#and it only occurred to me when i was updating the part of my bio that says like what media im into right now

[notsosuperkonoha]

every once in a while i realize my bio is like completely outdated. like that shit still said 18 meanwhile my 19th birthday was over half a year ago. like nooooo haha don't follow me when the main source of info you can see about me was describing a version of myself that is no longer me hahaaaaa. i cleaned it up though so its up to date now

[radiocmyk]

Part Two: Alterhuman Community Intro…?

This post will continue to be edited as necessary. This post is no longer our active bio and I've removed it from our pinned post because I don't update it anymore; we now have a full page on our blog for it rather than a post

So I just posted my writeblr intro and since I’m definitely more active in the alterhuman community than the writeblr community I thought it might be fun to have a nonhuman/plural intro? Might be fun and it also occurred to me/us that most of our followers really only know me since I’m the only occupant of the body itself, and don’t know anything about the rest of the system. I will probably delete this someday if I decide once again I don’t like having my ‘types public depending on if the brainmates want to keep their own bios up. It will also probably change a lot because we tend to do that.

Context. We are a non-dissociative system, we do not switch, we were dæmonic originally meaning that I am the body and communicate with them through faux-visual projection and mental speech (which is why I talk like we're a total found family when they never seem to even say anything -- trust me they do, they just don't have access to the keyboard). We/they consider them all to have separate external bodies. We are quoigenic, not traumagenic or endogenic or mixed origins, only refer to us as the former.

Swift

He/it (they/them only under certain circumstances), bisexual, binary male* but only humans are ever men. I use quoi- ahead of all labels (both queer and alterhuman) in addition. POSIC, mildly objectum/conceptum. I have special interests in: biology, the arts, and the change of technology/art/language/media over time and throughout history (example: history of computer graphics 1950s-1990s <3). Psychospiritual, philosophical and narrative alterhuman. Species-wise: I am a common raven (Corvus corax ssp. principalis), an osprey (Pandion haliaetus ssp. carolinensis), a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamiacensis (ssp. fuertesi?)), common spotted cuscus (Spilocuscus maculatus), sea slater (Ligia exotica), mosasaur (Mosasaurus sp.), and lastly, Musteloidea sub-superfamily cladotherian (procyonids, ailurids, and mustelids). I’m a Novakid, a species from the game Starbound, which I consider more of a fictional kintype than a fictotype (I prefer alienkin or just otherkin over fictionkin for this ‘type). I am also a computer, specifically an IBM 7090. I also consider myself a kind of entity or manifestation of autumn, I’d just call it “conceptkin with extra steps,” the extra steps being conceptual embodiment in a sort of cryptidlike sleep paralysis shadow-man monster. I am questioning: a stomiiforme (viperfish, bristlemouth or dragonfish) theriotype, a house centipede theriotype, a Nectocaris pteryx theriotype, and my relationship to solar eclipses (conceptkin, symbolism stemming from interacts between other kintypes, both, or something else?) I was a ghost. Now I’m not. It was not a kintype and I did not “deconfirm” it. This affects some things. I am a flickerer with two fictotypes (Link from The Legend of Zelda, every canon game, and the Knight from Hollow Knight). I have three heartedtypes (domestic cats, cephalopods, and ghost type Pokemon) and two hearthomes (the ocean and O’Neill cylinders). I consider dragons, wolves and foxes to be paratypes. I have a profound quasi-religious connection to stars & the night sky that I consider at least marginally alterhuman in nature. I am an archetrope; wanderer, and secondarily a "shapeshifter" and "generalist" which I need better words for both of -- as they say language is like trying to nail down the ocean, and I guess it would be more accurate but less concise to describe them as "one who changes, embodies or becomes" and "one who adapts, branches out, survives or opportunizes." If I ever explain these somewhere I’ll link to it here. I have a lot of playlists including my main 9,000 song one but this is my “Swift vibes” playlist. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/40rzRF67ocIDF2L7mLzNVC?si=20945cccc57942c0

Tetri

I’m Tetri, Swift’s dæmon. I CIE on November 11th, 2020. Pronouns are he/him. I’m comfortably settled as of February 21st, 2021, as an Asian palm civet. We believe this represents Swift’s personality well, even if it was coincidental and we didn’t consciously choose it. I’m a pretty traditional dæmon but I’m not 100% by-the-books and definitely more autonomous than most, just because of the general plurality. I’m ‘hearted with cats and I love going to coffee shops and library cafés and getting a pastry. I also like transport like trains and ferries. Please feel free to initiate a conversation with me. I like to offer advice even if I don’t know you very well. Here’s my playlist of music I like https://open.spotify.com/playlist/73IEcIlekV70adyrkLjeY4 Check out these MyNoise custom generators. I think they’re rather nice .https://mynoise.net/Community/user.php?submission=691c051129d33047b53b0e3d1664468885 https://mynoise.net/Community/user.php?submission=691c051129d33047b53b0e3d1654028735 CIE Day: November 11 2020

Ziv

I’m Ziv. I’m a wolf. Specifically a Himalayan wolf, as well as a Spanish imperial eagle. An adult, not a juvenile, even though juveniles for some reason are the image of our species. Pronouns -- zhe/hir. I’m agender and aroace. I’m autistic and I like weaponry as a special interest, especially medieval blades from all over the world. Also wilderness survival. Jewish philosophy, art and history interest me. I am not spiritual and do not put stock in spiritual beliefs whatsoever. I like heavy music, metal, metalcore, rock, especially punk, but also some folk. This is my playlist. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4cL88XYitlbWeb7wnvkT9W Swift wrote the descriptions for all of our playlists but I like mine so I’m not changing it. CIE Day: November 14 2020

Lumi

Hi! My name is Lumi. I use any and all pronounce and I’m big xenogender pansexual hours. Get zany with it. I love snails, video games, and Greek mythology. I have a special interest in Nintendo. Surprisingly, my favorite game is actually not Kid Icarus. It’s Pokemon. I would love to chat with anyone!!! Send an ask for me. I’m a shapeshifter otherkin. I have no base form so I like to be a lot of different things. Animals, bugs, birds, crabs, mish-mash monsters, dinosaurs, Pokemon, all kinds of crazy stuff. It’s like choosing a jacket for the day to me. I associate with clown, bard etc. archetypes, but I don’t know if I’m exactly an archetrope. Still working on it. And I’m fictionkin, I’m a) Pit from Kid Icarus b) Sky from Wings of Fire and c) a Jester from Lethal Company! Swift wants us all to share our playlists because it’s obsessed with music. So now you have context for the last three intros. Look at my playlist boy https://open.spotify.com/playlist/01Xgx5BnmzVXxv2sIoTScZ CIE Day: December 26 2020

Maz

Hi, I’m Mazel, Maz for short. Resident human. She/her. I originated as a male, I’m a woman now, not sure if that makes me trans or something else, the question is not worth my time. I’m a lesbian. I like sci fi movies, NASA and performance art. I guess that’s it. Am I allowed to go now Swift {She's having a blast, guys} Playlist https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0acN0u6kJrYFEFWycCM3gm CIE Day: April 22 2021

Axel

I’m Axel! I’m Maz’s dæmon. I’m not settled but I like to appear as a rat or a rattlesnake or a king cheetah. Probably some more forms in the future. He/him. Technically I am just a thoughtform but I’m a thoughtform with big transmasc energy, I like to think. I’m obsessed with kaiju and other big monsters and superheroes as well as alt scenes. So my playlist should be obvious https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7Ma2bNC0FlnTsb6DtDFhXc  CIE Day: June 27 2023

Foxglove

I’m Foxglove, otherwise known as Europa. She/her, if you must refer to me. I am a dragon of silver lineage. I have special interests in psychology, botany and mineralogy. I suppose I am autistic in the context of a physically human brain, but it is difficult to recontextualize that to the culture of a draconic biological worldview. I have a great appreciation for baroque and art nouveau architecture and for the aesthetic of vintage fantasy artwork. I would also say I do not believe in anything spiritual and I do believe that everything can be explained scientifically. If we are sharing playlists, here is mine. It is majority progressive and psychedelic rock. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7vNU0chHir6XWfpt90jjxu CIE Day: September 21 2021

Anser

Swift here again. Anser is a tricky one. She could and probably would write her own intro, but she’s complicated much like V’vohu and I’d rather explain it in my own words, because I’m not sure hers would be… not too vague. Anser is not fae, nor a kitsune, nor a Huli Jing or any other kind of specific fox myth, rather a fae-like fox spirit who seems to embody multiple fox and faerie mythologies. He originated as a spirit. Sort of. When he first appeared, he may well have been a literal spirit visitor, like V’vohu. But he left, possibly of his own accord, possibly something to do with V’vohu. This Anser is a different entity while being the same individual psychologically, fully formed by whatever mental process formed the other headmates excluding V’vohu, but still also fully psychologically a spirit. Literally the exact same individual in every way except not a literal outside spiritual visitor. He still fully believes in magic and is the most spiritual of all of us. It's complicated. Anyways, she usually appears as a red fox with or without various fantastical attributes, and sometimes as a statue. She/her and he/him only, not they/them. I believe she identifies as bigender or genderfluid, not sure which or if gender means the same thing to her at all that it does to earthly people. Here’s her playlist, like V’vohu’s it’s pretty unique. She’s obsessed with different cultures, religions and folklores around the world, so her music taste is mostly comprised of regional folk, devotional and traditional music and nature noises. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4XIssSbiAwI1e1G3AuiqIX CIE Day: June 13 2022

[redcloverlocomotive]

Got a Pizza Tower AU in the works! Going to call it Cocktail Tower!

The main man Peppino is a bartender and owns a tavern instead of a pizzeria. So far I have references for Peppino and Gustavo, written ideas for other characters, and I definitely plan on making more in the future!

Some heads up about the Cocktail Tower & my blog in general:

More mature topics will show up in this, and I will put warning when the time comes, but this is the heads up about all that. For that reason, my blog is going to be 18+. PLEASE HAVE YOU AGE IN YOUR BIO!

I am completely cool with others to draw my fellas, so don't worry! Go nuts with the interactions! A lot of other PT AU's and OC's inspired me to make this, and I plan on making pieces of my AU interacting with other AU's.

Please don't spam asks. I am not interacting with those, period.

I may or may not make an additional blog to keep it separate from my main, but that's for future me to figure out.

It may take me some time to respond to asks, as I have two part time jobs and summer classes.

Some responses may only be in text, and I will color or label accordingly if I do so. Some responses might also have a drawing! It honestly depends on the ask itself.

This is still very much a WIP, so updates and changes are likely to occur.

Now with all that all out of the way, the Read More has some quick information and a drawing of Peppino & Gustavo. Enjoy!

Peppino Negroni

Owner and mixologist of Peppino’s Tavern.

38 yrs. old.

5'8"

American-Italian. Raised in the south of the US and initially spoke with a southern drawl, but code-switches to Italian to give a better presentation of himself towards others. Only uses his drawl if he is completely comfortable. Southern expressions (i.e., y'all & dagnammit) may still show up when emotional or caught of guard.

Hospitality is in his blood. He will gladly help someone if it is in his capability.

Always have to be doing something. Either that be cleaning up or simply talking to someone, anything works.

Is able to keep his anxiety from showing, but can quickly crack under pressure if he gets surprised. When heavily stressed, he bites his fingers. He wears cloth gloves in hope to stop his bad habit or at least cover it.

Gustavo & Sous the Rabbit

Cook at Peppino's Tavern.

37 yrs. old.

Gustavo is 4'10" and Sous is 8"

Is good friends with Peppino, but is more reserved and stern when it comes to others. Due to having a more reserved personality, it can be hard for him to connect to others, but he is willing to try if the other seems genuine.

The adopted introvert to Peppino's extrovert and has help Peppino through many hurdles during his time knowing Peppino. If there is something Peppino isn't willing to talk about, most definitely Gustavo has heard, seen, or consoled about it.

Sous is a black & white French Lop rabbit.

Sous appeared outside the tavern one day injured. Gustavo took pity and helped bring Sous back to health. Sous decided to not leave Gustavo nor the tavern, and since then has been Gustavo's pet. He seems to also like Peppino, but will always go to Gustavo first if he is in the room.

Here's the reference for the boys:

Note: May redraw these later but idk.

Oh I cannot wait to see where this goes!

[moddedmoor]

Salut, I'm Jaycé Sycamore, the one and only member of the Sycamore Family you need to care about. Most call me JC/Jaycé but if you want to still call me Mod, that’s fine as well. Any additional names are reserved for the friends that use them. Also, yes, I know, I am also the only person in my family to study Mega Evolution. Look upon my achievements in awe. I have never heard of an “Augustine Sycamore”.

Pronouns are exclusively They/Them.

There is only ONE (count it, ONE) person on this bitch of an earth who can use He/Him and that’s only because Kalosian Pronouns can be weird and he’s known me before exclusively they/them. (It's my dad)

Current pokemon: Clover - Houndoom; Hazmat/Hazzie - Toxel; Cinnamon - Delphox; Bluey - Budew; Molasses - Porygon; Anise/Star Anise - Roto Caster; PS5 - Winter Sawsbuck (Kalos Edition); Mr. Pants - H. Sneasel.

Ah, I also almost forgot to mention, but I’m a student at Lumiose University and am currently working my way towards becoming a pokemon Professor. 

(I do have to put this here, I GUESS, but yes Professor Sycamore is my dad, the only “official” contributions I have made to the field of Mega Evolution has been crayon drawings when I was a kid. Everything I have researched has been on my own time and money. Okay, maybe a little bit sponsored by my dad, but he’s my dad. I also work part-time at the lab, though I try not to take on jobs outside of my field of study)

Current Event/Plot: Blooming In Kalos: Act 1

Hello 'ello! Mun Sol here! Likes/Follows from @minnuit I use They/It pronouns and I'm 21+

Rules:

- Under 18 can interact, please just avoid interacting with posts tagged #suggestive. If you don't have an age listed (i.e 18+)/minor ment anywhere in your bio and you interact with anything tagged #minors dni or #suggestive, I will start blocking.

- Sapient pokemon cannot interact.

- Legendaries/mythics cannot interact.

- Any Pelipper Mail/Musharna Mail/Unsolicited games in the askbox are off. You can still send in asks without prompts, but no stakes or events unless talked about OOC.

- Because of what I have set up for Mod, there are plenty of chances for high/drama stakes to occur or for them to take part in. Everything will be tagged for those who wish to avoid it.

- Enjoy watching me drag this sopping wet beast of a character through The Horrors and back! They are constantly being put in a microwave with aluminum foil so I can watch them spin around and around like a ballerina.

UPDATED Trainer Card:

[tippenfunkaport]

Fics in Progress Update (Sept 2021)

I haven’t done a work in progress update in a while and so now seems like a good time to do that since I’m finally free of Glimbow Week and other commitments for a bit. I don’t know if anyone is actually interested in / cares about any of this stuff but it’s helpful for me to write it out and organize my thoughts.

Here’s the thing tho: I was thinking my schedule would normalize in the autumn and, for various reasons, that has not been the case At All so writing time is still super sporadic and I’m not going to commit to any consistent posting schedule.

That said, I’m planning to concentrate mostly just on my ongoing fics for a while so expect less random new one-shots and more finishing stuff that’s already up.

Incomplete/in progress works…

(No links bc Tumblr hates them but you can find all my fics at the link in my bio)

The Other Me has about ten chapters left by my outline but since we’re all having fun with that fic I may expand it a little as antics occur to me. My hope is to get that back to bi-monthly updates at the longest by the end of Sept.

Glowing Up: The Pirate and the Princess has a mere two to three chapters left (depending on how I chop it up) and I hope to have that finished before fall is over.

Lay Down was pretty much a very lone one-shot I chopped up so I could post it in time for Glimbow Week. The other two sections are written, I just want to clean them up and expand them a bit now that I have the time to do that. They will go up when they go up but, since there are only two sections left, it should finish up pretty quickly.

Going There, Coming Home and the Glimbow Swap (Prince Bow and Archer Glimmer) are my babies. I don't know exactly how many chapters are left of any of them (well I do, roughly, but I tend to split chapters as I edit which mucks with those numbers) but they are all very dear to me and I like just working on them at my own pace so those will continue to update willy nilly as I get time to work on them between other things.

What about [insert fic name here]?

I have many other one-shots and additions to my existing AUs I wrote as back-ups for Glimbow Week that are in various states of completion. I will post them or not as the spirit moves me.

As for bigger projects I’ve teased but have not started posting yet…

I was going to start posting Outlaws of the Whispering Woods (my dystopian Robin Hood AU) months ago but I decided to wait because a) I want to concentrate on making progress on some of my other big works in progress first and b) I’d like to try to hold it for the next Big Bang to give it a chance of it reaching a wider audience because I’m really proud of it and I’d like more people to read it.

In an ideal world, I’d start posting more Beasts AU for Halloween (bc that’s what I originally wrote it for) but it’s suffering from plot hole-itis right now so I can’t post it until I iron out some story issues. I’m not sure if I will ever post everything I have planned for that AU but I hope to at least post a big chunk of the Catradora / Glimbow part because it is dear to me.

Horde Glimmer AU: I have written much more of the same AU where Glimmer and Catra are swapped (as seen in my fic, Another World) and I am honestly not sure anymore if I will ever post it since that one-shot mostly flopped. That said, I might still post random scenes I’ve written to test the waters.

Fake Break-up AU, which I posted a teaser for during Palentines last year, is very dear to my bi-heart and in many ways the most personal thing I’ve ever written but I am not sure if I will ever be posting it despite having written a ton of it already. It depends on how life goes, particularly in relation to the next thing…

Last year around this time, I got distracted a Glimbow vampire AU. I wrote a ton before realizing… you know, this is so far from canon maybe I’d be better off just writing this for real. And, if I may be vague, things started happening there that told me it was the right choice. Will I ever post any of it in its original fanfic form? I am not sure but I might do a few select scenes as one shots at some point. Either way, you’ll get to read it eventually… Bow and Glimmer’s names just may be different. ;-)

The mood right now at Casa de Funkaport is frustrated because I really thought we’d be done with COVID by now and instead it continues to complicate my life in many ways. I am still starting to step back from fanfic to go back to work writing (which is why my focus right now is in finishing up stuff I’ve already started vs starting new stuff) but that’s been more of a slow tentative shuffle than the jump I thought it would be.

Anyway, that’s just a quick update on where everything stands! Remember, if you want to influence me to update your favorite fic next I am easily bribed with fanart of my fics and Kofi tips! ;-)

[destieldailynews]

Meet the Staff!

Here at the DDN we have a lovely crew of hard working hellers devoted to getting you the facts when you need them. We’ve each written bios introducing ourselves which are located beneath the cut. If you’re interested in joining the team, here is a post about what we need.

A note: if you didn’t get a response to your application it is possible there was a typo in your blog url that kept us from reaching out. if you applied and would like to know the status of your application, go ahead and send a DM to @lateral-org.

Hi! I’m Lina, (she/her) and I write the news! I’m actually quite a new addition to the fandom, as I only got properly involved at the beginning of quarantine, but I am already invested enough to be reading a copious amount of fan fiction and writing an essay on the queer representation in the show. My favourite quote has to be “happiness isn’t in the having. It’s in just being. It’s in just saying it,” and that is why I will never get over 15x18.

Hey! I’m T (@lateral-org), my pronouns are she/they and I’m the main editor for DDN. I used to be obsessed with SPN in 2015 but stopped watching regularly around season twelve. 15x18 sucked me back in, and now I’m invested not just in the show, but all of the stuff going on behind the scenes. I joined DDN because keeping up with #destielgate has basically just become a hobby of mine, and I wanted to make the details more accessible to anyone else who was interested. I’m a deangirl through and through, and my favorite quote is “I have no idea, but what I do have is a GED and a give ‘em hell attitude. I’ll figure it out.” 

Howdy! I’m Jas (@you-changedmedean), she/her, and I’m a researcher/editor for DDN, plus doing a bit of blog maintenance. I’ve been casually around the fandom since high school but in 2018 is when I got emotionally involved. I’m currently in college and I began my Tumblr only this year. I’ve already received so much support from everyone in the fandom and it’s been the craziest ride. Even if S/P/N is over, there’s still so much to uncover from the last season. With future conventions on the way as well as actors speaking up more, DDN will be able to provide relevant and accurate information to the fandom in a timely manner. Favorite character is Castiel and if my username (you-changedmedean) can tell you anything, it’s also my favorite quote. 

Hi! I'm Amber, she/her, (@my-people-skillls-are-rusty) and I am a researcher/editor for DDN. I've been in the fandom since around 2015 but got a lot more active in the last couple of years. I don't really know why I joined DDN, I just had a lot of free time and was very invested in the fandom, so might as well have it directed somewhere. My favourite character is either Dean or Castiel, I can't choose between them.  I also don't have a favourite quote as there are so many to choose from, but as its my user name I will go with 'my "people skills" are "rusty"'

Hey! I’m Ally, she/her (@larandomfangirl) and I am a researcher/writer/editor for DDN. I started watching Supernatural back when I was in 8th grade in 2017, and have remained caught up and active in the fandom since then. I joined DDN because 15x18, and everything that has happened since then, made me even more invested in the show and I wanted to help spread factual information about whatever occurs next. My favorite character is either Sam or Cas (I blame being a younger sibling for that), and one of my favorite quotes is “happiness isn’t in the having. It’s in just being. It’s in just saying it.”

Hi! I am Saffa (she/her) (@castiel-holmeshasthephonebox), and I am one of the writers on DDN! I was introduced to Supernatural by tumblr only a year ago, and since then I have been completely hooked. First, I fell in love with Dean and then I fell in love with the creative side of the fandom, all the fics and edits, and I just tumbled deeper down the destiel hell-hole. My favourite quote is "I'm hunted, I rebelled, and I did all of it for you."

Hey! I’m El (they/them)  (@desperately-human) I am one of the writer/editors here at DDN. I only started paying attention to Supernatural this fall (november 5, really) but since then, having every update on #destielgate has been my main hobby. Almost everything I know I have absorbed through memes, liveblogs, and those amvs on youtube. I’ve never actually seen an episode all the way through. That said, upon reflection i believe I am a Cas girl gender neutral term. Cliche but intense, I like “I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.” 

