#i accidentally saved this to my drafts instead of posting immediately with all my other sleep deprived text posts

[frodo-with-glasses]

More Reading Thoughts: The Passage of the Marshes

Gollum has a very distinct gait in my mind. Sort of like a bent-over run (Naruto Run LOL) that occasionally transitions into an all-fours gallop and then back up again on two speedy little legs. If I were any better at animating, I’d be able to show you all.

Lots of descriptions of Gollum’s eyes: the eerie gleam in them when he mentions fish, and the way they bug out and give a greenish light when Frodo asks if he’s hungry. I wish I could think of a way to draw these things.

Sam whispers to Frodo. Frodo answers out loud. Both of them know what Gollum can hear them and deal with it in exactly opposite ways. Tag yourself, I’m Frodo.

Gollum: Promises not to throttle you in your sleep but totally would. Sam: Promises he will throttle you in your sleep but actually wouldn’t.

“He restrained the thoughts of his sword and the rope that sprang to his mind, and went and sat down by his master.” Next paragraph: “When he woke up…” Me: *SPITS DRINK*

It really do be like that sometimes LOL

“Don’t think of any of your Gaffer’s hard names.” So question: when Sam told the whole story to Frodo, did he mutter under his breath “my old Gaffer would have a thing or two to say about…”, or did Frodo just know that Sam was internally calling himself ninnyhammer? Because both are fantastic.

“But Samwise Gamgee, my dear hobbit—indeed, Sam my dearest hobbit, friend of friends—” *lies on my face* *lies on my face* *LIES ON MY FACE* *LIES ON MY—*

“He took his master’s hand and bent over it. He did not kiss it, though his tears fell on it.” *lies on my face and SCREEEEEAAAMS*

(I got so worked up over this that I accidentally published this post instead of saving it in drafts and I had to delete it and write the whole thing over again LOL)

MY BOYS

MY LADSSSSS

LEAVE ME ALONE I’M EMOTIONAL

THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH I FREAKING D I E

Also this just solidifies for me that Frodo’s love language is “words of affirmation” and Sam’s are “acts of service” and “physical touch”. And like. Wow. Could you choose a more potent combination to absolutely kill me on the spot.

I’m gonna have to scream about this more in another post otherwise this one will get too long

Gotta say, based on the description in the book, I think the movies captured the Dead Marshes really well. Maybe a bit too well.

*Gollum voice* No, no nice crunchable birdses.

Frodo. Frodo why is there slime and water on your hands. Frodo we’re in the Dead Marshes. Frodo what did you do.

“Three precious little Gollums in a row we shall be, if this goes on much longer.” Sam’s sass is the only thing keeping me going right now.

Not me looking up Tolkien Gateway and comparing dates to see whether it was an Eagle that scattered the clouds above the Dead Marshes. (Spoiler: No, no it probably wasn’t.)

But that does raise the question: Can the Ringwraiths control the weather? Already we had one appear along with a storm while Frodo and Sam were on the Emyn Muil, and now we have one that comes with a change of the wind. Coincidence?? Who knows??

Boy, this is a bleak chapter. I’m running out of funny or clever things to say. I think I’m beginning to feel as sapped as Frodo does….

“Lord Sméagol? Gollum the Great? The Gollum! Eat fish every day, three times a day, fresh from the sea. Most Precious Gollum!” It’s simultaneously adorable and horrifying that eating fish all day is Gollum’s highest dream and aspiration, and yet he’s still the most pressing and immediate danger to the hobbits and the fate of Middle Earth. I’m taking mental notes that the most dangerous antagonist doesn’t have to be the one with the biggest ambitions.

Man, I almost wish they’d included the “diseased, poisoned” field between the Marshes and Mordor in the films. I’d want to see how they’d capture it. I’m seeing something like the Spike Field of the Long-Time Nuclear Waste Warning Messages, pocketed with steaming pits of gasoline.

“Gollum welcomed him with dog-like delight. He chuckled and chattered, cracking his long fingers, and pawing at Frodo’s knees. Frodo smiled at him.” This after he was arguing with himself whether or not to kiLL FRODO. NOPE, NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE

[vixenpen]

Oooooooh I got a steamy request queen! How about we have Shoto (Hawks, Baku, or Kiri; whoever YOU think should do it) as a well-known maaseur that immediately took interest in us black!readers when we come in his shop and we get a body massage from him. However, his hands are GODLY and he hits all the tender spots and we have to keep ourselves from moaning cuz it feels so good and we don’t want him to be weirded out but he lowkey is getting just as turned on and even touches up our nether bits (like our ass) which escalates to us fucking in the room???? 🤤🤤🤤🤤

Love ya lots queen and keep up writing, your work is amazing!!! 🤎🤎

Working out the kinks (Bakugo x Black! Reader)

(I haven’t finished this yet. So please ignore it 😂 I meant to save it to my drafts and accidentally posted it so I’m working on it bit by bit)

“Just get undressed to the point you’re comfortable with and I’ll be back in a few.”

“Sure. You nodded.”

And with that Katsuki left you in the dim, candlelit room to undress.

Once Katsuki had stepped out of the room, he allowed his mind to run wild. Damn you were fine. All melanated curves, smooth skin, and bright eyes.

While you did your thing in the back, the man headed for the bathroom to stroke himself off to the thought of those beautiful brown curves under his touch.

Fuck, fuck, fuck! Why did she have to come in today? No fuckin’ way I’m gonna be able to concentrate.

He thought as he spilled his seed into a tissue and threw it away. Hopefully busting that nut would be enough to keep him from popping another hard on in the room.

Minutes later it Seemed like you had gotten completely naked from the way the white sheet was hugging your beautiful brown body.

Shit, she’s sexy as fuck. I gotta calm down and stay professional.

He thought as he rolled the sheet lower on your hips. He was grateful you were facedown with your eyes closed so you couldn’t see him eye humping that fat ass of yours.

“Let me know if the pressure is too deep, yeah?” He mentioned, warming the scented oil between his large palms.

Little did he know his gruff, deep voice and those words had your pussy clenching.

“Ok.” You hummed too relaxed to speak above a whisper.

Then you felt those big, capable hands pressing out all the tension and strain you’d been feeling for the past few weeks, and had to actively fight back a moan.

Instead a deep sigh rolled out of you as the masseuse kneaded sore and locked muscles.

“You’re really tight here, Ms. Y/n. Carry a lot of tension in this area?”

“Yeah~” you moaned.

The sweet sound of it made Katsuki’s dick jump.

“Would you be ok if I went a little deeper with it?” He asked in what was almost a purr. “If not that’s ok.”

“No you can go deeper,” you replied, “I like deep pressure.”

I bet you fuckin’ Do.

The man thought as he slid his hands and his gaze lower, imagining that he was massaging your round ass. He put his all into his hand work. Finally, you couldn’t hold back anymore, a long groan escaped your lips.

The man’s hands paused. He felt his dick stand to attention. At the same time, you tensed completely on the table.

“I-I am so sorry.” You stammered.

A rough laugh met your ears and made you shift. It was such a warm, manly sound.

“Don’t be,” your masseuse replied, “those are the kinds of sounds I like to hear.”

Your breath caught as his big, warm palms moved down to your hips and butt.

“I try to draw those sounds out as much as possible.” He purred. “Moaning and putting you to sleep is the goal.”

Fuck...

You thought. Katsuki laughed.

“I wish.”

“Wh-wait, what? Did I say that out loud.”

The man laughed again. “Sure did.”

“I-I really didn’t mean to. It just...feels so good.”

“Bet it does.” He replied.

“Did you say, I wish?” You replied.

“Hey, you started it.” You heard the smirk in his voice.

“You tilted to look at the massage therapist.” In his plain scrubs you could see his broad chest flexing beneath the thin material. Your eyes ran down his bulging biceps and to the big hands on your hips.

You bit your lip before glancing up at Katsuki.

He licked his own lips back at you.

“You know you’ve got another thirty minutes.”

Your pussy warmed again with want.

“What are you suggesting?” You asked.

He slid the sheet down your hips and grabbed the mounds of your ass in his hands, giving it a massage.

“Let me work on some other kinks, yeah?”

[angstyaches]

The Strong One

I accidentally posted a reply to this ask too soon (instead of saving it as a draft as I’d planned) but here is what Mushroom Anon said:

ngl your self indulgent fics are some of your best ones. okay so my request was : a generally stoic and strong character getting sick from emotions? like from a panic attack or anxiety? their s/o is worried because ???? what happened?? turns out they’ve been having a Really Stressful Week TM and proceed to get pampered and loved. For felix and elliot. omg also how about : a little outsider shot of the two of them here pov ryan and nancy. thanks! 🍄

Post Thicker Than Blood Arc (i.e. after Felix comes back from visiting his mother’s nursing home etc.) And dude, I LOVED the Ryan/Nancy POV idea, holy shit. Thank you so much for that addition!!

CW: secrecy, bickering, panic attack, emeto, mention of (past) deaths.

___

“Good morning, darling,” Felix chirped as he entered the kitchen. Elliott was sitting at the marble countertop, one hand propping up his chin while the other tapped away at his laptop keyboard. Felix wasn’t sure what Elliott was working on these days – and he tended to get huffy and defensive when asked – so Felix made a grand gesture of cupping a hand around his eye while walking past. Look, darling, I’m not looking!

“Morning?” Elliott glanced down at his watch, tilting the laptop screen so that it was almost halfway shut, despite Felix making it obvious that he wasn’t looking. “It’s basically the afternoon.”

“Hmm?” Felix took hold of Elliott’s wrist, tilting his head to read the time. “No, it’s still the morning for seven more minutes and twelve more seconds.”

Elliott grunted. “Oh. Well. You got me.”

Felix chewed his lip, his feathers a bit ruffled by Elliott’s tone. He glanced through the kitchen towards the sitting room. “Where is everyone?”

“I think Nan dragged Ryan to the farmer’s market.”

“No!” Felix gasped. “I wanted to go, too.”

“Should’ve woken up earlier then, huh? Maybe joined me on a morning run?”

A grin spread across Felix’s face, his natural response to Elliott’s attempts to mould him into a morning person. It hadn’t happened in the last seven years, so it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

He leaned his head against Elliott’s shoulder, even though his hair was still dripping wet from his shower. “I love it when you nag me. You in the mood for a drop of coffee?”

“No, Fee, I’m fine.” Elliott tugged the laptop screen even lower, as though he thought Felix was trying to peek.

Felix looked up, a bit startled by the solemn tone of Elliott’s voice, and confused by just how protective he was being on his screen. His partner looked down at him, still the taller of the two while sitting on the island stools. His eyes portrayed an uneasy darkness that made Felix frown.

“Is…” Felix’s heart skipped a beat. “Is everything alright, darling?”

Elliott blinked. “Yes. Why?”

“I – you just seem…”

One of Elliott’s eyebrows arched.

“… Tense,” Felix grimaced.

“Tense?” Elliott repeated dully. “Well, excuse me. Not all of us had fifteen hours of sleep.”

“Huh. Okay.” Felix pursed his lips and padded unhappily across the white tiles, towards the coffee maker. He felt silly. He could usually handle Elliott’s teasing and such, but something about the way he was acting felt strange. It was like something had shifted between them.

Felix felt his heart sink as he scooped coffee grounds into the machine, his motions slowing.

It had been three weeks since Felix had returned to the Aldridge’s townhouse, after spending a few weeks up north and visiting his mother in her nursing home. Beyond his first few days back, Elliott hadn’t questioned him too much about what had happened up there, so Felix had assumed – hoped – that he’d decided to put it all behind them. But there was a chance he had changed his mind since then, right?  

Felix blinked, realising he’d spilled grounds on the glistening white countertop. He barely cared. He turned around. “Elli?”

“What?” Elliott had lifted the laptop screen again, still sitting stiffly as he navigated some screen that Felix wasn’t allowed to see.

“Are – are you still angry with me?” There was a tiny hitch in Felix’s voice, which he couldn’t help. He didn’t want to take Elliott’s mood and make it all about himself, but the thought of Elliott quietly holding onto resentment made Felix’s stomach hurt.

Elliott let out a rasping sigh and slapped the lid of his computer shut. Felix jumped on the spot, watching with wide eyes as Elliott dropped his head into his hands where he sat. Felix was overcome with worry, sure, but for a tenth of a second, all he wanted to do was check that Elliott hadn’t broken his laptop and lost whatever secret project he was working on.

“Darling?” Felix laid down the coffee scoop and wrung his hands. “If – if this is about anything that we talked about, I would want you to tell me.”

“No.” The word was murmured so softly that Felix barely heard it. Elliott let out a shaky, audible breath, his face still hidden in his hands. “No, boo, you – you and I are fine.”

“You – I’m sorry, you keep using that word. Fine…”

“You and I,” Elliott huffed, “are perfect, Fee.”

That should have been reassuring, but Felix still had that sinking sensation in his chest. Elliott’s shoulders rocked forward slightly, like he was trying to curl into a ball where he was seated.

At least this time, Felix didn’t have to hesitate in coming to Elliott’s side. “Elli,” he sighed, sliding his arms around Elliott’s waist, resting his forehead on his back. “Talk to me.”

“I…” Elliott started off shakily, gulping so hard that Felix heard it from where he was positioned behind him. “I-I don’t…”

As he waited for Elliott to find the words, Felix gently moved a hand up and down over his ribs, hoping the contact was soothing and not stifling. Elliott’s chest was rising and falling way too quickly for Felix’s liking. He decided he should probably back off and give his partner space to breathe, but as soon as he started to move, Elliott grabbed one of his hands and tugged it towards his chest again.

“You have something, now, or someone who… who can tie you to your old life.” The words vibrated within his chest and his back as he choked them out.

Felix frowned and lifted his head, looking up at the back of Elliott’s. The taller boy’s dark hair was scooped into a messy bun. The ends were knotted and ratty. It hadn’t been cut in so long. “Darling, I don’t want to be tied to that life. I want to be tied to this life, with you.”

“I know, I know, but it got me thinking about the people I used to know, and how…” Elliott shuddered in Felix’s grip. “How they would all... I knew it was a long shot, but I tried finding some names online, but we – Jesus, most of us didn’t even have full names, we were just trying to survive –”

“Darling,” Felix whispered, at a complete loss for anything more substantial to say.

“I mean –” A dark tremble of laughter broke through Elliott’s voice. He swivelled the stool, stepping down and taking a few steps across the tiles. “It’s pointless to even look for them, right? What are the odds any of my old friends also happened to end up becoming immortal vampires, huh?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Rhetorical question, boo.”

“Sorry.” Felix followed a few steps behind Elliott as he went to the kitchen window. It didn’t even seem like he was looking at anything in particular, but simply exposing his retinas to the light from outside.

“Elli?” Felix said quietly.

Elliott glanced at him, just for a moment. His eyes were dark and wet, his lips trembling as he gradually lost the battle against full-on hyperventilation. He shook his head violently, gaze wandering aimlessly again. “I don’t – I don’t feel right. What’s wr… What’s wrong with me, Fee?”

“Darling, try to slow your breathing.”

Elliott slammed his palms down either side of the kitchen sink, his shoulders buckling forward under the pressure of the gasps and heaves racking his body. “Felix, what’s wrong with me?”

“You’re panicking,” Felix said, shocking himself with how calm he sounded. He closed the last few paces between them, unable to resist being next to Elliott while he was in this state. “I’m right here, alright? I’m going to touch your back, Elli, but – but please, tell me if it’s not okay…”

“Don’t,” Elliott gasped, shaking his head violently. His mouth bobbed open as he lowered his shoulders even further, eyes widening. “G-going to –”

A moment before Elliott started dry heaving, Felix realised what was happening, and obediently took his hand back. As a rule, Elliott detested being touched when he was sick, and Felix had learned to stop fighting that a long, long time ago.

Felix flinched at how violently sick Elliott suddenly was. His head was practically in the sink at one point, his body buckling under the intense convulsions. It was impossible to distinguish between the laboured breathing and the dry heaving, but every sound and every lurch made Felix’s heart twist a little tighter in his chest.

“Darling, I’m sorry,” Felix choked out. “I’m sorry I didn’t realise you had all of this going on inside you.”

Elliott whimpered at that, attempting to lift his head a little higher. “Fee, I just –” He was immediately interrupted by a wet belch, and a clear stream of saliva that he needed to spit away from his lips into the sink. “You just got back, I w-want – wanted things to be normal… for you.”

“Elli,” Felix whined. He couldn’t believe what was happening here. Elliott was trying not to cry as he spoke, and Felix almost lost it too, though he did his best to keep a hold of things. He couldn’t be sure, of course, but he had a feeling he knew exactly what Elliott meant by ‘normal’. He meant the normalcy where Felix could be a mess and Elliott was forced to be the strong one.

He watched as Elliott brought his elbows down gently in front of the sink, letting his head drop against them as the nausea finally seemed to past. He trembled and sighed deeply, seemingly in resignation.

Felix cleared his throat softly. “May I touch you?”

A very quiet chuckle emerged from Elliott’s buried face. “You may.”

Felix rested a hand gently on Elliott’s back, introducing the slightest amount of motion so that his fingertips grazed over a small portion of his spine. He lowered his forehead to Elliott’s shoulder again, this time with very little weight behind it. He needed Elliott to know he wasn’t leaning on him, but that he was there for him.

And he was capable of being the strong one sometimes.

___

“You know, there was a time where you would have helped me bring the bags in from the car,” Nancy sulked. Her arms were outstretched and wrapped around half a dozen bags from different vendors which were pressed against her chest.

“It is not my fault that you insist on buying so much,” Ryan said calmly, following her wife to the doorstep with her hands in her pockets. “For example, you did not need to purchase onions from three different stalls.”

“I told you; they’re different varieties!”

Ryan sighed as she opened the front door and stood back to let her wife into the front hallway of the townhouse. “An onion is an onion, love.”

“Felix,” Nancy grumbled, turning as she walked and narrowing her eyes at Ryan. “Felix will back me up. Felix! Felix, sweetheart!” she called towards the stairs.

The response from within the house was a muted sshhh, which sounded much closer than the upstairs bedrooms. Nancy frowned, meeting Ryan’s gaze for a moment as she closed the front door. Ryan made a beeline towards the kitchen and Nancy followed, dragging her feet slightly on the tiles as she struggled with her bags. She paused by the kitchen island to deposit all of them, watching as Ryan rounded the far corner and stared at what was happening on the sofa.

“Oh, sweethearts, what’s happened?” Nancy gasped, rushing over to stand next to Ryan.

Felix was sitting – almost upright – at one end of the sofa, white Elliott curled up next to him, his head resting in the smaller boy’s lap.

