#but then again-- haystack to space

[secretlysamcro]

Female Reader x Jax Teller Slight violence, slight smut, explicit language & adultery If you're under the age of 18, haven't finished the show or dislike any of said topics, please read no further. Till it's gone - Yelawolf Played: Season 7, Episode 2

“Damn it, y/n, it’s not that easy!” Jax’s voice echoes through the confined space of the van that’s currently parked in your usual location - a secluded area of a underground parking lot, frustration and anger lingering in the air as he turns to look at you.

Jax’s words were heavy…growing increasingly frustrated with your need to ask the same question over and over.

Jax isn’t a stupid man, he’s fully aware that cheating on Tara is wrong, but he also knows that leading you on is just as bad.

He found himself in this constant vortex of wanting -no, needing to end things with you but forever being unable.

“I’m not a fool Jax, there’s no need to pretend” you shake your head in disbelief laughing slightly. “I know I’m just your escape when things get bad at home”

“Then why bother asking y/n?” Jax growled, his voice rumbling, he displays his anger by punching the steering wheel, the sound of his ‘SO’ and ‘NS’ rings clanking against the wheel breaking the deafening silence.

“Become a man jax!” You say mockingly “handle your own for once” you knew your words would do nothing more than stir the rage that had already risen.

Jax’s struggle to contain the bubbling anger was evident as his eyes darkened with intensity. Grabbing your face. He forcefully turns your head to meet those darkened ocean eyes, refusing you the chance to look away.

“Watch your damn mouth y/n” he warned his tone sounding possessive.

Reluctantly, you pull your face away. Fighting back tears, recognising Jax’s temper. Even though you’d experienced little glimpses of his aggression during your secret intimate moments, you’ve never witnessed it out of that context - not directed at you anyway.

“I’m fucking sick of this Jax…you only ever call me when you want to get your dick wet, other than that I don’t hear from you”. Your voice quivers slightly, Jax can almost hear the anger and hurt. “I ain’t the stepping stone to be stepping on Jax, you need to sort your marriage out and leave me out of this…I ain’t nobody’s crutch”.

Jax’s gaze remains fixed forward, avoiding eye contact. He fidgets restlessly whilst sat in the drivers seat, running his fingers through his hair and adjusting his kutte. “Ain’t much I can do” Jax lets out a deep sigh, sounding uncharacteristically less confident, his voice tinged with a hint of defeat. “Unless you’re looking to check out”. Jax finally made eye contact with you again, his gaze locking with yours. The weight of his unspoken thoughts lingered behind the intense stare.

Despite knowing (whether he’d admit it or not) that Jax was only using you as a way to release his pent up stress from his marriage, the thought of bringing an end to this intimate arrangement left you feeling strangely saddened.

Deep down, you knew it was for the best. Staying in contact with Jax who’s only been using your pussy as comfort, isn’t fair on you. You’ve already been putting your life on hold for him, to be there for him, to comfort him, falling for him… when to him, you were just a warm place to seek pleasure without the weight of emotional connection.

“I guess I’ll never be the needle in the haystack that you finally found” your words echoing a previous conversation shared between the two of you where you both confessed a wish to have met under different circumstances.

Jax remained completely silent, nervously biting down on his lips as he starts the engine. His rough hand moving to rest on the back of the seat you currently occupied as he begins to reverse out of the parking lot. He refrains from speaking, keeping his pristine white air force 1’s on the gas pedal driving directly to your house.

Jax silently brings the van to a stop as he pulls up to where you live, switching off the engine whilst his lips remained sealed. The air between you both growing thick with tension.

You waited a brief moment, hoping for him to break the silence and say something, but as the seconds ticked by and his stubbornness persisted, the realisation had settled in that Jax had no intentions to speak.

Pulling yourself together, you take a deep breath and then clear your throat softly… “Well you know what they say Jax…”

He doesn’t utter a single word, but his eyes shift in your direction silently waiting to hear what it is you have to say.

“You never know what you’ve got till it’s gone”

With your final words spoken, you step out of the van. Forcefully closing the door behind you. Without even acknowledging Jax, your footsteps disappear into the night as you make your way to the entrance of your home. The conversation still lingering heavily in the thoughts of you both.

Gifs, photos & music do not belong to me.

PART 2

Jax Teller masterlist

xoxo secretly samcro

[noideabutsims]

Donut Co. Rainboho-tastic - Halfway There Rugs 📢 Simmers, Are Your Sims STILL Stepping Onto Snore-fest Rugs?! 😴 (We're Looking at You, EA!) 📢

Let's be real, folks. Finding decent rugs in the Sims 4 is like searching for a unicorn in a haystack. You spend hours scouring the build catalog, only to be greeted by a sea of beige, blah, and just plain BORING. 😫

And don't even get us started on the elusive "half rug." Seriously, EA, where are they hiding? Did they get lost in a time portal? Are they being held hostage by a rogue pack of Build Mode gnomes? We need more options! 😤

But fear not, fellow decorators! Donut Co. is here to rescue your Sims' floors (and your sanity!) with our Rainboho-tastic - Halfway There Rugs! ✨

These aren't your grandma's rugs, folks. We're talking vibrant, playful masterpieces that'll make your Sims want to ditch their shoes and do a happy dance! 💃

🌈 A Rainbow of Possibilities:

Whimsical Rainbows: Step into a world of color with our signature rainbow arch designs.

Playful Rubber Duckies: Add a touch of whimsy to your Sims' bathrooms (because who doesn't love a rubber ducky serenade in the shower?).

Blooming Leaves: Bring the beauty of nature indoors (without the risk of your Sims forgetting to water them... again).

Enchanted Mushrooms: Step into a fairytale with these whimsical mushroom designs (no, they won't make your Sims trip out... we think).

Unique Designs: For those who love a touch of abstract flair (and maybe a little mystery).

✨ Why You'll Love Them:

Perfect for Entryways & Bathrooms: Finally, a rug that's the perfect size for those often-overlooked spaces! No more awkwardly oversized rugs in your tiny bathrooms!

Plush & Comfy: Your Sims will love sinking their toes into these soft, inviting textures (it's like walking on a cloud... but without the fear of falling through).

Vibrant & Playful: Add a pop of personality and charm to any room (because let's face it, beige is SO last century).

So, ditch those snooze-fest bath mats and welcome your Sims home with a burst of color and comfort! Donut Co.'s Rainboho-tastic - Halfway There Rugs are here to transform your Sims' homes into havens of style and personality. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ GUYS - A friend of mine saw my rugs while WIP and has decided to make some wallpapers to go along with them - Using my png files!! So they will match exactly to these rugs! They're already a wonderful cc creator - so you should definitely check them out; but be sure to watch out for the wallpapers coming really soon! Xx (They look amazing already!!!!) Find them here: https://crimsonrozes.tumblr.com/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ All images have my reshade on - You can find no reshade images on the patreon and curseforge posts!*** If you are interested in my reshade, or want to see how much it changes the color - you can find it here: https://www.tumblr.com/noideabutsims/763209634729345024/remember-those-days-reshade-preset-guess-what?source=share ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Has 17 swatches New mesh

All of our CC can be found by typing " Donut " into the search bar! Name: Donut Co. Rainboho-tastic - Halfway There Rugs Buy Mode Description: "Add a splash of personality to your Sims' entryways and bathrooms with Donut Co.'s Rainboho-tastic - Halfway There Rugs! These vibrant creations blend playful patterns and eye-catching colors to transform those often-overlooked spaces.

