#fixed some stuff that bothered people from the last one and added some more info

[queersatanic]

Getting out of The Satanic Temple

The Satanic Temple used this person (Randi) to gather info that would later be used in the Temple's ongoing SLAPP lawsuit against us. At the time, this person didn't know what TST was really like; now they know better.

Being used and then disposed of is a path many ex-TST have walked before.

Randi @snailwhisperer

Something has been bothering me for the last year in regards to everything that went down in the Washington Chapter of The Satanic Temple. Well, a lot of things really. Tst has never really provided context for why the fb page was taken over and what led to that happening. Why they didn't want those people in particular to look into it I am not sure. One of the members did look into it because they felt they were closer to the person who made the complaint and could more information. I was new to the leadership email and chat and I did NOT receive that email, but I did see the resulting chat. The chat got very heated and the chapter heads turned off the chat and said they would figure this out soon. The next day they removed everyone who received the email, except for maybe 2 people. I believe that was about a dozen members who had been in leadership roles that were suddenly removed without warning. They held a meeting and said basically that they had removed the members but there wasn't really a solid explanation as to why. Members kept asking in subsequent meetings but there was never a real answer. At this point I was really not sure what should be done but I thought there was still a chance things could be fixed, maybe worked out with those members removed and added back in. At this point is when the fb page was taken over. A member who had been removed still had admin access and so they removed all the other admins and took over the page. When they took over the page they posted a lot of links to stories about bad stuff in Lucien's past and bad experiences of former members. As far as I read some of the things were subjective but all of them were real. Nothing they posted was a lie. I was mad that the chapter was going down in flames from the page having these posts on it and I still was really in the mindset of wanting to be in TST. I really wanted to belong to a group of morally conscious satanists. I stuck with TST and I even provided them with the screenshot they have reposted of one of the defendants saying they stole the webpage from TST. I was upset about the page been taken over and I am still not saying that was the right move. I do understand what led to them doing it, and so far I haven't seen anyone else say how it happened. I was told by leadership that they were going to talk about what the mistakes they made that lead to this and I waited for that to happen for a few months. When I left the new members contacted me saying they felt like something was off and told me that they were told that the group of people that were removed( and now being sued by TST) were kicked out because they were violent ANTIFA members. I do not have any friendships with the people who are being sued. I still have several friends in TST, some of who I may lose due to this. My friends never really saw the behind-the-scenes of what happened just the Official story from TST and so I doubt they agree with me. I could probably elaborate a lot more on pieces of all of this but that is the cliff notes.

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: August 8th

Well, doing big posts all together worked for a while but lately I’ve been putting it off because it takes a long time to get them done. I think I’m gonna try switching back to answering asks whenever I can fit it in and posting them one at a time instead of waiting until I’ve filled out one of these major collections.

But for now, here’s more ask answers! Thank you for the questions and for all the kind words along with them ^^.

Hello!! I'm here to ask if its possible to get  the game and its dlcs on steam and play it on android?

I’m afraid not. Steam doesn’t have Android builds on their own site and Steam is not cool with keys for other sites being given out for Steam purchases, so you don’t get the Itch version from buying on Steam.

Hello! Sorry to bother you but, I had a question, if we buy the Game on itchio do we get steam keys or would we need to purchase it twice? 

You would have to buy it twice if you want it in both places, I’m sorry. To repeat myself a little, Steam doesn’t like the key trading thing. Itch may support giving keys for another site, but the reverse isn’t doable with Steam and Steam doesn’t even really want you to get a Steam key for buying somewhere else either. So we just don’t mess around with that.

hey, sorry if this is frequently asked, but is step 4 free dlc or paid for? some of your sources are contradicting each other. 

It’s free! There’s a paid wedding DLC, but Step 4 itself is entirely unpaid.

Hello! I just had a quick question, for the Baxter and Derek DLC's will we be able to confess our feelings to them or let them confess to MC? or will it only be one way? (they confess to MC)

Both type of options will be available!

Hey there! I wanted to ask whether or not the Derek DLC is still on track to be released in August since on the steam discussion board it says it will be released mid 2021. I totally understand if it isn't, I'm just really looking forward to it! If you answer then ty! And keep up the amazing work :D 

It’s not, aha. Unfortunately, 2021 wasn’t easier than 2020 as we hoped so things are still slower than planned. It’ll come out late 2021 or early 2022.

Hi! Firstly I just want to say that I LOVE Our Life. I have played a bit of similar games but this one instantly wins for the best one! Everything about it is amazing! I just wanted to ask if Derek would ever lose feelings for MC, like if they make the deal and then MC gets with Cove would he move on? and even if you don't, after "losing contact" would his feeling fade or would he still like MC? 

If you don’t really keep in touch with him and clearly move on with your life, Derek will too and he’ll be over it. But if you are still close as best as you can be, he’ll still think the MC is special. Though, he’ll always support your relationship with someone else if that’s what’ll make you happy.

Hello! Sorry if you've answered this before but: 'How's Lee related to us? Though which momma? And does she share our player-chosen last names? Also, do you know if Noelani took Pam's last name or did it happen the other way round? 

She’s related to Pamela and Pamela’s last name is the one they use, so the MC has the same last name as Lee.

Will we be able to choose which (they or he) we tend to call Qiu by more often, or will it randomly change depending on the moment? 

Qiu knows which pronoun they’re comfortable with at a time and you’ll call them what they’re happy with. And it doesn’t change between lines, it takes multiple scenes or even full Steps for it to switch. So for extended periods Qiu will be totally a guy or fully agender.

Will Step 4 of OL2 have moments?

It’ll be an epilogue like it is in OL1, so it won’t have a bunch of different Moments.

Hello! Just a quick question, is Sunset bird from OL1 based on a real location? If so what's it called? I wanna visit it +_+

ps i love your games so much <3

It isn’t based on one specific town you can go to, but there are a lot of little coastal towns in Cali that have a similar vibe!

Heyaaa ( I hope you're all well ), umm… it might seem kinda stupid to ask but did Patreon members can have a key for the dlc's ( all the steps-released dlc ) even if they became a member this month or later ? (me? saying this cuz it's my case? maybe ;-;), and once again thanks for absolutely all the amazing works on all the games ! u-u 

You wouldn’t get the DLCs for backing there. The Patreon is for extra bonus content/early access, rather than being a storefront to purchase the normal DLCs. Rarely we give them out as a side gift, but it hardly happens and if what you want is the DLCs it’s best to ignore the Patreon and  buy keys for those directly from Itch or Steam. I’m sorry for the confusion.

Hey y'all, love what youre doing w/Terry. Trans rep outside of player customization is so rare and important to see more of so thank you so much. I do have a question and its that does he have a canon sexuality? I know Miranda was said to be straight ace but I dont believe anything was stated for Terry probably because he wasnt revealed to be a guy which changes things. Im also curious if well get answers on how long hes liked Miranda since he may have liked her in step 3 before she liked him 

Terry likes women and Randy likes men! And he did like Miranda back in Step 3.

Will the Wedding Dlc release at the same time as Step 4? 

They’ll come out separately with Step 4 releasing first.

I really love Our Life so much! I've spent over 20hours playing it even though I only got it a week ago! I was wondering if I could make a fangame for Our Life with a different love interest but same plot. Next-door neighbors romance, multiple steps, etc? I'll probably make it on Google Slides though- 

Sure! I hope you have fun with it and I’m glad you love the game.

How does Cove feel about poly relationships? 

He’s got nothing against them for the people they work for, but he’s 100% monogamous and would only be comfortable with a partner who was willing to be monogamous with him.

Idk if this has been answered before but will Step 4 include the option to advance your feelings towards Cove? 

Yep, you’ll be able to determine your feelings and what your relationship is.

In step 4 will there be a chosen to say we live with Cove even as just friends? 

Yeah, you can choose to live with Cove and that can be done when you’re friends.

I just played the game with the MC and Cove being best friends and omg it’s still so damn cute like the wholesomeness of it all is too much for my heart I swear ^.^  Now with that all said I was wondering can we still marry Cove? if we only love him as a friend like let’s say we’ve made deal with him similar to the one we can make with Derek because let’s real no one could compete with what the MC and Cove have even if they aren’t in love. 

It’s great to hear you enjoyed the friendship story! You can live with Cove, but you can’t marry him platonically. Cove has familial affection for the MC if they’re best-est friends. He wouldn’t think to marry someone he loves like family and even grew up with as though they truly were siblings.

Are you still going to be making a DLC for XOBD? :] 

Yes! We’re slowing adding voiced lines and fixing errors.

It makes me laugh that Shiloh's last name is Fields because that's what I put as my last name! So in Our Life when he talked about "Ms. Fields" picking him up I was extremely confused, lol. That dude mimics personalities so much that he stole my surname!

Oh, wow, that’s a very funny coincidence, haha.

hi !! i cant seem to be able to get the scene where mc is able to propose to cove despite being at the 'love' stage and telling him i'd want to get married, are there any other details that im missing out on? the options just dont appear at the end... 

Maybe you missed telling Cove you were in love with him even if you mentioned wanting to get married or you might’ve accidentally said earlier in the game that you don’t want to progress your relationship further with Cove. We haven’t removed them, so you can get the scene again. It’s just kind of easy to miss since there’s multiple requirements. You can read a little guide in the FAQ.

wait what di you need to do to be able to propose to cove? I've been trying but haven't had much luck 

You can check out the FAQ linked above!

does cove only develop a crush on the mc if the mc is also at crush/in love with him? 

Technically, yes. We treat the non-romantic relationship options as truly non-romantic since we don’t want to bait and switch people. But there’s nothing wrong with headcanoning that Cove does have feelings developing for the MC even before the MC has.

Is there a way to make/allow Lee and Baxter to date?

No, they just don’t have enough time together.

We also got a group of asks related to Tamarack in OL2, but I’m afraid the way they talked about people with larger bodies made me not want to post their words, even if the person didn’t say they’re trying to be hurtful. I will separate out the core question and answer it though, so people can know that info.

Does Tamarack lose weight in later Steps?

No, she doesn’t. As for the other questions included, to be honest, I don’t have to explain/defend having romance options of different sizes. I’m sorry if you’re dealing with unhappiness that’s connected to body image, if that’s where the negative emotions are coming from, but even so I can’t meet you on that level and pretend it’s a problem that needs an answer. A girl who simply isn’t thin being a main love interest is just not an unreasonable concept. Also, Tamarack isn’t a lesbian. Yes, she can date a female MC, but that doesn’t undo her actual sexuality, so I’m not sure where that one part at the end was coming from.

I wonder... can we "fight" with Qiu over leader status? 👀

Not really, haha. No matter how cool your MC is, they’re never gonna replace Qiu for the other kids around. So you can either partner up with him, follow him too, or not be a part of all that group politics stuff.

So when I play the game, sometimes I mentally call Cove “Covie/Covey” and that made me wonder, how does Cove feel about being nicknamed? Not like Romeo/Space Cadet/etc. but like pet names relating to his actual name

It’d depend on his age, personality, and your relationship with him! When he’s younger he’d probably be embarrassed, when he was grown he’d probably be more casual or happy about it.

will you be able to date baxter in step 3 while at crush with cove (but not dating him ofc) sorry if this has been asked already. i really love baxters step 4 design btw!! 

Yeah, you can be crushing on Cove and date Baxter if you weren’t already dating Cove. You just can’t be truly in love with Cove and then switch to Baxter.

I just got my friend into our life, and they adore shiloh and derek sooo will there be more of them in the second game? 

I’m afraid not. But you can see plenty more of Shiloh in XOXO Droplets/XOXO Blood Droplets, haha.

I see you haven't gotten any xoxo droplets asks recently but I'm still obsessed with these boys!! I was just wondering if Nate would curse under any circumstance? 

Yeah, Nate does use certain swear words (damn, hell, bastard) on very rare occasions.

Hi there! I have a question about the wedding dlc. Will we be able to plan a honeymoon during the planning stages of it or would it be something that Cove and the mc would rather plan later on? Thank you! Absolutly love the game by the way, definitely one of my favorite games! 

The focus will be on the wedding day itself. The topic of the honeymoon might come up a bit, but there won’t be any choosing of the exact location and such.

Hi! I have two questions and it's completely understandable if you only answer one/neither and I'm sorry if you've already answered either before! First, is there a set year in which OL:B&A takes place (ex: Step 1 being set in 2010 & Step 2 being set in 2016, etc.) or is it simply up to interpretation? Second, have you guys thought about doing a coming-of-age game where the MC has a tough home life or upbringing? (like one of their parents is an addict, a parent being transphobic whilst the player has the option to be trans, or having friends that are influencing them to do drugs, etc.) That's all! Thanks for making beautiful games. <3 

There is a set timeline!

Step 1: 2006 Step 2: 2011 Step 3: 2016 Step 4: 2021 

And we don’t currently plan on making a game like that. The Our Life series exists to be a safer environment for people to play around in and if we did do a brand new series that was harsher edged it’d be something more fantastical and/or plot-driven instead of a different type of modern day slice-of-life growing up story. I’m sorry.

i don’t know if you’ve already answered this, but do you have a guess on when phase 4 will come out? as well as ol2? i’m so excited for both of them, the inclusivity in this game is amazing, you guys should be really proud of it! 

Step 4 will be coming out very soon! OL2 is gonna take until 2023 to be anywhere near completion. But we might episodically release the Steps one at a time as they get done instead of waiting for three to be finished before launch like we did with the first game.

Hello, I was curious if there was an official or unofficial discord server for the game? 

We do have a discord! You can join by clicking this link HERE.

how long do you plan to keep ol's patreon running? 

Hopefully for at least a few more years.

Are you considering ever making merch? 

Yeah, but I don’t know when it’ll happen or what exactly we’ll make, aha. It’s something we want do, just nothing is set.

hi! i just found out about your game a couple of days ago on tiktok (so sorry if you’ve already answered this question) and i was wondering if y’all are ever planning to release it on iOS? 

I have no idea. It’s hard for a small group to get Apple approval and I honestly can’t say if it’ll ever happen or not. Maybe someday, though!

Hi, I love the art style of Our life and I would like to know if the artist has a Twitter? Also, could it be possible to fund more CGs for the game from him/her? So many times, I wish there was one like when the cutscene of the sunshower. 

That’s nice of you to offer. He doesn’t have a Twitter, at least not one that’s public enough to be shared with me. And I’m afraid not. The issue is that the CGs take huge amounts of time rather than there not being a budget for it. He’s gotta make CGs for Step 4, the DLCs, and new character sprites, too. There isn’t space in the schedule for even more. Sorry for that.

Hi, how are you?!

Are you planning on accepting new writers or is it always the same people who write your stories??

Thanks!!

Our Life: Beginnings & Always won’t be getting new writers, but we will be hiring a new team of writers for Our Life: Now & Forever eventually!

perhaps this counts as nsfw and I'm sure it has been answered before but what does Cove prefer, chests/boobs or butts? or perhaps both :3c thank you for this wonderful game (and the patreon bonus moment, it was worth all the waiting and more ♥) 

He’s a “chests of all shapes and sizes” kind of guy, haha.

i was wondering- did any of the writers actually grow up by the beach? as someone who's lived in a beach town all their life it really did feel nostalgic to play through our life 1 

I was born and raised in Cali! Though, not right by the beach. We still had to make trips out, but the setting is based on my own childhood memories of small beach towns we went through.

In Derek’s upcoming DLC, will we be able to reference the pact we made as teens? (love olba and xod/xobd so much btw you’re literally amazing) 

Yep, you will be able to talk about that!

Oh, sorry about the Cole being secretly L ask, then!

If you wanted context: Death Note is about this one guy who finds a notebook that kills anyone who you write the name of in there. The guy eventually develops a God Complex and starts mass killing criminals and stuff. L is the one trying to find out who is killing all these people.

Me and my sister first joked about it because I couldn't remember how to translate a word about the way Cove was sitting, so I just did the pose, and it looked a lot like how L himself sits! Then we just snowballed from there, with more and more nonsense connections.

That’s okay! Thanks for explaining. I’m sorry I didn’t know what you meant.

[voidcat]

— fangs dipped in wine

characters: chuuya nakahara, you

info: vampire au, lowkey suggestive, 2.3k

a/n: let's all pretend for a hot second bram stoker was an actual author in bsd and that instead of abilities, there are vampires<3 I'll probably do a p2 to this in a timeskip way so itll b more fun yay,,

Several days ago, it was just an idea. A laughing matter. A ‘what-if’ to build scenarios on and giggle.

Several days ago, it was night time too, the taste of alcohol fresh, her laugh right beneath your ear, it was warm, and bubbly and there was a sense of direction, a certainty.

Several days ago your friend hadn’t suddenly announced dropping out and moving out of the shared apartment you two had yet. Maybe she had been considering for a while now but in that very moment, it hadn’t happened yet, your world wasn’t upside down.

“Just imagine!-“ her breath fawned over your ear, glasses clinking against one another. “So I’m talking to this guy, right? Like music stuff, and movies, and all. No feelings whatsoever,” you found it hard not to roll your eyes and was met with a shove. “Not like that!” she protested. “He tells me about his boyfriend, I even helped him plan a surprise party once.”

“You cannot know if he’s faking…” you remember saying, in that knowing tone, smooth like silk and lecturing. “Yea whatever. Anyways! Get this:” placing the glass down in concentration that was foreign to her, you were intrigued.

“They don’t have vampires.”

“No way.” Slowing taking another sip from your drink, it sounded like a fantasy almost. Sure, there were rumors of not every country having vampires but it was numbered, there were so little, and the vampires? They were ever present.

“So he says: ‘Hey, aren’t they all rich peeps always wanting fresh blood? What if you have lots of blood already, and make a deal? You can trick them to pay you loads for it and you’d not even have to have them near your neck!’-“ she paused to let out a bark, you’re sure she’s been doing it since she first saw the message.

“And-“ another pause, to shed a tear, “and he says, ‘and if the vampire is hot? Bonus points! They got those fancy houses, you’d no longer pay rent either.’” The mocking of the voice comes to an end. “Can you believe? A deal, with a Vampire of all people! And he says rent fixed!”

You had to admit, for someone who claims to not met any vampires, it sounded charming on paper, but in Yokahoma?, not so much. At a moment of weakness, you looked at one another, daring, and next, breaking into a fit of laughter and downing the glass in one gulp.

How many days has it been since that night? Five? Maybe seven? It was long enough to miss her presence now, but too short to be threatened by the landlord.

One night you’re at your favorite pub with your dearest friend downing drink after drink. You can remember the stars in the sky that night, you thought it was just your brain imagining it, as well as the crescent moon hanging so delicately.

And next thing you know, you’ve just left this bar, despite the temperature it was cold on your bones, and here stands the redhead, his breath fawning over your neck, mouth open, but not to tell a story for the laughs.

He didn’t bother to hide the fangs and you didn’t bother to leave the place.

An idea you called stupid few nights ago just happened to make sense in that sad sulking state. And then he had to appear, with a glass of expensive wine, locks covering his face just fine, a vest that fits his body perfectly and fangs shining under the dim lights of the bar.

“Oh-kay, that’s enough.” You push his face off with your palm in one go. The ‘thump’ of his hat falling on the floor and the yelp coming from his lips fill the air.

“You’re no fun.” he pouts as he picks up his hat.

“So, how we’re doing this? And no, you cannot drink straight from my neck!” you finish before he can raise a finger.

A moment of silence follows the two of you, it’s a nice place. Expensive looking furniture though it’s more like a house from a catalogue than a home. Still, impressive –he, ‘what was his name again?’, definitely has a taste. The empty crystal glasses sit on the table, next to the bottle, a candle close to burning out completely flickers its flame lazily as your eyes wander.

Your gaze moves onto his sapphire eyes then, watching your every move and breath carefully, but not patiently. You can hear him vibrate with every molecule in his body, trying so hard not to lunge forward or speak up, maybe grab your arm and pull you back towards his chest.

“So? Hello?..” you drag the the ‘o’ and wave a hand in front of his face, “Anyone home?”

Like someone hypnotized stepping out of a trance at a snap of fingers, he jolts, pupils narrow, then widen and focus on your face. “Ah, sorry-“ he starts walking away.

Then he fakes a cough, as if you didn’t catch him staring already… Just how the hell did you find this guy in a city filled with vampires?

He stops, turns back, reaches for your hand and you let him. “Did you drink the wine?” he walks a step ahead, still hand in hand.

“If you ask me one more time, I’ll start suspecting you added some sort of drug.” This seems to get to him, obvious from the way he almost trips on his foot and turns back in a hurry, both hands up in defense and shaking his head like crazy.

“Wh- No- No, no no! It’s nothing like that- I-“ if he didn’t look so embarrassed, you’d even say he looks flustered. His rambling stops when you snort and decide to take pity on the guy.

“Relax I was just joking.” His shoulder drop in relief. “Besides, if you put anything, it’d have kicked in by now.”

“Ah, yeah, right…” he looks down, to his right, and that’s when you see the velvet couch there. He extends his hand, in an offering manner and follows you right after.

Reaching for a pocket in his vest, he whispers to himself, you barely hear. “I just like the taste of wine in blood...”

“Weird, not what I expected, but could be worse. I’ll take it.”

Another silence follows, he avoids your gaze while your eyes never leave his eyes fumbling with his vest and cape. Maybe it’s like one of those cape like jackets, certainly matches the vibe he carries.

Under the shivering candle light, he looks so different from the bold smug suave guy who brimmed with confidence, flashed his teeth like nothing, as if the world belongs to him and anything that does not care for him simply does not exist.

And now with the same face, sits besides you someone else, eyes cast down, hands fumbling, there’s comfort in knowing this is as awkward for you as for him.

(You wonder for a second if there’s something you can do to clear the atmosphere.)

“Maybe you should be having another glass instead of asking me.” You try to say nonchalantly and it takes him a second to get what you mean. Then he smiles, and the hint of a small giggle comes out and his body seems to calm down.

“Give me your hand.” He holds out his, the palm facing the ceiling. “Well? This is the easiest way to do it without leaving permanent marks.” He sounds irritated.

“Or noticeable.” You say and he repeats, a little impatient.

Giving him your less dominant hand, you eye the dagger for as long as you can. When the cold blade meets your palm, you can barely feel its weight.

“Okay, I’ll be honest here.” He stops midway, the dagger in the air. You raise an eyebrow, signaling him to continue. “I’ve never done… this before.”

“So- uh- whatever’s the standart payment, or the whole, you know,” he waves the hand holding the dagger in the air “etiquette for this.” He sounds to be relaxing with each word. And with him, so do you. Then comes back that familiar confidence from the earlier, decorated with a hint of threat and a dare. “Just- Don’t ever try to scam or fool me.”

And goes away the determined face, replaced with surprise, as you start laughing loud, one hand over your stomach.

“Look, listen-“ you stop as you’ve begun. “Chuuya.” He fills the gap for you.

“Listen, Chuuya.” You test his name on your lips. “I’m a broke college student who can get kicked out of their flat any day now. Crossing a vampire is the last thing on my list, trust me.”

Eyes soften, a genuine smile blooms and the silence to follow isn’t heavy anymore.

When he slashes the dagger over your hand, it doesn’t sting. The blood soon reaches the surface, red thick liquid glistening in the candle’s flame, ‘life’ it says.

This is what they want, why they want it, drink it, kill for it.

Hidden in the blood, is life, with all it has seen and will see, warm, moving, trusting.

You watch in a daze as he brings your hand to his mouth. Cold lips make content with your skin, how cold and lifeless they feel against you, you see in clear contrast. The sinking of teeth doesn’t come, you don’t flinch. You can tell he’s making an effort not to bite too hard into your giving hand. Drinking the blood slowly, trying to contain himself from getting greedy, there’s no sound in the air except for your loud heartbeat, echoing in your ear and fastening with each move of his back.

The glimpse of a smile you catch in this scene before you tells, he can hear it too, and probably relish in it.

With each flicker of the flame, his lips start to feel warmer and soon he straightens up. Not a single speck of blood on his frame, he offers you the same smug smile from earlier.

Blood makes place for itself on his face, like roses blooming under the sun. His skin gains color, you didn’t notice just how dull and gray he was up until now. Life spreads so fast in his limbs, soon you can feel his warmth near you, in the air, in your hand, on the spot your knees touch. Once the base color is done, pink decorates his cheeks faintly, most likely an after effect of all that wine.

Maybe if he intervened his fingers with yours, it’d feel warmer, and in a weird way, safer.

Watching your eyes on him with amusement in his crystal ones, he seems to enjoy this, that is until his eyes focus on a spot of yours and cannot stop examining every other spot, every single pore, mark, hair and color you have, memories you carry.

The flicker of the light blends in, the warmth pulls the two of you in, time feels gone, like it never existed, maybe nothing every existed except for the two of you sitting before each other.

A sudden crash, from the outside and the magic is gone with a snap.

Noticing your hands, you pull it back to your chest fast.

His goes back to his head and he looks away, anther shy smile on his face.

“What- How should we proceed next?” he breaks the silence first, attempting to gather back a sense of seriousness to his voice. In a way, he should too, this is technically business, isn’t it?

Glancing at your palm, you open and close it few times. Not a speck of pain is there.

“Once every week maybe? If that’s alright. Although we may cancel few weeks, you never know what comes up last minute.”

The dagger nowhere in sight, probably returned to a pocket of his already, he looks pleased with your reply. “Sounds good to me.”

Without further ado, you get up to look for the door you first walked in.

“Wait!-“ he follows in a hurry, almost slipping, again, and trying to find something in his jacket.

