#but like for now i might be playing just big band and annie

[realboutfatalfury]

btw installed skullgirls again forgot that game is sick

[tinytalkingtina]

Wiggly 🧠🪱 Wednesday

@devondespresso Tagged me in this forever ago and I finally had one wiggle its way into my brain!

This week been fiddling with the idea of a true role reversal Steddie, with Eddie as the popular jock and Steve as the metalhead (as opposed to a punk). This got a little away from me, haha. No idea for a story or how other characters might fit in, but if anyone wants to take the concept and run with it feel free!

Eddie

Eddie is still poor, and still lives with his uncle (let's pretend he had to repeat a grade due to the chaos of moving in with Wayne). But he's Hawkin's star track runner/lightweight wrestler, channeling his energy into sports and competition. His grades are probably still not great, but since he's winning awards at meets, teachers let a lot more slide, and he skates by most of his classes with low C's. If he's loud and excited, then well, that's just what jocks do, right?

Wayne works nights, so Eddie is usually left to his own devices. Sure, the trailer can't hold that many people (and maybe Eddie has a bit of a chip on his shoulder that he lives in the trailer park), but this is the Midwest, and Eddie is creative. He hosts big bonfire ragers out in the woods, deep enough that the cops can't easily break them up.

Eddie's "Munson Doctrine" is from the perspective of being a jock. Mixed with his insecurities, it becomes about staying on top, no matter what. That means dating around, taking girls out most Fridays. He likes girls and has plenty of fun. And if he occasionally slips in a fantasy or two about drug dealer Steve Harrington pinning him against a wall with that knife of his, no one needs to know.

Steve

Then we have Steve. Steve's had piano lessons since he was 5. A framed picture of him in his bow tie and tiny suit at his first recital sits on his mom's desk. He's good at sports and does Little League as a kid, but they don't hold his interest, not the way music does. When he hits middle school, him and his dad have a huge fight over him refusing to try out for any sports. The cracks were already there, because his parents are louder than they think when they argue. To drown them out, he turns on the radio, spinning the dials. By chance, he finds a Black Sabbath song. Something in it speaks to him, gives an outlet to the frustration and anger he's feeling.

Steve picks up drums to play in band at school, but he also borrows books from the library and teaches himself guitar after begging his mom for one for his 13th birthday. He makes a few friends, they start a band. As he enters high school his parents fight more. His grades, never great to begin with, slip further, so no more allowance for Steve. The first time he tries to steals a tape, he's caught almost immediately. But he gets better at it over time. Can't steal tattoos though, and Steve's not a great artist. So maybe he starts dealing. His parents work late most nights, so they don't need to know about his...extracurricular hobbies.

Even if he's not at the top of the high school food chain, Steve's still good at reading people and social situations. I don't think he would have the desire to DM AD&D, but I think Steve makes a good player, always solid at strategizing. In the hallways, he sees and overhears things, enough that he's able to keep the heat off him and his friends with some clever insinuation, and the threat to cut off anyone who tries something.

He sees the way that loudmouth jock Eddie Munson's eyes flick down to his lips when he buys weed off him at parties too, the guy isn't nearly as subtle as he thinks he is. Steve would love to take him down a couple pegs, if Eddie'd let him.

Thanks to @little-annie for some ideas on fleshing metalhead!Steve out more :D

Edit: check out the role reversal steddie tag for snippets of what Annie and I are writing now :)

No pressure tags to some folks (and if anyone wants to be tagged in the future let me know!): @augustjustice @hbyrde36 @puppy-steve @soaringornithopter

@hairstevington @eyesofshinigami

[martyslittleusedblog]

So, because people seemed to really like my Pizza Tower-themed Skullgirls palettes, I thought I’d share some other Skullgirls palettes I made.

(Check under the cut!)

First, Annie with a palette based on Ashley from WarioWare, Inc, with Sagan based on Ashley’s familiar(?), Red.

Then, we have Beowulf not as any specific character, but I thought it would be interesting to see what he’d look like as an orc!

I hope you like Deltarune, because I have a few Deltarune-themed skins, too! Here’s Big Band as Jevil!

Next, uh...I have to confess something: I think I might simp for Cerebella. I have, like, five palettes for her.

I’ll just show you one that makes the most sense, considering this palette is inspired by another character voiced by Cristina Vee: Shantae

I’ll show you the other four Cerebella palettes if you want to see them; just ask in, like, the comments or a reblog.

For now, here’s Double as Venom.

And this palette for Eliza is another one not based on a specific character; I mostly just wanted to play around with the patterns in the palette-maker.

I made a couple palettes for Parasoul. This first one is based on ENA, Joel G.’s character whom you may have seen on your internet travels.

The other palette I made for Parasoul is one based on Pipimi from Pop Team Epic.

As for who I picked for Popuko, that would be Peacock.

Here’s another Deltarune palette, too: Peacock as Spamton!

That’s all for now! I’ll post more later.

[randomvarious]

Today’s compilation:

Now That's What I Call Music! 2 1999 Alternative Rock / Adult Contemporary / Pop-Rock / Teen Pop / Pop / R&B / Hip Hop

Back with another dispatch from the early run of the US' Now That's What I Call Music!, with the second installment from this gargantuan, neverending series. Take yourself all the way back to 1999 with this great ad for it!

Now, I definitely have not kept up with Now for a long while, but as a series that's known for repackaging huge chart hits on CD, I think this might have been its most unique volume of all, because a lot of these songs did not end up charting all that high in the US—at least not on Billboard's Hot 100—and a number of them actually fared far, far better in the UK, which is where Now originated from, with its first ever release dating back to 1983.

A prime example here is Robbie Williams' great pop hit, "Millennium." Williams is regarded as an absolute pop superstar in the UK, but he's only charted twice as a solo act on the Hot 100 in the US, and both of those singles have failed to reach the top 50. This one, which pairs recreated dreamy strings from James Bond's You Only Live Twice theme with a hip hop-type backbeat, only made it to #78, but it was a #1 hit across the pond! And I think outside of all that well-made, Swedish-produced teen pop/boy band fare, this one very well might've been the best pure pop song of the entire late 90s. The use of those epic Bond strings smacks of The Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony" too, which certainly suggests that there's something about Brits and those damn strings.

And another #1 UK smash that didn't do nearly as well in the States was Fatboy Slim's irresistible big beat summer classic, "Praise You," which sampled from a lot of different places, including a Disney disco record, a JBL test album to get those iconic keys, Steve Miller Band, the Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids theme, and a song by Chicagoan Camille Yarbrough called "Take Yo' Praise," from which Fatboy Slim took the lyrics. There was a whole undercurrent of this big beat stuff that was coursing through a lot of our commercials and movie and video game soundtracks back then, led by acts like Fatboy Slim himself, the Chemical Brothers, and The Prodigy. But it never went super mainstream like it did in the UK. Fatboy Slim's singles only charted twice in the US on the Hot 100, and "Praise You" was the best-performing one, making it to #36.

By the way, I have a really killer turn-of-the-millennium-type summer playlist on Spotify that has a bunch of songs like "Praise You" on it. It's called "An Endless Capri Sun or Juicyfruit or Starburst Commercial From Like the Summer of 2002," which will hopefully give you an idea of the type of vibe that I was trying to channel with it. God, I love that sun-shining big beat stuff!

And color me surprised to hear Jay-Z on here, because until 2001, Now pretty much seemed to purposely go out of its way to avoid hip hop altogether. I guess it makes sense though, since the music usually has explicit themes, and these albums are typically targeted at kids. But they really just couldn't help themselves when it came to Jay-Z's first real, true breakout hit in "Hard Knock Life" here. Mark the 45 King's novel sampling of the song of the same name from Annie made this one feel very kid-friendly and fun to sing along to, despite the numerous lyrics that had to be censored from it to get it on radio in the first place. Funny, though, that in a very American 90s way, and in a pre-onset-of-mass-shootings era, that they'd let a line like, "when my situation ain't improvin', I'm tryina’ murder everything movin'" slide through without any kind of edit. I mean, if they're playing this song on radio now, I'm thinking that that line gets hit with some kind of sound effect. But it didn't in '98 and '99, and that feels pretty remarkable in hindsight, especially since hip hop verses were constantly censored on radio, MTV, and BET, so much so that some songs felt like the track was getting jammed up at certain points 😅.

So, honestly, this might be the most unique release that Now ever put out in its main US series, as it seems to be the volume that's the least concerned with overall chart success among its selections. It still comes with some staples you'd expect, from Britney's "...Baby One More Time" to Everclear's "Father of Mine," effectively running a small radio gamut from the poppiest of pop to the most banal of alternarock, but acts like Robbie Williams, Fatboy Slim, Garbage, and even Cake are on here, and as an entity that's chiefly known for presenting the *biggest* pop hits of the day, those are probably some names that you wouldn't typically expect to be on a US release from this series.

And it closes with that odd Baz Luhrmann spoken-word advice column about wearing sunscreen that you might have totally forgotten about too. That one's probably the most ephemeral song of all on here; the ultimate entry in any sort of 'only 90s kids will remember these songs' type of list.

Hopefully you get a sweet memory-jogged nostalgia rush from some of these other songs I didn’t make mention of.

Highlights:

Britney Spears - "...Baby One More Time" New Radicals - "You Get What You Give" Robbie Williams - "Millennium" Semisonic - "Closing Time" U2 - "The Sweetest Thing (Single Mix)" Fatboy Slim - "Praise You (Radio Edit)" Garbage - "I Think I'm Paranoid" Cake - "Never There" 98° - "Because of You" Mýa & Blackstreet feat. Ma$e & Blinky Blink - "Take Me There" Everclear - "Father of Mine" Sublime - "What I Got (Clean Version)" Backstreet Boys - "I'll Never Break Your Heart" Jay-Z - "Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem) (Edit)" Baz Luhrmann - "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) (Edit)"

[ares-would-be-proud]

Anon said Is it alright to request some head cannons-nsfw preferably for Reiner being in love with his precious step-sister? Like he has to take care of her so no one hurts her, and who better to take care of her then himself?

Reiner thinking he's the only man good enough for you, his precious step-sister.

{ Reiner x fem!reader | tw:stepcest, tw:possessiveness, tw:overprotective, tw:overstimulation | smut, forbidden love | modern }

{ "Mars and Venus, Allegory of Peace" 1770 by Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée 1724 - 1805 } (ha! Get it? Bc they're also siblings)

Sees it as his own job to protect and dot on you, not letting you go somewhere alone without him by your side, keeping an arm around you at all times.

Dotting in the way he never forgets your favourite snacks each time he goes to the store, takes over cooking duty when your dad and his mom go out, makes sure you're sleeping and eating well.

Being skeptical of your friends, and making his own friends get on edge if their eyes happen to stare at you for a bit too long for his liking.

Bertolt never meets your eyes because of that, even Annie just glues her eyes to her phone whenever you walk in the room.

Will literally intimidate people from even thinking of approaching you by his presence alone, you could safely walk anywhere anytime with him by your side.

And yet, with you he melts at every flutter of your eyelashes and twirl. Becoming putty in your hands with every soft touch and small peak you give his cheek.

His brain almost stops each time you smile.

And while to everyone else it seems like he's just an overprotective big brother, behind closed doors it's another story.

His hand trailing up your thighs under the dinner table while his mom tells you about her day.

His lips kissing down your neck whenever you wear that low-cut top, hands going under the fabric and tugging down your bra till your breasts spill over them.

Turning a deaf ear to your protest's about being late to your friend's house, his attention solely on sucking marks down your chest before taking a nipple between his lips and sucking while flickering the other.

By the end of it, you had to change into a long neck shirt from the amount of hickies and marks he took his sweet time leaving behind.

Is the type to take you with him places, his own personal cheerleader.

Loves making you call him big brother, even if you weren't younger he'd still demand it.

I say "demand" but in reality he's just pouting with puppy eyes.

Since your dad married his mom, he was smitten the day he saw you at the wedding.

Oh and he will literally buy you anything if you play your cards right, even if he goes broke.

Really easy to manipulate if you're willing to play the role of the cheering sweet little sister, his heart easily swaying with the sway of your short skirt, throat going dry at your honey filled voice calling him the best big brother.

Really really wants to take care of you.

Like really, will find excuses to let him take care of you and do stuff for you.

Although nothing comes without a price…

Let's just say what's normal sex for him is overstimulation for the normal person, he has insane stamina

And his cooing for you that you can give him another orgasm, just one more.

You both could be sitting on the couch, watching a movie you've been wanting to watch for a while, and he will pop a boner because the way you giggled at a scene was really adorable-

Even while knowing that his mom was just a room away—fixing both of you some dinner in the kitchen—it didn't stop your step brother from trailing his big hands up your legs, squeezing the plump of your thighs before pulling at the hem of your shorts, an intense stare in his eyes.

"Come here" he says while patting his thighs, "really missed you baby, wanna feel you against me." 

Coaxing you into giving in, not wait for a reply before letting his hands do all the work to sit you on his lap. Burying his face in your neck as his hot breath tickles your skin, almost whining about how tiring today was while his hands rub circles on your back.

You don't miss the curving of his lips when he asks if you could kiss it better for him, make your big brother feel better.

His hands start trailing up and down your back instead, feeling the softness of your shirt, the curve of your ass, circling around your waist before going up again, adding just enough pressure to loosen any tense muscle you might have.

You try not to give in despite his coaxing, mouth in a frown as you stare at the remote still clutched in your hand, the sound of the movie you were watching still playing in the background almost mocking you.

"Reiner can't this wa-" you try to brush him off but the rocking of his knee between your legs shuts you up, making your grind back against them to get more friction as you press your thighs together.

Eyes glossy as your brain gets clouded by the pleasure, your older brother bouncing you on his leg till your toes curl and mewls escape your lips. 

You hear him shushing you, murmuring how your step mom might hear you, only to grind against your dampening shorts faster.

The knot in your stomach gets tighter and tighter as you get closer to the edge, biting down on his shoulder to muffle your moans, your own hips pushing back against him.

His arms get a firm hold of your hips, stilling them as he stops his own leg too, mere seconds before you get that final push.

"Want your brother to make you feel really good? Want me to take care of you huh?"

You quickly nod without thinking, aching for any sort of relief. He rewards you with a kiss, slow and gentle as if you're some delicate soft thing he needs to pamper.

-

And to him, you are. That's why he took you to his room despite the growing urge to push you against the nearest surface and ram inside you,

No, your big brother would never. He sees it as his duty to protect you from everything and so it follows that he wouldn't settle for less than a soft bed and a pillow under your back.

That's why he tucks you against him the second you get on the bed, his back to the headboard with you sitting between his legs, back against his chest.

His hand slipping past the elastic band of your panties, fingers painfully slowly moving up and down your slit before parting your lips. 

Your back arching when they start toying with your puffy clit, rubbing circles around it and flickering it till your soaked panties start clinging to your wet pussy.

Brain turning into mush when his fingers shove into your sopping hole, the faster he goes the louder your whimpers get as his thick fingers thrust in and out.

His other hand put enough pressure against your stomach to keep you in place when your thighs began to quiver, the more you squirm in place when his thumb presses down your now swollen clit the more your back rubs against his hardening cock.

