#had a lot of fun learnt a lot got a lot still to learn. that’s the tldr version

[mintmentos]

I'm not even sure how long these took me to make but I FINISHED KNITTING MY FIRST PAIR OF SOCKS!!

I've had such a great time with these and learnt so much. I've used double pointed needles for the first time, been working in the round, actually succeeded at ribbing after the flop on my jumper and managed the dreaded heel turn! There's definitely a lot still to learn, I managed to do the kitchener stitching on the outside of BOTH socks somehow, they're a little bit on the small side so l need to sort my tension out (which I'm hoping to solve with blocking - wish me luck!) and the laddering is still quite prominent.

This was all round such a fun project and I'm so excited to try again and hopefully improve as I go!

[eyra]

stuff what I have learnt about writing good

If you've followed me for longer than two minutes then you'll likely know (because I keep going on about it) that I've been working on a novel for the past year. It's always been a dream of mine to write and publish a book and whilst I still have a long way to go before I can even start thinking about querying (whether on this book, or the next, or the next, etc.) I suppose I can now say that a book Exists. I have written A Book.

Now whether or not that book ever sees the light of day, the process of writing it has been truly eye-opening. I went in knowing virtually nothing and came out, still with a huge amount to learn, but with a whole library of tools that I didn't have before. I'm now putting these to use with the first draft of my second book and already the process feels so much more enjoyable, because I've started to figure out how to make it work for me.

I wanted to jot down what I've learnt purely for my own reference so I can keep looking back and reminding myself what worked for me first time around, but given that I get a nice number of asks picking my brain about my own writing process, I thought I might as well share all this with you lot in case there's anyone out there who finds it useful!

So here are the big things that I've learnt so far...

1. Not every trick works for every writer

This has been, by far, my biggest learning. Starting to plan a novel for me felt SO overwhelming - I felt like I was bombarded on all sides with "this is how to write a novel" content, and it felt like there was just too much to learn and like I would never find my way through it. I spent weeks (months...) doing every worksheet, every outlining method, every chart, anything I could get my hands on. Some of them, by the end, proved themselves very useful. A lot of them didn't. There are thousands of voices online that are telling you "this is the right way to write a book" or even "this is the ONLY way to write a book" - don't listen to them. Try things, but don't feel like you have to fit yourself into every single box. Just find the things that work for you.

2. It's possible to overplan

On a related note - sometimes you just need to start writing. I spent WAY TOO LONG faffing about before I put pen to paper with my first book. So, so long planning out characters and plot points, a lot of which I then had to completely reimagine mid-draft because I realised they just didn't work anymore. In hindsight, some of this was down to me being scared to actually start writing - the planning stage was a bit of a comfort zone for me, despite not naturally being a plotter/architect - I have always always always been a pantser/gardener, but I got sucked into the whole "proper authors do it THIS way" narrative.

With my second novel, I did a nice amount of planning but then just bit the bullet and started drafting. I know where my story begins, ends, what my major themes are, I know all my main characters and I know my key plot points. The rest, I'm figuring out as I draft. If nothing else - I'm having a lot more fun this time around.

3. Think about voice and tense before drafting

Yeah duh obvious right? NOT TO ME. If you were following me around April time, you may have witnessed a series of minor breakdowns when I realised that, having written a whole first draft in third person present tense, the entire book should actually have been written in first person past tense. So that meant, basically, starting over from scratch. This was a big learning for me, and not a mistake I'm likely to make again.

4. Stop looking at your word count

For someone who's never really put much thought into word count before - my approach with fanfiction has already been "it'll be as long as it'll be" - I got OBSESSED with the word count of my first couple of drafts. A lot of people will tell you that any good novel "has to be" under 100k words. I constantly see this one post on Pinterest that says "I promise you that you can tell the story you want to tell in 100k words or under." I'm definitely no expert on this (and I'll eat my words when an agent tells me my manuscript needs cutting down), but I'm sceptical - a lot of stories can and should be under 100k words, sure, but most of my favourite books are much longer than this. However, I did get stuck in a "this manuscript has to be between 70k and 100k words" mindset and felt like a failure whenever it was sitting outside of that bracket. Also - keep your genre in mind. If you're writing a rom-com, 70k could work perfectly. If you're writing fantasy, you're probably going to go over that.

5. Know whether you're an overwriter or an underwriter

And related to the above - know whether you tend to write bare bones-style then add to it, or whether you tend to dump it all on the page then cut back later. I'm the first, and I knew this, but I still panicked when my first draft was only around 70k. I felt like it was rushing through the plot at an unreasonable pace and it didn't feel "finished". This was because it was a first draft. By the time I sent my manuscript to my beta reader, it was around 126k.

6. The dumb stuff works

The title of the document for my first draft was "XXX - worst possible version" and at multiple points during the drafting process I changed the font to Comic Sans size 48. It works. Completely takes the pressure off and gives you full permission to write big, write silly, write unhinged, write mad things that you'll cut back by 90% later. But it gets it all on the page. If you're stuck or cringing at yourself in Times New Roman size 12, try Comic Sans size 48.

7. Don't compare your first draft to your favourite book

Like an idiot, I did this. I still find myself doing it. It's possibly my worst writing habit. I'll type out a page at 11pm after a full day at work and no dinner and then I'll pick up a published book and think "ah man, the page I've just written is nowhere NEAR as good as this." Published books are fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh drafts that then go through months and months of editing. Do not compare your manuscript to a published book. Just don't do it.

8. Don't try to be That Author

Good writers are good readers. Absolutely read broadly, read deeply, just read. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, everything. And it's fine to find yourself influenced by other writers - that's how writing works. But don't try to BE other writers. One of the issues I had to unpick last year was that I was reading a lot of authors whose writing styles are very different to my own. I know my own style fairly well by this point - fanfiction's a great sandbox for figuring that out - but at certain moments during my editing phases I found myself cutting away at my prose because it felt "too different" to the books I was reading at the time. This was a weird thing for me to have done, and I went back and fixed it later.

I think what I'm trying to say with this one is: take inspiration from everywhere, let yourself be influenced by different writing styles, but find your own voice and trust it. Literature already has a Sally Rooney and a Donna Tartt and a Leigh Bardugo. It doesn't need a clone - it needs you!

I'll finish by sharing what I've found to be the most useful plotting template. This obviously isn't the total extent of my planning process by any means, but after trying about a million different plotting techniques for my first manuscript, this is the one:

The 27 chapter method (more examples here)

And finally, two little character tricks that I find invaluable:

AITAH?

Character philosophy

I hope someone out there finds something useful in this post! Although I've been writing in some capacity since I was a teenager, 2024 was definitely the year I realised that I am a writer at my core. I want to be a published author, but I'm already a writer. It brings me happiness like nothing else in the world! And I love to talk about all aspects of writing, so my ask box is always very much open.

Happy scribbling! x

[autisticlancemcclain]

Lance gets red around him a lot.

It’s strange.

It’s different from when they first started. (First met? Keith’s not sure. Lance is so insistent that they’ve known each other since they were twelve, but Keith thinks he’d recognise someone like Lance, someone who smiled that brightly and laughed so loud. But he doesn’t, and he doesn’t understand why he doesn’t, so he doesn’t think about it. He pretends in his head that they met saving Shiro and that’s that.) When they first started learning each other (that’s a better way to put it), Lance went red all the time, but Keith knew exactly what that was about, could read the hard set of his jaw and the anger making his dark eyes steely. Sometimes he would grin to himself and make the flush on Lance’s cheeks deepen on purpose; say something incendiary and challenging in the most casual one of voice he could manage, just to watch how furious he got, how indignance straightened his spine and squared his shoulders and made his cheeks glow.

He called Lance Rudolph, once, and he went ballistic. It was the first time he ever won a spar of theirs, and half of that was because Keith was laughing too hard to breathe. To this day no one believes Lance when he insists it happened. (Keith does feel bad about that, a little. Everyone seems to think it was just Lance who egged Keith on in the beginning, just Lance who purposely made things difficult, but Keith is grown enough now to admit that he had as much fun pissing Lance off as anyone else would. Well, grown enough to admit it in his head.)

Keith still makes Lance go red all the time, now. The issue is that he doesn’t know how he does it.

They still compete. Obviously. It’s fun and it’s easy and Keith is a fan of things that are fun and easy. That’s why he’s into demolitions. And pod racing.

But the competition no longer has that flare of genuine rage. Lance himself had admitted it, sniffing pompously after a late night spar and informing Keith that he had, apparently, “sucked all the fun out of hating by being endearing or whatever”. He also mentioned something about Keith’s “stupid fucking big round pouty eyes and depressing backstory”, but Keith doesn’t know what to make of that so he shoves it back into the recesses of his mind like many other things, including the first time someone other than his Pa said they loved him, Shiro’s safety lectures, and any and all calculus lessons he has ever sat through.

(It’s a mess back there.)

Keith, too, can admit that the animosity is gone. He no longer wakes up and hears Lance’s voice and considers drop kicking him into a black hole. Sometimes he even hears Lance’s voice and realises he’s smiling on reflex. Now he and Lance hang out. Voluntarily, and a lot. They spar. They swim. They harass Hunk. They harass Pidge. They harass Shiro. They harass all their friends, really. Sometimes Lance uses manoeuvres he’s learnt in sparring to pin Keith to the ground and force weird products onto his face and hair, dodging Keith’s attempts to bite him, preaching about their cleansing qualities or whatever. Sometimes Keith even does it without hissing and generally being a nuisance.

Sometimes Keith follows Lance quietly to the observation, late at night, and sits with him while he cries. He can’t decide how he feels about those nights. He’s not sure if he’s allowed to think about them outside of when they happen.

In all of this, though, Lance’s ruddy face has stayed pretty common. Keith can excuse it when they’re sparring, because it’s admittedly a lot of cardio, but at the same time Keith doesn’t get that red and he’s way paler than Lance is. He can almost kind of excuse it when they swim, for the same reasons.

He doesn’t get it any other times, though. He doesn’t know why Lance goes red at the most innocuous things, like when Keith tells him his hair smells good or his laugh is pretty or he’s actually really good at that nerdy math game Pidge likes, holy crow, I didn’t know you were that kind of smart. Nerd. He doesn’t understand why Lance goes red when he trips and Keith catches him, ‘cause he’s a big klutz, you’d think he’d be used to it by now (it’s not like Keith is going to let him fall. Well, usually not). He doesn’t get why Lance goes red when Keith compliments him in training, because usually when Lance gets complimented he gets a big head about it and preens for an hour.

It’s just strange.

Mostly, though, it’s not that big of a deal. Maybe Lance is just a blushy kind of person. He’s taken to teasingly calling Lance Red, because it’s better than Rudolph, and also because Lance goes scarlet every time he says it, so it’s kind of like he’s a wizard who can make Lance flush on command. Which is cool. Other than that Keith mostly just pretends it doesn’t happen. They hang out too much for Keith to bother. If he questioned it every time, he would go bananas.

“You have icing smeared on your face,” Keith comments on one such hanging out occasion. (They’re plundering the kitchen for the cupcakes Hunk made and specifically forbade them from touching. But Hunk allegedly broke into Lance’s room last week and stole the last of his toner, whatever the hell that is, so fair’s fair.)

Lance pops the last of the cupcake into his mouth then turns to face him. “Where?”

“Here,” Keith says, tapping the left side of his own chin.

Lance, like a dumbass, makes a swiping motion on the left side of his face, instead of mirroring where Keith touched. He misses the icing entirely.

“Left side,” Keith says, exasperatedly.

Lance scowls at him. “That is the left side.”

“No — the other left.”

“There is no other left! There’s only one left!”

Rolling his eyes, Keith reaches over to wipe the icing off for him. There cannot be any evidence on them, after all. When Hunk has a conniption over his missing cupcakes they must play the plausible deniability card so they can snicker about it later.

He swipes his thumb under Lance’s bottom lip, trying to scrape the icing off with his thumbnail. Lance inhales sharply.

“Sorry,” Keith murmurs, softening his grip. He must have scratched him. The icing didn’t come off, though, so he switches tactics and slides off the counter, shifting so he’s standing in between Lance’s open legs and cradling Lance’s cheek in his palm to tilt his head. He rubs his thumb much softer on the stubborn streak of whipped sugar, and that works a little better. He keeps rubbing until finally Lance’s skin is clear, all the half-dried icing now spread on the pad of Keith’s thumb. He licks it off without thinking.

It’s sweet.

Lance makes a strained whimpering noise. Keith flicks his gaze up to meet his face again and is less surprised than he should be to see a flush glowing across his cheekbones, making his freckles seem much darker than they are. His pupils are dilated so wide they nearly swallow up the brown of his irises, and Keith can’t tell if he’s looking at him or through him.

He sighs heavily. “Dude, do you have a condition?”

It takes Lance a long moment to answer. By the time he finally does, his gaze has moved firmly to his lap, neck bent so that Keith can’t really see his face. His ears are still read.

“I’ve got a fuckin’ heart condition,” he mutters.

Keith furrows his eyebrows. That’s weird. He’s seen Lance’s medical scans before — he’s in the pods a lot. You’d think that kind of thing would be on there.

“It doesn’t show up on your med scans,” Keith points out. “Is it, like, a genetic thing?”

Slowly, Lance picks his head back up, squinting at him for several long moments. Keith begins to squirm.

“You’re actually slow,” Lance says with an almost awed tone of voice. Which is mean. “Like, genuinely, actually slow. I think there are bubbles in your brain.”

“Hey,” Keith protests, pouting. “I help you commit cupcake heists, and this is how you treat me?”

Instead of answering, Lance continues to stare at him. He almost looks bewildered, which does nothing but make Keith more confused.