Go you! For forgetting why you agreed to a vampire’s house in the first place. “Is- uh- is this alright? Or is it so little? We never discussed payment, y’know.” He holds out a lot more than you expected, but then again, vampires live for thousands of years. He must have quite the amount lying around somewhere after all.

Unsure what to do with the money he slips into your hand, you meet his eyes. “That’s… more than enough actually. Thanks.”

He rests one hand on hip, taking in your surprised face. “Don’t mention it. I’ve got plenty.” Touching your elbow lightly, he guides you to the door, dragging his feet. By the time you reach the door, he makes no move to open it, not that it was ever locked in the first place.

Turning of the knob, you take a step ahead, motions limited on both sides; dragging, waiting for something to happen, something to be said, for the air to be broken.

By the time you’re one foot outside, he clears his throat with a fake cough, covering his mouth. “Same time, same place, next week?” his gaze cast on the floor, stealing glances to see what you will do next.

You turn to him with a smile. “Works for me.” And tilt your head “but what if one of us cannot find the other?”

“Oh I’ll find you alright.” He chuckles with a grin. Truly a sight to sell the whole vampire image he got going, even if he hadn’t been one.

Feet standing next to each other, you’re out now, furrowing your eyebrows with a look of disapproval to match his grin, unimpressed.

“You sound like a creep. Don’t do it again.”

And with it, you turn your back to him, already on your way. The ginger left behind, an unfinished “okay” hanging on his lips, eyes focused on your form, swallowed by the shadows, waiting for the next night to be spent with you, already impatient.

[kylos]

Finding high quality film/tv rips, saving the large files, and screencapping them are half the battle for gifmakers when setting out to make a gifset. Here’s a little guide on this process, including my advice on

Where to download stuff

Where to store your movies/shows

Screencapping programs

Making gifs as HQ as possible, including tips for picking out what to download when you have multiple options (not all 1080p rips of the same movie or tv episode are the same quality and I explain why)

Why screencaps of 4k movies can look weird and washed out and how to fix that

and more

✨ You can find my gifmaking 101 tutorial here and the rest of my tutorials here.

Where can I download movies and shows?

First off, I prefer direct downloading rather than torrenting stuff because it’s faster and with torrenting, there’s more of a risk. Other people downloading the same torrent can see your IP address. This means movie studios can find out you’re downloading their content and can send you a warning letter. The download speed also varies depending on how many other people are seeding it. I would only do it if it’s your only option and you have a VPN or something.

This is THE best guide for pirating I’ve ever seen. I use it for finding sites for books, music, you name it. The part of the guide you’d want to look at is where it says Direct Downloads Link (DDL) sites. My favorite place is Snahp. These ddl sites will have links to their movie/tv rips that are typically hosted on one of these two sites: google drive or mega.nz. You can download stuff from both of those sites for free, but with mega, they have a 5GB file download limit unless you have a premium account. I personally pay the $5 a month membership for mega because it’s worth it imo. You can buy a subscription through the mega app found on the iphone app store (so you’re billed through apple and it’s less scary than giving a random site your credit card info lmao) and as for androids I think mega has an app on there too.

So basically, if you go to http://snahp.it, they’ll have rips for different movies and shows.

You click on the movie title and it’ll take you to a page where they have links for the video which they have uploaded on a variety of sites (including mega).

How do I make my gifs as HQ as possible?

It’s best to gif things that are 1080p. And usually the higher the file size, the better. A really important thing to note is that not all 1080p bluray rips are the same. The piracy groups that rip these files take uncompressed .mkv rips from discs that are anywhere from 10gb to like 50gb, and then run that through video converters to compress the file down so that they’re 2-8gb. Sometimes when that happens, the video quality goes down a LOT. The same goes for TV episodes. One rip could be 800mb, the other could be 3gb and both could claim to be “1080p” but the quality would be NOTICEABLY different. Your best bet is to always pick the rip with the highest file size.

I’ll show you an example with this scene from You’ve Got Mail.

I downloaded 2 different 1080p rip versions of the film. Both claim to be 1080p, but one is 2.41 GB and the other is 9.75 GB. After taking screencaps, it’s obvious that there’s a BIG difference in quality.

(these pictures are best viewed on desktop tumblr)

When it comes to Blu-ray rips, download remux versions of films and shows if possible. Remux means .mkv files that are uncompressed and straight from a Blu-Ray disc. Giffing remux rips cuts down on the possibility of seeing pixel-y effects a LOT in my experience. It’ll take a bit longer to download than typical 1080p rips but it’s worth it imo.

For TV episodes, if you can’t find a Blu-Ray rip, uploads with the word AMZN in it are usually the highest quality and your best bet (unless you see another upload that’s higher in file size - again: always try to pick the highest file size). 'AMZN’ means they’re from a person that ripped the episode from Amazon Prime Video.

Also, even better than 1080p is 4k (2160p). I only really recommend this though if you know you’re going to gif something up close and crop it a lot - like if it’s a big 540x540px close-up gif of a person. You’ll REALLY see the difference if it’s a 1080p vs 4k rip in that situation. I usually don’t bother with giffing 4k files unless it’s the case above because my laptop lags when taking 4k screencaps and it takes longer to load them into photoshop (4k screencaps are usually about 60mb each!)

⭐️ Another thing that’s important is making sure that when you actually make your gifs, you set them to the correct speed (.05 for movies and most shows, and .04 sometimes for reality tv and live broadcasts). Here’s my gif speed guide. Having the right gif speed is really important for making a gifset HQ. You don’t want it to look too slow or too fast.

What’s your favorite video player to take screenshots with?

MPV player, hands down. And I’ve tried a TON of programs over the years. I’ve tried KMPlayer and found that it added duplicate frames (and even missing frames) which is horrible, and I’ve tried GomPlayer which is.....I’m just gonna say it, I’m not the biggest fan of it. It’s a little overly complicated in my opinion and it has ads. If you like these programs, more power to you! Use whatever you’re comfortable using. I just like MPV the most because it doesn’t have ads, it’s simple, you can take sequential screencaps with a keyboard shortcut, and it can play 4k movies.

Screencaps I take of 4k 2160p movies look so dull and washed out, like the colors aren’t right. Why is that?

That’s because your computer can’t handle HDR 4k video files. It probably can handle SDR 4k video files, but unfortunately, 99% of 4k rips out there are HDR.

[picture source]

Now, HDR displays just fine on computers that have 4k-HDR capabilities, but most older computers don’t have this ability. Having said that, MPV - the video player I mentioned above can take a 4K-HDR video and fix the colors/lighting in real time so it displays correctly AND take screenshots of it with the fixed colors. If you have an older version of MPV, make sure you download the newest update for this. In my general gifmaking tutorial, there’s a portion on how to install this program on macs. I also just made a video tutorial on how to install it on pcs here!

High quality TV and Movie rips can take up a LOT of space on my computer. Where do you store your files?

I store them on external hard drives. External hard drives are like flash drives but they have a MUCH higher storage capacity. You just plug them into your computer via a usb cord when you need access to the files and it’s that easy. I have two of these Seagate 4TB hard drives in different colors so I can easily pick out whichever one I need. I have silver for my movies (because it makes me think of “silver screen” lmao and it’s easier for me to remember) and then I just have a blue for shows. Now, external hard drives of this size can be $$$$ but it’s worth it imo. Look out for when they’re on sale.

What’s the size limit for gifs now?

It’s 10mb! It used to be 3mb and then last year Tumblr upped it to 5mb. Some gifs initially had distortion because of Tumblr’s switch from the .gif to .gifv format, but they’ve fixed the problem AND increased the upload limit to 10mb.  Just make sure not to add any lossy to a gif.

Lossy is basically a grain you can add to a gif to lower the file size down. Gifmakers (including myself) used to use this as a trick to get the file size down under 3mb. However, since the .gifv update on Tumblr, any gifs with Lossy added will look distorted like it’s a gif made on a phone app or something.

_________________________________

That’s it for this guide! Again, feel free to check out my other tutorials on photoshop, how to center subtitles, download hq movie trailers, and more ���️

UPDATE 6/23/20 ⚠️

I’ve gotten an ask about this problem 3 times since I’ve uploaded this tutorial, so I thought I’d add this in. If you are experiencing duplicate and/or missing frames in mpv, it is a glitch with the latest version of mpv. download an older version like 0.29.0. this happened to me on my mac and downloading an older version fixed the problem.

[famouskittychild]

Cheeky Mandos - ...and we're off

(Sorry I had a terrible writer’s block in the past 6-ish weeks - I went from reading fanfiction and being inspired by other’s visions to “I’ll never be able to write anything like these and I’m useless” in a single day :( I’m getting back into the groove finally, so I’m hoping to post more soon.)

There will be 18+ content (in the coming chapters soon) so if you are a minor, please don't read further.

Also the characters will be quite open and relaxed about things like gender, attraction, sexual activities, relationships etc, so if you prefer your Din (and their partner) possessive and/or monogamous , this won’t be a good read for you!

***

This pairing is  Din Djarin x gn reader / tall reader.  I’m short (and cis and woman). There’s so many short (and female) reader stuff out there, I wanted to write for people on the other end of the “why is your height not normal” / "definitely female" spectrum. If I make mistakes or you have advice, or ideas you'd like to see, please tell me!

Word count: 4267

Summary: You’re an armourer and some shiny guy just showed up.

First full piece/chapter/course! In which people seem to catch things. Thoughts? Viruses? Dropped facts? Who knows!?? Also contains a dilettante’s attempt at space electronics and some barely-canon-reminiscent Mando world-building. Still no spiciness sorry, marinating is a long process :P

Rating: T for some mentions of heavier topics.

CW: Mentions of mandalorian history, playing somewhat loose with canon lore (as in, my SW knowledge is patchy. sorry.)

Author’s note: I tried to find more info but it seems like the mandalorian alphabet doesn’t have names for the individual letters so I used aurebesh (also I liked the little Dorn(e) meta in there). And sorry for the bad puns. They’ll keep coming.

Prologue

One - ...and we're off

***

You aren’t worried about taking a stranger on board, you’ve done that plenty of times before. You hope he’s willing to put in the effort himself, too, just as he promised at the assembly.

The stranger leaves behind his ship, saying a friend will come to pick it up together with whoever might want to join the cause. You spot him from the cockpit as he walks over with a repulsor pallet in tow. He stops for a moment when your droids surge past him, busy at their pre-flight tasks, before moving on towards the ramp.

All his baggage is a satchel at his hip and a small bag on his shoulder, and two large crates of weaponry. You put him up in the spare cabin, the one that had been Sal’ee’s, your former apprentice, before she went on to be a journeyman. He stands in the middle of the room, staring at the two cots on opposite sides of the room, the lockers, the fresher in the corner.

“All mine? Where will you sleep?”

You don’t understand the surprise in his voice.

“Over there” you show him, pointing at the cabin opposite from his. It’s much more lived in, some of the blankets and trinkets and pillows visible through it’s open door. “There’s a third cabin that I mostly use for storage but has more fold-up bunks in case I need to transport more people. That’s rare though.”

“Ohh.” He nods, then turns to look around his room again. “Okay. I thought all of these rooms were cargo space.”

You smile, and quickly think through your to-do list. You’ll have to rearrange your schedule somewhat but it’s not that big of a bother.

“Come on, I’ll show you around the ship.” Before he gets lost in its cavernous interiors, you might add - but you don’t. If his reaction to a separate cabin and his current ship - an old ARC170 - is any indication, he must be used to very cramped quarters.

***

Your trusty Brick, a beat-up YV 929, is armed to the teeth and ugly, just as you like it. The ship is a scavenged one, gutted from most of its original factory issue armaments, engines, and even wiring. It was perfect for your former master when she found it at a scrap heap: she wanted to rebuild it herself, deliberately piecemeal; panels sourced form here, engines from there, concealments added. She modified the inner workings of the engines so that the power lines could be redirected to a concealed forge.

That forge is your pride and the main reason you haven’t settled at a permanent place yourself. When your master retired from travelling, the ship passed to you, and you continued her mission of offering your knowledge and expertise to those of your people who otherwise had no access to an armourer.

…

The next standard month is spent with adjusting, both for yourself after getting used travelling alone again since Sal’ee left, and for the stranger who found himself a passenger on someone else’s ship. Apparently he used to live a very similar life to yours, with the exception that he was a hunter not a craftsman.

You travel together, share meals, research the places you are directed to. He joins in the effort that is maintaining the ship. Still - he is very taciturn at the beginning, keeping his words to the bare minimum. The first few days it feels as if you are still on your own aside of your droids. By the middle of the month, he progresses from short answers, through sharing information, to willingly starting to tell stories; but you know that chatting will never be his defining feature.

His armour seems to fill the spaces of the Brick’s corridors. You feel as if it’s not him who has the presence, but that set of glinting, perfectly made handwork of an armourer you already admire. Some of the pieces were sourced elsewhere, you can tell by the different shapes and designs; they seem haphazard and mismatched compared to the rest. Most of the set is the work of a single person. On those, there’s not a single uneven line, a broken curve, an edge at the wrong place. The angle of the panes of the metal, the ridges, the simplicity and elegance of them all - you have to hold yourself back from touching them, to admire them. You would give a lot to hold those pieces in your hand, to study them, to analyse them with your eyes and hands and with your tools.

You’re a master, yes. But so much knowledge was lost. So many masters gone, with their knowledge and their workshops. Apprentices became heads of Forges in the absence of the more skilled. The survivors still to this day have to piece together half-remembered lessons and forgotten details, experiment with techniques that were known before but the methods got lost as decades of civil war and occupation and murder kept eroding your heritage.

Sometimes a set of armour comes along that is just made in a way you never had an opportunity to learn. Often the person who forged them is long gone. Not the stranger’s armourer though. As far you can tell, she’s alive. Or at least was, when he last saw her. Not too long ago; though your usual method for guessing forging dates is mostly useless as it is based on the condition of the suit’s paintwork. Which he doesn’t have, so you can only guess from the small amount of scratches. You try to ask once, but whilst he’s forthcoming with general stories, he doesn’t go into details.

It’s a common theme with him. He talks about people and planets and events, and leaves out a lot - and you don’t even notice it first. Only when you try to glean information about his armour do you realize how well he fuzzes over those facts and nuances. It’s only up to the peculiarities of Basic and its use of gendered pronouns that you know his Armourer is a woman, or at least he considers them so. He doesn’t even tells you his own name, and when you ask your Elder in one of your communications, she tells you he didn’t gave it to them either. You keep introducing him as a friend, and that is the end of it for a while.

***

The visits to this first few coverts with him are… interesting. You can see him fidgeting from the corner of your eye. He always follows half a step behind and off to a side, as if not wanting to be in your way. He keeps quiet and doesn’t mix much, and around small children and droids, he is positively withdrawn. He only comes alive when he talks about his mission.

You had learned early on during your apprenticeship that keeping the helmet on is a safe bet when meeting with unfamiliar mandalorians. That led to later getting in contact with his type of believers too, despite their notorious secrecy even from the rest of the People. When you tell the stranger about that, he immediately showers you with questions, but you can’t give an answer to most of them. You never met with anyone from his particular covert, or heard of it. No name, no description seems familiar. It’s painful to watch his shoulders slump after daring to hope.

During the course of the month spent travelling, he gradually comes to be more social. He starts to stand and walk beside you. He doesn’t withdraw to the background anymore; he can actually be quite chatty if approached the right way. Droids still make him stop, though he warms up to kids in his own way. He’s good with them, at least in your opinion, though you know some would still call him aloof and distant. He isn’t a cuddler, nor does he crouch down to ask cutesy questions. He juts sits nearby them, and in that way of children having a good sense about adults, they know he’s trustworthy. They go up to him to chatter, to hand him a toy to hold, to ask him to fix a latch on their boots; than they go back to play.

He teaches you too, inadvertently at first during everyday conversations and later by his own volition, about his Way. About his Creed. It keeps throwing you off how much it differs from most that you had met before. Not even meeting briefly with people who followed the same Way as him could prepare you for the details that he does share. The degree of strictness, the loyalty, the barest bones Old Tradition beliefs and their willingness to follow them is very rare amongst the People as far as you can tell. Their devotion earns your respect.

At other times, your jaw hangs open and you can’t believe you are talking to an adult roughly around the same age as yourself, who by his own admission had spent three decades living as a follower of the Creed - not knowing about things children are thought through plays and songtime. His ignorance is so staggering, your admiration towards his unknown Armourer wavers. How could she keep so many things hidden from them? Why not talk about your own history? Your greats? Your artefacts?

About the many other who would call them vod’e, siblings?

You are an armourer, a craftsman, a person who makes a living by making things with your hand. You’re not a leader, or a scholar, or someone who decides what to tell your people. You do have a status within the community, but that is a status of service. From what the stranger says, their Armourer was a leader in every aspect: elder and lorekeeper and moral guide and more. All in one. It is something you can see developing from the old songs and histories amongst groups who take tradition more literally.

You are good at observing people, even at copying their habits to make them feel more comfortable with you, but less good at determining their underlying motives. The reason you think of him as “the stranger” even after travelling with him is because it’s so hard to figure out what drives him. There’s a melancholy to him that overrides the more typical mandalorian fight-readiness or aggression. You see how he gazes off to the distance sometimes, turning his head to the side and freezing. How he keeps to himself when he can. But you can’t tell why. Grief? Regrets? Determination to change? Planning something greater and being preoccupied with that?

He doesn’t pick fights to test you. He spars with you when you invite him to, he helps when you ask, and often even without it. He’s polite and considerate; he keeps conversation to practicalities and interesting stories, and doesn’t bother you with anecdotes or insistent questions about trivialities or your private life. He even does the dishes.

He’s deadly boring in his reliableness.

You are used to being on your toes around people all the time. When you meet a new group, it’s all unknown people. With ones you had already visited, the problem is having to remember them. They remember you of course, the ‘wandering armourer’; and surely you remember them too.

What is worse, when people stay the same but you don’t remember them, or when they change and you just can’t place them?

He becomes a good excuse after you’ve been to several coverts together. It’s interesting to notice how your dynamics change even further once you two get into a comfortable routine. You start to retreat to your forge and tools, and let him take all the attention. And he doesn’t just talk about his mission anymore, or lets little ones play around him whilst he’s quiet. He converses with people about news, about their children, about weaponry. You have more time to focus on your work.

Sometimes, people ask you what do you think of his mission. You tell them that you will follow what your clan decides, and that’s mostly true. It is something people don’t often debate, at least.

He quickly becomes a part of your everyday life. You are content with your usually solitary travels. You know that your family, your clan and your friends wait for you at home. They message you and you can find the time that suits you to message back. You don’t miss the constant hubbub of the covert most of the time. But now that you have someone that is not a droid, someone who is your equal in every aspect, on board again, it’s not even lonely anymore.

***

“So what’s up with you and droids?” you ask one day, after you got back from a covert and are safely in hyperspace to the next destination. You tinker with your astromech’s navigational systems. Poor 2-T keeps bumping into walls and crates. Again.

The stranger looks at you and your droid, than over at Mouse who for a change isn’t zooming around at foot level.

“Bad memories.”

“Gunk sat on you?” You tease. You hope it’s just something silly and not him having some sort of snobbish organics-are-better philosophy. He is quiet, and you focus on your work. He’ll talk if he wants to, that much you know already about him.

Inside the body of your astromech, a rivet from stars knows where is stuck between two circuit boards and blocks the access to a short-circuited piece of wire.

“Kriff. Toots, this will take a while, sweetie. Can’t access that kriffing panel.” He chirps back something and you read the translation on the small display. “No, it’s not that. My hand can’t fit in that small space. Let me find those pliers… should be in that other drawer somewhere.”

You search in the chest of tools, and despite your usually good organization, you can’t find them amongst the droids’ tools where their place is.

“Let me help.” The stranger’s voice beside you makes you jump. He can be awfully quiet. “Sorry. I think I might’ve put them back into the wrong drawer. I used them the other day when I fine-tuned that scope.”

He points at another drawer, where you keep your fine electronics stuff. No wonder he mixed them up. He stands beside Tootee a bit awkwardly until you find the tool.

“Here! No problem by the way. “ You turn back to him and to the droid, than have an idea. “Do you mind a bit more help? You can say no if you don’t want to work with the droid, I’ll understand.”

He doesn’t object yet, so you go back to 2-T and show the stranger the area you’re working on. You see him lean closer in your peripheral vision.

“That’s where I need to get that burned piece of wire out and install a new one, but first, I need to get that rivet out of the way.” You point at the root of the problem, than explain your plan, pointing out each part in turn. ”If you could hold those using this, than I could get here, remove this, with that tool, than have to get those bundles out of the way too, so than that wire there could come out. Easy.”

You look up at him, and his helmet is way closer than you expected. You can almost see your reflection in that black visor as it stares back at you for a second, and you almost apologize again, when the stranger starts to speak.

“Just have to hold the wires to the casing, or pull them like…” he moves his hand in the air, showing what he means.

“Hold them to that panel, there, with the pliers, so I have room to access the rest.”

He thinks for a moment, than he starts to tug one of his gloves off.

“You don’t need to take that off, just hold the pliers” you tell him, but he shakes his head.

“No, I can fit my hand in there, I’m pretty sure. If not we can try it with the tool.”

You realize that this is the first time you see his skin. Than it occurs to you that he might very well misunderstand this whole situation. You just asked him to hang his hand inches from yours in an enclosed space; inside a droid nonetheless, just after you basically told him you noticed he has a problem with them. It would be so easy to get caught up in there, to touch his hand, and hush it up as coincidence. Especially now that he took his glove off as well. He might even think that it was a careful plan of yours: have an area to work with were your slightly larger hands don’t fit but his might.

Your fingertips already tingle from knowing you can’t make mistakes. Which means you’ll probably do. He reaches between the panels and gets to the part where you got stuck. He wiggles his fingers a bit and scrapes around.

“Ha, found some wires. Are these the ones you need out of the way?”

You peer down into the quagmire of electronics, trying to find the best angle to see everything.

“Yes, those are the ones. Just hold them like that.” You try to focus on what you are doing, but after those earlier thoughts, your hands are jittery. You somehow manage to remove the obstructing rivet, than find the burned out part and replace it without accident, the stranger patiently holding things out of your way. You direct him here and there, occasionally stumbling as it’s a lot of instructions, or at least a lot of “could you please” and “thank you”. It gets particularly awkward when you stumble over the lack of name spectacularly.

“Could you pull those the other way, so they aren't that taut, please? Thank you, you. I mean thank you.”

“Din. Din Djarin.” Your head snaps up while the rest of your body freezes. “I should have told you my name sooner, but I’m so used to not telling it… and it just became more awkward to bring it up as time passed. I apologize.”

You close your mouth that of course was hanging open in surprise, than shake your head.

“I thought at first that I missed it when you said it so I was ashamed that I didn’t remember.” That did happen before, and it was one of your greatest worries about meeting new people. “I actually asked my elder. Sent her a comm. So when she told me you went nameless, I didn’t wanted to demand it.”

He doesn't answer right away. His voice is softer when he speaks a bit later.

“Thank you. For being considerate.”

You smile and try to wave it off. Which results in your hand slipping and pawing at his, still motionless and stuck in the inside of the astromech.

“Oh shucks, I’m sorry… didn’t meant to.” You withdraw your hand quickly, and start to look for your tools to cover your mistake.

He doesn’t seem bothered, luckily. You calm down, reminding yourself not to behave like you drank one too many glasses of your cousin Ree’s home-made tihaar, and finish the repair.

“You can let those go now, I’ll finish from here. Thanks for your help.”

“You’re welcome, any time.”

He sits back on a nearby crate and watches you work for a while, ignoring Mouse zooming around the room. You’re surprised a bit: you didn't expected him to stick around. And than he starts to ask about 2-T. How long you had him, is he temperamental, can you install a vocoder on astromechs, and why not. His tone is somewhat cautious, his voice stiff, like someone asking about a dangerous predator. You remember how you asked him about his distance with droids, but don’t want to push that question. He already told you his name today.

…

By the time you finish with the rest of the repairs, clean Tootee up and tidy around your workplace, interrupted by having to leave hyperspace and land at a spaceport, it’s the middle of the night in local time. You planned to have a nap and search out the local covert just before dawn.

You go to the galley to have a bite before turning in, and the stranger - Din, you remember, although his last name is less clear - is cleaning up some dishes. There’s another bowl in the middle of the small table, covered by a plate.

“That’s for you, if you’d like to have it. Used up the last of that spice mix we got” he tells you as you enter. You sit down and stretch your legs out one side. As you take the plate off from the steaming bowl, you think about how nice it is to find warm food on the table and not having to cook your own all the time.

“Thank you.” You pull the bowl close and take the spoon that he put beside it. You swirl the soup - it looks very good: clear broth with lots of veggies and other fillers in it - and gather your thoughts. “So ummm… I want to ask something before it gets awkward again.“

He finishes piling the bowls and cups and sits down on the seat opposite. You blurt the question out before you might change your mind.

“What was your name again? Din, that was clear, but the rest… sorry but it sounded something like “jarring”?”

He chuckles, and it’s a clear sound even with a vocoder, no snort or sigh to distort it.

“It’s Djarin. Dorn-jenth-aurek-resh-isk-nern. Djarin.” You nod, a bit embarrassed, and he continues. “Don’t worry, you aren't the first to ask. Probably not the last either.”

“Thanks for being patient. I’m not the best with names, to be honest.”

He tilts his head.

“Is that why you are always so focused when someone introduces themselves? I can ask them to repeat their names for me too if you want to, than both of us can try to remember them.”

