#anyways. all comparisons and no answers.... maybe ill figure out the answer when i actually look at the whole motif (i am lazy)

[moonrpg]

i cant help but look at ryuu’s theme as being unique in that it doesn’t always just get transposed from song to song, it changes with each song melodically. so, instead of the same intervals in each song, it’s sometimes just the rhythm itself getting recycled. 

usually, when a character has a motif, it keeps the same intervals each time it’s used in order to be recognized. this is mostly true for the second part of ryuu’s theme (ex. bars 5-8 of objection), which I’m ignoring for now because it shows up in a LOT more songs than the first part. LOL

the title theme for dgs1 is the first time you hear this motif:

this song also doubles as an objection theme sometimes iirc. either way, it’s got his name in it, so i’ll just say it’s ryuu’s theme LOL. his actual objection theme is a bit different, starting out with a manipulation of the above motif. it’s the same rhythm, but it’s not the same intervals:

so, it feels the same as the title theme, but it sounds different. see how it’s structured to move up in the first half of the phrase, and then down in the second two bars? but soon after (after that part I mentioned earlier), it repeats this same rhythm again, but as an almost exact transposition of the title theme:

so, this time, it sounds more recognizable as the title theme’s motif. I wonder if it’s presented with both a transposition and just a recycling of the rhythmic pattern to get the player to associate both the melody and the rhythm with him? that’s probably overanalyzing, but that rhythm is pushed even further from the title theme’s melody in pursuit:

even though it’s in a different key than the title theme, you can see that it moves much more across the staff vertically, showing that it’s a grander variation of the theme. just looking at the first two notes, an octave jump has a lot more punch than just the single step shown in the first two notes of the title theme’s version!

i honestly don’t know what the intent was with this, but i still find it interesting and wanted to share. maybe i’ll go back to the second half of his theme and add on all those other songs one day, LOL.

i just think it’s fascinating that this one rhythm got used in so many ways! now that u know his theme by just the rhythm, i have one more fun thing to share. i think it’s likely this note pattern was based off of the beginning of apollo’s pursuit theme, which in turn sounds very much inspired by the rhythm in phoenix’s pursuit theme in aa1. the more u know =)

dgs2 songs under the cut:

i love that 2-5 has new arrangements and all that. it makes it so dramatic LOL. they even added ryuu’s motif into the courtroom lobby theme:

this one’s just a transposition of the version that opens his objection theme. fun! but it gets weirder in, again, a pursuit theme:

for the opening of great pursuit, this rhythm opens the song, but not in the melody. it gets passed around the lower voices doing things like the four bars above, while the melodic line alternates between what I think is a new phrase and ryuu’s other motif. since this bit is for the inner voices of the piece (all the parts except melody and bass), it is a bit more repetitive and doesn’t have much movement. it’s used as a driving force to keep the song’s energy up!

but it appears in the melody later:

*im not convinced this song doesn’t have a 2/4 section, so these might be the wrong measures LOL

and here, it looks to be more reminiscent of his objection theme again. maybe his objection theme was the first one that got written out of all of these..? or it was just used more in the making of dgs2′s music? i’m intrigued by great pursuit’s similarities to objection as opposed to pursuit, at least in this respect. maybe great pursuit is supposed to be more of a mix between objection and pursuit? who knows

[longingkisses]

not so silent dinner night - willvinc

Warnings: None

Characters: William Shakespeare (Ikèvamp) , Vincent Van Gogh (Ikèvamp)

Pairings: WillVinc (pre-relationship, pining)

Tagged: @arsnovacadenza (Let me know if you want to be added in tags in the future!)

Notes: this is so old, i've had this sitting out for forever until i remembered... i should actually drop it lmao.  takes place during the drunk off your love event a while back, sharing some dialogue with the story.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26801260

Clink, clink.

The sounds of silverware and glass sound throughout a table of two, as they spent the night taking in both fine cuisine and wine. It was a rare occasion for Shakespeare to have company like this normally, but with Vincent, such things became natural between the two. After all, was Vincent not his only friend? In this fact Shakespeare was content to wind away with him.

So naturally, any caution with their wines and various other beverages were thrown out the window. On this night in particular Vincent had requested to finally try reaching a state of drunkenness. Almost instantly did Shakespeare jump at the offer, curious at the results.

It was truly fitting for him to throw away any sort of common sense for an angel. There was always something about intoxication that made one more bold and open, this time in the expense of the playwright.

"Vincent, may I ask your advice on something?" At the call of his name, Vincent looks up at Shakespeare with a smile. 

"Sure! What is it?" Innocently, Vincent looks upon him with curiosity, as well as affection. Almost immediately does the writer look away. 

Looking down to the glass held in his hands, Shakespeare continues. "Sometimes in the still of the night I find myself gazing up at my noble, chaste mistress of the moon, and wondering.."

He stops for a moment, sighing slightly. "Why is it that I bear this gaping hole in my heart..?"

"Hmm.." The painter hums, taking genuine thought into his answer. "Maybe it's because you're all alone." Vincent's striking blue eyes stares into Shakespeare's figure, watching for the other's reactions. In his innocent heart, he hoped that his words could help bring a realization to his friend. 

But with a slightly agape mouth, Shakespeare soaks in Vincent's words, only to look at the other with a confused expression.

"What?"

"Hmm? I just thought you might be feeling lonely, since you're all alone." Concern fills up in Vincent's eyes, distressed at the other's confusion. Even if he was intoxicated, his eyes were always bright, looking into Shakespeare's soul.

Under the other's gaze, the playwright felt bare.

"Um, Vincent.." It was even enough to make Shakespeare feel uncertain in his words. Which was quite a feat, considering his own mannerisms. But if it was Vincent, perhaps it was to be expected. 

"Oh, but I forgot- you chose to leave the mansion on your own accord right? In that case, I guess maybe you like feeling lonely." Vincent speaks with such innocence in his tone that it makes Shakespeare's heart ache.

It is there that Shakespeare lets out a breath he wasn't aware that he was holding. His friend was truly too perceptive, despite his air of innocence. Perhaps it was the quality of a true artist, being able to perceive the world around them. 

"It's all for the sake of your works, isn't it?" Vincent's gaze was always so kind. Even when Shakespeare was scorned to the other members of the mansion, there was always an angel reaching out for him. "You know, you're pretty cool, Will."

If it was possible for an intoxicated man to blush even more, then so be it. The playwright can only thank the alcohol for providing a sort of cover, albeit flimsy to the trained eye. 

"..I must thank you for your kind words. It is true, being alone provides such clarity to me when I write. But.." Uncertainty paints itself onto Shakespeare's expression.

It is not a look that Shakespeare would not acquaint himself with. But would it even matter when Vincent was with him? His purity would look straight through, perhaps even catching a glimpse of the whole image that was the playwright. 

"Ah.. thank you, Will. You're really nice. I said it before, but you're really cool.." 

What pains Shakespeare the most is that those words can easily be proved false if said by anyone else. But the feelings of such praise is rather undeniable, that he makes no moves to deny Vincent's words for now. 

The murmurs of the restaurant also silences itself slowly, signifying the time for its patrons to leave. Tentatively a hand reaches out for Shakespeare.

"Should we go?" 

It was natural for Vincent to smile at all times, but in this moment it was so romantic that it hurt. But the pain doesn't show on Shakespeare's face, of course.

Leading each other out back onto the streets, the stars gleamed on them softly as they stood in the dark. But what was brighter than any other light was Vincent, and Shakespeare can only blame the other's stereotypical angelic appearance. 

"Quite late, isn't it? Oh, I hope Theo isn't too worried.." Their hands are still linked even as Vincent speaks, and neither make any move to separate. 

"May I remind you that you are the older brother? I would hope by now that Theo would be aware of your own independence." Shakespeare spoke with finality, aware of his own harsh word. If anyone was curious, he would simply blame it on the effects of alcohol. 

While he had no real ill will towards the younger Van Gogh, having someone who was actively against him meeting with Vincent was something of an annoyance. But this particular woe was rather miniscule in comparison to the rest of Shakespeare's troubles. 

"..Hm. I still wouldn't want to trouble him.. Especially late in the night. I hope he's sleeping right now. If I came back, I think I would cause a disturbance." Vincent maintains his hold onto the other, only gripping ever more tightly as he goes on. 

Such an action definitely piqued Shakespeare's interests. He had always taken the painter to be somewhat passive, but as always, the supposed angel of the manor always had a few surprises. To his painting and personality, the playwright was always enraptured.

"If I returned in the morning.. Then I can stay with you tonight, right Will?" Vincent asks with a new sort of smile, genuine yet teasing. If one stared at it for too long, it would certainly blind them, even in the dark. 

"Of course. I enjoy all manner of visits from you."

~

Their carriage eventually makes its way to Shakespeare's familiar villa, the two both very familiar with the home. Even in the dark, Vincent manages to navigate his way inside, perhaps not even needing any help with Shakespeare's hand guiding him. 

They both breathe a sigh of relief when the villa rooms light up, Vincent immediately resting on the living room's couch. 

Vincent almost immediately goes to rest his head on the cushions, with his eyes closed and his body relaxed. Shakespeare admires the scene from one side before arriving at the other with extra blankets and pillows in hand. 

"Are you sure? I would not mind if you slept in any of the villa's beds tonight. Comte was rather generous when he allowed me to live here, you know." It's a question Shakespeare already knows the answer to, but he asks out of courtesy nonetheless. 

"Ah, I'll be fine. I really wouldn't want to impose on you too much. But thank you anyway, Will. Goodnight." Even when he was exhausted and supposedly drunk, Vincent remained both polite and immaculate. It was his true self, no mask hiding any nefarious intent.

That sort of beauty would be something dazzling to Shakespeare, even if it terrified him to his core. 

And that is why, in the dead of the night, the English playwright admires the angel sleeping on his couch. 

His lips ghosting over the cheek of this angel on Earth. 

A fleeting moment, but it serves as a supplement for Shakespeare's own romantic desires. Just enough, to stave off complete starvation. 

Basking in the feeling of his soft affection, Shakespeare slips away. 

In his own hastiness, he would miss the small smile that would form on Vincent's face. 

[cyn-00]

Moreid one shot, 5 - "spare you"

Season 6, episode 19 "With friends like these" (the one where Reid is having one of his headaches while they're delivering a profile, hence Morgan follows him to the bathroom to talk to him)

Back at it again with another unrequested long ass fic

Update like 5 months later: I basically re-wrote this. Well, parts of it; and I added other parts

Read it on AO3

-------------

Reid had been behaving weirdly for weeks now. Everyone on the team had noticed and asked, but he'd always given vague answers.

One would expect that only Morgan, aka his boyfriend, would know something more about it and, in fact, the others had tried to ask him too. Truth was, not even Morgan had it quite figured out. Which was concerning.

He'd tried to ask Reid what was going on several times: while they were working on cases, on the jet, in private, even at home, the few times in those past weeks that he had convinced him to come over, to try and make him spit it out. At a certain point, he just gave up. But seeing someone you love so much suffer and try to cope with something clearly bigger than them, isn't fun. Especially if you think that maybe you could do something about it, if only they let you.

The times he'd asked, Reid had told him that it was his migraine, which caused him insomnia and vice versa, in an endless vicious cycle. That could've been true: it happened to him from time to time. Especially after the drug problem he had dealt with a couple of years before; but Morgan didn't know much about that because they weren't "dating" at that time - and if Reid was one to keep things secret from him as a couple, imagine when they were just friends.

-

They were delivering the profile to the local pd agents, and Reid was clearly distracted. He didn't say a word during the whole thing, except when Hotch directly called him out to explain which was the unsub's "comfort zone".

Since they were all used to him intervening to give some statistics or make comparisons with other famous criminals, to the point where, sometimes, Hotch or Morgan had to shut him up because he was getting too excited; it was safe to say that such behavior wasn't normal for Spencer. 

In that specific situation, though, it was understandable that he wasn't saying anything: first of all, the unsub was supposedly schizophrenic, and when an unsub showed signs of mental illness - let alone if it was the same his mom had - it was very triggering for Reid. But most of all, it was their first case after Emily's "death".

-

"If you find someone who fits this description, let the sheriff know. Thank you for your attention." Hotch concluded.

Reid was still sitting on the desk. The moment Morgan's eyes met his for a split second, he stood up and immediately strode toward the bathroom; like he had been "caught" and had to flee as far as his feet could take him.

Spencer's headache was killing him in that moment. He hoped not to look so clearly uncomfortable, but he knew Derek - and literally everyone else - had noticed. And he knew that time he'd have to tell him the truth. He was NOT enjoying the continuous lying at all, especially when it came to lying to Derek. His Derek. It wasn't fair to him.

He walked toward the bathroom as fast as possible so that the others wouldn't have the time to ask him what was going on. On the other hand though, to Morgan that must have clearly looked like Reid was unspokenly asking for him to follow, and that he was ready to finally talk - which he wasn't. He would NEVER be ready to talk about it.

Spencer got in the bathroom, but couldn't hear Derek's footsteps yet. Maybe Hotch had to tell him something? Maybe he was too busy on the case to worry about his stupid headache? Maybe he wasn't even going to follow him in the first place, because he was done with his bullshit? No, that surely wasn't possible. And anyway Reid didn't even know whether he was hoping for that to be true or not.

He closed the door, - noise made the headaches way worse - washed his face and started taking deep breaths, which was what he usually did to try and make the migraine better; obviously failing 9 times out of 10.

He finally heard someone open the door, hoping it wasn't any member of the team apart from Morgan or - even worse - some officer who would've thought he was crazy.

-

When Morgan entered the bathroom, he found Reid bending over the sink, leaning on his arms with his head down. He had a feeling he was gonna talk for real, this time, instead of using lame excuses or avoiding the topic completely.

Reid finally found the courage to look up at him, not directly, but through the mirror - though even just that was enough to make him nervous.

Morgan was now right beside him, with his arms crossed on his broad chest, like he was waiting for him to talk first. Reid sighed and finally turned around, leaning on the sink. But he couldn't bring himself to talk: he didn't even know where to start.

Derek lightly put his index under Spencer's chin and raised his face, to make him look into his eyes instead of facing the ground.

"I'm not here to judge you. Is that what you want me to say so you can finally speak? Like you don't know it already." Derek broke the silence.

Spencer couldn't find the right words to explain that he had been feeling like crap for the past 2 weeks.

"I've been feeling like shit." he finally murmured in resignation: that's just how it was.

Derek's eyebrows shot up. He wasn't expecting him to be so direct.

"Yeah, I noticed. Everyone has, to be fair."

Reid nodded and went back to look at his feet.

Morgan continued, softening his tone. "Listen, kid. This can't be a normal migraine, am I right? If it makes you feel so sick."

"That's what I thought." Spencer answered.

"...so did you go to a doctor?" Derek asked after a few seconds of silence, during which he would've expected him to continue with his explanation.

"I went to three different doctors, actually. And basically, they told me I have nothing."

Derek looked confused. His mind started to wrap around the idea that the migraines could be a symptom of something way more serious.

"Maybe..." Derek started. He wanted to say it, but wasn't sure if A) Spencer had already wondered about it and was gonna accuse him of thinking he's dumb, or B) on the contrary, saying it would heat him up because the thought hadn't even crossed his mind. Either way, he wasn't expecting him to react well, but he had to say SOMETHING, for Christ's sake.

"...maybe the headaches mean something else? " He decided to stay vague.

Reid stood up straight and faced him. That whole dancing around the problem was starting to annoy him.

"If you want to say that you think I'm showing signs of... of schizophrenia, just- just say it."

Derek wanted to answer with something that would calm him down, but Spencer interrupted him the second he opened his mouth.

"It's like I told Emily, I knew you would all treat me like a baby if I ever talked to any of you about this. Do you think I wouldn't have told you or- or anybody else, if the doctors had said that I'm having symptoms of mental illness?" Reid could feel his eyes filling up with tears the moment he mentioned Emily's name out loud.

He still couldn't believe he had talked to her about his stupid migraine while she was dealing with way more important stuff, and that maybe if he had been the one to ask her what was going on, instead of the other way around, she would still be alive.

Derek's expression changed from being comprehensive to being irritated as soon as he picked up that Spencer had talked about this to Emily before anyone else. Before him.

"So you told her. But didn't tell me. Even though I asked you a MILLION times." he said frowning, his voice deep.

Reid didn't answer. He realized he shouldn't have mentioned it. He couldn't bear with Morgan's look anymore, so he turned his back on him to face the mirror again, looking down at his distorted reflection on the steel tap.

"Alright look, I don't know why you told Emily before telling me that's- that's beside the point here, honestly. I don't blame you for it, I know she is-" Derek stopped for a second and gulped. "-was. I know she was your friend- OUR friend, I used to tell her about my stuff too, cause I trusted her with it, so I get it, alright?" he sighed heavily. "I blame you for not trusting ME, too. It's not like I didn't give you the right circumstances to tell me."

Derek paused and tried to calm down, lowering his voice. "but you and I, Spencer, we- we're not friends. We never were just friends. You're always THE FIRST ONE to know about my stuff and I'm the first to know about yours - or at least I used to be - because we get each other way before the others get us. And I did- I DID get you before anyone else even this time. You were just too damn blind to notice it."

"I DO trust you. Don't talk like you don't know that. It's not because of trust that I haven't told you yet." Spencer finally found the words to answer, without hesitation.

"Then what? What is it?? If it's because of the 'treating you like a baby' bullshit- don't even get me started. I don't care how you call it, but what that actually is, is worrying and CARING about yo-"

"I know." That's all Spencer managed to say, coldly, before letting the conversation fall into a long, tense silence.

Derek was waiting for him to say something - anything - with his arms folded on his chest, but his patience had a limit - EVEN when it came to Spencer. And it wasn't because he got tired of him - there was no such thing - but because it was too painful to see him like that.

-

"A'ight." He sighed frustratedly, dropping his arms down his sides as he turned on his heels. He just couldn't stand being there any longer.

He was about to walk away, but Spencer turned around and grabbed his arm to stop him.

"W-Wait. There is a reason why I didn't wanna tell you at all, to be honest, and I- I even hoped you'd let it go at some point..." Spencer found the courage to say, now looking straight into Derek's dark eyes. He let go of his arm and tucked his hair behind his ears, as if preparing to explain properly.

"One of the doctors said that these migraines could be psychosomatic. He didn't mention schizophrenia though." he confessed, getting to the point, pausing a second after to catch Derek's reaction. But his expression remained pretty much the same: Spencer wasn't sure whether that could be because he was someway expecting it; or he was simply trying to hide how startled he actually was at the news, afraid to discourage him from talking.

"It's hard enough for me to get the work done and...actually, to- to live, with these headaches" he paused again, this time in the attempt to stop the urge of crying, but his voice was already cracking. "I can't concentrate, even light bothers me, let alone noise, I can't- I get 20 hours of actual sleep a week if I'm lucky. I feel pain and- and exhaustion, all the time..."

Now he was crying. He quickly wiped away the tears with the back of his nervously trembling hand, and shook his head to compose himself. "When I'm with you I feel guilty because I- I can't actually enjoy it and I can see that that's affecting you and that's SO not fair to you Derek I-" he sniffled, stopping himself from continuing with that train of thought, afraid that if he went on to say how much Derek didn't deserve to go through all of that for him, to have to adjust in order to keep up with his garbage, how he didn't understand why he hadn't yet ran away in the arms of someone normal, someone just as amazing as he was because he shouldn't settle for anything less, someone who could lift from his chest some of his pain instead of adding to it- Spencer was afraid if he'd went on to say that, not only he would crumble on the floor at his very knees, which would've been quite the pathetic scene; but most of all Derek would've thought he was praising him just to distract him from how mad he was at Spencer - righteously, he thought. Derek wasn't mad at Spencer for feeling sick, by the way. He could never.

Spencer was somewhat ready to continue, getting back to the problem. "The times that you've convinced me to come over, lately, were few not because I didn't want- actually it's a bit easier for me to sleep when I'm with you, in general, at least more than I manage alone- it's- it was just because I can imagine that having to babysit me is not how you- we, that's not... how we wish to spend time together. So what I'm saying is that the reason why I didn't wanna tell you is because if the doctor is right, it means I'm gonna have to go through therapy to fix this and it's gonna take a while...maybe it's never even gonna go away I- I'm not sure, honestly. There's no way of knowing. And I don't wanna force you to be a part of this. Even just for these few weeks I can see I've been nothing but a burden to you- to everyone, to be fair, and..." he gulped and tried to slow down the pace of his talk. "and I want to be able to spare from this at least you."

-

They stared into each other's eyes for a while. Derek understood what Spencer meant to say with all of that, he just needed a minute to process a proper answer - or at least one that would make some kind of sense.

"So uhm, let me- let me get this straight" he said shaking his head, his voice hoarse, his eyes squeezed shut trying to soothe the itching of tears poking at his lids. "Your best solution would be to... to break up ?" he asked, knowing the answer already.

Spencer nodded and returned to face the ground, ashamed of what he was implying and not really knowing what he was hoping for him to decide.

Derek couldn't find the right words to say next. So he walked toward the door.

-

Spencer thought that that was it. That he was about to be abandoned yet once more - and for the first time he wanted to punch himself in the guts at the awareness that it was no one else's but his own fault; surely not Derek's. He thought the best thing that had God-willingly fallen into his arms in years was about to walk away through that door.

And, despite knowing there was no such thing, Spencer could swear he felt his heart physically break. The amount of tears heaping up before his pupils blinded him and made his eyes literally burn; his jaw was clenched so tight in the attempt to put a stop to the desperate sobs about to escape that his teeth seemed to be cracking, just before shattering altogether.

