#and also makes everything Much shinier in the dark

[wolfythewitch]

What eye color does your Cassandra of troy have? It looks hazel but I could be wrong.

Also how did you decide what eye color to give your Odyssey!odysseus and does it have anything to do with your eye color choice for Athena?

I thiiink it was either hazel or gold?

And for Odysseus, I like giving heroes favored by Athena grey eyes haha. For her epithet, which some translate to grey (or blue) (could also translate to clear/shining/gleaming eyes, like an owl's. I guess maybe it was an offshoot of silvery? Who knows). So He and Diomedes got them light grey eyes

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Awareness

Prompts: This isn’t really a prompt more like headcanon that I thought would be cool. Soooo take this and use it as you please or just leave it, whatever strikes your fancy:) Basically instead of Virgil being a dark side before anxiety, anxiety is his dark side. Before he was anxiety he was instead some kind of awareness or watchfulness (either a gray or light side). After the mindscape split or king spilt or some traumatic past event happened Virgil freaked out becoming anxiety. And now as his make up gets lighter he is reverting back to who he was before. Except no one knows who he used to be, thinking anxiety was just created after the past traumatic event.  Anyway, you’re awesome! You’re such a talented writer and I’m glad I stumbled upon your account <3 - anon

Heyo! So, I really wanted to share a headcannon that I think is truly wonderful. Y'know how lots of people stand behind the spider!Virgil headcanon??? Well what if all he has are the hidden eyes and the ability to stick to surfaces. Like, he gets spooked and BAM! He's on the wall, or maybe on the ceiling! It has proba ly scare each side a couple times? I thought I would be really cool! - artwithtoto

Heyo. I don't know if you're taking anprompts anymore, but if you are, I have one for you. {Virgil being a mother hen to the other Sides in small ways and helping them with their anxieties, and overall taking care of the otherSides, then maybe they take care of him.} I thought it would be super cute. :) Thanks for your time. - anon

Read on Ao3

Warnings: none

Pairings: gen

Word Count: 3015

There are a few things that people take for granted when it comes to Anxiety. For one, it actually is a healthy amount of anxiety and stress that keeps you alive; fear of death, helps, ties into that whole self-preservation thing Janus is always talking about. Keeps you aware of things too, like deadlines, other people, just a general hey, we exist in a way that has to interact with a bunch of other things, let’s maybe be sensible about it. 

Now, of course, everything in moderation. Too much Anxiety is bad. But, as they’ve discovered, not any at all is also bad. 

Something that the Sides in particular seem to forget is that Virgil’s tied to the general Anxiety in the Mindscape too. That means that when one of them gets scared or starts freaking out about something, whoops, he gets summoned. Most of the time this is fine, odds are they’re having a nightmare or stressing about some project—which is his job, thank you, no stealing his thunder—and he can just get them out of it and sort everything out as much as possible before they both go their separate ways and someone gets some sleep. 

Sometimes it’s a bit more than that. 

Virgil appears outside of Patton’s door one morning. Well, technically it’s morning. He shakes himself off and looks around, orienting himself at this end of the hallway before shaking his head and knocking lightly on the door. 

“Hey, Pat? You in there?”

No response. 

“Patton, I know I got summoned here for a reason, you gonna open the door?”

When silence comes again, Virgil frowns and reaches out to test the knob. His frown deepens when it gives right away and the door swings open with a low creak. 

“Hey, Patton? You okay?”

He glances around, squinting in the darkness, trying to figure out where Patton might be, when he spots the closet door ajar and a pile of clothes outside. He steps a bit closer and the pile shudders. 

“Pop Star? That you?”

“V-Virgil?”

“Yeah, sweetheart, it’s me.” Virgil closes the door gently and crouches, shuffling over to sit next to him on the floor. “What’s going on?”

“It’s silly.”

“You’re upset, that’s not silly.”

Patton’s face—no glasses, he must’ve just woken up—turns and stares at him, small bits of his face a tad shinier than others. Virgil lets out a soft noise and reaches out to brush the tears away. 

“Hey,” he murmurs, wrapping his arms around him, “hey, let’s get you back in bed, okay? Come on, up we go…”

He scoops the little ball of Patton into his arms and carries him back over to the bed, tucking him in and sitting on the edge. 

“What scared you?”

“The…the dark.” Patton glances over his shoulder. “Monsters in the closet.”

“You need me to check?”

“Don’t—“ he grabs his sleeve— “they’ll get you too.”

“What if I stay? Keep watch for you?”

“But you need to sleep too.”

“I’ll sleep here.” Virgil lies down next to him as Patton pulls back the covers, immediately snapping himself into something softer. “Yeah? This okay?”

“…thank you.”

“Hey, it’s okay, Pop Star. Whatever scares you scares you. You don’t have to be ashamed of it.”

Patton smiles, turning over to snuggle into the blankets. Virgil keeps one eye on the closet and one on him as they drift off to sleep. 

2.

Virgil’s yanked abruptly through the ceiling to sprawl on Logan’s bed, wincing when the sharp spiral of a notebook digs into his ribs. “Ow.”

“Virgil? What are you doing here?”

“You tell me, Specs. I was minding my own business scrolling through the Internet and then poof, I’m here.”

As he says that, though, he looks up and realizes the reason Logan’s got notebooks strewn on top of his bed is that his desk is an absolute nightmare. Papers piled up haphazardly, there’s at least three different water bottles he can see, and the desktop of his computer is littered with too many icons. 

“…you know what, nevermind, I know why I’m here.”

Logan sighs, adjusting his glasses. “I certainly don’t. If you could explain it—“

“C’mon, Specs. You know better.”

“I’m not in the mood for any riddles, Virgil, if you could let me get back to work—“

“That’s strike one.”

“Strike one—this isn’t baseball, Virgil, I have several projects I have to—“

“Strike two. C’mon, L, just come over here.”

“…Virgil, I can’t, I have to get these finished. The second draft is due this Friday, I have to give Roman time to—hey!”

“Strike three.” Virgil adjusts his grip on the squirming nerd as he pulls him away from his desk, wrapping his arms around him to prevent any escape. “Stop fighting me. You’re not going to win.”

“Let me go, I need to—“

“You need to stop stressing out about this, that’s what you need to do. Oh, for—L, stop.”

Logan stops, mouth forming a tight line as Virgil rests his chin on his shoulder. After a few more moments of being tightly restrained—or properly cuddled, as Remus likes to call it—he lets out a long breath and sags against Virgil’s chest. 

“Hey, L,” Virgil says quietly, “you need to take a break. You’re gonna work yourself up and then nothing’s gonna get done.”

“…I know.”

“Come on, snack time. What do you want? We got crackers, we got fruit, I’m pretty sure there’re some pretzels left too, if Remus hasn’t eaten all of them.”

“Pretzels sound good.”

“Great. Come walk with me.”

“Thank you,” Logan mumbles as Virgil moves him gently out of the door, “for checking.”

“That’s my job!”

3.

“If you could just—“

“Nope.”

“But I want to—“

“Nope.”

“Virgil, this is ridiculous, I am clearly capable of—“

“No, you’re not.”

“Well, if you could let me go—“

“Nah.”

“You’re not being fair.”

“Mm. Nope.”

“Oh, after all the conversations we’ve had about hearing each other out, did you just decide that no longer applies to you?”

“Not when it comes to you neglecting your health.”

“Neglecting my—bitch, I am the only one who practices regular self-care around here.”

“Which means you know better.”

“Just let me go—“

“You take that thermometer over there and if it tells me you’re within normal limits, I’ll let you up.”

“Fine, fine. Then will you let me go?”

“If that thing says you’re within normal limits, yeah, I’ll let you go.”

“…fine.”

“What’s it say?”

“…I’m still too cold.”

“Mhm. So get your snake ass comfortable ‘cause I’m not letting you up until you can feel all your scales again.”

“I hate you.”

“Liar.”

“…yeah, maybe.”

“Shh, snake-face. Just go to sleep. You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll kick your ass into taking care of it too, don’t you worry.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Sure.”

“I wasn’t!”

“You should be sleeping.”

4.

Most of the time, Virgil’s normal Side-like appearance is what gives the others the most comfort. They all look pretty much the same, give or take a few things, and it’s a sense of, well, normalcy. It’s not unexpected, it’s not jarring, it’s not going to give them something else to be worried about. 

With Remus, though…

Remus is a tricky little stinker. He’s simultaneously one of the most difficult Sides to interact with and he’s much smarter than he lets on, which means that if you’re having a problem that you can’t quite put the words to, he’s gonna be able to put the words to it and then you’ll have to confront it. 

Blessing and a curse. 

Of course, Remus also has his side of the Imagination to wrestle with and it can get a little…tempestuous. Monsters, ghouls, all the intrusive thought gremlins that make absolute nuisances of themselves and only Remus by and large can deal with them. This means that his understanding of…well, what happens outside of the Imagination is a bit different than everyone else’s. 

So sometimes Virgil gets little pings from Remus when he feels like he’s too much of a freak for the rest of them and that just won’t do. 

Now, Virgil does not make a habit of scaring the other Sides—unless it’s Halloween. This does mean that there are certain parts of him that he doesn’t get to show very often. 

All the Sides, contrary to popular belief, do have some animal-like tendencies. It’s just that the Dark Sides are the ones who show it off more. Remus has his octopus-like and squid-like moments, some Kraken moments in there too, Janus is just a snake—with extra arms because…sure—and Virgil’s a spider. 

Pausing for gasps of shock…

It’s not like he grows a bunch of extra legs, or massive fangs that sprout out of his mouth, although those would be cool. No, he just sticks to walls and has a bunch of extra eyes. 

Spiderman would be much more interesting if he had more eyes. Just saying. 

So when he gets summoned to Remus’s room and finds him mumbling to himself about freaks and monsters and sounding eerily similar to a certain chaos Dorito, he climbs up into a corner of the wall and waits. 

“Who’s there?” Remus’s head whips around. “If that’s one of you, I told you you’re not allowed in here right now. I have shit to do.”

Virgil chitters quietly. Remus’s head swings back and forth. 

“I’m not kidding,” he says again, voice getting higher, “come out now and I’ll take you back home. I’m busy.”

The shriek he gets when Virgil pounces on him from the ceiling is priceless, as is the scrunched-up face and little pout he gets when he realizes who it is. 

“Emo,” he whines, smacking Virgil’s chest, “you scared me!”

“Sure did, little octopus. You gotta be quicker than that.”

“You snuck into my room!”

“Got summoned, actually.” He gives him a mock stern look with eight eyes. “Your voices being mean to you again?”

“…maybe.”

“I’m here to tell them to fuck off. You wanna help?”

Remus nods and a few of his tentacles curl out of his back. Virgil nods approvingly and drags Remus up into his lap, wrapping his arms around him and squeezing him tight. 

“I want you,” he mumbles, “I want you a lot. You’re a good bro.”

“Don’t let Roman hear you say that.”

“You’re both good.”

“I gotcha, little octopus, you just stay right here with me.”

5.

Whoever decided that the creativitwins—he saw it online, it slaps, he’s stealing it—get the most rational fears is a piece of shit. He’ll say it. 

There’s only so much you can do for people who are really, really scared. You can’t just talk them out of it, you can’t just cuddle it away, you’ve really just got to rely on them to ask for when they need help and what exactly they need you to do for them. 

In case this has escaped your notice, Roman is really bad at this. 

This does mean that whenever it gets bad enough for Virgil to actually get summoned, it’s really fucking bad. 

So when Virgil appears in Roman’s room, he’s already swallowing back a curse at the sight of their brave prince, sitting in a heap on the floor, tears streaming down his face. 

“Hey, Princey,” he murmurs, crouching down and reaching out for Roman’s hands, “can you look at me?”

Roman blinks and looks up, sniffling. 

“You scared right now?”

“Mhm.”

“Okay. Thank you for telling me. Can I help?”

He sniffles again, squeezing Virgil’s hands weakly. 

“That a yes, bud? Yeah? Okay. I’m gonna come sit with you. You just keep looking at me, okay? Nowhere, else, just at me. J gave me a new eyeshadow palette, you have a look and tell me what you think of the pigment. Personally, I think it’s a little too desaturated for me, but you’re the color expert.”

As he talks, he carefully loops Roman’s arms around his neck, easing himself to the ground and reaching to resettle Roman’s limbs to prevent any cramps or stiffness. 

“I don’t think my undertones are quite right for it either. I was talking to Remus the other day about eyeliner and really, I think my eyes water too much. I’m all for the disheveled-haven’t-slept-in-a-week eye bags, but I’m not trying to go full Winter Soldier here.”

A tiny laugh. He smiles, reaching out to cup Roman’s face in his hands, tugging them a little closer. 

“Hey,” he says again, brushing away some of the tears. “You’re doing great, okay? Just keep looking at me.”

Roman’s fingers twitch and he takes a shaky breath. “��S a lot.”

“Everything’s a lot right now? That’s okay, Princey, you don’t have to deal with it all right now. I know it’s overwhelming and scary, we’re here for you, remember?”

Roman shakes his head. “’S a lot of eyeshadow.”

Virgil gasps, gently tugging his hair. “How dare you?”

It’s worth it for the watery giggle he gets in return. 

“Unbelievable,” he says, half-scolding, half-complimenting, “you are absolutely unbelievable.”

“Mhm.”

“You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“…no?”

“Nah, Princey,” he murmurs, leaning forward to rest their foreheads together, “you’re stuck with us. We’re not going anywhere.”

+1. 

“Hey, Virgil?”

Virgil lets his head lean over the arm of the couch. “What’s up?”

“Your—your eyeshadow. It’s purple.”

“Is it?” He touches his face. “Huh. Didn’t know that was coming back.”

Logan’s book thuds as it closes. “Coming…back?”

“Well, yeah. It hasn’t been like that since…oh, before the Split.”

He glances around as all other sounds in the living room come to a stop.

“What?”

“Your eyeshadow was purple before the Split?” Patton sits up. “Why did it change?”

“Uhh...did you guys not also change when the Split happened?”

“I don’t remember shit from before the Split,” Remus announces proudly as Roman rolls his eyes, “and neither does Ro!”

Roman just wraps his arms tightly around Remus and pulls him closer, setting his chin on his shoulder. “I’m just gonna hang onto this.”

Janus sighs as the twins start playfully pushing each other, turning back to Virgil. “I don’t remember changing, as such, no. Just…becoming me.”

“How is that not changing?”

“In a manner of speaking, are we not all always changing?”

“Okay, that’s enough of that philosophy book,” Logan mumbles, taking it from Janus’s hands, “but I have to agree. I do not remember any significant difference with myself before and after the Split.”

Virgil’s hands pause. “…oh.”

“Kiddo? Did you?”

“Well…yeah. My—my whole thing changed?”

The twins stop too. “What do you mean ‘your whole thing?’” Roman sits up. “Like, your role?”

“I wasn’t always Anxiety.”

You could hear a pin drop. 

“…I thought you guys knew that?” They all shake their heads. “No, I—I used to just be Awareness. Then the Split happened and everybody freaked out and I…”

…changed.

“Whoa, hey.” Remus is suddenly right there. “Hey, Emo, it’s okay. You’re okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

Yeah, yeah, of course it is. Why is Remus talking like that?

“Shh, little one—“ oh, hey Logan, “we’re right here. We still care for you, no matter what your role is.”

Oh. Oh, shit, he hasn’t freaked out about this in a while. 

“Probably because you haven’t had to think about it.”

Thanks, J. 

“You need a cuddle?” Virgil opens his arms and something Patton-shaped fills it. “Hey, kiddo, it’s okay.”

Well, now that he’s realized he’s freaking out, he starts freaking out properly. Sobbing, snotty mess, all over Patton’s shirt. How embarrassing. 

“Don’t be ashamed of needing help,” Roman chides like a hypocrite, which he immediately acknowledges, “don’t be like me and wait until it’s too much to deal with.”

“It’s our turn to take care of you.” Remus ruffles his hair and carefully puts him in Patton’s lap. “You just be a little mess right now, okay?”

“Remus, that’s rude.”

“What? Not all of us can look like tragic heroes when we have breakdowns, Roro.”

“It is unfair how easily you do that.”

“Just let Virge be all messy. He can have a little mess, as a treat.”

Leave it to them to make him laugh when he’s trying to have a breakdown. He buries his head in Patton’s shoulder and yeah, he’s just gonna stay here for a while. 

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[bitegore]

dag stip, 35

35. Their idea of a perfect day

hahghafhdsfkdsfkfdgdsfk. okay. i cant stop headcanoning drag strip as a persistent maladaptive daydreamer because other people keep writing him that way and it's really funny. so he has detailed notes on this one XD. Written almost as a fic because I'm serious when I say this, it's something I have to have clearly lined-out so that everything else can fall short LOL

Ask game here.

Morning; Drag Strip wakes up feeling well-rested. The sun is shining and the water outside the window of the Nemesis is a pretty shade of dark teal instead of pitch black. And there's a message waiting for him as soon as he gets out of bed, which he does perkily because he's so energetic and happy this morning.

The message informs him he's been promoted to leader of the Stunticons because he's so much better at leading than Motormaster ever could be. No- that he's now a soloist because Megatron understands that he as his own fighter is better than having Menasor on-side at all and that Drag Strip is just that much better than the other Stunticons. No, that he's been promoted to SIC instead of Starscream. Yeah that one. And there's a special note at the bottom from Megatron and Soundwave that says they both think he's the best fighter in the entire faction and they both love him and they're sorry they overlooked him as a fighter.

Also there's a love letter from Starscream. Drag Strip will go be super suave about this, probably. Or maybe it's from Megatron AND Starscream, both of them. Yeah that. They want him to be the third in their relationship. No - they're both more in love with him than they are with each other. That's suitably important. And they both want him to be theirs AND their third. But he's the most important. Obviously.

He looks at himself in the mirror and his paint is perfect, obviously, but then he goes outside and the other four Stunticons are all lined up waiting for him because he is so important and everyone loves him. Then Dead End tells him he's the best out of all five of them, which he knew. Wait, no, Motormaster does. And then Motormaster apologizes for being a bad leader and an idiot who didn't know how good Drag Strip was until now and he feels so bad about everything and he's going to make up for it by sending Drag Strip to a detailing salon. And being his personal servant for the next week. No, month. No, forever. Nice. And also he's giving Drag Strip all his engex and his candies because Drag Strip deserves them for being so good at everything. And then Dead End tells Drag Strip that he's obviously better looking than Dead End is and his paint is shinier and flashier and he's more noticeable in every way and Dead End is just playing catch up. And Wildrider tells Drag Strip that he's the most fun person on the team and everyone loves him. And Breakdown says he's good at everything.

