#feel free to ask for an explaination if anythings unclear

[artinandwritin]

Doing a lil art dump cuz ya girl is busy crocheting and doing market and comms related things but yknow

Old art still has my heart and sometimes i forget to post fun doodles <333

Modern au hc: Siri's big into my little pony and Gustav has a fursona. Theyre very passionate abt it and its adorable

Sunniva thinks her dad is stupid. She is correct and everyone but him knows it

One of my favourite modern au Siri doodles!!! Look at the bbygirl,,,

Im very funny and this meme is literally them (Siri cannot swim)

Some of my fave adult life gussiri sketches!!! I think most are from like half a year or so ago (almost all sketches in this post are actually) but i really like them!! My babies fr fr <333

[uvobreakmylegs]

As Fate Would Have it

red thread of fate soulmate! AU with Razor x reader

Warnings: kidnapping, mentions of death

Word Count: 12.2k words

He hadn't said anything to you.

After returning to your hotel room only to immediately be jumped by the man who had clearly been laying in wait for you, he had yet to utter a single word, instead staying quiet through the process of grabbing and restraining you. Even when you had tried to kick and scream when you realized that you were being attacked, he didn't explain anything or mutter out any curses when you were successful in hitting him a few times. Not even to mock you when it was clear that you were lacking the strength needed to do any sort of damage to him.

It was only for a short period of time that your limbs were free, and now you were laying on the hotel bed, your wrists bound behind your back, your ankles tied together and a washcloth from the bathroom having been forced into your mouth in order to keep you quiet.

Earlier you were crying and screaming into the material of the makeshift gag, the terror of the situation overtaking you. But when nothing further happened, you managed to calm down enough to keep quiet, and now you were waiting for what he intended to do from here. With how tightly he had bound you, there was no scenario where you got out of your constraints on your own. Which meant there were only two possibilities: a third party would find and untie you, or he would untie you himself.

The first possibility seemed incredibly unlikely.

That second possibility seemed like it would only happen if he viewed you in a positive light.

So you stayed quiet, hoping that your silence would be interpreted as submission.

Currently the man was across from where you lay on the bed, sitting forward in the chair that had been placed in front of the window. In the initial attack, all you had truly registered was how much taller and stronger he was in the way he had picked you up and threw you onto the bed without any effort. Now that things had calmed down and you were trying to be smart about the moves you made, you were able to take in the details you hadn't noticed before. Like his short, spiky purple hair and his prominent cheekbones.

The way the light from the nearby lamp hit him somehow made him feel even more intimidating than he already was, the shadows almost creating an ominous aura about him. As if you weren't scared enough of him already.

At least he wasn't touching you anymore. After he'd gagged you, his hands stayed on you while you continued to struggle. And even after your struggles had died down completely, they stayed there, occasionally to gliding up and down your body while he stared at you.

What exactly those dark eyes were seeing when he stared at you in that way that felt so intense, you couldn't begin to imagine.

It was a relatively recent development that he'd had enough of it and moved away from the bed, shifting the blinds of the window slightly to peek out before sitting down across from you, watching you with a pensive look on his face.

Being that you were now in a calmer state, you wished you could ask him why he was doing this. What he wanted and what he planned to do with you.

…. It wasn't completely true that you wanted to know the answer to the last one; you were too scared that he would tell you that he planned on ending your life. Or maybe he was planning on selling you. Both of those things happening was also a possibility.

How much time had passed since you had first entered your room was unclear – you kept your gaze on him, waiting to see if and when he would act.

When that time finally came and he did speak, it surprised you.

“This must be terrible for you.”

You blinked when you heard his voice for the first time, but continued to keep quiet, waiting for him to continue.

“I kept thinking of what I should say,” he told you, “what I could say to make this easier on you, so you could understand what's going on. And while I don't think that I'm terrible when it comes to words, I've never found myself more stumped than I am right now.”

He sighed as he added “if only you could see it, or if I didn't have to get back so quick, it wouldn't be this way. I wouldn't have needed to do this to you.”

'Do this'?

Tears began to fill your eyes again, and despite how you had told yourself to keep quiet, you tried to speak. Desperation drove you to beg for your life, something that could've been a horrible decision if he was easily angered, but his eyebrows raised slightly while he hummed.

“You want to say something?” he asked.

You nodded eagerly.

He considered you a moment before he got to his feet, returning to sit on the edge of the bed and placing one hand firmly on your shoulder.

“I'll take this out,” he began, motioning to the washcloth before adding “but make sure you don't scream. It'll only end badly for you.”

You nodded again, this time in a much more steady manner as you were desperate to show that you were calm and wanted to cooperate.

The man was satisfied with that, and he pulled the washcloth out of your mouth, freeing your tongue from the taste and texture of the heavy fabric that had grown wet from your saliva. You couldn't help but cough for a moment, relieved to get that out of your mouth. All the while he kept that hand on your shoulder while also being prepared to gag you again if you got too loud.

But you followed his instruction, and he seemed to relax some when moments passed and you didn't start screaming.

Then you spoke to him.

“Sir,” you began, “please don't kill me.”

At that, he smiled.

“Ah, that was what you were worried about, was it?”

He squeezed your shoulder reassuringly as he said “don't worry. You aren't going to die.”

“R-really?”

“Really.”

He pulled you up into a sitting position and moved your legs so they were placed over his lap. With how your wrists and ankles were still bound, it felt awkward, but you didn't dare make any move to try and free yourself. Not right now.

“It would be terrible for me if you died,” he said, “so believe me when I say that's the last thing I could ever want.”

You didn't understand how exactly that could be bad for him, but you nodded as if you did.

“Um, so,” you began, “can I ask what exactly it is that you do want?”

“For you to come with me.”

“Come with you? Wh-where?”

“An island.”

“… An island?”

He saw the way your eyebrows furrowed and patted you on the cheek as he said “I feel all of this is something that will make more sense if you see it rather than have me explain it to you. So while it might be confusing for now, I promise it will become clear in time.”

“For now,” he continued, “I need your full cooperation.”

“….. So you can take me to an island?”

“Yes.”

You wanted to ask what happened after that, but he spoke again before you were able to.

“You can't use nen, so we'll need to go the long way to get there,” he said, “we'll be leaving tomorrow.”

What the fuck is nen?

That thought flashed through your head before you focused on the second part of his sentence: leaving tomorrow?

“I-I'm supposed to head back home tomorrow,” you told him, “people will notice when I don't come back.”

“Then we'll have to get going early.”

He smiled as he said that, speaking as though this was a last-minute trip that you were a willing participant in and brushing off what you said completely. Like the fact that there were people who would notice once you were gone wasn't a concern to him. He didn't care that he was taking you away from them. He didn't care that you didn't want to go with him.

And there was nothing you could do about that. After all, the first thing this man had done was prove to you that you couldn't fight him off.

As much as you wanted to scream and yell at him to let you go or cry out for help in the hopes your neighbors would hear you and call for help on your behalf, at best all that would do was get that washcloth stuffed inside your mouth again, and that was at best. If you wanted any chance of getting away from this man, you needed to get him to trust you enough so his guard relaxed.

It was the only way.

“With that said, we should get some sleep,” he told you, patting you on the cheek again while he added “we have a long drive ahead of us, and once we start, I want to make as few stops as possible.”

He gently pushed you back onto the mattress before moving your legs off of his lap and standing back up.

You were compelled to speak again when he began to walk away.

“Can I ask one last question?”

He paused, turning to look at you as he said “of course.”

“Who….. Who are you?”

He smiled at you and answered with his name.

“Razor.”

There was little sleep to be had that night. While the bed in the hotel room was incredibly soft and comfortable, it was hard to sleep when you had a kidnapper nearly twice your size laying next to you. The feeling was made worse during the times of the night when he put a hand on you again, running up and down your side with experimental touches. He knew you were awake during those times as well, as more often than not you weren't able to keep in the scared noises that came from your mouth whenever his hand brushed near your neck or went lower than your stomach, still fearful of his intentions. He didn't reprimand you, likely because you were doing your best to be quiet. But he didn't stop either, not seeming to care at all how much this was distressing you. To top it off, your arms remained bound, forcing you to try and rest in an uncomfortable position that guaranteed you would lose sleep no matter how soft the mattress was.

Dawn had barely cracked when Razor got up, shaking you awake when it felt like you had just barely gotten to sleep. Your tiredness was definitely showing even with how hard you tried to be alert, because he chuckled at you.

“Don't worry,” he told you, “you can sleep in the car if you need to.”

However, the moment you were placed in the passenger's seat, you were wide awake again. And as Razor drove you away from your hotel and down the highway in the opposite direction of the airport, despair settled in the pit of your stomach. You were being kidnapped, and you were doing nothing to stop it because there simply wasn't anything you could do.

So you sat there silently with your hands bound again as he took you, and the only saving grace of the situation was the fact that he'd tied them in front so you were a bit more comfortable this time.

Razor stayed silent as well while he kept his focus on the road.

An entire day passed with barely anything being said. You didn't say anything unless he spoke up first, and when you did speak, it was just to let out a “yes” or an “okay” to whatever he told you to do. Like when he tossed you a protein bar and told you to eat, or when he told you to keep your hands on your lap so no one passing by might catch sight of your bound wrists.

Cooperate fully. Make him think you were too scared to go against him. Wait for him to let his guard down.

The worst moment was when he stopped the car to fill up the gas tank, and he allowed your wrists to be free once more as he let you out to use the nearby restroom. Before letting you go, he whispered a warning as he told you not to get any stupid ideas. You didn't need any clarification: there was only one person at the station that you could see, standing away from the pumps so they could smoke their cigarette in peace. With only them seeming to be present, trying to get help here was a stupid idea, and one you would only do if you had no care for the innocent bystander who would undoubtedly suffer because of it.

It was when you were leaving the bathroom and heading back to the car that you felt heavy. Razor's eyes were fixed on you when you stepped out, and the sight had you frozen for a moment.

You didn't want to go to him. Every instinct in you was telling you to run, run as fast as you can and don't look back until you find somewhere safe.

But he was expecting that.

Despite the laid back body language he displayed, a gut feeling told you that he'd be on you the instant you tried getting away from him. That same gut feeling told you that it was better not to anger him. Even if he said that he didn't want you dead, how the hell could you trust a man who had kidnapped you?

You walked back to the car, albeit slowly. If your pace was enough to annoy him, he chose not to comment on it, though the instant you were both back in the car he restrained your wrists again.

Razor drove well into the night, not stopping to rest even when you felt it was too hard to keep your eyes open. You fell asleep like that, and when you woke up early the next morning with an ache in your neck, he was still driving, and you wondered if he had slept at all that night.

After another breakfast of an energy bar and bottled water, you got up the courage to ask him a question.

“How far will we be driving?” you asked.

“Until we reach the coast.”

“Ah.”

That would take a while, then. You weren't that close to any oceans. So it would be a long time spent being around him in the small space of the car.

At least he couldn't do anything to you while he was focused on the road, right?

Turning your attention to the window, you saw that the highway you were on was now slowly filling up with traffic. It was still early morning, thus the morning traffic was merging on the road. Much to Razor's displeasure, as you heard him make an annoyed grunt when he was forced to slow down the speed of the car.

It was disheartening to know that the trip would last that much longer.

You expected that today would be a repeat of the previous: he would say very little aside from ordering you now and then, and you would keep quiet and do as he said. The less you needed to speak with this man, the better.

But then he spoke up.

“You seem tired; are you sure you don't want to sleep more?” he asked.

It took you a few moments to reply, and during that time he glanced over to you. That was what spurred you to respond.

“I don't think I can,” you answered.

“If the front seat is too uncomfortable for you, I can pull over and you can move to the back.”

“I'm okay.”

“… I see.”

You kept your eyes averted from him, not sure what all of this was about but not wanting to poke the bear to find out. Why was he pretending to look out for your well-being? God, all you wanted was to be away from him.

But now with the traffic forcing him to drive far beneath the speed limit and the already long road you had ahead of you, getting away from him wouldn't come any time soon. And now it seemed that your previous question had encouraged him to talk to you, as Razor broke the silence once again.

“You're free to talk, if you'd like.”

“…. I'm okay.”

You didn't say anything after that, and once a few moments had passed, you sensed his gaze on you again when he looked over to you.

“You're getting bored of doing nothing but sitting, aren't you? Why don't you tell me about yourself?” he asked.

The fuck did that mean?

You shook your head, and you felt his confusion grow as he continued to watch you.

“You seemed more eager to speak the other night,” he commented.

Probably because I was panicked from getting jumped in my hotel room, you thought to yourself. Now you didn't want to say anything, or even know anything about what would happen to you. The previous day you had spent in silent dread only built up your paranoia and your fear and you didn't want to hear some story from him that was undoubtedly untrue all to keep you calm for the journey.

You didn't need to know the details of what would happen, the scenarios in your mind that slowly began running wild being all that you needed to guess as to what your fate would be at the end of all this. You were definitely going to die; the fact that he didn't care about you seeing his face seemed like proof of that.

So why give him the satisfaction of feeding you false hope that things wouldn't be as bad as you thought they would be?

Although…..

You had to admit that the island story felt like a weird lie to feed you. Surely he could've come up with something better, some reason that wasn't quite so mysterious. Then again, you couldn't think of any good lie to feed to someone who was being kidnapped.

But again, why in the world would he say that?

The traffic around you was starting to get better when you voiced that thought.

“Why do I need to go to the island?” you asked.

“Because I need you,” he answered.

“For what?”

He didn't answer, and you glanced back over to find that Razor's smile had fallen as he kept his gaze on the road. It didn't seem like he intended on answering you. If that was the case, then you should leave it be. No sense in angering him unnecessarily. He was the one in control, not you.

But he eventually surprised you when he chose to speak again.

“Unfortunately,” he began, “that's one thing I can only explain once we get there.”

“Oh.”

That again.

“Is there a reason why you can't explain now?” you asked.

“Because it may be a bit too difficult to believe simply hearing it.”

“So leaving me without answers for however long you lug me around is the better option?”

Your regretted saying that as soon as the words left your lips. It had been too forceful, too angry and not in line at all with the role of captive you were meant to play. Him not doing much to you had you growing too comfortable, too bold, and Razor obviously noticed it too as he looked over to you with one of his eyebrows raised.

One look from him was all it took for every fear to return, and you went back to cowering in your seat, mumbling a soft “sorry.”

He hummed but said nothing further.

An uncomfortable silence was now in the air, interrupted only by the way Razor tapped his finger against the steering wheel.

You noticed something then: a piece of teal colored string that was wrapped around his pinky. One with some sort of design printed all over it, though it was too small and too far away from you to make out any details.

Your eyebrows furrowed. With the way he'd been touching you that first night, shouldn't you have noticed that before? Then again, how could anyone be paying attention to such fine details after what you'd been going through in that moment?

Ultimately, you took your attention off of that; whatever that was, it couldn't have mattered.

“Have you ever seen my face before today?” he asked.

It was late in the afternoon when he asked that, the third day since he had kidnapped you playing out without much talk aside from the orders he would give you whenever he stopped to refill the car's tank. Despite the talk you had the previous day, he didn't push further to make you speak to him. Maybe the last conversation felt just as strange for him as it had for you.

Evidently he was moving past that now as this new question hung in the air.

Your eyebrows furrowed, but instead of asking him why he was asking, you looked at him and tried to recall if there was any spot in your memory where you had seen his face before all of this. There was a reason he had asked, right? He wouldn't just ask such a thing randomly, right?

Maybe he'd been stalking you for a long time.

As hard as you tried, however, you came up blank in terms of any previous memories that involved your kidnapper, and after a few moments you slowly shook your head “no” in response.

For some reason, Razor actually seemed relieved at that, smiling as he said “that's good.”

“…. Why is that good?” you asked against your better judgment.

With that smile still on his face, Razor shook his head as he replied “I'd rather not go into it. I don't want your opinion of me to go any lower.”

…. What?

“Why would my opinion of you matter?” you asked.

Now Razor seemed confused, glancing over to you while asking “why wouldn't it matter?”

Why wouldn't it matter?

Was he fucking serious?

“Because I've been kidnapped?” you responded, “because I have no say in any of this? Because you were waiting in my hotel room for me, and then you tied me up on the bed? Because it's pretty amazing that I haven't died yet, and there's still a good chance that everything you've been saying to me is a lie so you can keep me calm before you gut me like a pig and dump me in a ditch somewhere.”

