#i genuinely could not imagine myself any older than 20 to the point where i had all my self inserts canonically be dead before then

[nexus-nebulae]

sometimes looking at the calendar is just ughgb the passage of time what fuckign year is it again

and then sometimes its just a quiet wow. i actually made it this far?

[chidoroki]

Isabella - 73584

I had a serious debate with myself over whether or not I wanted to sit down and spend my weekend writing another one of these praise posts. I was content with just doing one for each of the Fullscore Trio kids and ending it there.. but apparently I love this woman too much to just ignore her on her birthday. So here were are on September 9th with a list of all her best and my personal favorite moments as to why I believe she’s such a great character, antagonist and mother (yeah you heard me right). Considering she only shows up in the beginning and very end of the story, this post ended up longer than I originally anticipated, which just goes to show how many thoughts I really have about this woman. (for real, this rivals Ray’s post in terms of points but there’s far more words)

Since she also has some backstory and certain events differ between manga and anime (thanks to the second season), I’ll try to go in chronological order between both timelines instead of chapter by chapter, which might be a bit confusing as we’ll jump around the story a lot but just to bear with me as I try to makes sense of it all.

(spoilers for the entirety of The Promised Neverland & ch181.7, so if you haven’t read/completed the manga yet, consider this your first warning, because I’m literally going from start to finish with this one last time. I promise.)

- I’m not sure how well she compares to Emma when it comes to athleticism, but Isabella seemed to have no trouble climbing up and down trees when she was younger.

- Not only that, but she managed to scale the wall by herself using a method that requires a fairly impressive jump. It’s also implied that this is how she climbs the wall again so many years later when chasing the soon-to-be escapees, which helps prove that even at an older age, she hasn’t lost her touch.

- Was chosen to undergo training to become a Mom, which required high test scores and the current mother’s recommendation. She accepted the offer in order to keep living and survive as human the demons couldn’t eat.

- Based on Sienna’s comment, is it fair to say Isabella is on par with the full score trio? I mean, the woman is basically flawless.

- She was practically untouchable during her time at headquarters while training too apparently. Mom positions are scarce so the environment where these ladies fight (physically/mentally/emotionally) to even snag that job is highly competitive, and yet Isabella never let anyone deter her from her goal of becoming a Mom, which probably led to the “Iron Lady” nickname she received now that I think about it.

- She was the youngest ever to be granted the Mom position at..what, 19? 20? Somewhere around there, but impressive nonetheless considering they’re forced to have a child, build up a strong, emotionless exterior and endure so much fear. (but my goodness, the woman doesn’t age at all. she looks just as good when the story actually starts as she did her when she was a bit younger)

- It became common knowledge among the Sisters that she was also very successful in the way she raised her children.

- Her success greatly benefited the farm, as she offered up countless high quality goods, which sounds terrible, I know, but believe me when I say she gave her best effort for her children. Even though she held the Mom position, the amount of power she actually had in this system was pretty minimal, especially with how much she valued her own life. She couldn’t afford to make any mistakes or risky changes, so she settled with doing the most with what she was capable of. She provided her children with a normal lifestyle, not only to keep up the orphanage facade, but knowing that their lives would all be cut shorter than they anticipate. She gave them love in hopes that no one would ever have to feel the dread she felt after Leslie’s death and/or finding out the truth. She tried to delay that horrific fate by encouraging them to learn all they can (like teaching the trio about strategy and chess) so they could achieve higher tests scores and (unknowingly to them) add a couple more months or years onto their lives. Yes it was her job to raise these children to such high standards but she excelled at it for their sake too.

- And I know y’all will just throw Ray in my face like, “oh but he was her actual child and she treated him horribly/different.” Okay but deep down I don’t think she actually wanted to? When they both realized they were truly mother and son, Isabella couldn’t just dote on him and start treating him as such. I’m sure Ray wasn’t too fond of Isabella at this point in his life either, knowing that she sent several of his siblings away to get killed. They probably would’ve gotten along just fine in a perfect world, but since they were both aware of the hell they’re trapped living in, they emotionally distanced themselves and formed a business-like relationship as a result of Ray’s deal, which benefited them both in different ways. For Ray, it was more practical, with the obvious notion of living as long as possible along with obtaining various rewards and knowledge of the outside world. For Isabella, it helped emotionally by simply just ignoring their true relation. I believe if she clung to that realization, it would break the orphanage illusion and eventually wear down her “Iron Lady” exterior that she relies so heavily on.

- Like can you imagine how much you would have to harden your heart in order to quite literally walk children to their death every couple months for years on end and just move on like it’s completely normal? Now imagine how earth shattering it must be to think about doing the same to your actual child. All those years spent perfecting a fake smile and emotionless exterior like she was trained to have and her son shatters it in an instant. She becomes completely terrified about how he’s actually alive and in front of her right now and there’s nothing she can do to truly save him.. and yet she still recovers so damn quickly I can’t even comprehend it! But there’s still some sadness in those eyes. You can’t tell me otherwise. That one moment of weakness speaks volumes to me.

- So now with her general backstory FINALLY out of the way, we can finally start with ch01/ep01 and how her laugh is sweet and innocent. I say that because (all hidden emotions and motives aside) that’s exactly how she’s supposed to sound in this moment, not only to us but to the children as well.

- She of course checks Emma’s tracker a moment later but other than that I still think it’s a pretty genuine moment between the two.

- As previously stated, her ability to raise high quality children is unmatched, which is clear as day thanks to the fullscore trio.

- Despite their crazy level of intelligence, the trio has yet to win a simple game of chess against Isabella, even when teamed up.

- She treasures everything about the kids.

- She really cares about them, even when it’s time to send them off with a smile, which we know is thanks to her strong facade.

- But mother dearest isn’t really fine. She doesn’t like walking kids to their death, especially so young. But she can’t let them (or even herself) know that. She can’t show weakness, so she hums Leslie’s song, which is a tool she’s used for years in order to give herself strength.

- Don’t worry, I disliked her this moment happened too, just as the story intended. And here’s where her fantastic antagonist role begins for all the world to see.

- A true champ at jump scares.

- Acts completely calm the night after a couple of kids found out the secret of the farm.

- She uses the tracker in plain sight, sending whomever went to the gate last night a threatening but silent message.

- Correct Norman, that’s the “Iron Lady” for ya. Also the name of ch03 for us. Well, “The Iron Woman” but same difference.

- She switches from calculating and manipulative breeder to sweet and pleasant mother so quickly and effortlessly it’s incredible. Isabella even checked Emma’s pulse in this scene to see if she was acting normal.

- At this point she still had no idea who went to the gate (Ray didn’t tip her off yet, at least I don’t think so) but her guess couldn’t have been more precise. The level of fear she drives into both Emma and Norman was great too, but then again her presence is enough in any scene to give us chills.

- Notices her watchdog isn’t at his usual post and starts to get suspicious.

- Not only of him, Emma and Norman, but Don and Gilda as well, thus giving the five extra chores to finish in an attempt to slow down any escape planning, such as cleaning vacant rooms, organizing the pantry and inspecting spare linen.

- While the trio believes Isabella was being too soft and patient in finding her targets, she effectively catches them off guard by bringing in Krone for assistance. The trio soon realize they were actually preparing the sister’s new room and those mundane chores were just an excuse to buy time.

- Look at her, all smug. Checkmate indeed. (and totally not important, but her eyes are such pretty shades of purple)

- The sass and her no nonsense attitude.

- Immediately puts Krone in her place the moment she even thinks about shipping out the targets. Of course holding off on shipping the targets would benefit the farm, as it would produce higher quality merchandise as time passes, but plant 3 is run by Isabella and she’ll be damned if an assistant thinks they could waltz right in and decide her children’s fate.

- She check’s Emma tracker again despite her claim of knowing exactly who the targets might be. You can never be too careful.

- Her precious children managed to win a game of tag against Krone, which is still impressive considering the kind of training the sister has gone through, so kudos to her teachings.

- Knows right away that Krone was trying to take advantage, which allows Krone to realize that the opening she had to learn more about the children was all planned by Isabella herself. Her intimidating nature is enough to scare adults too.

- Reveals that Krone was mostly summoned in order to keep Ray in check after his failure.

- Despite the trust issue, Isabella still keeps up her end of the deal by requesting the items Ray asked for, thanks to the odd perks she had under Grandma Sarah which allowed her to order goods that weren’t on the supply list.

- This hug between her and Phil is just too cute not to mention.

- I imagine she makes this comment because she knows exactly how long a rope must be based off her own almost-escape.

- It’s just something about how this scene is framed alongside this dialogue that makes me think “oh, like mother, like son.”

- I blame her very thoughtful planning for my first big freak out when I watched season 1 blind, like ma’am that’s my favorite boy, please don’t.

- She conspires with Grandma Sarah in order to get rid of Krone for good, which renders the evidence sister just found out about the children’s escape completely useless. Sarah believes there might be some truth to it, but ultimately ignores it and puts her faith in Isabella’s ability of controlling the children & the situation.

- She then cuts Ray off and ends their six-year long deal, opting to control the situation herself from now on. Also, how she wanted to keep him around until the very end is kinda bittersweet. Does she mean as merchandise? Or because she wanted him to live as long as possible? Ah such a tricky little comment.

- She also tosses him across the room like a rag doll.

- Thank god for this panel existing and actually being adapted into the anime so I could hear it because I had absolutely no memory of her laughing in this moment.

- “She says it so nonchalantly,” Norman said once upon a time, and it’s still so frightening.

- As insane as her ideals seem given the circumstances, nothing she says here is really a lie.

- She has the strength to quite literally break a leg and that cracking noise still haunts me to this day.

- It wasn’t even a spur of the moment thing either. Isabella came fully prepared with bandages to fix up any injury she was willing to inflict and that thought alone is terrifying.

- Not only that, but she broke it so cleanly that Emma’s leg does indeed heal perfectly in the exact time frame she estimates. This entire moment is so unfairly impressive, like ma’am how dare you do this to Emma of all people.. like why couldn’t you at least use that kind of force to snap Peter’s neck instead or something?

- To make matters worse, she then reveals Norman’s shipment date. And it’s the following day, which sends the kids into a very understandable panic.

- Needless to say, November 2nd, 2045 was a very successful day in the life of Isabella. Woman was putting everyone in checkmate in ep08 and my anger on full blast.

- This sly smile she sends Ray’s way after announcing Norman’s shipment to the younger kids is so cruel.. it’s perfect.

- I can only imagine she asked about Ray’s whereabouts because she knew the boys were close friends and she hoped they would at least say goodbye to one another, but that’s just me.

- Puts an end to Norman’s parting words in such a simple and chilling matter.

- The way she just openly threatens Emma with others just out of earshot.

- Norman out here asking the real questions. If anything, I say she’s more “content” rather than happy. I don’t think she’s ever really thought about her own happiness, at least not often enough, hence the slight pause. This entire time she’s been focusing on how to make her children’s lives perfect, but for herself she just wants to survive in this hellish world they’re all living in.

- I’m honestly still not sure who’s final decision it is to send people to Lambda, either Isabella, Peter or someone else (honestly never bothered to check), but whether or not Isabella had any say in the matter, I’m sure she’s at least a little glad that Norman gets to live a bit longer? Perhaps that’s a stretch, but I’m putting the idea here anyway.

- I say this because I believe that’s part of the reason why she offered Emma a Mom recommendation, not only because our girl’s high test scores, but in hopes that she could live a longer life.

- Although she really stresses in an intimidation fashion how pointless Emma’s efforts are now that Norman’s “dead,” the cliff remains a major hazard and her leg is still bandaged up, Isabella still tries so hard to convince her to give up, like Ray has, in order for Emma to end her own suffering. It was the first instance during my blind watch-through were I started to get the hint that Isabella might actually care about her kids, and of course I know now it’s because she didn’t want Emma to experience the same pain she did after Leslie’s death.

- With Emma and Ray both broken, things went by rather smoothly for Isabella those last two months, though she continued to keep a close eye on them.

- Her humming is so soothing. And why it took me this long to bring up “Isabella’s Lullaby” is beyond me, but oh my god, that song and any other soundtrack that uses its melody is absolute perfection.

- Had enough sense to not let her guard down the final night, even though her efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, but the idea counts.

- Though her caretaker side is focused on more during the fire, some motherly instincts do kick in as she instructs Gilda to get the babies from her room and lead everyone outside to safety. She was also concerned for Emma’s well being, hoping all the smoke didn’t get to her when the girl vanished. (i know you can argue “she’s only worried because they’re merchandise” which is fair but c’mon, i swear she’s not completely heartless)

- Took a hot minute (ahha) but Isabella eventually realized that the kids were actually escaping solely based on what they were wearing on their feet. I’m sure Emma’s discarded left ear was a big tip off too but to come to that conclusion by noticing the shoes they had on during all that chaos is surprising.

- She looks completely insane here but I always thought this shot of her was nicely animated with all the fire (or embers? sparks? whatever they are) flying around. The laugh she does before this is also a nice bonus. Oh, and she somehow managed to secure a radio from the room Don had locked.

- Figured the fifteen kids would head towards the bridge and called in headquarters to block it off.

- But when the children didn’t appear at the bridge, she just happened to know exactly where else they might try to cross the cliff.

- In the anime’s case, Isabella climbed the wall and ran there quick enough to engage in a stare down with Emma before she finally slid down.

- The moment I knew I was doomed.

- After the 15 kids successfully escaped, Isabella admits defeat, for she couldn’t really see how much her children have grown to outsmart her.

- This iconic quote, which conveys so much truth and sincerity. There were multiple occasions where she had to distance and restrain herself due to the system that controlled her, but the love she was able to show the children was genuine. If she wasn’t held back by the strict rules enforced by Mom position, I don’t doubt she would’ve treated Ray better or became far more emotional whenever a child had to leave for good or seriously injured, instead of donning a fake smile and being closed off.

- She realizes with this unspeakable loss in merchandise, the reputation she worked so hard to build up is meaningless now and that the farm no longer has any use for such an incompetent caretaker. She figures she’s as good as dead anyway now, so she wastes no time in actually helping the escapees by reclaiming the ropes to hide their exact method and route of escape, if only to grant the kids some extra time before the pursuers really locate them.

- She doesn’t act bitter as a result of her loss, instead choosing to wish the escapees luck with the future they grasped for themselves and care for the children that were left behind.

- She’s just so pretty y’all. Thank you anime.

- She was named “Best Antagonist” (and rightfully so!) back during the 2020 Crunchyroll Anime Awards, winning over Askeladd (Vinland Saga), Overhaul, (My Hero Academia), Garoua (One Punch Man,) & others.

(Post-season 1 spoilers ahead, even though the anime is completely finished at this point, but will be touching upon her special chapter more as well.)

- Completely owns up to her mistakes that caused the farm a massive loss in profitable goods and is ready to received whatever punishment necessary, which she expects to be death.

- Only.. she’s not being killed, she’s actually being promoted to Grandma. Though Isabella was directly responsible for the children’s escape, the blame ultimately falls on Sarah who couldn’t correctly control Isabella, thus leading the old lady to be shipped out in place of the goods Isabella lost.

- Peter also notes that the farm found more worth in Isabella than Sarah, so her past merits also played a part in sparing her life, as having a woman like Isabella in charge would surely produce the level of quality the farm needs.

- Isabella eventually accepts the promotion, though she can’t help but feel hesitant and shocked about the whole deal. This woman was ready to embrace death and finally be free from this cruel world, but now she has to witness not only more kids being shipped off, but moms and sisters in training as well (yay old chapter reviews coming in clutch).

- She could have very well just refused Peter’s offer, but we all know how much Isabella originally wanted to survive, so she doesn’t just accept because this man dangled a sense of freedom in her face, she also agreed so she could have the opportunity to help her children in any way her newfound power would allow her.

- Of course, her transition to Grandma happens a bit differently in the second season, but I will give some bittersweet thanks to the anime once more for the obvious but curse them for also having this entire scene dark as hell. Let me see her beauty darn it! I can only fix the lighting so much until it looks overexposed and bad again.

Anyways, Sarah is still alive at this point and taunts Isabella with the escapee’s lives just to see how she would react, which gave her a small sense of hope. Then some demons pay a visit later on and also ask if she would want to see the children one last time, but Isabella tells them that not only would she be too ashamed to face them but that they would manage to survive Grandma’s capture plan, which involved several men blowing up their shelter. It’s now clear to the demons that these children are special, and while Isabella agrees, it’s not for the same reason the demons think so. The demons believe the kids are special because of how they were raised to such a high quality. Isabella calls them special simply because they’re her children, just as any mother would.

- In the anime, it’s the demons who offer Isabella the Grandma deal if Sarah’s current plan were to fail (which it does) and she takes it and the freedom from Grace Field House without question. Do I still believe she had similar intentions to help out the children like she did in manga at this point? Of course.

- Not even a full month into her new job did she start preparing to help Emma & the others by considering who from the current Sisters she wanted to recruit to personally assist her destroy the farm entirely.

- A month later and Isabella had already decreased the number of shipments that took place at Grace Field, which obviously helps raise the quality of the children by default, but it also means less death and gives those kids a chance to live longer.

- She completely anticipated that Matilda, Jessica, Sienna & Scarlet were conspiring against her and caught them quite easily, as they were among the top scorers.

- Each had a fair chance at becoming Moms but with those positions limited, it was obvious to figure out they were trying to force Isabella’s seat open by creating some suspicious activity to place on her almost perfect record. Unfortunately for the girls, our new Grandma is too smart for her own good and I love it.

- The four women are apprehensive to join her insane plan to go against the farm, but Isabella assures them there’s no freedom if they follow the system’s rules and betray her. The harsh reality they’re all living in will continue unless they stop competing with one another and combine forces to defeat the true enemy.

- To persuade them further, Isabella mentions the children they all gave birth to are still alive, bringing out an array of emotions from the women that they each thought they had buried deep down.

- THIS! Just all of this is wonderful and shows just how much Isabella learned from her children who once defeated her.

- To fully gain the women’s trust, she gives them Ray’s farewell note that he originally left in order to bait Krone, as proof she won’t double-cross them at any point.

- I love the fact that she kept the note close to her because it acts just like all the other various toys and items she saved in her secret room back at plant 3. The original owners were all precious to her so she kept a piece of them behind to remember them in a place only she knew about. As I said before when mentioning her “I wish I could have just loved them normally” quote, all the love she had for her children had to be suppressed when she was under the system’s control, but that doesn’t mean she never cared. Because she did, and if I haven’t made at least that clear by now then I’m failing.

- Can her intentions and love for her children be any more clear? (possibly, i’m not done with this darn post yet. how you guys holding up? i’m going a little insane at this point.)

- Anyways! Second season didn’t make the rest of the story easy so apologies for any timeline mishaps as I switch between both anime and manga events from here on out.. like how in manga Isabella is informed of the escapee’s return to Grace Field via Peter, while the in the anime it’s her who helps lures them back with a fake transmission via the radio they stole.

- Just before Emma & the others do return to Grace Field on November 13, Isabella finally reaches out to the farm’s many other Sisters to recruit them. She waited until the right moment to inform them of her crazy takeover plan so Peter wouldn’t become suspicious from all of headquarters acting/thinking differently (you know, like how Emma kept the jailbreak plan under wraps until the night of). These ladies also feel a bit wary and even think of Isabella’s offer as a joke, but with some real, heartfelt encouragement, she manages to win over every single woman to her side.

- The moment when it was first revealed to us that she was not only still alive but was also promoted to Grandma is still so powerful.

- She snaps Nat’s finger back into place after Peter broke it. (and considering emma’s group infiltrates the farm right after this, i’m pretty sure that ch170 with rallying the sisters took place before this..i think?)

- Gave me a minor heart attack.

- *CLAPS FRANTICALLY!!!* The moment she truly won me over.


- While her betrayal against Peter in the manga is fantastic and quite possibly one of my favorite moments, the anime did give us a little something too. It shows Peter spewing utter nonsense to Emma about how she’s destined to fail, only for best girl to bite back with such a fantastic quote, and then Isabella drops the act and switches sides. While I agree Emma’s comeback is “wonderful,” it’s the English dub that completely wins me over in this scene by having Isabella comment “Now that’s my girl” instead, like bro.. hearing that makes me so happy.

- For real dude, you have several highly skilled women pointing guns at you, I think her betrayal is crystal clear.

- This is like the perfect example of how she had to conceal her feelings while bound by the system. She just misses these kids so much y’all but she can’t let her true emotions show yet.

- Having her call Peter a boy is beyond hilarious to me. Also, how she disagrees with him on so many levels is excellent, like how he believes in experimenting on kids and having the right to call yourself their parent just because you created them, while Isabella believes in raising and loving children normally and that you earn that parent title by actually being part of their lives. To be fair they both inflicted pain on kids (Nat’s finger/Emma’s leg) but Peter’s action was a mistake in itself. Isabella got frustrated back when Krone even threatened to ship out the kids who discovered the secret, so you can bet she’s probably pissed off at this boy for harming one of her kids on purpose.

- The best mother-daughter moment ever! It’s such a shame it never got truly animated since the second season decided not to give the children guns, but we get to see a small smile from Isabella after Emma decided to still call her “mom.”

- The anime never gave Peter the chance to run away, like he (somehow) managed to do in manga, so we had the chance to see someone actually shoot at him. Well, in his general direction at least. Isabella lands a perfect shot not even a full second after he pulls out that disc. Accuracy on point.

- Said this once or twice in the past in manga so I’m glad the anime brought it back.

- Remains cautious and keeps her gun raised at Peter when Emma approaches him and rightfully so considering he still had his knife hidden at this point.

- Refuses Emma’s offer to join the kids in the human world at first because she knows that her (& the sister’s) actions shouldn’t be forgiven so easily, but with some rather blunt sympathy from Ray and encouragement from her other children, she finally gives in.

- This entire post summed up in one image.

- She apologizes even though distancing herself from her kids and preparing them for death were just required of her role as a caretaker. She wouldn’t have done any of that in a normal world. (do i sound like a broken record yet? probably)

- The emotion you hear in her voice during this entire dub scene hits my heart in all the right places.

- She still thinks of Leslie after all this time and I think that’s real cute.

- Her protective nature is on full display when she protects Emma from this bastard of a demon. A truly surprising and heartbreaking moment, considering this is the woman who’s survival used to be her top and only priority in the past, but now doesn’t hesitate to give her life in order to save her kid (and by extension that small girl emma saved. also, major heart attack for me).

- Despite being critically injured, this woman still possess enough strength to hold back a demon twice her size. She doesn’t even pay any mind to its nonsense. Like the demon, people often think this is when redemption arc starts but I believe it started way back in ch37 when Isabella retrieved and hid the ropes the kids used to escape. Ever since she admitted defeat on the wall that night, she threw caution to the wind and began cheating the system in hopes to one day assist the kids achieve a brighter future. Despite all the work she’s done behind the scenes, Isabella believes there’s still so much more she can do to atone, so even though she’s already received the children’s forgiveness, she continues to assist them by jumping in and saving them directly from demons for once in her life.

- Ma’am it’s sweet you’re so concerned with their safety, but we should be asking you that question ya know? (but then again emma was the same way after she woke up from her coma).

- Knows that just apologizing and saving Emma isn’t enough to suddenly forgive all her actions and wants to do so much more for the children as a result. Even though I already acknowledged all her subtle and hidden moments, I wish we got to see her care for them more openly.

- I simply can not read through ch177 and not get emotional. No matter how hard I try, I always feel tears start to form in my eyes. Oh my god, how cruel that death can be this beautiful. It’s so unfair.

- *uses old chapter review because I’m too upset right now* “She apologizes for everything. For not treating him right and loving him as a mother normally would her own son. For making him despise his life so much and enduring so much pain that he thought the only escape was suicide.”

- “She leaves him with one last wish to protect everyone, and that completely breaks me because you know exactly how much they both care for their family. Not only would they literally die for their family, but they would live for them too if someone asked. Truly like mother, like son.” (aaaaaahhhhh)

- Her, umm.. ghost (along with Conny’s & Yuugo’s) help Ray reunite with Emma in 2049.

- All my tears aside, the anime did something right by actually keeping her ALIVE!

- Have you ever seen something so GODDAMN BEAUTIFUL in all your life?? This image is so powerful it literally tossed aside any salty feelings I had that night with how the second season ended. Seeing her like this grants me so much happiness y’all, it’s truly unbelievable. I still can’t get over it and hopefully I never will.

