#and that i managed to pick a couple books that were Actually Good and Fun and didnt feature any ''classic'' dutch topics

[alotofpockets]

Mini mate | Katie McCabe

Pairing: Katie McCabe x Reader

Summary: Katie meets your kid for the first time, and they have an instant connection.

A/n: Part of the Mini Mate Universe

Masterlist | Woso masterlist | Words: 2.5k

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You were falling for Katie more and more after every date you had been on together. Besides her busy schedule, and your life with a toddler, you have managed to go on quite a few dates over the past two months. When you told her you had a child, and wanted to take things slow, she understood and respected that right away. Overall Katie had been great, and you loved the time you got to spend together.

Today you were out for lunch with your now girlfriend of a week, while your next door neighbour watched your son. Being a single mother, without any support from your family was hard in the beginning, but when Linda from next door had found out you were raising your boy alone, she had offered to watch him as often as she could. She was retired, and loved children. You had found a quick friend in the older woman, and honestly she was a lifesaver. 

You were a couple bites into your lunch when your phone rang, you looked down at the screen and saw your neighbour's name on the screen. “I’m sorry, I have to take this. It could be about Jake.” Katie nods, “Yeah, of course.” You pick up the call, “Hi Linda, is everything okay?” On the other side of the line Linda responds, “Yes dear, little Jakey is doing just fine, don’t you worry. It’s just that I am afraid that I have double booked myself sweetheart, I have to be somewhere in half an hour, and I’m afraid I can’t take him with me.” You relax your shoulders when you realise that your son is alright. “Alright, I will be right there then. Thank you for calling.” Katie had already flagged down a waiter to pack your food as doggy bags. “My neighbour got something mixed up, so I have to go pick up Jake. I’m sorry for having to cut our date short.” She shook her head in response, “Don’t worry about it, darling. The waiter is just bagging up our food, and then I’ll drive you home, okay?” 

On the way home you were thinking how kind, and understanding Katie had been, something you weren’t all that used to. Your heart only warmed at the way she had treated you, which got you thinking. “How would you feel about meeting Jake?” You asked when you were almost back to your place. “I would love to meet him, but only if you’re ready for me to. There is no rush on my end.” Her answer made you smile, she was always making sure you were okay. “Yeah, I am.” 

Katie parks the car, and the two of you walk into your home. After putting away your lunch in the fridge you walk up to Katie. “Do you mind waiting here for a moment, while I pick him up? I want to give him a little heads up that someone else will be at home.�� Again Katie was very understanding, and told you it was all good. So, you head next door. “Hi sweetheart.” Linda greets you when she opens the door. “Again, I am so sorry. I hope I didn’t ruin your date with the lovely lady.” You shake your head at the woman, “No need to apologise, I promise. And the lovely lady is actually sitting on the couch, waiting to meet Jake.” Linda brings you in for a hug, “Oh dear, I am so happy for you.” Linda had been a close friend of yours over the years, and had heard all about your growing liking of the woman you had been dating. 

Once Linda lets go of you, you hear little footsteps running your way. “Mommy.” The boy says full of excitement, he keeps running and jumps into your arms. “Hi kiddo, I missed you.” You pepper his cheeks with kisses. A car horn sounds outside, “Sorry honey, I have to leave, can you close up when you leave?” You nod, “Thank you, Linda. Have a good day!” 

You put Jake down, and start walking around to gather his stuff. “Did you have fun with Linda?” He nodded his head excitedly, he had been doing that a lot recently, and you loved his new adorable habit. “I play twains!” You sit him down on the couch, to put his shoes on. “That’s great baby, I’m glad you had fun.” You placed a kiss on his forehead once both his shoes were on. “There is someone waiting at home that I would love for you to meet. Are you ready to go?” He nodded again. “Okay, let's go then.” 

With Jake's hand in yours, you enter your home. Having Katie meet Jake was a big deal, and you were slightly nervous. You really liked Katie, and her and Jake getting along was very important to you. 

Katie was sitting on the couch, and waved to Jake who was shyly hiding behind your leg. “Hi buddy, my name is Katie.” Her kind smile, and soft voice made Jake move out from behind you. “Hi Kawie” Your heart melted at the way he pronounced her name. Jake let go of your hand and walked towards Katie, holding his bunny up to her. “What a cute bunny you have there, buddy. What's your bunny's name?” He hugged the bunny to his chest again, “Benny.” Katie smiled, “Benny the bunny, I like that.” 

The boy yawned, and started rubbing his eyes. “Hey kiddo, it's nap time. Can you pick out a book?” Your home was full of books for the toddler, and you loved giving him the freedom of choosing which story you would read before bed. He came back with a book in one hand and his bunny in the other, and walked straight up to Katie. “This one pwease.” Your fears of the two not getting along instantly fade away, when you see him reach up his arms for Katie to pick him up. She sat him on his lap and started reading the book to him, pointing at all the animals the book talked about. You snapped a quick picture, while watching the heartwarming scene in front of you.

When you came back downstairs after putting Jake down, Katie had plated your packed lunches from the restaurant, and had set the table. “You are amazing,” You say when her eyes meet yours. “and you were so great with him.” A tear escaped your, and you quickly wiped it away, but Katie had noticed. “Come here, darling.” She brings you in for a hug, and rubs her hand over your back soothingly. “I'm sorry, I've just been so worried about the two of you not getting along, and seeing him just walk up to you with his book, that meant so much.” She smiles and moves you so she can look at you. “Don't you ever apologise for that. You are a great mom, and I am so grateful that you wanted me to meet him.”

While Jake was down for his nap, you and Katie settled on the couch, cuddled up together while watching some TV. That was until you heard Jake start talking over the babyphone, letting you know that he woke up from his nap. You place a kiss on Katie’s lips before you get up. “I'll be right back.” 

“Kawieee” Your son runs to her the moment he notices that she is still there. She picks him up and twirls him around, “Hi my mini mate, did you have a good nap?” He does his excited nodding, as a response, and giggles when Katie tickles his belly. 

“Mini mate?” You ask once she has put him in his highchair for his post nap snack. “Yeah I call all my friend's mate, so he's my mini mate.” You laugh, “It's cute. I like it.”

Katie came over more often after that, the bond between the two of them only started to grow, and you couldn't help but fall in love with Katie over the next few weeks. Katie would be staying the night for the first time, you had stayed the night at her place before, but never at your place with Jake at home too. Jake was actually over the moon that Katie would be able to read his nighttime story, and help tuck him in. 

Once you got back downstairs you plopped down on the couch. Katie had gotten Jake a small Arsenal ball, and the three of you had been kicking it around in the backyard for a good part of the afternoon, so you were pretty tired. “You know how I was so worried for the two of you not to get along?” Katie moves her fingers through your hair and hums. “Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. He really loves you, you know?” She nods, noticing that you weren't done with what you were wanting to say. “I do too. Love you, I mean.” You were getting nervous, and messing up what you wanted to say, so you started again. “I love you Katie.” She smiles and moves her hand to your cheek. “I love you too y/n.” She pulls you in closer and kisses you. The kiss was soft, but at the same time it was filled with passion. 

A few weeks later you found yourself in the stands at Meadow Park along with Jake and Linda, cheering on Katie for the first time. Before the match started Katie had found you in the crowd and waved in your direction. Jake started excitedly waving back once you pointed her out.

You had watched Katie play on TV a couple of times since you had started dating, but never before had you experienced the game in such an environment. The crowd cheered and sang chants the whole time, it was truly amazing how much support the team got.

Arsenal won the match, and after she finished signing jerseys and posters, and taking pictures with fans, she made her way over to you. “You played so well. Good job captaining the team!” She brought you into a hug. “Thank you baby.” She hugged Jake next, and lastly she greeted Linda with a hug as well. “Kawie.” Jake said, making grabby hands towards her. She takes him from where you were holding him on the railing, “Did you and Benny like the football match?” Jake hugs Benny tight to his chest, “Yesss.” He adorably drags out the ‘s’. 

“Katie!” Is being called from behind her, “Katie, can you come here for a moment?” Katie sends her teammate a thumbs up, letting her know that she would be right there. “Duty calls.” She tries to hand Jake back to you, but he holds on tight. “Mini mate, I have to go for a bit, but I promise I will be right back.” She tries again, but to no avail. “Me with Kawie.” Katie looks up to you, “Do you mind if I take him with me on the pitch?” You shake your head, “Go for it. Jakey, listen very well to Katie, okay?’ You ruffle his hair before you let them go, and start your conversation with Linda back up. “You found a good one, honey, I can see how much she loves the both of you just from her eyes.” You blush at her words, she had always been very truthful with her words, even when they weren’t what you wanted to hear, so hearing her say that meant a lot. 

The team was waiting for Katie to do their post match team huddle to recap on the match through the eyes of Jonas. Once Katie joined, Jonas started talking right away, so no one had time to question Katie joining the huddle with a kid on her hip. At the end of the speech, Katie was the one to announce, “Team on three.” After which everyone put their hands in the middle, Jake wanted to join and put his hand on top of the rest of the girls. “Team!” The group said before moving out again. Though, some of the girls stick around. Katie was tickling Jake’s belly, pulling loud giggles from the toddler's mouth. “Who is this little guy?” Viv asked, tickling the boy’s belly as well. “This is my mini mate. Can you tell Viv your name, buddy?” The boy was loving all the attention. “Jake.” Katie smiles and holds her hand up to give him a high five, “Good job, buddy.” She then moves her focus back to her teammates surrounding her, “He’s my girlfriend's kid.” This piqued the interest of her teammates even more. “Your girlfriend is here?” Beth asked, and Vic quickly followed with, “Can we meet her?”

You watched from the stands as Katie was twirling Jake around, and walking back towards you with a few of her teammates. “Hi darling, they wanted to come meet you. This is Viv, Beth, and Vic.” She introduced them one by one. “It’s very nice to meet you, and good game by the way.” Katie sets Jake down on the ground, and starts softly kicking a ball to him, like you had done together in the backyard. He was loving all the attention he was getting from the girls, while you were getting to know Katie’s teammates. 

Katie had often talked about her teammates being like family, and the way they were interacting with your son, made you see that right away. You looked at the group of girls playing with him, and the big smile on his face, and in that moment you realised that your little family was going to be expanding over the next couple of months, in the form of lots of aunties. 

Jake was happily running around with Beth and Viv, a few steps away from you, when Katie joined you, both keeping an eye on the little boy. “What are you thinking, darling?” She says while wrapping her arm around your shoulder. “Just that I love you, and seeing him happy means the world to me.” You both smile at the giggling toddler. “I love you too. Beth and Viv asked if the three of us would like to join them for dinner tonight.” Katie turns to Linda, “You were invited too, of course, I just know you already have plans tonight.” Linda waves her off, “Don’t worry about me, honey, you kids have fun.” 

Katie kisses you before she heads down to the locker rooms, “I’ll see at the car.” You walk out of the stadium with Jake on your hip and Linda by your side. “Did you have fun, little Jakey?” Linda asks. His excited nods once again making an appearance. “Kawie and Beffy and Vivi play ball.” His pronunciation of their names brings a smile to your face. “Guess what kiddo, we’re going to see them later too.” His eyes widen before he hugs his body closer to yours, which you took as a sign that he was excited for it too.

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[novvabee]

The Boys in the Band

AN: I got carried away with this one, but here is the second part to the band au

word count: 2.8k

cw: language? there is nothing really bad about this one.

Since your first show, you had been quite busy. You had opened for a couple bands at The Common Room, you booked a few nights at the popular club, The Hog’s Head, and managed to snag a spot in another festival. You had become popular very quickly amongst the girls, gays, theys, and young people in the city. Each gig you noted more and more fans, crowds growing, singing so loud and dancing so hard. 

This is what you always dreamed of, performing and making people happy. You lived for the drama and theatrics of it all, dressing up on stage and singing your heart out. The girls felt the same electricity, the same passion as you. That made your bond as a group that much stronger.

Not to mention, you were all good friends. Lily had mentioned to you that she and Mary had been messing around and found out they actually sounded really good together. Then they asked Marlene if she would play drums, which she said yes to in a heartbeat. And then Lily realized they needed a front woman, someone who could sing and bring the most energy. She thought of you, your bold and fierce attitude, your flirty and fun personality. And that is how you started.

The four of you wrote all the music you performed; the fun and girly songs by Mary, the campy over-the-top songs about women by Marlene, the sad and slow ballads by yourself, and the thought provoking and experimental ones by Lily.

Mary had the upbeat, girly, pop songs down. Her personality just flowed with inspiration for them, so those were the types of songs that you mostly sang and performed. You weren’t complaining, her songs were half the fun.

Marlene was full of something you all liked to tease her about; lesbian angst. But all that angst made for great songs to perform and were usually the crowd favorites.

Lily was slightly different, she was full of thoughts and ideas about the world, and her medium to get them out of her brain and into the world, was through music and lyrics. She wrote a lot of songs for women, for rights for all and for political change. If you had to pick, you would say hers were by far your favorites. She didn’t write often, but when she did, she had a message, something to say. You loved that about her.

Your songs were all ballads and sad. The girls teased you about that too, saying you shouldn’t let a man make you cry. It wasn’t exactly your fault, you had just gotten out of a long term relationship, and were drawing inspiration from all the confusing, mixed feelings that came with that. 

You had been dating this boy, Matthew, for about a year and a half, but everything seemed to take a turn for the worse a couple months ago. Your once sweet and charming boyfriend had turned into this cold, vacant man right in front of you. You two argued all the time, about small things as well as very important, serious things. He started accusing you of sneaking around, hiding things from him, cheating on him. None of it was true, and you tried to tell him that, but he wouldn’t listen to reason.

So you had enough. You told him that if you two couldn’t work things out, you didn’t know if you could continue on. He said nothing, just agreed with you. He didn’t try to mend the broken relationship, didn't try to fight either for you or with you. You would’ve taken either, but he just walked away.

As much as you tell yourself you’re doing so much better, that you have moved on and don’t care about him anymore, that isn’t exactly true.

You leaned into the band to distract yourself, putting everything you had in it so that you wouldn’t be left with those feelings. You’re just glad you had your friends, your girls who not only could help you through it, but also help you see this band through. They ignited you.

You felt that way even just sitting on the floor of Mary’s apartment. The space was cute and cozy. You girls were sprawled out over fluffy rugs, a plush couch, and two oversized bean bags. 

Mary was nodding her head along to a beat that only she could hear, writing down what you could only guess were new lyrics. Lily was strumming a tune she had been working on for over a week. You and Marlene were talking about what to wear for your upcoming show. 

“I think you'd look good in that pink leotard with the matching cowgirl boots.” Marlene recommended.

“The pink tassels or the pink heart?” you asked.

She thought for a moment, then her eyes lit up. “The tassels, that way you can wear the boots and maybe a cowboy hat,” she paused looking at the other two, “maybe we can try out Pink Pony?”

Excited, you clapped your hands together. You had been dying to perform this new song in front of a crowd and this was the perfect opportunity. You were playing at The Common Room again, but this time it was only you. Unlike every other performance you had, this time there were no openers, and no one else after you. You got a whole set for yourselves and the whole night to perform and party with fans.

The night was going to be nothing short of magical.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

James followed Remus and Sirius into the stage door of The Common Room.

All three boys wanted to come and see the performance that The Pixies were giving tonight. They had gained a lot of traction recently, seemingly overnight.

James didn’t feel at all jealous or threatened, they were doing just as well themselves, and they made entirely different music. He was more curious as to the fact that this band came out of nowhere.

The Marauders were used to competition revolving around the music world. They had been doing this for a while now, they understood the fight to fill spots and book sets. This band was just another contender now.

James was more frequently used to The Snakes stealing their gigs or spots in festivals, but now even they were pushed aside for this new band. The Snakes was led by Sirius’s little brother Regulus, another person on the list James hadn’t spoken to in a while. James knew that Regulus was a grudge holder, hell, he was related to Sirius, so he shouldn’t be surprised that Regulus cut all contact.

He fucked up, he knew he did. But he still wasn’t ready to think about it.

Slipping through the crowd and continuing to follow as best he could, all three boys ended up in the back of the already packed room. 

“Holy shit,” Sirius began, “there are so many people. How much were tickets?” He asked Remus.

Remus answered with a head shake. “Don’t know, Lily told me to come in through the back door so we wouldn’t have to pay.”

James’s stomach sunk, maybe he shouldn’t have come. Lily didn’t even invite him, he just tagged along with Remus. But, she had to have known that would happen, right? The boys didn’t do anything or go anywhere without each other.

“Oh my god! Hi,” came a voice from a girl to his right. “You’re The Marauders right? I love you guys. I’ve been to, like, a bunch of shows.” James recognized this girl. She was always front row or close enough, always giving Sirius a look that showed she wanted to fuck him, or at least become a groupie. “Could I get a pic?” she asked.

Sirius smirked. “Course you can sweetheart.” he said while she handed her phone to someone she was with. She stood between Remus and Sirius for the photo, then thanked the boys, obviously wanting the interaction to continue. 

James did not. He would look like such an asshole taking pictures with fans at Lily’s show.

The thought was cut short when the house lights dimmed and the stage turned a hazy pink color. James lost every thought in his head when you came out on stage.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Walking out onto the stage, you were met by a wall of sound, cheers and screams. Your nerves and butterflies instantly fluttered away. This is where you were meant to be, up here on this stage, in front of a crowd, making music. You had dreamed of this since you were a little girl.

You pranced yourself out in a cowboy hat and high heel boots, a matching sparkly and intricately tasseled leotard to top it all off. Your ass may be out, but that was the fun of it, the aesthetic. Especially for the new song you had prepared for the night. 

“Hello my friends.” you said, the cheers and screams somehow getting even louder. “We are The Pixies,” you introduced, “and we are here to give you the night of your life.”

You looked around the crowd to see so many faces enhanced with intricate and beautiful makeup looks, so many fans copying looks from your previous performances, so many bodies in bright colors. So many people who felt confident in what they were wearing and how they looked. 

