#anyways I went feral for this print when I first saw it I love it so much it's so cute

[corduroy-leggings]

⭐️Cosmic JSK⭐️

I wore this on the first day of school, since all I had to do was listen to an assembly.

My hair is getting so long!!! I usually have it up, but I think it's fun to have my hair down with this coord.

JSK: Angelic Pretty

Blouse: Taobao

Bow: Claire's

Moon pins: offbrand

[finelinevogue]

for tour content, maybe you could do an imagine that’s like a series of small moments like little interactions on stage or picking tour outfits or nights in the tour bus/airplane ! just little domestic things <3

i’m going to do this because i have so many weird ideas and just no way of putting them all together ! ;

Grilled Cheese Conversations

The tour bus smelt like it was on fire.

You had been sitting in the living room with Harry for a couple of hours, both of you just skimming through photos from the Met Gala together - judging obviously, before Harry announced he wanted to make himself some food and so left for the kitchen.

He’d been in there for 45 minutes now and the smells that were diffusing from their smelt bloody awful. Harry could cook really extravagant foods, like caviar and lobster, but when it came to something as simple as making a sandwich he was absolutely terrible for some reason. The point was proven when he walked back into the room with a burnt coal looking sandwich.

“What, is that?” You laughed, still sitting with your phone in your hand and waiting for him to come back so you could continue judging these Met outfits together.

“It’s a grilled cheese sandwich?” He spoke as if you were dumb and you should have known that instantly. He walked over to you, sitting down next to you and resting the plate on the table in front of him.

“No, that’s a piece of char.” You raised your eyebrows disapprovingly and watched as he scowled at you for being mean to his culinary skills.

“Well i’m sure it’ll taste great.” He looked smug, up until he took a bite from the cheesy melted - burnt - bread. As soon as the food touched his tongue he was quick to spit it back out again, you groaning in disgust. He pushed the plate away and looked at it in anger. “45 bloody minutes and it tastes of burnt wood.”

“I’m not even going to ask why you know that.” You raised your hands and laughed, watching as he turned to scowl at you again. He had quite the angry face when he wanted to. “Sorry, alright! Do you want me to go make you one?” You asked, sitting up to go and make him one if he wanted.

Harry pulled you into his lap so you were sat with your back to his front, his arms looping around your waist tightly to keep you with him. His chin rested on your shoulder and he kissed your cheek because he could. “No. Stay w’me.” He got all cuddly and soft and you loved it when Harry was like this. He was like a life-size version of your stuffed teddy bear you used to sleep with at night - all cute and cuddly.

“Okay, okay.” You calmed him when he thought you were just going to get up and go. “Let’s judge some people again.” You pulled out your phone and opened it to a twitter account which had posted all of them.

“Where did we get up to?” Harry asked, fiddling with the skin on your stomach as his hands snaked beneath your hoodie.

“Um, Kim K.” You clicked on the image of her and tried to hold back the laugh. It was a dreadful outfit and highly meme worthy, so you’ve heard.

“Well…” Harry sighed, reaching his own hand to swipe seeing as he didn’t have anything more to say on this particular one.

“Billie looked beautiful.” You smiled as Billie’s huge dress came on display, looking a fluffy pink marshmallow dream. She looked very Monroe with her makeup and you were always so shocked when people told you her age, because she looked so mature.

“She must’ve taken inspiration from Marilyn Monroe.” Harry added, nodding in approval of Billie’s outfit.

“More so than bloody Addison Rae.” You laughed, thinking about how far that had been from the truth.

“Addison who?” Harry asked and it made you smile and turn your head around to look at him. He looked down at you, noticing the cheeky glint in your eyes and couldn’t help but steal a glance at your beautiful lips.

“This is why I love you.” You sighed happily and gave him a kiss on the lips, cupping his cheek to direct him better. You were only going for a peck, but Harry made it that you got the full taste of him and kissed you for a minute longer. He felt perfect against you and you really did just simply love him.

“Yeah,” Harry broke from the kiss for a brief moment to tell you something important, “and I love you.”

••••

All Things Sparkles

It was an hour before the Dallas show and Harry was getting ready for another big show.

Dallas were known for being crazy and you were so excited for the energy they’d bring for Harry tonight. Harry always enjoyed the shows more when the crowd was actually ecstatic to be there and he knew Dallas wouldn’t let him down.

He was putting on his silk trousers, Lambert just to the side as he was ironing the shirt to get rid of all its crinkles. Your Harry currently looked so funny in his Gucci silk trousers, his bright yellow socks with bananas all over them, his suspenders hanging down by his sides and no shirt on as of yet. It was the socks that really pieced everything together. He had just had his hair and makeup done, just needing to get dressed before he was completely ready.

He was really glowing tonight. It made you happy to see him like this.

You were watching him through the vanity mirror as you touched up your own makeup, adding highlighter to the areas you wanted to shine a little brighter. You also started adding some gems around your eyes, wanting to be a bit different tonight along with your glittery eye shadow that you didn’t normally do. You were glueing your gems when you felt your boyfriends presence behind you, the heat of his bare chest radiating against the skin of your back.

“You look stunning, m’love.” You looked up through the vanity to catch his gaze, he smiled and you smiled back.

“Thank you. Not too bad looking y’self.” You cheekily replied, motioning towards his bare chest. “Are y’going to be keeping that out all night?” You asked, being hopeful that he would, because fuck it was hot, but also wouldn’t, because you wanted this part of him all to yourself.

“You’d like that wouldn’t y’yeah.” He squinted his eyes at you and nodded, a clear sign that no his tits were not going to be out for Dallas. “Up.” He spoke, lifting you up from under your armpits and walking around the chair so that he could sit down himself. He plonked you right back on top of his lap and watched as you leant forwards to add another gem to the corner of your eye.

“Y’putting me off.” You whined, your ass leaning right back onto the hard of his cock. He couldn’t keep soft around you, that was his kryptonite.

“Oh i’m sorry. It’s not like m’girlfriend is just sitting there looking ridiculously beautiful and yet so innocent.” He leaned forwards to whisper the rest of his words, because they were only for you. “Just look so fuckable right now.”

You had to bite your tongue from turning around and shoving it down his throat, because god did his words make you want to jump his bones. “Shut up, before y’get us both in trouble.” You wiggled your ass back over his cock as you sat back to admire the work of the gems brightening up around your eyes.

“Then stop being a fuckin’ tease.” He grabbed your hips and stopped your from moving anymore. You just smiled and put the lid back on the glue before it went everywhere, especially over Harry’s expensive clothing - even the banana socks were £17.

You looked at him through the mirror to find him already looking at you. You blushed quietly as you watched him take in your beauty. It was quite hard to get over just how ethereal he looked tonight and it made you so feral knowing he was all yours and only yours. Looking down at the gems you got an idea.

“Do y’want me to put some gems on y’too?” You asked, pointing to the ones around your eyes and thinking that he’d looked even prettier with some around his.

“Only if i’m matching w’you yeah.” Harry nodded excitedly. You got up from the chair and swizzled yourself around until you were sat back on his lap, only this time straddling him. You were so close to him now that it was getting ridiculously harder to stop yourself from taking him here and now. You leant down, instead, and gave him a lasting kiss on the skin covering his heart. Your lips lingered there for a moment, before you moved back up to see him already staring down. He smiled when he saw the stain of your lipstick printed over where his heart beat. “I proper love you, Y/N.” He smiled and cupped your chin in his fingers to bring your lips to him.

“No!” Lambert shouted, making you two pause. “You two’ll never stop if you start, so don’t start until after the bloody show.” He rolled his eyes and continued with his ironing, making you and Harry chuckle feeling like high-school kids.

“Okay, now stay still.” You spoke as you glued the first gem and held it steady against the corner of his eye. He wanted to keep his eyes open to keep looking at you, because that’s all he ever wanted to do, but you instructed him to close them just to be on the safer side. It went on easy, sticking to the outer corner of his eye, in a soft white colour that matched his trousers. Yours were the same creamy white colour to match the colour of your dress.

“Do I look pretty yet?” Harry asked rhetorically, but you replied anyways.

“Y’look pretty always.” You kissed the top of his nose whilst you glued the other gem. He closed his eyes as you told him to, but he still smiled at your words. You concentrated as you stuck the gem to the corner of the other eye and sat back to make sure they were even. Harry opened his eyes to see you making sure they looked good. “S’perfect.”

“Like you then.” He hummed in appreciation of you.

“Let’s see then.” Lambert asked, making you both turn in the chair to face him and you readjusting yourself so you were sat back against his chest. “Oh yes! Okay this is photo worthy.” Lambert took out his phone and held it up to face you both, making sure you could see the gems.

“I don’t even have a shirt on!” Harry exclaimed, but held you close anyways as you smiled for the photos and his words making you belly laugh. You posed more seriously for a few and then took a few silly ones to. Your favourite one, though, was one where you were laughing so happily and Harry was looking at you and smiling in awe over you.

He set it as his lock screen. You set it as yours. It would stay that way until your new favourite photos became your wedding day photos.

••••

Sign Of The Times

Tonight was the first Love on Tour show you were attending, only having missed opening night in Las Vegas.

Harry knew that you were coming, but you’d told him to source you out within the crowds because you wanted a full fan experience. You’d gotten the all-clear from Harry’s security, allowing your from backstage and straight through into the cherry pit. You had your lanyard and your sign ready, as fans started to pile in. You were originally going to go straight to the barricade, but you thought the fans deserved that more than you so you hung back and stayed the ends of the crowds.

A few fans spotted you and came up to asking for photos, so you did. Posing with your mask on was weird because you still smiled underneath the mask even though it wouldn’t be seen in the photo. Some fans asked whether they could stay and dance with you ask night to which you were so happy for, because dancing alone would’ve been embarrassing even for you.

The intro for golden started and the crowds were deafening, but all you could think about was your boyfriend and his challenge to spot you within the crowds. Golden and Carolina came and went, you dancing like a crazed fan along with all your new friends. Everyone was so happy and some were even crying tears of joy.

There was just love, love, love, everywhere.

Harry came to his first pause and took a quick drink since he was already quite hot and the altitude in Denver was crazy.

“Good evening Denver!” He shouted into the mic, waiting for the screams of his fans to uproar and then settle before speaking on, “The altitude is crazy here. I’ve barely done anything and I can’t breathe!” He spoke, making you slightly anxious for him but you knew he would be okay because he had an oxygen tank on stage. “Now, m’girlfriend is somewhere here tonight and i’ve gotta find Y/N before I lose the challenge.”

The fans around you started screaming that you were here and the message kept on getting passed down the crowds until they reached the front. Harry was walking around your side of the stage until he met the fans at the front saying that you were behind them. Harry held his hand over his eyes to help him find you better and you held up your sign to help him. Your sign had taken you all of 5 minutes to doodle, but the message was clear;

“I want a kiss from the one in suspenders.”

“There y’are.” He laughed when he saw your sign, dropping his mic and leaning over himself to catch his breathe from the belly laugh that he just let out. You smiled when you saw him laugh, the fans around you screaming and thanking you for making him be this way. Harry stood up and looked at you, messing with his earpiece so he could hear the arena better.

“Kiss me!” You shouted and the people around you were also shouting for him to kiss you. Even with masks on Harry could clearly understand the message.

“I wanna kiss you but I can’t!” He spoke through his mic and his voice echoed throughout the arena, making everyone scream and you simply blush. You knew he couldn’t come and just give you a kiss, it would be too dangerous, but he sent you loads of blown kisses instead and you kept them all. You sent your own back and he stuffed them all in his back pocket, before moving on to his next song before he got told off.

“Damn, he really loved you.” One of your new fans friends says next to you and all you could think was; yeah, yeah he does.

••••

My Only Angel*

For four hours he had been gone.

Four hours since he was in this hotel room with you. Four hours since you had first started acting like a brat. Four hours since he’d gotten fed up of our attitude and tied you up and left a vibrator pulsing against your clit. Four hours since your first orgasm, four minutes since your last.

The whole time Harry had been on stage, all he could think about was you being bound tight in his hotel room and dripping wet from the number of orgasms you would’ve had. He knew you’d never be able to hold yourself for four hours, so he didn’t say you couldn’t cum only he forgot to mention that the number of times that you did cum would be the number of times he denied you later on in the evening. Harry had gotten especially hard performing Only Angel, because that was your song that he’d written for you and then fucked you countless times to. Fans noticed, but put it down to the adrenaline of being onstage rather than the thought of his girlfriend being tied up and overstimulated back in his hotel room.

You just came down from the high of another orgasm when Harry walked through the door. You sighed when you saw him, thinking this would finally be it and he’d let you go free now you’ve suffered your punishment. That was wishful thinking, however.

“Oh, I didn’t see you there.” Harry pretended, wanting to tease you as much as possible, as he walked past you and hung his jacket on the back of a chair.

“H-harry.” You sighed, squeezing your eyes when you moved and felt the vibrator hit and new and exciting angle. You moaned quietly and had to suppress the embarrassing cries you wanted to let out.

“Yes?” Harry moved so he was standing at the edge of the bed, undoing the buttons on his shirt one-by-one. He looked so hot with his sleeves rolled and the suspenders already dropped down to his sides.

“I-I please s-st- enough.” You whimpered, pulling on the restraints to try and stop it yourself but you’d already tried that one too many times and nothing has come of it.

Your wrists were slightly red and bruised from all the tugging you’d been doing and Harry noticed that as he peeled away his shirt from his body. He threw the silk shirt somewhere else in the room and walked over to the right side of the bed, sitting down to get a closer look at your wrists. He leant down to give it a gentle rub and a kiss. You sighed in delight at the feeling of his cool lips burn against your flaming skin. Harry sat up and tilted your face to the side so you could face him, slight tears in your eyes. He looked at you for a few moments, taking in the shear beauty of you and your glorious body, before making sure you were alright.

“What’s your colour, baby?” He asked you gently, stroking your cheek and then running his thumb along your bottom lip with a soft pull.

“G-green.” You nodded and he smiled, leaning in to kiss you on your desperate lips. You basked in the taste of him, closing your eyes like you needed to save this moment to memory forever. You loved him like this, when he was dominant with you. He let you be submissive like you wanted to be.

“That’s my good girl.” He leaned back from you and moved onto the bed more, straddling your bare body. The silk of his pants felt erotic against your hot skin and you moaned at the dreamy sensation. He ran his large, ringed, hands up and down your body, feeling every curve and crevice. He massaged your boobs lightly in his hands, up and down your stomach and to your inner thighs behind him. You hummed at the feeling, gasping when Harry finally turned off the vibrator and moved it away from you. You felt lighter from freedom all of a sudden.

“T-hank you.” You breathed out, opening your eyes to meet his electric green ones. Wow, he looked beautiful - still slightly sweaty and hot from his concert.

“Don’t thank me yet, angel.” He grinned as he took down his trousers and pants, pushing them to the floor with his foot.

He didn’t even wait for you to register what was going on before he slipped himself inside of you. You loved the feeling so greatly, but your clit was still so sensitive. You shuddered as he picked up his pace and thrusted into you harder and harder, faster and faster. The sound of his skin slapping against yours, made you arch your back and your toes curl and then feeling if him so deep inside of you was enough to make you cum already, again.

“Feel s-so good.” You looked at him and saw the desire within his eyes. He was so full of lust right now, because the sight of you tied up with him pounding into you is better than simply imagining it. Nothing could feel more euphoric than this, both of you were sure of that.

“Yeah? Feel me all around you? So perfect f’me. M’beautiful angel.” Harry moaned out, cupping one of his hands around your throat and pushing you deeper into the mattress, whilst his other hand went to cup your breasts and give them the devotion they deserved.

Everything felt everywhere.

His rocks became sloppier as he reached his high, yours approaching much sooner than you thought it would. You were surprised you actually had anything left in you. His cock hit a spot inside of you that made you scream out and he felt you collapse around him all at once, causing his own release to quickly follow. He continued to fuck you through your release and bent himself over to press his lips to yours. He felt and tasted amazing, you couldn’t get enough. It would never be enough.

“Love you so much.” You spoke the best you could and Harry released his hand from your throat, leaning down to kiss it softly. He reached over to your hands to untie them afterwards, giving them both a few kisses over your wrists when he saw the harsh marks. Your arms were so tired that they just fell to your sides, but Harry kept on touching you softly; stroking your messy hair away from your face and caressing your cheek softly as if he hadn’t just fucked you raw. He kept his face close to you as he whispered the words that would stay imprinted on your heart forever.

“I love you, Y/N.”

[fallen-gravity]

awaken the stars, ‘cause they’re all around you

Stanford Pines never really believed in soulmates.

He can't imagine the idea that there's one person out there for him in the multiverse who would stop at nothing to love him for who he is, despite everything he is and everything he's done. He can't imagine that someone out there is meant for him, someone who will stand by his side until the end of time.

Or maybe he'd just been looking at it from the wrong angle.

Notes: 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, @stariousfalls!!!!! I can't believe we've been friends for upwards of five years now?? You've been a huge inspiration of mine from my first day in the gravity falls fandom back in late 2014, and now you're one of my closest friends. I've been spending the last week and a half working on this behind your back, because I wanted to surprise you with a gift I thought you'd love!!

7.5k words of fluff was....not my original plan, but fluff brain wanted to go feral for you, I guess.

Huge, huge shoutout to @ariasofelegance  for helping me keep my mouth shut about this, I absolutely would've internally combusted without your help & support

AO3

Ford never saw the appeal of romantic relationships.

One night when he and Stan were kids, they snuck downstairs in the middle of the night after their parents were asleep to dig through Pa’s “Secret stash” of movies he thought he was good at keeping a secret. They’d thought for sure they’d be coming across bootleg cuts of action movies that were still playing in theaters, or documentaries about how all of the politicians in power were secretly aliens. 

What they actually found was much more…sensual. They were both horrified, to say the least, but each time Ford had to turn away to prevent himself from gagging, he’d hear Stan beside him struggling not to laugh. 

For years, Ford was convinced coming across those tapes before he was old enough to fully comprehend what was happening in them is what had turned him off to relationships altogether. It certainly didn’t help that he was never able to experience romantic relationships firsthand, as every time he tried asking someone out in high school he’d just be laughed at or called a freak.

Though college was another story entirely, his feelings towards romantic relationships never seemed to change. He went out with a girl from his dungeons, dungeons, and more dungeons club for a few weeks, a guy from his advanced physics class for almost two months, and even tried going out with Fiddleford for upwards of nine months, but he never felt that deeper connection with any of them, no matter how much he wanted to feel that connection. 

It’d be forty more years before he learned the term aromantic, but when he was still in college he would brush off his parents’ questions about his relationship status by telling them he was too busy working on his thesis, which technically wasn’t all that far from the truth anyway.

Still, the faint sense of yearning never seemed to leave him be. Whenever he found gaps in his schedule, he would spend hours in his university library reading up on the science of relationships and their place in society. Though he no longer remembers most of the papers he read, one scientific study that’s always stuck with him was a dissertation written entirely on the concept of soulmates.

Everyone has a soulmate, the paper claimed. Though it may be decades until you properly meet, your path always leads to the moment that you and your soulmate are finally united. Once finally together, not a single force on earth can tear you apart. Even if you are apart physically, the stars will always align to bring you together. Weirdest of all, the paper mentioned soulmarks, which were described as “the phenomenon that a person’s very soul is marked with a piece that belongs to their soulmate, which may appear as a physical anomaly on a person’s body, such as an oddly-shaped birthmark”. 

Ford had thought for sure that somebody must’ve moved a romance novel into the sociology section of the library as a joke. The only sort of anomaly he had going for him was his polydactyly, and thinking too much about how that could connect him to a single person who was destined to love him gave him a headache. 

Nowadays, though, Ford tries not to give it much thought. He’s perfectly happy right where he is, watching the sunrise from the deck of the Stan O’ War II through the steam visibly rising from his coffee mug. 

He sighs contently. 

“Mornin’” Stan’s voice sounds beside him, gruff with sleep. When Ford turns to look at him, he’s rubbing at his eyes with one hand while he holds a steaming cup of coffee in his other. He’s already donning one of the sweaters Mabel mailed to him, a deep blue with a tropical island and a treasure chest stitched across the chest.

Ford smirks. “You’re up early” 

Stan cocks an eyebrow as he sips from his coffee. “A’course I am. I always get up early when we’re docking to see the kids”

Ford blinks, the teasing smirk on his face melting into a gentle smile. “That’s today?” 

“Haven’t you checked the calendar lately?” Stan tosses a second handmade sweater at Ford. This one’s the same shade of maroon as his journal covers, and pictures an angry cycloptopus squirting ink towards the bottom left corner of the sweater. “The kids are on spring break. They talked to their parents about letting us have ‘em all week” 

Ford is quick to pull the warm sweater over his head. “All week?” 

He can’t help sounding like a broken record, but it’s been months since the last time he saw the kids face to face. Sure, they talk over video at least once a week, but nothing beats seeing their smiling faces and having them nearly tackle him to the ground in a hug in-person. 

“Heh, you miss em too, Sixer?” 