You blink at him.

“That’d be…” Unnecessary, and don’t bother, and it’s not your job, you think - but stop yourself. That would actually help. No shame in accepting it. ”That would be nice. Thanks.” You are good at a few things, like making things with your own two hands. Not gaping when something surprises you, or remembering faces or names, any names, not just people? Nah.

You tuck into your soup, and the two of you sit in companionable silence. You wander if Djarin sits there because he wants to, or if he’s waiting for more questions from you. You asked a lot from him during the last few hours, and he was really kind with all his help and telling you his name and not being bothered when you misremembered it.

You are halfway done with your meal when he stirs. He leans forward with his lower arms on the table, and takes a deep breath. You wonder what his question will be - you commit to answer whatever it might be. He deserves that after today.

“So you asked earlier about me and… droids, right?”

Your hand with the spoon stops in the air. You weren’t expecting this question, at all.

“Yes…” You want to say he didn’t have to answer. But you already told him that. You’re sure he remembers that too - since he brought the topic up again. “Yes, I did.”

He shuffles on his seat a bit, and looks out to the side like he sometimes does. You lower your spoon and eat, letting him gather his thoughts.

“When I was a kid… I don’t know how old you were then, but during the war. The Clone wars.” You nod, understanding what he’s getting at, and he continues. “We were… the place I lived came under attack. Some separatist battle droids. Mandalorians saved me.”

You swallow your soup. That was the shortest possible description of someone having their entire life and probably everyone they knew ripped away from them and finding a new way of life for the decades to come.

“I’m sorry” you say, because really, what else is there to say. He nods, and gazes off again. Than he shrugs his shoulders, as if he wants to shake the weight of the past from them.

He gets up, and walks around the table on his way out. He stops beside you for a moment and hesitates, and you almost turn towards him to ask what he needs when you feel him squeeze your shoulder. Than he straightens and steps away.

It’s warm where he squeezed it, and you remember how long ago it was that someone touched you.

You need to talk to your friends asap, and hug at least some of them. He turns back from the door.

“Get some sleep before dawn, all right? Have to be sharp to remember all those new names.” You don’t see him wink but you’d bet he does behind his visor. You scrunch your nose at him and pout before smiling, and he dips out of the galley.

Your hand is still hovering in the air, holding the spoon, while you listen to his footsteps getting more distant as he walks down the corridor to his cabin.

It’s just your luck that you don’t need your wits the next place. It’s only two people with the same, simple name and you met both of them before.

[skiller0dani]

Cherry Pie (3) | Billy Mitman

M A S T E R L I S T

smut | slow burn requests info wanna be on a Timmy taglist? click here

lemme also clear some stuff up YES this is a teacher/student relationship story NO there are no adult/under-aged person relationships YES I made Billy 18 in this story, because lets say he’s in his final semester of senior year. NO smut will not be in every chapter of this short story. It’s a SLOW BURN. meaning I will be adding sexual tension to every chapter to build up the anticipation for when it finally happens.

Previously... | Her heart shrivels in her chest as she imagines him waiting here before finally loosing hope and leaving with a broken heart. A quiet sob escapes her lips as she slides down the wall, her hands coming up to cover her face. | 

***

WEDNESDAY 

Wednesday morning couldn’t come fast enough. Alice nearly sprinted into the school when she pulled up, and although she wasn’t quite sure where to look for Billy first she knew she needed to find him. In all honesty, she wasn’t even sure he’d turn up to school today. It wasn’t uncommon for Billy to skip classes, or the entire day altogether. Her hair was a mess, she didn’t bother styling it this morning and simply brushed it into a low ponytail. She shoved into her office, disappointment flooding through her when she sees no sign of Billy. Checking her watch, Alice still has about 10 minutes before her first private lesson. She pushes out of her office, beginning to scan the halls. She already made sure the buses were here, so if Billy was at school today he would be here. Alice’s eyes find his locker...vacant. She turns to head towards the back of the school, her eyes landing on his usual hangout spot but finding it empty as well. 

Returning to her office, Alice lets out a frustrated cry as she kicks her trashcan over. Placing her hands on her desk she blinks back tears before bending down to stand the trashcan upright. Her heart breaks in her chest when she envisions Billy losing faith in her, standing outside the school all by himself. If only she realized how she felt sooner, instead of trying to fight it. He is 18 so technically it’s not illegal, it’s only illegal because he hasn’t graduated yet but Billy isn’t a minor anymore. He’s of-age. Normally Billy is here by now, and Alice is hoping against hope that he’s simply avoiding her until class. At least then she can hold him after and talk to him then. She collapses in her desk chair, keeping the pain in her heart at bay as the first student of the morning pushed into the office. 

Billy thankfully knew of more than one secret hangout spot in this school. He was currently sat in the gym, underneath the bleachers. Unfortunately he wasn’t the only one who knew of this place, because Margot crawled under the bleachers and sat across from him. A cigarette hung from his mouth and her nose scrunched up when he blew the smoke in her face. “What?” Billy’s voice is tense, and his heart is broken as he rests his head back. He’d honestly prefer to be alone, but it’s easier to hear Margot out then to tell her to go away. She folded her arms, looking him over and the dark circles under his eyes. “I overheard you talking to Miss Perribow yesterday, after class.” She says and Billy tenses, his eyes flickering back to Margot. His eyebrows raise as he rolls his eyes, he’s really not in the mood for this. “Yeah so what?” He snaps, taking another long drag of his cigarette. Billy knows he’ll most likely be suspended if he’s caught smoking inside, maybe he’s hoping he gets caught. Then he won’t have to face Alice everyday until Miss Stevens comes back. 

“What did you want to meet her for? It kind of sounded like an ultimatum.” Margot muses, her arms crossed as she hunched down to avoid hitting her head. Billy chuckles bitterly, a look of pain flashing across his face. “Doesn’t matter, she didn’t show.” He snaps, turning his head to face away from Margot. Chewing on her lip Margot knew she shouldn’t push him, especially not Billy but she was going to anyway. “You also called her ‘Alice’. Is that her first name?” She asks, remembering when he did that to Miss Stevens during their weekend trip. “Is there a point to this conversation Margot?” Billy snaps, standing with his backpack slung over his shoulder. He pushes out from under the bleachers but much to his dismay, Margot follows behind him. “Yeah, what’s going on? I mean that’s seems kinda bad with no context Billy...” She warns, flinching when he whirls around- his eyes narrowed at her. He takes a drag of his cigarette once more before dropping it to the gym floor and putting it out with his shoe. “Honestly, I don’t care Margot.” He snaps with a condescending smile on his face before he turns away from her. This time Margot doesn’t follow him. 

His chest ached, as though his heart was physically broken. Billy dropped his head and yanked his hood up, he knew he should be concerned about Margot but he isn’t. He honestly doesn’t believe she’s going to do anything about it, plus even if she did she has no proof anyway. Billy really didn’t want to go to English today, but he knew his attendance in that class was bad and Miss Stevens warned him not to miss anymore classes. “Billy!” He hears a voice call from down the hall and he doesn’t need to turn to know who it is. Billy doesn’t bother stopping or even slowing down as he continues to his first hour class, “Miss Perribow.” His voice is detached, and his fingers itch for another cigarette. Alice placed a hand on his arm before dragging him into the single stall staff bathroom. She locked the door behind her before turning to face him, “I was there.” She whispered and Billy’s eyes met hers. 

“I waited for you Alice, you didn’t show.” Billy snapped, maintaining a few feet between them. She wrung her hands together as her heart broke over the angry and broken look in his eyes. “I know I was too late, when I got there you were gone but I went to find you.” Alice pleaded, her hands itching to reach out for him. Billy shook his head with a sad smile, “you’re lying. Some sort of reverse therapy right?” He accuses, becoming defensive. Alice frantically shook her head, trying to take a step towards him. “No Billy, I was there! You’re right, you’re 18 and I want this.” She breathed, and while this was everything Billy wanted to hear from her- he still didn’t believe her. Tears probe at the backs of his eyes, “stop lying to me and leave me alone.” Billy snapped before he shoved past her and out the door. Alice covered her mouth as the tears started to fall, her back hitting the bathroom wall as the strength left her and she slid to the floor. 

Billy wiped falling tears as he rushed to his first hour, ignoring the breaking of his heart or how it didn’t hurt nearly this much when Miss Stevens turned him down. Nothing in his life has ever hurt this bad, and he’s already dreading the last class of the day more than anything. Margot watched from afar as Billy emerged from the staff bathroom with tears down his cheeks and then a few minutes later when Miss Perribow exited the bathroom with tears wetting her cheeks as well. What the hell is going on? She followed after Miss Perribow, watching her turn into her office before shutting the door behind her. Margot crept up to the door and her heart broke a little when she heart Miss Perribow crying softly from inside the room. She thought about knocking, but eventually decided against it. All Margot knows is she needs to understand what’s going on and that the only way that’ll happen is if she bothers Billy about it. 

Alice stood in Miss Stevens classroom, tapping her foot nervously as kids trailed in one after the other. Margot watched carefully as Miss Perribow’s eyes stay fixed on the door, smiling briefly as students came in. When Alice’s back straightened, and her eyes were focused on something Margot turned her eyes to the door and watched Billy come in. Alice’s eyes trail after Billy as he moves to sit in his seat, but his eyes stay downcast at the desk. Margot glanced around the room, everyone else was chattering amongst themselves. So only she felt the tension in the room then. Alice reluctantly tore her eyes away from Billy when the bell rang and the lesson began. “Before we move on to the next Tale, does anyone have any closing thoughts on the Knights Tale?” Alice asks and Margot hears a throat clear behind her. 

“Yeah, I just think that both of the men were stupid for throwing everything away for one woman. Half the time it doesn’t work out anyway.” Billy snaps, his eyes locked on Alice. Alice’s eyes stay focused on Billy, gently nibbling on her bottom lip. She sits back on her desk as Margot turns around to look at Billy, “well maybe some things aren’t meant to work out.” She says, giving Billy a hard look. Billy rolls his eyes as he laughs bitterly, he leans forward towards Margot with a bitter smile on his face. “Nothing ever works out.” Billy snaps, his temper rising and that’s when Alice stands again. She puts on her best smile for Margot and Billy, “yes thank you, Billy and Margot. Anybody else?” Alice asks and releases a breath of relief when nobody else says anything. Margot blinks a few times before quickly raising her hand, “I just think that both of the men were right for their own reasons for pursuing Emily, it’s just that fate had different plans.” She says with a smile. 

“Fate is bullshit, sometimes people just let you down Margot.” Billy snaps from behind her and Alice’s eyes widen. Alice’s eyes flicker between Billy and Margot and she feels stupid for the pang of jealously that shoots through her chest. “Alright guys I think we need to move on to the next tale, thank you for your closing thoughts.” Alice says, giving them both a hard look that pleads for them to drop whatever secret conversation they’re having. Billy slumps back in his seat and Margot forces a big fake smile on her face as she flips to a new page in her notebook. As the lesson continues, Billy spends most of it doodling in his notebook and avoiding eye contact with Alice. When the bell finally rings Alice clears her throat, “Billy could you please stay behind?” She asks and he rolls his eyes but stays seated as everyone else clears out of the classroom. Once it was just the two of them Alice takes a few hesitant steps towards him before sitting in the desk in front of his. 

“I wasn’t lying Billy.” Alice says softly, but Billy keeps drawing in his notebook, promptly ignoring Alice. She chews on her lip again, glancing down at Billy’s notebooks and letting her eyes wander along his little drawings and doodles. “You’re good at drawing.” She says aloud, but again Billy says nothing. Growing desperate Alice cups Billy’s cheeks and yanks his lips to hers, causing him to freeze in surprise. She hears his pen drop to the desk before his hands are cupping her cheeks and pulling her more firmly to him. Their lips move together before Alice pulls away, “I wasn’t lying.” She says again and a smile slides onto Billy’s face before he’s pressing their lips together once more. 

Margot’s hand slaps over her mouth as she watches Billy kiss Miss Perribow again, what the hell? 

***taglist*** @irishbish​ @newletas​ @y2k-wildfire​ @londonmademedoit​ @80sangelics​ @elisaaru​

[edengarden]

Hiiii!!! I'd like to request a regular matchup pls 😌 (idk of I can request one or two shows at at time so if it's possible can you do for both bnha & haikyuu? If not then just haikyuu is fine with me)

Appearance: I'm fem, black, 5'1, slightly athletic & curvy-ish figure (lol), short? (mid-neck) hair, straight, dark brown eyes, size 9 shoe size (idek why I'm adding this lmao)

Personality stuff: infp-t, Hufflepuff, Taurus sun, scorpio moon, sanguine, chaotic good, ambivert, a BuzzFeed quiz told me I'm a Pinto bean (do what you will with that info jdskdj)

Positive traits/qualities:

I'm super enthusiastic!! I love hyping people up and being energetic in general! I'm always down to try new things and have fun! If anyone is not feeling appreciated I'm ready to make sure they know that they're a queen/king and they're amazing!!!

I'm optimistic! I like to look at the brighter side of things and I always try my best to find a silver lining in any situation! Positive thinking helps me get through tough spots in my life because there's always hope for something better in the future!!

I'm observant!! I usually like to sit quietly and observe my surroundings. Especially in a new environment. Irl I like to read people's body language to asses their mood so ik how to approach them lol. I also do little things like remembering what they (friends/family) like to order at restaurants or something they pointed out at random that they liked. (Idk if I'm making sense lol)

Negative traits/flaws:

I'm annoying. Sometimes I just like being a little shit and cause mischief (being the youngest child does that to a person) but I think sometimes I'm too enthusiastic/energetic that it can be seen as obnoxious/annoying so I usually try and tone it down so I don't bother people...

I'm argumentative. When I have something to say I have to speak up. I try not to step on any toes but I can't help but argue with someone when our views on something clash. I like hearing different sides of debates though so I always give others a chance to talk. I don't go picking fights but if I feel like my opinion is being disregarded/not heard I will argue until it's known!!

I'm forgetful. Sure I'll remember random stuff like 'what my friend said in that one coffee shop last year' but important things like appointments? Birthdays? Assignment due dates? Idk her 😭 I try my best to write anything important down cause my memory is a selective sieve and it'll keep the most useless/random shit.

Hobbies: I love: Reading, writing, listening to music, learning languages, playing saxophone (I'm still learning tho lol), swimming, watching anime and cooking!

Music taste: any type of rock (punk rock, grunge, j-rock, metal), pop, kpop, RnB, jazz, dubstep, lofi hip hop, rap, bangers from: Elvis, the beach boys, Khalid, Ateez, Kendrick Lamar, p!atd, mcr, fallout boy, Nirvana, BTS, mxmtoon, Marianas trench, twenty one pilots, stray kids, Jay Park, crush, Dreamcatcher, Skrillex, MJ, troye sivan etc

Traits I look for: idk kind, funny/fun, loving/lovable, loyal (idk I ain't picky)

Traits I don't like: (nobody's perfect, just don't be a racist, xenophobic, sexist asshole lol)

Fun facts:

I love playing PC games! Might purchase a gaming pc in the future!

I have four piercings! Just my lobes and an industrial atm but I'm definitely gonna get more done!!

I might get some tattoos too one day :D

I wanna learn how to ride a bike (motorcycle)!!

My love language is touch! I live for hand holding, cuddling, hugging, tickle fights and more!! 🥺

I love learning new stuff and rn I'm learning how to draw, paint, play music on sax, a new language and new recipes! :3

I hope that's enough!! Tell me if you need more! Pls take ur time and stay safe!! Hope you are having an amazing day/night!!!! 💙✨

AAH I’M A SAX PLAYER TOO!!!! I love sax, I love sax, I love jazz?? I love growl notes. Sax is amazing, bless sax. Sax quartets are so fun

Also! I only accept one fandom and one type of matchup per ask, but if you want to get a bnha one as well, you can always send your description through again!! (I like doing it this way bc I feel like it’s fair for everyone?? Also if I lose my progress I don’t have as much lost)

Also WOW do you remind me of my self (we’re both Taurus suns hahahah)!! I have to note everything down in my calendar and reminders because I forget everything that’s not necessary for a grade. It’s insane!!

By the way your request was so well done?? So organized?? Wow, kudos to you bro!! I love it

I’d match you up with... GOSHIKI!!

Omg when I saw your qualities and flaws I was like I HAVE TO I HAVE TO I HAVE TOOOO

The way you fire that boy up is damn near DANGEROUS. But he loves you so much for it!! Oh my god you’re his daily dose of serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins, EVERYTHING. Goshiki can be hard on himself sometimes though, and he really needs someone who’s able to point out the good in a bad (or mediocre) situation. After a while, he’ll really try to have that kind of mindset for himself. In a way, you’re his idol. He admires you so much; you’re all he talks about, aside from his plans of becoming an ace. Also, you somehow know him better than he knows himself. You’ll point out his tiniest habits and he’s just like ??i do that?? Oh wow I DO do that—

He really really hopes you pick up the technique side of volleyball when you watch him play because he totally wants you to tell him what he can fix!! No, he’s not neglecting his coach it’s just that?? You’re there?? And he loves getting your feedback because it’s so validating. HE ALSO THINKS YOUR LOVE FOR LEARNING NEW THINGS IS SO COOL?? It rubs off on him, now he wants to know all about your hobbies and if he can like,, participate in them with you. He’s a bit competitive and as soon as you tell him you play sax he’s got his mind set on learning the saxophone solo from Money. Please help him, he’s not gonna be able to-

Overall?? You’re Goshiki’s Equal (yeah that’s how he thought of you before he realized he had a Crush), and he respects you and he loves you so much. The team tries to tease him for it but lo and behold; his eyes just light up and he could talk about you for HOURS. Tendou learned Not To Mention The One around Goshiki.

Songs!!!

- Money, Pink Floyd (Goshiki started listening to it religiously for the Solo. He didn’t even get discouraged and you’re surprised by that)

- Cradles, Sub Urban

- Burial (feat. Pusha T, Moody Good & TrollPhace), Yogi & Skrillex (buddy thinks this is the epitome of Hype)

- Blackout, David Bowie

[once-upon-an-animation]

Frozen II (Spoilery) Review

So I went and saw Frozen in theatres last night, and... I like it, but I was somewhat disappointed. Not sure if that was because I spoiled most of the movie for myself already before going in, but then again, most of the stuff I was disappointed with was writing issues as opposed to feeling underwhelmed, so meh. Here goes:

The Good:

- I actually really like most of the sound track. AIF, STNC, ITU, & SY were instant faves and are on repeat. TNRT isn’t really a fun song to listen to, but the lyrics are pretty powerful. 

- The premise of F2. One of my complaints about F1 was the lack of lore and explanation for any of the magic. I’m glad that this film took an origin-story approach, and dove deeper into the world of magic in Arendelle. Much-needed.

- The outfits. Elsa’s new fit at the end of the movie was absolutely gorgeous, and I really like her with her hair down. Anna’s travelling outfit (with the cape) is my favourite, and I think I’m the only one who really likes her coronation dress (at least the colours anyway). But I think I do prefer some of her coronation dress concepts from The Art of Frozen: 

- Matthias is a treasure. Enough said. 

- Olaf’s death scene. Wow. 

- Iduna’s lullaby being a theme for the movie was awesome. It’s somewhat haunting, but also inviting.

- The animation was stunning. The color scheme for the movie worked really nicely, and Show Yourself was easily one of the prettiest animation scenes I’ve scene in a while. Especially when Ahtohallan revealed the memories in a drop of snow; absoluting breathtaking. 

- For all the bitching that everyone did prior to the film, the separation wasn’t even that bad. Everyone seemed pretty chill about the whole thing, and no one looked like they were heart broken. Y’all definitely stressed yourselves out for nothing.

The Bad:

- F2 had this weird thing going on where there was no real plot, but also, a lot was happening in every scene. I think Jen and the rest of the team overextended themselves with the backstory of Arendelle, Northuldra, the spirits, Iduna, Agnarr, Elsa, Ahtohallan, character arcs, etc. so everything felt so convoluted. They could have definitely simplified some things so it was easier to follow, tied certain aspects together, or at least get rid of the B-plots so the main story could get more attention.  

- Because of how much they had to cram in, the pacing was far too quick. They were skipping important transitions and jumping from scene to scene, and they didn’t allow enough time for some of the events and dialogue to flesh themselves out and settle into the story. Slow-down scenes are very important for a movie to feel like comfortable and evenly-paced, and F2 not only didn’t have enough of those, but when they did, they rushed through it and moved on to a new idea too quickly. It was like they were desperate to keep spoon-feeding us information. 

- Speaking of spoon-feeding info, waaaaaay too much of the dialogue was expositional. Most of the interactions only served to explain what was happening either to the audience or to other characters, and they didn’t feel like the natural and relaxed dialogues that were present in F1. The writing team really disobeyed the “show, don’t tell” rule in this movie, and it was very apparent. 

- One of my biggest complaints about F1 was Elsa’s lack of personality outside of her magic (and Elsa feeling more like a plot device), and it looks like the writers didn’t bother to fix that in F2. While I understand that depression and anxiety can be that overwhelming, it doesn’t work for Elsa as a fictional character to not have any shining aspects of her character outside of the issues she has with her magic. Is she funny? Is she sarcastic? What does she like to talk about on a regular basis? Is she really passionate about art or music? Does she practice an instrument or draw in her spare time? What does she like to crack jokes about? Who are her friends and what do they do when they hang out? It seems like Elsa’s magic defines every aspect of her and I don’t like that. She needs to have stronger characterization. I feel like no one at Disney really knows how to write her as a complex, dynamic, and fluid person outside of her powers. 

- Everybody’s character arc sucked and/or didn’t exist. Almost no one grew fundamentally, and if they did, their arc was written so poorly and better resembled a scatter-plot. Elsa started and ended the movie acting the same way. There’s no significant difference in her personality or the way she interacts with anyone or her view on the world. Olaf....???? His “some things change” arc was just weird all around. Anna did grow as far as her constantly trying to watch over Elsa, but her queenship should have had an arc too. While I like Anna as queen, it felt random, and really lacked build-up and foreshadowing. It also didn’t help that the scene where she and Elsa talked about making her queen didn’t exist. Again, skipping important transitions. And Kristoff...oh sweet Kristoff...

- I don’t ship Kristanna, but I’m not anti-Kristanna or anti-Kristoff either. I don’t mind their relationship at all. But this proposal plot was not it. Not only was it incredibly poor timing, but why did the writers think that was the best they could do with Kristoff? You have a reindeer ice man going from living in a mountain to being a part of the royal family, and proposing was the best challenge you could think of? How about the ups and downs of adjusting to royal life? Where is my Kristoff feeling out of place in the family because he’s awkward at balls, uncomfortable in stuffy clothing, getting nervous about greeting royal dignitaries, wanting to give commands to soldiers but not sure if it’s his place, wanting to contribute more to Arendelle but not knowing what to do, feeling like he’s not a good fit? Where is his sense of growth as he realizes that he doesn’t have to change who he is at heart to fit in to the royal family, and that he does have a place in Arendelle and in Anna’s life? Where is his growth in getting comfortable with royal life? This was such an easy option, come on!

- Lost in the Woods is a good stand alone song, but it should have been written differently for the film. It really kills the mood of the film and doesn’t vibe with the setting, and while the animation is hilarious, it also makes Kristoff look kind of silly. I loathe the Lopezes for always opting for poppy/rock showtunes, and not writing melodies and instrumentals that actually work for Frozen’s time setting. I don’t think they understand how much some of their songs really draw people out of the film. When I’m Older is also a pointless song. You can tell that its only in there for shits and giggles so Olaf would have something to sing.They should have had him sing while he was dying or something.

- Not enough of the supporting characters. What’s the point of adding Matthias or a whole tribe with Yelana, Honeymaren, and Ryder if you’re not going to do anything with them fundamentally? 

- Not enough Agnarr and Iduna. I actually found Iduna’s arc to be far more interesting than any of the main characters, and yet, they didn’t give enough screen time for her backstory. Ughhhhhhh. 

- Too many callbacks to F1. Some of them were cute, but the rest were super corny, completely unnecessary, and just a nod to the fandom. If you’re going to do a callback, it’s best done in a way that’s actually relevant to the story.  

- I would mind the separation even less if Elsa’s reason for staying in the forest wasn’t soooooo unclear. Why did she need to stay? Who assigned her the role of protector? What is she protecting against? Who currently cares about threatening the spirits? 

- Arendelle should have gotten destroyed period. Not only is Elsa conveniently getting unfrozen, saved by the Nokk, and arriving at Arendelle all in time to stop the flood with an ice wall so incredibly predictable and cliche, but it would have also fit into the “some things do change” theme that they kept literally stating. Also, Kristoff likely being good with carpentry could have really shined here in helping Arendellians rebuild, and if he had the arc I explained before, then this would have been his moment of finding his place. Genius, isn’t it?

- With all the lore they added, they still didn’t explain the trolls OR Kristoff’s backstory. What is their place in this story? How come Grand Pabbie knew nothing of the spirits or the dam story, or the Northuldra? Where the heck is Kristoff from? How come Runeard never tried to destroy the trolls? 

- Iduna just said “Anna who?” huh? No acknowledgement for her other daughter whatsoever. 

- This movie felt more like an expansion than a necessary story. 

- Okay, I’m done. 

[cloverhighfivewritestoo]

Feline Fine - OC version

👉Read this on Ao3  Tumblr - 👉female!reader insert   👉male!reader insert (fluff only)

21k [divided in 12 chapters + epilogue]

Dean x Female!OC (Sarah) (established), Sam, other original characters (villains, victims and such).