But he didn't really have the right to stop him, since he basically asked for it and since he knew sticking with him through that would be a big responsibility and an even bigger burden, other than a distraction.

That's why he wanted to break up with him first. He wanted to rip off the band-aid. At least he would've spared them both the mess that would've happened if Derek had stayed with him for a while longer and then dumped him at a certain point, out of having enough, when Spencer would've already convinced himself that he could trust him to stick around till the "end". Whatever that meant.

-

Unexpectedly, when Derek got to the door, he did not open it and leave. He locked it, instead. He didn't really care if anyone got in anyway, but the situation was already uncomfortable enough.

He went back to Spencer and took him in his arms, with one hand on the back of his head, tied in his curls. And he kissed him.

Spencer was definitely not expecting that. His heart started beating again, so loud he could feel it in his ears. His eyes shut while his mouth was moving almost on itself, like it got carried away by his feelings. As for his arms, though, at first he hadn't figured out what to do with them yet, leaving them hanging idle along his sides.

Then he stopped for a second to catch his breath, and when their mouths met again, making the kiss more intense and wet; whether that be from the tears coating Spencer's face entirely or the drool he didn't even have the strength to contain - just then, his arms found their way, wrapping Derek as tightly as he possibly could.

Just when it was starting to get too needy and Derek's mind was about to go places it shouldn't have - considering the context and the importance of the matter - Spencer placed his hand on Derek's jaw to pull away, abruptly.

"W-wait" he whispered breathily. "Did you mean for this to be our- our last kiss?" he blurted out worriedly, the bad thoughts doubling back to hit him in the stomach all at once. "Is this a goodbye?"

Derek didn't answer immediately - instead, he drew him closer into his arms and hugged him tight, burying his face into his soft hair, keeping his eyes closed.

The lack of response left Reid even more confused. He slightly furrowed his brows but let himself melt into the comfort of Morgan's broad and warm body, returning the hug a few seconds later.

He could feel the rhythm of Derek's breath softly blowing into his ear, and the beat of his heart against his chest. And Spencer knew that to feel a person's heart through a hug it would have to be really pounding. Like, he could give you the numbers.

-

"I can't even imagine there being a last kiss with you, Spencer. I love you." Derek finally murmured into his ear, pausing to sniffle. "So much. I love you so much, I need you to understand that."

The only reason why Spencer didn't say it back, was because the smile printed on his face was too wide to speak; he didn't even know he could smile that big. And Derek felt such smile against his neck, so how could the lack of answer bother him? 

Derek opened his eyes and pulled away to look at him, shifting his hands to cup his face. Spencer placed his hands around his wrists, holding onto them like he wanted to secure the grip.

He leaned closer and laid a gentle kiss on one of his boyfriend's eyelids. It was an affectionate and pure gesture in itself, but he didn't do it randomly: Spencer's mom used to kiss him goodnight like that when he was little, before tucking him in the blankets. In that moment, Spencer probably wished Derek had long forgotten about that thing, thinking it sounded childish and embarrassing. Derek didn't find it either of those things.

"Can't believe a smartass like you could think I'd just leave." Derek said. Spencer snorted and nodded: he realized just in that moment that he had no excuse for even CONSIDERING that, even if before it seemed to him like the only way out.

Morgan let go of him. "C'mon pretty boy. Let's get back to work."

-

He walked toward the door first: if they had got out together, maybe someone would've suspected something - what that "something" was, he still had to figure out. They got lucky enough that no one had tried to get in during all that.

He unlocked the door but waited a second to get out.

"Thank you, by the way."

Reid frowned.

"For what exactly? Doubting about you and making you angry?" he smiled sheepishly; his eyes still flushed and his voice wavering. "Also, my headache has completely gone away so I'm the one who should be thankful".

"No, no." Derek shook his head, smiling back at him in that way, the way that made everyone always melt on the ground. "Thank you for telling me, I mean. Even if it took a while."

Silence.

"I know it's hard for you, kid." he added in a gentle tone.

He got out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

[mmmmalo]

"i almost said 3 for 4 but then i remembered 2 ROSES, euf." where is two roses from? because the earliest reference I can think of is related to Dirk.

Yeah, the line is sourced from the “porn” Dirk drew for Caliborn (though it’s technically “double roses”? oh well). I was using the phrase to reference the motif of Rose absorbing herself. 

Like… okay, you know how Rose becoming her Ultimate Self (allegedly) involves absorbing the experiences of infinite Roses or whatever, most of whom are necessarily from doomed timelines? There’s precedent for that when the Rose affiliated with Davesprite dissolved into the void, with an indeterminate amount of her consciousness/experience reassembling within alpha!Rose (which tangentially, sounds a bit like being possessed?). That much is straightforward, I think Rose even used it as a reference point to explain her “condition” to John.

Elsewhere, this motif is invoked by Kanaya, who manifests for Rose right after Rose declares her intent to suicide bomb the Green Sun:

GA: Your Hubris Is Really AstonishingGA: Easily Twice The Mass Of A Universe I ThinkGA: That It Hasnt Collapsed Upon Itself Into A Tiny Lavender Singularity Is The Most Striking Marvel Paradox Space Has Coughed Up Yet

TT: Maybe it did?TT: Maybe that’s what went wrong.TT: We figured it out!

Kanaya has foreshadowed the recipe for the Green Sun (and its eventual collapse into a black hole) within an analogy for Rose’s ego, as if to suggest that Rose herself is composed of two bodies – which I suppose is literally true, insofar as Rose has absorbed (?) doomed!Rose by this point. The conflation suggests that destroying the Green Sun is itself a metaphor for Rose’s suicide, in addition to the overt fact of Rose intending to kill herself in order to destroy it.

I think… I can make a useful comparison here:

Rose’s excision of the green orb (which is labeled as the Green Sun via the embedded captchalogue card) is an image akin to Dirkbot ripping his uranium heart out and exploding. Call it an exorcism maybe, a ghost-busting of the self.

There are two lines from the bit where Rose is exploding the shell that strike me as particularly relevant:

GA: Ill Do The Thing You Do When You Dont Say AnythingGA: “…"TT: One simple word can so easily begin a story in a very thick book.TT: But I guess we won’t open this one?

TT: Have you ever written a message you regretted instantly upon sending?

Recall that Kanaya will later refer to the ellipsis as a “pregnant pause”. Thus the onset of language is a birth (as elaborated in Some Words on Openbound). The word – written by an author – becomes the life of a story book character. Thus Rose’s second line, considered from the perspective of a god-author, would seem to amount to wondering if God regrets making her – if the series of divinely composed messages that constitute Rose Lalonde were a mistake. If the theological spin strikes you as outlandish, consider that in this very conversation Kanaya (manifesting for Rose) finds herself musing on “The Nature Of… The Author” (of Rose’s gamefaq). This bolsters the above, I think.

This is actually the point at which Kanaya’s suspicion towards the gods of the Furthest Ring actually seems somewhat warranted; they compel Rose (through the memories of her doomed self) to burn that which constitutes her being, the book. I’ve mentioned before that life itself is regarded as a terrible imposition in Homestuck, a hostile insertion of vitality into the un-consenting dead. I think this is why Kanaya, who is trying to talk Rose off the ledge, also threatens her with a wizard who will blast her full of Hope: those are the same thing, insofar as hopeful people are less inclined to kill themselves. As with the thundering injunction to live, the wand of hope is phallic.

This is, incidentally, the point at which the Green Sun as symbol of one’s (imbued) life is reconciled with my previous view of the Green Sun as a symbol of trauma: birth is /itself/ traumatic for the born. John developed a fear of heights from falling off the ghostly slime pogo, but anxiety towards falling reflects John’s gnawing sense that he was once pure spirit in the balls of God, now crudely inserted into miserable flesh (x).

Which brings us to the other incidence of TWO ROSES: the escape from Mom’s lab. I’ve discussed elsewhere (x)(x) that the chessboard is (among other things) a womb symbol in Homestuck – the same is true of the X on a map (x). So when Rose exit the lab via an X at the center of a glowing chessboard (within a cloning facility!), she is being symbolically “born”. And not only Rose, but also the deceased Jaspers she brings with her! As developed in the above links, the first passage of dead!Jaspers out the escapalizer represented a stillborn child Mom had prior to Rose. After the second passage with Rose, she checks herself to see if she has mixed atoms with the cat, a suspicion that anticipates her later merger with doomed!Rose. In sum, the scenes seem to communicate that Rose suspects herself to /already/ be composed of two Roses, one living, the other (effectively?) dead.

The next time we see Rose ascending the image of the Green Sun, she is simultaneously approaching Jaspers. This groks with the view of Green Sun as trauma, since the (presumed) drowning of Jaspers instigated Rose’s fear of water, and her wish to reunite with the cat motivated her to play Sburb. BUT ALSO Jaspers represents the dead!Rose with which Rose seeks to reunite, as though she saw her own body upon the riverbank? So their something suicidal to the gesture of union, just as with Davesprite, whose functions as a pivot for Dave thinking about becoming/killing himself. ‘Being yourself’ implies a lack inhibition, which is why Jasprose is the most indulgent lesbian in the world – but in Homestuck, the matter of ‘becoming yourself’ is inextricable intertwined with images of suicide.

But anyway, to actually answer your question, there was a point where I was convinced that Rose had literally absorbed a twin in utero. But since this contradicted her ectobirth, I was super confused! (EDIT: A softened stance would that Rose simply believes herself to have absorbed her dead twin, a fantasy of her own origins. This is compatible with all the above, and perhaps generates some interesting narrative foiling with her twin Dave, who occasionally suspects that he is already dead)

[upinthestarsx3]

Off Limits (m) part 4

Professor!Reader x College Student!Jungkook au

Genre: short series|smut|mostly angst|fluff in future|au

Word count: 3.7k

Warnings: Language and mature content. I guess I should also warn that I love writing stories with no happy endings.

Summary: You’re fresh out of college having just received your masters degree in Math. You begin working at a nearby college and meet your headstrong student, Jungkook. After a drunk hookup; things get complicated.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

‘Are you still not talking to me?’

‘Please don’t ignore me.’

‘Kookie.’

‘Are you going to report me?’

You throw your head down on the kitchen table in frustration, tossing the phone onto

your tiled floor and groaning like a child who was told they couldn’t have chocolate. Why was Jungkook still ignoring you?

You had canceled the rest of last week’s classes, claiming to feel ill when in reality... You couldn’t face Jungkook, not after that day at least.

“What’s wrong? Is your illegal relationship finally catching up to you?” You lift your head to give Gia a cut-eye look. Not this again... Not now.

“It’s not illegal. It’s just...” You trail off, your frown deepening as you take in Gia’s empty facial expression.

She stays quiet for a moment- you can tell she’s thinking of something.

“Look Gia-“ you begin,

“I think you should move out.” She cuts you off, her eyes casting downwards as they begin to water.

“W-What? You want me... to leave?”

“I tried to accept this y/n, I really tried. But every time I think about you two, I think of our freshman year of high school and I-“

“Gia...” you gasp, tears falling from your eyes as you dwell about the comparison she made.

“I am nothing like him!” Your voice booms through the house, the defensiveness in your tone is threatening, but Gia doesn’t budge.

“Really? Because it’s the exact situation.” She snaps back, veins bulging from her neck with her hands held in tight fists by her side.

“You were 14! Jungkook is-“

“YOUR STUDENT!” She explodes. You both stand there in silence, your tense shoulders finally relaxing as you realize this was not something you think could ever be fixed.

“I think I should go.” You whisper, your eyes unable to meet hers as you grab your work bag. You continue,

“I’ll pick up my things after my classes finish, is that okay?” She simply nods her head, turning away to leave the kitchen as she closes the door to her bedroom.

By the time you arrive on campus your makeup is ruined from the tears you were finally able to let out once you were out of the apartment- Gia’s apartment, the place that you called home for years. You pull out your makeup bag and begin doing your best to fix the mess that stares back at you in your reflection. Suddenly a loud knock at your window makes you jump.

“Jesus, Jungkook! You scared me!” You grunt, rubbing the area on your head that you hit on the roof of your car.

“All of those messages and you couldn’t even bother to tell me that you miss me?” He mumbles under his breath. His eyes staring deeply into yours, a look of admiration with a dash of anger.

“I’m sorry.”

“No you aren’t. You’re just worried that I’ll tell.” He rolls his eyes.

“Jungkook, I really don’t need this right now, okay?” His eyes soften when he hears the tremble in your voice. His hand slide their way into your opened window as he tilts your head upwards to get a closer look at you.

“Why were you crying?” He asks, wearing a small pout.

“I’m just stressed out.” You let out a sniffle, trying so hard to hold in tears; but when Jungkook softly rubs your cheek, you lean into his touch and let the tears flow freely. He slowly walks to the other side of your car and you feel it dip with his weight as he sits in the seat next to you.

“Come here.” He coos, pulling you into his arms as he places a hand on your back and the other on the back of your head, embracing you in a tight hug.

“Gia kicked me out.” You whined, wishing Jungkook didn’t have to see you ugly cry like this. You hear him sigh, but he says nothing, so you continue,

“She kicked me out and she thinks I’m some sort of pedophile. She’s comparing me to a man she dated in high school. He took advantage of her! I- I-“

“Shhh. It’s okay, baby.” Your breathing seemed to ease once you heard the nickname he loved calling you.

“So you’re not mad at me about what I said last week?”

“Well.. I’m hurt but I’m not angry. I’m sorry I expected so much this early on. Hey, um... You can stay with me for a bit? If you want?” He suggested.

You simply glared at him in return, “Yeah that would be great! ‘Hi Mr. Jeon! Thank you for letting me stay here, I am also fucking your son.’ Does that seem like a good idea to you?” You snap.

“I live alone, asshole.” He snarled while flashing a small smile.

“Oh. I didn’t know.” To say you felt like an ass was an understatement.

He smirks,“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Leaning in to kiss you, but you push at his chest.

“We’re on campus, Kookie.” You scold, grabbing your work bag from the back seat before getting out of your car with Jungkook following.

“Will you take me up on my offer?” He pushes further,

“I don’t know. I really have a lot to think about. I’ll see you at noon? In class?” You question.

“Sure, babe.” He replies smoothly, turning his back to you, and leaving you stranded with your dreadful thoughts.

Your classes surprisingly went by fairly quickly today, you quietly sat and ate your fruit salad while you waited for the last class of the day to start- your favorite class with your favorite student.

“Good morning, Professor. Hope your feeling better.” Jimin is the first to walk in, throwing you a wink after his comment. You bite back a comeback and give him a forced smile.

“I am, thanks.” You simply tell him.

“Where is Jungkook?” He asks again, and your eyes bulge out at him.

“How would I know? Actually, don’t answer that.”

He gives you a weird look but he stays quiet nonetheless, once he sees the other students begin flood in.

“Okay, everyone. It’s been a while! I’m feeling great, let’s get to work.” You smile.

As the class begins their assignment quietly, you hear Jungkook ask,

“Professor, can you help me with this problem please?” You roll your eyes and walk over to the side of his desk, only to see that he is already finished with the assignment.

“What do you need help with, Jungkook?”

“Number two, can you just look over it please?” You give him an odd look, but you lean in further and begin explaining the method anyway. A few seconds later you feel his hand slide to the back of your leg and then between your thighs. You swat his hand away and he simply lets out a deep chuckle,

“Thanks professor.” He yells to you as you march your way back to the front of the class.

“Okay, guys! Leave your assignment on my desk before you leave, I’ll post the homework online tonight!” You smile as they all begin leaving.

“Finally.” You let out a deep breath.

“Let’s go.” You hear a voice demand, your eyes snap open and you look up to Jungkook who is leaning over your chair.

“Go where, Jungkook?”

“What happened to Kookie?” He laughs.

“Go where?” You ask again, getting annoyed at his repetitive questions.

“Let’s go pick up your stuff from Gia’s.” He tugs on your hand and pulls you up from your chair.

“Oh. I forgot about that.” You try to let out a chuckle, but he could tell you were hurt.

“It’s okay. You’re okay, y/n. You don’t have to do this by yourself.” He whispers with a soothing voice that makes you feel a little bit better about the situation.

When you arrive, you see that Gia’s car is gone.

“Thank goodness, she should be at work by now.” You sighed.

You unlock the door to the apartment and see that your things are already packed. You feel your blood instantly boil.

“Is she fucking serious? She went through my room and packed all of my stuff herself?” You lash out. Jungkook looks as though he wants to say something but for once- he has nothing to say, he’s not sure what he could say in a situation like this; especially since he is in the middle of you and Gia’s falling out.

“I’m sorry.” He offers, you look at him and your eyes soften; you realize how awkward he must be feeling.

“Don’t be. Come on, let’s grab these boxes and go.”

You grab the last box from the counter and your eyes scan a note on the counter that read your name. You open it and see that it’s from Gia, you expected to see a goodbye, or an I love you, at least; but it read ‘please leave the keys on the table’. Jungkook takes the note from your hand and crumbles it, moving behind you to give you a hug,

“Let’s go home.” He whispers, leaving a small kiss on your neck.

When you arrive to Jungkook’s place; you’re shocked. He lives in a luxurious building with a doorman, with people that go to your apartment to clean your home, and there’s even a pool and a gym inside.

You wonder what he thought of when he went to your place- your old place, with the broken front door and old chipped paint in the hallway, no doorman either, but maybe a homeless man that would sleep on the porch from time to time.

“This is a lot.” You tell him shyly,

“In a good way?” He questions with a confused look.

“Oh yeah, it’s just, I’m not used to this fancy way of living.”

“Well, get used to it. I hope you’ll stay here with me for a while.” He gushed, opening the door to his apartment and showing you around. You followed like a lost puppy, consumed by the beauty of his place. You didn’t bother asking how he could afford it- especially knowing who is dad is.

“Hey, look.” He pulls you towards the bedroom,

“I made room in the closet, drawers and the bathroom for your stuff. I mean, it might be better if you unpack, right? If you want to, you don’t have to! I just figured-“ he’s rambling, you cut him off with a kiss.

“Thank you, Jungkook. But I really don’t want to intrude; and I don’t want to move too fast either. This won’t be permanent.” You admit. His shoulders drop a bit, but he nods his head anyway. You speak up again,

“I’m going to go in the shower, I’ll be out in a minute okay? Maybe I can cook something if you’re hungry?” You ask as you make your way to the bathroom.

Once you turn on the hot water- you get into the shower and slide down the marbled tiles until you’re on the floor, just sitting while the water washes over you. You can’t seem to stop all the racing thoughts that filled your head, so much has happened in such a short time. You weren’t used to change- you hated change! What were you doing? You’re naked in the bathroom of a man you’ll be teaching tomorrow afternoon.

You weren’t sure when your sobs became loud, or when your rigid breathing triggered a full blown panic attack. You couldn’t scream for help if you wanted to, it was as if your body wouldn’t allow it. But you didn’t need to; within seconds Jungkook climbed into the shower behind you, he was fully clothed but he didn’t care.

“I’m sorry.” You gasp, still panting and crying.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. Come here.” He pulled you close to him, turning off the shower and throwing your towel over you while the two of you just lied there. He rubbed your back until the sobs finally stopped. There was so much you were confused about- but choosing to give Jungkook a chance was not one of them.

“You’re too good for me, Kookie.” You mumble.

“What? Nonsense. You’re perfect.”

“I have baggage. Too much of it. You deserve to be with someone younger and-“

“You’re 26, y/n.” He laughed, “Stop being dramatic.”

“But I feel 45!” You snapped back, the two of you filling the room with loud giggles as you toss around playful insults to one another.

“Okay, babe. You finish up here and I’ll order takeout.” He says, leaving a kiss on your damp forehead and jumping out of the shower as he groans about his wet clothes.

You leave the bathroom 15 minutes later feeling better than you felt the entire day.

“Are you okay?” You ask, Jungkook. Running your hands through his hair as he whines about his photography class.

“I’m not okay, actually.” He cries out dramatically before going on a rant, “I’m supposed to be capturing photos of things that I find meaningful, I’ve tried trees, flowers, places in my house- like aesthetics, you know? And I can’t get anything good. It’s a huge grade and not to sound cocky- but I’m a big deal in that class and I want to keep that standard.” He finally finishes, it takes you a few seconds to reply- you just stare at him adoringly. It was so refreshing that he was still that same know it all college kid that loved doing well.

“Well? What do you say?” You hear Jungkook

Speak up.

You smile at him, “What?”

“You’re meaningful to me.. Can I use you? No face, I promise.”

Your eyes widen a bit, “I don’t think so-“ You cut yourself off when you see his puppy face.

“Fine!” You belt. Taking off your robe to change into actual clothes.

“No! I mean, leave the robe on please. I have an idea.” He pleads.

You eye him for a moment, but you can’t seem to tell him no. He walks in front you, moving you to the bed to get you into position.

His fingers cup your cheek as he stares at you for a moment- he always does this, it made you feel loved, adored even. Something you haven’t felt in a while.

“Okay, do whatever feels comfortable.” He finally whispers. He moves around the bed, grabbing his camera and pointing it in your direction.

You slide off the robe and let it slip past your back, tilting your head slightly to ask,

“Is this okay?” You wonder, your back still facing him while he snaps photos.

“It’s perfect, baby.”

There was something so pure about this moment. It wasn’t sexy- it was art. The way he constantly positioned our body, turned your head in the direction he wanted it in, and how he praised you throughout the shoot, knowing how shy you must have felt.

You hear him place his camera on the desk as he crawls onto the bed behind you.

“You were great.” You just smile and lean your back into his chest. He slowly grabs your robe, pulling it off of your body so your bare.

