises her hand and knocks.

The door swings open immediately to reveal—

Her parents murderer.

Even though he’s got the face of a child, and even though she spent days in Elliott’s around him, the new knowledge of what he did still grips her like an ice cold fist, makes her chest constrict, and bile rises up in her.

“Lila!”

Five says her name in surprise, but she’s drawn away from staring at his almost innocent looking face up to past his shoulder to the middle of the room, where she heard Diego gasp her name at the same time.

There’s another moment of hesitation in which Five turns to look back at his brother and then Diego springs into action. In two long strides, he’s at the door, pushing past Five and grabbing her arm.

He pulls the room door shut behind him and pushes her away from it, not entirely gently, and Lila starts protesting.

“I wasn’t going to—”

hurt him, she was going to say, but she doesn’t get a chance to finish, because all of a sudden she’s wrapped up in a crushing hug and her brain has no time to examine her instincts as she reaches her arms around Diego’s back and presses her face hard into his chest.

She can hear his heart hammering away, fast but strong, and then his breath hitches and he pulls her closer and for a moment Lila lets the tears fall.

Only after a very long while does he loosen his grip on her a bit and Lila gives him just the smallest amount of space, just enough that he can reach his hand under her chin and tilt it up so she has to look at him.

His eyes are shiny and he looks like he wants to say something, but nothing seems to be making its way past his lips, so instead she says, a little nasally, “You got a haircut.”

Diego lets out a slightly watery laugh and breathes out “Yeah…” Then he asks, with that slightly self-deprecating smile of his that makes her insides melt, “How’d you like it?”

Lila reaches up a hand to his much shorter hair. His wavy mane is gone, but when she pats the top of his head, his hair is still soft and springy against her palm.

“It’s alright,” she says, wishing she could say so much more.

“Yeah?” he asks, but doesn’t give her time to add anything before he leans in and kisses her deeply.

She moves her hand from the top to the back of his head and holds him in place.

-

IV

Trying to work out how to fix their timeline is tedious and boring.

They’ve moved to a run down house that is nondescript enough and big enough to hide them all more or less comfortably.

Lila spends the days going along on whatever errand The Hargreeves Council (she mostly calls it that to annoy Diego, who insists it’s Team Zero) has decreed needs running. She’s slowly getting to know them all better, and they are slowly becoming less wary around her.

It’s not like she has anything better going on.

And it’s not all annoying.

She shares a small bed with Diego and they sleep every night tangled up in each other, and on days where they really have nothing else to do, the two of them find some time to themselves.

It’s early May, the sun is shining brightly, there is definite warmth in the air, and Lila has dragged Diego to the park in the middle of the city, hoping he’ll relax a little and not always be so high-strung.

They’ve mostly finished their ice creams (Lila was a bit disappointed that they didn’t have a flake) and they are talking about her early years at the Commission.

“And you know they were these absolute legends in the field. So this one time Cha Cha and Hazel were guest lecturers in my class—”

Diego’s face has darkened at the mention of her former co-workers and Lila scoffs, trying hard not to let the slight meanness she feels bleed into her tone, “Oh please, I get it, you hate Cha Cha cause she killed your ex. Well, I’m sorry, but you need to get over yourself. I used to look up to her, she was a total badass. And before you say anything—” she says, holding up a finger, as Diego lookas about ready to interrupt her, “Your brother, who I am being incredibly civil with, killed my parents,” and Diego instantly deflates.

“Right, as I was saying,” Lila goes on, determined not to let that ruin their afternoon, “Hazel and Cha Cha were there to show us some tactical combat training, which basically just meant showing us how to fight dirty, and, well, not to toot my own horn, but at only seventeen years old and eight and a half stone, I flipped Hazel over my shoulder!”

She beams at him, and clearly Diego has immediately forgotten what he was angry about.

“Bullshit!” he says, but she can tell by the way his eyes are shining and the corners of his lips are quirking up that he half wants to believe her.

“Don’t think I’m a good enough fighter?” she asks, stepping up to him and tilting her chin up defiantly.

“Fuck off, you know you’re an amazing fighter, but this is just physics!”

“Oh yeah? Well, I bet I can physics you to the ground! Eat up and I’ll show you, big guy!”

One hastily chewed ice cream cone and a physics defying maneuver later, Diego is sitting on the soft grass, looking mildly stunned.

“How—?”

“Don’t worry about it, baby, I’m just very good,” Lila says and then pats him condescendingly on the top of his head. But she should have been a little less smug and a little more wary, and remembered that one impressive technique was not enough to best Diego. Before she knows it, he’s grabbed her wrist and yanked her down to the ground next to him.

Lila has no time to respond in any way when he already rolls half on top of her, pressing his face into her neck and scraping his teeth over her skin.

“Ah—fuck! Uh!” she moans. “That’s cheating!”

-

V

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Lila curses under her breath.

“Ah! Shit!” Diego groans through gritted teeth, his face ashen, eyes tightly shut.

“This is all my fault!” Lila whines.

“It’s not your fault!” Diego growls.

He’s lying sprawled out on the damp concrete in a back alley not far from the Hargreeves mansion, only barely propped up against the brick wall of a deli back entrance.

There’s a tear at the bottom of his right trouser leg, and Lila doesn’t really want to look too closely, because she thinks that she might actually have caught a glimpse of bone.

She’s not got much out of him yet, but from the few sentences he’s managed to grit out past the pain, he ended up fighting one of the Sparrows on the roof and then got thrown off and landed badly on his bad ankle.

The ankle that had had a tractor dropped on it.

The ankle that she had dropped a tractor on.

“I’m so sorry!” she repeats again.

Where the hell is Luther with the car, she thinks frantically. He’d left ages ago.

“This,” Diego says pointedly, “is not your fault!”

She feels it would be unfair to continue arguing with him in this state.

She’s already crouched down next to him, so she pats his chest and shoulder, partly out of nervous energy, and partly because she wants to make sure he’s not injured anywhere else. This stirs a memory from not too long ago, when he’d been badly hurt, stabbed by another Hargreeves back in the sixties. She remembers patting his head and how it seemed to have calmed him down.

So she gently puts her hand on top of his head and runs her fingers through his short hair, lightly scraping his scalp with her nails.

Diego lets out another pained groan but he also leans into the touch and grabs for her other hand with his to hold on to her fingers tightly.

This is definitely her fault, Lila thinks, but it seems like Diego genuinely doesn’t believe so. And though she obviously feels terrible seeing him hurt like this, the part of her that was panicking over whether he’d hate her for this, finally goes quiet.

-

+I

Diego’s made himself comfortable on one of the fancy couches in the mansion’s sitting room.

He’s got a book with him that he finally has a chance to get stuck into.

His siblings have all traveled to the west coast to spend their shared birthday with Allison and Claire. Diego would have loved to go as well, of course, but Al has been out sick for a while and so Diego’s been keeping the gym running until he comes back.

And as he and Lila weren’t going to leave town, they agreed to house-sit the mansion.

It’s weird being back here, after everything. After the horrors of his childhood, the weirdness surrounding his father’s funeral and the first apocalypse. The danger the place posed to them before they were able to restore their original timeline.

Klaus, Luther, and Five haven’t really done anything much to the place, and still it feels peaceful somehow, with the specter of Hargreeves finally gone.

He does really miss Mom though, every time he’s here.

He hasn’t really gotten much past the first few pages, when Lila slinks into the room.

She’s been in a weird mood all day, and he’s not even sure where she’s been the last couple of hours, but when he’d asked her if everything was alright, she’d gotten defensive, so he figured she'd tell him when she was ready.

That might be now, but might not be, it’s hard to tell with the way she just mopes along the bookshelves, pulling the odd one out and leafing through it, but at the same time refusing to acknowledge him.

Diego does his best to ignore her right back, but it’s hard to concentrate on reading, when he can be absolutely sure that something’s upset her.

He does his best though. Or at least he turns a page every so often, so she doesn’t catch on to the fact that really he’s watching her mooch about out of the corner of her eye.

For only a moment his attention is actually on the words in front of him, when all of a sudden he has to quickly move his book out of the way, because Lila has dropped onto the couch next to him, letting her head land heavily on his thigh.

She twists around to curl further against him and into the soft throw pillows, her forehead pressed against his hip.

Diego drops the book on the upholstery next to him and lets his hand rest on her shoulder.

“What’s up with you, then?” he asks, trying to sound casual and keeping the concern and sympathy out of his voice. She hates sympathy when she’s in this kind of mood. Or she claims she does, at least.

“I hate today!” Lila grumbles and the sound is muffled by his jeans.

“Uh huh. And why?” Diego pushes, but she doesn’t respond.

“Lila—” he tries again, but doesn’t get much further before she interrupts him with a forceful, “Today’s the day he killed them!” and Diego doesn’t need to ask what she means.

He doesn’t know what to say to that.

So Lila ends up filling the silence.

“I know because it was two days after I turned four. I was four years and two days, when your brother shot my parents.”

Diego knows even less what he’s supposed to say to that, so instead he lets his one hand slide from her shoulder to the back of her neck and brings up his other hand to stroke gently through her hair.

Lila lets out a long breath, before she rolls a little so she can look up at him with glassy eyes.

“I don’t want to be sad about them anymore.”

He wipes the tear away from under her eye with the thumb that he has resting along her jaw.

“I don’t think that’s how it works, baby,” he offers.

“Mh,” she hums. “They gave me a pink rucksack, and a stuffed green bunny, and a colouring book with pictures of the bunny. I couldn’t wait to show off all my new shit at playschool.”

“They sound like good people, your parents,” Diego offers. They’ve never really talked about them, since that first time. He’s not sure why. Probably something to do with Five.

“I guess. I honestly wouldn’t know, I barely remember them.”

Lila lets out another long breath and turns to hitch even closer and press her face against his stomach.

“Is it okay if I’m sad about them, even though they’ve been dead 26 years and I hardly knew them?” she mutters into the fabric of his T-shirt.

Diego doesn’t suppress the small smile that tugs at his lips. It might be a little inappropriate, but she can’t see his face anyway and he just can’t help it. The memory of her asking him if it’s okay that she doesn’t hate him like she hates most people is always at the forefront of his mind.

“Yeah, Lila, that’s okay!” he says in a low voice.

“Can I stay here for a bit and just not talk and can you do that thing with your fingers in my hair?”

Diego doesn’t answer, instead he just combs his fingers through her hair, over and over, glad to see the tension slowly leaving her body.

He can do this forever if that’s what she needs.

[mab1905]

84 Questions

original: 

https://fuckyeahsurveys.tumblr.com/post/61049002526/84-questions

1. Put your music player of choice on shuffle and list the first 10 songs

Someone New (Hozier)

Cactus Tree (Joni Mitchell)

Budapest (George Ezra)

And Dream Of Sheep (Kate Bush)

Nancy Mulligan (Ed Sheeran)

And Then She Kissed Me (St. Vincent)

Level of Concern (Twenty One Pilots)

Lovefool (The Cardigans)

Best For Last (Adele)

Video Killed The Radio Star (The Buggles)

2. If you could spend a week anywhere in the world, where would it be and why? Would you take anyone with you?

Japan. I travel a lot and it’s been on my list for a while, I would really want to go to the Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli theme park, if it ever opens that is. I would bring my best friend, Layla. I also would love to go to Amsterdam again.

3. What is your preferred writing implement? (eg. Blue pen, pencil, green pen) 

My ink nib cartooning pen (similar to a quill, but without the feather)

4. Favourite month and why? 

October, not too hot, not too cold, and of course, Halloween!

5. Do you have connections to any celebrities (even minor)? List them.

Nope, met several, got to true connections though. 

6. Name 3 items you could pick up from where you are.

My iPad, my Leatherman Multitool, my collection of David Bowie postcards.

7. What brand logo is closest to you currently?

The Apple logo

8. Do you ever play board games or other non-computer games? Got any favourites?

Chess. Card games like Solitaire, Black-Jack, and Castle. A game that I can’t remember the name of but it’s essentially a board-game version of Capture The Flag. Mostly Chess.

9. A musical artist you love that isn’t well known

St. Vincent? I’m not sure if she’s well known or not.

10. A musical artist you love that is well known

David Bowie. 

11. What is your desktop background currently?

A picture of Apollo 11 accompanied by the words “It won’t fail because of me”

12. Last person you talked to, and through what you talked to them

My best friend Layla, through the iMessage app.

13. First colour name you can think of that isn’t in the rainbow

Salmon

14. What timekeeping devices are in the room you are currently in?

My iPad, my computer, my collection of vintage stopwatches

15. What kind of headphones do you use?

Sony, wireless, noise canceling, over-the ear 

16. What musical artists have you seen perform live?

Twenty One Pilots, Sylvan Esso

17. Does virginity matter to you?

I guess? I think it’s important, it’s certainly some kind of ‘milestone,’ but I don’t think it should be treated like the scale of a persons ‘purity.’ It’s important because it’s sex, and (hopefully) that means that you’re sharing a consensual, intimate experience that feels fucking great for both (or all, if it’s more then two) participants.

18. What gaming consoles do you or your family own?

Z e r o, although I’m hoping to buy a PS4 at some point so I can play Detroit Become Human.

19. What pets do you have? What are their names?

Juno is my cat, she is an adorable grey tiger-striped shorthair. She’s got little white mitten-paws and it’s absolutely ridiculous.

20. What’s the best job you’ve ever had?

Doing tech at a local theater

21. What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?

Teaching art to little kids (I like kids but it was just exhausting)

22. What magazines do you read, if any?

The New Yorker, and the National Geo if I’m like, waiting in my doctor’s office or something.

23. Inspiration behind your URL?

It’s just my initials and a year from the Edwardian era

24. Inspiration behind your blog title?

It’s just my initials 

25. Favourite item of clothing?

My reddish-brown knit sweater vest and my floral bow-tie (often paired together)

26. Are you friends with any exes?

I made a very conscious effort to cut my exe out of my life… we were not happy for a very long time to say the least

27. Name at least one book you loved as a child.

Strega Nona, it’s about an Italian witch that makes great pasta in a magic pasta pot. My dad would read it to me and my sibling in Italian.

28. What’s your native language? If that language has distinct regional variations, which variation? (eg. AU English, US English)

US English

29. What email service do you use?

Gmail

30. Is there anything hanging on the walls of the room you are currently in?

So many things. Here's the list:

A giant David Bowie poster, a plaque that says “David Bowie IS,” five David Bowie postcards, a giant Abbey Road poster, all of my patches from summer camp, polaroids of me, my friends, and my family (including my cat), ticket stubs from concerts and plays, two trail markers that I took off of fallen trees on two important cross-country backpacking trips I went on, playbills from a bunch of broadway shows I’ve seen, a poster that says “Stonewall was a riot,” a DC Comics poster, a Pink Floyd poster, a few paintings of mine, and a painting that I got for free from a street artist I befriended in Rome when I was twelve

31. What’s your favourite number, and why?

16, 24, 21, and 8, some numbers make me uncomfortable, but these are just very soft and light and nice 

32. Earliest moment in your life you can remember? 

A rocking chair with fruits painted on it sitting in a dark room and my great grandfathers brown leather loafers (I remember early early stuff in just images or stills, not full moments)

33. What did you have for dinner yesterday?

Pasta with shrimp

34. How often do you brush your teeth?

Usually twice a day, but I’ve been waking up later and later and sometimes forget in the mornings

35. What’s your favourite candy/chocolate?

I don’t know the name of it but it’s this chocolate bar that is stuffed with caramel, hot chili flakes, and crunchy bits of baked tortilla. It's one of the greatest things I’ve ever tasted.

36. Have you had other blogs on Tumblr? Do you have any other blogs currently?

I used to have one but I deleted it because I never used it

37. If you were suddenly really hungry, what would you choose to eat?

I would probably walk into the kitchen, realize that too eat something I would have to muster the effort to cook something instead, and then decide to just have a glass of milk instead.

38. What fandoms would you consider yourself a part of?

Downton Abbey (primarily Thommy)

Chernobyl HBO (as well as the Leonid Toptunov/Sasha Akimov subfandom)

Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit (books and movies)

CrankGamePlays

Buzzfeed Unsolved

Star Trek TOS

Philosophy Tube

The Dark Crystal and The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance

39. If you could study anything, what would it be?

If I had the energy to fully wrench my life in a completely different direction I would like to become a professional scuba diver and study the ocean. I already am a scuba diver, but it’s a hobby and not something I’m able to do very often at all.

40. Do you use anything on your lips? (eg. Chapstick, gloss, balm, lipstick)

I’ll wear chapstick if I have a cold

41. How would you describe your sense of humour?

Intellectual and dry

42. What things annoy you more than anything else?

People who think they’re better than everyone else and people who recognize a fault in themselves and then refuse to work to change it

43. What kind of position are you in at the moment?

I’m laying on my bed, hunched over my laptop

44. Do you wear much jewellery?

Occasionally I’ll wear a necklace or a few rings. I have a lot of non-traditional bracelets (I literally just have pieces of canvas and industrial tie-line wrapped around my wrist). I’m a gay guy and I like to sort-a walk the line between feminine and masculine (often leaning more towards the masc side), so it really depends on my mood.

45. Who is the leader of your country, currently? Any other levels of government with leaders? (State, region, province, county, district, municipality, etc)

A cheese-pizza flavored pringle is currently POTUS and every day the thought of that tears away at a piece of my soul. 

46. Last 3 blogs on your dashboard, not including any of your own

@shochmonster @velvet-of-the-night @panicsheerbloodypanic

47. What do you carry your money in?

My pocket, I have a wallet and I don’t use it

48. Do you enjoy driving? Why or why not?

It’s fine, don’t love it don’t hate it

49. Longest drive you have ever been on?

Three days

50. Furthest away from home you have ever been?

Went on a trip to Switzerland to visit family, I think that’s the farthest but I’m not entirely sure.

51. How many times have you moved house?

Twice

52. What is on the floor of the room you’re currently in, not including furniture?

Five paintings, stacks and stacks of books, boxes filled with stuff (mostly more books), plates, glasses, cutlery, clothes

53. How many devices do you own which can access the internet?

2, and iPad and a computer

54. Is there is anything that is guaranteed to always make you happy?

Listening to music

55. Is there anything that always makes you sad?

Thinking about my past for too long

56. What programs do you currently have open?

Google drive, I’m writing

57. What do you associate the colour red with?

Blood and fire

58. Last strong smell you can remember smelling?

Shrimp and butter

59. Last healthy thing you ate?

Three green olives and a handful of bean sprouts

60. Do you drink tea or coffee, and how much per day?

Used to drink coffee like it was life support (which it essentially was), now I’ll have the occasional cup of tea.

61. What do you associate the colour blue with?

Birds and rain

62. How long is the closest ruler you can find?

I don’t think I own one

63. What colour pants/skirt/etc are you currently wearing?

I am wearing olive green corduroy slacks

64. When was the last time you drank water?

30 minutes ago?

65. How often do you clear your browser history?

Never

66. Do you believe nude photos can be artistic, rather than erotic?

Nude anything can be artistic, it can also just be normal, eroticism is in the eye of the beholder.

67. Ever written fanfiction for anything?

Yes dear god so much fanfiction.

68. Last formal event you attended

I genuinely can’t remember, I am have extreme social anxiety and don’t go to events like that unless I absolutely have too

69. If you had to move your birthday to another date, which one would you choose and why?

I don’t care about birthdays

70. Would you prefer to be at a beach or in the countryside?

Beach, I love to swim, I’m also a surfer

71. Roughly how many people live in your town?

Uhm… eight times the number of people who live in the state of Montana and that doesn’t count daily commuters and tourists (New York City is essentially just a tin of sardines, except inside are 8.399 million sardines)

72. Do you know anyone with the same birthday as you?

No, but three of my friends were born on the day just after my birthday.

73. Favourite place to shop? Can be a certain store or a place where there are multiple stores

The Strand Bookstore, L Train Vintage, any antique shops in the town of Hudson, New York 

74. Do you have a smartphone? What kind? If you don’t, do you want one?

I used to have an iPhone 5SE but then it stopped working after a few weeks of quarantine and I haven’t gotten a new one (I’ve had it for about 5-6 years so it makes sense)

75. What is your least favourite colour, and why?

I don’t have a least favorite color, but my favorite color is prussian blue

76. How do you spell grey/gray?

Grey

77. Go to your dashboard and describe the image shown in the radar section (below the “Find blogs” link)

It’s anime fanart for a show I’ve never heard of

78. What difference is there between how many followers you have, and the number of blogs you follow?

3

79. How many posts do you have?

219

80. How many posts have you liked?

619

81. Do you post mainly reblogs, or your own content?

Mostly reblogs but I do my own content as well

82. Do you track any tags?

No, just blogs

83. What time is it currently?

10:39

84. Is there anything you should be doing right now?

writing

I’m not quite sure who to tag so it’s just open to anyone I guess?

[citrinediamondeyes]

A Beautiful Mess: Chapter One (My Hero Academia)

Here is my chapter story I’ve been working on! Hope you enjoy! 

Summary: Izuku Midoriya finds himself in detention, of all places. There, he meets an interesting girl with a cute smile and a tough exterior. She offers to teach him how to fend for himself, and with her help, he starts to realize that maybe he isn't useless after all... [Quirkless AU]

Rating: M 

TW: Depression, Anxiety, Mentioned/Implied Self-Harm, Mentioned/Implied Childhood Abuse, Severe Bullying, Childhood Trauma, Scars 

Characters: Midoriya Izuku, Bakugo Katsuki, Uraraka Ochaco, Iida Tenya, Todoroki Shouto, Asui Tsuyu, Yagi Toshinori/All Might, etc. 

Pairings: Izuocha (slow burn)

Links:  https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13594271/1/A-Beautiful-Mess https://archiveofourown.org/works/24204889

"Just in time, Midoriya," Mr. Aizawa droned, looking up from his roll call list.

Izuku, his face beet red as everyone's eyes rested on him, plunked down in the seat closest to him. Imagine being late for detention. He was already enough of a failure as it was...

"Bakugo, Katsuki."

Izuku heard a growl from the back of the room, and shivers went up his spine.

"I'll take that as a 'here'. Midoriya, Izuku."

"Here," Izuku whispered.

"Uraraka, Ochaco."

"Here."

Oh. There was a girl sitting next to Izuku! Or, well, Izuku sat next to her. Izuku peeked out from under his curly green-black hair, and he only caught a glimpse of auburn hair before his attention was brought back to the front.

"Now, I don't really care what you do for an hour. Just don't leave the room and don't disturb me."

Izuku and the rest of the students looked on in curiosity as Mr. Aizawa brought out a sleep mask and tipped his chair back, planting his crossed ankles on the desk.

Izuku blinked for a solid five seconds, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, before giving up and grabbing his homework out of his bag. Might as well get started on this mountain of homework...

He tried to focus on his Calculus - he really did, but he could feel Kacchan's eyes on him from the back of the room. To calm down, he started doodling on the side of his assignment, stark black lines against his messy scrawl. He directed his thoughts to making the lines smooth and the strokes confident, even though he himself was not. Still though, his hands were trembling, and his pencil slipped in his sweaty grip. It rolled onto the floor next to the girl's foot, and he paused for a moment, fear making his mind irrational and paralyzed. The girl - whose name was Ochaco, Izuku remembered distantly - swooped down and picked up the pencil casually, leaning over to give it to him.

"Oooh, is that All Might?" she asked in a hushed voice. Izuku flinched before nodding as his left hand went to the back of his neck nervously. He glanced at Ochaco quickly, taking her in. Her caramel brown eyes were wide with interest and framed with dark lashes, and her thin lips were pulled into a small but genuine smile. She had rosy cheeks that didn't look like makeup, and her choppy bangs suggested a self-done job. She had a small silver hoop through the left side of her nose and metal piercings going up her right ear that glinted in the sunlight from the far windows. Her leather jacket was worn through at the elbows, cuffs, and collar, and her fishnet-and-combat-boot combo made Izuku mentally flush.

Oh no. She's cute. And kind of... intimidating?