“We’re gonna start off with a new one if that’s ok with you.” You announced you got an astounding amount of cheers, noting many phones launch into the air to record this new one. “This song is a fun one but more importantly,” you paused, the whole crowd hanging on your breath, “it is about what my mother thinks I am doing with my life. Here is Pink Pony Club!”

The girls started playing the intro and you walked to the front of the stage, sitting down, legs dangling off.

I know you wanted me to stay

But I can't ignore the crazy visions of me in LA

And I heard that there's a special place

Where boys and girls can all be queens every single day

You stood, walking back to center stage.

I'm having wicked dreams of leaving Tennessee

Hear Santa Monica, I swear it's calling me

Won't make my mama proud, it's gonna cause a scene

She sees her baby girl, I know she's gonna scream

You whipped around to the audience

God, what have you done?

You're a pink pony girl

And you dance at the club

Oh mama, I'm just having fun

On the stage in my heels

It's where I belong down at the

You started dancing and jumping around stage, Lily and Mary joining you, smiles plastered on their faces

Pink Pony Club

I'm gonna keep on dancing at the

Pink Pony Club

I'm gonna keep on dancing down in

West Hollywood

I'm gonna keep on dancing at the

Pink Pony Club, Pink Pony Club

The audience had settled into the performance, had gotten into the groove of the song, and joined in the dancing and the fun.

I'm up and jaws are on the floor

Lovers in the bathroom and a line outside the door

Blacklights and a mirrored disco ball

Every night's another reason why I left it all

I thank my wicked dreams a year from Tennessee

Oh, Santa Monica, you've been too good to me

Won't make my mama proud, it's gonna cause a scene

She sees her baby girl, I know she's gonna scream

God, what have you done?

You're a pink pony girl

And you dance at the club

Oh mama, I'm just having fun

On the stage in my heels

It's where I belong down at the

Pink Pony Club

I'm gonna keep on dancing at the

Pink Pony Club

I'm gonna keep on dancing down in

West Hollywood

I'm gonna keep on dancing at the

Pink Pony Club, Pink Pony Club

The crowd was going crazy, right along with you, until you slowed down and the girls played quieter for the bridge.

Don't think I've left you all behind

Still love you and Tennessee

You're always on my mind

And mama, every Saturday

I can hear your southern drawl a thousand miles away, saying

God, what have you done?

You're a pink pony girl

And you dance at the club

Oh mama, I'm just having fun

On the stage in my heels

It's where I belong down at the

You jumped up and danced like crazy, the crowd joining in, loving this new song. Some picked up on the lyrics and were singing them back to you, the feeling indescribable.

Pink Pony Club

I'm gonna keep on dancing at the

Pink Pony Club

I'm gonna keep on dancing down in

West Hollywood

I'm gonna keep on dancing at the

Pink Pony Club, Pink Pony Club

I'm gonna keep on dancing

I'm gonna keep on dancing

You kept dancing as Lily and Mary played the outro, out of breath and so happy. Once the song was finished, the whole building was filled with cheering. You looked to Mary, then over to Lily, they looked just as ecstatic, you could imagine Marlene felt the same. 

“Thank you, thank you!” you said into the mic. “Well, if you like that Common Room, we’re just getting started.”

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

James had never seen a concert, a band like yours. There was no way to describe it, you were just, stars already. 

The rest of the concert was filled with just as much fun, joy as the first song. The dancing and singing and laughing was indescribable. 

The boys waited after the concert, waited until the last of the fans trickled out, then they made their way backstage. Walking down the halls and to the dressing room that had a piece of paper with the word “Pixies” in bold letters, Remus knocked on the door. 

The giggling and sounds of excitement were radiating from the room, loudly even with the door shut.

They waited for a moment before the door pulled open, revealing Mary. The smile dropped from her face for a moment before she put another one in its place, this one though, was more of an uncomfortable grimace more than anything. “Hey! I didn’t know you guys were here.” Mary said, opening the door to let the boys slide through. She hugged each of them on their way in.

James made eye contact with Lily who was on the couch with Marlene. She didn’t break away. He quickly looked over to Marlene and smiled. “We wanted to come and say great show!” he said, directed at them all, but not being able to look away from Marlene, who just smirked, knowing the situation and that James was incredibly uncomfortable right now.

“Thanks.” Marlene replied smoothly. 

Sirius noted the tension and decided to break it. “Where is she?” he asked.

All eyes went to him as Mary asked “Y/N?”

He looked at her and rolled his eyes, “No, the queen.” he said sarcastically.

“Are you going to try to sleep with her?” Mary asked, not holding back.

“What, no!” Sirius denied as if it wasn’t exactly something Sirius would do. “I just want to meet her. ‘Know thy enemy’ and all that.”

Lily scoffed. “She’ll be out in a minute, I think she's taking off her makeup.”

And as if right on que, you waltzed right out of the connected bathroom and into the dressing room. Smiling, you looked at the boys standing across from the couch. 

“Here she is!” Mary ushered you over, chipper and still energized from the performance. “This is Y/N, Y/N these are the boys in The Marauders.”

Your smile grew. “The Marauders? You guys were amazing at the festival.”

Sirius smiled back at you, charming as ever. “‘I'm Sirius.” you looked to the next boy, who was glancing at a fuming Lily.

“Uh, I’m James.” He smiled, seeming to come back to reality and out of whatever thought he was lost in. 

You looked at the final boy, tall and leaning against the wall. “And you’re Remus, right?” you asked.

He nodded. “Yeah we met a while back, lovely to see you again.”

“Lovely to see you! And it is lovely to finally meet you two.” you said to the newly acquainted Sirius and James, they nodded and smiled politely. There was a noticeable tension between everyone in the room, was there really that much of a rivalry?

“I think the boys were just heading out,” Mary said to the three boys standing in front of her. “Isn't that right?”

Sirius huffed and led the other two out throwing a “See you all soon.” over his shoulder as Mary escorted and followed them out into the hallway, shutting the door beyond her.

“That was… strange.” you said to Lily and Marlene. They just looked at each other and laughed, rolling their eyes. You didn’t understand.

“They're idiots.” Marlene supplied.

“They're boys.” Lily corrected.

Taglist 💌:  @adharalikethestar @mayuwolfstar @ieatboysalive @maraudereestauderelb @bugg06 @slytherinambitious (yell at me if I forgot anyone)

[gremlinmodetweeker]

Read Me to Sleep, Let Me Drift Away

Kidnapper!König is a monster but I love him. I love how evil he is, I love how intelligent he is, I love I love I love. He's perfect. I adore him. Now, about this fic, I've read both Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea. If you've ever read Jane Eyre, read Wide Sargasso Sea with caution. It completely changes the novel.

Anyways, have fun with Kidnapper!König!

Tws: kidnapping, toxic relationships, stockholm syndrome

Wordcount: 1.6k

Art from This Post

Story Below the Cut

Read Me to Sleep, Let Me Drift Away

You’d never seen König so frantic before. Your calm, collected and menacing… fiance (?) was hurriedly puttering around the house, moving ornaments aside to dust under them before hurrying back to pick up the vacuum and go over the room again. If his anxiety weren’t so infectious, you might have thought the scene to be rather amusing.

“König, you already vacuumed this room three times,” you nervously whispered.

“But what if there’s still some left?” he muttered under his breath as he went over the persian carpet once more, “it needs to be clean.”

“Isn’t it clean enough?” you asked as you shifted from side to side, over and over as you watched him fret over nothing.

König turned off the vacuum and cracked his back with a good stretch, “It won’t ever be clean enough. Not for Mama…”

“Is your mom really going to be that upset?” you stepped aside to let him crouch down and dust the outlets.

König paused, considered your words for a moment, then turned back to cleaning and said, “She won’t. But I don’t want to be the messiest one of us. I want to at least be as good as Klara.”

“Klara?”

“My youngest sister,” König explained, “Friedrich is the eldest, than Stephen and Lisa. I was the fourth born, and Klara was the last.”

“Sounds like a full house,” you mused.

König laughed as he walked out to the kitchen, “It was! It was always busy. Stephen used to like doing ‘science experiments’ and Friedrich got into a heavy metal band. Mama used to say she’d go deaf before she hit menopause.”

“What did your dad think about it?” you leaned against the doorway.

König glanced at you briefly, “Papa’s opinions didn’t matter very much.”

You watched him silently. He wiped down the polished rosewood table again and again, ignoring the heavy questions that hung heavy on the tip of your tongue.

“So,” you grunted as you pushed off the doorway to step to König’s side, “are they coming soon?”

“Tomorrow,” König grunted as he worked a stubborn spot, “I’m cleaning today so I won’t have to do much tomorrow.”

“Do you want me to help?” you asked as you glanced over to the spotless kitchen.

König shook his head, “No, I can do this. You just relax. There’s some good books in the living room.”

You nodded and padded away. You walked through the sprawling manor before you managed to find the living room. The entire room was wallpapered in bookshelves, each one nearly scraping the top of the tall ceilings. You walked to the nearest shelf and looked at the ancient tomes. Books of old, some with spines cracked like white crested waves and others with leather bindings that had been peeled off through the ages. When you pulled some out as carefully as you could, you’d find their covers in different language.s You saw some in German, of course, but others were in Spanish, French, Italian too. You came across a couple that looked like they were written in latin. Some had strange writings in sitting curiously on the pages that looked like Cyrilic, others looking like kangi or hanzi, you couldn’t tell. You wondered if König could actually read all these books. By the plentiful appearances of bookmarks and dog ears, maybe he could. You might have suspected they were for show had you not seen the notes in German in the margins. They all had the same handwriting, all matching your König’s carefully crafted calligraphy.

You managed to find a book in English that you could take over to the window bench to curl up into the bohemian pillows and blankets. You managed to find a lightswitch overhead to provide a warm light to read by, a stark contrast to the cool, drizzly weather outside. You liked the rain sometimes, but you noted that your energy was always a bit low when it came by. You hated to admit it, but you’d missed the sun.

Lately, König had been lax about putting you in the basement. He’d only just let you have free reign of the home the other day, actually. You hoped it was because he was in a merciful mood, but knowing König everything was carefully crafted. It always was, wasn’t it? He always had plans, always carefully crafting his web to keep his puppets strung along to his desires. You were just another doll in his hands, carved from wood to his shape of perfection. You only hoped he saw to it that a smile was drawn on your face by the end.

You tucked a stray bookmark into the bindings of your book and looked out the window. You’d never actually seen the front of the house. You had seen the back, seen his sprawling gardens and his great shed on the back corner of the property, hidden behind some straggly pines like some perching cat. You’d asked to see it once, but König had refused you flatly. He said it was best to stay in the gardens, stay where it was comfortable and safe. What would you want with an old workshed, anyways? You had glanced over his shoulder at the dilapidated building. A part of you wondered if you stared long enough into the dark windows, would you see something staring back? You looked away as soon as the thought crossed your mind.

Sitting on the window bench, it was perfectly comfortable and warm inside. König kept the fireplace running now that autumn had crept over the land. You watched the yellow and orange leaves flutter in the light wind outside before flowing away in the wind. In the distance, a great red maple tree curled over one side of the driveway, hiding the rest of the route from view. You wondered how long it was, how far back it stretched. If you followed it, how long would it take until you found some other traveller? How long until you found another home? Something told you that anyone you came across out here would have different intentions than König. You suspected far, far worse.

You put the bok in your lap and sighed. It had been so long since you’d lived your old life. A part of you wondered if your parents ever called after you. Your friends certainly didn’t notice your absences. In fact, the person who cared most was probably your boss, furious that you’d up and left without a word. You could imagine her snapping and snarling into your voicemail only to slam down the phone and wonder what had happened to their faithful employee. You knew that despite how cruel and heartless your boss could seem, they approved of you and valued you in your position. You wondered if they ever hoped you were alright, wherever you went.

You heard heavy footsteps before you saw König turning around the doorway. He clucked his tongue as he swaggered over to your side.

“I told you to go to the living room, not the library,” König hummed.

“This isn’t the living room?” you asked.

“No,” König shook his head, “the living room is on the other side of the hall.”

“The one with the fireplace?” you asked.

König nodded and put a hand on your shoulder. He peered down at your lap and nodded approvingly, “I didn’t take you for much of a reader.”

“Well, there’s not much else to do,” you explained as you turned the cover from his sight.

“Why did you choose this book?” he asked as he plucked it from your reluctant fingers.

“I heard it’s a good sequel,” you said nervously.

König fluttered through the paperback pages with an amused chuff, “Not an official sequel. Charlotte Bronte was dead for over a hundred years before Jean Rhys published this.”

You watched him smile as he flicked through the book.

“I didn’t know it was that long,” you admitted.

“It’s an interesting book, this one,” König mused, “you got a decent ways in. What are your thoughts about the moths?”

“The moths?” you asked.

“The moths and the flame,” König repeated, “it’s a symbol that repeats throughout the novel.”

You rubbed your forefinger and thumb together over the hem of your sleeve, “I liked it. Two lovers fated to be, but by being together it ends in mutual destruction.”

“Is it mutual?” König raised an eyebrow behind his hood, “Mr. Rochester goes on to live a good life with Jane Eyre, doesn’t he?”

“I…” you thinned your lips to a line, “he did, didn’t he.”

“I’dHe was harmed, no doubt, but do you really think that Mr. Rochester was as ruined as his late wife? I’d argue otherwise,” König flicked the book shut, “fire is a prominent symbol in and of itself. Fitting considering her end, isn’t it?”

You shivered, “I try not to think about that too much.”

“But you must, my dear,” König crooned, “the end is what makes the novel a tragedy, don’t you think?”

You turned to look up into König’s eyes. He stared back, unwavering in his declarations towards you. He tilted his head to the side, glanced at the book one final time, the tossed it back into your lap.

“It’s a beautiful book,” he said as he turned to leave the room, “I think you’ll like it.”

“Do you?” you asked as he turned to leave.

He looked back at you. His eyes crinkled mirthfully briefly, “I think you will.”

When König left, you put the book to your side and shivered. You didn’t think you would be finishing this one.

Konig Dump

Alternate Universes

[womenloverlmao]

13 Days of Halloween - Day 1

Carrie - Charlie Walker X Reader

Charlie loved you, and everything about you. He loved your looks, your mind, your heart. He even loved your weird obsession with books, one that is known among quiet teenage girls. His favorite thing about that, though, was when you were done and he got to watch the movie adaptations of the books you read with you. When Twilight first came out, you read it, and he got to see it with you. There were many other stories like this, but with the speed at which you read, it was too many to name. 

Recently, you had read Carrie for the first time. You enjoyed Stephen King as much as the next person, but you weren’t a huge fan. You knew the general plot of it before you read it, but you were pleasantly surprised when you read about it despite its anti-religion connotation. You loved the book, and this time you were happy to be able to watch this movie with Charlie. 

You got to snuggle up that night with a couple snacks and watch a movie together like you did once or twice a week, depending on how you felt. It was a fun event for both you and your boyfriend to enjoy. You never really pointed out the book vs movie stuff, feeling no need to cause an argument between you and Charlie even if it was all in good fun. Carrie was no exception. 

As Halloween started to come up, you knew what you were gonna be. You loved the book, and you liked the movie, so you knew that you were going to be Carrie White. You told Charlie that you were going to go as her, and he didn’t think much of it. You were specifically looking forward to doing a book accurate portrayal of her, because you didn’t like that they got it wrong in the movies. I mean, that’s what the whole point of a film adaptation is, isn’t it? 

You were gonna go to one of Kirby’s parties and bring your boyfriend with you, and so you got ready on your own before you would go to pick up Charlie. You were wearing the red dress, you had managed to thrift one that didn’t look exactly as described–specifically with the sleeves–but was good enough. You had put some fake blood on your face, but not much. You put the crown on and then added some on there too, letting some get into your hair. It was gross, but you knew that you had succeeded and this was one of the best costumes you had done. 

When you went to pick Charlie up, he was confused. “I thought you were being Carrie White?” 

“I am Carrie White,” you told him. 

“But her dress is white…?” 

“No, that’s only in the movie. I guess it’s supposed to portray an innocence or some sort in the movies, but actually, Stephen King had originally mentioned that it was red and actually went into detail about what the dress was supposed to look like. In the movie, they don’t follow any of it. I actually don’t really like it, and I don’t like a lot about how the movie was made, but still…” 

“Why would they need to portray innocence if she was just going to kill everyone anyways?” 

“Well, you know how the pig's blood gets poured? When the red gets on her, that symbolizes that innocence being lost.” 

Anyways that conversation went on all the way to Kirby’s, and as soon as you saw her, she immediately said. “Damn, girl. You’re beautiful, I…am gonna assume you’re Carrie?” 

“Thank you. And, yes. As of tonight, that’s my name,” you said with a smile. “Charlie doesn’t believe that I’m Carrie because my dress isn’t white.” 

“Don’t get me involved in one of those conversations, I heard it happen about Eragon back in like…Freshman year.” 

You laughed, but you looked over at Charlie. You gave him a smile, one that said I win. 

Anyways, you had a lot of fun with your boyfriend that night. After winning that little dispute, it truly was a Happy Halloween for you.

[marlynnofmany]

Hands-Free

“Are you going to want help installing all these?” I asked, opening another case of engine rings. I had no idea which part of the spaceship’s guts these actually went into; they were about three feet across, an inch thick, and made of some plasticky red stuff that was above my pay grade to define. All I knew was there was a lot of them, and we only had one engineer.

“No thanks,” grumbled Mimi, the octopus-looking guy with the voice like a gravel road. “This is a tentacles-only kind of operation.”

“Really? What’s the difference?” I was curious now. “Do you have to use specific tools, or reach into tight crevices?”

“Crevices,” he said, checking the label on the box. “These have to fit snug, and they go somewhere you people with fingers can never manage to reach.” He gave one ring a judicious whack against the floor, then tossed it back into the box.

I huffed in mock offense. “I’ll have you know I’m very flexible for my species.”

“Sure you are,” he chuckled. “Not your fault you’re held back by all those bones. And you only have two arms! I don’t know how you get by.” He started looping tentacles around the rings in a different box, gathering an impressive number of them.