“Is… Is he asleep?” Nancy whispered.

Felix nodded silently. His poor eyes were red and a little puffy as he glanced back and forth between his two foster mothers.

“Anything we can do?” Ryan asked in a low voice, slipping her hands into the pockets of her slacks again. Nancy couldn’t help but pout; oh, sure, you’ll ask them if there’s anything they need you to do, but you won’t help me carry a couple of bags into the house.

A weak smile tugged at Felix’s exhausted expression, and he shook his head. His fingers drifted over Elliott’s head, brushing back a thin strand of his dark hair. Nancy once again couldn’t help herself, this time pursing her lips and wondering how long it had been since Elliott had cut his hair.

“Everything’s okay,” Felix murmured softly. “I’ve got him.”

[tokoyamisstuff]

Betrothed Ch. 6 - Illumi Zoldyck x Reader

Chapter 6: Bold

Summary: Two pretty unusual family meetings, but one of them lacks a happy end.

Warnings: Angst, Family Drama.

Words: ~4300

Story Masterlist

A/N: Tumblr accidentally posted the unfinished draft a few days ago. Sorry for the confusion! As a treat, you get a very long chapter! (:

Before you were married, Illumi was rarely at home.

He had no one to come home to anyway, let alone someone who cared.

Anyway, this was only one of many things you had changed.

These times, whenever he left, it was only for a good reason like missions, training or caring for his siblings. Sometimes family conferences you were allowed to attend as well, yet not to talk.

Whenever he got home, it felt so cozy and peaceful.

Like he was welcomned and safe here - unlike anything he knew before.

Your home would always smell like scented candles, the many flowers you had planted at the balconry, and whatever you were cooking at the time.

It was very lovely and kinda cheesily decorated by now. Most of the things were stuff you asked Illumi to bring home from his missions, but lately he got you anything he thought you'd like.

Of course you were grateful for everything. It meant he took the time and actually think about what you'd appreciate!

Occasionally, you’d bring home injured animals you found in the forrest surrounding Kurokoo mountain. Sometimes your husband reluctantly assisted you, even though he found kindness futile - he just couldn’t say no to your begging eyes, so be it.

From you, he got love and care in return for his efforts. But a wild animal? Well, if he thought about it, he consdiered himself lacking a real consciousness just as much as the pets you kept.

One day, he’ll understand why people help each other without wanting something back - you promised him. Even though he always emphasized that saving such small lives won’t redeem him anyway.

Yes, the weight of his sins was sure massive - especially now that it all broke down on him, suffering under his newfound sympathy.

You swiped through your phone, adoring all the photos you persuaded him to take together.

It filled your heart with joy to notice every small change he underwent:

He'd run himself a bath from time to time, buy sweets or other things to try out, and spent his free time reading or wandering the estate's forrest instead of thoughtlessly staring into the void.

And for the more nasty things, well...let’s just say Illumi is a quick learner. And you were glad that he began taking the initiative and try out things he may enjoy.

Your husband was more and more developing a personality.

"She's so pretty!"

"Yeah, right?" you proudly commanded the owl to come back, and she immediately landed on your lap. "Her name is Luna."

“She was a gift from big bro Illumi, right?” Your familiar had grown strong very fast, yet it's claws never hurt you. Sometimes you almost forgot that Luna was a dangerous animal rather than a cuddly pet. “Yes, she is!”

"Maybe we can play in the forrest some day. I just need some time to convince your parents."

Alluka was sitting on a chair next to you, cheerfully petting the patient bird. "Thanks, big sis!"

Illumi's little sister was probably the only normal person in this building. No nen, no assassin training either, and a loving nature.

If only there wasn't-

"Y/N!" Oh no. Your husband was back earlier than you expected. "Did you bail her out again?!"

"Big bro!" the little girl cheered, jumping down the stair and wobbling to his direction.

There was not the slightest hint of hate inside of her. Even though she was alone all the time, she was blissfully unaware about her own family resenting her.

"Illumi!" That was the first time you actually raised your voice against him. "Take.down.the. needle. Right now!"

You kept Alluka from getting closer to Illumi, defendingly wrapping your arms around her.

God knows what he'd do...

"Then get that thing out of my face."

Actually, you didn't want to fight in front of a child, but Alluka needed constant superveilance . "How can you be so cruel? She's your sister!"

"Did you make a wish?"

"Of course not! I used my nen to get her out unnoticed, so she could spent some time like a normal child. I would've brought her back tonight. That's all, really! I promise!"

Suddenly, you felt a foreign, powerful aura under your palms.

Damn it.

You forgot her last wish was a hug, which was exactly what you gave her right now.

"Aye."

"That's enough." Illumi already had his needles prepared, infusing them with nen. "I'll end this right here."

You knew he didn't mean it like this. He was afraid of Nanika's powers, and even if this wouldn't end in a disaster, his parents would punish you for your reckless actions.

"Nanika?"

The girl answered, her blackened orbs obediantly glaring at you. "Aye?"

"Y/N" Illumi almost growled, still hesistant. "Know your place."

"Give Illumi a hug."

Baffled, Illumi's needles disappeared into thin air. The girl didn't even reach up to the tall man's thorso, rather embracing one of his legs.

She was so small and weak and fragile - and for the first time, Illumi was able to acknowledge the affection his sister felt for him.

"See?" you calmly explained, now hugging him as well. "Nanika is not evil. Only the people's wish are."

"...she's all alone" he spoke to himself, trying to at least logically understand the situation. "Just like you when I'm gone."

He didn't get it.

Hard enough to understand why you were caring so much about him, but Alluka? The sibling he always despised, insulted, abused, and locked away?

There were still so many things he didn't know yet.

"Well, if it's only the two of you, and I'm supervising..." he mumbled, kneeling down to the girl's height, "Then I guess I can promise you a few liberties."

Alluka's face and aura were back to normal, her glimmering eyes blinking happily at her brother, who was absentmindedly petting her hair.

"Great!" You clasped your hands together, disappearing in the kitchen. "Let's make a hot chocolate for you guys!"

Quickly, you reappeared to the two sitting on the sofa with an awkard distance, until you wrapped them in a blanket.

Illumi sat in middle of you two, deeply buried in thought while you and Alluka were watching TV until she fell asleep.

"I'll bring her back now" you whispered softly, but Illumi already cradled the snoring girl into his arms. "No. I will."

For a second, you were taken aback, unsure about his intentions - but you wanted to believe in him, so you stayed quiet about your apprehensions.

"She's cute, right?" you noticed as Illumi got a strand of hair out of her face. He held her with such great care and insecurity, it was a truly cute sight.

"Dunno. I know the definition of cute, but I don't think I really understand it."

"You are cute, for example." Placing a wet kiss on his cheek, you waved him goodbye as he walled out the door - but in the frame, he stopped.

"You're changing so many things at once."

"For better or worse?"

Illumi wouldn't turn around to look at you, instead watching Alluka's soundly sleeping face.

"I don't know. We'll see."

When Illumi took longer than expected, panic began to rise inside of you.

Did his parents find out? Due to your powers this should basically be impossible, but still-

"Alluka wanted me to stay and play with her" Illumi's voice appeared behind your back, making you jump a little.

So that's why he took so long.

"Was it fun?"

"I'm not a good brother" he murmured, "Not to her or any of them."

He remembered the time he got Kalluto a kimono you picked out for him, as a gift. 

“You’ve changed” the boy said back then, and the confusion in his eyes made Illumi painfully aware that the child was close to become just as inhuman as he was.

And he was the one who teached his siblings to be that way.

Your husband sat on the edge of the bed, with you already laying inside. He buried his face into his hands, seemingly distressed.

Yes, it was fun. Even though he didn't know how to properly entertain a child, Alluka seemed to enjoy her brother's attention inconditionally - just like you did.

Was that love?

"You just tried to protect your family, Lumi" you cooed, massaging his tensed shoulders.

"What about yours?" he suddenly asked, turning to you with a stony expression.

"I, uh-"

"Do you miss them?" Seems like he was afraid to lose you.

You tugged on his arm until he'd finally let himself fall into the bed, and you put an arm and leg around him, effectively trapping him into your hold.

"Of course I do. But this is my home now."

"And they're nice people?" he wondered, since your parents were assassins too.

He laid his head onto your chest, trying for your heartbeat to lull him to sleep.

"They are...special. Strict but loving. I think all parents fuck up their children somehow. But I still love them."

Both of you had already closed your eyes, his cold skin feeling refreshing on your warm one.

"Then let's meet them" Illumi suggested as his hand ran across your bodyline, before he stopped himself with a tender kiss on your skin.

"I want to know what other families are like."

Only a week later, you were allowed to leave the Zoldyck estate for the first time. Wether it was because of Illumi’s curiosity or maybe that he knew you missed your family, it didn’t matter.

Two different worlds.

Your family was living in the midst of the small town, loved by the inhabitants. Being honorable head hunters who mainly killed wanted criminals and acting as protectors of the city, you had kind of a reputation.

So it was no wonder everyone you saw greeted you with great respect, yet also as if you were never gone.

That was what a real home must feel like, Illumi thought as he watched you casually talk to anyone who recognized you while both of you wandered the main street.

“They sure think highly of you” he deducted out loud, seeing how anyone was smiling and cheering at you.

“Well...” Flustered, you rubbed the back of your head as you kept on walking, “I’ve grown up in between those people. Of course they know me! That’s all.”

“Mhh” he murmured, still eyeing everyone quite suspecting. This was your first day outisde the manor, and your husband would be damned if something would happen to you.

“There it is!” Already running ahead, you pointed at the tallest building of the town - your birthplace.

“Y/N Y/L/N” a familiar voice behind you spoke, trying way too hard to keep a straight face.

Turning around, you saw all of your siblings gathered at one spot. Of course you knew they had followed you this whole time, due to your nen - but it was still a pleasant surprise. “You guys!”

Giving each one of them a wholeheartedly hug, you immediately began to chatter about all kinds of things. You haven’t seen each other for a while, and you wanted to know everything.

“Better tell me next time” Illumi abruptly cut you off, and only now you realized the needles in between his fingers. “I almost killed them.”

Oh. So he noticed them too.

Well, your family had it worse, so they just laughed it off.

“So this is your husband, huh?” They didn’t dare speak his name - the family was too infamous, and not in a positive way. it wouldn’t really gain you the good kind of attention. “I thought you’d be more...intimidating.”

All of your siblings got way too close to Illumi, aving hands in front of his face and eyeing his appearance, at least trying to make the stoic man react in any way.

“Nice to meet you!” One of your brothers offered his hand for your husband to shake, yet Illumi decided on staring him down instead.

“Pleasure is all mine” he retorted in his robotic way, sounding way too fake for anyone to buy it.

At least they were not afraid of him. Your husband was very talented in hiding his bloodlust, after all - even though it was constantly there, not even a skilled nen user would notice.

“Mother and father are awaiting you at the usual spot.” Your brother’s voice was more serious now that he had assessed the situation.

It was clear from the very first moment that they didn’t only come to greet you - their main goal was the eldest Zoldyck.

“Seems like he’s now our leader” you pondered as all of them dispersed into different directions. 

Things had changed. Of course they did.

Back then, you declined your fate of becoming the clan-leader, even though it had been the centre of all your ambitions up until now.

Meeting Illumi made you question anything you expected from life.

You didn’t even know why: What would it matter if you left an assassin family just to join another one?

Even your youngest sister was different. You could feel her steady aura, meaning she had completed her training.

The situation made you both nostalgic and anxious.

“Do you regret it?” Illumi’s blank stare turned to your form, black orbs interrogating you. He knew you were meant to be a leader, yet you gave up on that dream and had laid down all your independency.

“Not really.” Shrugging, you quickly linked arms with your husband, leading him to the secret entrance of the headquarters. It was sealed with nen, just like back then.

At leas that didn’t change, and so you’d soon find yourself in the middle of the hall where you’d plan all of the operations back then.

“You’re home.” That solemn tone was fitting for your father: Hard to detect his emotions, but easy to understand. “Welcome home.”

Illumi took a few steps back, almost withdrawing into a dark corner of the room as if he wanted to disappear from this earth. He was more likely to be a mere bystander or observer than to be in social situations.

“My little angel of death!” your mother almost cried out, both incredibly happy and sorrowful. “You’ve returned to us!”

“And that handsome young man over there?” After she was done smothering your face in kisses, she directed her welcoming nature to Illumi was well. “C’mon, don’t be shy. Take a seat!”

That’s right. She’s never seen him before. He was here exactly once to propose in front of your father - god knows how he even got inside. Obviously it wasn’t really a big deal to him.

Your family was so insignificant compared to his heritage - not that it mattered to you, it was just an observation.

“When we heared your wish to bid our humble fort a visit, we were greatly honored” your father declared as all of you sat down at the great, round table. Now everyone was there: Siblings, uncles and aunts, even your grandparents and great-grandparents. “And we are glad of your safe arrival.”

Illumi didn’t really seem to be impressed, being able to silence the room with a single gesture of his hand. “Don’t go out of your way. I am here because Y/N wished to see you.”

You couldn’t help but smirk at his polite manner, even though he wasn’t very talkative. Trying to get a hold of his hand under the table, you’d spend the day just like that.

Hours just flew by as your family held a great dinner to honor ‘the happy couple’, with Illumi absorbing every little detail like a dry sponge: Daily conversations about irrelevant topics, tales about the past and especially the childhood.

He even managed to show a lopsided smile when he realized something made you particulary happy.

Yet everytime someone of your family tried to get close to you, all of you noticed how tense he became.

Of course he was very possessive, and didn’t want to share you with anyone. But it was so damn sweet that he at least tried to get himself together...

“I’ll be waiting outisde. Might give the town a visit.” Even through all of your objections, your husband was gone faster than any of you could comprehend. “Take all the time you need.”

“He’s amazing” you thought to yourself, not noticing how much you were trembling due to your excitement. Being here together with him was such a huge progress, and he was doing so damn great.

“Y/N?” Your father was the first one to take the word, clearing his throat before continuing. “Now that we’re alone...”

Of course he knew they weren’t. Illumi was supervisioning everything somehow. But they waited for so long, and needed to let it out.

It was ‘speak now or stay silent forever’.

“Tell us about life with the Zoldycks.” Your sister once again let her hand run up and down your arm, and you realized this wasn’t just loving closeness - they were searching for injuries. “Are they harsh on you?”

“His family is pretty crazy, but it’s nothing wild, really. I manage” you stated, pulling away from the touch of your siblings.

All of the eyes were on you now, dropping the act. Everything left was sympathy and...guilt?

“So...what’s your point?” You didn’t know why, but their glares made you furious somehow. Maybe because you knew what they were hinting at. “Just speak your mind.”

“Y/N, dear...” Now your mother was the one taking the initiative, squeezing your hand ever so slightly. “We’re so, so sorry! You need to understand why we did this, okay?”

“Did what?” When they didn’t respond, you repeated the question with a much weaker, almost broken voice. “Did...what?!”

“Isn’t it obvious?” your brother now spoke, almost disgusted by what he was about to say. “Giving you away to this...freak.”

“Huh?”

Your mother now clung to you, as if you were about to disappear if she was to ever let go. “There was no other choice!” she exclaimed, while your father dramatically swung his balled fist on the table. “The Zoldycks are dangerous! We knew your fate was sealed when he came asking for your hand in marriage...”

“Of course we despise that sick weirdo. Who would wish for their child to be with someone like him?!” your father continued, his explanation wrenching your heart dry. “But if we hadn’t complied, they would’ve taken you by force. You know they would’ve killed all of us. It was to protect the family, so we had to give you up! My sweet, sweet child-”

“-shut up” you whispered as you felt tears burning in your eyes.

“It’s okay, Y/N” your sister was trying to wipe them away, letting her thumb run over your cheek. “We’ve grown stong now, Y/N! You don’t need to protect us anymore, we’re-”

“You still don’t stand any chance against them.” You got up from your chair, slamming your palms on the table. “But that’s not the point!”

“What did that monster do to you?” 

“Oh, he? Nothing!” you now screamed, slamming a plate to the ground to release some of the built-up tension. “In opposite to you, who abandoned their daughter to save their own skin!”

You didn’t know. How could you have missed that fact? Those people weren’t glad you married him, they just weren’t honest with you.

And they were selfish - for all they cared, they would’ve given you away to die if Illumi had been that way.

“My husband-” you choked on a sob, feeling as if the love you felt for Illumi was crushing you, keeping you from breathing freely. “He’s been here with you, wanting to understand what a normal family is like. But only now I realize this one is just as fucked up!”

“Don’t say something like tha-”

“I’m not done!” Suddenly, an outburst of your aura shook the whole room. “Illumi is a kind and confused person. He was benevolent with you, against all of his teachings. And you are talking behind his back? How cowardly of you. I thought we were a family of proud warriors!”

All of them were looking at each other, nodding in unity as they all thought the same.

“Illumi Zoldyck is probably the most dangerous of them all. Maybe not the strongest, but the most mad of them all.” You grid your teeth, almost snarling at your grandfather’s words. “Don’t fool yourself, Y/N. Love is a foreign concept for him. The word has spread across the whole continent: Even his own family, those bloodthirsty monsters fear that young man!”

“You don’t know him like I do.” Turning around, you prepared to leave - but your siblings blocked the way. “As if I’d listen to the opinions of people who gave me away just like that.”

“Listen to us, Y/N. Maybe you can free yourself. He might’ve placed a needle-”

“That’s enough.”

Your eyes widened in wonder. How did Illumi get back in without any of you noticing?

Yet here he was, and his aura had turned purple, stained with black from all the disappointment, hurt and anger he miraculously contained without breaking down.

“I think Y/N is tired and wants to leave.” His voice was as unaffected as always, yet one look of him was enough to make your siblings freeze in terror.

“You’re Y/N’s family, so I won’t kill you” your husband declared in an absentminded tone, grabbing your wrist and turning towards the exit without anyone daring an attempt to stop him. Just after he shoved you out of the door, Illumi would turn around one last time -  a threatening ember sparkling in his eyes.

“But consider this a warning: Y/N belongs to me.”

“Why?” your father asked with an almost begging undertone. “Why did it have to be Y/N?”

“Because your child is important to me.”

Illumi had carried you all the way out of the town, only getting to a hold when you were at a mountain far enough away. Not that your family would follow you anyway.

After being done crying to your heart’s extend, your husband let you down in the slightly wet grass, and you were able to see the dim lights of the city far away at the horizon.

“We’ve played here very often” you sniffled, trying to get a hold of yourself. “My siblings and I.”

