#but there had been about six years of wall-to-wall aliens

[plaguedocboi]

Waterfalls! These gorgeous, powerful features of nature have been oddly lacking in my past lists, I think in part because their danger has always seemed more “obvious” to me. But doing the research for this list has reawakened my phobia of the water. Some of the later entries (numbers 9 and 10 especially) brought back anxieties that I thought I had gotten over long ago, but it was kind of thrilling. Like watching a particularly scary horror movie. Let’s get into it!

1. Underwater Waterfall, Mauritius

No, it’s not really a waterfall. It’s just an optical illusion caused by sand falling off the island’s slope down into the deeper water below. But it looks cool and scary, and the drop-off is 2.5 miles deep so that’s pretty impressive and I think it deserves at least a mention.

2. Blood Falls, Antarctica

There’s nothing particularly dangerous about this one, it just looks incredibly creepy. Obviously, it’s not actually blood, it’s just water that’s very rich in iron. But the really fascinating part of this waterfall is that its source seems to be a subglacial lake that contains a unique microbial ecosystem which has been isolated for two million years! These microbes are like nothing else we’ve ever observed in nature before. They live in an incredibly cold and extremely saline lake, and metabolize sulfur and iron ions with no oxygen present. They are being used as a model to study what life on ice-covered alien planets could be like.

3. Khone Falls, Laos

This waterfall is not nearly as famous as some of the others on this list, which is surprising because it’s the widest waterfall in the world, with an average width of six miles! Although not particularly tall, it is the second most powerful waterfall in the world, more than double the power of Niagara Falls! The Khone falls divide the Upper and Lower Mekong river, making travel by boat between the north and south impossible. What makes it kind of unsettling to me is that during the rainy seasons the falls are basically swallowed up by the river, turning them from a spectacular waterfall to a series of massive rapids.

4. Huntington Gorge, Vermont

When water levels are low, this river is a popular and scenic swimming spot, and the canyon has an almost otherworldly quality with its unique bends and overhangs. Unfortunately, these very features are what makes it so dangerous. Much like the infamous Strid, the gorge is full of holes, steep drop-offs, and powerful currents hidden beneath the water, which can suck people in and trap them against the cliff walls. Over fifty people have died here since the 1950s, and many more have been injured. With proper precautions, one can safely explore the gorge and swim in the river, but don’t forget that this water has swallowed up many people before you.

5. Victoria Falls, Zambia

I’m sure most of you already know about Mosi-oa-Tunya, more widely called Victoria Falls, as the largest waterfall in the world. Formed as the Zambezi river pours into a series of massive gorges, this curtain of water spans nearly a mile and falls 300 feet with such force that columns of rising spray can be seen for miles around. Despite this, the pools around the lip of the falls can be relatively tame, and locals have fished while balancing on the edge of the cliff for generations. The safest and most famous of these fishing holes is the Devils Pool, which allows you to literally swim right up to the edge of the world’s biggest waterfall. The pool is actually very safe when the correct precautions are taken, and I can only find one death attributed to the pool specifically, when a tour guide in 2009 fell while trying to help a man who had slipped and was dangling off the edge (and, honestly, I was expecting a lot more deaths given the amount of clickbait articles advertising it as the most deadly swimming hole in the world). Although that was the only death from the Devils Pool, there have been many other deaths at Victoria Falls, mostly tourists who underestimate the power of the river or get too close to the edge. So if you ever visit this spectacular waterfall, please observe it from a safe distance and follow all the rules.

6. Huka Falls, New Zealand

This is not a traditional waterfall, but rather a series of small waterfalls along a narrow stretch of the Waikato river, creating an incredibly turbulent chasm that ends in a whirlpool. The 300-foot wide river is funneled into a 50-foot wide stream, causing a torrent of water that flows at a rate of 58,000 gallons per second. Obviously, this is not an area that you should get in the water, but not everyone takes that advice. There have been multiple deaths at this waterfall, and a few narrow escapes, including two swimmers who, incredibly, survived after trying to raft down the falls on pool toys. Please, for the love of god, don’t do that.

7. Niagara Falls, US/Canada

These falls are the only place on this list that I’ve visited, and I can tell you they are certainly an incredible sight, but also rather intimidating due to their sheer size and power. These three massive waterfalls are fed by the Great Lakes and, combined, have nearly 700,000 gallons of water thundering down every second. There is also a permanent whirlpool in the river that has existed for over 4,000 years and reaches depths of 125 feet! Besides being huge and awe-inspiring, these waterfalls are known for their appeal to daredevils who have gone over the edge in barrels or, in one case, a giant rubber ball. But these famous success stories are punctuated with tragedy. Roughly 20-30 people die at Niagara Falls every year. Most of these, sadly, are suicides, but others are failed attempts to replicate the successful daredevils of the past, and others are accidental. An estimated 5,000 bodies were recovered at the bottom of the falls between 1850 and 2011.

8. Murchison Falls, Uganda

Also known as Kabalega Falls, this is the worlds most powerful waterfall. Formed as the Nile River flows from Lake Kyoga to Lake Albert, this waterfall is so strong it literally causes the ground to shake around it. Here, the Nile is constricted from a river nearly 400 ft wide to a passage only 20 ft wide, creating an incredibly turbulent and violent tunnel of water that tears its way into the pool below at 79,000 gallons per second. And this is no ordinary pool. Waiting below the falls is the highest concentration of large crocodiles observed anywhere in the world, waiting for any dead or stunned animals caught in the falls to wash into their lair. Although the waterfall and surrounding park are now a beautiful tourist attraction and wildlife refuge, the history of the falls includes tales of human and animal sacrifices, thrown in alive to appease the gods that some believed resided beneath the raging waters.

9. Bath Fountain, Jamaica

This is just a random little waterfall along a hiking trail, but the video triggered some intense bathophobia in me for the first time in a while. Like, I was scared to get in the shower after watching this. Proceed with caution:

10. Kipu Falls, Hawaii

This one scares me because, despite my research, I can’t actually figure out what the hell is happening here. Multiple people have died here; all tourists, all drownings, all of seemingly very unclear causes. Kipu Falls is a beautiful and popular swimming spot, and locals frequently dive off the top of the falls with seemingly no danger. However, five deaths over the course of five years from 2006-2011 challenged its reputation of being a safe swimming hole. All the articles I could find seem to repeat the same information; there is no current in the pool and the waterfalls are not especially powerful. Despite these established facts, all five deaths were the same. Someone jumped in, surfaced, and then were dragged back down to the bottom of the pool and held there until they died. This has resulted in a lot of speculation, including everything from a hidden whirlpool current to evil spirits. I’m just. Really unsettled by the lack of information on this one. Every article I found was published in 2011 and I couldn’t find any updates, which hopefully means people aren’t still dying here, but… what the fuck???? Was going on????? Sorry guys this one might not be as dangerous as some of the others but it freaks me out a lot so it’s getting a higher rating. I want to know what’s going on but I’m sure not going to investigate it myself.

[leo-muscle]

I’ve heard a little bit about this King Leon guy. Who does he think he is to call himself a king? Seems far to pretentious if you ask me. I wouldn’t be caught dead bowing to someone like that. Not in a million years.

Sure I’m the most basic looking white dude on the planet. My face gets lost in the crowd and my body is light enough to be blown by a breeze. But a king can’t change that, and I would like to see him or any of his subjects try to.

"Are you sure about that?" The bartender told you. You had just arrived on your vacation in Haiti, and the resort's bartender had decided to strike up a conversation with you over drinks. He was enormous, seven feet of pure surfer boy muscle, with a thick gut that was the very picture of strength. He would have been the most beautiful man you had ever seen, if you weren't in the middle of a massive rant.

"Oh, absolutely." You continued. "Whoever these 'kings' are, I don't want anything to do with 'em. Who are they to declare rule over the entire world, and who are we to listen to them?"

It was true, of course. Much of Africa, the British Isles, Central America, and even the islands you were now in had been united under the rule of these Kings. While many praised them for their novel social reforms and exponential increase to quality of life in their domains, many others, yourself included, remained attached to the old ways. Even this vacation was a scouting trip, to see if whatever propaganda these Kings were putting out was true.

"On the contrary, my friend, I am perfectly happy to listen to the rule of my King. You should have seen this island before King Kai came here. Homelessness, poverty... it's all been amended since he arrived."

"Really?" You asked, taking a big swig of your drink, savoring its tingle on your lips. "And NO one's uncomfortable being ruled by just one person?"

"People love King Kai. He is kind and just, like any good king should be. You'll see that soon enough." The bartender said.

"What do you mean by that?" You asked, your heart racing.

"Oh, nothing much. Just give it a few seconds."

"What are you-- UGH!" You doubled over, your skin on fire with a sensation entirely alien to you.

The bartender walked out from behind the bar, and soon, his magical hands went to work. With his kingly essence in your system, you could be molded into a respectable citizen of the world.

He started with your pecs, cupping them from behind as they burst through your tropical shirt with new strength. They were enormous, voluptuous pillows, jiggling with muscle and a thin layer of fat.

He then moved his hands along your shoulders, pumping them into cannonballs of strength. The moment his hands reached your arms, they pulled and pushed, leaving your twiggy biceps and forearms as but a fleeting memory, replacing them with pulsing, powerful cannons of strength. In awe, you flexed your right arm, forming a mound easily as big as a baseball if not more.

You moaned softly as King Kai's beautiful hands lightly traced a six-pack onto your stomach, each ab popping into existence, forming an impenetrable wall of strength.

Soon, his hands navigated south, one massive hand palming your flat ass, while the other grabbed your tiny three-inch cock. You moaned, long, low, and hard as both of his hands began to move out from your body, pulling your cock and ass with them. Your cheeks rounded out into a big, bouncy bubble butt, bigger than most women's. It shook with strength and sexuality with every slight movement you made, much like your cock, which had grown so big with the King's touch that no pair of pants could conceal your enormous bulge. His touch was electric on your shaft, causing you to pre almost endlessly.

Your mind was in heaven as he continued to your legs. Your cock was at full mast at its enormous eleven inches as he took his hands to your legs, and blew them up into corded steel pillars as big as any christmas ham. You moaned, your cock firing blanks as he looked you deep into your eyes, placing one hand to completely cover your currently-unchanged face.

"As much as I love my people, we cannot be a global community if all my citizens are homogenous." King Kai said. "Hmm, where should I send you..."

Your skin flickered through thousands of shades in a single moment, before settling on a tone a few shades darker than your original. Your hair darkened to black, and you instantly sprouted a thick dark mustache, and a chinstrap beard to match. Your eyes became narrower and monolid, your stare intensifying into a sexy smolder. As King Kai leaned in and kissed you, your bulk increased, and your muscle became padded with a thin sexy layer of fat.

"Cum." King Kai commanded you, his voice sexy enough to send you over the edge.

You had been reborn, a Vietnamese stud in the Carribean. Your brain was aflame with new neurons, making connections faster and better than ever before. You knew you had been improved, in every conceivable way. You were stronger, smarter, wiser, and you had no one but your new king to thank.

[sugar-softies]

Out of This World Gains

Feeder pov, contains stuffing and extreme weight gain

You should never have been nervous about starting your new job as a interplanetary diplomat.

For starters, you'd studied hard for years, you had degrees in xenolinguistics and extraterrestrial sociology, and if that wasn't enough you had your secret weapon.

See, making sure important alien diplomats, guests, and royalty had a good time on Earth was pretty simple thanks to one simple fact:

No one makes food like Earth makes food.

Most recently you'd been tasked with escorting two neptinites during a six month stay on good ol' terra firma, and already the effects of your hospitality were showing.

You woke Auran and Minxi around three in the afternoon, letting them sleep in the way they so loved to now. You remembered when they first got here and would be up and ready at eight am, their slender frames already dressed in crisp formal attire.

Now, you had to bribe them out of bed, and encourage them to change out of pajamas.

"Noooo, five more minutes..." Minxi whined, trying to hide under her blanket.

You informed her you'd brought doughnuts and she peeked back out from under the blanket with a curious trill. You dangled one above her face and chuckled as she reached for it, encountering trouble when her belly weighed her down.

You'd guess she was weighing in around 270 now, which was nothing compared to most of your guests at this point, but her species didn't gain weight easily and she was clearly thrown by how the added weight had affected her movement.

Auran needed a little more bribing. While Minxi ate doughnuts and tried to squeeze into clothes she'd had resized just last week, you had to roll Auran onto his back and start pressing doughnuts to his lips.

Auran's growth was... well, nothing short of impressive especially considering he came from a more slender species. 530lbs of lazy extraterrestrial flab- the frilled fans on either side of his face were beginning to become swallowed by fat, his tail had gotten so chubby he could no longer lift and wag it as he once could, his belly hung down to his knees even when standing.

It was no wonder he'd gotten this large though, he loved Earth food so much you were able to feed him while he was still waking up.

You were able to feed him two and a half boxes of doughnuts while he was still half asleep, and once his strange purple eyes finally opened you were able to plop the next box on his belly so he could help himself.

"Mmph... mornin'," he mumbled around a mouthful.

You patted his stomach fondly before going to help Minxi with her outfit.

She squeaked and whined and jumped as she tried to yank form fitting jumpsuit up past her shapely hips. "It's so small!" She huffed, trying again and gasping adorably as a ripping sound echoed through the room.

She blushed purple as she examined the large tear in the jumpsuit and then looked to you. "... I need comfort," she pouted dramatically.

You slid up behind her, lifting her belly and giving it a jiggle before reaching up to squeeze her round breasts, and assured her that you'd already placed an order for comfort in the form of burgers and fries, and they'd be here shortly.

She squealed with delight and hugged you. "We'll never fit back on the ship home, you're just going to have to roll us back to your place and feed us forever."

You laughed and told her you wouldn't mind that at all, which made her blush.

She was startled out of her cute expression when Auran belched loud enough to shake the walls. "Hey... little help?" He held up his hands.