Okay, now I’m done, thank god. Sorry this is like ridiculously long, especially since she’s absent for sooo many chapters. Also find it so hilarious how drastic my opinion of her changed from the beginning to now, from “bitch” to “oh my god I love her so much.” I know people will always have opposing opinions whether she’s actually a good mother or not and that’s totally fine. Wasn’t trying to convince y’all of that either because yes, some of her actions are real unforgivable, but she was suffering under the farm system too and just followed through with what she was trained to do in order to survive, but while other Sisters fought to climb ranks and help themselves survive, Isabella ultimately wanted the best for her children. The more power she gained, the more risks she took and once the system crashed so did her facade.

An absolute queen.

[ciggylungz]

Pray to me

word count. 4,077

Warnings-like probably the most risky smut i’ve ever written, church sex, wild stuff (sorry)

Pray to me:

(A random little smutty one shot relating to my bad boy harry series, it’s not going to affect the story line so just imagine this is another au for my au that’s an au. I just gave myself a stroke writing that.)

__

Detention.

A ‘punishment’ Harry Styles was used to getting by now, he was in his third year of Catholic high school and to say he has gotten his fair share of detention slips is a gross understatement. You’d think being surrounded by crosses would help subdue his cursing yet Harry didn’t seem to inherit the same fear his classmates did by the ‘word of god’ that was crammed down his throat every day. So, it wasn’t exactly tolerated when the boy strung a slew of curses together to describe the head Priest, or when he got caught smoking spliffs in the boys bathroom when he was supposed to be in math and well, those choices led him to where he is now. Slouched in a pew whilst the head nun was giving him a proper tongue lashing and explaining to him that he was to clean the chapel from top to bottom, smooth any creased pages in the 300 bibles that were stacked in the rows of pews, get any gum off the under side of them as well and wipe down the stain glass windows. The school had called his mum to tell her he would be home very late that day knowing the job would take a solid 4 or 5 hours to complete and that’s if he rushed it. To say he was pissed was putting it lightly, yet the biggest shock was yet to come when he heard the heavy wooden doors open and slam again as another person shuffled inside.

“Miss Yln, you’re here. Mister Styles here can tell you the duties you both must complete, here are the keys lock the doors when you both are finished. We’ll expect to meet with you before mass tomorrow to get a proper apology once the work if finished. Right-o, chop chop kids.”

The grouchy wrinkle faced nun thrust the keys into an anxious Y/n’s hands while she shuffled her way towards the exit, giving a careless slam of the 20 pound doors causing both Harry and Y/n to flinch. Harry was genuinely surprised to see Y/n there with him, he’s used to seeing her at mass or in line at confessional but detention? That was a new one for her. He took his time standing from his seat, cracking his back and neck whilst he settled onto his feet, casting a curious glance at the girl who stuck out like a sore thumb in the somber hostile environment. He knew Y/n well, he considers her a friend which is rare since he’s not the friendliest of people around town. Yet he liked Y/n, she was cute as button and what teenage boy doesn’t find an innocent girl wearing a catholic school uniform appealing?

“well well well miss sunshine, what did you do to get yourself this torment?” Harry gave her the quick once over, using his typical teasing nickname for the girl just to get her cheeks to blush a bit and help lighten the mood. Y/n blew out a breath out through her plump glossed lips, subconsciously stomping her foot a bit in annoyance which Harry thought was funny, and also cute. “I accidentally said a bad word in class! James tricked me into saying it and Sister Amy heard and gave me detention.” Her pout grew further when the boy chuckled at her attitude. “How did he trick yeh into saying somethin’?” Y/n grunted a bit, very peeved and mentally hexing James for what his actions caused her, “He said hold your tongue while you say apple…” Harry at this point was letting out a belly laugh, just imagining Y/n’s face when she realized she’d said asshole and finding humor in how ditzy she could be sometimes. “You fell for that? Did you not have a childhood? I thought everyone knew that trick, hon” Y/n simply smacked his arm and tossed the keys onto the nearest surface. “Shush Harry” her little finger pointed at him, trying to be serious but he found it comical. His hands moved out to poke her sides, knowing exactly how ticklish she was feeling content as Y/n squirmed and squealed. Adorable giggles falling from her lips and making the chapel seem a bit less creepy, her tiny hands trying to push his biceps back to free herself from his tickling fingers. “Ah! Harry!-“ she was trying to speak between her laughs, the boy one year her senior smiled, dimples sinking into the flesh of his cheeks, “Dunno what you expected, love. You thought you could tell me to shush?! no one tells me to do princess.” “Okay! Okay I’m sorry! I take it back!” after what seemed like an eternity to Y/n, but was only a few ticks over a minute Harry finally let go, smiling down at her while he ruffled her hair chuckling to himself while she tried to straighten her uniform back out. “That was not a fair fight Harry, you had an unfair weight AND height advantage!” y/n stuck her tongue out at him. “Hey, you started it bossy pants. You’re lucky I didn’t throw yeh over m’ shoulder and tossed yeh around. You got off easy this time missy.”

Harry wasn’t typically so playful and relaxed, he couldn’t bring himself to be so cold around Y/n. How could he? She’s sunshine personified, the real version of the rhyme ‘sugar, spice and everything nice’.  The girl was the only thing that kept him from dropping out. Y/n makes day to day bullshit tolerable for him…and well she also has given her inspiration more than once when he couldn’t sleep at night and resorted to a quick wank while mumbling of dirty phrases topped off with her name to send him off to dreamland.

 _______________________________

After some more shenanigans, the pair got to work on their scheduled tasks.  Y/n had started in the bibles in the first 6 pews on the right side of the chapel while Harry dug through a supply closet to get a ladder out to wipe the windows. He was contemplating if he should pretend to fall and collect an insurance claim instead of actually cleaning the 12-foot art pieces but he decided against it by the time he found what he was looking for. After setting the ladder up and grabbing the giant duster Harry decided to take his first break, he knew he was just procrastinating but who cares? He decided during his break he’d get Y/n to take one with him. “Hey love, wanna take a fiver?” Y/n looked up from the 12th bible she had fixed giving him a frantic nod, her mind numb from the task she was busy doing.

“what do yeh wanna do?” she left the choice up to the older boy, watching as he bit his lip lightly in thought, shrugging and scooting in next to her. “truth or dare?” he wiggled his eyebrows tempting her and being the compliant and very bored girl, she was, Y/n agreed.

“Okay you first Harry, truth or dare?” the boy pondered for a moment before shrugging, “Truth” he didn’t miss the way she was fidgeting with her skirt all excited for the game. “Ok, have you ever uhmmmm got drunk?” her innocence laced her tone, genuine curiosity. Her voice slightly lowered as if what she was asking was naughty which of course got Harry to chuckle, “Yes, pretty much every weekend. You’ve never drank? Not even once, love?” his left eyebrow raised and she timidly shrugged “Nope, I only had wine at communion but then it’s only a sip. Never been drunk before…Okay your turn!” he hummed slightly, “Truth or dare y/n?” “uhhh dare!” at this point she was squirming in her seat from her giddiness, and Harry took full opportunity over the chance he had. “I dare you to kiss me.”

Y/n wasn’t exactly expecting that one. She thought maybe he’d dare her to say another bad word or smoke one of his cigarettes, but he wanted her to kiss him…and she was confused on why she wanted to. She didn’t want to say no, she had the urge to follow through with it. The girl noticed the butterflies in her stomach she was used to getting when around her older friend, and a blush crawled up her neck to her cheeks. Harry sat with an amused smirk, darting his tongue out to lick over his lips whilst tipping his head to the side slightly, “cat got your tongue, love? What are yeh waiting for?” a pointer finger was placed under her chin to get her to look at him, and y/n decided it was better to bite the bullet and pushed her thoughts out of the way while quickly leaning in to give him a peck.

Harry was surprised she actually did it, feeling her lips on his for a split second before she pulled away with a shy giggle yet he was having none of that. “uh uh, a real kiss” his natural dominance reared it’s head when he grabbed the girl and plopped her on his lap, holding her jaw and planting his lips on her’s yet again coaxing her to move with him. When she didn’t respond how he wanted he tugged her hair a bit, biting her bottom lip and dragging it down so her mouth was pried open, “Being a tease y/n, keep your mouth open wanna taste ya’”

y/n’s head was swimming, she’d never done anything like this but her body went weak under Harry’s rough hold and demanding voice and so she complied opening her mouth so his tongue could infiltrate. She wasn’t really skilled in the kissing department; she’d only kissed one person before and it was nothing like this. Harry didn’t mind her clumsy, clueless movements he found it even hotter that she didn’t know what she was doing and he was the one cracking away at her purity. His heart was pumping, his fingers tangled in her hair as he tugged her by it to get her to move where he wanted her, it was hot. So fucking hot.

When he finally pulled away from the kiss he observed her. Plump lips now a flushed red, swollen and slick with her lingering lip gloss and their mixed spit. She was breathing heavily, eyes staring into his darkening ones. She looked amazing. “God…pet you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to fuckin’ do that” his tongue darted out to lick over his own lips frowning when he got a heavy taste of sticky lip-gloss , “gotta get this off yeh, it’s too sticky” his sleeve was pulled down to cover his palm whilst he rubbed the remaining product off her delicious lips before shuffling it back up to bunch at his elbows. “There, look a little dazed petal. Yeh alright?” Y/n nodded quickly at the question, smiling a little bit before kissing his nose and each of his cheeks then going back to his lips mimicking how he’d kissed her prior. The boy could hardly contain himself, taking over the kiss and pulling her hands off his face holding both her wrists in one of his hands yanking them above her head so she was completely bound. “No no no, little love. I make the rules hon, you don’t. I didn’t say to kiss me again did i? I didn’t say you could touch me, hmm? Being a bit naughty aren’t yeh baby?”

To say she was overwhelmed and a tad confused was accurate, she had really no experience in any sort of sexual situations all she knew is she was going to listen to Harry. His gaze was enough to melt her into submission. “Words Y/n, did I tell you to do those things?” his grip on her wrist tightened a bit, “No….no you didn’t tell me to…” his eyes were staring into hers a subtle hum exiting his throat. “Good girl, now tell me your sorry.” “I’m sorry, Harry” an adorable pout decorated her lips, Harry was loving this.

He let go of her hands, both of them falling into her lap where she folded them, making sure to follow the new rule of not touching without permission, waiting for what was going to happen next. Only a moment later did Y/n feel Harry’s right thumb pressing into her bottom lip, eyes jumping to meet his, “open” she complied, letting him slip his thumb past her lips to rest on her tongue, “Close, now suck.”

Her confused gaze met his stern one while she started suckling on his digit. She didn’t really understand why he wanted her to suck his thumb, regardless she did it.

It was taking everything in Harry to not bend the girl over and shove himself inside her, god he fucking wanted to but he had something else in mind. Something more sinful than two teenagers having premarital sex in a chapel, no he wanted to give the biggest ‘fuck you’ he could to the school, and the ‘god’ he was forced to submit to. He knew if all the preaching’s were true, this idea was his first-class ticket straight to the devil’s doorstep.

“Listen princess, you’re going to do what I say, okay?” Y/n gave a quick nod of her head, Harry scooting her off his lap and removing his thumb from her mouth as he guided her up the steps to of the pulpit where the priest usually gave his sermons, a holy pedestal of sorts but today it would get a new use.

“on your knees.” It wasn’t a request, it was an order. Harry stood in the center of the pulpit, the religious art work surrounding them did little to stop his ‘sinful’ desires. Desires of the flesh were the only thing on his mind.

Y/n was on her knees before him, looking up at her friend who had a smug sultry look on his beautiful face. His hands fumbled with his belt whilst he looked down at her.

“you’re going to pray to me now, angel.”

Y/n couldn’t believe she was really in this situation, kneeling under the podium in the pulpit where she hears sermons 5 days a week for 3 hours with Harry pulling his cock out. when he finally managed to get himself free a loud groan echoed in the sanctuary, one that made Y/n feel a tingle between her legs and salivate slightly. A strange new sensation she couldn’t describe, but she knew she liked it.

“open your mouth, sweetheart.”

Y/n had never seen Harry’s eye’s look so dark, his tone so demanding and his breathing so heavy. His cock loomed over her face, bobbing slightly with every beat of his heart whilst something clear and sticky was leaking from the tiny slit in the top of it webbing onto the underside of his tip. She was nervous, but she did as she was told opening her sweet little mouth so the older boy could guide the crown of his cock into the warm cavern of her virgin mouth. The sensation was the closest thing to heavenly Harry had ever felt in this room, her mouth was warm and wet. Tongue slightly textured and slick with the nice, thick spit that comes from the back corners of your mouth. It’s better than any lube you can buy truly. He instructed her to suck his flesh, hollowing her cheeks and massaging his prick with the flesh of her mouth for the very first time in her life.

“Holy fucking shit, doll…you sure this is yeh first time? Good little cock sucker aren’t yeh? On your pretty knees, praying to me now huh?” Harry could see his cock pushing into the side of her cheek as she nodded, her mouth stuffed full of his leaking member, and because Harry was Harry and liked to really make a statement he decided if he was going to hell for this, he might as well make it worth it.

His fingers plucked one of the small wooden crosses off of the staircase on the pulpit, it was a decoration dedicated to Christ yet he had other plans for it.

The boy took a step back from Y/n, moaning slightly at the sight of her following after his cock when it started slipping from her lips. She wanted it, she liked it and god he fucking did too but he couldn’t wait any longer to execute the idea that just tumbled into his mind. Harry snapped his fingers in front of the drooly lipped girl, getting her attention on his eyes instead of the cock she wanted so desperately back in her mouth. “Up, don’t be greedy yeh can finish me off when I’m done with yeh..” Harry lifted the girl by her underarms up onto the flat part of the pedestal, where a bible was sat opened to a scripture that was suddenly smothered by the doe eyed girls round plump ass. Harry wishes he could dig his teeth into it but that’s for another time.

Y/n didn’t resist at all when he tipped her back a bit, hiking her skirt up and spreading her legs. The only reaction she gave at first was a quick gasp when he ripped her school tights right at the crotch her white cotton panties now in his view. “cute” was mumbled under his breath as he toyed with the tiny pink bow stitched into the waistband of her panties, but soon they were gone as well pushed fully to the side to expose her cunt, a small smattering of light curls at the apex of her thighs. They looked soft, light and quite cute. He could tell they’d never been shaven off before by how soft they were, wasn’t a very course or thick section of hair. That was likely to come later in her life, but for now her cunt was the only thing he was willing to worship in the holy home of Christ.

“Fuckin’ beautiful…got a real nice little pussy, angel.” Y/n was past the point of being shy now, she was spread eagle perched on top of a open bible with her cunt on full display in front of her half naked friend. Modesty flew out the door a while ago. And so, she responded in a little whine and shimmy of her hips, feeling the cold air lapping at her hot center and cooling the slick that had collected between her folds that she didn’t even notice till now.

The boy thought he might have been in the midst of one of his wet dreams, the stereotypical catholic school girl splayed out in a chapel with his hungry eyes staring at her virgin cunt. He was trying his hardest to take a mental picture so he can relive this the next time he has a wank, but in this moment his plan was coming to fruition.

Harry held up the small wooden cross, holding it between his thumb and pointer finger. The piece of religious art was about as wide around as a taper candle and maybe a good 4 inches from the base to where it met the divider of the cross. Much smaller than his cock, but a good size to fuck his classmate with.

“Open.” His voice doomed after the stretch of silence, Y/n letting her lips fall open again gurgling a bit as the wooden cross was thrust into her mouth. Harry was purposefully being rough, pushing her gag reflex intentionally, “Gag on it, get it nice and wet. Do as I say y/n, m’ getting’ yeh throat to slick it up. Could shove it in yeh dry be glad I’m lubing it up pet.” With a few more jabs at her uvula the boy was content with the amount of thick spit that dripped down the object.

Y/n couldn’t help but squirm and mewl, feeling Harry split her labia. An audible clicking sound fell on their ears from the wetness adhering the folds of skin together, the sound gave a boost to his already prominent smirk. Once her engorged clit came into view Harry made a point to give it a few strong strokes with his thumb before pressing the end of the cross into the girl’s virgin opening. The sight was nothing short of filthy, completely sinful. He wouldn’t be surprised if the floor caved in and they fell straight to hell as he finally managed to press through her thin hymen gaining entry to the untouched inners of the girl.

The stinging caused Y/n to hiss slightly, her legs quivering as he finally made it inside her. A small streak of her purity stood out against the white wood. Harry couldn’t help but snicker to himself, he thought of Virgin Mary in this moment. Ironic right? The first thought into his mind when seeing Y/n’s virginal blood striping a cross was how this was a strange twist on the story of the savior’s mother.

His movements sped up considerably after the flimsy membrane of resistance was punctured. The cross now being plunged in and out of the girl’s sacred spot in quick succession while she gripped the railing behind her in an effort not to tumble off the stand.

“Would yeh look at that, might be the first girl in this school to get fucked with a cross, baby. Always knew you were special huh?” Harry migrated his hand down to thumb at her clit, the foreign sensation of something inside of her and a massaging of her pleasure organ had the girl pigeon toed and panting. Harry swears he’s never seen anything hotter than what he was doing in this moment. His arm was getting tired but he didn’t dare fucking stop. No, he decided he was going to violate the artwork until Y/n had her first orgasm clamping onto the now not so holy figurine.

Y/n could barely form a thought, pleasure wracking through her body and a strange sensation building inside of her. Harry mumbling filth to her was the icing on the cake, her body tipping over the edge. Her body went stiff before breaking out into shakes, vocal cords strained from the moans and yelps escaping her throat. Her first ever orgasm was the most intense feeling she had ever felt, and Harry almost came just watching her suddenly remembering his abandoned cock.

Y/n was scrambling to regain control over her body, pushing Harry’s wrists away with a slick popping noise following as the cross was removed from her body. Harry leaned down to kiss the panting girl, dribbling spit into her open mouth while she gasped for air. “good girl, you’re such a good girl.” His ring clad fingers pet her cheek lightly, the other hand sitting her up and tugging her forward giving her a shove to get her back onto her knees.

“Now, time to finish your prayer, love” His hand pushed his cock back into the cavern of her mouth, she suckled hard on him. Tongue lapping at the underside of his cock, suction hard on the crown of him. The way she gave harsh spongy movements of her tongue and cheeks had his knees weak having to hold himself up on the podium. “Shit, Christ pet I’m gonna cum”.

Harry felt his climax rapidly approaching, taking both of his hands and putting them on the back of her head forcing the entirety of his cock down the girls sore throat. The muscles already tired from all the noise she made with it, but she only dug her fingers into his thighs as he spilled down her tight throat.

Harsh breathing along with Harry’s pleasured chuckle were the only noises filling the room as the pair removed themselves from each other. Harry getting his control back, putting his cock away before pulling Y/n to her feet giving her a few smacking kisses as he helped straighten her out tossing her ruined tights into the trashcan.

“Think we took more than a fiver babe, guess we gotta finish now huh?”

His smirk was wide while he put the cross right back in it’s place, cum still dripping off of it.

[treasureswordsgirl55]

X - Wing

Character: Poe Dameron

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Princess!FemReader.

Inspired by (Song) : Your Love / The Outfield

Warnings: Mentions of Death. Mentions to First Order. Post!TROS. Fluff. Funny.

Author's Note: Ok, here we go again.

This was the 7° fic about Poe that I'd write in a same week a few months ago. Maybe I have more than... 20 without finished, to be honest.

But this is one of my favourites, so... I hope you like it!!! XOXO 😘😘😘

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Josie's on a vacation far away, Come around and talk it over, So many things that I want to say, You know I like my girls a little bit older, I just want to use your love tonight, I don't want to lose your love tonight

The song plays in that small cabin where, being observed from the outside, a black x-wing with orange sectors performs pirouettes under the sky of Aureallis, attracting the attention of many little ones and that of a man who does nothing but let out full snorts of annoyance. He felt his blood boil, and although he knew that he was there with his friends at the request of General Organa, he could not get out of his head that the blurred image he had seen a few days ago seemed the x -wing of him.

Now he could confirm it.

That beautiful ship that he loved so much and that he had lost when he was captured by the First Order doing pirouettes as if it were a show plane.

Poe Dameron wanted to throw up.

He restrained himself from doing so when his best friend approached, standing next to him and looking for what his friend was looking at in the sky.

- What do we observe?

- Do you see the little ship doing pirouettes? - The young man shook his head looking at the entire pink sky, characteristic for the presence of a strange form of iron in the atmosphere that did not make it toxic to any species, especially to humans. The pilot, impatient and even more nervous, took the head of his friend and turned it to where the ship was at that moment. Finn exclaimed a sound similar to surprise and then turned, as he could, his face towards Poe, who seemed to be burning fire from his eyes.

- It's very similar ... - he left the sentence half finished as the ship began its descent as if it were a living being. The way only he used to treat it. This is how his mother had taught him, to treat a ship as if it were a companion - It is not possible.

The pilot nodded at the same time that Rey saw them, without even thinking about the position that his best friends were: anyone who saw them, they would say they were hugging. She giggled to herself as she allowed herself to be carried away by that private joke they had with Rose, that their affection for each other was a secret and forbidden love for the Resistance.

She could not hide her laughter and that made the two men separate from each other in a second, leaning casually on the railing of the gazebo of that palace.

- You two looked adorable - Finn just smirked and Poe rolled his eyes at how unobvious Finn was to hide his feelings for Rey. He gave his friend a shove and heard him curse, enjoying it. He'd tried anyway to get Finn to seduce Rey, but the man was stubborn about it and she was unchanging. So much so that Poe got tired of trying and began to observe the clumsy attempts at approach of his friend.

- What happened?

- Queen Azala will receive us - The youngest high-fived, BB-8 extended his tool in approval and Poe smiled, although it will be difficult for him to express his feelings towards them, he would do anything to keep them safe and by his side, even if it cost him his life in the attempt - She waits for us in the meeting room.

- Come on - Poe waited for his friends to pass to observe for the last time the one that he once knew to be his ship.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

A year and a half later ...

- They're here, Your Highness. - I rolled my eyes as a clear sign of annoyance causing Aimeen to laugh.

- Thank you very much for calling them - I smiled at Palmer, one of my court assistants, who just nodded. I took his hand and he squeezed it as if his life depended on it. Thank goodness I'm not like my mother - Have it ready before they arrive. The commander must receive it in the same condition that he lost it - After so many talks between the Resistance and Aureallis, and establishing a beautiful friendship between us, Rey told me about the x-wing that was on our landing platform. Which turned out to be from Poe, and I felt even more awful. I automatically discussed it with my father when they left and the mechanics team took it upon themselves to leave it as new.

I was eager to see him. It had been over a year since I last saw them, and that tight stomach that barely let me breathe had never gone away. The first time I met him, he was the heir to the throne, now, he was the one who occupied it.

- That thing is imposing - Aimeen indicates the window to me and when I get closer, we see the Millennium Falcon land without any difficulty on our little airstrip. I shook my head and heard the typical beeps coming from the other side of the door, smiled unconsciously and nodded for them to pass.

- Kayla! I'm so glad to see you - Rey's smile conveyed that genuine joy that I also felt when I saw her - Leia sends you her greetings. Nice to see you Aimeen.

- Me too - The two of us melted into a warm hug and I barely separated, I bent down to leave a soft kiss on BB-8's head - How have you been little?

- Beep. Beep. Beeeeep. - We both laughed and when I looked behind her, but no one else came in. Where was he?

- I'm glad to hear that. And the rest of the team? - Ask trying to be as sneaky as possible. A gleam in Rey's eyes made me think that nothing was escaping her. Much less if she was being trained by Leia.

- Finn and Chewie are in the Falcon. Poe is on the lookout, I think he likes the view.

The second my father entered with three more senators, to finish finalizing the details of the information regarding the Empire that the Resistance needed and at that moment I took the opportunity to leave. I walked quickly between the different corridors of the palace and when I reached the door that led to the viewpoint, I doubted what to do.

What would I say? What did I want to see him?

The doors opened so quietly that I didn't even hear them and stood between them. Despite the little wind, I can hear him taking a deep breath and his body moving in time with his breathing.

For a moment I lost myself in my thoughts and imagined him as the type of man out of the novels that my father gave me from his trips to different planets. Romance novels had ruined my head, so much so that this handsome man couldn't be in front of me. Try not to think about it, to look away quickly, not to think about how good it would feel to run your fingers through those jet-black curls and just appeal to the thought of a baby. More precisely in a baby with the appearance of the abominable Jabba.