As little as two years ago, Ford would’ve flinched at the nickname. But Bill is gone for good, and Ford knows that Bill is gone for good, and Stan made a promise to do anything in his power to help him reclaim the nickname. He brings his mug close to his face without taking a sip, allowing himself to take in the warmth in his hands and the steam in his face.

“Not as much as you, clearly” Ford smirks, and Stan crosses his arms over his chest.

“You bet I missed them more than you. I’d been taking care of them all summer before you showed up and fell in love with them in half that time”

Ford smirks as he finishes up his coffee and heads into the navigation room to set their course. “By that logic, wouldn’t that mean that I miss them more, since I had less time with them?”

“Hey!” Stan groans as he follows him into the room. “It does not. It means that you don’t know them like I know them, genius. Everyone knows that it’s all about how much time you’ve spent with a person that determines how close you are with them” 

Ford laughs as he enters the coordinates they need to get to the seaport they were meeting the young twins at. From the looks of it, it’d be three hours before they arrived. 

“Mm, and who put that study together? Was it you?” 

Stan doesn’t reply with words, just a noise that sounds halfway between disgruntled and baffled. It makes Ford laugh even harder, and he wipes at his eyes with a wrist. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Stan’s overdramatic pout melt away until he’s laughing too. 

The sight of it makes the smile on Ford’s face widen. It’d been decades since the two of them were able to just be like this. It’d been so long since the last time Ford heard Stan’s genuine laugh that he’d gone and forgotten what it sounded like altogether. When he was still traveling the multiverse, he searched far and wide for a shred of hope, something to keep his anxieties and nightmares from catching up to him.

What a fool he’d been to ignore his childhood memories of home. 

The trip is a quiet but familiar one. Ford can’t talk much when he’s steering because he needs to be on constant lookout, but Stan remains in the room to talk at him and keep him company anyway. The sun is well over the horizon by the time they reach the seaport, and call it instincts, intuition, or something else entirely, because Ford spots the kids sitting on a bench in the near distance the moment he and Stan step foot onto the dock. 

They’re squished closely together, watching a video on Mabel’s phone. Whether they’re aware of it or not, they’re swaying their legs back and forth underneath the bench in perfect unison. On the ground beside them are their backpacks, overstuffed with so many things that both of them are popping open. 

Most importantly, neither of them have noticed that Ford and Stan are approaching them. 

Ford exchanges an amused glance with Stan, and clears his throat to catch their attention. 

The phone nearly stumbles out of their hands in shock when they look up and meet their eyes.

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel squeals, standing to sprint past Ford to knock Stan off of his feet. Ford chuckles at the sight, but not quickly enough to hear Dipper’s “Great Uncle Ford!”, and before he knows it he’s hitting the floor too. The young twins are laughing messes, and stumble over each other as they try to stand to their feet and help their Grunkles up. 

Mabel spits out the hair that stuck to her mouth, and pulls a hair tie seemingly out of thin air to tie her hair up into a ponytail. It’s only now that Ford realizes that she and Dipper are also both wearing sweaters, and if Ford had to guess, it looks like Mabel made both of these sweaters as well. Mabel’s is a galaxy print with actual twinkling stars, and Ford makes a mental note to ask her later what she did to make it glow like that. Dipper’s is also space themed, though his pictures the big dipper splotched across a black night sky with a bright orange meteor shooting through the center.

“You have to tell us about everything you’ve encountered”, Dipper beams, once Stan finishes brushing himself off. 

Stan cocks an eyebrow. “Two years’ worth is a lot to get through, kiddo”

“Exactly!” Mabel beams, turning to pick up her backpack and put it on. “Which is exactly why you can tell us on the way to the hotel!” 

“Hotel?” Ford and Stan ask in unison.

“Surprise?” Dipper giggles. “Our parents rented us a hotel room for the week cause they figured you’d appreciate some time away from the boat” 

“It’ll be like our summer in Gravity Falls all over again!” Mabel grins. “But in reverse! You’re in our territory now” 

Stan laughs. “You’re the boss, kiddo”

“You bet I am!” She beams, and hands Dipper his backpack. “Now c’mon! If you tell us all of the horrors you’ve encountered out at sea, we’ll tell you about all the horrors we’ve encountered in high school!”

“I...think I remember those horrors pretty well already, thank you” Ford smiles sheepishly, adjusting his glasses. “But we’d be more than glad to tell you some of our own stories”

It’s a short walk to the bus stop, but Ford honestly wouldn’t mind if they walked all the way to the hotel on foot if it meant an extra half an hour with the kids. They’re just as eccentric as he remembers, attached at the hip but still wildly different people all on their own. Dipper’s still hanging on to every word he’s saying, and Mabel’s still skipping along like she’s in her own world. 

Once they reach the hotel and check in, Dipper collapses face first onto one of the beds the moment he steps into the room, groaning. 

Stan smiles. “Something bothering you, kiddo?” 

He turns on his side to look Stan in the eye, his face smushing into the pillow. “Mabel didn’t let me get any sleep last night. She insisted on getting to the seaport three whole hours early because she insisted that she had this gut feeling that you guys would have the same idea and we’d magically show up at the same time” 

Mabel pouts, and sits on the bed besides him. “Well it’s not my fault you stayed up late reading that dumb book of yours. Plus, would you rather have kept them waiting for three hours?” 

Dipper removes his hat and places it on the table beside him, exposing just enough of his forehead through his hair to reveal his birthmark. It has the same faint glow to it as Mabel’s sweater, and Ford wonders how the two could possibly reflect off of each other. 

“Their boat has beds and a fully stocked kitchen, Mabel. They can afford to wait. All we had were those strawberry pop tarts that you ate five minutes after we got there”

Ford can’t help but smile softly at their banter. He missed them so, so, much more than he could’ve ever imagined. He’s got half a mind to stow them away on the boat at the end of the week and homeschool them both himself so he never has to be apart from them again.

Apart. The word still feels like a knife twisted into his chest. There’s nothing he regrets more than trying to separate the young twins from each other two summers ago because he’d been so caught up in projecting his own fears onto the pair. He’d tried apologizing to Mabel over the whole ordeal, but she stopped him before he could even start to tell him he had nothing to worry about.

He only wishes he could learn to forgive himself as easily as she did.

“...Can we, Grunkle Ford?”

He blushes. Had he just said all of that out loud?

“Can we...what?” 

“Take the boat out! Not right now, since Dips is being a grumpy-grump and insists on wasting precious time with a nap, but we’ve been talking about it all week”

From across the room, Stan snorts. “Let me get this straight,” he takes his jacket off and hangs it up in the closet. At this point Ford swears his eyes must be playing tricks on him, because Stan’s old burn scar is glowing just as Mabel’s sweater and Dipper’s birthmark are. “All the time you spent groaning and complaining about fishing every time I took you in Gravity Falls, and now you’re asking to go fishing?” 

“I was thinking more along the lines of a joy ride,” Dipper yawns from under the covers. “But if agreeing to go fishing is what gets you to say yes, then sure” 

He’s smirking under the covers, Ford can tell, because he inherited that expression from Stan.

Stan’s about to bite back, but Dipper must not have been exaggerating about how long he and Mabel were waiting for them at the dock, because he’s already out cold. Stan smiles at him, gently ruffling up his hair before he takes a seat on the adjacent bed, kicking his shoes off so he can kick his feet up on the bed and relax. Ford sits beside Stan, and Stan slings his arms behind him to support his head in his hands as he glances over at Ford. 

“They make you wanna retire the whole ‘treasure hunting’ thing and move into the city to be closer to ‘em too?”

Ford chuckles. “I’ve already considered hiding them away on the boat twice today already.” He taps at his chin. “Though I suppose that moving in with them would go over better with their parents then taking them away to live on a boat” 

“Hmm…” Stan taps at his chin as well. “Being stuck in the same stuffy high school for four years, or living on a boat traveling all over the world whenever they feel like it? I dunno about you, Sixer, but I have a pretty good idea on what the kids would prefer”

“Grunkle Stan? Grunkle Ford?” Mabel’s voice suddenly chimes in, and Ford blushes, wondering how much of that she just heard. 

“What’s on your mind, pumpkin?” Stan asks. 

“Well, uh, Dipper was right about us only eating once really early this morning, and I was wondering if you’d be willing to, uh” She twirls her hair between her fingers. “Cook something for us? For old time’s sake?”

Okay, it’s settled, Ford’s never letting these kids go again. 

“Sure, kiddo. Soon as your brother’s up we’ll head right back up, okay?” 

“Okay!” she beams, and crawls back into her side of the bed, staring at Dipper like she can will him into waking up on command. 

Though Ford would’ve been okay if they’d had to wait hours for him, it’s really only about twenty minutes before Dipper opens his eyes again and nearly shrieks in surprise at Mabel’s face hovering three inches from his own. He smacks his hand into her face to shove her away, and she giggles as she rolls off the bed and onto the floor. 

Beside Ford, Stan smirks. “Better get up before we leave without you and all our food goes to Mabel, kiddo. You’ve got plenty of time to crash in Ford’s bed on the ship, since he never seems to use it anyway”

Dipper yawns, rubbing at his eyes as he kicks the covers off. “I hadn’t even realized I’d fallen asleep”

“I didn’t realize you were even capable of sleep, bro-bro” Mabel punches him in the shoulder as she walks past him to put her shoes on. He glares at her wordlessly, and Ford has to cover up his snicker with a fake cough. 

This time, the bus ride and the walk back to the ship are a quiet one. Ford never really lets himself let his guard down and relax for an extended period of the time, so he cherishes any moment he can get where he finally feels like he doesn’t constantly feel the need to check over his shoulder for signs of danger. Most of the time, if you asked him about his heightened senses, he’d call them a curse. But on days like these, when he can hear the birds chirping and the waves smacking gently against the boats in the seaport, he’d almost go as far as calling it a blessing. 

The kids take a seat at the dining table as soon as they enter the kitchen, and Stan grins at them from over his shoulder as he clicks the stove on. “Whaddya say, Stancakes?” 

Dipper and Mabel grimace in unison. “Ewwww, Grunkle Stan, you promised lunch!” Mabel scrunches her nose, and Stan’s grin only widens. 

“Ah, ah, you said like old times. That means I get to decide what to make, and you have to eat it because I’m your legal guardian”.

“Well I wasn’t even awake when you were talking about old times, so I’d say that cancels out” Dipper crosses his arms over his chest, and Ford can’t help but smile warmly at the three of them as he reaches into the cupboard for his favorite coffee mug. The younger twins clearly had just gotten two copies of the same mug, but crossed both of them out so they’d say #1 GRUNKLES on them instead of #1 UNCLE. Stan has the other one, of course, but he keeps it on his bedside to hold small treasures and keepsakes because it’s, in his own words, “Too special to waste on something as ordinary as coffee”.

Ford sits himself in the seat between the younger twins at their okay, and after some back and forth banter between the four of them, they end up settling for burgers. Truth be told, this is the first time Ford’s eaten a meal in a group larger than two since the last time he and Stan visited the young twins in the winter, and he can’t help but smile into his food at the thought. The closest he’d come even remotely close to eating with others in his research years was his very, very brief time at the truck stop diner, and the experience had soured his view of...well, other people for near decades.

Now, though, he’d burn his own research dozens of times over before he’d even consider eating alone.

Stan’s chair scraping across the floor as he stands pops Ford out of his bubble of serenity. 

“Now that that’s taken care of,” Stan cracks his knuckles, smiling mischievously at Dipper and Mabel. “I think I remember a couple of kiddos finally promising their Grunkle Stan he could take them fishing”

“Promise is a strong word-” Dipper starts as he stands to place his plate in the sink, but Stan’s already placing a fishing hat on his head before he can finish his sentence. 

“Course you did! You wanna take our baby for a joyride, you gotta earn it first”

Dipper turns to Ford, like he’s expecting him to back him up.

Ford chuckles. “I don’t know, Dipper. That sounds perfectly reasonable to me”.

Dipper scoffs, sitting back down at the table. Mabel laughs. 

“Aww, C’mon, Dipper! Aren’t you all about the supernatural? For all we know, Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford could be harboring magical glowing bait that only attracts, like, magical talking fish men, or something!” 

Dipper raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t you just receive a bottle message from Mermando last week?”

“Exactly!” Mabel flashes a grin. “That must mean that he’s in the area!”

Stan laughs. “You tellin’ me you only agreed to go fishing so you could kiss and make-up with your long-distance fish boyfriend?”

“Grunkle Stan, what kind of person do you take me for?” she gasps. “He’s married! You know I would never want to break apart such a loving couple!”

Ford’s smile only warms. Where else could he partake in such a conversation that doesn’t turn heads and result in judgmental whispers? Where else can he just be like this, surrounded by loved ones who are just as weird, just as out of the ordinary as himself? In his younger years he thought for sure his place would be among the monsters and cryptids everyone in his childhood made him out to be, but even in the weirdness capital of the country he felt more alone than ever. 

“...Don’t think you’re immune, Sixer” Stan’s voice cuts into his thoughts, and before Ford can ask what he means Stan is smacking a homemade fishing cap on his head. “It may ruin your badass image when we’re monster hunting, or whatever, but we’re fishing with the kids.” Stan gestures to them with his thumb. They’re already outside, leaning over the railing to look out at the water in a perfect mirror of each other.  “If they have to embarrass themselves by humoring me for a few hours, so do you” 

Ford waits for Stan to join the kids outside before he takes his hat off to admire the stitch work. It’s not perfect, and nowhere near the fancy embroidery he and Stan have found in various markets across their world travels. But it’s personalized, and Ford knows it comes from a place in Stan’s mind that’s been stuck behind lock and key since he was seventeen.

Ford runs his hands along each individual letter, which reads POINDEXTER, before placing it back on his head to join the others outside. 

Stan has, miraculously, already pulled out his joke book. Stan’s laughing too hard at his own joke for Ford to really make out what the punchline is, but the younger twins’ collective groans is all he needs to know about it. When Mabel notices him stepping out of the doorway, though, her expression shifts entirely. 

“So…” she draws out, stepping towards him. “Is there a trick for attracting merpeople to your boat? I mean, asides from being super cute, obviously” 

Ford chuckles, taking a glance behind her to make sure that Stan is out of earshot. “Stan’ll kill me if I tell you this, but they’re really attracted towards shiny things. If you tied one of his gold necklaces around a fishing pole and dangled it into the water, the boat’ll be surrounded in minutes” 

Mabel offers up her pinkie finger. “I won’t tell him if you won’t”

Ford interlocks his pinkie with hers, smiling. “I think he’ll notice when a whole family of merpeople show up”

“Hmmm…” Mabel taps at her chin with her free hand, visibly mouthing a plan to herself. “Oh! I know! Come with me,” she beams, and before Ford can even open his mouth to respond she’s already dragging him back into the kitchen. She kneels down on the floor and opens the cupboard below the sink. “Got any empty bottles I can use?”

Ford blinks. “Empty....bottles”

“Yeah!” Mabel pulls a neatly folded piece of paper out of her skirt. “If I can send out my response letter the same time we throw Stan’s necklace over, he’ll never be able to tell the difference!”

“Wait, wait” Ford shakes his head. “You really are dating a merperson?”

“Listening skills, Grunkle Ford” she taps at her forehead, folding the letter back into her pocket as she continues to dig through the cupboards. “Used to date. We met at the Gravity Falls Public Pool, where he was stuck, but then I drove him to the lake in a golf cart I stole from the pool grounds because he really missed his family, and then he was my first kiss, and then we were in a long-distance relationship for like, two months, and I kept every single bottle he sent me, but then we had to break up because he was arranged to marry to prevent a big undersea war.” She picks up a bottle, shakes it, and puts it back when it’s too full for her liking. “I know it sounds, like, super complicated, but it’s all okay, because we’re still pen pals!” 

Ford laughs, shaking his head. “No, Mabel, I had to ask because I, uh…” his cheeks warm, and he clears his throat. “Before I...came to term with my orientation, I...dated a merperson too” 

The bottles in the cupboard rattle as Mabel’s head smacks against the doorframe. She’s rubbing the spot where her head hit, but there are stars in her eyes. “Really?” 

Ford’s cheeks burn even hotter. “Yes,” he whispers, and takes a knee so he can get at her eye level. “Technically he was a siren, but yes, we dated for about a month. He promised me he wouldn’t entice anyone else while we were together, but I guess there wasn’t anything...there.” He turns to help her shuffle through the cupboard, and finds a near-empty bottle of olive oil that’s definitely been sitting down there for at least a year. He hands it off to Mabel, smiling. “I’m glad that things worked out with you, though” 

To his surprise, Mabel drops the bottle and throws her arms around him in a hug. “I can’t wait to introduce you! He’s gonna love you”

Ford huffs a quiet laugh, and pulls her close as he winds his arms around her as well. The hug only lasts for a few brief moments, but it feels to Ford in those moments that time itself had stopped. Mabel stands, taking the bottle in one hand and offering to help Ford up in her other. 

Mabel places the bottle in the sink and turns the water on to rinse it out before she turns back towards Ford, stretching her arms up in the air as if she were warming up for an exercise. “Alright, here’s the plan. You tell me where Grunkle Stan keeps all of his jewelry, and I’ll sneak in and take his necklace while you distract him. Got it?”

Ford smiles. “Got it”.

As Mabel splits away for Stan’s bedroom, Ford heads back out to the deck. Dipper’s leaning over the side of the boat pointing at something jumping out of the water, rambling excitedly to Stan beside him. He’s holding his fishing hat in his hand to stop it from blowing into the water, and his hair is bouncing in the breeze. It’s just enough for the edge of his birthmark to poke through his bangs, and even in broad daylight it seems to be emitting a faint glow.

“I found it!” Mabel cheers, bounding up from behind him. She’s wearing the chain around her neck, and for some reason the gold seems much dimmer in contrast to her sweater. She takes it off and hands it to him. “You wanna do the honors while I go and throw this overboard?”

Ford smiles, ruffling her hair. “Sure thing.” He walks over to where Stan and Dipper are chatting and picks up one of the extra fishing rods. Making sure that Stan’s too engrossed with his conversation to notice, Ford starts wrapping the chain along the line, and at the signal from Mabel, he tosses his line as far from the boat as he can manage.

Five minutes pass before Mabel squeals so loud that Ford’s afraid his glasses might shatter. He reaches for the gun he knows he’s got stashed in his pants pocket, but when he turns to run to her aid she’s leaning halfway over the boat wrapping her arms around a young merman in a tight hug.

“...so good to see you again!” She’s beaming. “I didn’t think you’d be able to find us so quickly!”

“Yes, well, you were easy to track down after we figured out the coordinates to the seaport” the young man says in a thick Spanish accent. “It is good to see you too! My family was so excited to meet you”

“Your family?” she gasps. “Did they all come with you?” 

“Of course!” he grins. “We merpeople are very family oriented. Wherever we go, we go together” 

Ford winces at the uncanny familiarity of the statement. Mabel must recognize the statement too, because she responds with “Oh, that reminds me! There’s someone I want you guys to meet! Wait right here,” she says, and comes bouncing back over to Ford. Taking his hand in her own, she starts to drag him back to where she’d just been leaning. “C’mon! He’s the one I was just talking about!”

Three more merpeople emerge from the water when she gently knocks on the side of the boat again. “Grunkle Ford, this is Mermando!” she grins, gesturing to the young merman she’d just been conversing with. “He’s the one I helped reunite with his family after they were separated by tragic circumstances.” She wraps her arms around Ford in a side-hug. “Mermando, this is my Grunkle Ford! He was also separated from his family by tragic circumstances, but I helped with that too!” 

Mermando laughs. “Even when you think it’s the end, family always finds its way, doesn’t it?”

Ford laughs, shaking his hand. “It always seems that way to me”

“Awwww!” Mabel squeals. “I knew you’d get along!” She grins, and turns her attention back towards Mermando. “Before I forget, though, did you see where Grunkle Ford threw that gold necklace? If I don’t get it back my Grunkle Stan’s gonna kill me”

Mermando laughs again. “I was wondering if that belonged to any of you!” He takes off his shell necklace to reveal that he’d put Stan’s necklace on around his neck. He takes that off, too, and offers it to Ford. “I much prefer this one, anyway” he clicks his shell necklace open, revealing it to be a locket with a picture of his family inside.

Ford takes the gold necklace back, and he means to thank him, but a bell ringing from elsewhere in the port interrupts him before he can open his mouth. Mermando turns to Mabel, taking her hands in his own. “We must go. I’m so sorry we have to leave so soon, but we merpeople recognize the sounds of fishing boats very easily. We’ll try to come back later this week” He opens his arms for her once more, and Mabel wraps his arms around him in a quick hug before she watches him and his family swim away. 

“I am so glad that all you were doing was hugging,” Dipper shudders as he and Stan approach Ford and Mabel. “I’m not sure my stomach could handle witnessing you two kissing a second time” 

“Awww,” Mabel punches him playfully in the shoulder. “You’re just jealous that I had a boyfriend before you did!” 