Imagine your Sims stepping onto a plush rainbow archway as they enter their home, or sinking their toes into a cloud of softness after a relaxing bath. With whimsical rainbows, playful rubber duckies, blooming florals, enchanting mushrooms, and unique rainbow swirls, there's a design for every style.

So ditch those boring bath mats and welcome your Sims home with a burst of color and comfort!

Woah-oh - You're halfway there - to having the best rugs in town! XD" Will be releasing more content soon! stay tuned! ❤️ (NOT affiliated with EA or Maxis in any way! We just make CC!) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DOWNLOAD: Curseforge: https://legacy.curseforge.com/sims4/build-buy/donut-co-rainboho-tastic-halfway-there-rugs Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/116930384 Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MF3sWv5ZzL10PgM_kNZZ6pJZfN5hhIPe/view?usp=sharing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Due to financial issues and our promise of never paywalling our content; We have to ask that you guys download on our curseforge if you are willing and able. Just using their site to download makes us be able to have at least a small income that helps us when things get tough - however no matter where you download; we genuinely appreciate every download regardless!! If you can, you can find our curseforge here!: https://legacy.curseforge.com/members/the_lady_gaia/projects

Download it today and let the color explosion begin! 🌈✨ @alwaysfreecc @maxismatchccworld

[theoneiroveil]

Did you wake up on October 1st, 2016 to a very strange channel in your subscription box on Youtube?

Well if not, here is a little bit that channel.

Soursalt is a series that began in 2016 with roughly 600 people waking up subscribed to it without knowing. That's a very real thing that happened, which is a great selling point of the story.

Over the next few days these weirdly edited potato-quality home videos get uploaded and nobody has any idea what's going on. Some descriptions keep changing, some are pieces of conversations, etc. People are immediately hooked because what the fuck is going on? Then Madman Re starts getting mentioned, is it a place, a God, Freddy Krueger, who knows. More cryptic and weird dream videos get uploaded and then suddenly there's a break. This is the end of the prologue of the story.

Suddenly, we started getting rapid fire uploads a few months later of these two idiots making a really shitty ghost hunter parody knock off sketch. This is basically meant to be like a needle in the haystack for viewers. There are moments in these videos that are completely filler and just dumb comedy or filler -- b u t there are teases that something is up sprinkled within these videos. You'll have one of them mention the path looks different (implying they scouted it out before hand), or they'll hear or see something the camera just straight up doesn't see of pick up. This continues on until it's obviously getting dark, but we don't see their journey home. Instead, a few days later, we're treated to another sketch. This time shit gets fucky.

The two do the Ghost Guy routine on a haunted road by the woods, but as the move past the housed area towards the side of the park, their patience with each other starts running thin, they start hearing strange things, and feeling off. After taking a break off the road in a nearby Gazebo, they find a mysterious grave site and a stuffed monkey. Here, we learn out of character that they were filming at locations posted on a strange forum ; the same one implied to have launched the Soursalt spread.

After getting covered in some shit, blood and rot the characters introduce the audience to the Madman of Re as Aidan "Ghost Guy" Calloway touches the Window of a spooky run down bus and a ghastly hand touches his back -- all separated thematically by … a Window.

And this is where Soursalt takes you, into the Window; a terrifying physical nightmare space that seperates the viewer from their body and traps them in their own mind, a mind that can be easily manipulated by the Madman of Re.

BUT WAIT

This is only the end's beginning.

Timeskip -- Seven Years Later:

The story returns with Eulacram on the eve of the Spread's seven year anniversary following Aidan as he struggles to live with the trauma of his past and present following the events he experienced in Soursalt. It's at this point where the shattering of Aidan's mind takes literal form and we're presented with various versions of him through a system that he calls the Crucible Channel.

Meanwhile, another entity has pursued the same goal as Madman Re and sought out those that were victims of various Spreads to put together what it calls the Eulacram Tribute, a tournament of survival that allows those touched by the Oneiroveil (the dream realm the Window is in) to compete for an evolution of their flesh. Aidan and the other Spread victims are unknowingly pulled into a shared dream where it seems reality is once again being manipulated as their lives are being toyed with. However, Aidan's access to the Crucible Channel may be prove useful in saving him and the other victims from this new nightmare.

Eulacram is designed both as an Epilogue to Soursalt and its own series. While Soursalt is to be seen as a more found-footage style story, Eulacram utilizes the idea posed by the prologue that the entity can create videos with dreams, to showcase a cinematic-like view of events within the story. Some episodes can transition between hand-held, cinematic handheld, and cinematic third person, to allow for a unique approach on telling the story.

New viewers of the series can pick up with Act 1 or Act 2 Eulacram (on 10/1/23) without having fully watched Soursalt or Eulacram's prologue ; which will allow for an easier transition into the new content while everything you need to know will be given to you through the story. Viewers of the past content, and even those part of the first 600 subscribers will get the full experience though, as they will have seen the journey of some of these characters from the beginning, understanding the trauma that led them to becoming who they are today.

Soursalt // Eulacram is unlike any other web series you have seen, or dreamed. It's dark, gritty, there's a talking lizard, it's sharp and brutal at times ; but comedic, light hearted and emotional at others. The characters feel real, their pain feels real. If you're looking for web series horror that breaks the mould, takes risks, and isn't afraid to pop out an eye or two… or three… or ---

Then on October 1st, 2023, you should wake up to a very strange channel in your subscription box on Youtube.

This is that channel.

[centrally-unplanned]

Been watching the original Sailor Moon with partner (@stifledlaughterao3) and there is this character, Motoki:

He is Mamoru's (Tuxedo Mask) genki bff and in Season 1 a crush of Usagi's, and overall is just a general good civilian friend of the whole squad and a recurring character all the way through Season 4. He never appears in Season 5 (I think) for no stated reason, presumably because that season stuffed a healthy dose of new boytoys into its ensemble and needed to balance the scales by putting some others on a bus, but anyway...

In the aforementioned Season 4, the main plot is a Snow White Queen style villain capturing people's "Beautiful Dreams" (shown as mirrors) in a hunt for magic crystal (its Sailor Moon, its always a magic crystal). Said crystal is btw protected by a pegasus/alicorn prince with whom Chibiusa fulfills the deepest fantasy of every eager horse girl in the audience:

Get it girrrl don't let your dreams be dreams. But anyway (again)... the minions of our Distaff Evil Queen raid everyone's dreams hunting Chibiusa's beau, and I mean everyone's; at some points they are just dragging bodies by the truckful to inspect mirrors:

Those are the mirrors - I promise you the piles of bodies they got them from are just off frame. Point is, pretty much everybody has got a beautiful dream, which is why its so hard for these minion girls to find the needle dream in the haystack, insane hairstyles or no.