He goes to the command center to accept his new position and the entirety of the Decepticon fleet is there and they're all lined up and watching and waiting because they all want to see Drag Strip get crowned most important person in the entire faction aside from Megatron. Megatron gives him a cape and a crown and a big shiny gold medal that says he's the best fighter ever on it and Starscream gives him a necklace - no, a SCEPTER that turns into a giant gun. AND a sword! And a rocket launcher! All four at once. Perfect - and a bunch of pretty magnetic jewelry and everyone agrees that he looks better in the regalia than anyone else ever has. And everyone claps when he shows up. And because it's such a special occasion everyone gets to drink as much energon as they want and it's a giant party because Drag Strip is so important. Then - hm.... then Motormaster and the other Stunticons go give a speech about how lucky they were to work with Drag Strip before everyone else realized how good he really was at everything and how fortunate they feel to get to watch such an unparalleled Decepticon genius come into his own before everyone else realized how important he was for the faction. And it's lovely and everyone agrees they're right about every count and they only have nice things to say because Drag Strip is really that good.

Then after that the Autobots attack! and burst in! And everyone else is drunk on energon but Drag Strip is so good at everything that he single-handedly defeats all the Autobots! and he defeats Optimus Prime and looks super cool while doing it and then Megatron kills Optimus Prime and he takes the Matrix of Leadership and gives it to Drag Strip because he's so strong and smart and cool and powerful and good at everything that even Megatron agrees he deserves it instead. And then the Autobots are so dazzled by his excellent fighting and how cool a car he is so they decide that this means he's their leader now and he wins the war for the Decepticons forever. And Megatron thanks him personally and calls him the next greatest Decepticon to ever live. And it's true and he is. Then they can go back to Cybertron-

-but he likes Earth. Hm.

Then he gets crowned ruler of Earth and put in charge of Earth forever while the other Decepticons reroute power from Earth to turning Cybertron back on and he gets to do whatever he wants forever. And the humans have to build him a huge awesome new base on land and keep all the energon he could possibly want on tap for him and every day every single Decepticon ever thanks him personally for being so cool and awesome and he gets to tell Motormaster to do all sorts of demeaning and stupid humiliating bullshit and Motormaster just does it because he feels so bad for overlooking Drag Strip's true abilities all this time and no one ever tells Drag Strip he can't do anything ever again.

And then because that's not a whole day then he goes to a detailing spa and also he gets a reformat into the same alt mode but now he's got mass-shifting components so he's actually the tallest mech in the faction and he gets to be space-capable so he can go into orbit whenever he wants or just fly to any planet. And he buys a lottery ticket and wins a million dollars and he drags Breakdown to a casino in space that Swindle says is impossible to win anything from and wins a million shanix. And he's so cool when he's there that the casino owners thank him for showing up to their casino and making it look better because all the aliens are coming from all around to watch him.

Extremely reasonable. That would be the best day ever, as far as Drag Strip is concerned. Anything less than that isn't good enough. Simple.

[warcats-cat]

Please please tell me about printers, I would like to know <b>everything</b>

You asked for it /lh

Ok so some clarification: I spent three years at Staples working with a Xerox C70 color laser printer, so that's where my "expertise" lies.

FIRST OFF - DO NOT EVER GET YOUR PHOTOS PRINTED AT A STAPLES/OFFICE MAX/FEDEX/UPS/ANY OTHER OFFICE STORE!!!!!

All office stores (that I have been to) use laser printers. Laser printers are high capacity (meaning they can print loads of stuff before the toner needs to be changed), and use toner, which is a powder version of the ink that is electrically fixed and baked onto the paper. (Forgive the oversimplification) This means that the color will not soak into the paper/past the coating if there is one. So, if you want a glossy photo printed, you will literally be baking the color over top of the gloss, and the color will not be glossy. It will be ugly. I've made like at least 300 family photos and other shit on a laser printer. Don't do it.

Sometimes you can play with the printer settings (the Xerox C70 has pretty in-depth settings because obv it's for office printing) and you can set the color load to be "glossy" but that really just means a thicker layer of toner. It's a little shinier but not glossy.

Also, laser printers just can't get that tight, crisp color quality that an inkjet can. So many people came in wanting to make their Christmas cards with these ultra high quality photos and wanted them cheap and same-day, and then would complain that they were "fuzzy". Personally, I always thought they looked fine, but white suburban mom Karens complained all the damn time about the "fuzziness" of their fancy professional photos. Inkjet can get the crisp, sharp lines that you see in digital photos and art, whereas the toner, being powder based, just can't quite get it.

ALSO also! The colors on your computer screen will always be a little brighter and nicer than what comes out of the printer! That is because your computer is back lit, it's shining light at your eyes. Paper cannot do that, so sometimes the colors look a little "dark" or "muddy". Personally, I've seen this with really light lavender, beige, and cyan the worst. Combine this with the more limited scope of color mixing with a laser printer, and sometimes you get weird ass colors coming out. If you have a specific idea for your colors, inkjet is the better bet.

Tldr: get your photos printed at Walgreens or Walmart, or send them somewhere that specializes in photo printing.

There are two main categories of printers, Laser and Inkjet. You have an inkjet if you have a printer in your home.

Inkjet printers have the liquid ink in the cartridge, that's why you have to wait a little bit before it dries, especially for specialty papers or really old printers. The liquid ink can soak into the paper/through the coating, so that's where you get the nice glossy photo prints. ((You can also buy sheets of primed canvas for inkjet printers, which is super cool and I definitely have a bunch of it for some of my favorite digital artworks from friends)).

Ink can come in two types - dye based and pigment based. You have dye based ink if you have a printer at home. Pigment based inkjet is for like,,, the top of the top art printing. It's expensive as hell, but it doesn't fade from light exposure, like dye ink can. (Don't worry, the things you print at home are not likely to fade very much, unless you have them in direct light and never turn the lights off. I have seen photos fade because of light exposure, but that's because Staples never turns any of the lights off for whatever reason, and we had printed pictures using the poster printer to get the nice gloss without realizing.) Pigment based is also apparently a powder, but I'll be honest I don't know how it's fixed to the paper. I assume heat as well. (I've never gotten to work with a pigment printer, I only know about them because I was looking for good printers to print art and found out about them, then I saw the price tag and was like lolol)

When buying specialty paper to print on (like photo paper or canvas), you need to check the label!!!! There are papers designed for laser printers that can withstand the heat and accept the toner, and there are papers designed for inkjet that can hold the liquid ink as it soaks through. The coating on an inkjet safe paper is not as heat resistant as ones made for laser. If you put it in the laser printer, the coating will melt, and you will ruin the internal machinery. I have seen it happen. Don't do it.

Speaking of specialty paper! Have you ever heard of pearlized paper??? It's my favorite paper!!! It's sparkly!!!! 😍

Pearlized paper is typically for laser printing; I've tried to print on it with an inkjet but it came out looking really weird. It's shimmery without having chunky glitter on top that will fall off and go everywhere. Go to your local Staples and ask if they have pearlized paper, just to look at. Pictures can't do it justice. (My business cards for my fairies are printed on soft pearl, which is ivory colored, because I printed and made them myself so I got to do what I wanted /lh) We mainly used it for weddings and stuff, but I recommended for all kinds of stuff because I thought it was so cool.

Other papers: the two main types of paper you will work with at home are regular paper and cardstock. Cardstock just means thick. Both can come in tons of cool colors and textures (linen texture is my personal favorite, you usually buy it as 'resume' or 'business' paper.) you know how thick a piece of paper is by its "weight" which is measured in pounds. I don't know why it's measured in pounds, it just is.

If you want a nice quality paper to print on that's still flexible and foldable, you want to look for something that's 24-30lbs. Typical cheap copier paper is 20lbs, and a lot of the time you can see through it, i.e. if you print something double sided you'll be able to see a little of the text on the back showing through. I have found that 24lbs is thin enough to be more affordable (per ream), but thick enough to not have the bleed through. We had a 32lb paper that was thick nice thickness and super smooth, and we called it "ultra premium". It was nice, but I wouldn't print like flyers and stuff on it. I did a lot of booklets with that one.

If you're gonna get a cardstock, get something 60~lbs and up. 65lb is a really good thickness if you're printing coloring pages because it soaks up the marker ink and holds it nicely. Use 100lb if you're making a coloring *book* that's going to be double sided.

Cardstock cannot be machine folded without a really heavy duty machine, and it's very annoying because those machines are usually at the high-volume production centers and not in-house, so customers complain that they have to wait for their booklets. >.>

When working with business cards, post cards, and the like, you will hear about "bleed area" or "print to bleed". That just means whether or not the ink can go all the way to the very edge of whatever is being printed. When you design a business card or other card to be printed, you will typically have a bleed area, where you want the background to go a little farther than the actual size of the card to allow for cutting, but you want to keep any important text or photos to a certain area so it doesn't accidentally get cut off. The bleed area is not a negotiation. If you don't have space for the bleed, something will get cut off.

At Staples, our business cards were 2x3.5 inches, but the designs had to be about 2.25x3.75 to allow for bleed. The number of times I had to go in and manually fix some idiot's card because they didn't understand what a bleed was is absolutely absurd.

You can get full page size (8.5x11) printed to bleed, for things like flyers with special borders and letter heads, but those also require specialized printers that are at the production facility. The number of people who outright refused to understand this was also absurd. If you have a printer at home, there is a 99.99% chance it is not able to print to bleed for a full 8.5x11, and that's why you still have a white edge if you try to print something that is supposed to have color all the way to the edge of the paper.

My final bit of advice before I end my rant: when you're financially independent and able to/want to buy your own printer, if you plan on making your own art prints to sell, do NOT get an HP printer. HP is fine for general use, it prints well and it's pretty ink-efficient, but it's just not got the super fine quality. Brother and Canon are the two brands I personally recommend for art and photography; they're more expensive but they have a really nice quality of printing. I had to do a lot of training for HP printers and computers, and it's a lot of big words that mean very little in the grand scheme of things.

[dreamforest15]

Grimmauld Place

Grimmauld Place.

The most noble and ancient house of Black since its creation. It has seen many Blacks. It has seen them lose their mind, scream, cry, leave or become the one that they hated.

It has never been anyone's home even if they claimed it to be. it has just been a house. Cold, dark, gloomy and uninviting.

It feeds onto misery. Many of its members have been tortured by their parents both mentally and physically. Some couldn't take it and fled after having too much. Some became torturers themselves. Forcing upon the same beliefs that caused them pain.

It was a cycle, a never-ending cycle and Grimmauld Place lived for it. Still lives for it. It loves the misery, the madness, the unhinged and the pain.

No one lives here now. The Blacks all have perished in the wars. But, even today Grimmauld Place stands tall with its head high, bearing witness to the insanities of the Blacks. It's still as cold and gloomy. No amount of cleaning charms can get rid of its gloominess. Believe me, people tried. At last, its owner stopped trying to decorate it. He didn't even want it in the first place. 

Let me take you back to a time when the last Blacks occupied Grimmaould Place.

It wasn't much different then. Just as quiet and cold but a lot shinier. Goblin-made gold ornaments and jewels hang on its walls and chandeliers. The garden was well taken care of. No ferns or cobweb were on the site. A family of four occupied its space, Orion, Walburga, Sirius and Regulus. Sometimes their relatives visit too. Mostly Cygnus and Druella and their three daughters Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa. 

The house bears witness to all their misery.

It saw Bellatrix slowly losing her mind, trying to please her parents to the point of becoming unhinged.

It saw Andromeda slowly losing her faith in everything the Blacks stood for, falling in love, crying and at last leaving.

It saw Narcissa cry because she didn't know what to do when one of her sisters joined the war and one ran away.

It saw Sirius rebelling against his parents, leaving and slowly losing his mind over the years before he died for good.

It saw Regulus hide away from pain and fear before gathering up the little bit of courage he had and pushing down all his fears.

And it enjoyed it. Every second of it.

Never a home, only someplace to live, that's what they called it. That's how every single one of them thought and described Grimmauld place.

Bellatrix was born mad, a little unhinged from the start. She had unladylike laughter and a passion to please her family. She wanted glory. And she blindly believed everything the Blacks taught her.

She was a little girl when she showed signs of madness. She saw a rabbit die. It was a white rabbit, passing London's busy street, trying to get to the park opposite Grimmauld Place. But it didn't make it. A car ran over it and the rabbit died. Bellatrix watched, mesmerized. There was a feeling inside of her that she couldn't describe. She liked watching the rabbit die but she also hated it. Hated the muggles that did it to the rabbit, but she also loved the rabbit's suffering.

Grimmauld Place also loved it. Loved how unhinged she was at only five.

Andromeda was a little kinder, gentler. She cried after watching that but she didn't exactly hate the muggles. She saw reasons. She didn't believe when their parents told them that that's how muggles and muggle-borns really were. Vile and out to kill innocent creatures.

But she grew and the Black family teachings went to her head. She hated the muggles and muggle-borns for some time. But that was before she met Ted or Edward Tonks. Kind, gentle and funny. There was no way he was this monster and abomination that she was supposed to hate. There was no way he was beneath her when wizards themselves were trying to kill innocents. She couldn't hate him.

And Gimmaould Place loved it. Loved the conflict that was creating a storm inside her.

Narcissa was as much different as she was alike them. She was the perfect mixture of both of her sisters. In one word she was perfect. Both to her parents and her sisters. She was the apple of everyone's eye.

She believed and practised the Black beliefs but she wasn't unhinged or had the crackling and unladylike laughter that Bellatrix had. She was gentle and kind like Andromeda but she never questioned the Black beliefs. She listened while the others talked. Both Andromeda and Bellatrix tried giving her their ideals. She just nodded and listened, making her own judgments that mostly matched Bellatrix. But she never spoke of them. Always remaining the perfect Black.

And Grimmauld Place loved it. Loved how scared she was of being imperfect. 

Sirius was a lot like Bellatrix as much as he'd hate to hear it. He was bold, had his own opinion, and had a signature barklike laughter. He was a little unhinged as well. Cared very less about what the consequences will be.

He grew out his hair at fifteen, the year he left his cold and miserable house. He rebelled since he was a child. Always stood up to his parents, protected his brother from their rage, and made it his job to disappoint them by the age of thirteen. He flinched every time he agreed with something as little as the colour of a tie with his family.

And Grimmauld Place loved it. Loved how scared he was of becoming one of them.

Little Regulus. Always the underdog, unnoticed and neglected by his parents. The one who needed protection all of the time either from his brother or his cousins. And all of them gave him that, in their own way, the way they knew best. Even Bellatrix, who gave him protection by making him join her cause. Voldemort's cause.

Regulus was always loved by his brother and cousins and everyone wanted different things from him. And he wanted to please each and every one of them. But he wasn't Narcissa and he couldn't do it. In the end, he chose a side. Made his own stand and impact but no one got to know that.

And Grimmauld placed loved it. Loved how confused and hurt he was. 

Grimmauld Place enjoyed when Sirius paced through its halls at the age of thirty-five in the middle of the night, trying to break out again. It enjoyed watching Regulus push down all his fears and plan to take Voldemort out, a sure way of dying and a sign of the Black madness. It watched and enjoyed Bellatrix obsessing over the so-called dark lord, trying to get the appreciation that she never got from her parents. It enjoyed Narcissa's worried glances at her sisters. It enjoyed Andromeda running away and losing her connection to the family.

It enjoyed every sad moment the young and last Blacks had.

Grimmauld Place loved each and every one of their misery. It lived for it. It strived for it. It strived for how each and every one of them lived and died.

That's why it still stands, unnoticed by the muggles, standing tall and proud like some aristocrat. After all, Grimmauld Place feeds on misery. And it saw enough misery to stand a lifetime.

[xxmyhomexx]

SONG OF THE CRIMSON NILE: Anubis's Party

I really hope he appears soon because it's going to get even harder for me to stay loyal to Amen. I have a headcannon that for a modern AU, he would be a bestselling author from a rival publishing company, so that makes him a rival with Amen.

One day, he invites him and his employees to a charity party he hosts. It's Eva's first time at a dinner so grand, and she's unsure of what to do, so she sticks with Agnia who shows her the ropes. As they mingle around, they see Anubis and Amen talking. Eva is in shock that he's tall, all muscle with long black hair, and undeniably handsome.

"Agnia," she leans in. "Why doesn't Amen get along well with Anubis?"

Agnia sighs. "Anubis used to be signed with Amen's company, but he branched out to a much bigger publisher. He never gave him the credit he deserved, and his entire personality changed. He's a bit arrogant."

"Wow, that's...unsurprising."

Agnia nods and leads Eva over to the dancefloor, encouraging her to dance. Smiling, Eva follows her lead. Meanwhile, as Anubis and Amen continue to talk, the latter cannot help but notice how beautiful she is. Perfect skin, long dark hair, and a yellow sundress that sways with her hips.

"My, my, Amen," Anubis smiles. "You never told me your personal assistant is gorgeous."

Amen grits his teeth. He knows Anubis loves to get his hands on everything he finds beautiful, and a part of him wanted to remind him that Eva wasn't someone he could sink his nails into and just toss her aside like he did when their partnership disintegrated after he left Night Falcon Publishing.

"I think I might say hello."

"I'd rather you didn't," Amen almost chokes on champagne. "I don't want you ruining her like you almost did me."

Anubis sighs. "You're too stubborn to take an olive branch, Amen. Always were, always will."

Amen growls and is about to argue back when they both see Eva come scurrying over. She's a bit sweaty from dancing, but the sheen makes her skin even shinier. The way her hair sticks to her face, the way her eyes trail over her boss...he smiles widely, barring his teeth.

"Amen, sir, there's a man and woman asking for you near the dinner tables. His name is Zain and his wife's Yasmin."

"Thank you, Eva," Amen nods. He glances at Anubis who is only amused. Eva quirks a brow as his icy blue eyes trail from him over to her.

"I don't believe we've met."

"No, we haven't," Eva does her best to be polite and smile, but there's an air to this man that almost has her losing her breath. He wears a set of Egyptian necklaces around his neck, a puffed out collared shirt, almost like a suit. He's taller than her, but height was never an issue with her. She comes up to his chest, which she can tell is definitely defined in muscle. She can also see white streaks growing out through his hair.

Isfet, he shouldn't be her type, but...in a way, despite seeing traits she would never like in a man, she was intrigued.

"My name is Anubis."

"Eva."

