#anyway back to work goodbye.. this has been in my drafts too long im starting to hate it

[kijeu]

favourite bang chan fancams 2 / ∞ [ 210828 music core - thunderous ⋆ ]

[tobioslune]

liquid courage

Paring: Iwaizumi Hajime x gn!reader

Genre : fluff, comfort? college au kinda, best friends to lovers, mutual pining, Iwaizumi being soft and a simp

Warnings? : implied drinking, (aged up), cursing (from the lyrics), a little smooch 

a/n: This is a draft i started in january but things happened that made me leave it for about like four months lol (if u wanna know what happened while i was writing this you can read it here lol also you could see how i wrote / continued writing it here ) but! im finally finished and im pretty proud of it even though its lowkey all over the place :>> please do check out the song bc it slaps and it’s really good lol okay that’s all for now hope you enjoy <3 (last notee: likes and reblogs are really appreciated!!)

▶ now playing : drunk - dijon 

You and Iwaizumi have been close friends since highschool, and feelings may have been caught during that time. With the reason of not wanting to ruin the relationship you’ve built with him, you tried to brush it off. And like every other trope where you fall for your best friend you expected that he wouldn’t feel the same way.

Surprisingly both of you ended up going to the same university, and you were able to hang out and keep in touch with each other. Everytime you think you’ve set those feelings aside, whenever some romantic tension presents itself, it bubbles up inside all over again. Like an annoying weed that keeps coming back no matter how hard you try to get rid of it. 

School and other work has been pressing on you for the past few months and you just keep getting into a slump. No matter how hard you try, you find yourself in the same place you were over and over again. Iwaizumi noticed this and really tried his best to help but he’s also caught up with a ton of things. 

O baby, I’m lonely and I’m fucked up by myself

 Could uu come here?!  

It was 1am on a Saturday and Mattsun called you. You were working on an essay and it was super unexpected. It was able to shake you from the somewhat trance you were in while trying to think.

“Hey y/n-san I’m so sorry to call you at such a late time and most probably not so nice notice, but is it okay if you pick-up Hajime here at our usual place? Hanamaki and the others have already left and theres a paper I need to take care of, and you’re the only one I could think of.”

“Oh, it’s okay. Did Hajime drink too much like last time?” You think to yourself, ‘How stubborn, I’ve told him last time to be mindful of how much he takes because of his low tolerance’  You found the thought quite amusing.

“He sure has. When will you be able to get here by the way?” Mattsun replies.

“Give me about 15 minutes, it’s not so far from where I live anyways. Can you keep him company for a little while longer?” you tell him. This would be able to get your mind off the stress and exhaustion you’re in hopefully for a little while. Besides you haven’t met him in person for about month so it would be nice to see him again.

“Yeahh I can do that. Thanks again by the way y/n.”

“Suree, anytime. Okay see you in a bit, bye”

“Bye.”

The train stations are already closed at this time, and it would be too much of a hassle to take a cab to and from where he lives so it probably would be best that he crash at your place instead.

You straighten a few things up in your apartment and proceed to grab a jacket, your keys, wallet and your phone, placing it into a small purse. As you closed the door you could already feel a rush of cold air surrounding you.

The walk there was quite refreshing and you felt much better than you did earlier. As you arrived there you could see Mattsun waiting in front. You smiled as you walked toward him. It took him a couple seconds to recognize you as you came into view. 

“Heyy, hope I didn’t take too long” you said as you greeted him with a hug. 

“No, it’s all good you actually arrived faster than I expected”, Mattsun replies returning your smile. 

“He’s inside by the way.” gesturing with the back of his thumb.

“Okay, I’ll go take care of it from here” 

“Thanks again, apologies if it interrupted anything important.” 

“Like I said, it's alright! I got it.” you assure him.

You both bid your goodbyes and you make your way inside the homey bar. There he was, head resting on his right hand and glass of water in the other. You figured he sobered up at least a little bit. 

You let out an amused sigh, “Oh Haj, I’ve told you a couple of times last time to watch it, right?” You took a seat in front of him, leaning your head on your hand. He laughed a little at the statement made. “Sorry y/n, got a bit caught up and forgot.” 

Letting out a low hum you respond, “Anyways, ready to go?” 

“Yeah just give me a moment.” His head was still pounding from the drinks.

I’M WASTING and I’m anxious; I’m fading from myself… 

You placed his arm around your shoulder in an attempt to keep him upright and stable as you walk. Compared to him he was obviously heavier making it difficult for you to even make it to the door, you were basically stumbling out, but somehow you were able to manage and he was at least trying to cooperate even when everything was practically hazy for him in that moment.

---------- 

You fell for him, and little did you know he did too. You’ve known Hajime as reserved, reliable, firm, caring and surprisingly stubborn at times. He knew that if he told his friends and teammates they would tease him and make it more obvious that's why he kept it in a never said a word. 

He liked you, he liked you so much, but sometimes you just seemed so out of reach to him. Loved by almost everyone, you were beautiful, charming and just overall amazing to him. There were times where he really tried to deny his feelings, his emotions, toward you but whenever another guy would be around you he just can’t help but want you all to himself.

--------

As school progressed your schedule became more hectic and your assignments started to pile up. It felt like an endless mess and an inevitable disaster. He saw how stressed you were but he felt a bit helpless because he didn't know what to do. He couldn’t really help you because of your different courses and besides he wouldn’t even know what to do. As time went on your hangouts became lesser and lesser and sometimes you'd even be too busy or even too tired to chat with him. You would try making plans but your group mates would suddenly set up meetings or deadlines would abruptly be sent and given. 

Although he has tried reaching out, because of how busy you were he was left alone with his thoughts and feelings and he tried to make sense of how he really felt. He wanted to avoid thinking of you but that became difficult for him when almost everything reminded him of you…

“They would have liked this..”, “I should probably ask if they ate.”,  “This would be such a nice gift for y/n.”,  “I wonder what they would think of this.”, it just felt like never ending thoughts of you.

---------

When Matsukawa and the rest of the old team from Seijoh offered him to hang out and catch up he couldn't say no. By going he would be able to hang out with them and it would hopefully be a distraction to help get you off his mind. He knew you were busy and in his head he thought that maybe you didn't like him the say he does. You ran circles around his mind and at time he’s just feel so conflicted and confused.

In the end he got wasted, he felt faded, and just wanted to feel ok. He accidentally ended up telling the boys out of frustration that he had feelings for someone which left him with mixed emotions at times. They found this quite surprising because who would get him so hung up and drunk like that.

COULD U COME HERE?! And say u’ll stay the night 

Although you reminded him last time you went drinking to watch his intake you were still shocked that he was so drunk he could barely think straight. The cold air and silence filled the walk and everything in some way felt alright. You felt at peace and his presence made everything feel comfortable even if you were practically carrying him.

He sighs, “Hey I'm sorry I dragged you into this mess I accidentally let myself go back there again.” 

“It's ok, I mean that's bound to happen to everyone at some point I've got you  don't worry it's fine.” you respond.

“Where are we going, by the way?” He asks.

“I'm taking you back to my place, I mean if you don't mind. The subways are closed and the taxis are hard to come by at this time.” 

“Oh ok, it's fine, I mean I have nowhere else to go to anyways and I don't really mind,”  He says with a flustered laugh.

As you keep walking you pass by a convenience store you both frequently used to hang out at when your schedules weren't so busy.

“Hey Haj, we should stop there for a while just so you could sober up a little more. Also I’m a bit hungry anyway,”  you suggest.

“Yeah good idea, besides you must be kind of tired trying to carry me around for this long.”

You both make your way to the convenience store and you tell him to sit outside while you buy something for the both of you.

 Cause it’s been a while, since I've seen u smiling! O baby, could u come down? I think I’m freaking out! And I’m drunk! 

You step inside and the warmth of the shop embraces you. You then proceed to get some meat buns, and two coffees. As you go to pay you take a glimpse outside to check up on Iwaizumi and to your surprise he was already looking at you. You quickly turn away and you feel a small blush attempting to creep up on your face, but you shake the thought away as you make it to the counter.

You finish paying and walk over to where Iwaizumi is sitting and you place the food down on the table. Handing over a meat bun and a coffee to him, you sit down and sigh in satisfaction as you bite into yours. Somewhat comfortable silence fills the space and you absentmindedly process everything that happened.

“So, how was the hang out with the guys? I haven't seen them in so long. You sure must’ve had fun...” You say in the hopes of making things a little less awkward and quiet.

“Oh yeah it was great.” He replies with his mouth still with food, you laugh and he continues after he finally swallows what he was eating.

“Yeah it was really fun, we got to catch up on a lot and they're doing pretty great I must say. You should come next time, I mean when you're not busy. I miss our hangouts, you know...” 

“Is this not a hangout?” You humorously ask.

“I mean, it is but I'm saying we should hang out more when you're not busy and when I'm not drunk.”  He says with a laugh.

“Yeah we totally should.“ You say with a smile.

“So anyways, how's life?” 

“Well I mean I'm doing ok, but overall just really stressed. Work and papers have been piling up and my head has been pounding for like weeks or maybe even just days you know, but I guess I'm doing fine.” Giving a small laugh to lighten the statement.

“Yeah the workloads really suck right now, they're crazy. But I'm here for you if you need anything even if I don’t really understand a thing from your subjects.”

“Yeah, I know.” You say giving him a reassuring grin.

You both take a brief pause when he suddenly brings up an old inside joke you both had when you were younger. You spend about an hour reliving memories, throwing around jokes, teasing each other and laughing a lot.

Sighing into a smile he says, “I really miss this. It's been a while since I've seen you smile like that.” 

“Yeah I missed our hangouts like these, this feels so great and nostalgic in a way.”

And I don’t think I can beat it, I’m paralyzed, I’m terrified of being alone!

You both clean up and start to continue your walk back to your place. All the stress you’ve been feeling earlier feels as if it has left and you feel relieved. As you both near your apartment complex, Iwaizumi stops making you turn back.

“Hey, you okay?” You ask.

“Yeah I’m good.” You then proceed to turn around, but he suddenly continues.

“Listen I need to tell you something, and I need you to promise me that we’re still going to be ok even as friends afterwards.” He says with a slight seriousness on his face

“Yeah, you can tell me anything I promise I'll still stay. I mean unless you're a criminal and you're gonna kill me.” You joke. Moving closer to him you prepare yourself a bit for whatever he would say.  “So what's up?”

He takes a breath, “I like you y/n -san.... and I'm really sorry if you don’t like me after this or if this makes anything awkward or if I made you uncomfortable in any way. I've liked you since high school and I was too scared to say anything because I thought you liked another guy--”

“--I swear even when we were younger there was something about you that just made everyone like you. You were so nice, friendly to everyone, helpful, beautiful, and so much more. You’re captivating to me… and I’m trying to use whatever’s left of this liquid courage to get this off my chest and I think I’m ready for whatever might come next.” 

Your mouth parts slightly from shock because of what he said but it slowly, turns into a huge grin.   

“Hajime, I don't know what to say…” you cut him off before he could say anything, 

“Because I like you too, and I have for such a long time.”

He lifts up his head with hope and a slight disbelief in his eyes, “You do..? You did..?!’’

“Yes..” you say with a small chuckle and a smile plastered across your face. You walk even closer until you're both mere inches away from each other. You take a relieved sigh and make eye contact with him. You wrap your arms around his neck and draw him in for a hug. He places his arms delicately around your waist hugging you back.

He slowly pulls away and cups your face ever so tenderly, pulling you in so that your lips are merely ghosting the others; and he gently kisses you. You felt as if that you were floating on clouds. His lips were so soft and warm it felt so surreal.

You both pull away and he says with a smile, “I've waited and wanted for so long to do that.”

You couldn't believe that everything that happened, actually happened. It felt like a scenario that you would only be able to play in your head. But it was all real and it was all happening. It felt like a dream, and if this were a scene in some cute drama there would have been hearts floating around your head right now, you felt lovestruck.

 Cause it’s been a while, since i’ve thought about the good things, all the bright light things all the good times that we had! It’s been a while, since I made u smile! 

You finally reach your apartment hand-in-hand, sitting down on the couch as soon as you enter. The night was filled with more conversations, laughter and just overall good times. Homework forgotten and disregarded, you let yourself go and have fun. Surprisingly everything felt like it just fell into place. 

You looked at him and maybe it was the alcohol but he was pretty sure he saw stars in your eyes. 

“I can't believe after all this time you're finally and actually mine.” you say.

Whatever magic or fate intertwined and lined you up to this exact moment you just knew that you were forever grateful.

[you-cant-spell-subtext-without]

I’m back on my bullshit and we have GOT TO TALK about 13x08 The Scorpion and the Frog; which serves as a good example of why you should not ONLY watch spn episodes with Cas (partially because of that scene I shamefully blogged about earlier - no I will not link that cursed post here).  The episode title comes from a fable in which the villain is the scorpion.  Interpretations of this fable note its uniqueness lies in the concept that “the scorpion is irrationally self destructive and fully aware of it.”

To quote the scorpion, buddies -  “it’s in my nature.”

Anyway, this episode is subtextually predicated on exploring Dean Winchester’s nature and specifically - his bisexuality, and I’m not only saying that because it opens with Dean in his Bi Colors Plaid (that also he wore on his burger date with Cas).

Let’s get started, after the cut!

Season 13 on its face gives me absolute whiplash because it starts widow arc-reunion-TOMBSTONE and then Jack yeets himself off to Chuck knows where so Cas can go out Looking For Him Because Otherwise He Will Definitely Kiss Dean there is no other option for the writers at this point.  Sigh.  Here, have another shot of Dean anxiously cleaning his gun as he always does when Cas has Gone Off For Reasons -

Anyway, this feels like a filler episode at first, but as always they bury the ENTIRE damn world in it and I am here with my dossier to Unearth It.