His eyes trailed down to the hand that was still offering his pencil. Her hands were small and delicate-looking, with small silvery scars running across the top. Her fingertips were scarred pink.

Izuku gulped quietly and looked back at Ochaco's face, hoping she didn't notice him blatantly staring at her. She was looking at him, too, an unrecognizable look on her face, (Did she notice the scars on his arm? She had to have noticed his bruised eye...) but it didn't make Izuku feel threatened or self-conscious like it normally would have. Instead, he felt a strange kinship to this girl with the scarred hands. He slowly reached out and tugged his pencil out of her grip, giving her a small smile.

"T-thanks."

She blinked dazedly before smiling brightly, her eyes resting on his. Izuku's stomach swooped - that grin was directed at him?

"No problem. But yeah, that drawing is really good! So you're an artist?"

"Oh, I mean, I wouldn't say that," he chuckled nervously. He remembered that she recognized his drawing, though, and latched onto that. "Y-you know who All Might is?"

"Yeah, my friends and I play his video games! They're really fun - especially the one where he goes into space?" Her eyes lit up, and Izuku found himself smiling along with her, feeling more comfortable by the second.

"Yeah, that one has great graphics. I love his teammates' powers, too! Thirteen's Black Hole is so powerful!" Izuku exclaimed, tapping his eraser on the desk mindlessly.

"Oh my gosh, Thirteen is my favorite!" she declared, still keeping her voice low while pressing her hands to her chest passionately. "I just know she would beat even All Might in a fight."

"No way," Izuku snickered quietly. "That's why he is called All Might. He is 'all mighty'."

He had no idea where this bravery was coming from to tease this enigma of a girl, but seeing the competitive spark in her eyes was worth it.

"All he does is punch stuff and tackle things with brute force. Thirteen, while a more defensive hero, takes more strategy to play. Her intelligence would beat out his brawn any day. And besides, ya can't out-punch somethin' that is pullin' ya inwards!" Ochaco finished excitedly, her tongue sticking out.

Oh gods, did an accent come out during that last bit? So cute.

Izuku's face took on a look of determination - sure, this girl might be attractive, but he had to defend his favorite hero All Might!

"See, now that's where you're wrong. All Might doesn't just 'punch stuff', he can use his moves to cause the air to move around him. This can be done in precise kicks or powerful punches. When playing him, you have to use his power in different percentages to make sure not to harm any bystanders and cause the least amount of damage to the environment. He is always calculating. Also, if you noticed, every time he goes into battle, he says his catchphrase, 'I am here!' He recognizes how important it is to be a symbol of hope for the people. I recognize this is a game and not reality, but this was done on purpose. All Might knows what he is doing. I think - "

Ochaco cut him off with laughter, and Izuku froze, feeling shame wash over him. Ah, he did it again. He got weird and did a mutter-storm.  She probably thought he was a total loser. He felt his head droop, and he whispered out, "S-sorry."

Her giggles abruptly stopped, and he felt her eyes on him for a second before she leaned closer over the aisle and spoke in a low, soothing voice. "Hey, no, I'm the one who's sorry. I was just laughing because you really know your stuff, and you were talking so fast, and it just really surprised me!" She smiled sadly and looked like she was about to touch his arm but instead fiddled with her long side bangs. "It wasn't my intention to make you feel bad for liking something."

She was apologizing to him, the massive screw-up?

Embarrassingly, Izuku felt his eyes swell with tears, and he turned away, wiping them back quickly. He swiveled back to face her and gave her a wobbly smile. "T-thanks," he said gratefully, his voice quiet.

She smiled again, this time a soft one, before turning back to his math homework. "Hah, isn't this for Mr. Ecto's class?"

"Y-yeah. Probably will need to redo it now."

"I always have the worst time in that class," she grumbled, her lips going into a slight pout, and Izuku felt his cheeks getting pink.

"What's wrong? Maybe I could... help?" Izuku asked, wincing at the end. He didn't want to sound presumptuous, but math was his best subject...

She lit up again. "Really? That'd be great. I'd been going to Momo for help, but she's been nagging me lately. Something about her not wanting to condone me 'breaking rules'. She's a good pal, but it's been annoying to say the least," Ochaco blew some hair out of her face while giving Izuku a silly smile.

"B-breaking rules?" Izuku asked curiously, before realizing that might've been rude and going red.

"Yeah. I mean, how'd ya think I ended up here?" Ochaco giggled, pulling out her math homework and laying it out on her desk. She scooted her desk closer to him and pointed with her own mechanical pencil at a few circled problems.

"These are the ones that are just killing me."

"Okay, let's see what we can do," Izuku cracked his knuckles, feeling more in his element, and leaned over to start reading the problems.

The hour passed by quickly, with Izuku and Ochaco muttering and quietly discussing Calculus. As Mr. Aizawa's phone alarm went off, the two were packing away their books and discussing the current All Might and Nighteye comics.

"To be honest, I think Nighteye is going to confess his love for All Might," Ochaco confided, making Izuku choke on a laugh.

"E-EHH?"

Before Ochaco could respond, Mr. Aizawa stood up and threaded a hand through his long, dark hair, yawning. "Alright kids, good job at keeping it down and civil. Some of you, I'll see tomorrow, like usual." He looked pointedly at Ochaco, and she smirked, waving her scarred fingers.

Geez, what did she do to get so much detention?

Izuku was so focused on this exchange that he didn't notice someone coming up behind him until it was too late.

"You're in my way, nerd," Katsuki growled, his eyes flashing dangerously.

"Ah, sorry, Kacchan," Izuku whimpered, losing all confidence and shrinking into himself as he practically scuttled out of the way of the blonde boy. He felt Ochaco's gaze on him and felt ashamed, but, well, it was better for her to see him for who he truly was before he got too attached, anyways.

"Why not just go around him?"

Izuku's eyes widened, and he glanced at Ochaco in horror.

"You got something to say?" Katsuki turned his attention to the girl, who was staring at him like he was something she stepped in with her boot.

"You heard me. There are plenty of other ways to get to the door. You actually had to go out of your way to go up the aisle to pass by his desk," Ochaco explained, all previous warmth in her voice gone.

Katsuki's left eye twitched for a second, before he rushed over to her and stood in her space, looming over her. She met his gaze fearlessly.

"I'd be careful what I'd say, Round Face."

"Oh no, I'm so scared of a stereotypical guy with anger issues," Ochaco droned, her brown gaze almost looking bored. As Katsuki seethed, she scoffed. "See, you aren't going to do anything." She looked at Izuku, her eyes softening slightly. "Let's go."

Startled that she wanted to go anywhere with him and eager to get out of the tension, he hurriedly grabbed his backpack and scrambled to get out the door.

"Wait, just a minute, Deku," Katsuki grabbed at Izuku's shoulder, his grip making Izuku wince.

"You might be able to hide behind Uraraka right now, but just know there's nothing you can do to stop me from kicking your ass the next time you are alone," Katsuki threatened, his voice low and truly angry.

"Alright, that's enough. Geez, kids these days are so dramatic," Mr. Aizawa said tiredly, pinching the area between his eyes. "Just go home, all of you, and for god's sake just leave each other alone."

Izuku wanted to scream out that it wasn't just dramatics, but pure fear kept his mouth shut as he robotically walked to the door. Katsuki grinned and ran a finger across his throat before walking in the opposite direction down the hallway. Ochaco grabbed his arm and tugged him down the hallway, releasing him after a moment. They walked in silence for a few seconds, reaching the outdoors before she cleared her throat.

"So, uh... that guy has some issues," she noted, kicking a pebble in the walkway.

Izuku could only shrug, his ears burning. At her questioning look, he looked away before explaining, "Kacchan is... complicated."

"Hah, that's a word for it..." she muttered. They let silence fill the space between them again.

"So, your name is Deku?"

"E-eh? N-no." Izuku looked at his feet, surprised he could feel even more shame than he was already feeling. "Deku is what Kacchan calls me to make fun of me. 'Defenseless Izuku.'"

"Oh," Ochaco said, and she almost sounded disappointed. "It just sounded like a nice name for you. Kind of like 'I can do it!', ya know?"

"O-oh." His face flushed pink. "D-Deku it is!"

"I can do it", huh?

"D'ya think he was really serious about beating ya up?" Ochaco's voice was light, but her face was serious.

Izuku laughed bitterly. "How do you think I got this?" He gestured at the shiner surrounding his left eye. "That's why I was in detention, after all."

Ochaco nodded grimly, saying nothing. Izuku wondered vaguely how long she was going to walk with him.

"Tell ya what. Let's make a deal. You help me with my math, and I'll teach ya how to fight!" Ochaco's hands where balled into fists, and her eyes were bright.

At this, Izuku looked up at her in shock. "EH?"

"Yeah! Come on. Notice how Katsuki didn't want to mess with me? It's because he knows I can hold my own. I'll teach you how to defend yourself, although it might not be street legal," she teased, "and you can teach me the difference between differentials and integrals!"

Izuku stared at her wordlessly. This tiny girl, who admittedly dressed like a punk rocker but was as bubbly and friendly as the day was long, knew how to fight - and in ways that weren't street legal???

She nudged him playfully with her black bookbag. The various pins on it jingled and clicked against each other. "So, whaddya say?"

He stopped walking to actually ponder her proposition. When he was honest with himself, he recognized that he couldn't live like this anymore. Dodging Katsuki day in and day out, being scared of even breathing the wrong way, lying to his mother and friends about being okay, hiding his scars underneath sweltering hoodies - it was exhausting. He didn't even know who he was anymore, besides a timid artist with a slight All Might video game obsession.

He wanted more. He now realized he might have that opportunity, or a chance at one, thanks to Ochaco's offer.

He looked up and met her slightly nervous gaze with a determined grin. "Let's do it."

[ichigopanhpff]

BNHA Fic: Blink! Ch. 23

Read Ch. 22 | Masterlist

Okay I lied. I misremembered where I left off. The next 3 chapters are fillers in between what’s canon in the comics.

“He did what now?!”

“Don’t make me repeat it,” Ren groaned and hid her face in her arms.

With U.A. on a short break before the mandatory internships start, Ren, Tomoe and Seri finally found time to hang out in their secret hideout. It was the only place they could go without anyone hearing their conversation. Even though it was freezing cold outside, a small campfire was made to keep the three warm.

“Tomoe, it’s hunting time,” Seri darkly blurted out and took her talons out.

“No! No hunting!” Their pink-haired friend immediately jumped out of her seat, her hand held up to stop them.

“How about maiming?” Tomoe suggested with an evil grin.

“Do absolutely nothing that would cause him bodily harm!” she nervously instructed.

“You’re no fun,” her owl-faced friend pouted and retracted her claws.

“It’s not a matter of fun. Aizawa’ll kick my ass three ways to Sunday,” she solemnly pointed out.

The tawny brown haired girl grabbed a Pocky stick left over from the holiday party and clamped one between her teeth.

“So what’re you gonna do?” she asked and took a bite of the chocolate biscuit.

“Move out of the dorm and back to you guys?” Ren half-jokingly thought out loud.

“You’d trouble Todoroki-kun if you did,” Seri pointed out. “The real question is how do you feel about him?”

“I...” Ren sat back down on the log and crossed her arms over her chest, really thinking about it. “He… makes me calm.”

“Calm is good,” Tomoe noted.

“He’s also very observant and makes a lot of effort in trying to help the people around him, even though he doesn’t seem to be the type to trust easily.”

“Does he make you happy though?”

“As happy as I get.”

“That doesn’t help.” Seri rubbed her forehead, unable to fathom how one of her best friends could be so emotionally dense with all that intelligence. “Has he done anything for you lately that’s touched your heart?”

“He let me meet his mom at the hospital and took me to a dog cafe after he overheard me talking about Skye.”

Ren’s two friends made eye contact, one just as shocked as the other upon hearing that bit of information.

“Damn, the competition won’t last at this point,” Tomoe muttered out.

“Competition?” She turned to look at her tall, spiky friend. “What are you talking about?”

“She doesn’t know,” Seri noted with a smirk. “It’s actually cute.”

“Know what?” The pink haired girl was beginning to get agitated. “Who on this goddamn campus hit their head and decided to have doki-doki feels for me?”

“Should we say?” The hedgehog girl enquired loudly to her owl-friend.

“I’m not sure.”

“Hey!” Ren shouted with thinning patience. “I’m right here and don’t appreciate you two having a conversation without me!”

“Ren-Ren, look,” Seri started and took a breath. “There are a lot of people on this campus who have ‘doki-doki’ feelings for you,” she explained and used finger quotes on the descriptor. “You’re just oblivious to them.”

“Or maybe they’re too subtle,” Tomoe hypothesized. “Ever since the festival, you’ve gotten a lotta attention from other classes.”

Ren could only groan out loud again.

“I don’t care about them. I only care about what I’m gonna say to Todo-kun,” she blurted out and held her head in her hands. “I rather take on a villain and beat them to the ground with an inch of my life rather than deal with this.”

“We can give you as much advice as you want, but nothing will change unless you talk with him,” the white-haired girl reasoned. “Peel off the band-aid and put your hypothetical balls to the wall.”

Knowing her friends were right, they decided to put the fire out before teleporting back to the main campus. The three entered 1-A, only to see a stack of large boxes by the doorway.

“Oh senpai!” Iida greeted. “These packages came for you while you were out.”

“But I didn’t order any–Oh sweet baby All-Might, no.”

She buried her face into her palms, mumbling something inaudible while shaking her head slowly.

“It’s that time of year again.” Seri held a worrying hand to her cheek, sighing out loud and felt drained all of a sudden.

“What are you guys talking about?” Midoriya asked only to see two completely dejected upperclassmen like they had their souls sucked out.

“The shackles of the elite upper class,” Tomoe summarized and pointed to the aforementioned boxes with her thumb.

���But I’m not elite or upper class!” Ren jolted back up. “It’s my mom’s position that lets people believe otherwise!”

“What does your mom do, senpai?” Kirishima asked.

“She’s a translator at the embassy. Her quirk, Polyglot, let’s her understand and speak every language on this planet.”

“Whoa, that’s so cool!” Uraraka boasted.

“But what does it have to do with the ‘shackles’ over there?” the green haired boy pointed to the stack of flat cardboard boxes.

“Every year, the embassy has a holiday party with powerful government people,” Tomoe explained. “And since they made it a family friendly event, spouses and kids are invited.”

“More like they just want to show us off as their trophies and brag about our accomplishments like it’s their own,” Seri venomously spat out with a glowering stare at the boxes. “They can kindly go kick rocks and fuck themselves.”

“I already told my mom I wasn’t going this year, but she insisted,” Ren huffed out angrily and rolled her eyes. “Because a ‘future hero should build up a good network.’ Those parties are always so boring and stuffy. I swear she just wants me to go half the time so she could play matchmaker to me. It’s just–”

She let out an audible shudder that vibrated throughout her entire body.

“And the dresses...” Ren continued with a look of sheer horror on her face and glanced over at the towering behemoth. “I just… I can’t...” she choked out, suddenly remembering all her past traumatic experiences with fitting sessions.

“Okay, the past few years may have been poor choices on her behalf–” Tomoe defended only to be cut off by Seri.

“I wouldn’t necessarily call a small piece of sparkly fabric held together by one thin string ‘poor choice’, Tomoe,” Seri flatly said.

“I had stripper dust on my back for weeks even with just trying it on,” she groaned at the memory and wished to push it back down into the depths of her subconscious. “I’m not looking forward to this.”

“Well, let’s open the boxes together and see,” Yaoyorozu suggested. “Perhaps they’re not so bad this time.”

Reluctant to agree, Iida and Midoriya helped gather the packages and laid them down on the floor in the common area. They opened it one by one and Ren physically felt blood push up her throat upon seeing the first dress. It was a fully sequined high collared ball gown in crimson red with matching high heel stilettos. There were ruffles where there weren’t supposed to be and sequins could be found on every inch of the bodice.

“So sparkly!” Uraraka gushed.

“Burn it,” Ren darkly growled. “Next.”

The next dress was a midnight blue in an A-line cut. The dress had a very deep v-neck line in the bodice area, only held together by a thin mesh material in-between and the back.

“Throw it into space. Next.”

“Your mom sure has… very outgoing taste,” Yaoyorozu slowly commented, choosing her words carefully.

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘gaudy’, Yao-Momo.”

“Well, I don’t want to be impolite...”

“It’s as gaudy as they come,” the three upperclassmen simultaneously stated.

Opening up the next box, Uraraka pulled out a strapless sparkly pink ruched bodice dress with a leg slit that sat right below the hip bone. Even the gravity girl was blushing madly.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she groaned in English.

Ren took her phone out from her pocket and dialed a number without even seeing the last two dresses. The line on the receiver picked up.

“Courier. Now. Or I burn them all,” she growled out in Japanese.

“But you haven’t even–”

“Courier. Or. Fire.” She repeated with emphasis on each word. “Your choice.”

“At least let me see you try them on,” the woman on the other line bargained. “It’ll make dear ol’ mom happy.”

“Y’know, just because you couldn’t wear them when you were my age–”

“Are you saying I’m projecting, dear daughter? After everything I’ve done for you?”

Ren’s shoulders froze in place, inwardly groaning.

Now she’s done it.

“Just...” She rubbed her temples in a circular motion with her thumb and squeezed her eyes shut. “Give me five minutes to set up the video call.”

She ended the call and slumped over the couch to muffle her screaming.

“She went dark on you?” Tomoe asked the obvious.

The flustered pink haired girl turned her head to the side for some air and flatly answered, “Almost.”

Dragging herself away from the couch, she asked Uraraka to help her with the dresses and went into the girls public bathroom.

“She’s not gonna flush them down the toilet, is she?!” Jiro exclaimed.

“The sequins would clog up the pipes.” Seri’s stoic commentary made her sound like this was something she knew from first-hand experience.

“Lange-senpai, what did you mean by ‘dark’ before?” Midoriya asked.

“You guys remember how Ren-Ren was when she beat Bakugou in the video game?” Tomoe reminded.

“Don’t bring shit up from the past,” the mentioned blond boy grumbled out and rested his face in his palm.

“Yeah… Imagine that in the ‘mom’ version.”

All the boys sitting in the common area thought about their respective mothers. Their eyes immediately went wide as the aura of hopeless seeped out. Their stream of consciousness slowly faded from existence.

“Ren-senpai, we sympathize,” majority of the boys all dejectedly huffed out a long sigh. A sudden burst of echoing laughter came from the girl’s bathroom, recognizing it as Uraraka’s.

“You’re laughing too much!” Ren’s quivering voice shouted.

“But—But–” Sputtering of tittering replaced her words instead.

“Seri, is the call set up?” she shouted.

“We hear you loud and clear, sweetheart,” the voice on the speaker phone echoed.

“Let’s get this crap over with.”

Ren trudged out of the bathroom wearing the first dress, trying to gather what she could of the fluffy fabric so she didn’t trip on it. Her face looked like how Bakugou’s was at the podium from the Sports Festival. A roaring fit of laughter filled the silence of the common room as she stood stationary, shaking from anger and embarrassment as she flipped them off with both hands.

The dress, for a lack of better words, made her look like a Mama at a brothel; all she was missing were the gaudy makeup and a cigarette in her mouth.

“Oh! Put the shoes on! I wanna see the full outfit!”

Letting out an audible growl, she roughly dropped the heels on the wooden floor with a clatter and gingerly stepped into them. Her mom squealed with delight on the call.

“How does it fit?!”

“Sequins are digging into every part of my skin like spikes and it hurts like my soul,” she deadpanned.

“Turn around. I wanna see the back.”

Throwing her head back and slumping her shoulders, Ren awkwardly turned with the 5-inch stilettos. She yelped aloud and tripped on part of the fabric from being caught on the jeweled part of her dress, subsequently falling flat on her butt with a muffled thud.

“Senpai! Please stop!” Jiro wheezed out between her fits of laughter and nearly rolled off her seat. “I can’t breathe!”

“Ren-Ren, you look like a clown’s mirror ball!” Tomoe blurted out loudly and fell over the armrest of the couch.

Angrily kicking the shoes off, Ren clumsily got herself off of the floor, slipping over the unnecessarily copious amount of fabric on her person while hissing audible profanities. She stomped back into the bathroom as everyone continued laughing. Uraraka stumbled along not too far behind to help her out of the dress.

“Why are they laughing? I thought she looked beautiful,” Ren’s mom blurted out.

“I think your definition of the word differs from theirs, Aunt Victoria,” Seri replied between her own suppressing giggles.

A shuffle of fabric could be heard at the far end of the hall, with Ren coming out wearing the midnight blue dress with her black bra showing itself through the mesh fabric. Her face was flushed from the commotion and embarrassment. The previous laughter was replaced with approving awes from the girls and furiously blushing faces from the boys.

“That… looks really good on you, senpai,” Kirishima praised with flushed cheeks, his red eyes unable to peel away. “You look… beautiful.”

“You’re supposed to wear that without the bra, honey,” her mom pointed out.

“Like hell I’m gonna take it off with perverts around!” she barked back at the camera on the phone, fuming.

Sensing a sudden disturbing force, Ren turned to her left and saw Mineta launching himself at her from one of the couches. The small sticky boy seemed to have been unable to contain himself anymore.

“Entrust me with your boob--” he shouted with a trail of drool coming from his mouth, only to have his lecherous face catch her hard right hook followed by launched quills from Tomoe to stick him to near the top corner end of the wall. Sero huffed a quick sigh and restrained the small boy with his tape.

“Good to see your reflexes haven’t dulled, Ren-Ren,” Seri remarked.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“You really need to learn restraint, Mineta,” the boy huffed out.

“You should wear this one, Ren. It really shows off your figure.”

“This thing is half mesh and I’m freezing,” she complained and visibly shivered. “I can’t even think about moving in this thing without thinking about flashing side boob!”

“Which is perfect for some young gentleman to lend you his jacket at the party,” her mom fantasized dreamily over the line. “Just think of the possible–”

“Cut the call, Seri,” she coldly blurted out as she walked back to the bathroom.

“You’re so cruel! Doing that to your own mother!”

Ruffling the back of her hair, Ren stared down her next opponent: the pink bodice dress. It’s not that she minded wearing dresses, she just wished they weren’t so… form-fitting. And it’d show her scar. Uraraka came from behind to help her out of the dress carefully and prepared the next one.

“I really like the blue one, senpai,” she gushed.

“Then you wear it,” she blurted out and paused. She then slowly turned to her assistant with a sly grin, like a wolf cornering its prey.

“S-Senpai?” she quivered with fear in her eyes. “W-What are you doing?”

A high pitched scream echoed from the bathroom, making everyone jump out of their seats. The girls ran in to check the commotion, only to come back out moments later with matching grins.

“Is everything okay in there?” Midoriya asked with worry.

“Oh, it’s fantastic,” Ashido drawled out with a wink at the confused boy before returning to her seat.

“I’m so getting video of this,” Jiro mumbled out with excitement while setting up her phone camera.

First came Ren in the form-fitting pink dress, clearly flustered at the garment. She was trying her best to pull the slit close by grabbing it with her left hand so she didn’t flash anyone while walking. Her right arm covered her chest and shoulder scar; they looked like they were ready to fall out of the strapless dress due to the tightness of the band. The apparel literally left nothing to the imagination as it hugged every part of her. Feeling no one behind her, she darted back into the bathroom to drag Uraraka out.

“Noooo, senpai! Pleassseee!” Uraraka desperately pleaded while clinging onto dear life at the wall.

“Hey, if I’m making a fool out of myself with this, so will you!”

She used her full strength to pull the brown haired girl out from the confines of the bathroom. She stumbled out with flushed cheeks, wearing the blue gown Ren had on before. The boys were rendered speechless looking at them, some even looked away out of shyness. Bakugou could only stare at Ren wide-eyed, never realizing her body was that curvy.

“That dress fits Ochaco-chan so much better,” Seri approved and lightly blushed.

“’Cus she has the better boobs for it,” Ren blurted out, making the latter party yelp and cover up their chest out of shyness. “What do you think, Midoriya? Doesn’t she look good?”