He speaks up once more, “I adore you, you know that?” You nod your head and suck in a deep breath as he leaves kisses on your neck and shoulder. His hands travel to your breast as he rubs them, pinching your nipples as he gently nibbles on your ear. Suddenly he’s lifting you to the other side of the bed, resting you right on top of him so you’re sitting directly on his growing bulge. He throws your legs over his and spreads them, it’s not until then that you notice you’re in front of a mirror.

“Jungkook-“

“Shh.” One hand holding you down by your stomach and the other slowly rubbing your thighs as he begins grinding up against you.

“Jungkook.” You repeat, but it comes out as a gasp. He rests his head over your shoulder and looks into the mirror, holding your eye contact as he brings his fingers to your wet folds, sliding them up and down as you shake and squirm.

“Look at you. You are so sexy.” He moans, placing two fingers on your clit; rubbing it slowly, savoring the moment while he leaves love bites anywhere his mouth could reach. His moans get louder each time you grind against him.

“What do you want?”

“Finger me.” You tell him bluntly, his eyebrows lift up for a second,

“Will do.” He purred, slipping three fingers into you and pumping them in and out slowly.

Growing frustrated you groan, “Faster, Kookie.”

“Not until I see you see you rub your clit for me.” He watches your reflection as you reach down and begin touching yourself.

When he doesn’t move faster you beg, “Ugh. Faster, Kookie.” He nods and roughly shoves his fingers in and out of you and you continue to grind on him until he can’t take it anymore,

“Fuck it.” He pants, lifting you up to unbuckle his jeans and tugging them to his ankle, allowing you to finish pulling them off all the way. He settles you back on him so that his cock is rubbing against your pussy. You place your hand over his throbbing tip to put more friction on your clit, skillfully rubbing yourself onto him.

“Does that feel okay?” You ask him, he moans even louder and that was a sign of approval to you.

He moves until he’s lined up with your entrance- he doesn’t slide in just yet, he just continues circling the area.

“May I?”

“You may.” And with that he slams into you, you inhale a deep breath and start moving with him, turning your head towards his to kiss him.

“So good, baby. Keep riding my cock.” He continues to praise you. This goes on for a while and you can feel your legs begin to give you. He swiftly flips the two of you so that you’re down on all four with an arched back as he slides back into your heat. His hands stay on your hips, moving to your back from time to time to push it back down each time you tried to lift it.

“F-fuck.” You moan loudly, moving away when the pleasure became too much, but he pulled you back each time.

“Don’t run. Take it.” He demands, grabbing a fist full of your hair and going impossibly faster.

“I’m gonna cum. I-fuck, I’m cumming.” You yelp loudly and it’s the only sound in the room aside from your heavy breathing and the loud clapping from Jungkook fucking you.

He wraps his arms around you, placing the upper half of his body on your back while he continues to hump you, and you can tell that he’s cumming too.

“Oh my God.” You chuckle, still winded as you and Jungkook lie back on the bed after cleaning each other up.

It’s quiet for a while; the two of you just enjoying each other’s company before he conversed,

“You know, I think I- actually, never mind.”

“No, no, no. You already started, now you have to finish!” You hissed.

He let out a laugh and pulled you so that you were lying on his chest,

“Fine. I was going to say that you, um, you make me really happy. And I know that you probably don’t feel as strongly for me as I do for you but I feel like I could picture us getting serious.”

You think for a moment about how exactly you should respond, “I feel the same way, Kookie; and that’s what scares me.” You feel him stiffen a bit at your confession,

“Scare you how?”

“Scare me as in I don’t want to lose everything I’ve worked so hard for.”

“How about we skip the ‘I won’t risk anything for you’ talk, okay?” He cautioned.

“Jungkook, be quiet. What I meant to say, was that I really like you- and I know it won’t end well. What happened with Gia was a warning.” Before he can reply, you both hear the door bell ring,

“About fucking time! Our food is here.” He cheers, looking for his pants before he answers the door,

You push him back on the bed with a laugh and tell him, “I’ll get it, don’t worry.”

You walk to the door, and when you open it there is a middle age woman standing there with no food in either hand.

“Are you the delivery driver?” You question.

She creases her eyebrows as she steps back to take another look at the apartment number on the door,

“Oh sorry, I guess I have the wrong door, I was looking for my son.”

Just then, Jungkook emerges from the room,

“Was it the food, babe?” He asks from behind you before his eyes widen and he continues,

“Mom?”

A/N: I suck at updating. To those that are reading, thanks for being patient.

Part 5 | Part 6

[lailannajacobs]

Roman Holiday

Pairing: Loki X Reader

Request: Could you please do Loki and reader where the reader is really sick and Loki takes care of them? :3

Warnings: Mostly fluff!

Word Count: 1.8k 

A/N: Thanks for this request my lovely anon, I had a blast writing it <3 Feedback and requests are always appreciated and welcome! 

You felt like crap. Complete and utter crap. You hadn’t managed to get out of bed all morning and didn’t think you’d be able to for the rest of the day. But you knew you’d have to, you really had to pee.

You heaved a breath and pushed yourself out of bed. Every part of your body ached and every dizzying step you took towards the bathroom felt as if you were walking through quicksand. You spent as little time in the bathroom as necessary, swallowing a couple pills, not bothering to look at yourself in the mirror. You didn’t need the mirror to know that you probably looked as bad as you felt.

You were trudging back to your room when you were stopped by two hands on either sides of your body. The sick haze you had been walking through made you completely oblivious to Loki, who was now looking over every inch of you.

He said something, but you couldn’t focus. You shrugged. You needed to go back to bed. He nodded his agreement, which meant you must have spoken aloud. The next step you took almost sent you to the ground, but he caught you, slinging an arm around your waist.

You had no idea why he was here. You and Loki had never quite gotten along and if you remembered right, there was something else he was supposed to be doing right now. You couldn’t figure it out. It was on the tip of your tongue.

“I’m sick.” You mentioned, just in case he didn’t know.

He ushered you along gently, “I’m well aware (y/n).”

“Then why,” you paused, pulling him to a stop with you. “Are you still here?”

“You need to get to bed,” was all he said before pulling you along.

You followed, mainly because you had no choice, your head throbbing with each step. Being sick was the worst. At least you hadn’t thrown up yet. At least you hadn’t thrown up on him. Not that you’d feel too bad about it if you did. Maybe you should. He always made your life a living hell when you were sparing, using every one of his little tricks to make your life harder. Maybe he deserved it.

You shivered.

His hand went to your forehead.

He muttered something under his breath but you couldn’t hear. You recognized that tone though. It was his disappointed tone. You would have rolled your eyes if you knew it wouldn’t give you a splitting headache. You had your damned congested sinuses to thank for that.

“It’s not my fault.” You sassed, even though you knew it could never match his tone.

He sighed and shook his head. The movement only made the world spin so you closed your eyes. Before you had any idea what was going on, he lifted you off your feet and into his arms. You wanted to fight him off but you didn’t have the energy for it. You abandoned that thought completely when you felt yourself sink into your plush mattress.

“Sleep.” he ordered.

You scoffed. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

He might have answered, but you didn’t hear it, you were already asleep.

“Why do I always get paired up with him?” You whined, looking around the room for any one else to spar with.

“Because nobody else wants to.”  Thor laughed, winking in his brother’s direction.

Loki only rolled his eyes in response.

“And you think I want to? He doesn’t fight fair.”

“Life’s not fair. Stop wasting time.” Loki said, beckoning to start the fight.

“He’s right,” Thor dodged a punch being thrown his way, “he’ll make you a better fighter.”

You took in a deep breath and stared down your opponent. The same opponent you seemed to be stuck with every couple days when you all came down to get a little workout in. It didn’t matter that he basically ignored you if you were anywhere else in the compound. Here, he couldn’t, so he made your fights as hard, if not harder, than they had to be.

You didn’t mind it so much, other than the horribly sore body the next day. And Thor was right, he did help you become a better fighter. Only he made it clear that he didn’t like you very much. Actually, not at all. That didn’t bother you so much either. You didn’t like him much either. He was grumpy most of the time and when he wasn’t, he ignored you anyways.

He never struck first. Like the gentleman he pretended to be, he always waited for you. The longer you took, the more irritated he would get. You had tried testing his patience, hoping to get him to strike first but it had never worked out. It had only meant that your fight had been that much harder.

“Will you do something? Or are you waiting for me to die of old age first? “ Loki demanded impatiently. “Just so you know, I still wouldn’t consider that a win.”

“Oh get over it.”

You swung a dagger up toward his face. It hadn’t taken long for you to adopt his way of fighting. You didn’t bring fists to a knife fight, and you always had to assume that he’d be fighting with a pair. That was the only way in which he was predictable.

You had been holding your own until sweat was pouring down your brow. It wasn’t every day you managed to get him to work, at least a little, to keep you at bay. Your satisfaction didn’t last much longer. He fell back, duplicated himself for barely a moment, just long enough to throw your concentration, before he had you flipped onto the mat, pinned underneath him.

‘I win.” He whispered as if he had never said it to you before.

You answered, “Fine.” but you both knew it was a promise to beat him next time.

A promise he repeated. “Fine.”

You opened your eyes but everything was dark. It took your eyes a second to adjust and a second longer to realize where you were. Your throat was scratchy and dry, you couldn’t breath out of your left nostril, barely out of the right, but you felt somewhat better than you had this morning.

On your beside table was a glass of blue liquid and two tiny pills. Past that, was Loki sprawled on a chair, fast asleep. You blinked, trying to remember why he was here. Why he looked so peaceful and harmless. It came back slowly. He had helped you back to your room and had most likely brought you the little gifts on your table but it still didn’t explain why he was here. Or why he had done any of that in the first place. Your brain hurt too much to even try to figure it out.

As much as you didn’t want to put a single thing in your body, you knew you had to take the pills. You’d only feel worse if you didn’t. Popping them in, you took a large gulp of the liquid, and apparently air too, because you started choking, trying your hardest not to spit it out everywhere. You managed to swallow but were still coughing when you noticed Loki side glance at you, as if it was too much work to turn his head completely, especially that you had just woken him up from his nap.

“I don’t recommend dying. It would be a pretty mortifying way to go.” He mentioned before closing his eyes again.

“Thanks for…the…concern.” you managed between coughs.

Once you had your hacking under control, you took in a long deep breath, in and out, through the mouth. Sitting up felt like a challenge but you remained that way, not wanting to seem weak in front of Loki. Although if you were being honest, he had seen worse earlier this morning.

“What are you doing here anyways?”

He didn’t open his eyes, “making sure you don’t die.”

“Sure,” you scoffed. “Cause you did a bang up job of it just now.”

“Thank you.” He smirked.

“Why would you care if I lived or died anyways? Not that I’m going to die, it’s just a cold. A really bad cold.”

“And you’re handling it with such dignity.”

You wanted to smack him. You didn’t, only because you didn’t have the arm strength to, but you wanted to. Really wanted to.  “You didn’t answer my question.”

He leaned further back in the chair, “and you sound like you’ve eaten a frog.”

You rolled your eyes even if it sent the whole room spinning, “That’s an interesting comparison. And you’d know that how exactly?”

Even with his eyes closed, the crazy smile on his face spoke volumes towards his mischievous nature. “Let’s just say that Thor wasn’t too pleased when he realized that what he had eaten wasn’t his favourite dessert.”

“I can’t believe your brother has never stabbed you.”  You shook your head.

“Well,” his smile lessened a little, “let’s just say that I’m usually the one doing the stabbing.”

You’d gathered enough strength and threw one of your throw pillows at him. After all, it wasn’t like you did anything bad, it was in their name. “I’d like to be the one to stab you right now.”

He slid the bright red pillow off his body as if it was a dirty rag, “all this hostility even after I take care of you. How ungrateful.”

His words reminded you that you still had no idea why he took care of you all day. “You never did answer my question Loki.”

“And you never said thank you. I am missing my training today because of your,” he waved his hand dramatically. “Human illness.”

You let your body flop back onto the bed, exhausted from all the sitting.

He sat up, “what’s the matter?”

He was looking at you, with what you could only imagine was concern in his eyes. Not that you would know for sure what it looked like. Even after he spent an hour throwing you to the ground during sparing practice, he never once looked at you the way he was now. You were weirded out by it but also a little flattered.

“(y/n)?”

“I’m fine.” You said, “just tired.”

“Oh.” he melted back into the chair and closed his eyes again. “You should get some rest then.”

“Okay…” You weren’t sure what else to say. You had never seen Loki like this. “I will.”

He wrung his hands, “do.. you need anything else? If you died in your sleep, that would be mortifying for me.”

“Because my own death wouldn’t be a bad thing for me?” you shook your head, a small smile on your lips. “But no, I’m fine, thank you.”

“Do you want me to leave?” He sat up as if expecting that he should have left a long time ago.

“No,” you shrug. “I’m fine.”

“Fine.” He huffed a little laugh and settled back down.

Within seconds, you were fast asleep.

Part 2

Tags: 

@lokislilcaribbeanprincess @lokixme @crescent-night @jessiejunebug @thatkidofwarandpeace @thathedonistgirl @lemonie2 @thatkidofwarandpeace @bbcsassdeadass

[bloodfcst-a]

Hey, y’all. Tumblr’s been setting off my anxiety in the last few days, thus the reason I’ve been away. I’ll give you a full explanation under the cut for those who are interested (though I’d really appreciate it if you all read it anyway), and provide some contact information for places you can find me.

Discord: conjure. ☆#6443 Twitch: ninabeanxo Twitter: mishtadelet

I’ve been kind of quiet on Discord lately & I’m the most active on Twitter. I also announce when I’m streaming on Twitter, so... yeah. Sorry about this.

I want to be here. I really do. But there’s something about the summers on Tumblr that are really hard on me. I also think people’s attitudes change & idk why, but people seem to treat me pretty rudely? I try so hard to be approachable, to be kind and positive and supportive, but the amount that people try to take advantage of me or are just plain rude to me is?? So wild. So for those reasons, I’ve just kind of been isolating myself lately, and I may seem a little distant/less approachable/not talking much about myself because tbh... some of y’all are just haphazardly setting off my anxiety / panic attacks and I seriously can’t do it. I already have PTSD, so it’s a fucking nightmare lmao.

There is no gentle way of saying this, but it really needs to be stated. Please respect my triggers, or I will not talk to you. Please respect if I ask you not to mention something or someone to me.

and this is a really big one....

Please respect my boundaries.

If I have mentioned to you that I am not vibing with someone, do not send me media of them / that includes them, do not ask me about ships with them, do not tag me in posts of / with them, and please stop asking me about group verses / affiliated servers. In my time on tumblr, I’ve dealt with theft, bullying, emotional abuse, sexual harassment & solicitation. I’m constantly asking myself ‘ Why me? ’ but more than that, I’m really trying to avoid further situations from happening. I haven’t found an answer. I’m guessing it’s ‘cause I’m soft / nice? idk. Stop ruining a good thing. Y’all are gonna make me bitter, dang. 

When I made this blog, I was explicit that I do not want to be in mainstream FF fandom. When I promo this blog, I even say primarily fandomless & canon-divergent. There is way too much messiness in the fandom, extremely toxic people & tendencies there, and I just don’t like fandom discussion. Regardless of my reasons, the point is that I’m not interested, so please stop trying to entice me to go back. It’s so blatantly rude & shows you think your interests & wishes are more important than my comfort level, and I don’t appreciate that sentiment in the slightest.

That being said, I know Yufi reads differently. That’s why I put so much work into her metas. I even have two tags for all the content. At some point I’ll even have a less minimalistic blog & with more links so it’s super accessible ( in the off chances searching for the ‘  meta ’ and ‘ kisaragi ‘ tags don’t work ). But in the meantime... ask questions. Read. Join a stream. I’ve literally streamed games & movies for folks privately & occasionally stream now. I actually started a new file of VII not too long ago and just got Yuffie, so I could literally have a gameplay stream where we go through canon together. I’m like... nearly begging. Don’t make assumptions.

Again, there are so many resources. There’s wikis, there’s the tags, there’s the inbox ( just ask! ), there’s streams, there’s gameplay & commentary videos, there’s stuff. If you are confused or unsure, I would much rather you reach out. This is regardless of how long I’ve known you, ‘cause some of us have known me for a while and still don’t know anything about me or my portrayal or how to interact, in- or out-of-character.

On the topic of assumptions (because it really is that important, so many issues stem from assumptions & you continuously making the wrong assumptions will leave me less inclined to speak with you, nevermind interact), let’s address some.

I do not write a hyper-sexualized muse. I know this is fanon because of her choice in clothes... however, clothes are a fashion choice, and do not reflect a person’s... existence? I don’t know if it’s the masculinity or the rape culture or what but... what she’s wearing does not mean she deserves any hypersexual treatment... and also as an extension, myself ( bc this happens way too frequently-- please stop seeing my muse and then approaching me about your personal sexual fantasies. It is extremely uncomfortable, as someone who is sex-neutral & demiromantic, to be randomly selected to talk about sex? with me personally? via my muse? Or about my muse when we have zero chemistry? Why do y’all think this is okay??). When I do choose to write sexual / nsfw content, it’s always after conversations ( plural!! ) with my writing partner & after I feel comfortable with the topic and with them. But even if I had her hoein’ it up on the dash, that doesn’t mean to make assumptions about her character (bc maybe there’s character motivations I need to write a meta for & it’s part of her background) or me (the mun is not the muse!! say it with me!!).

I do not write a kleptomanic. Again, this is entirely fanon, because Yuffie says in literally everything she’s mentioned in that she does not steal without a purpose-- and the highest purpose is that she’s stealing items that would restore the power and glory of Wutai or for her personal safety. However, I very rarely write theft... I try really hard to steer clear of the topic because I’m aware that it’s like the #1 thing she’s reduced to. She’s a thief class, yes, but that is not the only dimension to her. I could go on, but I think that’s enough.

Just because our characters share canon does not mean they’re going to have chemistry. I am canon-divergent. But not only that... Yuffie just doesn’t vibe with most people as a canon fact. She is an outsider to like... 99% of people, exclusion being Godo ( Wutai ) & the Turks & the WRO. She doesn’t even claim herself as a member of AVALANCHE. Not only this, but the dynamic she has with one Reeve or Cloud does not represent every duplicate-- that comes with plotting and with chemistry. We will have to plot & work together to figure out exactly how our versions of characters mesh. This is a collaborative hobby.... so the collaborating shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. 

If you come guns-a-blazin’ without clearly having read anything about my portrayal, with completely inaccurate characterizations & just assume because we’re friendly out-of-character I’m gonna be pleased with it.... you’re dead wrong. I’m actually just... a very kind and nice person. I may just gently offer you some suggestions or corrections. But if you repeatedly come with your assumptions &  pre-conceived notions and it’s clear you’re not paying literally any attention to me or my ideas about my portrayal...  I’ll probably just recommend you to another duplicate. I know one who stole a ton of my content & former friends, so you’ll be in good hands. 

If you’re here, I assume that you want to write with me, not the idea of me. I’m a person with feelings & interests too, y’know ?? I feel like somehow that’s easy to forget with me for some reason, given how often people feel inclined to overstep my boundaries & act so disrespectful to me. Which is... fucking wild, honestly !! I’ve even had a person deadass say to my face “ I didn’t think/know you’d want to be treated with appreciation and respect. ” What the actual fuck does that mean? What kind of dominant abuser mentality ??????? Y’all on this site stress me out!!

The last two weeks have been legit stupid stressful on me, and I’ve had some interpersonal changes with folks in the last month (mainly in private) all regarding these subjects. About people here feeling entitled to be rude to me & finding all sorts of justifications for it (I’ve heard everything from “my grandma was sick” to “work’s hard”-- what’s that gotta do with you curb stomping me & my ideas/feelings, and telling me my emotions aren’t relevant in comparison to yours? It doesn’t). And it’s just been weighing down on me a lot. I don’t usually go on main here to discuss issues like this, but because it’s been OVERWHELMING in the last few weeks (and also, bc being nice to everyone is kinda common sense ? and idk why folks here seem to think I’m excluded from the ‘everyone’???), it just seemed like now, while I’m isolating a bit in an attempt to focus on some self-healing, would be a great time to discuss things.

I know this was a long post... but there’s been a lot of injustices done to me on here & in life, so....... if it burdens you to read all this, imagine how shitty it feels to have to experience it. Yeah. It’s rough, pals.

I don’t know how to really end this post godhsaohof. I’m hoping this will kind of open someone’s eyes & like... maybe things will change. I’ve stated before, but I have chronic illness so I really can’t handle stress or, for lack of a better term, a lot of bullshit tbh. If you wouldn’t say it to someone with a dying illness or cancer or a soft sweet grandma, don’t say it to me. Because that’s literally me! I’ve got an illness I’m dying from & I’ve had cancer & I’m soft and sweet! tl;dr, stop being so mean to me dang. I didn’t do anything to deserve this.

[thestormfall]

Everything about Beat today was a little too much. [TSoS 2019: Hexa-Code Kernel]

----

Characters: Daisukenojo ‘Beat’ Bito &  Neku Sakuraba 

Wordcount:  2,677

Also on Ao3

hohoho I’ve finally written fanfic again. Gotta give some fanfic love to my fave Beat. feel free to read it there and leave a review if you enjoy it haha  

or just here, under the cut.

03/07 10:00AM

- yo, Phones! you free today? lets hang out!

- Sorry, I can't today, I'm kind of busy.

- thats cool

03/09 10:20AM

- man, the weathers sick today! cmon Ill go teach you that move I was talking about

- Can't do today either, Beat. Family stuff.

- No probs man

03/10 09:00AM

- so Doi is doing a special lunch menu today wanna go?