You and Minxi went over, rolling him closer to the edge of the bed and then straining to help pull him up to his feet. Auran panted as if he'd done any of the work and then accidentally bumped you with his swaying belly as he went right for the jar of candies you refilled for them everyday and left on the dresser.

Your heart pounded as you watched him open the jar and tilt it towards his open mouth, and were glad you'd thought to remove all the wrappers. He gorged, pouring candy down his gullet, eyes glazed over. You'd heard Earth food could be a bit... addictive to some off planet species before but you'd never seen it like this...

After helping your charges get dressed and then helping them through a hearty fast food breakfast, it was time to get back on schedule.

You were supposed to show them a few historical sights, but after ten minutes of waddling, whining, and gasping for breath, your alien friends got distracted.

"What is that?" Minxi asked, her fans quivering with excitement as she sniffed the air and glanced over at the nearby restaurant.

You explained it was a buffet, and how it worked, and suddenly found yourself knocked on your ass as both of them pushed past you to get inside.

You sighed fondly as you paid for their entry and tried to guide them towards a table.

Minxi was eager to try everything she could, making several trips back and forth. You waited at the table as she did that, and wondered where Auran had gotten off to.

"Nn... helppp... I want more but-" Minxi tried to get up and her stuffed belly bumped the underside of the table. She hiccuped and tried to slide out of the booth but ended up groaning and rubbing her belly. "Too heavy..."

You smiled, heading over to fill up another few plates. When you returned, you sat down next to her and started hand feeding her.

Minxi's eyes glazed over and she trilled with sleepy delight as she ate everything she was offered. Her belly gurgled and groaned, and she had trouble keeping her eyes open as she continued to feast.

"M... more..." she breathed. "More? More..."

You chuckled and told her if she had anymore you wouldn't be able to get her out of the booth much less the door. You rubbed her belly to help her digest, assuring her you'd come back here again tomorrow. Her shirt had ridden up considerably, so you were able to feel her skin warm under your loving hands.

After you felt that Minxi was suitably handled, you decided you really needed to go find Auran. It wasn't too hard to find him, he'd sort of... attracted a crowd.

You gasped as you found the wreckage Auran had left behind: buffet trays emptied and tossed onto the floor, full sections completely emptied out, employees scrambling to clean up and refill.

Then there was Auran himself.

His belly was swollen, hiding his knees from view and squishing up against the counter as he ducked under the sneeze guard and simply grabbed handfuls of whatever food he came across, shoving it into his maw forcibly without stopping. It was clear he'd fallen prey to Earth food addiction, and you knew you had no chance of stopping this now. You'd just have to wait for him to run out of food or get too heavy to move.

You followed him as he waddled and shuffled from counter to counter, eating and eating and eating and eating-

At one point he stopped to catch his breath and burped. His eyes rolled back and he tried desperately to get one last chicken wing to his fat face as he fell completely onto his back with a loud thud that shook the restaurant.

You sighed, wondering how you were going to get him out of there, then noticed he was still trying desperately to feed himself.

Well, in for a penny... in for several hundred pounds.

You grabbed the tray he'd been eating from and, ignoring the onlookers that were being shooed off by the staff, started feeding him.

You couldn't tell if you were forced feeding him or not, because he kept moaning and turning his head as if to escape, but whenever you stopped he groaned for more. You could feel his stomach growing taut even under all the pudge, and his clothes were starting to rip into ribbons.

"So... full..." he gasped for breath, his belly weighing on his lungs.

You shushed him gently, and fed him another slice of cake.

You considered Auran and Minxi's stay on Earth to be successful because they didn't want to leave.

Not that they'd be able to get up and walk to the shuttleport on their own anyway...

"Nnmpf..." Auran chewed greedily as you fed him another slice of pizza. "Faster."

You shook your head fondly at his demands and reminded him that if he hadn't eaten himself into such a huge state then he'd be able to move his arms and hands with enough dexterity to feed himself.

Auran was in bed technically, although you couldn't see the mattress or shattered bed frame under his bulk. He was a melting pile of rolls of fat with a greedy ever open mouth.

Minxi wasn't there yet, but she was close behind.

She whined as she got wedged in the doorway, a popsicle in her mouth and a pair of shorts two sizes too small struggling to cover a growing ass. She braced her hands on either side of the door and tried to force herself through. You watched her attempts for awhile, and were somehow surprised when the doorframe simply... crumbled to accommodate her wide body.

Minxi grinned as she waddled to her own bed, every inch of her swaying side to side and jiggling incredibly as she plopped herself down on her ass. "Oooh you got the kind I like!" She wiggled her fingers before flipping open one of the pizza boxes. She started rolling the pizza into a burrito shape, which was her preferred method of eating them these days. "You're the best!" She giggled, taking a big bite and patting a belly that was only going to grow bigger and bigger...

[phoenixcatch7]

The Wayne doll house

Have some haunted doll au, since it's been bubbling away in my mind.

The bat cave is large and sprawling, many layers and tunnels and hollowed out cracks in the walls. It takes many years to fully reinforce to prevent stray kids from tripping into stagnant waters or fall down crags as he once did. The doll cave, as it becomes known, is in one of the deepest, darkest corners, one where the lights of the furnished caverns above don't reach.

It's one late night sitting at the computer when it suddenly occurs to Bruce that his first encounter with a doll was at the well entrance, many levels above.

There was nothing there when he went back.

-

The justice league stared at the subaru. The subaru, having no eyes, did not stare back.

The seven of them had just finished a very long, arduous mission, and narrowly escaped government censure after the base they'd been raiding had turned out to belong to some corrupt official. With the alert up, they couldn't escape through city airspace, or even in their hero suits.

So civilian it was.

Batman had hotwired some bloke's car while the rest of them ducked into alleys and shop bathrooms, but the problem remained. There was seven of them. And five seats.

"I can shift into something more suitable for being carried," suggested j'onn, "but I believe one of us might have to hide."

"Foot well?" Hal tried, and everyone looked around at the tall, bulky, broad heroes.

"Think they'd have to go in the boot," Barry finally said. Everyone immediately turned to him. "No."

Batman spoke up before the discussion could devolve.

"I think.... I would be best for that."

The team stared.

"Batsy?"

Having no lungs meant he could not drag in the tired sigh he wished, but whatever force allowed this body to talk was capable of approximating something suitably resigned.

"As I am, I am... incapable of fully passing as human. It would be best if I remained out of sight."

"So just? Go change? I swear we won't be weird about whoever you are under the mask. Even if you're like, bald."

"Thank you, Wally, but I'm afraid I'm being serious." Reaching for the mask in broad daylight was unpleasant, but the glue and wires held as he gave it a few thorough tugs. "It doesn't detach."

Everyone stared. Clark reached out as if he wanted to check, but withdrew.

"Do you even have a civilian identity??" Oliver eventually asked. "Because at this point I'm genuinely not sure."

Wayne Enterprises and Queen Industries had a meeting that same evening. "Hn."

"Can we go back to the 'incapable of passing as human' part?!"

"We can discuss it in the car," he snapped, stalking past Barry and popping the boot. "In case you haven't forgotten, we're on a time limit."

For once, that seemed to encourage them, and batman, with great dignity, folded his joints and cape into the small space, ignoring Hal's mutter of 'what kind of contortionist -' as he slammed the lid. With a little shuffling he managed to activate his comms.

"I will inform the watchtower of our delay."

"Batman, they're tapping all outgoing signals, you can't -"

"It won't trigger," he interrupted, before he twisted his consciousness and sent it spiralling across the country.

Bruce awoke with a groan, stretching his limbs and taking a moment to marinate in his annoyance before he reached for the comm and voice modulator on the beside table.

"Batman to watchtower, we've encountered delays. If the Texan state government calls we haven't entered the state in six weeks. Batman out."

-

"Alien?"

"No."

"Reanimated corpse?"

"No."

"Uh... Demon?"

"Hm. No."

"You're not just a meta human, are you?"

"No."

"Vampire?"

"No."

"Robot??"

"No."

"Batsy, please, someone's got to win the bet eventually. How do we even know you're not lying?!"

"You don't," Batman said, not looking up from his paperwork and Flash groaned, letting his sticky notes fall to the floor as he buried his head in his arms.

"One day," he bemoaned to the keyboard, "one day we'll figure it out."

"Until then please keep your eyes on the monitors."

Flash groaned again.

-

Robin ducked under superman's arm as he scuttled down the corridor, laden with the night's haul of snacks. The real problem wasn't getting them - stopping league members from raiding the kitchen would be extremely counterproductive - but keeping them until he could return home to his human body to eat them. Batman had started searching him each time they left and it was really cutting into his daily sugar intake. Unfair! Just because he didn't actually use energy to stay up my night to fight crime, it felt like he did!!

'Oh, you're broken, Robin, oh, don't go out until the glue has fully set, Robin' his arm was fine! It wasn't like there was much crime to be fought on the watchtower anyway! At least not physically.

So he was pretty pleased with himself until he went to set the snacks down and found that the tar like glue they used had soaked through the sleeve and gotten all over his chocolates.

With his other hand, he tried to pry them off, wincing as the wrappers tore and stuck. He tried to shake it, ignoring the way his elbow rattled in the joint.

"Come on, come on - aw, cheezits."

The arm fell off. Robin stared despondently at the limb, surrounded by torn wrappers and dripping black glue where it connected to the elbow. The sour stink of formaldehyde filled the air.

He was going to be in such trouble with Bruce.

The click of the door jerked his head up.

Flash stood in the doorway, wide eyed. Robin stared back.

Flash screamed.

Oh yeah @dehydratedmockingbird have a thing

[misswonderfrojustice]

So since my last post of making writing prompts on certain video games, characters, etc. and I haven't gotten any asks, I'll just go ahead and make one of my own.

This is an idea I had regarding the Miguel O'Hara character from Marvel's Across the Spiderverse [Spicyverse] movie franchise.

{I have never seen any Spider-Man movie at ALL in my life, so I know little to nothing about the whole premise of the world's plotline besides an Uncle Benjamin dying, being bitten by a radioactive spider [shouldn't you be horrifically deformed or dead after being exposed to ANY sort of chemical radioactive agents???] and so on so forth. I am an avid researcher on anything out of the ordinary or historical events/eras, so of course I read into the biographies of the series. So, now knowing about the protagonists and villans (and me being the sympathetically strong and sweet alien 👽 I am inside) I propose this scheme.]

Gabriella the Chocodoodle Lab Puppy

Apparently, sweet little Gabby is killed in the movie due to Miguel's interference of the Multi-Verse as a punishment for his transgressions, and he is now in charge of becoming the self-proclaimed only Guardian of the Spiderverse.

Well...

I'm giving him some grace here. Instead of him buckled down in over his work in his cave he calls an office, constantly hovering over each and every universe and it's inhabitants, he comes across a lone box sitting in one world [I guess I'll call it Earth 1231] and it was right across from his apartment complex where he is staying at. In this universe, the Miguel variant does not exist, and neither does the mother of Gabriella.

However, Gabriella is still alive but not visible to his observation and not noticed anywhere else but in this part of the city of Nueva York. Suddenly, the box starts eagerly shifting and moving, bumping into the doorway of said apartment complex like it wanted to enter the building. Curiosity gets the better of him, causing Miguel to open up a warp portal to Earth 1231 just to see what was inside the item.

He arrives at the building and walks closer to the box, which seems to be in a colorful pattern of cobalt blue and vintage infra red polka-dots, matching the typical Spider-Man costume theme. There are many holes perforated around the walls. Air holes, mind you. Miguel bends down slowly to the box's level, quickly jumping back when he hears what sounds like a young girl's voice echo inside his head.

"Papí?! It's me Papí?! Gabi!!"

Immediately, he ponders on where this instant pop-up of memories' past is located from, thinking his sanity is starting to decay quicker than he believes it to be, until the voice of Gabi repeats itself again, but gets even louder the closer he gets to the box. Throwing caution to the wind, he removes the lid, only to discover a gorgeous little chocolate Labradoodle puppy that wasn't even six weeks old staring back at him wagging her tail happily.

"Hòla Papí!!! It's me, Gabriella! Can you take me home please??? I'm hungry and it's really cold outside."

Gabriella's loving barks translate into his language inside his head. Now, Miggy Iggy has never been one for pets, especially after his baby girl's passing (it would serve as a painful reminder of his failure on not protecting his loved ones), but for some reason, he felt an intensive surge of parental desire to take Little Gabby home into his universe. Consequences be damned.

My version of the Multi-Verse would be him getting re-gifted a second chance at having his family again, without any future foreboding consequences or negative effects on the Multi-Verse's entirety. Gabriella was reincarnated as a puppy and aged at the same year she had died the first time of his Earth, where his variant was murdered by a mugging gone wrong, and Gabriella was alive. She only ages as accorded to Miguel's age, but never growing any larger than what she is now.

Starseed Baby rules, I'm sorry.

I'm thinking of making a short story about this later on, but hey, it's my idea.

Here's an image of what I believe Little Gabby should look like located below:

Let me know what y'all think!

[haesunray]

FINDING MEANING: PROLOGUE —l.dh, s.hb

PAIRING: (mainly) haechan x fem!reader, best friend! sung hanbin x reader 

GENRE: major angst, eventual fluff, classmates to lovers, super slowburn.

WARNINGS: contains heavy and triggering topics. self-reflection, grief and unhealthy representations of mourning, character death (hanbin), reader goes through grieving process, self-harming behavior and drug abuse. A few sentences in the beginning about weight insecurity, fat-shaming, and weight loss. If any of these topics are triggering for you, please proceed with caution, or skip the fic. You are responsible for what you choose to read. Because this fic has pretty dark and serious topics, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT. Due to the nature of the fic, it will take a while to get into the Haechan x reader part, so if you’re looking for something lighter, this might not be the fic for you hehehe

SYNOPSIS: you had never been good at dealing with loss. with the passing of your best friend still a fresh wound in your heart, you find yourself alone in the dark, left to pick up the pieces of your grief. 

 then one day, against all odds, you find something that might just be your compass, in the shape of a boy named lee haechan, who swears he will stand by your side to navigate the storm. 

