#i have a couple other doodles of her but I cannot get a good picture of any of them so you just have to trust me

[sleepsart]

I haven't drawn her in so long, but today,,,, today Maya returns to paper,,,,,

[ ID: A sketch of Maya Kirst from the shoulders up. She's staring forward with a slightly confused expression. She has long dark hair, dark eyes, a mole under her left eye, and she's wearing a long-necked dark shirt. End ID ]

[claire-starsword]

The Guardiana Magic School Run - Part 3

No doodle this time as I had no ideas, every joke about giant bats sucking has already been done I think. Also I've just realized I lost all my pre battle screenshots due to a emulation mishap so. Oops. We bad at pictures today, sorry.

Anyway. We return to Guardiana to sing our praises and maybe not dwell too much on the fact Gong just died. Resurrection is too a good display of Guardiana's magic. I guess.

We say hi to Mae and Gort and grab their weapons for extra money. We also grab plenty of stuff from the treasure room. The Antidote gets safely tucked in the item box as poison won't be a thing for the next battles. The Angel Wing is against my rules and thus to be sold. The Power Wine and Defense Potion also go to the item box as I don't see the need for them right now.

More importantly, the Rousing Ring. This thing is a gift for giant bat haters everywhere, preventing a character from falling asleep. Unfortunately there's only one in game (unless they show up in deals? but I sure haven't seen them there ever). I give it to Gong because Max is kinda overleveled right now, and Tao and Lowe should not be directly hitting enemies too often.

All the loot we could sell gives us a sizable chunk of money. I check the deals and there's still nothing there. The Guardiana weapon shop is also very disappointing. So it's time to start stocking on Steel Rings as I hoped. And by stocking I mean buy two. Definitely would like to have more, as for now, I move all three to Tao, who is by far the most frail character right now, and next battles will be more open so I don't think Max and Gong will manage to fully protect everyone.

I also replenish everyone's stock of Medical Herbs, which isn't a big deal since we didn't use many.

This is where I should have screenshots to show how absurd Max is getting in stats, his attack is like 20 compared to the others having less than 15, definitely need to let the others catch up on levels. Tao's base defense is 4, which is half of Gong's, the guy who died last battle. You can see now why I want those rings so bad. Especially since I recall now there being more Rune Knights next battle.

We cannot delay meeting them any longer. I save the game, and go on for the glory of Guardiana's Magic School.

The clear bonus is 400 gold for winning in at most 10 turns, almost enough money for another Steel Ring, so I want that, but perhaps I should have learned a lesson from last time. Also I don't think skipping enemies to get to Alterone is worth it, we'd miss a lot of exp. Let actually try to minimize deaths this time.

We have a couple of bats who I think will advance immediately, and a lot of dark dwarves. I would love if they didn't advance, which might mean taking things slowly and missing the bonus. Though they might advance anyway and then I'll feel very stupid. Oh well.

Turn 2, nothing happened. The dwarves indeed don't feel like moving, while the bats have inched closer. Let's see if we can deal with them quickly. I send Max to bait them as his huge stats should shrug off bats without much issue.

They take the bait immediately due to having great agility. Their position annoys me a bit, but at least every other character can hop to beat them up right now.

By characters I mean Tao. Lowe can't reach, and Gong gets dodged because flying enemies Do That A Lot. Tao does level up though, and gets Blaze 2, which is fun and exciting. I will mention though, she has yet to get a single defense point via level up. I'm beginning to wonder if it's ever a thing for her.

Turn 4. Gong has managed to hit the second bat and take more than half its HP so Tao can definitely finish it up after Gong tanks a hit, and he will not fall asleep due to his ring. Let's see if Max can bait some dwarves already, though I have little hope of getting the bonus. I just rather these guys come for Max than anyone else.

The dwarves refuse to come and are instead gathering to block the road, which is the fastest path to Alterone. But I said I wouldn't rush, so perhaps beating them from the forest side I can get some terrain bonuses. Unfortunately they too will be getting the terrain bonuses.

To put it plainly, I don't know what I'm doing.

Turn 6. Whatever I did was good, one dwarf came after while the others are now closer to the road and thus getting less terrain bonuses. Hope they stay that way.

Max and Gong team up flawlessly and Gong's level up makes him seem very determined to not die again.

Man, why did I even want the Demibuster.

Lowe is doing a whole bunch of nothing so I send him to heal Max from all the 1 damages he's been taking.

Everything proceeds smoothly and Tao proves that yes, she can get defense on level ups. Sometimes. Occasionally.

Lowe also gets to do something after Max kindly left a dwarf with 1 HP remaining.

Unfortunately we're at turn 9 with a mass of knights and bats remaining so it's safe to say the bonus is impossible. So let us be as cautious as possible and go through the forest, hoping dispatching the bats before the knights get involved.

The bats get baited and finally some snoozing happens. It's chill though, I legit skipped Max's turn to see if others can get the exp.

Lowe proceed to disappoint me as usual.

Eventually he does land a hit but it doesn't even do half and I don't have that kind of patience, Max reaps the rewards here and his level ups continue to be absolutely wild.

Knights are horrible in forests so I'm hoping it's okay to advance this much. Gong also heals himself for some exp, clearly no useful healing is getting done today.

I mess up again because they can still use the roads! Everyone thank the Steel Rings right now.

Gong is also reaping sweet rewards of his training. The reward is "dying less".

Tao spends her last MP on sweet revenge.

Lowe finally gets a level up from healing Tao, and learns Detox. This never happens in a timely manner on my usual playthroughs.

Nothing else to say, we wipe out the knights in this chill manner, with mostly Max and Gong. I try leaving this final guy for Lowe but Max counters because he's too good to share the spotlight. We're four or five turns beyond the bonus, I didn't pay attention, but the battle itself was pretty easy. I feel this will be a pattern in this playthrough, we're pretty overleveled for this part so we survive well, but with few characters we just don't deal enough damage to wipe the enemies fast enough. Obviously, this is because again I wanted all enemy exp instead of rushing to the objective.

There's only so much I can weep about it right now though. This is Alterone, the town full of loot. So money won't exactly be lacking. I might have one less Steel Ring by the end of the chapter though :(

after like ten minutes maybe more of opening chests, including the one after talking to the king, we have extra herbs, Healing Seed for the late game, another Power Wine and Defense Potion, a Life Loaf that might actually be from Guardiana and I didn't notice, some Middle Swords, plural, and useless wooden weapons, I can't understand why they're here. One Middle Sword manages to make Max more powerful than he already is. The rest of the weapons are going to make us rich as the average Alterone citizen.

The deals section decides to finally have something…

It is an axe. Which no one will use in this run. Also I would love to have data on these special weapons because the Jagged Flash tends to be the most useless of them to me, I don't notice any significant extra damage on flying enemies and flying enemies dodge it all the time anyway. This might be the worst thing we could have possibly rolled. Let's just check the normal weapon shop.

The Demibuster is a whopping 800 gold and actually weaker than the Middle Sword. It will still deal more damage against dark dwarves, but man, Max doesn't need it.

The Voodoo Staff meanwhile is a new weapon exactly between the Wooden and Power Staff. Makes sense, right? It can also poison enemies, which I guess could be useful, if we weren't killing anything in one or two hits anyway. With all that said, the Power Staff is debuting like, literally the next battle. I also don't have much interest in sending the blazing woman and healer guy to hit stuff when they could be blazing and healing instead, especially when their defenses still don't inspire much confidence. That's right baby this isn't the Alterone Magic School run this is the Guardiana Magic School, I'm going back there and grabbing more Steel Rings before the chapter closes!!

Just to complete the ramblings, Alterone has their own special ring too, the Evade Ring. In this version, characters have no natural chance of evading as far as I've seen, and depend on equipment like this instead. Of course, this one stacks to a chance of at most 6-8%, so it's very shaky compared to our great and solid Guardiana equipment. It is cheaper than Steel Rings though, so might be a good option for squishy characters once we run out of money.

For now though, we're off to funding the restoration of our glorious country. We buy three rings and store them safely in the item box for now.

We have an old friend to meet next time, after all.

Losses: 0 Deaths: 1 This episode: not yet sponsored by the Guardiana royal family but Queen Anri if you're out there I'd love the money

[hermitcatlongposts]

Huevember Afterwords and reference images

First and foremost I wanna say that this was the best decision to go on this epic journey. In case any stranger is gonna be reading this. I'm not some high quality, soulless corporation like blogger who writes very formal essay and only states facts and minimal subjective opinion to maximize inoffensiveness and minimize risk of boring the reader. I'm just gonna ramble on and on like a discord chat at 3AM.

Alright, I have MANY things to talk about on each artwork. The format will be "picture above, comment below". Remember to click on it to zoom, I mean, if my doodly little doodles are worth zooming.

Ah, the starter of it all. Mossy boi. I don't even know what "moss" is. Is it a bush? grass? vines? leaves? I just saw the enemies in HollowKnight that has "moss" in their name and took their design principle. Whatever a moss is, can you even make a cloak out of it? I think it's like "twin drill" hairstyle seen in anime and anime only. Twin drills are non-euclidean eldrich horror that cannot exist in our mortal realm. I don't know why but I specially love how one boot is wrapped in leaves in order to give interesting asymmetry. I love a design where asymmetry is achieved by an actual object that make you go "what's that?" instead of just abstract shape and/or color.

A knight eerily adorned with thorny vines. When I saw myself drawing a knight in full plate armor, the random phrase "A Knight in a Shining Armor" just kept swirling in my head and I couldn't help but decide to just add highlights to it without any knowledge about how it works. But that was a catalyst for me to go out into the world of SHADING! Only, woefully underequipped to actually do it with any amount of correctness at all. You can see that I added the thorns at the last moment which was a brilliant idea.

A scout of Fragrant Goddess faction. Now, you might immediately see that this character's name refers to something that belongs outside the canvas she's drawn on. I couldn't come up with any self contained adjective like previous two but just naming her "a scout" or worse, "an archer" would be pretty demeaning to all the effort I put into bringing her into existence. So I thought I might just start building my extended fantasy world from today. She's an scout of a faction that serves an illusive goddess by that name.

Perhaps it's pathetic that it takes so little to make me feel proud of myself. But the way I used the power of imagination to remove her skirt (because I didn't like how bulky and rigid it is) makes me feel good about myself that I do in fact have at least a couple brain cells. But now comes a problem. Look at all the GOLDEN pieces in this art. You know, I don't know shit about fuck. I just grabbed the colors: brown, yellow and white and just scribbled about on her shoulder plate and it accidentally turned out so amazing. And that made me determined to actually try to shade every art onwards. Which made this series both fun, interesting and painful.

Hunter of the defiant I'm gonna be honest, the reference this time didn't really help that much. Now, I'm not a writer at all. I don't think I wrote really anything. I have a clear memory of getting F every time we needed to write essays in school. So I don't have any fantastic plan for a game/world that revolves around the concept of afterlife and ushers of departing souls. Regardless, I brainstormed an idea for this character: Outside the mortal realm, there is a great river that carries the souls of the deceased like a driftwood into whatever is on the other side. But sometimes, whether by choice, accident, or meddling of others, a soul fails to go onto the river and remain in the mortal world as a "ghost", which is usually not a good thing to happen. Someone must correct those mistakes. I gave that name because the character in this artwork is a special subclass of grim reaper who deals with those who willingly become a ghost. Which is a heresy against whatever policy I will come up with when time comes. Probably in 10 years.

Crumbled golem knight. This one was way too much of a "biting off more than you can chew" moment. How do I paint a rock? No one knows. All the tutorials I watched were just: "lol just draw it. Now look at me in awe at how good of an artist I am as I just silently paint without explaining anything" It's seems to be one of the things every artist just have to learn through raw instinct at some point in their life. This went completely out of my meagre little zone of cartoony characters with thick outlines and extremely minimal shading.

Assault sorcerer knight. This is in fact my proudest one from this series. (yes, we will talk about "that" next) It's because the reference art is used only for a mere pose and everything else is my honest prowess.

Just look at how much shading is done for him compared to the first one. Also in much bigger resolution. See, every time I drew something, I always had my canvas in very low resolution. For example, the first 4 art is 800x1000 pixels. I do not know what compels me to do that. 99% of my time is spent on basically being a pixel artist and I realized how unnecessarily counterproductive it is when I was drawing the grim reaper. A borderline pixel art is fine normally but when I rotate the canvas, staring at a bunch of rotated pixels is incredibly icky. So, Sorcerer knight catalyzes bigger canvas size of 1600x2000 pixels.

The "That". This. Is. A. PROBLEM. You see, I got so mesmerized by the absolute paragon of beauty in front of me and just ended up tracing literally everything. The archer one was ok because the design itself, specially after I removed the imposing skirt, is pretty humble. But this one has all this majestically flowing stuff like the cape, the robe, the hair and handsome face. I would not even start to begin to come close to the fraction of the 0.01% of all the folds that the reference art has. It was a not a "reference" but a full on "tracing". But this one is fine. Honestly I can be positive and say that this is a very personal and intimate (because I even though it's a trace, it's a fact that I brought about everything on the canvas with my own hands) milestone as an artist. I could look at it and get inspired to work towards one day being able to recreate it genuinely. Ah, but so far away. I need to learn how to pose a human body, basic level anatomy, face (which is an entire world on it's own), hair, flowing fabric, folds, shadows & highlights. As shameful it might be to trace, this one is fine because he's a knight. And I'm willing to draw any knight at any given time. But the next one, the final would-be one is were the real real problem comes in.

It's not about the act of tracing but more about having to trace to begin with. I didn't want to finish it because I never wanted to draw this. See, the problem with this whole tracing thing is that it's straight up impossible to find the perfect source art that matches the idea you had in mind. Remember how in the previous post where I presented you the order in which I tackle the huevember palettes and I put the yellow one last because I said I wanted that to be the best? Sadly the idea was too big for me to just bring it up on my own like I did the crumbled golem and sorcerer knight. Neither could I find any reference art that would be anywhere close to it. After scrolling for like 3 hours straight I got so tired and pissed at wasted time and just picked random one and tried to call the huevember challenge done. But the absolute dissonance between what I always wanted to draw from before the start of the challenge and whatever the random ass anime girl I was tracing and haphazardly coloring was too much to bear. And here ends my huevember. Alright with that said, just in case you might've forgot or you're a newcomer to my shenanigans not knowing it, tracing is not what I'll be doing in the future and it never was planned to. In fact, this is definitively the last time I trace. I've been tracing in order to just have fun, take a little mental break from insurmountable work of making a game and prepare my hands for what's to come when I begin my artist journey. After I finish my game I will take my time to formally study art. I don't mean like years and years until I become like Leonardo da Vinci. Just two or three months to reach the most basic level of body structure, posing, shading and folds of fabric for the purpose of drawing my very own original characters. Because making a video game is my main purpose. I'm not an "artist" artist, I draw only for myself and my games, nor a "programmer" programmer. Plus this challenge really made me learn the painful way just how soul crushing it is to spends hours trying to find a perfect picture to use as reference/trace. Surprise! Google is not a genie that magically gives you the perfect thing you have in your mind. Pretty far from it, actually. Ok, that's all. If you're here, I'm shacking and crying in gratitude for you caring about me. oh yeah people nowadays use AI to generate a perfect reference image for them, don't they. AI can gargle my nuts.

[lotusthekat]

[ID: Fanon concept art of “Wrath”, an idea for an Homunculus Alphonse Elric. Wrath!Al is very similar to the homunculus from the 2003 adaptation, except for a couple details such as clothing and eye color. Wrath!Al shares these physical traits with Sloth (2003).

The first image has him in his full body, wearing a ripped blue tank top, sort of dark blue leggings except his left leg is exposed, an equally long, dark blue glove in his left hand, and dark purple, big boots. Wrath!Al has a noticeably shorter and less wild hair than canon Wrath’s, though it’s still black and longer than canon Al’s short haircut. Along his full body, the concept includes his profile, where he’s more physically similar to Wrath. There’s also his full color palette, a sketch of his purple eye and a doodle where only his black hair is colored. Wrath!Al still owns both Ed’s right arm and left leg in this version. Some notes have been written in the picture:

- Above his head: “Shorter hair (less wild)” and “Styled like Sloth too (opposite Wrath)”

- Beside his right arm: “Ed’s arm (bigger)”

- Left arm: “Sloth like”

- Left leg: “Ed’s leg”

The second picture is only a couple colorless sketches of Wrath!Al, the left is him with his longer hair, and the right one is a more furious Wrath!Al but his hair has been cut short. The text over him says “After fight with Ed”. /End ID]

Since there’s literally zero homunculus Al AUs (and Wrath!Al even less), I made an entirely nonsensical AU but it’s FMA 2003.

DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION!

I have some concepts in my head because this shit is completely self-indulgent, will put them under the cut since this got long:

He’s created by Ed, and both him and Sloth are found by Dante. Ed is not able to bring Al’s soul back in the armor, but he still loses his right arm because alchemy isn’t fair

Ed isn’t aware “Al” might be alive this entire time, but Ed joins the military either way to bring him back

The “original” Wrath (from the Gate) fuses with Al, giving Al a body but not his soul or full memories. Wrath!Al looks like both of them

With Ed’s limbs, Al is able to perform alchemy. He’s a pro at it since he studied it before the transmutation

Wrath!Al is actually very similar to Sloth: he’s the quietest out of the homunculi. He also deals with denial of his feelings and memories like the others

He starts out similarly to canon Wrath - in his first days he behaves a lot like a child, usually and unconsciously seeking comfort from Sloth. Over time, Al becomes quieter and reserved. Despite his name, he’s not too prone to lashing out like canon Wrath

However, he’s unable to actually kill Ed. Wrath!Al loves Ed despite his deep resentment. Wrath!Al is very good at fighting and is able to beat Ed very easily, but once Ed recognizes who he might’ve been, Wrath!Al becomes psychologically fragile and cannot fight him anymore

His fight with Ed is very dramatic and emotional. In a very dramatic manner, Ed is able to cut Al’s hair with his arm. That’s how the revelation happens. Kinda like the Winter Soldier reveal in the MCU lmao (“Al?” “Who the hell is Al?”)

I haven’t developed it yet but I like Wrath!Al meeting Scar, too. Maybe while he’s supposed to kill Ed. Scar realizes the other boy might not want to kill. Scar also helps him eventually accept that he loves Ed, much like Scar loves his own brother

Wrath!Al is aware where Sloth came from, and he knows she might hate him for it. At Sloth’s last fight in the series, she tries to kill him, too, feeling she should kill both him and Ed because she refuses her previous role as Trisha

He mourns her death like it happens in canon, but ofc it gets worse because Al was technically, actually her child all this time

Envy doesn’t like Wrath!Al, jealous of Dante’s attention and the fact he’s Hohenheim’s kid. At the end of the series, Envy uses Wrath!Al to bait Ed. Al cries for Sloth (his mother), and Envy stabs him as a threat. It doesn’t kill him, but it does hurt a lot

Wrath!Al in the series finale kills himself. He sacrifices himself for Ed, realizing he loved Ed from the beginning. Since Sloth never loved him, Wrath!Al accepts how alone he really is, and he ends it by bringing Ed back to life with his restored arm and leg. He’s shamed by Envy and Dante for it, but Al finally decides to stand up to them, as he’s always been afraid of questioning them

His body remains when Ed’s revived. Al no longer has his limbs, and so he’s about to really die. Ed wants to save him, but Al, moments before dying again, asks Ed not to do it. Al wants to die, and he asks his brother to live on. Ed cries, Rose and her baby too

Al’s body is finally buried and mourned by his family. Ed feels suicidal (kinda like Mustang is in 2003), but he tries to respect Al’s promise despite the pain

Yeah, I’ll write this soon :)

[bloodypapercut]

f.w. headcanons (part ii)

here it is! you’re all too kind to me so i truly hope you enjoy! <3 (I apologize if this headcanon is a bit redundant)

word count: 2.1k

@somekidinacoma

(if you’d like to be tagged just ask, i’d be more then happy to!)