“Just fine, thank you,” I told him. “Two arms is plenty.”

“Yeah? Carrying just a couple things at once? Must be a simple life.”

I took the hint, digging into the box for more rings. “Who says I can only carry two at once? Look how many I can fit over my nice long arms.”

“Yes, yes, good job. Put ‘em over there.”

“And I can hook them over my shoulders,” I continued as I deposited my armload where Mimi had pointed. “Heck, these are big enough that I could just stand inside a stack of them, and hold them all from the bottom. Oh! And—”

“Here, these too.”

“And,” I repeated, “I can even carry one without my arms or shoulders.”

“Yes, I know you have tiny fingers on your feet,” Mimi said, unimpressed.

“No, not like that!” I set down the other stack. “I’ll pick it up with my hands, then only touch it with my torso! Think I can do it?”

He struck a pose lounging on the floor with one tentacle against his head, looking dramatically bored. “Wow me,” he grated.

I hadn’t used a hula hoop since I was a kid, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. With all the flair of a carnival magician, I grabbed a ring and lifted it over my head, braced it against one hip, then spun it and did my absolute best to keep it from falling.

I managed about three seconds, which I consider a major success.

Finally it hit the floor. “Ta-da!” I said, hands in the air.

Mimi got up and deadpanned, “Wow.”

“Ah, you’re no fun.”

“I’m sure that is immensely practical on a day-to-day basis,” Mimi said. “A fine consolation for being unable to reach around three-bend corners.”

“Oh sure,” I said, stepping out of the ring and picking it up again. “You can do that, but can you make this love you?”

I gave the ring an underhanded throw towards the hallway, with a twist to make it spin madly. It bounced twice, still spinning, then rolled back to my waiting arms.

A voice from the hallway shouted, “What was that?” Paint stuck her lizardy snout around the corner, and was utterly flabbergasted when I did it again. “How did you do that? Can you teach me?”

“See, she’s fun,” I said to Mimi. “Sure thing, Paint!”