- I've already got lunch plans, sorry

- issokay man

- How about later? We can hang in the park after I'm done with lunch?

- yeah! aight Ill see you later.

xx

Of No Envy

Neku wasn't great at skateboarding but he didn't think that he was terrible. At the very least, after two years of being taught by Beat, he thought he would end up being decent. The unconcealed impish grins of a group of middle-school kids told him otherwise, though. Yeah, yeah laugh it up.

On the other hand, Beat was practising a few tricks that made the kids forget all about him. One of them even clapped. Yeah, Neku wasn't going to manage to do that. He couldn't even remember what it was called.

He resigned to heading towards their resting spot at the top of the skating bowl, leaning against one of the slim trees. Neku wiped the sweat off his neck using his wristband. He always exerted a lot of energy skating with Beat. With him, no matter how idle Neku might have wanted to be, Beat simply dragged him along. Not that he minded, of course.

"Phones, did you see that?" Beat skated up to him, hopping off his board and landing perfectly on the spot next to Neku, catching his board with one hand. For someone so brash, it was almost comical how smooth he was with his skateboard. "Been trying to land that nollie laser for a month!" So that's what it was called. "Gotta see if I can do it again!"

"I'm sure you will."

Beat settled down beside him, crossed leg. "Put 'em here!" He held up a fist, awaiting eagerly.

"Haha, good job." Neku returned the gesture, noting how Beat seemed pretty satisfied with himself today. "So, what? Was that what you wanted to show me all week?"

"Nah, didntcha hear me? That's the first time I've done it." He nudged Neku with his shoulder. "Had a feelin' I wouldn't get it 'till I had you around."

"Oh please, you would have got it eventually. Don't think I know anyone more stubborn than you."

"Thanks, Phones!"

Neku wanted to tell Beat that it wasn't usually meant to be a compliment…but he supposed that in this case, it was. He grabbed his water bottle, poking Beat in the cheek with it. "Want some?"

"Bwaaaah! Phones, that's cold!" Though he said that, Beat took the drink, gulping it down.

"Beat. What's wrong?"

This caused Beat to spit out about half his drink. "Huh? What d'ya mean? There ain't anythin' wrong?"

"Judging how you spit out enough water to keep all the trees in Miyashita Park hydrated, I'd argue otherwise."

His friend opened his mouth, then closed it again. A few times.

"Beat. What's wrong?" He repeated, a bit more sternly this time.

"…Yeah, yeah okay, you've got me." Beat sighed deeply and leaned back against the tree. "How'd you know?"

"You've been bugging me to meet up for the past two weeks," Neku said, drily. "Pretty sure I told you after the last ramen session that I was going to be busy, but there's been a message from you, what…every morning?"

It wasn't just that. Everything about Beat today was a little too much. Yes, Beat was always one to spend the whole day boarding but right now? In the middle of March? Neku had warmed up from the exercise but even after sitting here for a few minutes, the cool spring air was starting to seep into his skin. Beat hated the cold, too. Neku would know, Beat never failed to complain about it.

There was something about the look in his eyes, too. There, even as they were talking. Even as Beat was looking right at him.

"…Is it because Rhyme's leaving?"

Beat stiffened as the words left Neku's mouth.

I knew it.

Neku already knew that Rhyme was leaving, she and Beat had told all of them. She was off to a specialist high school overseas. When Rhyme said that she had a dream to chase, she really meant it. Of course, it would hit Beat hard. They all knew how much she meant to him.

"Hey, I'm going to miss her too, you know," he offered, quietly.

His friend stayed quiet. He lowered his eyes, then looked away.

"That's ain't it, Phones."

"It's…not?"

"Not all of it. It is and it ain't."

Well, that had Neku stumped.

"You're going to have to help me out, here a little Beat. You wanted to tell me what it was, didn't you?"

"…Ya know how you said I was 'buggin' you' for a while?" Beat finally said.

"Beat, you're not actually bothering me," Neku tried to clarify. "It's just a figure of speech –"

"I got that one," Beat interrupted. "At the start, I was jus' wantin' to hang out. I didn't want to ask Rhyme 'cause she's busy with gettin' ready to leave. But you've been busy too. An' Shiki." He paused. "…I even asked Priss." Neku raised an eyebrow, and Beat returned a look that said, 'I know'. "Anyway, everyone was doin' somethin'."

"Beat…"

"So I just kept askin' you. But you've got other friends now, right? You were havin' lunch with them today, right?"

"I guess I do," Neku said. "Beat, yeah sure I was having lunch today with other friends, but it's not like you're any less of a friend to me. Heck, I'm pretty sure you guys were the ones who were telling me to make more friends."

"Yeah, an' you did. I'm not sayin' you shouldn't have. It's a good thing. I know that," Beat said. "I know you worked pretty hard to make friends."

Hearing that made Neku felt slightly embarrassed.

Beat could probably tell. "You did. An' I'm glad you did. I know you didn't wanna have any friends…back when…back when we were in the Game." Beat whispered 'the game', something that they all tended to do. "The point is you changed. An' you kept changin' after the Game. All of you did."

He said the last sentence, with such a bitter sting that Neku was taken aback. "You don't like that we've changed?"

"I don't like that I haven't changed." There was a softer, "not one bit."

Neku hadn't seen Beat like this…not since the Game. It seemed that Beat needed a moment to compose himself.

He wasn't speaking, so all Neku could hear was the sound of those kids skateboarding, laughing with and at each other as they continued showing off tricks to each other. It was jarring, how downcast the atmosphere around Beat was in comparison. It was almost like Beat didn't belong in this picture.

Or maybe it's like that because that's how he feels.

"Rhyme's still chasing her dream," said Beat, speaking suddenly again. "An' she's leavin' because of it. I'm happy for her an' all that but we used to hang out all the time. But she's too busy now, so yeah I thought I'd leave her alone for a bit. But besides you guys, what do I have? Nothin' but this skateboard. The rest of you have tried to change, but I didn't. After the Game, I thought that was enough. Rhyme was back so that was enough. But I'm still a good for nothin' loser who doesn't matter and who has nothin' that matters to me."

Neku wanted to argue because it's not like Beat didn't have other friends. Except thinking back on it, he never mentioned having any. Not having friends was kind of Neku's thing. Perhaps he made such a big deal of it that Beat never wanted to because Neku couldn't recall Beat ever mentioning having other friends either.

Come to think of it…Hadn't Beat always gone a bit quieter whenever Shiki mentioned she was working on a new project? Whenever Neku said Hanekoma was going to help iron out a few things about his new track? Whenever Rhyme went on and on about her new school?

…When had Beat talked about himself?

He knew the answer: not much. Not since the game.

Not until now.

"You're not a loser, Beat."

"I knew you'd say that," was the immediate response. "Doesn't make it true."

He never thought he'd be the one left speechless with Beat. Neku didn't know what to say. He was never good at this. Maybe Shiki or Rhyme could have dealt with this better. Maybe even Josh – no, not Joshua, he would just say something that would make things worse.

Neku hated this, he hated seeing Beat like this.

He just…he just never assumed Beat would be anything but okay. They all had their nightmares about the Game but that was something they shared and talked about. There was nothing to indicate that there were things weren't going well after that.

And he couldn't outright say that Beat had definitely changed because he hadn't. Not in any way that he could tell.

…but so what?

"So what if you haven't changed? So, you haven't made any new friends? Or you don't have a dream? You don't need to have them, it doesn't make us any better than you."

"Phones?"

"Yeah, fine. You're still the same Beat who did everything to save your sister and who wasn't afraid to ask me for help," he continued, words falling out before he could catch them. "You're the same guy back then, who wanted to make friends with me of all people. Then, I'm sorry, but that's perfectly fine with me. Who says you need to change anyway? Screw that. If you want to find a dream or whatever crap, fine. We'll help you, but you don't need to change to do it. Another thing,you don't need a whole bunch of other people as friends because you matter to me."

Beat blinked at Neku.

"…Man, I didn't think you were goin' to get…angry with me."

"I'm not – "

Oh.

Uh, maybe he had been shouting.

Yep, those kids were giving him strange looks.

"The bottom line is," he tried to say with a bit more calm. "You're one of my best friends, and always will be whether you change or not. Or whether you have a dream or not. If you're really having a bad day or something you just need to tell me. And not with just some 'let's hang out' texts that you drop after one reply."

The person Neku was two years ago, before he met his friends, was a thorny person of no envy. Beat, however, had always had a heart of gold. Neku just wished that Beat could see that too.

"…I guess you're right," Beat said, though Neku was unsure if he was entirely convinced. "An' I think maybe I was feelin' a bit left out."

"Yeah…but seriously, if you just want to cry or whatever, I'll drop my plans."

Beat shook his head. "…That would be pretty mean to your other friends."

"I'm serious." Dead serious.

"An' why would I text you, to say 'I'm cryin', that's weird, dude."

"You're crying right now," Neku pointed out.

"Huh."

He guessed Beat, didn't realise, but there were definitely a bunch of tears just rolling down his eyes right now. Beat was always a crier; another thing that Neku was glad didn't change.

At this point, the kids were definitely staring.

"Alright, let's go Beat. The special might not still be on, but I bet you could do with some ramen right now."

Getting up, he gathered his skateboard and helmet, helping Beat to do the same. They got more stares as they left the skate park, but Neku ignored them.

"Phones?"

They only just made it out of the entrance, and Neku turned to see that Beat was wiping his face his hand. "Thanks for that, man."

"Yeah, no worries. Just…just don't keep these kinda things in, okay?" Neku tugged at his hair, a habit that hadn't changed for him after the Game. "I don't know if whatever crap I just said was good advice or not, but that's just what I think. If that's good enough for you, then you know, you can talk to me."

"Okay," he grinned, looking a lot better already, even though his eyes were still puffy. "Yeah, I haven't talked about that before so I guess I needed to let it all out."

Neku nodded. "And I'm here, whenever you need to."

"If you've got anythin' to get off your chest, you can tell me too," Beat declared.

He swung an arm around Neku's shoulder, to which Neku would usually tell him to do a bit less zealously but he would let it slide this time. "Aight, now let's get some of that ramen you were talkin' about."

"Heh, of course."

He was glad that even if Beat wasn't completely better, he had cheered up a little. The idea of ramen probably helped too.

"Thanks again, Neku."

"Anytime."

…Wait, did he just call me –

"Man, I'm starved now, Phones. I'll race ya there!"

Beat took off before Neku could say anything else. He stood there for a bit, wondering if his ears were working right.

"Hey, what're you doin'? This is a race! Pick it up, Phones!"

Shaking his head, he sighed, even as a smile came to his face.

"I'm there!"

A/N: Tadaa! Wow, I haven't posted anything since…June 2017? Not to say I haven't been writing, but most things I posted on Ao3 because the fandoms I wrote for were there…Ew, that makes me feel totally disloyal now. Okay nope, that's it, I'm giving my fics back to ffnet first, always. That said, happy start of TSoS 2019: Hexa-Code Kernel. If you didn't already know, the Twelve Shots of Summer, is exactly that – twelve one-shots all through summer!

And of course, I thought I'd get my gears going into the mood by starting off with one of my still most beloved and favourite things to write about: TWEWY!

I wanted to write something a bit more Beat-centric, though for writing Beat I usually need a bit more of a warm-up before writing in his voice so…this happened. The prompt was 'Open()' and as you probably can tell I used it in an 'opening up' sense. Not to be confused with 'open up your senses' ;D *bdm tsss*

My twewy writing is a bit rusty but I hope I did okay with my fave boy Beat. Always thought that things might not always go well for him, even after the Game so yep. And I would think Neku tried to make some friends from class after the TWEWY game, though of course the Hachiko Gang are still his best friends.

Anyway, I hope this gave you some good twewy feels. Thanks for reading!

- Dina 09/06/2019

[melforbes]

what's been your favorite part of writing seaglass blue? is there a part in particular that you couldn't wait to write? is there one you were avoiding?

to be honest i am 100% flying by the seat of my pants with this which right now is out of character so i haven’t exactly gotten to the dreaded parts yet lmao

i have an ending in mind (and a final line) that i really like but that i have a gut feeling no one else will like but i’m not compromising with it and i’m a little nervous to post that eventually. i’m not nervous about writing it but i don’t think it will necessarily come across well. Like it feels a little end of the sopranos but also it’s not like that at all but it’s the same existential vibe if that makes sense. which it doesn’t at all. but still

i actively avoid dialogue because it’s not my strong suit. i also can’t get the Mulder Voice right (deadpan snark etc) and then throwing in Big Feelings i’m just so out of my element

so far i shockingly haven’t dreaded writing any part of it. i did end up blocked with this last chapter because i hadn’t entirely decided what to do with the plot and the plot i’d thought through and didn’t actually use (and lmao have since forgotten!) just was not working at all so i didn’t write and instead did the whole running in circles thinking it through thing that isn’t writing (i recommend reading atomic habits by james clear ahaha! that running in circles motion gets a massive drag in there) that ultimately was never fruitful AND EITHER WAY i started a new drug for the other side of my life and it gave me wicked insomnia and at two am everything righted itself so i finally figured out where i was going. But that being said i never really dreaded it even though i oftentimes dread a scene or two in most chapters i write and i think the lack of dread comes from how it’s all set up in a very cozy way and it’s hard to dread something like that

i couldn’t wait to write the wedding which is why i dive into it so quickly. And i really wanted to interject parts of their “wedding night” or afternoon or whatever because those were my favorite moments to visualize. there’s another part down the line that i can’t wait to write but i also can’t spoil that haha. i think like...the most anticipated stuff i have coming up for the next chapter (or maybe the one after that depending on how the wordcount shakes out) is a specific conversation about specific things that happens in the dark. and uh i will not elaborate beyond that aldskjasldkjfdalsgj

my favorite part of writing it. this answer is so disjointed i’m sorry. i’ll put the rest of this under a cut because i’m rambling ahaha

my favorite part of writing it has been like...i think this is a multitude of things which is why i wrote msr again after a long unintentional break from it. idk if i ever really mentioned this (or at least if i mentioned it recently) but i started writing msr here in mid 2016 to rekindle my passion for writing while i was very very ill long term, and that culminated in the “everyday msr” archive i have on my ao3, which thus was a log of self-comfort in hard times as well as (unintentionally) documentation of how i neurologically healed during that treatment. so, bizarre. i was in a hard place back then and writing helped me keep my head screwed on straight, and luckily with msr you can write the shittiest things and someone will still be genuinely happy to read it and will look past any lack of talent or training or experience or anything and instead see you, someone having an idea and offering it to others, sharing something for the sake of feeling something good together. that (combined with my own personal gratification of having done something) really helped me emotionally during that time. like when you can’t be of service to anyone in the world, barely even to yourself, it’s really reassuring to hear “i was having a hard day today and this small thing you did eased me” and know that they didn’t need quality or exceptional talent; they just needed you to show up. i’m getting off topic but all of this is a roundabout way to say that i’m essentially back in that same place right now and have been for the past little over a year and like. It’s bullshit ahaha. like it’s absolute bullshit. But it’s strangely valuable to have this like...same connection as i had last time, just in a bit of a different way. it’s still msr, it’s still a kind of Happy Place for me, but there’s an overarching plot, i have other stuff that i write too, etc. but still, i appreciate being able to go back to an original comfort and form that comfort in the same way. the “everyday msr” stuff was intended to be just extended written-out headcanons about domestic msr post iwtb or post revival #1 that i could write in one sitting, and this isn’t entirely different from that; it’s just that the domesticity has a twist and a different era. but it’s the same stuff as before - pictures of misty places, gentle music, living based on the season, being a homebody, cooking for your lover, natural beauty. it’s nice to return to that place right now

another favorite part of writing this is that maine was an important part of my childhood. my family spent a week of vacation there each year (outside of bar harbor, not on mdi but right outside of it) and i kind of associate that purity with it. it feels like one of the only elements of childhood that i haven’t found adulthood corrupting. like we learn that disneyland is just a capitalist hellhole and whatnot when we’re older but maine hasn’t been ruined for me yet and i treasure that. And having them there feels special as a result. i very much on purpose didn’t label a town they’re in (or even base where they are on a real one lol all of that is glossed over enough anyway that i’m not worried about it) but it felt important and right for them to be in maine. it feels special to tap into the very brief time that i shared with the show while i was still a part of its cultural landscape. that sentence makes no sense. in other words i was born in 1997 ahaha. but either way like...i get to people this place that is already special to me and give them love and safety within it and that feels good in a way that i’m struggling to describe. And also i could go on some stupid rant about how Cell Phones Hurt Our Social Circles or whatever but i do genuinely miss rental houses that got 10 blurry channels on rabbit-eared tin foil televisions in a day and age when you normally got way more than that, all while you’re in an era in which boredom is still normal enough that all of that means “well, no tv for this week i guess!” and then you play a board game instead. it feels good to voluntarily create a place like that, then ask in my own life, why don’t i just live like this? And then to struggle through plotting something because there’s no digital numbing with television and smartphones and whatnot, and to understand my own hesitation, and to explore that a little more whether or not it’s in writing

another favorite part (yes i will in fact keep going!) is that the writing style is a little bit atypical from my current norm which allows me certain freedoms that i haven’t really opted for in a while. on the off chance that anyone has read any of my other recent stuff (though this is...a very small chance ahaha) it’s clear that these chapters are much shorter and less prose-heavy than my other stuff is, and that’s really helpful in that editing it is much simpler and writing it happens much quicker. if life were predictable and i had better self-discipline (and better health! can’t discount that one haha) then i could easily get a chapter out every weeks, in comparison to other stuff that i updated once every three months. i’m trying to keep each chapter to being about 3k in length (which they seem to naturally tend toward anyways, i didn’t create that metric so much as just went along with it) and there aren’t frequent “flashback sequences” (there are callbacks and past things brought up, but they’re not significant portions of chapters that go back and forth in timelines and make a nonlinear plot, the linear plot dominates and each scene is more or less in chronological order even if there are callbacks) so i’m not too worried about pacing or structure or anything like that. i never set out to make it “simple” i think it reads better this way and i appreciate that a lot because i can take a break from other stuff that’s a bit more jagged and just do this instead. it’s also nice to write something that i feel is more on the readable side than other things. i think my biggest inspirations for this (which i realized accidentally with the “he wants to brush her hair” line ahaha) were our souls at night and the sunlit night, both of which have a kind of dainty prose style and are a little low on long descriptions but can say a lot with one simple sentence. recently i’ve focused a lot more about darker subject matter and uglier parts of humanity so it’s nice to be able to focus on something that i feel like matters and has a more readable quality to it without actually sacrificing anything in the process or trying to dumb something down

so i think that’s it! that’s my thoughts! this is too long and far too personal! haha!

[ladylilithium]

Hans’ Redemption Arc PART 2: Rebuilding the True Self

Part 1 here

 4) The Shadow of a man that could have been.

“Listen my friend,” said the shadow to the learned man; “now that I am as fortunate and as powerful as any man can be, I will do something unusually good for you. You shall live in my palace, drive with me in the royal carriage, and have a hundred thousand dollars a year; but you must allow everyone to call you a shadow, and never venture to say that you have been a man. And once a year, when I sit in my balcony in the sunshine, you must lie at my feet as becomes a shadow to do; for I must tell you I am going to marry the princess, and our wedding will take place this evening.”

“Now, really, this is too ridiculous,” said the learned man. “I cannot, and will not, submit to such folly. It would be cheating the whole country, and the princess also. I will disclose everything, and say that I am the man, and that you are only a shadow dressed up in men’s clothes.”

“No one would believe you,” said the shadow; “be reasonable, now, or I will call the guards.”

“I will go straight to the princess,” said the learned man.

“But I shall be there first,” replied the shadow, “and you will be sent to prison.” And so it turned out, for the guards readily obeyed him, as they knew he was going to marry the king’s daughter.

“You tremble,” said the princess, when the shadow appeared before her. “Has anything happened? You must not be ill to-day, for this evening our wedding will take place.”

“I have gone through the most terrible affair that could possibly happen,” said the shadow; “only imagine, my shadow has gone mad; I suppose such a poor, shallow brain, could not bear much; he fancies that he has become a real man, and that I am his shadow.”

“How very terrible,” cried the princess; “is he locked up?”

“Oh yes, certainly; for I fear he will never recover.”

“Poor shadow!” said the princess; “it is very unfortunate for him; it would really be a good deed to free him from his frail existence; and, indeed, when I think how often people take the part of the lower class against the higher, in these days, it would be policy to put him out of the way quietly.”

“It is certainly rather hard upon him, for he was a faithful servant,” said the shadow; and he pretended to sigh.

“Yours is a noble character,” said the princess, and bowed herself before him.

In the evening the whole town was illuminated, and cannons fired “boom,” and the soldiers presented arms. It was indeed a grand wedding. The princess and the shadow stepped out on the balcony to show themselves, and to receive one cheer more. But the learned man heard nothing of all these festivities, for he had already been executed.

—Hans Christian Andersen, The Shadow.

[SIDENOTE; To read the complete story here]

When I was reading some of HCA stories, I stumbled with one called “The Shadow”, and I found it incredibly fascinating and relatable to our Prince Hans, somehow. I associate this story with Hans in particular, because both Mirror!Hans 

and the Shadow

are the distorted figures of a real man, hidden under superfluous appearances (that’s how I interpreted the Shadow story, at least). Regardless of the various interpretations that we can come up with this story, the comparison is still valid: 

Both “characters” are charming and very influential.

They start the story as humble and likeable, and by the end of it, they end up deceiving the other protagonist.

 Interestingly enough, both characters seduced and lied to a princess, who she believes they have a good of heart.

Both are prideful and entitled for their desires.