"Fuck- just like that." Groans slip past his lips with each roll of his hips against your ass, precum starting to seep through the fabric of his pants.

He's as desperate as you are.

It's not long before he has you creaming on his fingers, watching you unfold and shake before gushing against his hand. He slowly pulls his fingers out as sticky lines cling to them, looking at you panting with your legs still shaking, before shoving them back in and fucking your own mess back inside you.

You let out a strangled scream at the punishing pace, head lolling to the side from the overstimulation and mind going completely blank.

All sorts of compliments and soft words leave his lips, praising you as he forces a second orgasm out of you, having you turn into putty in his hand.

Too much- it's too much, you're too sensitive and barely able to form coherent sentences, a shaking quivering babbling mess, too high in pleasure to notice the tear stains down your cheeks. Attempting to finally catch your breath now that your brother is satisfied.

If only.

"You're ready for me sweetheart?" He says, voice laced with anticipation as he pats your messy cunt, making your knees buck. "Ready for your big brother's cock filling up this pretty pussy?"

One second he's tugging your soaked paintes to the side, cold sending shivers up your spine, the next he's tapping the head of his cock against your hole, pushing up your slippery folds till the tip rubs against your sensitive clit, making more tears collect clouding your vision.

Cock throbbing at just the idea of your gummy walls squeezing him inside, making his thrusts stutter and grip almost bruising against your skin. Filling his room with the sound of skin on skin slapping as his hips slam against your wet thighs

The image of your knees folded against your chest till the base of his cock disappears inside, reaching impossibly deep till he's kissing the entrance of your womb before slamming against the rough patch of skin that makes you drool.

It's driving him crazy with lust.

And despitet how much he wants nothing more than to fuck his cum inside you, fill you up and plug you with his cock, really make sure that you're tied to him for life and no other man will even think of looking your way with, he will still pull out.

Sprouts of cum rushing out his swollen cock as he pulls out with a wet pop, whie ropes painting your stomach and chest instead, going down your thighs and the curve of your ass before staining the sheets. 

Just have your brain swimming in milk and honey as you take in the afterglow, he'll run soothing circles up your thighs while you doze off to the rise and fall of his chest.

The scenes play out in perfect order in his mind. Yeah, just the thought alone is enough to make him want to go for three rounds at least till he's cumming dry. 

"Alright, spread your legs more for me, yeah just like that."

[reallyhardydraws]

Are there any other important characters in stage crypt crew’s universe? Love interests, rival band, family, side characters, etc.?

there definitely should be!

right now it's all sort of nebulous in my mind - there are definitely other bands playing around their same scene, but not a lot, because i'm picturing where they live as relatively small. i got an anon recently suggesting their rival band might consider them Actual Nemeses when they’re like ‘hey there’s that other band, we consider them at the very least on the level of work friends’

love interests: well, the crypt crew have each other :') ronnie and hector fell in love within a week and they've been together ever since. nico has a thing for annie, and she's still making up her mind. it's a real slow-burn.

family is the thing i've considered the most, though still nothing's nailed down too firmly. nico has a younger sister (her name is lina, she's still a tweenager) and they both live with their aunt, joy.

annie has a huge family that live out past the beach, one of those big multi-generational families with heaps of cousins. she's not that close with any of them, but goes to visit on the major holidays. none of them are that enamoured with life on land the way she is, but every so often her siblings might surface to hang out with her and her friends on beach days. i’d draw them, but there’s too many. imagine like, ponyo and her sisters, honestly.

hector and ronnie just have each other. ronnie remembers nothing of her human life and doesn’t care to, and hector is a guy made of dead body parts jolted back into kind-of-life, and his creator was none too pleased with the result. as such, they don’t talk.

as for side characters... maybe their various day job co-workers and stuff? ronnie's boss at the vintage store. annie's manager at the record shop. i’ll have to think them up when i get another free minute!

[remakethestars]

CABIN 7 — APOLLO

Headcanons.

❝There ought to be more drama, I think. A musical crescendo. Confetti.❞

— Jess Cooper, I Am Still Alive

Headcanon masterlist.

Oh, boy — this is my cabin, y'all; buckle up! 😁

Not all Apollo kids are good at everything their dad's good at, okay? I sure as heck can’t paint or play an instrument. 

TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of violence?

They run an underground tattoo parlor.

That's where Will & Butch got their respective sun & rainbow tats.

Apollo kids with lyrics tattooed into their skin.

Rick says there isn't much by way of décor inside, which is f*in' B.S. Apollo's the god of art; those walls have been graffitied Tangled style.

🎶 i'll paint the walls some more — i'm sure there's room somewhere! 🎶

The east wall is covered in a landscape of a sunrise, & the west has a sunset (because the sun rises in the east & sets in the — yeah, I'll see myself out).

The north & south walls & the ceiling are white, though, because it really brightens/opens up the space (C7 has the 2ⁿᵈ most campers under C11 because Apollo's a slut; things can get a little crowded in the summer).

When there’re celebrations, the artistically inclined kids bust out the face paint. Especially for the younger campers.

The artistically inclined are the ones that paint the camp beads for the end of the summer. Despite the numbers, it doesn’t take them as long as one might think.

Rick said the ceiling had cedar beams, but we're not gonna do Cyparissius dirty like that. Cypress wood is good for building; the beams are cypress. You know what? F*ck you — the whole dang cabin's cypress!

There’s a massive, potted aloe vera plant by the steps that gets moved into the C4 greenhouse in the winter. It’s one of those old ones — because everyone knows the old aloe plants work better for burns & blisters than these sh¡tty new ones. (It’s constantly getting broken off to heal burns & stuff.) 

Rick said there are potted red & purple hyacinths in the window & yellow flowers from Delos. That's true.

I'd say the flowerbeds around the cabin are full of healing plants, but I feel like they'd be better off around the infirmary for obvious reasons.

I do feel like there's a laurel tree planted outside C7, though, because Apollo's a pining b¡tch.

And there's an actual infirmary building, okay? Rick's kinda inconsistent about that. Sometimes he says "infirmary," sometimes he says the Big House is running over with injured, & apparently there's a cot dead center for injured in C7? B.S.

Or maybe I've just read too much fanfic, and the authors don't get it right?

Either way, there's an infirmary building with surgery & delivery rooms. One floor. Locker room for C7 kids to store their scrubs & sh¡t.

They go for yellow scrubs, though, because orange C.H.B. scrubs make them look like escaped convicts.

Fun Band-Aids™

They give out little orange stickers with laurels around the edges that are like I voted! stickers, but they're injury-specific.

I got my leg(s) reattached! & Percy Jackson shot me in the butt! & I ticked off Clarisse! & I made out with an Aphrodite kid in the poison ivy! & I fell off the lava wall! & I got pranked by the Stolls!

After a war or just when there’re a lot of campers in the infirmary, there seems to be a constant flow of Apollo kids singing one hymn to their father in unison to heal someone.

Sometimes, an unconscious camper wakes in a cot & thinks they’ve died & gone to the wrong afterlife for a moment because their singing sounds like angels. 

The medically inclined wash their hands like surgeons. 

Kind of germophobic?

They also go around tying surgeons knots in everything.

In the summer, they’re walking Banana Boat sunscreen & after-sun aloe lotion dispensers.

The medically inclined also have the world’s sh¡ttiest handwriting.

They have to work hard to fix it if it bothers them. 

Can check your vitals & run a blood test just by touching you.

A lot of them casually touch their loved ones (at least, the ones that aren’t in C7) every morning to check their vitals & see how their health’s doing.

They do it subconsciously every time they touch someone & don’t notice it until they pick up something’s wrong.

They can do this for themselves as well. Though it may not be as accurate? And they take daily vitamins depending on what they need.

Organize their lives via pill box (never lose an earring).

Fight surgically. Every blade in their hands becomes a scalpel, & every time they’re going in for a kill against an armed anthropomorphic monster, they slice the tendons in its arm required to grip its weapon to disable it before going in for the kill.

Back to C7, it’s got a little porch with a porch swing. The kids sit on it sometimes & teach people how to play instruments.

They leave the porch light on at night when they’re waiting for one of their siblings to come home from a quest.

Jumping into the depressing sh¡t, they never found Michael’s body, so they only presumed him dead. They leave the porch light on every night now, hoping he’ll come home.

Apollo kids are afraid of the dark. They use the buddy system after the sun goes down. 

The cabin’s central light fixture is a papier-mâché sun that’s been charmed to glow when someone sings 🎶 clap on 🎶 & stop glowing when someone sings 🎶 clap off. 🎶

The curtains are a gold fabric. They’re only closed at night. Because, again, C7 kids are afraid of the dark.

The Wikipedia says Apollo kids are cursed to be afraid of snakes (I assume by the Python Apollo killed). I feel like they’d burn a lot of aster leaves then. I read somewhere it was said by the Greeks to ward off evil spirits & snakes.

They play Go Fish with their tarot cards. They’re really good at tarot games.

Hand-drawn tarot decks featuring figures form Greek myth.

There’s a target on the back wall they practice throwing cards at. They can throw them in combat for a distraction with terrifying accuracy. 

There’s a Magic 8 ball that’s passed around on the Winter Solstice (the longest night of the year), when — as a headcanon I’m sure I’ve read somewhere has indicated — they’re up all night.

Crystal balls are allowed. However, they must be covered with a cloth or placed in a box when not in use because they’re double-convex lenses, & we don’t want another incident like the fire of 1993.

Sometimes, they make little predictions throughout the day other campers may find disturbing. Such as whipping around and catching a stray arrow without warning (spidey sense?). Or cutting you off when you’re talking about someone moments before they walk into the room.

There’s a tea cart in the corner. Because tea is good for healing & they’ve accumulated an addiction.

The cart has a radio on it that’s always on at night because a lot of C7 kids can’t sleep without noise. (Inspired by @sugarandspiceandkindanice.)

Most of the time, it’s on a nearby country station that actually plays good country at night. But sometimes they switch channels — especially when there’s a new kid settling in & they could use the comfort.

There’s a portable record player there too. The shelves under the cart are full of C.D.s & records.

I’m sure I’ve read a headcanon somewhere that they sing every morning while getting ready for the day. That’s true.

The number of times it’s been “When Will My Life Begin” from Tangled is disturbing, though. 

🎶 seven a.m., the usual morning lineup! 🎶

Luke said in The Lightning Thief C11 is up at 07:00 & breakfast is at 08:00, I think, but we all know Apollo’s waking his kids up when the sun rises. 

A lot of the time, someone will just start out with whatever song they have stuck in their head & everyone else will pick it up.

Sometimes, this leads to members having the aforementioned song stuck in their head for the rest of the day.

Even the people who aren’t musically inclined will sing along, as they’re usually drowned out by the music kids that get really into it.

So sometimes those not-music kids will find themselves singing by themselves during the day years later & are surprised to find — they actually sound good?? Or at least not bad??? And it’s because singing is a learned skill & they picked it up.

I’m sure I’ve also read a headcanon somewhere that they sing “Look Down” from Les Mis when they have to do menial chores, but I'm adding “It’s a Hard-Knock Life” from Annie, “Whistle While You Work” from Snow White, “Happy Working Song” from Enchanted, & the Smurf song.

They break into song all the time.

Lee was glaring at Tantalus once & made the mistake of saying, “Sometimes, I wish —” and the entire cabin broke out with “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

🎶 — i'd never been born at all! carry on, carry on… 🎶

As mentioned in at least The Lightning Thief & The Lost Hero, they spend a lot of time playing basketball. You can bet your butt they do a rendition of “Getcha Head in the Game” from High School Musical every time there’s a new camper passing by.

They have a sister named Jubilee, and every time someone greets her — "Hey, Jube!" — the entire cabin breaks into “Hey, Jude” by The Beetles.

🎶 hey, Jube! don't make it bad. take a sad song & make it better… 🎶

Sometimes, if there are two campers that really need to get together, C10′ll commission C7 to sing “Kiss the Girl” from The Little Mermaid (or the same song with different pronouns, obviously). 

It’s usually a capella unless someone happens to have an instrument on them.

Rickrolling. 

The “Macarena.” 

Apollo takes clandestine recordings of their jam sessions & distributes them professionally. Whatever money’s made goes directly into their college funds or they periodically find it under their pillow tooth-fairy-style.

There’s a lot of denim because the artistic members like to paint on the backs of jackets & the pockets of jeans.

A lot of them have excellent aim with most projectiles, so they toss stuff to each other a lot. This results in them being oddly in sync, so they can catch something from another sibling without warning & without looking like Sam & Dean Winchester do in Supernatural. 

Their life looks like a Dude Perfect trick shot video. 

It also results in some funny looks when they hurl things halfway across camp to each other. Namely, the whistling Nerf football. 

C7 is two stories. The second story has paint on every wall. 

The east wall upstairs has arrows mounted that got Robin Hooded along with a little tag with the name of the C7 kid & the date it happened.

They also have arrows mounted from the first bullseye if there’s a member being taught. 

Lots of musical instruments & art supplies up there.

There’s an old T.V. up there. They have all of Bob Ross’s show on V.H.S.

C7′s south wall (ground floor) holds the door to the bathroom on one side & a door leading to the stairs. 

It also hosts framed photos of Charlotte, Lee, & Michael.

Instead of saying “shoot,” they say “loose.” For everything. Instead of saying “Shoot!” when they drop something, they say “Loose!” 

It's kinda one of those things — like your friend starts saying something & you just integrate it into your vocabulary subconsciously.

They like to play a game where you shoot an arrow straight up & try to catch it as it comes back down.

That sounds really stupid on their part, but it actually comes in handy when someone tries to shoot them in combat & they catch the arrow, dumbfounding whoever's attempted to skewer them.

The cresting on their arrows is in Morse code of their nickname (·—— ·· ·—·· ·—··). They can take one look at an arrow & tell what’s whose.

And the paint color of the cresting tells them what kind of arrow it is — bullet tip, broadhead, explosive, etc. 

Every bunk in C7 is made with hospital corners. No exceptions. The kids who aren’t medically inclined learn because all the beds being made the same way makes it look cleaner for inspection.

I can’t decide if Apollo kids have really good eyesight so they fit the Hawkeye bill or if they’ve all just read — Apollo’s the god of knowledge — & painted so much they’ve messed up their eyes.

The number of times one of them has used bowstring wax on an art project in a rush instead of glue is hilariously large.

I use String Snot, and it comes in a container that looks like a glue stick.

A lot of them wear bracers all the time.

When the time it takes to sling one’s quiver onto one’s back, grab one’s bow, knock an arrow, & draw is so long, one really doesn’t have time to also strap on their bracers before rushing out of the cabin to threaten a giant bronze dragon.

Not to mention if they use a recurve, they’ll also have to string their bow.

And a number of them do use recurves due to the abilities to both knock multiple arrows at once & to restring in the field.

Bows with risers coated in golden, reflective paint & limbs painted with artistic strokes.

Trick arrows are their jam. C9 is constantly being asked for new arrows.

Explosive arrows, sonic arrows, grappling hook arrows…

That’s another saying they’ve all taken to: “___ is my jam!”

