#honestly there is zero amount of genuine process behind it

[usedtobecooler]

Hi Candy! I hope your shift is going well 😊 What would you say is your process when writing a fic?

hi!! it’s going good we’re past the halfway point now 🤍

you’d laugh if you saw my actual process but i’ll usually come up with pieces of dialogue that i want to use first then work around that, i’ll typically start in the middle then do the beginning and end last once i’ve fleshed out the main part of the story. a lot of my drafts right now consist of really crazy, random lines that basically look like i’ve slammed the keyboard until it’s given me words using autocorrect 😩

[smellsfaintlyofvanilla]

YOUR ANNIE FIC “tragedies of war” MADE ME CRY SM :( gosh your writing is beautiful!! can i request smth similar? maybe after annie meets the scouts she reunites with reader and it’s just fluff and stuff 🥺🥺 no rush ofc <33

Honestly, after that one, we all wanted a happy ending version (even me lol)

Home

(Annie Leonhart x Reader)

AU: Canon

Warnings: None

Category: Fluff

Summary: As a sort of divergence from this fic, Annie breaks out of the crystal and immediately goes looking for her S/O.

Words: 1.8K

Y/n.

It was the first thing on her mind when she was suddenly freed from the crystal.

Where is she?

She could feel the effects of time on her muscles - they were stiff and tense, reluctant to move at all.

Just how long have I been in that thing? She wondered. How much time has passed?

After four years, you’d imagine she’d have a wide array of things on her mind. But, in reality, there was only one.

Her girlfriend.

She leaned against the way tiredly before slinking down to sit, folding her knees into her chest and burying her head. She could tell, by some sense unknown to even her, that a lot of time had passed.

She thought of what you’d look like now. Were you happy? Were you getting along with everyone? Had you found out the secret of the walls? Did you find out her secret?

Thoughts raced through her head like a crashing river, never stopping for any order, but still flowing in the same direction. Suddenly, a thought creeped its way up her neck, instilling a seed of worry deep in the pit of her stomach.

Were you even okay? Were you hurt? Did something happen? Did you... did you...

No, she thought, determination struggling to reach past the worry that laced her mind and expression, she’s fine. She’s strong, nothing would’ve happened to her. No titan would ever kill her, she’s stronger than that.

She finally made her way up on unsteady feet, staring around the room absentmindedly.

She’s... she’s okay... The blonde stumbled forward, her legs voicing their complaints painfully, but she didn’t care. She has to be...

...

I have to find her.

---

So, here she was now. The front door of the Scout building, two MPs standing wearily to either side of her. She wasn’t surprised by that, though. It made an amount of sense - she was a titan shifter from Marley, who was the number one enemy of Paradis at the moment. Still, she made it clear her only intention was to visit her girlfriend, and, with much persistence, they allowed her.

That didn’t stop the two MPs from boastfully carrying rifles and folding Annie’s arm behind her back painfully. They needed to make sure there was zero chance of transforming, especially now that she was so close to many important military figures.

An MP stepped forward, pounding their fist on the door begrudgingly. An even more begruntled Levi answered.

“Military Police?” He questioned, cocking an eyebrow at their unannounced presence. He sighed, before speaking again, the tiredness evident in his voice. “What are we being arrested for now?”

“Nothing,” the female MP to her right spoke quickly. “Just a visitor.” She spoke flatly, gesturing to the blonde still restrained in the soldiers’ grasps.

Levi eyes slowly tracked their way from the MP down to face Annie.

“Her?” He raised an eyebrow, almost looking at her with condescension. She wasn’t surprised. She looked tired - after all, those four years in the crystal weren’t exactly a holiday. Not to mention, her face, normally neutral and stoic, was plastered with worry. Eyes wide and mouth slightly agape, as if she was waiting impatiently for some horrid news.

He continued to stare, but Annie didn’t crumple under his concrete gaze. Her eyes were fixed over his shoulder, searching the room behind him for any sign of her lover.

She saw no trace of you amongst the soldiers, and worry began to grow once again, and her heart slowly dropped more and more.

Despite her limited success in finding you, she locked eyes with a familiar face - Armin. He seemed quite surprised to see her, a curious expression painted his face as he marched over.

“Annie?” He said her name, speaking it almost like he wasn’t even sure she was real. “What are you...” He trailed off, confusion evident in his tone.

Quickly though, he regained his train of thought, “Come inside.” He gestured gently, and she stepped inside eagerly.

She scanned the room once again, and there was no sign of you. The seed of worry grew.

“Things have changed a lot, y’know.” Armin started, leaning against the wall. “We made it outside the walls. We know about you and the warrior program. It feels like it would take years for you to catch up on everything that’s happened but-”

“Where’s Y/n?”

She didn’t bother for small talk, or hell, even meaningful conversation for that matter. That didn’t matter right now. She had one thing on her mind.

“Y/n?” He echoed, registering the question for a moment. “Y/n is...”

-

What’s all the chattering about? You wondered, rubbing the sleep from your eyes as you woke from your nap. You laid in your dorm room bed, which unfortunately shared a wall with the common area. Given all the noise, you figured there was some type of guest.

You pulled the covers off of your body, and sleepily got up and went towards the door, yawning loudly. You stepped out of the door and into the hallway, and headed towards the commons.

-

“Y/n is...” The blonde man spoke unconfidently, almost as if he was trying to remember your whereabouts.

She paid no attention to what he was saying, though, as movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention.

A slow shadow slunk against the wall, placing it’s hand on the wall for balance. And it rounded the corner.

She made eye contact. And there it was.

Her world.

You.

You stood right in front of her for the first time in four years. Tiredness and fatigue were evident in your eyes, but you were certainly there. Alive and well. And that’s all that mattered.

“Y/N!!” She shouted, and the light seemed to return to her face. The thousand pound weight on her shoulders had just been lifted, and finally, she could move again. And, although her shocked and worried expression stayed present, you could see the quick buildup of tears in her eyes.

She broke free of the grasp the MPs had on her, adrenaline assisting her in breaking through their hold easily, and pushed her way past Armin, sprinting towards you as fast as she possibly could.

Your hazy mind took a moment to process the blonde mass running towards you, but your eyes lit up in excitement as you finally processed that beautiful face and identify it as your girlfriend, somehow awake from her slumber.

“Annie!” You beamed, opening your arms to allow her in just in time for her body to collide with yours, easily knocking over your unprepared body.

You landed against the wall of the hallway roughly, and you slid down the wall carelessly. Your girlfriend was clinging to you almost desperately, gripping the front of your shirt and burying her face in it, your leg to either side of her body. 

You grabbed the back of her head, pulling her closer into you. You could feel the wetness of tears on the front of your shirt as she sniffled and sobbed into your chest. Normally, she would never let herself get so emotional in front of everyone, but the overwhelming relief she felt just to know you were safe was too much for her to be able to control.

It was all too much for her. The sight of your adorable face, the warmth your body gave off, the scent the was so originally yours engrained into the clothes you wore. It hadn’t hit her until just now how much she missed you, even if she was hardly conscious in the crystal.

She sobbed helplessly into your shirt, finding herself unable to do anything else at the moment. You were relieved too, of course, but you never had to worry about Annie’s safety, which couldn’t be said vice versa. Still, happy tears filled your eyes as you continued to embrace your girlfriend.

You stayed like that for a little while longer, until a loud *ahem* caught your attention. You moved your head up to look (though Annie decided to keep hers right where it was), and were greeted with Caption Levi staring down at you.

“I get you’re happy, Y/n,” He stated bluntly, trying not to make things super awkward. “But this is the kind of affection that can be saved for your dorm room.”

A pink tint flared up on your cheeks, suddenly reminded by the fact that everyone in the commons could see you two.

“A-Ah,” you chuckled. “Of course Captain Levi.”

You placed your hands on the underside of Annie’s thighs, allowing you to hold her as you stood up and walked to your dorm.

You shut the door quickly, locking it for good measure, and laid down on the bed, setting your lover down gently beside you.

It seemed her crying had died down for the most part, thankfully. Even though they were happy tears, something about seeing your lover cry made you so unhappy.

“Annie,” you smiled at her, causing her to move her head up to stare at you. You brushed the hair out of her face affectionately, smiling with happy tears in your eyes. “I’ve missed you.”

The statement only seemed to bring out more emotion in her, as her lip trembled in an attempt to not let any tears fall. “Y/n... I was so worried about you... I thought... maybe... something had happened.”

You laughed warmly at that. Not necessarily making fun of her, but instead creating a warm and enveloping environment around you two with it.

“I would never leave you like that, Annie. I’m strong, you remember?” You grinned, and rolled up your sleeve to flex your bicep, a funny habit of yours that she had taken note of during your cadet days together.

She laughed at your silliness, her face seeming genuinely happy for the first time in years.

She was at home.

“I know...” She sniffled, reassuring herself even more, despite the fact you were already right in front of her. “I just... I was just worried for you...”

She muttered, pressing her cheek to your chest, listening to the steady rhythm of your heartbeat. You wrapped an arm around her gently, using the other arm to pull a blanket over the two of you, before grabbing her hand in your own.

“You need some rest, I’m sure, sweetie.” Your words were smooth and even, lighting a fire under Annie’s heart with every syllable.

“Yeah...” She smiled into the embrace, feeling truly at peace for the first time in what felt like forever. “I guess so...”

She buried her head in your chest once again, the soft sound of your heartbeat lulling her gently as the wave of sleep finally overtook her body.

She hadn’t slept like this in ages. No, this was different.

She was home.

This isn’t proofread hahaaaaaaa :)

[paperbodiesamongthestars]

The Plan

I am late to the party for the Harringrove April Challenge, so I combined the prompts for days 1-4 (first kiss, April showers, spring break, and roller skates) and got this bad boy. Plz enjoy. 

Read it on AO3 here!

Steve leaned on the kitchen table, chin on his folded arms, and watched the raindrops sliding down the outside of the apartment window. The fact that it was raining, on today of all days, felt deeply unfair. Wasn’t the whole point of California that it never rained here? All Steve had wanted was to do something nice for Billy, something to make up for…well. In all honesty, he wasn’t entirely sure what he was making up for, but he vividly recalled the expression on Billy’s face during the argument, and he was smart enough to know he had caused it somehow. So he had made a plan. A plan to ensure that spring break started out as successfully as possible, in the hopes that it would continue successfully from there. And now it was raining. Sometimes Steve wondered if the universe just genuinely enjoyed fucking with him.   

He heard the door to Billy’s room open behind him and tried to school his expression into something more neutral than bitter disappointment. He and Billy had been at least sort of friends for a while now, and had been living together since they moved out here last summer. It was more than enough time for Billy to be able to read Steve like a book, and the last thing Steve needed was to have to explain his disappointment about the plan. He wasn’t entirely sure he could explain the reasoning behind the plan to himself, so he really didn’t want to have to try to explain it to Billy. He wasn’t sure he could take the mockery that would almost certainly ensue. Billy was different in a lot of ways, after everything, but he was still kind of a dick. Steve was pretty sure that was at least partly baked into Billy’s DNA. 

It had been a little surprising to everyone when Steve had announced he was moving to California with Billy Hargrove to attend community college. Steve had even surprised himself a little bit with that decision, honestly. Robin had left for college in New York a few weeks prior and had invited Steve to come with her, but she had always been a very perceptive friend with an inconvenient habit of noticing when Steve was drowning. She had done a lot for him over the year after Starcourt, and he had wanted to give her a fresh start in New York without a roommate she had to worry about all the time. Billy, on the other hand, had offered up his passenger seat and would be the kind of roommate, Steve had assumed, who would ask precisely zero questions when Steve sometimes wanted to stay in his bedroom with the lights off for days at a time. So he had accepted the offer of the passenger seat, and he and Billy Hargrove had picked out an apartment.  

As it turned out, though, Steve had assumed incorrectly. Billy might not have an actual reason to give a fuck about Steve Harrington, but he was somehow even more persistent than Robin had been when it came to things like making Steve get out of bed and shower regularly, or asking if Steve had eaten anything recently, or even occasionally sitting down and talking Steve through the extremely basic process of breathing. It was super fucking annoying, and it made Steve feel more cared for than he maybe ever had, and he tried not to think about that too much because it wasn’t Billy’s fault that Steve responded to a basic amount of care by developing a massive crush, and actually none of that was the point right now. Right now, he had to fix his face before Billy saw it, or he was going to have to explain why he was upset, and that meant talking about the plan. Steve took a breath and tried to look fine.   

Billy sat down at the table and looked at Steve, who was still staring out the window. 

“What’s got you all mopey?” Billy asked, so Steve had definitely nailed the whole expression thing. 

“I’m fine,” Steve said, and it was a lot less convincing than he had been hoping for. Billy just stared at him, and Steve kept his eyes on the rain. It was coming down harder now, as if the universe was really trying to drive home how stupid the plan had been in the first place. Steve felt Billy’s eyes on him for a moment longer, and then Billy stood up. Steve heard the sounds of him making a smoothie and poked listlessly at the soggy remains of his cereal. He tried not to think about how today was supposed to be perfect, and now it wasn’t.  

Billy was back just a few moments later, a dark purple smoothie in hand. He handed Steve a smaller cup with the extra in it, like he always did. Billy made the best smoothies. 

“So,” he said as he slid back into his chair across the table from Steve, “what are you so upset about? We’re staring down two weeks of no classes, you passed all your midterms, and the nerds and Robin are all coming out to visit for summer in, like, two months.” Billy narrowed his eyes. “Are you upset that you’re not going back to Hawkins for break?” The question was a little cautious, and Steve shook his head immediately. He had no desire to restart the argument, and he wasn’t actually upset about not going back ho—back to Hawkins. 

He thought briefly about just…confessing. Admitting that he cared, probably a little too much, about making Billy happy, and then probably finding out once and for all that this thing was entirely one-sided. But then he was probably going to have to move, and he really didn’t want to do that. So he didn’t say it. 

“I made plans for today,” he admitted instead. Billy’s eyebrows went up.

“Plans aside from hanging out on the couch, watching movies, and smoking these?” Billy placed a baggie of perfectly rolled joints on the table. 

“Yes,” Steve said, although that sounded like a pretty great rainy day. 

“Ambitious,” Billy said drily, and Steve huffed. He was pretty sure this was just the tip of the mockery iceberg, but still. 

“So what were you going to do?” Billy asked after a silence. Steve wrestled with it for a moment, and then rolled his eyes. Billy wasn’t going to stop until he pried at least some answers out of Steve, so he might as well confess to this much. He unlocked his phone and pulled up the confirmation email. He slid it across the table toward Billy.

“We,” Steve said, “were going to go roller skating along the marina.” Billy’s eyes widened. He looked at the phone and back at Steve. 

“Roller skating,” he said, and Steve couldn’t get a handle on his tone. Steve smiled despite himself, though, because he was confident about this part of the plan. He had thought about it a lot. 

“Oh come on,” he said with a little smile, “like you wouldn’t Instagram the shit out of roller skating at the waterfront.” Billy looked at him, and Steve continued, “It’s retro enough to fit your whole throwback aesthetic, and you can take enough pictures of boats and the water to really rub it in that you live on the ‘best coast.’” He did finger quotes on ‘best coast’ because he was absolutely quoting Billy. Billy opened his mouth to say something—probably a joke about how he didn’t know that Steve even knew the word aesthetic—but he took a closer look at Steve’s face and evidently thought better of it. Instead, he looked at the fat raindrops splattering the windowpane, and then back at Steve. A slow smile spread across his face.

“Well then what are we waiting for?” Billy asked with a grin. Steve looked from him to the window and back. 

“It’s raining,” he said flatly. Billy’s smile went wider. 

“So you’re telling me that you made this reservation—“ he glanced back down at Steve’s phone—“three weeks ago, and you’re going to let a few April showers stand in the way of a great plan?” Steve flushed bright red. The date on that reservation was something he hadn’t actually intended to share. He hoped Billy wouldn’t ask about it. It took a minute for Billy calling it a great plan to land, but when it did, Steve smiled. 

“I knew you’d love it,” he said a little smugly. 

“No you didn’t, or you wouldn’t be so happy that I just called it a great plan,” Billy shot back, and Steve wasn’t sure why Billy had to be so mean, and also so right all the time. It was deeply unfair. He tried to come up with a snarky response, but Billy was already standing up from the table. 

“Get your raincoat,” Billy said as he put his smoothie glass in the sink and walked off toward his room. “I’m getting dressed and then we’re going roller skating.”

The rental shop was open, though the guy behind the counter was clearly not expecting anyone to actually show up. He kept shooting worried glances out the door, to where the pavement was wet and covered in puddles. He asked them repeatedly, as they signed the paperwork, if they understood that the company renting them the skates was not responsible for any injury they might  sustain. While being idiots in the rain went unspoken, but was clearly implied. 

Once they had their skates on, it went better than Steve had anticipated. The rain, after the first half hour, was barely even noticeable, since they were both basically soaked through. Steve hadn’t roller skated in years, but he was steadier on his feet than he had any right to be. Billy spent the first ten minutes filming Steve, no doubt in the hopes of catching him eating it on the sidewalk. Steve had several wobbly moments where he was sure he looked ridiculous, but he took pride in the fact that he managed not to fall. Eventually Billy put away his phone and started actually trying to skate himself.  He was shakier than Steve had been to start, but he adapted quickly, as usual. Soon they were gliding along the concrete path pretty successfully, stopping often to look at the rain coming down over the marina and the bay. Billy skated straight into every puddle he could find, and was happiest when he could manage to splash Steve. 

They made their way out to the end of the waterfront and sat down to rest on a rocky jetty. Steve raised his face to the sky. The rain had slackened a bit, but was still falling steadily. He closed his eyes and let it cool his flushed face. He felt Billy’s shoulder warm against his own, even through his raincoat. Billy hadn’t bothered with a jacket. 

“So why roller skating?” Billy asked. He sounded curious rather than mocking, which was promising. Steve kept his eyes closed and shrugged. 

“Like I said before, I thought you’d like it,” he said, hoping Billy would leave it alone and knowing he wouldn’t.

“Okay,” Billy said slowly. “But why make the plan at all?” Steve tried one more time to avoid this conversation. 

“We’re always either working or doing school stuff. I thought we could use the break.” Billy just sighed. 

“You made the reservation the same day we had that argument,” Billy said quietly, and it was Steve’s turn to sigh. He didn’t want to talk about this, and now he was going to have to. He tilted his head further back, but didn’t open his eyes. He focused on the sensation of raindrops on his face for a long moment before he spoke. He kept his voice quiet even though they were alone on the jetty, and he chose his words carefully.

“A few days before the argument, you asked me if I was going home for spring break. I said that I hadn’t decided, and then I asked you the same question. You eventually just said no, but I could tell that something about it bothered you. So I started thinking about it, and you almost never use that word. I’m pretty sure I’ve only heard you say it one time, and it was when you were being an absolute dick about carpooling to that stupid festival. You asked me how I was planning to get home, and I said I could find another ride back to the apartment, and you were mad at me for a week. At the time, I didn’t understand why it pissed you off so much. I probably still don’t fully get it, but I think I’m starting to understand a little better.” Steve paused, thinking about empty houses and unsafe houses and how he wanted to say the rest of it. 

“And?” Billy eventually prompted when Steve didn’t continue fast enough. 

“Jesus Christ,” Steve muttered under his breath. “Give me a second. Or, you know, you could try just…letting something go for once.”

“Doesn’t sound like me,” Billy murmured, but he bumped Steve’s shoulder with his own encouragingly. Steve finally opened his eyes and looked over. Billy’s eyes were wide and blue and had some emotion Steve couldn’t identify in them. Steve tried not to think about what it could be. He looked back out at the water in front of him. 

“And then we had that stupid argument, and I said a lot of shit I didn’t feel good about and didn’t mean about you and Hawkins and your terrible mood, but for some reason it was worse than usual. You never want to go back, and I totally get it, and I’m sorry I kept asking about it, but something I said or did this time made it way worse.” Steve paused again, not sure where to go from here. 

“That’s why you decided not to go back to Hawkins,” Billy said eventually. “Because of that fight.”

“I mean, I mostly decided not to go back because I kind of hate it there sometimes, and they’re all coming here in a couple of months anyway,” Steve said, “but that was also part of it, yeah.” He shot Billy a small smile, but Billy was staring straight ahead. “I knew if I left you here by yourself, it would probably be bad. It took long enough to pull you out of it after Christmas. I couldn’t ask you to come with me, so I just decided to stay.” Steve tried to keep his voice light, but it still felt like admitting a lot. Just how closely he paid attention to Billy and his moods was a thing he would rather have kept to himself. But it was out there now, and there was nothing to do but wait and see how Billy was going to react. Steve shot him a sidelong glance to see if it seemed like he was angry, but he was still staring out at the water, expression unreadable. 

“So I was a total dick to you, and your response was to make plans to go roller skating because you thought I would like it,” Billy said flatly. 

“No?” Steve said because that’s not what happened. “I planned roller skating because something about spring break has had you in a shitty mood for a while now, and I thought maybe if we did something fun on the first day, it would, you know, get things off on the right foot. I also planned it because I said or did something during that argument that actually really upset you, and I still don’t know what it was, but I feel like a dick about it anyway.” 