Lets start with Bart (demon of terrible nicknames and microagressions) meeting the brothers at Smile Diner to talk about some spell or whatever. 

(I am not thinking about the Cherry Pie meta I AM NOT)

THEY HAVE THE AUDACITY to start with these lines immediately introducing the theme of duality, a thread throughout this episode.

BARTHAMUS

Everything. I've been following your careers a long time. You're a real pain in the pitchfork. And the halo. Natural disrupters. We have that in common, you and I. DEAN

Mm. Yeah, we're twinsies.

***MORE DUALITY!  But as we know, Dean does not like Bart because He Is A Freakin’ Demon

DEAN

Well, see, here's the thing. When a demon tells us to jump, we don't ask how high. We just ice their ass.

UMMM excuse me Barting Bacting Boices?  What is that sexual gaze?  

Then we find out that Bart has 1/2 of the spell.  They need the other 1/2.  Oh, a spell with two parts, you say? [ I am going to scream :) ]

***Also, Dean eats the pie Bart ordered.  I cannot begin to explain to you the state of unwellness that I am in regarding how important this is. DEAN NEVER GETS TO EAT THE PIE, remember?  But in This Filler Episode, Dean eats the pie. While Sam looks at him with a very quizzical expression.  Pie -> what Dean wants but never actually gets -> Dean actively eating this pie.  Dean is coming to terms that maybe he can have what he wants.

***I am reminding you again that this is post widower-arc, post-reunion, and especially post-Tombstone.  Anyway-

Now we get to Smash and Grab.  Not literally even though I want to Commit Such Conduct at this point.  We are introduced to two one off characters named 

Smash (human/female presenting) -  can crack any safe built by man 

and Grab (demon/male presenting)-  expert in bypassing supernatural security.

Reaching or no, you can’t disagree that when spn introduces one off characters - it is almost always a Narrative Parallel or Mirror.

So we have a human and a demon (and Dean Winchester, a human who has been a demon)

who are experts in cracking open/bypassing something that has been secured and guarded (breaking down walls, if you will).  

They also use fake names identifying them as Tools to be Used ( Dean Winchester, the Michael Sword/daddys blunt little instrument)

BONUS:

Dean himself is literally used as a tool in this episode.

So yeah.  Smash and Grab are physical representations of Dean’s duality.  Human/Demon.  Femininity/Masculinity.  Dare we say something else, too?

Anyway, Dean is paired with Smash and Grab; Sam is off to idk negotiate weird artifact purchases lawboy style with Luther Shrike, a man who cannot die so long as he never leaves his house (I cannot even begin to unpack this shit; please just sit there and think about it.  I’m not even going there here.  I CANNOT DISCUSS Luther Shrike RN).

Speaking of things I cannot discuss without halgdhsag;lsa - Smash has very Specific boots (a look overall, really).

DEAN

Hey, Winona. The '90s called. They'd like their shoes back. SMASH

Shh.

***That’s right girl - do not take his shit; he actually LOVES them and is therefore Overcompensating for it with this little jab.

***Dean’s pop culture references and particular attention to the details here Should Not Be Overlooked.  90s! Winona! Ryder!

ANYWAY, then Dean and Smash bond over a caffeinated beverage -

[While Dean is doing a spell, Smash opens a can of drink, takes a mouthful and burps loudly. ] SMASH

Ahh. DEAN

You're weird.

***This scene makes me literally insane. (even aside from Dean living on something named NERVE DAMAGE as a KID.  They could have called it anything. You’re saying this wasn’t a Choice)  

She chugs a swallow of the drink and burps.  Something stereotypically associated with masculinity.  Not feminine.  Dean’s reaction is that she is “weird” - because she is not acting in a way stereotypically, J*hn Winchester brain-rot patriarchy bullshit-tily associated with Being Female.  But also, says the stupid show, they like the same soda.  They are The Same.  She shares the soda with Dean.  HIS FACE WHEN SHE DOES -

Other similarities are addressed throughout the episode (they are working for demons because they have no choice; they don’t discuss feelings/emotions, they both sold their soul, they both This Thing - 

DEAN

You know, we could help you. SMASH

No, you can't. I gotta take care of me.

etc. etc.) Smash is absolutely dean-coded.

****Also it’s textually established that Smash thinks Dean is attractive -

GRAB

[looking at Smash] Oh. You said he was just a pretty face. SMASH 

Shh.

***But Grab flirts with him too.

DEAN

I will kill you. GRAB

I bet you say that to all the girls.

***sorry, Grab - you won’t get far with Dean, but only because as he mentioned in the beginning of this episode - 

Drowley rights.

Now Dean has to put his hand in the mouth of this stone lion thing and all of a sudden he is acting....very-not-like-Dean.

[Dean looks again and takes a deep breath.] DEAN

I… how about this? What if I cut myself, put it on, like, a little piece of paper? We'll just wad it up and throw it in the mouth, okay? Okay. 

***Dean Winchester, who has been to Literal HELL, who has been torn apart by hellhounds, who has battled the devil and angels and God’s sister - all at the expense of his own life is now - afraid of spiders.  Well, technically he has always been afraid of spiders, but why isn’t ‘he being performative about it At This Time??

***Come to think of it, this sends me right back to how Jackles was playing Dean in 12x11 Regarding Dean THE episode dissecting Dean’s performative masculinity [one day I will clean up and post that analysis sitting in my drafts like a sad hamster]. That makes sense actually, because -> -> ->

that episode and this one are both written by Meredith Glynn.  Girl get in I want to torture you affectionately with a barrage of questions.

So here we have Dean and he’s not performing for Reasons, and he’s scared he’s genuinely scared of putting his hand in this stone lion-gargoyle-pig-creature’s mouth and then -

Smash gives him a push.

She gives him a push.  I cannot stop thinking about how she gives him a push.  A push to go do this thing that he is scared of; his fear being something he was hiding under his performative masculinity. Smash - dean coded dean mirror who does not perform femininity and is ‘weird’ -  she   gives   him   a     p u s h.

***linking here for the jackting joices that follow.

Now, let’s circle back to Smash’s story; why she is working for Bart in the first place -

SMASH

You think I wanna be here? Like I have a choice? SAM

You made a deal. SMASH

Wow! You think? SAM

You sold your soul. SMASH

And if I could take it back, I would. 

there is no reason for this picture here other than I needed you to see the jackting again

***How does the story end for Smash?

DEAN

Take care of you. [Dean glances down at the box, and then at Smash. She sees that Dean has put a lighter on top of the bones.]  BARTHAMUS

Alice, chop chop! 

[Bart indicates she should get his bones]. SMASH

Yeah. [She grabs the lighter and sets Bart's bones alight. Bart screams as he bursts into flames. ] 

***She accepts help and breaks free from the narrative, literally burning it down. The female presenting but not female-performing “weird” ooc representing a side of Dean breaks FREE because she makes a choice.  The lighter Dean drops? It’s a push.  And she goes with it.

Alice reclaims her story.

(Also, Grab gets ganked.  The male presenting ooc; the performative masculinity side; the demon; the darkness; the not-humanity - gets ganked).

Guess what Dean says to Alice when they say goodbye?

DEAN

Hey, Alice. Stay weird.

[I know the peace sign is probably just a Charlie throwback but I’d still like to say duality.  Two. ]

Dean’s not just talking to Alice.  He’s talking to himself; because the walls have been breached and for once Dean isn’t as scared of being different.  Maybe, just maybe, he’s going along with the push.  That’s exactly how the episode ends - with Dean feeling a little more hopeful, a little more at peace; a little more Considering he is capable of not only loving Cas but also not hating himself for it. 

[until the knowledge that Mary is still alive and the guilt of allowing himself ANY happy thoughts instead of looking for her miserably rears its ugly head in 13x09 and round and round we go but for NOW at least -> ]

DEAN

I'll drink to that.

(oh look Dean is just wearing his henley.  It’s almost as if a layer has been peeled back).

tagging @im-shaking-like-milk​ and @deanwasalwaysbi​ for letting me ramble on to them while writing this; and @lilac-void​ because you are always so kind about my stuff :)

[bellfort3]

It has been completed. This is my second draft, the first one ended with jokes and barely had any angst. It's my first time writing angst, hope you like it!

-oracle

Tommy breathes in.

He had gotten full information of how to resurrect someone from Dream, in return for more visits, and getting others to visit him. It had taken ages to gather it all, but Tommy was patient. He wrote down anything he was told, and when he got home, he made a theory board. He made sure no one piece of information contradicted another. He figured out the exact steps to take, and didn’t speak to anyone for several days, trying to find a woodland mansion. Eventually, he found one, and got the totem required for the ritual. The spare, he put in a chest in Pogtopia, along with all of his valuables. He brought with him nothing but Wilbur’s coat, a totem, and a will he had written while traveling to the mansion.

Tommy breathes out.

Dream had said that it was a life for a life, in order to revive someone, one must sacrifice a life.

No-one wants to sacrifice a life for someone who wants to be dead.

Too many people want Tommy dead anyways. He’ll be doing them a favour.

He doesn’t tell anyone, especially not Tubbo. He just sends everyone a message to not try and undo what he was about to do. He gets questions, but he puts his communicator on silent. He can’t have anyone messing this up.

He knew the enchantments on that sword, and knew the name. He remade it, and went to L’Manburg crater.

Tommy breathes in.

At the remade button room, he holds a totem in his hand, Wilbur’s Pogtopia coat and the sword in the other. His will laid on the ground next to him. He sent his communicator one last message, saying that he was sorry to those he had hurt and that he could be found in L’Manburg’s crater. In his will, on the first page, he had stated that all of his belongings were to go to Wilbur, and that his discs would go to Tubbo. He said that he wanted to be buried in Pogtopia, next to the grave he had made his brother. In later pages, he apologized to each person individually, and said that he forgave Niki and Jack for trying to kill him with that nuke. He suggested that they get therapy and a proper outlet for their anger, giving them advice that he had found helpful when he himself was suffering from such anger. In his communicator, however, he said but 8 words: “Goodbye. Don’t try to undo this, I’m sorry.” He hit send, dropped his communicator, and stabbed himself through the chest.

Tommy doesn’t breathe out.

Wilbur breathes in.

No. Wilbur’s dead. He can’t breathe in. He can’t breathe, he can’t feel, and the only things he can see are an endless void and Schlatt’s ghost.

But here he is, breathing. He can feel the ground below him, and the strange viscous liquid he’s laying in. He can see the bright sky, shadowed by an obsidian grid. He can see the tall walls of the crater he’s in. He sits up and looks at his hands.

They were red. He was sitting in a puddle of blood.

Wilbur knows that it’s not his blood, he would be able to feel the pain. And the puddle was much too large for him to even be alive if it was his. He looks for the source.

His eyes land on a body. Wearing a red shirt. Holding a ripped coat. With a sword going through his chest.

No. There’s no way. Tommy wouldn’t sacrifice himself for WIlbur, he’s smarter than that.

Wilbur knows this isn’t true. The evidence is in front of him, a signed book.

He opens up the book, skimming the contents. He slams the book shut and looks back at his brother’s corpse.

He’s hyperventilating, and a sob rips itself from his chest. He crawls over to Tommy, gripping his body, sobs wracking his body.

No, no, no, no, no, nO, NO, NONONONONONO. NOT HIM, ANYBODY BUT HIM.

Tommy is dead. Wilbur is alive.

This can’t be right. No, this has to be a bad dream.

But Wilbur knows it’s real. He can feel everything, months in an endless void with no-one but his enemy’s ghost to keep him company. This feels too real to be a dream.

A whimper behind him.

Wilbur turns around to make eye contact with Tubbo. The boy is frantically checking his communicator, hoping for this to not be true.

The boy starts crying, and though Wilbur is probably one of the last people who should be comforting him, he’s the only one around. Surely, others will come, when they realize the implications of a death message and a goodbye text, but for now there is no-one.

Wilbur gathers the sobbing boy in his arms. They cry together, and sit together, and wait for the tears to dry.

Tubbo arrives in the crater. Tommy’s message had been… concerning to say the least. Tubbo didn’t know what he expected. Seeing Wilbur Soot sobbing over his best friend’s lifeless corpse was not it. He froze. Checking his communicator, Tubbo saw the death message. A whimper escapes his throat, alerting Wilbur of his presence. The newly-revived ex-president turned to the teen. His eyes looked broken. Tubbo didn’t question how he was here, or why Tommy had taken his own last life, the only thing he was concerned about was that his best friend was dead. For good. Checking the small box once again, he realized the purpose of some previous messages. Tommy wanted this. Tommy explicitly told them not to undo his actions, to let him rest. Tubbo didn’t realize he was crying until Wil’s arms wrapped around him, pulling him down to rest his head on the dead man’s shoulder.

They will work through this together. They might not have been close, but the loss of Tommy will be tough on the both of them, and they’ll need all the help they can get.

Everyone sat at the reception.

Phil sat in the back. He had failed another child.

Tubbo and Wilbur sit in the front. Neither had talked about it yet. They were always seen together, holding hands, comforting each other. Jack and Niki had tried to talk to WIlbur, ask him how he’s alive, tell him that Tommy’s death was for the best. Wilbur had to be held back.

Tubbo now wears the Pogtopia coat. It smells faintly of Tommy, from when he was in exile. Wilbur is cold, but he can make due. The 17-year-old needed all the comfort he could get.