-he talks about you so much, molly and arthur practically know everything about you. as for the other weasleys you all get along and they make you feel like you’re part of the family

-he’s so excited to show you everything around the house, like his room, the backyard, the small fort all his siblings made together in the woods, the treehouse, and all the little trinkets that litter every available space. he’s practically shaking when he meets you at the train station because he can’t contain his emotions

-he can’t wait for the people he loves the most to be together. the thought of you, his siblings and his parents in the same household just excite him so much and fills him with joy 

-when you arrive molly has already made all of your favorites because she knew from all of fred's letters about you and arthur is already asking about how your ride was and if you saw anything interesting (his letters are mostly about you, they only contain 2 sentences about him)

-you get along with molly and arthur very well, they treat you with so much kindness and love. molly lets you cook with her and she shows you old photos of fred. you and arthur have conversations about muggle things he finds interesting and about all the fun experiences you’ve had while art hogwarts

-when fred leads you to his room he shows you his first inventions that he made with george many years ago, seeing his eyes fill with pride is one of your favourite sights 

-his side of the room is covered with pictures of you and him, letters and doodles from you and it’s so cute “george says it’s creepy like it’s some sort of shrine.” “i wouldn’t expect any less from you.”

-he lets you rummage through the old clothes that are too small for him and keep them. they still smell like him, a mixture of cinnamon, ash, pine, and orange

-sneaking down to the kitchen while everyone sleeps and eating cake outside

-baking 4am cookies with fred, trying your hardest not to laugh and make a lot of noise, but it just ends up with the two of you feeding each other the cookie dough then getting stomach aches the next morning 

-throwing popcorn at him, him diving to try and catch it, probably leading to his head banging against a table (pouty fred trying to ignore you but ultimately failing when you kiss him all over his face)

-sitting around a fire with his entire family as they all laugh and tell stories, his arm around your shoulders and your head leaning against his

-water chugging competitions, you always win

-staring competitions, he’ll always pull odd faces in an attempt to get you to crack or tickle you with strands of your hair

-stargazing in his old treehouse, holding hands and falling asleep in that position. (imagine fairy lights everywhere, there's a record player in the corner playing si tu n’etais pas la, you’re both under a blanket and you’re tracing words onto his palm making him guess what your message is) 

-he comes up from behind you and drapes a blanket over your shoulders while hugging you and talking into your hair, his speech being muffled

-refusing him kisses before class if he’s the reason you’re late, to which he’ll reply by lightly pulling your hair when you try and walk away from him. he doesn’t show any signs of relenting so you quickly turn around and kiss him hard while gripping on his collar, but as soon as he tries to deepen it you turn and rush through the classroom door quickly

-while walking down a corridor together he’ll twirl you around

-sometimes he’ll just hold you up because he wants to admire you. or he’ll prop you on a desk or dresser just so you’re face to face, so he can look at every feature on your face 

-i cannot stress enough how warm his hugs are, they completely engulf you and all you can smell is his jumper and you can feel his heartbeat, his hands gripping at the ends of your sweater then slowly running up and down your back in your jumper and he’ll nudge your leg with his knee as an indicator for you to step into him so there's practically no space between the two of you

-slow dancing, he’ll hold you tightly to his chest with his arms wrapped around your waist and your head will be on his shoulder while you play with the strands of hair at the base of his neck. you’ll have hushed conversations about what you want to do in the future, all the places you wanna travel to together, and all the domestic things you can’t wait to do together (while the catfish and the bottlemen cover of read my mind plays in the back)

-pretending to have mini-concerts in his dorm, using random objects as microphones, screaming, jumping around on every surface that will allow it (in my mind fred dances like jarvis cocker)

-if you’re both singing he’ll claim that you’re outshining him so he’ll try and cover your mouth, which leads to you covering his mouth, which ends with him just him licking your hand and you rubbing it off on him “you did not.” “yes, and i’ll do it again.” he’ll take off running, causing you to chase him

-the two of you sitting next to each other while listening to music and you’ll start to head bop, then he’ll start to head bop together in unison

- during lessons he’ll slip little sweets into your hand

-he’ll nudge your ribs while you’re trying to pay attention to class and whispers to you “i’m so in love with you darling.” to which you’ll just grin and hold his hand under the table, tracing shapes onto the back of it

-he definitely throws things at you randomly, at any given location, nothing that would hurt you obviously

-sometimes he’ll just stop mid-sentence and look at you in awe, his mouth slightly agape and eyes wide. his smile is so bright and genuine, his dimples are so prominent and his eyes crinkle and it’s so contagious, you can’t help but hold his face and kiss his forehead lightly

-he admires you so so much, you motivate him to work as hard as he can because one day he hopes that his business will be enough to sustain a life that he wants to give you, he wants to give you the world and he wants to encourage you to follow your dreams as much as you do for him

-very specific compliments “your earlobes are a really nice shape” “i really like the space between your eyebrows” “ahh your nose is just so cute i just wanna poke it all day”

-he gave you a locket and it has a picture of you and him on your first hogwarts train ride together. and whenever he gets the chance he’ll put it on for you, he loves sweeping your hair out of the way and softly putting the necklace around your neck

-matching rings 

-fred definitely knows how to make bracelets and rings, i feel like he’d always make them for ginny and molly on holidays. he’d make you so many, and on your birthday he gave you a really ornate silver jewelry box

-he loves brushing your hair 

-whenever you’re staying up whether it be studying or writing an essay he will not allow himself to sleep until you’re done, he says people who suffer together stay together. he’ll also try to shovel food in your mouth and make you drink water or tea to assure sure you’re not depriving yourself. in return, you stay up with him while he’s trying to perfect the products he wants to sell. you’ll sit side by side bumping knees and rubbing his back while he scribbles into his notebook

-sometimes he’ll ask for you to lean your back against his because he still wants to be able to work and be around you, but he gets distracted by your face because he just wants to kiss you every time he sees your eyebrows furrow as you reread a paragraph, or your tongue dart out of your mouth, or a tendril of hair slip from your ponytail and onto your face

-he’s not one to be very hard on himself about attendance, but if you are he’ll wake you up and remind you that you have a test to get to, or you have to attend practice. he’ll help you get ready but as soon as he drops you off he’ll go back to sleep or go to the kitchens to get food for you and him for after your class or practice 

-he’s so good at comforting people, he takes it after molly. it may seem at times that he’s insensitive due to his playful nature, but if he sees that you’re frantically flipping through pages, nibbling at the end of your pen he will hold your face tenderly between his hands and reassure you in a soft and sincere voice “why’re you being so hard on yourself? can’t you see how hard you’re working and how accomplished you are?” “take a rest, beautiful, you deserve it.” “i’m so proud of you, you have no idea how much you push me to work harder.” “you’ve got a stunning mind, but i think you should give it a break okay?” “you’re so resilient, angel, you can do this okay? i’m right here.”

-if you have a headache he’ll massage your head. if any part of your body hurts he’ll try and soothe it. he’ll pause occasionally to kiss whatever part is in pain

-(for any female, male  or non-binary angels that get their period)he’ll keep his hands over where you’re cramping and he’ll let you curl around him. he even bought you a huge body pillow because he’d want you to use it when he couldn’t be with you. he’ll feed you whatever you crave and he’ll read to you or sing quietly to you (fred with an acoustic ahhh). he’ll constantly reassure you, saying that you only have a couple more days left, and if the pain is really bad he’ll try and soothe you to sleep. fred also keeps track of your period, he’s surprisingly really really good with dates 

-he likes humming you to sleep while he pushes the hair out of your face, rubs your back, and kisses your forehead lightly

-if you’re about to do something you’re really nervous about he’ll look you in the eyes, grab both of your hands and encase them in has after leaving kisses on them. then he’ll place them on his chest and give you a reassuring grin

-when he gets hurt from quidditch you stay next to him the entire time he’s in the hospital wing, the two of you playing cards or helping him plan a future prank

-he holds your chin between his thumb and index finger and kisses you softly. you two have to stop occasionally because one of you will giggle, causing you to nudge your noses together

-he’ll wake up randomly in the middle of the night and nudge you until you stir “go to sleep fred.” “nooo let’s talk, i wanna have a conversation.” “can’t we talk tomorrow, it’s your fault i’m so tired.” “but love, all these thoughts, amazing beautiful one of a kind thoughts are ripe in my mind now, if we talk tomorrow i won’t remember.” “isn’t that a relief?” “c’monnnnnn.”

-a lot of back and forth bickering “wow, i’m speechless.” “finally.” “shut up freddie.” “look who’s talking.” “you are.” “no you are.” “no now you are.” “you. are.” “shut up.” “we’re back at square one i see.”

-the two of you reeling over in laughter, tears slipping down your cheeks and gasping for air (all. the. time.)

-during the train ride to hogwarts he leans against the wall of the cabin while you lean on his chest, then you’ll take everyone's jackets and use them as blankets and pillows. you’ll cuddle, eat random sweets, and nap throughout the entire ride

-he constantly takes pictures of you and he has an entire box filled of them, the box also has tickets from shows you went to together, receipts from random dates you’ve been on and little notes you’ve passed during class. he plans to keep all of these to decorate the flat he hopes he can live in with you

-he will randomly run into your room, drop a bag and rush out as quickly as he came. usually there are your favorite sweets, socks, candles and a new book. in return you try and spoil him as much as spoils you because he deserves the world 

[riisinaakka-draws]

part 2/6

2nd part of my old Black Sails scraps and doodles from 2016–2021. Not in any particular order.

This time the drawings are short comics that were abandoned for a reason or another, mostly because I lost the interest or felt like there was too much to redraw compared to the satisfaction of finishing something else more interesting. There’s also some talk about rigid mindset and how overthinking can lead to stagnation.

Contains early silverflint moments, specks of dust, rackham's glasses are found, jealous-Billy spying, desk-Flint gets caught, "squint-squint", a quiet moment and its bird dilemma etc.

And please do not steal and repost elsewhere. But if you do get inspired, feel free to make your own interpretations!

Long-ish post under the cut!

“What are you thinking about?”

“Specks of dust.”

“Liar.”

The idea was to show how much they and their relationship had changed. This was around 2016 when the season 3 began and I was still re-learning to draw with a tablet. Another art from the same time period (and idea) is this art: The Dynamic Duet. 

And for some reason I was really stuck up thinking that I’d have to first do the sketch, then the clean line art, then planes underneath, then shadows etc. and I have always struggled with that kind of approach! Mainly because I hate doing clean line work, lol. And I was a fool for trying to start with a white canvas! It’s so much harder to find values and plan things, or at least in my opinion..

“Rackham’s glasses are found”

To celebrate their new pirate alliance, they share the four lenses of Rackham’s sunglasses as they were also found at the time (because I wanted it to resurface and they could be made into jewellery you know...). This was right after the episode where Anne fights and hurts her hands (here wearing protecting mittens from Max even though she’s not trusted at the moment). Uh, this doesn’t spark joy interest me much and it’s quite stiff and would recuire a lot of redrawing faces, so - discarded!  

I somewhat like the idea still (them having something to share, although it’s on Jack’s detriment). I tried to find a stylished comical easier doodlier? way to draw them and draw clean lines etc, but it just wasn’t for me. Also here too, the background is blank and too bright. Later I started to think things as scenes and draw everything at the same time instead of adding the bg later or trying to show everything (and everyone) at the same time.

Here’s also Billy in the same story:

He’s spying on them and since it’s so bright he’s wearing his diy “sunglasses” and being envious to the others. *cough* uhhh...Idk? Also people were shipping Ben Gunn (and cheese) with Billy, so that bled into this too... Charles’ spirit is riding the “big white bird” that was mentioned in Teach’ story and in this case it’s a pelican.

As you can see, I also wasn’t using the brushes that I use nowadays. A hard (or soft) round brushes with no change in opacity just aren’t for me. For example, in traditional art, I struggle with markers and copics, but really enjoy charcoals and watercolours. I prefer ragged edges, layering and thus blending things into each other (and leaving the viewer to fill in the gaps) instead of having stark or definite things. I also struggle with vector drawings, although I have decided to finally start learning to use them...somedayyyy.

Also, I wasn’t paying attention to anatomy, like, at all LMAO. I was just so happy to be able to put something on the canvas.

This is one of my first ink drawings, but I cannot find the original anymore. Again, I like the idea, but not how things look art-wise. And I was so adamant, that I have to get everything right in the traditional drawing and not fix anything later on on photoshop because then it would be cheating. And thus, I was never able to move on or finish this properly the way I liked it (idiot).

BUT! It was a good practise to just draw and test things on paper and gain confidense on drawing things in overall (as I was still getting back into art). To get over the fear of blank paper you know, and try to find my style whatever it would start to form into.

Oh, yeah, Desk Flint.

Desk Flint was a thing for a while (still is, lol). Another drawing from that time is this Slingshot Pirate (2016). And Desk Flint keeps repeating in many later works too. The point is mainly “Flint sitting behind his desk and people interrupt him and I don’t have to draw him fully”

Well, anyway... moving on.

Here’s a plan that has been stuck for years. It’s name is “Squint-squint.” Left is the sketch (with another sketch underneath because the expressions were clearer in the old one). On the right is the continued piece with colour scheme but I cropped the eyes panel and faces out (it was so ugly for some reason) but if I ever continue/finish this, it will be redrawn there in the middle.)

Left. “On that moment their eyes were literally open(ed).”

Right. “After squinting on the shore for days, they had actually forgotten how pretty the other idiot’s eyes were.”

I still like it, quite a lot, but my perfectionist ass only sees too much “boring” things to draw and get right, so it hasn’t been a priority for a long time and other works have kept me occupied and more interested in them.

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

“Quiet Moment.” 2018 (a wordless comic happening after the events of Charles Town)

I’m going to explain after these pictures, but see how big the difference is when you start to look at references and plan things together (the space, “camera” movement, background etc). I also started to colour with coarser brushes:

I drew this around early 2018. A lot of improvement! Still quite a lot of negative space (empty white backgrounds), but it fits this work. A few things tell where we are (the ship’s cabin and the balcony). Changing distances and how things are cropped/framed make things more moving and focused (and less to draw, lol). Colours and brush strokes are softer, more layered and so on.

But guess why it’s still a wip!

I couldn’t decide what bird is flying over there.

Yeap! At first it was an albatross (doesn’t go to Bahamas?). Then a seagull (but which seagull? there’s so many subspecies! Is the ship at sea or at the harbour? what birds are there on the open water/ close to the shore?? oh noo...) So, yeah, wayyyy too much over-thinking.

At some point I ended up with white-tailed-tropic-bird which was a plus! because it sounds like the bosun’s whistle, but at that point I was so tangled and frustrated and still had so much to finish with this that I left it be. Also Flint’s face looks different in every frame so I would’ve had to change some parts, lol. And then I forgot it for a couple of years! And then I had learned to draw a bit differently and again saw too much things to do, so it’s quite hard to take on this again, especially when there are so many other interesting wips waiting...

But I still really like the feeling of it! And the colour scheme. So I might just limit the things I’m allowed to fix and then post it as it own someday. I mean, it’s 90% finished, but the last reach just feels like miles.

And that’s what usually happens with my wips. They reach a certain point and it suddenly becomes really hard to finish or get back into.

But every time I learn things and then use the information in another work! :D

Final note for this post (altough this has been said hundreds of times): use references and look how things go and try to see the structure and form beneath things. And think where it is happening and how the light and surroundings affects the characters and/or spaces. And maybe think what you’re trying to convey with the art, what idea? what emotions? what purpose? or like, what are you trying to learn with the piece? and so on...

Thanks for checking this out, I hope you had fun <3

[catcze]

Oh, Catte, my beloved... The bracelet is so beautiful. Goodness, did I cry when I took it out of the envelope. It's almost as beautiful as you are, I love it so much! I'm never ever taking this off. Oh starlight I'm so happy, you may as well have just proposed! I love you so so much, thank you💜💜💜

I'm glad Cyno is doing well for himself these days! It's not really that complex of a spell, simple transmutation really, but I'm sure he didn't want to overwhelm you. He may not talk a lot but trust me; he cares. I should write him sometime, if only so the next time an emergency arises he won't think I only remember he exists when I need his help, hehe... I'm joking of course, he's not the kind of person to care. I do still owe him a favor though. Two, now that he's gone out of his way to teach my girlfriend magic, and specifically for helping you make me this wonderful present. Send along my thanks please, but please don't mention that I said I'd write him, just in case I somehow forget to. You know me, heh..

Also I'm a little surprised to hear that name again! Collei was quite the visitor when she was here a few years ago, it's a long story, and one I doubt very much she'd want me to tell. Suffice to say she and Amber are good friends, but I'm sure she already asked you about her as soon as you mentioned Mondstadt. I'm so relieved to hear she's safe, and studying medicine no less! Tell her I'm proud of her. She'll do great things in her life.

I must admit I'm slightly bothered to hear that so many scholars accosted my poor babygirl to ask if I'd return, I'm so sorry darling. If they give you any more trouble, oh I'll come visit alright. To dispense punishment(although I'd definitely grab some food on the way as we left). Speaking of food, that's so sweet of you to offer to learn the local cuisine just for me~ you're so thoughtful, it's one of the many many things I love about you. My reputation around the school is honestly the only accomplishment you'll find though sweetheart. I wasn't really all that social there, aside from talking to the professors and scholars. I couldn't afford to procrastinate if I wanted to learn everything I could. Funny, that sounds completely unlike me, now doesn't it~ Those lectures can be tiresome at first, did they provide you with the appropriate reading materials, or are you only listening? I still have my copy of the first semester alchemy textbook--it's only about 800 pages, but they're packed to the brim with knowledge. I still reference it sometimes.

Like I mentioned though, most of my time in Sumeru was spent at the Academy or at the local restaurants. If you wanted food recommendations, those I can provide, but unfortunately I won't be of much use otherwise. Sorry cutie~

[the next page of the letter is a list of local restaurants, many with recommended dishes written next to them. There's also a fair number of heart shapes and "I love you"s doodled around the edges of the paper]

I hope you'll try at least some of those and tell me what you think. The more you talk about it honestly, the more it's beginning to grow on me. I do want to go back and visit with you, my love. I miss it, even if I don't want to admit that. It would be so much fun to sight see with you, being able to just meander aimlessly through the city, not a care in the world, and with you by my side... That sounds amazing. I'd want nothing more. Perhaps for our honeymoon~? [the last sentence of the paragraph is crossed out with a single streak of ink cutting through it]

Your photos are all amazing, darling. I just wish I had as many to send you in return, but unfortunately I don't own a camera, nor can I afford to leave the library long enough to travel to Liyue and buy one. That being said, Albedo does have one, and he already took that first photo. Darling, I'm curious, and please, *please* say no if it would bother you even slightly. If I... Perhaps wanted to take some... Pictures, just for your enjoyment~ ...would you mind if I had Albedo continue to serve as the photographer? I want my baby to be thinking of me, especially since I'm not there to pleasure you myself~💜 again, PLEASE say no if you'd have any problem with that. Or I could ask Jean if that would be better. I just want to treat my princess to some candy~

That line is going to have me up all night, I swear. I do wish I was there for you in every sense, but goodness does my heart ache for you. I miss the way you taste so much, my precious little munchkin~ you're not going to sleep at all the first night you're back in my arms, I hope you know that. I'm going to edge you so hard you'll cry for me, hehe~ I'm a little peeved you didn't take notice of my comment about punishing you! There will be ropes involved when you return to me. Just the way you always like it, cutie~ tell me, how bad do you miss me? Miss my tongue you love so much~? Don't worry baby--you'll get everything you could ever want for when you come home. I can't wait to taste you~ goodness, excuse me a moment baby... I need to scratch an itch before I finish writing this letter, hehe...~

Okay, I'm back. That was quite the itch, it just kept coming back~ that picture you sent with this letter may have helped with that... Celestia, you're so so beautiful, my rose..~ I love you so much.