Dipper cringes. “If you having a boyfriend before I do means I didn’t have to be the one dating a fish, then I’m glad you were the one who got stuck with him first” He punches her back, and gestures at Stan over his shoulder with his thumb. “But anyways, I came over here because Grunkle Stan says he wants to get out on the open water before everyone else gets the idea, or something”.

Ford pockets Stan’s necklace and makes a mental note to put it away sometime later tonight when Stan is too distracted to notice. “Tell Stan I’m going to untie the rope from the edge of the dock, and when he sees me back on board we’re all set to go.”

Nodding, Dipper bounds off towards the navigation room where Stan must be waiting, and Ford steps off of the boat to take care of everything else. On the way to the bow, he traces a hand along the white painted STAN O’ WAR II, and a feeling of warmth sprouts in his chest. Once back on board, he waves to Stan as he passes besides the navigation room once more, and takes a seat on one of the beach chairs they liked to keep aboard. 

Most days, Ford prefers to be the one at the wheel. But every once in a while he just wants to be. All he wants to do is lean back in one of their beach chairs and let the sun warm his face. It’s a good kind of warm, the same way spending time with the kids and heavy rain hitting his bedroom window and planning new escapades with Stan feel warm. After so, so long of only knowing unbearable burns, it feels indescribable to have a constant back in his life that heals, rather than hurts. 

“Mind if we join you?” Dipper asks, and Ford glances over to see both of the young twins dragging a chair behind them.

Speaking of healing constants.

“Sure,” Ford says, and can’t help the warmth spilling through his tone. They pull their chairs up on either side of him, and curl up to enjoy the warm breeze. Dipper places his hat on his lap to let the wind blow through his hair, and Mabel stretches her arms out behind her head to act as her own pillow. Ford chuckles silently at the pair, and closes his eyes to let himself relax.

All is quiet when Stan finally finds them a spot out on the open water without a single other boat in sight. The water is nearly still, save for the occasional small wave that gently sways the boat. The sun is at its afternoon high, turning the water beautiful shades of teal and aqua. Fishing is tedious, but it’s careful work, and gives Ford something to put all of his focus into. Two whole hours pass before any of them catch a thing, and Stan laughs himself to tears when it’s Dipper who pulls up a single sardine. 

Typically Ford prefers much more immersive activities, but right now there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. The sun is starting to set before they realize they aren’t going to have much luck catching anything, and instead decide to take the boat for another ride around the harbor to look for a better place to eventually watch the stars. 

“...Great Uncle Ford?” Dipper approaches him shyly once they’ve anchored the boat.

“Yes?”

He tugs shyly at the edge of his sweater. “I…” he starts. “I know you’ve told me that the multiverse was dangerous, and all, but...was there ever anything you enjoyed about it?” He pauses. “What were the sunsets like?”

Ford chuckles, patting at the seat beside him, and Dipper’s eyes light up as he sits down.

“You’re right,” Ford starts, folding his hands together. “I wouldn’t wish what I went through on even my worst enemies, Dipper. It was practically impossible to get any decent amount of sleep and even harder to find food digestible by human kind. I lost some of my best years to the multiverse when I could’ve gone on to become the most renowned scientist in the world.” Ford turns his gaze away from the sun setting on the horizon to meet Dipper’s eyes, but he’s frowning, eyes cast downwards towards the deck of the ship.

“But,” Ford adds before the poor kid can get too lost in his own head, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “It definitely had its perks.” He smiles. “The sun in Dimension 18.2 would emit a sound that mimicked a lullaby every night as it set. Dimension 47’23 had three moons that would shift phases before your very eyes. I haven’t told Mabel because I’m afraid she’ll try activating a portal of her own and run away, but in Dimension 25-12, everyone and everything looks like a watercolor painting. There’s danger in the multiverse, but there’s beauty in equal measure”

“Do you ever miss it?” Dipper fiddles with his hands, like he’s trying real hard not to say the wrong thing. “I mean, I know you don’t miss being lost, or having no idea if you’re ever going to see home again, but...is there any dimension...where you could’ve seen yourself staying, if you thought you couldn’t make it back?” 

Ford shifts in his chair so he doesn’t have to twist his neck so much to look directly at his nephew. “Occasionally,” he muses. “I met the most friendly faces in Dimension 52, so my mind does tend to wander there from time to time” he smiles. “But rest assured, there is something in this dimension that makes it my favorite”

“Oh yeah?” Dipper’s eyes light up. “Over every other dimension you’ve passed through? What is it?”

Ford gently nudges Dipper’s shoulder. “You and your sister”

Dipper’s cheeks turn bright red, and he looks as though he’s struggling not to bury his face into the collar of his sweater and disappear. “Really?” his voice squeaks.

Ford nods. “Everything I had in those other dimensions were fleeting, Dipper. At a moment’s notice everything I grew to love could disappear in the blink of an eye. The very thing happened to me in Dimension 52. When I fell asleep, I woke up in a new dimension I didn’t recognize. Things may have been more advanced, and there may have been dimensions crafted to give you your greatest desires, but in the end nothing ever lasted.” 

Now it’s Ford’s turn to divert Dipper’s eyes, gaze casting towards the floor. “Stan was cut from my life completely in the dimension that claimed to be a perfect world. I had nobody. Even in dimensions that actively worked towards my happiness, I was all alone” Ford shakes his head, and turns his gaze once more out on the horizon. The sun is still touching the horizon, but it’s dipped just low enough that some of the stars are beginning to show in the sky. 

“But...here, at home, everything is consistent. I don’t have to worry about waking up in the morning to find that everyone I love is gone. I can keep everyone in arm’s lengths, even when Stan and I can only communicate with you and your sister over a video call. I’m…” Ford gently squeezes his hands to reassure himself that this is real and now. “...happy. Happier than I’ve been in decades” 

Beside him, Dipper yawns, and when Ford spares a glance over at him he’s smiling at him sleepily.  “We’re really happy you’re here too, Grunkle Ford” he murmurs, and his eyes slip closed. Ford’s cheeks flush pink, and he has to choke back a laugh because that’s one of the first times Dipper’s felt comfortable enough to call him Grunkle. 

Ford stands, so as not to wake Dipper from his nap. A small glance to his right and he catches a glimpse of Stan and Mabel leaning against the side of the boat watching the sunset just outside of earshot of his current conversation with Dipper.

“You finally bore him to sleep with all your nerdy science talk?” Stan asks as he approaches, sparing a glance behind him at Dipper. “Was starting to think that the poor kid would never get a nap in” 

“Yes, well,” Ford smirks. “I’m sure it helped plenty that you bored him to death by taking him fishing first”

Stan gasps in mock offense, and slugs him in the shoulder. “Hey, at least I’m engaging them in something they can actually interact with, unlike your kooky alien stories, or whatever”

Ford can’t help the laugh that escapes him. “Bold statement coming from the man who dedicated thirty years of his life rescuing me from said kooky aliens” he says, returning with a punch of his own. Stan opens his mouth to argue back, realizes he has nothing to say, and closes his mouth. The sight of it makes Ford laugh even harder, keeling over and slapping a hand on Stan’s shoulder to support himself. It must be contagious, because it’s not long before Stan is laughing too.

Ford removes his glasses to wipe the tears from his eyes, and cleans off the lenses with the edge of his sweater. Once his eyes adjust after he puts them back on, his throat nearly catches in his throat when he glances back out towards the water. He’s just able to catch a shooting star before it disappears over the horizon, and the boat’s just far out enough on the water that there isn’t an ounce of light pollution obscuring the rest of the stars in the sky.  He takes a few steps back so he can look up and admire more of them at once, and if he looks close enough he can see them twinkling. 

Before he can ask the others if they’re seeing the same thing, a bright flash of light coming from somewhere on the boat cuts into his thoughts. He turns, to make sure that none of the lights in any of the rooms are on, but no, they’d turned those off when they’d started fishing. Scratching at his head, he turns to Stan and Mabel to ask if they have any idea where the light is coming from, but that question catches in its throat as quickly as it formulated.

They’re the ones emitting light.

Or, rather, Mabel’s sweater and Stan’s shoulder, approximately where his burn scar should be. Those are emitting light. 

...Surely it must just be the reflection of the starlight on the water, right? That same bright light must have woken Dipper from his nap, yes? 

He turns heel to ask Dipper the same question, but freezes in his tracks before he can take a single step forward. Dipper’s forehead is glowing too, the same way it has since he and Stan docked the boat this morning. 

It...It can’t be, can it?

Gripping his forehead, Ford takes a number of steps backwards until his back hits the wall. Maybe...maybe he just needs to call it a night. He’s been awake since sunrise, maybe his vision is just blurring because he needs to lie down? 

He waves his hands in front of his face, but no, those don’t look any different. He squints, to make sure his hands aren’t shaking, but no, they’re perfectly still.

He squints at Stan and Mabel, just to try and see if his eyes are watering, and-

He gasps. 

Mabel’s sweater, Dipper’s forehead, Stan’s shoulder; they’re not glowing; they’re twinkling like the stars. It was hard to tell in broad daylight, but now that they’re surrounded by a thousand shining stars, the resemblance is unmistakable. 

But...that’s not possible. If he can see them twinkling, but none of them have said anything about it, that could only be if those were…

...soulmarks. 

Ford suddenly feels like he’s going to pass out. 

He slides to the floor.

Is...Is that even possible? Ford thought for sure that study he read years ago was nothing but a joke. Someone...who does everything in their power to bring you two together, no matter the cost? Someone who, even though you may not meet for decades, will feel as though you’ve known each other their entire lives? Someone who will do anything for you, no matter the personal expense?

Someone...someone like Stan, who spent a painstaking thirty years teaching himself quantum physics to rescue someone that anyone else would assume dead? The man who sacrificed his very mind, his very life, so he could be spared physical torture?

Or...someone like Mabel, the first friendly face he saw after emerging from the portal? The one who forgave him so easily after he tried to separate her from her brother? The one who insists on calling him a good person, despite all of those he knows he hurt? 

Or...Dipper? His kindred spirit in all things supernatural? The one who, alongside his sister, sacrificed himself as bait for the most dangerous being in the entire multiverse? Who saw memories of him at his very worst, and apologized to him for snooping?

After everything he’s been through...could things really work out that well in his favor? To not have one soulmate but three, and the guarantee that they’ll never leave, because they’ve already expressed how they love him so? 

There’s a tear streaming down his cheek at the thought, but he’s too distracted by a fourth light suddenly emitting from...himself to really notice.

He spares a cautious glance downward, and notices a pulsing light emerging from his chest in perfect time with his heartbeat. If he looks closely, he notices that the light travels down his arms and ties itself into a translucent bow around his fingers. If he looks closer still, the light looks as though it’s slinking faintly across the deck of the boat and reaching towards the gentle twinkling of Stan and Mabel’s marks.

Ford places a hand to his forehead, throws his head back, and laughs his throat dry, paying no mind to the tears pouring down his face.

[tahthetrickster]

His Feet Stained Red (1.2k)

an old experimental OC short from 3 or so years ago that tumblr apparently ate so now i have to repost it. love a hellsite

x

There's something about a summer evening in the backwoods of Georgia that makes a man want to settle up.

Maybe it's the nights out on the back porch, watching the neighbor kids running 'round in bare feet with Mason jars in their hands to fetch lightning bugs, admiring them at home for a night or two before they die in the jar. Maybe it's the dull, constant hum of the zapper by the porch swing, flaring up as the swarms of summertime moths take their annual Icarian flight into the light. Maybe it's the return of the little local church's Backyard Bible Clubs, the kids dusting graham cracker crumbs off sticky lips and chubby hands and finishing out the Lord's Supper with thimble-sized cups of Welch's Grape Juice.

If you asked me, I'd tell you it's the way the summer heat crashes over you when you walk out your back door, washing over every inch of bared skin in an instant. It's reminiscent of when Brother Aubrey's wife—God rest her soul—would bake bread in the cramped church kitchen, tossing a cup of water into the oven base, scalding steam curling around her bony white fingers as she shut it up again. It's the way the air itself settles on you, heavy as anything, scorching and sticky with humidity, making even drawing your breath a struggle for all the moisture. “Air you can wear,” my granny used to call it years past.

It only takes one Sunday evening of sweating through your sundress in the rickety old pews, fervently fanning yourself with your tithing envelope and cursing the busted window unit, to realize that you don't never wanna go somewhere that's hotter than this.

I reckon that's why folks are more pleasant in the summertime down here in the back end of nowhere. More willing to lend you a hand tool, or offer up a glass of sweet tea in exchange for some help out in the yard. More liable to show up to church on time, filling out the back pews but for the few aging deacons who still took the front.

More liable to try damn near anything they could to make sure they were well-respected in town. I reckon they figured it would transfer over in the end. Still not sure where on God's green earth they got that idea from. I sure don't remember my daddy ever reading that passage in the old leather-bound red-letter.

I reckon that's the reason he came up every summer. Wasn't no exception this year.

He always came up from the road that led down to the swamps, his bare feet stained red from the ruts dug into the old clay dirt road he walked on. My house—my daddy's house, before he passed some years back, God bless him—was the furthest one down that road. I suppose that's why I always saw him before anybody else did. I suppose that's why I never had much to discuss with him.

It was always an unspoken rule growing up in my daddy's house. Don't say nothing to nobody that comes up the road from the swamp if you ain't seen 'em go down into the swamp first.

He was black as night but for his feet stained red, and didn't ever have a scrap of cloth on him. If you weren't looking out for him, you might never even see him in the pitch black of the evening.

"Evening, ma'am," he called up to me as he approached. I nodded politely, leaning over the arm of the wooden rocking chair to spit into the brass jug on the floor. He stepped into the circle of my porch light and grinned up at me. Were it not for his bright white teeth and eyes the color of Georgia red clay, he'd've looked like a man-shaped hole cut out of the air. "Nice night, innit?"

I reached over to flick a spent cicada husk from the porch railing. "Yessir." I watched him for a moment, mulling over the pinch of dip held under my lip. "Hot as the Devil's own, though."

That made him throw his head back and laugh, revealing a blood-red tongue that came to a point in a mouth the color of tar. "I'm looking for work," he professed at last, still staring, still grinning. "You know how hard it is to find work these days. Reckon I could help you out some kinda way? I can do nearbout anything you need."

For an instant it seemed that the whole world went mute from the sheer intent in his voice.

"Sir." I paused for a moment, running my tongue over the packed dip thoughtfully, the only sound besides the cicadas and the nearby bullfrog the soft creak of my rocking chair on the wooden porch floor. I spat into the jug again. "Can't say that I want for much of anything, I'm afraid." I nodded at the porch stairs. "Why don't you sit a spell? Too damn hot to do much anything. Hottest damn night we've had in a while."

His smile vanished for a moment.

When it returned, it was sharper, an unnatural slant to the sides of his mouth. "You know, I believe I will."

He said nothing when he sat on the steps, simply watching me and grinning with that too-fake smile of his. I didn't say nothing neither, leaning back in my chair to enjoy a mild breeze brushing against my flushed skin. My nearest neighbor was still nearly a mile and a half back, as the crow flies, but if I strained my ears against the sounds of the evening, I could just hear the staticky twang of that old country radio station she liked to play at all hours on the wind.

I spat again. "You take dip, sir?" I was already packing the tin against my knee.

His eyes nearly glowed as I held out the open tin. The pinch he took seemed far too big, but he packed it under his lip expertly anyway and grinned broadly up at me. "For the road, then." And he stood again, far taller than he appeared to have stood before.

"Best walk on home," I advised, leaning back in my chair. "Past the witching hour now. Haints might be out to get you."

He laughed again, a jittering, hooting sound, and stooped to spit in the jug. "Soon, soon, soon. I still gotta get somebody willing to barter some work with me. Got any neighbors you wouldn’t mind pointin’ me towards?" I held his gaze evenly as I spat again. He grinned up at me, wide and feral, teeth stained with tobacco. "You're a saint, ma'am."

I waved him off. "Just as much a sinner as the rest of us." I ran my tongue over my dip again, watching him carefully. "Some of us more’n others."

He hooted with delighted laughter, thanked me again, and went off down the road, heading on his usual pilgrimage down the old dirt street towards town, his feet stained red in the night, leaving no sign he’d ever been by but for the shallow cloven prints in the Georgia red clay.

[undercoverwizardfanfiction]

A Winter Night: A ROTTMNT Holiday story

Rating:G

Word Count;2358

for: @snakeeyesdraws

Characters: Donnie, Leo, Kendra

pairings: [takes breath, pulls out sword] LISTEN

update; i accidentally uploaded the draft the first time ^^’ i fixed though this is the finished version

An overtly saturated neon sign of a Santa selling sandals catches him in the corner of his eye. He uses his forearm to protect his aching eyes as he passed the sign. When he passes the blinding neon of Santa, the turtle takes a deep breath, a soft mist escaping his mouth. Honestly, he is grateful the streets aren’t more crowded. But not for his slowly numbing hands. He stuffs his hands into his unlined pockets and moves forward. Grateful more than ever that he had updated Shelldon with a heating unit so he didn’t have to weigh himself down with a heavy coat. It was making the walk to Hueso’s a bit more tolerable. He’d have to remember to update his brothers’ gear to include a heating unit like his. Course knowing them they’d probably use it to heat up marshmallows in their pockets and that was a mess he was NOT going to clean up for-

He is so wrapped up in the nightmarish scenario of having to clean marshmallows out of circuitry when a loud shriek of anger followed by a trash can flying past his line of vision causes him to jump on one foot with a shriek of fear

“Stupid AIDEN!!”

It takes Donnie a moment, and another trash can flying by his vision to realize he is not the source of anger, or in danger. He blinks and peers down the alley before having to duck in time for another trashcan to get stomped in the middle with enough strength to crunch it in half before, in a mixture of amazement he blinks. “Kendra?”

In a feral rage Kendra stomps a trashcan nearly in half before swerving around and glaring at him snarling. Her thick purple hair twisted in half ragged tangles, her beret lay on the ground as though she had thrown it to the ground before deciding that wasn’t enough to help vent her rage. Her half-crazed eyes narrowed at him. “What do YOU want?!” she bites and for a moment Donnie wishes he hadn’t stopped, “Are you here to ruin my day again?! Wreck my plans?!”

“Um,” Don blames his lack of ability to come up with a snappy come back on his even more urgent need to survive the next five seconds, or at least not end up like that trashcan. ”Are you doing something that should be stopped?”

Kendra narrows her eyes at him. “NO.”

“Do you HAVE an evil plan that I should stop? Again?”  With a snarl Don worries he might have said the wrong thing.

But then she lets out an angry sigh, “No, not now.”

“Um.” He really didn’t want to end up a Donnie shaped hole in the wall, “Then, no?”

Kendra narrows her eyes at him, Donnie could barely see the little puffs of steam burst out of her nose like a bull trying to figure out if he was a matador worth charging. But then she lets out an angry growl, ”Fine, go away then,” she says, crouching down and yanking the trash can back into a standing position kicking at it a few more times to try and un-dent it. Donnie glances back at the trash cans in the road and sighs. He pulled off his gloves, cursing the fact that he didn’t bring any extra rubber gloves, and pulls one of the trash cans off the street. Kendra glares up at him before eyeing the trashcan in confusion, “What do you want?”

“To not see cars hit trash cans? Is that supposed to be a hard question?” he asks, again berating himself when Kendra narrows her eyes at him, but lets him stand his trash can next to the one she had ‘undented’, she doesn’t thank him when he drags by the other one too. But to be honest he doesn’t really expect it. But he does finally notice that, even though she traded out her leggings for sweatpants, she’s lacking her purple dragons' jacket and is wearing a dark grey sweater and boots. All signs indicated she had not been planning on being outside in December and is using all the anger she had been trying out on the trash cans to not shiver, “Where are you going?”

“What’s it to you?” she demands.

Donnie raises his hands in mock surrender. “Honestly? I was just trying to help but if you’re going to keep acting like a jerk, I’ll-“ he wasn’t sure how he was going to finish that thought. ‘Walk away?’ ‘Blog about it angrily later?’ But it ended with someone shouting ‘heads up’ and something hard slamming into the back of his head, his vision exploding in bright colors and the breaking of a snowball contacting with his head. Off balance he finds his world spinning and himself on his knees, hands holding his head trying to make sense of the pain and his disorientation.

“Hey!” Kendra’s voice was far away, but that could be ‘cause she had stormed over to yell at the kids who had thrown the snow ball. “The hells your problem?! That was basically an ice ball you weebs.” Don could barely make out their mumbled sheepish apology. He pulls off his hat and touched the soaking bandana underneath. Any hope that it had just been snow went out the window when he drew his bloody fingers off his head.

“Holy-“ Sounds like Kendra was back, his vision was spinning so bad that he assumed the spinning purple mass by his side was her. “Hey how many fingers am I holding up?!” she said holding out her hand. He could barely make out her fingers but gave a weak, “Four?” with strength surprising for someone her size, she took his arm and lifted him to his feet, pulling his arm over her neck, “Come on there’s a hospital nearby-“

“NO,” he answers quickly.

“Are you kidding me you’re HEAD is BLEEDING.”