Tommy was buried in Pogtopia next to the grave he made Wilbur. Wilbur swore he would make use of the grave in time. For now, he and Tubbo were sitting on the bench. Listening to melohi. Thinking of times long gone.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK IM SOBBING TBIS ISNT OKAY WHAT THE FUCK

[katierosefun]

creator tag

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works! 

thank you @kckenobi​ and @pandora15 for the tag!! <3 so here are the works, in no particular order and also oh gee i am so sorry this got so painfully long you can tell i’m procrastinating on my final + also i just tend to run my mouth when im talking about writing asdffd

to these memories (After Darth Sidious is defeated, everything changes. Some for the better, others not so much. Mostly better though. (Or: Anakin becomes a dad. Rex rehabilitates clone troopers who no longer want to be a part of the army. Ahsoka gets a call from an old friend. And maybe Obi-Wan finds out it’s not just his enemies who don’t stay dead. Basically, everyone gets the happy ending they deserve.)

so this was my first major longform tcw fic, and i just. i have a lot of feelings about this fic, mostly nostalgia and lots of gratefulness. first of all, i think i met a lot of super cool people through this fic, and i also? just? idk, this was a major project that i kind of worked on to cope with post-tcw sadness + also just. general sadness about the world’s situation. writing this story was actually super healing for me, mostly because i just. really wanted to have something where happy endings existed. 

so this really...was an experience, and i’m so super grateful for everyone who read along. to this day, whenever i get a comment about this fic, i feel super happy because it makes me feel glad to know that there were some people who took comfort in this work, because i really wanted this fic to have that kind of effect on people. :’) 

there they are (Right before Ahsoka leaves for Mandalore, Rex distracts Bo-Katan so she could give her family a proper goodbye. (There's hugging. We just needed our trio to hug.)

i think this was one of my first tcw fics of 2020, and. i just remember impulse writing this after watching old friends not forgotten because i was just. so sad that we didn’t get an anakin and ahsoka hug or a trio hug or anything. i understand why they didn’t--like, i really, really do, but. but i think if there’s a theme i’m going through this year, it’s ‘this was sad, so i’m gonna make it happy!!!’, so...as my masterlist puts it, ‘dave filoni said no trio hug, so i said fine, i’ll do it’. 

uhhhhh, how very unusual of me, but!!! probably my working on a new original story. i’ve got the fourth draft of another story siting in the background, but. this other story idea came at me, and five outlines later, i started this story. i’m about three chapters down now, but. a snippet of the prologue: 

“Well…it’s also a rather important story,” Rosalind said. “Do you enjoy stories?”

“I want to be a writer,” I blurted, and I stopped at that. I fiddled with my mug, heat that had nothing to do with the hot chocolate or the fire rushing to my face. Silly, oversharing me—oh, what a young, lonely child I was back then. So desperate for conversation that I had grown out of practice and resorted to sharing details that the average stranger would not care for.

But then again, these were not the average strangers—although I’m sure you’ve figured that for yourself.

“Yes,” I said meekly. “I enjoy stories.”

“Well,” Dae said after some time, “it’s good that you’re a writer.”

I lifted my head, and this time, I saw Dae and Rosalind smile at each other. A softer smile, one that made me feel suddenly dreadfully, dreadfully lonely.

“You might want to write this down,” Rosalind said at last. 

And so I did. 

*and cue the actual story* i won’t say too much because adsfsdfsfd talking about my original work makes me feel awkward + also i am constantly in fear of people stealing ideas even though,,,even though i know the only person who can write this story is me, anyways, but uh. i will say that i have a plan for a five-part series that’s basically about a witch and a princess. there’s a prophecy in the background. there’s magic. there’s rivals to friends to enemies to lovers. there’s father figures + big sister figures + found family + ancient kingdoms + the real world blending with the fantasy world + uh i’ve said enough okeee bye that’s it

the moment was enough (The war ends. Ahsoka and Obi-Wan try to work things out since the last time they actually saw each other.) 

it had been a long while since i had written anything that was really just about ahsoka and obi-wan, but. i think everyone knows that i really love my grandpadawan and grandmaster duo? idk, this fic really made me feel things because i was thinking a lot about how obi-wan and ahsoka had left things. i wanted to make it pretty clear that they both clearly care about each other a lot, but like. also. there’s still some hurt there. i just had so much fun writing this, because obi-wan and ahsoka are such an underrated duo and i love them :’) 

loose stitches (The discovery and aftermath of Maul. Anakin and Ahsoka find themselves pacing in front of the Council chambers multiple times. They might have taken Obi-Wan to Dex’s. Something might have unraveled, only to be stitched back together.) 

kasey before you say anything pls know that i would talk about this fic until literally the day i die i am sorry if i am making you feel self-conscious--but anyways this was a collab with the ever-talented, ever-wonderful @kckenobi. so uh, quick story which mayhaps i might not have told anyone before, but whatever, i’m listening to evermore and therefore have no choice but to be emotional huh--this fic was like...one of the first collabs i’ve ever done? in general, collaborations were always something that made me nervous because it required lots of vulnerability and honesty, and there’s a side of me that’s very obsessed with having this image of Neat Writer Who Has Coherent Thoughts (which,,,doesn’t even exist so why was i obsessed? no idea). so that said, this collab was just. so wild + wonderful because it really was, first of all, such a cool, magical experience. there’s something so amazing and insane about passing words back and forth and like, even a screen apart, there’s something magical about like. sitting down at a laptop at the end of the day and feeling like you’re about to step into a portal where it’s just two people trying to spin a story. writing with kasey was just such a wonderful, absolutely magical experience, and i’m really glad that we got to write this story + the many more that we did. just. there’s something really personal and beautiful about writing until 1, 2, 3 am when the world’s asleep. anyways. magical. 

asdfsdfd i’m very sorry that this got so incredibly long, but!! that said, 2020 was a hard year for lots of different reasons both personally + because of *gestures at the world* but. like. i’m really, really glad that i got back to writing clone wars fic this year, because i’ve met so many wonderful, wonderful, wonderful people here, and. yeah. y’all are my serotonin suppliers, and i do refer to a lot of people here as ‘oh yeah, my friend and i were talking the other day about...’ and ‘why are you smiling?’ ‘oh, just something a friend said--’ and. yeah. i hope y’all have a wonderful, wonderful rest of the year + also a wonderful life because y’all are simply the best :’)) 

no-pressure tags: @lightasthesun @meandmyechoes @soplantyourownflowers @ilonga @sonderwalker @mytardisisparked @60sec400 and really, honestly, anyone else who wants to!!! <333 (like. i mean it. literally. just tag me and lemme scream encouragements at you.)

[tcthetouch]

𝓈𝑜𝓂𝑒 𝓂𝒶𝓀𝑒 𝒾𝓉 𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓎'𝓇𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓃𝑔, 𝓅𝑒𝓇𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓎 𝒽𝒶𝓋𝑒 𝒶 𝓈𝑜𝓊𝓁 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓎'𝓇𝑒 𝓊𝓃𝒶𝒻𝓇𝒶𝒾𝒹 𝓉𝑜 𝒷𝒶𝓇𝑒. 𝓅𝑒𝓇𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒'𝓈 𝓃𝑜𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒.

『 jamie lee curtis. sixty-one. cis woman. she/her. 』 oh heavens, is that JUDITH MILLER from FAIR LANE i see roaming around mapleview? minnie may’s always calling them -CYNICAL & -SELFISH. i happen to think they’re not that bad! they’re a pretty cool “RETIRED” ACTRESS  and every time i’ve seen them, they’ve always been +MAGNETIC & +WITTY. i hope i see them around again! 『 may. 21. est. she/her. 』

hello my pals ! after a very long day, i am finally here with an intro for a sexy lowkey demon !

BACKGROUND:

triggers: emotional abuse, brief mention of war, brief mention of considered abortion, substance abuse, brief implication of child neglect, brief mentions of death (but like.... from old age)

So… I’m currently too tired to do the ‘whole chart,’ but… a Sagittarius. Know this.

Now, to understand our dear Judith, you must first understand her parents. Her mother was a wealthy young woman, progressive in her views on social issues… for the time. Nonetheless, she was expected to hold up the standards of the time. Her father was the younger brother of a man deemed ‘a great soldier’ who died fighting in WWII. Followed by the memory of him and his own parents’ obsession with the man, he placed pressure on himself to live up to that standard. Shame there was no war………………….

They met at Judith’s mother’s debutante ball and hit it off. It was, what they perceived to be, a match made in heaven. But that’s always easy to say – it’s harder to prove when a good night culminates in an unexpected pregnancy. To avoid any public scandal on her part, Judith’s mother and father married before she began showing and moved to Mapleview where she would become an excellent mother and he would live up to his brother’s standards by… he was still figuring it out… maybe making the next great scientific advancement? or writing the next great American novel?

Sadly, in spite of her lifetime’s worth of training, Judith’s mother… proved to lack natural maternal instinct. Perhaps it was passed down from her own mother, transgenerational trauma beginning long, long, long ago. Judith’s father was so consumed with his grand ideas that he hadn’t the time to help! Between becoming the next Walt Whitman one day and the next Albert Einstein the next, all while working for his father-in-law, he just didn’t have any time at all!

Their marriage grew strained and, as Judith grew, they made it even clearer that she was the cause. If she, herself, didn’t do something spectacular with her life, then it was all for nothing!

Her father wasn’t forced into the Vietnam War as a part of the drafting lottery. No, as it grew bigger, as the army grew more desperate, as she began slowly maturing, as his marriage continued falling apart, he voluntarily entered in 1965, when Judith was seven. Before drafting even began!

Before he entered the war, Judith was the victim of plenty of degrading remarks and the occasional Unusually Odd Punishment (think bojack horseman w like beatrice seeing ~7y/o bojack take a cigarette and forcing him to smoke all of it bc he couldn’t waste a perfectly good cigarette!). However, the remarks grew more biting after he left for “the war effort.” The two moved back to California, her mother’s birthplace, to be closer to her mother’s father – an even better source of income when his sympathies were being played on.

...but it was suddenly back-to-work, no-sympathies-for-you when the war ended and Judith’s father was still alive… and, furthermore, when the war was lost. 

With her parents’ marriage worse off than ever, Judith’s unconscious attempts to please them and live up to their expectations began sooner than they would have had the war been won. Or had her father been shot. 

Probably.

Commercials began at seventeen, but they weren’t impressive. Minor roles began at eighteen, but they weren’t impressive. It wasn’t until she was picked up by an actual agent at twenty that she began actually shining, so to speak. 

Which is actually a great accidental pun on my part, as her first big role was, much like JLC’s, in one of the first slasher movies ever made. Hoorah! But it still wasn’t impressive. It wasn’t big or prestigious, Katharine Hepburn wouldn’t have taken the role. 

But what was even less impressive? 

The pregnancy that followed shortly thereafter. 

Her first thought was to find a doctor who ‘specialized’ in such ‘inconveniences.’ Between the knowledge that a lack of maternal instinct ran in her blood, all women in her lineage getting mistreated to the point that they were simply unfit, as well as the knowledge that she would have to immediately quit the career that had just begun if she wanted to raise the child… 

But the father wound up being a hurdle. He was meant to be a one-night-stand, but he started showing up… again… and again… and again… until she relented and confessed to him that she was pregnant with his child (so she assumed, at least). He was insistent that she keep it… so the compromise became she wouldn’t abort it, but she would immediately hand it off to the man to raise on his own.

Daniel, named by his father, was born. Judith kept in occasional contact, but ultimately tried to leave that chapter behind her.

After that small bump in the road, her agent began lining up more career offers for her. They ranged from OK-I-guess to Not-Katharine-Hepburn-But-Close-Enough. So she clearly went for the latter ones!

Now, for someone who tried to stay clear-headed enough… it became pretty hard as she grew more popular, was invited to more parties, and… given the decade, was surrounded by cocaine! Thus began some more god-awful decisions, a list so long even Leo Tolstoy would put it down before he could finish reading it.

A few years through her increasingly successful career and she found out that she’s gotten pregnant yet again, this time being the result of a one-night-stand had during a borderline bender. For a few days, she obviously considered abortion again. But… how good would it be for her image if she cleaned up and had the baby… and, who knows! maybe she would break the chain of terrible mothers! if she was willing to sacrifice hedonism, then she was clearly doing something right! and… she also felt some remorse for barely keeping in contact with Daniel… so hoorah! replacement!

Turns out she also didn’t have that mothering instinct :\

But it was not, at all, for lack of trying. She never intentionally mistreated her child, Mia (named for Mia Farrow) – she had family days with her and hung out with her and… tried to figure out how to bond with her. She was never cruel like her mother or her mother’s mother or mother’s mother’s mother, so on and so forth and what have you, but… she was Innocently Insensitive. Still caught up in The Scene, there were some nights that were… very loud when she forgot Mia was trying to sleep and invited a bunch of people over. 

Some hedonistic tendencies returned and she found herself allowing a nanny to care for the child more and more often. Never malicious, never cruel, even asked Danny Devito to be Mia’s godfather… but still wound up being a really bad mom.

When Mia moved out, she was beginning to realize she was too old to continue going down the road she was on – to continue making the same mistakes over and over. One child was college-aged, the other was… somewhat older, although she’d lost track of the years. Yeah, she sent birthday cards and made calls every year, but time had just begun blurring together…

As a side-note, this was also around the time she was encouraged to write a memoir. She wound up having to get a memoirist which is a wc!!

The “best thing possible” happened when her mother died a year ago. Her father had already passed, but that was in Fresno – a quick trip. Her mother died in Mapleview, where her roots were laid. Also pls picture her eulogy for her mother like the eulogy in “Free Churro.” Anyway...

So what did Judith do?

Up and disappeared! 

It would’ve been a really excellent publicity stunt… if she’d ever returned. 

She likes to pretend she’ll never return to Los Angeles. The mountain air is so clean and crisp, life is so much simpler, people are so much less… corrupt.

Alas… somewhere in the back of her mind, has many plans to return to her old life. But she needs to make amends first, right?