And though the pain in your chest makes you struggle to breathe, he chooses to stand with you under the rubble of your broken world, and he shoulders some of the weight. 

NOTES: a good friend of mine passed away very recently and I needed to write something to get it off my chest. Maybe this will help me process my grief, or maybe it won’t. But i found the process of this very therapeutic. I sobbed a lot while writing this, just because the main character is a reflection of how I’m feeling currently. It’s mainly a self-indulgent piece. I’ve experienced so much loss in the past few years, and this is a cathartic piece for me. 

THEY SAY HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS, and you suppose they are right. 

For your home had been left a heaping swelter of smoke and ash, doors torn from hinges and paint scraped from walls. There were no remnants of the solace you once held in your sacred home, now reduced to gunpowder and gasoline, and all that is left is a house that isn’t quite a home, leaving you feeling a stranger in your own house—an alien in your own body—and you can’t help but curse the very person who created that quote because how dare they make you feel so powerless, knowing that you had lost the very one who held your heart, and now you will never get it back. 

The irony of the quote is not lost on you. The positive implications; that a home has no bounds, that four plaster walls and a shingled roof don’t fit the criteria. That instead, a home is made of flesh and blood and sweat and tears. 

You found your home when you were six. You found him in Mrs. Park’s kindergarten class in the shape of a round boy named Sung Hanbin, with grubby glue stained fingers and paper cuts from the broken origami butterfly he had made you. Your home had a gummy smile and eyes that reminded you of summer days in Busan, and a heart so big, it made your home feel like a castle of gold and ivory. He invited you in and you made it your own, and the origami butterfly was the first decoration you placed on the shelves of your newfound house. 

You protected your home when you were ten, earning a month of detention when you used a pair of your mother’s favorite kitchen scissors to cut off Sophie Jung’s long ponytail on the playground after she made him cry by calling him a ‘chubby potato,’ (and at the smile he gave you as you wiped away his tears, you realized you’d gratefully take a year of detention if it meant he’d smile at you like that again). 

You’re fourteen when Park Jeongmin spreads rumors about you to your whole grade because you rejected him, and when the whispers start to crawl up your back and dig holes in your mind, Sung Hanbin is there to walk with you and defend your name. He pulled you into his warm, enveloping arms and told you not to listen to the whispers, and yet he was the one who seemed to be stewing in anger. It was the first time you had seen Hanbin angry, and it was the only time he had ever gotten in trouble at school (and after punching Park Jeongmin straight in the nose and getting cleaning duty for the whole spring semester, he told you that he’d do it again if you asked him to). 

You both were eighteen when he grew into his body and his beauty finally became noticed by more than just you. You protected him when he overworked himself over and over and over again, when he would run until his knees buckled and his chest collapsed, chasing an unattainable goal built on a road of the insecurities you tried to convince him were his own perfection. You held him when he refused to eat and sat with him when he cried, and you tried to hug his demons away even when they told him he wasn’t trying hard enough. You whispered in his ear that he was worth every bit of love you held and more, that every inch of your home was worthy of being lived in and loved, that it doesn’t matter what shade the walls are or how expensive it was, he was your home and you would never change a thing about it. And that no matter how many people looked at him now that he was conventionally attractive, you had always seen him as beautiful. 

It’s New Year’s Eve of last year, and you both are twenty-two and more than a little drunk when you share a kiss. Had you both been more sober, it probably wouldn’t have happened. After all, at a Christmas party a few days earlier you’re sure you saw him ogling the boy from your poli-sci class, Zhang Hao—who had been taking up more and more of Hanbin’s time these days—but yet here he was, the boy who was nothing less than perfect in your eyes, pulling you by your flushed cheeks as the timer ticked down to one, and when the world erupted in cheers as the new year emerged, your ears fell into a calm hush, because Sung Hanbin’s gleaming eyes had fluttered shut and his lips finally met yours. 

It was the one and only kiss you guys shared, and yet, despite the alcohol in your system, it was committed to your eternal memory, a vivid painting you had framed and hung in your home. 

As the night came and went and the morning took its place, he woke you up how he usually did after a night of drinking; with a cup of coffee, a few ibuprofen, and a plate full of food, and no matter how much you wanted to say something about what happened the night before, you didn’t. And he didn’t either. 

Maybe you both were pretending it didn’t happen. Or maybe he didn’t think it was important enough to bring up. Hell, maybe he didn’t even remember it. All you knew was that you were too chicken shit to open a can of worms that shouldn’t even be opened, because you thought it was better to keep your mouth shut if it meant keeping him. 

Minutes turned to hours and hours turned to nights. Your calls going unanswered and rain checks from him created a monster inside you named jealousy. He was slipping through your fingers, opening the doors of your house to someone new. You hated the person it made you; hated the person you became. You locked the doors and chained him up. You protected his gold-filled heart because it was worth more than money, worth more than jewels, worth more than anything because he was your home and you couldn’t bear to open the doors to someone he might just like living there more. 

Maybe it’s the vile, bitter taste of regret that runs through your veins right now, thinking that maybe if you had told him earlier about how you felt, it wouldn’t have come out sideways. Maybe if you had been less pathetic and scared to let him know, he wouldn’t have walked out the door last night. He wouldn’t have gotten in his car and left. Maybe he’d be in your arms right now, and you’d be joking about how silly Ricky’s hair looked or bickering over what to make for dinner tonight. Maybe if you had said something earlier, an unresolved argument wouldn’t be the last conversation you’d ever have. 

They say home is where the heart is, and you suppose they are right. For your heart is ripped out of your chest, artery from artery and vein from vein, placed in the cold, unmoving hands of the boy who you would have died for, and now you’re left with the words you wish you had said, because you could have protected him and you didn’t. 

This is your fault. You made him leave.

There’s no recovering from this. There’s no feeling better, because your home currently lies in a coffin, cold and breathtakingly beautiful as ever, and you see yourself lying right beside him because he had taken the part of you that was worth living for. The truth was impossible to reckon with, a bitter pill that you would never, ever be able to swallow down. 

Sung Hanbin had died, and he took the world and everything good in it with him.

[slexenskee]

The Evolution of Pop Punk Gojo / No Scrubs

Honestly the real answer as to why he's such a pop punk gremlin in May Death Never Stop You is bc I wanted him to be lol. But I did come up with a backstory for it even if I doubt it'll ever make the fic itself.

Keep in mind this is not at all part of the story and Gojo / No Scrubs can play whatever music you want, any songs I call out specifically are really just examples.

BABY PUNK IN THE MAKING ERA: 2000

It’s 2000. The Sony Walkman CD player has been around for over 15 years; the iPod is only a year away. 

Gojo is ten years-old and he’s just lost his useless minders in the crowded, tangled streets around Harajuku. 

Being allowed out alone (for a given definition of alone, but at the very least without the usual entourage befitting the young master of an ancient house) is a new experience for him. He’s spent the entirety of his life enclosed within the guarded walls of the Gojo clan, learning his clan’s history and techniques. It’s been a very sheltered and secluded existence, and not entirely without reason; since the heralded birth of the Six Eyes holder, assassins and curses alike have been after him. The existence of Gojo Satoru changed the world order, and he was guarded accordingly. It’s rare he has a chance to leave the clan compound, rarer still to be out alone. 

But he’s almost eleven now, and he’s mastered his clan’s Limitless Blue technique as well as Infinity; even first-grade curses wouldn’t give him much trouble anymore. He no longer needs the stifling protection of his clan to the degree he had as a small child, and accordingly the hold his clan has on him is growing tenuous. So he’s given the day in Tokyo, ostensibly to find himself a present for his birthday. 

He probably would have just gone with cake— he has a rampant sweet tooth, but is rarely allowed to eat sweets— but he’s distracted by blaring, foreign music. 

He finds himself alone in front of a record store blasting rock music from a boombox speaker in the front. The store is full of punk clothing, streetwear, and endless rows of CDs all stuffed full of questionably dressed youths. The whole store is very Western, which is a novelty for a child with a very traditional and secluded upbringing in the already secluded Jujutsu society— it’s noisy and loud and seems to be the antithesis to everything his clan has tried to teach him about etiquette and propriety as the scion of a noble house; suffice it to say, he loves it at first sight.

So of course the first thing he does is buy himself a Sony Walkman and grab a handful of CDs from the front table.

The hapless and chronically underpaid part-timer who happened to stock the front display that day was not prepared to accidentally set the most powerful Jujutsu sorcerer on his road of anti-establishment chaos, but really what else did you expect from putting up all that 90's alt-grunge?

Siamese Dream ℗ Smashing Pumpkins, 1994 | Nevermind ℗ Nirvana, 1991 | Third Eye Blind ℗ Third Eye Blind, 1997

Gojo basically grew up in a house with little exposure to music, so throwing himself directly into a genre baked in themes of social alienation, angst, and loneliness that happened to perfectly reflect his own life experiences was something of a happy coincidence. He didn't understand nearly enough English at the time to comprehend the lyrics, but the feeling was conveyed nonetheless.

At some point during his pre-teen angst era he gets access to a computer. His very traditional and insulated family have no fucking clue what the hell a computer even is, so when he says he wants one and goes and gets it they have no idea what kind of open frontier they're giving him with access to the internet. 2001 rolls around and Gojo gets his hands on his first iPod, and promptly becomes that kid on iTunes who racks up hundreds of dollars worth of music purchases before even realizing what he's done.

Most Played Tracks on Gojo's poor Sony Walkman:

Nirvana: Come As You Are, Rape Me, Smells Like Teen Spirit, In Bloom

Smashing Pumpkins: Mayonaise, Today, Cherub Rock, 1979, Bullet with Butterfly Wings

Soundgarden: Black Hole Sun, Spoonman

Third Eye Blind: Semi-Charmed Life, How's It Going to Be, Jumper, Narcolepsy

--MIDDLE SCHOOL GLORY DAYS ERA | 2002 - 2005--

He's in junior high when Fall Out Boy drops Take This To Your Grave in 2003. He's a tiny body of angst and arrogance at the time, so the rebellious-spirited, nihilistic bad-boy aesthetic of pop-punk really resonated with him. He gets really into it; middle school sucks for everyone, but it especially sucks when you've been heralded as a once-in-a-generation sorcerer with god-like powers yet somehow you're still shucked into an elitist young master's private school full of normal (if not blindingly rich) people.

Gojo is very good looking and very good at everything he tries his hand at, so it's not a matter of popularity necessarily. People flock to him all the time, but even amongst a crowd of enamored pre-teens he's never felt more alone. His arrogant personality keeps everyone at a distance, just as he likes it. It all seems so pointless to him, when he's going to Jujutsu Tech for high school anyway. These people don't matter, and they may as well be aliens with how much they live in an entirely different world than Gojo.

Take This To Your Grave ℗ Fall Out Boy, 2003 | American Idiot ℗ Green Day, 2004 | Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge ℗ My Chemical Romance, 2004

This is also around the time he commits himself to actually learning English well enough to understand the lyrics - no matter how fast or convoluted the accent - and he spends a lot of time ignoring the world in his room with his headphones at full blast. A rite of passage for any self-respecting preteen full of existential fatalism.

Completely alone even as he's put on a pedestal by Jujutsu society, music is really his only solace. It makes a profound impact on him, if only because it's the only human touch that can still reach him through his Infinity. He's pushed everyone out of his life but Gerard Way and Patrick Stump, which I also firmly believe is a preteen rite of passage.

He definitely lays around in bed and debates blowing things up, except unlike regular preteens who regularly stomp up to their room and slam the door shut and tell the world to fuck off he's actually capable of doing it. He doesn't though, and instead just listens to You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison for the hundredth time.

Songs that Made it Onto Gojo's iPod Shuffle:

Blink 182: What's my Age Again, Mutt, Stay Together For the Kids

Bowling for Soup: 1985

Fall Out Boy: Homesick at Space Camp, Reinventing the Wheel to Run Myself Over, Saturday

Green Day: Jesus of Suburbia, American Idiot, Holiday,

Good Charlotte: The Anthem, Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous

Lit: My Own Worst Enemy

The Killers: When You Were Young, Mr. Brightside, Somebody Told Me

My Chemical Romance: You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison, I Never Told You What I do For a Living, I'm Not Okay (I Promise), Famous Last Words, Helena

Sum 41: Fat Lip, In Too Deep

Weezer: Say it AIn't So

--HIGH SCHOOL ANGST ERA | 2005 - 2008--

Gojo finally starts his tenure as a student at Jujutsu Tech and it's... unexpected. There are only two other sorcerers in his year and he's not really getting along with either of them. Not that he really puts in anything but a nominal effort. He's spent all of his junior high career as the king of his school, and that was among a bunch of kids who couldn't even comprehend his actual greatness.

Now he's returned to the Jujutsu World, and becomes the irreverent, chaotic, rule-flaunting little shit we all love and adore.

He's a bit disillusioned by it all, to be honest. Life, generally, but also all the pageantry that goes into every facet of it. There's a certain anxiety and depression that goes along with looking at your own life, which is the premise of most of Pete Wentz's lyrics on Fall Out Boy's Under the Cork Tree and also just the thematic overview of Gojo's high school existence. There's an emptiness that comes after the existential dread of self-introspection that Gojo promptly fills up with Fall Out Boy, and then with the addition of Infinity on High (his favorite album, entirely because it has Infinity in the name) even more Fall Out Boy.

From Under the Cork Tree ℗ Fall Out Boy, 2005 | So Wrong, It's Right ℗ All Time Low, 2007 | Infinity on High ℗ Fall Out Boy, 2007

It's an era of Fall Out Boy for him, interspersed with some other great bands of the time/genre. This is also around the time that online music radio Pandora was making its rounds amongst the online music scene, which Gojo spent a surprising amount of time in, for someone who had little to no interest in making music himself.