Eventually he lets out a long, tired sigh. It is not the first time Keith has heard that sigh. That is a sigh he hears when Shiro finds him throwing up his guts after eating a tub of ice cream out of spite. That’s the kind of sigh he hears from Allura when Keith ignores instructions and boulders through the shocks from the invisible maze to get it done faster. That’s the sigh that says I wish I had a trebuchet to strap you to it and release you into the sun. Keith is very familiar with that sigh, although he usually makes it happen on purpose, or at the very least understands how it’s warranted.

Right now he is completely lost.

“I am going to go bother Coran,” Lance says finally, pushing himself off the counter and walking towards the door. “You are not invited. I will talk to you when I want to strangle you less. Goodbye.”

“Bye,” Keith calls out, head tilted in confusion. He watches Lance go until he disappears down the hallways.

“He is so confusing,” he announces to no one, then walks out the kitchen himself.

[izicodes]

Hi, Hello! It’s me, Izzy and I am back from a very long break!

For those who don’t know who I am and just saw my post, I’m Isabelle but Izzy for short (and even shorter, Izi)! I run a Codeblr blog which I post about anything coding! I try to strictly only talk about coding, programming and computer science, but frankly, I ramble on about something else eventually! Hope you’re doing well!

Now, I know I said I wouldn't come back, but that was because I suddenly became stuck on what to post about and wanted to give myself a break and figure out how to do things on my blog and my online presence in general!

So, in summary, I am back from my break very inspired and eager to help more people get into programming / get better at programming! I will go on to talk about exactly what I have been doing during my break later on in this post, but wanted to say thank you to everyone who messaged me throughout the months and saw how I was! Very thought and extra blessings from God to you, please!

Working at my new-but-not-so-new job!

Yes! So, obviously, as a 21st Century girlie, I am working! Still at the music company that I started back in January! Now that I am 8 months into the job, I feel now I am fully immersed in the job and the projects and not feeling like an outsider! I went on multiple out-the-office events with the whole company and it was nice! Some I couldn’t attend because of religious reasons, but I still had fun! I got to meet a lot more girlies at my office that I don’t usually talk to (because I’m still the only girl in the frontend engineering team but there is a backend girlie but we don’t work close together so… distance)! Cheatingly, I am always ticking the box of “code every day”! However, work has made me do more UI/UX designing + frontend programming websites which I love! Always wanted to be both and not just one or the other! We are allowed to have 2 job titles, remember? (But make sure the salary is in accordance, of course, ~)

Learning new technologies! (for fun, obviously)

By “for fun” I mean personal reasons, the technologies I learnt on a whim were not for work but because I needed to learn them for personal projects I wanted to learn! I stress again; it’s more fun to learn something because you want to and not because you have to! So, I have been learning how to create desktop applications using ElectronJS and ReactJS (React has become my best friend!). Me now compared to me when I started my break is 10x smarter I feel like! My brain has definitely expanded somewhere…!

Latest project?!

Inspired by study productivity apps and wanting to track my Korean language progress, I am making a desktop application called ‘eStudySpace’! It would be my own personal app, but I want to see if I can actually pull something like this off! Right now I have not coded anything because I want to work on the design aspect first (which is smarter and a time saver in the future), so I have been on Figma for the last 2 weeks coming up with designs!

(It looks bad, I know this is like idea no.3287368 ugh...)

Miscs

I have been learning Korean for 4 months now. 

I have plans to move to a South-Eastern country, The Philippines? Singapore? Unsure!

I do have plans to switch to a new career but that’s more like 5 years into the future! But right now, I’m happy where I am at!

[letterstotheflre]

𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐈𝐕𝐘 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐒 (𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐈’𝐌 𝐂𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐈𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔) || 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐋 𝐃𝐈𝐗𝐎𝐍

summary: it's his fault. daryl knows that. he should've realised sooner that he knew exactly what those mushroom's would do to you once you ate them.

cw: 18+ only. dark fic [ft. sex pollen, dubcon, mentions of previous noncon drugging (on daryl), outdoor sex, grinding, fingering, squirting]

a/n: soo here is my first big daryl fic! honestly, this might be my favourite fic i’ve ever written :3 it was very fun to write and somehow i really liked writing daryl dialogue/inner monologue (his accent is just so fun lol). once again, this was supposed to be a very feral smut fest and ended up having a lot of emotional moments and inner daryl turmoil </3 i still hope you like it :)) || also very unrelated side note, but i think “gold rush” by taylor fits the daryl in this fic v much (it’d be from his pov, not yours)

“Where d’ya think we should go next?” You ask Daryl around a mouthful of the lone rabbit he hunted earlier this afternoon.

Finding food is getting harder and harder, not to mention you’re running out of your water supply. It’s obvious you need to move your camp to a better area, preferably somewhere near a lake or river. The question is, where is that exactly?

Daryl shrugs, turning the rabbit leg between his dirty fingers around. He takes a rough bite. 

He doesn’t know, and to be honest, he doesn’t really care. Now that the prison fell and with the group scattered to the winds, he doesn’t have much hope for anything. He had gotten a little too comfortable there, his first mistake, and now look where it landed him. Had he learnt nothing from his first camp with Merle, then the camp in Atlanta, then the CDC, and finally the farm? He had enough experience under his belt to know that things always took a turn for the worse, especially when everything seemed safe and peaceful. Yet he still let his guard down. 

The thing is, the prison… the prison was different. It was well protected, with several feet of fence that kept the walkers far from the main building. They didn’t have to worry about any walkers creeping into their cells and taking a bite out of them in the middle of the night since they were able to clear their side of the prison in a matter of days. They had guns and ammo, food and water. Hershel and Carol even taught them how to take care of crops. Hell, they even got their hands on some cattle! They didn’t need to scavenge the woods for some meagre squirrels any more. 

Things were looking up. He had even started to think that maybe, just maybe, they could spend the rest of their lives there. But then the Governor showed up and everything went to shit. 

So now here he is. No Rick, no Carol. Alone once again. Well, not exactly alone– he had you for company. 

It’s not that he doesn’t like you– he likes you more than just a normal amount if he’s being honest with himself. It’s just that… you’re a dead girl walking. He doesn’t know how you’ve made it this far, and by all accounts you shouldn’t have. Before all this, before the virus and the walking dead, you were a preschool teacher. You had lived in the city your entire life, in a nice house located in a nice neighbourhood with nice parents. If he had to bet, he’d say you were even prom queen back in the day. 

There had been no need for you to learn how to hunt, scavenge, track, shoot a gun or even handle a knife. Daryl had been the one to teach you how to shoot a gun in the air, volunteering immediately when Rick brought the subject up and completely ignoring the amused, knowing smile on his friend’s face. 

If he focuses hard enough, he can still hear the sound of your happy laughter the first time you hit the center of the target. Can still feel your chest pressed to his in your celebratory hug. 

“Think I saw some train tracks a couple miles east yesterday. If the others saw ‘em too, they’re probably following them thinkin’ we’re doing the same,” you ramble on, not letting his lack of answer deter you. “Maybe we could find Rick or Maggie.” You lean forward so you can reach the mushrooms you picked up today, plop one and then another inside your awaiting mouth. 

Daryl watches as you chew, eyes judging. He had been adamant that you shouldn’t eat them, shouldn’t even touch them. 

“Stupid girl,” he growled, swatting your hand away from the cluster growing on the bark of a tree. “Didn’t ya mom tell ya not to touch things you never seen before?”

“Ain’t stupid,” you bristled at his tone. “I know these, they used to grow ‘rond some plants in the garden back home. Pretty sure mom put them in our soup ev’ry now and then.”

You don’t let his lack of answer deter you. “Think I saw some train tracks a 

Daryl kneeled beside you, broad right shoulder touching your left one, and examined them closely. He was sure he had never seen them before, not in the woods from his hometown nor in any of his hunting trips since the outbreak started. “Nah, these ain’t safe,” he concluded. 

“Yes, they are.”

“No”, he enunciated the word to make it as clear as possible. “They ain’t.” 

“Yes, they are,” you scowl and plush a couple from their roots. “I ain’t stupid nor useless. I know I can eat these.”

Daryl rolled his eyes. “If ya want to kill y’self just to prove a point then fine, be my fuckin’ guest,” he snarked. Then he got up and kept walking in silence, not even sparing you another glance. 

He shakes his head firmly. “Nah, no train tracks.”

“What? Why?” You ask, surprised. “It’s our best shot at findin’ the others!”

“Ain’t no one to find, girl. S’better if ya stop kiddin’ yourself.”

“How could you say that?!” You look at him like he’s a monster. Daryl clenches his jaw. “They’re our friends, our family! We can’t just give ‘em up for dead as soon as things go south! Not after everything!”

Daryl throws away the bone in his hand and looks at you with fury. Don’t you get it? Merle, Sophia, Andrea, Lori, T-Dog, Dale, the list goes on and on. You’re the only one he knows for sure he has left and he’ll be damned if he has to add your name to the list too because you want to search for ghosts. You are his responsibility now. His voice is loud when he says, “Yeah, we should! ‘Cause if you saw those tracks y’know what it means? Means other people saw ‘em too. Bad people. And if ya go ‘round there, lighting fires and singin’ those stupid kid songs you sing all day like you’re in a fuckin’ musical or some shit y’know what they’re gonna do? They’re gon’ kill ya, or worse. So drop the fuckin’ topic and finish yer dinner.”

There really is no room for argument. You drop your gaze to the floor and gulp down the lump in your throat, bringing your knees to your chest. Everything is silent for at least an hour, the only sounds coming from the crackling fire and Daryl’s chewing. 

And then you call his name. 

“Daryl?” Your voice is different; breathier, quieter. Almost like you can barely string the letters together. “I don’t feel very well.”

He’s on his feet in a second, the argument forgotten as soon as he heard your mumbled call. In three quick steps he’s standing in front of you. He kneels so you’re the same height and cups the side of your face. “Wha’s wrong?”

You blink sluggishly, revealing your dilated pupils, and lick your lips. “I don’t know,” you slur. Your breathing gets heavier. “I think– Oh God, I’m so hot,” you complain, almost ripping the zipper of your jacket in your haste to take it off. You throw it away like it’s made of molten lava. Before he can stop you, you take off your long sleeved shirt, leaving you in just a tank top, and lean back against the fallen tree trunk with a relieved sigh. 

It doesn’t make any sense, Daryl thinks. It’s almost winter in Georgia, you should be freezing, but there are no goosebumps littering your skin that might signal you are cold in any way. In fact, you’re even trying to roll your cargo pants up to relieve your legs from a nonexistent blistering heat. 

Daryl presses his hand to your forehead and is surprised to find it slick with sweat. “Y’re burning up,” he says, though he guesses you could probably already tell. He takes one of your arms and inspects it closely, looking for any wounds that could potentially be infected. “Where ya bit?”

You shake your head. “No, no. I didn’t see any walkers today.”

Your arms are in pristine condition, save for some sparse moles and freckles and a single healed scratch on your forearm he remembers you got from running around the woods so carelessly. There’s no sign of a bite or infected cut.

“Did ya get close to anyone sick back at the prison?” He knows it’s stupid to ask– everyone had taken their rounds of antibiotics to prevent another possible outbreak, and it’s also been a week since the prison fell. If you had been infected, you would’ve showed symptoms earlier on, but he doesn’t know what else to do.

“No, I was with Beth ‘n Judy.” Suddenly, you gasp in pain and clutch your lower stomach, pressing your thighs together. “Daryl, it hurts,” you whimper.

The pain in your voice breaks his heart. You look so small, curled up in a tight ball like a wounded animal. He brings you into his lap and shushes you, “I know, I know.” He rubs your back in an attempt to soothe you. “Just lemme think for a second, ‘kay? M’gonna fix ya.”

He wrecks his brain for a solution but keeps coming up blank. He doesn’t have any idea as to what the hell caused this– one second you were fine and then the other you were bending over in pain. Did you touch something? Eat something? Was the water contaminated? Did some poisonous plant graze your skin? Was the rabbit he killed infected and he didn’t notice? 

The tip of your nose tickles his neck as it moves from his collarbone up to his jaw, your rib cage expanding beneath his broad hand when you take a deep breath. He grunts at the strange sensation. “What are y’doin’, girl?”

Your hands curl around his shoulders, the leather of his vest crinkling beneath your tight grip. “You smell so good,” you mewl, taking in another whiff of his scent.

What the fuck.

He doesn’t know where the random compliment came from. He knows you have to be lying though– it’s been weeks since his last shower. His last one was five days before the prison fell and it wasn’t even a proper shower, just a scrub down with a rag, a bucket of water and some soap they found in the last supply run. That’s why he says, albeit a little disheartened, “Y’re talking nonsense.”

You shift in his lap, pressing your chests together and Daryl has to force himself not to react to the feeling of your boobs against his chest or to the movement of your wiggling hips over his crotch. “Am not, am not,” you babble, pressing small wet kisses to his neck and trailing your palms down his strong arm. “You– you smell so good. Feel so good. So big. I–” your breath hitches when you grind against him, relief morphing your previously pained features. “I need you, Daryl.”

His hands that were previously laying limp on either side of him are suddenly held by your softer, smaller ones and moved to your thighs. He drops his gaze, watches you control his hands. Up and down, up and down. The light coming from the fire illuminates the remnants of your dinner. You shift directions and now his hands are on your ass, forcing him to squeeze and grope as you keep grinding against him. 

He stares intently at the leftover mushrooms and all of a sudden he’s 23 years old and Merle’s laughing his ass off as Daryl finishes the dinner his older brother had insisted on cooking. He remembers now, the desperation clawing at his chest when the shrooms started making effect. Remembers how Merle dragged him to a club in the city and patted his back in encouragement. “Go wild, baby brother! Lord knows ya need this.”

Misery is heavy on his shoulders. He wants to throw up– he was wrong before. He did see those mushrooms before. He had eaten them and been under their control. And now you were suffering the same fate he had all those years ago. Because of him, because he failed to realise sooner. 