There’s a bookshelf or reference material on Apollo for new C7 kids (as Rick’s indicated), but the rest of the case is full of medical journals & textbooks & books on art & poetry & divining the future.

A lot — if not all — of them have either gold flecks in their eyes or central heterochromia.

Freckles across their noses & shoulders & on the tips of their ears. Tans. Sun-bleached hair. 

Long, nimble fingers perfect for playing musical instruments.

Either they hate the winter because the sun's out for less time (so you’ll find them walking around with blanched skin & faded freckles & with both a hoody & a parka on), or they’re perfectly fine with winter & are used by everyone around them as walking space heaters. 

They spend a lot of time with Castor & Pollux. 

Rachel sits at T7. She’s practically an Apollo kid at this point. 

While her cave was being renovated, she stayed in C7.

Their dad’s the god of truth; none of these M.F.s can lie worth a sh¡t. 

But, by the gods, they can tell when you’re lying.

And they take it as a personal insult. That you (A) would dare do something as immoral as lying in the first place & that you (B) would dare to insult their intelligence in such a way because you thought they couldn’t tell.

C6 & C7 are both known for reacting outrageously when their intelligence is insulted (see: chapter 10 of The Battle of the Labyrinth). 

The more civil of the reactions of a C7 kid being lied to is cursing the liar to tell the truth, which I believe they can. 

They can curse you to speak in rhyming couplets; they should be able to curse you to tell the truth.

You mean to tell me none of these kids have created a functioning Lasso of Truth yet?

This one's really long. 😅

A lot of people fancast Sam Claflin as Apollo, but I'm going with Ross Lynch. 'Cause I do what I want. 😎

Visit my Apollo cabin Pinterest board or my headcanon masterlist.

DISCLAIMER ━━━ These headcanons are what I consider to be canon in my fanfictions. They may be others’s headcanons I’ve subconsciously filed away in my noggin. If one’s yours and you want it removed or credited, please send me your post and let me know.

[mondayrobot]

120-Day Fanfiction List (M)

A collection of my recommended Eren/Mikasa fanfictions for the first one-hundred and twenty days of the year.

Warning: The contents contain adult themes.

Rating: Mature

A Prompt for a Romp by Timid Mew

A bunch of short stories compressed together in one big pile. All of which are EreMika and AruAni.

Across Realities by BladeOfRain

Eren stands on Paradis Island as its saviour. Yet he could not help but question if the sacrifices he had made were worth it. They were free, but his demons still haunted him. He was ready to let go, but a second chance sparked hope inside him, hope that he had not felt for a long time. In this new reality, he strives to protect those he had lost and protect the future of Paradis.

After It's All Done by somecatastrophe

In another life, there was no one waiting on the other side of the sea. Thus Eren Jaeger and Mikasa Ackerman get to live the peaceful and domestic life they always wanted.

Came Out Swinging by fevversinherhair

Nine months ago, Eren Jaeger and Mikasa Ackerman fought for the first time. Eren pursues his MMA career, Mikasa goes off to college. When his first big amateur match brings them back together, old memories and new feelings muddle the issue.

Encounters by rainycliff213

Mikasa had not expected to find a creature like him, supposedly extinct for millennia, wandering in the same woods as her. The monsters had for centuries terrorized humanity, and it seemed she was the next victim.

Yet, after her escape, it seemed that neither the princess nor the monster could shake their encounter.

fide et amor by hellsiren @zoldyckvevo

drabbles. Eren, Mikasa, and a different kind of love.

Four Years by Kaekiro @kaekiro

A collection of drabbles that center around Eren and Mikasa's life after running away together.

Hearts afire by Sharinganblossoms

Collection of eremika snippets exploring the spectrum from canonverse to AU.

In another life by Sharinganblossoms

In a world without walls and burden and dreadful fate their paths collide once again.

Matrimony by waddlestreet

A marriage of convenience between Azumabito Princess, Mikasa Ackerman and General of Eldian army, Eren Jaeger.

My Mind Turns Your Life Into Folklore by ygrittewildthing @ackermanstyle

Historia Reiss could not have approached Mikasa Ackerman with the idea of joining a band at a better time. After a falling out with Armin Arlert and Eren Jaeger, Mikasa decides to take her up on her offer joining alongside Ymir Langnar (bassist), Sasha Blouse (drummer), and Annie Leonhart (guitarist). With their new keyboard player and lyricist, they set off on a journey that takes them away from their hometown. After winning the battle of the bands, they scored a record deal. As they set out to record their first album, their past begins to catch up to them.

my most beloved by misswongs

Within the false reality he's created, in a cabin that encompasses all of the selfish desires he'll never have, Eren makes sure Mikasa is happy. She’s here, and for a quiet, fleeting eternity, she’s his.

Mysterium by dialectus @dialectus

She sees him change, he sees her grow. After discovering a piece of the world to call their own, two troubled souls find solace in each other

Never again by iliankasmoulinka91 @ili-akkaman

On the verge of death, they both regret what could have been but was never. But there is always an afterlife.

Oath by StormyInk

She didn't want to leave Eren but her past had caught up with her and she refused to let those shadowy fingers reach him, refusing to keep putting him in danger, even if it meant tearing herself out of his life. "Are you coming?" Levi asked her & she looked away from the boy who'd saved her life all those years ago. It was time to keep the oath she'd made. "Yes. I am."

On a Beautiful Mountainside, I Love You by sentimentalblue @isayamasideblog

How easy it was to run. Runaways. That’s what they are.

Sight Beyond Sight by Timid Mew

Mikasa ponders over the loss of her sight, making her feel isolated and detached. Eren, however, quickly shows her that even though she's lost the use of her eyes, she still has him.

Somewhere Impossible and Lovely by rainycliff213

Could they escape it all, if they ran away? Would a life in peace be worth it?

Stress Relief by Pepin-Bones

Soldiers lead stressful lives, which means they need ways to unwind and cope with the stress of what they see and what they do - sometimes in unconventional ways. But Eren thinks it's ridiculous, or at least he did...

Teenagers by theothardus

In a world of no Titans, they would be normal, and normal teenagers might snuggle up, and Mikasa might be the one to make the first move.

The Journey by adieemus

Running away to the edge of the world with her lover, makes a soldier wonder how to get back living in her own body, after holding another in her arms for one night.

The Life I Wished For You by Timid Mew

Eren never expected to find a woman tucked away in the dark depths of a deep cave when finding shelter from the rain. He also never expected her to be a mythical creature only depicted in books.

the way home by bacondestiny @@inbothourhandsgloria

Eren crosses the ocean on the backs of his Colossals.

They can swim; he cannot. This body is too huge, too dense. He has arms but they’re useless. He has legs but they drag after him. He scuttles along the ground on his hundreds of protruding ribs. He feels them puncture the soil, the sand. Rocks scrape against the exposed bone, and when he stands on the blisteringly hot exposed muscle of his Titans, the water steaming up around, it would be enough to char if it weren’t for his healing. He’s kept on the brink of burning, unable to let the heat kill his nerves.

It hurts.

But it only lasts a few hours.

And while the steam still burns, while the pressure on the points of his ribs is odd and painful, now, it is time for others to hurt —

—“Mikasa,” Eren says, shaking her awake. “Mikasa, wake up.”

this love we share by MintToy @minttoy

She loves him and he loves her back. On the surface, it seems easy, but she knows in some dark crevice of her mind, that even though love is selfish – escaping to these mountains was selfish – it is also good.

Her source of strength. The root of his humanity.

Time will come when it will teach her to grow, too.

Through Thick and Thin by Moonstars (Flamingo27)

Eren is a university student with a bright future ahead in the field of medicine, very much like his father. At the same time, Mikasa is a student in the same university, specifically in the nursing school. Just like the green-eyed boy, she is very much considered a genius in her department. When the two met, they fell in love and it was widely known in the university for both of the students had a promising future in their respective fields.

However, a sudden revelation had shattered both of their future plans: Mikasa’s unexpected pregnancy.

Till Death Do Us Apart by misswongs

Through the confined expansions of the wood that it's made of, through the grass, the trees, the birds soaring in the skies, they feel each other. They exist for one another, holding on to whatever is left of their fragmented bodies and withered souls—for everyone will be bone and ashes soon but they're still here, still flesh and blood, still alive.

Still alive.

And for now, just for now, it's enough.

we'll never be those kids again (but we can try) by rilakkuma5 @uhhstar

She had hoped this would happen differently. In an ideal world, it would have. They’d have been blushing and fumbling. Awkward laughter. Unsure hands. Soft kisses. All of it. In an ideal world, this would have played out like her fantasies—tender and loving.

But the world is ending. For the umpteenth time. She’s lost count.

What Ifs by qeen124

"I love you, Eren."

She gasped as soon as the words came out of her mouth. There was a sense of relief, followed by a wave of panic. She kept her eyes fixed on the ground. Suddenly, she saw his shoes step closer to hers, and felt his fingers lift her chin up, allowing her dark eyes to settle into his.

He didn't speak a word but what he did next was more than enough as a response.

Your one and only Dark Knight by kuchenackerman @kuchenackerman

In the daytime I’m Eren. Just a normal boy with a normal boring life. But there’s something about me that no one knows yet. Emphasis on yet. ‘Cause I have a secret. No, but seriously, can I at least tell her? It's so unfair...

You can also check out: 2020 Eremika Fanfiction Masterlist

[pinkchanelbag]

— there’s no one else; chapter two. 

a jean kirstein x reader mafia au.

last | masterlist | next

series summary: a boy caught in a web with his survival depending on balancing niceties between his predators. a prim girl on thin ice that leads down the path of least resistance. no one too close and no one too far, no allegiance unquestioned, and no child whose value and future goes without evaluation like a playing card that determines their worth. to be destined for big things is more like being doomed to them, but that’s the way it goes. it’s just family matter.

chapter summary: the party begins.

wc: 1.9k.

cw: still nothing lol

note: putting this out short notice cause it’s JEANBOYS BIRTHDAYYY BABYYY anyway enjoy heeheee and my apologies for the slow plot thus far i swear it picks up trust me bro.

the venue is obnoxiously grand. the garden is more akin to a football field than anything else. there is no central lighting, but rather pure white string lights everywhere, everywhere. tucked behind and underneath tables and wrapped around trees and laying in the overhead greenery and in the bushes that act as walls. wherever you look, your eyes are strained, and you’re sure the dining hall can be seen from the moon. 

speaking of the dining hall, the organizers cleverly blocked off the front entrance to the building so that one is forced to walk the expanse of the entire garden—surely to ooh and aah at its elegant taste—in order to get inside through the back door entrance. in other words, having to greet every single member of the family before so much as putting your clutch down. 

you apply a friendly, attentive expression to your face each time pieck stops to greet someone new, having mastered the art of being engaged but not so engaged it’s troublesome, while in reality being completely disengaged in any way. as pieck converses with a bulky man drinking wine and you pick apart the key points (“we don’t got the ammo to make deals with top contractors—legal team in shambles—not good to have a weak spot”), really you are letting your eyes wander over the shrubbery which has been trimmed to perfection. yes, the lights are a pain and the band is too loud so early in the event, and there is not enough walking space between the bushes so people squeeze together to reach the large clearing of the garden. a perfectly obnoxious party, except you can’t help but appreciate the greenery. somehow, it is the only thing about this evening that doesn’t seem ridiculous. or maybe you’re just unusually irritated tonight. 

your eyebrows knit so slightly at this realization. why are you being so disagreeable? impatience and intolerance seem to grow in your chest for no particular reason. you make a note to identify the source of your mood, and quickly resolve it. there’s work to be done.

karina braun is a kind, opinionated sheep of a woman. she is liked by all, and not because she’s particularly easy to like, but rather because she’s hard to hate. stuck in her times and not having much intellectual value, she is possibly the most important woman in all the families. being the mother of reiner braun and the head of the braun-galliard family, gives her luxury without responsibility. you’ve only met her once before, and she possessed the kind of ignorance many privileged older women have. but still she’s kind, so you can’t justify how she makes you weary. 

her birthday, funnily enough, constitutes one of the very few gatherings that frowns upon trying to discuss family matter during the events, unlike a young girl’s birthday. it has to do with respect, you suppose. 

you spend your first half-hour at the party hovering around pieck as she makes small talk with associates, becoming increasingly nervous at your lack of breakthrough in communication with the family. you know the most important thing is your encounter with karina, and that will open up further talks with others, but you stall to approach her, imperceptibly steering pieck further away from the centre table where the older woman sits. not yet. 

“are you going to keep leading me through the same semi-circle, or are you just going to go talk to her?” pieck asks calmly. you curse her intelligence in your mind. 

“i’m just nervous,” you murmur, smiling politely at a group of men at a distance that eyes you like the business deal you are. 

“you should be, but that doesn’t change that you have to do it.” your eyes flick to look at the woman beside you for a moment. her expression is not encouraging or consoling, nor is it unsettling. it’s fitting. what you and pieck have is less than friendship but more than acquaintanceship. often you feel as thought she’s reading your emotions like an open book, which can be scary considering how many of them you really hide. but if and when she sees them, she doesn’t seem to care, whether they’re incriminating or worthy of sympathy. she sees you, and that is all. it’s not a comfort, nor a curse. 

“what are you waiting for?” she says, but it’s a genuine question rather than a push to complete the task at hand. you realize you’re waiting for porco. you want porco at your side. you want his strength and his jagged-edged ambition, and the forcefulness that makes you do the things your heart has no energy for.

“i just think it would be better if the boys were here,” you breathe. again, pieck sees your meaning, and your fright, and leaves it be. 

for the next eternity, you drink champagne and stretch back your memory to know if all parties are this boring once you become an adult, or if the braun family has a particular talent for making you crave the sight of paint drying. the closest thing to entertainment—and not the hired folk who attempt to call themselves singers—is gabi’s voice, which can be heard no matter where in the garden you stand. she tells stories, strikes up arguments, and gathers food and drink with her friends, all at top volume. for some reason, you don’t find amusement in this either, and really start to worry about this attitude problem you’ve got this night. to add on, porco’s meeting seems to stretch painfully long. it was a short-notice meeting, which either meant something very very good or very very bad—more so when he told you he was being picked up for it by reiner, colt, and annie. some of the most important family members gathering for an emergency meeting means trouble. your anxiety bubbles in your stomach, and you worry that your not approaching the woman of the hour is reaching a point where it might be seen as—rude. 

the guests are alerted that dinner is ready. it’s not long before each person has situated themselves along the tables that line the large garden. the seating plan is loosely maintained, but you have nowhere near the entitlement to mingle among other tables. you find yours and stay at it, and it’s only then that you get an idea of just how many people are at this event. each table is packed, holding roughly six people, and there are too many to count in the chaos, but they create a semi-rectangle in three respective rows. you make out countless bodies but few faces, just an endless sea of tuxedos and lovely dresses. at the front of the garden is the head table, where karina sits alone save gabi’s bouncing body going back and forth. your table is is only a few feet from hers, but you take a seat that puts your back to her front so you don’t make the unforgivable mistake of accidental eye contact. you’re to sit with porco, and his table—the galliard table—is the one closest in importance to the braun table. you are the only one at the table, further reminder of porco’s tardiness. the longer you fiddle with the white cloth on the surface, the more you worry about what exactly the meeting could mean. 

and then pieck comes and sits across from you without a word. as always, you know it’s only family matter—the concern that you look out of place—motivating her and not your obvious discomfort, but you’re grateful nonetheless. 

as the servers stream into the garden like white-clad troops armed with dome platters, a champagne glass’s unmistakeable ding ding ding catches the attention of the guests. a table near karina’s opposite side, not quite flanking her but near enough to display some importance. a man stands with his glass raised, looking unfitting for the position with the way his arm hesitantly dips and re-straightens. bertholdt, yet another notable name in braun-galliard (and it’s your job to know all the names), seems to be the only person around able to give the welcome speech. it’s easy to listen only selectively to the announcements and shoutouts, disregarding all the thank yous and remember whens and listening in for honored guests (who are honored because they’ve proven themselves useful). luckily for you, bertholdt’s clumsy speech has a clear distinction between the two categories, his eyes downturned to cards in which he lists off important guests and whatever thing they did to end up on he list before him. 