TL;DR:

(tread lightly if any triggers under ‘backstory’ are triggers for you!)

born in mapleview. parents were awful but also it was a case of transgenerational trauma so there are nuances there. father “abandoned” her and her mom to go fight in the vietnam war bc he wasn’t able to fight in wwii like his brother. came back and joined them in fresno and judith’s mom was like “well u guys lost.... cant say it was unexpected with someone like u fighting :\” judith was like “well i’ve learned i’m what ruined their marriage even tho i’m also the reason they got married so guess i’ll go make something of myself bc i want them to be proud.” eventually got cast in a halloween-esque movie, because of course. got pregnant, yeet’d it to the father, “it” being daniel. became a class-a hedonist. got pregnant again, but got clean and kept her, named her “mia”. was a pretty good mom for a while, then forgot that kids weren’t “used” to the 1980s/90s equivalent of modern-day raves. mia left for college. judith was like “wait,,, im too old 2 keep living this life omg.” mom died a year ago. was like “oh wow perfect excuse to come back to mapleview and pretend i never lived in los angeles ever in my entire life goodbye all ties and connections!!!”

PERSONALITY/MISC.:

spent the majority of her life trying to live up to the expectations set by her mom when she basically said “you better be something great to make up for being alive” + trying to unconsciously make up for ‘ruining’ her parents’ marriage.

ngl family took inspiration from the sugarman-horseman family in bojack horseman bc i just finished rewatching it and :\ i miss it :\ which, in turn, means there’s a tiny bit of muse inspo from the eponymous, but,,,,,,,, like she may not be a good person,,,,,,, but if u’ve so much as seen up to s2e11,,,,, she aint THAT bad.

further basis was fictional director kelsey jannings (of such fame as “women who love women who love recycling”) when she said that celebrities tend to stagnate at the age they got famous. and judith got famous when she was 20.

I FEEL LIKE I NEED TO MAKE IT EXCESSIVELY CLEAR THAT SHE NEVER HAD MALICIOUS INTENTS TOWARDS HER CHILDREN. she just knew she wasn’t ready to be a mother with daniel - it was terrible timing and she genuinely worried about how she would be as a mother ( considering how poor maternal instincts were... basically passed down through generations ) - and she didn’t know how to connect with mia, especially as an addict in the hollywood machine that was literally filled with drugs, thus proving her hypothesis that she would be a poor mother correct. like... I JUST NEED TO MAKE IT CLEAR THAT THERE WAS NO ABUSE INVOLVED. SHE AT LEAST DID BETTER THAN HER MOTHER WITH THAT ASPECT.

but, as marina once said, “[she’s] now becoming [her] own self-fulfilled prophecy. oh, oh no! oh no! oh no!”

saddie disguised as a baddie.

also spent the majority of her life as an absolute hedonist. remains one, but is currently clean and trying to remain that way... maybe...

wants to be good so very bad, but doesn’t know how to be.

in spite of said hedonistic and escapist tendencies, she does have a very strong work-ethic. you know. thanks to both her parents + her capricorn moon.

no way to avoid saying she’s selfish, though. no way to.

CONNECTION IDEAS:

** all are open to any gender

her other child (a wc on the main!)

her memoirist (a wc on the main!)

her childhood friend from when she was still living in mapleview (a wc on the main!)

some fans! idk!

arm candy. pls. she’s bi so. they can be a himbo or a herbo or a thembo. 

you see she’s decently older than all of the characters so i feel like most of this will rely on brainstorming and/or chemistry in threads

FEEL FREE TO EITHER LIKE THIS OR HMU 2 PLOT!!

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

2020 SU Fic Sampler - WIP Showcase

So in my continued attempts at distraction, I trawled through my SU fanfic folders, looked at the ol’ endless WIP pile. Figured I’d do a little roundup of some that are in something resembling a decent state. Maybe even see where interest lies and all that, get some attention and validation, you know, all that good stuff one craves. Of course, there’s loads more than this, and I might one day post some things I wrote but never quite managed to finish up, or that got super jossed in ways I couldn’t get myself to work around.

Now, in no particular order, here’s 8 draft snippets totaling almost 6000 words - not very polished, obviously, some quite rough around the edges, some long, some short, some that work better without context than others. But here they are anyway, with an utterly predictable array of focal characters. Any missing segments or my asides/notes in the text are [written like this], because I usually write very non-linearly. Hope you all like mood whiplash! 

P.S. I live for comments.

Like Talking To A Wall, aka Bismuth making friends with the wall, statue, and floor Gems. Early precursors to radicalisation and “I would have liberated everyone”, perhaps. Started as one of my first reactions to the Diamond Days episodes.

“Hey, thanks for listening.”

“Anytime. You’re lucky I’m so supportive,” Mica piped up from up on her arch.

Bismuth laughed. Bittersweet. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am.”

Then, with a surprisingly gentle hand pressed to the carvings she’d been so careful about, she added a soft: “I’ll miss you.”

“Chin up! It’s gonna be a lovely off-planet adventure for you,” Granite rumbled from just above her head. “A brand new colony! Think of the sights!”

“You can tell us all about it when we see you again.”

Bismuth leaned back, pressing her whole back against the wall, reluctant to leave, even if a snooty shift supervisor was bound to come around and chase her off soon. “Yeah, I’ll make sure to do that.”

They all knew very well that, as always, when the building was done, it was goodbye. The chances of there being a need for repairs or remodelling - and the exact same bismuths being brought in to do them - were incredibly slim.

But pretending was nice, sometimes.

-

Hey, Steven, think I could get a moment before we leave? I won’t be long.

-

They were right where she’d left them, and the years had done very little to change them. A bit of a patina there, some dust, the tiniest bit of wear on sharper corners.

“Bismuth?” Several familiar voices cried out to her in shocked recognition.

She knew she must look a sight - battle-ready and battle-worn, but armour still gleaming, and with a bearing of one who had been through much and was always ready for more. She felt her back had never been so proud and straight, her shoulders so resolutely set.

“I think,” Bismuth grinned, “you’re gonna start seeing changes around these parts.”

---

One for that favourite Pearletariat/Pearl Solidarity fic sub-genre of mine: Clever Pearls Cleverly Getting Around Badly Worded Orders. A bit of an origin for an as-of-yet unnamed pearl OC, because I sure don’t have enough of those!

In the untold thousands of years of Homeworld and Gemkind, and the hundreds of thousands of commands given to hundreds of thousands of pearls, nobody ever thought to Order a pearl not to think. That would imply a they mattered at all, and who would ever put stock in a pearl’s thoughts? Most Gems weren’t sure pearls could think, anyway. I mean, if they could, all that standing around would be intolerable, wouldn’t it? And imagine not being able to say no to anything, even crushing your own gem - shards, at least I’m not a pearl!

They were, occasionally, when dealing with an owner’s important, private, confidential business, Ordered to forget, or, a bit less esoterically, Ordered never to tell.

And [OWNER] has always been all too eager with the Orders. As if she went to bizarre lengths in her thinking that pearl couldn’t - or wouldn’t? - do anything upon merely being told, let alone by herself. Every little thing, from sweeping up the shards of a broken decorative plate to taking down the minutes of an important meeting [OWNER] was presiding over - (im)pressed upon pearl with the crushing weight of an Order.

But she could still think.

Even when Ordered to wait by the door, freezing her limbs and anchoring her legs to the ground with all the force of a starship mooring mechanism. Even when Ordered into silence for days and planetary rotations on end because [OWNER] had wanted to read an important document without being disturbed and it simply didn’t occur to her to lift it when she was done.

In the wake of the Rebellion and the Renegade Pearl, it only gets worse, and soon enough pearl can barely remember the last time a single movement she made was voluntary.

---

SU Future-era Bismuth and Steven convo I scribbled down in between some of these recent eps - after Growing Pains in particular I think - because Bismuth is the absolute pep talk queen.

“You already said you were sorry for trying to kill me in the Forge, and really, it’s okay, it was all a misunderstanding. Besides, it’s more than a lot of people have done!”

Bismuth blinked at the pinkish sheen around Steven’s cheeks, around the downturned brows - strange trick of the light, that. “Steven, come on. Just listen to me for a minute.”

“Okay,” Steven sighed, and leaned against the railing Bismuth had fixed just that morning.

“Point is, for me, the war had never ended. It wasn’t only yesterday, it was today. It was over for everyone, it seemed, except for me. And getting over that, getting used to that, really seeing that as the truth, not living every day buzzed up with that anticipation of the next battle, just waiting for Homeworld to come down hard on us with whatever new horror they’d come up with… that took a while. And it took help.”

[sudden apparent non-sequitur but It’s An Allegory, Steven.]

“When you make a sword, you can’t make it rigid and unyielding. You can’t just temper it into toughness and hardness and make it unbreakable. It needs to have some give in order to be durable, it needs to be able to bend so as not to shatter on impact. And sure, maybe the first parry or strike wouldn’t be the one to do it, but the tenth, the hundreth, the thousandth? Any time you might just find yourself holding on to a hilt with the jagged remnants of everything, and shards scattered on the ground. And if you’re very lucky, that’ll happen during friendly sparring, not in the heat of battle.”

Steven shrugged without response, and seemed to be shrugging off all the words as well. Back to the direct approach it was, then.

“Now you, Steven,” that at least got a bit more attention, “Sure, you can brawl with the best of ‘em, and you put that gem to damn good use. You’ve got great technique drilled in, too - I’d expect nothing less from one of Pearl’s students. But that’s not how you won, in the end, is it? You never won because you were tough, or strong. You have a diamond in you but you’re not hard at all. Well, except on yourself.”

“In the end all of this was possible because you were soft. Just malleable and pliable enough when it was needed. And that takes guts.”

“Hey, I’m just saying,” Bismuth put a hand on his shoulder, and even with all the very human growing he’d done, he still seemed to almost disappear in it. “You put yourself out there for others… maybe it’s about time you let them help you.”

---

The next chapter of the His Dark Materials/Daemons AU which I am sooooo painfully late with it’s not even funny anymore. Already posted some excerpts [here] and [here].

“She’s been... away on business, but we’ve sent a zeppelin for her and she’s well on her way back. Hopefully.”

“You have a zeppelin?” Rose was rapidly failing in all her efforts to keep her voice down. 

“Of a sort. We, er, we... stole it.”

“Stole-!”

“Yes, well, stole might be a strong word,” Pearl tapped a finger against her chin. “You see, there was a small decommissioned postal craft left below the southern mail station aërodock that nobody would ever miss, all I had to do was fix it up a bit and-”

Rose blinked. “You fixed a decommissioned zeppelin.”

Pearl waved a hand almost casually. “I had some help, but yes. Svalbard, understandably, is hard to reach with other means of transport, and Bismuth needed to be able to go back and forth.”

“You,” Rose began, awed, “are utterly wasted on bringing me my slippers, I’ll tell you that.”

“Well then, maybe,” Pearl blushed, but there was nothing hesitant about her smirk and the strikingly proud tilt of her head, “maybe you could take them off with a bit more care than kicking them halfway across the room and sending them off under the cabinets and- and then I wouldn’t need to do that at all. And I could fix all the zeppelins in the world.”

-

[more from the super secret backroom rebellion meeting]

“They’re with the Consistorial Court of Discipline, no doubt. Always on the lookout for,” Bismuth grimaced, “heretics. A lot falls under that. A lot of good excuses to snatch someone off the street and do who knows what to them. And they’ve been funneling people there, people vanished by the CCD. Not lacking in test subjects lately.”

“How did you get this? Where?” It was Sapphire, this time. Ruby seemed overwhelmed, and sat clutching her hand desperately as the tiny frog and hare both whispered something to her.

“We traced the funding for all this. It was difficult and deliberately obfuscated, but we managed. A facility like this, an entire operation, cost a pretty amount, you’d assume - and you’d be right. It had to come from somewhere. And whoever was paying for it was likely to want to know what was being done with their investment.”

“So we followed the trail. And it turned out I was… ideally positioned to… to, erm, procure what evidence there was to be found. Because, well...” Pearl trailed off, and lifted one of the stolen report sheets for all to see.

It was as clear as day, the family crest right above the astronomical amount being granted. Four diamonds, neatly arranged.

Neshu’s ears were flat against his mane, and Rose found herself wishing the ground would simply open up and swallow both her and him and the chair that she sat on and he’d tried to duck under.

Bismuth spoke up, grim, every drop of earlier exuberance gone from her. “When the Diamonds look out from the windows of their mansion, they don’t see people. They see tools, toys, and weapons. Nothing else.” She sounded more tired than angry. “It’s just what they’ve always been doing, but writ large.”

---

And then, of course, the Longass PearlRose Fixit because I hate the gag order but at the same time want it gone… slowly and organically. Alternating Rose and Pearl POVs spanning throughout the rebellion era, all sorts of flashbacks and Imagining Things included. At one point they end up attempting to essentially jailbreak Pearl, because Pearl is, as we all know, absolutely the most hardcore. Also thank you SU Movie for confirming all the awful Alexa-flavour fanon/headcanons and giving me an excuse to dive into a bunch of Gems-as-AI tropey stuff, on top of everything. [another previously posted fragment here]

“I don’t want to. I never want to do that to you again.” She stops, takes a breath, reconsiders. “And I know it’s a lot to ask of you, the trust I just… trampled over. So I want to make sure that it’s not just that, you trusting me not to make the same mistake again, with no reassurance anywhere. I—I want to not be able to. Nobody should be able to do that to you.”

“Nobody should be able to do that to anyone,” Pearl corrects readily.

“You’re right,” Rose smiles, only a bit wry, “as always. My brilliant, brilliant Pearl. What would I do without you?”