Where was I... Ah yes. I'm very glad you've been eating and sleeping properly. Such a good girl you always are~💜 and don't worry; I'm taking care of myself as well. I've been becoming more adjusted to the late nights lately, since your letters often arrive around this hour(it's 11:30 right now, although up until a page ago it had been 10:15, hehe...). I don't mind it at all, since you know I love to sleep in anyway. I love reading your letters sweetheart. They truly do carry your love across the distance. I'm so happy that you're my partner. I love you so so much. I reread your letters every day, they put such a smile on my face.

Also, what's this about ideas you're having ever since I mentioned the uniform? Tell me!! Pretty please~? 💜

I'm going to call my letter to a close here, before I end up needing a bigger envelope, hehe~ I love you so much, starlight. Please take care, and I hope you're well rested when you read this. Hopefully I can put a smile on your beautiful face. I just wish I was there to see it. I love you so much, take care and write me back when you can, promise~?

Yours Always,

- Lisa 🌺💜

Milddd nsfw here muaH <33

Hi, love, I’m so happy that you like your gift! I love you very much as well— hopefully it can give you comfort on some particularly hard nights where I cannot be with you, dearest. Sort of like a reminder that although I cannot be there with you in person, you always carry a piece of my heart with you, you know?

I’ll be sure to relay your message to Cyno and Collei! They were rather surprised when they found out I was your girlfriend, haha! In a good way, of course— they’ve been great company so far.

And don’t worry about the other scholars, Lisa dear. I can handle them plenty fine. I’m sure they’ll go running if I even so much as imply that you wouldn’t be pleased with them for their behavior, my love. They wouldn’t want to mess with one of the best sorcerers to ever roam those halls, you know?

Regarding the lectures, they offered to loan me some textbooks actually, but I had to turn them down since, well, I am just an observer, and carrying so many books with me to and fro would weigh me down. Still, although I sometimes get confused while I observe, It’s such a fun and interesting experience! I can’t say I’m remembering every bit of knowledge I hear, but I’ve definitely learned at least a thing or two.

Just yesterday, there was a bit of a lull in lectures that I was attending— something about one of the scholars who had agreed to host me taking their class out to fieldwork, and I was unable to accompany them. So I took the time to check out some of the restaurants you listed for me! I went to just one of them for lunch, since I didn’t want to get too full throughout the day, and I enjoyed it very much!! I included a picture of one of the dishes you noted for me (a best seller of theirs, apparently) and I didn’t regret purchasing it at all. It was so good! In my free time, it’s one of the recipes that I hope to familiarize and bring back home to you— I think you’ll rather like it, especially since there’s no meat. Hopefully I’ll get good enough at making it that you’ll be able to savor the flavor too!

Though, I don’t mind either if you’d rather return with me next time, and we can have a dinner date here? I really like the ambiance of the place— its both romantic and private. And the view from the balcony here is absolutely magical. Or we can maybe visit a couple of the other restaurants you’ve recommended to me? I doubt that I’ll be able to try all of them this time, and being able to experience it with you would make the experience a million times better.

Also, regarding the photos you mentioned— well, I’m fine with it if you are. As long as you’re comfortable with whoever is photographing you love, then it’s perfectly alright with me. Besides, I know that we’re devoted to each other, so there’s no cause for me to be uncomfortable 💞 If you so wish to grant me such photos, I eagerly await them, love! They’re not the same as you being here, of course, but I’m sure they could help me with how much I miss you.

And ah, sending such things only makes me miss you more! Perhaps I should take a good, long rest before I come back to Mondstadt, if you plan to keep me up all night. And who says I didn’t notice your comment? Perhaps I was just teasing you by keeping quiet about it, especially if I know what’s awaiting me back home. And yes, I miss you so so much, I miss your tongue and you lips, your touch on my skin, the way you hold me and make me feel so good each and every time— Love, really, if your intention with that letter was to get me all worked up, then safe to say you’ve succeeded. My, I doubt I’m going to be getting any sleep tonight, thinking of you.

And regarding that bit about the Academy uniform… well, I might have found a local seamstress who was willing to make me a version of it, tailored to my measurements. It’s not ready quite yet, but hopefully I can send you some photographs soon 💞

By the way, love, there’s no need to have to wait up for my letters, not if you’re not getting enough sleep! I don’t mind waiting a bit for your reply as long as I know you’re sleeping on time. I worry about you as much as you worry about me, so for both your sake and mine, promise me you’ll get enough sleep? Either way, though, I’m glad you’re taking care of yourself, dearest. It makes me happy, knowing that you and the others are doing well. I love you very, very much you know? Please continue to stay safe, dearest, and know that I’m always missing you.

And, well, regarding a proper proposal, though I can’t say I haven’t thought of it before (how could I not? I can fully envision spending the rest of my life with you) I would much prefer if I were able to give you the ring and ask you in person, love. That being said, take the bracelet as a promise that I’ll return to you soon— and hopefully with a ring that I think you’ll like and a question that I plan to ask you.

All the best wishes, dearest. I love you very much 💞

—Catte 💞

[mxtcha-tea]

Lines.

✎desc; how I would rate haikyuu character's drawing.

✎team[s]; fukurodani, inarizaki

✎genre; crack

✎language[s]; english

✎chef note; okay, first off, I'm not a professional drawer but I can still rate drawings. This idea just came to me like a minute ago and I had to do it now, so enjoy :)

fukurodani.

Bokuto

Aight, I see that we started off greatly.

In all honesty, he have no idea how to draw,

And of course his drawing would look,,,, quite terrible i'm so sorry bokuto lovers

He's that kid in art class where's when the teacher already told them what to draw,

Bokuto sat there on his chair, staring at the canvas

Like, what is he suppose to do? Draw?

Well, yeah technically but what???

I can totally see him frustratingly erase the sketch if it can be called as a sketch

And then proceed to try to copy other people's work

Keyword; try

It's bad but at least he had an effort to finish it

4/10, there I said it

Akaashi

His drawings are not that professional but it's pretty

Have you ever seen a drawing that you wanted to stare at it for hours until you're satisfied?

That what's his drawing are like

Not typically an art kid so he's fine when student's from his art class asked him to draw for them

And is feeling pretty neutral with his talent (he actually won't call it a talent but more like a hobby or sum)

And just say 'thanks' if peoples compliments his drawing

Let say his drawing is, a good 8/10

A decent drawer in conclusion :)

Konoha

Not a bad drawer but he rather keep it basic

Konoha's prolly too lazy to draw something over the top so he's just gonna draw flower or something ksndnzkj

Sometimes sleep during art class and had to ask what they had to draw

Proceeds to decently draws a scenery

He's totally not the creative kid so whenever the teach tell them to draw something, he'll always go with basket of fruits, like,

Man, I appreciated the drawing but at least put some effort on thinking what to draw

The art teacher also kept telling him that he have raw talent and should enhance the skill more,

But that never happened, no

"Sorry ma'am, I'll just stick to volleyball, thank you,"

One part of the art room has a section of konoha's basket of fruits drawings but in different mediums

Rating is 7/10

Washio

IS actually an art kid and you cannot convince me otherwise

Has a small sketchbook with him and he'll always doodle when he's bored or in a middle of a lecture (while taking notes of course)

His main skill in drawing tho is painting

The colors blends in so well with one another and he's good at picking color palettes

Also, he doesn't really get that annoyed if some kids from his class ask him to teach them how to draw

Or even look through his sketchbook

He'll just nod and hand it to them without a second thought

Ajsjdhsijsi Washio get so blushy when someone compliments his drawing,,,,

I’ll give a 10/10 :), congrats

Sarukui

The best that he can do is doodles of owls and other shits but other than that, he cannot do

But the doodles are kinda cute doe ngl

He’ll have his moment where he’s in class and have no idea what to do, and just doodles a bunch of stuff

Once he draw his whole teammate including his coach and himself, he thought to himself,

“Huh, this looks good,”

And then take a picture of it for memories (cause he might throw the book he’s doodling in away)

Speaking of that, he doesn’t have an official book for drawing and just draws in his english or math’s textbook or sum

His juniors eyes are blessed when they got his textbook

Sarukui just vibes in during art class, draws and that’s pretty much it

The drawings,,,,,eh,,,, not that good, he only specialize in doodling as I said

so in conclusion,

drawing? 2/10

doodling? I’ll give a solid 5/10, good job

Komi

I’m gonna say this and I’m prolly gonna say it again

He hates art class

Like, even with him trying his best to draw, it’ll always gonna look strange than what he planned

mf cannot draw a straight line in art class

This dood can draw a nice straight line in any other class whether it’s for a graph or others,

And then proceed to shakily draw a straight line during art session

Totally not an art kid and will never be one

His drawings,,,,

I’m so sorry but it looks so bad

It’ll prolly look a lot better if he put more effort, but it’ll still look bad no matter what

Komi hates art class and can’t draw even a decent doodle so unfortunately, I’ll have to rate it 0/10, sorry :(

Anahori

His drawings are eh

It’s not good but also not bad?

Sometimes you’ll just stare at his drawing for a good minute and be like, what did he just draw just now?

What I’m saying is that his drawing’s are unexplainable

Maybe if you stare at it a little bit longer then it’ll make sense and you can see the beauty in it

But honestly I can’t really see anything, not in a bad way, but like, literally nothing

You’ll be staring at his canvas as the mario kart rainbow road music started playing inside your head

But Anahori is always proud of his drawings no manner what

So, I’ll rate confusion/10

Onaga

Just like Komi, he sorta hates art class too

But lemme tell ya, his sketches are GODLY, like, have you seen those pinterest hand sketches?

That’s what his sketch would look like

It’s so yummy to look at what

But he sucks at lineart so JAHGSDSHD

Onaga cannot properly hold the black pen and do the lineart, it’ll always turn wonky and he had to throw it away

Like, if he spend even hours tryna outline it all, and then erase it

It’ll look so trash

And he’ll just stare at it for a couple of minutes before crumpling the paper

He’ll also suck at coloring

Mans cannot understand how the color blend in together

And I think I’ll rate,,,,,6/10 just cause he suck at coloring and lineart lmao don’t worry i suck at coloring too

Kaori

Another decent drawer and her drawings are almost the same as Akaashi’s

But instead of it looking pretty, it looks cute

I have a headcanon that Kaori have a journal and does journaling so that’s prolly the reason why her drawings are cute af

But honestly, her drawings sometimes depends on her mood,

If she’s mad or frustrated, her drawing would look kinda rough and not that cute anymore

If she’s feeling happy tho, It’ll look so nice and cuddly does that even make any sense

Isn’t necessarily an art kid but would love to try be one

And she totally have drawing sessions with Washio aaaaaa,

Just imagine both of them sketching in the same sketchbook while talking about the volleyball club or anything else

She’s getting an 9/10 just cause her sketchs looks clean <33

Yukie

She doesn’t draw at all

Like, you’ll never see her drawing at any kind of time so you have no idea what it looks like

Yukie would still attend art class,

But never draws

She said that she’s pretty lazy to draw it and said to draw it at her home later

But no one even saw that drawing after that

Yukie doesn’t show her drawings nor EVEN draw for once

So I technically can’t rate :/

inarizaki.

Ginjima

LISTEN

The only reason why I started with Gin is because he have some amazing drawing skills

He admit that he’s not an art kid but draws godly as if he had been thought since he was a kid,

Well, actually yes

I think Ginjima actually wanted to be a drawer when he was still a little kid way before he started his 3rd year of middle school

So he practiced a few and became a nice drawer since then,

But he kinda quit being a drawer and decided to go with volleyball

And guess what?

His drawing talent is still there

He totally specialize in pencil drawing cause that’s the first thing he started learning

The lines are smooth and the shading are so yummy what is wrong with me

The Miya twins and Suna are so sh00ked when he saw his drawing during art class

ngl he’s pretty smug about it too but doesn’t brag about it

I’ll give this boy 12/10, mwuaah

Suna

I hate this man for this sole reason

Suna is too LAZY to draw so he doesn’t give any effort in his drawing

I can guarantee myself that I’ll get an eye strain when I saw his drawing

And...

*wipes away tears*

He draws too many dick

–2/10

Don’t come for my head Suna lovers

Atsumu

OMFG

OKAY, OKAY, I KNOW THAT ATSUMU MIGHT PUT ON SOME EFFORT IN HIS DRAWINGS,

BUT WHY IS IT STILL SO BAD?????

He’ll prolly think his drawing would look good but no, it’s not

No matter on what perspective you look his drawings at, It’ll still look bad

AND HE DOESN’T EVEN NOTICE IT

Osamu laughs a lot at his drawing and they started fighting for that only reason smh

Atsumu, I appreciate your effort so SO much,

But please, just stick to volleyball

–10+/10

I put a plus there because of his effort and because of pity

Osamu

He draws in ms paint, with a mouse

But he can draw some foods tho

But all of it looks wonky af

1/10

Akagi

A pretty decent drawer

Akagi always draw happy and cute drawings so you’ll also get happy when you saw his drawings

Puts on a big smile when people compliments his drawing and shyly scratches the back of his neck

“Nah, this just look normal!”

But he draws oddly thick lines sometimes

Sometimes it looks good in some drawing

And sometimes it looks, bizzare in others...

But I think his drawing would look nice <3

Overall, I’ll give a,,, 7.5/10, keep up the good work

Oomimi

He’s from class 7 AND I really think that he’ll be good at drawing

Well, he can draw a few things but he struggles drawing other things he never accustomed to

But!

Oomimi is that kid who’s good at drawing scenery

He knows basic color palettes and which is cold and hot colors

So the scenery drawing would always look good

He get a lot of compliments for the drawing (50% of it from Akagi)

I think he doesn’t have that many time to relax and draw freely but when he does have it, it’ll just be small and simple doodles

um, let’s go with 8/10 <3

Aran

I truly believe that Aran can draw peoples face but in a pretty decent amount

He’s also good with anatomy teach me your ways king

But as much as he’s good at that, he kinda sucks at drawing any kind of background drawings

Mans can’t draw a scenery I’m telling you

As if the background doesn’t even exist in his mind lolol I’m sorry Aran lovers, I didn’t mean that in a bad way

Mainly uses copic markers to color and color pencils to shade

The first time he use the copic marker, he got really frustrated that the marker stain the other pages lmao

And he never uses digital drawing applications or softwares

Aran just doesn’t

I think I’ll rate him, 8.5/10

Kita

Okay, I know that Kita’s a top student and never fails in anything

But he’s not typically a good drawer that much

His drawing still got good marks but when you look at it, it just looks normal

I just know that the Kita lovers gonna get me after this

It’s not that bad and not that good, just a nice balance in between

I personally think Kita’s not that godly in drawing but rather a neutral drawer

He draw what he can and does shading and coloring when it’s needed

The colors are all basic colors, no pastel, no neon

And the shadings are pretty basic

Just a normal drawer here

Ya’ll gonna fight me for this but I’ll give Kita’s point,

7/10

[mercyxkilling]

[ ♛ ] send me a url and i'll tell you...

@emptyvictory said: ♛ + my url if we're copying each other? Lol

[ ♛ ] send me a url and i'll tell you the following;

my opinion on;

character in general: oh my god. niko bellic. i can’t explain to you the love affair that i have with this sassy ass motherfucker of a man and how much i want to hold him close and tell him that he’s good enough, though i bet he’d shove me away and tell me to never do that shit again and that i’m weird for doing it at all. he’s got such an amazing duality to him that i am in love with because like. yeah, he’ll fucking kill a buncha dudes, but then he’ll have a conversation in the car with a buddy about how he’s okay with saving some lives or some shit. he’s known to play peacemaker for some, but he’s also willing to smash a cameraman’s face in by kicking his foot through his skull because he doesn’t want to be on manny’s show. then when manny dies he says some callous ass shit about it and then goes about his business like nothing happened. niko is such a good man, he really is, but he’s also not at the same time, and is capable of doing such awful things. characters like that have always had a special place in my heart, and niko is no different. that accent helps an awful lot, too, lemme tell ya. it gives ya girl the vapors. *fans self* which is funny because i don’t actually find the man to be conventionally attractive, but all of that stuff i mentioned above? i mean... i’d let him touch me. i can’t lie.  how they play them: now, rory, i know we’ve had this discussion before, but i’m going to say it again (to fuel your ego because i absolutely love doing that because i want you to feel as special as you truly are, and just because this is how i actually feel and i want to keep being honest about this stuff because secrets don’t make friends!!): if there were anyone else behind the wheel here taking charge of this slavic badass, i’m not so sure i’d even be interested in trying to have a thread with them at all. you bring such a take to this man that i cannot truly explain with words in an adequate way that could do you and what you do with him any justice. it’s just... an experience. and it’s an experience that i have loved from the moment we started all the way up till now, and i know i’ll feel the same way (and still quite as strongly!!) with anything and everything that we do in the future, be it with threads or asks or things in discord or just nonsensical little back-and-forths that we share once in a while when the mood strikes us. i love everything that we’ve done/are doing/will do, and i cannot fully describe to you just how much more i still want to have with you. i’m like mercy is with niko apparently; i’m fucking insatiable with these two. they’ve somehow become my OTP and that’s truly saying something since the last one i had lasted forever (all the way up to this point tbh--the one i told you about with my RDR verse where mercy and jack were supposed to get married? like, it’s managed to override even THAT one in my heart, that’s how much these two mean to me). i will never tire of niko x mercy content, i will ALWAYS want to hear your ideas about them, i will ALWAYS want to hear any ideas that you have for them--no matter how big or or how small they might seem, i will ALWAYS want to hear any ideas you might have for AUs with these two... i mean. i think you get the picture, yeah? BUT IF YOU DON’T COME FIND ME ON DISCORD AND I’LL GLADLY ELABORATE EVEN MORE IF YOU WANT, BECAUSE I COULD TALK ABOUT THESE FUCKERS FOR HOURS. I MEAN, YOU KNOW THAT I ALREADY HAVE, SO DON’T THREATEN ME WITH A GOOD TIME HERE, LMAOOOO. the mun: oh god, rory. ohgodohgodohgod. there are so many things that i want to say here, but i feel like you’ve heard me say them a thousand times already. i just... i want to make sure that you know that i love you, first and foremost. a lot of folks seem to think i throw the word ‘love’ around far too freely, but i very much beg to differ; i only use it when i truly mean it and when it truly means something to me. do with that knowledge what you will. you are such a treasure to me, and i can’t tell you how happy i am that you’re apart of my life and how much i wish we lived closer to one another so we could be silly together and i could actually ruffle your hair and give you platonic forehead smooches and wish you a good day at school each morning and then see you after classes and ask you about your day and talk to you about anything and everything as we sat side by side and watched some garbage like ancient aliens or played some ridiculous video games together while coming up with scenarios, both of us being like “oh my god, could you imagine if niko and mercy ____ together???” and things like that. but even if we aren’t closer, it doesn’t make me value your time that you give to me any less, and it doesn’t make me love the time that we spend talking with one another any less, either. i adore you so fucking much. i just... i just really, really, really love you, and i wish i could show you that better than just with some writing or a crappy doodle here and there you know? you deserve such good things. all the good things in life, in fact, and i wish i were capable of giving them to you. but i hope that you know that i truly am grateful for your presence in my life, i can’t imagine my experience here (or away from here and over on discord instead!) without you, as you’ve become such an integral part of my experience on this hellsite. niko and mercy are my OTP, and i’m yours for as long as you’ll have me, and you are very much stuck with me!

do i;

follow them: bitch, please. of fucking course i do. i can’t imagine not following rory. rp with them: as much as i possibly can and hopefully then some; i can’t get enough of niko and any other characters they want to introduce me to that they think mercy could mesh well with... or that she couldn’t mesh well with and yet could still make an amazing dynamic all the same. :P want to rp with them: are... are you illiterate? YES. ALL THE TIME. ALL DAY, ERRYDAY.  ship their character with mine: one more time, for those in the back, and with feeling!: YES, YES, YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES. i am so, so, so grateful that niko is part of mercy’s narrative (and honestly, i may even make it so that he’s part of her actual main backstory, that’s how much their relationship means to me and how much it’s allowed me to see her in so many different ways).

what is my;

overall opinion: holy shit i love you and i love niko and i love the way you play him and i love the way you really show his duality and i love the way he learned to respect mercy and how that respect turned to admiration and the way that admiration turned to full on attraction and how that attraction turned to awkward dating but not dating and how that awkward dating but not dating eventually turned into actual dating and how that led to mercy finally kissing him and how that kiss made him feel relief more than anything else but then how all of that turned into something even more awkward and how that led to mercy realizing finally how much she actually truly loved him despite never having been in love and despite the hurt that it caused and the way they both dealt with it (two hardened killers acting like BABIES omggggg) until finally, finally they were able to come to terms with it and are now left wondering where they’re supposed to go from here since they’ve never done anything like this before... AND ALL THE AUs WE COULD HAVE AND HOW THAT COULD END UP FOR THEM BOTH HAS ME SO FUCKING EXCITED BECAUSE WE COULD GET A CHANCE TO SEE THEM BEHAVE IN A DIFFERENT WAY LIKE WHAT IF THEY START OUT HATING EACH OTHER BUT HAVE A MUTUAL ATTRACTION BECAUSE NIKO’S LIKE ‘GODDAMN THIS BITCH IS STACKED BUT SHE’S GOT SUCH A MOUTH ON HER UGH’ OR MAYBE THE RDR AU COULD HAVE SOME STRIFE BETWEEN THEM SINCE MERCY RUNS WITH HER POSSE AND COULD POSSIBLY END UP HITTING A TARGET THAT HE PLANNED TO OR OR OR OMG THE POSSIBILITIES RORY OMFG THERE ARE JUST SO FUCKING MANY and i just can’t wait to experience them all with you and your interpretation of niko because it’s just so fucking good and they’re such a good couple and have such an amazing dynamic that have them both behaving in ways that sometimes are predictable but in others leave me reeling for days like ‘holy shit that actually fucking happened??’ and THAT, my friend, is the sign of a good writing partner. and that is exactly what you are to me, amongst many, many other things. <3 i love you so very much and while i know you’ve had a rough go of it lately, i wish you all the best with it, know that i’m here for you if you should need me for ABSOLUTELY anything you might need (whether it’s to talk/vent, write you silly drabbles, or draw you things), and know that you’ll always, always, ALWAYS have my support through whatever you’re going through. though part of me knows that you know that you don’t need it because you’re so fucking strong and capable of absolutely anything that you put your mind do.

i love you, boo. never forget that. please.