Hello! My name is Liz (@bart-ska-mpson) and I am a researcher/writer. Got into SPN in 2014-ish because of superwholock tumblr peer pressure, and whattaknow, it became my favorite of all of them, mainly because of the sheer power of Destiel! I read meta like the morning newspaper back then. I became frustrated by the end of s10 and by the time Lucifer possessed the president I just could not take it anymore (if only I kept watching til Lily Sunder :’(...). But really I never totally lost faith in canon Destiel and  words cannot describe the feeling I had when I heard through Tumblr that it finally happened. I’ve been so obsessed with trying to figure out what's “really happening” so I figured I might as well help out here. My favorite quote is the whole conversation Dean and Cas have when he finds him in Purgatory. “I prayed to you Cas, every night!” “I know” </33333

Hi! I'm Kat (@team-free-memes), she/her, and I'm a researcher and editor here at the DDN. I was internet-pressured into watching the show after seeing so many posts about it online. I've been in the fandom for over a year. I joined the DDN because I've always been an avid Destiel shipper and season 16 has gripped me tight and raised me from sanity, so I want to help clear things up for other fans lost in the sea of conspiracy theories to ensure that the truth circulates. I can't choose between Cas and Jack for the title of my favorite character, but in any case I am definitely Dean coded. My favorite quote is, "Now I realize that there is no righteous path. It's just people trying to do their best in a world where it's far too easy to do your worst."

Hey! My name is Lana (@curvedsphere), she/they, and I’m a part of the research, editing, and blog teams at DDN. I started watching the show when season 11 was airing, but didn’t get into fandom until early season 13, where I fell hard and fast into this community and have been here ever since! It’s also when I started actively and avidly shipping Destiel (I was just a casual shipper before then). I joined the DDN because I’m so truly invested in season 16 - in finding/figuring out as much of the truth as possible about the finale and the rest of season 15. My favourite character is probably Cas, but I love all of TFW 2.0 and Wayward a lot. I have so many favourite quotes that I love, but not-surprisingly I think I have to go with either “Happiness isn’t in the having, it’s in just being”, or “for love”.

Hi! I’m Steph (@stephlovessubway), she/her and I’m a researcher at DDN. I started watching the show in 2007 (on YouTube no less) and then watching live with season 4 in 2008. I have seen the highs (season 4 and season 5) and the lows (season 7) on Tumblr, and took a break for a few years and started back with season 10. I rewatched all the series in the first UK lockdown and managed to witness the wild end of season 15. I’ve shipped destiel from the beginning, mainly because Cas is my favourite character, and have thoroughly enjoyed season 16 on Tumblr. My favourite quote is Cas’s monologue at the beginning of The Man Who Would Be King.

[hongssami]

And July (Han Jisung) ─ 2.25

the first part || the next

kind of frenemies-to-lovers (but really it's just idiots to lovers), college au, roommates au, small parts of SoundCloud rapper jisung, slow burn, inspired by the 'and july' mv by heize ft. dean

a/n: sorry it took me weeks to update,,, if you’ve seen the mv, you’ll get what’s happening lol

warnings: cursing, another cooking scene, me manifesting my love for both cooking and microbiology and letting it pass by as references, you and ji are still idiots in love, i apologize in advance if you think the characters are annoying but also i’m not really sorry, they’re just idiots :’)

w.c.: 5.2k+

[masterlist]

(1/3 of spring)

Whenever Jeongin came to you to complain about his friends babying him you never believed him, because Jeongin has always been the cousin that looked after you despite being younger. Sure he was plenty awkward but compared to you he was the more graceful one. There have been points in your life where you’ve questioned exactly why you were born first when you emitted Dumb Bitch Energy 25/8. The thought of anyone cooing over him just did not register in your mind. He had been babying you for almost three weeks now, claiming that it was just his med student instincts kicking in (“If I can’t take care of my idiot cousin after she passes out from dehydration, how do you think I’ll survive being an ER nurse?” “Jeongin, you’re a bio major.” “As a pre-med course! Let a man dream!”) but you’re pretty sure he was doing it to spite you.

If you hadn’t known any better, you’d probably confused him as the borderline helicopter friend. That is until he arrived on your doorstep last week with Changbin across the hallway threatening to smother him in kisses with the fondest look you had ever seen your senior wear. You then understood why Jeongin hates being babied when said senior spoke in the most cringe-inducing baby talk you have ever heard. “Does that mean our baby Jeongin wasn’t really a baby all this time?” Jeongin had simply rolled his eyes at him, embarrassed, and proceeded to hand you his mother’s signature bulgogi

(“She said to get better soon. Right after ranting about you being more chaotic than she had last remembered,” he had said. You doubt his mom even remembered your face, let alone your personality. Years and years of avoiding conversing to any adult in family reunions had guaranteed that.)

But, mind you, that shit came in bulk and you bet your ass you had to force your friends to eat it with you in fear of dislocating your jaw if you ate too much in one sitting. It only took approximately 2 weeks and an eternal scar for any free comfort food from your aunt to finish the whole thing. Chan, who was unfortunate enough to go though that hell with you, had sworn to cut off his own tongue than eat another bite of the dish.

If only there was some sort of comfort food for confused hearts. You’d probably be well stocked on that.

Towards the end of February an unwelcome and abnormal amount of snowfall had occurred to your otherwise melting city. The precipitation somehow mimicking residual confusion and the coldness of uncertainty you had for your relationship with Jisung. But then again, you never really had a clear understanding of where you were in the first place. You wished he’d speak up about whatever was going between you two because, as always, only doubts seemed to fog your mind whenever it came to him.

You’d tried to push all of that behind you though when you lifelessly trudged through the snow covered pathways to the college’s laboratories.

Jisung considered himself lucky to have survived the past four months with you because he’s positive he would have gone crazy if it were anyone else. Not only were you super fucking cute, you also had to be the best roommate he’s had in a long time ─ no offense to Jeongin. So other than pining for you for the most part, he also genuinely wanted to get to know you more. The only problem was that whenever he tried to get closer to you, something or someone always had to intervene. Take March for example.

iii. 

You fight over the pettiest things.

March, your fifth month of rooming with Jisung and exactly a whole year of knowing him, started off rather wonky. You'd successfully managed to finish most of your paper works earlier than you expected and your lab reports have basically watered down to the ones that you knew you could put off just because you felt like you deserved it. The only thing bothering you now was that your roommate decided to be a huge prick and refused (though he never directly told you) to get his share of groceries and treated your share as some sort of communal treat bag.

Jisung, you noticed, was busy right around this time of the year just like last year when they were still roommates with Jeongin. Changbin, the third person of Jisung’s quirky SoundCloud rap group called 3Racha (the second one being Chan) and a senior you coincidentally share a few classes with, liked to crash over more frequently as well. But you weren't really complaining, it meant more time for yourself and one more person to test your mediocre cooking skills.

Inhaling over half your freshly made batch of macaroons on your newly vacuumed couch, Changbin grumbled. "Remind me again why you don't like─"

"Don't even try to finish that question." You groaned at him from the sink where you were cleaning the bowls and other utensils.

You always said that Jisung was a terrible roommate, but the truth was he wasn’t. Jisung was a decent roommate. Most of the time, as much as you hate to admit it; he pays his rent on time, only throws nice smelling clothes on your couch, doesn't let his dirty dishes pile up (because he rarely eats there anyway), he even makes sure that his dirty laundry doesn't make its way to the hallway. Apart from him singing in the shower at ungodly hours of the day (which you only let off just recently because he actually started making an effort to sing more mellow songs as opposed to his previous Beyoncé belting bathroom concerts) and his questionable sleeping habit, he was seriously passable. But this was where you drew the line.

“What does he even do to come home and pig out until half the fridge is gone? He clearly isn’t working on anything with you fools,” You complained, eyebrows met in frustration and he let out an offended ‘hey!’. “So I don’t get why he doesn’t have the time or conscience to restock the pantry.”

“Have you actually tried asking him?” He offered and you felt like you were being attacked

You only huffed. “No, why would I?”

“So you can understand his point of view. Y/n, it’s basic communication skills.” He pointed a baby green macaroon at you judgingly, inhaling it like the rest of the tray right after. The macaroons you baked were supposed to be bite sized but Changbin made it look like he was eating gummy bears. “Jisung’s super easy to talk to. I don’t see why you shouldn’t just talk it out.”

God, if only it were that easy. You don’t know if Changbin catches the constipated face you made as you went over to dust the crumbs he dropped off the other side of the couch. Sitting down, you contemplate on explaining how Jisung seemed to only ever talked in riddles to you but shook your head at the last second. “You sound like Jeongin.”

He scoffed, muttering something along the lines of ‘how are you two even related’. “What do you plan on doing then? Stop getting groceries until he notices?”

“That actually sounds like a good idea.” You straightened up from your slouching position, grinning. “The lab doesn’t pay much and I’m getting more broke by the day.”

“You can’t be serious.” His jaw dropped in disbelief and eyes widened when he realized you were dead serious. “No.Y/n, you can’t be that petty!”

***

Oh, you were that petty.

Jisung came home to an almost empty fridge two days later but he really didn’t mind. He had made a beeline for his room and stayed there until two in the afternoon the next day, leaving you frustrated out of your mind.

You could only watch him behind your laptop on your couch in his disoriented, half-asleep state reach out for the sugar jar for his coffee. What you didn’t know was that Changbin had sabotaged your salt shaker the day before and found it funny to switch its contents with the very sugar jar in Jisung’s hands right at that moment and your poor, unsuspecting roommate just had to be the first one to use it.

Zoning out, he stirred his coffee absentmindedly while you stared on in wonder. The hue of his unnaturally colored hair clashed with the kitchen’s bland cream walls and somehow seemed to emit some sort of otherworldly vibe that you couldn’t exactly place your finger on. His face looked puffy, perhaps caused by eating a late diner, but his skin glowed just as radiantly like always. He looked so calm. He looked unreal. Even under the shitty lighting of your kitchen.

You could definitely get used to this mellow morning (technically afternoon) Jisung.

He began to take a sip after sleepily blowing on it a few times only to spit it out hastily. You only realize that you were staring when he crinkles his nose at you in disgust, not letting you avert your attention to somewhere else when he asks ‘what did you do to the sugar?’, dismayed.

But as much as you’d like to admire his bedhead, you really didn’t know what he was talking about. “What’s with the sugar?” You frowned in confusion, not missing how he closed his eyes in irritation.

Sighing, he pressed his lips in a straight line. “You know what? Forget it.” He raised his hands up in surrender, emptying his salty coffee in the sink and leaving the mug there, unwashed. “I’ll get coffee and eat when I go out later. Don’t expect me till like,” he paused to check his phone, probably to check the time. “Ten? I don’t know.”

You raised your brow at him, surprised at his little outburst. Clearly he woke up on the wrong side of the bed, but was he trying to be the big person here? “Why do you think the fridge is practically empty in the first place?” You didn’t mean to let it come off as rude as it sounded but your brain just didn’t let your mouth filter your words in time, so now Jisung was glaring at you from his bedroom doorway.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know,” you shrugged, resisting the urge to roll your eyes. “How about you stop hogging all my rations for yourself if you don’t want to buy groceries so much.”

He squinted his eyes, “Is that why you thought it would be funny to put salt in the sugar jar?”

“Seriously, what are you talking about? Don’t change the topic, Jisung.” You closed your laptop, offended that he was blaming you for something you clearly did not do. “I was only trying to ask you to buy groceries for once.”

“You call that ‘asking’?”

You shifted in your seat. “W-well, I’m sorry if I worded it wrong─”

“Save it.” He finally turned his back on you to enter his room. “I’ll get your stupid groceries.”

Unbelievable.

***

The labs were always opened every weekend ─ a fact that you and Changbin rejoiced to, because his (and literally every other food tech major’s) theses would be weeping if they weren’t. Also a fact that guaranteed a handful of stressed and desperate students to practically live in there. Fortunately, you both have experienced a rather pleasant stay in your college’s labs despite the biting cold its AC offered (because for some reason there was always someone who got too hot).

(Fun fact: Changbin was the freshman who was constantly hovering over the autoclave, practically glaring holes at the pressure cooker for whatever reason, and was known by the entire lab to make batches of culture media at a time by himself. Not at all a wise decision since he was working alone and everybody knows how fast nutrient agar cools. He’d learned his lesson the hard way. The Microbio lab had affectionately named him “agar boy” thenceforth.)

Sometimes you just had to sleep in the labs to get your shit together every once in a while.

He wondered if that would apply to Jisung too because the kid just left him dumbfounded. He wanted to laugh at first when Jisung called him at 8 in the morning, asking if you preferred Shin ramen or another brand, but when the younger boy started to go off about how you exchanged the sugar for salt he decided to bite his tongue instead.

“Is this your way of apologizing for getting mad? Buying her favorite ramen?”

Jisung sniffed, feeling dumb on the instant noodles isle in front of a cart full of junk food. On a Sunday of all days. “Well, if you say it like that, this seems pointless.”

“It is.” Changbin deadpanned, although Jisung could tell he was smiling on the other end by his voice. “She doesn’t even eat ramen that much. Seriously,what is it with you two refusing to talk things out?”

“I don’t know. She hates talking to me now apparently.” Jisung tapped his foot impatiently to the beat of whatever song the local supermarket’s Spotify playlist vomited. The commercial red of the packet in his hands stared back at him dully ─ quite ironic for its intended purpose.

”Probably hates me now too.” He never really did like grocery shopping, all the choices and isles only made him want to groan in indecisiveness. He’d always get sidetracked and took too long figuring out what else he needed to buy courtesy of never planning on a grocery list beforehand. “C’mon, I haven’t got all day, man. I called you for help, not for you to murder my already beaten pride.”

“What? You’re scared you’re gonna mess things up even more?”

Jisung shifted in place, the motion sounded muffled on Changbin’s line but clear enough to tell him about the younger boy’s hesitance.

A pause, and then a drawled out “No……”

Changbin scoffed.

“Trust me, Y/n doesn’t care about ramen brands. Just buy her the usual things she buys and apologize. You don’t have to know her love language, stop making things harder than it seems, dude.” he frowned, checking the time. “Besides, don’t you have other things to worry about at this hour?”

The question made Jisung scowl and he was reminded exactly why he had gone on a grocery run at ass o’clock in the morning. “Yeah, I was getting to that. Thanks.”.

“Hey, if anything bad happens, Chan and I are always on standby. Okay?”

“Got it. I’ll just ─ Yeah, bye.” Jisung rushed to say after promptly dropping the call.

Changbin could care less about Jisung’s problems but Chan would probably have his head if he found out Jisung was slacking off again without him being called out for it. God forbid the youngest rapper of their legendary rap trio to drop out of college just for refusing to meet up with a few people. Plus Jisung was possibly one of the realest people he had the honor to meet, so there was that. And that you were practically begging him from across the lab to ‘stop entertaining the foe’.

He swore that not even Minho would get stuck on the first stage of grief like you and Minho was the most in denial person he knew. There wasn’t even anything to grieve in the first place.

***

Jisung had become an enigma to you, much like Hyunjin but worse; because if your cousin was the borderline helicopter friend, he was a full-fledged, closeted one. You couldn’t blame him though, he was probably traumatized by your stunt and was not risking any more possibilities of him being a probable suspect for your death. Not that he wants you dead, that would be morbid. Why would he want his crush dead?

“For the very same reason I want you dead.” Changbin had threatened him after he asked about your whereabouts for the third time that day.

Chan let out a joking ‘oof’ and shook his head at Jisung. “I don’t think I want to know the answer to that.”

Jisung frowned, looking up from his notebook where he was absentmindedly reviewing his lyrics. “You don’t mean that,” he gripped his chest in mock pain. “I’m hurt.”

It wasn’t even a secret that Jisung fancied you, literally everyone knew. He wasn’t even trying to hide it, flinging out flirty comments or actions whenever he had the chance. It was either you were more oblivious than he had hoped you to be or he was an idiot for not taking a hint. So far it’s been the former for a couple of months, Changbin had confirmed. What Changbin hasn’t confirmed is why you won’t give him the time of day. But Jisung found that that was the least of his problems for now

Apart from the little quarrel with you, he was suffering a case of acute hell month. And honestly? He wasn’t doing any well.

It wasn’t like Jisung deliberately wanted to fail this one class, it was just that everyone that he got partnered with somehow always managed to strike a chord with him. He wouldn’t start shit if it wasn’t that serious.

Maybe the workload that semester was just getting to him. or maybe because his partner was the notorious slacker and party animal in their block. Whatever it was, Jisung was tired of it and he would really like that 8-hour power nap that he’d been daydreaming for days now. Instead he was cooped up 10-hours a day at Chan’s usual studio, speed-running all the tasks that was meant for two people to work on.

No, he didn’t meet up with his asshole partner. Why would he? He was sure he wouldn’t even show up if he asked him. He thought Changbin and Chan would give him shit for it when he arrived but they just exchanged a(n almost disappointed) look that made Jisung feel even more shitty.

It sucked. Mostly because he knew all of his problems could be solved by talking it out and that he was too much of a coward to make that big step.

He sighed, leaning against the couch’s armrest and cast his gaze on the dusty ceiling of the studio. He wondered if you were this pent up that February.

His phone buzzed, pulling him away from his daze.

11 p.m.

“Shit.” He hadn’t seen you today.

***

For the second time in the time you spent rooming with Jisung you considered moving out. You don’t know how things got to this but, man, was this just plain stupid.

Jisung had not immediately shown his face after the last time you fought but he had gone to get groceries, alright. Spoiled ones or ones days before their expiry date. Normally you would let one or two items pass but the whole bag? It was like he deliberately tried to make you mad!

Of course you dumped everything and had to get your own groceries, practically fuming from your ears in anger and, in a fit of desperation for revenge, made a whole blueberry cheesecake with wasabi as the special ingredient. Jisung, weary and oblivious to your rage, had fell for the trick and snacked on it one midnight where you heard his wailing from the peaceful confines of your bedroom.

This had caused a chain reaction and prompted a prank war in your flat. It came with either cold glares or sly smirks when you happened to come across each other in the shared spaces in your flat with the latter being a telltale sign of impending doom waiting for the other person.

Pranks came in forms of tying shoelaces of the other together, replacing the ketchup with Tabasco sauce, and hiding a whole cactus in the other’s bed. Then extended to lazy ones like accidentally turning off the light in the bathroom (because the light switch was conveniently installed outside the bathroom), or accidentally tripping over chargers.

One Saturday, after a particularly chaotic run to the labs, you come home to a bloodthirsty Jisung armed with a pair of slippers yelling “Where the fuck are my earphones?!” To which you retaliated wittily with“Probably up your ass for all I know!” You both ended up throwing footwear at each other until he found his earphones inside his own shoe. Then, promptly remembering that he put it there the night before, he fled the scene, leaving you to clean up after the mess. Jisung hadn’t spoken to you since.

One thing that you always made you proud whenever you came back to your shared flat was seeing the leather couch you purchased with your own money under a layer of worn-only-once-so-it’s-not-technically-laundry-yet clothes (mostly Jisung’s). How Jeongin and Jisung managed without one had been beyond you. But even that had become “Y/n’s couch” instead of “the couch” as you had emphasized in a note along with a million exclamation points so Jisung was banished from sitting or even touching it. Shockingly, he had followed through with this although he had been actively sabotaging every other part of the flat with the war.

Chan had tried to sit Jisung down your couch after a particularly stuffy encounter with the latter’s project partner (that almost escalated into a fistfight if Chan hadn’t come to stop Jisung’s partner from pummeling the boy in time) but was slightly surprised when Jisung explained the whole situation to him, sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the couch. “What happened to winning her heart?”

Jisung’s eyes were downcast upon hearing that. “I don’t know. I’m trying to get over her, I think? I― Things haven’t been looking up for me, Chan. You know this.” He grew silent for a while as he furrowed and unfurrowed his brows, looking for the right words. “I don’t think I can handle the extra emotional baggage”

“Extra emotional― Jisung are you hearing yourself?” Chan shook the younger’s shoulders, making Jisung look at him instead of the floor. “Those are supposed to be my lines. I’m the hopeless romantic here, stop stealing my roles.”

“Not helping, Chan.” Jisung taunted but managed a small smile anyway.

“What I’m trying to say is,” Pretending to roll his eyes, Chan gave Jisung’s shoulders a reassuring squeeze. “You’ll get through this, okay? Just like how you just did with your asshole partner. It’s like what Changbin and I have always said―”

“‘Talk to them’, yeah.” Jisung finished for him and paused before continuing, “Okay. I’ll try.”

“Oh, and ask her if she still has some of the homemade yogurt.”

Jisung realized Chan might have only pushed him to pursue you because of your cooking. But it didn’t matter why Chan pushed him, he’s sure he liked you for more than that.

***

Coming home to Jisung hovering over his phone trying to cook with your ingredients and utensils brought a wave of deja vu to crash on you. Honestly, you would have attacked him right then and there if you weren’t so spent from all your lab work. “Whatever it is you’re trying to do, stop it.” was what you could only muster then.

This made Jisung even more nervous but he willed himself to speak anyway, offering a weak “Truce?”

You had frowned, but accepted with a nod as you lazily sat yourself on the kitchen island and looked at him from the corner of your eye. “I was serious about stopping whatever you’re doing, Jisung.”

His name leaving your lips left a bitter feeling biting at his heart. He’d missed you calling him Ji.“I’m making us dinner.” He got back to looking at his phone, chopsticks in hand and acting tough. “Figured it’d be the best way to apologize.”

“Apologize?” You scoffed, amused at the gesture. “Did Changbin tell you that?”

“No,” he smiled a little. “I just thought you deserved it.”

Your gaze was fully turned to him when you challenged, “What, you sabotaging my kitchen?”

“A home-cooked dinner.” He corrected, adding in clumsily chopped spring onions to the boiling soup. “And an apology.”

Taken aback by him suddenly voicing his good intentions, you got off the island to lean on it instead, crossing your arms in the process. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

Jisung laughed sheepishly, stirring the boiling soup unnecessarily. “To be honest? Only a little, but I’m confident about this.” Your lack of reply made him turn his attention to you, jumping when you stood beside him to inspect his progress.

“Ramen?” You deadpanned. “Really?”

“Changbin said you don’t really eat ramen but I’m pretty sure I can change that.”

You hummed in reply then asked when he turned back to the pot, “Did you waste anything?”

“Y/n,” Jisung rolled his eyes in mock annoyance, chopsticks nearly slipping out of his hold. “I’m here trying to apologize by cooking and all you care about is if I’ve wasted anything?”

“It’s a valid question. You’re making ramen with meat.” You shrugged, pointing at the thawed raw beef that he really should have cooked beforehand. It was a small slip up you expected Jisung to make but it didn’t really matter if the ramen would get cold when he finally remembers to cook it (it wasn’t even seasoned properly), you figured that at times like these it’s the thought that counts. And how good he’d managed to make instant noodles probably.

He raised his phone and explained after feigning a hurt look. “Kinda had help from Chan so I’m pretty sure this is idiot-proof.”

You looked at his determined face and couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. Of all the things Han Jisung could do to make it up to you, he chose cooking. He was terrible at cooking. The sentiment put you at ease.

Han Jisung was ridiculous. He was a keeper.