The green-haired boy’s face was glowing red, with steam coming out of his ears as he whimpered and stuttered, unable to form any sort of wording.

“Ren-senpai, I never realized your butt was that big,” Jiro noticed, prompting her to put her hands behind there to hide it in failure. She wished she could sprout arms out like Shoji and cover up her entire being.

“Why do you think I always wear baggy clothes?!” she huffed out at the purple haired girl, her face flushing bright red before turning back to the camera. “And mom! Why did you even think this was a good idea?! I look like someone looking for a sugar daddy in this thing!”

“With that butt, I’ll give you all the sugar you need,” Mineta cooed out lustfully, only to be silenced the instant Seri and Tomoe launched their respective projectiles at him.

“Sleep now,” Seri’s eyes glowed yellow at the tied up boy and instantly knocked him out.

“I mean, it’s not necessarily a bad idea at the party–” her mom teased.

Her daughter silently glared and pursed her lips into a fine line, crossing her arms over her chest and tapped her feet impatiently.

“Are you done?” Ren flatly asked, clearly not amused with the selection of attires.

“I guess we are,” her mom pouted. “Are you sure you don’t wanna keep any of–”

“I’ll offer them to the Fire Gods as tribute and you’ll lose any hopes of a refund on your credit card.”

“Point taken.”

“Yao-Momo, Kyoka, can you help us get outta this stuff?”

Yaoyorozu placed a hand on the small of Ren’s back to escort her to the bathroom to change. She did a really awkward shuffle with the balls of her feet, like she really needed to pee.

“I seriously cannot move a muscle in this thing,” she muttered out within an earshot.

“Ochaco-chan, come on.” The tomboy musician helped her floaty friend back up on her feet and brought her back to change.

“Perhaps the bodycon wasn’t the best idea, Aunt Vicky,” Tomoe commented.

“I thought it’d look nice with her figure,” the woman pouted. “What did the boys think?”

“Well...” Seri trailed off and turned the phone camera over to the couches where they were sitting. They were all practically blushing from ear to ear, avoiding eye contact with everyone; Kaminari and Sero both crossed their legs suspiciously. Bakugou glared away, covering the lower half of his face with his hand as an attempt to hide his embarrassment.

The girls reemerged in their regular clothing a short moment later.

“I’m gonna be picking sequins out of my butt for the next week,” Ren grumbled out, wearing an annoyed expression and gently reached out to grab her phone from Seri’s hand. “Satisfied?”

Her mom heavily sighed on the other line. “Not my best choices, it seems.”

“You don’t say,” her daughter sarcastically replied and jutted her hip out when she rested her hand on top of it.

“Just be sure to get something to wear in the next three days, okay? I’ll get a courier to pick that stuff up.”

“I’m gonna wear a sleeping bag,” Ren joked.

She ended the call and placed the device back in her pocket, heaving a heavy sigh. “Sorry you had to see that, guys.”

“I… don’t think they’re going to answer anytime soon, Ren-Ren.” Tomoe cocked her head in the general direction of all the dumbfounded and stunned boys. “You gave ‘em quite a show.”

–

Ren emerged from the elevator to the common room dressed in a black and white jumpsuit with a draped black blazer on top on the evening of her mom’s embassy holiday party. Her hair was styled back with a bit of volume and her makeup consisted of black eyeliner, voluminous mascara and dark red lipstick. It was simple but dramatic enough to catch everyone’s eye. Just to be on the safe side, she adorned her bangles in case anything were to happen. She placed her heels near the door before heading to the couches and draped her peacoat and scarf draped on her arm before placing it on top. As she walked past, the boys caught a whiff of her honeysuckle and rose pedal perfume.

“Senpai, you look hot!” Ashido praised with excitement. “So grown up!”

“You’re not wearing a dress tonight?” Ochaco wondered.

“Jumpsuits are more my speed. Pockets and better mobility,” she explained.

Moments later, Todoroki came down the stairs in a navy blue suit with a black lapel. He wore a black skinny tie and a crisp white dress shirt underneath the jacket to match the black slacks. His hair was left unstyled.

“Whoa, Todoroki!” Kaminari whistled. “Lookin’ spiffy there, my dude.”

“You have a hot date tonight or somethin’, Todoroki?” Ashido half-joked with a grin.

“I have a function to go in place of my father tonight in Tokyo,” he replied in his usual stoic manner. “Since he’s still recovering from his last fight. Though, I’m sure he’s using it as an excuse.”

“Tokyo? Isn’t that where you’re goin’, Ren-Ren?” Jiro asked.

Before she could answer, her phone in her hand vibrated, notifying her the driver arrived at U.A.’s gate.

“Gotta go kiddies. Stay outta trouble.” Ren hurried to the shoe lockers and grabbed her belongings off the couch before putting her shoes on. “Todo-kun, wanna catch a ride? I’m sure they can drop you off wherever you need to go.”

“Sure.”

As they walked to the gate, the click of Ren’s heels filled the silence between the two. Catching the aroma of her perfume in the cold wintry air, it was then he realized how beautiful she looked tonight. Her simple eye makeup made her usual warm hazel-green eyes more striking.

“You look nice tonight,” he softly said. “The clothes suit you.”

“O-Oh. Thanks.” She looked up at Todoroki and gave him a small smile with a light blush on her cheeks. “You clean up nicely yourself.”

They get to the car and see Seri already in the back seat with a black coat with her dark purple dress showing up below and greeted one another. Settling in the middle seat, the boy made sure Ren had enough room when he got in and closed the door.

“Good, you’re on time,” a familiar voice spoke up from the front seat; it was Aizawa.

“Aizawa-sensei,” the dual-hair colored boy greeted. “What are you doing here?”

“For some reason, I got invited to the party at the embassy tonight, so we’re all going together.”

“’We’?” Ren questioned.

“It seems we’re headed to the same place, senpai.”

“At least we won’t be bored, Ren-Ren,” Seri chimed out with a devious smirk, her owl-like eyes gesturing to the boy on her right. She could only inwardly groan and felt her heart rate go up a few beats, remembering the conversation they had a few days ago and the kiss. The drive went by without incident and the party of four reached the embassy safely. Disembarking out of the car, Todoroki opened the door for both Seri and Ren on the other side like the gentleman he was.

The two girls thanked him and headed into the building together. Ren strolled up to the reception desk with purpose. It’s not exactly the most favorite place in the world for her; majority of her childhood were spent here after moving to Japan and waiting on their paperwork to be legal citizens in the country.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had much of a chance to talk, Todoroki-kun,” Seri softly spoke, looking at the back of her friend at the reception desk. “I’d like to ask you something.”

He softly turned and looked down at his petite upperclassman with a curious yet nonchalant gaze.

“What exactly is Ren to you?”

“A senpai. And… a friend.”

“Is that all?” she instigated, earning her a now suspicious stare from Todoroki.

“What do you mean, Kubo-senpai?” His tone was deep and clear like ice.

“She told me what happened with you two after the party the other night. One can only assume you have more than friendship emotions for her.”

His hetero-chromatic eyes looked down at his leather dress shoes, unable to come up with a proper answer. He swallowed heavily and clenched his teeth, frustrated at his lack of understanding of his own feelings.

“This goes without saying, but Tomoe and I are extremely protective of her. We won’t stand idly by and let someone play with her heart who wanted to give her a kiss on a whim. She’s more sensitive about things than she lets on.”

“It wasn’t on a whim… Nor am I trying to deceive her,” he softly retorted and sighed through his nose. “I’m just… not used to feeling this way with anything.”

“Then I suggest you properly sort it out first before acting,” Seri advised with a harsher tone than she intended. “I don’t wish to see her rejected again.”

“Like with her ex-boyfriend?”

“With Togata-senpai.” The owl girl corrected and sighed. “She may make light of her confession at him, but it hit her hard. Part of it stems from her survivor’s guilt. She thinks she doesn’t deserve to be happy and loved no matter what Tomoe and I say.”

Seri’s yellow owl eyes was crestfallen and looked like she was going to cry. Her hands gradually gathered part of her dark purple dress into her palm.

“I just… I don’t want to see her heart break all over again. She’s come so far.”

Knowing Ren’s history based on recent events, he stayed silent looking at the snow owl girl. What could he say? He had to grow up and face his feelings head on.

“Hey, you two okay?”

Ren’s voice roused them from their conversation and the two faced her wide-eyed. She held two silver colored wristbands in her right hand.

“Never better,” her bird friend answered with a bit more energy than before. Even though she didn’t seem convinced, neither one looked like they wanted to talk about it.

“Party’s at the top floor.” She handed each of them their wristbands to put on before walking past the lobby and toward the elevators.

“Where’s Aizawa-sensei?” the boy asked.

“He went on ahead to talk with some government officials about some hush-hush stuff.”

The ding of the elevator doors gave them permission to enter and found a security guard inside to guide them to the proper floor. The lift stopped once more and brought them to their destination. The three walked down the wide carpeted hallway slowly leading to the ballroom.

“Who do you think we’ll see there?” Seri wondered aloud.

“Probably the Preppy Posse,” Ren groaned and placed her left index finger on her temple, already feeling an oncoming headache in having to deal with them. “They’d never miss a party like this to schmooze and booze.”

“’Preppy Posse’?” Todoroki asked.

“They’re the sons of some of the ambassadors. For a lack of better words, their offsprings are a waste of air and quirks, reeking of privilege who think they’re above the law,” the owl girl summarized.

“They’re more trouble than they’re worth. I’d advise you to stay away from them, Todo-kun,” the rose-gold haired girl stated.

“They’re the types to suck up to powerful people for favors?”

“And Peppermint gets the winning point,” Seri praised.

The three stood at the giant doors and took a breath like they were going in for a boss fight.

“Let’s get this over with and get some ramen after.”

[gotatext]

claws my way out of the dirt like the goblin i am ..... hello thots, its nora, once again bringing you a revamped version of a muse i played yonks ago n some of u may have even written against... here is her pinterest.....

this is margaret greta, she’s a whole can of trauma spaghetti plastered over with a toothy grin and a lot of dad jokes. the only reason she’s in gifford really is bcos shes been put there as part of a witness protection program cos lots of police r monitoring livingstone so its deemed relatively safe.... haha... anyway she changes major all the time. she started off doing fine art but since then she’s done modules in architecture, film, bio-chemistry and is now dabbling in medicine. 

CIS-FEMALE — ever hear people say GRETA O’DRISCOLL looks a lot like DIANA SILVERS? I think SHE is about 21, so it doesn’t really work. The MEDICINE major is a SOPHOMORE that is from DEADWOOD, SOUTH DAKOTA. They can be +CHARMING, but they can also be -EVASIVE. I think GEE might be SHEEP. They are living in YATES. ( nora. 23. gmt. she/her )

this bitch is the most restless creature u ever seen. before she came to livingstone, she’d lived in 8 different cities in 3 years. 

was adopted as an infant. had two foster moms and two older sisters so always surrounded by women. lived in a boarding house, very much like the one in 20th century women, with lodgers coming in and out all the time, mostly artsy young women because her gay moms were both high school teachers trying to set up their own arts collective. one of her moms left when she was 4, n she doesn’t really remember her.

while living with entirely women made her super into catlin moran and the guilty feminist, as a teenager she often let boys walk all over her bc she just craved male attention jst bcos she’d never really experienced it. saw it as something aspirational, like sitting in the back of chad’s second-hand truck while he drove you to macdonalds and offered you and his five friends with identical haircuts weed was the height of being cool to greta, she wanted to be their dream girl, even if it meant compromising her beliefs

bubbly bitch but also massive snake. metaphorically and literally, always shedding her skin. loyal to few, ruled by none, out for herself, babey!! every place she goes, she becomes a new character, someone who’s a figment of her imagination, as if each city is repertory theatre and she’s a character actress, so as a result som ppl think she’s called rita, some ppl know her as margot, she just flicks through identities like nobodies business.

goes through phases of being intensely feminist and tweeting “men are trash i don’t need them” before flipping into being lonely and needy n wanting male attention again. tends to gravitate towards men who are just pieces of shit tbh like her friends are always like hun.... pick a nice boy..... but no.... she’ll go for the boxer with several arrest records for gbh or the small-town drug dealer just trying to hook her onto pills for a little extra cash, or the reformed sinner who thinks he’s being protective by reading all her texts and always knowing where she is..... n she always finds a way to spin it so that they Just Care About Her and aren’t a p.o.s 

left school at 18 n didn’t go to uni, moved in w her boyfriend of the time instead, but soon got bored, n then went backpacking around the states making money in the casinos by being a shot girl (yeehaw) and trying to make it as a mysterious 1920s widow with a smoky voice, a dark secret n a heart of gold, looking for love in the big city. all she found was producers and acting agents who’d promise her stardom n actually just fuck her in a motel n then ignore her calls.

TW domestic violence, TW gun, her watershed moment came when she met luke in sioux falls while she was playing bass for a country n blues band. he was a few years older and had a car, and they kind of went from seeing each other to being that super intense couple who are just necking all the time. 

they got engaged like 3 months after they met n rented a flat together, much to her family’s annoyance but she was 19 so there wasn’t much they could do. their relationship was super super intense though, often really heightened and when they fought it could become quite violent, but she’d pass it off as just him being really passionate. 

one of their fights got really heated and greta threatened him with the gun he kept in the glove box of his vauxhall corsa, but the safety was off and she accidentally shot him. she pleaded self defence in the trial n cos of the amount of times she’d been hospitalised for various concussions n things like ‘fallling down the stairs’ the police were like yea... pretty watertight evidence that he was a bastard who [chicago voice] had it coming..... also this happened in 2017, he was mixed race and greta is white so naturally the police totally took her side. she’s now under witness protection, rehoused in livingstone as a sports-scholarship student, due to the amount of police involvement in the area, it would mean should one of luke’s family members try to track her down, she’d be relatively safe

 massive sports fanatic. plays tennis. on the cheer team. was a track superstar in her high school. honestly just that sporty bitch, you’ll see her doing lines at a party at half four and then on your way to your 9am lecture you see her running across the park like a fresh fucking daisy who is this bitch

pretty easy to get along with (provided you don’t anger, provoke or question her too much) because she WANTS your character to be enthralled by her and will do whatever it takes to win them over. she wants everyone to love her

is That Girl who always knows where the parties are, and is always there, on the sofa, talking about institutionalised racism and trying to coerce you into a game of beer pong that she’ll definitely win. doesn’t really have one solid group of friends, just kind of on good terms with everyone and social butterflies about

has changed her major so many times. decision? who is she. currently studying medicine, but doesn’t rlly enjoy it. she’s very unmotivated and lazy and probably wouldn’t ahve bothered going to uni if she hadn’t been placed in one by a witness protection program. will probably change on to history or gender studies soon n just make up the extra credits by volunteering

 massive feminist. low key quite scared of powerful men bcos of her ex. wants to start a female only lesbian commune bc she misses her childhood in a south dakota boarding house and has endless support for women. honestly annoyed that she is attracted to men, would so be 100% gay if it was a choice. cuffs her jeans and can’t drive. is That bisexual. skateboards. wears backwards caps.  i hate her

plays bass guitar, has a teal green fender and it is her BABY. it’s covered in stickers about saving the planet and ending fracking and going vegan. she’s in an all-female punk band w agnes (n mayb jade i think) n they play gigs every now n then in grotty club basements full of druggy sweaty college kids

PERSONALITY: easy-going, sociable, observant, blunt, amiable, nihilistic, self-serving, laid back, independent, unmotivated, charming, lazy, impulsive, alluring. ESTP and a leo

LIKES: art, music, john wayne movies, black mirror, philosophy,  cowboy chic culture, DC comics, arcade games, candyfloss, deep red lipstick, marijuana, dogs, karaoke, Kate Moss, late-night strolls, zip-lining, chemistry, suspenders, cigarettes, herbal tea, gallows humour, cold coffee, long showers, brown eyes, tchaikovsky, dr. seuss, boiler house DJ sets, magnolias, decorative lamps, worn-out furniture, twangy electric guitars.

DISLIKES: bananas, coffee, Woody Allen, mental mathematics, children, Trump, institutionalised misogyny, the imaginary future, french literature, Wes Anderson films, spoken word poetry, the general mentality of cheerleading squads (despite being on one)

aesthetics:

a bubble of pink gum on chapped lips, mom jeans, a beaten up pair of adidas, denim jackets, strawberry laces, knee-highs, chapped lips, peeling sticky plasters, split knuckles, bruises you try to cover with concealer, stick and poke tattoos, hot coffee, sleep caught in your eyes on a lazy afternoon, kissing girls, cigarette smoke shrouding you like a veil, alien conspiracy theories and sci-fi paperbacks, doc martens with fraying laces, the red string of a thong peaking out purposely from jeans, leonine arch of your back and that stellar smile that says ‘you have no idea who you’re dealing with’, a rucksack permanently packed for the move, a streak of red across your lips, roller blades, cut knees, not eating your greens, smiling with a mouthful of blood, and piercing your own ears with a safety pin when your mom wouldn’t take you, kate moss posters lining the walls of a teenage bedroom, his name scrawled in rage across the pages of a diary, thumb holes poked through the cuffs of your sleeves, a tennis racket you punched through in a fit of temper, feet pounding the earth until your soles bleed crimson, sleeping in a cherry lip balm and scrunchies to keep the wild locks from your eyes. 

wanted plots: since greta literally can’t differentiate between romantic and platonic love, she’s got off with so many of her mates, so i want awkward friendships where they nearly dated, or exes that have now just turned into weird friendships, and girls from the cheer team who she’s like, weirdly intimate with like the shower together but its not a Thing cos the other girls straight, and I want like, fellow medicine students who are like?? how is this bitch still passing?? i swear she goes out every night?? she works part time at a fast food restaurant, i want a mate that just goes and sits in there talking to her until her manager gets angry. ppl she did a few modules with before changing course and somehow sort of remaining in touch with, like she did a few art modules, a bit of film, n some architecture before switching to medicine, though she’ll probs switch course again soon. ppl who she runs track with. someone she’s trying to make a zine with. here’s a list of plots on her old blog if u want any of them w her.

would love plots of any type, throw them all at me please, i cnt wait to interact w all of u. like this if u want me to message you about connections / plots! xo

full biography if u can be bothered

trigger warnings: drugs, domestic abuse, gun.

you never meant for it to happen. you’d heard the stories, of girls who let their man walk all over them, and thought to yourself “i’ll never be one of those girls…” the kind that eat low-fat yoghurt and drink slim fast to shred a few extra pounds because he said she was getting round in the tummy, or the ones who spent their evenings tied to a kitchen sink drinking wine while him and the boys played poker, wishing god, if only I could get out of here. not you, not you raised by strong women, four bright shining beacons. single mother with her hard-as-nails attitude and her stony glares, elder sisters (twins) one ginger, one blonde, one doctor, one lawyer, both determined to take a bullet to the brain and a hammer to the patriarchy before they let a man touch them without asking. you were always so inferior, so insecure and small, like a bird (like a sparrow) with blonde plaits down your back sucking tropicana whilst your busom buds sucked dick, their lips permanently ripe with stories of their sexual exploits, fake tan and glittered nails whilst you sat in the unbroken egg of virginity wondering what it was like to be loved. one day you found out.

lily milligan’s parents gone and a free house for the night, bottles of ouzo and tequila swiped from your mother’s liquor cabinet thinking she wouldn’t know (she always knew) your legs, hardened from pep squad, slut dropping on a kitchen table because the boys thought it would be fun to get the quiet girl drunk. you’d never had a sip before that night. band t-shirts, denim shorts and the split soles of rotten converse that you refuse to let go of, you still clutched with both hands to your youth, but in a tube top now (borrowed from alice carmichael who had a sister in college) and a short tennis skirt, your feet not in trainers but in thigh-high boots. uncomfy as hell but lily said you needed to look sexy. you didn’t know if you wanted to be sexy. you didn’t know what kind of girl you were, if you were even a girl at all. but robbie looked at you like he knew exactly who you were, like he knew you better than you knew yourself, and his lips had the pink cupid’s bow of a movie star, and his hair was dark locks, curling like a mane. his hands were soft, and suddenly on your waist, and after three more shots his lips were on yours and his name was the only sound in your head and on your lips as you lost it in lily’s college sister’s bedroom beneath the glare of a T-Pain poster. you bled for what seemed like hours, his hand still in yours, kissing on the sofa as truth tellers and dare devils continued to spin a bottle of unprecedented youth. you thought it was love. robbie was the one. he loved you, you knew it, how else could someone be so soft? but soon he grew bored, scrunched up your paper heart and set it alight. then came the tears, the hatred, the ‘fuck robbie, in fact, fuck all boys.’ and that you did.

you were known for being easy. any boy could be yours for a night, as long as he promised to love you for those few short breaths and pants before you cried yourself to sleep. you felt poisoned, but poisonous as well, as if by ensnaring these young boys you were gaining power over them, and not the other way around. soon it started to work. they’d want more, but you’d deny them it, sick of sucking off silly schoolboys, they’d call you a tease, a vixen. maybe you were, but you couldn’t help but want older men. you got the history teacher first time, him bending you over his desk to sneak a hand up your tennis skirt as the after-school clubs carried on next door, unawares. love didn’t exist, not for you. it was nothing but a game for pretty young girls to play, bubble gum in their canines and a hand tugging at the hem of their cheer skirt.

there was so much anger inside of your small body, ‘beware of boys and their hook-like words’. hockey helped. there was something formidable about the feeling of a stick like a weapon in your hands and the thwack it made against thighs in the heat of a scrum - “slipped, sorry!” - you’d utter with a snakeskin smile, millicent quinn knowing that you’d hit her on purpose because she shagged robbie at that party last week. she couldn’t prove it, cobbled acne on her forehead turning green with disgust. ben came into your life like a car crash. two years your senior, with a baseball jacket and shoulders like a god. he became your personal hero. on the pitch, he was lethal. together, you could bring anyone to their ruin. each day after last period he’d be waiting in his car. you’d leap into his arms like a girl-half starved, love me, love me, love me, your heated kisses the envy of every junior girl. he was yours for three blissful years, utterly yours, and you were his, his star-spangled girl, and he was your knight - you were both the same, playing games, always difficult to predict. it was a shock to all when he proposed, high-school sweethearts find love in south dakota.

the engagement was a bittersweet affair; three months – you barely out of your gingham print skirts and into a graduation gown, him, a surly quarterback towering above your sisters, cigarette at his lips and a scowl like a fart in a lift. they hated him. so did you. but you were eighteen and in love, and he fitted the cookie cutter mould. everyone wanted him, and you had him. you had him and you were happy, happy, happy, and he loved you. he said he’d give you the world, anything you wanted hand-picked and given to you. instead, he gave you a jack russell terrier and a flat you couldn’t swing a cat in, wallpaper peeling like the rotten bits inside of you, the bits that only he knew. and you got tireder and tireder of the sad excuse of a life he’d picked out for you, him out doing god knows what to pay the bills, and you dancing on tables to pave your way to stardom, and this was love, this was real, until the shine wore off and your fresh-faced, dimple-cheeked cheerleader facade faded and the ugliness started to reveal itself, the whining, the petulance, the sharp-tempered cruelty, the mind games, the need to always win, win, win. he was dull, he was boring, he was nothing like the boy the girls had said he was and no chiselled six pack could hide his lack of anything remotely interesting, your patience wearing thin until it snapped like rubber, a rucksack on your back, running shoes on your feet and the joint bank account emptied into your eighth grade birthday wallet.

you built your small fortunes working the casinos of sioux falls, a crimson dress and an attitude to match. bookish archie with his little dipper freckles was fun for a month, before he became just as dull and dreary as the rest. a three hour bus and you were in minneapolis, bright eyed and bushy tailed, fresh meat ready for the pickings. a hostel here, a friendly co-worker’s sofa there as you made what you could by taking off your clothes and shaking your ass like you were back in pep squad, doing what you did best. you met your fair share of creeps, and soon it was back on the road to escape a wide-eyed stalker and a restless itch for more. milwaukee, chicago, you made the roads your own. log cabins and lodgings, and the occasional motel, a beaten up pick up truck purchased at a scrap merchants – you got a few miles out of it before it bit the dust, and when you finally set it alight after nights spent lounging across the driver’s seat, a parka tucked over you as a duvet, you were sad to see it go. you’re nomadic by fault, never attaching to place, people or things, creating a new personality in every place you go like a character actress; each town is a different repertory theatre, and you’re the star. a compulsive liar, you even fib about your own name, to some you’re ellen, nineteen, bookish, a law student who likes smoking and cosmos. to someone else you’re rita, you’re twenty five and look young for your age, like smoking, comics and fucking in public places.

in the bright lights of michigan, you found charlie, sweet charlie, too good for you, though you let him spoil you while he thought you were the small town girl of his dreams. next came abigail, who was fun until the jealously kicked in, and then luke, gorgeous luke, dangerous, exciting, who despite his temper, despite the fights, despite bruises down your spine and your teeth marks on his arms, loved you with the strength of a wild fire. there was destruction in your wishbones, a savageness from the field, from the pitch and now somehow in his arms, you were godly. he was cruel, he was careless, and he refused to fall at your feet like so many other boys had, which only you made you want him all the more. you were rage incarnate. you hated him so fiercely you thought you might kill him, so he played the only card you wouldn’t predict; proposed.

the house you shared was a backstreet flat in detroit, you making your name as a downtown singer while he footed the bill with pills. they had a drug for anything these days, to dull the senses, to pick them up, to drive you to insanity or pull you out of the madness hole. the two of you lived like criminals on the run (you never told him that you were, living out your days as the enigma he wanted you to be), you with your voice like caramel and fishnet legs. you were his and his alone until his hand was at your throat and the gun was in your hands screaming at him to stop, stop, stop, until a bullet stoppered his brain, crimson staining linoleum as you cast yourself out like lucifer. self defence was decreed the moment they saw your violet neck, black tears and headlight eyes and mind screaming red, red, red like the pom-poms you shook so willingly in school and the insides of his skull. you were gone, and “you” was born, renamed “greta”, boxed, shipped-out, and next-day delivered to livingstone where under witness protection you were a student, blank slate, fresh-faced in a place where no one knew your name, doing what you always did and starting again.

