#apparently only rom gained something from this

[katyspersonal]

List Master Willem’s war crimes for the judge and jury, please!

Alright this is genuinely a good question! I'll start with a plain one:

1) Fishing Hamlet massacre is Willem's order

Sorry, Laurence only condoned two massacres, not three. xD We yet can see he did have a good teacher in more ways than one hfsdhffd And it is definitely not hard to guess what was the reasoning:

2) The OG grave-robber

Obscure lore because it is locked to an item most players never found as it's gathered through unlikely platformer. But yeah, he and his friends done it before Tomb Prospectors made it cool XD Furthermore, some Chalice Rituals materials are found within Byrgenwerth (Red Jelly, Pearl Slug).

Granted, since Gehrman and Maria are associated with Byrgenwerth and Old Hunter Vitus is a summon in the Dungeons, he could have rather used aid of the Old Hunters instead of terrorising leftovers of Pthumerian civilisation himself. Maybe what he and his friends did was simply checking! But in that case, bothering Pthumerians was still his order, similarly to Fishing Hamlet.

3) Something to do with the infants..

There are multiple fetuses found in Byrgenwerth, in two variants: a petrified one (a common sign of strong Arcane exposure) and a 'cursed' one (with horns and multiple tiny skulls):

This is a large room for speculation on whether they were somehow lab-grown, or kidnapped from the Dungeons... Or, maybe, they were forcibly conceived in test subjects? Commoners that live in the woods around Byrgenwerth, kidnapped Pthumerians, whatever. To "lighten" the mood, maybe volunteer scholars? In either case, something heavily unethical happened here. The reason MUST have been the Great Ones' infants umbilical cords:

We are fighting adolescent (?) version of OoK, whereas their real 'presence' that we sever to destroy the heart of the Nightmare is a much smaller form, so, very likely, OoK was stolen as an infant, from the womb of Kos, and his cord was retracted.

(Side note: it is not necessary that the cord Fauxsefka drops was stolen from Byrgenwerth, let alone that it was the cord of OoK specifically, since she only drops it after Bloodmoon. I think that either she got pregnant like Arianna, especially since she is a Vileblood too, or she was on her way to be reborn into a GO infant like Paleblood Hunter does in the New Beginnings ending! The latter is very possible since that ending is only accessible after eating 3 cords, so, after gaining a lot of Insight, which Fauxsefka does! Basically we don't know the fate of OoK's cord, but nonetheless it is likely that Willem still had it!)

4) Was Rom's fate his fault?

This is the potential one rather than apparent! There is a common assumption that he was experimenting on Rom, supported also by the fact that Byrgenwerth is the only place where Gardens of Eyes type of Kin are found (otherwise they're only found in generated Chalice Dungeons, so, "non canon" ones). Granted, there is a lot to talk about Amygdalae and Nightmare Apostles involvement with the 'Spiders', as well as Patches the Spider being in Byrgenwerth! Still:

Not an unreasonable assumption! Though it is up to interpretation whether Rom was forcibly experimented on, groomed by him to "agree" to it for greater good as Byrgenwerth is hardcore gatekeepers, volunteered herself, or did have that weird involvement with 'Spiders' and Willem simply utilised the (unwell) result by at least hiding it in the Lake. Another sidenote though is that by the game's events, Rom is THE person concealing Mensis Ritual, and Willem is the one to urge our Hunter to hunt her with his scepter!

(Backing this up because there might be people that didn't play BB yet since Sony hates fun and joy)

So I think whatever was his reason to hide her in the Moonside Lake was not Mensis Ritual; he did not see it coming back then, and now understands what has to be done to stop it! (Damn, this brings back memories, this issue was one of my very first loredigs...)

5) Willem secretly orchestrated the Choir?

This is the second potential one. Yurie was strangely titled The Last Scholar, and considering her spot, I can only think of the implication of her returning in the walls of Byrgenwerth! There is a secret cave in the woods (most likely the one Fauxsefka invaded from) that allowed communication with Byrgenwerth, as well as White Church Set is found in the Woods! And furthermore, Gatekeeper that guards the entrance to the Woods on the way in Byrgenwerth uses the adage coined in by Willem as the password, and adopted by the Healing Church!

From the looks of it, the way to Byrgenwerth was not only declared to be a forbidden area, but even hidden from the "lower rank" Healing Church staff, as Alfred says gatekeeper would not open. That'd mean he doesn't know the adage, when Amelia must be. Choir and School of Mensis are higher echelons of the Healing Church, and as you can see, Yurie(Choir) is an NPC there, whereas Damian(Mensis) is a summon there! My interpretation here is that communication with Byrgenwerth remained, just that Healing Church made effort to hide it so the unsightly, as Simon put it, secrets of their origins REMAIN secrets.

(For lyrics: ( x )) The petrified spider found in Altar of Grief IS possibly Rom! That theory could be easily discarded at the first glance because the legs don't match, but they do, as you can see from the holes in her Lake form! Lyrics of Ebrietas' song also seem to refer to Mensis Ritual, as if she knows what has to be done to stop it when she cherished Rom for one reason or another and cries at her "grave".

Willem could have had connection with Ebrietas from the start. And, hell, he should have pulled the biggest "told you so" face when Laurence's Healing Church first took a big route around to try and mess with the Deep Sea, and only through so many failed experiments decided to seek the guidance of the Stars instead, and find the 'right' way to aspire for ascension:

Myazaki please stop tormenting me enough is enough sfhdhfd So, the way things likely happened: Willem was able to tell 'Stars' was the way to go even before meeting Ebrietas in person, Laurence separated from Byrgenwerth to try out Blood Ministration when Willem already warned him it was dangerous, then his Healing Church had attempts to dive into Deep Sea for the eyes (if Micolash and Rom somehow had nothing to do with it I am suing everyone fdhfhds), then turned out patients are doing better seeking Stars (Lumenflowers balcony) and it even happens besides their will (Living Failures), they find Ebrietas and reform Research Hall into Choir/Orphanage, they focus on Eyes when Laurence favours Blood and Hunt more, they remember what Willem told them from the start and seek him, eventually people like Yurie and Rom return to their roots for the lack of better term. As for Fauxsefka, either 1) she returned with Yurie but then changed her mind on being a lazy fence-sitter and rage-quit 2) she invaded Byrgenwerth later on, after 'Choir's ways differed from Willem', might have stolen a cord from there but we don't know 3) she never even invaded and her story goes separately, but she IS from Choir's era of 'differing from Willem', that Yurie didn't catch onto.

...what I am saying, is that for all we know, experiments on the orphans and maybe-grooming Rom into sacrificing herself were under his doing, behind Laurence's back, even. Too bad that Micolash in the end turned out to be more cunning than EVERYONE in this scheme, but still, Willem could have played not the last role here! Poor Laurence, so ambitious yet so very dim.

____________________________

So yeah... This might not seem like much, especially as part of this is speculation, but I think this paints the picture of 'mad researcher' character that appears in basically every Soulsborne game at least once x) Laurence and Micolash maybe have created the main mess of the story, but even if they never existed, with Willem, there would be a lot of unethical experiments, a lot of extermination of "less intelligent" species, and a lot of dead infants! He is guilty not as much for teaching Laurence and, likely, Micolash (the boys still had their agency), but for just being himself lol. ROFL at the guy ordering to kill a pregnant mother and her baby and their worshippers in order to learn how to stop being barbaric as human beings fdjhhfdsds

[microwaving-tesilid-argente]

This post is a response to that one anon who sent in an ask about something that happened in webnovel 223.

I would have replied to your ask but tumblr ate it up :( but anyway, thank you sm for sending the 2nd ask! it warned me about the 1st ask containing spoilers so i was able to avoid reading it. And I cannot begin to tell you how excited I was for the TL to reach 223 so I could finally read your ask. Anyway, the 1st ask + my response under cut

Aw, it's quite disappointing to hear that the genre change wasn't a big thing later on. I can't say if it maybe was in subtle ways anyway, bc. well. We literally just hit ch 223 and I have nothing on what came after. (But if I do see it I'll make sure to make a meta analysis post on it later!)

I think that the reason why the genre change doesn't feel significant is because of the genre it changed to: Action Fantasy. Ailette has spent most of her time in this life either fighting or training. In other words: her life was already an Action Fantasy story. She doesn’t need to make any changes to her lifestyle, she doesn’t suddenly get confronted with Romance-oriented narrative challenges. And so our narrative tone doesn’t seem to change either.

Like what the TM Gods said, what was important was removing the restriction that “relationships outside the original story will result in death”. And to do that, they just needed to:

destroy the original story (ie. get rid of the “time loop” part of the story) +

provide a new anchor for this world to rely on (making Ailette the new MC)

That MC changing to Ailette feels insignificant is probably also because Ailette has always been our protagonist. In other words, from the perspective of this world and the gods in it, something existence-changing has happened. But it’s not apparent to us because we exist outside the story as readers to S-Class Heroine, which already has Ailette as its protagonist. The genre and MC change is from the perspective of the characters, not us. They didn’t need to dramatically change the story from our perspective. (To them, we in fact don’t even exist at all.)

On the topic of the genre change again, the genre change probably would only have felt more significant to us if it had changed to Romance like Ailette had hoped. It would mean that the things that are narrated – ie. things that end up having significant consequences on the characters’ lives – are all romance- and not fighting-related. Ailette would probably spend all her time working on her interpersonal relationships instead of beating demons up.

Meta-wise, I think that this would not have been a wise writing choice. One of S-Class Heroine’s greatest strengths is that unlike most knight-themed OIs, the MC genuinely finds great joy in gaining martial strength (it’s not just a job or a setting to show off how just and noble she is). And the narrative honours that by giving a lot of screentime to the joys of training and fighting – separate from the romance. The fighting scenes are an ends in and of themselves. The reader is supposed to take joy and be invested in Ailette’s non-romance fighting adventures. 

I bet that there are quite a lot of readers who appreciate S-Class Heroine’s balance between action and romance. To have the story shift so dramatically to romance at the expense of action would have been a disservice to the readers who have enjoyed it for 200+ chapters. Admittedly, I’m pretty sure that most of us really wouldn’t mind; we probably came across it because it’s Rofan – but S-Class Heroine is a gem because it manages to be actually action-oriented as well. I think it’ll just be a waste for that to change, when tbh it doesn’t really need to - S-Class Heroine manage to do romance just fine even when both leads were very pointedly trying to shut up. S-Class Heroine works better without dramatically changing its meta (our-universe) genre.

And the thing is that S-Class Heroine is only a Romance Fantasy to us because we knew from the start that it was a romance story. In S-Class Heroine the webnovel, Ailette’s underlying romantic motivations were very much the point, even when– or rather especially when they weren’t explicit. But to Ailette, the romance bloomed completely organically. When it was revealed in the Toy Mansion arc that Ailette was exempt from Tesilid’s Commandments restrictions, we all knew it was because of The Romance. But Ailette was really only concerned about how it’d make her life easier, and she didn’t see Tesilid romantically for like. Years. The story that we read as outsiders and the life that Ailette experiences don't line up completely, because of the lens through which we view it. S-Class Heroine is a Rofan to us, but for Ailette, who very purposely did a bunch of mental gymnastics to shield the narration from her romantic feelings and who spends most of her time training anyway, it has always been an Action Fantasy.

And so basically, TLDR;

The Genre and Main Character Change Ticket has to be read from the perspective of the in-universe characters, to whom its name was actually relevant to. The Genre and MC Change Ticket is not for us. It’s a tool for them and it’s the language they use to understand their world, not for us to analyse the story’s meta narrative. 

It’s confusing because we’re using the same words; genre action fantasy romance etc., but they mean different things depending on who’s speaking them and activating the words. To Ailette and the TM Gods, genres are like keys unlocking different paths they can navigate this life with; it’s like choosing what course to take in school/college. To us, genres are ways to analyse S-Class Heroine the story, which just so happens to centre around Ailette.

There’s probably an ORV-esque point to be made here about the author-protagonist-reader relationship, especially the protagonist-reader one. Something something the protagonist exists outside of the reader’s own needs and projections and interpretations and the protagonist has their own concerns and worries and perspectives, which need not be a complete mirror of the reader’s own, even in a story where the reader is meant to identify with the protag. Something something joongdok divorce arc, I think. Don’t quote me I haven’t read ORV in 2 years and I never understood that arc. But I think the themes are similar.

Yeah anyway thanks for listening to me yap. Sorry if what you meant by “it feels like the MC change should have been more significant” wasn’t actually “it feels like we should have felt some substantial change in the narrative”. I’ll come and re-answer this ask again when I’ve read more chapters, if this wasn’t the case.

[katyahina]

Some elusive Bloodborne things

- Annalise is not a blonde, she is de-melanized redhead, not unlike how Arianna lost hair color after giving her birth

- Younger Madaras twin wears clothes of his murdered brother, so we can't say whether his original clothes were identical

- Crow of Cainhurst doesn't necessarily have silver hair; the silver flock is part of this silver helmet itself, not his model hair

- Micolash and Damian are the only characters canonically shown to have 7 bars tall Mensis Cage; everyone else shown in them has 4 bars tall cages

- Impostor Iosefka is heavily implied to originally be from Cainhurst

- 'Even the doll, should it please you' said in creepy tone is completely a localization invention

- Yurie is a blonde; moreover, her name is implied to be Julie/Yulia (I stumbled hard on this one to the no-return point, but let the next generation of fans know)

- Djura's ally might be exactly this - an ally; not even be a Powder Keg himself, as he doesn't use any Powder Keg weapons

- Valtr has both eyes, the actual one-eyed person was previous owner of the helmet

- However, previous owner of the helmet was not "previous League Master" because 1) Impurity Rune was discovered within Valtr and 2) The description saying helm is passed to the next leader appears only if Valtr passes it to the player

- Simon and Djura's apprentice have the same face data

- Kos is a mistranslation, her correct name is Gos and doesn't allude to cosmos

- Ebrietas is properly translated as 'daughter of the stars', or of just some celestial body in either case (her internal name is 'bastard of the Moon', however)

- Plain Doll has small cracks on her face

- Brador' beast scalp is heavily implied to be that of an antlered Cleric Beast which Laurence was the first one of, it could be the hyde of beast Laurence himself

- Ludwig's right eye appears 'blind', at least in his beast form

- Celestial Minion in the room where player woke up and real Iosefka originally locked herself in drops Iosefka's blood vial, it could be real Iosefka; not dead but transformed

- Original Healing Church prayer did not feature 'SEEK the Old Blood' part found in Amelia's speech, someone clearly stopped fearing it

- Henryk has brown skin color

- Maria has eyelashes just as pale in color as her head hair (frankly, dark eyeliner now feels like even more of a stylish thing)

- Lost in translation but there is only one entrusted Hunter of Hunters each 'generation' of them; they are not a 'group' and Eileen sure wasn't the first one

- Micolash and Damian both used to be in the Choir, as A Call Beyond is a tool of Choir members; Damian's shield is also that Isz Prospectors used to use

- Heads of Research Hall patients are covered in fabric, we might not know how they look beneath it

- This one I am better off showing than telling because almost everyone in the fandom gets this one wrong, but white ribbon that belonged to younger Gascoigne's daughter is not just ribbon itself, but it has layer of frills falling down:

- Gascoigne has a scar on right side of his mouth

- Rom's eyes are not actually pitch black - they do have whites, irises and pupils! Everything is just too dark so it blends together unless you look very close. Moreover, her eyes frantically move all the time to look in all the different directions.

[haleyboook]

Past mistakes pt. 6

Word count: 3,128

Warnings: implied sex, cheating I suppose even though they're married, kissing?

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Slowly everything falls into place. He takes me delicately as I savor every moment of our time together.

It wasn’t like our first time together after junior prom. It was calculated.

He knows my body, every curve, every imperfection, small or big he knows it. He appreciates it

Slowly his lips attach to my inner thighs and he mumbles “So beautiful.”

I smile as his hands slide up my sides as I watch him move carefully.

It’s like we are in a movie. The big reunion scene at the end. Where the couple end up together. Every stereotypical rom com ending feels like this

But this was all passion. All real. It really happened, and it happened to me.

He lowers himself on to my lips kissing them with effort. With drive.

My eyes blink closed and open as he bites at my neck, getting a spark out of me as I giggle at the tickle of his scruff

He smiles into the skin on my neck and murmurs “you goofball.” with a low rumble of a laugh

I laugh loudly as he shakes his head and I grab the sides of his face pulling him back up to my lips.

He mumbles as he pulls away an inch “love you.”