Might as well keep it short, yes? Amen knows Eva can fend for herself, so he excuses himself and leaves, but not before giving her a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. Eva smiles as he leaves before Anubis strolls closer toward her.

"So, Eva," he looks down. "How long have you worked for Amen?"

She keeps her eyes neutral. "I'm still new. What about you? You sure seem to like throwing parties."

"I'm a man of charity. I like to stay in touch with the community."

"Amen doesn't seem to like it."

Anubis chuckles. "He's always been one for a comfortable life. I'm a man who takes risks."

"At the cost of his respect for you."

Eva narrows her eyes but keeps a smile plastered on her face. Anubis purses his lips before taking he surprises her by tilting her chin to meet his gaze. Now she can't look away even if she wanted to. His eyes are so intense and blue that she begins to wonder what it'd be like to get lost in them.

"Never judge a book by its cover, Eva. You don't know me well enough to judge me."

Eva bites her lip. "Do you want me to know you?"

This time, Anubis grins. His canines are like fangs, pointed and white. "I'd like that a lot actually."

Eva smiles herself. "Then keep dreaming. It's never gonna happen."

She swats his hand away with a mirthful look. "Take care."

She turns on her heels and walks back toward Agnia. Anubis stands there, stunned, but now, even as he ponders what the hell just happened, he knows there's more to Eva than she seems. She's feisty, sexy, and he's determined to make her his.

[witchesoz]

The dark side of the Wizard of Oz (MGM)

The 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz” is remembered as a beautiful, colorful and magical story – and yet its production and behind-the-scenes was filled with pain and suffering. This whole movie was so complicated and troublesome to create that some even thought of calling it “cursed”… Here are some of the “dark sides” of the MGM movie:

# The actor we have for the Tin Man in the current movie was a second choice. Or rather a third choice… You see, originally the actor for the Tin Man was Ray Bolger. But Ray Bolger had a childhood hero – Fred Stone. And Fred Stone was renowned and famous for having played on stage the Scarecrow in the original Wizard of Oz musical (I talked about it before, it was the Wizard of Oz play that Baum oversaw and that was created as a complement to the original book). So Ray Bolger, wanting to emulate the star he admired so much, actually managed to swap his place with the original actor for the Scarecrow – Buddy Ebsen, who got the role of the Tin Woodman. However the actor of the Tin Woodman in the movie is Jack Haley. What happened? Well… You see, the original Tin Woodman makeup was MUCH shinier, truly sparking. It was because the makeup was created out of aluminum powder. What the makeup department clearly hadn’t planned was that with each breath he took, Ebsen would INHALE aluminum particle, that slowly lined up and filled his lungs until, in his own words, he tried to breath and found out he couldn’t do it. Ebsen nearly asphyxiated to death. Hopefully he survived, but he still suffered massive respiratory issues that stuck with him for the rest of his life, and of course he refused to work on this “damn movie” anymore. Jack Haley, his successor, benefited from a much less toxic makeup made out of aluminum paste – but his costume wasn’t much more comfortable, since he couldn’t sit down or bend easily (after all, it was a rigid metal-imitating costume). If he wanted to rest, he had to use a reclining ironing board. He apparently constantly remembered the movie as an “awful experience” due to everything that happened there, and insists that he had no fun playing his role (though he apparently didn’t had anything against the movie itself, it just wasn’t a good memory for him).

# The script for the movie was written times and times again, and while three writers are credited for the final product, there was actually much more authors behind the scenes. These three were just the ones that the studio worked the most with/the ones that stayed around for the longest time ; and the piling up different scripts deserves a whole post on its own. And similarly, the movie kept changing directors: in fact, there was five different directors for this piece. Number one, Norman Taurog who oversaw the casting and the constructions of the sets, but left. Number two, Richard Thorpe, who oversaw the initial shooting of the movie, but was fired due to his footage looking REALLY bad (he notably wanted Judy Garland to put on a “baby-like” makeup to make Dorothy young looker, which looked ridiculous). Third, George Cukor, who came just a few days to help save the mess and put back everything together, before leaving for his actual big project, “Gone with the Wind”. Fourth, Victor Fleming, who oversaw most of the shooting of the movie – but ultimately had to leave as the movie was almost finished, ironically to replace George Cukor on “Gone with the Wind”. The missing scenes (which were the Kansas sequences) were shot under the fifth and last director, King Vidor – but in the final product, only Victor Fleming was credited since he had done the most work out of the five.

# Beyond the “Tin Man” incident, questions of makeup and costumes also greatly bothered Ray Bolger (the Scarecrow) and Bert Lahr (the Cowardly Lion). The Cowardly Lion’s facial prosthetics forced its actor to undergo a liquid diet, since he could eat with a straw – if he ate a solid meal, the makeup was ruined and he had to redo it all over again. Bert Lahr’s lion costume was very heavy (90 lbs) and very hot, which under the studio lights was a big problem. It was basically a sauna in there, and to avoid the actor going into a heat stroke, the crew prepared two lion costumes – Lahr acted in one until it became fully drenched in his sweat and too hot for him to continue, then he removed the costume and put on the second one to continue acting, while the sweat-filled one was dried out in front of a fan so he could repeat the “costume switch” process later. (Lahr himself also had to stand in front of a fan, out of costume, between each shot, to dry himself). As for the “scarecrow mask” of Ray Bolger, it was a rubber thing that prevented his face from getting both air and moisture, and as a result when he removed it, he tended to find his skin cracking (or even bleeding in some cases). And when he was done shooting, he realized that the mask had imprinted a pattern on his ACTUAL face, and these lines took one whole year to fade.

# The big incident everybody knows about by now is how Margaret Hamilton, the actress for the Wicked Witch of the West, got badly burned. As it turns out, having a witch-character playing with fire isn’t a good idea when your pyrotechnics are unstable. The reason that the Witch’s leaving Munchkinland through teleportation seems a bit fake (you see the smoke appearing out of the ground too early, and you can see the witch being lowered by a hatch beneath) was because this was a rehearsal take – when it came time to shot the actual scene, the lowering-platform got stuck somehow, and Margaret Hamilton took the giant burst of flames right in the face. The fact her green makeup included COPPER in it (which was also why she wouldn’t eat while the makeup was on) made her burns even worse – she had to stay in the hospital for weeks to heal up, and afterward she refused to do any scenes involving fire, despite the crew making a specifically fireproof costume for her. And it was apparently a good decision, as when her body-double did some of the missing “fiery scenes”, she too got badly burned out of faulty pyrotechnics. And even after finishing the movie, Hamilton had to wait for months until finally the greenish color left by her makeup disappeared from her skin…

# Fascinatingly, Margaret Hamilton came to regret her role as the Wicked Witch of the West after the release of the movie. She did enjoy playing the part and had fought for it – but she was also a kind woman who loved children and worked as a school teacher between her acting times, and she came to dislike how she had helped to scare so many children across the world, as well as her part in creating a true bogeyman of the early 20th century. This “half-rejection” is most notably seen in Margaret Hamilton’s appearance in “Mister Roger’s Neighborhood”, where she explained clearly how the Wicked Witch was a make-belief character and that children didn’t need to be afraid of her, the actress behind the mask.

# Judy Garland had a long story of misfortunes and sadness – her life was one tragedy of heartbreaks, abuse, body dysmorphia, drugs and suicidal thoughts. And many point out her experience on “The Wizard of Oz” as the start of this dark path she walked onto… Mostly because of how badly it went for her. You will find lots of tales and claims about sexual harassment or abuse of Judy Garland on the set by various actors – but these tend to be, at best false, at worst unproven. To be fair there is a lot of real-life incidents on the set that got exaggerated through gossips and talks: for example you might have heard that Judy Garland was physically abused by Victor Fleming, the director, and as a proof someone will say that she got slapped in the face by him for ruining a take. Well, it is a real incident that got out of text: during the introduction scene of the Cowardly Lion, Judy Garland got caught in a hysterical laughing fit. She tried to hide it at first (in the scene you can see Garland covering her face to hide the fact she is laughing), but soon couldn’t contain it. To snap her out of it, Victor Fleming slapped her, but since she continued giggling he sent her to her dressing room to have her calm down – and afterward, he felt ashamed of himself enough that he ordered crewmembers to punch him in the face for how stupid he was, but Judy refused to slap him back and just kissed him (note that Judy Garland apparently had a big crush on him at the time, so that explains a lot of things). Another story you might have heard was how the studios forced Judy Garland to constantly watch out of her weight and forced her through a terrible diet of “only coffee, chicken soup and cigarettes” to have her keep her petite figure, and that this terrible “diet” was the start of Judy Garland’s lifelong body dysmorphia. This is an exaggerated account of what truly happened – Judy Garland did not smoke at the time, so the cigarette part is false, and she never had any food restriction whatsoever, so the strict liquid diet was also invented… But due to being a sixteen year old girl playing a younger character, she was asked to keep her weight to a minimum to avoid having too mature curves show up – and this was done by rather a strict set of exercising (regular natation and hiking séances, and regular games of tennis and badminton). Plus also binding very tightly her chest to avoid her breast to show up and keep her “youthful” look. In general Judy Garland’s filming experience was painful physically – for example the ruby slippers hurt her feet so much she couldn’t wear them for too long, and in shots where her feet were off screen she wore more comfortable boots or just walked with socks on (when Dorothy and Scarecrow back up from the apple-tree, you can glimpse the socks on her feet without the ruby slippers).  And while the abuse stories might have been exaggerated and invented afterward (especially since most of them come from third-parties or came out after Garland’s death), one thing that is certain sit that Garland actually felt apparently increasingly lonely on the set, as she didn’t made any friends among her cast members (most notably the actors playing Dorothy’s companion apparently didn’t get along very well with her, due to them not liking much Garland’s perceived attempt at “upstaging” them and stealing the spotlight, and so never truly included her in their social group). With perhaps the exception of Margaret Hamilton, who apparently was the only one of the actors of the movie who actually was genuinely nice and cared for Garland.

# Speaking of how these “abuse stories” of Judy Garland have to be taken with a grain of salt, let’s look at common one: the idea that Judy Garland was sexually harassed or even abused by the actors playing the Munchkins. This idea actually came due to the memoir published after Garland’s death by one of her ex-husbands, Sidney Luft (he was husband number 3, I think she had five in total?). He claimed that she had been sexually harassed by the Munchkin actors… But again, as I point it is Luft’s testimony, published after Garland’s death – and the reason why Garland divorced Luft? She claimed he was abusing her… When talking about the Munchkin actors, Garland herself had some things to say yes, but no real “sexual harassment” stories. She did say that the Munchkins actors were actually drunks who partied and drank all night long, overall a quite rowdy bunch – and she did report that one of the Munchkins actors asked her out, despite him being in his forties. But Luft’s claim seems to have been mixed up with the testimony of one of the producers of the movie, Mervyn LeRoy, who talked of “sex orgies” that the Munchkins actors organized and that ultimately the police had to be involved in the hotel they stayed at… But this whole accusation of chaotic sexuality has been countered by the testimonies of Munchkin actors themselves (notably some of those who were just teens at the time of filming), and they explained that these tales were actually greatly exaggerated accounts of the bad actions of a handful of them – more specifically a group of young men from Germany that had the bad habit of drinking beer at every meal and wanted to use their time on the movie to meet girls, even if the girls “didn’t want” to meet them. But this just caused a “little trouble” according to these counter-testimonies, and there was certainly no “orgy of depraved dwarfs” as some might have reported.

Overall it is a very dark and complicated topic to talk about what abuse Garland might have received during the movie, notably because tend to confuse things together for the sake of sensationalism. Did Garland’s drug addiction started out with this movie because the studio gave her “pep pills” to keep her thin and energetic, or is it a lie and did it start earlier due to her own mother giving him these energy drugs? Was she truly sexually harassed on the set of the movie, or is it just a confusion with other sexual harassments Garland received outside of the movie by big heads of the MGM studios? I obviously can’t answer those questions with my limited knowledge of it all… But one should know that these questions exist and have to be answered.

[blacksunscorpio]

Aphrodite No. 1388

Have you ever found yourself inexplicably fascinated with Hollywood sex symbols, fashion, arts, or general glamor? You've probably chalked it up to your Venus placement or stellium in the 2nd or 7th [The houses Venus rules] but what if I told you that might not be the only reason?

Yes, Asteroid Aphrodite No. 1388 is the placement you may want to peep. Especially if she's making prominent placements or aspects to your inner planets. Note: Pay attention to conjunctions/squares/oppositions the most and orbs within 0-3 degrees. Trines and sextiles are of note but only if they are respecting inner planets, the ascendant, and at the aforementioned degrees.

So let's get into it:

Aphrodite in Mythology

was the goddess of sex, love, beauty, passion, fertility, prosperity, and procreation. She was also patron goddess of prostitutes and believed no one should leave this world a virgin. She was wife of the god Hephaestus, god of blacksmiths and fire but also the most notable lover of Ares [her 'Soul mate'. So what does she represent in the birth chart?

All of the above.

Asteroid Aphrodite in her elevated expression is all about love, beauty, talent, and sex appeal. She is compassionate and generous. Independent, strong in her femininity, and charming. This asteroid has the ability to see beauty in everything and has an innate knack for creativity and artistic talents. A developed and healthy expression of sexuality and passion [not the toxic kind but the kind true love stories are made of]. She's all positive pleasure and sensuality. Body positivity and healthy expressions of sex.

In her base or lower expression, she's a bit like a toxic Lilith. She'll manifest as using attractiveness for underhanded means. Infidelity, repression of the sexual drive, callousness in love or arrogance based on vanity, vanity in general, sexual manipulation, fickleness, fixation of impossible standards of beauty, or superficiality regarding aesthetics. [Basically everything wrong with fashion and beauty today.] She can also manifest in the 6th house and/or ill-aspected as those who suffer from body dysmorphia or those who suffer from eating disorders due to these impossible beauty standards. Physical perfection becomes an obsession.

Now, if you have this particular asteroid prominently based in your chart, you may find that you value beauty, pleasure, and romance. There might be a taste for refined aesthetics and/or one can just be naturally gifted with creativity and art. Career-wise, one could find themselves drawn to jobs that revolve around fashion, interior design, modeling, make-up, photography, cooking, etc. If she's touching Mars or in the 8th, one could find themselves making sex work a part of their career as well.

Aphrodite in the signs

Aries: Two words: Sexuality promiscuous. Like the sign of Aries, the fire burns hot then goes out. Freedom and independence are paramount and they value those who see things similarly. Getting too emotionally invested in others is not appearing to them in any way, here for a good time, not a long time. Sporty aesthetic. Athleisure. Sex will likely be hard and fast.

Taurus: Love of the material. Base-level treasure seekers. However, they are typically quite attractive and even look pleasant when they don't put much effort in. Follow trends and keep up with the day-to-day fashion world. Most likely an Instagram fashion influencer. Love of glitz and glam. Shinier the better. Diamonds are their best friend.

Gemini: Serial fuckers. Literally, this aphrodite placement will have a full black book of names. A thousand notches on the belt. A million notches on the bedpost... well, you get the idea. Very charismatic and uses their intelligence to seduce. Sapiosexuals. Stimulate their mind and you might keep their attention... for an hour as opposed to 15 minutes like the rest. Will know everyone and everything about everyone. Life of the party and will charm with their wit.

Cancer: The emotional lover. Don't let this food you though, hurt them and they'll pull out their pincers. This Aphrodite placement loves to be nurtured and taken care of and will often do the same. Mood affects appearance. Charms using one of two things: their hard to get energy [Crabshell] or their love of family and togetherness [4th house]. No in-between, really.

Leo: Worship me vibes. Lovers of attention. This placement is very prideful. They don't like to share [their lovers] at all. Typically though, because of their love of the spotlight, their fashion sense is impeccable. They are hard to miss and will usually light up a room. Ignore them and you'll wound them.

Virgo: Immediate/outwardly "perfect" appearance. Because of this sign's attention to detail, they are often very pristine in their approach. Clean sex- the type in the shower or when one is freshly groomed around the genital area. Will use their "perfection" to pull the cream of the crop in the dating pool their way. This placement can go far in the fashion world and may even become designers. Often do well as dancers or some sort of aesthetic career that involves "precision".

Libra: Serial Flirt. With Aphrodite here, it's like getting a double shot of Venusian energy. Pleasant, charming... naturally beauties not unlike Taurean Aphrodite's. Don't mind casual sex or casual flings but prefer relationships. Very focused on aesthetics and, like Virgo Aphrodites could go far in their fashion world or make-up pursuits. Can be very superficial.

Scorpio: Alluring vibe. They WILL fuck a lot. It's in their nature. Will be loyal if they are in a committed partnership though. Can give off scary vibes or RBF but they feel things deeply. Their aesthetic is dark colors, black as elegance, an intimidating style that appears edgy. Artistically may enjoy all things Tim Burton.

Sagittarius: Vagabond vibes. Eternal traveler. Eternal nomad. Epitome of promiscuity here. However, quite laid back. Their aesthetic probably has something to do with maps or cartography. Bohemian energy with pictures or fabrics from the far east or even Africa. Most likely has a buddha head somewhere in their home. Speak to them in an accent or different language to turn them on.

Capricorn: Independent vibes. These aphrodite placements are not keen on sharing their lives too much with others. Very business-like. Sexually though, they are insatiable. Machines. They like things to but black tie or button up. This does not mean they aren't laid back, they just like things to be all work with very little play until said work is done. Name brands and expensive suits/dresses? They're all about that. It's a status symbol thing. What Caps are famous for.

Aquarius: Avant-garde vibes. This placement will cut their hand off before they lose their freedom. More vagabond-esque than Sag tbh. Will love a style that shocks you or is out of the ordinary. Not traditional in any sense. Their sex will be kinky or they'll prefer it to have some sort of spice. Missionary? Nope. Expect a toy or ten. Pansexuals. Free love. Don't try to get them to commit unless they're ready.

Pisces: Subtle vibes. Subtle style. Dreamy style. Sexually they need to be emotionally connected. May find themselves falling in love often with the idea of someone than the reality of them. Lovers of the grunge and druggy era. 90's vibes are their aesthetic with a touch of the ethereal. Messy art studios, messy hair, even messier love lives. Might attract co-dependent types. Day-dreamy.

[miekasa]

mie.. i’m going into another eren phase.. so can you pls tell me your fav boyfie eren hcs…

Yeah, why not. I have so many random ones because he is my boyfriend <333 so here you gp

sfw

Eren doesn't actually work out all that often. He’s always been athletic, so his exercise comes in the form of playing sports, but he doesn’t really go to the gym outside of playing/practice.