[your-iron-lung]

The Unsolved Chapter

PART TWO OF FIVE; also available to read on AO3 HERE

Story Synopsis:  While investigating what remains of the infamous Léry’s Memorial Institute for their popular channel, two Youtube celebrity ghost hunters go missing overnight, vanishing in a freak occurrence that has decided to lay claim to their souls.

While the world they were abruptly taken from grieves their absences and tries to figure out what befell the beloved comical duo, Ryan and Shane struggle to make sense of the new, terrible and violent reality they’ve woken up in. Drawn to a campfire that never seems to burn out, they meet others who have been condemned to the same, eternal fate and are forcibly taught how to survive in an attempt to keep their collective hope and souls alive.

Chapter Word Count: 6706

Pairings: None; just a genfic

Genre: Survival Horror/Supernatural/Angst-y

Next Chapter: Unavailable

Previous Chapters: 1,

Notes: it took a while but HERE IT IS. the next part. pls enjoy thank.

.......(why cant i do line breaks anymore this is a shitty line break sorry).......

There was no sign of a robbery, nor even a hint of a struggle when the camera crew came back to find Shane and Ryan’s sleeping bags empty the next morning. The static camera that had been pointed at them all night was still there, red light on and blinking dutifully with purpose, unaware that the subjects it was meant to be capturing were now gone. No one quite knew what to make of it as they looked upon the untended sleeping bags laid out so pristinely with no one in them, but they didn’t suspect that anything odd had happened- not at first.

“Maybe they’re just out exploring something they forgot to film last night,” Mark suggested with an easy shrug, not yet concerned about Shane and Ryan’s respective absences. He strolled over to where the overnight camera was still recording and knelt down to turn it off and pick it up, ready to pack it away.

“They left all their gear here, though,” Devon said, voice wavering uneasily as she pointed out where the small, handheld cameras they used to film while walking around had been left behind. Even their cellphones lay discarded between the two sleeping bags, explaining why they hadn’t checked in with her when she’d texted earlier. Dread coiled low in her stomach as she watched the little green alert light flash unread on both of their phones.

Mark stared at their discarded equipment with an odd, curious look in his eye that Devon couldn’t decipher, but if she had to take a guess, she’d pin it as something close to concern. He opened his mouth to say something but then shut it, shrugged again, and wound up saying, “In that case, they probably just went out to take a piss or something; they’ll be back.”

Devon wanted to ask him how likely that actually was, but didn’t. Instead, she looked to TJ for his thoughts on where they might have gone, attempting to convey her unease to him without words. He had the authority to declare their disappearances an emergency if he thought there was enough cause for alarm to do so, and she was beginning to suspect that there was. She thought of the voice the spirit box had projected to them the night before and shuddered.

“If they’re not back here in ten minutes, we’ll start looking for them,” TJ said after a moment, sounding more annoyed than anything. He checked his phone for the time and sighed irritably as he tucked it back into his jacket pocket. “With how antsy Ryan was last night, you’d think he’d be raring to leave as soon as he could. He knows as well as I do that we’re on a tight schedule for this one, we don’t have the time for them to be fucking around.”

It wasn’t the answer she’d been hoping for, but it was one she could live with. They’d start looking for them eventually, and that was better than not at all.

Of the three of them, Devon admittedly was the closest to what Ryan called people who believed in the supernatural as ‘Boogaras’; Mark and TJ were strong-minded skeptics like Shane, and wouldn’t think to attribute their disappearances to something unworldly. Even though she wasn’t an advent believer in ghosts and spirits or the like, she nevertheless maintained the faith that they could exist, and that nagging, back of the mind thought of ‘what if’ was persistent enough to make her want to review the overnight recordings, just to know. Just to be sure that the terrible voice really had nothing to do with it.

“Could I take a look at that real quick?” Devon asked quietly, addressing Mark who was still holding the static camera. He gave it over to her without comment, though he seemed hesitant to do so, pausing slightly as it traded hands.

With the camera in hand, she sat down on the bottom hem of one of the sleeping bags and pulled out the side screen, a worried crease marring her brow as she powered it back on. Mark walked away from her and milled around the room idly before TJ made the decision to start the search early.

“Text us if they come back before we do; we might as well go get the other cameras now to save some time,” TJ said to Devon as she fiddled with the camera. He got a brief nod of acknowledgement in response before he turned away, gesturing for Mark to join him in his effort to roundup the rest of their equipment.

As they left the treatment theatre, she could hear them calling out Shane and Ryan’s names loudly as they slowly wandered away from her, echoing choruses of “Shane! Ryan! What the fuck, guys?” bouncing unheard off the walls. She bit into her lower lip, gently worrying at it with her teeth as she began to watch the playback of the overnight footage.

Fast-forwarding through the camera crew’s departure, Devon resumed normal play speed once the recording reached the point where Shane and Ryan were first left alone. She listened keenly to the conversation they’d shared the night before, trying to gather as much insight into their disappearances as she could despite the fact that the audio was tinny and un-optimized. The conversation ended when Shane went to sleep, but from what the night vision allowed her to see, it looked like Ryan had stayed up for a good while longer. A small smile of amusement broke her look of severe concentration as she fast-forwarded until Ryan was finally able to sleep, his head humorously twitching around as he looked after phantom noises in the dark.  

There was nothing immediately alarming in the video as she slowed it down and sped it up intermittently, but she wasn’t sure what exactly she should’ve been looking for, or if there was even anything worth seeing. There was no dark, mysterious, looming figure hiding in the shadows behind them that was waiting to pounce on them now that their guards were down. There wasn’t even any sort of weird half-formed manifestation of a disturbed spirit upset with their presence hanging over their bedrolls, or anything else that could suggest supernatural foul play; the footage simply showed Shane and Ryan asleep in their bags until it didn’t.

Devon paused and blinked, not realizing that she’d lost sight of them. She rewound the footage to find the point where they’d disappeared on screen, watching with surprise as they popped back into frame a minute later, sleeping soundly with Shane rolled onto his stomach and Ryan turned over on his side. She watched the video carefully as she let it play, and again, it showed them sleeping undisturbed until it simply didn’t.

Incomprehension spread quickly across her face as she backed the video up and played it forward again, trying to make sense of what she was seeing; their bodies weren’t blinking or fading out of the picture, the recording wasn’t skipping frames or glitching, but after the video reached a certain point they just weren’t there anymore.

She felt cold as she checked the time stamp, watching the seconds as they passed by uninterrupted, indicating that there was no recorded loss of time. Everything was working as it should be, nothing had been tampered with; Shane and Ryan were simply gone. They just were.

‘Here today, gone tomorrow,’ her mind unhelpfully supplied for her as she sat staring numbly at the screen.

Distantly, she could hear the combined shouts of Mark and TJ as they continued calling out, their voices no longer calm but tinged with panic as they failed to locate their friends. They were almost screaming, and the sounds were shrill to her ears.

It was still in the early stages of fall the day Shane and Ryan went missing, but already a cold, steady wind was blowing unimpeded through the long and empty hallways of Léry’s Memorial Institute.

2

There were many times when Ryan would wake up the morning after an on-location shoot and forget where he was and what he’d been doing the night before. Bleary-eyed and poorly rested, he’d roll over in his sleeping bag to relieve an ache in his back or a kink in his neck from a night of sleeping on hard floor and slowly give himself over to wakefulness. It always took a few minutes for his mind to catch up with his memory, and when it did- when he remembered correctly where exactly he was- his anxiety would flare up until he checked to make sure no ghost or demon had done anything harmful to him in the night. But even after he inevitably found himself unscathed, it wouldn’t be until he saw Shane still asleep somewhere nearby that his panic would begin to abate, little by little, his tall friend’s presence offering him more peace of mind than he could ever provide for himself. This made the mornings where he woke up alone and disoriented all the worse, serving as a not-so-gentle reminder that he relied too much on Shane’s ability to ground him. He doubted he’d be half as brave as he scripted himself to be without him, and some days, knowing that about himself stung.

So when he woke up face down in a pile of brown leaves, alone and with no knowledge of where he was or how he got there, his first instinct was to panic.

Ryan slowly pushed himself off the ground and sat up, dead leaves clinging to the side of his face like they were still attached to the branch of a tree. He could feel his eyes bulging as he looked around, his breath hitching in his chest when he saw no sign of Shane nearby. Their sleeping bags and equipment were also gone, and as he frantically checked his hoodie pocket for his cellphone, he was distraught to find that it wasn’t with him.

He sat still in the middle of the clearing for a moment longer, wrestling for control over the fear that threatened to consume him. He forced himself to take in deep, calming breaths and closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind and flush his body of the terror he wasn’t quite sure was warranted just yet.

When he opened his eyes again, he did feel somewhat calmer, but the fluttery manifestations of his anxiety still held firm in his chest, making his voice tremble when he finally spoke. “Shane?” he called out tentatively, hardly able to raise his voice louder than a whisper. He slowly brought himself to a stand as he waited for a response, though if there was one to be heard, he didn’t hear it.

The dead leaves crunched underfoot as he turned around in place warily, scanning the surrounding trees for any sign he might have missed that indicated Shane could be nearby. There was a slight fog ghosting over the forest floor that made it difficult to discern if anyone else was in the area, and again, the terror of realizing he’d woken up outdoors when he’d definitely fallen asleep indoors  threatened to overtake him. 

“Shane?” he called again, mustering his resolve to speak louder and be properly heard. His voice carried and echoed through the trees as he waited with stilled breath, trying to tamp down on the fear that he could feel threatening to burst out of him like a bird full of aspirin. He called Shane’s name again, still louder, and even he could hear the subtle, frantic tones lining his voice as the echo supplied by the surrounding woodland repeated it shrilly back to him. He opened his mouth to call out a fourth time, but was stopped mid-inhalation when he was finally met with an answering grunt.

Relief flooded him as he heard Shane’s heavily sleep-laden voice respond at last, a mumbled, “’m over here, Ryan,” being one of the sweetest sounds he could recall having heard in recent days.

“Oh, thank God,” he mumbled to himself, taking a moment to breathe deeply when he felt the tremble in his voice creep out of his throat and into his limbs.

Ryan followed the direction Shane’s voice had come from over to the edge of the small dell, wherein he found him sitting with his back pressed up against the trunk of a thick tree, sat facing the deeper recesses of the dark forest. He was covered head to toe in leaves, looking very much like he’d been the victim of some errant landscaper who’d been too assed to dump the load elsewhere. Shane himself looked thoroughly confused about it as he started swiping the leaves off the sleeves of his denim jacket.

“Are we- are we outside?” he asked, looking up at Ryan in surprise when he got closer. The corners of his eyes were still crusted with sleep.

“Sure seems like it, bud,” Ryan said, reaching down to offer a hand to help him up. He couldn’t help his nervous laugh as Shane took it and sprung up suddenly, scattering the leaves around him unceremoniously.

In the back of his mind, Ryan both hated and envied how calm Shane looked, even if he had just woken up and didn’t fully understand what was going on yet. Not even five minutes ago Ryan had been in the same situation and had immediately taken to panicking, whereas Shane, for the most part, appeared unbothered; Ryan found his ability to maintain relative calmness at all times endlessly frustrating when he couldn’t manage to do the same for himself.

“Okay,” Shane said slowly, looking around them curiously, taking in their surroundings with unfocused, sleep-ridden eyes before he looked back to Ryan. There were still a few dead leaves trapped in his flyaway hair, making him look like some kind of tall, displaced woodland nymph in Ryan’s frazzled mind. “Mind telling me why that is?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I woke up over there,” Ryan said, pointing back the way he’d come. Shane craned his head to look into the small glade, confusion written plainly across his face.

He furrowed his brow and scratched the side of his nose, dislodging some of the crust he found there as he shifted his eyes back and forth between Ryan and the area he’d allegedly woken up in. “Is this some kind of bit you’re trying out?” he asked slowly and uncertainly, flicking away the crusty discharge on his finger.

“What? No, this isn’t a bit.” Offended, Ryan took a step back and then gestured around them. “How, or better yet, why would I want to do this? Who would even find this funny?”

Shane squinted at him dubiously and quirked his brow sharply, mistrustfully. “This is a bad bit, Ryan.”

“It’s not- this isn’t a bit!” Ryan exclaimed, his fear momentarily taking backseat to the indignation he suddenly felt. “I’m not trying to Punk you here, dude; I don’t know how we got out here, okay? I’m fucking scared, and if you’re just going to stand there and- and criticize me over a bit I’m not even doing, then- fuck, man.”

Ryan’s breath left him in a single hot exhalation, his body shaking with the strain of trying to relay how serious he felt the situation was. Shane stared at him, equal parts surprised and taken aback; rare were the days when Ryan actually let his frustrations with his skepticism loose, and those arguments never ended well. A memory surfaced in his mind of an argument they’d had that had gotten so out of hand they’d resorted to only communicating through texts for an entire week. Everyone had suffered from it, and rather than continue to antagonize him, Shane’s timid nature demanded he relent, lest they undergo a repeat of that chaotic event.

“Alright, calm down, no need to tear me a new one,” Shane said placatingly, his soft brown eyes looking down at his companion sympathetically. Ryan forced himself to take a deep, shuddery breath and irritably wiped away the leaves that were still plastered to the side of his face, practically slapping himself in his urgency to be rid of them. “Let’s just, head back inside and we’ll get it all sorted out, alright? I’m sure Teej and the rest of them are wondering where we are by now; it must be, what, seven? Eight? Hell, maybe even nine.”

Shane wriggled his eyebrows scandalously in an admittedly poor attempt to lighten the mood, hoping to have the minor argument dismissed entirely. Ryan’s lips twitched into a frown as he shrugged carelessly, taking the bait to look at his watch to confirm the time. The digital display didn’t light up when he tilted his wrist towards himself, though, which he found odd, since he distinctly remembered having charged it only two nights ago in preparation for the trip. He glanced up at the sky to try and judge the hour in relation to the sun, but it was too gloomy and overcast for him to determine anything concrete. He couldn’t even pinpoint the sun’s location through the cloud coverage, which again struck Ryan as odd; he’d made sure to check the weather days in advance to make sure they didn’t get rained out, and from what he could remember, it was supposed to have been nothing but clear skies and strong sunshine all week long. There’d been no mention of clouds or low-hanging gloom, but when he pointed this fact out to Shane, he merely shrugged and glanced at his own watch.

“Meteorology isn’t an exact science, Ryan; it’s more of an… approximation,” he said casually, to which Ryan groaned loudly in frustration. Shane ignored him and tipped his wrist to glance at the clock face of his own watch and was met with a curious stillness. The hands weren’t moving, and didn’t start ticking again even after he tapped the glass expectantly. He frowned, but didn’t give it anymore thought. “Odd as it is,” he said while adjusting his jacket sleeve back over his wrist, actively avoiding Ryan’s scrutinizing gaze, “let’s just start heading back. You know how TJ gets when he’s trying to maintain a schedule; he’s going to crucify us if we miss the flight.”

“Are you seriously going to ignore the fact that both of our watches are dead?” Ryan asked, perplexed by Shane’s nonchalance. He was met with a simple shrug in response and could feel the indignation he’d felt earlier resurfacing. “Something seriously fucking weird is going on here and you’re not even going to acknowledge it? We both woke up outside, for fucks sake! I understand that because of your Bigfoot ancestry, this might come as normal for you, but this is not a normal occurrence for me! I don’t even have my phone with me to call TJ; do you?”

Shane paused, a half-hearted attempt to explain away just how they’d both woken up displaced and outdoors dying on the tip of his tongue at the mention of his phone. He checked his pants pockets first, patting his Chinos down vigorously with a frown before moving on to his jacket, but didn’t find it there, either. When he realized his phone wasn’t actually on his person at all, Ryan finally saw a flash of vulnerability crack through his calm exterior. Shane’s face fell, and he looked more confused now than he had when he’d woken up underneath a pile of long dead leaves.

He lowered his arms slowly and took another long look around them, finally coming to realize that their bizarre situation was due in part to some external factor that was thoroughly out of their control.

“Bergara, you better swear to me right now that you’re not trying to prank me here-” he began to say, his voice pitched low in warning.

“I swear,” Ryan said, speaking earnestly and perhaps a little too eagerly. He didn’t like the way Shane was so quick to mistrust him, even if it was in his nature to be skeptical. “Again, there’s no way I’d even be able to drag your freakishly long body out here without waking you up first; I’d fumble all over your bonestilts and drop you down a stairwell or something before I could even drag you through the exit. You’re a heavy sleeper, but even you wouldn’t be able to sleep through a broken neck.”

Shane’s brows were knit tightly together in a very serious expression that Ryan didn’t see very often except for when he was deeply involved with whatever he was researching. Shane looked around the clearing as if he were seeing it for the first time, his hands absentmindedly fiddling through his pockets, still trying to find the phone that wasn’t there.

“Okay,” Shane said after one long, contemplative minute. He nodded once to himself, and then turned his attention back to Ryan; clearly, he’d come to some sort of an understanding. “Okay, so, we’ve been kidnapped.”

“Oh my God, Shane, seriously?”

In a way he was right, though neither of them had any way of knowing that at the time.

3

No matter what Ryan had to say on the matter, Shane really didn’t want to hear it; in his mind, he’d already come to accept the fact that they’d somehow been doped and kidnapped from Léry’s to be left in the woods for some undetermined, yet surely nefarious purpose. He’d decided they were probably going to be held for ransom at some point, but when Ryan tried to point out all the flaws in that particular theory, Shane shut him down and refused to hear him out.

It didn’t matter to him that their alleged kidnappers had left them alone, unbound, untended, and free to leave. He didn’t care that no one who likely knew who they even were could possibly know that they’d come to Michaelstown, Illinois to ransom them in the first place; he didn’t care about any of that because the fact that it could’ve been related to something supernatural scared him too badly to admit. Ryan tried to call him out on it multiple times, but each time he did had only served to isolate Shane from him.

The woods were perpetually gloomy; no sunlight was able to breach through the cloud coverage or dense treetop foliage as they walked along, though the worst part of it all, Ryan soon found, was that it was utterly silent all around them: there were no birds, bugs, or other ambient forest sounds to be heard over the consistent crunch of leaves as they plodded along. It unnerved him deeply, but again, Shane wouldn’t hear it.

They’d wandered a little ways away from where they’d awakened before realizing that neither of them knew where they were in relation to Léry’s. The tall, monstrous building that had terrified them on a subconscious level was nowhere to be seen as they walked, and when Shane understood that they were, essentially, lost like babes in the woods, more of his mask began to chip away, and Ryan began to see the fear that was being harbored underneath.

He seemed skittish, almost; edged and on guard in a way Ryan had never seen him before that he could liken to how he himself got moments before being locked alone in a room to commune with spirits. If he hadn’t been so admittedly angry with him, Ryan would have sympathized, but he was stubborn and couldn’t find it in him to rescind his annoyances at that point. If Shane was scared, let him stew in it for a little while; let him get a real taste for it.

4

“We’re lost.”

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock; even Watson could’ve figured that one out.”

“Tone it down a notch, sassmaster Bergara. You’re supposed to stay put when you’re lost; it makes getting found easier.”

“Are you taking into account our alleged ‘kidnappers’ when you say that it makes getting found easier, scoutmaster Shane? God forbid we get found by them again; can’t wait to see where we’ll wake up next! Find out on the next episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved: Naked and Afraid edition!”

“As entertaining as our viewers might find that, we aren’t- we’re not naked, Ryan.”

“But we are afraid.”

5

They came across the campfire rather suddenly and without warning, stumbling out of the gloom with all the perplexed awareness a cat might have when it walked into a room it thought was empty. Aimlessly, they’d wandered around the forebodingly quiet woods, arguing back and forth intermittently over who was right and who was wrong and what course of action they ought to take, not knowing they had been following a predetermined path the whole while.

It lead them by the nose, guiding them through the woods until It brought them where It wanted them to be, where It needed them to be.

Ryan stopped dead in his tracks the instant they breached through the broad trees they’d been trekking through diligently, frozen in place at the sight of the burning fire and the grim looking people seated around it. He could feel his eyes bulging again as he was met with equally perplexed stares, and to his left he felt rather than saw Shane also coming to a standstill beside him. His first instinct was to turn around and leave back the way they’d come, already afraid of who these people were, but Shane stepped forward in another act of boldfaced bravery Ryan would later envy him for.

“Hi,” Shane began, raising a hand in greeting, sounding relatively casual and not at all afraid, “sorry to bother you, but my friend and I got lost on our hike. Been out here a while and our phones died; could we borrow one of yours to call a friend real quick? Let him know where we are?”

Again, Ryan found himself admiring how easy it was for Shane to adjust from one situation to the next, effortlessly coming up with a believable lie that would presumably get them the help they needed. Perhaps the improve class he’d taken in college actually had left him some valuable talent after all.

There were six people in all sitting around the fire, each one of them turning their attention to Shane when he spoke, but his request for aid was met with absolute silence. While Shane held the brunt of their unreceptive attention, Ryan took the chance to get a good look at the people he was addressing and immediately noticed something strange. They all looked incredibly weary and downtrodden, their clothes and faces grimed with dirt in a way that suggested they’d been outdoors for a very long time. Ryan didn’t like what the implications behind that might mean for them.

“Hiking, huh?” one of the men asked, finally speaking up when no one else would, a strange smile twisting his lips up into a sharp smirk that Ryan found to be immediately disingenuous. “Just where were you boys out ‘hiking’? Aren’t any trails near here to get lost on, ‘s far as I know.”

Caught in his lie and thoroughly unnerved by the situation as a whole, Shane didn’t have a response properly prepared. Ryan felt him beginning to flounder, a blank, frantic look taking hold over his face as he tried to come up with something believable.