“Ah.”

You appreciated moments like these. Illumi was a very good listener, even though you weren’t even sure that he actually cared about what you were saying.

It just felt good to have him near when you were sad.

“I’m so terribly sorry, Lumi...they shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s okay.” No, it wasn’t You knew he tried to hard to be the best version of himself today, to try and respect boundaries and to trust people, and yet- “I am aware I’m a repulsive person.”

“Not to me.” Gently stoking his face, you could feel him rubbing his cheek on your palm in return.

“That’s enough for me.”

For a while, you just sat there, enjoying your closeness and the absence of anyone else in silence.

“So this is what family is like” Illumi cut through the nature’s sounds, “They protect you. And they only want your best.”

“They only ever thought of themselves.” You pulled your knees onto your chest, burying your face in them.

“I refuse to believe that.” Your husband wanted to pat your back, but decided against it just at the last second. “They seemed to be in great pain because of their actions. Can’t this only be because they cared about you?”

He was right, of course. The man with the heart of stone was great at knowing other people’s feelings, apparently. What an irony.

But you were too angry at that moment to listen to his rational explanation. That was only human, too.

“You know, when I was a child, my parents-”

“Please.” You wanted him to stop right there and now. “Don’t elaborate.”

Every time Illumi would complete a story about his childhood, it usually ended up with you having a crying fit. Then he was the one having to console you instead of the other way around, and it made you only feel guilty.

Of course you were happy that he’d finally open up a little, but...no. Just not now.

“You defended me” he changed the topic, quietly adding “Even though they were right...”

“That’s only natural. You’re my husband.”

Back then, you didn’t know Illumi’s intentions when he asked you to become his. But truth was, you didn’t regret it - not even for a second.

Illumi on the other hand was as overwhelmed as always.

“I was afraid you’d stay with them.” His voice sounded impassive, yet you knew him better than that. “But now-”

Listening to you passionately defending your husband’s honor was satisfying, obviously - yet knowing you broke with your family left a foul aftertaste in his mind.

No one ever stood up for him like that.

What a day.

His mind was racing, still trying to catch up with everything that had happened today: You did all of that, no - gave up so many things, just because of him.

His entire life was going one set and predetermined way, revolving around his family. Yet meeting you had changed both of your fates in a completely different direction.

And this meant he now had to learn with the consequences of actions he did out of his own, free will.

What for? And was it good or bad?

Now that he was with you, he had liberties. Choices. But freedom felt wrong and made him feel...scared? Not even he could decipher his emotions very well.

All that was clear from now on that - to a certain extend - you were free to draft your own ways - and together, it didn’t seem all that bad for him.

_____

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[babineni]

Angst 19 - "Please don't leave."

Thank you for this 💖 sorry it took me this long to post it mainly bc I accidentally saved it as a draft and then I didn’t check it so it’s been there for two weeks whoops

but anyway have some immediately post-PoE 1 Aloth x Watcher stuff, featuring Gaura first experiencing abandonment issues

below a cut bc it got long

Gaura pulled her knees closer to her chest and wrapped her arms around them a little tighter. She wasn't sure what she hoped this would accomplish. Her body forming the same, nearly suffocating knot that took the space where her heart was meant to be, hardly could have eased her sorrows. She hid her face behind her legs and allowed the tears to come but she didn't grant herself the same freedom when it came to the sounds trying to escape her. Not a single cry left her mouth. The Watcher was scared that if she voiced her anguish, she would never stop weeping.

She knew that her friends would leave her, once their quest against the Leaden Key was done. And yet, the Watcher was still caught off guard by some of the departures.

She was ready when Sagani said goodbye, in fact, she was relieved and happy for her, and wished her a speedy return to her family. She was ready when Kana said goodbye. She knew his mission wouldn't be over until he presented his findings after all. They still shed a few tears, but not many, and none of them were bitter or sorrowful. And Durance... well, if there was someone Gaura was happy to see go, it was him.

But then Pallegina left to report to the ducs, even though she knew the repercussions she would have to endure. Gaura offered a place to stay, a place where she would be valued, cared for and safe, knowing exactly how she would respond. But she couldn't help it, she couldn't stop hoping the paladin would reconsider and stay.

Then Hiravias left as one would expect of a follower of Wael's. Still, Gaura figured that even he needed a place he could return to, a place where he could keep the secrets he uncovered, a place he could call home. She was sad to realize she was wrong.

Then Grieving Mother left. Even though the Watcher couldn't bear children herself, she hoped the midwife would stay for all the women living in and around Caed Nua. She hoped that their connection built upon seeing and knowing one another would be enough. But it wasn't.

And then Edér left and...

And...

And the next thing Gaura knew was, that she was sitting by the hearth in Brighthollow's kitchen, trying to cry as quietly as it was possible.

'There you are. I've been looking all over for you,' Aloth's voice prompted the Watcher to look up and hastily dry her eyes. The wizard stopped in his tracks when he saw the miserable state she was in. For a moment, he awkwardly looked back at the doorway he just passed through but once the moment passed he continued walking towards her. He approached her almost perfectly silently, catiously, burying his own unease under the comforting presence of a friend.

'I just needed some time alone,' Gaura broke the silence. 'I uhh... The lady of Caed Nua shouldn't be seen like a mess. People look to me for guidance and... I'm being a sentimental fool.'

'Come now, you're hardly being fair towards yourself,' Aloth sat down beside Gaura, close enough for his shoulder to touch hers. He shuffled somewhat awkwardly, but he didn't move away from her, nor did he give any other indication of being flustered. For a moment, the Watcher felt the urge to wrap her arms around him and weep on his shoulder, but the moment passed and she stayed motionless.

Gaura let out a sigh and turned her attention to the hearth on her other side. The embers still had a glow, fainter than her own but enough to inspire some reflection.

'No, I have grown... weak here. Caed Nua has made me vulnerable,' she scolded herself. 'I think back to the person I was before I left the Valleys and... I'm not the same.'

'It is only natural,' Aloth answered. 'You have been through a lot. And I imagine, the Watcher abilities alone could change one drastically. But you have carried your burdens with grace and bravery,' he smiled at her shyly, 'and I... I'm glad I was around to see it.' He hesitantly reached for the Watcher's hand, the same way she reached for his months before in the Brackenbury Sanitarium. His touch was somewhat lighter but it carried the same warmth, putting a weak smile on Gaura's face.

'Well... I hope you still see that grace and bravery now,' she chuckled ruefully, as she turned back to the wizard.

'I do.'

Gaura's smile grew a little wider. But her heart still felt heavy.

'I still wish I could feel like I used to. Being able to say goodbye used to feel like... a gift of sorts,' she explained. 'Being able to let go of an attachment free of loss... or grief... was something I felt grateful for. I never mourned for things that were beautiful but... momentary. And in the Valleys everything was beautiful but nothing truly lasted. But now...' The Watcher sighed and let her head hang. 'Like I said... I'm being a sentimental fool.'

Aloth's grip on her hand tightened slightly. Gaura felt him caress a knuckle with his thumb. But the uneasy way he shifted his weight next to her made her wonder if this act of comfort was for her or for him.

'I'm going to miss them too... and I think... I think I understand,' he said. 'Being a spy hardly offers a life full of long friendships. It always felt more appropriate to keep my distance and to cherish moments for what they were without letting it become... more,' he sighed. 'If I were to follow your line of logic, then Caed Nua made me weak too. In no small part, thanks to you. I don't think you need me to explain why this happened to the both of us.'

The Watcher didn't reply, but she felt the ache in her chest ease slightly at the wizard's words. There was a bittersweet comfort lingering in the air and for the first time, Gaura felt that the silence of Brighthollow, which was now empty save for the two of them, was not all that suffocating as she has been feeling it for the last few days.

'Thank you,' she said, as she dried the last of her tears and straightened up. 'I needed that, truth be told.'

'Anytime,' Aloth smiled. 'Although I admit, it feels a bit strange to echo your own ideas back to you.'

'Perspective is funny that way.'

'Indeed.'

Gaura let out a long sigh, trying to rid herself of the rest of her tensions. She gave Aloth's hand a slight squeeze, then she stood up and stretched her limbs. She inhaled deeply, as if the comfort of the wizard's encouragement was a presence she could physically take with her.

'Alright, I think I'm good,' she said, while she turned to Aloth with a smile. 'You were looking for me for something I presume. I'm ready to listen.'

Aloth's smile, however, faltered at her offer. A shade of red tinted his face - one of shame and guilt. He avoided her gaze as he spoke.

'It's... it's not important. It can wait until tomorrow.'

Gaura's heart sank. He didn't need to say anything else. She felt the suffocation of the silence between them grow more oppressive, the longer she was processing the implication hiding behind his hesitant words. She should've guessed the moment he entered that kitchen. She visited him in his room just a few days earlier. She saw the maps, the list of names, the blueprint of a scepter called "Keybreaker". She saw everything she needed to see, but Aloth didn't say anything then, and once they were out of her sight, they were out of her mind.

'When are you going to go?' The Watcher's voice was shakier than she would've liked.

Aloth turned back to her, his gaze full of unsaid apologies.

'I was planning on leaving in two days. But if it makes things easier-'

'It doesn't,' Gaura interrupted him.

The wizard merely nodded as a response and looked down at his hands lying in his lap. The same hands that just a few moments ago filled the Watcher with the comfort of knowing she wasn't alone. He shifted his weight and decided have those hands grab his seat instead so tightly, his knuckles turned white from the effort.

Gaura approached him, fighting the burning sensation overtaking her eyes again. She swallowed hard, closing her eyes, trying to hold on to whatever was left of her dignity. But a moment later, she gave up: she let a quiet curse slip through her lips as she knelt down and let her head drop against Aloth's knees. She shielded her face with her arms, ignoring the wizard tensing up in shock at her touch.

'Please don't leave,' she whispered.

'I... I must,' an awkward answer came from above, prompting Gaura to look up.

'Let me just beg you in peace. Alright?'

Aloth's expression softened slightly. His gaze was still apologetic but his face reflected sincerity rather than discomfort.

'Alright.'

The Watcher hid her face again. 'Please don't leave,' she repeated. 'Please don't leave. Please don't leave.' Her plea to him turned into a mantra for herself. Her eyelids grew heavy as she continued and her tears stopped falling. She might've heard a spell being cast and she might have felt a hesitant stroke against her scalp right before unconsciousness turned her numb to the world around her, but she couldn't be sure.

[forks-in-a-drawer]

Hi! I sent to long ask about the episode humanizing Jeanette. I didn’t mean to make it seem like you said Jeanette was lying about what happened between Tanya and Harris. I’m sorry it sounded that way! I was pointing out that after episodes and episodes of showing Jeanette lying, they finally showed her telling the truth about something and others not believing her so it was really significant. I also think what you said it right. It would’ve just been Jeanette’s word against hers so she could’ve came forward. I was also trying to get at the idea that Vince and Jeanette seemed to connect in a way that Jeanette and Mallory didn’t, so it would’ve been easier for Jeanette and Vince to reconcile. They always had each other’s back and Vince wasn’t hostile when they ran into Jeanette at the mall in that previous episode like Mallory was. That’s just not his personality but it could also speak to his closeness with Jeanette. Him wanting to continue a friendship with her is possible because of his personality but not Mallory’s. Myself - I’m more of a Vince than a Mallory so I understand why haha. And Jeanette wants to have that friendship again too. I think Vince sees that. I definitely understand you being more sympathetic towards Kate. I’m sorry that your personal experiences connect to hers in any way. I just try so hard to understand and empathize with Jeanette because the show feels.. uneven to me. Other than what Mallory says about Kate in ep 1, you are made to sympathize with Kate so much based on every single one of her relationships. Her mother, Harris, her step-sister, Jamie. You are made to not trust Jeanette at all from the beginning. Everything she does is meant to cause suspicious to move the story forward. So when we are asked to pick a side, it doesn’t feel fair because they make you naturally side with Kate. Not you as in you but you as in someone watching the show. I’ve seen others talk about this unevenness too. I guess I felt like some things you said were less understanding towards her than they would’ve been for Kate but I get that we all have different experiences and see things differently. I just worry that at this point, they’ve spent so much time villainizing her that when they give us more humanizing scenes for Jeanette like they did tonight, they won’t be noticed or cared about as much. I’m sorry this was so long yikes. Thanks for listening :)

Omg I’m so sorry for not posting this! I thought I had posted it, but it turns out that I accidentally saved it as a draft instead. For what's it’s worth, I’m trying out the new beta editor, which still has a few kinks that need to be worked out. 

I want to apologise on my behalf as well for my harsh response. 

You really hit the nail on the head though about how the show has progressed in its bias. Before the show premiered, it seemed like the line between innocent and guilty was going to be very thin with both girls and the first two episodes delivered on that premise. However, it has veered so far off from that. 

The show does make the average viewer almost immediately sympathise with Kate and turn against Jeanette. If the latest episode was meant to humanise Jeanette and make the viewers change their mind, it really came at the wrong time. If they didn’t have Kate centric after Kate centric episode and had this episode earlier on in the season, I think that it would’ve met its goal of having the audience reconsider their position on Jeanette. 

If that wasn’t what Freeform planned to accomplish, then they really did not market the show in the right way. You can’t have the entire premise of your show resting on the truth having multiple sides and then proceed to be biased and lure the viewers to feel that way as well. 

I’m really hoping that we get some more info and are better able to piece together the tine line soon because there are allegedly only 10 episodes and we’re past the halfway mark. It seems like we are no closer to finding out the truth than we were when the show first started. 

[baragakiscans]

Firstly, sorry for losing the post to your ask! Tumblr shitty UI stuff happened and I accidentally deleted the draft TvT (they should make an option for asks to reappear if the draft answer got deleted or sth smh)

Secondly, IM SO SORRY FOR THE EXTREMELY LONG POST AAAAA

I tried to keep the explanations short like I did for Saraba (even that was pretty long) but then the more I tried the longer it became, and in the end what was supposed to be my take on like 2 pages of this book became this extremely long in-depth analysis of the entire book  _(´ཀ`」 ∠)_  But I mean, I’ve agonised over the translations for this book for almost half a year and I have Lots of Feelings about it because GOD I LOVE THIS BOOK

Anyway, Makkura is another one of those books with a lot of hidden layers that can be unpacked from the story with multiple rereads. Unlike Saraba where some things were intentionally left open to interpretation (I think), though, this book is slightly more straightforward, and I’d like to offer my take on the story.

Long post and Makkura spoilers below the cut!

At the beginning of the story, Gintoki and Hijikata were already dating (secretly-but-not-so-secretly). They’ve clearly been dating for a while now; Hijikata coming over to Gintoki’s place to stay the night (though he’d usually be gone by morning), mayonnaise in the Yorozuya fridge, etc… Though their displays of affection were rather subdued, to the onlooker (and everyone else around them) these two idiots were so obviously crazy in love with each other 💕💕 However, there is something that seems a little… off about their relationship, and this something would have continued lurking in the shadows…

The beginning of the end…?

…Had Gintoki not lost all of his memories of his relationship with Hijikata. Gone was the man who would become agitated at the mere thought of his beloved going into danger; the man before Hijikata now barely knew him, and the thought of dating the Demon Vice Commander would never have crossed his mind.

Imagine waking up to find out that your boyfriend has forgotten all about his relationship with you and makes THIS face at the mere thought of shacking up with you

What Hijikata did next may seem illogical at first (and don’t get me wrong, it really is), but it makes a bit more sense once you realise what exactly was off about their relationship.

You see, Hijikata didn’t think that he was good enough for Gintoki.

If you’re familiar with Syaku’s works, you may have noticed a particular trope being rather common: Hijikata and/or Gintoki falling in love with the other, yet not taking the step forward because they were afraid of getting in the way of the other’s creed—to protect.

Looks familiar? ;)

In Makkura, they did manage to take that step forward (regardless of who made that step first), but even so, there’s always been a niggling doubt somewhere in the back of Hijikata’s mind that maybe—just maybe—Gintoki would be better off without him. Hijikata would do everything in his power to protect the Shinsengumi, and he knows that Gintoki would do the same to protect those he holds dear. It just didn’t occur to him that he was one of them, too. Instead, he was afraid of Gintoki straying from his path because of him.

Gintoki losing his memories was like a wake-up call to Hijikata, that his relationship with Gintoki was too good to be true—and if it will all come to an end eventually anyway, then he should be the one to pull the plug first, especially since the perfect opportunity to reset everything to a clean state has presented itself. He pretended that nothing happened between the two of them. He told Gintoki to “Forget about all this. Everything.” He tried to convince himself that he should make a clean break and completely remove himself from Gintoki’s life, and be content with merely watching from afar.

Maybe Hijikata thought that since he and Gintoki never confirmed their relationship, the people around them will just shrug it off, or won’t notice the change in behaviour. But needless to say, everyone around them immediately noticed that something was wrong. And they even had Hijikata’s inner thoughts all figured out.

The Shinsengumi members know their vice commander too well XD

Even Gintoki himself had managed to put two and two together, but he just couldn’t figure out why he fell in love with the man with whom he always fights like cats and dogs. And since Hijikata himself was so adamant on nothing happening, all he could do was watch as the man-who-is-apparently-his-lover-but-he-somehow-forgot told him to stay out of his way. That’s why, it’s up to everyone else to restore Gintoki’s memories and get these two idiots back together.

While the Yorozuya kids were scrambling to find the antidote, Hijikata opted to go down the slippery slope of self-abandonment by meeting the pervert Bakufu official despite knowing full well what might happen to him. He thought it was all for the sake of the Shinsengumi, but seeing Gintoki down the hallway jolted him back to his senses and made him realise just how wrong he was. He realised the reason why he was actually doing this—to see if Gintoki would come to his aid, to see if Gintoki was still the man he knows and love. He realised that he doesn’t want to give his body to anyone anymore—anyone else, that is. He realised just how truly madly deeply in love he was with Gintoki.

What indeed…

By the time he realised this, though, it already seemed too late; it didn’t seem like Gintoki was going to save him. So, he resolved to keep his memories of Gintoki as a happy dream, and was ready to succumb to despair—when Gintoki finally comes to the rescue! (Not sure if Yamazaki didn’t press the button on purpose here) Of course, Gintoki was pissed off that Hijikata would do something this reckless. So he told Hijikata, “You should treasure yourself more…” (BTW, the original Japanese really only had “You should _______ more…”, I had to fill in the blanks) That’s when Hijikata realised that he was right all along; Gintoki hasn’t changed, even without Hijikata’s memories. And that’s all he needed to know.