“Steve,” Billy said, and it sounded a little like he was pleading. “It isn’t…it wasn’t…” He took a deep breath and paused for a long moment. “I really fucking hate this time of year,” he finally said slowly. “My parents sent me to a week of camp over spring break one year when I was about twelve.” His voice had taken on that flat, toneless quality that it often got whenever Billy got anywhere close to the topic of his mom. Steve pressed his shoulder a little harder into Billy’s, and felt relieved when Billy didn’t pull away. “It was some sports camp, I think. I don’t really remember much about it. When I got home on Friday afternoon, my mom was gone.” Steve’s head snapped up so he could look at Billy’s face, but he was still staring resolutely out at the water. His shoulders were tight and his jaw was set. “Most of her stuff was gone and my dad wouldn’t tell me where she was. The only thing he ever told me about it was that she was gone now, and we were just going to have to ‘soldier through.’ I found out later that he had her involuntarily committed. She had been struggling for a while, but he never wanted her to actually talk to someone about it. He just waited until I left and then dumped her in some facility. She spent the next few years in and out of mental hospitals, and then the years after that going in and out of rehab. I didn’t see her again before she died. I found her sister right before we moved to Hawkins, and she told me about it.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Billy,” Steve whispered, slowly reaching out to lay his hand over Billy’s. Billy didn’t pull away, so Steve left his hand there. 

“No one’s ever asked before,” Billy said slowly. “About spring. I’ve hated the entire concept of spring break since I was twelve, and no one’s ever said anything about it before.”

“I’m so sorry,” Steve said, feeling even worse than before. “Oh my God, during that fight I said that you had two weeks of vacation coming up and you were acting like somebody died.” Steve put his hands over his face. “I’m such a fucking asshole.” He dropped his hands and looked over at Billy, hoping he could find some way to say it so that Billy would understand— 

 —but then Billy was leaning toward him, and then Billy’s lips were on his and all of Steve’s thoughts left his head at the same time. Kissing, though. Kissing he was good at. It took him just a moment to get his bearings, and then Steve was turning his head to get a better angle and deepen the kiss. He had wanted to do this for a long time, so he wasn’t about to waste the opportunity. When they finally pulled apart to breathe, Billy spoke before Steve could. 

“What I was trying to say,” he said seriously, “is that no one has ever asked me why I’m upset, much less gone out of their way to plan an activity to make me feel better.” He looked up at the rain for a long moment and took a breath. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” he admitted, “and I only waited because I thought you’d get over it eventually.” He glanced at Steve and then looked away. “We don’t have the best history, and I figured you’d start attending classes and meeting people, and you’d realize that there are a lot of people out there who have a lot less baggage than I do, and you’d eventually stop looking at me like that—” Billy ran a thumb over Steve’s cheekbone and Steve couldn’t help himself from leaning into the contact a little bit— “and that would probably be better for you in the long run. But you didn’t stop. And you just keep doing shit like this,” Billy said. 

“Making overly-complicated plans so I never actually have to have a conversation to resolve an argument?” Steve asked with a rueful smile. 

“Caring about how I feel, dumbass,” Billy replied with a shove to Steve’s shoulder. “Continuing to do thoughtful shit for me even though I sometimes actively make it difficult for you to be nice to me,” Billy said. 

“Hey,” Steve said softly, with a shrug that did nothing to conceal how emotional he was, “it’s not like I’m baggage-free. I’m pretty sure you could find someone to be nice to you who doesn’t just…entirely forget how to breathe sometimes.” Billy looked at him for a long moment and then smiled. 

“Nah,” he said. Then he narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “You said ‘overly-complicated plans.’” Steve closed his eyes and winced. “You had more stuff planned for today,” Billy said. It wasn’t a question. 

“Nothing major,” Steve said. “After we were done skating, I thought we could go to that taco place you like down by the water. And then I may have signed us up for—“ Billy cut him off with another kiss. Then he pulled back to get to his feet and held a hand out to help Steve up. 

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “We’re going to go pick up tacos because I fucking love those tacos, and then we’re going to take them back to the apartment—“ Steve was already shaking his head. “What?” Billy demanded. 

“I think what you meant to say,” Steve said, pulling Billy toward him on his skates, “was that we’re going to take them home, and—“ 

Once again, Billy cut him off before he could finish his sentence. 

[letsbenditlikebennett]

Picnic Crashing || Ariana & Orion

TIMING: During the Sweet Dreams POTW PARTIES: @3starsquinn & @letsbenditlikebennett SUMMARY: A mopey Ariana and Orion have a picnic. It’s crashed, quite literally. 

There was a good chance that Ariana had packed entirely too much food in her picnic basket for just her and Rio to eat, but she was happy with the assortment. Plus, with all the baking Athena did and pies Kaden was sending on pretty much a weekly basis, she had a lot of treats to share. While she was still largely struggling with what her role was supposed to be and if her efforts to help were at all worth anything, she was looking forward to some quality time with Rio. There was no hiding that the Quinn twins were among her favorite people in town. More like family at this point, really, even if they were still figuring out their relationship to each other. She had a nice blanket laid out in the common and her picnic basket holding it down. When Rio approached, she put on the warmest grin she could manage and said, “Hey, I hope you’re hungry because I brought a ton of food.” She patted the spot on the blanket beside her and asked, “How’s everything been? I feel like it’s been forever.” 

 Backpack stuffed completely full, Orion made his way across the grass, making a beeline towards the figure off in the distance he assumed was Ariana. He hadn’t really done picnics before. He didn’t know what to bring. Plus, it wasn’t like he kept the kitchen full stocked with food. The kitchen in Skylar and Nic’s house was almost comically large compared to the amount of food that Rio kept stored in it’s cabinets. He was in way over his head in that giant house, but ironically it was cheaper living there then it would be to get a smaller place. Perks of whatever rich person had apparently bought it for them. Instead, he had stuffed his bag with some lunchmeat, bread and the most recent box of goodies he had gotten from Nate’s shop. Don’t forget to smile. He reminded himself as Ariana noticed him. He flicked his wrist into a wave and finished his trek to the blanket, “You know I’m always hungry.” He gave a thumbs up and slipped the backpack off. Lowering himself onto the blanket, Rio pulled his food from the bag and added it onto the blanket. “Oh you know, I live in a giant house with an indoor pool by myself now. That’s been pretty weird. But I guess I’m okay. How about you? And Athena?”

 There was a certain sense of ease that came with spending time with Rio. He was a good friend and she had zero doubts about that. It wasn’t just that though. Ariana found it easy to just be around him. No expectations, no putting on a brave face. She could wear her feelings plainly and sit in comfortable silence with her friend. Judgment would never come, at least not from Rio who had done plenty to show he’d always be a supportive figure in her life. Today, his smile seemed to mirror her own in the sense it was more of a ghost of a smile, there simply to indicate they were in fact glad to see each other even if everything else around them seemed to be going to hell. Even so, it was easy enough to laugh along with his statement. “You and me both,” she joked before her features softened a bit. She wasn’t quite sure what happened, but living alone didn’t sound great. “When you put it like that, it sounds like I need to come over for a pool day. But that does sound like it’d be weird. Did your roommate move out? Me? I’ve been okay. A little bit of internal wrestling since my attempts to help people seem to make things worse, but like, trying to remember this town is just kind of a shit show. And Athena seems to be doing better. I know losing Amanda was hard, but she’s been hearing back from med schools. Kinda… well, I guess a little nervous to see which one she chooses. I don’t want to like ask her to stay, but also don’t really want her to go so there’s that.” She realized she was rambling a little bit and took in a deep breath as she took out some of dumplings and soup she’d made as well as a thermos full of warm green tea.

 Orion was willing to admit that things had been a bit awkward since Athena and Ariana had started dating. No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t erase the past memories of his sister from his mind. The things she used to say. The memory of their eighteenth birthday. Sometimes it was all too easy for Rio to replace the image of that werewolf in his mind with Ariana’s. But he did believe that Athena genuinely cared for Ariana. And despite weirdness, Rio couldn’t avoid Ariana. She was one of his closest friends, someone who he knew he could count on. And when the two hung out, things were just simple. He really enjoyed simple. “Please do. It’ll get better use if you do. I don’t really swim. But yeah she uh- left town recently.” No reason to get into the specifics of Skylar’s departure. He sighed listening to her, not pleased to hear that she hadn’t been having any easier of a time here in town. It never seemed like things would settle down. “I’m sorry. That sucks. Personally, I think you helping me has turned out super well, for the record. But I’m sorry to hear about whatever you are referring to.” Rio thought about medical school a lot too. He wasn’t convinced that Athena would ever leave White Crest. Her entire life was here, he wasn’t sure she would know what to do anywhere else. But a lot had changed since their parents had died. It was hard to tell exactly what was going through Athena’s mind anymore. “It’s hard to tell. Between you and me? I don’t think she’ll ever move out of this town. But I don’t exactly know her as well as I used to.” He lost focus of the conversation as she unpacked more food and he caught onto the smell, “Holy crap that smells so good. I’m so excited to eat.” 

 There was a big part of Ariana that still wanted to bridge the gap between Athena and Rio so they could all enjoy days out together like this, but the steps they were already taken, those were big. And they were enough. Maybe one day things would be easier, for now, she was just going to bask in the simplicity their time together brought. She took a sip of her green tea and slowly nodded as Rio spoke. Pool sounded fun, roommate moving out, not so much. Two times in a row at that had to be pretty rough. “I’m sorry, that she left. That’s gotta suck. I’ll come over soon then… and not just for the indoor pool.” She gave a small nudge with the last part of her sentence before she began nibbling on some of the food. It was a nice little reminder from Rio that not all her efforts to help were for not. Even if they were more in the way of friendship and not any of the crazy crap White Crest threw at them. “Yeah, maybe you’re right,” she agreed not wanting to contemplate it too much on a day where they were supposed to be enjoying themselves, “This town just… it’s hard. But you know that.” Being reassured that Athena wasn’t likely to leave helped a little though. The thought of saying goodbye had made her a bit nervous throughout her girlfriend’s interview process. She wanted the best for Athena, but she also wanted to be by her side. It’d be nice if those two things lined up. “I kind of hope that’s the case. I want her to live her dreams, I’d just… I’d miss her a lot.” She shrugged lightly not wanting to get too caught up in her worries when she heard a loud thud. Her head whipped up as she saw a bicycle colliding with a tree. “Holy shit,” she muttered, “That’s not what you…” She trailed off as she realized the young man wasn’t getting up. She jumped up from the ground instinctively and ran over to him. There wasn’t blood and he had a helmet on, but he was just… out? “Uh, Rio. I don’t think he’s,” she focused on his heartbeat, it was relaxed, “He’s alive but, I don’t know what’s wrong. We should call an ambulance right?” 

 “Nah. It’s okay.” Orion lied. He believed what he said. He was happy Skye left. This town had hurt her, in ways that are hard to recover from. He knew that she could do it. He also knew that to do so was probably a lot easier away from town. He at least loved the idea of Ariana hanging out at the house. The place was far too big for just him. But for as much as it made sense for Skye to leave, Rio couldn’t comprehend the idea of Athena ever leaving town. He expected her to live and die in this town. Just as his parents had. Then again, she never expected Athena to gut their mom either. So his sister had surprised him in more than one way. Still, it felt weird that so much had changed. Rio always thought he was the one desperate to get away. “You think you’ll ever leave?” It was a genuine question. Ariana hadn’t spent her entire life here. She had managed to find some charm in this terrifying town. He wondered how long it would last. Any chance at eating or discussing was distracted by the man crashing into the tree. He jumped up and followed behind her, rushing to his side to check on him. “If he’s breathing then what happened?” Rio questioned, still thankful that he was alive. “Right. Yeah. 911. Calling now. See if you can wake him up?” Rio suggested as he dialed and pulled the phone up to his ear.

 “I’m not too sure. I’d like to think she has reasons to want to stay here, but I don’t want to hold her back either,” Ariana answered honestly. Normally, she would flat out ask Athena, but with things at least being mostly calm, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. Thankfully, there wasn’t too much time to think on that with the bicycle collision. Both Ari and Rio were quick on their feet though hearing the heartbeat only did so much to calm her as Rio called 911. She nudged the young man and loudly said, “Hey, hey, bro-- wake up!” But he was out like a light. There wasn’t even the slightest flinch as she shook at his shoulders. No indication that he could even hear what they were saying or feel her touch. “Something… something doesn’t feel right here, Rio.” Outside of some scrapes from falling off the bike, he seemed to just be asleep. Was her on drugs or something? She began rummaging through his jacket pockets but only found a wallet. A wallet with nothing out of the ordinary about it. “His name is Leon Torres. Uhm…. born 1998? That’d make him 23? 22?” 

 Orion rambled quickly, a bad habit in general made even worse by the stress of talking to a 911 operator. “We uh- are at the park. And he ran into a tree and he’s not waking up and-” Luckily, the operator was much more level headed than he was and cut in to ask questions from time to time. “It doesn’t look like he’s too badly injured. I don’t see any excessive bleeding. He’s not waking up but he’s alive.” He hadn’t actually checked the man’s pulse officially, but he could hear the heartbeat. If he had to guess, that was one of the first things Ariana had checked for as well. “Okay. Okay. Thanks.” Rio hung up the phone and hugged it against his chest as he crossed his arms, “An ambulance is on their way. She uh- sounded pretty confused.” That made three of them. Clearly, Ariana was just as lost as Rio and the 911 operator had been. It didn’t exactly seem feasible that somebody fell asleep while reading a bike and now wouldn’t wake up. “Yeah uh- it’s pretty weird.” Rio hovered awkwardly above Ariana. He didn’t know how to help or if he was just getting in her way. “Yeah. Not exactly prime age for randomly going into a coma while on a bike ride.” He mused, glancing around the park looking to see if he saw anybody or anything around. This felt supernatural. “Could it be a spell? Some kind of drug or poison?”

 Ariana kept her focus on Leon’s heartbeat. It was slow and steady, but not so slow that she’d think he was dying. The rhythm was similar to that of a peaceful sleep. Normally, it was something she found calming, but given the more than perplexing circumstances, she found herself trying not to panic. Nothing about this seemed natural and that meant it was unlikely a human doctor could do much of anything for him. She could vaguely pick up on Rio’s rambling, something she normally found endearing now only furthering the sinking feeling in her stomach. “Good, they can at least monitor him. I don’t,” she trailed off and looked him over yet again. Outside of some bruises forming and minor scrapes from the crash, there was nothing indicative of injury on his body. No signs that pointed to anything in particular. No scent on him that could give them some sort of clue on what the hell was happening here. Rio was onto something with the idea of a spell or drug though. That seemed much more feasible than a 20-something year old just falling into a deep sleep while riding their bicycle. “It has to be. Why else would he just- We could look through your books or something? I don’t know a lot about magic or drug… or human health conditions.” She hated problems like this. If she had her way, all of her problems would be one she could throw fists or claws at and call it day. Unfortunately, life rarely worked like that and she felt frustration building up within her. She wanted to punch… something. Anything, really, but she breathed instead. First in shallow breaths until they evened out into something deeper and she could fight the urge to beat up a tree. “We’ll see what we can look into after the ambulance gets here. It has to be something.” 

 Orion hoped that the ambulance hurried. Despite the man seemingly being alive, this still wasn’t normal. Rio would feel a lot better once the man was in medical hands. Though if this was supernatural then maybe they wouldn’t be able to help him either. Still, it had to be better than just standing over the man’s unconscious body with no idea what to do. Ariana was right, they would be more useful doing some research on this while he stayed under a hospital’s care. “Yeah. Good idea. Humans have some uh- weird medical things. But this seems especially weird.” Rio spoke as if he wasn’t a human himself. Most times, he didn’t really feel like he was. Rio glanced around the park. If this was some kind of spell, wouldn’t the caster have to be somewhere around here? Maybe proximity didn’t matter. His ears perked at the very faint sounds of sirens. “I think they’re on their way. Hopefully it shouldn't be too much longer.” And after they were gone, the two would probably have to pack everything up and head for the Scribe building. “So much for the picnic I guess, huh?”

 In any other situation, Ariana might have laughed at Rio referring to humans as if he wasn’t one himself. She was pretty sure hunters still considered themselves human in the same way spellcasters did. Not that it was something she’d ever thought to ask before now. “Kind of hope it’s one of the weird medical things as opposed to… well, you know. White Crest brand of weird things,” she said softly, still keeping a close ear out for his heartbeat that was still steadily trucking on. They were still going to do their research anyway, but medical seemed so much easier to fix though any sort of medical condition that essentially put an otherwise healthy appearing 22 year old into a dead sleep was alarming. As she started hearing the sirens in the distance, she felt a little more at ease. Monitoring a human to make sure they were alive was high key stressful and she’d much rather be reading a bunch of Rio’s old books… which was saying something considering she hated reading. “Yeah, picnic vibes are pretty dead now. We can snack and research? Keep it real, sleuthy,” she responded with an awkward laugh. The whole fun friend day thing was pretty much ruined. Not that she was sure it was ever really ago in the first place considering they both seemed to be bummed out about other things. As the ambulance approached, she waved to get their attention and did her best to explain what happened. They all seemed just as confused as she and Rio had been. That didn’t leave her with much hope it was in fact medical. “Yeah, he seemed to be just riding his bike normally then sort of just crashed into the tree and isn’t waking up. His pulse seems steady.” 

 It was almost pathetic that Orion and Ariana immediately went to something supernatural for the cause of the collapse. He realized with a wicked sense of irony that a regular medical mishap might actually be more surprising than something supernatural. If it didn’t feel so disrespectful standing over top of the man, Rio might have had to sarcastically laugh. That, or hysterically cry. For some reason, the line between the two always seemed alarmingly thin. “Snack and research sounds great.” Rio agreed, thankful that the food wasn’t going to completely go to waste. The ambulance arrived, either incredibly quickly or time flew by when they were stressed. Ariana took charge immediately, describing the situation Rio slipped away from the group to head back towards the picnic set up they had abandoned. He worked on packing up the area, glancing over from time to time to check on Ariana. The looks on the EMT’s faces were particularly comforting. He finished packing things up and made his way back over to Ariana as they began to load him into the ambulance. “I hope he’s okay” He wished he could offer more wisdom than that, but all he had was well wishes and motivation to try to find the answer to whatever caused this. “I got everything ready to go.”

After a quick rundown of what happened, the ambulance and Leon were off to the hospital. Ariana watched warily for a moment before she walked back over to Rio. The same reason that made this little Maine town perfect for someone like her made it dangerous for so many others, dangerous for herself even. It was hard not to feel a certain sense of disenchantment for a place she was once determined to make home, but all the same, she couldn’t imagine ever leaving. There were far too many people she cared for so that meant she had to do her part in making it better. She grabbed some of their stuff that Rio had packed up and said, “Thanks, I’ll drive. Hopefully we can find something.” It was a big thing to hope, but she wanted to help. Really help. Somehow, it didn’t help that the possibilities were truly endless, but at least they could try. And if anything, at least they wouldn’t be alone.

[gryfon-spanish-werewolf]

About the frozen fandom ask :

🎨, ✍️, and 👗

P.s remember to get enough sleep~

@like-redhead-probably I got enough sleep I swear ;-; actually I overslept TBH

🎨- Favorite fanart(s)/ artist(s)?

I’m gonna limit my answers to those who are currently active in the fandom otherwise we will be here all day xD. Anyone who has seen my tags knows this  to be true. My favorite fan artists are:

@giuliaciulia89 - because asdfghjklssh have you SEEN her line art?? And her expressions?? And how she does shading and color (with markers!! Traditional Art YO!!) literally is just... takes my breath away. Her recent Hogwarts Elsanna commission was absolutely delightful, but I am always delighted to see her original content as well such as her 101 Dalmatians au and her All For One And All For Love Three Musketeers au. It has so many mysteries, I’m very intrigued. Watching her process is very relaxing as well, like *sketch, sketch, sketch* and suddenly WHOA, there’s like, a whole concept outlines in no time at all. Incredible

@zero-kiba - because while much more active on Deviantart, I am ALWAYS extremely gay for Copper! That’s been going on 5 WHOLE YEARS Y’ALL! I stayed up until the sun started creeping through my windows catching up on every single page that I’d missed out after about 2017 when I started working full time. Zero-kiba’s work is BOMBASTICALLY expressive and really hits that mark between UTTERLY badass and heart-meltingly soft. Also do yourselves a favor and read their other works too! Tip of the Iceberg is Copper characters in a comedy setting, The Realm is 65 pounds of concentrated whoop-ass, and The Whole Shebang?? Gay has hell. Really gay. I cannot stress that enough (also it’s a little self plug - I help make that one alongside Zero-Kiba, daughterofhel and giuliaciulia89)

@ice-bjorn - because like.... do I even need to....expand?? Y’all have seen my tags. Ice-bjorn’s got the kind of content that just pulls you up short. Doing something? Concentrating? Not anymore you’re not! Ice-bjorn posted new art and you’re gonna FEEL ABOUT IT for the current conceivable future! Unbelievably emotive, you can see all the hard work that goes into each piece (including writing!!). I’ve gone OFF in my tags so many times about their stuff and I aLWAYS anticipate doing it again XD I can’t possibly pick a favorite piece, but this one gives me the warm fuzzies (Edit: although I did link another further down)

@jabs-wocks - because they constantly surprise me. One day ADORABLE! Next day ANGSTY. Next time? New style?? New type of coloring?? Always has a great sense of humor and unique ideas. Also, such an enabler xD Always makes me want to make something in turn <3 Like, remember when I went OFF with that angsty piece of Anna drowning after the dam collapses? Or when I nearly ditched my (already very long) project to idea bomb on about their Skadi!Elsa piece? Yeah, I love their work very much

 @gracepago0314 - because I’m a long time fan from when they had a different username! Great style, strong short comics, and WOW have they come a long way! They already had such a strong aesthetic, but seeing their work at the top of 2020 was such a treat because it was SUCH a change! I loved seeing what I recognized about their unique style and getting to see all the ways they’ve improved and expanded! Also that reincarnation au goes straight for the heart ;-;

✍️- Favorite fanfic(s)/ author(s)?