You move his hands up to your waist, your stomach, your breasts. He never wanted it to be like this. He had hoped, stupid as it was to dream about something other than mere survival, that if he ever got the courage to confess his feelings it’d be when everyone was safe again. When you didn’t have to sleep in tents and cars and pray to God he found any semblance of food. When you’d finally have a house, or a room, or at least a bed. 

He’d be soft with you, just like you were with him every day. 

Now, as you grind and moan above him in a lust filled rut, that dream will remain that. Just a dream. 

He tears his hands from your grip, one settling on one side of your hip and the other cradling your cheek. Heat emanates from your skin like you’re a furnace. Daryl leans forward, lips brushing yours as he promises, “M’gonna make it better. That okay?”

You’re not in the right state of mind but he still asks for any semblance of peace of mind. 

“Please,” you whimper, little crystal beads gathering on your waterline.

After months of pining, he finally closes the distance between you and presses your lips together in a firm kiss. Your mouth is soft and plain against his, trusting him enough to follow his every command as he devours you completely. He uses the hand on your hip to help you smooth down your otherwise stuttered grinding, drinking down every sweet little moan and gasp he elicits out of you. 

That’s what you are– sweet. Sweet to touch and taste and feel. Sweet even in the way you cling to him, use him to relieve the affliction between your legs he accidentally caused. 

Daryl holds you by the back of your neck, feels the warmth of your breath as you moan his name.  “More. I need more,” you cry. The tear tracks on your cheeks glimmer in the warm fire light. “M’so empty. Need you to fuck me. Please, please, please,” you beg like a broken record, forcing your fist into Daryl’s chest and twisting his heartstrings without mercy. 

“Don’t cry, doll face,” he rasps, brushing away your fresh wave of tears. You inhale shakily, leaning into his touch and nuzzling his palm like a touch starved kitten. Your hands tremble as you unbutton your jeans, struggling to pull them down from how sweaty you are and how sticky the insides of your thighs became. Daryl silences you every whine with a kiss and helps you pull them down to your shins, not willing to risk taking off both your shoes and pants completely in case you need to make a quick escape.

“I said I’s gonna fix ya and I am. Just need a couple minutes first.” You make another noise of complaint that turns into a relieved sigh when Daryl pulls your panties to the side and teases your folds with the tip of his fingers. “Need to get ya ready first. This all for me?” He asks, gathering all the slick dripping out of you. 

“Mhm,” you hum, eyes closed in bliss as he toys with you. You nudge your noses together. “Always for you, Daryl. Only you.”

You really need to stop playing with his feelings like that. You’re talking out of your ass, he tells himself, letting your desire and need for relief control your words. Still, it’s nice to hear. He can’t deny that. Maybe he can live in this fantasy bubble a little longer, at least until reality crashes down on you both and you have to come to terms with what happened and decide to never see him again. 

He circles your weeping hole, taunting you, then plunges a lone finger inside when you look like you’re ready to pounce on him. It’s easy, oh so easy, for him to slip in. He thought it would be harder, given the fact that he knew you haven’t slept with anyone since the apocalypse started. Not that he kept an eye on you or anything, he just happened to notice how your tent and cell were always silent, much like his. But you’re so wet that your cunt practically swallowed him right in.

You tap his shoulder needily, mouthing the word “more”, and bite your lip to stay quiet when he adds a second finger and then a third. You could cry from how happy you are right now. 

“That enough for ya, ya spoiled girl?” He scoffs, rubbing circles on your swollen clit with his thumb. 

You can only nod as he buries his fingers up to his knuckles, curling them and feeling the rough calluses as he prods inside you in search of your soft spot. When your loudest moan yet lets him know he found it, he abuses it, creating loud squelching noises that have him smiling. 

Euphoria sends a shiver down your spine and makes your entire body shake as you cum, a small stream of clear liquid hitting Daryl’s wrist and dripping down to his jeans. “Shit,” he whispers, amazed. 

He made you squirt.

Daryl’s still staring at his dripping wrist as you paw at him with a heaving chest, fingers curling around his brown plaid shirt. Your nails could nearly break the fabric. “You promised,” you sob. “You promised you’d fix it. That you’d fuck me. Don’t you want me?”

He tears his gaze away from the mess between your legs in shock. How could you ever think he doesn’t want you? When you’ve consumed his every waking thought and haunted his every dream. When the only thing he wanted to do when you looked at him with those glimmering eyes was to follow your every command word for word. When he didn’t want to just fuck you– he wanted to keep you safe and warm, wanted to make sure you’d never know hunger.

He grabs your jaw, fingers tightly pressing on your warm cheeks, and snarls. “Don’t ever think I don’t want ya.” He tugs you to him so he can kiss you, unbuckling his belt with one hand and pulling down the zipper of his jeans. Your own hand joins his and squirms under the rough fabric so you can take his cock out from behind his boxers. His jaw clenches at the feeling of your soft hand around him, so different from his own. Untouched by decades of manual work, protected by dutiful applications of hand creams (he's heard you tell Beth how dry your hands are now and how much you miss your favourite hand cream. He’s been looking for some on every supply run ever since).

He spreads all the wetness stuck to his fingers over his cock, his stomach doing a summersault when he sees you biting your lower lip in want. You guide him to your entrance, gasping in unison when the mushroom tip slips past your soaking wet folds. Slowly, you sink yourself down, Daryl mouthing at your neck as you get used to the thickness of his cock as it threatens to split you in half. 

“Relax,” Daryl grunts, the scruff covering his cheeks scratching at the tender skin of your cleavage. He goes back to playing with your clit, knowing it’ll allow the tension to leave your muscles and he’ll be able to push in the remaining two inches. 

Once he’s buried to the hilt, you take a shuddering breath in and slowly start to bounce. “Wanted this for so long,” you babble. “Wanted you, Daryl. A-And now you want me,” you smile, increasing the speed of your bouncing. You chant, “You want me, you want me, you want me.”

Daryl nods, teeth gritted as he feels you tighten around him, walls pulsing. You collapse on his chest, hips still grinding in search of any form of friction. With a firm and secure grip, he grabs your ass and uses it as leverage so he can pound you down on him. For once, he’s not worried about loud noises or stray walkers or even unknown strangers stumbling into the scene. No, he just worries about you and your sweet cunt keeping his cock warm; about your lips on his neck, your hands gripping his hair and your dulcet “uh uh uh’s” ringing in his ears as you cum for the second time.

He lifts you off of him just in time to shoot ropes of white all over his shirt, biting your neck to muffle his grunts of pleasure. For once in what seems like a lifetime, the walker infested woods are completely still, only both of your laboured breathing breaking the unusual silence. 

Until you speak in a meek voice and it’s like he’s suddenly doused in cold water. “Daryl?”

He drops his forehead to your clavicle and shuts his eyes tightly, heaving a sigh. This is it– the moment where he loses you, where you run away. Forever disgusted with him. Afraid of him for breaking your trust. 

After another beat of silence, you call his name again. “What happened?”

He straightens his back and rubs his face. He clears his throat. “It was the mushrooms,” he refuses to look at you as he explains the events of the night, unable to stomach the look of disgust he’s sure is all over your pretty face. “The ones you picked up today. I thought I didn’t know them but I did. They’re some kind of… aphrodisiac or some shit like that. Merle…” he trails off, skipping over the reason he knew about them in the first place. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. “Y’were feeling so sick ‘n those things… with the amount you ate they would’ve– they would’ve killed ya if I didn’t…”

“You saved me,” you state, cradling his face so that he can see you. His face is all scrunched up like he wants to cry and he hates himself for it– he has no right to feel like shit. He shakes his head. “You did. You saved me. I would’ve died if you didn’t do as I said, as I wanted you to.” You kiss his lips chastely. “Y’know, I meant what I said earlier. While we were…”

“Nah,” he scoffs. “Y’were just saying shit ‘cause of the drugs. S’okay, ya don’t have to worry ‘bout my feelings.”

“No,” you frown, disconcerted that he always seems to bring himself down without even realising it. “I meant it. I’ve wanted you for a while, since– since the CDC, actually. When we played that card game after dinner and ya helped me get to bed since I was too drunk to even stand.” You smile as you remember the feeling of his arm around your waist and the soft pat on your head once you were resting on the pillow. You tuck some strands of hair behind his ear and his throat dries. Shrugging, you say, “I just never thought you liked me that way.”

Daryl weighs his options, wonders if he should take a leap of faith or pretend he’s never thought of you that way. This is too much for him. He’s scared to bare his chest wide open only for you to dislike what’s inside. But then he sees the earnest look in your eye and behind it, the fear that he won’t say anything at all. 

“I do,” he gets out through the fist clutching his vocal chords. “Like you. Like that, I mean. I–” He shuts his eyes at how useless he’s with words (another reason why you deserve someone better than him). However, instead of rolling your eyes at him or making a derisive sound like he expected, you simply giggle at his uselessness, reaching for him once more. 

He lets you kiss him and touch him as much as you want. You trace his brow bone and cheekbones with the soft pads of your fingers, play with the ends of matted hair and twirl them around your index. When you yawn, he makes sure you have your top and jacket back on and lets you rest on his chest. He stretches his arm so he can reach his discarded crossbow and leaves it on his side. “C’mon, go to sleep. I’ll take first watch.”

pls reblog if u enjoyed it, it’ll make me twirl my hair and kick my feet :3

[catmiemy]

Another Chance to Live Final Part (Ana Maria Crnogorčević x Reader)

Summary: Ana and you are facing some big changes.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

A/N: I'm actually very proud of myself for finishing this story relatively fast. And it was a lot of fun to write :)

Thank you to everyone that stuck around till the end. I hope you enjoy this last part!

Of course you didn’t just trust your parents to respect the boundaries you had set in place; that had never been their strong suit after all. Once you had successfully weathered the first onslaught of emotions, you thought about it more carefully and together with Ana put a few precautions in place.

For one you informed the staff at Real that none of your family members should be granted access if they came by to see you. A wise decision, as it turned out. Only a few days later your mother showed up, arguing for so long that she had to be escorted off the premises by security personnel.

You also basically moved in with Ana. No one from your family knew where she lived, so they couldn’t just drop by like they could at your apartment. Another good call as you learnt when your neighbors told you that they had almost called the police because a man fitting your father’s description had been standing in front of the house for so long.

All of this made your guilt kick into overdrive and you were grateful for your girlfriend’s support. She never told you what to do, she was even hesitant to tell you what she would do in your place, but Ana was always there to listen and help you keep apart what you truly wanted from what you felt you should do.

While things with your family were at an all time low, you were incredibly happy with Ana, and practically living together was a welcome change in pace. Both of you were committed to making each other smile with small gestures, so your everyday life was filled with much more happiness than ever before. 

Ana loved to start your day off with a big smile by turning your coffee into a small piece of art, constantly trying out new foam designs. And it didn’t matter if they turned out right or not, you appreciated the effort, and attempting to guess what your girlfriend had been going for was half the fun.

You knew Ana felt the same about something you were doing to brighten her day: learning some Swiss German words. Which wasn’t easy because you couldn’t just use any old translator, you had to invest some time to find the correct words. And often times you failed horribly at pronouncing them, making your girlfriend giggle while she was trying to decipher what you were saying. That in turn always got you laughing as well, which made it even harder to pronounce anything properly.  

The biggest laughing fit set off by your Swiss German attempts occurred when you very proudly asked Ana if she could give you a Schmützeli. You didn’t get quite the reaction you hoped for, a kiss; instead your girlfriend was staring at you, and you couldn’t tell if she was amused or annoyed.

“Wait, does it not mean kiss? Did I mess this up? I’m so sorry if I said something offensive,” you apologized frantically, already pulling out your phone to look at your sources again. You had been so sure, you had even double-checked this.

At that point Ana began laughing, so hard that she couldn’t even say anything. Now it was your turn to stare at her, wondering what was so funny. It was a huge relief though; it couldn’t have been anything too bad if your girlfriend found it so amusing.

After a moment you couldn’t help but join the laughter. You didn’t know what you were laughing about, but Ana’s laughter was simply infectious.

Once your girlfriend had calmed down, she explained it to you still a little out of breath, “Okay, so it’s not even really that funny, but Schmützeli isn’t a word you would use with a partner. At least not where I’m from. It’s more for like small kisses between family members or friends. And it just really caught me off guard.”

You silently agreed, this wasn’t really that funny, and you were still a bit confused why it had made your girlfriend laugh so hard. Then again you were always happy to make Ana laugh, so you weren’t going to complain. And you definitely kept using the word again every once in a while because it amused her every time.  

There were other things you did for each other, like Ana playing the guitar for you, sometimes even singing a song you requested, which made you all chocked up whenever she did. Or you taking pictures of small beautiful things you saw in your day to day life to show to your girlfriend in the evening, eager to share the beauty you had encountered with her.

You also did your best to make your everyday life as special as possible, savoring the time you got together. A part of this was ensuring that you weren’t just spending time together by being around each other, but also by doing things and actively spending time together whenever your crazy schedules allowed it. And sometimes even if they didn’t, carving out time when you didn’t necessarily have it.

It was a good thing your personal life brought you so much happiness because the same thing couldn’t be said about your work. To be honest thinking of football as merely that, work, was painful enough by itself. Sure, it was, but it also always had been so much more than just a job.

Sometimes you still debated if you should just retire and try to find something else that would spark some sort of passion again. However, at the end of the day you weren’t ready to give up on what had been your life’s biggest passion so far.

So you resigned yourself to this reality, where the joy you once found in football only showed itself on very rare occasions. And whenever it did, you clung to it with ferocity to tie you over until the next minuscule moment.

Then, completely out of the blue, you got an offer from another team. It hadn’t even crossed your mind to look around for another club; leaving Madrid had never been something you considered. It hadn’t been something you thought you would ever want to do.