“Well sure; she’s got fingers too.” Mimi waved a tentacle and went back to sorting the boxes while I showed Paint how to use vital engine components for childhood tricks.

~~~

The ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book. More to come!

[veliseraptor]

May Reading Recap

A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine. Rereading A Memory Called Empire was a treat - an expected treat, but it was good to find out that it lived up to memory. I liked A Desolation Called Peace a little bit less, but only a little bit - it very much followed up directly on the themes from A Memory Called Empire that I appreciated.

The Last Graduate and The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik. I devoured these books. I'm very surprised by this fact, since I'm not generally a "magic school" person, but there we are; Naomi Novik apparently managed to make me one temporarily. The last book was a particularly strong one and did some very interesting things with its worldbuilding that'd been set up in previous books and delivered in the last one.

Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End by Bart Ehrman. I've read and enjoyed some Bart Ehrman previously, but I feel like the quality of his books has diminished from his earlier work, and this book confirmed that for me. I'm a bit of an eschatology enthusiast (the main reason I picked this up, as well as the fact that (a) it was available at the library one time and I grabbed it on a whim and (b) author recognition), but I learned very little from this book that I didn't already know.

Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge. One of the things that made me happiest about reading this book was, unfortunately, the fact that I thought I recognized the ways in which it was referring back to Classic of Mountains and Seas, which I felt (again, unfortunately) sort of smug about. Checking the Wikipedia page for the book, apparently "Additionally, each chapter begins with a brief description of the beast which, in the original writing, was written in Classical Chinese, while the rest of the book was written in standard Chinese," which is so cool and I wish had been conveyed in the translation.

In general though, this was a good one, though I feel like the descriptive copy was a little misleading. It's less a mystery than a series of interconnected stories following a central character investigating the titular strange beasts, and learning how they connect to her life and history.

Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat. I liked this one significantly more than Dark Rise - which I guess makes sense, since a lot of Dark Rise was setting up the concept that most compels me about the series (the main character being the reincarnation of a notorious villain from the past). It still feels YA in the way that YA usually does, which isn't necessarily a bad thing if stylistically less my preference (and something I feel worth mentioning in the context of a possible recommendation). The ending was a gut-punch of a fun kind. I will be looking forward to reading the third one.

"There Would Always Be a Fairy-Tale": Essays on Tolkien's Middle Earth by Verlyn Flieger. I loved Splintered Light and was disappointingly underwhelmed by most of the essays in this collection. There were a couple that were more interesting to me, but on the whole a lukewarm response.

The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Adrian Tchaikovsky wins again!!! I don't love this one quite as much as I've enjoyed the Children of Time series, but I actually think that I liked it more than The Final Architecture series. Fascinating concept, as usual fascinating worldbuilding for societies wildly different from our own, and dedicated to themes of cooperation and unity-across-difference without it feeling preachy or didactic.

Aphrodite and the Rabbis: How the Jews Adapted Roman Culture to Create Judaism as We Know It by Burton Visotzky. This was a good one! I already was familiar with some of the information here, but not all of it, and the work around art and architecture was new to me. I felt in some ways like Visotzky overstated his case a little, but on the whole a very interesting read.

Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives by Phyllis Trible. This one is kind of a classic of feminist Bible scholarship - a short book that does a close reading of the text of the stories of four biblical women who suffer in some way (Hagar, Tamar, the unnamed woman from Judges 19, and Jephthah's daughter). It's a powerful work, though it felt a little basic to me on the whole - probably due to the fact that it's relatively early scholarship on the subject working from a literary angle.

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff. Books with footnotes are very hit-or-miss for me - not meaning books with contextual footnotes, but books with footnotes that are part of the conceit of the text itself. Some authors can pull it off; others really shouldn't try. In this case, the author felt a bit too taken with his own cleverness to pull it off; in general I felt like this book was trying a little too hard to be edgy and voice-y and ended up just feeling kind of shallow. It was a fun read, in some ways, but not a good one, and I'm torn on if I'm going to continue reading the series. If I do, it probably won't be in a hurry.

Tolkien and Alterity ed. by Christopher Vaccaro. I was excited about this particular collection of essays (you can probably guess why) and found them mostly uninspiring in the reading. The exception was a bibliographic essay on the treatment of race in Tolkien scholarship, which proposed more use of reader response theory, a suggestion which seems fruitful to me and more interesting than debates about whether or not Tolkien/his works are or aren't racist.

Knock Knock, Open Wide by Neil Sharpson. I feel like this is going to sound more critical than I really mean it to, but this was a perfectly adequate horror novel. I wouldn't call it exceptional, and it didn't freak me out, but I read it pretty much straight through and enjoyed the experience on the whole.

Thousand Autumns: vol. 4 by Meng Xi Shi. I liked this volume more than I've liked some of the others, and am enjoying the development of the central relationship, though I feel a little like I've been bait-and-switched about the level of fucked up that it's involved. Maybe that's why I'm enjoying this one a little less than I feel like I should: I was expecting more fucked-up between the two main characters based on the initial conceit and don't feel like the novel has really delivered on that. But I am enjoying Yan Wushi getting a little more...outwardly affectionate toward Shen Qiao, and Shen Qiao's concomitant confusion about it.

This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer. More than an adequate horror novel but less than an excellent one, I felt like this book relied more on gross-out horror than I typically prefer. Still, was definitely spooky, and confirmed for me that wilderness horror gets to me in a very specific way.

I'm presently reading Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, which I have mixed feelings about (not negative! just mixed). I'm not sure what I'm going to read after that, save that I'm now trying to alternate genres and might try to read some nonfiction, which I've been sort of off for a while. Otherwise I'll probably just end up reading Translation State by Ann Leckie, and possibly A Fire in the Deep by Vernor Vinge. But I'm really going to try for some more nonfiction next month.

[ff7-has-taken-me-over]

I had the thought of Sam and Optimus switching places and it is, oof. It sounds fun. Like Sam’s young for a Cybertronian, much less a prime.

If he weren’t then it would’ve been somewhat more believable since Bee was younger than him but nobody believed he was a prime. Couldn’t understand how he’d ever managed to become one when the last of them were wiped out with the war and he’d been born in the midst of it.

Sam himself never even understood it. Only knew he was supposed to be going after the all spark which was on Earth and that he’d be taking his closest comrades with him. They were like family to him. A wildly dangerous and overprotective one despite his technical higher ranking status but a family none the less.

Orion was your average middle aged worker. Making visits to his local antique store once a month and picking up random little trinquetes and nice bits of furniture from there. His recent trip wasn’t too much of a success this time around, only a couple good books and a pair of glasses that were a little cracked. He’d thought they looked cool and would add a little charm to his entry table.

Despite the meagre finds the store clerk had insisted he take a picture for their social media since he’d visited the shop so many times. Something like a regular celebratory thing or something. He wasn’t sure honestly. Had even felt a little bad because he didn’t actually know the woman’s name despite visiting once a month. Only knew that she wasn’t the owner and was just another employee.

Now obviously Sam and the others find him through this social media post. They still send in Bee because Ratchet and Ironhide had been adamant Sam wasn’t allowed to be the one to do it and Bee was all too eager to have a mission after so long without.

So the start of the movie plays somewhat similarly, just no bike chase or love interest (thought maybe Elita can be there but as a friend dragged into crazy shenanigans rather than a love interest) before they all meet!

Oh! Also I had the thought! Since Sam is so young still and with the war and everything he never actually got a name, he still actually goes by his designation number or just the numbers for short. But his designation could either be S-113 or S-413. So it’d either be S-1-13 (S-A-M) or S-4-13. Like a licence plate sorta thing.

[armandyke]

January 2025 Reading Wrap Up

Read some absolute bangers this month lads (plus one book that resulted in me sending several voicenotes to my friends because I had to rant about it)

1) A Darker Shade Curated by Joyce Carol Oates (4⭐)

A collection of body horror short stories written by women, do I even need to say more? Overall the quality of stories in this collection was higher than most short story collections I’ve read. I don’t think there were any I could describe as bad or even mid. They were all good. 

I will say that although this is described as a collection of body horror stories, I would say a lot of them were what I would class as gore rather than body horror, but that didn’t stop them from being enjoyable nonetheless. 

My personal favourites in this collection: 

Gross Anatomy by Aimee LaBrie: At what point does it become acceptable to say that I’m a huge fan of necrophilia in stories. Well, it’s out there now. This is one of those stories where you absolutely know what’s going on, but you still cringe and go oh no when it is inevitably revealed. 

Muzzle by Cassandra Khaw: I love Cassandra Khaw's writing so much. This is a very short story but managed to cram so much beautifully written gorey body horror inside. Loved it. 

The Seventh Bride by Elisabeth Hand: This was one of the stories that I wouldn’t really class as body horror, but was still great nonetheless. About a woman who enacts delightful revenge on her rapist. Hell yeah. 

2) The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (5⭐)

I don’t have a lot to say about this one because it’s a classic and most people are familiar with the story. I’ve been wanting to read this for a while and I’m so glad I finally did because it was great, and I actually enjoyed it even more than I expected. There’s a lot of humour in the writing style that I didn’t expect, but it still succeeded in feeling tense and creepy despite me knowing the story already. Definitely worth the read. 

3) The Nesting by C.J Cooper (5⭐)

This is my third C.J Cooper book so I was already expecting good things, but this was easily my favourite of the three I’ve read so far. Trigger warning right of the bat for very heavy discussions of suicide in this book right from page one, but as I think I’ve said before, Cooper has a real talent for handling these heavy and upsetting topics in her books without it ever feeling gratuitous. The main character attempts suicide at the beginning of the book and that’s something that is very present for the entire story, but it adds to the plot rather than overwhelming it. 

After her suicide attempt, the main character Lexi, through several serendipitous events, finds herself taking on a job as a nanny and caring for two little girls who recently lost their mother to suicide. It’s a completely fresh start for her, being flown out to Norway where the girls’ architect father is determined to build their new family home. Once she’s there, however, she begins to suspect that the death of the girls’ mother might not have been quite what it seemed. 

As with the other C.J Cooper books I’ve read, we go back and forth in time throughout the story, switching between Lexi’s pov in the present, and the pov’s of Aurelie, the girls’ mother, in the time leading up to her death. It’s a fun combination of murder mystery combined with supernatural elements. It made me cry several times, surprised me with the twists, and was overall just a really great read. 

4) Shiver by Junji Ito (3.5⭐)

I’ve been wanting to get into manga, especially Junji Ito’s work for a while, and this was the one I ended up picking. It’s a collection of shorter stories and gets my standard rating, with an extra half star because I really enjoyed the art style and body horror. 

The stories in here weren’t quite what I was expecting. But once I’d read a couple and gotten an idea of what the writing would be, I was able to enjoy them a lot more. Very creepy, really unique. These stories are basically just the author saying “hey, if this thing happened, would that be fucked up or what?” and you know what? It would be fucked up. It absolutely would. My favourite of the stories was Long Dream because I love the concept of eternity in horror. It reminded me a lot of Stephen King’s short story The Jaunt, which was equally existentially horrifying. 

5) Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M. Valente (5⭐)

This is a difficult book to describe without getting into spoiler territory so I’m gonna keep it as simple as I can. It’s about a woman living in a beautiful, utopian community who begins to notice certain things around her house that don’t belong. 

If you’ve read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, this has similar vibes to that. It’s weird and at first you won’t really understand anything that’s happening, but the beautiful writing draws you in and slowly things start to fall into place. It’s really cleverly written, and once you start to realise what’s going on, you will want to read the whole thing again to appreciate it even more (I read it twice and loved it both times). 

6) Thirsty Animals by Rachelle Atalla (2⭐)

This was… a very strange book. My rating changed several times throughout reading it, going from 3 stars to 1 star to 4 stars and then finally settling here on 2. I may post an additional spoilery review for this one because a lot of my issues were with the attempted plot twists near the end of the book, but for now let’s stick to the spoiler free stuff. 

The book is set in Scotland, during a global drought that has led to major water shortages. Our main character Aida has moved back home to the family farm with her mother, uncle, and his partner. They are managing okay until a family, a mother, her adult son, and pregnant daughter, arrive on the farm asking for help. The book then follows this group throughout three seasons on the farm as the water restrictions increase. 

The main crime of this book is that for the most part I found it pretty boring. I think the intention was to build tension, but this mostly just amounted to not a lot happening for the majority of the book. It wasn’t until around 60% of the way through the book that we caught up to the synopsis written on the back, which is a huge pet peeve of mine. There were some twists, and they were good, but ultimately they fell flat. It sort of felt like the author came up with these really shocking twists, but then wasn’t really sure what to do with them. They were revealed, and then events just continued to move forward, ultimately unaffected. Overall I think the concept was good, but the execution could have been a lot better. 

7) Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero (5⭐)

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you took Scooby Doo, made it dark as hell, and added a butch lesbian for good measure? This book has the answer. 

This book follows the eventful reunion of the now adult Blyton Summer Detective Club, consisting of Andy, a butch on the run, Kerri, biologist and former kid genius, Nate, horror nerd who mostly resides in mental health institutions, and Tim, descendent of the teams faithful canine companion. Sadly the fifth member, the stoic jock leader Peter, killed himself several years prior, but that doesn’t stop Nate from hallucinating him from time to time. The team are back together to reopen their final case, because despite unmasking the supposed culprit at the time, they can’t help but feel like this mystery was a little bigger than just a man in a mask. 

I cannot emphasise enough how much fun this book was. The writing style is very unique and might not be for everyone, switching between regular prose and script-style writing complete with stage and camera directions. It really added to the entire experience of this story. It feels like reading a book and watching a movie at the same time. 

The characters are so well written, especially the banter between them (especially the banter between Nate and ghost-Peter). The chemistry between Andy and Kerri had me giggling and kicking my feet, and the development of that throughout the story was really well done. Everything felt real and natural. It’s funny, but also sad and heartfelt in places, and incredibly dark and gruesome in others. The twists were so good I had to put the book down and pace around the room a few times. Five stars, no notes. 

8) My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna Van Veen (5⭐)

Two things about me: 1) I love gothic horror, 2) I love sapphic horror, and when I get gothic, sapphic horror, I go a little bit crazy. This was one of those books that I knew from the first few sentences was going to be at least a four star read for me. It literally opened with a quote from Turn of the Screw, I mean, come on. 

The main character Roos is a young woman raised by an abusive mother, who has the ability to see spirits. In particular, her spirit companion Ruth, who has been bonded to her since childhood and will do anything to stay with her and keep her safe. During one of the regular seances held by her mother, Roos is introduced to Agnes Knoop, the widow of a wealthy man who senses something unique in Roos and ultimately decides to take her away from her mother and bring her home to live as her companion. 

The story goes back and forth in time, switching between Roos’ telling of the events as they happen, and interviews between her and a psychiatrist attempting to unravel the tragic events that ultimately took place in Agnes’ home. It’s an approach to storytelling that I always enjoy (see my reviews of C.J Cooper’s books) and this was no exception. I think it takes a lot of skill to be able to reveal some of the main climax in your story early on, and still keep readers engaged as you work your way towards it, and this author absolutely succeeded.

The absolute highlight of this book is the relationship between Roos and Ruth. Their love for one another, Ruth’s fierce protectiveness, and Roos’ codependency and reliance on the spirit who was her only friend and confidant in all the years she spent living with her mother is so heartbreaking and beautiful. And the way Ruth is presented, both in the prose and in the way she speaks to Roos is so haunting. I adored this. 

9) Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder (3.5⭐)

Another one of those books that’s kinda hard to explain (common for me because I just like weird books). This is a sort of cosmic, Lovecraftian horror with lesbian sex, body horror, and biblically accurate angels, sort of. Let me try and sum it up. 

The gist of the story is that a brand new spicy pandemic has been sweeping the globe, killing people or permanently altering them. Those who have been infected begin to crave human blood or brains, and as the story progresses, become less and less recognisable as human. 

The book is split into three parts, told from the perspectives of three different women. Erin, who becomes infected and develops a taste for brains, Savannah, a BDSM sex worker who begins receiving kill hits from the Gods, and Mareva, who after suffering chronic benign tumors all her life suddenly finds herself at the center of this cosmic horror show. I think I enjoyed this book, but it was a lot. I guess it felt similar to reading Lovecraft in that afterwards you’re kind of left not really knowing what the fuck you just read, but knowing you had something of a good time throughout? I think my main hangup with the story was that the way Savannah was written, particularly her dialogue, felt really campy and goofy and kept taking me out of the story completely. If the author had just cut her out of the book completely I think I would have enjoyed it more, because now that I think about it, she really didn’t add much of anything to the story as a whole. Overall though, sapphics + horror (especially body horror) will always go down well with me.

[arimiadev]

2024 Year in Review

If 2023 was a new leaf for me, then 2024 was a year of tying up loose ends. I started off 2024 with multiple unfinished projects that needed wrapping up—more than I like having open at any time.

Canvas Menagerie was entering its 2nd year of development, I was in the midst of finishing Asphodelium—which was supposed to be a Winter Jam 2023 project—and a separate Winter Jam 2022 project, Lost Lune, that only had a partial amount of progress made on it. Suffice to say, I was somewhat in over my head with unfinished games.

I’m the type that is self motivated while working, but I can get overwhelmed when I have several projects in progress (including game dev, marketing, IRL, etc). So, clearly I needed to actually finish some things, even though my games were just hobby projects.

…But, I also had to start some new projects. An idea I’ve had for a while was an otome sequel to Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea, something I told myself I wouldn’t make unless I could get a writer and artist to help me with it. Well, guess what my Otome Jam 2024 project was…

In February I set up a new side website—Arimia’s Doujin Den! It’s a little blog for me to share the doujin fan games I’ve collected over the years, many of which no longer have any internet presence at all. It takes a lot of passion and dedication to make an indie game but maybe even a touch more for a fan game, and I don’t want that passion to go to waste. I’ve only catalogued a few so far, but I want to do even more in the future.

However, about halfway through 2024 I was laid off from my software development job very suddenly. I was partially expecting for months to be laid off at any point as the company has lay offs every single month, but it was still incredibly sudden. I had hoped to at least make it through to the end of the year, not only half the year!

I also began doing social media work for Studio Everium, an indie otome studio. I’ve only ever worked at Studio Élan for marketing (and this marks my 5th year there!) so it’s been a fun change of pace to help share even more visual novels to the world. Speaking of Élan, I spent a few weekends this year traveling and attending conventions! We had booths at Offkai Expo and Otakon, where we sold our yuri games and met a lot of fans & fellow developers. It was my first time going to a convention outside of Memphis and was so fun to finally meet so many friends (and make new ones).

At the tail end of the year, I finished rereading Umineko in October (on the 5th, of course), which I hadn’t read since….middle school. It was such a refreshing reread, to not only read something made with so much love for the world but also to confirm that it was just as good—even better, with fresh eyes on the queer narrative—than I remembered. Anyway, that’s what led me to get back into reading novels. I wanted to see some of r07’s inspiration for it, so I picked up And Then There Were None and dived into several other of Christie’s tales, which led me to joining an in-person book club (where all of the members could be my parents/grandparents…!) to force myself to get out more.

Projects

Canvas Menagerie

My main goal for 2024 was to finish writing Canvas Menagerie, but my secret internal goal was to finish the entire game—and I did! Just a couple of weeks ago I managed to release it to the world after 3 years of solo development. It’s not exactly what I envisioned it being when I started outlining it (and I definitely chunked and rewrote my outlines several times), but I’m still happy with how it came out.

I’m also happy to finally have a commercial game out that doesn’t have my writings & art from early college (that’s practically high school…!!). It’s something I’ve been somewhat self conscious about for a few years—to be honest, I don’t like my prior commercial works. I can only look at them and cringe somewhat, knowing how old the writing and art is. Now I finally have a commercial project I’m (mostly) proud of.

The final game ended up being 138k words with 15+ CGs and 10+ character sprites. I did all of the work on the project, outside of the backgrounds, music, and GUI design. I’m thankful for all of the people who supported the project to the end!

I was also able to do a lifelong goal—have a physical release for one of my games!

These were handmade by myself. I think they came out pretty cute~

Asphodelium

My other main goal for 2024 was to finish and release Asphodelium. Well, about that….

I did end up finishing it, releasing it in January. That version was right at 40k words long with 1 story line and 2 slightly different endings. But, well… I wanted to do more with it!

I got several extremely positive comments after releasing it and I loved writing Aster & Hazel’s push-and-pull relationship, so I started secretly working on an expansion afterwards. The main story already covers a lot of ideas regarding cults, but I wanted to expand upon it even more. There’s plenty more aspects I want to touch on such as the depersonalization cult members experience and the idea of self identity after leaving a cult. It’s a completely different vibe from the comfyness of Canvas Menagerie, to say the least!