Case fic – Dean has gone missing. While Sam and Sarah are trying to figure out what’s happened, a panther turns up on the bunker’s doorstep. Meanwhile, bodies are turning up a few towns over. There seems to be all sorts of various villains working together (or not?). What the hell is going on?

Warnings – Fluff. Smut optional : if you’re not into smut, just stop at the nice fancy border break. If you’re only into smut, well... you know where it is, now. Haha!

Extra/Prompt – This fanfic was first published in August 2018 (my first “big” fic), because @waywardbaby and @imma-winchester-addict​ were comparing Dean to a cat. Now this is the female!OC version, for @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover

1. Missing

 Sarah woke up late in the morning to an empty bed. Dean had probably woken up early and had even made his side of the bed. “Awww,” Sarah thought to herself lovingly, “he’s so sweet.”

 Sarah went through her morning routine, dressed up in jeans and a t-shirt, and headed to the kitchen.

“Hey Sam, already deep in research?”

Sam didn’t look up. “Yeah, I found a probable case a few towns over. I’m getting more info.”

“Cool. It’ll be fun to kill something. I’m bored.”

Sam darted a concerned gaze at Sarah. Sarah shrugged.

 Sarah shuffled to the fridge, took out some stuff, shuffled to the toaster, waited for the toast, put some stuff on the toast, poured a cup of coffee, shuffled to the table, sat down like she weighted a ton and started chewing on her toast.

Sam had looked at her the whole time, his expression unreadable.

“What?” Sarah enquired.

“Dean’s still sleeping? It’s pretty late. Is he OK?”

“I dunno where Dean is. He was gone when I got up. You didn’t see him?”

“No…” Sam looked annoyed. “Let’s call him.” He took his phone out and dialed.

Sarah slurped her coffee. “Don’t you think it’s a bit overdramatic to call him, like, right now? I mean, it’s just 10 a.m., he’s probably gone on a food run or something.”

The phone rang and nobody picked up. It went to voicemail. Sam looked at Sarah and let out an annoyed sigh just before leaving a message. He hung up and looked at Sarah. “A food run? The fridge is full.”

“I said: Or something. Come on. The guy is a freaking menace to just about anything that’s out there. He can handle a run in town.” Sarah smirked at Sam’s very annoyed frown.

Sam went back to his computer, Sarah went back to her breakfast. They sat in silence between her chewing and slurping sounds, and Sam’s typing on the laptop.

 While Sarah was cleaning her dishes, she turned to Sam, “Hey, I’m gonna head to town as well, I need new boots. Do you need something?”

“I need Dean to come back so we can head out for this case here. I have all the info we need.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Alright. Well, I won’t be long anyway, so maybe Dean and I will be back at the same time or maybe I’ll even bump into him. I’m taking the motorcycle.”

“OK. I’ll go for a little jog then. Since I have time.”

“Be my guest.”

 Sarah got out of the bunker on the bike, passed the Impala that was parked outside in front of the bunker’s door, and…

Wait. What?

The Impala is here, that means Dean is back!

Sam got out of the bunker in jogging attire. “Hey, you’re still here?”

Sarah gestured to the car. “The Impala’s here. You saw Dean inside?”

“No…”

Sarah drove by the hood, put her hand on to feel it. “The car is cold. It must have been here the whole time. And no other car is missing from the garage.”

Sam’s gears were running. “Something’s off.”

Sarah turned off the bike and took her helmet off. They looked around. No one. She got her hand on her gun and called out. “DEAN?!!” No answer. They looked around again. Listened. Nothing.

“Call him again.”

Sam reached for his phone, and, while looking down at it while dialing, something caught his eye on the ground. He reached down and picked up “The keys. They were…”

Sam and Sarah looked at each other, panic rising in their eyes.

The call went to voicemail.

“Shit.”

“Shit.”

 Back in the bunker, Sam was trying to piece together what they knew, pacing about the room. “OK, so, when’s the last time you saw him?”

“Um… Come to think of it… I don’t remember him coming to bed last night. And I slept right through. Wait. His side of the bed was made this morning… Maybe… Maybe he didn’t come in at all.”

“Damn. So… That means, the last time you saw him is…?”

“Last night, we were all here in the library, he went out to fetch something in the car, remember?”

“Yeah, just as we were calling it a night.”

“Exactly.”

“You didn’t worry when he didn’t come back?”

“Well our training in the afternoon was a bit challenging. So I pretty much passed out.”

“Yeah… Me too. Went out like a light.”

“I’m going to look for more clues outside.” Sarah headed out, followed by Sam, who tried Dean’s phone again – to voicemail.

 The day would be busy and stressful. They’d found tracks outside that didn’t match any of the vehicles from the bunker nor the car from the pizza boy, but couldn’t deduct much from it, except the brand of tires and about 30 types of cars they could be on. They’d found footprints that didn’t match any of the footwear from the boys nor Sarah, but all they could figure out was they were from 3 different people.

 Sam had gone into town to ask around while Sarah waited at the bunker, checking whatnots on the laptop. Every call to Dean’s phone invariably went to voicemail. Nothing turned up in town, nothing turned up on the computer.

 2. Finding

 Early the following afternoon, Sam came in from driving around the countryside. He called from the top of the stairs. “Sarah? YOU HERE?”

Sarah called from the kitchen, “YEAH! HEEERE!”

Sam called again. “COME HERE YOU GOTTA SEE THIS!”

“IS IT DEAN?” Sarah called, as she ran to the stairs.

“No,” Sam said, somewhere between anxious and surprised, while she climbed the stairs, “um… just… come out with me.” He opened the door, Sarah behind him. “Just… be calm, be careful, no sudden moves.”

Sarah raised her eyebrows. “What?”

Sam made an impatient gesture. “Just… Just… Trust me on this.” He opened the door to the outside. They stepped out and stood there, right by the door, transfixed.

 A magnificent panther was lying lazily in front of the Impala. When it saw Sam and Sarah come out, it quickly sat up, curled its tail around itself and fixed its gaze upon them. It seemed it had stopped moving. It seemed it had stopped breathing.

 Sarah spoke softly to Sam, as if she didn’t want the panther to hear. “Should we call the nature rangers or what’s their name…”

Sam spoke the same way, trying to conceal his words. “Panthers are not endemic to Kansas, Sarah.”

“So…?”

“So it’s not a wild animal. It’s either from a zoo or it’s someone’s pet.” They looked at the big cat in silence, who looked back at them, going from Sam, to Sarah, and Sam. Sam added, “I don’t know… Look at it. It seems to be here for a reason… if that doesn’t sound too… weird.”

Again, some mutual staring.

Sarah whispered, “Did you notice the panther looking at me when I talk and then looking at you when you talk?”

“Yes…”

“It just did it again.”

“Yes…”

The panther took a deep breath, let it out, looked up, blinked, and fixed Sam and Sarah again.

“Did it… sigh at us?” Sam remarked.

The panther got up, paced in a circle, head low, throwing glances sideways at Sam and Sarah, then resumed its sitting position. It let out another sigh.

“It can sigh all it wants, I don’t know what to do with a panther. Maybe we should call a veterinarian,” Sarah suggested, “they’ll know what to do.”

The panther growled.

Sam and Sarah took a step back, but bumped into the wall behind them.

The panther got up, walked deliberately, slowly towards Sam and Sarah, its gaze going from one to the other. Stuck between surprise, curiosity and sheer panic, Sam and Sarah couldn’t move.

About halfway, the panther stopped dead in its tracks, eyes wide. Sam and Sarah didn’t move. The panther closed its eyes, shook its head. Sam and Sarah looked at each other sideways, and, seeing they both had no clue what was going on, quickly turned their attention back to the panther.

It was scratching the ground. It turned this way and that and seemed to have a purpose to its scratching. It took a minute or two.

It then looked at Sam and Sarah, looked to the ground, stepped back a bit, did it again, and retreated a few meters away. It layed down and looked back and forth between the scratchings and Sam and Sarah.

Sam was the first to catch on. “Um, I think we should go look at the scratches.”

“What?”

“Come on.”

“What??” But Sarah followed.

 I’m Dean, dumbasses.

Sam’s first reaction was surprise, but one look at the panther and he made an annoyed frown and a sigh in no specific direction. He then looked at Sarah.

She, on the other hand, had her mouth open in disbelief. She turned to the panther. “You… what??”

The panther looked at her and blinked. And it… purred? She turned to Sam. “Did you hear it purr?” She turned to the panther. “Are you purring?”

Sam looked at the panther. “So you’re Dean.” The panther nodded.

“OH FUCK IT NODDED.” Sarah screamed.

Sam jumped. He took Sarah by the shoulders. “Calm down! It’s DEAN.”

“But it nodded! The panther nodded!”

“Yes, because it’s Dean.”

“How can you be sure it’s Dean? Anybody could write ‘I’m Dean’. We just have to believe the cat?”

Sam couldn’t believe he just heard someone say ‘We just have to believe the cat’.

Sarah pressed on, talking too fast. “Well, a cat who knows how to write, sure, it’s weird, but we’re used to weird, so ok, I can get that, but then, the next logical thing – if we want to bother with logic – is we have to believe everything just because we accept that the cat maybe has a human inside?”

The panther growled. Sam shot a look at it and came back to Sarah. “Do you think anyone but Dean could call us dumbasses while trying to get us to help him?”

Sarah froze, thinking about what Sam said. She looked at the panther, who was lying down and looking calmly yet intensely at her. Then, suddenly, she relaxed. Sam let go of her shoulders. The panther got up and walked towards her. She waited quietly. The panther sat right in front of her and looked up.

“Dean… is it really you…”

He made a soft nod, blinked, and purred. She couldn’t help but run her hand in his fur on his head. He was so soft... He closed his eyes and pushed against her hand so she’d continue, but she stopped. “Good lord. What happened?” Dean shook his head. He let out a sigh, looking in the distance. His face became angry and he growled at the horizon.

 She looked at him. The panther – Dean – was huge. Sitting straight, his head came almost chest high with Sarah. His fur was black, his eyes green, surprisingly close to the green of his own eyes. He licked his nose and his mouth, revealing impressive fangs. He cocked his head and waited. Sarah noticed the fur was matted on his neck. She approached a hand to check, but Dean, as a reflex, moved just out of reach. “You’re hurt…” Dean kept out of reach, looking at her sideways, flattening his ears. “Come on, let me look.” He slowly got closer. She bent down a little and, very gently, touched the fur where it was matted. “OK, it doesn’t look so bad. Come inside, we’ll take care of it.”

 While Sarah was cleaning Dean’s wound, Sam was thinking out loud. “Of course, you can’t talk, but we really need to know what’s going on, cause… well, look at you.” Dean let out a huff. “Communicating with you is going to be a challenge.” Dean let out another huff.

 “Alright, all clean.” Sarah announced, putting the wet cloth away. “I can’t do more than that. It’s not like I can put a band-aid on it or anything. So it’ll have to heal on its own. It’s not that bad, really.” Dean closed his eyes and rubbed his head against Sarah, purring.

Sarah got up and went to the fridge. “I don’t know about you, Sam, but I need a drink.”

“I’m good, thanks.”

Dean bounced his way to Sarah, and leaned his weight against her. “Oh dear, you must be hungry.” Dean licked his mouth and looked up. “Alright, what do you want?” Dean cut in front of Sarah and stretched his panther body up on its hind legs. He surveyed the fridge and grabbed a few things – all meat. “Duh, of course,” Sarah said, laughing. She grabbed a beer.

 3. Talking

 Sam tried to find a way to communicate with Dean. It was frustrating for both of them. Sam tried to come up with yes/no questions, but invariably diverged with more complex ones. Meanwhile, Sarah thought it was a bit funny, what with Dean having sat his panther self on a chair – like a cat would – opposite Sam at the table. Sam was actually having a conversation with a cat, or trying to, at least. Dean did the best he could to be as expressive as possible, but still, they weren’t words.

“OK, we’ll go through the creatures. Yes or no.”

Blink.

“Was it a Wendigo?”

Stare.

“Come on, we’ll be thorough, so we’ll know for sure.”

Stare.

“Dean… Wendigo?”

Eyes to the skies, shake of the head. No.

“Werewolf?”

Stare. Intense.

“Dean.”

He opened his eyes wide, made a point of looking at himself, and looked back at Sam with the same wide eyes, shaking his head once. No. Idiot. I’m a fucking cat.

“OK, I’ll go with the probably more obvious.”

Eyeroll. Repositioning. Straight, solid, ready.

“Witch?”

Teeth bared – which was more frightening than what Dean thought was a smile. A vigorous nod. Yes!

 Watching them, Sarah remembered the potion the boys had told her about when they were on a case where the only witness was a dog, allowing Dean to understand the dog. It seemed strange Sam didn’t think of it. Probably the stress. She asked Sam where their father’s journal was and went off.

 “So you escaped!”

Nod. Yes.

“They didn’t actually let you go.”

Shake. No.

“Where had they taken you?”

Nod. Yes.

“Yes???”

Eyes half closed, shoulders slumped. Idiot.

“Oh. Yeah. Um.”

Head turned to the side, sideways look. Yeah? And what now?

Sam got up. “Lemme get a map.”

Dean nodded and repositioned on the chair. Being a panther was not easy; that big four-legged body wasn’t made for chairs. Or, chairs weren’t made for big four-legged bodies. He hopped on the table and laid down.

 Sarah came back to the table with 2 glasses filled halfway with a brownish red unappetizing liquid. She snipped some fur from Dean, who perked up. He smiled as she put fur in both glasses and stirred – he remembered the foul taste of the potion.

 Sam came back with the map. He saw the glasses. “What’s this?”

“Remember when Dean had to mind-meld with a dog for a case?” She smiled a big, proud smile.

Sam’s shoulders dropped. He made the most flat expression Sarah had ever seen. “I cannot believe I forgot that.”

Sarah raised her glass. “Cheers!” They drank and said the incantation.

Dean loved watching them wince and blergh at the taste. Pussies. He had just downed it like a man.

 Dean purred, growled and looked bored until Sam and Sarah heard, “Sam likes to wax his legs. Sam has lady shampoo. Sam doesn’t watch porn cause he doesn’t understand the plot. Sam –“ “HEY!” Sam was not amused. Sarah was laughing. Dean brightened. “Oh, so the potion is working! Good.”

 “So do tell us, Dean,” said Sarah.

“I got out of the bunker and got jumped by 3 witches, all women. Couldn’t see their face. They cast some spell on me and I woke up locked in a cage, with a panther in another cage next to me. The witches cut me and the panther for some blood and did some ritual. I woke up looking at myself in the other cage… I was into the panther. So that meant the panther was in me.”

 Dean went on telling how the panther in its new body didn’t know what to make of it, and so it was thrashing about violently. Dean, on the other hand, sat still, watching his body being flung about, bruised and cut. He had listened to his voice screaming. He’d felt genuinely worried. But then the witches had come, cast a spell on Dean’s body and taken it elsewhere. They’d left Dean-in-panther alone.

 The panther body being much more stronger than a man’s, Dean-in-panther had tried its strength to its full force in trying to pry the cage open – which had worked. And thus he’d escaped. It was dark but he saw he had been kept in a shack in the woods that didn’t seem to be connected to the road. He mostly kept to the forest as much as he could on his way to the bunker. He had a vague idea of where he had been taken, and so he pointed to it on the map.

 He didn’t know what the witches’ plan was, but, while the ritual was being prepared, he had heard a name: Brandon Hatley.

 Sam drummed his fingers on the table. Everyone was deep in thought. Dean licked his paw.

Sarah looked at Dean, slightly surprised. “Um, I know you’re basically a cat, but… you feel the need to lick yourself?”

Dean’s eyes widened and he stopped his move, with his tongue still out, halfway through a lick. He looked up at Sarah, put his paw down, licked his nose and let out a low huff. He looked up at her. “You don’t? Cause when I did the mind-meld with the dog, I was acting a lot like a dog.”

Sam remembered. “It’s true. And yet… I don’t feel any feline urge.” “Me neither,” said Sarah. They turned to Dean. “Hey, don’t look at me, I don’t know.”

Sam suggested, “Maybe because his mind is not a cat’s mind… maybe because there’s the two of us on the same spell, so it kind of dilutes it… maybe…” 

“Maybe we’re just not as receptive as Dean was,” said Sarah. She added, “Sam, do you feel like a beer? Pizza? Porn?” 

Sam was confused. “No. What? No…. What?” 

“Me neither,” Sarah said, “so that means we’re not mind-melding with Dean either.” 

Sam let out a sigh. “Thanks for that.”

 4. Researching

 Sam got up, got the laptop and came back. “OK, Brandon Hatley…”

While he was typing, Sarah pulled the map to her side of the table. “Hey, Sam, where was the case you found yesterday morning?”

Sam crooked his neck and pointed to a town. Sarah and Dean looked down. “Uhn, it’s as far as where Dean was taken, but… right on the other side of us. Hmm… That’s weird.”

Dean interjected. “What? What are you saying? What case?”

Sarah just continued. “I don’t know… Seems too much of a coincidence, a case to work on in exactly the opposite direction, and about the same distance, the day Dean was taken. It’s too… clean. Too symmetrical.”

“Huh, weird indeed,” said Sam. “As for the info I gathered, the deaths were sudden. There were no previous open cases in the area or deaths that fit the pattern.”

Dean asked again. “What case?”

Sarah looked at him. “Yeah, he didn’t tell me either. Things kind of happened fast.”

Sam didn’t look up from the computer. “Something that looked like vampires. Sloppy ones. Or sloppy, just the one. We had yet to find out. OK. So now, Hatley –”

 Without any warning, Dean jumped off the table and walked towards the staircase. Sarah and Sam gave a start. “Dean!” cried Sam, “What are you doing?”

Dean stopped, turned around. “To go get the vampire! Come on!”

Sarah objected. “Dean! We have to work your case. We’re not going off on a vampire hunt right now!”

But Sam knew how Dean felt, from years of saving people. “No, Sarah, he’s right. And if it’s a lone vampire, it’s a milk run. We’ll be in and out in a flash.”

“Plus,” Dean said, “since I’m stuck in this cat for a while, I wanna try it out. It’s really strong. I hear really good. And I can see in the dark!” He sat and smiled.

“Babe,” said Sarah, “when you smile like that, you’re rather terrifying.”

“Oh, come on!”

 “And,” she added, a slight panic in her voice, “what do you mean, ‘stuck in a cat for a while’? No, no, no! How can you talk about milk runs? We have to switch Dean back! What if he’s stuck in there forever?” She was really panicking now.

Sam and Dean looked at each other blankly. Dean got up and walked over to Sarah, rubbing his head against her tummy. “Hey, sweetie, we’ll figure it out.” He looked up at her. “But we gotta save people, you know? I swear, it’s going to be real quick.”

“But… the Hatley dude… we have a lead…”

“Alright, alright,” said Sam. “Here, let me tell you what I’ve got on Hatley.” Sarah and Dean came back to the table.

 “Hatley. Interesting. The man is the owner of about half the town where the vampire case is. He owns a lot of property and he is the chair of the local industry.”

“So… he’s killing off competition?” asked Sarah.

“Doesn’t seem like it at all. For the real estate, I pulled some records: the tenant turnover is normal, no outstanding deaths – except the ones for the case – and everything seems normal tax-wise. The acquisitions were made at various times over 30 years, with more investments in the last 20. As for the local industry, there doesn’t seem to be anything fishy either.”

“And you call that interesting,” said Dean, flatly.

“Well, not the fact that nothing stands out –”

“Except the deaths. Those stand out.”

“Yeah, but it’s the guy the witches talked about, and it’s the town with the vampire deaths. That’s interesting. But I see no motive. So it might not be him behind this, or it might be something else the witches were talking about, not related to our problem.”

Dean shook his head. “With us, it’s always related.”

“Yeah.”

Sarah was thinking out loud. “OK. It’s all related… 30 years, uhn?”

“Yeah.”

“So the man is, at bare minimum, 50.”

“He’s 62.”

“Hmm… What could a 62-year-old man with fortune and power in a quiet town want with witches? And,” she said, looking at the panther, “with Dean? And how does the vampire fit in?”

Dean offered, “Maybe he pissed off the witches and they sent the vampire to piss him off.”

Sam sat back in his chair. “Witches don’t do that. They’d curse him or something.”

“Then I have no idea where the vampire comes in,” said Sarah.

“Me neither.”

They looked at Dean. He shook his head – he had no idea either.

Sam spoke up. “Well, at least we can take the opportunity to talk to Hatley while in town, so there’s that.”

They all agreed.

 It had been decided they’d go on the vampire case later, when it’ll be dark, as to not arise suspition driving around with a panther. They could at least wipe that fiend off while they figure things out. They ate, and, since they had a couple hours left before sundown, they turned in for a nap.

 Sarah got in the bedroom, followed by a nonchalant Dean. She sat on the bed, took her boots off. Dean hopped on the bed.

"What are you... You're not thinking of sleeping on the bed."

Dean cocked his head, looked around at the bed, then back at Sarah.

"Come on, you're too big. And you're going to get cat hair all over the sheets. You know how you hate that."

Dean squinted, and flopped down on the bed, his back to her. He was taking up quite a bit of space indeed – and clearly made a point of taking up all the space he could.

Sarah shook her head, got under the sheets fully dressed, tried to get comfortable.

"Deaaaan... you're really too big."

She heard jerky huffs. "Are you... laughing?"

He lifted his head “I’ve waited so long to hear you say that…” He laughed again.

"Idiot. Come on, scoot..."

“Hey, don’t tell me you don’t want a piece of this fine feline ass…” He winked. “You know this tongue is rough, I could – “

“Oh my god, Dean! No!” She slapped him – which couldn’t hurt him. “Scoot, idiot!” She pushed him – not that it made him move at all.

Dean laughed and he obliged. Sarah tossed and turned a bit and, as soon as she quieted down, noticed the soft breathing from the panther next to her. She scooted over and put an arm around him, burying her face in his fur. She fell asleep to the rhythm of Dean's feline body taking the air in and out.

 5. Hunting

 As the sun was setting, they took off in the Impala.

Sarah was driving. “I can’t believe I’m driving.”

“Haha! Enjoy! I can’t believe I’m in the back seat,” Sam said, not without sarcasm.

“Ah, that’s what you get for being a giant,” said Dean.

Sam shook his head, amused. “I can’t believe Dean managed to call shotgun.”

“What, you’re surprised?” Sarah said, laughing, while Dean bared his fangs – again, in an attempt to smile. He was lounging comfortably, taking almost all the space left on the front seat.

 En route, Sam explained how sloppy the vampire was – or the vampires were. “Look, all the deaths follow a simple pattern. It’s the first apartment from the lowest street number of all the apartment buildings Hatley owns. Then, apartment #2 from the next lowest address, and so on.”

“What do you mean, and so on? How many deaths were there?” asked Sarah.

“Yesterday morning, there was 2. Now, there’s 4. Again, a pattern. So, tonight, we should be able to stop murders 5 and 6, hopefully.”

“It’s really a milk run,” Sarah reflected.

“From the reports, it seems like a vampire attack, but we’ll have to break into the morgue first to check and make sure.”

“Yippee.”

 When they got to their destination, they headed for the morgue. Dean agreed to stay in the car while Sam and Sarah went it to check on the corpses. They came back out 10 minutes later with answers. Yes, it was a vampire, and just the one. The teeth marks were all identical.

 They headed to the next address on Sam's list of Hatley-owned apartment buildings. Sarah first passed by slowly. Everything was quiet. She turned and parked the car. The three of them surveyed the place.

"Which apartment is it?" Sarah asked.

"If it follows the pattern, it's #5."

She counted, pointing right to left and going up, "...#1, #2, #3, #4... #5 should be 3rd floor left, then."

"Right."

Three pairs of eyes fixed the dark patio door.

"Yeah... Maybe we should go inside and wait for the vamp?"

Sam grabbed the door handle. "Yep."

"Wait... What about Dean?"

Dean put a paw on his door handle. “Oh, I’m coming.”

Sam frowned. "I'm not sure if you should come, Dean."

“What?” said Dean. “You know I am stronger than you, I hear and see better than you. And…” Dean put a paw up and slowly revealed his claws. Sarah's eyes widened. "Oh shit. Wow. That's one hell of a good argument, too."

"Alright." Sarah got out and Sam let Dean out.

 Once they were in front of apartment #5, Sam put his ear to the door.

Sarah whispered, “What are you listening for?”

“If I can hear snoring or something.”

“And?”

Sam held his breath. After a moment, he let it out. “Nothing.”

Sarah turned to Dean. “And?”

Dean’s head snapped around and his ears perked up.

Sam and Sarah looked around, but there was nothing to see – or hear. They looked at Dean enquiringly. Dean turned and got on the next stair landing in two bounds. Sarah let out a “Oh, shhhhhiii-” and both her and Sam followed.

The next minute they heard the front door open and footsteps coming up.

Dean had positioned himself in front of Sam and Sarah. Crouching on the floor, shoulder blades standing out, the tip of his tail wagging, he was observing below between the stairs.

 The vampire could hear every heartbeat in the building. He could hear everyone breathing or snoring. But it was only when he’d got to the apartment door that he realized some heartbeats and breathing didn’t come from behind a door. The moment he’d whip his head around in exactly the trio’s direction, Dean rushed down the stairs and attacked.