Season goes on, villain finds the macguffin, fighty fighty plotty plotty and it all culminates with the villain having sealed away all of humanity's dreams in darkness and Chibiusa & Usagi calling everyone to channel the power of their dreams into a planet-wide counterspell. Or Tokyo-wide at minimum, Chbiusa speaks like God from the sky over Tokyo and huge crowds go glassy-eyed to help her:

Even our boy Motoki's sister Unazuki jumps in to help, yelling into space as a confused Motoki tries to figure out what is going on with her:

Which...wait a second, why isn't Motoki helping? Everyone else is! He is the only character on screen in this sequence in Tokyo who isn't helping. Its not just girls, you see plenty of guys, its not just "kids", we see a confirmed late 20's school principal for example doing it too.

I get that not literally everybody had a Beautiful Dream probably, but like everybody the main cast interacts with does! Its used frequently as like an inherent, thematic statement of the essence of humanity, and its lack as a serious problem. So wtf is going on with Motoki! Why doesn't he get a dream?? I thought this would have some like nitpick explanation, but digging in I can't actually find one, I think he just...is dreamless, and therefore by implication kind of sucks.

This is literally the last time you see him, too! Dreamless and confused. My new headcanon is this moment outed him as some form of an alien spy minion and he was summarily executed by the post-dream-apocalypse reconstruction authorities, explaining why we never see him again. Rest In Peace, Motoki - in death may the void of the universe finally meet the void of your heart.

[heycerulean]

For the Writer's Block Ask Game: Sky, Bird, Leaves, & Lambert and Eiffel :)

thank you for the ask!!! this. this was fun to write. mostly because i got to inject it with a disgusting amount of bird facts but that's not my point. i'm pushing the let lambert know bird facts agenda. warnings for the whole situation with lovelace's crew, and probably ooc post-canon eiffel. also, i barely proofread this, so apologies if anything's off.

-/-/-/- Samuel Lambert knew a disgusting amount about herons, and waterfowl in general.

She'd known this for... a while. Remembering the exact date was like trying to find a needle in a haystack- she knew a lot about her crew, and it bugged her that she didn't know the origins of everything- but she did know the fact.

Maybe that time she was outside the station, doing routine maintenance on a sensor array. It'd been one of the ones with moving parts, the giant, mechanical arms that would swing around like clubs and make the most awful creaking sounds, but Rhea did say they were useful.

She remembers Lambert, walking her through the protocol they'd done a thousand times, huddled in the comfort of the interior. He'd made some comment about it snapping around like the neck of a heron, and she'd asked him what the hell he meant.

"Well- herons spear their prey," he'd offered, somewhat annoyed to be talking about the birds he liked instead of the priority-four task they were supposed to be focused on. "Their necks are incredibly strong, and they use their bills like spears when they find something. That's why you'll see them sitting by the water without moving; they watch until they see an opportunity, and then they take it without hesitation."

It makes her angry, sometimes, how gentle he'd sounded. He was disgruntled, sure, but he was Samuel Lambert, he was always disgruntled about something or other. He'd been happy, for those few short moments, because there was nothing he loved more if not to talk about what he loved, and he loved herons.

He'd loved what he did. He might not have acted like it, but she likes to think he loved the rest of the crew, too. None of them could've guessed where that trust would lead them. She couldn't've guessed where her trust would lead her.

Because, when you break anything down, that's all it is. Trust. Trust in yourself, trust in your equipment, trust in your neighbors, your friends, your thoughts. It had hurt you, and it would continue to hurt you, but you couldn't do anything without it.

She'd made a mistake, with Lambert, with Hui, with Fourier, with Fisher. She'd tried to fix it, to make up for it, to learn from it, at the very least. She'd made more mistakes after. She'd tried to learn from those.

She'd made a mistake in letting Samuel Lambert be taken like an opportunity. She'd tried never to make that mistake again. She failed. She tried again.

It got her home, at least. It got her to their families, it got her to Earth, it got her to Goddard, so she could finally pull the place apart like a rabid dog.

Of course, she'd finished that weeks ago. Her and Jacobi took the liberty of blowing the buildings down themselves, sending out the blueprints for the memorial plaques that evening. The hard parts were done, and all that was left was avoiding the nagging media attention.

That was part of why she was out here, wasn't it? The water. Living in space for so long has a way of removing you from the world. Water puts you right back in it. Sailing out into a watershed, on a tiny, paddle-driven dinghy that she'd found cheap at a hardware store after getting her fishing license, she had no choice but to focus. Someday, she'd buy an actual boat, but this would work for now.

Looking up from the water, she sees the heron again; the one that started this whole train of thought. Its golden eyes seem to be looking straight at her, even as its head flicks back down to the water.

"You and me here for the same thing, huh? Good evening for it. Clearer sky, clearer waters," she murmurs. She's talking to birds now, which is probably something she should think more about. Perhaps at a time when she's not fishing.

"Evening is a generous word for it," speaks a voice from behind her. It takes her a moment to recognize it as Eiffel; he's silhouetted by the distant light of the sunset. He's leaning against a tree, the dark leaves above him a stark contrast to the golden-hour grass below, and she'd find it nice if the timing didn't mean he was here for her.

"Usually that's Minkowski's line. Why's it you, tonight?"

"She was busy. Daniel and her were doing some kind of paperwork? They seemed angry. Renée asked if I would come make sure you were okay."

She's not sure she'll ever get used to hearing him speak, like that. He's far too earnest, far too genuine for the man she knew, far too concerned and caring and kind and sweet, far too much of all the things that her Eiffel was afraid to show.

And that Eiffel was gone, because she'd let him be taken like an opportunity.

The gentle movement of the waves below her shifts her out of that train of thought. It probably wasn't good that Jacobi and Minkowski were going at it again; they'd gotten on better since everything, but they'd never really fully forgiven eachother for a variety of things, and for the last several months, they'd had bigger problems. Hell, for all she knew, that 'paperwork' could be anything from legal documents to yet another government form to Jacobi's way of trying to communicate some abstract concept in visual form.

She'd just have to see, then. This lake, of sorts, is only about a five minute walk from the house; the water runs right up to the road, nearly, so it's not difficult to get there. It's one of the reasons she liked the place, other than the trees, or the wildlife, or the distance from other people.

"Isabel? You there?"

"...Yes. Sorry."

Her hands finding solace in the work of putting what she can away, she looks up again, watches Eiffel's curious expression at seeing the heron that's been perched in front of her for the past hour and a half.

"That's... pretty."

"Yeah. Great Blue Heron. They're pretty common around here."

"I think I've seen them before."

You have, is what she wants to say. "Probably," is what she does.

"They're... unique. They don't look like the other big birds I see around here."

"They're their own type of bird."

They're closely related to Pelicans, the Lambert in the back of her head decides to add. They're in the same family as things like spoonbills and ibises, and this incredibly strange bird called a Hamerkop, Scopus umbretta, which is the only extant species in its genus. Some herons have even learned to bait out fish with things like insects, seeds, flowers, or leaves.

"Cool. You seem to know a lot about them."

I don't, but he did, and he would've loved to tell you. "I knew a guy."

"And he likes herons?"

"He liked a lot of things." And he would've hated you, at first. You probably would've grown on him.

"...Are you going to come home, now?"

"I want to go home, Lovelace," he'd said, at the point when he was past too-weak-to-cry and reaching at a steady pace towards the inevitable. "I do. But I don't think that's happening anymore. You just... you have to get the rest of us out. Get home. Get yourself home. Send those letters. Think of me once or twice, if you feel like it."