And over in this exhibit we have the exact moment when Gintoki fell in love all over again

Right when Gintoki was about to profess his love say something to Hijikata, the kids finally arrive with the antidote! And Sougo even figured out that Gintoki doesn’t really need the antidote anymore since he’s in back in love with Hijikata XD But of course Gintoki wants to remember. Of course he wants to remember all about his time together with the man he now knows he loves. He drinks the antidote—

Ohhhh boy shit’s about to go DOWN

—And we arrive at the emotional climax of the story. Gintoki’s furious—Of course he would be; his lover just tried to erase himself from his life, thinking that it was for his sake! Gintoki thought that Hijikata had underestimated him—in a way, he’s right; Hijikata had underestimated just how much Gintoki needs him. He knew that Gintoki loves him, but he also thought that Gintoki should forsake him for the sake of those he wants to protect.

That’s why Gintoki let Hijikata know just how much he means to him. He has already come to know all of him, so he can’t ever bring himself to let him go. That’s when Hijikata started to realise that he was wrong about Gintoki, and wrong about himself. He meant much more to Gintoki than he ever thought he did.

This led to the one exchange that I wrote out this entire analysis for—

Did I really write 1800 words just for this? Yes. Yes I did.

If Hijikata really meant so much to him, then does that mean Gintoki would have tried to erase himself from Hijikata’s world for his sake, too? Gintoki doesn’t think so, but that’s after everything that has happened so far. Who’s to say he wouldn’t do it if their positions really were reversed at the beginning of the story? They both know that, because they both hold on so dearly to the same beliefs, the same pride.

That led to Gintoki throwing the question back at Hijikata—does that mean Hijikata would fall in love with Gintoki again even without his memories, just like Gintoki did? In asking this, Gintoki was telling Hijikata that, even if he were to do the same, deep down, he would still want Hijikata to fall in love with him again. And that’s when Hijikata realised—it was the same for him, too.

At that point, the two of them came to the same conclusion—neither of them can live without the other anymore. Yet, even if their positions were reversed, they would still have done the same. And even if that were to happen, they would still arrive at this same conclusion. They both love the other too much to let go; yet, they both love the other so much that they’d be willing to let go. Now that they both know this, their bond has become truly unbreakable.

Hijikata’s reply was therefore an affirmation—

“Even so, you’d have done the same. Even so, I’ll still fall in love with you.”

That’s just the way both of them are.

And so, at the end of the story, we now have Gintoki who wants Hijikata to know just how much he loves him (maybe becoming more possessive in the process?), and Hijikata who now knows just how much Gintoki loves him, and has come to forgive himself for loving him. Their relationship is one full of contradictions, yet no matter what happens, they will both find their way back to the place where they belong—in (or should I say on?) each other’s arms.

Look at the how much love there is in Hijikata’s eyes just LOOK AT IT AAAAA

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Makkura is one of my top Ginhiji doujins of all time! I really really hope that my translation managed to do it justice, and I hope my ramblings were coherent enough TvT 

If you’ve managed to read this far, do give Makkura a reread and you just might see it in a different light ;) Of course, my interpretation might be different from what Syaku intended to present, so feel free to come up with your own interpretations as well!

Also, halfway through writing this I found an analysis by @mugimarumaru over in the MRM comments section, so do check it out as well :>

Thank you for coming to my TED talk and hope you have a nice day~

(I wish I’d put in this much effort in my college essays)

- JJ

(P.S. The REAL question here: if their roles were reversed would that make it a Hijigin book 🤔🤔🤔)

[lawyerd]

This obviously isn’t the way I expected things to end, but, as I’ve been alluding to all week, today I am officially finished with law school!!

Thanks to everyone that joined me on this journey. I saved this URL in the spring before my 1L year, after spending months flipping through other studyblrs and feeling motivated and, frankly, in love with the aesthetic. I started off taking a bunch of photos and saving them to my drafts, thinking I’d only ever really “launch” this blog if I amassed enough content first, since I knew I’d be too busy to actually update it daily without some kind of backlog of posts. That plan went out the window sometime in November of 1L when I accidentally hit “post” instead of “save to drafts” and this blog was officially born.  

This blog was a little light for me throughout law school, but especially during 1L. Spending 15 minutes a day to do something as little as arrange my books and edit a photo gave me a break when I most needed it. During 1L, I was still struggling to meet my friends, so interacting with the online grad and law school communities made me feel supported and encouraged. I feel like I answer less question now than I once did (is this because people have stopped asking or just because I’m tired LOL there’s no way to know), but I loved sharing a little bit of insight into what my experience was like and I was surprised to see that nearly 40,000 of you were interested in hearing it. 

My blog has changed over the last few years, from a focus on hand lettering, something I’ve always loved but that’s time-consuming and inappropriate for legal notes, to quicker and easier photos of what I’m reading, eating, drinking, enjoying and well, looking at. I hope the shift hasn’t been disappointing haha. I feel like it happened pretty casually. I think the stress of law school has helped me to slow down in my personal life and find enjoyment in, well, at the risk of sounding cliche, the little things. Waking up early enough to truly enjoy a cup of coffee before school or work has become a singular pleasure, as has a nice, fresh pastry and long, comforting novel. 

This slower lifestyle seems well-suited to COVID-19, and I guess in a way, I’ve been lucky in this moment that so much of my own joy has always derived from being in my own home, but the world still feels terrifying and isolating and it’s a strange time to graduate, and a stranger time still to celebrate your own accomplishments. 

I think I enjoyed law school a lot more than much of the online law school community, but man, I’m happy it’s over. I met some of my best friends here and had some truly fun, goofy, incredible times, but I also developed both high blood pressure and an anxiety disorder solely from school-related stress, gained and lost weight every few months in a cycle, lost more sleep than I can possibly convey and strained a lot of my personal relationships at various points. I feel physically exhausted and as though I’ve really dragged myself across the finish line here. 

I keep finding myself tearing up. This is huge, guys. I decided I’d like to be a lawyer when I was like 11 or 12, but I never thought I’d do actually do it. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just been life-long imposter syndrome. I’m the first lawyer in my family, which is in and of itself a hurdle, and I feel like I faced constant financial and familial hurdles throughout. I didn’t get into those here, but trust that they were many. These past three years have been the hardest of my life for more than just school-related reasons. I know I have a lot of younger followers in high school and younger, so I suppose this is my very corny, but absolutely heartfelt message to you to follow your dreams. It’s not always easy, but you can do it. 

So, next steps - first, a short break, unusual for law grads who usually immediately have to take the bar. I was initially devastated at the bar’s postponement, but I’m trying to take advantage of the delay to heal myself a bit, hopefully, while working on some pro-bono COVID-related projects. Then, I’ll study the delayed bar (fingers crossed that it isn’t pushed back further) and, eventually, become a lawyer.

Thanks for joining me on this ride  ⚖️

Xxx Kit 

[lsleofthelost]

003 - Evie (hope I'm not sending a repeated one this time)

this one hasn’t been asked!!

(sorry for answering it so late i accidentally saved this in drafts instead of posting)

how i feel about this character: i absolutely adore her! i can really relate to (at least in fanon) her strained relationship with her mother and self-image. and i really respect her for saying fuck no to her mother’s ideas about what she had to be.

people i ship romantically with this character: rotten ot4 all the way! though i also really enjoy an occasional Audrey and Evie au.

my favourite non-romantic relationship for this character: Dizzy! the way she mentored the girl and really cared about her WITHOUT relaying her mother’s toxicity and instead nurturing Dizzy’s talent. legend

my unpopular opinion about this character: Ben and Evie would, if we are speaking from a complex fanon pov, be a toxic relationship. she would never feel relaxed in his presence and even if she would, she’d feel like she’s just playing the role her mother forced her into. not saying that Ben wouldn’t be the sweetest most caring person, but i don’t think Evie should be in a relationship with any prince before she deals with her baggage regarding them, and that could take years. it wouldn’t be abusive or anything, but she’d feel a power imbalance

one thing i wish had happened in canon: Evie and Doug breakup lmao. but fr i wish she wasn’t pushed to the sidelines, and had a more complex arc about her insecurities and how she overcomes them, and not by being perfect at everything but realising she can mess up and still be good. also meeting Snow White!

favourite friendship for this character: ugh if i had to decide, it’s probably Carlos. though she is such a sweetheart, and her bonds with other people are interesting. but i definitely definitely loved her and the immediate connection with Carlos. the way she got him his first proper pillow and blanket! the tenderness!

my crossover ship: again, i don’t think a have one... I usually work within the canon characters

[shmisolo]

I wanted to post the things I’ve made this year in one place.  I haven’t posted most of them over here—largely because I’m not tumblring a lot these days.  But I made a lot this year—both visual and written—that I’m proud of and wanted to share it out.  You can find this post also in tweet form here!

Happy 2020, Reylo friends!  It’s been a wild ride of a year, and mine couldn’t have been what it has been without you.

Visual

Alternate TROS Ending Gifset | World Between Worlds Graphic | Padmé quote gifset | Hadestown AU |  Alfa Gifset | ManDADlorian Video | Rey & Dark Rey Gifset 1 | Rey & Dark Rey Gifset 2 | Rey & Padmé Gifset | Rey Gifset 1 | Rey Gifset 2 | Rey Gifset 3 | Rey Gifset 4 | Rey Gif | Trailer Gifset 1| Trailer Gifset 2 | Trailer Gifset 3 | Kylo’s Karaoke Night Playlist | Graphic for lwaboc for @kylorenvevo | Graphic for Heart’s Flight | Graphic for YTCShepard | Gifs for Sugar, Honey, Honey for YTCShepard | Gifs for @sciosophia | Game of Thrones AU Graphic | Luke Gifset

Oneshots

Investiture for @misscoppelia

In which Ben goes to daven for his father’s yahrtzeit and manages to prove to himself once again that he is both a terrible person and a terrible Jew.

Oh and he sort of falls in love.

baby you can drive my car for @talltig

They call them “soulmates.” Probably because it leaves less of a sting in their mouths.

The Kitchen for flypaper_brain

Rey and Ben, hunting for their first house.

alone with a heart meant for you for @nuanceismyjam

Ben orders Grubhub; Rey's car breaks down.

myosotis for @rissanox

Ben picked the flowers for their wedding.

and beyond for @lilithsaur

“Please?”

For a moment, he thinks it will be like the first time, him begging, her crying and saying no and him not knowing how to protect his crushed heart.

But she doesn’t cry, she doesn’t say, “Please don’t go this way,” she doesn’t look horrified or disgusted. She just grabs him by the front of his shirt and tugs his lips down to hers before reaching down to cup his cock.

You, Me, and He for @rissanox, @persimonne, and @misscoppelia

When they say that Kylo's brain is in his groin, they're not far from the truth.

Alternatively,

In which Kylo Ren is his own penis.

Bliss, Balance and Birth for @selunchen​

Ben teaches their daughter to read.

💦💦💦💦

In which Ben accidentally implies that he gets his cardio from having sex on national television.

Favorites for @lilithsaur

In which Matt is preoccupied in getting Daisy the perfect token of his love on this, the two month anniversary of her agreeing to be his girlfriend.

A Trash Triplets AU.

Gotta Get Up, Gotta Get Out | Moodboard

“Listen asshole,” Rey says as she steps through the door of Poe’s deli. “You have exactly as long as it takes me to buy these cigarettes.”

Ben doesn’t waste a second breathing. “Metaphysically speaking, you and I are intrinsically and inexplicably linked,” he starts because there’s no time for beating around the bush and besides, Rey can sniff out a lie like no one else. “And I'm convinced our true purpose is to to connect with each other, if not help save each other's lives.” She’s opening her wallet and handing Poe a ten. “In another world, hopefully you are doing the same for me.”

The Other Thing for @persimonne

That’s what they don’t warn you about, he thinks idly. In his DesEd class, they’d warned him about knots, and heats, and ruts, and nesting. But they’d never warned him that her home would smell so much like her, like everything he’s ever wanted, that he would be unable to extricate himself.

“Can you make it a little more interesting in like...thirty minutes?” he asks her.

She pulls away and he immediately regrets saying a damn word.

“I could make that work,” she replies dryly. “I’ll pencil you in.”

A for... for @loveofescapism

Rey’s seeing double by the time there’s food on her plate. Oh. There’s food on her plate. That’s good. That’s unexpected at this point. “Eat,” Ben tells her.

So she does. It tastes good. Very good. She likes this food a lot.

“I’ll make sure she knows,” Ben says.

Oh she’s at that point of drunk where she’s just saying things out loud instead of keeping them in her internal monologue.

“You are,” Ben says, looking very amused.

She hopes she doesn’t say anything embarrassing.

“I promise, you haven’t yet, but oh boy, I’m looking forward to this.”

She shoves food into her mouth to keep herself from thinking out loud about his dick in her ass at his mother’s Passover seder.

do or do not (do the do)

In which Ben, in an effort to improve his stamina (look he's making progress, ok?) after reading some articles that he'll never be able to unread, receives some coaching (that he very much did not ask for).

(Very much did not ask for.)

(Not) Interested for @thewayofthetrashcompactor, @monsterleadmehome, @destiniesfic, yuktipatipriya

We're bringing Speed Dating back to Space Battles Bonanza! Register online for one of our special Bonanza sessions of 15 three-minute dates so you’ll no longer have to look for love in a galaxy far far away. Choose from one of seven speed dating sessions, two of which are queer focused. If the Insurgents can blow up the Doom Moon in 11 minutes, let’s see if you can make a love connection in only three.

There’s a history of successful Speed Dating at Space Battles Bonanzas, with long-term couples, engagements and marriages now among the alumni.

--

In which Rey & Kylo meet at their fancon's speed dating.

Never Die for @avamarga

Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise? I thought not. It’s not a story the Jedi would tell you.

Forged for @reyloner

There are several reasons that Ben would never have dreamed he’d ever receive this text. The first is that he’d be invited to a Halloween party. The second is that he’d never in his life expected to be in a serious relationship, much less the sort of serious relationship where his partner would suggest matching Halloween costumes. And the last is that he is dating someone who’s show only and they’ve only almost murdered one another twice. Because he’s an A Song of Ice and Fire fan. He hates Game of Thrones.

and getting caught in the rain for @kylorenvevo

What's the point of going to a family wedding if you're not going to hook up with your newly rediscovered brother's baseball coach?

A Picture's Worth for @selunchen

reyjay: hiya your art is amazing

reyjay: it’s a big ask but could you draw me for my art final tomorrow? i’m shit at drawing people and i can’t fail this. can you help?

He stares.

And stares.

And stares.

kyloren: is this some kind of a joke?

reyjay: no?? why??

kyloren: you’re asking me to help you cheat your exam, but you’re not even offering me money?

Bang for your Buck

“We ready?” he asks her, sounding huffy.

“Nice to meet you Ben, I’m just familiarizing myself with your training,” she replies.

“Ok, well I don’t have all day.”

“No, you have,” she checks her watch, “another hour.” Because of course he’d booked an extra long session. Bless that sweet, sweet overtime pay.

“And you’re sure you know what you’re doing?” he asks her and she glances up at him, sure that her eyes are flashing because that’s fucking rude. She’s a professional. Amilyn wouldn’t have hired her if she didn’t know what she’s doing, and just because he apparently thinks he’s the center of the universe doesn’t change that fact.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get your bang for your buck,” she tells him icily.

Two to Tango

Rey: I need to ask you something awkward. Ben: What’s up? Rey: Can I give you a blowjob? Please?

atlanta > all atlanta > community > missed connections for @sand-its-everywhere

In which Rey meets a cosplayer at DragonCon.

Sonsick (I'll fall for you soon enough) for @jeenonamit & YTCShepard

Sheev and Snoke share a moment at the country club.

A Thousand Words for @monsterleadmehome | Moodboard

In which, some years later, Ben encounters someone he drew for nudes.

Truth and Death written for this year’s @reylofanfictionanthology

Ben opens the box. Inside, he sees the charred remains of a helmet.

------------

She is made of sand-turned-clay, where other moving creatures are made of flesh and blood. Their skin cracks in the dry Jakku sun just like hers, but they are alive in their organs.

Rey is alive in a different way.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year written with @jeenonamit | Moodboard

Rey convinces Ben--and his sentient penis--to go with her to a Halloween party.

What could go wrong?

(Working title: "Dicklo 2: Electric BOO-galoo")

Shalom Rav! for @jeenonamit | Moodboard

In which Rey comes to terms realizing that she is attracted to the rabbi.

when the stars and moon align just so for @capaldisrighteyebrow

Songs spoke of red stars on nights that blood was shed. Stars bled too when the great fell. There were no red stars tonight. The stars did not bleed for Snoke.

Would they bleed for Ben?

She swallowed.

Because despite his own words—that he served his master (master, as though he were a draft horse to be yoked and plow the fields of men), that he would give everything to his master, she had seen doubt in his eyes that night, three years ago, when the stars and moon had aligned just so.

oh, my love, don't forsake me (take what the water gave me) for @reyloner and @loveofescapism

Their sabers clashed, humming in the spray, and Rey's heart was in her throat the entire time.

it’s you and me (i know it’s our destiny) | Moodboard

It’s just a kid’s game, he thinks when jealousy pangs in his heart. But it’s more than just a kid’s game.

It’s Pokémon.

It’s the only good thing in his life.

will you come when i call you (i’ll come when you call me) | Moodboard

Surely when Snoke had connected them, he hadn’t connected them like this.  

—

@reylo_prompts: “Due to the Force bond Rey and Ben always come simultaneously. Now they need to figure out how not to do that since it can result in awkward situations.”

The Sweater Curse for @jeenonamit & @commandercrouton

She’s never made a sweater before, but she saw the pattern on Ravelry and who cares if she’s only made (lumpy) hats before—she has to try it.  She has to make it. She has to make it for Ben.

“You realize that Hannukah isn’t an important holiday, right?” Ben asks as she makes eye contact with him.  His eyes are big and brown and—at this moment—mildly annoyed.

“Really?  Is it a giant conspiracy theory?  Part of the war on Christmas?”

“More than you realize,” Ben says and for the life of her she can’t tell if he’s joking.  He does this thing sometimes that’s confusing—where he’ll say something that sounds mopey but is actually snarky and it disarms her every damn time.  “In any event, ugly Hanukkah sweaters definitely aren’t a thing the way ugly Christmas sweaters are.”

“Well, they are now,” Rey says firmly.  “I’m making you an ugly Hanukkah sweater.  Deal with it. And stop moving.”

Ours Is The Fury for @reyloner & @commandercrouton

Rey was tasked with taking Storm's End for her king. She defeated the Storm King Snoke in the Rainwood, but when she proceeded to the castle itself, preparing for a long siege, things did not go to plan.