“What?” He blinked, obviously confused why you had began laughing,

“Nothing.” You replied after calming down, playfully nudging his shoulder. “You just called yourself an idiot.”

“Oh ha ha.” He resumed tending to his soup, eyes downcast.“To be fair, we both are. Chan talked me into… well, talking to you. This is attempt number one, I guess.”

“Yeah? And how’s that going so far?” You teased, moving to the other side of the kitchen to actually help him make (more like salvage what you could) dinner. He stayed silent, letting the bubbling of the broth answer your question. You sighed, “Hey. I’m sorry too, Jisung. I was just so tired and… that’s not even a valid excuse for me to lash out on you. It’s just―”

“I think we’re both at fault here. Let’s not be too hard on ourselves.” He muttered from behind you and you turned around.

“So, cease fire, then?”

He turned around to ask, “Friends?”

You scrunched your nose. “I guess.”

Jisung’s mouth fell agape.

 “You’re being mean, Y/n!”Although you had badly wanted to hit him for that, you settled for a warning glare as you continued to cook.

(You had managed to ask him about the groceries, and it sort of went like this:

“Where did you get all those spoiled items anyway?”

“What?”

“The groceries you bought two weeks ago?”

“They were spoiled?”

“Oh my god. You’re never getting groceries by yourself again.”)

The next time Changbin asks about his situation with you, he gets a slightly more enthusiastic Jisung than usual. “I’m assuming you’ve made up now?

“Is it obvious?” Changbin found it amuzing how his younger friend still tried to sound nonchalant when he was literally bouncing on the balls of his feet a while ago.

“Any updates on confessing?”

Jisung grew silent for a while.“I think March feels like its too early to say it and I’m still not sure that she'll say it back. Next month, I promise.”

“You said that last month.” Changbin tutted. “And the month before that. And the month―”

“Alright, I get it! Geez!”

Sometimes old habits die hard. But Jisung could live with that if it meant he could finally see you comfortable around him.

[masterlist]

[roseskiesandbutterflies]

Le Démon Déchu - Chapter 2: Réponses Et Plus De Questions

Summary: The summary is kind of long so please check a previous part or my masterlist if you want to read it.

Warning(s): threat, swearing

Word Count: 6.8k+

Inspiration: Do You Know What Eternity Is? by Elderly_Worm on AO3, Great Omens (The Big One) by falsepremise on AO3, Pray For Us, Icarus series by Atalan on AO3, Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach by Nnm on AO3, wasteland, baby by john1513 on AO3, Not of Us by ShesAKillerQueen98 on AO3, How to Win a Lifetime Achievement Award for Services to Television (and how not to) by GaryOldman on AO3, Doctor Who (don’t ask) and, of course, Good Omens itself

A/N: Okay I took a bit of a hiatus from writing literally anything for about five months so sorry about that but I’m back now!! That’s the main thing. Also, I’ve left high school now which is very exciting! That does mean I’ll have so much more time to write and I’m definitely going to try and use this summer to establish some kind of routine for writing so that when I start college, I won’t get too overwhelmed with both my studies and with updating my fics. That’s the plan anyway so don’t hold me to that lmao. With any luck, now I’ve actually said that it’ll have to happen. (I wrote that part of this note back in May when it was the start of the summer. It is currently September and I’m just about to finally publish this chapter and I assure you, I am cringing at my own optimism.) Sorry this took so long to post. This chapter has been in the works since May (yes, I know I’m terrible) but I actually got a lot more writing done in that time that what you just see in this chapter. All will be revealed soon. I just promise that I have been productive. Once you’ve read this chapter, you have my blessing to translate the title of this fic. Hopefully it will make sense.

I just wanted to point out something about the playlist I linked in the previous chapter. I am well aware that there are some rather problematic people in it, namely Sia. I want you all to know that I don’t support her in any way (I don’t like her at all I think she’s a complete ableist twat). Her songs are only on there because of how well they fit with the story (a lot of this will become clearer as the story goes on).

I also wanted to point out that I know that if angels do exist, then their true forms probably wouldn’t look anything like humans. I’m well aware of that, I’m not an idiot, I don’t know if any of you remember when people started googling ‘angel true form’ and some people got scared lmao. The point is, we’ve all seen the pictures. But for the purpose of this story, and honestly just to make it easier for me to describe what the characters are doing, we’re going to have to pretend that they did look like humans. Can I claim creative license with this one? Maybe it got lost in translation because there is probably no way someone could describe how an angel truly looks in any human language? I don’t know, just roll with it.I know that this chapter had so much exposition and explanation in it but I can promise you two things. One, there is still much to be revealed. Two, I promise this isn’t just bad writing on my part. Just trust that I needed to put this all in this early on.

And how is everyone doing after the season 2 announcement? I mean, at the time of writing this specific part of my notes, it only got announced about an hour ago lmao. I’m very fucking excited, oh my god. It’s all I’ve been able to think about since I found out I can’t lie. Catch me trying to finish this before it comes out in case things occur which means I have to change things in this story. I can’t be arsed for that. Oh well. Hopefully it’ll read like those Sherlock fics that people wrote in between series 2 and series 3 if that doesn’t happen.

Taglist: @briarrose26​

Ask or comment to be on my taglist! Let me know if it’s for a specific fandom(s) or series. Full list is in my bio.

Hermit (upright) + Five of Wands (upright)

Conflict. Reflection. Resurfacing memories.

************

Let’s admit, without apology, what we do to each other.

We know who our enemies are. We know.

– Richard Siken (Detail of the Fire)

************

“Fuck.”

The angel and demon exchanged glances of what could only be described as thinly veiled panic, while the woman in front of them just looked annoyed at the most.

“They couldn’t wait five minutes, could they?” she muttered, pinching at the bridge of her nose in frustration before standing up again, “Look, just stay down here, I’m gonna go sort this out. With any luck they won’t have actually realised you’re here too.”

“Wait, how do you know they’re here for you?” Crowley asked, suddenly curious as to what business Eloise might have with Heaven.

“Just a gut feeling,” she said before making her way to the spiral staircase behind them, muttering to herself, “If they were here for you, I feel like they would have at least used the front door.”

The other two waited until she’d run upstairs before exchanging a quick glance, an unspoken word, and following her up.

Meanwhile, Eloise was hovering outside a room at the end of the corridor which she could only assume was the bedroom. She was strangely hesitant, not out of fear of them, simply out of fear of the unknown. She hadn’t spoken to anyone in that room for millennia, and something told her that this wasn’t going to be a friendly chat. She took a deep breath, even though she technically didn’t need it, letting a wave of faux confidence wash over her, and stepped inside. Don’t crumble now. You’ve come too far to crumble now.

“Ah, Mariel, long time no see,” Gabriel smiled coldly, brushing the dust off his white suit. Flanked by two other angels, he stood in the wreckage of the bedroom without even acknowledging the damage they must have caused when they crashed in. Beside him were Beelzebub and Hastur, who both looked as though they had been dragged kicking and screaming to come here. Beelzebub in particular kept shooting metaphorical daggers at Gabriel, who remained perfectly oblivious. The entire ceiling had caved in from the impact of their crash, the setting sun painting the doorway where Eloise stood in a pale gold and casting a dark shadow over the others.

She’d grimaced at the use of her old name; it was too unfamiliar, too ancient. Mariel was the name of a long-dead version of herself. Once upon a time, she’d embraced it, but that was once upon a time. Once upon a time long gone.

“Almost like I’ve been avoiding you on purpose,” she muttered, leaning against the doorway as she stared intrusively at each person in the room, observing, assessing. She silently revelled in the blatant discomfort in each of their faces.

“No need to be so rude,” Gabriel said, doing anything to avoid her eyes, his previous confident façade now shattered.

Eloise stared at him in disbelief, “What exactly were you expecting? A fucking welcome party? I haven’t seen any of you in over six thousand years and you just crash through the roof of my house, unannounced and uninvited, so yeah, forgive me for being a little irritated.” She couldn’t help but feel a little bit guilty. She’d barely been in Aziraphale’s bookshop for fifteen minutes and she was already pretending she owned it.

She watched smugly as he squirmed under her gaze, desperately looking to the others to say something in response. A moment or two passed before Beelzebub’s head suddenly snapped up in confusion, “Are you alone?”

Shit. She’d hoped that they wouldn’t have noticed the presence of the two who were definitely not downstairs like she’d asked. She swallowed, trying not to let any kind of emotion show on her face, trying not to give the game up that quickly, “Yeah, I live on my own.” She watched the whole group of them squint in concentration, trying to sense any other beings in the house. She sighed, changing the subject before they could comment on it any further, “Look, what do you want? I don’t have all day so if you could make it quick then that would be much appreciated.”

Gabriel looked back at her, his suave exterior unfortunately making a return, “Hey, we just wanted to check up on you, see how you’re doing-”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” she snapped. She pushed herself off from the doorway, stalking towards the others, “You have had six thousand years to ‘check up on me’, don’t pretend you’ve only started to care now.”

She was met with only silence as Gabriel and Beelzebub glanced at each other awkwardly, looking very much like chastised children. Suddenly the latter groaned and cried, “You can’t just leave Hell!”

“Oh, here we go,” Eloise muttered, rolling her eyes, bored already.

“You can’t! You Fell from Heaven, so you go to Hell, there isn’t a third option!”

“Well, apparently there is,” she shrugged.

“No there isn’t!” they argued, face screwed up like a petulant child.

“Then what do you call this then?” she asked, unfolding her wings for the second time that day. She studied their reactions closely, scrutinising coal-black eyes piercing through their very souls. She was searching for any hint of shock, of recognition, of anything that could clue her in as to what was going on in their heads at that moment. All she could find, however, was pure, unadulterated confusion. Which was annoying when her wings were supposed to be an answer to their unasked questions.

Gabriel stumbled over his words, “Good Lord, how did you even-”

Eloise cut him off curtly, no longer having the patience to listen to his incoherent mumbles. She instead turned to Beelzebub who at least had the decency to look a little more composed, “That would be what you could sense then. I’ve got both Heaven and Hell in me, that’s a lot of energy to pick up on.” She stared right through them, daring them to say anything else.

“Must be,” they replied slowly, though they didn’t look at all convinced.

Gabriel held up a hand, his eyes darting about as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing, “No hold on, how did you even manage that?”

“I left Hell,” Eloise said simply, “Why should I have black wings? I’m not some demon who ran away from everything. I left. Permanently. I looked Hell in the eye and walked away. You know what? Fuck it, I looked Satan in the eyes and walked away.”

“You what?” he stuttered.

“Yeah, you heard me. You have a problem with me leaving Hell then go on! Take that up with the bloody devil,” she said, staring them down, daring them to retaliate. She smirked when she was met with pure, uncomfortable silence, “Except you won’t, will you? Because you don’t actually give two fucks about me. Just like I said, if you did then you would have chased me up a long time ago. Quite frankly, I think you must have been glad to have me out of your hair,” she sighed, half sad, half amused when they couldn’t even meet her eye. She paused for a moment, wondering how far she could push this, before asking, “You know what I think is really going on here? I think the pair of you are feeling a bit bruised after the absolute shitshow that was Armageddon last year, which, by the way, fucking hilarious. I think your egos are feeling a little sore after a literal child stopped you from ending the world, so you’re thinking ‘hmm, what would be an easy win so that we don’t feel like total shit? Oh yeah, what about that demon who ran away all that time ago? That should be easy to sort out.’. Well, love to disappoint, but you’re not getting me that easily, especially when not a single one of us actually wants me back, and Sandalphon, take one more step further I swear I will dropkick you back to Heaven,” she snapped, glaring at the angel who had been menacingly inching closer while she had been talking. He reluctantly stepped back alongside Gabriel, looking a little more than miffed that his plan hadn’t worked out. “You really want me back? Get your bosses to talk to me because I don’t actually see why it’s any of your business. No middle men. Just God, Satan and me. I’ll see what they have to say about all this. Questions?” she asked, tone snapping from one extreme to another, almost as if she had just been possessed.

Gabriel stared at her, mouth gaping like a fish, “You can’t just boss us around like that.”

“What? Like how you bossed us around all those years?” she replied without missing a beat, real rage, real danger seeping into her voice now, “I think we’re done here.”

“But-”

“I said, I think we’re done here,” she said, leaving no room for arguments. She gestured to the sorry excuse for a room around them, “Now, if you wouldn’t mind cleaning this up.”

“Why can’t you do it? You can miracle things too,” Gabriel said, desperate for any kind of leverage over Eloise.

“You’re right, I could, but I didn’t make this mess, and I personally believe that you should face the consequences of your actions, Gabriel,” she said pointedly, watching as he visibly gulped. In a matter of seconds, the room was restored to its original state and Eloise was left alone in the room, no indicators that she was ever with any other people remaining.

She sighed and all but collapsed into a chair that may or may not have existed a few moments ago, confident façade shattered completely. She breathed heavily in exhaustion, as if she’d just run a marathon; she supposed she had just run a mental one. Her emotions were bugging her to no end. It was strange. She wasn’t scared, per se. There was very little that Gabriel or Beelzebub could do to her that would frighten her anymore. She tried her best to compose herself, writing off the tsunami inside her mind as just plain old adrenaline, before calling out, “You can come in now. I know you guys are outside, it’s okay, you can come in.”

Crowley and Aziraphale walked into the room, one looking considerably more sheepish than the other. Aziraphale perched awkwardly on the freshly reconstructed bed, “We’re sorry–”

“No, you’re not.”

“No, we’re not.”

Eloise and Crowley exchanged a glance, amused looks on both of their faces while Aziraphale simply looked distressed. Eloise turned back to him and smiled sympathetically, “I told you, it’s fine. I would have done the same,” she admitted, looking away before collecting herself once again, “So, I’m guessing you have a lot of questions–”

“That’s the understatement of the century,” Crowley muttered as he took a seat beside Aziraphale, although it was a very loose definition of ‘taking a seat’.

Aziraphale glared at him while Eloise just sighed and reluctantly said, “I think it might be better if I just show you.”

Crowley cocked his head in confusion, “Show us what?”

She brought her chair closer to the edge of the bed and put out her hands, “Take my hands. Brace yourselves.”

Mariel was standing before a crowd of angels, dozens upon dozens of disgusted faces staring right at her. She couldn’t quite remember getting there. She had been in the pitch-dark holding cell and the next thing she knew, she was here. Blinding white light surrounded them, harshly illuminating her vulnerabilities before all of Heaven. She tried her best to keep her chin up even though she absolutely hated the fact that they could see the bruises from when she had been arrested that were now blooming on her face. She frowned as she noticed the lack of measures preventing her from escaping. All that was keeping her there was Gabriel’s presence at her side, cold violet eyes pointedly ignoring her. He really was an arrogant bastard for assuming that she wouldn’t even try to make a run for it. Just because he was right this one time, it didn’t mean that he shouldn’t have come prepared. Mariel sighed and looked up at the angels staring down at her. Michael was sat higher than everyone in the centre of the crowd, face void of all emotion as she said, “The Principality Mariel. You’re on trial today for betraying the will of the Almighty, rebelling against all that is good and light in the universe...”

Mariel blocked the rest of her pretentious speech out as she droned on about all the awful things she’d supposedly done to deserve this. It was all lies anyway. She knew the real reason she was here. There were a few things that stood out to her despite it all, things that nearly made her laugh. She’d known that they’d needed to conjure up some reasons for condemning her, but this was just ridiculous. Gabriel really had gone to extraordinary yet desperate lengths to slander her in her final moments in this Someone-forsaken place. She was surprised that the angels gathered to watch her downfall believed a word of this. She tried her best not to resent them, though. It wasn’t like they had anything better to believe in. Especially considering the amused smirk that had crept its way onto her face.

She returns to reality just in time to hear Michael ask, “What do you have to say to defend yourself?”

“I’ve done nothing I need to defend,” she said firmly, leaving no room for argument.

“Don’t make this worse for yourself than it already is,” Gabriel muttered dangerously from where he stood beside her.

Mariel turned to look at him in disbelief. “How the fuck could this get any worse, Gabriel?” she hissed, fury flaring up in her eyes.

He just looked back at her condescendingly, “Do you really need me to answer that?”

She pointedly refused to reply, turning back to face Michael, determined to ignore him.

The next part goes past in a blur for Mariel. Michael speaks again, though she doesn’t listen. Then suddenly there are shouts of anger, screams of rage, coming from the gathered crowd. They spit with venom as they hurl insults at her. She doesn’t hear a word. It’s as though her head is under water, completely submerged in the stone cold anger that seeps through her body, and suddenly Mariel is drowning in the realisation that this is really happening, oh God this is really happening.

Why? Why is this happening to me? You listening, God? Look me in the eye and tell me why this is happening.

She doesn’t get an answer, and though she wasn’t expecting one, it still hurts. Because she knows that she’ll never get an answer from Her again now.

Eventually she feels a tug on her arm from where Gabriel has been standing, dragging her away from the crowd and out her of current state of mind. She could feel her senses coming back to her as she stumbled backwards, but everything was crashing down on her too quickly, too harshly. She did her best to shove the rising panic as deep down insider her as she could. There was no way she would let anyone here see her in that state. She couldn’t let them think they’d won.

She didn’t even realise she had reached the edge of the ground she was standing on, the edge of Heaven itself, Gabriel no longer grabbing her arm. She nearly found herself peering over the edge, but stopped herself before she could lean too far. It may have helped her in the past but now was not the time to give in to her curiosity. And she didn’t trust Gabriel to not push her the moment he had the chance. She turned her head to glare fiercely at him, piercing holes in his very soul. She could slowly feel her anxiety being replaced by cool rage as she found herself saying, “Any institution that tries to silence anyone who opposes them is inherently corrupt.” She stared knowingly at his discomfort as he forced himself to face her. He knew what she meant by that. He knew.

He took a second to compose himself before practically scoffing in her face, “Don’t preach at me.”

Mariel cocked her head as she studied him. She watched as his eyes subconsciously flicked back to the crowd, to the other Archangels. He blatantly wanted nothing more than to re-join his fellow angels, the only beings who understood why he was doing what he was doing, or were at least supposed to understand anyway. Somehow she doubted they were all as cold-hearted and self-absorbed as the angel in front of her. She considered him for a moment before saying simply, “Your quest for power will kill you in the end.”

He furrowed his brows in somewhat amused confusion, “Is that a threat?”

“No. It’s the truth,” she blinked at him before leaning in and murmuring in his ear, “It will be your downfall.”

“The only one who’s going to Fall around here is you,” he said dangerously. Mariel leaned back and watched the lethal glimmer in his eye wither and die under the intensity of her gaze.

She just smiled. “We’ll see.” She let herself look at him for a moment longer before blinking away the tears and cautiously taking a small step backwards. She could feel where the ground ended beneath her feet and was sure not to step any further. She took one last look of the place she once called home, embracing how it felt for the last time though she knew she wouldn’t miss it.

She closed her eyes for a moment and fell back.

Mariel was Falling. That bit she knew, but much more than that? Everything was happening too fast for her to notice. And yet, it was as if she was existing in slow-motion. She worried for a moment that this was, in fact, her fate; doomed to remain in a perpetual state of limbo, of Falling, for all eternity. The only thing telling her otherwise was the view of Heaven above her, which she realised only too late was slowly shrinking into nothing. Mariel found herself reaching her own arms out, grasping for Heaven. They were opposite ends of a magnet being roughly pulled away from each other by an invisible force.

You hear that God? Why me? What did I ever do to deserve this? And don’t you dare tell me it’s all part of your plan because right now, the only thing I want is to be back where I should be and I can’t even have that.

She pulled herself out of her mind and back into reality; she’d have plenty of time in Hell to yell at a God who’d never listen, let alone answer. She only just started to register her surroundings, the fact that she was actually Falling, who knows how far and for how long, tumbling through the air at an unimaginable speed, plummeting towards a place that could be anything from seconds to hours away. The deafening wind that screamed in her ears, drowning out the screams which may have been coming from her mouth or her mind, who was she to say? Air whipped around her body, icier and more painful than any words that could ever be uttered by the angels above her. It wasn’t until she could no longer see any hint of Heaven on the horizon that she started to feel the tears finally fall, trickling down her face and floating slightly due to the force of the Fall.

Then suddenly it came. She felt it in the very tips of her wings first, a strange tingling sensation, as though hundreds and then thousands of pins were skirting the edges of her corporeal being. It spread over the rest of her wings, and then her body, at a faster pace than she could keep track of until her whole being felt as though it was burning. The pain grew, and it grew, and it grew, and she didn’t think she could physically take any more pain when she looked up in horror at her own freshly blackened wings. Her beautiful, holy wings which had once been the softest, purest white, were now stained with evil and ash. For the first time since she started Falling, however long ago that might have been, she let out a choked sob that racked through her whole body and through the ever-changing air around her. Nobody heard her cries. Nobody heard her screams as the searing pain in her chest grew stronger. She couldn’t even begin to work out whether it was physical or emotional but it was there and it burned a hole, a gaping wound, through her soul, leaving a scar fated to never heal and to forever haunt her-

Eloise was crying. She’d tried so hard to prevent the steady streams that were now running down her cheeks, but that was a memory that she’d never wanted to relive. She looked upwards for a moment, trying to regain control of her emotions and her breathing, before peeling her hands away from the two sat in front of her. She roughly wiped the tears from her face, and suddenly the only thing telling you she had been crying were the bloodshot eyes that Crowley tried to ignore as he said bluntly, “I’m still confused.”

“Crowley, give her a minute,” Aziraphale chastised him, furrowing his brows at the demon before he turned back to Eloise with kind eyes and a kinder heart, “Are you alright, my dear?”

She nodded without much hesitation, “I’m fine, it’s okay.” She certainly wasn’t fine, nor was it okay, but the last thing she wanted was to have to deal with her feelings in front of two people she was trying her best not to scare off. She looked back at Crowley, eyebrows raised in curiosity.

He looked at her in understanding, for if anyone knew her thought process in that moment, it was him. “Right, so you Fell and became a demon. Then what?”

“Well, you know what Hell’s like,” she started, looking pointedly at Crowley. She waited for him to nod before continuing, “Not my scene at all. I just point-blank refused to do anything they asked of me. Naturally they didn’t like that much. Eventually I was called in to see Satan about it. I remember thinking, ‘well, that’s that then. Terrible knowing you all.’, because I didn’t think I was going to survive that. Turns out he was just annoyed that I was being a bloody nuisance to everyone else, but he was too amused to really do anything about it, so he basically just told me to piss off. Leave Hell, don’t come back, and I won’t tell anyone where you’ve gone or that you’re even alive. Not exactly a deal I could refuse, so I left, came to Earth, been here ever since. I think everyone just assumed he’d killed me,” she shrugged as if she hadn’t just destroyed the whole idea of eternal damnation with just a few sentences. She smiled to herself as they gaped at her for a moment, though she doubted they realised they were doing it.