I’m currently aiming to make it a full commercial release sometime in the first half of 2025 by adding a new story path (with at least a couple of new endings), at least 25k more words, and several new CGs. I’ve already written 14k words and drawn 2 new CGs, so it’s progressing smoothly. This will be the main project I’m working on going into 2025.

Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon

As mentioned before, I couldn’t go the entire year without starting a new long-term project of course. I began preparing as soon as Asphodelium was out the door to attempt a sequel to my 2021 fantasy mystery visual novel Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea. I say “attempt” as I went into the planning phase sure that I would only make it if I was able to find solid partners to make the projects with—after all, I had enough projects to work on solo! It’s been years since I directed a project without my writing and art, so I wanted to give it a shot again.

I was lucky to find Runa Winters to helm the writing based off of my terribly shoddy outline & character notes, Iron to edit it into a cohesive narrative, and Dule to bring the colorful cast to life. Together, we were able to get a demo out and also later get featured on the IGN YouTube as part of the Dames 4 Games Fall Showcase!

Witch You Want

Over at Élan, in September we wanted to try something new—a game jam! Several of us had already entered game jams in the past (and I had just finished a game jam—more on that later), so we thought it’d be a good way to rejuvenate ourselves and our creative juices.

I lead a team with Natasha Luna providing her wonderful writing and Dani creating our own magic with their lovely illustrations. The premise is simple—a local witch desperately needs help making enough potions for the festival that weekend. She’s just, like, only slightly incompetent and ditzy. Slightly.

We made the game in under a month alongside 3 other yuri visual novels from the game jam. I did all of the programming, with some outside assistance from Feniks. I think it turned out pretty cute!

Dahlia

Around April I got the itch to join a game jam (we hadn’t decided to do an internal jam at Élan quite yet) and became interested in the Velox series of jams. They’re Ludum Dare-inspired visual novel game jams which is absolutely perfect for me. I got my start making games with Ludum Dare, as a bunch of my first visual novels were Ludum Dare entries. They taught me how to actually make a game from start to finish and set deadlines for myself.

I entered Velox Formido, which was by far the strictest game jam I’ve ever entered. You have 36 hours to make a visual novel. Still, somehow I was able to make a story with 2 character sprites and multiple endings in the time frame. I think it came out rather nice, as the art direction came out exactly as I imagined.

Starlit Regrets

After entering Velox Formido, I found I really liked the format and was eager to enter the next in the series. In August they held Velox Fabula 2, a 10 day long version of the jam. This gave me a lot more room to work with my idea—maybe a bit too much!

Starlit Regrets is a melancholic story focused on reminiscing and letting the player guide the narrative, both the past and present. It has quite a few different scenes in it depending on choices and 5 endings over 15k words long (I don’t know how I was able to churn out that much in such a short time)! Most of my long visual novels are very linear, so it’s fun to try branching narratives for my shorter games.

Articles

Continuing from last year, I interviewed other visual novel developers! I was lucky to have Katelyn from GB Patch Games, Gabby from Two and a Half Studios, and Tony & Abby from Black Tabby Games all sit down with me in 2024 to talk about their visual novels and how they approach the medium.

Interviewing other developers is still a bit nerve-wracking for me, but it always turns out to be a fun and informative experience.

After getting home from Offkai Expo, I wrote up an overview of our (wonderful) experiences as well as some takeaways from it. We had a great time selling there, but it’s not something that can easily be replicated…!

And continuing from last year’s article looking over Mahoyo’s very questionable marketing campaign, I took a look at both Mahoyo and Tsukihime remake‘s approach to visual direction. So no badmouthing Aniplex this time, but instead praising Type-Moon’s art direction.

My last blog post for the year was also partially a postmortem for Canvas Menagerie. I’ve been on a lot of projects in varying states of being finished, so it was a big relief to finally finish my 3 year long project. I hope it’ll help other developers push themselves across the finish line…!

Art

This year I did a lot of art assets! 4 of the images here are in-game assets and 4 are promotional artworks for the games.

I also participated in Umitober this year, an Inktober-inspired month-long art event where you draw Umineko arts based on different themes each day. Most of my submissions were sketches as I wanted to just try a bunch of different poses and focus on quantity over quality—the best way to get better is to draw a lot, so I used it as pose practice.

Goals

2024 Goals:

Fully write Act 3 of Canvas Menagerie: This was the lite version of this goal. I actually wanted to fully finish the visual novel but didn’t want to overshoot, as I was still working a full time job. Suffice to say I cleared this goal with flying colors.

Release the full version & an artbook for Asphodelium: I actually forgot I was going to release an artbook with the original release… Well, I hope I’ll release one with the extended cut next year. I made an artbook for Canvas Menagerie which was a lot of fun, so I want to do it again.

Go to an out-of-town convention: I’ve never been to an anime convention outside of Memphis…until now! I was able to travel to Offkai Expo and Otakon this year which was so amazing.

Share more VNs I like: I was able to do this as well! I’ve started sharing my favorites from Spooktober after the event as well as cataloguing some of the doujin games I own on Neocities. It’s fun to be able to share some of the visual novel gems I’ve played.

2025 Goals:

Release the extended version for Asphodelium: In January I released the “full” version of Asphodelium, but as mentioned I want to extend it even more. This edition isn’t too far from being done, so I hope to release it in the first half of 2025.

Release Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon: CWES: AM has had a lot of progress on the writing front, so I need to get back to scripting it…! We were originally thinking of releasing it Q1 2025 but want to give it more time in the oven. It’s only been in development for half a year as of now, so a later 2025 release would be great.

Fill an entire sketchbook: I have a sketchbook from 2 years ago I started for doing pose practice and this year I want to finally fully use the sketchbook with practices. Not full arts—just practicing everything.

Get back to kanji studies: I feel like this is a goal for a lot of people, hah. Given how often I try to navigate JP websites and play JP games, I need to get back to learning JP!

Document more doujin games: One of the hobbies I started in 2024 was archiving doujin games I have, as many don’t have any documentation online anymore. This is still a side project of mine, but I want to continue blogging about doujin games (namely fangames) and sharing these gems.

2024 certainly had a lot of ups and downs and changes and curveballs. Looking back on it, it was a better year for me than I thought it would be (and remember it being). I was able to finally travel on my own, meet so many friends, try new things, and find new joys.

I’m very nervous going into 2025 as my first year being a fulltime freelancer. I’ve got some cushions set in place, but it’s still a bit nerve-wracking. Now that I’m no longer in my early 20s, things are changing—but in a way, I’ve been finding myself through it. I want to be in visual novels for many more years to come. I love making visual novels, playing visual novels, talking about visual novels. I want to spend time with my friends, flying out to see them and going to conventions where I’m able to meet even more amazing people.

I hope this year will be kind to us all. Cultivate the space you want to live in and help the people you care about.

— Arimia

[vimesbootstheory]

Books of 2024

I've got a couple of days left in '24 but neither of the books I'm set to finish by the end of Tuesday are going to be either top 10 or bottom 10 material so I'm going to make this post now.

I read 185 books this year (maybe a couple more by Tuesday's end). I thought I'd list my top 10 favourites and my bottom 10 most disappointing. Not bottom 10 least favourite/worst, because I read a fair number of books this year that I knew would be bad, gag picks, things like that.

(ALTHOUGH shout out to Inferno by Dan Brown by being the actual worst book I read this year, I knew it would be bad because it's fucking Dan Brown and even with those basement-level expectations it still managed to piss me the fuck off. Fuck that book, seriously.)

Also, re-reads were not allowed on this list. I re-read Guards! Guards! and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest this year and they were both still as incredible as the first time I read them, but they don't get consideration here.

Top 10 Favourite Reads

10 - The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley -- I know what she did. Fucking compelling as hell book, though.

9 - Circe by Madeline Miller -- Beautifully written. Shame about the legacy of endless Greek myth retellings, but it doesn't take away from this.

8 - Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata -- Just finished this yesterday, loved it! Keiko's perspective on the world and people's expectations is too real.

7 - Imposter Syndrome by Kathy Wang -- So fun. Stylish yet grounded, honestly the closest I got this year to un-put-down-able.

6 - The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector -- You don't HAVE to be a writer to want to cradle and nurture this book, but I think it helps.

5 - Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah -- My favourite of the short story collections I read this year. Every single story grabs you by the throat.

4 - NOS4A2 by Joe Hill -- I'm sure he's tired of the comparison, but I feel like this is everything I want a Stephen King book to be, but isn't. It's Stephen King, but with a good editor and compelling ladies!

3 - Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card -- It is so annoying to me how good this is. Fuck OSC, but fuck him even more for this being so good.

2 - Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky -- Apparently I love books about exploring mysterious zones with vague worldbuilding?? Because...

1 - Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer -- ... this trend nabbed the top 2 spots for me this year. GIVE ME ALL THE MYSTERIOUS ZONES.

Top 10 Most Disappointing Reads

10 - Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins -- What the hell happened here? This was a mess. The plot was awkwardly paced, the games felt gimmicky, just... bad.

9 - My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman -- Relentlessly twee. Miss me with all these HP references, too.

8 - The Vegetarian by Han Kang -- Very ???, but not in a fun way. Everyone's acting like it's their first day being a human.

7 - Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris -- Reads like something you'd pick up off a shelf in a grocery store or dollar store at random. Very amateurish prose.

6 - Demon Theory by Stephen Graham Jones -- This was heartbreaking because I've been pumped for years to get into SGJ, but this? Nah. The movie-pitch-as-novel schtick did not work for me at all, and after the first "movie" I quickly got lost.

5 - The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers -- Its only saving grace was being an easy read. Which alien do I have to fuck around here for some conflict and a gd plot? I guess "cozy scifi" is not for me.

4 - Peace by Gene Wolfe -- I was ready for this to be over about halfway through. What on earth. I also read Ziggurat this year, though, and that was good.

3 - The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon -- My second chance for Chabon, and unfortunately I think he's just not for me.

2 - On a Pale Horse by Piers Anthony -- The onslaught of misogyny, holy shit. Just read Pratchett's Mort, it's all of this, but done way, way better.

1 - Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore -- This was so fucking obnoxious. Please love yourself and don't read this. Don't be like me and finish everything you start. Why do I do this.

[gayf1hoe]

Part 11

After being in the hospital overnight they discharged me in the morning and I'm waiting outside the front for a taxi to pick me up when I see Charles and my mother pull into the hospital parking area. “What are you two doing here?”. “Now, Now M/N that's no way to greet your mother and boyfriend” my mum says. I laugh jovially whilst approaching the back seat door and sit down.

“So how come you two are together?” I ask, wondering why my mother is with my boyfriend whom I only introduced her to less than a day ago, “we decided that we would come and get you together” Charles replies and my mum follows on “anyway enough of detective M/N, how are you feeling now?”. “I feel much better, I have to drink plenty of water, rest and take antibiotics for a week and I should be good to go”.

“Well you won't be training for a couple of days then and that's a direct order from me” my mum says understanding that I simply can't just ‘rest' but the next Grand Prix isn't for 10 days and plus the Las Vegas Grand Prix has to be one of my favourites so I have to perform at my best there.

Remembering that I wasn't there for the podium ceremony I ask them “Who collected my trophy?”, “they sent your engineer Jack to collect it on your behalf” Charles says and I hum in acknowledgement. My mum pulls into the hotel parking area and we arrive quite quickly as the hotel is only down the road from the hospital.

I step out the car and Charles follows next to me and my mum goes to get out the car I say to her “Oh no mum it's fine, you can go back and rest and have fun, I'm just going to bed” and she looks at me and says “M/N L/N since the moment you were born you are stubborn and never take anyone's advice, I know full well you aren't going to rest so I booked a room here to make sure you do”.

I admit defeat and head towards the entrance where I am greeted by George who immediately hugs me and says “are you all good? You had us so worried”, I let out a slight giggle at his intense panic, “Yes I'm fine it was just food poisoning”. When I continue walking I get numerous comments and questions asking how I am and congratulating me for P1 in the last race.

I finally reach my room and swing the door open and immediately see a trophy sat on the desk of the room and I walk over to it and intently look at it. It all just feels so surreal, how can I be a 3 time grand prix winner in my first season?

My mother informs me I must get into bed, so I go into the bathroom and change into some shorts and a T-Shirt and get into bed Charles goes to sit next to me and my mother says “Let's leave him alone he's an impulsive chatterbox if someone is here he will talk and not rest” and before I can say anything they both leave the room.

I decide to watch highlights of the race seeing as I was barely coherent enough to remember any of it, as I sit there just aimlessly watching the race and I am actually proud of myself for how I actually managed to turn the car half the time as I lacked any strength.

After about an hour of just sitting there doing nothing I'm incredibly bored and not tired so I look at my phone and see an article that had seen Charles getting me from the hospital and the title of the article was “FELLOW DRIVER CHARLES LECLERC PICKS UP HIS FRIEND FROM HOSPITAL FOLLOWING EMERGENCY HOSPITALISATION” and a lot of the comments are just “That's so nice of him” and “I'm glad they're friends” and I see another one however this title concerns me more “LECLERC AND L/N SEE OUTSIDE HOSPITAL HUGGING, A POSSIBLE COUPLE?”, and the comments on this post are noticeably onto to something with many saying

“they have been so close all of a sudden so it wouldn't surprise me”

“They have hugged quite a lot and been really touchy with each other”

and others were more dismissive saying “Charles isn't gay”.

I close my phone before it sends me insane, the problem with me dating Charles isn't the fact we are both men it's that, I know he's way more popular than me and he has many different standards placed upon him, and as he hasn't come out to people yet they are bound to blame him turning gay on me, like they did with mick and him being Bi.

I decide that if I sit in this room any longer I may just go insane so I put on some normal clothes and head downstairs through the back staircase, most driver's are just relaxing and as I walk around the back near the sports court Yuki shouts my name which I quickly reply with “shut up are you trying to get me caught” and he quickly pulls a face that questions me. “My mother is here and you know what she's like she's on a warpath to keep in bed” I explain however I don't have to go into much detail as Yuki knows what my mother is like when I'm sick or injured, like that time when I was in F3 and had my first ever crash and went into the barrier and had a sprained wrist from the force she tried to get me to quit racing to which I didn't listen to.

He comes over and asks “So where are you going?” he asks “I'm just going to do some sight seeing”, “do you want me to come with you?” He asks. “No I think I just need some time alone, but thanks for the offer” he nods in acknowledgement and we part ways and I exit through the back exit and head down the street looking at each and every shop and building. There is a mountain in the distance and I challenge myself to walk to it. And after about 45 minutes I reach the bottom of it and decide to take a light walk up it. I meet a group of young American tourists who ask me if I want to join them in walking up the mountain and I agree as they seem like nice people.

One of the guys asks me what I'm doing in China and before I can even reply one of the girls says, “ARE YOU DENSE? HES M/N L/N THE GREATEST FORMULA 1 ROOKIE SINCE HAMILTON” I laugh at her response and thank her for her support.

I quickly make friends with one of the girls called Lucy and we begin chatting about Formula 1 as she's recently started getting into it. “So what are your thoughts on the season so far?” she asks “it's been a great start for me I couldn't have asked for anything better, P1 on the first 3 races of the season has been amazing. She continually congratulates me for my success and tells me how well I have performed.

She then asks me “Why do you hate the media?” This is a question I get asked on a daily basis and have never truly answered until now. “Well growing up I was around Kimi Räikkönen quite a lot as he was a friend of my engineer so he would be around a lot and he sort of told me why the media annoys him so I was able to pick things out a lot easier. And when I was in F3 and a reporter asked me “Do you think racing is ready for a gay driver?” It was my first media interaction and it set the foundation that would be a hate for journalists”.

After an hour we reach the peak of this mountain which isn't very big but bug enough to give you a full view of the city. The guys ask if they can take a photo with me and I say yes to little did I know it would come back to haunt me later.

Now we have reached the top, we head back down the mountain discussing a variety of topics from Formula 1 to education when one of the guys asks me a question I have never been asked before and never even thought to myself “Do you think people look up to you and see you as an inspiration?” I think about it for a minute, genuinely thinking that I could be someone's inspiration, “I've never thought of that before but I would hope that people would look at me and see that if I can do it they can too”.

The walk down is much easier with the downhill gradient playing to our advantage when we reach the guys who give me their Instagrams for me to follow and I do so on the spot. I wish them a great rest of their trip and they wish me good luck for the rest of the season.

I decide to head back to the hotel as the long walk had killed my legs and sneak back in the same way and head up to my room and I jump at the sight of Charles and my mother both sitting on chairs in my room.

“What are you doing in my room?” I ask very quietly “More importantly where have you been?” my mum asks “Just for a light walk to clear my head” I say “Mon Amour climbing up a mountain isn't a light walk and if that's you idea of a light walk I would hate to see your idea of a long walk” Charles adds “How did–” I begin to say, being cut of by my mum “It's all over Instagram you idiot” I laugh at the fact I've been caught out and it reminds me of my childhood of me sneaking out to go to the karting track.

“I was bored out of my mind and felt like if I looked at any of these walls again I would've gone mental, and besides it's not as if I was alone so if anything did happen to me I wouldn't of been alone”

They both stare at me seeing my point of view and accept it and instead of my mother's normal ritual and lecturing me she says “it's all good, you don't have to stay in your room and rest just don't exert yourself” I smile knowing that for the first time in my life I have won against my mum.

We all head downstairs and go out to the pool which is now being used as it's stopped raining and the temperature is now 28⁰c (82.4⁰ f) me and Charles sit on the sunbeds and my mum says she's gonna go and use the spa so me and Charles are left alone watching the other drivers around the pool. We sit in silence for a while when I ask him, “did you see the articles about us at the hospital”, “yeah” he replies. “I think it's time,” he says, “time for what?” I ask. “Time to come out and admit that we are dating”, “are you 100% sure” I question wanting to make sure he isn't feeling pressured into anything. However he agrees that he feels completely ready so we both wrote Instagram posts.

Charles chooses a photo of us hugging at the beach and his caption is the following:

“It's been a whirlwind of a season already, it has been challenging and eye opening. With plenty of opportunities to learn and find out new things.

I guess I would like to begin by saying…

I am gay and dating @M/N_L/N

Whilst I understand this is unexpected and probably a shock to many given the circumstances of which we started off with, I have grown to love him so much and come to terms with the fact I'm gay. Whilst many will assume M/N ‘turned me gay’ this is simply not true, he has simply made me feel comfortable with who I am.

I understand the pressures that I now face being a gay racing driver but I promise that my sexuality doesn't change who or how I race.

Thank you for your support. #weraceasone”

My post is however more my straight forward style with the photo of me and Charles at the drivers party after Monaco and my caption is short and sweet (somewhat):

Caption:

“Me and @CharlesLeclerc are dating.

If you are a homophobe or have a problem with it send your complaints to: getfucked@fuckyou.com.”.

We post them both and not long after all the drivers come over and start congratulating us and hugging us and saying “finally”. Yuki says to Charles “you can have him Monday to Wednesday and I can have him the rest of the week” everyone laughs at this.

After everyone has finished congratulating us we decide to go to dinner at some fancy restaurant to celebrate yesterday's race and we enter this really nice Chinese restaurant.

Whilst everyone is ordering food that has meat or fish in it I'm taking no chances at getting sick again and order a vegetarian meal that means I won't get food poisoning again, and Charles notices and laughs at my anxiety.

Most of the drivers have finished their meals by 9 PM and decide it would be a good idea to go to a nearby theme park.

Me and Charles decided to go off by ourselves and go to a ring toss stand where I fail miserably but Charles wins a teddy bear and gives it to me and I spend the whole night carrying this Teddy bear which has a bright red heart on it.

After a while we reconvene with some of the others and go on this roller-coaster and Charles spent the whole thing screaming and holding my hand with me hysterically laughing at him the whole time.

When we get off it takes Charles a moment to get use to walking again he's stumbling and limping from the dizziness and when Daniel walks past he says “that's how he often leaves M/N's room unable to walk” this leads to lando and Max bursting out into uncontrolled laughter and many people judging them as they walk past.

Charles suggests we head back to the hotel and we leave the others to have their fun. When we hit back to the hotel we both head into Chalres’ room and go straight to the balcony to sit down.

After a while of enjoying the view he breaks the silence and says “I'm glad I came out and can show my love for you even more.

***

We finally land in Las Vegas and I am already in love with the lights and the amazing atmosphere. The past few days have been surreal with both mine and Charles’ team both having no issue with the situation and our fans being supportive. Of course there have been the odd horrible hate comments but they don't really matter.

As we arrive at the hotel we all exit the cars and head to reception and me and Charles try to check in separately and they tell us there's only a reservation for me and that's when the head of accommodation tells us that we are sharing a room and this leads to an echoes of whistles and cheers from the others.

Me and Charles head straight to our room and dump our stuff and head back downstairs for the breakfast buffet as we arrived in the morning and have to be at the track for training and meetings and I have to be there for an additional meeting.

Just 2 days ago I received an email asking me to attend a meeting with the Ferrari team. They didn't say what it was about but I have my suspicions.