“And I'm a giant talking turtle which do you think will matter more to a hospital staff?!” He often wondered how Yokai managed in the city without access to a hospital. He had been meaning to ask Hueso about-. He blinks, there was no way he could let Kendra take him home. But he was already close to the pizza place “I have a place I can go. But you can’t go with me-“

“Again, your HEAD is BLEEDING,” she snaps. “I’ll take you where you need to go but I won't get any closer got it?” Donnie knew she wouldn’t take no for answer and only answered with a sigh and a nod. She pulls harder on the arm wraps over her neck and took more of his weight. Despite their height difference he barely touches the ground which only added more to the feeling of being disoriented.

“Thanks,” he muttered weakly.

“Don’t thank me til we get there.”  Donnie struggles to keep his eyes open but his swirling vision forces him to keep his eyes closed, a hand slaps his face lightly. “Hey stay awake nerd.”

“Pot calling the kettle-“ Donnie bit off the end of his statement as he tried not to dry heave. He could feel Kendras frozen bare arms through his coat and feels even worse for being out in the first place. “H-Hold on,” he says, stiffening his legs up to drag her to a stop. He manages to pry her arm off him long enough to peel his coat off leaving him in his long sleeved dark pink Atomic Lass shirt. “You’re obviously cold.” As callous as he is sometimes, he finds it’s better to be honest than to dance around the subject, “Shelldon has a heating unit that’ll keep me warm.” Though it wouldn’t help his arms, he could handle a few blocks though. Thankfully his vision is returning to some extent, enough that he notices Kendra looking to his pack and for a moment Don struggles not to shift to put the pack out of her sight, “That’s Shelly right? Is he still mad at me for tricking him?”

“Oh definitely. He has a stack of crayon drawings dedicated to his revenge on you.” He feels the shoulders on his back tighten as though Shelldon was reprimanding him for revealing his secret plans.

Kendra lets off a small shrug “Yeah fair enough, I’d probably do the same thing” before smirking directionally at the pack, ”But for the record little buddy, blue prints are a much better way to plot out revenge.”

Don tries to grin before dizziness settles in again. Kendra must have noticed since she ducked under his arm. “Hold on nerd, keep talking to me.”

He manages a nod, mentally keeping track of their location. “Wh-what were you doing out here kicking trash cans?” he asked. “And who’s this Aiden guy who has you so mad? Not that it's any of my business, but I’m kinda hurt there’s someone out there you currently hate more than me,” he says with an added offended tone that makes her glare at him in confusion. ”I mean not to brag, but I sorta consider it a pride and joy to have an enemy worthy of my intelligence.”

Kendra narrows her eyes. “Please, he’s not worthy of my time,” she says through her teeth. “There’s this guy in the robotics club with us, Aiden. A loser who couldn’t tell a snickers from a soldering pen. There was a contest to submit the best blueprints, and who ever won would to be our project for the semester.”

“I’ve seen you build stuff on your own though. “

“That wasn’t the point,” Kendra lets out an angry huff, “I won, like I knew I was going to. But he got second place, I checked the points and he was twelve points away from wining. Twelve! The loser pretty boy who had his private tutor help him.”

“But you still won-“

“-He shouldn’t have gotten that close. I did all my work by myself. Didn’t ask for help, spent nights coding and drafting. I should have left him in the dust a broken swaddled nerd with broken dreams. But no. I made sure he knew how I felt about it, but the creep tattled on me. Freaking snowflake got freaked out because his blue prints ended up on his front porch on fire. Since when is that illegal.”

“I mean,” Don pauses, “I think always.”

“Anyway, I got kicked off the club and that’s why I'm out here.” She shrugs. “If my Dad or step mom saw me getting this mad then they’d make me do the ‘breathing exercises,’” she said with air quotations, “Being all ‘Kendra we’re worried about you’ ‘Kendra we love and support you we just don’t want to see you go down a bad path’ and ‘Kendra where do you keep getting access to all this fire!?’” Her frustrations forced her to kick out at a sign they passed but thankfully not hard enough to knock it over, “So as soon as I’m done helping you, I’m going to see my Mom. She’s the only one who gets me.”

Donnie blames his concussion on being so surprised Kendra had a mom but tried to keep it off his features. But judging by the quiet scoff from Kendra he hadn’t done a very good job, "How about you Greeny? Why did you come out here if you already had a concussion? Don’t pretend like you didn’t have one, I saw the bandages when I was checking your scalp. You already had a head injury before you got hit in the head.”

Figures his hat would blame him, and his own disorientation for forgetting that Kendra had checked his scalp. “It's complicated.”

“More complicated then plotting revenge on a spoiled white boy in a Vanilla Ice t-shirt?” she says in a tone that tells Donnie she’s trying to make a joke. And despite his best efforts not to, he snorts slightly, “No, I'll agree it’s not that complicated.” But it still feels weird to share with a certified enemy who once tried to steal the Spirit of Labour Day (don’t ask can’t explain). Thankfully she doesn’t rush him as he tries to collect his thoughts. “I got into an argument with my brother.” He still doesn’t want to let her in on too much information. “My brothers are all protective of each-other but he's’ protective in a way that makes me nuts. He thought it was too soon for me to go out with this whole situation,” he said gesturing to his head bandage, “And I disagreed. Except I didn’t really do it in the best way.”

“I think I know what that means,” Kendra says. “Did you say something bad?”

For a moment, it takes all of Don’s remaining mental energy to not think about Leo’s face, watching his concerned features fade away to one of hurt. So hurt in fact he hadn’t even called after Donnie when he stormed out. He lets out a sigh. “I did. I wish I had a reasonable excuse for it, but to be honest I don’t like feeling like I'm depending on people. I don’t like feeling like he’s always concerned about me. I especially don’t like him being right about it.”

“Sucks when it feels like you’re under-appreciated huh?”

“Yeah.” He could make out a familiar sandal store that housed Hueso’s alley. “We’re here,” he says.

Kendra looks around, and for a moment Donnie is concerned Kendra is going to insist on taking him ‘inside’ but she ducks from under shoulder. “You sure?” she asks, “I can take you further.”

“I’m good, thanks though.” He tries to give her a confident smile but his lips only twitch in response. She gives a half shrug before she starts pulling off his coat. “Keep it. You have a long way to walk and I still have Shelldon to keep me warm.”

“Thanks,” she says pulling the coat back on. “I’ll catch you later Greeny,” she says. She looks like she's’ about to walk off when she pauses. “But for the record, it still must be nice to have brothers who have your back.”

“It is.” Don nods. “And honestly Aiden sounds like a little bitch.”

For the first time since their strange encounter began Kendra put on a full smile. “Thanks,” she says before walking off.

(#)(#)\/(#)(#)

Leo didn’t snore.

So when his phone went off amongst his makeshift ‘pillow floor’ in the living room he did not ‘snort’ awake. He made a strangled noise before sitting up. Patting his sweatpants and hoody pockets before diving into the mass of pillows. Breaching a moment later like a whale with his phone in his teeth. Hueso’s ID is flashing across his screen. With a scoff he answers. “For the last time BONE man I don’t work today-“

“First of all, that is NOT how you politely answer a phone,” Hueso starts with a snap of his teeth. “Second that’s not why I'm calling. Your brother is here with me.”

Leo blinks, he blames his previous hibernated state on why it took him so long to remember which brother had left the lair. “Donnie? Is he ok?” he said already going to his room and looking for his sword under his bed.

“He is alright, but it looks like he got hit on the head pretty hard-“

That’s all it takes for him to charge out of his room, lingering only long enough to grab the toolbox he used for a first aid kit, and grabbing his portal sword from the kitchen (vaguely remembering he had used it to cut some cheese for his peanut butter and cheese grilled sandwich earlier) and slicing the sword down to activate a portal to Hueso’s office. Without saying bye, he hangs his phone up and jumps through.

The aforementioned skeleton, who had been glaring at his phone as though offended Leo had hung up on him, gave a shriek as the turtle appears by his side. “BAH! Leo, I hate it when you-“

Leo immediately tuned him out when he saw Donnie laying on Hueso’s couch with an ice pack over his forehead, he hurried forward and knelt down. “You ok buddy?” he asks.

Donnie looks up at him from under the ice pack with a weak smile. “I don’t know, are you really uglier than the last time I saw you or is that my head talking?”

Leo couldn’t help but grin. “I thought brain injuries were supposed to make people nicer,” he says. He turns to the toolbox and starts going through the first aid supplies inside. “Thanks for letting him rest. In your office,” he tells Hueso as he sets aside a pen light and some new bandages.

“Why wouldn’t I? Out of your brothers he’s most definitely my favorite.”

“Wait you have a favorite?” Leo looks to him. “Then who's your least favorite?”

After a pause, Hueso gives a wide and strained grin. “I will leave you two to it. If you need me just call me,” he says before ducking out quickly.  

It’s only then that Leo turns his barely contained worried energy on Donnie “What happened? Who did this? Do you have their address and sleep schedule-“

“Leo,” Don starts in a pained voice, “Please, my head feels like someone tried to split it with an ax. It was an accident. Some kids hit me in the head with a snow ball.“

Leo was about to start on another tirade of questions when he forced himself to take a deep breath, “Yeah, ok, I'm sorry,” he says. Also trying to ignore Donnie’s missing coat. He looks back to his supplies and pulls out a pen light. “I’m going to check your pupil dilation, but only if you're up for it.” He waits for Donnie to give a slight nod before he lifts the pen and carefully pushes the ice pack away from his eyes. Using his thumb to cover Don’s opposite eye without actually touching him, with a flash the pupil constricts and dilates as it should. He does the same process to the other “Well that’s good at least,” Leo says. “How’s your vision?”

“Spinning, but I think that’s from the pain.”

That would make sense. The red slider turtle rose to sit on the edge of the couch, carefully unwrapping Don’s scalp as gently as he can, checking his facial expression for any signs of increased pain before he lets out a sigh of relief. “It's just a surface bleed. It doesn’t look like the actual injury itself reopened.”

“That’s good,” Donnie says with a soft sigh. “You’re doing a good job.”

“I had a good teacher.” Leo made sure to give Donnie a soft smile that the turtle barely returns. “Let me just change the bandages and we’ll head home when you feel up for it. Maybe we can order some pizza; I've had a monster craving for anchovy and chocolate syrup pizza for days-“

“I was wrong.”

Leo blinks, pausing from unwrapping the new bandages with his hands. It takes him longer than he should to realize what Don’s apologizing for and when he does, he only returns to digging through his kit. “You were a little right,” Leo says quietly putting aside a bottle of alcohol, “I mean it's kinda right, right?? You're usually right-“

“No, Leo.” Donnie tries to sit up but fails to get up more than a few seconds before Leo’s grip on his arm forces him back down. “Leo I was wrong. I was angry, my head was killing me I would have said anything to hurt you. You don’t mess everything up-“

“Except I do?” Leo lets out a soft laugh. “I mean I do. Between the minotaur's pizza and Big Mama I'm surprised I get anything right-“

Don’s hand grabs his shoulders and before Leo can stop him, the soft-shell forces himself into a sitting position with pure grit alone (judging by the pain filled grimace on his face, “Would you listen to me?!” Donnie demands shaking him by the shoulders, “I shouldn’t have even said it but I would have said anything. I was angry at feeling so helpless and dependent. I was angry because you were right for trying to stop me from going out. I did need your help and I shouldn’t have been so difficult. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-“ his last sentence is interrupted with a sob that helps him notice the tears running down his face. Donnie lets out an aggravated huff as he presses the heel of his hands against his streaming eyes to help spare his dignity in some way.

He feels the couch shift as Leo shifts closer, wrapping his arms around him. “Ok, ok you were wrong. I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing Leo,“ Donnie manages to say from his brother’s shoulder. “I’m the one apologizing not you, idiot.”

“Alright, alright I apologize for apologizing. You were wrong I was right. Is that what you want to hear?” he asks. Don nods into his shoulder. Leo rests his cheek on Dons’ shoulder rubbing his shell for a few moments as Don’s erratic breathing finally starts to calm down.

After a few seconds Don lets out a small sigh, “Damn it, I was doing so good too. I can't even tell anymore if these are meltdowns or panic attacks.”

“As long as you don’t have to deal with them alone when you don’t want to, that’s all I care about.” Leo gives him a final squeeze before reaching up and taking Don’s shoulders, gently guiding him down to lay down again. “Ok buddy. I’m going to rewrap your head, and then I'm going to go order us some food and portal us home. You just relax ok?” He waits for Donnie to nod before Leo starts applying some alcohol to a cotton ball. “I’ll be honest though, I’m sorta surprised you made it here safely.”

Don for the first time since Leo entered Hueso’s office looks him with his tired blood shot eyes. A soft smile forming on his face as he relaxes. “Yeah,” he whispers. ”Me too.”

[the-magicians-blue]

A Thought: Fluffy Hawks Head canons (NSFW parts)

So I was thinking

This man

This oversized chicken right here

Is a ✨h o t m e s s✨ when you first start dating him

You know that cocky front he use to put on when y’all first met? That smirk he’d give you trying to look all sexy?

That was yeeted out the window

The man is a simp

Its mainly because he’s so excited he doesn’t know what to do with himself because like he’s actually in love??? And you love him too??? Like he would go to jail for you???

He’s always been so afraid of allowing himself to be in love let alone start a relationship and he’s diving in head first. He doesn’t wanna hold back his happiness

The original plan was to keep your relationship quite for now seeing how both of you were heros and your relationship being public would put targets on both of your backs

That was the plan

Your relationship became public in two weeks flat

At first it was small things that the other heros and on lookers would notice

For example:

Whenever you’d cross paths with him during patrols his feathers would flutter excitedly

Often times whoever he’s patrolling with would see it before you do.

You didn’t realize this was happening until one day you saw him walking with Endeavor.

You called his name and before he even turned around his feathers were going.

He almost hit a car running across the street to you.

He gets to you and just goes:

:D hi baby bird :D

Yes calls you by his nicknames in public

And expects you to do the same

Literally he will not respond until you do

Anyways

Endeavor waits till traffic stops to cross the street and just shakes his head at the both of you

“You know he does that when you call him too. Even Edgeshot has seen it”

And if you even so much as tap the man

His feathers poof out completely

It happens usually when you hold his hand or kiss his cheek when no ones looking

He even twitches a bit when they do

It happened once during a battle too

You tackled him out of the way of an attack. You were on top of him asking him if was ok and he just:

..... poof

His favorite is when you drag your finger under his chin

He’s knees go weak

He’ll start giggling like an idiot too

He also coos whenever you hug him

Mirko hates having to patrol with the two of you

She’s basically just third wheeling on your work date

However since the billboard incident she’s been much more willing to patrol with Hawks.

When they last patrolled together you had gotten off early. You called Keigo to ask what he wanted for dinner

And he picks up WHILE FLYING

All you heard was “Hey baby bir-“

Then nothing for about twenty minutes

You then get a call from Mirkowho can barely stop laughing long enough to tell you what happened

The poor man flew face first into a billboard while trying to answer his phone

There’s a video of it on youtube and its been trending ever since

As things progressed rumors started to spread

Your companies started getting calls from the press

You started getting the stink eye from a few of Keigo’s fans

Comments about you using Keigo to rise up in the ranks

One fan had the audacity to bring up right after the two of you finished rounding up a few thugs that were robbing a bank

“Y/h/n is good and all but lets be honest, they’d still be a nobody if it wasn’t for Hawks. They’re just using him for the attention.”

Hooo boy did that man regret speaking

Keigo rushed at the man, his wings fully spread out and feathers poofed up, making them look even bigger

He looked furious.

“Don’t you ever talk about my baby bird like that. EVER again.”

You had to step in between him and the civilian, getting Keigo to at least put his wings down before apologizing to man

When the two of you went back to speak to the police Big Bird over here did nothing but complain

“Why’d you apologize to that asshole? You know what he said was wrong.”

“Yeah but for all they know we’re just coworkers. They have no idea we’re together “

You could almost hear the gears turning in his head as he stared at you

And then with no warning the man kisses you in front of at least one 100 people

Lets just say while your company was happy for you they were not happy with the swarm of calls and crowd control they had to do

But at least now most people expect you and Keigo to protrol together which meant much more time with your goofy bird man

NSFW

Now don’t get me wrong just because the man goofs off now

In no way means the sexiness he had when y’all met is completely gone

He may have yeeted a lot of it out the window he keeps some hiding in the closet

This mans mouth is f i l t h y

He lives to see you flustered in public

While working he may come up behind you and whisper something along the lines of:

“You look good in your hero outfit Dove but I think you look much better riding me.”

And your just standing there like !?!?!?

Excuse sir I’m trying to be a hero right now could you maybe not be horny on main???

At home its worse

Lets be real here Keigo Takami is a certified switch

When he gets home its either:

“I’m gonna ruin you” or

“Please fuck my brains out and call me cute.”

We’re talking about sub Keigo first because yes

He’s lives to please you

He wants to tell you how gorgeous you are while you tell him how good of a boy he’s being

The m o a n s that come from this man

Especially if you grab close to where his wings meet his back

Immaculate

Please peg him

Has called you mommy/daddy/master on multiple occasions

Now Dom Keigo is dangerous

Will overstimulate you

Will leave bite marks every as well as hand prints on your ass

Loves choking you. The way your body reacts gets him going every time

Call him daddy and he’ll lose it

Challenging him during sex makes him go feral. He loves when you act like a brat.

Afterwards though its riggt to being a clingy goof

Cuddles you for the rest of the night

You better use the bathroom before he gets comfortable because after that he’s not letting go

You make him too happy for him to be away too long

[eohachu]

Post pictures of your first ever (fictional/celeb) crush to the latest one and tag five others to continue the game.

Ali tagged me, thanks. I guess 😘 @lanzhansmiles​

A’ight so I’m simply taking this as an opportunity to show off my frankly impeccable taste 😌 *coughs into the crook of my elbow with my mask on and from a safe distance* More under the cut, godspeed!

I’m tagging uhh I really don’t want to expose anyone but uh. @morifinwes​ @ttaechwita​ @sunshine304​ @treemaidengeek​ @flamingwell​ no pressure tho!!

Since 2006

Janina Fautz: Die Wilden Kerle, anyone?? Tbh i had a crush on quite a lot of the characters/actors but in hindsight Janina was and is the most influential one. Also probably my first ever girl crush (again, in hindsight bc it took me until 3 years ago to finally find out i’m queer lol)

Eva-Maria May: Yeah well I’m not gonna talk about where I know her from let’s say it was an incredibly bad soap opera my mom used to watch. She was one of the reasons why I went Yeah I Have Always Been Into Girls. I was pretty obsessed with her to the point where mini me secretly printed out a photo of her to look at lmaooo the signs have always been there and it’s truly amazing how I had been missing them for years

Amy Adams: Her as Amelia Earhart in Night at the Museum was also definitely a huge Thing to young me. Again, I had been completely oblivious about this crush for years

David Luiz: HAH! This is the point where we do NOT get into my football/soccer crushes bc this list would get WAYYY too long hahaha. I had to cut loads of people from my list for this post bc I develop a new celebrity crush every 5 minutes basically but yeah. David Luiz was definitely my biggest football/soccer crush out of..... everyone else

M*rvel

I don’t have a lot to say about any of them since I’m not into m*rvel anymore TFATWS makes me want to stick the tip of my toe back into m*rvel waters but otherwise NO THANKS

Sebastian Stan was, if my judgement of my archive is right, the longest highkey celebrity crush I’ve ever had. Mostly because I love Bucky a lot and he was so amazing in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I must’ve had a crush on him for as long as I had been in the m*rvel fandom

Recent Past

some celeb crushes from last year that were all more or less short-lived tbh

Ester Expósito: As it often goes I didn’t find her spectacular in the beginning but as Élite went on I started to develop a huge crush on her. I still find her pretty hot but I’m not invested in Élite so yeah..... I have no object permanence

Mina El Hammani: Got to know her through Élite, too. She’s so incredibly beautiful. Had a hard time choosing a photo of her bc I’d stare at every single one for ages. Wow.

Danger Days!Gerard Way: Hah! The ones of you who’ve been following me for longer might remember my posts about wanting to dye my hair neon red. Well, him’s the reason and also clinical depression. Ended up with natural red/ginger bc my hair is too thin for bleaching lel. ANYWAY

Maxence Danet Fauvel: Pretty short-lived crush from my Skam days

Ramy Moharam Fouad: So Ramy has a brother, Tamino-Amir Moharam Fouad, who makes INCREDIBLE music. Ramy made some of his music videos (directed them? not sure), that’s how he came to my attention. Idk man he’s just so incredibly beautiful.... gives me a hint of genvy, too......

Janelle Monáe: Became a fan when Make Me Feel came out, listened to the entire album for days and eventually inevitably crushed on her

Lera Abova: Saw her in ANИА and fell in love. I screamed to my friends for weeks about how she was the most beautiful human being I’d ever seen etc etc. Eventually my crush went away mostly, but I still think she’s stunning

Keiynan Lonsdale: Keiynan said FUCK gender and I said 😍😍😍 and that’s all you need to know.