Limiting my answer to the same for the same reasons. Many of my favorite authors are no longer active, but my heart is very big, and I am always making room for new stories and writers to love!

@fruipit - because every time I get an email from ao3 that they’ve updated I go ballistic. Every story I have ever read (or reread... many times) by them is just SO INCREDIBLE. Their writing makes me make bad decisions: like fighting sleep to make it through one last chapter xD Their work makes me ask questions, their stories flows like a needle and thread, their diction makes me believe. I have nothing but the highest praise for Fruipit’s work, they’ve been writing for years and continue to pick at that gentle thing called wonder. Choosing a favorite work of theirs is GENUINELY DIFFICULT, but I love Risky Business, Koselig, and When Spring Comes very much. Tiny Hearts is a riot tho xD Oh wait and Who Dares Wins! .....Look just... go read Fruipit, you won’t regret it xD

@arendellesfirstwinter - because after years and years they just bang out one badass story after another. Their most recent (and with the dawn, what comes then?) has reduced me to tears twice. No. Three times, I reread a chapter. Their writing is exceptionally raw and pointed, but they are never angsty for angst sake. Their prose has the kind of weight one gets from having a huge amount of intent and care for what they create, and the characters they foster along the way <3

@daughterofhel - because I enjoy the simple pleasures of comedy. Literally just makes me laugh. Her dialogue SLAPS. Her world building is effortless (well, it’s not, she works very hard but it FEELS effortless, which is quite the trick xD). Her stories just WORK, her scenes are so alive and colorful and I adore how she makes characters interact even under the most RIDICULOUS prompts xD Exceptionally creative and silly, I guarantee she will surprise you for the better

@themountainsays - because every story idea is completely fascinating. Even if it’s not like, written yet? Just idea bombing or musing? Totally cool, I love reading them because you can feel the excitement behind them. Or the spite xD. Ara’s writing is also almost lyrical, it’s lovely to read, and honestly? Read out loud too! I’m a huge fan of spoken poetry/spoken stories and Ara’s always gives me that vibe. I’m behind (orz) on Creatures of the Arctic, but it’s SO FUN, I’m always keen on updates :D

@theseerasures - because I adore their frohana stuff. So freaking much. Kristanna + Icebros with so much tenderness that I just stare at my screen and go “holy hell someone MADE that.” Reading their work is like... being given a soft blanket to wrap yourself in, receiving a mug of hot chocolate, and then being told “Okay, now here’s a story that’s going to make you feel feelings really hard,” and you kind of nod back like, “Okay, seems fair.” Idk man they just get me real good, every time. For years.

👗- Favorite outfit? One you’d like to see?

Picking a favorite is hard! But please for the love of god: bring Anna’s military-esque jacket/dress to the silver screen. Holy hell. I’m such a sucker for how absolutely DASHING Elsa and Anna look in masculine/military dress. @giuliaciulia89 and @ice-bjorn both here and here get me xD But I also love their highly feminine outfits? Anna’s coronation dress in F1 is a fav and of course Elsa’s ice-dress is iconic, but my absolute favorites? I don’t know, they’re all so beautiful...

Oh! You know what else I’d want? Casual wear. They’re always dressed up for adventure! Or a fancy party! Let the crew relax more! More day-to-day, more cozy pjs! Kristoff in a big oversized shirt, Elsa in Fifth-Spirit inspired sleepwear, Anna in clothes made by their new Northudran family - complete with little hexagons but like, lined with soft reindeer fur <3. I’d love to see them when the world isn’t falling down around their ears, for more than 5 minutes, please ;-;

Thanks again for asking!! I know this is a few days late but I hope my jabbering made up for it ^_^

[ablogcalledrevenge]

Potential (A General Hux x Reader Insert Multi-Chapter Fic, Rated T)

Chapter Four

The sex did help, infrequent as it was sometimes. It was easier to talk once the clothes and pretenses had been removed and the both of you were more relaxed. It felt safer, in a way, to engage in pillow talk. It was easier to talk about everything, from your treasonous plot to the shipment of fruit that the ship received.

Because you and Hux still fought, still argued. True, you hadn’t had a fight like that first one. You were grateful for that. But you and your husband were both headstrong people with specific wants and ideas. Arguing about it made sense, but there was an underlying respect there that wasn’t present before. The fights never went on too long, or got too vicious. Usually, after getting your initial frustration out- sometimes through yelling and sometimes through sex- you were able to figure out a solution.

Hux was trying, and you could appreciate that. You did appreciate that. You understood his background, the way he had been raised. Sympathy you had in spades for him. So to have him take a breath before responding in cruel anger, or thank you for something you did, meant the world to you. There was a vulnerability he was starting to let show. Only visible in the darkness of your bedroom or the steam from the shower. It wasn’t a quick or perfect process but he was trying. In return, you were too.

You were trying to be less stubborn, less haughty. You’d been crafting these ideas and plans for so long but you had to be open to change and collaboration. That’s why you got married after all. You wanted someone to work with. You didn’t want to be alone. You’re surprised you didn’t realize it earlier, but neither does Hux. You’ve both been denied so much in different ways that perhaps this marriage was always going to happen. You’re not ashamed or embarrassed to admit how much you need him now, how much you want him. Thankfully, he echoes your sentiment and his genuine affection for you is visible in every space you share together.

You hear several beeps as you get dressed, memories from the night before dissipating in your head. You’re about to turn around from your bureau to see the cause of the noise when it reveals itself in the form of a fast wheeling mouse droid quickly zipping back into it’s charging post. Then, as if on cue, your Tooka bounds out from under the bed. You snatch her up before she attempts to attack the poor droid.

“Now Millie, we’ve talked about this. No hunting the droids. You have plenty of toys to chase after, leave Messy alone.” You scold, placing her on a tall carpeted ledge. Meowing once, she stretches languorously before curling up on her perch. Shaking your head, you playfully swat at her bushy orange and white tail before continuing your morning routine.

Your husband had asked you to accompany him on the bridge today. This was both to learn more about his job and the ship you lived on and to have you present for a council meeting later. It was a good idea, you concede as you put on your shoes. Shouldn’t a wife be interested in her husband’s work, especially when it surrounded their lives? Shouldn’t a wife of a high ranking general get to know her husband’s superiors? If you were also going to be analyzing each and every one of them for weaknesses, well, that was just between you and your husband.

Getting rid of an entire High Council is not an easy or quick task but you’ve always been patient. The Council has 7 members, all older Imperial officers, with no one waiting in the wings. It’s honestly very telling that these men consider themselves so powerful and irreplaceable that they have not provided someone to step into their roles should something happen. But their folly was your gain and you revel in the exploitation to come.

“Well Millie, what do you think?” You ask the kitten, twirling in a small circle. Though she does perk up at the mention of her name, she barely spares you a glance. Much like the person who gifted her to you, she is not very interested in fashion. Still, you think your outfit is appropriate today.

Your dress is surprisingly simple and modest. You want to be able to blend in behind your husband, something easily passed over and ignored. You don’t want your presence to keep the Council from holding their tongues. The gown is a plain blue-gray jaberwool with a silk lining and thin leather belt to almost pay homage to the specific silhouette of First Order uniforms. Perhaps the only thing that sets it apart from the bland clothing of officers was the neckline. Instead of fitting snugly around your neck, the collar pulled out over one shoulder and down past your clavicle in both an elegant and risque cut. If the open neck also happens to show off a lovely little purple bite mark your darling had left the night before, all the better.

The last thing you do before leaving your quarters is put on a pair of pearl and diamond drop earrings. You decide to forgo your tiara or circlet today, instead braiding your hair up and back in a raised dome. It reminds you a little of an Alderaanian style, long since passed. The earrings start off dark gray, the same color as your dress before fading slowly into pure white with each level, small sparkling diamonds separating each change. They exude your status while also being less noticeable than a crown, and satisfied with your appearance, you leave your quarters to find your husband.

The bridge is bustling and noisy when you enter, everyone doing their jobs to ensure the might of the First Order and keep things running smoothly. As you approach your husband, grimacing at something on his datapad like always, the click of your heels stands out among the sounds. He turns and sees you, a small and rare smile gracing his lips. Holding out your gloved hand, he grasps it lightly, bringing it to his lips for a respectful kiss. Then he surprises you by tugging you towards him and placing a chaste kiss on your temple.

“Hello my dear, looking lovely as ever.” He says as his officers scurry below you. His eyes roam up and down your form approvingly before zeroing in on the open neck and the mark displayed there. You give him a cheeky smile when his face pinks for a brief moment. 

“I’m glad you think so darling. I wanted to match your officers in a way.” You explain, hands still clasped together in their respective leather gloves.

“You do in a remarkable way, and yet, I shouldn’t be shocked that you’ve managed to tweak it to your own extravagant nature.” He teases as he walks you over to a screen. It’s displaying all kinds of data and statistics. The Order is looking for a new base, wanting to introduce land troops and influence over various populations without having to fly down stormtroopers every time there’s trouble. Your husband had been going over various planets for days now, nixing some outright while spending hours comparing others. 

“Any luck finding a base?” You ask, eyes flitting over the numbers. Hux shrugs and releases your hand to fiddle with the controls, pulling up the image of a forest planet. 

“We’re still looking at a few contenders but right now Serenno seems to be the best option. The population is mostly humanoid and easily suppressible though they have had a bit of bad luck with their economy and may welcome us and the jobs we create. The soil there is nutrient rich and we could use the farmland as well as the various sources of energy the planet provides. It’s not official yet, but the terrain and atmo would be perfect for a stationary base and training facility.” He says, pulling up pictures of the bright forests and rolling fields. You didn’t particularly care about where the Order places a base, but you knew it was ultimately important to Hux.

As the day progresses, he takes you to the various departments of the Order, introducing you to all the team leaders and heads. Your husband seems particularly excited to visit the engineering department and it unlocks something in your chest to see him ask such specific questions and offer suggestions that work. There are so many strange sides to him, it’s enjoyable to have them appear.

It also is quite the boost to your ego, being shown around the ship like you are. Everyone knows who you are and what you represent and the amount of congratulations and gifts you receive during the day is touching. There was a part of you, in the early days of your marriage, that worried about whether or not the First Order would love you as much as it did Hux. You were under it’s banner your whole life, but you were also very unmilitary. So to have your husband’s subordinates welcome you so obviously and kindly, eased those worries almost instantly. Perhaps they saw in you a return to the glory and sophistication of the Empire or perhaps they just noticed the half smiles your darling graced you with or the lack of dark circles under his green eyes.

It’s quite a wonderful day, meeting everyone and learning how such an imposing ship was run. It was invigorating to see your husband in his element, commanding troops and issuing orders. No one could say that he wasn’t good at his job, that much was for certain. The admiration he gains from his officers on the bridge, and from you in private, is well deserved.

After a quiet lunch, which devolved rapidly from getting your stubborn husband to try your more palatable food to an indulgent makeout session against the wall, it was time for the meeting with the Council.

Adjusting your husband’s collar and smoothing back his hair, you enter the long meeting room following him as he sits in his appointed chair. The Council was not on board; were rarely on board, so instead of everyone sitting around the sleek paristeel table, they sat only on one side. General Hux, because of rank and respect, sits in the middle seat, while the rest of the majors and captains sit next to him. You choose to stand behind your darling, blending in with the walls and providing a figurative and literal hand against his back. 

Just before the meeting starts, the doors swish open and Kylo Ren storms in, his dark cape fluttering behind him. Like you, he chooses to stand, but unlike you he stays in the corner almost fully disappearing into the darkness. He’s still so strange to you, so unpredictable. But, whether he wants to or not, he invites curiosity. You want to get to know him, learn more about him. Your husband speaks disparagingly of him, but you were sure there was more hidden under the surface. That was something to explore later, you thought, as the screens in front of you flicker to life.

The meeting starts with roll and the expected topics of conversation. It follows with circular arguing and tedium. You understand the reasoning behind group decision making and a forum of discussion, but when you take over, these will be the first things to go. Your husband will have advisors of course, but he will make the final choice and none but you shall question him. A movement catches your eye just then, Lord Ren crossing his arms, and you quickly try to clear your mind. How foolish of you to forget the Force user in the room, to forget who he reported to. The last thing you needed was an errant thought to ruin you. You clench your hands in your gloves and hope he’s focused on the more powerful men and women in the room.

The topic eventually and thankfully changes to where the Order base should be stationed. Various officers speak about their preferred planet, providing slides and information to explain their choice. Hux goes last and it is very clear after a few minutes that he has won the support of his fellow officers around the room. The Council will make the ultimate decision after speaking with the Supreme Leader, but it’s obvious your husband has done his research and is passionate about his choice. You beam with pride at his confident tone and crisp speech.

The Council weighs their decision, speaking of the pros and cons of each planet, with Hux’s suggestion of Serenno being the favored one. But then Allegiant General Pryde speaks up and you barely resist the urge to groan.

“I’m not convinced that Serenno would be the ideal place for a new training facility. It has many favorable qualities, but the other planets brought up do as well. Despite General Hux’s notes, I see no reason why we should pick it over any other. Fondor has our shipyards already in place and Subterrel has mining opportunities. Although if the Council is to truly give their opinions, I still say Exegol is an excellent choice for a new base.” He suggests, the flickering video giving him a blue tinge. 

“While I don’t deny that Fondor or Subterrel would work fine, they already have their uses. Fondor is a shipyard, there’s limited space for courses and gyms and the constant machinery and flying around would mess with the cloaking devices and intelligence satellites. Subterrel is a mining planet, the terrain is too rocky and fragile in places to build permanent structures onto and the climate is too unpredictable. They could work, but Serenno is perfect in it’s simplicity. It has fields for farming and forests for shielding and training. The weather is temperate and there are no truly vicious species that would attack us. It is in the Outer Rim which provides an excellent spot in between various trade routes. It even has ties to Count Dooku, if you’re looking for something more spiritual and Separatist.” Hux explains, growing frustrated. It seems that Pryde is aware of his hold over your husband and enjoys exerting his power. His condescension practically leaks out of the video screen as the General continues to defend his ideas.

“And as for Exegol, that pathetic bastion of Sith energy, it is too unknown and unstable. The weather is almost always a downpour and would scramble any incoming or outcoming transmissions. While I hold little stock in the Force, you can not deny that the air is oppressive and dark there. There is something not right about that planet and I will not put my troops in danger out in the Unknown Regions! It has no trade routes, no resources, barely any lifeforms. With all due respect, Allegiant General, I don’t know why you continue to bring up that storm planet when everything points against it being even remotely useful. There is nothing there but old scraps of Star Destroyers and a failed Sith legacy!” Hux continues, getting more agitated. You step forward and place a hand on his shoulder, keeping him from leaping out of his chair. It calms him down a little, and he gathers his papers together as a way to center himself again. There is quiet in the room, everyone taken aback by your husband’s sudden ferocity and a few members of the council clear their throats in the awkward silence.

“All of you have provided excellent choices for the new base and I think I speak for the Council when I agree with General Hux about his choice. Serenno seems to have everything the First Order could need for a new permanent base and, once we receive confirmation from the Supreme Leader, construction and deployment can start right away. This concludes our meeting and the secretary droid will be sending you all the minutes shortly. You are dismissed.” The head of the council says, focusing the attention. He is a very old man, having started his career as a Lieutenant in the fledgling Empire and working his way up. It was time he retired, you thought offhandedly, watching him shakily raise a glass of water to his lips before signing off.

Other officers gather their things and exit, more screens turn off. The secretary droid makes a few beeps and exits as well; leaving only you, your husband, and Pryde’s image still in the room. Pryde is leaning back in his chair, eyes focusing intently on you. His gaze lingers on your neck and the bite mark and you can feel his stare as you swallow in trepidation.

“I’m surprised to see your wife here General, I was under the impression that she was not enlisted personnel.” He sneers. Hux bristles so minutely that it doesn’t show in his face but you can feel the insult under your palm.

“My job is one of my biggest concerns and I spend most of my time on the bridge. Any wife that I have would be remiss not to learn more about the things I consider important. Who am I to deny her the opportunity to learn about the Order?” He says casually, barely giving Pryde the courtesy of his attention.

“Although I will admit a lot of the conversation flew over my head. I have a lot to learn it seems.” You pipe up, smiling brightly at the image of Pryde. He smirks in response.

“As nice as it is to see you Lady Hux, let’s not make this a recurring appearance. I’ll speak with you shortly about the base plans, General.” With that, Pryde signs off and his image disappears. You let out an audible sigh of relief and sit down in a chair next to your husband.

“Stars I hate that man! I feel like he’s always looking at me, it makes my skin crawl.” You complain, taking off your gloves. Your darling chuckles and leans back in his chair as well.

“I can tell, he bothers me too. He was friends with my father growing up and I think it infuriates him that I’m General and my father is dead. Perhaps he’s mad he can’t shut me up the way he used to.” Hux muses, looking over at you softly, reaching out and taking your hand. He doesn’t have to say how Pryde used to silence him. The proof is in the faint scars on his back, the ones you have only seen a few times before, the ones you kiss in the hopes that your adoration will melt them away. If there was no other reason to get rid of Pryde and the Council, those scars would be enough.

“His obsession with Exegol is unusual and confusing. A Sith planet should not interest him so much, especially one that the Supreme Leader disregards.” Lord Ren says from his corner and you jump in your seat at the sound. Hux doesn’t react, used to the other man sulking around in strange places. You wonder if you should be afraid that he heard you speak against Pryde, but your husband hasn’t reacted much beyond a tightening of his jaw.

“Lord Ren, forgive me! I didn’t realize you were still here.” You apologize as he approaches the both of you. From your seated position he looks even larger than normal, the black of his uniform subsuming the lights in the room like a black hole.

“Don’t fret my dear, Ren was the one hiding in the shadows like a Mynock. He should apologize to you.” Hux drawls, glaring at Lord Ren’s helmet. There is a stand off between the two men and the air in the room grows thicker and thicker until it finally dissipates with Lord Ren speaking.

“You should consider being more agreeable like your wife. For once I am on your side, I too think Serenno is a good choice. The other planets are unworthy and useless to your cause. The Supreme Leader has many plans I am not privy to but none of them should involve Exegol.” The modulated voice says.

Hux nods his head and raises his eyebrows in acquiesce. You’re sure your face matches his.

“You have my thanks Lord Ren. I’m glad we’re seeing eye to eye on this matter.” He says diplomatically. The leather of Kylo Ren’s gloves creaks ominously in the pause though he doesn’t seem furious. In fact, his hidden gaze lasers in on you and your husband’s held hands. 

It is safe to say you are surprised by Lord Ren’s behavior and the mystery of who he is grows deeper. You long to see what’s under the helmet, imagining that it must be absolutely hideous and monstrous. That to look upon the Knight’s face must cause madness or combustion. It must be awful. He turns to you then and your eyes widen with the realization that he has been divining your thoughts.

“It’s worse.” Is all he says before exiting the room. You let out a breath and glance sideways at your husband and smile.

“Oh, I like him.” 

Hux rolls his eyes and leads you out of the room to continue his shift.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Later in your quarters, you and your husband are enjoying dinner. Your meal is a delicious baked fish with seasoned vegetables, the scent wafting pleasantly around your head. For once, Hux has gotten the same thing as you, his immature palate enjoying the lighter fare of fish and vegetables over some of the heartier things you had before. You had to go slow with it, otherwise he could make himself sick with the richer flavors.

Millie has finished her dinner and now sleeps happily on top of your feet under the table. Messy, your affectionately named mouse droid, hasn’t left their charging station but you hoped she wouldn’t terrorize the poor metal thing for much longer. It was hard to send messages when your droid wouldn’t even cross the living room floor. But she’s quiet and still now, her purring is soft background noise to the conversation you’re having with your husband, recounting the day's events and making plans for tomorrow.

It isn’t until dessert; various fresh fruits in an attractive display, that you bring up something more serious. 

“I don’t know if we’re going to be able to do this quickly. Killing the Council members all at once will look suspicious and treasonous and it will be harder to stay anonymous.” You breathe out, forking a piece of melon. Hux nods but doesn’t look worried. You feel guilty for being apprehensive, but seeing all the men together and safe in their homes makes you anxious.