He wasn't smiling anymore, his expression now turned serious. You should've been worried about how it didn't seem like he was paying attention to the road.

You should also stop talking. The way you were going right now, you were liable to say something bad that would upset him.

But did it matter if you upset him if you really believed he was going to kill you?

“After you did all of that, why the fuck does my opinion of you matter?” you asked, “why do you care about how your kidnapping victim feels? If you weren't such an awful person, you wouldn't have kidnapped me in the first place. How the fuck can you sit there and be worried about if I like you or not?”

Razor pulled the car over to the side of the road.

Fuck

You averted your eyes as you started to shake.

He'll do it here. Shoot or strangle you and then dump you in the back. Take whatever it was he wanted from you and then throw you away like garbage. That would be the way your life would end, and you were powerless to stop it.

There was no chance of survival, and there was nothing you could do but prepare yourself for the inevitable.

He's gonna kill me he's gonna kill me he's gonna kill me

Razor placed his hand on top of yours.

Your heart leapt into your throat and you jerked your body away. The furthest you could go was the door, slamming your hands on the window as you ended up against it, pressing yourself against it as far as you could while tears began to fall. This was it. You shut your eyes, waiting for something bad to happen. Either metal being placed against your flesh or his hands wrapping around your neck. Maybe even a plastic bag placed over your head.

Why did he need to pick you?

Why couldn't he have left you alone?

You flinched again when you felt his hand on your shoulder. As this time there was nowhere else for you to go, his hand stayed.

Nothing more than that.

It took you a while to realize that he wasn't doing anything else. With however many minutes had passed with you hyperventilating and crying, he hadn't moved forward with any action other than the hand that he had placed on your shoulder.

After realizing that you were still alive when everything was telling you that you should be dead by now, you came to another realization: the way his hand was placed on your shoulder was almost as if he had done it as a way to comfort you.

His hand was warm where he touched you. Were it not for the horrible situation, it just might have made you feel a bit better.

By that point your cries had quieted down, and he took that as an opportunity to softly speak your name.

You glanced over at him through blurry vision.

He was frowning and his eyebrows were furrowed, but he didn't seem angry.

Razor actually looked sad.

“Are you really that scared of me?” he asked.

Tears continued to roll down your cheeks as you nodded, and that only seemed to discourage him even more.

“Even after I told you that I'm not going to hurt you?”

“How can you expect me to trust anything you say?” was your response.

Razor stared at you, his hand still on you. His lips began to part as if to speak, but then he turned his head away from you, looking out through the windshield and at the highway before him.

“Can't argue with that,” you heard him mumble.

Then he removed his hand and returned his attention to driving the car, pulling back out onto the road and continuing on.

Neither of you said anything for the rest of the drive.

It was late when Razor decided to stop for a bit, pulling off of the highway and renting a room from a small and rather seedy-looking motel. He'd left you in the car while he went to get a room, and while he still warned you not to try anything, his tone wasn't quite as harsh as it had been those times earlier. It was as though he was trying to be more gentle with you.

You didn't respond except to nod silently.

Now it felt like you were repeating the situation from that first night: the both of you on the bed with you feeling incredibly unsafe while trying and failing to get any sleep. The biggest difference this time was that the mattress of the motel was uncomfortable as shit, and you shifted every few minutes as you tried to find a spot that felt nicer.

At least you weren't sleeping in the car again, you told yourself.

He was still awake. Although you tried not to pay attention to him, it was hard to keep your eyes averted whenever you turned to face his direction. More than once the two of you made eye contact, and immediately after you would turn away. You would have stayed facing away from him if only the goddamn mattress wasn't so awful. And shouldn't he be asleep by now?

The fact that Razor was still awake and alert after three days of what appeared to be constant driving wasn't normal; who the hell could go that long without rest? How had the two of you not yet died in a car crash?

Maybe kidnappers were built different, you dryly thought to yourself.

“…. Do you want to watch anything?”

Razor's voice interrupted that thought train, and you noted that his tone was soft again when he asked, but you shook your head as you stared straight ahead at the wall next to you.

He hummed, and it sounded like he was disappointed.

But for some reason that wasn't the end of it.

“What can I do to make you trust me?”

….. He had some nerve to ask that, after everything. Was he aware of that? Probably. Despite that odd thing regarding your opinion of him, he was pretty self-aware on how wrong all of this was. You'd be justified in ignoring him, though. Razor would probably recognize and understand that, as well.

…..

Even if you were justified, what good would that do you?

After a moment, you remained where you were but pulled your arms upward, holding your bound wrists in the air for him to see.

A few seconds passed and nothing happened.

You figured that his lack of action meant “no”, and with a sigh, you began to pull them back down.

Razor grabbed them.

For a second, all you felt was panic at his sudden touch. You were reminded of that first night and how powerless you were.

It only lasted a moment, however, as Razor grabbed at the zip-tie and, with a slight tug, snapped the plastic off of you. Within a moment, your wrists were free.

… Were they supposed to break that easily?

“Is that better?” Razor asked.

“…. Yeah.”

He pulled away, his eyes remaining on you after. And now that he had done as you wanted, there was a certain level of expectation in the air, such as you would look at him and have a conversation. A proper one.

Continuing to ignore him now seemed like it would be a bad idea.

So you sat up, turning around on the bed so you were facing him. He seemed pleased by that, so that wasn't bad.

But fuck he was intimidating.

Surely after the past few days your fear of just looking at and speaking to him should have gone down somewhat, but no. Looking at him head on while he had his full attention on you had your palms beginning to sweat.

You grabbed the pillow you'd been resting on and wrapped your arms around it as you held it close. Maybe that was pathetic but it made you feel better.

“Ready to talk?” Razor asked.

“Depends on what you have to say,” you answered, “if you're going to tell me that you'll be knocking out my teeth before you feed me to pigs then I'd rather you not say anything.”

He let out an exasperated sigh.

“I told you that you're not going to die.”

The firmness was back in his tone, and you sensed that he was getting to the point of being aggravated.

You looked away as you held the pillow tighter.

“Okay,” you breathed out, “I'll believe you. But then….”

You inhaled before you spoke.

“I want to know why you're taking me. And I don't want an excuse about needing to wait until we get to wherever. I want answers now.”

“I've been pretty cooperative, so I at least deserve that much,” you added.

You glanced over and then away again, still nervous about his potential reaction. While he didn't seem to have anger issues, he more than likely had limits when he was pushed too far. If he wasn't going to kill you, he could keep you alive to experience worse.

A second quick glance revealed that he was staring at that string around his finger.

Then he made eye contact again as he asked “do you think you could listen to what I have to say with an open mind?”

“Uh, sure?”

Razor didn't seem as pleased about the uncertainty that made it's way into your voice, but after a moment's hesitation, he seemed to resolve himself as he spoke again.

“Do you believe in soulmates?”

You blinked.

“….. What do you mean?” you asked.

“That there are people in this world who are connected and are meant to be together?” he explained.

“Connected how?”

“By a force that's invisible to most,” said Razor, “like a red thread that you can only see if you have the ability to look.”

What

You blinked again, not sure of what to say.

“I… I guess I've never thought about it,” you began, “if I'm being honest, I'm really not sure.”

“I see.”

Again, there was disappointment in his tone.

Despite being worried to question him, you hesitantly asked “is…. Is there a reason why you asked?”

You had a bad idea as to why he'd mention such a thing. But you held onto hope that this tangent about soulmates was just his way of trying to make a joke so you felt better. Or maybe he was bringing up something this random just to fuck with you. Even that wouldn't be too bad.

He answered your question with a question of his own.

“What would you do if I said we were soulmates?” he asked.

“….”

…. Oh god.

This entire time you'd been convinced that Razor was going to kill you, no matter how much he said otherwise. And if not that, maybe that he would sell you off to someone. Now you were learning that all of this was happening because he was crazy. He'd seen you and was pushing some sort of fantasy onto you while justifying it with the notion of 'soulmates'. That had been all he needed to feel no guilt over tying you up and kidnapping you – because in his mind, what he was doing was right.

Of all the combinations he needed to be, why did he need to be both mentally unstable and unreasonably strong?

That was the other important thing: regardless of his sanity, he still posed an incredibly dangerous threat physically. As he continued to watch you while he waited for you to say something, you were aware that it would be a bad idea to flat-out say 'no'. Better to play along at least somewhat.

“…. I don't know,” you eventually told him.

Razor let out a soft sigh as he said “you think I'm insane, don't you?”

“N-no. Nothing like that,” you replied.

He hummed, and the way he hummed sounded as though he didn't believe you. Then he reached over and began to caress your cheek, making you cringe internally. While you wished you could get his hand off of you, you told yourself to deal with it for now.

“I wish I could show you proof – I really do,” Razor said, “but I'll get into some serious trouble if I use nen while I'm out here.”

That word…. He'd mentioned it before, though you still had no idea what it meant.

“So it needs to wait for the island?” you asked.

“Exactly.”

“…. Okay.”

Better to not make a fuss, you told yourself. Act like you're potentially open to the delusions he's spewing out. Delusional people prefer it when others agree with them, right?

Still, to find out that he had taken you because of such a reason….

The worst case scenario now was that you wouldn't get away and you'd be stuck playing out Razor's romance fantasy with him. At least you wouldn't be dead, right?

…..

It might be a good idea to get off of the soulmate subject, at least for now. And since he was mostly willing to be open and honest with you, now might not be a bad time to question something else he had said.

“Can I ask something else?”

The fact that you were changing subjects was obvious, but he seemed to accept it as he pulled his hand away as he answered “go ahead.”

“Why did you ask if I had seen you before?”

For some reason, that question was the one that had him frowning, and he tore his gaze away from you as he sighed.

“I don't know that you want to hear that answer,” he told you.

“Why?”

“It's not pleasant.”

“So?”

“… I'd rather we wait a while before we get to that discussion,” Razor said.

“I don't want to do that,” you replied.

He grimaced at your response, but oddly enough he didn't seem to be getting upset as he had been when you made that comment about him killing you. Maybe that was why you were spurred to push for him to speak.

“You said you want me to trust you, right? Why not answer?”

“Because you won't be happy with what I tell you.”

“Can it really be worse than what you've done to me so far?” you asked.

“If you can imagine the sort of crimes that get someone sent to death row, then yes.”

“…. Oh.”

Razor turned his head towards you, and you got a certain sense of “I told you so” when he looked over.

What he did couldn't have been any small crime – given how easy it had been to imagine him killing you, murder was the first thing you thought of. But even then, convicted killers didn't always get sentenced to death. There was that guy from Zaban who had literally torn his victims to pieces and while he had gotten over 900 years in prison, the fact that he hadn't been put to death was mind boggling to many.

So just what had Razor done to get himself on death row?

And why was literally everything about this only managing to become worse and worse?

“Why were you sent to death row?” you whispered after a few moments.

It wasn't much of a surprise when he took a bit to answer, frowning again as he stared off at the space in front of him. He didn't want you to know anything about this for some reason.

But eventually, he answered.

“I killed some people,” he said.

“How many?”

“You don't need to know.”

“Why did you kill them?”

“Because I could.”

“That's it?”

“That's it.”

That's horrible, you wanted to say. But you refrained. Not only because it would be pointing out the obvious, but it probably wouldn't do any good saying that to a man who admitted to something as awful as murder.

Because I could

The words echoed in your head, and you couldn't help but note how there had been a distinct lack of remorse in his tone. Almost as if he didn't care about the lives he had snuffed out for no reason.

A weight settled in your chest at that thought. Why it did remained unclear, but you found yourself wanting to make this better somehow.

“Do you feel bad about it?” you asked.

“What?”

His confusion was evident.

“Do you feel bad for killing those people?” you clarified, “if you could do it all over again, would you leave them alone?”

Why you now wanted so badly for him to agree with what you said was also unclear. Razor was a kidnapper and an admitted murderer – one who was bad enough that he earned himself a spot on death row. Why did it matter to you whether he was sorry for what he'd done?

But regardless, it seemed that was what your heart wanted.

Razor hadn't answered you, and in fact, he was looking at you as though you had grown three heads.

… That wasn't a good sign.

After a few moments where it seemed he was trying to pick his words carefully, he spoke up.

“I don't see much value in thinking about things I could've done differently in the past,” Razor answered.

Then he reached over to you.

While this time you didn't flinch or jerk away, you stiffened immediately, the pillow you held becoming squished between against you as you anticipated him putting his hands on you again.

Surprisingly, Razor paused when he saw your reaction, seeming thoughtful as he watched the way you sat, virtually petrified on the bed with a terrified look on your face.

Could he really blame you? He just told you a lot that warranted being worried about him. Even moreso than before.

Evidently he didn't, as he pulled his hand back and smiling at you again as he said “the important thing is what's happening now, and what our lives will be like from this point onward.”

“So let's not focus anymore on that,” he added.

Stop talking about it, was what he meant.

“Okay,” you whispered, nodding in agreement.

Razor seemed pleased with that.

Not long after he told you to rest up, and within a few minutes the lights were off. Once more you needed to try and get some sleep while you lay next to your kidnapper, and the only saving grace was the fact that he was keeping his hands off of you this time. But while you tried to get some meager amount of sleep, you weren't able to focus much on his semblance of respecting your personal space. Instead, there was only one thought going through your head in that moment:

He wasn't sorry

Your wrists weren't tied up when you left the motel the next morning.

That was nice.

And while Razor wouldn't let you out of the car, he did stop at a restaurant to get you a to-go order of pancakes when you asked him to. Eating them in the moving car was awkward but you appreciated that he humored your request.

That was also nice, even if it had the potential of being your last meal before Razor took you to that island.

The knowledge soured the meal somewhat, but as much as you hated to admit it, you weren't so sure now that you would be escaping him. Razor hadn't given you any opportunity to take advantage of, and even with him giving you a bit more freedom of movement, he made a point to lock you inside the car during the time he was gone.

That made sense. After everything, you couldn't see him being foolish enough to leave you alone without having taken some step to secure you beforehand. It was actually pretty surprising that he was giving you the freedom he was after what he'd told you in that motel room.

Though maybe it wasn't too surprising when you considered the fact that he wanted you to like him. While the soulmate thing was complete bullshit, that was what Razor believed. So it made sense that he would want you to feel good about him since he planned on keeping you with him from now on.

That last part had never been said, but you got the sense that would be what happened if Razor got his way.

The rest of your life being spent playing into this man's delusions….

You would have shuddered at the thought if not for your fear that Razor would notice it.

“We'll be driving through the rest of the night,” he told you some time later, “and by tomorrow morning we'll have made it to our boat. From there it won't be too long of a journey to the island.”

You nodded along, though hearing what he said caused a pit to form in your stomach.

Once you were on that boat, the chances of escape were next to zero. It would be better to throw away any thoughts of escape if you were to reach that point.

To try and get away while on the water would be suicide.

He asked you questions every now and then, and though it wasn't as strong as it had been the previous night, you felt that pressure like you needed to answer him in exchange for the kindnesses he had shown you.

So you did what he wanted, and every time you glanced to him after, you saw a pleased look on his face.

You should've felt bad for him. Razor was the one who clearly had a lot of issues – things that, if he was a bit more mentally well, he probably wouldn't have done. Maybe. But then again, you were the one being dragged along with him against your will, so your sympathy could only go so far.

The sun was setting when Razor pulled over to another gas station to refill the tank. This was probably the last stop like this that you'd be making, if what Razor said earlier was correct.

The hand drier in the bathroom was still roaring when you left, only to be muted once the door shut behind you. As you had done a lot over the past few days, you immediately headed back towards the car as you knew your kidnapper wanted you to.

Only this time he wasn't watching you like a hawk.

Razor was by the car as the tank continued to fill, leaning against it as he stared out into the distance. Your gaze followed his, and you found that he seemed to be staring at a factory that sat in the distance, if the long, rectangular building accompanied by several smokestacks were any indication. Or perhaps he was looking beyond that, at the city that which was several miles away but still visible from where you stood. Or maybe it was just the sunset. It was at the time of day where the sky was at its prettiest.

Instead of entering the car once you returned, you went to his side and stood next to him, copying the way he leaned on it. He glanced at you, but said nothing about what you were doing. He only returned his gaze to the sight in front of him.

And then an odd expression morphed onto his face.

One that was almost wistful.

“Are you okay?” you asked cautiously.

Razor seemed surprised, looking back at you as he asked “why?”

“You look a little sad, I guess.”

“Do I?”