 The vampire was as much a predator as Dean. The surprise of being attacked by a panther didn’t phase it. It clawed, hit and bit Dean, trying to pin him down to finish him. Dean struck it with a swift blow with his claws out, ripping the vampire’s flesh on its chest. He clawed at its chest and face a few more times until it was gushing blood from every wound, then pinned it down and bent to rip its neck to finish it. Sarah screamed as she and Sam ran down : “NO! DON’T BITE!!”

Dean turned to them, squinting, ears flipped back. “What?” The vampire was too damaged to have the strength to push Dean off. It was bleeding out. It still hit him feebly.

Sarah said, as Sam got his machete ready, “Don’t bite him. He’s bit you and if you drink his blood, you’ll – “

Dean’s eyes widened. He looked at the vampire and took a step back.

Sam asked Dean, “Is it too damaged to talk?” Dean shook his head. “Yeah… I think I tore into it a little too much. Sorry.” Sam sighed. And he cut its head.

 Behind a door, they heard a loud and panicked “OH MY GOD”. All three snapped their heads up, looked at each other and in the direction of either door.

Sam nodded at Sarah and Dean. “I got this.” And, a bit louder, “It’s fine. We’re FBI. We were tracking the killer responsible for the murders of the last 2 days.” He gestured at Sarah. They took their badges out, showed them towards one door, then the other.

“Is that a panther?” came from apartment #5.

Sam sighed. His brow was furrowed. “Well, um, yes. It’s trained.” Dean sat with a thud and looked at Sam his eyes half-closed. Sam continued, “We’re a very specialized branch of FBI. New methods. The panther is not dangerous to you.”

“Holy fuck! You cut that guy’s head off!!”, came from apartment #6. All three sighed.

“Look, stay inside your apartments, we’re cleaning up and leaving. You’re safe now.”

Two weak “OK” came from behind both doors.

 Back in the car, they regrouped.

Sarah started. “OK, so we have taken care of the vamp.”

“Yup,” said Dean, “and it was awesome!”

“And now we have to clean you, Dean,” she said, turning to him. He had his tongue half out, his paw stopped in mid-air. He darted a look at Sarah. “Dean, don’t lick that! The vampire blood!”

“Fuck!” He put his paw down.

“Look, Sarah, I think it takes live blood. Dried-up blood won’t turn him.”

Sarah turned to face Sam, her eyes merely slits. “You want to take the chance?”

“Um, no.”

She turned to Dean. “You?”

Dean was looking down at his paws, turning them to inspect them better. “No, of course not.”

Sarah declared, “Alright. Off to the motel.”

 6. Longing

 The night, in fact, was still young – especially since they’d had a nap earlier. It was only 11:30. Sam had taken out his tablet while Sarah was in the bathroom with Dean.

 Dean was sitting in the bathtub and Sarah, kneeling on the floor, was using the shower head to drench his paws. They were both silent and calm, looking at the streaks of blood going to the drain.

“Gimme your paw”, she said softly. She took it in her hand and sprayed water between his toes. She turned the paw, sprayed thoroughly every furry nook.

“Get your claws out.” She was talking softly, like she was telling him what she’s going to do next. She cleaned his claws.

“The other paw.” And they repeated the gestures.

“Now, your face. Chin up.” He closed his eyes. Water running down his face, his neck. She stroke his fur to make sure it got cleaned. He flinched. “Oh, the vampire bite. I’ll clean that too.” She gently ran some water on it.

“What about your belly?”

“I think it’s alright.” Dean sat up on his hind legs, balancing with a paw on the side of the tub. They both looked at his underside. Sarah ran her fingers through the fur. “No, you’re good. Let’s get you dried up then.”

 Dean stepped out of the bathtub and Sarah dried his paws with a towel. She then dried his head, his neck. With the towel still around his shoulders, she stopped and looked in his eyes. “I know you’ve been a panther only a little over 2 days, and I know I can talk to you, but I miss you. Having half of you is… it’s weird. It’s worse than when we’re apart a few days. It’s like you’re here with me, but I can’t be with you. It’s you, but it’s not.” She looked at his body. “It’s you inside, I know, but it feels… off. Like you’re far away. I miss you, the whole you. I miss your touch.” She sighed, looking at the ground. "I miss you, Dean."

Dean put his head in the crook of her neck and gave little rubs, finally resting his head heavily, eyes closed. “I’m here, sweetie pie. But I know. I miss you too.”

Sarah put her arms around him and laid her cheek on his head. “Damn you’re soft, though.”

Dean made little huffs. He was laughing. Sadness tainted Sarah's faint smile.

 7. Enquiring

 Sarah and Dean stepped out of the bathroom. Sam looked up. “Hey, I found more info on Hatley.”

“Oh? Interesting info… this time?” She looked at Dean and giggled. Dean made laughy huffs and headed to the bed, on which he lied down like a sphinx. Sarah sat on the corner of the bed, rested a hand on a paw. Dean gave a tiny lick.

Sam sighed. “Very funny.” He raised his eyebrows. “It turns out, Hatley has a wife.”

“Ohhh! What a turn of events!” More giggles and huffs.

Sam sat back. “Really?”

“Sorry,” said Sarah. “Go on. Mrs Hatley.”

“According to what I found, she owns the plant where Hatley is chair. She doesn’t sit on the committee – her husband does, but she owns the plant. Also, she owns about a third of the real estate that is in her husband’s name.”

“That doesn’t make sense. It’s in his name.”

“She’s listed as co-owner on quite a few properties.”

“Oh. Right. So… Are you saying she’s got more money than him? Is the plant worth more than his real estate share?”

“Yes.”

“OK. So we have Hatley. He is the less fortunate of the two. Murders have been perpetrated on his property. Were they his buildings only, or shared ownership ones?”

“Um…” Sam looked something up. “Ah! He is the sole owner. Hmm…”

“Maybe she’s got something to do with this.”

“But what? She’s richer than him.”

“Power?”

“What power? She owns the workforce and part of the town. I’d say she’s powerful already.”

Sarah looked aimlessly at various spots on the carpet, lost in thought. Sam read up on his tablet.

“Then there’s only one thing left,” she said. Dean and Sam looked at her, waiting for her to continue. “He cheated on her.”

“Hm, could be.”

“If it’s not money, if it’s not power, it’s sex. Or love. Either he cheated on her, or he wants a divorce or something. Either way, she’s unhappy with him and wants revenge.”

“Could be,” Sam said as he turned his tablet off. “Alright. That gives us some direction for tomorrow. Now I guess we should question them both. Which one first?”

Sarah folded her arms. “You know what? I think we do them at the same time, so they don’t know we’re also talking to the other when we see them. You do her, I do him. Maybe you could charm her into giving you info. And me charm him. Who knows?”

Sam got up. “That’s a bit twisted.”

“Thank you.”

 8. Investigating

 After a relatively good night’s sleep – Sarah cuddled against Dean, who was sleeping on top of the covers – Sam went to get some breakfast. He came back with a bit more than usual.

“That’s a big bag,” Sarah commented. Dean perked up. He hopped down and got closer. “What you got?”

“That place got breakfast wraps and sandwiches. I got a few sausage-only wraps for Dean. And since he’s…” he looked over at the panther, “pretty big, I got 4 just for him. I hope it’s enough.”

“Probably not,” Dean said, “but I’ll take it.” He licked his nose.

The food was distributed and eaten in silence – in Dean’s case, wolfed down pretty fast.

FBI suits were donned, and they left a “Don’t disturb” on the door. Nobody wants to deal with a maid walking in on a panther.

 Sam was driving. He pulled in the police station’s parking lot.

“And why are we here?”, Sarah asked.

“Cause we always hit the cops first…” Sam said, like it was standard procedure. “Plus, they might tell us where to find Mr. and Mrs Hatley if they’re not at the plant. I figure she wouldn’t be, since she doesn’t sit on the committee, so I wonder where we’d find her.”

“I don’t know… home?”

“And if she’s not?”

“What, the police doesn’t keep tabs on every civilian.”

“With all their real estate and them owning the plant, I’m pretty sure both the Hatleys know the police and vice-versa. So there might be something. Or something to learn about the vampire killings. Something.”

“Alright, then. Let’s do that.”

 In the station, they were directed to a certain Wilson. After pleasantries and showing badges, Sam took the floor.

“So, you’re the one working on the multiple murders case.”

“Yes. I’m surprised the FBI got here that fast.”

“Oh, we didn’t only get here, we got the murderer.”

“What, you caught him?”

“Right as he was about to strike again. So you can add that to your file and tell your people.”

“I’m… wow. Seriously?”

Sarah interjected. “Sir, are you questioning the FBI’s efficiency?”

“No! No, no, no… It’s just… It’s like you came in and saved the day. The FBI never does that. Well, they didn’t last time.”

Sam and Sarah frowned, and Sam went, “Last time?”

“Yes. We had 3 murders on our hands within the same week, one in town and 2 on the outskirts. Never got solved. Never got any help either. Super weird case.”

“When was that?”

“Um, about 10 years ago?”

Sam and Sarah glanced at each other in surprise.

Sam turned to Wilson. “Do you have the reports?”

“Yes, I’ll get them for you.”

 Wilson left the room. Sam and Sarah turned to each other.

Sarah whispered, “Oh my god, 10 years? A demon? What the hell?”

“That could be a completely different thing, though.”

Sarah looked at Sam with raised eyebrows, arms open in disbelief.

“No,” Sam said, “of course not. Those things always end up related.” He sighed. She sighed.

“Plus, how come you didn’t find this case? I thought you could find everything and hack in any records.”

“But I did check. There was nothing.”

 Wilson came back with a slim file. “I made you a copy. We didn’t have much, so here you are.”

Sam took the file, gave it to Sarah, who started reading while Sam continued. “Thanks a lot. Could you tell me, why wasn’t this case in the system?”

“What? It’s in the system. Everything always goes in the system. It’s procedure.” He got around his desk, sat and checked on his computer. “See, right – wait.” He typed some more. He sat back, looked at Sam in surprise. “It’s not here. I don’t get it.” He paused, staring at his screen. “I swear, I remember reviewing the file in the system. I even remember, there was one – “

Sam cut him. “Hey, it’s alright, we have a physical file, we have something we can work with, it’s OK.”

Wilson couldn’t believe what he just heard. “What, the FBI… will let this slide?”

Sarah took this one. “No, sir, the FBI will not let this… slide, as you say. You will get the file re-entered in the system. We will need it to be there when we fill the form to close the case.” Sam darted a look at Sarah.

Wilson seemed to fall back in familiar territory. “Oh, right. Yes, right on it, M’am.”

 While Sarah leafed through the file, Sam got to what they had come in for. “Before we leave, we have to ask you if you know where we could find Mr. and Mrs Hatley.”

“From Hatley Corp.?”

“Yes.”

Wilson was visibly taken aback by this request. “Um, Mr. Hatley is usually at the plant. He’s the boss there.”

“We know that.”

“Oh, OK. And Mrs Hatley… I guess she’s home? I know she’ll be at the charity dinner tonight for our Vets. She organized the whole thing. So I guess at the moment she’s home?” He looked at the clock. 9:40. “Still pretty early. I guess she’s home. Want me to call?”

“No, it’s fine. And where would that charity event take place?”

“The Community Center. We had it built for events like this, ceremonies and various activities. It’s pretty big.”

“Thanks, Wilson,” Sam said, extending his hand, “we’ll be on ou-”

 Sarah cut Sam. “Wait. Wilson, why do you say this case was weird? And why do you say they’re murders? All I see here are animal attacks. Even the photos are quite clear.” Sam leaned over to see while Wilson answered. The pictures showed bodies with clear lacerations, so many the victim quickly bled to death from the wounds. There were also bite marks on the necks. Sam and Sarah looked at each other, recognizing the type of wounds. But they wanted to hear it from Wilson.

“Because of the animal. The coroner found all three victims were attacked by a large cat. Now, cats will tackle their preys with their paws to bring them down but then they’ll break their necks. This particular breed of cat here actually crushes the skull of its preys with its fangs. But cats never shred them like this and leave them. Plus, the victims were found far enough from each other that the cat needed a faster mode of transport than just running. To me, that’s weird enough to call it murder.”

Sarah cut in. “Maybe it wasn’t the same – “

But Wilson waved a finger. “No, no. They’re all from the same animal. All the marks were measured and they matched.”

Sarah flipped a few pages. “Ah, found it. ‘…indicate a single adult black jaguar.’” Her eyes went up to Wilson. “Black jaguar?”

“Yeah, or, a panther.”

 Back in the car, Sam took his tablet out.

“Whatcha looking up?”

“Black jaguar distribution. I’m pretty sure they’re not endemic to Kansas.”

“But you knew that when you saw Dean. You told me.”

“Yeah and I do confirm. They’re not.”

Sam turned his tablet off and set it down on the seat. Both Sam and Sarah had their eyes fixed on nothing in particular on the dash. Sam blinked. “So that means…”

“Yeah. That means it’s really Dean. Well, not Dean, but the same cat.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

Sam took a deep breath. He started the car. “Did they find any big cat owner? Does the file say?”

“It specifies they didn’t find any. They checked.”

“Let’s go and ask the Hatleys if they like cats, then.”

 Sam had dropped Sarah at the plant before heading to the Hatley’s domicile.

Mrs Hatley answered the door. “Yes?” She was clearly ready for her day ahead, dressed in a tailored long skirt and coat, hair neatly up in an elaborate braid at the nape of her neck. She presented a look between classic and modern.

“Sorry to disturb you at such an early hour,” Sam said, while showing his badge, “I am agent Ridgeley, I would like to ask you a few questions. It’s regarding the recent macabre events in town.”

Mrs Hatley looked at him a moment, brows furrowed. “Your name again?”

“Agent Ridgeley.” Sam suddenly remembered, he should be a bit charming, because, like Sarah said, who knows? So he relaxed his composure and made a warm smile, looking Mrs Hatley in the eyes.

Mrs Hatley made a little smile. She gestured to him. “Do come in, agent Ridgeley.”

 The house was huge. From the front, it didn’t seem so big, but, once inside, one realized the house was build to be long. They walked the hallway. Sam noticed an old wedding picture on a side table – Mr. and Mrs Hatley, surely. He didn’t have time to look at it closely, for Mrs Hatley was taking him past the living room, a staircase, and the kitchen. She picked up a mug and lead Sam out to the patio. The backyard was neatly maintained, much like an English garden. On a table, a coffee pot was resting on a heat plate, with 2 mugs – both empty – sugar, milk, and the morning paper, neatly folded.

“Would you like some coffee, agent?”

“Yes, thank you. Very kind of you.”

“Please do sit. We can’t take long, for I have to be at the Community Center as soon as possible – I’m hosting an event for our veterans tonight and there is so much to do – but let’s make the little time we have as comfortable as possible. Sugar? Milk? It’s almond milk.”

“Just a splash, please. Thanks.”

“My pleasure. Here.” She handed him his cup and sat down. “So, what is it you need to ask me?”

Sam flipped his notepad open. “We noticed that the, um, events took place in buildings owned by your husband.”

“Indeed. It is very bad for business. The tenants of those buildings want to be compensated for the trauma, or so they say. Actually, one argues the place is unsafe and wants us to lower the rent.”

“’Us’? Aren’t those buildings your husband’s?”

“Oh, sorry. Force of habit. My husband owns a number of buildings, but there are quite a few we co-own. I manage all the buildings.”

“But you own the plant.”

“Yes, but he manages it. See, we’ve learned early on each of us had specific strengths. So we invest our money and let the best of us bring the endeavour to fruition.”

Sam raised an eyebrow in approval and looked around, nodding. “It seems you’ve found the right formula and your endeavours are, indeed, fruitful.”

“Why thank you.”

“I suppose Mr. Hatley spends a lot of time outside the home, though.”

“It’s not that bad. I’m pretty busy myself, you know. And we manage to spend our nights and most of our weekends together, and book nice vacations in the south in the winter. I dare say, I think we found the formula to a fruitful marriage as well.” She laughed a little, and Sam smiled.

“So, any children?”

Her smile faded, but she didn’t seem to mind the question. “No, unfortunately.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t think –“

“Oh, it’s alright.”

“So… who is going to inherit everything?” And Sam realized how gloomy this was, so he added, “You know, a long time from now, in the future?” He attempted a smile.

She laughed. “Of course. Well, it’s all going back to the community.”

“How so?”

“The apartment buildings will all become co-ops – managed by the tenants – and the plant will be given to the employees through shares.”

“There must be someone who’s not happy with this.”

“Sure, like always. But it’s what we have planned. It’s all on paper already, all the legal aspects have been addressed. So whatever happens, it’s all locked anyway.”

“I mean, what I’m looking for, here, is someone who could be your enemy, or want to do you harm. You or your… endeavours.”

“Oh!! Good question.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “To be honest, I can’t see who. I’m very sorry.”

“Someone on the plant’s committee maybe?”

“No… Shares will be divided to keep the company running as is. Everyone will keep their current jobs.”

Sam wrote a few things down. Mrs Hatley looked at her watch and gasped. “My! Agent Ridgeley, I’m so sorry, but I really must go.”

“Oh! I’m sorry. Of course.”

Mrs Hatley and Sam got up. She led him along the hallway.

Once at the front door, Sam remembered the cat thing. “Just before we leave, I have one last question.”

“Yes, but please do make it quick.”

“Between you and Mr. Hatley, you must know a lot of people.”

“Oh, almost everyone in town!”

“Do you know of anyone who is fond of, or would own a big wild cat? Or has owned one in the past?”

Mrs Hatley looked like her brain had stopped working. “A …what?”

“Big wild cat. A black jaguar, to be exact.”

She stared at Sam a moment. “A black jaguar.”

“Yes, a panther, if you will. A big one, too.”

“But… aren’t those things dangerous?”

“Very.”

“Was it a panther that killed all those poor people?”

“I am not at liberty to discuss the details of the case, I’m sorry. But the murders have been stopped. We found the guilty party and proceeded. So, do you –“

Mrs Hatley blinked rapidly. “You caught them?”

“Yes. There is nothing to fear, now. All is back to normal.”

She stared at Sam, and let out a sigh. “Oh thanks. That’s good news.” She blinked, remembered his question. “And no, I… I’m sorry, I don’t know anyone who would have a panther. Not in our apartment buildings, that’s for sure. Nor anyone else. That’s the kind of thing we’d know. I think.”

“Probably. Someone owning such a cat would probably be proud of it.”

“I suppose. And no, I don’t know anyone who has or had a panther.”

Sam wrote something down and put his notepad back in his pocket. “Thank you, Mrs Hatley. Sorry for the inconvenience. You’ve been very helpful.”

“Oh. You’re welcome.”

“Here’s my card if something comes up. Anything.”

“Ah. Thank you.”

Sam gave a nod and a smile, and left.

 Sam picked up Sarah at the plant.

“So, how was it?”

“For one thing, he’s in love with his wife, so the whole cheating slash jealousy slash revenge thing is out the window.”

“Yeah, I got that feeling too. And for the panther, I got nothing.”

“Me neither. The very question seemed to scare him.”

“Mrs Hatley was quite shaken too. She thought the panther had killed her tenants.”

“…’her tenants’? Aren’t the buildings his?”

Sam explained the couple’s arrangements and their plans for their legacy. “What did you talk about?”

“Oh, plant and business stuff. He talks like everyone is happy. It’s eerie.”

“Maybe they are.”

Sarah turned to Sam and said flatly, “We have 3 murders 10 years ago and 4 this week. Woop-tee-doo, I’m dancing with joy.”

Sam pursed his lips. “I know.”

 Sam and Sarah stopped to get some lunch and make a detour by the grocery store to get Dean a big piece of actual raw meat.

“You know, I’m used to Dean and his burgers,” Sam said, looking at the beef roast Sarah had in her hands, “but this is something else. It’s weird to think it’s Dean who is going to eat this.”

“Probably in one sitting, too.” She weighed the package in her hands. “Which is impressive.”

“I think we’ll have to look up a bit more on black jaguars to see what he needs. We can’t feed him a roast that big every meal.”

Sarah felt like she needed to protect Dean. “You should know, cats are obligate carnivores.”

Sam just sighed. “Yeah, I know that. But it’s a lot of food, even for a big cat.”

She pouted. “But he’s going to be so happy.” She lifted the roast to accentuate her statement.

Sam shook his head.

 Back at the motel, Dean was indeed happy about the meat. He chewed on it his eyes half-closed, licking his mouth and nose between each bite. Once he seemed more disposed to listening to Sam and Sarah, they brought him up to speed on their investigations.

 They gathered to throw ideas around.

A vampire was never a loner, but it was decided they wouldn’t go after its nest. Too time consuming, and the probability of the remaining vampires cooperating too low.

Going back to where Dean had been taken, try to find the witches and have them put Dean back seemed to lack some crucial info. Why did the witches switch Dean and the black jaguar in the first place? They would need to know more before they barge in. Of course, Dean favoured the barging in option, taking the witches prisoner and force them to switch him back. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t drive the car. So he was left to follow suit. Dean was not a happy kitty.

Sam turned his tablet on, trying to see if he could find something about a missing black jaguar or panther in the classifieds or anywhere, really.

 9. Knowing

 Sam was still looking up classifieds on his tablet when Sarah’s phone rang. She put it on speaker. “Agent Michael speaking.”

“Um, hi. This is Mr. Hatley from this morning.” He seemed stressed.

Sam and Sarah exchanged glances. Sarah’s tone was relaxed. “Yes, Mr. Hatley. Do you have something new for me?”

“Yes. I think we need to talk. Where can I meet you?”

Sarah gave him the address of the motel.

 There was a faint knock at the door. Dean hid in the bathroom, sitting by the door, able to see and hear but not be seen, while Sarah opened. “Mr. Hatley, please come in.”

Hatley thanked her and walked in. As she closed the door behind him, he froze in place, looking at Sam.

Sam frowned. “What’s wrong?”

Hatley blinked and looked to the ground. He looked back at Sarah. “I didn’t know you had… You’re…”

Sarah tried to fill in. “He’s my partner, yes.”

Hatley turned to Sam. “Agent…?”

“Ridgeley.”

Hatley seemed surprised.

“I know, it’s not a common name.” He glared subtly at Sarah, who had a smirk on her face. “Please, sir, have a seat. Coffee?”

Hatley sat. “Um, no, thanks.”

Sarah sat by Sam, facing Hatley. His leg was restless. His shoulders gave little jolts. He fumbled with his tie.

Sarah tried to make him comfortable. “It’s alright, you can talk to us.”

Sam added, “Even if you think it might be a bit… strange.”

Hatley turned to Sam, suddenly still and calm. He looked Sam in the eye. “I know.”

Sam and Sarah looked at each other, than Sam slowly turned to Hatley. “What do you mean, you know?”

Hatley flattened his tie, sat up, a resigned look in his eye. “Look. I came here to see if I could trick agent Michael here in telling me more about what she knows on the case and tell her the panther is in fact mine, so when she’d find it she’d tell me so I could collect it.”

Sam and Sarah sat back, eyes wide. Sarah spoke up. “Wait. The panther is yours?”

“Kind of. Yes. I mean… No, it’s not. It’s complicated.”

Sam’s brows were furrowed. He squinted. “But you said, ‘I know.’ You know… who the black jaguar belongs to? I’m lost here.”

Hatley sighed loudly. “No. Yes, but it’s not that. I know you’re not agent Ridgeley. You’re Sam Winchester.”

 Sam and Sarah almost fell off their chairs. They echoed, “What?”

“We know who you are, Mr. Winchester. We’ve been informed. We’ve seen a picture of you and your brother. We don’t know who she is,” he pointed his chin at Sarah, “but we know who you are and what you do. So yeah, I know I can tell you about strange stuff. I came to try to get the panther back. Which, by the way, we have no idea how you know about, because, as we all know, the murders in my blocks were carried out by a vampire. Which you took out. That almost went according to plan, but we’re missing a panther, so it’s a damn mess now. So fuck it. I really hope you can help us.”

Sam and Sarah stared at Hatley, mouths opened. Sam was the first to shake the surprise off. “Who informed you of who we are? What do you mean, we can help you?”

Sarah added, “Yeah, and about the panther, too. Is it yours or is it not?” She instinctively looked towards the bathroom. Dean had opened the door a little and was watching through the crack. You could only see one eye, and it was fixing intensely the back of Hatley’s head.

Hatley took a deep breath, looked at Sam. “The demon told us about you guys. That’s who.”

 Sam leaned over the table, resting on his arms. “The demon?”

Hatley folded his hands in his lap. “Yes. He wanted Dean on a silver plate, so he showed us your pictures and explained you were hunters. Getting Dean would be very hard, he said. But it was the price to pay, so we hired some witches – “

“Wait wait wait.” Sam put a hand up. “The price to pay for what? Usually, demons demand the dealer’s soul. Not other humans’. Plus, they can’t collect a soul without a contract. Dean has no contract.”

“Though you gotta admit, Dean is worth a lot for demons,” Sarah said, “so I guess they still try.”

Hatley cut in. “Yeah, that’s what the demon said. He said he could collect Dean if he wanted to. We wondered why he didn’t get him himself, but he said something about his body being guarded or something.”

Sam looked at Sarah. “Ah, the tattoo.” Sarah nodded.

“What?” Hatley was the one confused now.

Sam and Sarah undid a few buttons of their shirts and pulled at their collars. Sam explained. “It’s a warding against demon possession.”

Hatley was impressed. “I should have gotten something like that.”

“Well it depends,” Sam explained, “if you think you need to be guarded against demon possession. Do you?”

“No, actually, no.” Hatley lowered his head. “It’s hellhounds I’m worried about.”