Seen ✔️✔️ for @ever-so-reylo | Graphic

His lock screen has three texts from Rey on it:

Rey Wife: Babe I know you’re probably busy right now, but you sent that pic to the wrong chat. Rey Wife: Bennnnnnn Rey Wife: Call me when you’re done processing your trauma.

And then about ninety chats from the Skywalker Ranch WhatsApp thread.

--

In which Ben sends a picture to the wrong chat.

With you, Always for @jeenonamit, @nuanceismyjam, and YTCShepard 

Rey's boyfriend is now a Force ghost but they're sure as fuck gonna try fucking anyway.

Chaptered Fics

we decided not to kill the wolves (we wanted to be wolves) for @nerdherderette | Complete | Moodboard

A pack of wolves lives in the woods to the north of Raddus and as winter looms, they have their eyes set on Leia Organa’s stronghold. Rey may be new to Raddus, but she’s not about to do nothing while it may be in danger. And besides, Poe must be exaggerating about wolves the size of bears. She’s not afraid of monsters.

Carry In My Core (That Voice I Adore) | Complete | Moodboards

Starring in her first opera would be stressful as is, but Rey, always one to outdo herself, just had to go and make things even more complicated with Kylo Ren. It’s hard enough looking him in the eye, much less pretending to be in love with him. She can make it through this. She has made it through worse. She can make it through this.

shadow boxes | Complete

Just because they aren’t together, doesn’t mean they’re not in love.

anyway you want to (anyway you've got to) | Complete

But you know she's getting something other Than the love from her mother

A Porn Challenge in which your author makes Rey and Ben bone their way through the month of February.

words like tomorrow (or future, or fate) for @haloren1st​ & @staticcatfish​ | Complete

One day, Rey wakes in a body that's not her own in a town she's never been to before. Who is Ben, whose body she seems to be possessing, and who woke up in her body? Why are they connected this way?

---

A Your name. AU.

Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations. for @valsansretour​ | Complete | Moodboard

Ben woke, but Luke’s saber wasn’t ignited. Instead, he saw a master who had shattered his trust, who thought he was a monster, and—worse—he was probably right.

So he fled Yavin IV, to Skywalker’s dismay, and no one heard from him since.

Years later, on a wasteland planet, a girl and a fugitive stormtrooper board a Corellian YT-1300 light freighter in desperation to find they are not the only ones trying to steal it.

Why Don’t You And I Combine for @ever-so-reylo | Complete | Moodboard

Rey’s phone rings while she’s at the farmer’s market. She lets it ring. They have a line and it’s only a few hours, and the girls are at school and it’s just her today, so she doesn’t have enough hands. Rose and Finn and Poe are helping Ben move furniture out of his apartment and into the house. They’re probably calling about something silly, or Ben’s calling to say he’s fully moved in and he’s lying in their bed—possibly with his hand on his cock—and that he’s thinking of her.

— 

In which life continues, grows, and Rey and Ben continue to rebuild their relationship.

A sequel to Let’s Get Together.

The Love Committee for @jeenonamit | Complete | Moodboard

In which Rey, tired of her bad luck with dating apps and failed relationships, enlists her friends' help in determining who she should date next.

They take it a little too seriously.

A Year of Me and You for autonomee | Complete

“After you move in with one another, give yourself six months to like one another again,” Maz says, looking at Rey seriously through her bottlecap glasses.

“I’m not going to fall out of love with—”

“No, no. Not love. Love’s not got anything to do with it, child. Like.”

--

Non-linear vignettes of various length, set during the first year Rey and Ben live together.

Hanging by a Moment for pillar-of-salt | Complete | Mix

There are many things that Ben could have tolerated about his parents’ divorce. That his mother had finally had it with his father’s borderline illegal—or rather, as he liked to put it, borderline legal—company, the shady activities it covered that would doubtlessly end her political career if a reporter got hold of them; that his father had finally had it with the way his mother nags, because sure, he’d thought it was hot twenty years ago, but he is in fact an adult who can actually keep his shit together—all that he would have gotten. He’d have been wrecked, but he’d have gotten it.

His dad leaving his mom for a nineteen-year-old gold-digger though, and his mother not even putting up a fight—that had caught him by surprise.

That had hurt.

Be nice to her, Ben, his mother had said on the phone when he’d spoken to her for the first time in five years. She just lost your father.

Yeah. So did I.

Cupcake Wars | Complete | Fingerpainting + Playlist

Entirely by accident, Rey ends up fucking someone who works for Snoke's Cupcakery. She's just blowing off steam. It doesn't mean anything at all. It certainly won't come back to bite her in the ass.

in nobody's eyes but mine for @ever-so-reylo | Complete | Moodboard

Rey had spent too much of her life feeling as though permanence could only be transient so why bother with it. What was long-term? What was mating? What was home?

the water won’t have ya if the devil’s too blind for @thekesselrun | Complete | Moodboard

That water’s too dirty to wash away your sins.

“They’re not sins. I didn’t commit them against god. There is no such thing as god.”

Then whatever you want to call them. Crimes don’t get washed away by a river.

“It’s a cursed river,” Ben points out.

No, it’s a polluted river. Curses aren’t real. Not like that, anyway.

“Are you really well-actually-ing me?”

Yes, I am. Because you’re an idiot. Some extremely oily and not remotely potable water is not going to be able to remove the guilt you feel about killing your father, turning your back on your mother, murdering hundreds of innocents, and helping the First Order destroy the world. Especially when you knew I wasn’t going to let you die.

–

In which Ben Solo washes up on shore, very still alive and unsure of what to do next until a passing scavenger offers him a lift on her boat. Who is he now? Who does he want to be?

Apples & Honey for @peaceblessingspeyton | Complete | Moodboard

When Ben catches wind that his mother is planning to foist a potential girlfriend on him when he comes home for Rosh Hashanah, he takes matters into his own hands: specifically, he runs to Rey and asks her to pretend to be his girlfriend.

There Is Another for @kylorenvevo | Complete | Moodboards: Ch 1 | Ch 3 | Ch 7 | Ch 9 | Ch 11 | Ch14

“Mission success?”

“You will be interested in this.”

“Oh?”

Kylo glances back over his shoulder. The girl he had found on Takodana is still deeply unconscious, and will remain so for a long while. He had knocked her out as deeply as he could. She had fired at him the moment she’d seen him, resisted him tooth and nail. He does not want her waking up until he has her properly restrained, and he had not come to Takodana prepared to take any prisoners.

A shiver runs up his spine as he tries to shove away how it had felt, carrying her through that forest.

“Yes.”

“How so?”

The trouble with helmets is he can’t look Kira dead in the eye anymore. He can’t watch her face closely to see what will happen when he tells her,

“She’s you.”

Dear Mr. President | WIP | Moodboards: Ch13

Dr. Dameron shifts and slides a manilla folder across the desk to her. “Under ordinary circumstances, I’d let you keep the folder. I hope you’ll understand why I can’t do that this time around.”

She opens it and stares.

She stares and stares and stares.

Dr. Dameron has to be kidding. There have to be hidden cameras here, this has to be some elaborate prank. That’s why it’s him here and not Dr. Wexley—that was his name. Dr. Wexley.

But instead of getting to her feet and tossing her hair and saying he was cruel for playing with her heart like this, all she does is ask, blankly, “So...Ben Solo is my soulmate? Our new president is my…”

She swallows.

And Dr. Dameron nods.

so long lives this and this gives life to thee | WIP | Moodboard

His smile fades and he falls to the ground, his head hitting the ground with a sharp crack.

“Ben!” The yell echoes around them in the darkness and Rey lurches forward, her hands scrabbling over his face, his neck, trying to find a pulse.

She bursts into tears when she finds it. She doesn’t know why she’s crying. He’s alive.

———

In which Ben's Force Sensitivity—and not his life—was given to save Rey.

a little death (goes a long way) for @talltig | WIP | Moodboard

“That’s good of you,” he replies. “Especially with the O-Negative.”

“It’s a good deal,” she says and he glances up. Yeah, because Omega blood is harder to find. A taste of life, because they almost never survive the turn.

[duhragonball]

Out of This World

I forgot the third thing I wanted to bring up in the Potpourri post, but it finally came back to me, so I want to talk about it here: the forgettable late 80′s sitcom “Out of This World”.  

There were a lot of dumbass sitcoms in the 80′s.    It still seems surreal to me that society seems to have moved past this, but in the 1980s there seemed to be absolutely no reason not to do a comedy about a family or group of co-workers dealing with some high-concept absurdity.    “ALF” is the one everyone remembers, which I guess is a testament to the ALF character, but there were plenty of other, goofier ideas floating around out there.   For example, “Small Wonder” was about a family where the dad built an android child and they just sort of rolled with it, I guess.    I think part of the trouble was that the sitcom formula had already gotten stale by the mid-80′s, to the point where your pitch almost had to have a gimmick to get a second look.  

And, you know, Mr. Ed was from the early 60′s, so it’s not like high concept was anything new, but I’m pretty sure there weren’t fifty other “talking animal” sitcoms running through the same decade.   In the 80′s, it was like the TV industry considered “My Favorite Martian” a genre in and of itself, and the trick was to find some new twist on it.  

For “Out of This World”, the hook was that the dad, Troy, is an alien, but he’s never actually around because he got drafted to fight some war in outer space.  The show is actually about his half-human daughter, Evie, who develops some of her father’s super powers once she turns 13.  I only remember seeing a handful of episodes, but mostly it was about the girl getting into wacky sitcom hijinks, usually causing a problem with her powers and then using her powers to fix it.   In every episode she’d talk to her dad on the space radio and everyone would learn an important lesson about, I don’t know, let’s say friendship.    .  

I’m watching the pilot as I write this, because I want to make sure I get this right, and man is it awful.    Evie’s uncle is in this, and he knows the secret, but his main purpose on this show is to be the butt of every fat joke the writers had on file.   Evie’s mom is anxious about Evie developing powers, and the uncle is worried that she’ll accidentally transform herself into a lizard.   Instead, she accidentally stops time for everyone else, which forces mom to tell the truth.    This is downright painful to watch, because Evie’s the only kid in 1987 who doesn’t seem to know or care about space aliens, because that’s the only way to drag out the reveal.    Once it finally sinks in, she gets upset and shouts “Then that means I’m... half-creature!”

Oh my gosh, they actually make an ALF reference in this show!   Evie’s mom has to convince Evie that dad looked like a regular-ass person, or else they wouldn’t have married and conceived her.   “Look, kiddo, do you really think I’d bump uglies with just any alien?   Your dad was a snack.” This is really awkward and dumb.  I gotta give credit to the other actors in this, because they spend most of this episode frozen in place while they work out this timestop thing.    

The problem in the pilot is that Evie can stop time and unfreeze people by touching them, but she can’t touch all of her party guests one by one without exposing her secret, so they don’t know what to do.    Her Uncle Beano (ugh) suggests using the Vulcan hand gesture, which... I’ll get to that in a second.   Her mom finally remembers that dad left a special present for Evie for her 13th birthday, and it contains this glowy crystal that functions as the space radio I mentioned earlier.   Troy is voice-acted by Burt Renyolds, which is extremely goofy once you know that, and he doesn’t actually tell them what to do.   Then Evie just gets a sudden urge to do the exact thing that fixes it, and I guess the moral is that all of this power stuff will come naturally?

The real appeal to all of this, at least for me, is this idea that Evie can finally connect to a father she’s never known, and bond with him over something they have in common.     Anything that makes her seem strange or alone can be written up to her being half-Anterean, and her dad can instantly relate.   It seems kind of cruel that they made her wait 13 years to use the space radio, but there’s some sort of genetic link thing that makes it work, and I get the impression that the technology requires her to reach that age before it’ll work properly.    The whole thing feels really contrived, but there’s this really touching concept at its core, if you’re willing to wade through sitcom cliches and insipid one-liners to find it. 

What always bugged me about this show, though, was that I only liked it for the alien lore and the drama that went with it.    I wanted to know more about Troy and the war he was fighting, and this Antarean culture that he only ever hinted at.   I liked the idea of the Evie character, caught between two worlds and not entirely comfortable in either.   But the show was never serious about exploring any of that, and the alien stuff was always window dressing for weak comedy “laffs”.   Or it was used as a metaphor for puberty, which always irritates me when shows do that.    I also hate the micro-aggressions that keep coming up in this show.   Some character will make a pop culture reference to aliens and that just bugs me.    Look, Beano, Mr. Spock is a fictional character, what your niece is going through is really happening so at least try not to be a dick about it.

The episode that I remember the most is the one where Evie decides to break the “no-telling” rule and reveals her secret heritage to her friend, who immediately blabs it to everyone, and before you know it, the government tries to capture her for dissection.    At one point, Troy even says that he might have to come back to Earth just to intervene, but then Evie’s mom betrays them... and it turns out it was all a dream.   Another dumb one, but I liked the idea of more people knowing the truth about Evie.  It made the premise feel more real. 

The thing that never made any sense to me was that Evie seemed to have immense powers over time and matter, and the implication was that Troy and everyone else on his world had even greater powers, so what was going on up in space that could threaten the Antereans for over thirteen years?   I doubt that ever came up much, since it would probably be a downer.  Everyone treated Troy’s off-world duties as an inconvenience, but if his side lost the war than Earth would probably be doomed somehow, right?   Really, the whole concept feels more like some sort of Greek mythology, with Troy as a benevolent god who impregnates a mortal.    There’s a running theme that Evie has to use her powers wisely in order to earn new ones, like the whole show is some sort of trial she has to pass.   Apparently the show ended on a cliffhanger, but I’d like to believe that the true ending would involve Evie saving the day and earning the mark of an Antarean adult: a Burt Renyolds mustache.

[dvp95]

quiet on widow’s peak (2)

pairing: dan howell/phil lester, pj liguori/sophie newton/chris kendall rating: teen & up tags: paranormal investigator, youtuber phil lester, dan howell is not a youtuber, online friendship, slow burn, strangers to lovers, nonbinary character, trans character, background poly, phil does some buzzfeed unsolved shit and dan is a fan word count: 3.2k (this chapter), 6.4k (total) summary: Phil’s got a list of paranormal experiences a mile long that he likes to share with the world. Abandoned buildings, cemeteries, and ghost stories have always called his name, and a particular fan of his has a really, really good ghost story.

read this chapter on ao3 or here!

"Do you remember the Wilkins place?"

"I'm well, thanks." Martyn's voice is dry, and Phil finds himself grinning at the wall despite himself. "How are you?"

"Good," says Phil. It's mostly true, although he could do without the piles of clothes he's sorting through. He holds his phone between his shoulder and his ear as he picks up a top of Sophie's and starts a whole new pile that he's calling delicates, aka things he's absolutely going to screw up somehow. "People think the Wilkins place is haunted."

There's a beat. Presumably, Phil's brother is trying to fit the name into adolescent memories to see where it slots in. "Oh, that wreck in Rusholme? It hasn't been condemned yet?"

"Apparently it's still a hot spot for binge-drinking teenagers," Phil says.

"Well, sure. But haunted? Really?"

"That's what I said!"

Phil feels a little vindicated by the skepticism in Martyn's voice, to be honest. His friends hadn't taken his weird feeling seriously at all.

"I mean, it's a dump," says Martyn. "More likely to be haunted by a bunch of rats than anything else. Why haven't we heard this before?"

"According to my sources," Phil says, only feeling a bit ridiculous about referring to a bunch of strangers on the internet as 'sources', "the activity only recently started. Which makes me think that someone's lying, or maybe one incident kickstarted everyone else's imaginations?"

"Both could be true. Why don't you ask Ian to go check it out?"

It's not exactly a sore spot, but something inside of Phil still twinges at the question. "He's a little busy, isn't he."

"So am I," Martyn says in that same dry, familiar tone that makes Phil feel as comforted as his mum's fretting or his dad's bad jokes do. "And yet here you are, on my phone."

"You don't have a toddler," Phil points out.

"I don't? Yet here you are..."

Phil snorts a laugh and drops all of the socks he's gathered into an empty basket. It's as good a place to start as any. "Shut up, Mar. I'm at least six."

There are, literally, enough dirty socks and pants between the four of them that Phil has a whole load of just underthings. He spares a moment to be grateful to Sophie for not including her bras, because he'd have no idea where to begin with those. He sighs and picks up the basket, fitting it against his hip with one hand so he can hold his phone with the other.

"Well, I can ask around," says Martyn. "I think my friends might be past the point of sneaking into abandoned houses to party, but maybe they've heard something from their annoying little brothers."

"Ha, ha," Phil says dryly. "Think I should contact some of the people making these claims?"

"Deffo," says Martyn. "If you can record them, it'd be best."

"Yeah, that way I can use them in the video," Phil hums, setting his basket on the washer and opening every cupboard to try to find the detergent. "I mean, if they're okay with that, obviously."

"I actually meant because your bullshit detector is dysfunctional, so me or Peej will have to tell you if someone's lying."

"Wow, rude. Whose fault is that?"

"Yours," Martyn informs him dryly. "Just because I told you Santa would pull you up through the chimney doesn't mean you had to believe me."

Phil rolls his eyes, but he's grinning. Maybe it's just a big brother thing, or maybe it's their personalities, but Martyn isn't wrong - Phil has a hard time telling when someone is lying to him. Martyn was always good at lying with a straight face and seeing right through Phil's outlandish stories.

"I still blame you," says Phil.

"Alright," says Martyn. "When are you coming to visit?"

"Probably not ‘til after this one," Phil says slowly, glancing at the kitten calendar on the fridge. They'd let one of their milder housemates pick this year's after everyone got tired of looking at Chris' previous choice of nude knitted puppets.

"Yeah? You gonna head up north for this one?"

In the very last cupboard he checks, Phil finds the detergent. He wants to be annoyed about it, but the truth is that Holly's habit of switching around the kitchen when she's anxious has saved many a pack of biscuits from expiring behind some flour. Phil has never once been useful to anybody when he's having a meltdown, so.

Phil absentmindedly loads the washer while he considers Martyn's question. Maybe it would be best to check the place out for himself, see if anything's really going on. He likes being on-site best, trusts his own gut more than he trusts strangers' eyes.

The problem, of course, is that Phil's childhood home is up for sale, he has no money for a hotel, and Ian's gone and got himself a child. The last thing Phil wants to do is impose or, like, get roped into babysitting. A trip to Manchester might be out of the question for him right now.

"Maybe," Phil says, noncommittal.

Martyn sees through him in an instant, like always. "Want me to ask Mum if they've got any viewings next weekend? I'm sure you know not to trash the place."