He looked back in the direction of the factory and the city that sat far off in the distance, and that wistful expression returned. As much as you wanted to ask him what he was thinking about, that question felt like it might be too intrusive and could potentially cause a bad reaction from him, particularly if it involved his past. He really didn't want you to know much in regard to that.

He let out a sigh.

“I guess I am, a little bit,” Razor said, “this is the last time I get to be out and about in the world like this. Once we get back to the island, I know I'll never leave again.”

“Never?” you repeated.

“Never,” he said, “the purpose of leaving the island every so often was to find you, and now that I have, there's no reason for me to come out here like this.”

He leaned his head back, now looking at the darkening sky above him as he added “I knew it was coming, but I didn't think it would bother me, knowing that this is the last time I can walk around like I'm free.”

“… Are you not?”

“Not really.”

“Why?”

“Death row convict.”

“Ah. Right.”

You went over the new information in your head.

“So you can't leave the island once you go back?” you asked, “is it a prison?”

He let out a short laugh.

“It's a prison for some of us, but even then it's nicer than any traditional prison you'll find,” he said.

“Us? There are others like you?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, “but don't worry, you won't need to interact with them.”

You nodded, though your eyebrows furrowed as you thought on it a bit more.

“Will I be able to leave at all?” you asked.

“No.”

You sighed.

“Figures.”

Kicking at a bit of rubble by your foot, you said “so, the plan from here is to go to an island where we'll never leave, and then just….. Hang out there forever?”

“There's a bit more to it than that.”

“Hm.”

When Razor reached for you that time, you didn't flinch or shy away. And when his hand settled on your shoulder, you didn't give much reaction other than to look at him.

“It won't be that bad. The places you'll be able to go to are the nice ones,” he said.

“…. It's still really depressing that I can't ever leave once I get there.”

Razor smiled at you, and this time the sadness he felt was even more obvious.

“I know.”

Then he stood up straight, announcing “we should get going.”

You nodded, and you wordlessly walked around the car to get to the front passenger's seat.

When you were both in the car and after you'd buckled up, something else strange happened.

Razor reached out and pulled you towards him, your head resting on his chest while he kept you in something that resembled a hug.

“I do regret that you've gotten dragged into this,” he whispered against your hair, “I really mean that. While I can't do anything to stop it, I'll do my best to make it easier for you. I promise.”

In that moment, you had no insights as to what Razor was truly thinking or feeling, no clue that everything he'd just said was a genuine promise from him that he intended to keep. So you had no idea how his heart skipped a beat when he felt your hands reach up and hold onto his jacket. You had no idea of the relief that filled him when you moved in closer and reciprocated his hug.

“I trust you, Razor.”

As those words were whispered from your lips, you had no idea that, in that moment, Razor truly believed that he had your acceptance.

There was no one else on the docks when you got there in the morning, arriving early enough that the morning mist was still present as Razor navigated the car through various warehouses and massive walls of shipping containers. Was it unusual for such a place to be completely empty at this time of day? You weren't sure; you didn't know enough about this kind of place to be able to tell what was normal or not.

All the sight did was guarantee that no one other than Razor would witness the last moments you had on the mainland.

Eventually the car came to a stop not far from the edge. Just as he had said, there was a boat sitting in the water. It wasn't anything new as it looked quite battered, but presumably it would make the journey that Razor wanted it to.

Though it would be morbidly funny if, after all of his efforts, it were to sink in the middle of the trip.

“Let's go,” Razor told you.

He stepped out of the car, and after a few moments, you copied the action.

The smell of the ocean air hit you after you got out. You stood there, your hand gripping at the top of the door to keep yourself steady as you looked out at the water before you, and then the boat.

One last leg of the journey, and then you'd be stuck with Razor for good.

…..

No one would ever find you, probably. Your disappearance had more than likely been reported by now, but all efforts to find you would be focused on that hotel you'd been staying at and the surrounding area; who would ever think to look for you on the water? Even if someone remembered seeing your face and informed the authorities, how would they reach anything other than a dead end once they got to the shoreline? You didn't have the time to leave some sign of you behind, nor could you with Razor undoubtedly watching you as close as he had been. You couldn't do anything.

Once you stepped on that boat, you weren't getting away from him. To try and do so would be suicide, you reminded yourself.

Your grip on the door became harder and breathing became more difficult the longer you stared at the boat.

I don't want to go I don't want to go I don't want to go

And again you asked why he needed to pick you.

Razor's voice saying your name forced you away from your thoughts, and you turned your head to see that he had your luggage slung over his shoulder and a concerned look on his face as he watched you. Your internal freak out wasn't as internal as you thought it was, then.

Swallowing a few times, you eventually asked “can I just….. Can I have a minute?”

“…. Alright.”

Then, to your utter surprise, Razor turned and began walking towards the boat.

Leaving you behind.

……

Was this some kind of test? Or maybe…. Did he think that since you were now at this point, he could relax a bit in watching you? Was he that confident you weren't going anywhere?

Razor continued making his way to the boat without a single glance back at you.

Your heart began to beat hard against your chest as you realized: you could run.

If you waited until he reached the boat and then made a break for it, you might just have a decent head start. If not to escape the area completely, then to find someplace to hide. Maybe find a phone and call for help. If it was a landline phone, they should be able to figure out your location without you needing to try and figure out where you were exactly.

If he caught you, it'd be bad for you, sure. But….

As he went further and further away, you were acutely aware that this was the first chance you had gotten to make an escape. The only chance you had. Were you really going to waste it by being too afraid of him?

….. No.

For once, you were going to take control of the situation.

And you were leaving.

You kept watch as Razor stepped off the dock and onto the boat, your things still in hand as he made his way to the cabin. Your hand was still gripping the door, your knuckles becoming pale from how hard you held onto it.

When he went inside. That was when you would run.

Once he stepped through the low doorway of the cabin, you did just that.

You pushed off from the door and you ran.

All you heard was your shoes on the dock and your own heartbeat in your ears as you propelled yourself forward. That felt a bit odd; you would have expected to hear him call out in anger on seeing you running. But at you reached the end and turned a corner past a line of containers, you didn't hear anything from him. There was no indication he even noticed that you had fled.

That was even better. While he would notice soon enough, every second you got with him being unaware would help in aiding your escape. You could do this. With every step forward you took with no sign of Razor coming after you, your confidence grew.

And then, after exiting the row of containers and reaching a warehouse, you saw a godsend:

A man.

He stood at the end of the structure, standing with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on you once you rounded the corner. With black hair sticking out of a odd blue cap and the rest of his blue and white clothing looking slightly worn, he looked raised an eyebrow as he took in your disheveled state.

You, on the other hand, felt relief upon seeing him. This was someone who could help. If you could explain what was happening, he could get you away and call the police. Then all of your problems would be over.

You could go home.

So you ran towards him, calling out “sir! Please, help me!”

He said nothing, but when you stumbled as you reached him, he took his hands out of his pockets so as to steady you, keeping his hands on your arms while you grabbed at the long blue scarf that hung from his neck.

“Please,” you said again, gulping as you did your best to maintain your composure, “I've been kidnapped. We need to get out of here and call the police.”

“Kidnapped? Who would kidnap you?” the man asked.

“He-he said that he's a death row convict,” you began, “he was waiting for me in my hotel room, and he tied me up and took me with him. Now he's trying to take me to some island and he says I can't ever come back.”

When the man didn't immediately respond, you got a bit more frantic as you cried “I swear, I'm not making this up! I've really been kidnapped, and I need the police before he tries to get me again! All of this is true!”

The logical part of your brain knew that getting hysterical wouldn't help you. But you weren't able to be completely logical in that moment. Now that you were so close to escape, you couldn't control yourself. You needed him to listen to what you were saying.

Finally, the man nodded.

“I believe you,” he said.

Relief rushed through you as you smiled, and you held onto his scarf tighter, unwilling to let go of this lifeline.

You spoke to the man again, asking if he had a phone, or better yet, if he had a car, and if he knew how far away the nearest police station was. He didn't really answer, though perhaps he couldn't with the way you were rambling in that moment. But you noticed when he looked past you and down the path that you'd just come from.

Your eyes followed his gaze and just like that your words died in your throat as your grip on the man's scarf became tighter, this time from fear.

Razor was there. Staring at you.

And for the first time, you saw true anger in him. Those dark eyes glared at you across the distance as he saw you in this unknown man's arms.

He's going to kill me

You looked back to the man, ready to beg for him to help again, for him to get you out of here before Razor murdered both you.

The man spoke before you could.

“Is this them, Razor?” he asked.

…. Huh?

He knew Razor's name?

How? You hadn't told this man what your kidnapper's name was. You were certain that you hadn't.

“Yeah,” your kidnapper answered.

Razor was talking to him? Not flying into a murderous rage and killing you both? The nonchalance of his reply was also a shock.

“Huh. I'm a little surprised,” the man said as he looked back to you.

“Surprised at what?” Razor asked. He started to walk forward at a moderate pace, taking his time while he kept his eyes fixed on you.

“That they got away from you,” the man answered.

You tried pulling away from him then. But the grip he had on your arms was ironclad, and no amount of wriggling would free you.

This man was far, far stronger than he looked.

“That was an error in judgment on my part,” Razor answered, coming to a stop as he had now reached the two of you by the warehouse.

“I'm sorry to have made you step in, Ging,” Razor added.

Ging?

The man who held you laughed.

“I don't mind,” Ging answered, “saves you the hassle of catching them again, right?”

“Right…..”

Razor's voice trailed off as he stared at you again, and with him being so much closer this time, you felt your entire body shudder while your heart beat pounded in your chest again, now being caused by pure, unadulterated fear.

He was so, so mad.

Ging then smiled at your kidnapper.

“Well, aside from this little mishap, everything else work out well?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Razor answered. His attention finally went back to Ging, and you felt like you could breathe again.

“Glad to hear it.”

Ging was saying something else to him but you couldn't completely hear it. You still tried to slip your way out of Ging's fingers, but it was no use; he wasn't letting go unless he wanted to. Tears were welling up as you continued the futile effort. And somehow, the fact that he wasn't even acknowledging your attempt to get away only made it worse.

Why? Why did Ging need to be here to catch you? Why did you need to have such awful luck?

What was going to happen to you now?

You didn't want to find out, and so despite knowing that there was no hope of getting away now, you still tried.

If there was such a thing as divine intervention, you wanted it right now.

“Ah, Right. Before you go, I need to see that you haven't used your nen,” said Ging.

Instead of answering, Razor held up his hand, showing the teal bit of string that was still wrapped around his pinky.

“Just needed to check,” Ging told him, “we'd both be in trouble if that was broken.”

“I know.”

“Well, now that we've gotten that out of the way-”

Finally removing his hand from where he'd been gripping you, Ging unexpectedly turned you around and pushed you, causing you to stumble forward.

Right into Razor.

He wrapped his arms around you instantly, and his hold on you was immediate and unforgiving, gripping you to the point that it hurt. Like with Ging, you wanted to struggle. You wanted to try and do everything in your power to break free of him.

But unlike with Ging, there was an air around Razor now that felt dangerous.

No, worse than that.

It truly felt like he was ready to kill someone.

And with that aura that surrounded you to the point that you felt like it might actually smother you to death, you couldn't bring yourself to fight against him. It was all you could do to keep your feet planted firmly on the ground.

Meanwhile, Ging and Razor were continuing their conversation.

“Think your replacement will be happy to see you back?” Ging asked.

“They'll probably just be relieved that they'll be done overseeing my duties,” Razor answered, “it usually takes them a few days after before they're at one hundred percent power again.”

“Well of course. The emission system was designed with specifically you in mind. There's no way anyone can run it as smoothly as you do.”

“Yeah.”

Despite his short answer, there was a hint of pride within Razor's voice, and the heavy air around you lifted somewhat.

Ging then looked back to you, smiling as he said “and now we've got this one, it'll be even better than before.”

And just like that, the air was suffocating again. It was like Razor had briefly forgotten the way he had been upset with you only to be shortly reminded of it.

Did Ging know that would happen?

…. Did he do it on purpose?

“Well, I'll let you get going then,” Ging then said, “I'm sure there's a lot you need to talk to them about.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, and you're free to use your hatsu now if you need to.”

Razor nodded as he said “see you, Ging.”

Ging waved in response before he turned away.

Razor did the same, one hand remaining on your arm as he began to drag you behind him.

Except your legs didn't want to work, still feeling weak and like they would bend beneath you at any moment. You stumbled along for only a few steps before he bent down to pick you up and throw you over his shoulder.

He handled you roughly as he did so, the breath in your lungs pushing out with a sharp gasp before he continued along. Again he was holding you tightly after, as if with the intent to bruise, like he wanted to leave marks on your skin beneath your clothing. You frequently felt the way his fingers twitched, like he was fighting the urge to do something violent. You were crying now, but your throat was too clogged up to make any noise.

The position you were now in allowed you to watch Ging as he walked away from the two of you. His hands were in his pockets again and he walked at a relaxed pace.

If you weren't so terrified of Razor you might have screamed at the man who gave you back to your kidnapper. Maybe wish torture and death upon him.

But you didn't dare let any noise escape you now.

Why did this need to happen to you?

That thought repeated itself through the entire walk back to the boat while you quietly cried atop Razor's shoulder. Like that very first night, he had yet to say anything. And once you reached the small flight of stairs that led down inside the boat, he moved you off his shoulder.

He pushed you down the stairs just as quickly and you tumbled down into the darkness.

Despite the short fall, it still hurt when you landed, your arms taking the brunt of it. However, you barely let out a pained groan afterwards, instead quietly sitting upright before you curled in on yourself, nursing your bruised arms. It still felt like a bad idea to say anything. Even though Razor hadn't come down, you still felt that air around you. Something bad was going to happen shortly.

The sound of an engine coming to life and reverberating through the small vessel caught your attention, as did the way the boat began to move away from the docks and out onto the water.

Perhaps that meant he wouldn't come down. If he was too busy driving the boat, then you would probably be left here until he reached his destination. That wasn't bad. If he took some time away from you, then maybe he wouldn't be as upset when he saw you again.

Deciding on that being what was most likely to happen, you settled down on the floor, anticipating a long, lonely journey.

Someone's hand grabbed at you in the darkness.

Now you screamed.

On instinct, you tried to pull your arm away. Your attempt was unsuccessful, and the hand hauled you up to your feet.

Another hand grabbed at you, this time clamping down onto your leg. No matter how hard you tried to kick them away, you couldn't escape their grip.

Someone else grabbed your legs, wrapping their arms around one of your knees so you were unable to move. At that same time, someone else grabbed your free hand, and both of your arms were stretched out away from your body, making it even harder to struggle.

You still tried, though. Even when a body came up from behind you and hooked their elbows beneath your armpits, you did everything in your power to wiggle out of those hands that held onto you.

If only that had been enough.

Within moments you were completely immobilized, your body held down by the multitude of hands that had come from the darkness. The only thing you could do was scream, and the ability to do even that was taken away when a large palm slapped over your mouth. Tears continued to stream down your face.

The lights were suddenly turned on, forcing you to close your eyes while you heard Razor descend the small flight of stairs. It took a few moments of blearily opening your eyes before they adjusted to the light, but when they did, you found Razor standing in front of you.

But you weren't able to keep your focus on him for long, not when you saw who was holding you. Several men dressed in white and blue, their blue caps covering their eyes.

….. No, not men.

Things.

They weren't human. They couldn't be. Despite their humanoid shapes, the wide smiles that were filled with the dangerously sharp teeth wasn't something any human you knew of possessed. The pure white skin was also a sign that these weren't human. Not just from the sight alone, but from how that skin felt against your own. It felt artificial, and their touch was completely cold. And while you weren't able to see any of their eyes due to the blue caps adorned with numbers, every single one of them was looking right at you, smiling at you while they held you down.

Your breathing became harsher as you began to truly panic, your sobs muffled by the hand that kept you silent. You were quickly becoming lightheaded.

Somehow, the one that was covering your mouth realized this as they pulled their hand away, and you took in a few desperate gulps of air before you focused on Razor again.

His expression was just as grim as it had been when he was outside.

“Trust is an awful thing to break,” he said.

He stepped forward, and your body tensed as you tried to back away from him. Unsurprisingly, the grip those creatures had on you remained strong.

“It can take a long time to build up even in the best of circumstances, and then it can shatter completely with a single lie,” he continued.

“Or a single act.”

Razor stood before you now, towering over you with a dark look in his eyes.