But when you were approached by the managers of Tigres Femenil, you realized all of the sudden that it might be exactly what you wanted. It helped that it was the team Jenni was playing for, so you knew if you actually decided to go through with this, you wouldn’t be totally alone on another continent.

That wasn’t the appeal though, that was merely a helpful factor. What really made you want to do it was the fact that it would be your choice, only yours and no one else’s, not your family’s and not your club’s. It would be you deciding what to do with your life, instead of rolling with the punches others kept throwing at you.

Was that a good enough reason to move halfway across the world, though? Especially since there was one obvious reason keeping you in Madrid, Ana. The thought of not seeing her daily was hard to bare. Then again it probably wasn’t healthy that she was the only good thing in your life at the moment, that was too much pressure to place on one person. So perhaps it would be better for your relationship in the long run if you decided to do this?

On the other hand, Mexico was a long way from Madrid. Would Ana be okay with doing long distance or would this be the end of your relationship? Because in that case you wouldn’t do it.

As was in your nature you drove yourself crazy thinking about every possible outcome either of your choices could have. You did your best to not let on that something was bothering you, but Ana must have noticed anyway because she began acting a bit odd herself, switching between being weirdly distant and overly clingy.

You had almost reached the point of finally broaching the subject, when your girlfriend took the first step. In the morning before leaving for your respective training sessions, Ana nervously asked if you could talk later that night. Of course you agreed, thinking that she wanted to ask you what had been on your mind lately.

Consequently you spent the entire day agonizing about how you could put your thoughts and feelings into words. You made countless drafts in your mind, even though you knew that you wouldn’t be able to remember them in the moment. At least they made you feel a bit better prepared.

Ana was back at your apartment before you and she set everything up nicely with candles and flowers she had gotten for you. You appreciated how she went out of her way to make sure you knew everything was okay. Every once in a while you still got in your head, worried that your girlfriend would leave you if you made on small mistake.

Once you had both settled down, Ana took a deep breath, blurting out, “There is something I have to tell you.”

This took you by surprise. You had been under the assumption she had set this all up to get you to talk. And you instantly began wondering what your girlfriend had to tell you. Naturally your first thought was that she might break up with. However, even you had to admit that preparing a romantic candle light dinner would be a very strange move if you wanted to break up with someone.

“Oh, what is it? I actually have something I need to tell you as well,” you replied, trying to keep your worries out of your voice.

“Really?” Ana exclaimed in surprise. This in turn surprised you, you didn’t think you had been doing a good job at keeping your over thinking a secret.

“You can go first,” your girlfriend quickly offered.

Normally you wouldn’t have accepted such an offer, especially not when Ana had been the one to set all this up to talk to you about something. However, something in her tone sounded almost pleading, as if she desperately wanted you to go first. And begging from your girlfriend was something you could never resist.

“Well, I’m guess I’m just going to come out and say it,” you started, taking a deep breath, steeling yourself for whatever might be Ana’s reaction, “I’ve gotten an offer from another club. And I didn’t think it was something I would be interested in, but now that I have it, I realize that I really am. You know how I feel at Real, so this might be my chance to enjoy football again. But then I also don’t want to leave you alone here because I love you and…”

Ana had been listening to you rattling on for a moment, her face unreadable, until she interrupted you sounding oddly excited, “Wait, you’re thinking about leaving Madrid?”

You frowned at her happiness. It was one thing to be excited about something good happening to your partner, but being so happy about them moving away seemed weird to you, and a little painful.

“Wow, no reason to be so happy about getting rid of me,” you mumbled, avoiding your girlfriend’s eyes.

“What? No!” Ana cried out, reaching over to grab your hand. “That’s not what this is about at all. The thing is that I too have gotten offers from other clubs and I didn’t really consider them, but then a few days ago Atleti told me that they wouldn’t renew my contract, so I have no choice but to leave.”

“And I have been feeling so bad about it because just like you said, I didn’t want to leave you behind here either. But if we’re both leaving, it’s a totally different scenario. Sure, long distance is going to suck, but it won’t be forever and at least this way we hopefully both end up in places where we feel happier than at our current clubs.”

Suddenly Ana’s behavior over the last few days made a lot more sense. You had thought she was acting weird because she had picked up on your distress, but really she had been dealing with something herself. Being dropped by yet another team and faced with having to upend her entire life again.

“Ugh, I didn’t think I could hate Atleti more than I already do! How stupid of them to let you go,” you grumbled.

Your girlfriend blinked a couple of times, a smile appearing on her face, “That’s what you’re focusing on right now?”

“Yeah! I’m really annoyed with them! But also…Why didn’t you tell me?”

It wasn’t something you could really complain about since it was very much exactly what you would have done in Ana’s position. Your girlfriend was much better though, when it came to opening up and discussing her struggles. So the fact that she hadn’t told you before didn’t sit right with you.

Ana sighed, rubbing her forehead. “I made up my mind so many times to just come right out and say it, but every time I lost my courage in the last second. Because at it turns out it’s not so easy to tell your girlfriend who you love very much and who has a hard time at work and with her family that you’re moving to another country.”

“Oh.”

You understood that, it was the thing you had been worried about, that Ana felt too much pressure to bring joy to your life because so little else did. Under different circumstances this might have been harder to swallow, but in the current situation it actually helped. It left not a single doubt in your mind, that leaving Madrid was the right choice.

“So, what are your options?” You asked to move on the conversation.

“There are different clubs in Switzerland I could go to, but I don’t really see myself doing that. It would be nice to be close to my family and maybe I should do it to help further women’s football in Switzerland, but it feels more like something I should do, not something I want, you know?”

You knew precisely what she meant. In fact for so long you had made all decisions based on exactly that feeling of ‘I should’, so you were happy Ana didn’t plan on making the same mistake. And you tried to show her that by nodding encouragingly.

“However, the other option is pretty far away, so I just want you to know that no decision has been made yet, and I really want to know what you think. Because if long distance on that scale is a deal breaker for you, I won’t do it,” your girlfriend continued.

Again you nodded, hung up on the fact that you had been having exactly the same thoughts. So as far as distance went this would either work out well for the two of you or Ana would really end up on the other side of the world. What even was on the other side of Mexico? You cursed yourself for your geography knowledge that was clearly lacking.

“Okay, so, the other option is Tigres Femenil. Jenni’s team in Mexico,” your girlfriend rushed out, her eyes flicking between you and the table, as if Ana was torn between wanting to study every miniscule reaction you might show, while also trying to avoid jus tthat.

“What?”

This had to be a joke! Ana probably learnt about your offer from then and decided to play a prank on you. Maybe Jenni had heard about it and told your girlfriend to do this, that would be a Jenni thing to do.

Except not really, though. Your older friend was known for playing pranks and amusing herself at the expense of others, but there was a clear line that she never crossed. And playing with someone’s heart and feelings was on the “don’t”-side of that line.

“I’m sorry! Like I said I haven’t decided yet and if it’s too far then I’ll go to Switzerland. I’m sure that will be great,” Ana apologized frantically. 

“No, wait, that’s not why I reacted like this. The thing is my offer is also from Tigres Femenil, so it just seems a bit unbelievable? People don’t get this lucky in real life,” you explained, disbelief still coloring your tone and set firmly on your face.

“You’re joking right?” Your girlfriend inquired, apparently also having some issues fully accepting this miraculous coincidence as true.

“No, I’m not. They offered me a one year contract with the option for additional years if I like it there and fit well into the team.” Hopefully the added details would make it easier for Ana to believe this was actually happening.

After that the two of you stayed silent for a while, your hearts and minds needed some time to let themselves open up and accept that you were getting much more than you ever hoped for.

You reached that conclusion almost at the same time, huge grins spreading across both of your faces and then there was nothing holding you back anymore. Ana jumped up from her chair first and you swiftly followed suit.

Mere seconds later you basically jumped into your girlfriend’s arms, thinking in the back of your mind that this was exactly how you would celebrate a goal if you would play for the same time. Your heart jumped happily when you realized that you might get a chance to do precisely that next season.

“I’m so happy!” Ana squealed into your ear and you echoed that sentiment.

Moving abroad and playing for another team had sounded excited, but doing so with your girlfriend? That seemed more like a dream than anything else.

Ana and you stayed wrapped up in each other’s arms for a good while, just basking in the happiness. It was a welcome change from the usual reasons you spent so long in each other’s embrace. Normally you did so because one of you, more often than not you, was sad and needed comfort. Now there was not an ounce of sadness present, the air was electrified by excitement and the possibility of everything that was to come.

---

Of course you didn’t decide that night to accept the transfer, not legally at least, but emotionally you definitely did. Still, like the reasonable adults you were, you thought it through, gathered some more information before officially making the choice you had already made the moment you learnt both of you could go to Mexico together.

You called Jenni together to tell her the good news and she was overjoyed. Although if the amount of teasing you had to endure during one measly phone call was anything to go by, you were going to have to put up with a lot next year. You didn’t mind, though. Also you were aware that Ana would put a stop to it if she thought it was getting out of hand. You could as well, Jenni would listen if you seriously told her to stop, but you knew yourself well enough to know that you wouldn’t.

After that Ana and you focused on wrapping up everything in Madrid, sorting out your apartments and such. There was one particular subject you avoided like the plague, your family. You couldn’t leave for Mexico without at least telling them and try one more time, but you also weren’t ready to face them again in the slightest.

Finally you reached a point in time where you could no longer postpone it. Your girlfriend offered multiple times to go with you, but you declined every time, much to Ana’s chagrin. In the end she decided that she would at least drive you and wait for you in a nearby parking lot. You gladly accepted that suggestion.

“And please leave if it gets too much, yeah? Or call me and I will come get you,” Ana reminded you resolutely, still reluctant to let go of your hand.

“Don’t worry, tesoro, I’ll be fine. I don’t think much will come off today, but I just have to try one more time before we leave,” you explained. And it was true; you didn’t have high hopes for your conversation with your family. But even so you ended up being disappointed.

It started with a very frosty greeting, your father leading you into the living room where the rest of your family was sitting. You had chosen that day specifically because you had thought no one else would be over, but apparently you were out of luck. All of your aunts and uncles were assembled, staring at you disapprovingly.

You swallowed roughly, wetting your lips nervously when it became apparent that you would have to lead this conversation. This had been expected, you had even practiced a bit at home with Ana, but now in the moment your mind felt terrifyingly blank. With everyone glaring at you the only thing you could think of was to apologize. And that was the one thing you remembered you didn’t want to do.

“Did you just come here to stare at us?” Your mother questioned unfriendly.  

“No, I…This isn’t so easy. You’re making this really hard for me,” you muttered

“We’re making it hard for you? Do you have any idea what you’ve done to us? Just completely cutting us out of your life because of some random girl you met a few months ago,” your mother accused you.

The guilt and self-doubt threatened to consume you, but you tried to focus on your anger instead. At least the anger would allow you to say what needed to be said, even if you couldn’t lay it out as calmly and clearly as you wanted.

“See, this is what I mean. Everything is always my fault and you never listen to what I have to say,” you defended yourself. “And Ana isn’t just some random girl. I can’t stand that you talk like this about someone I love, someone who I’m pretty sure is the love of my life.”

Your family exchanged meaningful glances, the sentiment on their faces clear as day; they thought you were being ridiculous or childish or dramatic. Three adjectives they loved using to describe you.

“You’re getting too emotional again, niña, that has always been your problem. How do you expect us to take you serious like this? And think about this, you say we’re always acting as if you’re the problem, but in reality it’s you doing that. You always blame everything on us, your horrible family. Poor you with parents, aunts and uncles that support you!”

Condescension was something you were used to, and it had always made you feel very tiny and incredibly mad at the same time. You were an adult for crying out loud, not a little kid. And still in that moment you felt exactly like that.

“Fine, you know what, I can see that this is totally pointless! I don’t even know why I thought I should try again. So I’m just going to tell you the one thing you need to know; once this season is over I’ll go to Mexico to play there. So I guess, see you never?” You yelled, turning around and stomping out of your childhood home, without giving your family any chance to reply. What was the point?

Tears were already streaming down your face as you ran down the street to where Ana was waiting. Your girlfriend saw you coming; she had been keeping an eye out for you practically from the moment you had kissed her goodbye.

When she saw you rushing towards her, Ana’s heart broke. She had hoped this would go better, but your demeanor and the fact that you were back so soon told her everything she needed to know.

Ana quickly clambered out of the car to meet you with open arms. You fell into them, allowing yourself a moment to completely lean into your girlfriend and absorb some strength from her. Not too long though, you didn’t want to risk anyone catching up with you.

“Come on, let’s go,” you requested, already moving to the passenger’s side.

The drive home was mostly silent, your girlfriend held your hand whenever she didn’t need both of them to drive, and only asked you in the very beginning if you were ready to talk. You just shook your head in response. First you would have some more crying to do, before you could even hope to use words.

And you did exactly that, once again safely tucked away in your girlfriend’s arms. You couldn’t wait to get to a point in your life where you didn’t need so much comfort anymore.

“How are you feeling?” Ana prompted once she noticed you were ready to talk. She had seen you biting your cheek, contemplating how to start the conversation and decided to help you out with questions.

“I didn’t have much hope to begin with, but apparently I still had some that could be crushed. And also…,” you stopped, uncertain if you should continue. It felt like you kept bringing up the same things; shouldn’t you get over them at some point?

“Also?”

There was nothing but love and concern on your girlfriend’s face. You didn’t have to worry about her judging you, this was a safe space.

“I’m so annoyed with myself. I couldn’t even say much before I ran away. I can just hear them calling me a dramatic little girl who runs away as soon as things get though”, you gritted out.

Ana tensed at your harsh words towards yourself and she forced herself to count to three before answering, not wanting to sound too intense. There was however nothing she could do about the emotions lingering in her voice.

“Please stop listening to their voices in your head. I don’t think removing yourself from a bad situation is running away, that’s a smart move really. You need to take care of yourself.”