After breakfast we all head to the track and get to work with our teams, me and Geogre are sitting in a boring meeting, with Toto waffling on about our strategies for the next race and how well we have done this season. After what feels like an eternity we are dismissed and head to our garage to take a look at our cars. George gets on with some free practice and I go to get my new helmet as my other one was discarded, however it's the same style. I just have to check if it fits and is comfortable, and after that I am free to do what I want.

I check my phone to see the time and it's only 11:30 AM and my meeting with Frédéric is at 12:00 so I decide to just go and sit in catering for 30 minutes, it'd empty and there isn't much food put as they have only really just set it up so I sit on table by myself aimlessly scrolling on my phone.

Time goes by really fast and before I know it I'm walking over to the Ferrari garage and I manage to get past without being seen and I make my way to a door that had Frédéric's name on it and knock, after a slight pause I hear someone say “come in”. I open the door and am greeted by Frédéric who is sitting behind his desk, however when I enter he stands up immediately and shakes my hand.

“Thank you for coming M/N” he says simultaneously shaking my hand, “it's my pleasure” I reply and he points towards the chair I should sit in, I take a seat and he begins to talk.

“Look I'm just going to get straight to the point, you are clearly a talented driver as we have seen this season already. You are championship material and we believe you can do even better with us here at Ferrari. We would invest into your career and make sure you achieve your potential. Also, it would be great for you and Charles to work together, don't you think?”

I nod in agreement and he says “well not to rush you but we will need your answer by next week because we want to be prepared” I stand up and say “thank you” and head for the door, when I get out I lean against the wall and let out a sigh an start walking out when Charles spots me.

“Hey M/N what are you doing here?” he asks “oh I was looking for you I've finished for the day and was wondering if you wanted to get some lunch from catering” I say, to which he replies “sure give me a second to get my phone”.

After 2 minutes he comes out-of his driver's room and he grabs my hand and we walk towards catering and we get numerous comments from other drivers calling us “love birds”, when we get to catering we sit at a table with Pierre, Kika, Alex, Lily, Oscar and Lily (Z). Most of the drivers have brought their partners with them in order to spend time with them.

We are all sit around talking and eating but the guys have to go back to their teams after only 20 minutes as they still haven't finished for the day and Pierre leaves saying “don't steal any of our girlfriends M/N” this causes everyone to laugh as they leave the building and then Kika turns to me and says, “before we start let me formally introduce you 2, M/N this is Lilly Oscar's girlfriend, Lily this is M/N an amazing driver and one of the girls despite being a male”.

We both laugh and say hello and this is when Kika and Lily begin by saying “so updates on the drama”, this leads me to reply with “it's not drama”. Lily then says “Listen I have known you since F2 you downplay everything you got food poisoning, won a race and told the world you are dating Charles Leclerc if that doesn't count as drama I don't know what does”.

I laugh and say “OK chill, there is something that has come up that could cause drama”, “SPILL” Kika basically shouts at my face. “Well I have been given an offer to race for Ferrari next season” how does that cause drama Lily (Z) asks me with Kika following on by saying “Yeah how does that cause drama”.

I consider it for a moment and decide I better kill their curiosity “because I'm not going to accept the offer”, “are you insane? Why not?” They all shout at me. “To begin with chill, one they don't have good strategies that will enable me to continue winning, two I don't think the Ferrari identity suits me and three I don't want to overshadow Charles in a team he's been with for ages”.

“So what team are you going with next year, because you don't want to stay with Mercedes right?” Lily asks, “Correct and I have made my decision” I reply.

“Well tell us which team” Kika pushes on, “I don't know if I can” I say and then Lily gets closer to me and says “We have been friends for years, you know what you are doing, torturing us, so please, tell us”. I start laughing and manage to say “I'll tell you”.

“Aston Martin” I bluntly spit out.

All 3 of them sit in silence for a while and I don't get why, because Kika and Lily knew I had an offer from them and Lily Z says “Are you going to tell Charles about your offer from Ferrari?”. “I will eventually but I'm not sure how to say it without him taking it the wrong way”.

Seeing I was in a moment of interpersonal conflict they suggest we go on a walk around the paddock to clear the air. Kika asks me “so have you told Aston Martin you are going to accept their offer?”, “no not yet” I respond. “So when are you?” she retorts back “I don't know”.

Coincidentally our walk takes us past the Aston Martin garage and Kika makes us stop, “what are we doing? Why have we stopped?” I ask, “You are going to go in there and put us out of our misery and accept the offer so you stop thinking about it” Lily says in an imperative tone. I whine and like my mother Kika tells me to shut up and go for it.

Accepting they won't let this go I walk into the Aston Martin garage and head along the corridor until I reach a door that says “Mike Krack - Team Principal” I stand for a moment before knocking on the door. I hear a voice from within say “come in”.

I open the door and see Mike sitting at a meeting table in his room, when he sees me he stands up and says, “M/N what can I do for you?” I stand for a while fumbling with my thumbs before blurting out “I am here…. to say I would like to accept your offer to race for Aston Martin next season”, “well that's wonderful, have you told Mercedes yet?”, “erm no I'm going to tell them soon though, I just want there to be a focus on my racing and not what team I'm going to”.

We speak for a while about contracts and media stuff and he says once I'm ready they will announce it but I want to tell Charles, George, Mercedes and Lance by myself first and not have them find out through the media. As I'm walking out I see Lance and see this as the perfect chance to tell him, “hey Lance can I talk to you for a second?”, “sure” he says. “Is everything alright?” He asks “Yeah erm I just wanted to tell you face to face that as of next year I will be your teammate”, “are you serious?” He asks, jumping up and down like a child “haha yes I'm serious, just don't tell anyone for now, keep it between you and me”, “of course” he says.

I say goodbye to him and walk out and to my surprise see the girls still waiting for me, I was in there for ages and thought they would've left. “How did it go?” Kika says almost immediately “it went well we talked about contracts, media and I told Lance”. They all give me a proud smile and we walk back to the catering area where all out boyfriends are waiting for us and as we are walking Lily Z asks me when I'm going to tell Charles and Kika chimes in by saying “you might as well do it today to get it out of the way” as she finishes her sentence we enter catering, Charles comes up to me and hugs me but I tell him I need to speak to George quickly and he tells me not to be too long.

I walk over to George who is with Carmen and I ask if I can talk to him and Camren asks if she should leave but I tell her she can stay. “I just wanted to tell you personally that I have loved working with you so far and your a great teammate but next year I won't be racing for Mercedes, because I have accepted an offer with Aston Martin and I wanted to tell you personally and that it's nothing personal it's just team management” he looks quite solemn but says “thank you for telling me personally and all I can say is let's continue to smash this season”. I smile and wish him and Carmen a good evening and now set my eyes on Charles.

I approach him slightly hesitant, “hey can we talk?” I say and as he agrees pull his hand leading him outside “is everything okay amour?”, “Just promise me you will listen to me and let me finish before you ask any questions” I say, “sure” he replies.

“So I want to tell you face to face I'm leaving Mercedes next year and going to Aston Martin, I also wanted to let you know I turned down an offer from Ferrari–” and before I can finish he goes absolutely bat shit mad “WHAT? YOU TURNED DOWN THE OFFER TO RACE ALONGSIDE ME. DO YOU NOT WANT TO RACE WITH ME?”

“What happened to letting me finish?” I say in retaliation.

“I'm sorry, go ahead and give me some shit excuse to justify not wanting to be with me as much as possible” he says with a spiteful tone underscored by pettiness.

“One Ferrari doesn't have the strategies that I believe would leave me to success, two the whole Ferrari identity doesn't suit me and three I don't want to take attention away from you, Ferrari is your team, and I didn't want to impede on that”

I stand hoping he will say something nice instead he says “any other secrets you have kept from me?”, “I'M SORRY BUT I HAVE TOLD YOU ON THE SAME DAY I ACCEPTED THE OFFER AND YOU KNOW DON'T ACT LIKE A CHILD. MY DECISION NOT TO JOIN FERRARI IS BETTER FOR ME AND YOU AND IF YOU CAN'T SEE THAT CHARLES THEN YOU ARE REALLY IGNORANT”.

I storm off in anger and walk back into catering and Kika and both Lily's come straight over to me and Kika says “How did it go?” to which I reply” it went as well as fire and diesel put together”, “so he didn't take it well?” Lily (Z) asks, “Nope he shouted at me, I shouted at him, he accused me of having more secrets and not wanting to spend as much time with him and then I said he shouldn't act like a child and that he was ignorant and then I walked off” as I finish my sentence Charles walks past and blanks me and the girls then resort to saying he's acting like a spoilt child and they ask what I'm going to do. But I have no clue. “I'm probably going to find another place to sleep tonight, I would go to my mum's room but she had to fly back for work this morning so I'll crash with Yuki'', “You can always stay with me and Pierre we have a pull out bed on our room” Kika offers but I insist I don't want to be of hindrance to them, however she won't accept it and almost tells me I'm spending the night with them.

After a while we all leave the paddock and head back to the hotel. Pierre comes up to me and says “I hear you're crashing with us tonight?”, “Yeah I tried to say no but Kika insisted” he laughs and asks “what's happened between you and Charles?”,”Just a slight disagreement nothing too major”. The journey back is awkward. Charles is at the front walking with Carlos and Lando whilst I'm at the back with Kika, Pierre and Lily, they are all talking but I'm not in the mood for it.

When we arrive at the hotel we all head straight into the dining room for dinner, but I don't have much of an appetite and Charles sitting on the opposite end of the table puts me off eating so I tell Kika and Pierre I'm going to get some stuff from my room and just wait in theirs. Before they can ask me any questions, I have left the table and am walking out the doors.

I reach mine and Charles’ room and start gathering stuff when I hear the door click. I assume I didn't close it properly and it's shut itself but then I hear a voice behind me. “What are you doing?”. It's Charles. “I'm getting some stuff, I'm not staying here tonight”, I continue shoving items into a backpack and he stops me. “Don't do this,” he says. “We need space, you clearly think I have some agenda to not spend time with you” I retort.

“Just wait, I was stupid and I wasn't thinking, I was just, jealous and annoyed that you decided another team, another teammate over me, I understand your reasons for doing so but I can't act like I'm not offended, I would've thought you would of wanted to spend every moment with me no matter what” he says.

“I didn't pick another team to spite you, or annoy you, I did what I think is best for me, I know I could spend more time with you if I joined Ferrari, I know I could earn more money if I joined Ferrari, but I know I can enjoy myself at Aston Martin and I know we won't get to spend as much time together but it means we will value the time we do get together and it's not as if me being in a different team means we don't get to see each other, we still see each other in the paddock everyday and spend every night together”

“I love you” he says.

“I love you too you idiot” I say back and he laughs and we embrace in a hug and he kisses me on the lips.

We both decide to just spend the night in bed watching movies enjoying the peace before qualifying tomorrow.

It's now the next day and I feel much happier that me and Charles fixed everything and I'm looking forward to qualifying as I'm waiting to get out on track. I manage to make it to Q3 and I am last to do a timed lap so I have no idea of the line up until cross the line and I hear my engineer in my ear go:

“M/N that's Pole position P2 is Leclerc P3 Verstappen and George is P5”

“What was the gap between me and Chalres?” I ask.

“And M/N you were 0.2 seconds faster” he replies and I simply laugh into the radio and say “I know he's definitely pissed off”.

I leave my car and see Charles walking over and he hugs me and congratulates me for Pole position and I ask him “do you know what the gap was?”, “no” he replies, “0.2 seconds” I say and he pulls a shocked face and says “You little shit couldn't you have gone a bit slower”. “Never love, can't give you special treatment”. “It's fine I'm going to win tomorrow anyway” he says very confidently. “If you say so, leclerc”.

We spend the rest of the day doing strategies and training in preparation for tomorrow.

***

David Croft: And it's the day of the Las Vegas Grand Prix and after an amazing qualifying performance yesterday M/N L/N takes Pole Position with Leclerc P2 and Verstappen P3.

The formation lap is underway so let's get the Las Vegas Grand Prix started.

And it's lights out and away we go, L/N gets a great start with Leclerc maintain a close goal Verstappen comes down the side of Leclerc as we approach turn one and he breaks late and gets ahead of Charles Leclerc and he sets his eyes on his biggest competition M/N L/N the man who has dominated this season and he Verstappen and M/N go wheel to wheel down the straight but M/N just doesn't give Verstappen any chances.

….

And as we enter the last lap of thenLas Vegas Grand Prix it's L/N I'm P1, Verstappen P2, Perez P3 and Leclerc P4, and as we enter turn 2 Leclerc goes for Perez and he passes as we enter turn 16 Verstappen locks up on Charles Leclerc and he passes he sets his eyes on L/N who is 2.1 seconds ahead of him L/N through turn 17 Charles Lecerc right on his tail he just has the edge in him and it's M/N L/N who wins the Las Vegas Grand Prix he wins 4 out of 4 races so far, this is truly unbelievable, never has this been seen before, and Charles Leclerc who has his eyes on P1 settles for P2 and undoubtedly Verstappen is very angry with P3 have we seen the fall of the once unbeatable World Champion.

“And M/N that's P1 slow button on, you did an amazing job, great work, I'm sure Charles is very envious of you”

“Haha thank you, this is all down to you guys so thank you” I say back.

As I pull into Parc ferme I hop out of my car and raise my arms with Charles next to me and he embraces me in a hug I turn to congratulate Max however he's walked off in a sulking mood.

The atmosphere in the cool down room is strange. It's a sense of excitement from me and Charles and a sense of anger and bitterness from Max.

As we are on the podium I have finished spraying champagne everywhere Charles grabs my face and begins to kiss me causing a raucous cheer from down below. As we pull apart we laugh and hold up our trophies.

[starry-blue-echoes]

What if in Beastars, after Emporio beats Pucci, Pucci only manages to scratch him before he dies, thus Emporio gets turned into a Werebeast himself, makes angst potential, i imagine a lion eagle hybrid, more lion like but with wings but also some ram horns as a reminder of Weather, he’s basically a bird kitten. Maybe he becomes protective of Irene and the others.

Made better if Irene and Jotaro are still Werebeasts in the new world, maybe some werebeast cuddles.

OOOOOOOOOOO YESYESYESYESYESYES

(also as like..... a way to explain this occuring without having to explain why no other enemies of the Joestars have been turned, maybe there are a couple requirments that have to be met, such as it being during a full moon among other things, and maybe even then the chances are relatively slim)

Now, I will say I do want to change some aspects of the animals you've assigned Emporio, if only to stop too much over lap. The ram works fine because of the implications of it, but I believe Jonathan is already part lion and Josuke is already a griffin of sorts

maybe we could try tying Emporio to the three werebeasts he interacts with? So a ram for Weather and Pucci, either a wolf or gator from Jotaro (I'm not sure which since one would give him SUPER fluffs but the other would let him swim better), and butterfly wings from Jolyne

and just. Imagine the day they find Emporio at the bus stop eith a somewhat brutal looking and very fresh slash on his arm. It's only natural that they'd all be concerned, especially when Emporio only explains it as far as "I was attacked by an animal" without any more context

and just. Who knows how it goes for him. Maybe it starts as little things while still a human that he always writes off as because of his newfound freedom. He enjoys meat more than he did before? Well, of course he does, meat had been a luxury he rarely got and now he gets to pick what to eat. He likes climbing trees and being in the open air? It's a good vantage point and he's never been able to climb trees before. He feels more comfortable with his blankets and pillows piled up in a nest? Probably for safety and as a trauma response, he remembered reading some books about it

but of course, everything comes to head that first full moon he spends with the Joestars

The plan had been for Jotaro and Jolyne to leave the house while Marina stayed with Emporio. They wanted to slowly ease him into it, and full moon nights would be akin to throwing him straight into the deep end. Of course, Emporio already knows what they are, but he doesn't say anything and plays dumb for their benefit

and Marina was ready for a calm, quiet night. It had been some time since her husband and daughter had spent the entire night away, but she understood why and was happy to help

what she was not ready for was for Emporio to start screaming the second the sun set

can you imagine how terrifying this would be for both parties? Emporio because what's happening what's going on why does everything hurt why is his body change like this it hurts it hurts it hurts- and Marina is freaking out because Yeah An Eleven Year Old Screaming In Your Living Room Is Going To Make You Panic

what's even more....... Marina's never seen this kind of reaction before. Jotaro and Jolyne always shifted with confidence, with certainty, with control. They always knew exactly what they were doing and what was going to happen

but this? This could not be further from that

it also doesn't help that Emporio's panic doesn't really leave even after the shift is done. Now it's just less coherent and more erratic which is fun for Marina to deal with

her one saving grace is that Emporio is still relatively small and thus doesn't actually try to hurt her. He more or less runs around for about an hour before hiding himself under a piece of furniture, at which Marina starts slowly making it clear she isn't a threat. Near the end of the night he actually falls asleep in his hiding spot and Marina has to fish him out so he won't hurt himself when he changes back

but yeah, Jotaro and Jolyne are in for the realization of a lifetime by the time they get back

[microwavetoaster-selfships]

for axelrod: 💞, 🧶, 🌺

for finn: 🩷, 🌷, 🌺, i also want to hear any ramblings about miku by anamanaguchi specifically if that is something you would like to share

i also think 🏩 is a very good question but in my heart it's collision of worlds at least for finn. i accept the possibility you might answer all of the finn questions with collision of worlds. almost poetic one of the questions is about the credits to a theoretical movie

-@markbeakskisser

Okay preface before the preface-preface that prefaces the preface-preface preface. Preface. THIS IS LONG, Like, perhaps even "This is long even for Kane" long. At least for typing. I say several things adressing the longness of it but I wanted to add the extra preface of I managed to essentially go on a tangent at every single question because I am a madman and regauardless of if you read this in intervals if anyone reads this entire thing you might also be a certified madman because WHY and HOW. And GENIUNELY no one has to read this, this is like a borderline memoir. But I have super enjoyed doing this thank you so so much, I've spent all day writing this out and actually really loved dedicating a good portion of my day to this!! So thank you lots. This post needs like three read-more options. This was really fun to get out of my system thank you for the ask and your words. There was originally just one preface and now this is one preface of four, the read more is going here. I hope you have a brilliant day, I'm feeling awfully sappy and feelingsy right now as I just got done with this so I just wanted to add and say thank you for being my friend and sending me handfuls of questions for each ask game and listening to my rambles and nonsense and supporting me, I owe you a 50$ card to your favorite place to eat/shop at, digital stores like Steam or Amazon are included.

I saw this first thing when I woke up and your reply to my art and you answering the Animal Crossing thingy and I was like okay let me do the ask game thingy here first just to savor everything else like when you get good food so you want to eat it slower but then I got so caught up in responding to these questions that I started daydreaming and I got a little tooooooo cozy daydreaming and fell back asleep till like 9pm. But also thank you so much this was such a pleasant little surprise cause I had reblogged it a couple days ago! Glad to see you again :)

I do want to preface that I have a really bad habit of not always picking up on the actual meanings of songs and unless it is truly something downright diabolical that I must be aware of LET ME BE BLISSFULLY UNAWARE!! I've had a couple people point out to me that what I THOUGHT was a love song was really like a break-up song or was about someone missing a relationship that was actually toxic and of course I do not mean those undertones!!!! Art is for interpretation and just like any painting or book it's good to respect the artists original intentions but part of the fun and having a song resonate with you is how your brain decides to read it! And I'm too tired of having songs ruined for me because of hidden meanings being pointed out to me. Waugh.

I'm beginning to think I'm just getting longer at longer at typing. Or this is one of those beaver dam things where I never really talked about it so now that I am it all bursts open. You might have to sit down and grab a snack and drink and a text-to-speech and pretend we are having a podcast here. Maybe have it as a Part A. And Part B. Thing to read. Or skip to the part where I unironically start rambling about the Miku song in Finn's playlist.

For Axlerod:

💞 - which song off of your playlist would your f/o associate with your selfship, if they were selfshipping with you?

It's too early in the morning for my hands to be sweating like this. Uhm. I knew I was going to be quick at finding a song or it was going to take me a hot minute, no in between, and it is taking me a hot minute. But I am super enjoying getting to go through his playlist again cause I did a lot of my song listening while at school or walking to and from the bus and I haven't done that in a while so I haven't done as much listening to music! I am think I am thinking far too deeply and hard about this but me being indecisive does not help at all. I was tempted to purposely lean towards adding an Arctic Monkeys song(or that general area like The Last Shadow Puppets) but then I was like wait no, thats what I associate with him. But then I was also like maybe it would also go the other way around? And he would find those songs and associate them with me as well?

I actually have a little journal where I wrote out every song on my playlist for Axlerod(and afterwards for Finn) and with each song I wrote out what the song reminds me of/why I added it/the little AMV animatic that runs through my head, and in some of them I jotted down who's perspective the song is from, so I kinda have a little cheat cause I'm particularly looking for ones where I wrote that it was Axlerod towards Kane. Okay. I think I've narrowed it down. Since I'm jotting down several and I have somehow already yapped I'm not going to individually go on about the songs in length here just to try and keep it from turning into another love letter.

Past Kane was saying Royalty by Conor Maynard as a half joke, thank you past Kane, you're very funny.

Touch-Tone Telephone by Lemon Demon is also really good, I mean that is literally just him. Rewatch Cars 2 and tell me that he wasn't just preaching that song the entire time. Cameras cut, we break away to a behind the scenes shot between Axlerod and Kane and this song is just that. Like borderline this song is just a thing that was written particularly for a Cars 2 breakaway of this. No words are spoken it is just this song playing except for maybe that thing where the characters turn around and silently mouth some of the lyrics to themselves. Repeating secondary AU where instead of Kane having entirely seperate story it's the one where he's directly inserted into the Cars 2 plot.

Tear in My Heart by Twenty One Pilots. I almmoosyttt didn't mention it just because my idea for it is it being a very important song to me(which it is) and me then introducing it to Axlerod. But again that could just be his own little imagine that he has in his own head.

There are also a few other honorable mentions but I would not be able to narrow those songs down. And that's just like.. the main big ones where I'm like "I hesr this song and my immediate first instinct is thinking about it as an Axlerod towards Kane song." He would have his own whole playlist okay.

🧶 - what's the most out of place song on your playlist? why did you add it?