“I thought we had an understanding,” he said to you, “after what we talked about, after what you said to me yesterday, I really thought that we had gotten somewhere. That even if you didn't entirely understand it, the soulmate connection was enough to keep you from running,” he continued.

“But you were lying through your teeth about everything, weren't you?”

His expression when he said that was too scary and you looked down, focusing instead on the creature that had wrapped it's arms around your knee.

You weren't allowed to look away for long as Razor grabbed you by your face and forced you to look up at him, being forced to maintain the uncomfortable eye contact.

Unable to keep yourself calm, your breathing came in harsh as you stared back at him.

And for some reason that seemed to have an effect, as the look on his face softened ever so slightly.

Razor sighed.

“Maybe…. Maybe this hurts a bit more than I expected because we're soulmates,” he thought aloud, “maybe I thought, even without the nen, that you would understand faster because the connection should have been enough.”

“I-I'm – I'm not-” you began.

He moved his hand up so it covered your mouth, cutting you off from whatever excuse he felt would fall from your mouth. Now that you were again unable to speak, you sniffled against his hand while the tears that ran down your cheek met with his fingers.

The boat was still moving, and had seemingly picked up a bit more speed as it continued forward through the water. It was going further and further away from the land, further and further out to the open ocean. You remembered what you had told yourself before:

You weren't getting away now.

Resigning yourself to your fate, you slumped over in the grip of those monsters, your body going limp. Continuing to resist now was thoroughly meaningless.

And some part of you said that it always had been.

It was still quiet; Razor said nothing more, you only continued to quietly cry and those creatures hadn't uttered a single word the entire time. The only things that kept it from being completely silent were the hum of the engine and the sound of the waves that hit the hull of the boat.

When he pulled his hand off of your mouth, you said nothing, continuing to stare up at him as you bit your lip.

Then Razor smiled.

“Ah well. Us being soulmates doesn't mean that we won't make some mistakes now and then, right?”

Despite the pleasant expression on his face, the mood in the room was anything but. Even when he used his thumb to wipe the tears from your face, the action lacked any sort of kindness. There was still a smothering aura that surrounded both him and you, though now it had significantly lessened.

But that didn't make him feel any less dangerous.

“We have several hours before we get to Greed Island – that's plenty of time for us to become acquainted properly. And I'm sure that by the end of it, we'll have both learned some things about each other.”

The smile on Razor's face had never looked more menacing.

“After all, if there's anyone who can forgive me about what I'm about to do, it'll be my soulmate, right?”

[alicenthighstower]

TILE TRANSITION TUTORIAL

a couple of people have asked me for a tutorial on how I did the penultimate gif in this set, so here goes! this is my first tutorial, so please feel free to reach out with further questions if anything's unclear.

note: this tutorial assumes you know the basics of gifmaking, can create the base gifs, and are familiar with timeline mode.

STEP ONE: create the base gifs! I'd recommend staying between 25-40 frames for each gif, since the transitions we'll use later tend to increase gif sizes. these are the ones I'll be using for this tutorial:

STEP TWO: create the guide layouts for both base gifs. for this panel, I chose a 4x4 grid — I would recommend keeping the number of "tiles" low because it can get tedious, but have a minimum of 9 (3x3 grid).

now your canvas should look like this:

STEP THREE: create the tiles. this is where the going gets rough; there might be easier ways to do this that I couldn't think of 😭 if there are any please send me an ask!

essentially, in this step we'll cut up the base gifs into smaller squares so that each tile can be manipulated separately when we put both gifs together. to do this, first create a square using the rectangle tool and the guides. then duplicate the base gif, move it above the square, apply a clipping mask, and then convert the clipped gif and square (selected in the image below) into one smart object.

ALTERNATELY: you could duplicate the original base gif and use layer masks to isolate tiles. create a layer mask for the duplicated gif layer and, with the layer mask selected, drag your mouse over a square (using the guide layout) and press delete. then press ctrl/cmd + i to invert the layer mask so that the gif only shows in the square of your choosing.

now repeat until you've got the entire gif in tiles, and do the same for the other gif!

since the transition effect is achieved by staggering the crossfades for each tile of the final gif, you can cheat by having multiple tiles "flip" at a time, ideally no more than four. this means you need to cut the base gif up into fewer pieces. to do this, simply draw multiple squares instead of one and then merge the shapes, before duplicating and clipping the gif onto them.

if you do this, it's essential to remember that you have to divide both gifs up in the exact same way. each piece of the b/w gif has to correspond to a piece of the purple gif!

this is what the layers look like for each gif once I'm done:

I have them lettered so that it'll be easier to match them up in the next step.

STEP FOUR: this is the complicated bit that took me two days to figure out. I'll do my best to explain but don't hesitate to reach out if something isn't clear!

to begin, open up a new psd and import both base gifs into it. (remember to click "create video timeline" and ensure that your gifs are all in order before proceeding.)

now, the trickiest part about this transition is ensuring that all the little tiles sync up so that the larger gif is coherent. so first we'll create some markers (just empty layers) to ensure that everything lines up as it should. — marker 1: at about halfway through the first gif (b/w in this case) — marker 2: at about a quarter of the gif length — marker 3: close to the end of the gifs

at this point we're ready to start bringing in the tiles. I'm going to delete the base gifs from this new psd just to keep things cleaner!

first thing to do is import my b/w tile. move the timeline slider over to marker 1 and split the first gif. (if it helps, rename the split gifs and add (start) and (end) to the two halves.) then, move the (end) half to the beginning of the timeline, and the (start) half to line up with marker 3.

the purple tile is easier to manage. simply import it into the psd and line it up with marker 2.

your timeline should now look like this:

notice the overlap between the gifs at their beginnings and ends — this is where you'll be able to cascade the tiles flipping, so it helps to have a significant amount of overlap.

crop the three gifs for this tile as you see fit! since this is the first tile I want to flip from b/w to purple, I'll crop gif 1a (end) all the way to the current position of the timeline slider (red line with blue tip) and leave the beginning of gif 2a uncropped. for the flip from purple to b/w, I'll crop both gifs a bit.

once that's done, drag all three gifs onto the same level in timeline so they form a video group. your timeline should look something like this:

now you just repeat the process for all the other tiles! as long as you made sure that all the tiles in one gif correspond with tiles in the other gif in step three, this should be a fairly painless process. make sure to crop the starts/ends of the gifs separately so that they don't all flip together.

this is what my layers look once I've done all the tiles:

and the gif!

STEP FIVE: transitions! click on the half-white square (top right of the left column in the timeline, beside the scissors) and select the crossfade transition, then drag it between two gifs in a video group. it should create a two-triangle symbol and shorten the overall length of the video group.

apply the transition to all the tile flips, ensuring that the duration of all transitions is constant. this can sometimes be tricky because ps likes to change the duration of each transition, so right click on the transition symbol and manually change all your transition durations to be the same.

your layers should now look something like this:

STEP SIX: draw the grid. bring back the guide layout from step two and using the line tool (I like 2px thickness), trace the grid. adjust opacity as you see fit (50-80% is usually a good idea), so that the canvas looks like this:

STEP SEVEN: export and celebrate! you're done!

I hope this tutorial made sense and was easy to follow, and happy giffing! my inbox is always open for any questions <3

[brotherconstant]

GIFMAKING TUTORIAL: PHOTOPEA (for Windows)

Screencapping

Gif Width/Size Limit/Ezgif

Loading Frames

Cropping and Resizing

Rasterize/Make Frames

Sharpening

Coloring (not detailed. Links to other tutorials included)

Exporting

Obligatory Mentions: @photopeablr ; @miwtual ; @benoitblanc ; @ashleysolsen Definitely check out these blogs for tips, tutorials and resources, they're a gold mine. Finally I recommend browsing the PHOTOPEA TUTORIAL / PHOTOPEA TUTORIAL GIF tags. DISCLAIMER: English is not my first language and I'm not an expert on what I'm going to discuss, so if anything's unclear feel free to drop another ask.

1. SCREENCAPPING -> PotPlayer (the one I use) or MVP or KMPlayer

INSTALL PotPlayer (tutorial)

Play your movie/episode and press Ctrl + G. The Consecutive Image Capturer window will pop up. Click Start to capture consecutive frames, Stop when you got what you needed.

Where it says "Image Type -> Format" I recommend picking PNG, for higher quality screencaps.

To access the folder where the screencaps are stored, type %appdata% in windows search, open the PotPlayerMini64 folder (or 32, depending on your system) and then the Capture folder. That's where you'll find your screencaps.

Admittedly MVP is a lot faster but I prefer Potplayer because it generates (at least in my case) higher quality screencaps. MVP kind of alters the hue and it made it harder for me to color my gifs. Still, if you're interested in how to use it, I recommend this tutorial.

As for KMPlayer, every tutorial out there is outdated and I couldn't figure out the new version of the software.

2. GIF WIDTH/HEIGHT, SIZE LIMIT, EZGIF OPTMIZER

At this point you should already know how big your gifs are going to be. Remember the ideal gif width(s) on tumblr are 540 px / 268 px / 177 px. These specific numbers take into account the 4 px space between the gifs. No restrictions on height. Here are some examples:

You can play around with the height (177x400, 177x540, 268x200, 268x268, 268x350, 268x400, 540x440, 540x500, 540x540 etc) but if you go over the 10 MB limit you'll either have to make your gifs smaller/delete some frames.

OR you can go on ezgif and optimize your gif, which is usually what I do. The quality might suffer a little, but I'm not really (that) obsessed with how crispy my gifs look, or I'd download photoshop.

Depending on the gif size, you can decrease the compression level. I've never had to go over 35. It's better to start at 5 (minimum) and then go from there until you reach your desired ( <10mb) gif size. Now that I think about it I should have included this passage at the end of the tutorial, I guess I'll just mention it again.

3. LOAD YOUR FRAMES

File -> Open... -> Pick one of your screencaps. The first one, the last one, a random one. Doesn't matter. That's your Background.

File -> Open & Place -> Select all the frames (including the one you already loaded in the previous passage) you need for your gif and load them.

(I recommend creating a specific folder for the screencaps of each gif you're going to make.)

WARNING: When you Place your screencaps make sure the Crop tool is NOT selected, especially if you've already used it and the width/height values have been entered. It will mess things up - I don't know why, could be a bug.

You can either select them all with Ctrl+A or with the method I explained in the ask: "when you want to select more than one frame or all frames at once select the first one, then scroll to the bottom and, while pressing Shift, select the last one. this way ALL your frames will be selected".

WARNING: Depending on how fast your computer is / on your RAM, this process may take a while. My old computer was old and slow af, while my new one can load even a 100 frames relatively fast, all things considered. Even so, I recommend ALWAYS saving your work before loading new frames for a new gif, because photopea might crash unexpectedly. Just save your work as often as you can, even while coloring or before exporting. Trust me, I speak from experience.

Now you can go ahead and delete the Background at the bottom, you won't need it anymore.

4. CROPPING AND RESIZING

Right now your screencaps are still smart objects. Before rasterizing and converting to frames, you need to crop your gif.

Technically you can rasterize/convert to frames and then crop, BUT if you do it in that order photopea will automatically delete the cropped pixels, even if you don't select the "Delete Cropped Pixels" Option. Might be another bug, unclear. Basically, if you crop your gif and then realize you cropped a little too much to the left or the right, you can go ahead, select the Move Tool (shortcut: V) and, after selecting ALL YOUR FRAMES, move them around on your canvas until you are satisfied. You won't be able to do this if you rasterize first and then crop, the excess pixels will be deleted. I don't know why, I found out by accident lol.

CROPPING

(Cropped pixels: the gray/opaque area outside of the selected area. That area disappears once you press enter and crop, but the pixels are retained, so you can move the frames around and reposition them as you like. In this case I could move the frames to the left and include Silver's figure [curly guy in the foreground] in the crop)

After deleting the Background, you will need to select all your frames (using the Shift key), use the C shortcut on your keyboard to choose the Crop tool. Or you can click on it, whatever's more convenient. Once you do that, a dropdown menu is going to appear. You need to select the "FIXED SIZE" option, as shown in the following screencap.

Once you do that, you can type in your desired width and height. Do not immediately press enter.

Your work area should now look like this. Now you can click on one of the white squares and enlarge the selected area until the edges are lined up. You can then move it around until it covers the area you wish to gif.

WARNING: to move the big rectangle around, you're gonna have to click on a random point of the work area, PREFERABLY not to close to the rectangle itself, or you might accidentally rotate it.

See? When your cursor is close to the selected area it turns into this rotating tool. Move it away until it reverts to your usual cursor, then you can start moving the rectangle. Press Enter when you're satisfied with the area you selected.

RESIZE

This isn't always necessary (pretty much never in my case) - and it's a passage I often forget myself - but it's mentioned in most of the tutorials I came across over the years, so I'd be remiss if I didn't include it in mine. After cropping, you'll want to resize your image.

IMAGE -> Image Size...

This window will pop up. Now, should the values in the Width and Height space be anything other than 540 and 400 (or the values you entered yourself, whatever they might be) you need to correct that. They've always been correct in my case, but again. Had to mention it.

5. RASTERIZE & MAKE FRAMES

Now that your screencaps are cropped, you can go ahead and convert them.

LAYER -> Rasterize (if you skip this passage you won't be able to Sharpen (or use any filter) on your frames at once. You'll have to Sharpen your frames one by one.

Photopea doesn't feature a timeline and it's not a video editor, which makes this passage crucial. When you select all your smart objects and try to apply a filter, the filter will only by applied to ONE frame. Once you rasterize your smart objects and make them into frames, you can select them all and sharpen them at once. Unfortunately this also means that you won't be able to - I don't know how to explain this properly so bear with me - use all smart filters/use them in the same way a photoshop user can. For example, you can sharpen / remove noise / add noise / unsharp mask... but you can't act on those filters in the same way a photoshop user can. When you work on smart objects you can change the blend mode - which is critical if you decide to use a filter like High Pass. If you simply apply a high pass filter on photopea you won't be able to change the blend mode and your gif will look like this (following screencaps). Or rather, you will be able to change the blend mode by clicking on the little wheel next to "High pass" (circled in green in the 2nd screencap), but you'll have to apply the filter to each frame manually, one by one.

Then you can rasterize/make into frames, but it's extremely time consuming. I did it once or twice when I first started making gifs and it got old pretty soon haha.

Layer -> Animation -> Make frames. This passage will add "_a_" at the beginning of all your frames and it's what allows you to make a (moving) gif. As I said in the ask, if you skip this passage your gif will not move.

6. SHARPENING

Some people prefer to color first and sharpen later, but I found that sharpening filters (more or less) dramatically alter the aspect of your gif and already brighten it a bit (depending on your settings) and you may end up with an excessively bright gif.

Now, sharpening settings are not necessarily set in stone. The most popular ones are 500/0.4 + 10/10, which I use sometimes. But you may also need to take into account the quality of the files you're working with + the specific tv show you're giffing. I've been using different settings for pretty much every tv show I gif, especially in the last couple months. Some examples:

followed by

OR

AMOUNT: 500% RADIUS 0.3px followed by AMOUNT: 20% (or 10%) RADIUS 10px

You'll just need to experiment and see what works best for your gifs.

Some gifmakers use the UNSHARP MASK filter as well (I think it's pretty popular among photopea users?) but it makes my gifs look extra grainy, makes the borders look super bright and it clashes with my coloring method(s), so I use it rarely and with very moderate settings. Something like this:

Again, depends on the gif and on what you like. I've seen it used with great results by other gifmakers!

REDUCE NOISE

Sometimes - and this is especially the case for dark scenes - your gif may look excessively grainy, depending on how bright you want to make it. Reducing noise can help. Keep it mind, it can also make it worse and mess up the quality. BUT it also reduces the size of your gif. Obviously, the higher the settings, the more quality will suffer.

These are my standard settings (either 2/70% or 2/80%). It's almost imperceptible, but it helps with some of the trickier scenes.

ADDING NOISE

Adding noise (1% or 2% max) can sometimes help with quality (or make it worse, just like reduce noise) but it will make your gif so so so much bigger, and occasionally damage the frames, which means you won't be able to load your gif on tumblr, so I rarely use it.

You'll also want to create ACTIONS which will allow you to sharpen your gifs much faster.

HOW TO CREATE AN ACTION ON PHOTOPEA

The Action Button (shaped like a Play button as you can see in the following screencaps) may not be there if you're using photopea for the first time. If that's the case click on the magnifiying glass next to "Account" (in red) and type "actions". Press Enter and the button should immediately show up.