Crowley somehow managed to gather his senses quick enough to hold up a hand and say, “Wait, but when you were talking to Gabriel and Beelzebub and that lot, you said they had six thousand years to check up on you. Why would you say that if they thought you were dead?” He narrowed his eyes at her. He wasn’t altogether quite sure why he seemed to be so keen on finding any gaps in her story, but he needed to be able to trust that she was telling the truth. Or at least that’s what he told himself.

Aziraphale’s eyes lit up with understanding. “Yes, and they didn’t exactly seem surprised to see you alive.”

Eloise grinned. You two are gonna be fun, I can tell. “You’re both very observant, I have to give you credit for that.” She paused in thought for a second before starting carefully, “You see, the trouble with me is that I’m not really one for keeping a low profile. I’m too noisy, so to speak, and I don’t even realise it most of the time. This demon I hadn’t exactly been the nicest to back in Hell saw me in Babylon, gosh, it must have been eighteen thirty something BC? Anyways, he ratted me out to Beelzebub who must have told Gabriel all about it. I had about a decade of this bloody demon trying to discorporate me just to see if it would force me to go back to Hell, then one day he just stopped, and I never saw him again. Beelzebub probably told him to piss off.”

They were both quiet again for a little while. Eloise didn’t even think to say anything. It might be a rare occasion, but she did know when to keep her mouth shut when it mattered. She could see the cogs turning in their heads as if it was projected in the air above them. Eventually Crowley murmured, “I didn’t even know you could do that, you know, leave.”

She shook her head with a strange kind of sympathy that came from recognising an experience you had far too long ago, “Neither did I. It stills shocks me sometimes if I think about it too much.”

A few seconds passed before Crowley cleared his throat abruptly and said, “They called you Mariel. I thought you said your name was Eloise.”

She hesitated before answering. She knew exactly what he was doing, she’d been doing it for the whole of their conversation thus far, but just because she tended to bury her emotions, it didn’t mean that she liked it when others did it. She decided to ignore the hypocrisy of that thought, how ironic, she thought to herself, and instead explained, “It is. Mariel was my angel name. You know how it is,” she looked pointedly at Crowley again, hoping that Aziraphale would be able to put the pieces together. She didn’t actually know how much he knew about what it was like to Fall and become a demon.

“Oh, so is Eloise your demon name?” Aziraphale asked politely.

“No,” she said curtly, instantly feeling guilty when she saw the hurt that flashed over Aziraphale’s face. She grimaced and explained in a gentler tone, “I chose it for myself when I came to Earth. Hell tried to change my name after I Fell but I just refused.” She studied him for a second, watching his eyes dart about, before saying, “You want to ask something, I can tell. What is it?”

He looked a little startled at being caught out, momentarily glancing at Crowley for support, probably subconsciously, Eloise noted with a smile. “I, well, I couldn’t help but notice that you mentioned Armageddon. Back when you were speaking with, um, well, you know. H-how did you know about that?”

“I might have been there.” The words rushed out of her mouth in a much less casual manner than what she’d been aiming for, coming out in a sort of jumbled heap that took Crowley and Aziraphale a moment to decipher.

Crowley, the poor sod, could only think to lean forward and ask a simple, “You what?”

She jumped to defend herself, wanting to avoid the onslaught of questions if she could, “Not actually at the airbase, but I was in the area. I was living in Tadfield at the time.”

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes, although the hint of a smirk on his face told her it was more in amusement than suspicion, “How did you know it was at the airbase?”

Eloise couldn’t help but chuckle to herself because of course, they’d notice her choice of words, “I knew Adam and his mates. I ran an ice cream shop, would you believe it. He came and told me all about it the day after,” she smiled fondly before suddenly coming alive with excitement, “That’s actually how I found out about you two. That’s why I’m here. Because I thought I was the only one trying to stop the world ending, but apparently I wasn’t. I had to see for myself.”

A moment passed before Aziraphale asked quietly, “You were trying to stop it?”

Eloise, not noticing the newly subdued atmosphere, launched herself into a painfully over-enthusiastic explanation, “Yeah, it was quite clever really, if I do say so myself. I made sure Adam was swapped with the American baby in the hopes that he would have a human enough upbringing to perhaps change things. Seems to have worked,” she shrugged, before finally taking in the two shocked faces that were staring back at her. Her brows furrowed and her face fell as she asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You switched the babies?” Crowley asked blankly, although it came out as more of a statement than a question.

Her face screwed up as she tried to work out how best to explain herself. “Well, I say switched, it was more of a ‘made sure the demon dropping the antichrist off went to the wrong delivery room’ kind of thing. Feel sorry for the poor sod who had to deal with that but needs must.”

Crowley blinked at her and said bluntly, “I was the poor sod who had to deal with that.”

Eloise looked at him for a moment as about five different jigsaw pieces finally clicked in her head, before she threw her head back in realisation, “Oh shit, so you were. I knew your name sounded familiar.”

“You bastard, we spent six years raising the wrong child because of you!” he exclaimed, wagging his finger at her and jumping off of the bed at one point before Aziraphale tugged him back down. Eloise didn’t know whether to laugh or run for her life, for the menace in his words was betrayed by the disbelieving laugh in his voice.

“I’m sorry, you did what now?” she asked, only just processing what he’d just said, and she couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her lips at his dramatic antics. She knew not to push it when Aziraphale just lifted a finger and pursed his lips with the look of someone who’d rather never bring up said event again.

“Oh bloody heaven, I can’t believe this,” Crowley shook his head, chuckling to himself. Although part of him resented it, he couldn’t help but look at Eloise differently now as they laughed like little kids together. Maybe it was the fact that she seemed so much more like them now, so much more human. Or maybe it was the fact that she had been trying to stop the apocalypse and all the implications that came with the fact. Suddenly he just wanted to know more about her, but he quickly silenced that thought. One thing at a time.

She raised her shoulders with a confused look on her face, giggling as she said, “Sorry? Well, I didn’t know, did I?”

They locked eyes for a moment before bursting into laughter again at the sheer absurdity of it all, leaving Aziraphale slightly bewildered and more than slightly exasperated at the pair. It took them a few moments to finally calm down but once they did, Crowley sobered his tone of voice as he asked, “Right, back to what happened before we came in. Anything we need to keep an eye out for?”

Though he didn’t say it, Eloise could see the unasked question in his eyes. Are we safe? She smiled softly, “Nah, you two’ll be fine. Basically I told them if they want to talk to me, then they need to get their bosses involved, and somehow I highly doubt God and Satan are gonna pop down for a friendly chat any time soon. Even then, you two should be fine. I don’t think any of that lot clocked on that you were here.”

Crowley nodded in understanding, and it didn’t escape Eloise’s attention how the remaining dregs of tension visibly dissipated from both of their bodies. Aziraphale and Crowley looked at each other for a moment, the relief palpable from the pair of them. Eloise averted her eyes, giving them the privacy that they didn’t necessarily need but probably did want. She allowed herself a moment to ponder their relationship. They were very in tune with each other, very in sync, that much was obvious. Are they in love? The question sounded ridiculous the moment she thought it. Of course they are, look at them. She’d seen that look time and time again over the millennia. Although when she thought about the way they looked at each other further, that lead to another question. Do they know? The hint of yearning in their eyes was subtle but it was there. No, absolutely not. They’re too comfortable with each other. They’re a unit, that much she could tell. A unit that might not want to be disturbed.

Oh dear.

She looked back up at them hesitantly, unsure of what to say for the first time that evening. Eventually she said, “I’d better go. I think I’ve outstayed my welcome.”

Crowley frowned. Hadn’t she said she’d been travelling for a while? “You got somewhere to stay?”

Eloise paused. She’d definitely not been expecting that response. “Not yet. There is a flat I was going to rent but the people haven’t moved out yet because of the lockdown and it seems rude to miracle them away. I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

“Stay here,” Crowley said almost instantly, then pulled a face of confusion at how quickly he replied, “I mean, only if you want to.”

Eloise blinked at that. Surely, they wouldn’t want her there? What reason could they possibly have to want her there? “Wait, are you sure? I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

Crowley just shrugged, “It’s not a problem. What are your options anyway? No hotels are open, and you can’t stay with anyone.”

“Only if you’re sure,” she murmured, still wary for a reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She glanced at Aziraphale for confirmation; it was his bookshop after all.

He nodded firmly, “Of course. I’ve been told the sofa is remarkably comfy,” he added with a twinkle in his eye, to which she grinned broadly.

A short while and a few miracles later, the sofa downstairs had become a makeshift bed that was significantly larger and softer than it had remembered it being. Eloise was currently settled on it; all it had taken was ten minutes for her to completely crash out. Aziraphale and Crowley had left her in peace with a chuckle, heading up to the bedroom they shared (that wasn’t out of choice, mind you. Simply because there was only one bedroom in the bookshop. No other reason.) One slightly confused item of furniture aside, all seemed to be well in the bookshop.

Upstairs in the bedroom, an angel and a demon were sitting in the same bed. Neither of them had thought to turn off the lights, so they were sat in thick silence in the bedroom. Aziraphale didn’t usually come up to bed, not as used to sleeping as Crowley was, instead opting to read the night away downstairs. However this seemed impolite considering their new guest, so he’d come up with Crowley. And while Crowley was mulling this over he finally stumbled upon why he felt so uneasy.

Aziraphale hadn’t brought a book up with him.

As bizarre a concern as that may seem, Crowley could always trust Aziraphale to bring a book up to bed with him on the rare occasion he came up at night. That was one of the things he lo- liked about him. Liked. He looked at Aziraphale curiously, noting the slight frown on his face as he stared into space. How deep in his head must he have been to forget a book? “You alright, angel?” he asked as softly as he could so as to not startle him.

He looked at Crowley with wide eyes that darted away almost instantly as he started to play with his hands in his lap, “Yes, my dear, I’m fine. I just realised something, is all.”

Crowley cocked his head in interest, “Oh really? What was it?”

He was silent for a little while before saying in a voice no louder than a whisper, “I think I was there when she Fell.”

Crowley felt his eyebrows raise in shock, looking away for a second to try and compose himself. “Right. Well, that’s a thing.”

“Quite.”

He furrowed his brows as he tried to make sense of what this meant now, “And was she telling the truth? Did all that actually happen?”

“Yes. I remember it perfectly well. Clear as day,” he managed to choke out with a forced smile before going back to his routine fidgeting.

Crowley laid a gentle hand on top of Aziraphale’s, stopping what he was doing and getting him to actually look him in the eye for longer than a second. “You sure you’re alright?”

“I am quite well. Don’t fret,” he said, and despite Crowley’s concern, he couldn’t pretend that the smile on Aziraphale’s face wasn’t genuine, however small it may have been.

He reluctantly let it go, changing the subject quickly, “You alright with her staying here? I know it just sort of happened.”

The smile on his face only grew, much to Crowley’s surprise, “It’s alright. After all, wasn’t it you who said we’re on our own side now? I think she’s the first person we’ve met who might understand what that means.”

Crowley tried not to think too much about the fact that Aziraphale had actually listened to him when he’d said that, let alone remembered it, instead opting for a casual, “Yeah, I suppose so. Right, I’m gonna get some sleep. I, um, yeah,” he stammered out awkwardly, cursing his brain for not thinking of literally any other decent response.

Aziraphale simply smiled fondly at him, “Indeed. Goodnight, my dear.”

*************

Hello my love,

At the time of writing this, I do not know what the future holds. For me it’s an uncertain, unstoppable force, and it’s not one I think I can fend off for much longer. I’ve tried, please believe that I’ve tried. I’ve tried for your sake to prevent the inevitable. But it’s coming. I can feel it. It won’t be long now, I don’t think.

If you’re reading this, it means I was right, and I have Fallen. I know you’re probably confused and scared and that there is a biting anger bubbling inside you. I wish I could tell you why this is happening. I wish I could tell you that this is all a huge misunderstanding that will be resolved soon.

I wish I could tell you I love you one more time.

But I can’t. There are many things I can’t do now, and it’ll do me no good to dwell on this any longer than I have to. To survive we must focus on what we can do, and that’s exactly what I’m asking you to do.

If I know myself as well as I think I do, there are many things I would have liked to have said to you upon our final farewell, but didn’t because I wanted to make sure you were alright. Don’t feel guilty about this, my love. Think of it as my last debt to you being repaid.

I have a plan. Well, it’s more of an idea, and it might not work. And it’s because of this that I shan’t tell you exactly what it is. It seems cruel to allow you to hope for something that might never come into fruition. But please put your faith in me, and in our love, for we will prevail. One way or another.

I hope that you didn’t wait to read this letter because you were scared of its contents, though I’m sure this isn’t the case. You were always brave. It was always something I loved about you. Your quiet, beautiful, roaring courage in the face of such turmoil and anguish. You always had the courage to be kind and to love with all your being, even when everything was against you. No one would have blamed you if you had turned cold and bitter, and yet you chose not to. I admire you for it every day. My idea, should it work, will require us both to be incredibly brave. But more on that another day. It’s that bravery and that strength that you will need to rely on now. That, and the thought of me. Though I may not physically be with you, but I hope that my love’s own soul is enough.

I won’t sign off this letter, because this is not where our story ends. There is much left to be written. And I need you to remember that each day we are parted. Until the next time, my love.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

this DLC has me FUCKED UP and i keep screaming

spoilers for Bounty of Blood under the cut, keep reading at ur own peril. Also some Guardian Takedown spoilers for anyone who hasn’t beat it yet

tl;dr: a comparison between something taken from BL2 and a thing taken from Bounty of Blood. more spoilery tl;dr below the cut.

also the siren thing is not spoilers so i’ll share it here for anyone curious, it’s just this: siren tattoos are blue but when lily absorbs eridium in 2, they turn pinkish/purple. just like how vaults do from bl1 to bl2. they’re white/blue in bl1, then purple-pink in bl2 (and tps), y’know, after Eridium begins erupting from the ground. just a neat little detail i noticed that im not entirely sure was intentional but im gonna believe it is.

tl;dr: Gythian Blood = Core and the Ruiner is of Eridian Origin even tho everyone in the DLC likes to say it was created with Jakobs’ bioengineering. disclaimer: idk if I’ve found every hidden ECHO so I may be missing a few things but I have done every side quest and took ample screenshots of all important dialogue in the DLC : )

“man i just sat here for like 15 minutes staring at my keyboard mentally comparing core and eridium like the dumb bitch i am. 

it's not like we can do an actual comparison because we have no idea what the natural fauna of gehenna was like before jakobs came and mutated everything with core unlike pandora where we know what skags and rakk and shit were like BEFORE the eridium crust erupted. 

altho!!! there's a neat comparison between joey ultraviolet and rose. like obviously he wasn't getting tattoos and was just doing lines of crushed up eridium but the point stands they both have glowy eyes and unique powers so i don't necessarily think this means rose is a siren just because she has magic powers especially when we know she got the whistling passed down to her from her grandmother. 

especially because we've never seen a siren interact with core before. altho that leaves the question we have seen core tattoos now what are eridium tattoos like? actually rose's tattoos were on her right arm obviously she isn't a siren as we know them right now (I saw a post on reddit where people thought rose was a siren) 

of course that brings up the point perhaps siren tattoos ARE eridium tattoos. but then we hear the general's log about how the devil riders were tattooing a man with core and blood so obviously they're not ‘naturally’ occurring unlike siren tattoos. so odds are they're probably not equivalents but something interesting i thought of while thinking about this is how well siren tattoos compare to the Vaults from borderlands 1 and borderlands 2″

anyway. this is all ive been thinking about. yes yes i know guardian takedown post but! >:( im still salty even tho this update has been lovely (outside of Blane not getting his correct damage scaling ‘till today......). so i’ll do that at my own damn pace. now let me elaborate so i can sleep at night lmao

Eridium

refinement produces slag, which weakens people and can mutate things

has mutating properties, mostly with imbuing elements into shit- possibly causes insanity

seems to be connected to another dimension, likely the one the Eridians are from

Core

has a secondary form of Infused Core

has mutating properties, mostly regarding a thing’s body and mind

apparently radioactive

there are some things i wanna note

1) People throughout the DLC say the Ruiner was created by the Jakobs corp (the company) thru bio-engineering but I’m 99% sure that’s not true. The paperwork seems to me like they found the egg somewhere on Gehenna and decided to roll and experiment with it like all corporations do when they find weird alien shit. so maybe they experimented with whatever was inside the egg, but I don’t think they actually created it entirely

“Excavated from [REDACTED] ... Local legends speaks of a [REDACTED]. This theory is not endorsed by our research personnel.

2) The Ruiner’s design reminds me a lot of the Warrior.

3) Core immediately reminded me of Gythian Blood from Guns Love and Tentacles and I don’t think that’s coincidence to have 2 back-to-back DLCs where the big bad is focused on green death juice. I think Gythian Blood and Core are of the same stuffs.

4) Therefore, I think the Ruiner is (mostly) of Eridian origin (if you haven’t already guessed). 

This gives us an amazing look into how the Eridians actually create their beasts!!! And I’m so happy they showed us this.

(side note, Interitus Regina (the long name for Ruiner) literally means Destruction Queen and I think that’s beautiful <3)

i mean the idea that they plunge them from orbit to create an explosion similar to a nuke is fucking horrifying (but holy shit I love it so much ahhh it’s so cool!!!!)

the one side line from Oletta about how the company couldn’t control the Ruiner deffo makes me double down on this theory. I’m not entirely sure how Rose’s grandma knew about the whistling (I don’t think I’ve found every echo log in that area YET), but I would bet it was part of the testing given how many fuckin’ tape players they have throughout the facility. The Warrior was controlled by verbal commands via Jack, so it’s possible that the Ruiner was intended to be controlled similarly, but Jakobs intervention (or something like the way Rose hatched it) fucked it up.

now we know the Warrior was created to protect the Vault of the Destroyer (hmm.) so what the heck was the Ruiner created for? Ruiner is a name given to it by Jakobs/the people of Gehenna so we can’t really assume, but then again the monster names are pretty apt in this series even tho they probably technically shouldn’t be. 

it was only an egg, so maybe it was another test of Core? A Vault Monster incubating until it was ready to protecc and attacc but was never hatched because the Eridians ‘sacrificed’ themselves before it could? (I’m still not convinced the Eridians are the good guys. Listen. LISTEN. The guardian takedown is something to think about, BUT it doesn’t disprove that theory and I’ll stand by it because I 100% trust the Overseer more than bitchpants mcgee over here who thinks he’s soooo special for no reason fuck you and your dumb ‘I did what the Watcher could not’ bull you haven’t done shit.) ok sorry im done he just angers me. stupid guardian man. your whip is stupid and you should feel bad. oh also I totally called us actually being Guardians thru Guardian Rank before the game came out aha yeah.

I definitely think Gythian was a test/use of Core from the Eridians. We see in Bounty of Blood that core seems to mutate more the physical (and occasionally mental) parts of people, like with the crew challenges u do for Juno with all the weird hybrid people and whatnot. Gythian had the whole ‘the heart still beats’ thing going on (which is definitely a physical mutation if i’ve ever seen one), plus the whole, you know, mind control and shit. Which is p similar to what the menta gnats can do when charged with Infused Core. And keep in mind in BLaT we see DAHL notes on what happens to test subjects when injected with Gythian Blood. They mutated physically and went insane.

What im saying is Sirens and Eridium and Elements are connected, so what does Core equal? body/mind sure but are there unique creatures for core (yes holy shit I’m not talking about h2o au for once and FINALLY they gave us a canon name for the green stuff!!!). If not, I’d love to see a Siren interact with Core to see what it does to them. seriously why hasn’t tannis interrupted us yet. horrible excuse for a science lover (kidding kidding, I love her). I’d also really love a fuller rundown on what the hell Rose’s powers were. Because the whistling thing seemed to just be her grandma’s thingie passed down to her from her mom

but the core stuff

her gun seems to be infused with it. So did her sword thing. I didn’t really get a good look at it i was too busy trying to see thru my blurry tears of LOVE for this DLC.

Strangely while her tattoos are (mostly) green I actually don’t know if they’re core infused bc look at this

n look back at hers. hers aren’t very lime.

anyway

her eyes

I’d love to know if the core gives her immediate future sight or just increased perception or reaction times. there’s a huge difference but she seemed to be able to shoot the gun outta the sheriff’s hand near immediately and it seems kinda implied its because of the core (or at least because her eyes are glowing green)

there’s a possibility she has some unique core powers/possibly implants because of her relations to the project in the first place, or as leader of the devil riders after looting the facility. it’s really hard to say without more info and like i said im not sure if i missed an ECHO or two or not regarding her backstory :( 

Her hair is also green which I just noticed. Maybe she has core powers bc her grandmother got suuuuuuuuper irradiated/influenced working on project horizons and it passed down thru her n Rose’s mom, to Rose. Tannis does have a line about Sirens having unique hair colors and, if Sirens are linked to Eridium, perhaps those linked to Core also have unique hair color. Could also explain why only Rose seems to have those whistling powers. That said we don’t really see anyone else trying that whistling thing out afaik and idk if it was, like, a special ability or a certain tone/ditty or w h a t. 

i know being vague with everything gives them more creative freedom to create amazing characters and scenarios, but dammit I want A N S W E R S.