You nodded thoughtfully, “You know I’ve been thinking about that and realized I often put their needs and wants over mine. But I guess putting others first only works if they do the same. Otherwise if I always put them first, but they never put me first, I’m just always going to end up last, right? I think that’s what’s been happening all my life and I’m done with it!”

“Absolutely! If anything your parents should be putting you, their child, first. That’s what my mom said when I talked about it with her. She also said some other things, but I’m not sure if you want to hear them or if it’ll just make you sad.”

Ana studied you carefully, every sign of pain embedded in your body hurting her as well. She hated how that you had to deal with this, so the last thing she wanted to do was to add any pain to it.

“No, please, tell me. I think it will be helpful, hearing what an actual good parent thinks about all of this,” you requested.

You had only met Ana’s parents twice before, but they had been everything you wanted your own family to be. They were excited to see their daughter, but expressed that without making her feel guilty for not being around more. And they had welcomed you with open arms, clearly very pleased that Ana had found a special someone to share her life with.

“She also said that nothing makes her happier than seeing us, her kids, living our best life. Not some life my parents pictured for us, but the life we choose. She can’t really understand why so many people try to force their kids to be something they’re not. According to her slowly getting to meet your children’s truest self is one of the biggest joys of them growing up.”

Your eyes filled with tears again causing your girlfriend distress. You had been sitting opposite each other, hands intertwined in between you, but now Ana pulled you into her embrace again.

“See, I knew I shouldn’t have said anything,” your girlfriend cried out.

You shook your head, “I wanted to hear that, I needed to hear that. It makes me feel less unreasonable and ungrateful.”

Ana gently kissed the top of your head, rubbing comforting circles on your back. “You’re anything but, you’re absolutely amazing.”

The longer you were with your girlfriend and the more she told you things like these, the easier it became to believe them. It wasn’t easy or natural yet, but you found yourself questioning your old beliefs much more often.

You didn’t speak more about it that evening, indulging in some self care instead. However, a few days later you recognized that it was still bothering you. There was no way you would try again, but it also didn’t feel right to shut the door to your family completely.

Surprisingly when you brought it up to Ana, one day after training when you were cuddling on the couch, you practically on top of your girlfriend, she informed you that she had been thinking about that as well.

“How about you set up an email account just for them? This way you can check it every once in a while when you feel up to it, or I can even check it if you prefer. That would allow them to contact you if they have a change of heart, but you aren’t constantly bombarded with unwanted messages.”

A huge weight was lifted from your heart when you heard this suggestion. That was precisely what you wanted, some small gap left open, but nothing that would affect you in your everyday life. The last thing you wanted was to constantly get attacked by hurtful messages.

You placed a few kisses everywhere on your girlfriend’s face, uttering one word between each kiss,”You. Are. The. Best. Girlfriend. In. The. World. And. I. Love. You. So. Much.”

Ana happily accepted your kisses. “So, no second thoughts about moving to Mexico?” She inquired cautiously.

“Not a single one, I’m so excited for it, and I won’t let my family ruin it. Plus it would be the same if I stayed here. If anything being not only in another country, but on another continent might actually be good for me.”

“Good, because I’m very excited about it,” your girlfriend announced with a big smile.

“Me too,” you agreed.

In fact you couldn’t wait to start that adventure with Ana. You had never allowed yourself to be an adventurous person, telling yourself, or really being told by your family, that you were anything but.

However, now you realized that you did have an adventurous streak and it was high time you used it. For too long you had lived the life everyone else wanted you to live, but now you were getting another chance at life, at the life you truly wanted.

You didn't even wait until you moved to Mexico. A few days before leaving, you dragged Ana to a hairdresser, stating that both of you should change up your look to start over fresh.

What you didn't expect though, was for your girlfriend to decide she wanted to color her hair pink. You had thought about something more along the lines of cutting your hair a little shorter.

But then Ana announced with a big grin that she was going pink, and you made a split second decision, telling the hairdresser to whip up some purple hair dye for you.

And that's how the two of your started off your new life, one of you pink haired and the other one purple. You loved the way it looked and couldn't care less when pretty much the first thing out of Jenni's mouth when she picked you up from the airport was, "Where are you two going? A five year old's birthday party?"

"Shut up, Jenni, you're just jealous of us," Ana retorted.

Jenni rolled her eyes, "Maybe, but I get a feeling you're going to help me get over that by annoying me with your lovey-doveyness."

"Absolutely," you agreed, pulling your girlfriend against yourself and kissing her passionately.

"Fine! I'll stop if you stop!" Jenni exclaimed, grabbing one hand from the both of you and marching you towards the exit. "Bienvenida a México, chicas!"

[askinkiskarma]

ᴋɪɴᴋᴛᴏʙᴇʀ ᴅᴀʏ ᴠ - ᴅᴀᴅᴅʏ ᴋɪɴᴋ

pairing: neteyam x avatar!reader (part of the cardigan saga)

➽ a/n: it's neteyam and atan's world, and we're just living in it! hi besties and welcome to day 5, aka the day that almost killed me bc writing daddy!neteyam is actually much harder to me than i thought it could be. but i wanted so much to give this day to them, since they are my forever favourite pair from my forever favourite work of mine.

you don't have to have read cardigan for this to make sense, although it helps. i hope you enjoy, i've seen a lot of you besties reading cardigan recently and it's nice to know you wouldn't have had to wait as long for this prompt as my og readers, who i've promised this to for far too long hahahhaa my bad.

finally, this will continue in another (or two) kinktober prompts, so enjoyyy ;) x

➽ words: 1.7k words

➽ warnings: it goes without saying, but all of these works (kinktober-related) are smut and therefore minors should NOT interact with them. other warnings include: anal fingering, p in v, pet names, hair pulling.

➽ taglist (x) ➽ kinktober masterlist (x)

➽ na'vi compendium: atan - light, ma 'itan - son, kalin - sweet to the taste

“Come on, ma ‘itan. You have to let go of him at some point, you know?” Letting go of your son was harder on Neteyam than either of you ever envisioned. Well, not really. In truth, he’s always been a born father - loving, caring and attentive, he has been the unofficial parent of three kids ever since he reached puberty, and yet, it’s never made him bitter or deterred. On the contrary, it seemed that the birth of your son, the sweet Kalin, only made him more enthusiastic to put everything he’s learnt about parenthood to good use with his own family. Still, there were times, like right now, where you wanted to remember what it was like to be alone with your mate, the love of your life, the man who you’ve gone trough hell and back with. Solitude was a scarce resource right now, with a babe barely over a year old, but you were lucky to have a village full of people who were more than ready and willing to help babysit, and some who were more excited about it than others - like Neytiri.

“I’ve wanted to have this little one all to myself for so long, we’re going to have so much fun!” Her little coos were adorable and once more you couldn’t help be forever grateful for the person who’s been a mum to you for years now, who loved you and has done so ever since you were born. Although so different, you couldn’t help see your own mother in her, and you were reminded to pay her and your dad a visit at the Tree of Souls. It’s been a while. 

But for now…

“We won’t be too long. Thank you for doing this, sa’nok.” 

“We might be… a little long. Isn’t that so, Atan?”

You chuckled at the quiet desperation in his voice, and, with a roll of your eyes, you clicked in the direction of the tent’s entrance, wordlessly willing him out. This was going to be fun…

It was still risky, coming to the places that used to mean so much to you once, that you had to forsake when you moved to the Metkayina, that you got back once more once you returned home, but you couldn’t help yourselves. Not when these places, this place, in particular, has been one where so many memories, all shared between you two, were made, not when it still brings goosebumps on the surface of your skin, the thought of all you’ve lived through here, from learning how to swim and climb to conceiving your little bundle of joy that was safely back home. You never realised how much being a mother would mean to you - although it was always clear how much being a father meant to Neteyam. You’ve loved him all your life, but somehow never more than when taking care of your son, then when he showered you in love and affection, when he acted like the dad and partner you always knew he would be. 

“I miss this place so much every time we don’t visit for a few days. It’s like after all these years, and all these memories… it’s part of me. It always will be. And even now, I feel like a teenager, obsessed with you, desperate to look into your eyes, excited beyond belief at every glance or touch you send my way.” 

You couldn’t believe how even despite knowing each other since birth, being there for each other every day of your lives, your heart still galloped in your chest any time he spoke, and he still had so much power over you, power to take your breath away with words… and actions.

“Whatever you say… daddy.”

Neteyam turned around almost robotically, alert and frantic as he struggled to make eye contact with you in the least amount of time possible. You chucked at his demeanour, almost predatory, tail perked and unmoving, eyes wide and pupils even more so, swallowing the beautiful yellow of his irises whole. 

“What did you just call me?” 

You smirked and curved an eyebrow in his direction, enjoying the tingly feel that came with doing so, the goosebumps peppered on your skin after being conditioned to expect him to react to it, to unleash on you demons and urges that only you could swallow, only you could help quench. 

“Fuck.” A second later he was by you, and even after a few years in this body, his reflexes still amazed you, still took you by surprise. You gulped at the intensity in his gaze, a gulp that got stuck in your throat as soon as his fingers found your neck, as soon as they wrapped around it and squeezed in just the right way so you felt euphoric, so it felt like the beginning to a night to remember. 

“Atan, you have no idea what you started. But I’ll show you. Let daddy show you.”

His sultry words made your legs clench together, a desperate if futile attempt to cease the dew gathering in your beaded loincloth and seeping past the fabric onto the soft skin of your inner thighs. 

“Turn around.” 

It never took any effort on your part to wholly and relentlessly obey your mate. He loved control and for him, only him, you loved to give it up - you loved it when he manhandled you, his strong, muscular physique perfect for such a task, made to do exactly what he was doing now, spinning you in place and pushing you gently, but forcefully by your shoulder and lower back until you were on the ground, kneeling and waiting. 

“I’m gonna need this perfect little body on all fours, Atan.”

The ground felt moist and tender beneath your hands and knees, and you were so aware of every move, every breath, every fleeting touch of his nimble fingers on your body, slowly making his way from your neck, down your spine until he reached your hips, that he gripped with both his large hands, before giving a praising, appreciative murmur at the sight before him. 

“So, so beautiful. Look at you, spread open for me, making a mess before I even touched you. Daddy’s little slut.”

You nearly snickered at how quickly he adopted and adapted to the nickname, how natural it was, rolling off his tongue, how somehow, every time he said it, you got impossibly wetter, almost panting with the desire to be filled up with his cock, with his cum. You moaned softly when you heard him spit into his hands, and could only imagine the mouthwatering sight unfolding before you as he pumped himself, before plunging into the depths of the desire that would overcome you both. When he guided his rock-hard erection to the plush of your ass, gliding it effortlessly in between your asscheeks, over and over, all you wanted to do was scream for more. It felt wondrous and dirty, and you wanted it all, wanted him everywhere, all at once, all the time. Like the mindreader he always was, he spoke before you had a chance to voice your unrealistic feverous dreams.

“Let’s start with two fingers and work our way up, how’s that sound?” You appreciated him for his thoughtfulness always, but especially now, always ready and dutiful in making sure you were prepared, that your body was capable of taking him, of taking it the way he ended up wanting to give it to you.

“Words, Atan.” 

“Sounds go-good. So good.” 

“That’s right.” 

He was taunting you now, slapping the tip of his cock on your clit, dragging it against your folds before sliding into you with ease, while plunging two fingers into your puckered hole.

“Fu-uck! Fuck! Argh!”

The feeling was beyond comprehension,  beyond your wildest fantasies. It was always this good, always this mind-blowing and yet, you have never gotten used to it, never gotten used to the amalgamation of sensations and how they’d all accumulate to a night of orgasm after orgasm, until you were passed out on his cock, too tired to even mutter a tired I love you.

His hand was soft as it trailed up your body until it reached your braided hair, that he took into his fisted hand. When he tugged on it, as he slammed back into you, you cried out, moaning garbled attempts at his name. Your head pulled backwards as he used your hair to establish a brutal, ruthless pace of both his hips and fingers, and soon enough, you could feel your first orgasm as it approached, thunderous and violent and ready to take over you. 

“I can’t wait to be a dad again, I can’t wait to see your swollen belly and know you have made me the happiest man in the world every day of my life so far and will continue to do so 'til the day I die. I can’t wait to hold your hand when you bring our baby girl into the world.”

“But not tonight, Atan. Tonight, I want to ruin you. I need to ruin you. I need to watch my cum drip out of your every perfect little hole. Do you understand?” 

A meek nod is all you managed, the sensation too overwhelming to allow for any coherent, cohesive expression, the cried-out iteration of “yes, daddy. Yes, fuck, y-yes!” only audible in your head as you screamed it with all your internalised might. 

“Good girl. Come for daddy. I want to hear you, Atan.”

His words were enough to push you over the edge, and you came, vision blinded by the high, mind numbed by the way every nerve in your body felt electrified, alight with the pleasure that didn’t seem to want to cease, not even as you squirted on his cock as he continued to pump into you, the overstimulation enough to make tears fall down your cheeks and onto the ground. 

You didn’t have time to catch your breath, no time to gather any thoughts before he leaned onto your back, whispering seductively in your ear. 