Once you do that, click on the Folder (circled in yellow)

and rename it however you like.

now click on New Action (circled in red). now you can press the Recording button (circled in green)

Now

FILTERS -> Smart Sharpen

and you can enter your values. Then you repeat this passage (WITHOUT pressing rec, WITHOUT pressing new action or anything else, you just open the smart shapen window again) and, if you want, you can sharpen your gif some more (10%, 10px, or anything you want.)

Maybe, before creating an action, experiment with the settings first and see what works best.

When you're satisfied, you can PRESS STOP (it's the rec button, which is now a square) and you can DOWNLOAD your action (downwards facing arrow, the last button next to the bin. Sorry, forgot to circle it) .

You need to download your action and then upload it on your photopea. When you do, a window will pop up and photopea will ask you whether you wish to load the action every time you open the program. You choose "Okay" and the action will be loaded in the storage.

When you want to sharpen your gif, you select all your frames, then you click on the Play button, and select the Action, NOT the folder, or it won't work.

Actions can also be created to more rapidly crop and convert your frames, but it doesn't always work on photopea (for me at least). The process is exactly the same, except once you start recording you 1) crop your gif as explained in step 4, 2) convert into frames. Then you stop the recording and download the action and upload it. This won't work for the Rasterize step by the way. Just the Animation -> Make Frame step.

7. COLORING

Now you can color your gif. I won't include a coloring tutorial simply because I use a different method for every tv show I gif for. You normally want to begin with a brightness or a curve layer, but sometimes I start with a Channel Mixer layer to immediately get rid of yellow/green filters (there's a tutorial for this particular tool which you will find in the list I mention in the link below)

[Plus I'm not really an authority on this matter as my method is generally... fuck around and find out. Two years of coloring and I still have no idea what I'm doing. 70% of the time.]

Simple Gif Coloring for Beginners -> very detailed + it includes a pretty handy list of tutorials at the bottom.

8. EXPORTING

Now you can export your gif. Some gifmakers export their (sharpened) gifs BEFORE coloring and then load the gifs on photopea to color them. I'm not sure it makes any difference.

FILE -> EXPORT AS -> GIF

(not colored, just sharpened)

As you can see, unlike photoshop the exporting settings are pretty thread bare. The only option available is dither - it sometimes help with color banding - which, and I'm quoting from google for maximum clarity:

"refers to the method of simulating colors not available in the color display system of your computer. A higher dithering percentage creates the appearance of more colors and more detail in an image, but can also increase the file size."

SPEED

When you export your gif, it will play at a very decreased speed (100%). I usually set it at 180/190%, but as for every other tool, you might want to play around a little bit.

GIF SIZE/EZGIF OPTIMIZER (See Step 2)

And that's it.

P.S.: worth repeating

Save your work as often as you can, even while coloring or before exporting.

[starryluminary]

♪ Dirty Little Secret - The All-American Rejects

Do you remember when I said a while ago that a playlist with 6 songs didn’t sit well with me, so I had a way to add more? This is that way. I’ve put too much though into this universe where every kiss is Noco, so I’m making sketch pages for the comics respective episode, starting with Greeces Pieces!

No one even kisses in this episode, but the reveal plot point was WAY too important and WAY too interesting to ignore. The reveal comic will come eventually, but for now here’s the rest of the episode!!

For funsies here’s my notes about this portion, directly copy pasted from my notes app:

* Noah death glares Tyler, threatening him into silence. Alejandro notices.

* When Heather and Alejandro bicker before landing, Noah shoots Cody a look, saying “they’re crazy” with his eyes. Cody giggles back at him. Sierra notices.

* She questions him about it, not knowing Noah and Cody were friends. Cody awkwardly reaffirms yeah they’re just friends!! Sierra accepts this answer despite Cody stumbling through it. Oopsies I ended up changing this one. I’ll explain why later.

* Noah competes in the one on one turned 3v3 duel, Owen using him as a weapon. Well intentioned, of course. They end up winning, and they share the two medals Owen won in the original.

* Noah ends up flying across the arena, landing on Cody by accident. They pause for two seconds maximum, and stutter and stumble standing up. Alejandro notices and starts putting the pieces together of what might of happened.

* (By the end of the episode he’s positive he knows, so he’s not really shocked when Tyler actually says it.)

* The song of the episode is sung by Courtney and Duncan, about what don’t ask me. Courtney wins that challenge for the Amazons.

* Heather and Alejandro still compete in the hurdles challenge and Heather still wins, leading to the tiebreaker.

If anything is confusing or unclear, please feel free to ask about it! You wanna ask me about it soooo bad actually

[peapodsinspace]

Hey y’all I’m here talking about misusing alt texts again

I made a post like this a while ago, but I can’t find it to reblog so I’m just making a new one

Basically, I’m just wanting to talk about how some people (and I’m not talking about anyone in particular here) use the alt text feature for things that don’t include image descriptions.

For anyone who doesn’t know, an alt text is an accessibility tool used to give a description of an image. It benefits lots of people, including visually impaired people.

They’re also handy, because they can make hard to parse images more clear, or describe audio in videos for people who can’t hear it, among other things.

That includes folks who just don’t have their sound on, too! Also if your internet is patchy and and an image won’t load you can read an alt text to get an idea of what the image is about!

Basically, they’re very handy!

Now, alt texts & image descriptions are an optional thing you can add to posts, and I’m not trying to pressure people into making them! I just want to talk mainly about misusing the feature!

(Bold talk for a girl who just spend several paragraphs talking about other stuff)

Anyway, onto my main point:

What the alt text feature is not used for is adding extra commentary.

I see people just putting random things in alt texts somewhat often, and it always annoys me a bit.

By adding an alt text that isn’t a description, you’re making it more unclear to people who need them.

And you’re making your commentary less easy to find by putting it in the alt text, but that doesn’t really matter.

And no hate to anyone who does this! I’m just trying to explain that it’s maybe not the best thing to do.

If anyone is interested in making image descriptions for their posts, it isn’t too hard! You don’t have to do anything crazy. A simple description is always better than none at all.

You can be as detailed as you like, but keep in mind that this isn’t creative writing practice, so try not to get too convoluted. (With the exception of descriptions of art, because it can be much more subjective)

You’ll just want to describe the main points of the image. This may include:

-the subject(s) of the image

-text or lettering

-details relevant to the post*

-and lots of other things, depending on the context

* an example of this would be something that adds to the punchline of a joke. Like, if an image is a cat with a funny shocked expression, then you’d want to make sure to mention the cat’s expression, since that’s the important part of the image.

Instead of “a tabby cat sitting down” you’d want to say “a tabby cat with a surprised expression”, if that makes sense

Anyway, that’s all i had to say! Feel free to send me asks about this if you have questions. I will answer them to the best of my abilities :]

Also, I don’t claim to be an expert on writing image descriptions, I just make them for my posts almost always

Also also, thanks for reading my long post!

[fkinkindagauche]

The Most Gourd-geous Pumpkin in the Patch

I did, in fact, start a fic based on this Wiggly Wednesday. The first chapter is up on AO3 - read it here, tags/content warnings over there. Brief description - No Upside Down Omegaverse AU, explicit, Steve and Eddie meet in their mid-to-late thirties over some pumpkins.

Here's a little excerpt.

“Hello?” a man’s voice said. Steve could hear loud music playing in the background. 

“Um, hi,” Steve said. He hadn’t prepared a spiel like he usually did when calling someone, and he froze. Amos meowed loudly.

“Are you a cat?” the man asked, laughter in his voice. “Is a cat calling me? This is wild.”

“N-no,” Steve stammered. “I mean, yes, there is a cat here, but there’s also a person. Me. Steve.”

“Ooooh,” the man said. “The plot thickens. A Steve and a cat. What’s the cat’s name?”

“Amos,” Steve replied automatically. How had this conversation gone off the rails so quickly? Amos lifted up his head at the sound of his name and meowed again.

“Anus? You named your cat anus?” the man asked, incredulous.

Steve rolled his eyes. He hadn’t anticipated how common this response would be when he chose Amos’s name, but a surprising number of people did mishear it as “anus”. “No, no. Amos. With an M as in major. Amos, like the Famous Amos cookies. Or the minor prophet in the Old Testament.”

“That makes a lot more sense,” the man said. “So, Steve and minor prophet slash cookie cat, to what do I owe the pleasure of your call?” 

“Um. I got a card. In my door today. From Munson’s Curiosities. About selling pumpkins.”

“You’re the pumpkin magician!” 

“Well, I don’t know about that. It’s my first time growing them.”

“Even more magical. Those have got to be the most perfect pumpkins I’ve ever seen.”

Steve felt himself blushing. Over praise of his pumpkins. What was going on? “Um, thanks?” he said. “Anyway, I wasn’t sure what you meant, by your message. Did you want to buy my pumpkins, or did you want to sell me some pumpkins?”

“Why would I need to sell you pumpkins when you’re a pumpkin magician?” the man asked. 

“The lack of punctuation on the note made the situation unclear,” Steve explained. 

“Well I feel like the context clues made it very clear,” the man interjected, though he just sounded amused, not annoyed.

“What do you want the pumpkins for?” Steve asked. 

“Need to make sure they’re going to a good home? I get it. I’m doing this Halloween-themed event in a few weeks, and I just thought they would be perfect for decorating.” 

“Hmm. Alright. You can have six,” Steve said. 

“Awesome!” the man replied, seeming genuinely enthused. “How much do you want for them?” 

“Oh, you don’t need to pay me,” Steve said awkwardly. “I just grew them for fun, and wasn’t expecting them to all survive. I don’t actually need eight pumpkins.”

“Let me at least buy you a drink or something, man.” 

Steve thought about it for a second. Did he really want to agree to getting a drink with this rather unconventional stranger? He had grown more introverted in recent years, and generally avoided potentially awkward social situations, preferring to stick with people he knew well. But he had actually been enjoying this odd conversation. “Alright, fine. I can bring the pumpkins with me, and we can meet somewhere for a drink.”

“Fantastic! You doing anything Friday night?” 

“No,” Steve was slightly embarrassed to admit. “I’m free.”

“Great. Meet me at Bobby’s at 8? I have a lot of hair, I’m hard to miss.”

Steve laughed. “Alright. Wait, what’s your name? I never asked.”

“Eddie,” the man said. “Eddie Munson.” Again, Steve felt a vague sense of recognition, like he’d heard the name before, but he couldn’t quite place where.

[witch-hazels-musings]

holding you

warning: sfw - fluff: hugs: pre-relationship - mostly (Albedo’s is questionable lol), character perspective | present tense

includes: Albdeo (hugging from behind), Dainsleif, Diluc (crying, non-specific reason), Kaeya (teasing), Xiao

character x gn reader | anthology  

Albedo

At first he doesn’t notice. He’s distracted like he always is by his research, his curiosities, his long evenings of spiraling thought that keep him awake at night; but, as his back warms and the pressure around his waist increases, he takes it in - acknowledges it. 

“Hello there,” Albedo hums, a gentle chuckle vibrating through him. Its comforting as it bounces against your chest, so you press your cheek against him even more. 

“Hi,” you reply, a bit muffled. 

“Is this a, ‘I need something from you,’ or an ‘autonomic nervous system reset’?” 

You laugh, a puff of air passing through your nose, “Just a hug,” you explain by adjusting your arms so you could hold him a bit tighter. 

“Alright.” Albedo returns to his work shortly after. You can feel his arms move as he scribbles notes, adjusts the equipment sprawled across the desk. You figure it would be best to release him. You also have work to do, and if you were in his position, it would be hard to get much done with someone clinging to you like this. 

Sighing, you loosen your grip, but before you can pull away, Albedo’s hand slides over yours, gripping you gently. For a moment you aren't sure what to do, so you wait - wait to hear him speak or explain that he needs something in return, but the only thing that makes any noise is the ticking clock nestled securely against the wall. 

You move. Your cheek presses against his back again and you bite back a smile while his thumb moves over the edge of your palm and he continues to work with his free hand. 

--

Dainsleif

It takes him by surprise. He’s frozen, unsure how to respond. He takes a step back but that only makes you fall into him even more; his hands now hover over your back, uncertain if he should put them anywhere, if he should touch you at all. He’s lost.

You’re holding him so tightly that its hard for him to breath. He’s not sure how to respond, or if he even should, but you’re overwhelming him with each passing second, and he’s struggling to think straight. The way your warmth seeps into his cold skin, the wave after unbelievable wave of your scent he breaths with shaky breaths, you hum and it sends an unfamiliar shiver up his spine. 

He hesitates, but finds a way, “Is everything alright?” he asks, head tilting, hand hovering as he examines you as best he can. His voice may be steady, but he’s anything but. 

“I’ll be done in a moment, sorry.” There is a shake in your normally calm voice that makes him alert. Instinctually, he glances around the room, eyes narrowing each time they reach a shaded corner. His hand moves closer to you and he positions himself to quickly respond if anything were to through the door. When he looks at you, your face is hidden against his chest. Your trembling, and he scolds himself for not noticing it earlier. 

“No need,” he replies as he slowly moves his hand to your back, his fingers brushing against you, igniting in heat before, reluctantly, hovering above you once again. 

Whatever has made you worry, whatever is causing you distress, he will cut through it. So, even though he is uncertain, even though his heart strains in a way he hasn’t felt in years, hold onto him. As unworthy as he is, a small part of him hopes you’ll be the one he can finally find the courage to hold back.

--

Diluc

He’s hesitant, worried he’ll let his wants over power his control. Its not easy when it comes to you; things get cloudy, unclear, complicated - but he’s learned that problem's always have a solution. He just has to keep searching 

He’s keeping a look-out from inside the small storage closet while his arm rests around your shoulders. There is a soft tug on his coat as you adjust against his side and hide more against him, a muffled sob leaks out from behind your right hand so he tries to repositions himself to shield you further. The noise from the tavern floods the hallway, it spills over the second floor and crashes into the jovial cheers below. The bar is crowded tonight; there are so many eyes that could see. Diluc shifts again and you pull away. 

“I’m sorry,” you sniffle, wiping away the tears rolling down your cheek. “I’m just ... having a day,” you try to explain but the fake smile you show to reassure him gets hidden when you bite your trembling lip and shake your head. “I’m okay,” you lie, and he knows it. 

“Take a step back,” Diluc requests. It’s the first thing he’s said since he found you tucked away in the closet on the verge of tears, back pressed against the stocked shelves, breaths unsteady; alone. 

“Oh, right. Yeah.” You stumble further into the closet but when he steps in you straighten. With furrowed brows you look at him confused, “Did you -?” 

Diluc cuts you off as he blocks the entrance. From this position, no one should be able to see past him, and that’s exactly what he wants. “You’re not okay,” he corrects, voice barely audible over the loud tavern behind him. You look at him and his heart strains at the sight of you. Slowly, he opens his arms. His right hand pulls you toward him until it slides down to rest in the curve of your back. “You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone,” - especially not me, he thinks. He can feel your tension but as soon as he takes a step toward you, your restraint waivers, “Have your day,” he reassures you, breathing you in. 

You nod, with every rise and fall more and more of your resolve falls until you cover your face with your hands to hid the returning tears. Your forehead rests against his chest, Diluc holds you close, hugs you, and lets you have your moment until you’re truly ready to let go. 

--

Kaeya

He’s over-the-moon. Its not the first time he’s put his arm around you, nor will it be the last - but this time you initiated it and, shocking even him, you don’t seem to be letting go  

“Well, well,” Kaeya hums, arms sliding happily over your shoulders, his fingers dangling above your back, itching to touch you. 

“Shut it,” you bite back, clearly embarrassed. 

Kaeya laughs, unable to contain himself, “Am I not allowed to be impressed by how much your manhandling me?” You pull away but he pulls you back in, “Hey. No running now,” the feeling of your back pressing against his hand, the warmth of you against his chest - he isn’t ready to give that up yet. 

“I-I’m not running,” you mumble. Should he let you talk more or should he beg you to stop? It’s tearing him up because he desperately wants to hear you, but its so difficult to hold himself together when he does. 

Kaeya bends his neck to look at your face but you’re expertly hiding it from him; he’s annoyed because the expression on your face is tantalizing, and he knows it; yet, here you are, keeping it from him. He smirks, and opens his mouth to speak but you beat him to it. 

“Mmhm,” he replies because its the only thing he can convince his brain to do. 