“I knew that this would take the longest and that it would have to be done slowly. As much as I want to just open fire on the whole stupid lot of them, we must remain as distant from their deaths as possible. But I don’t think we have to tick off each member one by one over the course of several years.” He says, before popping a dark purple berry in his mouth. His lips twitch at the tartness of the fruit and a spark of desire ignites inside you.

“The death of their fellow members might make a few of them retire for their safety, that would take care of a few. But I’m also worried that if we rapidly take down a chunk of them, the others will respond with heightened security. I’m not a trained hitman, I can’t go up against higher protective measures.” You stress, wiping your mouth and pushing your plate away. Hux looks confused and you’re not sure why.

“What do you mean you’re not a hitman? You’re going to be the one to kill them? Absolutely not! I won’t allow it, I won’t put you in danger. I thought we’d hire a Mandalorian or some upstart Trooper.” He snaps, brows coming together in anger. Carefully pulling your feet out from under your cat, you get up and go to your husband, kneeling on the floor next to his chair. It’s a supplicated position, but you knew how to appeal to his ego.

“Darling I have to. We can’t involve anyone else in our plans, it’s too risky. Someone who can be bought may not care about our reasons but they also will divulge them to the highest bidder. We need to be overseeing everything and what better way than to do it ourselves. While I wasn’t out training with guards, I have taken courses in self defense. I know how to protect myself.” You say, clutching at his sleeve. He looks down at you, forehead relaxing.

“I don’t want you to get caught or hurt, (Y/N), it’s dangerous. Let me do it, I would certainly have reasons to be in close proximity to them.”

“No darling please, I have to do it. You have to stay as far removed as possible. You can’t be linked at all. You just need to look innocent. You need to be perceived as taking the power they leave behind with resigned confidence. It will endear you to the masses to view you as someone not grasping for power, but instead stepping up to be a leader. Coups can work, but this is not the right one.” You plead as he brushes his fingers across your brows and against your lips.

“Don’t you think my being married to the murderer connects me?” He asks, his voice growing fond. You turn your head to kiss his fingertips and the flame of arousal grows within you.

“Only if I get caught.” You counter and he leans forward to kiss you. You get back to your feet and he follows you, lips never leaving each other as you blindly move towards the ice blue couch where you straddle him. It’s a pose that reminds you of your first real memory of him, all those months ago in your parent’s estate. He still grabs and grips your waist with intensity and his eyes still hold such a calculating appraisal when he opens them in between kisses.

Your hands come up to run through his hair as you curve towards each other, breaking up the gelled strands. Your sister had recently become engaged to a businessman, some kind of droid oil mogul, and having seen a picture of the man you can’t help but admire your own husband’s appearance. The warm lighting of your quarters and impassioned down time only benefit him, making him look less wan and pallid than before. While you haven’t discussed it yet, and you aren’t ready for them, you hope your future children will have his looks. You briefly imagine a little boy with red hair and your husband’s dimples, something you had only seen once in the whole time you were married, and the thought causes you to sigh in happiness. Hux relaxes deeper into the couch and you unhook the top of his uniform tunic, your fingers splaying wide on his cool skin. It warms quickly under your touch. He pulls away after a few more moments of this, work always coming first. 

“It may not surprise you but many of the Council’s members are incredibly corrupt. Skimming off the top, abusing officers, one even owns pleasure slaves if the open secrets are to be believed. I think with the right kind of publicity, we could spin this. Pin the deaths on a team of justice seeking vigilantes intent on exposing the truth. At the end of all this, we can even ‘discover’ the culprits to be the Resistance and stage an attack without recourse. There’s no downside for us. The Council is gone and with it, we can criticize their behavior and come out looking more worthy of support and praise. We pin it on the Resistance and take out a few of them in justifiable revenge. If you can kill these disgusting, useless men, I can make the Order love you for it.” Hux says and you surge up in a quick kiss before breaking it to tell him some very exciting news. 

“I was invited by Colonel Paru’s wife to spend a long weekend at their estate. I believe several other members of the High Council will be there. Shall I come back with their heads for you?” You whisper, your lips moving against his in an almost kiss. You share the same breath and every time your husband leans forward to take them, you pull back imperceptibly. 

His hand travels up your side and over your breast to your open collar. His thumb pushes against the bruise he made only the night before and you gasp at the touch.

“Heads seem too messy and hard to display. I don’t need proof of your success, just you.” He says, catching you off guard with tenderness and capturing your lips with his own. He tastes like victory.

Chapter Five Coming Soon....

Tagging: @babbushka​, @livy1391​, @renaissance-mama​, @girl-next-door-writes​, @peqchynero​, @the-temple-pythoness​, @cupofmoonlighttea​, @sincerely-cronch​, @brujademente​, @potato-ren​, @ah-callie​, @rosirinoa​, @niniita-ah, @lwtficrecs​, @theold-ultraviolence​ and please let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future chapters!

[chaosbcrne]

i've contemplated making this post for some time now and kept struggling when trying to find the right words to even begin with. i've come to the conclusion that there's no one good way to do this, especially coming out of nowhere as it is, so i'll just preface it by saying, to you, whoever might be reading this, you are under no obligation or expectation to read any further.

i am making this post to address as much as i can think of addressing, as a way of having proper closure here. this is not me trying to make a comeback or anything of the sort, it's just me trying to close the book for myself and anyone else who might feel concerned. so please, if you know enough to know why i disappeared, if hearing from me stresses you out, if my presence makes you feel unsafe to any degree or you know it might have a negative effect on your mental state or even just your mood, please do not feel any pressure to read on. you will not be out of the loop if you do not read this, this post will have zero impact on you or the community. this post will not be deleted or edited either, so if you can't stand to just ignore it, feel free to come back to it later.

before i get into anything, i want to apologize for any potential bad timing; i have not logged in here or otherwise seen the state of the dash since roughly two or three weeks after my last post (so about four months ago). i do not know who is or is not following me or who otherwise might see this post , i do not have the slightest idea of how the community fares these days. i apologize if this happens to be published at an especially bad time, or on the contrary it's a particularly good one, it's purely coincidental, and i encourage you once again to simply come back to this when it's more convenient if you do feel like you ought to read what follows.

as stated previously i have had no contact with this blog or any of the blogs that were previously associated with it in a few months now. i have no idea if what happened where i'm concerned was addressed publicly or not. i do believe it would have warranted a callout post, but i don't know if one was actually made. it makes it difficult to address when i don't know what people generally do or don't know, so i'll just say this: everything you've heard, if you've heard anything, is probably true.

the abuse, the gas-lighting, the suicide baiting, the mean or passive-aggressive comments, the talking smack about people in private. all of it happened, and it was happening for several months, and i'm not here to try to deny or justify any of it. i'm sure anyone who paid attention to the dash was able to observe that i had questionable vibes at best, and i'm here to tell you that it was much, much worse in private, and it was much, much worse for those who endured it than i could ever make it out to be.

for most of the time i was on here, i tried to advocate against elitism, clique culture and all around bad energies while being one of the main people to perpetuate them. i never questioned myself and if anyone confronted me, i took for granted that they were wrong and argued around it. i had a 'assume people are shitty until proven otherwise' mindset that resulted in a lot of unwarranted aggression, mistrust and guilt-tripping towards many people. i caused an immense amount of tension and distress, both on and off the dash, and never took responsibility for any of it at the time. for that, i am sincerely sorry.

there's only so much i can say without starting to list everything i've done to people individually - which i think would be inappropriate considering i am making this post without speaking to them first or otherwise knowing whether they've recovered or would be okay with me disclosing the details of our involvements. 

however, i don't want to simply dismiss my actions by confirming i did them and moving on, either. if there are any allegations i should address or at least acknowledge in more details, please let me know. i just quite frankly don't know how to publicly take accountability for things that went on over the course of a long time, or that weren't always explicit, or that i may not realize the full extent of even now, seeing as i've never gotten to actually discuss them with the people concerned. i don’t want to make this a potentially triggering read for those who were involved by bringing up details without their permission, but i don’t want those who weren’t involved to assume my actions were minor offenses only because said details are lacking, either. it's important not to underestimate the gravity of the harm i've caused, and far be it from me to try and sweep it under the rug. in that sense, the only thing i can say is, make no mistake, i am 100% guilty of all of it.

what’s more, me admitting to my wrongdoings is only me going off of what i can remember. i can guarantee that all i've done is even worse than i make it sound, seeing as it's worse than i'm able to comprehend, for i was never the one on the receiving end of my behavior.

for the longest time i wholeheartedly believed i couldn't be a bad person because i never /meant/ to hurt anyone. i was wrong. i was a bad person because even when i knew that i was capable of unintentionally hurting people, i did not take responsibility or seek to correct my behavior. i always had (pardon the language) bullshit excuses to justify my actions and invalidate the pain of those i hurt, whether it was to myself or to other people. i thought my initial intentions mattered more than the effect they had, and therefore no harm was ever actually my fault because i hadn't intended it.

it's an incredibly toxic mindset to have. it's the same rhetoric with which racists, homophobics, ableists and such people can get away with racism, homophobia, ableism and so on without guilt- by convincing themselves that if they don't mean it that way, then it absolves them of blame, and whatever harm they cause is technically the victim's fault for taking offense to it. it's a very harmful thought process, and not at all the kind of person i want to be, and i'm sorry i hurt so many before i came to understand this.

for what it's worth, i am getting help. i am seeing a therapist once a week since may, with the goal of understanding where my abusive and manipulative reflexes come from and getting rid of them. beyond our weekly sessions, i was given an exercise to do on my own time, on a daily basis (or at least as often as i interact with others), meant to help me learn to believe in the inherent goodness of people and develop a kinder and more optimistic disposition towards them. i have also taken a summer course in communication in hopes of (re)learning how to properly listen and be more receptive of people's thoughts (and especially criticism), although that has admittedly not proven quite as effective as i'd hoped, so i am looking to consult with a specialist in that department when post-pandemic re-openings allow it.

obviously, none of these efforts make up for what i've done. they are quite frankly too little too late and will never erase the pain i've inflicted. unfortunately, they are also the only concrete action i can take to make amends after the fact, now that the damage is done. or so it seems from my current perspective.

if there is anything else i can do to make up for even a fraction of the harm i've caused, i would be very thankful to hear about it. if there is something i am at fault for that i may not be taking accountability for, i would also like to know. keeping in mind that, while knowing exactly how my behavior was problematic would allow me to better take the blame for it, this is not an obligation or expectation in any way. please only let me know about such things if you feel secure in doing so; do not feel pressured if you feel it would compromise you. my growth is no one's responsibility but my own. that being said, i know that i scared and bullied a lot of people into silence in the past, and i feel like inviting you to speak up about the stress or pain i've caused you is the least i can do to make up for it. if it's more empowering for you to ignore this and move on, by all means, just ignore this and move on.

if at all possible, i would also like to apologize for my behavior - more than just generally. i honestly believe that i have caused some manner of torment, whether directly or indirectly, to everyone in this community, and that everyone is deserving of an apology. i am fully aware that most of the people concerned likely feel unsafe at the idea of being in touch with me in any way, so i will not be reaching out to you directly myself, but with your permission, i would like to personally and individually apologize to anyone willing to indulge me for a brief exchange. i am not doing this to earn your forgiveness; i am doing this because i genuinely feel bad. if i can contribute to your finding closure by acknowledging how i've wronged you, it's the least i can do. i promise that i have no intention of using this as an opportunity to renew contact and that, should you do me this favor, you will be more than welcome to completely cut ties after the fact with no hard feelings on my end.

i can be reached in a fairly timely manner (as in, i am logged in on those accounts on my phone) on discord (Eph#2409) and tumblr ( @friendlifyre ). if a less instant method of communication is more comfortable for you, the e-mail crimsonxblur@gmail.com is at your disposal. if you don't mind the wait, you can also give me a nudge on this blog, as i will be (albeit rarely) logging in here to work on old drafts (without publishing them) until they're finished or i otherwise feel content with leaving this part of my life behind.

as a small addendum, i am humbly asking to please be civil if you use any of these methods to reach me. while i am arguably deserving of the death threats and insults coming my way, i am sharing these specifically to make open communication possible, and to make it easier to avoid me for those who wish to do so. i will not silence you if you choose an aggressive approach as i recognize it's ultimately what i deserve; i only ask that you at least consider that i am really just trying to do something right in the wake of all the wrong i've done, and i would appreciate if all related messages could remain constructive and not just mean for the sake of being mean.

as a conclusion i can only apologize once more for the bad vibes i brought into this community. it will be months if not years of active work on myself before i can confidently say that i have made progress and become a better person, yet i suspect a good number of people may carry with them the tension and fear i've instigated far longer. i am truly sorry. i can only offer, for what little consolation it might be, that not at single day goes by that i don't regret my actions and feel the weight of them.

if i could give my past self any advice, or anyone who indulges in similar attitudes, it would be to keep questioning yourself, to stop assuming you know better. just because your intentions are not bad does not mean they never affect people in a bad way. just because you can recognize abusive behavior in others, does not make it inherently impossible for you to be abusive. make an effort every day to consider those around you as individuals, even when it's easier to view them as parts of a bigger whole, of a community. learn not only to be kind but to think kindly, to catch yourself when you think mean thoughts and condition yourself to a more positive approach. assume people are good until proven otherwise. if there's anything you want to get off your chest that you wouldn't want divulged to the whole world, even when you think you're just harmlessly venting, you are ultimately spreading negativity and should work on getting rid of it from within instead.

it's always more work to improve than to stay the way you are, but you owe it to everyone else if not to yourself to be someone who's good to be around.

thank you for taking the time to read this if you have. regardless of who did or whether there is any kind of response to this, i will continue this work-in-progress that is my self and try to make sure i never put anyone else through what i've been putting people through here. i am glad i have the opportunity to acknowledge at least some of my problematic behavior and apologize, as it seemed, for quite some time now, the only logical step i hadn't taken yet in my journey to moving forward.

once again, thank you for reading this, and, assuming this is the last interaction we'll have with one another, i wish you the very, very best.

[imagethat]

Spar | Vergil x Reader

Reader gets trapped with Dante and Vergil in hell at the end of DMC5, plot twist. They're actually a highly trained assassin from a coven Dante had dismantled. Most people were brainwashed beyond saving but he aaw something within the reader and took them under his wing. More drabble esc writing^^

You couldn't believe you had so foolishly gotten yourself trapped in hell with these two. Sat away from their sparring ring with your eyes closed, you listened to their annoying banter. Dante you had known for a great deal of time, he was your boss after all. While his twin, Vergil, was new to you. You didn't know what to make of him yet. He was quiet and tactical, both qualities you appreciated greatly when compared to his brothers dull witted humor. "Where did you learn to count?" Vergil demanded of his brother as Dante laughed and fell to the ground. "Same place as you brother. I need a break though." He sighed out, clearly out of breath. Vergil was still on his feet and you could hear him turn to you. "Up." He demanded, a command which you did not heed. You simply opened your eyes and looked in his direction. Vergil in turn pointed his blade at you and made a soft up motion. His gaze piercing you. "Do you truly wish to be beaten a third time?" You mused. Unbeknownst to Vergil, you had defeated him as Urizen but he had fled before you could seal the deal. And then again as V when you had hunted him down wanting answers. "She has a point." Dante added, sprawled out on the ground like a starfish. "I do not recall these battles, and I am curious of your skills. Please do refresh my memory." Vergil said. You finally rose from your spot, even your most basic of movements graceful and swift. "I don't bother with sparring matches. It's against my code of conduct." You replied and Dante let out a groan. "You never sparred for practice?" Vergil questioned simply because it was clear you learned from somewhere. Which he was right partially, but the coven that which raised you was ruthless. Training only the most cunning of soldiers. Losing a spar meant losing your life. And it was by that code of conduct you still lived by. Only partaking in battles you would finish. Ashamed you had so clumsily failed to kill Urizen and V. Part of you, a part you hated, was glad you failed both times though. "You do not want this fight." You breathed out as a warning. You did not know if you could control your impulses. You could feel the way your muscles twitched and how your mind already raced through every possibility of how this battle could happen. You wouldn't allow yourself to fail again much less you dishonor your own lifeblood. Vergil wasn't one to back down though, both of you carrying the same needlessly prominent pride on your shoulders. He simply got into his battle stance. It was all the invite you needed. Your movements were balanced, incisions precise, and senses heightened in the battle. Vergil was impressed with your keen ability to map out his attacks. He could tell you watched him as he fought with Dante and familiarized yourself with his battle tactics. Dante sat on the sidelines still, making petty comments whenever one of you would get a hit off on each other. It annoyed both of you greatly, adding fuel to the already massively burning fire. But your temper was controlled and had been tested through many years spent in that coven. This battle showed no signs of letting up. "Told you Y/N was one of my finest." Dante whistled. A well timed parry from you was enough to finish the battle as Vergil was forced down onto one knee. You became ensnared with the temptation to finish the battle, and as you raised your sword up your eyes bore into Vergils. Something in you hesitated despite the heat in your heart. The tempered mentality the coven had forced onto your shoulders becoming fuzzy. Dante had well enough been able to tell where the battle was heading and drew a pistol before you could swing the sword down. He fired at your blade twice causing it to knock out of your hands. You surprisingly didn't lose your balance though and stood there in shook while your chest heavily rose and fell. You staggered back and placed a hand on your head, muttering sorry softly before falling to the ground. Your past was stronger than you could fight but somehow you can't bring yourself to cut down your foe… It was possible you already thought of him as a friend in the way you did Dante. That thought irked you, reminding you of how soft you had become since joining Devil May Cry. It made you feel weak. Part of you suddenly got swept into the past, fear setting in that you'd be punished for such an inexcusable failure to win the battle. Dante could tell you needed a moment and went to go grab your blade. He knelt down beside you and placed a hand on your shoulder. "You okay?" He questioned, a small amount of concern written on his face. Your mind snapped back to reality and you nodded gently. After that he handed you your blade back softly, hand lingering on yours for a moment. Trying to remind you that you were no longer leading the life you once were. Vergil was already on his feet again and seemed unbothered outwardly by what had just occurred. "Zero to one." He acknowledged, much to your surprise. Vergil, being bountifully overconfident was unaware of your strength. But even more unaware of your ability to adapt and predict. Internally he brushed this spar off, pretending the loss was simply because he underestimated you. Despite that, he found it in himself to admire your tenacity. Before Vergil could question you on where you were trained sludge rose in packs around you. Demons crawling forth from the ground. Dante motioned for you to wait. "We'll take care of this." He reaffirmed, leaving you to recover from your spinning thoughts as the two Sons of Sparda took care of the demons. After the demons had been dealt with, the three of you made a makeshift fire. You internally scoffed at your boss and the fact that he was tired. Attributing his somewhat low stamina, at least compared to yours and Vergils, to his poor choice of time management before the Quipoth had broken Red Grave. He never left the house unless he had to, fed himself poorly, and didn't train. But you wouldn't be so bashful of him out loud since you knew such judgmental thoughts came from a place of insecurity deep within yourself. After Dante was asleep you decided to apologize to Vergil. "I…" You hesitated for a moment, feeling as though an apology might be taken as weakness or not cared for from the stern man who sat beside you. "I'm sorry about earlier. I get caught up in fighting to easily… I understand if you don't want to spar with me again." You admitted. Vergil chuckled and completely took you off guard. "I should have not underestimated you. I applaud you for your dexterity." He said before giving you somewhat of a smirky smile. "I look forward to sparring with you again." He added. You took this as him being genuine albeit a bit awkward since both of you didn't know how to communicate well. Letting out a sigh of relief as you nodded in agreement. "As do I, though I admit I had an upperhand." You said. It was true you were at a slight advantage. After all, Vergil couldn't recall ever fighting you, but you knew how he battled from both his human and demon side. You got to watch him spare Dante as well. "All the more reason to spar again." He replied, seeing you as a challenge. A way to test and further strengthen his power. You nodded in agreement, thinking the same of him. "I do hope you allow me to prove I'm more than just an opponent." He admitted honestly and you had to take a moment to process it. Vergil would never be the type to be incredibly forward with his emotions. So you took this to heart. "Possibly." Was all you could respond with, still having walls of your own built. He seemed satisfied with that answer though. The two of you spent the next few hours resting before Dante woke up. "Think pizza could be delivered down here?" He teased and you rolled your eyes while muttering stupid. Before he could make some stupid quip back like 'didn't catch that' though, you were on your feet. "Rise." You instructed and he laughed. "Oh ho ho, someone's serious. You and Vergil make a little pact while I was out?" He asked, obliging to your somewhat demanding attitude. "No more a pact than it is an obligation to hold a higher score than Vergil." You commented, sorely behind since Vergil and Dante had been sparring for so long. If you were honest though, you just wanted to give Vergil a chance to also learn your attack patterns so next time you sparred you'd both start on an even playing field. It would make the victory sweeter knowing your win didn't come from one sides lack of knowledge. Your brain so trained to improve upon itself that you couldn't even acknowledge the fact that beating Vergil was an achievement. Through your next matches with Dante, Vergil's eyes followed you. But Dante could tell they lingered on you sometimes for too long. At one point he noticed how intense Vergil's stare was and gave his brother a shit eating grin. It cost him a good kick to the stomach, but it was worth it in Dante's eyes. He'd never let his brother live that kind of look down. 