“Well how’d you get out here, then?” Ryan asked, taking charge as soon as Shane lost it to flip the interrogation around. “Like you said, there aren’t any trails as far as you know; doesn’t mean we don’t know where to find them.”

Ryan expected the man to get angry with him then, but the unsettling grin on his face only grew wider as he broke out into a laugh. It was loud and carried around the area well, bouncing off the nearby trees and resonating loudly around them. Despite how unnerving Ryan had initially found him to be prior, he found the man’s laugh to be warm and inviting. It was charming, in a way, and Ryan found himself letting his guard down against his better judgement, the tension he’d been holding in his shoulders slowly easing away.

“The kid’s got moxie, like you,” the stranger said, turning to the only other man in the group, who rolled his eyes in response. “Why don’t you and your big friend there come take a seat by the fire and we’ll tell you what all’s going on here, eh?”

The charming nature that had eased Ryan into being comforted by his laugh lost some of its potency with the man’s phrasing. A red flag was slowly being raised in the back of his mind, warning him intrinsically against heeding the man’s request. His train of thought fractured, each line following a path of potential reasoning as to why he shouldn’t.

Maybe Shane had been right after all; maybe they really had been kidnapped and had spent all that time walking around lost in the woods trying to get out only to end up back in their kidnapper’s arms. Horror movie scenarios played out in his mind, the plot of Deliverance coming out on top in order to terrify him against the thought of running into people this deep in the woods, but these people gathered here hadn’t been quite so forward with their foul intentions (if indeed their intentions were foul) as the West Virginian hicks had been.

The part of his brain he left partitioned to believing in the supernatural had him, for one quick moment, entertaining the idea that they’d come across a group of trickster fae, and somehow that scenario was the worst of them all.

He spared Shane a quick glance, and from the look on his face, Ryan could tell that he’d also taken some alarm to what the stranger had said. The man still had an easy smile about him, but the way the others around the campfire were all looking at them with such dreadful expectancy in their eyes had him feeling uneasy about the arrangement.

“Why don’t you just tell us what’s happening from over there, pally?” Shane said lightheartedly, but with enough of a commanding undertone to let them all know he wasn’t about to let themselves be taken advantage of. “Don’t really feel like singing ‘Kumbaya’ with you all just yet.”

The man looked at them thoughtfully for a moment, his smile lessening in intensity but never quite leaving his face entirely. “Where do you think you are?” he asked eventually, and the question he posed was curious enough in nature that it took them both by surprise.

“Where? Look, man, we just want to phone a friend to get out of here-” Shane began saying, speaking dismissively in an attempt to forego the question.

“Alright, and that’s fine; no one’s going to deny you that,” the man said easily. Ryan wished the guy wasn’t wearing sunglasses so he could cross-check the truthfulness of his words with his eyes. “You aren’t where you think you are, though, is all I’m trying to say.

“Where were you before you wound up here, David?” he asked suddenly, turning towards the muscular man he’d addressed earlier.

“England.” The man- David- responded effortlessly, grunting out the answer in a thick, British accent. His eyes glinted dangerously in the fire’s light as he met Ryan’s, staring him down over the flames that burned brightly in the dusk.

“And what about you, Feng?” the original, as of yet nameless man asked, addressing one of the girls who shot him a mean look and didn’t answer. He laughed lightly at her sour expression and shrugged in a way that said ‘well, what can you do’. “I was in Vegas, myself. Staying at The Flamingo before I ended up here.”

“Buddy, I don’t know what it is you’re trying to do here, but if you can’t help us then we’ll just go,” Shane intervened impatiently. He sounded nervous, and it wasn’t hard to understand why.

Everything about this was just so strange; even a skeptic like Shane had to admit that they’d stumbled upon something that was truly, inexplicably weird. They were lost in the remote woods of Michaelstown, Illinois in an area that shouldn’t have been inhabited; the fact that they’d come across anyone else at all- let alone six people- chilling around a bonfire was disconcerting enough on its own, but the thing that was really beginning to mess with Ryan in that moment was the fact that he’d realized he recognized one of those people.

Looking at her, he hadn’t been sure at first because he couldn’t place how or where he’d seen her before, but he’d eventually come to the realization that he did know her, somehow. Her face, lit passively by the fire, was so familiar to him that he was hit with a strong case of of déjà vu, the knowledge of how he knew her teasing him by slipping in and out of his ability to latch onto that specific memory.

“I am helping,” the man replied, a hint of frustration finally edging out in the tone of his voice. His grin faltered for a moment as he tilted the brim of his baseball hat back to rub at his forehead exasperatedly, rearranging the dirt that had accumulated there into a peculiar looking clean spot. “You’re just not getting it; you might have gotten lost, sure, but you’re not in Kansas or wherever the hell you came from anymore, is what I’m saying.”

“Illinois,” Ryan said dumbly, earning a sharp look from Shane. The man fixed his hat snugly back into place atop his head and nodded, flashing him a self-assured little smile.

“Sure,” he said. “Illinois. Vegas, England, wherever; doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”

“What does that mean?” Ryan asked carefully, his eyes flicking from the man he was speaking with to the girl he was still trying to remember. She was watching the interaction carefully but with an air of boredom, her chin tucked securely into the palm of her hand while resting her arms on her knees.

“Ryan,” Shane said sternly in warning. “Don’t.”

Ryan ignored him and walked further into the clearing, stepping in close enough that he could begin to feel the warming effects of the fire as he drew closer. His eyes bored into the dark lenses of the man’s sunglasses, searching out his eyes curiously.

“You’ll find out soon enough. Look,” he said, pointing behind them, back the way they’d come, “it’s about to start.”

Hesitant as he was to take his attention away from the man, Ryan followed his finger and looked back obediently. A heavy, thick layer of fog was steadily rolling in amidst the gaps between the trees towards them unassumingly. It crept in from all sides, crawling towards the fire pit intently like a moth seeking light. Shane looked startled when he realized it was seeping in around his ankles, covering his feet in a fine whit mist. He lifted his feet out of the wisps and stepped in closer to the fire, making his way to Ryan’s side with a bewildered look on his weary face.

“Quit toying with them, Ace; you’re being purposefully cryptic for no reason.” The girl Ryan was still struggling to remember finally spoke, sounding testy as the fog continued to roll in. She pulled her chin out of her hand and sat up, stretching out her back with a slight groan. “You’re being an asshole just for the sake of being an asshole; you haven’t told them anything.”

“If you had a welcome speech prepared, Jane, you could have cut in at any time,” Ace retorted, but he didn’t sound mad, only tired. “I don’t think any of us were expecting anyone new, and anyway, in my experience, the best way to understand any of this shit is to dive into it headfirst. We don’t really have time for them to learn any other way now.”

Ryan’s mind was flooded with a barrage of questions he wanted to ask, from what the fog was to what Ace meant by ‘learning’, but when he heard mention of her name his mind sparked in instant recognition. The memory that had thus far been successful in eluding him finally made itself wholly available to him, and as he looked upon her face once more, he wondered how he hadn’t instantly recognized her before.

“You- you’re Jane Romero!” he blurted out unexpectedly, eyes going wide, unable to contain his shock at finally realizing her identity. He faltered and gaped, his words getting stuck and haunting the back of his throat when he tried to force them out. “Shane, holy shit, that’s Jane Romero.”

At first, Shane didn’t understand; couldn’t comprehend why that name should mean anything to him at all even though it apparently held the weight of something important. The girl Ryan was pointing out looked just as confused as he felt as he ran her name over and over in his mind, trying to pull up the relevant information he must have had stored about her until he remembered why that name was as impactful as it was to Ryan.

“No,” Shane muttered quietly, his own eyes lighting up as he came to the same conclusion Ryan had. “No, Ryan, there’s no way that’s-”

“Jane Romero.” Ryan repeated her name in whispered awe, and as much as Shane didn’t want to believe it, he knew it to be true. “We- we did an Unsolved episode about you!”

She was far more weathered and tired looking than she’d looked from the photographs Ryan had showed him when they’d reviewed her case for an episode of True Crime, but beneath the dirt and world-weary expression of exhaustion, there was no mistaking it: sitting hunched over by the fire was the fabled talk-show host Jane Romero, whose missing persons case had gone national before it went cold and she’d been assumed dead. The authorities had regarded it as an open and shut case after her car had been found submerged in a large body of water by the Jersey turnpike, but there were some peculiarities about it that true crime enthusiasts everywhere had picked up on that made her disappearance worth looking into on a deeper level.

The episode had been Ryan’s idea, as most of their episodes were, and as they’d reviewed the evidence and all the oddities surrounding her alleged death, even Shade had admitted that something weird must have happened to her the night she’d disappeared. It was a lot of little, fine details that had added up to paint a large, sketchy portrait of a woman who’d either faked her own death, or had fallen prey to something worse.

“I don’t… know what that is,” Jane said, speaking slowly. She looked between Shane and Ryan uncertainly, one of her groomed eyebrows arching high in question.

“It’s our- we, we have a web series where we investigate true crime cases and paranormal shit-” Ryan started to explain, but was too flustered to finish what he wanted to say. He shook his head halfway through his explanation, purposefully derailing himself to focus his amazement at having found the Jane Romero, alive and well in the woods of Michaelstown, Illinois on his partner. “Holy shit, Shane, did we actually just solve something?”

“As touching? Impressive? Astounding as this is,” Ace began, groaning slightly as he brought his lanky form to a stand, straightening out the lapels of his dusty blazer, “we don’t have time to be discussing who knows who from where. Show’s about to start, fellas.”

The unintroduced group of others begrudgingly came to a stand at Ace’s lead, Jane included. Some held items in their hands that Ryan hadn’t noticed before, and as he was about to ask Ace what exactly was about to start, he was hushed suddenly. At the moment he opened his mouth to pose his question, the fog that had been steadily rolling in rose up suddenly to obscure his vision and thickened immeasurably, blanketing him in its wisps until he couldn’t see anything at all.

[ghostlylorekeeper]

Prompt 5 &6 “Misplace and Silence”

*Note- This is part of a longer project. The other things I post here may also be.

It started out so slowly I wasn’t sure any thing was wrong. We bought a new-old house! I told Lauren I had always wanted to live in one of those sprawling old mansions. I loved to dream about them as a little girl. I was shocked when she laughed and smiled back.

           “Why not?” She answered.

           “Well because it’s so expensive dear. I only bring it up because you told me to dream a little.”

           My wife reached for my hands and turned me to face her. I loved looking in to her eyes. Her green eyes always take my breath away, even after being together for so long.

           “Cynthia, darling! We won the lottery! Its ok to dream. We aren’t getting any younger.” The wrinkles around her eyes crinkled as she smiled at me.

           “I love old houses too! I read too many mysteries about them. Let’s do it.” And that was how we came to own Palewood Manor.

           The day we bought the place I wondered from room to room like a child caught up in a day dream. There rooms where huge and I lost count of how many there were. I loved every rundown, ridiculously ornate, piece of it! It really is no wonder, looking back, that I didn’t notice anything at first.

           I guess the first moment I did start to notice was when Lauren and I began to misplace things. It didn’t really seem that strange. I am forgetful and everyone loses things sometimes. I only noticed it with my keys. I had set them down on the kitchen counter when I came in that day. I remember because they were next to my morning cup of tea. Lauren was going over a list of things we needed to do today for the renovations. Despite being old the middle section of the house was livable and really hadn’t required much work. I was planning to go into town and pick up some paint and things later so I had just sat the keys down and when I got the shopping list from Lauren and looked back they were gone!

           Most of the time when one misplaces things they are simply forgetting where they put them or, rarely, their kids, partner, friend, whoever moved them, but this wasn’t like that. They were there one moment and gone the next! Of course, Lauren helped me look, but we went over the whole counter and floor around it. No keys anywhere.

           “Are you sure you brought them down with you?” She asked, looking around the base of the counter for the third or fourth time.

           “Yes! Absolutely!”

           In the end there wasn’t anything else to do about it. I had to use Lauren’s set to drive to the store. I am almost sure she thought I was being silly and didn’t want to admit I had just left them upstairs, but she gave me her set without much comment. It wasn’t till that night when her favorite book mark went missing that she began to get concerned.

           For the first few weeks that’s the only thing that happened. Not every day but every week a handful of items would go missing and turn up in the most unlikely of places. Places we both knew they had never been. The keys were found inside a drawer in the living room. The bookmark was under a pot out by the back garden. Glasses disappeared from a table and reappeared on top of a book case. A cute figurine that sat in our curio cabinet went missing for almost a week before we found it broke in half in the bathroom one morning.

           It would almost have been comical if not for the rooms. Lauren and I loved working on our house but it was a big undertaking. Even if we could live in the main part of the house without much renovation we both wanted to fix up the rest of the building. We knew it would take a real construction crew to make the left and right wings of the house livable but we figured, with a little help, we could at least work on clearing out any debris and junk before hiring a main crew. We both agreed that having a few local teens come help out would be a good way to get involved in the community. We put up an ad in the local paper asking to have some teens contact us and agreed on an amount to pay them.

           We had about five answer our ad. They seemed like a lovely bunch! It did surprise a few of them that we were both women but none of them seemed too bothered by the idea. Mark was a big friendly guy, with brown hair and a sunny grin. It seemed like nothing upset him. Neil was as far from him as you could get. Always dressed in all black, he was skinny as a rail and had one of the worst dye jobs on his hair. He was a hard worker but like to fashion himself a brooder, but when he forgot himself his laugh was musical. Gina was quiet and shy, all glasses and long reddish-brown hair to hid behind. She was a little plump, which added to her shyness but once she opened up she was a delight to talk to. Tia was a tall lanky girl with an easy smiled and laid-back personality but passionate about her grades and animals. Casey was short and cute as a button. She looked like a tiny pixie and was so excited to meet us. She was a writer, just like us. Oh, we loved meeting all of them.

           We showed the kids what we wanted them to do. It wasn’t too complicated but it was a long process hauling out all the trash and debris. We would collect a pile in a few rooms then carry it all out to a big dumpster we were renting. It was hard to find your way through all the dirty, old, rooms. Some were so covered in trash and dust that it was hard to tell what they were meant to look like. We all used to laugh about getting lost and having to follow each other’s voices back to the main rooms we were working in. I didn’t think too much about it the first few times one of the kids mentioned it but it started to be somewhat odd.

           Mark wandered into a bed room we were working to clear with the oddest look on his face. He scratched his head but shrugged and started to get back to work when Tia asked him why he looked so funny.

           “I was coming back from the bathroom and I was positive I had somehow got turned around. You know that room with the roses on the wallpaper? I passed through there and I was positive it was nowhere near the bathroom. I was sure it was at the end of the left wing not near the middle.”

           “It is.” Gina called. “I know because it has those big windows that look out toward the field.” She looked apologetically at Mark like she was sorry she had to correct him.

           “I could have sworn I passed through there on my way here.” He shrugged again and gave Gina a winning smile. “It doesn’t matter. I probably just passed through a room I thought was it.”

           We all returned to work without thinking to much about it. A lot of the rooms in the house did look similar. A few days later, I started to get a little puzzled when I walked in on Neil and Casey having a truly confusing conversation.

           “How could you possible get here at the same time as me?” She was asking.

           “I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense, unless your pulling something on me.” He asked with a suspicious look on his face.

           “Why would I?” Casey asked in bewilderment. “You know I don’t pull jokes much Neil and even if I was its kind of an odd joke to pull.”

           When I asked what the problem was they both turned to look at me with odd expressions, like they weren’t sure how to explain it. After asking a few questions, I determined that had essentially been on opposite sides of the house and had, somehow, reached the same point at the same time.  Casey had been half a house away, while Neil had only walked a few rooms over for them to both meet at the same time in the blue room. I suggested that Casey has started walking before Neil, but they were texting each other at the time. Casey swore it was like the rooms were rearranging.

           I tied to shrug it all off but this was even more unsettling. I began to hate being alone in the place. Even in the bright warm lights of the main livable part of the house, I didn’t feel safe. I tried not to let Lauren know. I knew she had been so happy to find the house for us. I didn’t want to ruin her wonderful find. I didn’t know she had been having her own problems.

           I had been out buying groceries, one morning, the kids weren’t coming to work today. Casey was coming over later to share some of her writing with us but Lauren had decided to sleep in instead of grocery shop with me. When I drove up to the house I thought how is looked peaceful and silent, then shivered. The silence in the house was overwhelming. I often wished there was more noise. Sometimes, it felt like you could be only a room or two away from someone talking or the tv on, and yet not hear a soul. It was eerie and uncanny.

           As I unlocked the door to the house to bring in the first bag, I called out to Lauren, letting her know it was me. I was surprised to see her come running to the front door. I almost dropped the bags I was carrying when she hugged me.

           “I am so glad your home.” She breathed out as she hugged me.

           “What’s wrong?” I asked looking confused but hugging her back anyway.

           “Would you believe me if I said I wasn’t sure what was wrong?” She asked trying to laugh, but it echoed hollowly.

           I am sure my face must have looked really odd because Lauren immediately began trying to explain.

           “You know how it’s always so quiet here? At first, I thought that was relaxing but the more time we’ve spent here the less I like it. It’s become eerie, but today when you left I kept hearing things. It sounds like a group of people talking or whispering just a room or two away. Like someone left a tv on. I have been all over this house and can’t find any reason for it.” She shook her head as I finished unloading the groceries. “I know it sounds crazy but I swear there is something wrong with this place.”

           We were both one edge after that day. Lauren and I weren’t sure what to do. We tried to not be alone in the house. We tried not to leave others alone either. Instead of running errands by ourselves, we always went together. We tried to watch the kids more but of course we couldn’t keep them in our site all the time maybe that’s why it happened. Maybe that’s why she went missing. Misplacing your keys is one thing, misplacing an entire person is something else.

I am getting ahead of myself. I am trying to tell this all-in order.  

[teawennightingale-blog]

Details - Teawen Nightingale

Appearance- 

Gender: Female

Race: Worgen - Gilnean

Height: 5″6′

Eye color: Forest Green

Hair Color: Black

Age: 35

The Facts-

Occupation: Trainer / Former Farm hand / Runner

Sexual Identification: Heterosexual

Romantic Identification: Unknown

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Criminal History: Oddly clean

Relationship Status: Currently taking care of three wolves, the four legged variety. Single. 

Sweet on: None. 

Favorites-

Treat: Clean sheet of paper. 

Drink: Whiskey

Artist: Not musicians

Scent: Petrichor

Person: Her good friend Leon 

Deeper Knowledge-

Ten Details: 

1. Teawen grew up wanting to be apart of the Gilnean Royal Guard, however was denied at every turn in account of her deafness.  2.She grew up on a small farm on the coast and hated every moment of it. However her father was her saving grace as he was quick to teach her how to hunt both a bow and gun. However she hated bows.  3.Her turn was not easy. During the invasion she was finally given a chance to work alongside the people and the Gilnean Guard, a dream come true at the worst possible time. She was bitten while trying to take down a loner in the forests she knew like the back of her hand, only to be taken by surprise by another. She was left for dead. She went feral until captured and given a chance.  4.She’s not often seen in her wolfish form, but still carries the characteristics of her people through mannerisms.  5. She hums, to her wolves and to herself. Mostly when she does not believe others are around. She also hates the way her voice feels. Often acquainting it to having a ‘fat tongue.’  6.She doesn’t often find herself in cities, feeling nervous and slightly claustrophobic, having her wolf helps. 7.She was born deaf, and never got along with the kids growing up, the lack of communication making it difficult. So she would help with the farm until she was old enough to hold a gun and go hunting in the woods.  8.  She isn’t one for any types of worship. She instead tries to be an okay person with hard edges. 9.Her constant companion is a large brown wolf comically named “Big Brother.” He’s an intelligent beast that is never too far from her side and rarely without his harness with the big red letters set in the black leather reading “DON’T TOUCH.”  10.She doesn’t talk about her work beyond training and helping rehabilitate wolves of war. She sometimes takes custom orders for ammo and gun modification. 

Five Things

Things Preferred: 

A hot meal with a good friend

Space to run

Cold moments of the day; dawn and dusk

The mist between the trees just as the sun is setting or coming up.

Hunting with the “boys.” 

Things Dislike:

Being touched w/o warning

Don’t. Mess. With. Her. Big Brother

Those that look down on those under them. 

Ships and Caves

Being too warm

Habits (Good or Bad.):

More then happy to drink herself stupid.

Hard to communicate with, slow in trusting. 

Often smells like gun grease

Has little patience for impatient people. 

Would rather be working. 

Personalities Drawn To: 

Loyal

Curious

Dominate

Kind

Innocent

Personalities Repelled by: 

Liars

Malicious

Abusive 

Impatient

Too Righteous

Fears: 

Dying alone

Being forgotten, or only remembered as a a nobody. 

Being defined by her inability to hear. 

Never seeing Gilneas back to its former glory. 

Never showing that you are more then just her primary senses. 

OOC:  I’m more then willing to interact with people, all I ask is that you don’t try to “Fix” my character. I also have a “rules” button on my blog. <3 

[supremeuppityone]

Lightning Never Strikes Twice (Except When It Does)

This three-part story was written for klarolineauweek: Mythology and Creatures and is also a gift for @3tinkgemini, who is a wonderful sounding board for ideas and just an all-around lovely person! I also encourage you to go check out her incredibly creative, marvelous works! In this story, human!Klaus has been whisked away to a secluded resort to live out what he assumes are his final days in peace. However, his meddlesome brother, Kol, has other ideas and seems to believe the foolish legends about the mysterious resort run by an intriguing blonde.

Chapter 1: A Strange and Marvelous Path

          It looked like a nice place to die. The gently rolling green hills were bursting with fragrant clover and the surface of the lake sparkled like diamonds in the mid-day sunlight. Klaus was pleased his headaches had followed their predictable pattern established over the past year and lessened as the morning wore on. He actually could sit upright in his brother’s Porsche without the familiar searing pain. Kol had taken a look at his overly pale, sweaty face when he first piled Klaus into his car and cheekily told him, “Brother or no, you splash any sick on my leather interior and your bony ass is walking to the resort, Nik.”

           Klaus had appreciated his brother’s attempt at humor; in fact, ever since he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, Kol had been the one sibling he could count on not to treat him any differently. While everyone else looked at him with pity in their eyes, he knew he could count on his mischievous brother to give him a wink and dare him to pretend to be a foreign diplomat while chatting up a pretty bird in whatever pub he’d dragged him to.

           His smile was bittersweet as he thought of the surgeries and seemingly endless rounds of chemo he had endured — all for the doctors to tell him he’d only bought himself another five or six months. Which is why he had agreed to live out the rest of his days at a peaceful, remote resort called The Traveler’s Path that Kol had heard about a few hours from where they grew up. With an appreciative eye, he took in the rustic, reddish-brown cedar logs of the enormous cabin, enjoying their signature scent as they walked through the lobby.

           A stunning blonde was perched on top of the tall counter, carefully dusting several clay pots in varying shades of orange and red so vibrant, it appeared as though she was surrounded by a sunset. She flashed the brothers a blinding smile and gracefully jumped down, holding out her hand for Klaus to shake as she greeted, “Welcome to The Traveler’s Path. I’m Caroline.”

           Klaus held his breath as he waited for her to register his condition and then see the predictable pity and waves of sadness overtake her impossibly blue eyes as she recognized that he was living on borrowed time. It was an uncomfortable, maddening dance he had been doing with strangers and acquaintances alike for months now and he did his best to tamp down the first stirrings of anger. However, the longer she stared at him, the more she surprised him by her reaction. Rather than misguided sympathy he saw reflected in her gaze, she instead seemed to be searching for something within him, something that brought a faint pink blush to her ivory cheeks as she finally let go of his hand to tell him, “You look familiar somehow.”

           He could feel his smile curve into a seductive smirk, an expression he hadn’t felt the urge to use in far too long. “I’m fairly certain I would’ve remembered meeting you, love.”

           Caroline raised an eyebrow, that same, penetrating gaze sweeping over him as she replied enigmatically, “It’s as though your face is one I’ve almost met.”