“Ready for round two? You didn’t think I was done with you yet, huh?” 

taglist: @pandoraslxna @sulieykte @blue-slxt @eywaeveng @neteyamsikran @elenamoncada-ibarra @spicymayyo @itsjazzsworld @daddysmurfslefttoenail @eyrina-avatar @iameatingmyhair @hadesbabygurl @linydoll @the-mourning-moon

(pls complete the form in the beginning of this post to be tagged)

[kerizaret]

I have a hc that Saki picked up A LOT of various skills or knowledge while at the hospital that was just fun or distracting and a way for her to spend the days there and not be bored. Some of these are useful things, but others are just... completely random

Sure, she might've not had a chance to learn how to cook... But she can knit really well instead! The grandmas she met at the hospital were a huge help. All of l/n have at least one sweater hand knitted by her

Math was hard to learn when you didn't attend school a lot, but she found she's picked up learning languages a lot easier! So, she's been learning some by herself. She's really good at English and knows some Chinese too. She's even managed to pick up a little French because she thought it's classy. She's watched a lot of videos and movies and dramas or donghuas in original languages, and regularly listens to an English podcast on fashion. She ends up helping an embarrassed but very grateful Tsukasa with his broken English a lot later on, too, because she cannot listen to him. She's also practiced a lot of tongue-twisters which she can say really fast now, in all Japanese, Chinese and English

Also, sign language! She's learnt some basics of JSL

Obviously she's been following the trends a lot to see what's popular to wear right now, but then she got dragged into the hole that is fashion history... Now she can accurately describe you from memory what was commonly worn by any social class in various eras in Japan and also some in France (it's known as the country of fashion, after all! It's also part of the reason of her picking that language to learn), and knows the biographies of a lot of important fashion figures

She can fold very complicated origami deisgns by heart and also do miniature origami models. She's got boxes full of old origami sculptures(?) shes made over the years. She's also given a lot of them away to other patients when they were upset or when some were leaving the hospital, and also gifted some to all her doctors when she was finally discharged herself

She's TRIED to learn lockpicking, but the doctors once caught her sneaking out at night trying to pick at some medicine cabinet to practice and the conversation following it was so awkward that she didn't try it again...

She knows a lot about flower language (thanks to Ichika. They discussed that a lot whenever she came to visit her and brought a new bouquet in tow). She can solve a Rubik's cube in under a minute and shuffle cards really quick, too. She even knows a few card tricks. She can twirl a pen, which she later does A LOT in class, quote several poems from memory. She's learnt to write basic calligraphy

Because y'know, sometimes you need to do something new and/or time/thought–consuming to distract yourself from the bad and painful stuff. And in the end it's still something she can use now and be proud of and that she can share to make others happy, too. And just have fun

[johanna-swann]

I'm sorry, I just can't stop wondering what the hell happened to 911. It was never highbrow art, but it was genuinely entertaining and enjoyable. And people keep saying it's been going down hill since season 4, but season 8 has hit an entirely new low. They're really limbo-dancing with the devil at this point.

I mean. I wasn't a big fan of the season 5 opening disaster or the ppd arc, the season sure had its ups and downs. But they also did something interesting with Eddie for once, I am always a Taylor Kelly stan first and a 911 fan second so I enjoyed having her there, the story around Jonah was maybe a little far fetched but still fun, we had May at dispatch wihch I LOVED, Michael and David were still around and the season finale was pretty decent.

Season 6 also had a relatively strong first half. Once again not a big fan of the opening disaster, but Hen's med school storyline was still going strong at first, we got that Henren begins episode, we learned more about Athena's family and childhood (including conflict between Bathena and Beatrice), Madney was house-hunting and then we had the lightning strike and its aftermath of course. So most of the protagonists had stuff going on that we hadn't seen x times before.

After that... well. There was no reason to push Buck back into dating so soon after he had just learnt that being himself and by himself could also be enough. For Eddie it sort of made sense at this point? But it still felt like he wasn't dating because it's what he wanted, he did it because it was expected of him. Madney getting engaged was somewhat predictable though I would've also loved it if they hadn't done that. Lots of families with children and a house are happy without the parents ever getting married. And the finale in season 6 was really bad. Very underwhelming, very rushed.

But at least 6b had an excuse? The show was about to be cancelled. At the time those scripts were being written they probably didn't know yet that there'd be a season 7. And then season 7 had even more excuses why it was, well. Like that. (Network change, multiple strikes, the showrunner changed, a drastically shortened season, etc.) I can forgive a lot under those circumstances.

Season 8 though? Season 8 had it all. They had their og showrunner back and he had already had time to find his bearings. They knew about the renewal very early this time, so they had a lot of time to prepare. There were no more huge strikes. They got a full length season again. The network wasn't new anymore. Despite season 7 being a bit of a clusterfuck, they did manage to set up a few storylines to explore further in season 8. Everything was lining up perfectly!

And then they completely dropped the ball. I already went into detail post-8x06 on a different post, I didn't even watch 8x07 in full because it sounded rather boring (and police brutality heavy). Then they gave us a mid-season finale that was centered around an irrelevant comic relief side character who most people found annoying or boring. On the side we had another Athena B plot that had nothing to do with the rest of the episode and didn't influence any of the main characters in any way. Eddie announced that he might consider moving to Texas which for now doesn't mean anything, nothing else of importance happened. And that was the mid-season finale! Like. Guys. The episode wasn't horrible, but for your "great fall finale"?

And Eddie STILL hasn't put even a little bit of work into processing his trauma around Shannon's death. He was told once by a stranger that he deserves nice things and that fixed him? He's ready to confront the conflict between him and Christopher now? Yeah, sure Jan.

Maddie is attacked in her home and gets abducted by a violent and dangerous criminal who has the intention to murder her? Wonder where I've seen that before. Oh right, it was on the same show and it happened to the same character. Cool. Glad to see I won't miss anything new when I don't watch 8b next year.

It's not even funny anymore and I sure hope they have a reason for this and they haven't just lost all their braincells over the summer hiatus. But we won't know if any of the conspiracy theories about impending cancellations or main cast members leaving are correct until sometime next spring.

[megumi-fm]

this fortnight in megumi.fm ▸ bye bye march👋

ft. unchecked ambition to recreate of the hardest Kpop dances (only in vain), lots of code debugging, and using Yeolpumta the wrong way

💻 Internship // progress tracker

-> detecting pockets in protein structures using 3diff pipelines -> finding consensus pockets using outputs of pipelines -> pocket alignment of protein models by structural alignment with a set of known binding site structures -> read base paper -> weekly presentations [2/2] besides these tasks I've been trying to modify all my code files such that they can run directly from the system terminal (i hate edge cases and this entire process has taken years off my life) so that I can upload it on github

🎓 Uni Stuff

-> charted out a timeline for master's applications deadlines and related work

👟 Kpop dances!!

completed! 🔥bye bye ankles ⇒ I'd started this way before I messed up my ankle and then I abandoned it but we are so back... I picked it up last week and finally! it is done. 💪 bts' magnum opus ⇒ the main challenge is ensuring to hit every beat at the right speed and my rendition is still far from refined but hey. atleast my moves have developed some fluidity currently <3 🧢 left, right and just vibes ⇒ really needed a breather after the first two dances and now I'm here xD although the main reason I picked this dance was bc I loved the part switch version and all the references // ✅chorus + prechorus ⚡ crush...ing my motivation ⇒ so much for taking a breather. I've been obsessed with this song and I tried to start learning it and... four seconds- that's how much I've learnt in past three days. but the satisfaction when I got those four seconds? immeasurable. // ✅1st chorus pt1/3

💿 Other Things This week

📅 started my 18day habit challenge! by which I simply mean I'm using Yeolpumta as a daily tracker app rather than a study app and I'm loving it <3 I get excited seeing different colours marked on the daily calendar and as a consequence I've been more productive lately :D 🍊 been eating healthier! lots of fruit and water intake and I've also been learning to cook! 📖 The Myth of Sisyphus <3 I don't read a lot of non fiction but this piece is hella intruiging and I'm having a lot of fun 🍕 Lunch with the besties [x2] 🎰 Gaming Arcade shenanigans yet again 🎆 Fest at Uni! One of the best bollywood singers of all time showed up and he sang bangers from our childhood; we had a blast 🎧 lots and lots of kpop and for some reason I keep coming back to Advice by Taemin

[ 18th - 31st Mar; week 13+14/52 || and with that, 1/4th of this year is done. I'm pretty satisfied with how I how i spent the past two weeks, hopefully I'm able to stay consistent 🤞]

[read-and-write-]

A few ramblings about fanfic and learning to write it

I have this voice in my head that I can't get rid off telling me lately that my fics are not good enough, a combination of the general insecurity of posting something smutty for the first time and the general lack of engagement, that unfortunately affects me, despite repeating to myself 1000x per day that numbers don't make a fic good.

So I think "What if I just stop writing this and go back to what I normally do? What if I just convince myself again that I can't do this?" But I don't want any of those things.

The thing is, if I stop trying to write smut because it's not "good enough" then I will never write because it will never be good enough if I don't ever try. So I have, I want, to keep writing, because not only I have the right to learn but I deserve it, I (and everyone) deserve to have fun while exploring what my own writing voice sounds like while writing explicit fics, or horror, or a new POV, a new genre, anything.

I started writing fic in Spanish at 13, roughly 10 years ago (yes I am indeed a gen z)and I wrote terrible quality pieces in my school notebooks. But I learnt from it. And I had so much fun it awakened something in me. I started to love fanfic and writing, I would fill notebooks with stories and always enter the world of a new piece of media through what people created from it.

I started writing in English at 15, way before I could call myself bilingual, way before I was able to read a full YA book in English without struggling or watch a full movie without subtitles, I didn't have nearly as much of a grasp on the English language as I do now, but that didn't stop me and I learnt so much from it. And I had fun, no matter if I couldn't differentiate between in/on/at (I still can't sometimes)

So, seeing as I didn't let a whole language barrier stop me, I am damn sure I'm not letting an imaginary voice in my head and an arbitrary method to measure my worth determine whether I should keep writing or not, the real measure is me enjoying and as long as I'm enjoying it then I'm going to keep doing it.

With Red, White and Royal Blue I have written more fics that I've written since the pandemic, I have met so much people I am very glad to call my friends, I've connected with incredibly talented writers who have also become my friends, beta readers, cheerleaders, people who tag me in Tumblr games, names that I see frequently on my daily "you've got Kudos!" email.

And I'm going to keep writing because I love it, because I love the people and I love the stories, and I still have a lot of stories to tell.

And if someone else feels the same way, I hope you keep writing too.

And that's the end, if you read this, I love you, I don't care who you are. And now we go back to our regular scheduled programming: gay fic.

[mikimakiboo]

The people have spoken

Well, here's my boy :D

His name is Toxicity ! Pictures and lore under the cut because it's long lmao

Also if you have any questions about him please don't hesitate to send asks I'll be happy to answer 👉🏻👈🏻

Fun fact: I created him because I wanted to ship Hate with someone but I didn't want it to be with Nightmare, and since I couldn't find anyone I ended up making a whole ass oc (so yeah Toxicity is shipped with Hate lmao)

Hate is by : @/6chimeraqueen9 (I think ??)

He's a tall demon-like skeleton (approximately 1m80) with green wings (his wings look like the Lightfury's wings in HTTYD except they're green instead of white), a green tail and an emerald horn

His magic allows him to make people toxic towards their partner/family/friends/anyone but he doesn't use it often, when he makes someone toxic it usually means that the person they are toxic with was a jerk and deserved to be treated like shit in his opinion

He also has a passion for chemistry and biology and he can make lots of different potions, using his magic as components to vary the results and make anything he wants

He also cannot use his magic to fight as it is not made for that, so instead he learnt how to build bombs and use firearms (here's him with a gun as a shitpost lmao)

He is usually pretty stoic and doesn't show much his emotions, he actually has troubles expressing his feelings and needs time in order to put them into words, so he'll usually stay silent and will tend to bottle it up (same with love, he'll show it through act of services, quality time or gift giving instead of verbally)

One good way to determine what he's feeling tho is by looking at his tail because it will wag or move according to his mood

Noowwwwww his backstory:

He was born between two wars in an isolated universe where peace was an abstract concept, at a time where no one trusted each other because anyone could be a spie, so everyone was either ready to fight anyone in their way or manipulative to either get people on their side or not be suspicious

The ambient toxicity mixed with some left-over magic from the previous war ended up creating a child around six years old (similar as to how Paperjam was born from the mix of Error's and Ink's magic, instead in that case it's magic residues and toxic atmosphere)

He roamed around at first, trying to find someone who could guide him and teach him how things worked, but due to his aura (that he couldn't control yet) he was only met with aggressiveness and ended up having to learn everything by himself (all while living outside since he didn't have any family)

He was a teen when the second war started, so too young to be enrolled in it, and stayed in the city instead

By that time he had learnt to control his aura, but with the war it amplified his magic and as a result he had to wear gloves as to not influence people by touching them by accident (which happened frequently)

His universe ended up collapsing on itself due to its instability (multiple wars, emotional unbalance, ...) but he luckily managed to escape, becoming an out-code (he was a young adult, around 20yo at that time)

Since he didn't have anything else to do and nowhere to go he started traveling the multiverse until he settled in a calm surface AU in which he discovered his passion for chemistry and biology and started studying it

He still travels during his free time and met other out-codes like that, some of which he became friend with as well as universes he likes to visit sometimes (he met Hate during one of his trips)

He still has an apprehension of physical contacts when he is not wearing his gloves so he mostly never takes them off (except for laundry or cleaning himself and sleeping, of course)

He also has troubles opening up to someone or trusting others as he grew up mostly alone and didn't have anyone in his AU since they were all suspicious of everyone

Also the hole in his tail is actually an injury, he got stabbed when he was a kid as he was trying to steal food and it didn't heal properly so it made a hole (that's why he doesn't have it in the last pic)

And obviously he learnt how to build bombs and use firearms in his AU, firearms he learnt by watching the soldiers and training in the forest, and bombs he learnt by disassembling those that didn't blow up and looking at how they were made in the factories (mostly by sneaking inside or looking through the windows)

Then it was a lot of practice and he is now able to create little portable bombs and use firearms

So yeah that's my baby :D

[mrghostrat]

i appreciate all the kindness for my uni rejection, and anyone going through the same thing should def read through my replies if they need similar comfort. there’s a lot of “ATAR isn’t everything!” comments tho, which made me realise i haven’t actually talked much about my goals, so i wanted to share a little context.