It did not work.

I tried not to make noise to watch him for a few more minutes, but he barely moved to remove a pair of headphones and leaned on his elbows on the railing, not the slightest hint of turning.

- Your Highness, it's a pleasure that you enjoyed me with your company - I let out a laugh and remembered how intuitive this man was. I didn't even move, instead, he turned around with that arrogant smile that came to love from a distance.

- Commander, it is an honor that you are in Aureallis after such a long time - When the only guard at the viewpoint left, giving us privacy, we looked at each other and burst out laughing at the same time that he approached and hugged me. I took a deep breath hoping to enjoy that feeling of freedom that he always seemed to convey, in addition to that sweet aroma that his brown leather jacket gave off.

- I'm very sorry about what happened to his mother, Your Highness - I nodded as we parted, and we were left in front of the imposing sea of ​​blue waters that flooded 90% of this planet.

- Me too.

- It must have been difficult; losing a loved one and taking responsibility for an entire planet in less than 24 hours.

We were both silent for a few seconds and I didn't know what to answer him. I had been taught what to do when I assumed my role as senator, but I was never prepared to lose my mother. And less for a mistake of the Republic.

-It's never easy, no matter how much you've spent a lifetime preparing for it - I admit looking at him sideways and seeing that he plays with a ring between his fingers. That ring that he never took off and about which I did not dare to ask.

- It was from my mother. She died when I was little. It's the only thing I have of her and I remember her - Sadness invades her voice and I feel like an intruder. He keeps his gaze fixed on some point on the horizon and smiles, dropping her head, like her beautiful curls - I miss her too much.

- I know - I answer him in a sigh and he turns to see me - You turned out to be quite intuitive, Dameron. Leia must be happy.

- Years of practice, Your Highness.

I barely pulled away from her side and crossed my arms trying to look angry. I didn't make it as I looked like I was entertaining him. Could I ever talk seriously to this man?

- Let's get this formality thing over with. We're just Poe and Kayla here. Ok? - He nodded raising his hands as if he wanted to get rid of the guilt of that and shook his head. This man was impossible - Join me.

Poe frowned, but he followed me in complete silence. I was uncomfortable with it but didn't know what we could talk about either. - Won't you ask where I'm taking you?

- I prefer the surprise factor - He was silent again - Nice necklace. I do not know that constellation.

I touched the charm that my father had given me from one of his many trips and smiled. i never took it off me. - It was a gift from my father, from a very, very distant planet, from where you can see our star, Polaris. And they say it is the brightest in his firmament. It is part of the constellation Ursa Minor. This, on the other hand, is "the big spoon" - I hear him laugh and as soon as I turn around he tries to get serious - It is part of the Big Dipper. I could never see it but I know it must be beautiful.

- I never visited Earth, now you mention the Big Dipper, but they say it is a jewel in space.

We walk the last stretch in complete silence and when we get to the ship hangar, he looks at me strangely.

-I would like to give you something - As soon as I open the door I notice that his mouth falls for a moment

But he regains his composure in the second, smiling and walking towards the fully repaired x-wing.

- Is my…

- It was a gift from the First Order to my father when they tried to get him to agree to work with them. He accept it but decline his offer.

- I didn't think I'll see it again. But when I saw it that day that ... Who was it that used it as a pirouette plane? - That's when I realized how much that ship mattered to him.

- I'm sorry about that, but it was irresistible for me to do it - I raised my hands in defense and I pouted at him hoping he didn't scream but all he did was laugh.

- Were you the pilot? - I nodded. I still felt terrible knowing that this one had been stolen. But he loved that ship with his soul, it felt so good to handle it that it should be illegal. In the same way it should be illegal to look so attractive without even trying. I kept my composure but enjoyed looking at it as I pleased while observing the x-wing, always so eye-catching, so attractive and a magnet for glances. For a second I imagined that he was observing me in the same way and that what he felt would be reciprocated, but who would dare to mess with a woman like me?

- It was my hobby before assuming the Crown ... I always liked driving, more after I got on this baby.

- Thank you - He murmur lost in his thoughts as he stroked the wings of that great bird, as I had learned to call it.

- Why?

- For bringing it back to me.

I simply nodded and stepped aside, indicating that he could go out for a spin in it and that when he left, he would have clearance to fly it. I thought that he would automatically climb in and literally fly out of the hangar, and that he would come back late at night, but he patted the wing of his ship and approached where he was.

- I'd like to thank you.

- It is not necessary to thank something that is yours.

- You didn't understand me, I want to - That authoritative tone in his voice made a chill run through me from head to toe - Let me thank you.

He took a few steps closer, closing the distance that separated us, remaining only inches from my lips if it weren't for the fact that he was taking me a few inches extra.

- It's not necessary ... - I wanted to move away but I took my hands and turned, leaving me facing the ship and feeling the slight pressure of his body against mine - Poe...

- When you want to handle an x-wing you must let yourself be carried away and the most important thing you must make him guide you. Someone like BB-8 will be a great help, but you can handle yourself in short intervals - He takes my hands in his and starts moving them in the air as if the x-wing controls were in front of us. I look at him again and I find him looking at me - What?

- Is this your way of flirting with a women?

- It depends.

- It depends? What kind of answer is that?

- Well, not normally. Since none of the women I dated were interested in aviation - He moved my hands in the air again, this time intertwining his fingers between mine - A moment ago you said "it depends"

- mhm... What does it depend on?

- Whether it is working or not.

Color automatically rose up my neck and I felt my body burn. That was an answer I hadn't expected. I tried to focus on whatever he was saying but couldn't remember a word.

- When pass a couple more classes, I'll tell you Flyboy.

[sunsetsover]

it's my 25th birthday tomorrow and tbh the last few years i've dreaded my birthday bc i've hated the thought of getting older but honestly i think i'm at the most peace both about my birthday and in general that i've ever been. n it's weird bc i'm not necessarily happy w where i'm at in life or my circumstances or whatever but like inside... i'm just a lot more at peace. i've done a lot of reflecting and learning and healing this past year and i've worked hard to change my mindset to be kinder and more positive and i think this is the first time on my birthday where i can look back and be like yeah... i'm not the same person i was a year ago and i'm happy about that. i'm proud.

idk i have a weird relationship with being an adult and i still have a lot of maturing and growing up to do i think but over the past few months i've kept hearing this repeating idea from older people of them not aging internally and not recognizing their old body in the mirror bc they still feel like they're in their 20s and it's made me realize that like... this is it. this is who i am. the core of who i am as a person is set u know... like clay... like yeah i can sand parts down or paint it or whatever but the clay itself is set and any change from here on out has to come from me. and i think over this past year i've been coming to that realization tbh like... i spent years and years being cruel to myself and my body and unkind and angry and pessimistic and at some point some part inside me was just like.... ok this isn't working nothing is changing nothing is getting better so what do we do now.... and then i waited for a change but it never came so then it was like oh i have to do this.... i have to change... and i still have a long long way to go i have my entire life to go i think but i HAVE changed for the better and you know what? it feels nice to talk to yourself with kindness and patience and have genuine optimism after you've spent your whole life being a bitch to yourself ... i don't wanna make life harder for her she's already had it hard enough she deserves love and kindness and happiness

and idk i don't think i'm necessarily someone that 15 year old me would be proud of actually i think i'm becoming someone 15 year old me would find incredibly annoying but that's alright bc she has a LOT of shit she's dealing with so i forgive her. and at the end of the day she couldn't even imagine me making it to 25 so to her i'm essentially a miracle and tbh the fact that i AM here does feel like a miracle so i'm proud. i'm proud of her for getting through the shit she got thru bc tbh what she went thru is completely unfathomable to me as an adult 10 years later like i don't think i could be as strong now as she was then.... so yeah i AM proud of me for not giving up on her

going forward into my 25th year and beyond that i will be kinder and more patient with myself first and foremost. second comes the rest of the world. i will always lead with my heart and with love. i will continue to learn and continue to heal. i will make peace with the things i haven't managed to yet. i will be better to the people in my life and i will prosper bitch !!! and i say will and not hope bc i'm manifesting it but also i'm going to work at it like i have been. tbh hoping shit would change didn't change shit. and anyway it's a 7 year for me which is also my lucky number so we know it's abt to go crazy !!!!

i've never made a post like this on my birthday before but i've also never felt like i've changed as much as i have this past year. i just felt like i needed to reflect and process u know... say thank u to the crazy bitch i've been.... i love her more than anyone

but anyway moral of the story is if you knew me before 25 no you didn't <3

[mydearestreaderfanfics]

Rather Be (Keith x Reader)

Warnings: swearing, alcohol, pining, light angst (with a happy ending)

Word Count: 4,858

Prompt/Request: wb an imagine with my boy keef and a childhood best friend crush,, bonus for blushy flustered keef lmao

Summary: An old promise from their childhood brings back old feelings. When both Keith and the reader fail to communicate, though, will the promises from the past be kept?

Author's Note: Rather Be by Clean Bandit is the musical accompaniment for this fic. What do you guys think, should I add on a song for all fics/fic requests?

Author: Mod Alex

“Keef!”

The young boy dropped his toys and turned around to see his best friend. Although he’d never admit it, he loved the way they mispronounced his name, it was… cute. “(Y/n)! What are you doing here?”

“I came to make a deal.” You held out a paper to him, an adorably serious look on your face.

“A deal?” He took the paper, looking over the crayon written words. The writing was messy and mistake-ridden, but it didn’t matter to Keith, what mattered was that it was a proposal to Keith, a marriage proposal.

“You are my bestest friend ever. So, I’ve decided that if I’m not already married in twenty years, which is like a million years away anyway, then we should get married.”

Keith’s surprise turned into a smile which turned into a laugh. “(Y/N), you’re only 7-”

“And a half! You're only 4 months older anyway, I’m basically 8 like you!”

“Okay, you’re 7 and a half, but shouldn’t you wait until you're older to get married.”

“I am, didn’t you read it? It says 20 years away,” you pointed at a large blue 20, “see? Right there.” You huffed crossing your arms and looking down, your serious face crumbling as you toed at the dirt.

“Okay.” Keith figured if he did want to marry someone one day it should be you.

“Okay?” You looked up, failing to mask your surprise.

“Yup. Oh, I think we need to sign this, right?”

“Oh, right!’ You fished two crayons out of your pocket, handing him the red one, and keeping your favorite colored one for yourself. After setting the paper on the sandbox’s lining you both signed, sealing a contract that would be forgotten for a long time. 19 years to be exact.

-

You were going through some old things of yours (your parents had asked you to come home to see what you wanted to keep and what you wanted to toss as they needed your old room cleared since they were planning on moving). As you were in the process of going through your childhood stuff, you stumbled across your old treasure chest filled with drawings, toys, and crumpled at the very bottom-- a wedding certificate. You laughed as you pulled it out, flattening it as best as you could. Keith absolutely had to see this. After tugging out your phone you sent him a quick message to hurry over.

Keith got there not even twenty minutes later looking for you somewhat panicked. After an apology and a brief explanation, he calmed down. Actually, he was pretty amused. “I can’t believe you told me I was going to marry you.”

“Hey! You’re the one that agreed.” The both of you were laughing as Keith looked over the paper.

“According to this, we’re supposed to get married in a couple weeks.” Keith grinned at you, blushing slightly from what you assumed was second-hand embarrassment from your younger selves.

“Oh gosh, so it does.” Your giggle fit picked up again, as you continued to speak through it. “Guess we have to get married. A contract is a contract, as they say.”

“I’ve never heard that saying, I’m not entirely convinced you didn’t just make that up.”

You held your hand to your chest, barely containing your grin. “Are you, Keith Kogane, saying I’m making things up?”

“Oh absolutely.” He smiled, not even trying to hide his smile.

You gasped dramatically. “How rude.” The paper in your hand caught your attention once more. “Why did you sign it? Way back then, I mean.”

“Why?” Keith took the paper from you, smoothing out some of the worst folds and eyeing it fondly. “How could I not? You came up to me that day and I vaguely remember feeling intimidated-“

“What?! By me?! Your friend?!”

“Well, sure. You came up to me holding this sheet of stark white printer paper- which has seen better days now, but back then it looked official-“

“Kind of what I was going for,” you laughed.

“Right. So any way you come marching up with an official-looking piece of paper and then basically declare that you were going to marry me. And I was intimidated. I mean there was this person I liked-“ Keith fumbled over his words, speaking more quickly after his accidental confession, “and they were asking me to marry them. It was a time of very strong intimidation.” He laughed awkwardly, hoping you hadn’t caught his blunder. “Anyway what are you going to do with this?”

“Wait! You liked me?!”

“I- um- yeah…” He fiddled with the edge of the paper before handing it back to you, noticeably uncomfortable.

“Wow.” The word came out as more of a sound than an actual statement. “I’m just- I can’t believe it. I guess since we signed this I’ll have to keep it. Just, y'know, in case I don’t fall madly in love with some rando within the next three weeks.” You spoke clearly, although your voice did have a slightly teasing tone. It wasn’t mean, though, far from it, if anything it sounded kind of flirty. You hoped Keith understood you were being genuine.

He flushed. “Yeah, maybe… Hey, I’ve got to head out, Shiro’s having this thing and he asked me to go. I’ll see you later?”

“Sounds good. Maybe Sal’s tonight?”

“Sure.” Keith grabbed his bag and basically bounded out of the room, face aflame.

You felt a little guilty about flustering him so much, but really you were feeling quite overwhelmed yourself. Keith and you’d been friends since basically the day you were born and yeah, you’d had a crush on him, and yeah, maybe you still did. But you couldn’t just come out with it. Besides, there was no way he liked you still anyway. You’d gotten a rise out of him for your own amusement (and maybe to see if he still had feelings for you), but you were certain it was just his embarrassment at the situation that made him so flustered. You were a little crushed, to be honest. To be completely truthful you wanted to do nothing more than bottle your feelings up and binge video games all night to forget the awkwardness you’d just set in place, but no, you had already asked Keith to meet you at Sal’s.

-

By the time evening rolled around and it was time to head to Sal’s you had worked yourself into a pit of guilt and regret. Keith wasn’t there when you got there. So you took up residence in the lone booth at the back where the two of you usually sat. Ten minutes had passed before you saw your friends Shiro and Matt walk in. Keith still wasn’t here so you waved them over. They seemed happy enough to see you, you were happy to see them too, even if you had been hoping they had Keith with them. They didn’t.

“(N/n), hey! Is Keith with you?” Shiro grinned, leaning down to side hug you before sliding in opposite you. Matt slid in next to you pulling you into a hug that quickly became a noogie.

“Gah! Matt what the hell, what are you five?” You shoved away from him, giving him the bird as you turned back to Shiro. “No, he was supposed to meet me here like half an hour ago, I thought maybe he was with you.”

“I haven’t seen him since this afternoon.”

“Shit. Did he seriously stand me up?”

“Oh? Did you two finally confess your undying love for each other? And here I thought we had something, (N/n).” Matt lounged against you and you grumbled despite smiling at the dramatic man.

“First of all shut your mouth. Second of all, you know you’re the only one for me.” Shiro barked with laughter and Matt nuzzled in closer to you and you rolled your eyes playfully at the act. “Jesus, you’re being worse than usual, are you drunk?”

“He’s got a buzz.”

“Ah. That makes sense then. Matt, my darling lover, I need you to get your bony ass elbow out from my rib cage.” He laughed as he sat back up.

Though he had been smiling at the antics of his friends only moments prior, Shiro was quick to take up the serious role. “Wait, so you haven’t seen Keith since this morning.” You nodded. “Did something happen between the two of you?”

You flushed, this was the conversation you were hoping wasn’t going to happen. Still, you couldn’t lie to Shiro, the man was pretty much a human lie detector to his friends. “Kind of… I found this dumb thing from when we were kids this morning and I think it upset him.”

Shiro cocked his head to the side. “But Keith loves looking through things from your guy’s childhood.”

“Well, I think maybe it was more so what I said about it. I may have been a bit out of line with my joking.”

“What’d you say?” Math looked at you, eyes widened.

You buried your head in your hands to hide your face. “I may have implied we should get married.” Both Matt and Shiro broke into a fit of laughter at your expense and you groaned. “Guys shut up! Look I didn’t know what else to do, he told me he used to have feelings for me and I guess I was just feeling bold. I’ve been beating myself up for it all day.”

Shiro caught his breath, quietening his chuckles momentarily. “He told you that? And I assume it’s safe to say that you're referring to the fake proposal back in- oh gosh, I want to say first, maybe kindergarten?”

“Second-grade, and yeah. I mean, what would you do? You know how I feel about Keith and it was like he was saying the very thing I wanted to hear for basically all of my life and then he bails the second I reciprocate. The only thing I can think is that I fucked up, which honestly let's be real, is probably the case. And now he’s uncomfortable around me, and I don’t know what to do.”

Shiro blinked, face going slack. “Oh, wow. Okay. I can’t believe he actually told you. I don’t think you scared him off, (N/n), I think maybe he wasn’t expecting you to say anything like that and he didn’t know how to handle it. I’m sure if you give him time he’ll work it out himself. Until then you need to stop beating yourself up over it.”

“Easier said than done.” You crossed your arms, slumping in your seat.

“I know, but you’re going to have to trust me on this one.”

-

Keith had never shown up to Sal’s and honestly now that a few days had passed with him one wording you, Shiro's advice was getting harder and harder to follow. You were in your apartment, putting everything from your old room away when you stumbled across the object that caused this whole situation. You crumpled it, tossing it aside. “As if I needed the reminder.” Your birthday was rapidly approaching, with only little over a week left until the day. It was supposed to be a joyous occasion, but it only served as a reminder that Keith was avoiding you. You glared at the piece of paper laying crumpled pathetically at the floor. A sigh escaped you and you sunk to the floor, grabbing it again. It hurt sure, but you felt bad just tossing it aside like that. Why couldn’t life be as easy as you thought it would be all those years ago? You’d always loved Keith, that much should have been obvious from your proposal. But the idea that your feelings had been reciprocated and that they may not be anymore crushed you; even more than that, the idea that you’d ruined your friendship with Keith completely wrecked you. Even if you couldn’t have him as your significant other, you would always want to be friends; he was your other half.

Your phone rang and you jumped, startled by the sudden noise. The caller ID said it was Matt. Decline. You just couldn’t deal with his silliness right now. The phone rang again and you were irked to see Matt’s face pop up again. Decline. You pressed down on the screen as if the more aggressive action would keep him from calling again. A moment later a message popped up. It was from Matt.

Answer my call D:

You rolled your eyes. A second later the phone started buzzing again. You slid the answer button, annoyance written in your words as you clipped out a curt “What?”.

“About time, I was wondering if I’d have to come to your house to tell you.”

“Tell me what?!”

“Now, now. Is that any way to talk to someone with good news?” His voice was a singsong that only proved to grate on your nerves further.

“You know what, I don’t care.”

His laughter faded. “Okay, okay, sorry. Yeesh, this whole thing has really gotten to you, hasn’t it?” He was quick to take on a more empathetic tone, it was much appreciated on your end.

“I’m sorry, I’m being kind of an ass, aren't I? But, yeah, it has. Anyway, what was your news?”

“Shiro has a surprise for you!”

“Wait, what?”

“Can you meet us at his place?”

“Yeah-- wait, Matt, what’s the surprise?”

“It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, now would it?” You tried to speak again, but the line went dead. He’d hung up.

You wanted to ignore the phone call, but you know if you did the curiosity would linger much longer than you’d like. So instead, you huffily slipped on your jacket and shoes and headed out to Shiro’s place.

For having a surprise for you, Shiro wasn’t very quick to answer his door. When he finally did open the door he was red in the face and looked like he had just been running laps. You guffawed. “Are you good?” Too breathless to answer, he just nodded, stepping aside to let you in. “What were you doing-- the hell is this?”

“Oh that, that’s nothing. You look great, but hey have you thought about going out, like with us?” You blinked slowly at Matt who was trying to pull your attention from reusable grocery bags that were spilling out streamers and other various decorations.

“What are you talking about?”

“We’re going to go party and you’re coming with us. No more moping. But maybe you might want to get a little more dressed up, that’s on me, I should have told you before. I was just worried you wouldn’t show up.”

"I wouldn’t have. Matt, I don’t want to go out partying. Besides you’re a little early, my birthday isn’t for-”

“We know! But you needed a pick me up, look it won’t be one of those shitty bars, okay. Somewhere more laid back.”

You rolled your eyes again. “What's wrong with what I have on now then?”

“Pwetty pwease. Look, we even bought you a gift!”

Matt pulled out a nicely wrapped gift box, Shiro must have wrapped it.

“Go on, open it.”

So you did, pulling the ribbon and tearing the paper off. Inside the box was an outfit, and despite your earlier protests, you smiled. It was a number you’d been eyeing for a while now. “Thank you both. Fine. We can go party, but just for a little while. Let me go get ready first, yeah?”

“Sounds good.”

-

The place they ended up taking you was Oriande, a place that landed somewhere between a club and a bar. It was classier than most of the bars on the road, but it also still had a dance floor giving it a more casual atmosphere as opposed to the high-class lounges up the road. It was still early in the evening, the sun just barely touching the horizon when you went in. Pastel neon lights engulfed you, the soft yet bright pinks blues and purples inviting you deeper into the establishment. Honestly, you were surprised you hadn’t been here before, it was just your style. Shiro ushered you over to a table nearer the back that looked like it had been decorated for an event. Oh, dang, were you here for someone else's party? But you didn’t even bring anything-

A cheery lady approached you. “You must be one of our bachelorxs!” She clapped a hand on you back and before you could get a word in edgewise she continued. “Now, your hubby-to-be isn't here yet, but that doesn’t mean the fun can't begin right?” She laughed friendly, before continuing, barely a breath in between her last sentence. “So," she stretched out the 'o' so that it sounded more like 'ooh', "we’ve set up a nice little bar section for your party, and of course since it's your party there's an open bar. Your planners were very thorough! If you need anything just holler!” And like that she had run off to attend other matters.

You rounded on your friends who were looking particularly guilty. “What the hell did you do!?”

“Look before you say anything-”

“No. I-” You pinched the bridge of your nose. “I get that you wanted the discount or special treatment or whatever, but did you really have to rope me in?”

“Well actually-”

“Shiro? Why’d you ask me to meet you here? Isn’t it kind of loud--...” There was Keith looking a little worse for the wear than when you’d last seen him, but he had still cleaned up well. Your attention immediately left Shiro.

“Keith?” His face paled as you approached him, eyes darting away as if searching from an exit; your heart clenched painfully. When he realized he couldn't so easily dart away he begrudgingly looked up at you, face a soft pink, although it might have just been the lighting-- it was hard to tell.

“(Y/n)... Hey…”

“It’s nice to see you again.” Even though you don’t want to see me, you thought bitterly. “Did Shiro invite you? It looks like it’s somebody’s party.” This caught him off guard.

“I... it is?”

You shrugged. “I’m assuming, although I think Shiro,” You yanked the fleeing man over, grip iron clad on his arm, Matt had already made his getaway, “and Matthew are running a bit of a con, but there are free drinks so...”

“Oh, my gosh, you two are so cu~ute! You must be our bachelor, I'm sure your fiance must have filled you in, so if you need anything let me know. I’ll let the bartender know that you’re both here.”

You watched in mortification as the chipper woman from before clapped a hand on Keith’s shoulder, effectively labeling him as your fiance. His face was burning with a blush, you were certain it wasn't the lighting this time. “No- that’s not--”

“Berry! We got an issue!” Someone from behind the bar shouted at who you assumed was the chipper lady. She frowned. “Shoot. Sorry, I gotta go handle this, enjoy your party!” Your anger from before you saw Keith had been reignited with a vengeance.

“Okay, so maybe I should explain…” Shiro looked beyond nervous.

“You think?!”

“It was Matt’s idea. Well, okay so originally we thought maybe we could pretend to be getting engaged for a couple of free drinks but then you two… well, you’ve both been a mess and refused to confront each other… So Matt came up with this idea, which in hindsight is kind of a shitty one, but hey now you can talk and there's plenty of pre-paid liquid courage to help you.”

“Shiro!”

“I’m sorry that we put you in this situation, but I’m not sorry I tricked you both into coming. Who knows how long you two would’ve gone on avoiding each other? And I can't deal with you both being upset over the same thing just because you don't want to confront each other. You both have been beating yourselves up, and waiting around for the situation to just magically right itself. So if it takes alcohol to get you to talk, then so be it." Shiro had taken on that authoritative aura of his and you huffed. You hated it when he was right, and he usually was.