“a special welcome to general theo magath of the mexican military, who has been so generous to the family’s trade routes…” bertholdt’s words are careful, partly because of the nature of the things he is sharing, but also because all his actions have been careful since his fall from grace. formerly one of the most reliable heavy men in the family, bertholdt’s reputation was shot to hell when an important—very important—family member was killed on his watch. despite having happened years and years ago now, it took extensive efforts to just convince the higher-ups that he wasn’t in bed with the killer. it’s common knowledge that bertholdt’s incident was the first and last time someone “had it easy” from braun-galliard due to his close friendship with reiner himself. 

“an especially relieving guest to see here tonight—“ 

and—finally—the stragglers stalk into the clearing. like most others, you hear of their arrival from the ripple of murmurs long before you see them, seeing as their whereabouts are blocked off by tables and bushes. a few people stand up, but are quickly beckoned to sit down again and redirect their attention to the speaker, who clears his throat nervously. 

“carry on, bertholdt,” reiner’s affecting voice breaks through the space, and it’s enough to settle the audience, or at least have them pretend to pay attention while the late-comers shuffle through the outskirts of the tables to find their seats. bertholdt proceeds slowly. 

“…a person i’m sure we will all come to rely on during this chaotic time…”

you catch the first glimpse of porco as he turns the final corner of the rectangle, reiner walking before him and colt and annie just behind. reiner is the first to arrive to his table, the invitees seeming to hold their chests a little taller for the family’s true head—in every way except on paper—as he slides into his seat and presses a kiss to his mother’s cheek. 

“…a great legacy behind him and a bright career ahead, and we’re surely glad he’s kicked it off in our company…” bertholdt goes on. you and porco’s eyes meet, and immediately you know something is the matter; you’re just not sure if it’s fury or ecstasy in his gleam. 

colt and annie find their seats in the table just after yours, and finally porco is near enough to see—and ignore—the look of alarmed curiosity on your face. he arrives to the table, giving pieck a look of “we’ll talk later,” and briefly stopping behind your chair. his calloused hands are on your arms for a moment, running up and down comfortingly. 

“—a happy welcome to—“

“hey, doll.”

“—jean kirstein.” 

and your eyes flick away from porco’s and into the crowd of faceless bodies, and the anxieties that kept your brain buzzing with life halt and collapse to the floor of your mind like dead flies.

jean? 

[goldeaglefire1]

okay so SKULLGIRLS THEORYCRAFTING TIME

(put under a readmore because I have many thoughts and this is going to be long)

so. we have Umbrella now. this isn't a confirmation that they're going in the True Story Mode direction with Black Dahlia and Marie, because we all know Annie and Umbrella are fan favorites who people have been requesting to get in for a while, but it seems likely because, let's be real, that would definitely get people excited and sell very well. I mean, I don't know exactly how Black Dahlia would be received, but Marie as a finishing touch? With the announcement of an actual canonical story mode? HOO. that would get people pumped, even if they're not into Skullgirls, because how fun would playing as the boss sound?

but there's one thing that's been bothering me...if they truly are going True Story Mode here, where does that leave the DLC characters?

like, okay, Squigly fits right in because she was planned to be in the cast from the beginning. that's a no-brainer. Big Band is a bit trickier, but his relationship to the ASG Labs, and therefore Peacock, Valentine, and Painwheel, and general coolness factor let him slip in as well. but then you get to Eliza, Beowulf, and Annie, and things start going sideways.

yes, Eliza has well-established relationships with the other characters, and therefore could hypothetically serve as a minor threat like the Medici, but the thing is she's much higher on the threat scale than them by a long-shot. her route is literally just her girlbossing her way into the role of main villain. it'd take a lot of narrative gymnastics to justify her being a minor threat compared to the Skullgirl.

and Beowulf? Beowulf is just a guy, he's just - there. he has absolutely no relation to any of the original cast, doesn't know anyone personally; the only personal relationship he has with any of the playable characters is Annie, which is only retroactively true considering she was added after him.

Annie has probably the best shot of slipping into the story seamlessly out of the three, but it's considerably shakier than Squigly or Big Band considering that her main personal relationship right now is with Beowulf, who has the aforementioned issue of being Just a Guy. This might change with her story mode, but we'll see.

anyway. while I was thinking about this something hit me. this DLC is being labelled as the Season 1 Pass. Season ONE. I don't think anyone's really let the implications of this sink in because it's just too insane to even consider but this seems to imply that, should this pass do well enough, they could very well do another.

so here's where the theorycrafting comes in

let's say they are in fact going True Story Mode route. here's my theory. It's going to have the OG 8 - Filia, Cerebella, Peacock, Parasoul, Ms. Fortune, Painwheel, Valentine, and Double - as well as Squigly and the True Story 3...and that's it. The other characters are going to be there, sure, but they're not going to be playable.

because they have their own shit going on.

I'm thinking that, if they're truly going the True Story Mode of yore, it's going to have two halves - one with the OG cast, Squigly, and the True Story 3 where the main antagonist is the Skullgirl, and one with the remaining DLC characters and the Season 2 Pass where the main antagonist is Eliza, with the two halves happening around the same time and occasionally crossing paths.

I am aware this sounds insane. trust me, I have severe doubts in what I'm saying too. but also this makes sense? like if they are truly going with the True Story route and also intend to make another pass then one has to wonder where the hell those characters could possibly fit. this would also let Eliza exist without literally girlbossing her way into the main antagonist role because she'd already be in it, just not in the first half. and the other DLC fighters would fit better too because they get their own time in the spotlight. like this is all extreme speculation but at the same time it makes sense

as for who this second pass would be? again, this is purely speculation, but just going off the past and story roles...Minette (consistently voted high during the two character votes that got Eliza and Beowulf in; she's clearly as much of a fan favorite as Annie and Umbrella are), Brain Drain (need a minor threat like the Medici for the second half; also this would let them canonize Robo-Fortune (probably not Fukua though. RIP Fukua) and think about how hilarious that would be), Isaac (again, voted fairly high during the character votes, also he has a talksprite in the art compendium even though as far as I'm aware he hasn't made a canonical appearance? so they're doing something with him already), aaaaaaand Scythana (...this is more of a pipe dream than anything else but also so is this entire post probably).

anyway! end of the post. wow I went off huh. glad I added the read more

[before-we-get-started]

Dream Come True

Colin Shea x O/C Corinne MacAdam

Multi-Chapter Story - Complete

Summary: Colin Shea and his band Rock the Cradle are finally making it big - until something unexpected happens. When he meets a girl that makes him reconsider his player ways, he thinks his life may be coming together, until she blows it apart.

Warning: Bad language, smut, suicidal ideations - no one under 18, please

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please do not read if you are underage. I do not own the character of Colin Shea; the rest are my original characters. By reading beyond this point, you understand the disclaimers as posted.

Chapter Four

Cori’s dad set down the last box on the kitchen counter. She couldn’t believe she was finally moving into a new apartment.

“This is it kiddo,” he said, wrapping her up in a hug. She smiled into his shoulder and hugged him back.

“Thank you so much Daddy.” She watched her father’s face spread into a smile.

“Corinne, I can’t tell you how happy we are for you. You’re getting a fresh start. The world is your oyster, you know.”

She wrinkled up her nose. “I hate oysters,” she said with a giggle.

“Well, you never know, there might be a beautiful pearl inside.” He kissed her on the forehead.

Cori walked him to the door, the daunting task of unpacking ahead of her. She opened the door to see him off and stopped in her tracks. Directly across the hall at apartment 6A, a guy clad only in flowered boxers had a blonde in a tight embrace, kissing her passionately. She pulled away from the guy and said goodbye.

“Bye April,” the guy said with a wave.

“Annie.” There was irritation in her voice.

“Annie, right. Bye Annie.”

As the blonde huffed down the stairs, Cori got a good look at her new neighbor. Tall, fit, a bad case of bedhead but adorable. His upper body was chiseled muscle, his legs long and sexy. He suddenly realized she was standing in her door and gave her the once-over. He licked his lips as he admired her in her jeans, tight Red Sox t-shirt and bare feet. “Well, well, well,” he said, walking around the bannister towards her. “Helloooo 6C.”

Cori smirked at him, crossing her arms without realizing it, protecting herself. “Hello.”

He prowled toward her like a cat stalking a mouse. “And what is your name? And how did I get so lucky?”

Just as he approached, her dad stepped out the door.

“Her name is Corinne. And unless you want to press that luck, I suggest you make a U-turn and go back to your apartment.”

Colin’s eyes were wide, a startled look on his face, but he recovered quickly.

“Well hey Corinne, welcome. I’m Colin, Colin Shea, from across the hall in 6A. I’m the official welcome party for the building. Just wanted to say hi.”

“Do you always welcome new neighbors in your boxers?” said her dad.

Colin looked down, as if he’d forgotten he was barely dressed. “Ah, that, well, I wasn’t sure when I’d get a chance to say welcome, thought I better seize the moment.”

“The moment after you couldn’t remember the name of the girl you just slept with?” said Cori, not sure where she got the nerve.

Colin gave a smile, shaking his head. “Ok, I know when I’m beat. It really was nice meeting you Corinne. I promise I’m a good neighbor.”

“Be neighborly and keep your distance,” said her dad with a smirk.

“Dad,” Cori hissed. “Don’t mind him, he’s just an overprotective dad. And everyone calls me Cori.”

Colin visibly relaxed, walking backwards towards his door. “Cori it is. Talk to you later Cori.” He gave her a little salute and disappeared into his apartment.

“Oh brother,” said her dad, “now I have to worry about that guy.”

Cori laughed. “No you don’t Daddy, I’ll be fine. This is a nice building, don’t worry.”

He pulled her into a warm embrace. “Your mother will call and check on you later.” With that, he made his way down the stairs.

She stared over at 6A’s door. She was still trying to register the gorgeous Welcome Wagon across the hall. Those long muscular legs, defined pecs and a six pack, biceps for days, blonde hair and blue eyes, absolute pure sexiness, and quite evidently a heap of trouble. Her heart fluttered a little. There were lots of reasons to love this new apartment.

She’d given herself the weekend to unpack and get the apartment set up. She was finding it easier each day to look forward. The disappointment of losing her fiancée and being betrayed by her best friend was still there, but she’d managed to push it away. The experience she’d had when she’d flatlined was always at the surface but she’d always had an active imagination and was a romantic at heart. Instead of seeing a light when she passed, she guessed she’d seen a hottie by the ocean. She smiled at the memory, tucked away in her heart. She owed that guy big time, even if he didn’t exist.

She’d run downstairs to throw some boxes in the recycler and met another neighbor, a chatty girl named Cathy who invited her to a party. “It’s so nice out, we’re taking advantage of the rooftop deck. Come and join us, you can meet some more of your new neighbors. Seven o’clock, bring something to share that we can nibble on. Drinks are provided.”

Cori had thought all afternoon about it and decided what the heck, she had to start somewhere. She was still putting clothes away but found her favorite shirt, a pullover with tiny bright flowers on a black background and a deep V neckline trimmed in lace with lace-trimmed bell sleeves and her favorite black capris. She pulled her chestnut curls up into a ponytail and lightly applied makeup, squirting her favorite perfume in the air in front of her and walking through. She slipped on black flats and because she was still unpacking her kitchen, pulled a bottle of wine from a box and headed to the stairs to the roof.

As she opened the door, a warm breeze hit her. She could hear light conversation and laughter, the sun just beginning to set. String lights with Edison bulbs were strung from a large brick chimney that rose from the roof to a canopy set up nearby. Folding chairs and an old couch sat under the lights, along with a long table holding chips, dip and other finger foods. A large cooler sat next to the table.

Cori approached the group slowly. Suddenly she was regretting her decision. It would’ve been so much easier to just order a pizza and finish unpacking.

“Cori!” Cathy from the trash room was waving at her. She shyly walked over to her.

“Everyone, this is Cori. She just moved in to 6C. Please make her welcome!”

Her new neighbors took turns approaching her with warm greetings. One offered to get her a drink, taking the bottle of wine to go with the others. Each introduced themselves with a name and apartment number. They were all ages, and all very friendly.

“I just moved in as well, 4B. It’s nice to meet you,” said a nerdy looking guy in khakis and a button down with glasses. Cori shook his hand.

From behind, she felt a hand on her lower back. She turned and found herself face to face with sexy 6A, her underwear clad neighbor from moving day. At some point he’d gotten dressed – disappointing.

“Hey,” he said with that incredible smile.

“Hey,” she squeaked out.

“Now how didn’t I know you already met Colin,” said Cathy, laughing, and the group chimed in, cajoling Mr. Sexy.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he said, his face turning pink. “Can I help it if I’m friendly?”

“Friendly. Is that what they call it now?” said an older man with a laugh. He patted Colin on the back.

“Colin is our resident Casanova,” said another female resident, probably in her 30s. She gave him a bit of an eye roll and Cori wondered if they had a history.

“We met the day I moved in. He was saying goodbye to his girlfriend.”

There was a moment of silence, followed by raucous laughter.

“Girlfriend, that’s a good one,” the older man said, bending over he was laughing so hard.

Colin chuckled. “Hey, you don’t buy the first shirt you pull from the rack. You gotta try them on first, right? Gotta find the right fit.” There was a collective groan among the other tenants with a few giggles (mostly from the men).

Cori smiled. So he was too good to be true. Nothing that looked that good could be good for you. She’d guessed right.

“Cori, don’t let them get to you. I’m a heckuva nice guy. I look forward to being your neighbor.” He reached down and pulled her hand to him, kissing the back of it. Catcalls came from every direction.

“Don’t drink that Kool Aid Cori, you’ll be sorry.” It was the bitter lady from earlier. Yep, they definitely have a history.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll be a wonderful neighbor,” she said with a smile, and he returned it. Man, was this guy trouble.

She learned everyone’s name and they told her a little about themselves. She shared that she was starting a new job and had moved from her parents’ home, leaving out the part about getting cheated on, stepping into the path of a moving car and being brought back to life in a weird dream by a kiss from a hot guy that doesn’t exist. That might be a bit much for a first intro. Everyone was super friendly and welcoming. She enjoyed some food and chatted with her new neighbors.