"I don't think any of us are ever going to stop thinking about you."

"That doesn't seem healthy. That would-" the coughing fit he falls into has him hunching over for a few moments. He heaves in a breath, turning back to her. "That would fail your psych evaluation. You don't want that."

"You realize your life is and will be worth more than a psych eval, right? Several times over?"

"That's not my point." His hand, weaker, colder than usual, squeezes with what it can. "Get home. That's all I ask."

"...Yeah, Eiffel. I'll be there."

[it-was-all-a-beautiful-dream]

When sparks fly

Hi Guys, this is an idea for a 911 fic ft Buck and Eddie x reader, let me know what you think and if I should actually make it into something...

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

The bustle of the city was something you were still trying to get used to. It was a complete change from the small village you had grown up in, gone were the days where you’d say hi to everyone who walked the streets, now you had to dodge the onslaught of the morning commuters to avoid being burnt by tall steaming cups of coffee.

You had officially become a needle in a very, very large haystack.

You checked your phone again, triple checking you were headed in the right direction even though you’d only been there a few days ago collecting your key card and other essential items to start your new job as an LA emergency dispatcher.

You stomach did summersaults as you pushed through the wide glass doors and into what would be the start of your new life.

Luck was on your side today; you were buddied up with a woman called Maddie who took you under her wing almost instantly. Showing you the ropes, getting you settled in and introducing you to all your new co-workers.

Maddie never left your side, not even when she had to speak to Howie, who you found out was her husband, or when she got a phone call from Buck, her brother. She explained that Howie and Buck were firefighters with the 118, one of the crews who you’d be working closely with.

The days went on like this for a couple of weeks. Call after call, you finally felt like you were making some sort of difference, and every day on the job you seemed to get closer and closer to Maddie.

You were both about to clock off for the day when Maddie turned to you, inviting you to the bar where she’d be meeting Howie and the rest of the 118. Shuffling your feet nervously you glanced at your phone, one drink couldn’t hurt? It wasn’t like you had work tomorrow.

“Do we have time to swing by my place so I can change quickly? It’s not far… I could meet you there if you don’t want to wait?” You looked down at your dispatcher uniform and grimaced. Probably not the best look to go with to make a good first impression.

“Of course we can Y/N, let me give you a ride then we can drop my car at the station and walk to the bar with Buck.”

Buck. You’d heard his name so many times, yet you still hadn’t met him. According to Maddie he was a few years older than you, he was goofy, caring, charming and you could tell by the way Maddie spoke about her little brother that he was a good person.

It hadn’t taken you long to get ready. Maddie had come up to your apartment with you and you grimaced when she noticed the still to be unpacked boxes. You didn’t like to get comfortable, that’s when something bad normally happened. Unpacking was tempting fate. Luckily your friend didn’t pry.

Your apartment was relatively close by, the fire station only a few blocks away. Butterflies erupted in your stomach as you walked into the building with Maddie by your side. She said some of the others would already be at the bar, but Buck was waiting so he could walk us over.

In the short space of getting to know the women you worked with you’d learnt about her past and her ex, Doug. In a way it hit close to home. Having to run from something, fearing for your life everyday…never knowing what tomorrow could bring. You could understand why Buck would be protective.

The warm glow of the lights from overhead illuminated the fire trucks, gleaming beasts sitting pride of place at the forefront of the firehouse. You would have been able to take in your surroundings a lot more clearly if it wasn’t for the man leaning against one of the trucks in question.

He must be at least 6’3, short sandy coloured hair, kind eyes, a red birth mark just above one of them that looked almost like a scar. His lips were plump and parted as he looked down at his phone. His shirt tight across his chest and his biceps. He looked up when he heard the approaching footsteps, his mouth stretching into a wide smile and his eyes twinkled.

“I was about to send out a search party.” Maddie playfully smacked the man on the arm as he pulled her into his side for a hug. His eyes never left yours.

“Buck, this is Y/N.” Buck let go of Maddie and took a couple of steps toward yo. You had to look up to take him in, being only 5’6 had its disadvantages.

“Evan Buckley, pleasure to finally meet you.” He stuck out his hand for you to shake and you timidly put yours forward. Your palms touched; it was a good thing you were in a firehouse because the sparks were out of control.

You were both snapped out of your daze as Maddie coughed beside you. Her eyes glinted with mischief, and it was hard for her not to smile. Your cheeks were probably the same shade as the engine you stood near to.

Footsteps clanged against the metal stairs making your jump slightly.

“Sorry guys, ready to go? Just had to phone Carla and check in on Chris.” The man stopped short when he caught a glimpse of you behind Buck. If you had to guess, this was Eddie. Bucks’ best friend.

Tan skin, dark brown hair and eyes to match, chiselled jaw with a hint of stubble and the muscles that rivelled Bucks, not to mention the thousand-watt smile. His voice was familiar, just as Bucks had been from the countless of calls you’d handled in the short time you’d been a dispatcher.

“You must be Y/N, I’m Eddie.”

Another hand to shake, more sparks.

You were screwed.

[comatosebunny09]

Sooo glad to know I’m not the only one who’s noticed such a crazy disparity between likes/replies and reblogs when it comes to fics and fandom in general. To come back here and see only dozens of reblogs vs thousands of likes is not the tumblr I used to know (aging myself lol)

Of course I appreciate every interaction with something I’ve put out there! But sometimes I don’t think people realize how impactful the reblog button is. And that such passive forms of enjoyment without engaging or showing what moved you or why you liked the work can make a writer feel like a one-sided burn and churn machine. Can suck the inspiration right out of ya

Anyway, love you and your work and will forever always share whatever you put out there!

I wholeheartedly agree, anon.

I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with Tumblr since 2011-2012. Back then, reblogs and comments outweighed likes by a considerable amount.

I’m unsure when things started to change, and fandom spaces became isolated and antisocial. Sometimes, it’s like seeking a needle in a haystack, trying to find someone to gush over the same character or fandom as you. But I think we need to eliminate the sense of entitlement we’ve developed lately, expecting someone to “create, create, create,” because soon, there will be no content to consume.

Seeing so many talented people leave is disheartening because they receive little to no feedback. I’ve come close so many times to leaving myself, but I always find a reason to return (that’s my fault). As I’ve mentioned, everyone initially writes for themselves, but we share for the sake of sparking discussions.

Thank you so much for being supportive. I greatly appreciate your ask. I hope you remain successful with whatever art you’re producing and never let the lack of interaction discourage you. You are talented regardless of the amount of notes you receive.

[the-s1lly-corner]

Could you possibly write about slenderman's ghost s/o trying to make the mansion festive for Halloween bc they're really excited for the holiday and never experienced it before? They have a list and everything as soon as they learn about the custom-

For instance, every room is decked out in decor totally not stolen, they make loads of themed treats, and try to engage the him and the proxies into doing multiple festive activities as well?