“Anyway,” you begin and wiggle against his wandering hand, “I just wanted to --” bouncing your forehead against him you pause, as if the small knock on his chest will help get the words out, “... this is a thank you for - for helping me the other day.” 

“Don’t let this go to your head,” you huff, squeezing his body. 

“Too late,” he replies and pulls you closer, even as you protest. 

Kaeya smile as never strained his face so intensely in all his life.

Man - the things you do to him. 

--

Xiao

He’s at a loss and desperately wants to fight it. Wants to run away; poof into the protective smoke he doesn't question, but, somehow, this feels so whole, so comforting. This isn’t what he expected to happen when you asked if you could make him feel better. He expected food, maybe medicine, but this ... he can’t comprehend it

Xiao can feel his whole body. Like a ridged piece of wood not ready to be shaped. His hands hover, his body is stiff, arms tense; he’s afraid to relax and has a very good reason to be. What if this prolonged contact hurt you? What if the vile that plagued him tarnished you? What if, out of all the things in this world, he was the thing that did you harm -- 

“Mm ... this is ...” 

“Hm?” You look at him, pulling your head back slightly so you can hear what he has to say, but when your arms loosen and your warmth evaporates, the words on the tip of his tongue fall like stones to the ground. He may not enjoy the contact, but the absence of you he hated even more. “Is this not helping?” 

Xiao stalls at the question, at the worry in your eyes. So, with a sigh, he submits to his fate, “If you insist.” You smile and return to the position you were in moments again but this time your hand presses against his back, this time you hum and the feeling reverberates into this chest, this time you smile before your face his hidden from him and he leans into all of it. 

His once uncertain mind feels more stable as he drops an arm to his side while the other curls around your body so his hand can find the small of your back. Your fingers press against him, he steps closer. Your head rests on him, his whole body feels so warm. You giggle and he feels better. 

How childish, he thinks to himself as he succumbs to your touch and holds you even closer. 

[twompweek]

Hello all and welcome to the twomp week blog! I don’t think this will end up being a big thing, but with a few other people showing interest in participating it will still hopefully be a bit of fun.

I figured I’d put together this introductory post to explain a few things for those unsure, and later include any links to relevant other posts for ease of finding information. Of course, if there’s anything you find unclear or any follow up questions you might have, feel free to drop an ask or dm this blog.

So let’s get into things!

What is twomp week?

Twomp week is a week long, low pressure event for creatives within the twomp fandom. For each day the event runs there will be a list of prompts to help inspire those participating. Don’t feel like using those prompts? No worries! You can create anything you’d like for this event, regardless of the prompts for the day. And, of course, there is no pressure to post one thing for each day. Create as much or as little as you want! This event is only for a bit of fun so do whatever makes you happy :)

Who is running the event?

Me! Hello, I go by Squid. My mainblog is @thatgirlwithasquid but, while I do not enforce an 18+ following because I frankly don’t care enough to investigate who follows me, I do reblog and very rarely post more explicit content within my other fandoms on there. If you are under 18 or that content will bother you, I’d suggest going on my main blog with caution (though the #twomp tags on my blog should be perfectly minor friendly)

I love twomp but don’t create as much for it as I’d like, so I’m putting together this event both as a way to motivate myself and to share in some fun.

Is twomp week minor-friendly?

Hell yeah! I’m aware that there’s plenty of minors within this fandom so I want this event to be open to you to participate too. That means that I won’t be reblogging any nsfw content to this blog and politely ask that participants respect this and help to create an event that is safe and welcoming to all.

What can I make for the event?

Anything! Art, fanfic, music, edits, animation, gifs, character analysis… Anything that you like doing as a way to participate in this fandom is welcome. This isn’t an event tailored towards writers or artists or anyone else in specific. It’s for everyone.

I also intend for this event to be inclusive for all things twomp related. Want to create for a background character? A rare pair? Argos and Mr Plant? The plants? One specific episode? An OC? The voids themself? Our lord and saviour Argos’ Pet Rock? All perfectly acceptable and encouraged. As long as it’s linked to twomp its perfect for twomp week!

When will twomp week be?

Twomp week will take place on the week beginning with the 5th of August and run for 7 days. Prompts will be released ahead of this on July 15th so that anyone who may need/desire time to prepare their work beforehand has the opportunity to do so.

How can I find out more about the event?

I’ll be updating about the plans for twomp week as I work them out and posting about it on this blog, so following the @twompweek blog is the best way to stay updated as I figure things out. You can also just keep an eye on the #twomp and #the world of mr plant tags for anything I post about it, or the #twomp week tag itself which I will also start using.

You can also send an ask to the event blog or send me a dm here and I’ll do my best to get back to you about whatever you want to know!

How do I take part in twomp week?

There’s no sign up process! This is an open event that anyone can join in, no need to ask or feel worried about just jumping on. When the event rolls around, all you need to do is post your work here on tumblr with the #twomp week tag or @ this blog so that I can find and reblog your creations onto the event blog as well.

It would also be nice if you followed the event blog or the #twomp week tag so that you can enjoy and support other participants and all their hard work, but that’s optional and up to your preference.

[frootloopscos]

2) Crowley, Never Meet My Grandma.

Welcome back to my story! If you enjoy please like, and comment! Reblogs are appreciated and feel free to send me anything in my ask box!

Chapter 2) Ramshackle Dorm

PREVIOUSLY

The male, now known to Yuu as Dire Crowley, explained to them that they are the headmage of the school that they are apparently at now. Yuu had to calm themself and real themself in. 'I'm not in Galar anymore, and not in any other region that I know of. This, this is another world.' They took a deep breath after coming to this realization, it was rare in Galar, but they must have fallen though an Ultra Wormhole and ended up here. Yuu ended up tuning out Crowley until they realized that the two of them were now back in the room with coffins....

NOW...

Yuu silently looked around, there were other people now, several of them speaking to groups gathered in front of them. Yuu flinched back slightly when Crowley suddenly yelled making their presences known. "I most certainly did not!" He yelled making Yuu confused, 'not what?' They asked themself as a red head crossed his arms looking at Crowley, "speak of the devil." Crowley gave a small glare to the boy, "if you must know, I was searching for the new student who failed to show for orientation. You are the only one who had yet to be assigned a dorm. Step up to the Dark Mirror, and be quick about it. I'll watch your weasel." He said to Yuu giving them a slight push towards the mirror.

Yuu just sighed knowing Crowley wouldn't listen to them, 'he reminds me of Rose.' They thought to themself with distain as they walked up to the mirror. "State your name." It spoke, Yuu's eyes widened before shaking their head. "My name is Yuu." They said to the mirror, "Yuu. . . The nature of your soul is. . ." The mirror was silent for several minutes before speaking again, "unclear to me." "What did you just say?" Crowley asked crossing his arms, "I sense no magical power from this one, aside from the capsules at their disposal. Soundless. Colorless. Shapeless. Utterly vacant. Therefore, no form would be appropriate.

Chaos began to ensue in the mirror chamber as the students began to whisper to one another. "Magicless?" "How are they here then?" "Did the Dark Mirror get it wrong?" Crowley tried to intervene but the Meowth had other ideas, finally getting out of Crowley's grasp and yelling. "ME! Let ME have this worthless human's seat!" It yelled in defiance, Crowley scowled "not so fast, you hyperactive weasel!" The Meowth smirked, "unlike that worthless human, I can actually use magic! So let me be a student here! Look, I'll show you! My spells are the cat's meow!"

Yuu's eyes widen as they and the red head from before yelled "Everyone, get down!" At the same time, the Meowth let out strings of fire from his mouth across the room. The students began to panic as the flames began to spread, one student with red eyes yelled out that his butt was on fire, Yuu quickly grabbed a pokeball at their side. Crowley yelled for someone to catch the rampaging Meowth.

As two students ran after Grim, Yuu grabbed another pokeball and threw the two spheres into the air "Agent use Snipe Shot, Mimi use Phantom Force!" They said as the dark blue bipedal lizard and the rag doll-esque creature emerged from white light and begin to follow their trainer's orders. Agent making a finger gun and shooting streams of water onto the blue flames around the room, making sure to douse the fire on the red eyed student's butt. Mimi using a dark shadowy hand from under the costume and attacking the Meowth to stop it in its tracks.

The Meowth struggled unable to move as the red head pointed his pen at it "Off With Your Head!" He yelled as red magic came from the writing utensil hitting Meowth a black and red heart shaped collar appeared on his neck. "MYAH?! What are you doing?!" The Meowth asked as it tried to pull off the collar. Yuu walked over patting Mimi on her stuffed head. "Great job girl," they said before picking up the Mimikyu. "Agent nice job, come back." The lizard obediently walked over to Yuu, "Inteleon." He said with a smile as they gave him head scritches. 

"Yuu!" Crowley declared staring at them, "was I not clear that you are expected to take responsibility for your familiar! Now discipline yo-" Yuu interrupted him this time, "it's not mine!" They yelled with a glare, "my Pokemon know better than to lash out unreasonably. I can try to catch the Meowth, but I don't even know if I have any empty pokeballs. Arceus I just want to go home..." they mumbled to themself. Crowley cleared his throat and decided to send the Meowth off campus.

Yuu glared at Crowley as they held Mimi in their arms, the bird didn't seem to notice as he sent all the students away. Turning to Yuu he spoke with a soft smile, "well Yuu, this is a most unfortunate turn of events. I'm afraid that you will not be attending Night Raven College after all. Dudley you realize that I cannot very well admit a student with no magical ability into my academy. But worry not! The Dark Mirror will see you safely home. Now, step into a gate, and visualize the place from whence you came."

Yuu sighed, returning Agent to his pokeball and stepped into one of the coffins. Closing their eyes they thought of their home region, Galar, spending time with their twin brother, being betrayed by ex-chairman Rose, being adopted by Grandma Opal... "Oh Dark Mirror!" Crowley called out, "return this soul to where it belongs!" The Dark Mirror was silent, Crowley awkwardly cleared his throat and spoke again. "Oh Dark Mirror! Return this soul-" the mirror interrupted him, "there is no such place." Yuu frowned, "I thought so. . ." They said sadly as they stepped out of the coffin.

Crowley turned back to Yuu, "what do you mean?" He asked the trainer, "I'm from another world, I came to this conclusion earlier. . . In my world there's a lot of research on other worlds and different universes. Though that's mainly researched in Alola, I must have fallen though an Ultra Wormhole and ended up here." Crowley looked at the crestfallen child and asked if they had any identification on them. Yuu hummed, "I think..." they set Mimi on their head and felt around their pockets. "Oh, my Rotom Phone! Ro can you help us?" They asked as their phone flew out of a pocket in the robes they wore.

Hovering in front of the two the phone attempted to turn on. "Ah, great, looks like I can only access my pokedex and pokebox. I can't even contact my brother." They said now holding the device in their hand. Crowley set a hand on their shoulder, "I can't allow you to attempt the academy, but I cannot allow you roam the streets. There is a vacant building on campus that you may stay in! I am so kind and generous, with a little cleaning it would be more than habitable for you and your creatures. . . How many more creatures do you own?" He asked as he began to lead Yuu outside of the school and down a path. Yuu just smirked, "I have well over thirty." They said crossing their arms.

.

.

.

.

"Are you shitting me right now Crowley?" They asked looking at the decrepit building in front of the two of them. "Kyu," the creature on their head said in agreement, Crowley chuckled nervously. "Isn't it delightful? Right then, scoot inside now. There you go." Upon entering the building they were greeted with dust in the air, cobwebs hanging just about anywhere you can think of, broken furniture, and holes in places you don't want. "Don't let me catch you wandering around the campus! Farewell!" Crowley said before quickly making his own retreat.

Yuu sighed in annoyance and took out Agent's pokeball again, letting him out as they set Mimi on the broken couch. "Alright you two, let me see who else I have with me, we'll be staying here for a bit. We need to clean this place up." They said as they took out the other pokeballs on their belt. "Hm, well, better than nothing." Throwing the pokeballs into the air "come on out everyone!" White light shines as the four other pokemon were released.

Four pokemon looked around confused, speaking their name or a version of their name. "Hattrem" "Tox" "Pon?" "Snom." Yuu smiled sadly, "hey everyone, we're kinda stuck here in a different world and this is where we'll have to stay for a while. Let's make the best of this and clean up as much as we can." They said trying to encourage their team.

The group of seven began to clean up the entry way, living room, and a bedroom upstairs as much as they could before it began to rain outside. It began to leak and Yuu returned most of their current team to their pokeballs to avoid them getting wet, leaving out Agent, Mimi, and Snom. It wasn't long before the stowaway Meowth snuck in and their small group had to deal with the ghost problem and Crowley entered with food.

The male was angry at first, declaring that the Meowth wasn't supposed to be on campus. Yuu explained the story of what happened as Agent took the supper that Crowley had brought for Yuu. With a bit of convincing Crowley decided that Yuu and Grim would officially have to work to earn their living situation as janitors of the academy. Yuu had to fight every urge inside of them to not wring the males neck, instead allowing Agent to fire a Snipe Shot at his face to get him to leave.

After supper was ate, yuu left to the bedroom they and their Pokemon cleaned up, opening the closet they were greeted by their usual attire they wore while traveling. They smiled taking off the robe they had been wearing and hung it inside before releasing their pokemon once more. "Sorry it's not much guys, but it's what we have for now." They said picking up Grumpy and hugging him close. "Let's get some sleep."

TO BE CONTINUED

———————

Well here is chapter two! Let me know what y'all think!

Word Count: 1737

Published to Wattpad: April 24th, 2024

Published to Tumblr: April 24th, 2024

Edited: n/a

[jmdbjk]

Baby Stud Candy

JK still sounded very nasally. I hate it when they have to fight a cold while performing live. Yoongi had to do that too while on his tour.

JK said he felt worse the day of the One Show performance than he felt the day before and he was a little stressed about it but then all of that disappeared once he got in front of Army.

He said promotions were over and some of it didn't go as planned. It felt really limited but he was grateful.

He goes on for a few minutes about singing off key a little and messing up a little during the performance. He knows he can't be perfect all the time but he still had fun even if he made mistakes.

JK wants to have an ease and openness with us. He wants to just be himself and say whatever is on his mind... honesty. That's all he wants with us. Honestly, he's been that way for a while now.

He said if he didn't have that heart, he would just be done with work and just have fun getting drunk. But here he is telling us what he truly wants.

Mr. Unserious.

He apologizes if the sculpture has some sort of cultural significance...

I'm afraid someone in the hotel's housekeeping staff got fired yesterday...

the unseriousness...

He reiterates what every member has said... that after solo activities, when BTS comes back together as a group...

He contemplated again, why do Army love him so much? He said he would try harder to live up to our love that he feels.

He doesn't care. Think what you want. He just wants to be comfortable being himself when he is with us like this.

He reads a comment about growing a beard and he says he has very little facial hair... a true baby face. Which adds to his Giant Baby Villain label.

And now we get to the nitty gritty...

His reply? "Tell me why is that a dirty version? Explain yourself." And he looks a little perturbed at that question. Like about to throw hands or something. Then he says people have different attitudes about what the explicit version means and there's nothing he can do about that.

He went on to say he's been in this business for ten years, please respect his age, and that unless he shows us something new using his own free will to do so, he knows he won't be acknowledged. It's only something HE can do. He has to be the one to set things straight because AS WE'VE SEEN when things are not said clearly and in detail, people will run with whatever narrative suits their know-it-all-glass-half-empty view of life.

He goes on to say he's had the image as "youngest" and he knows we've loved that. But he is not the youngest amongst idols anymore. He admits he lived up to his maknae image but now he wants to break free of that. It's HIS life that HE needs to change.

HOW. MANY. TIMES. HAS. HE. ASKED. TO. NOT. BE. BABIED?

He questioned if he and us could be happy until the end if nothing changed. Realistically, no. But there are those out there who don't want anything to ever change. I've heard people say they wish BTS would make music like they used to do in the first few years... which is antithetical to everything they've been telling us this past year. Things change, people change, everything changes.

JK says he was fearful of trying new things/changing but he decided to stay true to himself. It is unclear to me if he meant we created this circumstance or we created the motivation for him to change.

He says his choices may make some of us uncomfortable and he will try to keep that in mind. He is using his lives as a way to listen to what we want, how we feel, our reactions. He wants us to be honest, to give honest words back at him. He is trying to tell us to grow up and mature along with him. He has said this before.