“So, tell me about this new job.” Colin plopped down next to her on the couch where she sat. He casually slipped his arm behind her on the cushions.

She stiffened a little and sat forward. “I’ll be the personal assistant to a family friend in the city. Running errands, shopping, and helping her with a book that she’s writing. She also has a foundation so I’ll help her with fundraising events. That’s kind of my specialty.”

She made eye contact with him and was struck by his eyes – so blue. “Well, that sounds great,” he said, sounding only a little interested.

“What do you do?”

“I’m in a band. We play some of the bars here in the city.”

She smiled. Hmm, t-shirt and cargo shorts, Chucks with no socks, spikey hair, eating appetizers with no abandon – yep, definitely a starving musician.

“Cool, are you a cover band?”

“We do play some covers but we do a lot of original songs too. Got discovered by a label but something came up and we lost the chance to audition, but another shot will come along.”

“Wow, must’ve been something big to miss something like an audition for a record label.”

He pulled his arm from behind her and rubbed the back of his neck, the smile leaving his face. “Yeah, it sucked. But I refuse to believe it was our only shot. We’re too good not to get noticed.”

“Well, maybe what you lost with bad luck you can gain with confidence,” she said, a little snarky.

“Exactly! That’s the positive attitude I’m talking about!” He raised his hand to give her a high five and when their hands touched, a shock went through both of them. They both jumped. Cori felt heat flood her neck and face.

“Did I do that?” he said, staring at his hand.

“I don’t know, but if you did, that hand could light up the city,” she laughed.

He rubbed his hand. “What can I say, you turn me on.”

She groaned. “Really? Did you just say that?” They both laughed out loud.

She spent a little while longer, then said her goodbyes and made her way to the stairs. A girl was standing at Colin’s door, knocking and calling for him.

“He’s on the roof,” she said as she passed her.

“Oh,” said the girl, as Cori walked into her apartment.

After pouring herself a glass of wine and grabbing some cheese and crackers, she set about unpacking some more. She’d turned on some background music and was enjoying reminiscing over pictures and albums she was putting away. Things were great until she opened an unmarked album and was suddenly face-to-face with Matthew. Hikes they’d made, college parties, birthdays, nights out with friends – it was all there. She slowly paged through the photos and was overcome with sadness. The tears pooled and fell. She hadn’t healed at all. It was all as fresh as the night before her wedding.

There was a soft knock at her door. Probably chatty Cathy checking up on her. She closed the album and dabbed the tears from her eyes and headed towards the door. She wasn’t up for company so she cleared her throat and said softly, “Who is it?”

There was a pause, then softly, “Hey, it’s Colin.”

Shit. Now was not the time. “Hey Colin, I was headed to bed, can I catch up with you later?”

Another pause. “Uh, yeah, ok. I have something for you – no big deal. Good night.”

She undid all the locks but the chain and pulled the door open enough to peek out. She caught a look at him from behind – those long legs and a perfect round ass in just-right jeans. His hair came down to a little V on his neckline. The sound of the door made him turn. He was holding a cupcake in a blue cup with a daisy icing flower on top. He stepped toward the door and extended the cupcake to her. “For you,” he said with that crooked smile. His voice was deep and smooth as velvet. “I wanted to make sure you were ok after that electric high five.”

She felt like she might melt. His voice was so sexy, and those blue eyes. She couldn’t help it – every time she saw him, it took her breath away.

“Hold on.” She pushed the door closed and undid the chain, re-opening it a little more. She reached out and he came closer, handing her the cupcake.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

He studied her for a bit. She looked sad, as if maybe she’d been crying.

“You’re welcome. Look, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me. I know everyone was joking around up there – well, maybe kind of joking – but I really am a good neighbor. I promise I’ll be on my best behavior. I’ll look out for you. Ok?”

She smiled, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Ok. Thank you Colin. I mean it.”

He shook his head and smile broadly. “Good night Cori. I’ll see you around.”

“Good night.”

She went back inside after locking the door, set the cupcake down on the table and walked straight to her bed. She was suddenly exhausted. She was awkward and broken and no fun. The hottest guy she’d ever met was entertaining all kinds of girls across the hall and she probably wouldn’t be one of them. Some fresh start this was.

[ikkimikki]

Yay! I was tagged to play 20 questions by @curvymommy70. I miss old MySpace surveys so this was fun. 😁

Rules: Answer 20 questions + tag 20 blogs you’d love to get to know better.

Name. ikkiMikki or just Mikki

Pronouns. she/her

Zodiac. Scorpio ♏

Height. 6 foot even

Time. So glad this one didn't ask my weight 😊 20:19 CDT

Birthday. November 7

Nationality. American

Favorite bands/groups. Rammstein, AC/DC, Kiss, Pistol Annies, VNV Nation

Favorite Solo Artists. Prince, Miyavi, Beyonce, Trace Atkins, Miranda Lambert, Verka Serdushka, Pitbull

Last Show Binged. completed: Blacklist currently binging: Top Gear.

When did you create your blog. Oh that's just embarrassing...I think it's 13 years now

Last thing Googled. Suzuki Big Boy It's super cute but there's no way I'd own one with so little power

Other blogs. Not that I have touched in years.

Why you chose your URL. It's been a nickname since junior high and my D&D days, stuck through the punk years and still fits today.

How many people are you following? 1379 although most of them are inactive now

How many followers do you have? 1313 most of them are also inactive. I try to remove the bots but I'm sure there are still some of those too.

Average hours of sleep. 6-7 although I really shoot for 8

Lucky number. All numbers are good but I am partial to multiples of 3

Instruments. None of them well but I did take piano lessons and guitar for years.

Currently wearing. Wide-legged black & white pants with palm tree 🌴 print and a black tee.

Dream trip. A month in Japan. Not sure if having my partner come with would be a dream or nightmare. 😂 His language skills would be helpful since my Japanese is still pitiful but he has STRONG opinions that would really limit my experiences there too. Maybe I leave him with his family a bit and explore more on my own....

Favorite food. I miss ice cream! But grilled bratwurst will always be a favorite. Any grilled meat is likely to make me smile. Still wish I could make myself a good steak. Morton's is missed here in Minnesota.

Favorite song. impossible question, so many of them (@curvymommy70 is exactly right about that!) I'm currently overplaying this one as my motivator though because it's fun to dance along

https://youtu.be/mIYjRPOCpmE

Top 3 fictional universes to live in. Can I be a driver in the Fast & Furious world? I'd enjoy living with the Firefly crew...Maybe I could fill in for Wash. Zoe might be open to a new partner by now too. 😍 The Star Trek universe also would be fabulous to explore.

tagging some I’ve wanted to know more about: @pinkpixiekitty , @guestonymous, @weights-and-horror, @oshuns-young-disciple, @strugglinguist, @evolutionofageek, @darkwizardtheorist, and @countesspetofi

[foreverdavidbyrne]

David Byrne’s interview in NME magazine

In 1979, David Byrne predicted Netflix. “It’ll be as easy to hook your computer up to a central television bank as it is to get the week’s groceries,” he told NME’s Max Bell, sitting in a Paris hotel considering the implications of Talking Heads’ dystopian single ‘Life During Wartime’.

He predicted the Apple Watch in that interview too: “[People will] be surrounded by computers the size of wrist watches.” And he foresaw surveillance culture and data harvesting: “Government surveillance becomes inevitable because there’s this dilemma when you have an increase in information storage. A lot of it is for your convenience, but as more information gets on file, it’s bound to be misused.”

In fact, over 40 years ago, he predicted the entire modern-day experience, as if he instinctively knew what was coming. “We’ll be cushioned by amazing technological development,” he said, “but sitting on Salvation Army furniture.”

The 68-year-old Byrne says today, “You can’t say that you know,” chuckling down a Zoom link from his home in New York and belying his reputation for awkwardness by seeming giddily relieved to be talking to someone. “It’s crazy to set yourself up as some sort of prophet. But there’s plenty of people who have done well with books where they claim to predict what’s going on. I suppose sometimes it’s possible to let yourself imagine, ‘Okay – what if?’ This can evolve into something that exists, can evolve into something more substantial, cheaper – these kinds of things.”

It’s been a lifelong gift. Byrne turned up at CBGBs in 1975 with his art school band Talking Heads touting ‘Psycho Killer’, as if predicting the punk scene’s angular melodic evolution, new wave, before punk was even called punk. In 1980, Talking Heads assimilated African beats and textures into their seminal ‘Remain In Light’ album, foreshadowing ‘world music’ and modern music’s globalist melting pot, then used it to warn America of the dangers of consumerism, selfishness and the collapse of civilisation. Pioneering or propheteering, Byrne has been on the front-line of musical evolution for 45 years, collaborating with fellow visionaries from Brian Eno to St Vincent’s Annie Clark, constantly imagining, ‘What if?’

The live music lockdown has been a frustrating freeze frame, but Byrne was already leading the way into music’s new normal. Launched in 2018, the tour to support his 10th solo album, ‘American Utopia’, has now turned into a cinematic marvel courtesy of Spike Lee – the concert film was released in the UK this week. The original tour was acclaimed as a live music revolution. Using remote technology, Byrne was able to remove all of the traditional equipment clutter from the stage and allow his musicians and dancers, in uniform grey suits and barefoot, to roam around a stage lined with curtains of metal chains with their instruments strapped to them. A Marshally distanced gig, if you will.

“As the show was conceptually coming together, I realised that once we had a completely empty stage the rulebook has now been thrown out,” Byrne says. “Now we can go anywhere and do anything. This is completely liberating. It means that people like drummers, for example, who are usually relegated to the back shadows, can now come to the front – all those kinds of things – which changes the whole dynamic.”

With six performers making up an entire drum kit and Byrne meandering through the choreography trying to navigate a nonsensical world, the show was his most striking and original since he jerked and jived around a constructed-mid-gig band set-up in Jonathan Demme’s legendary 1984 Talking Heads live film Stop Making Sense.

The American Utopia show embarked on a Broadway run last year, where Byrne super-fan Spike Lee saw it twice and leapt at the chance of turning the spectacle into Byrne’s second revolutionary live film, dotted with his musings on the human condition to illuminate the crux of the songs: institutional racism, our lack of modern connection, the erosion of democracy and, on opener ‘Here’, a lecture-like tour of the human brain, Byrne holding aloft a scale model, trying to fathom, ‘How do I work this?’

“I didn’t know how much of a fan Spike was!” Byrne laughs today. “He’d even go, ‘Why don’t you do this song? Why don’t you add this song in’. We knew one another casually so I could text him and say, ‘I want you to come and see our show; I think that you might be interested in making a film of it’.”

Are the days of the traditional stage set-up numbered? “Yes, I think so,” he replies. “At least in theatres and concert halls the size that I would normally play, yes. The fact that we can get the music digitally [means] a performance has to be really of value. It has to be really something special, because that’s where the performers are getting their money and that’s what the audience is paying for. They’re not paying very much for streaming music, but they are paying quite a bit to go and see a performance, so the performance has to give them value for money… It has to be really something to see.”

How does David Byrne envisage the future possibilities of live performance?

“I’ve seen a lot of things that hip-hop artists have done – like the Kanye West show where he emerges on a platform that floats above the stage,” he says. “I’d seen one with Kendrick Lamar where it was pretty much just him on stage, an empty stage with just him on stage and a DJ, somebody with a laptop – that was it. I thought, ‘Wow’. Then he started doing things with huge projections behind. There are lots of ways to do this. I love the idea of working with a band, with live musicians. ‘How can I innovate in this kind of way?’ It’s maybe easier for a hip-hop musician who doesn’t have a band to figure out. The pressure is on to come up with new ways of doing this.”

In liberating his musicians from fixed, immovable positions, American Utopia also acts as a metaphor for freeing our minds from our own ingrained ways of thinking. As Byrne intersperses Talking Heads classics such as ‘Once In A Lifetime’, ‘I Zimbra’ and ‘Road To Nowhere’ with choice solo cuts and tracks from ‘American Utopia’, he also dots the show with musings on an array of post-millennial questions: the health of democracy; the rise of xenophobia and fascism; our increasing reliance on materialism and online communication; the climate change threat; the existential nightmare of the dating app; and, crucially, the distances all of these things put between us.

“The ‘likes’ and friends and connections and everything that the internet enables,” he argues, “even Zoom calls like this, they’re no substitute for really being with other people. Calling social networks ‘social’ is a bit of an exaggeration.”

Byrne closes the show with the suggestion that, rather than isolate behind our LCD barriers, we should try to reconnect with each other. In an age when social media has descended into all-out thought war and anyone can find concocted ‘facts’ to support anything they want to believe, is that realistic?

“I have a little bit of hope,” he says. “Not every day, but some days. I have hope that people will abandon a lot of social media, that they’ll realise how intentionally addictive it is, and they’re actually being used, and that they might enjoy actually being with other people rather than just constantly scrolling through their phone. So, I’m a little bit optimistic that people will, in some ways, use this technology a little bit less than they have.”

A key moment in American Utopia comes with Byrne’s cover of Janelle Monae’s ‘Hell You Talmbout’, a confrontational track shouting the names of African-Americans who have been killed by police or in racially motivated attacks – Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd and far, far too many more. Does Byrne think the civil unrest in the wake of Floyd’s death and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement make a serious impact?

“We’ll see how long this continues,” he says, “but in projects that I’m working on – there’s a theatre project I’m working on in Denver, there’s the idea of bringing this show back to Broadway, there’s other projects – those issues came to the fore. Issues of diversity and inclusion and things like that, which were always there. Now they’re being taken more seriously. The producers and theatre owners realise that they can’t push those things aside, that they have to be included in the whole structure of how a show gets put together.”

“At least for now, that seems to be a big change. I see it in TV shows and other areas too. There’s a lot of tokenism, but there’s a lot of real opportunity and changed thinking as well.”

Elsewhere, he encourages his audience to register to vote, and had registration booths at the shows. He must have been pleased about the record turnout in the recent US election? “Yeah, the turnout was great. Now you just got to keep doing that. Gotta keep doing it at all the local elections, too. It was important for me not to endorse a political party or anything in the show but to say, ‘Listen, we can’t have a democracy if you don’t vote. You have to get out there and let your voice be heard and there’s lots of people trying to block it.’ We have to at least try.”

Will Trump’s loss help bring people together after four years with such a divisive influence in charge?

“Yes. I think for me Trump was not so much a shock; we knew who he is. He was around New York before that, in the reality show [The Apprentice], we knew what kind of character he was. What shocked me was how quickly the Republican party all fell into line behind him, behind this guy who’s obviously a racist, misogynist liar and everything else. But it’s kind of encouraging – although it’s taken four years and with some it’s only with the prospect of him being gone – that quite a few have been breaking ranks. There are some possibilities of bridge building being held out.”

But, he says, “It’s too early to celebrate,” concerned that Senate Majority Leader and fairweather Trump loyalist Mitch McConnell will use any Republican control of the Senate to block many of Biden’s policies from coming into effect. “[This] is what happened with Obama… I want to see real change happen. [Climate change] absolutely needs to be a priority. The clock had turned back over the last four years, so there’s a lot to be done. Whether there’s the willpower to do everything that needs to be done, it remains to be seen, but at least now it’s pointing in the right direction.”