-slender anon <3 (sorry if this is too much exposition, tysm for all the cool writing)

Celebrating Halloween w/ Slenderman!

so so sorry for taking a a bit to get to this !! I meant to get this out tomorrow but I got distracted </3 still torn on if i want the mansion to exist in my au but for all intents and purposes we'll say it does for this >:) i might make the mansion like, some abandoned creepy haunted house in universe, like the house from IT or Nightmare on Elm Street (i actually... dont remember if it gets abandoned or not in the later movies, its been a while since i watched the series..) or something something yeah i think ill go with that for the mansion anyways enough rambling

Cue curious head tilts and questions from slenderman, he knows OF Halloween but he doesnt know all the ins and outs and intricacies when it comes to how its celebrated; best he knows is costumes and candy

initially watches you try to hang up all the decorations by yourself but eventually steps in to give you a hand

probably consults in you what basic Halloween traditions are, and probably also tries to ask the proxies if they know anything about it

i think outside of toby, the proxies don't really. remember much of their lives before becoming proxies, but that's because I'm basing my take on them off of the original MH where like, there's brain fog and the proxy/person are internally separate, but that's where inspiration from the original stuff ends; merging two fandoms together is. hard when the canon and fanon are so different

anyways

but also i never really like the creepypasta interpretation of masky and hoodie, at least from when i was in the fandom years back where they were shy and soft, but thats likely changed now- admittedly i dont interact with the fandom outside of creating

im rambling again, but i think masky and hoodie would also be a little lost but ready to do whatever they're told to do in regards to helping deck out the mansion

good news is that the mansion already looks like a spooky haunted house! especially on the outside since it's not as well kept as the inside

the inside is like what comes to mind when someone says old ass house; creaky wooden floors, shitty heating system, crawl spaces and compartments, that sort of thing. old enough that it would definitely have mold and rot, and be falling apart, if slenderman didnt come and keep it in tact

again, it already looks spooky enough as is, but decorations can really tie in the look

fake cobwebs, skeletons, spiders

oh those are real spiders

the mansion probably has spiders, slenderman cant do anything about the spiders sorry

okay anyways

treats! totally not stolen from some store by a teleporting entity that naturally distorts electronics! definitely not

he would make them with you, i think

i sometimes think about how slenderman would probably like calm and quiet activities, domestic ones included, so i think this is something he would actually end up loving especially with you around

learns he hates working with melted marshmallow, that shit is not banned from the mansion as well as marshmallow creme

he even gets those cute little halloween themed goodie bags so you can give them out

unfortunately he's going to have to pass, on account that he can't really eat any non-human meat food, but rest assured if he could safely eat your treats he would

Toby would be fucking that shit up, especially if you make those popcorn ball things. i feel like toby would love those. masky to me seems like a butterscotch haystack enjoyer to me (based), while hoodie fucks up those chocolate dipped pretzels, you know the ones that get decorated to look like mummies? those. he demolishes those (also based)

i kinda miss the popcorn balls tbh i havent had those in years but they were good from what i remember- i think i might make some this evening

moving on once more

if there's any extras slenderman may offer to take you around to give them to others

im still deciding character dynamics and relationships and who knows who in this funky au, but i feel like slenderman knows at least a handful of the other character. at least on a first name basis

so thats fun! you also get to share the joy with characters such as splendor and trender, and perhaps even jeff. i hc that eyeless jack and slender are both in the same forest but not like. buddy buddy. but he can get goodies too. ignore the fact jack is in the same boat as slender in terms of what he can and cant eat- he appreciates the gesture

now activities! i gotta admit i never really did halloween stuff outside of trick or treating; so im a little stumped on ideas

theres the obvious, pumpkin carving (the pumpkin insides get used to make more treats!), apple bobbing, and a few others

while not really a halloween game, you guys probably play a few games in the woods

thats

wait no thats terrifying, do not play hide and seek/tag with them in the woods regardless of if its night time and regardless of if youre a ghost, that shit actually sounds terrifying esp since i think slenderman and hoodie would get WAY TOO competitive

oh scary stories

definately

you insist on summoning ghosts and demons to fit the vibe

" but Dear, you're a gho-" "hush"

you guys accidentally summon one of the ghost creepypastas or something/j

you guys accidentally summon zalgo and halloween gets cancelled'j

idk if this is just a me thing but whenever me and my friends sit down to read creepypasta stories we get derailed and somehow end up reading fanfics and acting them out but i can see this happening as well; though this one also isnt a halloween exclusive activity

overall its a learning experience for most of you guys, and slenderman is totally up to humoring you again next year!

oh oh oh halloween costumes, how could i forget?

good luck trying to find something for slenderman, even if he could fit in anything he probably wouldnt dress up no matter how you try to word it

actually now that i think of it, do you think his suit is just part of his body? like ive seen loads of interpretations where it is; the shitty slenderman movie included. like is it a removeable suit? is it something that looks like a suit but its part of him? is it like a scp 049 situation where it is a suit but its attached to him?

im not getting into that today

masky and toby both dress up as classic slasher icons

hoodie probably would too but i got flashed with a vision of him dressed as pumpkin so im rolling with it

i think thats about everything! i hope you like this! this ended up way longer than i thought it would be but i fully blame that on me still being in my ramble mindset </3 ive been cooking up some major hcs for my au/interpretation as well as smaller stuff so my brain just wants to dump it TToTT

anyways

runs off to go draw spooky stuff (cough cough creepypastas dressed up in costumes)

[woodchipp]

So, I've read the OMORI manga's first chapter.

All in all, it's already an improvement over the game in my eyes.

SPOILERS BELOW.

Things I Liked

The biggest improvement, of course, is that Sunny isn’t locked in a perpetual resting bitch face anymore. He’s appropriately afraid to open the door, shocked to see Basil, aghast at Aubrey calling him a “loser” and terrified of Aubrey herself. And the mention of Mari actually causes him to freak out! Compared to Game!Sunny, it’s quite refreshing to see he seems to have some semblance of a personality here. Now I’m interested to see how Basil’s bathroom breakdown will be handled 🙂

I appreciate that the manga doesn’t fuck around with its plot and cuts straight to the chase. Headspace is boring as hell anyway, and I'd personally take the manga's breakneck pacing over the game's excruciating length. Starting off the very first chapter with Memory Lane’s very last memory was an interesting choice, and it makes a lot of sense given that the violin is the source of all of Sunny’s woes lol

Likewise, I appreciate that Aubrey is violently confrontational right off the bat. At least she’s proving herself to be as unruly as a real delinquent would be lmao. She even calls Sunny out as the coward he is! Her gang is nowhere to be seen so far, which I see as a huge improvement considering they’re barely characters, and I hope they’re excised from the story so that it could focus on Aubrey more 

Basil briefly changing to his Headspace version to reflect Sunny’s tenuous grasp on reality is a great detail. Where was that kind of detail in the source material?