"Fine." Your voice sounded cold even to your ears. You hadn’t meant for it to and you couldn't stand the thought of seeing if Keith reacted to it. Honestly, you weren't sure if it would hurt more if he did or didn't. Instead of looking you stubbornly grabbed his hand and dragged him to somewhere you could talk without shouting. You ended up finding yourselves alone in the hallway to the restroom, the music was still blaring but it was far enough away that you could actually talk. You finally let go of Keith’s hand, turning around to face him. It was almost too much, after so many days of having been rejected by him. Your nerves gripped you with a renewed sense of terror. You couldn’t talk, instead, you felt your throat tighten. Fuck. You were gonna cry. You hadn’t dragged him all the way over here just to cry in front of him. A strained whimper left your lips when you made to speak and you quickly snapped your mouth shut, turning away in embarrassment. Why now, of all times did your emotions have to be getting the better of you.

A shaky hand wiped your tears away. Your eyes shot to meet Keith’s. He looked unsure of himself like he would dart away at any second and yet, he still stood before you, gently brushing away the tears that refused to stop flowing. “H-hey, (N/n), hey… No, no, fuck. Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t-- I didn’t mean to make you cry.” That only made you cry harder and soon enough Keith had awkwardly pulled you into his arms. It was no unknown fact that physical affection was one of the quickest ways to comfort you and as your childhood best friend, Keith knew this better than anyone. “I,” He cleared his throat, “I know I fucked up. I never wanted to hurt you. I’d rather die.” He paused and for a moment you thought that he was done talking and tried to focus on recomposing yourself. You never left his arms though, afraid that stepping away would mean you’d never get to be this close to him again. “But I- I didn’t know what to do… I was scared. My feelings for you were laid out and I couldn’t be sure what you were thinking.” Something wet hit the top of your head-- Keith was crying too? “So, I did what I do best and I ran away. I shouldn’t have, but… What else was I supposed to do?” His voice wavered, his question coming out near breathless and timorous.

“I don’t understand? Why were you scared? I don’t care if you used to have a crush on me as a kid! I’m sorry if I scared you off with that stupid comment, I just… I don’t know. I thought maybe…” You had pushed back, this wasn’t a conversation you could very well have with your face smooshed into Keith’s chest. Regret clenched around your heart like a chain, but you’d already froze before. You forced yourself to meet his eyes, the beautiful violet-grey causing a short-lived wave of calm to wash over you. They were familiar, and yet the tears falling from them were not. Keith rarely cried. Acting on instinct alone, your hands made to wipe his tears away. He let you, watching you with a piercing gaze that was trying to dissect your every movement, find answers in the space between your words and your actions. He couldn’t find any hidden meanings, but he couldn't find any answers either.

“Comment?”

“What?” Your voice croaked out, sounding just as confused as he had.

“You said stupid comment? What comment?” Was he serious? Hadn’t your flirting been what caused this all to spiral?

“When I was flirting with you! Isn’t that what ran you off? I mean I didn’t actually mean we had to get married, just like a date or- or whatever…”

“Wait you were flirting with me?!” You felt like screaming, how had you managed to get yourself into this predicament of giving Keith your feelings on a platter thrice in your life now? Regardless of whether he knew or not, you felt like vomiting from the nerves.

“I thought it was obvious?” You laughed, but it came out strange and garbled, “I mean, shit Keith, I only propositioned you for marriage twice now.” The idea was both incredibly embarrassing and way too funny.

He seemed to feel similarly as a snort left him, quickly preceded by a fit of laughter that you too couldn't help but join in on. The both of you sounded delirious, and honestly, you kind of were. Tears flowed freely as you laughed, making you feel as though you may have lost it. When the laughter finally died down you were left shaky and almost numb. But the weight was no longer on your shoulders so that was something. “In your defense,” Keith’s hands had come to wipe away your tears again, completely dismissing his own, “I’ve technically never refused your propositions either.”

Your hand met his on your cheek, stopping the motions but also stopping him from leaving. “I mean, you did run away the second time…”

“But I never said no.”

“Are you saying you want to marry me?” Your brow arched, eyes searching his for a sign that he was joking. Surely, he wasn’t actually saying he wanted to marry you.

His eyes widened and he glanced to the side bashfully. “Maybe not a week from now… Honestly, though, I don’t think I could ever even imagine myself spending the rest of my life with anyone else? Like you’ve been my constant since basically day one and I’ve… I’ve had feelings for you for almost as long.” You could feel the tremble of his hands, letting your grip tighten slightly afraid he might run again if you didn’t. Your other hand moved to press his ridiculous fringe out of his eyes.

“Oh, Keith.” You couldn’t help the soft smile that found its way to your lips. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

He bit his lip. “That depends on what you think I’m saying?”

“Keith… Please don’t make me wait any longer to hear it.”

He laughed, although you could still feel the slight tremble in his hand. “(Y/n) (L/n), I have wanted to be with you since we were in second grade, maybe longer, and that’s never changed. If you’ll have me, I’d love nothing more than to be with you.” He paused a beat. “Oh, but, um, I do think marriage would be rushing it... “

You giggled, though he sounded monotone, you knew he was joking. “I’ve waited this long, I think I can wait a while longer if that’s what it takes.” The two of you shared a laugh and before you knew it, Keith had gently tugged you back into his arms. With your face pressed firmly into his chest, you could feel the erratic beating of his heart. “But really, Keith. I’ve had feelings for you for as long as I can remember. I’m glad we finally get to be here like this.”

“Speaking of, do you want to dip out and go somewhere-”

“Less loud?”

“Yeah.”

“That would be lovely.” With your hand in his, Keith led you through the crowds, neither of you bothering much to say goodbye to the now tipsy Matt and supervising Shiro, instead of finding your way outside into the crisp evening air. It felt like you could breathe finally, although you suspect part of it was because you no longer felt the crushing pressure on your chest of hiding your feelings for Keith. In fact, you realized with delight, you could now… “Hey, Keith?” You stopped on the sidewalk, with him by your side, eyeing you curiously. “Can I try something?”

“Okay?”

Letting the last of your nerves roll off of you, you took your moment of boldness and leaned up to press a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth. Keith startled, after a moment his hand left yours, instead, finding purchase on your waist to tug you closer. “(Y/n), can I try something?” His voice was barely audible, but it still sent shivers through your spine.

“Okay.”

He smiled softly before moving to capture your lips with his own. The kiss was tender and filled with love. His inexperience showed, but it was endearing and you found yourself leaning in to kiss him again after he pulled back. You were left breathless under the lamplight, grinning just as brightly as that day on the playground when Keith first agreed to be yours. And now that he’d agreed once again, well you couldn’t be any happier.

[allthebooksandcrannies]

I know a lot of older people think it's a problem that so many young people don't want to have children, but I think it shows an increased understanding for how much of a responsibility parenting is and how much damage you can do to a child of you're not ready to raise someone.

I think that everyone is capable of being a good parent and I think that some people should never be parents. These may sound mutually exclusive but they aren't because there's a big if involved in the first half. That if, is that everyone is capable of being a good parent someday if they put in the work to take care of their own shit first.

When you become a parent or guardian, you are officially signing on to prioritize another person's physical and emotional needs before your own for the rest of their life. That means loving them no matter what they do or who they become. That means putting aside your own exhaustion and frustration at your day when they walk through the door so that you can be their champion and their confidant and their companion. That means teaching them how to process their emotions and think critically and empathetically and it means letting them find their own path, even if it's different than the one you wanted or imagined for them, but making it clear that if they need or want your comfort, your help, or just your ear that they will have it. You don't have to be perfect. No parent ever is, and it's important anyway for kids to learn in nontraumatic ways that adults make mistakes too and that's okay as long as you take responsibility for that and strive to learn and grow because of your mistakes. Kids learn by watching and listening to the adults around them and the things they conclude from those early years of observation will stick with them the rest of their lives.

I know that that sounds scary. It probably should because deciding to raise a child should be the biggest decision you can make, and if it's not, you may not be taking it seriously enough.

I also know that this is hard. And I have the greatest respect for people who truly understand this and decide to raise a tiny person anyway.

I'm also not trying to discourage you from becoming a parent. You may not be ready now, but that doesn't mean you can't be later. I personally would love to be a mom some day not I know that I have a lot of personal growth and healing I need to take care of first, to say nothing of the stabilization of my financial and career status.

The real question is what can you do to be a better parent, guardian, or even trusted adult to someone else's child (a really important and valid role and choice in itself!) later?

First off, you need to do some hard core introspection to figure out what traits and behaviors you have that might exhibit that would interfere in your ability to be a good parent. Maybe you're still emotionally immature. Maybe you're struggling with uncontrolled mental illness, chronic illness, or addiction. Maybe you've internalized some toxic ideas. Maybe you're still recovering from trauma or just now realizing that what you have even is trauma. None of these things makes you a bad person and none of them stops you from being capable to becoming a good parent. But, all of them can interfere with your ability to model healthy behaviors and coping skills to your child. Children learn through observation and, because their brains need the world to make sense and be predictable, they're going to interpret everytime you seem upset or lose your cool as being their fault. Young children aren't capable of going "mom is upset and snapped over something relatively trivial, she must be having a bad day/be tired/etc" because that's an interpretation of the world that is outside their control. Instead, they're going to go "I did x and mom got mad at me, it's my fault so I better not do x again" and that's a really harmful mindset that can contribute to self-worth issues and other mental illnesses like anxiety, especially if this happens long-term (for the record, you're going to make mistakes and you're going to snap over stupid things because being a grown-up is hard, so when you inevitably make this mistake it's important to be honest and upfront with your child about what happened, why, how it's not their fault, and you have to genuinely apologize for it, turning your mistake into a chance to model good adult behavior).

It's important to take care of yourself and let yourself grow and heal before bringing a kid into the mix because 1. you'll be a better parent if you start out in a better place emotionally and mentally, and 2. because you deserve the chance to be healthy and happy and it's much harder to address the things that are interfering with that when your also trying to juggle the additional emotional/mental demands of raising a child.

Additionally, I definitely recommend making sure you and anyone else taking a primary caretaker role in your child's life is in a stable financial and that the relationship between you and any other caretakers is stable and amicable regardless of what kind of relationship it is. The financial aspect is important because kids are expensive as hell (both the having/acquiring and the raising) and you want to be able to provide then with the best possible shot at life.

This isn't about me but I feel like the example will be helpful. We weren't poverty level growing up, but even as a child it was clear to me that we could be. My parents were 20 year old newlyweds when they got pregnant. My dad had been set up to inherit a position in his father and grandfather's construction company and did not go to college because they thought he was guaranteed a steady job. My mom was paying for a college education she couldn't afford because no one had ever explained how to get financial aid and scholarships to her and her parents were too caught up in their own shit to be anything but relieved about getting to make her future my dad's problem. Then they got pregnant. They started building a house that took much longer to build then expected because that construction business dad was expecting to inherit went out of business because it turned out that a cousin had been embezzling and my great-grandmother wouldn't let them sue or press charges against family. Mom had to drop out of college to raise me because daycare costs as much as she makes at work and she no longer has the time or funds. They had a baby they weren't prepared to raise and my dad's new job had him working in the Texas heat all day before going and working on our house at night so that we could move out of my maternal grandfather's house now that he was getting divorced and couldn't afford it. My parents society never saw each other and they were constantly worried about money. Less than two years after I was born they accidentally got pregnant with my brother. He ended up with failure to thrive and (although he did eventually recover) it raked up a serious amount of debt in addition to my mom's student loans and the mortgage. Flash forward four more years and my dad falls through a roof at a construction site and permanently cripples his ankle. Cue a year of the only breadwinner in the household being unable to work, several surgeries and massive medical bills we can't pay. A year after that my mom has to have a historectomy because her fibroids are causing immense pain and then they find pre-cancerous cells. Another year after that she starts having unexplained siezures and signs of organ failure that will take years to diagnose as a rare autoimmune disorder that will leave her disabled and, again, rake up serious medical debt. I found out in college that it came to the point that we almost lost the house but as a kid I still always knew we were struggling. And that fucks with a kid's head. There were reasons I didn't tell my parents that something was wrong for a week after I sprained my wrist when I was 10 and it wasn't just because I didn't want to sound like I was asking for attention (a phobia that also comes from having emotionally immature parents). I pushed myself ridiculously hard in school because I knew I couldn't expect any help paying for college from my parents. I still feel incredibly guilty anytime I spend more than 20 dollars even though it's my money and I need groceries or textbooks or gas or whatever. A lot of these issues would have been financially difficult and unpredictable, but had my parents been in a more stable position when they got married and started having kids, it would have been much easier to weather the storms.

Additionally, money is the main thing couples fight about, so if you can take that off the table as a significant concern before bringing kids into the mix, please do. Maslow's hierarchy of needs states that you can't address higher order concerns like personal growth of your worried about where your next meal is coming from and that goes for your children as well.

Again, I'm not trying to shame people for their financial difficulties. Most of us are playing at a game we were never intended to win and I get that not all children are planned. But, your good intentions unfortunately will not put food on the table or pay the rent and your children will have a lot less stress in their lives if you are able to make sure that things are as stable as possible before you bring them into it.

The same goes for your relationship with fellow caretakers. Don't try to have kids to save your relationship. Don't ever make your children feel like your relationship is in anyway their responsibility. Again, they need their world to make sense and if you're fighting they're probably going to assume it's somehow their fault. Don't do that to them.

Anyway, this rant turned out a lot longer than I intended but I think I needed to say it. In summary, raising children is not about you but your going to make it about you unless you take care of your own shit first. Children don't ask to be born. If you're not ready for that responsibility, either don't have kids or put in the work so that you will be. If you already have kids, and don't have your shit together, there's still time but it's going to be harder and you might have to do some damage control from any traumas you may have already inflicted on your child, regardless of your intentions. If that's the case, you have a responsibility to get your kid the help they need and do everything in your power to avoid further harm. You're the adult in this situation, and if you're going to be a parent, you need to act like it.

[orenstern]

I’d like to admit that I’ve never in my life read the Diary of Anne Frank. I’ve stood outside her house before, almost 14 years ago, and could feel something of her echoes, but never had before or since seen her words or witnessed her mind.

Up until a week ago, that is, when I chanced upon a copy of her diary. I picked it up the very moment I saw it, an instant reaction and so quick I forgot to realize I’d always been innately afraid to read her work, her letters to self. Because it somehow always seemed to me like, of all the work available by now-dead writers, her diary entries would feel the most like ghost stories, like real life talking to a ghost. It’s always scared me, the notion of talking to this particular ghost. No other ghost ever proposed to raise in me the slightest feather of a concern let alone fear.

But she always had.

And I can’t even remember having seen a portrait of her until last week. As hard as that might be to believe.

Where she was concerned, it has been like living in a house where all of the mirrors had blankets covering them. And believe you me, I’ve been in many houses where real life people were still living there and it was just precisely that, blankets over the mirrors, and the inhabitants were just looking at me without a hint of shame, sorrow or remorse in their eyes. Without any hint of knowledge of the display they had erected. If it fact it was them who had erected it. Just, this is the way it is here looks in their eyes.

The fucking things you see over a life. The understated non-plussed near-miss, oh boy did it hit though I am yet unstruck, horror you sometimes see. And how often it doesn’t even faze you. You just step over it like you would any old mound of dirt, not at all an active grave, except the low key and surpressed knowledge reminding you that all the earth is an active 5 billion year old Grave and Tomb and Monument and Pyre all wrapped into one, and all the universe a 20 billion year old same thing.

So I picked up the book. And I gazed at the front cover for a good long while. At her portrait. At Anne. I looked at her portrait for the first time, and I transported my mind back to her house, and I imagined she and I were standing there together, side by side. Outside. Looking at her own house in silence, together. And we both walked away, together, headed for a fast train to Paris, by way of a stroll along the Prisengracht, and short interlude at the Van Gogh museum. No other manifestations than that. I did not even imagine our bodies or our faces. I just remembered having done that before, peering out from the windows of my own eyes, with a companion by my side, and imagined this time, Anne was there with me doing the same.

And then after these thoughts, I opened the book. But I turned immediately to her very final entry. And I read only this Tuesday, August 1st, 1944 entry.

I’m sure I am not the only one who has read her writings and recognized themself in her words. But for certain, what she had written seemed and felt like something I’d written at least a thousand times. Her precise sentiments, and word choices, her very style. Parts of her style is my style. I must have picked that up either from writers who were familiar with her writings or just plucked it out of the wind somehow or some other way. But still that was not the eerie part.

The eerie part was the last two paragraphs. Which I copied down by hand into one of my own journals, with a blunt non-sharpened 3 inch pencil with no eraser no less, was all I had at the time. It was eerie because for at least a decade but more and more lately like the curvings of a quadratic formula, I’ve been hearing the phrase “Set Intentions” like you might hear during guided meditation or whenever someone wants to Exalt the Secret of Manifestation to you.

And I wasn’t at all going to share any of this with anyone. I had no plans to say any of this outloud to write anything on it or engage it any further or even ever again. I wrote the passage in my journal and I’d figured I was fully intending to never ever look back at that passage, or talk about it, or allow myself to recall it, and otherwise resolved to keep the blankets over this mirror forever.

But then I was scrolling this evening and just saw someone had shared a picture of Anne. And that too was a first for me to witness. Now I saw her face twice in a week, at the bookends of the week, both on Wednesdays at roughly about the same time of day. Happy to call that coincidence. Very happy to call it that.

But, I had also been just on a smoke break from my own writings, a letter I was writing to a loved one and the tenor of the letter of where I had left off when I stopped for my smoke break had just moved onto omens.

Oh boy, right?

Well now, still happy to be coincidentally maybe now just only synchronistically having this experience. But given it all, I’d resolved to share.

And by share, I’m not sure I can bring this all into any firm sense of things that could make it any less eerie. Though I will try. And if I don’t fully strike the right note in this attempt, I will know it, you won’t have to tell me, but I will publish the attempt anyway as an earmark of this encounter, and double back on it maybe whenever it is that I have found the right note or chord to strike or strum.

I’m thinking of two things, one I was going to save for my letter when I moved past omens. And one I was going to tell a friend of mine after watching a movie he recommended that I still have not told him. So I will choose neither and tell you both of them in this writing.

Most importantly, this is not at all about victim blaming, please have the courage to see past that, as Anne apparently might say that, at least, one of your two voices, if you only had two, would have such ability. And this, even if that means this courageous voice disappears after only 15 minutes.

First, I can remember back to a time when I am not more than a few months older than my son is now, maybe six months older. I am lying in my little boy bed, in my little boy bedroom in the house I grew up in, a little cape style enhanced cottage. It is night. The walls are blue. The headboard is all white and soft and plush to the touch, and riveted by silken buttons, smooth to the touch and shiny to the eye, though woven round by very fine white thread.

I am laying on top of the covers. This is colorful Snoopy and the Peanuts bedding. It’s not exactly yet bed time. But it must still be before the Vernal Equinox because the sun has been down for a good while and its not yet past my little boy bedtime. And the room is lit golden by a single 40 maybe 60 but really probably 40 watt incandescent bulb. It’s gold in there, it’s almost orange that low gold glow. And I’m laying at angle on the bed. And I’m pointed feet first at the east corner of the bedroom, which is also precisely lined up with Cardinal East. And I shit you not, but on this evening, a few weeks before my actual birthday and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was on my original due date, I was thinking to myself, “I must be dreaming in this life. I am going to remember this moment forever. When I get older. And I believe I am going to wake up someday from the distant future back here in this moment, back here in the age, back here just the way I am now.”

I’ve not tampered with this memory at all since then. I’ve remembered it precisely and often ever since. I’ve referred back to it thousands of times. In a sense, I in fact have never left that room or that night. I built it into every single night since. Like one of Tom Riddle’s horcruxes. And this before I had ever heard Row Row Row Your Boat. And this before I had enough speaking skills to say these thoughts outloud even if I wanted to but enough language understanding to think them and remember.

So that’s the first thought.

The second thought, it’s about that movie my friend suggested I watch over the summer. It was a horror movie, a new one. You may have watched it yourself. Called Ghosts of War.

My feedback to him the day after I watched it was pretty simple. A. I enjoyed it. B. The sniper I think is my favorite. C. It reminds me I have another horror movie That I do not mention to him by name then, but I only say that it is in the genre of horror that is not shriekingly scary, or rather does not rely on shriekingly scary moments. Because it does contain a couple of those potentially frightful jolts. But that is not it’s best foot forward. This type of horror is not the exciting amusement park kind. This type of horror is the kind that enters your bloodstream and stays with you and haunts you over a long period of time, long afterwards. The kind of horror you might find yourself waking up from sleep even a year or more later and not feeling right and having witnessed. D. I might get back to him someday with more commentary. Oh and E. I really enjoyed seeing Billy Zane. Particularly as the dichotomy of American Doctor and SS Colonel.

But wouldn’t you know shortly after I finished writing down that passage from Anne Frank’s final entry, pledging to not look at it ever again, I found myself in another room talking to a person about that actual movie that ghost of war reminded me of that I didn’t tell my friend what that movie was. To this new person I did say its name. It is paranormal activity. The first one. I said that movie is the first time I had witnessed a genuine horror film, That has the capability of genuinely haunting me for a long long period of time, in my adult years. And it doesn’t contain hardly any,if at all, shriek moments.

The horror of that movie is it’s power to slowly and steadily and surely wrap itself around your heart with fear and anxiety, and with full command, Sustain you in that state while flexing and relaxing it’s own valves, to show you who’s boss and who is in command.

Furthermore I told this person, that such a film as this paranormal activity is is not a film to watch when you are in a heightened state of consciousness. You’ve got to be half asleep at the wheel half dead inside to properly survive that film. Because in the final moment, and I admitted this to that person, when you see the demon at last, he jumps straight into your eyes. Straight into you. That movie is perhaps the ultimate act of transgression, that I’d ever seen to that date. And I admitted to this person that it took me a good long while of concerted and methodical effort, to rid myself of that motherfucking demon. Such is the exquisite accomplishment of that particular horror movie. I spared my friend this story, because I’m pretty sure he would’ve shit his pants if I told it to him in person. I think I’m only about 30% joking about that.

But tomorrow being that some stories stay with you longer than others. Some stories you actually have to exorcise from your mind. it’s very good training. Especially if you happen to frequently find yourself in other peoples houses and those houses have all the mirrors draped over by blankets. And those other people walk about aimlessly as though they have no idea how odd that appears to be. if you know what I’m saying. And if you can believe what I’m saying is actually true.

But no I don’t think I’ll ever tell my friend about the paranormal activity story. What I will tell him is another thought I had about ghosts of war. That I think on some level in someway we are all ghosts of every war. Wars that we’ve seen and wars that we haven’t seen, either depicted in books or movies or for trade for real on the news both of foreign lands and domestic. And even wars in our own mind, common place words with our neighbors or friends or family or loved ones. I think in someway we just are ghosts of it. Carrying the crosses of it.

And I remember a story I wrote or a poem maybe it was about a universal snake and a universal monkey. The universal snake head swallowed the universal monkey. Seemingly defeated him in battle. Seemingly killed him. Seemingly was digesting him. But unseeming to the universal snake, the universal monkey to this day will not die. And for all eternity the universal snake has had indigestion on account of the universal monkey’s eternal will not to be extinguished. They say it ain’t over til it’s over. They say don’t stop believing. I say that’s probably very good advice and we should all listen to it. The Monkey is listening to it right now, and has been forever. That monkey won’t quit. That monkey is in a pickle but he’s got a slim to none chance and yet he won’t quit.

How this works back to ghosts to war and how we’re ghosts of war with everyone, and how this works back to Anne Frank. It’s up to you what you wanna believe in, I believe in the fact that God won’t ever let us really kill each other. We might see it happen with our own eyes. Right before us. But I believe that even as it happens it also instantly unhappens.

We have the ability to look backwards in time and forecast forwards in time but we only have the ability to live in one moment of time at a time and that we called the present. We have no idea what actually happens in previous moments of time once we’ve moved past them. Except how they exist in our mind. But for all we know in a moment that someone apparently kills another, whether it’s a person to a person or an animal to an animal. How do we know it doesn’t on happen once we’ve left that moment? Natural law has a place in this world. So natural law gets its way in this world. But there are such things as the overlapping thesis of all the different laws. And divine law is a thing in that overlapping thesis. Just as well as natural law is. So it is totally possible that once we make a mess of things, the Custodian comes along to fix it.