How will he look back on the last four years? Byrne ponders. “I’m hoping that I look back at it as a near-miss.”

American Utopia is as much a personal journey as a dissection of modern ills. Ahead of ‘Everybody’s Coming To My House’, Byrne admits to being a rather socially awkward type. He claims that a choir of Detroit teenagers, when singing the song for the accompanying video, had imbued the song with a far more welcoming message than his own rendition, which found him wracked with the fear that his visitors might never leave. How does someone like that deal with celebrity?

“In a certain way it’s a blessing,” Byrne grins, “because I don’t have to go up to people to talk to them ��� they sometimes come up to me. In other ways it’s a little bit awkward. Celebrity itself seems very superficial and I have to constantly remind myself that your character, your behaviour and the work that you do is what’s important – not how well known you are, not this thing of celebrity. I learned early on it’s pretty easy to get carried away. But it does have its advantages. I had Spike Lee’s phone number, so I could text him.”

Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz’s recent book Remain In Love suggests that the more successful Byrne got early on, the more distant he became.

Byrne nods. “I haven’t read the book, but I know that as we became more successful I definitely used some of that to be able to work on other projects. I worked on a dance score with [American choreographer] Twyla Tharp and I worked on a theatre piece with [director] Robert Wilson – other kinds of things – [and] I started working on directing some of the band’s music videos. So I guess I spent less time just hanging out. As often happens with bands, you start off being all best friends and doing everything together and after a while that gets to be a bit much. Everybody develops their own friends and it’s like, ‘I have my own friends too’. Everybody starts to have their own lives.”

The future is far too enticing for David Byrne to consider revisiting the past. “I do live alone so sometimes it would get lonely”, he says of lockdown, but he’s been using his Covid downtime to cycle around undiscovered areas of New York and remain philosophical about the aftermath.

“We’ll see how long before the vaccine is in, before we return to being able to socialise,” he says, “but I’m also wondering, ‘How am I going to look at this year? Am I going to look at it as, “Oh yes, that’s the year that was to some extent taken away from our lives; our lives were put on pause?”’ We kept growing; we kept ageing; we keep eating, but it was almost like this barrier had been put up. It has been a period where, in a good way, it’s led us to question a lot of what we do. You get up in the morning and go, ‘Why am I doing this? What am I doing this for? What’s this about?’ Everything is questioned.”

Post-vaccine, he hopes to “travel a little bit” before looking into plans to bring the ‘American Utopia’ show back to Broadway, and possibly even to London if the financial aspects can be worked out. “Often when a show like that travels, the lead actors might travel,” Byrne explains, “but in this case it’s the entire cast that has to travel. So you’ve got a lot of hotel bills and all that kind of stuff. We wanted to do it. There might be a way, if we can figure that out.”

Once we all get our jab, will everyone come to recognise that, as Byrne sings on ‘American Utopia’s most inspiring track, ‘Every Day Is A Miracle’? “Optimistically, maybe,” he says. “There will be a lot of people who will just go, ‘Let’s get back to normal – get out to the bars, the clubs and discos’. That’s already been happening in New York; there’s been these underground parties where people just can’t help themselves. But after all this it’d be nice to think that people might reassess things a little bit.”

And with the algorithm as the new gatekeeper and technology beginning to subsume the sounds and consumption of music, what does the new wave Nostradamus foresee for rock in the coming decades? Will AIs soon be writing songs for other AIs to consume to inflate the numbers, cutting humanity out of the equation altogether?

“It seems like there’ll be a kind of factory,” Byrne predicts, “an AI factory of things like that, and of newspaper articles and all of this kind of stuff, and it will just exaggerate and duplicate human biases and weaknesses and stupidity. On the other hand, I was part of a panel a while back, and a guy told a story about how his listening habits were Afrofuturism and ambient music – those were his two favourite ways to go. The algorithm tried to find commonalities between the two so it could recommend things to him and he said it was hopeless. Everything it recommended was just horrible because it tried to find commonalities between these two very separate things. This just shows that we’re a little more eclectic than these machines would like to think.”

And in the distant future? Best prepare to welcome your new gloop overlords. Byrne isn’t concerned about The Singularity – the point at which machine intelligence supersedes ours and AI becomes God – but instead believes that future technologies will emulate microbial forms.

“I watched a documentary on slime moulds [a simple slimy organism] the other day,” he says, warming to his sticky theme. “Slime moulds are actually extremely intelligent for being a single-celled organism. They can build networks and bunches of them can communicate. They can learn, they have memories, they can do all these kinds of things that you wouldn’t expect a single-celled organism to be able to do.”

“I started thinking, ‘Well, is there a lesson there for AI and machine learning, of how all these emerging properties could be done with something as simple as a single cell?’ It’s all in there… when things interact, they become greater than the sum of their parts. I thought, okay, maybe the future of AI is not in imitating human brains, but imitating these other kinds of networks, these other kinds of intelligences. Forget about imitating human intelligence – there’s other kinds of intelligence out there, and that might be more fruitful. But I don’t know where that leads.”

His grin says he does know, that he has a vision of our icky soup-world future, but maybe the rest of the species isn’t yet advanced enough to handle it. But if we’re evolving towards disaster rather than utopia, we can trust David Byrne to give us plenty of warning.

December 18, 2020

[chaos-and-sparkles]

Percabeth Wedding Headcanons

They considered not getting married as a fuck you to Hera, but decided a better fuck you would be to not let her rule their lives. 

Annabeth wore a white suit with a blue tie and Percy wore a black suit with a grey tie. 

There was a huge fight over who got to be whose bride's/groom's bitches. Eventually Tyson was Percy's best man, with Jason, Frank, Hazel, Nico and Leo in his crew. 

Annabeth's maid of honour was Thalia, with Reyna, Piper, Magnus, Clarisse, Rachel and the Stoll brothers in hers. 

Chiron officiated. Estelle was flower girl. Grover was ring bearer, and he began chewing the cushion halfway through the ceremony, while sobbing the most.

 Coach Hedge held his club up threateningly, but his eyes were suspiciously moist too.

 Calypso was the next big crier, sitting with her arms crossed stubbornly in a white vintage T-shirt and faded jeans, tears seeping out through the corners of her eyes.

Almost all the gods came. 

Aphrodite was jumping up and down and cooing over them, giving Percy looks that made him turn bright red. She looked exactly like Annabeth to him now. 

Apollo was sprawled in a front seat that he was not supposed to be in, and had dragged Will and Meg with him, Will smiling awkwardly while Meg chatted with Artemis about how annoying Apollo was.

 Hermes appeared to Percy in the dressing room ("Do you gods have NO respect for privacy?") because he 'had a message for him.’ A message from him, George and Martha, for once, wishing him good luck. They chatted, and then Percy asked if he'd met Annabeth too, but Hermes stiffened and left. 

Afterwards tho he and Annabeth came face to face during the reception, and it was awkward and silent. It ended with both of them in tears about Luke, but it was healing for them both. Hermes gave her her dagger back, and Annabeth was surprised and asked how he got it back from Tartarus. Hermes said Bob had found it and sent it up, and was on the lookout for her laptop too -

But he didn't get to finish, because Annabeth hugged him hard, and after initial shock he hugged her back.

The tension between Athena and Poseidon was palpable, and they were seated as far apart as possible. 

Poseidon thumped Annabeth on the back so hard she almost toppled into the lake, booming "I should have known! My son and I seem to have yet another thing in common - a love for queens among women." And Percy turned red again. Poseidon gave Percy a huge hug, and went on to meet Sally Jackson. Poseidon took his son marrying a daughter of his rival better than Athena did, though. 

When Annabeth and Athena met, there was some tension. It was difficult for Athena to admit she was harsh and unfair with what she said to Annabeth in HOO, and to apologize, but Percy put his hand on Annabeth's shoulder and stood behind her, even when Athena turned her piercing gaze on him and asked that she talk to Annabeth alone. He only went when Annabeth asked him to. 

Athena told Annabeth she was proud of her, and added that there was a chance she might be as great, and even greater, than Daedalus. Annabeth knew this was her best attempt at showing affection, and appreciated it. 

Athena then accosted Percy, on his way back with drinks, and gave him a once over and humphed. Percy didn't flinch or show any signs of being intimidated, and she raised and eyebrow and finally said, "I will admit, Perseus Jackson, that I did not think you a good choice for my daughter. I still have my doubts... However you have proved yourself more than worthy, and so I gave you permission to marry her. But make no mistake - if you hurt her, I will crack your skull open and extract every brain cell you have left, until you are a drooling, gibbering mess." Percy replied, "If I hurt Annabeth, she'll break every bone in my body before you even get to me. So I don't think you have to worry about that." They parted on fair terms. 

Artemis met Percy and Annabeth together, and they had a short conversation about the merits of being turned into a Jackalope, vs the merits of being married. "Life as a Jackalope is more enjoyable than it would seem. However, you have chosen your bane, and against all odds, I hold hope for you both." she concluded. 

Hestia was tending the flames when Percy and Annabeth went to meet her, both respecting her as the most helpful goddess of legit all time. She smiled and simply said, "Hope is stronger than ever now, Percy Jackson, for you now build a new and loving home - a rarer place than you would expect."

Mr. D insisted on making a speech, and making it out to Perry Jorganesson and Annie Bell.

The only god not present was Zeus. In fact, he'd banned the gods from going when it became clear that everyone wanted to go, but the gods' respect for him after the way he handled the HOO fiasco was in negative numbers so every single one of them sneaked out of Olympus. Even those who normally wouldn’t have gone went to spite him.

Hades and Persephone went as a couple. Hades sniffed and smirked, saying only that he was glad Percy was 'not my son's type, or I'd have to deal with you' (but he low key ships Percabeth). Persephone though, smiled radiantly and was one coo away from fangirl squealing. Before they left, Hades gave them a note from Bob.

"Bob saw two stars already. They were next to him in Tartarus. Bob says hello." Percy and Annebth sobbed for fiat that, holding each other tightly. They made a point of mapping every single constellation that night. They almost cried again when they saw the Huntress above them.

Hephaestus's eyes twinkled, and he said, "I see that trap in Waterland worked after all - even if not in the way I'd intended."

 Ares just grunted that Annabeth had a better weapon (the dragon fang sword) than the last time he saw her, and took his sunglasses off to glare at Percy. "Now there are TWO goddesses who'll kill me if I snuff you out."

The highlight though was Hera waltzing in, smiling smugly like she'd set up the whole thing, and eating a slice of cake, turning a seashell-and-flower arrangement into a cow because it 'looked better, and brought back memories'. She left soon enough, but not before the cow had left a warm gift.  

Grover gave his blessing as Lord of the Wild, Rachel gave hers as the Oracle, and the gods fully expected Percabeth to ask for one of their blessings next, but instead the two turned to Sally Jackson and asked for her blessing as the 'supreme goddess'.

The ceremony was in the pavilion, and the reception was around the canoe lake at twilight. The trees around the canoe lake were hung with fairy lights, and Juniper and the dryads had ensured that the sweetest, most fragrant flowers grew. Seashells decorated the venue. Calypso had brought moonlace that began to glow and smell even more beautiful as night began to fall. The Hecate cabin had enchanted sparkling butterflies to flutter around them both after it got dark. The naiads sang in voices nearly as beautiful as the sirens, although lighter and airier. The pegasi flew in formation.

Bessie the Ophiotaurus as well as the Hippocampi were in attendance.

Percy and Annabeth did their first dance underwater, and kissed before resurfacing. Everyone looked around for the dance floor, but couldn't see a thing, when they realized - the lake was the dance floor. Percy had managed to magic the lake, with favours from the naiads and Poseidon, into a liquid dance floor that rippled different colours with each step.

Their wedding day had been on the last day of camp, with the whole camp invited, so with nightfall came the camp traditions, but even better. 

There was the fireworks display of course, but with Leo's help it was doubly glorious and even began to tell Percabeth's story. Annabeth looked like she'd die when it began showing the Thrill Ride of Love part of the story, because "It doesn't matter if we're married Percy! It's still embarrassing!"

Camp fire was even more cheerful, what with the gods and mortals allowed in for the first time, and of course Piper+Leo and the Stoll brothers played pranks - it was funnier than it would have been because their pranks overlapped and backfired on each other instead.

Instead of wedding bands, Percabeth were married with camp beads - an owl and a trident artistically intertwined in a silver thread carved heart, designed by Rachel. Hazel summoned the silver and some jewels to embellish them - and this time, she knew, somehow, that they weren’t cursed.

Of course the cake and all food and drink was blue, as well as the flowers, the wedding party's outfits, and (on Annabeth's request as a surprise for Percy) the guests’ clothes. Aphrodite went super overboard with that, and even Artemis succumbed to a small blue flower and fang accessory in her hair.

As soon as the dancing and music ended (as soon as they could get the mic away from Apollo), the activity underway was Capture the Flag with Percy and Annabeth leading opposite teams composed of their bridal parties+friends. Coach Hedge and the Hermes, Ares, Aphrodite and part of the Apollo cabins along with a bunch of minor god cabins went on Annabeth's team, and Will, Meg, and the rest in Percy's. The gods sat it out (some had to be physically restrained) as did Grover, the nature spirits, animals and mortals (Rachel had to be dissuaded from entering armed with plastic hairbrushes and improv lighter-and-spray flamethrowers).

Nobody won. Instead of crossing over the boundary line when they met with each other's flags in hand, Percy and Annabeth started making out. Clarisse could be heard grumbling about it later.

Grover and Thalia stayed back long after everyone had left, and the four of them spent time together until four in the morning.

BTW Annabeth proposed to Percy right before he was about to propose to her. They both looked at each other in surprise for a solid minute, and then burst out laughing. It was impossible to tell who said yes, or if any of them did, but they didn't need to. 

They’d both gone to Tyson for the engagement rings. Tyson was confused at first, but promised to keep their secret from each other.

Grover on the other end of the link just stopped mid conversation with the Council of Cloven Elders and Dionysus, and bleated loudly in relief, "FREAKING FINALLY." out of nowhere, and while everyone looked bewildered, Dionysus though just took a sip of diet coke and rolled his eyes, sighing, "Took them long enough."

They proposed to each other on Percy's birthday. Annabeth had baked another blue cupcake ("I'm getting better at it, too!") and they were cuddling/play fighting/sprawling on the sofa late at night in Sally's apartment, talking. They sat with their legs crossed together, devouring the cupcake with their fingers, talking about their plans.

 Annabeth mentioned that she'd designed this new building for New Rome that she was SO excited to build (Reyna had contracted her as New Rome's architect), and asked if Percy wanted to see the design. Percy agreed, and she retrieved a roll of paper. Annabeth began to explain enthusiastically, and, pointing at the center of the design, said, "And this is my favourite part." Percy leaned in further to see what she was pointing at - at the heart of the temple, where the altar should be, was a blue-silver ring with a wave design over the words "will you marry me?"

