#and now look at me! friends! hobbies! employed! scared but i know that i have to do it scared.

[pyromance]

it's kind of my song actually

[prusikknots]

It’s weird not being horny anymore… like, the past couple months has been a drastic difference compared to most of my life of horniness. Being alone, I was kinda sorta always looking, but now, my drive is almost completely shot. My heart really was set for one person, and once she turned me down, I haven’t had a drive to seek any kind of closeness (friendship or otherwise) from anyone. I’m still struggling to find happiness in being alone, but I’m finding it. And that scares me. I don’t want to die alone, but I’m also so demoralized to keep searching at all.

I have a couple dating profiles that I cycle in and out of, but I’ve ghosted the very few matches I do get. I’ve even apologized once, saying that I was sorry and I’m normally not someone that does this, but I’m just not ready to be close with anyone.

I know my ex is now months along with sleeping with and dating other people, doesn’t give me a second thought whatsoever and won’t return a single email, text, call, nothing. and I’m struggling so hard emotionally. I’ve had offers to shoot, hook up, and I just fucking can’t do it. The only woman I pursued post-breakup flaked on me constantly and ditched me for another roommate, and I’ve just given up completely.

I followed signs from the universe and I only got hurt, I’ve lost my faith completely when I worked so hard to gain my faith in the first place. I was a complete non-believer, then was forced to believe once I couldn’t deny the correlations and signs, only to be the one left behind and hated amongst everyone. My exes think I’m a narc, my ex wife thinks I’ve been whoring around since (definitely haven’t), I don’t keep contact with most friends I have left because I’m self-sabotaging them all since the vast majority left me over the last few years, I don’t feel like I have much left.

Except for my job, which is going amazingly well for once. I’m about to interview for a permanent government job soon where they just negotiated higher benefits, pension, everything, in a city with a near zero crime rate. If all goes well, I’ll be in a major step forward towards affording a fucking house by myself, which is unheard of. I wanted a partner with hobbies and/or a self employed job so goddamn bad because I know she will be happy with focusing on her own thing, school, and kids while I work a job I genuinely love and make sure we’re all provided for.

My heart hurts. I miss people that don’t think of me anymore, who I’ve either not spoken to or seen in months now. I feel completely worthless and I feel like I’d be better off dead. I don’t think people would miss me, because people already have shown they don’t give a shit whether I’m here or not. I’ll be no more than a passing thought, and I’ll be forgotten in a short time.

[thefirsttree]

A personal update + my next game

OK, time to do this. I’ve been meaning to do a big DAVID WEHLE™ update for a while now and explain why I haven’t released a new game yet, but you know how life gets in the way. Especially when life is a quarantine hellscape, you have three beautiful, amazing, exhausting kids to raise, a spouse’s job you support, a viral YouTube channel that turns your brain to mush, a thousand emails waiting in your inbox since your game is free on the Epic Games Store (with an impressive number of redemptions too! … meaning lots of emails and customer support issues), etc., etc. What also contributes to my lack of updates is because… I just don’t really like posting online. Fascinating correlation, I know!

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a venting/ranting blog post (well, maybe a bit), because my life is seriously AMAZING and INSANELY BLESSED and LUCKY. I can’t believe how many dreams keep coming true, so much so that I feel I don’t deserve it and I really pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes… but I did want to at least be honest, because I owe that to myself.

Wow, where do I even begin? Well, how about we start with the reason I’m even a full-time indie game dev now: The First Tree. This small hobby project I worked on at night morphed into this gargantuan beast (or fox) that took over my life the past 5 years. Which is great! I’m living the dream! And yet, I really didn’t expect it to do as well as it did. At its core, my game is a slow-paced, sad walking simulator (ahem, I prefer the term “exploration game,” but you know what I mean) that somehow seemed to launch at the right time to the right audience. It resonated deeply with some of you, and for that I’m eternally grateful. I still get emails almost daily how my game changed their lives in some formative way. I’m beyond honored.

However, with that spotlight came criticism and demands from the ever-present, insatiable internet. I would randomly be surfing the gamedev subreddit trying to decompress, and I would see a comment by some rando saying how much I didn’t deserve my success, and how it was all one huge lucky fluke. And I believed them!

And to add to it, some devs considered me an indie marketing “guru”, which I was uncomfortable with. I worked hard to market my game every week, and after my GDC talk, people assumed marketing was my passion; the reason I got up every morning. Just to clarify… NO, I don’t like marketing, and I hate being the center of attention. I don’t like asking people for money and wishlists. But I did what was necessary because I was passionate about telling stories, and I wanted to give my story a fighting chance to be seen on the crowded pages of Steam.

So now, you’re probably wondering “well then David, why did you make fancy YouTube videos showing off your success? Not very modest if you ask me.” This honestly could be a long blog post all on its own, because my experience of putting myself in the spotlight and becoming a “content creator” is… complicated. It was an unusual step for me, especially since I never even showed my face online (as a game developer) until my GDC talk.

First off, I always wanted to teach and start a YouTube channel. I love video editing, especially since I’ve been doing it longer than making games! It’s a huge passion of mine. And teaching people who didn’t know they could make and finish games was a huge motivator (and it’s been so rewarding already). But the second reason is, I was scared. I was self-employed, and I was riding the success of a “huge lucky fluke” that would probably not happen again. I wanted to make sure I could provide for my amazing family, and give them food and health insurance and security in these tumultuous times. I was turning my lifelong passions and hobbies into a business, and it wasn’t as simple of a mental transition as I thought.

So, I went all in on YouTube and the accompanying online course called Game Dev Unlocked. I spent years editing the scripts and videos, and polishing them to a shine. At first, no one watched my videos, no one was buying… and in the blink of an eye, the YouTube algorithm picked up my main autobiographical video (“How Making Indie Games Changed My Life”), and I started getting 5,000 subscribers a day. Right now, I’m at 150,000 subs, which is still hard for me to believe. I always had a dream of earning 100k subs on YouTube, so I was pretty happy with the whole thing. Sales were OK, but mostly people didn’t want to buy the course. Then the emails came in…

Something you should know about me: I am a textbook “people pleaser,” and if someone asks for my help, I take it very seriously. If someone is mad at me, even if I didn’t do anything wrong, it’s all I can think about, and it ruins my day. So, taking an onslaught of people begging for help and multiplying that by an impossible amount of people for my brain to truly comprehend thanks to the internet… and let’s just say it wasn’t a healthy mix.

I received thousands of emails from people who were begging me for some kind of reassurance that everything would be OK. That their dreams would come true too. And I wanted to help every single one of them. I went from a nobody working on a game for fun to becoming a spokesperson for the indie game dream. I couldn’t even get a shake from the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru without someone recognizing me and asking for game dev advice. And it didn’t stop there… I would get emails from suicidal kids asking for help, teenagers from Afghanistan asking me to get them out of their country, and on one occasion I received an email from a hopeful game developer in a war-torn country who had just experienced a bomb blowing up their neighboring village. His friends were dead, and he was hoping he could finish a game before he died too, and he needed my help. How do you say no to something like that? Didn’t I owe it to everyone because I was lucky with my hit game and I needed to “pay it forward”? (Something people constantly reminded me of)

And then to top it off, after you’ve given everything you’ve got to other people in need… you get hate mail in your inbox. You spend the whole day serving your children and strangers on the internet, then when the kids are finally asleep, you hit the bed to relax and take a look at your phone to decompress, and you randomly come across an angry gamer in your Twitter mentions telling you your game they got for free sucks, and that you took away a potentially great game from them and that your apology isn’t good enough.

Long story short, I went to a mental therapist for the first time in my life. I was broken trying to care for two toddlers and a new baby in a pandemic (which is very, very hard), taking care of my course students who gave me their hard-earned money and demanded results, and the countless people begging for help on the internet. I was this introverted, internet-lurker trying to take on the weight of the world. I was so tired and hurt that no one cared about me and my needs… only what I could do for them.

Quitting my day job and making this hobby my full-time job has stirred up… mixed emotions. This statement may disturb some of you, but I was definitely 100% happier when I had a full-time job and I was working on my game at night. I missed working with the amazing team at The VOID, working on Star Wars… back when the success of my game was this abstract thing I could only daydream about. Mostly, I was making my game for me with no outside expectations to pay the bills or satisfy the ever-demanding internet, and that brought me a lot of joy.

It’s not all doom and gloom though! I’m actually very happy now and in the best shape I’ve been since the pandemic started. I’ve had to confront my weaknesses and personality quirks, but I’m a better person for it (and I’m sure these issues would’ve come out eventually). I hired an awesome community manager for Game Dev Unlocked who is helping SO MUCH with the emails, I can’t even tell you the mental burden it alleviates. I even leased a co-working office to help separate work from my home, and that’s been a huge help too. I’ve decided to work with my old friends from The VOID on a cool, new VR experience. It will take me away from my projects a bit, but I’m ecstatic to work with a great team again (and not manage anything, whew).

These are all things I would’ve never guessed I needed, because I thought I knew myself pretty well… turns out I didn’t.

The reality is: running a business is HARD. Running it solo is even harder. You have to remember, I was burnt out on The First Tree well into the Steam release in 2017, but I kept working on it for 4 more years due to my fears of failing again and not earning enough money for my family.

So, I was wrestling with the age-old concept of commercialism and art. There was this dichotomy of doing whatever I wanted and being true to my vision (what most people assume the indie dev dream is like), and doing only what customers wanted to buy. This is something that has killed me with YouTube… in one specific instance, I was super excited to make the exact video I wanted to make. I loved every part of its creation, and I thought it had a message that would inspire everyone. I lovingly edited it over several weeks, posted it, and excitedly waited for the stats… and it was by far my worst performing video.

This is not a new problem. Even the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo was a commission forced upon him by the very violent Pope Julius II. My wife and I regularly talk about the fine balance between artistic integrity and commercialism, a problem she is very familiar with as an artist who constantly needs to balance what she wants to make with what the customer wants to hang up in their home.

For The First Tree, I was lucky. It was pretty much what I wanted to make (I had to compromise a lot of things of course), and it turned out millions of people wanted it too. Recently, I thought the safe business decision would be to do it all over again, so I started work on a spiritual successor to The First Tree (an idea that I may revisit one day since I do love the story idea). But that isn’t happening anytime soon. Trust me when I say I am now currently burnt out on animal exploration games.

So that realization left me with a question: what do I do next?

I’ve decided I need to make a game that I want to make, for me. It will be a bit different and I’m almost certain most fans of The First Tree will not love it… but it’s an idea that gets me super excited. It’s an idea that could help me fall in love with game development again.

A few more details: this game will be story-driven, first-person, and will use the Unreal Engine. That means development is gonna be slow going, because I have to learn a whole new tool. The “smart business” decision would be to make something quickly in Unity which I’m already familiar with… but I want to do this for me, and UE5 looks like a lot of fun. I’m also shooting for an early-ish release date so I avoid burn out and I keep the game short: I want to release it in Fall 2022, but knowing game development, it will probably take longer.

With the help of my therapist, I’ve also concluded that I’ve been too accessible on the internet and that my self-worth isn’t determined by the amount of people I try to help online. Of course, I love helping people and seeing them succeed, but I need to step back and focus on my family and myself. I will delete my social media apps on my phone (I will still post big updates occasionally) and stop responding to most emails, tweets, DMs, etc. It’s not that I’m ungrateful… in fact, if I don’t say thank you or at least acknowledge the incredibly nice people who share a sweet message about my game or want to tell me how I inspire them (still hard for me to believe, lol), I feel a ton of guilt… but I need to let that go. Please know I’m extremely grateful to all the fans who follow my work, so even if I don’t thank you directly, I truly mean it: thank you.

I will still post and stream occasionally on YouTube when I want to (and I still do live Q&A’s for my GDU students). The online course sales will help support my family as I work on a potentially risky game idea (and my new job will help alleviate the risk too). I’m gonna try one more marketing experiment and sell a mini-course soon (and add an Unreal section), and after that I’m done working on it. A gigantic thank you to the people who bought my course and are part of the amazing community, it has helped me and my family tremendously, and it’s inspiring seeing the games you make!

I’m a bit worried about the whole thing since this new game idea could flop, which could definitely affect my family. But a sappy, high-school yearbook quote is coming to mind…  I think it applies here: “A ship in harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are built for.”

Thanks for reading,

David

[charming-2d-boys]

Heyo! Love your writing 💖 from most to least, who in the adultrio is most touch starved and how do they deal with it in a relationship? 👀👀👀👀

Hi! This is cute and sad at the same time, but I'll make it all better and fluffier ✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧

Thank you for the request and I hope you'll like it! 😄

Warning: very long, a bit sad because of their pasts, some personal analysis based on common HxH knowledge, gut feeling and theories

A/N: literally poured my heart and soul, especially for Chrollo and Hisoka, because I feel really bad for what they had to go through and how twisted they can be, when things could’ve been so different

So the way I see things is as follows:

From the most touch starved to the least (they all are, absolutely, but the explanation will be below for each character):

Chrollo -> Hisoka -> Illumi

Why? Lemme demonstrate.

Chrollo

since he was probably abandoned at birth in Meteor City, he’s already missing the parents’ loving touch

Meteor City seems to be one of the harshest environments in the Hunter x Hunter universe, probably being second only (at least for me) to the Dark Continent, since that one is just nuts

because of where and how he grew up, he probably never felt anything... good, in terms of touching, affection, love etc.

Chrollo loved no one and no one loved him

not truly and not for what he is

but mostly for his looks, his power, the things he could probably acquire for them

the Spiders are the only ones who accept him as a leader and a friend, a mentor, but even so, they don’t seem that close

and he does seem like the type of person who craves it, so badly

especially after hearing about it, seeing other people do it and even reading all those romance books and poems

but he’s terrified of letting anyone that close to him and seeing him for who he is

not even he knows who he is for sure, so he is just really confused

and all those moments where he touched someone and even seemed like he cared were all lies

Chrollo actually doesn’t really get much comfort from doing it because it’s a total stranger and even though he’s the bad guy, maybe they are bad too

now, if he does get into a relationship, it’s going to be tough

he’s always searching for a catch, a lie, an ulterior motive

so you have to be very patient and actually take it easy

always ask him if he’s okay with what you’re going to do

he’ll always appreciate that and make him feel like he doesn’t have to act or lie or feel pressured into doing something he doesn’t want

if he really loves you and cares, he will slowly give in to the temptation and allow you to get closer to him step by step

maybe not immediately, but he’ll definitely start reciprocating and even initiating those affectionate gestures

and it makes Chrollo so happy when you respond positively because he needs some sort of validation that what he’s doing is okay, you’re comfortable around him, you accept him, you love him, you won’t hurt him in any way

if there’s anything that makes you uncomfortable, tell him, because there’s nothing more he hates than hurting someone he actually cares about

overall, in the end, he’ll be pretty affectionate and romantic with you because your affection, touches, intimacy, domesticity and love that you offer him allow Chrollo find a part of himself, a more human one that he most probably thought he didn’t even have

Hisoka

in Hisoka’s case, I’d like to mention the fact that he had his mother

for how long, we don’t know, but he was taught how to do some magic tricks by her

I do think that maybe they weren’t that close, but his mother could be somewhat affectionate at times

which is probably why he remembers the fact that she taught him pretty fondly

remember the fact that Hisoka doesn’t normally care about the past, so this must’ve been something pretty significant to him and still is, since he employs cards and magic tricks into pretty much everything he does

now, about how touch starved he is?

very

not as much as Chrollo, but certainly not that less either

like I said, he had a parent, his mother, so there was some family bonding and some motherly love (at least a bit), whereas Chrollo had nothing

that doesn’t mean that Hisoka isn’t touch starved

but he doesn’t really pay much attention to that

he probably has a lot of one night stands since he seems to be so... flirty and easily excitable and extroverted

maybe he really is shy, like he said? probably in a relationship and when he is vulnerable, but I’ll get to that in a moment

even with all the one night stands and his personality, Hisoka doesn’t really feel anything, at least not emotionally, when touching or being touched

only physically

and he likes it, but that would be it, he doesn’t feel any emotional connection to anyone

but in a relationship, an actual, real, romantic relationship, things would be different

Hisoka’s going to be flirty, teasing, even mean sometimes

especially when you actually seem to want to know more about him - as a person, his past, his hobbies, anything regarding him, not the persona he has made for himself

but, again, patience and don’t go overboard

it’ll feel like an intrusion

also, yes, touchy, very

but... it doesn’t really feel like anything more than something purely physical and if you tell him to stop, he'll listen and back off

it’s all about pleasure and if you get none, he’ll feel as if he did badly

so he’d rather not have to deal with that

just like Chrollo, he’s protecting himself and his heart

because pretty much no one wanted to be with him, but for the benefits he’d bring them

not that he really let others too close either - whoever did get too close and betrayed him died painfully, I know for sure

but you’d probably start breaking down those walls slowly, in time

he will share things about himself and let you witness it, but not too much and not too often

not really into talking about his past, but again, snippets, not everything

Hisoka’s scared that you’ll use what you find out about him against him

but once he realises that yes, he can trust you and yes, he can be himself?

all bets are off

touchy, flirty, teasing, but in a very... let’s say, lighthearted way, very focused only on the two of you?

the creepy flirting and whatever is reserved for whoever he wants to fight/kill

but with you, it’ll be a lot more romantic and affectionate

will absolutely love having you close physically and touching you constantly

feels recharged and happy when he’s close to you

will definitely be almost like a different person sometimes because he’ll allow himself to be relaxed and comfortable and vulnerable around you

Hisoka likes having someone like you to rely on and be able to talk to about his thoughts and fears (not many, but still), even if it doesn’t really happen that often

but, bottom line is, he trusts you, a lot more than he’s probably trusted anyone in his entire life and will be more honest with you as well

Illumi

for Illumi, I’ll have to say that it’s his family

yes, they trained him to be an assassin and was pretty much just a test subject for Kikyo and Silva since he is a boy and the oldest

but, still, he had a family that, in a way or another, was there for him, preparing him, helping him and providing him with whatever he needed and maybe even wanted

again, this is only my way of saying that he had some sort of contact with people who were close to him, especially from a genetical point of view, ever since he was a child and had help in case he needed it

because of all the torture and training he went through, Illumi is pretty much emotionless and immune to almost anything

he feels no real joy from being touched by others or touching them, and the only ones even allowed to touch him are his family and Hisoka, mostly because he’s persistent and they’ve known each other for some time

the only way he’s really been taught how to touch others is if he has to kill them, so you can imagine that he doesn’t really know what he’s missing on, compared to, let’s say Alluka or Killua, even Kalluto who were raised a bit more... lovingly

so imagine how it’ll be when he gets into a relationship with someone who’s a lot more touchy

he’d probably be pretty on edge and even appear threatening

but, explaining what you want to do in simple terms and your reasons should make him a bit more open, at least to the idea of thinking about this

of course, Illumi’s seen other people hugging, kissing, holding hands etc.

and he’s probably wondered why he never did that

but at the same time, he’s never really felt like he really needed affection in his life

until you came into it

when you started with small things (holding pinkies was something that lasted for like a month), he couldn’t really say that he saw the big deal

but at the same time, Illumi liked it a lot

when it came to hand holding, he loved the way your smaller hand fit into his and almost seemed like it was made for him and he could just keep you close and safe

other things, like hugging or kissing probably took a bit longer

his favourite thing to do has got to be cuddling because he just likes feeling like he can relax around you and also get his daily dose of touch, love and affection from one of the few people he cares about, even loves, and who he allows to touch him

and yes, he’ll slowly start touching you as well

something as simple as a brief hug before he has to leave just makes him feel giddy and he actually wants and needs more when he comes back to you

he likes feeling all those positive emotions, though he doesn’t really like that feeling of vulnerability, but he guesses that it’s only fair, considering the fact that you’re doing the same

to others, it might not seem like he’s changed much: the same emotionless face and the same ruthlessness as an assassin

but when he’s with you, everything just seems a lot more relaxed for the two of you and he can actually just breathe and know that he’ll have you by his side at the end of the day

[shyneanon]

Just wanted to write a x reader about HT Sans out of curiosity, so I did. Kinda long though. But I hope you guys like it. Have an x reader of mine where Axe doesn’t do anything incredibly stupid, lol.

(I promise the longfics are gonna be updated I just wanted to write this >~<)

---

It had been a long time since you had first fallen into the Underground. Long enough that you’d lost track of time. Though that wasn’t hard to do when there was no sky to watch.

To be honest, you were lucky to not be dead. You had the feeling every other human to fall down here had died at the hands of monsters.

For some reason the two skeletons… hadn’t killed you. Which was odd, considering that when you’d first met them you’d had to navigate some deadly traps while they’d watched. When you’d made it past everything, the taller one had seemed impressed with you, and proud.

The shorter one hadn’t seemed so pleased.

Their names were Papyrus and Sans, apparently, and upon Papyrus’ insistence they’d snuck you through town and to their house, where you resided to this day. You wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that you had survived their traps, which Papyrus insisted on calling “puzzles,” despite the fact that they had obviously been designed to kill anyone who failed them. But at least Papyrus was kind to you. He was happy to talk, though he was very hesitant to answer a lot of your questions. Often he responded by telling you that he couldn’t answer your question at all. But he liked sharing his hobbies and favorite media with you, so even though he was holding you captive, he’d become like a friend.

Although you had the feeling that holding you captive was more for your benefit than theirs. When they fed you, it was always the same food. Some kind of meat.

You had the feeling you knew what kind.

But you wouldn’t ask. To spare your sanity.

Sans wasn’t hostile. But he made it a point to ignore you. Even if you needed help with something and you asked, he would simply act as if you weren’t there, as if he couldn’t see or hear you. If you annoyed him enough he would shoot you an unsettling look with his one red eye and you would back down. You quickly learned not to bother. You decided he didn’t like you, and that you were lucky he hadn’t killed you by this point. Especially considering that he hauled a giant axe everywhere. So you left him alone and spoke to Papyrus instead.

Over time, though, Sans started to change.

One day you were asked to throw out the old food, and as you were attempting to figure out which of the meat was older and therefore likely to go rotten soon, Sans intervened.

And he helped.

The whole time he barely said a word to you, and he didn’t look at you for even a second, but he helped. Though you tried not to get too optimistic. Perhaps he had simply been annoyed by how long you’d been taking.

A few days later, when you and Papyrus were playing a board game to pass the time, Sans sat next to his brother to watch. This was also new-- he usually did his best to stay as far away from you as possible at all times, dinner being the only exception.

He joined the two of you to watch several times, and then one day Papyrus asked him if he wanted to play a game for more people. And Sans said yes.

That day you saw a different side of him.

Rather than brood silently with an unsettling grin on his face, Sans started to crack jokes. Bad ones. At first you were too confused and almost bothered by the sudden change to laugh, but eventually he made a particularly fucked up joke and you laughed from the shock of it, despite Papyrus scolding him.

The next time you and Papyrus played a 1v1 game, Sans sat next to you.

Several sessions of this happened, Sans sitting and watching. You couldn’t tell if he was rooting for either of you, though he occasionally made jokes mocking you specifically. You’d noticed he never liked to say anything mean to his brother, however, so maybe that explained the lack of jabs at Papyrus.

Then one game, as you were contemplating your next move, Sans leaned in next to your ear. You leaned away, expecting him to say something threatening or cruel.

Instead, he gave you a hint.

As it turned out, Sans was really smart. He understood strategy, though he rarely employed it much when he played with you two. You had the feeling he liked letting Papyrus beat him.

He wasn’t such a bad guy, it seemed.

Then he asked to play a game of chess with you one day. You had the feeling he’d beat you, but you said yes.

You were right. He beat you quickly and easily. But he seemed to enjoy himself, particularly with some jabs at you that were accompanied by winks. So you didn’t mind.

Though you did feel something kind of odd whenever he winked at you. And it didn’t stop even when winking became a regular thing. In the following weeks he started pulling pranks on you, something he apparently enjoyed a lot. Papyrus seemed annoyed about it at first, but then confessed to you that it had been a long time since Sans had regularly cracked jokes and pulled pranks on others, and he was happy to have glimmers of the old Sans back. You’d had no idea this was what he had been like before… whatever had happened in the Underground had happened. Neither of them would talk about it. Regardless, seeing Sans smile and laugh so sincerely felt really good.

...

And then he cornered you with his axe.

Or, at least, that’s what it felt like at first. One day, weeks after he had begun to lighten up, Sans approached you when you were in the kitchen, dragging his axe behind him. Papyrus was out of the house, though you didn’t know where, or doing what. They never told you that either.

He’s going to kill me.

“Heya,” he said.

You tried not to stare at the blade. But it was hard. “Hi,” you said.

He took a few steps closer to you. There was nowhere you could go. You were against the extremely tall sink. If he decided he wanted to chop you up into little pieces, there was nothing you could do about it.

“Think we can talk?” he said.

You nodded, but once you did you weren’t sure if that was the right decision.

“Cool.”

Before you knew it he was standing over you and you were pressing yourself back against the sink. You felt so small.

This is it. He’s going to take his axe, and he’s going to cut me into little pieces. And then eat me.

“So…” he began.

Please just make it fast. Please just don’t make me suffer. Please just get it over with--

“I wanted to say thanks.”

“... Huh?” was your only reply. You realized you were shaking.