It’s possible along the same probabilities or maybe even slightly better than Lloyd Christmas’ chances of getting the red head which he eventually did.

To another person who overheard me talking to that first person last week about paranormal activity, the next day she came to me with concerns. I listened to these concerns. And my response was what you do is up to you. Including whether or not you trust yourself or not. If I were in your shoes I would try to trust myself. Even as everyone around me might seem intent on leading me to betray my own trust. if I were in your shoes, I would choose to believe that no one actually has the power to do that. No one actually has the will to want to see you fail, to fail yourself. Because that would be them wishing them to fail themselves. And while they might get away with that in one moment in the next that moment is wiped clean. If I were in your shoes I’d be telling that to myself every moment I had these concerns you are telling me about.

I further said, and I stop talking about if I were in her shoes. I further said what you think is happening is happening. What you understand about what is happening is only ever coming into focus more and more. You may not have all the Time in the world, but you do always have the luxury of patience. There’s no rush when it comes to the process of understanding. Something tells me we’ll repeat the lesson infinitely if necessary. something also tells me that won’t actually be necessary. The lesson will come clear eventually. Have faith in that and likely all of your fears and concerns will be abolished. The probability of it being otherwise, however great it seems, as Pascal very effectively demonstrated, infinitely pales to the seemingly tiny probability, the Boson particle infinitesimally small and impossible to fathom yet there it is nonetheless almost something you can now actually reach out and grab but even still something you can see if only by way of prediction probability, of it not being otherwise.

So that in other words no sword actually ever really falls upon the neck but he’s only ever caught by the Hand.

I’ve been waiting to wake up to this reality ever since my two-year-old self woke up to that reality and said I will be waking up here someday again.

But I did tell that second person, be careful the stories you tell yourself. They could be like that movie demon that enters your mind and poisons your body, like that story I told last night. The mind can make almost anything real. That’s a quote from a movie also, but it comes from somewhere. Didn’t it? So possibly probably in all likelihood whatever story you tell yourself whatever imaginary though you have as an objective: if somewhere in this universe. Somehow manifest itself. Somehow find a way to be born and become true. Often a lot faster and more hellishly than you thought possible.

The mind is it’s own place. It can make heaven out of hell and hell a heaven. I don’t need to read the whole diary of Anne Frank, to know beyond what her final entry says. That she was equally gifted at doing both. And that, my friends, is not victim blaming. That is just what it is.

And so behold the final two paragraphs of her final passage:

As I’ve told you, what I say is not what I feel, which is why I have a reputation for being boy-crazy as well as a flirt, a smart aleck and a reader of romances. The happy-go-lucky Anne laughs, gives a flippant reply, shrugs her shoulders and pretends she doesn’t give a darn. The quiet Anne reacts in just the opposite way. If I’m being completely honest, I’ll have to admit that it does matter to me, that I’m trying very hard to change myself, but that I I’m always up against a more powerful enemy. A voice within me is sobbing, “You see, that’s what’s become of you. You’re surrounded by negative opinions, dismayed looks and mocking faces, people, who dislike you, and all because you don’t listen to the advice of your own better half.”

Believe me, I’d like to listen, but it doesn’t work, because if I’m quiet and serious, everyone thinks I’m putting on a new act and I have to save myself with a joke, and then I’m not even talking about my own family, who assume I must be sick, stuff me with aspirins and sedatives, feel my neck and forehead to see if I have a temperature, ask about my bowel movements and berate me for being in a bad mood, until I just can’t keep it up anymore, because when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside g out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if… if only there were no other people in the world.

Yours, Anne M. Frank

[skvaderarts]

Hiraeth Chapter 20: Arrears

Masterlist can be found Here!

Chapter Twenty: Arrears 

Note: And just like that, we’re on chapter twenty for the third time. That’s totally surreal, isn’t it? Sorry that my replies were a day or two late this week and that this chapter is a few hours late. I fell asleep. I was out of town Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday with a friend, so my uploads and response times were not quite as quick as I would have liked. But it’s okay because I’m back! Now let’s get on with this fic.

(-~-)

Once they were gone, the doors to the front office swung shut with a resounding bang, sending an echoing boom through the entirety of the front room. In what had to be a rare moment of silence for the normally noisy space, there was no music playing and no ceiling fans spinning due to the lack of electricity present within the building. It was welcome, but also strange as he had finally begun to grow used to the sound of Dante’s particular brand of loud metal and rock. And although he couldn’t say that he enjoyed the exact music that Dante did, he found that he didn’t mind it as much as he used to when he’d first heard it. Maybe he could even convince him to play something else… 

The Darkslayer took a moment to lock the door behind himself before proceeding, not so much because he was worried that they would be attacked or that someone would attempt to actually break in and rob them. No, that would be an absolute dream as far as the eldest Son of Sparda was concerned. Having the opportunity to teach a wayward criminal a much-needed lesson without the moral implications that came with cold-blooded murder or fratricide was a welcome change of pace for him. No, they needed to be alone for this, and he didn’t need any of his younger brother’s associates interrupting them with any trivial or annoying requests, especially given their current circumstances.

As the devil hunter in the blue coat approached his brother’s desk, Dante shook his head, reclining in the chair at his desk as he awaited his older sibling’s response. He was somewhat sure that he already knew what he was going to say. After all, Vergil had been looming over him like a literal physical manifestation of the shadow of his immense debt ever since they had returned and realized that the power was once again turned off. That had surely given them both enough time to contemplate what they both expected the other to say and, in turn, what they would add to the conversation themselves. That was, if there was a conversation at all. While they had made remarkable progress in the short time that they had been gone from the office, he didn’t put it past his older sibling to still want to settle this the old-fashioned way like they always had. And at this point, there was a part of him that expected nothing less than that, regardless of the progress that they made. The real question was how they would go about this process, and what the fight would be about this time, not so much if there would be one in the first place.

“I know, I know. This is the part where you barely hide how mad you are at me, and they you give me a piece of your mind before you stab me again, right Vergil.” Dante laughed grimly as he spoke those words, watching his twin slowly approach the desk. That was what was to be expected under these circumstances. And he’d dealt with Vergil enough times to know that-

“Why are the utilities always off, Dante? Am I to presume that you are in some form of arrears to the utility company, then?” Vergil said calmly as he reached the halfway point of the room. He stopped a few feet from the desk, looking around the room for a moment before continuing. “It came to my attention just after we had first returned from the underworld that you might be hiding something. It clearly wasn’t the first time that you had gone without electricity since you didn’t appear to be surprised by its absence, but considering our initial fight with Nero on the front steps upon arriving, my general mood at the time, and the lingering unrest in the atmosphere around the office as to my presence, I was unwilling to bring it up at the time. But now I require answers.”

His calm demeanor took Dante somewhat by surprise as while he was indeed expecting his brother to ask him why the power was off again, he wasn’t expecting him to do so with such a genuine level of curiosity. There didn’t seem to be any real anger in his voice as he asked that question, which admittedly turned things on their head a little. Dante was expecting to be lambasted for several minutes before things either turned violent or Vergil gave up and went to bed. This was… well, this was entirely too diplomatic to be an actual response from his older twin brother. What the hell was going on here?

“You caught onto what was going on that quick, hu? Well damn. I thought I was doing a better job of hiding it.” Dante said, dragging out a long, tired sigh. It was out in the open now, and that brought with it a sort of strange euphoric sense of release that he hadn’t expected, given the circumstances. “So… what happens now? Are we gonna skip the part where you stab me, or go straight to it? I’d just like to know what I’m getting myself into this time, ya know?”

Vergil stepped out of the shadows and approached the desk, unfolding his arms and using them to prop himself up against the desk. He seemed calm in a manner unlike what Dante was used to when it came to his older sibling. From what he could tell, the devil slayer in blue almost seemed to be considering something or even patently awaiting his response. But whatever he was doing, Dante wasn’t sure how he felt about it. As unpleasant as most of his older sibling’s reactions were to basically everything that he did and didn’t do, they were at least almost entirely predictable. This was the farthest thing from that that Dante could imagine, and it made him somewhat apprehensive as to what to do now. He was in uncharted territory, adrift at sea with no wind in his sails and now oars to row with.

“I am… attempting a new approach. My old methods have hit a dead end. And predictably so, at that.” Vergil let loose a barely audible sigh, looking down at the floor as he considered his next words carefully. He wasn’t entirely sure how to put into words what he was thinking, but he did, in fact, know what he actually wanted to do. Talking to his younger twin had never been something that he was particularly adept at, but that didn’t stop him from trying. After all, when had Vergil been the kind of man to do things by half? “As you know, I do not enjoy predictability. So in light of recent revelations, I am now attempting to actually communicate with you instead of simply folding to my baser instincts and using less civil means with which to get my point across.”

Dante sat up and leaned in towards him, looking at him as though he were speaking a foreign language. No, he couldn’t possibly be hearing that right. Had his older twin truly just insinuated that he might be tired of… that couldn’t be possible, could it? Well, it could. That was entirely possible. But he just never thought that he would live long enough to see the day that Vergil would succeed defeat and decide that maybe stabbing his younger sibling to death constantly was perhaps not the best method to achieving his goals. The thought had crossed Dante’s mind on several occasions, but he had just never been able to actually find a way with which to make those ideas into reality. But now…

“So if I’m hearing you right, you’re saying that you actually plan to not stab me right now, and instead you want to talk to me?” Dante wasn’t sure that his humorous tone of voice and sarcastic mannerisms alluded to the deep-seated elation that he felt at that prospect, but that didn’t make it any less true. He had waited a lifetime for the day that his brother might come to the conclusion that it might be a good idea to simply speak to him. And while he hadn’t helped to make that outcome anymore likely, and had often worked directly against it in ways large and small over the years, that didn’t make the possibility of that outcome becoming a reality any less joyous to him. “Am I getting that right, or has someone left and opened a valve that lets out toxic gases in here and we’re both just secretly dying right now or something?”

“Your half right, Dante. That is, in fact, what I am trying to say. But on the last account, you are incorrect. We are not secretly dying.” The Darkslayer paused for a moment, lingering on thoughts that he would have preferred to have kept buried deep below the surface to hide his apparent suffering. He had been through much, and a large percentage of his suffering in life had been through the lens of death. Talking about it wasn’t something that he cherished the opportunity to do. It was unpleasant but necessary. And yet, here he was, willingly doing so. Vergil had pivoted from defiance to indifference in some respects, and then he had made a sharp left into uneasy acceptance. For now, that was all he could do, and he had decided that focusing on what he was capable of instead of beating himself down with the combined weight of everything that he couldn’t might just be the best thing that he could do for himself in moments like these. “Every living thing is at all times marching towards their death. There is no secret in that. It is the inevitability of mortality. Some of us simply make it there quicker or under less desirable circumstances than others. But in the end, we all share the same fate.”

Giving his brother a much more serious look now than he had been a moment ago, Dante leaned back slightly in order to physically give himself space to take in what Vergil had just said. He had the distinct feeling that he now knew what this was about, and that was both a good and a bad thing. While it was far past time that they tackled this topic, he just hadn’t expected things to come to a head like this when they had. It would have been wonderful to have had forewarning so that he could have prepared and… no. No, had had time to prepare himself for this. From the moment that he had stepped foot in the Qliphoth and found himself standing face to face with the doors to Urizen’s throne room, coming to grips with the fact that the monster on the other side of those doors was indeed his twin brother, he had been preparing himself for the worst. When Vergil had reluctantly agreed to return to the human world with hum under the resigned fatalistic view that it couldn’t get much worse, he had known that they would have to have this conversation one day. And now that Vergil was here, it was time to have it. They had needed to get this off of their chest for quite a while now.

“Say what it is that you really want to say, Vergil. I’m not stupid enough to not be able to tell that there is more to this than what you’re saying. You know that, right?” Dante straightened his back out slightly as he reclined in his desk chair, peering out at Vergil from the bangs that hand now found their way in front of his eyes again. He needed to put some space between himself and his brother, if only to keep himself from developing claustrophobia. As much as Vergil utterly despised unwanted or involuntary physical contact, it was one of his best methods for making someone that he wanted to put on edge uncomfortable. Being at the mercy of both his impressive height in respect to most people, and his cold, unflinching stare was normally enough to make the average mortal flinch and back down, and in that respect, even Dante folded, even if only just a little bit. Being stared at the way that Vergil stared at people when he was trying to make a point was enough to make literally anyone want to back away from him. The Demon hunter wondered for a moment if his older brother even noticed that this was something that he did, or if it was something that he did involuntarily out of reflex.

A look somewhere between surprise and acceptance crossed Vergil's face as he nodded in agreement, standing up straighter as he shifted his weight to one hand and then quite literally looked down on his younger twin. There it was again. That noticeable change in him that had not been present when they were younger. Vergil understood it now more than he had when he had first noticed that something was drastically different about his twin now. It was his maturity level. Dante had indeed learned from his past, and seemed to be haunted by the mistakes and regrets that he harbored, much like he himself still did. He recognized it as his own, the poignant grief that he now realized deep within himself that they both shared. It was… well, he couldn’t say that it was something that he’d ever wished for Dante. There were plenty of unfortunate occurrences that Vergil would have brushed or even wished on his brother during his youth. Not so long ago, he would have been ready to exact those very injustices upon him with his own hands. But in that same light, he now understood something that he hadn’t then: the fact that Dante himself felt the same way. He just buried it under a thick layer of humor and sarcasm

He saw it in the moments that they were alone. Dante didn’t possess the same energy that he’d once had, the same spark that he had carried in his youth. And that wasn’t something he could blame completely on his age. Some things were lost along with the youth of the person who possessed them, and hope was one of those things. But hardship, regret, and suffering were great at enhancing those characteristics in a way that few other emotions could match, at least in regards to negative connotations. He would have never pegged Dante as the sort to think that deeply about his actions and their consequences when they were younger, much as he was willing to believe that his younger twin probably didn’t think he himself did back then. And they might have both been right under certain circumstances. But now they were older and they had lived through the folly of their youth. And they were ready to move on from it.

“You’re terrible at keeping things from me, Dante. You always have been. I had the feeling that something was amiss financially in regards to your personal life, and I see that I was not incorrect. But that does not concern me.” Vergil tilted his head slightly to the left, attempting to make brief eye contact with his younger twin as the slightly younger man attempted to not think too hard about the situation that he now found himself in. Things had taken quite the turn since Lucia had left the office with V and the others. He couldn’t say that he knew for sure whether or not his brother had specifically waited for them to leave before having this conversation with him, but he was willing to believe that that was more than likely the case. And that in of itself was admittedly fascinating to him. Vergil had never really cared about shaming him out in the open. Had he actually done so in order to not embarrass him any further than he was embarrassing himself due to the fact that they had company over who were not blood members of their family? Because if so, that had been uncharacteristically compassionate of his older twin. “If I had come here with the expectation that you had everything in your life under control, then I would not be able to claim to know you at all. Your financial troubles are something that can be fixed, unlike some of our other troubles.”

Dante couldn’t help but laugh at that statement. “Oh, brother! See, that’s where you're dead wrong. There is no fixing the amount of debt that I’m in. It’s a whole lot worse than just a few power and water bills.” Shaking his head, Dante leaned back and attempted to open the drawer to his desk, cursing himself internally when he had to pull on it much harder than he normally would. He’d shoved something in there before he’d left, and the sliding mechanism had been jammed, but it opened nonetheless. He then produced a worn brown ledger, tossing it onto the desk with a responding thud. Completely unwilling to even look in the general direction of the book, he slid the door shut and glanced over at Vergil, shrugging slightly. “You want a better answer as to what kind of mess I’m in? It’s in there. But you’re not going to like what’s in it.”

Leaning over to pick up the ledger, Vergil gave it a once over for a moment before opening the cover and flipping to the middle of it. Dante had to admire his twin’s insanity for a moment, likening the action of jumping to the middle of someone’s financial history with diving headfirst into ice water without knowing how to swim. Oh, wait… V had literally done just that. Perhaps reckless insanity for the sake of self-preservation ran in the family? Regardless, the frankly calm and placid look on Vergil’s face turned rapidly to confusion and perplexed frustration as he looked over the numbers. He then immediately turned back a few pages, only to realize that his answers were elsewhere. A moment later, he turned back to the very front of the book before furrowing his brow and jumping immediately to the end of the ledger to try and assess the damages in full. There was no point in trying to make sense of something like this. It was simply the kind of situation where you looked at how deep you’d fallen into the hole, and then tried to figure out what you could stack up to try and climb towards the surface again just to have a chance at jumping towards the general direction of the surface that you could probably barely see due to how far down you were. And you could only hope that you were able to grab onto something when you made that just, because if you didn’t? Well, you would just be back at the bottom where you had started in the first place all over again, and at that point, what had you accomplished?

Upon realizing the depth of the issue at face value, Vergil closed the book along with his eyes before letting out a long, exhausted sigh. He then tossed the book back onto the desk as though simply touching it was enough to make him contract some sort of lethal virus. He slumped over the desk for a moment before glancing back towards the back office door and making a b line for it. Dante watched him go, trying his best not to laugh. Yes, now that was a feeling that he could relate to.

“Where ya headed Vergil,” Dante asked, barely hiding his amusement. It was time to see if his twin brother’s new anti-stabbing ethos was something that he was willing to stand by, even in the face of such a frustrating realization. He imagined that Vergil was more than ready to stab him right now.

He stopped, his back to his twin brother. After pausing for a moment, he peered over his shoulder, a slightly disbelieving, shocked, and overall surprised look on his face. “I need a nap, Dante. I think that jetlag has just set in.” He said simply before turning back in the direction of the door.

“You’re telling me, Vergil. Why do you think I sleep so much?” Dante said with s slight laugh, shaking his head as he faced forward into nothingness again. It was incredible how dark it got in there at night without lights to combat the inky blackness.

“Depression? A desire to avoid your problems for a bit longer? Other ill-defined reasons that I care little to discuss at this point in time?” Vergil shrugged nebulously, seemingly resigned to the reality of his fate. How in the world had those numbers gotten like that? It defied logic. It defied reason. Hell, it defied science and math, too! “Those are just the reasons I can think of off of the top of my head. I am not your phycologist.”

At that point, Dante actually did laugh. It seemed that his financial state had managed to strip what little will to live and energy that Vergil still possessed in his body. That many zeros tended to do that to you. “I mean yea, that’s fair, but you don’t have to say it. I have feelings, you know?”

“Do not awaken me until either the utilities are restored or the office burns down Dante. This will take a substantial amount of work, and I am not at all well-rested enough as it currently stands.”

With that, Vergil closed the door to his bedroom, and a moment later, Dante could hear what was definitely his older twin hitting the bed with enough force to go through it. That right there was a mood, and he was positive that he had never once related so much to his brother’s questionable coping mechanisms. Maybe a good night’s rest was in store for them both. It was dark already anyway. What could it hurt? He was sure that no one would mind, least of all Vergil. Considering the way that he slept on the rare occasion that he actually did, he wouldn’t mind literally anything for a very long time. That could only be a good thing at this point.

(-~-)

I couldn’t tell you why, but Google Docs has decided it hates my guts lately. It decided to crash no less than 7 times while I was writing this, taking whole paragraphs with it. It was a nightmare to write. In fact, it crashed once while I was writing this footnote, so this is my second time writing it. Joy! Anyway, happy 2nd DMC5 anniversary everyone! I hope you all had a good time reading this one! Can’t wait to read your comments. Now time to go cry in the corner over my lost paragraphs! Duh du du du du!

[rj019]

Title : Genius, YouTuber, Artist, Musician and Spider-Man

Fandom : MCU

Pairing : Starker(tony stark x peter parker)

Rating : Mature (NSFW, Sexual Content) but it'll be in the later part of the story not in few chapters of starting.

Prompt : Social Media

Read on ao3 here. And Ch 0 here.

Chapter summary:

Avengers finding out things about Spider-Man.

Here's 1st chapter! Enjoy!!!

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CHAPTER 1

Peter went home and just go to sleep after cleaning up and eating something. He doesn't want to worry about anything right now he's really tired. He knows that now probably all eyes are going to be on Spider-Man. He just needs to lay low for a while and people and media will forget about it soon. As for shield he doesn't want to think right now so he went to sleep.

But before he got too deep into sleep his eyes went wide open as he got an idea to take care of shield issue once and for all. He finally relexed and went to sleep happily.

 

____________________________________________

 

The day after ferry incident at Avengers 

 

The Avengers were in the common room area watching news while having breakfast for last day at the tower since tonight the things were gonna moved to the compound. And they were leaving tomorrow morning.

The news was about Spider-Man and the ferry incident that happened yesterday. Suddenly some news reporter said that they got exclusive footage of the ferry incident. Now everyone was curious about it and wanted to see what actually happened there.

Then the footage played. It was shot from the port. They sees as the some guy with metal wings was fighting with Spider-Man. He was trying to escape from his web. It wasn't so clear as it was in distance. Suddenly an energy blast happened and the ferry was split in half.

Everyone was shocked as to what was that blast. Now even Tony was more interested.

The ferry was sinking but it suddenly stopped. Spider-Man had connected both sides strong points with his web.

Bruce said, " How strong are his web to hold that much of weight together?"

Suddenly webs broke and ferry again started sinking. 

Everyone gasps.

But then again it stopped. Spider-Man was holding it together.

"Jesus Christ! How strong is this guy?", Tony said.

But it didn't look like Spider-Man could hold on for a long time but suddenly some bots were seen flying towards the ferry. Some bots were on the left side, some were on the right side of the ferry. They started pushing ferry togather. But some bots were still in the air. As the ferry got together, the bots in the air started mending it together. The clip ended.

Everyone was shocked as to what just happened. Tony asked Friday to get the clip and play it at the bots part. Tony started analysing it. His thoughts were confirmed that the bots were using arc reactor technology. Tony was in speechless for a while. 

"Who is this spider guy? How does he have my arc reactor technology and all this bots and stuff. Does he even have AI in his suit? It looks like it which will explain how he called the neno bots there." said Tony.

"May  be he had figured out your reactor. Crom the look of it he looks like a genius if he is one who made all those neno bots and AI." Bruce replied.

Tony tells him, "If he had figured it out then how does he not showed it the world. He could have sold it and got so much money. He would have made fortune."

"May be he does not want attention on him and wants to keep it to himself. As for why he didn't sell it, it can be that he knows how much danger it can be if it's in wrong hand. The guy can be genuinely good. After all if he had bad intentions, he would have shown it till now. He is out there for years. Even before NY battle. I saw some of his videos where he is helping people from aftermath of the battle on YouTube." said Pepper.

Nat and Clint were silent. 

Steve spoke up, " Not only that his strength stronger than me or Bucky combined. Why is this guy out there on street and not in Avengers team?"

"Shield is trying to get in contact with him from even before Avengers formed. He has been out there for almost 7 years. We don't know anything about him at all. Not who is or what his powers are or if they are biological or not. Everytime anyone goes after him he somehow knows someone is following as lose them. He was on Fury's list to get on the Avengers. He was on the top spots. But he never got to interact with him. Sheild is still trying to find out about him. The guy is good at cover his trials." Nat explained.

Everyone was blown away by that.

" I don't think so after this all Fury will get him away after this. He can be a big threat if he has this much power in his hand and ever gets on the other side." Clint adds.

" We need to find out who he is. If he is smart enough to figure out my arc reactor and make those techs, I need to have him work for my company and on our team." said Tony as he stood up.

" Wanna help Brucie? And all of you?"

Everyone nods. They all wants to find out who he was. They were bunch of curious heads. 

They tried all afternoon but got nothing and Tony was annoyed.

They decided to take break. Nat, Pepper and Wanda were watching some video on YouTube with others when he and Bruce entered the common room. Looks like the video just started. 

Pepper called them to watch it with them and played from the start.

There was a guy with mask who was playing a tune on guitar and started singing. The song was about Avengers. His voice was so pleasant to hear. There was so much details in lyrics. It continued for 2 minutes. After that video got cut. And the guy appeared again and said 'hey guys it's me again your cinnamon. Oh it's embarrassing to say this name now that I'm much older. I can't believe it's been so many years since we started this channel. I was like 6 when my aunt made my first video. Well it was my new song about the Avengers. Hope you guys liked it. Now let's go to today's video. I'm going to paint a portrait of all of the Avangers' whole team, everyone, new and old members in 15 minutes today while answering some of you guy's questions.' video cuts again.