He says it quickly, not thinking, like it’s something he’ll always get to say to me.

That they’ll never be an expiration date on that phrase for us

‘I love you’ used to slip so easily from our mouths, it was more commonly said than a hello in our house.

And I adored knowing I was loved

Selfishly I admit “I love you more than anything.”

He drags his lips down my exposed skin and my legs loop around his body as I gasp as he finds the spot on my upper hip that sends chills up my back

Slowly he drops down onto me and things continue smoothly.

Blissfully.

He's domesticated with me. More known. But oh so good.

All of his moves providing all the thrills for me.

This is a high I never want to come down from.

Quickly I pull him onto his back as he laughs as I mildly struggle to not tumble off the bed

He smiles in awe as I sit above him, more like hover above him

It’s a sight he thought he’d never get again.

Only something he’d reminisce about. Dream about.

Easing away from each other as I fall down onto his chest at both of our releases his hand sweeps the loose strands from my mess of a hairstyle out of my face

He kisses my lips saying “It's been too long without you.”

I smile as I nestle into him. He sighs and says “Shower?”

Nodding he tosses the comforter away from our intertwined bodies. Not even allowing me to catch my breath he lifts me quickly

I bite my bottom lip suppressing a wince as he roughly carries me out of the main bedroom in my hotel room

Walking me into the bathroom, his foot kicking the door shut behind us

A simple night in, felt perfect.

We lounge on the bed, my hair tied up in a towel on my head. He wears a hotel robe while I continue wearing his button up shirt.

My legs tangle in with his as I flip through the cheesy magazine I picked up at the drug store down the street

He says "What lies is it telling now?"

"Brad Pitt still loves Jennifer Anniston and they're having an affair baby apparently."

He scoffs and I say "She gains a few pounds and that's the media's initial thought."

He nods saying "The media prey's off the celebrities. Surprised I'm not in that one. They have me dating or cheating on someone new weekly."

The conversation turns tense and I say "Well, lucky you, you're not in this one this time."

He looks to me cautiously as I sit up and set the magazine down on the night stand beside me

Silence lingers as I say "I bet George Lopez's tv shows reruns are on right now."

"And friends."

I nod and he smiles "Nothing could entertain Scott like an episode of friends when he was disgustingly drunk and needed to be babysat."

I laugh and say "All we had to do was give him a grilled cheese and water in front of the tv and he'd be all set."

Chris says "I haven't had the joy of needing to do that for awhile."

"Damn. I was wondering if it still worked... I miss him. I really do, he was my best friend."

Chris nods saying "He doesn't like to bring you up but I know he misses you... we all do."

My frown deepens and I nod.

Don't say something you'll regret. Don't do it.

“I missed you and your family. My dad still brings you up every time I visit. Which sorta resulted in me staying away from Boston. It was too difficult.”

The alcohol has worn off for the most part. We’ve sobered up. He says “I was wondering why I never ran into you or my family hasn’t seen you around.”

I nod as I look to the ceiling as we sit on the bed together. “Boston wasn’t the same after everything that happened. You finished the second Fantastic 4 and I stayed away. You got your fame and I kept running.”

He looks to me saying “Why’d you keep running? You don’t think I kept looking for you? I nearly hired a private investigator too many times.”

“Being here.. being with you.. it was like salt in my wounds daily. Chris you look so much like him.”

I look to him and see the frown on his face. He frowns and says “You don’t think I felt that way about you? He had your smile. He had your smile, not mine. I knew when we lost Jack that things were gonna be different but I wanted the reminders of him. You didn’t.”

I look down as he sighs. I shrug saying “Everyone grieves differently. Losing a child is difficult. All those doctors warned us that it's the leading cause of divorce..”

His hand skims my cheek nodding saying “You’ll always be my beautiful girl.”

I smile to him and he says “I missed this more than you could ever know.”

I tilt my head towards him and say “I do miss seeing Jack’s similarities in your face. He got those blue eyes of yours.”

He laughs saying “And he could never say blue without a stutter.”

I mimic our son saying “buh buh buh blue.”

He smiles widely saying “He was a good kid.”

“The best. I miss him so much.”

"Me too."

Silence remains in the air as my hand remains on his cheek, my thumb running in circles on his skin, him leaning into my touch in the slightest

I drop my hand from his cheek and sink into the pillows. I smile saying “Do we have to talk about what happened?”

He shrugs saying “Eventually. But not yet. We’ll discuss it later. Let’s just think about the now right now okay?”

I nod saying “Well, right now I’d really go for some affection. That’d be nice.”

He smiles as he leans over me and kisses me slowly. He pulls away momentarily “Good?”

“No. I need more.”

He falls from his hands as he kisses me and I groan slightly. He mutters “Sorry. Sorry. I slipped.”

I nod and say “And you bit my lip.”

He says “Shit.”

He grabs a tissue and quickly pushes it to the little amount of blood on my lip. I laugh saying “I remember when we were sitting in your car making out in the high school parking lot and your car got backed into and you bit my lip. You were so angry.”

He grumbles saying “Ben Williams ruined the whole back end of my car. I had a right to be angry. My ma’s insurance bill spiked because of that ass. All because he was trying to beat his buddies out of the parking lot and backed out of his spot going 30. You don’t do that.”

I smile nodding saying “And the Boston accent came out when you yelled at him. It usually did when you started yelling at someone. It's unmatched in sexy level.”

He laughs and rolls off me, pulling me with him. He says “You dropped your accent. I’m sure when you’re angry it comes out too.”

“When I’m drunk it’s very vocal. I’ve still got it. I used to act y’know. Hiding accents and creating new ones isn’t that difficult.”

“Yes it is. I still can’t get a British accent down.”

"It only takes an immense amount of practice, besides I was always a better actress than you. You just had the hotness” I say with a British accent.

"Says the one that was approached for modeling."

"Yeah hand modeling."

"You have sexy hands."

We both go into a fit of giggles and I push both my hands in front of our faces, shaking my fingers and he grabs my left hand kissing my skin saying "Very model worthy hands."

I smile widely grabbing his chin with my other hand saying "Very model face, darling." I continue using the british accent, only causing him to shake his head

“I want Boston y/n accent. Give it to me.”

I laugh and say “Here. Bedder?”

He laughs saying “Ah the t’s that sound like d’s. I missed it.”

He kisses the palms of my hands and we both look to the sun quickly rising more. He looks over saying “We stayed up all night. It’s already 6.”

I nod and he says “I have to get to the set soon.”

I remain quiet and he says “If I could stay here and not face my adult responsibilities and pretend to be a lovestruck teenager I would.”

I nod and say “It’s alright. I get it.”

He slides out from underneath my grasp and says “Alright, I’ll call my lawyer and agent?”

I look to him confused and he continues multitasking, sliding his pants on as I watch him confused

He says “We can go over the draft of the divorce if you can get your lawyer to agree to meeting with us.”

I swallow hard and he says “I’ll sign if it’s not completely ridiculous.”

I shake my head saying “Chris..”

“You’re getting what you want Jules. Be happy. It's all ending.”

I frown as I look to his retreating frame as he opens the bathroom door to fix his hair

I stand up quickly following him, leaning against the door frame, he pauses as he looks in the reflection at me

Standing there with my hip popped and his shirt hanging off my shoulders with a few too many buttons undone for him to keep his sanity he releases a shaky breath

He gets caught staring and I say “No lawyers. Not yet.”

He looks to me surprised and I nod saying “Let’s just… enjoy this?”

He looks to me surprised saying “We aren’t drunk anymore. We can’t blame this on the booze now. We are in relationships.”

I nod saying “I know. I don’t want to go back. Not yet. I have to tell Pete what happened but… what’s a few more days of pushing off that discussion?”

“It’s called being an adult and doing the right thing.”

“Maybe I don’t want to do the right thing for now.”

My arms loop around his torso as he peers over his shoulder as I rest my face on his bare back.

I smile and he says “A few more days together wouldn’t hurt.”

He presses a kiss to my arms that are wrapped around him “come to set with me.”

“What?”

“You have anything better to do?”

I shrug saying “And what are you gonna say when your friends ask who I am?”

“My friend. After all, that’s what you were before we started dating.”

I nod saying “And Scarlett?”

“Her memory is so bad. She’ll have no idea. Besides, your hair is different and she is oblivious most of the time.”

Now, here I am sitting in my rental car with Chris beside me. I look over to him as he says “Come on, it’s not that bad. You can sit in my trailer. No one will even know you’re here.”

I nod and say “I will beat you up if this goes wrong.”

He laughs and says “Sure. You can “beat” me up if this goes wrong.”

“I can. And will. I went to cross fit. I can.”

He tilts his head towards me saying “For how long?”

I narrow my eyes at him saying “Shut up. I was busy.”

“2 times?”

“Once and it was the free trial.”

He laughs and drives us inside. I sigh as I rest my head on the headrest

We come to a stop and he says “This is it.”

I nod and say “This is a huge production. It’s not like the fantastic four set. This is massive.”

“Yeah, the mcu has a massive fan base. This movies supposed to do really well.”

We step out of the car and Sebastian looks over with some of the other actors/actresses on set. I sink into my shoulders

Chris begins to walk towards the trailer and let’s me enter first. I look around saying “Very fancy. Look at you. A big movie star.”

He laughs saying “Yeah, and to think I almost turned down the job.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. But I know that I took it because Jack loved iron man and the torch. All things superhero. I thought he might like me as Captain America.”

A weak smile reaches my face and I nod “he would’ve been your biggest supporter.”

“He really liked Johnny. That’s for sure. Steve was more like Jack though. Very mature, the complete opposite of Johnny. He would've liked him better.”

I nod saying "Johnny was like a wild you."

"I was a married man with a son. I wouldn't say I was wild."

I smile saying "Yeah, I suppose."

He looks to the framed pictures in the trailer and says "I should really have a picture of him in here. I just don't want to risk losing a picture of him to the staff. They tend to take things when they clean."

I nod and say "You know who his favorite superhero was, Chris?"

He looks to me and goes to answer but we're interrupted.

My smile falters when there's a knock on the door. Chris says "Sorry." Chris opens it and an assistant tells him they need to start makeup and costume

I nod to him and he leaves with the few assistants

I sit on the couch, rubbing my face as I sigh. Jesus. Now that I’m alone, what the hell did I do?

I attempt to remain calm as my phone rings. The trailer door swings open and I hear someone enter semi loudly

Oh fuck.

I meet his eyes and he drops the bag in his hands

His mouth drops open as I stand to my feet. He mutters “I thought you’d never come back.”

“Hi Scott.”

He narrows his eyes at me saying “No. Don’t you dare come here and pretend we’re all buddy buddy. You left all of us. Including me.”

He walks out of the trailer and I sigh as I follow him. Finding him speaking with Chris sent my stomach in a spiral.

God I’m gonna puke

Chris looks over Scott’s shoulder momentarily and I approach.

“Do not fall into her schemes again. Chris..”

“Wow. Some friend you are Scott.”

He turns towards me saying annoyed “This is a private conversation.”

I smile to him saying “hi scott. Unless you’ve forgotten, Chris and I were friends first. Also we’re full grown adults.”

He sighs and Chris says with a smile “Yeah. Tell him Jules.”

“I’m only here temporarily. I won’t leave everything in chaos. I mean it scott.”

He narrows his eyes to me saying “I knew when my mom said that she saw you in Boston and your family that you were looking for him. Why?”

Chris shrugs and I say “The divorce.”

“You can’t come back for more money, now that he’s a bigger celebrity. That's not how things work. You finalized the divorce a long time ago.”

I look to Chris and bite my lip. Scott looks between the two of us saying “What the hell was that look?”

“What look?” Chris attempts to cover it up

“Oh my god! Oh my god! You never finalized it?!”

My eyes widen as everyone’s attention snaps to us and I sink into my shoulders embarrassed

Chris shushes him saying “Shut. up. Public place, Scott.”

“Right. Sorry.. Oh my god. You two are still...”

Chris says irate "Yes. Technically yes."

"And you're getting along?"

I nod saying "Why is that so surprising? Chris and I have always gotten along."

Scott says "Just after we lost Jack you two were at each others throats-"

Chris says "Do not bring this up now. Don't bring up Jack at a time like this. There's cameras, and staff. Leave my family life and things I want to keep out of the media to yourself."

Scott's eyes widen and he says "The tension. I feel it. But it's not too bad. Oh my god!"

Chris says "What? Why are you yelling?"

Scott pushes my shoulder annoyed as I look around, my cheeks heating up. "You two had sex." Scott whispers.

Chris says "We did not."

I gulp and Scott motions towards my tomato red face. Chris groans saying sarcastically "You're the better actress... sure."

"Scott always has been able to read me easily! It's not my fault. If I had known the human lie detector was going to be on set I would have hid better."

"funny. very funny, can you be serious? You two are still..." he continues in a whisper "married."

Chris says snarky "God Scott, thank you for telling me. I had no idea. She just showed up with divorce papers for no reason."

"Harsh. On both accounts. Anyway, she's trying to take you to the cleaners isn't she?"

I glare at him and Chris says "Most likely. But, as the mother of my son and wife of 10+ years, maybe I do owe her some money."

I look to him surprised and Scott's expression softens. I shake my head saying "no. I'm not taking you to the cleaners."

Scott mutters "At least he got the tattoo removed."

Chris glares at Scott and I say "He removed the tattoo?!"

Chris groans and Scott says "Whoops."

previous <<

next>>

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

…..I tried. I really did. I’m sorry if this was overdone or overly detailed. Did it even make sense? I wanted the emotions of the event more then the actual dirty. I’m sorry, I know I should add more spice I’m just not experienced in that way. I’m very inexperienced in the whole sex writing thing.

:( I’m a wimp. I hope you still enjoyed the chapter!

This is NOT the end. I still have loads of drama to add also the cast will make an appearance next chapter. Including Scarlett, who happens to know something?

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[stillgirlfrommars]

you’ve got news

So, I already talked about this with @missmorwen​ and I know I don’t have the time to draw and make an actual comic out of it, BUT I cannot stop thinking about this SamSteve-post-engdame-fix-it story (with a dash of BuckyNat, ‘cause that’s just who I am) which is kinda crack and very rom-com (a bit you’ve got mail) inspired and doesn't make much sense, because... PLOT HOLES but * sigh * I kinda wanna share at least the idea so - bear with me:

So, instead of Nat dying, Steve sacrifices his Captain America powers on Vormir and comes back as Skinny!Steve and starts running a political blog called you’ve-got-news in secret, uncovering all kinds of shady business/corruption and becoming the bane of existence of every politician and greedy CEO - but it takes a while for his friends to figure out it's him who’s running that increasingly popular blog (which the new Captain America is actually a big fan of ;)). And the way that happens is as follows:

So, Steve almost died at the end of Endgame. The idiot (affectionate) of course still wanted to fight Thanos, but even with Thor’s Hammer, he took some serious, serious injuries which led to a tough talk with Sam, Nat and Bucky

Like I imagine, that while Steve would not have any regrets whatsoever about giving up his powers, he would still need some time to come to terms with the fact that he won’t be able to participate in the action like he used to. Even though, he actually wants and knows... it’s time to ... start something new, it’s still a process. So, there he is, trying to figure out who he is without the mantle of Captain America, re-defining the way he can and will fight against bullies in the future (cause there is no way he’s gonna stop that).

And to the surprise of everyone, Steve actually doesn’t press for participating in Avenger-style-fights anymore (he still does some of the practical mission planning and shit like that) but most importantly, he starts taking up new hobbies, like cooking or old hobbies like drawing - and he seems happier than he has in a long time, and yeah maybe it’s a bit too good to be true, if Sam starts thinking about it. But, hey, Steve finally seems to be happy so -

Meanwhile, Sam still becomes the new Captain America, and Steve is there while he is adjusting, finding himself in that role. He is there when Sam needs to talk things through, and yeah, it would still be a process like in tfatws series, but ... a little bit less alone, I guess. 

So, the new Captain America fights alongside Nat and Bucky - and it’s good, they work surprisingly well together, but also: those two are stuck right in the middle of a weird assassin!flirting situation (I’m imagening a lot of veeery intense staring at the other while cleaning their weapons or beating someone up, innuendos en masse, dark humour etc.). And frankly, it’s getting on Sam's nerves because they seem to be so oblivious about the whole damn thing. Neither of them is actually admitting to anything, no, they are too busy teasing him about the ‘crush’ he has developed on that mysterious dude who is running the famous political-youve-got-news-blog that gained momentum a while ago and is currently keeping all the corrupt politicians and CEOs on their toes.