i’m 30 (on the 17th). i took a gap year after high school and i went to uni at 19. i even dropped out a semester before graduating to pursue the one thing that was making me happy (my first original comic) during a really bad depression (undiagnosed adhd burnout). i got the last units and graduated a year later, a bachelor of game design.

haven’t used my degree once. i went into comics and freelance rather than games. but i also loved that degree and would do it all again, it was absolutely worth it.

i’ve been freelance and self sufficient for 6-7 years, and it’s fun and i’m proud of the things i’ve made, but i’m so tired. i’m specifically tired of having to work 7 different angles to make up one sufficient salary, and even if it ends up being temporary, i’d give anything for a 9-5. have someone else in charge for once.

got to the end of my rope last year and sat down to figure out what i like and what i’m good at. a Life Plan, yknow. i’ve always had an interest in teaching, helping, connecting like that. figured out degrees and became really invested in this new trajectory i pictured my life going on. i was also tired of waiting, because every time i wanted to move back to the city from this tiny town we’re in, somethings come up or delayed it. so zita helped me figure out how we could get the ball rolling and break our lease 3 months early, so we could move back to melbourne and i could start my degree this year. we looked for (and found) an apartment specifically on the side of the city that would be closest to my campus.

i hope that gives a lil context as to why i’m so devastated right now. the last 5 months have been me revving up to start this new chapter at the end of feb and one little email said nah.

the degree i wanted to do was a double degree, secondary education (hons) and a BA of fine arts. i was equally excited for both, because i never got to do a lot of actual art learning in my last degree, and the BA would give me all of that— life drawing, sculpting, painting, wood/metal/jewellery working, digital, fuckin everything. but it was the less important of the pair, when it comes to getting myself a job as an art teacher, because i already have the art experience. it was just a fun bonus, and the education degree was the one i NEEDED.

in nov i had to travel to melbourne to present a portfolio and interview for the BA. they showed me around the studio too, and i fell a little bit in love. i got the acceptance email in december, but i still didn’t have an offer for the education degree. another reason why i’m so discombobulated— i technically have an invitation, but it’s for the less important degree that would just be a money sink. do i go to uni anyway?? or just ignore this invitation and move on?

my state recently made education/teaching degrees free as a way of encouraging more teacher jobs. i learnt about this after i decided i wanted to pursue teaching, so it was just a fun lil bonus that i wouldn’t be adding to my student debt. apparently not, bc i didn’t think about how every teenager and their dog would apply for teaching degrees so they could get straight into uni without any debt. so, even tho i’m a graduate and i’m not relying on school scores, i was one in a million, likely just numbers on a page, and didn’t get in.

there could be other paths. i could start the BA and add the Edu degree later? i could reapply for mid year intake. i could… idk, most of what i could do requires emailing Monash and asking wtf, because i have no idea what’s actually possible and will need someone to lay it out for me.

still feels like i’ve run into a brick wall though. little bit shut down. more sad, not quite angry, but suddenly really spiteful for some reason— like “oh, you don’t want me? okay fuck you then, i won’t ever teach.” so stupid. just a bit fragile rn

[blueberrypie20]

Ubuyashiki Jun'ichi backstory post + Taisho secrets/fun facts!!

Jun'ichi Ubuyashiki is Kagaya Ubuyashiki's only living sibling, 4 years younger than him; 19 years old and a hinoe. Their mother died while giving birth to him, leaving the older brother alone as the head of the corps with an infant brother.

Not having anyone around to take care of the ubuyashiki brothers, Jun'ichi quickly learnt to handle himself on his own and satisfy his needs without asking for help, understanding the prsssure on the family and Kagaya's duties even as a young boy and thus quickly gaining maturity.

As Kagaya married at thirteen, Jun'ichi started feeling distanced from his brother. He was busy commanding the corps and making a heir; Jun'ichi couldn't be the next heir so him staying alive seemed to have no use. For a while, he kept on wishing that his weak heart would stop beating before he would make another burden to Kagaya and his family.

Despite his calm nature, Jun'ichi's a very adventurous person and, as a kid, he enjoyed investigating the woods surrounding the estate. One year after his brother's marriage, when he was around ten years old, he got lost in the woods near sunset. Knowing how worried everyone would be and that his brother would be distracted from his duties, he kept on pacing around the forest to find a way out, only to get further lost.

And somehow, he was attacked by a demon who lived there, so near to the estate (even so, it was repelled by the wisterias, so it wouldn't be a threat.) He usually carried a pack of wisteria with him, but this one time he'd lost it. He was a perfect prey.

He thought maybe his generation wasn't an exception and there will always be only one ubuyashiki son left.

However on the last moment before it jumped on him, Jun'ichi remembered his 14 year old brother's words.

"Ubuyashikis must cling onto life until the angel of death comes for them himself. Don't let anything kill you that easily now that you've survived, but also don't resist without reason when death comes for you."

A swordsmith that appeared to like Jun'ichi a lot, had made him a small dagger out of the same materials that make nichirin swords, just in case of self-defense. He pulled it out and managed to behead the apparently newly-transformed demon before receiving any serious injuries from it.

At that moment, he noticed the reason why he was still alive. He always assumed he was physically weak but he managed to behead a demon, barely at nine! His purpose in life was to become a slayer, and defeat Muzan Kibutsuji and his apprentices under his older brother's commands. He could be of use for the Ubuyashiki. For sure.

The news of him beheading a demon reached his brother and the hashira, everyone surprised from how someone like him could do that.

However Jun'ichi had already rejoiced, and now, he just wanted to get stronger. He knew his role now, and he wanted to fulfill it as good as possible. So he decided to ask the hashiras to help him; just putting a path in front of him would be enough. He knew well how busy they were.

Much to his surprise, none of them accepted, telling him he was still too weak to even wield a wooden sword, let alone becoming a demon slayer. He was frustrated and his logic agreed with the hashira, but his spirit couldn't afford to give in. He had to use other means.

So he carefully sneaked inside each and every of their estates, and watched how each of them trained. He learnt his swordmanship from Sanemi, his flexibility and reflexes from the Kocho sisters, and improved his focus, stamina and physical strength from Gyomei and Tengen. It still took him way longer than a usual slayer-in-training since no one directly instructed him and thre was a huge possibility of him getting caught, but he rathered the slow and steady way more anyway. Plus, to achieve his goals, he didn't seem to have any other choice.

Now all that was left was to learn a breathing style; however, with his weak heart, Jun'ichi doubted if he could ever master any of them. He continued training, however was losing hope since he wouldn't be able to learn them correctly and use them at full power.

Suddenly he had an idea. Why not come up with a breathing style on His own?

So he practiced slashing his wooden blade while using total concentration breathing day and night, getting hella exhausted but it was worth a shot since he now had discovered a breathing style that suited his body; breath of glass — he named it like that since it's a breathing style suited for people with weak physique, with bodies and hearts of glass.

He took the final selection with his only weapon being the same dagger mentioned earlier.

He spent six years training in total, and participated in the final selection at 16. His nephew, Kiriya, and his sister, were surprised to see their uncle there.

Kagaya was also surprised when a swordsmith arrived at the estate with Jun'ichi's sword.

His sword is a light variant of wisteria purple, and doesn't have a guard (yet?).

At first, he thought of using wisteria poison instead of breathing, but then he remembered that even the strongest of poisons might not work on some demons.

He still helps Shinobu in examining her poisons.

His crow is called Momotarou and, obviously, loves peaches. Jun'ichi always has some dried or fresh peach with him in a small bag to give to Momotarou whenever he comes to Jun'ichi.

Kimetsu Academy AU:

He's a high school third year student, best at math, biology and chemistry.

He's restricted from doing heavy exercises in P.E due to his heart, however only a handful of the students know about it yet. They just think Giyuu (+ the other teahcers) have a bias because Jun'ichi's the director's brother.

He's in the pharmacology club and wants to go to a medical university.

Tagging the amazings @love-stvrs @iincogneeto @larz-barz

[unic0rncrazy]

Meet my warframe crew: the Drifter

Name: Nosaul (nos-awl)

Pronouns: He/Him

Note: In my mind he has much longer hair than this. Unfortunately, this is the longest the game will let me give him.

Nosaul doesn't hide who he is, he is upfront with what he thinks and what he feels. He never asks for help, which makes some think he's aloof or arrogant, but in truth he spent so long alone that asking for help simply doesn't occur to him.

Nosaul doesn't like to feel trapped or out of control, and hates anyone trying to make him do something he doesn't want to do. The moment someone tries to tell him what to do he feels the urge to push back against them or run away, anything to maintain the control over his life he only recently regained.

The strength of his emotions still varies - sometimes they're too strong to control, sometimes he goes numb again. Depression leaves a mark on the mind as much as trauma, and sometimes there are days when he just wants to sit down somewhere and never move again. But he always makes himself get up and do something anyway. He's fought so hard to have a free life, he's not about to give up now.

Backstory under the cut. At first I was worried there wouldn't be as much to this one as there was for Luason, but apparently in actual fact there's more! A lot more. I took the concept of "someone who forgot how to feel learns how to feel again" and ran with it a whole bunch okay.

________________

The only difference between Nosaul and Luason before the Zariman… Was the matter of their choice of name.

"Don't be ridiculous, what kind of a name is… nos-all? no-saul? That's not even a name! Pick something respectable!"

Nosaul had been told all his life to behave. To be respectable. To do what he was told. He wasn't about to start listening now, especially not over this. Was his name back to front? Sure. That was the point. He was all back to front, all out of place, why shouldn't his name be the same?

It took another six months of arguing before his parents gave in.

He wasn't about to do what he was told when this… black-eyed creepy-smiled copy of him gave him an ultimatum in a malfunctioned ship full of crying children and insane adults, either.

Neither did he have any plan of doing what he was told when he found himself alone in this strange kingdom of flying islands, Duviri. But that was when he finally learnt that some fights… Some fights cannot be won alone.

________________

It was fun at first, playing in this storybook land that he loved. It became even more fun when Nosaul realised any time he got hurt it just reset! He could do whatever he wanted, no stupid prissy adults to tell him how to live, no death or serious injury, only this fairytale world of eternal play and life. He could climb the tallest trees and jump between buildings and never have to worry about if he got hurt. And all the while, his new buddy Thrax was right beside him.

He missed his old friends of course, and for all that they could be annoying with their rules he missed his parents too... Hopefully the other kids were safe and... Well. He just tried not to think about his parents and their screams as the void had driven them mad. This place was fun, and it was far more fun when he was happy, he didn't want to think about upsetting things when he could be having fun!

But no risk means no reward, no buzz of adrenaline from jumping between buildings or teasing false Dax soldiers if there's no fear of falling or dying. Sure, it still hurt, but when pain doesn't have a consequence you get used to it. And the same stories repeating in the same world gets monotonous. So Nosaul, in time, got bored.

________________

"I want to play a new game," Nosaul said to Thrax, one day, "Something new, something that changes things."

The room shifted, Thrax's mood darkening. "Why, is all this not good enough for you anymore?"

Nosaul took a step back, he hadn't expected that to anger Thrax. Surely his friend would be bored too? Wouldn't he want a change by now as well? "It's not that, it's just... well, we've been doing the same things over and over for a while now. And, I had some ideas of what we could do! It'll be fun!"

"We're already having fun," Thrax snapped.

"I know but, we could have more fun! Like, the rulers in these stories, they're pretty mean. Maybe some of the Dax soldiers rise up! Maybe they make a new world, with new stories!" Nosaul was floundering, now. Surely if he just told Thrax about the idea, he'd be on side? They could be heroes together!

"We're the rulers of this world. Are you saying you want to rebel against me?"

"No, no! We'd be the heroes! Freeing the people together!"

"I like things as they are, Nossy, I don't want things to change."

"We could just try it! If it's not as fun we can always reset the world back to how it is now." Nosaul ran his hand up and down his arm, nervous. Thrax didn't get angry often, but when he did it was bad. He was his only real friend here, he hated upsetting him. But why was he so upset about this? What was Thrax going to do in his anger? How was he going to lash out? Nosaul shrunk back further, and put his hands out in a placating manner. "Or, Or not, if you really don't want to."

"No. I don't think there is a we, anymore. If a story of King and Betrayer is what you want, then that's the story you're going to get." And with that, Thrax slammed his fist on a nearby table.

________________

Nosaul ran towards the castle, he found the guards standing in his way. He fought them as he had countless times before, trying to reach his friend, to apologise, but the guards weren't playing this time and to their swords he fell.

He dodged that blade next time, only to fall at the next.

The time after that, an arrow arced out the sky.

On the tenth try, he realised he couldn't get to the castle directly, especially not unarmed. He took a small energy pistol from a Zariman locker he knew was in a cave, and went around the back of the castle to sneak in. Again, he was caught.

Again and again, he tried a new tack. Again and again, he died.

Slowly his memories, already dulled by the desire to forget, to escape his trauma in this fantasy land, began to vanish. All he knew, was he had to reach the king, the king had to be stopped.

The new story settled into a pattern. An endless spiral of rebellion and death and reset. His memories faded until they vanished entirely, until he couldn't remember who he was besides the man who rebelled against the king only to die. With his memories went the meaning to what he was doing, why he was trying to reach the castle. At first it had hurt, and he forgot happiness. Then he forgot pain. Finally, he forgot want. He felt nothing, knew nothing, only the endlessly repeating story remained.

________________

He had lost all sense of even time, when one day the story went differently. He didn't die, and a strange hand landed in front of him. He picked it up, it merged with his hand... Wait. He didn't die when he was meant to. The cycle was broken. Maybe... What if he could escape? And so, guided by the light from this strange hand, he ran.