[d-s-winchester]

Salem

(gif credit to the creator)

Part Seven

Master List

Pairing: Misha x OFC Word Count: 1,412 Warnings: None? Language probably A/N: Part seven is here ladies and gents! Thank you all so much for your support on this! As always a HUGE thank you to Nicole (aka @iwantthedean) for betaing this for me, without her this story would never see the light of day. Anyway, feedback for this is awesome! :)

The morning after her date with Misha, Ophelia was on Cloud Nine. When she opened the store, she hoped with everything in her that Misha would come in to do research sooner, rather than later. She could do the obvious thing and call him, but she was more excited waiting for him to come in to the bookstore on his own. 

After the shelves were balanced and the inventory was stocked, Ophelia flipped the sign on the door from closed to open and took her place behind the register. She was flipping through a magazine when the bell over the door rang. She looked up, hopeful that it was Misha; she only frowned slightly when she saw that it was Christine, instead. Her frown deepened when Christine didn’t bother to even look at her, just went to the back to discard her things before coming back up to the front of the store. Though the shelves and display tables were neat and unbothered, Christine set to work looking over the inventory anyway. Ophelia gave her a few minutes, figuring it was early. 

“So, don’t you want to know how my date went?” Ophelia finally asked, trying to seem as nonchalant as possible. Christine didn’t even both to look over at her. 

“Sure,” she shrugged.

Ophelia was confused. Christine had been so helpful and excited for her the night before, and this sudden shift in demeanor had Opehlia concerned. She didn’t dwell on it though, hoping that filling her best friend in would bring Christine back to reality. Something was going on, and maybe once Ophelia got her story out, Christine would come out with what had her upset. Ophelia launched into a recap of her evening, being sure not to leave out any of the details. When she’d reached the end of her story, she looked at Christine, certain she would garner a hopeful response.

“Don’t you feel like you’re moving a little too fast, Lia?”

The harshness in her friend’s tone was far from what she had expected, and Ophelia was momentarily taken aback. Immediately, she was on the defensive. 

“Too fast? It was one date! I’m trying to move on, something I remember you told me I should do!”

“Well, clearly I didn’t mean to just throw yourself at the first guy who showed you any interest!”

Ophelia stared at Christine, her eyes wide and her jaw open with surprise. What in the hell was going on?

“I -- I honestly can’t believe you,” Ophelia said, shaking her head. “I’m gonna go to the coffee shop for a bit. Hopefully by the time I get back you’ll have calmed down.”

***

Christine felt horrible. When she came into the store that morning, it hadn’t been her intention to ignore Ophelia, let alone be so harsh in her responses. The thought of facing Ophelia strengthened that horrible tearing effect in her heart -- she had no idea how she was going to choose between the happiness her friend deserved and the loyalty she held out for her brother. She had hoped that avoiding Ophelia’s gaze would give her some time to cool off, but when Ophelia launched into the story about her date with Misha, Christine felt overwhelmed and reacted in unsolicited anger. 

Opehlia returned to the shop fifteen minutes later, a to-go coffee cup in each hand. She handed one to Christine. “Peace offering?” 

“Thanks,” Christine said, accepting the drink with a small smile. “I’m sorry about blowing up on you, it’s just a lot to take in, picturing you with anyone other than Christopher. I guess it’s more difficult than I had thought it would be.”

“I get it,” Ophelia sighed, sipping from her cup. “I just can’t spend my entire life sitting idly by wondering when it’s the right time to move on. I don’t want to spend my life wondering, Chrissy. I like Misha -- I genuinely like him -- and ... I’m not saying we’re going to get married or anything, but I definitely see this being something that lasts longer than a few dates.” 

“You really think he’s the right one to move on with?” Christine asked, her voice raising again. Her brain couldn’t stop her mouth, and her heart begged to know why she couldn’t just be happy for Ophelia and somehow make Christopher understand. “You barely know him, Lia, and who even knows how long he’s planning on staying here. He showed up to work on his novel. Who’s to say he’s not just going to up and leave when he’s got all the information he needs from you?”

“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it,” Ophelia shrugged. “Why can’t I just be happy in the meantime?”

“You can’t be serious! How do you know he’s not using you, huh? What if all of this attention is only for access to research for his novel?”

Ophelia’s face told Christine that she was at a loss for understanding what was going on between them so suddenly. Join the club, Christine thought to herself. 

“Because he was already getting access to all the research without having to get to know me. I gave him the same amount of access I give every other author who asks for the resources!” 

“I just -- I think you’re making a huge mistake!” 

Would you still think that if your brother wasn’t involved? God, Christine wished she could shut her brain off. 

“Think that all you want, Chrissy! I’m gonna continue seeing him whether you like it or not! You have zero say in my life. I’m an adult, in case you forgot!” 

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

Ophelia went back behind the register then, content with ignoring Christine for the rest of the day. Christine was content with it too, if for no other reason than it kept her from saying more horrible things she didn’t mean. When lunchtime came around and Ophelia left the store without saying a word, Christine didn’t blame her friend one bit. 

Though Christine had never imagined she would have to choose between Christopher and Ophelia, she was going to have to decide whose side she was going to be on here, and she was going to have to decide quick. 

***

Misha walked into The Hexbag, still walking on air from his date the night before. He couldn’t believe how anxious he was to see her again. When he walked through the door of the shop and noticed that Ophelia wasn’t anywhere in the front of the store, his face fell. He saw Christine at the counter and greeted her with a small wave. 

“Lia in the back?” he asked.

She shook her head, and her tone was dismissive. “She’s at lunch.” 

Misha nodded slowly. He went to head back toward the door, but Christine stopped him. 

“Did she tell you?” Christine asked, nothing but anger filling her voice.

“Tell me what?” 

“That she was a suspect in Christopher’s death.” She said it so matter-of-fact, it took Misha extra time to process her statement. “His death was so sudden, the circumstances were so mysterious, and she was with him when he died. The police had her in custody for a few days, actually.”

Misha just stared at her, dumbfounded. He knew the entire story about Christopher’s death, Ophelia had told him. What Christine was saying now -- why would she spew such lies? As far as Misha knew, she was on board with him seeing Ophelia. At least he assumed that’s what it meant when girls helped each other get ready for a date, like Ophelia had told him Christine had done for her the night before.

“Do you have a problem with me or something?” 

“Quite the opposite, actually,” Christine said. “I’m just looking out for you, Mish. I don’t want to see you get hurt because of her and her baggage. I don’t want anyone getting hurt the way my brother got hurt.” 

“I can handle baggage.” He took a deep breath, hoping his next statement didn’t sound too naive. “And I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe that Ophelia is capable of hurting anyone that way.”

Christine nodded, then shrugged. Her tone was dismissive again. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you when this all comes crashing down -- you’re alive to deal with the aftermath.”

Misha shook his head and went to browse the shelves. Maybe hanging around the store, waiting for Ophelia to return from lunch, would show Christine that he wasn’t putting any stock in her obvious lies. 

[dahniwitchoflight]

Candy 12-14

Even Jake’s having his proverbial love triangle troubles

It’s clear he genuinely cares for both Jane and Dirk, but if he’s being honest with himself, the one he romantically loves would be Dirk, the one he would prefer to be with, who he’d choose if they were equal options, would be Dirk

But he’s also right that it’s not like Jane’s a bad choice either, sure it’s not his preference if he’s being honest, but he’s also not about to look the gift horse in the mouth if it falls right into his lap

13 is where we start start to see the unraveling happen I suppose though

Again, everyone is acting so drugged up in Candy

Jane and Jake getting literally inebriated and Dave acting like he’s going through Dirk withdrawal

Then Gamzee being the weird ugly poster child of both drugs and candy, honestly it really did make sense to shove him into this timeline in a weird and uncomfortable ham fisted way, it gets that “are you fucking high right now” feeling across really well

Gamzee really being the cloud cuckoolander here though

hold on let me un-gamzee-ify it just reading his text quirk makes me feel like im on drugs

Gamzee: you don’t got any need to go and concern yourself with his mortal flesh body out here in this candycane whirlpool beyond the infinite black wink of the wicked singularity, my ninja.

Gamzee: a sack of meat and bones in one life or the next is only a means to the final totality that will damn and raise us all in brilliant apotheosis.

Gamzee seems clearly meta aware of the situation he’s in which is interesting, This is indeed a candy swirled timeline hidden inside an infinite black hole singularity

the second line seems to be describing the meat timeline in a way though too

a sack of meat sounds worthless, but it is apparently only a means to a truer end, it has to happen for something else to happen

Essential, but irrelevant, again

funnily enough he’s also seems to be referencing gnostic concepts, not that i’m surprised really at this point

one sack of meat, or, one body in one life or the next

so reincarnation

is only a means to an end that both damns and raises a person into apotheosis, or their “zenith” their highest point

which, i mean, yeah, you live life again and again, differently each time, becoming closer to ascension, and ultimate consumation of every version of you is the basic tenet of the reincarnation gnosticisms

Also, a lot of text was put into describing Gamzee haphazardly crashing into things and setting off rube goldberg machines, which I guess sort of describes his escapades through Homestuck lol

“cinder block, crusty puppet, and Japanese sword in a tornado’s radius off balance and avalanching them catastrophically onto the hapless clown’s torso. “

So the Sword is Dirk (or AR) the crusty puppet is Caliborn (because Lil Cal) which I guess leaves the cinder block as Equius? He’s built like a brick shithouse? eh only problem sleuth stuff comes up so 2/3 ain’t bad

Speaking of Equius, oh look, A feminine half finished robot in Dirk’s basement

the uncomfortable Equius vibes ping once again though I don’t think this is robo-Aradia, but likely something meant to serve a similar purpose and almost DEFINITELY Rose related if reading meat wasn’t already obvious and if the skull for an inner head thing wasn’t immediately referring to the headaches Rose was known to have

though it’s also uncomfortably a symbol of her Doom

---14---

“A flip of the cosmic coin has rendered your entire life completely inessential.”

yup what did I just say, Meat is representing the essential bits of the story, candy is decidedly, not

hm, Dirk’s going to kill himself for the supposed greater good of his own making again

not unsurprising, but a guy like him always like to make an escape rather than give up, is he thinking death will unlock this part of his conciousness and send the memories back to the ultimate self? probably

“and one final act of relevance that can bequeath your meager energies to the cosmic well from whence they came.”

yup!

Though as much as he keeps saying none of this matters he did leave an explanatory note specifically for his friends to find, so there’s still something in him that cares

Don’t like how the bigger blacker text is basically instructing this version of Dirk to kill himself though, that again implies there’s part of Dirk that are subservient to other parts, so again it’s a question of if his ultimate self got tainted through the connecting pieces of Arquisprite > Lord English > Doc Scratch, then who’s actually pulling the strings in Dirk’s Ultimate Self and directing the behaviour of “Dirk” in general

Is it Dirk Strider? Or Doc Scratch? and does that even matter anymore since it’s all DS all the same anyway?

“In a certain sense, you’ve never felt so free.

> Kill yourself.”

That’s hilariously also a JailBreak reference, I think, but definitely played for the morbs instead of as a joke lol

https://www.homestuck.com/jailbreak/109

Literally this MC kills himself when his friend dies and he’s now alone in a vast cosmic emptiness and the text is:

“Yes! Finally! Free at last!

Though the victory is bitersweet. Your friend has died of blood loss.

This is no victory. The feeling is vast emptiness. You are no longer bound by bars or concrete, but you feel more incarcerated than ever. You come to the heartwrenching conclusion that the only true prison... is loneliness.

There is only one thing left to do.

> Continue”

and it just resets him back to the first panel but this time he makes choices differently

ironic that Dirk does literal the exact same thing but comes to exactly zero of the same conclusions

“Just as your epiphany occured at sunset, your death must occur at sunrise to complete the ouroboros of symbological harmonic resonance that is your personal arc. It is the very last moment of narratively consequential action that will happen in this whole, barren world.”

I wonder what about this death makes it so narratively significant? just because it passes along the knowledge of what not to do back to the Ultimate Self so he can avoid it? Probably nothing more than that

“but there really are no words that can adequately express the sound someone makes when they die. It’s a phenomenon that happens on two levels. First, there is the literal termination of organic processes, which is to say, the destruction of the meat. Then follows the dissolution of the ego. And you have quite the ego to dissolve, one that has flown so high above the forest that not only can it no longer see the trees, it cannot even conceive of the trees as material substance with objective meaning.”

funny it mentions a forest which is also where that happened in JailBreak

Basically describes how death in general works in Homestuck, the body dies but can leave a ghost/ego behind, but eventually that dissolves as well

Again though, making a compariosn between the Meat and the Body/Flesh and the Candy and the Spirit or Ghost

or another pun between Candy and Drugs if you take Spirit to mean alcoholic spirits

Candy seems ironically and symbolically the place where Breath Meets Void, no wonder John and Roxy hook up here lol

Does that make Meat then the place where Blood and Light meet? I have before put significance into the crossover of those symbolisms in Homestuck before, but couldn’t really conceptulize it as a solid symbolic thing and the Meat and epilogues in general did a really good job of conjoining them into the idea of the story what with the Narrative having importance but also Veins and the idea of Karkat as being reliable narrator etc etc

Meat’s as good a symbol as any for that I suppose

“ When you think so little of yourself as a moral character, any act of self-termination will result in a death that is Just. “

so this line seems to imply that Dirk’s death was permanent and Just here because he thought so little of his own moral character aka deep down he knew he was terrible person, amount of remorse felt over that not applicable, and because of that perception of his, the clock tick tocked over on to Just

Again reinforcing that the Clock is less of an ultimate moral judgment from down on high and much more like an influenceable moral compass, given form by the person affecting it at the moment

I actually kinda like the new spin on that it gives Vriska’s original just death, since that slow ticking of the clock was not just a decision, but a battle of wills between herself and Terezi, it could have easily gone either way depending on how each saw Vriska

neat!

[lovestillaround]

Thoughts about Phil’s last video (Draw My Life: Part 2)

So, it’s been two days and I still have trouble processing all the information from Phil’s newest video - that’s why I’m writing my thoughts down, hoping that it will give me more inner peace. Disclaimer: following text includes critique of the video, so if you’re sensitive to that kind of stuff/ not in the mood for hearing my negative opinions, please proceed with caution or stop reading. Love ya <3

So, Phil starts the video saying that he’s aware that we know what’s been mostly going on in his life during the last six years and that he’s gonna share with us all the behind the scenes facts. And that on itself is fine, but oh boy, nothing would prepare me for the amount of negativity that I was going to endure (and no, I’m not talking about the subjects of death and illness). I said it to my friend and I still stand by that opinion - the video was for me more like “20 minutes of complaining about/listing every bad thing that happened in my life” than actual “draw my life”. And well, obviously Phil has the right to reflect on his life in whatever way he wants, but as I was watching the video, I couldn’t help getting more and more frustrated with his lack of awareness, especially regarding the massive privilege that he has and has always had. (Also, I’m not trying to call him out for being rich and being able to afford things that I can’t afford - that’s not at all what this is about, it’s about the attitude and the way he chose to speak about those things).

While I do think that the video was full of lovely and cute moments, I’m going to focus mainly on what I found annoying or upsetting, just to keep it (relatively) short. So, I was talking about how in my opinion the video was filled with negativity. You might ask - where is it, Daria? Or more importantly - why is it bad? The response to the video is (at least from what I saw) overwhelmingly positive. Well, I’ll try to explain how I see it.

The video literally starts with Phil saying that London was (is?) 5x more expensive than Manchester, and that if their career in London didn’t work out, they would have had to move back to their parents. I have enough compassion to understand that it must have been hard for them to feel insecure about their finances (I know this feeling damn too well) - but I also think that people should, idk, be generally aware that their actions have consequences? They took a risk, and it was hard to live in uncertainty - I get that - but people having to live with their parents is a reality for so many people! So many young people don’t even get a chance to start an independent life, for various reasons. And I’m not saying that he doesn’t have the right to talk about his struggles - just for me, in the light of the rest of the video that is played on a similar note, it becomes clear that Phil isn’t aware of how much luck he’s had in life and how he has already started his life from a much better position than - can I say that? - probably the majority of people. So for me, what lacks in the video is, idk, maybe just one instance where he acknowledges his privilege? Or just generally him using a different language while talking about his experience, choosing his words more carefully, but I’ll get to that later.

The negativity continues when Phil talks about how he could not work out how to operate the radio control panel, how it was a bad decision to say yes to everything (although I admit, this one is just Phil acknowledging sth that he has learned over the years, which isn’t really negative but let’s still keep it on the list of bad things), anxiety, lack of sleep, stress, juggling responsibilities, people that they used to work with getting more from dnp than dnp did from them, dnp doing things out of obligation, not being able to fully create things how they wanted to, people being cynical about youtubers doing projects/not understanding youtube and media’s negative reactions, loads of office work, risking all their life savings to go on tour, heteronormativity of the interviewers, lots of work related to creating gaming channel videos, overworking themselves during gamingmas, frustration with people not realising how much work happens behind the scenes, people cancelling projects, losing money because of Manila. 

On the other hand, the positives that Phil talked about were getting job at the radio, getting 1 million subs, interviewing people being a cool thing, everything about his relationship with family was very positive, getting a new team of people to work with and dropping some responsibilities like the radio show, success of the books and tours and games they created, creative freedom, positive relationship with his audience, improvement of the press over the years and people in traditional businesses becoming aware of what youtube is, creating and expanding irl merch, having fun on tour. 

Then comes the moment when I got genuinely quite confused, aka the moment when Phil talks about not having a life. Like.... really? He has every right to feel what he feels but honestly, not that many people would count themselves lucky enough to be in a long term relationship, having a loving family, four friends that want to hang out with them, going out to dinner dates and cinemas on the regular, regularly going on vacations, being able to take private yoga or boxing lessons etc. 

When I heard him saying “and I didn’t do any normal stuff people do, like getting a house or a dog”, that’s the point when I’ve lost all my hope. Like, I’m sorry Phil, but are you really gonna complain about not having time to get a house because of the life choices that you’ve made? Just… think about it. I’m not an expert on the standard of life in the UK but I personally can think of exactly zero people that I know who bought a house in their 20s. And I have to say, it’s upsetting that he seems to be so detached from what is the reality for many many people. 

Sharing personal stuff on the internet requires courage and I don’t want to be the one who takes all this knowledge and uses it against him. But I’m genuinely upset with the way he handled things this time. As I was watching the video for the first time, at the end of it all I could think was - wow, you’re really that entitled, aren’t you?

And it makes me sad, because I see two possible reasons for him being like that:

a) He is not in the best place mentally, so that he can only really focus rn on the negative aspects of his life, regretting his past choices, being disappointed in how his personal life looks like. This could be supported the fact that for basically any major thing that happened in his life he decided to share with us and elaborate mostly the negative details attached to it, rarely the positive ones (see the list of positive and negative things that I included above). 

b) He is completely unaware of what’s the average threshold for a “good quality life”, and he’s not aware of his own privilege. 

To elaborate a bit more on the point b): one could see Phil’s video as maybe a reminder that everything comes with a prize and that even though a youtuber’s life might seem super easy, there’s still a lot of stress and work involved that we just don’t see. But… I’ve been aware of that. Nobody’s life is one-dimensional, and everyone has struggles. And of course they have to edit their videos and do the business stuff. But when Phil says how he sometimes wishes people were aware of his personal struggles, I can only think that this is the reality for many many people, not only celebrities on the internet. Idk, maybe I just wasn’t the target of this whole segment in the first place, but for me it sounds borderline patronising, and again, entitled, because as I mentioned, everyone has their own struggles.

But for me, Phil doesn’t seem to be aware that he was only able to make some of the life choices that he’s made because he already had a good start in life in the first place. He’s always had a safety net in form of his parents, so he could make a choice of risking everything and moving to London for example. And yes, coming back home and asking his parents for money could have been embarrassing for him and emotionally hard, but so many people could not take such risk, or any risk, in general! Because they have families that they need to take care of. Because they have not enough money to move to an expensive city, no matter the circumstances. Because they have no one left who would help them financially if something went wrong. And so many other reasons!

On one hand, I can empathise with his frustration. I know how it is to work my ass off just to be able to go to uni, while many people that I know get money from their parents, go to a couple of lectures and then party/do nothing really. And then having other people thinking that everything is easy for me because idk I’ve always had good grades so according to them I don’t need to work as hard. Is it frustrating? Yeah. It’s hard to be misunderstood, or having your work belittled. But I would never blame other people for not being aware of how much work comes with the lifestyle that I’ve chosen. And I’m aware that dnp were working their asses off to create good things for us, but also, obviously, they were hoping to make financial profit out of it. It might sound awful but they did not have to do most of those things. In many instances, they totally did not have to overwork themselves, because it was not like they were making money to survive, they were making money just to make more money, basically. Nothing evil in wanting to make money but honestly Phil, most people work super hard, and they don’t get millions for it. While I do acknowledge that they’ve been working hard, and that a part of their audience might have not been aware of that, I think that complaining about that seems quite… inconsiderate? Complaining about the lack of private life seems inconsiderate too, especially because most people aren’t privileged enough to just decide to put their work aside and focus on their private life whenever they want. Many people I know are overworking themselves too, simply because they don’t have another choice. 