“Thanks,” he repeated. “For being nice to my brother. And… to me, even when I haven’t been so nice to you.”

Not sure what to say, you just stared.

“He’s… been through a lot. He’s really needed a friend. And I’m glad you’re being that friend to him.”

You weren’t sure if he was trying to put you at ease before murdering you, but you smiled a little. “It’s no problem. Papyrus is fun, I like spending time with him.”

“Yeah?” Sans smiled one of his more sincere smiles. “Yeah, my brother’s really cool.”

There was an awkward (and, at least for you, tense) silence as you both looked at each other.

“Sorry for scaring you.” His red eye looked away. “I know… I look scary.”

Hm?

“It’s not you,” you said. “You’ve just… been holding that huge axe… the whole time, and I didn’t… Y’know, I just thought, maybe…”

He looked at the blade as if he’d just realized it was there. “... Oh. Oh, that makes sense.”

He unceremoniously let go of it and it dropped to the ground.

“Still, I know I’m… intimidating.”

“The way you look doesn’t scare me,” you told him. “It hasn’t for a long time. Your appearance is just that, your appearance. No big deal.”

He watched you, as if he were looking for signs that you were lying.

Then he smiled, seeming almost… reassured.

“Cool,” he said.

He moved closer. His smile was different, though you couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. Though, that was often the case with him.

“Listen, I don’t hate you anymore. I haven’t for a long time. I’m sorry… for the way I treated you.”

“It’s OK,” you said. You weren’t sure why he’d treated you that way, but he was apologizing.

“Thanks.”

You realized the two of you were making eye contact, and then you noticed the pupil in the middle of his red eye. It was… getting bigger?

“I… like you a lot, actually.”

What do I say?

“I like you a lot too,” you returned. It wasn’t really a lie. He was fun. You just… weren’t ever sure what he was thinking, so you had always been slightly afraid that he wanted to kill you.

You saw his cheeks start to turn a blue color. You had never seen that before.

A… blush? Or am I insane?

Wait, when did our faces get so close?

Why is my heart beating so fast?

“Anyway,” he said, leaning away from you. When the gap between you widened you suddenly felt like you could breathe again. “I’ve got stuff to do, upstairs.” He winked. “Like nap.”

He picked up his weapon and turned away, though he looked back at you.

“See ya.”

All you did was raise a hand, and he left.

After that day, things were different.

Sans had been nicer to you for a while, but now he was really nice. He threw you compliments, and they didn’t seem sarcastic. He sat next to you on the couch regularly. He would breach your personal bubble-- albeit carefully. Sometimes he would brush hair out of your face, or put his hand on your shoulder when talking to you, or sling an arm around your shoulder. It… seemed friendly, but you weren’t sure if it was supposed to be more.

Either way, your heart would beat fast and your senses would heighten whenever the two of you made contact.

He spoke to you whenever Papyrus was out and he wasn’t. Sometimes he ended up telling you stuff that he and Papyrus had refused to address early on in your stay. He didn’t give details, but… it was sad.

A couple of times you gave him hugs to comfort him. They were returned, and the two of you would just… stay like that for a little while, holding onto each other. Even you started telling him about home. You were kind of like confidants now. It seemed that Sans didn’t tell Papyrus a lot, in an effort not to worry him. Papyrus worried already, it made sense that Sans wouldn’t want to make it any worse.

Then one day, while you were sitting together on the couch, he finally explained to you how he’d gotten the hole in his skull.

A former friend, the current queen… had stabbed him with a spear.

You held him, and he held onto you.

“Thanks,” he said, “for listening to me.”

“I’ll always listen to you,” you told him.

Like that day in the kitchen, you realized that your faces were close. This time it seemed very intentional, though. Sans was watching you carefully. Your own face got hot.

“Sans?” you said. It was almost a whisper.

He pressed his teeth to your lips and you froze up, shocked.

Almost immediately, he let out a soft moan, as if just the kiss were releasing tension. He pulled you closer. Your heart started to pound, and without thinking you threw your arms around his neck and kissed back. His arms wrapped around your waist, and you sank into him. His teeth then pressed against your neck and you shivered, sighing. It was followed by his teeth slamming into your lips, and you were swiftly pressed down onto the couch. It felt like his touch was a shockwave that moved through your whole body. You opened an eye and saw that he was flushed blue.

“I haven’t felt this good in so long,” he told you. “Everything sucks here. But you…”

More kisses. He sighed. Your eyes drifted shut again.

“... you make everything go away. You make me… feel things… I’ve never felt before.”

A hand worked its way down to your hip. He looked… high.

“... Y’know… Paps… isn’t gonna be back for a while.”

Your face got hotter than it already was. Was he insinuating what you thought he was insinuating?

“Geez,” you said with a shy smile, “we just kissed for the first time. At least… take me out to dinner first, right?”

He chuckled. “OK… yeah, maybe I’m moving a bit fast….”

Another kiss, this one more gentle. He cupped your cheek.

“I’m just… not used to feeling this good. It’s… kind of addictive.”

You fluttered your lashes playfully. “Ooh, I’m addictive?”

“Yes,” he responded. There was no irony in his voice. “Yes, you are.”

You were clutching his hoodie, and you realized that what you had thought was blood on his clothing was actually ketchup stains. You could smell it. It made you giggle.

“What?”

“I thought this was blood but it’s ketchup.”

A deep laugh. “You didn’t notice that all this time?” A wink. “Wow, you’re slow. Try to ketchup.”

You flicked his forehead playfully. “Get off the stage, nerd.”

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” you replied with a smile.

“Y’know, sex is great and all, but y’know what’s better?”

You raised a brow. “What?”

“A nap.”

You snorted.

“Don’t say it’s not true.”

“It’s true,” you told him, smiling.

“Here,” he said, pulling you up from your horizontal position and then flopping back, pulling you with him. “I make for a great cushion.”

“You do,” you observed. He was a skeleton but it actually didn’t feel weird to lie on top of him. So you got comfy.

“Nice. If Paps gets mad at me I can blame you.”

A wink, and you stuck your tongue out at him.

“Aw, c’mon now. That’s just childish.”

He wrapped his arms around you.

“You’re insane for liking me, by the way.”

You grinned. “Eh, I blame Stockholm Syndrome.”

He snickered.

[t4t4t]

my girlfriend and I live in a car together and it's an absolute nightmare, I lose things every day, I can barely get thru the days, we struggle to eat, we struggle to go to the bathroom --- like, grocery stores provide both theoretically but only up to a certain hour, and because Leah got employed before me, I've been sitting in this car downtown for hours and hours for the past three weeks with the only thing available being this one warehouse home goods store that makes me uncomfortable so I only go once a day at most there and maybe once additionally somewhere else before trying to go to sleep as quickly as possible after she gets off --- and so like yeah we have money for food but now she barely has any time to eat it, if I had the ability to give her already prepared food I had made myself she would be eating more. Uh and also trying to make food in the car is incredibly difficult and sad so we only usually buy fruits or vegetables we can eat ourselves and buy a warm burrito somewhere else, but I know that isn't healthy --- it's disgusting, it's wretched, it's awful. We use piss jugs, boxes are breaking, the bed is breaking, we can barely find a change of clothes usually, we can't find books we know we have because they're burried under stuff and we both have adhd and or are just rly forgetful and can never remember where we put things, esp in a dark car. Maybe if we had planned things better but now every day just seems to get harder than the last. I'm literally suicidal every day because of this. I like. We barely have any clothes, let alone work appropriate clothes. Shit tears or is outgrown, don't have the money to replace it usually, so our wardrobe is a lot smaller than 2019 for the both of us but even then we didn't have much or much we liked. I have like one dress that makes me feel good, the rest leave me anxious messes. But not like dresses are usually considered work appropriate, and so on. Trying to use a piss jug when your glasses keep on falling off and your long hair keeps flying everywhere and you have genital dysphoria sure is fun. Oh yeah at least four friendships have been destroyed because I kept on asking for showers as two homeless trans women who both want to keep their long hair. So that's great. I have a place to ask for showers now but only one and I try to only ask for two at most a week and it's not like I can stay for long, so the main focus is always washing hair, and I just have to eat it if I ever get dirty during the day with dirt or sweat or piss. Also yeah even if we did ask for rent from here it would be kinda useless because everywhere is usually concerned about both of us having steady incomes to rent. so. I honestly wish we just knew someone in the area we could park in front of ? But that probably wouldn't help much. We just want a room without conditions. She's scared she's going to get fired because her long hair, she just spent the entire break trying to put it up and she still hasn't and didn't do anything special because she doesn't rly experience doing much special re putting up her hair. We both don't in fact. That was something that has made me really stressed working in food in the past and part of the reason I never want to go back to that among many other things. I think we both struggle with wondering what hairstyles are even possible for ourselves, what actually reduces dysphoria versus worsens it, which is so exhausting and horrifying to think about that we don't. We've never had friends who were able to help us with hair or clothes etc but each other only recently. She's left by now but only succeeded in stuffing it into a hat. I don't know that many places would hire me but also I don't know many places that wouldn't make me suicidal to even look at. I don't have any "skills", barely any hobbies for that matter. I would if I ever had the space or the time, it's always been one or the other.

[cancerbiophd]

Did you study the things you studied because you wanted to work in a certain field or because you just liked your subject a lot? For me it's the latter (combined with if I don't go to uni then I have to work age 18 with no tertiary education so nope) and when I see posts about motivation talking about "study to get your dream job!" I just... Get very anxious/panic-y? I have no dream job, I just like biology. I'm scared that'll mean I won't find a job when the time comes either. How did you go about this?

Hello anon!

Ah, the age-old debate. My family was just talking about this yesterday, and we’ve decided that being able to do what you love for a living, aka working your “dream job”, is a huge privilege that not everyone is able to attain. Many jobs in society are not necessarily tasks that anyone “dreams” of doing, but they are essential tasks, and the money it brings in can help a person achieve their personal needs and goals. 

So, instead of looking at your life through the lens of pursuing a “dream job”, I would suggest finding a career path that fulfills these three things:

It’s something that needs to be done

It’s something you don’t mind doing

And it can offer the lifestyle you seek

I’m far more privileged than most that my current career as a cancer biologist is not just something that I don’t mind doing, but something I actually really like. But I don’t love it; cancer biology is not my hobby, and it’s not something I do for fun. It’s my career because it a) needs to be done, b) is something I don’t mind doing for the rest of my employed life bc I have a genuine interest (to the point where I got a PhD in it, so that speaks for itself) and c) it allows me to work the # of hours I want to work and brings in the salary that keeps me alive. 

(Because if money was not an issue, my “dream jobs” would be ornithologist (someone who studies birds) or plant nursery care-taker/gardener)

Here’s another example: my husband has a friend who majored in anthropology in college, but now works at an insurance company. It’s not his “dream job” by any means, nor does it have a lot of relationship to his college major, but what it does offer him is the salary and lifestyle to pursue other things he enjoys in life, like his hobbies. 

So sometimes a job is just a job. It’s just there to bring in money and benefits so you can live your best life. 

As for finding what jobs there are for biologists, if you’d like to go down that route, I would recommend exploring job websites in your area to see what postings there are for those who majored in Biology. Here are just some jobs that may be available:

Research and development (R&D): Discovery research, preclinical research, bio/pharmaceutical product development, project management, clinical development, regularly affairs, medical affairs

Services: Recruiting, law, venture capital & banking, management consulting

Operations: Bio IT, quality, operations

Commercial Operations: Business development, corporate communications, product support, sales, marketing

You can research some of these positions and see if any pique your interest. And keep in mind that society and technology are always changing, so new fields/jobs are always popping up (eg. artificial intelligence). When I was in college I had no idea the job I’m doing now existed (nor was the exact industry of precision medicine really a thing yet). And even when I was in grad school, I wasn’t doing things that were specifically catered towards landing this position--it just kind of happened “organically” (ie. the timing worked out, my hodgepodge of experiences and interests fit, my boss was an alumnus from my program so I was already pre-vetted in that sense, etc). If you’d like to read more about other people’s career stories that I’ve collected on tumblr, check out this tag. 

I know this doesn’t offer you a straight-out answer, but I do hope it opened a few more doors for you for planning your future. I’m also always available on chat if you’d like to talk some more :) 

[nad-zeta]

Match up ｡◕‿◕｡

Hello! Hope you are well 💕💕💕 I love your writing and especially how you wrote matchups, they are so detailed and very descriptive. Honestly you’re such an AMAZING WRITER. Had to put that in capitals cause it’s important and you’re amazing. So cause I love reading your matchups I want to request one for myself

I’m 173cm and 63kg ( so 5.67 ft and 118lbs according to google) and 20 years old. I have blonde hair silver highlights and they are about shoulder length. I have straight hair but sometimes I curl them a bit so they become wavy. I don’t wear much makeup, usually an eyeliner, mascara and a red lipstick. I wear glasses cause your girl is blind af. As for my look and style , sometimes I’m classy and sometimes I’m retro. Well that’s enough for my looks.

As for my career I’m currently in university studying for Computer Science and working a part-time job in a company for web development. Very nerdy but what can I say I love this stuff.

Ugh so about my personality , I would say I’m very open-minded, most of the time quiet and reserved. And I think because of that my friends have told me I look like a bitch and I give a ’ don’t mess with me’ vibe. And sometimes they tell me if “I didn’t know you I would probably be scared to talk to you”. This so different from what I am. I always think things through so when I talk to people I’m careful of what to say to them, and I’m almost never rude or disrespectful. Well I say almost cause there are some peope who get in my nerves and make me go off, but it is rare as I’m a very calm person . Those people that get in my nerves are people that are disrespectful to my friends and family, rude people in general and especially those who are rude to workers who work with costumers, people that comment about peoples appearances like their weight and color of their skin or their fashion choices , people who are refuse to listen to facts and science etc. I’m very supportive when it comes to my friends, people I love and appreciate ( it doesn’t matter if don’t hang out with them much) . And if they want to do smth I always give them advices or what to do to get better etc. Also I would say I’m very analytical and very hard to open up. It’s usually very hard for me to share personal information and I don’t even tell my problems and worries to my friends. When I’m with people that I like, I usually smile a lot and I’m very talkative and friendly .I’m also very honest with my opinions and thoughts. If I think you’re wrong I would say so and if you have some toxic traits I would say look you should try to fix it. For example my friend used to be very jealous to her boyfriend and I kept saying to her that you should try to fix it or control your jealousy. Also I’m very curious .Everyone has bad traits and one of mine is that I’m VERY stubborn and I have a hard time taking care of myself. Sometimes I forget to eat or I stay up all night and don’t sleep at all and stuff like that. Also I’m very precise as well as when I talk and when I do tasks .

Now for things that I like : I like swimming ( I stay all day in the sea or lake when when I go by the sea or lake) , I like logical problems cause I love solving them, I like crosswords, I like to play chess, I like to learn about things. I like math and physics ( And I always was the best in my class in those subjects), I like painting but I’m not that good at it. I also like traveling .

Okay that was about it. Sorry if it was long and kinda messy but I tried to give as much info as possible so you can best match me. I saw that you have tons if requests so take it easy . Take care for your self and thanks in advance for doing these matchups. 💕💕💕

Omw you are making me blush😳😳! You are such a sweetheart! 🦋☺❤Thank you for all you kind words, all your comments and likes on my posts! I legit appreciate them so much and i get excited every time i see you in my notifys🦋😳❤🌻, you legit make my day, dear! ❤🥰So thank you so much! 🌻🙌Thanks for the request! I hope i can live up to your expectations and i hope it was worth the long wait! 😂😏🌻I hope you have a wonderful day dear! Sending your lots of hugs and i hope you are keeping safe! ❤

So i match you with…………. Hideyoshi

You now found yourself surrounded by a gaggle of warlords, all looking at you, in the centre of the room. You had saved the great Nobunaga’s life a few hours prior to standing centre stage in front off all the warlords. After saving him from the flames, you got spooked and ran through the forest, where Masamune swiftly picked you up and plopped you down his horse. Mere moments after you arrived in Azuchi, you were summoned to the council room to decide your fate. Nobunaga sat before you wearing his trademark cocky grin, while beside him Hideyoshi scowled down at you like a guard dog.

You were relatively calm throughout the whole ordeal, that was until Nobunaga decided to grab hold of your chin and made some rude joke. Your calm demeanour slipped, and you gave a man a piece of your mind, which unfortunately was interrupted by Hideyoshi. The second you smacked his hand away from your face and started to speak up, you found a sword at your throat. Your sharp eyes turned to Hideyoshi as you continued to give the man a piece of your mind.

Once you were done, silence reined as you and Hideyoshi glared daggers at each other. The silence was finally broken when Nobunaga’s laughter ringed out, “she is the most amusing fireball, calm and reserved one minute, and the next, she is exploding.” He then smiled over at you and told Hideyoshi to leave you be, thereafter, he named you as princess of the Oda forces. And so your life in Azuchi began.

You worked incredibly hard for the castle and its people. In fact, you might have worked a little too hard as you started to feel the strain of the emotional and physical stress caused by the week from hell. You made quick friends with the maid, but all and all kept to yourself. The younger maids were somewhat afraid of you, most likely thanks to your intimidating vibe and face expression. It was this distinct quality of your that could even send shivers down Hideyoshi’s spine. Speaking of… this man did not trust you! However, because of your incredibly intimidating vibe, he did not employ his standard micromanagement procedure, instead opting to watch you from afar, while gathering intel on you from your fellow maids. Although, that all changed on one cold winters day.

You had been working so hard and taking up so many different side hobbies that you unknowingly neglected your health. You hadn’t slept for a few nights now, being too absorbed in your tasks, and as a result, your body gave out. You were in the library, helping the resident angel sort out the various books when you collapsed. Mitsunari was by your side in a split second signalling his vassal to fetch Ieyasu. Fortunately, Hideyoshi was low key spying on you, not trusting the new friendship that had blossomed between you and his dear vassal, Mitsunari. At first, he thought you were faking and that you were going to assassinate Mitsunari the moment he let his guard down. But that never happened, you laid seemingly lifeless in Mitsunari arms. 

That is when the stubborn man realized just how stupid he had been. How many times has Mitsunari only sung your praise, saying how wonderful and sweet you were, despite the rumour surrounding you.

Hideyoshi picked you up and carried you to your room where he tucked you in. He sat by your side the entire night. Making sure your room stayed warm and being prepared to feed you some food the moment you woke. Ieyasu had told him that you had collapsed as a result of your lack of self preservation skills. Of course he said it in a very much more Ieyasu way, mumbling about how silly you were under his breath, while handing Hideyoshi a care package for you filled with tea and sweets.  

It was the first time that Hideyoshi had truly looked at you, and he felt a pang of guilt spring from his chest. You looked so weak and fragile, you had dark circles under your eyes, and your skin looked so pale. He asked around only to discover that you had not eaten or slept for a few days due to being too absorbed in your work. It was then that he marched up to Nobunaga’s room, plan in mind.

You woke up the next morning in an unknown room, with Hideyoshi slumped over next to you, happily snoring away. Hazel eyes shot open when he heard you shuffling, and a rueful smile came to rest on the man’s face, “just where do you think you are going, young lady.” Halfway snuck out of the the door, you turned around slowly to see something you hadn’t seen since you arrived, Hideyoshi wearing a bright smile. His voice might have been stern, but his eyes were laced with worry and concern. After a long hour of being lectured about the importance of caring for yourself properly, Hideyoshi broke the news to you. That you would be staying at his manor from that point on wards, so he could care for you personally.

He left no room for arguments as before you knew it, this man was dragging you by the hand to a nearby tea-house. He ordered a feast for the two of you to share. You were still rather cautious around him, as you curiously eyed the food before you, “If you don’t dig in, I am going to have to hand-feed you like I do with Mitsunari.” He sent you a rather playfully charming smile, as he pushed a plate stacked to the high heavens with sweet buns towards you. You were quiet and reserved at first, but thanks to Hideyoshi bright, bubbly personality, he had you opening up in no time. 

He wished he could go back in time and smack himself for thinking you to be an intimidating bitch, cause that is most certainly not the person who is now before him. The two of you spent the rest of the day together as Hideyoshi insisted on making up for his mistrust for you, by buying you everything in the markets.

Since moving into his manor, Hideyoshi would spend every free moment he could get, getting to know you. He loved how bubbly and friendly you were. The two of you could legit laugh and chat for hours on end. Somewhere in your various conversations with the man, it came up that you loved the beach or rather swimming. This man was beaming in excitement at the fact that you were a fellow travelling lover. Since this discovery, you best be sure Hidemama took you on lakeside picnics and beach explorations all the time. He loved the way you would curiously look around and the excited smile you would wear. Whenever he was out scouting and found a beautiful body of water, he would be sure to take note of it and bring you back to it, on a surprise date. You never did get to swim on these dates due to Hideyoshi’s mama bear instincts and the lack of swimwear. However, that all changed one day

You and Hideyoshi had hiked to a surprise location, to have one of your classic picnic dates. Before you knew it, you stood before a small waterfall that trickled into a large crystal clear lake. Your eyes gleamed in delight, and you could help yourself. You removed the first few layers of your kimono leaving Hideyoshi to stare after you. This man was flabbergasted and went red as a beet, as you peeled away layer for layer of your clothing. You wasted no time in jumping into the clear water, happily swimming sound. What was even more shocking was the fact that you even managed to convince the overprotective mama to climb in and swim with you. The two of you swam and splashed about for hours.

Hideyoshi had long ago fallen in love with your bright sunny personality. And amid your splashing fight, he couldn’t help but pull you closer by the waist until the two of you were nose to nose. He looked down at you questioningly as he moved a stray lock of hair out of your face, to tuck it behind your ear. You gave him a small smile and inched up until your lips met in a sweet kiss.

Hideyoshi absolutely adored everything about you from your open-mindedness, to the way you would always think before you spoke. He loved that you were purposeful in everything you did. He also loved your honesty and willingness to help or give advice when needed. It’s no secret that the mother hen is a bit over the top when it comes to Nobunaga and his loyalty. You recognized this toxic trait relatively early on in your relationship, and from what the town’s woman has been saying, it was something that had causes him never to settle down and commit. 

The two of you had a rather open honest relationship, and Hideyoshi respected the fact that you brought this issue up. In fact, you were the one to help him with this slight toxic trait of his. And just as you have helped Yoshi with his negative qualities, he has helped you with yours. This boy knows how stubborn you can be and your reluctance in sharing personal information and your worries with your loved ones. Thus the two of you work on these issues together. Hidemama is always by your side to lend you support of any kind. And thanks to your open communication soon you are able to share your personal details with the man and confide in him whenever you are feeling sad or upset.

The two of you are an incredibly doting couple. Hideyoshi LOVES to spoil you any chance he can get. This man forever showers you in love and affection. You see, He has developed a system to help remind you to look after yourself. He makes sure to eat every meal with you, cause he loves your company and needs to make sure you are getting that good nutrition. He will always be the one to sneak up behind you and envelope you in a warm hug to drag you away from your tasks, to come to bed. Where he will trap you in his arms and shower you with love from dusk to dawn. Bonus points, he loves to take warm bubble baths with you, it is low key his favourite thing in the world to do. 

All in all, the two of you sweethearts are usually found nestle in each other’s arms. Hideyoshi loves to hold you in his arms while he works. Sometimes, he might even just pretend to work and spend the entire time watching you decipher your crosswords, all while wearing a fond smile. He will definitely drop sweet little kisses on your cheeks, forehead or nose during these quiet time. In fact he loves to drop little kisses on your face whenever he bumps into you in the hallways. He especially love to see the slight blush creep onto your cheeks whenever he surprises you with a lingering kiss. More so when the fellow warlords catch the sweet moment between the two of you. 

He loves to spend quiet evening with you, simply playing chess and chatting about anything and everything. Just as much as he reminds you to take a break from work he is thankful for you, for doing the same. He cant help but wear his bright smile whenever you plonk yourself down in his lap and distract him from work, while enveloping him in a warm hug and showering his face in tiny kisses. Loves it when you play with his hair while he rests his head on your shoulder returning your hug. He doesn't know what he has done right in his life to deserve someone as loving and tender as you

 He thanks his lucky stars every single day for having the privilege of meeting someone as kind and wonderful as you.

Other potential matches………….. Sasuke

I hope you enjoyed this dear and i hope you have the best day! Sending ya lots o hugs!🌻😱☺🥰🙈

[abloomntime]

A Bloom In Time Ch 31

( Hey Guys. Sorry this chapter took so long. It's still my personal headcannon that the Twilight Bell takes you to the Horizon. The song Hattie is the unused song about the Moonjumper.)

How could she have not see all the thing's lining up with what he had said done, and what other's had said about him?! How could Poppy been so blind out what was staring at her before her very eyes?! Sleep didn't come to her that night, and she found herself staring at the dark ceiling. The final pieces of the puzzle fitting together as she remembered all the scenarios that gave away Snatcher's identity.