Loves cake pops, more often than not “treats himself” to one after an exam or assignment, or whenever he feels like it lmfao. He basically eats it all in one bite, keeps the stick in his mouth to fidget with until he finds a trashcan. 

Likes seeing you in his hoodies because, well, it’s his hoodie on you; but mostly because of the size of the actual hood on you. He thinks it’s so funny but also pretty cute how the hood alone swallows you up. 

Grocery shopping with you is one of his favorite activities. He rarely goes by himself—if not with you, then with Mikasa or Armin—and all he really does is follow you around the store and occasionally put some stuff in the cart, but he still loves it. He likes running and then jumping on the cart like it’s a scooter. 

No matter how many makeup tutorials he watches, or how many times he watches you do your own makeup, he doesn’t really understand how it works lmfao. He likes watching it, and he thinks you look pretty if wearing makeup is your thing, but he baffles him how a little tube of concealer brightens your under eye.

Speaking of which, he sits criss cross applesauce either on your bed or on the toilet if you’re in the bathroom, while he watches you do your makeup. Counts the steps in his head, always confuses the contour and bronzer. It’s okay, he’s learning. 

He both likes and dislikes FaceTime. He likes the convenience of it (and will abuse it by calling you even tho you’ve just barely left his house), but he would much rather just go and see you; so he does. Unless there’s something keeping you apart, Eren will make the effort and the trip to go and see you, even if it’s late at night. 

He gets warm very easily, but always has some sort of coat/outerwear on him, even if it’s just a light windbreaker. He usually ends up hanging it over your shoulders or telling you to wear it because you “look cold” when he wants to take it off. 

He walks just like a half step behind you; technically still by your side, but trailing you by the tiniest amount. That way he gets to be with you and watch you, and also steer you away from anything/anyone else he sees ahead while you’re walking. 

If he notices your shoelaces are untied, he gently pokes your shoulder to get you to stop, then bends down and ties them for you. 

His phone case is brown leather, and has your initials engraved at the very bottom in a very tiny, dark green font. 

Likes walking around with you at night so congrats on having your own personal guard dog for Safety lmfaoo. Sometimes you guys don’t even talk; he just wants to hold your hand and wander around, and just be with you for a little bit. 

He is the one putting hair ties on YOUR gear shift and around YOUR wrist. Marking his territory lmfaooo

Learns to like coffee in college, and learns your Starbucks order pretty quickly. He’s got a very small addiction, but he always buys you a cup when he gets his own, so at least it’s beneficial for you. He doesn’t usually have much an extreme sweet tooth, but he takes his coffee with quite a few pumps of syrup and/or sweetener. 

Eren loves hugs, and once he starts getting them, he refuses to go with out them. Back hugs are his favorite, whether it be you hugging him from behind, or him doing it to you; either works for him, both feel like heaven. 

You know when it’s time to head home after a party/hanging with your friends because Eren will drape himself over you and gradually apply more of his body weight the more tired/drunk he gets. Regardless of whether or not he’s sloshed, he’ll still press very light and innocent kisses onto your neck and ears. 

Turns out he really likes getting kisses on his cheeks. It always takes him by surprise; his eyes widen and his eyebrows raise just a bit, but he usually evens out his expression before you pull back, so you don’t see. What you do see is the sorta glazed over, happy look in his eyes, and if you look closely, you might see his pupils dilate, too. 

He actually doesn’t mind reading, he just never thinks to read in his free time. When he does remember, and what he’s reading is interesting to him, he finishes the book pretty quickly—a few days, maybe a week at most—it’s kind of impressive. Then he goes on to not look at another book for a good five months lmfao. 

Asked you what detergent and fabric softener you used on your sheets, then bought the exact same products to do his laundry with. 

He picks you up pretty often. It’s not always tossing you over his shoulder, or carrying you bridal style, but if he needs to get to something behind you in the kitchen he’ll just. Just pick you up, turn, plop you down, get what he needs, pick you up, turn around again, and plop you right back into place. Like a doll. 

Actually very good and very meticulous when it comes to cleaning. Not a single hard water stain in sight on your dishes. Sparkling countertops and tables, your oven has never looked shinier than when he’s done with it. 

Doodles on his notes when he’s bored in class. Doodles on your notes if he’s bored in class and you’re there, too. 

He claims to not get jealous easily, but he definitely does. His methods of dealing with it are either to (a) pout (usually only happens when he gets jealous of someone you’re telling him about), (b) find an excuse to pull you away from this other person, (c) be extremely cold to this other person, (d) pretend to be sick/tired/hungry as an excuse for you to be concerned about him/dote on him in front of this other person (this is his favorite method). 

Will push your phone down/into your face if you’re laying down using it or just scrolling through your feeds. Thinks it’s peak comedy, always runs away with a little shit grin on his mouth. 

He’s always tuned into you, and sometimes physically turned to you, even in a larger conversation with other people around. Finds a way to pull you into the convo if you’ve been on the quieter side, nudges at your side under the table to bother you when you’re distracted, frequently looks at you even if someone else is talking. 

nsfw/suggestive

Eren really likes lazy sex, and it’s arguably one of his favorites; and for someone who’s not a morning person, he sure does like morning sex. He does this thing where he wakes up at like eight in the morning, starts feeling up on you, and eventually very lazily fucks you before you even have the chance to say good morning, then crashes and sleeps for another two hours. Sometimes he doesn’t pull out. 

Always gets hard when you do try on hauls of the new clothes you’ve bought; whether it be via FaceTime or in person. You could be showing him your new sweatpants, and he’ll still find it sexy. 

Can and will find time to grope you whenever possible. Getting water from the kitchen means you’re getting your ass smacked while you open the fridge. Putting on your shoes also means you’re getting your ass smacked when you bend over. Standing around debating on what to wear for the day means he’s coming up behind you to put his hands on your boobs. Doing your skincare routine in the bathroom means he’s got his hands on your hips squeezing at your skin. 

Likes being bitten. Will tell you to bite him; he’ll lean down while he’s fucking you, smile wickedly when you grab and claw at his back, and you’re gasping against his shoulder, “Wanna hurt me? Go ahead, baby, do your worst.” 

He loves making out with you, even if it doesn’t lead to sex; actually, sometimes, he prefers it that way. You make his head spin just by kissing him, and there’s a special kind of bliss of just rutting against each other without fucking that he loves. 

Lovesssss taking mirror selfie’s with you on his lap and your back to the mirror, especially right after sex. Your head resting on his shoulder and he just barely murmurs, “Stay right there, don’t move.” Might start a collection of pics like that.

Tugging on his ear acts as encouragement, but somewhat surprisingly, that sole action doesn’t necessarily turn him on; it doesn’t turn him off, and he likes it, but it’s more... soothing? than sexual to him. What you should do instead is put your hand on the back of his neck/touch the hair near his nape. 

He could have done all the work, but will still wrap you in his arms and kiss your head and tell you how good you are, how good you were to him. He really does think you fucked him 9/10 times and takes pride in it too lmaooo

Holds your jaw open with one hand, presses the index and middle fingers of his other hand against your tongue, and watches your spit pool around him. He exhales slowly at the sight, moving his fingers around to coat them evenly before pulling them out of your mouth and separating them; watches a thin line of spit connect them and groans. 

Holds you jaw a lot, actually: when you’re kissing, when you’re blowing him, when he’s on top and fucking you, when he’s fucking you from behind, he’ll pull you up with one hand, use two fingers and turn your head to the side so he can kiss you. 

It’s him that kinda loses it first most of the time; that gets that fucked out, hazy look in his eyes, that makes everything feel like too much so his head drops to your shoulder and he resorts to biting at your neck to further stimulate you. 

Likes sucking on your tongue when you kiss. Falls in love with you all over again on the spot when you do it back to him. 

You could just barely put your hands on him and Eren will groan, mutter about how you’re so sexy and how badly he wants to fuck you. Could just lay back with your chest heaving from kissing him and he’s got hearts in his eyes and his dick is hard. 

[siswritesyanderes]

Ok now that you mention it… yandere Susan is your best friend irl, sure she’s a bit clingy and bossy and touchy but if you’re being honest it makes you feel special. Until one day you’ve been asked out on a date by a man you’re actually interested in and the day of- you wake up in a room which looks… kind of medieval? It’s not even locked, in fact you make it all the way out of the castle before you realise you’ve got no idea where you are… You’re honestly so relived when you find Susan, maybe she knows what’s going on?

This is genuinely brilliant. I love it. Just a heads up: I ended up making the reader female in this one, and looking back at the prompt I now see that that wasn't specifically stated. Sorry about that. I was assuming, and it's hard to go back and use gender neutral language with Narnia in particular because of the whole "Son of Adam" "Daughter of Eve" thing. In the future, what do you think I should go with? "Child of the Ancients" feels too vague, whereas "Child of Adam and Eve" feels too wordy. Anyway. Here it is!

You wished that the room were just unfamiliar.

Well, you wished that it weren't unfamiliar at all; you wished that you were waking in your own room. But if it had to be unfamiliar, you wished that it would be just unfamiliar, and not unfamiliar and bizarre.

The bed was grand; everything in the room was grand, and light flooded in from a pair of opened doors that led out to a balcony, which overlooked a vast forest, and then a vivid blue ocean. It felt like you were inside a storybook castle, and the air above your head was full of flying creatures that didn't look like butterflies but also couldn't reasonably have been anything else.

When the urge to freeze in place yielded to the urge to run, you stumbled out of the ornate bed and discovered that you were wearing a long, medieval-looking nightgown.

As much as this was exactly the sort of thing that could only happen in a dream, your senses felt real, and your surroundings seemed much too inventive and coherent for your brain to have thrown together on a whim.

You ran from the room and found that it was connected to an equally palatial corridor. You didn't see anyone around, despite the vastness of the building you were in. You gravitated to a wall that had windows to outside, and you walked along that same wall until you came upon a door, which was heavy but unbarred. You stepped out, barefoot, onto a stone path.

The outside air was crisp and carried the smell of unfamiliar woods. In the distance, there was a beach. You could see no houses, no city scenery. Only forest, and the castle of a building from which you'd just emerged.

Where on Earth were you?

A song began to ring through the air. You made out the words, "Daughter of Eve, welcome!" It sounded like a chorus of children singing. You looked around wildly for the source of the voices, but you were alone except for a smattering of small birds overhead, whose winding patterns of flight almost resembled an intricately choreographed dance.

You watched and listened for a while, dazed.

"I told them not to startle you," a familiar voice suddenly said, "but they do get excited."

You turned and found that your best friend was here, except instead of her usual sensible skirts and cardigans, she was wearing an opulent dress like something royalty would wear. More opulent than what you had on. Her dark hair fell around her shoulders, shinier and wavier than usual, like she or someone else had dedicated a great deal of effort to it, rather than just the exact amount of attention needed to keep it impeccably tidy.

But it was more than all that. More than her appearance. She looked different.

Susan Pevensie always appeared confident. She had a perpetual look in her eyes as if she knew more than most everyone she came across. She was never disrespectful to those with authority over her, but her disposition towards them always seemed to carry the slightest trace of condescension, nearing wistfulness or pity, as if she were always thinking, You have no idea, do you?

It carried over into your friendship, as well.

You were aware that you sort of let her boss you around a lot, but she was never mean or pushy about it...perhaps because she never had to be. Her air of casual authority, giving no impression of arrogance but of wisdom, was extremely effective on most people she met, and you were no exception. You just happened to be someone she had chosen to also befriend. To link arms with and talk with and listen to. Even as something in her smile had always made you think that your thoughts and your problems seemed so quaint to her, she also always assured you that she wanted to hear them, and she always seemed genuine about it. You spent every day with her, and despite seeming to glide above the trivialities of daily life, Susan never indicated that she did not value her time with you. No, she made you special with her, just by choosing you.

Even if you couldn't plumb the depths of Susan, you knew Susan.

And the Susan you saw before you now...It was like the Susan who lived in the back of her eyes had emerged to the forefront.

The regal bearing, the complete lack of self-consciousness, and that almost wicked bit of sharpness that you saw only on occasion, like when you were late in meeting her at whatever agreed-upon spot, or when some other friend or acquaintance tried to pull you aside when you were already walking with her, or...Well, or just yesterday, when you had told her that Anthony Bridges had asked you on a date and you had said yes.

( "No," she'd scoffed at first, with an amused smile, as if exercising her understood veto privileges. It wasn't until you'd pressed the issue, and insisted that you wanted to go, that you would go, that her eyes had taken on that sharpness, her arguments that ruthless precision.)

This was your first time seeing her since that row, and her smile was utterly beauteous and wickedly sharp. Friendly and almost cruel-looking.

"You look amazing," you told her, gesturing to the gown.

She seemed barely to register the compliment, as though she'd heard it a million times. (She probably had, and in better words.) "You haven't seen yourself," she said, arching an eyebrow playfully. "I've always thought the clothing here would suit you. I shan't feign surprise that I am right once again."

The little birds had started circling you both, each one spiraling around you and up into the air, then back down to circle you again. Again, like an elaborate dance.

"Where are we, Su?" you asked. You didn't normally shorten her name, but you needed the diminutive to make things feel less...important. This all felt very important, and it was scaring you.

"I can tell you the name, but it won't help." As she strode closer, that smile did not change. "It's not on any map that you've seen. This is Cair Paravel, in Narnia. The new Cair Paravel, that is. For years, it stood empty, awaiting the return of the ones who ended the endless winter."

You had never known Susan to tell jokes, but you forced a laugh, hoping this was one.

This succeeded only in changing her smile. Her lips closed over her white teeth and pressed together, a look that seemed mockingly rueful.

"Su, wherever we are...I need to get back home." You almost brought up that you had someplace to be this afternoon, in support of your statement, but just in time you remembered that perhaps you didn't want to rehash your most recent argument.

Susan seemed to read your mind, regardless. "Of course. You have a terribly important outing planned with Anthony Bridges, don't you? How inconsiderate of me, to have forgotten."

Her elegant, lofty tone was not comforting. "This isn't about Anthony. It isn't. This place is just...strange. I don't know how I got here."

"I brought you, of course."

"What do you mean?"

"Do try to keep up," she teased. At a single amused glance from her, the birds dispersed and were soon out of sight and earshot. Susan slipped her arm through yours and led you down a previously unseen path through the woods– an elegant, companionable gesture with a deceptive amount of force behind it. She always had been stronger than she looked. "I thought we needed the time away," she finally said. "You were beginning to get distracted."

"How did you bring me here?"

"Do you truly expect to feel better for knowing? You're here now. And you won't leave until I believe it is time."

Protestations swam through your mind but died on your tongue. This sort of thing was classic Susan. Taking charge, questioning your questions, and telling you how things were going to be, in that calm and reasonable tone that made command sound like mere fact. She was herself, and you knew her. But this was different.

It wasn't entirely a difference in Susan, you realized. The way the world interacted with Susan had changed. There was no tree whose branches skimmed even the edges of her gown; in fact, what seemed at first to be random swaying in the wind was definitely a consistent movement of tree branches out of her path, clearing the way without brushing against her. The light, soundless summery breezes cradled her voice, carrying it in every direction so that it seemed you could hear her in both ears despite her standing on only one side of you, and the sunlight streamed over her through the parting trees and framed her person as though she was something otherworldly. Something holy. The normal shadows one expected to see on a person, underneath the eyelashes or in the crease of the wrist, just weren't there. As if she glowed.

The pair of you broke through the edge of the trees and into a clearing while you were still staring at Susan. You looked away to see your new surroundings, and before you was a short walk to a grassy overhang and, beneath it, a sandy beach and then blue waves as far as the eye could see.

Your jaw dropped.

"I knew you'd admire the view," Susan remarked. "I'd say you'll catch flies like that, but the flies know better."

You closed your mouth and shook your head, still at a loss for words.

"We'll have a stroll here," she mused, "Then luncheon at the palace. After that, I'll show you off to the fauns, the centaurs, and the beavers."

You sighed. Classic Susan. She never asked anything difficult of you. Just that you come when called and stay near her and let yourself be shown off to... "Did you say 'beavers'?"

[onbeinganangel]

warmup ficlet for @the-starryknight! she picked 'i know we’re not together but i might die today so i’m going to kiss you just in case there is no later' from this wee list of kisses and asked me to drarry it up and I rubbed my hands together in glee knowing fully well i was about to put together a hell of an angst sandwich

not beta'd, not edited, just angst with a happy ending directly from my heart to yours! (cw: some canon-style mentions of blood, violence, injury and also kind of patient/healer relationship)

damned if you do it and damned if you don’t

(draco/harry, 1.8k)

Draco had pictured it so often throughout his life he sometimes couldn’t honestly believe he had made it all the way to twenty-seven.

He remembers saying it after being thrown on his arse by the family Abraxan. He’d been very little, then. Five or six, maybe. He’d cried, big fat tears running down his face, and when his Mother finally managed to pull his tiny fists down and stop him from hiding his crying behind them, he’d announced, “Maman, I am dying.” She had assured him he very much wasn’t. They’d had scones with big heaped spoonfuls of clotted cream and raspberry jam in the garden and he’d soon forgotten about his fall.

A few years later, he fell off his broom and straight into the lake. Dobby had spelled him dry to avoid him getting in trouble and he was still heaving, coughing up water and panicking when he told the Elf, “Dobby, I am dying.”

Then there was the incident at Hogwarts. He still felt the sharp talons on his skin way after the hippogriff was far, far away, as he bled, holding onto the gashes on his arm and announced to the whole class, “I am dying, it’s killed me!”

Between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, it was more constant. It was the heavy burn of the Mark settling on his arm, it was the feeling of all his organs lighting up in pain and his bones breaking under Crucio after Crucio, it was the sounds of Nagini slithering outside his bedroom door at night, the sickening thud of death, the unsettling screaming, his aunt’s shrill nails-on-chalkboard voice, Greyback’s growls. A neverending chant of “I am dying, I am dying, I am dying, I am dying” inside his head.

It was confiding in a ghost, it was crying because the fear of failure was so intense he reckons he would have preferred to be dead then, it was the only person he believed was actually kind and pure and incapable of willingly inflicting pain on anyone slashing him open and leaving him for dead on a bathroom floor. Draco had looked at Snape, murmuring spell after spell over him, and he’d whispered, “I am dying.”