He wants to feel like he can collaborate with us in some things. That would be cool except for the people who think they can run his life better than he can. But he does have an idealistic way of wanting to relate and communicate with us. This desire of his is sweet and authentic.

He pretty much admits he is just rambling his stream of thoughts to us at that moment.

We should all know that everything is not always a one-sided proposition. That some people might get "hurt" and he never wants that to happen but he has to balance what he wants and what we want. And surely we understand that. I can't get over how frank he is. I love it. I want Jimin to come here and speak to us like this.

He says he is just a 25 year old man speaking his thoughts and though it might not be "broad-minded" (I disagree, he's been very broadminded this live) he wishes us to "get" where he's coming from... to understand his point of view on these things. He's been very tolerant and patient with us.

He mentions why he stopped using Instagram. What he says is that Instragram has its usefulness but it's not as real and authentic as he wants to be. Its true, IG is great for communicating and its strength is visual but sometimes the images or video clips are not really showing authenticity in its whole. It is a very skewed way of presenting things, which is why companies love it for touting their products.

He read a comment for him to just do whatever he wants, but he says he wishes he could, however in reality, who can really do everything they want? He refers to what he's doing as his job. I think people forget that this is his job. And he can't do EVERYTHING he wants, that would also be unrealistic and we should know better.

And apparently he answered a comment that asked if he was drunk... and he said yes and that's why he was saying all this though even if he wasn't he would be saying it anyway because:

He doesn't want to worry about what we think or what the company thinks he just wants everyone to be comfortable with being real.

He says those who don't approve, thanks for being here while you were here but he's going to continue being himself whether anyone likes it or not. In other words, there's the door, don't let it hit your ass on the way out.

He became interested in the bad lighting in the room and all of a sudden turned on the light on the device he was using...

Does this mean he is done sitting in his dark house with only his Mikrokosmos lamp on and the light from the television screen the only illumination in the room? Please?

Right before stepping away to use the restroom he looks at some notes he wrote...

He made talking point notes which is very endearing and also shows he has a purpose when he comes to visit us

... again, he sings while he pees...

Still keeping it real in replying to a comment about how soft his skin looks...

He expressed his desire to meet up with Army, have a drink, shoot the shit... someone says "would you be able to handle Army?" ... ... ... was that a challenge? Thou shalt not challenge thee Jeon Jungkook to a drinking contest me thinks. The man could probably drink anyone under the table. Except maybe Jimin.

He suggests he make a program in which he can converse comfortably with Army ... and he says the company is going "wtf JK"... a JK version of Suchwita but with Army... could be like Jin on Young Ji's Youtube show except JK with Army... see who passes out first:

TMI: Vodka gets JK drunk fast... (files that away in my fun facts)

He goes on to say maybe one day we can get together and talk about it all like the adults we are... he'll just continue being himself even though...

He had other stuff he wanted to say, he thinks he is bad at saying what he wants to get across. He'll say it again next time. lol.

He continued on as if we were saying our good byes ... "tell your parents I said hello (lmao)" and for us to call him, or wait, he'll call us first... let's have a meal next time (I've heard this is a common idiom in casual Korean conversation and doesn't really mean let's go have a meal, its just polite conversation)... but it appears he'll be hard to contact because:

Don't know how anyone could hate him...

Though he'll always be the baby of the BTS family, we now have this bonified Stud Candy walking the bora streets.

So does this mean I can't call him Kookie-pookie anymore? The Bun? Giant Baby Villain?

He came to this live with a purpose. He has seen the feedback over the song, of course he has, he said he was wondering whether to release both versions and then decided to just go for it so of course he was going to monitor the results. He will certainly keep moving in this direction of a more motivated, more forthright and authentic Jungkook in the future. And he's told y'all if you don't like it, it's ok, just step aside while he and the rest of us come on through.

[mydemonsdrivealimo]

COMMISSIONS!!!

its time!!!! i am so excited about these and i hope you all are too!! heres some more info :)

more payment info will be available after the initial request/discussion, but all payments WILL be through venmo (at least for now :) all payment will be due after the sketch is finalized

currently, I am opening TWO slots. i will keep this updated both on this post and in my blog bio for easy-access

please ask any questions you have!! ive never done full official comm sheets before, just pieces upon request, so if anything is unclear feel free to ask about it!!

I WILL BE KEEPING THE BASE DESIGNS FOR ESTABLISHED CHARACTERS. there ARE cases where i will to compromise/change, but, as a baseline, i will be using the canon version of them. please ask for further information on this if you want. this is a hard concept to explain, but primarily it is a safe guard against whitewashing, making fat characters thinner than they are, making openly queer characters less queer, etc. any individual character quirks and hcs are fine as long as they do not negatively impact or erase the base design of the character

[wright-anything-agencyisms]

Wright Anything Agency trivia collected by yours truly. Warning: it's a lot.

• The other side of the office is inconsistently portrayed in the anime cutscenes.

• The cupboard with old case files and law books are slowly getting swapped with magic books thanks to Trucy. Phoenix didn't know about this secret swapping until Maya noticed. This cupboard is apparently deceptive, as Apollo mistook that it was filled with law books and case files only. (6-2, 6-SE)

• Every lawyer has their own desk. (5-3)

• Everyone's desks are messy, along with the office. Pearl cleans their office at times. (5-3, AA5 credits)

• Charley is the WAA's mascot.

• Apollo has decided to make himself the cleaner of the office, because apparently nobody else would do it. This gets to the point he almost automatically cleaned up Buff's coffee mess. (6-5)

• Trucy gets cookies out of her magic panties and hands them out to the others. (5-3)

• Athena and Apollo are kind of tired of cleaning the toilet at the office, and complain when a person starts suggesting them clean with something like "we do it enough at the office!" (5-3, 6-5)

• It's apparently normal for Apollo to cook for the others, as Phoenix asks Apollo if "[he] could whip [them] up a little meal" with the fish he got from Shipshape Aquarium, and it got a completely normal reaction from Apollo. This also confirms Apollo can cook. (5-SE)

• Apollo apparently has a lot things on his desk. Those items include crackers, instant noodles and manga about street fighting and "the funnies". (6-2)

• Phoenix's desk has been unused until after 5-2, as Athena commented the dust in a vent was like his desk. (5-2)

• Apollo admits he sometimes feels like he's "almost going to forget" that he's a lawyer when he's in the WAA because of Trucy's magic. (6-2)

• Phoenix never forgets to water Charley. (6-2)

• Phoenix explained to Athena and Apollo that Charley has been in the office since his early days as a lawyer, but he doesn't want to talk about it much. (6-2)

• In the same exact conversation it's revealed Phoenix sometimes stares at Charley and smiles. Apollo and Athena can tell Charley is important to Phoenix. (6-2)

• Apollo cannot say no to Trucy's whims, as apparently "Trucy's smile has some kind of magical power that makes it impossible to say no..." (6-2)

• Athena ate Trucy's pudding by mistake one time. (6-2)

• Athena suggested a race in 6-2, and if Apollo loses he would buy her orange juice. He immediately gives up because he doesn't want to run, and decides to skip to buying her juice. Apparently this happens a lot as Athena says "YES!!! That's the fourth free juice this month!" and Apollo "Athena is getting really good at sponging off of me" thereafter. (6-2)

• Trucy likes making Apollo's and Athena's attorney's badges dissappear, but especially Apollo's. She likes his reactions. (6-2)

• It's revealed Athena and Apollo report things to Phoenix, as after Apollo called Athena a kid she was going to report it to him. (5-2)

• When the WAA gets Eldoon's noodles after a trial it's apparently always on Phoenix's tab. (5-5)

• If Phoenix presents the pamphlet of the Cosmos Space Center to Pearl, it's revealed the office has a lot of pamphlets. (5-5)

• Trucy suggests that the WAA should visit Apollo in Khura'in. We don't know if they ended up doing it. (AA6 credits)

• Apollo calls out Athena two times for saying the judge won't have many years left. He scolds her by saying to keep it an inner monologue. (5-4, 6-2)

• Apollo said "That was just some good old-fashioned bluffing, courtesy of Mr. Wright's fine training" to Athena. Whether this training is literal bluff training is unclear. (6-2)

• The WAA always calls keeping watch of the office "holding down the fort."

• Trucy said Apollo always changes the subject when it comes to his past, which suggests that the WAA has asked about his past before. (6-2)

• Apollo's desk at the office has a lock. Trucy has phrased this fact like it has a compartment inside. (6-5)

• When you examine the piano with Trucy and Dhurke she says it has sentimental value, the office has financial issues, so after Apollo suggested selling it Trucy demands he shares the money with her. This suggests they are very welcome to giving up items (with sentimental value) for money. (6-5)

• Apollo has a journal, and Trucy bought it to the office with "her magic", Apollo is surprised that it's at the office. This suggests she somehow knows where it's always at, probably Apollo's home. And THAT suggests she knows where he lives. (6-5)

• Athena discovers Phoenix cross-examined an animal from Sasha. Athena says she'll get "the juicy details" from Apollo if Phoenix doesn't tell her. This suggests Athena would definitely go to Apollo for info on Phoenix's old cases. (5-SE)

• Pets are not allowed in the office (5-SE)

• Napping on the office sofa is apparently not allowed. When you present the fish to Athena she says she used to nap a lot, and Phoenix adds on to that by saying that she still does it a lot on the sofa. Athena is surprised he found out and she tries to get out of it by saying she was "sleep learning." (5-SE)

If you want a specific source you are very welcome to ask me. I know where all of this information comes from :^) (except for the Charley is WAA's mascot I know that from the fandom wiki and they don't cite the source for that....)

[save-the-villainous-cat]

ermmie wormiee....can you explain how light dependant reactions work I'm genuinely kinda lost on that part of AP Bio like everything else makes sense but unit 3 (enzymes photosynthesis and cellular resp) is genuinely my OP

Ok, so I don’t know how much you have to know so let’s just get into it. It’s not that hard once you get it.

Also please keep in mind that I studied all of this in German so I’m sorry if some things are worded weirdly.

So, there are two photosystems (PSII and PSI) in plants. As you can see in this pic, the whole reaction starts with PSII, not PSI — that’s because PSI was discovered first. (But that’s not really important.)

Photosystems are able to absorb photons (that come from the light) and produce a high energy electron! As you can see in this pic, PSII absorbs the photon, creates a high energy electron and sends it through an electron transport chain (Plastoquinone - that’s a molecule btw) to the Cytochrome b6f complex and from there to PSI.

PSII uses water as an electron donor! That is very important because that’s how oxygen gets created as a by-product.

(sciencefacts.net)

PSI absorbs the photon again and produces another high energy electron which converts NADP+ to NADPH.

The big question is: how does the plant create ATP now?

That happens through non-cyclic photophosphorylation. See all those H+ protons? Whereas there is a bunch inside the thylakoid lumen, there isn’t much in the stroma.

That leads to a concentration compensation. So all those little protons that have been produced during the reaction actually go through the ATP-synthase into the stroma. Thus, the ATP-synthase creates ATP!

I also had to remember this, I don’t know if you do but if you have any questions about it, feel free to ask:

(istudy.pk)

All you need to know is basically:

Light hits PSII. Light = energy. PSII needs energy to turn electron (water = electron donor) into a high energy electron. High energy electron travels. H+ protons get produced during reactions. PSI needs energy. High energy electron converts NADP+ to NADPH (we need that for our Calvin cycle later). Bunch of protons travel through ATP-synthase —> we have ATP now!!!

I hope this makes somewhat sense. As I’ve mentioned, I had to remember all of this in German so yeah it might be a bit messy. If there’s anything unclear, feel free to send another ask!

[sailtomarina]

The Truth of Us

Hermione x Sirius | @hp-yuletide-bliss Day 16: I gave you my heart | WC 2103 | Rating: M

A sob strangled Hermione’s throat as she shut herself in her room and pressed her back up against the surface. Each breath was a struggle, the inhales loud and desperate for reassurance, the exhales strained. She shoved the heels of each hand into her eyes and willed the tears to stay back. They always made her feel weak and juvenile, affirmations of her stupidity for caring so much about a man who would never see her as nothing more than a girl not even worth consideration.

Nevermind that she was approaching her 30s and knew exactly what and who she wanted in her life.

“Kitten, please, just talk to me.”

Sirius’ voice was muffled from beyond the door. His door, because this was Grimmauld Place and she had overstayed her welcome between flats like she was. She needed to hurry up her search and get out.

“Don’t call me that!”

“Kitten”, “love”, “little girl”—they were all variations of the way he saw her. At one point, they’d seemed signs of his affection. She leaned into them and imagined they meant something…more.

How stupid she’d been.

“Hermione. Can you open the door? I’m pretty sure this is all a misunderstanding.”

Her stomach roiled and heat flowed into her chest. A misunderstanding, was it? Turning swiftly, she yanked open the door and glared up into the dark eyes of Sirius Black.

“I’m pretty sure there’s nothing unclear about what I just saw, Sirius.” 

She’d walked out of the Floo into the drawing room, her hand frozen in the motion of brushing off soot as she scrambled to make sense of the scene in front of her. Sirius leaning against her favorite armchair, where she often curled up at night reading, and a woman standing far too close to him with her hand resting on his chest and a coy smile on her face, the twinkling red and green lights of the Christmas tree playing in patterns across their forms.

The loud thunk of her bag hitting the floor alerted them to her presence, Sirius’ head snapping up and eyes focusing on her. The woman merely looked over with a frown, one perfect eyebrow raised in confusion. 

“Kitten, I–”

Whatever he’d been about to say was lost as she pushed past him and the shite Christmas tree, and up the stairs.

Now he looked at her, one hand buried in his hair at the nape of his neck, the other leaning against the doorframe as if to trap her in. His mouth opened, then closed without saying anything.

She took a deep breath to steady herself. “Look, it’s none of my business, anyway. You’re free to do whatever with whomever you wish.”

Nevermind the fact that he’d certainly lead her to believe otherwise in the recent weeks. Lingering looks, a touch here and there. She let him borrow her books!

Her attempt to close the door was met with the loud smack of his palm against the surface.

“It’s not what you think it is. Don’t jump to conclusions.” His eyes were wide, almost desperate. But no, that couldn’t be right, could it? She was just seeing what she wanted to see.

Hearing him say that to her, like Hermione had a habit of misunderstanding what she saw with her very own eyes, pissed her off beyond measure. Where did he get off telling her what to think?

His hand slid across the door and curled around the edge, knuckles whitened with how hard he gripped it. It was like he meant to force her into believing his version of events and wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Her traitorous heart ratcheted up in beat as he leaned further into her space. It was then that she flicked her eyes up and noticed the mistletoe he’d affixed there with a wink just yesterday.

She took one step back.

He stepped forward.

She could give him the benefit of the doubt and ask him to explain. A part of her loudly demanded this.

The other part? It had her tightening her hold on her wand and shifting her weight to one side. He followed, like the observant wizard he was, and she pivoted immediately to the opposite foot and made a dash for the gaping hole he’d left. If she could just make it out the door and down to the Floo, she could disappear and take the time she needed to come up with a plan of action.

“Oh, no, you don’t!”

Faster than she could believe him capable, he flung an arm out and caught her around the waist. He tossed her back onto her bed in the next movement.

“Expelliarmus!”

Just like that, he had her wand.

“Sirius! You can’t just trap me in here!”

“Watch me,” he growled, stalking forward and waving both wands in his hand to slam her door shut with an ominous click. Rather than pin her to the bed like in one of her many fantasies, he pulled out her desk chair, spun it around, and straddled it with arms folded over the back as he glared at her. “Gina is an estate agent.”

Even though Hermione’s brain begged her to shut up and let the man speak, she couldn’t help herself. “She must be real successful if she touches all her clients like that.”

She sounded petty and jealous and exactly the type of witch she’d never wanted to be. There was a time, when she was younger and thought herself mad about Ron, that she’d indulged in those kinds of feelings. Even now, without her wand, she itched to sic her birds on him and watch as they attacked his salt-and-pepper hair. It would serve him right to show up at the Burrow Christmas Day with peck marks all over his face.

Still, that had been her past, and she’d thought herself beyond such acts. Looking at their predicament now, Hermione was forced to accept that maybe she hadn’t changed so much as she hadn’t felt this strongly about someone else in far too long a time.

Sirius sighed in exasperation, hand tugging again at his bun. “Yeah, she is touchy, but I’ve made it clear I’m not interested in her like that and that I never will be. If you had stayed downstairs just a bit longer, you would’ve seen me push her away.”