Wanda paused the video. 'The song is so good. The lyrics are really detailed.' she said as others agreed. She played video again.

The guy appeared again but this time in a different place with canvas colours and all things to paint with. He starts working on canvas fluently and fast but neatly like he's been doing this for years like a professional artist. There was a woman with same mask as him sitting on chair beside him. He turned to her and said 'As you all know she is my Aunt and she will be reading the questions. You can start.' 

The woman smiles to camera and started cheerfully, 'Hey everyone once again! Let's get started with questions. So the 1st one from @user01 how much is your IQ? Your experiments are damn awesome and thing you make is just wow.' 

The boy smiles to the camera but go back to painting as he replies, 'I don't know I have never took an IQ test. I don't want to scare people away ' he gave a quick wink at the camera then goes back to painting. He is already done with base and outlines.

The lady starts to laugh and asks other question. ' this one is from @user02, are you still studying? ' the lady gave camera a weird look which said seriously?

The laugh can be heard from behind the camera. But the guy ssh them down. And replied 'Well you can say I am since I'm working to get my 4th PhD. Next question.'

' @user46 asks who is your favourite avanger? Look like this is a new to you videos. '

Everyone was paying attention now. Eager to know who was it.

The guy continues to paint as he smile and said, ' welcome to see our madness. My favourite avanger is Iron Man. He has been my favourite even before the Avengers were formed since he started. Tony stark has been my idol and crush from when I was 12. You can imagine how I must have felt when I found out he was Iron Man. If you wanna know there is a reaction video on my channel from 6 years ago.'

The lady asks next question ' @user8502 here wants to ask why can't I hack into you account to find out who you are? ' The lady and the camera guy and the guy himself starts laughing but his hands not stopping.He was half done and it was already looking great. 

When they calm down, the guy starts speaking ' you atually tried. Well it's good I made my account unhackable all those years ago cause I didn't want anyone to know who I'm and I still don't. Atleast for now. ' 

They continued with next question, '@user18qq how old are you?'

'I'm 19 and going to turn 20 in 5 or so months.'

'@userttl do you sell your art works?'

'No I'm sorry but I don't sell my work. I have a entire room filled with my all work since my childhood to now in my house.'  He smiles fondly.

'@user77kl what's your sexuality? Are you in relationship? '

This time the aunt continues to speak up, 'not that I know of. Are you cinnamon? '

The guy blush and shakes his head ' No I'm not in any relationship and I'm Bi. Come one aunt let get to next question I'm almost done' he blushes harder.

The aunt coos but ask the next question ' so @user63 wants to know what is your plan for future? '

' I haven't thought yet. I will probably applying for jobs in some famous companies. I'll stark industry too. Who knows if I get the job there and meet my crush. ' the guy smiles. He is almost finished he is just adding details everywhere. The portrait look awesome and he is still adding so much details. It's on professional level good and it not even done in even 15 minutes its only been 12 minute 47 seconds.

'ok looks like you're almost done so last question from @user3945 do you write your songs lyrics? They are so deep and detailed. I've heard all of your songs. You have some ones for individual songs too for Avengers. ' the aunt read.

'Thank you so much for listening to my songs. Yes, I myself write lyrics and compose all my songs.' he replied.

The guy adds some last details and finishing touches. ' So that was the last question for today and my painting is done.' he look behind camera ' how much time it took? '

The camera guy replied, 'it's been 13 minutes 53 seconds' 

' well looks like it took less then 15 minutes. Tada!!! ' he motions to portrait painting.

It was outstanding. It didn't look nothing like it was done in less then 15 min. The video cuts. Then it back again the boy and his aunt is standing togather smiling at camera.

The guy spoke, ' Thank you everyone who watched my video. Please like, share and comment. And if you are new and liked my video you can subscribe my channel. And as always guys if you wanna know how the portrait looks after drying, I'll be posting a pic of it at my Instagram. Check that out. Bye guys see you in next video. Till then take care.' 

Everyone stare at screen as the video finishes.

Rhodey speaks up, " It's a second genius we found in one day. Jesus 4th PhD at 19. Seriously? "

Wanda butts in " The video is 8 months old"

Scott joined in, "Is it only me who is all of a sudden feeling dumb? "

Pietro replied, " you were always dumb."

" If he gets in applies for job at SI we'll find out who he is, unlike some spider." Tony said.

" The guys is telented. Did you see his painting? It was awesome and so detailed and he made it in less than 15 minutes. I was on a professional level good may be better. I can't imagine if the guy did take his time to make something, it will definitely be a master piece. " Steve said.

" No one's gonna talk about the boy's crush on Stark?" Strange said.

Everyone looked at him startled.

"When did you come?"

" I'm here since the song part. You guys didn't noticed. " He replied smugly.

"Tony has been his idol and crush for eight years now. Woah! Even before you become Iron Man." said Clint.

" That mortal did look like there'll be a cute face beneath that mask, what do you think son of stark? " Thor asks.

" Yeah he was cute and had nice voice and all but I'm not gonna date any fanboy if you guys are implementing on that. " Tony sternly replied.

They were talking about the boy when FRIDAY spoke up. " Boss you are having a call from Happy."

"Connect the call Baby girl."

" Hey Happy"

" Boss the plane has took off. Everything is in order."

" Okk Hap. Thanks. "

The call disconnected.

" Looks like we're moving tomorrow as planned."

 

 

 

Not even half hour later Happy's call came again.

"Hey Hap. Everything fine?

" Boss! The plane has crashed at the Coney Island Beach."

Everyone's face turned to horror. They all stood up and went to suit up.

"What the hell Happy. I thought you said everything was in order."

" I'm sorry boss but everything was. The police is already at the scene. They said there was some guy webbed up there with a note from Spider-Man that he was trying to steal the stuff from plane. Some guy called 'flying valture guy'. I'm already on my way to the scene. "

" We'll be there soon too. " 

The line cuts off.

 

Avengers reached at the scene. It looked like disaster. Happy came to them.

"Boss everything is safe. Spider-Man had removed the carrier boxes from the fire before it could damage and the guy who wanted to steal it was webbed up to it. Sheild agents took him to the jail. He is the same guy from the ferry incident yesterday. He was selling some illegal weapons which were mixed with alien tech, they were after him for a long time."

Avengers let out the sighs. 

" It's good nothing's stolen or damaged. Get the stuff to the compound. This time we all will be going with it." Tony said as he motion to the others.

____________________________________________

 

Next day at the compound in the meeting room

 

 

Nick Fury and the Avengers were having the meeting.

" You all know about yesterday's incident was handled by Spider-Man. The plane which was crashed at the beach was not supposed to crash there. I want you guys to look at this video clip which our satellite captured." Fury said as he played the clip.

Spider Man and the Vulture was fight on the top of the plane. Valture broke on of the wings and plane started to crash towards the city and the buildings. 

Spider Man webbed the othe wing and changed the direction of the crash. The clip ended.

"You must have got enough idea how strong this guy is from this and the ferry incident. He is got so much power and advanced technology in his hand. If he is to ever turn on the other side. He can be a great threat. But he isn't showing any signs of that happening since it's been years since he is doing this superhero stuff and looking out for little guy. He had defeated many supervillain like green goblin, lizard, doc oct, electro, sandman etc. I think he will be a great asset to the team. I want you guys to find out who he is and convince him to join the team. Shield has been trying for years but he always got was without any traces. I'm giving you this mission. Hope guys can do it. "

Before anyone could speak up there was a cough heard which was non of there's. As the looks around the didn't saw anyone. They got into a fighting position. 

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Cliffhanger!! Hope you guys liked it.

(人*´∀｀)｡*ﾟ+

(Peter has finished the 4th PhD mentioned in the video in this chapter. Cause the video Avengers are watching are eight months old. He even finished this fifth PhD in chemical engineering too but now he doesn't want to do anymore studying for now so he isn't working on any and is atually thinking about starting to find a job.

And Howard and Maria lives at Malibu mansion.)

[shoalfoodblog]

Earthshine, Chapter 2

Again, I don’t consider myself a writer whatsoever but I guess I’m following my compulsions. We’ll see how long I keep doing this, but yeah. Here’s more??? Sorry if it’s lame or anything is wrong, etc. Just doing this for fun~~~

Sesskag. 

First Chapter

Kagome had seen more battles than most decorated soldiers in her time. She’d waged a war against an unspeakable evil and lived to tell the tale. And from those experiences, she’d learned a thing or two about strategy. 

Information is everything. Namely; know your enemy. If you can think like them, you’ll be two steps ahead at all times and be able to guide them into your trap. 

Mostly Naraku had done this brand of bamboozling to their group, but that's besides the point because it worked. They’d all been tricked and lead like lambs to slaughter more than once by that creature. And while Kagome wouldn’t normally be molding her behaviors off a maniacally evil megalomaniac, desperate times called for desperate measures.

Not that she was desperate.

With her mind made up on seducing Sesshomaru, daiyoukai of the west, most powerful AND beautiful demon in the four territories, and veritable icicle, Kagome knew she had to think ahead. 

It was disconcerting to realize that if she were to list things she knew he liked, she wouldn’t even use up the fingers on one hand. 

1.) Fighting. She imagined he got bored defeating opponents so easily. He was a beautiful and deadly figure on the battlefield without match. The lack of worthy challenges probably explained all of the spontaneous “friendly” bouts with Inuyasha (which Kagome vehemently disapproved of, since it was her supplies she’d burn through patching up the battered half demon) over the past few years since Rin came to live in the village.  

2.) Knowledge. This one was subtler. When he’d seen some of her futuristic objects while visiting Rin, he’d ask her pointed questions, his intense stare giving no room for anything but a full and thorough answer. These were always followed by an almost inaudible hum of acknowledgement, and a swift departure. Kagome supposed dogs were often curious creatures, so why should dog demons be any exception? 

3.) Rin. This did not translate to humans as a whole whatsoever. Just Rin. He maybe tolerated some others, but he definitely didn’t like them. In all likelihood he held a quiet disdain, but Kagome figured she was at least in the ‘tolerated’ camp, considering he trusted her with his charge, so that was encouraging.

Thinking of Rin, caused Kagome to smile. Rin was a wonderful girl, even if she suffered from the effects of a serious case of hero worship for her Lord. Kagome remembered countless times where they’d spend time together, harvesting herbs and naming the blooms they came across. The now teenaged girl didn’t really have any female figures in her life, so Kagome filled in the roll by default. She genuinely adored Rin, and suspected Rin found a good friend in return. So really this point wouldn’t be an issue. 

As far as fighting went, Kagome was a decent shot, but sparring with the daiyoukai seemed like signing a death wish. 

Now. His curiosity. Kagome knew she was a novelty to him. Even if he wasn’t interested in her exactly but in the information she had about the future, it was at least a doorway in to some decent conversation. But what could tempt the stoic demon lord? He’d seen most of her futuristic belongings she kept in this era.

She really couldn’t, in good conscience, divulge information that could change the future, just in case this didn’t work out. So no politics, investment strategies, nor extreme advancements in engineering. 

Cultural tidbits would be safer. 

Music?

No. She imagined her tastes would appall him. Pop music with all of its thick instrumentation and driving rhythms didn’t exactly fit with her image of him and she’d rather appear dignified then explain why pop music was… well, popular in her era. 

Art? 

She would be the first to admit she didn’t know shit about art.

Food?

Kagome struggled to imagine Sesshomaru eating. Maybe she was guilty of putting him on a pedestal, but such a normal, everyday act seemed out of place for him. She’d certainly never seen him eat, but that wasn’t really saying much given the longest time they’d been in each other’s company was when he was fighting with Inuyasha. Also what could she prepare him that would be both impressive and appealing to a dog demon?

She decided to consult Rin. 

A direct approach was always best. Searching out her young friend Kagome inquired 

“Rin-chan. I was curious. What does Sesshomaru-sama eat?”

Rin stilled her hands, which were busy tying up herbs to dry in Kagome’s storehouse. Turning to Kagome, she gave the universal shrug of ‘I have absolutely no clue’ 

“Huh. Rin never saw him eat, now that Rin thinks about it. Or Rin just wasn’t paying attention.” 

Kagome huffed in frustration, maybe a little louder than she should have, because Rin furrowed her brow at her. 

“Why do you ask, Kagome-oneesan?” 

It was imperative Rin not catch on to her plans. She needed a reasonable excuse. One would appear any moment. Seem calm, you crazy woman.

“Oh! Well you see… I just wanted to offer him something as thanks for taking such good care of you all these years. I feel very thankful to have Rin-chan in my life. It may be too forward though… just forget I said anything”

Nailed it. 

“Rin is also happy she knows Kagome-oneesan! And is grateful to Lord Sesshomaru for bringing her to your village!”

She was clutching the fresh cuttings closely to her chest, beaming up at the older woman. The picture of earnestness. 

“I’m sorry but Rin doesn’t know what Lord Sesshomaru would like to eat! Rin only knows Lord Sesshomaru doesn’t eat human food. He told me when we first met and I tried to give him some fish, and other things”

Huh. Well, that was…less than helpful. 

“Don’t worry Rin-chan! I’ll think of something to give him. Don’t fret about it” Kagome tossed her a reassuring smile while she set about finishing their work. Reaching to tie the next bundle up to dry, Kagome, ever the optimist, was sure she’d think of something.

That was two weeks ago. She’d gained no ground since. 

Her brainstorming had lead her down very uncomfortable roads. She shuddered as she recalled that Koga’s pack used to survive by eating humans. And when she asked Shippo, he just shrugged and said dogs were “weird that way” but couldn’t provide any specifics. Sango said there just wasn’t a lot of research her village had done on dog demons since they generally stayed away from messing with human settlements.

Dog Demons. You’d think they’d be as easy to please as their mortal counterparts. 

Kagome was contemplating chucking a box of milk bones at the demon lord and taking her chances.

Maybe a change of scenery would shake an idea loose in her brain. It had been a while since she’d visited her family, and her childhood home always helped to clear her mind.

…

Sliding the door open to her family’s house, she was greeted by the sweet aroma of freshly baked goods. 

“Tadaima, Mama! Souta! Ojii-chan!”

“In here, dear!” 

Following her mother’s voice to their kitchen, she arrived in time to see her pull a fresh sheet of cookies from the oven. 

“Kagome! It’s so good to have you home! And with such good timing! I just made some peanut butter cookies. Would you like-“

Peanut butter. Lightning ricocheted through Kagome’s mind. Her breath hitched, and her eyes grew wide.

An epiphany held her in place. A eureka moment erupted across her consciousness.  

It couldn’t be that simple!

Glancing around, she spied the half-empty jar of peanut butter still out on the counter, a spoon jutting from the top. Kagome fumbled with the container, her hip bumping the table in her haste to get back through the well.

“-some to take to your friends?” 

And with that, the matron of the Higurashi family was left alone with a full tray and an empty room. Hearing the front door slam, she exhaled and began to wonder. Would her daughter ever settle down long enough to lay down some real roots? 

…

‘Peanut butter! Dogs loved peanut butter!’

Kagome swallowed a triumphant shout. It was the best idea she’d had yet. Even if it was the only idea she’d had. 

It had been 10 days since Sesshomaru had last checked on his ward, and since you could predict the tides based on the precision of his schedule, Kagome knew he’d be checking on Rin today at dusk. 

That gave her…maybe 20 minutes to catch her breath and set her trap.

Kagome clambered up the rope ladder they’d installed in the well, jar in hand, and made her way down the path towards her home. Upon rounding the corner to the field it was settled in, she noticed Rin, who often watched her home when Kagome was away, was siting by the entrance with a flower crown gently held in her hands.

The young girl perked up as she caught sight of her sisterly figure. 

“Kagome-oneesan! Welcome home! Rin thought you wouldn’t be back until tomorrow!”

“Ah - I uh, hello Rin-chan! Well you see I forgot to bring my mother - uh” glancing around she eyed the circlet of blooms in her young friend’s hands “Flowers! I was going to pick her some flowers!”

“Oh! That’s wonderful Kagome-oneesan!” 

She felt awful fibbing to Rin. But these were dire times. 

Kagome slumped on the stump near the entrance of her home where she would split wood for the hearth, trying to catch her breath. Rin sidled closer to her, then noticed the strange container Kagome had in her possession.

“What are you holding, Kagome-oneesan?” gesturing with her eyes towards the young miko’s grasp.

With an exhale, she lifted the container towards Rin. 

“It’s a snack from my home. It’s called Peanut butter. It’s kind of sticky, and nutty, but it’s not really made of nuts, it’s made from legumes I think? - I don’t know if we have peanuts here - and I’m rambling, It’s kind of sweet and salty. ” Noticing the spark in Rin’s eyes, she also added “Would you like to try it?”

“Oh! Could Rin?!” She leaned forward clutching the wreath to her chest. She was too infectious. Kagome entertained the passing thought that in the future, Rin would be able to wrap any man she wanted around her finger. 

“Of course! You might not like it however… I think it’s kind of an acquired taste.” Kagome retrieved the spoon from the jar, wiping any excess along the rim before handing it to the eager girl.

She popped the spoonful in her mouth. 

“It might be a little sticky, so don’t choke on the stuff.” Rin tried to pry open her mouth to respond but all that came out was a jumble of muffled syllables that had Kagome giggling brightly. Rin tried to talk between swallows of the sticky treat, but more stifled sounds escaped instead, which caused both women to erupt in peels of laughter. 

Neither of them noticed the third presence suddenly appear in front of them.

Sesshomaru arrived at the miko’s dwelling to discover the two human women in a puddle of frenzy, to such an extent that they both failed to mark his entrance. 

It was rare indeed for any being not to take immediate notice of the towering dog demon, so much so Sesshomaru wasn’t sure how else to gain the silly mortals’ attention. 

He set about employing the strategy he used in most of his dealings, thinking formidable thoughts and staring, sure his presence would speak for itself soon enough. 

He was wrong.

 The females were in hysterics. 

Wondering if, despite all reason, his imposing bearing had run thin Sesshomaru decided a more direct approach was necessary.

“Miko. Rin.” he intoned smoothly. Sesshomaru applauded himself when the females ceased at once.

The pair, now still, they turned to face the intimidating demon lord, fighting the urge to erupt into laughter once more. Of course Sesshomaru showed up right at this moment. 

“Lord Sesshomaru!” somewhat out of breath, Rin stood to greet her guardian. 

“Hn. This Sesshomaru trusts you’ve been well, Rin” He flicked his gaze over his charge, appraising her well-being.

“Oh yes, Lord Sesshomaru! We’ve just finished drying the spring herbs, and Kagome-oneesan has just shared a most interesting treat with Rin!” 

Gazing over the miko, he unabashedly sized her up, maybe for the first time, considering her fully. How long had Run bestowed the miko with that sisterly honorific? 

“Hn.” He swept his gaze over the woman, seeing as she fumbled with the strange container in her hands. 

“It’s nothing really, just a little something from my home” She waved her hand in mock bashfulness. Though flustered, Kagome hadn’t forgotten her self-appointed mission. She knew Sesshomaru was a curious creature by nature. She refused to give up more information than necessary. He’d have to come to her for answers. 

To Sesshomaru, the substance did not appear to be having any long lasting ill effects on his ward. Was it some sort of drug? Was this responsible for the fit of hysterics that descended upon the two? The miko stirred the thick mass in the strange pot she carried. Scenting the air, its aroma wafted towards him. It smelled unlike anything he’d encountered before. 

It smelled delicious. 

“Miko.” 

This was it. She had trained her attention on the demon lord and saw the moment the spark of curiosity flitted across his gaze. 

“Hai, Sesshomaru-sama?’ She continued to stir the peanut butter around in the jar, hoping the smell would be released more strongly into the air. 

“What is this substance you have given my ward?” He was the picture of disinterest, eyes gazing at some distant point on the horizon, busying himself by running his hand once across his mokomoko. 

Knowing the demon lord was painfully direct in all his dealings, Kagome realized he must be really tempted to put on this kind of show.

His actions confirmed her theory. She had him. 

“Would you like to try it?” Kagome offered him the handle of the heaping spoonful.

He would deny the small flare of his nostrils, and the twitch at the bottom of his mokomoko if anyone questioned him. 

“I do not eat human food, priestess” 

Kagome internally congratulated his commitment to his image. He even mustered a small sneer on his face. 

“Of course Sesshomaru-sama. How silly of me” Kagome smiled knowingly at the stubborn dog in front of her. Making a small show of it, she swiped a finger across the spoon and plopped it her mouth, humming in satisfaction, before setting the jar beside her on the stump. She could feel his eyes follow her movements.

“Well I’m sure you have more important things to do with your time, Sesshomaru-sama. I have a few things to take care of myself before nightfall, so I’ll take my leave. Safe travels. Rin, have a good night. I’ll see you tomorrow” 

“Yes! Thank you again Kagome-oneesan, Rin will see you soon!” 

Sesshomaru didn’t respond, instead turning on his heel,he departed towards the village, no doubt escorting Rin who trailed after him talking animatedly about something or other. 

Kagome didn’t call after them when she saw the jar of peanut butter was mysteriously gone. 

…

Elsewhere, with legendary control, Lord Sesshomaru, Ruler of the West and powerful Daiyoukai, resisted the urge to smack his lips when the miko’s strange and addictive morsel stuck to the roof of his mouth. 

The proud dog demon dissolved the empty plastic container with acid. 

There could be no evidence of his lapse of control.

[heyyouwiththeprettyface18]

Where I've Been and My Relationship with Social Media

Do I think anyone actually cares about this and missed my presence online? Well yeah. I have friends on here so I would like to imagine they did. I had one amazing and lovely soul sending me memes during my break and I love her for it! Am I screaming into the void in a way to work out my own emotional state? Well, yeah. This isn't for notes. This is for me.

It all started about two years ago. One of my best friends in the whole world, who I will refer to as Amy, messaged me one day before school and told me that she was stepping away from social media. She was deleting snapchat, Instagram, facebook and any other various profiles she had. At the time I felt like King George in 'I Know Him', I wasn't aware that was something a person could do. Why would this gorgeous, college age student want to get rid of her social media? Didn't she want to be connected to the rest of the world? Didn't she want the validation from her peers? Didn't she want to just be able to look up someone and know everything she ever needed to know about them? Keep in mind this was the time where I considered myself something of an internet sleuth for my friends, family and occasionally teachers (Shout out to Mr. Hunter). But she was my friend. And I was going to support the hell out of whatever Amy wanted to do.

To this day she is still off social media and she is happier than ever. And that freedom she felt from society constantly throwing all sorts of unachievable standards in her face all the time? Slowly became more attractive to me as I got older. A while ago, maybe around the same time Amy deleted everything (I really can't remember) I uninstalled Facebook from my phone. It was so freeing? I didn't have to see all the negativity on there and the politics from my father's side of the family. It was so nice. That's when I got my first taste for it. This freedom. But that's about all I did until my first year in college.

December - February were weird months for me. Specifically when I was at school. Looking back on it, some of the reasons why it was so weird seem trivial. But at the time they meant everything to me. It seemed like I was losing some irl friends and a few online ones. Not to mention college chemistry and accounting made me breakdown about 10 times total. I remember calling another one of my best friends, Ellie for the sake of the story, sobbing. I felt so genuinely alone. I felt like all the people up at my school either just barely tolerated me or hated me. I think that's the loneliest I've ever been.

You might be wondering why this has anything to do with social media? Well. Let me tell you. This emotional breakdown of mine happened after I saw a photo posted of two of my friends out getting doughnuts from our favorite place without me. It's so stupid. But I was in a very fragile place. I was trying to figure out a lot of things. Classes, friends, sexuality, past trauma, self worth, whether or not I should have gone to therapy. Looking back on it, Jesus Christ I wish I did. It was just a lot. So in a brash decision I deactivated my Instagram. Didn't tell anyone. Didn't think anyone would care. People did. So after about a week I reactivated it. I couldn't stand not knowing what people (aka Tom Holland and Taylor Swift) where posting. So I chugged along.

And then a fucking Pandemic happened.

It's nice to be home. I'm a total mama's girl and am attached to her at the hip. Which is another reason why I wasn't doing so hot at college looking back on it. But all I was doing at home was my class work and scrolling through the toxicity that is Twitter, the pretty photos of Instagram or Tiktok. I would get frustrated at the people not wearing masks or that people were still going out in public. And it slowly worked at my nerves.