When she first glimpsed him at the manor. The brown hair was...P-Philip's. It was like everyone's voices and actions were being replayed back through her head with every moment of foreshadowing, hints, and puzzle pieces finally being put back together-

"Hey! I know who can help! Snatcher can!! He's really, REALLY old too and he should what to do!! Come on! He had to deal with being frozen and Vanessa just like you!" Hattie had given her the first major clue to it all. He had to deal with being froze to death AND Vanessa because he was the one who took the brunt of Vanessa's rage. "Hey! I know what can help a little bit. Y-You like flowers right?" He had a flash of panic fly over his face for a moment before he coughed and shrugged. "You said you had a flower stand before Vanessa sent her goons to take you right? O-Obviously you must've liked growing things then. Or at least flowers." That....THAT PECKING PECKNECK KNEW ALL ALONG SHE LOVED FLOWERS!! HE PECKING KNEW!! "We're all that's left and you should accept that's how it is now before you get hurt. Believe me the sooner you do the sooner everything starts to get better for you." "Hey. I can understand that. Believe it or not you're not the only one who's gone through that kind of thing....I'm certainly no stranger to feeling like that. In fact it took me forever literally just to realize my place after I got lost," "Ok. To make it in mushier terms..I DO want to help you ok. Believe it or not I do and I have my reasons. But you gotta know I can't change the past no matter what. Trust me I have TRIED and look where that got me. Stuck fused with a mushy corpse and having to lead a whole bunch of strangers through the forest like a tour guide." he glanced at her confusion again. "Uh..B-But that's not important. The important thing is that I can't change or fix anything that's already happened alright? I can't send you back. I can't give you anything from your old life......And I can't change what happened to you." Her face dropped and eyes widened even more- "But, I can help make the future easier and help you with whatever you need to settle down with alright? But you got to understand that it's NOT just going to be with a snap of my fingers. I know, I've experienced it for hundreds of years. Just know that...You're not going to be alone in any of this alright?" "No. You were right the first time. She was always a monster, it just took her a while to show everyone what was really inside. So don't give her any credit. She was never a queen, just a spider wearing a pretty mask." "I-I...I know exactly how you feel." He scowled. "Yeah. I know EXACTLY how that feels. Vanessa took everything from me too when she froze everything!" He growled and his grip on her became a bit tighter if he was being a lil protective. "I pecking didn't see it coming until it froze me right before my very eyes! I died before my life even took off the ground and now I'm stuck like this....But you aren't." He ...attempted a smile. "Listen, Poppy. I'm not good at this speaking from the heart stuff, but Im pretty good at speaking from experience stuff. So trust me when I saw you still got your whole life plus more ahead of you. It's....probably going to take a while for you to process this properly and start to move on like I did."  "Look. I ....can't change the past no matter how badly I want to. But I can change the future, and so can you. Think of all the things you can do now without anyone to hold you back!" He might've been speaking from what he perceived as a positive but she gave him a funny look. "Uh...By that I mean vanessa of course. She's not holding you prisoner anymore." "I stumbled across him a few times coming up here to visit. Hmph! He's very rude and always steals any dish I make with bacon when he's around me cooking. Quite the oddball out if ya'll ask me." P-Philip ....LOVED bacon. And Vanessa banned bacon from their kingdom around the time she died. "Of course I can! I made the kids all those clothes and my minions their highly durable bodies." ""YOU painted all of these?" she asked gawking at him His smile widened more smug if that was possible. "Yep. And those." He pointed to the left wall wear there was five giant paintings behind the space cow mobile. He then pointed behind her. "And the ones right behind you." Now that Poppy thought about it hard, she faintly recalled Philip learning embroidery from his mother and taking a liking to hobbies like painting and reading books. Both of which he did and you can CERTAINLY learn to sew along with embroidery.  "How do you know that?," she asked genuinely confused. "UH....I- Um-....I-I-I was there when he was killed." He still eyed her for a moment before looking to the floor unable to look her in the eyes anymore. ".......Vanessa killed him. Just like she did to everyone else....a-a-and y-y-you...." "Just like you. She locked him away until everything froze over. Vane-.....That MONSTER!'', he spat hand slightly tightening as he scowled at the floor, "She was pecking crazy. Thought he was....cheating on her behind her back when he was nothing but patient with her. She didn't deserve anything." "Because she was nuts! Always have been and always WILL be! She would've snapped sooner or later with the way she was back then, always so paranoid and thinking I-.....I THINK he belonged to her." His other hand was quick to shoot out and grab her shoulders accidentally making her jolt at the sudden grab but it was enough to get her to look at him. "Now you listen to me and you listen good." A claw poked her chest as he pointed it at her crying face with a deep frown of his own. "I have dealt with too many years of pecking guilt over whether or not it was my fault or if I could've stopped it! And I'm sick of it all! You. Are. Not. At fault!! Do you hear me?! Vanessa was always going to snap and it was HER fault for being so batpecking crazy, she couldn't tell the difference between fantasy and reality! There was no reason in her! We should've expected nothing less of her for anything! But I'll be just as bad if I didn't it now, and I'm saying it's not your fault. Least of all people you. All you did was sell flowers. Big deal. It would've been the same if she saw m-....him buying a necklace from a jeweler or a ham from the butcher. BANG!!" She flinched at the loud yell he made at 'BANG'. Tears running down her face as he spoke. "Ice. Death. Lots of ghosts. You get the picture. The point is, it's ABSOLUTELY! NOBODY'S PECKING FAULT!! BUT VANESSA'S!! .......You and me didn't do anything wrong."  "So-...I take it this..'prince' friend of yours was a nice person? Not that I knew him, but it seems you two were close. Not that it's any of my business." He had an anxious feeling saying all of this as a stranger but he couldn't help but feel the need to get all this anxiety off himself by asking. "It just sounds like you cared about him a whole lot."  "Yeah.....Hey. This might sound out of no where but do you blame him, your friend, for what happened between him and Vanessa?" "How did you die?," she found herself blurting out before she could stop but she instantly regretted it. "WHAT?!" Snatcher whipped his face to her wide eyed. "S-Sorry." She held up her hands worriedly. "Is it rude to ask a dead person that? I d-didn't know honest. It's just that.....You're doin' an aweful lot for me and I don't know a lot about ya, since you already know alot 'bout me from my rambling. I figured ya would return the favor." "Sorry. NO can do, Red. That's private information." She scowled again. "OH come on! Purple onion. Your contract paper thingy said I could ask for anything I wanted in return for helping ya!" "Within REASON!," Snatcher stressed, "Asking a ghost about their past is like asking a poor person how much money they spent on their shoes!" "Same as you. I died during the Great Subcon Freeze." "Oh. Well you said you saw what happened when Philip....p-p-passed away, right? Does that mean you were employed by the Queen?'' "Sorta. I just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time." Which wasn't really a lie. He couldn't have ever been in a more wrong place or time. "Another innocent bystander to a crazy curse." "Oh right. Dumb question. Then who wer-" "Next question!," "Ok! Well ya technically did, but I mean what made ya decide to help me? I just don't get it.". "Because I recognized you from the village." "I-...Sometimes saw you selling flowers in the square, and-.....I guess I was simpathetic to someone else in a similar situation as I was."

That.....Night....The night she had her nightmare. THERE WAS SO MANY HINTS HITTING HER IN THE FACE AND SHE WAS STILL BLIND TO THEM ALL!!

"So....does that mean Philip is a g-ghost too?"  "A ghost? Well that's not exactly easy to answer. Any ghost I know if they even became ghosts would be in the forest .....or another plain of existance. A-And like I said BARELY any of my minions remember who they were before they died."  

He LIED!!....No. Not exactly lied. He did tell the truth but...BENT IT!! Without actually answering anything!! Or telling Poppy anything!! WHY?! What reason would he have to keep his identity hidden from her?! They were friends....Weren't they? ALL OF IT!! Everything he or anyone else had said lined up perfectly with what Moonjumper-....Or second Philip had told her.

"And you know I could always scare you out of any debt you got yourself into with those pecknecks down there." He offered genuinely. "I may not look like it, but I'm very good at legal technicalities. I did want to be a lawyer at once upon a time!" Philip studied laws to better his future kingdom one day. He always said he wanted to be a good king. And mentioned if he wasn't destined to be prince he would've liked to become a lawyer. And there was a bush cat in his home...Philip mentioned having a pet bush cat. A gift from his father. Moonjumper's echoing voice still rang around in her head with everything he said.  "HA! That's rich coming from him! That halfling is lying right to your face!" "Why? Didn't dear Snatcher tell you?" He chuckled and gave a smile similar to Snatcher's smug one. "We're two halves of the same person.~ Split at death and now wondering through death two halves of the same person.~" "Oh! He didn't tell you did he?" He smiled and gestured to himself with a smile. "Well allow me to elaborate for you, my dear.~ Snatcher and I are both Prince Philip Snider Of the Kingdom of Subconette.~ When we died in the frozen celler we split personalities resulting in us becoming two very different ghosts. How I have no idea, but it's quite the sight isn't it?~"

"Are you sure about that?"

No. No she wasn't. She wasn't sure of anything any more than she ever fully did in her entire life. It-....IT DIDNT FEEL REAL!! IT FELT LIKE A BAD DREAM!! ALL OF IT!! THE THREE MONTHS SHE SPENT HERE AND EVERYTHING THAT"S HAPPENED ALL FELT LIKE ONE BAD ROLLAR COASTER RIDE OF A DREAM!! AND ANY MINUTE NOW SHE WAS GONNA WAKE UP IN HER BED, GET UP AS SHE USUALLY DOES, SHAKE OFF THE WEIRD DREAM, AND GO BACK TO WORKING HER STANDS AND SEE PHILIP AGAIN!! HER DEAR FRIEND!!......But it sadly wasn't a dream no matter how much it felt like it. As she stared at the ceiling from her makeshift bed, she was VERY aware of the ghost that happily still read the book about black holes like a dedicated reader. .....Was this really Philip? There was plenty of proof, but how could she know for sure? What was real and what wasn't? It's safe to say sleep didn't come easy to her that night but she guessed at some point she did give in to sleep because when she woke up Poppy was still tired and 'Snatcher was gone. Guess he left sometime after she fell asleep. It was weird after that. It was like Poppy was on numb autopilot for days after that. She still took care of herself and the girls. Still cooked for them, cleaned if needed, made sure herself and the kids were clean, played when they asked her to spend time with them except now they referred to Poppy as Mum. Which she didn't have the heart, focus, or energy at the moment to bother correcting. Her mind kept revolving back around to Mr. Moonjumper (philip 2.0) said and still couldn't figure out why. Why did he say that? Was it even true? Was Snatcher even who he said he was? She barely got any of the script read during that time of course. During that time she busied herself with learning how the new tech worked, mostly the washer, dryer, and the oven. Took a bunch of practice but she got.....decent at working them at least. But she found herself  getting through half of the script  at least when she got the second call from Mr. Grooves. She was just in the kitchen cooking eggs in a frying pan for her and the two girls waiting when Bow came bounding in and tugging on her dress with that giant innocent smile of hers.

"Mom. There's a call for you from Mr. Grooves."

"Hm what?....OH! R-Right. I'll be right there."

It took a quick turn off on the oven and walk(crawl) to the machine room to actually take the call as she held it up to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Darling," came the voice of the penguin as happy and calm as she first rememebered. "You're probably wondering why I'm calling you this early morning?"

"Uh...Yeah actually. Is something wrong?"

"Not at all!" She could feel the smile the penguin had on him at that moment. "We actually have fantastic news! All the sets have been set up and secured not to fall over anymore. We're all ready to start the first rehearsals first thing next week!"

".....F-F-First rehearsals?! So SOON!?," she asked feeling a wave of dread coming over her. She hadn't even finished the script!!

"Yes! That's not a problem is it?"

"U-Uh...N-NO! NO!! Not at all! Hehe." She smiled nervously despite being on the other side of the phone where he couldn't see. "N-N-Next week will be just fine! I c-can't wait to rehearse."

"That's great, Darling! Come to the studious first thing Wednesday morning sharp. We'll start the first run through first thing in the morning when you arrive, Darling. Get up bright and early bird. And don't forget that script now. DJ Grooves out."

"Bye..." Poppy said after hanging up before blankly looking back towards the door. Great. She needed to focus on that script and get it read quickly before next Wednesday!! She didn't even notice the burning smell before Hattie rushed in clutching her hat so it wouldn't fall off.

"POPPY!! THE EGGS ARE BURNING!!"

"OH PECK!!"

It was almost like a blink of an eye when Wendesday finally came for them. Poppy had spent so many hours worriedly reading and rereading the thing over and over trying to focus her energy into it instead of worrying about the Philip/Moonjumper/Snatcher situation and just read. She NEEDED to focus on something else besides thinking of that right now, and when the day finally came she got up to the sight of the girls shaking her awake for it, quickly hurrying herself to get her presentable and grab her trusty leather apron, stuffing her script into the breast pocket and an apple into her mouth for a swift breakfast. Nothing on her mind except how nervous she was and how SO NOT READY she probably was for this. Without Cookie to really escort them to the Moon City, the girls would have to teleport her using the two umbrellas and the magic telescope. She really, really wasn't thrilled at the idea of them carrying her through space, but seeing no other option she reluctantly agreed and after the two got their umbrellas, lead her to the machine room where the telescope apparently pointing towards the bird's studios. Needless to say Poppy held her breath and kept her eyes shut the entire way when Hattie confirmed they would about to take off into space. All she could feel after grabbing the little girls' hands was them death gripping her hard with almost inhuman life strength it almost hurt and the sudden lurch forward with the whoosh sound of two umbrellas opening and finally her body being lifted and pulled through the air like a kite. She didn't look the entire way there, just kept her eyes clamped shut the entire way. She would've loved to look upon the beautiful planet or the diamond stars as she passed but she was afraid she might relive the plummet into the swamp and didn't want to relive THAT near death experience again. So for now she would just hang on for the ride, it almost felt like forever just floating in air drifting like a peaceful kite, before suddenly she was whiplashed back and she gasped as she was suddenly suspended by nothing but her arms in the sky. Poppy's blue eyes snapped open and she suddenly blinked at the sight she was taking part in...and frankly almost lost her pecking mind. She thought hanging from that noose once was bad, try hanging about a hundred feet in the air above a desert town and only being held up by two little children holding her hands with an iron grip her hands were almost numb. Her blue eyes shrinking to pinpricks as her stomach flipped seeing the sight of her suspended.

"It's ok!, " Hattie tried to reassure her as they slowly floated down, "We got you!"

To keep herself from feeling anymore sick, Poppy closed her eyes and didn't open them until her feet connected with solid ground and she lightly gasped, for what felt like forever. Popping her eyes open and seeing the old desert town and almost falling to her knees on wobbling legs. Beside her both girls touched down and closed the umbrellas. Giving Poppy a concerned look.

"Are you ok?"

....After a few seconds of breathing and grounding herself, Poppy nodded and leaned back up with an inhale. "Yeah. N-Now...L-Let's get ta that studio, right?"

It was almost the same exact time when Poppy had come in to get measured for her costume, except this time without Snatcher present to tail her, which she was thankful for right now. She did NOT want to be thinking about him right now, but anyways- It was like the last time they came in, with Mr. Grooves pacing in front of the lobby looking worried and anxious but as soon as he saw them he was immediately smiling and racing over to them.

"DARLING!! There you are!!," the moon penguin boomed out happily stopping in front of them, "And not a minute too soon!" And like last time, he grabbed her hand and pulled her behind him towards the big doors leading to the penguins' side of the studios. "We have a rehearsal to perform and practice to be had!!"

Like the last time she entered, everything looked the same except it was now less busy and most of the penguins here were calmly carrying something around or checking the clipboards they were holding for something. Still pretty busy but was way better than last time in here opinion. At least she didn't have to worry about ducking under anything this time around. And like last time the two girls followed only, Mr. Grooves quickly lead them past the changing rooms, and down a different hallway further down the way from the last one. Poppy blinked and watched where they were going, this hallway was much better lit than the giant room outside and multiple props and what looked like painted scenes were printed all over the place leaning against the walls and ready to use at any given moment. Up a head a metal door was waiting for them that read: Back Stage Supervised Personal and Staff Only. They headed straight for that and the Moon penguin opened it with enough force to almost make it hit the other side of the wall. Poppy blinked as she was pulled onto a stage....A REAL wooden floored stage with curtains, and props behind said curtain, and other people waiting there but looked up when the two came in followed by the two girls. They were all there.

"So sorry for the hold up, Darlings," He apologised finally releasing Poppy and smiling at them all, "Thank you all for coming on such short notice to our first rehearsal folks. Now I know the Bird Movie Awards is still so many months away, but we need to practice, practice, practice before we actually start filming the play and editing the footage. Raw talent is the real pop behind the success!" he clapped his flippers together. "Now does everyone have their scripts in hand?" Everyone responded by saying some version of 'yes' and holding up their papers before Grooves nodded in approval and looked up to Poppy. "What about you, Darling?"

Poppy blinked. "UH! Oh r-right." She quickly reached into her front pocket and pulled out the slightly crinkled stack of papers. "H-Here!"

He nodded again, and turned back to the crew. "Alright, Darlings! You all have ten minutes to reveiw your places for the first five scenes before we start! Don't forget just because this is practice that doesn't mean to put the best into your acting! Pretend you're there! Feel the thousands of adoring watching as you all take the stage and dance away!"

"Hello, Miss." Poppy jumped at the sudden voice next to her and looked down to the mysterious owner of the voice it belonged too. Relaxing when she saw the smiling face of Timmy smiling up at her. "Sorry for giving you a fright, but I just wanted to say hello yeah?"

She sighed and smiled. "N-No. It's ok, sugar." She looked up and around a little bit. "Is Hazelle here with you?"

He nodded. "Yeah. She's just talking to one of the production managers about the spotlight keeping on shining in her eyes. ...But I do have something important to say-"

"Darlings!" They all turned and Saw Grooves looking in their direction. "Sorry my little stars. But no children are allowed on set during rehearsals." Both girls 'awed' in disappointment, excitement to see their story come to life fading but he still smiled. "But you little ones are more than welcome to have a front row seat in the audience while we practice." Both smiled again with happy little gasps making the penguin smile more and turn, motioning for them to follow him. "Come along, Darlings. It's this way."

Bow and Hattie of course obliged and happily bounded off after the director but Timmy lingered.  Looking back up to Poppy. "Don't tell anyone this, not even Hazelle. But Moonjumper said to be prepared for me to come fetch you three days from now when it's your day off from work here."

Poppy snapped to him and blinked. "What do you-"

"Little boy! Off the set now. Come along!"

"Sorry. Can't talk now. Just be ready."

She didn't have the chance to say anything back to him before he turned and ran off the other direction, leaving her standing there mouth open and staring blankly at the direction Timmy ran off in. ...At least until there was a yell of someone from the other side of the stage.

"Five minutes people!! Actors for scene one get ready to come up for the opening scene rehearsal! Again five minutes people! Chop chop!!"

Poppy jumped, and with the papers in hand made her way towards the front. The first rehearsal didn't go that badly. In fact it could've been worse. When Mr. Grooves said he really wanted to go by the book he meant it, in fact barely anyone had barely any speaking roles outside the narrator for the play (who happened to be another moon penguin with a deep voice) and all she had to do was do the motions she read in the script and.....messed up a bunch. Stepping on the actor playing Starella's father's foot, tripping over the curtain exiting stage, and once accidentally making Hazelle fall when she nudged her without looking. Thank goodness Hazelle and the male actor was so understanding. It made her nerves rise higher the more they practiced especially with Mr. Grooves watching from a director's chair in the audience and his voice shouting at her or someone else every time something happened.

"CUT!! Darling! Let your body relax, you're movements are becoming too stiff. Once more from the top!!" "Cut! Clean up on center stage!" "Darling, be careful where you step! Don't step on anyone's toes." "Lights, camera, action!!" "Take Seven on opening scene in three!...Two!.. ONE!! Narrator, Darlin'!"

And a whole bunch of other things she kept getting nervous about, by the time they were done she just felt so drained mentally and physically from it all all she wanted to do was go back home and fall asleep when Mr. Grooves gave her the ok to leave. Which WAS exactly what they did, Poppy paid no mind to anyone else and only barely registered Mr. Grooves telling everyone they'll pick up again from where they left off tomorrow morning and for everyone to get some rest and practice. Sounded good to her. So when the two again grabbed her in their iron grip when she essentially shooed them out the door, she closed her eyes basically doing and feeling the same thing as before when she went down only falling on her stomach as soon as they reentered the ship floating in outer space and got herself some rest. Thinking about what Timmy had said kept rebounding in her mind and with all the stuff clouding it up she was almost like a robot with her actions in the next three says. Get up, dress, hygiene routine, take care of the girls, go to the rehearsals (which was Ok at best. she or others still messed up every often and had to restart a lot which was hard for her clouded mind and nervous feelings), and routine afternoon/bedtime routine before falling into an uneasy sleep. Rinse and repeat for the next three days. Thursday. Friday. Saturday. She had tried every so often to talk with Hazelle or Timmy about it, but Hazelle seemed genuinely busy with her role as the evil step sister reading that script, and Timmy just avoided any thing she asked if she could before running off to the audience seats to avoid her. And during ALL of this Snatcher had not appeared once which she was...still kinda grateful for. She wasn't sure what she was going to do or act around him now since what Moonjumper said was still echoing every moment of the day throughout her mind. In fact Moonjumper hadn't shown up either which what was bothering her a bit since she wanted to ask so many questions. But it all finally came to a head early Sunday morning when she was awakened by someone shoving her shoulder and calling her name. Confused, the red head groaned and pushed her head up from the pillows on the floor where she slept, pushing the long red hair out of her bangs groggily blinking.

"Poppy? Poppy! Get up! Timmy's here!", Hattie shouted shoving her again and she almost fell over back onto her stomach.

"W-What?," she asked sleep stilling hanging onto her. The red head yawned and blinked at the little girl in the dark. "Hattie? Sugarcube, what are ya'll doin' this late at night?"

"It's morning actually, but that's not important!," she insisted pushing upwards against the older woman's shoulder to try and get her to get up, "Get up! Timmy says he has to take you somewhere important!!"

She slowly rose with the child's pushing. "W-Who-...Timmy?"

"Don't tell anyone this, not even Hazelle. But Moonjumper said to be prepared for me to come fetch you three days from now when it's your day off from work here."

At the sudden voice in her memory spoke out, Poppy jumped up suddenly wide awake letting Hattie fall onto her stomach on top of the make shift bed of pillows. Timmy was-......Timmy was here! For her! So that meant he was-....Hattie shook her head and reached to push her giant top hat up off her face when she heard quick footsteps walking away from her, blinking she looked over and found Poppy briskly walking away from her towards the rising and falling platform leading from the attic and to the control room. She blinked and quickly jumped up and ran after her to catch up. Poppy was quick to reach the platform as it rose back up and stepped on it, Hattie right behind her quickly jumping on it too just a second before they began to lower into the much more brightly lit room. They could see everything from their spot on the platform, including the purple eyed boy who was sitting patiently at the control room's chair facing the control panel chatting with Bow about something but both looked up noticing the two coming down the platform and smiled.

"Well, well. Good morning, Miss Poppy,'' Timmy greeted from down below waving, "Sorry for the early visit but Moonjumper thought it was best I brought you as soon as I could to avoid suspicion from Snatcher, eh."

When the platform touched down, Poppy quickly got off it and began walking down the ramp towards him with Hattie behind her and Timmy stood up to meet her as she waltzed on over and stopped in front of him.

"Ya'll are...here to take me to Moonjumper?," he asked for clarification a lil bit of excitement coming over her at the prospect for answers.

Timmy nodded. "Yep. Thought you'd want to finally get some answers eh?"

She nodded. "YES! Pecking yes!"

"Oh good." He walked past her going towards the door leading towards the storage room. "Then we all better make our way over to Alpine Town then."

Poppy blinked and slowly followed after him with Hattie and Bow bounding up to walk next to him. "You're planning on using the Twilight Bell to get there?," she asked and he nodded.

"Yeah. I can't get there myself without Hazelle's magic and all of us have supernatural ties upon our souls. It should easily do the trick."

"What's this Twilight Bell?, " Poppy asked following following them still confused.

The door to the storage room opened with a whoosh sound and all three children walked on in throuh the hallway with Poppy going to crawl right after them.

"The Twilight Bell is this HUGE bell that's a part of the Alpine Goat City and can only be used by spirits or someone with really powerful connections to magic or spirits," Timmy explained, "Since all of you are bound to the purple noodle through contracts and I'm tied up with MJ, it should work for the whole lot of us."

"...You mean the bell teleports ya'll?"

"Sorta? It takes us to the Horizon. It's wear trapped spirits go and where I live. I think you'll like it. Not a lot going on but it's pretty peaceful and pretty majestic in it's own way."