Sarah raised her eyebrows. “Ahhh… So that’s where you think we could help you.”

“Hopefully.”

“Boy, hellhounds… That’s a hard one. When are you due?”

“Tonight, midnight.”

Sarah looked at Sam. “That should explain the other murders. 10 years… the cat…”

Hatley just looked at Sarah under his eyebrows.

Sam crossed his arms. “Better start from the top, then. We’ll need to know everything.”

 And Hatley explained. 30 years ago, they started investing their money, but things dragged on and didn’t really go well. They met with a financial advisor who gave them tips for investing and it’s been doing great from that point on.

“Let me guess,” Sarah said, “it’s been doing really great, but your luck ran out exactly 10 years later.”

“Yes. The way he worded his advice, he’d gotten us to sell him our souls. We just didn’t believe it until we heard the hellhound coming.”

“And how did you get out of that one? Nobody ever gets out of that. No civilian, at least.”

“I killed it.”

Sam and Sarah gasped. Sam spoke. “What? How?”

“A very lucky accident. I was in the kitchen for a late snack. I heard the hellhound and grabbed my biggest knife. I ran, and tried to hide, but of course it didn’t work. When it came for me, I just defended myself and got it.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. My wife couldn’t believe it either. We were in shock. But the next moment the demon was in our kitchen, and he was furious. Long story short, we bargained with it. The new deal was we had to kill the hunters in the area and he’d grant us 10 more years.”

Sarah nodded. “Voilà! We got our 3 murders solved.”

“Yeah. How d’you know about that? We had the data erased from the system.”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “Well, unfortunately for you, someone remembered the case at the station. And still had a paper copy of the file. He was very happy we’d solved the current case, he hoped we could help with that old one.”

“Shit.”

Sam smiled and nodded.

Sarah perked up. “But wait. The hunters were killed by the panther, weren’t they? The very same panther you’re looking for.”

“Oh, so that’s where you learned about the panther.”

Sam made a half-smile and returned to his neutral expression just as fast.

Hatley thought about it. “Yes, it’s the same panther. At least, I think.”

Sarah pressed on. “Don’t just think. Talk.”

Hatley took a deep breath. “Well, as it turns out, we have witches in town…”

Sarah said, under her breath, “It’s a fucking freak show, this place.” Sam glared at her, but talked to Hatley. “Sorry. Carry on.”

“Yeah, I agree with her. We didn’t know about the witches, but they’d picked up on the demon and hellhound activity, and when they realized we were still alive, they showed up on our doorstep. Now, we had witches in our house asking us how we’d gotten out of the demon deal – we quickly learned that it was very valuable information – and meanwhile we had the hunter-killing problem. We had 3 days to carry out the murders. The least I could say was, we were quite overwhelmed. My wife tried to find ways to not kill the hunters, just fake it. The witches explained we couldn’t do that.”

“And the panther in all this?” Sarah’s patience was running out.

“Yes, this is where it comes into play. We… well, I made a deal with the witches. I asked them for help with the hunters murders in exchange for the information they wanted. They’re the ones who did it. Kill them, I mean. They had a panther and used it. They swapped the panther’s soul with one of the witches and got the hunters that way.”

Sarah was thinking out loud. “They must have done more than just unleash the panther. Hunters are usually good enough to get out of a panther attack. I mean, we fight vampires, werewolves, wendigos…”

Hatley’s eyes were wide. “Werewolves? And… what is a wendigo?” He looked at Sarah, then Sam, who opened his mouth to answer, but Hatley cut him. “No. I shouldn’t be surprised. And… Wendigos, I don’t want to know.”

Sam sat back. “Oh you really don’t.”

Hatley continued. “Yeah, I guess the witches used some magic, too. Makes sense, right? They got the hunters really fast, like, in the same night. But when I told them we got out of the demon deal out of luck, they were not happy.”

“I can’t wait to see how you got out of that one,” Sarah muttered.

“With a lot of money,” Hatley said, flatly.

“Like witches can’t get a lot of money by themselves,” Sarah said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Well not a lot of legal money all at once,” Hatley answered, on the same tone.

Both Sam and Sarah went “Oh.”

 “So that was 10 years ago,” Sarah said, “and your problem got solved. For another 10 years. Which brings us to today. Well… this week.”

“Indeed,” Hatley said with a sigh, “but this time, the demon showed up without his hellhound. He’s the one who came to us with an offer.”

“Let me guess,” Sam said, “he wanted Dean.”

“Yes. In exchange for another 10 years.”

Sarah looked at Sam. She frowned, and turned to Hatley. “Only Dean? They usually want both Sam and Dean.”

“Well they know you boys,” Hatley said, looking at Sam. “They know if we get one, the other will go looking for him. All we needed to do was to get you where we wanted.”

“But we didn’t go to where Dean was taken.”

“Because that’s not where the witches wanted you. They said they’d rather deal with you separately, cause if you were in the same room, they’d probably all end up dead.”

Sarah smiled proudly and looked at Sam. “It’s fair.”

“So they put a spell on a vampire to do our bidding, and we arranged for some murders to catch your attention.”

Sarah’s smile quickly turned into an air of disgust. “You say that so matter-of-factly I’m going to be sick.”

Hatley pursed his lips and sighed. “But we lost the panther. The witches were supposed to be waiting for you when you go get the vampire and deal with you. But they were busy looking for the panther, so they missed you.”

“Wow, we’re lucky this organization is sloppy,” said Sarah.

Sam added, “And it’s interesting how they can locate a demon and a hellhound, but not a panther.”

“They’d hidden it magically from you guys. And their spell backfired on them, they couldn’t locate it.”

Sarah’s expression brightened. She looked at Sam. “Now, that’s hilarious.”

 But just as fast, she got serious and squinted at Hatley. “Now, all I see is that you want us to get you out of your demon deal and avoid going to hell. But you can’t give us Dean.”

“I can tell you where his body is and introduce you to the witches, maybe you can work something out.”

“Do give the address.” he did and she wrote it down. “But you seriously don’t think this is enough. We need Dean, not just his body.”

Hatley started fidgeting. “You really can’t help me? Maybe you could talk to the demon?”

“And say what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You’re the pros, aren’t you? Maybe you can get us out of this.”

Sam sighed. Of course, he wasn’t about to let a human be dragged to hell, whatever he may have done. Even murder. Even premeditated, cold-blooded murder. Humans were humans.

“Look. We’ll help you,” he said.

“Oh thanks! Thank you thank you thank you! …how?”

“We’ll trap and kill the demon.”

“You can do that?”

“Yes. And then, we’ll work from there to sort out the rest.”

“I have one last question,” Sarah said, “What about your wife? Is she going to cooperate?”

“She’ll cooperate if it means getting out of the whole deal. She’s stuck with me in this because of the original demon deal, but she didn’t agree to the hunters murders and she didn’t approve of the vampire killings either.”

“Oh because you do?”

“Someone has to carry the guilt.”

 Sam got up. “Alright. You’re supposed to deliver Dean to the demon tonight, right?”

“Right.”

“I suppose, at the address where his body is – and where his soul, trapped in the black jaguar, was supposed to be.”

“Right.”

“OK. We leave right now. Call Mrs Hatley, we’re picking her up.”

“What?”

“You’re coming with us.”

“Why?”

“Cause we need to protect you. We can’t do that if you’re here.”

“But isn’t it more dangerous to get us close to the demon?”

Sarah winked. “Don’t worry. We’re the pros.”

 Sam started gathering their belongings. Sarah turned and nodded at Dean to come out. He opened the door with his paw and gracefully trotted into the room.

Hatley gave a start. “AH! You have the panther?!”

Dean sat in front of Hatley, who tried to back up in his chair. Sam and Sarah looked at the scene, amused. “Why didn’t you say you had the panther?”

Sam straigtened up. “Need-to-know basis. And we’re the ones who need to know. You, on the other hand, need to stay alive. So you need to listen. To us.” Sam gave him a sideways look, waiting for him to answer. Hatley only nodded, keeping his eyes on the panther.

“Oh,” Sarah added, “and it’s not ‘the panther’. It’s Dean.” Dean slowly blinked at Hatley. Hatley nodded.

 10. Preparing

 They picked up Mrs Hatley and headed to the bunker, the Hatleys in the backseat with Sam. Mr. Hatley brought his wife up to speed on everything the best he could. After the initial shock of seeing Sam and Sarah had the panther – um, Dean – she was mostly relieved and grateful for the help getting rid of the demon problem. She assured Sam and Sarah that they never wanted to sell their souls in the first place and she’d been doing every good deed she could think of all those years in the hopes it would erase the deal and get her a place in heaven instead.

“Unfortunately, that’s not how it works,” Sam explained, “a deal is a deal. And one with a demon is, to our knowledge, pretty much unbreakable. Unless you kill the demon.”

“And you know how to do that,” Mrs Hatley enquired.

Sarah looked at her in the rearview mirror. “Yes, we do. It’s the plan.”

“I guess there’s a reason the demon wanted you.”

“Oh you bet there is. A lot of reasons.”

 Back at the bunker, they ate, and Sam checked something on the computer. “Ha. It was hard to pinpoint, but I see why the demon wanted the hunters dead.”

“Don’t they all do? Want hunters dead? As a general rule?” Mr. Hatley asked.

“Not necessarily. Hunters hunt a lot of things, and demons are really not easy to find – and, we’re the only ones I know who can kill them. So demons are not too bothered with hunters in general.”

“Except you and your brother.”

“Yeah. So,” he pointed at the screen, “get this. After you killed the hunters, demon deals went up in the area. I’ve found a few people who had good, very good fortune and died exactly 10 years after.”

“There are not that many rich people in town. What do you mean?”

“Good fortune can be a number of things, including this couple here who’d tried to get pregnant for a long time and finally had a baby. You cross the obits with the classifieds or news articles 10 years back on the same date and you start seeing correlations.”

“My, that’s… grim.”

“My guess is those hunters knew how to get rid of demons. Because there is virtually nothing that fits the pattern for a very long time before the hunters died.”

 Sarah cleaned up after everyone was done eating. “So, those witches. Do tell. Cause we’re about to head out and meet up with them.”

There wasn’t much to tell, to Sam and Sarah’s disappointment. Three women in their thirties. Or so they said. The Hatleys didn’t know if they’d be any helpful, because they seemed happy to help getting the demon’s deed done. That’s what got them rich and what would get them richer this time again. And if they lost the deal with the Hatleys, they just might turn around and cut a deal with the demon instead.

“That’s why we’re killing the demon,” Sarah said.

 Sarah laid out a plan. “OK. So we go to the address you gave me. Then… um… We stall until the demon gets there. We kill the demon. Then, the Hatleys offer a load of money to the witches so they put Dean back in his body. How’s that?”

“I’m not sure,” said Sam. “They’re already paying them to carry out the demon’s demands. It will make the witches very nervous to see us try and kill the demon.”

“OK,” Sarah continued, “Then the Hatleys give them the money upfront for their word they’re not going to hurt Dean, then the same amount after Dean is safe and sound.”

“HEY!” Mr. Hatley protested.

Sarah raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry? You’d rather rot in hell? Cause, you should know, you’re just postponing the inevitable with your deals.”

“No, you’re right.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Sam was pensive. “Yeah, that might work.”

Mrs Hatley was visibly nervous. “You’re really taking us with you to the witches’ place?”

Sam took his phone out. “No. The bunker is more secure, so you’ll stay here. I’ll record your offer to the witches to show them.”

 11. Saving

 The trio was back on the road in the Impala, with, again, Sam in the back and Dean by Sarah in the front.

Sarah glanced at Dean. “How are you doing? Sorry for all the human conversations, but we needed to get to the bottom of this.” “It’s fine,” Dean said, “I had time to… lick myself.” Sam and Sarah made a disgusted sound. Dean laughed.

 The place they were sent to was, of course, a house along a dirt road outside of a town. It was quite hidden in the forest, but it was in good shape. It was already dark and the porch light shone dimly down on the stairs. “Why do we always get to the places in the middle of nowhere?” Sarah reflected, as she parked the car beside an old Toyota. Sam craned his neck to take it all in. “The upside is if we have to fight, we won’t have to deal with neighbours or the police”, adding, “especially since we have a black jaguar with us.” Dean made a “what-he-said” head nod towards Sam. Sarah turned to look at Sam. “If we have to fight? IF?” Dean made a “what-she-said” head nod towards her.

 They got some things from the trunk and headed to the door. As Sarah and Sam were wondering whether they should knock, ring or just barge in, Dean’s ears perked up and he suddenly looked around, moving his ears to catch some sound. Sarah whispered, “I didn’t hear anything.” Sam just looked at her, shrugging. They all looked around.

 Without any warning sign, Dean took off. He was in the forest in an instant – you wouldn’t have heard him run, but only remembered the sound of the leaves after he’d passed, your brain mesmerized by the sheer force it took the massive cat to reach such speed so quickly and smoothly. Sam and Sarah didn’t really have time to realize what had happened when they heard some rustling of leaves, a muffled human sound, a branch snap, then nothing. Sam and Sarah tried to see in the dark in the general direction Dean had gone. “Dean!” Sam called in a loud whisper. “Dean!”

 “He’s right here,” said a woman’s voice from the forest, at normal volume. “No need to call. Oh, and thanks for the delivery.” They heard leaves rustling, branches snapping, the sounds fading as she obviously was walking away from them.

“HEY! Get back here!” Sarah called.

“I’m not that stupid, dear, so no!” the voice answered from farther.

Sam jumped in. “But we have an offer from the Hatleys! We came to talk!”

The rustling stopped. The voice came from right in front of them, a few paces from the stairs. “Sam, you have a machete. And you, whoever you are, you have a gun, probably loaded with something you invented that could hurt us. And you got more things hidden in your pockets.” They could see her in the shadow. She was fairly tall, of strong build, wearing normal jeans and a red hoodie. She had long blonde hair. Sarah had raised her gun, aiming at her, but the witch merely took the information in and turned back to Sam. “So, no, Sam. I’m not stupid. Congrats on trying to save the Hatleys, but this thing has to go down. And, need I remind you, we already have a deal with them.” Sarah aimed at the witch’s leg and shot. The sound of the gunshot resonated in the forest as the figure in front of them vanished in a wisp of smoke. “Damn astral projections.” Sarah was furious she’d lost a bullet for that.

 Sam and Sarah strained their ears to try to hear something, anything. But the forest had fallen silent again. Sam took his lockpicking kit out of his pocket. The best solution: barge in, but silently. 

Sarah protested, in a barely audible whisper. “What’s the point? She went into the forest! And Dean told us he had escaped from a kind of shack, not a proper house.” 

Sam was firm. “But this is the address the demon is going to come to. We can set traps for the demon. He’ll come after us anyway.” 

“Are you nuts? He’ll come after us after he’s done with Dean!” 

“We. Need. Clues. And this is the right address for the deal,” Sam said, as he pursed his lips and proceeded with the lockpick. He added, “unless you have a way of going in the forest silently.” He looked at his watch. “And it’s only 10:30. We have a little time still before the demon gets here.”

 They got in the house, got their flashlights on. It was a very normal house, clean and uncluttered. It felt like breaking and entering into a house where the occupants were sleeping. There was nothing special on the main floor so they went downstairs. The basement was simple and bare.

 They were about to give up on finding clues in the house when they heard a kind of breathing in a corner. Whipping their flashlights around, they only saw a big, low wooden casket. They looked at each other and listened again. Yes. Breathing, coming from inside the casket. Sam got by the lid, unlatched the lock, ready to open, Sarah in position to shoot should anything jump out. Sam lifted the lid.

 Sarah covered her mouth as she screamed. “DEAN!”

Sam just as soon put a hand in front of him to stop her from running towards the casket. “It’s not Dean! It’s not Dean! It’s his body.”

Her eyes went from Dean’s body to Sam and back again. She let her hand down as she spoke. “I know… my god… we have his body… That means it’s the panther inside. Is he tied up in some way?”

Sam looked. “Yes. His hands are tied. His feet too.”

They both looked at Dean’s sleeping body in silence, taking in the damages. Most of the exposed skin was either bruised or scratched. There was a fair amount of caked blood yet some wounds seemed fresh. Sarah couldn’t help but step closer. “My god, his hands…”

 Sam was more used to urgency than Sarah. “Look, he’s sound asleep. This is probably the best way still to contain him,” he said, as he closed and latched the lid, as Sarah looked at him in confused horror. “If we put him in the car, he’ll trash about, break the windows, and hurt himself more.”

“We can tie him down with the seatbelts.”

Sam seemed to think it was a good idea but decided against it. “We need demon traps and salt the windows. We need to protect the body from the demon coming in and taking him.”

Sarah looked at Sam blankly. “The witches can come in and take him elsewhere.”

“Well at least we won’t have to deal with the demon and the witches at the same time.” Sam took his paint spray can out. “Come on. While he’s still sleeping.”

She took her spray can out slowly, thinking. “But why don’t we draw a trap on the pavement and park the car in it with the body in it?”

Sam took a deep, impatient breath. “Because it would be too obvious. If we keep the body here and demon-proof the house, it gives us an advantage.”

Sarah looked up at Sam, a sad look in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I have not hunted for long, I’m not used to the fine details of…” She gestured vaguely.

Sam softened. “It’s alright. It was a good idea, but we need stealth. Come on.”

 After they’d done the demon-proofing, they checked on Dean’s body again. Sarah had taken some decorative cushions from the couch upstairs and fitted them around him, hoping the panther won’t hurt Dean’s body too much if it wakes up.

 “Oh, I see you’ve found the body.” Sam and Sarah whipped their head around at the voice, their flashlights on the witch. “No need for that.” She flicked the switch and the lights came on. It was the same witch as outside earlier. “Nice salting of the windows by the way. I suppose there are demon traps all over the place. Thanks for the vandalism. I’ll send you the cleaning bill.”

Sam was confused. “This is… your house?”

“Yes. Why? Had you known, you wouldn’t have spray-painted my hardwood floors?”

Sam was still confused. “What? No… I mean…”

“That’s what I thought.” She gestured to them. “Step aside.”

“No, wait,” Sam said, “I told you we can do this differently. Let me explain.”

The witch looked at the sheathed machete. “Yes, of course.” She raised an eyebrow. “I said, step aside.”

Sam put a hand up. “Please, please, hear us out.”

The witch took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Look, Sam Winchester,” she said ‘Winchester’ like it was a vile, putrid word, “you Winchester boys and us witches, we are enemies. I have no intention in making a deal with you and certainly no intention in saving your brother. It’s a good deal for us. On all fronts.” She looked him in the eye. “Now. Step. Aside.”

Neither Sam nor Sarah moved.

“Look, from the bulge in your coat pockets, I know you have brought something to protect yourselves against magic. But I am not above physical violence.” She took out a gun. She saw Sarah raise hers. “Ah, yes. So you do have bullets that can hurt me. So it’s true.”

“Yes, it’s true. Witch-killing bullets.”

 The witch sighed and lowered her gun. “Alright. You do have the advantage here. Talk, but talk fast. My sisters will be worried if I’m not back with the body soon. So you have little time before they come and, believe me, us three together? Your little charms won’t hold.” A flash of panic went through Sam and Sarah.

 Sam showed the witch the video from the Hatleys.

“Not good enough,” she said, as Sam was putting his phone back in his pocket.

“What?” said Sam, in surprise.

“Look,” the witch explained, “you’re an intelligent man – otherwise, we wouldn’t have so much trouble with you Winchesters – so understand this. The Hatleys are stupid. They got themselves in trouble and they’re paying us very big money to help them meet the demon’s demands. So we plan on cashing in every 10 years. The deal they offer here is final. We prefer long-term partnerships. Plus, bonus, you Winchesters will finally be out of the picture.” She smiled, confident, proud, and her eyes became unfocused, savouring the future.

 “What you fail to see,” Sarah interjected, “is that after the demon has delivered Dean and Sam to hell, he’ll have no use for the Hatleys. He’ll collect their souls next time their number comes up. So this deal here? It’s double what you would have should you carry out the initial plan.”

 The conversation was cut short by the noise of people entering the house and running downstairs. Two women appeared, out of breath. They were of similar build and attire as the blonde one, but they had light brown hair. They stopped short at the bottom of the stairs, looking at Sam and Sarah.

 Sam and Sarah knew their time was up. Sam put his hands in the air and Sarah put her gun back in her belt and did the same. Sam broke the silence. “Hi… um… We were just talking.”

The blonde witch turned to her twin sisters. “They have witch-killing bullets. I agreed to listen.” She turned to Sam and Sarah. “You wait here. We’ll be back. And don’t try to escape. We took care of the exits.” She went upstairs and out with her sisters.

The witches came back after a while. The blonde talked. “OK, Sam Winchester. As much as I hate to see you boys live, we’ve decided the new deal is better.” Sam and Sarah let out a relieved sigh. “But,” she continued, “you get to deal with the demon first. And alone. We’re not getting our hands dirty. If you survive the demon, fine. Otherwise, we go back to the original plan.”

Sam let out an annoyed sigh. “You’re not going to help? At all?”

The three sisters shook their heads. The blonde one added, “The demon will be here shortly. He will be coming to the shack in the back, where we keep the actual Dean.”

 At that moment, they heard bumping and muffled screaming from the casket. The blonde witch nodded to her sisters, who went and took care of it. They opened the casket, said some incantation, and closed it. The room was quiet again.

Sarah asked, a tone of sadness in her voice, “Does he wake up often like this?”

The blonde witch answered, “Every 3 to 4 hours. Spells don’t take hold as well on hybrids. The body can be put to sleep, but the incantation doesn’t work as well on the soul if it’s not its body. So it fights back and we have to redo the spell every so often.”

 **

Dean opened his eyes. The charm had worn off. Again in a cage. Dammit! He saw the other cage, empty. Dammit! He leaned against the sides of his cage. Hmmm… seems more solid than last time. He sniffed the air. The human presences had not been gone long. He had time, but surely only little time. And so he started slamming against the cage, not caring for the pain. At any rate, this wasn’t his body. He didn’t care if he broke it beyond repair.

 **

The witch gestured to her sisters. “Come on, let’s bring the body to the shack.” She turned to Sam and Sarah. “You, follow us. We’ll leave you with Dean and his body, and the demon. We’ll wait in the house.”

Sarah protested, “What, you’ll leave all of Dean within the demon’s reach? What kind of deal is this?”

“And here I thought you were good hunters. Well, good luck. Come on, now.”

 **

Dean heard, in the distance, a patio door opening and closing. He gave a last blow to the cage and assessed the damages. The cage was looser. Maybe with a blow or two, it would give. His shoulders hurt badly but he didn’t care. He might even have a broken rib, but he didn’t care. He found a way to hide the blood on the floor as he laid down to fake sleeping.

 “No need, Dean. I know you’re awake,” said a male voice. Dean managed to stay still. The voice said, “Doesn’t matter. Let me introduce myself. My name is Brentley, demon, and I’m here to collect you.” Dean opened an eye and saw the demon looking around. “Where is your body? I need both parts. You know,” and he looked at Dean, “to ensure you don’t come back this time.” Dean stayed lying down, trying to look pitiful in the cage. “I know I’m a little early – I said I’d be here at midnight – but seriously, where is the rest? Your body, the witches, the Hatleys…” Brentley put his hands in his pockets, turned to Dean. “Ah, doesn’t matter! Tonight, I get souls. If it’s not yours, it’ll be the Hatleys’. Today’s a good day for business.” He took one hand out and patted the air beside him. Dean heard a low growl. His eyes widened and he backed up in a flash, cowering against the cage. Oh, fuck.

 The door opened. “Ah!”, said Brentley. In came the twins with Dean’s body levitating between them. “Finally!”, said Brentley. The twins stopped in surprise, but continued into the shack. Then Sam and Sarah came in. “What??”, said Brentley.

The blonde witch answered him, as she came in, “We found them at the house. Stupid Winchesters, always with their noses in other people’s business. Couldn’t leave them there, so we brought them.”

Brentley pointed at Sarah. “She’s a Winchester?”

The blonde witch answered, “Don’t know, don’t care.”

“Me neither, quite frankly,” Brentley said, as he gestured circles in the air. “Tie them up!”

 In the commotion of handling Sarah to tie her up – she was not giving in – Dean caught Sam’s eye. He warned him, “there’s a hellhound by the demon’s side.” But Sam looked confused. Dean repeated. Sam looked a bit panicked. Shit, the spell had worn off. Dean changed tactics. He made a head nod in the witches’ direction, trying to ask Sam if the deal with the Hatleys had gone down. Sam nodded and tapped his phone in his pocket to tell Dean he’d shown them the video. Somehow the brothers understood each other. Dean then looked around and understood what he had to do. And fast.

 He stepped back and slammed against the cage, causing everyone to stop what they were doing and stare at him. The cage hadn’t given. He went at it again, and the cage broke, with Dean rolling awkwardly on the floor. He got up, stood to his full height, then, bracing himself, he bent his head down, flattened his ears, closed his eyes until their were slits, focusing on the demon, looking him in the eye, bared his fangs and growled.

 But Brentley was not having it. He patted the air beside him. “Get him girl!”

That’s exactly what Dean wanted. Everyone looked horrified – Sam even more so, knowing full well what a hellhound is – as Dean fell to the ground under the most vicious yet invisible creature from hell. Sam took out his machete in the hopes of helping Dean, but the fight was moving too fast. Dog and cat growls tore through the night, and Dean suddenly flew this way and that, and started bleeding from a paw, his neck, his side. One could see his skin being stretched and torn and yet Dean, with the agility his panther body provided him, and his resilience, and his lack of care for pain and broken bones, sent black spurts of blood everywhere. He scratched at the air, bounced away, pounced back, bit the air. More black blood spurted, until Dean seemed to get his paws around something – the hellhound’s neck? – pin the invisible creature down, and tear at it once more. A pool of black blood is all that could be seen. Dean stepped back and looked the demon in the eye again, growling.