“Never get back to the point you were trying to make, I imagine,” Pearl quips with something resembling sauciness, and Rose feels at least some of the weight starting to lift off her.

“Right,” Rose agrees, chastised, and tries to focus. “I just… I’m not sure how, or what I need to do at all. It’s not like there’s much precedent – ownerless pearls are unheard of. Even when their owners get shattered, it’s only ever temporary, and, with such high demand, very brief.”

Pearl nods in agreement, and hums. “Luckily, we’ve seen plenty of unheard of and unspeakable things here.”

[echoes of Scabbard convo]

“I want to know, I want to be certain, that you’re here because you want to be.” 

“So do I.” Pearl responds quietly, letting their fingers entwine.

  [Giving an order not to follow orders doesn’t work, failsafes exist. Then they try a sort of ownership transfer thing, and try to make the new owner Pearl. It doesn’t register, “invalid transfer target”, even when Pearl tries to hack it - some odd gem tool that scans and pokes at her gem - she gets all bummed out because she can’t even reprogram a very basic and modifiable handheld tool/device to recognise a pearl as an actual gem and person. What chance does she have against hearts and minds and an entire ingrained culture of an entire sprawling empire?

“You changed my mind,” says Rose all softly and earnestly.

Have I really? Pearl asks herself but doesn’t let it escape out loud. Still. Step by small step, she admits to herself. Incremental, slow, but persistent work. She can do that. Even as down on herself as she is, she can do that.]

“The… the override.” Pearl breathes out suddenly.

“What?”

“The administrative override - you, or, well... Pink Diamond should be able to trigger it, even without a Rejuvenator. We shouldn’t…” Pearl looks strangely scared now, swallowing small gulps before pushing onwards, hands trembling and fingers knotting together, “w-we shouldn’t need a full reset, really, but. But we can try modifying the owner identification...”

Having to… turn into Pink again (turn back into yourself, you mean, a small voice whispers, who are you trying to fool) doesn’t sit well with her, of course, but. Get a hold of yourself, Pearl certainly has it so much worse in this scenario.

[more here about how they both need to kind of “revert” a bit to try this and it sucks, because no! unpleasant poking of holes in the elaborate fantasy! For the greater good, but still.]

And oh, Pearl looks just about ready to either cry with some strange terror Rose has never seen her display, or dissipate her form on the spot - the small dam of coldly throwing around terms like administrative override activation and owner identification variable providing just enough distance for her to carry on.

“It shouldn’t be too risky if we’re… if you’re careful.”

[Pearl trusts her with everything, her literal entire self - with this thing that is such a blatant violation of her being and her person, that she now wants to turn against itself, using one of the most humiliatingly clearly objectifying aspects of her status as an instrument of her liberation. It is all A Lot.]

Rose remembers, also, with a sting, the way she grumbled and sulked over the gaping pit of guilt in her stomach and refused to even look at the glowing, floating shell Blue was so insistently pushing her towards. She wanted her Pearl back, not whatever White and the others had decided to foist upon her now. Not a pale replacement, nothing they deemed suitable.

-

“Please state preferred customisation options.”

“Come on, Pink,” Blue urges, softly but mercilessly as ever, large hands enveloping Pink almost whole from where they’re planted on her shoulders, “White had her specially made, just for you! And we helped as well - only the best for our Pink. Now it’s up to you to put your finishing touches, as is proper-”

“What for? You’ll just take her away when you feel like it anyway,” she grumbles into her arms, curling up on the floor and resolutely refusing to look even as the glow spreads from the corner of her eye, insistent.

Just as insistent as the awfully familiar little voice. “Please state preferred customisation options.”

“I. Don’t. Care!” But now with a newly noticeable, if strained restraint - not, like her usual, punctuated with a slam of her fist on the floor tiles, perfectly shiny and pink. No, she couldn’t- do something like that again-

“Default setting selected. Please stand by.”

Yellow scoffs and moves to leave. “Come on, Blue. No point to us wasting our time being here if she’s just going to throw one of her tantrums.”

But Blue refuses to leave it at that, and makes sure to cut with parting words, before slinking through the large pink doorway. “I am very disappointed in you, Pink. To act like that, and with White personally making sure you got such a lovely gift even after everything...”

“Waste of good nacre, if you ask me,” Yellow muses from somewhere up above. “At least try not to break this one.” 

The glow intensifies with a hum, and Pink screws her eyes shut and pretends not to see or hear anything. 

By the time she opens them again, the others are gone.

But then there is another presence at her side, hovering just behind, as is proper court protocol. The shuffling of tiny, soft slippers on the polished stone - weren’t pearls supposed to be endlessly, effortlessly quiet?

“Leave me alone,” she preempts quietly. The shuffling moves away.

-

“Please identify yourself.”

Calmly, now, calmly but firmly, just like we planned it. Don’t mess this up now. She’s counting on you. She trusts you. “Pearl.”

“Please state preferred customisation options.”

They’ve discussed this too, of course - extensive (over)preparation and planning down to minutiae is Pearl’s go-to at the best of times, and something she clutches at for comfort at the worst of times. And she’s always, to a sometimes comical extent, despised that ridiculous dress. To a wonderful extent, too, all things considered.

“Revert to last implemented appearance.”

“Settings selected. Please stand by.”

[Of course this doesn’t work because all it does is change the $username$ variable, not the actual identity of the person imprinted: it’s still Rose/Pink, she’s just nicknamed “Pearl” now, but she can still give orders and everything.]

[evolves into Pearl literally hacking herself… the most hardcore of modders]

---

Pearl Playing the Field aka “why not hyper-analyze that one brief shot of the notes and phone numbers in Pearl’s gem and write 9 meet-cutes”. Pearl goes out to “find herself”. Whatever that is supposed to mean. Supposed to be set pre-ASPR, but also extends past it. Ended up with some Bispearl in it too because I am predictable and can absolutely not help myself.

“Your hair is wonderful!” She feels like she almost has to shout to be heard over the din of the bar’s ill-chosen soundtrack, and she doesn’t appreciate it. Definitely not one of her favourite places she’s decided to visit recently. And the ventilation is atrocious.

But still, she’s come all this way, so she may as well make the best of it. And while the preoccupation with hairstyles during first meetings seems like a bit of an odd running theme (can it really be termed a running theme, though, if it’s happened all of two times?), it’s certainly worked in the past (recent, very recent, and hardly bursting with relevant instances, Pearl!). Oh, and this particular one is just too fascinating. Approaching a work of art, Pearl would dare say. Especially, well. Especially when paired with the lovely eyes and striking jawline and strong neck it seems to deliberately be drawing attention to.

Pearl leans on the bar, in the bit of space the woman happily makes for her, and tries to look confident and well-informed, but not smug, no, never smug. “I know... about the, uh, goop, of course. I know how one accomplishes this.”

The woman gives a bemused smile. “Thanks! Not too shabby yourself.” She leans in closer. “I'm actually in school for it.”

“School?” Pearl casts desperately back to what she's heard from Steven and Greg's often hasty instruction. That was for educating human children, wasn't it? She'd put one together for Steven that one time, with desks and a blackboard… and Connie attended one regularly...

“Yeah, kind of a late game career change.” Pearl nods along as she realises - or, rather, remembers - she is absolutely terrible at gauging human ages. “But I thought... after almost 30 years in accounting and not going anywhere I wanted to be going... it’s not like we have all the time in the world, right? So I figured, why not? Go for something I'm actually invested in and that I've always wanted to do, y'know?”

“Oh. Oh yes, yes I do.” And for once, she really does. Well, not the time-related bit, perhaps, but the very particular delight of getting to pursue one’s genuine interests after a long while of being denied? Absolutely. “I’ve done something of the sort myself, actually. Go for it! As they, uh, say.”

The dramatic gesture of almost punching the air with a closed triumphant/defiant fist might have been a tad over the top, but it wins her a smile that doesn’t seem unkind. The woman winks and tips her glass at Pearl, then finishes her drink - something sweet-smelling and almost as colourful as her hair.

“I had a classmate do this one for me, and I did hers after.” Pearl is nodding along again, leaning in to hear better as the woman’s voice dips lower. “I kind of like to experiment, push the limits, go wild with it. Hey. You interested? Promise I won’t go too wild on you.”

Pearl's mind goes blank there for a moment. The woman is… very close, and there are unignorable implications unrelated to hair styling so obvious here even she is picking up on them without issue, and the music hasn’t gotten any quieter. Interested in what, exactly, she wants to ask, but she came here for wild new experiences and exciting novelty, didn’t she, so instead comes out with a rather strangled-sounding: “Eughhhhh...uhhh.... Ye...s?”

The woman’s expression goes serious. “Hey, come on, we don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

---

Forge Showdown AU - aka in a twist of fate Bismuth poofs Rose during their confrontation and revelations happen that change the course of… well, pretty much everything - one of a bunch of AUs where the PD reveal happens earlier and under different circumstances (I had an idea of doing a 5+1 of those at one point).

The glow of the lava coloured the quickly dissipating smoke more orange-red than pale pink, and Bismuth stared numbly at where their revered leader, Rose Quartz herself, had been standing mere moments ago. She’d lashed out, true, but she hadn’t really been expecting the clumsy blow - more of a warning, or underlining a point in their continued argument-turned-fight - to land. In all their many sparring sessions, Rose had never succumbed to something like that, would have never so much as let it brush against her. But she’d been- frozen, distracted… by what? 

There, scraping softly against the ground as it rolled with leftover momentum...

That was not a rose quartz gem.

Bismuth raked her mind feverishly, thought back through the last few, oddly blurred seconds.

“We’re not using this, Bismuth! It’d make us just as bad as them!”

“No! You’re the one who’s as bad as them- look at you, lording over all of us, thinking it’s your right to command me, order me around, like you’re, what, my diamond?”

It… it had to be some kind of imposter, or spy. Right? Some kind of… awful Homeworld plan, trying to tear the Rebellion apart from the inside. Where was Rose, then? The real one? Captured? Being interrogated somewhere, her whereabouts kept strictly secret to minimise the chance of rescue? Shattered? Impossible, they’d never hear the end of the victorious crowing.

When could it have happened? The last few battles and meetings had been nothing out of the ordinary, and Bismuth couldn’t think of anything odd or off about Rose recently at all. Not a single hint or sign that anything was amiss. Not a single misstep. Homeworld would have trained and conditioned its agents well, but Rose- Rose was singular, and utterly one-of-a-kind, and how could they possibly capture all of it so perfectly-

Bismuth startled out of her thoughts as the beginnings of light seemed to gather in the core of the gem, and all but threw herself onto it, encasing it in a bubble.

Rose was rather special, wasn’t she? And not just in what she said or what she did or how she behaved or what she led and encouraged them to do, but… 

Her endless array of wondrous powers. Her sheer strength, overpowering ruby fusions and quartz battalions alike almost single-handedly. The healing which Bismuth herself had been on the receiving, lifesaving end of countless times. The way she called upon the organic creatures of the planet to fight for her, fighting in their name. And then, her regular absences. The way she seemed to know exactly what the Homeworld troops were up to - that wasn’t just some kind of tactical brilliance.

She dared to look at the gem again. Its hue was changed some by the bubble, but that was still in no way a rose quartz gem. No, it was an altogether different shape, but a terrifyingly familiar one.

But it made no sense!

Bismuth ran a slightly trembling hand down her face.

Pearl. Of course, Pearl would have to know, if anyone. About… whatever this was.

But if this, if she was… her, then Pearl-

Bismuth’s insides twisted in horrible ways as the implications began to flitter through her mind, each one worse than the one before it. There was the old call-and-response ringing in her ears, making her feel disoriented and sick with what had to be the beginnings of anger, could grow into a great fury, leaving her unnecessary breaths ragged: Who do you belong to? Nobody!

But-

Not Pearl, then. At least, not at first. Garnet. Garnet would know, and Garnet could See. They’d get to the bottom of this.

---

A metric ton of rebellion era ficlets, vignettes from my eeeEEeeEEeeEEE Bismuth collection mostly, which I’ve been accumulating since 2016 and have only posted some - Pearl, Rose, Garnet, Bismuth centric, occasionally with my takes on namedropped characters, some of which would now need an update to match actual canon.

Snowflake was there, held in Garnet’s arms. The familiar pattern of white speckles on black skin, the tight silver coils of hair sticking out every which way.

“We got her back. She wanted to see you.”

“Me? And you just listened to her? Are you out of your mind? How can I help? Have you taken her to Rose? If her gem- if she-”

“I’m right here!” Snowflake struggled out of Garnet’s hold, and stood up - wobbly, barely upright, but determined, on those legs that ran circles around Homeworld, and ran interference and messages faster than any Wailing Stone, in a pinch. “And I’m fine!”

“You don’t look fine, Snowy- listen, please just-”

Snowflake walked up to her, not stumbling a single time, and, gritting her teeth, looked right at her. The hairline fractures in her gem were visible from here, and Bismuth couldn’t help a wince. “Snowflake, come on-”

“I didn’t tell them anything.”

Bismuth wanted to clutch her to her chest and scream a thousand things at her, but You don’t have to prove anything to me and I’m proud of you and I’m going to make them pay for ever laying a finger on you all waged a war in her throat.

In the end she just settled on holding her close, very gently, until Garnet left, unheard, and came back with Rose, tears already in abundance.

[Later:] “I never properly thanked you, Garnet. For bringing Snowflake back.”

Garnet shrugged. “It was a group effort.”

-

A familiar voice sounded at the entrance to the Forge. “Now come along, it’s just here. Bismuth? Do you have a moment?”

“You know I always have time for you, Pearl,” she called back, putting her current project away. “What did you nee- oh.”

Bismuth blinked.