It would have been nice to be able to bond with his fellow students over music, like he's seen in plenty of movies, but Shoko is a die-hard City Pop fan and Suguru is one of those disturbing 'I just listen to whatever's on the radio' types. Maybe there are other kids in the other years that have better taste, but Gojo's not really the sort to be broadcasting his likes or interests like that - doesn't really fit his 'bad boy' image.

He starts high school pretty firmly entrenched in his pop-punk / emo phase, but it's a pretty tumultuous three years of his life - and society in general, with the internet becoming mainstream and smartphones hitting consumer markets globally - and his music tastes reflect this.

Most Played Tracks on Gojo's Hot Pink iPod Nano:

All Time Low: Dear Maria Count Me In, Six Feet Under the Stars, Coffee Shop Soundtrack, Stay Awake

Cage the Elephant: In One Ear, Back Against the Wall

Fall Out Boy: Sugar We're Going Down, Dance Dance, Nobody Puts Baby in The Corner, A Little Less Sixteen Candles, Thnks fr the Mmrs, This Ain't a Scene It's an Arms Race, The Take Over the Break's Over, Coffee's for Closers

Modest Mouse: Float On, Dashboard

My Chemical Romance: Cancer, Disenchanted

Panic! At the Disco: I Write Sins Not Tragedies, But It's Better if You Do

Paramore: Misery Business, That's What You Get, Decode

Red Hot Chili Peppers: Dani California, Scar Tissue, Under the Bridge

Taking Back Sunday: Makedamnsure, Twenty Twenty Surgery, Cute Without the 'E' (Cut from the Team)

The Strokes: Reptilia, Last Night, Someday

--- ADULTING IS FOR OTHER PEOPLE ERA | 2008+ ---

Post Star Plasma Vessel/Suguru's defection Gojo is a Mess™, but you'll never know it because he continues on acting like an irreverent little shit who doesn't care about anything.

He goes through a period where he doesn't consciously reject the songs that encapsulated his idyllic teenage life, but nonetheless pivots away from the pop-punk genre. He spends a lot of time pulling that Pablo Escobar Narcos meme and staring blankly out into bleak vistas in total silence and solitude. In hindsight, for all his teenage angst and loneliness, his time with Shoko and Suguru had been the least lonely he'd ever felt. Now that he's once again entirely on his own - Shoko off being a doctor and Suguru going off the deep end - he realizes he'd had a brief taste of the feeling of belonging he'd been missing his whole life.

He gets into a lot of indie pop and post-punk stuff, with more electric and synthetic sounds and upbeat tempos.

He traded in his trusty iPod Nano to an iPod Touch, and shortly after switched to the iPhone when it hit the global markets in 2009. Yeah, he was one of those Apple heads, the kind who always had to have the latest Macs and Apple products. In his defense, he was not a tech snob so much as a music snob, and at the time iTunes was the dominant music platform.

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix ℗ Phoenix, 2009 | Oracular Spectacular ℗ MGMT, 2007 | The Modern Glitch ℗ The Wombats, 2011

He spends most of his early 20's in an indie phase, gets into a lot of electronic, and then from there uses the powers of the internet and gets into all sorts of other genres. One way or another he spends some time in the disco/house music neighborhood, a genre he and Makoto will spectacularly bond over, only to then do a total 180 and decide to form a pop-punk band together.

By the time he's stuck in his second life, it's been decades since he's listened to some of those songs he used to love as an angsty teenager. As an adult he lost track of all his old CDs, probably gathering dust in the attic of the Gojo clan house he avoids at all costs, and as the world moved towards streaming services he stopped keeping up with his staggering iTunes library. It's not as if he forgot those bands or anything, but as the world's strongest sorcerer he rarely had the time to listen to music like he used to.

When he gets dragged back into life as Todoroki Touya, it's been ages since he's heard Fall Out Boy and frankly, he misses it.

There's a glaring lack of the grunge, pop-punk and emo music in this new world he's in, and after digging around online - and begrudgingly, the local library for history books once the internet proves unforthcoming - he learns that most of those bands he used to love don't even exist in this world. Quirks appeared in this parallel universe just around the time Gojo himself had been born. The global upheaval that followed that profound change in human existence caused a chain of events that would have all the disenfranchised youths of the 90's and 2000's too distracted by global chaos, world wars and civil terrorism to make the music he loved and remembered. Music is art after all, and art is a direct response to the experiences of the people who make it.

As far as Gojo's concerned, not having the likes of Nirvana or My Chemical Romance in an entire human history is an absolutely travesty, so he sets out to not only bring those songs back for himself but also as the one good deed he'll ever care to do in this second life of his. And if he happens to make tons of money and reach critical acclaim while he does it... that's just a bonus.

[theverumproject]

hihi verum! i wanted to ask how it’s been writing your first story! what’s the process like for you? has it gotten tough to stick with? how do you go about issues in your writing?

hope you have a great day :>

Hello! Thank you for your questions and excuse me for answering a bit late (I like to take my time, lol)

How has It been writing your first story?

Writing Verum has had a little up, then a giant down and now it has been going up again since this year. The first book took me three years to complete, while it is only more or less 15 k long! I began the second book this year in April, and I think it's at about 40 k words right now, nearing the end of season 1. So at the moment, it is going great!

What's the process like for you?

I write everything down that comes to my mind. Be it a whole book or a very small detail to some alien species' biology. That's kind of how I build the story in my head. When I begin with a book, I write down all my ideas for the book and what should roughly happen in the different parts. One to five sentences are enough, though sometimes I also write down more, depending on how much I already got in my mind.

When I wanna write a part, I first make a description of it, where I just write down everything that comes to my mind and start to plot. It should be at least 500 words long, though recently it's been getting more and more. My newest description is over 2.6 k words long, longer than my minimum word count of 1.5 k, woopsies.

Once that is done I start actually writing the part. Like I already mentioned, my minimum is 1500 words, but my parts have been becoming longer too. The latest part is over 7 k words long, also woopsies.

I always give myself one month to write 10 k. And until now, I have always reached it. I use NaNoWriMo to keep track of that. Giving myself a goal to reach has really helped me!!!

I edit in between of my "writing months". For example, I write three parts, edit them, write another three parts, edit all six of them, write another three parts, edit all nine of them, and so on and forth.

Not sure if I understood your question right, but I hope this answer is good enough!

Has it gotten tough to stick with it?

Writing the first book really has been tough. I had no... Discipline nor motivation. That's also probably why it's not that good. It's kind of half assed, I guess?

But since writing the second book it has been going wonderful! The toughest part of it is actually figuring out how to write some things, or when there are plot holes and I don't know how to fix them. Or simply just beginning to write. But once I start another month, I have no other choice but to write.

How do you go about issues in your writing?

So, while I write the whole part for the very first time (after the description), I try to ignore all issues and questions that pop up and simply just write them into the text (like this). One of the simplest issues is for example:

There's a part where Arushi and Zri'Kla go hunting. They live in an Indian jungle, but I don't know what kind of animals live in an Indian jungle. I need one though that isn't too big to carry, but it also needs to have enough flesh on it to feed them for a little bit. So instead of thinking about what animal it is while writing, I simply just write down something like this; "The arrow pierced the (animal)'s flesh". I solve all issues while editing.

But when it comes to issues that affect the plot and stuff like that, I have write down the questions on notes. I often think about Verum throughout the day, so my questions often just get randomly answered. I just need to write it down before I might forget it again.

I think my own brain sometimes gaslight me though. I have a question and a simple answer that is not good enough. I look for a better one, but can't find one. And then suddenly I think that the first answer is alright I think it's a form of giving up.

Sorry for this wall of text! Hope I didn't ramble too much.

[haemosexuality]

This wedding story took years to become a reality.

Initially, when we introduced Ruby and Sapphire in "Jail Break" [S1E49], we were told they could not be in a romantic relationship. I was told by Cartoon Network's Standards and Practices that they could not kiss on the mouth. When I was asked internally by my executive at the time if they were e couple, I said absolutely yes-of course-they sing an entire song about how they're in love! I wanted them to be an absolutely iconic cartoon couple, the queer, interracial, gender-expansive answer to Mickey and Minnie Mouse. But this was 2014, and same-sex marriage was not yet legal in the United States. There was a huge stigma against LGBTQIA+ content in children's media.

[...]

I wanted everything for Ruby and Sapphire, every genre of romantic story. Their romantic reunion, a dramatic fight episode, their romantic fairy-tale origin story, the rom-com baseball episode it only made sense to top it all off with a big animated wedding, so we pitched the first version of the wedding in 2015. It was called "If You Love Yourself So Much," and at that point it was only one episode, about Garnet marrying herself. I was told at the time that "International S&P may object to some of the more direct language about Garnet as a committed relationship, so we may need to be more subtle when approaching her identity through the lens of a wedding."

But I didn't want to be subtle anymore. After the suggestions of changing it to some sort of Gem celebration, I put the story on hold to try to figure out how to do it in a more direct way. Then, in June 2016, lan [Jones-Quartey] proposed to me! Garnet had always been based on our relationship, so that was it. It wasn't going to be honest now, if Ruby and Sapphire didn't get married.

We decided it would be an inexorable part of the story. And then the back-and-forth started, and no one wanted to say the real concerns, so instead it was, "Will this appeal to our demographic of six-to-eleven-year-old boys?" But Ben 10 had an alien wedding, Powerpuff Girls had a wedding-there was no question that the Cartoon Network audience would definitely watch a wedding. Arguments were made that it was "out of character" for Steven to want a wedding, but we'd covered our bases there with the episode "Open Book" [S1E51], which had already aired ages ago. It's old news that Steven loves weddings. I wouldn't bend on the story, and every time there was a concern about it not being entertaining enough, I would add more: A big musical number! A huge fight! A half-hour special! This thing will be so entertaining it'll blow kids' hair back!

"But if Steven Universe gets a gay wedding, then every show is going to want a gay wedding!" "YES!" I said. "GOOD! WHY NOT???"

Eventually the decision came down from on high: We could have the wedding. I knew that was an extremely difficult call to make, and that we were going to be censored heavily and pulled in many countries because of it. And we didn't know at that time if this would mean the end of the show. It looked as if the writing was on the wall, and we were working toward the end.

I had been told this would be the final pickup for us, and I campaigned for an additional six episodes on the end of the season in order to wrap up the story-this became the Era 3 arc.

(Rebecca Sugar, in "Steven Universe: End of an Era)

[rockwgooglyeyes]

yayayay potential nyx and asa reunion ! ( somersaults around the room before front flipping out of it )

Yeas!!! Wahoo!! Honestly this ask has made me think many thoughts which is. . . why it has taken me so long to get to it *wheezes in cry-laughter* If Nyx is 20 during the current Alien Stage season (39), he probably had Asahi when he was like 13-14? (I have been thinking about aging him up? but honestly. it wouldn't really be that much better if he was sixteen or seventeen). Most likely, she would be five or six years old . . . meaning that it hasn't been that long since they were separated. Which would be all the more heartrending in my opinion because she probably hasn't forgiven him, yet.

writing drabble underneath the read more!! (trigger warning for referenced death, gun violence, panic attacks, some implied SA)

Nyx didn't expect to be sent back to Anakt but he supposes there are stranger leaps in logic. At graduation, four years ago now, he thought to himself, "This will be the last time I ever set foot inside of these walls," and it was a freeing thought, a kind one he could tell himself over and over, to soothe the parts of him that woke up during the dark of the night and screamed.

He'd been wrong; here he is, standing amidst artificial grasses, staring up at a digital blue sky that flickers and spits if you look at it long enough. He'd been wrong; Rosca is breathing, alive. He doesn't know how he messed that up, blinked and missed it, but maybe it was all the blood, the gunshots, and the way that Vera drew his focus off of the stage. He hasn't seen Vera since that day, before Round 13, where Jae remained standing on the stage with dead, dead eyes and Vii was shot dead, a new corpse on the floor. Vera is on the run, now, officially. She told him that she only did it on her owner's orders and in a horrible, twisted way, it made sense. Why else would she kill the one she loved, the one whose heartbeat was the same as hers? Ellie may not have loved Vera back but that was no reason to kill her. Not a reason for Vera, anyways.

Back underneath the flickering sky, surrounded by the whisper of false wind and sticky grass, Nyx finds himself going a little bit stir-crazy. Maybe it's that he's back in what he could call his childhood home, having spent more time here than he did with his first owner, even, or maybe it's the fact that he knows his baby girl is in the class set to graduate next. After all, Cas saw Cinnabar and dragged Nyx away, sobbing into Nyx's shoulder in a hallway while on stage, Cinnabar sang. Cas got in trouble for disappearing, too. They both knew it was worth it. Cas would've been in worse shape if he'd been there to hear Cinnabar's voice echo through the room, her name branded into his mind as whatever lyrics went in one ear and out the other. He wouldn't have even been listening and he would've been asked to comment and critique? Knowing that was his biological daughter? Well. It would've probably gone to pot right then and there.

Nyx didn't tell Cas that he was almost excited to see his daughter.

She should be what, five winters old, now? Six? Nyx has always measured her age in winters, rather than summers, because she was born in November. At least, he thinks she was.

Rubbing at his head, he lets out a sigh and walks into the shade of a nearby tree. His memory has been getting worse, lately, with all of the stress around the competition and Oryon getting what performances they can out of him before he dies in his round. He's thrust into the center stage from his dimly-lit lounges and small, intimate stages. He'd never been popular like Oryon's other pets, not in the same way, not loud enough, not bright and peppy enough, Oryon could get Nyx to act a certain way but he couldn't ever get Nyx to act that way with genuine emotion behind his eyes, a beautiful mask on his face. Nyx would play the part but he wouldn't pretend as though he was happy to be there and Oryon had yet to find a way to make him do that. He could simper all Oryon wanted, crawl onto someone's lap, trail a finger down the side of their face and whisper sweet nothings in their ear, but Oryon couldn't make him mean it.

No one could make him mean it.