So, I’m quite upset. I don’t know what my point is. It seems to me like in that video Phil comes from a place of deep frustration, and well, I’m frustrated too. Fair game, I guess?

I want them to have a good life. I want them to do whatever the hell they need to do in order to be happy, I want them to get a goddamn dog and a house. But I also hope they’ll continue to grow, and that maybe next time Phil will be more considerate, and more careful with words.

[phangirlof]

Out of Touch

Description: chan has abandonment issues

Genre: High School! AU, angst

Pairing: Park Chanyeol x reader

Word Count: 2,231

Park Chanyeol wasn’t a bad boy. He wasn’t the big bad wolf on campus. Although at most times he was very intimidating, no one feared him. No one cowered in his presence. No one shivered at a simple mention of his name. The scariest thing about him was his gaze. When his eyes fell on you it felt like he was shooting daggers at you. It was uncomfortable and very unpleasant, unless of course you saw past this. If you looked past the intensity in every glance he gave, you could see more. And I did see more. I saw a whole different side of him.

I’d went to school with him for longer than I remembered, but something about him recently caught my eye and as time passed he was all I could ever think about. Honestly, he was all I wanted to think about. He was so fascinating, everything he did seemed so careless and unplanned but if you paid attention you could see how carefully he calculated out his every move. He had a very meticulous way of moving through life. Chanyeol controlled everyone in his life, well at least to the extent of how they were in his life. No one just popped in, just like no one popped out. He was never one to be left behind, ever, he left people sitting in the dust behind him wondering where they went wrong. Chanyeol was always the one to end friendships and relationships, if someone even got that far for it to be called a relationship that is. Sometimes it seemed like he was able to turn on or cut off feelings for someone whenever he pleased however that was only if he could even settle his mind to one person for long.

And maybe that’s how I found myself a piece in his game.

Chanyeol sat in the driver's seat of his car while I sat beside him. His right hand gripped the wheel, angrily tightening and releasing as he drove. His right foot pressed on the gas a bit too dangerously as far as I could tell as trees, lights, and other cars begin to blend together. Neither me or him uttered a single syllable as the drive continued. Chanyeol was mad at me. Why? Because I wouldn't tell him the truth. The question was simple enough, do you have feelings for me, the answer was too, yes, but I was more worried about what lay in my answer’s wake. Whether he reciprocated any shred of feeling for me was debatable. He’d spent more time with me in the last two months than he had with any other girl in the past two years. We’d been texting and meeting up after school, even though both never occurred for long. People were beginning to talk, which lead to them coming up to me and asking what was up between me and him. I always shrugged them off because truth be told, I had no idea what was going on between us.

I decided to sneak a quick glance at him, but casually so he wouldn’t assume that I was sitting here, consumed by thoughts of him. Chanyeol’s face gave off no suspicion something was awry, and despite how true I wished that was, I knew that wasn’t quite the case.

“Are you gonna speak to me or are you gonna keep quiet and wreck the car?” My words broke whatever trance he’d been in.

“What do you want me to say?” He asked in return, hiding his emotions behind a blank expression and stoic voice. “Anything, something.” I added as much subtle emphasis as I could muster, hoping it would sway him to speak his mind, something that at times was asking a lot of him. I continued after another moment of silence. “I mean we could start with why you’re so upset with me.” I muttered, turning all my attention to anything besides Chanyeol.

“What makes you think I’m upset?” I could hear the sarcasm dripping from his mouth. “I don’t know, something about you going 70 in a 35 kinda tells me something’s not right. Not to mention that this is the most you’ve spoken to me the last three hours.” I said, shooting another glance his way. Chanyeol’s hand wrapped around the wheel tighter, but he ultimately eased his foot off the gas and started to slow down. “Not a talkative person.” I couldn’t help but laugh at his response. “That’s seriously the best you could come up with? If you’re gonna lie to me, at least make it convincing.” I was only making him more upset, but at this point I didn’t care.

Chanyeol was so used to girls being so head over heels for him that they’d practically eat straight out of his palm, but I was far from that kind of girl. I had more morals than he had friends and one of them was not worshipping the ground he walked on. A little bit of silence wasn’t gonna bully me into confessing how I felt about him.

“Why won’t you just tell me the truth?” Chanyeol finally said, interrupting the silence we had fallen into.

“Why does what I feel matter to you?” I shot back.

Chanyeol got silent again. “I don’t know, but I just want to know.” He said quickly. I shook my head, not knowing whether he could see me or not. “We’ll probably stop talking in a week anyway and you’ll move onto someone else, so it doesn’t matter how I feel.” I mumbled, trying not to express any of the bitterness I was feeling. This was what I’d been telling myself since I first started having feelings for him. He’ll find someone else, someone better, became like a personal mantra to me. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, even now that we started hanging out. I told myself over and over again that he was going to come to his senses and realized he’d wasted his time with me. And maybe that was why I’d started to push him away so much. I was preparing myself for what I knew was going to come for us. Instead of being happy that we were getting close, I was already bracing myself for when we weren’t in each other’s lives anymore.

“Why do you always think so lowly of yourself?” Chanyeol’s voice was softer than I’d ever heard before. I didn’t how to respond. It was true that I’d found I was talking down on myself more than ever. I usually had so much self confidence, but here lately it seemed like that all flew out the window whenever I was around Chanyeol. “Is it because of me?” He asked sincerely. The concern evident in his voice sent a pang straight through my heart.

Why does he care so much? I nodded, looking up to see Chanyeol was staring directly at me. The car was parked in his driveway and he had zero intention of dropping this conversation to go inside. “But why?” It almost seemed like the words pained him to say.

“Fuck, can we just drop this? Please?” I begged. I couldn’t have this conversation with him and definitely not right now. It was too hard to face the music, thinking about just how much Chanyeol’s started to mean to me in such a short amount of time and how little I must mean to him, I just couldn’t do this with him. “Why won’t you answer any of my questions?” Chanyeol huffed. “You’ve been dodging everything I ask and I just want to know the truth.” I shook my head. “I can’t.” I tried my best not to let my voice sound as unstable as I felt right about now. He wanted to know a lot more than I was ready to talk about.

I wanted to change the topic or go inside, something, anything that didn’t relate to my one-sided feelings. “Why does it matter anyway? You have so many girls drooling over you, you don’t have to pretend to care about my feelings.” I said, finally grabbing his keys and heading inside. Once I unlocked the door I went straight to Chanyeol’s room. We were supposed to work on homework together but instead we went out to eat. A few minutes later Chanyeol entered the room. He dropped his book bag on the floor and plopped down on the bed. He didn’t speak. He didn’t do anything. Chanyeol just laid there and stared at his ceiling. I tried my best not pay him any attention and continue on with my assignment, but it was so hard to focus. Chanyeol was the type of guy to grab your attention without even lifting a finger, and the conversation we just had didn’t make things any better.

After thirty minutes of silence, he finally spoke up. “You know I care about you right?” His voice was gentle. I’d never heard him speak like this before. “I guess.” I said honestly. He had no reason to care about me and that was something I’d accepted when we first started hanging out.

“I do. I really do,” He paused, either stopping to figure how to string his words together just right or maybe even just looking for the right words in the first place. “And just, fuck, i’m not the easiest person to talk to. I know that, but I care about you so much and I have all these feelings… involving you and I just don’t know how... o-or what to say or think.”

I didn’t know what to say and I guess he could see that in my eyes so he kept going. “I’ve never felt so strongly for someone and I don’t know how to handle it okay. I’ve never been the one waiting for someone else to come around with their feelings.” Chanyeol stopped abruptly. His breathing began to sound labored. He had so much more to say. It was practically dripping out of his mouth, but he was waiting on me. Almost like he was wanting for some kind of sign that I was processing everything that he was saying, which I was just very slowly. The more he spoke the longer it took for everything to sink in.

Chanyeol was sitting here confessing his feelings to me.

And as much as I wanted to call him out for messing with my head or pretending to have all these feelings, I couldn’t. Everything branded him as being genuine. He was nervous, so so nervous. Unlike the almost arrogant, slightly cocky Chanyeol I’d known for months, he couldn’t even make eye contact with me. He was messily throwing words together, stuttering, tripping over everything he had in his head. I know I hadn’t known him well for long but I was sure that I’d never seen him like this. Ever.

“I hate that I can’t control what I’m feeling for once. I feel so clueless and confused. Y/n talk to me. Say something please.” The desperation in his voice was hard to miss. “Chan,” I hated myself for the words about to leave my lips, but I couldn’t help myself. I don’t want to set myself up for failure and that’s exactly where a relationship together would lead. “We can’t.”

With that the tension in the air became heavy. He looked away from me.

You ruined something that could’ve been great.

I looked at Chanyeol whose mind was suddenly everywhere except in the room with me. I tried getting rid of the feeling that had settled into the pit of my stomach. It was a strong sense of dread, like I'd just made the worst decision in my life, but I just couldn't shake this notion I had about Chan. Ever since we became friends, there was this preconceived idea I'd concocted that there was no way he could ever truly love someone, let alone that someone be me. Park Chanyeol didn't have feelings. It was impossible for someone like him to feel something, anything for someone. No matter what he did or who he was currently pursuing, there was nothing that could actually convince me he had genuine feelings for whatever girl he had wrapped around his finger at the moment.

So as much as my heart wanted to believe I really and truly had a place in Chan’s heart, I just knew it wasn't true. He didn't fall for people. He didn't develop crushes. It wasn't him. It wasn't in his DNA. Chanyeol broke hearts. That's all there was too it.

I looked at him one more time. Him and his brain were still light-years away. A pang of guiltiness struck me, but I tried to ignore it. There's no way he could ever fall for someone like me. He'd lose interest after a week once he finally came to his senses, a month tops.

[ganymedesclock]

Honestly something I think is really interesting about the colony? I’ve called it a vampire story but it really is, down to a lot of the sort of classical hallmarks of the genre.

The Altean colony is set up to look like a beautiful, idyllic pastoral village surrounded by the forest. Everything’s nice there. There’s a local reclusive nobleman, rarely seen by the locals, who keeps to himself but he’s charming and everyone regards him well.

Now and then this noble takes people with him.

They aren’t seen again.

Because Lotor drains the life out of them behind closed doors.

Bandor returns to the colony, in the woods, at night. There’s that scene of Romelle hiding from Lotor- again, in the woods at night. This is one of the only nocturnal shots of the colony we see.

Once again, we have this vampire metaphor with the galra royal family, and it’s just a lot more literal than we’ve been led to believe before. Lotor’s not actively biting these people on the neck and drinking their blood, but, end result? Motives? Exactly the same. He has this population, and he’s feeding on them.

It even furthers what I’ve talked about before, that Lotor and Zarkon effectively represent very different conceptualizations of what a vampire is, with Lotor embodying the “modern” supernatural romance vampire, and Zarkon as the “classical” gothic horror vampire.

Zarkon’s consumption of people is glaringly obvious. His empire is festooned in people in rags, he has a huge cadre of functionally, other vampires. He hides nothing- will walk around with tubes of quintessence hanging out of his back while he’s recovering. Of course people die to feed him- because he’s a completely willing and knowing plague onto the universe. He’s better than them, he’s the immortal here.

He has zero guilt and zero shame. All mortals he contends with are his food, and from that he’ll occasionally promote them to “entertainment” or “assets”. At the end of the day, still livestock.

Lotor? Lotor feels guilty.

As soon as he realizes Romelle is in the room and processes what it means, he’s horrified. He flat-out says “I know what you must think of me” trying to negotiate with them and his counterpoint is basically just, that he genuinely wants to do good and that he meant what he said to Allura before.

And that’s frankly, vampire romance genre at its finest: the tragedy of the revelation that Lotor got this far by, in no uncertain terms, eating people (and over the course of his lifespan, that number’s added up to a pretty high total if we look at the number of names on the memorial and Romelle’s words) is in part framed in what it does for his love life. He and Allura love each other, but Lotor’s a vampire, he’s killed people just like Allura, and she can’t forgive him for that.

Which is totally understandable. But the heartbreak, the drama, the point of how Lotor’s terrified, outraged by the idea of, becoming like his unrepentantly parasitic father sets this up with very particular conventions.

Allura flat-out had herself a vampire romance. That’s what happened.

Now, I think the use of these conventions shed some interesting light on Lotor’s situation, and his likely motivations. Romelle says the decision to make the colony happened “generations ago” but she still describes it as very separate from the colony’s inception.

It’s very likely Lotor was getting his “food” somewhere else, and never originally conceptualized the colony as a source of energy.

But something happened. Those other sources ran dry. It’s likely Haggar, either directly or through Zarkon, pulled energy away from Lotor.

And Lotor knows the only way he’s ever going to fix the empire’s vampiric problem without going Van Helsing on himself and most of the galra, condemning the survivors- if there are any- to a vulnerable half-existence, is if he basically can get his hands on the quintessence field- the guilt-free, no-predation-necessary, infinite fountain of blood.

He needs energy to get there.

So his options are, die, become something he doesn’t want to, or compromise his morals in a really bad way and turn to the people who would patiently, obligingly follow him anywhere.

The vampire starves, and the neighbors start to look really, really tasty.

But Lotor’s still a moral person. He’s a good enough person to feel revolted and ashamed of what he’s doing. So he does something we never see Zarkon do- he buries it. Everything about it. And he’s horrified of people finding those skeletons. Again, seeing Romelle among his allies while they’re all accusative and doing the scifantasy equivalent of readying the stakes and garlic prompts undiluted terror from Lotor but his response is to try to appeal to Allura.

Again, bumping Lotor to “romance vampire” away from the gothic horror sensibilities of his father (even when the environment and setup of the colony evoke the latter)- he’s less focused on the peril this poses to him on being “outed” as a vampire and vastly more focused on Allura’s either rejection or forgiveness. When she rejects him, that sinks him, twice.

The first time, none of the weapons pointed at the paladins are what take Lotor down- it’s just Allura. Allura tosses Lotor, and Lotor stays down. He doesn’t wake up again except to face Haggar.

The second time, during the standoff, Lotor order the generals to hold their fire and repeatedly tries to appeal to them. It’s Allura’s word that makes or breaks that negotiation, and that’s not because Lotor’s a blameless sheep.

It furthers the dynamic we’ve seen before, that Lotor’s not emptily manipulating Allura, but that his feelings for her cause him to repeatedly make his vulnerability available to Allura. And in the conflict between them, we see this flexed in practice. Lotor’s put a huge amount of power in Allura’s hands, and when, feeling hurt and betrayed herself, she uses it to hurt him right back, that has a colossal destabilizing effect on basically everything Lotor’s standing on.

Lotor’s breakdown is instrumental to his losing the generals’ support, which, since this is Voltron, Hunk’s point about how it’s now four-on-one (and eventually five-on-one) is completely true.

Lotor’s literally a supernatural being- an immortal, a vampire- by the lore of the story. But Allura, not just through her own developing magic, but through her relationship with Lotor, is the one who holds the power here. Her approval or rejection makes or breaks him because he’s fascinated with her, he adores her.

It’s a complete fundamental deconstruction of the predatory way every other incarnation of Lotor went after Allura, where Allura had to, one way or another, fight to retain her autonomy in the presence of a pursuing monster. And again, this is kind of a vampire romance thing- as in, the power fantasy of a woman being able to tame a powerful and dangerous creature.

The colony and Allura’s completely understandable reaction to Lotor are functionally set-pieces in this vampire romance. It paints Lotor as a shade of gray. We’ve seen his values and we understand them. We see what he’s dealing with and we can sympathize. At the end of the day, though, he’s not a proper squeaky clean hero like Allura is.

Lotor felt backed into a corner and the only way out was to compromise his own morals and sate that bloodthirsty appetite. Other alternatives may have been open to him, but they would probably require trust, or otherwise abetting power- things that Lotor can’t believe in because from his perspective the only way things won’t hurt him is if he’s strong enough to hold their teeth away from his throat himself.

And he’s aware of it! Heck, if you look at the substance of his harsh words on Alfor, he’s actively self-conscious about it! We have to remember Lotor’s repeatedly expressed deep admiration for Alfor and that slips through even at his absolute worst- he’s eager to see if Sincline holds up against Alfor’s legacy, so even after he insists he’s better than Alfor he’s using Alfor’s handiwork as a metric.

So Lotor sneering about how if it had been up to Alfor and Alfor’s strategy, all of the Alteans would have died, it’s kind of his furious, hurt thesis that if it weren’t for him, the vampire, who’s yes taken the selfish option and bloodied his own hands, chosen his own preservation over staying true to his values, they wouldn’t have gotten here. 

And again, that frames it back to... there’s this fundamental difference where Zarkon makes cruel choices out of a lack of sympathy. Why should he care what anyone else feels, why should he care who has to suffer to fill his hunger? Zarkon effectively chose to be a vampire. He said “damn my friends, damn the universe, I’ll take my wife to the rift if it kills me” and we never really see Zarkon disappointed in the result.

Lotor didn’t choose. Lotor got handed this stick before he was born by Zarkon’s decisions and that’s the thematic motifs here- that Lotor got saddled against his will with this hunger, so his “fall” isn’t set to the same metrics Zarkon was. He doesn’t have a perfectly good opportunity to put the knife down and walk away and live out his natural mortal life because eating other people is unappealing to him.

Because of the world Zarkon’s created, because of what Zarkon did to him from the cradle, Lotor’s option is to compromise himself or compromise somebody else. And we’ve known from the start Lotor is a scared, vulnerable person. We know that push comes to shove, his own survival is a very powerful motivator because he feels like it’s constantly in peril.

But he made that choice. He made the decision to keep living, keep chasing his ambitions, knowing exactly at what kind of cost it would come, and this fuels a line of guilt that he doesn’t feel worthy of Allura- Allura, whose parents, who the world around her, provided what she needed even when she lost everything else. Allura, who hasn’t faced the prospect of starving or resorting to other people in order to survive. 

Remember how easily he gave up on Oriande because it rejected him once? Remember how he didn’t actually expect to get in there at all, and- according to what he tells Ezor and Zethrid, was sure that he’d need someone of Allura’s purity to get in there at all?

Believe me, I’m as upset by Lotor’s breakdown here as anybody else, but the colony is something that adds up perfectly with what we know of Lotor as a person, who he is, his relationship with Allura. This is drama you’d absolutely slide off the shelf in the supernatural teen romance section of the library- well, if you found a well-written teen romance.

(The fact that I ship Lotura when I don’t even like a lot of other vampire romance stories should probably tell you something about the writing and my esteem)

[cwartsy]

So Much For the Fearsome Radio Demon (Al/Bax fanfic, now with added Vaggie/Charlie)

When Vaggie found out Alastor was dating Baxter, her general reaction could be summed up in three words;

Oh HELL no.

No way in any of the nine circles of hell was she letting that nefarious, treacherous, conniving, predatory, evil, fucked up psychopath anywhere near anyone she cared about. Especially near anyone like Baxter.

Everyone knows that Baxter has zero experience relationship wise. He was so innocent it was ridiculous. And even worse, it was pretty evident to everyone who knew him that Baxter wasn't all there. He would go for days without eating, he barely slept, he would work himself to the bone as if he was always trying to distract himself from something. He was twitchy and nervous all the time. Mostly about things that were only in his head. How could someone like Baxter know what red flags are? And how could he spot them in a relationship? How could he know when, or even how, to get out of a relationship if it went bad? Could he get out of a relationship with someone like Alastor? No. Of course he couldn’t.

Vaggie had no idea how Alastor had gotten so close to him. She didn't know what Alastor had done to get Baxter to trust him. In truth, she knew Alastor would have had to have done a hell of a lot just to get someone as paranoid as Baxter to let him anywhere near him. But Vaggie didn’t give a shit. The idea of someone as dangerous as Alastor being in a relationship with someone as vulnerable as Baxter was horrifying. 

And she was putting a stop to it. Right now. 

First chance she got, she pulled Alastor aside. At first, the radio demon was all smiles and "Why, hello Miss Vaggie. How can I be of assistance today?" He was still smiling, even when Vaggie shoved him into the wall and pressed a knife into his throat.

"Oh my.” Alastor proclaimed. When he looked at Vaggie’s knife, he had a stupid look on his face that made Vaggie’s blood boil. His eyes had a sort of affectionate look to them that seemed to say “Oh, how cute.”

“Have I done anything to anger you, my dear?”

“Listen here, you deplorable piece of demon turd.” She growled, pressing the knife deeper into Alastor’s throat to show that she was having none of his shit, “I don't know what kind of game you're playing with Bax but it ends now. I don't know who was stupid enough to let you near him but I'll end you unless you stay the fuck away from him. And if you fucking dare do anything to hurt him, it'll be the biggest and last mistake you ever make.” 

Vaggie expected him to laugh her off. He always did this with her no matter what she threatened to do to him. From what Vaggie had gathered from their encounters, it took an infuriating amount of effort to get Alastor to take anyone seriously. But what actually happened caught her off guard. His eyes flashed with confusion. His smug grin faltered. 

"Game? Hurt him?" Alastor’s voice rose and displayed something Vaggie never expected to hear from him. Actual emotion.