So, yeah, Sam might have been caught a couple of times reading or reciting from that blog because - it has actually turned into a pretty efficient way of mobilising people to demonstrate for change and it did give him some tip-offs in regards to who the bad guy really was and yeah. But it’s not a crush... Sam just really likes reading the blog posts, okay. That dude seems pretty cool and they share the same moral code, so... whatever.

What Nat and Bucky and Steve don't know (and he’ll never tell them), is that Sam is actually kiiiiinda already frequently talking with the guy who runs the blog. Anonymously on both ends, of course (because for good reasons both of them are pretty careful about giving away information concerning their identities). And in a way that whole anonymity-thing makes it a lot easier to talk about stuff he finds harder to admit to the people who he knows directly. So, you could say, blog-guy has kinda become Sam's internet friend, but not his crush, no.

Honestly, the crush he is more concerned about (that he also isn't planning on telling anyone about any time soon, cause Bucky would just tease him and Nat would start scheming) is, well, it’s Steve. Because, damn, he likes their get-togethers a lot, the meals Steve's cooking are honestly to die for. They watch baseball together, they do museum-trips... And the way they can talk about (almost) everything... He just feels understood and... yeah, loved (maybe not in the way that he wishes for, but still) and it’s nice to see Steve so happy and okay, maybe it’s getting a bit out of control because Sam took Steve with him to visit Sarah and his nephews and Sarah kinda saw right through his act of ‘hey, this is my best friend’ and ‘what do you mean, I don’t have feelings- okay. Yeah maybe I do’ and told him in no uncertain terms to fucking do something about it and get his shit together.

The thing is, he’s got it bad. But Sam is also torn, because this is the best fucking friendship he's ever had and he does not want to jeopardise that. So, in the end he ends up talking about this with his Internet friend... about how he kinda has this huge crush on his best friend, and his Internet friend is like, ‘TELL ME ABOUT IT, big fucking same here UGH. And I feel like I’m being SO obvious about it all. It’s honestly embarrassing. My other best friend keeps teasing me ‘bout it and tells me to just go for it, but that guy still hasn’t managed to ask out the girl he’s interested in, so, what does he know, right?’. And Sam laughs - at least he’s not alone.

So the days go by (Sam’s pining only increases, Steve took him to a wine tasting the other night and he almost... in his drunk state... almost... but he didn’t) until one day, while blog-guy and Sam are chatting, all of the sudden the blog-guy is like, ‘Shit, I think someone's breaking into my apartment’ and then like, ‘Okay, yes they are’ - and Sam's like, ‘call 911′, and blog-guy writes back ‘mmh think I can handle them’ (and Sam’s like ‘WTF... I know way too many people with zero regards for their own well-being, myself included’)

But then blog-guy is not answering anymore, so Sam frantically calls up Nat who rushes to his flat and Sam says: ‘You need to find out where that IP adress is located ASAP - the dude with that famous blog is in danger.’

And Nat does that multitasking thing where she’s working on the problem while ribbing Sam about the fact that, apparently, Captain America's Internet bestie is that famous blog dude, and- 'Are you sure it’s not a crush?'

But after another minute, Nat sighs and is like, ‘I can't find the location, this thing is encrypted af, it’s impossible.’ Suddenly, she notices something about the setup of the encryption and-, ‘Hang on a second, it was me who set this up for someone back in 2011.′ And as she slips on her jacket, she says to Sam, ‘Come on. I know where we have to go!’

So they make their way to what turns out is Steve's (!!!!) apartment and find him in the middle of a fight against over half a dozen heavily armed people, and yeah - he’s actually doing pretty okay for himself ‘cause he outsmarted a couple of them, but also- they kind of outnumber him, so Nat and Sam get to work.

And Sam doesn't even have time to fully register what that means re:blog-guy until they have successfully defeated the bad guys. After that's done, Steve is like, ‘Thanks guys, but how the hell did you know I was in trouble? Nat... you didn’t bug my apartment, did you??’

And Nat tstsk and then she just laughs because this is priceless and OF CoURSE it is Steve who is behind that blog... (she's a bit mad at herself for not figuring it out sooner, and a bit sad that Steve didn't feel like he could tell her, and that he assumes she has is flat bugged but, also,... kinda impressed.) But then she looks at him with a warm smile on her face, shaking her head, saying, ‘No, I didn’t, Steve.’ Her gaze wanders back and forth between Steve and Sam and she humms- 'That actually makes so much sense oh my god.' So, she leaves them ‘to talk’ ;) and for Sam to explain everything’ - and then it’s just the two of them.

And Sam does explain everything and is like, 'So you're that Blog dude, erm...' He's scratching the back of his neck, cheeks flushed, 'Turns out, we've been talking for months over that blog of yours. I'm (insert-Sam’s-username-here).'- and Steve's eyes go wide and you can literally see him processing that information right then and there and he's sputtering out a light laugh, and he's like 'Hang on a second... I... umm, okay, I gotta ask. So, that best friend you've got a crush on...' Well, it’s now or never -'Is you, yeah..', Sam admits and starts, 'and....' They both laugh again and Steve nods and just says- 'yeah, it’s you, too.'

And then they kiss and yaaay, happy ending!!!

And then the epilogue would be about them having a nice dinner with Bucky and Nat a couple of months later, and the whole time, Sam and Steve are being very much in loveTM. The three guys are standing in the kitchen, while Natasha is in the bathroom and Bucky's making a funny quib about how sickeningly cute Sam and Steve are together - and Sam, well, Sam just raises his eyebrows and is like, 'You know what, you're not allowed to say anything bout that, you and Romanoff have been acting waaaaay worse over the last year. At least we got our shit together in the end, what's your excuse, you are obviously absolutely in love with her!', and of course Nat chooses that exact moment to enter the room, hand on Bucky's waist, dropping a kiss on his cheek and is like, 'What do you mean, we've been dating for 6 months?' And Steve laughs and Sam groans bc .... he loves his friends, he does, but clearly, CLEARLY they ALL have to work on their communication skills!

The End.

[mysterytickingegos]

I’ve Created a Monster

Pairing: Darkiplier x Clairvoyant!Reader

Genre: Hurt/Comfort

Word Count: 2,480

Summary: After a bad date, you made a rather interesting friend. But better yet, you discovered something just as interesting about yourself. This something leads to a very exhilarating part of your life, but you learn the hard way that it’s not quite as glamorous an adventure as it may seem. The last person you’d expect is the one to bring you back to reality.

Anonymous Request: If I may request! :) Can I have a darkiplier x fem!reader fic with the prompts 37, 44, 45? After the events of wkm? Just some hurt and comfort to give me dem feelz 😀👍 Maybe Dark is the one saying it please? Much thanks!

Authors Note: Probably not what you were going for with the prompts but I hope you still enjoy it!

Want to read more?

[Image Description: A Gif of Darkiplier from the “horror” branch of “A Date with Markiplier,” speaking to the viewer at a table, while another image of him leans away and yells. End Description]

Junk mail, bill, wrong address, junk mail...

The usual. You weren’t sure what ‘cool thing’ you were expecting to get in the mail in 2020 but the disappointment was there anyway. Just as you shut your mailbox you heard somebody coming down the stairs and cringed, bracing yourself as you hoped it wasn’t who you thought it was. But of course it was.

Your upstairs neighbor, AKA the worst date ever. “Ah, hey Y/n.”

“Hi Mark...” You gave him a sad attempt at a wave, and he gave you a nod, walking over to his own mailbox.

‘How’s it going?”

“Great, yeah...you?”

“Good.”

And with that the room dissolved into awkward silence, and you took your leave back up the stairs. Funny enough these moments used to be filled with dumb jokes and flirting, that was until he finally asked you out. You had been overjoyed, happy that someone had taken an interest in you and glad that something was breaking your dull everyday routine. Little did you know the highlight of the date would be the end. He had taken you to an expensive restaurant only to reveal that he had ‘forgotten’ his wallet (which ended up falling out of his pocket in front of you in the theater.) Then he had been upset with you for accidentally falling asleep to what must’ve the most boring Rom-com you had ever been subjected to. You both seemed to be in silent agreement that this should never, ever happen again.

But unbeknownst to you and Mark, somebody else had been lingering around. That was the first time that specific somebody had decided to visit you, making a sucky date the least of your concerns. You spent the rest of your night watching compilations on YouTube and eating chocolate Ice Cream. You kept going from sad to angry over your horrible day in your head.

Were you only worth asking out for a free meal? A meal that for you took about half your grocery budget. You should’ve given that ass a piece of your mind.

You sniffed, wiping your eyes and scarfing down even more ice cream. “Damn it.”

“Aw, don’t cry, darling. It wasn’t that bad.”

You screamed and nearly jumped out of your skin, scrambling away from the man now next to you on the couch. The moment your feet hit the ground you grabbed your phone and locked yourself in your bedroom. “Who the fuck are you?!”

“Let’s say I'm a... friend of a friend. I thought I’d check up on you after that train wreck.” He spoke through the door. You heard a laugh layer over his voice, and wondered if somebody else was there.

“I’m calling the police!” You shouted back.

Then you heard the same voice just in front of you, clearly amused with the situation. “You’re welcome to do so, though I’m not sure they’d believe you.” It was the same man from the couch, smiling at you. You noticed how he seemed to be glitching, and how as his head tilted to the side his figure had duplicated in blue for a split second. “As I’m sure you can tell by now, I’m not exactly human.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I’d like to get to know you, Y/n. Is that so much to ask?”

The first few nights that you had stayed up a little too late and wound up speaking that deranged spirit again, you had been terrified. But soon enough you learned to enjoy his company. Sure, he could be a little unsettling at times, particularly when he was irritated and got...cold. Not just figuratively, which he was, but literally. The temperature in your apartment would drop a significant amount and you would change subjects shivering. But all in all, from what you could see behind that wall he had up, he was simply lost at worst, not exactly evil. And it was nice to not have to be so lonely all the time.

But during one of these visits, early on, you had decided to ask why.

“Why me, of all people?”

The man you had come to know simply as ‘Dark’  leaned in, lighting up as though he had been waiting on you to ask that this entire time. “Oh, Y/n. Don’t you know?”

“Why would I ask if I already knew?”

He let out an impatient sigh. ‘That’s...I was being...” He glanced up at you just in time to catch the smile playing at your lips after successfully ruining his aesthetic. “You know what? You can stay in the dark.”

“No no no, I’ll shut up, just tell me.” You turned to face him on the couch, tucking your legs under yourself.

He left you in suspense for a few moments, before dropping his voice down low when he spoke so you would have to lean closer in just to hear him. “Let’s just say you are...spiritually attuned to my world.”

“Spiritually attuned?”

“Yes, you are psychic, a medium, clairvoyant. Whatever you want to call it.” He explained. “You are a magnet to things outside the realm of the natural. A strange pair, aren’t we?”

And that was all it took, so many unexplained events from your past were now explained, and a world of possibilities was opened to you. You must’ve spent weeks researching how to harness your abilities, starting the second he left. Sure, most sites and blogs were absolutely full of it but you got the gist. With that and some common sense, how much could go wrong?

You started to take silly jobs on the internet, from old women who thought something was off with their mirrors to amateur ghost hunters who wanted a ‘consultant.’ It took you a while to gain some confidence that you weren’t just pulling this stuff out of thin air, that you hadn’t lost your mind. But after a few months, once you hit that learning curve, man it was fun.

Your latest job was a little more hardcore, a young family wanting help to push a poltergeist out of their new home. Their stories had chilled you to the bone, but you were happy to help. Your evaluation at the house went fine, nothing too far past what you were used to. Except, the entire time you were there you felt as though you had weight sitting on your chest. You could barely listen to the poor couple tell you what they experienced due to a faint scratching feeling at the back of your mind. You weren’t an expert yet but you could tell that whatever this thing was, it did not welcome you there. Worse yet, the feeling of being drained that the couple mentioned was certainly affecting you as well. Perhaps worse.

But all that accomplished was making you even more determined to rid the house of it. You took notes for your research later, tried to communicate in the most active part of the house (with no results,) and gave the couple the best advice you could at the moment.

“Until this thing is gone, it’s best you stay somewhere else.”

A few nights later, you had just finished packing your bag and begun heading for the door when you heard Dark just behind you. “Good evening, Y/n.” His voice was layered, followed by a subtle echo bouncing off the walls of your small apartment. When you turned to face him you saw he was already frowning, having realized you were on your way out. “Where are you off to so late?“

“I’m going to hang out with some friends. So I’m sorry, you’ll have to find some other way to entertain yourself tonight, instead of ya know, slowly but surely turning me into a nocturnal hermit.“ You joked, adjusting the tote bag on your shoulder.

He chuckled, bringing his hands behind his back. “I hate to break this to you my dear, but you were there well before we met.”

“Ha ha.” You turned to leave but were stopped short when you saw that he had apparated directly in front of you.

“What’s in the bag?” He asked, starting to reach for it curiously before you stepped back.

“Nothing.” You said, a little too quickly. “Just some party supplies, alright?”

He raised his brow, no longer amused. “...Convincing. Is it really so difficult to be honest with me?”

“Oh don’t even try and pull that card, you won’t even tell me why you’re haunting that jerk upstairs.”

His jaw clenched, and he looked away from you. “That’s different. Bringing such things to light would only do more harm than good.”

“Well, I may be wrong but...my thing is kinda the same. And I like what we’ve got going on so just let it go. Please?”

Dark stayed quiet, peeved off and clearly even more curious than he was before. Finally, he side-stepped out of your way, “Just be careful.”

When you got to the house, you were careful. Keeping lights on and keeping quiet while you did everything your research said you were supposed to. As you did, the spirit was also quiet, too quiet. And on your way home, you kept waiting for that heavy feeling on your chest to fade away.

Your apartment was freezing when you stepped out of the bathroom after your shower. Cold air brushed over your shoulders as you wrapped your arms around yourself. “Dark?” You called out, looking around for him. This wasn’t like him. He usually made you aware of his presence as soon as he showed up. You walked into your bedroom and when you locked eyes with another in the mirror, you froze.

This wasn’t like Dark, because it wasn’t him.

Instead, the person standing behind you was a very decrepit and very angry old woman, seemingly fading in and out of reality as she glared at you. “Y̸o̵u̶ ̴s̴h̷o̵u̶l̶d̸ ̸h̵a̵v̷e̷ ̵l̸e̴f̷t̶ ̷w̶e̶l̵l̶ ̸e̴n̵o̷u̶g̷h̶ ̶a̸l̶o̴n̸e̷.̴“

The mirror shattered and you whipped around to face her, but she wasn’t there. The air whirling around the place started to pick up, and picture frames flew off the wall at you, then other objects that had decorated your room. You tried to flee but your front door wouldn’t budge. You started to bang on it, crying in fear and praying that anyone would hear you. Next thing you knew though, you were flung towards the wall.

Finally, everything settled. The weight was off your chest, but there was plenty of pain there in it’s place. You slowly pulled yourself into a sitting position, then wiped the tears off your face with one hand and held the other over your ribs. You weren’t sure how long you sat there, waiting for something to happen and your heartbeat overpowered the ringing silence in your ears. You wanted to get your phone, to call for help but you were terrified of gaining attention again. You didn’t even really stop shaking until you heard a familiar voice.

“...Y/n?” Dark didn’t see you when he first showed up, just the disaster area that was your living room. Once had seen you, he was beside you in a blink of an eye. You didn’t even think about it before you wrapped your arms around him. He only gave you a moment of comfort before he pulled back, looking over you in concern. “What happened? Who hurt you?”

You couldn’t really get much out between pained wincing as he scooped you into his arms. “It was a -Ow- s-spirit.”

He laid you down on the couch as gently as he could, and you could see his face change from confusion to recognition to irritation. “Why, pray tell, would a spirit be here?”

“I may have taken a job to get rid of it...” You muttered under your breath.

“Unbelievable.” He shook his head, about to say something else before he stopped himself. Instead he moved his focus to your hand, moving it to reveal the dark bruise over your ribs.

“See, I knew you weren’t gonna like it.”

“You going off and messing with things you haven’t even begun to understand? Of course I don’t like it.” His figure glitched and layered itself in different colors before he got up and went to the kitchen.

You scoffed at his remark, trying to sit up. “Hey I understand more than you think, I’ve been doing this crap for months!”

He came back around the corner with an ice pack from your freezer in his hand. “Months?” He apparated in front of you, gently placing the pack down on the bruise, allowing you to squeeze his free hand until the shock wave from the pressure passed over you.