It's later that day that he finds his daughter laying back in a field of flowers, staring up at the clouds moving in their set patterns in the digitized sky. He doesn't have the heart to tell her that they're not real.

"Asahi?" He says, trying to keep his voice from shaking too much. He's never been good at approaching people but how else is he supposed to do this? He doesn't think she'll want to talk to him, not unless he walks up to her and asks her to. She wasn't exactly a timid kid but she was quiet, solitary, like he'd been before the attack. Her pink-gold irises flicker to him and her eyes widen. Her hair's been straightened, he realizes absently. Before, it had curled in a mess of cowlicks. Even if it made the space behind his eyes burn a little bit, he swallows down the tears. They have no place here, after all. She looks at him for a long moment before her eyes get glassy, big tears starting to roll down her round cheeks.

"Papa?" She asks, pushing herself up into a sitting position.

"Yes, my sunrise, it's me," he answers. She sits for another moment before standing and clinging to his legs, crying into his stomach. He runs his fingers through her hair, bending over to give the impression that he's hugging her back because he can't actually, she's holding on too tightly and she's less than half his height. "Oh, baby, I missed you," he tells her, wishing that he could press a kiss to her hair. She wails louder, something he didn't really think possible, and he decides to just bite the bullet, scooping her up into his arms. She presses her face into his neck and he doesn't really know how long she hiccups into his ear but he can lean his cheek on the top of her head and listen to the warbling sound of her breathing, which is all he needed.

(ocs mentioned are Rosca (@sotogalmo), Vera (@bittersweet-adagio), Jae (@kofeedoggo), Vii (@starry-skiez) and Cas (@lookatmysillies). Otherwise, Cinnabar belongs to you, Apri, as does Asahi!)

[mandyyvibes]

Hydra Husbands- 40 …because the world is ending.

Or Winterbones up to you

40- a kiss because the world is ending; winterbones

f i f t e e n h u n d r e d w o r d s

i would love to make this a full fic and put it on ao3 one day goddamn. i kinda popped off.

Brock had never, in all his years of active field duty and life-or-death situations, been so fear-stricken as he had been when he opened his inbox to an email from Pierce.

It wasn’t the mere fact that Pierce sent out an email, one with ATTENTION STRIKE FORCE ALPHA AND CLEARANCE LEVEL EIGHT FACULTY in the subject line that had icy dread curling between Brock’s ribs.

It wasn’t the beginning of the email, in which Pierce sung his praises, gloating about how well the most recent mission had gone, that caused the dread to settle in a pit in Brock’s stomach.

It was what followed, one singular sentence, that had Brock leaping up out of his chair, kicking it to the side and storming out of the restaurant with Jack close behind, practically trembling with the horror that he felt.

The Asset will be permanently decommissioned by March 10th.

The Asset will be permanently decommissioned by March 10th.

Brock was a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid. There had been talk of budget cuts and the merits of replacing the Asset with something purely mechanical, taking whatever fractured pieces of a human soul that remained within it out of the equation entirely.

It had been a rough couple of months for the Asset and its team. It seemed to need to go back to the chair more and more frequently as time went on; in barely-perceptible moments of weakness its hand would tremble, or it would whimper when no one was near it.

It was breaking. Brock wasn’t stupid.

But he had been foolish enough to hope that the lab coat jackasses would simply come up with a more effective way to wipe it. Something that lasted longer, something that could reach deeper into its brain and remove all the horrors of its successes.

Instead, Pierce was going to have it put down.

“What the fuck, man?” Jack snapped, jogging after Brock to keep up with his rage-fueled pace.

“We’re going to work. Now. Check your phone.”

“God, what is it this time…”

Brock was in the car by the time Jack could read the e-mail, revving the engine impatiently. The beginnings of a plan had already begun forming in his mind, though it did little to settle the nauseous feeling of dread.

Jack opened the passenger door and gave a grim nod, one that said I’m with you on this one.

That’s why he was Brock’s right hand man.

March 10th.

It was March 4th.

He had six days before everything would come crashing down around him. He couldn’t bear to start from scratch- he didn’t want to start from scratch.

This felt closer to the end of the world than any world crisis or alien invasion had ever felt before.

—

“Where is it?” Brock’s voice boomed and ricocheted off of the concrete walls, just decibels away from a shout. He knew he had to keep his cool, to keep up appearances for now.

The handful of technicians busying themselves with paperwork gave him a strange look.

“Cryo prep-“

“No. No, fuck no. Leave it out.”

“Pierce ordered-“

“I don’t give a RAT’S ASS what Pierce ordered. Do you know who the fuck I am?!” He was yelling now, clenching his fists and working his jaw.

“Rumlow,” Came a calm voice from behind him.

Alexander Pierce himself stood at the bottom of the stairwell, many floors below where he usually ventured.

“Sir.” Brock grunted, chastised. He knew that this conversation would impact the entire course of the rest of his life. No room for fuck-ups.

“The most humane way to do this is to leave it in cryo,” Pierce said pointedly, gesturing to the heavy metal door on the far wall. “I understand that this might seem sudden, but Sitwell-“

“Mr. Secretary.” Brock interrupted, shoving his hands in his pocket and taking a step forward, chin raised in a show of nonchalance. “It has served us well for decades. I simply want to see it in action one last time. I’m requesting permission to take it up to the gym to spar-“

“You want to hurt it one last time,” Pierce’s eyebrows were raised. He would’ve been smirking, if he had been capable of such a thing.

“There’s no point keeping it in good condition now,” Brock replied, mirroring his amused expression.

He felt sick.

He felt angry that he felt sick.

“Alright. You can have it for a couple hours. Then it needs to go back into the cryo tank.”

“Thank you, sir. Hail Hydra.”

“Hail Hydra.”

Brock let his shoulders sag slightly as Pierce disappeared up the stairs. This is what years of loyalty to this organization had gotten him. A couple hours.

He maneuvered into a camera blind spot and pulled out his phone to text Jack.

—

It was still in its gear from the last mission. No one had even bothered to clean it. Cryo prep, his ass. Those lab coats were just bluffing.

The Asset stood at attention, its back pressed against the wall. It was almost strange to see it like this, its gaunt face exposed, after growing used to seeing it with its muzzle on. It looked like they hadn’t been feeding it enough.

Brock let the door shut behind him and could practically feel the Asset’s fear dissipate, though it didn’t move an inch. He took a step forward.

“Kneel.”

The Asset knelt, falling silently, gracefully, to its knees.

Everything was still. Brock watched it for a couple long moments, waiting for a tremor or a sob, anything that indicated weakness.

It couldn’t know the fate that Pierce had dictated for it.

“Are you listening to me?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Brock crossed the room in two strides, resting a hand gently atop its matted hair. He resisted the urge to tug on it and listened to the way its breath deepened. Something primal ached deep within his chest.

“Who do you belong to?”

“Hydra, Sir.”

“And who is your primary handler?”

“Commander Rumlow, Strike Force Alpha, Identification number 06081965,” Its eyes narrowed as if it was processing something, reaching into the depths of its brain to understand. “You, Sir.”

“Good, good job. Look at me,” Brock crouched down, putting himself at its eye level, breaking nearly every protocol in the book- protocol that he had written.

It looked startled when it met his eyes. There was something deer-in-headlights about the icy blue gaze. It looked back at him as if waiting for answers, for instructions, for help.

Brock would have put money on the fact that it could sense his fear. He took a deep breath.

“There’s been an emergency. You are going to come with Rollins and I and listen to every word that we say. No hesitation.”

The sound of a nearby explosion made the Asset break eye contact for half a second, gaze darting to the source of the noise.

Deafening alarms began to ring.

“Soldier!” Brock barked, gripping it by the back of the neck. “What did I say? Look at me, goddammit.”

“Sorry, Sir. Please.”

It held eye contact once again, conveying everything that it couldn’t say with its eyes. It was scared, it was confused, it hadn’t mean to upset him.

“It’s alright. Nothing outside of normal mission parameters, just focus. Any weapons on you?”

“No, sir.”

Brock slipped a knife from his boot, tucking it into one of the many holsters affixed to the Asset’s clothing.

“That’ll do for now, Rollins is bringing in some guns in approximately two minutes. That’s when we move. Do you require anything else for optimal functionality?”

“The Asset has not been provided nutrition in approximately six days, Sir.”

No wonder it fucking trembled. Brock could’ve burnt the whole place down, he was so mad. He reached into his pocket and produced a Jolly Rancher hard candy (Jack’s favorite).

“You see this? This is candy. It’s a reward. You can have it if you do good, if we get out of here. And I’ll get you some real food too.”

“Thank you, Sir,” It all but whispered, still staring at him unblinkingly. It hadn’t even looked away to assess the candy.

It was so good.

It would be good.

Brock stood, keeping time carefully in his head. They had about thirty seconds. He motioned for the Asset to rise and follow him towards the door.

One second passed. Brock turned around and stepped towards it, toeing at its boot with his own.

Two seconds. They would get out together, all three of them. Flee the country. He already had forged paperwork for the Asset.

Three seconds. But if they didn’t…

Four seconds. Brock lifted his chin slightly and leaned in. The Asset remained perfectly still, perfect, lips slightly parted. It breathed in through its nose and out through its mouth.

Five seconds. It exhaled. Brock pressed his lips to it, something chaste and sweet, entirely unlike anything he’d done to it before.

Six, seven, eight, another explosion. The Asset inhaled and exhaled once again. It did not speak.

Brock kissed it again, because he could, because this very well might be his last chance. The rage in his veins popped and simmered like hot grease. Together, or this was the end.

[samieree]

Peace, Wound, Scar. Again. || SW: The Acolyte

Qimir (The Stranger) x OC

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Chapter II ''Hunch''

Originally, the mission assumed that after they captured Osha, they would return to Coruscant, but at that time the Temple on Olega was broken into. They were instructed to go investigate the incident and take Osha with them. Of course, there was a little opposition from Yord, but eventually he went to set a course for Olega, and Lys followed him.

"If the person behind the break-in was the same who killed Indara, it couldn't have been Osha." Elyssa said, leaning against the wall of the ship and watching Yord get the coordination right.

"Unless two different people did it. Or they work together." he replied skeptically, not even looking at her, instead focusing on the task at hand.

"She's surprised Mae is alive." here he looked at her and gave her a look that clearly suggested that he still didn't believe this version. "I feel it." she added.

She was already getting irritated by his constant questioning of everything. She wouldn't say that if she wasn't sure. His eternal skepticism towards everything without hard evidence could be irritating, especially since some things were easy to guess. But of course he never simply believed in anything.

"I was close to Osha, just like you, but a lot could have changed in six years." he explained calmly, finishing setting the route. He sat down in the pilot's seat.

"No, you don't understand." she denied it immediately. "I know she didn't do it." she sighed and moved away from the wall, sitting on the other chair next to him, turning around so that they were face to face. "I can't explain it, but as soon as I set foot on Carlac I had a feeling where she was. The same feeling tells me that she's not the one who killed Indara."

"If she's really innocent, we'll prove it. Jedi never allow injustice to occur."

Something inside her cringed at his statement, but she didn't say a word about it. She turned in her chair and looked at the landscape outside the window. The ship had already taken off and would soon leave the planet's atmosphere, and then it would only be a jump into hyperspace.

While she was staring out the window, Yord was staring at her. After even this short stay on the snowy planet, her hair was already starting to return to its original state. She rarely left them as they were - thick curls. Even though her curly hair did a better job of hiding the scar on her face that he had had for as long as he could remember. He always wondered what she must have done to herself as a child to cause such a wound. Many would say it defaced her face, but in his opinion it added her character - and even a kind of charm.

"How does it feel to finally be away from Coruscant?" he asked, wanting to continue this conversation and not make it look like he was staring at her mindlessly. He wouldn't want her to notice it. There would be some uncomfortable questions from her right away, and it's possible he wouldn't even have to answer for her to see through him.

"It's kind of nice to finally have something tangible to do." she replied. "Despite the circumstances."

She still wondered, why now? Why did Vernestra want her to fly on this mission? Until now, she felt like everyone was trying to keep her on Coruscant while she wanted to explore this vast galaxy. What changed that made her set the condition for Sol to take her with him?

* * *

Olega was very different from what she had become accustomed to on Coruscant. It wasn't so bustling with life, even though there were plenty of people and aliens of various races on the streets. It wasn't multi-level, it didn't look so clean and bright. When they went to the local Temple, she looked around the city: dilapidated buildings, sand instead of normal streets, and the style of clothing was completely different, more... careless.

She had the same feeling when she saw the Jedi who greeted them. His robes were significantly different from theirs, although they were now wearing the 'inferior' ones, designed for field operations rather than the formal ones worn mainly in the temple on Coruscant. Although Lys wore them less often than others in the Temple, as she spent more time training than them.

While she was looking around, she was listening to the conversation. An elder Padawan brought a child who helped Mae break in. She was even more sure because the child, when talking about who made it do it, pointed to Osha as the hooded person.

They entered the Temple, which was not at all as majestic as the one on Coruscant. Moreover, most of those that were merely Jedi stops on planets were built worse than the headquarters, especially on the most remote worlds. Or maybe she was just pickier after all that time spent in the perfect surroundings of the Temple on Coruscant.

Suddenly Lys stopped, and the others - except for Yord, who walked right next to her - continued on. They turned and saw Osha turning into a side corridor.

"If I were suspected of murder, I wouldn't separate myself from the group like that." he said.

"Luckily you're not." she replied, quickly adding: "Let's follow her."

"I was just about to say that."

She rolled her eyes. Together they followed Osha, staying at a safe distance to see what she would do. They also remained quiet so that she wouldn't hear them. They followed her to the room where Master Torbin's body lay. They were late.

But at least they now had proof that Osha hadn't done anything. Even though Yord would keep insisting that they could have worked together, in the end he was... Well, Yord.

They saw her crouch down next to the body and pick up something from the ground - something like a vial. Then she closed Torbin's eyes, and then the Jedi who led them through the Temple and the rest of their team rushed into the room.