**Note: Mun’s answer are all to be completely honest. Don’t send url if you don’t want brutal honesty.

[fablesrose]

Of Kings and Shadows XXI

Description: Y/n, a girl who seems to have found her calling. Being a SHIELD agent is like a dream come true. With a friendship starting to form with the Avengers, she’s the Queen of the world! What could go wrong?

Pairings: Avengers x reader, Loki x reader (eventually)

Warnings: Feels (hopefully this gives you feels😅)

Notes: Hey, guys sorry for skipping last week. Werds was hurd, so I decided to post this a day early. Enjoy!

On Wattpad –> Here

Masterlist

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

Clint sat alone in the observatory area looking over the training area. The twins were doing their training exercises on their respective sides of the room. He was lost in his thoughts. Ones he desperately wanted a map for.

"Well look who it is." Natasha walked into the room from the door behind Clint.

Clint didn't acknowledge her presence; he just sat in silence, staring at the young pair below him minding their own business.

"Miss, Mr. Barton currently does not have his hearing aids in. He cannot hear you."

As Friday was talking a light blinked in Clint's line of vision. He perked up and looked over his shoulder to see Natasha walking around the chairs to sit by him. His eyes flicked from her mouth to her hands, waiting for her to talk.

[You're having a bad day] Natasha signed at him once she sat down and twisted to face him.

[I guess you could say that] Clint paused, not sure what else to say, but eventually continued on describing the thoughts and feelings swirling in his mind. He first jerked his head to the side towards the window facing the training area, [Doesn't that look familiar? A young agent in the training room, training with hardly any attention put on the world around her? All she wanted to do was succeed, Nat] Clint's head and eyes hung heavy with sorrow and regret.

Natasha, as quick on her toes and tongue as she was, had to think about what to say to him.

She didn't get to answer before Clint began to shake his head with an obviously forced smile and airy chuckle, [How long has it been? 5 years?]

[6 years 1 month 11 days] Natasha quickly signed to correct him.

There was a pause, Clint blinking at her, before he signed back, [You're having a bad day too.]

Natasha bit her lip, feeling a bit foolish. [I think everyone is having a bad day.]

Natasha would be right, as always. Throughout the compound, the team was dealing, somewhat poorly in some cases with the various feelings of loss. There were only two people who were blissfully unaware of the emotional turmoil rolling around the building and they were in the training room.

Luckily, most of them weren't alone. Even if they wanted to be.

It's both amazing and sometimes scary how in sync the Avengers are with each other. I'm not even sure who or what triggered it, but nearly the whole compound was feeling the absence of a particular young woman.

They could all be found in separate spaces, some started off alone, but didn't stay that way. Clint in the observational area with Natasha coming to join.

Tony was working in his workshop on some new groundbreaking invention when Rhodey knew he didn't want to be alone. Eventually, they flipped through some pictures. Rhodey didn't get to know her since he was so busy in the military at the time, but he knew how much she meant to Tony. To everyone.

Steve could be found in his room next to a desk. He's been picking up drawing again these days. He was particularly broody which caused Bucky's Steve sense to tingle. Bucky was sitting on the bed, watching Steve doodle, as Sam tried to push him off so he could sit down. Their bickering left Steve with a grateful chuckle. Bucky and Sam never got to meet her, but the way the team talked about her made them smile.

Many would have thought Bruce would be working himself to sleep in his lab, but even doctors need some fresh air. He was outside lying in the grassy field. He liked to watch the consistent repetition of Thor and Vision passing each other Mjolnir. Repetition was good for their minds. It was mechanical and didn't need much, if any, thinking. They seemed to forget sometimes that Vision remembers Y/n. He is so much different than Jarvis, after all.

And that accounts for everybody... except for one.

I don't wish you to think bad of him. Or to pity him either.

Instead, I want you to be proud. Loki has bonded with the team enough to be in sync with them. The team trusted him enough to leave him alone and knew when he needed to be.

He tended to wander around his room. His pride was large, but even he had to break down a little. Eventually, he couldn't take it any longer, so he opened a drawer and pulled out a little box stuck in the back corner. He rarely looked at it anymore, but he could never become even close to getting rid of it.

Lifting the lid, the shiny surface of an old smartphone looked back at him. He wiped the dust off with his pants and sat at the head of his bed. Before he turned it on he examined the corners and edges of the case. The color was worn, fading to the white plastic underneath.

He flipped it over a couple more times before turning it on and unlocking it. Y/n was smiling up at him, surrounded by the goofy faces of the Avengers. Loki was not included in the picture. He couldn't remember why anymore. Knowing himself, he probably rolled his eyes at the time.

He smiled a bit bitterly before opening the music app. He put it on shuffle and let the soft notes of the opening chords play out through the speakers. Listening to her music left him feeling like he was getting to know her better even though she wasn't there.

I thought I knew you well But all this time I could never tell I let you get away Haunts me every night and every day

He opened her gallery and started to scroll through the pictures. A lot of them were pictures of the team having fun. Even more pictures were of seemingly random objects, but no one could deny they looked cool or pretty. Loki smiled when he would get to a picture that had both of them in it together.

You were the only one The only friend that I counted on How could I watch you walk away I'd give anything to have you here today

He missed her. There weren't very many times they were together alone, but he finally thought that he was building friendships when Y/n disappeared, and hers was one he really wanted to cherish. He thought he was making things right. He wished she hadn't been taken or left, or whatever happened to her. Whatever the reason, Y/n was gone, and there was nothing he could do about it.

But now I stand alone with my pride And dream that you're still by my side

But that was yesterday I had the world in my hands But it's not the end of my world Just a slight change of plans

He sighed when he scrolled through all the pictures. He had his nostalgia. He knew there was nothing to be done. He has to move on, he has moved on, but a day of remembrance to keep everyone sober is appropriate. Maybe even necessary.

He quickly looked at the battery to see it was running a bit low. He pulled out a charger he got from Tony and plugged in the phone, shutting it off in the process. Loki made it so the phone could charge while still in the box and closed the lid. He placed the box gently back in its place in the drawer.  He closed it softly with a sigh.

That was yesterday But today life goes on No more hiding in yesterday 'Cause yesterday's gone

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

Arguably, the worst part of this whole ordeal was the deafening silence that I experienced. The natural noises of civilization, of people, of, anything living, in particular, was absent. I couldn't even hear the rumble of a machine, the beep of the camera (yes, there is still one in my room. Don't ask me, they're creeps), or the settling of the building.

The way I tried to overcome it was to use my vast knowledge of music to sing to myself. Some people have said that music was the only thing I used my head for, but I didn't really mind. Look what it's doing for me now, it's keeping me sane.

Music and just burying myself in the memories. I had to block out reality somehow, and my imagination was severely tainted with my inner turmoil, so I settled on the Avengers to bring a smile to my imaginary face. Ya know since I can't use my own.

Love, my love I gave it all Thought I saw the light When I heard you call Life that we both could share Has deserted me Left me in despair

Sometimes they made me sad. I took what I had for granted, now I have no idea if I'm even going to see them again, let alone get to talk to them, laugh with them, cry, smile, do anything. Sometimes I wish I would never see them again. It's obvious that I'm not going to break free of whatever mad science/voodoo they put on me. I really don't want to face them.

But now I stand alone with my pride Fighting back the tears I never let myself cry

I vaguely heard an alarm going off, it was different than any other alarm I'd heard. I knew it wasn't a fire alarm, I had heard that one plenty of times. I didn't pay much mind to it, there wasn't anything I could do anyway. The equivalent feeling of my heart clenching came to mind when I knew my daydreams wouldn't continue. It's been a rough... Forever.

But that was yesterday Love was torn from my hands But it's not the end of my world Just a little hard to understand

I told myself I was going to make it. I don't know for how much longer, but I was going to make it. I started to pay more attention to the groups of running soldiers, armed with weapons I had only caught glimpses of. Noxy suited up into her protective white jumpsuit. The sleeves only went to her elbows to show off her powered up black-gloved hands. I couldn't deny that I liked the combat boot style they gave me, but I didn't understand Henry's obsession with the color white.

It's been talked about how some of Henry's bases have been put under attack. Most were of rival organizations. You'd be surprised how many there are. From the looks of it whoever is attacking, out of all the bases available, had the luck to choose the one I was kept in.

Noxy walked the power walk of all power walks approaching the sounds of gunfire. The lights flickered and dimmed as she past. I felt the power within me surge as they did, the shadows powering me up. There was a group of agents just down the hall and they were under fire. Agents rushed by me as reinforcements. I couldn't see who the attackers were yet, but I could see debris flying from around the corner of the T in the hallway.

The agents had a strange mixture of fear and respect as Noxy approached. Another day at the office. They were dropping like flies and I could hear that the intruders were breaking down the defenses very quickly. The few agents who could, moved out of Noxy's way so she could stand in the middle of them and face the attackers.

That was yesterday But today life goes on You won't find me in yesterday's world Now yesterday's gone

She reached the center of the group and turned a perfect ninety degrees in the open hallway. Time seemed to slow down for a moment as I saw who was on the other side of the flashing lights that promised pain. I was only prepared for the physical pain of gunshots, but instead, I got the agony of heartbreak.

There was a moment where Noxy stood and assessed the situation. At that moment, so many things flashed across my mind as I soaked up what was in front of me. Familiar faces looked back at me and I had never felt more trapped. They froze when they looked at my face. All hands started to lower for a second, but only one.

The Avengers all had mirrored expression of horror, shock, disbelief. I wanted to cry, laugh, collapse. I wanted to do anything. Anything other than what my body showed. Noxy's gaze remained stoic as she maintained eye contact.

I don't know if it was something in the shots they gave me, or how wide they were stretching their eyes, but I could see the whites of them, even if they were at least 20 yards away. I tried to memorize the shades of blue and green looking back at me. I only wish I could have seen Tony's eyes, but he had his helmet on, the only reason I could tell he recognized me was the repulsors in his hands dimmed.

The moment came to an end all too quickly. Without batting an eye Noxy formed a plate of darkness and sent it to push the attackers back. She then hit specific points in the walls causing the ceiling to collapse. The way was blocked off completely.

Just like the physical walls of the building, it felt like the walls that were holding me away from control started to contract. For the first time in months I screamed; I cried out for any type of deliverance. I wanted to curl up into the fetal position with tears rolling down my face as I yelled until I was too tired to stay awake any longer.

I felt numb as Noxy walked away and the agents rushed around her to start the evacuation process.

For the years, I'm sure it's been years now, I've been stuck in this place I've relied on the happy memories to try and drown out the horrors I've seen. I didn't know for sure, but I had a feeling that it wasn't going to be like that anymore.

Goodbye yesterday Now it's over and done Still I hope somewhere deep in your heart Yesterday will live on

I just hoped I would be able to see anything other than betrayal painted on their faces.

Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrqPZFNrqCA

[queerchoicesblog]

The Birthday Party (SC Titanic, Zetta x Adele Series, Ch. 10/2)

Here it is the second part of chapter 10!

Guys, I'm gonna be honest with you: I'm not sure when the next one will be out: it could be Tuesday next week or in weeks from now. So consider this series on potential hiatus. I'm struggling to find words in my everyday life and writing feels quite pointless atm. Hopefully if will change soon but that's the situation atm, I'm sorry.

Little disclaimer-favor: if you do enjoy it, please consider supporting the author & sharing this. A little gesture that means a lot!

Word Count: 3000+

Zetta x Adele Tag: @storyscaped@storyscapefanficarchive@marmolady @animus-and-anima @hayley-carter19 @escako@everlastingchoices @andrxrneda @aestheticsayeed@indescribablechoices @ahrielstuff@bornonawdnsday @nazario-sayeed  @h-doodles @adele-serda@marlcasters@brightpinkpeppercorn @nightwhite13@ramenwithaspoon@michelleconnoly @charliejane-blog @ghost-of-yuri@choicesgremlin @shadeofangelus @mistressofspiesxenia@orange-elephants​

Zetta x Adele Series Tag: @eternal-langdon @nydeiri

➡️ Ch. 1, Ch. 2/1, Ch. 2/2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6, Ch. 7, Ch. 8/1, Ch. 8/2, Ch. 9, Ch. 10/1

_____________________ 

Returning to the party still in full swing after my stolen moment with Adele is disheartening. I guess going back to our miseries in this crazy world after experiencing a glimpse of Heaven is pretty much the same feeling. I wonder how poor Dante coped back then. A smiling waiter hands me another glass of sweet alcoholic poison and I put my mask back on, even if I struggle now. I try to distract myself and be entertained by the chirpy conversations and gossips of my guests but my mind keeps running back to her. "I know, I wish this moment didn't have to end" "We'll make our own plays. Whaddya say?" I giggle at their silly jokes and outrageous stories, I retort with witticisms out of a script but I can't hear them, not truly. I'm not here. The Zetta is, not me. I am still in my lover's company. I can only hear her soft voice, our words of love. I don't have time nor will to hear that hilarious improbable story I'll absolutely have to tell Richard or that marvellous recent scientific discovery. I smile, I fake interest and thank God -and myself- I am a great actress.

As I move to another table where Lucille is beckoning me over I look out of the window, taking in the starry sky. I'm surprised but a quick smile cross my lips when I spot Adele hanging in there with a steward I saw around the lifts. They're leaning on the railing and chatting. They look like close friends: maybe they were accidentally reunited on board or is it true what they say? Ships make fast friends. I'll ask her about him. Not out of jealousy, even if I wish I could neglect my party more and run at her side where he stands. Even if I wish I could be the one making her laugh now. I just smile at the two of them, grateful that my troubled love is in good company tonight. God knows if she doesn't need a friend and some happiness after all she went through. And I'm afraid the worst is yet to come...