All THAT said man I’m so glad magic is real in the borderlands universe. oh, sorry, “magic”. It’s magic. Science it, tannis, I dare you. either way, I win. Either it’s magic and H2O AU is canon, or it’s science and I finally get my goddamn answers. Hey gearbox can you make a book just explaining all the science and eridian stuff. please. I’d love you forever. please. pleaheheheheaaasseee it’s all i’ve ever wanted.

oh also can i just say, suuuper disappointed we didn’t learn anything about anshin. Really wish non-fan favorite corporations would get the spotlight/lore for once. Like, I like Jakobs as much as the next guy, and I get WHY they did it (can’t have a corporation looking too good!!!) but they now have 3 DLCs (Jakobs Cove, GLaT, and Bounty of Blood) and also a hefty chunk of the main game. Like... we all know Jakobs fuckin sucks, look at what they did on Pandora. I really just want info on a medical corporation 😭 I have to do everything my damn s e l f. but SERIOUSLY IMAGINE the possibilities that could come from a medical corp getting its hands on eridian tech. like, yeah obviously the weapons corps are gonna use it for weaponry and stuff BUT WOULDN’T THE MEDICAL CORPS MUTATING PEOPLE MAKE MORE SENSE??? ldfhgldfshg I have to do everything my damn self...

anyway all that aside, this is definitely by favorite borderlands dlc by a LONG shot. Nothing comes close. Ahhh the lore, the nuclear aspect, the a e s t h e t i c (seriously, have I mentioned how much I adore Trigun???), the art, the music, the cryoslinger, the fact I can bust out going beeEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAans like Ray Chase at any time and it will MAKE SENSE. I love all of it.

oh, also, Rose is totally not dead. C’mon, they couldn’t find her body. She pulled a Lilith. “Are you sure she didn’t just suffer a wound that LOOKS fatal, only for her to come back in a blockbuster sequel...?” is a line from mr Jones himself (the movie guy)

I just hope when she comes back she gets to meet Captain Scarlett. I’d love to watch their interactions plus pirates and or ninjas. That’s 2 DLC villains now that have vanished without a trace. And I like Captain Scarlett way more than Rose (seriously I spent the entire beginning of the DLC complaining about how her voice bothered me- I was so happy she was a villain, I was hoping that was the case).

oh yeah, reminder, the people of vestige were living next to highly radioactive egg for likely years. i feel really bad for them :(

also!!!

this made me smile

[raywritesthings]

Bird in a Storm, 10/17

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Quentin Lance, John Diggle, Helena Bertinelli, Raisa, Joanna de la Vega, Ted Grant, Female OCs, Male OCs Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: The confrontation between the Hood and SWAT on the roof of the Winick Building goes differently, altering the course of Laurel’s career, relationships and efforts to save her city forever, the shockwaves of such an altered path making themselves felt throughout her family and friends. *Can be read on my AO3, link is in bio*

So far, so good, Laurel kept telling herself over the next week. Mr. Khan and his shop remained unharmed, those thugs hadn’t made any reprisals or found her out, and the police hadn’t come knocking on her door. She was in the clear.

But the clear wasn’t good enough. One night wasn’t good enough. If she was going to make any real difference in the Glades, she was going to have to keep on with it.

Time to get serious.

It was hard knowing what to do or how to proceed outside of just saying she would to herself, though. After all, even if she didn’t really want to imitate the Hood in all matters, she had to admit Ollie’s vaunted list gave him an itinerary. The best she could hope for would be to wander around and wait for crime to happen. Not that that was a far-fetched prospect in the Glades.

But she couldn’t just stand around at night in a ski mask, either. That would give people the opposite idea of what she was going for. So then, maybe some updates to her look were in order.

She reflected on this as she entered the thrift store. Ostensibly, she was grabbing some things for the approaching warmer weather, but she wasn’t above browsing around for ideas. Was a scarf too Western? Would it fall off too easily?

Beside the clearance racks where she’d picked out a new shirt was a small bin labeled “free”. Maybe she wasn’t absolutely destitute, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a look through.

Most of it was clothes that were completely out of season, not to mention fashion. A toy car that was missing one wheel and a few ugly patterned scarves were also in amongst the clutter.

Her thumb snagged an elastic band and she pulled out a black domino mask. Probably discarded from some Halloween costume. Laurel studied it for a moment, then slowly lifted it towards her face.

It’d be less sweaty, and easier to breathe in. Cheap as this one was. Maybe it’d be better to save up and make her own. She’d continued practicing hand-sewing during the slow hours at work, in the event that she might develop small holes or tears in her clothes that could be patched up instead of thrown away. And hand-stitching had other uses considering what she was planning.

Laurel left the mask in the bin and took her other purchases up to the register, mind still racing with ideas.

She’d need more than a mask to conceal her identity. But she didn’t want a hood. If she was doing this, she didn’t want to be seen as only some lackey of Oliver’s. This was her own mission, her own way.

A head covering in general would limit her visibility plus make her stand out pretty readily. She needed something discreet. Laurel didn’t have fancy arrows with lines attached that could pull her up the side of a building in moments. She had to be able to make a getaway, even in a crowd.

She needed to look like a woman.

It was so simple when it hit her. So long as she could be any woman — just some woman, with great hair and a body — they would never bother to see past the mask. She just had to not look like herself too much, that was the key. Dye was too permanent; a wig would disguise her hair better.

Over the next week she made the necessary purchases, each at a different shop and in cash. The important thing was not to let it be traced back to her.

As for weapons, she looked into something she could carry on her person. A baseball bat was way too conspicuous for a woman in her twenties to be walking around with. Eventually, she was drawn to a collapsible bo staff. She’d seen staffs hanging on the wall at the Wildcat Gym and knew Oliver used them for sparring practice with Mr. Diggle. It was a weapon she felt comfortable using with some practice, which she nudged a reluctant Ted into.

“I just want to try different things, you know?” She’d said with a casual shrug. “No point getting pigeon-holed.” Losing her job as a lawyer and realizing she had no real backup plan had taught her that the hard way.

She went out the first night she got all her gear together, knowing if she hesitated that she would find a way to talk herself out of it. The long hair of the wig swishing around her shoulders was a familiar weight. With her hands shoved in her jacket pockets — one hand over the staff and one hand over the mask, she walked around, watching and waiting.

Only she didn’t really find anything, other than a few catcalls. The next day, she saw there had been a reported mugging halfway across the Glades from where she’d staked out.

It was like this over the next few nights. She wasn’t where she needed to be or she’d get there just after she was needed. It occurred to her that this was probably why Oliver tended to stick to his list; it was full of ongoing problems he could investigate and then decide to attack in his own time.

She didn’t have the luxury of a base of operations or the ability to get into and out of high rises safely, though. And she wanted to be on the ground, handling the problems Jerome and Mrs. Ross had talked about. The problems she saw every day. She’d just have to get lucky.

The next night, she did.

The only gas station in the Glades was hit up for a robbery just as she was passing by. Laurel caught the flash of a gun out of the corner of her eye through the store window and quickly ran to the wall, flattening herself against it to get a better look. Two men, one pointing the gun and the other shoveling money from the register into a bag. They weren’t even bothering with ski masks, just hats pulled over their hair and jacket collars popped.

She glanced up at the security camera pointed at the front door. Its light was off. It wasn’t on, or perhaps it had never been plugged in.

Laurel got out her mask and extended the staff.

The door banged open as she stood and landed a hit low on the first man’s legs just as he ran out. He toppled over, his face smacking into the pavement. His partner in crime stumbled over him right into her fist, falling back against the wall. Laurel wrenched the gun out of his fingers and took note of the safety. Still on. The clip was empty. She shook her head.

“Who the fuck are you?” The guy on the ground spat. There was blood on his lip.

“Just someone in the neighborhood.”

With two hits of her staff, they were both knocked unconscious. She picked up the bag of cash, opened the door again, and tossed it towards the counter at the clerk, who was watching with wide eyes. Laurel didn’t wait for a response, knowing her priority was now to get as far away from the scene as possible.

Her heart pumped with adrenaline as she fled several streets away, a wide grin stretched over her lips. She had done it, and it still felt great. What did a few boring nights matter if every so often she could manage something like this?

Of course, it began to take a toll on her schedule. She woke up later, didn’t have near as much time before work to get her day started. She saw the few friends she had less.

Joanna took it the hardest. “I’m not gonna see you at work when I go back, Laurel. And sorry, but you don’t have the excuse of being too busy to have a social life anymore. So do you just not want to be friends?”

“It’s not that, Jo. Never. I’m just… trying to work out some things. Figure out where my life’s going.”

Her friend had scoffed over the line. “Well let me know if I’m still in it.” She’d hung up shortly after.

It was easier now to see things from Oliver’s point of view; how he’d tried to maintain relationships without letting slip what was really going on in his life. It made her miss him fiercely.

They hadn’t talked much since after Mr. Merlyn’s hospitalization. Ostensibly, they still weren’t supposed to be friends, after all. And Laurel hesitated to reach out to him about her new nighttime activities; something told her he wouldn’t approve.

Well, that wasn’t Ollie’s job to approve or not, so it was simply better for the both of them if she kept it to herself. He had enough on his plate seeing as the Hood was still going out at nights, taking on the elites in this city.

She was just doing her part where she could, making sure the people he was trying to help got that help sooner rather than later. It was his upbringing, she knew, that caused him to see things the way he did. The big picture instead of the small.

Laurel would aim to improve things from the bottom up while he continued to work from the top down. Maybe they’d meet somewhere in the middle someday.

She did her best to brush aside that sort of wishful thinking. It would be silly to think after everything that there was any sort of future for them. She didn’t even know what future there was for herself.

But as long as she could do something good, she would keep going.

---

Anita was starting to wonder if her Avó had been right about coming to live in Brazil. These past few months in Starling had been crazy.

It wasn’t as if she hated it at Avó’s either. She loved the cooking, loved the weather, loved the language. The only trouble would be, as always, money. Jerome wasn’t near fluent enough in Portuguese to find good work, and she couldn’t be too sure of it herself. They were just getting by in the States, and as long as that was enough for them she’d be happy to stay.

She’d gotten lucky. While other girls had been chasing after gangbangers and potheads in school, her Jerome had gotten a job to support him and his grandma. He’d always been the responsible type.

His grandma had passed three years ago, and the medical bills and funeral arrangements had put a strain on their finances, enough to convince them to sell the old house to a developer and start renting. A real estate agent had assured them the Glades was going to start gentrifying and that they’d be able to get a good price.

Only the sale hadn’t yielded as much as they’d hoped, so they’d remained stuck in the Glades instead of moving to a better, safer neighborhood. It didn’t bother her so much right now. But in a few years when they might have kids on the way? She wanted them going to good schools, not the poor excuse for school she and Jerome had attended.

They did their best to save, but there was always something coming down the pipe they weren’t expecting. At least they didn’t have a car. The repairs would be killer.

There was always crazy stuff going on in Starling City these days, too. Ever since some guy had decided to become a souped up Robin Hood last fall and take out his anger issues on a bunch of rich folks. As long as he kept it to them, Anita didn’t mind so much. For the first several weeks or so, it had created a buzz of conversation through the neighborhood. This guy was trying to change things, maybe. And in some cases he did. Here or there, people got their money back.

But the wealthy were good at consolidating what they had. Companies transferred from corrupt CEOs to corrupt board rooms, money disappeared before it could be returned to the right owners. And this guy liked to drop bodies. That part, Anita wasn’t so keen on.

Because there were people getting more violent in the Glades now, too. Drug dealers, young and angry men unsupervised by the old mob hierarchy. This Hood didn’t seem to have a backup plan for any of that.

Jerome was frustrated by it far more than she was. “I mean, did we ask this guy to come here and fight for us? Stir up trouble? Did he come talk to any of us, see what we wanted?”

“No, he didn’t,” she dutifully agreed before bringing out both their dinners. She kissed him on the cheek as she went around him. “But it’d be hard for him to ask around without giving the game away, huh?”

“Yeah.” Jerome dug into his food and there was quiet from his end of the table for a while. “You know, the guys are saying there’s some woman out there now.”

“A woman?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Well, good for her.”

He grinned. “You like that? They’re saying she’s a real, how’s it go — right, gata.”

Anita arched an eyebrow. “You gonna leave me for her?”

He kept grinning. “Never, baby, you know me better than that.”

“Then she can be as good-looking as she wants.” Anita pushed her plate aside and came over to him, her arms wrapping around his shoulders. “I don’t mind.”

At work, she started hearing the rumors, too, over the next few days. “Nobody knows where she came from,” said Lanh in hushed excitement as they stood one sink apart. “But she gave a man following my roommate home a black eye the other night.”

“No kidding?”

“Yeah. It’s cool, isn’t it?”

No killing, dealing with stuff in the neighborhood. It was like someone had come in and asked around or sat in on their talks, then decided to make all their wishes and hopes come true in the form of a lady in black leather. Seemed crazy, but that was life now.

She stopped by next door to see Laurel, wanting to get her opinion. After all, wasn’t she here because of her support for vigilantism in the first place?

Only when her neighbor answered the door, it was clear she’d only just finished stitching up a nasty cut on her arm.

“Ooh, honey, what happened?”

“Just a work accident. Shears, you know?” Laurel let her in and hurriedly cleared up some bloodied napkins. “What’s up?”

Anita decided to leave her questioning behind. “Just wanted to see if you were free. We should have a night out, you know?”

“Okay, your place or mine?”

Anita waved a hand. “I was thinking a little more exciting than that. They’re saying the Verdant’s finally opening.”

Laurel raised both eyebrows. “Are they?”

“Mm-hm. Wanna check it out?”

“I don’t know…”

She leaned over the counter towards her friend. “Come on. Nights in only feel better if you go out sometimes, too. Variety’s the spice of life.”

“It’s going to be packed,” Laurel pointed out. “We’d be lucky to wait in line for three hours before getting in.”

“Couple of good looking girls like us?” Anita grinned. “Besides, you know the owner.”

Her friend shook her head. “Oliver and I aren’t that close anymore.”

“Right, which is why you call him Oliver and not ‘Queen’ or ‘my cheating bastard of an ex’,” said Anita. “Come on, billionaire boy owes you a million favors, so why not call one in? It’ll be fun. Haven’t seen you in a while.”

She watched Laurel debate it for a few minutes. “Alright. But if he says no, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He said yes, clearly, because Laurel sent her a text that afternoon saying what time they should be there. No mention of a cover fee either, which was interesting. She’d have to meet billionaire boy herself to be sure, but if Anita’s intuition was any good, she’d say Oliver Queen was still pining away for her neighbor despite his cheating past. So Anita would be happy to drink his booze and help her friend kick him to the curb if need be.

They walked to the Verdant together, skipping the line entirely by going through a back door Laurel had been told about. A man just about shorter than Jerome but beefier greeted them inside. “Laurel.”

“Mr. Diggle. This is my neighbor, Anita.”

He nodded to her. “Pleasure to meet you, miss.”

“You too. Swanky place,” she said, getting a good look around as she took steps further in. The bass was already vibrating in her bones.

“Um, if you could pass on our thanks to Oliver. I’m sure he’s very busy tonight,” Laurel was saying.

“I’m sure once he’s finished showing his family the place that he’ll be making the time. Mr. Queen’s been doing some re-evaluating lately. But I’ll let you enjoy your evening.”

“Re-evaluating?” Anita asked as they left the man to head out onto the main floor.

Laurel shook her head. “Let’s not get into that. I think our first drinks are on the house.”

The drinks were excellent, it turned out. Here and there they met a scant few familiar faces, and Anita introduced Laurel to them. She couldn’t help noticing that most of the patrons clearly weren’t from around here; too many Rolexes and real jewels on wrists. Looked like the gentrification had finally begun.

“I’m going to get us another round,” she spoke loudly into Laurel’s ear. Tonight wasn’t for thinking those kinds of things. It was for just letting loose and pretending life wasn’t so crap sometimes.

As Anita returned with the drinks, her pace slowed. There was a woman with dark hair standing behind her friend and gripping Laurel’s arm tightly. Anita ducked around a couple chattering away to get closer without drawing attention to herself.

To her surprise, Laurel seemed to recognize this stranger. “Helena?”

“Laurel, good to see you. Almost didn’t recognize you,” said the woman.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing personal, but I heard about your fall from grace. Must’ve stung when you realized Oliver wasn’t really there for you. He never is.”

“Let me go, Helena.”

“Sorry, but you’re my insurance policy. We’re going downstairs to wait for Oliver, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll come quietly.”

Anita had just about heard enough. She looked around frantically for the security — they were either at the doors or far against the walls and couldn’t see them out here in the throng of people. So she did the next thing she thought of.

“Hey!”

The woman turned towards her direction just in time for Anita’s drink to splash in her face. She staggered back, gasping in shock.

And that was when Laurel sprang into action.

Anita had been planning to take her friend’s arm and run for it, but Laurel’s arms were moving and the woman was down on the floor in seconds, her arms pinned behind her back. She kicked out with both feet, heel gouging Laurel’s leg. Laurel gave a grunt that was only barely heard over the music, sitting on the woman’s thigh hard.

“Hey!”

“What the—”

“Is it a fight?”

“Yeah! Awesome!”

There was a small crowd growing around them, and Anita felt herself pressed between people on either side. Laurel’s arm bore long scratches while she held the woman’s head in a lock Anita could swear she’d never seen outside WWE.

“Excuse me! What’s going on here?”

Anita’s eyes bugged out as suddenly Oliver Queen cut through the crowd on her right. His eyes widened for a moment before he plunged in and grabbed Laurel around the waist, pulling her off the woman. Once she was set down behind him he yanked the other woman up as well, pulling her towards the exit.

The man who let them in before took Laurel’s arm and guided her after them. “Come on, Laurel,” she thought she read off his lips.

Anita rushed after them.

Oliver Queen was shouting at the woman named Helena when they all got outside. “If you ever come after someone I care about again—”

“My father—”

“Is no longer your concern! You do not have any business in Starling, Helena, and you will stay far away from here. Or else.”

Helena’s eyes flashed with anger, but she stalked off into the night.

“Wow,” Anita breathed in the silence. Oliver Queen looked a little surprised and discomforted to find he had an audience.

“Um…”

“Figured it was better for appearance’s sake if both parties caught fighting were escorted out,” Mr. Diggle said.

“And she’s my friend, so I’m sticking with her,” Anita added in explanation.

Oliver Queen nodded before turning to Laurel, one hand touching her arm. “Are you okay?”

Laurel shrugged. “Just fine.”

“What were you thinking?” He asked next. “Helena is dangerous—”

“So I was supposed to let her take me hostage?” Laurel finished for him, eyes narrowing.

“She’s a killer, Laurel.”

Anita’s eyebrows rose at that.

“And I had it taken care of. She was hardly going to kill me if she wanted to take me somewhere.”

The two of them were in each other’s faces, close enough to share the same air. She doubted either of them noticed.

“If something had happened—”

“It didn’t. Can’t you focus on that?”

“But it could have!”

“There’s no point to wondering what could have been, Ollie! Believe me, I’ve tried!” Laurel turned around and started marching away from him, the effect ruined somewhat by a slight limp.

Oliver Queen sighed. “Laurel, wait. Let Digg look at your leg.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Then let me call you a cab. Please.”

Laurel paused, and Anita took the opening. “We’ll take a cab, yeah.”

Laurel fixed her with a frown.

“Honey, you’re bleeding.”

A few minutes later, they were bundled into a cab and leaving the Verdant. What a night out. Jerome was never going to believe this. She’d heard the odd thing here or there since Laurel had moved in and knew of her gym classes, but damn, her friend was a brawler when she wanted to be!

They were halfway home when it hit her. “Shit, that was mob girl, wasn’t it? Huntress or something? She was the one going around whacking her dad’s people.”

Laurel sighed. “Yeah.”

“Okay, then billionaire boy might have a point. Cause they were saying that girl was nuts, you know? Not somebody to get mixed up with.”

“Wasn’t trying to, believe me. But I’m not going to go along and let things happen to me anymore, Anita. That’s not who I am.”

“Probably a good attitude to have in this town. Maybe I should pick Capoeira back up,” she mused.

“Capoeira?”

“Afro-Brazilian fighting style. I took classes after school for a bit, like the Irish girls that do line dancing, you know? There was a place down by our old laundromat. Wonder if it’s still open.”

“We could take a look together. If it’s okay for others to learn,” Laurel added after a moment.

“Sure, but aren’t you busy as it is at that gym?”

Laurel shrugged. “I could make time. And anyway, we’d get to see each other.”

Anita smiled. “Alright, we’ll check it out. But after that leg of yours is better. You’re gonna need it in good condition, believe me.”

They got out in front of Laurel’s and Anita helped her into the house, insisting she help get the leg cleaned up at the least. “You got something to numb that?”

“Not really.”

“Tell me you don’t have work first thing tomorrow.”

“I can manage.”

Anita pushed her hair back. “I mean, what did that bitch want anyway? Why’d she try to take you somewhere?”

Laurel shrugged, her eyes on the floor. “She dated Ollie a few months back.”

“Oh.” Jealous ex to the extreme, then. “You need anything else?”

“No, you should get home.”

“Okay, well just text me, alright? Get plenty of sleep.”

“I will, Anita.” Laurel stiffened when Anita leaned in to hug her. It took a moment for her friend to relax in her arms. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” Anita let herself out so Laurel wouldn’t have to get up right away. The younger woman still seemed a little stunned; she suspected Laurel had been the big sister and minder to so many people over the years that she’d forgotten what it was like to have someone looking out for her for a change.

She and Laurel signed up for an intermediate class after they both tested into it; her because of her prior experience and Laurel because she was already quick on her feet. Anita could tell the class was going to kick her butt and complained to Jerome about it for hours as he rubbed her feet after the first lesson.

“Guess someone was a little jealous of that woman in black after all,” he teased.

“Yeah, just you wait. My legs are gonna look fantastic. You’ll be picking your jaw off the floor.”

As the days went on and there were more growing rumors of this woman in the Glades, she felt herself newly inspired. When women looked out for each other, it made the neighborhood all the better.

Though the more she heard and the more she watched Laurel’s determined look in their classes, the more the mysterious woman seemed less like a stranger, and more like someone she knew. Crazy as that sounded.

---

Quentin had taken to keeping an ear out for crimes in the Glades. It both increased his blood pressure and soothed his nerves, because the amount of criminal activity coming out of there was unheard of. But so far, his daughter hadn’t been mixed up in any of it.

Statistically, he worried it wouldn’t last. But what could he do? He’d raised her to be fiercely independent, and his initial bad reaction when Laurel had perhaps been at her most vulnerable ensured she would never take his charity. He was lucky enough that she was still speaking to him, especially after he’d brought her mother over for a truly appalling attempt at reconnecting.

He still wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He couldn’t blame his estranged wife entirely for what had happened to Sara; it wasn’t as if she could have known what would happen out at sea. Bitterly, it occurred to him that by the same token, he couldn’t blame Queen then, either. Even if the man himself believed it, he hadn’t killed Quentin’s daughter.

Even more distressing, perhaps, was how much and how little Queen and Dinah had done to try and make amends with Laurel respectively. Where Queen had been nothing but repentant, Dinah had given excuses. She hadn’t even seemed to truly grasp what she had done wrong until Laurel had spelled it out to her.

She’d left a couple weeks ago, shaken and doubly discouraged when Laurel’s old friend at the Chinese embassy had confirmed the girl in the picture with the Rockets cap wasn’t their baby girl. Just another young woman who had bought a baseball cap on any ordinary day. He hadn’t given Laurel that news yet; he suspected she’d already guessed.

He picked up and then set aside the photo on his desk with his two girls. In some ways, he felt equally distant to them these days, though he knew he was kidding himself. The damage he’d done to his and Laurel’s relationship was entirely his own doing, not a random act of nature. He should stop wasting the time and make amends.

“Got a situation on 7th and Shane Street,” an officer announced to the bullpen, snapping Quentin out of his reverie. “Might need a couple detectives, cause we’ve got witnesses.”

Quentin stood. “I’ll go.” 7th and Shane was right in the heart of the Glades. He didn’t think it was all that far from that flower shop, come to think of it.