"Have I ever once trashed the place? Don't answer that," Phil adds, remembering the shaving cream incident.

A huff comes down the line, and Phil feels the same pride at making his brother laugh as he had when he was seven and making weird noises out the car window. Yeah, he definitely needs to go to London soon, the Isle afterwards - he hasn't seen his family in way too long.

"I'll let you know what's buzzing, if anything," says Martyn. "And I'll call Mum for you and all. I know you get weird about asking them for favours."

"I get weird about asking anyone for favours," Phil says instead of a thank you, because if he gets weird about asking for help, then Martyn gets twice as weird about reacting to gratitude.

"Except me."

Phil smiles, watching the rainbow of socks and pants spin. "Yeah. Except you."

--

Laundry does end up taking Phil most of the day, but he doesn't mind much. It's the least he can do when Chris always does the first draft edit for him, PJ reminds him to take his EMF meter and his meds when he's packing for an overnight, and Sophie sends him pages upon pages of research while she's at work. He's so fond of these people, and he appreciates all they do for him, but being in debt to them - and not in sole control of his projects - makes Phil feel like he's got ants crawling up his arms.

While he waits out the machine cycles, Phil starts putting feelers out into this story. He checks the sources linked to him again and shoots off a couple of direct messages and emails to see if any of the people posting about the Wilkins place are eager to chat one on one.

He's got his laptop set up at the kitchen table and he's on his third coffee of the day when it occurs to him that he's not out of the woods of owing favours just yet. He clicks back into the Tumblr submission that started this spiral.

He decides that he needs to thank this person, at the very least, and maybe offer to buy them a coffee or something when he's in town. They did so much of Phil's grunt work that it feels weird not to pay them back somehow.

"Well, I can't exactly do your laundry," Phil murmurs to the screen. He hopes none of his other housemates are milling around to hear him.

Another click, and he's on the blog. It's minimalist and monochrome in a way that makes things easy to read, but not very interesting to look at. Phil's eyes start to glaze over as he scrolls through, because it's entertaining enough but - well. It's a typical Tumblr blog. That familiar mixture of memes and rants about social issues and some gifs from shows that Phil doesn't have time to watch. There are a lot of familiar walls of text tagged as personal posts, but Phil still can't parse them without really trying.

They do reblog Phil's video posts, though. That makes him grin.

He scrolls back up to the top of the page to shoot them a message and immediately gets distracted by the bio.

winnie. 21. any pronouns.

For someone who sent Phil a wall of text that could be mistaken for copypasta at first glance, it's surprisingly succinct. Phil takes another swig of his coffee and tries not to get caught up on the last part of it.

Any pronouns? What does that mean, any pronouns? What if Phil uses the wrong ones? He isn't exactly a queer theory student, and as much as he supports everybody under his little rainbow umbrella, he's got to admit that a lot of things still go over his head.

He dithers for so long that his laptop screen goes black, and he makes a face at himself in its reflection. Surely he's overthinking this.

Hi!, Phil types, and then accidentally hits enter. He was just trying not to send the fan a paragraph back, but, fine. Oops. So I'm looking into the things you sent me on the Wilkins place and I'm really impressed by the amount of time you put into this? Like it makes MY job a lot easier haha. Is he a triple-texter? He's a triple-texter. The first one didn't count anyway. So thanks!!!!! I'll def give you credit in the video, but is there anything else I can do to pay you back?

Not literally, he wants to add right after he's sent it. Oh, well. He can't just keep spamming this poor person's chat. He hopes it's obvious that he'd offer monetary compensation if he had it.

Phil leaves the Tumblr tab open and works on editing for a little while. It's almost frustrating how bad this video is, how little effort and energy Phil has started putting into these, and he doesn't know how to fix it short of rethinking his entire career.

He could easily keep churning these out for as long as people watch them, but. He's not having fun anymore.

The Phil on his laptop screen is asking questions, wandering around a cemetery just to see if anything will happen, and Phil can't help comparing it to things he did last year, the year before that, the year before that - it feels like his content is declining as his enthusiasm for the topic does, or maybe vice versa.

Phil zones out for so long that the dryer chime goes off from the hallway, echoing through the old, creaky house. He'd given up on sorting the loads after the fifth shirt that could belong to any of them, so he just takes his own things out and folds his housemates' clothes into one basket.

They can figure it out, he's sure. There's only two bedrooms between the three of them, so there's only two closets, and Phil has gone so long without knowing who's officially sharing that it would be awkward to ask now.

Phil swaps the load over and goes back to his laptop, even though the very last thing he wants to do is continue editing and uploading this mediocre video.

The thing is, Phil doesn't need his content to be perfect. He's happy to post things that just make him laugh or have a nicely spooky vibe or whatever, he doesn't need to solve mysteries every month or two. It's just that. He can hear how little he cares about it, lately. It won't be long before people notice, if they haven't already.

Phil sighs and exits the project. Maybe this video is best left unposted. He's not happy with it at all.

Maybe, if this Wilkins place video doesn't pan out, Phil can start redirecting his energy into a different type of creative output. He's got so many stories bouncing around in his mind, he just needs to figure out how he wants to tell them.

It sounds like his father's voice inside his head, telling him you can't chase ghosts forever. He wishes he still had the gumption to disagree with it.

His laptop makes a little noise, and Phil blinks back to reality. He has to click on a few different tabs to figure out where it came from, but then he realises that he's gotten a response on Tumblr.

Phil smiles despite himself and gets ready for another difficult-to-read message.

Sure enough: UHHHHHH hi hello what the fuck i didnt expect you to say anything this is so weird i am being so weird right now um like no problem? i was procrastinating an essay and this was more fun to research so you dont have to thank me or pay me back whatever that means like i was just fucking around its fine but thank you?????

Phil thinks about the four word Tumblr bio again and snorts. Maybe Winnie wanted to seem as cool and minimalist as their theme itself was.

Procrastination or not, I appreciate it!, Phil replies. Would it be ok if I use you as a reference?

?????????????? i mean yeah but what the fuck, he gets back almost immediately.

It's nice to see you know some punctuation! Sorry if it's weird to reach out like this, I just wanted to like acknowledge the work you put in. I don't have to mention you in the video if you'd prefer!

The sound of the front door creaking open and slamming shut interrupts Phil's nervous typing. He freezes for a moment, fingers still on the keyboard, but then PJ comes in the kitchen with a little salute and several bags of craft supplies, and Phil can breathe again.

It isn't that the other people who live in this house are bad people. Far from it. It's just that, of the people Phil has opted to share this large space with for nearly two years, only three of them have made any kind of effort to understand Phil. The others are nice enough, he supposes, but sometimes they come and go and new people replace them and - Phil isn't exactly good with change, is the thing.

So he relaxes when he can talk to PJ instead of making small talk with someone who thinks he's weird and too messy. "Hey! How's your day?"

"Better than yours," PJ laughs. He drops all the bags on the table and starts puttering around the kitchen. "Hungry?"

"Please. And it wasn't so bad, I got some work done."

"Yeah? Any new info on the new haunt?"

It's incredible how genuinely interested PJ always is in Phil's work. Phil grins down at his keyboard and shrugs a bit. "Some. Mostly just poking around right now, though. Mar's asking his friends too. Oh, and I thanked the person who sent it in."

"That's good," PJ says. He's putting the kettle on, because that's what PJ does when he comes home. "How'd they react?"

"Mostly confusion," Phil laughs. He glances at his screen to see if Winnie has responded - they haven't - and chews on his lip a little bit. "Hey, Peej? If someone says any pronouns are fine, what does that mean?"

"Generally," PJ hums, "it seems like it would mean any pronouns are fine."

"Oh, shut up." Phil runs a hand through his hair, always anxious about getting stuff like this wrong.

"I'm not joking," PJ says, although his tone is still light.

"Oh. So it just... doesn't matter?"

"Not to some people, I guess." PJ leans against the counter as he waits for the water to boil. At least he's smiling, although Phil can't help but notice that it's a little patronizing. "You do know that I'm not a gender guru, right? I'm barely a gender novice. I failed gender out the gate, buddy."

Phil knows his cheeks are pinking up a bit, but he rolls his eyes. "Shut up," he repeats. "You still know way more than me."

The shrug he gets in response makes Phil huff a laugh. This isn't something they talk about, but Phil has been present for enough of Chris and PJ's conversations that he'd gotten the idea.

He wonders if PJ cares that he's bringing it up. Is he making PJ uncomfortable? They don't talk about this.

"Stop spiralling," PJ says easily. His smile is warmer, now. "I don't hate you, nobody hates you, and the fan who doesn't care about pronouns certainly doesn't hate you. If you're that worried about upsetting them, though, you can always ask."

Maybe he's known PJ too long. He's grateful for it, still, so relieved that he doesn't have to voice the swirling anxiety of doing something wrong when he only has the best intentions.

"I guess I could do that," Phil mutters, embarrassed by how easily he's been read.

Winnie's responded by the time Phil looks back at the chat window, a lmao yeah ofc thats fine i just cant believe you want to, im not trying to b weird ive just been a fan for a really long time?? (used a comma for you too) (and brackets) (youre welcome) that makes Phil smile.

Awesome! And are the name Winnie & they/them pronouns fine to talk about you with, or do you prefer something else for this?

no yeah thats good idc how you refer to me, is Winnie's immediate response. It's stupid how much of a load feels like it's been lifted off of Phil's shoulders at that easy reassurance.

"You were right," Phil informs PJ.

PJ nods, solemn, as he stirs his noodles. "I often am."

"You're annoying, also," says Phil. "Hey. D'you wanna come up north with me?"

"Phil," says PJ dramatically, holding the wooden spoon up to his heart. "Are you asking me to run away with you?"

"No, absolutely not, stop making that joke." There's no way in hell Phil is going to keep putting up with this from both of them, and PJ is more likely to listen to him than Chris is.

PJ laughs. "Yeah, yeah. You going to see the haunt?"

"If my parents are okay with us hanging out for the weekend, yeah."

"Oh, okay," says PJ. "We're just waiting on confirmation that Kath and Nigel want to spend time with you? Might as well pack now."

"Your stuff's folded," Phil says helpfully. PJ throws a noodle in his general direction. It flops onto the floor between them, a sad, wet spiral of a thing, and Phil touches his nose at the same time PJ does.

"Well, one of us has to pick it up," PJ says in his Reasonable Adult voice, as if he hadn't thrown it in the first place.

Phil looks at his laptop, valiantly pretending not to see the floor noodle, and blinks.

and i mean i havent seen any of this shit firsthand but if you need to ask me anything about the stuff thats gone down im always free. like literally always.

[tj-is-tired-blog]

"Dammit" (RDR2 X Reader Fluff Headcanon/Blurb/Thing?)

Hey there um I accidentally posted an unfinished ask instead of saving it as a draft because I'm a fool and I can't find it anymore but I remember almost exactly what it was so yeehaw

@crimsonredemption asked: "Hey hey hey hey can you do 'fell asleep on my shoulder' and 'carrying you to bed' with arthur or javier from rdr2 with a gender neutral reader?" (Or something along those lines)

Answer: Hell yeah bröther let's do both

-------------

Arthur:

What started off as a simple fishing trip turned into so much more. You started at around three in the afternoon. About one or two hours after you set up a fishing spot, you found what seemed to be a stray dog. The dog looked malnourished and weak, but he still had a light in his eyes looking like he was filled with hope. He kind of reminded you of Arthur.

"Hey Arthur I found a dog!" You shouted with glee. You were petting the dog with your eyes lit up with joy. Arthur chuckled at how child-like you can be.

"We have a dog at camp (Y/N). We don't need anymore smelly animals than we already have." Arthur put his pole down and walked over to you. You were treating the dog like he was your son. The cowboy, now sitting next to you, was having fun watching you try to care for the dog.

"C'mon look at him! He looks like you but as a dog! Dog Arthur... Darthur!" The dog barked at you when you said the dumb name.

"Awe is that your name? Darthur, you're such a good bo a h." You said trying to imitate Arthur's soft spot for dogs. He was just laughing at how stupid the whole situation is.

"(Y/N) let's getchu' home." You looked at him with a pouty face and tried to fake cry.

"But the d o g." He shook his head and smiled.

"You're tired, c'mon. Get yer stuff." You frowned complied, stomping over to where you left your pole and bag o' fish. The dog followed you and you smiled widely

"I've been chosen!" You shrieked to the world. You looked over at Arthur only to see him loading his stuff on his horse, trying to hold in a laugh. He shook his head and broke. The cowboy, who rarely shows emotion of joy, was laughing a hard laugh. You smiled at this. Someone made tough man Arthur™ laugh and it was because of a dumb lil' doggy.

"Lessgo'." He said between laughs. You picked up the dog, disregarding Arthur saying they don't need anymore pets, and mounted your horse.

"Put the dog back-"

"But Arthurrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..." Arthur just smiled and rolled his eyes. The whole trip back you two were just cracking jokes and making sarcastic remarks. You checked on the dog every now and then, as it was slightly uncomfortable to ride on a small saddle with a larte-ish dog. When you did get to the camp it was about six o'clock at night and everyone was eating their dinner. You hitched your horses and you went to get a bowl of stew for the dog, and for your dinner.

"Now what in the hell is that." Micah, not really asking but demanding™, said, pointing to the dog.

"That is my new dog, and if you get anywhere near him I'll cut your eye out." You smiled sweetly, and continued to try and cool down the stew on the way to Arthur's tent. While waiting at his tent you were 'reading' a book you stole from Dutch. You were really doodling on all of the pages until it was unreadable. Then a certain yeehaw-man that you've spent your whole day with walked over.

"Why are you in my tent?" He looked genuinely confused.

"I can't leave evidence." You simply stated. Arthur huffed and looked at the page you were doodling on.

"Wait... Isn't that Dutch's favorite book?"

"Who knows at this point, you can't read it. Even the title isn't visible." You said snickering. Not once did you look up through the whole conversation. You just continued 'reading'. Big baby boy Arthur sat on the cot and you just kind of cuddled next to him. It felt natural.

"Where's your dog, (Y/N)?" You shot up and looked to where Micah was. Your sweet doggo wasn't there, so that's good. After a fierce whistle there was a bark, and both Cain and the stray walked over. You started making baby noises and pet the dogs. After your cute little dog fit, you closed the book with the pencil in it, and hid them in the wagon next to Arthur's tent.

"Why do you put it by me?" He whisper yelled.

"I can't be the one who gets caught. I'm the favorite." You added sarcasm to the last bit and flopped next to Arthur.

"You might be the strangest person I've ever met." He mumbled.

"Yeah, I know." You yawned out.

The next hour was just you two telling stories about your childhood. It was mildly emotional because you two just wished you could go back. Everything was less chaotic back then. You laid your head on Arthur's shoulder while telling about the past and slowly dozed off. Arthur was rambling and venting so he didn't notice you were asleep for a good while. When he eventually did figure it out, he just kind of stared in awe. He's never seen you so peaceful. You only had three emotions. Angry, sarcastic, and dog. Nothing more, nothing less.

He sighed and tried to pick you up. He struggled a little because not only was he tired and sore, he was trying to be gentle. It doesn't happen often because Arthur, being the big beautiful idiotic brute he is, thinks he's only good for destruction. But as we all know, that's a fat lie. Arthur carefully carried you back to your tent and got a few smart remarks from some of the gang members that were still up. He shot them glares and they shut up quickly.

When Arthur got to your tent he was trying to figure up how to set you down. He eventually figured it out after like six minutes. Arthur looked at you and you shivered a little bit. He looked around for extra blankets.

"Dammit..." Arthur laid down and cuddled you. You smiled in your sleep. He was like a big teddy bear.

You woke up with a start in the morning and you had no idea where you were.

"What the..." You looked around mildly panicking and found a note. You recognized the neat handwriting.

"I brought you here don't worry. You didn't get... Y'know." You looked over at Arthur chopping logs. He grinned quickly before getting back to his work.

--

Javier:

"Hey, Earth to (Y/N)!" You jumped and looked to your left. It was none other than Javier Escuella. He stifled a laugh due to your sudden reaction. You have a tendancy to daydream on guard duty, and now that it was getting later in the evening, you were dozing off every now and then.

"Huh? What? Who?" You yelled out aiming your rifle wherever you could. Javier sure did get a kick out of that. You just grumbled and sat down near a tree.

"Come on amigo, switch off with someone and get dinner. You haven't eaten all day." Javier stated, carving a piece of wood.

"Go trade with uh... Bill or Sean! Those two don't need sleep." You chuckled.

"Nah, I'm okay. Thanks for being concerned, I guess." You looked up at Javier, who yawned and slightly cut his finger with the knife.

"Gah! Mierda!" You shot up from whatever daze you were in, and immediately rushed over to Javier. He was probably being over-dramatic, as it was only a papercut, but you were still concerned.

"Hey wow, are you okay?" You gently held his hand and poured some water from your flask onto it.

"No, it really hurts..." He wasn't lying, but he wasn't telling the truth. It stung a little, but that was the only pain he felt from the small cut.

"Do you need a bandage I-" Javier cut you off.

"You can make it feel better with a kiss~" Javier purred out. You just groaned and threw his hand to the side. Always with the flirting. To be fair you should've expected it. He's almost never irresponsible when carving, or just handling a knife in general. Keyword: Almost.

"You're so stupid." You rolled your eyes jokingly and grabbed your stuff, walking back to your tent.

"Ah mi amor! Come back I miss you!" He laughed. You just scoffed and set your stuff back in your tent. Then you walked over to the campfire. Sitting at the campfire made you doze off again. However, you jolted awake at any sudden noise, trying to make it look like you weren't sleeping. Everyone noticed.

"How come you never go to bed (Y/N)? You always end up sleeping somewhere else." Charles asked carefully.

"Uh... I dunno. Paranoia maybe?" You shrugged and looked toward Charles' direction.

"It's because they always want to cuddle with the Mexican!" Bill mocked. You stood up and stomped over to him. He shrunk back in his seat and you grabbed his collar.

"Say something like that again, and I'll shoot you." You let go and walked to your horse. Little did you know, Javier was watching in the distance. He grimaced at Bill and went to go tell him off. You, however, went to go by the river and camp out for the night. Javier know this, as it was the spot you go to when you get mad.

"Stupid Bill, dumb camp, idiot people..." you mumbled on and on, leading your horse around the river. You grumbled and sat down on a rock.

"(Y/N)..." You whipped your head around and saw Javier. He had a soft, concerned smile on his face.

"Hey." You grumbled, hugging your knees. Javier dismounted his horse and walked over.