 Brentley was visibly in shock. And angry. He was looking at his dead hellhound and grinding his teeth as he looked at Dean. Sam looked at the twins holding Sarah. The twins and Sarah showed Sam Sarah was not tied up. Sam mouthed “water” to Sarah, who lightened up. She reached for the bottle in her jacket and, before the demon had time to form his next thought, splashed him. As the demon was screaming and writhing in pain, the witches nodded at each other. They chanted fast and the blonde witch, with her finger pointing to the ground, etched a demon trap in the floor. Dean bounced around the demon and pushed him inside.

 Brentley regained his composure and saw the trap. “Ah, fuck! Really?” He looked at the witches. “What the hell is going on?”

The blonde one answered, “The Hatleys gave us a better deal. You’re out.” She nodded at Sam.

Sam took out his demon knife – but had a moment of hesitation, knowing that if he stepped into the demon trap, the demon would take him. Dean caught Sam’s hesitation and jumped the demon from behind, pinning him face down to the ground. Sam understood Dean’s intention the moment he moved a muscle, so he was on the demon the instant he hit the ground and stabbed him, sending yellow sparks about.

 12. Homecoming

 The Hatleys had transferred all the promised money and were told they could go home.

 The witches made Sam promise to not go after them. Sam made them promise to not kill anyone. Dean was put back into his own body, only to find it in pretty bad shape. Not as much as he had left the panther’s, but he was very bruised and bloody. His hands hurt a lot. But… he didn’t care. He’d had much worse.

 On the ride back to the bunker, Sam was driving. Dean and Sarah were in the back, silent, numb, leaning on each other. “I think it’s my first real big big hunt with an actual big dangerous fight. I’m more spent than I thought I’d be. I didn’t even do much,” said Sarah, half to herself.

Sam looked at her in the rearview mirror, “It’s normal. It’s the nerves. With more hunts you’ll be able to understand situations better, and it’ll be easier.”

“You don’t get nervous anymore?”

“No, I still do. Danger is danger. But it’s different.”

Dean joined in the conversation. “It’s like anything else. It takes practice. When you know what to do, it’s different. The stress comes from the execution of the task, not from trying to choose what to do. You’ll get there.” He looked at her and his smile was tired, yet fond.

  The rest of the ride home was quiet. Dean had dozed off on Sarah’s shoulder. Sarah was relaxing, the low rumble of the Impala almost putting her to sleep. The street lights were coming at regular intervals. She gave the softest kiss on Dean’s cheek. He didn’t wake up.

Back at the bunker, everyone sleepily shuffled to their room, wishing each other goodnight. By then, it must have been 1 a.m.

 But Dean was too wounded and bloodied to go straight to bed. Sarah took their bathrobes from the bedroom, and brought a chair in the bathroom. “Strip, babe, I’m gonna help you clean up.”

Dean didn’t say a word, he simply slowly and painfully took his clothes off, starting with his shirts. She helped him with his boots. He finally sat there in his undies, slouched a bit. She slowly and gently cleaned off the blood, slowing down when Dean winced. “Are you bruised… everywhere?”

“It feels like it. But I don’t think so.”

“I’m sorry babe.”

“It’s alright. It feels good, what you’re doing.” His tired green eyes slowly blinked as he smiled softly. He sat up and reached for a kiss.

 After cleaning Dean up from the blood, they both hopped in the shower. Dean’s shoulders were hurting quite a bit, so Sarah helped him wash his hair. As he stood tall and moved his head to rinse, it hit her. Dean had been a panther for a few days. She’d missed him. And now he’s here, all of him. They won the fight. She didn’t lose him. It overwhelmed her. She wrapped her arms around Dean, her face against his chest, water running down their bodies. Dean leaned down a bit to rest his cheek against her forehead and wrapped his arms around her. “It’s alright, sweetie, I’m here,” he said. She looked up at him. She couldn’t help but get lost in his green eyes. She got on her tippy toes and kissed him gently. He leaned down and pressed his lips harder. It sent a spark through her. Soon they were kissing hard and strong, their tongues searching and finding each other.

 “Ouch!” Dean winced.

Sarah stepped back. “Oh I’m sorry babe… what did I do?”

“Nothing… It’s my ribs… I think one or two might be badly bruised. And…” He moved his shoulders and winced. “Anyway. Don’t worry. Come back here. You make me forget the pain.”

“Actually, I think we should move our… activities to bed. You’re bruised enough as it is.”

“Good call,” he laughed lightly, “shower sex is complicated enough as it is, no need to make it worse.”

 They got out of the shower, Sarah put a few bandages on Dean’s wounds, and they went to their bedroom. They slipped into the sheets naked and cuddled close. They laid there, her on her left side, her nose smooched against his jaw, him on his back, his arms around her. They stayed quiet for a moment, the little lamp on the bedside table still on. Their eyes were closed, their breathing slow.

 Sarah took a deeper breath. “Mmm… Are you still up for it or are you too comfy?”

She felt Dean’s jaw muscles move – he was smiling.

He took her hand in his and said in a low voice, “That kiss in the shower… I missed those.” And he moved her hand down until she could feel he was still under the kiss’ influence.

She smiled. “Mmm… hello there, Mr. Dean.” She stroked him softly, which only made him want more. “I’m so tired,” she said, “I don’t know if I can do this.”

Dean laughed, “if that is so, you’ll have to stop, cause I sure am not going to be able to sleep if you keep it up.”

She laughed. She stopped.

Dean shifted his body to face her a little.

She looked up at him and he made a pouty face.

She laughed. He laughed. He gave her a gentle kiss on her forehead.

 She propped herself on her elbow and looked at Dean fondly. She ran her fingers in his hair, along his scruffy jaw, brushed his lips with her thumb. “Kiss me, babe, kiss me as much as you missed me. For sure, that’ll wake me up.”

Dean smiled softly and got lost in her eyes. He pulled her closer as he shifted his body so they’d be facing each other. He put a strand of her wet hair behind her ear. He looked at her face, kissed her nose, kissed her cheek. He rubbed his nose against hers, eyes closed, his lips barely brushing hers.

“You’re killing me, Dean Winchester,” she whispered, smiling. He smiled and kissed her very gently. She kissed him back, pecking at his lips, biting his bottom lip. He kissed her harder, tasting her, taking her, a devouring desire building inside him.

 He pulled her closer still. She felt the movement of his hips, pressing himself against her. He was big and hard. It sent electricity through her. She broke the kiss for some air while she wrapped her leg around him, pressing herself against him, moving her hips to stroke him. He kissed her neck and moaned softly; she was slick and it almost tickled more than it put actual pressure on him. It made his head spin. She tried to put more pressure but it wasn’t enough, far from it. It made her head spin.

 “How are your ribs?”

“Forget about my ribs.”

She smiled. She moved her hips to feel his length again. “And your shoulders?”

He buried his face in her neck. “Fuck…”

“Get on your back. I’m riding you. Right now.”

 She straddled him, but she laid down on him, kissing him, keeping her skin in contact with his skin, stroking him, her hips moving back and forth, putting more pressure. His hands on her waist, he tried to help her with the rhythm, although he was more gripping her than helping her. “God, sweetie, Goddd…”

 His breath was fast. He pushed her up a little, so he could look at her beauty. She sat up and smiled at him. He moved his hands slowly from her waist to her breasts. They were so soft… He gripped her butt and helped himself up to kiss her breasts – but his shoulders were on fire. He fell back down.

 “Let me get closer to you,” she said, as she bent down. He played with her nipples with his tongue, took a mouthful in a big kiss. He played with the other breast, pinching her nipple then licking it, and sucking it. She rotated her hips on him. He let out a high-pitched sound and buried his face in her breasts. She heard his muffled voice, “Good God, baby, ride me, please ride me…” He looked up at her. She got lost again. Damn those eyes, so green… Damn those eyelashes, so luscious and beautiful… Damn those lips, deep red, puffed from the kissing…

 She licked and kissed his neck as she positioned herself to take him in. Dean helped her, looking at her, a relaxed yet expectant look on his face, his eyes dark with lust. She slowly slid him in, taking the time to feel him completely, moving her hips slightly to get the right angle. He gripped her as he closed his eyes, taking a long breath in. She started to move up, but he opened his eyes, a little mischievous look in them. “Wait… stay there.”

 “What?” She was confused. And ready to ride. What?

“Don’t move,” he said, as he licked his thumb.

She realized what he had in mind. “Oh please, just let me ri-“

“No, no. And put your hands on your thighs and leave them there.”

She couldn’t help but smile when she protested, “You fucking bast- OOOOHH…”

He had not waited for her to finish what she was saying. He was rubbing her very lightly, and tickling her with her wetness.

She gripped her own thighs. “HOLY F-“

“SSsshh! You’ll wake Sam!” But he didn’t stop. He stroke lightly up and down all the way to himself, almost making a point of avoiding her clit or brushing it only slightly. She looked at him wide-eyed and made little high-pitched sounds. He put a little more pressure around her clit, brushing it as he passed over it. He could already feel her clench around him. He loved watching her breasts move as she breathed. He cupped one. So soft…

 But the clenching was building rapidly and he closed his eyes as he kept stroking her, now with both his thumbs, one keeping her clit well exposed and the other working on her. She tried to move her hips forward to get more pressure from his fingers, but he kept her in place. Soon he heard her moan as he heard himself moan and felt her legs trying to close at his sides as she was mercilessly exposed. He felt her coming around him, clenching hard in waves, sending him higher. Their hips jerked and they tried to get even deeper as they were losing all sense of self, their blood rushing so hard they were dizzy.

 At some point Dean realized he was hearing Sarah breathe deep but more slowly. He opened his eyes. She opened hers. They smiled at each other.

She bent down and kissed him. “You little jerk,” she said, laughing, as she kissed him again.

He smiled and laughed. “I’m a lazy jerk. We barely moved, hah! How about that!” He flashed a proud smile.

She smiled back at him. “Babe, you’re the best.”

“Ah, yes.” He kissed her, pulled her into him, replaced the sheets over them, and soon, in each other’s arms, their breathing slowed and they fell asleep.

     I’d love to hear from you!

     Back to the Masterlist

[romanvelvet]

Shopping on AliExpress- A Guide (August 2019)

I’ve been shopping on AliExpress since 2014, and have ordered around 250 items from many different shops over that period of time. These are some tips I’ve learned from experience!

-China currently gets subsidized shipping, but that might change in the future. beware of high shipping costs- it’s often a way for sellers to get extra profit and it feels scummy, so the store may not be trustworthy if they do this.

-Keep an eye on store and seller ratings. Avoid stores below 85-87% ratings for the most part. The ratings are broken down by accuracy of item, shipping speed and seller communication. If the last two don’t bother you (I don’t mind too much) then as long as the accuracy score is good, you’re probably ok.

-The average shipping time for stuff is about a month. It can sometimes be 2 months. Don’t freak out, and plan ahead!

-However, if you look at the tracking info and it’s still “in customs,” it’s possible it was confiscated by customs. If this happens, you can usually talk to the seller and get your money back. It’s only happened to me about 2-3 times in the 5 years I’ve been shopping there (and the ~250 items I’ve purchased there) and I’ve gotten my money back each time.

-Read reviews; often, multiple sellers will be selling the same items, so if there’s no reviews on the item you’re looking at, look for the same photos on different stores and read those reviews, and consider buying the one with reviews.

-Chinese sizes run SMALL. Always read the size chart and know your measurements accurately. If the item doesn’t have a size chart, message the seller or buy from a different listing. Always lean toward the larger option if you’re between sizes, it’s possible that the item is actually a little smaller than the size chart. read reviews regarding size. You can usually message the seller for advice on size if you’re confused.

-On that note, “one size” items are usually equivalent to a Chinese medium, often leaning a little smaller. A Chinese medium is roughly equivalent to an American extra small.

-Use centimeters and kilograms for measurements and weight. I recommend buying a tape measure with centimeters on it for quickly measuring yourself or spaces in your home. You can also use Google to translate inches into centimeters, as well as pounds into kilograms. 

-Items that have a more Western look or style/featuring Western or voluptuous models are often sized in a more western way, for some reason. They also fall prey to lower quality and less accurate photos than Asian style clothing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Be more vigilant if you’re buying a Western style item.

-Quite a few models are photoshopped to ridiculous lengths. be critical of all photos.

-Always leave detailed reviews of the items you get; it helps people out a lot. Try to use plain language and correct grammar/spelling, as the automatic translator isn’t perfect, and the more correct and simple phrasing you use, the more useful it will be to customers who don’t know your native language and depend on the translator. Try not to use slang.

-Avoid fancy or expensive items ($100+) unless the reviews are excellent. Often, these items are produced as cheaply as possible and you might be very disappointed.

-There is a freebies button on the homepage of the mobile app. Browse that daily. You get two chances to apply for something every day. I discovered this a few weeks ago and I already won a tee! 

-Also on the mobile app, there is a button that allows you to search a photo. This is helpful for finding the same item if you need to read reviews, or find it at a lower price. It also brings up similar items which is nice. Sometimes, it’s really off though...you can find the button if you click on an item’s photo. The camera shaped button in the upper right corner will search for you.

-Use the site feedback feature often. They’re actually pretty receptive to feedback. I’ve noticed a couple of my suggestions implemented or bugs fixed after I told them about them.

-Never confirm receiving the item until you’ve inspected it- check that they sent the right size and color, check for damage like stains, holes, marks, poor stitching. If there is an issue, you can’t dispute and get your money back if you’ve already confirmed that you got the item.

-Personally, I avoid all makeup/skincare and food items on AliExpress, but I’m willing to bet that there are trustworthy stores out there that sell good quality skin stuff and food stuff. If you find them, message me with the store names!

-AliExpress is a fun place for crafters. It’s easy to find bulk listings of very cute items, at affordable prices. If you’re interested in starting a new type of craft, it’s a great place to get inexpensive starter supplies too.

-There are legitimate Taobao resellers on AliExpress, mostly of Lolita and Mori Girl fashions.

-Keep your expectations realistic. If a stiletto shoe is 15 dollars, it’s not going to be as well made as one that costs 50 dollars. 

-Searching can often be frustrating, as Chinese sellers use different words for things than Westerners/English speakers do. I’ve found a few consistent ones: 

Perspective=Transparent or see through

Hollow Out=Lace, often eyelet specifically

Shrimp Pink= Often a peach color or dusty pink color

Taro color=Often lavender, or dusty lavender

-If you’re having trouble finding something, look at wording that’s being used in similar items and search those terms. Adding stuff to your wishlist (even if it’s not exactly what you want) often helps the search algorithm suggest more accurate items.

-There are a lot of adult items available and currently no way to opt out of seeing them. If you think this will bother you, tread carefully. You’ve been warned!

That’s about all I have for now! Feel free to message me with questions and I’ll try to answer to the best of my ability. Hope this helps some of you out there!

[codetrainwreck]

2 part ask

From @midnyghtmadnes​

This response is kinda long, so it’s hidden behind a read more lol.

As I said in the summary, I haven’t seen the movie. All of the summary stuff and info is from 2 people who’ve seen + the movie pamphlet. But I’m still interested in seeing it. I’m going to Japan in April and I’ll be seeing it as many times as I can if it’s still in theaters. My reasons for wanting to see it, however, are because of Cute Boys.

My attachment to Geass has nothing to do with Lelouch or the setting or the story or [whatever]. I have been 110% completely invested in this series ever since Schneizel turned around in the first opening of the first episode. I’m pretty weak to cute blonde dudes w/nice bangs. CLAMP designs are truly powerful. He appears in the movie in glasses and he looks pretty hot so uhhhh regardless of story, plot, etc things, the movie somehow has something for me. As an added bonus, there’s also this green haired pretty boy voiced by one of my favorite VAs. 👀👀👀

However, compared to the original TV anime, honestly I’m just rolling my eyes. “The Gate that CC uses is below the prison that Suzaku JUST SO HAPPENS to be held at”. Is there only one fucking prison in all of Zilkhstan? Then Chamna’s Geass is to rewind time by 6 hours when she dies. Uhm, so like, why can’t she just daisy chain that shit? Also, “Shirley used her status as a normal college student to take Lelouch’s corpse to France w/o being monitored” except accompanying her was Schneizel, who is the recently appointed #2 of the UFN and was probably already relatively famous?

Stuff like Lelouch and Nunnally’s relationship really makes me scratch my head as well. I get that they were trying to make a comparison between Chamna/Chalio and Lelouch/Nunnally - “Wow Chalio is completely dependent on Chamna but Nunnally can live without Lelouch“. Him leaving her doesn’t bother me - his plan in the TV show was pretty clearly to leave her side one day. It’s the speed and way that it happens in the movie that is seriously “wtf”. Like, your little sister watched you fucking die and held your hand as you died and witnessed you take your last breath and she was probably traumatized as fuck and you’re just bailing 5 seconds after she wakes up? Dude, Lelouch, can you maybe chill and wait at least a day or something?

And then, about world building and setting and such... The plot of the movie largely feels without consequence. No one talks about Zero Requiem. Not as in, “no one talks about how Emperor Lelouch was a big dick and then he died”, but like, “what was happened to the world since then” isn’t really expanded upon. We go from Kallen’s ending narration where she says, “Of course, there are still problems in the world, but people are working on fixing them”... to a 2 year time skip where Everything is Awesome except in Zilkhstan apparently.

I don’t even know what to assume happened off-screen: Did Kaguya, Nunnally, the Chinese Empress, and their presumably European friend make a 4 girl idol band that went to tour to different countries and got other countries to join the UFN? Did Schneizel, who now isn’t allowed to blow up the capitals of all first world countries, have to Do Things the Hard Way and in 2 fucking years he just fixed like 80% of everything?

One of the things Taniguchi has mentioned in Re;surrection interviews is about using the recap movies + Re;surrection universe as a jumping off point for new Geass. To be completely honest, I am kind of “meh” about that whole idea.

Fictional stories typically revolve around a conflict. Sometimes it’s an internal character conflict which requires the characters to grow, sometimes it’s a conflict that involves the whole world. Every single Geass spinoff has been about Some Form of Conflict. The one that seems to have been adopted into canon the most is Oz the Reflection, which is a story told parallel to the main conflict of Lelouch of the Rebellion.

The elements of Geass that people like have become very obvious over the years: “Give us Lelouch dicking people and waving his hands fabulously and pressing a single button to blow up All the Ground.” Every single fucking Geass spinoff has a Lelouch clone (Dash in Renya) or just Literally Lelouch (Akito) and I think it’s annoying.

So, how would they even make something else in this setting? The world becomes Even More Awesome because Papa Eyebrows has Zilkhstan joining the UFN at the end of the movie. Having more made up countries who are not part of the UFN presenting a challenge(?) for our heroes just to become friends with everyone at the end would be the same shit repeated again.

I feel like a, “10,000 years in the future” setting would largely be a repeat as well: “Oh no, peace was destroyed over time, let’s fight until the world is at peace again”.

Meanwhile, Lelouch. Well, let’s see: Lelouch’s internal conflicts with his parents have looooooooong been resolved. He has removed himself from the world stage and leaves the Zero identity in Suzaku’s hands. @touchreceptors noted that even his personality seems completely different in the movie. Lelouch hints about him and CC going off to “find the fragments of Geass” at the end of the movie. (This is potentially a reference to the web series which is also called “Fragments”, but who knows.)

And that’s like... the biggest expanded universe hook we have? What are they gonna do - show Lelouch -- who’s personality got neutered since he got revived -- and CC -- who’s personality got rewritten in the recap movies to be a 1 dimensional object orbiting around Lelouch -- traveling somehow w/o Lelouch being recognized and finding ~Fragments of the Geass~ while occasionally running into old characters? I would absolutely still watch that hoping for the occasional Schneizel cameo but I wouldn’t be thrilled about it.

Personally, if I were in charge of making a new Geass thing, I would skip this stupid Plot Extension with the Geass fragments and just make Code Geass: Fumoffu or Code Geass: Carnival Phantasm...

[nitallica]

Cross-posted from my blog: I should have just stayed in bed

I took a mental health day yesterday. The first one I’ve had in I can’t remember how long. I woke up and texted Ryan to see if they could do without me for a day. As far as I knew I didn’t have anything pressing, and he said go for it. Honestly, I could do with a week off, and I’m sorely tempted to ask if I can do that next week. I’m tired and angry. And it seems like every time I go back in, something else sets me off.

I spent the morning watching tv and trying to decompress. I played a little GW2, and for the most part enjoyed it. I ran into someone being a complete asshat in WvW but I tend to just block and move on when it comes to PVPing in that game. The community is great … as long as you stay out of the WvW and sPVP maps. :P I tried to nap but had a splitting headache so I started watching monster movies and ordered a pizza. I figured it was Fuck it Friday, so why not?

I had considered going out that afternoon when Donna texts me asking if I’d seen a ticket that came in. No, because I removed all work-related apps from my phone since it’s a personal phone now. I find out that we’re getting a new COO … and he starts in 2 days. Great. And no one said anything to me and half his accounts are already setup, so I’ll have to figure out his Domino/Notes stuff when I get in Monday. I’m pretty sure no one thought to ask, and at this point I decide I’m too angry to go out and opted to stay home. Fuck it, I will deal with it Monday. That’s become my mantra lately … “Fuck it, I will deal with it later.”

I told Donna that right there was proof they didn’t need me and she says that anyone can setup the AD stuff but no one knows Notes. Thanks a lot. I took over setting up the AD accounts because they kept getting fucked up. And I’ve made the Notes setup as easy as possible, documenting step by step what should be done where in case anyone needed to pick up while I’m out. I’ve made this known to the entire department several times, and no one bothers to look at it, and claims “Oh, I don’t know how, we still need YOU to do this.” I’m tired of it all. I’m angry, and I’m hurt. I’m tired of reaching out to folks to try to explain, then have my feelings either minimalized or just told (in a round-about way) to get over it. And people wonder why I keep withdrawing?

I don’t think she meant it the way I took it, but I already feel alienated, left out. And shit like this doesn’t help.

So monster movies all night long, basically until I passed out. I woke up this morning and received an email that one of my fanlistings weren’t working. It turns out none of them were. I had upgraded EasyApache on my server about a month ago and performed some badly needed upgrades. I was quite frankly embarrassed at how old the software I was still running was, and decided it would be a good idea to update EVERYTHING to the latest and greatest. Yeah, did not go as planned. Worse, I decided to initiate this about 45 minutes before walking out the door to an appointment. I opened a ticket with KnownHost to let them know that I did a dumb thing and asked about rolling back to the last VPS snapshot. After some back and forth, it turned out that I didn’t really need to do that, I just needed to fix my root htaccess file. It turns out I caused my own problem with just one little line, hah!

Some days I really do question my own intelligence.

OK so this morning I’ve been digging through code and yelling at my monitor, and it seems the Enthusiast script I’ve been using is outdated. Actually, that’s an understatement, it’s a fossil, an antique. It was written for PHP 4.1 or 4.2. Even worse, this was an upgrade from an even earlier version and I’d customized the hell out of it over the years. The official Enthusiast site has been down (looks like they recently had an upgrade of their own that went TU), so I checked the repository on GitHub. It was the latest version I could find … and would not function fully on PHP7 or higher.

Lovely. /headdesk

It seems there’s a fork with an updated version of 3x that works on PHP 7.3, but I’d have to figure out how to convert my existing Enthusiast installs to it. I copied the new fork’s files on a test subdomain, created the databases needed and installed the script. Yep, NOPE! Everything’s totally different and honestly by this point I’ve been staring at code all morning and am a bit pissed off, coupled with the aggravations from work, I decided to go another route. I’m not proud of this, but it works and for now it gives me time to figure out if I want to keep these fanlistings or not. I created a new subdomain account and added PHP 5.6 to my EasyApache profile. UGH! I really don’t like adding something so old, but my plan is only to allow that one subdomain to run it. I create a new MySQL database and export from my main domain to the new subdomain. I update all config files where needed with the new db infos and BOOM, I’m back in business.

Granted, now I’ve got to clean up all of my customizations and make sure all of them work. I also have to submit a modification request to TFL letting them know that these things have been moved. Of course while I’m in there looking at the code, I’m shocked at how badly these things are written. Granted, these sites were all written 10+ years ago. I guess I can’t be too hard on myself. A small part of me badly wants to re-design these things “properly” … but a larger part of me doesn’t have enough fucks to give. It’s not that I don’t care, but … I don’t have the energy to spend on them. That actually makes me a little sad.

My therapist thinks that’s stress and/or my depression talking … these used to be little fun projects and I loved making websites one after another. And now I don’t find it fun anymore. Actually, it’s really hard for me to enjoy much of anything that I used to. I mean I laugh about it some days, but I have gotten to the point to where nothing I used to love brings joy to me anymore. My job is one thing. I can easily explain that with burnout. But this is more. I’m beginning to think that maybe I need to find another psychiatrist and give that another shot. Because I think I’m getting worse.