It was learning how to be numb, how to not feel, how to keep everyone out of his mind and away from his thoughts, it was the paralysing terror of crawling around in the shadows, the bone-deep dread of dropping leftover bread rolls on the floor by the bars on the dungeon and kicking them swiftly into the other side, where they kept his classmates. It was sneaking a blanket or two down and saying to himself, “If they find out…”

It was the persistent horror of knowing you don’t believe in what you’re doing and knowing you’re damned if you do it and damned if you don’t. Between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, Draco would lie in his bed at night — his own at home, his own in the dorms, Pansy’s in the girls’ dorms when it got bad, and he would say it to himself, hoping it would become true, “I am dying.”

But he hadn’t. Despite all odds, Draco is happy. Twenty-seven. He’s got friends, a flat, a job he loves and he’s good at. He’s no longer spat at on the streets. He survived, he made amends, he managed it all. Most of all, he had managed not to die.

Until now, that is. This time he’s pretty certain he won’t be afforded such luck. He feels the curse hit him square on the chest. It’s his own fault, really, for not realising there was someone already in the room he entered. He’d been too busy throwing a rather flourished Incarcerous across the room at the two potions dealers he’d been running after for the past five minutes to notice the third man.

Draco is falling backwards before he has time to even think about anything, his wand clanking noisily seconds before he joins it on the floor.

Then: “Incarcerous.” He hears it — muffled but there. And after, “Fuck, Draco.”

He’s way too familiar with the way his Auror partner works not to know it’s him when the strong arms wrap around him and pull him up. “Oh, Merlin,” he hears. His eyes flutter back open for a couple of seconds and he can tell he was right, even if it’s all blurry: red robes, orange hair, worried blue eyes.

Fear. “I am dying,” he thinks. “Harry,” he says.

“You’re gonna see Harry alright,” Ron says. “He’s gonna have words about having to heal you again,” it’s almost like a joke. Like a Ronald-typical joke. But there’s an edge of worry there. There’s panic. Ronald doesn’t panic.

And it dawns on him. Draco tries to look down but it’s all red. The burgundy of his robes, the sticky dark red of drying blood on his hands and the fresh and vivid blood still pouring out of his chest. He’s not gonna make it to St. Mungo’s, he’s never going to make it to Harry.

“I am dying,” he says, and Ron makes a noise that can only be described as half agony, half agreement.

It smells like St. Mungo’s when he wakes up thinking “I am dying.” Very faintly, he hears the same voice he always hears in his dreams. Maybe he is dead. The voice never sounds like this in his dreams, though: disembodied, frantic, quick. Draco catches half words, half sentences, half conversations that don’t make sense. A different voice is saying “just do it” and “you’re powerful enough” and “sod protocol” and “I am his partner, I brought him here.” The voice from his dreams responds with things like “unstable” and “I don’t know” and “can you please try” and a “I can’t get in touch with her” and “not without consent forms” and a louder, angry “he’s not going to d—“

Draco tries to move towards the voice.

“Draco!” Says the first voice and three pairs of feet come towards him.

“Don’t try to open your eyes, don’t try to talk, don’t try to move, okay? We have stopped the bleeding for now, but we’re still trying to reverse the curse.”

“Harry.” His Harry.

“Yes, hello. We have got to stop meeting like this.”

“I am dying,” Draco croaks out.

“I won’t let you.”

Draco wants to speak. He wants to say “I am dying, I don’t want to die without telling you,” but he has no strength. His thoughts are going faster than the newest Firebolt as he hears Harry tell whoever else is in the room (Ron?) to leave. He wonders if this is it. This what they show you in the films: your life flashing before your eyes right before you die. He thinks of Harry shaking his hand after his Auror graduation ceremony. “Well done, Malfoy,” he’d said. He thinks of that first time he’d been invited over to Ron and Hermione’s, a few weeks after he became Ron’s partner, and Harry had laughed at his stories, lips wine-red and plump, eyes kind like he’d never expected. He thinks of every moment of almost in between them, every moment where Draco considered blurting it out, saying what was on his mind. The Christmas Gala as he towered over Harry and fixed the little chain on his robes for him, and that night at that dingy club for Hermione’s birthday where they’d stared at each other for forty minutes and when Draco had decided he couldn’t take it anymore, he found out that Harry had left. Or just last month when they’d gone out to buy a housewarming present for Luna and ended up eating leftovers on Harry’s sofa, exhausted from people and walking. There are too many. Too many instances of hesitation, too many “nearly-but-not-quites.”

And he’ll die and won’t ever get the chance to tell him, to kiss his handsome, stupid, precious face, and it aches — it hurts almost as much as that spot just to the left of his breastbone where the Curse had hit, where he was profusely bleeding not long ago.

“Closer,” he manages, very quietly.

Harry approaches, but not close enough, not even close enough for Draco to grab at him.

“Cl— clos—uh—closer,” he tries again.

And Harry’s right there, by his bed and he looks beautiful in his Healer robes (unheard of, really) and Draco is blinking his view into a sharper focus and listing all the things he knows he loves, the things he doesn’t want to forget: the white-ish storm of a scar that slashes through Harry’s eyebrow, the shiny (shinier than usual?) green eyes, the touch of stubble, the slightly crooked nose, the lips — oh, the lips, plump and sweet looking and Draco will never get to find out just how sweet. And then, he has to do it. Because if he’s going to die anyway, he may as well use his last breath on this.

He pushes himself off the pillow slightly and his hand pulls Harry’s green robes closer until their lips meet, clumsily and hard — Harry not expecting it, Draco waning from the efforts of pulling Harry closer, but Draco will die knowing he’s kissed Harry. And if there’s no later, at least he’s done it. At least Harry knows.

“Stop. You’ll hurt yourself,” Harry says, and pushes him back down. Gently, like everything he does.

“But—“

“I know, darling. Me too.”

Darling? Harry… too?

“I’m going to heal you, okay? I’m going to heal you and we’ll do that again. I’ll take you to dinner, or brunch, I know you like brunch. Or just coffee. We’ll go to the pictures. I’ll hold your hand. We’ll go flying. We’ll go clubbing and I’ll dance with you, I promise I will, and I’ll let you tell me how bad I am. I’ll find you a copy of that book you were talking about with Hermione, no matter how much it costs. I’ll throw my name around if I have to, okay? And we’re going to do that again, properly. When I’m not your healer and you’re not hurting. I’m going to heal you now, you just—“ he stops, then, breathing wild and panicked.

Then, a small sob. A kiss to his forehead. Draco doesn’t remember closing his eyes.

“You just hold on, yeah? Don’t go anywhere.”

And Draco would cry if he had the strength, he would say yes to all those plans and more, but he focuses on the feeling of Harry’s magic sinking into his body like and he holds on, just like he was told to. He holds on, even if he doesn’t know exactly to what. And he thinks maybe he’ll get lucky again, and he’ll stop picturing himself dead like he’s been doing his whole life. Harry’s magic feels like love, like poetry, like cascading words of affection whispered into the space between his ribs, it feels like hope. And Draco holds on and thinks to himself, as loud as a thought can go, “I am not dying.”

[danniburgh]

Before the sun shines onto us

I wrote a Pedro Pascal fic, I’m aware I’m sick, I have therapy tomorrow

Pairing: Pedro Pascal x Fem!reader

Summary: It's been a long time since they saw each other, they lived so many things together that neither of them could change not forget, yet for her, returning to the house that they shared for so long, while the world was ending, was way more necessary than she had expected. or Pedro didn't expect to see his ex-wife standing on the front door, he didn't expect her to ask about the recent news or to compliment his home decour style just as if nothing had happened. But given the fact that the world was ending, he let her in anyway.

Word count: +6.2k

Warnings: real people fiction!!!!, narrated in third person basically the end of the world, angst, mentions of ch*ld de*ath (tw at the beginning of the scene), science, made up space shit

A/N: i made myself cry like four times writing this, im not sorry, this was mainly inspired by “rocks that bleed” a short film that lives in my mind rent free since the first time i saw it

Masterlist // Read in ao3

She came out of the door of the hotel salon, her big handbag was hanging from her right arm, her small suitcase was being rolled with the left one, she encountered one of her colleagues that was also getting out and the man waved at her with a smile.

"Hey, you wanna grab a coffee with the rest of us?" He kind of screamed the question, trying to make himself heard over the voiced of all the people that were getting out and gathering at the entrance of the salon, he smiled back at him and shook her head.

"I have to go back home, Ben, but I'll grab that coffee next time, for sure" The man laughed.

"See you next year, then" She waved at him as she walked down the corridor towards the elevators, she rushed to the only one open despite her high heels and one of the people already inside held the door for her.

"Thanks" She took out her phone from her bag and dialed the most recent number on her calls history, her assistant picked up in the first tone. "Hey Jessi, is the ticket ready?" she asked, looking at the small screen on top of the elevator, impatient to reach the first floor.

"Yes misses Balmaceda, ready for you to pick it up and the flight is at seven thirty" the girl on the other side of the line said, the elevator door opened and she was the first one to walk out of it.

"Thank you, see you in the morning" She said, hanging up, while she was walking towards the hotel main entrance she dialed her husband's phone number, she heard his voice while giving her suitcase to one of the bellboys, who was holding the door open for her to get out.

"Taxi?" the boy said, and she nodded.

"Hey, babe, just got out of the seminar" On the other side of the line she could hear some giggles and on the background she heard a children's song that she immediately recognized.

"Oh finally, how was it?" She smiled at her husband's response, she noticed his agitated voice. A taxi pulled over next to her and the driver got out to help the bellboy with the suitcase.

"Well, you know, doctor stuff" She said, teasingly "They amazingly discovered yet another protein that produces cerebral cancer, but now I'm on my way home" He let out a sigh and she got inside the car.

"You okay, Pedro?" The taxi driver got inside as well and looked at her "Airport, please" The man nodded and started the engine.

"Ash please stop changing the channels" She smiled at the mention of their daughter "Yeah I'm fine, just tired, what time you're arriving?"

"Around ten, how's my baby?" She asked.

"She's being a torment right now, she didn't let me read the script I received" Pedro said with a laugh "She has bedtime in two minutes" he raised his voice, more to the little girl that was running around the living room than to his wife, She smiled and the taxi made a turn.

"Awe, I miss my baby" She murmured while looking out the window.

"And your baby missed you, we both do" Pedro said back, she didn't respond, a bright light outside caught her attention.

"The moon looks very shiny" She whispered, surprised.

"What?"

"The moon, it looks very, very shiny" She emphasized "Way more than normal"

"Amor, it's the moon, it's always shiny"

"No, Pedro, it looks... Shinier than usual"

"What do you even mean?"

"Go look at it"

"I'm not gonna look at it" He laughed "It's just the goddamn moon."

"Honey please, it looks odd, just indulge me" She insisted.

"It does look weird" The taxi driver said while making another turn, leaving the moon behind them.

"See? even the driver thinks so" She giggled, turning on the seat to see it again through the back windshield

"I mean I guess it looks kind of unusual" Pedro said.

"Told you" She said, he laughed at her cocky voicetone. The taxi made yet another turn and she could see the airport. "Okay babe, gotta go, see you later, give Ashley a kiss from me"

"Can't wait to see you, love you"

"Love you too"

****

She turned off the car's ignition and looked at the town house through the copilot's window, she hadn't been inside in so long it almost looked... Unknown to her.

She hesitated to open the car door and get out but she did it anyway. She stopped and looked down at that specific patch of concrete on the street, and had to force herself to look away from it, as she could feel her throat getting clogged already.

She walked slowly to the end of the steps and stopped again to look at the front door, it was worn down and a bit darker than she recalled, she walked up the steps one by one until she got to the front door, it was there where she noticed how the street was oddly quiet, dark, only lightened by the street lights and the overshiny moon, very calm, the only noise that she could hear was the wind playing with the few leaves left on the trees and the muffled sound that came from inside the house.

She hesitated to knock on the door for a second but she did it anyway. One, two, three small hits with her knuckles.

The door opened and there he was, tall as ever, handsome as ever.

"Hi" She said, he looked surprised, she didn't know if it was because she was there or not, she noticed his beard and her stomach made a turn because of how much she liked it, she also noticed the bag below his eyes and she wanted to cry because his damn eyes were as warm and deep as she remembered.

"Hi" Pedro responded.

"Did you hear?" She asked, he tilted his head, implicitly telling her to elaborate on her question "About the sun?"

He stood there, looking at her, she then had that sensation on her chest she hadn't felt in so much, the expectation, the tension, she wanted to know so bad what was going on inside his head, she had seen so many brains in her career but with his, she just wanted to read his thoughts so she could know if she wanted her there or if she had to leave and be alone while everything happened.

He then nodded slightly and stepped to the side to let her in.

She hesitated to go inside for a split second, but she did it anyway, she walked slowly, taking in all the changes he had made to the place, new paint, some new furniture, it even smelled different.

She jumped, startled, when he reached her shoulders from behind to take off her jacket, not because he scared her, but because she hadn't felt his touch in way too long.

****

The taxi pulled over in front of her house, she paid while opening the car door, getting out and taking out the suitcase from inside the car.

"Keep the change" She sad, closing the taxi door, she rushed over to the end of the steps and walked them up as fast as her heels allowed her to, already with the key on her hand.

She opened the door and got inside, the house was silent and the only light on was a lamp on the living room, she took out her shoes and dropped them on the entrance, she walked to the kitchen, lifting some of Ashley's toys in the way, on top of the counter was a tinfoil covered dish, and she smiled at the small note stuck to it that had a smiley face drawn on.

She felt two hands on her waist that startled her, and then a soft pair of lips on her cheek.

"You scared me" She said laughing, she turned around on his embrace and faced Pedro, already in his pajamas.

"Good" He smiled at her and hugged her tighter, she stood on her tiptoes to give him a kiss, using her hands to caress his biceps and go all the way to the nape of his neck.

"Hi, movie star"

"How was your flight, Doctor?" He asked softly on her lips, then he put his forehead on hers.

"Flight-ey" She smiled, he nodded softly as he left his hands wander on her waist, her hip and her lower back  "I'm wrecked"

"Me and you both" He gave her another kiss, this one hungrier than the last one, but also slower.

"Where's my baby?"

"Already asleep"

"I wanna see her" He nodded and kissed her one last time before breaking the tight embrace, he grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the kitchen.

"Vamos"

They got up the stairs in silence, she holding his left hand and he holding her suitcase with his right one, she made a turn to Ashley's room while Pedro walked to their bedroom, she opened the door trying not to be loud, and walked towards the girl's bed, sitting on it beside her.

Pedro left the suitcase and came back to his daughter's room, watching as his wife was caressing softly the little girl's soft brown hair while whispering to her words he couldn't listen, he smiled and leaned on the door frame, crossing his arms, she turned to see him.

"Can you believe we made this wonder?" She murmured, pointing at the little girl fast asleep on the bed.

****

Pedro didn't like how he was feeling about her being there, he knew he was supposed to be angry, if not, maybe a bit offended, but he wasn't. He liked her being there, in the place that was theirs, in the house that belonged to her.

"I like the color" She said, pointing at the wall and looked at him for a brief moment. "It doesn't even look like the same house" She sounded amazed.

"Yeah, I had it painted last year" He walked past her, still with her jacket on his hands, he left it on the armchair near the hallway "You wanna sit down?" She nodded and sat on the couch near the window. He stood there, just trying to figure out what to say or what to do, he scratched his beard and then sat down on the other armchair, next to the couch she was sitting on.

Pedro looked at her as her eyes wandered across everything that was within her sight but him, he noticed rather quickly that she was avoiding looking at him. He was astonished by just her mere presence there.

She was stift, she didn't know what to say to him or even if she should even speak at all, while she was looking at the new coat of paint, she noticed a big painting of a beach hanging on the wall near the dining table, it looked cold, it looked out of place.

"How's your dad?" She asked, looking down at her hands, or her shoes, he couldn't tell.

"He's okay" He responded, she fidgeted her fingers, he knew what she was really asking "He's gonna spend it with my brothers, Nico flew to Chile when the rumors started" She nodded.

"And Javi?" Pedro sighed, he knew why she was asking about his family, he knew she cared about them, but he also knew that she was making time, she didn't want to tell him yet why she was there.

"She's at home, she's with the in-laws"

Then the silence fell on them once again, she was just sitting there, and he knew she could feel her gaze on her, she always could, and he didn't think her body had already forgotten how his stare felt.

She tried to control herself, she didn't want to break more, then she realized why the beach painting looked so out of place. That wall used to be the place where half a dozen pictures of Ashley were hung. She felt the clogging in her throat again and she felt the familiar stinging on the back of her eyes, for a moment she wanted to yell at him and ask him where all of her pictures went, but she couldn't, she wasn't ready.

"I wanted to go back home" She mentioned in a hushed-tone, still looking down "But then they announced the state borders were closing so I had to stay"

Pedro didn't say anything, he wanted her to speak more, he wanted her to tell him what was she doing there after three years, he wanted her to explain to him why she did what she did without him having to ask her for answers.

She then lifted his head and looked at him, she was crying.

****

She felt a tiny, cold pair of hands on her cheeks, then a small pair of lips kissing her forehead, she smiled without opening her eyes as the tiny hands caressed her hair.

"Mommy" She heard near her ear "Are you awake?" She smiled at the question and then shook her head. She heard giggles. "Yes you are."

"Wake up papi" She whispered while opening one of her eyes to see her little girl kneeling on the edge of the bed, with her big brown eyes small, her hair all rowdy and her pajamas wrinkled. Ashley wineded her grin and she helped her cross her to get to the middle of the bed. Pedro was on his tummy, hugging the pillow, and Ashley sat on his back.

"Papi, despierta, wake up" She started screaming and jumping in his back, Pedro growled and reached to the girl with one arm to hug her off his back and down to the bed.

"Papá tiene la espalda muy jodida, niña" He said with a laugh while Ashley was laughing as he tickled her. (Daddy's back is very fucked, girly)

"It's my cumpleaños" Ashley screamed, wanting her father to free her from his tickly fingers. (It's my birthday) Pedro stopped the tickle assault and looked at his wife, that was enjoying the show from the comfort of the other side of the bed.

"Why do you let her hurt me like this?" He asked with a smile on his face.

"It's her cumpleaños" She shrugged, Pedro laughed at the response.

"I turn this many" The girl, still in her father's arms, raised up a hand with three lifted fingers.

"You're getting old" Pedro screamed while resuming his tickle attack.

"¡Para, papá!" Ashley screamed again (Stop, dad) and giggled out of his arms, crawling to her laughing mom and sitting on her lap. "Mommy, I love you, can we have ice cream for breakfast?" Her mom laughed at the attempted bribe.