Annabeth looked almost anxiously at Percy, but he looked blank. Finally, Percy uncapped Riptide, which she hadn't noticed was poised in his hand as if he was going to point or correct something on the sheet, and instead of expanding into a sword, it remained a ball pen - with a simple silver ring etched with the words "Wise Girl" around its tip.

They stared at each other, stumped, before exploding in laughter. 

Sally and Paul came running from the next room, Estelle copying them and giggling in Paul's arms, worried that it was a monster attack. When instead they saw Percy and Annabeth laughing and hugging, each wearing a ring on fingers covered in blue frosting and looking as if they couldn't quite believe it, Sally burst into tears right there and had to explain to her concerned kids, laughing, that these were happy tears because secretly she still couldn't believe that they had all found their happiness and it was something she'd only dared to dream of because it was everything she ever wanted for her son and she was happy to and oh how long had she waited and worked and hoped for a happy ending for all of them but never really expected it and this was too much - 

[darriness]

Klaine Fic - You’ll Always Be The Home - Chapter 1

Author: darriness

Fic Summary: Everything is finally settled in Kurt and Blaine's life...right?

Rating: T

Link to: Prologue

Chapter Word Count: 3172

Chapter Summary: A wedding.

Author’s Note: Thank you to everyone who liked, reblogged, or just read the prologue to this. Here’s chapter 1! As always thank you to my amazing beta @darrenismydarcy

AO3 Link

Four years is a long time. A lot can happen in four years. A lot can change. In one four year span for example, Kurt and Blaine met, became friends, became boyfriends, graduated high school, broke up, and got back together again. 

In the four years since their reunion, Blaine and Kurt have moved in together, graduated college, gotten engaged, started careers, and planned a wedding.

But if you ask Kurt and Blaine? The past four years have felt like both a lifetime and a milli-second in equal measure.

Blaine adjusts his cuffs and fidgets with his lapels as he stands behind the rows of chairs in front of him. Before he can once again reach for his lapels, his hand is grabbed and he turns to smile sheepishly at Bethany.

“Sorry.” He mumbles.

Bethany smirks and squeezes the hand she has in her own, “You’re adorable.” Her eyes soften as Blaine’s eyes flit around the room, “I am so happy for you...you know that right?”

Blaine’s eyes train back on his little sister and he smiles, “I do know that.” He says, softly, squeezing her hand in return.

*Four Years Ago*

“Can I paint my room any colour I want?” Bethany asks as Blaine fumbles for with the keys in the lock.

“Hmm?” Blaine hums distracted as he tries not to drop the bags in his hands.

“I said, can I paint my room any colour I want?” Bethany repeats.

“Oh uh, I don’t know. We’ll have to ask Kurt, I guess.” Blaine responds, finally getting the key in the lock and opening the door to the small apartment for only the second time. He hasn’t been back since he and Kurt got back together and now he and Bethany are going to be living here.

Bethany sighs as she pushes past Blaine in the unrefined way of a 12-year-old who wants to be the first one in, “We live here now. Can’t you make the decision? Or are we going to have to ask Kurt for everything now?”

Blaine sighs as he drops the bags he’s been carrying just inside the door. The apartment is empty, Kurt is at class. The pair had decided it might be easier to move in when Kurt wasn’t home.

“Just…” He doesn’t know how to answer. He’s never lived with anyone beside his family which means he’s never moved into someone else’s house. He’s not sure what the ‘rules’ are, or even if there are any.

Bethany rolls her eyes and flops down on the couch, letting the backpack she had been carrying fall on the ground next to her, “You said this would be a good thing for us.” She says with a raised eyebrow.

“It is.” Blaine says with a surety he doesn’t really feel. He knows Bethany was fine with moving and happy that Kurt was back in their lives but she’s also twelve...who knows if this really makes her happy.

*Present Day*

Music starts to play and Blaine takes a deep breath as he realizes that’s his and Bethany’s cue to walk down the aisle. He feels Bethany shake his hand in hers and he looks over at her with a smile. She smiles back at him before the pair begin to slowly make their way down the aisle.

He tries not to look over the crowd but can’t help but cast his gaze quickly over the faces. Friends and family all with beaming faces but unlike the former that is a mixture of friends they have as a couple and separately, the latter is all Kurt’s. Blaine threads Bethany’s arm more tightly in his own and keeps walking with a polite smile on his face.

When he and Bethany are finally at the altar he lets go of her hand and takes his place in front of the officiant as she takes hers just behind him as his ‘best woman’. He reaches to fidget with his suit jacket one more time as the music changes to signal it’s Kurt’s turn to make the walk he and Bethany just made.

He turns, like the audience in front of him does, to look at the back of the room and takes a deep breath when he sees Kurt standing arm in arm with his father. He feels Bethany nudge him in the back and he would turn to look at her if he wasn’t so transfixed. He has a feeling she would be beaming at him and maybe winking, anyway. 

*Three Years Ago*

Blaine gets home from class with a tired but happy sigh. He loves New York, he loves school, he loves everything about his life right now.

“Bethany I said no!” He hears Kurt say from the direction of the kitchen and pouts his lips thoughtfully, pausing as he takes off his scarf.

“You’re not my dad!” Bethany shouts back at Kurt and Blaine hisses in a breath.

There’s quiet for a moment and Blaine is wondering who is going to blow first. Since moving in, Bethany and Kurt’s relationship has changed slightly. They’ve gone from partners in crime, so to speak, to something more resembling father/daughter, or at the very least, caregiver/child. Blaine knows Kurt tries not to act that way but it’s unavoidable when living under the same roof. Blaine isn’t necessarily surprised but there have been times, like the one right now, when he wishes they could go back to the way they were before.

Finally, Bethany lets out an unintelligible growl and stomps off toward her bedroom, not even realizing Blaine is there when she huffs through the living room.

Kurt follows a moment later but at a slower pace and doesn’t appear to want to actually follow her as her bedroom door slams. He sighs when the slam happens and swings his gaze to Blaine - fixing him with a resigned expression.

“She wanted to take the subway, by herself I might add, to a concert in the park.” Kurt recounts.

Blaine’s eyebrows shoot up, “Well, thank you for saying no.”

Now Kurt’s glance is slightly withering, “Of course I said no.” He says before sighing and looking back at Bethany’s door, “I honestly never imagined I’d be a parental figure to a teenager in my early 20s.”

It sounds more like he’s saying it to himself than Blaine but Blaine’s stomach still clenches with anxiety, “I’m so sorry, Kurt. I’ll talk to her.” He swallows thickly.

Kurt does a double take before he seems to realize what he said and he moves quickly to Blaine’s side and puts his arms around his waist and his forehead to his temple, “Hey, no. That’s not what I meant.” He says before sighing, “Just because I didn’t think my life would be this way doesn’t mean I don’t love it.” It’s Blaine’s turn to give Kurt a withering glance. Kurt shakes his arms around Blaine, “I’m serious! In a few minutes I’m going to go in there and talk with Annie and everything will be fine. Just because she and I fight now doesn’t mean I’m not happy with our life.”

The sincerity in Kurt’s voice makes Blaine breathe a little easier.

*Present Day*

When Kurt and his dad finally, after what feels like the longest walk down the aisle ever (definitely longer than Blaine and Bethany’s was), make it to the altar Blaine can barely contain himself. He tries to wait as patiently as possible for Kurt to hug his dad and then take his place in front of Blaine but the wait for that to happen feels almost as long as the walk did.

Finally, FINALLY, Kurt is smiling at Blaine and reaching forward to grab his hands. Blaine feels like he can truly breathe for the first time all day. He is so ready to marry this man.

*One Year Ago*

“Are you sure I can’t film this?” Bethany asks.

Blaine chuckles nervously, “No, you cannot film this! I’m already nervous enough as it is.”

Bethany smirks, “Yeah but don’t you want to remember this for all of eternity? I mean, unless he says no or you get a divorce or…”

“Annie!” Blaine exclaims, making Bethany giggle in a way she doesn’t usually do anymore. Blaine’s learning there are a lot of things 15-year-old girls ‘don’t do anymore’.

“He’s here!” Bethany squeals, pointing over Blaine’s shoulder.

Blaine turns around in his seat to watch Kurt talk to the hostess before getting shown to the table where Blaine and Bethany currently sit. It’s a fancy restaurant where the hostess even pulls out Kurt’s chair for him before he sits down.

“Oh, thanks!” Kurt says with an amused chuckle at the gesture as he takes his seat, “Hey!” Kurt enthuses, reaching forward to grab Blaine’s hand and smiling at Bethany.

“Hey!” Blaine smiles back as Bethany waves.

“So, what’s the special occasion? I mean, not that I don’t love fine dining and a chance to wear one of my fancier outfits…” Kurt asks, looking back and forth between the siblings.

Blaine swallows. He had originally wanted to wait to do this until later in the meal but…

“Kurt,” He starts and he can feel Bethany’s eyes on him. She had also been under the impression this would come later and obviously understands the tone he’s using. Kurt seems to understand something big is coming too because he sits a little straighter and he tilts his head in interest. Blaine swallows one more time, “Kurt, when you came into our lives my only focus was Annie. And while I love her to death and have never for a second regretted becoming her primary caregiver...I wasn’t really living.” Kurt’s eyes have widened in seeming shock but he stays quiet, “And then you came into our lives and...everything got more colourful. You opened my eyes and my heart to a love I don’t think I could ever even imagine and I am so thankful to you for that.” 

Blaine sends one more glance at Bethany who is beaming at him and nodding before he takes a deep breath and gets down on one knee. The tables closest to them are looking on but Blaine only has eyes for Kurt - who is currently staring down at him with wide glistening eyes.

“I love you more than words can say, Kurt, and you would make me the happiest man in the world if you would agree to become my husband.” He produces a velvet box from his pocket and opens it to reveal a platinum band with inset diamonds. Kurt gasps, “Kurt, will you marry me?”

Kurt is nodding before he even finishes speaking, “Yes.” He whispers breathlessly.

Kurt pulls Blaine to his feet and into a kiss as the tables closest to them begin to clap. The loudest cheers are, of course, from Bethany, who makes the pair laugh as she whoops and hollers.

*Present Day*

The ceremony is simple and yet perfect. They debated writing their own vows but decided, instead, to go the traditional route; saying ‘traditional’ words in a ‘non-traditional’ situation really appealed to both of them.

It turns out Blaine cries more than Kurt, but Bethany cries more than both of them to the point where Blaine pauses and asks the officiant to wait before turning and hugging Bethany to him for a brief moment. She cries into his shoulder and their photographer captures the moment forever. 

When it comes to their first kiss as husbands, Kurt goes off script just a little bit and bends Blaine in a dip to press their lips together. The room cheers around them at the action and the pair come up laughing - Blaine slightly embarrassed but overjoyed, and Kurt exceedingly proud...and also slightly embarrassed.

As they walk back up the aisle hand-in-hand, they smile at their family and friends who are all beaming back at them.

*One Year Ago*

“Kurt, why are we still doing this? You’re already engaged!” Bethany exclaims as she helps Kurt move the coffee table.

Kurt grunts as he shifts the table into its final resting place against the wall and out of the way, “Because I have been planning this for weeks and Blaine deserves to be proposed to.”

Bethany smiles, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

It was no surprise that Bethany had been in on Blaine’s proposal but she had been surprised and ecstatic when Kurt had come to her the month before to enlist her help in his own proposal. Bethany had to keep both secrets for the month while inside she had been bubbling over with excitement.

Kurt takes a deep breath and looks around one more time, “So...is everything ready?”

Bethany also looks around before looking back at Kurt, “All we did was move the coffee table and put out champagne. You know, for someone as dramatic as you...this proposal is super low key.”

Kurt rolls his eyes, “Because this proposal is for Blaine.”

Bethany pouts her lips like she hadn’t thought of that before nodding, “Okay, that makes sense.”

They hear keys jingling in the hallway and both of them jump. Kurt shoos Bethany toward the door and she goes with a skip, making sure to wink at Kurt first.

She opens the door before Blaine can get his keys in and he looks up in surprise before smiling, “Thanks Annie.” He says.

Bethany rocks back and forth once, trying to contain her smile, before sweeping her arm into the apartment, “Right this way.”

Blaine quirks an eyebrow as he toes off his shoes, chuckling at the formal gesture, “What’s going on?”

“Would you just come?” Bethany asks with an eye roll, hooking her arm into Blaine’s and pulling him along.

When they get to the living room Kurt is standing where the coffee table usually sits. Blaine looks back and forth between the pair, “What’s going on?” He asks again.

“Blaine,” Kurt starts and Bethany unhooks her arm and shoves Blaine forward a little. When Blaine is standing in front of Kurt, Kurt grabs both of his hands in his own and continues, “You have brought so much into my life - love, laughter, joy,...Annie.” He winks at Bethany who is standing just behind Blaine and the teenager giggles softly before quieting, “And I know you already proposed to me and technically we’re already engaged but you deserved a proposal as much as I did.” He takes a deep breath and goes down on one knee. Blaine, inhales sharply and his eyes are already moist with tears, “You are the love of my life, you are my everything, and I would be forever grateful if you agreed to marry me.” 

He opens a ring box to reveal a simple platinum band. Blaine stares at it for a long moment, silence ringing in the room before Bethany breaks in, “Would you mind saying yes? Kurt said I could have some champagne after.”

Blaine and Kurt chuckle from their position. Blaine shakes his head and bites his lips together as they quiet before kneeling on the ground in front of Kurt, “I will, of course, marry you.” He whispers before pulling Kurt into a kiss. 

There is clapping this time, too, but only from Bethany as the pair pull apart and Kurt slips the ring onto Blaine’s finger. They beam at each other like they are the only two in the room before Bethany coughs behind them.

They chuckle again, “Did you really tell her she could have champagne?” Blaine whispers.

Kurt smirks, “One glass.” He says.

*Present Day*

“Bethany!” Blaine exclaims.

Bethany freezes with her glass halfway to her mouth and gives her brother a sheepish smile, “Uh….Kurt let me?”

Blaine rolls his eyes and holds up his index finger, “One.” He says as Bethany cheers and takes a sip of wine from her glass.

“Please tell me you aren’t going to be trouble with this whole drinking thing.” Blaine asks, leaning against the bar next to her. The reception has been raging for hours now, dinner long since over, and Blaine is slightly alcohol loose, a lot in love loose, and thoroughly enjoying himself.

Bethany rolls her eyes, “I’m not stupid.” She says and Blaine nods, leaving it at that for now.

“Wanna dance?” He asks, gesturing to the dance floor as a slower song plays over the speakers.

Bethany takes another sip of wine and jerks her head behind her, “Go dance with your husband. He told me half an hour ago that he’s sad you guys haven’t been able to dance as much together with all the entertaining and hosting. I’ll finish my wine and cut in later. Maybe after I ask Finn to dance.” She winks at him and Blaine chuckles as he scans the room for Kurt, who is looking at him from across the room where he’s talking to one of his relatives.

They smile at each other before Kurt pleads, wordlessly, with his eyes and Blaine chuckles before kissing Bethany’s cheek and heading over.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt.” He says when he’s close enough and Kurt’s relative coos at him, “I was wondering if I could steal my husband for a dance.”