Current

*deep breath* alright let’s gooo

Bright (Wachirawit Chivaaree): Crushed on him for as long as I watched 2gether/Still 2gether lmao. I still like him a lot and sometimes lose my mind over him but I’m not exceptionally Thirsty™

Tul (Pakorn Thanasrivanitchai) and Max (Nattapol Diloknawarit): If you search either of them on tumblr you will have to scroll for a long, long time to find seperate photos of them. However, I’m not patient enough so here we are. Re: Tul, actually I want to copy/paste what Ali said bc DAMN a man who is confident about his masculinity and sexuality really is kinda hot. Same goes for Max tbh. Also Max’ lips look so soft I [redacted]

Lukas von Horbatschewsky: Also known as Lukas Alexander. He did an amazing job in Druck and he’s just a person I admire in general. As one of the few out trans actors in Germany, he had a main role as a trans boy in Druck and also co-wrote Druck’s seasons 5 and 6. He’s just a huge role model to me and, apart from that, Big Crush Material (h i s  e y e s)

Li Wei: Someone suggested him as Hua Cheng for the TGCF live action and my life hasn’t been the same since. While I’m open for whoever will get that role in the end, I could look at his face for hours and not get bored. Major Genvy, too.

Li BoWen and Liu HaiKuan: I will have to deal with these two in one paragraph bc LanLan bc they have the exact same effect on me which is. that they’re not 100% my type but I WILL go absolutely feral about them at regular intervals, if you know what I mean

Song JiYang: ohh honey. oh honey.......... hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I have a natural affinity for aquarius ppl and this one lives in my heart rent free. I’d even make him soup if he’d ask.

Wang YiBo: WELL HOLY SHIT. listen. LISTEN! the hype around him is 100% justified imo he really is That Bitch and I love him so so much for it. Fucking ICON

Honorary Mentions: Gender Envy

Here’s to the People I Thought I Had A Crush On But Not Quite until I learned the word Gender Envy:

Zhu YiLong: Man, this is the person who’s mainly responsible for me finding out AT ALL about not being entirely cis. The POWER he holds!!! His performance as Ye Zun in Guardian was like a breakthrough point for me which. certain people witnessed in real time hahaha oh I love this fandom!!

Zhu ZanJin: HIM. AAAH!! He’s literally so beautiful and whenever I see him I just go ZANZAN!! in my head and in the tags bc. well. hIM.

Xiao Zhan With Long Hair: Look, Xiao Zhan is always amazing but BLESS the person who made these manips. I can finally rest.

Wang YiBo: uhh what’s he doing here again?? Tbh YiBo is one of the few, if not the only person that gives me Major Gender Envy that I would also [redacted] if they asked. Do I want to be him or be with him? The answer is Yes.

I skipped the fictional characters bc I tend not to crush on them 👉👈 Instead I will just directly crush on the actors/actresses lol!

Thank you for bearing with me. As a prize, you can choose between a ladder supported forehead kiss, or a bowl of homemade soup. ❤

[ciggylungz]

High school

Butterflies and bandaids-

Chapter 2: High school

Y/N has never been more nervous for a first day of school in her life. High school, gag. Today is something she's been nervous about yet highly anticipating since she was little, partly to blame on movies glorifying high school when both her older siblings, and her best friend sing a different tune about it.

And that lands them where they are now, Harry sitting on his best friends bed eating a bowl of cereal he snagged from her kitchen, her mom topping him off with some milk while he made his way up to her room.

She's nervously tugging at her clothes in the mirror while making little upset noises, turning to the older boy with a nervous frown

"Do I look ok h?" She tugged on her shirt a bit and he nodded while chewing, speaking with his mouth full

"Look fine love, we all have the same uniform, we literally all look the exact same dont worry about it." he'd managed to swallow while talking and she nodded still uneasy

"But I feel like I look dumb in it.."

"We all look dumb in it, it's ugly. You pull it off well though love, blazer's a little loose but other than that you look great" He gave her a smile and she nodded sitting next to him on her bed to put her shoes on and he blew into her hair

"Curls are tickling my face girl, watch where you swing them might end up making me sneeze into them" he chuckled at his own joke and she rolled her eyes at him in the mirror.

"Cmon gimme a smile Y/N, don't be so nervous sweetheart I'm gonna be there, I'll make sure you're ok, swear by it." He held his pinky out to her and locked them together, doing their handshake before he gets up, cracking his back and grabbing his bowl taking it downstairs both of the teens going into the small downstairs bathroom to brush their teeth, Harry having his own toothbrush there since he practically lives at their house.

Y/N nervously followed Harry as they started walking to the school fiddling with his blazer sleeve as they walked , only when he cast a glance down at her did he realize how scared she looked, he knew his girl was shy but she'd never been so nervous to go somewhere before causing him to halt and gently hold her cheeks, pouting when he saw her glossy eyes, tisking and dabbing the corner of her eyes

"Relax, breathe...there you go, Dont panic Yn, it's a half day anyway just 3 hours, you'll be alright I swear and we can hangout after and watch movies, Can even get some snacks on the way back" she'd let out a deep breath and nodded

" I'm sorry...get so nervous...been trying to work on it, probably should have asked mom for one of my xanax Cus I feel like I'm gonna have a heart attack" he just rubbed her back gently

"You'll be ok, cmon just 3 hours" he reminded her as he took her hand and guided her into the building.

••

Three hours came and went and soon the pair was reunited outside at the school fencing, Y/N smiling when she sees the much taller boy approaching her and he gave her one right back

"Ahh there's my girl! See I told you, piece of cake. You nailed it love, proud of you" they did their handshake before he hugged her to his side, walking with her towards the little corner shop to get her the treats he promised

"Take your pick" he told her as they stood in her favorite isle, the candy isle, smiling as he watched her scrunch her freckled nose up and nibble her lip as she thought about it, they both already knew what she'd pick, yet she always thought about alternatives even when she knew they didn't have a chance, picking up her usual, a pack of bubble gum and a little baggies of cherry candies she likes, smiling at he pays for them and hands her the little packages kissing her head as they both chew a piece on the way home.

The boy absentmindedly spit his piece in the street as they approached her house earning a immediate halt from his best friend

"Harry! I told you, don't spit gum on the ground a bird will eat it and die!" She exclaimed rather passionately and he groaned

"Sorry sorry, forgot" he stuck his tongue out as he picked the gum off the cement and wrapped it up tossing it in the trash, earning a smile from her

"Good boy" she patted his cheek and he rolled his eyes and pushed her hand away

"You sound like my mom, cmon I wanna watch movies before the monsters get home from school, how does your mom handle 6 kids? Miley literally BITES!"

"Harry she's teething, she's a baby"

"She's feral" he muttered making both of them laugh as she unlocks the door tossing her bag on the couch and slipping her shoes off, both of them making the haul up the stairs towards her room

"Gonna change, you have clothes here to change into ,put them in the third drawer mom just did wash" she motioned to her dresser as she pulled out a pair of pajama shorts and one of the oversized hoodies her brother had given her with his university name on it, stripping the tights off unaware of her best friends flickering glances at the girl literally stripping in front of him, innocently, yet he's a teenage boy he can't help himself sometimes.

He watched as she slid her skirt off, boy short style pale blue panties coming into his view, quickly covered with the sleep shorts, shirt off next showing her standard nude colored bra before she slid the hoodie on, putting some fuzzy socks on and flopping on her bed, pulling her phone out while he changed, forcing himself to think of dead puppies and old people so he didn't pop a stiffy over his best friend, they'd changed in front of each other since they were kids, his mom even gave them a bath together a few times when they were little and got dirty in the garden, but of course they were both little and innocent then...Yn didnt have the curve in her waist, the small yet perky breasts, the more filled out figure, hips and ass back then, yet she'd always been beautiful, he seems to find himself finding her more and more beautiful on the daily.

He changes quickly and crawls in bed with her plugging his phone in and leaning back into her yellow pillows, so comfortable in her rather girly room to even be worried about looking silly with her flower printed sheets and couple stuffed animals in the right corner against her headboard. The room is comforting and familiar, he could navigate it with his eyes closed, Thats how much time he's spent in here over the last 10 years of friendship.

She pulled her curly locks into a messy bun and tied her hoodie strings like she always did, grabbing her candy and the remote handing it to him while she pops open the bag, setting her phone down.

"So tell me about your first day love, what's the verdict?" She shifted the candy to her cheek and swallowed the bit of saliva that collected in her mouth

"Was ok...still a little scary, lot bigger than middle school, some older girls were being bitchy, I didn't appreciate that. Had science and English with some people I knew last year and met a girl named Penny and a boy named Elijah, they're very nice, Eli was very nice to me so I felt a little better." She crunched the Cherry snack between her molars as she finished talking and he hummed

"Wow, already finding new best friends are we?" He teased and she let out a breath through her nose

"Not a chance, you're my Harry. Could never replace you, wouldn't ever want to. Love you to bits" the young girl smiled at him and he smiled back, warmth crawling up his chest at her sweetness

"Love you more princess bubblegum, cmere gimme a cuddle while we watch something"

[iguessishouldbethankful]

Sly Cooper 1 Review:

As in, I recently completed the game and since I was asked to, I will give my review on it. I’m a little nervous because this is the first time I’m doing this, so hopefully I’ll get this right.

KEEP IN MIND: I did not grow up with this series, and I am going in after @oroanillado gifted me the entire series for the PS3. I am a new fan who basically grew up on Nintendo products, so my views might come off differently.

ALSO: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Onto the review.

0. Initial Reaction:::::::::::::::::::::::::

I was pretty surprised how the game collection required no download or installation. So that was a good little bonus as I could immediately sit down and play it without much of a wait. As for the starting point on top of the roof... lemmie say that Sly is adorable at first glance. His movements are fluid and it’s very satisfying to control him--especially the fact that he has a bass sound to his steps that is beyond addictive. I love it.

Not to mention the music is nice. Not exactly as memorable, but I can listen to it and it does give the area a feel.

And then Bentley opened his mouth. Whew boy. Okay. Rok heard my live commentary every time he opened his mouth, so it’ll be a theme. It wasn’t that bad at first though so it’s mostly me wanting to explore the Police Station. It’s mostly a tutorial level so it’s nothing impressive, just giving the feels.

When Carmelita showed up, like expected, I was stunned by two things: she owns an extra fancy taser gun, and that slow as fuck taser gun is able to cause the destruction of public and private property as a massive scale. Ma’am, can we talk? Can you not blow up the cars?? LADY-

As for the comic style animation? Yes, perfect. I was looking forward to it and was not disappointed. I love the cartoony look it gives to the whole world. Which is something else I noticed--the feel and look of the game is very much like the love child of Banjo Kazooie and Psychonauts. The colors and collectathon.

Also the character motivations for Sly, Bentley and Murray are believable. All are orphans, and Sly saw his family get killed but the bad guys and the family book of thieves stolen. Carmelita? Eh, wish I had more context to her but good cop trying to catch the robber is good enough.

Note: I had no idea Carmelita was actually someone that worked for Interpol. My dumbass thought she was just a French cop. The more you know.

As for the hub safehouse area, it’s simple and direct to the point.

Okay. We good? Now onto the levels.

1. Tide of Terror:::::::::::::::::::

Sly dies in one shot.

Sly dies in one shot.

Sly dies in one shot.

No. This was okay. I was determined to find out how I could get around this. I explored the initial open area, collecting the coins and trying to get the bottles because I knew that the point of the games was to collect all pages, right? So I needed the bottles to get the clues so Bentley could give me the code. Thing is, I ran into a few problems on the get go. BESIDES SLY BEING A ONE HIT WONDERBOY.

I didn’t know I could pimp whack enemies with the cane. So I see this walrus looking mofo just hammering away on a boat and I’m like... How do I not aggro this dude. Keep to myself, reach areas I new I could jump to, and... OH FUCK THERE ARE BOTTLES ON THAT BOAT GOD DAMN IT! Fine. Let’s sneak in. By sneak I mean run around the walrus and realize that the guy just sees me and hammers harder. What? Okay then he doesn’t chase me. Get the bottles, realize after 5 minutes that Sly’s pimp ass cane can in fact obliterate the ship’s pole to get the last bottle, before trying to confront the walrus.

So I died the first time. Then I smacked him. You know, for a one hit wonder as Sly is, I appreciate that the enemies are the same as well. That balanced everything out and not made it a colorful furry version of Dark Souls. So off I go. Up the ladder and jumping right into the second area where there are search lights. I’m like okay, let me go around these and--

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE ROSE BUSH KILLED SLY?!

GOD DAMN IT!!

Yes, a lot of this happened. It has been a while since I played a colorful game like this and I a lot of this is simple designing that is obvious, but I am also someone that enjoys finding other ways to get around them. So many choices in the game seems nonsensical. A raccoon unable to brush by some thorn bushes was rather hilarious. I was basically fussing at full volume while Rok was laughing at me. Which was good, I meant to be hilarious.

I discovered the wonders that were the search lights and that they are easily turned off in the small sections. That I could in fact dodge most attacks from the minor enemy characters. Realized that this damn raccoon cannot swim to save his damn life. LITERALLY.

kjsdbkjsd And then I realized that I was missing quite a few bottles once I got to the end. I was frustrated. I wanted to get them all already. So I went back and tried figuring out how to get them and I SWEAR TO GOD I CANNOT EVEN LOOK AT THE SAFE WITHOUT BENTLEY GOING “YOU DON’T HAVE THE BOTTLES NEEDED TO OPEN IT U-”

Bro. Bro I know. Bro please.

Shut the fuck up.

Got the bottles and moved on. Found out that I absolutely adore Sly being in a barrel and wanted to take that barrel with me everywhere but I couldn’t. Realized that Sly puts come paper cuts outs of his emblem in opened up safes and--can we talk about this? Does Sly just sit in his room with colored craft paper and cuts these out every night? Does he redo them if one comes out funky? Does he get glittery paper or is it like the kiddy kind? Does he do them in the van? Is it with scissors or an x-acto knife?! How do you make these bro you don’t simply walk into a FedEx’s Kinkos to print these out!

Anyway, I’m learning more tricks as I go along, getting all of the keys and bottles and I do go back to each stage to get all of the damn bottles because I am not leaving one behind because I really want all of the pages. I am also seeing all of the death animations Sly does and honestly, the humor in each of them is not lost on me at all. I adore them. The first time I saw him just realizing he’s gonna fall to his death and he just-

I busted laughing so hard and Rok got to hear me lmao oh my god-- But for real, most of his death animations are strangely adorable in my opinion. Especially when he just falls and his little leg twitches. They never made animations like that for other games I played so far (not even for Banjo Kazooie). And the lightness of everything makes it less frustration in my opinion. As though I had no problem if Sly died along the way. Whereas I would get way more frustrated with how Mario or Banjo would die.

Anyway those are my tidbits. But lemmie tell you something.Once I got to the last stage where I needed to get the 7 keys to access the final boss? There’s a treasure chest with crabs mini games.

FUCK. THAT. GAME.

The only reason I got through it was because I’m stubborn and I distracted my frustrations in my chat with Rok as I had this damn raccoon swim around in a submarine, killing about 100 crustaceans just for 40 chests!! 40! Not a normal number like 20 or 25. No. 40. That drove me nuts for some reason.

Anyway, finally got to the final boss after I collected all the horseshoes and lives around the main hub of the level, and then yeeted Sly from the canon ALA Wind Waker style.

Raleigh is freaking gross. Not in voice, but his animation made me feel really nasty with looking at him, which in my opinion was a good visual design and motivator to get rid of him faster. It was also easy to sort of find out what the boss fight was requiring from me in the end--making it so much easier as well. I guess for a kid it’s a bit more difficult and I can understand that. I just enjoyed the fights for having a repetitive nature that was satisfying. Like even if I died many times, the game didn’t throw me all the way out of the level at all. It restarted the fight from the beginning and that, to me, was a good way to introduce me to the entire function of a Sly Cooper 1 boss fight.

I felt happy when I defeated Raleigh. And of course, Sly isn’t a “killer” so froggo dude is still alive, just in prison after “HOT LATIN FOX LADY” caught him. Of course. Can someone tell me where Carmelita is from? Is she Spanish or Mexican or..? Like was that defined by the games or was it thrown up in the air?

Anyway, onto the next level.

2. Sunset Snake Eyes:::::::::::::::::::::

Lemmie just say that I actually enjoyed Mugshot’s backstory? It made me feel really sympathetic towards him in a way.... Despite him being a murderer but you know. It was a nice touch.

Okay so, are any of you familiar with the whole “Mickey Mouse is taking his dog Pluto for a walk” dilemma? Well, I had a moment like that as well in this section. Why? Because Mugshot has feral dogs all over his turf and that messes me up a lot for some reason. Like I always wondered how, evolutionary wise, can an anthro dog and a feral dog look so similar? I had a moment like that as well when reading Farewell, Beloved Falco. There was a feral pig in that comic and it bother the fuck out of me. But it didn’t impede me from playing the game.

The look was very much classical American desert wasteland in the middle of nowhere. Possibly southwest USA if I were to guess, and I liked the feel of the casinos and run down RVs, trailers and cars. However it made me question why this place was a junkyard almost if he kinda has a functioning casino. For Raleigh I could understand because it was a hideout, you do what you can right? Even if you have a fucking floating metal blimp over your hideout, like that won’t catch military attention at all, nooooooo--

But like, an abandoned casino suggests that it was once owned by the mafia or a mob, and just--Okay. Police regulations and gun control. Etc etc, I’m rambling on about things that have nothing to do with the game. Back to the design.

Again, collecting all the bottles like a desperate AA member that needs a hit for old times sake and running back to open up the safe. Can I just say that the names of each Cooper ancestor is rather amusing? Like some have the most dumb but adorable names. Huckleberry Cooper jfc--

And once I got into the main hub, I got my first taste of the “Murray can’t think without his stomach thus gets himself in trouble and needs to race his Moon Rover turned into a Van to win one of the keys” mini game and “Bentley told me I gotta keep you alive as you run through this area full of trigger happy criminals, Murray, plEASE STOP RUNNING IN FRONT OF MY BULLETS MURRAY-” mini game. Nice. Not as bad as the 40 treasure chests crabs.

Also, why would Mugshot or his minions just leave a red sports car running on reverse for days on end?? Anyway.

The inside of the casino was a nice section to play ngl. I enjoyed that a lot. The platforming too, despite some of the bottles being utterly difficult to get without having to die and do the entire section again to get them. And then comes the level when Carmelita decides to destroy private property because she’s after this dumbass raccoon. I wonder how she felt seeing him jump around back and forth breaking bottles and dodging her SLOW AS FUCK TASER GUN.

“Could you stand still?!”

“Nope. Not my fault you couldn’t get a license for a firearm.”

Finally I got to the Mugshot boss fight and like the first one, it was a very satisfying fight. Mugshot had me in stitches because he walked around with his long ass arms instead of his legs at first like lmao! Also once I got to the final third stage, I was all cautious and excite to jump around the wires. Yessss.

Defeated, all bottles collected, Carmelita caught this villain as well, and off we go... stealing shit from the USA before coming back to the Safehouse? Alrighty then.

3. Vicious Voodoo:::::::::::::::

Let me tell you something about myself. I have an intense love for Voodoo in video games. Started with Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father, Princess and the Frog and I had an intense call back to one of the swamp areas of Banjo Kazooie in this level.

So basically, this is my favorite level.

I think it’s also the level where I argued the most with Bentley as well. Or at least the second one because, since the very first game, he keeps repeating the same obvious commands all the time with a constant reminder of press the O button. Sly? Sly?? SLY! PRESS THE O BUTTON! Bentley? You’re cute, but you gotta stop my dude.

The sliding effect on the long branches was a lot of fun, the tree enemies that had more than one hit kills were also satisfying to beat the shit out of. I also enjoyed the general murky color of the level in general. Just the spooky was definitely my aesthetic. You know what wasn’t my aesthetic? The first mini game I ran into, which was the candle mini game where Bentley would repeat himself all the time right at the start of if you had to restart the level. I muted the entire thing and had Sly mindlessly killing the fishes to turn on the candles while blabbing to Rok on the phone so it was easier for me not to get nervous about the time limit or the amount of candles I had to turn on. It was the same thing with the Chicken Gumbo mini game, but I didn’t mute that one. Because Bentley stayed quiet.

Also, @oroanillado​ is the biggest troll. I was on the beast section of the game and they did not describe to me what it was like. So I’m honestly not expecting much at all, just wanted to grab my bottles and go. Once I’m halfway though, and I already saw the water moving around I’m having Amnesia the Dark Descent flashbacks like OH SHIT OH FUK O Shi- But no. No. What got to me was... This intensely huge serpent coming out of the water and chasing me and my camera kept pointing BACK instead of pointing forward so I could navigate Sly out of that mess while also getting the fucking bottles along the way!!

I was shrieking!! I have an acute fear of things that are larger than normal (it’s connected to my Agoraphobia). I have that with whales and sharks and fish, so I usually avoid big mobs if possible in any game. Yes, including the 3 mythical dragons from Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. @thekursedone-lylat​ was present when I was freaking out about saving Naydra and how huge it was. But at the same time I have a big fear of these sorts of creatures, I was laughing and cursing at the end of the level because honestly, Rok was having a good time and so was I.