"Hey! Step away from the body." he shouted, drawing his lightsaber.

It was obvious that Osha was on the verge of jumping to her feet, but she forced herself to do it slowly, lest the Jedi accidentally react more aggressively.

"I know what it looks like, but I can explain everything." she said calmly.

"Do not move." the Jedi ordered, still holding his saber on.

"You better start explaining." said Jecki.

"He was poisoned-"

"How do you know that?" he didn't even let her finish.

"She didn't kill him." Lys said, coming down the stairs with Yord at the second entrance to the room.

"We've had our eyes on her since she left the group." Yord added. "When she came here, Master Torbin was already dead."

"Thank you." Osha said to them. She was obviously relieved that the Jedi had sheathed his weapon.

There were no signs of a struggle in the room - which Jecki rightly noticed. This meant that Torbin had to voluntarily take the poison, which only raised more questions: why did he do it? He meditated for over ten years, and now, when - most likely - Mae came to him, he simply kill himself? How much his conscience must have been bothering him, what happened?

For her, there are still more questions than answers. Sol seemed particularly affected by the death, after all, he was an old friend of Torbin.

It also turned out that the poison was done from a bunta, from Osha's planet, Brendok. It had to be made here, because after distillation it retains its deadly properties for a short time. Osha explained all this to them. The decision was quickly made to take a closer look at the only pharmacy in the city, because it was there that the poison was most likely prepared.

They stood on the balcony of one of the buildings near the pharmacy. The Padawan who caught that child was watching through binoculars as some guy entered the building.

"Hey, it's not the usual one." he said, putting down the binoculars. "I do not know who this guy is."

They looked at the man who was just entering the pharmacy. He was just finishing eating something, was wearing large clothes that fit the atmosphere of the city - and so did his longer, messy hair. He had a quite large bag slung over his shoulder, I wonder what he was carrying in it...

"Is he alone?" Yord asked.

"No signs of Mae. She may not even be here, she could have killed Master Torbin and fled the planet." said Jecki.

"Any suggestions?" they heard Master Sol behind them.

Yord immediately began to outline his elaborate plan, but Lys didn't really listen to him. With her arms crossed, she looked at the building that this suspicious guy had just entered. When her eyes fell on him for the first time, a strange feeling passed through her. She couldn't explain it, but she clearly felt that something was wrong.

She realized that she had been staring only when she heard Jecki presenting her plan for this action.

"...if he's working with Mae, he might confess something useful, we'll record it and we'll have evidence. This seems like the most logical thing to do." she had only been listening to her statement for half of the time, but even without knowing what Yord had proposed, she knew that this was definitely a better plan.

"I'm in." Osha said.

"I also prefer Jecki's plan." Lys added, so as not to make it look like she wasn't paying attention.

Yord then looked at her as if he was sad that at least she didn't support him. Lys just shrugged and felt like giggling when she saw Yord roll his eyes. Especially since Sol had decided that they would do as his Padawan suggested.

Of course, he had to point out that giving this weapon to a civilian violates several laws.

Just a dozen or so minutes later, they first watched Osha enter the store, and then they were gathered around the communicator to control the situation.

"Hello." Osha greeted after clearing her throat.

"Hello." the guy answered her, quite cheerfully. Not like someone who recently made a poison that killed someone. Not like someone who works with a murderer.

"Hi." she said again, a little awkwardly.

"Hi?" it sounded a bit more suspicious, but still extremely light. "Hi." he dragged out the word. "Everything's all right? You came back early."

"I wanted to see you."

"See me? Oh." he seems rather... silly. "Mae, are you okay? Did the poison work?"

"That's all we need." Jecki said, breaking the silence that existed between them as they listened to the conversation.

"We're getting her out." Yord was about to go, but Sol stopped him.

"Wait!" he said and everyone fell silent again.

"You're acting strange. Wait... You killed Torbin without poison. He will be so pleased."

Who will be pleased? What 'he'? It had to be this mysterious someone who trained Mae. And this guy knew him too.

"Go." Sol said quickly.

They no longer paid attention to the conversation. Everyone left their observation spot and split into two groups. Lys and Jecki went to the back entrance, and Yord and Sol went to the front. By the time Yord reached the doors, Osha had her stun blaster drawn and moved away to the door. The stranger looked surprised.

"Where's Mae?" Yord asked, already drawing his lightsaber.

"Hold on, hold on..." the man started to retreat to the second exit, but first Elyssa came out, and then Jecki.

'We know it was you who gave Mae the poison that killed Master Torbin." said the first one, stopping at the end of the counter and leaning against it.

"You admitted it yourself, we have it recorded." added Jecki, standing at the counter.

From this distance, Lys could definitely say that she wasn't just thinking something up, she really felt something strange. Although she still wasn't sure what it was, she became much more careful.

"Wait, wait, wait, it wasn't my idea, it was hers." he defended himself. "I didn't know what he was going to do with it."

You given someone poison and didn't know what it would be used for? Pff...

"If you cooperate, we'll consider letting you go with just a warning." Sol said as he walked past Yord.

Let go? Someone who does with something like this? If it wasn't a bluff, she will have to protest.

"Okay, thank you. Thank you, sir." the guy thanked, gesturing quite strongly. "Please don't do the memory wipe thing or whatever it is you guys do."

Even though Lys was still looking at this odd stranger, she quickly glanced at Yord and made a small gesture with her head, suggesting him to turn off his saber. There was no way he could escape them now, so there was no need to have his weapon ready.

At that moment, she didn't know that the stranger had already taken a look at her. Especially since a certain detail in her appearance... Well, it's quite eye-catching.

"What's your relationship with Mae?" Sol asked.

"I'm just her supplier. Yeah, I started out gunrunning for the Hutts, and now I'm supplying people like her with what they need." he explained with a shrug. "For the right price." he added a little more quietly, grimacing for a moment.

Either he really was that silly or he was very good at faking it.

"So maybe you could supply us with something too? The truth." Yord spoke up for a moment.

"Who is 'he'?" Sol asked next.

"Uh?" the stranger frowned, clearly confused. He looked from Sol to Yord, turning his head several times. "I-I thought he was with you?" he said to the Jedi Master, pointing behind him at Yord.

"Does Mae have a master?" Sol continued, after the man possibly trying to avoid the question. "Is someone training her?"

"Look, I have no idea what's going on with this girl. All I know is that she wants revenge on four Jedi." there was silence for a moment before the man added something else, as if he was just remembering it. "If you want to get her, she'll come back here tonight. I'm holding a few things for her."

"Yord, secure the area. Keep an eye out for Mae." Sol began to give orders. "Jecki, Elyssa, go back to the ship."

Lys wanted to protest, but Sol had already left, telling Osha that she would go with him. He said over his shoulder that they would come back in the evening and he was gone. It was written all over her face how much she resented being taken off the case again.

* * *

On the ship. She. Kept away from everything again. Why is she here? One person is enough to pilot the ship or set the autopilot. She would definitely be more useful on site, securing the area with Yord. Instead, she sat on a chair in the cockpit and spun around.

"Mae's here already?" she asked Yord over the communicator.

"You're asking this for the tenth time in fifteen minutes." he replied to her, clearly tired - but at the same time a bit amused - by her constant questions.

"Is she there or not?"

"No. When I see her, I will tell you."

She sighed heavily and swiveled in her chair again. She literally has nothing to do and it's killing her. She even began to consider whether she would rather stay in the Temple on Coruscant and do something, like helping with the younglings or training again with her favorite guard.

"I have a bad feeling about this." she and Jecki heard over the comms after a few minutes spent in silence. "What if the guy is lying? What if it's a trap?"

"We'll find out soon." Lys muttered, looking at her nails as if it would keep her busy in any way.

"Yord, stick to the plan." Jecki admonished him. "Don't interfere. Master Sol wants to face her himself."

"And what should I do in the meantime? Count the cables on this ship? Are they diodes? Or maybe buttons?" Lys' voice was dripping with sarcasm, which clearly showed how much she disliked her current situation.

"Everyone has their own task, we secure the action from the ship." Jecki was calm and quite happy with her part in the action. Besides - apart from a short stop on Carlac - this was her first mission.

"You do it, I just sit here and wait until it's all over and I get back to Coruscant." you could still hear she was angry, but she was telling the truth. She wasn't needed on this ship, Jecki could handle it all herself just fine.

"You will still have a lot of work to do, there are many tasks that require the Jedi's attention."

"It's a pity I don't fly to do any of them." she said it more to herself and didn't say anything else.

The next few minutes passed in rather awkward silence until Yord's voice came over the communicator, saying that Mae had showed up. Only then did Lys perk up a little, but not enough to get up from her seat, even when Jecki took off. Sol was fighting with Mae and she was here, why should she look out the window? Might as well imagine it.

"In the name of the Galactic Senate of the Republic, you are under arrest." Jecki said, which also echoed through the ship's speakers. Only then did Lys get up of the chair and, with her arms folded across her chest, stand behind Jecki's chair and look at the situation below. "Drop your weapons and surrender."

For a long moment, it looked like Mae had no escape route. For that one moment, the case was over, won.

But nothing comes that easy. Yord, you have prophesied that.

Mae used the Force and moved sand up all around her, giving her cover for long enough to escape.

"Open the door." Lys quickly said to Jecka, taking off her coat to give herself greater freedom of movement.

"But-"

"Open the door!" she interrupted, repeating her words, but much louder. She was already at the exit of the ship. It was a short moment, one blink, but she probably knew which direction Mae was running, she could still catch up with her.

The second time, Jecki listened to her and opened the exit from the ship, through which Lys jumped out. She landed on the roof of the building, doing a somersault as she did so. She sprinted forward, jumping to the next building, from which she managed to see the silhouette of Mae running away.

She ran in that direction without looking back, jumping onto lower rooftops along the way, and finally jumped down onto the street, using the Force to break her fall not only by rolling. She caught up with her in a narrow street. She used the Force to push her against the wall and gain a few precious seconds to reach her.

Mae grabbed her wrist and threw her against the wall, and so began their brief exchange of blows. In the narrow alley, they took turns pushing each other against the walls or dodging so as not to get hit in the stomach or face. Lys didn't draw her saber until she realized that Mae tried to take it from her every chance she got.

"You want that?" she asked, panting and kicking her away. She took the hilt in her hand, which was longer due to the fact that she had chosen a double-bladed lightsaber. "Then be my guest!"

She attacked her with a sword in her hand, hitting her opponent's arm with just the metal handle. Their fight continued until they reached the street, where they fell out quite suddenly and were hit by a speeder.

Unluckily, Lys was the first in the vehicle's path and took most of the impact, while Mae remained mostly unscathed. The alien driving the speeder immediately stopped it and got out of it, running to Lys lying on the ground. Mae took the opportunity to kick him so that he wouldn't stop her from stealing the transport.

However, something stopped her from driving away already. Osha.

Her sister. She was convinced he was dead. Seeing her...

"Oshie...?"

They looked at each other for a moment until Osha, with tears in her eyes, shot but missed. The brief moment during which they were occupied with each other gave Lys enough time to get up from the ground. Thanks to adrenaline, she didn't feel the force of the speeder hitting her yet and managed to get back on her feet.

Mae started to drive away, but suddenly the speeder stopped, held from behind by the Force.

"Shoot!" Lys shouted to Osha, but in vain, because the girl couldn't bring herself to pull the trigger again, and Lys couldn't hold the speeder much longer, especially since Mae seemed to be pressing the gas pedal harder and harder.

Finally, she couldn't take it anymore and as soon as she let go, she flew forward, landing on the sand once again.

~

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Tags: @linkpk88

[aurumacadicus]

Stuckony and space cruise ship AU for the 5 headcanons?

A space CRUISE SHIP!? :0 You are all so creative and here I am like "lol how can I make these men as stupid as possible." Anyway we have the return of feline-based alien Tony.

Steve and Bucky get hired on the cruise ship so they can travel. They know they'll never be able to afford it otherwise, and because the cruises can last for up to five years, there is a cycling crew; they get two days off a week, along with a full month off after six months working. They're feeling kind of lost after their military service and this seems like a good time to explore while they're trying to figure out what to do with their lives, so they sign up for a five-year cycle. Technically they're both supposed to be waiters, but the manager watches Steve get super flustered with just one (1) alien flirting with him and he gets booted to bartender instead. Steve considers this a godsend even though it's technically a demotion--he doesn't get the tips he would have as a waiter. That being said, Bucky leans into being flirty and more than makes up for it. It's not like they're looking for dates, since they're pretty happy with what they have. Still, sometimes Bucky tells him about an interesting (and interested *wink-wink*) customer who's willing to wait for their day off to... 'meet up.' Steve contends the girl with the tentacles was the most fun, but Bucky is very passionate about it having been the genderless alien who could fuck them both at once was better.

Tony Stark is infamous for taking long cruises. Many people say it's because his species will just randomly drop dead if they're too stressed, but mostly it's because he's actually the head designer on most of the engineering for the cruise ships. He's there because he's checking out how things are running. He's working. It's not a vacation. Or. Well. Sometimes it is. There's only so much he can do when he's waiting for the ship to shift into different gear. Also Pepper and Happy have threatened him with making him take a different cruise ship to make him fucking take his vacation time if he doesn't. So sometimes he lounges around and pretends he's not anxious to get back to work. (His species does not randomly drop dead, but he's not gonna tell anyone that. It's great for when his board of directors start getting annoying and he can just rub his chest and they all get nervous he's about to die and shut up.) Pepper had made noises about Tony needing to take some vacation time again, and it's been a while since he's gone on a long-term cruise, so he signs up to do a three-year cruise to check on things and drink margaritas while sailing through stardust.