Both are very intelligent and educated.

I think is still coincidence, but nonetheless is very interesting to denote the parallels and imagine what Hans could have been if he actually ended up marrying Anna. Would he have still planned to kill Elsa? Would he still be playing them as Mirror!Hans? I think that the answer is yes. And as The Shadow story ends, the Man dies, and only the Shadow lives. If Hans actually achieved to kill Elsa, he would’ve also killed himself: no more Real!Hans, but only the reflection of what people perceive of him. No true identity whatsoever.

Would he have learnt to love Anna in time? Probably, but their relationship would still be founded in lies and manipulation. Also he wouldn’t have gotten away for far too long, as his actions were somewhat desperate, something that he even recognizes in A Frozen Heart novel. He’s smart, but his desperation for power and fear made him lose control over his scheming and emotions. Anna at some moment would’ve realized about his plans.

And here it comes into discussion if whether or not Hans has a True Self.

5) Break the Mirror to free the Man.

I really believe that if we took time to know the “Real Hans” instead of the Mirror Hans, we would find a hollow, empty person, uncertain of what to be or what role to play in life. The lack of self-identity, and the pressure that his family pushes in his mentality of becoming someone important, can be something very harmful.

What I mean by breaking the Mirror, is that there must be a certain point of defeat, the lowest point of Hans, where he’ll have two options to pick: give up and accept his misery, that he cannot change and be a shitty person forever. Or… tear apart his mirror persona. Learn. Grow. Fight against what’s conditioned onto him. Fight against that fear he has for honesty, to become a new man, a better man.

To become the Real Hans.

I want to see him suffer, I want to see him working hard to achieve forgiveness, to extract all the poison inside him. That’s how it is in real life, that’s what people do. That’s how it feels. that’s how Elsa should’ve been portrayed .🤷‍♀️

Here’s Hans in his redemption arc, 100% real no fake! 👇🏼😝

There’s an old German proverb that it says something like this: “What Hansel doesn't learn, Hans will never learn." Hansel is a variant German name, which means “little Hans.” The meaning of this proverb is that if we don’t learn something when we are children, we will never learn it once we are adults. But we are not here to agree with that proverb. We are here to call that proverb BULLSHIT! A person –Hans in our case- can always learn, if they are willing to do it.

6) Forgiveness and Hard-work: Valuing Love, and finding a new role in life.

If I could start again A million miles away I would keep myself I would find a way.

—Hurt by Nine Inch Nails.

[SIDENOTE 3: Or if you preffer Johnny Cash. Both versions are great]

As the movie implies -and extra sources of information-, Hans lives in an abusive and toxic environment, a similar situation as Elsa and Anna, but not quite. Both Anna and Elsa had the love and support from their parents, and while Elsa was distant with Anna, they still exchanged a silent support every time they could. Whereas Hans only had a limited support from his mother and Lars, the only brother that didn’t treat him horribly, it was still not enough. Hans not only was neglected, but also abused physically, and psychologically. Even body-shamed. How often do we see body shaming in men? I’m honestly asking, because I can’t come across any example of a movie or any media🤔

Anyways.

Showing Hans trying to understand, questioning with honesty the sisterly bond between Anna and Elsa would a step forward in his Redemption Arc. Being genuinely confused, since from his perspective, Elsa almost killed Anna. Perhaps a conversation between Hans and Olaf (the physical manifestation of the love between Anna and Elsa) will help him out to see life in a different light, in a more emotional level rather than materialistic. And also because it would be very cute and hilarious! 

Though I don’t want him to become 100% a passive goody two-shoes boy. Nope. He still has to have his jerkish, prideful, Draco Malfoyish attitude, that’s what makes him stand out from the rest of the cast in the first place! I have my priorities right, shut up.

His main goal and ambition would still be the same; being recognized and appreciated. Finding a place where he could belong, a place where his attributes and talents can be taken seriously and admired. Maybe a Queen’s Guard, or becoming part of Arendelle’s royal navy? An admiral, perhaps? Or maybe finding peace in other place that is not The Southern Isles or Arendelle, adventuring alone to find himself. That’s a bittersweet take, but could be possible… and I kinda like it.

7) Societal expectations of a man: A potential social commentary/critique.

“Srong. Female. Characters.” Such an overused statement, don’t you think? Now, now! Don’t crucify me just yet. I love strong female characters, I really do. And Disney certainly has their roster of strong female characters that are independent and loving, defiant of societal expectations like Merida, Mulan, Vanelope, Tiana, Belle, even Ariel (though sadly most of her independence and curiosity is overlooked and misinterpreted by a lazy GA). But what about male characters? True we have Aladdin, but that’s more the story of an underdog. Or Ralph? Hmm, could be, but not exactly.

What about telling a story of an apparently wealthy young man –a prince- that is mocked and belittled all his life for not achieving greater things? For not being as aggressive or masculine, as he is expected to be? Just think about it, all the stakes has been settled for a story like this. Besides the story of escaping an abusive family, is would also be useful a social critique about masculinity, in general.

What makes a man “man” for the Westergaards?

A father that values archetypical masculine strength: cruelty, violence, coldness, ambition, power, pride, social status, fear.

A mother that is undermined for being a woman and reduced to a baby factory. The same goes for the wives of the other princes.

Older brothers that abuse and pick on the smallest one for not being as strong as them.

Hans being mocked for being close to him mom, a typical approach to mock other men’s masculinity.

Hans want his father’s approval so much, even to a point where the only way to get it, is by harming others.

For the Westergaards, social status is seen as more important than love or affection.

Hans is body shamed for not being as big or strong as his other brothers.

These guys along with Hans’ father are the fathers of the year!

We as society reinforce those traits, even though is slowly changing now, the stigma is still there, and men are as much of victims of sexism as we are. Hans could be the perfect character to use and to point out these kind of “toxic masculinity” traits that we as society reinforce, and that we should change for better. 

Hans’ development would be about reconnecting with his feelings, instead of trying to fit a toxic archetype of masculinity that his father and brothers represent. His story not only would be about forgiveness, but also about a man reconnecting with his “feminine side”, his emotions and identity as a whole.

I know that this dialogue is played as funny or not taken seriously (that’s how I take it by the tone of it :_), but imagine an emotional scene of a male character manifesting his feelings with tears on screen. Maybe is just my wish-fulfillment of seeing Hans miserable and being pardoned (uhm... yeah… basically), but even still, it would also provide a new unexplored trait in him. And since we didn’t get to know him completely, I don’t think it would be too OOC. It just depends of how is delivered. And yeah! I WANT TO SEE A MALE CHARACTER CRY! And not played as a joke, but for real! ignore me.

PS: Part 3 will be the last one, and it will touch ships from a narrative POV, and character archetypes that could be used for Hans arc.

[whenthisstoryendsarchive]

Meta #5: A Comparison of Elizabeth’s Soul & Elle’s Heart

While watching the film, we see many instances of the importance of both the heart and the soul, especially in relation to magic. Elizabeth is trapped by her soul, while Elle’s heart is ultimately what sets her free. And one may argue that because of this, Elle’s heart is stronger than Elizabeth’s soul.

But I don’t think that this is the case. Remember, Elizabeth has been with Locke for “a long time”, which I play as being a century, but could be even longer than that. And from the first day of her captivity, Locke has been siphoning her power from her soul, thus making Elizabeth weaker and weaker until she has to rely on humans to gain her freedom.

Don’t forget, Elizabeth is a full-blooded mermaid. She was born in the sea, and is the daughter of a sea king and the descendant of sea gods. By all rights, she should be far stronger than Thora or Elle. Her only rival should be Locke. Elle, on the other hand, is a human. But she only has the heart of a mermaid. Which makes her significantly stronger than Thora because she has a source of power that is greater than a human. Locke, on the other hand, I don’t see as being human. At least, not anymore, if he ever truly was. When we see him in the prologue, he’s more demonic or dementor like than a person. And I fully believe that the form we see during the film is one he uses to walk amongst people. And it’s possible that Elizabeth and maybe Thora are the only ones to see what his true form is. And I can see his true form being even worse than the terrible cloaked figure from the prologue.

Still, that leaves us with the question, when it comes to magic and spirit, which would be stronger? The heart or the soul? Trying to find this was actually harder than I thought it would be. While I don’t feel satisfied fully with the information I was able to find, I will try to apply it in a way that will at least attempt to answer the way I had wanted to originally.

When we look at the soul and the heart side by side, we can draw some distinct differences. For example, the soul is considered to be divine, while the heart is of the body and expresses the body’s wants and needs. The heart is linked to the material aspects of life, while the soul corresponds to the spiritual. The soul gives life and consciousness to our bodies, but the heart does not. This is because the heart is a part of the body and dies when the body does, but the soul is everlasting and eternal. We can see that in order for life to exist, a balance of both heart and soul are needed, but the soul remains distinct and separate even with that knowledge.

Balance is not just crucial for life to be created, but harmony between heart and soul is also required for happiness and wellness. We’ve all felt off balance, ill, or at odds with the world when stress becomes too much to bear, and this only goes to show the vitality of keeping heart and soul at peace. As a part of the body, the heart is responsible for telling us what we need, what we may not like, and what problems we are facing. This is done through the senses we have and use every day. The heart is also linked to our inner mind and reflects what occurs there. Perhaps most importantly, the heart is meant to serve the soul, and without the heart, our bodies are useless.

But on the other side of the coin, the soul is the center of our being. Like Elizabeth, we cannot find true happiness when our souls are being smothered. Our souls are said to be linked to our inner consciousness, where happiness is found both within and without.

We all possess an intricate and important balance of soul, mind, and body when we try to find and do what makes us happy, and being aware of this fact is crucial. Knowing of this link and addressing it allows us to be self-aware, find purpose, heighten our consciousness, let go of fears of the unknown, and form deeper connections with whatever higher powers we might believe in.

With this in mind, we can now look deeper into the heart and the soul on individual levels, and determine the roles that they both play in magic. First, the heart.

As we might suspect, gratitude is perhaps one of the key parts of magic related to the heart. It’s been noted that when we feel more gratitude in our hearts, we have more things to be grateful for in our lives. There has, according to the source, even been scientific notes of this. These notes tell us that when we focus on or pay special attention to the heart when we feel gratitude for something, our heart rhythms turn more harmonious and balanced instantly, which leads to better health and immune function overall. This, in turn, increases both the depths of our feelings and the benefits or rewards we see from that. Though we may consider this to be some kind of magical thinking, or expect some surge of power, it really comes down to simple things like tingling sensations in the heart, times of joy, happy tears, or even goosebumps. It has also been stated that by focusing more on gratitude allows an increase of peace and contentment in our daily lives.

Though gratitude may be the most important part of heart magic, there are also several other areas that are crucial to consider. These include compassion, dignity, equanimity, forgiveness, humility, integrity, justice, kindness, and love. In this area of magic, these areas would call for openness to both oneself and others, recognizing that every living thing has and deserves dignity, admitting that life has ups and downs but trying to find balance anyway, offering forgiveness, being grateful for what we have, knowing that there is no such thing as ‘being better than others’, living and honesty life with integrity, looking after and standing up for those who may be vulnerable or weaker, being kind, keeping the heart open, and being free with the love that we hold.

We all know that religions across the world focus on the soul and the crucial link that the heart has to it. For example, in the Qur’an, we see a quote that reads “There is in the body a chunk of flesh- if it becomes good, the whole body becomes good and if it becomes bad, the whole body becomes bad. And indeed it is the heart”. Rather like the Ancient Egyptians, followers of Islam believe that they will be judged for the lives they lived and the things they did by the condition of the heart. I found it interesting while reading this article that even good deeds can be considered bad or sinful if they were done for a selfish reason. And while this should seem common sense, it seems to be something that not many focus on anymore. In short, no amount of time spent bettering and softening the heart is wasted, as it makes us more merciful.

From reading this article, we see just how important the heart and true selflessness are to Islam. Corruption in the heart turns knowledge hard, and a lack of mercy in one’s life leads to distress and discomfort. It’s clear that a hard heart is considered a curse, while a soft one is a blessing.

What it ultimately comes down to is the heart determines the fate of the soul.

The soul, however, seems to be a little more complex than we might think. But a simple way to think of it is like attracts like. No matter what we do in our lives, the soul is what leads us. All of our thoughts and actions may be given life by way of our creativity, but that creativity comes from the soul, thus making us who we are. No one can deny how much faster and easier tasks are when we feel invested in them and enjoy doing them. We find ourselves enjoying actually doing the work, and feeling more satisfied with the final outcomes of them. This is because our souls are in tune with the task. But when we allow fear and feelings of insecurity or inadequacy to grip us, our enjoyment and fulfillment are severely limited. Sometimes, the road to getting back to harmony and attunement can be as simple as trying different approaches to the task, or working on adjusting our energy and balance.

Of course, for many of us, this is far from an easy task. And often, our own worst enemies are ourselves. Our words and thoughts may be influenced by the energies and environments around us, but we have the final say in the direction our energy and efforts take. But if we allow the negative to hold us back and drag us down, it will lead to further imbalances. What we go through in life shapes us, and there is no denying that. But the final say of who we are, the paths we take, and the successes we have are in our hands. We have to choose the paths we walk in life, and though conflict may influence parts of it, we have to keep choosing to move forward so that our souls can reach their highest potential.

It is also worth noting the role that connections to not only the heart, but other souls can play. At one time or another, we have all felt a connection to someone else. Whether it be bonding right away with the person who becomes our best friend, or meeting a future lover for the first time and feeling like we’ve known them all of our lives, our souls seek out connections to help us thrive. But not all of these connections can be good, especially when we consider magically. While this website is most likely for fictional work, I found the article in question to be a good way to explain the connection and bond between Locke and Elizabeth.

One key factor comes down to the souls in question. This is because connecting your soul to someone else’s can influence them both. It would be even more drastic if one soul is stronger and more powerful than the other. Any form of connection like this would require a strong will and sense of self in order to avoid manipulation of your soul.

Though this manipulation may change something within the soul, but it does not change the essence of the soul itself. This was rather nicely explained in the article with the example of the mage and the fire, where a spiritually strong mage may be able to slow the fire’s progress, the fire itself is not changed and can still turn to an inferno. This means that the soul of the manipulator, or stronger force can also become endangered as well.

A person is simply not meant to better themselves by means of stealing what is good in others. It is essentially lying to ourselves and everyone around us. While we can look to others for inspiration to find our best selves, we cannot find that self by pretending to be something we are not. When we are not sure of who we are, and try to fill ourselves up with the identities of those around us, we lose even more of ourselves. This may also be influenced by our morals and what we value in our lives.

If we do consider that a stronger soul is able to absorb and influence a weaker one, then that would in turn cause the stronger soul to be even harder to influence when someone else comes along. We can argue this because that stronger soul would have bits and pieces of all the weaker souls it absorbed and melded itself with. If someone down the line would want to try and influence the greater soul, it would first need to change and influence all those smaller pieces of weaker souls, and then focus on the larger one.

This would then, logically, cause the energy and essence of the weaker soul to be lost, potentially forever. This could become permanent if the lesser soul is not able to return to its original and rightful body. Thusly, the number of people within the connection and the size of the more powerful soul will factor into the rate of loss and how permanent it may be.

Another factor would be how deep the connection between the two souls goes. A lighter more superficial connection could actually be beneficial to one or both parties, but a deeper one can harm. Whether the weaker soul is aware of the connection is also important, as the odds of returning to its body are more likely when it is aware of where it is, naturally, meaning that those chances drop for those who are unaware. It is also critical whether the stronger soul is “good” or “evil”, because this will determine of restoring the weaker soul is even possible in the first place.

Of course, we do have to point out that change in our lives is not bad in and of itself, because change is the pivotal factor in growth. And without change, growth would not exist. What we do need to look out for, and guard ourselves against, is the dangerous loss of control. This loss of power is what forces the lesser soul to bond to and be absorbed by the stronger one, the impacts of which, as we’ve seen, can be disastrous. While everyone wants to be accepted, we need to remember that being our individual selves is what allows us to think outside the box, resist pressure from others, lead well, be happy, and even inspire others. When we connect souls, we take on the qualities of the other, and thus lower our own individuality.

As we can see, these factors for both heart and soul play greatly into the story and the fates of Elizabeth, Elle, and even Locke.

Elle, though she was suffering greatly from the loss of her parents and feeling desperate and depressed because of her illness and Cam’s overprotectiveness, carried many of the qualities of heart related magic. She was grateful for what she had, and shared that grace and charm with others. And because of that, she was able to maintain her happy and optimistic nature despite her battles. She very much embodied compassion, dignity, equanimity, forgiveness, gratitude, humility, integrity, justice, kindness, and love. She is the very definition of a merciful and soft heart. And though her soul is still that of a human, we can see that her mermaid’s heart is exceptionally strong even when she hesitates and almost seems to consider Locke’s offer. This strength is what proved to be the wizard’s undoing. Because her heart is magical and her soul is not, we do find ourselves in a bit of a catch 22, since all evidence seems to point to the soul being the stronger of the two despite the heart’s great influence. However, I would argue that because of her heart, Elle already had a stronger soul than most people. It may not have been on par with Elizabeth’s at her strongest, but it was significantly stronger than Cam’s or maybe Thora’s. And while I can see her potentially having displays of her magic throughout her life, I think it would be fair to say that Elle never reached her full potential until the battle with Locke. And from then on, her heart- which was stronger than her soul previously- only grew more powerful, and that perhaps allowed her soul to catch up to some degree. Bonding with Elizabeth and Thora however briefly that night likely opened just the right door that Elle needed to find her height of power.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, was not sure of who she was. She wanted to be something she wasn’t, and longed to be someone that would mean something to others; which she felt she did not as a mermaid. This made her soul vulnerable to Locke’s manipulation. While she too is optimistic, we do see periods of when she gives in to despair and thinks that there is no escape for her. During her century of captivity, Locke not only absorbed her powers to strengthen himself, but I feel he unwittingly was absorbing her soul and who she is, leaving her feeling more and more lost, and making that optimism and faith harder to hold on to. The fact that she did cling to it at all, and that her soul worked and fought so hard to ensure it could return to her is huge. Locke’s powers and soul are so immense that he rendered her basically almost weaker than a human. By all rights, she should have never gotten her soul, her self, back at all. Even if Cam did manage to find and take the vial back. But she did. And that is not only impressive, but extremely moving.

Both girls have good hearts and souls, and both are without a doubt strong in their own ways. Magically speaking, I would say that Elizabeth is stronger, just because she is a full mermaid. She has the heart, soul, and powers of her people, and her ancestors on her side. Elle is still mostly human, and though her magic is without a doubt great, she would hold no candle to Elizabeth at her full power. But to speak on a level of individual strength, I would say that Elle is the stronger one. After all, it was the addition of her powers to Elizabeth and Thora’s that allowed Locke’s to be stripped from him, turn him to stone, and truly free Elizabeth. This can be because Elle’s sense of who she is, her assurance, and her inner balance may be stronger than Elizabeth’s was when she was young. Elizabeth wanted to be something else, but Elle was sure of who she was and what she believed, and nothing anyone could say would change that. Not even her uncle’s skepticism and trying to convince her she was falling for lies and only saw fairy tales. Elle’s assurance at her young age is astonishing just as much as Elizabeth’s endurance.

But the bond the girls share together is clearly one of mutual benefit, as they give each other strength, hope, and the power to be better than they ever dreamed they could be. By fighting so hard to protect Elle, Elizabeth was able to find her own strength and finally accept who she was. And by her unerring faith in Elizabeth’s truth and her selfless determination to return her to the ocean, Elle was able to finally find acceptance and courage to be all she dreamt of. Even if they never saw each other again after that day on the beach, Elle and Elizabeth would be bonded for life in the best possible way.

I would consider their hearts and souls at the end of the movie as equal in strength, where Elle’s heart may have been stronger before Locke’s defeat. And it is possible that because of her heart, Elle’s soul may have even been stronger than Locke’s since she was able to defeat him. And it is the strength and goodness of Elle’s soul that allows Elizabeth’s to continue to fight and finally break free of Locke’s unrelenting grip on it. Elle’s influence in the early movie ended up being what saved Elizabeth, where at the end Elizabeth paid it back by saving Elle and turning their bond to one that has no possible way of harming either of them, as they are now even stronger kindred spirits than they were when they first met.

Sources:

http://themagicofthesecret.blogspot.com/2012/07/day-20-heart-magic.html

http://intothemagicshop.com/alphabet

http://www.groundedpsychic.com/single-post/2016/04/08/You-Are-The-Soul-of-Magic

https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/13149/what-might-be-dangers-of-connecting-your-own-soul-to-a-stronger-soul

http://sunnahonline.com/library/purification-of-the-soul/614-hardening-of-the-heart

https://www.trivedieffect.com/inspiration-blog/soul-mind-and-body/

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-the-heart-and-the-soul-on-spiritual-basis-of-life

[thelittlestkitsune]

Mid-Semester; chapter three.

A/N; I just want to apologise in advance. I am so sorry. So very sorry. Enjoy! xoxo Lau

Pairing: ScottMccallxProfessor!Reader

Author: thelittlestkitsune

Warnings: none. for now.

Word count: 4,926.

Listen to me.              Mid Semester Masterlist               Let me know?

                                Just listen to me okay? Don’t question it. 

WEDNESDAY.  