           Klaus was puzzled by her words, but before he could comment further, Kol elbowed him out of the way, clearly put out that his brother was getting all of the blonde creature’s attention. “I’m Kol by the way. Since things look a bit dead around here, what do you say you come join us for a drink once we get settled in?”

           She seemed somewhat reluctant to shift her gaze from Klaus to his brother, but she finally shook herself slightly and told Kol in a tone that was equal parts amusement and irritation, “I’m not thirsty.” She made a sweeping gesture around the empty lobby and explained, “Our guests appreciate solitude — that’s why they stay with us while they find their path. In fact, you likely won’t see many guests during your time here.”

           At her words, Kol visibly perked up and comically craned his neck around Caroline as though she might be hiding employees behind her back. “You said ‘us’. Does that mean there are more tasty little things like you flitting about the grounds?”

           Klaus resisted the urge not to pinch the bridge of his nose in embarrassment at his brother’s clumsy flirting. However, Caroline seemed to take it in stride, as though she anticipated his younger brother’s antics. “I run this resort with two others, but I sincerely doubt you will become acquainted with our taste.” Her blue eyes slid over to Klaus once more, appraising him with a frank interest that left him speechless.

           She turned to the wall behind them, reaching for a set of keys on one of the narrow shelves. Klaus observed how her floral blouse dipped low, exposing two small sets of jagged lines tattooed on her shoulder blades. Curious about the symbols, Klaus asked, “Your tribal tattoos are unusual — what do they mean?”

           “They’re pictograms,” she said with an odd hitch to her voice, adding, “They’re the symbol for lightning.” She handed him the room keys with a hard look that indicated the subject was closed and said sweetly, “I hope you enjoy your stay with us as you find your own path.”

           As Kol led him to their suite, Klaus couldn’t help but mutter, “Why did she keep banging on about ‘finding a path’? What kind of bloody hippie commune have you dragged us to?”

           “That’s what I’m going to find out, Nik,” Kol said quietly, his boyish face uncharacteristically serious as he set down their bags in the entryway to their suite.

           Klaus was too fatigued to question Kol’s odd comment further, rubbing his head tiredly as he felt the wisps of dirty blonde curls stubbornly trying to grow back.  

           The next day, he stayed in bed until the headaches somewhat subsided, taking his usual prescriptions to combat the familiar pain and nausea. A thunderstorm had started as he managed to get dressed, thick rivulets of rain streaking the tall windows. He noticed Kol had left him an obnoxious note telling him to come downstairs for breakfast or else he would pay the oldest, hairiest nurse he could find to give him a sponge bath. Chuckling, he managed to make his way down the hall to the glass elevator, spying the mischievous devil flirting with a lovely caramel-skinned girl in the lobby.

           “Brother! I’ve just made the acquaintance of this delightful little bird named Bonnie,” he told him, sending a saucy wink at the unimpressed resort employee.

           Clearing her throat, she announced, “And I was just telling him that his table was ready.” She quickly busied herself at the monitor, clacking away on a keyboard as she pointedly avoided his wiggling eyebrows.

           Catching the stubborn gleam in his brother’s eye, he left him to continue his likely unsuccessful pursuit, shaking his head as he walked to a large screened-in porch where brunch had been set out for them. Sitting down on the comfortable rust-colored sectional, he grabbed a plate but wrinkled his nose slightly when he saw several lumpy-looking mini bagels, non-fat yogurt cups, soymilk and a bowl of fruit.

           “Buckwheat-raisin bagels,” Caroline said in an amused voice behind him. “They’re an excellent source of complex-carbs along with light dairy and fresh fruit, which will help keep your energy stable.” She reached into a shallow bowl off to the side and plucked out a handful of sunflower seeds to nibble upon while he regarded her skeptically.

           Klaus took an experimental bite of the questionable-looking bagel. Catching the blonde’s eye, he sighed dramatically, “There’s probably worse ways to die...none come to mind at the moment, though.”

           The twitch at the corners of her peach-colored lips was immensely gratifying to him as she replied, “Still, it’s best not to face death on an empty stomach.” She glanced at the screen door, staring at the raindrops as though she was counting each one. “It’s going to be a beautiful day once the storm clears off; what are your plans?”

           “Well, I have a couple of exciting naps planned,” he wryly offered as he poured himself a glass of orange juice.

           She leaned over, her simple blue tank top shifting just enough that Klaus had to remind himself to keep breathing, and she whispered conspiratorially, “I suspect if Kol heard that, he’d inquire if there was a personal turn-down service I could offer you.”

           He could feel a flush creeping up his neck and marveled at the way Kol could embarrass him without even being present. Not to mention the imagery her words had conjured. He hastily said, “Yes, well, I try to pay no mind to Kol. I sometimes suspect he’s been nosing through my meds to produce that level of charm.”

           Her musical giggle tugged at Klaus’ heart. He studied the gentle curve of her neck as blonde tendrils escaped from the careless knot at the back of her head. His fingers twitched as he imagined what it would be like to touch her ivory skin, to brush along those elegant lines of her until she trembled. He was surprised by his reaction to Caroline; ever since his diagnosis, he’d been caught up in the panic and the anger of constantly fighting to live, and while he still appreciated beauty, it had been a long time since it truly had touched him. “Would you join me for breakfast, love,” he ventured, hating how his tone was so hesitant and unsure.

           She looked behind them, craning her neck to observe the vacant entryway to the back porch and shrugged her shoulders to say, “Sure — after all, it seems you’ve lost your breakfast companion.” Blue eyes twinkling, she added, “It doesn’t appear that your brother can read the room and know when to give up. I may have to go rescue him before too long though so that Bonnie doesn’t peck out his eyes in irritation.”

           Klaus chuckled, slathering on more butter than was strictly necessary onto another of the unappetizingly healthy bagels. “Confidence has never been a problem for Kol.”

           “Or for you, if that devilish smirk of yours is anything to go by,” Caroline quipped, biting into a shiny green apple as she made herself more comfortable across from him.

           He felt his cheeks grow warm at her observation, and before he could control his foolish tongue, he blurted out, “Maybe once, before everything became...this.” He inwardly cringed, mentally preparing himself for the inevitable flash of pity he’d see in her eyes and the clumsy way she’d trip over words meant to comfort but instead only served to whittle away at whatever self-respect he had left.

           However, Caroline surprised him once again, taking another large bite of her apple and chewing thoughtfully without commenting. Her gaze, however, seemed to deepen, as though her fascination with him was growing. A crack of thunder startled him, and he watched in awe as a bolt of blinding white lightning split the sky. Another quickly followed, this time grazing a space on the clover-filled lawn as though giving it an electric kiss.

           Not fully understanding this newfound impulse to blurt out his random thoughts to her, he said, “I wish I could stand there, in that space.”

           “Really? Because contrary to the quaint expression, lightning often strikes the same place twice,” Caroline commented, watching him with an unreadable expression.

           Klaus ran his thumb over the tops of his knuckles, watching the storm continue to light up the gray sky. “You mistake me, sweetheart — I believe I would welcome it. It would be nice to feel something again.”

           She clinked the rims of their glasses together, murmuring in a thoughtful tone, “What a strange and marvelous path you seem to be on, Klaus Mikaelson.” Taking a sip of her orange juice, she added knowledgably, “Lightning is caused by an imbalance in nature — between the sky and the ground or among the clouds themselves. Balance is so crucial that without it, nature will roast you alive with lightning bolts five times hotter than the sun’s surface.”

           “You’re oddly informed about thunderstorms,” he said with a raised brow, still trying to piece together her enigmatic words about his ‘path’.

           She shrugged nonchalantly, “Storms occur fairly regularly out here, so it’s best to be prepared.” Standing up suddenly, she rolled her shoulders back, a strange popping noise emitting from them as she explained, “I should get going. The storm will blow over soon and apparently, no amount of wishful thinking on my part is going to clean out our gutters.”

           Frowning, he recalled the multiple stories of the resort and asked, “That’s a rather steep order of business — I hope you’ll take care while dangling from the roof, sweetheart.”

           She tucked a few blonde tendrils behind her ear, a curiously knowing smile on her lovely face as she told him, “It’s fine — heights have never really been a problem for me.”

Please read and review here:

AO3

FFnet

Read Chapter 2 here.

Read Chapter 3 here.

[goddessofphilosophy]

"Il faut chaud ici, ou bien c'est vous?" 

Hyacinth threw the tissue roll in his direction and they both laughed. He knew she'd laugh. His plan worked and he smiled at the small accomplishment of reducing the tension between them. Placing the tissue roll back in the small veranda table, he walked towards her and placed his arms on the cement railing as well, giving her just the right distance she needed. She has always been sensitive with so-called private bubbles and he didn't forget.

"I always hated it when you speak French in that fake Greek accent of yours." It's a woman language. When they say they hate it, they actually really like it. And he knew she'd say it. It was a beautiful Tuscan landscape, full of sparkling green grapes ready to harvest in a month's time. The clouds were almost hiding in the sky, reflecting the bluest Mediterranean sea, flirting with the purples and oranges of the setting sun. His hectares of vineyard were perfectly lined with moist brown soil. Years ago, he bought the villa for the sole purpose of reminding himself that she always wanted to buy a country home with the same exact view. "You're deep in thought, qual é il problema?" "It's nothing," she tried to smile at him but he understood that it might be too personal to discuss. "I just love it here, like the one I have in Bourdeaux." "So you did buy it, that ancient villa with a winery." "Two years later," she didn't want to say after they visited the place together, then continued, "when the executor of the state also died, the real estate agent called me and I just had to agree with the price. You can't deny it was quite an inheritance. Costa un occhio della testa. And he was like 'C'est ma dernière offre!'," imitating an old man's deep bass voice. She laughed lightly, "It's hard to let the opportunity pass, I might never come across it again." The comical mimicry stunt made him laugh as well. He reminisced the embrassing experience. It was perfect timing when they visited the ancient villa located in the south of France, the executor of estate wasn't aware her late ex-husband bequethed the property to her. Having been divorced for nearly twenty years, she thought he has forgetten about her. They didn't have children of their own, she had been married for nearly fifteen years to her childhood sweetheart in the next town, and she mentioned that they had always been arguing about every little thing. For Hyacinth, it was ineffably romantic. She wanted to buy it there and then, even bargaining with the old woman. C'est trop bon marché un prix pour tous les souvenirs de notre mariage de courte durée mais incroyable dans ces murs, the ex-wife complained. Je ne suis pas d'acheter les souvenirs, je veux que la structure et la terre, she countered. Anthony was laughing his heart out at the scene. In the end, she left her card with the agent instead and begged him to call her once the property's up for sale. He tucked his hands in his pockets, what she said was true and he didn't want to dwell with the reality of it then. Having lost his once in a lifetime chance in a blink of an eye, perhaps he could settle with something lesser than what he originally wanted. So he opted for a change in the subject, "We weren't able to catch up when I saw you at The Raines. It was always hard to compete with your admirers. Raccontami della tua nouva famiglia." Her eyes lit up, "Well, I've adopted two more girls. They're Lucia Henriette and Hyamidalla Irish. Because I thought I could never bear kids of my own. But the heavens gave me Andrei Heinrich. He's nothing like his father. I don't know what I did wrong." He wanted to say, "Deine augen sind wie sterne." However, it was too early for the stars to grace the night sky, especially that there was a storm on its way. What a perfectly wrong timing to build a raincloud, heavens, he thought. But he said, "Boys will always be boys. What is he like?" "Andrei?" Non, l'oumo dei tuai sogni, he debated but then he nodded. "Oh you know, maxed out credit cars, too many girls in his bachelor's pad during friday nights, crying girlfriends who come to me for advice, playing video games the whole day, and basketball leagues," she was shaking her head. Anthony smirked at the description she stated, "That is only to deduce that a rare gem such as you have already been tied down by some really fortunate man. Hopefully, a man who makes better political decisions than Putin." He knew that if there was one thing Hyacinth likes, it's political parallelism. She laughed. "Alexandria told me you got married. What happened though?" "Ah, my ever talkative half sister. Is there anything she won't tell you?" She chuckled heartily. He missed entertaining her like that. When she laughs, he couldn't stop smiling. He never imagined the half sister he had a hard time accepting would introduce him to a goddess. "She wanted me to attend the wedding since I was also in Paris that time. Unfortunately, it's not her call to send the invites. She said it was a very intimate moment." His French-Italian late wife organized such a dreamy and elegant wedding to remember. Pastel pinks and purples filled an atmosphere of a remarkable joyous union. She was the happiest bride, full of energy and hope. The multi-talented singer and composer was loved by her generation, touring around Europe during her teenage and early adult years. Before they got married, she published a book regarding women fighting against cancer. "It was, indeed. It was all her idea, the wedding. She had cancer and we had to move here in Tuscany where she passed away five years later." He remembered how his wife struggled with the disease. He was always at her disposal. There was nothing he wouldn't do to extend her life. Until one day it was just too exhausting for her to fight. She extended her hand and tapped his shoulder, "I'm so sorry. It's just always the good news that I hear from her." "Please don't let my tragedy dampen your mood. Your beautiful mind only deserves the good news." He caressed her hand and mouthed a thank you. They looked at each other for a moment. The only consolation he would want to hear is her successful marriage. He still wanted to make her happy, even when that happiness doesn't include him anymore. "Pray tell life treated you well." She smiled sweetly as an appreciation for his pleasant thoughts, "Thankfully so. Marriage is all about hard work. Sometimes though, he thinks I deserve someone better." And sometimes I feel the same way too, she thought. Where would she find someone better when she already have the best? "You may not know this but a woman of your calibre could leave some men with insecurities to question whether they deserve you or not." He sighed and looked away, "I did." The last two words were almost a whisper, she didn't hear them, "Those are flattering flowery words. Thank you." "I don't do flowery words, Hyacinth. Facts are facts," he smirked. "I suppose you're still the guy who likes precision and accuracy in calculations. How's work lately?" "What can I say? Work is my addiction. And my addiction is my therapy. Once a scientist, always a scientist," he shrugged his shoulders. His work has always fascinated her. But he looked up to her endless salvation of the world endeavors. He loved her mostly for her charity and faith in humanity. "Are you still working in the law firm while managing the family business and The New York Times? You have always been busy but making time for your family seemed to be so effortless." When Andrei Heinrich was given to her as a miracle, she retired from work and embraced motherhood. She passed on the leadership positions to her most trusted colleagues. Coming back to New York City when Andrei was six opened up new doors of opportunity in the academe that she gladly accepted, earning her highly coveted positions as a member of the board of directors of Harvard Law School and The London School of Economics. "Non piú, I've retired and now volunteer for the United Nations. It's been difficult to control the media lately. And donations just wouldn't suffice. I think I've reached the point in my life wherein I need to see the world more. To be the one holding their hand and giving them the help they really need, it's priceless. All the money and success in the world suddenly becomes worthless." "A beauty like yours shouldn't work off camera." He couldn't stop gushing about how beautiful she is. A reason why Hyacinth settled down with someone else: Because she wanted someone to see her past the shell of beauty that will remain unchanged for a very long time. "The family's welfare always comes first. I have no choice. I mean, chie voule vivere per sempre?" He does see her more than just a beauty but he couldn't find the right words and she wanted to hear them. What else was there to prove that you want to spend the rest of your life with one person when the universe doesn't allow you to do so? "Io voglio vivere per sempre," he grinned lopsidedly. With you, he could only reckon.

[starboundfic]

Chapter 18

Archive

-for the record, I do not own the concept of Ekkunar. I’m just borrowing it from a game I’ve played because it’s neat. Not going to say who though, because they have lost my respect.

-heavy references and a reiterated line or few from the first VLD comic ahead.

-there may be some inconsistencies with this and Ch12 regarding the Arrow. I intend to rewrite Ch12 at some point, though I have to get it to stop fighting me first.

Chapter 17 -

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There wasn’t a tracking device on the ship.

Over the course of two days, the seven of them had looked through every single room, the mice had checked the entirety of the ventilation ducts, and the Lions had even done their own separate complete scans—and they’d all come up with nothing.

“Maybe it was just bad timing,” Stan suggested finally. “I mean, they’ve probably been looking for those Blade people anyways. We were just there at the wrong time.”

“That could be it,” Shiro agreed, a sigh in his voice. “But I still don’t want to risk it until we know for sure.”

“So what’re we supposed to do until then?” Jordan asked.

There was a pause, before Coran snapped his fingers. “I think I might have an idea. Princess, mind setting a course for the Karthulian system?”

The princess looked puzzled. “The Karthulian system? But why…” Realization replaced the confusion, and she nodded. “Yes, that would be a good place to start.”

Eva was officially lost. “Wait, what’s…there?” she asked, while they were all on the way to the bridge.

Coran just grinned a bit, saying “Now that would just spoil the surprise!”

Red wasn’t much help either. he had a guess on what the surprise was, but he wasn’t too sure about it; there was a sort of an edge to it though, which had her thinking that what the Lion had in mind was something he wanted to get around to doing eventually.

They didn’t set a course so much as they did wormhole there. Once the blue faded, they were greeted with the sight of maybe one of the weirdest looking planets ever, in that it looked like it was in pieces, with fissures that were both large and deep enough to have an orange glow visible from where they were in space. The surface was mostly green, with streaks of blue and patches of yellow-brown in places—and the pieces that looked like they had halfway floated away from the planet were, of course, almost entirely barren.

“I…have so many questions on how that planet even looks like that,” Koji muttered.

“No one’s certain, actually,” Coran replied chipperly. “Whatever fractured Ekkunar happened long before even my pop-pop was around, and the best guess anyone has for why the pieces haven’t just floated away is the planet’s magnetic fields. It also happens to be home to possibly the largest archival system in the universe…” He paused to bring up some screens, before adding stiltedly “Which currently appears to be in flames.”

Said flames were probably caused by the trio of battlecruisers that were still firing down onto what looked like a city carved right into a forest-covered mountain range.

“Looks like we’ll be giving Ekkunar a good first impression,” Shiro said, and Eva stifled a groan. More fighting. Great. Red gave a weird impression that started off as something like a chiding growl that turned into an awkward purr.

He tried, at least.

And they definitely took the first ship by surprise—or at least, Shiro did, with Black’s jawblade cutting right through the ion-cannon’s barrel. Eva kept her attention firmly on the swarm of fighters that had immediately turned their attention to the Lions.

It lasted a few minutes, ending with the last still-in-one-piece decided it wasn’t worth staying around. “Jordan, think you could use the Blue Lion’s ice cannon to put out those fires?” Shiro asked.

“Uh, maybe?” A pause. “Actually, I think she has a better idea.” With that, Blue dove towards where two waterfalls cascaded into a reservoir, vanishing into the water for a few moments before rocketing back up, tail arced like she was going to fire—but instead of a laser, it was a jet of water.

“Well that worked,” Koji commented once the fires were all out.

“It’s all clear Princess,” Shiro reported.

It made sense that the one clearing large enough for all six ships to land was mobbed almost immediately. “Uh…do we really have to go out there?” Koji asked uncertainly.

“Yes, we do,” Allura replied, her voice having a stern edge to it that had Eva rolling her eyes.

The crowd itself looked more curious than anything, maybe a touch disbelieving, and was definitely a lot quieter than she’d thought it would be.

“…can’t be, can it?” she barely heard one of the watching aliens say.

“Sure looks real,” another said. To the side, she saw Allura go from confident to uncertain in maybe three seconds, and Coran having sort of a pinched look on his face while he scanned the crowd—which promptly gave way to surprised glee when his gaze had gone to where the crowd had abruptly parted.

“Well I’ll be a wabble’s plonk!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms out wide. “Kythylian Mu!”

Eva’s first thought was one of the orphans on Bherna (Wayth, if she remembered right), in that he was definitely the same species—but he was also definitely one of the biggest aliens she had seen so far.

“Coran, Coran the gamblin’ man,” Kythylian greeted amiably, throwing an arm around the Altean. “How long has it been since you came around here?”

“Ah, just short of ten-thousand decaphoebs.”

“Ten-thousand,” he repeated, whistling quietly. “My, my. Where does all that time go.”

…and that had an implication that Eva wasn’t sure made sense. Jordan must’ve picked up on it too, given the face he made before exclaiming “Hold on a second, you two know each other?”

“Do we?” Kythylian repeated, snorting. “I don’t have enough scales for the amount of times I had to get him out of trouble in this quadrant.”

At that, Coran laughed nervously. “Yes, well, that was all a long time ago—now, Kythylian, if I may—this is Princess Allura, and these here are the new paladins: Shiro, Eva, Jordan, Stan, and Koji.”

“So I’ve heard,” the alien nodded to them before looking at Allura. “…you’re the spittin’ image of your parents, y’know that?”

If anyone else noticed the brief flash of pain in her eyes, nothing was said. “I’ve been told that a few times, yes. It’s good that we finally got to meet—my father told me stories about you.”

“I bet he did.” And then he looked at the rest of them studiously for a bit, before saying “Kinda scrawny, ain’t they?”

“Wha’—hey!” Eva retorted before Jordan could say something probably along the same lines.

“Well, they just started not too long ago,” Coran said, a touch defensively. “They haven’t gone through the full training regimen yet.”

Kythylian gave him a look. “Wait, don’t tell me—you wanna bring ‘em through the planet run?”

“Yes, actually!”

Now the alien grimaced. “I got some bad news for you then. Zarkon’s got all five of them on lockdown, ever since that stunt you all pulled at his central command.”

Coran’s face faltered, a delicate “Ah,” being his response.

“Yeah. Now, I sure as heck don’t like takin’ trips out to places for no reason, so here’s the deal: you all get free reign in the capital today. No tabs, no nothin’. It’s the least I can offer in return for clearing up that disagreement I had with the new commander for this quadrant. Now if you’ll excuse me, I was bein’ pulled in about eight directions a couple doboshes ago. Lots of important places were just on fire an’ all.”

With that, he turned to head towards an intact road with a lazy wave, the remnants of the crowd that had steadily dispersed taking the cue to return to whatever they’d been doing.

“So uh,” Stan started, voice a little stilted. “If you knew that guy from before, wouldn’t that make him over ten-thousand years old?”

“The Mudranni can actually live well beyond forty-thousand decaphoebs, if they are particularly lucky,” Allura remarked, earning stunned stares. Forty-thousand?!

Coran, meanwhile, had run a hand down his face with a groan. “Of course the traditional grounds would be watched,” he muttered.

“So what exactly is that planet run you mentioned?” Shiro asked.

“Yendailian, Bluve, Niloofar, Griezian Sur, and Talwar-Six,” the adviser listed off in response. “Those five planets have some of the most extreme environmental conditions in the known universe. The original paladins used them as a sort of training course.”

Red had gone full reminiscence mode as soon as Coran had named the first planet; Eva had the impression that Yendailian not only had a lot of volcanos, but was also what Red would consider a vacation spot. As for everything else: “It sounds fun,” she commented.

“Maybe for you,” Jordan said tightly, face pale.

“Oh come on Jordan, you’re getting better at it, right?”

“Well—yeah, but—!”

“It’s not like we can go out to any of them right now, what with Zarkon watching them,” Coran cut in, looking pensive for a moment before adding “That, and now that I think about it, we tended to have to wait for Bluve’s conditions to be favorable anyways. But no matter—how about we hit the archives instead?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The archives themselves was something like a library crossed with a museum, actually, complete with a front desk headed by three gray-skinned humanoids that had cyan-colored geometric lines (tattoos maybe?) crossing their arms and faces, a crest of colorful feathers on their heads, and bright-green eyes; native Ekkuni, according to Coran.

Jordan wasn’t expecting one of them to actually squeal when she realized who they were, though, before the one dressed like they were in charge could even finish his introductory spiel on the place’s rules.

Beyond that…it wasn’t that the place was too boring, it was more of the fact that there wasn’t really anything for him to do there. Eva, Stan, and Koji were off looking for anything they could use to draft up a new engine for the Arrow, he didn’t see where Allura went—probably to do some diplomatic thing, and Coran…well, Jordan didn’t see where Coran had gone off to. Or Shiro, for that matter.