The four of them walked(Poppy Crawled) into the storage room and instead of stopping they went over towards the ladder Poppy recognized from when they were cleaning as the ladder that lead to the boiler room. Hattie also mentioned that they stored her ships water supply in there. Without hesitation Timmy walked right up to it and grabbed the ladder, starting to climb up it in a swift manner similar to the two girls who went right after him. Poppy watched them disappear through the small kid sized doorway in the top wall there before she slowly began to follow after them. Half way up the ladder she heard what sounded like a loud thud and she rose a brow at that. At the very top, she crawled her way through the small opening and stopped upon seeing probably literally the only part of the spaceship she hadn't seen before. The area was certainly warmer than the storage room, and true to Hattie description. It WAS filled with lots and lots of water except for a small platform way on the other side lower than where she currently was and a GIANT boiler making a whirring sound as it worked with FLAMES peeking out from the open vents!! Timmy and Bow SOMEHOW got across the water and were waiting by the telescope which was pointing outta the windows also by the platform and Hattie pulled her trusty umbrella out of no where. Before Poppy could react something with the force of a hundred men grabbed her and she yelped when she suddenly found herself being held in the arms of the child awkwardly as Hattie aimed her umbrella at a metal beam above the water. The hook from the tip of the umbrella latching onto it with a metal clang. Poppy didn't have time to say a single word before Hattie jumped and swung them across the ship's water supply. The yelp that the startled woman gave almost caused the child to go unbalanced as she released them from the beam and towards the platform, Poppy instinctively latching onto her hat. Timmy and Bow watched as the two crashlanded on the small platform next to them. Poppy hitting her back against the wall and Hattie belly flopping with her hat over her face, Umbrella just barely missing falling into the water by some miracle.

"Dang pecking nabbit! Warn me next time ya decide ta do somethin' like that!," Poppy yelled from her sitting position, heart momentarily pumping from the sudden leap.

"Are you ok there?," Timmy asked pulling Hattie to her feet as she popped the hat off her head and blinking.

"Yeah. But I really don't like crashlandings." Poppy leaned off the wall and rubbed her back looking around the room. "Why did ya'll come in here?"

"To take you to the Alpine Alps." Timmy gestured to the lone telescope still pointed out the window and Poppy rose a brow at it as he walked back over to it. "This'll take us all straight to Alpine and from there to Moonjumper. We'll have to leave right now if none of us wanna get caught by Hazelle."

"More traveling with those umbrellas?"

"My magic's not strong enough to teleport me let alone all of us to Alpine all the way down there. I could barely teleport inside the ship from the moon. Unless you wanna wait for Snatcher or Hazelle to catch onto our plan and you never see Moonjumper, be my guest." Poppy said nothing and he nodded. "Then let's not waste anymore time yeah?"

Poppy stared at him a little longer before sighing and nodding. Well when he put it at that, he had a point. She certainly didn't think Snatcher would be very open to this idea. Not after what the girls had told her about what he thought about Moonjumper. And she certainly wasn't missing a chance for getting answers now, and what was one more umbrella ride since she's been sucking it up and using it to get too and from work for the past half week now. So with a sigh, Poppy pushed her self up to her knees and watched as Timmy grabbed Bow's hand as she held up her umbrella and walked over to the telescope. Taking Hattie's hand as she offered and shuffled over to the telescope after them, slamming her eyes shut  when Hattie's iron like grip grabbed her hand like a pair of cuffs again.  All she could feel after grabbing the little girl's hand was her death gripping her hard with almost inhuman life strength it almost hurt and the sudden lurch forward with the whoosh sound of two umbrellas opening and finally her body being lifted and pulled through the air like a kite. She didn't look the entire way there, just kept her eyes clamped shut the entire way. She would've loved to look upon the beautiful planet or the diamond stars as she passed but she was afraid she might relive the plummet into the swamp and didn't want to relive THAT near death experience again. So for now she would just hang on for the ride, it almost felt like forever just floating in air drifting like a peaceful kite, before suddenly she was whiplashed back and she gasped as she was suddenly suspended by nothing but her arms in the sky. Poppy's blue eyes snapped open and she suddenly blinked at the sight she was taking part in...and frankly almost lost her pecking mind. The first thing to hit them was the spine chilling limb numbing COLD!! It was like they suddenly got dumped in winter as the air blew wildly around them like a cold winter storm minus the snowflakes. The second thing she noticed was that they were IN. THE. MIDDLE. OF. THE. PECKING. SKY!!! In all directions was nothing but blue sky, greyish white clouds, and cold wind. She couldn't even see Bow or Timmy which is what made it worse for her. Did they get knocked out of the sky?! Were they blown away by the wind!? Were they still falling somewhere to their doom?! Her questions were answered soon enough. When she was about to ask Hattie(who was still gripping her with that strange alien strength) where they were, when something finally peeked through the clouds. Whatever it was was BIG and grey but still blocked by the giant clouds surrounding them as they got closer and closer to their destination being blown by the wind. Her red hair whipped around and she could barely see until they suddenly went down. Poppy gasped and a spike of fear went through her as they did thinking they would fall to her second death slamming her eyelids shut, but instead of falling through air Poppy soon found herself being put down on her knees on something she could only describe as cold bricks. Confused, those blue eyes popped open and they went wide at the sight in front of her. The wind was still blowing, making her shiver and sent a shudder down her spine from the brief flashback to the old clutches of the Vanessa incident before she quickly pushed it from her mind and wished she had a coat as her arms instinctively rubbed her arms. What stood before her was something else. What stood before her looked to be a mini mountain like structure jutting out somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the cold sky, the moutains was decorated with old forgotten torn flags with strange symbols unknown to her waving in the cold wind and a few small snowflakes made themselves present drifting into small piles here and there. It also looked like oddly big shaped ledges formed into a naturally formof stairs leading somewhere but her eyes weren't focused on the path right now. She was looking at the strange egg shaped like statues with goat horns surrounding them before stopping and staring at the MASSIVE two statues of Alpine Goats on either side of the path ahead on two seperate cliffs, almost like guardians from long ago. There was also some plants despite it being so cold, mostly small trees and bushes jutting out from random spots in the cliff but there was also some wild vines growing up the cliff sides here and there. A cough directed Poppy's attention to her left where Hattie had landed and was met with the sight of the other two children as well. THANK PECK they didn't get blown away from them.

''Welcome to the entrance to Apline Alps Ms. Poppy," Timmy said one hand on his hat to keep it from being blown away. "I hope the landing wasn't too rough on ya."

...She blinked shaking her head. "W-Wait. WHERE in tarnation are we?"

"Like I said the entrance to Alpine Alps." He then pointed up the pathway, the ride to Alpine Town is down that way a bit. It's best we get going before we can't yeah?"

She gladly agreed. If there was a town nearby then maybe she could find a shop or someplace warm to warm up a bit. Timmy nodded and turned to lead the way, running towards the stone ledges with the girls following and Poppy once the lady got up onto her feet. Well, she made it this far, might as well see it to it's end. And think. The answers her mind's been beating her over to get was so close to getting obtained. It was kinda tricky climbing up after the youngsters who jumped and ran up and over the ledges with ease, but it wasn't too hard thanks to her muscles from so much work in her youth, she was easily able to jump, grab onto a ledge if needed and pull herself up and over to as if doing pull ups. Guess she can scratch off mountain climbing off her 'Weird Things to Happen To Me After Coming Back To Life' list. When she finally reached the top, Poppy was exhausted and her hands and arms were cold and sore like she had been shoveling pounds of snow with her bare hands, but she stopped when she saw what was before her. Two torches with fire (in the middle of daylight no less) stood on either side of an archway that lead the way to a boarded bridge, said archway was decorated with colorful paper and a rope of holed stone was tied across it. Writing of a language she'd never seen before decorated a sign above it. When Timmy noticed her staring at it, he explained it was the Nomad language and said Welcome to the Alpine Mountain Range. Interesting. The three children ran across the old wooden bridge like it was nothing and Poppy hesitated a wee bit....Come on you scardy cat! You traveled from hundreds of miles from SPACE and the moon tons of times! She could handle walking across a bridge probably miles high off the ground too! Though it didn't ease the butterflies in her stomach, she slowly forced herself to cross trying NOT to think of the thosands of miles below her very feet and instead looking straight ahead. In front of her was some kind of wooden doors and a metal fence leading off to the left, next to the doors was a bell and as soon as the three children got near it Hattie pointed her umbrella, the hook shot out and latched onto said bell and she pulled. The bell rang out a few times and as soon as Poppy got near the thing, the doors automatically opened and they all ran through. Timmy pointing upwards as he did.

"C'mon, Poppy! The way's up there!"

Poppy looked up to where he was pointing and- OH. MY. PECKING GOSH!! A spiraling stone staircase spiraled upwards up another cliff which was bigger than the one she breifly climbed and the ones the two goat statues were on. Oh boy. Well..maybe all this exersize would help her clumsiness in her rehearsals. Sighing she turned her attention towards the start of the stairs and still shivering walked after them. Along the way upwards she noticed there was more of those weird horned, hallowed out, egg shaped statues, a few torches, and LOTS of moss covering the old steps. She tried looking around but saw nothing but more sky and clouds, and as she got to the top she noticed there was even more giant goat statues. When she got to the very top of the stairs however was when things got stranger. At the very top there was four what looked to be graves with SKULLS on top of them, more strange stone statues, a TALL stone piller between the four supposed graves, two GIANT stone cut structures that were purposefully carved to look like horns, and some wooden beams with red flags which waved in the wind which speaking of the wind it seemed to have picked up since they got there. How odd.

"What are those?," Poppy asked pointing a hand at the 'graves'.

"Oh those? Those are memorials to the four founders of Alpine Town, they were devoted to the Twilight Goat who first made their home here. Some say they found out the secrets of high end magic and ascended to the stars when he died," Timmy explained.

So they were kinda graves. She didn't wanna know if those skulls were carved stone or the real thing- A giant clap of thunder rung out as the ground beneath them all shook for a few seconds causing Poppy to fall to the cold stone ground as it did. The giant stone pillar in front of them sinking into the ground a little bit.

"WHAT THE PECK WAS THAT!?" Poppy wailed pushing herself back up and looking around wildly. "An earthquake!?"

Timmy shook his head no. "Nah. Hattie's just summoning one of the alpine skylines."

"The what?!"

She didn't get an answer as it happened again and she was knocked back onto her side again as the thunder clapped and the pillar lowered a little more too. Hattie ran past her over to the third lever sticking out of the ground and with her trusty umbrella started whacking it as it spun around like a screw into the ground and another clap of thunder and another shaking of the cliff knocking her over once the last level was buried into the ground. And Poppy was finally able to push herself up without having the fear of being knocked over. Something slithered forth from the white clouds before them and it took Poppy a moment through her moment of shock seeing the thing to realize it was a rope decorated with more of that colorful paper!! She watched in shock as it wrapped itself TIGHTLY around the stone pillar and stayed there, leading back off to the unknown through the clouds. As soon as it arrived Timmy and Bow stepped up to it, Timmy and Bow locking hands like before they teleported using the telescope, and Bow aimed her Umbrella at the rope. The hook from her umbrella shot out and caught onto it, and as soon as they did they were whiplashed off like someone had just grabbed them and yanked them away disappearing through the clouds. Poppy yelped in shock and ran over to the edge where they disappeared off from, staring at the clouds rolling past. Where the PECK did they just go?! Before she even knew or really processed what just happened at all, something like an iron trap grabbed her hand once again and another hook from Hattie's umbrella shot out and grabbed onto the rope. With a yelp she'll deny later, Poppy and Hattie were also shot forward. It was really similar to the sensations of when she was traveling with the girls to and from space, only this time she could see what was happening to her surroundings as she was once again pulled along by the little alien like a kite in the wind. Red hair whipped in every direction in front of her face and she had a quesy feeling in her stomach from all the pulling she was receiving now. Clouds. All she saw was clouds from her eyes squinting from the wind whipping her face, and the rope that never seemed to have an end as they flew. All she could hear was the whistling winds, claps of thunder from the clouds, and the distant sounds of bells-......Bells?! Wha- Another clap of thunder sounded out as they passed through the biggest cloud of all of them when FINALLY daylight broke through the other side and she could see something besides the clouds. And. Her. Jaw. DROPPED!! More cliffs. LOTS more cliffs. But all of them were MUCH MUCH more bigger than the few they had already climbed, making the ones they passed look like babies in comparison. As they zoomed by, they passed a pair of twin peaks standing side by side with more Alpine Goat Statues THAT WERE GINORMOUS!! Even bigger than the statues they had already seen! These were easily the sizes of a small castle EACH!! As they continued to zoom past those with the cold wind still seeping into her bones, There was yet ANOTHER set of twin peaks with more ginormous goat statues, and with each pair of goats statues there was a massive...rope?? And on said ropes was the BIGGEST golden bells she'd even seen. The giant things rang out from the winds pushing them and shined brightly from the sunlight. Poppy gazed up at them all in awe as they flew past. Well, that explains the distant sound of bells she heard. She was so in awe, it was unlike anything she had ever seen before! It was in a mystical way, beautiful! They were fast approuching the end of the rope's journey and Poppy looked around admiring the veiws. Was....Was that cliff spewing out LAVA!? It looked more like a volcano than a cliff!! And that one had some kind of giant structure on it. She wasn't sure what it was to be honest, but it was still so massive! She didn't see the end of the rope until there was a sudden whiplash and her body was sent forward shooting like a rocket, crashlanding into some green plants with a loud yelp!

"Oh no! Poppy!" Hattie quickly ran over to the red head as she pushed herself out of the roof of the small building she crashed into and coughed, spitting out leaves and shaking her head. "Are you ok?! Im sorry! I must've slipped! "

"Ah'm fine! *cough* I'm sorta used to this crashlanding bizz by now." She shook her head and finally got a chance to look around her. The way they came from was clouded by well clouds and she could barely see the back of the statues n cliffs they passed let alone the cliff they came here from. Looking around her she saw lots and LOTS of man made wooden platforms, houses with the roofs just covered in plants, more of those horned hollowed out egg statues, piles of firewood, bails of hay, and carvings of goats and paintings were plastered all over the available sights of what cliff she could see. Peck. Even the houses had strange carvings in them so details it must've taken someone a hundred years to even finish carving one of them. Odd ledges and stone stairs carved into the cliff sides to the right lead to farther up from the landing platform she crashed into....She blinked. "Where in the hey are we?"

"The town of Alpine Skylines." Poppy snapped over to her left and load and behold Timmy and Bow was just a few feet away from them all. He pointed up the roof she was still sitting on and over towards the path you HAD to climb said roof to get to. "The towns split into five different sections between all these cliffs here, you see. There's the Lava Cake Peaks, Bird House Peaks, Twilight Bell Path, Landing Peak, and Windmill Hills. Right now we're on Landing Peak where everyone who comes here first lands, yeah." poppy blinked and looked up towards the path he pointed at. Landing Peak huh? Well at least it made sense. She blinked again when Timmy suddenly jumped onto the roof next to her and began climbing his way up and towards the path. "There's four skylines leading to them, since we're heading home we need the green one that goes to Twilight Bell Path. Follow me!"

Poppy blinked but moved when both girls started to also climb up the roof and jump onto the path after him, once she set foot on the path and was able to meet up with them, Timmy gestured down the wooden platform path and she followed. The wooden path soon turned to giant stone steps befitting the giant Alpine Goats who lived there. Speaking of the residence they passed one or two goats on their way up, the goats shaking out their furred shelves every so oftten. And some Nomads. The smaller covered up residence of the peaks who lived in the smaller houses of the peaks. Poppy envied their heavy coats as she was still shivering from the cold air from being so far up and rubbing her arms following them. There was still everything she saw from her place back on the landing platform, only now she could get a good look at the other peaks. She could see how they got their names. Bird House Peaks had an actual LARGE bird house(or what she assumed was one since she couldn't guess what else it could've been). Lava Cake Peaks obviously had Lava. Landing Peaks was the center of the peaks leading towards them all. Windmill Hills had the BIGGEST windmill she had ever seen built into it!! As for the Twilight Bell Path- Poppy blinked and gawked at the HUGE silvery-green bell built upon the cliffs that was held up by more goat horn structures. So that was the twilight bell that would lead her to Moonjumper. Gotta say she was starting to find this easier than she originally thought it would be. She continued to follow the kids up, up, up until they finally stopped at this huge fancy carved house. She guessed it must've belonged to one of the goats since it looked too big to be a nomad's. Infront of the house was a giant wooden beam and from it a rope with green fancy paper decorating it lead from it towards the giant bell. Timmy pointed at it and Poppy understood it was the way to go. And so the same thing from before happened. Timmy took Bow's hand and they zoomed away towards the bell, and Poppy did the same again with Hattie. Before they took off though she noticed there was some very beautiful bright blue flowers shining brightly so much, the light made them look white. Poppy only remembered staring at the pretty thing before being yanked away towards the new path. This time the trip was MUCH shorter than the first one this time and she landed more decently on her knees when they reached the stone end, getting off and brushing her self off and looked as Timmy beckoned her down another stone ledge path which lead to more wooden bridged bewteen the peaks that lead to the bell. She could feel the anxiety and excitement grow within her stomach as they neared, but she came all the way here. It was too late to turn back now. Timmy lead them through an archway that he explained read The Twilight Path, so they were on the right track. Though the climbing she had to do against cold stone was NOT fun in the slightest. One Namad they past yelled out that the Twilight Bell was just ahead of them. Which was good since she was starting to feel sore from all this climbing anyways. Along the way she noticed there was stars and strange symbols painted on some of the cliff sides, as well as a few more of those really beautiful bright lit flowers. When she asked Timmy about the flowers he shrugged.

"Those are Twilight Flowers. They grow all along this section of peaks."

"Ah think they're beautiful. Wouldn't mind havin' some back home."

Twilight flowers huh? She'd never heard of those kinds of flowers before, but they were really beautiful to look at. Oh well. As they continued to climb, they FINALLY reached....Another green papered skyline.

"This is the last skyline before we reach the bell,'' Timmy explained before he was whisked off by Bow again.

Oh well that was good at least, her wrist was starting to get sore. So rinse and repeat yet a third time and Poppy was once again strung along, but this time she KNEW she was there. The last trip over felt like an eternity as she just fawned and awed over the large bell structure before her as they got closer and closer. Until finally she was there landing hard on her knees but she didn't care, she was too busy looking at the INSIDE of the thing! THIS BELL WAS HUGE!! PROBABLY BIGGER THAN THE GOLDEN ONES SHE SAW WHEN THEY FIRST CAME IN!! AND THE INSIDE LOOKED LIKE AN ENTIRE GALAXY ON IT'S OWN!! Black void painted the inside of it as beautiful diamonds sparkled brightly like stars. It was absolutely breath takingly pecking beautiful!! She still couldn't take her eyes off of it as she followed the children until they were all standing under it, giving her the best veiw of the inside. Unknownst to her, Timmy nodded to Hattie who nodded back and aimed her hook shot up at the bells lever. It grabbed onto it with a thump and away she went swinging back and forth on it like it was a playground swing. OH PECK!! The loud booming rings it made rang out and jabbed Poppy's ears and head with pain. Causing the woman to clamp her hands over her ears as Hattie continued to ring it and slam her eyes shut. Green flooded around the four, twisting the turning in every direction until they saw nothing and the surroundings COMPLETELY changed. ......Poppy SLOWLY opened her eyes and removed her hands when heard the ringing sto- She gasped and stumbled back onto her behind at the new sight.

"Welcome to The Horizon, Miss," Timmy said gesturing to the new world around them. "Or what I like to call it, home!"

IT WAS DARK!!....But somehow she was still able to see everything. She was surrounded by more strange statues but these instead of looking like regular statues, were a dark green-black that sparkled with somekind of otherworldly magic. Floating buildings of white marble statues with lots of pillars were EVERYWHERE she looked and someone of all things, some were leaking water. Water that went over the edge and down, down, down disappearing without a trace. There wasn't any visible source of sky, sun, moon, or stars. Just black void all around them besides the strange structures......Well when Snatcher mentioned some ghosts living on another plain of existance he wasn't kidding. In a strange way...it was all very beautiful and a sense of eerie calm came from it all.

..............She blinked and slowly pushed herself back to standing in her feet. "W-Where....Where are we?"

"I just told you. The Horizon." Timmy turned and gestured down a path leading off from where they popped up from, Moonjumper is probably waiting for us in the palace."

"The what?" Timmy pointed ahead and there was a big stone building just floating in mid air, it did quite resemble a palace in a topsy turvy way. Poppy blinked but slowly followed after the kids who showed no fear in this other world. As they walked she turned and suddenly gasped and stumbled back a few steps, pointing at something a little way from them. Big. Glowing. And MOVING!! "What the peck is that?!"

Timmy jumped at the sudden shout but looked to where she was and relaxed at the sight of the alpine goat ghost. "Oh that? That's just one of the ghosts that love 'round here."

"G-Ghosts!?"

He shrugged. "Why are you surprised? Snatcher's a ghost, and so is Moonjumper. There's just a few goats and a couple of Snatcher's old minions Moonjumper snatched up here. But they're all pretty harmless." they continued walking as he spoke. " They mostly just float around with they're little bells. There's nothing to worry about."

She hoped he was right about that. Poppy blinked seeing another familiar thing and pointed at it. "Would ya look at that? More flowers!"

"Oh yeah. The Twilight flowers and vines grow in this place too. No idea why, Moonjumper thinks they're magical or something. He likes to study magic sometimes if hazelle let's him borrow her books."

Just like Philip to study. "He....Sounds like a smart fella."

"He should be. People even wrote a song about him in legend."

"You're kiddin!" Philip? Having a legendary song named after him?

Timmy nodded. "Yep! You can ask Hattie to sing it for you. She knows the song pretty well."

Hattie smiled at the prospect of showing her superior knowledge about this place and what she could do. She didn't want to brag but after all she IS an expert in all things ghostly on this planet including the legend of the haunted forest and Moonjumper's tale. She still remembered when she first met the polite spirit when she first entered the Horizon going after one of her time pieces.

"Hello there little girl! Come wide, come far! I am the Moonjumper. Oh, yes. Indeed. I live and breath for this horizon, it's my home. Up here I can see everyone and everything. I am a silent.....observer. Ask me my child. What does my eye gaze upon? A girl in red? A village of the dead? A prize in a shed?.......N-Nevermind."

Hattie smiled again at the memory and like any little girl began dancing around as she sang. "Tale of a place! A deep forest dark with grace! There he lives blooming inside a wild field of big eye! And there he lives! Skin so blue! His eyes shot red! The Moon! The Sky! Tell him only lies! He doesn't know she waits inside!  She lost her mind! Many years gone by!"

Poppy watched and listened at the little girl's funny singing. "What does that mean?"

"No idea!," hattie giggled out.

Timmy shrugged. "No one does. It's a mystery to everyone except maybe Moonjumper."

"Did someone call me?" They all froze at the sudden and distant echo-y voice that came from anywhere and everywhere. It seemed to echo more out into the void until slowly fading away and Poppy frantically swiveled her head around trying to see where it had come from. "Look upwards, my lady." Poppy did snap her head upwards and she let out a small gasp. Up way above floating just a few feet in the air above them was the ghost. He...still looked as sketchy and scary as he did back on the ship all that time ago and she couldn't help but take a few steps back when the ghosts floated down. He was even more weird looking than she remembered. The red markings on his face and those red eyes shining brightly against the dark void as he still lowered, eyes locked onto her as he desceneded and eventually stopped a few feet away. The only sounds from him was the eerie clanking of the chains still on his wrists as he stopped just beside Timmy who still smiled. A head pat was rewarded to the boy from the ghost. "I'm glad you all made it alright. Did you have a nice trip over? I know the journey isn't exactly easy."

Poppy blinked. So many thoughts from before but now her mind went blank at seeing the other spirit again. "Uh...Y-Yeah. I-It was alright."

"Splendid! Now." He clapped his hands together making the floating chains clack more. "Timmy told me you have some questions you wanted answered?"

Her mind came back to her as she blinked. "Uh YEAH! A whole bunch in fact!"

"Well lucky for you Im completely one million percent willing to answer each and everyone you may have." He turned and gestured her to follow him. "Come, come. It's rude if I didn't show you around my home." The children willingly followed when the spook started floating off down the path and after a moment she also started slowly stepping after them. The path contained the same thing they had already seen. Pure white stone marble buildings floating around, water falls disappearing down into nothing, and the occasional spirit who turned and fled the other way seeing Moonjumper. "Don't mind the residence. They do that with Hazelle and Timmy too."

"Right." Poppy rose a brow at the back of the ghost in mostly curiousity and a lil bit of suspicion. "So...Philip-"

"Moonjumper."

"What?"

"I'm afraid I no longer nor do I like going by my dead name. Please. Call me Moonjumper, or Moon if it's easier for you but please do not call Philip Snider." She shuddered. "That name brings back o-one too many bad memories I wish to forget."

"Oh, sorry 'bout that....Moonjumper?"

He waved a hand not looking at her. "That's quite alright. Now...You wanted to talk to me?"

She blinked..and she scowled. "Yeah! That's right! I got a few peckin' questions for ya'll!"

"I don't mind answering a bit, but I WILL insist you do not use that language in front of the children while you're here. I do not tolerate bad behavior."

"Right. So I can ya'll anything?," she asked crossing her arms.

He again waved a hand. "Ask to your heart's content, my dear.~"

"WHY THE HECK DID IT TAKE YA SO LONG TO TALK TA ME!?", her angry voice practically echoed loud throughout the entire void and the kids winced at the loud sound. Moonjumper seem unfased tho.

"Yes. I do apologize for that but I couldn't risk Snatcher finding out my presence otherwise he would've made sure I never had the chance to talk to you at all. You see I can only leave the Horizon when it's night on your world, but Snatcher is much more powerful than I am and would've sent me back quite easily. Wouldn't you agree that this is the safer route?"