Bucky sees Tony first. He's at one of the nice tables, for people who are especially important. He's never heard of the name Tony Carbonell, and searching him on his tablet doesn't bring up much. He's not high enough in the pecking order to serve at those tables (maybe next year, when the next wave of one-year contracts come on). Tony is incredibly attractive. Bucky has seen him lounging on the deck during the warmer parts of the trip, booty shorts slung low on his hips, crop top baring a muscular stomach, and he wants to lick it so badly. So he takes note of the things Tony orders by peeking in the kitchen. He knows Tony likes to have margaritas, and martinis, and the occasional mojito or gin fizz. So he tells Steve the next time Tony orders something, send him a 'complimentary' espresso martini. (It won't be free you idiot it's coming out of my tips oh my god.) Steve has seen Tony working out in the gym. The ship has a massive rock climbing wall, and Tony scales it as if it was as easy as scaling a fucking ladder. He is impressed not only by Tony's physical skill, but also how quick-minded he is. Some of the paths on the rock climbing wall are difficult, and Tony has scaled them all, even one where he had to leap five feet to the next hand-hold. So, the next time he gets an order for Tony, he adds an espresso martini, because Bucky says it'll catch Tony's interest, and Bucky's always been better at this thing than him.

Tony raises an eyebrow at the espresso martini, but he does enjoy it, and when he turns to peer at the bartender, he gets a shy wave. That's pretty cute, honestly. He waves back, smitten. He's gonna eat the bartender alive. Except apparently the bartender has a boyfriend. Tony is not technically opposed, but the boyfriend looks a little more... outgoing? Experienced? And he was kind of looking forward to debauching the bartender. Then again, he's never actually had sex with a terran before. It might be nice to tick that box. Two of them even! The pair don't get off until nine, so he has plenty of time to think about it. He takes a the couple hours to wander the ship from stem to stern, observing the go-kart track, the Ferris wheel, the mini golf course. This ship has a lot more amenities than the ones he usually travels on. He'll have to check on the energy pull for everything, do some research. He's been feeling kind of antsy, doing nothing. (Being done by no one too.) Maybe, after he's rocked these Terrans' worlds, he can get some work on the reactors done. Tony pauses by the pool and wrinkles his nose. Water. He's seen the Terrans in it, swimming laps, and then moving over to the hot tub. He doesn't see the point of just sitting in wet. Maybe it's a Terran thing. Maybe he can ask, if the Terrans are in any condition after sex.

"HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME," Tony yowls once he comes back into his body. "I don't see what I've done wrong," Steve says, crossing his arms over his chest with a scowl. "You were enjoying yourself. Bucky said your eyes crossed." "I'm on this stupid cruise for THREE YEARS and now all I'm gonna be able to think about is getting railed by Terrans," Tony wails. "I have work!" "Oh," Steve says, looking smug. Tony points in his face, scowling. "Don't fucking get smug. You knocked over a bottle of wine when you waved at me. You were supposed to be shy. I was supposed to ruin you!" Steve squints at him in confusion. "Bucky had you sit on his face for an hour, how are you supposed to ruin me when he's my boyfriend?" Tony is absolutely incensed that Steve has a point. "Shut up." "No," Steve says, reaching out to idly scratch around the base of Tony's tail. "Bucky will be back with snacks soon and he'll take your whining at a challenge, so get it all out now." "I can't believe I'm gonna ask you guys to fuck me again," Tony mutters, fuming. Steve raises an eyebrow. "You don't have to." "No, I'm gonna," Tony sighs in frustration, and then is too distracted by the smell of fried piscosos as Bucky shoulders his way into the room to notice or care when Steve bursts out laughing.

Bonus: Steve and Bucky show him the beauty of the hot tub because somehow even with his superior spine he is sore. He still doesn't like sitting in wet but he has to admit the heat and the jets do wonders for his aching body. "Don't fucking touch me," he snaps when they try to get handsy. If they do, he will surely lose the battle to his instincts and thump them, maybe even show claws. All he can do is sit and sulk. It's the funniest thing Steve and Bucky have ever seen but they can't possibly tell him so.

[mollybecameanengineer]

Qualifying Life Events

Summary: Set in 2007, when Mulder finds a concerning lump, he and Scully discuss health insurance. 

Word count: 1405

This was insipred in part by this post by @unremarkablehouse

@today-in-fic

Read on AO3 or continue below

2007

Mulder was soaping up his balls when he felt it. 

A lump.

On his testicle.

It was pea sized. Hard. And in forty-six years of ball soaping, he’d never felt it before. 

The edges of his vision darkened, and he leaned against the cold tile of the shower wall. He took deep breaths, trying to bring his panic under control. 

It could be anything. 

It didn’t have to be cancer. 

Right? 

He would have shouted for Scully, right there and then, if she’d been home. But she was at work. Mulder rinsed off, and in nothing more than his boxers, headed to his office to consult Doctor Google. 

.

When Scully arrived home, she was annoyed she didn’t smell dinner. They had discussed this: on nights she got home after seven, he needed to cook dinner. How hard was this to remember? She’d even put a schedule on the refrigerator to remind him. 

“Mulder!” She knew she sounded annoyed. She didn’t care.

“In here,” he called from his office. Scully put down her stuff and stomped across the living room. If he tried to explain to her how some shit about aliens had kept him from cooking dinner, she was walking right back out the door and going to her mom’s. 

She slammed open the door and paused. He was sitting there, in only his boxers, looking at the computer. If that wasn’t strange enough, when he turned to face her, she saw his panick face. 

Her anger dissolved and she crossed the room. “What’s wrong?”

He grabbed her hand. “I need you to look at something.” He stood, and started pulling down his shorts.

“Mulder, I’ve seen that before,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.

He grabbed her hand and placed it on his balls. “There’s a lump.”

Scully’s stomach dropped as she started palpating his testicles. She felt it. 

“Well?” Mulder asked. “I’ve been looking things up on the internet. It seems like the likelihood it’s nothing or I’m dying is fifty-fifty.”

“The internet isn’t good for you,” Scully murmured, continuing to feel the lump. Louder, she continued, “I’m not an expert, but I think it’s more likely a cyst than a tumor. But you need an ultrasound and a consult with a urologist.”

“Can you do the ultrasound?”

Since Mulder had been in hiding, Scully had been doing his physicals at home. A few times she’d brought him to the hospital for a blood draw, wanting to keep an eye on his cholesterol. But this — this she couldn’t do herself. 

“No. I’m not a radiologist. I’m not confident in my ability to tell a cyst from an early stage tumor.” She let go of his balls and stepped back. 

He pulled his shorts back up. “What do we do?”

She had long feared something like this would happen — that Mulder would need medical care and would have to come out of hiding for it. 

“We make you an appointment for an ultrasound.” She tried to keep her voice calm. Detach herself from this situation. He was a patient. Don’t think about anything else. “You can go with your Anthony Blake ID and pay out of pocket. It should be less than $500. It should hold up if no one tries to run it for insurance.”

“Then what?” 

“Then we will know what it is.”

Mulder started pacing. “What if it’s not just a cyst? What if they need to do a biopsy or something?” 

She grabbed his hand and pulled him to her. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. If the ultrasound isn’t conclusive, we’ll figure it out. Ok?”

He grunted. She patted him on the back before pushing away. “I’ll order some pizza. Go put something on the TV.”

.

“What if it’s not nothing?” he whispered to her. He’d been lying in the dark, unable to quiet his mind and sleep. 

She rolled towards him and put a hand on his chest.

“I know you want to wait and see,” he said, still staring up at the ceiling, “but my mind is going crazy and I need to know we have a contingency plan.” Mulder had looked up how much it cost to treat cancer. Sure, they could afford a $500 ultrasound, no problem. Even a $30,000 biopsy would be fine. Not how he wanted to spend 30 grand, but fine. A couple million for cancer treatment? They didn’t have that. “I’ll need health insurance.”

“I know.”

“Can we get me health insurance?”

She sighed. “I think the Gunmen could have figured something out, but I’m not convinced your I.D. will hold up. Plus, we need to get you the insurance before there is any record of this lump, or else it will be a pre-existing condition.”

“So ‘Fox Mulder’ needed health insurance yesterday?”

She stroked his chest. “This is why I want to wait. If it turns out ‘Anthony Blake’ needs treatment, then we can start the process of getting ‘Fox Mulder’ insurance. And then none of the diagnostic work will be on your chart.” 

He grabbed her hand, the one that was stroking his chest. “So, what will bring me down is a mass on my balls. Not the government, not the aliens… mother fucking cancer.”

“We don’t know it’s cancer. It’s likely a cyst.”

He rolled his eyes. That had to be the twentieth time she’d said ‘likely a cyst.’

“Well, I guess if I do come out of hiding and get arrested, the government will pay for my treatment in jail.” 

She sighed. “Mulder, they aren’t going to arrest you. If they wanted to, they would have already.”

He let go of her hand and scrubbed his face. “You keep saying that.”

“They know where I live. Yet they have never been out here to search for you. They. Don’t. Care.”

What she was saying was logical, even reasonable. But he couldn’t shake the fear. But he could shove it aside, for the moment. “Ok, assuming they really don’t care, how do I get health insurance without a job? Just call an insurance company?”

Scully retracted her hand from his chest. “We’ll get married and add you on my plan as a dependent. That will be significantly cheaper than purchasing individual insurance.” 

He froze. Slowly, he turned his head to look at her. He could just make out her face in the moonlight. “Did you just propose?” 

“I proposed a plan to get you health insurance. And anyway, you’ve already proposed to me half a dozen times.”

“Do you want to get married? Other than for the insurance?”

“I… I don’t know that getting married would change anything for us. I’m committed to you, and I think you are to me.”

“I am.”

“So,” she took a breath, “the main difference it would make is in health insurance and taxes. But none of it matters if you’re in hiding, so it didn’t make sense to bring it up.”

He reached out, taking her hand again. “I want to marry you. And not just for the health insurance.”

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “That’s very romantic.”

“What can I say? I’m a romantic guy.”

They settled into bed, him wrapped around her. His mind felt more at ease, now there was a plan. He drifted off to sleep, thoughts of their wedding displacing fears of cancer. 

.

A year passed. ‘Anthony Blake’ had his ultrasound, and it came back conclusive that the lump was only a cyst. Thoughts of weddings and coming out of hiding were put on the back burner, until one day the FBI approached Scully. They needed Mulder’s help, and all would be forgiven if he assisted them. 

It turned out coming out of hiding involved a lot of paperwork. New driver’s license, access to bank accounts. Setting up retirement crap again. Trying to figure out what to do with his life, now that he could do anything. 

One night, when he knew Scully wouldn’t be home too late, he cooked her favorite meal (that he could make) and put a cloth on their old table. He lit candles, and put on what could only be described as ‘make-out’ music. The table set, the food ready, he added the final touch. 

A print out. The form to add a dependent to a health insurance plan, due to a qualifying life event. And on top of the form, Mulder placed a ring. 

[writingpei]

wicked games (l.m.) - chapter six

previous chapter series masterlist next chapter

pairing: lee minho x reader genre: academic rivals to lovers wc: 2.6k words

color me green

everyone ought to know not to mess with the extreme hormonal imbalance that gets tangled up in the form of teenagers.

because classes started in march, the education system pulled out one of the most important events that students would most like to experience during the school year, valentine's day. what happens is that, in haneul high school, the students could not accept such slander. in the 90s, the celebration of kiss day was created; it consisted of a day that was common to see heart-shapped confetti across the floor in the halls, people crying over being rejected and others with teddy bears and bouquets of red roses under their arms, bragging about the amount of confessions they received.

to say that day made y/n want to gouge her eyes out with her bare hands would be an understatement.

everything about the celebration made her feel odd. she could not shake feeling like an alien observer watching the girls her age and all their unspoken yearning, how they fell apart over loud displays of affection and exaggerated gifts. what's with the allure of romance anyway? she couldn't quite grasp it within her fingers, and for some reason, it stressed her out.

shaking her head as a way of physically trying to shift her focus to another corner of her mind, she quickly settles into thinking about hyunjin and theorizing how much her assistance had actually helped him on his math test.

she hadn't heard from the boy the last few days, ever since the test. she figured he must have blacked out after studying as intensely as he had for the first time in his life. or he probably failed, and that wouldn't be kind to her ego.

when she first stepped into school in the chilly morning, she noticed that the confetti hadn't been thrown all over the place yet, so she still had the margin to pretend that day was a normal day.

what caught her eye, however, was the employees hanging up a gigantic sheet of paper on the wall. a cluster of people started forming in a circle, curious eyes examining the words printed in oppressive black ink, some were on tiptoes trying to catch a glimpse among the sea of heads.

y/n hurried into the middle of the crowd. even though physical contact with so many people made her skin sting, she slipped into the tangle until she came to a stop in front of everyone to see all the rankings on display.

once she found her name in the first column of the chart signaling her perfect score, a wave of relief and satisfaction emanated through her entire body.

regardless of how focused she was on her own accomplishment, her eyes were captured like a magnet to the name right below hers, and, to bring even more joy to her day, with a not-so-perfect score...

while she made 100 points, lee minho's name got stained by a hideous 98.

after the hellish week the boy had put her through like he had decided out of the blue to tease her countless times more than he already did on a day-to-day basis, y/n allowed herself to rejoice at the feeling of pride she felt because of the score.

caught out of her blissful trance, she realized classes were about to start, if the halls beginning to overflow were any indication to follow. her steps were determined while she made her way to english class with certainty that nothing would strain her mood.

when her eyes found minho sitting at the back of the classroom with his pet friend on his side as usual, she didn't refrain from her calculated stride until she came to a stop in front of the boy. minho, seeing her approaching, already masked his lips with the classic sarcastic smile he always performed flawlessly whenever he saw her, taking advantage of any prospect to get her worked up.

"what do i owe you the pleasu-" he started, but quickly realized she wasn't having any of it at that moment.

"shut up, now it's my turn" she interrupted, crossing her arms and lifting her chin, superioring herself through her ever-so-fierce body language. "you got 2 math questions wrong on the test? what's going on with you? i hate to say it but you were better than this back in the day..." a smirk that held no trace of kindness bloomed on her face as a silent challenge to his own, that started to die down by the second, cheeks falling.

he just frowned as if he had come upon something that had a bad smell, disgust being physically transferred from her to him, tables turning.