He drove over to find a bus pulled to the side of the road. It didn’t look to be damaged any. The driver and a few passengers stood around, the latter group all waiting for rides. A few men lay on the ground, welts on their faces and black eyes starting to turn into ugly bruises as they were cuffed by the officers. He ducked under the police tape and walked over to the group of witnesses.

“Alright, can anyone tell me how this whole thing started?”

“It was the hijackers,” a man near the back mumbled.

“The what?”

“The hijackers, man.” He was nudged by a woman at his left, probably a girlfriend or wife. She eyed the gun at Quentin’s belt warily. He carefully reached for a notepad and pencil to keep his hands occupied with that.

“And who are these hijackers?”

“They’ve been hitting the buses, usually on payday, sir,” the girlfriend spoke up. “Part of a newer gang.”

“Uh-huh. Was the SCPD informed of this?”

There were murmurings. Everyone too afraid to say yes. He frowned.

“How long ago did this start?”

“Little after the Bertinelli mob fell, sir.”

“It’s been horrible. They take everything you got. Money, jewelry, smartphones. We’re sitting ducks the whole route home!”

There were a bunch of voices shouting at him now, all wanting to be heard. One woman’s voice in particular stuck out amongst the group thanks to its heavy accent; an older woman in a housemaid’s uniform under her coat.

“They wanted my chotki,” she said, showing them all a black rope with many knots and beads in a few places, tied in a cross at the end. “It is wool and wood, what could they want with that? They were brutes. But she saved us.”

“She?” Quentin asked, stepping towards her. He thought he recognized this woman. Wasn’t she one of the Queens’ people?

Scarcely had he thought it before Oliver Queen himself came running up to the yellow tape. “Raisa!”

“Mr. Oliver!”

Just his luck. Quentin headed over as Queen lifted the tape to let Ms. Raisa out. “Just a minute,” he called.

Queen turned back to him. “Detective Lance, I came here to make sure Raisa got home safely. She’s been through enough for one night.”

“She’s not in trouble. I just need her to finish her statement. Now, who is ‘she’?”

Ms. Raisa shrugged. “No one really knows. They call her ‘the woman’.” She smiled warmly. “I believe tonight she was an angel.”

“Right,” he said.

“Was that everything, Detective Lance?” Queen asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, alright. Get her home.”

The two of them left, Queen leaning down to ask his housemaid a question Quentin couldn’t hear. He turned back to the group which was gradually starting to disperse. There were no useful additions other than someone saying a woman showed up a few minutes after the hijackers forced the bus to pull over.

The Hood. Now the Woman. Just great. Why had this city all of a sudden decided to go nuts?

He swung by Laurel’s place on his way back to the station and knocked. No one answered after a minute, but the light was on. He knocked again, louder.

“Just a second!” His daughter called out. She wrenched the door open in leggings and a blue tank top. “Dad! What are you doing here?”

“Can’t I visit my daughter?” His bravado covered his nerves, but relief was his primary emotion as she stepped back to let him inside.

“Were you on a call somewhere?”

“Yeah. There’s been some trouble with the bus routes. You don’t ride those often, do you?”

“Just to visit Joanna at her mom’s. Or to get downtown if I needed to.”

“Yeah, well stay off them at night, alright? There’s been gangs hitting them.”

“I know.”

That drew him up short. It occurred to him that these days, Laurel perhaps had an even more advance warning on crime in the Glades than he did. All the more reason to hate this arrangement.

He watched with narrowed eyes as she lowered herself onto her couch with a wince.

“What’s wrong with your back?”

She stiffened and winced again. “Oh, just work. I was lifting a lot of mulch bags today.”

Quentin shook his head. His poor girl had always had a willowy build. She was delicate, even if he’d made sure she knew how to defend herself in a tight spot. “You’re not meant for this kind of work, Laurel. We gotta find you something else.”

“This is doing me fine. Besides, I’m pretty sure to get law work, I’d have to leave Starling.”

“Shouldn’t have discouraged you from taking that corporate job in San Francisco,” he muttered.

“Well, I’m glad you did,” she told him. “I’m glad for the help I was able to give people at CNRI and for the help I can hopefully still give people here.”

He sighed. “Hopefully. You know, you can do anything you set your mind to, honey. I really do believe that. But what’s your plan here?”

She smiled. “I’m figuring it out, dad. I promise.”

He left soon after, since he was technically still on the clock at the precinct. Laurel told him she would head to bed shortly to rest up, and he made a note to grab some of those icy hot packs for her at the store. He thought he could play it off like an overdue Christmas present to get her to accept them. Hell, he owed her enough Christmases and birthdays from the last five years he could probably supply her through next March. If she was still breaking her back doing this work by then.

Laurel wasn’t the only one who needed a plan. Quentin had been keeping an eye on Daily in the close to two months since he’d been back on the force. There were no obvious slip ups, but he could just tell there was something off about the man. Call it his gut. Now with this bus hijacking situation having been swept under the rug for as long as it had been, he was starting to wonder just how many of his own people he could trust.

Was it genuine malice or just apathy for a neighborhood that saw enough hard times already? He wasn’t sure which was worse at the end of the day. But it was causing unrest, causing more and more people to turn to alternate means to seek justice.

By the end of the week, they saw an example of the worst of it; some guy in the subway tunnels committing extrajudicial killings and calling himself the Savior. The Hood had been forced to put him down to save the likes of that kid Harper. The Hood at least seemed to understand that vigilantes couldn’t be allowed free reign of this city, even if he continued to operate in it.

So he finally made the call.

Quentin stood out back behind his apartment building, the vigilante phone in his hand. He didn’t want to be anywhere near the precinct when he made this call. Just thinking about if someone caught him in the act — maybe Daily, maybe Hall with her earnest regard for the law — had his hands shaking.

“Detective?”

“Yeah, listen, we gotta talk. With everything going on in this city, with the force, I’m having trouble deciding who to trust. Now I don’t trust you,” he wanted to make clear. “But you’re a known quantity. I know what you want, what you’re willing to do.”

“And how does that help you?”

“It helps me because I think there’s some people on the force I can’t trust, and I don’t know what they want either.” Could be money, could be they felt threatened, could be they were always rotten. “Now I know you’ve figured out how to spy on us. I need you to tell me who’s on the take.”

“It’s not something I was concerning myself with.”

“Well start concerning yourself with it. You want people to stop popping up like this Savior or this Woman, it starts with law enforcement being a trusted and respected institution. You can’t tell me you expect things to magically stay better whenever you finally decide to hang that hood up?”

There was a long pause. “I’ll look into it, Detective. Keep the phone on you. I’ll call.”

Then the line went dead. Quentin breathed in and out once and headed back into his building. He hadn’t exactly done anything wrong. He’d simply pointed out an issue the Hood had likely been tangentially aware of and asked him to direct his attention towards it. Whatever happened after… well, maybe he was partly to blame.

Would Laurel ever call him a hypocrite if she found out about this or what?

[oookaline]

And The Saga Continues

By saga I mean me supervising this 'fake RbbSbb' account on twitter because I want to.

also Im going to separate the posts by day, if anything else happens I'll retweet and add it on this one. Tommorow its a separate post.

If you're intrested to see the first bit (two separate days in a post, one in which I found and then kept retweeting what happened after weeks (?) of not checking on it) (! I do reccomend reading the previous one)

so if you're intrested look up the tag #Fake-RbbSbb in my account.

-

Sooooo as expected our buddy changed his bio to 11, which supports my speculation that it was (obviously) a countdown to Louis' show.

nothing new on the following/pfp/header etc...

They did tweet some things, but I'll touch on that later, first off the likes: It seems they are continuously trying to raise attention towards Rbb (and Rbb only???) being back in two weeks by sending anonymous statements in peoples CCs.

Also they liked this HIV support tweet- and I found that sweet so im also adding it in, because aweareness is key.

aswell as replying back with their usual variation of two emojis:

No sign of Android anywhere, just WebApp™.

Now onto the tweets:

Just like with the 12 they posted yesterday, today they posted an 11. And I got curious to know where abouts they were setting the time to:

If whatever I triod to do here is too complicated (even I dont understand it lmao) basically:

In LA posting time would've been 23:29

In London posting time would've been: 07:29

so if they wanted to (and im speculating this because I did not check) update it on midnight lets say (or close to), then logically the tweet would've come from LA.

Now this thing which then tells us there will be a pattern of when they'll update the countdown

The thing I found weird right, is that they're doing a countdown (supposedly) to Louis' show. So why update on LA time?

Next thing they posted was this:

'Well Meet at the end of the Road' at a first glance you'd guess they're talking about the countdown.

But oh to know who Rudolph Valentino was...

I'll put some intresting quotes I found of him here, you can skip all of this if you want, I'll do a short resume at the end of the indented.

"He was a sex symbol of the 1920s, who was known in Hollywood as the Latin Lover (a title invented for him by Hollywood moguls), The Great Lover, or simply Valentino.[1] His premature death at the age of 31 caused mass hysteria among his fans and further propelled his status as a cultural film icon."

"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was released in 1921 and became a commercial and critical success" + "For his follow-up film, they forced him into a bit part in a B-film called Uncharted Seas.(1921)" + "Rambova, Mathis, Ivano, and Valentino began work on the Alla Nazimova film Camille.(1921)" + "Valentino's final film for Metro was the Mathis-penned 'The Conquering Power.(1921) "

thats 4 movies in a year!! Talk about overworked- (depending on how long they were)

"After quitting Metro, Valentino took up with Famous Players-Lasky, forerunner of the present-day Paramount Pictures, a studio known for films that were more commercially focused."

"Jesse L. Lasky intended to capitalize on the star power of Valentino, and cast him in a role that solidified his reputation as the "Latin lover"

"In The Sheik (1921), Valentino played the starring role of Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan. The film was a major success and defined not only his career but his image and legacy."

"Famous Players produced four more feature-length films over the next 15 months" + "His leading role in Moran of the Lady Letty(1922) was of a typical Douglas Fairbanks nature" + "Valentino starred alongside Gloria Swanson in Beyond the Rocks(1922)" + "Valentino began work on another Mathis-penned film, Blood and Sand(1922)" + "During his forced break from Rambova, the pair began working separately on the Mathis-penned The Young Rajah(1922)"

15 months 4 movies. and again I will stress the 'capitalize the star power' over there.

Seems too familiar tbh.

"Missing Rambova, Valentino returned to New York after the release of The Young Rajah. They were spotted and followed by reporters constantly."

*cough* *cough* "spotted"

"During this time, Valentino began to contemplate not returning to Famous Players, although Jesse Lasky already had his next picture, The Spanish Cavalier, in preparation. After speaking with Rambova and his lawyer Arthur Butler Graham, Valentino declared a 'one-man strike' against Famous Players.[31]"

About the lawsuit:

"He was also upset over the broken promise of filming Blood and Sand in Spain, and the failure to shoot the next proposed film in either Spain or at least New York. Valentino had hoped while filming in Europe he could see his family, whom he had not seen in 10 years.[27]"

"In September 1922, he refused to accept paychecks from Famous Players until the dispute was solved, although he owed them money" + "Famous Players, in turn, filed suit against him.[33]"

"Valentino did not back down,[33] and Famous Players realized how much they stood to lose." + "the studio tried to settle by upping his salary" + "Variety erroneously announced the salary increase as a "new contract" before news of the lawsuit was released, and Valentino angrily rejected the offer.[31]"

"Valentino went on to claim that artistic control was more of an issue than the money." + "Famous Players made their own public statements deeming him more trouble than he was worth (the divorce, bigamy trials, debts) and that he was temperamental, almost diva-like. They claimed to have done all they could and that they had made him a real star.[33]

"Other studios began courting him." + "However, Famous Players exercised its option to extend his contract, preventing him from accepting any employment other than with the studio." + "Valentino filed an appeal, a portion of which was granted. Although he was still not allowed to work as an actor, he could accept other types of employment.[33]"

Return To The Movies

"Valentino returned to the United States in reply to an offer from Ritz-Carlton Pictures (working through Famous Players)" + "Rambova negotiated a two-picture deal with Famous Players and four pictures for Ritz-Carlton.[37] He accepted, turning down an offer to film an Italian production of Quo Vadis in Italy"

PERSONAL LIFE!!!!

"Valentino once told gossip columnist Louella Parsons that: "The women I love don't love me. The others don't matter". He claims that despite his success as a sex symbol that in his personal love life he never achieved happiness.[62]"

"Valentino impulsively married actress Jean Acker, who was involved with actresses Grace Darmond and Alla Nazimova. Acker became involved with Valentino in part to remove herself from the lesbian love triangle, quickly regretted the marriage, and locked Valentino out of their room on their wedding night."

"From the time he died in 1926 until the 1960s, Valentino's sexuality was not generally questioned in print.[67][68] At least four books, including the notoriously libelous Hollywood Babylon, suggested that he may have been gay despite his marriage to Rambova.[69][70][71][72][73] For some, the marriages to Acker and Rambova, as well as the relationship with Pola Negri, add to the suspicion that Valentino was gay and that these were "lavender marriages."

"Such books gave rise to claims that Valentino had a relationship with Ramón Novarro, despite Novarro stating they barely knew each other." + "These books also gave rise to claims that he may have had relationships with both roommates Paul Ivano and Douglas Gerrad, as well as Norman Kerry, and openly gay French theatre director and poet Jacques Hébertot." + "However, Ivano maintained that it was untrue and both he and Valentino were heterosexual.[24] Biographers Emily Leider and Allan Ellenberger generally agree that he was most likely straight"

like every historian would say: "they were just good friends"

"further supposed evidence that Valentino was gay; documents in the estate of the late author Samuel Steward indicated that Valentino and Steward were sexual partners.[77] However, evidence found in Steward's claim was subsequently found to be false, as Valentino was in New York on the date Steward claimed a sexual encounter occurred in Ohio."

- Via Wikipedia

These are the few quotes from his wekipedia page in which I literally gaped at...

So in short:

Sex Symbol who was an Actor

Got his image enhanced and exploited by his manager.

Constanly Overworked

Relationships used for PR (?)

Thought about leaving his management which led to a 'one man strike' and a lawsuit.

The lawsuit started off because of finantial reasons, but it was revealed it was more because of fucking creative freedom.

Management tried to reason with him, he didn't back down. And they continued to do so before an article of the 'lawsuit' was made public, he didn't accept any.

Management tried to paint Valentino as 'ungrateful' and that they were the reason he was a star.

When other people tried to get Valentino to work with/for them, his management stopped him by "threatening to extend the contract" (?) which prevented him from acting.

His sexuality was never really questioned due to the many relationships with woman he had (one which literally was a lesbian)

Lavender Marriages / PR marriages

After his death, speculation that he dated many men came up.

One even said they did the dEEd, but its impossible because they were both in separate countries duh, right? RIGhT????

The way we can literally compare this with Harry's situation (and maybe Louis' aswell!!!) is literally hurting my mind.

Also adding that @eyupdaisy is helping me a lot, kuddos to her aswell. She found this:

If you search the actual name of the post 'We will meet at the end of the trail' on google, this picture comes up

Which the HT account made a very lovely and subtle connection to it a few days ago

Guess well have to start lowkey monitoring them too? Or maybe just what they interact with the Mr.R acc...

wait- max images reached ;-;

[argylemnwrites]

It Couldn’t Wait Another Moment - Chapter 14

Pairing: Drake Walker x MC (Riley Liu)

Book: The Royal Romance (Canon Divergent from Book 2, Chapter 15)

Word Count: ~4700

Rating: PG-13 (adult language)

Summary: As Riley and Drake deal with the emotional fallout of recent decisions, Liam hears some important information from Olivia.

Author’s Note: I’m back! I may be GRRM’ing this thing, but we’re getting there. At this point, I think I will be able to keep up with weekly postings on Mondays, but I get that I have been super slow with the updates here, so I totally understand anyone who’s lost interest in this story. As a recap, Riley’s on her way back to NYC while Drake’s sticking around to support Liam, except he accidentally got in a painful fight with Liam after losing his temper with Leo. Basically, everyone is miserable at this point.

This series diverges from TRR canon, where instead of waiting to discuss his relationship with Riley until their last night in NYC, leaving her a note while Liam is proposing to her, Drake tackles this topic as soon as possible after Tariq makes his statement and Riley’s name is cleared. To catch up on this series, you can find the previous chapters in my masterlist (link is located in my bio).

In... two... three... four... Out... two... three... rest... In... two... three... four... Out... two... three... rest.

Liam focused on his breathing, trying to redirect his emotions. He should have never indulged in such an outburst. Expressing that anger had not been productive, and now he was frazzled and on edge. He needed to focus. Distractions were not acceptable, not at this moment. Olivia had come to see him, stating that her reasons were time sensitive. She required his undivided attention. She deserved it wholeheartedly, as did all the people she represented in Lythikos. 

Glancing over to the side, he took in Olivia, matching him stride for stride. She hadn’t spoken since they had left the lounge, which Liam supposed was a blessing. He didn’t really know how he would answer her questions when they inevitably came, because honestly, he had no idea how he had come to lose it that much, to that degree. He hadn’t gotten mad like that in years, not since the night that Leo told him that he was going to abdicate. He’d been in an emotional turmoil that night, trying to focus on supporting his brother through a difficult decision to walk away from a life that Liam knew was killing him slowly. But even though he knew that abdication was the only real option for Leo, even though he didn’t resent him for making that choice, he still had needed to mourn his relative loss of freedom. That night, Drake had taken him out in the woods, to the middle of a lake, letting him yell and curse and get drunk where no one would know his reaction. He’d been able to cleanse himself of his frustrations and returned, focused on the future and his people. Today, he had raised his voice and said horrible things about that same man in the middle of the palace. There would be no hiding his emotional response this time.

In... two... three... four... Out... two... three... rest.

He needed to stop dwelling on this right now. His attention was required elsewhere, and if he kept thinking about his fight with Drake, he would never be able to focus on more pressing issues. The fallout there would just have to wait. He opened the door to his office, holding it for Olivia to pass through first, watching as she chose not to sit on the more casual couches, but instead walked towards his desk. Clearly, whatever had brought her to the capital from Lythikos was official business.

Liam settled into his chair, taking one more calming, measured breath before looking Olivia in the eye, perched on the edge of the chair across from him. She appeared wound up and tense, not carrying herself with her usual comfortable intensity, a description that surely would have been an oxymoron for anyone else.

“I assume this is a rather serious manner that has come to your attention, seeing as you came to see me in person, but didn’t mention anything yesterday.”

Olivia frowned before replying, “Liam, do you need to take some time? You seem really... agitated.”

Liam shook his head, exhaling roughly in the process, hoping to release a little more of the tension. “Of course not; you told me this was a time-sensitive matter. I trust you enough as a duchess and a friend to understand that whatever you need to tell me is pressing and important.”

Olivia hesitated for a moment before she spoke, “If you’re sure, Liam…”

“Of course; now what was it you wished to discuss?”

She bit her lip and glanced upward, taking a deep breath before she continued, “I have information regarding the parties behind the attacks.”

Liam swallowed. He didn’t know what she’d come to discuss, but it hadn’t occurred to him that it could be this. The serious subject matter, though, did help refocus his thoughts. This truly was of the utmost importance. 

“Alright, what do you know?”

“It’s my aunt.”

“What?”

“My aunt, she’s involved with orchestrating the attacks.”

Millions of thoughts, questions, concerns, and possibilities swirled in a confusing eddy in Liam’s mind. There was so much to unpack here. He was trying to figure out how to best guide Olivia through the discussion, but before he could so much as open his mouth to ask his first of many questions, Olivia herself rattled off more information.

“I’m not sure if she’s the primary orchestrator of the attacks or if she’s part of a larger group. She just revealed her true intentions this morning over breakfast, so I haven’t had a chance to do any digging. She is a major player, though. She made that much explicitly clear.”

“Alright, and I take it you’re willing to testify against her should it come to that?”

Olivia nodded once, “Of course. But please tell me you aren’t thinking of moving on her right this instant.”

This gave Liam pause. His first thought had been to move a police force into Lythikos tonight and to take Lucretia into custody, but hearing her say it aloud made it clear how ill-advised that would be. It was highly possible that Lucretia had co-conspirators, and until they had a firmer understanding of the situation and a stronger case against her, they risked playing their hand too early. 

“No, you’re right. Let me bring in Bastien. He should hear this so we can begin to organize an intelligence unit to provide some surveillance on your aunt.”

Liam moved to collect Bastien from his office, but Olivia raised her hand. “No offense to Bastien or his staff, but I’m much better positioned to gain more information from her. She clearly believes that I’m working to better position House Nevrakis, regardless of the cost to Cordonia as a whole. She trusts me. I need to be the one to do this.”

Liam hadn’t been sure if Olivia had inadvertently overhead her aunt discussing certain sensitive topics, but this confirmed that Lucretia had willingly revealed her true schemes. There was a lot of wisdom to Olivia’s assessment of the situation. She hadn’t shared the details of why Lucretia had confided in her, but regardless, Liam trusted her completely, and if she thought she could parse out more details, he knew she would get it done. 

“Of course you will absolutely play a key role in this situation, Olivia. But we are going to need a targeted approach. Not just-”

“A one woman assassination squad?” she said, tilting her head to the side and giving him a little smirk.

Liam let out a little chuckle, “I’ll defer to your self-description. Let me go fetch Bastien and we’ll get started.”

Liam stood and was making his way to the side door to his office when Olivia called out to him.

“Liam?”

“Yes, Lady Olivia?” he asked as he spun to face her. She was twisted in her chair, head turned over her shoulder, vicious red nails drumming atop the seat back.

“I know now isn’t the time, but if you need someone to talk to about whatever the hell I interrupted there…” she trailed off with a shrug, almost as if she wasn’t sure how to offer personal support.

“I know, Liv,” replied Liam with a gentle nod, “later. That will all come later.”

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

Riley checked the time on her phone as she waited to catch a train back into Manhattan. It was only 9 pm, a measly six and a half hours since she left Cordonia, flown for much longer than that, and left him behind. Time zone changes always messed with her brain, at least a little. It shouldn’t be possible for so much to happen in so little time.

She sent a text to Daniel, letting him know she was back and that she could come pick up Anderson just as the train pulled up in front of her. She knew who she should text next - Drake. She had promised him that she would let him know when she got back to New York. But she was dreading it. Truth be told, this was kind of uncharted territory for her. She couldn’t remember a single time where a relationship of hers had survived a shouting, screaming, crying brawl.