"Hmmm... I don't know, I don't think I have really any silly funny songs in this playlist, maybe something like Change The Formality by Infected Mushroom because it is so intense and not really sappy, it's just something that reminds me of Axlerod himself and not necessarily the relationship?" He says, knowing full well he just went through the entire playlist and Shredded Metal by NSP is in there where it is just Danny hyping up this metal song they worked on for the past three and a half years and asking Ninja Brian to play it and Ninja Brian proceeds to play bloopy motifs and nothing else and when Ninja Brian finally goes to play the beginning bit of it and Danny starts singing he switching it back to the bloopy song(this entire thing is just a skit that they do in their albums as an intermission or intro/outro).

And all I wrote in my journal was, and I quote, word for word, "Something that would happen between me and Miles(Axlerod). I mean, not that particular 1:1 scenario but same silly funny fun vibes." Except I was numbering the songs as I went and highlighting the numbers so it was easy for me to find them later and accidentally highlighted the 1:1 ratio. I wrote this about almost squarely a year ago(it was over the course of Febuary-ish of last year, maybe extended into January and March as I was taking my time with it and also did Finn's afterwards) and I still perfectly agree with that statement. It is here just because it is silly and something that I feel like would happen between us.

🌺 - which song off of your playlist has the most impactful lyrics? why do they mean so much to you?

I'd say either Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John or Mirrorball by Arctic Monkeys. Deep breath cause I'm going to get a little opening my heart up here and mildly embarrassing myself. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was one of the first songs that I properly imagined an entire thing to it, like essentially a time-lapse of the process of Kane going from "dog that Axlerod found on the street that needs serious remission" to a tiktok of words over the screen saying "This was a stray ally dog I found..." and it's showing the most happy bubbly possibly spoiled looking dog who is plump and well fed and just seems like how a dog should be! Tail wagging like it is a helicopter that might take off at any point. It is also(asides from the other song I mention here, I can't remember which came first) the first song that I imagined a little wedding thing to and then had the entire "ah piss, do I wanna run away and have an unconventional marriage with him in a flower field?"(the answer was yes.) And there's just like. The whole lyrics of course are just. One million firework and explosion emojis right now ASAP. I will need to pull out a Google doc and go over but I swear it is all just verbatim of what I've laid out here. Kane warming up and Axlerod letting him warm up and being easy on him and just pretend like I went on an entire tangent about the chorus because I'm gonna go on a tangent about the opening bit and if I go on about the chorus as well it will just be. More lengthy somehow.

I'll try and shorten it but the opening lines of "I'm not a present for your friends to open/// This boy's too young to be singing the blues." Like, first line. Kane is spy, we now know the whole ordeal of spies conflicting with lemons, Kane has lost it by this point and doesn't know anything anymore. Second line now. Okay. Axlerod responding with concern of "..You know you aren't supposed to be feeling this way, right? You're just fighting a group of what you already are. You shouldn't be feeling this way.." and then the entire rest of the song and plot break out, there's the turning point right there, Axlerod being someone that calls Kane out on the fact that he is clearly not feeling okay and something should be done about that and who is Axlerod if not the staple person to be helping a lemon? Whether the man is aware he is a lemon or not.

For Finn:

🩷 - which song off of your playlist has the most interesting reason as to why it's on there?

Okay so this is a little tricky for me just because I have so many songs on here and so many of them that I like and think have little interesting things behind them!! Though I suppose I could say that for all the questions here...

I mean, there is perhaps the more obvious answer of the Miku song, I'm sure that is quite interesting thing to have here, but there's also little things here like having a cowboy song in here cause Finn geeks out a little about that stuff and embarrasses himself a bit over it in the Disney Infinity game, or having Temperature by Sean Paul in here because uh i uh I'm not explaining myself on that one. Or some songs are in here just because some particular lines are in them that I think are really neato and could lead me going into an entire lore drop tangent about Finn and how I love how beautifully complex he is. Or the Cars 2 song Mon Couer Fait Vroum, which it is sung in French but it actually has some really depressing lyrics!

I'm gonna put my little Miku by Anamanaguchi tangent here just because! But it has a very silly reason for being here, nothing deep or anything, the original reason it got in here was souly because of the lines of "blue hair, blue tie, hiding in your wifi" and I had actually misheard it for a long time as "blue hair, blue eyes, hiding in your wifi" and I was like heyyy!! Finn has blue(silver) hair and blue(greenish) eyes!! This is silly I shall add it. And now it is partly because of the line before that of "Miku, Miku, you can call me Miku," because that like. hh. Am I really going to make a drawing over this to explain myself? I can't explain it without drawing the vision but it just gives off this very polite happy sort of introduction that I think fits Finn. Think sort of like how when the little Animal Crossing villagers do their little wave and there's that little chime noise and they like close their eyes and get happy. Like that. Just like a really polite happy sort of greeting. That is it ISDFKLSD. This is one of those songs where the only reason it is in here is for a couple of lyrics and lines. I've also had the now new mental image of Finn in the Hatsune Miku outfit so that's been. There. And I am saying less now. But it stays because it makes me smile and giggle and I have had previous moments of intentionally trying to find more silly songs to add but it hasn't been a complete suceess, I suppose it must arise naturally.

🌷 - what's a song off of your playlist that really encapsulates your selfship? what about the song makes you feel that way?

Okay, I have several things I could say here of course, but there are two main songs that come to my mind that are like THE songs to me. Like, these are songs about us by us for us, are Careless Whisper by George Michael and La vie en rose by Michael Buble and Cecil McLorin Salvant(I'm on my computer I can't add the accidentals). I KNOW CARELESS WHISPER IS A MEME SONG I DONT CARE. It is so important to me. There is an entire movie that goes on in my head during that song it is literally like one for one ratio of when we first meet and how we feel over each other. I am getting closer and closer to opening up a google doc and writing out how I feel over every single song over again regardless of if I will be the only one to bear eyes on it or not. It is one of my top streamed overall songs, when it comes out I need to stop everything else so I can mentally shout the lyrics at the top of my soul. The entire song is just longing and yearning and I could pick out every single last lyric and be like "okay this is what is happening here in this scene and then the next ones they're saying this and then we transition to this scene and-". There's really a whole thing to it aaiiiogguouggiuhgighg.

La vie en rose doesn't really have an entire movie to it but it is everything I looked up the french lyrics it is so fitting I just. Is this not just the entirety of Finn's heart. I don't need to explain anything about our relationship or how he feels about me I can just show someone this song and be like "Yeah, and it is all mutual." There is a particular part in the song that I can't really describe or explain without giving the audio clip of it but it grabs my heart and squeezes and wrenches it I love him so much I need to grab him like a pillow and just RHGHGRHGRHGHRHHGHTGGHAAURURURUAHF squeeze as tight as possible. Sorry I. Am listening to the songs while typing so you are getting a pure and most geniune unedited authentic response. Life will always be through rose tinted glasses. Good grief I might just explode.

🌺 - which song off of your playlist has the most impactful lyrics? why do they mean so much to you?

Okay I will pick a different song since I think I uhm.. Very well expressed how much Careless Whisper and La vie en rose mean to me and how impactful those are. Again there are several I could pick here but the one that really jumped to my mind is a little angstier, it is Impossible Year by Panic! At The Disco, I can't remember if I ever mentioned it here or if I only said it like once, but I originally the story between me and Finn was supposed to be a little extra angstier and sadder, it was supposed to be after meeting him instead of being pushed to make the exchange between phone numbers and stay in touch, it was going to be that they do the thing of just..saddly staring at each other and looking like sad dogs because they got really attatched and hooked on one another so fast and quickly and it is really hard to say goodbye now, nonetheless one that they are unsure if it will be a permanent one or not. But I am awful with angst so I changed it that we keep in touch and don't have that really bitter sort of "will they wont they ever see each other again" thingy. And I think that this song still really captures that, that bittersweet thing of someone meaning so much to you, a lot, and having to look at them and have them look at you and knowing that neither of you want to have to go but there might not be a choice. "There is no sunshine, there is no you and me, there's no good times, this impossible year.." <- those lyrics right there. Mkay. I am getting myself a little choked up here which isn't good because if I am about to talk about Collision of Worlds then tears are inevitable. I know when we watched Cars 2 I didn't really go on about the lyrics but those three end credit songs mean so much to me. Maybe I need to write a speech or presentation on those.

💒 - if your relationship with your f/o was a movie, what two songs off of your playlist would be the intro and outro songs? why do you think those two songs would fit?

Probably one of the most heard and called out moments I've felt of you even mentioning Collision of Worlds, nonetheless that you are prepared for the fact that I might mention it for every question cause if I'm being honest and truthful I absolutely could because on a surface level it is a silly lighthearted song cause haha they're singing about meat and potatoes or bangers and mash or something and I am curled up on the couch weeping to it. And to think I just wrote a love letter to the UK government as well. I just. I lost my entire train of thought if there ever was one now that I'm playing it and SOUAGH. TEARS. My eyes are watering. Those marbles I gave out in my last post I will be needing them back I fear I've lost mine /joking/reference. I am going to try and actually answer the question and not turn this into my essay about Collision of Worlds. Cause I mean, that's what happened, now isn't it? It makes the world feel a little smaller but like..in a good way? Same sun, different shore. Same stars and moon, different position in the sky. Across over the pond. There was actually a pond at a park by my school that I went to and I sat at the benches at each end and made that joke several times. Somehow I feel like I've said so much and nothing at the same time. Okay I'll be real, any outro songs could I kid you not just be the same exact outro songs that are played during the Cars 2 movie. Nobody's Fool also makes me want to tear up and gets to me really badly and is partly why any time I hear the word "fool" my brain process just immedietly zaps to Finn, I associate that word with him now, that is like his word to me and I actually really strongly stand by a quote from that song that has actually gotten be through some things which sounds a bit silly but I love it. "Y'know what they say, truth sets you free, and that's just great unless you don't wanna be." Okay, I gotta stop listening to these songs I am just making myself cry now.

Intro song would be the previously mentioned song of Careless Whisper by George Michael, again there's an entire movie that I imagine to this song so it is a whole novel of a post in itself, but it sums up our entire meeting nearly 1:1, it's just mushy smooshy love at first sight sort of nonsense with pining, yearning, longing, it's like finding something at a grocery store that you really want and you keep it in the back of your mind for weeks until you can afford getting it or have the opportunity for it.

[starkstruck27]

I headcanon that today (June 14th, but I might not get it posted by midnight because time management is not my strong suit lol) is Steve's birthday, and we just had a book signing at the bookstore I work at tonight, so I was inspired to write this. It's modern day, and slightly aged up characters, but not by much. Enjoy!

Steve couldn't believe his luck. It was his birthday, and it seemed like everything was going just right today. First, he woke up before his alarm and actually felt energized, then Robin had promised to take him out wherever he wanted to go later on (even volunteering to drive so she could show off her new license and car), then his favorite coffee place gave him a discount and a free pastry since it was his birthday, and to cap it all off, he had gotten back a test from one of his most difficult classes, and he'd passed it with flying colors. All in all, it was a good day. But then, he saw a sign outside the campus bookstore, and it went from good to great.

The sign was advertising a book signing with a local author, who just so happened to be Steve's favorite author of all time. The guy's name was Ronnie Fitconi, a mysterious man who never had his picture in any of his books. He didn't write much about himself in the little "about the author" section of his books either, the only things he said was that he was 23, just a year younger than Steve was, he lived somewhere in Indianapolis, he preferred tea over coffee, he loved the beach, he was a cat person, and he was gay (which was pretty apparent from the books he wrote, but whatever).

The book that he was promoting with the signing was his fourth, pretty impressive for a guy so young, but Tik Tok had managed to make him blow up practically overnight. That and how secretive the guy was. Seriously, if you looked the guy up on Google, it was like he didn't even exist. There were no pictures of him, and no record of him except that he was a writer that blew up after his first book was released three years ago. This was the first book signing he had ever done, and it was only to the local college bookstore and a few others in the area, but all were small, and none were at big chain stores, only locally owned.

As soon as Steve saw the sign, he took a picture of it, then immediately called Robin as he rushed back to his car.

"Dingus!" She answered, her smile evident in her voice, "Happy Birthday! What's up, buttercup?"

"Hi, Robbie. Thanks for that. But also, you know how you said you'd take me to do anything I wanted tonight for my birthday?" He asked, practically vibrating out of his skin.

"Yeah. Did you finally decide what you want to do?" She asked.

"Yes, and I know it's probably not going to be the rip-roaring time you were planning, but just hear me out, okay?" He said, "How would you like to come with me to meet Ronnie Fitconi?"

"That author you like?" She asked, "Yeah, of course! I told you, anything you want to do, I'm down. So, what's the plan? Are we breaking into his house?"

"What? No! You are seriously so weird. He's doing a book signing at the campus bookstore, I was gonna bring my books and buy his new one and then I get to meet him and get his autograph! No breaking and entering required."

"Well, that's a lot less fun, but I'll be there. What time does it start?" Robin asked.

"6:30 tonight," Steve replied.

"Let's get there at 6:00, we don't want to have to wait forever, so it'd probably be better to get there early."

"Good thinking. In the meantime, we have a couple of hours, and my classes just ended for the day. Will you meet me for dinner and help me pick out what to wear so I don't look like a total idiot?" Steve asked, already heading towards his dorm.

"Of course. I'll bring tacos. I'll be there in ten."

With that, Robin hung up the phone, and Steve drove off towards his place. As soon as he got there, he went to his desk to get his copies of Ronnie's first three books. Steve would probably never admit to liking them as much as he did to anyone but Robin, because the guy wrote only romance novels, but he really did love them. He didn't read much, and when Ronnie's debut novel came out, he didn't have much interest in that, either. But then he read the second book when it came out, and he was hooked. He read the third one when it came out and only got further hooked, and finally he buckled and read the first one, too. He hadn't expected to like it, but he found that he couldn't put it down, and now that another one was coming out, he couldn't wait to read it, too.

The first book the guy had written was called "Kings of the Lost World", and it was a dystopian sci-fi romance. It was about a young man who thought he was king of all he saw, but just as he's settling into the position, the apocalypse hits. The king gets taken down a peg, having to team up with the same guy who had been in his position before, but got kicked off his throne before the new king had taken over, but now, they have to learn to lean on each other to survive. They have a rocky start at first, but eventually, it turns out that they fall in love, and they manage to find a place where they are safe and get to live out the rest of their lives in happiness. Steve honestly didn't think he'd like the book, since he typically hated both sci-fi and dystopian, but he ended up loving the book when he finally read it. It almost reminded him of when he was in high school, when Billy Hargrove came and kicked him off his throne for good, all except for the romance bit.

The second book the guy had published and the one that had gotten Steve hooked on the guy's writing was probably his saddest one, called "Blood of the Innocent". It was a noir thriller set in the 1920s, about a gay man who sang in speakeasies as a drag queen who got accused of murdering a bunch of young men that went to the clubs he sang at. The detective in the story, who was closeted himself, fell in love with the guy while trying to clear his name and solve the case, but after they'd started their affair, they were found out. This book didn't end up as happily as the first, with the two of them being able to run away together, rather they were both killed for their relationship and the original case was mostly forgotten about and covered up, only to go cold and remain unsolved. When Steve read it, he could not put it down, and when he got to the ending, he would be lying if he said he hadn't flat-out bawled over it. He had finished it around two in the morning one night, and Robin was not exactly happy about having to wake up to his call at that time to listen to him rant to her about it, but she read the book later at his insistence, and she soon forgave him once she got to the end.

The third book the guys wrote was called "Don't Fence Me In", and was a cute, sweet, rom-com kind of book about two young men who worked together on a horse ranch. The one man had lived there his whole life and who's father owned the place, but was getting too old to run it, so they hired a farmhand. That's where the other man came in, a handsome guy from out of town who had just been looking for work anywhere, and who the first guy thought was much too prissy and posh for the kind of manual labor that was expected of him. He had come from the city and was the son of a rich businesswoman, so why he wanted to run from that cushy lifestyle just to work on a rinky-dink ranch, the first guy didn't know, but he teased him about it relentlessly. But where he expected the guy to get offended and ditch his position, the other guy just took it lightly and met it with laughter, until they became friends, and eventually, even more than that. At the end of the book, the first guy's father, who, once he found out about the relationship supported it 100%, gave up ownership of the ranch to his son and his boyfriend, and the two were married on their land with the help of a fat check from the second guy's mother, who also supported them completely. Steve had gushed so hard over the book that when he was reading it, he found himself lying on his stomach with his legs kicked up and a permanent smile on his face as he twirled his hair. It was probably his favorite of all three books.

And now, as he held each book in his hands and placed them in his favorite tote bag to take with him to the signing event, he couldn't help but wonder what the next book might be about. That was another reason he loved this author so much, he always kept you guessing on what he might do next. Most authors picked one or two genres and stuck to them, but this guy was all over the place. And yet, everything he wrote was absolutely amazing, and had Steve captivated within a few pages. He could not wait to see where things would go this time.

After a few minutes of thinking about it, he heard a knock on his door, and he knew Robin was there. He went to let her in and immediately, the two of them set up the tacos on his desk and ate while Steve threw practically every piece of clothing he owned around his room, trying to find the perfect outfit. There was still an hour and a half before they had to be at the bookstore, but Steve refused to leave the apartment until he knew he looked perfect.

"Seriously, is it really that big a deal? I mean, you're gonna see him for like, five minutes. If that. You don't have to be in a tux or anything for that," Robin said as Steve continued to fret over whether he should wear his blue sweater or his green button-down as if the fate of the world depended on it.

"Yes, Robin, it is that big a deal! I don't want to look like an idiot! I'm already gonna look like a creep because of how much I love his books, and if I blank on him and say something stupid or can't speak at all, I want to at least look my best so he can't gossip about that to people, too!" Steve said, finally deciding on the sweater, but then having a whole new meltdown over which pants would go best with it.

"Okay, point taken, but also, you're selling yourself short. I'm sure he won't think you're an idiot, and he'll probably be flattered that you like his books so much. I mean, he wrote them for people to read and enjoy, right? And if you freeze up, I'll be right there with you to bring you out of it, so you really don't have anything to worry about. And go with the brown pants, the gray ones don't look right." She said, finally deciding to be helpful.

"Okay, I guess you're right. Now, which shoes should I go with? Dress shoes would probably be too formal, right?" He asked, holding his selections up to himself in the mirror.

"Yeah, just wear your converse or vans. We might still get stuck in line since this guy is so popular, so you should wear something comfortable. And wear your white dress shirt under your sweater so that the collar and cuffs stick out. It'll give you that cute academia look with your glasses and make it less weird to think of you as a bookworm." Robin said, helping him pick out the final few things and then leaving to give him privacy as he changed. Not that he needed it, they've both changed in front of each other countless times, but still. She also had a surprise for him, and she needed an excuse to count her cash without him seeing.

Finally, he was finished, and after he was finally satisfied with his hair, they put the leftover tacos in the fridge and Steve grabbed his books. They hopped in Robin's car, and got to the bookstore right at 6:00, ready to go inside with the others already on their way. The bookstore employees were apparently already checking people in, so Steve was anxious to get in there and get a good spot in line, but before he could jump out of the car (and his skin), Robin grabbed his arm.

"Wait, you're missing a few final things," she said, rummaging around in her little backpack that had the little video game character Kirby all over it.

"What?" Steve asked, his heart beating hard enough already. What could he have forgotten? Was his breath bad after the tacos? Did he have something on his face or in his teeth? Had his hair gone flat?

"One, a breath mint, just in case," she said, opening her pack of Altoids and giving him one. "Two, your inhaler, also just in case. We don't need you hyperventilating in front of your hero. Three, some lip gloss, just like back in our scoops days to really complete the look and make you just that much cuter."

She handed him a tube of her favorite lip gloss, strawberry banana flavored, the same kind she used to lend him way back when that made his lips pink and full. He slathered on a layer and handed it back to her, then popped the breath mint and slipped his inhaler into his pants pocket, fixing his hair and taking one last deep breath before turning to her and smiling nervously.

"You think I have everything?" He asked.

"Almost," she said, "You still need one more thing."

With that, she reached into her bag again and pulled out her wallet, handing him forty dollars in cash with a big smile on her face. Steve stared at the money, dumbfounded, trying to hand it back on instinct.

"No, keep it. You need it if you want to get his new book. Besides, it's your birthday present. You don't get to argue, I'm paying for it. Now let's get inside before they sell out!" Robin said, smiling widely at Steve's confused spluttering.

"Robin, you don't have to pay for me. Thank you, but you really don't-"

"Shut up your face, Dingus! I want to. Besides, like I said, it's your birthday present. Now, let's go, for real. We don't want to be the last ones in line, do we?"

Finally, Steve relented, climbing out of the car and meeting Robin at the front of it to give her the tightest hug he could muster before they walked in. They may be strictly platonic, but Steve loved her more than he ever loved anyone before, and he had to make sure she knew that.