Oh yes, also the other mini game where I had to navigate the same speed boat thingy and shoot down the on coming ghosts and flaming rocks was pretty annoying until I figured out I needed to destroy the pillars where the ghosts came from. Then it was easy.

But my absolute favorite section of this whole level was the Green Water Full of Body Parts and Bones. Bentley was losing his shit at the beginning of the level and I would accidentally yeet Sly into the water of decomposing bodies like yeah, yeah the turtle won’t like the smell of this. It was just a well designed level, so I had no problems having to redo it to get all the bottles again and again.

Now, the boss fight? I was warned about this ahead of time so I had to unfortunately put Mz. Ruby on mute so I would concentrate on her attacks but apparently they were supposed to go with the rhythm of the song and the Sly Cooper Collection messed that up? I think she was the only Boss I was really wanting to listen to as she talked because she was giving me good “yeah I’m bad, probably not the best one in the group, but I don’t care I’mma own up to it so try to dodge my attacks as best you can” vibes. It was also entertaining to see Sly go Neo with some of the commands.

All bottles collected and onto Winter in China.

4. Fire in the Sky::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Oh hey look, fireworks!

.....oh.

Surprisingly, this entire stage was rather meh to me? It worked like the others, felt like the others, but I really wasn’t as wowed by it. It might also be just the fact that I mostly saw white in general due to the snow, and spent most of my time looking for a few bottles on one section that really irritated me. Like I legitimately got mad in one section and didn’t want to deal with it because of the noises some of the monkeys were making.

This section. I hated it so much because I thought the bottles I was missing were in here and 2 of them were but I needed hints for it. Argh... Everything else in this section was pretty much a blur for me besides the two mini games with Murray, and the one level where Carmlita came back again, destroying more private and ancient property with her taser gun--and the main reason I remember this was because:

Carmelita saying she was going to catch criminal scum Sly and Sly just went “you really need to get woke, I’m not the bad guy here.”

I collected all the bottles but Bentley told me I had to defeat Clockwerk before I could open this damn safe, and it was the only one requiring this!!

Carmelita went down with the dragon statue, into the hypothermia levels of cold water while shaking her fist into the sky.

I will say the part of Sly and Bentley discussing the whole mechanics of Sly taking the rockets into Panda’s lair was pretty funny tho. Just,

Bentley: Hey you might be able to reach the top of the tower before these explode.

Sly: Okay but what if they explode before I get there?

Bentley: Then I guess you’ll blow up into many pieces.

Sly:

As for the Panda King boss fight, it was okay. I just kept running in circles around the arena while approaching the dude. Defeated him and was like okay, I really need to go and defeat Clockwerk now so I can open that safe.

5. The Cold Heart of Hate:::::::::::::::::::

Look.

I get Sly probably weighs next to nothing, Murray, but could you at least break once Sly gets knocked off the top of the van? Or when the rocks are falling down towards us, maybe also step on the breaks so not everyone is being driven to their ultimate death?

No?

Okay.

I will say, I headcanon that both Bentley and Sly were getting an intense case of whiplash when Murray was driving that van around at 120 MPH collecting all 60 computers because... Bentley needed those to hack into something??? It wasn’t as bad as the 40 crabs and treasure chests but man. And then of course there’s the section where, oh surprise surprise, Carmelita is in an obvious trap, slamming her fist on the glass, needing to be saved. Bentley warned Sly it was a trap. But of course Sly is like:

OH THANK GOD THE BARREL IS BACK.

Anyway, obvious trap is an obvious trap. Carm just bitches at Sly right as he gets stuck in the glass chamber and is sprayed with RAID. So Bentley has to save his ass. This is possibly the mini game I dislike the most. I just put Bentley on constantly circling mode as he shot down the targets.I died about 9000 times before I won.

Carmen is all Oh I was wrong about you the whole time Sly!

Sly: Duh.

And off we go to the next section where Sly lost his cane and he needs to recover it with Carm’s help. So I’m controlling Carm’s taser gun. Guess how many times I purposefully killed Sly? Many. For funsies. Because the gun magically got faster once I was behind the trigger.

Next section was the whole climb up the beam tower as it’s being consumed by lava! I very much enjoyed this whole climbing bit. It was fun. Again, died a lot and I actually glitched through the walls because I jumped somewhere I wasn’t supposed to and had to kill Sly along the way. But still very fun.

FINALLY.

CLOCKWERK.

Are we serious? Are we actually serious right now? Clockwerk had absolutely no motivation beyond ultimate hate? WHAT?! That’s just... not a satisfying reason ngl. Anyway, the jetpack flying section was probably the easiest thing ever and I loved it. What I didn’t like was the laser section that came after it... I kept dying. Again. FUCK. THOSE. LASERS.

Clockwerk speaking random little words while malfunctioning was super cute those. I don’t why, but I loved it. I was shrieking by the end of everything though because once I got right at the back end, where I’m supposed to jump on this mad owl, I was not expecting the head to jump on me. HHHHHHH!!!

Anyway, I killed Clockwerk dead. Back into the lava you go. Witnessed Sly give Carmelita the slip of the tongue and handcuffed her onto a railing over an active volcano before yeeting himself. Classy. Then back to his old tricks again with the gang. End credits.

NO WAIT.

The last chest. In the Panda section. Yeah I went back for that and got the extra ending.

0. MY RATING::::::::::::::::::::

Honestly, 8 trashcans out of 10. If Clockwerk actually had a believable motive besides hate, I’d give it a higher rating. But the game is satisfying and I love the mechanics of it.

Bentley just needs to chill the fuck up tho. God.

[montpahrnah]

Hi Eve! For the prompts... r&s, first meeting, only two people riding the night bus? I feel like this has dialogue potential and you write the best conversations, honestly!

He couldn’t be sure, but when the guy stepped onto the bus Remus was sure he’d seen him somewhere before, so sure he could almost feel the name like a spell itching at the back of his throat, though he knew it was unlikely; later he put this all down to the unseen hand of fate or whatever as it seemed to be some of the most definitive proof he’d ever been given that everything happened for a reason. Later still, much later, he decided this was total bullshit and torched the idea along with just about everything else Sirius had ever given him. But in those first few moments, watching him walk down the filthy aisle caked with grit and snow the piss-poor heat wouldn’t melt, Remus stared like the guy was something good—something he’d been waiting for.

“Lousy night,” he said, taking the seat next to Remus though the entire bus was empty. He smelled like cold skin and cigarettes and his lips were very nearly as chapped as Remus’s, dark circles under his eyes; he was handsome, and he’d bitten his fingernails down to bloody stubs, and he was trying to hide that he was scared shitless about something. “You been on here long?”

“Fifteen minutes maybe,” said Remus. In fact he’d been on the bus for the better part of an hour and still couldn’t decide where would be safe to get off and not get frostbite walking home, but it wouldn’t do to say so. “Might’ve missed my stop.”

“It’s after midnight. Not the best time to be missing your stop.”

“Not the best time to be getting on the bus in general probably.”

“Or talking to strange guys.”

“You sat next to me. What was I supposed to do.”

“I was talking about you but honestly, touché.” He leaned back in his seat and smiled, sort of crooked, incisor pulling on his bottom lip. After a second Remus turned away but he could still see him looking from the corner of his eye. “I’m Sirius. Since, you know, we’re both gonna be here for a while.”

“How’s that.”

“You wouldn’t be on the bus after midnight on a Sunday if you weren’t in some kind of deep shit.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Remus, but from the start he’d smelled the magic on Sirius like blood or coming rain, held like a breath or a flame he could shape with his hand. He’d sometimes wondered what his own felt like, having had to teach himself. Charred, maybe. An edge of something feral, trapped in a bedroom somewhere. At this juncture he realized he still smelled like woodsmoke. “Tomorrow’s my day off. Got nowhere to be anyway.”

“So what do you do?”

“I’m a nurse.” Maybe not for much longer, his mind supplied; his hand clutched at one of the straps on his backpack, which was heavy and being held very still between his feet as its contents were worth more than Remus’s life. “I work shitty hours. Makes it hard to sleep sometimes.”

“Mmm. I thought hospitals mostly did like, that twelve-hour shift thing.”

“Mostly, yeah. But I work in a nursing home.”

“Filthy work.”

“So what do you do? Go to fuckin grad school?”

“How’d you guess.”

“Lucky, I suppose. You just seemed like one.”

“Well I dropped out. I work at the printing press. Better than wiping asses for a living.”

“You’re never too good to wipe somebody’s ass,” said Remus, “but I guess that’s why you’re a grad student.”

“Were.”

“Semantics.”

“Facts,” said Sirius. “Anyway I bet it’s nice working around women all the time. You could have your pick of basically anybody.”

“That’s sexist as fuck. Healthcare in general is sexist as fuck and that’s actually a really clear example of reason number, like, twenty-eight thousand why.”

“Which one of us is the grad student?”

“Fuck you, I’m serious. Maybe you should go back to grad school and learn something this time,” he said. “Maybe you could find yourself a girl.”

Finally Sirius’s fucking knee stopped jerking and the smile, which hadn’t quite left his face for the duration of their fifteen-minute acquaintance, turned something in the neighborhood of predatory. “But not you.”

“I mean it’s after midnight on a Sunday and I’m on the bus talking to strange men.”

“You’re also the only magic I’ve found here for a while. Not sure what you’re doing, you know—”

“Wiping asses?”

“Yeah.”

“Same thing you’re doing at the printing press, probably. Or the same thing you’re doing riding the bus this late.”

“I was just trying to flirt with you, man. Sounds like you’ve got some personal problems.”

He was, as Remus would learn in the weeks following, a genius deflector—second only to Remus himself, who was also a better liar than Sirius but not quite as good at conniving or manipulating. In another life they might’ve been Old West villains destined to kill each other; in this life, Remus fell in love with him. But this was the mother of all personal problems.

“I’ve got problems a lot bigger than your shitty flirting, to the extent that you should probably forget you saw me after this. But best of luck elsewhere, I’m sure someone else’ll fall for it if they’re desperate enough for a blowjob.”

By now Sirius had turned to him so Remus had no choice but to look out at the murky river and the gauzy swirl of lights swimming in the slush outside the window or him; what he really wanted to do was dive out the emergency exit in the back with his backpack and apparate somewhere else, anywhere, but Sirius was blocking the way, and his body and his magic were warm, so warm he almost wished Sirius would touch him, and then—and then, the narration in Remus’s mind provided, pausing over this moment a hundred million times, never sure if he’d conjured it with unspeakable magic or if Sirius had somehow felt it pulsing like an electrical current, ashamed and afraid but yearning and yearning, touch me touch me touch me if you don’t fucking touch me I’ll die—Sirius put his hand on the inside of Remus’s armwhere his jacket was rolled up, fingers wrapping around his wrist. He could feel his heartbeat changing beneath Sirius’s palm, like a song thrown off-kilter by the sound of another voice, flowing into something else.

“You should come home with me.”

“Did we not just establish that I’m in deep shit.”

“Well we can be in deep shit together,” said Sirius. “And not to brag but I’m good at blowjobs.”

“If you have to say it—”

“Maybe you should let me fuck that bad attitude out of you, is what I’m saying. Then we can talk about what’s in that backpack.”

Good fucking god. “I don’t trust you,” he said. Indeed he didn’t. In their entire acquaintanceship, friendship, relationship, love, all of the above, whatever the fuck it ever was, this would never change. “Why should I.”

“Because we’re the only magic around here for miles. Because you’re gonna come home with me. Because I can help you.”

“I hardly think you can fuck away the kind of problems I’ve got.”

“You’re pretentious and secretive, I like that. But you’re really a lot more obvious than you think you are. And I like you.” His thumb was tracing up the blue branch of Remus’s vein-line to his palm, pressing into the heartbeat. “Or you can walk home in the freezing cold because you’re shit at warming charms. Your choice.”

“Fuck you. Buy me dinner first.”

“I can do that. Shit, I’ll cook you dinner.”

“I’ve got a few people looking for me,” said Remus, “just so, you know, that’s what you’re inviting into your life.”

“Maybe we’re running from the same people. You ever think of that?”

“We absolutely aren’t.”

“Whatever. One more stop—your call. Just remember this isn’t the last you’re gonna see of me. It’ll be the only time I offer you a blowjob, though. And you’ve been looking at me like I’m a dog biscuit this entire time. I’m just saying.”

Months later, years later, he would return to that moment on the bus:  watching Sirius get off at the next stop in the slurry night-light downtown and then going after him, into the dark leading anywhere. He’d think of it at work late at night or making a deal in an alley a hundred miles away while Sirius was at home asleep or not, wondering which came first that night:  Sirius’s conniving or the first mutated cells of his own sloppy oozing dripping-wet idiot love. In the end he’d decide Sirius had been lying all along, but by then it didn’t matter anymore. In the end he fell in love and that was where the trouble really started, though he could never pinpoint exactly where it went wrong; possibly it was never right to begin with. Semantics, Remus would’ve said; facts, Sirius would’ve countered. And it was a fact that Remus never did manage to fall out of love with him.

[dansnaturepictures]

20th August 2020-Lakeside and home photos 

I took the first picture in this photoset this morning another one of lovely House Sparrows feeding in the garden. This was quite nice to appreciate as normally this weekend in years we’d be heading to the Bird Fair at Rutland Water where we very often saw the lovely Tree Sparrows we didn’t last year anyway. But knowing this is surely two years without seeing a Tree Sparrow now for us seeing the House Sparrows sort of reminded me and comforted me. Obviously as I said I am happy the Bird Fair was cancelled in the interest of public safety it had to come first and before heading off for our Devon weekend away instead this weekend I enjoyed watching a virtual Bird Fair event tonight which was great. 

There is all sorts happening there over on: https://virtual.birdfair.org.uk/ its been a great idea to run it. 

I then today went out on my Lakeside walk at lunch and like when at home it was fantastic to see the sun back after yesterday! I enjoyed a hot and sunny walk and just lapped up taking photos once more and saw so many opportunities of views, trees and wildlife that looked so good in the sun. I took the second and third pictures in this photoset of views and as I walked round I enjoyed seeing the House Martins flying over we will not have these migrants for much longer what a year I have had for them at Lakeside and at home. 

As I came to concorde lake on a rather general walk here today taking in most of the site ahead of my four days away from walking here obviously something very different happened for me. I looked at something which I thought may be a stone by the side of the lake on the edge of the water or it could be something else. It turned out it was that something else and it was a terrapin! I had seen these at Lakeside years and years ago notably the first day we saw Great Crested Grebes in 2007 I believe a key bit in my early birdwatching days happening at a time when my sister kept turtles as pets actually. I only mentioned this to someone online the other day. So I could not quite believe I had seen this animal here. It will have been a pet that had been released as I believe British waters (currently anyway and this goes back a few years) are too cold for them to reproduce. It is quite a common thing in urban areas. The other unique thing is I produced today the fourth and fifth pictures in this photoset. They are the same photo. I saw the terrapin very quickly so took the fourth picture with my big lens quite a zoom in and by the time I got from where I was standing to over there it had gone. So I cropped in it always needed a super crop as intended in the fifth picture but I felt the fourth picture looked quite nice as a landscape the full picture when I processed my images so this was a first for me creating two pictures from one it will be interesting to see if this happens again. Seeing the terrapin was a very unique and quite delightful thing really. Obviously they have adverse impacts on the birds and natural wildlife here if too many are about but its just one of those things you cannot blame the individual animal for what happens and why it was dumped there and I just wanted to enjoy seeing it in the sun. 

As I walked on I took in more great views of the Great Crested Grebes and chicks in the sun here, I took the eighth picture in this photoset of them. I got a memory of that time seeing terrapins here early on a time when my snake phobia was a reptile phobia its just tortoise and turtle were the only ones I didn’t mind looking at. I said something so early into wildlife watching, not acknowledging at that moment they were released pets thinking if they have turtles here what else do they have and was I to see something I did not want to because of my phobia. Today I saw a massive fish in the water right below me on the jetty in the clear water and I mistook it for a snake for a brief minute it was so big. I varied my wildlife photo subject base both ones here and ones I tweeted I took so many again today and took the sixth picture in this photoset of this fish. 

I took the seventh of a lovely view over the lake looking very blue. When home I took the ninth picture in this photoset of lovely flowers in the garden, and tonight the tenth of another invader a Box Tree moth. They are known as a pest as their caterpillars do decimate certain plants. But it looked so beautiful adding well to my year of moths my Mum and her husband had seen one so I’d hoped to. An interesting moment seeing it tonight. Well tomorrow we travel to Devon for three nights. I hope to see lots and take many pictures again. I have no idea if I’ll have the wi-fi in the cottage we’re staying or how good it will be so I may have to upload everything photo and blog wise Monday/next week. I might have some updates if possible whilst away on Twitter. Have a wonderful and safe weekend everyone! 

Wildlife Sightings Summary: My first ever Box tree moth, one of my favourite birds the Great Crested Grebe, Coot, Moorhen, Mallard, Mute Swan, Black-headed Gull, Goldfinch, House Sparrow, Robin, Starling, Woodpigeon, Collared Dove, Feral Pigeon, Magpie, Jackdaw, Kestrel, House Martin, Meadow Brown, Comma and Large White butterflies, Common Darter dragonfly I tweeted a picture of it today a male on the way home exactly a week after I photographed a female at Lakeside which today I am very proud to say became the latest of a few pictures of mine this year I have had printed in the Hampshire Chronicle newspaper via the Hampshire Chronicle camera club group I am in on Facebook and terrapin. 

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 43

The one where Sophia’s administrator is officially hired, and an odd story about black cats features.

Or, “Sometimes the real world is as weird as fiction”

For all that I joked about books being my truest, most lasting love – after all, who still loves the same thing in their thirties that they loved when they were three? – life on the Ark kept me so busy that I was ashamed to admit I did not know where the archives were.  However, I was always willing to learn more about the ship and take the chance to meet new people on the way. As such, I tucked the promised tomes into a satchel and decided to walk there, using my datapad as a map. A little voice somewhere on processor four, where my conscience and good will toward people tended to be, told me that travelling on foot would give people the chance to see that I wasn’t afraid, despite what happened.  Maybe it would help make them less afraid.

That was three hours ago.  Both of my shoulders ached from swapping the bag of books back and forth over the course of my idiotic trek. I was sweating slightly, and somewhere along the way I decided that the ‘little voice’ at the beginning was not, in fact, my conscience or belief in people, but instead came from processor five, home of Bad Decisions. I was completely certain of this, because the same voice had been telling me for the past thirty minutes to burn the books anyway and just be done with it.

To my relief, my datapad indicated that the door in front of me was my destination. Unlike most common areas on the Ark, this door was not labelled in any way that a human could interpret.  Early on, Miys made it very clear that the doors were, in fact, marked by the architecture and gave back a specific echo when hit with a certain frequency – one that humans could neither hear nor create without technical assistance.  I took a moment to straighten my bearing and run a hand through my frazzled hair before approaching the den of my soon-to-be administrator.

Alistair Worthington was nowhere in sight, but what I did see compelled me to let out a confident and completely dignified squeak.  Books.  Hundreds and hundreds of real, tangible, paper books.  The smell of ink and glue invaded my lungs like the most intoxicating drug ever created.  I don’t know what I had been expecting when I imagined there being an ‘Archive’ on the ship, but this wasn’t it.

This was a library.  One like I hadn’t seen since I was a kid.  Every shred of exhaustion and frustration vanished from my body as I trailed my fingers gently over the spines on the shelves.  I honestly wanted to cry from the sheer sensation of being reunited with a long-lost friend.  You can keep your hymns, your prayers, and your sermons, I thought. This is the most religious experience of my life.

My reverie was shattered painfully by the sound of a throat being cleared behind me. “Miss, please don’t touch the – Oh. Councillor Reid.” Worthington’s face snapped from stern to surprised when I turned on him, not even bothering to wipe the tears from my face.

Without a word, I untangled myself from the satchel I had been carrying and held it out with one hand. When he just glanced at it in confusion, I shook it. “Your books. I promised I would bring them myself, and I try to always keep my word.”

After only a split second of additional hesitation, the man before me showed the only spec of emotion I had seen in our brief encounters by eagerly snatching the bag from me and digging through it like it held everything he ever wanted. Ah, I thought, arching a brow. So you are human, after all.

“There are two missing.” He actually sounded disappointed.

Shaking my head, I tried to wrap my Councillor bearing around me. “No, there aren’t.  Antoine Costa decided to keep Love in the Time of Cholera, since it was made here on the ship and the source does not negate the fact that it is his favorite book. Tyche Reid did agree to donate two of her graphic novels to the archive, but made a personal choice to keep Blankets, as is her right.”

With a sigh, he nodded in terse acceptance. “I suppose I can learn to live with that.”

“Archivist Worthington, there are fifteen books in that bag.  None of the books that were donated or reclaimed were found to have Baconist propaganda, so that is all of them beside the two which were kept by their rightful owners,” I pointed out in frustration. “Besides, I carried those down here, on foot.  It took me three hours. The least you can do is show an ounce of gratitude.”