I do my best to lose myself in the complicated story about a common acquaintance my friend is sharing with the ladies and it works, to some extent. At least until when Sabine comes find me and invite the whole group to stand as the waiters pick up the table moving then toward the wall to clear space. Oh, we'll have some dancing! Even the musicians are now moving to the center of the far wall to be heard best. The crowd, myself included, is delighted and in awe. As the first chords of my favorite waltz start playing, everyone is looking for their partners and hurrying to finish their drinks. I drain mine, trying not to think of how much I would love to have this dance with my love no matter how inappropriate it would sound to many here. I ditch the Baron though -that lovable shark isn't fast enough this time!- and a couple of other hopeful admirers to hold Lawrence's hand. "Shall we dance, darling?" I smile encouraged you at him. We both long for a partner we can't pick out in the sun: let our shared sorrow fade away on the note of The Blue Danube, my dear friend. Lawrence understands or so it seems by the bittersweet yet thankful smile he offers me. He reads the unwritten and hears the unspoken words too. My poor dear Lawrence... We chat like old friends as we sway among the crowd. He's not only a brilliant director but also one of the finest dancer I've ever met. He blush a little when I sing his praises and just shrugs saying he has loved dancing. Typical, humble Lawrence... He lowers his voice a little when he thanks me for inviting him to the party, "well, me and Felix". He looks touched when I assure him that I wouldn't have had it any other way, I deeply value our friendship. "Me too, Zetta. You can count on me" he beams before his melancholic smile reappears. "If we close our eyes, we're in a fancy ballroom in Vienna" he whispers, leaning close and guiding the two of us into a graceful turn. I'm about to share a memory of my youth there with him, when I was blinded by the beauty and luxury of the imperial aristocracy there when ruckus erupts from the other side of the room. Surprised cries and laughter ring as the guests stop dancing and the music ceases. "What? My party is not over yet" I playfully protest, pouting. I'm suddenly nervous. I fear the time has come: time for the squalid yet hurtful family theatrics, time for James's show. I try to find out what's going on but I can't make my way through a crowd of ladies and gentlemen stretching their necks and whispering to each other. My fears are sadly confirmed when I catch the baritone voice of the Baron saying "Good show, Miss Carrem. Getting smart with you, was he?" "I'm afraid I cannot stand overfamiliarity. I apologise for making a scene" My love's voice is a bit shaken: is it anger or fright? Concern and fury take hold of me and I shutter my jaw. Lawrence squeezes my hand and I am grateful. "It is I who should apologise, on behalf of those who call themselves gentle..." the Baron continues but James interrupts him. "Oh do be quiet!" His tone is harsh, pure drunk rage. The crowd seems to lose interest in the argument and the music resumes but I'm still wary. I know James is up to something and it's just a matter of time. "I'm sure it's nothing, Zetta. A little misunderstanding...and Miss Carrem knows how to take care of herself" It's Lawrence. I turn to him and he's smiling reassuringly down at me, giving my shoulder a gentle squeeze. I feels so grateful for his lovable kindness right now, an anchor in a troubled sea. I nod and try to shake my bad gut feelings away. "Why don't we take a break and enjoy the waltz with a drink?" he adds, gesturing to the drink table near the window. I compliment his idea and let him guide me through the crowd. The cold her of the night cools me down and I take a long breath to soothe my nerves. Maybe I was wrong, maybe I'll be spared the drama. Unlikely but I can still hope right? I almost sink the glass of sherry Lawrence hands me, triggering a concerned look that I dismiss, claiming I'm perfectly fine. I just needed a break, I'm not twenty anymore, I grimly joke. "True Beauty never ages, dear Zetta. A beautiful soul defies the cruel compass of time" Lawrence proclaims with a smile. I ask him what poet wrote that line because I can't recollect it in the moment but I'm not surprised in the least to hear that he is the one behind that sweet thought. I pull him into a hug whispering thank you into his ear. When we part, he encourage me to make a wish. "It's your birthday, after all: isn't it a tradition in America?" he asks. I'm still considering and rambling when Felix and Sabine approach us. The party is going well and the guests are enjoying themselves. They just wanted to check in on the honeree, Felix says. Lawrence shows our empty glasses making a funny face and we all laugh. I ask about the little incident before. Felix assures me once again that it was nothing. I turn towards my little Napoleon for confirmation. "Oui, Madam. Nothing more than a quid pro quo. You know how it is. Youth" Sabine says but the look in her eyes tells a different story. "Miss Zetta, any chance you'll make an appearance in our documentary?" Felix intervenes, quickly changing the topic. "We would be most honoured" Lawrence adds, beaming. "A little tribute to one of the finest passengers of the liner" I give a soft laugh, playing with the idea. Maybe I could, after all. A quick cameo. It wouldn't take too much time. I playfully brush them off calling out their flattery but they assure they had considered it over the last few days on board. "It would be a pleasure and an honor" Felix bows. I sigh contently, my eyes wandering from one admirer and friend to the other. "Very well then, my dear friends: I'm in! Why don't we meet...let's say over breakfast or lun-" I start but I stop mid-sentence. Behind my back, an hysterical laugh echoes through the café, drawing the general attention. Conversations and music fades away and an awkward tense silence settles. Cold runs down my spine and I fear my face suddenly goes pale as I recognise the voice. Jamie. It's time. I must endure this bad farçe. I inhale sharply. You can do this, you are a great actress and you survived worst days. You survived Franz. Get ready, Zetta. On scene in three, two one... When I turn, he's stalking towards me, shirt stained with wine and an hysterical light gleaming in his bright eyes. He's dragging Adele along like a puppet. A disheartening picture compared to my fondest memories of him. "Excuse me, Aunt, I merely wished to offer a toast: my salutations on this glorious occasion and-" he exclaims, raising his glass and sloshing wine over the edges. "You interrupting to chew the cud, here, James? Get to the point" I sound a bit harsh, as if annoyed of another interruption. I roll my eyes as I would do with a problematic kid throwing a tantrum and forgetting his manners. Ironically, it's what he's doing, even if he's no longer a child. A weird, unpleasant smile crosses his face. Maybe he was expecting my reaction? "And a fond farewell to your secretary" he adds menacingly as I take a sip of sherry. I narrow my eyes at him over my glass, half annoyed, half amused. Bring it on, Jaime dear. "A farewell? And why might that be?" I see Sabine tensing up at my peripheral. James looks so pleased of himself as he takes the stage like a practiced professional. He doesn't realise he's just behaving like a pathetic buffoon to my -and most guests's -eyes. "To put it simply: Adele is a confidence woman who agreed to come abroad the Titanic to help me destroy you" "Come again?" I fake surprise as the crowd gasps and starts whispering. The attention and the look on my face renew his foolish fervor. "I brought Adele to help me ruin your marriage to Richard King, to keep him from ruining our family... For the price of her freedom, your secretary was to get close to you, discover your worst secret, and deliver it to me." He stops, making a dramatic pause. And now I know: it's the moment of truth. Time of Adele's choice. I stand, concealing my inner turmoil and fears, as the crowd basks into this unexpected juicy coup de theatre. When he speaks again, his mouth twists with a rage I've never fathomed he could hide inside. "She failed!" She...protected me? Even knowing at what cost... My eyes instinctively search Adele's but James is not done yet. "And now she'll go back to jail, where I found her" he shouts, spiralling out of control but loud enough to be heard by everyone. At the word "jail", the crowd utters a collective gasp. He wants to publicly humiliate her since he can't get what he was looking for. Because she dared refuse him the key to my ruin. I wish I could just drop the act and slap some sense into him. What pains me most is seeing him succeeding, to some extent. Adele is frowning under that low blow. I throw glares at everyone taking a step back from her as if she suddenly turned into a criminal or an insect. Miserable bastards... My love proves herself to be superior to all this, again. She straightens up and addresses the crowd, providing explanations she doesn't owe to any of us" "I was arrested for public disruption at a protest for women's rights. I'm not proud of having been jailed, but I'm not ashamed of what I was fighting for" she says, grimacing. Then she looks at me and I smile at her, hoping to convey all my respect, deepest affection and admiration for my sweet brave revolutionary. Let me help you now, my angel. I turn towards James and my smile loses all its warmth. "Bravo, James. You're quite the schemer" I knew he would be confused. I'll deny you something too, Jaime. You won't get an ounce of the despair you wanted. You won't see me crying and crumble under your betrayal: I'm not a Julius Caesar stumbling underneath your dagger. "That's all you have to say? You've been played. She was hired to ruin your marriage-" "She was, wasn't she?" I cut him short. "But she has a conscience, and a lot of courage" I take a pause before smiling again, cold and victorious. "Adele told me all about your terrible plan" His jaw drops and his rosy cheeks pale. He grabs Adele's arm and starts drunkly ramble again. "You - what? No. This doesn't change anything. I'll take you back-" This time Adele interrupts him, spitting the harsh truth right in his face. "Your only power was your wealth, and now that's gone. Along with the trust of your only relative" He releases her and I wonder if he finally realised what a fool, what an ungrateful fool he has been. Adele's right, James. When he turns to me, a desperate look on his face, I brace myself for his tears. Him begging for a forgiveness I'm not sure I will ever be able to give him. Apparently, I haven't learned my lesson: men can't be trusted. Men will always lie to you. "She's the one blackmailing me" Adding insult to injury, Jamie dear? "No, James. She's not" I'm cold and firm, despite the heartbreak I feel growing inside me. "You'll value the word of this secretary over your own blood?" His disbelief quickly turns into rage again. "I value my own sense, James; your plotting was plain as that smirk on your face" My voice is sharp: yes, I want to hurt him just like he hurt me. I want him to feel ashamed and sorry for what he did to me, to Adele. My sharp retort provokes some nervous giggles soon silenced in our audience. I sense fury building up inside him until it explodes. He bangs on the table with his fist, making everyone jump. "I'll get to Hileni, then, I'll hold her, I'll make you tell Zetta's secret-" Is he even speaking to Adele or...to himself? Honestly, I cannot tell. And I'm grateful to Matteo for intervening. I don't know what he's whispering into his ear but it seems to work. James seems to remember himself. For a split second, sadly. He straightens his cuffs and gives us all a tight, cruel smile. "Off to send word to the authorities, then" he says and turns to Adele and me. "As I said before, say your goodbyes" Then he walks away as the unabashed crowd part the way for his supposed grand exit. When he's out of the room, the guests are puzzled, unsure of what they just witnessed. They look at each other asking the neighbour or their partner what our family farçe was. I'm afraid this is just the beginning of another sorrow but the worst is gone. For the night, at least. I let out a long, exhausted sigh: God knows if it wasn't tough but I can breathe now. We can breathe again. And plan a counter attack to his pathetic scheme. I instinctively reach for her hand and take it into mine, uncaring of the crowd around us. "I didn't think the boy would actually do it" Yes, I tried to convince myself of that. I wanted to believe that he was apparently better than he actually is, that he wouldn't stoop so low...but what is my life if not a collection of disappointments from men? "Should I be worried?" There's a hint of concern in Adele's voice. I can't blame her: I don't recognise my nephew anymore, I can hardly tell how seriously we should consider his threats. "I doubt it, but he's not to be underestimated when his pocketbook is in peril" I know my answer offers little comfort but I continue, squeezing her hand to prove my loyalty to her: "Whatever he tries, though, I'll be by your side" Adele smiles down to our hands before meeting my eyes again. "I have faith in you, Zetta. Thank you" Despite I can see more than understandable concerns and fears written all over her face, she squeezes my hand back. I take a deep breath. The weight of the latest events is washing over me. "I'm going to retire to my room and prepare a message to my lawyers. If anyone can figure out a way to  keep you out of jail, it's them" "Are you certain?" I give my love a sad smile. "There's little certain in this life, sweetheart, but lawyers with a high hourly rate? They're as close as we'll get" We just smile at my little mot d'esprit. "This wasn't exactly the soirée I wanted, but I suppose the truth had to come out sometime." I continue. I look at her in the eye as I add: "You're a true friend, Adele" I lean towards her so only she can hear. "And I'll wait up for you tonight, if you'd like" Please come find me later, my love. We will find a way to keep you out of trouble, we'll meet the dawn if need be and forget our sorrows and the unpleasantness of this soirée in each other arms. To my surprise, Adele wraps her around me, pulling me into a tight embrace. It takes me a moment to process it but I've never felt closer to tears. Surrounded by the familiar warmth of her body. I know someone is probably, surely staring with a bit of curiosity and malice after the melodrama we offered for free tonight but I don't care. Not now. So I hug her back and give a quick gentle stroke to her cheek as I part. After one last lingering weak smile at her, I gesture Sabine that it's time for our retreat. With the last ounce of strength left in me to keep my act on, I wave diplomatically at the gossiping guests and take my leave, my little Napoleon in tow. The show's over, lads. The show's over...

[rainandhotchocolate]

Marbles - Part 6

A/N HEY I HAVE BEEN SICK AS BALLS so sorry that this took so long, but you’ll be happy to know that in my delirium I started multiple fics in my notebooks, so I should have a few things to upload this week ayay. 

This is the last Marbles part btw ;) But send me a message if you want anything more from these fun ol’ characters, I really like this fic! 

It’s also bloody long for one of my chapters so I hope you enjoy hehe

Part 6

Dear Y/N,

I know it’s been a weird year

I wanted to say that I’m really sorry for treating you

I don’t know how you could do something like that, what have you become

You know you haven’t sent me a single letter all year, what do you expect me to think? If you’d just

I miss you.