“I started looking into all this after you told me the truth.” You confessed. “I mean with the internet it wasn’t difficult, and I do my due diligence alright? I don’t know what went wrong.”

The aura behind him flashed pure red for just a moment, he approached his next words much softer than usual. “You can’t navigate things like this using the internet, Y/n.”

“Well I didn’t think you’d want to help me help everyone else get rid of their ghosts.”

He scoffed at you, beginning to raise his voice as the aura swapped back to blue. “You were right! I don’t understand why you would want anything to do with this, anyway. Why would you do this to yourself??” 

“I thought...I thought it’d be fun-”

“This isn’t a game!”

“You know I really don’t get you, why-”

“Of course you don’t! Do you even know what I am?”

“Well, no...”

“Neither do I.” He growled. His words truly sunk in once you saw the pain behind his eyes. He collected himself, taking a deep breath before continuing, “What I do know, is that I was human once. And people screwing with things that they shouldn’t have for selfish reasons is what turned me into this. Over the years I’ve had to see other terrible things happen to well meaning people. I’ll be damned if you throw yourself into the fire for fun.”

You nodded softly, breaking the intense gaze between you to look as your hands. “...Okay.” You opened your mouth to speak again after that, but decided against it.

“What is it?” Dark asked, trying and failing to hide the impatience in his voice.

“I just didn’t think...well I really didn’t think you’d care. Well, about this part I guess-”  You sighed, cutting yourself off this time, rather than rambling.

He was quiet for a moment, placing his hand under your chin and tilting your head up to look at him. ��I care...more than you know.” It was the silence after that, that spoke volumes, and even more so the way he moved forward to press his lips to yours. “Now, if you’ll excuse me I have a poltergeist to take care of.”

[tommodirection]

Birthday

Niall Horan x Reader

Word Count: 1.5k

Warnings: angst with a happy ending, swearing

Masterlist

A/N: Heylo! I hope you enjoy this! The person who requested this did not want their name mentioned, but I hope they enjoy! If you want to be added to my taglist just let me know! Thank you, and have a nice day!🥰💕❤️

—

You hadn’t spent a birthday alone since you were six, and even then you had your dad at home with you. You never thought you’d encounter the situation again, always surrounded by close friends and family.

Above anything else, you never thought you’d be spending it without Niall.

You’d been together for two years now, you’d celebrated your birthday together twice now. The first year, Niall decided to take you out of dinner, but it ended up being a disaster. Your dress tore, Niall spilled food all over himself, the waitress was a fan of Niall, and not a fan of you, so you ended up going home. Of course it wasn’t ideal, but you both still had a laugh out of it.

Last year, you had decided to stay in, you had learned your lesson from last year. Niall decided to build a fort in the living room, he went all out. He bought fairy lights, an abundance of snacks, about a dozen fluffy pillows, and he even bought a small projector so you could binge watch your favorite movies. It was the best birthday you had ever had.

This year, you were expecting something just as sensual. You walked into the kitchen, biting back a smile as you searched for your boyfriend.

The kitchen was empty, no breakfast, no cups of coffee, and no Niall.

The first thought that entered your mind was that he wanted to surprise you, so you tiptoed through the kitchen, skeptic as to if he was there.

You were answered when you saw a sticky note on the counter, right next to the coffee machine.

‘Sorry love, had to run into the studio for filming! See you tonight!’ Signed by Niall.

You studied the sticky note for a minute longer. Maybe it was just a joke? Something to sell the prank.

You grabbed your phone out of your pocket, quickly dialing Niall’s number before averting your eyes back to the note. It rang for a few moments before he finally picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Niall, where’d you go?” You ask, trying to control your labored breath.

“I went to the studio, they needed me to come and record some stuff. I wrote it on the note,” he said, loud chatter in the background.

“Oh, I guess I missed it,” you mumbled, “I was just calling to see if it was a prank or something,” you admitted.

“Why would I prank you about this?” He chuckled, “I probably won’t be home until after you’re asleep, you can probably go out with Paige if you get bored,” he said, his voice rushed.

Paige was out of town this weekend, as was Henry, your only other friend. You and Niall had discussed this last week. He really fucking forgot. “I’ll find something to do, bye,” you said sharply, hanging up before he got to say anything.

You glared at the note, crumpling it up and throwing it across the room. Tears of frustration pricked your eyes, threatening to spill over at any second.

You pressed the heels of your hands into your eyes, letting out a groan of frustration.

Maybe you were being unfair, he was a busy man with a busy job, and he definitely didn’t have a pristine memory, but just as that thought surfaced, you immediately shut it down. This was your birthday. The one day of the year, beside your anniversary, where you had grown expectant to Niall’s spoiling. This was the one day out of the year you could be this angry, rationally, at your boyfriend for canceling.

Instead of confronting him, you decided to wallow in your own self-pity and anger. You made a bowl of popcorn, cuddling up on the couch as you turned on old rom-coms, the occasional tear slipping down your cheek.

Around eight pm, you decided you had enough of mostly Ryan Reynolds sitcoms. You began playing your heartbreak playlist on your speaker, the volume would definitely gain complaints from your neighbors, but you didn’t care.

You went to raid the pantry, seeing if you could find anything to use to eat away your problems. Your eyes landed on the cake mix you had bought earlier that week, expecting to make it with Niall.

You rushed into making it, using your spoon to sing while it baked. Once it was finished, you let it cool, gathering the frosting and candles you had also bought.

You began frosting it, not even caring about the mess you were making. It was mostly just white, but you decided to be extra, putting some red icing in a makeshift piping bag, and wrote your name with a small heart under it.

You brought it to the counter, turning up your music. You grabbed a fork and dived into the cake, shoveling it into your face, but you couldn’t even enjoy it, not without Niall there.

“Happy fucking birthday to me,” you grumbled.

Your music tuned out the sound of the door opening, and it tuned out the happy humming of Niall, getting back from a productive and enjoyable day at the studio. He was a little confused when he heard the music, but he knew you enjoyed music, it wasn’t that strange to hear the music through the hallway walls.

You began poking meaninglessly at the cake, depression dragging you down from your sugar-high. The song switched and you heard Niall walking into the room. He was beaming. He placed his jacket on the chair, licking his lips at the sight of the cake. He grabbed a fork, turning off the music from your speaker.

“What’s this for? Something special today?” He inquired, digging his fork in to take a bite.

You let out a small ‘oh’, the realization finally sinking in. A part of you still believed it was all a hoax, and he would come home with some extravagant surprise, but this solidified it.

He had really forgotten your birthday.

Your eyes began to water again, Niall looking at you quizzically. You looked down, refusing to meet his gaze, “It’s my birthday, Niall,” you said, voice cracking at the end.

You heard him whisper a small ‘what’, and you heard him grabbing his phone, checking the date. “Shit,” he whispered, slamming his phone onto the counter and running his hand through his hair.

He didn’t say anything for a few moments, so you calmly stood, setting your fork down and walking out of the room. You made your way to the bedroom, hearing the soft thuds of Niall’s sock-clad feet trailing behind you. You crawled onto the bed, sitting criss cross with your back against the headboard, staring at the wall ahead of you.

Niall sat in front of you, placing a hand on your knee. “Love, I’m so, so sorry,” he mumbled, scooting closer to you until your knees were touching.

You pursed your lips, shaking your head, “Sorry is just a word, Niall, it doesn’t immediately solve everything,” you grumbled, looking down and picking at your pajama pants.

“I know, I know,” he whispered, bending over and placing his hand on your cheek, and for the first time since you started dating, you didn’t lean into his touch. He removed his hand. “Why didn’t you say anything? If I had known, I would’ve come running back home.”

You let out a sarcastic chuckle. “All day I thought it was just a prank, well, a part of me did. I was hoping you’d come home and surprise me and we’d spend the day together again. When I called you, I didn’t expect you to actually not know it was my birthday, so I panicked and hung up. I didn’t say anything because I was hurt. I was hurt that my one boyfriend didn’t even remember my birthday,” you were rambling now, “You’d think it’d be easy to remember, seeing as we’ve celebrated it twice already, and we were literally talking about last week, but apparently it wasn't important enough for you to remember.”

You pulled your knees to your chest, resting your head on them. Niall’s face fell, and he looked down at his hands, he began picking at his dry skin. You grabbed his wrist, pulling his hand away. Yeah, you were mad, but you weren’t going to let him accidentally make himself bleed.

“I don’t know how I forgot, I was planning on letting you decide what we did all day, but this morning,” he bit his lip, “they called me in and I just forgot. I’m such an idiot,” he said, shoving his face into his hands.

You softened, “Niall, you aren’t an idiot. You’re a busy man, with a horrible memory. I’m not really mad,” you admitted, “I’m just upset, and a little disappointed. I forgive you for forgetting my birthday, but on two conditions. One, if you ever forget my birthday again, I’m leaving,” you said seriously, “and two, you gotta make this one up to me,” you teased, and he smiled, pulling you in for a hug.

“I love you,” he murmured into your hair.

“I love you too.”

“Now, get dressed, I’ve got a hell of a birthday to make up, and the night’s still young.”

—

Permanent Taglist: @everything-is-alrightt @kaiaduke @franchesca-791 @alwayshave-faith

[thecomposerofstories]

Information on Amy.

(Be warned it's a ~little bit~ long, any other pieces of information you want to know I'll gladly answer if you ask.)

~General Information~

Fandom: Toy Story.

Name: Amy the Ragdoll.

Nickname, if any: Amy, Ames, and Doll-Face(usually by more villainous characters or used in a joking manner).

Gender: Female.

Sexuality: ??? (I mean I know the gender of who she has a crush on, but I'm unsure on what her actual sexuality should be tbh)

Age: Mentally, mid-twenties in the first story second movie, thirties to forties in the third and fourth. Physically, she doesn’t have an age, but in regards to when she was made (the 1950’s) makes her fifty to sixty.

City they currently live in: San Francisco, apparently that’s where Toy Story takes place.

Any pets: Would Rex count? He just follows her around like a nervous puppy.

Current occupation: I mean she’s practically a therapist, but she’s a toy and she only treats Rex so it probably doesn’t count lol

~Physical Appearance~

Height: 10 inches.

Body type: Stocky, but a bit gangly too, similar to Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Eye colour: Black.

Skin tone: Light.

Clothing style: Pale green/turquoise shirt with short puffed sleeves, with a denim dungaree dress with a daisy print in the centre over it. She wears yellow rain boots.

Hairstyle: No style, it’s just there. It’s messy and gets in her face easily and is made out of dark brown thin string.

~Speech/Language/Communication~

Amy speaks quietly and politely, rambles a bit if left without a reply or under pressure, very nervous in front of intimidating characters.

First language: English.

Learned languages: A bit of Spanish (Ya’ll remember Toy Story 3!)

Accent: American.

Pitch of voice: High, but soft, not quite annoying, unless she’s stressed, then it gets very pitchy and shrill.

~Behaviour/Habits~

Amy tends to just stand there when she can’t find anything to do, and will immediately try to find Rex, Hamm, Buzz or Jessie if surrounded by strangers (Though she’s not sure if it’s for their comfort or her own) Amy is very polite.

Spending habits: She doesn’t like to be made a fuss of at all, the very fact of someone giving something to her is unnerving (even if the thing never costed anything at all) and she feels compelled to give the giver something in return.

Morning routine: She gets up same time as the others, but wishes she could stay in bed a bit longer though. Before she came to Andy’s room, her sleep pattern was all over the place.

Bedtime routine: Similar to above, now she goes to bed the same time as the others, but before she just slept and got up willy-nilly.

Nervous habits: Amy will try to find Rex if she’s nervous, and she’ll pretend it’s because she’s worried for him, which is quite true, but she also just feels most safe with him. Speaking of, Amy will let Rex hold her hand and squish it whenever he or Amy is nervous, it’s calming to the both of them.

Bad habits: Not a very good exerciser, but then again, she’s spend basically half her life in a small attic, so I’ll give her a break.

Skills/talents: She’ very logical, mind-over-matter, (mostly, very good at calming others down and/or convincing them. She’s very good at spelling and knows quite a lot of words, some of which others haven’t even heard of.

Hobbies: Reading, talking (especially with Rex, Jessie or Hamm), and generally just lazing about or walking around somewhere, on her own or with a friend.

~The Past~

Amy’s first owner was a little girl called Alice. Alice loved nothing more than to read Amy stories (Mostly fairy tales), but of course, Alice grew up like all kids do, and she left Amy in the attic for someone else to have her.

Amy waited for many years, and all that time she’d never given up that someone would find her.

She thought she’s hit the jackpot when Andy and his family move into Alice’s old house, but they don’t go up into the attic to collect her. Some weeks later, though, Andy’s mother brings a set of boxes filled with junk into the attic and leaves. Woody, Buzz, Slinky, and Rex were trapped in one of the boxes (Call me a cheater but this part was actually inspired by a Toy Story comic, where those four toys get stuck in the attic that way and have to escape. It struck me odd that they never met at least one new friend there, so I made one. It was also my first story, I needed some inspiration!)

Amy, in a fit of panic, goes and hides.

But then she’s found by Rex as he and the others try to find a way out.

They then decide to let the strange, dust-covered ragdoll come back to Andy’s rom with them. (well, Rex did, anyway.)

Home town: Would Alice’s old room count? But it’s now Andy’s Room, so it won’t count will it?

Happy or sad childhood: Pretty normal to be honest, as normal a life as a toy could have anyway. And as for sadness, having spent all that time on her own for all those years, having missed out on so much, is a little sad. But Amy made sure she never became bitter over it or used it as an excuse for anything.

Earliest memory: Waking up in her toy store, with a friend of hers for company (a ragdoll Prospector, a much as she remembers) and as she gets bought by Alice’s Auntie, she says she hopes he gets picked up by a kid. (Unbeknownst to her, she would meet him again in a while to find out he never got to experience it)

Saddest memory: One, being left by Alice, yet being so happy for her and how much she’s grown up, if she could cry tears of joy for her owner, she would. Two, some (or most) of the days she spent waiting for a new owner to arrive. And three, watching Rex have a mental breakdown of anxiety.

Happiest memory: One, the time she and Alice went to the park, (Amy absolutely adores nature) Two after sliding down a drainpipe to get to Andy’s room, and three, having known she’d helped her friend out.

Significant events: Being bought, being left in an attic, being rescued from the attic, while gaining some new friends.

~Family~

The entirety of Andy’s room, whether they like it or not, they’re all in this together and are some kind of mish-mash, found family in a sense.

Siblings: I’ve been thinking of giving Amy a brother (since I based her on Raggedy Ann, a matching bootleg Raggedy Andy seems reasonable) bur I’m unsure about it, since I’ve already mapped out Amy’s entire series of stories (Around six or seven all together, so far I’m currently writing only the third) and I can only fit him in the fifth or sixth if I can.

~Relationships~

Romantically? I’d like to say she has a crush on Rex, I don’t know why I thought of it, I was contemplating it one day as I sketched a rough (and terrible) sketch of her, and I drew Rex too because he’s just so fun to draw and I wanted to make a scale for Amy’s size, and one of my friends (who had been watching me) immediately said “I ship it!” and well, the rest is history, I made the decision to ship it too.

Friends: Jessie, Hamm, Buzz, and Rex are her closet friends, but she’d like to say that all the Gang are her friends. Later on she becomes good friends with Mr. Prickle Pants, Buttercup, Trixie and Totoro, and she absolutely loves the peas and Forky.

Best friend(s): Hamm, Mr. Prickle Pants, Jessie, and Rex.

What do people like about them? Amy’s pretty easy to talk to, she’s polite and attentive and will sit in companionable silence with someone if they need it. But she won’t hesitate to give hard truths and advice if it’s needed.

What do people dislike about them? Amy is quite a doormat, if someone is rude to her or breaches anything she just lets it happen, and sometimes she’s too indecisive about her own stuff, unsure whether she’s going to offend others or not over the smallest things, which annoys others quite a bit.

~Mentality/Personal Beliefs~

Amy is a toy of logic, and though she believes others can do it if they set their minds to it, she doesn’t quite believe in herself. She believes she must follow the rules of being a toy at all times, no matter what.

Phobias: Dust. She hates it. It took a good five weeks to brush all the dust out her hair and clothes, and even so there’s still some in her pockets and places she can’t reach. And being alone, too. Now she can’t be alone for more than an hour before she starts to get antsy and nervous. And for a short time books gave her a strange tiredness, after reading them for so long and for so many years she couldn’t even stand the sight of them.