“Uh... wow,” was the only thing she could manage as pearl after pearl filed into her Forge, soon taking up most of the space around the anvil in impressively neat rows. “New recruits? A whole bunch of you, too.”

“Yes, well,” Pearl made her way to the front of the group, carefully avoiding brushing against the others on her way. She was fidgeting again, long fingers tangling and untangling rapidly, and that was one sure sign of mounting distress. “Garnet and I had planned out an attack on one of Blue Diamond’s supply lines. There was supposed to be a shipment of weapons coming in today, but it turns out it was… pearls.” 

There was something rather off about Pearl’s tone, too. Bismuth made a note to ask later, and do her best to catch her alone.

“Well, all the better for us. Nice to have you all on board.” Her jovial tone was only slightly forced - the pearls all looked like they clearly needed something resembling friendliness, but their skittishness was palpable. She turned towards a pale green pearl right at the front of the group. “Now, what do I call you?”

There was nothing but mild confusion, vague fear, and general quiet shuffling. “No ideas yet? Don’t worry about it! There’s plenty of time to decide and find something that fits.”

[she does indeed manage to talk to Pearl alone, later]

“What’s the real problem, Pearl? You can’t fool me. I can tell something’s wrong.” 

The rather flimsy front finally crumbled at that.

“I just… we- we took out the citrines they’d sent with the shuttle, and Garnet boosted me up so I could force the hatch open and I did, but then...” Pearl let out a distressed little half-sigh half-sob, one hand gesturing weakly. “They were all looking at me so wide-eyed and...”

She took a moment to at least attempt to collect herself.

“I don’t mind having them here, it’s not that at all. It’s just that… we were standing there, with all these newly-made pearls and… obviously I couldn’t just leave them there, in the middle of nowhere! And after what we did, whoever found them, they’d just have them shattered. Because of me. They were compromised. You’ve heard what they do now, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard. They’re the monsters, Pearl, and it’s not on you. It’s not you doing that to pearls, it’s them.”

“But it is on me! It quite literally is because of me, because of what I did, and continue to do. I made myself visible and played at being important and look what it got us,” Pearl was near tears, a frustrated blue colouring her face, “a handful of runaways and the rest being treated worse than ever.” 

The tears were out in full force after that, and Bismuth put an arm around Pearl’s shaking shoulders. “Hey, hey, none of that.”

“We ended up taking them with us, but it feels like… it feels like I forced them to come here. Is it really any better than what Homeworld does? All I did was say you’re going to be rebels instead of you’re going to serve and they never got a say in anything.”

“Have you asked them?”

“They don’t know what-”

“Hey. Just ask them, okay? Ask them what they want. We can help them either way. Of course I’d love them to stay. But it’s not up to me, and if they want to go to wherever it was they were supposed to go- we can do that, too.”

-

[Rose discovers her healing tears in a dramatic fashion - they come up with the idea to make the fountain - and thanks to Save the Light we have a pretty good idea of who lovingly made all those statues]

She gently wiped away some of the chiselling dust with the flat of her thumb, just like a tear. A magnificent, healing, life-giving tear.

This was familiar work. But with none of the endless chafing, none of the hated reminders of her former station - Bismuth couldn’t find anything in herself but reverence. And… inspiration. She was a Gem, stars knew she didn’t need rest, breaks, anything of the sort, but still - this pace wasn’t something she’d felt driven to in a long, long while. All day under the burning summer sun, and every night under the light of her own gem. All alone, as the sanctuary took form under her hands.

To get the curls just right, tiny detail by tiny detail, somehow communicate the softness of those cheeks in stone… it took drawing upon the very depths of her well of skill, because how else could she ever hope to capture the likeness of someone as extraordinary as Rose Quartz?

With small, careful movements, she formed the roundness of the lips that could spit fiery words of rebellion, inspire like no other, scowl fiercely in the heat of battle, smile contagiously, bellow out an outrageous fireside guffaw, murmur comforts so softly, kiss…

And then she did it again, and again, and again.

[in the end, Rose is presented with a veritable shrine to herself]

“Rose? Is something wrong? You… don’t like it?”

“No, no, Bismuth, it’s… it’s incredible.” The smile Rose turned on her was as beautiful as anything, but it wasn’t hard to notice it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

[dearlinong]

by your side ; wang ziyi

[hi ! is it okay if i request a scenario where wang ziyi is a mentor for a show you are in and its the final stage and you narrowly miss debuting with the rest of the group. he comforts you but everyone knows you both have a crush on each other? mentor au i guess,,, from a mentor or a lover?? im not sure where i was going with this, sorry if its a bit weird... thank you so much !!]

(a/n: girl holy shit i forgot that i had this in my draft and didn’t finish it wtf. i literally forgot how to do this ;-;. so.. uhm... I MISS YOU GUYS LIKE SO MUCH!! hope you guys are staying safe and staying inside your homes. i’m just clearing off all my requests and once i’m done i can continue making requests again :>. so yeah, pls tell me how guys have been doing in my ask box! so there hope you enjoy this one <3)

genre: angst plus floof

requested: YUP!! omg 2 years in the making kjnKJNAJKDNSKAJDN and sorry if it was all over the place :<

you were currently competing in the 2nd season of idol producer

and you were one of the top competitors

you’ve ben voted as top 1 for multiple times now

and not only was it because of your talent

but you think that it was also because of your friendship with ziyi (which is is bad guys lol vote contestants bc of their talent okay)

yes, you’re friends with the very famous wang ziyi

who was also one of the rap mentors in the said show

actually you two go way back

you two have been friends even before he got into simply joy music

you two were trainees for a company called faded ent

and you two were supposed to debut as a co-ed group

so you two would practice all day and all night just to perfect the dances, singing and rap you had to do

and even after those long and tiring practices you two still had time to hang out with each other

you gotta admit, those were the times that you started developing a crush on him

so when the day he told you that he was leaving the company it was basically your own personal apocalypse

not only did you lose ziyi

but you lost your chance to debut which was on the tip of your fingers at that time

so you tried your luck this time by asking your company to let you join the new season of idol producer

and to your surprise you were doing better than what you expected

as the weeks go by, you and ziyi have been catching up on each other’s lives

but only when you and him have overlapping free time which is a 5 minute break once every week, so that’s not a lot of time

and because of your closeness with him, people have been saying that he has this massive crush on you, which you totally ignored and didn’t believe

and if they were true you’d still ignore it because you were here to compete and debut, not to find love

it was currently the last week in idol producer

while all of the other trainees were fast asleep

you in particular could not sleep for some unknown reason

and what better way to tire yourself than to practice some more

so you got up and walked towards the practice rooms

you first checked if all the staffs were gone, and when they were all gone you entered the room and started practicing the dance routine for the upcoming final episode as you were still in need of some practice

20 minutes into your practicing and you hear some footsteps walking towards the practice rooms, specifically the practice room that you were in

behind the piano was a good place to hide, so you did

as the person entered the room you peeped your hear out so you could have a look at who it was

you were surprised to see that it was ziyi who entered

you were wondering why he was still in the dorms as all the mentors were supposed to be out with the other mentors

so you went out of your hiding spot

ziyi jumped in surprise as he saw you come out

“y/n? why are you here?” he asked 

“i was just practicing, but i’ll head out now, bye.” you said while rushing to head out of the room

but then he caught your wrist which made you stop

“hey, can’t you stay for a while. i really want to spend more time with you. please stay.” he said while smiling softly

you really couldn’t say ‘no’ to a guy like ziyi, so you agreed to stay with him

“so how’ve you been these past few weeks?”

“pretty good actually, but this week in particular was really draining for me and the other trainees.”

you two then eventually became comfortable with each other, like the good ol’ days

after a while you checked the clock to look at what time it was, it was almost 1 in the morning and you had to wake up early to teach the other trainees the dance for the final stage

“hey it’s getting late, better get going now.” you were about to stand up but then ziyi got your hands which stopped you from doing so

“thank you for staying with me y/n, i really miss spending time with you. i hope we can do this more often.” after saying that last word he was leaning in and getting closer to your face

he then pressed his lips to yours

you wanted to savor the moment, but a part of you says that what you’re doing is wrong

so you quickly parted with his lips and stood up

“i’m sorry ziyi, t-this just isn’t right. i have a future ahead of me, and so do you. i don’t want this to be the reason for us to fail in the future. goodbye.” after you bowed you left without even turning back

for the whole week you only thought about that moment

there were times when you couldn’t even sleep just because it was in your head

the day of the final episode has come and you’ve prepared for it since before you entered this show even

okay so this is the part where i transition from 2018 to 2020 bc im a dumb bitch and forgot to finish the au back in 2018

ok back 2 the fic

bc you already know that anything can happen during the span of these 3+ hours

the last time you checked you were still the reigning #1

and because of that you were really anxious about everything that’s gonna happen

before everything starts you guys practiced for the last time and got your last messages from the trainers

and while they were leaving ziyi handed you a small note which made all 20 trainees go BONKERS

“YIEE I KNEW THAT HE LIKED YOU!”

“I KNOW HE’S MY BIAS BUT WHAT THE HECK YOU TWO WOULD BE CUTE TOGETHER”

you became so flustered after all of them started teasing you

“YAH! Y’ALL STOP! if you guys don’t stop i won’t share my remaining facial cleanser!”

deadass everybody went silent JASNXANSDJ

and while everyone was leaving the hall you stayed behind so that you could read the note he gave you in private

it read

“i know what i did a few days ago really surprised you which made you say those words. but i know in my heart that what happened to us was right, but since you asked for it, fine i won’t bother you for now. just remember that i love you and i’m always supporting you, jiayou! with love, ziyi”

ff to the live show

the whole live show was a blur to you because you were too nervous for the final ranking

you were center for your team tho!

everyone AND I MEAN EVERYONE SCREAMED WHEN YOU WERE INTRODUCED AS CENTER

BC HELLO

YOU WERE PERFECT TO BE THE CENTER

ANYWAYS NOW ONTO THE MOMENT WE HAVE ALL BEEN DREADING

THE

FINAL

RANKING

DUN DUN DUUUUUUN

you saw some of the people you hoped to be in the final group got called and you couldn’t be happier

but sadly some of them weren’t

it’s now time to call on the prospected 1st and 2nd ranks

your anxiety levels are OFF THE CHARTS NOW as you haven’t been called yet

you were hoping to all the gods that you would turn out to be the 1st pick

or even 2nd place

but to everyones horror

your face wasn’t shown on the LED screen

which means you weren’t gonna be selected as the 1st or 2nd rank

you heard both people from the audience and from your fellow trainees a collective

“WHAT!?!?!?!?”

at this point you didn’t know what to do anymore

you felt numbness in your body

you can’t cry yet because there is still hope for the 9th place

and then it hit you

‘OH YEAH’

‘9TH PLACE’

so again with all the praying to every god thing

and then

BOOM

the 4 faces were shown on the LED screen

and luckily you were there

the PD then one by one started to announce the trainees on the screens ranks

for 12th place

it wasn’t you

for 11th place it wasn’t you either

this is it you were either in or out

you and the other trainee held hands just to relieve you both from the pressure

and then

the PD finally says the ranking

“the 9th pick is...”

“yuehua entertainment’s xi jiamo!”

that was it

all your hard work

gone

of course you were so happy for your fellow trainee

but you still have to think of yourself as well

you were then asked to give a final message

you were still in shock and didn’t know what to say yet

but you stood there and just said anything that came across your brain

“ohh, honestly i’m just so very thankful to everyone who supported me through this journey. and for every single trainee that has given me nothing but love i hope i can repay you guys some day. let’s all remember that this is not the end of our journey rather it is a stepping stone for us in order to succeed in the future. and to our dear mentors”

the audience and the trainees went wild

EVEN SOME OF THE OTHER MENTORS TOO

“i’m just very thankful that we had the opportunity to be guided by all of you, and we promise to always keep in mind everything you taught us. once again thank you for letting me stand on this stage. i will never forget this experience. thank you everyone” and then you bowed for a very long time

after the whole program all of the trainees went to the stage to congratulate the final group

but almost all of them went to you

the trainees started to flock your area and shower you with nothing but love and support

you even heard the crowd chant your name

which made you cry even more

“YAAAH! Y/N JIE I OVE YOU SO MUCH PLEASE REMEMBER THAT!”

“Y/N JIE I’M SORRY FOR TAKING YOUR SPOT!” jiamo said to you

so you had to tell her that its not her fault and she should think that way

if she thinks that way again you told her that you would be so disappointed

the staff now asked everyone to vacate the stage and go backstage

little did you know

ziyi was there waiting for you

you didn’t want to talk to him yet but the trainees insisted that you do

so they left for you two to have some privacy

once you two were alone there was nothing but silence

but he went in for a hug

which you really needed right now

a hug from one of the people that you love the most

while you two were hugging ziyi said something to you

“i know this is a really hard time for you and i just want you to know that i’ll always be by your side from now on. i’ve lost you the first time now i will never let you go”

YOU CRIED EVEN MORE BECAUSE OF THAT

you just wanted to be in his arms forever

and for now

you do stay in it

[j-loves-bts]

I found something

I just a draft for an original story I was gonna write like last year lmaoo.

Not that anyone cares but im gonna post it because I don’t think it was that badly written or that much of a bad idea.

Enjoy

Or dont whatever

Robert knew. He knew that trying to hide his children would not protect them forever but he had hoped. He had hoped that moving from a luxurious mansion to a tiny three bedroomed house on the outskirts of Wolverhampton would do something to stop them but it didn’t, it never would. They wanted his children, just like they had wanted him and his father before him. And he knew he couldn’t stop them.

Bee dee! Bee dee! Bee dee!

The alarm clock on the bedside table started its wakeup call. Charlie’s dirty blonde hair, the only thing visible from underneath her duvet, was sticking up in all directions. Ugghh. Her arm slid out from the warmth of the bed and hit the snooze button as her head slowly lifted to look at the clock. She could barely see out of her blurred vision.