"you know it's not like me to put the blame on other things when it comes to my performance, but taking this test in the same classroom as you really affected me. i almost had to go outside to throw up 3 times just because i couldn't shake off your presence inhabiting the same space as me."

"oooh, taking it to heart now, are we minho?" a humorous little laugh escaped her lips as she lightly tapped her fingers on her arms.

"this is much worse than when you're tearing your hair out just by listening to me" he rolls his eyes and turns his body completely towards the blond boy who was aggressively drinking from his juice box, not daring to spare a glance to the frightening girl in front of him. "she's so annoying, seriously..."

"so you can play the game but i can't?" the question sounded dumbfounded and she felt anger starting to bubble on her chest.

"uhm, duh-uh" he replied as if it was obvious. "i prefer it much more when you are locked up in your own brooding"

"i don't get locked up in brooding" her tone got higher at his ridiculous accusation. "i'm sorry to spoil your childish ways of entertainment but my pride won't allow you to remain unchecked"

"talk about your pride" he scoffed with all his might, disdain evident in his voice. "don't go putting all your judgment over me on a single test, especially the first one. i don't want to see you crying later when i start to take this seriously."

"what ever made you think that i'm afraid of you taking things seriously? if you are trying to humiliate me by attempting to put me at your level, i can tell you is not working" her hands slipped from her previously crossed manner, and descended to settle on top of his desk, leaning in as a way to provoke him. "your immaturity has no bounds whatsoever."

minho looked into her eyes in silence for a chain of seconds until he groaned in desperation, eyes rolling back and an irritated sigh escaping his lungs.

"ugh, today is going to be a good day for me filled with chocolates and love letters, so stop trying to spoil it with all your nagging on my ears" he said, eager for the conversation to end soon.

minho hated it when she was like this, and getting 2 questions wrong on a 40-question test was disgraceful enough.

sometimes he found himself believing that both of them were one and the same while being two completely distinct planets all at once. he could tell that her talent for consistent pestering was just like his, but he couldn't help but prefer when she was the one hot-faced and struggling to hold her unceasing rage from lashing at him in a deadly streak.

and he really was looking forward to all of the confessions he was going to receive throughout the day, that hadn't been a lie. the compliments that were thrown in his direction by lovesick girls always amused him and tickled his undying ego.

"you never fail to make me sick to my stomach" she says with a deep frown, knuckles turning white at how hard they were being pressed against his desk.

"speak to my hand" minho raised his hand towards her, mocking her with movements imitating someone talking. "ah, i'm park y/n and my favorite pastimes are terrorizing innocent classmates and institutionalizing extreme boredom" he spoke in a demon-like voice as if trying to imitate her, and she only managed to scoff at his antics.

it took all her strength to walk over to her usual spot at the table at the front without caressing his pretty face with an uppercut.

he was outrageously unbearable, lee minho was the worst of the world.

"you fell asleep in the middle of the math test. you wouldn't do that if you had doubts about any of the questions" yongbok started right after she left them be, looking at him from the corner of his eye, pinning him in an accusatory stare.

"the last few days have been weird for me, yongie, give it a rest" minho dismisses his friend while sulking and crossing his arms, face falling slowly until his forehead reached his desk.

"if you say so..."

“why, are you insinuating something?” it didn’t take many seconds for him to get defensive as he always did over topics like this. topics that were about her.

minho liked to perceive himself as a person who was fully aware and in control of why he did the things he did, and having someone who knew him as well as yongbok insinuating things bothered him beyond measure, making him doubt his own conscience.

“oh, no, never” he answered sarcastically and kept chugging the straw coming out of the orange juice box. 

“ugh, whatever” minho says finally, shrugging and pretending he didn't care. "you've been weird as hell these past few days too..."

the class went by smoothly and y/n believed that her good mood would be unshakable for the rest of the day. it all ended in shambles when the bell rang and people started to leave the room to go to their respective next classes.

it all ended in shambles because it was at that exact moment that hwang hyunjin burst through the door like a cannon, wide eyes scanning the complexity of the classroom in search of the girl.

"y/n! i've been looking for you everywhere!" hyunjin's voice calling out for her in such an open place and in the midst of so many of their classmates put y/n on alert instantly.

she didn't even think about looking to the back of the class to check if he was still there.

"um, what do you need?" asking carefully collected, she looked barely managed to scan around her to see if there were still a lot of people in the room who hadn't left yet.

"you are never going to believe it!" he was anything but quiet, still daring to bounce up to her in his unmatched good humor. "i got 30 out of 40 questions right on the test! can you believe it? can you?" he exclaimed, and she realized she hadn't looked up the boy's name when she'd seen the rankings earlier.

regardless of the non-existent relationship she had with hyunjin, the information left her very much satisfied. knowing that she had the ability to teach well meant that she could land some tutoring gigs down the road.

"that's nice, hyunjin" she responded with a small sign of contentment on her face.

while she started bending down to pick up her bag from the floor and going on her way, he stopped her by handing her a white bag.

"this is a thank you present for you. as soon as i entered the school and saw the rankings, i skipped the first class and ran to the bakery near the school to buy this. it's a cupcake, no big deal!"

but y/n's focus had been ripped from the words that came out of the mouth of the boy in front of her and thrown to the small whispers she heard behind her back as soon as he waved the gift in front of her face.

"oh my god..." a girl said.

"so the rumors were true? they're going out with each other?" another trailed.

y/n gritted her teeth and exasperation started building up inside her chest.

"hyunjin" she called him, firmly yet quiet as ever. "have you gone insane?"

"what? why?" the big smile that previously covered his face was replaced by an expression of pure confusion. "you don't like cupcakes? i'm sorr-"

"today is kiss day, you dumbass" she explained, holding the bag he had given her with only one finger as if she touched it more than necessary, she would be consumed by it on the spot.

"oh" was his first reaction, realizing that he had completely forgotten about the day. however, when he finally came to realize how what he just did could create such horrific misinterpretations, his eyes widened and he let out another "oh!", this time sharing y/n's panic.

after his comprehension of how grave the situation was, hyunjin's first instinct was to snatch the bag from her hand without hesitation or grace. "it's nothing like that!" he exclaimed loudly almost as if he was screaming at her, noticing that there was a considerable amount of people still in the room who were eyeing them curiously.

"tutoring session this friday again!" was the only thing he accomplished to say before running out the door with the same agitation he had entered it.

all's well that end's well.

"i hate cupcakes anyway..." she whispered at last, leaving the room without looking any of the people who saw the scene in the eye.

as if ignoring that everything that had happened would immediately be forgotten and left behind by everyone. she knew she was fucked.

"we're going to be late for the next class, minho" yongbok called over to the boy who was still sitting fixedly in the chair, eyes narrowed at what he had just witnessed.

with his best friend's call, he put the bag on his shoulder and started walking next to the blonde in wary strides.

"who was that poor guy?" he asked, a lump in his throat that felt like something else was trying to escape from his lips, but he couldn't put it in words.

"that's the hwang hyunjin you asked me about these days" yongbok clarified, not missing the bewildered tone coming from his friend.

"oh. i really had no idea who he was until two minutes ago."

after a few seconds of walking in eerie silence, a squeaky voice shouted "minho!" at their back, and echoed down the hall.

when they both stopped at their steps and turned around, they saw a small girl with long dark hair and red cheeks running towards them with a giant box of chocolates.

"this is for you!" she held the box out to him, starting to smooth her hair in a not-so-discreet way from the second he took it from her hands. "my name is bae minah, let's hang out sometime."

minho smirked mechanically but the genuineness was nowhere to be found. he still leaned into her slightly as if to take a better look at her, flattering the younger girl in the process as her eyes started to blink rapidly at the sight of him growing closer.

"yeah, sure, i'll think about it. bae minah..." he said and she opened a big - and pitiful - smile. 

and so they both went continued their way, leaving her behind.

"take this" minho held out the box to yongbok, who looked at him confusedly and adjusted his glasses that fell down his nose.

"don't you want it? it's a super expensive brand."

"nah" he said, looking away. "i'm actually feeling a little nauseous."

stay tuned for chapter 7! ☆

[docholligay]

Do you have any words (yours or by others) on grief/grieving a loved one?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since I got it. I know this will sound strange coming from me, someone who writes not-infrequently about grief in the context of fictional characters, but you have to understand this: A frame makes a thing look like art. It’s easier to do things when they’re made to sit on a wall. So I’ve written and erased a dozen things, because I’m not sure how to talk about it when it’s me saying it. Which I guess is sad in its own right. That’s fine. This will have to be what it is. 

Some people have never been touched by death. 

I know it’s true, but it surprises me every time. I think all people of a certain age think they’ve lost someone, but there’s losing, and there’s being touched. If you’re coming to me with this question, you must know what I mean. You know someone who died, and that’s a little sad, you miss them, and you think of them from time to time. Grandparents, great-grandparents, classmates. Celebrities, if you’re weird enough. 

But then there’s being touched. I’m not sure I could have described the difference, before it happened to me. Someone dies, and, the world changes in an immeasurable way. Nothing will ever feel the same again. Now that’s all a very well traveled and quasi-hackneyed set of ideas, but it is true. The world is shifted. Doorknobs turn the other way, and always will. You could have sworn that clock had a robin at six, and not a blue jay, but the jay is singing now. The coffee didn’t taste burnt yesterday, or maybe it did but it was right for it to be burnt. 

The world is too still, and too loud. 

Grief is a shared way in which we are alien to each other. No two people mourn alike, and no deaths are mourned the same. I have been furious in the first flush of grief. I have burned things and made sacred oaths to my eternal anger. My grandmother sold everything he owned the week of my grandfather’s funeral. My friend once sobbed picking up a box of cookies from the supermarket. If at no point in your grief could you be called insane by a reasonable person, you cannot possibly understand what I’m talking about. 

You ever eaten a piece of gristle? I think grief is that piece of gristle. You chew and you chew, and you chew, but it just won’t go. You think, ‘if only I could get this down, everything would be okay’ but you can’t. It just sticks in your mouth, and it makes you gag, turning its oiliness over in your mouth. 

I nearly died once, by accident, mind you, in the grips of grief. It happens. You gag. 

So I think about that a lot, because its true what they say that flowers grow best where there was rot, and that’s true, but the trick of it is, that before the flowers can grow, that rot has to be broken down. It has to be chewed. And that takes time. 

There was a bar we went to. It was a fucking dive with shitty food and badly-poured beer, but PBR was a dollar on Mondays and you got a free basket of bacon. That’s where she told me she was dying, and I told her if she planned on doing this, she might have paid more than 3 bucks for my tab. 

It was a mess of a bar. 

They tore it down, shit, seven years ago now? And I remember thinking, ‘No, they can’t do that. They can’t get rid of that bar. It has to stand.” and I couldn’t have articulated to you why it had to stand, why this place I never thought much of and in which nothing good had ever happened to me had to stand, but I it tugged at me so hard. Because I could still hear her voice echoing there, and I could still hear what she told me. And if that bar didn’t exist anymore, than maybe it was never really real. 

Because that’s the insane part, right? You have individually and personally experienced 9/11, but everyone around you doesn’t realize the massive change the world has gone through. You are screaming at the smoldering pit, the scent of jet fuel in the air, and someone gives you that pitying look and goes, ‘How you holding up?” because the world is not different for them. You are fully prepared to have your knitting needles confiscated for the next twenty years if it would just make you feel safe again, make things feel right again, but this asshole standing in front of you has no idea. 

Because you’re changed. 

Grief changes us, but it’s wrong to think of that change as a ruining. 

The grand canyon is nothing but but a ditch dug by time, and wear, but people travel from all over the world to see it. A silver bowl tarnishes, but in the tarnish there are patterns and plays of light the new silver never dreamed of. Then again, that shitty dive bar is now a gastropub that serves burgers with aioli and has a gluten free menu, so some change is ruin, but that is not settled law. You can be changed and just be different. Different is not always worse. 

I think every person I’ve lost, and there have been more than I’d like, has changed me in some way. I’ve been a drunk, I’ve been destructive, I’ve been religious and reflective, and I’ve been a planner. I’m not any of those on a full-time basis anymore, but I see them all in the mirror, looking back at me. All those Docs, all the ways she has felt, still exist in me. 

 My grandfather, he of blessed memory, used to say that you don’t ever have to get over things, but you do have to get on with them. I think that’s what I’ve tried to carry with me. 

That’s the first step to breaking down the rot. Chop wood, and carry water. You keep it moving. You carry that with you, and you carry them with you. Sometimes thre’s nothing to do but the work.Then one day, you realize you told a story about them, and you laughed. You didn’t even think about crying. So then you cry.  Time comes you spent a whole day not thinking about them, and then you cry again. But slowly, life starts to take shape there. Things grow in around the ruins, and maybe it’s even more beautiful than before. You fly their memory like a kite, bright and bouncing in the wind of your life. People can see it in you, even if they don’t quite know what it is. It’s just a pretty, dancing thing in the clouds. 

And then you realize, you don’t want you knitting needles confiscated anymore. 

I recently laid years of anger to rest over someone’s death. It was the first time I cried about it. As soon as I stopped being mad, I had to let the sorrow in. After you clear the rot, you still need the rain, I guess. 

You get better. There are still trenches dug in the French forest from WWI, but the forest is no less green for them. Tragedy above all others. Covered by the willingness to grow. 

I feel like this fucking ramble makes less sense the more I noodle on it, and in many ways is more about how to move through grief than what it feels like, so, I don’t know, the best I have in the way of a poetic thought is that sometimes grief in the way all the clothes end up in the hamper now, and the way you stop halfway up the stairs with a cup of coffee before you remember, and the way you never walk past that cafe with the little pink cakes. That sharp, cold knife is small, and fits in so many places. 

But it can’t stop the grass from growing.