Finally, they walked into the bookstore, where they were greeted by an overly chipper employee who already looked tired, and the event hadn't even started yet.

"Hi! Are you guys here for the book signing?" She asked, her customer service smile and attitude something the two of them were all too familiar with.

"Yeah, we are," Robin said, grinning widely at her.

"Great! Do you have your tickets already or do you need to purchase a copy of the book now?" the employee asked, covering her mouth against a yawn.

"No, we need to buy a copy," Steve said, holding tightly on his tote bag straps.

"Okay, that's perfectly fine. Just go on up to the front registers, Gigi will be there to help you out, and then just keep your receipt and you can jump in line. Have fun!" The employee smiled, then greeted the next people that came in behind them.

Steve and Robin went to the counter and did as instructed, asking the girl there for a copy of the book and paying for it before getting in line and waiting for it to start moving. As they did, Steve was practically on pins and needles, and Robin took the opportunity to examine the cover of the new book. It was called "Court of Royal Rivalries", and the pun was evident when you saw the cover. It was two boys playing basketball, one a brunet in a green and white jersey and the other a blond with not shirt on, just green shorts.

"Hey Dingus, can I see your book for a second?" Robin asked, and Steve handed it over.

"Sure, why?" He asked.

"I just want to read the back and see what it's about," Robin said, flipping it over.

"Ooh, read it out loud, I want to know, too." Steve encouraged, and Robin began to read.

"Seth Haner is the king of his high school, with everything his heart would desire. He's got money, he's got looks, he's got charm, and most of all, he's got his peers groveling at his feet for even a scrap of his attention. But after having been dumped by his girlfriend Natalie seemingly out of nowhere, he realizes that what he really wants, a love that will last, is the one thing he doesn't have. Enter Ben Holden, a new student transferring into the sleepy rural town from California. Suddenly, Ben is the hottest commodity in the school, easily dethroning Seth and taking over his court. Seth can't stand the guy, and is dreading it when he finds out that they'll be playing basketball together, the one things Seth has left after losing practically everything. Ben is a monster on the court, and Seth feels like he's losing basketball, too, when the coach tells them to work out their differences or they'll both be nixed from the team. Can Seth and Ben put aside their differences to find their similarities? Or will the blood of the two kings be spilled as they fight for the crown on the court?"

Steve stared at her as she finished reading the blurb, his jaw hanging open as she finished.

"Okay," he said, debating whether or not he needed to use his inhaler, "Either this is one hell of a coincidence or... Well, no, that has to be it! That's so fucking weird."

"I know! I mean, that's like your high school career in a nutshell. And look at the cover! I'm willing to bet my life that the brunet one is Seth and the blond is Ben, because this is too fucking uncanny. That is the creepiest shit ever. It's like a glitch in the matrix or something!" Robin agreed, handing the book back to Steve.

"Wait a second, hang on, I want to see something," he said, pulling out the other three books from his bag as the line began to move. He flipped them each open to the title pages, and Robin watched as he found what he was looking for.

"Okay, wait, look at this," he said, showing her the first one, "This book is dedicated to his sister, apparently, who 'taught him what it was like to live through the end of the world'. Then this one," he opened the second book to the same page, "This one is dedicated to his mom, who 'kept him safe until things got hard and then left him to the wolves'. And this one," he opened the third one, "is dedicated to his father, who 'should have supported him like Mr. Montgomery supported River'. So I wonder..." Steve said, then opened up the fourth book, and his heart nearly stopped when he read the dedication.

"What does it say?!" Robin insisted. They were only a few people away from meeting the guy, but Steve felt like he knew him already, and it only raised more questions that he couldn't figure out the answers to as he handed the book to Robin to read for herself.

The dedication read, "To my Pretty Boy. You know who you are. This is the way I wish our story ended up. I'm sorry."

Robin finished reading it and her eyes went wide as she looked up at Steve, the both of them utterly baffled. This was just impossible. Neither of them could believe it, and neither of them knew what to say. They were both trying to come up with some way to explain it, but before they could, another bookstore employee, a man about their age with dark hair down to his shoulders, ushered them through the backdrop screens that were set up to keep the interactions private and told them to have fun.

Steve and Robin didn't know if it was more or less confusing when they stepped up to the table and saw none other than Billy Hargrove sitting in front of them, a sharpie in his hand and his blond hair tied up into a knot on top of his head. He had a slight beard now and more tattoos now than back in high school, in fact, he had a whole sleeve on one arm and a few standalone ones on his other arm. He was wearing a short sleeve button up, but unlike back in school, all the buttons were done up, except for the top two, exposing the pendant he still wore and just a sliver of his still golden skin. His eyes were still the same sparkling blue, but they were partially hidden behind a pair of round brown glasses. He still wore his dagger earring, but he had a few more piercings up around the shell of his ear and a stud in his nose now, too. Overall, he looked fantastic, he took Steve's breath away, but he was still completely floored that he was sitting there in front of them.

"Hi, how are yo-" Billy said, finally looking up at them and seeming to choke on the words, literally. He began to cough as his face went red, and the manager of the bookstore ran to get him a bottle of water while another employee, the dark haired man, came over to make sure everything was okay.

"Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, thanks," Billy said, waving the man off, "Just wasn't expecting to see any familiar faces today."

The manager finally returned with the water, and Billy drank it, and once he caught his breath, he finally seemed to get himself collected. At least, collected enough to turn on his charm and start acting like he hadn't just choked at the sight of two blasts from his past.

"Well well well, Steve Harrington and Robin Buckley. I never expected to see you two around here. How've you been?" He asked, motioning for Steve's books and readying his sharpie.

"Um, fine, I guess?" Robin said, "Wow, sorry, it's just a trip seeing you here. I honestly thought you were dead or something."

"Aw, I wish!" Billy joked, smiling as Steve finally handed him the books and he began to scribble in them. "But no, seriously, it's a trip to see you guys, too. I never expected to see anyone from Hawkins ever again once I moved out here. I'm not surprised you thought I was dead, I tried to bury my old self. That's why I don't let anyone take pictures and why I write under a pen name. I didn't want to be found."

"Jesus, what, are you on the run?" Robin asked, Steve still speechless beside her.

"No, just living happily by myself for once and not wanting anyone to find out and ruin it for me. I guess you guys know, but the fact that you're here means you're fans, so I don't think I need to worry too much about you posting my yearbook pictures all over Twitter as long as I ask you really nicely." He grinned, and Steve nearly lost his breath all over again.

"Well, Stevie's more of a fan than I am. It's his birthday today, so I told him we could do whatever he wants tonight and since he loves your books we ended up here, but either way, my lips are sealed." Robin said, finally stepping back and pushing Steve forward to make him interact with the other guy.

"Y-yeah, no, I wouldn't tell anyone. I mean, after all you've gone through to make sure no one knows who you really are. Like, I couldn't even find you when I googled your name, and you can find anyone on google." Steve rambled, hoping that Billy couldn't hear his heart beating practically out of his chest.

"I appreciate that," Billy said, his smile big and bright on his face. "So, how've you been, Stevie? I hear you're a huge fan. What did you think of the last one?"

"I-I loved it. 'Fence' is probably my favorite of them, but I love all your books. You're a really talented writer, I never would've thought- Wait, no, that came out wrong! Jeez, I hope I didn't offend you, I just meant that you always seemed more street smart than book smart- shit, I didn't mean that either, I just meant- Oh, hell," Steve stammered, his face going as red as Robin's t-shirt, "This is coming out all wrong, I didn't mean that, I hope I didn't just piss you off, because I really do like your books and I'm just nervous cuz it's you and you're like, the last person I expected to see here signing them. I'm so sorry!"

"Hey, calm down, Stevie Boy. It's fine, I get it. No need to be sorry for anything. And anyway, I'm the one who choked when I first saw you," Billy chuckled, finally finishing writing in the last book and capping his sharpie before he handed them back to Steve to put in his bag. "I'm glad I got to see you guys again. I think I needed some familiarity. It was starting to get a little lonely being a ghost. Hopefully I'll see you again sometime soon."

And with that, he stood up, gave them each a quick hug, and then motioned for the dark haired man to bring in the next group. Steve and Robin left through another set of screens and to the door, the both of them seemingly in a daze until they got to Robin's car.

"Well, that was... certainly something," Robin said, staring straight ahead, just like Steve, both of them still trying to wrap their heads around it.

"You can say that again. I mean, Billy fucking Hargrove? I never would've guessed in a million years." Steve said, his eyes still wide.

"Neither would I." Robin agreed.

"And to make matters worse, he was so fucking hot! Like, that was not fair for the universe to make me look like such an imbecile in from of him!" Steve ranted.

"Okay, it really wasn't that bad, you were just star-struck, I'm sure he gets that all the time. And besides, he looked happy to see us, especially you," Robin replied, then she seemed to remember something, perking up and turning to look at him. "Wait, what did he write in your books? He wrote for a long time, it couldn't have just been his signature."

Steve nodded his agreement and took the books back out of his tote, starting with the first one and flipping it open to the page that Billy had written on.

"What does it say?" Robin asked, trying to lean over to see, but she couldn't read the cursive Billy wrote in.

"It says, 'Pretty Boy, since you're a fan and you already know, here's some more tidbits you might not have guessed about...(1/4)' then his signature." Steve opened the second book, and read on, "This one says, 'First off, my pseudonym is a joke. I always liked the name Ronnie, and Fitconi is an anagram of the word 'Fiction', because it's a fake name. Clever, huh? (2/4)'. Then his signature again." He flipped open the third book, his heart pounding in his ears as he read, "This one says, 'Secondly, and probably most importantly, all my books-'"

Steve cut himself off as his heart got caught in his throat, but he swallowed as he started over, "'Secondly, and probably most importantly, all my books are about you and me, and the way I wish they'd been for us. (3/4)', and his signature again."

"Holy shit!" Robin said, practically lunging at him as she begged him to read the last one.

"And finally, this one says, 'Lastly, I'd like to see you again. Maybe I can elaborate what I mean by all this, because I really want to. Enjoy this book, and even if you don't let me know your thoughts. Don't be giving this out to people, but-'"

Steve cut himself off again and slammed the book's cover shut, his face flushing even worse than before as he hid his face in his hands.

"What?! What did it say?!" Robin demanded, her hands waving around as she got more excited.

"He gave me his fucking number!" Steve practically screamed, pulling his hands away from his face as he looked at her with a weird smile. "Then he wrote happy birthday and signed his name again! Fuck, I don't know whether to scream or to go back in there and kiss him right on the fucking mouth! This is fucking Twilight Zone levels of insanity and I don't know whether to be happy or terrified!"

"Let's go with happy for right now, he wants to see you again! And all his books are about you! That's so cool! And he wants to see you again! This is definitely a win! I think you should call him tomorrow." Robin said, trying to hype Steve up.

"I don't know..." he said, picking at his sweater sleeve, "What if I make a fool of myself again? I wouldn't even know what to talk about with him. I'd just look dumb."

"I highly doubt he would think so. He practically lit up like a light bulb when he saw you!" Robin said.

"He choked on air when he saw me." Steve deadpanned.

"Yeah, but after that, he lit up! And he told you that his books, which are all romances, are about you! Seriously, you should call him. At least once you finish the book, that way if you don't talk about anything else, you can talk about that!" Robin argued, and Steve reluctantly agreed.

He was finished with the book by that time the next day. He loved it, every word, and he knew from the beginning that it was about him, but it was honestly both weird and heart melting to read his own life (albeit with a different outcome) written down on paper. He remembered the dedication in the book, how Billy said that the happy ending he wrote for Seth and Ben was how he wished things had gone for them back in high school, and finally, Steve buckled.

He called Billy.

[thatneilj]

Game of the Year 2024

Hey everyone! 2024 sure was a year, huh? Alright let’s be honest, not a great one. At least not outside of video games. The fucking world is a giant mess. Anyway, the couple of small highlights in my life this year were:

Finally reading books regularly again

Finally got back into Netrunner

Finally finished Jump King

Onward to the Game of the Year list!

Honorables

Shelved by Genre

For the last couple years I’ve been putting some non-video game stuff into the honorable and this year we’re tossing in a podcast. Shelved by Genre is a bit of a book club diving into a bunch of fantasy and sci-fi stories. While they weren’t exactly the reason I managed to pick a bunch of books up again this year, the hosts have been really fun to listen to talk about novels I’ve read – and some I haven’t – throughout this last year.

Shadow of the Erdtree

I know I’m that weirdo Fromsoft fan who didn’t like Elden Ring as much as the rest of the world seemed to. The thing is, my issues were never about the mechanical improvements to the game, it was more the structure and design that seemed, frankly, bad at actually giving meaningful direction in the open world. Now years later jumping into the DLC was great because it basically corrected on almost all the issues of the base game I had and ended up being one of my favorite experiences of the whole year. Unfortunately you do still need to play most of the base game to access it and I feel weird about putting DLC onto my list in an official capacity.

Nine Sols

I feel like I’ve only gotten maybe 20% through Nine Sols and it’s already something that would be competing for my game of the year. Some of that might be recency bias, but the general pacing, movement, and exploration gives me a lot of the feelings I last got from Hollow Knight. While that perpetually delayed sequel continues to tease us all, this game is doing for me the same thing the protagonist seems to get from that life giving pipe-weed or whatever he is smoking.

5. UFO 50

UFO 50 is a weird game to put onto this list since it is more like a launcher for 50 other small games. I love the commitment to the collection being the works of a fictional development team making games spanning all the way back to the early 80. However this does lead to, especially with some of the earlier titles, a recreation of some of the more annoying parts of returning to older games. Luckily with so many games when I don’t find one particularly enjoyable I can just move on to the next one!

Even now I haven’t touched all the games in the collection, but I have really enjoyed a handful already that is well worth the price of admission. Some of my favorites I have engaged with include; Camouflage – a navigational puzzle game, House Party – a deck building game, and Vainger – a mixture of Metroid and VVVVVV. I know there is a meta layer to engage with which I just haven’t been driven to do (shocking given my love for games like Tunic), but this ends up on my list more as a value proposition. Do I love every game in this collection? No. Is there at least 2-3 games I think any person would have fun with? Yes.

4. Balatro

When you find run based games they tend to fall into two main flavors – Games like Hades where the choices you make will change how your skills work to make you feel powerful, and games like Balatro that dare you break them and make you feel good as hell while you do it. The basic structure of Balatro is so simple, play hands poker hands to get points and get enough points in a limited number of hands to move to the next stage. The big twist here being that you can start changing the cards in your deck, start making specific hands much more powerful, and of course modify every hand with your jokers.

Maybe you’ll strip out all your face cards or end up with only 2 suits rather than 4. Maybe you’ll make that one Queen worth a ton of extra points, but only if you keep her in your hand instead of playing her. Or maybe you’ll find some jokers that make a lowly Two-of-a-Kind feel like a better hand than a Royal Flush. There are not many feelings this year more enjoyable than playing a hand that’s point value catches fire to indicate you beat the threshold in a single hand.

3. Zenless Zone Zero

I am honestly pretty torn on my feelings about ZZZ and yet I’m putting it all the way up here at Number 3. The first few nights I played it right on release I found the initial cast of characters you get to interact with generally more annoying than fun, I found the strange TV Array mission navigation overly simplistic, and I started getting overwhelmed with how many different items existed to level up all the different pieces of any given character. But I had said over a year ago than then ZZZ came out I would give my first Hoyoverse game a full month for me to try and see why these games seem to be so popular. Luckily the basic action game combat felt good and it had great style.

As I unlocked more of the systems they started doing more with the TV Array stuff putting some puzzles into those missions that acted like breaks from the usual action gameplay and I started to appreciate them. I unlocked the systems for daily energy that lets you farm some of the leveling materials more easily. And maybe most importantly, I got to story content that had characters I found more interesting to engage with and to use. It all started to click.

Here we are some 6 months after release and there is no doubt in my mind that ZZZ is my most played game of the whole year. I am still logging in every day, enjoying the new story chapters, and rolling for more characters. That there is the big elephant in the room though. This game IS a free-to-play gatcha game and they sure do have some predatory hooks in there to try and squeeze money out of you. I will admit to putting a few bucks into the game for the battle passes, but I’m not precious about making sure to get every single character so I haven’t really run into any walls that make me feel like I NEED to spend more money. But all those hooks are there, in my face, and do make me pretty uncomfortable suggesting anyone try to get into it.

2. Dragon’s Dogma 2

I am kind of shocked at how much I enjoyed Dragon’s Dogma 2. We all know that I tend to fall off open world games even when I think they are generally good (looking at you Witcher 3). While I finally gave the original Dragon’s Dogma a playthrough at the start of the year, it was an old enough game that the open world still felt very constrained and it was the class systems and streaming that really got me through it. I did have a good enough time that I thought the sequel would be worth a shot and I am so glad I played it.

The game rewarded me for paying attention to the characters giving me quests, letting me know I should find a guard disguise before visiting the jail to investigate one of the prisoners. It made every little trip across the world feel like its own little adventure where I might be ambushed by a griffon or suddenly see a ghostly carriage. Though perhaps most importantly, the expanded pawn system granting them abilities beyond their classes helped me become much more attached to pawns beyond just my own. Running around successfully gave me a feeling closer to the tabletop experience of adventuring with my friends than any other RPG has gotten. And that is to say nothing of the excellent variance and fun I had playing all the different classes providing a great action experience on top of everything else.

1. Animal Well

A puzzle game with some extra layers has made it into my top 5 many times in the past. We did discover some of my limits for that kind of game at the start of this year with Void Stranger unfortunately, and coming off that there was a small part of me worried my patience for that kind of game had depleted. Animal Well was a breath of fresh air with its moody visuals, 2d platforming traversal, and Metroid-style ability gated map design. What really made it stand out was how well it managed to communicate small goals without directing you through text.

It is hard not to notice that the ghosts you meet so early in the game always seem to be in rooms with candles in them. And once you find your first match to light a candle you discover that the ghost doesn’t come back. Even more importantly though, a candle also lights up in that weird wall full on candles near the very start of the game! Once you add the interesting ways in which the game gives you so many alternate ways to use so many of the items and suddenly the game feels like you can break your way into places only to discover they thought of it too and reward you for it! Though perhaps just with another puzzle piece.

While I don’t think the bigger second ending puzzle hits the same kind of highs that the instruction manual from Tunic does, it is still an extremely satisfying achievement. Knowing how much more there is after that and the ways that the game was built not just to encourage community puzzle solving but actually require it for many of puzzles beyond that ending is impressive. But more than anything I’m just happy to see I still like the sense of discovery in this kind of puzzle game.

[all-pacas]

for the book asks: 3, 9, 11!

shit wait now i actually have to remember what i read this year

3. What were your top five books of the year?

Wellness by Nathan Hill. He's so good. I loved The Nix and Wellness is better and go ahead and read the first couple pages and tell me he doesn't do character studies so. So well. Mutual stalking love story through a window? Flashforwards of decades? The lies we tell ourselves and one another and the way even we don't know our traumas? Incredible. It's so good.

Emperor of Rome by Mary Beard. You all know me I love her books. I see Mary Beard on a Rome book and I buy it. She single-handedly converted me from "only weird gross dudes are Into Rome" to "oh this shit slaps." I hope she writes a biography on Nero next because she has made me very interested in him. This book just kind of covers what, in practical rather than biographical terms, it would be like to be Emperor of Rome. In good faith I will say if you want a starter book of hers to try, SPQR and especially Pompeii are more general/"accessible" but this is still plenty accessible and interesting and not just about dead emperors.

The Wager by David Grann. Apparently they're making a movie of this. It's a true story with a premise that sounds like a movie: a small group of men claiming to have survived a shipwreck and crazy captain wash up in a South American city on a raft, mostly dead and in ill health. A year later, three more survivors from the same shipwreck turn up elsewhere with a wildly different story of mutiny and betrayal. Half the men on the ship kept diaries, the book pieces it all together and does a fantastic job drawing out the principle characters and what really (probably) went down.

Dune by Frank Herbert. To be honest I'm not sure if this was one of my favorite books, although I did end up greatly enjoying it, it's just… the first two times I tried to read this, I bounced off it hard, I just couldn't get into it. But I finally managed it this year and turns out! It's a really fun book! I'm into it!

2666 by Roberto Bolaño. Fun fact, I have yet to finish this monster. Funner fact, what is it about? I don't know. I'm 500 pages in and the part I'm reading is a long accounting of hundreds of biographies of murdered women interspersed with a romance between a detective (who isn't investigating these crimes at all) and a psychologist who works in an asylum. It's also about: a) a German novelist who might not exist b) a love triangle between academics c) a romance between a reporter and the daughter of a professor d) Mexico. It's really good. It is slow going. Highly recommend.

9. Did you get into any new genres?

No, but… I tend to really read a little of everything anyway lol. In the past year I've also read a bunch of Stephen King, several non-fiction history books, a couple of thrillers, The Illiad, Origin of Species, and half of my annual-ish ASOIAF re-read. About the only genre I don't consistently read is romance and that's because I read fanfic hahaha

11. What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

I should have read the questions in advance, Dune would have been a great pick here. I'll give a spoiler answer instead: my 2025 resolution is to finally, for the first time, for real…………read Lords of the Rings, hahahahaha oops.