"I know you don't want to talk about it..." Javier said softly.

"It's fine. What's up with your eye." Javier beamed and put an arm around your shoulder.

"I knocked out the fucker." You just giggled and laid your head on his shoulder.

"Of course you did." You trailed off, cuddling into Javier's arm. You two sat in a peaceful silence until there was soft snoring from you. Javier looked down and smiled, admiring your features.

"Mi amor..." he mumbled. Javier cuddled you and eventually dozed off himself. You both had a rough night.

In the morning you woke up next to Javier in his tent. He was passed out cold, and snored loudly. You smiled and gave him a kiss on his forehead. Ever so slightly, you could see a grin on his face.

"Damn he's cute..."

-------------

UghHHHHH THIS TOOK FOREVER I'M SO SORRY! It's also a little longer and repetitive than I wanted it to be, but it was kinda fun writing it

[batbirdies]

NaNoWriMo 2019 Batfam fic

So, apologies to anyone who already reblogged or liked this post because I Accidentally DELETED like a MORON. 

I’m posting rough excerpts from my NaNo project this year which is a fanfic centered around Jason Todd eventually agreeing to dog sit Titus while Bruce and Damian are out of town. Involving some deep seated issues, unintended animal therapy, snarky text messages between robins and eventually, some reconciliation between father and son.

Takes place in a murky in between time sometime after Damian was resurrected.

A NOTE: These are very rough drafts, I’m copy and pasting from my google doc, I switch tense all over the place, so apologies, but I want to share.

Part 1

___________________________________________________________________

He dreamed that night.

It wasn’t unusual, he had them at least a couple times a week, sometimes more, depending on different factors, what cases he was working, what kind of crap he ran into on patrol, and whatever damn lottery his brain was playing that night.

The downside: They were never good.

Sometimes they started out that way. Completely innocuous.

He was in a grocery store, and he was looking for something he couldn’t find but he couldn’t remember the name of it, or what it was. And he was walking down aisle after aisle of endless produce and there was a puddle on the floor, one of those yellow caution signs set up next to it, a janitor turned away from him, mopping, whistling as he went and it was far away, a long ways down the aisle but Jason recognized the tune. He knew the song but again he couldn’t place it. But it kept getting louder and the closer Jason got the less it sounded like music and the more it sounded like - like laughing.

Jason was shivering, it was suddenly freezing and when he looked down his clothes were all torn up and he - he was bleeding.

Suddenly he realized the shelves weren’t full of produce at all, they were packed full of bombs and the next step he tried  to take he tripped, his ankles were tied together. He fell on his face, right in that puddle on the floor and it wasn’t water, it was blood and the janitor was gone but that sound - the laughing, it was so loud, and it was everywhere, and he heard this awful scraping noise in the distance, something thin and metal dragging on the floor and Jason couldn’t breathe.

He tried to push himself up but his wrists were tied behind his back and everything hurt, it all hurt so much. The scraping on the floor got louder, closer, he heard footsteps, and the laughing stopped echoing all around him because it was clearly getting closer too. “Robin, kid, you’re really falling down on the job tonight.” And that awful laugh, that stifled giggle. “I really think you can do better.”

He felt the tip of the crowbar graze his side, just enough to make him shudder.

He was face down in a puddle of blood and Jason couldn’t breathe, he couldn't breathe, he couldn’t breathe-

He came to like a dying fish, gasping and choking on nothing, sitting bolt upright in bed with a cut off scream. His chest felt like iron, like no matter how hard he tried his lungs wouldn’t expand, they wouldn’t take in the air around him.

Jason threw the blankets off, feeling hot and cold all at once, and shoved his face between his knees, trying in vain to slow his breathing because there was nausea crawling up his throat and - and, shit- he managed to make it to the garbage can in the corner before he lost what little he ate for dinner. But like other times, at least, the vomiting felt like a relief. The coughing and gagging that followed were no fun, along with the racing heart and shaking hands. He spit into the can a few times, his teeth chattering together.

It felt like there were ants under his skin, just looking for a way out. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand he managed to stumble to the doorway, stepping over the mess of stuff that had spilled out of the box at the foot of his bed, and flicking on the light. It burned his eyes but it at least gave him something to look at outside of the visions clouding up his head.

He still felt the sharp point of the crowbar dragging up the side of his ribs and his stomach gave another awful squeeze that had him rushing to the bathroom just to dry heave in the sink. Turning the tap on and splashing his face with water helped just a little but his mouth tasted sour and his stomach was still knotting up inside him.

Grabbing his toothbrush off the counter he nearly dropped it while running it under the water his hands were shaking so much. He could hear the awful stupid voice in the back of his head even over the stifled groan he let out when his stomach heaved again. He applied way too much tooth paste to the brush and jammed it in his mouth, barely managing not to fall down when he sat on the edge of the tub.

His ribs ached and his knees and shins and his head felt like it was gonna split open. He knew it was a phantom pain maybe because he’d been close to hyperventilating for a good few minutes at that point and he was having some kind of premature brain death from low oxygen but the knowledge very rarely helped. Instead he sat there in the blindingly bright bathroom with his eyes squeezed shut, scrubbing jerkily over his teeth and tongue trying to wash out the sour taste of stomach acid. Trying to scrub out the echoing laughs in his head, the sound of the crowbar dragging across concrete, the muffled thud of it against flesh and bone.

Of all his nightmares, the ones of the joker were always the loudest.

Sometimes he’d talk out loud to himself, or hum, just to try to drown it out but that just ended up making him feel crazier. He brushed his teeth for a long time, concentrating on the sound of the bristles against his gums, long enough that his mouth was just full of foam and there was blood mixing in with it, and then he’d forced himself to stand and spit in the sink. He splashed water over his face and just stood there for a minute, staring down into the drain and watching drops fall from the tap, gripping the edge of the sink with white knuckles, trying to support his weight with his arms cause his knees were shaking something fierce, listening to his own labored breathing.

Amazingly enough Jason Todd did not have cable, and his internet was spotty. It was annoying but the bunker he’d set up for Red Hood had better internet than you could buy plus access to the cave computer and when he moved into his place he reasoned that’s all he really used it for. He didn’t have money to burn and the apartment didn’t come with cable. But on nights like this, when the skeletons in his closet were rattling around like percussion instruments he really wished he could turn on the tv and listen to some bullshit telenovelas or cartoons or reruns of Titanic or he really didn’t freaking care.

He could read a book, that’s what he usually did, but after Joker dreams, sometimes it just - wasn’t enough. There were little tricks, little things he’d learned that helped and he went through the list in his head as he finally wrenched himself away from the bathroom sink, when it no longer felt like the bottom of his stomach was trying to climb up his throat.

There was a lighter on his nightstand next to a heavily scented candle that he lit with shaking hands, nearly burned himself before he set it down to the side and breathed in the biting scent of pine. There was a half empty carton of cigarettes stashed under his bed but he’d been trying to quit and he saved them for when things were really bad.

The trash can in the corner was a problem, one he’d rather not address right then but didn’t want to leave overnight because disgusting and so he took a spare moment to rinse some water in it and dump the contents in the toilet. He splashed some bleach in it and filled it the rest of the way with water and left it soaking in the bathtub.

Music was the next step, he didn’t remember where he tossed his cell phone when he came in and he had to stalk around the apartment before he found it sitting on the kitchen counter just inside the front door, unplugged and with a dead battery. He stared at the screen with an unexpected twist in his chest. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

Abruptly, even though he’d woken without tears, just the pounding of his chest and head, he felt like he was going to start crying immediately and he sucked in a deep, noisy breath before making a point of plugging in his damn phone and going back to his room where the smell of the candle was enough to at least put him more in the present. It was the music that helped with the Joker dreams the most though and without it Jason was left feeling jittery and anxious in a way that only seemed to be getting worse the longer he sat on the edge of his bed, staring at his bookshelves trying to decide which one would be the winner for the night.

His knee was bouncing enough he’d probably wake up his downstairs neighbor before something occurred to him. The smashed up box at the foot of his bed was still just where it was when he’d demolished it on his way in. The thought of it made a different anxiety twist in his stomach.

The box was from Alfred. Sort of. The box was full of Jason’s things so he wasn’t sure if it was really from anyone except that one day after patrol when Jason had been high on pain meds, half lying down on a medical cot in the cave with Alfred working on his stitches he’d admitted he missed some of his old stuff, his books, his CD’s, some video games. The conversation wasn’t meant to go anywhere and Jason had no idea why he said anything but Alfred had told him he was free to take whatever he wanted from his old room - it was still his, after all. But the very idea of going back in there made his skin crawl.

He’d heard from Dick that it hadn’t much changed since he died and that kind of made it worse. Jason didn’t want to step back in time, no thanks. The idea that Bruce had turned it into some kind of museum to before he had died did weird things to his insides and he’d told Alfred as much. He didn’t think he could stomach it.

Alfred had left it at that, didn’t push him to keep talking about it or try to tell him he should try anyway, like Dick probably would have. Jason always appreciated that about Alf.

Instead, about a week later Alfred had shown up at his apartment with a weeks worth of meals and a box of things he’d thought Jason might want. It was a nice gesture and Jason had appreciated it but he’d found, despite his earlier musings, that he held the same sort of apprehension to the box as he did to his old room. Everything inside it was part of his old life and most of the time it all just felt - untouchable.

He didn’t know why exactly, just that his years at the manor felt like some weird mix of dream and nightmare he could never quite suss out.

But now, with the Joker’s laughter ringing in his ears he thought it might be the lesser of two evils and he hoped to anyone listening that Alfie packed his old MP3 player.

Jason slid down across his rumpled bed and slipped over the frame, nearly tripped over the crushed box at his feet but fumbled around it until he could sit cross legged on the floor in front of it. He didn’t know where to start exactly, but he decided the best option was getting the MP3 player first. So, he dug in, pulling out old sweatshirts, a couple knit scarves, an old throw blanket. The soft things were all wrapped around the more fragile ones.

Underneath his old clothes and the blanket he finds a stack of CD’s, too bad he doesn’t have a CD player anywhere...There’s a stack of notebooks, a larger stack of book books, an old baseball, and there, the headphones wrapped neatly around it, is his MP3 player. An old iPod shuffle Bruce had gotten him more because it was something other kids had than that he’d known Jason wanted one.

What he was counting on, was good old Alfie, because while the charger for the device was neatly wound up next to it, it had been literal years since Jason had touched the thing and the idea that it might have any battery left was absurd unless Alfred had gone to the trouble of charging it before packing it away for him. With still shaking hands he unwound the headphones rapidly and shove them in his ears, pressing the home button and just praying for some kind of miracle.

“Bless you Alfred.” Jason whispered out over the heavy beat of hip hop music he didn’t ever remember downloading. He took a moment to breathe, sucking in the smell of wintergreen and letting the music drown out the noise in his head. The rest of the contents still sat there in stacks, pushed to the side of the torn open cardboard or still organized neatly inside it.

This was as far as he’d gotten in a month and Jason decided to just bite the bullet and get it over with. He reached for the first thing that caught his attention and pulled out a framed photo of Bruce and Jason at a baseball game. The same one, if Jason remembered correctly, that he’d gotten the ball in the box from. Bruce stood behind Jason, a hand on his shoulder, a half crooked smile on his face that meant it was real, while Jason at 13 years old stood in front of him, grinning from ear to ear with a mit and a baseball held up in his right hand.

He doesn’t remember who took the photo, it must have been some random person at the game, but he remembered being breathless and excited about going, that he’d never been to one before. He remembered telling Bruce that the closest he’d ever gotten was scalping tickets outside the doors of a hockey rink once and being chased off by a security guard. Bruce had gotten a weird look on his face that Jason never knew how to take before he clapped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed in a way that always made Jason feel weirdly warm in the chest.

“We’ll go to a hockey game next.” He had said. And Jason had been beyond excited.

He swallowed convulsively at the twist in his stomach and set the photo to the side. He wasn’t sure he wanted it anymore. Thinking about the good times with Bruce was always bitter sweet to him now.

Usually more bitter than sweet. The phantom image of a Robin uniform always coming to mind, filled out by some other kid, standing tall and smug. Jason shook his head. He’d decide later.

Next was an old backpack, still filled with his school books. He rifled through one, finding a doodle of a bow an arrow in the corner of one of the pages, a note scribbled underneath he couldn’t actually parse. There were pages of math homework, old assignments with marks ups from his teachers, little notes in red pen.

‘Good work’

‘Nice word choice’

‘Correct formula but you made a common mistake, see me after class and I can explain it better.’

Absently he wondered why Alfred had given him his old school stuff. Not like he had any use for it now and reading through it felt like going through some other kids stuff. It did give him a weird pang of regret. Because Jason had liked school. He’d thrived despite little shitheads in a rich school who thought he didn’t belong there and some teachers alike. Jason felt a weird sort of disgrace at never having graduated High School. Hell, he’d barely started. He stashed everything back inside the bag and set it to the side. He probably wouldn’t get rid of it, thought he wasn’t sure why.

The stack of books was probably what he’d missed the most and he pulled the top most copy off and flipped it open. Jason had a pretty large stash of books at this point, and he had replaced nearly, if not all the novels he’d had in the manor when he was younger already. But it wasn’t the books themselves exactly that he missed.

When Jason had moved into the manor the idea of having books of his own to return to had been a new and glorious thing. On the street, when you needed to keep something for yourself you found a way to mark it, or make it so other people didn’t want it. He’d half ruined most things he’d snatched from stores just so they wouldn’t bother wanting them back if he got caught.

Before his mom had died he’d had access to the Library, which was great, but it meant that none of the books were his and he’d had to keep them nice and neat if he wanted to be able to keep checking them out. It hadn’t been all that easy either, with a drug addicted mother and a lowlife dad who was always bringing other lowlifes around. He’d ended up stashing them under his bed anytime he wasn’t reading them.

The books in the manor were different. They had a library, which Jason treated as such, but Bruce had also expressed that Jason could have his own books. Ones he got to keep in his room that he wasn’t required to return to anyone else or share. He could even make notes in them if he wanted, highlight whatever text interested him or that he wanted to return to.

The idea of marking them up in anyway had horrified Jason when Bruce had made the suggestion, but he liked part of the idea. It made reading feel more like he was an active participant, like he could go back and forth with the characters, like he was involved in the story.

He’d never taken a pen to a book, but what he had done was fill all of his favorites with sticky notes.

Jason still did it sometimes, though he didn’t read as much as he used to as a kid when he was only patrolling on the weekends and just had school to think about. He flipped through the first few pages of Frakenstein, one of his favorites, perusing his own messy handwriting on bright pink paper, faded with age. Again though, the nostalgia twisted hard in his stomach. He was glad to have them back, thought he might actually read through them someday, but what had been something he missed...felt a lot like something he could still never have, now that he was holding it in his hands.

There were all these mixed up, tangled feelings twisted around Jason’s childhood. Sometimes when he was high on pain meds, or drunk maybe, it softened the edges enough to make all this seem like a good idea. But harshly sober and coming down off a nightmare….they just felt kind of like a sad joke.

Like looking at the props from a movie you used to think was real life.

“Whatever.” He mumbled to himself as he grabbed a pile of the books and stacked them back up in a haphazard pile. His bookshelves were neatly organized, lining his bedroom walls on three sides. He made sure to leave room for more, and the second bedroom still had blank walls he’d thought about repurposing for just such an occasion that he ran out. Normally things were organized by genre, then author, then title. But this particular collection he would keep together. He shelved them all on the lowest empty shelf near the floor, next to his dresser.

The picture frame he stuck face down in the drawer of his nightstand to think about later, the baseball, and the mit he dug out to match, he left sitting on his dresser. The couple sweatshirts smelled like fresh laundry, which wasn’t surprising, so he didn’t bother washing them, just hung them up in the very back of his closet. They’d never fit him now, and just looking at them when he tucked the arms of the hanger through the neck hole nearly had him reeling at how tiny he used to be.

His notebooks he didn’t even open, remembering clearly enough the awful drawings he used to make and his own amateur attempts at writing. Journaling had initially been a suggestion from Bruce, back when Jason had frequent outbursts of temper and never wanted to talk about it afterwards. Bruce wasn’t exactly a shining example of talking out your issues, so the journaling had probably been a nice cop out for him, but he still occasionally did some.

The throw blanket, Jason realized when he picked it up, was the same one that Alfred had knitted him for his first Christmas at the manor and that did get him a little choked up. It was red, and a little faded, the color clashed pretty badly with his bedspread if he was being honest but he didn’t care. He took the time to make up his blankets and folded the throw neatly at the end of his bed. Then he settled himself back on the floor in front of the nearly empty box.

There wasn’t much else he expected to find in it. It was large enough that Alfred had managed to fit his old skateboard, which Jason chuckled to see. Despite his skills as robin he had never gotten very good with the thing. He left it leaned up against his bedroom wall behind the door and went in for the last item, sitting neatly at the base of the box. It was wrapped in brown parchment paper and tied in twine, about the size and shape of a book if Jason had to guess, and a badly wrinkled card was tucked underneath the string.

Jason assumed at first that it was a gift from Alfred, stashed at the bottom of the box as some sort of surprise but the obviously crumpled and reflattened card couldn’t have been the butler. So Jason slipped out the card, a nice stock with a simple picture on the front of a sailboat that looked oddly familiar to him.

Upon opening the card he was momentarily confused. There was obviously a decent amount of text written out at one point, but it had all been scribbled out pretty damn thoroughly, he squinted at it for a moment, trying to make out the words as a slow dawning unease settled on his shoulders. He couldn’t quite make out the words but somehow the handwriting still looked familiar, a messy but somehow still graceful looping cursive that could only be Bruce’s.

Jason swallowed roughly, eyes scanning the card over again and then peering into the box like it might now suddenly contain a poisonous snake. It didn’t make sense.

That there was possibly a….gift stashed somewhere in his room from Bruce that he had never known about didn��t make any sense. And the idea that Bruce would have for some reason gotten him a gift since he was out of the manor and asked Alfred to deliver it made even less. Unless it was something related to their vigilante lives maybe. Maybe it was useful to Red Hood somehow and the scribbled out card was code for something.

But something told him it wasn’t. Bruce was ridiculous and paranoid and overly dramatic at the best of times but a secret message disguised as an old gift instead of making a phone call or telling him in person on one of the not infrequent times they might run into each other on patrol made little to no sense. And the gift did seem old he realized.

Reaching in and picking it up out of the box he found the brown paper covered in a layer of dust, brushed off in a pattern that could only have been someone’s hands moving it to begin with. The twine was brittle and snapped at the knot with a very light tug.