Sunny zoning out into White Space after attacking Aubrey makes sense. I can see why the shock would cause him to dissociate. It also makes sense that Sunny would dream up a playground if he fell unconcsious at the park. That being said…

Things I Disliked

…the way Headspace is introduced is still rather haphazard. I'm not sure why the chapter ends where Headspace began in the game. Unless the Headspace segments are much shorter here, I'm afraid it'll be just as much of a tumor on the plot as it was in the source material

Again, Kel only calls attention to Sunny’s knife and says nothing about Aubrey’s nail bat. It was stupid in the game and it's stupid here. He also stands by while she holds Sunny at bat-point and monologues about how she'll never forgive him instead of, dunno, trying to tackle her so that she doesn't harm Sunny

The artstyle is. a thing. Everyone’s got haystack limbs, including Kel, who’s supposed to be the physically fittest one in the group. The Same Face Syndrome goes without mention

The implication that Omori stepped in and took control of Sunny to attack Aubrey is the one thing I genuinely hated. Come on, are you really going to shirk responsibility for Sunny’s actions on his Evil Mental Illness again? At least Sunny himself was horrified by the act, but still, that was bullshit. can’t wait for the Epic plot twist that Omori forced Sunny to shove Mari down the stairs 

[byakuwan]

AU where sho-chan can REALLY fix things

idea set in the alternate future timeline right after tsuna killed byakuran.

they all thought that would be the end of him in every world. however! just because you erase something doesn't mean it was never there at all.

in a dream or something, uni told him that the sky mare ring's ability can work the same way he got his time machine to work just like the 10 yr bazooka. then she asked him to try and save byakuran in one of the endless other alternate futures. she says he wasn't evil his whole life, things just happened in all the ones closest to their own world.

what things?? uni can't tell shoichi that. the sky mare ring will always find byakuran and continue to pull him in to make him the person former past-tsuna had to kill to repair reality.

basically he has to get to their byakuran with his time machine (once he upgrades it to time+space machine) before the ring does.

wouldn't this be a needle in a haystack?

-

honestly my mental image is tragic AF.

it involves shoichi going to world after world byakuran lived in before his life went horribly wrong in one of 10000 (infinite) different ways possible before he gets inevitably taken out one way or another by... whatever uni did that erased him initially. shoichi just has to see him suffer over and over at the hands of the world he could have liked if things had played out differently.

bet he would turn out differently too. slowly realizing sho-chan is trying to save him through the appearances in many timelines he was suffering in :)

-

... i bet uni actually (inadvertently) cursed him if the sky mare ring caught him and is trying to bring him back again (through struggling against said curse.) this is inhumane no matter who intends what. the trinisette doesnt care if it's busy in the post-canon reality. uni isn't even in this one anymore. sho-chan Save Him

[bazaarwords]

in spite of war [4/9 | griddlehark | post-canon]

i hope u guys are enjoying! i've had a lot of fun writing, even if it is a little stream of consciousness-y :)

first | prev

🦴🦴🦴🦴🦴🦴🦴🦴🦴🦴🦴🦴🦴🦴🦴

We didn’t talk after that. Not for a few days.

This, I think, really illustrates my point about getting kicked when I’m down. About eating those exploding toenail knives.

In retrospect, I can’t really call what we did in the kitchen talking. More like a bouquet of aborted sentences.

It took forever to get from planet to planet—so many of the steles had been busted in the war. We were just kind of looking for a needle in the endless haystack of deep space. 

I will admit this about myself: I’m not a patient person. Even before the death and the resurrection and all of the bullshit that came after—I mean, you know. I tried to get off the Ninth a billion times. Some of those attempts, loathe as I am to admit it, were like hours apart.

There wasn’t a whole lot to do on the ship, and I didn’t want to escape into a subzero vacuum, thank you very much. I ran laps in the hallways with Paul, I did push-ups and star jumps and squats and started deadlifting (which, haha. I’m dead.)

I did other stuff, too, like eating and sleeping and moving a mirror into my room. Again—don’t knock it.

The fourth day after the kitchen, I found an apple at the foot of my bed.

It had been ninety-six hours since my last apple, and I really do fucking love apples, so I ate the thing and didn’t think much about it. I was going a little stir-crazy.

I figured, afterwards in the hallway, dangling from the water pipe that was the scene of my two-hundredth (my fiftieth) pull-up of the day, that the apple could have been poisonous or laced with radiation or something worse. That if someone wanted to off me again, it would have been that easy.

But I felt fine. Sweaty, yeah, from the pull-ups. Fine otherwise. I was dead already, so what did it matter?

Then, a voice in the hall: “Ready for our 10k?”

“Where did you find the apple?”

I dropped to the floor and turned in the subsequent silence. It was still a weird moment of cognitive dissonance, seeing Palamades' expressions on Camilla’s face. Or rather—a freaky mixture of the two.

“Last I checked, we were out of fresh fruit,” Paul said, one eyebrow arched. “Where did you find it?”

“On my bed.”

“I’m not in the business of bad omens.”

“I thought that was a hat on a bed.”

“Okay. I’m not in the business of fruit on beds.” The eyebrow lowered. “I’d ask someone else.”

And I knew. I don’t know why I was pussyfooting around it. Maybe the night in the kitchen kept replaying in my head, maybe I didn’t know what I’d even do.

The ten kilometers didn’t change anything. Paul’s easy and infrequent conversation didn’t either.

I slinked back to my room and found a note on my bed.

It said, really stupidly: You’re wanted in Archives.

I think you’d tried to make it seem like Paul had written it. Because, I don’t know, Paul was the only person who’d be caught dead in Archives.

But you could have killed me another twenty times and I would have known that handwriting. I would have recognized the way the flimsy had indented, like you were trying to squeeze the last bit of ink out of a pen that—really, and you knew this—never ran out.

I didn’t consciously run my thumb over the words. Well, the word.

(Wanted.)

next

[forever-eternal]

hello, I am writing for you again ^^ the inbox gremlin is in your inbox. I’m not sure what Adam and Robin’s office set up looks like in the government buildings so I made it up. I imagine it to be a relatively large room with either one window or none and the there’s two desks, one’s Adam’s and the other is Robin’s. I imagine their desks are right next to each other but not touching so they have space to organization and work room.

“it had been nearing the end of the day, Robin was starting to gather and organize every little paper that had been not so carefully plopped on her office room’s desk. Somebody had come in while she was out and busy with her employees and scattered papers all over her desk. She’d find out who the idiot was later, it was so rude of them to just do this, but not rude enough to ensure harsher punishment.

She looked over to the other side of the room where her husband was, he looked tired. Adam had always looked tired with the large dark circles under his eyes, but today especially did he look like he needed more than a weeks worth of sleep in one night.

Robin let out a quiet sigh and turned back to the absolute mess that had been left sitting on her desk. She couldn’t understand if it was some idiotic prank or someone sending 5 pounds of blank paper with a few having keyboard smashed on them, to the wrong person. Said paper had also been mixed in with other, much more important papers. She had a solid guess as to who did this, the man had been causing problems the past week and had gotten rather bold.

the man who’s name slipped her mind, one she wouldn’t bother to try and fetch. It had been small things, taking pens other employees had set down and he would move them, Robin didn’t care about that, until he tried it with her. He was swiftly caught, she perfectly knew what he was doing but he claimed he thought it was his.

Next, she had caught stealing papers, important papers and files that could not be mixed up, from people. She was through with him, if he shall work in a professional setting, then he shall act like a professional or he will face the consequences. He did not listen.

It was a haystack of problems he was causing.

it was sudden but Robin felt it deep in her gut. The sudden twist had pulled her from her thoughts and to the deep gut feeling that writhed like a worm trying to get to the surface. She looked at Adam, it was easy to tell he knew. He had that look on his face and they knew.

Robin was quick to set her papers down on the desk and felt the angry crackle in air of her own doing. She could feel her body dissipating from it’s current position and she briefly saw Adam repeating the process himself.