You sat back, relaxing into your chair as you shut your laptop, picking at the pomegranate seeds in a ceramic bowl on your desk as students flooded through the doors, cheeks reddened after the trek up the stairs. You smiled, popping seed after seed into your mouth, the scuffling of feet on linoleum calming as they settled into their seats. “How is everyone?” You asked as you heard a chorus of groans, yawns and mumbles. “Oh that good huh? I guess you guys need to get a load off?” You heard chuckles from some of the more immature students in your class. You licked over your lips, folding your legs underneath yourself as you pulled at your shirt, closing away the sliver of skin you had on show; away from prying eyes. “Not like that you pervs. But kind of like that-” You paused, clearing your throat as you leant against your desk, your hands folded beneath your chin. “-I mean you guys are probably so stressed huh? What with midterms and job prospects?” You finished as almost every head drooped. “So how about we take it easy this week? I can’t be fucking bothered grading a paper, so instead we’re just going to do a discussion that okay?” You could practically feel the room vibrate with excitement, cheers whispered underneath breaths as the room sighed collectively.  

“So what are we talking about this week Salt?” You heard Cat refer to your nickname, gifted to you by the class. “Well Yankee-” You smiled as you continued. “-I was being kind of figurative when I said get a load off. I was also hinting at who we’re going to savage this week.” You sighed as you lifted the bowl of pomegranate seeds, half empty due to your absent minded picking. “Um, Persephone?” Audrey piped up, her blonde hair falling in curls around her face, cheeks flushed pink as she leant forwards. “Close enough Aud One.” You joked, scanning the crowd for the other Audrey. “Where’s Aud two?” You asked as you furrowed your brow, not coming across her familiar smile. “She’s not well, she’s snowed under with a cold right now.” You frowned, leaning back. “Someone should sent her hot soup and a hot boy. No one should be ill at this time.” You shrugged, looking for someone else to pick on for an answer. “Todd. Who do you think we’ll be talking about?” You asked as he looked up, his eyes red rimmed, his face sleepy. “Um, knowing you probably Zeus.” He answered nonchalantly as you shook your head, a sheepish smile on your face.  

“No fucking way.” Em muttered, her hands wrapped around her jaw as she doodled on her notebook. “Don’t fucking swear! I can talk about other things! Kinda-” You laughed as you placed the bowl back down, unaware you were still gripping at the rim. “- think of someone who is just as salty as I am and probably had the dead sea named after them.” Students seemed to pause deep in thought before Cat’s head shot up, her unusually smart shirt sticking out in comparison to the normal baseball merch she wore. “Hera. His wife and sister right?” She questioned, vaguely unsure of herself as her brows knitted low over her green eyes. “DING DING DING. Yes!! We’re talking about the Cersei and Jamie of Ancient Greece and how her spite and fury made something we are still heralding about to this day.” You licked over your lips as you pinched some seeds between your recently manicured fingers. “Okay you guys, it’s time to make like the great R&B songs of the nineties and talk about sex. Mainly about Succubi and Sirens.” You raised your brows as your lip quirked, excited chatter filling the room.  

“Weren’t sirens just mermaids with a higher sex drive and a penchant for driving men mental?” Em spoke up, her british slang confusing some of the other students as you sat there, chewing over her question. “Well, yes and no, they liked to take the lives of hapless sailors that had not blessed their voyage by praying to poseidon. They also did it for the bants. But they weren’t always seen as mermaids per se, some were half chicken?” You spouted off a useless fact as some of your students broke out into laughter. You followed suit, your lungs aching as you heard comments of chicken fucker going through the air. “But what has a half chicken woman got anything to do with the succubus.” Kenzie asked, pulling her caramel blonde hair behind her ear as her nose scrunched quizzically. “THANK YOU KENZIE.” you sighed dramatically as you flung your arms in the air, not catching them before you let your hands slap back against your legs. The slap echoed through the uncharacteristically quiet room as you swore under your breath.  

“Ow, fuck fuck fuck fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck-” You caught yourself, looking up at flustered smiling faces as you collected yourself. “What I was going to say was thank you for asking that. So you know myths are connected? Every myth nicked bits and bats from other countries and legends, but never cited their sources much like the most of you-” You looked at certain students, their eyes guiltily averting away from your gaze. “-and most of what is believed to be a succubus could easily be tracked back to the siren. They were often seen on land, gorgeous insta models of women.” You soothed over your stinging skin as you cleared your throat. “Basically they were the epitome of female beauty, super gorgeous women that would lure men to sleep with them. However upon actually doing the nasty she’d suck the life force from him, leaving him a husk of a man.” You sighed, your skin calming as you leaned back. “That’s kinky.” Todd laughed, looking at his friends as he covered a grin. “Not really, if you’re doing something right any man is left a husk at the end.” Maddie giggled as she high fived Kenzie, her head turning back towards you.  

“Neither of you are wrong. Either way, we should get this lesson actually underway cause I have somewhere to be after class.” you laughed as Cat looked at you, a questioning look in her narrowing eyes. “Where you going?” She asked as you smiled, thinking of the evenings activities. “Well if you must ask, I’m heading to my best friends engagement party.” You looked down at your own hands, wondering when you’d get a ring like hers. “Congrats to them.” Cat spoke, her accent barely noticeable as you nodded, your lips pressed together firmly. “Yeah, congrats to them. Anyway, let’s talk about boats and hoes.”  

WEDNESDAY NIGHT.  

“Look I’m not saying dress like a hoe, I’m just saying you have a cracking set of tits and you should get them out!” Mal laughed as she nudged at you, her ring sparkling in the low lighting of the restaurant. You sipped at your wine, lowkey wishing it was something stronger. “She’s right you know!” Thomas spoke, his whiskey brown eyes skating over you quickly as Camile looked at him, her mouth hung open in shock. “What? I’m just saying! Remember, I only look at you that way.” He smirked as she smiled, pressing her lips to his cheek as you wished even more that you were drinking anything other than wine. Bleach? Too far. You placed your glass in front of you, looking around the table as all your friends had coupled off, arms slung over their partners, doe eyed looks on happy faces as you frowned slightly. “Cheer up buttercup. I saw the dude you’re going out with tomorrow. You won’t have that frown on your face forever.” Mal spoke cheerily as you smiled, your eyes not quite meeting hers. “Thanks!” You gripped the stem of your glass as Camile turned to you again, her lips finally leaving Thomas’. “So, what are you going to go with?” She referred back to your conversation as you shrugged. “I’m going straight from the office so I have no idea. Maybe some trousers and a shirt?”

Her head shook vigorously as she sipped at her drink, mulling over her response as she gazed off into the distance. “What about that green dress? You know the backless one? With a blazer over top for when you’re in the office?” You gulped, mouthing no as you pushed around the food on your plate. “Oh! What about the red one? The tight and short one?” Mal put forward, spooning some ramen into her mouth as the korean bbq sizzled in front of you. “It makes me look like slaggy barbie. Maybe not the best if I have a student meeting tomorrow.” you bit at your lip as you thought of Scott, quickly squashing any feelings that bubbled up. “Purple is always a nice colour?” Stuart spoke, unusual for the quiet reserved guy. “I don’t know if I have a purple dress. But I like that idea!” You smiled, giving him a small wink as he blushed behind thick rimmed glasses. “I have one you can borrow. However, if you’re going to get laid in please for the love of all that is holy; get it dry cleaned.” Camile laughed as you play slapped her arm. “Are you insinuating that I’m going to sleep with him on the first date?” Your lips quivered as you laughed.  “A man like that? You drop your panties or forego them all together. If you strike out that’s on you boo boo.” She cheersed you as you smiled, uneasy butterflies swarming in your stomach as you looked forward to tomorrow. Just got to get through tonight first.  

THURSDAY AFTERNOON.  

The dress you wore slid up your thigh as you walked across campus, your head ducked as you tried to cover yourself up. I should’ve worn something else. You bit at your lips, dry skin pulled off as you walked, nerves bubbling up as you headed to your office. At least I have my blazer on, and flats. You mentally thanked your morning self for deciding to put on the blazer rather than the leather jacket you had planned on wearing. Coffee first. You walked through throngs of students, heading to the coffee shop for your daily fix of caffeine. Your earbuds hung around your neck, your head whirring with thoughts too loud to be drowned out even by the likes of real friends. You clutched at your bag as you ascended the steps to the coffee shop, your footing uneven as the tight dress didn’t move much with your legs. Finally when inside you glanced at your phone, noting the time and how little of it you had until Derek was picking you up.  

As you ordered your phone vibrated in your hands, your poker straight hair pushed behind your ear as you smiled at your phone like an idiot.  

Sourwolf: I can’t wait to see you again, pick you up at 8?  

Smartass: Sounds great, I’ll text you when I’m finishing up my lesson okay? Can’t wait!  

Your thoughts were briefly distracted as your fingers clicked over the keyboard on your phone, only thoughts of your impending date occupying your mind. “Y/N?” A young guy spoke as he held out a takeout coffee cup, his fingers curled around the blue cardboard. You looked up, the concentration on your face evaporating as you smiled at him, handing over the cash that you owed him. You glanced out the window, cursing quietly as clouds hung low in the sky, your mood diminishing as you scurried from the warmth of the small shop, back out into the square. Students teamed the large area as you navigated through the masses of people, almost cheering as you hit a stretch of land that was barely populated. You walked fast, wanting to get to your office as quickly as possible, almost speeding through the walkways of the crowded college. You bit at the plastic lid on your coffee as you walked, deep in thought as your heels drummed against concrete, your building coming up on the left as you banked towards it. “Hey Y/N, you look nice!” Kenzie and Maddie passed you, textbooks clamped in their arms as they headed towards their psych class.  

“Thank you!” You smiled as they paused, looking as though they wanted to ask a question. “What’s up girls?” You asked, gripping your coffee a little tighter as you turned to talk to them, the sun lowering in the sky as you shivered. “We were just wondering what the mid terms are going to be like?” Kenzie looked at you with wide eyes as Maddie stiffened. “You don’t have to worry, it’s an overall paper and by both of your guys work so far; you’ll ace it.” You smiled as they both exhaled, clearly relieved. “Well hope you enjoy whatever you’re all dressed up for!” They smiled as you nodded, scurrying away through the door to your building as coffee lapped over the lip of your cup. Unlocking your office you threw your bag down, grateful you hadn’t bothered to bring your laptop. 5pm. Scott should be here soon. You had emailed him the night before, pulling the normal time forward so you wouldn’t be knackered when Derek picked you up. You slipped your shoes off, opting to pad about your office just in your stockings as you tidied away the mess.  

A knock on the door came as you bent over to put away files, your dress stretched over you almost looking like a second skin as you shouted for Scott to come in. “Hey Y/N!” Scott sang cheerily, his footsteps halting as he coughed awkwardly. “Sorry did I interrupt something?” He sounded flushed as you stood up straight, your face red as you looked at him. “No? Why? Does it look like I was doing something inappropriate?” You blew your hair from your face as you realised how short your dress was, the hemline barely skirting the curve of your ass. “Oh my god Scott, I’m so sorry! I had no idea; I pretty much just completely flashed you I'm so sorry-” You gushed, turning quickly as you pulled the bodycon material further down, his eyes twinkling as a smile played on his lips. “It’s okay Y/N. You look nice.” He blushed, his smile spreading as he gave you a crooked grin. “Why thank you Scott, that’s really nice of you to say!” Your skin grew hot as his eyes trailed over your plunging neckline, shivers spreading wherever he looked. “What’s got you all dressed up? And in colour for that matter?!” He joked, a personal jab of the lack of colour in your wardrobe. “I have a date I’ll have you know!” you smiled, suddenly shy and guilty as his face dropped.  

“Oh, that’s great!” He spoke despondently, crossing the room in a few bounds, his long legs carrying him swiftly across the small room. He took his normal place in the leather chair, his legs stretched out in front of him as you took him in properly, allowing yourself one indulgent moment. Baggy jeans coasted over his long legs, a leather belt strapped around his hips. Peeking over top was a band of white, stark against his caramel coloured skin, the hints of ink sprawled across hard muscle. You tore your eyes away as you travelled up his body, his chest hard as he sat up, the light grey henley he wore tight across his chest as it gaped open; his neck stiffening as you sucked your lips between your teeth. His arms flexed as he reached into his bag, your eyes almost glued to his forearms as he pushed the sleeves of his shirt up, bunching the material at his elbow. His skin almost shone as he looked at you, your eyes tearing away from him as you became flustered, your cheeks burning as you smiled.  

“So who’s the lucky guy then?” Scott asked his brows knitting together as something shone behind his eyes. “Just an old friend. I’m probably reading far too much into this, he probably just wants to catch up, it’s been like a decade since we saw each other last.” You sighed, settling into your chair as you undid your blazer; the material sticking to your hot skin. “Wow.” Scott sighed, regret blazing in his eyes as he looked over you. The plunging neckline of your dress skated down your chest, the delicate eyelash lace covering your freckle dusted shoulders. “He’s a really lucky guy anyone would be lucky to go on a date with you.” He breathed as you hid your smile, clearing your throat awkwardly. “Thanks, it’s really sweet of you to say.” You let your smile break free, the simple act of happiness breaking over your face as his eyes softened. “I mean it, but that’s enough of that, how about we get on with this?” He averted his gaze from you as you nodded, breaking yourself out of the bubble you had wrapped yourself in. “So what bullshit are we breaking ground on?” He asked as you rolled your eyes. “Succubi and Sirens.” You spoke, your voice slightly hushed as he looked at you with a pointed brow.  

“Succubi? We’re actually covering this?” He asked incredulously a laugh on the tip of his tongue as he ran his fingers across his chin. “Yeah, why is that hard to believe?!” you responded, confusion tinging your words. “Nah, it’s just rather random you know? You were telling me last week how you knew werewolves are real and now we’re talking about succubi and I know they’re real; it makes me wonder if vampires are lurking about somewhere in the shadows.” You laughed before his words processed, your mind reeling back to what he said. “Wait, you said succubi are real!??” You leaned forwards, your shoulders pressing your tits together as he tried to avoid looking at them. “Yeah, I knew one back in Beacon Hills. She dated my friends.” You smiled as you leaned back, an oh leaving your lips. “Friends? As in plural?” you asked as he nodded. “My best friends in fact. Derek and Stiles. She was with Derek originally and then Stiles got involved and it was all confusing cause she had no idea what she was and oh god it was a mess.”  

It was almost as if your blood ran cold at the mention of Dereks name. “You alright Y/N? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Scott waved in front of your face as you zoned out, your heart beating faster as you pieced things together. Of course they know each other. Fuck. I’m going to be sick. I should cancel. I am definitely going to be sick. This was a mistake, their both werewolves for fucks sake. IT’S OBVIOUS THAT THEY KNOW EACH OTHER. Beacon Hills isn’t that big? Maybe I’m over reacting, maybe it’s a different Derek. “Hello? Earth to y/n?” Scott called as you blinked, shaking your head as you paid attention to the wolf in front of you. “Are you okay? You went really pale?” His eyes softened as he reached for your hands, his fingers pressing tentatively against your forehead.  

“You’ve gone cold are you okay?” Scott spoke, his voice soft as his fingers trailed down the side of your face, his lips slightly parted as you looked at him. “Yeah, just got really nervous all of a sudden, sorry!” You smiled slowly, unsure of yourself as you pulled away from his touch. His hand paused where it was, retracting back slowly as he coughed. “You’ve no need to be nervous, you’re gonna kill it.” A half smile played on his lips as you mouthed a thank you, something itching inside your throat. “I’ll tell you what, how about a drink?” the words spilled from your lips as you tapped on the desk. “Coffee?” Scott asked, his hands gripping at the arms on the chair as you shook your head slowly. “Whiskey. I know it doesn’t affect you but it tastes good?” You licked over your lips as he nodded, twiddling a pen in his fingers. “Sounds good, seems like you need it anyway.” Your eyes widened as you stood, smoothing over the wrinkles in your dress. You tugged at the material, slowly pulling it down your legs as you crossed the room, your stockings snagging on the corner of your desk.  

“Oh for fucks sake.” You studied the ladder going straight down your left leg, the thin material ripping just by standing there. “The curse strikes again!” Scott laughed, covering his smile as you threw your head back. “I’m gonna make myself a double.” You sighed, bending at the hip as you unlatched your stockings from the clips that held them up. “You want one?” You asked Scott, your question unanswered as you slowly rolled your stockings down your legs. “-Yeah, a double sounds good.” You snapped up quickly, gathering the ripped material in your hands as you balled them up. “Guess I won’t be needing these anymore.” You lined up your eyes with the bin near the door, aiming your arm as you threw them across the room. They somehow bounced off the rim of the bin as you let your arms drop to your side. “I guess I’ll never make the basketball team.”  You sighed, a chuckle on your lips as you stepped forwards to pick them up, your dress riding up as you felt Scott’s eyes on you.  

“You’re too short for that anyway!” he joked as you turned to him, putting your hands on your hips. “I am not! I’ll have you know that I am above the national average height!” You smiled before turning around, heading to your bar cart in the corner by your kettle. “And how tall is that?” He asked, his voice sounding closer than before as you shrugged. “I dunno, I just know I’m not that short.” You admitted, grabbing your decanter as you poured two double whiskies. “You’re short compared to me.” His breath coasted over your neck as you stiffened, his cologne filling your nose as you shook your head. “That’s because you are the size of a rather large tree.” You laughed, your skin sizzling as he reached one arm around you, gripping at the glass on your right. You shivered as his skin brushed over yours, your lips caught between your teeth. Reaching for the other glass you turned, your body almost completely pressed against his. Okay, just breathe. “To calming down.” his voice was deepened as his chocolate brown eyes bored into yours. “To calming down.”  You smiled, clinking your glass against his before lifting it to your lips.  

HALF AN HOUR BEFORE YOUR DATE.  

“I’m just saying she’s definitely a succubus, there is no way in hell that you can look like that and not be?” Scott laughed, trying to prove his point. “You said that your friend back in Beacon Hills was a succubus out of being lonely. AT WHAT POINT IN TIME DO YOU THINK THAT GAL GADOT WAS EVER ALONE. THE WOMAN WAS FUCKING WONDER WOMAN.” You joked, your spirits lifted as you sipped on the last of your drink. “I’m just saying, the woman could get away with anything.” Scott shrugged, a cheeky smile on his face as you nodded, your eyes glancing at the clock. “You’re probably not wrong-” Your phone vibrated for the ninth time that hour as you paused, finally picking it up. “Sorry Scott, my group chat is insane right now.” You flickered through your chat with Malissa and Camile, laughing at the gifs they had sent you. Your phone vibrated again as you checked the chat, confused when a new notification didn’t pop up. Clicking back to your home screen your lips parted as you read over the texts from Derek.

Sourwolf; Hey! Sorry to drop this on you last minute but I’m actually going to be early, I got out of my meeting early and I couldn’t wait. I’ll be there around about half seven?  

Sourwolf; Sorry again y/n but I just didn’t know if you got my messages! I know you’re in a meeting right now, just gonna wait in the Camaro, if you’re late then i’ll just drop by your office!

You looked back at the clock, scrambling as you read the time. Seven fourty five. “Hey Scott, we’re going to have to leave it there, my date just texted me and he says he’s picking me up from the office!” You rushed your words, panic rising in your chest as he leaned forwards grabbing his bag. “Yeah, no worries!” He smiled reaching out to grab your hand as he calmed you down. “Don’t sweat it. Enjoy your night Y/N.” His words were tinged with sadness, guilt washing over you as you remembered he knew Derek. Please don’t cross paths. You wished as Scott stood, slinging his backpack over his shoulder, the golden hour sun hitting his skin. “I’ll try!” You smiled, grabbing your heels from your bag as you slipped them on. You stood shakily, your head rushing as you smoothed over yourself, taking your hair from the ponytail you haphazardly had it in. “I’ll see you in a few weeks then!” He spoke, his hand on the handle of the door as you finger combed through your hair. “A few weeks?” You stuttered, your lips pouted as you ran a gloss over them. “Spring break? I’m heading home for a while, thought I should try and see my friends.” He smiled, his eyes drawing over you once more.  

You felt shy under his examining eye, your body singing at the mere thought of him looking at you like that. “Well enjoy yourself. I’ll be heading home to Paradise for a while, maybe we’ll see each other.” You smiled as he laughed, dipping his chin to his chest. “Yeah, I’d really like that-” Your heart fluttered as you grabbed your phone and your leather jacket, a knock at the door making your heart plummet into your stomach. “Do you want me to get it?” Scott asked, pointing to the door that he stood beside as everything in you wanted to tell him to wait here whilst you left. “Sure-” You breathed, readying yourself as you grabbed your bag. “Hey man, sorry I’ll get out your way, I was just finishing a lesson with Y-” Scott gushed, finally looking up at the dark haired guy in front of him. “Derek?” He asked confused as he stepped to the side, letting Derek in the room as you stood there frozen. “Hey man, what you doing here?” Scott asked as Derek smiled, his stubble thicker than the last time you had seen him. Werewolf or not that stubble grows thick.  

“I’m picking up Y/N for our date.” He smiled, his pearly white teeth flashing as he looked at you. “Beautiful as ever of course.” He looked at you appreciatively, crossing the room as he placed his hand on the curve of your back, pressing a small kiss to your cheek as you glanced at a rather broken looking Scott. You swallowed thickly, trying to suppress the feeling of your heart breaking into a trillion pieces as he pressed his lips together slowly. “So this is your date huh?” Scott plastered a fake smile on, his eyes showing how he truly felt as Derek’s hand still pressed against you. “Yeah, me and Derek go way back!” You could almost hear how thick you were laying on the happiness, a little too much to be believable. “Well I hope you guys have a great time.” He waved, chucking Derek something. Derek lunged to catch it, his fingers gripping at the silver key. “Don’t be back too late okay?” They nodded at each other as Scott gripped at the strap of his bag, biting his lip as he left the room. You felt sick as you stood there, your fingers gripping onto the leather of your jacket as you felt your stomach lurch. “You ready to go?” Derek asked as you thought of the look on Scott’s face. Maybe it isn’t one sided. “Sure, let’s go.” you smiled, the corners of your lips not quite reaching your eyes as his hand laced with yours.  