There was a feeling Jason sometimes got, like he was swimming in the ocean and he could sense some huge and dangerous coming up beneath him, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. In general it didn’t usually represent (wrong word) anything positive but he was already waist deep in this whole thing and that feeling didn’t tend to leave him until the cause was addressed. So he took a single deep breath and tore the paper off, trying to brace himself for any possibility.

However, when the paper came off he was left with a complete absence of any reaction. He hadn’t known what to expect but somehow what he found was still entirely unexpected.

It was two items, stacked neatly one on top of the other. One, which was, upon retrospect, predictably a book. A hardcover copy of Pride and Prejudice, with a swirling and beautifully designed cover in deep navy blue, overlaid with gold.

On top of that was a slim DVD case with a photo of Kira Knightly looking artfully to the side with a blurry Matthew Mcfadyen in the background.

“What the hell.”

Jason yanked the headphones out of his ears, suddenly feeling the need for the quiet to digest whatever the heck he as seeing. He grabbed up the crumpled card again and opened it flat, smoothing it out on top of the book and squinting in concentration at the scribbled lines of pen. If Bruce wasn’t a pretentious asshole who always wrote in cursive he thought he may have been able to make it out but as it was the only thing that wasn’t in cursive was a cluster of numbers in the upper right hand side of the card that had only been partially scribbled out. He should have noticed them immediately but he had been more intrigued by what he was apparently not supposed to see.

The numbers though, they were clearly a date. A date that Jason stared at with a numbness in his bones while his brain calculated where he was and what he was doing when it was written. It was dated nearly a year ago. Right around the time that….that the two of them had talked. That Jason had agreed to play by Bruce’s rules.

“What….the hell.” Jason repeated to himself. His voice strangled and clipped. Dropping the card he suddenly flipped the book open, flipping the pages in a fan and looking for something more, turning the book face down and shaking out the pages hoping for some other information. Nothing.

He cracked open the DVD case next, popping the disc out and the little leaflet of information thinking there had to be some kind of hidden message somewhere.

“This is such bullshit.” He whispered to himself, incredulous and weirdly lost.

A strangely frantic idea was occurring to him and he picked up the card again, stumbling to his feet and going for one of the notebooks he’d stashed in his closet. He took the one on top and tore out the first blank page he came to and then spent ten minutes digging around for a pencil, ending up with the single sheet of notebook paper and the card, standing in his boxers and a t-shirt in his kitchen. The card he laid out on the countertop, putting the notebook paper on top of it. He angled the pencil carefully and began brushing gentle strokes across the paper.

It was an old hat trick Jason used to read about in ancient detective novels like it was some genius level trick, it would create a negative image of whatever had been written on the page before it was scribbled out, provided the original script was written with enough pressure. Bruce tended to have a heavy hand so he thought it’d be enough but the way the card was crumpled up made it a special challenge, leaving other divots and lines through the text.

When he was done he stared at the sheet of paper with a scrutinizing gaze.

“Damnit.” It looked like scribbles, which was exactly what it was, but maybe a tiny bit more like actual words than before. He studied it, trying to make out the individual first and last letter of each word.

The first word was clearly his name, he took the pencil and carefully wrote out “Jason” below the scribbles.

The first line he could make out sparing words from. He went through the note methodically, writing down words he could make out, leaving a line on the page for each word he couldn’t, carefully counting each word until he was at the bottom of the card and his hands were shaking again, worse than when he’d woken up from the dream.

He stared at what he had, trying to make heads or tales of it.

Jason,

I know ___ ___ ___ this book, ___ ____ ____ more ____ ___ copy. I think I remember ____ ____ me at some ____ ____ I ______ you of Mr. Darcy. ________ I was ______ and _____ _____ if my ______ ______ right.

Maybe you’ve ____ the _____ _______ too, ____ for me to say. It’s ____ a _____ _____ ____ talked _____ books and movies. But I saw this pair _____ sold ________ in a classics __________ at the ______ Bookstore in Gotham and I _______ of you. ____ _______ you might _____ it, ___ a good _________ of the book, if ___ _______. _____ __ _____ watch it ________ and _______ notes.

I miss you.

The vast majority of it didn’t make much sense beyond being clearly about the story and probably not some hidden message, but Jason didn’t care a whole lot.

Instead he stared at those last three words, feeling a tremor run up his spine. He dropped the paper on the counter like it burned him and took a step back, swallowing convulsively. His eyes were burning and his chest felt tight and this was not the bullshit he’d been expecting in that damn box.

“Fucking Alfred.” Jason scooped up the crumpled card and the sheet of paper and stomped back into his bedroom, grabbing the book and the movie and dumping it all in the bottom drawer of his dresser with old electronics and chargers he wasn’t sure went to what to be forgotten about. The drawer slammed closed and he stood there breathing like a freight train for a split second before he went back to the foot of his bed where he tore the empty box until it was flat and recyclable, he stashed it under his sink and he fumed.

Glancing at the clock on his microwave told him it was nearing 5am, meaning he’d gotten maybe three hours of sleep and that the the sun would be coming up in a couple hours. He stomped around his kitchen, dragging out coffee beans and milk and generally making as much noise as possible while making coffee just hoping his downstairs neighbor would come pounding on the door so he could scream in someone’s face.

“Fucking Alfred.” He hissed again, feeling utterly unsteady and hollow. Like someone had scooped out his insides with a spoon. It was such a bullshit move.

Jason wasn’t an idiot. No way Bruce knew that was in Alfred’s little care package. Bruce had probably forgotten the thing existed, had probably thought it had all been thrown away. He’d clearly meant to dispose of the card, probably had, and Alfred had rescued it from the trash and kept it on hand, just waiting to leave it like a bomb for Jason to find. Probably hoped it would open his eyes.

Make him see the light.

Jason was not going to be manipulated by some shitty card that Bruce had thrown in the trash rather than actually give him. And what kind of bullshit was that? Bruce thought he could give him some crappy copy of a book and a movie with a casual little note and things would be good?

He was insane. Bruce was insane and Jason had known it for years.

Jason was shaking his head, pulling a mug out of the cupboard for the coffee and setting it down harder than he needed to. What had he even been thinking? What? That if he gave Jason a present he’d just forget about all the other shit?

Oh, except that he didn’t give him the gift. Instead he threw away the card and put the gift somewhere it was gathering dust for the past year.

There were dishes in the sink from his dinner and he went about washing them by hand instead of using the dishwasher, needing to move, needing something to occupy his hands.

Needed something to work out his aggression on so he could keep hold of the anger in his chest.

*

*

*

He’d bought Jason a gift.

He leaned against the counter sink, gripping the edge hard and feeling the sharp edges of his indignation stuttering and losing their shape. He tried to grab onto it, hold it in place like the shield it was.

But - Jesus he doesn’t really know what to think of it. So Bruce bought it for him, and then what? Couldn’t bring himself to actually give it to him? His stomach twists in knots over it. He remembers meeting up with Bruce, sharing burgers on the hood of the batmobile and agreeing to work by Bruce’s rules.

He remembers he’d been in a good mood that day, that he’d felt more exasperated and amused by the request/demand than he would otherwise normally be. He remembers Bruce being blank and awkward and the good feelings slowly draining. Remembered Bruce cutting the meeting short and making some excuse for it and leaving Jason with that same souring bitterness he always ended up with with Bruce.

He hadn’t gone back on the agreement, he wasn’t really sure why exactly. Except that maybe...maybe him asking meant he didn’t believe Jason was some kind of lost cause.

Not that Jason cared, he had nothing to prove, not to Bruce.

But sometimes there were reasons to prove things to yourself and Jason wasn’t sure he had yet.

It didn’t matter. For now he wasn’t killing anyone and he was on the Bat’s good side. It didn’t explain the movie. There was a date on the card but for the life him Jason can’t remember exactly when they had their chat at the Batmobile. It was....around that time, but was it before or after? He can’t remember, and for some reason that really bugs him.

He doesn’t want to think about this stupid shit.

But Bruce had thought about him apparently. He….he missed him.

It was ridiculous. It wasn’t true.

Jason had to resist the urge to go dig that stupid card out of his dresser and try to parse out the words again.

“God damnit!” He slammed his hands against the edge of the sink.

He wasn’t supposed to care about this crap anymore. He didn’t. He didn’t care.

Jason didn’t care and he was going to stop thinking about it.

…..God he was going to need a shit ton of coffee to make it through the day.

[calvin-reads-problem-sleuth]

TAZ: Balance as a musical

So I was sitting at my sister’s show choir concert one semi-recent evening- you know, like you do- and I had this weird thought: what if The Adventure Zone: Balance was adapted into a Broadway musical? After sitting on this post for what feels like aeons on account of me accidentally forgetting I’d saved it as a draft, I thought I’d share my thoughts on this bizarre topic. 

• The songs are a mix of actual TAZ songs set to lyrics, completely original pieces, and covers/parodies of other songs. 

• Each arc is covered in the space of about fifteen minutes, with the total play taking a little over two hours. This obviously leads to quite a few scenes either being cut or being covered in the space of a montage number, similar to “Drive” from the Lightning Thief musical. 

• The first musical number takes place in the tavern where Tres Horny Boys first meet up, and is about their past exploits and what they’re looking for on their adventure. Magnus and Merle both have their own verse; Mangus sings the first chorus alone, and then both of them sing the second chorus together. Then the two try to ask Taako about himself, and initially he declines to give an answer, so the spotlight instead turns to Barry Bluejeans; he prepares for his own verse... and then Taako’s like “wELL SINCE YOU ASKED” and all the spotlights immediately swing towards him as he belts out his own verse. The last chorus is of course sung by Tres Horny Boys in harmony. 

• The Voidfish is a massive elaborate puppet which is suspended from the ceiling Peter Pan-style; Junior, meanwhile, is a hand-puppet controlled by Angus McDonald, who pulls him out of the tank while excitedly going on about how cute the baby Voidfish is. 

• The Fantasy Costco jingle is expanded into a full musical number, which plays during the first (and only major) Lunar Interlude. Rather than having a visit to the Fantasy Costco between every arc, the play instead opts to have a single extended visit shortly after the Boys officially join the Bureau; the musical number is interspersed with scenes of the Boys buying various items which will be used later in the play. Garfield the Deals Warlock is wearing a heavy robe and a Garfield the Cat mask, so the audience can’t tell what he really looks like (if indeed the mask is not supposed to be his face). 

• I can vividly see the way the Merle’s Arm Incident is handled. Kravitz’s portal opens just offstage, so Merle wanders off in the middle of the conversation. Then, as Magnus and Taako are discussing something else, Merle sprints back into the room screaming that his arm is turning to crystal; at this point, the actor playing Merle has a Plexiglas arm shoved into his sleeve, his real arm withdrawn into his shirt and clutching the fake arm. Magnus brings his battleaxe down on the fake arm, at which point the actor drops it and falls to his knees screaming (possibly going into a musical number). When Merle gets his wooden arm, said arm is a similar prop when it’s first given to him; in all future scenes, it’s part of the costume itself and done with makeup. 

• When Merle does his “My name is Elder Merle” goof in The Eleventh Hour segment, the orchestra actually plays the few notes of “Hello” from Book of Mormon; the music trails off as Merle is rebuffed. 

• Lucretia doesn’t get a solo song until the end of Reunion Tour / start of Stolen Century, and her big solo number is called “No Words”; it’s a heartbreaking ballad about the journey of the Red Robes, and how she can’t even begin to describe how painful it was to do what she did. (I’m a terrible songwriter, but I keep imagining the first chorus ending with the lines “We flew through the universe like seven birds / But when I try to speak of the pain I feel, I have no words”.) 

• JeffAndrew always has to be played by either the director of the play or another member of the production team. 

• The very last song in the musical is a joyful reprise of “No Words” in which Lucretia summarizes the events of the time-skip and what Tres Horny Boys and the others have been up to; the song has new lyrics to reflect that, now that the Hunger is finally defeated, she has no words to describe how happy she is to have her family back together. 

Please reblog if you have any additions of your own! 

[klarkkent71]

TRAGEDY & VERSATILITY

September 8 2019

I still have more content about places to visit and other experiences but these will be my last set of poems until after vacation

TRAGEDY SERIES

 HELL(Dedicated to the victims of mass shootings)

I hate it for you and in the back of my mind I’m feeling bitter yet so numb

Thinking to myself what has this world become to where we cant control those with the guns.

I want to write to my congressman and let out rage but he won’t listen because the lobbyist pay him funds

One shooting after the next more parents crying over a loved one

And to those committing the acts, my only question is why

Hatred, mental illness, jealousy, to understand I can’t try but to express my anger and say we do need change is a fight where I won’t be shy

Just know that I’m tired of innocent angels gaining their wings from others may they rest in peace in that place pass the sky.

 PAIN

I look up to the sky and ask God why do the weather he gives add pain

Strong winds and natural disaster leads to another life that changed.

And what I’m discussing is beyond the times of Noah and the boat

But more on modern-day horrors such as seeing dead bodies of victims who just float

Or these fires that just burn through the western parts of the state.

I can only wish grace and mercy and pray for others and their fate

To lose everything in one instance I can fathom the weight

 CUPID TEARS

I dreamed at night that we were together and woke up and nothing was there

I put you on my mind and fell back asleep thinking I don’t have a care

In the midst of it all I played everything in the back of my mind

One memory after the next of when you used to be mine

But now I’m just an empty shell sitting sad and alone wishing you were here.

I felt myself crying at one point and letting it all out thinking to myself this must be Cupid tears

 BLACK HEROES

United we stand and divided we fall

An era of great leaders once chosen to answer the call

But with hope and courage comes a threat to their way of life

We preach to love your fellow man at times and do what’s right

Unless that man comes from a different creed and get singled out

You stand up and fight for your freedom that’s what it’s about

But to see the vision come true was something you kept in your head.

They say you were a threat and wanted to make a change by any means now you’re dead

And now the vision you fought for happened but the people divided

Trapped in the constraints of Willie Lynch with no guidance provided

We off the plantation now though and back in the hood

Thinking to ourselves life is good when in reality we’re trapped.

None trusting of our own so we stay strapped

We have colored skinned but we divided by color

You wear red or blue you now an enemy even though you’re my brother

Let's talk about the impact now that drugs had

Shit, Sad.

 QUESTION 2

Will the world ever be at peace

 TRAPPED(dedicated to those who afraid to be who they are)

Because we live in a traditional society you feel belittled for who you love

Bible goers tell you your actions will get you sent to hell when it says in the book of Mathew not to judge

Those with a closed mind will shun you and not try to understand how you feel

Just tease you for being different and want you to think you’re mentally ill

So pressure builds up and now you feel all alone

Questioning the way you were born to feel and think that everything about you is wrong

So you see death as an escape from it all

The thoughts grow stronger you thinking of multiple pills or blowing your brains on the wall.

I get sick of society and the pressures that others get to where they can’t be themselves

I pray that you find peace before it’s too late.

 INTERLUDE

Love hurts but I’m grateful and feeling something and that’s alive.  I'm feeling hopeful that I can be torn and put back together.  In some instance even stronger than before.  I honestly think that beautiful things can happen when others get completely torn down at times

 VERSATILITY SERIES

Untiled

I look into your eyes and just get lost

Your chin is on my chest and you’re looking at me like I’m everything in your world

When it comes to spending time with you no matter the distance I’ll pay the cost

Our hearts beat as one and you’re my dream girl

Though the love will always remain the time of being in love been came to end

No titles or constant communication, in reality, we’re not even friends

And now I just hold on to the memories.

I look down at my phone wishing it was you

Wishing one last time I can hug and kiss you

I’ll tell you deep down inside how much I truly love and miss you

But I don’t

I just stare at a blank screen and smile at the notification from you accidentally liking something

 A PAGE

I go hard for my last name so grinding to get after my dreams is nothing

I was motivated from the start my whole life I been grinding and hustling

Early on I was placed in special classes until it was discovered that I couldn’t hear.

So many years achievements later and I'm more than what they thought and I’m still standing right here.

The crazy part about it is that I haven’t fully stepped into my potential and what I can really be

The vision is still clear and I’m still chasing one more degree

I’ve done others wrong in the past and apologized and let go

Thanking God for the changes and maturity along with the growth.

I ‘m proud of who I become

Once wanted to fit in until I learned to march to my own drum

I lived seasons where people came in and out my life to where I grew numb

I had those close to me steal funds when I would‘ve fed them a meal and ate the crumbs

But here I am remaining humble

BLUE WATER

I’m staring out thinking what’s beyond my vision

Blue water, calm waves, to see past it is my mission

Thinking just how freely and smooth what you have just flow

Easily in just many directions, you can just go

I honestly admire the vibe

Being in your presence I feel the high

 MY VIEW

I don’t care what your religious text says deep down this is how I feel

You claim your actions are saving souls from being killed

But the choice to me is with the beholder and not with the traditions they keep in Saudi

I’m stating this right now that a woman should have control of her body

It’s crazy we’re all birthed and come from a womb

 VOTED FOR THE DEVIL

On the night I found out the devil won I wasn't surprised at the outcome or what the world has become.

I just know that a nation which was built of sins of others found their chosen one

The fact we constantly divide makes the beast strong

I keep telling myself that it’s just temporary but the days keep getting longer

And to those with brown skin instead of providing help we build walls.

Lies after lies I’m not even shocked or appalled

Really I’m entertained by those so simple to believe the lies

Draft dodging, fornicating, grab her by the pussy, Russian meddling, and spies.

I’m gone wait to really unleash in the future

Frames

I found pictures and it immediately made my mind jump in the past

Still frames of happiness of when I thought everything we had would last

I saw a birthday cake with candles with you wearing a white coat standing on a chair

Memories ill keep forever in my heart they will always be rare

I see beaches, balls, and baby showers along with pictures at my parents after church

I thought these were memories ill never get back but found on my laptop during a random search

I found a random jump drive and placed every picture on it so they will be in one spot

Im forever grateful that I have a passion for photography because they bring back memories we all forgot

Even flashing back from the good to the bad the mood will be remembered by the faces and emotions in the frame and over 80% it’s smiles

This is the closing of one chapter of poetry and the introduction of the next my next set of poems that will be pulled directly from my heart will called simply “NATALIE”

Whenever I post “NATALIE” it’ll cover many poems but i wanted some of the intro posted

Intro to NATALIE

All black, I feel it’s the color that represented me for years

Now im stepping out on faith thinking to myself I cant believe I showed up and right here

I felt like rock bottom to be honest I’m out the house and stepping out from fear

Sitting here faking like I know the culture but let’s be real what black person drink beer 🤔