It was quick and brief, she didn’t know exactly where she was going, but she was there to help and that’s all that mattered. Robin looked around and saw her child, her sweet baby, he looked terrified.

There was blood on his legs coming from tiny holes inside him. It was quickly registered how those were gunshot wounds, she had seen too many and couldn’t bear the thought of them on her sweet baby boy. That’s *her* child, her and Adam’s little one they raised.

The hate bubbled in her gut and threatened to pour out of her form in thick goopy eyes. She turned to a man with a gun and his wide eyes and open mouth that brought out no sound gave joy to Robin.

Her humanoid skin and the disguise of normalcy ripped and tore and at the weak seams of flesh as the man raised his gun and slammed his fingers down on the trigger. He ran and and panicked and she could feel his heart ramming out of his chest as his breathing quickened.

Robin saw his face, his miserable, miserable face. It was the man, the problem causer.

she lunged at him and could see his very consciousness dissipating as she got closer. And then he was gone, nobody would ever remember him and it brought happiness to Robin, nobody even liked him anyways.

Nobody, and she means nobody, ever, gets to harm her children”

:}

Bestie—

She would fr fr

Imagine any of her kids and it fits—

[obigem]

When the fireworks came to an end, Jordie, DeShawn, Jai, and Cordie opted to take the school shuttle back to Oasis Springs while the rest of the Fletcher clan headed to the nearest Wendy's McBurger Queen for some late night eats. Naturally, Jai walked Cordie home in their stead.

For Cordie, the night coming to an end was almost a relief. She was glad to be home and away from everyone. Perhaps they could even put enough space between a lot of the awkward moments so they both could move past them. But for Jai those moments were too fresh.

And when they got to the front door the awkwardness persisted.

"I...had a really good night." Cordie said with a shy smile.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I had so much fun. I'm glad you asked me to go with you."

"Right." He sounded apprehensive, considering whether to say more.

In the end, the nagging in his heart won out. His curiosities wouldn't let him rest.

"Cordie, I....well, could it be that maybe you didn't want to go out with me after all?"

"What do you mean? I told you I had fun tonight."

"That's not what I mean." He looked anxious.

"I know you were really grateful that I helped you with your club, so if you said yes to dating me because of that, well, you don't have to. You don't have to force yourself."

"What? I'm not forcing myself. Jai, I like you. I decided my answer was yes before all of that."

"I guess I'm just confused then. In the haystack maze, you nudged away from me when I put my arm around you. And then after the ferris wheel, well...I tried to, ya know." He got embarassed.

"Oh." Of course she knew what he meant.

"Is the idea of doing that with me so horrible?"

"That's not it!"

"Then...what is it? It's OK, you can tell me. I'd just rather know if there's something about me you don't like."

"It's not you! I like you a lot, Jai. It's just, before in the maze and after the ferris wheel, it seemed like you wanted to k—kiss."

"And you don't want to kiss me?"

"It's not that I don't. It's just—" Jai could see her getting flustered so he reassured her.

"It's OK. Just tell me."

"It's like this. A few years ago, someone kissed me. It happened suddenly and I didn't get a say in it."

"It had a really negative impact on me. I don't like to talk about it, and I've tried to forget it. Most people have forgotten it, but not me. That's why I promised myself if I was in that position again, I'd want a say. I'd want the person to ask me first if it was OK."

[thisworldisablackhole]

The Requiem A Cure To Poison The World

🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑

More than just a nostalgia act?

The Requiem, formerly known as L'exquisite Douler (a name which has since been relegated to a 53 second piano interlude), broke onto the scene in 2020 with a simple mission statement; make rock music sloppy again. Feeling disenchanted by the current state of highly processed and autotuned alternative music, this young trio yearned for the early-to-mid aughts when young emotional rock bands gained notoriety by letting their voices crack over the jagged edge of minor scales and double stacks - the way god intended.

Debut album A Cure To Poison The World brings that mission statement to life with a short and sweet love letter to the MySpace era of post-hardcore and emo bands. Damien Douleur is an absolute powerhouse of a frontperson and quickly steals the show by transporting the listener back in time with an immediately familiar sense of desperation and dramatic flair. First track "This Is How The World Ends" is the perfect introduction to the band, swinging out the gates at full speed with a drum roll straight into dark sustained power chords and a grim, violent look into how this world is going to end (spoiler alert: with a moment of silence, death staring into you). It quickly showcases what the band has to offer, and is very polite in the fact that it doesn't waste the listeners time. You'll know in the first 15 seconds if this band is for you or not.

The run of songs from the intro to about the mid way point of the album doesn't miss a beat, and I really appreciate the bands effort to switch things up with the subtlety required when pulling influences from a relatively small pool. Even when the song structures begin to feel repetitive or trite, the hooks are passionate and catchy enough to pull you back in. Third track "Less Than Zero" in particular sticks out to me as a refreshing diversion from smudged eyeliner worship to a more melodic punk offering full of chanted backing vocals, "whoah whoah's" and riffs that would sound right at home on Rise Against's The Sufferer and the Witness. Meanwhile, sixth track "Cursed" brings the tempo way down for one of the best slow dance rock ballads I've heard since MCR's "The Ghost of You". This song builds up into an epic swan dive moment as Damien sings, "as the years go by, I hope that there's a smile on my face when I die" before crash landing back into the chorus like Altaïr into a haystack. It's a simple, yet universal sentiment that is nothing short of beautiful in it's expression.

Where this album loses steam and begins to show it's cracks for me is with seventh song "Two Lovers Left Alive". This song strips away the drums, bass and electric guitar and leaves Damien alone with an acoustic guitar, wisped along by the soft winds of a synthesizer as he sings about (if my hypothesis is correct) some kind of immortal vampire searching for a long lost lover, separated by an infinite amount of space and time? The story is cute, but being unshrouded by loudness, this song just illuminates the reliance on cliché emo tropes that are spattered all over this album like defiant scrawls on the inside of your high school locker; coffins, corpses, and chemicals galore. The lyrics on the album are mostly fine - covering themes of suicidal ideation, apocalyptic doom and the macabre - but the hints of emo vampire romanticism come off as a little too campy for me.

Thankfully the energy picks back up with the next three tracks before closing out with another crooner which gracefully avoids the same pitfalls of "Two Lovers Left Alive" by beefing up the arrangement of instruments to provide a more apt backdrop for Damien's voice. "Before I Go…" also features a few creative spins like a Spanish influenced acoustic bridge, a triumphant electric solo, and a short spoken word poem which culminates in a satisfying bookend to the journey. As good as the closer is, the pinnacle of this last chunk of songs is definitely "Diary Of A Masochist". This was my favourite of the singles released in 2023 and remains one of the strongest and most engaging tracks on the record. A majority of this album, whilst enjoyable, doesn't deviate far from the formula displayed in the first few minutes, but "Diary Of A Masochist" pulls out all the little hooks and daggers to crank that formula to it's most potent form, creating a song riddled with dynamic twists and one of the most intense vocal performances to back it all up. The attention to detail here is just on another level, and it makes me wish that same labour of love was applied more liberally throughout the 36 minutes runtime.