He was clearly unimpressed, if the flat look he pointed at me was any indication. “For honoring our agreement and delivering them yourself, yes, I am grateful. However, I did not ask you to foolishly make that trek without the use of a transport, especially not when you are still recovering from your attack if I remember correctly. How you convinced your over-protective sister to even allow this – “

“Tyche does not ‘allow’ me to do anything, Mr. Worthington,” I cut him off icily. “I am a grown woman, and I am capable of making my own decisions.”

“That does not mean they are intelligent decisions, apparently,” he grumbled. “You clearly have more sense than this, I am baffled why you decided to walk down here.”

He had me there. After an awkward silence, I decided to change the subject. “Where did the rest of these come from?” I asked, running a finger along the edge of a shelf. “I know they aren’t confiscated.”

“I brought them from Earth, mostly,” he breathed with a nod. “Maybe three months before I arrived on the Ark, I stumbled across an old book store. Imagine my surprise when I saw that, somehow, it had not been broken into, the books not used for kindling.”

“You may as well have found Atlantis while you were at it,” I replied, not even half joking. In ten years, I had only found one or two books that were in sufficient condition to still read them, and more gutted and burned libraries than I wanted to remember.  Book were paper, paper made good kindling. Sadly, religious texts burned the best, since they were usually printed on thinner paper.  College textbooks were a close second.

Clearing his throat, he continued. “When I woke up on the Ark, I insisted that either the books come with me, or I go back to Earth.  Books are history, I explained.  And those who fail to learn from history…”

“Are doomed to repeat it,” I finished with a nod. “I completely agree, and I’m sure Tyche would agree with your determination.  She managed to talk Noah into bringing the pets and genetic samples of the wildlife.”

“It is an Ark,” he conceded. “Would be a shame if we left the fauna behind. They did not ruin our world, after all.” He glanced away with a familiar haunted look. We all had ghosts, it seemed. Shaking his head vigorously, he seemed to snap out of whatever memory he was stuck in. “I’m just glad she did not bring any actual mice.  They destroy books like nothing else.”

“No mice, just a cat,” I reassured him with a small smile.

“Ah, yes. Mac.” Worthington wrinkled his nose slightly. “A bit cliché, isn’t it? A witch having a black cat?”

“Ooo, someone never asked about the cat,” I sing-songed. “He’s shared, for starters. Mine, hers, and apparently the entire ship’s.  But he’s also part of a long-standing tradition, one that goes back further than I can probably tell you.  It’s unrelated to the witch thing, although that seems to be tradition, too.”

“Most people find black cats to be bad luck,” he sniffed, making it clear that ‘most people’ probably equated to ‘superstitious idiots’ in his mind.

I shook my head and chuckled. “Not my family, not by a long shot.  Black cats always seem to find us, and we always seem to have at least one.  No idea why, but I can’t remember a time when a woman in my family didn’t own a black cat.” A glance showed that the archivist was waiting expectantly. “When I was three years old, my family lived in California.  Tyche wasn’t even born yet.  Someone dumped two newborn kittens on our doorstep, a tabby and a black one. Smokey and Dragon.  Mom went that day and got the formula and bottles to nurse them, and we kept them until we had to move across country.  Then we were adopted by strays, first in Arkansas, then in Washington… When we moved back to Arkansas for the last time, not a week after we moved in, a gorgeous long-haired black tom showed up on our doorstep. Shadow. He was already grown, and half feral, but he always came back to our house.  Not long before he vanished for the last time, one of our other cats, Monster, had a litter of kittens.  Nearly every one was black.  The girl, Onyx, was our next black cat.  Then I went to college, Onyx died of a very venerable old age, and on my way to class one day, a kitten screamed at me from an engine block.  I fished him out, and that was the original Machiavelli.  Mac is his grandson, by the way.  Mac stayed with Tyche, and I ended up with first The Dread Pirate Timmy, and then Nicodemus. There were other cats, but always at least one black one.”

As I told the story, I had been walking along the edge of the room, trailing my fingers along the tops of and down the spines of the books.  I glanced over my shoulder to see Worthington’s head tilted and a strong look of thought on his features. “My family is heathens,” I clarified. “As far back as we have a family tree.  You have to look really hard to find any major Abrahamic religions in there, and there’s not a drop of noble blood in our veins unless you count the Vikings.”

“Vikings were quite noble,” he muttered, still lost in thought.

“Maybe that’s why we never bought into the whole ‘black cats are bad luck’ thing,” I shrugged. “Cats are cats. They eat vermin, they make good companions. Self-sufficient, not very needy. So. I need to know that you’ll get along well with Mac.”

“Wait.” He shook his head again before taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “What? Why would I need to get along with your cat?”

I turned to fully face him, wide grin on my face. “Because, Mr. Worthington,” I flicked the file toward him from my datapad with a flourish. “You, sir, are my new Administrator. Congratulations.”

Finally losing all his composure, he started sputtering. “You – you cannot be serious.  Did any others even apply?”

“Over a hundred, actually,” I confirmed, enjoying myself. “Forty made it past Xiomara Kalloe. Seventeen survived a second, deeper background check.” No need to mention Derek. “You, however, were the only one with a recommendation letter from my sister.”

“She doesn’t even like me,” he argued.

“Not in the criteria for the position, fortunately,” I explained. “And you’d be surprised.  You aren’t afraid of her, which is significantly more impressive than you seem to realize.”

“You have clearly never taught teenagers,” he responded wryly. “Nasty little shits, they can be.”

I continued, trying not to laugh. “You’re determined, which is something she understands. But probably the most important is that you were the first person who I encountered after what happened on Level One who didn’t treat me like either a hero or a helpless victim.  You saw me as a Councillor, expected me to act like one, and trusted my judgement.”

“I argued with you,” he pointed out.

“Do you not want the position?” I asked, arching a brow at him. He stopped arguing. “Even the fact that you argued with me is a point in your favor, not against it. You argued reasonably, logically. The disagreement was not with me personally, you were simply trying to get me to understand both sides of the debate.  I’m not infallible, I’m human. I can be wrong, and today proves it.  I can’t have someone assisting me who will agree to whatever I say just because I’m the one saying it. That way lies madness, despots, and the End.”

“I was really the best candidate?” he asked, still skeptical.

“I wasn’t part of the deliberations, so I can’t answer that honestly. But I do know that you were the one that my sister and I most approved of, based on what we knew of you.  And the Council agreed on your appointment unanimously. Which means Grey Hodenson also decided, after what I understand was weeks of deliberation, that you were the best for the position.  If that does not speak volumes as to your qualifications, I really don’t know what else would.”

“Huh.”

“Like I said, Administrator Worthington, congratulations.”

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[marril96]

Single White Witch

Chapter 1: Lost

Characters: Rowena, reader, Sam, OC

Pairing: Rowena x reader

Summary: When Rowena gets kidnapped by an unhinged witch, you enlist Sam's help to rescue her.

Editor: @oswinthestrange

Rowena's head was throbbing as if someone had smashed it with a hammer. She felt hungover, as if she'd drunk a whole bottle of scotch and, light on her feet, sedated by the strong alcohol, passed out cold on a bench in a park.

Had she gotten drunk and passed out cold on a bench in a park?

No. That wasn't what happened. She hadn't been drinking. She didn't remember drinking anything other than tea in…

How long was it?

How long had she been out?

She tried to bring her hands to her head, wanted to massage her temples and rub her eyes, but for some reason her arms wouldn't move. She pulled, startlingly weak; whatever she was on, whatever was in her system, seeping through her veins like poison (for all she knew, it might as well have been poison) had numbed her down enough to drown out her strength. Something tightened around her wrist, bit painfully into her skin. Rope, she deducted. Or straps. Some kind of binding.

She was trapped.

Shivers ran through Rowena at the realization, fear cutting to the bone, to her very core. Her eyes snapped open, wide, confused, terrified. She was in what appeared to be a bedroom. There was a closet in one corner and a desk full with a computer and a printer in the other one. The walls were white and bright, freshly painted. On them hung pictures in elegant, expensive frames, the kind used for artworks of great, long-dead painters in galleries.

Pictures of her.

Rowena's blood ran cold as she took the sight in. There were various pictures of her, some drawn, some painted. The majority, though, were taken by what appeared to be a professional, high resolution camera.

She had never seen them before. Had never consented to them being taken. The moments they showed were private. Her smiling. Laughing. Fixing her hair. Flexing her muscles because you'd dared her to. Pouting at your teasing. Holding up a forefinger in your face, a mock threat. All happy, carefree times captured in secret from afar.

Times she'd spent with you, in a sea of many, many more similar ones, all equally happy, equally loving.

The pictures, though, only showed her. Whoever had taken them was obviously obsessed with her. Rowena loved attention, but this person's interest in her went way beyond normal. They were stalking her.

And now they had taken her.

She was on a double bed, head supported by a pillow. Her wrists and ankles were tied to the bed posts by leather belts wrapped surprisingly tightly — that, or she was still too weak from whatever had knocked her out. Her shoes were missing, and so was her jacket, leaving her in a silky shirt and dress pants. She supposed it could have been worse. The creep could have removed her pants.

She tried, once more, to pull her wrists and feet free, but to no avail. A frustrated snarl escaped her, deep and feral. Figures she would get herself in this mess. She couldn't go a month without getting in trouble.

How did she get here, anyway?

She'd been shopping. She remembered that clearly, the mall, big, swarming with people young and old, still fresh in her mind. She'd laid her bags on the backseat of her car, keys tight in her hand. There were three of them, she recalled. Each big and filled to the brim with newly bought clothes. The joys of fake, magically-enhanced credit cards. She was about to open the door and sit down at the driver's seat when…

What happened?

She… she saw someone.

Someone familiar.

Someone she never, on a million years, thought she'd see again.

She wasn't drunk or drugged, she realized. She was spelled. She hadn't had time to react before the hex bag was thrown and words of magic echoed in the empty parking lot, and suddenly everything was black.

The door creaked open, shaking Rowena back to the present. A woman entered the room, her mouth wide in a smile that made Rowena's stomach twist with unease. She was clad in jeans and a black T-shirt with Rowena's face printed on it. Her hair, long, dark, was tied up in a neat ponytail. She looked so plain, so human, so harmless.

Rowena knew she was trouble from the first time she saw her all those months ago. "Martha," she hissed, not even trying to hide the venom from her tone.

Martha flashed a wide, creepy grin. "You're awake!"

What gave her away was the hex bag. It was blue, the pastel shade not many witches would have chosen for their hex bags.

Martha Morgan wasn't like any other witch.

Fear ran deep in your bones, sharp like a razor, cutting you up from the inside with each breath you took, each new thought, worse than the last one, that formed in your mouth.

At first you'd paid no mind to Rowena's tardiness. It wasn't the first time — and certainly not the last — she was late from a shopping trip. Boutiques were one of her greatest weaknesses, second only to sales; if she had come across good deals, she would use them, even if it meant spending the entire day at the store, trying out identical dresses mere hues different in color. Sea green, mint green, teal, and turquoise were different colors, thank you very much.

But when the afternoon sun bled into twilight and there was still no sign of her, you got worried. She'd left early in the morning. Even if she had happened to come across a sale, she should have been back a while ago. She wouldn't have stayed out so late without at least a text message to let you know she was okay.

You'd tried calling her, but her phone seemed to be turned off. Your first clue that something was very, very wrong. Rowena's phone was always on. She knew you worried if you couldn't reach her, and she'd never make herself unavailable on purpose — not unless the two of you parted on bad terms. Today, you hadn't. Everything was fine. She'd even promised to get you something if she thought it would be to your liking.

She wouldn't purposely ignore you. Wouldn't worry you for no reason.

Something wasn't right.

Your suspicions were confirmed when the cab dropped you off at the mall and you rushed into the filled-to-the-brim-with-vehicles, people-empty parking lot. Rowena's Porsche was unlocked. The keys were laid on the driver's seat as if tossed. As if dropped. There were three large shopping bags in the backseat, each a different color with brand lettering in the front. Rowena's favorite stores.

And on the ground, just beside the front wheel, was a baby blue hex bag.

Martha's signature.

Rowena was nowhere in sight.

As soon as you saw the offending object, you dialed Sam's number and, doing your best (and failing) to keep the hysterics out of your tone, begged him to come over. "Rowena's been kidnapped," was enough for him to promise to be right there.

Not an hour later, your doorbell rang.

"What happened?" Sam inquired.

You were shaking, tears falling freely down your face no matter how hard you tried to hold them back.

"She took Rowena," you whimpered. "She took her, Sam!"

"Who?" the hunter asked. You shook your head frantically, trying to chase the bad thoughts away; thoughts of that woman's nasty hands on your girl, doing things you weren't sure you wanted to imagine. Sam laid a hand on your shoulder, a firm but soothing gesture. Kind. Friendly. "Hey, it's okay. It's gonna be okay. Just tell me what happened."

You took a deep breath, then another, and one more before you finally calmed down enough to talk. "Her name is Martha Morgan. She-she's crazy! She took Rowena!"

"How do you know it's her?"

You held up the discarded hex bag. "I found this by Rowena's car." The car that was now sitting comfortably in your garage along with the shopping bags. You didn't dare move them. They were Rowena's to open, Rowena's to show off and gush about. "It's Martha's color. I think she left it there on purpose."

She wanted you to find it. Wanted you to know that the tables have turned, that she had Rowena and you didn't.

Sam frowned at the bag. He took it into his hands, turned it over, observed it like a scientist looking a sample under a microscope. "You're sure it's hers?"

"One hundred percent," you said with a nod.

"Why would she do it?"

"Because Rowena and I turned her away."

Sam raised an eyebrow, prompting for you to continue.

Sucking in a breath, you started the story.

You'd first met Martha a few months ago. She was Rowena's biggest fan, and somehow she'd managed to get in contact with her and had asked her for magic lessons. She was a decent witch, but she'd wanted to learn more, and who better to teach her than her apparent idol?

Rowena, never one to pass up on compliments and adoration, had said yes.

And then things got weird.

While the first time the two of you had met her went okay, you'd decided to look Martha up online, more curious than cautious, and had come across her Twitter profile.

The woman, it had turned out, was obsessed with Rowena.

She'd never mentioned her by name, but it didn't take a genius to figure out she was talking about your girlfriend. Days prior, she'd talked about her desire to meet her. How she'd needed it. Craved it more than air and water. Yearned for it with her entire being.

Mere hours after their first meeting, she'd tweeted that she missed her.

A few hours after that a similar tweet was posted.

She needed her, she'd said. Needed her in her life. Wanted to spend the rest of her life beside her. She couldn't bear to be apart from her; the distance, however short, was killing her.

"Naturally" you said, "Rowena was creeped out."

Everyone in their right mind would have been had they been in her shoes. She'd met the woman once, only to find out Martha had basically considered them soulmates, and was gushing about it online.

"The next day, things went crazy."

Crazy was an understatement of the century.

Martha had shown up on time, just like she and Rowena had agreed. She'd walked in on you telling Rowena about an insane witch you'd met years ago, long before you'd known her. And, in a turn of events that should not have shocked you yet it still had, as soon as Rowena told Martha, as politely as she could, that she would not be available to teach her after all, the other witch pointed the finger at you. She'd assumed you'd told Rowena not to hire her, that you were jealous and had made her out to be a lunatic to keep her away from your girlfriend.

If you had done that, you would have been well within your rights to.

An argument erupted, Martha accusing you, you firing back just as ferociously, until Rowena had had enough and threw the other witch out with a firm warning never to contact either one of you again.

"She still bitched about me on Twitter," you added. "And she was still being creepy about Rowena. But other than that, she left us alone. I didn't think she'd ever do this."

Didn't think she'd cross the line. That she would take Rowena from you, and leave you a reminder to let you know, loud and clear, what she had done.

You should have known. The woman was unhinged; her obsession went further than that of a typical fangirl daydreaming about her idol. She was truly, genuinely in love with Rowena — or whatever sick, twisted emotion it was that she'd mistaken for love — and had finally, after months of waiting, decided to act on it.

"We have to save Rowena, Sam," you said with utter desperation. A few tears spilled down your cheeks, clouding your vision. You wiped them away with the back of your hand. "She's crazy! Who knows what she'll do to her!"

"We will," Sam assured you. His hand landed on top of yours, a gesture of comfort, of friendship. A promise. He cared about Rowena. He wouldn't let some psycho hurt her if he could do something about it. "Do you know where we can find her?"

"When she first got here, she gave us her address." You handed him a small paper, glad you'd forgotten to throw it out. "I looked that area up; it's in the middle of nowhere."

A perfect place for a kidnapper to hide her victim.

"Great! Come on."

Sam headed out, and you followed suit like a faithful puppy. You would find her, you told yourself. She would be okay. She would be safe. Martha wouldn't hurt her.

Even as you thought that, a feeling of unease washed over you, from the top of your head down to your toes. Your stomach clenched, nausea sinking in, your insides a liquid storm turning round and round, a tornado of anguish, of concern. What if Martha did hurt her? Rowena was a proud person, defiant to the very end. She wouldn't let a lowly witch, no matter how insane she was, treat her like property, like an object to be stolen. She would fight back. Kick. Scream. Run her mouth like she always did.

How would Martha react to rejection?

Would she still be infatuated, or would she go into a rage and—

No.

There was no point thinking about it, no point imagining horrible scenarios. Rowena was going to be okay. She was a fighter. A survivor. She could hold her own against a witch centuries her junior.

You slid into the passenger seat. As the car roared to life and hurried in the direction of Martha's house, your eyes were focused on the road ahead.

Be strong, sweetheart, you thought. We're coming. You're gonna be okay.

You swore your life on it.

Tags: @werewolfbarbie @oswinthestrange @songofthecagedmoose @apurdyfulmind @getthesalt-sam @metallihca @salembitchtrials @jay-eris @hellsmother @elizabeth-effie @victoriasagittariablack @rowenaswife @dropsofpetrichor @xfireandsin @liddell-alien @hotdiggitydammit @1-800ahs @darkhumorsblog @wayward-kaia @angel7376 @rowenaisfabulous @ruthieconnells @evil-regal-vampiress @collectorofsecretsandsouls @angel-e-v-a

[movedto-mementomoreeyes]

so i saw newsies twice this weekend at my local community college

these are some important things from each show

first of all their jack looked exactly like jerjor?? he was so good

like when i first saw him i was like Huh is that baby jeremy jordan? little teenage jerjor?

anyway crutchie was also very cute he had a pretty face and fluffy brown hair and fuck my uwus

they kinda rushed their lines throughout but it was all kids and not like a Pro Production so,, i’m lettin em off the hook for tht

the santa fe prologue was so,, pretty and lyrical just like in the soundtrack i was yellin

also this is when i’ll note there’s two string players in the pit and the violin is my orchestra teacher at school so i got to say “YOU SUCK” when i saw her at intermission before raving abt how AMAZING SHE IS LIKE DUDE SHE’S THE ONLY VIOLIN OUT OF TWELVE PEOPLE AND SHE CARRIED SO WELL

race was so short?? he was very short and very chaotic

also he wore a big red flannel and i was like “thts definitely not his” and i’ll get to this again later

albert was also very short and had a higher voice (race’s was surprisingly deep) and i was ,, he’s so cute albert was very cute

ALSO SPECS WAS A GIRL. SHE WAS THE BEST CAST MEMBER.

race: chatting w specs from another part of the lodging tower thing // albert: sneaks the cigar from race’s back pocket // race, whipping around: HEY TH

carrying the banner had so much! energy! and they did a bit of the original choreo from the live recording it was rlly good

there were a lot of girlsies and one of them (splasher) went to my school a while back and she was so GOOD

ALSO THEY HAD A BOOTS

katherine looked and sounded like sarah schauer and she was,, so good

romeo was very very tall like i went out after the show and i hit his shoulders (i’m 5’9”.)

so many pirouettes. so much jumping over each other.

oscar was very very tall?? and morris was rlly short i was like Whoa!

also oscar was triple cast as jacobi and the guy jack sells davey’s pape to he was so talented

“whatEVER. happened. to ROMANCE!”

crutchie was so sweet. he was so sweet.

davey was so awkward in his vest and tie and button-up

and les was so EXPRESSIVE the whole time he was so talented

they all only got like 1-2 papes each but thts bc they only had one stack to grab from so it was ok but it was funny when jack counted davey’s one pape over and over again before WHOA NEW KID’S RIGHT

i’m sayin this now. i’m so sorry to the ppl i sat beside and in front of bc i went feral through the whole thing

also i’m sorry to ethan for going feral On him bc i’d grab his hand when i got rlly excited so i didn’t Flap Flap Flap and Kick Time

pulitzer was so tall and proud and his stage presence,, wow

ALSO SEITZ WAS PLAYED BY A GIRL AND I YELLED

she and hannah were very cute and seitz’s dress was so PRETTY

pulitzer’s voice was so good,, wow

davey yellin PAPER! PAPER! EVENIN PAPE HERE! was so cute bc when he got turned down he was :0?

n then he was >:0 when jack lied and more >:0 when les lied

“our father taught us not to lie” “yeah? mine taught me not to STAHVE”

SNYDER WAS ACTUALLY SCARY HE WAS SO SO SCARY TO ME

he had this weird cape-coat thing and a cane he kept drumming his fingers on and a bowler hat

the chase scene was a lot longer than normal???

medda was white which made me :\ but she was still very talented and motherly so

my girl splasher was a bowery beauty and she hammed it up so much more than the other girls i’m sorry i had to say what’s true

that’s rich was so good and i rlly liked the set for the bowery!! it was rlly pretty

also bunsen’s role as the theatre man looked like a carnival hawker i giggled @ his pinstriped vest

katherine nearly smacked jack when she yelled DO YOU MIND??

jojo was played by a girl and she and race were doin their sirens is like lullabies to me thing and when he said “the further away from you i sleep” she punched him in the arm

RACE MISPRONOUNCED HOI POLLOI AND I DIED

also race was very confused at all the headlines i think he was being played as “can’t read counts on the others” which i love

ALSO HE TRIED COUNTING KN HIS FINGERS AND IKE HAD TO HELP HIM OUT

speaking of ike she was so pretty and expressive and she and specs (judging from their relationship portrayed in this) r in lesbians

when they were doin their lil bit before davey explaining a union crutchie seemed like he just wanted to sell papes even if it was more expensive and my heart,

“what’s a statement of PORPOISE”

race was still confused after davey explained my boy

world will know!!!! was so good!!!!!!