Anyways, I hope your weekend is going better than mine. And May the 4th be with you. ♥

... from I should have just stayed in bed

[sagegothel]

F the Prom → Sia

TAGGING → Tia La Bouff (@tiaisms) & Sage Gothel

TIMELINE → Saturday, May 18

SETTING → Charming Dance Hall, Streets of Walt, 1151 Wiizard Way

SUMMARY → Tia and Sage both have crappy nights at prom. In the end, they decide to get pizza and plan a summer roadtrip (including that info here because we didn’t write it lol)

Sage was totally not having a good time at prom this year. She’s volunteered to be a chaperone because she finally had a boyfriend now and being dates with like, Lux or whoever again was so not okay, although that hadn’t stopped Vivi from asking Wayland to go with her again. But whatever; Sage had figured she’d get to hang with Izzie and Tia and like, pass her crown on to a new cheerleader who won queen this year while she waited for a chance to borrow Wayland for the dance they hadn’t gotten last year when she’d been prom queen instead. And to hurry it up a little, she was maybe kind of scoping out cute high school boys to set Vivi up with instead, since she was like, super pretty and really couldn’t keep borrowing Wayland from her forever. She’d just spotted a medium key hottie she didn’t know when Tia crossed her line of vision, though, and she waved excitedly. “Hi bestie!” Sage squeed, reaching out to hug her without even noticing the expression on her face. “Do you think that boy over there is shorter than Vivi or not? I like, can’t tell from here.”

Tia only just barely spared a glance at the boy Sage was gesturing to as she tried her best to keep her composure up for a few minutes longer. "He looks shorter than us. Can we get out of here?" She asked in a rush, silently praying to God and anyone else who was possibly listening that Sage would just be a good minion and not question her until they were at least out of the range of a building filled with a bunch of nosy annoying high schoolers. Tia was so upset about her latest and quite possibly final break up with Kai, she really doubted her ability to be able to say much else without it possibly escalating into actual screaming.

Sage ‘s eyes went wide, surprised by Tia’s response, but she didn’t question it. She was best friends with like, the two smartest people on the planet; if they said something they were usually right about it, and Sage was super glad to have them to help her out when she didn’t get stuff. “Oh, um, sure!” she replied, casting a quick glance around to make sure Vivi hadn’t like, snuck Wayland off to do anything weird to him before she looped her arm through Tia’s and let her lead the way. “Is Kai stuck doing like boring radio stuff?” she asked as they walked. She totally wished she was hanging out with her own boyfriend; she was a little curious about why Tia wasn’t with hers, but she could like, need underwear help or something else that was a bff job instead.

Tia waited to answer Sage's question until they were all the way out of the building and then Tia turned around and flung herself into Sage's arms. "Kai's leaving again so we broke up." She sobbed, finally bursting into tears as she buried her face into her best friend's shoulder, completely ignoring the fact that Sage probably wouldn't appreciate the eyeliner, mascara and deep purple lipgloss smeared on her dress.

Sage had thought maybe Tia just didn’t hear her question at first, but her starting to cry as soon as they were outside was a definite clue that Sage had been wrong. “Oh-em-gee, no!” Sage replied instantly, wrapping her arms tightly around Tia, shock preventing her from saying anything useful as she tried to rub soothing circles on Tia’s back instead. Her best friend was all soggy and sad, and Sage hated when the people she loved the most were sad - but how did she fix it? “He can’t! We’ll like, build a dungeon and lock him up there so he can’t leave you. Like, why would he want to anyway? You’re so much better than the stinky old world anyway!”

Tia started crying even harder the more Sage talked to her. "Yes, he can! I told him to go! It's a really good thing for him and I can't make him not go do that!" She cried out before pulling out of the hug and dragging Sage further down the street towards their cottage. "He's going to do some youtube red show and he wants to go so so bad. It would be absolutely awful of me to keep him here."

Sage pouted slightly. She’d totally trusted Kai not to make Tia sad ever again, and they’d seemed super duper happy for like, almost a whole year now. Seeing Tia so crushed that he was going away again made Sage wish they’d found her a totally new boy instead, and maybe later when Tia wasn’t so super sad she’d suggest some of the ones she’d been looking at for Vivi. Right now, though, she didn’t know whether they were supposed to be mad at Kai or not, and she wished Tia had given her more indication of whether she should be saying totally bad stuff about him to cheer her up or not. She settled for a middle ground as they got closer to their cottage, asking, “Did he like... ask you to go with him? You’d be like, such a cute internet famous girlfriend! Like Vanna White but like eight zillion times prettier?” She chews on her lip, hating the words even as she said them. Leaving would be stinky, right? Tia would totally miss her and Izzie more than she would miss Kai, she had to.

Tia stared blankly at Sage for a few seconds before realizing that her bestie was serious. "Of course not. I don't want to go with him. For starters, I can't swim so if I fell off the boat like that girl in the Zac Efron movie about ghosts, I'd be dead super fast. But mostly. As much as I love Kai and all, but I'd be such a wreck without Wes, you and Izzie around. That's part of why I made this one the forever break up. He'll always want to go somewhere new, while I'm happy where I am and I hate being left behind. How would that ever work in the long run?"

Sage nodded her head. "That's super fair; before I got to Walt, like, the deepest thing I ever went swimming in was a bath tub. And there were no sharks or seaweed or like, drowny stuff in those," Sage said, wrinkling her nose up. How could Kai like all of that stuff more than he liked Tia? It just didn't make sense to Sage, but if he was really gonezo then she wouldn't have to make sure everyone blacklisted him or anything. "I'm so sorry, T, but that sounds super smart and grown up of you. There are so many cute boys in this world that would pick you over the stinky old ocean every time, and we'll totes find them for you when you're un-sad enough." Sage reached out to squeeze Tia's hand, adding, "And hopefully his show will get like, 30 seasons so he can't come back and try to make your life all confusing again every time you start to be okay without him."

Tia let out part of a giggle despite her sadness thanks to Sage's reaction. "I just don't like messing my hair up and pool water makes blonde hair green and dulls highlights, so I never bothered." Once the girls arrived at their cottage, Tia unlocked the door and headed straight for her room, throwing herself onto the bed with only minimal regard to where Sage would fit next to her voluminous gown. "I knoooooooow there are. But Kai was the best of them! What if when I'm unsad I can't find anyone I liked even half as much. Walt is only so big and I already know most of the boys our age!" Tia frowned even harder at the idea that Kai ever coming back would make her life all confusing. Looking up from her pillow to glare at Sage, Tia snapped, "I could be perfectly okay with him if he ever came back after his show. I said this break up was for good and I mean what I say."

Sage didn't want to give Tia too much space in case she needed someone to hug her or play with her hair, so she leaned against the side of her bed, tentatively perched there while Tia sprawled. "I mean, we could like, go on a road trip? Walt doesn't have all the boys in the world," Sage said thoughtfully, although the whole world was like... kind of big and scary. She'd never really been anywhere but her own home and Tia's and Walt. She didn't know where to start to look, but Izzie would know, and the two of them could help Tia together. Right now, though, helping her was something Sage had to do all by herself, until Tia was ready to tell other people about her super awful prom night and her new super single status. "Yeah, but like, he might scare off your new boys if he like, tries to win you back, even if you don't want him! It seems like, super complicated to have exes around, but I can be your body guard or something." Sage reached out tentatively to squeeze Tia's shoulder. "Whatever happens, we'll totes get you through this together. But what do you want to do like... right now? Can I get you pizza?"

[arabellaflynn]

Update

Rat antibiotics (ratty-biotics?) ordered. That's the thing that was worrying me most. Rats die of respiratory illness. I mean, they have limited lifespans to begin with, but with pets the aim is to keep them alive long enough for them to die of inoperable tumors and senility instead. You know, just like your human relatives. The people who sold me illegal Amoxi-Drops last time are gone, probably because they were selling illegal Amoxi-Drops, so this time they got a bottle of Fish Mox. No one in their right mind is going to bring a tank of fish into the vet's office to get them diagnosed with fin rot, so the vendors just sell you capsules of amoxicillin powder and conspicuously don't tell you it's the same stuff you use on your own kids. They kind of figure either you know what you're doing, or you know where to get replacement fish. I can work Google and do basic algebra, so I just compound it with honey or something and un-snot my rats without supervision. [The down side is that it makes them all burbly, same as people. You can buy probiotic supplements for small animals, or you can do what I do, which is smear everybody in the cage with Yoplait and let nature take its course. It may or may not bother you that the rats come out of it smelling like peach yogurt. YMMV.] Keyboard borrowed. More of a relief than it should be, honestly. Onscreen keyboards are kind of terrible. Not being able to write anything of any length was driving me insane. I actually went through the craft cabinet at one point and dug out a notebook and pens. PENS. Argh, my electronic little soul. I got half a thing written and then gave up, because handwriting is grindingly slow when you type everything at dictation speed. The phone is staying on. Although the idea of being completely incommunicado freaked me out enough that I've signed up for one of those free SMS app things, that give you a phone number so you can get texts on an untethered tablet. It only works when I'm in range of wifi, as the phone is not smart enough to run it and the Android Kindle has no 3G access, but at least it's something? Anyone who has my regular phone number is welcome to text me and ask what the new one is. Theoretically I can also make calls with the app, but I don't have a proper headset and I think that might cost money. SMS is ad-supported-free. I want to thank Cat, Catherine, Kat, Kath, the other Kat, Cathy, Kate, Kitty (Jesus -- can I just start calling one of you Brunhilde or something?), Noe, Cari, Phoebe, Anne, Toni, Stephanie, Brenna, Vickie, MB, somebody who signs his emails 'Thor', and anyone else I've missed because I'm tired and their name isn't popping up in my inbox, for donating money and food and info and time and and and. Truth be told, I've been living on peanut butter sandwiches for months, trying to hold out until I could get things fixed without committing a federal crime, and when you do that long enough you just sort of forget that better meals exist out of self-defense. Even the critters are getting kind of tired of it, and one of their favorite treats is ketchup packets. I feel very guilty when I post things like that and people respond by trying to help. I only do it when that gets outweighed by the guilt of not posting anything and knowing that nobody knows why, including the people who throw a dollar a month at me on Patreon. I start going 'the dog ate my homework' and I get paranoid that nobody will ever believe that, so I better come armed with proof that there does exist a dog, the dog's official pedigree, photos of the dog in context at my house, the slobbery worksheet, notarized testimony from a zoological odontologist that the tooth marks thereon are canid in nature, etc. I should probably just post photos of critters instead, but mine are double rexes and it's summer, so they all look like toddlers who have just discovered they can cut their own hair with safety scissors. Lord Dimwit Flathead the Excessive technically only has one bald spot, it's just most of his backside and part of his underbelly. They're all perfectly functional rats, less the WHRNK noises and the usual hay fever, they just look defective. Now that I have a way to type again, I'll try to get back on some sort of regular posting schedule. from Blogger http://ift.tt/2wNgJLH via IFTTT -------------------- Enjoy my writing? Consider becoming a Patron, subscribing via Kindle, or just toss a little something in my tip jar. Thanks!

[todokori-kun]

The fix was quicker than I expected! Dad’s bringing it (the computer) home today :D

someone needs to photoshop smiling cherubs and flowers around them

OH whoops, sorry about the misunderstanding ^^;; Idk what I even want to happen to the Touken baby, I just don’t want it to die in the womb.

Uta/Touka child might also be pretty attractive, now that I think about it ;)

(Uta/Rize or Uta/Itori child would look even better though)

I was in a nice, fluffy mood when I wrote that. Unfortunately, as I’m going to get my computer back and will be able to start working on the Heathers AU again tonight, this will probably be the last you’ll see of Cinnamon Roll Evans for a while :) 

YES I read the new Kuro chapter! Honestly I disliked the 2CT for various reasons  but now that it’s actually become canon I think I feel a little better about it (also, is it just me or does ‘real’ Ciel look a bit different from 'our’ Ciel on the last page? His face looks too…perfect, if that makes sense). I’m excited to see what this means for Lizzy’s relationship with both Ciels and Undertaker’s connection to the Phantomhives!

Oh, actually I agree with you there? What I meant by 'op’ is more of a really strong character, not an overpowered one ^^;; sorry, I’ll try to explain myself better:

Super strong characters like Levi, Mikasa, the Titan Trio, Kaneki, Eto, Arima, Sebastian…they are all technically 'op’ (especially Sebastian, dude has literally no weaknesses so far). However, they work because they also have traits that interest us beyond just their strength. Kaneki is a lonely child, a selfish person with a fear of being left behind, drifting and unable to find a reason to live. Levi is an orphan who was raised by a serial killer- he clawed his way up to where he is now. Annie is a sixteen-year-old trained into a killing machine from childhood, she went through life believing that the only person she could trust was her father, and she was desperate to return to him.

(It’s also difficult because everyone seems to have a different definition of 'op’; I personally just use it to jokingly refer to powerful characters or when I talk about strong characters whose power levels are inconsistent with canon to the point where it gets ridiculous (example: we know titan shifters take some time to heal, so if a titan shifter came along who could be behaded then have their head instantly stick back onto their neck like some sort of AoT version of Noro, I’d consider them OP).)

I guess what I was trying to say was that it’s fine to have strong characters, just make sure that they have an actual personality (readers need a reason to care about the characters, after all!) and that their powers make sense? ^^;;

(Also, I think I might have sounded a bit passive-aggressive or rude during this convo about op characters, I'm really sorry if I did OTL I didn’t mean to, but when I reread my comments I realized they could come off that way)

I agree with you about the AoT OCs though. Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of good ones…actually, most OCs I see for popular fandoms aren’t very interesting. Other than the powers or character designs the thing that bothers me is the lack of proper personality (why do so many people think 'happy’ is a personality trait???).

And definitely agree 100% on the angsty backstory. Like, that’s just overkill. There’s a difference between tragedy and being edgy. (It also sort of depends on how good the writer is at conveying emotion and handling the angst, but for the most part stuff like that is

That’s a great way to do things! :D I’m really, really disorganized when it comes to making characters…usually a concept pops into my head and I run with it, adding in details along the way. Tatsuo was created when I wanted to make a male TG OC and suddenly this image of a smug-looking guy with a long black ponytail popped into my head, Naomi started from the idea of making a character with the themes of 'self-discovery’ 'identity’ and 'lies’ woven into their arc. Louisa was literally born from an outfit- I randomly thought of an outfit that looked really pretty and traditionally feminine, yet was actually very practical when you looked closer. Then I tried to imagine what kind of person would wear these clothes and that was Louisa…

idk, I’m bad at explaining stuff haha

(also: Tatsuo was also inspired by various vampire characters I saw in anime/manga, books and TV shows. He’d be so offended if he knew LOL in fact, he just might serve me for dinner at the restaurant or something ;-;)

TYSM! I’m really glad you’ve liked all three of my OCs so far, thank you for listening to me ramble about my babies (actually only Naomi is my baby, Tatsuo and I disowned each other and Louisa moved out) <33333

As for Lou, I’ll send you some more info about her after I develop her a bit more if you like? :) For now, a few random things:

-rarely shows emotions like anger or sorrow

-not because she’s bottling them up, but because she’s learned how to handle them in a healthy way

-always smells like mint for some reason

-maybe because she’s addicted to mint tea

-her bodyguard suspects she doesn’t drink water at all and lives on the stuff

-she also likes strong flavors

-has the kind of bright, pretty smile that makes you want to trust her

-so you do

-and you (probably) get killed

-had a girlfriend named Iris once, a nice, sensible girl who managed to keep her from getting too buried in her work and various plans for her family and took care of her in ways that her bodyguard couldn’t (AKA somehow got her to realize that mint tea does not equal a proper meal)

-unfortunately Iris did not know that Lou can be a bit terrible

-she walked in on Lou casually wiping the blood off of her knife with the dead body of a certain businessman on the floor in front of her

-“Oh, Iris. What are you doing here, darling? I thought I asked the servants to keep you upstairs, my private meetings can be a bit messy… Iris? Love, are you quite alright? You look a little pale…”

-Well, that was the end of that relationship

XD the titan designs are one of the best things about AoT, in my opinion. You could make a gallery out of all the pictures of them that that have appeared in the anime and the manga so far lol

Oh, really? Hope you enjoy/ed the list then :D was it ok??? (Part 2 was intended to smash feels)

Sweet! That wasn’t so long ^^

I know you meant Voldy and Draco by the flower statement but...

I’m this close to finding a physical copy of the manga and throwing it in the fire while yelling ‘Lighten the fuck up’.

Gimme the Uta/Itori love child now, pretty please. Damn, that would be one attractive baby. 

And now I fear for my life. Great. Well, more for my hear than for my life, but whatever.

Well, I never really had a formed opinion on the 2CT theory, but I did read a few things about it. I didn’t expect it to be true, though. Welp, now we can assume it is true, and I am SHOOK Here’s an accurate description of me during the chapter.

I think that might be since he’s a tiny bit more similar to Vincent, while Our Ciel is more similar to Rachel. I mean, we know that there are physical differences between the two (if we assume that Real Ciel is the one who was previously Lizzy’s fiancé), because Real Ciel is taller than Our Ciel.

Yep, I definitely can’t wait to see where it’ll go from now. I remember seeing a post that said ‘This is the biggest shock to the fandom since we found out Undertaker was fuckable’

Also: Our!Ciel: three years ago I lost my dear twin brother to some cultists and a demon. Real!Ciel: Quit telling everyone I'm dead! Our!Ciel: Sometimes I can still hear his voice...

Oh, I see! I always think of OP as OverPowered, that’s why I got a bit defensive ^^;;;;;

Well, like you said, everyone has their own definition of OP.  Sometimes, I’ll even think of OCs who have trait that’s already specific to another character as OP, like Titan-Shifter OCs, or OCs with a plot basically the same to a canon character (not OP but very irritating) And don’t get me started on Demon-Contracted OCs in the Kuro fandom. Those make me want to defenestrate myself.

Yup, I have no problems with strong characters as long as they’re not ridiculously strong and aren’t there purely because of that power, but they also have personality.

Don’t worry, I reread my original statement about OP characters and was like ‘man this sounds so bitchy and high and might hnnnngh’ but couldn’t find a way to rephrase it properly ^^;; So, no worries, I know how you feel ^^

Well, for some reason, it seems that the people who make believable OCs are either lazy or scared to post theirs. Or they simply don’t care. The ones with Mary Sues like to holler at people with ‘LOOK AT MY BAE CHARACTER AREN’T THEY PERFECT???’

There’s this blog I follow (it’s gone inactive, unfortunately) that takes Mary Sues and breaks them down (well, the correct term would be make fun of, but they do offer some advice on how to improve them), and you wouldn’t believe the shit I found there.  Here’s the link if you want.

For some reason, people seem to think that the edgier the backstory, the ‘more original’ the character, which (of course) isn’t true, because that means everyone will have a super tragic backstory that no longer makes sense.  Another thing I’ve noticed is that they sometimes avoid some pretty important details like ‘Character was born into a healthy, happy family. One thing led to another and the family was killed, while character was molested (a very common backstory theme) and taken in by a cult’ and I’m like ???

My character usually start out like this: *luna is watching a show*  OK BUT WHAT IF THERE WAS A CHARACTER WHO-

And so a new character is born. 

But your ways of starting a character are also quite interesting ^^ Especially by looking at an outfit!  I ALWAYS WANNA LISTEN TO YOU RAMBLE ABOUT CHARACTERS! 

Titans make me laugh, honestly. Like, these are supposed to be the main bad creatures? Steampunk zombies (kabaneri) look scarier than that.

It was the hulk smash of feels :-))))

[joannawoo]

Values

I celebrated my 2 year anniversary at Mappedin last week and it has made me reflect quite a bit on my time here so far. I'm given a lot of autonomy to do what I think my job is. I've always believed that my job is to enable others to do their best work. If the microwave is broken and people are getting hangry and can't focus, it's my job to get that microwave fixed. If there are mental health or engagement issues, also part of my job to help with those. Office management is usually lumped into the HR role at smaller companies, so my day to day ranges from trying to find good deals on office furniture to dealing with serious life-changing situations.

I helped document the values we have at Mappedin, so naturally I'd like to think I'm fairly aligned to them. Learn fast. Be honest & accountable. Play for the team. Focus on customers. So many things have happened in the last month or 2 for me, both personal and work-related. I chat with a lot of other HR leaders and business leaders about their companies and they sometimes tell me how empty their values are and how people don't actually live those values. It makes me sad. I'd like to believe that I live our values every day, or at least I try to. I'll attempt to share some stories.

Learn fast. Play for the team. Focus on customers. I'm going to lump all 3 of these into one example because I recently completed 2 RFPs for our Marketing / Sales team. They were swamped and I wanted to learn more about our business so I offered to help. I've never done an RFP before and have no idea what I'm doing. I learned. Within a span of 1.5 weeks, I completed both RFP responses. Got some feedback on them from some seasoned business leaders and apparently I did a fairly good job. Yay me. Time and time again, I see our employees step up, volunteer to help another team out, and pick up new skills along the way. I love this about Mappedin. In terms of focusing on customers, the 2nd RFP I completed was interesting. They asked for a simple indoor wayfinding solution which we could easily meet requirements of, but it actually bothered me quite a bit that most of the questions asked by other responders were around just that. A large part of my pitch was focused around how wayfinding was only the first step because I went and looked at their values and looked up their 10-year strategic plan that they had published and found many more ways around how our technology will be able to fulfill not only their indoor wayfinding needs, but also help them be successful in delivering all their other promises. I guess we'll eventually find out whether or not that was good enough.

Be honest & accountable. People are shocked when I tell them that we reject candidates on the spot. There's no "you'll hear back from us in 3 business days" or anything like that. I've asked all our interviewers to reject people over the phone or in person at the end of an interview if they don't think they're a fit. I ensure that our interviewers can clearly articulate why someone is being rejected and if they feel ashamed of saying it out loud, then it's probably for the wrong reason. I also tell candidates that if they are rejected at any point, that's their opportunity to challenge us on it. If we were wrong in our assessment, we want to know. Also because I'm lazy and don't want to go back to email someone about the results of their interview. I don't have an ATS so when I tell candidates that they're moving forward or being rejected, they're not waiting around for an answer. If they know they're moving to next steps and don't hear from us, they know to follow up and know that we're not ghosting them.

The other side of focus on customers...employees are my customers. I am their customer success manager. In every 1:1 with employees across the organization, I always ask them how Mappedin can help them be more successful. Putting together a list of family doctors in KW accepting new patients so they can finally have a family doctor in the region. Helping their friends and family find a job. Providing their partners with HR advice. Kicking people out of the office so they can spend more time with family. Helping people find volunteers for the causes they care about. I always stress that we don't only want to take care of them as employees at Mappedin. We want to take care of them as people. We care about the people who they care about. We love helping people grow their careers and firmly believe in not holding people back. Several employees tell me they want to start their own business one day so I'm always excited to tell them to shadow Hongwei because he 100% encourages it! We tell people to shadow every opportunity they can (except 1:1s), and would love for them to learn new things, even if it means transitioning to a role outside of Mappedin. I've always had issues with companies who have strict no poaching rules. I believe that if you treat people right, they won't want to leave. I love it when other companies try to approach Mappedin employees because most of the time, they tell me about it. They also tell me when they're thinking of looking for a new role, because they trust me to have their best interests in mind. If someone leaves because they've been poached, I want to know what kind of underlying issues exist and try to figure out how to fix them. I actually tell my own direct reports to interview elsewhere and that they should explore every opportunity that they can. I tell co-ops the same thing when they ask about returning for a future work term. It's their opportunity to explore, so I tell them to go get experience from a variety of companies (and then come back to us after they graduate).

Play for the team...it's not just the Mappedin team. Hongwei knows this about me. I spend time and energy helping out a lot of other companies in this region. I share insights around how to recruit and how to use data to make informed HR decisions. With all the North stuff that's been happening, as well as other smaller scale layoffs at a variety of companies, it actually keeps me up at night (hence why I'm writing this post at 4am). I feel so uneasy about the whole situation, thinking about how many lives were impacted last week. I do what I do because I believe that we as a community should help people in need. When BlackBerry had their massive layoffs, I was one of the people affected. I was still very early in my career back then and couldn't help at all. I didn't even think to help because I was anxious about my own situation. I'm thankful that I'm in the position I am in now where I can just take action and get shit done when big events like these shake up our community. I'm fully supported by my team to do all this because we need to play for the bigger team and give back. When I asked for a list of employees who were let go, I actually had to explain multiple times that I'm not doing this to recruit for Mappedin (we actually don't have that many roles open right now anyways) so it wasn't going to be helpful to just share my contact info and careers page to ex-North employees. I just wanted to help connect people to jobs and equip them with skills to help them land those jobs. It's great that outplacement services have been provided and that they're being told what resources are available to help them transition, but we could do better. Having been in that situation and having used outplacement services before, no offense...but they suck. And people don't need to be told what resources are available to them so they can take advantage, they're an emotional wreck right now most likely. I added "give you a virtual hug" on the form I created in the what we can help with section and the number of people who needed one breaks my heart. But that's what's needed. They need a hug and they need someone to hold their hand right now and put them in front of their next job opportunity. They need to be validated and know that they're smart and capable people. They need hope. I hope they feel the love from this community and choose to stay in KW. I hope they know that people care about them. I know I do. And again, I never worry about software developers because every company wants to snatch them up. I worry about the admins and the highly specialized roles. I worry about the people who have less transferable skills. Some of the companies who asked for access to the list will just recruit the people they need and then disengage. I know that. I know that most people who have access just want to snatch up the best talent and that's it. I don't mind them doing that because it's still helping someone in need. I also know that there are a handful of us...maybe 2-3...who will look at that list every single day and see who is still looking for a job and actively try to match them with a local company. Those are the ones who drive this community and truly play for the team.