"What if we have it after breakfast?" Ashley shook her head. "No? Maybe with the breakfast?" Pedro laughed and sat on the bed while the girl nodded effusively, then she opened her arms and Ashley fell into them "Happy birthday, my sunshine"

Pedro saw his two girls with a smile on his face and got closer to hug them both, giving his wife a kiss on the cheek and then one to his daughter on the head.

"Feliz cumpleaños, pulga" (Happy birthday, flea [i swear it's endearingly in spanish])

****

"I called my mom" She said, wiping off a tear that was beginning to fall on her cheek and looking away, still trying to look for pictures of Ashley, Pedro shifted on the chair "I actually spoke to her for almost four hours" He nodded, not knowing where she was going on with this, but wanting to hear more "And we talked about us, and about how much we love each other" She left out more tears as she spoke "She asked me to forgive her for all the things she did wrong" Pedro was absort on how much it hurt him to see her like that, and didn't even tried to hide it, "We just wanted closure" she said, and then he saw her rubbing her hands together as if they were cold "She's gonna be alone, y'know, for this?" She gestured with her hand, making a circle "But she didn't want me to be alone"

Pedro then looked at her more intensely, trying to analize her as she wiped her tears away and looked around the house, searching for something. He didn't know if he wanted her to elaborate more on what she talked about with her mom, but he did know what she was looking for.

He stood up and walked towards her, she felt a shiver down her spine as he kneeled on the other side of the couch and opened the curtain. She turned on her seat and saw three small picture frames put neatly on the edge of the window. She felt her shoulders drop as he sat next to her and grabbed the first one and gave it to her.

"Her first steps" He said, she nodded, looking at the picture through the wetness of her eyes. She blinked and a tear fell on the glass, she wiped it and saw him grab the next one.

"That's on her third birthday" He said, softly, she took the picture and left out a sob, she covered her mouth with her free hand and then looked up to the ceiling.

"I thought-"

"I know" He interrupted her, standing up and taking a deep breath and turning his back to her "I just don't like to see them all the time" He said, she nodded even though he didn't see her.

"She has your eyes" She whispered, he looked at her and she did the same, she saw his eyes fill with tears and then he said something she wish she didn't hear.

"Had"

****

[tw]

She was writing a report on her laptop when she heard a knock on the door, then she heard Pedro's voice from outside.

"Can you help us with the groceries, please" He yelled, she let out a laugh and closed the computer, walked towards the front door and opened it to see her husband carrying more groceries than he could handle on the doorstep and her daughter trying to help with three others on the sidewalk, she moved to let Pedro inside and got out to carry the ones left.

"Honey get inside, please, it's freezing" She said, grabbing two bags and waiting for the girl to walk up the stairs.

"I wanna help" Ashley said, trying to lift a heavy bag.

"I think I over-bought" Pedro said behind her, walking down the stairs, she turned to see him.

"Oh do you?" She laughed, her husband took the bags she was holding and gave her a kiss. "I'm gonna grab the other one" Pedro nodded and turned to leave the bags inside. "C'mon Ash, inside" She said as she turned around to grab the bag that was left.

The bag was tilted to the side, there were two tuna cans on the floor and she saw Ashley walking towards the street to pick up another can that was rolling away. She saw everything in slow motion when in fact it happened within a minute.

"¡Ashley leave that!" She screamed at her daughter, rushing to grab her, the child stopped in the middle of the street and showed the can to her mom with a victory smile on her face. She tried to run to Ashley that hadn't seen the suv that was already a feet away from her.

Pedro only heard a long scream, the sound of car breaks, then a deep sob.

He rushed out of the house, the first thing that he saw was the suv, stopped in the middle of the street, then whom he assumed was the driver, talking desperately into the phone, then he saw his wife crouched on the asphalt, holding... Ashley.

Pedro tried to walk towards them but his legs didn't respond, he dropped to his knees in the middle of the sidewalk while he saw his wife sitting in the middle of the street holding their little girl to her chest screaming her name as loud as she could. He felt more cold than he had ever felt in his life, he felt his eyes wanting to pop out of his head, he felt like sticking his hand into his chest to squish out his heart, he wanted to stop looking at the scene, he didn't want to see Ashley's blood on the concrete anymore, he didn't want to hear his wife screaming her lungs out calling for her baby, he didn't want to see his little girls body being ripped away from her mother. But there he was, seeing it all, hearing it all, feeling it all.

Pedro sat there while his wife sat on the street, the ambulance came, the police did too, their neighbours showed up as well and they just sat there, seeing without seeing, hearing without hearing.

By the time the paramedics made the call, pronounced Ashley and took her away, his wife had stopped crying, was being helped by a police officer to stand up and then Pedro did too. He walked towards her and slowly reached for her face, she didn't say anything, he didn't say anything. She leaned into his chest and he held her as tight as his body responded him. They stood there for a while, the sun went down and then the moon lighted up, she looked down and the bag of groceries was put into the edge of the stairs.

"The moon" Pedro said, she looked up "It looks unusual again"

****

"Had" She corrected.

He stood there in silence, she was holding the picture to her chest, that image reminded him of so much that he closed his eyes instictevly.

"Are you gonna tell me why you're here?" He asked softly. She looked at him, astounded that he wasn't angry, or exasperated, astounded that he was just... sad, she looked at him, wondering why she could still read him as well as she did back when they were together.

"I..." She started, he looked at her and saw her face, puffy and red from crying and her eyes, even so watery, expecting and hopeful. "I don't wanna be alone" She let out a sob and then hid her face into her hands, feeling stupid, pathetic, feeling lonely, as well as sad, so very sad, because she knew he had all the right to make her leave, she knew that if he wanted, he could tell her to fuck off and throw her out to spend the last time alone.

"Okay" He said, she looked at him, thanking him with one look, he stared at her for what it seemed hours and then nodded. "I'll bring you some water"

She saw him walking to the kitchen, she heard him grab a cup, opening the fridge and pouring water into it, then he came back and handed it to her.

"It's filtered, don't worry" He told her, sitting on the chair again, she nodded and took a sip, then left it on the floor, by the end of the couch.

"Do they have any idea when it's gonna start?" She asked, more out loud than directly to him, he shrugged.

"They have no fucking idea of anything" He answered.

"Are you mad?" She asked him "About how's gonna end?" He frowned at the way she asked, and actually thought of it because he didn't know.

"I guess I am" He said "There was so much I wanted to do, y'know" He scratched his beard and moved to lean on his hand, putting his elbow on his knee "You heard they closed the movie business when the news broke?" She lifted her eyebrows in surprised, she was so out of the loop "Everything was shut down, it was fucking unbelievable" He said.

"When was the last time you filmed anything?" She asked, he grinned.

"About eight months ago, when they announce the exact date." He said, looking at her, he felt how they were starting to loosen up a bit, and so he didn't want to waste any more of the short amount of time they had, either together or alive. "Why did you leave?"

****

When he entered the kitchen there was smoke coming out of the oven, he quickly turned it off and opened it along with the stractor to try to get rid of most of the smoke. She was standing next to the fridge, looking at nothing, holding an oven mitt close to her chest.

"Are you ok?" He asked, he knew it was the most stupid question he could ask at the moment, and he understood when she didn't even acknowledge it. He stood there for a second, wondering and pondering if he could walk towards her and hug her, wondering and pondering if she would take the hug or push him away once again as she had done for the past few months.

He decided to give it a chance and walked towards her, though he didn't hug her, he just stood next to her.

She let out a sob and slowly shoved the oven mitt into his chest, walking away.

Pedro held the mitt and he recognized the drawing it had, it was one of many projects Ashley had made in school. He went after her, she was standing in the middle of the living room, looking at all the pictures of Ashley the had on the wall. He went for it and tried to hug her waist from behind, she let out a sigh and took his arms and unmade the embrace. He closed his eyes just wanting to know what was going on. She turned to see him with her eyes filled with tears.

"I need to leave" She said, he felt the air leaving his chest.

"What?"

"I can't be here anymore" She sobbed out, he walked towards her again and she stopped hi with a hand on his chest "I'm sorry, I can't" He frowned, he needed an explanation and she knew she was entitled to one but she didn't have the strength to do it.

"I'll go" He said, grabbing her from the arms, she shook her head and let out two thick tears.

"I'm the one leaving" She said, slowly.

"But why" He cried, he didn't realize he was crying as well until he said that. "Please talk to me."

"I can't be in this house anymore, Pedro, I can't be here anymore" She said through her sobs, he tried to hug her again and she refused.

"Let's go together, let's leave together" He pleaded. She shook her head. "Please don't leave"

"I don't wanna be here anymore"

"You don't want to be with me?" He asked, hoping and praying for the answer to be yes.

"No"

He sobbed, she then hugged him and he held her as tight as he had strength to.

"You have her eyes" She sobbed "I can't look at your eyes because all I can see it's her and I can't bear it anymore" He let out a sob all the way from his chest, she wanted to break the hug.

"Please don't leave" He begged "I need you"

"I'm so sorry" She looked at him, grabbed his face and they there were, his damn eyes, the same she had, the same eyes she had stared into when she was holding her body when she left. "I want you to know that I do love you" She said, he closed his eyes and shook his head "And I will never stop, you hear me? I will always love you"

Then she walked up the stairs and left him in the living room, knowing she was packing, knowing she was leaving, knowing then and there that he would be alone.

And when she got down with a suitcase on her hand, he stood there, crying his eyes out, begging her with his eyes not to leave, wanting her to stay, promising it would get better.

But she opened the door, gave him one last stare and wiped a tear away.

"I'll come back for the rest of my things when you're at set" And walked out.

He sat on the couch wondering what he did wrong, while she stood in the doorstep for a while, looking at the very unusual, evergrowingly shiny moon.

****

The question took her by surprise, she knew he wanted to know, she still knew, after three years, he was entitled to an explanation, she owed her one.

"I know it won't make sense" She started "But I saw her in you" He saw her jaw starting to tremble.

"That's the thing" He said, trying to remain calm, trying to forget all those nights he spent screaming into his pillows, trying to forget all the times different directors had to cut scenes because he was inexplicably crying. "I saw her in you, too" She looked down, embarrassed "And I still loved you, I worshiped you" He said, his voice breaking at the last sentence "I fucking died inside a second time when you left"

"Pedro" It was the first time she'd said his name since she arrived, and he didn't like what it made him feel, he had worked hard to try to forget her and keep the happy memories of his little girl intact that he felt like an incredible failure when he felt his heart pounding at the sound of his name on her lips. "I know it wasn't fair-"

"Of fucking course it wasn't fair" He cut her "You left me here, to grieve alone, do you think I didn't suffer after Ashley died?"

"Be both did, you know that, each of us in a different way" She sobbed out.

"And yet, when I needed your support you left" He said, she could hear a tone of irony.

"And what about me?" She said, frowning, realizing that maybe it had been a mistake to knock on his door "Did you actually think I would be grieving just with hugs? And kisses? I needed to talk about it, Pedro, I fucking needed to talk about it, our little girl died, and you just wanted to cuddle up in bed and stay there"

He opened his mouth trying to respond but he couldn't, because it was true. He knew it was his mistake and then and there he realized that he couldn't do anything to repair it.

A blast was heard outside, they both jumped, she looked out the window and saw absolutely nothing. He reached for the tv remote and turned it on.

He put on the news channel while wiping his tears, and sat next to her on the couch, there was a coverage on what they were calling "The Outburst", for them, it was just an announced chronicle of the end of the world, they were talking about the flares of the sun getting increasingly hotter, higher and dangerous.

"Ugh, as if we didn't know" Pedro said, then they ran a simulation of what would happen once the earth reached what, once again, they were calling "Blast Wave Point", the point where the earth and the sun would be closer to each other, the earth would heat up and everything will start catching in flames, then the "Last Flare" would reach and light everything on fire. She reached and grabbed Pedro's hand as the images on the tv showed a render of the end of humanity. He turned off the tv. "Apparently it was just a flare reaching the atmosphere" He said, she nodded and looked at him.

"Are you still mad at me?" She asked, he gripped her hand and shook his head.

"We're past that" He said "Time did its thing" She gave him a soft smile and nodded. "Are you hungry?"

They had dinner together, they talked about what they had done the last three years, he had heard about her new investigation reaching the scientific community before the colleges shut down, she had watched him receive an oscar way before they announced the exact date of The Outburst.

They had laughed at how they actually weren't the first people to notice the increasing reflection of the sun on the moon as the huge star heated to the point of no return, they had reminisce at how they looked at the moon every time they missed each other or every time they missed Ashley.

They cried again, holding each other hands, and asked for forgiveness and forgave one another. They remembered the good times they spent together in over eight years of relationship and the rough times as well.

They watched the president's final address to the people of America, the doomsday goodbye, and laughed at the stiffness of it all, spent hours talking and talking about their childhoods and how they imagine Ashley would be like now, hearing once every few hours the blasts of the sun flares reaching the atmosphere.

"I'm actually glad she's not here to see this shit" She said, Pedro nodded in agreement, they had moved to sit on the floor, the temperature outside was rising and they had started to break a sweat, he lend her one of his t-shirts so she could remove the sweater she was wearing before.

"Don't you wonder how our lives would be if things didn't go as they did?" He asked her, she looked at him and grabbed his hand.

"Maybe I could've learned more español" She teased, he laughed "I do, but when I catch myself doing it I force myself to stop" He looked at her, interested "Because I know it's not healthy, y'know, to live that way in the past" He nodded with a nostalgic smile. And they listened carefully as another flare tried to reach the planet.

"Sounds ominous" He said, she laughed.

"Do you think it'll let us know?" She asked, he moved his body to face hers and shrugged.

"I don't know I've never lived this before" He teased "Why don't you know?" He asked her.

"I'm a neurologist not an astronomer" She answered with a smile, and went on to lean her head on his shoulder. "I really hope it doesn't"

"Why?"

"I don't wanna know, I wanna burn to death without it in my mind" She said, looking at his eyes, making him feel ever so transparent, making him feel like she could read him like an open book.

"What do you wanna have in your mind?" He asked, knowing full well why.

"Ashley" She said, he smiled endearingly "I wanna burn to death while I look into your eyes" She let out. He raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"God, how did I miss you" He spat. She smiled and lifted a hand to cup his face. They could hear two blasts going off at the same time, and the power went down.

"Shit" She said, scared, he pulled her into him, even though the air was hot and thick and they were sweaty and messy, he held her. Another two blasts went off. "Is it time?" She asked, he didn't respond because he didn't know. A set of four blasts were heard, one after the other "It's letting us know" She cried into his chest.

Pedro loosened his grip on her and grabbed her face with both hands, making her see him.

"It's gonna be okay" He said, trying to wipe off her tears with his thumbs "We're together, you're with me now" She nodded as the blasts started to get more frequent and the heat started to get almost unbearable.

"Why the fuck is this happening so fast?" She said, blinking fast to let the tears fall, Pedro shook his head, not knowing what to say, about to burst into tears as well, he would've been lying if he had said he wasn't scared "I need more time" She spat, while trying to cling to him "I need more time with you" He started crying as he heard her saying those words. Somehow made him feel the warmest he had felt in years, even in the middle of the apocalypse. "I love you, Pedro, I never stopped loving you"

"I know, I love you too, I fucking love you" He felt his skin wet with sweat and she finally closed the little distance they had left between them, she kissed him eagerly and clumsily, she kissed him like she hadn't kiss any human being in three years, and as he grabbed her face as close as he could, opening his lips for her to consume the little air he still had inside his chest, he thought there was nowhere else he wanted to be, right there, as the world was lighting up in flames, as the whole human race was being wiped from the planet, there was nothing else he wanted to do, no one else he wanted to embrace, no other thing he wanted to do, than to kiss the love of his life, after so long of not feeling her touch.

If the end of the world had to happen for them to feel each other again, so be it.

[anyoneseenadam]

Home: Chapter eight

azriel x reader (acotar)

summary: (y/n) is a daughter of Persephone, still recovering from the trauma of her fall into Tartarus and doesn’t have time for a stupid, handsome, annoying, stunning, injured man. But now they’re stuck together in the middle of nowhere and there only chance of getting home is if she can heal him, and fast.

warnings: big spoilers for mark of Athena and house of Hades, also for the acotar series, eventual smut, blood, PTSD, graphic descriptions of violence, injuries and torture, enemies to lovers so az is a bit of a dick to start, swearing

word count: 1.6k 

a/n: ahhh this is the last part and I’m kinda sad but at the same time I don’t want to drag it out, I also have a new idea for a dorian x reader so it’s a good thing to finsih one but am still sad. I hope you enjoy I made it extra fluffy (also had a cheeky wee hint back to the first part)

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

You were sat in front of a large mirror, taking in your appearance as you listened to the noise downstairs, the hustle and sounds of people speaking as they rushed about in preparation a sharp contrast to the silence of your and Azriel’s shared room. The girl looking back at you in the mirror was beautiful. Her hair was pinned up, revealing a long neck adorned with a simple necklace your lover had gifted you. Your skin was clear as well, any blemishes you had, any scarring from acne you had picked at, was gone, replaced by dewy, glowing skin. In fact everything about you seemed to glow, your hair was shinier, your skin had a new ethereal sense about it, and you looked more like your mother than you ever had before.

You heard a clatter of plates downstairs and bit your lip with a slight smile, running your hands over you dress. It was baby pink, as you had commented that white may be a little on the nose, with a deep V-neck and white and pink flowers trailing down the heavy skirt, you had picked it out with the help of Feyre and Mor who had dragged you out shopping, giggling when you had stared in shock at the sheer number of dresses you only believed existed on Pinterest. You reached over the vanity and picked up the delicate gold dangling earrings that you had ‘bought’ (Azriel had technically bought them but you certainly paid him back) and put them on, gazing wistfully at your now pointed ears.

So much had changed so quickly. Azriel’s family were extremely welcoming, instantly treating you like they had known you forever. You became incredibly close with Cassian and Nesta, much to Azriel’s amusement, as you bonded over books with Nesta and a general love of Azriel with Cassian. Nesta was officially sold on you when she finished ‘Call Me by Your Name’ the day you gave it to her, the two of you discussing it all night as you made promises to find a way to show her the movie. Rhysand and Mor treated you like a sister, the three of you soon teasing each other, Amren genuinely laughing when you let loose your more creative insults. The only one who seemed reserved at first was Elain, but soon the two of you were spending hours in the garden as you taught her about the different needs that different plants had and how to grow them most effectively.