Vaggie hadn’t expected Alastor to react like this at all and she might have let it show. She was taken aback for a moment. But not a moment more. She wasn’t going to let this distract her from why they were here.

"Well, what else could it be?” she demanded, “When have you ever not played someone? When have you ever not used a person for your own gain? Do you really think I believe you're here because you actually want to help us? I know that's bullshit. I've heard what you've done to people. I know all about how you've tricked them, manipulated them and ruined them. You can fuck right off if you think I'm going to let you do any of that shit to Bax.” 

At that moment, Alastor’s eyes went from holding confusion to rage and the ever smiling Radio Demon scowled. That was when Vaggie truly knew this was going to be nothing like the encounters she had with Alastor before. This wasn't like every other time Vaggie had threatened him. When her words didn't even phase him. This was very different. For the first time in all the time she had known him, Alastor looked angry. 

He looked beyond done with Vaggie when he pushed her aside. He swatted her knife away, looking at it and her with a look of pure disgust.

"Well, Miss Vaggie. That certainly was an interesting insight on your thoughts regarding my Baxy and me. I must say, it's nice to know you care about him but I can assure you there is no need for you to worry. I'd say I appreciate your concern but I don't. What irritates me, Miss Vaggie is that you think I'm only with Baxter because I've found something I can use out of him. You seem to distrust me because you can't think of a possible reason why I would genuinely want to be with someone like him. That's a complete insult. I asked Baxter to be my partner because I wanted him to be. Because I love him and there are a million things I love about him. There are no ulterior motives. And if you honestly think I would hurt Baxter. If you even think I wouldn't immediately kill anyone who so much as threatened to hurt Baxter, then you have no idea what our relationship is like."

At that, Alastor turned to leave. Vaggie, nowhere near done with him yet, began to shout after him. She was about to tell him just what she thought of Alastor’s supposed undying love for Baxter, but then he turned around and one look at his face silenced her.

His eyes were black and his pupils shone like lights. His mouth was twisted into a snarl and strange symbols, red and ominous glowed all around him. When his eyes met hers, fear shot through her. Uncharacteristic and unadmittable but unmistakable fear. 

"If you know nothing of our relationship then you have no right to interfere."  he uttered in a tone of warning. Warning her to dare say anything else. "Good day."

Vaggie was speechless and Alastor left her that way. He walked away, leaving vaggie alone, unsure what to think and trying to process what had just happened.

She spent the rest of the afternoon in that state. That was the first time she'd seen Alastor act like an actual human with emotion. The only thing she'd seen from him that was even close to emotion before was the creepy, take-everything-in-my-stride, nothing-phases-me sort of happy go luckiness that was his usual demeanour. Vaggie didn't think he could even feel emotion, let alone express it. But back then. She found it hard to find words to describe it. That was the most passionate, the most temperamental, the most expressive she had seen anyone get in a while, and she lived with Charlie. What was more, it actually seemed to be genuine. Of course, Vaggie wasn't stupid. She knew Alastor was a trickster by nature, manipulative to the core. He was probably very skilled at putting on façades and fabricating feelings. But Alastor would had to have been one amazing actor if he was able to fake that.

Vaggie should be perfectly sure what to think, especially regarding Alastor but she wasn't. She had never seen Alastor like that before. She never thought she would see Alastor like that ever. Alastor was a deceitful bastard and she knew it. But still, she never thought in a million years he could seem so sincere and impassioned. So after seeing him like that, did she see him differently? Did she trust him now? 

Fuck no, Vaggie decided. He's the radio demon!

She had to do something about this "relationship" going on between him and Baxter. Cleary threatening Alastor wasn't going to do shit, so she resolved to talk some sense into Baxter.

 She made her way to Baxter’s room the moment it was decided. She still had no idea what the hell Baxter was thinking. What on this even more fucked up version of earth had possessed him to think dating THE RADIO DEMON was a good idea? He was supposed to be a genius, he should be smarter than this.

She reached Baxter’s door with all of this in mind and not afraid to speak it. She had a whole speech prepared by the time she went to knock Baxter's door. But she stopped and listened when she heard a strange noise. 

All sorts of weird noises could be heard from Baxter's room at any given time of the day. The man was a renowned chemistry nerd so hisses, fizzes and the occasional explosion were not uncommon. But this noise was weird even for Baxter's room. She could hear what she could have sworn sounded like purring.

Did Baxter get a cat? Weird. Vaggie thought Baxter kept mice as pets. Surely he wouldn’t want a cat around if he had those.

Curious, she peeked through the keyhole. A stupid thing to do really, since she was planning on knocking Baxter’s door anyway. Maybe this was just one of those things people did when their brains stopped working. 

Through the keyhole, she didn’t have a very good view of Baxter’s living space. She could only see the part made up to serve as a living room. She could see a loveseat style sofa. She could see Baxter stretched out across it. But she couldn't see a cat. With her eye, she tried to follow the source of the sound. It led her vision downwards to where Baxter's lap was. That was when she saw Alastor. Sprawled out across the sofa with his head in Baxter's lap. Baxter had a book in one hand but he wasn't even looking at it. Instead, he was looking at Alastor with a look of pure adoration. Baxter had his other hand behind Alastor's ear and looked like he was petting it. Alastor had a huge ear to ear smile. Not something Vaggie had never seen before. But what she had never seen before was the way he smiled. His eyes were closed in a way you might see a loved pet's when they're getting affection or given their favourite treat. His smile was composed of what looked like pure happiness and bliss. He was buried as deep into Baxter's touch as he could go and he was purring.   

He was fucking purring.

Vaggie had to put her hand over her mouth quick to suppress the laugh that almost escaped from her. If Alastor knew she had seen him like this, there's no way he would let her live to tell the tale. She should be getting out of here right now but she just couldn't look away. 

"You really are more of a cat than a deer, aren't you?" She heard Baxter say, she had never heard him sound so affectionate before, "Should I start calling you my Cheshire kitten?"

Alastor's smile and look of all round bliss somehow intensified. In response, he reached for Baxter's hand and, still purring, started nuzzling it. 

He started nuzzling it like an actual. Fucking. Kitten. 

That was it. At this point, Vaggie was biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing and she was pretty sure it was starting to bleed. But after seeing that, she couldn't keep it in any more. She practically ran from Baxter's room, moving as quickly and quietly as she could. Hoping his giggles would muffle the sound of her footsteps.

She made a beeline for the room she shared with her disney princess of a girlfriend. Charlie just had to hear this.

Charlie was simply minding her own business, watching the news when Vaggie burst in through the door. Poor babe. When she saw vaggie collapse on the floor, she looked really worried.

"Vaggie? What's going on? Are you ok?"

Vaggie couldn't answer. She couldn't even breathe. She just lay there, crumpled on the floor and making high pitched squeaking sounds as she struggled to intake air.

"Babe." She just about managed to say between pathetic attempts at inhaling oxygen "Babe, you. You want believe;" She tried to explain but she couldn't say anything else.

"Won't believe what? What happened?"

Tears streamed out of Vaggie's eye. Her fist pounded against the floor.

"What happened!?"

Vaggie still couldn't answer. Lying on the floor gasping like a fish out of water had paid off and now, finally, she had enough air in her lungs to let out wave after wave of laughter. After at least ten minutes of laughing her ass off, she was finally able to tell Charlie what happened. 

Charlie didn't laugh herself into hysterics like Vaggie did. She was triumphant. She saw it as one more piece of evidence that what she believed in was right.

"See, Vaggie." She said, "Inside of every demon there's a heart."

"I thought you said rainbow." Vaggie playfully pointed out

"It's both." Charlie beamed, "Inside of every demon are all the colours you can imagine and every feeling you can feel. Alastor is proof of that." 

God damn Charlie for making Vaggie's heart melt so much with her dorky, cinnamon roll adorableness. She couldn't believe she was admitting this, since this was the radio demon they were talking about. But after seeing what she had just seen, she couldn't disagree.

But sadly, this incredible breakthrough could not be shared with their world. Vaggie had actually whipped her phone out there and then, ready to tell everybody but Charlie insisted she didn't. Saying they must respect their guests privacy and not share any information about them without their consent.

"So that means you can't tell anybody." Charlie made herself perfectly clear.

"Not even Angel Dust?" Vaggie tried her luck.

"Especially not Angel Dust." Charlie instructed as firm as she could get. 

Vaggie smiled and gave in. Charlie wasn't that naïve. Even she knew that if she let Vaggie tell only Angel Dust, Vaggie would respect her wishes and only tell Angel Dust. But Angel Dust would do exactly what she wanted to do and tell everybody.

"Ok" Vaggie promised, giving Charlie a kiss on the cheek "I won't tell anybody. Especially not Angel Dust." 

Charlie face visibly beamed on impact as her girlfriends lips reached her cheek. Smiling brighter than the sun, already completely trusting in her. She was good like that. Actually, come to think of it. It was pretty crappy of Vaggie as a girlfriend to try and trick Charlie like that. She would have to make it up to her somehow. 

As she was thinking of ways to do just that, she very conveniently got a text from Nifty. Telling her she was running errands and asking if she wanted anything.

"I'll cook tonight." Vaggie said to Charlie the moment she read it. 

This did not go unappreciated by Charlie. With her, nothing ever did. Her appreciation was shown this time with a "Thanks, sweetie." and a kiss on the cheek.

Vaggie returned Charlie's kiss to show her appreciation was appreciated right back. But she waited until Charlie wasn't looking to reply to Nifty's message. She wanted to surprise her.

 In Vaggie's response, she told Nifty she should have been brought back as an angel and giving her a little list.

The kitchens already had everything she needed to make Charlie's favourite meal but she could think of a few other things to go with it. Candles, roses, literally any plushie that looked cute. Those things would do nicely. 

Breakfast the next morning was it's usual chaos. Well almost. Word that Alastor and Baxter were dating had only just got out. So those who had only just found out and those who had not yet got the chance to talk to them swarmed them, and the demon who got the least attention and the one who was avoided the most became the most popular thing in the room.

Everyone asked all sorts of questions, mostly regarding when and how their relationship happened. 

Baxter was pretty much rushed off his feet with so many people talking to him at once but he still managed to break away and talk to Vaggie.

"Morning, Miss Vaggie." He greeted as he approached her. Formal as always. 

"Morning." She greeted back. 

There was a moment or two of silence. Baxter wasn't very good at starting a conversation, or really talking in any conversation. But social awkwardness aside, he didn't beat around the bush.

"I heard from my partner that you and he had a bit of a spat yesterday."

 “Oh.” Vaggie said, starting to feel awkward herself, “He told you about that?”

“He may have ranted to me about it” Baxter admitted, “Non stop. For I think about, two hours?”

Vaggie couldn't help but let how suprised she was show. She knew she had pissed Alastor off. But had she really pissed him off that much?

“I think you're very lucky.” Baxter commented “I’ve never seen anyone get under his skin like that. And this incudes people he’s dismembered.”

Vaggie smiled as awkwardly as she felt and eye contact with Baxter started to get difficult. She didn't like where this conversation was going. It looked like this was a set up to a confrontation but Baxter was surprisingly calm. Well, a shit ton calmer than Vaggie would be when she confronted someone anyway. 

"Yeah, sorry about that." She gave an apology, guessing that was what he wanted. Because after all, that was exactly what she would demand if anyone pissed off Charlie. While kicking the shit out of them. Lucky for Vaggie, Baxter didn't have such a hot temper. "You're probably pissed about what I said to him."

"Not really." Baxter shrugged "In all honesty Miss Vaggie, I understand why you reacted to the way you did. To the news that Alastor and I are now together.

He averted eye contact with Vaggie for a moment. Cheeks glowing just at the mention of the word "together" but he still kept his focus. 

“Look, I can see why you would distrust Alastor. The rumours about him hold no exaggeration. He really can be very malicious and he has hurt a lot of people. I didn’t trust him myself at first for the same reasons as you. But the thing with Alastor is, he’s a lot different in private than he is in front of most people.”

"Oh, I bet he is." Vaggie secretly thought to herself  ”I bet he is."

"As threatening as he can be." he continued, "As lacking as he can seem in empathy or just in general, basic human emotion. I know he's capable of feeling affection. He shows it all the time. You should see how dotty he is over anything with scales, especially the thing he brought home last week. He dotes on it as if it were his child. What I'm trying to say is, Alastor is more than capable of being a loving person. A good person who can make someone else very happy. He makes me very happy. I'm not asking you to get along with Alastor, because I've learned from experience that can be very difficult. What I do ask of you though, Miss Vaggie is to have a little bit more trust in him and in myself as well." 

Vaggie felt her heart warm a few decrees. She hoped she wasn't looking at him the way she saw him, but she thought he was being so cute right now. This was actually the sweetest way she had seen someone defend a partner. She smiled at him genuinely this time.

"I guess I can try to trust him." She promised light heartedly "Or at least stop giving him death threats." 

"Good." Baxter smiled, clearly pleased with how well the confrontation went "Thank you. For understanding."

"I was going to say the same thing to you" Vaggie complimented " If someone offended my girl, I would be too busy beating the crap out of them to think about their side of things. 

"I know" Baxter chuckled "There's footage of you on the internet punching a camera man in the face. And that awful Killjoy woman had a black eye for a week after your Charlie was on her program. " 

"Well what did she expect, treating Charlie like that?" Vaggie said with a shameless smirk. She was escorted out by security for that stunt but aside from disappointing Charlie, she regrets nothing.  

"If I am ever unfortunate enough to end up in the same room as her, she'd better hope that Alastor's not there. He's a bit ridiculous with how overprotective he is of me. The last person who offended me, I haven't seen since. Actually, what am I saying? This would be great."

Vaggie laughed out loud at that. Baxter could be classic sometimes. For someone so awkward, he was surprisingly witty and could get a laugh out of someone if he intended to or not. She was glad that they were laughing now. She was glad that he wasn't angry and glad that her incident yesterday with his new boyfriend was what it was. A resolved disagreement between good friends. 

Unfortunately, this nice moment between them would not last. Because Vaggie had not yet registered everything he said, especially the words regarding scales and something Alastor had brought back. 

"Wait. You said Alastor brought something back to the hotel, right? What did he bring back?" she said suddenly, once every word had been taken in. She absolutely dreaded the answer. "It better not be a huge snake. I hate snakes."

It was in that moment Baxter looked like a man who knew he fucked up. He showed on his face that he had said something he shouldn't have. But it was too late to go back now.

"It's not a snake." he hesitated "But I doubt you'll react to it much better."

At this point, Baxter was visibly getting more nervous by the second and looking for a way to get out of the conversation fast. His eyes darted to the clock behind them and took what he could get.

"My! Look at the time. I really must be going to work now. It really is a madhouse here and the guests all seem to be injury prone. Always lots to do. Medicine to make, people to treat. Never a slow day for me. Well goodbye for now, Miss Vaggie. See you later." 

At "My. Look at the time.", Baxter was already walking away from Vaggie and by the time he got the rest of that babbled mess out, he was already halfway out the door. But Vaggie couldn't let Baxter leave her in the dark about something that was in the same place where she slept and could be just as bad, if not worse, than one of her worst fears. 

"No, Bax. What did he bring back?" She caught up with him and demanded in a desperation she normally never used. 

 "Miss Vaggie, everyone is going to know eventually." Baxter deflected, "We can't hide that thing forever. Please. Let me enjoy the calm before the storm." 

Vaggie wouldn't leave Baxter alone or let him drop the subject for the rest of the day. But Baxter refused to tell her what Alastor's new pet was. 

From then on Vaggie did try to trust Alastor a bit more, if for no one else then for Baxter, and her view on Alastor began to get better. There were more than a few snags, even from the get go. Especially when she got the spare key to Alastor's room and saw for herself what Alastor had brought into the building. And oh,BOY! Was that a story for another trip to the therapist.

She still distrusted Alastor but not in the way she had before. In fact, after she found out what he brought back to the hotel, she found that she couldn't trust him for a different reason. He was even worse for pulling stunts than Angel Dust. In defiance of all logic, Alastor was allowed to keep his "pet" but to this day, she still has no idea what the fuck Alastor was thinking bringing a fucking ALLIGATOR into the hotel and could not understand why the fuck Charlie allowed him to keep it. Still, it hadn't actually harmed anyone yet and she had never seen it get aggressive towards anyone, so she supposed she'd allow it.

That, she supposed, could pretty much sum up how her attitude changed towards Alastor's presence. She'd allow it. She'd allow him in her home. She'd allow him to mingle with her friends. She would allow him to date someone she cared for.

They were supposed to still be on bad terms. She hadn't apologised to him for what she said yet and even weeks after the incident, he still wouldn't speak to her unless she spoke to him. He glared at her whenever he saw her and seemed to purposely be extra affectionate towards Baxter whenever she saw them together. Just to show her. 

He always seemed confused when she didn't glare right back. Vaggie tried but she couldn't help it. She just couldn't find him intimidating anymore. Once the sight of him purring like a kitten is seen, it can not be unseen. No matter how psychopathic or terrifying he looks.

So whenever she saw Alastor now, she smiled.

[cwartsyswritingblog]

So Much For the Fearsome Radio Demon (Al/Bax fanfic, now with added Vaggie/Charlie)

When Vaggie found out Alastor was dating Baxter, her general reaction could be summed up in three words;

Oh HELL no.

No way in any of the nine circles of hell was she letting that nefarious, treacherous, conniving, predatory, evil, fucked up psychopath anywhere near anyone she cared about. Especially near anyone like Baxter.

Everyone knows that Baxter has zero experience relationship wise. He was so innocent it was ridiculous. And even worse, it was pretty evident to everyone who knew him that Baxter wasn’t all there. He would go for days without eating, he barely slept, he would work himself to the bone as if he was always trying to distract himself from something. He was twitchy and nervous all the time. Mostly about things that were only in his head. How could someone like Baxter know what red flags are? And how could he spot them in a relationship? How could he know when, or even how, to get out of a relationship if it went bad? Could he get out of a relationship with someone like Alastor? No. Of course he couldn’t.

Vaggie had no idea how Alastor had gotten so close to him. She didn’t know what Alastor had done to get Baxter to trust him. In truth, she knew Alastor would have had to have done a hell of a lot just to get someone as paranoid as Baxter to let him anywhere near him. But Vaggie didn’t give a shit. The idea of someone as dangerous as Alastor being in a relationship with someone as vulnerable as Baxter was horrifying. 

And she was putting a stop to it. Right now. 

First chance she got, she pulled Alastor aside. At first, the radio demon was all smiles and “Why, hello Miss Vaggie. How can I be of assistance today?”. He was still smiling, even when Vaggie shoved him into the wall and pressed a knife against his throat.

“Oh my.” Alastor proclaimed. When he looked at Vaggie’s knife, he had a stupid look on his face that made Vaggie’s blood boil. His eyes had a sort of affectionate look to them that seemed to say, “Oh, how cute.”

“Have I done anything to anger you, my dear?”

“Listen here, you deplorable piece of demon turd.” She growled, pressing the knife deeper into Alastor’s throat to show that she was having none of his shit, “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing with Bax but it ends now. I don’t know who was stupid enough to let you near him but I’ll end you unless you stay the fuck away from him. And if you fucking dare do anything to hurt him, it’ll be the biggest and last mistake you ever make.” 

Vaggie expected him to laugh her off. He always did this with her no matter what she threatened to do to him. From what Vaggie had gathered from their encounters, it took an infuriating amount of effort to get Alastor to take anyone seriously. But what actually happened caught her off guard. His eyes flashed with confusion. His smug grin faltered. 

"Game? Hurt him?” Alastor’s voice rose and displayed something Vaggie never expected to hear from him. Actual emotion.

Vaggie hadn’t expected Alastor to react like this at all and she might have let it show. She was taken aback for a moment. But not a moment more. She wasn’t going to let this distract her from why they were here.

“Well, what else could it be?” she demanded, “When have you ever not played someone? When have you ever not used a person for your own gain? Do you really think I believe you’re here because you actually want to help us? I know that’s bullshit. I’ve heard what you’ve done to people. I know all about how you’ve tricked them, manipulated them and ruined them. You can fuck right off if you think I’m going to let you do any of that shit to Bax.” 

At that moment, Alastor’s eyes went from holding confusion to rage and the ever smiling Radio Demon scowled. That was when Vaggie truly knew this was going to be nothing like the encounters she had with Alastor before. This wasn’t like every other time Vaggie had threatened him. When her words didn’t even phase him. This was very different. For the first time in all the time she had known him, Alastor looked angry. 

He looked beyond done with Vaggie when he pushed her aside. He swatted her knife away, looking at it and her with a look of pure disgust.

"Well, Miss Vaggie. That certainly was an interesting insight on your thoughts regarding my Baxy and me. I must say, it’s nice to know you care about him but I can assure you there is no need for you to worry. I’d say I appreciate your concern but I don’t. What irritates me, Miss Vaggie is that you think I’m only with Baxter because I’ve found something I can use out of him. You seem to distrust me because you can’t think of a possible reason why I would genuinely want to be with someone like him. That’s a complete insult. I asked Baxter to be my partner because I wanted him to be. Because I love him and there are a million things I love about him. There are no ulterior motives. And if you honestly think I would hurt Baxter. If you even think I wouldn’t immediately kill anyone who so much as threatened to hurt Baxter, then you have no idea what our relationship is like.”