Well that did make sense. Snatcher by what she knew and saw of him did have quite the temper on him that's for sure. "Ok. Then what about everything ya told me back on the dang ship!? Was that all real or ya'll jus' playin' with mah head?!"

"Firstly I would NEVER lie about myself. I find that self degrading. Secondly you are probably the last person I would lie to. Why ever would I lie about my oldest and dearest friend? Thirdly yes. Yes everything I told you was true." Moonjumper smirked in triumph and looked over his shoulder at her. "Every single bit of it was the truth."

"Explain it ta me!," She demanded.

His smirk widened. "I'd be glad to.~ Where would you like me to start?"

"The beginnin'!"

"Of course. How much do you know? I can start filling in holes if I know how much you know."

"I know you froze to death in the celler." Moonjumper stopped and as a result so did she and the children who blinked back confused as too why the adults did. Poppy stared at him for a few seconds and when he didn't respond inhaled and exhaled before continuing. "I know Vanessa killed ya both too when she locked ya down there, and I know she froze everythin' too. And it all happened a thousand years ago and you two..three??...Are all ghosts. And I-...I know she thought I was the one ya'll cheated on her with."

"WRONG!" She jumped at the sudden raise in tone and as Moonjumper snapped his head to her. "That is wrong. I had never EVER cheated on her with anyone ever! She may have thought I did but I certainly did NOT!!''

"O-Ok, ok! Ya didn't. She just thought we was a thing."

"Exactly. We never cheated on vanessa. I'll give Snatcher that much at least. He was always just as faithful til the very end."

"........Hey. I think you said ya'll were one in the same back on the ship right? Explain that ta me."

......He just shrugged. "There's not much to explain on that matter since I have no idea how we came to be. All I remember is waking up after we died in that DREADFUL cold prison cell and waking up here on the other side." He shivered and reached up to rub his arms chains clanking. "I will NEVER go back there even if it meant leaving this prison!"

"Still doesn't make much lick of sense ta me."

He looked her over for a moment before sighing and holding up his hands. "Alright. Allow me to tell you a story that will clear EVERYTHING up and help you catch up with recent events. Once upon a time a thousand years ago, there was two Kingdoms." He closed his hands behind his back again as he gave her a neutral look as he slowly started floating to her left. "The Kingdom of Subcon and the Kingdom of Subconette. The rulers of these kingdoms decided their children would get married and unite both these kingdoms in harmony. Their names were PRINCE Snider of Subconette and Princess Vanessa of Subcon. The princess was the most beautiful woman any where and the prince in my opinion was more better looking.~ But for some unknown reason the princess CRACKED!" He vanished behind her and Poppy had to turn her head the other way as he continued to slowly float in a circle around her. "She slowly descended into madness and became nothing but a controlling dictator that put me-..The prince through NOTHING but misery, and yet the prince still foolishly loved her and tried his best to make her happy! His only saving grace was when he had to leave for his studies and when he met YOU!!" Poppy blinked as he now smiled. "Poppy Rose Bloomington. A small time country girl who grew up on a farm and moved to town to sell her pretty flowers.~ Catching the eye of a prince with your understanding and very kind nature. Basically being everything to him that Vanessa wasn't or ever will be. But THEN." His smile turned back into a snarl. Like the kind of snarl Snatcher gave the Mafia Boss but she wasn't sure where his anger lied with now as he stopped in front of her. "Vanessa turned on me! Over nothing but a few measly flowers all for her!! After everything I sacrificed for her! All those years of pandering to every single one of her demands no matter how ridiculous and impossible they were! I gave her the best dam bloody years of my life and she repaid me for my loyalty and love to her by chaining myself in the dark abyss of the cellar and ending myself up trapped here for over a thousand years! Watching while others got to frollic free and Snatcher get to rein over our kingdoms!!" They. Were. Stunned. Not just her but the kids too. Even Timmy who lived her with Moonjumper seemed in shock from the sudden tantrum. But as soon as it came it left when he exhaled and leaned back holding up his hands. "F-Forgive me. My death...i-is a sensative topic. I just find it so unbareable when the old memories from how unfair it was was brought up....But that's the story mostly. I don't know how or why we ended up splitting on death but each of us are half of what made up our personality and thinking process." He held a hand to his chest. "I am, if I do say so myself, the much better half. The part with the actual manners and dignity and the proper way to actually behave. Meanwhile Snatcher is full of anger and resentment, stubborn an an Express Owl, gloomier than a graveyard, AND he lacks any empathy or positive qualities other than his own motives!!......I hope that answers your questions, my dear."

Poppy.........Still stared. Behind him both Bow and Hattie looked at each other...then they both looked at Timmy who blinked and shrugged with a just as confused face to their looks, before all three children looked back to him.

........She blinked again. "Uh....Yeeeaaaahhh." She wasn't exactly sure how or WHAT to respond with after that. Not that she was afraid. Just...taken aback. But then again she couldn't exactly blame the fella for feeling the way he does after a tramatic death like that. Peck. Even she has nightmares about Vanessa, and she didn't even interact with her for five minutes. She couldn't start to imagine how he could've spent years with someone as evil as that. "Right. Well...Thank ya for ....catchin' me up ta speed. I uh..Clears up a bunch of it actually....Except ah don't know why he didn't tell me this all sooner."

"Oh? You really haven't figured out that yet?" He tutted and rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Poppy. Let me ask YOU a question now. What would you have done knowing Snatcher makes deals with innocent souls who just stumbled into his forest unless they can very rarely defeat him or bargain their way out of eternal servitude and he harnesses all of their souls for his magic fuel?"

"AH ALREADY KNEW HE DID THAT DIRTY BUSINESS WHEN I-....Wait. Magic...fuel?"

He nodded smiling. "Magic fuel. Same goes for me.~ After all the more minions a ghost has the more powerful his magic is. I have a few loyal here to me as you obviously saw coming in. Now...the souls you use don't HAVE to be dead like you, but anyone loyalty of in Snatcher's case hundreds and counting. It makes him almost god like compared to someone like me or ...or HER. Of course he can't kill me. You can't kill someone twice...Uh.." He looked her over. "Or..in your case...Uh ahem or MY case at least, you can't 'kill' a ghost. But essentially coming back to the point. It matters not if your follwers are dead or living, what matters is their loyalty to YOU. Their devotion makes you powerful. I suspect he didn't want you finding that out for the same reason he refused to reveal his..or more like OUR identity and not tell you anything. He was either afraid or just annoyed at the consequences he would've had to face if you had been disgusted your old friend would do something like this."...His smile widened to that smirk again. "But since the owl's out of the bag now.~ He's going to have to deal with the fact that he LIED to you and deliberately kept the truth from you for so long because of a little fright ...I suspect you'll be having some second thoughts for our 'King' of the woods eh?~ Hmhmhm.~"

Snatcher KNEW!! SNATCHER HAD LIED TO HER!!......Well she already knew both of those things. She already knew he lied, and she already knew that he knew but hearing the words straight from his twin's mouth made. Her. PECKING. ANGRY. Angrier than when that yappity bird blamed her for the camera. Angrier when the Mafia was pushing around that poor old man. Angrier when Snatcher made her a babysitter against her own will(not that she was blaming or complaining about the lil tikes). This was a whole kind of next level of anger that she had never felt before even in her old life a thousand years ago!!! This was the anger of betrayel! the worst kind you could feel!! What did she do to EVER GET IN THIS MESS!? .....She had to stop herself and breath in when her vision went red. Now use throwing a tantrum in front of the person who at least answered all her questions so willingly and cleared everything up. There wasn't anymore holes or missing peices in this puzzle now and all the numb, butterflies, confusion had completely disappeared and she felt whole again knowing. Now there was still just one question on her mind that even Moonjumper couldn't answer. Why? And only Snatcher could answer that himself. Moonjumper said it was cuz he was scared or annoyed at the consequences but she wasn't too sure unless it came directly from his mouth. She was DEFINATELY  to give the purple onion noodle one PECKING peice of her mind for sure!!

She nodded her head and looked to Moonjumper calmly. "Well. Ah sure do appreciate ya'll telling me all of this. Ah think I got what I needed. Thank you. But now.." She looked off back in the direction they came from with a scowl. "I got a few more questions ta git outta someone else."

He just nodded smiling. ''Im glad to have been so helpful to you. ...But there IS one more important thing you must know about.~"

She looked back to him with a raised brow. "And what is that?"

"This." He held up one of his hands and snapped his fingers. The sound echoing out eerily and Poppy flinched at the sound. After a few seconds a bright red string dropped from out of nowhere and stopped right beside his head.

She stared at it for a moment. "...What is that thing?"

"It's how I make contracts. You see Snatcher isn't the only one who can make those, the only difference is that the person HAS to willingly agree to sign the paper or he can't do anything...While MINE can be forced upon." His smile widened more. "And frankly I don't think he deserves someone as special as you!!"

His wrist that he still had held up suddenly went down in a slashing motion and in an instant the thing sprung to life on his command. Poppy yelped as it went straight towards her and on instinct brought her arm up to shield her face, the red string wrapped around her arm like a snake and proceeded to tighten like one Poppy was pulled forward by it and she yelped before digging her heels into the ground and pulling back, her otherhand clasping over the string. Moonjumper smiled and simply motioned his finger forward as it painfully tightened around her more.

"WHAT THE PECK DO YA THINK YER DOING?!," She angrily snarled at his smile.

"DAD!! What are you doing?!," Timmy asked just as horrified as the other two children. Obviously he wasn't expecting this to happen.

"Don't worry. They all fight at first but soon you'll forget any pain and be eternally happy." Moonjumper said in a reassurring voice. "Won't that be better? You'll never be in danger again, and be here with me."

"YOU'RE MORE CRAZY THAN SNATCHER!!" She stumbled forward a foot at a sudden yank, The red string glowing a bright red and her blue eyes widened at it.

"Don't worry. I promise it doesn't hur-"

At that very moment a giant burst of energy throbbed hard within the very core of her body. Temparaily knocking the wind outta her. Poppy  gasped and fell to her hands and knees at the sudden tight feeling within her. Her body emitting a small purple light in the dead center of her chest and she stayed there gasping and blinking at the sudden sensation leaving goosebumps across the pale flesh and her shaking like a leaf again. Coughing and gasping for air like a drowning sailor, the red string absolutely disintagrated from the purple magic that glowed in a heart shape right in the middle of her chest. Moonjumper froze, staring at the woman on her hands and knees in absolute shock like the time he first saw her. Poppy's red hair went around framing her face as she coughed and faced the floor....Before slowly looking up through her bangs with the angriest more visious snarl on a mortal woman one could have.

"You can-...NO!" Moonjumper snarled back. "NO!! This can not be it! Y-You-....YOU DONT POSESS ANY MAGIC STRONG ENOUGH TO COUNTER MINE!! I-I-...THAT SHOULD'VE WORKED!!"

"Is THAT what that was?," she hissed out.

"How did you do that?! How you you have possibly have- No! Your will against it just must be stronger than the normal mortal!" He held both hands out and Poppy's face went back to panicked when near ten strings came from the dark and towards her. Timmy yelled at Moonjumper to stop but he either didn't notice him or didn't listen when Poppy was painfully suspended into the air. Most of the strings too tightly wrapped around her arms but some wrapped around her legs too and one around her neck, she cursed and struggled like a mad women being sent to the looney bin. Fighting and fighting before that still glowing purple heart sent out another energy burst and in an instant all the strings were destroyed. Leaving her to fall on the ground and start coughing and breathing again for air like a dying man. Moonjumper once again stood there stunned too shocked for words. Eyes going to the purple throbbing of her body....and suddenly absolutely fear wracked his face and form. "......N-No.....N-NONONONO!!!" His hands suddenly went over his mouth and he floated a few feet away. "N-No.." His red eyes snapped to her face when she weakly pushed it up. "Y-You signed it didn't you? Y-YOU SIGNED THAT CONTRACT WITH SNATCHER!?"

"W-What.." She wheezed and gasped a gulp of air while glaring at him with murder. " d-d-did ya p-peckin' expect?" Of course she signed a contract with Snatcher she he took her soul outta her body. Not like she had a choice there anyways....But she'd definately be having a talk about that with him too once her heart stopped ringing in her ears and her lungs evened out.

"T-Then that m-m-m-means t-that Snatcher's......"

"M O O N J U M P E R!!!"

It was the voice that shook the forest and sent everyone hiding. It was the voice that struck fear into every mortal and enemy ghost everywhere. The voice shook the very void and made every one-...Timmy, Hattie, Bow, Moonjumper, and any ghosts Moonjumper ruled over here stop in their peaceful home and turn to the terrifying scream that shook the dead down to the deepest hell and back again. Moonjumper whimpered like a pathetic dog. Kicked and looked ready to turn into nothing if it meant not dealing with that thing. Every ghost skidaddled and dove behind or through the marble stones for safety. Every goat ghost and dweller here. Which could only mean one thing.

The King Of Subcon....Had Arrived.

And. He. Was. ENRAGED!!

Poppy barely flinched from the sounds, the ringing in her ears making it hard to hear. She had just barely pushed herself up and around when a giant gust of wind whipped past her, making her red hair whipped wildly, and she could feel heat breifly fly by. As if someone lit a fire and swiftly threw it past her body. The dark shadow with the wind S L A M M E D into the horrified ghosts and it sent the two flying. Moonjumper found himself in the hands of the demon. The dark shadow was blacker than the abyss surrounding them, man of hair flared out crowding his face like a lion's mane, the fangs and eyes staring at him seeping with smoke and blue flames. A scream..No. Sound like the most hellish thing you could imagine screeched out from his mouth foaming with blue flames and smoke.

Moonjumper. SCREAMED!!

The three children stood there petrified at what just happed and watched from the ground as the thing that was Snatcher flew straight up into the air before literally throwing Moonjumper's form down behind the building and diving after him.

"POPPY!?" Hattie and Timmy jumped when Bow suddenly bolted over to the woman still laying on her stomach and brought her head up to look at the little girl kneeling in front of her. "Are you ok!?"

Two more appeared behind her. "Im so sorry, Miss! I didn't know any of this would happen!" Timmy looked almost ready to cry when he stopped in front of her looking at her. "I-I don't know what's gotten into them!"

"I-It aint...Y-yer fault."

"My, my. How do all of you get into trouble so easily?"

The children looked up and she slowly followed their gaze the best she could. "Hazelle!!"

The pink wearing witch tapped her foot and held a scowl as she stared down at the four..before turning to Timmy who looked even more scared under her gaze. "YOU are in BIG trouble! Ditching me and running away behind my back! What were you thinking?!..."She looked back up as a giant stream of blue flames shot out from somewhere behind the marble castle. "What were ANY of you THINKING!?"

...Timmy hiccuped and a small tear went down his face. "I didn't know! Im sorry, Hazelle!!"

...Her look didn't soften but she sighed and kneeled down next to Poppy. Her hands grabbing onto her shoulders and grunted as she pulled Poppy onto her back and then pulled her up slowly in a sitting posititon as she breathed. "Nevermind that now. Are you feeling ok?" She patted Poppy's cheek making the other woman look at her.

Poppy blinked seeing Hazelle's concerned face and nodded. "R-Real...w-winded and ...exhausted.."

"What happened?" She looked to the children for answers and Hattie spoke up.

"Moonjumper tried using his strings on her."

"HIS WHAT?!"

Hattie nodded. "But it didn't work. She signed Snatcher's contract."

".....So that's it. The powerful magics just overwhelmed you, you're going to be fine." Hazelle patted Poppy's shoulder before standing back up and sighing. Looking up as another screech sounded out. "Right. Kids. Stay here with Poppy ok? Im going to go break up the other two children fighting."

As she walked away, heels of her boots clacking, the three children looked at one another in worry. Not knowing what to think. Moonjumper on the other hand had a LOT going on through his mind at the moment, especially when he was slammed again with incredible strength in Snatcher's claws. The subcon ruler becoming frustrated when Moonjumper kept dodging his flames. The horrified face of the moon boy stared with fear when Snatcher charged him again, sharp claws out and aiming right for him- Until he was stopped when a bright red string wrapped itself tightly around his tail and stopped him mid dive. The beast snarled like a monster and turned on the red string in rage before another snagged around top half. And then more. And more. And more. .....AND MORE!! Until his entire body was red and thrashing within a cocoon made from hundred and hundred of Moonjumper's threads like a fly trapped within a spider's web. Enraged, the screeching and thrashing increased like he was a worm from hell. He was solely focused on Moonjumper for what he had done. He had felt something was wrong when Poppy the contract's magic alerted him to danger. But when he had instantly teleported into the ship he found no one. He made sure to thoroughly look in each room on the ship before bumping back into Hazelle who just magically dropped in with her weird pet in the middle of his worrying and the two locked eyes.

"YOU?!," he asked blinking at her.

She seemed confused. "Yes...Me. What are you doing here?"

He instantly scowled. "I could ask YOU the same thing, Witch!"

"Uh huh." She looked towards the doorway leading towards the girl's bedroom. "I'm looking for Timmy." She looked back to him with her own frown. "He ran off during one of our lessons and I looked all over for him all day so I've been having Shifty here follow his aura until we got to the moon train. I figured the only other place he could've gone is here with your kiddos."

"Well it looks like we're BOTH fooled!!" He hissed out with a glare crossing his arms. "There's no one here either!"

She hummed and rose a brow. "That is strange. Perhaps Timmy wanted a play date out with them, but why didn't he tell me??....It's not like him at all."

"MISStresS." The Shapeshifter gurgled out in that strangled voice of their's as the strange creature wobbled about slinking towards the door that lead to the storage room of the ship. Getting Hazelle's full attention. "i SeNsE THE bOY's AURa THaT way. FAINT buT TheRe."

It gurgled before crawling towards said door that opened with a whoosh sound and crawled down the hallway. Both of them looked at each other before Hazelle teleported to the other side of the wall and Snatcher's fazed through it. Both watched as Shapeshifter flopped itself to the next level of the floor before crawling towards the ladder that lead to the boiler room and hissed looking upwards.

"hE WENT Up."

"Impossible." Snatcher muttered. "There's nothing in there but water! You're blood hound's as useless as a statue!!"

"Well it's not a coincidence that my boy and YOUR girls are missing as well as that Poppy girl. You can't say we don't have an idea about where they went!"

"Oh please! Why in the PECK would they go in a room filled with water and a measly telescope!?"

Hazelle perked up at that. "A telescope? Don't they use those things to teleport places?"

Snatcher instantly shut up......OF COURSE!! He wanted to smack himself in that moment, but instead he shot himself through the wall into the boiler room and popped out the other side. Rushing up to the telescope and peeping one of those bright yellow eyes through the peep hole to see where it was pointed at on the planet. Hazelle popped a moment later magically teleporting beside him and saw him looking through it.

"Well? Where does this one lead?," she asked him and he looked up.

"Some place in the mountains with lots of clouds." He seemed confused. What kind of place was that to run off too?

Hazelle seemed to get a look of quick realization. "...Oh no."

"Oh no?" Instantly SNatcher was on her scowling. "What do you mean OH NO?!"

"Well, if Im not wrong, that's the long way home for Timmy before I got used to teleporting him everywhere....And Timmy lives in the Horizon."

With Moonjumper!? A shot of panic and rage overcame him at the very thought of Moonboy being all nice and barf romantic over her!! THAT FOOL HAD DONE SOMETHING!! But he wasn't sure what it was or how he was involved in this, but he WAS going to get there and find out! Hazelle offered to teleport them there since it'd be much quiker than taking the Twilight Bell and she was used to making big teleportation jumps with her advanced power. He instantly agreed and after Hazelle ordered Shifter to stay there(in case they came back) she teleported with him holding her shoulders. Once there he had to admit he was a little dizzy, it took a lot to make him feel a bit dizzy so Hazelle must've used a giant burst of magic to get them....Whereever they were real fast. It was almost too fast. But the dizzy feeling was short lived. He felt the second wave of the binding contact protecting Poppy from something and weird place or not, he took off in the direction of it much to Hazelle's protests and yells. If he had a heart it'd be beating a million times a minute as for one rare moment in his after life....He was scared. He knew his magic would be strong enough to counteract Moonjumper's but there was still the lingering fear of her becoming another lost trapped soul trapped her by him somehow. Or what else Moonjumper would do to her?! He lost her once, he didn't want to lose her again!! He couldn't!! Not after he made so much progress in finding her and getting her back!! But his fears were confirmed true when he find them.

Poppy was there...On the ground...She looked so weak. It was like the ghost smacked into a wall with how sudden he stopped seeing her. It was unmistakingly her!! The Purple magic from her soul was his alright and still calling out to him!! Poppy was laying on the ground weakly pulling her head up towards Moonjumper who looked angry and was snarling at her.

Something within him at that very moment SNAPPED!!

It was like the world around him began to blur and spin and the only two figures in his mind was the girl laying on the ground and the snarling person above her. .....What had be done? Poppy was.....hurt? Very possible. Moonjumper did something to Poppy...No. HE did something to Poppy. Moonjumper was a part of him!! A part of him that let Poppy get hurt once again! From that moment something began to bubble up inside of him and poor out in waves. HE HURT HER!! He let her get hurt!! After what already happened to her because of his mistakes!! HOW DARE HE LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN!! EVEN IF IT WAS JUST A PART OF HIM MOONJUMPER SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER THAN TO TOUCH THE WOMAN HE LOVED!! Fangs sprout. Claws sharpened. The flames of vengence and pain seeping out. And a cry of pain coming out of him. The only things he felt was sorrow and rage!!

The hunter had found his prey.

"M O O N J U M P E R!!!"

The smell of burning ashes and smoke filled the air as the red strings around the thrashing and snarling beast turned black and with an even louder screech the thing broke loose in an explosion of blue flames Moonjumper had to shield his eyes from. But when he opened them, they widened at the snarling charging claws and fangs covered in fire about to claw him. ...Before a loud smacking sound was heard and Snatcher slammed into an invisible wall blocking him off from the frozen Moonjumper. Enraged his prey wasn't in his claws the mindless beast kept clawing at the invisible shield attempting to seize it's prey within it's protective hold.

"SNATCHER!!" The snarling beast snapped it's head in the direction of the voice and coppery orange eyes glared up at him. "SNAP OUT OF IT!! POPPY NEEDS YOU RIGHT NOW AND YOU'RE ACTING LIKE A RABBID DOG!!" The beast screeched in the woman's direction where she stood ontop of one of the many white marbled blocks. She swiftly moved her arm in a cutting motion and something invisible punch Snatcher right across the face HARD. "GET A PECKING GRIP ON YOURSELF YOU IDIOT!!!"

Snatcher froze. Slowly the rage from his mind with the flames and smoke in it started to uncloud and he found his world twirling back into sights and sounds of a normal person. He found Moonjumper looking at him with anger now, a lot like his anger. But not DARING to make a move towards him. He found Hazelle standing on top of the block too, looking even more angrier than Moonjumper.

"MAYBE NOW YOU'LL LISTEN TO ME!!" She screamed at him at the top of her lungs before pointing back in the direction of Poppy. "YOUR KIDS ARE SCARED!! POPPY'S EXHAUSTED FROM THE AMOUNT OF POWERFUL MAGIC FROM BOTH OF YOU IDIOTS GOING THROUGH HER!! YOU NEED TO TAKE THEM HOME RIGHT NOW AND TAKE CARE OF THEM!!" Her glare suddenly snapped to Moonjumper. "AND YOU!? WHAT THE PECK WERE YOU EVEN THINKING?! HOW DARE YOU DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS?!" At the questiosn towards Moonjumper Snatcher looked back to him and snarled, claws balling into tight fists. "SNATCHER. DONT. YOU. DARE!! ILL TAKE CARE OF HIM!! GO TAKE CARE OF YOUR FAMILY!! NOW!!"

Snatcher still glared at Moonjumper for a few seconds, the claws still sharp. But Poppy was more important than this fool. The shadow turned and shot away, leaving Hazelle to do the picking up after him. The mane of his neck still bunched up but most of it toned down til it was just bristled like when he was usually irritated. The claws retracting on their own. Shooting through walls and walls of white marble until he finally got to the four of them. They all jumped in surprise save for Poppy who was so tired she felt like she was going to pass out any moment. Timmy looked away in shame as the tall shadow approuched and for a moment Snacther regarded the young boy for the crimes comitted tonight.

".......Hazelle's going to have a talk with you."

That was it. No threats to him from the older ghost, just a warning on what his mum figure was going to do once she got done chewing out Moonboy. Without anything to say Timmy just nodded to the older ghosts before he came to the girls and an instant frown adorned his face. the two girls were clutched onto the barely awake woman looking at him scared and not sure what to do about the situation. ...This was all his fault. He silently gathered the trio up in his arms, both girls immediately clutching onto his fluffy neck like he was going to leave them somewhere and Poppy in his arms blinking up to the one holding her as he teleported. The dark purple surrounding her as they did. He only told her one thing too.

"Rest."

Which she gladly did closing her eyes and letting her body go limp.

[themurphyzone]

104 Words for 104 Days: Dynasty Part 2: Fortress

Dynasty Part 1: Princess here!

“My favorite jewel is jade, my dog’s name is Pinky, and my hobby is feeding ducks in the palace garden,” Isabella said.

Silence reigned while the girls struggled to figure out her lie.

“I think it’s the hobby. You seem like a calligraphy type to me,” Millie said.