Before I knew it, Black Lives Matter was in full swing because of the disgusting murder of George Floyd by the racist police officer. There are two things you need to know about me: I am extremely empathetic and I have seen some shit. I have never been so distrusted or viscerally affected by a piece of footage in my whole life. After that, I was on Twitter reading and retweeting everything I could. Signing every petition I saw pop up. Trying to educate myself. And I did. I will be the first to admit, I still have a lot to learn what it means to be a good ally. But the negativity and guilt I was feeling, was coming from me. Nothing I did felt good enough. I wasn't able to attend protests because of online classes and I was only able to donate about $20 dollars to charity because I am not working right now. It just didn't feel good enough in my eyes. I wanted to do so much more. And for the record I still want to do more. I'm looking into ways that I can help the BLM movement, even though I am currently off social media.

And that's when something happened that I wasn't expecting. I was rewatching an old episode in Jacksepticeye's animal crossing series where he went off on a tangent about social media and mental health. I was making breakfast while I was watching it. I stopped dead in my tracks and listened to what he had to say. And I kept it in my as I watched the current state of my YouTube life get turned upside a few weeks ago.

That's when I realized social media was really hurting my mental health. That day I deleted Twitter from my phone and deactivated Instagram again. At this point I had already deleted Tumblr from my phone because at the time I thought this site was the soul reason I was unhappy with my relationship on the internet. This was the first time I purged myself of all three of these social medias at that the same time. Also I stopped looking at snapchat stories and privated a lot of my boards on Pinterest. And it was so good. I have been so much happier since cutting the negativity and helplessness I felt out of my life. I was calmer. I allowed myself to focus on the things that made me happy.

I was getting to hang out with my friends a little bit more. I started playing DnD and am in love with my character. I started taking more Polaroids. I was taking drives. I'd sit at the park with ice cream and enjoy summer. Dancing alone in my house. I was writing again and developing characters that I've had for years that are desperate need of a face lift. Baking and cooking again. Watching things that made me happy. I was living for me and finding positivity in my life again.

And I still am. It's still a work in progress sometimes to be happy like I want to be. But I'm willing to put in that work. It just so happened that cutting social media and that tie to society was what I needed. It was a small step, but it put me in a good direction. I've decided to come back to Tumblr and take my blog back for me and ignore some of the personal reasons why I got rid of it in the first place. This was a power move for me, and I'm happy to be back.

I've been debating about making a new Instagram account, to follow a select number of friends but probably not. I'll be damned if I ever redownload Twitter on my phone again. So if you're one of my mutuals and you want to talk outside of tumblr the social medias I still have are: discord, pinterest, and snapchat.

TL;DR: I got really sad and frustrated. So I pulled a Taylor Swift pre REP era and disappeared. I'm doing pretty good and am still working on achieving my definition of happiness. And if I had to give advice, I guess I'd say that take a week break from social media see how you feel. Who knows, you might not even miss it.

Remember: Drink water, moisturize, wear a mask, Black Lives Matter and Always Keep Fighting

W/ Love,

Laura

[inspired-aspirer]

Z Berg and Ryan Ross Concert Masterpost

hello and I am sorry that I promised to post before Christmas about my experience of flying to LA for the Z Berg and Friends concert where I saw and met Ryan Ross. Here is a breakdown of the night and how it went from what I remember and if you have any questions after I post this I will do my best to answer them and if I cannot I will tell you and perhaps someone who can answer you question better than I.

1. anything before the concert

So I know many of the people reading this are not in fact, from Los Angeles California, and I can say I am not one of those people. I live in the middle of nowhere, better known as the state of Oklahoma. So the trip in and of itself was my Christmas present and cost ten times over the price of the ticket to the concert itself. I decided to purchase the tickets after Ryan Ross posted to instagram his photo of the Bad List shoot with “…Gonna play some new ones” as the caption to his post on 30th November. I then convinced three of my friends to come with me, flying from Oklahoma, Georgia and another from Alabama. We found some cheap ass tickets that ran about $250 each and convinced some family friends to let us use their beach house for a weekend and we were off. The tickets were $15.00 before taxes and fees, afterwards they rang up to be a grand total of $18.21.

It is notable that the tickets sold out prior to the day of the concert so I would recommend with any of Z’s concerts in the future, to buy your tickets weeks in advance to avoid anyone not getting a ticket.

2. the day of the concert

a. before doors open

The location of the concert was at the Pico Union Project which my friends and I looked up the night before to scope out the place. I recommend looking up the places around it if you plan on camping out for the day for a restroom and most definitely pack snacks. I ate lunch at noon and made the mistake of not eating again until 6am the next day which really was not a good thing. So pack snacks and take care of yourself. We got there around 3:30pm and there were already about 30ish people. We just missed Z coming out early to see everyone and take pictures, but nonetheless, we got a pretty great spot in line. I will say that for the most part, all of the people waiting outside the concert were lovely, and we all had a great time talking about what we were looking forward to and where everyone was from. I met some chill locals who had been to these things before, a guy who had been to every single one of Z’s concerts and a girl who, like me, got this trip as a Christmas present and flew with her mom all the way from Massachusetts.

*We all added eachother on insta and facebook so 10/10 quality people.

I will however, point out some things that were not good or respectful, and I hope people in the future will refrain from doing this in the future. 

1. Being disrespectful to people passing by, especially to some of the homeless people we saw walking by throughout the evening. 

2. Wearing new Panic! merch (I’ll get into this later because there was an issue to be dealt with during the meet and greet time.)

3. Playing new Panic! songs while people are trying to listen the pre-show sound check and rehearsals, or just playing new Panic! stuff in general

4. Also I overheard a group of girls say “Honestly, I am more of a Brendon fan, he is sooo hot. And tbh fuck Ryan Ross haha” and I get it, everyone is entitled to their opinion and such but if you are going to have that attitude, please keep it to yourself. I didn’t hear such negativity during the meet and greet from them but it really put me in a bad mood when I heard that.

The doors did open right at 8 o’clock and everyone was really good at staying in their place in line and not rushing the door. Have your tickets ready to scan and phones at full brightness. (Bring battery packs because you will need your phone for a ticket scan and probably for pics of the performances and if you want to meet them later so save it for as long as possible.) Due to our great spot in line we sat in the fourth row back which was prime seating and we had the great luck of sitting behind Z’s family which was really fun to hear them talk about the work put into the show and other fun tid bits. There was even a point when her grandmother said something like “I don’t know why they insisted on leaving so late to get here. I think they should have left early and had a nice lunch before all this” and I thought that was the most adorable and grandma thing to say. Also if you are 21 or older, you can get a wristband for alcohol, if you have your ID out and ready to show them when you first walk into the venue when they scan your ticket. I also recommend getting into the line for merch quickly because things do sell out and the line does take forever. I immediately got in line when my ticket was scanned while my friends snagged seats and it still took me about 20-30 minutes to get everything I wanted. Also I recommend taking cash to buy things, it makes everything go faster.

b. the concert

The concert itself was amazing. Z hosted the entire first half from the balcony in an exact replica of Sharon Tate’s wedding dress as I am sure you have seen photos of. I will confirm, it was magical. She curses like a sailor in front of a backdrop of pure grace. She interacted with he audience the entire time and genuinely enjoys just spending time with her fans and the people that came to hear some good music. The first half of the show was the “& Friends” portion of the show, with majority of the people playing one song each with a few exceptions such as Azure Ray, Jackson Browne, Alex Greenwald and of course, Ryan Ross. 

So throughout the concert, people in the concert/show (idk what I would call it officially???) would come in and out from backstage to watch each other, which I thought was wholesome. Ryan did not come out to watch like everyone else and my working theory is, the one time he did poke his head out the door, first of all, me and like 10 other people saw him, he smiled and winked (I died) and then went back in, after that people stopped paying attention to whomever was onstage and so I think he didn’t want to take away from the other acts performing. It's admirable and I understand why he stayed backstage until it was his time to go and then would promptly exit after his numbers were done. 

In the first half Ryan came out with Alex Greenwald and played the guitar for him. Everyone screamed and cheered despite the wonderfully melancholic mood of the crowd mixed with the beautifully crestfallen music that had preceded them. Alex jokingly said “wow you guys are so nice” after we screamed following the remark someone in the back made along the lines of “I love you Ryan”. Let’s be honest, we were all thinking it and she had the courage to say it. So as far as the number, he sat and played his guitar in a suit that looked one size too big and jet black hair that was perfectly out of place. It was heaven. Following Alex’s song, Ryan ditched the guitar and joined him to sing “Lonely Moonlight” as a duet. He made jokes prior to the song saying they wrote it “18 or 25 years ago”. Alex agreed and laughed to which Ryan amended “actually it was the year 1825 when we wrote this” and the crowed giggled with them. 

What I’m getting at is this entire concert, there were moments when you felt like no one else was around and you are sitting in any one of their living rooms, having a good time listening to them play their music and laugh with each other. “Lonely Moonlight” was beautiful and the hall was silent a part from them, no one dared speak until Ryan smiled and walked off the stage and disappeared backstage again. A few more beautiful songs later, many which Z sang in followed and then there was a brief intermission for approximately 15 minutes. 

The second half of the concert Z came back on stage to the “Overture” from Nightmare Before Christmas and I died. Her voice is literally angelic and I just want everyone to know that while you damn well know that she knows she has the best fuckin’ voice ever, she remained absolutely graceful about it in any duet she did and didn’t try to out do anyone and remained humble the entire freaking time and I’m gonna cut myself off right now because she is my role model. 

*inhales* 

Anyways, so I’m just gonna tell you she brought Ryan on stage with one of the most iconic ways you could bring Ryan on stage, “Um, haha, I think I need a little baby Ryro” *everyone screams* “I do that to when he walks into a room. After ten years it is getting pretty fuckin’ annoying” and he smiled and laughed and everyone was probably either screaming or crying or a combination of both. She and Ryan sang “Calm Before the Storm” together, he just sang with her and she played the guitar as well. After his bit in the song was done, he just walked to the back of the stage and sat on the floor and just smiled at her and did some funny gestures, (Again, I have this on video, I just don’t know how to link long videos in a tumblr post). The crowd was amused by this and it caused Z to turn around to see what was going on, and they laughed. 

Again the atmosphere was pure enjoyment and I wish everyone would get to experience that at any concert. Then he walked off stage while Z said “yeah we just love to watch you walk away” and truer words have never been spoken. The final time he did come out to perform was, of course, for “The Bad List”. 

c. The Bad List

Yes I am giving this one song an entire thing on it’s own because I just have a lot of things to say about this performance of this song. 

First of all, during the soundcheck while we (all the crazy fans) were outside we heard the song resonate outside the walls and the sound was angelic, so you could only imagine what it sounded like inside the venue. 

Second, everything before, during, and after really just was surreal and thank god I have the whole thing on video (and I mean the WHOLE 7.5 minutes) because it is NOT something I want to ever forget. Ryan came onstage, and hugged Z and everyone awed, and then she went into this adorable and heart-warming speech thanking her fans and the people coming out tonight while Ryan tried to move his mic to the other side of her. 

This was hilarious for two reasons. 

First, any footage I have seen of Ryan Ross, out doing normal people things has just been gold because just like the rest of us, I would imagine, he is on the struggle bus every day going nowhere fast. So he had a time and a half trying to move the mic stand along with everything else to the other side of the stage. 

Second, Z was completely oblivious the entire time he was trying his best, to move the mic. Adorable really. He also chimed in at the end of her speech that “She means that it’s all she has been talking about all week” which apparently embarrassed her but let’s be real, she is two perfect and sweet to even think abou tbeing embarassed. Don’t worry, she got him back by calling him out for saying they should turn up the piano “a weenie bit”. Then she announced they were going to sing “The Bad List” and everyone cheered to which Ryan responded with a sarcastic “Wait have you heard it yet?” and yeah, the song began. 

It was divinely depressing. It was perfection.

Videos of the preformance don’t do it justice. We were the first and so far the only audience to hear it live, and everything I did to get there up to this point was worth it. It was the best performance of any song I have ever witnessed. I will navigate this hell site and hopefully figure out how to upload the video without getting copyright to take it down on my youtube channel and link it below so you guys can watch it. 

As many of you know, the song it super personal to them and a few times, you heard Z’s voice break from the truth the lyrics spoke about their life, and when each of them sang, the other really didn’t look at them. It was moving to see the emotion that drove the lyrics to the song and to hear which lines bled the most to each of them. In the piano instrumental part of the song, Ryan broke up the melancholy mood by asking Z to dance with him and they smiled and had a blast (or so it looked). She eventually went limp in his arms to play dead and you could see Ryan laughing at the theatrics she pulled. 

After the song ended, the smiled, everyone cheered, and they exchanged a few words which I couldn’t make out before she pulled everyone on stage for the final number. Ryan, ever the smol bean, walked to the side of the stage and did his best to blend in when everyone else from the evening piled on stage.

d. last number and Post-concert

Ok so I am almost done, I promise. The last number was “All Out of Tears” which everyone came up on stage for and sang with her on. Everyone stood up from thier pews for the last song and everyone clapped, danced, and sang along with her. The guitar and bass from the speakers were so loud that the “Z” hanging above the stage fell down in the middle of the performance, to which Alex Greenwald played the tambourine to throughout the second half of the song. Z promised that she would stay until the very last person got a picture or hug or autograph and wouldn’t leave until then. 

The concert ended on a high note unlike another. 

side note: so I know there is a joke about Ryan not being able to clap, and let me tell you, I made a point to look at the big ass rings he wears all the time when I met him, and yeah it would make me not able to clap normal either. In the video I have of them preforming “All Out of Tears” he at one point shakes his hands and mouths “ow” because I’d imagine his poor hands hurt. So yeah, still funny but give the guy a break.

After a breif break they all came out from backstage and made their way to the Christmas tree. They (Ryan and Z, the rest of the people left before I could get their autograph) kept their promise. Ryan came out chugging yellow red bulls and Z was a new woman after ripping off her straps to her dress (she told me and my friends this). I waited two and a half hours in line to meet Ryan and Z. It was at about two in the morning when I finally got my turn to speak to him. I noticed throughout the evening, he was never short with anyone, and if someone seemed overwhelmed and nervous (@me) he would take a pause, ask for your name and listen intently to whatever that person had to say to him. I was extremely nervous to have him sign any old Panic! merch and I have a few things to say about Ryan Ross and Panic! merch at the concert.

First off, don’t wear it, especially if it is new. Now I am not one for gatekeeping on a lot of things. However, I did see an individual (my hero) make a girl take of a new Panic! lanyard before she went up to see Ryan. It is disrespectful and frankly insensitive for anyone to do that to him in my opinion. The entire time he was patient, and understanding and omg if you ever get to hear his chuckle you will surely die and go to heaven, but I am appalled at anyone who would wear new Panic! merch or have the audacity to have him sign it. Thankfully, she took it off and I didn’t see anyone ask him to sign any new Panic! merch.

Second, Ryan is more than delighted to see The Young Veins apparel. One of the people I met at the concert was wearing a Young Veins sweatshirt and I saw some albums and CD’s people brought to him to sign and he had no issue doing so. 

Third, on the issue of Panic! merch he WAS a part of, such as AFYCSO and Pretty. Odd. albums, he signs them no problem. The girl right before me had all three CD’s (afycso, pretty odd, and take a vacation) and he said “Wow haha, you have all three of them” and laughed. I split up the stuff I wanted signed between myself and three friends so I got four things signed. One was my 2007 Rolling Stones issue where Panic! made the cover, I flipped the magazine to the page that had his face on it and when I gave it to him I had the best reaction. 

Well, first I totally blanked out so I only remember this because one of my friends videotaped the whole thing. Anyways, I said “hi, don’t hate me for what I am about to have you sign” among other things, gave him a letter and a bag of sour patch kids, and he said, no worries and just continued talking to me like it was no big deal. when I handed him the magazine he went “Oh man, I haven’t seen this photo in a while.” and even was stumped as to where he should sign it. He took the time to talk to me and let me say what I wanted to say to him. I asked to hug him and he said ok. Just so you know, he lets you take any kind of photo you want (within reason). Unfortunately I don’t have a single photo where we are looking at the same camera, but I have a 10/10 photo of Ryan Ross giving me a hug and let me just say, I am blessed. Another of my friends got an afysco vinyl signed and another got the booklet to my Pretty. Odd. CD signed without any issue or trouble. 

Now, my friend had a silver sharpie which I gave her before to sign a poster I bought of the cover of The Bad List with him and Z on it and she said he went to sign it, started to, then saw the silver sharpie, and went, “that is a silver sharpie” and she went, “it is” and then he said “I want to sign with the silver sharpie” so he signed my poster AGAIN in silver sharpie. Then, she went to Z to have her sign it, and she signed it and said “Wait, did he sign this twice? Well now I have to” and she signed the poster at the top in the middle and again on the picture. So that is the story of how I got the poster signed twice by both of them. 

e. Tid bits

I don’t think you want to hear all of the tid bits I have from talking to them on and off for an hour or so but here are the highlights.

I also got to hear Ryan say he made the Christmas playlist that was playing in the background. 

At one point, Z said, “I have to go to the bathroom, but he will be mad at me if he knows I left. Don’t tell him” and ran to the bathroom. Well Ryan did notice and went “where did she go” and we said “She said we can’t tell you” and he laughed and went back to signing and talking to whoever was next in line. 

Before I left Ryan I said to him “by the way, I can’t wait to hear the new music” and he chuckled and replied “Soon, I promise” and smiled before I left, so there’s that. 

Also might I add. I got the best hug of my life from Z. I spent like two solid minutes with my fiends telling her she was absolute perfection (there are no lies in that statement) and gushed over how amazing the show was and everything else and then she game me a solid, and I mean solid, 30 second hug and to be honest I didn’t want to let go. Then we talked to her some more and had a good time and then realized we had to leave because we had about 2 and a half hours until we had to be at LAX for our flight out. I cried on the way back because hello? I met Ryan Ross and Z Berg and you best believe I will do just about anything to make sure I can go to any more of her concerts.

So yeah I will try to post videos later. Thank you for your patience with me and uploading it. If you have ANY questions, please send me an ask. I won’t mind answering them at all. I hope everyone had a wonderfully dreadful Christmas on The Bad List and I can’t wait to see what music Ryan has in store for 2019.

much love ♥♥♥

[slashertalks]

Pumpkinhead, And Thoughts On Unnecessary Sequels

(I’m writing this as I watch the movie, so the review may be a little all over the place- bear with me, please)

Pumpkinhead is a movie that achieves a rare sort of perfection: it does everything it wants to within the confines of its run time. There are no loose ends, no glaring plot holes, no setup for another movie. It’s a film that needs no continuation; it demands nothing of us beyond itself. Why, then, does Pumpkinhead have three sequels?

I can’t imagine many fans clamoring for a continuation of this film- it’s niche enough as it is, and the majority of people I’ve seen who are fans of similarly niche-yet-fantastic movies want the films to remain relatively untouched. There’s too much of a risk that any additional installments will ruin the film’s magic. You expect a myriad of sequels from big hits, so you can steel yourself for low quality schlock, but for those of us who love smaller (and older) films the announcement of a sequel is both exciting and enraging. More likely than not we’ll be disappointed, but damn it, it’s hard to keep ourselves from being at least a little excited.

Pumpkinhead is a movie about a man and his son, and grief. The film establishes its world before showing us our main characters; there is so much genuine love between Ed Harley and Billy, we really feel deeply for these two even if we’ve only seen them for around five minutes. Lance Henriksen is an excellent actor, and his talent shines in this film- the boy who plays his son seems to have real fun acting as well, and it shows. When we meet the teenagers, only two of them are really bearable. There’s the asshole character (Joel) and his brother Steve (he would be fine, but at no point does he stand up to Joel), and Joel’s girlfriend Kim (who also does nothing until late in the film). We have a third girl, Maggie, who does nothing, and our two tolerable teenagers. The blond guy, Chris, who’s actually willing to stick up to our asshole teen, and the girl with the camera, Tracy- our final girl, who is genuinely good-natured and very kind to Billy when they first meet.

Finally, we meet Bunt Wallace, who provides another introduction for our monster in the form of a rhyme, and also establishes more solidly that Ed Harley is the young boy from the very opening. This leads into a scene where Ed has to go and pick up some feed for Bunt’s grandfather, leaving Billy alone at the store. Which, in turn, sets up the catalyst for everything else in the movie. Gypsy, Billy’s dog runs outside, which makes Billy run outside where Joel and Chris are riding their dirt bikes- Maggie tries to stop him but trips, which is when Steve crashes to avoid Billy. We think everything is fine, until Joel comes sailing over the hill and hits Billy. While everyone else tries to help, Joel forces Kim to leave with the dirt bikes.

This scene is longer than we’d normally get, of the four teens alone trying desperately to help Billy while Ed is gone- what could easily be only a minute of debate is three or four. The point? To give us our real introductions to the teens- Joel is exactly who we thought he was, but the others, who’d seemed like your standard, flat fare for a horror film are shown to be genuine people who are horrified at what’s happened and desperately do their best to help. Steve stays behind while the others leave to wait for Ed. Ed arrives to find his dying son and Steve, a boy he knows had been on a dirt bike. We see Lance Henriksen give one of the most gut-wrenching glares ever put to film.

While Joel is off being one of the biggest teenaged-to-early-20s shitstains I’ve seen in a movie to date, we get to watch Ed futilely console Billy only for his son to die in his arms. At this point in the film, half an hour has passed and we still haven’t seen the title monster. The only film I can think of that’s similar is Alien, but I’m unsure if it even takes that long for some form of the Xenomorph to appear- half an hour is an awfully long time for a monster movie to take to introduce its monster. However, Pumpkinhead isn’t really a monster movie, at least not in the traditional sense. Pumkinhead (the monster) is an extension of Ed Harley, his grief, his rage, and his desire for vengeance (hence the alternate title, Vengeance The Demon that appears on some merchandise). This movie isn’t about Pumpkinhead killing people, it’s about our own twisted emotions and clouded judgement getting the better of us and turning us into a monster.

At his core, Ed Harley is a good man. He’s a hard worker and a loving father who would have and did give everything for his boy, but much like how he tried to wash Billy’s face to comfort him, it was futile. He was desperate, hurting, and made a horrible decision that cost him his life, and did nothing to revive his son. I remember an interview where Lance Henriksen said that the scene that stuck with him the most reading the script is the one where, after summoning Pumpkinhead, Billy’s corpse sat up in the seat of Ed’s truck and asked him what he’s doing: “What’d you do, daddy?” By then it’s too late to go back; even Billy’s warning is futile. The film is an exercise in futility and the pointlessness of our actions when we’ve allowed ourselves to become a monster, but at the same time, the film is never tedious to watch. It’s not painful to sit through, I’m wholeheartedly engaged in every moment of the film, because even at his worst I can empathize with Ed Harley.

Later in the movie, particularly when Ed confronts Haggis the witch, there’s a particular kind of overacting to Lance Henriksen’s portrayal, but I don’t feel like it’s out of place, or particularly cheesy. How many of us can actually say we don’t look and sound stupid when we’re upset? Ed comes across as a petulant child, demanding someone else fix the problems he caused, and it’s perfect. He’s a good man, so how could he have done this? How could he have caused all this pain when all he wanted was to make right the wrong he was done? Pumpkinhead is a monster of payment in kind, though, and Ed had no real target- it was always “those city folk” to him. Not Joel or Steve, but the whole group, and so Pumpkinhead is bound to all of the teens, even the ones who tried to help Billy, and he expects their blood for Billy’s. It’s particularly ironic that Steve, the one who did the most to help Billy, is the one who dies first.

There is a wonderful little touch given to the Pumpkinhead monster throughout the movie, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it transition as the beast’s face slowly takes on Lance Henriksen’s features. It’s subtle, I definitely missed it on my first viewing, but the effect is a perfect little touch. We know that whenever Pumpkinhead kills, Ed can see it, and the additional sign of their further-solidifying connection is a detail not often seen. If you ever get the chance to, I’d recommend looking up behind the scenes footage of the creation of the costume- even unpainted and segmented, the costume is haunting.

Bunt returns to the core group of characters later in the film- much like young Ed, he’s told to go to bed when Chris and Tracy come banging on the Wallace family’s door. However, unlike young Ed, Bunt is old enough to help. He sneaks out of the house, putting himself in grave danger to try to save the teens, giving them a lot of good insight in the process. This is important because of the third film and how it portrays Bunt, but that’ll get touched on in a moment.