But of course, not for long, since Amy found out Andy had a copy of Red’s Dream by a Mr. William Reeves.

Optimist or pessimist: Depends on the situation really, if her mind can’t come up with a solution, then there’s no point in trying anymore. Unless someone else can think of something, that is.

Personal philosophies: “You are here to make good things happen. No person here is made for one reason only, or even only one. There’s no point in pretending to be someone you’re not just for the attention of others, no matter how cool they are. We should find are own meaning, as we’re the only ones who have control of it.

It’ll take a while, but I swear, it’ll be worth it.”

Biggest dream/wish: Amy wants nothing more than to find meaning for herself, but finds it rather hard to do so. Of course, that doesn’t mean she’ll settle for someone else’s meaning. As cheesy as it sounds, she just wants an adventure. She doesn’t necessarily want to be the hero, though, she’s just happy to go along with the ride so long as it gets her out the house for a few hours. She also, above all else, wants Rex to find meaning too, even if she never does, it would be nice to know that he had.

Greatest strength(s): Persuasion, story-telling, logic, and good grammar.

Biggest flaw: Despite being a ragdoll, Amy can’t sew because of her fingerless hands, which are just soft mittens in shape. Amy is also quite a doormat, as I said before, so if her calm persuasion and reasoning doesn’t work, she’s left to be walked all over.

Regrets: Staying in that dratted attic too long, the window was open, she could’ve just climbed out, but no, she had to stay there for some mind-rotting decades. But if she had just escaped, she would never have met her new friends. Amy just wishes she had met them a lot sooner.

Achievements: Escaped the attic, slid down a drainpipe, leapt onto the windowsill (though nearly knocking Woody and Buzz over in the process) stopped her friend from having a panic attack, and managed to remember the entire Dictionary and is able to recite it down from A to Z, and even Z to A.

Secrets: Not much, just strange feelings for one of her friends, but it’s not much of a secret, Bo knows, and Mr. Potato Head and Hamm could see it from a mile away, and the others have their suspicions.

Goals: Read the entirety of Andy’s (and later Bonnie’s) bookshelves, become more confident in herself, have her own book-worthy adventure, and figure out what those strange feelings for her friend is.

~Likes/Favourites~

Favourite colour: Even before meeting Rex, Amy’s favourite colour was always green. Every time Alice had taken her to the park, Amy adored watching the sunlight pour through the leaves with a golden-green glow.

Favourite book(s): Because it’s sentimental to her, being her owner’s favourites, she loves Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and The Wizard of Oz. They all hold similar plots (a little girl in a blue dress goes to a fantasy land, has a few adventures, and then leaves said fantasy land to go home to her family and responsibilities) but it reminds Amy of her old owner Alice (who was actually named after Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) and their playtimes together.

Favourite Book Quotation(s):

“Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.”

“There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. The true courage is facing danger when you are afraid.”

Favourite movie: Amy does much prefer books, since they allow her to imagine the setting and characters in her own way, but doesn’t mind movies, and isn’t picky on what they watch, though she does quite like horror films.

Favourite song: Amy likes any kind of music, new or old.

Favourite game: Amy never really cared for games, the competitiveness always bothered her and stressed her out. But she’s more than happy to watch Rex play his video games and cheer him on.

~Relationships with other characters~

~Rex~

- Hit it off pretty quickly.

- Amy helps him with his anxiety, and helps him find confidence in himself, she acts as a certain therapist to him.

- Both become very stressed without the other around.

- Rex will hold and knead at Amy’s hands sometimes; it calms him down.

- Rex will let Amy ride on his back if she’s tired or needs to see something (Because she’s so short).

- One of them can basically be talking about the most boring-est things ever, yet still the other will hang on to their every word.

~Jessie~

- Became friends pretty quickly.

- Will drag Amy along anywhere.

- Get along fairly well.

- Jessie does the talking and Amy does the planning.

- Jessie always pranks the other toys and makes Amy tag along (along with Hamm).

- Introvert/Extrovert dynamic for sure.

- Both were left in alone for years so like to find solace in each other.

~Hamm~

- Hamm begrudgingly warmed up to the timorous ragdoll.

- Surprisingly good pals.

- Have full conversations without saying anything.

- Like to sit and look out of the window together.

- Hamm makes Amy laugh when she really shouldn’t (mainly when he makes fun of the other toys, mainly Woody).

- Hamm makes fun of Amy having a crush on Rex every once in a while, though he doesn’t mean any harm.

~The Potato Heads~

- Mr. doesn’t really interact with Amy much, but finds her surprisingly tolerable, if a bit high-strung and annoying.

- Like Hamm, Mr. makes Amy laugh at the most wrong moments.

- She and Mrs. Are quite good friends, and she sometimes lets Amy take care of the aliens if she and her husband are busy.

~Woody~

- Are aquianteces.

- Don’t exactly interact much, even though the whole room practically revolves around him, in Amy’s opinion, though she would never say it to his face.

~Buzz~

- Amy thinks he’s super cool (then again, he is Buzz Lightyear, he practically invented coolness)

- Both are just as clueless as one another when it comes to social cues and interactions.

- Amy helps him with vocabulary and spelling every once in a while.

~Mr. Prickle Pants~

- Are absolute BFF’s.

- Go back and forth with book quotes to the point of driving the other toys insane.

~Bo Peep~

- Amy's not exactly sure if Bo has befriended her or not.

- (She has)

- They later become good friends.

- Amy misses their talks, Bo was one of the only toys she could talk to that could keep a secret.

[rockislandadultreads]

For Fans of Bridgerton on Netflix...

Books like Julia Quinn’s The Duke and I

To Have and to Hoax by Martha Waters

In this fresh and hilarious historical rom-com, an estranged husband and wife in Regency England feign accidents and illness in an attempt to gain attention—and maybe just win each other back in the process. Five years ago, Lady Violet Grey and Lord James Audley met, fell in love, and got married. Four years ago, they had a fight to end all fights, and have barely spoken since. Their once-passionate love match has been reduced to one of cold, detached politeness. But when Violet receives a letter that James has been thrown from his horse and rendered unconscious at their country estate, she races to be by his side—only to discover him alive and well at a tavern, and completely unaware of her concern. She’s outraged. He’s confused. And the distance between them has never been more apparent. Wanting to teach her estranged husband a lesson, Violet decides to feign an illness of her own. James quickly sees through it, but he decides to play along in an ever-escalating game of manipulation, featuring actors masquerading as doctors, threats of Swiss sanitariums, faux mistresses—and a lot of flirtation between a husband and wife who might not hate each other as much as they thought. Will the two be able to overcome four years of hurt or will they continue to deny the spark between them?

When She Said I Do by Celeste Bradley

Angel's Sin Caught in a rainstorm, Miss Calliope Worthington takes shelter in a seemingly abandoned mansion. But when she finds a string of pearls in a dusty chest, she is caught red-handed by the house’s reclusive owner—Mr. Ren Porter—a fiery demon of a man who demands that Callie pay for the necklace…with her innocence. Devil's Bargain When he first lays eyes on the beautiful trespasser, Ren mistakes her for an angel. But when he realizes Callie is a thief, he strikes a bargain she cannot refuse. She must take his hand in marriage and pay him back in full: one night of passion for each stolen pearl. But when Callie surrenders to his desires—night after wicked night—he awakens something deep inside of her. Something powerful and passionate. Like a fairy tale come true, the monster she married has become the man she loves…when she said I do.

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean

A lady does not smoke cheroot. She does not ride astride. She does not fence or attend duels. She does not fire a pistol, and she never gambles at a gentlemen's club. Lady Calpurnia Hartwell has always followed the rules, rules that have left her unmarried—and more than a little unsatisfied. And so she's vowed to break the rules and live the life of pleasure she's been missing. But to dance every dance, to steal a midnight kiss—to do those things, Callie will need a willing partner. Someone who knows everything about rule-breaking. Someone like Gabriel St. John, the Marquess of Ralston—charming and devastatingly handsome, his wicked reputation matched only by his sinful smile. If she's not careful, she'll break the most important rule of all—the one that says that pleasure-seekers should never fall hopelessly, desperately in love.

For the Roses by Julie Garwood

1879. In Blue Belle, Montana, everyone knew better than to mess with the Claybornes. The brothers had once been a mismatched gang of street urchins—until they found an abandoned baby girl in a New York city alley, named her Mary Rose, and headed west to raise her to be a lady. They became a family—held together by loyalty and love if not by blood—when suddenly they faced a crisis that threatened to tear them apart.... Trouble came to town with one Lord Harrison Stanford MacDonald. Armed with a swagger and six-shooter, he cut a striking figure—but it soon became apparent to Mary Rose that he was too much of a gentleman to make it in her rough-and-tumble town. She asked her brothers to teach him the basics of frontier survival, which he acquired with ease. And soon he possessed a deep and desperate love for Mary Rose. She returned his affection wholeheartedly... until MacDonald revealed a secret that challenged everything she believed about herself, her life, and her newfound love. Now her search for identity and meaning would begin, raising questions that could only be answered if she listened to the truth within her heart... 

[noahser]

How do we treat game(no preaching, Using details and emotions)-- to put out your view on games

hold on for 3 secondsDon’t push yourself to answer this. I hope in the next few minutes, i can make you fell more confident when you are playing games.Background: games industries start to get boom steadily

Game companies start to recruit more people and headhunt talented people from other industries. salary in most game corporations gets their boost bit by bit.“ Shanghai claims itself as a global E-games city with the most considerable salary jump and heated recruiting. The biggest occupation demand gap is the producer of a game, TA(technology art), and engineering. In some shanghai companies, some graduates can get 500 thousand yuan a year, which is pretty considerable. Some scarce jobs’ salary can get double by job-hopping from another city”, cited from Times Zhoubao reporter named Jason.Some Chinese companies also make some excellent games possible: Forged In Shadow Torch, Tales of immortal, The Scroll of Taiwu, Dyson Sphere Program, Genshin Impact, and so on.▼Posters of gamesBut since not a single game company in China has made it through the game industrialization transformation process, we still can not forge a game that can be on a par with other foreign 3A games and get a long way to go. But, we are moving forward.Status Quo: People’s attitudes towards games have begun to change, and more and more people have started to pay attention to games. E-sports or live broadcasting are rapidly developing, and people have gradually adopted a more positive attitude towards games.Many games have also acted as social tools (Honor of Kings, Game For Peace, Mole’s World, Harry Potter), in games, people experience virtual worlds. Games are even changing the real world, and the influence of games is becoming more and more noticeable.The game has become a tool for connecting feelings among roommates in the dormitoryGames became a time killer for boys in the back row of college classesThe game has become a useful tool to alleviate the embarrassment when people are waiting for food at the table or the follow-up supplement activities after a meal when there is nothing to do in your mind.Do games seem to be needed by more people? Is the game really being treated fairly by more and more people?But wait, it doesn't seem right. These are something we are evading. Why do we choose to play games in these scenarios?You said that the dormitory relationship is not easy to handle. Finding some time to play games together could enhance our relationships.You said that you are socializing and your friends are all playing this game. If you don't play it, I could be regarded as withdrawn.You said that are there that many things to talk about when you hold an event together? Play a game together to relieve boredom. Isn't it good?You say that this is the ninth art. I am leveling up my aesthetic taste and experiencing different life experiences.▼An art form other than (painting, sculpture, architecture, music, poetry (literature), dance, drama, film)You said that I was so tired in class or work, I want to relax in the game.Wait, are we evading something? Do you need so many reasons for playing games? Can games only be used as tools? Games, can not they just be games?Let me tell my story. When I was in elementary school, I lived in my grandmother’s village. After school, what should we do after we have nothing to do? Of course, it was having fun. We go to play glass balls, play cards, throw sandbags, play top toys on ice, and use BB guns to shoot birds, which made me feel really regretful till now.At that time, the plastic bullet did not grant BB guns great power. The bird would fall off at most when it hits, and it could not fly temporarily cause it still hurts. At this time, we would happily rush over to catch the bird. Of course, birds were useless for us if we keep it. So we would release the birds afterward. But once, we hit a bird with a bullet, it fell off suddenly. I rushed over happily, only to find that the eye was hit with blood flowing. It was the first time we encountered this situation. I suddenly felt regretful. That was the first time I felt heartache for a bird. I held it up and put it under the alpine grass outside the yard to let it rest and prevent others from catching it. (Actually, I don’t know what to do). After a while, when I

went to check again, I found it disappeared. I don't know what fate it faced afterward. I blamed myself for a while and never used a BB gun to aim at birds again. After having such an experience, I began to understand "Whether it is a human or a small animal, the pain will make those who experience it feel intense discomfort whether you are the hurt one or not." When I picked up the BB gun, I didn't even think about what I could get from it. All of this may be an unexpected gain.Later, I get to know video games from a friend. A small game computer can be connected to the TV to play a variety of cool games just by plugging in a ROM cartridge. It really refreshed my cognition about games at the time. So, I spent all the pocket money I had saved for a long time on a family computer called Subor - a game console in the store, which is apparently a private version. But i knew that way later on. I was ecstatic and take it home. Whenever there was just me at home, I turned on the TV and browse a set of games on my “Subor”—— Mario, Contra, Nunchaku, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and other games, even these simple interaction logic of these games can make me fascinated. Later, on the basis of these games, I also came into contact with more excellent works, such as Mortal, Streets of Rage, King of Fighters, Street Fighter, and so on. . . Subsequently, the Internet swept up, and web games emerged, QQ Tang, QQ Pet, QQ Speed, CF, and CS Online showed on the desktop of my computer. Although I had been reprimanded for playing games, these games gave me a better understanding of games. I came to figure out that” wow, games can be like this”. Recalling now, did I want to get anything when I played the game? No, all of this may still be unexpected gains.Why, when we talk about playing games, we never admit that we are playing, and we always feel that we need to pursue meaning in order to justify our behavior of playing games.Looking back at the emergence of many things, when French photographers Louis Lumiere and Auguste Lumiere brothers put their invented "event projector" in a cafe, and when they played their films, did they mull the meanings from this thing that can bring to us? I'm afraid not. But we all know what the movie has achieved today."Today I have been busy, nothing can be done, I suddenly missed all the women of that day. After careful examination one by one, I found that their behavior and knowledge are all above me. Don't protect yourself because of my dissatisfaction, and also make them annihilate." This is Cao Xueqin's original intention to explain her creation in the first chapter of "A Dream of Red Mansions". Literature may not think about the meaning, but it captures the beautiful and subtle emotions that could not be written in words before and creates a world of New. For example, light enters a dark room, which is dark for a hundred thousand years, and it can be enlightened at once. , So we can see the “Bullet screen” like "Thousand-year dark room, a light bright the dark all", "Although it can't come, my heart yearns for it" "After that, if there is no torch, I will be the only light", not just "Olygi" at the ends of some high-energy videosSo, where is the meaning of playing games? I want to say: it can be meaningless. If it can bring me unexpected gains, of course, it is better, but if it doesn't, it doesn't matter.When we let go of the idea of ​binding the game to other meanings, we can really play the game.Stop deceiving yourself by saying that I play games to socialize, I play games to feel the ninth art, and I play games to relax my brain for better learning. stop! I play games because I like games, nothing else, just to play games. Because a game can only be a game.

[mrslittletall]

Sensory Overload? Hmmmmmm... I have two good ones that could work; Adeline from the Research Hall, or really any one of the blob-headed experiments in that place. Either that or Willem gaining eyes. Take your pick!

Prompt: Sensory Overload

Fandom: Bloodborne Characters: Provost Willem Word Count: 694 AO3-Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18718291/chapters/62990266

Summary: Master Willem tries to gain eyes.

(Author's note: Just a short character study about Master Willem, mostly headcanon based. I hope you enjoy and thanks for the request that inspired it.) Written for @badthingshappenbingo

Willem sat in his favourite chair on his balcony overlooking the lake.

He always had loved this place. He always would have come here when he needed a breather or just to enjoy the view. At first he still had been able to walk there himself, but over the years he had grown old and needed help. Now he mostly spent his time in his rocking chair looking over the lake until Yurie would get him to go to bed.

Over the years Byrgenwerth had... changed. All the research of the scholars went into gaining more eyes since that fateful day that Willem's most promising student had left him behind. A frown appeared on Willem's face. He didn't want to think about him. Some of his students had tried to tell him what he had been up to, but Willem didn't want to hear it. It could be nothing good. He had ignored all the warnings about the old blood and made it his main research.