Azriel had never been more in love. He already knew you were mates but now that it was official, and possible, he felt like he was on cloud nine. He was in love with how quickly you feel asleep in his arms. The way you lit up when talking about your passions, hands moving widely. He was in love with the way your eyes sparkled constantly now, only rarely being overcome with shadows, ones that he had learned to help dispel, you were laughing more and had even started showing your back again. When you went to the House of Wind to train with Cassian and Azriel one summer afternoon you had removed your top, leaving you in a simple sports bra, not missing the mix of pride and desire in Azriel’s eyes as you continued your exercises.

“Can I ask what happened?” Nesta had asked late that day, Feyre looking up from her book, Nyx cradled in one arm. You had explained, and after, when you expected to be pushed away, Feyre had simply passed Nyx to Nesta and wrapped her arms around you, holding you for a long while, even when the Illyrians entered the room. When she pulled away you noticed the tears in her eyes and offered her a small smile, as she whispered to you.

“You’re with your family now, nothing like that will ever happen again.” And then you were crying too.

Now you were sat in your low-back dress with your hair up, scars on display for anyone to see. You had been woken at nine am by an excited chorus of fae women and all but shoved into a bath, your hair washed, and skin scrubbed until you felt new-born. You had been brought a strong, dark coffee and some honeyed toast as you sat soaking in the bath, your friends moving about outside tidying your room and fishing out everything you needed, before you were pulled from the bath and forced to dry. When you had walked back into the room, you found Mor wiggling her eyebrows as she passed you a bag which, on further inspection, you found contained an intricate set of baby blue lingerie making you laugh loudly as you thumbed the material. They had then crowded you, Nesta drying and styling your hair as Feyre did your face, treating it alike one of her beautiful paintings, Elain painting and filing your nails as Amren and Mor sat sipping on champagne, both donned in beautiful, dark silk dresses, as they discussed the day ahead. You felt alike a princess when they were done and had commented as much, gaining you a glass of champagne and a comment on how you looked like one too. However they soon left, claiming there was much to sort out downstairs and that they had no faith in the boys to get it sorted.

Now you were sat alone, your gaze had moved to outside your window where light snow had started falling. You stood and moved the open window, perching on the ledge, smiling when a robin landed next to you, flying to rest in your palm, it’s ruby coloured breast not making you flinch. You still had nightmares as you were still part god and probably always would have the dreams you had grown used to; however you were making progress.

“If you’re planning on running away that ledge is too high,” You smiled as you heard his voice, turning to see your beautiful mate smiling at you.

“Maybe Cassian can come and fly me out,” you challenged,

“Ha, ha.” He deadpanned and you giggled, standing to wrap yourself in his arms,

“In my world it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the service,” you whispered into his chest,

“This technically isn’t a wedding,”

“That’s a fair point,” you muttered, and he smiled down at you,

“It would be a shame to deprive me of this sight, you look beautiful princess,” he spun you out of his arms and you giggled, making his heart swell with love.

“It would, wouldn’t it?”

“C’mon, we should go soon, Cassian’s already crying,” you laughed and grabbed his hand as he pulled you along and down the stairs. You gasped when you reached the bottom, there were flowers everywhere, the whole room transformed into a fairy wonderland that made you feel giddy. You smiled when you saw that Cassian was in fact, already tearing up as he stood to greet you, complementing you and thanking you for making his brother so happy, you had laughed and shoved him away in your emotional state, not wanting to cry so early, as you moved to the sink in the room that was spraying a fine mist of water, creating a rainbow.

“Oh Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, show me Nico Di Angelo, Camp half blood.” You threw in a golden drachma, the image wavered before revealing your friends and family on the other side, waving, and sending greetings. The inner circle came over and you all conversed for a while before Azriel was rather impatiently tugging on your hand and you moved onto the ceremony, with just your found families present. Having been raised mortal you insisted on exchanging rings, and Azriel was completely happy to oblige, obsessed with the feeling of pushing the ring onto your finger and kissing you, having someone that was wholly his, and who he was completely devoted to.

The rest of the day was spent curled under Azriel’s arm, sipping cocktails, and laughing as you were told all the most embarrassing things the inner circle could dig up. You ate delicious food and laughed with your friends, you heart aching at how naturally this happiness came to you now as you gazed at the man you loved.

You stood outside, breathing in the fresh air, and enjoying the slight chill that came through the thin shawl you had wrapped around you shoulders. Soon you felt a familiar hand press into your hip, pulling you into his side tightly. You looked up at him, still in wonder of how you landed such a beautiful man.

He caught your gaze, brushing a snowflake of your cheek and grabbing your hand, pressing a light kiss into the palm. “Penny for your thoughts?” He asked, gaze so full of love that tears welled up in your eyes.

“I’m just so glad you got stabbed,” you muttered, and he laughed before you continued, “I’m serious, I don’t know where I’d be if we hadn’t met, but you are everything to me and I’m so glad we pushed through, I’m so glad we fought to be together.”

“I love you.” He whispered into your hair as he pulled you in tightly, his scarred hands moving over your scarred back as you sighed, content.

“I love you.” You replied, pulling away and watching as a red admiral butterfly landed on a nearby poppy.

[the-bjd-community-confess]

Dear 'Anime Bad' Anon: I Want To Help I pity your situation, so please have a list of weebshit that isn't moeified, or wherein the cutesy art-style serves a greater purpose. (Note: though they won't be soft marshmallow uguuuu, they may still have issues in other ways. Some may have aged badly with regards to how society views or portrays groups or beliefs, some may have upsetting content and dark themes, and some may simply not be to your taste. Note: Anime is a genre, not a monolith, and the disparaging stereotype that it's all cute girls uwuing over their brother s-s-senpai!!! is as much of a disservice as saying all western movies are just vapid cash grab superhero movie sequels with no inegrity or thought put into them. There are indeed a lot of superhero movies, but they're not all identical schlock (megamind vs venom vs kick-ass),  but even more than that, there is a wealth of creative endeavor just beyond the veil of Marvel's cape: just as there are plenty of good anime if you dig past the isekai high school harem wish fulfillment genre that no one wants to keep making but people keep making because it prints money to a very small demographic of the animation equivalent of a mobile game whale thereby allowing this frankly quite-small industry to work on engaging and worthwhile series where the budget permits, Regardless,)

Mushi-shi: -Pros: gorgeous animation, tranquil vibes, episodic stories so you can cram in an episode between classes or on your lunch break. highly recommended by the literal-who typing this out. -Cons: some themes or stories may cause emotional distress, learning to tell apart Urushibara Yuki's characters is a learning curve.

Baccano-Pros: meticulously-researched 20s-and-30s-era mafia violence with a hint of the supernatural, as a treat, told anachronistically with flair and jazz music. practically made to be binge-watched. the novels are finally getting translated into english as well. -Cons: lots of characters to keep track of, fair bit of blood and violence, some scenes or themes may be upsetting, lots of jumping around between different time periods. See Also: Durarara, another series by Ryōgo Narita with a ton of characters and a plot with more threads an overpriced sheet.

Cowboy Bebop-Pros: incredibly well-regarded, space bounty hunters are cool, episodic series that slowly takes on a plot towards the end, fantastic animation, scoring, and even dub work.  -Cons: some scenes or themes may be uncomfortable, some parts have not aged quite so well, the smart doll version of the main character is ugly, you're gonna carry that weight.

Trigun-Pros: starts lighthearted, develops an increasingly investing plot as the series goes along. fictional westerns are cool. this world is made of love and peace -Cons: some scenes or themes may be upsetting, and probably will be. gun violence is naturally present, but that ain't all of it.

Hellsing (standard or Ultimate. or Abridged)Pros: vampires killing nazis. the original adaptation isn't bad, the second adaptation (ultimate) is generally viewed as an improvement. abridged is a youtube parody version that was so popular the voice actors reference it in convention interviews.Cons: a Lot of violence, even trending to the gorey side of things. Uncomfortable Themes Everywhere, but it's a horror-tinged action series about killing nazis, so that's to be expected. 

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood-Pros: while the original anime was quite good, the second iteration is a large improvement. does to alchemy what naruto does to ninjas: It's Basically Battle Magic. the plot starts on a strong note and doesn't let up from there. -Cons: there are distressing scenes and themes that may or may not be tolerable to the viewer. there are moments of cheesecake and even an occasional joke or a moeblob here and there, and it's not all doom and all gloom all the time, but this doesn't detract from the abject horror-despair that comes to permeate this series as it progresses. finally understand why people on the internet respond so negatively to the name 'nina'! 

[Mod: many more recs/reviews under the break, worth reading for those who like more obscure anime and animation]

Grave of the Fireflies-Pros: you will remember how to cry. it's a good reminder that one country's 'triumphs' often come at the expense of another country's people.  -Cons: this movie is incredibly dark, do not watch if you are in a bad headspace. see also: Barefoot Gen, a similar tale but this time from the perspective of an actual survivor from Hiroshima.

Michiko to Hatchin-Pros: an actually diverse cast of characters tangled up in a messy and very humanizing story, interspersed with Shinichiro Watanabe's particular flare for adventure. -Cons: some scenes or themes are very likely to be distressing. can be tricky to find, too.

Mo no no Ke (not the ghibli movie, though it is also quite good.) -Pros: incredibly unique art style and pacing that draws heavily from japanese theatre traditions, every screenshot is wallpaper-worthy. -Cons: may cause motion sickness. it is a psychological horror series, and one that does not need blood, nor gore, to cause visceral emotional response in the viewer. scenes and themes will be distressing- as really, that's the point.

Tokyo Godfathers-Pros: a transwoman, a (self-identified) homeless bum, and a runaway teen girl find a newborn in the baby on christmas. incredibly wholesome, somehow, and grounded in reality, with wonderful animation from the tragically late satoshi kon. -Cons: it is grounded in realism, and sometimes, people are dicks. mild transphobia warning, too, but in-universe- the transwoman herself is portrayed with kindness and allowed to be her own (wonderful!!!) person. still, viewer be mindful.

Kino no Tabi (the first series is my preferred, the second is shinier but lacks emotional impact- in my onion.) -Pros: mostly episodic, very unique series that can be gritty where it counts and kind where it matters. -Cons: some scenes or themes might be disturbing. finding it's not easy, either, and unfortunately, i don't think the novels are being translated right now, either.

Spice and Wolf-Pros: it's mostly about economics. there are shenanigans, a harvest god, and a slowly burgeoning romance, sure, but it's still mostly about economics. -Cons: there are moments of cheesecake and comedy, and moments that may cause distress to the viewer. it may or may not be to your taste.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica-Cons: yeah i know, it's moeblobs.  -Pros: you're gonna watch 'em die, though, in case that may interest you. it's quite a good subversion of the magical girl genre overall. somehow volks hasn't made an MDD of anyone from the series and i will never understand how that didn't happen.

Wolf Children: Ame to Yuki-Pros: watch a family grow together as a newly-single mother does her best to raise her twin children after the tragic loss of their father.  -Cons: keep tissues handy. certain scenes or themes may be uncomfortable.

Lupin III (Red Jacket, Ghibli, and the new 3D animation are all A+) pros: heist comedy elevated to an art form before half (or more!) of the people reading this were born. the english dubbed series that used to air on adult swim is a treat. cons: this franchise started in THE SIXTIES, so naturally, some shit has not aged well. certain series (fujiko mine) are darker than others in themes and material. the 3d movie that released recently is an excellent starting point.

Samurai Champloo-Pros: breakdancing samurai, a fascinating roster of characters, and a superb soundtrack by the tragically passed Nujabes. -Cons: it was made in the weird era of the transition from analog to digital animation and so the /series master/ was animated at a painfully low resolution, so even if there's a bluray out there (I haven't looked,) it will be an upscale, which doesn't always look the best. as well, there are scenes and themes that may make the viewer uncomfortable here and there.

The Works of Studio Ghibli Oh, I'm sorry, Ponyo too suffused with childhood wonder for you? My Neighbor Totoro not depressing enough?  In addition to the infamous Grave of the Fireflies, Studio Ghibli has made a wealth of movies that aren't aimed squarely at the kodomo (children's) sector. -Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind: climate change existential dread, the movie -Castle in the Sky: government obsession with obtaining weapons of mass destruction destroys everything beautiful, the movie -Pom Poko: human-caused deforestation and urbanization is destroying the natural world and all that live in it, the movie -Princess Mononoke: industrialization will be the death of everything beautiful in the world, the movie, with a side of sometimes everyone (and no one) is the villain when everyone is simply trying to survive -Howl's Moving Castle: The Physical Manifestation of Depression is a Liquid Ooze, the Movie, also War Is Bad It's not all depressing, but let it never be said that Hayao Miyazaki was subtle. Whisper of the Heart is a good coming-of-age story, Kiki's Delivery Service is a classic, Tales from Earthsea is divisive among fans of Ursula K. Le Guin but I personally liked it. From one studio alone there is a wealth of opportunities.

And that's really the point. These are just some from the top of my head. There are so very many options outside of the cute-girls-doing-cute-things genre that I couldn't list them all if I was here for a week. Or as Madoka Magica so ruthlessly showcases, even series that appear a certain way on the surface might not be what you bargained for once you look into them! These are all (I think) mostly older, mainstream-appeal series that should be easy to track down, too -- there are all kinds of singular animations like The Diary of Tortov Roddle, crowdfunded experiments like KICK-HEART, Masterpiece World Theatre renditions of classic (western) novels that never get talked about, films like A Silent Voice that confront social issues- and of course, series like Rozen Maiden that helped popularize this very hobby!

There is literally an ocean of content to explore from Japanese creators alone, and it opens up even more if you look into works from other parts of Asia- just look at how popular manwha have become, or Chinese animations like Leafie, a Hen Into the Wild! It's a genre unto itself, with all the breadth of content and inter-industry problems that come with it, and without any of the respect that similar art forms have been granted over the years. The way an entire culture's art form is often disparaged, disregarded, and belittled- and by extension, the way most of Asia's animated endeavors are often rolled up into that reductive dismissal along with anime and manga- is honestly Not Great, and there is absolutely a thread of xenophobia that runs through it. The industry has so very many problems (low wages, poor training, overwork of everyone ever, archaic financial modules, the exclusivity and breadth of merchandising necessary to turn a profit and how it leads to consumer burnout and disconnection over time, and yes, the way minors are portrayed not just in anime, but in Japanese media in general- and how much of that is actually bad (some of it is indeed,) and how much if it is cultural difference (I've heard people call the scene where the family in Totoro bathe together problematic because of the nudity, but I've also only heard people say that from the West)

-- none of the actual problems affecting the people who produce this medium are gonna improve when the general response to "animators frequently have to live at home to survive" is "that's what happens when you're a weeb."  It's 5am and I'm gonna point out the problems in the narrative around how we discuss this genre of entertainment because it's important, damn you! Regardless, thank you for coming to my unasked for and overlong TED talk about animation on a doll collecting drama blog, feel free to call me a pathetic weeb etcetera on your way out- but while you do so, might I suggest you also go watch a choice animated series! My current go-to is Bofuri, which is a cute-girls-doing-cute-things moefied isekai series that I refuse to apologize for watching. Be free. (The battle scenes are great and it captures the feeling of learning to play a new MMO with your friends better than most video-game-based anime I've seen in a long, long time. does anyone even still remember .hack? how about serial experiments lain...?)

~Anonymous

[i-am-bitterly-jittery]

Into The Dark Side pt 1

So I wrote this a few months ago, and I wasn’t gonna post it until it was finished, but it felt kinda relevant after yesterday’s episode so here, take it

No Spoilers!! I didn’t add anything since yesterday (except for like fixing some grammar mistakes) so none of it was influenced by the ep. It’s an AU either way

Word Count: 2400

Rating: Teen

Pairing: gen

Warnings: swearing, suggestive language, threats of violence (Remus stuff)

~~~START~~~

“I want you to make me a Dark Side.”

Deceit raised an eyebrow at both the odd request, and the fact that the other Side thought he could just barge into his study without knocking. “Excuse me?”

“I know that you control the separation between the so-called ‘Light Sides’ and the ‘Dark Sides’. I want you to turn me into a Dark Side.”

“Indeed,” Deceit replied thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair. He was hoping to come off as casual and aloof, but on the inside, he was completely lost. “I definitely follow. Light Sides ask to become Dark Sides all the time, it’s never the other way around.”

“Thomas frequently asks for my opinion, but once I have given it, my opinion is ignored. I believe my function would be performed more efficiently if I were working behind the scenes, so to speak.”

“Yes,” Deceit leaned forward, steepling his gloved fingers under his chin. “Because Dark Sides are known for being listened to and respected.”

“If my opinion is not going to be listened to, then I would prefer everyone stop asking for it.”

“Hmm, very well. I won’t fulfill your request, but just know, everything in life is free. There is never a price to pay.”

“I do not care. I shall pay, whatever the price.”

Deceit smirked at the other Side, and held out one hand. “Then won’t you shake a poor sinner's hand?” He purred, watching the other Side closely.

He took Deceit’s hand without hesitation and was immediately engulfed in a blinding yellow light. The last thing he heard before losing consciousness was Deceit muttering “transformation central.”

~~~

“-you to make me a Dark Side-”

“-definitely follow-”

“-opinion is ignored-”

“-never a price to pay-”

“I do not care.”

Logan woke up in his bed, glasses still on his face. His room looked exactly the same except everything was in black and white.

Odd. Do all Dark Sides see in monochrome or is this some sort of practical joke played by Deceit?

He was scanning around the room, trying to decipher whether or not Deceit held up his side of the bargain, when he noticed that the lights were off. A glance at the clock told him that it was 5:30 am, much too early for him to be able to see anything more than vague outlines without a light on, let alone the most minute details on his periodic table poster.

Extremely odd indeed.

Cautiously, Logan made his way across the room to the light switch. He flicked the lights on, and suddenly all the colors of his room returned.

Interesting

Curiously, he switched the lights off again. Everything lost color immediately, but not clarity.

Very interesting. Perhaps Dark Sides can see in the dark. Further testing is required.

Leaving the lights off — he could see perfectly well in the dark so why waste electricity? —Logan headed to the bathroom attached to his room to begin his morning ablutions. He didn’t make it very far, however, because as soon as he caught sight of his reflection, he realized why he could see so well in the dark.

Ah, this is what Deceit must have meant when he said there was a price to pay.

All Dark Sides had animal traits. Deceit had snake scales covering random parts of his body, as well as a single snake eye and a forked tongue. Lust - while technically a Neutral Side - had black markings around his eyes, as well as having swan-like wings that jutted out from his back. Apathy also had black marks around his eyes - though his trailed down his face while Lust’s swooped back towards his ears - as well as an overly-large fuzzy sweatshirt that’s sleeves extend well past the tips of his fingers. Greed had intermittent scales like Deceit, though his were larger and shinier, and sometimes smoke came out of his mouth. Jealousy had opposable toes and a prehensile tail. The Duke had tentacles. And Anxiety… Well, Anxiety hid his animal traits well, but Logan was sure that he had some somewhere.