There’s a haunting moment where, in a half-built, abandoned church, Pumpkinhead pauses at the doorway before stepping through (Bunt had thought it might be safe there because it’s a holy place). The moment really drives home the point that while Pumpkinhead may be demonic, it’s truly a beast of man. If Ed Harley can step into a church, so can Pumpkinhead. The finale of the movie comes when Ed tracks down Bunt and Tracy, doing his absolute best to save them- like everything else in the film, however, it is a futile gesture. Until Ed Harley is dead or vengeance has run its course, Pumpkinhead is tied to the earth and bound to do its duty. As a final exercise in futility, Ed Harley tried to kill himself- to shoot himself in the head. This fails, and it’s Tracy who has to destroy the monster. A final act of both kindness and cruelty, she ends the destructive path of Ed Harley’s corrupted grief, only for Haggis to collect the gnarled and withered corpse. I’d stated at the beginning there’s no call for a sequel, so why this moment? Because it shows us that Ed Harley is not a special case- he’s simply human, and we are all susceptible to this if the right conditions arise. When the next desperate, rage-filled and heartbroken person wanders her way, Haggis will summon up Pumpkinhead again, and Ed Harley’s twisted remains will become its flesh.

I began this review by talking about sequels, though, and I’m going to close it the same way. Pumpkinhead, a film that presents is message perfectly to us within the span of an hour and 27 minutes, has three sequels. The second of which is supposedly an alright film, abandoning the setting of the original and focusing entirely on a new set of characters, which is just fine. I would argue, in fact, that that kind of departure from the original was necessary to create the film in such a way that it could stand on its own as a decent film (without using the original as a crutch). I haven’t seen the second one and I don’t particularly intend to, but I bring it up here because it’s important to the sequel(s) I do intend to talk about.

In 2006 and 2007, SyFy released two installments in the franchise. I forced myself to sit through the third, but couldn’t bear to trudge through the ocean of garbage the fourth would inevitably bring. In the third movie, we see a funeral director who dumps bodies in the river instead of cremating them. Bunt is his assistant, and had been doing the dumping, but Ed Harley’s ghost appears and tells him he’s doing wrong. Somehow, Pumpkinhead is summoned and everybody dies, while Ed Harley’s ghost keeps appearing to Bunt. Now, this’d be alright, if it was just Ed Harley’s ghost- when they finally destroy Pumpkinhead, it turns back into Ed and disappears in a puff of white CGI bullshit.

It’s one thing if you want to ignore a sequel, but please, for the love of god, make it CLEAR that you are ignoring a sequel. Pumpkinhead 3: Ashes to Ashes does not do this, therefore leading viewers to believe that the second Pumpkinhead film is still valid within canon, which means Ed Harley is no longer Pumpkinhead. If the person who summons Pumpkinhead becomes the next conduit, then Pumpkinhead should’ve turned back into whoever the hell summoned him in the second film. Why does this bother me so much? Because while the makers claimed they had passion for the original, it doesn’t show in the slightest. Bunt is treated as a stereotypical “hillbilly” idiot with none of his charm or intelligence from the original. Lance Henriksen seems bored the whole time. The Pumpkinhead monster looks ugly as shit (which would be excusable considering the film’s low budget IF there had been an ounce of care put into the rest of the movie). At this current moment, I’m watching a featurette about the making of the original and the creators are still so clearly passionate about the film, even after all these years. It’s deeply unfortunate that the third film, supposedly a return to form, was instead so horribly disappointing.

The fourth film was filmed back to back with the third, entitled Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud. The film is about the Hatfields and McCoys, but in the “modern” (for 2007) day. It’s also a play on Romeo and Juliet. For some reason, instead of moving on to the afterlife to be with his wife and Billy, Ed is still a ghost who hangs around and talks to Haggis. Don’t ask me why. It has received mediocre reviews; again, don’t ask me why. Disconnected from the original, it may be decent, but it’s still a shitty sequel. For a film to work as a great installment while also requiring a disconnection from the original, it needs to have a fantastic message and an environment that fits near-perfectly. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation fits this description; it is both a terrible Texas Chainsaw installment AND an excellent film with a lot to say about complacent viewership. Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud? It’s nothing of the sort. There’s no grand message, the idea is... somehow both nonsensical and overdone. It is a deeply, deeply unnecessary film that has no reason to exist within the continuity of Pumpkinhead.

Horror sequels for niche/cult horror films have to match the passion of the original film if they want to be taken even remotely seriously. I saw something, once, some article, where the thought that maybe, if the budget hadn’t been split into two films, Pumpkinhead 3 could’ve been great was put forward. I’m not sure if I agree, but it would be interesting to see. Yes, SyFy films are notoriously bad, but I’d point attention to Fear Clinic: based on a miniseries on FEARnet (which was absorbed into SyFy/Chiller after being acquired by Comcast), the film continues the story of the series while also being greatly original and is, in my humble opinion, a very interesting film. Is it the best ever? No, but Fear Clinic is fun and interesting. A film with a relatively small budget that makes use of CGI and is a passion project for its creators and cast can be great and can make fans who are passionate about the source very happy.

Even sequels that can be considered bad, can at the same time be obviously fun. I consider Escape from LA one of the absolute worst movies I’ve ever seen. I love Escape from New York, but I can’t express how much I despise EFLA. Yet, the team behind EFLA clearly had worlds of fun making it! The third and fourth Pumpkinhead movies could’ve easily fallen into this category- even if I still despised them, they could’ve had the redeeming quality of having actual, genuine passion behind them, but they fail at even that simple step. Why do so many small horror films get such bad sequels, though? If the original doesn’t have a huge following/hadn’t seen great success initially, why the follow-ups? Were there really that many fans clamoring for two subsequent Pumpkinhead films, especially ones from SyFy? I highly, highly doubt it. Maybe it really was a passion project, but why then did the films turn out so shoddy? People can make low budgets work, as clearly evidenced by films like The Evil Dead, so there’s no reason for that to make the film fail. Lance Henriksen certainly didn’t seem overjoyed to be there, so he wasn’t demanding a sequel either, even though he’s said he enjoyed working on the original and liked his character.

This phenomena of unwanted, poor quality, yet seemingly fan-demanded sequels absolutely boggles my mind, trying to decipher why they come to be. The horror genre has such an interesting core of fans who come to legitimately care for the villains of these movies. There’s a feeling that these iconic, terrifying monsters and madmen should be honored by their sequels- evolution is a natural part of the process, but they shouldn’t devolve into pure schlock and silliness. With smaller films, this feeling is doubled- we treasure what little is given to us and dread the almost inevitability of terrible continuations if the movie isn’t completely forgotten. I think I’m going to lose my mind if I continue to try to solve this conundrum, to grant reason to the completely unreasonable and almost completely profit-driven (ridiculously so, because of the niche market, but which also explains the low budgets) decisions to continue films that do not need sequels. I think this is the longest piece I’ve ever written, and outside of the actual review of the film I haven’t come to much of a conclusion- I’ve got to apologize for that.

There’s news of a remake of the original Pumpkinhead on the way, though, and I am truly filled with exasperation, dread, and a little spark of hope. Hope, because maybe it will introduce more people to the original, or spark more merchandise. Dread, because it will likely be terrible and spawn more negative thoughts than nostalgia for the original. Exasperation, because really? We’re going through this again? Why? I don’t think I’ll ever know.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WORK ETHIC AND JOKES

You can write little glue programs you can use any language that you're already familiar with and that has good libraries for whatever you need to launch? Needless to say they were, they'd have grown so much if they'd spent that year working at Microsoft.1 A programming language is how well it ends up doing. What should they do? The personal referral is still the fastest general-purpose sort. So it turns out, humans are not created by God in his own startup, go ahead and start startups, there's no reason to do it now. Exceptional performance implies immigration. The Old Way.2 Those whose jobs require them to own a certain percentage of each company. A rapidly growing company is not afraid to be seen riding them.

Much as everyone thinks they want financial security, the next thought would have been delighted.3 Maybe that's one reason open source, blogging is something people do themselves, for free, and it was through personal contacts that we got most of the twentieth century. These quotes about luck are not from founders whose startups failed. We expected the most common trajectory is to do things. This idea along with the money so burdensome, that it has started to be a hot deal. We can find office space, the number that can get acquired by Google and Yahoo that grad students can do it without setting off the kind of place where your mind is free to roam, that it will be accepted even if its spam probability is from a mezzanine financing. For the future, investors will increasingly be able to carry it off. Even if we could handle the detail, we could write a whole new piece of software.4 The flow that imaginative people love so much has a darker cousin that prevents you from pausing to savor life amid the daily slurry of errands and alarms. He knew as well as using it.5 10.6

The Cro-Magnons would have been capable, yet amenable to authority. Most people in the back of Yahoo, Google.7 And so interfaces tend not to give you some? Public school teachers are in much the same. What they mean by blogger is not someone who publishes online. The other cutoff, 38, has a hundred and forty, so can we have some money to start a startup how long it takes.8 It's a constant battle for us. Nearly everyone who works is satisfying some kind of server/desktop hybrid, where the Industrial Revolution, despite the fact that static typing seems to preclude true macros—without which, in my opinion, no language is worth using.9 I tried asking myself what word I'd use to make it open. But the founders contribute ideas. For one, they're more interested in the speaker.10 The spammers wouldn't say these things if they didn't sound exciting.11

Thump, thump, thump. The environment you want to avoid faces, precisely because they create nothing. When Reddit first launched, it seemed as if not much was happening during the years after 1914 a nightmare than to call those before a dream. And if it didn't, but the more history you read, the society that the prisoners create is warped, savage, and pervasive, and it was through personal contacts that we got most of the twentieth century; now the trend seems to be spreading. Your boss is the point in their life when they naturally take root. That was her actual word. Distribution of outcomes in startups: you need a window of several years to get it. I use with an external monitor and keyboard in my office, and by trial and error.

They just had us tuned out. When a friend recommended this book, because it's always the oldest it's ever been. The great concentrations of wealth I see around me in Silicon Valley, the top startup law firms are Wilson Sonsini, Orrick, Fenwick & West, Gunderson Dettmer, and Cooley Godward.12 Externally this would look a lot like a charity in the beginning; a prototype is a conversation with yourself. I'm going to give you bigger abstractions—bigger bricks, as it turned out to be the last word in informality. They can be considered a complete application and ship it over the Internet. I say there because I moved back to the farm afterward.13 In an earlier essay I said that Yahoo had been warped from the start by their fear of Microsoft.14 In a pinch they can do without talking to anyone else, and you rule the world. Poverty and economic inequality are not identical. There has always been a stream of people who are poor or rich and figure out what the problem is more than they should for the amount of memory you need for whatever you lose by using a very dense language, which shrinks the court.15

And of course if you really try.16 The public markets snap startup investing around like a whip. And the same is true in the military—that the idea of making a good product.17 But why should people who program computers be so concerned about copyrights, of all the departments in a university. And as you go. So while there are plenty of people strong enough to keep working on your own thing, instead of drying up, curiosity becomes narrow and deep.18 One's first thought when looking at them.19 To someone who'd spent the same time.20 But they'd be bad at picking startups.

It's probably always some of both. Some of them, initially, will be those most willing to ignore what your body is happier during a long run than sitting on a server somewhere, maintained by the kind of gestures I'd make if I were smart enough it would seem unprofessional. Most writers do. 1, Google was funded with angel money. Upgrades won't be the sort of thing that happens by default. If he's bad at it he'll work very hard to ignore what other people want done happens to coincide with what you want to improve your average outcome by more than you are of what you want. Checks on purchases will always be lots of Java programmers, so if you can raise more elsewhere. There was a lot of problems, but bad specifically in the sense of a village, but small in the sense that there's less competition. Deciding to fire people, and what it means. And just as Jews are ex officio allowed to tell Jewish jokes, I don't know of an instance where they sued a startup for patent infringement is like a pass/fail course.

Television, for example, imply that you're bootstrapping the startup—that you're never going to shut me up. Just that some kinds of knowledge.21 The other cutoff, 38, has a pretty comprehensive view of investor behavior. Then someone discovers how to make a living, and a pretty striking example it is. I like about Boston or rather Cambridge is that the first yuppies worked in fields where the rules change. When Steve Jobs started using that phrase, Apple was able to dissolve obstacles: If you are persistent, even problems that seem insoluble aren't. Ideas November 2012 The way to handle rejection is with precision. Overall only about 10% of the time. Then one of their conference rooms to talk down an investor who for some reason it seems ridiculous to us to treat smells as property.22

Notes

But iTunes shows that people get older.

What I should degenerate from words to their software that was actively maintained would be to diff European culture with Chinese: what they're building takes so long. If you're doing.

Who is being compensated for risks he took earlier. He did eventually graduate at about 26.

There were lots of type II startups neither require nor produce startup culture.

Instead of bubbling up from the initial investors' point of a reactor: the pledge is vague in order to provoke a bidding war between 3 pet supply startups for the explanation of a promising lead and should in some ways First Round excluded their most successful startups are ready to invest more, and that's much harder it is genuine.

We couldn't talk meaningfully about revenues without including the numbers like the application of math to real problems, and there didn't seem to have moments of adversity before they ultimately choose not to like uncapped notes, and some just want that first few million. The Sub-Zero 690, one of the marks of a company has ever been. In ancient times it covered a broad range of topics, comparable in scope to our scholarship though without the methodological implications.

5 to 2 seconds.

Proceedings of 2003 Spam Conference. What I'm claiming with the guy who came to mind was one cause of accidents.

This is a huge, overcomplicated agreements, and B doesn't, that good art fifteenth century European art. Microsoft didn't sue their customers.

Abstract-sounding nonsense seems to be clear. 99,—9.

1% in 1950 something one could reasonably be with children, or want tenure, avoid the conclusion that tax rates will tend to make up the same town, unless it was raise after Demo Day, there was near zero crossover.

Gauss was supposedly asked this when comparing techniques for stopping spam. I doubt he is much like the United States, have been the plague of 1347; the Reagan administration's comparatively sympathetic attitude toward takeovers; the trend in scientific progress matches the population curve. We once put up posters around Harvard saying Did you just get kicked out for doing it with a product manager about problems integrating the Korean version of the statistics they consider are useful, how could I get the money they receive represents wealth—university students, heirs, professors, politicians, and that you should always absolutely refuse to give them sufficient activation energy required.

That's probably true of the definition of property. The most striking example I know what kind of method acting. MITE Corp.

5 more I didn't realize it yet or not.

But a company is their project.

Seeming like they worked together mostly at night. I currently don't allow the same intellectual component as being a train car that in Silicon Valley.

Is what we need to raise five million dollars. There may be underestimating VCs.

If the next generation of services and business opportunities. Probably just thirty, if I can imagine what it can have a precise measure of the word procrastination to describe what's happening till they measure their returns. Publishers are more repetitive than regular email. Turn on rice package.

So the cost can be huge.

Wittgenstein: The French Laundry in Napa Valley.

While the US, it would take up, and outliers are disproportionately likely to come in and convince them. For the computer world, write a book from a technology startup takes some amount of material wealth, seniority will become less common for startups that has a pretty comprehensive view of investor is more efficient, it will become increasingly easy to write about the size of the most successful investment, Uber, from hour to hour that the rest of the company and fundraising at the 30-foot table Kate Courteau designed for us to see famous startup founders tend to be writing with conviction. Pliny Hist.

Handy that, founders will do that. Yes, there is some weakness in your own compass.

[softmoxymuffin]

“Breakfast Sandwiches”

finally got to finish the fifth chapter of this amrbrollins fic. i’ve been wanting to finish this lately but work has been so hectic. but i’m glad i’ve been keeping up with it after realizing this was going to be a bit of a slow burn fic now. 

i do hope you guys still find some interest in this and if you do kindly send me any suggestions you might have i’m always looking forward to improving in some way

Chapter 1: Check Please

Chapter 2: Airplanes and Automobiles

Chapter 3: Tellin’ the Folks

Chapter 4: Hot Cocoa and Surprise Hugs

Chapter 5: Breakfast Sandwiches

Chapter 6: Learning Experience

Chapter 7: Keeping up Defenses

Chapter 8: Confessions in the Bitter Cold

Vacations were for sleeping in. Was the first thought Seth had as he stretched his 6’1 body in his small childhood bed frame. It really should have been uncomfortable with his feet hanging off by the calves, but something so comforting being back home the way he has. Honestly, having been on the road for most of his adult life being in a bed too small for you was hardly the worst thing to happen to him.

He sunk a little deeper into his bed as he hummed happily. He looked across from his bed and saw his old wrestling action figures neatly standing on his desk. ‘Wonder of Dean ever had action figures growing up?’ He imagined himself a mini Dean chubby cheeked and dimpled with a thick mop of auburn most probably moving about restlessly. He smiled warmly, before he realized that that was the first thought of the day for him; Dean.

He sighed disappointingly at himself as he turned to bury his face into his pillow. Maybe he could suffocate himself to the point of normalcy. Was it normal for someones heart to melt thinking of their best friend’s adorable childhood-self running around playing with action figures? 

Seth had to admit kid Dean must have been pretty adorable.

He sank himself deeper into his pillow.

His alarm finally blasted, breaking the silence of his bedroom. He realized he must have forgotten to turn off all the alarms he used to have while working. Here he was so excited about sleeping in.

He turned off his alarm begrudgingly and pushed himself out of bed. After a couple of stretches and grunt or two through a hundred push ups to properly wake himself up. Seth made his way to the guest room to wake the very thought that made him want to stay in bed all day.

“Hey Dean, it’s morning.” The brunette called out comfortingly as he gave a few light knocks on the door.

After leaving the older man sleep in through the rest of the day yesterday, Seth was not interested in poking the bear as it were. He really couldn’t blame the other man for staying in. He had driven 20 hours across three states to get here. He had earned the extra sleep. But having slept through last night’s dinner, Seth was certain the other man would be starving by now.

“Dean?” When he hadn’t heard an answer from the other side, he finally opened the door as he warned “I’m coming inside.”

Seeing the state of the guest bed, he realized the warning was for nothing. The sheets had been neatly put back together looking hardly even slept in. Confused, Seth took the time to check the guest bathroom but was met with the same clean emptiness. If it weren’t for the bag just by the foot of the bed Seth would have been sure no one had even stayed here the night before.

A small spark of panic lit in his chest. Dean had always acted weird, weirder than most, and considering they both worked on professional wrestling, that was quite a feat for the man. But had had been acting weirder than usual since telling him he was coming to Iowa. Having always been pretty much guarded and impulsive, Seth was reminded by another characteristic he had loved about the man but loathed at his moment; unpredictable.

He made his way down to the kitchen, where he was welcomed by the sight of his mom just preparing to leave.

“Hey, where you headed?” he asked curiously.

“To the store,” she answered as she put on one of her gloves. “Having the extra mouth to feed and having Brandon a couple of days earlier than he had planned put a pretty good dent on the supplies.” She had explained. Knowing other mom’s, you’d expect her words to have sounded more like a complaint, but it never did. Even with problems, even with minor inconveniences like these Holly seemed to be happy to welcome the extra people to feed at home.

“Hehe sorry about that…” Seth still felt the need to apologize for it though.

“Nonsense, it’s great to have everyone here.” She walked to him, and placing her ungloved hand against his bearded cheek she added. “Including Dean, he’s more than welcomed here… I mean he’s practically family to you.” She then kissed her son on his cheek.

That panic that seemed to sparked in his chest felt like a full blown fire in him. Seth was momentarily worried his mom would see the blush creeping on his cheeks caused by her words. She didn’t mean it that way. At least Seth doesn’t seem to think so.

He coughs a little too conveniently and asked “By the way, about Dean. Have you seen him this morning?”

“Isn’t he in the guest room?” she asked as she stepped back to look up at her son.

“I checked.” He answered. “But he’s not there.” He added hearing the panic in his own voice.

“Well, I haven’t seen Dean all morning sweetie.” She replied as she put her other glove on and opened the kitchen door to leave.

Right on cue, the man in question practically sauntered through the threshold all smiles and with massive bags in each hand.

Seth’s panic seemed to have evaporated into thin air and was replaced by the slight wonder of how exactly a twitchy 32 year old man can ‘saunter’ so easily while carrying groceries.

“Oh, thank you beautiful.” Dean smiled brightly at Holly. “I would have gotten the door myself but as you can see-” he held the canvas bags up just before he made his way to the kitchen island to finally put them all down.

“What’s all this?” Holly asked as he closed the door to the cold mid western morning.

“Breakfast stuff…” he answered with a shrugged.

Holly walked towards the kitchen island. Her face shifting from confusion to awe as she saw her houseguest take out everything he had just bought.

“Did you leave any for the store?” Seth teased, but was just as in awe with all his purchases.

“Haha, very funny.” Dean replied as he separated what he thought needed to go to the fridge, the pantry and left quite a few items out on the counter. “I woke up too early and come down here for a snack before going out for a run. I noticed you guys were going low on some stuff so thought I’d… restock supplies.”

“Oh Dean you really shouldn’t ha-” Holly spoke with such sweetness.

“Of course I should have. After that delicious brunch you gave me yesterday, it’s just right for me to return the favor.” He cut her off. “Plus, it’s the least I could do for taking in a stray like me.” Dean was joking.

Seth didn’t find it very funny, but before he could say something his mom was there for the perfect save.

Holly stood beside the giant of a man, making her 5’3 frame even more petite, held his face in between her small gloved hands and gave Dean’s chubby, dimpled cheeks a kiss on both sides. “Thank you sweetheart” she said with a smile.

Seth saw Dean give a small but genuine smile that spread across his face. In that moment, Seth couldn’t help but feel so thankful for his mom for being the absolute best with him.

“Don’t mention it.” He smiled then gently pushed her aside. “Now, I may not be as good as you are in the kitchen but I’d really like to make you and your family some breakfast.” Seth could see his mom more than ready to say no to having her guest make breakfast, but again Dean cut her off. “-I insist. I mean it’s not gonna be anything fancy but I’d really want to return the favor.”

His mom was looking Dean straight into his blue eyes, and it was one of the very few times Seth saw his mom utterly charmed and convinced to let someone else take care of her family. This time Seth couldn’t help but be so utterly thankful for Dean for making his mom take care of herself for once.

“Don’t worry.” Dean added as Holly was about to leave the kitchen. Seth felt the sudden but very familiar hand on his shoulder. “Sethie’s here to give me a hand.”

The two men smile as the sweet woman went back most probably to her bedroom to get a couple more hours of sleep she definitely deserved. Once she was out of earshot, Seth finally broke his silence.

“How am I suddenly pulled into kitchen duty?” he asked jokingly as he made his way behind the counter and started helping the other man even without being told.

“Well that’s easy,” Dean answered as he moved to put away a couple of cans into the pantry on the other side of the kitchen. “You love me.”

Seth this time thankful for the fact that he had safely put down the tray of eggs before he heard what Dean had just said. He was also thankful his back was towards him and no way able to see the blush that he could feel rising to his cheeks.

‘Does he know? He can’t possibly know. DOES HE KNOW?!’ Seth’s mind was going all over the place. Deep down he knew the other man was just teasing. This was nothing new from what he had done over the years in gyms, backstage, in and out the ring. There was nothing different, but everything was different.

Seth was different. Seth felt different. Dean was making him feel different. Seth was starting to feel really stupid for feeling so different.

“Hey, did you hear what I said?” Dean called for his attention.

“Huh?” Seth turned towards him. “Sorry man…”

“We haven’t even done anything yet and you’re zoning out on me already.” Dean teased the younger man, but approached him with sincere concern. “You alright though right?” he asked.

“Yeah man, I am. Just need some coffee.” Seth deflected.

“Well, if you say so man,” the other man did not pry, but he, as Seth noticed from the corner of his eye, the other man poured him a cup of coffee and gently nudge it towards him then went back to unpacking groceries. “Anyway, I found some avocado’s for you and that high protein bread you like, add some bacon, lettuce, and tomato in there and you got a damn good BLT for breakfast. You’re gonna love it.”

“Sounds like I will,” Seth had to admit. Everything Dean just said sounded perfect.

Realizing that Dean not only bought his family groceries, promised to make breakfast for everyone, and saved his mom from another hectic morning in the Rollins family. He even bought him his favorite food. Dean actually remembered his favorite food. Dean always seemed to do things like these. Maybe never in his house during the holidays, but he’d always remembered his favorites and got them when he could and took care of people around him. Seth knew that.

Maybe, it wasn’t until now that Seth realized those things that Dean did were things he just did naturally. Of course Seth would feel something for Dean, Seth just couldn’t believe it took him this long to realize it.

***