So, now we return to the original question. Is The Requiem more than just a nostalgia act, doomed to eat their own tail? The short answer is… it's too soon to tell. No, they aren't doing anything new, but it's done with such a high standard of quality and reverence for their predecessors that it doesn't even matter. They aren't beating a dead horse; they are resuscitating that motherfucker with 10,000 volts of electricity, and to speculate any further would just soak the fun out of listening. Whether or not the formula will hold up on subsequent releases is another question, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there (and I hope we do). In the meantime, I'm just gonna enjoy the gift that is A Cure To Poison The World; an imperfect, yet highly enjoyable chunk of third wave emo worhsip that resonates just loud enough to pump some fresh blood into your tired heart.

[bookgirlfan]

✨ao3 wrapped 2023✨

I was tagged by @lilolilyr and I love this idea!

Works published: 24

Wordcount: 28,153, which is the lowest I've had for a few years. Probably because I've been away a lot this year! It's actually more than that, because I wrote stuff in my ongoing Sherlock Holmes minific collection, but that isn't included in the count.

Kudos: 983

Hits: 7,412

Bookmarks: 163

Subscriptions: 31

Most popular by kudos: The Long Path to Truth, which is really impressive, considering I only posted it at the end of November! It's an A:TLA fic on the eternal theme of the Gang finding out how Zuko got his scar, and somehow got 326 kudos in a little over a month.

Most hits: The Long Path to Truth, again, with 2,919 hits.

Longest: On Love You Can Depend, a fic for Wind in the Willows the musical, at 4,435 words.

Shortest: The Babysitter of the Bones, at 189 words, because my best friend got me into Bones this year.

Most Comments: Idle Lips Are The Devil's Mouthpiece, a Good Omens fic with the locals gossiping to Nina about Crowley and Aziraphale, got 11 comments!

Fics that made me cry/Fics that made me smile: I hate to say it, but I honestly don't know. I read approximately 2196 new fics this year, as well as rereading probably twice as many old ones, so as much as I would love to rec some amazing authors, because there are so many, I've read too much to keep track!

gifts: This year I received three gifts!

a podfic of my fic Birds, Beasts, and Haystacks, by the fantastic @blackestglass

A Devotion to Duty, a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fic by BardicRaven for the Hurt/Comfort Exchange

Famous Five (or half of it) buying ice cream by Claire_cz for Yuletide

I also gave gifts for Hurt/Comfort Exchange and Yuletide

company | ˈkʌm.pə.ni, a Ouran High School Host Club gift for palebluestrings

Crash of Priorities, a Darkwing Duck gift for BleepBloopBotz

collaborations:

Only one collab fic this year, for pod_together 2023! I collaborated with the fantastic lilolilyrae to create Where No Flan Has Gone Before, a Star Trek fic! It's a series of Yelp reviews about the bakery, Where No Flan Has Gone before, and I'm very proud of it!

events: None, other than the above mentioned!

Tagging @zahnie, @violetemerald, and anyone who sees this and wants to do it!

For ease of copying: Works published: Wordcount: Kudos: Hits: Bookmarks: Subscriptions: Most popular by kudos: Most hits: Longest: Shortest: Most Comments: Fics that made me cry: Fics that made me smile: gifts: collaborations: events:

[bbymochiiiiii]

Beneath the Makeup

TWO - WORK

BTS X FEMALE/OC

──── ୨୧ ──── ──── ୨୧ ──── ──── ୨୧ ──── ──── ୨୧ ────

Yongyi took one look at her new workstation and nearly committed a crime.

Whoever occupied the space before her had clearly been in a toxic relationship—with glitter, expired foundation, and no sense of hygiene. Her fingers hovered above a powder puff that looked like it had survived a war. The drawers were sticky. The mirror lights were uneven. A rogue falsie was stuck to the side of the vanity like a cursed talisman.

She exhaled through her nose.

Okay. Okay. We don’t cry. We conquer.

Rolling up her sleeves, she got to work. In under ten minutes, the clutter was gone, the surfaces sanitized, her brushes laid out in military formation. Her setting spray took its rightful throne at the center like a crown jewel. This was her battlefield now.

Then the door creaked open.

Jungkook shuffled in, looking like he’d crawled out of a nightmare and barely survived the journey. Sleep clung to his eyes, and his hair—his poor, beautiful, betrayed hair—resembled a haystack that had offended the wind.

Yongyi didn’t hesitate.

“Absolutely not.”

She was on him in seconds, brandishing a comb from her hip like a blade. “Chair. Now.”

Jungkook blinked. “Wait—hi?”

“You get one greeting. That was it. Sit.”

Startled, he obeyed.

The mist from her spray bottle hissed into the air like a warning. Her fingers moved through his hair with practiced ease, tugging through knots with no regard for his mortality. She was muttering under her breath—something about gremlins and revenge via texturizing shears.

“I don’t think I—ow—slept,” Jungkook tried again, wincing.

“Yeah? Me neither. Now stop talking. You’re disrupting the rhythm.”

In the doorway, Sin-jae stood frozen with a coffee cup halfway to his mouth.

“...Is she already working?”

“She didn’t even take off her coat,” Geon murmured, impressed.

“She’s caffeinated and cleaning,” Eun-jae noted. “We’ve summoned a demon.”

Haru peeked in from behind a makeup cart, clasping her hands like she’d witnessed a spiritual rebirth.

And somewhere in the back, Bada whispered reverently—

“Let the girl cook.”

──── ୨୧ ──── ──── ୨୧ ──── ──── ୨୧ ──── ──── ୨୧ ────

Jungkook emerged from the prep room like a man reborn.

Hair perfectly tousled, not a single curl out of place. His skin looked brighter—like she’d willed hydration into his pores. Even his posture had changed. He blinked against the hallway light like he’d just come back from a sabbatical.

Taehyung, halfway through a lazy stretch, paused mid-yawn.

“…What happened to you?”

Jungkook rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish. “I think I got… handled.”

Yoongi squinted. “You let someone touch your hair?”

“I didn’t get a choice,” Jungkook replied, and then—with equal parts awe and fear—added, “She moved faster than my reflexes.”

Namjoon arched a brow and headed toward the prep room. “We’ll see about that.”

The team, still loosely gathered around the doorway, collectively held their breath as the leader entered the lion’s den.

Inside, Yongyi was mid-clean again—sanitizing tweezers with a kind of focused ferocity that suggested she was plotting her next war crime. Her coffee cup, now on refill number who-knows-what, steamed beside a lineup of serums and scalp oil.

“Choi Yongyi?” Namjoon asked carefully.

She looked up. “Oh. Namjoon.”

She did not bow. She did not stammer. She nodded once, already scanning his face like a puzzle she was halfway through solving.

“You’re five minutes early,” she said. “And your eyebrows are uneven.”

He blinked. “They are?”

“Mm.” She gestured toward the chair. “Left one’s lower. I’ll fix it.”

Namjoon hesitated.

“Unless you want to walk out there looking like one of those ‘find the difference’ puzzles.”

Sin-jae let out a strangled wheeze from the doorway.

Namjoon exhaled through his nose—amused, maybe. He stepped forward and lowered himself into the chair like a man preparing for battle.

Behind him, Geon gave a slow, approving nod. “She passed Jungkook and Namjoon. She’s either fearless or running on fumes.”

Eun-jae clicked her pen thoughtfully. “Six coffees and spite. Classic stylist fuel.”

Bada crossed her arms and smiled. “She’s ours now.”