So he went back outside.

The glaring detail of one of the planet’s floating chunks being visible way off in the distance aside, Ekkunar was kind of like those pictures of high-altitude rainforests on Earth. Unfortunately, also like rainforests on Earth, it probably rained here a lot—like now, for instance. He was relatively close enough to where the Lions were when the downpour started to duck under Blue for cover, at least.

Blue herself seemed pretty stuck in memory-mode, offering an idea of what Bluve was like before Jordan could actually ask: lots and lots of snow with near-constant blizzards. Not something Jordan could consider an ideal place to be, but it seemed to be pretty high on her favorite-places list. Well—maybe we could go there one day. Just to check it out.

Blue purred in response, before pausing and directing his attention toward some movement at the base of one of the stairways cut into a slope. “Figures the weather goes sour after all of that,” Kythylian commented, coming to sit by Blue’s other paw. “’Least it’ll put the rest of the little fires out, right?”

“I guess,” Jordan replied awkwardly.

The alien chuckled, taking his hat off to shake it a few times, sending droplets flying back into the deluge. “Don’t worry, I don’t bite. Got a question, if ya don’t mind.”

“Go ahead.”

“Where’re you and the rest of ‘em from? I’ve been all over most of the charted universe, but I can’t say I’ve seen anything like you, aside from Alteans.”

He really should’ve seen that question coming sooner than later. And just saying Earth probably wouldn’t cut it, either, which means he had to think about how to answer it. “Well, uh…we’re from the same galaxy Ōban’s in?”

Before he could start berating himself for making the response sound like another question, Kythylian made some sort of clicking sound. “That explains it. Ya need all sorts of paperwork to even get an idea on what lives in that galaxy nowadays. And don’t even get me started on the black market that came out of that quiznakking blockade. Don’t get me wrong, gettin’ things to sell legally on this side of it is worth a pretty piece of GAC, but when somone gets it into their head to do it illegally, they really go out of their way to hide when they do it.”

Jordan thought about that comment for a moment. “So you’re like a space cop?”

“Ehh…” Kythylian made a so-so gesture. “Could call it that, I guess. Some quintants it’s a more of a headache than anythin’ else, but it’s my headache.” He paused, glancing up. “Got a few mixed feelings at seeing the Lions again, honestly. How much has Coran told you about Alfor and the rest?”

“Barely anything, actually,” Jordan said, feeling apprehensive about the maybe-opportunity.

“Huh…can’t fault him, really. Probably still feels like yesterday to him.” The alien looked distant, before asking “Y’all at least know who the old Black Paladin was, right?”

“Yeah,” Jordan drew the word out, feeling himself scowling more than thinking about it. “Found out at the last possible second.”

Kythylian grunted. “Lemme guess—he’s still got the bayard?”

“As far as Eva saw, yeah.”

“And that’d be the itty-bitty one, right?”

Jordan opened his mouth to make a retort on her behalf, and then considered the fact that Kythylian was definitely taller than Rick at full height.

“Looks like the rain’s clearin’ up a bit,” Kythylian said abruptly, glancing at the sky. “There’s a thing or two I have to talk to Coran about. He’s still at the archives, right?”

“I think so.”

The alien stood, stretching a bit, taking a few steps out in the direction of the path back up towards the building, before stopping again, turning to say, “Y’know—I don’t wanna steal Coran’s thunder or anything, but if you want to know what the old guard looked like, there’s a holo-display doohickey in the central room.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“I think this might work, but…” Stan said finally, trailing off. To the side, Koji was frowning slightly, staring at the draft they’d put together for the possible new engine for their star-racer.

In theory, it looked beautiful. But in reality?

There was simply no room in the Arrow II as it was now to even put the necessary equipment for converting the crystal’s energy into something useable, which would mean having to attach an extra compartment somewhere onto the ship—which by itself was dangerous.

On top of that, the fuel tanks would become nothing more than dead weight. And that was saying nothing about how in the world they were supposed to overhaul the hyperdrive.

“Honestly, I don’t think we can even take most of those things out of the Arrow in the first place,” Koji admitted, shoulders slumping. “It’s all too integrated.”

“So what do we do, then?”

“I’m not—”

“Couldn’t we just build another one?”

It took all of Stan’s willpower to not curse at Eva’s sudden words, having not heard her come up to look at the draft too. “Uh, well, we could,” Koji said, stuttering a bit. “But to do that, we’d…huh.” He blinked, brow furrowing. “Actually, we might be better off just doing that.”

Build another one? Stan repeated silently, scowling for a moment—that’d equate to just giving up on the Arrow II. Then again, they did just come to the conclusion that they wouldn’t be able to apply most of the upgrades they had planned out to begin with.

That, and knowing how poorly the materials the Arrow II was made of held up against everything else used in the galaxy, or at least that they’d seen back on Alwas…

There was a sudden commotion from the second floor that jolted him out of his thoughts, sounding like something falling over followed by Coran shouting “Sorry!”

Stan kept the glance up level for a few moments before looking back at the draft with a sigh. “Okay, so maybe that would be the easier thing to do. But where would we even get everything?”

Koji shrugged. “We could probably get a few more things from those defunct shuttles, but not much.” No taking parts from the Arrow II, in other words. Stan wasn’t going to argue.

Time to ask Coran if there were any other storerooms with things they could use, then.

Shiro saw him coming up the stairs first, stopping short in whatever he was saying, which got Coran to turn—he barely got a glimpse of a somber look before it was replaced with a cheery smile. “Ah, Stan! Did you need something?”

“Uh,” he mumbled, feeling like he’d just interrupted something important. “It—It can wait.”

“Don’t worry, Shiro and I had just finished up drafting the new training regimen. Don’t want a repeat of…uh.” He coughed, and Stan had to try extremely hard to suppress a flinch when he realized what exactly he had been about to bring up.

Shiro side-eyed Coran, before asking “Has Jordan come back yet?”

“He went out?”

“So did the princess, I think,” Coran said, looking thoughtfully back down toward the entrance to the building. “Ah wait, there he is! With Kythylian, too!” I guess it’s a good thing we got that draft finished.

Coran paused when Kythylian made some hand gestures at him, nodding almost imperceptibly before heading downstairs and vanishing off into another room with him. Jordan, on the other hand, looked around the room a bit before settling on looking at the darkly-colored small desk toward the back of the central area of the building.

Eva got to him first. “Hey Jordan, guess what? We’re going to build another star-racer!”

“That’s…neat,” he said awkwardly, glancing up at Stan with a confused look for a second, before looking back to the first thing, then to the side at the main desk. “So uh, how does that holo-thing work?”

“Is that what it is?” She turned to look back over her shoulder, curiosity written all over her face. “I’m not sure—but I bet we can find out!”

Have to wait for Coran to get back anyways, Stan thought, shaking his head before following the kids. Eva was already making a face at the controls, which looked a bit like what was on the castleship’s bridge, if simplified by maybe half.

It didn’t help that he still couldn’t read the language it was coded in—Ekkuni, probably—but Yellow could, dubiously letting him know what keys to push to bring up a list.

There was a span of two seconds before Jordan hit another key, and the only warning Stan had was Yellow doing the mental equivalent of taking a deep breath before the platform in front of the desk lit up.

It took a bit for him to realize just what he was looking at, in that the first thing he recognized was what looked like the hologram of Allura’s father, if a few decades (or the Altean equivalent of that) younger. The second thing were what he and the three others were wearing. (There was one missing, but Stan couldn’t fault whoever put this together in leaving the last one out.)

“Is that…?” Eva started uncertainly.

“Yeah,” Jordan mumbled, blinking. “I mean, same armor.”

“What are you guys looking at—oh.” Koji cut himself off with a stifled flinch, maybe from however the Green Lion reacted. “I guess it’d make sense for a place like this to have something like…this,” he said slowly, coming up to look at the screen, Shiro a bit behind him.

Stan had a suspicion about Alfor having been one of the first Lion pilots, but this confirmed it—and while he couldn’t be too sure, he also had a feeling that Eva might’ve guessed at it a little more specifically beforehand.

Details were a little hard to read, given the whole blue-hologram detail, but Yellow’s first pilot had been a big guy, at least Rick’s height.

Same went with Green’s being the shortest of the four and…well, kind of reminding him of a deer in some ways, and Blue’s looking like a humanoid something between a shark and a manta ray, obviously partially aquatic.

Yellow had gone about as distant as…as Coran looked right now, whereas Kythylian just made a huffing sort of sigh before saying “Still feels like it was yesterday, don’t it.”

Stan was pretty sure he and Koji hit the off key at the same time, with Jordan stuttering a bit, though Coran just shook his head with a sad smile. “No, no, it’s fine. I’m honestly not sure if we have any pictures of them on the castle.”

“I already knew about Allura’s dad being Red’s first pilot,” Eva started hesitantly. “But what about the other three?”

“Blaytz, Trigel, and Gyrgan,” was the response, Coran’s gaze going more towards the ceiling. His voice wasn’t quite resigned, more reminiscent with a touch of weariness.

“You said something about Trigel being the one to come up with the blindfold-dive,” Koji pointed out.

Kythylian guffawed, the noise startling all of them and earning a glare from one of the archive’s staff. “That sounds like a thing she’d do. She wasn’t nearly as bad as Alfor though.”

Somehow that conversation resulted in Kythylian corralling them all to a nearby restaurant, before he and Coran really started going on about things the old paladins had gotten up to.

It was when they were maybe halfway through a story involving a case of mistaken identity that happened on some planet called Veldin involving a rogue mercenary and a politician that Stan got his second scare of the day, in hearing Allura say “Is that what really happened there?” from behind him. She was smiling, though there was a pinched look to it.

“Well, uh…yes, it was,” Coran stuttered a little at first, before going fully resigned, and then curious. “I was wondering where you were.”

The smile went drier than a desert. “It occurred to me that we likely wouldn’t have any use for the tax records in the castle’s archives.”

“Ah, no we wouldn’t.”

Koji, ever the perceptive one, picked up on the impending mood switch and changed the topic back to its original track. “It kind of helps, hearing about things like that. That they messed up now and then too.” It sounded about as awkward as he looked (not that the others would probably be able to see, but Stan could kind of feel it) but it was a sentiment Stan agreed with.

Kythylian waved one hand a bit in a gesture that lost context probably between species. “Kid, that’s all heroes are in the end. Some story could start as some guy clearing out a nest of yeilphars and somehow turn into him taking out a pack of Zarellian hellcats without a scratch.”

“Is that something that actually happened?” Eva asked.

There was a snort alongside a smile and fond headshake. “Maybe. Look, give it a few phoebs, and I’ll probably be hearin’ stories about you kids that won’t include all the panickin’ and improvisin’.” A glance up at a clock on the wall got a mumbled curse. “Look, I gotta jet back to Mudranni or the missus is gonna want my head on a pike, but I got one last warning for y’all.

“That little show you put on at Zarkon’s central upped you to top-priority public-enemy status everywhere the empire’s got a strong foothold. You three should still be safe in civilian areas so long as you’re not in armor,” he gestured at Eva, Koji, and Stan. “You, they got a good shot of, so you’re gonna have to watch it everywhere there might be a bounty hunter,” a gesture at Jordan there, who gulped visibly. “And you especially have to watch it.” He leveled a stare at Shiro. “Gladiatorial matches get broadcast.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Coran seemed way too eager to help in planning out the theoretical Whizzing Arrow III more, but that just added to the amount of distraction the activity was to the whole intergalactic-public-enemy status they had now.

That definitely wasn’t a thing Koji would’ve liked to have heard, but he supposed it was better to have heard it then in the form of a warning then finding it out the hard way. Definitely better than finding out the hard way, he corrected himself with a small shudder, briefly glancing back at the Arrow II.

It would be considered a very early retirement for a star-racer, but then again, the Whizzing Arrow line weren’t meant to be star-racers in the first place.

…and it didn’t occur to Koji until that moment that he’d gotten used to the Green Lion showing interest and/or giving input on random thoughts until it didn’t happen. She’d seemed distant ever since seeing the holograms, actually.

It was strange, finally having both a name and face to put to Green’s first pilot instead of having to just piece together little bits of information.

To the side, he saw Stan look up suddenly, before saying “Remember that…weird thing that happened on Bherna? While we were fighting that thing?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I think I know what that was now.” That statement was considerably quieter, with his face paling slightly. Koji caught on after a few seconds.

In retrospect…it made sense. A frankly-horrifying amount of sense. Shiro’s knowledge in close-quarters fighting had to have come from somewhere, and he knew from seeing firsthand that he was on a completely different level than where Jordan was at. (That was saying nothing in comparing him to the rest of them. Koji was actively dreading the next time Allura threw the robot at them.)

Shiro had taken Kythylian’s words with only a barely-noticeable flinch, a shudder felt mentally, and was either still on the bridge or maybe on the training deck.

He actually wasn’t sure about what Shiro did during their downtime, so that was probably another thing they had to work on fixing. “Think he’d mind helping out with all of this?” he asked.

Stan shrugged a little, before saying “I was gonna ask the same thing, except with Jordan.”

Koji thought about that for a second. Jordan had disappeared pretty quick once the two of them and Eva had got started with looking for references on how to put together the type of engine primarily seen in this part of the universe, but he honestly hadn’t really thought about it until now. (There was a brief moment of thinking back to that awkward conversation on Arus.)

“Well, he’d probably want to help with getting the turret put together?” It was a guess, honestly. And that was another thing—the turret wouldn’t need its own battery anymore.

Stan muttered that same thought, before asking “Where are those two, anyways?”

“Uh…”

“I think they’re with Shiro on the observation deck,” Coran piped up, reminding Koji that he was still there. Suspended up near the ceiling to get at a series of wires, yes, but still there.

That wasn’t as surprising as Koji felt it should’ve been, at least in the case of Eva. She seemed to almost have a sixth sense on knowing when someone needed help.

Coran yelped alongside Allura’s voice suddenly being on the intercom: “Coran, I think one of the castle’s barrier-emitters was damaged during the fight for the Balmera.”

There was a groan from the adviser. “Roger that, I’ll put it on top of the list.”

Koji exchanged a look with Stan, who nodded a bit, before asking “How damaged is it?”

Coran stilled. “Ah, you’ll have to ask the princess. The castle’s hull is pretty sturdy, so it probably just has to be reset.” A pause. “Oh, I see what you’re asking. If you could do that, it’d be appreciated.”

“It’s nothing,” Koji said, standing up. “Where is it, anyways?”

“You’ll have to ask the princess. There’s quite a few of them. You may as well get suited up on the way there, since they’re outside the castle and, well, we’re in the vacuum of space at the moment.”

In retrospect, he should’ve seen that coming too.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

If anyone’s wondering, the offscreen conversation between Coran and Kythylian can be summed up as “I don’t want to hear that any of those kids ended up getting killed because of something you chose not to tell them.”

[cooperjones2020]

What’s Past is Prologue, What to Come

The first in a series of interrelated vignettes from Jughead Jones’s obsession with Betty Cooper. Can be read with Marked, part 1 and part 2.

Starts in childhood and will go partway through season 1. If I don’t get bored.

Dark!Jug, Creepy!Jug, Stalker!Jug, generally Sociopathic!Jug

TW for implied abuse, and, as always, gratuitous Shakespeare references

(ao3-->http://archiveofourown.org/works/11394858/chapters/25519734)

The day he met Betty was the day he discovered the monster in his chest.

He stared at her through the boughs of the shrub he’d been sitting in for the last five minutes.

Now that the sun had sunk below the eaves of the house, the underside of the boxwood hedge was dark and cool. The shiny leaves brushed against him, tickling his skin and snagging on his hat. He heard Archie, still counting, through the open bedroom window, but he knew the other boy wouldn’t find him here. Even then Jughead Jones knew Archie Andrews wasn’t very smart. For starters, he hadn’t actually meant that Archie should count to a hundred when he said count to a hundred. Archie kept messing up thirty-three and thirty-four and having to go back.

But that was okay. Archie always had new comic books and he didn’t mind sharing his legos. Plus, when they went over to the Andrews for dinner, there was always enough for seconds. Usually thirds too.

In his green and dappled fortress, Jughead hunkered down for a nice quiet wait. He had a dead frog in his pocket that he’d picked up on the walk over.

Then the gate opened and what he could only describe as a cartoon character come to life walked through. The little girl had curled blonde pigtails, a stiff pink dress, and saddle shoes with ruffled socks. She was the cleanest thing he’d ever seen. She actually glowed.

She also had a tupperware container.

Jughead debated whether or not to come out. On the one hand, Archie was almost done counting and if he came out, he’d almost certainly lose. On the other hand, if he didn’t come out he might not get to eat whatever was in the tupperware. He’d already eaten two hot dogs but he also knew he’d eaten the end of the cereal at their house that morning.

Then the back door opened and Archie ran out, his orange head almost as strong a beacon as her yellow one. “Betty, you came!”

“Of course I did, Archie! And look, my mom sent us brownies!”

Brownies. Okay he was coming out.

He emerged from his crouch in the hedge and the girl—Betty—looked startled.

“Wow, that was a good hiding place, Jug! I never would have found you.”

Jughead shrugged at Archie, but stayed in his place in the bush, his hand around the frog in his pocket.

“Come meet Betty! She’s my new neighbour and she has a sister and a cat and her parents are putting a swimming pool in their yard!”

The girl rolled her eyes. “Archie, I said that was a secret!”

“Jughead’s my best friend, Betty. Secrets don’t count with best friends.” Jughead didn’t think that was true. He was pretty sure there were things his dad hadn’t told Mr. Andrews. Like for instance, he was pretty sure Mr. Andrews didn’t know about the stuff his dad brought home from work. But this didn’t seem to be the moment to point it out.

She moved forward. “Hi Jughead, I’m Betty. Do you want a brownie?”

“Yes.” He stepped out of the shrub and reached up a hand to make sure his hat was on tightly.

He ate three brownies and drank a glass of milk while Archie and Betty argued about what they should play. Archie insisted girls couldn’t play with GI Joes. Betty insisted he was wrong. GI Joe looked exactly like Ken so if Archie wouldn’t share a GI Joe with her, she’d just go bring one of her Ken dolls over. And maybe she’d bring Barbie too.

Archie’s eyes widened in horror. Jughead watched their exchange. The sheer speed with which words left her mouth was disorienting. He didn’t think he’d ever heard either of his parents talk that fast. Or that much.

But he was also fascinated by her hands. She kept making fists and releasing them. They curled so tightly he knew they had to be hurting her. But she kept them by her sides. She never raised them like his father sometimes did late at night.

Archie called him back to the present. “Jug, tell her a Ken doll is not the same as a GI Joe. Ken is for girls.”

Jughead had never seen a Ken doll, but he also didn’t want Betty to leave. So he sided with Betty. Archie only looked hurt for a moment before shrugging and running upstairs for the basket of toys.

He didn’t understand why he couldn’t stop staring at her.

He watched her from his place to her left on the grass. For all Archie’s complaining, as soon as they’d started playing, he’d let Betty take charge of the game. She was currently collecting rocks from around her and ordering Archie to fetch extra food. The GI Joes were going on a stakeout in the desert.

She turned big green eyes on him and asked if he wanted to help her build their fort. He scooted a little bit closer.

When her mother called her home, a sharp Elizabeth traveling over the tall, white fence, Betty had looked scared. Immediately, Jughead had a vision of her mom as a fire-breathing dragon. Or as the evil stepmother wanting to lock Betty away in a tower. Something black and foreign clawed its way up his throat and for a moment his vision tunneled. The thing roared in his ears. Jughead had never wanted to play knight before, but he wanted to protect Betty Cooper. He wanted a sword to swing and charge and whack at her mother.

He watched her slip back through the gate and into her own yard. Through the slats of the fence, he could see her mother yelling, saying things like You knew what time you had to be home and where is my tupperware and how did you get grass stains on your dress. Betty stared at her shoes. Jughead wished again for a sword. He wished the thing inside him could come out. Archie kept playing with his GI Joe.

That night, when Archie fell asleep, Jughead rolled out of his sleeping bag and crept to the windowsill. Her curtains were open. A nightlight illuminated a tiny figure hunched on the bed. If he didn’t breathe, he could hear the strangled sound of her crying.

Without thinking, he pulled the head off the GI Joe that had been on the floor next to him.

He wanted to hit whoever made Betty cry. He wanted to hit Betty so she’d keep crying.

When his mother left for Toledo the first time, taking a black eye and a ten month-old Jellybean with her, when his father said he was too young to be left alone and dropped him off at the Andrews for a couple hours that turned into five days, Betty Cooper baked him cookies.

By then, he was used to her feeding him.  The instances in which Betty appeared at the Andrews house unaccompanied by baked goods were few and far between. She seemed to use them to unlock the magic door that kept her imprisoned. She used them cut a path in the tangled forest that isolated her tower. She used them like an excuse so her mother would let her come over.

The times Archie wasn’t home, the times his parents would fight and Jughead would sneak his way past them or out his window, and would run and run and climb until he could fling himself into the treehouse in the corner of Archie’s yard, Betty’s blonde head would appear, quickly followed a small plastic bag or a tupperware container. When he was really lucky, she’d also bring a sandwich.

On the third day of Gladys and FP’s absence, when Jughead was beginning to wonder if he was an orphan, Betty had arrived.

Betty told him these cookies were special. Polly, older than them and so infinitely wise, had helped bake them. Archie was made to promise not to eat any. They had chocolate chips but no walnuts, which her mom normally put in. They had reese’s pieces. They had pretzels. And they were as big as two of his hands.

He ate four while Betty took off her coat.

As usual, he noted how clean she was. He wasn’t sure if pink was her favourite color — he’d never asked her — but she sure wore it a lot. Today, though, she had a white gauze bandage wrapped around her right forearm.

Polly the infinitely wise hadn’t been able to find the oven mitts. “So I used a dish towel, only it didn’t work as good. So when my hands got too hot — well I’m not sure cause it happened so fast — but I think I must have tried to balance the tray on my arm instead and then I burned myself.” Tears sprung to her eyes and her lower lip wobbled. “Juggie, it hurt.”

The black thing in his chest, the monster, shifted in its cage. He hugged Betty, because that’s what you were supposed to do. That’s what Mrs. Andrews had done the day before when Jughead had stubbed his toe and said a word that made Archie turn as red as his hair.

Betty sighed and turned her face into his neck.

“What if I sign it? We can color it and draw pictures.”

“It’s not a cast, Juggie.”

“So? It looks the same. And then when you look at it, you can remember how much fun coloring is instead of how much it hurt.” She looked at him the way baby Jellybean sometimes did.

Betty had been right, though. A gauze bandage was not the same as a cast. He’d picked a red marker and Betty had picked a pink one — maybe that really was her favorite color — but soon after they started, the colors began to bleed together, and Betty winced and then she started to cry for real. Something darker than the red marker reached up and swallowed the letters of their names.

Mrs. Andrews wasn’t mad. Mrs. Andrews was never mad. Jughead had never even heard her yell. She just took Betty into the bathroom and sat her on the toilet and pulled out a first aid kit.

Jughead hovered in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot. His eyes bugged out when she unwrapped the bandage.

A red, shiny patch as big as a baseball covered the inside of Betty’s forearm. But in the middle of that, old, brown blood had crusted, and something yellow and oozing seeped around it. The red of the fresh blood flowed in and through the the raised yellow bits, making tracks like water between tiles. Tiny blisters ringed the whole mess. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from it.

It was made up of brighter versions of the same colors Betty’s fists made when she clenched them.

But soon enough, Mary had it rewrapped, with a fresh layer of neosporin under the bandage. Betty smiled at him through the droplets that clung to her eyelashes.

“It’s probably time for you to go home now, Betty. We don’t want your mom to be mad.”

“Okay,” said Betty in a small voice. She hugged Jughead and ran out.

When Betty left, Jughead retreated to the treehouse with his cookies. Mr. and Mrs. Andrews had been making Archie leave him alone unless he said he wanted company. He didn’t.