Sirius.

 ~~~~~~~

Sirius’ heart was pounding faster than he thought possible. It was like his life was flashing before his eyes, but instead, it was just moments with her. Laughing on the Hogwarts express as they hovered small green, fake, frogs down the hallway and heard the shrieking of the first years as they ran in the opposite direction. Hanging their legs out the side of the small window in Sirius’ bedroom at the Black household as they listened to the new Queen album on repeat on the lowest setting so that his parents wouldn’t hear it. Seeing that small smile play on her face as told her about his new room at James’ house that was covered in pictures of them all and had a brand-new record player.

The way his heart skipped a beat when she arrived at one of the pureblood balls in a bright red dress that hugged her figure, her hair curled and shining under the large chandelier.

When they finally pulled apart, Y/N’s lips were red, cheeks looking like they had been pinched, and Sirius couldn’t help but stare, wanting to drink it all in so he could have another memory of her to hold onto.

Y/N’s sharp voice cut across his thoughts.

“What are you doing?”

Sirius wanted to think that he knew her expressions by now, but after being apart for so long he couldn’t help but think that perhaps he was imagining the way she seemed to be holding back a smile.

“I… I don’t know, I just wanted to and…” Sirius felt the surge of confidence he’d had moments before fall short. He hadn’t exactly thought this the whole way through.

“You can’t just do that! You can’t kiss me and think I’m going to melt in your arms and forget everything you did, everything you thought that I could have done,” Sirius felt a stab of pain in his chest when he heard Y/N’s voice break slightly.

“I didn’t mean that I wasn’t trying to force you to forgive me, I just ugh,” Sirius huffed, the swirling of thoughts going through his head making him want to just turn around and sprint away, not have to deal with any more confusion. But he wasn’t going to do that. He wasn’t going to let the girl he’d been watching from the corners for seven years slip out of his fingers once more, “I can’t stop thinking about you, Y/N.”

“I thought you hated me, Sirius,” She replied coolly, watching him with daggers for eyes.

“I don’t hate you! I could never, I – fuck I really messed things up between us didn’t I?” He groaned, leaning against one of the large stone pillars that seemed to grow out of the dungeon floors behind him, “I got scared, I didn’t know what to do with the idea of having… feelings for…”

“A pureblood Slytherin,” Y/N finished for him. Sirius wasn’t sure if there was more understanding or spite in her tone, but he pressed on all the same, determined to get this out.

“Yes. And then I saw you, well saw what I thought was you playing a cruel prank on those first-years and it just gave me the perfect excuse to run away.”

Sirius blew out a long breath he hadn’t realised he was holding, waiting for Y/N to react, to do anything. Instead, she stood perfectly still, her head cocked to one side as she watched him closely. Once upon a time this might have meant she was working on something, a new spell, a new trick, something she would have shared with Sirius.

“So, what you’re saying, is that you were a coward?” She continued to watch him with her now infuriatingly blasé expression, raising an eyebrow.

“Are you goading me?”

“Perhaps.”

“Does this mean that we are ok enough to be teasing each other?” Sirius teased, a little hope fluttering into his stomach. Y/N sighed and raised a hand to her hips, shaking her head.

“Sirius you badmouthed me to all of my Gryffindor friends for a year, cut me off, made me feel like dirt for doing nothing more than what you would have done.” She paused, not making eye contact with him, “I can’t just pretend you never did that, that you don’t have a deep-seated issue with who I am.”

“It’s not you, it’s never been you, it’s how I- we grew up. You know that, you know it was about Slytherin and what that meant to me. You were different than them, are different,” The moment the words left his mouth he knew they were the wrong ones. Y/N’s nostrils flared, her mouth curling into a tight frown as he pleaded with her.

“I am not different from them. Slytherin has been my home, my support system, a better support than you have been these past few years. I cannot be separated from where I belong, and I don’t want to be. Either you sort out your problems with Slytherin and purebloods from the assholes who defile our name, or you leave me alone.”

With that she turned on her heel and stormed away, no doubt towards the Slytherin common rooms. Sirius suddenly had a flash of a memory, of her bringing him down here under the invisibility cloak so he could see it, the excitement in her eyes at showing him her space, her home. You absolute prat.

Sirius wandered slowly back up to the Gryffindor common room, not really wanting to go back but unsure what he could possibly do out here in the dark that would make him feel any better. The castle was cool, the stone floors and wooden bannisters sharpening every noise he made as he made his way to the Seventh floor. Her words kept repeating themselves over and over in his head I’m no different from them.

He hadn’t really realised until she put it into words, that that was how he had justified their friendship. And not just to himself but to his friends, to anyone who questioned their unlikely relationship, the pureblood traitor and pureblood heir.

He’d made excuses for being with her told people she wasn’t like the rest of them, that she only hung out with the others from her house so she would fit in, so she wouldn’t be tortured in her sleep. He had never bothered to ask whether they could have really been her friends, been kind to her, given her solace when he was somewhere else because how could they? They were Slytherins, would do anything to get their way, were loyal to only themselves, just like what was said in the Sorting Ceremony every year and was whispered throughout the Gryffindor common rooms since he was a first year.

Had he ever bothered to get to know any of them? Even Regulus he had ignored, pushed away, his own brother.

Sirius shivered, feeling a cool breeze come down from one of the open windows in the Gryffindor common room. He’d barely remembered moving his way through the halls in silence and getting through the portrait hole, but the air froze him to his spot. I messed everything up, I’ve messed everything up. The words carried him up into his dorm room where the four other boys were sleeping, Remus and Peter snoring loudly in the corner and James locked in a battle with his be spread. They carried him to the windowsill where Sirius used to write letters to Y/N to send across the castle or to her home over Christmas break. He picked up his quill and a roll of parchment, his chest a little tight and began writing, Dear Regulus.

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

In the weeks that followed Sirius had only one thought in his head, win back Y/N. He would do whatever it takes to prove to her that he could get over this the ridiculous story he had made up in his head about Slytherin evil, which he knew was likely the result of attempting to push away everything that had reminded him of his childhood, and the people he believed to see true evil in.

“Oi, Sirius! James is looking for you,” Peter had poked his head through the portrait hole, getting pushed in by a bustle of students coming back from Hogsmeade with bags filled to the brim with fake wands from Zonkos or fizzing whizzbees from Honeydukes.

“Oh shoot, I forgot I was meant to meet him, is he mad?” Sirius felt like he’d been in a daze, stuck in books, planning.

“He’s ‘James’ mad, he’ll be fine soon enough,” Peter brushed the snow off his clothes and sat next to Sirius, “What are you working on?”

“I’m glad you asked Wormtail,” Sirius replied, his eyes flashing with a kind of mischievousness he usually had when he was planning another prank, “but we’re going to need the others help on this one, where are they?”

“They went straight to the Great Hall for lunch, I wanted to check-in.”

“Cheers Pete, let’s get some food, shall we?” He stood up quickly, heart pounding in excitement. He had a plan, a way to show Y/N he was changing, he could change. The boys hurried down the stairs, mostly due to Sirius’ fervour in wanting to meet the other two as soon as possible

Sirius dodged a group of girls who were watching him closely as he entered the Great Hall and headed straight towards the Gryffindor table, sliding in beside Remus and James who looked very startled at his reappearance.

“Ok boys, we’re throwing a party,” Sirius grinned widely at them all, pushing forward a large notebook full of his very messy handwriting and a couple of fun doodles. There was a pause wherein the three other marauders stared at him, James still slowly chewing a large bite of potato.

“Fuck it, I haven’t stopped studying for a month straight,” Remus nodded his head slowly, “There’s a full moon in two weeks and I’d prefer to get trashed before I get trashed.”

“Good, this one is going to be a little different.”

Before long, the boys had spread people across the three other tables in the Great Hall spreading whispers of a large party that was going to occur the next Friday in the Gryffindor common room, everyone invited. They’d made a big point of ensuring no one knew where the invite had come from, given that there were certain people… or houses that may not come if they knew the four very annoying boys who were throwing the party.

The week felt like the longest Sirius ever had to endure and had many more trips to the dungeon than he would have preferred in order to try and lure Regulus out to talk to him. He would be damned if the Slytherin’s were going to miss the party just because it was in the Gryffindor common room. They had wanted to have it next to the Black Lake, but there was much more room for error.

“Merlin’s Beard Sirius, what are you doing here?” Regulus’ voice had deepened since he last saw him, and Sirius felt an irritated pang that he’d missed his brother going through the funniest part of puberty.

“You weren’t responding to my letters,” Sirius replied, knowing that this response would annoy his little brother, but not able to come up with anything more interesting as he stood there, trying to take in all the differences. He looked distinctly older, and paler, though Sirius wasn’t surprised since he hardly saw him out of the castle, especially since he’d quit the Quidditch team. His hair seemed to be unwashed and a little matted, unheard of for the Black family as Walburga would beat you silly if you didn’t look presentable at all times.

Sirius wanted to ask about these things but stopped himself, knowing that Regulus would just shut the common room door in his face.

“Yes, I would have thought you’d got the message by now,” He spat, not looking him in the eye. Sirius wondered if it would be harder to be as stoic if he did.

“Well I thought I would ask you in person then, there’s a party in Gryffindor tower tomorrow, you should come – you and your friends.”

“What? You’d dare mix with my Slytherin friends? Is this the new and improved Sirius? The one that didn’t leave me to take over as the heir of the Black family. Left me behind for a better family, new brother?” Whilst he was clearly trying to keep his face calm, Regulus voice cracked mid-sentence and he’d gritted his teeth to avoid it happening again. Sirius had expected this, he’d seen Regulus’ face when he slammed the door on his family’s home in Grimmauld place.

“It’s just an invite, nothing more.”

“Well enjoy your party,” Regulus turned on his heel and slammed the door so hard Sirius felt a cool wind whip him. He cursed, but left anyway, heading back to his dorm room. Perhaps he would change his mind Sirius tried to convince himself but he knew it was useless. Perhaps you can’t save everyone.

Friday morning felt louder than usual, with groups of girls giggling about outfits, and boys trying to seem extra macho as they walked passed, chests puffed out, wondering who they might meet tonight. Sirius couldn’t pay attention in class, and was incredibly thankful that the teachers were focused entirely on revision for their NEWTs, most spells that he had already mastered.

“Looking very suave, Padfoot,” James winked at him as he pushed him out of the way to look at himself in the mirror instead. James was wearing a full suit and bow-tie that he had bought in a muggle vintage store with Sirius last summer, “Lily’s going to faint.”

“I’m thinking for other reasons than you’re thinking,” Remus rolled his eyes, tucking his brown belt into his jeans.

“Are we supposed to be more dressed up?” Peter squeaked, looking a little green, wearing a large knitted jumper and blue jeans, fiddling with his sleeve.

“No, James just likes being obnoxious, take no notice of him,” Sirius pushed James out of the way so he could take over the mirror again, tucking in the Led Zepplin t-shirt into his black jeans.

The common room bustling with people from every house and year when the Marauders made their way downstairs and towards the fire. The furniture had already been pushed to the side, a large table with drinks and an abundance of food placed under one of the windows.

“I think it’s time,” Remus nudged Sirius as they heard the Fat Lady begin to complain loudly about the number of people she’d had to let into the common room in the last hour.

“ALRIGHT EVERYONE LISTEN UP!” Sirius’ voice boomed across the common room as it had almost completely filled up. James was standing next to him shushing anyone that dared whisper as he began to speak, “As you know normally our parties have a no rules rule attached to them.”

A loud whoop went up from a group of boys all wearing Gryffindor colours, some of the girls giggling up at them as well.

“But this party is going to be a little different.”

“That’s right, Mr Black, we’ve been hearing that there have been some disappointing acts of prejudice between houses. And whilst we’re not going to name names,” James pointed over exaggeratedly at himself, earning a trickle of laughter across the room, “we can’t be fighting each other before we’re even out there in the midst of a war.”

“SO, this time you aren’t going to know who's from where or what family or all that nonsense,” The crowd looked thoroughly confused, many looking a little sceptical at their slightly ridiculous speech but Sirius waved his wand towards the crowd and saw a quick change in expression. The bright colours and emblems that the students had so proudly walked in with had vanished, leaving grey scarves, badges or anything else that they had been wearing over muggle clothes.

“And so you don’t get all smart on us and just ask each other, we’ve put a tongue-tie curse on this room that will stop you from saying what house you’re in or family you’re from,” James added with a wink, “So make sure you know who your family members are before you go shacking up in the broom closets.”

“Alright, get cosy with some people you’ve never bothered to meet, drink our secretly spiked punch and please dance in ways that would annoy a significant other,” James waved his wand again and golden streamers flew around the room, hanging across the fireplace and windows and music began to blast loudly from the record player in the middle of the room.

They jumped down from the table, grinning widely at each other.

“A success!”

“Truly our finest hour.”

“Even I have to admit it was a pretty good trick,” Sirius whirled around to see Y/N leaning on the side of the table, a smile playing on her face.

“You came,” Was all he could think to say, and he wanted to hit himself for it.

“Of course, I did, I received at least 10 letters about it,” Y/N snorted, moving into the room and taking a look around.

“I sent one letter thanks, let’s not overexaggerate my commitment,” but he winked at her as they moved towards the windowsill and out of the way of anyone who had the potential to elbow them or pull them into a dance. They sat on the pillows lined across the windows, watching the party unfurl in silence for a moment.

Sirius pulled out a small package from his pocket, fingering it in his palm, unsure whether or not he should give it to her. Y/N seemed to make up his mind for him, taking it out of his hands and turning it over in her hands.

“What’s this?” She looked up at him curiously, obviously trying to feel what it was in her hand.

“It’s… well it’s for you,” Sirius admitted a little awkwardly, looking down at it in her palm. He wasn’t just working on the party this week, he’d also been fiddling with a small present for Y/N, something he’d thought about getting for her seventeenth birthday before they’d fallen out.

“You got me a present?” Y/N’s tone was confused but she was smiling, her cheeks flushing a little.

“Just open it,” Sirius nudged her shoulder playfully and she pulled apart the wrapping quickly. It revealed a dark green, little silk bag with a string tying it together at the top. Y/N opened the bag and felt inside, her eyes wide as she realised what was there. She turned it over and poured the deep green and white marbles into her other hand, smiling up at Sirius.

“Marbles, really?”

“Slytherin coloured marbles of course,” Sirius winked at her and she laughed, moving them swiftly between her fingers. Suddenly they rose above her hand and began moving on their own, dancing in the air in different formations.

“What’s happening? I’m not doing this.”

“Just watch,” Sirius was still smiling at the very confused Y/N, and she turned back to watch the marbles as they became brighter and brighter until they seemed to fizzle in the air. After a second Y/N leaned closer, realising that they were spelling out letters in the air, fizzing in the same green and white the marbles had held within them.

‘I’m very sorry, Y/N’

“Couldn’t seem to say that yourself?”

“Well I figured I would probably need to say it again at some point so it might be easier to have something on hand.”

“Ahh so you’re sticking around huh?”

“Well, that’s if you want me to,” Sirius watched her closely. He wanted to know what she was thinking as she looked up at him, placing the marbles back into the little bag. She leaned in a little closer to him, her hair falling across her cheek as she became so close that he could smell the shampoo on her hair and almost feel her lips across his and-

“If you don’t, I’ll kick your ass.”

“That is a very fair call,” Sirius breathed in response. Y/N closed the distance between them and kissed him. It felt different to the other kisses he had remembered, or daydreamed about constantly, it was calm and soft, her hand brushing against his cheek as if she had all the time in the world to be doing this with him.

“I do want to be better, Y/N, honestly I know I’ve been an absolute twat when it comes to Slytherins.”

Y/N smiled at him but said nothing in return. Finally, she stood up and turned to face him, holding out a hand.

“Let’s dance.”

Sirius took her hand and took lead, bringing her into the middle of the dance floor where the crowd was louder and distinctly wilder. He held her close, moving her around the room with ease and spinning her around every few moments, mostly because of the way she laughed every time he did. Whilst the music had continued to pound loudly with 70s muggle disco music, he pulled her in close, wrapping an arm around her waist so that he could feel her pressed up against him, feel her heartbeat increase slowly as they danced out of beat across the room.

“Y/N?”

“Yes?”

“You know I… I love you,” He mumbled, feeling a little silly as he spoke into her hair.

“Well, Remus may have shown me some of your attempts at letters,” Sirius was grateful that she’d had the courtesy to sound abashed.

“Bloody prat,” He cursed, but she just laughed in return.

“I love you too.”

It took three hours for McGonagall to storm in and demand they turn the lights out and go to bed, but Sirius had a sneaking suspicion that she’d caught on earlier and given them a little extra time. Y/N had stayed behind, leaning her head on Sirius’ shoulder as they sat wrapped together on the couch.

“Are you ok?” Y/N murmured to him, looking up at him with sleepy eyes. Sirius had obviously not done a great job at hiding his disappointment and sighed.

“Yes, sorry,” He paused for a moment before ploughing on, “He didn’t come.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Sirius.”

“Yeah.”

Y/N sat up and moved over so that she was sitting in his lap, arms curling around his shoulders and neck.

“He’ll come around,” She spoke softer this time, it reminded Sirius of when she would whisper in his ear at functions, making him laugh and sending a shiver down his spine. Today it was just the latter.

“I don’t know if he will.”

“We’ll make him.”

Sirius’ hearted jumped at her use of ‘we’, but he hid it well.

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

She leaned in again but this time Sirius moved to meet her lips first so he could pull his hand up against her neck and feel the pressure of her whole body pushed up against his own. He wanted to get lost in her body, ignore the little thought that swirled around his head telling him lies about what Regulus was up to, why he looked so tired. But then she flicked her tongue into his mouth and he forgot, leaning back so she could push him up against the edge of the couch.

He was right where he always wanted to be, and nothing else mattered.

Taglist:  @averytruerayofsunshine​ @siriuslyjanhvi @blushingskywalker @blackpinkdolan @thebabblingbookworm @cherrie511 @imlukesnirvana @avengersassemblee @maraudersandco @sly-vixen-up2nogood @katbernoulli @sirius-lysad @evyiione @minerva26love @aikeia @gollyderek​ @greatwombatblaze​  @songforhema​  @your-typical-giggle​  @1800-fight-me

 @sophisticatedslytherin​ @takemetoneverland420  @hufflepeople   @cosmiclunas  @nadinissavage  @sad-slytherinbitch     @localserpent    @dangerouskawaiiharrypotter @kneazlesgetitdone @oliolioxiclean  @sister-stop   @mcu-potter-pirate   @kath0098   @jeowjungkook  @oh-so-twisted  @ashkuuuu  @unique05sstuff    @green-lxght @xsuperwholockaddictx-blog    @introvertedmegalomaniac   @marlenemckinnontrash  @shrekstolemytoes      @slytherin-batbitch    @wittysidecharacter    @siriuswitches    @thatawesomeweirdo00 @maralisa124  @your-typical-giggle

[geewithluv]

jungkook ♛ meeting her parents

Ｐａｉｒｉｎｇ：Jeon Jungkook x Fem!OC Emmie

Ｇｅｎｒｅ：Fluff

Ｗａｒｎｉｎｇｓ： none

Ｒａｔｉｎｇ：G

Ｗｏｒｄ Ｃｏｕｎｔ：1.4k

Ａ／Ｎ： «this belongs in my headcanon universe and you can read the other parts in the masterlist, the description of the characters is [here] so you get a summary of who they are. »

ｍａｓｔｅｒｌｉｓｔ

Emmie had a big family. A really big family. Big enough that she had to triple check she brought gifts for everyone because a double-check had proven inadequate. She was one of 8 children and her aunts and uncles all had at least 3 kids as well. Annual family reunions looked more like concerts and despite having moved to Korea after her study-abroad turned into a dream job 3 years ago, she hadn’t missed a single family reunion and she refused to.

 Emmie and Jungkook had been together for about a year when family reunion season came around. It was between the Europe and Asia legs of the Speak Yourself Tour which worked out really well for Jungkook who wanted to meet Emmie’s family. 

 Emmie had explained to Jungkook that you didn’t just meet her family, you experienced them and she wasn’t sure a family reunion would be the best idea. They’d only been dating for a year and sure she wouldn’t be the first person to bring their partner, her cousin once brought a guy she had only been dating for a month and they broke up during the barbeque. But she was still worried. She knew it would be the 3rd year where her relatives would wonder if she was secretly miserable in Korea. She knew they did it out of concern for her but that didn’t make it any less annoying and she didn’t want to throw Jungkook into that.

 He insisted, however. And she agreed. Her mother was so excited Emmie thought she’d come to Korea herself to gather the couple. Her father shared similar feelings but played his ‘protective dad’ role well over the phone when she called them. 

 To Jungkook, this trip was an adventure. It was also a way to prove how serious he was about their relationship. He was so deeply in love and no matter how many times he said it and how many times she said it back and told him that she knew he loved her, he still felt like she didn’t really get it.

 “I think my mom had to straightjacket Amber.” Emmie tells Jungkook, referring to her 15-year-old sister who was a huge fan and upon figuring out Emmie was dating THE Jeon Jungkook had done her best Mariah Carey “Emotions” whistle note only cover on the phone. And she nearly fainted when she figured out she’d be able to actually meet him and talk to him. Emmie was less than thrilled as she tried to guide her sister into not being weird around her boyfriend (“No you cannot call him Jungkook-oppa.” “Why not?” “Because it’s weird.” “But he’s my oppa…” “He’s not your-- never mind.”). She loved her sister but not this part of her.

 Jungkook laughed. “She’s that excited?”

 “You have no idea. She might try to kidnap you.”

 “I’m always up for a little danger to get the blood pumping.” He said as the flight attendants started their spiel on safety protocol.

 Emmie had told Jungkook about her life back home. Her parents didn’t have a lot of money even before they decided to have 8 kids but they made ends meet, even if it meant small dinners and stocking up on cafeteria food at school to bring home. Bills were paid, water running, clothes on their back. They couldn’t complain. But it wasn’t great. There was still stress over paying bills and buying clothes as the children grew that carried over into their adult lives. It’s actually how Emmie started sewing, at first it was fixing holes and buttons and then sewing shirts and dresses for school.

 Emmie explained that her parents named all 8 kids after jewels. Crystal, Garnet, the twins Jasper and Jet, herself Emerald, Sterling, Ruby, and Amber. They hoped that the names would serve as some sort of prophecy and it seemed to work. The 6 old enough to had gone to college or got into a trade, the two youngest were doing good in school, and 2 of them were in happy marriages. 

 It really did work out well. To the relief of many who worried that the couple just birthed 8 children into the poverty cycle. 

 The couple caught a cab to Emmie’s house after deciding that she didn’t want to settle the ongoing argument over who will go to the airport to pick them up.

 “Oh my god…” Emmie said as the car pulled up to her home. Written on a banner hanging from her porch was “welcome home Emmie & Jungkook!” with some accompanying doodles she’s sure is the work of Amber. Though Jungkook found it endearing, Emmie found it embarrassing and her cheeks tinted a color similar to her hair.