But she and Drake were still together after two massive fights. Well, kinda. After their first fight, Riley knew she shouldn’t have shoved Drake’s apologies to the side. But she hadn’t known how else to process that fight, and Constantine’s death had served as a convenient excuse to not deal with all the baggage they’d unpacked during their bitter screaming match in her apartment. But not dealing with it at all just meant that everything was even messier and more unresolved when they fought about Drake choosing to stay in Cordonia. They hadn’t broken up with that fight, but it didn’t exactly seem like they were standing on steady ground either. And Riley didn’t exactly know how to navigate that. 

So, as she rode the train from Queens back into Manhattan, she stared at her message thread with Drake, wondering what to say to him. She owed him at least telling him she was home and safe, even though some part of her feared that he wouldn’t even notice if she didn’t. He had chosen Liam over her, after all. She clearly wasn’t that important to him.

He had told her he loved her, though, when they were parting at the airport. She hadn’t been able to say the words back. Even now, she couldn’t bring herself to type them in a text. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him, or that their fights had changed how she felt about him. She just needed to start protecting her heart a little more than she had with him in months. She’d gotten sloppy, let her guard down. She’d been so careful, all the way through Liam’s coronation ball. But then, just a handful of weeks later, Drake had confessed that he’d chased after her when she was dragged out, told her he tried to make plans to follow her to New York, and all her life experiences that had taught her to keep her guard up and look out for herself had just crumbled. She fell hard. She should have known it would all come back and bite her in the ass. 

Because now she cared, and that meant it hurt. She’d spent so many years shielding herself from this sort of pain. And now, she was expected to face this heartache head on. It was too much. How could she send him a text, pretending like everything was fine? All her instincts were telling her to run, to move forward and not look back. It was the only way to keep her emotions safe, her heart safe. How was she supposed to move on if she stayed in touch with him?

She should have just ended things before she left Cordonia. That would have been easier than dragging out whatever the hell was going on between them at this point. But she hadn’t been able to, she straight up didn’t want to. She was mad in love with him, and how do you break up with someone you love?

God, when did her life get to be such a mess? Maybe she should have never agreed to go to Cordonia. Her life had been simple before she hopped on that plane with Maxwell. Of course, thinking of Maxwell reminded her that she should probably let him and Hana know that she was safely back in New York and that Drake was not. She didn’t want to deal with their questions either. If only there was a way to tell them without having to respond.

The answer hit her like a brick wall. How could she have been so stupid? She blamed the jet lag for not realizing earlier that the time difference would work to her advantage here. If she texted everyone now, they wouldn’t see her message for hours. It was perfect. She could let any responses sit unread until she was ready to deal with them, whenever that might be.

Maybe this was a cowardly way of dealing with things, but whatever. She was the one alone in New York. If Drake wanted to be in closer contact with her, well he knew how to make that happen. So she shot off texts to Drake, Maxwell, and Hana, then shoved her phone in her bag and ignored it for the rest of the ride. Then, after a short walk to Daniel’s, she and Anderson walked the 17 blocks home.

It was strange being back. Honestly, even when it was her and Drake a couple of weeks ago, it felt weird as fuck. Being back in this space after her life had changed so much, it just had felt a little off. But Riley was the master of adapting, so she’d ignored it, throwing herself wholeheartedly into rebuilding a life. But to be here alone, after traveling the world, finding closer friends than she’d ever had before, and falling in love-

No she needed to stop that line of thought. She was alone again. She’d been there before. She knew what she needed to do, and that was to keep moving forward. She couldn’t dwell on the past. It was time to purge her life of the reminders of things that could-have-been.

Normally, her first step would be to throw out everything that was his and anything of hers that reminded her too much of him. But, if Drake were to come back, like he promised her he would, having pitched all his stuff probably wouldn’t go over well. So, Riley decided to fill a box and shove it somewhere in her closet. No visible reminders of him that way, at least. Not knowing what size box she’d need to pilfer from the bodega recycling dumpster, she decided to pile all his shit on the desk. Anderson was her faithful companion, trotting along with her as she flung open all the cupboards, rifled through the drawers, and searched the apartment pretty thoroughly for items that were Drake’s. But after a good twenty minutes of scouring, she was shocked to see so few items on the table. Just bottle of generic shampoo with the scent “Mountain Fresh” and a bar of plain soap were truly Drake’s.

There were a few more items she’d weeded out because they would remind her of him too much. The bottle of whiskey. The bag of marshmallows, though those she should probably just dump in the trash because she was pretty sure she’d bought those before she left for Cordonia… the first time. A couple of her dresses she wore in Cordonia got tossed onto the table. The condoms ended up in the pile, too. Lord knows she wouldn’t be getting laid in the foreseeable future.

Was this really everything in the apartment that was not only Drake’s, but that even reminded her of him? That didn’t seem right. But another pass through the apartment didn’t find anything else that Riley wanted to hide away. The realization that Drake had basically left no physical presence in her apartment hit her with an unexpected wave of anger. Of course there was nothing left. He’d never bothered to unpack, never attempted to settle in and find his place, never took steps to make New York his home. He had been ready to leave at a moment’s notice the second anyone from Cordonia had needed him. Why would anything have been left behind when he’d been living out of a suitcase?

The frustration she felt caught her off guard. This wasn’t how she usually worked through rejection and abandonment. She’d been through it too many times in her life, not just from boyfriends, but from foster parents, her mother’s parents, and even her own father. Her mom too, in the more general sense of things, as she had always chosen her next high over being there. A guy choosing to be somewhere else rather than with her? Well that was par for the course, barely worth getting worked up over.

Except for she actually loved this guy. She’d worked so hard to not fall in love for years and years, because she’d known this would be the result. In the end, it was always just going to be her. Alone. And she could handle that. She’d dumped and been dumped. She’d been through breakups before. Unfortunately, this wasn’t actually a breakup, so her coping mechanisms were not gonna fly here. Because if this had been a true breakup, she would have been hitting up the bars and nightclubs. The best way to get over someone is to get under someone new, after all. But obviously, a handful of flings was not even close to an option at this point. Because this wasn’t a breakup, no matter how much it felt like things were heading that way. So Riley was left alone with her own negative emotions, something she’d actively tried to avoid for at least the past decade, probably longer.

She sank against the wall next to her fridge, trying to stop the wave of sadness and loneliness that was washing over her, but it was no use. It just hurt too damn much. This was why she had kept things casual and light with everyone she met. When she let people in, she always ended up alone.

Anderson trotted over as tears started to trickle down her cheeks, his eyes so wide, Riley had to wonder if he actually was processing how devastated she was. It certainly felt like it, and maybe that would be enough for tonight. She didn’t really have any other options, after all.

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

Sunlight was already peaking through the gaps in the blinds when Drake awoke to a loud buzzing sound. His phone must be vibrating, but some quick fumbling around his nightstands didn’t produce it. He groaned, pulling a pillow over his head. Who the fuck was looking for him? No one had any reason to talk to him.

After his fight with Liam, he’d taken a bit to calm down. He’d stayed in the lounge, poured himself another whiskey, smoked a couple more cigarettes. When he finally felt like he had a better grip on his emotions, maybe an hour later, he’d wandered towards Liam’s office, thinking that whatever Olivia had just had to discuss with him was probably resolved. But as he turned the corner into the hallways leading to Liam’s office and the security offices, he’d been floored by the amount of activity. Agents were bustling from room to room, reviewing info on tablets, talking into their headsets, carrying stacks of paper. Clearly, something major had been going on.

So Drake had left, dragging himself back to his quarters, leaving Liam to focus on whatever was going on, something that was clearly more important than whatever had happened between the two of them. Certainly more important than Drake himself. And so he’d sat there, stewing in the aftermath of the past 24 hours, starting with deciding to stay in Cordonia and ending with him yelling at Liam. All bookending the extreme guilt he felt over how he handled things with Riley. He’d felt like a total piece of shit.

So, he’d drank. A lot. After all, any feeling out there had to be better. In his younger, stupider years, he’d done his drinking to numb and forget at a variety of dive bars. But that had always meant that Bastien had to come out and drag his sorry ass home. At least Drake had had the sense to not burden Bastien with that task last night, instead working his way through a sizeable amount of his whiskey collection. His memories of the night became fuzzier after a certain point, but he seemed to remember a text coming through in the middle of the night, waking him up on his couch and prompting him to stumble to his bed where he’d passed out, still fully dressed.

He hadn’t been hungover like this in a long time. His head was killing him, the sunlight and his vibrating phone only adding to his agony. Oh well. It was his own damn fault. All of it was, really.

Drake felt himself dozing off again, but before he could fall back asleep a wave of nausea bolted him out of bed and into his bathroom. After his stomach was done punishing him even more for his behavior and stupidity, he brushed his teeth and slowly walked back to bed. He collapsed onto his pillow and drifted off into an incredibly restless sleep, constantly interrupted by further episodes of nausea and his phone vibrating somewhere on a hard surface. He had no idea how long he dozed for, waking up at least a half dozen times before a loud banging on his door woke him fully.

“DRAKE WALKER, I’M SURE YOU’RE IN THERE! OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT NOW OR I SWEAR I’LL-”

Drake flung the door open, “Hana, for the love of all that is holy, can you please drop the volume?”

But Hana was clearly on a mission, ducking around Drake and striding into his quarters with a purpose. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all morning. You need to explain yourself right this instant!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“This morning, I awoke to a text message from Riley. Why did you leave her, Drake?”

“I didn’t leave her-”

“She wrote me, and I quote, ‘Home safe in NYC. Drake’s still in Cordonia, btw.’ Since I am sure she would have told me if she broke up with you, the only other option is that you were the one to end things.”

Drake sighed. “We aren’t-” but Hana cut him off, continuing her tirade after taking a deep breath.

“I was well aware that something was happening between you two for months and I kept quiet, even though I wasn’t sure what your plan was when it came to letting down Liam, because I was sure you were in love with her, and I figured that meant that you were also looking out for her best interests. And then you two disclosed your relationship and I was happy for you, even if that meant an ocean between me and my best friend, because again, I was sure you were looking to do right by her.”

“Hana, look. There’s a lot going on here that you don’t know about and this really isn’t your business-”

“Don’t play that card, Drake Walker,” she interrupted, her voice inching louder and louder once again. “I certainly am invested in this relationship. I covered for you two when you two were openly ogling each other at the barn raising. I distracted the others when we were camping and Maxwell was this close to hearing the two of you together in one tent after everyone went to bed. I gave you a moment when I noticed her kissing you at the market in Shanghai. But most importantly I love her, and if you think that I’m going to stand here and not call you out for jerking my best friend around, well then, you have another thing coming.”

Drake sighed, his sluggish, hungover brain trying to process her rant. “Hana, can we do this another time? My head is killing me.”

“Serves you right for drinking enough whiskey to kill most humans. Your hangover is not my problem.”

Drake hadn’t told Hana he was hungover, but he supposed his general appearance and ignoring all sorts of calls kind of made that fact obvious. He sank onto the couch, running a hand over his face. “Did it ever occur to you that I got completely shitfaced because of how guilty I feel about her being back in New York without me?”

Hana stared at him for a brief moment before delicately sitting on the other end of his couch. “If you feel so guilty about it, why did you breakup with her?”

“We aren’t broken up, Hana.”

“Oh. But then why-”

“Liam needs me. Or at least he needed me. I fucked that up, too.” he groaned as he dropped his head.

Hana was silent for several moments, maybe waiting for Drake to keep talking, maybe just trying to formulate the best response in her mind. Drake wasn’t sure, but now that Hana wasn’t yelling at him, he actually did feel compelled to explain himself to her.

“Look, I’ve known Liam for almost my entire life, and I know when he’s not coping. The signs are pretty subtle, but they were all there. So while I want nothing more than to be there for Liu, I have to help Liam through everything that’s happened with the attacks first. He’s like family to me. He’s my best friend, and right now he needs me. At least I think he does. So yeah, this is just something I have to do. Because it’s what you do for your best friend.”

He chanced a glance up at Hana. She wasn’t looking at him at all, but was instead smoothing out imaginary wrinkles in the skirt of her dress. All the fire seemed to have been zapped out of her as she lightly bit her lower lip and futzed with her clothing. Three minutes ago she’d been a ball of fury, but now she just looked uncomfortable, and Drake had no idea if that was because of her outburst or just from being in his quarters in general. Given her upbringing, he wasn’t sure how often Hana had spent time alone with a man in his bedroom. Plus, of everyone in their little group that had formed during the social season and engagement tour, he and Hana were probably the least close. They certainly never hung out together one on one.

“I should go take care of some things,” said Hana, interrupting Drake’s thoughts. She stood up, smoothing out her dress one last time. 

“Oh, okay.”

“Sorry for intruding into your private quarters. I was just…”

“Pissed at me?”

“I was going to say ‘upset,’ but your description is fairly apt,” she said, blushing faintly.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve been there.”

“You have?”

“Well, maybe not the barging in without regard for privacy thing, but the losing my cool part? Hell yeah. I get it.”

She gave him a small smile, “Are you okay? I suppose I could actually be a good friend and ask seeing as I’ve been questionably rude today.”

Drake shrugged, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine in the end.”

“Riley seemed pretty closed off with that text.”

All Drake could do was sigh as he rubbed his neck, “Yeah, well…” He didn’t know what else to say. He knew he’d broken things there, and Hana had picked up on that with one text. But like he’d told her, like he’d told Riley, he felt he had to stay back for Liam.

The silence hung in the room for a few brief seconds before Hana stepped over to him and hunched over, wrapping her arms around him.

“Hana, I’m all sorts of gross right now. You don’t have to-” but she just hugged him tighter at that, so Drake just loosely wrapped his arms around her waist.

“You’re a good friend, Drake.”

“I used to be.”

She pulled back at that, lightly shaking her head. “No, you still are. Falling in love doesn’t make you a bad friend. I refuse to believe that.”

“Yelling at him yesterday might, though.”

Hana sat back down on the couch at that, much closer to him than she had been previously. “One mistake doesn’t make someone a bad friend. Not after years and years of support, at the very least.”

Drake didn’t feel worthy of this kindness, not after he’d fucked everything up with Riley and with Liam. But Hana placed a tiny, delicate hand on his shoulder, rubbing gently. “You two are stronger than you think,” she added before standing up and leaving his quarters, gently shutting the door behind her. A few moments after she left, Drake realized he had no idea who she meant  - him and Liam or him and Riley.

Tags: @dcbbw @mfackenthal @jovialyouthmusic @iplaydrake @gibbles82 @drakewalkerisreal @riley–walker @thequeenofcronuts @notoriouscs @butindeed @thesumofmychoices @texaskitten30 @yaushie @cosigottahavefaith @thequeenchoices @katedrakeohd @feartheendlesssummer @sirbeepsalot @ladyangel70 @ao719 @ooo-barff-ooo @octobereighth​ @sunnyxdazed

[gyldenglor]

Humans are Space Orcs - Focus

"Have you seen Peter recently?"

Vy'Keen was nervous. She hadn't seen Peter since the morning meeting. By now he was usually causing some kind of issue - either he had said something that confused and scared one of her crew, or he had behaved in some way that offended someone.

Sophie looked up from her spreadsheets with a frown. "No, captain - why? Is something the matter?" She rolled her eyes. "What, did Peter get a little nick on his finger, and Vy'Tule overreacted again?"

Vy'Keen was stunned. "Overreacted? His external membrane had been pierced, he could have spilled out of it!"

Sophie grimaced. "While that is terrible imagery, I can assure you that nothing like that would happen."

Vy'Keen let it go, for now - clearly, humans had no sense of urgency. "Well, if you haven't seen him recently, I'll keep looking for him."

"Wait, I'll just ping him." Swiping her finger across her terminal, Sophie shifted from the fiscal reports over to the inter messaging system. "Why are you so freaked out about not having seen him all day?"

"Usually, by now, he's caused some kind of issue," Vy'Keen explained. "The fact that the ship has been quiet today is...unusual."

"Oh, come on, he isn't that bad," Sophie insisted. "Yeah, he tends to not think before he speaks, but he's a good guy. And besides, most of the 'issues' are just people overreacting."

There that word was again - overreacting. Did humans think of everything severe as minor inconveniences?

A light ding indicated Sophie had received a message. "He replied - see? Everything's fine." She paused while reading it. "No, no - that's just an update on our order for extra fuel… Oh, hey, we're getting a discount! That's good news."

"Indeed, but it is worrying that Peter did not reply." Vy'Keen was loathe to violate the privacy of her crew in such a way, but she had no choice.

With a wave of her hand, the ship's web of medical scanners came to life, and a screen came up showing the location of all life forms on the ship.

As was expected, herself and Sophie were in the logistics bay, right near the cargo bay.

Vy'Keen peered over Sophie's desk, and, just as the map indicated, Annie the juvenile canine was sleeping on the humans' lap. Vy'Keen couldn't help but feel fondness for the puppy - puppy love truly was a most poliferace contagion.

"Wow, you're using the bio-map? You're really freaked out about this, aren't you?"

Vy'Keen simply nodded in response. She tapped on Peter's name in the crew manifest to isolate his signal.

Surprisingly, he was exactly where he should be - in the engineering bay. However, he seemed… Fatigued.

"See? Nothing to worry about - he's just working."

"Yes, but you humans have notoriously short attention spans. He's probably made a toy out of the engine."

Sophie waited for a moment before rolling her eyes. "Oh, yeah, no offense taken."

"What?" Vy'Keen sighed - another foreign sensation she had adopted. "No matter. I'll go there immediately."

"Alright - have a good one, captain."

The captain nodded and walked away. She didn't have time to ask what the 'one' was referring to, and how it could be good.

When she arrived at the engineering bay, she was stunned by what she saw.

Peter was sitting at his terminal, eyes fixed with the focus of a true predator.

He was typing incredibly fast - faster than should have been possible, given the nature of the human finger.

"He's been like that for hours." Vy'Keen jumped a little as Vy'Tule approached, unannounced. The Kral engineer was a full head shorter than the captain, and with green scales that complimented the Captain's light blue.

"I've never seen so much focus in my life. And he's only missed a handful of keystrokes. Quite frankly, it's amazing."

With one final, exaggerated key press, Peter leaned back when a sigh. He looked up and gave a weak smile.

"Hey captain," he mumbled. "Just working on the course plotting - hopefully this will make it go a bit-" a yawn interrupted him. "A bit… Faster."

"It's quite impressive," Vy'Tule chimed in. "It is a derivative of what the humans refer to as A Star. Except it takes fluctuations of space and time into account."

Vy'Keen was taken aback. "But that has to be done manually, by reading from a network of sensors."

"Yeah, but I patched into said sensors, and automated the process of calculating the fuel usage discrepancies," the human chimed in.

Peter sat upright with a small grin as text flew across the screen. "And done! It worked perfectly - finally." He smiled sheepishly at the captain. "This is my fifth reiteration of the code - and I was really hoping to avoid having to get as complex as I did, but hey - it had to happen."

"Will you finally take a break now?" Vy'Tule pleaded.

"Wait, you haven't taken a break all day?" Vy'Keen frowned. "Even the Kral take breaks, and I know for a fact that humans are supposed to eat food halfway through the day. It's a requirement for your species. At least tell me you ate."

Peter shrugged. "Nah. I forgot to."

Vy'Keen glanced at Vy'Tule, who simply shook his head. Vy'Keen released a sigh of irritation - of course Vy'Tule wouldn't be able to force the human to take a break, or eat food. It would seem that nobody could force a human to do anything - with the exception of herself. And Annie.

"Whoa, you sigh now?"

"Because of you, yes." Vy'Keen stomped over to Peter, and with her imposingly large arms, picked him up and slung him over her shoulder.

"Whoa - hey, what the hell are you doing??"

"I'm going to force feed you like the hapless child you are." Peter had to close his eyes as he adjusted to his new position - the Kral were, on average, around seven feet tall, with most of that height being in the legs.

When he finally opened his eyes, he couldn't help but stare in fascination - he had never seen a Kral's tail from this angle before, and he could really see how it adjusted for her balance, repeatedly flicking and swaying as she walked.

"This is why I can never leave you alone. You always do something incredibly dangerous to your health, or you damage something, or you scare someone."

"Captain, I'm fine! Please put me down - you're starting to worry me."

"*Me?* Worry *you?* You're malnourished, you stupid human - you're going to get sick!"

Peter tried to argue further, but his protests fell on deaf ears.

At this point, the commotion had drawn some attention. A few crew members watched for a moment as the captain passed by, but didn't pursue. They had learned by now to steer clear of human shenanigans, especially when Peter was involved.

Meanwhile, the other nine humans on the ship were on their way to get Peter from the engineering bay for dinner. A lot of them had worked with him before, so they knew about his tendencies to work himself too hard - and sometimes even skip lunch!

Suddenly, their captain came from around the corner, bickering with Peter, who was at an odd angle on the Kral's shoulder. She walked right past them and towards the mess hall, preoccupied as she was with the squirming human.

The humans all exchanged glances, and a few traded bets on what had lead to this occurring.

They then calmly continued on their way to the mess hall, and what promised to be an eventful dinner.

When Vy'Keen made it into the mess hall, she barked some quick orders, flexing her authority as captain as she had the chef bring Peter's meal to him - she didn't want to risk him collapsing.

She plopped him down in a seat, and sat down right next to him, trapping him. She curled her legs underneath her seat, her three knees collapsing into one another to shorten her legs. He rolled his eyes, and finally stopped protesting.

Within a few moments, the humans strolled in, still debating what had happened. Peter's face reddened when he heard the word "date" thrown around.

Humans and aliens alike gave them a wide berth - aliens because they wanted no part in whatever this was, and humans because they wanted to observe from afar.

Dinner passed by mostly uneventfully - Vy'Keen and Peter ate in silence, although Vy'Keen watched Peter like a hawk, constantly reminding him to finish all his food.

After Vy'Keen was satisfied with the amount he had eaten, she stood with a hand on Peter's shoulder.

"Come - it's time for you to go to bed."

Peter stared at the captain, completely dumbfounded. Some of the humans within earshot snickered about Peter having a "bedtime".

"I'm sorry, what?"

"You need to rest - you worked too hard today. You skipped lunch, and I don't even want to know if you drank any water."

"Nailed it!" Heads swiveled towards Sophie, who was standing with her arms outstretched in a victorious pose. "Pay up, shit stains."

The humans grumbled, begrudgingly passing her some wage notes. Vy'Keen made a mental note to discuss this behavior with Sophie later. For now, however, she had more important things to worry about.

After being forced to issue Peter a direct command, the human sighed and exited the mess hall to go to his quarters. Vy'Keen followed him, as she did not trust him to stay on course.

"Where do you think I would go, captain?" Peter was growing irritated by this treatment.

"Back to the engineering bay. You would aim to fully deploy the algorithm you developed to the ship, which could very well take a few hours."

Peter was stunned. "Uh, okay, yeah - how'd you know?"

"I saw you message Sophie about how you were going to do just that. I watched you type it."

"I thought I was being sneaky…"

"You are wholly incapable of being anything but obnoxious."