You walked outside, the late California sun setting over the skyline, your eyes darting about as you looked at Derek, your stomach still unsettled as you walked to his Camaro. It wasn’t a long walk by much, but by the time you reached the black car your feet were on fire. “You hungry?” Not at all. Derek paused by the passenger door, opening it as you ducked your head, ready to climb in as you saw him. The look on Scott’s face in that moment both made your heart soar and fall into a pit. Mutual or not. I can’t be with him. I made my bed, now I have to lie in it. Your eyes fell from his as you climbed inside the car, your head slamming against the head rest as Derek rounded the car, sliding in next to you. “You okay?” He asked, smoothing over your hand as your head swam with thoughts. “Yeah, just really hungry.” You lied, the truth skirted as he revved the engine, peeling away from the college as you saw Scott in the rear view mirror, finally turning away, his head downturned. No matter how much it sucks.  

@thisrandombitch  @honeymoonmuke @sincerelystiles @sammyrenae68 @fillthevoid-stilinski @5sospoplikerock @lovefilledtragedy @ellie-bee242 @cobrienkai1972@dumbass-stilinski @maddie110201 @rememberstilinski @sweetmisseddreams2002@random-fandom-fangirl2112 @obrosey-af @sammwhiches @parislight @mf-despair-queen @7e6205 @stilinski-stydia-obrien @disagreetoagree @slow-bee-at-play@minhosmeanhoe @redstringlovers @werewolfmutant @itsall-inmy-head @susybird@hirafth @all-alone-he-turns-to-stone @wydobrien @sokkasbae255 @we-are-like-a-timebomb @girlwiththerubyslippers @fan-child @fuckwhateverfuck @itsbilescallmebiles@relentlessgame @ninja-stiles @sumcp @obrienswxlf @lovelymalira@mixedupsammy  @sarasmismyonlydefence @cuillere @vixsyncynco @sumcp@fuckwhateverfuck @bluskai @lovelymalira @pentatontits  @teenwolves-ahead@skepticalstilinski @sarcasticallystilinski @apollogirl13 @savage-stilinski@montanagirlatheart @alexhmak @cathobs @blairscott @l4life

[thedappleddragon]

last night I dreamed that I was an archeologist tortoise and I was looking at dozens of “human” skeletons in Buckingham palace that was also my backyard. the skeletons all looked like combo human and turtle because the whole torso looked basically like the first google image result for sea turtle skeleton. then my sister woke me up, giving me a comforter and telling me my mom need help with some things.  cleaned up around the living room and did some laundry and boiled some eggs and made meatloaf and swept the floor. the meatloaf turned out surprisingly good, idk what I did differently. I evemtually went back to my room and tried to remember what I wanted to do today. last night as I was falling asleep I told myself that I was gonna clear off my desk so I could finally use it, so I moved some stuff around and set up my laptop. I havent been able to sit at a real actual desk in SO LONG and its SO NICE to have just like a space where I can sit down and work and have a chair that will support my back instead of sitting cross legged on my bed or laying down while doing stuff on my laptop. it almost makes me feel productive even I'm just playing the sims. I feel especially cool when im just typing out whatever bullshit because it makes me feel like im at an office job typing up ~important documents~ :) idk man I think quarantine has changed me lmao. if im getting this many emotions from just being able to sit down at a desk and do ANYTHING idk how im gonna handle collage. I keep calling whetever im doing (playing the sims, scrolling through Tumblr, typing up this summary of the day) work because it just. feels nice sitting at a desk and typing. even if it’s dumb bullshit!! idk how to describe it I just feel amazing. it makes me feel like im writing a paper with all the horrible parts like research and thinking. the sound of typing on my MacBook makes me feel like im in school again, but without the horrible stressful parts. idk mn I know I've been going on about this desk and stuff for too long and im gonna hate it if I eventually read back through these daily logs but I just feel so nice. ill change topics anyway. I hung up my calendar again! I literally didn't have any open wall space aside from maybe the wall behind my bed but why the hell would I put a calendar where I can't see it. instead its kind of hanging above my closet. I pinned it to the wooden board in the “doorway” (idk what other word to use) where there would normally be sliding doors that open and shut if they hadn't been taken off YEARS ago. I also played a lot of the sims 4, juggling aspirations for 5 sims. I quit because I got frustrated that all my sims are dumb and the ai Is buggy and doesn't let me do what I want them to do. I also plopped in a house on my family’s old lot and spent some time adjusting the colors and the trees and adding those paper craft cieling things that can either have stars or leaves or snowflakes that came in the free winter holiday stuff pack and holy shit as soon as I found those I think they became my new favorite decoration item. I threw them everywhere but eventually took down most of them, leaving some leaf ones in the bedroom. I was gonna move in a family of a bunch of young adults and children to help with the first kid’s serial romantic aspiration and one of the twin’s social butterfly aspiration, but I ended up not doing that in favor of just decorating more and playing with the family some more. one thing I realized while playing is that there are fucking MICE in my CIELING. well not really in the cieling, in the attic, but I can hear them chewing on shit and its sucks. I would turn on a fan to drown out the noise but my room is fucking FREEZING. I threw the blanket back over my window hoping that it would keep heat from escaping but I don't think that really did anything. so after freezing my ass off I got fed up and put on fluffy socks under normal socks, wore my owl onesie as pants over my shorts, put on my comfy (oversized hoodie), and threw a fluffy blanket over my shoulders. thankfully I was pretty cozy after that, but as I type this after taking off the cosy and blanket, I can feel my toes getting cold again. damnit. ANYWAY after quitting the sims for the night I ate some salad and got a heart shaped crouton :) and I scrolled through Tumblr for a bit. then I decided to finally work on the paws my friend wanted. but I couldn't find the pattern so I instead worked on the brown paws instead. I could only work on them so much, since I still have to finish the lining before I can do much else. I attached the backs of the fingers to the back of the hand. I didnt get much down but what matters is that I did SOMETHING. I'm gonna keep an eye out for that pattern that I need, and if I cant find it, I'll just make a new pattern. tbh I think thad’s be the better way to go anyway since I wouldn't have to figure out how the fuck the old one goes together and I can also have a pattern that perfectly fits the foam underneath. also tbh i have mixed feeling about the white paws my friend wants. I like how dextrous they are and how easily you can emote and move your fingers, but I dont like how ovular I made the paw pads and the hints of black thread peaking out where I sewed the pads from the back. I WOULD just remake them with the free curl works pattern im using for the brown paws but I figure I might as well finish this pair since there’s already one done and the foam interior is already made. whatever. I dont wanna think about it too much. I also dont like the head that goes with the paws, it was a fish job in comparison to my first head and I kinda hate it. but I think I'll eventually get some longer fur for the neck and a hair poof and cheeks (maybe) and do a little refurbishing and give it to my friend if she ever wants it, since it matches the paws and all. I have lots of plans for my 2 WIP heads but not all the materials/motivation. plus I just need to let the ideas stir before I do unything, making sure they’re goof before I act on them. I'm exited that I can shave down fur relativey easily and evenly without an electric dog shaver, which opens up a lot of opportunities. anyway as I was working on the brown paws I had TAZ on in the background and it still baffles me a little bit how different griffin and Matt mercer operate as dms like holy shit. its really funny. and it got me thinking about how I wouldn't mind dming for my friend group if he chance ever arose. I DO have the forgotten realms campaign setting book. I haven't actually looked at it but I assume it has a few pre-built quests and plot lines n stuff in it. I'll probably take a better look at in the morning when it’s not 1:40 am. dang now I'm thinking about my Minecraft dnd idea again. I think the real problem keeping me from being a dm is that I CANNOT keep a straight face when doing improv/roleplaying, so I dont know how well I could hold together a world for them to play in. I would love to give it a try tho. not with the Minecraft idea at the same time, fuck no. I would need to do like. a classic vanilla dnd experience the first time, maybe even using our tiefling family characters since I'm at least a little familiar with them. can you dm and also play your own character? is that fair? is that a think you can do? I think that could be fun but also hard to juggle and also maybe kinda suck because you’d already know all the answers to all the puzzles. meh. actually now I kind of really want to look through thet book tonight instead of in the morning. also I mentioned overnight oats a few days ago I think, and the first morning it was kinda gross, the second time I ate it was still a little gross texture wise, but I finished it off tonight and it was pretty good. maybe next time I'll try it without the banana and a little less milk and maybe slice up an apple into little cubes for texture. hell yeah peanut butter apple cinnamon brown sugar overnight oats. that sound pretty dang good actually. I'll try that some time, but I dont think I can right now because I dont think we have any apples in the house. phooey. I should also probably put this oatmeal cp in the sink before it becomes impossible to clean. holy shit how long have I been writing? SEE THE DESK MAKES ME JUST WANNA KEEP WRITING AND WRITING FOREVER I FEEL SO PRODUCTIVE EVEN IF IM NOT DOING ANYTHING PRODUCTIVE!! I love just typing and typing forever its so soothing just hearing the tapping of the keyboard and getting my thought out without actually having to think that hard about it. goddamn im never gonna read back through this this is a nightmare lmao. no paragraph breaks no capitalization no nothin. I dont even wanna stop typing even though my arm is starting to hurt a little but from leaning the edge of the desk. now im thinking about the movie soul again and the cat as it rides on the escalator to the great beyond and how that dude in the band was the main characters student and how that scene with the girl trying to quit music and then immediately changed her mind didnt make any sense. like what the hell I dont understand that scene at all. also thinking about the transition where he’s like “ok repeat after me” as he’s in the cat and the camera goes over the mom’s shoulder and it’s just him talking, I like how they did that instead of doing dialouge between him and the cat. idk man. I think maybe I should stop typing now since my body is starting to hurt. sorry for putting this H U G E wall of text on your dash but I just like typing out my thoughts :) goodnight!

edit: OH I forgot to talk about something else!! last night I was thinking about valentines day and how cute it would be to have a little overall dress in the pattern on one of my childhood blankets, its like a light pink with white hearts on it so I looked up some fabrics and none of them were the right pattern. I also looked up a sewing pattern that I think would look nice and its on sale right now! I totally want to try and make it, but fabric is expensive so I think I might look at dollar tree for fleece baby blankets because I know they have them there, I bought a few a while ago for some plush sewing projects. they’re decently sized so I think I could do it.idk how many I would need to buy tho. or I might go to goodwill and look for a pink sheet? I have a thin pink blanket that could theoretically work but I want to use a planet im not attached to. or even just find a few big shirts in the same shade of pink? then I could maybe line it with something. I have red purple and white satin but that’s literally the worst fuckin fabric in the world to work with. my first experience with sewing was trying to make plushies out of satin and holy hell idk how I did it. anyway even though I literally never wear dresses I think it would be a fun project to try and make myself a cute little valentines dress. :) I could even give myself POCKETS >:)))

[thenewprophecyredone]

Chapter 4

“Feathertail? Are you okay?”

The silver queen was sitting in a little abandoned burrow when her brother found him.  Her heart had come down from a rapid pound to the regular beating, but her mind was still in a state of panic. She was afraid; for herself, for Stormfur, and for the whole of RiverClan.

“No,” she confessed, her voice cracking nervously. “I’m not.”

Stormfur gently dug away some of the disturbed dirt around the abandoned warren, to make room for his robust shoulders. He poked his head in and looked down at his sister, curled into a pitiful ball. “Do you want me to come in?”

“Just sit by the entrance,” she requested. 

He quickly obliged, tucking his paws under him.“Did you have a flashback?”

“Yeah.”

There was a long silence after that, before Stormfur spoke again.“Is that why you… attacked Leopardstar?” he asked, a little nervous.

“Mhm.” Feathertail was losing the ability to think coherently. She was so afraid… “Did she hurt you?”

“No. She was angry, but she didn’t hurt me. After you ran Hawkfrost came up behind me and pinned me. His heart wasn’t in it though, I could tell.”

Feathertail looked up at him. “Do you think that encounter could be part of StarClan’s plan?”

“Maybe.” 

Stormfur’s expression turned sour. “If it is, StarClan is a rotten bunch.”

“Don’t say that,” she whispered. “Some nights, StarClan is all you have left.”

“As long as I have you I can live without their villainous plans.” He bore his teeth angrily. “Some days I wonder if following StarClan is worth the trouble anymore.”

Feathertail shook her head and took a deep breath. “You’ll always follow StarClan’s will. It’s in our blood - every Clan cat’s blood, that ever lived, since the first Clan cats. We all know that.”

Stormfur looked out at the world, and Feathertail couldn’t see.“Is it daylight out?”

“No, it’s actually past that. You slept a full day.”

“Did I have any nightmares?”

“Once. But you woke up. You fell back to sleep afterward.”

Feathertail was bothered by the fact that she couldn’t remember that. She never remembered those few minutes after waking up from one of her horrible nightmares. Those moments were always erased. Even when she asked Stormfur to recite the events later, it never jogged a single memory back into existence. It was horrifyingly frustrating… and nerve-wracking.“We can’t go home,” the queen finally announced. “We can’t go back to RiverClan.”

“I know we can’t. Where would we go?” Stormfur asked, his tail slowly curling at his side, barely visible in the darkness of the burrow. “We’re surely not welcome in the other Clans’ camps.”

“We can go to Fourtrees and sleep there,” Feathertail said. “I- I had a dream about Fourtrees, actually.”

“What was it about?”

“We were sleeping under the oaks,” Feathertail said quietly. “And I woke up with you pressed beside me. It looked like StarClan was having a Gathering. The founders of the Clans were at the Great Rock, and the cats below them… they were doing something strange. They were jumping, but in circles, like weasels, you know? Throwing their bodies around. And one cat, a blue tabby, was yowling up and down, like birds’ song. And then from behind the Great Stone, a fifth tree rose up.”

Stormfur was staring at her. “Maybe that was the dream Leopardstar and Mudfur were looking for,” he said, kneading his paws.

Feathertail sniffed. “I thought you didn’t believe,” she said, not unkindly. “Anyway, the cats yowled and yowled as a fifth leader came up to the Great Rock, and their patrol of cats joined the rest in their weird weaselling. Then a shadow suddenly came over the rise and washed over the whole scene, but it didn’t touch me. When the shadow went away everything was gone. Even the forest beyond Fourtrees. Even the stars were gone. The world was flat. Then I woke up.”Feathertail took a deep breath and licked her chops, dry from all that talking and mumbling and breathing between words.

Stormfur was enraptured to say the least. “We have to go to Fourtrees. Something has to be waiting there,” he said, slowly pulling himself out of the den. “Are you up for going now?”

“Yes,” Feathertail said with great conviction. “Anything to get out of RiverClan territory.”

Stormfur sighed sadly as the silver tabby pulled herself out of the burrow, glancing at it over her shoulder. “You do need a break. Maybe you’re overstressed. Maybe you need a change of scenery.”

Feathertail hoped that was the case; maybe if she answered the secret call of wanderlust, just for a little while, these nightmares would simmer down, her flashbacks would go away.. Maybe wandering was the cure-all of mental illness.

Then she laughed at herself.

She wished.

“Stormfur?” she asked, as they began their familiar trek to the Fourtrees clearing. “Do you think there’s a way to cure a cat of something that happens in their head?”

“What do you mean?” The grey tom looked at her with interest. “Like, ‘I banged my head on a rock and can’t remember rat’s dung,’ or ‘I see dead dogs’?”

Feathertail smiled lightly. “Either-or. Doesn’t matter.”

Stormfur looked at the sky for a little bit. His eyes glimmered as the stars reflected off them, and Feathertail admired it for a bit. He almost looked like a medicine cat, gazing at the sky with such intent curiosity. Only when their paws hit the sand of the path that lead to the Gatheringplace did he come out of his trance and speak.

“I think there is a way to cure it,” he mewed. “But it’s not anything close to our understanding. I think the Clans will have to go forward a lot more than they are now to get to the place where they can cure it.”

Feathertail tipped her head. “Why do you think that?”

“Because we have to focus on survival,” Stormfur explained, looking almost confident. “We- we don’t have the time to search it out, I guess. Medicine cats can afford to do trial-and-error because it’s their job. We feed them, groom them, and protect them when other Clans invade. But the day-to-day Warrior isn’t blessed with that kind of time.”

“So what is there to be done?” Feathertail asked, as she lead the way across the little bridge. She could see the four great oaks, now, and was reminded of her dream.

“Support,” Stormfur said simply, “Support and understanding. If we don’t support the cats in pain, we will lose some of the greatest cats we’ve known, and Clan structure fall apart. Is there not an elder who forgets what season it is, despite the snow chilling their pelt, or the sun burning their skin? Has there never been a cat witness to something terrible who has fought off the most frightening marauder?”

Feathertail nodded along with every word as they clambered up the ridge and came to Fourtrees officially. The silver-blue moonlight pierced the shadows in an almost unnatural way here. Every leaf on the oak trees’ limbs were glimmering, and even the blackest of shadows were pale in comparison to the deep ThunderClan territory darkness.

“It’s beautiful tonight,” Stormfur said softly. “It’s like they were calling for you, Feathertail.”

The queen lead her brother down into the pocket between the trees, looking up at the rock. It was so eerie to be here without the Clans. The clearing itself wasn’t very big at all: if she ran full pace she could make it across in about six bounds, coming from any given direction. The great rock itself was only about two cat-bounds high, and she could easily reach the top of it if she wanted to. But for some reason it felt… wrong. It felt incorrect to climb upon a place reserved for Leaders, the highest chosen of all Clan cats.

She thought about Leopardstar and bristled. How could she ever be considered a highly chosen one? She thought, her claws escaping into the dirt. And Brokenstar had nine lives. Tigerstar had nine too. They choose terrible leaders, don’t they? Or do they not choose leaders at all?

It was a bit much to think about the rules of StarClan’s ways. But her feeling of wrongness when she looked at the great rock was gone, so she hunched and leaped. Her claws grappled the sides of the rock as she landed about halfway up. Her back paws reached up in front of her forepaws, her claws digging into the boulder’s imperfections. Then she unhooked her foreclaws and forced herself upward, throwing her wide tail out for balance and reaching with her paws. She caught the very edge of the stone and managed to get a clawhold, pulling herself up with a few scrabbles of her hind legs. Now she stood upon the Great Rock itself; a privilege very few cats would ever get in their lives, comparatively. “How’s the view?” Stormfur asked, running out of the Great Rock’s shadow. “How is it, Featherstar?”

Nostalgia washed over her as she remembered their kit games; Featherstar and Stormheart, out against the world, indeed. She wished her noble brother could stand beside her as Leader and Deputy one day, not that anyone would choose a bunch of half-breeds…

She forced the thought away. “The view is glorious!” She called. “Beautiful! It’s as if I’m gazing into the eyes of perfection!”

A sound made her ears turn, and she dropped her posture instantly. It was just under the Great Rock; her heart beat fast in her chest as Stormfur approached to join her investigations. Together they peered down, into the brush below her.

“H’lo.”

Both cats scrambled back as a pale mottled shape came striding confidently out of the underbrush. Little white toes stretched out, revealing curved pink claws. Feathertail spotted a scar just under the shimmering multicolored fur, and she caught the cheeky amber eyes.“What are you doing here?” Stormfur asked fearfully, stumbling back a few paces. “You’re a ShadowClan cat.”

“Yes, how did you figure that out?” The tortoiseshell asked dryly.

“You smell like frogs, sop and desperation,” Feathertail spat in turn, earning herself an apalled and terrified look from her littermate.

“You smell like fish and inability,” The ShadowClanner grumbled. “What are your names?”

“I’m Feathertail,” the queen said simply. “And this is Stormfur, my littermate.”

The tortie was quiet for a long time, and she just stared between the two cats, head turning.

“What?” Stormfur asked finally.

“Do you remember a young cat named Tawnypaw? A ShadowClan cat that came into RiverClan just before the takeover - before Crookedstar’s death?”

Feathertail felt the muscles in her back and paws strain. She didn’t want to think about the cats that were there. Too many memories sprung from each face. One was dark grey with black stripes, an evil conniving glare, a tongue constantly swiping over his blunt muzzle. Another was white - the shadow in her dreams - it had a black face and vicious eyes, with claws that could cut a sycamore in half. The third… No. She wouldn’t think about him. Never.

Stormfur growled. “We don’t like to talk about the raid, not now and not ever. We’ve had enough of those times. We’re past them.”

“But do you remember Tawnypaw?” The tortoiseshell asked with increasing desperation. “At all?”

“And what if we do?” Feathertail asked, in a quivering voice.

“I’m Tawnypaw,” the tortoiseshell explained, “but Tawnypelt, now. I helped two young cats named Featherpaw and Stormpaw. I was being mislead and I spread the misinformation to those two. I told them that my father would make RiverClan better, before… he did all of that. I helped them escape. I tried to make things right.”

Feathertail’s eyes slowly grew wider. She remembered, now; the friendly tortoiseshell molly, who talked about her ‘daddy,’ and how he was going to make everything better… RiverClan will be better, even if Crookedstar says no!

How wrong that young cat had been.

Feathertail’s heart began to beat fast as she jumped down to see Tawnypelt, looking hard into her amber eyes. Almost instantly tension sprung between the two enemy-Clan cats; but neither moved. They stared silently into each others’ souls, the wind dancing between their chests.

Then Tawnypelt bowed her head. “I’m so sorry for what we did to you.”