At that, Alastor turned to leave. Vaggie, nowhere near done with him yet, began to shout after him. She was about to tell him just what she thought of Alastor’s supposed undying love for Baxter, but then he turned around and one look at his face silenced her.

His eyes were black and his pupils shone like lights. His mouth was twisted into a snarl and strange symbols, red and ominous glowed all around him. When his eyes met hers, fear shot through her. Uncharacteristic and unadmittable but unmistakable fear. 

“If you know nothing of our relationship then you have no right to interfere."  he uttered in a tone of warning. Warning her to dare say anything else. "Good day.”

Vaggie was speechless and Alastor left her that way. He walked away, leaving Vaggie alone, unsure what to think and trying to process what had just happened.

She spent the rest of the afternoon in that state. That was the first time she’d seen Alastor act like an actual human with emotion. The only thing she’d seen from him that was even close to emotion before was the creepy, take-everything-in-my-stride, nothing-phases-me sort of happy go luckiness that was his usual demeanour. Vaggie didn’t think he could even feel emotion, let alone express it. But back then. She found it hard to find words to describe it. That was the most passionate, the most temperamental, the most expressive she had seen anyone get in a while, and she lived with Charlie. What was more, it actually seemed to be genuine. Of course, Vaggie wasn’t stupid. She knew Alastor was a trickster by nature, manipulative to the core. He was probably very skilled at putting on façades and fabricating feelings. But Alastor would had to have been one amazing actor if he was able to fake that.

Vaggie should be perfectly sure what to think, especially regarding Alastor. But she wasn’t. She had never seen Alastor like that before. She never thought she would see Alastor like that ever. Alastor was a deceitful bastard and she knew it. But still, she never thought in a million years he could seem so sincere and impassioned. So after seeing him like that, did she see him differently? Did she trust him now? 

Fuck no. Vaggie decided. He’s the radio demon!

She had to do something about this “relationship” going on between him and Baxter. Clearly, threatening Alastor wasn’t going to do shit. So she resolved to talk some sense into Baxter.

She made her way to Baxter’s room the moment it was decided. She still had no idea what the hell Baxter was thinking. What on this even more fucked up version of earth had possessed him to think dating THE RADIO DEMON was a good idea? He was supposed to be a genius. He should be smarter than this.

She reached Baxter’s door with all of this in mind and not afraid to speak it. She had a whole speech prepared by the time she went to knock Baxter’s door. But she stopped and listened when she heard a strange noise. 

All sorts of weird noises could be heard from Baxter’s room at any given time of the day. The man was a renowned chemistry nerd so hisses, fizzes and the occasional explosion were not uncommon. But this noise was weird even for Baxter’s room. She could hear what she could have sworn sounded like purring.

Did Baxter get a cat? Weird. Vaggie thought Baxter kept mice as pets. Surely he wouldn’t want a cat around if he had those.

Curious, she peeked through the keyhole. A stupid thing to do really. Since she was planning on knocking Baxter’s door anyway. Maybe this was just one of those things people did when their brains stopped working. 

Through the keyhole, she didn’t have a very good view of Baxter’s living space. She could only see the part made up to serve as a living room. She could see a loveseat style sofa. She could see Baxter stretched out across it. But she couldn’t see a cat. With her eye, she tried to follow the source of the sound. It led her vision downwards to where Baxter’s lap was. That was when she saw Alastor. Sprawled out across the sofa with his head in Baxter’s lap. Baxter had a book in one hand but he wasn’t even looking at it. Instead, he was looking at Alastor with a look of pure adoration. Baxter had his other hand behind Alastor’s ear and looked like he was petting it. Alastor had a huge ear to ear smile. Not something Vaggie had never seen before. But what she had never seen before was the way he smiled. His eyes were closed in a way you might see a beloved pet’s when they’re getting affection or given their favourite treat. His smile was composed of what looked like pure happiness and bliss. He was buried as deep into Baxter’s touch as he could go and he was purring.   

He was fucking purring.

Vaggie had to put her hand over her mouth quick to suppress the laugh that almost escaped from her. If Alastor knew she had seen him like this, there’s no way he would let her live to tell the tale. She should be getting out of here right now. But she just couldn’t look away. 

“You really are more of a cat than a deer, aren’t you?” She heard Baxter say, She had never heard him sound so affectionate before, “Should I start calling you my Cheshire kitten?”

Alastor laughed. His smile and look of all round bliss somehow intensified. In response, he reached for Baxter’s hand and, still purring, started nuzzling it. 

He started nuzzling it like an actual. Fucking. Kitten. 

That was it. At this point, Vaggie was biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing and she was pretty sure it was starting to bleed. But after seeing that, she couldn’t keep it in anymore. She practically ran from Baxter’s room, moving as quickly and quietly as she could. Hoping his giggles would muffle the sound of her footsteps.

She made a beeline for the room she shared with her Disney princess of a girlfriend. Charlie just had to hear this.

Charlie was simply minding her own business, watching the news when Vaggie burst in through the door. Poor babe. When she saw Vaggie collapse on the floor, she looked really worried.

“Vaggie? What’s going on? Are you ok?”

Vaggie couldn’t answer. She couldn’t even breathe. She just lay there, crumpled on the floor and making high pitched squeaking sounds as she struggled to intake air.

“Babe.” She just about managed to say between pathetic attempts at inhaling oxygen, “Babe, you. You won’t believe;” She tried to explain but she couldn’t say anything else.

“Won’t believe what? What happened?”

Tears streamed out of Vaggie’s eye. Her fist pounded against the floor.

“What happened!?”

Vaggie still couldn’t answer. Lying on the floor gasping like a fish out of water had paid off and now, finally, she had enough air in her lungs to let out wave after wave of laughter. After at least ten minutes of laughing her ass off, she was finally able to tell Charlie what happened. 

Charlie didn’t laugh herself into hysterics like Vaggie did. She was triumphant. She saw it as one more piece of evidence that what she believed in was right.

“See, Vaggie.” she said, “Inside of every demon there’s a heart.”

“I thought you said rainbow.” Vaggie playfully pointed out.

“It’s both.” Charlie beamed, “Inside of every demon are all the colours you can imagine and every feeling you can feel. Alastor is proof of that." 

God damn Charlie for making Vaggie’s heart melt so much with her dorky, cinnamon roll adorableness. She couldn’t believe she was admitting this, since this was the radio demon they were talking about. But after seeing what she had just seen, she couldn’t disagree.

But sadly, this incredible breakthrough could not be shared with their world. Vaggie had actually whipped her phone out there and then, ready to tell everybody but Charlie insisted she didn’t. Saying they must respect their guests privacy and not share any information about them without their consent.

"So that means you can’t tell anybody.” Charlie made herself perfectly clear.

“Not even Angel Dust?” Vaggie tried her luck.

“Especially not Angel Dust.” Charlie instructed as firm as she could get. 

Vaggie smiled and gave in. Charlie wasn’t that naïve. Even she knew that if she let Vaggie tell only Angel Dust, Vaggie would respect her wishes and only tell Angel Dust. But Angel Dust would do exactly what she wanted to do and tell everybody.

“Ok.” Vaggie promised, giving Charlie a kiss on the cheek, “I won’t tell anybody. Especially not Angel Dust." 

Charlie face visibly beamed on impact as her girlfriend’s lips reached her cheek. Smiling brighter than the sun, already completely trusting in her. She was good like that. Actually, come to think of it. It was pretty crappy of Vaggie as a girlfriend to try and trick Charlie like that. She would have to make it up to her somehow. 

As she was thinking of ways to do just that, she very conveniently got a text from Nifty. Telling her she was running errands and asking if she wanted anything.

"I’ll cook tonight.” Vaggie said to Charlie the moment she read it. 

This did not go unappreciated by Charlie. With her, nothing ever did. Her appreciation was shown this time with a “Thanks, sweetie.” and a kiss on the cheek.

Vaggie returned Charlie’s kiss to show her appreciation was appreciated right back. But she waited until Charlie wasn’t looking to reply to Nifty’s message. She wanted to surprise her.

 In Vaggie’s response, she told Nifty she should have been brought back as an angel and gave her a little list.

The kitchens already had everything she needed to make Charlie’s favourite meal but she could think of a few other things to go with it. Candles, roses, literally any plushie that looked cute. Those things would do nicely. 

Breakfast the next morning was it’s usual chaos. Well almost. Word that Alastor and Baxter were dating had only just got out. So those who had only just found out and those who had not yet got the chance to talk to them swarmed them, and the demon who got the least attention and the one who was avoided the most became the most popular thing in the room.

Everyone asked all sorts of questions. Mostly regarding when and how their relationship happened. 

Baxter was pretty much rushed off his feet with so many people talking to him at once but he still managed to break away and talk to Vaggie.

“Good Morning, Miss Vaggie.” He greeted as he approached her. Formal as always. 

“Morning.” She greeted back. 

There was a moment or two of silence. Baxter wasn’t very good at starting a conversation, or really talking in any conversation. But social awkwardness aside, he didn’t beat around the bush.

“I heard from my partner that you had a bit of a spat with him yesterday.”

 “Oh.” Vaggie said, starting to feel awkward herself, “He told you about that?”

“He may have ranted to me about it.” Baxter admitted, “Non stop. For I think about, two hours?”

Vaggie couldn’t help but let how suprised she was show. She knew she had pissed Alastor off. But had she really pissed him off that much?

“I think you’re very lucky.” Baxter commented, “I’ve never seen anyone get under his skin like that. And this includes people he’s dismembered.”

Vaggie smiled as awkwardly as she felt and eye contact with Baxter started to get difficult. She didn’t like where this conversation was going. It looked like this was a set up to a confrontation but Baxter was surprisingly calm. Well, a shit ton calmer than Vaggie would be when she confronted someone anyway. 

“Yeah, sorry about that.” She gave an apology, guessing that was what he wanted. Because after all, that was exactly what she would demand if anyone pissed off Charlie. While kicking the shit out of them. Lucky for Vaggie, Baxter didn’t have such a hot temper. “You’re probably pissed about what I said to him.”

“Not really.” Baxter shrugged, “In all honesty Miss Vaggie, I understand why you reacted the way you did. To the news that Alastor and I are now together.”

He averted eye contact with Vaggie for a moment. Cheeks glowing just at the mention of the word "together”. But he still kept his focus. 

“Look, I can see why you would distrust Alastor. The rumours about him hold no exaggeration. He really can be very malicious and he has hurt a lot of people. I didn’t trust him myself at first for the same reasons as you. But the thing with Alastor is, he’s a lot different in private than he is in front of most people.”

“Oh, I bet he is.” Vaggie secretly thought to herself  ”I bet he is.“

"As threatening as he can be.” he continued, “As lacking as he can seem in empathy or just in general, basic human emotion. I know he’s capable of feeling affection. He shows it all the time. You should see how dotty he is over anything with scales, especially the thing he brought home last week. He dotes on it as if it were his child. What I’m trying to say is, Alastor is more than capable of being a loving person. A good person who can make someone else very happy. He makes me very happy. I’m not asking you to get along with Alastor, because I’ve learned from experience that can be very difficult. What I do ask of you though, Miss Vaggie is to have a little bit more trust in him and in myself as well." 

Vaggie felt her heart warm a few decrees. She hoped she wasn’t looking at him the way she saw him but she thought he was being so cute right now. This was actually the sweetest way she had seen someone defend a partner. She smiled at him genuinely this time.

"I guess I can try to trust him.” She promised light heartedly, “Or at least stop giving him death threats." 

"Good.” Baxter smiled, clearly pleased with how well the confrontation went, “Thank you. For understanding.”

“I was going to say the same thing to you.” Vaggie complimented, “If someone offended my girl, I would be too busy beating the crap out of them to think about their side of things. 

"I know.” Baxter chuckled, “There’s footage of you on the internet punching a cameraman in the face. And that awful Killjoy woman had a cast around her neck after your Charlie was on her program. I heard that someone cut the breaks on her car." 

"Well what did she expect, treating Charlie like that?” Vaggie said with a shameless smirk. She could have been arrested for that stunt but aside from disappointing Charlie, she regrets nothing.  

“If I am ever unfortunate enough to end up in the same room as her, she’d better hope that Alastor’s not there. He’s a bit ridiculous with how overprotective he is of me. The last person who offended me, I haven’t seen since. Actually, what am I saying? This would be great.”

Vaggie laughed out loud at that. Baxter could be classic sometimes. For someone so awkward, he was surprisingly witty and could get a laugh out of someone if he intended to or not. She was glad that they were laughing now. She was glad that he wasn’t angry and glad that her incident yesterday with his new boyfriend was what it was. A resolved disagreement between good friends. 

Unfortunately, this nice moment between them would not last. Because Vaggie had not yet registered everything he said. Especially the words regarding scales and something Alastor had brought back. 

“Wait. You said Alastor brought something back to the hotel, right? What did he bring back?” she said suddenly once every word had been taken in. She absolutely dreaded the answer. “It better not be a big snake. I hate snakes.”

It was in that moment Baxter looked like a man who knew he fucked up. He showed on his face that he had said something he shouldn’t have. But it was too late to go back now.

“It’s not a snake,” he hesitated, “but I doubt you’ll react to it much better.”

At this point, Baxter was visibly getting more nervous by the second and looking for a way to get out of the conversation fast. His eyes darted to the clock behind them and took what he could get.

“My! Look at the time. I really must be going to work now. It really is a madhouse here and the guests all seem to be injury prone. Always lots to do. Medicine to make, people to treat. Never a slow day for me. Well. Goodbye for now, Miss Vaggie. See you later." 

At "My. Look at the time.”, Baxter was already walking away from Vaggie and by the time he got the rest of that babbled mess out, he was already halfway out the door. But Vaggie couldn’t let Baxter leave her in the dark about something that was in the same place where she slept and could be just as bad, if not worse, than one of her worst fears. 

“No, Bax. What did he bring back?” She caught up with him and demanded in a desperation she normally never used. 

"Miss Vaggie. Everyone is going to know eventually.“ Baxter deflected, "We can’t hide that thing forever. Please. Let me enjoy the calm before the storm." 

Vaggie wouldn’t leave Baxter alone or let him drop the subject for the rest of the day. But Baxter refused to tell her what Alastor’s new pet was. 

From then on Vaggie did try to trust Alastor a bit more, if for no one else then for Baxter, and her view on Alastor began to get better. There were more than a few snags, even from the get go. Especially when she got the spare key to Alastor’s room and saw for herself what Alastor had brought into the building. And oh, BOY! Was that a story for another trip to the therapist.

She still distrusted Alastor but not in the way she had before. In fact, after she found out what he brought back to the hotel, she found that she couldn’t trust him for a different reason. He was even worse for pulling stunts than Angel Dust. In defiance of all logic, Alastor was allowed to keep his "pet”. But to this day, she still has no idea what the fuck Alastor was thinking bringing a fucking ALLIGATOR into the hotel and could not understand why the fuck Charlie allowed him to keep it. Still, it hadn’t actually harmed anyone yet and she had never seen it get aggressive towards anyone. So she supposed she’d allow it.

That, she supposed, could pretty much sum up how her attitude changed towards Alastor’s presence. She’d allow it. She’d allow him in her home. She’d allow him to mingle with her friends. She would allow him to date someone she cared for.

They were supposed to still be on bad terms. She hadn’t apologised to him for what she said yet and even weeks after the incident, he still wouldn’t speak to her unless she spoke to him. He glared at her whenever he saw her and seemed to purposely be extra affectionate towards Baxter whenever she saw them together. Just to show her. 

He always seemed confused when she didn’t glare right back. Vaggie tried but she couldn’t help it. She just couldn’t find him intimidating anymore. Once the sight of him purring like a kitten is seen, it can not be unseen. No matter how psychopathic or terrifying he looks.

So whenever she saw Alastor now, she smiled.

[honeybea0405-blog]

Mental Oof.

Something on my mind and chest..for the past 5 months. Panic. Damn that word gives me a jump in the chest. It might seem like nothing to some people. Maybe people who have never experienced this happen to themselves, or a loved one might be confused about it. Which is totally normal. How could you know unless you have felt it, or witnessed it before? Many others do have an idea as they know of, or have even seen this occurrence before. Though, the third crowd is where many people including myself, fit in.  

A reference comes to mind. There was this episode of Survivor where a player had a panic attack while sitting on the side lines of a challenge. She began to seem flustered and dizzy. She said she felt faint and her face was tingling. She stood up as if her legs did it before her mind could process it. An instinct for distraction. Frantic and saying “I’m fine, I’m fine.” Then sitting in the shade, she further explained how her body felt numb and she couldn’t breathe. When she turned to the on set doctor and asked “you’re not gonna let me die, are you?” I immediately couldn’t control my tears. I felt it deep inside of my bones. I was crying before I could process. I didn’t even feel the tears coming, they just did and I couldn’t stop. My heart broke when I heard her say those words to Dr. Joe. I felt her fear and pain in my soul. 

My point here is how my reaction would make zero sense to an outsider. I can acknowledge that this scene in Survivor looked completely minuscule and well, what’s the big deal? But I am not an outsider. I have felt every ounce of the world crashing down before my body while others walk around about their business like any other normal day. Seeing is not feeling and I never understood that fully until my first panic attack. I could give you every single detail of that day down to the clothes I was wearing if you asked me. 

Fast forward a decade later, where I have good days turn into good weeks and one bad night turn into several horrifying months. For the past 5 months, I have been struggling with my panic disorder more than I have in my entire life. Honestly, I hate to admit that more than you could imagine. I have always had panic attacks and extreme anxiety. Although, one night in late November, when I found myself drowning in the air that I could not breathe, a whole new mountain surfaced. A familiar mountain I haven’t seen in quite sometime, and this time it was much bigger. I have been screaming at the mountain crying confusion and banging my head against it’s rocks. What are you teaching me and why are you making me dig this up? 

This mountain continued to follow me everywhere I went, which soon became very limited. Even in my own home, much too close for comfort. The following week especially, I couldn’t even hold things in my own hands knowing every five minutes I would not be able to control another fall. Spills, broken pieces, crushed objects, jumping at shadows. Ok one moment, then standing up telling myself I am fine while my mind straggles behind delayed in process the next. Sitting on the floor practicing breathing with blowing bubbles-yes bubbles..So I don’t lose it again. “Oh my god, pull my hair, grasp my face- reality is too far- arms and legs fling, knocking over anything standing in my path- How did I get to the other side of the room? Flick my wristband 10 times. Someone help, but no one come near me please. 5 things I can see, 4 things I can hear, 3 things I can touch. Lay down, wake up in a fright. Where am I? I can actually see my chest pounding. My hand pulsing with it as it grips above my heart. Nightmares, terror, nails digging deep where blood crescents later appear. 

The amount of energy it takes for me to leave my house, even today, matches my mountain’s hand. As if they cannot stop raising in a poker game. And I know my breath is at stake. Now, my sanity. I want my energy to win, but it cannot last. Stop throwing away my peace and calm. I cannot win this. Home is uneasy, car rides are those tanks of water with padlocks and chains and I almost cannot find the key fast enough.. Work is a deathtrap. Parties, malls, and people are all of the above. Yes, I push myself everyday and I am doing it. I am not stopping. But I am tired and I feel isolated even when I am with friends. I cannot remember how to function, how to speak normally, hold a conversation, or just be there. My silence was not meant to put anybody off. It was the result of trying to put my panic off. On the edge. Negotiating with it inside of my head. So I can still be a good friend, sister, daughter, cousin, coworker, etc. I get so lost. I am trying so hard to balance my calm and keep living my life. I feel like it backfires. I cannot just let it win, though. Yet, fighting it still feels like I’m losing.

I want people to know it is okay to have these struggles and you are not alone. Fighting it hurts, but breathing becomes easier with time if you let it. I want people to consider maybe just maybe he, or she needs support when their silence and uneasy vibes tend to overwhelm their entire company. We are not bad people, we do not hate being around people we love. We are not unpleasant company. We are scared. We are confused. We have lost touch with reality at times. Many, many times. 

I want everyone who struggles with this to know you deserve love, support, and a fun loving life. I see you and I hear you. I hope many more people do as well.

If your child, sibling, friend, girlfriend, boyfriend, or loved one of any sort- Heck if you see a stranger struggling.. A warm smile goes a long way. It is not someone else’s job to save someone else, but I am a firm believer in helping the helpless. Because at one time, or another we are all helpless. The cycle goes on. Everyone deserves help and no one should feel guilty about it. 

So if you need help, I hope you find the strength to seek it. 

And if you’ve got a kind and genuine heart, offer a hand next time you find someone who is lost. If I could explain it as best as possible, I would say it is a person holding their map upside down. Yeah, they will eventually figure it out. But right now their whole world is upside dow. So, if you see it, why not offer a helping hand? If you can. A simple gesture could make all the difference in a person’s life. It is not always the map that anchors our life, it is the support. 

At times, I wish someone had told me that I was just confused and that is okay. Here, take my hand, the ground is right here. You can do this. I am here.

  -You will be okay. You are just confused. Or scared. Or lost. Whatever it is, it is okay to feel these things. Take my hand, the ground is right here. You can do this. I am here.-