WHEN LES WAS YELLIN @ THE DOOR HE WAS SO ANGRY

THEY WERE ALL SO ANGRY

jacobi had a limp and he was hunched over

“we launched our strike in a most auspicious manner!” “[ad lib of what??]” “auspicious means-“ “I DUNNO ABOUT THAT. B”

also mush was also a girlsie!! she had braids and she was a cutie

race was a bit more hesitant when denying taking brooklyn??

also race got the bowery and he was like “and I. got the bowery. >:D”

KATHERINE WAS ABT TO THROW HANDS W JACK EVERY TIME HE MADE A COMMENT

watch what happens was a bit off-beat but kath’s voice was so GOOD

saturday night was better

also on the “cocky little son of a-“ line she tried to strangle the typewriter

“if you see brooklyn, then they’re with us” cue race looking into the distance with hand binoculars

seize the day!!! holy shit!!!!!!

all the scabs were girls. my uwus fell

DANCE BREAK DANCE BREAK OH MY GOD THEY FUVKING

CRUTCHIE DID GUARD SHIT W HIS CRUTCH!!! I YELLED

ALSO SPECS DID THE NEWSPAPER TURN TOMMY BOY DID IN LIVESIES AND FUCK!!!!! MY UWU SUPPLY IS DEPLETING

when they got to the cops and romeo was like THEY’RE SLAUGHTERIN US he got punched in the gut and crawled offstage and my heart. oh god

SANTA FE WAS SO RAW AND GOOD AND JACK WAS LIKE. SOBBING

and when he said “close his eyes and GO” it was more like “close his eyes and-,,,, go,,,,,,,,,” and my HEART

act two!! act two was so Good

during the ya erster bit race kept yelling YA ERSTER over and over again and everyone was like WTF DO U MEAN and eventually albert had to. RACE WHAT DO YOU MEAN. and they all yelled OYSTER at him in unison it was rlly cute

KONY WAS SO GOOD

WHEN KATH DID HER FIRST SPLIT SHE JUST DROPPED DOWN INTO A FRONT SPLIT AND MY JAW D R O P P E D

also specs’s tap solo,,, man

it went specs, then elmer, then race for the tap solos on the table and they were all so GOOD

everyone in the audience was screaming and shouting at the end and i was like EEEEE

letter from the refuge hit me like a fuckimg truck. i forgot abt it and then i saw the candle and was like oh no oh no oh no

snyder yelled @ crutchie to shut up at the end and fuck i’m not kidding when i say he scares me

watch what happens reprise was so good but davey’s voice broke on “poor GUY’S head is spinning”

it wasn’t a fluke ig he can’t hit tht in his belting voice

also when les said “and i’ve got a date!” someone said YEAH YOU DO

when seitz did her bit during bottom line reprise she hit an e5 and whoa. whoa wig

wiesel was the one tht took jack to the cellar and he was rlly rlly mean through it all and :(

OH GOD BROOKLYN!!!

BROOKLYN WAS 80% LITTLE KIDS

spot was played by an understudy and he was LITERALLY LIKE 8 AND HE WAS SO LITTLE MY HEART

THEY LIFTED HIM ON THEIR SHOULDERS AND HE GOT THE WHOLE VERSE TO HIMSELF AND I SCREAMED

I WAS GOING FUCKING FERAL OK

his stage presence was so,, intense he commanded the whole stage and i was SHOOK

saturday night he was played by a rlly cute boy and he rolled his r’s when he talked and oh god. oh god he’s cute.

and he and race were the ones that switched today so guess ypt newsies said sprace is canon

when jack and kath kissed the first time everyone was like Oh?

during something to believe in the sax squeaked and i nearly lost my shit

THEIR HARMONIES THO. JACK HAD A RIFF THT WASN’T IN THE LIVE SND I FELL TO THE FLOOR

(friday night) suspicion confirmed. at once and for all race had the flannel of i think romeo’s brooklyn boy like they switched and i was >:3!

albert was double cast as bill and mike was double cast as darcy and AAAA

the printing press was so steampunk i yelled

DURING OAFA LIKE THE LAST CHORUS THEY WERE HANDING OUT NEWSIES BANNERS TO AUDIENCE MEMBERS I’M GONNA TRY N GET ONE TODAY

update bc i was dressed as a newsie romeo looked at me and said “look like you already joined, huh?”, winked, and kept going i’m so,

i don’t have much to say except spot was brooding the whole time in pulitzer’s office

ALSO CRUTCHIE HIT SNYDER IN THE JUNK W HIS CRUTCH AND IT LOOKED LIKE IT HURT

specs accidentally ripped her pape at the end and oscar was like you ain’t gettin a new one and then she :(ed until he gave her a new one

I WENT FERAL DURING THE CURTAIN CALLS

also when they were all outside lined up on friday i had to kneel to b face to face w spot he was so tiny

saturdays spot was still short but not as short

SNYDER HAD A SWEET FACE BUT HE WAS STILL SCARY

but most importantly i had to tell specs she was my favourite and she just. AAAAAAAA like ME WATCHING HER

UPDATE JACK AND DAVEY GAVE ME HUGS AND RACE AND I SHOOK HANDS AND DAVEY LOOKS AND SOUNDS LIKE WILL ROLAND

that’s all folks!

[bluezey]

Can four Spongebob episodes be fixed from four unlikely sources?

I've wanted to do this post for a while about two nearly despised Spongebob episodes, but lately someone talked about another recent episode. And, I thought I'd bring back another episode real quick that I've already "defended" with another "fix". So, with those in mind, and four episodes to talk about, let's get to it and talk about four episodes that range from okay to despised and see how unlikely sources can explain them and possibly save them.

Whale Watching

We're going in order from okay to despised, which starts us out on the very recent episode Whale Watching. Now don't get me wrong, a lot of the fandom loves this episode, but some find it okay because they saw Squidward out of character. Instead of being crass and bitter like he is to most other characters, to Pearl Squidward came out pretty timid. I didn't see this at first, but now that I can I don't see this as an issue because he was trying to do a good job as a babysitter in order to earn that Spongebob free shift. Also, the episode confirms that Squidward babysat Pearl since she was a baby, so I can see Squidward gaining a nicety towards Pearl as if she was his niece. But, here's the unlikely source that could fix this character change: Feral Friends. Feral Friends was a special last season that introduced us to our favorite characters downgraded into their animal forms, and we find while some animals fit, like Patrick bring a lazy glutton matches that starfish eat by expelling their stomach, some are hilarious opposites, such as while Krabs and Puff are on again and off again dating, in reality the pufferfish and the crab are bitter rivals in the food chain and are constantly trying to attack and eat each other. Which leads to Squidward and Pearl, where we find out the whale is the predator to the octopus. And they're not kidding, as even in kid show tameness, their fight got pretty graphic, and Squidward almost got ate by Pearl! Now remember how wimpy Squidward got when Pearl practically threatened him with a paper mache tombstone with Squidward's name on it? I'm pretty sure that gave Squidward flashbacks to that feral fight. Now I know Feral Friends hinted that they don't remember what they did when they were feral, but not only did the episode hint that Sandy would tell them, but I don't think Squidward would forget being chewed up and spat out of Pearl's mouth. (One last bit of connection, Feral Friends ended with Squidward and Pearl seeing each other naked. And now we know Squidward babysits Pearl. Yeah, that happened. Awkward.)

Ink Lemonade

I've talked about this episode and this fix before, which is why were going to talk about this one briefly. Also, this only fixes part of the episode, the part where people are grossed out about the Bikini Bottom denizens drinking Squidward's ink. So, what can fix this gross out humor? Spicy squid ink sauce. A specialty sauce made in Japan that is spicy and, as the name advertises, is dyed black with squid ink. That's right, squid ink can be made edible. And Japan loves this stuff, as it's common enough to appear on the Kuro burger, a special black colored burger that appears at most burger joints during the Halloween season. The spiciness also explains the over the top expressions of the characters first drinking the ink lemonade, and one practically breathes fire from how hot it is. So not only is Squidward's ink edible, it's hot! Maybe that's another reason why he doesn't like to ink as much as he does lately, it burns.

Are You Happy Now

What could be more infamous than the episode where Squidward is so depressed we see him brushing up against jokes referencing suicide? I can see why many fans despised this. But lately, I saw how similar it is to a more popular episode called Enchanted Tiki Dreams. Tiki Dreams has Squidward also badly depressed, and no matter what Spongebob does Squidward can't fully get happy. It sounds like Happy Now, but there's a key difference. In Tiki Dreams Squidward eventually becomes happy, while in Happy Now he gets more and more depressed. Which makes me think what the difference is between the two. Well, here's my theory: drugs, or specifically, antidepressants. With how sad and mopey Squidward can get, and for good reason in some cases, it's not unlikely that Squidward would take something for being depressed. But, some people can and will stop taking their medication. So, in that respect, Tiki Dreams and Happy Now are unofficially paired episodes. Tiki Dreams is Squidward in a depressed mood, but manages to shake out of it once his medicine kicks in, and even stay somewhat happy when his dream world is destroyed. While Happy Now is him so depressed he stops taking his meds, making him go through his depressing mood and only getting worse and worse as he can't shake out of it on his own. And without his meds, he looks like he's in a state where he doesn't want to. And it doesn't help that when Squidward does eventually get happy it's because he eventually snaps into a rage that somehow makes him happy? This doesn't sound like a healthy form of happy. Not taking his meds may also explain the glaring plot hole that Squidward doesn't have a happiest memory, he's too depressed to remember a happiest memory.

A Breath of Fresh Squidward

This episode finally gave us Squidward happy, but it's still despised by how they did it. Squidward installs an electric fence to keep Spongebob and Patrick out, but in the show's trend at the time of punishing Squidward for no reason, Squidward shocks himself with it. The shock changes his mood to always happy, and while everyone loves it, eventually Spongebob doesn't like being usurped as the happy guy on the block. This causes Squidward to be sad, cumulating in the end where Squidward, Spongebob and Patrick all get shocked by the fence, and all three become grouchy Squidwards.

Now out of all the unlikely sources, nothing is more unlikely than Nickelodeon's competitor, Disney, or specifically, Pixar. That's right, Breath of Fresh Squidward could be explained by Inside Out. I love Inside Out, and one of my favorite things that makes me love the movie more is seeing other characters from other shows in Inside Out logic. That led me to looking at how Squidward's mind works in this logic, and eventually this episode. First, let's look at how his mind works in Inside Out terms. Each mind is run by five emotions: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear. With how grumpy he is, Squidward appears to be missing this Joy, but that's not exactly true. Squidward has been seen as happy, mostly when he's alone with things that make him happy like his art or music. So whenever the other emotions see no need for Squidward to be scared or angry or sad or disgusted, they'll let Joy take the controls, but most of the time they're so busy making Squidward scared or angry or sad or disgusted, that his Joy ends up away from the console, either entertaining himself (or herself, sometimes I think Squidward's Joy could be a female) with music or art or other happy things, but mostly being bored and kinda miffed that he can't make Squidward happier. Then Squidward gets shocked by the electric fence and, partly because the mind works on electric current running through neurons, the shock runs through the console and shocks Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust, knocking them out. At first Joy, who was safely away from the console so unhurt, is worried about his co-workers, then pouty as he has to run Squidward all by himself, then Joy gets excited as he realizes he has Squidward all to himself. Leading to Joy having the best day ever by making Squidward have a happy and optimistic day. Until eventually Spongebob gets mad at Squidward, making him sad. This is because just before Spongebob snaps at him, Squidward's sadness comes to, realizes what Joy has been doing, but gets sad when all this happiness upsets Spongebob. This makes Sadness sad because he's Sadness, and while both Joy and Sadness bicker and fight at the console, the controls they hit make Squidward run home and eventually get shocked by the fence. The shock knocks out Joy and Sadness, but at the same time wakes up Anger, Disgust and Fear, making Squidward his grumpy self again as they take over. This also explains the shift in Spongebob and Patrick's personalities, as the shock could have at least left their Anger or Disgust in control, or maybe both of them, and that's why they became grumpy Squidward.

Again, this idea is a real big stretch, but once you see it through it not only makes a lot of sense, but seeing Squidward's emotions running around in his mind is a lot of fun. For example, how would Squidward's emotions look? To me, I imagine them as Squidward's but their skin tone matches the color if their personality, so Joy is a yellow Squidward, Fear is a purple Squidward, Anger is a red Squidward, Disgust is a green Squidward and Sadness is a blue Squidward. Their voices are a tough call, they can all sound like Squidward but with different inflections so Joy sounds happier and Anger sounds gruffer for example, or go all out and get a different voice actor or guest star to voice each different emotion! And we have to think of how they look to match their personality. For example, I imagine Squidward's Joy would wear a like green Hawaiian shirt with a floral print much like the sky flowers in the ocean. (If his Joy is a female, same thing but the shirt is longer to make it a dress). And just as a jab at Squidward, have his Joy be the only emotion with hair (the classic dark blue hair most Joys have) and is basically a clarinet and artiste prodigy! But unfortunately Squidward would always be the bald amateur at his craft, at least his Joy shows he has potential to be great. (Okay I went on a paragraph long tangent about inside out, now can you see how obsessed I am about this movie, new peoples?)

Anyway, there it is. Four unliked episodes and how they can be explained or fixed by four unlikely things. And nothing is more despised than Happy Now and Fresh Squidward, and nothing is more unlikely as drugs and Pixar. But tell me what you think. Did these explanations and theories fix these problems and maybe make you like the episodes now? Or do you still despise them despite the fix? Or hell, do you have a better way to fix these issues? Or do you also want to talk about Squidward, Spongebob or Patrick's emotions? Reblog or message me with your comments, and let's have our own open discussions about Spongebob, drugs, babysitters, ink sauce and Pixar.

[damedarcy]

Hi Jax & Hi Jinx autobiography @DameDarcy on Feral House Fall 2018 @AdamParfrey A little tale about what a complete maniac I was when I was 20 years old in San Francisco. MY HORRIBLE LOVE LIFE / The Reverse Mermaid Part 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When I walked in on my boyfriend having sex with the Reverse Mermaid I freaked the fuck out. It took a minute for my mind to process the shock of what I was seeing. But once it did, I coldly said. “Your dead now Bitches.” Then I turned back around, walked into the kitchen. Appearing once again in the doorway, I threw the dishes and glasses at their naked bodies. The dishes smashed against the wall and broken glass crashed on the floor. They cowered and screamed, trying to shield themselves from the shower of broken glass cutting up their cheating asses. I took the broken glass shards and attacked them. Cutting them and cutting myself. My boyfriend overpowered me and held me down. The Reverse Mermaid scrambled to gather her odious rags, and ran. My boyfriend tried to talk me down through my hysteria but I was inconsolable. He was, as I mentioned before a huge support system and mentor to me. I was deeply in love with him and we had been together three years. He was the second love of my life ( my first being High School BF T. of course.) And I couldn’t believe the pain and fury I unexpectedly found myself in this afternoon. He took me to the living room and gave me a couple of Xanax while I sat shaking on the couch. While he went back into the bedroom to get dressed I cut my wrists more with the broken glass and took the rest of the bottle of Xanax. When he came back into the living room I was already passing out and bleeding out everywhere. So he called 911. While dying, I hallucinated that I went to Atlantis. I saw a beautiful immaculate and elaborate undersea ball, populated by people of various races blended with different kinds of fish, spinning under chandeliers in a bubble dome with portholes looking out to a view of sea life. Mana rays and exotic glowing fish and sharks swimming by. The mysterious music made by Mermaids sung on a stage made from a giant shell, and the Reverse Mermaids were there too, ladies in long silver gowns shimmering with fish scales, ugly fish heads wearing rococo powdered wigs and large elaborate hats. As a mermaid I joined in the dark blue song, swimming in the calm, peaceful, deep. I repeated my name to stay afloat Darcy, Dark Sea, Dark…. Sea? Dark? Now I no longer knew my name, nor did I have any cares in the world. I floated deeper into this place, content to drift away and be lost in the depths. Then I came to a bright torturing white light, and a creepy homeless troll weirdo from the hospital was pulling back my privacy curtain to see the "hot" young girl wearing only a thin hospital gown get her stomach pumped. I tried to scream but the tube in my nose stopped me. It really fucking hurt, and then they put gross black charcoal back into me and made me drink white cement. The doctor asked me, “Why would you do such a thing?” I responded “ Might as well face it, I’m addicted to love.” He was yelling to someone I couldn’t see, “What did she take?!” Then later an I.V. drip was in my hand, with my arms wrapped in bandages also in restraints with my arms bound to the sides of the metal hospital crib bed. Weird sticky circles were on my chest making it so I could hear my heartbeat as beeps through a monitor thing by my head. When I regained most of my senses I spoke through a mouthful of marbles. “Please untie me from this bed. I need to write what I saw in Atlantis.” My boyfriend was there, also wrapped in bandages. Slumped like a wet dishrag in a chair. I had not seen him until now. He acted as my advocate and convinced the nurse to unbind my hands from the metal rack thingy. He brought me a pen and paper and I wrote what was to become later the Black River short story in Frightful Fairytales published by Ten Speed Press in 2002 and also my first feature film Planet Blue finished in 1999 and optioned in 2001. (I’m Only telling this part of the story to show how long some ideas take to get published). Anyways, while I was writing my boyfriend was crying and saying how sorry he was. He tried to touch me. My heart monitor started racing and I was like “Don’t touch me.” Then the doctor came back in with a clipboard and said “ I was a harm to myself and others and I had to be admitted into a different hospital.” I put my clothes back on and my boyfriend and I took a cab to the mental hospital. By the way this whole incident took place while I was wearing a black Victorian mourning gown which was ninety years old and already ripping from dry rot, held together with a series of elaborate paste diamond broaches. Now, due to the incident, it was super shredded and my cut up skin and bandages were showing through the rips. At the mental hospital they made me put all the broaches in a lock box due to the fact they were century old rusty long pins that could harm myself and others. I told the orderly lady while being admitted, “First off, I have to be out of here by Christmas because my Mom bought me a ticket to Idaho and if I miss the plane she will be furious. Secondly, due to Regonomics cut in health care for the mentally ill, because no one is paying for this, I��m sure I will be released soon anyway so you might as well release me now so I can make my plane.” They didn’t give a shit, and they put me in a room with a bunch of weirdos. Because I came in wearing ripped up black rags, they made me wear two hospital gowns together one in front and one in back so my butt wouldn’t pop out. I sat in cafeteria that smelled like Lysol with depressing people. The dudes were looking at me creepy and coming on to me and making lude comments. “Can I request not being in a co-ed mental ward”. I said to the nurse. “You are refusing to eat.” She responded. “Duly noted.” She curtly scribbled on her clip board. “I’m a freakin vegetarian bitch!” I said. “I’m eating the peas, but I can’t eat chicken! You can’t hold that against me!” Meanwhile my boyfriend came back with my clothes. He had grabbed the first thing he could see in my closet which was a bright red barn dancing dress printed with bandanas with a super flouncy skirt. Also he brought a giant valentine box of assorted chocolates. An endless stream of my wacky art school friends annoyingly came to the hospital and bothered the staff from the beginning of visiting hours in the A.M. till they kicked them out at the official closing time. Plus my boyfriend was there all the time holding my hand when he wasn’t working at the library. We took over the art therapy room and cut obnoxious capers as usual while gobbling up all the chocolates. All this behavior got me kicked out of the mental hospital early. The sugar from the candy plus the Reverse Mermaid foreign bacteria injected into my utheria through my boyfriend cheating on me, and the stress of battle, caused me to get a bladder infection which quickly moved into my kidneys. This sent me back to the hospital where I had to immediately go on dialysis or else my kidneys would have shut down and I would have died. Needless to say I officially broke up with my boyfriend. After these two near death experiences back to back.