 “That’s so nice!” Jungkook smiled as they got out of the cab, paying the driver and grabbing their bags. They hardly had time to stretch their legs before the whole family piled out of the house and straight into a group hug that Jungkook was not expecting to be pulled into. Questions started flying from everyone’s mouth, ‘how was the plane’ ‘did you bring anything’ ‘how’ve you been’ ‘are you excited’ it reminded Jungkook of all the times he was accosted at the airport.

 “One at a time, please.” Emmie huffed as her family started to release from the hug. “Can we get inside?” She asked with a laugh.

 “C’mon, c’mon. I got your room all ready for ya’ll!” Emmie’s mother clapped her hands together excitedly as various siblings started grabbing suitcases.

 Jungkook learned quickly that Emmie’s house was organized chaos. He wasn’t too surprised, the BTS dorms were similar in that way especially when they were younger and there were 3 less people there. 

 “Now, Aunt Betsy wants us over there a little early. Says she’s got some clothes she wants you to fix up and I tried to tell her you were on a vacation but you know how she is. Your father’s sister, truly.” Emmie’s mother tutted at the dinner table as food got passed around. 

 “It’s alright, momma.” She said truthfully. She never really took vacations anyway, she was always thinking about her job no matter how much Jungkook tried to get her to take a full break.

 “Now, Jungkook.” Her mother spoke and Jungkook jerked his head up from the mashed potatoes. “I was fully planning on showing you all Emmie’s cute little baby photos--”

 Emmie interjected with a gasp, “Momma!”

 “--I’ve got binders full of pictures of all my children, but Miss Amber here would just die if you saw her in ‘em too.”

 “Momma!” Amber screeched.

 “My god, you banshee!” Sterling, Emmie’s 21 year old brother, scolded. “You’ll make the guy lose his hearing and then how will he be able to sing, huh? Gonna sue you for damages or something, I can see the headlines now--”

 “The kid’s already a tomato, Sterling, cut it out.” The eldest, Crystal pointed at her youngest sister. Emmie was trying not to laugh and she could tell Jungkook was too. 

 “Ya know, Amber called every damn radio station she could find trying to win tickets to your show!” Ruby, only a couple years older than Amber, chimed in.

 “Really?” Jungkook’s eyebrows raised, he knew fans did a lot but he couldn’t imagine the time it took.

 “Yeah! She spent more time doing that than she did on her homework.” Ruby continued.

 Amber was quick to defend herself. “I wasn’t alone! You called like half of ‘em when you weren’t busy flirting with Jake from your--”

 “We are not talking about that!” Ruby dropped her fork in shock.

 “Whose Jake?!” All four brothers started.

 “Here we go.” Emmie groaned.

 “Now, look. I got one sister married, one dating, and now I gotta worry about another with some guy named Jake? I’m driving you to school from now on!” Garnet, the second eldest said.

 “Cut it out. You guys are gonna make Jungkook think we’re crazy.” Emmie’s father finally spoke up. “We should all just sit here and have a nice meal. See, Emmie’s not bickering back and forth. Being real mannered. C’mon y'all.”

 “Emmie’s only quiet cause she’s trying to impress her boyfriend.” Jet scoffed.

 “Hey, did Emmie ever tell you about the time when she was 8 and a girl in her class--”

 “Jasper!”

 “Oh this has to be good.” Jungkook motioned for Jasper to continue.

 After the evening had settled and Emmie and Jungkook had gotten ready for bed, Jungkook turned to her.

 “Your family is a lot.” He said.

 “Sorry.” She murmured with a sigh as she turned out the light.

 “No, no. I like it. It’s nice.” He spoke with a fond smile. “I just hope I’ll fit in.” He wrapped his arm around her. 

 “You already do. Get some sleep, I love you.” She kissed his lips softly.

 “Love you too.”

[softspaceboibrian]

Journeys End in Lovers Meeting (Chapter 3)

Pairing: Professor!Gwilym Lee x reader

Summary: Reader is a new student at Harvard University and, on her first day, she does something she might regret. Or maybe not.

Warnings: mention of a stroke

Wc: 2212

A/N: guys, this chapter is very descriptive. hopefully you won't think it's boring or stuff. don't worry! in the next chapters more is going to happen!!

Previous chapters: 1 - 2 - 4 - 5

Taglist: @tegan-eva (ask if you want to be added)

On the other hand, you were pretty different, thing that Gwilym grew to love more than he expected himself to. At first, he didn’t notice the peculiar shade of your eyes, or the constant rosy colour of your cheeks. Gosh, he could look at those eyes the entire day if he could; you had intelligent eyes, and whenever you laid them on him, he knew you were thinking about something, you were studying him, noticing the smallest detail that even him had never noticed before; like that time when you walked up to him after the lesson finished and started off with a “Did you know you look a lot like Brian May? You know, the guitarist from Queen”. That made him laugh, at first, but when that night he found himself in front of a mirror, he started staring at his traits and noticed that you were right, as always. You had a beautiful mind that was always working on some new, fresh idea, that would surprise everyone. If you remained silent for a little too long, he would always ask you what you were thinking about and you would probably start answering by saying “What if…” or “Have you ever considered…”. And those amazing ideas usually came with a big dream. “I want to travel to Rome, visit Keats’ house and see his headstone, then do an essay on the impact that his poetry, his works and Romanticism in general is having on modern day culture.” You said one day, out of nowhere, while you were re-reading one of his articles; you were alone in his office, as every other afternoon, he was drinking black coffee, no sugar, just a little bit of cream, while you had your usual mug filled with tea. You changed the tea every couple of weeks: at first, you started with black tea, then, when autumn came, you moved to chai tea. But now the office was filled everyday with the soft smell of mint and honey, fresh and warm at the same time. Just like you, he thought. He also found out he loved to make you laugh: you had a loud laughter, the type that fills the room with joy, that contagious laugh that you cannot hear and stay serious. Your voice, on the contrary, well, your voice was soft, warm, so pleasing to listen to that he would often make you read his essays and articles aloud just to hear it. You loved scented candles, that’s for sure. You even bought an orange chocolate scented one for his studio, just because you thought he might like it. But in general, there’s no doubt you are a poet. You were quiet, your steps were gentle, just like a fairy’s ones. You were quiet because you were always thinking, analysing things and finding in them the smallest, most peculiar details that no one else would notice, taking time to organize your thoughts and ideas, but still struggling to find the right words. That’s probably the main reason why he has often walked in on you reading the entire dictionary for the umpteenth time. You had so many beautiful ideas, and you would always talk about them as if they were your children. “I’m afraid that I won’t be able to express what I’m thinking, to put it into words on paper, and I don’t won’t to ruin it.” You said to him many times; in fact, it had happened more than once that you could not be productive for days, weeks even, and then suddenly write six poems in an hour. But then, there’s this one thing that he read in one of your poems, one thing that stuck with him. «I wish to be enough, someday.» How could someone like you think that you weren’t enough. You were far more than enough. At least to him.

It was the beginning of December, and the first flakes of snow where starting to shyly cover the gardens and sidewalks, there were no longer leaves on the branches of the trees, it was finally that time of the year when he was able to turn on the fire in his little chimney in the evening. And, in fact, you loved spending the evenings over at his place, sometimes crushing on his couch just to enjoy the warmth of the fire. Or maybe you just enjoyed his company over anyone else’s.

The weeks went by and you got to know each other pretty well during your ‘meetings’ or your coffee breaks. Apparently, he was in fact of Welsh heritage, even though he was born in Bristol. He studied English Literature at Cardiff University and then moved to the USA. But, most importantly, he was the most genuine person you had ever known. You liked to look at him when he was busy working. His hair was long, but not too long, and sometimes little stands of hair would fall in front of his face, distracting him for even just a moment. When he was thinking, he would start doodling on the side of the page or on a spare paper. He collected playbills from theatre shows and museum’s pencils. He always had kind words for everyone. His earbuds were always tangled, and it would take him a good minute to untangle them. He always took artsy picture of everything, his dog, the school library, the first fallen leaves from the tree in front of his office’s window. He loved history, learning intriguing facts about historical figures. He liked to always have an open window, unless it was too cold outside. When he smiled, his eyes would brighten up, the corners of his lips go up, little crinkles show up around his eyes. He was also exactly how one would expect a writer to be: his notebooks a mess, full of notes and doodles, and his desk exactly the same, little reminders scattered all over the wooden surface, an empty pen holder, pens and pencils used as bookmarks. And his head too: he always had so many ideas, he was always thinking of a new article, a new story he could try to write, but that he never actually managed to finish; and you noticed that, sometimes, he would scribble stuff that he needed to remember on his hands and arms. He was definitely a night owl: it had happened many times that she would wake up to a text from him that had been sent at three in the morning. He was so passionate about everything that he liked, like that time, during class, when he was explaining Queen Elizabeth I’s Tilbury Speech, he was basically praising not only Queen Elizabeth herself, but her tutor, Roger Ascham, too. You found it adorable. He knew pretty much everything, except for his own limits. He was the kind of person that would try to make flowers bloom, even during heavy storms. But the things that stuck with you the most was the fact that he always found the good in everything.

“Love” That’s how he had been calling you lately, even around school, not really caring about what people would say. “They are doing Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in a theatre just outside town and they want me to review it” He explained, showing you the email on his phone.

“Well, that’s amazing! When are you going?”

“We are going tonight. The play starts at 7:30, but we have to be there at least half an hour before the beginning of the play, because I have to meet the woman who has to give me the tickets at the reception.”

“Wait…” You stopped him, visibly puzzled “We are going?” You had talked about that many times before, Shakespeare was by far your favourite dramaturg and one of Gwilym’s favourite authors in general. You had often found yourselves debating whether it was Hamlet or Macbeth Shakespeare’s best play, discussing about every detail that made one’s favourite the best one and not the other’s.

“I got two tickets for free and I thought that you might have wanted to come with me. I mean, it’s Twelfth Night. You love it, it’s one of your favourites, isn’t it?”

You were speechless. You didn’t expect that to happen, not at all. Maybe that was the reason you immediately put your arms around him and reached for his cheek to leave a soft kiss, realising only afterwards that you weren’t at home or somewhere else. You were at University and there he was a professor and you were a student. You couldn’t act like that. So you instantly pulled away, your cheeks turning crimson, but he didn’t really seem to mind it.

“It’s a 45 minutes long drive, so I’ll pick you up at 6:00, so we have a few more minutes in case traffic is a mess. We can have dinner afterwards.” He smiled, his eyes on you, finding that look on your face extremely adorable. “Oh and wear a pretty dress.” He laughed while walking away.

Once you were left alone, you could feel the eyes of numerous girls on you, probably whispering to each other, already making assumption about the two of you. All you did at that point was walk out of the building, almost running towards the bus stop, to escape those curious looks rather than to actually get home early.

It was 5:45 and you were already sitting on the couch, a book in your hands, waiting for the man to send you the text saying that he was waiting for you outside. Wear a pretty dress, he said; and that was what you did. One could rarely see you wearing a dress, or anything a little more daring that a simple jeans and a nice blouse. But that time you decided that you could actually wear something different, maybe one of those dresses that your mother had bought for you years before. It was nothing too special, a simple bodycon dress with blue, burnt orange, mustard and white horizontal stripes. Obviously, not wanting to look too formal, you just paired it with a simple blue cardigan and white converse. Furthermore, you had no one to impress, it was only Gwilym, you professor, and in a way, your boss too. Yes, well, he was still really handsome, charming, and you too often found yourself daydreaming about those ocean blue eyes, that made you feel like you didn’t have to worry about your ponytail being perfect or your laugh being too loud. Whenever you were with him, you felt good, you felt as if that was the place where you were meant to be. And that was not good. You could not feel that way about him.

[from James] Hey love, I’m outside. Whenever you’re ready.

You didn’t even reply. You just put your jacket on and sprinted out, forgetting to say goodbye to Rose, who looked at you wondering whether you were acting like that because you were excited to go see one of your favourite plays or because you were basically going on a date with the man you had been talking about non-stop for the last few months.

You and Rose met the first day you came to Cambridge. She knew a new girl was going to live in the room next the hers, but she didn’t expect you to be, well, like you were. At first, you were reserved, she could barely see you outside of your room, but she could easily understand whether you were home or not, because you would always be playing those old records. One day she even caught you singing a little tune, but as soon as you realised she was watching you, you immediately turned red and shut the door. It took her a while before she could actually get to know you, even just a little bit. At first, it was small talks at dinner, random facts that popped up during movie nights. Then you spent a whole day around town, just the two of you, in which she showed you all the nice cafés and libraries where you could go and study without any problem, the restaurants where you could eat without spending too much, the shopping district, even the pretty places you could go to take pictures or take someone on a date. That day Rose found out some of the most important things about you. You were sitting on a bench in JFK Park and the brunette started talking about all times she had taken her parents there whenever they visited her, the things she used to do with them when they still lived together and how proud they were of her. But your response left her speechless. “My mother died two years ago. Stroke.” Your voice was cold, distant, your eyes on the water in front of you. “And my father is so proud of me that he is paying my tuition so that he doesn’t have to see me around the house anymore.” Rose didn’t know what to say, how to act, so she just stood up and offered you to go and eat ice cream. “I know a place that makes the best mint chocolate chip ice cream in town. It’s your favourite, isn’t it?”

[hurtcomfortetc]

I was thinking the apocalypse timeline, if that's okay! :) and omg thank you for sending me your fic, I'm so amped to read it!

Original Prompt - vaguely-- 

“since you’re looking for TUA prompts” how about Klaus with pneumonia? the others keep joking about how he needs to quite smoking and shit (and telling him to stop whining when he says he’s not good to go with them on some kind of wild adventure”

Okay, so this was a fun one to write! Hope this was in the realm of what you were looking for! :)

MONDAY(28 days sober)

Klauscan hear the distant sound of glass shattering and what might be abookshelf falling down. The sound surprises him, and he sits up soabruptly that he gives himself a head rush, and a splash of watersluices over onto the tile floor. He sits there, listening for yellsof anguish or gunfire. All he hears for the next minute is the faintcongestion in his breath.

“Vanya-it's okay – look we don't have to stop for today-”

Adoor slams.

Klausrelaxes.  

Heslides his head back under water and goes back to wondering if thisis the normal congestion he's had on and off since his cocaine phasein 2012, or if he's just getting sick.

Thenhe starts craving cocaine again.

Hedebates, for the hundredth time maybe, if Sober Klaus still smokesweed.

“Klaus,you better not have fallen asleep in there!”

TUESDAY(29 days sober)

Klauscreaks open his eyes to a blinding light and a grating voice comingfrom the other side of his door. His eyes manage to come to a focuson his clock. 1:30. Klaus is faintly pleased. It's much easier tostay sober when you're unconscious for most of the day. And he's soclose to actually deserving that thirty day chip.

Thebanging doesn't stop.

“Klaus!It's your turn with Five and Vanya today – please get your ass downhere so he'll get off my ass?” Diego calls, and continues bangingon the door.

Fiveis relentless, Klaus muses. He proceeds to remain unmoving on hisbed.

“Yougonna keep moping in here forever?” Ben asks from somewhere in thecorning of the room.

Klauslets out a loud groan that he draws out for almost twenty seconds.Ben covers his ears after ten, but Klaus has to stop and let out ashort cough before he can make it to a grand finale. Gross.

“Seriously?”Ben asks. Klaus peels himself off his bed and does a quick smell testof his underarms.

“Shhhh-I need to focus on finding a clean shirt so I can go make sure Vanyadoesn't end up murdering my second least favorite brother,” Klaussays. His voice comes out rough. Ben, for his part, looks appeased.

WEDNESDAY(30 days sober)

It'sbeen a good day.  He completed an entire arm wrestling match with atangible Ben (turns out that that in death Ben must have somehowdeveloped killer bicep muscles, but no one needs to know how thatparticular match ended) and, invigorated by his sobriety milestone,Klaus dragged himself out of bed before noon and made eggs foreveryone (they burned remarkably quickly, but Allison did eat a pieceof toast he buttered so overall a win).

Butnow it's almost dinner time, and all he can do is lay bonelessly onthe couch and listen to his siblings bicker over one of Luther's“mandatory debriefs.”

“Theday of the apocalypse is over, can't we all stop treating Vanya likea ticking time bomb?” Allison demands.

“Yousaw what she almost did to Diego a couple of days ago, we can't stopworking on this,” Luther fires back.

“Guys,I'm right here, can you just stop,” Vanya adds. There's an awkwardsilence.

“Istill don't know if the math is right, everyone. Look, the best guessis to keep trying at -”

Therest of the conversation is lost to Klaus, who feels something inhimself snap. He hastily lights a cigarette. His siblings cyclicalnonsense arguments give him a craving for nicotine that simply willnot be ignored. He takes a long drag and then feels something catchnauseatingly in the back of his throat. He sits up and coughs untilsomething slimy seems to dislodge.

Hegoes to try another inhale when he sees that everyone is looking athim. He thumps his chest for dramatic effect.

“Smokingkills, kids,” he announces, and waves a finger at his siblings,accosting. Diego rolls his eyes.

“Keepthat up and you're gonna get an iron lung before you're forty,”Diego says.

“Andwhat a thrill that would be,” Klaus retorts. The bickering carrieson after that, and he spends the rest of it tuning out his siblingsand attempting valiantly not to cough.

Hedrags his way out of the room during a longer pause. In the doorway,Allison grabs his arm and slaps something into his palm. It lookslike a bandaid, and Klaus' brain cannot produce what it is.

“Nicotinepatch. I thought you were cleaning up. It might help,” Allisonsays.

“I'llhave to change my shirt. This beige will clash hideously,” Klausreplies.

“Iordered Chinese for tonight– come down later?” Allison asks himas he continues out.

Hethrows a grateful wave behind him.

Hespends the rest of the night alternately chain smoking and hackinguntil his chest is sore.

THURSDAY(31 days sober)

Today,Klaus starts to wonder distantly if there is something wrong with hisimmune system. This cold just doesn't want to go away.

It'sa nice distraction, he supposes.

FRIDAY(32 days sober)

Klaushas just completed almost entirely turning over his room in order tofind the one sketch pad that he'd stashed away years ago. He used toget high and doodle bats and shit during his goth phase.  “Get ahobby” was something they tell you a lot in rehab.

Ithelps that, honestly, Klaus has no energy to do anything but scribbleabsently today. The mere act of searching through his closet justleft him with a racing heart and feeling out of breath. It isactually nice, in a way. The lethargy makes it very easy to settleinto a blanket puddle on the floor with and feel content to scratchout nonsense pictures with a pencil.

Benisn't anywhere to be seen for some reason, and Klaus actually feelslonely.

Ashadow appears looming over him. He looks up to see Five leaning inhis doorway.

“Getup. We're going on a field trip,” Five announces.

“Pass,”Klaus groans.

“Notasking. What, you'd rather laze around here all day?”

Klausdraws his blanket closer around him by way of answer.

Fivegrits his teeth and looks away. His foot is honest-to-god tapping.

“Getup. We need your help. We're gonna let Vanya loose today, and we needall hands on deck,” Five finally explains. Klaus sits up and giveshim an incredulous look.

“DidVanya okay this?” He asks. Five looks at Klaus like he's a cat thathe's trying to coax out of a bush.

“Ofcourse.” Klaus wonders why he bothered asking, his answer trulydoesn't inspire confidence.

“Andhow do you expect me to be of any use?” Klaus asks. On any otherday, he would bask in any remote bit of confidence in his ability,but today the concept of standing up for more than a minute is makinghim dizzy.

“Iseem to recall that you can summon Ben's ghost from the dead, amongothers. Dead people are great collateral if something goes sideways,”Five says.

“Um,great idea, but here's the thing – I can't -ahem- get it up all thetime. Apparently it's more common among mediums than you might think– one in ten!” Klaus says, praying that Five will drop it. Fivelooks at him like he's contemplating murder.

“Look,do you want me to get Luther to come persuade you?” Five threatens.

Klausraises his hands in surrender.

“Uncle,uncle! Christ, let's just get this over with,” he sighs. On the wayout, he grabs his most obnoxious faux fur jacket, partially as a lamegesture of rebellion and partially because he's utterly freezing.

“That'sthe spirit,” Five mutters, and leads the way.

----------

Fiveglanced into the rearview mirror of the car. With Luther crammed intothe passenger seat the atmosphere already feels oppressive enough,but a glimpse into the backseat reveals Vanya nervously perched inthe middle seat, Diego sitting cross-armed and surly on the right,and Klaus completely passed out on the left. The car is packed andradiating nervous energy.

Five eases the car down the bumpy dirt path, the final sign that theyare clear away from civilization. That creep Leonard really had theright idea about a remote cabin in the woods. Plenty of isolation andtrees to practice on. So lacking in human contact is this particularcabin that the unkept foliage lining the path creeps towards theroad, untamed and leaning. The cabin itself is barely a thread awayfrom losing any structural integrity. The windows have maybe threeunbroken panes of glass between them. It's perfect.

Fivebrakes violently, and winces when Klaus' forehead makes a audiblewhack on the window as he smacks himself out of his nap. Not the mostgraceful awakening, but effective. He wants everyone alert.

“Alrighteverybody. Follow me,” he says. He steps out of the car and towardsthe back of the cabin, where he has prepared a paper target on a treeabout fifty feet from the small clearing. It's visible, but wellsurrounded by other trees.

“Diego,wanna demo?” Five asks. Diego furrows his brow, but never turns upan opportunity to throw something sharp. He takes one look at themark and pegs the center ring with a hasty flick of his wrist.

“Doyou expect me to do that? That's not exactly in my wheelhouse, Five,”says Vanya, squinting at the target and looking like she'd rather beanywhere than here.

Fivetakes a handful of loose bullets out of his pocket, and places themon a tree stump.

“Woah,”interjects Luther, “we're not expecting Vanya to have to shootpeople-”

“Ofcourse not,” Five grits out. He expected this, but it doesn't makeit any less tiresome. “This is just an exercise in precision andcontrol.” Vanya looks at him, wary, but she picks up one of thelittle silver ovals and turns it around in her fingertips.

---

Ittakes the better part of an hour before Vanya manages to drill a holedirectly into the target. It's a bit left of center, but by thatpoint, Diego and Luther have finally relaxed an inch of tension outof their shoulders. Vanya is a quick study, and actually pulls asmile when the little tap of the bullet making contact sounds throughthe forest.

Klaus,for his part, has been lounging like the Queen of Sheba on a softpile of pine needles. His eyes seem out of focus, but he claps whenVanya succeeds.  

“Whooooo,you show that tree who's boss,” he calls. Vanya smiles again. Fivewonders if Klaus might have been more of a liability than anything,considering how spacey he seems for all his apparent sobriety, but ifanything it makes Vanya more relaxed when he yells out some stupidline of encouragement than if it had just been Tweedledee andTweedledum trading constipated looks and flinching every time a twigsnapped.

Fiveis contemplating dragging one more round out of Vanya when Klaus sitsup suddenly at attention.

“Woah,Vanya that's kind of creepy,” Klaus says, looking at something inthe distance. Five walks over to Klaus as he stands up, clearlyalarmed. There are goosebumps running down his arms.

“Whatare you talking about, Klaus?” Five asks, quietly. He doesn't wanta scene.

“Theway she's moving the branches of the trees like that. They're gettingall twisty. I mean it's tasteful but definitely a touch odd, wouldn'tyou say?” Five doesn't know why he looks over to see what Klaus istalking about, but he does. There isn't so much as a light breezerustling the branches.