Holly shook her head. “She can do both. I’d like to say the dog is the lie, but I didn’t notice any tells in her body language.”

Isabella smiled serenely as the girls debated among themselves. She kept her knees folded under her, humming cheerfully to herself. What kind of hereditary monarch would she be if she didn’t know to lie convincingly?

There was a metallic thump above them, and Master Perry gestured for silence. The girls assumed a defensive position with their sashes at the ready. Isabella quickly copied their stance, though they’d formed a defensive perimeter around her so she wasn’t in immediate danger just yet.

When the thump sounded again, Master Perry flicked an open fan into each palm and pointed them towards an open window. He held his stance as the sound of pattering feet overwhelmed the clack of the Dragon Train’s wheels.

Then there was silence, only broken by Adyson’s sneeze.

“SPIIIIIIIIICCCYYYY!”

Dozens of lumpy brown gremlins swarmed in through the windows, screaming in raspy tones about invaders and something called a ‘taco’. Master Perry lashed out with his fans and tail, knocking the nearest ones into their comrades, but they didn’t stay down for long.

“Hold your position, girls!” Gretchen shouted. Her sash wrapped around the nearest gremlins, who screeched as it was unceremoniously flung about like a makeshift mace.

Holly and Ginger pressed against Isabella, kicking away anyone who was foolhardy enough to attack a princess. Isabella slammed her sandal against a gremlin’s beady eyes, stunning it long enough for Holly to snatch it up and throw it into the horde.

Adyson climbed onto a seat cushion, leaping onto the back of an unusually large gremlin who was about to charge Katie. Katie shouted her thanks and rushed to help Millie fend off several bite-happy gremlins.

But for every gremlin they pushed back, three more took its place. There were too many to fight effectively.

Master Perry hurled a gremlin against the wall, nodding in grim satisfaction when it sat there and rubbed its head instead of coming back for more. His focus snapped to Gretchen, who was having trouble pulling her sash free from a gremlin’s claws.

Then Isabella noticed the gremlin look up, shriek, and edge away from the oil lamp hanging above its head. In fact, the gremlins all seemed to be avoiding the oil lamps as much as possible. Well, its head was also its entire body, but she didn’t have time to think about the weird proportions.

The oil lamp! They were scared of the oil lamp! But everyone was too preoccupied to notice, so Isabella knew she had to take matters into her own hands. They couldn’t tire themselves out before storming the fortress!

When Holly and Ginger shifted their positions, Isabella took her chance and darted between them, ignoring their protests as she vaulted onto the seat and unhooked the oil lamp from the wall. Several of the gremlins clambered onto the seat after her, but stopped short when she held the lamp in their direction. They backed away, hissing furiously.

“Everybody, stop!” Isabella yelled, holding up the lamp. She held onto the seat for balance as the Dragon Train hit a particularly large bump.

The gremlins ceased immediately. Gretchen’s sash was released and she tumbled back. Master Perry steadied her so she didn’t lose her balance completely.

“That’s better,” Isabella said, lowering the lamp but holding it near her hip in case the gremlins tried anything. “My name is Princess Isabella of the Tri-Province Area. I don’t want to harm any of you, but I’m also not afraid to use this lamp if necessary. Now, will you send your leader or a representative to come forward so we can talk things out like civilized beings?”

The gremlins pointed to the largest among their group, who was being held down by Katie and Adyson.

“Release him, girls,” Isabella ordered.

Reluctantly, the Firesong Girls let him go. Isabella sat down, patting the space next to her invitingly. The large gremlin sauntered up to the seat, barking at the closest minion to throw himself down so he could be used as a stepstool.

“Your name and status?” Isabella asked.

“Supreme Potato!” the gremlin rasped.

“And your reason for attacking us?” Isabella gestured for the Firesong Girls to stand down, especially Gretchen, who looked ready to throw the gremlins out the nearest window.

The Supreme Potato hissed. “Invaders!”

His accusation was chorused by the other gremlins, who shook their fists until Master Perry pointed to another oil lamp within his reach. They fell back with a whimper.

“We invaded your territory?”

“Spicy!” the Supreme Potato shrieked, which didn’t answer her question. But it appeared to be the resounding battle cry among the gremlins.

“On behalf of my group, I apologize for invading your territory, but I assure you that we wouldn’t do it without good reason, nor do we have any quarrel with you. You see, our friends were kidnapped by Doofus Khan and are being held at his supposedly inescapable fortress. I can only assume his Mongol army will be there too. We’re on a rescue mission and would like safe passage for this trip and the return journey.”

“Mongol smash! Mongol eat Tater Tot!” the Supreme Potato snarled.

“Tater Tot!” a gremlin wailed. Several others patted his back in sympathy.

The Supreme Potato pounded his fists together. “Potato help Cessa! Spicy!”

“SPICY!” the gremlins screamed, stomping their feet against the metallic floor.

“Everyone, we’re approaching the Inescapable Fortress of Inescapableness!” Millie yelled from a window on the far side of the compartment. “There’s no way we could possibly miss it! The place is huge!”  

Gretchen tapped Isabella on the shoulder, leaning in with an unsure look on her face. “Does this mean we’re allies…with gremlins?”

Isabella nodded firmly. “There’s bound to be lots of soldiers. The gremlins can keep them all occupied.” She turned to the Supreme Potato. “We’ll ally with you for today. Would you guys mind keeping the army busy?”

The Supreme Potato spat into his hand, coating it with saliva and white mush. Then he held it out to her with a wide grin.

“Shake!” he yelled.

Isabella wrinkled her nose, gripping the Supreme Potato’s wrist and shaking firmly. The gremlins cheered, but the Firesong Girls and Master Perry looked rather nauseous.

“First order of business,” Isabella declared, holding her hand away from her body. It smelled even worse than it looked. “A canteen of water to wash…whatever this stuff is.”

o-o-o-o-o

The Dragon Train stopped just short of the giant drawbridge and moat, ruining Isabella’s first idea of waiting until dark and attacking while everyone was asleep.

The Inescapable Fortress of Inescapableness was enormous and sprawled out as far as the eye could see, though Isabella lived in a palace, so she was used to everything being enormous. The Firesong Girls oohed and ahhed at the many watchtowers that lined the outer walls. Guards traded grunts as they exchanged shifts, the gremlins growling and punching the air in anticipation.

“Hey, guys!” Glenda poked her head in, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead. “This is the farthest the Dragon Train can go. I’ll be busy unloading supplies and taking inventory, so y’all have fun storming the fortress, okay? Just come back when you’re through and I’ll take ya home!”

“Thanks, Glenda!” Isabella exclaimed.

“Anything for you, girlie,” Glenda called over her shoulder. She shut and locked the door behind her.

Master Perry kept everyone from rushing out the doors of the Dragon Train, positioning himself at the front to make sure no guard entered their compartment.

“First, we need to get in. Then figure out where the boys are imprisoned,” Gretchen said, tracing a pattern on the floor.

“I want to go after Doofus Khan directly. When he kidnapped me, he laid a lot of traps. I expect he’ll do the same thing here,” Isabella said.  

Every Firesong Girl except Adyson nodded their agreement. “But you’re the princess! What if something happened to you?” Adyson protested.

Master Perry chattered and laid on his hand on Isabella’s shoulder.

“It’s okay, Adyson. Master Perry will ensure my safety,” Isabella assured her. “And besides, what do you think Doofus Khan is for when I encounter his traps?”

The Firesong Girls burst into laughter, even Adyson, who still seemed worried but decided to trust Isabella’s word.

“And the gremlins can do…whatever gremlins do when they raid fortresses,” Gretchen said. “I don’t think they’ll be following orders any time soon.”

“Never!” the Supreme Potato screamed.

Isabella suspected the only reason the gremlins hadn’t charged off immediately was due to the raised drawbridge. If they wanted access to the fortress, then tricking the Mongol army into lowering their guard would be their first step.

Ginger raised her hand, drawing all attention to her. “Nobody can resist a Firesong Girl cupcake! We’ll just employ persuasive techniques!”

Fortunately, the Supreme Potato agreed to hold his forces back until the Firesong Girls knocked out the guards and seized control of the drawbridge. But after that, all bets were off.

“Isabella and Master Perry, you’ll slip in behind the gremlins, find Doofus Khan, and free the boys,” Gretchen said. “The rest of us will keep your path clear.”

Isabella nodded, and Master Perry gave a thumbs up.

Millie found several empty boxes under a seat and convinced some of the more patient but no less battle-hungry gremlins to hide in them so the Mongol army would really just believe they were a group of dedicated and innocent Firesong Girls. Except for Isabella, each girl stepped off the train with a boxful of gremlins.

Plastering on their best cute faces, the Firesong Girls marched up to the moat.

“Hello, would you like to buy some Firesong Girl cupcakes?” Gretchen shouted at the nearest guard, who peered down curiously.

“Freshly baked!” Millie exclaimed.

“Comes in several flavors! Your choice of low calorie!” Holly added.

Katie smiled as the guard stroked his beard in thought. “No artificial flavors or preservatives!”

That seemed to do the trick. The guard’s eyes lit up and he excitedly pointed out the Firesong Girls to his friend, who started shouting for the drawbridge to be lowered.

“CUPCAKES!” he roared, the call being taken up by every guard in the vicinity, even the ones who were probably meant to be supervisors.

The drawbridge lowered with a heavy thud, several men panting from turning the heavy crank, though they cheered up at the sight of the boxes. Several guards rushed across the drawbridge, and Gretchen negotiated a slightly high but reasonable price with their leader.

Isabella made a mental note to commend Gretchen’s charisma to Lady Firesong. Really, the girl had been working towards that patch for years. She’d learned a lot from experience and Isabella’s quick suggestions on perfecting her techniques.

The Firesong Girls waved their new silver pieces in the air triumphantly as the guards hurried back to the fortress with the boxes in hand.

They didn’t have the chance to raise the drawbridge.

One guard eagerly opened a box, only for his face to be mauled by an irate potato gremlin. The rest of the gremlins tore the boxes apart, rushing at the surprised guards, who didn’t even have their weapons on them. The first batch of Mongols were going down quickly, and the Firesong Girls seized control of the drawbridge crank to make sure nobody could raise it before their timely escape.

“FOR TATER TOT AND SPICY TACOS!” the Supreme Potato screamed, leading the rest of the gremlins into the fortress and chomping on some poor guy’s mustache.

“SPICY! SPICY! SPICY!” the gremlins chanted.

“FRENCH FRY!” the Mongols shouted back.

“FRENCH FRY NO SPICY!”

Seizing their chance, Isabella and Master Perry crossed the drawbridge and hid behind a stack of crates. Their presence was unnoticed through all the chaos.

“So much for a formidable army,” Isabella whispered as Adyson and Holly wrapped their sashes around the legs of a guard and toppled him. The Firesong Girls and gremlins had the situation well in hand, as Isabella expected.

“Seriously, guys?” a high-pitched voice protested above the fray. “As your leader, I get first pick of any Firesong cupcakes that come to the drawbridge. It’s literally written in your contracts!”

Isabella and Master Perry exchanged a glance, poking their heads around the crates.

“Doofus Khan!” Isabella exclaimed quietly, eyes narrowing at the sight of the Mongol leader. He had a new fur cape, and his beard was much scruffier than last time, but she would recognize him anywhere. Master Perry placed his hand on her arm, a silent warning against acting too soon.

“Sir, we’re under attack!” a guard cried, swatting a gremlin aside.

But Doofus Khan didn’t notice, too busy lamenting the lack of Firesong cupcakes and what they did to his waistline as he passed by several Mongol soldiers being dogpiled by Gretchen, Millie, and gremlins of varying sizes. He disappeared into the open doorway of a nearby tower.

When the path was clear, Isabella and Master Perry rushed after him.

“-so hard to find good help these days. But does Roger Khan have these problems? Of course not. I bet his army would let him have first pick of Firesong cupcakes. Guess this is why I got command of the outpost nobody wanted.”

Isabella and Master Perry followed him through the stone hallway, close enough to hear him but keeping their distance so he wasn’t alerted to their presence just yet. Their footsteps echoed along the floors, but Doofus Khan wasn’t known for his alertness, so it didn’t concern them.

The hallway opened into a large chamber filled with animal hides, a few banners, and not much else except dampness and dull gray. It was pretty drab. Doofus Khan really needed to hire a better interior designer.

Doofus Khan sighed, taking his helmet off and running a hand through his messy hair. “Maybe gloating to my prisoners will cheer me up.” He sniffed the air, his nose poking into his fur cape for a brief moment. Then he coughed and wafted the air in front of his face. “And do some laundry later. Animal fur is way too stinky sometimes, but I gotta make sacrifices for the evil aesthetic.”

He took one step, paling when the stone sank underneath his boot. A giant fist instantly slammed him against the wall, a cloud of dust billowing from the Doofus Khan-shaped hole in the stone.

“I always…forget that’s…” Doofus Khan stumbled out of the hole, swaying into the path of a red laser beam.

Isabella and Master Perry ducked behind a corner while the animal heads fired laser beams at Doofus Khan.

“Yes, I think I’ll have the double mocha with a side of dumplings, Lisa,” Doofus Khan muttered, his clothing heavily charred. He collapsed, something small and golden glistening around his neck.

“The key!” Isabella gasped. Before Master Perry could stop her, she rushed over to Doofus Khan, weaving around a rain of arrows and barely avoiding the bite of an angry camel. “Come on, Master Perry! We’re saving the Tri-Province Area!”

She ripped the key from its string just as Master Perry chattered a warning. Isabella jumped back, her eyes widening when Doofus Khan regained consciousness much sooner than she expected. She quickly stored the key in her sleeve. If Doofus Khan couldn’t notice his own traps, she would just have to hope he didn’t notice the missing key.

The would-be conqueror rubbed his head. “Ow, what’s a Firesong Girl doing in here? Don’t they have a rule against trespassing in your organization?”

Isabella glared at him. All this effort, and he didn’t have the gall to recognize her? And don’t even get her started on the whole trespassing thing. For crying out loud, he was the one trespassing on her rightful inheritance!

“It’s Isabella,” she said, placing a hand behind her back to stop Master Perry from jumping in. Neither of them knew where the boys were kept. If anything, this would work in their favor.

Doofus Khan stood up, dusting off his clothes. “Look Isabella the Firesong Girl, if you don’t have any cupcakes to sell, do you mind leaving? I have some very important evil gloating I’d like to get to.”

“Will this help?” Isabella asked. She quickly replaced her orange hairbow with a purple one.

“Princess Isabella!” Doofus Khan shrieked. Then he tried to compose himself, trying to appear like a dignified Mongol leader. Of course, it was a little difficult when he was still smoking from his own laser beams. “I mean, of course I knew it was you all along! Thanks for falling into my trap, Princess!”

The floor opened behind Doofus Khan.

“Actually, it looks like you’re gonna fall into your own,” Isabella said.  

Doofus Khan scrabbled at the edge of the gaping pitfall before managing to haul himself up.

“Man, I really should label these traps. Or invest in some crash test dummies. But then I’d have to buy those little stickers and I just don’t feel like going to the market most of the time cause it stinks of camel and weird perfume…” Doofus Khan grumbled. “Anyway, there’s a dungeon cell with your name on it, Princess. Not literally, cause I don’t have those labeled, but metaphorically speaking. And with you imprisoned and the Great Wall unfinished, Regent Monogram and the Tri-Province Area will be completely helpless! I’ll install my own Doof Dynasty! Have my own pottery line! Take that, Roger Khan! Who’s the loser who gets picked last in every equine kickball game now?”

Isabella rolled her eyes. Clearly, he had some issues.

o-o-o-o-o

Three giant hammers, one hungry tiger, and too many flaming kickballs later, Isabella and Doofus Khan finally made it to the dungeon. Part of his fur cape was still on fire, and Isabella actually felt grateful for the dungeon cell because it meant getting away from that awful animal stench.

“Alright, in you go. Enjoy imprisonment with your new skeleton buddy,” Doofus Khan said, shoving her into a cell across the room from the boys she was trying to rescue. The triangle headed one seemed especially worried, narrowing his eyes at Doofus Khan. “You like him? I got dozens.”

Doofus Khan swept his arm across the room, indicating the broken skeletal pieces scattered across the dungeon. “Yeah, they’re leftovers from my bachelor party. The merchant wouldn’t take them back,” he sighed, but cheered up quickly upon seeing the state of the boys. “And just how are my other prisoners?”

“You won’t get away this, Doofus Khan!” Phineas shouted. “Princess, are you hurt? What’s your pain level on a scale of one to ten?”

Doofus Khan rolled his eyes. “Sheesh, I didn’t go through the trouble of kidnapping you just to hear all these cliché lines, kid.”

“Don’t worry!” Isabella called. “I’m alright!”

She gingerly pushed the skeleton away from her cot.

“One thousand five hundred twenty-six, one thousand five hundred twenty-seven,” Baljeet grunted, shoving a tiny spoon into the floor and tossing a meager amount of soil over his shoulder. “Buford, you’re supposed to be helping!”

Buford shrugged. “I’m supervising!”

“Hey, more despair and less escaping back there!” Doofus Khan yelled. Then he glanced at Ferb, whose face betrayed no emotion as he supported his brother. “How are you holding up?”

Ferb blinked.

“He won’t use his speaking line quota for a power-hungry dictator,” Phineas retorted.

“Suit yourself,” Doofus Khan said, turning to the only other guy in the dungeon. “What about you, scribe? If you need anything, I’m not getting it.”

“I’m hungry. I could use something to eat. Need food. Starving,” the scribe rasped from his place on the floor, a hand reaching up weakly.

“Eh, you can hold on until dinner. There’s still two hours before you’re due for stale rice.”

“Feed me…” the scribe moaned, but his cries were ignored,

“Without the precious princess and saviors of the Tri-Province Area, Regent Monogram will have no choice but to surrender. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me!” Doofus Khan cackled.

There was a flash of movement by the staircase, and the next moment Doofus Khan was extracting himself from a skeleton’s ribcage. “What the?” he gasped, almost poking out his eye as he clumsily got to his feet.

Master Perry chattered, beckoning Doofus Khan closer with a deliberate wave of his finger.

“Ancient warrior Perry the Platypus!” Doofus Khan’s eyes narrowed. “You look like you could use a little humerus in your life!” He ripped an arm bone from the skeleton, launching himself at Master Perry.

“That is an ulna!” Baljeet shouted.

“Don’t ruin my battle puns!” Doofus Khan retorted, the distraction allowing Master Perry to slap him in the face multiple times.  

While Master Perry engaged Doofus Khan in battle, Isabella used the opportunity to slip through a large space between the bars of her cell. Good thing conquerors weren’t known for their superior planning skills.

Isabella flicked her arm, the key tumbling out of her sleeve and into her hand. For some reason, Phineas’ face was the same shade of red as his hair. She decided not to question it though.

Phineas, Ferb, Baljeet, and Buford burst out of the cell the moment the door unlocked. Even the scribe was behind them, though it didn’t look like it would take much to knock him off his feet.

“No! They’re escaping!” Doofus Khan screamed, swiping at the air ineffectually with one arm while Master Perry held the other firmly behind his back. “Oh man, even the scribe! Now how am I supposed to lie about my taxes? It’ll take forever just to find a new guy!”

“You’ll never get my kingdom, Doofus Khan!” Isabella said. “Not as long as we have anything to say about it! Oh, I almost forgot. Regent Monogram wanted me to deliver this.”

She pressed the scroll into his hand and joined the boys at the staircase, who high-fived her for a rescue job well done.  

Master Perry released Doofus Khan, allowing him to sit up. Doofus Khan unfurled the scroll halfway before knitting his eyebrows in disgust.

“This picture looks nothing like me! Nobody’s worn that mustache and beard combo since the Han Dynasty! At least mine is modern! Well, modern for 1542. Depends on where you are in space-time I guess,” Doofus Khan complained, then looked at Master Perry, who was standing next to a rock labeled ‘load-bearing stone’.

Master Perry removed the rock, and the entire dungeon trembled.

“No! Don’t remove the conveniently labeled load-bearing stone!” Doofus Khan screamed. “Oh sure, of all the things I could’ve labeled, it had to be that one!”

“Let’s get out of here!” Isabella shouted. She tugged Phineas along, who didn’t even protest when she sharply yanked him out of the way of a falling boulder.

“Curse you, ancient warrior Perry the Platypus! Curse you, Princess Isabella and the Firesong Girls! Curse you, inaccurate representation of 1542 Mongolia! You know, I have a lot of things to curse so I’m definitely gonna be here a while!”

o-o-o-o-o

Modern Day: An archaeological presentation on Ming Dynasty pottery in an unspecified building.

“And so, the Inescapable Fortress of Inescapableness collapsed, signaling the defeat of Doofus Khan’s army. Our brave princess, the Ming equivalent to our Fireside Girls, the saviors of the Tri-Province Area, the wise platypus warrior, and the Redundant Scribe of Redundantness, were welcomed home to an enormous parade. Gretchen received her Charisma Patch and a bonus Persistence Patch, because unlike today, the Firesong Girls were not barbarians. Isabella became leader of the Firesong Girls, the boys spent the rest of their days building the Great Wall, Doofus Khan kept cursing people in the ruins of his fortress, Master Perry taught an entirely new generation of warriors, and the potato gremlins waged war against the Mongol army until a magical three-humped camel descended from the heavens and taught them the value of peace, love, and fortune cookies. Which lasted until the Mongol army discovered chili cheese french fries. And that concludes my presentation on these historical Ming vases.”

“Really, Dave? Potato gremlins?” one of the judges sighed, lowering her shades and shaking her head. “I’m afraid we can’t let you into the Archaeological Society of Archaeology with something so ludicrous.”

“Nobody ever believes me about the potato gremlins…”

[wiseabsol]

3. What is your favorite/least favorite part about writing? 6. Favorite character you’ve written? 14. What does it take for you to be ready to write a book? (i.e. do you research? outline? make a playlist or pinterest board? wing it?) 15. How do you deal with self-doubt when writing? 19. How do you cope with writer’s block? 24. Do you remember the moment you decided to become a writer/author? 33. What’s your revision/rewriting process like? 34. Unpopular writing thoughts/opinions?

3. What is your favorite/least favorite part about writing? 

My favorite part is when you make discoveries about your world and your characters as you write the story down, and when you write something and go, “Oh, there we go, there’s the solution to this problem that was going to come up later.” For example, I recently had an evil mentor toying with a magical item while giving a lecture to his pupils. The magical item was mundane--essentially, just putty that you could mold into whatever shape you wanted, then solidify, then switch back to putty to reshape. And as I was writing that down, I went, “Oh, THAT’S what my protagonist is going to knock him out with down the line. That’s way better than her using a lamp. Excellent.” 

My least favorite part about writing is getting started. Once I’ve cleared the hurtle of the blank page, writing becomes much easier and more exciting. But getting myself to start has become much harder since I developed my editor/critic’s brain.  

6. Favorite character you’ve written? 

In one of the text-based rps I’m writing with my best friend, I’m playing a shapeshifter named Sparrow, who is charming, funny, flirty, politically-savvy, and super vain about his appearance (think a courtesan-type character). He also has one of the most gut-wrenching backstories of any character I’ve ever written, and is struggling with triggers from that backstory. His romance with my best friend’s character is also my favorite romance that I’ve written with her, and it came as a surprise to both of us, since we were just testing out the characters at the time.   

14. What does it take for you to be ready to write a book? (i.e. do you research? outline? make a playlist or pinterest board? wing it?) 

I do a lot of brainstorming and outlining, though my outlines aren’t plot-related ones so much as very detailed character summaries. I’ve honestly been struggling with plot lately, but I’ve been doing better character work, so I’m winging it more now. While I usually have a general idea of how the story goes, the actual writing of it clarifies the details and makes changes to my plans. On the bright side, the results are less stilted than my old work, since they’re not chained to plot outlines, but stem from the characters more organically.  

15. How do you deal with self-doubt when writing?

I’ve started telling myself, “Fuck it, let it be messy, I’ll fix it later.” Letting go of perfectionism is hard for me, but doing so has been helping.   

19. How do you cope with writer’s block? 

Honestly, the best way to cope with writer’s block is to just try something and see if it sticks, or leave yourself a note and skip ahead in the story to something you want to write. However, as I mentioned in an earlier ask, I haven’t been able to do much writing lately. And that’s hard, because I feel guilty for not writing, and I know if I just do it, I’ll feel better. Which is a bad mindframe to be in, especially because this year has been awful. I’ve been telling other writers to be gentle on themselves, because it’s hard to be creative when you’re stressed, but I struggle to take my own advice. So right now, I’m trying to give myself permission not to write, and to instead focus on other things. Editing. Reading. Playing videogames. Baking. Doing house/yardwork. Something to still ticks things off of my to do list, but also things that I can look at and see, “Yes, you did get something done.” It’s not a perfect system, and it does fall into the productivity trap, but it’s what I’m trying. When the stress passes, maybe then I can dive back into writing.  

24. Do you remember the moment you decided to become a writer/author? 

I think it was when I was applying for undergraduate college. I wrote in my application essay that I wanted to write stories that would show my readers that things can get better for them. I was writing as a hobby before then, but I think that’s when I decided that yeah, I wanted making stories to be a part of my future, and I wanted to write stories that I could publish someday. 