Willem didn't want to admit to himself that he was missing him. Laurence... he remembered when he had appeared at the school, freshly orphaned and hard to talk to. It had been Gehrman who had managed to give him some comfort and that little boy had grown into one of the best students that Willem had ever seen in his long ages leading the school. He also had been the most troublesome and sadly it had turned out that he decided to walk a different path.

It was over. Laurence would never return to him regardless how long Willem would wait. He had surrounded himself with another circle of students, the ones that shared his believes and wanted to continue his research.

The research... it had been crowned by success. A student managed to gain eyes and ascend. Rom, a young scholar, had made it. Unfortunately, during ascending she had lost her mind. Willem had left her deep in the lake. During her ascension, Rom had made sure to put a veil over the nearby city of Yharnam, where apparently something had happened. It was better for anyone if she wouldn't be found.

If one day someone would come to uncover the secrets, maybe Willem would tell them. However, nobody ever came here anymore. The entrance to the Forbidden Woods was protected by a password and apparently nobody knew this password anymore. Nobody ever came to the school anymore, so that only Willem and his small circle of scholars as well as the two guardians of the forest remained.

Looking over the lake, Willem found himself holding a relic that had been given to him a long time ago. The umbilical cord of a Great One.

He never had brought it over himself to use it, the fear of what happened would it fail in his mind, but... without courage, he would never be able to ascend.

And so, Willem was holding the cord between both of his hands and gazed directly at it, at the Eldritch Knowledge hidden within.

The sensation was... peculiar.

It felt like all his senses had gotten stronger all at once. Everything was so loud, everything smelled far too strong, he had the feeling he could taste the air on his tongue and he could see.

Oh yes, he could see. He could see everything. He had the feeling that the truth of the world was in front of him, but instead of being able to reach out, his senses were about to shut down.

He heard too many voices, smelled too many odours, felt too many things at once. He wasn't able to concentrate like that. He shut his eyes and covered his ears in an attempt to drown it out, anxiety bubbling up in his chest.

Nothing worked. It was all too much. After a good while Master Willem stopped struggling and laid his hands back in his lap, one clutching around his staff. He continued rocking and just stared at the lake.

When Yurie found him later this day, she knew that she was the last scholar, because Willem had lost his mind while he lined his brain with eyes. (Author’s note: So, that has been it.     I completed the Bloodborne Badthingshappenbingo.  I have to admit, I was a bit meh about it at first. I struggled with the requests and once I filled them out, I wanted to do something else. So I left it on a brief hiatus before picking it up. And then I managed to burn through them, because there wasn't the pressure of having ti fill out requests anymore. Some of the later fics actually were a lot of fun to write.  I don't regret getting the card and I hope that you, the reader, had fun reading all these prompts, but I won't get a third card. I want to concentrate on a few other fics now.  I would be honoured if you left me a comment and told me which fic was your favourite and maybe check out my other work if you haven't yet.  Thank you very much!)

[ideahat-universe]

La pasta raccapricciante fa schifo

People are driving me crazy with Creepy Pasta. It’s one thing when it’s a spooky campfire story about something completely paranormal or harrowing but when video game creepy pastas show up I just get annoyed because even as a kid I understood very clearly that video games could not do what they are not programmed to do. 

And any video game that isn’t normal is just a rom hack. 

Ben Drowned might have been scary if that was a random rom hack that someone accidentally bought and played as an 8 year old assuming it was normal but that’s a very theoretical scenario. 

So the only “real” scenario that creepy pasta video games occupy is in the Paranormal but anyone that’s spent a moment trying to develop a program knows the second the application encounters something illegal (technical illegal, not law illegal) it just crashes.

I know ghosts are magic but ghosts would just destroy an electronic if they changed its actual coding in any way. Creating an illusion that a ghost or ghosts are contained only within a single copy of a game is also entering Ring territory which is also dumb. 

But I’m not here to talk about rom hack creepy pasta’s just on it’s own. 

No, I’m here to complain about Romhacks pretending to be authentic anti piracy methods. 

Anti piracy and piracy is a serious and often very interesting subject matter. 

On one hand you have the developers and publishers who put a lot of money and time on the line in the hopes that the game is successful and the profit margin is pretty steep and that profit is shared among multiple groups so it’s a lot of money spent to make just a little bit over the production costs. 

If pirates are stealing the games at launch and spreading it around it could ruin the game sales. 

On the other hand if a game is never pirated it dies forever. The original version of the game or the game itself can cease to exist if it becomes no longer profitable to sell the game. After all, once the game has made it’s sales you no longer need it in circulation. 

NIntendo just release a three pack of games that were in the Nintendo vault for a very long time. Sunshine in particular was never revisited, ported, or remade for any devices other than the gamecube. That means for more than a decade if you didn’t pirate the game, Mario Sunshine was nothing more than vaporware. 

Developers and publishers treat IP like a asset and most assets are never put to use unless the sell off has extremely good gains. Because there’s always theoretical potential in an old product selling well later on, the publisher will hold onto it but because there’s no apparent market for it now they won’t sell it either. 

So you end up with games that didn’t sell well because they came out at the wrong time or wasn’t perfectly developed and the company in question will hold onto the IP as nothing more than collateral. 

Effectively this puts games in hell where they will never see the light of day.

UNLESS a pirate cracks the game’s DRM and releases it online for an emulator to use. 

I consider most games to be a form of artistic expression that at least tells the story of the times the game was developed in if it doesn’t lend us a window into the mind of the developer themselves. 

All that on it’s own makes the conversation around piracy a big deal. Companies don’t want to give pirates a single inch. it doesn’t matter if the game has never had a digital or physical copy made since it’s initial release of more than a decade ago. If you use that modded version of that copyrighted game you’re getting the boot! Doesn’t even matter if it’s fair or legal. You’d have to win a court case to validate that claim and courts are won by the highest bidder in 99% of scenarios so unless you get seriously lucky you are losing that case in one way or another even though the law should see you as so objectively in the right that it should be thrown out of court on principle alone. 

So as far as I’m concerned pirates should exist and nothing notes better what a pirate does than having to deal with all the various ways anti piracy crops up. 

Most anti piracy methods are very straight forward but a few of them can be interesting with the idea that the player can’t really play the game without fully cracking it. 

The best example is Spyro: Year of the Dragon which had layers of anti piracy methods that kept the crackers at bay for over a month when it would typically take a week if not far less. 

When you compare what actually happens and why it becomes clear that this is a very valuable aspect of gaming lore. 

But the people who are creating anti piracy creepy pastas are watering the conversation down for cheap thrills. 

It goes from “ anti Piracy methods exist as a way to ensure profit and pirates exist because people want to keep a game long after it’s being sold and these two subjects are permanent adversaries constantly one upping each other in interesting and exhaustive ways.” 

to

“What if pirated games are haunted???”

It’s a meaningless question not just because ghosts are more than likely not real and definitely don’t haunt electronics but because now people have to discern what is real anti piracy and what is just a rom hack. 

An impressive piracy spoof is just a rom hack, and it’s a very underwhelming and repetitive one as the Creepy Pasta meme itself is a black hole of creativity. Once you know how to do that sort of thing making fake content to pass off as real when it’s blatantly fake is just bait for children and now we have fake anti piracy stories to debunk when we didn’t need that. 

Go back to reading R.L. Stine books you muppets. 

[ladyreapermc]

Fic: This isn’t a rom-com 14/17

Author’s notes: we’re getting closer to the end. I’m thinking I’m just gonna post the last three chapters daily so it can end on Monday. Also I wrote two possible finales for this and I still have no clue each one to go for. Make your bets on what’s gonna happen!

Summary: Keanu and Lilah meet at the set of John Wick. Rom-com shenanigans ensues

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6  Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13

Wordcount: 2385

Warnings: a lot of yearning, a tiny bit of angst, but nothing too serious.

As Keanu stepped into the airplane that would take him to Tokyo, his chest felt tight and heavy and his head was a jumble of confused thoughts. He knew he wouldn’t get a wink of sleep the entire flight. Not that he ever managed to sleep in red eyes anyway, but in any other situation he would at least be able to distract himself with the book he brought along or with inflight movies. Tonight, Keanu knew the only thing he would manage to do was think about Lilah and the fight they had.  

This was the one thing he did not miss about relationships, about letting people that close to him. The ability they gained to hurt him. Not that Keanu didn’t do his fair share of hurting. He was quite aware he had been very petty bringing Pierce into the entire mess, but Keanu just couldn’t help himself. He lashed out when he was scared and when she mentioned Oxford, terror and dread overtook him.

They had known each other for about two months. Had been dating, really dating, for not even a month properly, but the thought of losing Lilah was terrifying. Right now, just knowing that he would be away from her for a few days, especially with all the uncertainty that hung over them, made Keanu feel like he left a piece of himself behind in New York. No matter what he did, he couldn’t shake that feeling.

He let out a heavy sigh, making the person sitting next to him look over. He just flashed a quick smile of apology and went back to stare out of the window of the plane. Keanu still couldn’t believe he was this hopeless in love with her after such a short time.

Sure, he realized his feelings had been running deeper than just infatuation that first night they argued about her father, but he didn’t really realize he was in it this deep. Not until tonight.

Keanu should have been more careful. He should have been smarter than this. He had been here before. He had given his whole heart and it had been wrenched out of his chest, smashed and torn, leaving him reeling and barely able to function.

When he picked himself up from that mess, Keanu promised he wouldn’t allow himself to fall like that again. He had been mostly successful at it; keeping his shields up and people would eventually turn away. There was always affection and care for whoever Keanu decided to date, but he never let it progress into something else. He had that pattern fine-tuned down to an art in the last decade. Sometimes it felt as natural as breathing.  

He still couldn’t quite understand how Lilah managed to break through that. It took Keanu by surprise, but not really. He saw the warning signs and had every opportunity to turn away, but he didn’t. Because Lilah had been such a breath of fresh air with her honesty and openness and earnestness. With the way that she never asked of him more than he was willing or ready to give. How she accepted him and liked him for what he was, not what she wanted him to be or something she made up in her head. Not many people did that, and Keanu found himself letting his walls down just enough for Lilah to sneak under the wire and lodged herself so deep it suddenly felt like she had always been there and he was just discovering it like a buried treasure.

And now Keanu was scared shitless because he didn’t want to lose her, but he didn’t know what to do either. Because part of him wanted to be with her no matter the cost. That hopeless dreamer that he thought he had lost so long ago didn’t care about the damn age gap or what the rest of the world would think of it. Keanu would move to New York or England or wherever the hell she wanted, if that’s what it took. Because he needed Lilah in his life.

The saner part of him, the one who had loved and lost knew it wasn’t healthy, not for himself and not for Lilah. This part of him knew that he couldn’t interfere with this choice in any way, at least not any more than he already did by offering to pay tuition and helping her through it. Keanu shouldn’t even have done that. He had hadn’t been aware of the weight her father’s wishes had on Lilah’s decision. The second he pushed her Keanu wasn’t being any better than her father was. And that was the last thing he wanted.

At the same time, the thought of Lilah giving up something that was obviously her dream broke his heart and every fiber of his being was screaming him to fix it; to make it better. Because he loved her, and it killed him to see her hurting like this. But Keanu knew that wasn’t what Lilah needed. She didn’t need a hero. Someone to fix things for her. She needed someone to be there for her, no matter what. So that was what Keanu was going to be. The supporting partner she needed, even if the uncertainty of her choice was almost driving him crazy.

With a new sigh, Keanu picked up his book from his jacket pocket, snorting at the cover. He had left home in such a hurry that he forgot the book he had separated to take with him so he stopped by at the airport bookstore to pick something else. The second he laid his eyes on this, he knew he needed to take it. It was Keanu's way to stay close to Lilah even miles apart.

He settled a little more comfortably on his seat and started reading The Shining. Keanu went through almost half before his eyes demanded a break and he put it aside again, smiling because he could almost hear her at every page; her thoughts on this or that scene. She had gone into a lengthy discussion on this book and Stephen King’s work in general, as well as her love for horror books and movies. He had never really thought about it as she did, as an exploration of the human psyche. It was an interesting take.

When he finally landed in Tokyo, Keanu fought the urge to call Lilah, check how she was doing. This was the moment to give her space, let her come up with her answer on her own. Instead, he decided for a text to let her know he arrived safely. He did the same for the rest of his family as he headed to his hotel.

Keanu was exhausted, physically and emotionally and as soon as he got to his room he pretty much passed out. He couldn’t remember the last time he slept for eight hours straight in the past few months, but he woke up to the sound of his phone, his publicist name flashing on the screen. It was time to get ready for the first round of photocall and interviews.

The thing Keanu hated the most about doing press for a movie premiere was that there were always so many things happening at once. He would come out of something and head straight into another with barely enough time to eat or have a smoke or check his phone. And that was how most of his days in Tokyo went in the time he had there. He only managed one afternoon free and he used it to buy some gifts for his friends and family.

Despite all, Keanu really enjoyed the trip. He had always been much fonder of Eastern culture and philosophy than Western. It was also quite nice to meet his fellow cast members for 47 Ronin again. As well as the director. Debuting the film in Japan, considering it was a tale of Japanese culture just felt fitting. The right kind of homage.

But as he headed to the airport at the end of his fourth day, Keanu was anxious to get back since he couldn’t get his head out of New York. Part of it was his worry about how much he was hindering John Wick’s production by being away. Even if it was just for a week. Chad and Dave assured him that they had come up with a plan, so they wouldn’t get too behind schedule and both of them understood that this was the sort of commitment that Keanu couldn’t say no, but he was still worried.

Keanu also couldn’t wait to get back to Lilah, see how she was and if she made up her mind about anything yet. Since they were in such different time zones and his schedule had been so full, they hadn’t managed to speak directly to each other. Only a few text messages throughout the day and he hated it. Apparently, he had grown used to their daily phone calls.  

He settled in one of the seats in the airport lounge, leaning his head back and closing his eyes as he heaved a long sigh as he waited for his flight to start boarding. Keanu was exhausted. All he wanted was to sleep. Fortunately, his publicist managed to book him a better flight this time, but he was probably gonna get to New York in the middle of the night. He was almost drifting off when he got a call from Karina. Doing a quick calculation on his head, Keanu winced at how early she must be up to be calling him.

“How come I had to hear from Kim that you’re dating someone?” she asked as soon as he picked up and Keanu rolled her eyes fondly at his baby sister.

“Well, hello to you too dear sister. How are you doing? I’m good, thanks for asking.”

“Oh, screw that!” she said with a huff. “Just give me the details because all Kim told me was that you met her at the set, was head over heels and being an idiot about telling how you felt.”

Keanu chuckled, pushing his hair away from his face. He really needed to call home more often. They were both a little out of the loop.

“I can’t talk much,” he said with a quick glance around. Everyone seemed to be minding their own businesses, but Keanu knew that didn’t mean anything. “So yes or no questions.”

“Fine,” Karina huffed. “She’s an aspiring actress?”

“No.”

“Good. She’s probably not dating you to advance her own career,” she said, and Keanu let out a long sigh, his argument with Lilah coming to mind.

“Definitely not that.”

They went back and forth with a few questions, Keanu chuckling slightly at Karina’s growing frustration, but he wasn’t crazy to talk about his personal business in a crowded airport. Even if he was in a private area.

“I wanna see her,” Karina said, and he winced. Keanu should’ve known that was coming. “Come on. Pictures. I know you have them”.

With a sigh, he pulled his phone away from his ear to browse his gallery, trying to pick one picture of Lilah to send Karina. Keanu smiled to himself because he noticed he had quite a few. She was fond of sending random selfies, which he really appreciated.

He picked the one they took on the mirror, maybe his favorite picture of them so far and sent it to Karina.

“She’s beautiful,” Karina said after a moment’s pause. Keanu smiled and just hummed in agreement. “Way out of your league.”

“If you’re gonna be an ass I’m gonna hang up,” he threatened with a snort.

“No, no!” she said chuckling. “I liked her Matrix shirt.”

“Me too,” he admitted with a smile. Keanu had really loved to see her with that shirt. Almost as much as he liked seeing her in one of his.

“Oh, man! You’re so in love!” she teased, and Keanu could feel himself blushing. He lowered his head, letting his hair block his face from view. “I can hear it in your voice. I can see in your face in that picture.”

“Yes,” Keanu breathed out. There was no point in pretending otherwise. His family knew him too well anyway.

“She makes you happy?”

“Very,” he said with a smile and he could hear his sister smiling on the other side too, as well as his phone beeping to signal low battery.

“Good. That’s all we all care about. You know that, right?”

“I know,” Keanu said, noticing his flight was about to board. “I gotta go. Talk to you when I get home.”