(And then of course there was Malice, Pride, and Rage, but while Logan was aware of their existence, he had never seen them before, and therefore did not know what animals they were represented by, nor how their traits manifest.)

Logan now had animal traits too. His glasses were now round with thick frames, and while his prescription hadn’t changed, they were now magnifying his eyes, making them look overly large and round. His eyebrows had gotten bushier and seemed to be permanently downturned, making him appear to be perpetually glaring. And worst of all, his hair no longer lay flat in a simple, professional style, but rather created two spikes on his head that seem to line up with the angle and trajectory of his eyebrows.

He was an owl. A great horned owl to be precise - and while owls were not known to be any more intelligent than any other type of bird, Logan understood that Dark Sides’ animal traits came from Thomas’ perception of animals, rather than from the actual behaviors of said animals.

This shall… take some getting used to. Still, it’s hardly a great price.

After several minutes of trying - and failing - to get his hair to lie flat, he gave up and decided to just start his day like he always did - with a strong cup of coffee and a nice, healthy breakfast.

Perhaps the hardest part of getting to the kitchen was that, other than his room, everything in the Dark side of the mindscape was a mirror image of how it was in the Light side, though, the fact that there were significantly more doors, and a good number of extra hallways that Logan — even with his more enhanced night vision — could not manage to see down didn’t help. It took him longer than he’d like to admit to make it to the kitchen, and when he got there, he was surprised to find he was not the only one awake.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Anxiety was sitting on top of the fridge, eating chips right out of the bag, and staring down at him.

Logan bristled a bit, which unfortunately meant his hair and clothes flared out like feathers on an agitated owl.

Unfortunate. I should make a note of that for the future.

Thankfully, Anxiety didn’t laugh at him (he wants to, though), instead he just continued to stare at Logan expectantly.

“What’s with the owl getup?”

“Ah, that. I made a deal with Deceit to become a Dark Side.” Logan answered, trying to regain his dignity. Anxiety stiffened at the answer.

“What was the price?” Anxiety demanded, gaze scanning quickly over the room, resting for a moment on a dark hallway that didn’t exist on the Light side, returning to Logan only when he found nothing to be out of place or unusual other than Logan himself.

“This, I presume,” Logan stuck his arms out to show off his unfortunate shirt-feathers. “I’ve become part owl. A bird characterized in popular media as being exceptionally smart, though in reality is of average intelligence for avians. A more accurate choice would have perhaps been a crow or a parrot, both of which are not only considered smart for avians, but for animals in general.”

Anxiety began shaking his head long before Logan finished his rant. “The animal traits are part of the gig, teach, not the price. What did Deceit ask for in return for making you a Dark Side?”

“I, uh, do not know,” Logan admitted slowly. In his haste to become a Dark Side, he had brushed off Deceit’s mention of a price, and now he was faced with the fact that he didn’t know what he paid.

“You don’t know?” Anxiety asked incredulously. Perhaps Logan should have been a little more like Anxiety. Anxiety would have never made a deal if he didn’t know exactly what the deal was, his overly cautious nature was what made Thomas double check the locks in his apartment before going to bed.

“No… I do not.”

“For being the smart one, you sure are a clueless moron.” Anxiety jumped off the fridge in one fluid motion, landing lightly - almost silently - on his feet in front of Logan. “C’mon, we’re gonna go ask Deceit what you paid.”

There was no room for argument as Anxiety grabbed his wrist and dragged him out of the kitchen. Anxiety didn’t appear to be thrown off by the mirror image layout, or by the mysterious extra doors and hallways, but Logan supposed that was to be expected.

He has always lived here; he would know his way around much better than I. In fact, he would probably describe the Light Side as being a mirror image, despite the fact that it has the same basic layout as Thomas’s apartment.

“What are these extra hallways?” Logan asked curiously as they passed by two, one on either side. “And there appear to be a great number of extra doors.”

“Don’t go down hallways you can’t see down, and don’t open doors if you don’t know where they lead,” Anxiety ordered sharply instead of giving a proper answer.

“Why?” Anxiety let out an annoyed hiss, and yanked Logan to a stop.

“Just. Don’t.” He released his grip on Logan’s wrist and turned to the door that they’d stopped in front of. “We’re here.”

Anxiety rapped on the door three times. Nothing happened.

“Dee!” He called, knocking again, louder. “I know you’re in there! Open the d-”

The door flew open suddenly, banging loudly from its impact with the wall. A tentacle shot out of the impossibly dark room, wrapped around Anxiety’s wrist, and yanked the Side into the abyss before Logan could even process what was happening.

Barely a second later, another tentacle wrapped around Logan’s wrist, and yanked him into the room as well. The tentacle let go of him, and the door slammed shut again behind him, cutting off the only source of light in the pitch-black room.

“Anxiety!” A voice chuckled. “You never come to visit me! Oh I’m so touched!”

“Get off of me, Duke!” Logan could hear struggling a few feet away where both the Duke and Anxiety’s voices were coming from - as well as an interesting squwelshing noise. “I’m looking for Deceit, why are you in his room?”

“Oh, emo, you’re so funny!” The Duke laughed. “Deceit’s gone.”

“WHAT?”

“Oh yeah, seems he made a trade with a certain, discontent Light Side. I came across this empty room this morning and though it could fit sooo many butts in here, so it’s mine now!”

“Though I loathe to place myself in the middle of this conversation,” Logan interrupted. “Why can’t I see anything?”

“Cuz it’s not your room, dipshit,” Anxiety snapped.

“Now, Anxie, be nice to the nerd,” the Duke cooed. “He’s not from here.”

Suddenly, the lights flickered on, allowing Logan to take in their surroundings for the first time. The room was empty other than for himself and the other two Dark Sides, with nearly pristine white walls and carpet - though a splattering of… interesting colors littered the area around the Duke’s feet. Logan was about a foot away from the door with a tentacle reaching past him towards the light switch.

The Duke was standing in the approximate center of the room, about five feet away from Logan. His two human arms were wrapped around Anxiety, trapping his arms to his sides, lifting him off the ground, and clutching him to the Duke’s chest, while two of the Duke’s tentacles are wrapped around his legs to keep the anxious Side from kicking.

“Great,” Anxiety commented sarcastically. “Now lemme go you slimy-“

The Duke’s final tentacle wrapped around Anxiety’s head like a gag, cutting off whatever expletives were about to come out of his mouth.

“That’s better!” The Duke cheered. “Oh! My my, Anxiety, I didn’t know you were so kinky!”

The words spurred on another round of struggling from Anxiety, but the Duke held fast.

“Now, Archimedes,” the tentacle that had turned the lights on then wrapped around Logan’s wrist and pulled him closer to the conversation, though it was considerably gentler than when it had dragged him into the room - less like being kidnapped and more like having a child excited to show him something. “You can’t see in the dark in other Side’s spaces, it’s rude! You can only see in the dark in your room, and the common spaces.”

“What about all those hallways I couldn’t see down?” Logan asked, ignoring the silent glare coming from the trapped Anxiety.

“Oh those?” The Duke leaned in close enough that Logan could smell his foul breath. “Those are where the Darkest Sides live. The ones that give poor wittle Morality and Anxiety nightmares.” The Duke punctuated this by licking Anxiety’s cheek. “The ones that Deceit keeps under strict lock and key because even he’s afraid of letting them out.”

“Pride, Rage, and Malice,” Logan guessed.

“And me, of course.” The Duke dropped Anxiety in order to pose dramatically, arranging his tentacles around himself menacingly, but artistically.

Definitely Roman’s brother.

“But as I’m sure you know, Raerae, Octopi can fit through any opening they can get their beak through. All Deceit’s horses and all Morality’s men can’t keep me in the darkness forever. Every now and then, I get out and share all my fun ideas with Thomas.”

“Your ideas aren’t fun!” Anxiety hissed from the corner where he’d retreated to as soon as the Duke had released him. Logan noted his defensive stance, darkened eyeshadow, and involuntary hissing, and wondered if Anxiety’s animal traits were perhaps that of a racoon. “Now let us out!”

“Sorry, Tickle Me Emo,” the Duke giggled. He reached a tentacle out to open the door, but instead of the dimly lit hallway Logan and Anxiety had come from, beyond the door was pitch black. “I can’t open doors to the Dark Side unless someone lets me — like you did earlier when you knocked — but since Jay Jay the Jet Plane’s flown the coop, ~no one’s gonna come looking for you,~” the Duke advanced towards Anxiety, his posture and tone becoming less friendly and more menacing. “It’s just you, me, and Pigwidgeon here.”

~~~TO BE CONTINUED~~~

To be clear: Lust is a swan, Apathy is a sloth, Greed is a dragon, and Jealousy is monkey

Ten points if you guess Virgil’s animal traits

Twenty points if you guess what Pride, Malice, and Rage are

General Taglist: @royalty-of-all-things-snuggly @pixelated-pineapple

[toaarcan]

One ship exposes everything wrong with TRoS

Heaven help me, I’m back on my bullshit.

Alright, so, I enjoyed The Rise of Skywalker when I watched it. I actually watched it twice, once on my own when I rushed to see it as soon as possible in order to beat spoilers, and once with my family, in what was a semi-annual new year tradition for us during those four years that a Star Wars film released.

But that doesn’t mean it was good. I enjoyed Transformers: Dark of the Moon the first time I watched it, and that movie’s still a steaming pile of shit. I was admittedly fifteen when I saw DotM, but still. 

My point is that I’m fully capable of enjoying crappy films.

But there’s one thing, one thing about TRoS that exemplifies so many of the problems with TRoS as a whole, if not everything (And by that I mean with TRoS specifically, the woeful treatment of John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran is a Whole Trilogy Problem). And it’s a ship. Specifically this ship.

The Resistance Y-Wing. I hate this ship with the fiery passion of an exploding star, and to talk about why, we need to first go back to The Last Jedi and its conspicuous lack of Y-Wings.

One of the things that I disliked most about the Sequels before TRoS put all the other problems into stark light was the lack of new ships. Instead of new vehicles, we got shinier, sleeker versions of the ships from the original trilogy. And I disliked this because it’s the opposite of what the Prequels did.

Episodes I-III don’t feature more primitive versions of the X-Wing and TIE Fighter, but instead have similar vehicles that evoke the classics while still having an identity of their own.

The ARC-170 looks kinda like an X-Wing, but it’s bigger and has more weapons and crew, and you get why the well-funded Republic can afford things like this while the scrappy Rebels can’t.

The Eta-2 is a predecessor to the TIE Fighter, but it being employed exclusively by Jedi makes a lot of sense, of course a precognitive wizard with superhuman reflexes can do well in a light, unshielded ship, while in the hands of the Empire’s military they’re just expendable swarm fighters.

But then in the Sequels, rather than evolve the ships into new forms, they just made new incarnations of the X-Wing, TIE Fighter, A-Wing, TIE Interceptor, B-Wing, and of course the Y-Wing.

Well, except for one movie: The Last Jedi.

At the outset of the film, we’re introduced to this ship.

This is the MG-100 StarFortress, AKA “That ship all the Star Wars Youtubers hate”. It’s designed to be a much heavier and bulkier version of the B-Wing Starfighter, and is even made by the same people.

From questions about how the bombs “fall” toward the Dreadnought (The answer is magnets) to claims that they’re completely useless because most of the ones in the film died so easily, these things have been put through the wringer by the fandom, and honestly they don’t deserve it? What destroyed the StarFortresses in the film wasn’t their own weaknesses, but them being deployed in too tight a formation. It was a tactical fuckup, not a problem with the ship’s design.

And given that the whole point of the battle over D’Qar is that Poe makes a tactical fuckup to kickstart his development into the new leader of the Resistance as a whole, adding another layer makes sense to me.

But we live in a post-CinemaSins world of media consumption, where every plot-point that isn’t spelled out with a flowchart and an audio commentary by the writers is actually a plothole. 

We also live in an era where Star Wars fans pine for the days of the Legends canon where everything about new ships, species, and worlds was explained in background lore and books, and are angry that the new Canon is... doing exactly the same thing?

Seriously, how much exposition and lore dumping is actually present in any of the Star Wars films? Not a whole lot. And that applies to all three eras. 

So the StarFortress’ appearance in the film and the lack of Y-Wings led to a bevy of armchair writers demanding to know why the Resistance weren’t using Y-Wings and why they were using those “Resistance Bombers” that are just ‘terrible’.

Answer? Because the Y-Wings sucked shit.

Seriously, go back to the Original Trilogy and try to keep track of the Y-Wings, and see what they actually do, and you’ll find that what they do is “Explode, mostly.”

We’re first introduced to the Y-Wings in A New Hope, and they’re supposed to be the ones performing the Trench Run while the X-Wings cover them, and to their credit, they try.

And then they all get blown up by Vader and his wingmen before they can even take a shot at the exhaust port. Well, except that one that appears with the rebel ships flying away from the Death Star.

Where the fuck were you when the X-Wings were doing the attack run?

The Y-Wings got absolutely wrecked.

Ancillary media would go on to explain that the Y-Wings were beat-up old vehicles that were no longer fit for purpose, but the Rebels had to use them anyway because they had basically no money. They’d stripped down the ships and removed a bunch of their more costly features just to make them viable, and the results of that were pretty clear.

Of course, the Y-Wings were still present in the later films. They don’t do anything in The Empire Strikes Back, but they play a role in Return of the Jedi.

Naturally, that role is mostly “Get blown up while the other ships do the important stuff”.

Despite supposedly being a fighter-bomber that was designed to do significant damage to capital ships, does the Y-Wing play a role in the destruction of the Executor? Does it fuck. Destroying the Imperial flagship’s deflector shields and the subsequent suicidal ram attack on the bridge are tasks that are both performed by the goddamn A-Wings. Y’know, the light interceptors?

The Y-Wings get shown up at their own job by the ships that are there to protect them from TIE Fighters.

Ancillary media again explains why they’re still there. While the Rebels have a newer, better fighter-bomber in the B-Wing, the B-Wing is expensive as fuck and also really difficult to fly. 

A non-centreline cockpit that rotates will do that to a ship.

Still, the B-Wing was a better bomber than the Y-Wing ever was (And the StarFortress was better than them both at that role).

All this adds up to a simple fact: There were very good reasons why the Resistance weren’t using Y-Wings. And there were even reasonable reasons to choose the StarFortress compared to the B-Wing itself, given that the Resistance are still undermanned and under-funded, especially with the New Republic getting nuked midway through The Force Awakens. It being easier to fly and having more armaments would have made it a viable choice for the Resistance.

Buuuut oops, people didn’t like the StarFortress and we can’t make the Internet angry at us again! Better put the Y-Wings back in for Episode IX, and show them destroying a Xyston-class Destroyer, that’ll make them happy!

And sure, okay, giving the Resistance a fighter/bomber is probably a good idea. And they already have New X-Wings and New A-Wings, so where’s the harm in a New Y-Wing?

Alright, alright, sure. But why the fuck does it look like this?

If this is a new ship, why is it already stripped-down like the ones in the Original Trilogy? Why doesn’t it look like the actual brand-new Y-Wings we saw in The Clone Wars? 

Now that’s more like it. Still visibly a Y-Wing, but with more of an identity of its own. 

Seriously, “Literally the same ship but without its armour pulled off” has more of a unique identity than the crowd-pleasing New Y-Wing.

And that, in and of itself, is the essence of The Rise of Skywalker.

It’s blind, empty fanservice, rushing to include as much nostalgia-pandering as possible to try and get the fanbase back on-side after The Last Jedi didn’t do what the fanboys wanted it to do.

This is a whole near- three hour movie whose only message is “Yes, Youtubers making TFA critiques longer than an entire season of TCW, we hear you, we’ll make it for you, please love us!”

And, almost entirely predictably, it was shite.

It was riddled with plotholes and none of the scenes had any time to breathe because the movie was too desperately trying to rush itself to the next crowd-pleasing scene in a desperate attempt to wank off as many disgruntled fanboys as it possibly could.

Luke with his green saber! Jedi Leia! Chewie gets a medal! Lando! Luke raises his X-Wing out of the water! The main villain is a testicle in a bathrobe again! Snork origin! Original-flavour Star Destroyers! Rose doesn’t exist! Rey had a super-special secret magical bloodline the whole time and Luke and Leia totally knew even though Luke has literally no idea who she is in Episode VIII! Luke actually was just afraid of the bad guys in Episode VII, none of that self-imposed exile for his own mistakes nonsense! Y-Wings.

I mean fuck. Disagree with Luke’s portrayal in TLJ all you like, I certainly have my issues with it, but I lay those at the feet of JJ for making Luke’s absence into one of his fucking Mystery Boxes, and then deciding that, even though last time Luke sensed Leia and Han might be in danger, he abandoned his Jedi training, hopped in an X-Wing, and flew halfway across the galaxy to try and save them, he wouldn’t do shit when the First Order pointed a star-powered System-Killer 9000 at Leia, and Han got himself killed trying to redeem Kyle Ron. Like how in fuck was Rian supposed to explain Luke’s inaction in VII?

But regardless of the problems with that Luke portrayal, at least Mark Hamill gave it his all. Hell, it might be his best performance in the Star Wars franchise!

 In TRoS, he shows up in a bad wig, waves a middle finger at TLJ, and ascends to his final form as a Lightsaber Delivery Boy, because apparently all you need to kill a Sith who literally clawed his way back from death is two lightsabers. Haunting Kyle Ron? Nope. Providing guidance as a ghost? Not really.

And y’know what the kicker is? It didn’t fucking work. Lucasfilm and Disney fucking gutted this trilogy, sliced out the integrity, surgically removed the soul of Episode IX in a desperate effort to make the Internet’s most unpleasable fanbase happy, and it didn’t work. They still hate it! Now they just concoct hour-long videos about how much they would’ve preferred to have the Trevorrow script (Which is admittedly much better, albeit still with it’s far share of giant flaws), which was probably thrown out because it wasn’t fanservicey enough!

The Rise of Skywalker is an awful film. It’s a loose collection of nostalgia-baiting moments, roughly stapled together around the skeleton of a plot that was never properly developed. It’s a Frankenstein’s Monster of a movie, but, and I say this with full offense, the Victor Frankenstein in this tragic story isn’t Lucasfilm or Disney or Kathleen Kennedy or Rian Johnson, or even JJ Abrams. It’s you, Star Wars Fandom. It is your monster.