As he ran, a thought occurred to him. Shouldn't he have a name? He probably did... But he had no idea what it was, and there was nothing to tell him. But if he was going to escape, he needed to be called something. How about... Null? Null, the code for an empty entry... That suited, for now at least, it represented well his lack of any idea who he was. Yes. He could call himself Null.

________________

As he ran, on the Kaithe he stole, having got little help from Bombastine (why did he expect anyone to be helpful anyway?), he came across a table in the middle of the wilderness. It was quite out of place, and bore strange cubic food. The hand bade him go to it, and his own curiosity too. The guards were all far behind… Cautious, he dismounted his Kaithe, and sat at the table.

He blinked as he sat, and when his eyes opened he found himself standing somewhere quite different. He looked around this strange room, for a moment confused, then froze in place.  This space... His mind ached with the familiarity of it. He'd lived here, once. He remembered nothing, and yet he knew for certain he'd been here before. "What the fuck?" He said to himself, before deciding he had no choice but to walk forward, to explore this strangely familiar space. Maybe the hand would know where he should go? It'd guided him this far, after all. He raised it, and watched the already-familiar blue guiding light emit from it and travel to the centre of the room. There, it seemed almost to hit something in the empty air, transforming into a strange rippling light through which he could see another figure.

"Who's there?" He called, raising his pistol and walking cautiously forward. The figure did the same, though it lacked any pistol, copying his movements exactly. As he got closer, he realised the figure seemed… familiar. He noticed the figure's hair and pulled forwards a lock of his own, it did the same. Both, gold hair with deep blue tips. He remembered seeing himself in a puddle on the loop… This figure across from him looked like him. But, younger, still a child. And where had that strange blue scar, softly glowing, around one of his younger self's eyes come from? And those strange metallic implants around their head too… Whilst this was clearly his younger self, this reflection was not the same as him in all ways. It continued to behave like a reflection, though, mirroring his every movement. Not a threat then… right? Something compelled him to check its eyes and so he got close, almost touching it… Not black. Good. He didn't know why it was important that the eyes were not black, but it was.

As he looked around, he noticed another light glimmering the other side of the mirror-light. Maybe… Ghosts, spirits, you were meant to direct them to the light, right? Perhaps, that was what he was meant to do here? He moved such that the young reflection moved into the light, and the light moved. Well, that was something. So he did so again, and again when it moved next. Then the mirror vanished, and something clattered to the ground where it had been.

Cautious again, he walked over to whatever it was and picked it up. It… seemed to be part of a broken doll? Worthless. This, like anything else here, had been entirely pointless. He put it in his pocket anyway, he'd gone to all this effort to get it, might as well hold onto it. He looked around, blinked again, and found himself standing beside the table again, his Kaithe still standing there. He patted his pocket… the Doll was still there. Strange… He mounted the Kaithe again and continued, the hand urging him onwards.

________________

Null stood, on a statue's hand in the middle of the air, staring at a floating disk containing a strange blue mist that formed in front of him. It… had to be some kind of portal. A ghostly rablit appeared and hopped on through, and the Hand pulled him forward through the portal… Fine, fine, clearly he had to go that way. "Follow the white rabbit," he mumbled to himself, remembering a line from some old story, and walked through.

What greeted him was a cave full of vegetation, lit by a warm light that might be comforting if anything mattered. Instead, the warm light shone into uncaring eyes and Null walked forward, approaching three strange kneeling forms on stone plinths. The hand seemed to draw him towards them, and he walked around o in front of them to inspect them.

On instinct Null raised his pistol and spun around as a voice spoke from behind him. Some doddering old man making assumptions about what he thought… but there was that Rablit again, nestled calmly in the old man's arm. He lowered the pistol, it wasn't like it'd matter if he died anyway. Though… He'd rather not reset the loop again, in case it went back to how it was before. Regardless, he approached. As he got closer he realised this old man was flesh, like him, not whatever stuff everyone else here was made of.

The man, 'Teshin', was… Irritating. His answers were cryptic, and why the hell should Null care about fixing some broken doll? He needed to leave before time reset, not muck around looking for bits of some stupid toy. So instead he grabbed the man's blades and set out.

This time, when he died, he found himself returned to Teshin's cave sometime during their conversation. Fine. He'd try it Teshin's way, get the bits of this stupid doll. It was better than being stuck in the same endless loop at least.

________________

He returned, a doll's leg in hand, and picked up the doll from where he'd left it. His own leg ached, a dull memory surfacing of a loop from long ago, before the pattern settled in, one of many where he'd been killed well before the whole execution thing. A guard had taken his legs clean off at the knees, he'd bled out in seconds. He re-focused and put the leg back on the doll, and something else came to the surface. A vision… a memory? And this destructive feeling… It was like fire inside him, urging him to destroy as the child he watched broke the doll. He dropped the doll and recoiled, shielding himself from it instinctively, the urge to lash out still burning through his core, making him feel like a bow pulled taught, arrow knocked, just waiting to be fired at something. Was this what anger, rage even, felt like?

Teshin chose this moment, of all moments, to step in and try to be comforting. And in that moment, full of years of unfelt anger now pouring through him all at once, it was perhaps miraculous that Null merely shoved Teshin away. "Don’t!" he yelled, he didn't want sympathy, or comfort, he wanted to burn this whole fucking world to the ground and make Thrax watch as his whole kingdom turned to ash, before ripping Thrax limb from limb…

His anger cooled a bit as he realised Teshin, the man who was only trying to help him, patient and kind, had very nearly been knocked to the ground and likely hurt by his outburst. Indeed, Teshin was simply standing there now, watching and waiting. Null took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, the breath came out in a growl so he tried again. Slowly, the fire within him cooled. Once it was at least under control he walked forward, head bowed. "I'm sorry. Are you alright?"

________________

Null's arm ached, a memory of a time he too had lost an arm, as he held the doll in one hand and its missing arm in the other. He reattached it and another memory came forth. This one some kind of party… much nicer than the prior one.

As he stepped back from the doll, the memory, Null realised he once again felt something unfamiliar. It was like a pressure in his chest, but unlike before it wasn't a weight threatening to crush him or a fire threatening to destroy all before it. No, this was a pressure from inside, as if someone was filling the void inside him and quieting the flames, making him buoyant. The light feeling spread across him from his chest. It was almost too much, he instinctively felt like he needed to move in some way to manage this lest he float away. Maybe flapping his hands woul-

"You're smiling, I'm not."

Teshin's words snapped Null back to reality. A smile... That's what he could feel happening to his face. Of course. And this light feeling... This was happiness. It dulled, the fire of his anger at being held in this world rekindling as he and Teshin spoke, but it didn't go away entirely.

________________

As Null returned with the third part of the doll, something seemed off. Lua, the Rablit, was missing, and Teshin stood strangely, tense. Null asked about it, but gained no real response. Perhaps Teshin just didn't feel right today. He stepped up to the doll anyway, re-attaching its missing hand.

He didn't get time to process the meaning of this memory, this moment of sitting on the sidelines as another got the spotlight, or the feelings of resentment and want, as the moment it ended Null found Teshin holding a sword to his throat. The old man seemed angry, but something about his voice was… off. This… didn't seem like Teshin, especially not and the conversation went on. Was Null about to lose his head? Again? He reached for his warframe, but couldn't risk calling it over whilst Teshin's sword was at his throat. Lua… If this was an imposter… A few sentences later he was able to mention her, and it confused the doppleganger enough that he took a step back, buying the space required to have the Frame attack.

Null could hear Teshin's voice, the real one, calling to him as Thrax told him some story of a dying man and his children. He fought, fought to leave this bit of undercroft he'd been thrown to so he could find Teshin.

________________

He could hear a scene, all too familiar, playing out ahead of him. He had to hurry, faster, he was out of time…

By the time he got to Teshin, it was too late. As the old man, his mentor, his… *friend*, died, the flames of his anger roared, threatening to consume all, and it was to his emotions the world reacted, not Thrax's, as fire rained from the sky. He had to reach Thrax, had to destroy him. But… How?

The call of an Orowyrm answered his uncertainty. Surely, it couldn't be much harder to control than the Warframes, right?

As he approached the throne he watched as Thrax cowered, crying and afraid. The head of the doll was on the floor, and Null picked it up, pulling the rest of the Doll from his pocket. As he placed the final part the vision of one more memory showed to him…

The doll, and a storybook, in front of a child… Him. Nosaul. Scared, crying, Alone. The black-eyed boy had saved everyone else but not him… Outside the window the void raged around the Zariman, this damned stricken ship, and here, Alone, Nosaul found solace in a book. In Duviri. And so it had become his world. And this doll...

Thrax snatched the doll, the figurine of himself, from Nosaul's hands, screeching about how it was his. Fine. He could keep it, Nosaul didn't need this fairytale turned nightmare anymore. He approached the throne and sat atop it, after all, it was from there that Thrax reset the loop. Nosaul didn't want the throne, didn't want Duviri, Thrax could keep them for all he cared. What he wanted was Teshin alive, and he wanted to leave Duviri. And so, he reset the loop.

________________

He was back, standing again in front of Teshin, at the moment they met. It was clear Teshin knew what had happened, and he asked why reset the loop.

"It seemed like a fair trade," Nosaul shrugged. He looked Teshin up and down, the man who had become mentor and friend was unharmed. Nosaul was glad, and he smiled as Teshin explained how he would need to repay his debt to whoever it was outside all of this who had helped him. He could see the spiral now, the paradox, and how to twist his way through it to leave. But there was something important to do first…

He looked up at Teshin. "When we first met… I did not know myself, and so we were not properly introduced. But now, now I do. So…" He paused, smiling, and held out his hand to shake. "It's very nice to meet you Teshin. My name, is Nosaul."

[gglitchshit]

I did it on instagram and I'll do it here too because it's fun and I encourage you to do the same. 😎👍

My fave music discoveries of 2024!

Not necessarily new artists, just me being a slowpoke. I will share the artist, the genre(s), write a bit about them and share a highlight album.

(If anytime I mention "this year" I'm talking about 2024, I just waited till last minute to post this because hey, what if 5 minutes before midnight I discover someone new, you know... spoiler: I didn't though hahah)

In order of discovery as much as I remember, let's GO.

1. Gelka

(downtempo, chillout, electronic)

I love Hungarian music that doesn't have any Hungarian in it. I heard them on the radio and was an instant fave. Listened to them a lot when playing Stardew Valley and when drawing and in... general. Perfect background music that is actually good.

Can't highlight any album mostly because I was listening to their entire discography on loop so I guess uh. Just any of them. Yeag.

2. Agalloch

(atmospheric black/doom/folk metal, post-rock/metal)

The beginning of the year feels like an eternity ago so I'm not sure how I came across them but man I'm glad I did. I'm not good with words but their atmosphere just moves my heart strings in ways unspeakable. The end of Hawthorne Passage never fails to make me tear up.

Highlight album: The Mantle. The album ever. Essential. Beloved.

Runner up: Ashes Against the Grain

3. Alcest

(post-black metal, blackgaze/shoegaze)

Came across them around the same time as Agalloch and ougghhhhhh yeag. I'm normal about them (no). First time I've ever cried to music because of how beautiful it is. Yeah. Yeah that's it.

Highlight album: Les Chants de l'Aurore - their newest album is truly one of if not their best but I also love the two previous ones as well.

4. Kamelot

(power metal)

I had Black Halo saved to listen later and I finally got around to it and damn. What an album. Eventually checked other albums too and confirmed that yep, Kamelot is epic.

So yeah, highlight album: The Black Halo

5. Batushka

(black metal)

Secondhand rec from a mutual (hi ardate ty~) when I saw their imagery and heard that they combined lithurgic chants with black metal... Neuron activation!!!! This is what I wanted from Ghost back in 2018 from their looks but didn't deserve lol. I love that they're ambiguous and vague about their stance on their religious themes. Are they satanic? Are they not? ~Who knows.~ From what I've heard they're definitely blasphemous and that's sexy~

Highlight album: Litourgiya god damn album of the century

6. Children of Bodom

(melodic death metal)

I'm VERY late to check them out I know (I'm still a baby metalhead after all) and I don't even remember what brought me to them but I've been doing nothing but listening to them for a month. Or maybe two at this point. My first song of the year 2025 was Hate Me becuase I had it on loop. I'm also learning Silent Night Bodom Night on guitar because I'm normal. RIP Alexi I love you. Highlight album: It's very hard to check out full albums because each song is so good I gotta loop it for 7 business days, so I can only say Follow the Reaper for now!

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Bonus: rediscoveries

1. Avatar

(uhh good luck I think they're melodic death metal and alternative metal? yes metal)

First came across them from Ghost Tumblr community back in the day and knew one (1) song and recognized Johannes anywhere but that's it. But then I saw them live and it flipped a switch in me. New obsession!!! They took over my brain for a few months and became top 2 artist in my wrapped oops (top 1 in youtube recap hehe). Ngl I even started learning swedish because of them. Chat no please don't laugh at me-

Highlight album: can't even choose one damn but Hail the Apocalypse is my most listened one.

2. Ensiferum

(folk metal)

Decided to check out more of them since I only knew one song here too and!!!! Hello??? Why did I sleep on them for so long. Learnt Token of Time entirely on guitar and also started learning Windrider but put it on hold because it's out of my league a tiny bit currently fhsfgshd.

Highlight album: Ensiferum (2001) beloved one of my fav albums ever actually, it's so good.

3. Moonsorrow

(folk metal, black metal)

Listened to them a bit last year but really listened more this year so I count then as rediscovery. Almost went to see them live too but chickened out. :( I absolutely love folk and black metal together, so it was destined I'd fall in love with them eventually.

Highlight album: Jumalten Aika because it has my fav song on it and it was the 666th album I've listened to, like of all time. ^_^

4. Windir

(black metal)

This is more like an album rediscovery than anything but 1184 is still so good what the hell. It is everything I want in black metal. I need to check out the other albums too sometime soon...