The flight back went a little better. Keanu actually managed to nap a little, but every inch of him felt stiff and ached when he finally landed in New York. His phone had died mid-flight and since he didn’t really want to give the entire airport a view of his dirty laundry by digging through his carry-on for his charger, Keanu hailed a cab instead of calling the car service he usually used.

The driver was a nice guy who recognized him immediately and asked for an autograph, which he didn’t have the heart to refuse. When the man asked for his destination, Keanu hesitated, checking the time before letting his impulsive side win over. He gave the driver Lilah’s address. It was late and he should be heading home, but he spent five days without seeing her. Keanu needed this.

Jean looked really surprised when she opened the door to see Keanu standing there and he gave her a sheepish smile.

“I’m sorry about the hour. Is Lilah…”

“You didn’t get her voicemail, did you?” she asked, her expression shifting into a grimace and Keanu’s heart stopped in panic.

“My phone died. What happened? Where’s Lilah?”

“Her brother was in a car accident,” Jean explained. “She left for Miami earlier tonight.”

A lot of feelings went through Keanu at once: relief that nothing happened to Lilah herself, worry for how she must be. From what all her stories, she was really close to her brother, but the thing that was stronger was the need to get to her. Make sure she was ok.

“Can I borrow your phone?”

x(tbc)x

Go to part 15

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[eureka-its-zico]

Wedding Partners

Request: for the drabble game, no. 76 please jungkook ahhdsjdjk (”Please, put your penis away.”

A/N: I’m not gonna lie. This was supposed to be a drabble. Actually, the few drabble requests were meant to be drabbles but...I’m terrible. I can’t drabble to save my life. I had this idea while watching old 90’s rom com’s of weddings: The Wedding Planner, My Best Friend’s Wedding, etc., and had this idea of Jungkook and weddings. I considered writing more if you guys like it. If not, I hope you all at least these not so drabbly drabbles. Much Love, Jenn

Jungkook x Reader

Words: 3088

Weddings were awkward. 

And that was saying a lot. Especially, for a day that was capitalized to be all about joy and coming together to be connected, forever, to your supposed soulmate. From what you’d witnessed countless times, it felt more cut throat than riding off into the sunset. A day that should be about happiness was instead heavily coated in anxiety. A majority of this quiet chaos centered solely around table placement. 

“What’s the big deal about table placement?”you may ask. 

Whelp, you were a pro at this sort of explanation. Not that it was because you yourself dealt with the coming trepidation of arranging your own family or your significant others. It was centered around the fact you’d been to enough of them to read the table signs a mile away. 

The extended family tables that held the aunts and uncles that were a little...colorful. Sometimes holding the, “We’re only family by marriage,” bunch. The ones with close relatives that weren’t technically labeled the “favorites,” of the family. The grandma who might seem like she was going a wee bit senile, but really she’s just extremely opinionated and good at making you feel like you shouldn’t be having a second helping of cake. Or even the tables made on the fly to keep a recently divorced mother-of-the-bride from the father and his newly, perkier, counterpart. 

And then there was the singles table. The lucrative spot you’d find yourself in as if you’d acquired a special reservation to them. You would be sure to keep the free champagne as your plus one. Telling all the other painfully awkward (there’s that word again) single gentleman at the table you were taken by an inanimate object. Oh, how sad your life felt when you RSVP’d to these things and always wrote one. 

It felt worse knowing your friend, Jungkook would be attending. Even more so when he took his high school sweetheart to every damn event. It didn’t matter if she was bubbly and obnoxiously sweet to the point your teeth ached from the sound of her voice. She was likeable. She truly was. Unfortunately, you also had a crush on Jungkook. Or, okay, more like you were hopelessly in love with him, but it was technically the same thing. 

You’d hope after four years your foolish heart would’ve given up on him. It would’ve gotten the memo Jungkook belonged to someone else. That you would probably end up at his stupid wedding before he ever attended yours. Instead, here you were: sitting at the singles table knocking back mimosa’s and glowering to yourself. 

Your up-do already came apart at the seams with pieces of it hanging like a mini curtain in front of your pouting face. The rim of your glass sat claiming your bottom lip. Just a casual reminder it was still there if you needed it. 

The wedding of mutual friends had gone on without a hitch. The ceremony lovely and opulent (someone’s parents had good money) with the reception seeming to have a shortage of weird family or guests that attended. Besides, you. Of course. 

The oddest part coming as a shock when your eyes landed on a lone Jungkook nursing a glass of wine. You weren’t ashamed to take notice of the way his fingers enveloped the glass. How dark strands of lightly waved hair cascaded to his cheeks, but left his handsome face exposed to the room. Usually, Jungkook wore suits of color. Nothing outlandish, but he didn’t look like he was attending a funeral either. Today, he was covered in the monotone black that seemed to make him more striking. It dulled out everything around him, except the hard outline of his jaw and the exotic shape of almond eyes. 

If you weren’t so transfixed by him you’d probably would’ve noticed he was missing a certain someone at his table. That maybe that’s why he looked so damn miserable. You were getting up from your seat, drink clutched in hand, to go talk to him when Jungkook suddenly got up. 

The way his legs took a moment to right themselves told you he’d drank his fair share of cocktails this evening. His head tilted back quickly to down the rest of his glass, before moving towards the signs that read , “Restrooms.”

You weren’t about to down your whole drink and decided to take it on a little field trip. Your first step landing on the hem of your dress causing you to mutter out a bunch of swears. Your hands moving to bundle it up in unladylike fashion to move around the table. No one regarded Jungkook as he stumbled past walking like a newborn gazelle. Apparently, no one shared your sense of surprise at his current state. 

“Oh, Y/N!” Amy, the beautiful bride, shouted as she stepped in your way. Or did you step in hers? When did you step onto the dance floor? “Thank you so much for coming! You look amazing.”

You wanted to snort at her terrible attempt at a lie. It was her big day, though. She could lie all she wanted. You put on your biggest fake smile you could muster, as your eyes peered over her shoulder hunting to catch a line of sight in Jungkook’s direction. 

“You look far better than I ever would. You make a beautiful bride, Amy.”

Your compliment sent her smile soaring. Her arms quickly enveloping around you in a tight hug. When she pulled away her hand snaked around your wrist, and gave it a firm tug towards the dance floor. 

“Come dance.”

“No. No. I don’t dance,” you shouted over the music. Your head giving a swift refusal along with your words. 

“Come on, Y/N! Just a little dance!”

“I gotta go pee.”

Amy shot you a look but didn’t press you any further. You couldn’t have been more grateful. However, the brief intermission with the bride cost you valuable ground and now you had no clue where Jungkook went. 

You decided to follow his last known location towards the restrooms. Luckily, no one appeared to want to stop and talk the rest of the way there. The only actual issue was once you got to the labeled his and hers doors, you weren’t really allowed to just go in. Also, why would you? In the end, you decided to casually sip on your mimosa as you waited for Jungkook to exit the restroom. 

Unfortunately, he never did. 

After five minutes of constant waiting you were willing to consider either a stop was made for a number two moment, or he was throwing up whatever drinks he’d downed. Another five minutes rolled around and now men were coming frequently in and out of the bathroom. None of them being the one you’d been waiting for. Your presence at the bathrooms, however, gained you a lot of awkward glances. You were a devoted girl on a very devoted mission. 

You considered waiting just a bit longer when your eyes caught sight of the glass door at the end of the hallway. It’s bright green neon letters informing you it was a way out; perhaps the same one Jungkook had taken. 

Using the momentum from your shoulder pushing off the wall, you made your way towards the back door. Blurry vision struggling to make out whatever was outside of it. It looked like a whole lot of grass. It also could’ve been a well designed forest enclosure by a pool. Who really knew until you went outside. 

Your earlier drunken assumptions were both wrong, and correct. It did have grass...that was lovingly taken care of behind an intricate iron fence. What you actually walked out to was a cobblestone patio that led directly to the pool and inside that pool was the man you’d been searching for. 

You stumbled your way towards the gate and ended up struggling to try and get the latch open. All the noise you were making, metal jingling and flippant curses, didn’t seem to faze Jungkook at all, who currently resided inside the pool. His body sharing a resemblance of a starfish with his suit clinging to his skin like seaweed. The only part of him that wasn’t submerged in the water was his face and fingers. The rest of him facing up towards the midnight sky and it’s endless streak of stars. 

There seemed to be one more thing floating in the water. Your eyes unable to successfully see it even after you attempted to squint. Your fumbling fingers to undo the latch came to a quick halt as realization began to color your face. 

“Oh my god!” You gasped. “Please put your penis away.”

By the sudden way he went under; his mouth wide open in a shocked ‘O’, you could tell Jungkook didn’t expect to have any uninvited guests. His arms came flailing around at his sides, his bottom half (and penis) now submerged, and his head was bobbing up and down for air. The only conclusive thought your buzzing brain could comprehend from all of this was that Jungkook was drowning. 

Instantaneously, as the thought coursed through your brain your hand released your half emptied flute of mimosa, and your feet launched one after the other in a clumsy mess over the gate. It was a waist high gate. Nothing crazy high and something your legs could’ve easily moved over if you’d been sober. However, your knees found the ground first and you did a poor impression of a tuck and roll towards the pool. 

You probably looked like a fool. Fortunate for you, you weren’t all that worried about appearances at the moment. No. You were more worried about the love of your life re-enacting a bobbing apple inside the pool. 

“Jungkook!” You yelled. “I’m coming to save you!”

Without a thought to reason you found your feet launching you into the deep end. The water moving around to engulf you quickly the moment your feet broke through its barrier. What did come to mind when water worked its way inside your nose was this was a terrible idea. Easily made your top five list of drunken things to never repeat. 

Your dress ballooned around you like a wilting flower with your hands helplessly getting caught in its fabric. It ended up being Jungkook’s steady grab on your waist that helped you find your way back to the surface for air. The moment your face broke water you gulped in greedily for as much of it as you could get. 

“What the hell were you doing?”

“Saving you from drowning.”

“You did a terrible job,” he chuckled. 

You worked a few pieces of wet clumps of hair out of your face. It cleared your vision enough for you to realize if anyone saved somebody in this mess, it was Jungkook. He held you close to him, an arm securely wrapped around your waist. Your own legs wrapped around his core with his sweeping out underneath the both of you to keep you afloat. Nervous giggling escaped you while you continued to look around before self-consciously landing on his face. 

“I really did mess it up, huh.”

Jungkook was known to make your heart stop. This close he was the perfect description of what fairy tale princes’ were meant to be. His hair somehow kept itself stylized and perfectly shaping the cut lines of his jaw. The small fleck of his mole that hovered below his lower lip teasing you to steal a kiss. A flare of jealousy struck deep inside your gut as you noticed how the drops of water seemed to cling to his lips in greedy clumps. He was still eyeing you now; waiting to see if you would continue your half-hearted admission.But all words were lost being wrapped around him and being this close. 

All you could do was stare. 

He was slowly moving you both to the safety of the pool’s side.

“You would make an awful knight in shining armor, Y/N.”

You feigned hurt as you finally got to the first step towards the entrance to the pool. Your arms and legs reluctantly letting him go to sit beside him on the second step. Both of your bodies partly submerged just to keep the cool night air from making you shiver.

“At least I attempted a rescue. I could’ve just let you drown, you know.”

“First of all, I wasn’t drowning. I was floating.”

“And a marvelous floater you are, darling,” you replied.

Your voice heavy with playfulness that caused you both to smile at each other. His own bright like the sun and you helplessly orbited around it. As soon as it came, however, it quickly vanished and was replaced by a sadness that sent a dull ache through your chest. 

“Kook? What’s wrong?”

You placed a comforting hand on his back that he didn’t quite seem to acknowledge. His mind taking him somewhere where you weren’t beside him. Where he wasn’t in this pool sitting next to you or at this wedding. Wherever it was his thoughts took him, it was easy to see by his crumbling features that it wasn’t a good place to be. You hated seeing him appear so grief-stricken, and with no idea as to what could’ve caused it. You wanted to probe him again. Just to see if you could get something out of him when he finally turned that sadness back to you. 

“She left me.”

Jungkook spoke soft enough you weren’t sure you quite heard him the first time. You leaned in involuntarily closer to make sure when he spoke again you heard. 

“What?”

“Ji-eun!” He said more sharply this time. “She left me, Y/N. She told me she’d been seeing someone else at work. That she didn’t intend for it to happen, but it did. She said - said they were more compatible. Whatever that means.”

Your hand was back to comfort him as you struggled to find the right words to comfort him. Chastising yourself for having a small piece of you that seemed overjoyed by the news. It sucked to see him hurting. You knew he loved her; cared deeply for her. They’d been together since High School for goodness sake. However…

“I’m really sorry to hear that, Jungkook.”

Sorry didn’t seem right. It felt hollow and clumsy. It was, unfortunately, the best you could say. Jungkook didn’t seem to mind it. Any form of words to help ease the pain he felt would’ve been enough. 

“I hate weddings. I hate them even more now that I have to come alone.”

“I come alone all the time. You don’t see me complaining.”

“Yeah, well you should cause it sucks.”

His statement sent a bark of laughter from you and sent a fresh wave of water around you both as he gave a start. It only made your laugh more. You weren’t sure, but you could’ve sworn you saw a tilt of a smile. 

“I guess you’ll be joining me at the single tables for a while.”

You were aiming to tease, but instead received a heavy groan of despair.

“I have two more weddings to go to this year, Y/N. Two more! I cannot go to these alone. I just can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Won’t.”

His answer was curt and let you know there was no way in changing his mind. Not that you honestly were going to try. Jungkook started to run his hands through the water and you wondered if he was trying to make anything out of it.

“Well, that explains why you’ve been drinking and trying to drown in the pool.”

“I did not try and drown in the pool! You jumped on me and made me sink to the bottom,” he shot back.

Your mouth dropped open with a gasp and your hand moved out to swat at his shoulder. This time his own rich chuckle filled the space around you. 

“That’s it!”

The hand that was playing in the water suddenly shot up to come together with the other. A loud clap to join his ‘A-ha!’ moment. He turned completely to face you and sent the water sloshing around in tiny waves. You didn’t pay it any mind, however, as his hands clumsily took yours and pleading eyes grabbed a hold of your face. 

“Y/N: be my plus one.”

For a split second you waited for the punchline to follow. You knew it had too. No way in his right mind would he have ever requested for you to be his partner at weddings when he could surely find someone else.

“You’re drunk.”

“I’m serious!”

“Why can’t you go alone like a normal human!”

“Okay, one human beings aren’t meant to be alone. Two, I would much rather go with one of my closest friends to these things and know I’m gonna have a good time than be miserable and alone. Come on, Y/N. Please.”

It might’ve been the puppy dog eyes. The puffy pout of lips with a mixture of how he used them that made you cave instantly. Realistically, you knew it wasn’t going to take much to get you to agree to begin with. You just needed to play hard to get. 

“Fine. I’ll be your plus one.”

His response came in him pulling you tight against his chest. Your arms now trapped at your sides as he swung you back and forth in the water. When he pressed his lips to your temple you were pretty sure you’re heart faltered for a second. 

“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you, Y/N! You’re the best.”

“Yea, yea, I’m the greatest.”

“I said best not the greatest. Let's not get too carried away here.”

You cupped your hands under the water and splashed what you could in his direction. The effect only gaining another deep chuckle that was matched by his smile. 

“By the way, did you ever put your penis back in your pants?”

Jungkook’s eyes flushed open like saucers as his hands darted down inside the water. His body turning to the side away from you, just in case you tried to look. Too bad for him, you’d already seen him out and about in all his glory. 

“Now I did.”

“You’re so gross,” you laughed, as Jungkook pulled you back out into the water. The two of you spending the rest of the night floating like starfishes in the center of the pool.