33. What’s your revision/rewriting process like? 

Mostly I end up rewriting the chapter or story in question. Draft one is for realizing and getting down the idea of the thing. Draft two is refining it to that thing and losing all of the flab that the story doesn’t need. Often I have another file on the side where I paste in what I’ve cut out, in case I change my mind and want to add it back in later, or in case I can use it in another project. I also save the original messy draft and do the cutting in a copied file. That way, I can reassure myself that the original still exists for me, and I can reread it when I’m feeling self-indulgent, but I’m also only giving the best version to my readers.  

34. Unpopular writing thoughts/opinions?

-- Writing every day is a good idea, and does work well for the writing process, but it’s an unrealistic standard to hold yourself to, especially if you have a day job, kids, and other adult responsibilities. Don’t feel guilty if you can’t write every day. The guilt is just going to make you freeze up instead of returning to the work. Be gentle with your expectations for yourself.  

-- If you’re including triggering or sensitive subjects in your work, and are planning to share that work with others (and ESPECIALLY if you’re planning to profit from that work), you should be doing your research about those subjects, portraying them as accurately as possible, and asking yourself if your story really needs that content to work. It is also a good idea to employ sensitivity screeners for that content, especially if you’re writing from a place of privilege and/or don’t have personal experience with the issues that you’re depicting.

-- Once the work is out there, no one has the right to ban it. They can be critical of it, yes. But not ban it.  

-- Writers of privilege must include diversity within their work, even if they’re scared of getting their depictions of people from other genders, races, classes, religions, and so on wrong. And they will get it wrong. When that happens, just apologize and try to do better in the future. But staying in your lane is a bad idea, for three reasons: 1.) You should be striving to have empathy for others, and you can’t do that if you’re only writing about people who are similar to you. 2.) Writers of privilege have an easier time getting their work published, and so should be trying to push the market/publishing industry into a more diverse direction. And 3.) You should be showing readers of privilege that the world is a diverse one, rather than catering to their narrow worldview.

-- Getting defensive when someone is critical of your work is perfectly natural, but it’s also dumb. It’s so, so dumb. You have made a product, and no product made by human hands is perfect, and every writer has blind spots. So when someone is critical of your work, try to keep this in mind: this is not an attack on you. Let yourself feel the hurt in private, and eat lots of ice cream, and when you’re feeling better, look at the criticism and ask yourself: What led the reader to this conclusion? How can I fix it? What can I learn from this? This is assuming that the critic is working with you in good faith, by the way; sometimes they’re completely off of the mark, or are upset because you didn’t give them the story that they wanted. But if someone is going, “Hey, this is a little racist/sexist/homophobic/ableist/etc.,” sit up and listen. And for the love of god, don’t fight them over it. You’ll make yourself look like an ass. 

-- Don’t workshop your story too early. Try to get a full draft down before you submit something for consideration. For one thing, you’re still figuring out what your story actually is. For another, writing workshops, while useful, have a tendency to pull your work to the middle / make it more acceptable to a general audience. Sometimes this will soften and even kill your bravest writing. Instead, use writing workshops as an opportunity to find writers who understand the themes you’re aiming for and the subjects that you’re discussing. Their input will be what you need.  

-- With the current laws about copyright infringement, getting paid for your fanfic is a bad idea. If you want that to change, then fight to make the laws more lenient. As if it, you’re risking screwing over other fanfic writers by doing that. Does that suck? Yeah. But that’s also the reality we live in right now, and you’re not going to have a good time if a corporation like Disney slams you with lawsuits.

-- Genres like fantasy, science fiction, horror, romance/erotica, and murder mysteries are real literature. Saying they’re not has its roots in classism. 

-- There is no such thing as apolitical writing. 

-- Poets are underrated. Support them. Most of the time, they’re doing braver and more socially-important work than you are, and they’re doing it concisely, too.     

-- Your first draft is going to suck. This is a good thing. You learn a lot more from bad prose than from good prose, more often than not. 

-- Having your work rejected by publishers really is nothing personal. Sometimes it just wasn’t a good fit for them at that moment in time. If they’re interested in seeing more from you in the future, though, keep them on your list and send them something else during their next screening period. They don’t say that unless they mean it.         

[landeg]

31 Days of Apex: A Retrospection

I participated in the incredible #31DaysOfApex challenge hosted on Twitter, where fans created new content for every day of July based on a one-word prompt. I’ve signed up for/started lots of similar challenges in the past but always ended up having to drop out or trail off before the end... but this time, I managed to complete something for every day of the challenge!

My only goal was to make something by each day’s deadline, and it was a really interesting exercise both in technical skill and also in my management of not only my time, but my expectations and energy. Below, I go into more detail behind each piece.

To preface; the beginning of this challenge coincided with the beginning of a new personal time-management exercise where, for 5/7 days a week, I would only go on the computer at night. Combined with the deadline, this had an interesting effect on my time management and the quality of certain pieces.

Day 1 - Memory

From the start, I wanted to use the challenge as an opportunity to do more studies and to push myself wherever possible. This was the first piece I did and I had more time to work on it, so I used it as a digital painting study. I still think it’s a strong piece and it’s probably my favourite of the month. Symbolically, this character’s backstory doesn’t match up with her own memories, so the idea is she’s missing information she can’t quite place or remember, and this both scares and comforts her.

Day 2 - Blood

Another digital painting and lighting study that didn’t work out as well as the first, mostly due to time constraints meaning I couldn’t scrap it and start again. While I don’t like how it turned out, I did learn a lot. The character on the right is a field medic, and my intent was to show the calm after a successful rescue.

Day 3 - Mercy

Some days I relied more on the humour of a piece’s concept than the skill of its execution, though I also liked how this piece turned out artistically. After two days of intense studies, though, this was very quick and easy for me to turn out as it relied on existing skills.

Day 4 - Prize

This one thankfully came together very quickly, which I credit to the two previous painting studies making it much easier to achieve what I wanted. The character is searching for the disembodied head of the man who killed her parents, who is now acting as a robot, hence the vaguely half-machine-half-human silhouette in her hand.

Day 5 - Family

Another quick, simple illustration under a time crunch. The character framed by the nameless foreground figures has no memory of herself or her family.

Day 6 - Noise

For some pieces where I was under a time crunch, I experimented in an opposite direction; instead of studies, I played loosely with different techniques/brushes/etc to see what came out. This was a lineless style I ended up employing a lot when short on time. The piece pictured here was just one of four alternate colourways, presented in a pop-art style. The character is almost always depicted with thick coverings over her ears, so I thought she might be sensitive to auditory overload. This particular piece was retweeted by the character’s voice actress!

Day 7 - Mask

More relying on humour for lack of time/a better idea. A fun experiment in colour, though.

Day 8 - Healing

Another technically “easy” piece but with a stronger concept. It was actually pretty hard to get the reflection & condensation elements balanced right. The character pictured has a narrative thread relating to an old ex he has trouble moving on from.

Day 9 - Weapon

While obviously another joke, and made to be finished quickly, it was surprisingly difficult to get the duct tape and knife to read clearly without over-cluttering the lineless image. This little ‘bot is a drone used by one of the playable characters to hack areas of the map; it’s not NORMALLY an offensive weapon. This image was promo’d in a video stream by the character’s voice actor!

Day 10 - Truth

I only had less than an hour to finish this one by the deadline, but I still tried to experiment with silhouette and colour. It was surprisingly hard to get the interior silhouette to be legible. The outer silhouette is a playable character (not easily readible unless you’re familiar with his design) and the inner silhouette is his sister, whose disappearance he is trying to investigate.

Day 11 - Shield

A fun, self-indulgent one. Had a blast simplifying the game’s characters down into little caricatures. The character in the centre has abilities related to shields and protection, so many other people were drawing him for the prompt; I wanted to try and flip it, so I picked other characters he would be friendly with, and picked a non-lethal, lighthearted setting.

Day 12 - Ruins

Short on time so did a quick lighting study. A recent game plot has changed one of the areas of the map, submerging it in water and leaving it to “ruin”.

Day 13 - Hero

Another painting study. Really didn’t like how this one turned out, but had to turn in something, and I did learn a lot in the process. If I’d had more time I probably would’ve scrapped it and started again. This characters had recently been revealed to have been manipulated by another character who used gas-based offenses, whom she admired.

Day 14 - Rest

I was going to be away from mt computer until after the deadline, so I decided to make a traditional piece. I ended up enjoying it so much I tried to take the time to do a few more traditional pieces later. This piece was sort of a comedy of errors; I had to do it while I was out, and the pen I had brought with me to ink my sketch ran out, so I had to make do with a blue ballpoint pen, and I was missing several colours of coloured pencil. I think the finished piece reflects how rushed it was, and it did’t meet my concept, but I do still like it.

Day 15 - Skull

Another quick one but I wanted to experiment with a different line style. Wanted a sort of “graffiti” effect. One of this character’s skins includes a skull-shaped mask.

Day 16 - Growth

Extremely quick play on words because I didn’t have the time to work on anything meaningful and couldn’t think of anything better!

Day 17 - Home

Another traditional piece, this time by choice and with more time. Markers. It looks extremely like some janky art school homework on 2 point perspective because it extremely is. Perspective and backgrounds are very difficult for me - they just don’t “click” - but I had a lot of fun with this one. I kept my mistakes intact because I didn’t want to edit it too much. A lot about the technical perspective is wrong, but I think I achieved the “mood” I wanted. This location is a bar owned by one of the player characters where many of the other characters are shown to meet.

Day 18 - Sky

Very happy with how this one turned out, even though there are still lots of problems. Markers again. There’s a lot I would fix next time, and I think technically it’s lacking, but there are some specific areas I feel happy to have achieved, such as the almost brushed texture of the curved metal above his shoulder and the values of the shadow/reflections on the underside of the head piece. I’m also happy with how I was able to draw from my shoulder rather than my wrist when inking the curved lines, something I struggle with.

Day 19 - Target

An experiment in pushing the lineless style I’d already been playing with for a stronger likeness. The pose and expression in this could both be pushed more but I like the result. This character had just learned that one of the other players, whom she had trusted, was actually sharing her secrets with her enemy, and she didn’t know which one it was.

Day 20 - Friendship

I had this one concepted from when I first looked over the prompts. It was a fun challenge trying to simplify all the elements into the lineless, blocky style while being legible. This character has a strained relationship with one of his friends, and finally pushed her too far with his selfishness, and she now no longer responds to him.

Day 21 - Scar

Quick joke. This character was introduced briefly as a red herring for another character before being killed off. He was stabbed through the chest by another character’s hand, hence the scar pattern.

Day 22 - Dream

I wasn’t sure about this one while I was making it but I ended up liking how it turned out. I wanted to capture the character’s robotic legs bent at an unnaturally straight 90 degrees, like a Barbie doll. The flat background and lighting make it feel like an indoor stage. The little “electric sheep” are inspired by iDogs.

Day 23 - Meal

After a few days of not having time to really spend on any piece, it was fun to get to spend time on concepting and composing this. I always admired these kinds of watercolour-like food illustrations and this is the first time I’ve had any success in creating one myself. I concepted and sketched out the individual items traditionally before working out the composition within the box digitally. Each food item/utensil is inspired by the different characters’ design elements. Only two of the now-current characters are excluded due to plot reasons. In particular, I like how one of the character’s dome-shaped shields acts as the base and cover of the box.

Day 24 - Hobby

Wasn’t a fan of how this one turned out. I think the likeness is a bit off, and his facial anatomy is skewed. But I also like how the general composition, tone, and bee turned out. This character’s concept art originally imagined them as a beekeeper who would use smoke to fight.

Day 25 - Fear

An incredibly rushed piece that I intended to go back in and add more detail to, similar to day 4, but I actually took a step back and decided I liked the blocky, flat-colour version. This character is the youngest of four, all of whom are MIA or worse, along with his father, and his mother is losing her memory. He’s talking to her through a handheld holographic device. This piece gained more traction, most likely thanks to the subject matter since this is a popular character.

Day 26 - Holiday

I didn’t want to do a religious holiday like Christmas or Easter. A lot of other people also interpreted the prompt as a vacation, but I had already done a sort of “beach vacation” piece for day 11, so I instead went for a “public holiday” and chose NYE/NYD. This was fairly quick but the lighting was an interesting experiment. I knew this one wouldn’t be as popular because it wasn’t as “flattering” but I personally really like it. The girl on the left is kind of goofy and completely un-self-conscious and I think it’s captured here.

Day 27 - Music

Really didn’t like how this one turned out. I don’t think the likeness is good at all, the lighting is poor, and the gold detailing feels lazy. But I liked other elements, such as the pose and the clothing.

Day 28 - Treasure

This is my least favourite of the entire month, but I also had the least time available to work on it before the deadline so I had no opportunity to scrap it and start over, which I sorely wanted to do. The likeness is terrible, but more than that the base anatomy is off, the pose is stiff, and the lighting/colours are cheap. I wish I could’ve done better by this character; but, I am glad I had something finished at all.

Day 29 - Skin

This was probably my third attempt at this picture and I’m still not happy with it, but again, I had to finish something. I almost considered scrapping the concept entirely and choosing something easier but ended up seeing it through. The concept itself is actually recycled from an older piece of mine for an entirely different fandom, because I didn’t think I did it justice then, either. Would still like to revisit this concept with this character and take more time.

Day 30 - Trust

After a few days of feeling really dissatisfied and uncomfortable with the art I’d been making, I finally more time to dedicate to a piece, and I’m overall happy with how this one turned out. I decided to go for a different medium entirely with pixel art, which also gave me the opportunity to try and animate it. I started off confident and then started to get worried towards the end, but all the elements came together when I added the portal colour effects. This is an alternate reality version of one of the player characters, who appears through a portal and allows that character to escape the facility she’s being kept in, encouraging them to trust the “voices” she hears which are actually versions of herself trying to help her. This piece was retweeted by the official Apex Legends Twitter account!

Day 31 - Freestyle

I had this planned out early in the challenge and I’m really, really happy with how it turned out. It’s probably tied with my favourite along with the very first piece (how fitting). I was worried about how I was going to capture the movement without over-complicating the lineart, having so many people in one image, etc. before I realised the focus was entirely on gesture, and then everything clicked. I went for a thicker brush, which forced me to conserve my lines, and tried to simplify each character down to the bare minimum needed to recognise them. They’re also all wearing new non-canonical outfits so I used their familiar colour schemes for the same purpose. It’s not perfect, but I love it, and it’s everything I’d hoped I’d be able to end the challenge on.

I really, really enjoyed the entire month and the way it tied in with my new time management schedule. It gave me some achievable short-term goals which added up to this long-term achievement I can now look back on; I learned a lot both about balancing my energy and about technical skills, I found ways to stay motivated, and most importantly I learned to not get caught up on the individual slip-ups and pieces I didn’t like as much and to instead focus on the bigger picture. Thank you to everyone involved in organising and supporting this event! I found so many other incredible fanartists, writers, and content creators through this challenge and I can’t wait to see the bonus content released over August!

[rosie-love98]

Quarantine: Should We or Shouldn’t We?

I don't know how to start this but lately there's been much talk and protest concerning the coronavirus and the quarantine. It's either we should wait until the government says it's safe to work again to people outright denying the virus in the first place. Going as far as to say that everyone's overreacting. While I agree that the media is prone to nonsense, I can't help but disagree with that sentiment. Family members of some of my friends have contracted the illness and there's nothing fake about it. And the reason why the Coronavirus is not hitting so hard right now is because of the quarantine. The less people out and about, the less likely the virus will spread. Don't even get me started on the government in power thing. Trust me, if the government was so power-hungry, they would have had everyone still working. I don't know much about how these things work but, virus or no virus, they would want the people working, to be productive, otherwise how else would the government get paid? "Infringing on our freedom"? I'm sorry, but give me a break! Do we really want to go down that route while we're sitting in bed, enjoying our time online while most of us are now free to watch movies and get on with our favorite hobbies? Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas would like a word with you people. Good grief, the doctors and other essential workers would like a word with you guys too. They're the ones who are working themselves to death to satisfy your needs. Toilet paper doesn't come from thin air, you know! Besides, weren't a good chunk of you the same people who looked at your then-employed selves as robots to the economy? Pick a direction! Anyway, I am torn about what to do about this quarantine. Protesters have taken to the streets, a woman was nearly jailed for reopening her salon/store (I forgot which), and everyone's...a bit peeved. Which leads to the question, should this quarantine end already? Everyone is worried about the money and how would they be able to provide for their families. And then there's already the troubling rate of people out on the streets. Homelessness has always been an issue, especially in the U.S., but with so many people unemployed and not getting the unemployment checks, things could get worse. It's like the Great Depression 2.0. Yet, I'm a little confused about the public reactions of the anti-quarantine movement. Just a while ago, we were all mocking those (idiot) spring breakers for going out to the beaches having fun. And yet when protesters are out on the streets and reopening their business, we are congratulating them on "sticking it to the man". Yet, should we then congratulate the spring breakers for giving the employees from the bars and boardwalks money?  Yet, we cannot reopen everything so soon. I have heard that the death rates has slowed down which I hope will stay that way. And I am well aware that COVID-19 is nothing new and has been around long before this mess. But, that is still no reason to be careless. We cannot risk a resurgence or even a mutation which a lot of illnesses are known to do. That's what happened with the Spanish Flu. The Coronavirus would be no different; if we're not careful it could get worsen. Then we'll all be in trouble. So what's the point in learning history if we're just going to repeat past mistakes? Look, I know this has been nothing but pleasant. The celebrities are getting more annoying than usual, the commercials are getting repetitive (If I hear "In these uncertain times" one more...time...), and, more importantly, we're all scared of what the future will bring. Trust me, I want their to be parades and festivals when this is all over. And I can't wait to get back to work (especially since I hadn't worked long enough to even get the unemployment checks). But, I don't want to do any of that if it means giving my loved ones a virus that doctors are still trying to figure out. I don't think I would be able to sleep at night knowing that. We shouldn't live in fear, I get that. But, what should we do? What can we do? What do we choose, homelessness or death? 

[hellsbovnd-archive]

LF RP — JANOS JEN RENATA

The third of four sons, Janos has high expectations pushed onto him from a young age. His family name often preceding him (his two older brothers being officers in the military and his father being a high-ranking engineer), it might take a moment to realize that Janos himself is the family’s black sheep. Having failed to even get into the Magitek Academy despite having a passion for working with machines and magitek, Janos instead became an Architectus in the military in order to serve his country and make his family proud.

Unfortunately, bad luck and poor judgement led to trouble following in his wake. Where his siblings are marked as loyal and accomplished, Janos himself is marked as negligent at best, and in six years of service, he failed to earn a single promotion or any recognition for his work whatsoever. He was continually reassigned, never working for too long on any one project and occasionally being moved to different posts altogether, and eventually was relegated to simple maintenance work. Now, as a result of circumstances unknown even to him, he’s found himself in Eorzea: lost, homeless, and scared—but thankfully, not alone.

IN CHARACTER

Profession(s): Eorzean Cover—While Janos tries not to draw too much attention to himself, he often takes odd jobs to make ends meet and help pull his weight in his small circle of companions. Garlean Architectus—He’s loyal to the Empire, still uses his (last known) title in the company of other Garleans, and still believes himself to be in the Empire’s good graces even though “getting lost after being reassigned again” sounds an awful lot like “desertion.” His time in the military was spent primarily in central Illsabard doing maintenance work on weaponry and warmachina, though he didn’t really enjoy the work he was assigned.

Alignment: Chaotic Dumbass. Difficult to tell, but loyal to the Garlean Empire... For now. He had somewhat of a rebellious streak even back home.

Professional Talents: Magitek—Once an Architectus in the Garlean military, Janos learned his way around both conventional machinery and more advanced magitek devices often employed by the Empire. Nowadays, he uses his knowledge primarily to tinker, though much to his dismay he’s only really good at creating weapons... And, well, the quality of those weapons is often limited by the quality of parts he has access to.

Current Residence: Vagrant. He maintains an inn room at The Hourglass, but sometimes he has to move when he doesn’t make enough money to cover the next few days of inn fees.

Likely Haunts: Eorzea at Large—As a vagrant, he can get just about anywhere, provided he has the coin to get there. Unfortunately, as a Pureblood Garlean, he can’t use any magic including the teleportation magicks that make use of the aethernet. Ul’dah—He hangs out around Ul’dah’s markets often, and around Pearl Lane, enjoying the anonymity that blending into crowds there provides.

Hobbies: Tinkering—Janos loves to tinker, and dreams of having a workshop of his own one day back home in Garlemald. But, he’d take Eorzea too, since he’s stranded here for the foreseeable future... Theater—Over the years, Janos has read up on both Garlean and foreign drama, and came to enjoy it quite a bit. While he professes that he would never be able to get up on stage, he has quite a bit of respect for those who can.

MORE INFORMATION: Full Bio WIP | Tag

OUT OF CHARACTER

Hi there! I’m Crow and I use they/them pronouns! I’m generally most active during NA Evenings and Late Nights. I play on Balmung, but I’m open to RP connections from across the Crystal datacenter.

You can find detailed information about my hopes and expectations for RP on my dossier, here. The quick and dirty version:

OOC Communication > All

I am a med/heavy lore-strict RPer. I prefer medium-to-low power levels in RP and character- and plot-driven scenes. I won’t RP with any player under the age of 18 but as long as you’re not making it weird/creepy, I don’t have a problem with underage characters within reason.

I run an FC and an LS, so I can be pretty busy OOC because I have to run a lot of stuff related to that.

I do not really RP on Discord because my attention span is pretty crummy, but I have always been smitten with Tumblr RP as a longform format, so if in-game RP is impossible for some reason, I’m happy to write starters.

In terms of things I’m looking for:

Casual acquaintances and friends! But preferably: long-term plot-focused RP connections! Slice-of-life ain’t really my jam.

Business contacts! Janos is an engineer and a habitual tinkerer and does odd jobs to make ends meet. Maybe he could end up doing something for you?

Pre-established connections based on his background as a Pureblood Garlean born and raised in the capital and as an Architectus in the military (though his situation at the moment is obviously a little complicated).

Recommendations for events to attend? (And company to drag me along since I hate flying solo.)

Discord and Linkshell communities!

DETAILED RP HOOKS UNDER THE CUT!

Thanks for reading! If you’re interested in playing with me then please feel free to send me a message or make a note of it in the tags or comments on this post. My Discord is emet-selch wears prada#5086! If I’m slow please bear with me; I have a habit of getting absolutely swamped with stuff at more or less complete random, and my energy levels vary wildly from day to day and week to week.

tagging for visibility: @balmungrp @mooglemeet @ffxiv-crystal-rp @crystalxivrp @ffxiv-balmung-rp

RP HOOKS

1. Magiteknical Difficulties

Janos is a (former?) Architectus for the Garlean military. While he was generally relegated to maintenance work (and hated every moment of it), he loves working with machines even to this day and would probably be able to fix anything set in front of him given enough time to figure it out.

Given enough time and the right parts, he might also be able to build something for you! Unfortunately, most of his contraptions are dangerous even if they work, with Janos used to cutting corners to make something fast, not necessarily make it good. 

The gunblade he carries is one of his own creations, in fact; dubbed “Bad News,” Janos used misappropriated parts to put it together before he wound up in Eorzea, and has only continued to work on it to this day. It’s held together with proverbial duct tape and it’s a wonder that it works at all, especially because once he got to Eorzea he had to modify its design to make it look less like Imperial models, which involved swapping out some of the better parts he’d slipped under his coat with some shoddier ones he found on Eorzean markets.

2. Eorzeabound

Stranded in Eorzea for reasons unknown to him, Janos has taken advantage of the chance to slow down. After a period of readjustment, he’s settled in to a relatively slow-paced life in Eorzea, and seems keen on treating his predicament like a vacation—although he would like to return to Garlemald one day, he’s enchanted by the local cultures and customs and has taken the chance to reflect on the views that were instilled in him growing up on the teat of Imperial propaganda. 

Janos is curious about Eorzean customs that are entirely foreign to him, such as many of their holidays and their religion. While he remains a staunch atheist (and even lacks belief in any sort of afterlife), he thinks it’s interesting to see how religion has influenced Eorzeans’ day-to-day lives and certain aspects of the different belief systems and cultures of the city-states. 

3. Black Sheep of the Renatas

The Renata family is known for an excellent track record of service to Garlemald in both the military and civil sectors... Except for Janos. Possessed of a rebellious streak that only got worse and more visible after he failed to get into the notorious Magitek Academy, Janos’s track record of service leaves a bit to be desired. With a work track-record that was notably subpar and marked by repeated failures, Janos is regarded as a stain on the reputation of a family that since the establishment of the Empire had been rising through the Garlean social strata.

4. Keeping Up With the Jens

Janos spent six years serving as an Architectus in the Garlean military, though his career was going nowhere fast (something which even at the time he expressed frequent distress over). His track record was marred with failures and he ended up as somewhat of a social outcast, having few friends and mostly being known for being the Architectus who was most frequently being berated by his superiors. It took a substantial toll on his mental health and by the end of his time with the military, he did little but sleep, eat, and work.