Peter let out a bark of laughter, and Vy'Keen had to admit - she felt a surge of pride. She had, in fact, been attempting humor.

"I am glad you were able to see the humor in my words."

"That was good, captain! You're getting better at it."

Vy'Keen was very proud. The Kral valued humor - it was the ultimate form of the deliberate subversion of logic, and having a firm grasp of it showed how firm of a grasp one had upon adhering to logic.

However, since humor was a rare skill, it tended to go underused in Kral culture, and was exchanged exclusively between the intellectually elite. A cultural practice that tended to be misleading with regards to the intelligence of other species - ESPECIALLY humans.

When they finally arrived at Peter's quarters, the human was yawning every few minutes. "Wow… All that work is really starting to catch up with me. I'm exhausted."

"You humans never cease to amaze me - you have no attention span, but you can focus on a single task until it becomes a detriment to your own health."

Peter grinned. "We sure do." He scratched at his chin, and the light dusting of hair that covered it. "It means a lot to me that you were so concerned, captain."

Vy'Keen didn't know how to reply, so she went with a default for when a human professed such a thing - she hugged him. Something that the captain really only saw as a human-specific procedure - but that humans apparently saw as important to pack bonding.

"Hey, you don't need to do that!" Peter laughed in protest, despite reciprocating the hug. Another yawn wracked his body as they separated.

"Well, goodnight captain."

Vy'Keen nodded, and left him after making sure that the door had closed.

She went back to her own quarters, similarly exhausted from the excitement of the day. She sat at her desk, preparing to make an entry to the human guide regarding this behavior.

Before she did, she decided to check the map of vital signs aboard the ship one last time.

She immediately regretted it.

"Son of a bitch!" Vy'Keen found herself copying a human phrase of exasperation, before she raced off to intercept Peter, who was currently on his way back to engineering.

------

Entry #2,658,564

Author - Vy'Keen

Race - Kral

Captain aboard the S.S. Anne

Subject: Human Obsession

BEGIN REPORT

Yet another dichotomy in the nature of humans has been revealed - their attention spans.

While it has been well documented that humans have relatively short attention spans, which can last anywhere from less than a minute to two hours, it turns out that, like all things human, this is very much situational.

Today, a human aboard my ship skipped a mid-day break, did not eat his second meal, and did not ingest any water, as he was focused entirely on his work.

This same human had recently become bored during an autonomous maintenance period, and had partially disassembled his own terminal. The maintenance period had lasted for approximately thirty minutes.

And yet, he was able to stay focused on one task for well over eight hours, without pause. This surpasses even the most single-minded races in the galaxy.

This is apparently a phenomenon referred to as "obsession". It is apparently not uncommon, but the degree of obsession that my human engineer displayed today is. Apparently it is common with humans that have a condition referred to as "ADHD", or "ADD". Presently, I am not sure of the difference between the two - besides the obvious lack of a letter.

More research is needed, but after my brief observations and discussion with humans familiar with him, I would like to provide some friendly advice.

Firstly, please ensure that any humans you work with take regular breaks. Obviously, this goes for all races, even the Erqal - but for humans, if they become obsessed with something, they would gladly skip any kind of break.

Second, if you find that one of your humans has a tendency to behave in this manner, make sure that water is readily available near their workstation. When a human is so obsessed, they will neglect their own bodily functions and requirements - even the most basic need for sustenance will be ignored.

Finally, take strides to avoid being the object of a humans obsession. While the obsession displayed by my crew member was ultimately positive in nature, the predatory stance and glare clearly indicated that it could also be very, VERY negative. I dread what a human would do to something it was negatively obsessed with.

I hope I never have to learn.

END REPORT

[rogueshipagogo]

ppl have been asking me my opinions on space channel 5 vr... and i guess since i bought a vr headset off craigslist just so i could play it and speedrun it before work the day it came out... i should talk abt it now... i dont rly think i’ll be able to separate it into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ things i think i’m just going to do a rambly stream of consciousness bc i have a headache... but i DO have good things to say abt this game... so st.... sta stay t tune  d

right off the bat, the thing i appreciate most abt this game- i like that space channel 5 vr doesnt have cash grab vibes. i Do genuinely believe that they Wanted to make this game For the people who are still obsessed with it, and that they ultimately did what they set out to do when they intended to scale certain aspects of the series up conceptually to match the way the fandom perceives it nowadays. but like i’ve said before... i’m not going to Disagree with the very common conclusion that it Needed to be longer, or at Least more intricate plot-wise. one of my fun and fresh excuses for sc5vr being as short as it is is because you arent really supposed to be playing vr games for too long anyways, its really disorienting and kinda painful, but even that doesn’t account for why so much of the game that we got is a rehash of old settings, concepts, songs, and characters. [i dont even have a problem with reusing old songs, i just think the ones they chose ended up being misleading]

for example i think it makes sense that the first report is a remake of the first games first report on the surface, it’s meant to take you back to the way the first game felt and give you an idea of what it means that the games classic scenery can be rendered in actual high quality detail now [same with the recurrence of events like encountering the space pirates in the asteroid belt/the last battle against a villain being singing to it about what it’s done wrong], but i really thought, like, report 1 was going to end up being a simulated scenario for the benefit of lou and kee’s training... which i dont think ended up being the case??? i think they really did write ‘ok here you are in the first game’s setting again, fighting the old enemies again, because... :^) ok have fun playing report 2!’

and then whats report 2... you fight another old boss from the first game... but theres Still no clear villain or motivation for anything thats happening... and there wont be until like... basically the end of the game...

like, glitter is a really cute character, but its kind of underwhelming that shes just a random citizen who was kidnapped by an entity that we NEVER LEARN ANYTHING ABOUT... like part 1 was extremely notable for being about corporate greed and corruption, part 2 honestly wasnt that political in comparison but at least made you do a think wrt purge’s motivation and his methods, and this game just has a plot device that feels like it’ll do smth but then ends up not doing anything beyond what we already learned about it from the information on its character bio before the game was out. if it turns out that cell x is actually relevant again in a future entry in the franchise and they do have a more developed concept for what cell x Is in mind, i’ll do an entire backflip, but for now its just chalked up to being the result of More Space Hijinks that dont need to be explained

ESPECIALLY WITH ALL OF THE ALLUSIONS TO CELL X BEING AN ENTITY THAT FEEDS OFF OF DANCE ENERGY... it had me thinking that there would have to be some New Method of fighting it off that didn’t just lend it more power in the process, but nah apparently just tacking on the disclaimer ‘*this dance energy is not for glitter’ is enough to turn it from smth it can consume for power into big attacks you can use to kill it... like honestly it sounds like im asking for a lot from a game that has Never made too much sense, but considering that in part 2 they could add details like ‘oh didnt you know purge can open pocket dimensions? ulala is capable of manifesting tangible dance energy and the only other person who can do that is purge???’, its not like they havent come up with weird new shit for dance energy to do within the plot before. they just didnt do it in this game fsr

like did anyone else think that cell x/glitter was going to be the result of tossing purge out into deep space and him encountering the sc5 universe’s equivalent of an eldritch alien creature, smth more bestial than morolians?? even if purge wasnt part of it, when you say ‘uh oh, this guy Eats this society’s only source of energy!!!’ i expect the stakes to get HIGH, and i want the ramifications of it to be kinda STARTLING, because blank wanted money and purge wanted to ritualistically end the world but something this near to an ecological disaster that would force an entire paradigm shift hasn’t occurred yet in the series?? its totally new!!! there’s a lot they could do with this but OH DONT WORRY ABOUT IT EVERYONE ulala knows how to make dance energy kill cell x instead of feed it she’s got this we’re good no need to investigate more into all that

i can’t explain why the game is like this. and i dont expect grounding to address it in any meaningful way either. i’m sure they’re Aware of these complaints by now- the game reviewing community has Not been kind to sc5vr specifically due to all of these shortcomings [i didnt even touch on the issues with motion sensing and how many of the games mechanics were removed in favor of smth presumably easier to program yet much less satisfying, like Secret Moves just being mini quicktime events and Turning Your Ratings Into Stars just being replaced with the standard Three Strikes You’re Out method of scoring], but the pr team still seems very enthusiastic abt the game and is still promising dlc and potentially even more games in the series after this one- heres hoping that they’ll at least take these grievances to heart and consider making the experience not only more accessible [aka it will... go back to being a rhythm game with controller input.... and not... an exclusive vr experience...], but also as immersive and detailed as the old games, with less reused plot beats. i can let some of it off the hook in this game simply because i’m aware that it began its life as a tech demo that was only supposed to be that initial first report from the first game But Happening All Around You!, but i Really dont think they could get away with doing this little to expand upon the groundwork set by the first two games again. not with the way people remember part 2 being such a vast upgrade from part 1... the bar had been set so high that this just felt like a huge backslide into something even sillier and harder to take seriously than part 1 before we had any idea what kind of staying power the franchise would have as a hallmark of sega’s quirky antics. like... this game is what i think space channel 5 looks like to people who don’t understand the appeal of the first two games. and that scares me

but i guess for the most part, aside from wishing they had done more to revitalize the setting and the lore of the sc5 universe itself, im kind of glad it didnt do a lot to change the existing storylines the characters have kinda forged for themselves- here i was stressing out that they would pull out some plot development that would utterly and drastically change the way we talked abt the series for the rest of time, but so little happened and so little was added to the bank of sc5 lore that we can kind of all just carry on as usual and keep having the same headcanons we always had.

BUT!!! there ARE a lot of cute little details here and there that make the experience feel wholesome and like i said not an utter cashgrab- like so many of the character profiles referencing previous games [all of the references to npcs in this game being relatives of the npcs of the last games made me lose it] and how often ulala changes her expressions up and looks right at you and talks to you. the new music they wrote for the game also all slaps and everyones redesigns [if they got a redesign... rip pudding] are stunning

one of the most important things they did in this game was give a nice sort of Update to every character.... for example explaining that ulala isn’t a rookie reporter any more like she was in the first 2 games, that she’s moved up to being in charge of training new channel 5 reporters, and that while pudding is still somewhat stuck on her rivalry with ulala her career isn’t stagnant either, she was just cast in a romcom series as the lead... which is really nice considering how in the past she was portrayed as somewhat of a loser with almost no remaining fans left from her idol years

and you knew i was going to bring up jaguar at some point HES ALL OVER THIS GAME AND IT LITERALLY MADE ME FEEL LIKE MY LIFE WAS WORTH POWERING THROUGH THESE LAST FEW YEARS AND ALSO LIKE IM A GENIUS FOR SPENDING SO LONG POSTING EVERY SINGLE DAY ‘NO REALLY, HE’S THE SECONDARY PROTAGONIST OF THE STORY, ITS ABOUT CHANNEL 5 AS A COMPANY AND THEIR IMPACT ON EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER ENCOUNTERED THEM AND THAT INCLUDES JAGUAR AS WELL AS ULALA HES INTEGRAL TO THE PLOT BC SHE WOULDNT BE ALIVE IF IT WEREN’T FOR HIM’ i feel like it’s really incredible how in this game he has genuinely nice energy and doesnt withhold praise from ulala just to be helpful in a mysterious way later and he like HAS FRIENDS now. like consider how he went from disgraced former ch5 employee who got mad every time he saw them, to kidnapped robot henchman kinda humbled by the fact that now the turns tabled and ulala had to rescue Him, and now 3 years later his bio is all about how he has a new tv show thats super popular and he has a new entourage of ladies who he considers his '’’’’’comrades’’’’’’’ within the station he founded??? AND AFTER 20 YEARS THEY WERE FINALLY ABLE TO GIVE HIS MODEL JUICY ASS CHEEKS??????????????? NO MORE PANCAKE BOOTY???? THE BOY HAD A GLOWUP AND NO I WONT STOP TALKING ABOUT IT

WHEN I SAY MEOW MATCH THE POSE MOTHERFUCKERS THIS BLONDE BASTARD GETS TO BE IN CHARGE OF THE HUNDRED STAGE BATTLE NOW TOO THIS IS THE YEAR OF THE SPACE PIRATES BAYBEE

[fatherofmachine-a]

PERSONAL BLOGS,  PLEASE DO NOT REBLOG !!

I've learned some interesting things  about Harold these last few months,  things regarding INTIMACY that I'd really like to share / write down.  This piece of him has gone through quite a lot  of METAMORPHOSIS since I started writing him 4 years ago  &  there's a lot  of ways I portrayed it in the past that honestly make me CRINGE a little now tbh.  Harold is grey-aro-ace ( greyasexual  &  greyromantic )  &  admittedly,  when I started,  there were a lot  of things I DIDN’T KNOW,  a lot of things I didn’t look deep enough into until someone smacked me in the face to do so ( which I am IMMENSELY grateful for,  especially since it helped me discover that these identities apply to myself as well  ).  SO,  this is hopefully the last rendition  &  this part of Harold will be written the way I feel it should be.  This ALSO includes some amendments  to the details about Harold’s scars (  which will also be UPDATED in his bio )  &  how he feels about them.  I might also add scar details to the post I made about his injuries.

I'm putting it under a READ MORE so that those who are interested can read,  but those who aren't  can easily scroll past.  

      Some of this is NSFW so please  proceed with caution.

When it comes to PHYSICAL INTIMACY,  Harold does most things slowly,    but very thoroughly.  Kisses,  for example,  are slow,  achingly sweet  but VERY THOROUGH  &  intense.  He's curious,  responsive,  explorative,  he likes to savor  the experience  &  he's not one for rushing or being in a hurry.  He's initially inclined toward LEADING,  especially  because if he's kissing anybody,  he's confident in his desire to do so ( while also assuming he's receiving positive signs from his partner ).  Not to say he wouldn't  let his partner lead,  if that's what they wanted  &  there's enough trust there ( he's gotta trust A LOT for any kissing to happen anyway ),  he would ABSOLUTELY follow if his partner really wanted  to do that,  assuming he’d be comfortable with where things are going.

Harold’s scars from the FERRY INCIDENT  &  from surgery related to that incident,  he has ... complicated  feelings about them.  It'll take him a LONG time to allow anyone  to even TOUCH some of them so,  he'll likely want his partner to avoid  touching certain places.  

The surgical scar that begins at the back of Harold’s neck is kind of unavoidable so,  that would be THE FIRST he’d allow a partner to touch.  That scar,  however,  is a long one  that extends past his shoulder blades  &  down to his lower back.  Touching any further down from his neck leaves him with a VERY uncomfortable  &  complicated twisting feeling in his gut  &—–he’d just rather you Didn’t.  Just bellow the base of his skull  &  the base of his spine are impact scars,  his original injuries.  Harold also has a surgical scar at his hip,  which was an attempt to somewhat  alleviate his sciatic nerve pain (  which is the only surgery  he ever even considered that revolved around alleviating pain ) but ... due to rather EXTREME circumstances that occurred within the episode RAM where he was forced  to walk before healing entirely,  it was rendered mostly useless.

A large portion of his POSITIVE VERBAL RESPONSES tends to be shaky breathing,  quiet gasps ( that eventually  turn into something more ragged  & shaky ),  at first.  Harold's not exactly  super outwardly expressive generally so he's not overly loud.  The MOST that comes out are cut off groans,  quiet whines,  hissing through clenched teeth,  &  some exclamations.  He's NOT one to swear,  even during intensely intimate moments—–literally the closest he comes to swearing is exclamations like "oh goodness" ,  "oh god," ,  saying his partners name along with some light praise or sometimes exaggerated playful accusations,  but that's about the extent of it ( & a lot of it he tries to stifle,  to minimize,  out of habit tbh ).  

While there’s a good chunk  of the fandom that believes Harold ACTUALLY swears,  I don’t think so  &  y’all can pry this headcanon out of my cold,  dead hands because it is one of my absolute favorites.

[historyrepeatsitself]

modern au headcanons p2

hey guys, so after uhh everything crashed and burned as u can see from this post, i did not follow thru in good time with writing a modern au headcanon post… BUT!!! fortunately, i have returned from my semi hiatus to bring you… inspired by this OG post… httyd modern au headcanons part 2!!!

also sorry for the weird bullet points, i did this in microsoft word so the entire thing wouldnt fucKING DELETE AGAIN

·         so like i said with the last one, cami is obviously internet famous for her ridiculously cool youtube channel

·         shes also quite popular on insta but youtube is more her jam

·         her fame started when a video of her pickpocketing stoick and them him finding out and absolutely Losing It went viral

·         it was a vine

·         you can hear hiccup laughing in the background

·         her videos used to mainly feature pranks she did but since then shes branched out

·         she still does a lot of pranks but now her videos also include: parkour, absolutely HORRIBLE karaoke (ft. hiccup and fishlegs), Q&A, playing with toothless for an hour and thirty minutes (yes, it did get a lot of views ((also toothless is a cat in this au))), roast battle vs snotlout (spoiler: snotlout cries), “a compilation of hiccup doing nerdy shit and me calling him a nerd (8 min, 30 sec)”, “reading yalls fanfiction abt me (fishlegs has an asthma attack)”, videos of her doing sports, & more

·         like in the original hiccup and fishlegs have their own channel

·         its literally shit

·         they update it only on lethal amounts of caffeine

·         its usually VERY active during finals week (hence their not great grades)

·         it puts shane dawson to shame

·         “NOT CLICKBATE: OBAMA IS FROM THE MOON????”

·         “NEIL A IS ALIEN SPELLED BACKWARDS??? DID ARMSTRONG USE THE MOON AS A WAY TO FUEL UP BEFORE JUMPING BACK TO HIS COLONY ON MARS??”

·         “MY CAT IS NOT FROM EARTH (VIDEO INCLUDED!!!!)”

·         “got rejected again…. </3”

·         “video of fishlegs on sugar high after i gave him a bunch of candy bc he wouldn’t stop crying”

·         “kids from our school found us” (during the whole video theyre panicking while wearing wigs and fake mustaches)

·         needless to say its very confusing when someone connects that those guys are also on cami’s channel

·         shes pissed but comes around and they regularly star on her channel while she regularly stars on theirs

·         hiccup also has his own side channel where he explains different animal species (natural history stuff) and also does various language tutorials

·         fishlegs reads poetry and sings on his side channel

·         cami has a video where she reacts to hiccup’s channel, he actually gained a lot of followers from it

·         hiccup and fishlegs go to the same school while cami goes to an all girls school across town

·         she actually doesn’t hate it

·         hiccup and fishlegs are public school kids

·         that public school vibe

·         kids from their school are so confused how they know cami and rly jealous

·         cami once stopped by after school (her school gets out a little earlier) and punched a bully for them

·         it was iconic

·         she smacked him right in the face and hauled hiccup’s ass up and dragged them both in the car

·         cami is pretty popular at her school

·         hiccup and fishlegs are NOT

·         theyre honestly a bit like peter and ned from spiderman

·         gotta love that lego deathstar

·         cami does not like legos

·         both hiccup and fishlegs are smart but don’t put in a lot of effort

·         fishlegs excels at English and hiccup is good at science classes (esp bio) and history

·         fishlegs is ok at history but finds some of it a little boring

·         they HATE gym

·         theyre both shocked to find that cami (a dumbassTM) is actually a straight A student

·         shes super competitive so she actually does super well and gets rly rly good grades and all her teachers love her

·         she didn’t for awhile bc she has ADHD for school was HARD but shes gotten a lot better and got tutors and study methods and also shes just super competitive

·         she was on math team in middle school and hiccup wont SHUt Up about IT

·         “hey theres my favorite student mathlete!!!!!”

·         fishlegs doesn’t even try and help him anymore, he does this to himself

·         fishlegs wins English awards every year

·         he also got a 36 on his English ACT hes just SO GOOD

·         hes also a theatre kid lmao

·         he does shakespearean theatre on top of his school theatre too

·         “to be or not To Be”

·         Hiccups not a huge English fan and he doesn’t rly like Shakespeare but he does rly like Oscar wilde

·         Dorian gray is the Shit

·         Fishlegs was so happy when he read it bc they could finally talk about LiTeRaRy ClAsSiCs!!!

·         the trio met bc hiccup and cami’s parents own rival business companies

·         both stoick and bertha are very Rich and Important

·         hiccup and cami sometimes have to go to business dinners

·         they fuck around

·         that’s how they met

·         hiccup bumped into cami replacing the soap in the hand dispenser in the men’s room with silly string

·         he thought she was the coolest person ever

·         she tried to fight him at first but they quickly united against the Evil Boring Dinners With Stupid Old Men

·         they locked this one old racist dude in a bathroom stall once and sent fishlegs a video

·         truly forces of chaos

·         the forces of chaos were unfortunately grounded for that tho

·         stoick is very busy and valhallarama travels a lot so they hang out at hiccup’s bc its usually empty (cami’s house is also kinda far)

·         cami’s parents are divorced but her dad stops by occasionally

·         fishlegs has a foster family and that’s how he wound up meeting hiccup was when he moved to be with his new family when they were in second grade

·         hes rly grateful that hes been able to stay with them for a long ass time

·         theyre actually pretty nice

·         hiccup gets to come over for dinner

·         snotlout is hiccup’s bitchy cousin whos a grade ahead of hiccup and fishlegs

·         he eventually becomes nicer to them at the beginning of sophomore year

·         some bad stuff happens  (might write an angst fanfic idk lemme know (itll prolly be hiccup centric))

·         basically, snotlout kinda realizes hes been a bitch

·         hes sorry

·         things get better

·         until yknow

·         gotta keep things sad cant get rid of all the emo

·         but anyway snotlout does wind up becoming a good friend to the trio!! <3

·         oh lmao when valhallarama came home for Christmas she thought hiccup was either dating cami or fishlegs and she didn’t know which one bc hiccup was so shy she just figured he was dating one of them and just didn’t tell her (theyre all like super close yknow)

·         after seeing hiccup and cami holding hands (a RARE moment, it was bc they thought it would annoy snotlout bc he hates cami (it did)) she assumed it was cami

·         she brought it up

·         LMFAOOOO hiccup laughed for like 10 minutes

·         She then immediately was like oh ok ur gay and its fishlegs

·         that was even funnier

·         “mom fishlegs is weird lmao” (he and fishlegs probably friendly roast each other a lot tbh. they definitely call each other “weirdo” “freak” “nerd” other possibly explicit words, its chill)

·         Valhallarama is so confused

·         she didn’t say it but “child u literally told me that u thought ur little cat that’s missing teeth is prolly from area 51, ur the weird one son”

·         she asks stoick

·         hes just as confused

·         she drops the whole topic

·         it has yet to occur to bertha

·         fishlegs’ family is good as long as hes good theyre chill like that

·         oh and cami’s school has uniforms

·         yes, she does have to wear a skirt

·         yes, several of them were shredded freshman year

·         bertha is So Tired