6:30 am.

She slammed her face back down into the pillow, just five more minutes she thought to herself as she began to slip into sleep once again. She was startled awake by a banging on the bedroom door.

“Charlie come on! School!” Robert yelled.

She hated Mondays.

Charlie sat up in her bed, duvet wrapped around her petite frame, and huffed. If there’s one thing Charlie hates more than Mondays its January, winter was pretty, blankets of snow covering the ground and the smell of the fresh crisp air was all very beautiful to her but she was not too fond of how winter felt. The harsh coldness that made her layer up on clothing had never interested her, and the constant grey weather that never failed to put her in a bad mood.

Charlie sat in silence staring at the time as it went by, five minutes passed and Charlie was met with more banging and decided that it was about time to get ready for school.

“Okay I’m awake calm down!”

The room was full of darkness, another reason to hate winter she thought, she leaned over to turn her lamp on and with the flip of a switch the once black room was illuminated. She slid her feet into her bright red slippers and let the heavy duvet fall from her shoulders as she stood up. The drop in temperature caused her to shiver and run to the other side of the room to put on a dressing gown, she put on her glasses and opened the bedroom door.

She shuffled her way across the hall and down the stairs into the kitchen where her father and brother were eating breakfast.

“Good morning Charl” Robert greeted her but was given nothing but a grunt in response.

“Someone’s in a mood” Daniel sniggered.

“Shut it Danny” Charlie spat back at her brother as she made herself a cup of hot chocolate.

Daniel frowned at the back of her head and took a sip of his coffee.

“You’re the one who’s moody not me”.

“I am this close” Charlie brought her finger and thumb together “to pouring the contents of this kettle over your head”.

Charlie sat at the table with her drink in her hand and huffed at her brother.

“Guys it’s not even seven am yet, stop fighting” Robert looked at the both of them sternly before returning to his food.

Once Daniel finished his coffee he went to his room to get ready for school, he scanned the room in front of him until his eyes landed on his uniform that was neatly draped over the back of his desk chair. He took the clothes from the chair and began to get dressed while looking at his phone, checking messages and also the time. Daniel realised that his tie was nowhere to be seen and began searching the room for it but couldn’t find the piece of fabric.

“I do not have time for this.” He though aloud.

He went to the bathroom to fix his hair in the mirror, he combed his dirty blonde waves to one side while letting a few fall the opposite way and returned to searching for his tie.

Daniel ended up backdown stairs during his search and back in the kitchen asking for help.

“Can’t find my-“He began before being interrupted by his father who was holding the tie in his hand, not taking his eyes off of his newspaper.

“Ah thanks! Where was it?” He asked putting the green fabric around his neck.

“Where you always leave it, the Living room floor” Robert sighed. “Learn to pick your things up after yourself”

“Sorry, will do, bye!” Daniel rushed to the front door.

“Bag!” Robert and Charlie shouted after him.

He ran back into the kitchen, grabbing his bag from behind the door before leaving the house again just as quickly.

“Thanks!” He yelled as he shut the front door behind him.

Robert turned to Charlie as he began to get up.

“You need to get ready too before you’re late”

“I know, I’ll go now. What time are you home from work?” She stood up.

“Late, you better take your key” Robert grabbed his bag, bid a brief goodbye, and left the house.

Charlie returned to her room to get ready for the school day ahead, she enjoyed being in the house alone she found if relaxing and as though she could take her time with everything. Once dressed she brushed through her hair, making it tidier than when she woke, brushed her teeth and made her way to the school.

Charlie just made it as she entered the gates as the bell rang signalling that she needed to be in registration, teachers were dotted around the yard telling students to hurry up as Charlie entered one of the buildings. It was three floors high and extremely dull, the only colours visible being grey, white and a pale green. Charlie made her way up the stairs to the first floor, the maths floor, where her registration class was.

She entered the classroom and sat down at a desk, the seat next to her was empty and belonged to a friend whereas the desks surrounding where almost filled with students. Every desk except the one in front of her which happened to belong to her brother. She set her backpack on the back of her chair along with her puffy coat and took her phone out and messaged her brother to find out where we was, that was until he walked through the door seemingly out if breath and sat in the seat before her. He repeated her own actions with his backpack and coat before swivelling around in the chair to face her.

“Hey” Daniel rested his arms on her desk.

“You’re lucky sir isn’t here yet otherwise you’d be getting a late detention.” Charlie put her phone in her blazer pocket.

“You’re always late too!” He exclaimed.

“Why are you late anyway?”

“Got caught up in something”

“Fine don’t tell me” Charlie rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair.

Just as a second bell rang indicating that everyone should be in registration a tall black haired man walked into the room and sat down at the front of the room. He smiled to the class giving them a quick apology for being late and began to take the register.

Robert was home sooner than he had anticipated, it was 1pm and he had found himself sitting at the dining room table looking through some paperwork. All he could hear was the faint ticking of the clock perched on the wall behind him, it was almost irritating, he was used to noise and was hardly ever home alone so when he was it felt unnatural. To him natural was hearing music blaring from upstairs, it was having to listen to his teens bickering about who knows what. Natural was getting comfortable on the couch for a family movie night which would, sooner or later, cause yet another argument. He had lived with constant noise for the past 16 years of his busy life and wasn’t planning to sit in silence for the rest of it. Roberts thoughts were interrupted by a loud ringing echoing through the house, piercing the silence. Robert was hesitant on answering the phone as he did not recognise the number but figured it would be best to see who it was. He pressed the answer button and brought the phone up to his ear.

“Robert Manning?” A raspy voice asked through the speaker.

“Yes, who is this?” Robert questioned. He had heard this voice before but couldn’t pinpoint where or when.

“Well I am quite surprised you don’t remember me but I guess I have to take into consideration how long it has been, it has been a while hasn’t it?” The voice sounded amused at the fact he didn’t remember.

The voice sent shivers down Robert’s spine, who was it? Where had he heard the voice before? One thing he could interpret was that a man was speaking to him, he didn’t like how the voice was making him feel and was growing impatient.

“Who are you?” Robert asked more demanding and irritated than before.

“Its Johnathan, Robert, Johnathan Archer”

Robert’s eyes widened, his face ridden with fear. He froze in his place too terrified to move, he could practically hear the man smirking down the phone. That’s who it was, how could he not have known after all those years of answering to him. The name and the voice fit perfectly like pieces of a puzzle, the very same name that brought back so many memories for Robert. He was paralysed, unable to speak, unable to move.

“Are you shocked?” Jonathan laughed. “I thought you would be. Listen I haven’t got all day and I have several of these phone calls to make so lets make this as quick as possible shall we? I want them Robert.”

“My kids?” Robert swallowed hard and prayed to be wrong.

“Yes, your kids. Make this easy for yourself Robert, you knew this day was coming. I want them by tomorrow, tell me the flight they’ll be getting and ill have someone pick them up” Jonathan stated blandly as though he had no real interest.

“Tomorrow?! I’m sorry Jonathan but you know what tomorrow is, as much as I wanted to avoid it if I must send them I will but not tomorrow. Any other day but tomorrow” Robert Pleaded.

He heard a sigh from the man at the other end.

“Sorry Robert I know that you take them to Louise’s grave but you know how the boss is, I don’t make the rules around here and just make sure they’re followed.” The man’s voice seemed to soften at the subject but still held its seriousness.

“Fine, don’t expect them to be happy when they arrive though”

“Why would I?” With that said Jonathan put the phone down and Robert was left in silence once again.

The clock behind him ticked, but that wasn’t the only sound he could hear. His thoughts were racing with how’s? and what if’s? He didn’t know how he could tell them what was going on, everything he had kept hidden from them about his life, about their mother’s life, about their fate. The past 16 years of their lives he had kept so many secrets about who he really was and what he really did before they moved. The past 6 years he had been even more secretive, He had begged and prayed that this day wouldn’t come even if he knew it was inevitable, he didn’t have long to figure out where to start with the explanation there were only 2 more hours until they finished school…

It was 5pm and he still hadn’t said anything, he had a hard time finding the courage to tell them everything. He had no idea how they would react, would they hate him?

Robert creeped his was upstairs to ask the twins to come downstairs so he could tell them everything when he found them standing outside the bathroom, more than likely arguing over something stupid. He stopped at the top of the stairs for a moment and listened to the teens who seemed oblivious to his presence.

“Last time I did you a favour it got me into trouble so no” Daniel had an irritated tone to his voice.

“You won’t get into trouble this time though! I only want you to keep watch while I sneak out, please!” Charlie pleaded her brother.

“That will get me into trouble!”

“You can have my lunch money every day for like a month”

“Fine” Daniel rolled his eyes as Charlie had a pleased look on her face.

Robert wished he could stay in this moment forever, even if his children were bickering and up to no good as usual. Everything was about to change and he hated it, hated the thought of them not being around, hated the thought of them getting mad at him for keeping everything a secret but he had to do it. He didn’t have a choice.

“No one is going anywhere” Robert walked over to them. “I need to tell you something, downstairs.”

They nodded at him and trailed behind him as he led them into the dining room. They all sat down at the wooden table and Robert prepared himself. He took in a deep breath before releasing it and lifting his head to talk to his children.

“I don’t want any interruptions now, this is extremely important okay?” He made sure that his children understood the importance of the situation and how serious he was before continuing.

“I can’t explain everything right now but I’ll explain as much as I can. We can’t go to your mother’s grave tomorrow and it’s because I’m sending you somewhere, I don’t want you to get upset or angry with me although you have every right to…”

Robert sighed as he struggled to say what he needed to, his heart was pounding in his chest and his palm were sweating as he conjured up the courage to tell them what had been keeping from them for so long.

“I’ve been keeping some things from you but you need to understand that it was all for your safety. I used to work for an organisation, the founders of this organisation made it because there are bad people in the world, people that the police can’t control. I worked there from a young age but I didn’t choose to, I was forced there because my mother and father worked for them. I don’t have amazing memories from that place but I have no choice than to send you too. Never did I actually think this day would come but I got a phone call earlier today, they’re asking for you and they want you by tomorrow.”

The two teens in front of him had shock across their faces, they didn’t speak though they waited for their father to finish his explanation.

“It’s for your own good, I’m afraid that if… if I don’t send you what happened to your mother will happen to you. I’m so sorry I have to tell you this but she didn’t die in a car accident, she died because they wanted her and she refused because she refused the people the organisation is against killed her. I don’t want to send you there, trust me but it’s all to keep you safe”

“What….”

[offbrandodysseus]

This is a first draft. I just wanna hear opinions

It's been three days without a new case. You know how boring that is? It feels like Chief is torturing me. Cases are assigned everyday, everyone else got a case, so why don't I? 

"Villan, give me a case man."

"No. Captain gave these to me so back off." she said not even looking up from her files.

"Kels, give me a case will ya? I'm bored outta my mind."

"No can do Johnny, Palen said so."

"Okay, what reason can Palen have for not assigning me a case? I came to work on time for the last... Week?"

"You were late yesterday!" Villan said.

"No one asked you Theo!"  I shout over, "Anyway, Kels man, give me a case! I'm dying over here!"

"Like I said John, I can't give you a case. Captain-"

"John! Captain wants to see you!" Zack,the captains secretary, shouts from his desk. 

"Well, Kels, traitor." I jokingly say to her as I go to the Captain's office. 

"You called for me, Sir?" I enter the room without knocking, which I know irritates him. There was another man standing in his office. He's in suit under a brown trench coat too, so either this dude is a fancy douchbag, a fancy political douchbag, a politician, a captain's friend, which is weird 'cuz he doesn't have friends, or an alien that doesn't understand human casual wear. My money's on alien.

"Adams, Knight." Captain pointed to me than him. We akwardly greeted each other and shook hands. By arkward I meant me taking my hand out from my coat pocket along with a dozen wrappers of candy, followed by me trying to frantically pick it up, almost whiplashing him with my head when I stand up. 

"He will be your new partner."

"What? Come again? I thought you said partner."

"He will be your new partner." he said starting to get irritated.

"Does this mean you're finally assigning me a case? Why did you not assign me a case for the last three days?"

"I will and I didn't because your last report was unreadable because of the amount of coffee stains on it."

"It was a big case! You should be glad I solved that before Major Crimes stepped in!"

"You also didn't sleep for a week."

"Big case!"

"Anyway, Detective Knight will be your sitter."

"Sitter?! Come on! I worked here for the last... 2008,9,10... 5 years! I've been here five years and now you're assigning me a sitter? Does he even know what he's sitting?"

"Detective Knight is from the FBI, I'm sure he can handle whatever you throw at him. "

"FB- FBI?! You came from FBI!?" I turn towards him, what did he do to go from FBI to detective in this boring precinct?

He sighed "Yes." His voice is deep, I did not expect that. It's not batman deep though that's a dissappointment.

"Wow, what fucked up thing did you do to end up here?" 

"I shot a superior officer." well, I fear for my life now, thank you.

"Nice." I say out of habit. 

"Here's your case, now get out of my office." he shooed us out. 

"So? " I started " Why the suit? " 

"I fancy the style of detectives from 50's tv shows. "

"Where's your hat then? "

"Here. " he holds up his hand revealing a fedora. He must've been hiding it under his hands when I walked in. Or put it on the coat stand then took it while we were being shooed. Either way he's cool. I bet he smokes a pipe. 

He sits down at my desk then puts his feet up, wait, he gonna have my desk,  where's my desk gonna be?  In the break room? Please be breakroom. Please, "Oh Captain" I enter his office again "Knight's sitting at my desk, why?" 