Much of the latter days of his service are hazy or non-existent in his memory, a fact which he admits that he “tries not to let bother him too much,” as it’s a bridge he figures he’ll cross when he gets to it. Those who served with him would likely know of some incidents he was involved in, such as an incident wherein several of the magitek bits he’d recently done maintenance on went haywire. After being pressed on it, he admitted that it had been intentional. He also passed out on the job a few times and once locked himself in a broom closet for the duration of his break.

[jungnoir]

just to continue off of that yukhei head canon, jungwoo as a florist or part of the school gardening club? thank you :) (also love u so much this is the shy anon who thinks ur ethereal but can not show her love as well as she wants to❤️🌹)

(jungwoo requester) also i’m sorry i never specified what i wanted it as but tbh anything you’d like to do because you’re amazing and i have full trust no matter what you do:)❤️            

a/n: here you go!! my dumb self accidentally lost the first half of this yesterday so i tried to recreate the magic as much as possible. and ok!!! i was super excited to get going on this when i got this message!! i love you too omg and dw!! i’ll make these headcanons to keep up with the bad boy!yukhei ones. I hope you enjoy~ the bad boy!yukhei headcanons in question are here. also, i’ll stop blabbering soon, but i recommend listening to this song when you read this :)

jungwoo got into gardening because of his parents influencing him from a young age

jungwoo’s parents were v v much crazy about nature and grew up in the countryside, so when they moved closer to the city, they severely missed having all that open space and being surrounded by green

no matter where jungwoo’s family lived, they always had a garden and they always employed jungwoo’s help

whether he was carrying tiny potfuls of dirt across the yard or whether he was watering the plants, he was always doing something with his parents out there

as he got older, he started doing more heavy labor

in fact, by the time he was thirteen, he could tell a farmer a thing or two about a thing or two ok ok

also by thirteen, his parents gave jungwoo a small section of the backyard where he could start his own garden

while he loved to plant flowers, he also liked to plant veggies and herbs and the like

he has this cute little aloe vera plant that has gotten quite big recently (!)

he makes a lot of homemade remedies and things

now, being best friends with bad boy!yukhei, he also knows a variety of plants that can be used to treat cuts, burn, bruises, you name it

sometimes yukhei just shows up at jungwoo’s door and his parents are like “jungwoo!! he got hurt again!!”

and jungwoo just quietly leads yukhei into the bathroom, sits him down on the toilet and has a lil upset expression on his face as he treats yukhei’s scraped knuckles with salves that he made himself for things,,, just like this,,, cause goddamn it wong yukhei u are a mess

it doesn’t happen as often seeing as yukhei is like. Large and scares most contenders off pretty easily with his words and those thick eyebrows but sometimes a dude gets a lil brave every now and then and yukhei has to show ‘em a thing or two

yukhei always likes to be cute tho, just to convince jungwoo not 2 be mad

yukhei: u kno,,, jungwoo, ur my best friend :)

jungwoo: unfortunately

yukhei: whenever u help me out like this i just think abt how like,, u and me? we’re an iconic duo u kno???

jungwoo: what

yukhei: ur like the village mage and i’m the humble but emotionally motivated warrior protagonist u kno

jungwoo: yukhei i don’t know what you’re trying to SAY

yukhei is kinda mad that jungwoo doesn’t appreciate his analogies but i mean,,, it’s Fine that’s just the problem with being best friends with the village mage and not sidekick #1

even tho jungwoo acts absolutely exasperated with yukhei and yukhei loves to tease the eldest, they’re both fiercely protective of each other

like yeh yukhei will avoid abt 95% of the fights that ppl try to start with him bc all he has to do is buck up and ppl run but like?? one time a fool came up to him and started talking shit about jungwoo’s gentle persona and long story short yukhei was almost expelled and that aforementioned fool switched schools the following week

Nobody Disrespects Jungwoo In Yukhei’s House

and while jungwoo is definitely not the fighting type (he much prefers using his words to get his points across), he also has done a lot of research and has access to several recipes for poison so like don’t fuck with yukhei is what i’m trying to say

don’t ask why he has those just don’t fuck with yukhei and u won’t have to worry about it

anywho :)

it wasn’t until jungwoo started his first year at school that he realized that he’d always,, gardened by himself

and it wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy his solitude!! it was just that he’d never really realized that he wanted to share his hobby with anyone until he got to high school

even tho yukhei was his best friend, they clearly didn’t share the same hobbies as yukhei would rather rot inside all day than go outside and “let the sun cook me from the inside out while doing physical labor”

and even though his parents gardened, they didn’t do it as often anymore

so!!! lil jungwoo just decides to pitch his idea to the school about starting a gardening club

at first, there’s only jungwoo so the school isn’t totally sure they should even bother but then jungwoo brings along a few friends who are interested in joining and they let it be

and the club absolutely flourishes over the next four years

it rapidly collects members of all types and backgrounds, people who lived in rural areas and people who had been at their closest to plants in a flower shop

jungwoo is just so bright and friendly and sweet that a lot of ppl join when he asks despite not knowing a thing about gardening

and by the time jungwoo is about to graduate, he’s got such a following and ppl who are just as passionate as him who want to take over when he heads off to college (yukhei told him he better take a gap year so they could go into college as freshmen together but that choice was still pending oops)

the school had seen how passionate they all were so early on and decided to devote a part of the land at the school to the club to do with as they wished, so jungwoo had the great idea of creating a mini garden paradise

they all pitch in to decorate the garden so it has a beautiful stone walkway with trees that line it and flowers planted all around. benches are placed every couple of feet and it is the Perfect place for students to come whenever they feel particularly stressed during the end of the school year and need somewhere that’s just not hectic

the cool thing about this lil garden is that on holidays, they dress it up!!

so for the christmas eve, they string lights through the trees and hang ornaments on them while the school choir sings carols the whole night

and on valentine’s day, they also string lights through the trees but add little foam red and pink hearts to hang from the branches and on each heart, you can buy one and write a name of someone you love

it can be your family members, your best friend, a crush, or your significant other

it can even be ur cat!!!

(jeno has been doing this for the last three years and we’re honestly all concerned he loves nothing else)

the cool thing about these hearts is that you can either write the name of who you love anonymously and hang it on the tree (and whose ever name you wrote gets to take the heart home with them if they’d like) OR you can sign it ;)))

the tradition is, if you sign the heart and that person finds it and brings it to you, that means they accept your confession

despite jungwoo being the key organizer of this v-day event, he’s never participated

however

that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been confessed to more than a dozen times

when his mom saw how many he’d brought home with him since sophomore year she asked him if she could make a collage and hang it up in his room but he was like mom!!! no!!!! that’s lame

so he keeps them all in a shoe box under his bed

and when he feels a little down or ignored, he’ll pull the box out and remember that some people out there like him a lot

there were all unsigned, but sometimes jungwoo would wish that one of them would be signed at least

part of him would feel himself grow expectant every time someone came to his table to get a heart and he’d wonder “is that one of them?” “will they do it again this year?” “is this the year they sign it?”

the other members would often joke with him abt how his eyes would light up when someone would buy one and would always fidget a lil as he thought about all the possibilities

you had joined jungwoo’s gardening club your second year when your counselors started encouraging you to join clubs to meet people

honestly, there were a lot of strange clubs around

you had almost joined the gaming club but then you found out about this school gardening club, and something abt it just,, called to u

your first time you went, you found a piece of paper crudely taped to the door of the classroom they were supposed to meet up in and all it said was “outside”

so, you went outside

and sure enough, in the back of the school in the large expanse of land back there, you found a bunch of students near this garden all crouched down and doing… Something

you made your way over, a little confused, and tapped the shoulder of the person nearest you

they have a huge ass sun hat on so when they turn around, you weren’t really expecting such a,, good looking guy,,, oh. hm

jungwoo narrows his eyes at you, but it’s only bc he has to look up and the sun is getting into his eyes “hello! can i help you?” he asks cheerily, pushing himself up from the ground and clapping the dirt off his gloves

he’s much taller than you expected, so you step back a little and try to remember what u had even came all this way to do in the first place lol

“ah! uh… this is the gardening club, right?”

jungwoo was smiling before, but now he grins so wide that his front two teeth resemble bunny teeth

cuteeeeee

“it sure is~ i’m jungwoo, the head of the club. did you want to join? i promise, you’ll have a lot of fun” he promises this to you and you absentmindedly think that even if he tried to sell you rat poison under the premise it was candy, you would believe him

but this club is rlly candy in this case bc once you’ve told him your name and joined, you find that it’s so much more fun than you had expected

you had really just wanted to be able to tell your counselors you were into something but now,, now u were really passionate about this

something about how jungwoo ran the club made you so interested in gardening

he taught you the basics from the ground up, but it wasn’t super hard???

he was always very simple and forward with what you needed to do, so you had v lil chance of messing up

he was also v friendly and was constantly asking questions abt your life

he always sounded so interested!!! even in the lil things

like what was your last class of the day? what flower appealed to you the most?

he helped you plant your first “honorary” flower as a member of the club

on the walkway, each member gets a flower to take care of up until graduation, after which then the other members will keep it alive to remember them and their contributions to the club

jungwoo just has a lot of sappy cute traditions ok

he tells you that you can plant anything, so you choose the flower you like most and he tells you you can plant it right next to his

even tho… there’s tons of space…. jungwoo…… it doesn’t have to be…. next to yours

this also means that when you all go out to check on the garden, you have to stand right next to him to check on your flower

your knees touch his as you water them together, make sure they’re getting enough light, etc

he always loves to talk to you about the flowers

honestly sometimes he just chatters and chatters and you’ve noticed over time that it’s a nervous habit of his

it was,,, rlly cute

since it was fall when you joined, jungwoo informed you that it was important to care for the flowers so that they wouldn’t be too affected by the weather change

you remembered one cloudy october day when the club couldn’t meet bc of the expected rain storm that evening

you had been about ready to head home for the day when you saw something strange through the windows, where the garden was

there, you could see a very frustrated jungwoo trying to set up tarps over the garden to protect them from the harsh weather

he hadn’t quite gotten it set up right

it was supposed to stand like a small tent over the flowers that weren’t covered by the trees, but it kept slipping off the middle post

rushing out to the patio, you drop your backpack next to the back door and sprint over to help jungwoo steady it

he’s surprised you’re there, but smiles appreciatively and gets back to work hammering it in the ground on the other side

“thanks,,, i honestly thought i could do this myself but i guess not” he rubs the back of his neck and laughs shyly

you just chuckle, “i saw you struggling and couldn’t help but come over”

jungwoo clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, “where would i be without you, (y/n)?”

you bite your lip and look away before he can see how flustered that comment alone makes you

somewhere along the way, he’s gotten the tarp set up correctly, so he’s just about ready to call it a day when all of a sudden,,, it starts beating down rain

Hard

jungwoo, in surprise, grabs an extra tarp he’d taken and throws it over his shoulders before coming over to you and handing you the other side

all he tells you is to “run!” and you just start sprinting toward the cover of the trees because it’s the closest thing to you

and,,, you’re standing awfully close to each other

you don’t register jungwoo is laughing until he unknowingly presses his chest against your shoulder, the vibrations from his laughter shocking you out of your concentrated stare on the crazy rain that forced the sky to be dressed in a dreary grey

you look up at jungwoo and find him grinning at you, “why’d you run this way and not toward the school?”

the rain is beating against the tarp despite the tree cover, but it’s not nearly as much like it is out on the open grass

“oh,,, uh,,, well it was closer and.,,, uh,,,”

yeh no u can’t even find the logic in your choice

but jungwoo doesn’t seem so bothered by it

he looks around the garden and sighs, “i’m glad you came to help me when you did… otherwise the flowers would be in trouble”

you just nod, trying not to focus on how warm his skin is against your own

he suddenly crouches down so you’re uneven and you blink at him, “jungwoo, what are you doing?”

“do you wanna run out there again?”

“uh,, not right now, no”

“then let’s just sit here and watch the rain. it looks really nice like this”

to be honest, you couldn’t see how pretty it could really be sitting outside in the rain, but he was also holding one half of the tarp and it wasn’t like you could really leave him like that,,, so u sit down

you both have to cross your legs so the rain won’t get you wet, and while you’re both sitting on the walkway and looking out as thunder rumbles and flashes of lightning show in the distance, jungwoo says very softly “most people don’t like this kind of weather because it’s wet and cold and disruptive… but i find it kind of peaceful. even though it isn’t very nice for my garden, i still like it in a way. it’s like the world telling you to stay in for the day and rest”

you look over at him once more, but he’s focused on the sky, eyes alight with the same kind of admiration that he has for his flowers

he looks captivating

you smile almost instinctively, “a gardener who likes gloomy weather?”

he chuckles, meeting your eyes, “if you know plants, you know that they don’t just need sunshine all the time. they also need rain. you come to appreciate both and set up protection when needed. kinda like people… though it takes us longer to realize that for ourselves in comparison to plants.”

you’re not sure what to say after that, so instead, you scoot minutely closer to him and start to look at the rain through the same rose-colored glasses that he does

you don’t realize how long you’ve stayed out there with him until one of the teachers leaving for the day catches sight of you both and tells you to come inside before it gets too late and the storm picks up more

reluctantly, you walk with jungwoo until you get under the patio and its overhead roof, and when you grab your phone out of your bag, you find that you’ve got quite a few missed calls from your parents

“i really should go, my parents are probably pissed i missed their calls” “ok!! i’ll see you tomorrow then?”

he lets the tarp fall, and his hair is a little mussed from the rain that got on him before you both found shelter

his skin is dewy from the humidity

but he looks just as handsome as he did the first day you met

“yeah… tomorrow… hopefully we don’t get caught in the rain again” you joke

jungwoo suddenly turns bashful, “i… wouldn’t really mind”

that’s probably the day you fell for him tbh

you kept your feelings mainly to yourself, and when you found out about the valentine’s tradition, you thought that maybe,,, maybe you could just get those feelings out and be free of them

so you made your own heart instead of buying the ones you guys were selling and put it up on a random tree when you were sure jungwoo wouldn’t see

only, ,, you had expected to be the only one

it turned out that when you and some of your friends went walking through the garden to see if anyone left any for you, you found the trees decorated with so many other hearts that had jungwoo’s name

yours was the only one that was different

before you could go back and snatch it down however, jungwoo had already found it

“why’s this one look different?” you’d heard him ask his friend yukhei, who had begrudgingly tagged along

“idk dude, maybe they wanted to be special. you’ve got like a thousand fans around this school u know”

you don’t know why your heart felt so,,, pained when you heard that

after all, you just wanted to “confess” and get it out of your system in some way so you could move on

why would you care so much that other ppl liked him too? you couldn’t control that!!

however, you went home with a few hearts that your friends had left for you and decided that you would just leave it at that. the next day at school would be as normal, and you would start getting over your crush on kim jungwoo

except,,, it didn’t happen that way

if anything, the years that dragged on only made you more in love with him

and so, every year, you would leave another heart (always homemade, always the only one of his confessions that was different in some way)

and you never dared to sign them

you would stay anonymous and hope that by the time you graduated, your feelings would somewhat dissipate with age

look bih!!! it’s not working!!!

plus,,, it seems like ppl just keep catching on the longer it goes on

especially yukhei

you had never even talked to the guy but he had caught on to you after the first valentine’s incident almost immediately

he just spotted you in the hall, walked up to you, and said (in a very not subtle voice) “so you like my best friend!!”

you had to shush him and pull him around a corner where there were less students

and he’s just grinning like a fool, “you seem cute! don’t hurt him tho or you’ll wish you hadn’t”

and ur just like ;-; pls don’t threaten me i’m just tryna live my life as a simple lovestruck human being

but then he shakes his head “i’m just kidding, i know you wouldn’t hurt him,,, but why,,, won’t u tell him”

u: !!! i’m fine being just friends

yukhei: LOL yeah no really why won’t u tell him

feeling like you can’t continue to lie, you tell him that you feel like you won’t have a chance, what with the fact that he has so many admirers already and you don’t want to take any chances bc i mean,,, u really really like him

and you’ve already become his friend so why jeopardize that

but then yukhei is like “well,, i understand that much, but i think that you should still tell him. if not now, at least before it’s too late. you’re just going to keep feeling unsure and if you miss your chance, you won’t forgive yourself for that…. i know that it’s scary, but i will tell you one thing and you can figure out what to do with it: there’s a great chance your feelings aren’t as one sided as you think”

then he drops his eyelid down in a wink and pats your shoulder and leaves you like that

yet, still, you don’t confess

at least, not yet

you continue to just be friends with jungwoo and leave him that same unique heart in the garden every valentine’s but that’s it

you continue to keep yukhei’s words in mind, but haven’t yet decided went to act on them

fast forward to graduation, everything is all over the place

ppl are getting ready to head straight off to college, others are planning parties to celebrate, and others are just unsure of what to do

jungwoo knows that he’s going to miss this school with his everything

he’s already crying harder than his parents when he wakes up the morning of LOL

yukhei also comes over early that morning just to threaten remind jungwoo that he should wait for him so they can go to college at the same time

jungwoo: who even said you would get into the same college as me?

yukhei: do you think i don’t have my ways. we’re going to college together you fool

for some reason,,, jungwoo just pulls out the box of hearts he’s received

and he sets out the three unique ones he received

he had honestly tried his best to figure out whose writing it could have belonged to, had tried to rule out ppl who bought the hearts the club made, etc.

he never got to find out

he had once jokingly asked yukhei if he made them for him but yukhei just grinned all knowingly and told him he needed to look a lil deeper

and jungwoo was ???? but really anxious to know

but today was the last day for this mystery person to personally confess, and he felt a foreboding feeling. like it wouldn’t happen

he goes through the ceremony, taking pictures and the works

yet, the whole day, he hasn’t seen you

sure, he’d seen you walk the stage, but you had disappeared into the sea of people as soon as the ceremony ended

he had sent you several messages but you hadn’t answered any of them

he had taken his last pictures with the rest of the club and had elected the next leader of the club in a very emotional goodbye

he decided he would find you later, maybe see you before the day ended after he finished having dinner with his parents

he had one last thing he wanted to do before leaving, and that was in the garden

he looked at it now, a beautiful, ever-growing thing that had come a long way since ninth grade

now he was leaving it, and he couldn’t quite believe it

he wandered down the stone walkway and found his flower, right next to yours

he couldn’t help but snap a few pics of them, sending one or two to you in the process

when he had finished up reminiscing, he found himself just sitting on one of the benches and watching as the wind swayed the branches of the trees, distorting the sunlight that filtered through the leaves

he felt himself quietly laughing to himself as he recalled when you and him had gotten caught in the rain here all those years ago

it felt so far away now

tugging his cap off his hair, he leans forward on his knees and sighs

until something pink appears in his vision

it takes him a second to realize there is a little cut out heart in front of his face, hanging from a red string that dangles off a familiar finger

on the heart is his name, in that familiar handwriting that he had never been able to recognize

and underneath his name,,, it was signed

with your name

jungwoo follows the finger to your face, a nervous twitch in your smile as you hold the heart out to him

“i meant to leave this for you before you got here but… yukhei told me you’d beat me to it”

jungwoo breathes out in disbelief before reaching into his pocket for his own homemade heart with your name on it

“i guess we both have funny timing” you laugh, watching him stand from the bench to take your heart from you

jungwoo blushes, “the fact that we’re both here tells me our timing is good enough”

you watch as he puts both your hearts on a branch next to each other, watching the wind blow them back and forth in the breeze. the strings they’re hanging on tangle and it feels like a sign

he looks at you with that same look he gave his flowers, the same look he gave the angry, stormy sky as it shamelessly rained down on the both of you. his hand reaches for yours

“yeah,” you say softly, letting him pull you closer, “i think you’re right”

jungwoo captures your lips in a small kiss that feels like the last three years of longing finally finding a home

you suddenly don’t feel so bad about waiting for the right moment, because had you not, you might not have met jungwoo halfway like this

and it feels so, so good

also yukhei is totally taking pictures from behind a bush but dw about it

[irlaimsaaralath]

Interview My OC

Thank you to @dreadhobo for tagging me.

Art by @blackberreh-art

1. What is your name? “Niyera Lavellan.  If I don’t like you, ‘Inquisitor’ will do.”

2. What is your real name? *Bland stare.*  “That is my real name.”

3. Do you know why you were called that? “My mother was I've'an'virelan...I think what the shem call a somniari.  A Dreamer.  She once told me that she met me in the Fade before I was born, while I was still in her belly.  She said we were friends before we were technically mother and daughter.”  *Niyera smiles faintly, gives her head a small shake before she speaks again.*  “I believe my name is her creative manipulation of the Elvhen words 'ni' for friend, 'era' for dream, and 'nydha' for the quiet of the night.  I was her nightly dream companion, she said.”  *She smirks suddenly.*  “She also said I cried quite loudly as an infant...and she sometimes preferred me in the Fade as I was apparently much quieter there.“

4. Are you single or taken? “Taken.”

5. Have any abilities or powers? “Well.  Aside from the Mark, I am a mage.  I seem most attuned to elements of the storm...wind, lightning.”

6. Stop being a Mary Sue. “Should I know what that means?”

7. What’s your eye colour? “Blue-green.”

8. How about your hair colour? “White.”

9. Have you any family members? “I have no blood relatives.  Only friends I consider close enough to be family.”

10. Oh? What about pets? “Mm.  I have a grey cat named Fade.  She was given to me as a kitten by a friend, Cole.”

11. That’s cool I guess, now tell me about something you don’t like. “Orleasian formal functions.  Spiders.  Being wrong.  In fact, I dislike being wrong so much that I never am.”  *She gazes on with an utterly straight face.*

12. Do you have any hobbies/activities you like doing?   “I enjoy reading, herbalism...anything that’ll keep my mind occupied.”

13. Ever hurt anyone before? “When I agreed to this interview, I assumed you knew who I was.  You do know who I am, don’t you?”

14. Ever… killed anyone before? “Only the ones that deserved to die or were too broken to let suffer.”

15. What kind of animal are you? “I think I’m a fox...a snowy fox.  I don’t mean that in the way it most likely sounds.”

16. Name your worst habits. *Scratches the edge of her thumbnail lightly against her lower lip.*  “I’d tell you I have none, but then you’d just go ask Dorian, and he would make up all sorts of absurd things.”  *Her shoulder hitches in a shrug.*  “I brood.  Dwell.  I have a hard time letting things go.  Things I view as failings on my part.  It can make me a bit self-destructive.  Oh...and Josephine says I make obnoxious noises by sucking on my teeth.” 

17. Do you look up to anyone at all? “There are many people I admire for various reasons.  Cassandra for her conviction, Abelas for his sense of devotion, Solas for his knowledge.  I could really go on at length.”

18. Gay, straight, or bisexual? “I...am open-minded, but currently, my partner is male.”

19. Do you go to school? “I was never formally educated.  I learned as most Dalish do, I imagine.  From our Keeper.”

20. Do you ever want to marry and have kids one day? “That escalated quickly...”  *She shifts her weight.*  “I would not be opposed to tying myself to another.  However, I’m not sure children would be right for me...or I for them.”

21. Do you have any fanboys/fangirls? *Makes an incredulous noise.*  “I do not employ anyone to stand around and fan me.  Perhaps that’s something they do in Orlais or Tevinter.”

22. What are you most scared of? “Failing.”

23. What do you usually wear? “Casually, I prefer leggings and a loose tunic.”

24. Do you love someone? “I...love many people.”

25. When was the last time you wet yourself? *Flat expression.*  “Really?”

26. Well, it’s not over yet! “That’s a shame.”

27. What class are you? (High class, middle class, low class) “Dalish don’t really have a class structure like that.”

28. How many friends do you have? “I do not count them.  Enough, I would say.”

29. What are your thoughts on pie? “My favorite part is the crust.”

30. Favourite drink? “Hm...Once when Solas and I were at the Winter Palace, there was a small tavern in the surrounding grounds.  The bartender there made a delightful drink for him.  It was chocolate, with hints of cherry and almond.  It was quite delicious.”

31. What’s your favourite place? “Almost any place other than the Western Approach.”

32. Are you interested in someone? “What kind of question is that?  I find many people interesting.”

33. What’s your bra cup size and/or how big is your willy? “Perhaps you would be better served by asking Solas his opinion on the size of my breasts.”  *Calls Solas over and repeats the question for him.*  *The arch of his brow and the disapproving look he casts you are all the answer you get before he walks away.*  *Niyera shrugs.*

34. Would you rather swim in the lake or the ocean? “A lake.”

35. What’s your type? “If history is any indication, stoic and unassuming ancient Elvhen men.”

36. Any fetishes? “Well.  Solas and I do have a number of interests.  He has this silken red rope that I very much enjoy.”  *In the background, Solas’s stare bores into Niyera’s back.”  “And I rather enjoy it when he’s a bit rough with me.  For him to wrap his hand around my throat when he’s taking me just makes me so we-,” and in the background Solas LOUDLY exclaims VHENAN! and Niyera’s voice trails off as she folds her arms with a smirk.

37. Seme or uke? Top or Bottom? Dominant or Submissive? “I occasionally enjoy a bit of submission, but I could never ONLY be that.”

38. Camping or indoors? “Either.”

39. Are you wanting the interview to end? “It’s only just begun to get interesting.”

40. Now it’s over! “Ah, well.  I hope you found what you were looking for.”

Tagging @thevikingwoman, @savvylittleminx, @elfsplaining, @ladylike-foxes, @rhunae.  No pressure!