Suddenly,Five realizes what must be going on and he's furious.

“Jesus,Klaus what are you playing at? Whatever you're tripping on is notworth risking this entire training session,” Five spits. Diegoperks up at that.

“Ithought you were going sober, man,” he says, looking at themsearchingly. Klaus, pale and sweating, does not look like thatbenchmark for clean living.

Klausdoesn't seem to notice, and continues looking at the forest, eyesfollowing something unseen.

“Unbelievable,”Five turns away, taking ten paces and breathing through his nose.

“Klaus,it's okay – I'm not doing anything,” Vanya says. She walkshesitantly towards Klaus, eyes wide and sympathetic.

“Leaveit, Vanya,” Luther cautions. Vanya reaches out a hand on Klaus'sforearm, to try to get his attention. Klaus clears his throatthickly, and coughs a bit into his fist.

“Don'tworry, Vanya- I like it, very pretty,” he says. Vanya's eyes widen.

“Guys,his skin's on fire,” she says. “Klaus, are you okay?” Shereaches a hand up his cheek, which is also burning. He doesn'tanswer, just shivers convulsively.

“Couldit be an overdose?” Luther strides over to them. Diego stiffens.

“Doesn'tseem like it to me,” Diego says. “Doesn't present the way itusually does with whatever garbage he's on.” Five's mind feelsblank.

“I'llstart the car. We have to get him out of here,” he says.

“Ithink he's just sick,” Vanya says. “He's been sounding reallyrough all week, hasn't he?”

“Shit,”says Diego. He moves to pull gently at Klaus' arm to lead him to thecar. Five takes the lead and starts for the front of the cabin.

“Wow,you can make the ground all spinny. That's a cool trick,” Klaustells Vanya. At that, Diego loops one of Klaus's arms around hisshoulder, and they start to haltingly follow after Five.

“Let'sgo, Klaus,” he says. As they make a shaky path towards the car,Five throws the passenger door open for them to slide in. They do,and it's now imminently obvious just how out of it Klaus is. Hemanages to maneuver into the passenger seat shakily, and immediatelyburies his head in his hands.

Fivewastes no time turning on the ignition and sloppily reversing thecar. He narrowly avoids bottoming out in a muddy patch. The car digsout and he slams on the acceleration as quickly as the dirt path willallow.

“Doesanyone have any water or anything?” Luther asks, and Five isdecently impressed that it's actually not a bad idea. There isrustling from the backseat as they all turn over the car searchingfor any provisions that will last them the entire ride back towardscivilization.

“Here,”Vanya finds a water bottle strewn somewhere beneath the seatcushions.

“That'sfor you,” Diego passes it to Klaus, who removes one eye from behindhis hand to look at it like it's a bomb. “I swear to god, Klaus,just take it,” Diego warns. Klaus extends a shaking hand andaccepts it. He takes a tentative sip, and then grimaces. That setshim off, coughing deeply. For each second he continues seeminglyhacking up a lung, Five's foot presses deeper into the acceleration.When he finally stops, Five meets eyes with Diego in the rearviewmirror. Diego looks panicked, and that's not a look Five is used toseeing.

“Jesus,Klaus, where's that stupid ass coat of yours?” Diego asks. “You'reshaking like a leaf.”

“Igrabbed it,” says Vanya.

“Wait-maybe we should try to keep him cool? Right?” Luther interjects.

“Idon't know- do I look like I went to fucking medical school?” Diegoasks, shooting a murderous look at Luther.

“Damn,how long has he been like this sick?” Luther asks no one inparticular.

“Ugh,right here,” Klaus says, breathlessly. “You should ask Ben, he'dknow.”

Diegothrows up his hands.

“Helpful!”

Suddenly,the car lights up a bright blue and Ben appears crammed betweenLuther and Five, crouched awkwardly on the dashboard.

Five,thrown for a loop, swerves the wheel and almost careens off the road.

“Woah-Five, get it together!” Luther calls. Ben grabs the wheel and pullsthem back on into their lane just in time to avoid hitting a tree.

“Nice,thanks,” Five breaths.

“Ben,”Luther said, dumbstruck.

“Toanswer your question, he's been out of it for a couple of days. Ithink that's why he couldn't see me anymore,” Ben says. Lutherseems unable to process the information, his mouth still gaping open.Ben rolls his eyes.

“I'mjust saying, please can you find some kind of medical professional?Like, ASAP?”

“Nooooo,”Klaus murmers through his hands.

“Klaus,”say Five, Luther and Diego almost simultaneously, all in some variouscombination of desperate frustration and warning.

Vanyareaches over and put a hand on his knee.

“Ithink what they mean is that it's not a debate. You're going to see adoctor.”

[virmillion]

Ibytm - T minus 7 seconds

Masterpost - Previous Chapter - Next Chapter - ao3

Words: 3,964

Logan cracks his knuckles, his elbows propped on the arms of a chair near the middle of the presentation room. Across the table from him, Joy doodles absently in the margins of her notebook. Logan is pretty sure that if Cassidy weren’t there to subtly turn the page for her, the flowers and floating eyes would crawl off the pages and etch themselves into the surface of the table. Director Gazebo paces at the head of the room, smacking a remote against his palm and muttering under his breath. It’s been something like five minutes since he last successfully switched slides, and all delusions of focus and interest have completely melted away. Even Miss Katie-Lee, who was helping hand out papers and fill in pieces of information for the director, is playing something on her phone with vague disinterest. Logan wonders whether she might just fall asleep right where she stands.

Logan, on the other hand, absolutely cannot force himself to look disinterested in anything the director does, ever. Not with that meeting from a couple weeks ago still weighing on his mind. Instead, he does his best to look like he’s taking detailed notes in his pocket notebook, glancing around the room as if deep in thought. He takes careful stock every few seconds of the impossibly high number of important people in here. The absolutely quintessential ‘who’s who’ of this branch—Joy and Miss Katie-Lee, of course, but also Mx. Oatmeal, Cassidy and her independent focus advisor, the directors of the individual satellite branches floating nearby, those inexplicable people in nice suits that follow Director Gazebo everywhere, even the notoriously good-looking folks that are always sweeping in and out of Miss Katie-Lee’s office. Oh, and who could forget Roman?

Logan could.

Logan would love to do that, in fact.

He’s taken multiple steps to prove to the director just how much he wants this, despite how wrong it feels to be slacking off to improve—talking about non-work things with Cassidy and Alex, getting to know the fifth floor interns (even though they aren’t technically on the fifth floor anymore), helping those same interns with their work and genuinely enjoying it rather than it being revision out of obligation, even trying to be more open with Virgil about what’s going on inside his head. He hasn’t quite gotten the hang of that last one yet, but it’s not like the director ever sees him do it—or not do it, as the case usually tends to be. He tries, though. They both do.

The biggest risk—talking to Roman—is one he really isn’t looking forward to. He hasn’t even tried yet, actually. Probably explains why Roman is in the far back corner of the room, whispering with Alex.

Logan isn’t doing very well at pretending to be taking notes, in case that wasn’t obvious.

Finally, the remote in the director’s hand buzzes to life, shuffling the presentation to the last slide. Miss Katie-Lee moves next to him and peers over his shoulder, pointing at one of the buttons and nodding. A sigh of relief (or maybe it’s annoyance—Logan isn’t great at gauging that sort of thing) ripples through the room when the slideshow cycles back to the top, displaying a picture of a rocket preparing to launch.

The director gives Miss Katie-Lee a smile and nod before turning to address the room. “What craft was this?”

Logan doesn’t bother raising his hand, merely calling out the name in unison with the rest of the room. “Vanguard TV3.”

“And on what historic date did this craft fail two seconds after launch?”

“December sixth, nineteen fifty-seven.” It’s more of an automatic response on Logan’s part than a concentrated effort to access the trivia from its overflowing file tucked away in a secure corner of his mind. The director nods his approval and moves on to the next slide, and Logan is pretty sure the better part of his room-sweeping gaze centers on him. He sits up straighter.

“Good start, folks. Now, back to basics—roughly how long would it take for a spacecraft to reach the moon?” Wow, really back to basics. He wasn’t kidding.

“Three days.” Even Logan has to admit, it does sound just the slightest bit creepy, everyone answering in monotonous unison like this.

The director clicks over to the next slide, which proudly declares the words ‘speed round’ in times new roman. The font yanks Logan’s thoughts toward Roman without his consent, and he again thinks about how unjustly cold he’s been to the guy lately. Hardly a word between them, aside from the usual obligatory greetings. Maybe that ought to be his next risk, resolving that whole situation. Certainly one of the more unnerving ideas he’s entertained.

“Alright, everyone, speed round time. How many miles to the moon?”

“240,000.”

“In kilometers?”

The briefest of pauses. “386,400.”

“Largest crew aboard a spacecraft to date?”

“Eight.”

“Why do we want to minimize travel time for human astronauts?”

“Space has harmful radiation.” Okay, so that one wasn’t quite so perfectly in unison, and various other answers tried to break through, but the general idea does manage to echo around the room.

“Of the nearly two hundred planet-orbiting moons in our solar system, in which place is our moon with regards to size?”

“Fifth largest.”

“Latin word for its highlands?”

“Maria.”

“Meaning?”

“Seas.”

“How many nations have landed on the moon?”

“Three.” The word five also bounces around, but Logan is in the former party.

“Okay, who did it first?”

“The United States.” This, too, has a second answer making a valiant effort—Neil Armstrong, obviously. Again, Logan is in the former group.

“When?”

This one, interestingly enough, prompts two very distinct answers. One sizeable group, to which Logan is party, gives the predictable answer of July twentieth, nineteen sixty-nine, but one (much smaller) group says something incredibly different.

“Wow, I didn’t realize this very important meeting was just gonna be a history lesson.”

Not a valid nor correct answer, in case that wasn’t clear.

Logan, along with pretty much every other superior in the room, swivels in his seat to stare at Roman, who still leans against the wall at the far back of the room. Beside him, Alex looks like they’re doing everything they can to feign not having heard him.

Roman shrugs and raises his eyebrows, tilting his head toward the director. “It’s a valid question. Nobody in this room’s an idiot, we all passed our college courses, gen eds and otherwise, we all took the entrance exams, we’ve all done the work to get here. Not to step out of line or anything, but this is all grade school stuff. Seems kinda dumb to be quizzing us on stuff anyone with a working internet connection could figure out.”

Logan debates whether this would be a good time to work on one of those risks he’s been dealing with by striding to the back of the room and smacking Roman across the face. The director stiffens, but Logan can’t tell whether it’s agitation or impressed satisfaction.

“Does anyone else agree with Roman’s perspective?”

There’s a few quiet mumbles and the odd cough or sniffle, but no one speaks up. Logan flinches when the director’s eyes land on him, but again, there’s something behind those eyes he can’t trace. When the director doesn’t look away, the idea of screaming crosses Logan’s mind. Risk. Risk. You are not special simply for doing your job. You need to go above and beyond if you want to achieve the dream you claim you have, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary.

Logan clears his throat and raises his hand, and honest to god, the room falls silent. Even Joy’s scribbling pen halts. The director nods at him to speak, at the same moment that Logan finds his heart standing at the edge of a bottomless pit. It jumps over.

“He makes a good point.” The director lifts his chin, but says nothing. “We already know all of this information, given how easily we can answer it on a dime, and you’ve gathered up most of the higher profile people in this branch, not to mention the ones around it. It seems counterintuitive to waste their time with the basics when they could be working toward something more concrete, rather than an eighth grade science test review.” Logan literally bites his tongue when he closes his mouth, belatedly realizing he just told the literal head of his career that his meeting is a waste of Logan’s time. Too big of a risk, perhaps, but there’s certainly no taking it back now. He also belatedly realizes his arm is still in the air, so he yanks it down with his other hand.

There’s a beat of silence, where not even Joy dares look at Logan. Logan swallows and turns his eyes toward the ground, feeling Roman’s gaze burning daggers into his back. Does this count toward resolving the little spat he never bothered explaining to Roman? Hell, Roman might not even know Logan was mad—for all he’s been told, Logan just decided out of nowhere to start talking to the interns. Logan should’ve just kept with the mediocrity, should’ve stayed within arm’s reach of his safety net, should’ve learned to grit his teeth and bear it while Roman prattled on, completely oblivious to how much better he was than Logan.

“Roman and Logan,” the director finally says. “You two stay. Everyone else, you’re excused.”

The remaining people cannot possibly get out of the room fast enough. It’s concentrated chaos as they scramble to gather their respective belongings and rush the door, a bunch of space enthusiasts who would probably rather be on literal Neptune right now than in this room. Come to think of it, Neptune doesn’t sound too bad to Logan, either. He sinks back into his chair and wills himself to be smaller, wills Roman to ignore him and just stay—

Roman takes the seat directly beside Logan. “Thanks for the assist,” he says under his breath, elbowing Logan gently. Logan smiles weakly at his own fists, clenched tightly in his lap, and wonders if this is the last time these hands will be employed by NASA. Wondering if this is finally it, if the director has had enough of Logan’s pathetic attempts to take risks, has finally decided to do away with Logan entirely, to let him fade into obscurity as some guy who coded a coffee delivery app with a gimmicky name.

Director Gazebo stares long and hard at the both of them, and probably has been for a while now—not that Logan would know the difference, having only just looked up from his hands. There’s something behind the mask of calm in the director’s face, just like there always is, and just like always, it’s something Logan can’t quite comprehend, something he isn’t sure he wants to comprehend. When he opens his mouth, Logan’s heart finally finds itself at the bottom of that bottomless pit.

“Are either of you aware of how long it would take mankind to reach Neptune?”

An unexpected starting point, to be sure, but at least it’s something Logan is prepared for. “It took Voyager 2 about twelve years in the eighties.”

“Voyager 2 was unmanned,” Roman adds. “None of that extra weight for people or provisions, so that probably maybe definitely influenced that time.”

“Why?” Logan asks. It’s always been one of his favorite questions, to tell the truth. He wonders whether the director feels the same. Then he wonders whether the director realizes he means ‘why ask about Neptune,’ not ‘why would weight influence travel time.’ Then he wonders whether the director knows he wonders this.

“As only Voyager 2 has managed to make it that far—and beyond, in fact—there is still a good deal of things we’ve yet to learn from Neptune, like why it has such high winds, or why its magnetic field is offset, not to mention that there’s been another Great Dark Spot since the one in eighty-nine.” Okay, so at least it was clear what Logan was asking.

“I’m still not totally clear on why this matters,” Roman admits. Logan sighs quietly, relieved that someone in this room had the nerve to voice the general fears floating lazily through the air. “I mean, it’s got nothing to do with the moon, which is supposedly why you called the meeting, right?”

“It’s got everything to do with the moon,” the director corrects. He steps away from the projection screen and begins pacing the room, waving his hands about like frantic hummingbirds to emphasize his points—provided he actually makes any. “The moon is the closest celestial body to our planet, so everything with a greater distance than that can be expanded upon based on its relative distance and size compared to the moon. If we learned to walk with the moon, we can run with Mars, and we could fly with Neptune.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” Logan says, feeling like it’s been a little too long since he’s spoken up. Regardless, his words seem to roll off the director’s hunched shoulders as he continues pacing, unperturbed.

“Twelve years is a long time, not to mention the additional weight for the food and crew, and the emotional and mental tolls on the passengers and their families, as it would be a minimum twenty-five year round trip—that’s a quarter of what a layman considers his life span. But if we could cut that down, shave off a few years from either end, move from here to there as if we were taking but a single step…” The director trails off with his hands frozen in front of his face, fingers not quite touching, so stiff they almost tremble. “Imagine how much we could gain from that. Just—just imagine it.”

“Do you mean in terms of Einstein’s and Rosen’s theory of general relativity?” Logan’s voice is laced with disbelief. Einstein-Rosen bridges, wormholes, whatever you want to call them, it’s all theoretical, and all just the slightest bit terrifying. Two mouths at either end of an imaginary throat, from point A to point B in moments, microscopic and unstable. Just imagine it? Sure, just imagine the likelihood of the wormhole destabilising under the effect of exotic matters and spitting out the passengers to who knows where.

Logan, if you couldn’t tell, is not particularly fond of the idea of wormholes, much less black holes. His concerns are usually (to his relief) unfounded, since whoever is crazy enough to look for wormholes hasn’t been successful in their endeavours. Not yet.

“But that’s only assuming you actually can fold the space,” Roman protests, yanking Logan out of his own mind. Apparently they didn’t care to wait for Logan to process the absurdity of it all before continuing the conversation.

“But who says we can’t? ” Director Gazebo shoots back.

“Who said anything about we?” Roman’s voice is incredulous and maybe, just maybe, a little bit excited. Good excited or bad excited, though, Logan has no idea.

“Well, me, just now, for one.” The director starts pacing again, ticking off numbers on his fingers as he goes. “Katie-Lee also vouched for the idea, as well as some of the directors at the floater branches—most of them report to Kennedy, anyway, so I’m sitting pretty high and dry here, and they all went for the idea. Logan, any valuable input here?”

Logan blinks, not prepared to be included. Not yet. “I, um, no?” Then he wonders whether the director heard ‘I, um, no,’ or ‘I, um, know.’

“Well, you can hardly fault me for asking. I mean, after that presentation you gave, not to mention the increasing quality of your work lately, I assumed you’d be desperate to make your case for this mission.”

“What mission?”

Roman shoots Logan a look, and Logan wonders just how long he was tuned out of the conversation. Too long, apparently.

“Why, Mission Neptune, of course.” At that, Logan is viscerally reminded of the conductor from that time Virgil forced him to watch The Polar Express. The director, at least, doesn’t seem put off in the slightest by Logan’s mental absence. He whips out a pen and scrawls something on his forearm, mumbling under his breath, “We really need to come up with a better name for that.”

“I—you’re planning a mission to Neptune?” It’s not even worth it for Logan to try to keep the shock out of his voice.

Roman, miracle of miracles, recovers much quicker than Logan. Probably because he’s been paying attention. “Okay, cool, but why did you still say we? Why did you only keep me and Logan behind?”

“Logan and me,” Logan murmurs. At least if his basic conversational skills continue to fail him, he’ll always have ironclad grammar to fall back on. On which to fall back, whatever.

“You want to go into space, do you not?”

“Absolutely.” In sharp contrast with Logan’s immediacy and certainty is Roman’s loud silence. Logan gives him a quizzical look.

“I’m not saying I don’t,” Roman finally huffs, “but I’m not saying I do, either. There’s way too many things that could go wrong for this to be a spur of the moment hell yes type response, y’know?”

Logan tries very hard (by which he means a normal amount) not to look smug as the director stares at Roman in shock. So much for a guy who’s great because he broadens his horizons. As soon as the prideful thought crosses Logan’s mind, he shakes his head to get rid of it—tearing down his friend won’t do anything for his own career, much less his own humanity. Another, much scarier thought crosses Logan’s mind next: He just internally referred to Roman as his friend.

Logan really ought to start paying better attention when conversations are happening around him between very smart people who don’t think to wait for him to catch up.

“Just keep an eye on your inboxes, alright?” The director stops pacing at the door and tugs it open, gesturing for the two to take their leave.

“Give us a minute,” Roman says, remaining firmly in his seat. The director purses his lips and wrinkles his nose, but he does go, leaving the room blissfully empty in the absence of his commanding presence.

Roman turns to Logan and cocks his head to the side. “Alright, my dude, I’ve known you for basically a lifetime now.”

“Five years, max.”

“Same difference. Anyway, I’ve known you a while, yeah? So I know what your face looks like when you’re zoning out, ’cause you’ve got way too much going on up in that head of yours. How much do I need to fill you in on, so you aren’t totally out of your depth when Gazebo brings it up again?”

“A basic rundown would be stellar. I heard that he’s aiming for Neptune, and he’s trying to employ some Wrinkle in Time mechanics to do it. We haven’t even spotted a wormhole yet, Roman. Those things are so small, too, what is he thinking?”

“Probably that he should’ve had Katie-Lee give that promotion to someone who knows how to listen.” Roman laughs as he ducks to avoid Logan swatting at his head. “Hey, hey, this is neutral territory! Anyway, he said he was stuck on the moon stuff with his presentation ’cause he doesn’t want to go talking to the whole building and company and all about it, but he thinks he found a way to straight up manufacture a wormhole, and he wants to test that with an outwardly routine trip to the moon. Manufacture his demon wormhole or whatever, and if it works, great, and if not, well, it’s just the moon, so we won’t be too far, anyway. Doesn’t really add up that he’d call it Mission Neptune if he’s trying to hide it, but whatever.”

“And he told us this why?”

“Because I’m such a motor mouth that most people have learned to just tune me out by now, or assume I’m spouting total nonsense. You, on the other hand, he knows you’ve got your whole deal with that lifelong dream of getting off the planet or whatever, so obviously you wouldn’t go spreading the details, not at the risk of someone else taking your spot on the ship.”

“He told you all that?”

“Context clues. I’m very smart.”

Logan blows a puff of air through his nose and stares at his hands again, picturing them at the helm of a literal console in a literal rocketship on its way to literal Neptune. “Be pretty hard to cover up supplies for a mission to Neptune when you want it to look like a routine trip to the moon.”

“Why else would he hint at sending follow-up emails? Not to mention, if the wormhole situation shortens the trip, we wouldn’t need much more than a normal moon mission, anyway.” Roman scoots his chair closer and pushes his face right up into Logan’s. “You’re really off your game today, y’know that? Is it ’cause you suddenly decided to start talking to me again?”

“Something like that.” Logan checks his watch, weighing the merits of continuing to talk here versus returning to their desks. If nothing else, the director hasn’t returned to yell at them yet, so that’s something. Logan inhales a couple seconds longer than he needs to, blows it all out in one big breath, and explains to Roman the situation regarding his new risk-taking self. He even adds how, all along, Roman has been the true superior, much as it shreds Logan’s heart to say it. At least now Roman has proof that he’s as good as he thinks he is. What use is pride if left uncorroborated, right?

“Okay, well that’s dumb, so we’re not gonna talk about that nonsense garbage ever again,” Roman says, shaking his head. “I mean, really? Me better than you? Obviously I’m just socializing, and that definitely shows in the few papers where I’ve actually tried. He probably just wanted to push you over the edge so you would be more involved and engaged, more likely to help with his whole Neptune shebang.”

“That’s a good mission name,” Logan mumbles. He expertly ignores everything else Roman said. “Neptune Shebang.”

“No, it really isn’t. Do you even want to do it?”

“I mean, obviously I do, it’s all I’ve ever wanted, ever , but there’s still…” Logan lets his voice trail off, picturing Virgil’s face. Picturing Virgil sat on the couch in front of the television, watching Logan blast off the planet in a storm of fire and gasoline, leaving Virgil over two billion miles behind him, in the plain old Earth dust. “I don’t know. I used to know, but I think what I knew changed somewhere along the way.”

“Makes sense.” Roman pushes his hands against his knees and bounces to his feet, then crooks his elbow to the side. Logan accepts the gesture, rising with Roman’s assistance and following him to the door. “I mean, it’s not like you have to know if you’re going right this second. You don’t even know if you’ll get chosen for it. Maybe they switch around the requirements or knock down the capacity or something, and they just bump you out of the running because you’re needed on Earth or they’re afraid you have the measles or something. Hell, they could deny the mission request altogether. Whatever happens, you definitely don’t have to make any major decisions about it just yet.”

Logan nods to himself as the door clicks shut behind them. Eventually, he very well have to make that choice. But not yet.