The relative, who Blaine is sure he’s been introduced to but can’t remember her name to save his life, agrees easily and Blaine leads Kurt to the dance floor. They settle quickly into each other's arms and Kurt sighs in relief, “Thank you.” He breathes as they start to sway, “My Aunt Jenny is lovely if not a little...over the top.”

Blaine chuckles, “Well, that’s my job now. To save you from well meaning but exhausting relatives. It’s in the contract.”

Kurt’s face suddenly goes somber as they continue to sway and Blaine tilts his head slightly, “What’s wrong?”

Kurt sighs, “I just…” He pauses and cups Blaine’s cheek softly. Blaine looks at him curiously, “Are you upset your parents aren’t here? Were you...expecting them to show up?”

Blaine’s eyes widen in surprise slightly before he chuckles, “Well, considering we didn’t invite them, it would be very strange for them to show up now.”

Kurt sighs again, “Blaine…” He starts.

Blaine sobers before sighing himself and looking off to the side slightly. He notices Finn and Bethany dancing and smiles slightly before turning back to Kurt with one scrunched closed eye, “Maybe...part of me was hoping they might actually show up.”

Kurt’s heart breaks a little at the admission even though he’s the one who asked about it and he’d assumed that was going to be the answer. His heart breaks for Blaine who may never fully heal from the trauma of his past.

He puts his hands on either side of Blaine’s neck and leans in to kiss him softly. He can’t magically make everything okay for Blaine, but he can love him and remind him of how loved he really is.

He plans on spending the rest of his life making sure that happens.

[theotherackerman]

My Mind Turns Your Life Into Folklore

My Mind Turns Your Life Into Folklore

COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: Any recognizable elements belong to Attack on Titan.

NOTES:

Thursday, January 7th

song: drivers license-olivia rodrigo

chapter fourteen: i didn't have it in myself to go with grace

It had been a song written purely out of desperation to make sense of everything.

When Eren, Mikasa, and Armin had ended their friendship and cut off contact with another, Mikasa had been an absolute wreck.

She had no idea what to do, what she had done wrong.

So she turned to music.

Music would make everything better.

Music could make her sane.

The lyrics had been written first.

Every insecurity from high school to now came out in the lyrics. She couldn’t compose music. She didn’t have the first idea where to start. Eren had always helped with the music. She had been so frustrated. Why did every aspect of her life make her cry for him? Why did it push her deeper into depression.

“I compose music,” Historia offered.

So they went to the sun room and went to work.

It was from that moment that the band was born.

But there was one condition from Historia.

“I won’t sing this song. This is yours. If you ever want to hear it, you’ll sing and I’ll play keyboard.”

It was that song that Mikasa played on her keyboard after everyone else had left the sun room to go do their separate things.

Levi recognized it.

How could he not after the many times he had heard it?

He knew it was her way to cope. It was the song she always returned to and played for comfort.

Mikasa pretended not to see him in the doorway but once she stopped playing, he spoke.

“You need to play that for Eren,” Levi told her.

She turned her keyboard off, “I can’t. We’re trying to fix things.”

“You need to play it.”

“I can’t! It hurts too much. I...Historia won’t sing it.”

“Good, she doesn’t need to. You do. Stop being a coward,” Levi scoffed.

“I’m not!”

“You are. You’re acting like an angsty teen. Until he knows what he did, the actual severity of it, you’re never going to get past this. It’ll eat away at you until you do.”

Mikasa looked down at her keyboard and then back up at Levi. She knew he wasn’t doing this out of malice. She knew it wasn’t to hurt her. Mikasa knew Levi was saying this because at the end of the day, he was her parental figure. He didn’t want to see her in pain anymore.

Maybe that ache in her wasn’t just for Eren.

Maybe that ache was for Eren to understand how he had made her feel.

Eren had been open and honest with her, but had she done the same?

She sighed.

Levi smirked.

“I’m not saying you’re right if that’s what you’re waiting on,” Mikasa muttered.

He walked over and ruffled her hair, making it messy.

“Ah! Stop it!” Mikasa pleaded.

Sawney and Bean rushed into the sun room, happy barking filling the room.

They ran around all the instruments before they launched themselves at Mikasa, landing in her lap.

They barked again before licking her face.

“Alright, brat. Take them for a walk,” Levi walked out of the sun room.

“Fine,” Mikasa said before putting both corgis down on the floor.

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

For small puppies, Sawney and Bean were incredibly strong. Mikasa easily kept pace with them but she was still impressed with their strength.. Once they returned to the house, she released them from their leashes and they ran off to track down Levi.

Sasha, Annie, and Historia were in the living room this time.

“Did the bride just punch that lady in the mouth?” Historia asked.

“Yep, that’s bad form though. She probably broke her thumb,” Annie added.

“Sasha, what did you put on tv this time?” Mikasa asked after she took her shoes off.

“Some wedding show. I just flipped through channels and it came up,” Sasha shrugged.

Her friends had the absolutely worst taste in tv shows.

Mikasa sat down between Sasha and Annie.

“Is that an ambulance?” Mikasa asked.

“I told you she was going to break her thumb,” Annie answered.

“Why did she even punch her?” Sasha asked.

“I think we missed that part,” Historia answered.

So they kept watching and commenting on the ridiculous show. They never did find out why the bride punched the other woman. The next show was about stories from the ER so they ended up watching that too.

This was the same routine they fell into at the house. Someone would find something random on tv and they would watch it together. Sometimes, they had contests to see who could find the worst possible thing to watch. The more horrible the acting was, the more likely the person who found it was likely to win.

“So the icicle just fell and stabbed him?” Levi asked as he entered the room.

Historia got out of his chair. The girls all scrunched together on the couch so Historia could sit with them. They really didn’t mind.

“The ER doctor doesn’t think so. She thinks there’s more going on,” Sasha informed Levi as she turned the volume up slightly.

“Wouldn’t it go through this head if it fell off the roof?” Historia asked.

“You would think. I don’t buy it. He clearly pissed someone off and they were going to kill him. I mean if the murder weapons melts, how can they blame you?” Sasha said with a shrug.

“We have been watching too much true crime,” Annie chimed in.

“Oh! Here’s the next patient. That guy fractured what?” Sasha asked.

“It’s a penile fracture. Now, quiet, I’m trying to hear,” Annie replied.

“Can you fracture that?” Historia asked.

“Apparently,” Mikasa answered.

“How?” Historia asked.

All four girls turned towards Levi.

He sighed, “normally, it’s from a strong blow.”

This caused all four girls to start laughing uncontrollably.

Levi pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed again as he shook his head.

Armin, Eren, and Ymir came down a few hours later to join the rest of the group for dinner.

Mikasa had told Eren she had a song that she wanted to share with him.

Levi smirked once he heard this and it took all of Mikasa’s control not to throw something at him.

She led Eren to the sun room once dinner was over.

“What song is she playing for him?” Ymir asked as she washed dishes.

The first few piano chords started.

“No way! She’s not….” Historia was in shock.

“She is. How many times have we heard this song?” Annie asked.

The other four girls exited the kitchen, running towards the sunroom.

Armin looked over at Levi, “did I miss something?”

“Mikasa is playing a song she wrote right after her and Eren broke up.”

“Is it that big of a deal?”

“Go listen to it,” Levi said simply.

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

Mikasa led Eren to the sunroom. She sat down in front of the keyboard, Eren sat down in one of the chairs.

“I wrote this song right after we broke up. It just kind of summed up everything I was feeling at the time. I….uhh...I pulled from a few events before we broke up too. I don’t know how to put this into words but I thought this might help you understand my feelings too.”

Eren nodded.

“Okay,” Mikasa said before taking a deep breath.

Her fingers dance across the keys.

Each note brought a memory or feeling back to her.

“{lyrics redacted}.”

Mikasa had not taken her driver’s test when she was sixteen. She didn’t take it until she was eighteen. She had been so afraid to drive after the car accident. Eren had been the one to teach her drive.

“ {lyrics redacted}. ”

Mikasa had still had to run errands for Levi when she was living here before she moved to the city.

Eren’s house was a mere three blocks away, making it impossible not to pass sometimes.

“ {lyrics redacted}.”

A random blonde girl who seemed to be Zeke’s friend kept appearing in Eren’s Instagram pictures before he deleted his social media. It had been very heartbreaking for Mikasa to see Eren with someone else. She assumed he had found someone older, better than her and that was why he had left her. It killed her how he seemed to have moved on so quickly.

“ {lyrics redacted} ”

Eren had seemed fine to her. She knew now that wasn’t the case. It only made things worse.

“ {lyrics redacted} ”

Mikasa hadn’t been the only one writing songs about their relationship. Eren had written songs about her. She could remember him playing them for her. Whether it was here in Levi’s house or back in Eren’s old bedroom, it didn’t matter. She had felt like they were a private concert for her. They had meant so much to her and then Eren had taken that all away from her.

“ {lyrics redacted} .”

The kick drum kicked in. She heard Annie’s guitar and Ymir’s bass. The spot next to her was taken by Historia who placed her hands on Mikasa’s, signaling Mikasa to hand over the keyboard playing to Historia. Mikasa removed her hands, allowing Historia to play. She sang the chorus again.

The bridge came faster than Mikasa thought it would.

“ {lyrics redacted} .”

Ymir walked over and leaned on Mikasa, still sitting on the piano bench. Mikasa knew it was a way for Ymir to show her support.

“ {lyrics redacted} . ”

She couldn’t stand to be in this town anymore after her and Eren had broken up. When Historia had offered a way out, Mikasa had taken the chance.

Mikasa repeated the chorus again.

The rest of the instruments fade out except for the keyboard.

“ {lyrics redacted} t ,” Mikasa sang the last line, finally making eye contact with Eren.

He had tears in his eyes.

“Wow,” he said after Historia finished playing the last few notes of the song.

Clapping came from the doorway. Mikasa looked over to see Levi and Armin standing there.

“Alright, maybe you two should go talk in Mikasa’s room and we’ll all go pretend we’re not here,” Historia suggested. She gave Mikasa’s hand a squeeze.

“Sure,” Eren answered.

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

Mikasa closed the door behind her. Eren had already sat down on her bed. She sat down, careful to leave enough space for another person between them. She didn’t look over at him. She only stared straight ahead.

She wasn’t sure how he was feeling. He hadn’t said anything besides wow.

What did that even mean?

Was it because it was good?

Was it because it was bad and he hated it?

The silence continued.

Neither of them was ready to speak .

So they just sat there.

Awkwardly.

Mikasa was glad she had a digital clock because if she had heard the ticking right now, she might have gone insane.

“I wrote a song about you after the break up too,” Eren said, finally breaking the silence.

“Is it any good?” Mikasa asked as she finally looked over at him.

“Maybe I’ll play it for you one day.”

“Did...did you have another girlfriend or something after we broke up?” Mikasa asked.

Eren stared at her, “no.”

“Oh.”

Silence again. Mikasa looked straight ahead again.

“There was this blonde girl I kept seeing with you on Instagram….before you deleted everything. She looked a lot older than us, blonde. She seemed to be Zeke's friend but I don't know."

Eren started laughing hysterically.

“It’s not funny!” Mikasa shouted.

“You’re jealous of Yelena!” He laughed louder.

“I don’t know who that is!”

Eren laughed for a bit longer before composing himself.

“She’s Zeke’s ex girlfriend,” he finally said.

“Zeke had a girlfriend?”

“Shocking, I know. It didn’t last long. She wanted kids and a wedding. Zeke didn’t want that at the time. She kept pushing it, he was worried she only wanted him for his money. Then they broke up. It turned out that that was exactly what she wanted. She wanted Zeke because of his mom’s family. Whatever that means. I haven’t talked or even thought about her in months.”

“Oh.”

How stupid Mikasa had been.

“We’re even now,” Eren said with a smirk as he scooted closer to her. “You got jealous of Yelena, I got jealous of Jean. So we’re even.”

She looked over at him again.

“That was a perfect song. You should be more confident in your work,” Eren said before he stretched.

“I am. That song is just very personal.”

“All the best ones are,” he replied simply. He lied down on her bed. “I’m glad you shared it with me. I am sorry.”

“I know,” she said before giving him a weak smile.

He patted the bed next to him.

Mikasa sighed before she lied down next to him.

Eren yawned before he reached out and touched Mikasa’s face.

His thumb traced the scar on her cheek that had been left by the car accident. A single finger moved down to her lips, tracing them.

Mikasa held her breath. His trailed down her arm, then to her wrist. He began to trace the tattoo identical to the one her mother had had when she was alive.

“Thank you,” he said.

“For what?” She asked, her eyes met hers again.

“For giving me another chance even after I made you feel that way. And for sharing that song with me. I know it couldn’t have been easy." His finger continued to trace her tattoo.

“You’re welcome,” she muttered as she looked over at him. If she just leaned a little closer, she would be able to kiss him.

“I can’t hear anything,” a muffled voice from the other side of the wall said.

“That’s Sasha, isn’t it?” Eren asked as he stopped tracing her tattoo.

“It’s probably all of them,” Mikasa said as she sat up.

“Do you spy on them this much?” Eren asked as he also sat up.

“Sometimes,” she said with a shrug.

“So I shouldn’t suggest that I look up barn animal noises while you jump on the bed to make them regret spying on us?” Eren smirked.

“No, we should do that. Sync your phone to the tv or whatever. It has a better sound system to make it louder.”

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

“You’re such a softie,” Hange said on the other end of Levi’s phone.

“I am not,” he replied as he went into his bedroom. Sawney and Bean followed him in.

“Yes, you are. You’re helping Eren. You helped Mikasa. You love those kids. Nothing you can say will convince me otherwise.”

Levi pinched the bridge of his nose, “they asked me what a penile fracture was today.”

Hange could not contain their laughter on the other end of the phone.

“It’s not that funny!” Levi yelled as he shut the door behind him.

“Why do I miss all the fun stuff?” Hange asked. “So what did you tell them?”

“That it comes from a strong blow,” Levi muttered.

Hange’s laughter got louder.

“You teach biology! Why are you laughing?”

“Because it’s funny.”

Levi pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I hear you thinking all the way over here.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t like you being all the way there,” he muttered.

“Aww...does Levi miss me already?” They teased him.

“No, now I take it back. Stay there with your weird sea creatures. By the way, did Molbit get them all there?”

“He did! They’re all perfectly fine from their vacation! Although I think the spider crab is plotting to kill me.”

“Not the octopus?”

“Oh no, the octopus definitely wants to kill me and everyone else.”

“I told you not to get it.”

“It’s very beneficial for my students!”

“Whatever you say,” he said as he sat down on the bed.

“How are the kids otherwise?”

“Well, Armin seems to be taking the news well. You remember that song Mikasa used to play all the time? She played for Eren today.”

“Oh! The really sad one? How did that go?”

“They were jumping on her bed and playing barnyard animal sounds.”

“So good?”

“I guess. These kids are weird.”

“And that’s why they’re ours.”

“Whatever you say, four eyes.”

“You know what short stuff, I’m going to show up and put everything on a high shelf that you can’t reach.”

Levi scoffed, “I’ll just get one of the kids to get it down.”

“You always ruin my fun.”