Feathertail looked at her in shock. A ShadowClan cat, submitting and apologizing to anyone? Especially a RiverClan cat? It blew her mind, honestly. Her whiskers twitched and she sat down slowly. “I…” She didn’t know what to say. On one side she wanted to tell Tawnypelt that it wasn’t her fault - that she had nothing to do with the attack, she was just a child, they all were! But then she raised one paw and groaned, “I’m sorry. It’s very hard to look past all of it, and see the individuals.”

“That’s fine,” Tawnypelt said. “It- it takes time. We know.”

Stormfur flattened his ears a bit. “Why are you at Fourtrees? Shouldn’t you be at ShadowClan’s camp breeding more little monsters?”

Tawnypelt bore her teeth. “No,” she grunted. “I’m here for a prophecy. Or, I think there is.”

Feathertail raised her ears. “What about?”

“A fifth oak tree, I suppose… crazy as that sounds.”

[dcbiddle]

April 20: Speaking of Actually Reading a Novel (and dying)

IN general, it would seem by now that most reasonable people know they can either meet this monster of an epoch for humanity by letting life fritter away until it’s time to come out again, or they can do stuff to better themselves and the world around them (even if it’s just small things like sorting through old photos or deep-cleaning the bathrooms). Tons of folks are baking bread and learning new languages, teaching themselves how to play a musical instruments, and getting deep into meditation (or playing video games with their teenagers!). If you ask me, though, when you’re on The Corona Vacation, it sure does make sense to catch up on one of those novels you have been intending to read now for years. I’d offer some recommendations, however, everybody’s got their own interests and their own “to be read” ideas (I’ve been reading both Haruki Murakami and Elena Ferrante, for what it’s worth). 

Sadly, it’s true that actually reading books is a dying activity in this world of ours. Besides all the TV watching, video gaming, and online canoodling folks do these days, audio book sales topped $1 billion in 2018 and that growth continues at a pace of 25% annually. That’s crazy. But it draws me back to the question of why I might recommend to people that they should want to actually sit there and read novels here in this world where the online jungle is just a tap away.  

Meditation and mindfulness are quite popular these days. In comparison, novels are dangerous and formidable beasts. Even the best readers need to buckle down with time commitments, and a desire to focus in a concentrated manner while extending their memories far beyond normal capacity. 

So, seriously, why read a novel? Similar pleasures from following stories may be had with very little effort through television shows and movies and plays. The beauty of sports is the playing out of a story (or stories) in real time while simultaneously getting buzzed (or truly drunk) and eating expensive junk food. Who needs to do all that work reading some 400 page complication of words? What’s the point of reading a story when you can watch one? Besides, actors and athletes are more attractive and wonderful than any protagonist ever conjured up in a book... 

But life is deep, is it not? And there’s so much mystery and puzzle to being on the earth that goes beyond Tom Brady and Jennifer Aniston. It’s sometimes said that all serious novels are games writers and readers play with each other in confronting the idea of death and the question of human mortality. The evidence is pretty astounding. Obviously, some books don’t touch on the effect of the grim reaper, but for the most part, somehow, someway, stories tend to be driven by some odd dance with death or fear of death or the desire to send someone else to death or the need to figure out what happened to someone who died -- from Dorothy L. Sayers to Roberto Bolaño to Arthur Conan Doyle to Shirley Jackson to Haruki Murakami (and Stephen King).

Right now, with this CoronaPuppy screaming into the maw of all mankind, we all sense the scratch of our mortality getting itchier by the day. Are we happy to lock ourselves inside because we’re actually trying to do our duty to “flatten the curve,” or are most of us simply scared shitless of having to deal with this very real, very vicious cheating roulette virus that is a glutton for the delicate membrane of the human lung? 

All the big questions pop up in novels, of course, but there’s certainly a good argument to be made for the overarching cloak of death and all of its dark implications and offshoots as the core and central driving story force that fascinates both writers and readers and kept so many coming back for years.  

Indeed, it generally seems much easier to conceive of a story where death is the logical plot conclusion. I often get bummed out when I read critics and anal-ysts complaining about sentimentality in fiction, and yet, so often the end result of the great stories is death and dying -- or at least a rather messy demise that might as well be death (like arriving at a state of insanity or falling off the wagon one last time and drifting into self-immolation and personal sodomitic ouroborosinovification). 

I don’t mind sentimentality -- not in books and not in real life. Maybe that’s what’s lacking in modern serious fiction and why so few enjoy a sustained read these days. Certainly, writers who attempt to cache emotion away or pretend human experience is about being tough, lone wolf heroic, and transgressive are actually liars and bad representatives of the art and truth of the modern world. This mortal coil is only worth paying attention to if the answer is living with honest feeling and creating meaningful emotions. 

When I sit down to work, my biggest and most obvious driver is always the question of language and meaning and how language and the human capacity to give, imbue, create, and imply meaning is a scent attached to everything.There may be love or murder or mental illness or parenting mistakes or sexual promiscuity and nudity, but first and foremost I am aware that people in real life are principally concerned with expressing themselves in the world. Thus, while running the marathon of creating a novel, I know that I should be at play with words and communication first and foremost. Sometimes language is all I care about. This bleeds over into my short stories too (as it does with all serious writers). A story is a painting, no matter how complex. A novel though is a detailed map of meaning that comes alive when you begin to read the tiny strings that make up the map. 

And yet, and yes, here in 2020 we traipse around in our little lives all naked in our pajamas and sweats, hyped up about hiding from death and dying. At the same time, it’s all we can talk about. That leads me to wonder if indeed the real reason that novels still even exist as working artifacts here in the 21st century is because what they’re really all about is the relationship between language and death. By language here I do not mean simply words as typed and concatenated on a page. Nor do I simply mean words as they are formed in your head and spewed through your mouth into the world as speech and song. I mean language in its widest and most tantalizing form: the whole ball of wax that is human expression and communication -- the human creation and re-creation of meaning through words, smell, sex, tears, taste, tactility, emotional puzzles, art, desire, laughter, fear, love, moaning, confusion, and all the stuff that says who we are: from our clothing and tastes to our cars and homes the food we eat and our addictions and fetishes and desires (of course), or the lack thereof. 

What is human and important will always be a mystery and a dilemma. Language as I describe it above is the means by which each of us injects ourselves into the constant present that we are possibly trapped in (perhaps a more important question than death, by the way, is whether we are actually trapped in the present together or whether we’re actually each just alone in our cars driving down our individual lost highways). 

The mystery and riddle of life might all be a leaden weight that would sink each and every one of us by the time we’re 35 if it weren’t for language. It is never good enough to think you have the answer to death (whatever your religious or anti-religious beliefs) or, for that matter, the answer to human suffering in general. The trick is to know how to live and to use all the power of human communication to create oneself in the world every minute of every day -- from that sandwich at lunch to sex or masturbation before sleep to dreaming in bed to rising in the morning and trying to function in the kitchen, to love, and to be at least modestly productive at work. 

All of these issues pop up when you read fiction by authors who have tried to push the envelope of language and communication. But great novels are never  long stories told to you by authors. Great novels are lives and worlds happening inside the head of each individual reader. All great art is not about the artist (even though people, including far too many critics, foolishly fall into that trap) it’s about the audience and the viewer and the listener and the reader. The artist’s job is to provide you with the raw materials to explore yourself and the world in which you live. This is what we mean when we talk about the mind “opening up.” 

In the end, of course, no novel has the answer to all of our questions about death. No person does either, not directly anyway. But that process of reading words on a page and stimulating one’s imagination can be a liberating thing. The answer to all the puzzles about death don’t hide in our fears and even our cynicism, they exist in plain sight as all the ways that people live and love and learn and what they allow each of us to figure out about our own selves and our own magnificent choices in life. 

[willowelijah]

Like Two Drops of Water: Ch 2

A spideychelle fanfic.

Summary: Michelle and Peter are just best friends. When Michelle gets asked to the homecoming dance, Peter gets jealous. When she falls for Spider-Man, Peter gets jealous (of himself). Suddenly it seems maybe they weren’t “just best friends”, after all.

Read on fanfiction.net

On tumblr: (Ch 1) (Ch 3) (Ch 4) (Ch 5)

Chapter 2

"MJ has a date." Ned said to me as I slammed my locker shut. He was repressing that pleased look Ned always has when proving me wrong.

"Really?" I asked feebly. I leaned my head to rest against the shut locker.

"I'm actually sorry for you. You have to excuse me from smiling." Ned said between smiles.

"Are you sure about it?" I asked without moving away from the rigid locker door. I imagined what my homecoming would presumably look like from hereon, not especially impressed with what I was visualizing and hence wishing I could sink through the locker.

"Yes. Assuming that she was telling the truth when she told me."

I leered at Ned, not believing what I was hearing. "She told you?" I asked enviously.

"It's not like it's juicy gossip, of course she told me."

"Why hasn't she told me yet?" I asked rhetorically.

A flash of panic crossed Ned's features, "Here she comes." He whispered not all that subtly.

I turned around, suddenly self-conscious. A hand instinctively reached for my hair when I saw her curly head bouncing closer to us with a smile. The last thing I had time to do was pray she would tell me, while at the same time dreading having to hear her say it.

"Hello." She said, seizing us with a skeptical frown. "Is your general mannerism a direct result of yesterday's 'private business', because I can leave again so as to possibly calm your pulses?" She asked sardonically. Typical Michelle, I thought. I'm not sure if she had studied ways to come in to a room, throw together some words and immediately get the upper hand on a conversation while simultaneously making everyone who wasn't her slightly uncomfortable, or if it came natural to her. My guess would be the latter of the two.

I laughed, hopefully not too nervously. "No, that's… resolved." I looked at Ned who was nodding vigorously. The truth of it was, we had gotten nowhere on that pursuit.

"So, who's your date?" I blurted before I'd had a chance to stop myself. Ned's eyes widened in my direction, Michelle shot Ned a look and I looked down at my feet in shame at my lack of tact. You were going to wait for her to tell you, I mentally lectured myself.

"Uuuh," Michelle stammered and I cursed everything. Yesterday had been so easy and fun, now everything just felt awkward. "Liz." She finally revealed, looking away from the both of us.

"Liz?" I questioned. "Liz asked you to the homecoming dance?" Liz was sweet, intelligent and everyone loved her, whereas I could maybe be considered one of those things. I played with the zipper on my hoodie in an attempt to not have to look into those brown eyes, suddenly feeling like a small bug in comparison.

"Damn, you got lucky!" Ned erupted and Michelle smiled shyly, looking away repeatedly. "Do you like her?" Ned asked, making me feel like I was taking part in a conversation I had not consented to.

Michelle's shoulders rose. "She's cute." She said. I looked up by reflex, to my horror meeting her searching eyes. I tried to play it off by looking around at the students whirling around the hallway.

"Are you a couple now?" I asked as naturally as I could.

"We'll see where it goes." Michelle answered with a somewhat confident smile. As confident smiles go, it was pretty confident, but then again, I've seen confidenter* smiles. "I gotta go." She said uncomfortably. "See you tonight guys." She finished before she left me slightly exasperated at her purposefully fuzzy answer.

---

"Hello Peter! Hello Ned!" Liz greeted us enthusiastically upon opening the door to her mansion and paving the way for a wave of sound to hit us all at once. Sometimes, when I felt a little too good about being called a "hero" I liked to compare the rugged flat where Aunt May and I lived to Liz's house. I found it reminded me of who I really was.

"Hi Liz, you look nice." Ned said whereas I merely mumbled something in response.

"Thanks Ned. You two look very nice as well." She replied sweetly.

When I, in contrast to Ned, failed to respond Liz rolled her eyes. "I take it you've heard that I asked Michelle to homecoming?" She conjectured jadedly, hand to hip.

"How would you know?" I asked without bothering to look at her, instead I searched the small, barely existent dancing crowd inside. Most of the people were still drinking up the courage to dance, I deduced.

"Well, you're not usually this rude, Peter." She raised her eyebrows reproachfully.

Ned was looking at the floor, probably in second hand embarrassment for me. I now felt pretty guilty about my behavior, but I refused to show it, carrying on with the charade. "Yes. M.J. told me." I lied. "We're pretty close." That part's true at least.

"Rub it in." Ned joked in an attempt to diffuse the tension, but Liz was not really having it at this time, facial expression remaining still as stone.

The party did not get off to a good start; let's just say that. We eventually found M.J. though. She was sitting in a beanbag chair by herself, looking strangely content with her situation.

"Finally!" She said once she could make out our figures through the dim luminescent light. "I've been fending of suitors ever since I got here. Thank god you guys are here to take the burden away."

"Really?" I asked while cramping my way into the chair as well, as she made room for me. Ned had his own, but there were only two, which meant we had to make compromises. I didn't mind sitting next to M.J. though, her flannel felt soft against my arm.

"Yes." She motioned at the beanbag chair next to hers, the one Ned was now occupying. "This old thing has had suitors coming as if they were running on a fire." She said funnily, "But I told them, I said, 'It's waiting for Mr. Right.' in this case Mr. Leeds." She emoted. She winked at Ned, whose eyes were big and lost, whose eyebrows were curved in puzzlement and whose mouth was ajar.

"We can tell you've held the fort without us." I laughed. "You haven't talked to Liz anything?" I asked, voice suddenly soft and unsure and wondering how come she'd been sitting in this corner all by herself.

Michelle paused. "I — … I definitely greeted her upon arriving!" She finished light-heartedly after a small stumble.

Ned laughed, a little too hard. "What's the deal you two anyway? I will always respect your decisions M.J., but seriously? Liz? Don't get me wrong, she's great, but what do you guys even have in common?" I inwardly thanked Ned for daring to articulate exactly what I was thinking and I glanced at M.J. to see how she was taking Ned's words.

Michelle didn't seem too bothered by the criticism. "She's in the Academic Decathlon." She said, putting on her most logical voice. "And… She's cute I guess." Michelle ended uncertainly.

"I she much more than that though?" I asked bitterly. They both looked at me as if I had two heads and I deliberated if I should take the night of from speaking.

Thankfully, M.J. chose to ignore my ill worded utterance. "I feel like dancing tonight!" She erupted enthusiastically. "We need to dance tonight!"

"Yeah!" Both Ned and I chimed, thinking they were empty words. We were then more than surprised when Michelle actually stood up, ruining the perfect balance I had in the bean chair and therefore causing me to fall over. She offered her hand to help me up, which I took — out of obligation and not out of desire to take part in her proposal.

We should have known better. We really should have. Of course M.J. wanted to dance. Of course she asked Flash to put on Ramones. Of course she didn't really dance, more like waved her long sleeves around while jumping, the objective being to waste as much energy as possible. "It was how they did it in the 70's!" She'd say. And of course I could do nothing but watch her in awe with a funny feeling in my stomach.

Suddenly the music stopped and everyone turned to Flash, who was looking at me from across the room. Damn. I thought, knowing exactly what was coming.

"Parker!" Flash called for me, knowing he had the attention of the whole room, which was apparently the whole point of this exchange. "Where's your friend?"

The room was quiet.

"Gee, I don't know. Protecting the city?" I suggested sardonically.

"Yeah, from what I hear he's a pretty busy guy isn't he?" When I didn't reply to his clear attempt at mockery he pushed further. "I mean you would know, wouldn't you? …You're his friend?" Flash continued rigorously, tempting me to consider the suit I knew lay stacked inside my backpack. But I knew better, I wasn't going to use Spider-Man, I was going to wait for this little act to be over and then go back to semi-enjoying this party. "I'll lay off Peter. I can tell you're getting annoyed." Flash said, thinking he had me in the palm of his hand, which in itself instigated annoyance in me beyond anything he had said up to this point. "Just a word of advice before I go: if you're always the first one to text, then he's just not that into you." He said condescendingly, pretending to smile in his most compassionate way.

Michelle groaned, "Will you leave him the fuck alone, Flash?" She said, motioning with the coke in her hand.

"You know what? I'll call him right now." I announced to the group, speaking clearly enough for the people in the back to hear me. I glanced at Michelle who was raising my pulse simply by looking surprised at my proclamation.

What I did next I could barely believe, myself. I slid my phone out of my pocket while leaving the scene, I pretended to search for Spider-Man's number and once I'd got to a more secluded part of the house I pretended to make the call. I actually faked a whole phone call only to then exit the house, with my pack back, containing the suit. I could not for the life of me visualize how the rest of this night was going to play out and that scared me. I had no clue what to do next. I did know for sure that I couldn't have my friends having to stand up for me, I didn't want to be stood up for. I had to stick up for myself.

Pretending to be friends with a superhero is not the same as standing up for yourself, a voice in the back of my head said. They're actually so far apart that I find it amazing you could confuse the two.

If you can't stand up for yourself without the suit, then you shouldn't have the suit. The voice continued.

Your powers are your responsibility to use for doing good; impressing a bully doesn't constitute as doing good. The voice in the back of my head sure had a lot of sound arguments.

I put on the suit, just to see how it felt. As soon as it was on I suddenly felt incredibly stupid. Like, if the plan had felt stupid to begin with, this was next level stupid. On the streets of New York the suit made me feel powerful, but at a party with high school students, it was an entirely different story.

I jumped up into a tree so as not to be seen by anyone. I watched M.J. and Ned dance to the muddled sounds of Blitzkrieg Pop on the inside. I say dancing, but it was mostly just uncontrollable jumping. When the song ended I watched as M.J. walked up to Flash to request something new. She could never stand having to listen to music she didn't like.

I imagined what I would say if I went inside, but I couldn't think of anything that didn't make me feel incredibly uneasy. And also, a unitard didn't exactly "fit perfectly" with the dress code.

My eyes adjusted to the scene inside once again, but I was thunderstruck when I saw Flash, the man of the hour, forcefully pulling M.J. toward him and her resisting with all her might. All thoughts of "should I go in or not?" were lost to me and I jumped.

With a few swift jumps I was inside the house, I climbed up along the wall and no one spotted me until I was right above the crowd. Ned was now trying to push Flash away while M.J. was pouring her coke down his hair. I cursed all the drunken teenagers who had barely noticed the scene.

People gasped. "Oh my god, is that the real Spider-Man?" Someone exclaimed.

Before the golden trio could spot me though, I made my move. I shot my web to trap his feet, making him loose his balance and nearly fall over. Flash stopped in his movements to try and figure out what the strange substance around his feet was and Michelle was able to get loose from his grip. Her face was hard, but I could see that she'd been scared.

"What a party you guys are having here!" I said to announce my presence. I back-flipped and landed in front of Flash, from there I kept firing my web at him, trapping his hands and legs until he was covered in it. I stepped closer with each shot until I was right in front of him. I poked him to see if he'd fall, but Flash stood like a rock, covered in the sticky web.

I glanced at my friends, whose jaws were dropped open. Ned leaned in and gave me a high five. Flash's mouth was just as agape as everyone else's, shocked into submission. I don't think anyone had expected New York's famous masked guy to swing by their party, much less make a scene as this one.

"Don't worry," I said, "It'll dissolve in about two hours. By then hopefully you will have learned not to harass people. I mean it's not exactly rocket science, so I think you'll get there." I turned to the group with a newfound confidence; "You guys are with me on this?" They cheered in response, glasses filled to the brim with alcohol raised in salute. "See, these guys believe in you. Now you've just got to believe in yourself." I told him sarcastically with an encouraging slap on his shoulder, only to then have to steady him so that he wouldn't fall to the floor — I wasn't a complete sadist.

"So you are friends with Peter?" Flash quipped from his locked position. I couldn't believe my ears; after this whole ordeal he was still on that subject? I wanted to tape him to the ceiling, have him hang there for the rest of the night, but I kept the charade going. After all, I had initially sought out to prove a point.

"Peter?" I began, "Peter and I are more than friends." I emoted, only to subsequently realize my blunder. I caught M.J. snort and my head turned to briefly meet her eyes. "What I mean to say is… he's like a mother to me." I corrected light-heartedly to make her laugh even more. When she did I found myself continuing, "It's like he gave birth to me. It's like he birthed me out of his metaphorical womb. That's how close we are." Flash looked on, shocked at the odd situation I'd created among a room of partygoers.

"Right. And where is he now?" He hissed.

"He's a busy guy, you know." I reasoned. "Anyway…" I had begun to realize it was time to leave before any other queries arose. I put my hands in my nonexistent pockets. I made a mental note to talk to Mr. Stark about pockets, so as to avoid situations like these.

Suddenly the hairs on the back of my head rose and my muscles turned hard. Time suddenly took longer to pass. I realized that someone was right behind me. In one move I turned and caught their arm right as it was about to latch onto my mask. My eyes were wide in shock as they stared into some random drunk girl's. I pushed her back lightly and she stumbled but didn't fall. Next, I took a few leaps before I was out the window, gone from everyone's view.

Why does this always happen, I thought. Some idiot always tries to remove the mask without my consent. The great thing about the mask was that it created this sort of mystery. No one ever knew the true face of the web slinger, meaning I could go unnoticed if I so please. The problem with the mask however was that everyone loves a mystery. And a fair few love being the smart-ass who unravels it, especially disrespectful teens who've had too much to drink.

I sat down on top of the roof, watching the lilac smog spread like a curtain over the distant city. I pondered whether or not I should head back inside, Spider-suit off. But I decided it would be too suspicious if I suddenly appeared, having missed the whole show. It might set the ever-notice-how-Batman-and-Bruce-Wayne-are-never-in-the-same-room effect in motion.

My phone buzzed, Michelle was calling. I thought about answering, out of curiosity, but I didn't know what I would tell her if she were to ask about why I had left so suddenly. Eventually the buzzing stopped and I was left waiting for the leaves to fall.

---

* Used with humorous intent.

Authors note: Did you like/dislike something? Please let me know!

4 August 2017