[colonel-insomniac]

Flowers

Flowers. That's all Patrick can see littering the bathroom countertop and sink. Yellow and blue petals scattered about, some even delicately resting on the tiled floor. Stupid unrequited love. That was what had him rushing to the bathroom. It was a tickle in his throat that never really disappeared. Not to mention the fact that flowers were quite literally growing in his lungs. Okay, so many people assume Patrick doesn't really think of anything, but he does. Bobby, his best friend in the whole world, and crush of the past couple years. Although, now that Pat thinks about it, it could've spanned longer than a couple years. Anyways, that’s not exactly the issue. The issue is the flowers. He has to get rid of the pretty petals; almost all of them are splattered with drops of blood, and he doesn’t want anyone at all to know about this dilemma. Currently, there’s a box under his bed, almost filled to the brim with flowers and their petals. Patrick’s not really sure what he should do once it’s completely filled. Maybe start another? Regardless, the only way to stop the flowers from suffocating him from the inside, Pat has to gain Bobby’s love. And that’s apparently not going to happen. Bobby’s not really looking at Pat in a way that’ll calm the flowers, and besides, he’s in a relationship. Or was. Two weeks ago Bobby was in a relationship with some random guy Patrick doesn’t even remember, and came back to their shared apartment on the verge of tears. The night was spent in Patrick’s mess of a room, a red nose and puffy-eyed Bobby curled against Pat, clutching a tissue in his sleep. A tub of cookie dough ice cream discarded on the floor beside them. Pat had to fight relentlessly against the urge to cough up flowers, and ultimately failed, optin to sweep them under the pillow. Bobby probably wasn’t even thinking about getting in another relationship, anyway. He spent yesterday finally getting rid of that guys stuff. He had Pat drive them to his one story suburban house while Bobby carefully scrawled a message on an index card. He wouldn’t let Patrick see what he wrote, and when he knocked on the door and ran back to the car, leaving the box on the doorstep, he had Patrick drive off. Pat wanted to see the guy, see the face of a guy who lost the best person to ever grace their beach town, maybe even the whole world. But he did what Bobby wanted. Drove them back to their small apartment, and had to cough into his left hand, pushing the petals in the pockets of his shorts. Bobby looked at him questioningly, probably ‘cause Pat just kept coughing, but Patrick just smiled at him, a little sad at two things: the first being that he’ll never be the recipient of Bobby’s love, and the second being at Bobby’s slightly red nose. And so now here he is, alone at night, in his bathroom, cleaning up the mess his lungs created. Or maybe it was his heart’s fault for falling in love in the first place. He shook his head, flower petals clutched in his hands. If he didn’t stop thinking about it, he’d just keep coughing the darn plants. No, the best thing to do would be to finish this task and then maybe pop some popcorn and settle into his bed and maybe watch a movie. But not a rom-com. Something action packed, to take his mind off of a certain ginger-haired, short boy, with so much optimism it almost knocks Patrick down and out cold. He needs to watch that movie. What movie, though? There were so many options to choose from, but he was leaning more towards a Marvel movie, maybe one of the Avenger’s ones. Those were hardly ever focused towards romance, which made it perfect. “Pat?” Bobby’s voice made Patricks head whip towards his bathroom door in panic. “I- uh, I’m in the bathroom.” He stood up quickly to turn the lock. “Oh, okay! I was wondering if you maybe wanted to watch a movie or do something? I’m kinda bored.” Patrick can’t believe he let himself slip up this bad, he thought Bobby was sleeping, which gave him a chance to just let all the petals escape. “Yeah, of course…just let me finish cleaning this—” Shoot. Pat really messed up now. He could feel the blood draining from his face as his heart fell into the pit of his stomach. He heard Bobby’s footsteps approach the door, turning the knob in an attempt to open the door. Good thing it was locked, Pat thought. “Pat? Did you throw up? Let me come in to help clean. I can also make you some soup? Or do you want water?” Pat half wanted to laugh at Bobby’s overreaction, but he bit his cheek instead, reminding himself of the situation he was in. This time, a whole flower came out. It was blue and yellow in some sort of marbled effect, and of course, drops of blood. “No, it’s alright, I got it.” His throat hurt. Usually it was just petals. A whole flower couldn’t be a good sign. “Patrick, please just let me in. Please, I wanna help.” Patrick could hear the desperation in Bobby’s voice, which matched the desperation and panic he felt clawing in his throat. There was nothing he could do, he had to let him in. With a sigh, Patrick stood up, and unlocked the door, swinging it open. The whole time, the flower head was in his hand. Bobby flicked on the lights, flooding the bathroom in white light, and gasped. “Patrick? What…?” He turned and looked at Pat’s face, which was grim. “Is this…?” Patrick nodded. “It’s called the Hanahaki disease. When you love someone and it isn’t reciprocated. Flowers grow in my lungs and this is what happens, because they don’t love me back.” Patrick watched as Bobby looked at the flower in Patrick’s palm. Patrick started to say something when Bobby gingerly picked the flower off of Patricks hand, examining it closely. “Who is it?” He whispered, focused on the flower now, feeling the silky petals of the flower between his fingers. His blue eyes flicked towards Patrick when the latter didn’t respond. “Is it…me?” He asked, and Patrick nodded. There really wasn’t any other option for him but to admit. “But I know you just got out of a relationship and you don’t want anything. And I know you also don’t like me that way.” Upon seeing the broken look on Bobby’s face, he hurried to add, “It’s fine. Really! I’m okay with this.” “But Patrick—” “No seriously, you don’t have to worry, it’s not so bad. It’s not that many, anyways.” Patrick could tell that Bobby was thinking about earlier in the car, about that night two weeks ago, about all those times Patrick coughed and wasn’t sick. Bobby was piecing everything together. “Patrick—” “Don’t even think about it, let’s watch that movie. Now, which one did you wanna watch? I was thinking Avenger’s, but it’s whatever you want. I’ll go make some pop—” Bobby cut off Patrick’s train of rambling when he climbed onto the countertop, grabbing onto Patrick’s shoulders and bringing him so close to Bobby that their noses were almost touching. “Patrick, there are flowers in your lungs. I know about the disease. It all makes sense now. That’s why you kept stuffing your hand in your pocket earlier in the car. Everytime you coughed, you coughed petals, or flowers, and stuffed them in your pockets, right?” Patrick nodded, still looking into Bobby’s eyes. “Oh, Patrick,” Bobby pulled the taller one into a hug, which Patrick confusedly reciprocated. “You should’ve told me.” “But—” Patrick started to argue, but Bobby cut him off. “Patrick, I can’t believe this. I’ve been thinking these last two weeks about our friendship. I love you so much but you already knew that. But neither of us knew exactly how much, but I figured it out.” Pat’s head bobbed back, still confused. “These past two weeks have been so weird for me, but it’s always been you, you’ve always been there for me. And I couldn’t help but realize that every single time I got in a relationship, I always compared them to you. I didn’t notice I was doing that, and I couldn’t figure out why, either.” “I don’t under—” “That was, I didn’t figure it out until I head this sound on TikTok earlier. It was a sound that was supposed to get you to realize who you truly love, and when I instantly thought of you, everything made sense.” Bobby stopped, taking a breath. “Look, I know I haven’t known about your feelings or my feelings but I do know that I love you so much. Everything about you makes me happy, and you make me look forward to the future. I just—” Bobby’s train of thought was cut off by the feeling of Patrick’s mouth on his, and the flower fell to the floor. Patrick could feel the flowers in his lungs disappearing. He felt lighter, happier, and when the two broke apart, Patrick’s eyes were glassy. The two let the silence surround them, they drank up the mere attention of the other. Minutes passed by, and Patrick was stunned to find their hands touching. Pat was breathless at the touch of Bobby, and Bobby, who never took silence well, tilted his head down a little, looking up at Pat through his lashes and stated “So, about that movie….” Pat couldn’t help but snort and ruffle Bobby’s hair. “Dork.” Bobby grinned, “You love me, though.” “Yeah I do.” Patrick dragged Bobby off the countertop. “Just let me clean this up really quick, you make the popcorn.” Bobby nodded and left the room after placing a kiss on Patrick’s cheek. Ten minutes later, Pat was carrying the box of flowers and petals out of his room when Bobby asked to look. Patrick was reluctant, but seeing Bobby’s face pretty much begging Patrick had Pat sighing and setting the box down. Bobby held onto Patrick’s hand tightly as he opened the box’s top. “Oh Pat.” Patrick could see Bobby’s eyes tearing up. He knew Bobby was feeling guilty, but he didn’t know that Patrick was dealing with this, and Patrick was quick to share those thoughts with Bobby, who had to be drawn into a hug. “You’re so sensitive, sunshine.” Patrick said, and felt his face heat up when Bobby pulled away to look at Patrick with wide, enamored eyes. Bobby’s face was practically sparkling in Patrick’s opinion. The next thing he saw was Bobby sailing towards him, knocking Patrick over, and they laid on the ground. Well, Pat did, Bobby managed to catch himself, and held himself up over Pat’s face. He leaned in and quickly kissed Patrick before getting up, and claimed the popcorn wouldn’t taste as good cold. Patrick laughed, watching Bobby walk away, knowing he would always come back. Because they loved each other, and people who truly love each other will always come back, in Patrick’s professional opinion.

[bluebellhairpin]

Mind-List’s and Morning Cravings

Sherlock Holmes X Fem!Reader

A/N: I love Sherlock, I really do. He brings out my sapiosexual side. - Nemo

Summary: You met Eurus before you met Mycroft, and Mycroft before you met Sherlock. The closeness you had gained with Sherlock was one that started to bother you, especially when you found your own apartment started to resemble his, and it bothered you even more when that effected your food intake. 

Masterlist  

You’d met Sherlock at the Sherrinford facility. No, not when his sister, Eurus, trapped him, Mycroft and John, but one time after when he’d come to play violin with Eurus.

You supposed, in a funny way, that it could have been Eurus’ doing, that you and Sherlock met, seeing as you’d been visiting her to exercise your intellectual abilities since before Mycroft had introduced her to Moriarty.  

You had a feeling that her plan to toy with her two remaining brothers wasn’t the best idea, but you decided not to comment seeing as you hadn’t had the best relationships with your siblings either. However, you’d know better then to let a woman who’s IQ reached above your head meet (and speak with unsupervised) a wanted criminal mastermind. You’d thought Mycroft was a little smarter than that.

Apparently not.

You were much more pleased to find that the youngest Holmes thought that it was also a complete act of stupidity.

After first meeting Eurus, you’d gained the idea that the other Holmes children would also be at her level of intellect, only not locked up for it.

Mycroft was a clear disappointment as soon as he entered the room you were in, his place in your mind-list went down another five places when he let Eurus meet Moriarty. You had few words for that man.

Vapid and jejune.

Then you met Sherlock, and the world seemed to fall into place again. But not in the sappy romantic rom-com type of falling, more like intellectual equilibrium type of placement. What Mycroft lacked, Sherlock make up for, which made a lot of sense to you.

Sherlock was in second place on your Mind-list, placed just under Eurus and a little further above Mary Morstan.

When you eventually went back to London after another odd and short encounter with the Holmes family (All siblings and parents included) at Sherrinford, you decided tea and a long sit atop your apartment building was in order.

You lived a few streets along from Sherlock’s Baker Street, neatly settled in one of the buildings with an accessible rooftop. As time passed, your tea getting lukewarm in your palms, and rooftop slightly forgotten, you came to the realisation that your apartment had a somber resemblance to the Consulting Detectives.

You didn’t really like that idea.

So you spent the remains of the day and most of the night rearranging and remodeling your small apartment to look less like Sherlock and more like you. A total of 14 hours and 10 minutes had been spent, meaning you’d been awake for almost 25 hours and 36 minutes and found yourself rather hungry.

With only eating when you remembered (which wasn’t often, even on good days) you came to the conclusion a few short minutes later that your new hunger was Sherlock’s fault, and then set off to 221B Baker street to convince the man to feed you.

“(y/n), what the hell, are you doing here? It’s 5:30 in the morning.” John said, having the reluctant pleasure of waking to your knocking at the door and saved Mrs Hudson from waking instead.

You’d met John when you broke into Sherlock’s place once. He’d almost called Lestrade on you, but soon decided against in when you spoke of being sent by Eurus. He called Mycroft instead. Much to your annoyance.

John was then placed seventh on your Mind-list.

“I’m here for Sherlock.” You started, stepping in passed John and up the stairs towards where you knew Sherlock would be. “The better question, however, would be why you’re here. It’s not even your place anymore.” You called back at John as you opened to door to Sherlock’s lounge room.

“Sherlock has a case. He called me, repeatedly, saying I needed to be here.”

“Well you can leave now, if you wish.”

“Why?” John asked cautiously, walking in after you and closed the door behind him.

“I’m here for a reason. I’m taking this guy to get me food. Unless you want to join?” You said, pointing to Sherlock, who was half-sliding down in his seat, and looking back at John.

“Um, no. I ought to be getting back to Rosie. You’d probably be more help on this case then me anyway. Tell him that I’ll see him later.” Rosie, yes, that girl was a good one. She’d be higher on your list if she was a bit less… Childish.

You hummed at John, signaling that his comment was heard and he was able to go home. You walked over to the sociopath, standing with his outstretched legs between yours and leaning down so your face was inches from his.

“Must you be so close?” He asked, his previously closed eyes flickering open to lock with yours. A smirk crept onto your lips.

“Yes. Especially if it gets you to notice me.”

“You’re almost impossible.”

“You’ve always liked a challenge.” You said, leaning back as you moved to encourage Sherlock to get up out of his seat. He nodded, unmoving as he took a moment to look at you. You guessed to was simply him deducing you again and decided to busy yourself with trying to find something worth eating in his kitchen.

After the third jar of disembodied human remains, and Sherlock having not moved you gave up in the kitchen and grabbed Sherlock's jacket and scarf, throwing them at him and standing by the door.

“Where are you going?” he asked, as if he hadn’t heard you speaking with John earlier.

“We are going out.” you started, leaning on the door frame as Sherlock started slowly moving to get up. “For food.”

“It’s 6 in the morning. Any place open won't be worth going to.”

“Then you really don't leave this apartment, or this side of the city, do you?” You said, a smirk reaching onto your lips before you turned to descend the stairs and wait for the Consulting Detective just outside his front door. He came out a few minutes later, an extra scarf in hand, and closed the door behind him.  

“Onwards I suppose.” he said, taking the your moment of hesitation thought gathering to wrap the scarf around your neck. You had already a fur lined parka on, but his scarf really took the chill off your neck, and when you pulled it up to cover your nose you found it didn’t only give your face warmth, but smelt distinctly of Sherlock; something like a strange mix of cigarette smoke, old books, and something unmistakably him.

You walked for a solid fifteen minutes, light conversation being made along the way, as well as an explanation as to your early/non-existent start to the day, as well as a clear statement as to who would be paying (Him) for your food.

Once you entered the much warmer cafe-style bookshop, you led Sherlock to the counter. There you ordered a breakfast plate, and two teas. You slipped Sherlock’s card out of his pocket and paid, he didn’t seem to happy about that even though it was what you both had agreed on.

“How did you find this place?” Sherlock asked. You both were now sitting at one of the tables, closed off from the world by shelves of books and a glass windowpane. “Doesn't seem like the kind of place you’d hang around in often.”

“Then you don’t know me very well, do you Holmes?” You smirked, putting another forkful of your food into your mouth. He rolled his eyes.

“A relative? Cousin? It’s your brother, isn’t it?” You hummed, agreeing with his deduction of ‘brother’. “Owner or worker, that’s the real question. I’m thinking, from how familiar you were with the cashier that he’s most likely a worker, since you’d have spent time with them either while he’s working or waiting for him to finish up so you could leave. That or you’ve been invited to gatherings with him, a event usual with workers, not owners and workers.”

“I’m gonna stop you there, Holmes. Your talking is making my head hurt.” You interrupted him, rubbing your temple with your forefinger and taking a sip of your drink. Sherlock stopped talking.

“One last thing though.” He tested, pausing to make sure you were okay with him speaking further. “How’s your little ‘Mind List’ going?” You groaned and held you head fully in your hands.

“Really? You’re going there? - How come you and Watson can harass me about my Mind List while we can’t speak a single word about your Mind Palace?” You practically seethed, pointing a finger at his smirking face over the table.

“We get a reaction out of you. It’s your emotions coming out. I don’t have emotions, so I don’t react to quips at my quirks.” He said smugly, taking a few sips of his tea.

“You are the reason why I have Eurus at the top of my list.”

“Why? What even is so great about my sister? Why aren’t I at the top of your list?”

“Eurus doesn’t harass me. Ever. She’s actually really nice.” You started, a smug grin creeping onto your lips. “Rosie would be able to bump you down to third place when she gets old enough.”

“I’d rather die then hear you say that again.”

“Why? What do you have against Rosie? She’s a kid!”

“A ‘kid’ of Johns. Being Mary's is absolutely fine, but John’s just tainted her gene-pool too much. Sadly Rosie would never be smart enough to ‘bump me down to third place’.” Sherlock concluded. You hit him with a nearby book.

“You are the biggest conceited douchebag I’ve ever met.”

“Nice to see you’re exercising your vocabulary so well at almost 7 in the morning.”