He’d discovered he could see into Betty’s room. She’d forgotten her Nancy Drew binoculars the week before and he could use them to see through her window to the mirror above her dresser. And then he could usually see her sitting on her bed. It wasn’t as good as the view from Archie’s window, but it was good enough.

Jughead took the red and yellow markers out of his pocket. He used his right arm to draw on his left.

When it had been nine days, FP returned. He smelled and his beard had grown in and Jughead was pretty sure he was wearing the same clothes. Mr. Andrews had given him a look, a look Jughead had noticed passing between the two men increasingly often, but ultimately, Jughead had been bundled into his coat and sent back to the trailer park.

He went inside but his dad stopped to sit on the steps. When Jughead came back to check on him a while later, he had fallen asleep. Jughead sidled around to his front. There was a small, familiar lump in FP’s front shirt pocket. He reached in and removed the lump gingerly, then snuck back inside with it clutched in his hand. Curled up in his bed with his back to the door, he cupped a palm around the lighter and flicked the flame on and off.

[meticulousfox-theparadox]

DO ALL OF THEM MWAHAHA

Omg. Thanks you evil anon. 😂😂

1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk?

I always add more milk than cereal, and it makes me so sad.

2: do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day?

I actually freaking love it. ngl.

3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books?

I sometimes just random strings/ribbons I find, or like a hair tie. But this one time I used bobby pins.

4: how do you take your coffee/tea?

Coffee: I love diabetes with my coffee. (I love a lot of sugar tbh) which is like so bad for me, but whatevs. Tea: uhh I just drink it???

5: are you self-conscious of your smile?

Very self conscious, I hate it. But I show it because I’m generally pretty happy.

6: do you keep plants?

No, but I would love to have plants! It would be fun to own a garden.

7: do you name your plants?

I would name them if I had them!

8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings?

I write poems honestly.

9: do you like singing/humming to yourself?

All the freaking time. I love singing tbh.

10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach?

I switch between my stomach and my side. But mostly my stomach tbh.

11: what’s an inner joke you have with your friends?

1-800-DrugFlab. It’s a looooong story. 😂😂😂😂

12: what’s your favorite planet?

Oooo, that has to be Saturn. I just love how it’s a gaseous planet and that gravitational pull of debris that creates it’s rings is pretty freaking tiiiight. In my opinion.

13: what’s something that made you smile today?

Recieving a phone call from a said awesome person. 💕

14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like?

It would look amazing. Tapestrys, christmas lights, and nature paintings everywhere! And soft couches and chairs. With pretty rugs. 😍

15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is!

The largest asteroid ever recorded is a mammoth piece of space rock named Ceres.

The asteroid is almost 600 miles in diameter. It’s by far the largest in the asteroid belt and accounts for a whole third of the belt’s mass. The surface area is approximately equal to the land area of India or Argentina. It’s so big, there’s actually some debate over whether to refer to it as a dwarf planet instead of an asteroid, even if it has mostly asteroid-like qualities.

(Ayyy we all learned something new today.)

16: what’s your favorite pasta dish?

That’s so hard, because I love all pasta. But I guess my favorite has to be chicken Alfredo.

17: what color do you really want to dye your hair?

I REALLY want to do a black to greyish/white ombre. Because I think I would look so cute with it.

18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up.

It was my first year of high school/secondary school. And I was rocking in one of the chairs, I fell back and as I fell, I turned off the front classroom lights which in a way created a spotlight for me when I landed on the ground with a big bang. I was so freaking embarrassed, but my friends found it hilarious.

19: do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it?

I don’t necessarily keep a journal or anything. But on my phone I like to go into my notes and write poems and stuff. Nothing too fancy or post worthy though.

20: what’s your favorite eye color?

I love light coloured eyes tbh. Seeing as mine are brown. I adore blue and green. But blue is my 100% favorite.

21: talk about your favorite bag, the one that’s been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces.

My red backpack I got like almost five years ago. It’s my favorite and I had it through high school and I still use it now when I go sleep at a friend’s house. lol

22: are you a morning person?

Not really. I prefer the night time more.

23: what’s your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations?

I personally just love to listen to music, play video games, or just talk on the phone with people that mean something to me.

24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets?

Of course. And he knows who he is. (:

25: what’s the weirdest place you’ve ever broken into?

Uhhhh, my friend’s interested house to plant a vaccuum cleaner in his closet. For his birthday. Annnnnd like I never went there before that day annnnnnd he’s also my general manager at work. Sooo. Lol.

26: what are the shoes you’ve had for forever and wear with every single outfit?

That has to be my black vans. I wear them to work every day too.

27: what’s your favorite bubblegum flavor?

I really don’t chew gum tbh.

28: sunrise or sunset?

I personally love the sunset.

29: what’s something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing?

Sing to me and play guitar. (:

30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared?

Oh hell yeah, more times that I can count tbh.

31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks.

I wear mismatch socks. With either Disney villians, Harry Potter, or Pokemon on them. I hate sleeping with socks on ngl.

32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends.

Uhhh, I remember one time we got super drunk at a friends house. We were playing fuck the dealer. Where like you had to guess the card on hand. You had to tries and if you didn’t get it, you had to take the number of that card, in shots. We were so gone, and then after that we just played music, ate taco bell and chilled. (My 3 A.M. stories are usually just drinking or drug related so. Lol)

33: what’s your fave pastry?

Danishes. Cheese or cherry or even blueberry. Mmmmm.

34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it?

I had a plush dog that I named Clark and I gave him away to my friend recently because he was moving away from me.

35: do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often?

Uhhhh noooo. I do not. Lol

36: which band’s sound would fit your mood right now?

Honestly, EDM artist fit my mood more than bands tbh. 😂😂

37: do you like keeping your room messy or clean?My room is mostly clean besides like clothes on my bed sometimes. But that’s the worst of it.

38: tell us about your pet peeves!

Dishes in the sink, interruption during my favorite part of a song, video game, book, ect. And over neediness.

39: what color do you wear the most?

That’s so hard, cause I wear a lot of colour. I used to wear a lot of black, but I kind of grew out of that. The only time I wear like a lot of black is for work. Hahah. I guess I wear blue a lot though??

40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what’s it’s story? does it have any meaning to you?

My gold rose ring that I always wear on my right ring finger. My dad got it for my birthday last year. And it just means a lot to me.

41: what’s the last book you remember really, really loving?

The Fallen by Thomas E. Sniegoski

42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it!

There’s this freaking coffee shop downtown of where I am! And I can’t remember for the life of me what it was called. But they have the best chai tea lattes and scones. Like omg. 😍

43: who was the last person you gazed at the stars with?

My friend Cydnie like two months ago. We traveled to this quiet spot near the water where we could see the big bridge of the city and see all the lights of the bridge reflecting on the water, and the stars were so bright, even with the light pollution.

44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything?

Right now tbh. I honestly love my life and everything/everyone that is in it. (:

45: do you trust your instincts a lot?

Oh god, yes. My gut never steers me wrong.

46: tell us the worst pun you can think of.

I’m a situational pun person, so you only get one. From the last post. (;

47: what food do you think should be banned from the universe?

Brussle sprouts. They smell horrible and should fuck off. (Sorrynotsorry) lol

48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today?

Fucking Spiders, I still can’t handle them. It’s such an irrational fear that causes me to hyperventilate. 😅

49: do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought?

Records. The last record bought was a Mastodon album. Once More ‘Round the Sun, to be exact.

50: what’s an odd thing you collect?

Not odd but plush animals.

51: think of a person. what song do you associate with them?

Doses & Mimosas. ✌

52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far?

YEAH BOIIIIIII

53: have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them?

I looooooooove them. Bettlejuice is bae though.

54: who’s the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face?

One of my friends at work, I was very concerned. ):

55: what’s the most dramatic thing you’ve ever done to prove a point?

Put myself in awkward situations which calls a lot of attention to myself. (That’s also funny because I comically prove points)

56: what are some things you find endearing in people?

Geniune emotions, intelligence, good humour. I find people that just embrace their weirdness and what makes them so very endearing.

57: go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics?

Honestly? It made me extremely happy. And I definitely reenact the lyrics, Every. Damn. Time.

58: who’s the wine mom and who’s the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why?

I’m the wine mom. Because I love wine firstly and because I’m all loopy and come up with stupid but silly ideas for fun. Plus, I’m like super over caring and giggly intoxicated.

Vodka aunt? Oh man, that has to be Matt. He gets so fucking queenie while drunk. And he even goes overboard and gets to the point where he can barely walk. I love him though, he’s hilarious.

59: what’s your favorite myth?

Vampires. Because low key, I would love to be one if that was even a possibility.

60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves?

I love poetry. I have too many favorites tbh.

61: what’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever given? the stupidest one you’ve ever received?

Oh god, I can’t really think of one. On both ends.

62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind?

Uh not really but if I did, I would drink Orange or Apple juice.

63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be?

Ehhh I just leave them be tbh. I’m really not fussy about it unless there’s a chance of them getting damaged. Then I freak out.

64: what color is the sky where you are right now?

Blue and the sun is out very brightly.

65: is there anyone you haven’t seen in a long time who you’d love to hang out with?

There are many friends that I miss dearly, and I would love to see them all again.

66: what would your ideal flower crown look like?

Multicolored, vibrant and just free.

67: how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel?

At peace honestly. I love when it rains and I love gloomy weather a lot.

68: what’s winter like where you live?

Not as cool as I wish it was. It snowed here once, and it was just an inch of freaking snow. Which is lameee. But like it’s humid here so it’s weird when the temperature drops and rises. Along with it being so bipolar here.

69: what are your favorite board games?

I always loved Candy Land for whatever reason. It’s the simplest game and a fast playing game. But I guess that’s why I love it. The simplest things make me happy.

70: have you ever used a ouija board?

Naaaaaah. And I really don’t plan on it. Call me what you may, but I don’t want to attract any negative energy in my life.

71: what’s your favorite kind of tea?

I love green tea.

72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you’ll forget it?Depends on what the information is, but for the most part I have a decent memory.

73: what are some of your worst habits?

I have a bad habit of not brushing my hair every day. My hair is freaking curly and when I brush it, it gets all frizzy. It just doesn’t work. But I regret it when I brush it after a shower the next day.

74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns.

Short, coloured hair, absolutely hilarious, EDM lover, chill af, loved by most, knows how to have a good time, and a really kind heart.

75: tell us about your pets!

I have a German Shepard, name Attila and he is fucking adorable. And huge.

76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t?

I should probably do some laundry, but I really can’t be bothered to do so.

77: pink or yellow lemonade?

Omg pink all the way! I’ll settle for yellow if that’s all you have though.

78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub?

Is there an indifferent club? Because that would be where I stand. lol

79: what’s one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you?

I really think of the cutest. I have had a lot of cute things done for me. Plantonically and romantically.

80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why?

There are white, I did not choose this colour. And I would paint it if I could, but alas, I’m in an apartment.

81: describe one of your friend’s eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of.

The eyes that I’m imagining are the deepest blue I have seen. It’s like staring into the ocean and seeing the waves rushing around. There’s a storm in those eyes. And just seeing the waters calm, is like the sun comes out and the blue becomes bright and looks like the sun glistening on the waters of Bora Bora.

82: are/were you good in school?

I was pretty chill at school. I didn’t really do homework though and I skipped class a lot. Which I really regret now, but when I go back I’m planning on being completely focused and working towards my goal.

83: what’s some of your favorite album art?

Mastodon’s album covers are nice tbh. Plus some of the EDM artist artwork are beautiful ngl.

84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones?

I have so many tattoo plans, if I even started to explain all that I wanted there would be a novel here to read. Haha.

85: do you read comics? what are your faves?

Nah I don’t. It never called my attention, but I never even tried so. Hmm.

86: do you like concept albums? which ones?

Ehhhhhh.

87: what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives?

Lord of The Rings Phantom of the Opera&&&Moulin Rouge.

88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy?

Not that I know of really. But I’m open to explore them!

89: are you close to your parents?

I’m really close to my dad. I have no relationship with my mother and that’s whatever tbh.

90: talk about your one of you favorite cities.

Tumblr post: “I’m in love with cities and countries I never been to.” I can’t even pick a favorite yet because I haven’t gone to them yet.

91: where do you plan on traveling this year?

If I had the money, there are many places I would be travelling this year.

92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch?

Droooooowns my pasta in cheese. I fucking love cheese, man.

93: what’s the hairstyle you wear the most?

I wear my hair down the most, I really don’t do much with my hair. Other than wash it and go.

94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday?

My queenie boo Matt. We went out to dinner and then went to a gay bar for karaoke, it was so lit.

95: what are your plans for this weekend?

I really don’t think that far ahead?? All my plans are very spontaneous. The way I like it tbh.

96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot?

I have no computer and it fucking sucks.

97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house?

ESFP! Sun Taurus! And Ravenclaw!

98: when’s the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it?

I went hiking like three or four months ago? With Cydnie and Matt. It was really fun. Even though we couldn’t find the waterfall.

99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them.

Pretty Girl - Cheat Codes X Cade remixStay Free - Proto ft. DjodieFriends - Chase Atlantic Drowning - Eden ProjectMad Hatter - Melanie Martinez(There’s so many more)

100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why?

Five years into the future, because I would like to know if I’m on the right path to a good future or if I have changes to make. The future scares me the most.Plus, I wouldn’t change my past because that’s what made me who I am today. And I like to think I’m a pretty great person. (:

That took fucking forever, I had to really think about this. It was fun though. So thanks. Haha.✌

[kellodrawsalot]

Top five worst Sonic Archie issues

So a while back me and @greenyvertekins​ talked a bit about our favorite Sonic Archie moments, I was thinking of doing a TOp five/top ten favorite Sonic archie issues but honestly the moments I and Greenyvertekis mentioned were pretty much my favorite/best issues. So if you want to read here! most of them are also from the best written arcs so .....

Then I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to do a top five WORST Sonic arche issues instead? :) (warning Im from the Netherlands so my English is bad, feel free to spell correct me!)

Number 05 Issue 172

Going pretty low in the list because despite this being one of  my least favorite issues it should be noted that this was the start from the comic getting better and better at this point, this ugly-face just was the blacksheep from that collection.

Not only was the cover a bad reminder that the comic was seen as bad-furry-romance-drama which I really hoped the comic wanted to distant itself from it, the entire issue is a sadlyalso  bad-furry-drama. It starts off with Amy Rose confronting Fiona Fox about the rumors that she heard from Tails that she is cheating on Sonic with Scourge, (the Green Edgy Sonic recolor) Now the story of Fiona Fox is a pretty sad one, she never had much of a character to begin with. She was first introduced as a robot in her child form to lure Tails into a trap. It turns out that Eggman based her off a real person: Fiona Fox who someway or another was left behind by Mighty and Sonic in Eggman’s prison and she manage to escape but stil holding a grudge and got angry at them for it, That is mostly what I remember her from in the past issues. From then on she would just be background character number 55 a freedom fighter with no dialog, the only times I sort of remember her was that she liked the idea of using guns, and that Sonic was afraid for Tails to be rejected by the too-old-for-you girl Fiona.Sonic wanted to talk to FIona about this issue and she mentions she still thinks SOnic is selfish for leaving her behind but that his sacrifice in issue 125 made her change her mind somewhat, That’s it. Now the weird story behind Fiona is that Karl Boilers planned to use her as a second-love interest for Sonic after Sonic broke up with Sally. Sonic was supposed to enter a relationship with Amy Rose shortly after the Sonic/Sally break up. (Keep in ind that Amy Rose back then was still 10 years old mentally at that time YIKES.) and Fiona for whatever reason was to become a rival to Amy for Sonic’s affections. Now Ken Penders apparently interfered with this idea and Karl and Ken changed it into...Fiona Fox becoming Sonic’s girlfriend instead...out of the blue....out of nowhere. At least with Amy you knew she had a crush on Sonic but with Fiona? why would Sonic ever enter a relationship with a girl he hardly interacted with and with a girl his best friend was crushing on? ..moving on various issues later and writer Karl Boilers and Ken Penders were no longer on board and new writer Ian Flyn entered into the picture it was by then far too late to clean up this mess and I could tell from the comic’s writing that Ian wasn’t sure what to do with Fiona, he tried to give her a more Sally-personality with a bad history but that felt tripped and forced. He knew he had to break the two characters off and he thought the best way to do that was to reveal that Fiona Fox became a bad-girl who fell in love with Scourge due to the events off Sonic 150 (dont worry that issue will be brought up later)

Not only did this came out of no where, it felt forced even if Fiona had no character it felt like she really was just a pawn of a writer not sure what to do with her. It also didnt help that the issue ends in a weird anticlimatic way  and in the next issue most of the characters dont even talk or seem to be phazed with Fiona’s betrayel and  Sonic would be slightly flirtatious with Sally and Amy in the next issue too, (Really Sonic you just got dumped.) The issues saving grace is a cute side story with Amy Rose and Julie Su training together and some decent/good art overall.

Number 04 Knuckles the Echidna issue 32

Yes Knuckles does count as part of the Sonic series, and if the list would be Knuckles comic focused this would have been number one. Not only was this the last issue of probably the most boring arc I ever read It also nailed the coffin on the Knuckles series as it was canned after this issue. It introduced two very uncreative very Un-SegaSonic like characters: Monk and Hunter whose design and motivations are as generic as you can imagine. Ken Penders tries to make you feel for the Monk-character but I dont think anyone was convinced. I own this issue as well and HONESTLY I forgot I even read this issue as a child it was that forgettable, even in my Knucklesfangirl phase as soon as I finished reading the last 3 issues I forgot about it, It also doesnt help that the covers while nicely drawn by Galan were cluttered and too busy, Ken Penders did the book’s art and while he did a perfect job drawing Hunter his cartoon characters were always off-model and the way he draws large mangaeyes didn’t look well. In other words the art wasnt good either.

I only remember these issues  because of @hedgehogscantswim​ review, which I suggest you guys read into as they go into much greater depth on their blog on the flaws of the art, the character designs of Monk and Hunter and the overall big problem the last issue has.  

Number 3 Sonic issue 134

Oh Yeah let’s talk about the big one, let’s talk about the issue that caused many Sonic fans to drop the comic, lets talk about the issue that split the fanbase in half and what made the Sonic-Archie comics the laughing stock of Sonic spin offs for years to come until Ian Flyn joined and the much later soft-Reboot. If the Sally/Sonic/Mina love drama didn’t convince people that the comic had badfurryromance drama this issue sure did.

Sonic sacrificed himself in issue 125 to save the world,  but was transported to a different planet cause science, he survived and had space adventures with Aliens, met up with Tails parents somehow...(Really those issues are all a blur too me at this point.) he came back to Mobuis only to discover a year has passed since then, he reunites with his nowwithlonghair girlfriend Sally and by issue 125, Sally makes it clear to Sonic that she wants him by his side as she is sort-of forced by her parents to no longer be on the battle field. However Sonic cant possibly do that, he is the hero after all, he cant be tied down Sally clearry suffering from trauma after Sonic’s death begs him to stay by her side, Sonic  tearfully tells her he can’t and Sally takes Sonic’s rejection pretty well and says that she knows being a hero is in Sonic’s blood and decides to reject her parents wishes and join her boyfriend and the rest of her friends on the battle field.

No wait Never mind, she SLAPS him across the face and calls him Selfish and breaks up with him afterwards.

Not only did this issue came in the worst possible time when the Sonally/Sonamy ship wars was rampant in the Online Sonic fandom communities. The motivation and reason for Karl Boilers to do this was in such a bad taste as well. Karl who MOST Likely was aware of the growing popularity of the Sonamy ship and the hatred the sonamy fanbase had for Sally, from people calling her a marry sue, a slut because her lack of pants, ugly due to her brown color sceme, and other funny-horrible things because shipping is serious business, Probably wanted to win and be favored by a part of the Sonic fan base and had outlined plans to have Sonic and Amy Rose become an official couple in the comics. (Even if Karl wrote Amy Rose as a 10 year old mentally girl with a body of a 12 year old together with a 17 year old teen Sonic.) They had to become a couple. How to do this you ask? by breaking Sonic/Sally up and portraying  Sally out to be a selfish cunt of a woman, not only was this so disgustingly out of character and a slap to the face to the sonally and Sally fans, it was all to make the fans to transaction to the idea of Sonamy instead. It didnt help Sally’s position in the fanbase and she along with Chris and Elise would be among the list of the most hated characters where extreme Sonamy fanbrats now had valid proof on their side.It would take years for Sally to recover. To add insult to injury the only nice thing about the issue is the introduction of new artist John Gray (whose animish-cartoondisneyish style was colorful, pleasant and very pleasing to the eye! was more then needed at that time since the art quality standards was low back then. )John has stated he did NOT like working on this issue either due to the content and story. I am so thankful that Sally has been much better written for years now.

Number 02 Sonic Super Special issue 07 Crossover with Image Comics

Where to start with this, oh boy oh boy. I put this very high on the list because this has to be one of the worst crossovers spin ofss I have ever had the pleasure of reading. and I mean that the Powerrangers/TMNT crossover was more enjoybale that this mess. This is also very high on the list not only because the art was below average and many characters were off models but Mister Ken Penders used this crossover special to shoehorn his own ‘’characters’ from his comic book series the Lost Ones. (who btw got canned after only volume 01) his characters got the most attention out of everyone else. A image-comics with Sonic crossover already sounds sort of weird and silly but hey I am Spawn fangirl, I am intrigued. But I dont even get that.

(oh wait, this is fucking it, Spawn appears for about a page to say no to Sonic and then leaves thats it??) FOR FUCK SAKE....

Honestly @robotnikholmescomicblog​ gave this comic a great review and I suggest going to their tag of Ken-Penders-Why as they bring out most of the flaws of Ken Penders writing and they said it better then I ever will.

Overall the issue is just a mess, with shallowcheap cameos of image characters, Sonic and the freedom fighters being DICKS to most of the human characters for no reason, a very anti climatic ending and a giant commercial for Ken Penders doomed and boring characters that nobody gave a dam about) characters that he planned to use in ‘’The Lost ones’’ and Knuckles 20 years later. With a character hinting to become Knuckles’s greatest enemy yet with a very ugly boring design that could rivals Hunter. (btw none of these concepts go anywhere, Lost Ones was canned, and Knuckles 20 years later didnt come in fruition the way Ken Penders wanted.)

and number 5, worst issue Sonic issue 150

This is my most least favorite issues up to date and why you might ask

well for one thing the art is okay, I give it that but it doesnt even start with Sonic,

no we get a quick-reveal  of AntiSonic pretending to be the real Sonic flirting with all the girls in knothole

We get uncomfortable panels of Mina Mongoose almost cheating on her boyfriend with Sonic, Sonic and Bunnie making out and falling asleep next together, Sonic being creepy at Amy ect and none of the girls seem to realize that this is obvious not the real Sonic but ANti-Sonic. Everbody fails to notice that Sonic is  trying to flirt with all the girls he gets his eyes on. Only Tails seems to quistion it. Shows how much his own friends seem to know him. Or his own freaking family. The real Sonic is stuck in anti-mobuis and is busy trying to convince them that he is not AntiSonic, it’s very boring and dull. Also since the real Ant was stuck in anti Mobuis couldn’t he have tried to come back to his own world with Sonic? I dont know that just confused the heck out of me, The extra side story also doesn’t help, Its the conclusion to TailS ‘’the Chosen One’’ which was,,,pretty lame too with bland-art, and has the unfortunate of introducing the fanbase to the still-hilarious Titan Tails

(OHfuckmethat’sstupid.)

So the stories are stupid, the art is okay and lame. Why is it so high on the list?

It’s THE 150 anniversary issue and this is how Karl and Ken apparently wanted to celebrate it? It also doesn’t help that the cover is really underwhelming and boring compared to the 125th issue but that’s it’s least of its problems. A short while later Ian Flyn and Tracey joined the team and Ken and Karl left. For the better. But talk about a lame way to celebrate a 150th milestone. What a waste.