"You're sharing. His arrives on monday. "

"Share? For a month? What did I ever do to you? I did all my stuff. Say it, what in the world did I do to you? " 

"His desk arrives in 4 days. Also, might I need to remind you of the Stilton incident?"

"Nope! Goodbye, have a good day Captain!" I run out of his office, it's a miracle I didn't get fired because of that. Then again, I'm his star detective. 

"So... " what the heck is his name again? How the heck did I forget, I'm a detective. Then again I left a marshmallow on my car heater and it destroyed it.  "FBI, got a first name? " I'm 50% sure he didn't  say his first name. Either that or his name is... Yeah, I can't remember.  

"Henry. Henry Knight. " he has a cool name. Why the heck does he have a cool name. Imagine back in the bureau, Agent Knight. That's so cool! Then I'm stuck with Adams. Adams, John Adams.  Oh like that president who mailed his diary pages instead of notes to congress? Like that president who hates Hamilton? ...yeah.  Why couldn't I be named like Lafayette, Or even like Hercules. Im just named John Adams. Meanwhile my new partner is named Henry Knight. Henry is cool enough, because Henry is Indiana Jones' real name. And then he has a last name Knight, that amplifies the cool.  You know what? I'm gonna change my name. I'm gonna change my name to Indiana Jones.  Fuck you Henry Knight. Ha! 

"Who are you? " Villan asks Knight extending  her hand for a handshake.

"Knight, Henry Knight. Adams new partner"

The he kissed the back of her hand. "And who might you be, beautiful?" and he's a flirt. Just when I thought he couldn't be cooler, the only way he can be cooler is if drinks respects women juice and if he ain't racist. Why did I include racist? Well, If I remember my history class, colour segregation ended in like the 70's.

"Keep it in your pants Theo! " I shout while walking away to get a chair. Pretty sure saved Knight from Theo's horrible, horrible flirting. 

Seriously last time I've seen Theo flirt was when I watched her on her date and you know how she flirted?  "I like your tie, it's very blue. Like-uhm... Your eyes. " The dude's eyes were brown.

Ugh. The only chairs here is the crappy lawn chair and crappy metal chair. Which one shall I make my back endure for six days... Lawn chair that will break when I lean back or metal chair that will break my back when I lean back? Or, I can tell him to sit on this. Nah, he's too cool, if he tells me to sit my ass down on a smoldering fire pit, I'll sit. Crappy lawn chair it is. 

When I come back from the Storage room he's there charming everybody, they all like him. You know how long it took for people to start talking to me? A year. And that was when they only need to. And he's here just getting along with everybody. I get that he's good lookin',but what is it about me that stops people from talking to me? Is it my hair? My jacket? What?! 

They all stop talking and look at me. What the heck did I do? Maybe it's the chair dragging along the floor.

"Don't mind me, just gettin'a chair. " and I continued to drag it behind me awkwardly while everyone stares.

"Daisy, that's a lovely name... " Knight dissolves the silence. Knight, I owe you lunch. You're so cool! 

While Knight is bonding with everyone else I get to work. I open the case file... And it's a classic B&E,it's easy,come on,video footage,fingerprints,the guy's unmasked.Easy.I run his face through the face scanner thingamajig aka The Seeker.

*bing* It's done. And our mystery man is... No matches? What do you mean 'No matches?'. This guy is off the grid? This case got more exciting. 

Nope, it didn't get more exiting. The guy had a latex nose and cheeks on. Me and Knight caught him when we were visiting pawn shops, see if they bought or pawned any items that were stolen. A guy comes up the counter and says

"Sal! Check out what I got! " then put a game console on the counter, we identified it as the missing console because the owner custom painted it. I asked "Nice, where'd you get that? " then he leaned awkwardly close and whipered "I stole it down fourth street.Don't tell anyone. " then he laughed.

He had the disguise and all, then he just boasts that. Ofcourse I asked where he got the disguise dude said the his friend was practicing her skills as a make-up artist and he thought it was a good idea to rob people then boast about it. 'Course we asked the friend if she had anything to do with it,she said she didn't and provided an alibi.She was doing an interview and we confirmed it. 

[theonstyles]

Eurovision 2017

[birlcholtz]

for the better

read it on Ao3 (part of the Zimbits Airport AU-verse) (I would recommend reading this on Ao3, actually, because of the formatting, but it’s here too for convenience) (also let me know if the link doesn’t work? bc i’m not 100% sure about it)

Jack’s been planning this day for a long time now. He even made a Twitter account for it, two months ago, and tweeted occasionally to build up a following (it was easier once he got that little check mark thing next to his handle). He has a few thousand followers, which is enough to get the message out, and he even has his tweet drafted.

The first draft of it was ‘hello everyone, I just wanted you to know that I am bisexual.’ Tater had taken one look at that and vetoed it. With every extra revision Jack suggested (adding an exclamation point, saying ‘you all’ instead of ‘you,’ et cetera, et cetera, et cetera), Tater had still shaken his head. So Jack took it to Georgia.

“I mean... it’s okay,” George had said, furrowing her brow at the screen. “It’s a little terse, though.”

“But I don’t need to say anything else to get the point across, do I?”

“Well, no. But it’s still very detached.”

Still, after a lot of reworking (and, okay, George does scrap that entire thing and make him start from scratch), they come up with something acceptable. Something that Jack might even say is good.

And then it all gets ruined at the last moment.

Monday morning at around ten o’clock (he’s been given the day off from practice to sort everything out), Jack opens up his Twitter account, intending to post the string of tweets that he and George have planned out, but the first thing he sees is a tweet from Kent.

Kent V. Parson @kparse

tired of all the marriage proposals from women, so i’m just gonna say it: i am both gay af and not taking offers of marriage at this time

Kent V. Parson @kparse

#sorrynotsorry for stealing ur thunder @jlzimmermann

Jack sighs and texts Georgia before composing a tweet as well.

Jack Zimmermann @jlzimmermann

disappointed in @kparse for ruining my announcement

Jack Zimmermann @jlzimmermann

he *did* already know i was going to come out as bi today, so this is quite rude

And then he leaves it like that and texts Georgia that he’s already gone ahead with the plan. She still hasn’t replied to the first one, so she’s probably either working out or so exasperated with him that she’s just decided not to reply. He also silences his phone, then texts Bitty, who’s back at Samwell.

Jack: I did it.

Bitty: congratulations!! <3 on twitter?

Jack: Yeah.

Bitty: you seem kind of put out?

Jack: Kent Parson came out before I did.

Bitty: hold on i’m going on twitter rn

Jack waits for a little while, long enough for Bitty to plausibly have read both Kent’s and his tweets, and then sends a text back.

Jack: Very rude of him. Now I can’t even be the first out player in the NHL.

Jack: That’s probably why he did it, to be honest. He likes being first.

Bitty: it might also work well for u, though

Bitty: take away some of the backlash maybe?

Jack: That’s true, but it doesn’t mean I can’t still be annoyed at him.

Bitty: yeah ofc, i would be too

Bitty: anyway i gtg to class so i’ll ttyl, take care of urself today ok?

Jack: Yeah.

Bitty: text me if u need anything, have a good day <3

Jack: You too <3

Bitty: :)

Georgia calls him about half an hour later and outlines the steps that the Falconers’ management are going to take, then promises to text him when they’ve released their statement and makes him promise to take care of himself today, just like Bitty. She also requests that he leave the apartment as little as possible, preferably not at all, so reporters don’t try to corner him in public. No sooner has she said goodbye and hung up than Jack hears knocking on his door. A glance through the peephole reveals it to be Snowy, Tater, and a case of beer, and he opens the door.

“Good job today, Zimmboni,” Tater says as soon as the door opens, shoving the beer into Snowy’s hands so that he can hug Jack. “Poots said to tell you he is proud. He is with trainer, pinched nerve. He will be here soon.”

“Everyone else is scrimmaging, or at least they were when we left,” Snowy adds as Tater releases Jack and steps past him into the apartment. “I don’t know if they saw us leaving and decided to let it go or genuinely didn’t notice.”

“They’re welcome to come over too once practice is over,” Jack says, stepping back to let Snowy in and then shutting the door. “But not before they’ve showered. Also, they should bring their own beer. I don’t have enough.”

Snowy nods. “I’ll text them.” He pulls out his phone and texts the rest of the Falconers, but then checks on something else and bursts out laughing.

“What?”

“Parson started a hashtag.”

“A hashtag?”

“Yup. A fucking hashtag.” Snowy shows Jack his phone screen.

Kent V. Parson @kparse

@jlzimmermann It had to be done. #StealJacksThunder

“Great,” Jack sighs.

“But that’s not all.”

“There’s more?”

Tater pokes his head out of the kitchen. “You are talking about hashtag, yes? Many people are using it.”

“Like who?” Jack asks. “And what are they doing with it?”

“Rob Jeffries from the Schooners did,” Snowy says before Tater can answer. “Jack, just check Twitter for yourself. There’s way too many of these for me to tell you all of them.”

Jack does.

“Holy shit,” he mumbles.

Rob Jeffries @rjeffriesnhl

@jlzimmermann Sorry, man. I’m bi too #StealJacksThunder

Las Vegas Aces @lasvegasaces

Proud of @kparse for starting his own hashtag. The Aces organization supports players no matter their orientation #StealJacksThunder

Aleks Olsen @aleksolsen

maybe not first out LGBTQ+ NHL player in league, but am first on Oilers & officially first out aro/ace NHL player #StealJacksThunder

Providence Falconers @pvdfalconers

The Falconers organization stands with & supports our LGBTQ+ players. Congrats @jlzimmermann for starting this whole thing

Las Vegas Aces @lasvegasaces

@pvdfalconers Excuse you, @kparse came out first

Providence Falconers @pvdfalconers

@lasvegasaces Excuse *you*, it was @jlzimmermann ‘s idea. Don’t try to #StealJacksThunder on our watch!

Besides the team Twitter accounts bickering with each other, it just goes on and on and on— NHL players deciding, on the spur of the moment, to come out on Twitter, and all of them using that same hashtag. The one that makes Jack almost drop his phone, though, is a string of tweets from someone he knows very well.

Bob Zimmermann @mrbadbob

Extremely proud of my son @jlzimmermann for having the courage to show the world who he is. Cannot fully express how happy I am for him

Bob Zimmermann @mrbadbob

There were LGBTQ+ players when I was in the NHL, there always have & always will be & now we are free to be ourselves

Bob Zimmermann @mrbadbob

& say what you like @kparse but @jlzimmermann started this, u just made a hashtag :P

Bob Zimmermann @mrbadbob

I’m almost done I just have one more thing to say, and that is: sorry, son, I’m pansexual #StealJacksThunder

Jack looks up slowly, aware that both Snowy and Tater are staring at him. “My dad just came out as pan on Twitter. And he used the goddamn hashtag.”

“I love your dad,” Snowy says as Tater howls with laughter. “Oh, that reminds me.” He taps at his phone, and when he turns it off and puts it back in his pocket Jack checks his own— sure enough, Snowy has mentioned him in a tweet.

Aiden Snow @asnowynhl

@jlzimmermann im gay #StealJacksThunder #sorryjack

“God damn it, Snowy.” Jack doesn’t mention that as far as he knew, Snowy wasn’t out to anyone— him included— before just now. Maybe saying it through a screen is easier for him.

“At least I apologized in the tweet,” Snowy says. “Let’s open that beer, I suddenly have a need for one.”

They do pretty much nothing for the rest of the late morning and afternoon. Poots arrives about an hour after Snowy and Tater did, and the rest of the team barrels in through the door at around four, which is before practice was supposed to end. Jack doesn’t ask. They have, in fact, showered and brought their own alcohol. Jack turns on the TV and somehow finds his way to a TV show about hunting sasquatches, which works well as background noise, and every so often someone pulls out their phone and announces the latest NHL or ex-NHL player to have come out via Twitter. It’s an impressive list.

When there’s another knock on the door a little after six-thirty, Jack looks around, confused. Practically the entire roster is here, except Socks, who’s got a mild concussion and is staying home. Regardless, he gets up to answer it.

“Jack!” Bitty cries once the door opens, practically glomming onto him like a koala and wrapping his arms around Jack’s neck. “I saw the hashtag, and all the players, and your dad— how are you doing?”

“Okay, considering,” Jack says, holding Bitty up with one hand while he closes the door with the other. “I’ve only been looking at the hashtag, haven’t checked any of my mentions.”

“That’s probably smart,” Bitty says. “You can put me down.”

“Do you want me to put you down?”

Bitty considers. “Not really, but my arms are going to start hurting if I keep dangling off of you like this.”

Jack swings Bitty’s legs up so he’s in bridal style. “Better?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Fine, Zimmboni,” Tater shouts from the living room.

“How do you know I’m committing a fineable offense?” Jack yells back.

“Is obvious. Bitty is here.”

“Fair enough.”

Just then, a sasquatch-y howl emits from the other room— probably the TV. Bitty raises one eyebrow. “What on earth was that?”

“We’re watching a TV show on locating Bigfoot,” Jack says by way of explanation. “It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and the reenactments are awful but it’s a pretty good distraction.”

“We? How many people do you— don’t tell me, the entire Falconers roster.”

“Yeah. Except Socks— Sokolov. He’s staying home because of a concussion.”

“I must say I never took you for a partier, Mr. Zimmermann,” Bitty says, smiling up at him. “We’re just learning more and more about each other every day, aren’t we?”

“Oh, yeah. Friday evening I learned your deepest, darkest secrets, Saturday I learned how good of a baker you are, Sunday I learned your favorite color, and here we are now. Seems to me we’re doing things in reverse order.”

“Who said there had to be an order?”

“That’s true.”

Bitty nods towards the living room. “Let’s go that way. I want to see this sasquatch-hunting TV show.”

“As you wish.”