She inched up the mattress to press herself back into the cushions seeking some sort of consolation. She bit her lip as she looked at him, taking in the way he stared directly at her with those eyes that always seemed to strip her to the core.

In truth, he’d been really, really good to her these past few months. He always had been, even before she came asking for help. He opened his home to her without any deadline mentioned, just his firm reassurance that Hermione was welcome to stay as long as needed. He’d even gone so far as to suggest she move in permanently since he had plenty of space and could use the company. At the time, she’d waved off the suggestion as the obligatory offer it likely was. She’d assured him she’d be out of his hair as soon as she could find a suitable place.

As the weeks passed and they spent more and more time together, her search had slowed to a crawl. What was the rush, anyway? She didn’t want to hastily pick a place that didn’t fulfill every single one of her needs and Sirius was the perfect housemate. She’d intended to spend the holiday with him and think about relocating in the new year.

Estate agent?

Shame expanded, branching out through her limbs and crawling to the surface of her skin.

“If you wanted me to hurry up and get out, you could have just referred me directly to the witch.”

His scowl deepened and he thrust himself up from the chair to finally prowl forward onto the edge of the bed.

“When will you stop thinking the worst of me?”

The springs creaked underneath his weight as he crawled towards her. It might have been amusing in any other scenario–shouldn’t magic make such things, such Muggle-like inconveniences, nonexistent?

So wrapped up in the random thought was she, that, by the time Sirius bracketed her between his arms, it was too late to dart away. Scents of bergamot and tobacco engulfed her and she breathed in deep.

“Sirius…” The name came out as a quiet plea.

“Yes, I reached out to her on your behalf,” Hermione’s eyes widened, but he continued, “and for mine, as well.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I wanted to see what options were even available before talking with you, but I see now that I had it all backwards. I should have consulted you first, then gone with someone else, anyone else.”

What was he trying to say? Was he dressing up the entire act of getting her out of Grimmauld Place?

“I assure you, Sirius, I can stay with Luna, or with the twins. There’s no need for you to go through all the effort–”

She trailed off when he brought his face close, his forehead pressing against her own and each puff of air a kiss of air against her lips. 

“I don’t want you to leave.”

Nothing he said made any sense, but she could feel the heat of his body as it hovered above hers and wanted to pull him flush against her like doing so would erase her doubts. The only other sound in the room was the ticking of her desk clock.

“What was Gina here for, Sirius?” Maybe saying the witch’s name would help clear her head.

She flinched in surprise at the hand that cupped her jaw and slightly tilted her face closer to him.

“I asked her to look for a smaller place where you and I might both live together.” The hand on her cheek slid down to rest palm-side down against the center of her chest. “I’ve felt more for you than any man my age should for far longer than was appropriate, and you being here has only affirmed everything I already knew to be true.”

Hermione couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. She could barely take deep enough breaths to keep up with the galloping of her heart and mind.

“What truth is that?”

The smile that stretched across his face made her ache in want, the lines at the corners of his mouth filling in deeply. It wasn’t difficult for Hermione to imagine the many years of laughter that had formed those creases and informed the devastating man that he was.

“That I gave my heart to you and intend for you to keep it. I was going to tell you tonight.”

Christmas Eve. He remembered her family tradition of opening one gift a night early.

She pinched herself hard, then yelped as pain bloomed across her arm.

Sirius threw his head back and laughed loudly, before dropping his forehead back down to hers. “This isn’t a dream, kitten.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Now that you’ve heard my explanation, what’s yours?” His eyes searched hers for an answer.

A myriad of thoughts crowded to the front, but one in particular shoved its way into the light.

“You want me?” Her voice sounded small even to her own ears.

A twinkle appeared in his eyes, the start of another smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I want you so bad.”

“But you already have me.” The words had barely left her lips before he met them in a kiss, his eager warmth enveloping her in undiluted, overwhelming Sirius Black. He lowered himself to lie against her, pressing down with his delicious weight and giving her the undeniable proof of his want hard against her thigh.

By the time they broke for air, he’d worked her into a panting mess, hands clenched so tight into the fabric of his Henley she was surprised she hadn’t torn straight through it.

“I’ll find a different agent.”

“I didn’t give a fuck about the estate agent, Sirius.”

And she didn’t. Not anymore. Gina might as well be a footnote to the love story of Hermione Granger and Sirius Black. Dramatics and misunderstandings aside, Hermione now held zero doubts about the future that lay before them. They had their work cut out for them, talks to be had and truths to be brought to light.

Right this second, though?

She arched her hips and grinned at the muffled groan he made into the crook of her neck. 

Cross-posted on Tumblr and AO3.

I have WritexAboutxMe to thank for my mind being stuck on this duo ever since I read Yuletide Beginnings earlier this week. Now all I can think about are tattoos, a salt-and-pepper man bun, and a wizard who knows exactly what he wants for Christmas this year. If that strikes your fancy, too, then go and read her work this instant!

This story actually started with a far worse premise of Hermione stumbling across Sirius getting a blowjob. It didn’t take me long to realize that I couldn’t really write any sort of recovery from that within my self-imposed limits on length, so I ended up softening the act and turning it all into something else entirely.

[thesquidkid]

Who says science isn't exciting?

4x08 Missing my baby

I know that it has been a while since I last updated my science meta, life happened and I wasn't really in the mood to write. I also did a thesis in between, so I suppose I now have proper experience in writing a scientific paper.

Disclaimer: I am still not a biologist and it's been quite some time since I last watched the show, so please feel free to correct me if you see anything inaccurate. I also really like talking about science so if anything is unclear I will happily explain it in more details.

The first mention of science is Liz talking to Maria in the Wild Pony:

Liz: "There has to be a scientific explanation for how Alex is reaching out to you."

She then proceeds to explain her scientific theory:

"At first, I thought this was a resurgence of your powers, like a vision of Alex manifesting itself. But your brain scans match up with your last checkup, post-cure, which means this is not a vision. Alex is alive. And he's figuring out a way to communicate with you. We've seen versions of this before. You did it in the coma. Max talked to Rosa in the pod."

I should probably go ahead and say that this falls in the realm of science-fiction. Well, mostly. In reality, people in a coma can `communicate' with the outside world. More or less. Studies have shown that when talking to people in a vegetative state, asking them to perform certain tasks, the brain reacts in the same way it would for someone that is not in vegetative state. For example, when doctors asked a few yes-no questions to a patient in vegetative state, they found out that he knew where he was, what kind of program he enjoyed on TV, etc [x]. This was done by monitoring the brain activity of the patient and looking at the pattern in his brain activity.

This kind of research [x] allowed scientists to conclude that some comatose patients were conscious.

Going back to our lovely little alien show, we can argue that Maria communicating with Liz while in her coma is scientifically possible. However, Alex being in another dimension and communicating through with Maria is fiction.

(As a side note, Liz mentions a few time in that scene that it's all science, except it's not.)

Next, Liz and Shivani are doing science in Shivani's lab:

Liz: "The regenerative enzymes in the blood sample we brought back from New York... Isn't healing the diseased cells in our subject." Liz: "The fluid stimulates the proteins momentarily, but it isn't potent enough to sustain their viability."

As defined in my meta for 1x08 [x, x], an enzyme is a protein that accelerates a chemical reaction. Here, regenerative enzymes refers to enzymes that have the ability to regenerate their cofactors.

A cofactor (in biology) is a non-proteinic chemical compound that is required for enzymes to act as catalyst (i.e. to accelerate a chemical reaction) [x].

Now, from what I read on the internet, enzymes are used in cellular apoptosis, which is a programmed cell death (happening naturally in our body, I talked about it more in my meta for 2x02 [x]), and the regenerative aspect of enzymes comes into play with regards to their cofactors. Furthermore, I have found a few sources about regenerating dead cells (namely after injuries) that mention enzymes as `executioner' rather than reconstructive. In other words, it appears that enzymes (regenerative or not) are present when it comes to killing cells, but not resuscitating them [x, x].

So, really, it's not that surprising that Liz's enzymes aren't healing the deceased cells...

The next bit of science happening in Shivani's lab is purely fictive as it revolves around the cracked pod that Shivani has:

Shivani: "The viscous liquid we developed was formulated using the fluid from within [the pod]. It contains restorative properties identical to the ones that you've been researching." Liz: "In gene-sequencing your work, I found micromolecular inconsistencies, and this crack explains why. Oxygen is changing the fluid's chemical composition. In order to continue testing, we need a pod that's in working condition."

As Michael points out in 2x03, the pods keep the person inside in stasis by regenerating the cells at the rate they decay. He also says "this current will speed up the regeneration". So, by regenerating the cells at the rate they decay, the pod would also (slowly) regenerate the cells that are already dead. Namely, it would regenerate the dead cells at the rate that the alive cells are decaying, since the pod wouldn't select which cells to regenerate, and which to not.

Personally, I am not a big fan of the pods being the answer the everything, namely here providing a regenerative cure, especially when we saw Liz figure it all out using science before, and since her research is about vascular regeneration.

The part on oxygen altering the fluid's chemical composition is accurate to what we saw before, with Noah's pod. Hence, this would fall into the realm of science within the fiction, since at least the results are consistent.

We then see Rosa and Maria trying to communicate with Alex at the Wild Pony. This is once again clearly fiction, but they use science words that I thus will look into. We start with (another) mention of frequencies:

Rosa: "I can hear the frequency of Alex's DNA in the hair, but... nowhere else."

At first, the mention of frequencies in the show was very nice and (mostly) accurate. Then, it became too much (as @angrycowboy pointed out about 4x13)

DNA does have frequency, and it particular it generates a wave that propagates in the direction of the magnetic field vector [x]. Magnetic field vector refers to the direction and the dimension of the magnetic field. These magnetic waves are what allow the cells to communicate with each other.

It is also possible to detect the frequency of DNA, namely it is around 20 GHz. Note that 20 GHz falls into the domain of super high electromagnetic frequency, which is the same frequency range as satellite communication and microwave ovens. Suppose Rosa can hear the frequency of Alex's DNA in his hair. This would mean that she is able to hear satellite communication happening nearby, and considering there is a military base not too far away (I don't know anything about actual Roswell geography, but the show does mention the base a few times), she would be able to pick up on those conversations. Useful espionnage tool.

Rosa does mention something about Isobel teaching her how to listen:

Rosa: "Isobel taught me that in order to silence all the noise, you have to find a place inside yourself where you feel safe and calm."

And in real life, radios can tune to a particular frequency (hence how you only hear a single radio channel and not everything at once). However, a radio is also able to detect other frequencies, hence how you can switch channel. The reason why you do not hear the other radio channels when you switch on your radio is that radio emitters in a region have an agreement to distinguish each frequency. This means that the frequency of each channel has to be sufficiently distinct.

DNA is different for everyone, hence it's frequency differs. Since Alex, Maria, Rosa, and any one else who came to the Wild Pony are not twins, Rosa would be able to distinguish Alex from the other DNA frequencies.

However, there are three things I find strange. First, I am assuming Alex was at the Pony before disappearing, so there should be traces of his DNA left, hence Rosa would hear somewhere else. Secondly, the choice of detecting DNA at the Wild Pony is weird, in my opinion, since there are many more frequencies that Rosa has to tune out, as it is presented to be a popular bar.

Thirdly, as much as DNA can be extracted from hair, there is no guarantee that DNA is always available in a hair sample. Namely, the DNA is present at the root of the hair [x]. Without the root of the hair, the procedure to get DNA is much more complex. So, for the sake of the argument, I am assuming that Rosa has the root of Alex's hair.

But, even having the root of the hair, typical DNA testing that is done in forensics requires an electron microscope (which uses a beam of electron as a light source, and thus has a better resolution than a typical light microscope [x]), since it is the only way to visualise the small bits of DNA. The second test is through mitochondrial DNA, but such a test will not distinguish between siblings, as they share the same mitochondrial DNA profile [x]. DNA testing from hair also requires more than 1 hair to have an accurate test [x].

To conclude on the topic of hair DNA and frequency, despite DNA having a frequency, and hair having DNA, I doubt the accuracy of Rosa's test, since too little DNA is present in a single strand of hair.

The next bit of science is also said by Rosa:

Rosa: "Energy rises from the ground into your feet, and since consciousness is a tangible form of energy connecting us to all matter, astrophysicists believe that... meditation could open you up to speaking over universes, even dimensions."

I am not going to touch on this topic, other than say that Rosa probably meant astrologists and not astrophysicists. Astrology is the field of divinatory practices, recognised as a pseudo-science (it used to be a science until a more scientific theory came along), while astrophysics is the study of astronomical objects using physics and chemistry. Meditation falls into the category of astrology, not astronomy.

The next two pieces of science (the last ones for this episode) are all between Liz and Shivani, during different scenes.

Shivani: "Why atomize the fluid into a mist?" Liz: "I made slight genetic modifications to accelerate enzyme inhibitors for swift cell regeneration. Molecules, they travel faster in a gaseous state than in liquid form." Shivani: "If this cure eradicates the alien virus, could it be repurposed to fight off human illness?" Liz: "Like a universal vaccine? Interspecies scaling at this level would be a huge leap."

So. Liz's first sentence is already hurting my brain.

An enzyme inhibitor is a molecule that attaches itself to an enzyme and stops its activity [x].

Since enzymes are used in process of cell death, inhibiting its activity would then slow this process. In fact, inhibitors can be used to start the process of cell regeneration (in some circumstances, although I am not sure I understood what those circumstances were precisely) [x]. So, if Liz accelerates the inhibitors, it could lead to an acceleration of the regeneration process (or at least, make it begin faster).

It is true that molecules travel faster as gas than liquid. In fact, molecules are always moving, but in a solid they are moving so slow that it can be considered static. In a liquid, the molecules glide past each other, and hence are faster in movement than in a sold. In a gas the molecules are further apart from each other, and move faster [x].

Shivani then asks if a vaccine to cure all human illnesses is possible. Liz is right with her response, that interspecies vaccines are tricky to work with.

We first need to note that interspecies contamination is possible (coronaviruses are example of this). However, interspecies vaccination is not as simple; consider the infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) in poultry, for which different vaccines have to be created for the different species of poultry. Even species which are similar (poultry for instance) would reach very differently to the same vaccine, and would not be offered the same protection [x]. So, despite humans and oasians being similar, a vaccine that would protect both is also unlikely.

Furthermore, a universal vaccine in the sense of a single vaccine that would protect against everything in scientifically improbably. The point of a vaccine is to inject into the human body a small dose of a virus to teach the body how to defend itself against it. Therefore, a universal vaccine would have to consist of a small dose of every virus known to mankind, which would very likely kill the patient. Imagine having your body fight against all the viruses ever.

So what Shivani is suggesting is rather improbable.

The final bit of science is later in the episode, still in Shivani's lab:

Shivani: "What if we altered the protein receptors to perform some, not all, of their functions? If we folded the principle alpha helices and stabilized the covalent bonds between the amino acids..."

(I won't go into the rest of that scene, since it's mostly about ethics)

If I am being honest, the sentence "altered the protein receptors to perform some, not all, of their functions" confuses me. So I am ignoring it for the sake of my mental health (also because I don't understand what the `their' is referring to).

The next bit of science that Shivani mentions is "principle alpha helices".

An alpha helix is a sequence of amino acids in a protein that are twisted in a helix shape [x]. This structure is the most common type of secondary structure in proteins.

In everything that I've read online about alpha helices, there isn't really a notion of principle alpha helix. So, I don't really know why this is specified by Shivani here (probably to make the sentence sound science-y...).

Folding in chemistry is the process by which a molecule assumes its shape. Protein folding refers to the shape that is assumed by a specific sequence of amino acids in a protein [x].

So, from what I understand, folding the protein would give it its alpha helix structure, but folding the alpha helix structure doesn't really mean anything...

A covalent bond is a chemical bond that involved sharing electrons to form electron pairs between atoms [x].

The different structures in a protein are attached via covalent bonds [x], so indeed, there are covalent bonds between some amino acids (the ones that are found in two different structures). Alpha helices are considered to be the stabler structure of a protein, but their stability, from what I've read, is not quite due to the covalent bonds. So, again, despite the different elements of the sentence making sense, they are quite confusing and lack proper meaning when being put together.

Liz and Shivani share another scene together in Shivani's lab, at the end of the episode where Liz breathes the mist. However, this scene does not contain much science in it, so I'm stopping my analysis here.