#i have pretty much finished this minus the odd bits

[nova-moonlight]

𝘋𝘰𝘩𝘸𝘢 𝘉𝘢𝘦𝘬 𝘹 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦r

Blending into the background is an art form I’ve perfected. While some people seem to thrive on drama, I’ve learned that a quiet, unnoticed existence suits me just fine. In a world where everyone craves the spotlight, I find solace in being the invisible observer.

The classroom buzzed with the usual gossip. “That girl has no self-respect,” one voice sneered. “How can she forget—” Another started, but I’d heard enough. I slid my earbuds in, trying to shut out the whispers, but snippets of their conversation still sliced through. “Behavior… something… small.” It was relentless.

I let my head rest on my desk, eyes partially open, watching Su-ae from the corner of my vision. Honestly, I had to agree with the whispers. How could she stay with Minu, who was more like a distant shadow than a caring boyfriend?

Just as I was drifting into my own thoughts, a commotion nearby drew my attention. Eunhyuk, with his usual air of confidence, was gripping another student’s arm. What was going on? I didn’t care enough to investigate further and settled back into my pretense of sleep.

Being a ghost at school has its perks. I get to watch everyone without ever getting involved. It’s a peaceful existence that I’ve grown to appreciate. At home, though, it’s a different story. My family sees me, sometimes more than I’d like.

I have older twin brothers, Jin-ho and Jin-woo. They’re fiercely protective, though sometimes their way of showing it can be a bit rough. They’ll back me up if I’m in trouble but won’t hesitate to tease me if I step out of line. Despite their tough love, I cherish them deeply.

Our family setup is unconventional. My mom is a high-powered lawyer who brings in the bulk of the money, while my dad is the stay-at-home parent. We’re comfortably off but not rolling in riches, which is why I sought out my own job.

That’s how I ended up working at a nearby convenience store. I slip into my uniform, don my glasses—my trusty disguise—and become just another employee. No one here knows me as the quiet girl from school or the youngest child at home; I’m just me.

Early March

The convenience store is my sanctuary. I slipped into my uniform, feeling the familiar comfort of anonymity. The name tag is the only thing that marks me out here.

“Hey, can you stock the shelves?” my manager called out.

“On it,” I said, grabbing a box and heading to the aisles. Stocking shelves is a calming ritual, a contrast to the noise of my thoughts.

As I worked, a familiar face appeared in the store—Eunhyuk. It was odd to see him here; he didn’t seem like the type to frequent convenience stores. Ra-im was with him, browsing the drinks. I didn’t expect to run into either of them.

“Hey,” Eunhyuk said, catching me off guard. “You work here?”

“Yeah,” I replied, trying to keep my cool. “Looking for something?”

He shook his head. “Just grabbing a snack. Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Small world,” I muttered, turning back to my task. Eunhyuk lingered for a moment, his presence a curious anomaly in my otherwise mundane routine.

“You’re pretty quiet at school,” he remarked.

“Not much to say,” I replied. Why was he even talking to me?

He shrugged. “Fair enough. See you around.”

As he walked away, I couldn’t shake the flicker of curiosity. Eunhyuk is one of those students everyone knows about but doesn’t really interact with unless circumstances align. We’ve shared passing glances and distant nods, but our worlds never really intersected beyond these brief moments. I’m aware of his presence and his reputation, but our connection remains superficial, marked only by our occasional, minimal interactions.

I finished my shift, the encounter long gone from my mind. Home was a familiar chaos. My brothers greeted me with their usual mix of banter and affection.

“Hey, loser,” Jin-ho called out.

“Shut up,” I shot back, grinning despite myself. This was our way of showing we cared.

“Mom’s working late,” Jin-woo said. “Dad’s making dinner.”

“Great,” I replied, heading to the kitchen. My dad’s cooking was always a highlight of the day.

Sitting down for dinner, I felt a rare sense of contentment. Despite the complexities of life, I had a family that cared, a job that provided me with peace, and a quiet existence that was uniquely mine.

[fuxuannie]

↳ pairing : miles morales x g-neutral reader

↳ synopsis : a complicated crush

↳ authors note : theres someone named 'milestokilometers' (?) thats always in my notifs whenever i post miles and i find it really funny HAHAHA an old draft (like, i wrote this the day i watched atsv), wanted to get it out of the way

The first time you encounter the spider-boy was on a particularly stressful day. You just finished texting Miles that you needed a breather and wanted to hang ontop of your apartment rooftop for a few hours, just to clear your mind.

To your surprise, it seemed like the Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman coincidentally swung by your rooftop and needed a break too.

That sparked a rather.. interesting dynamic between the both of you. You were sort of taken aback on how fond Spiderman seemed of you, since he'd visit almost every other day.

For starters, hugs seemed to last far longer than they needed to when it came to you. You've seen his public appearances, how the exchange seemed to last a mere second with his fans. However with you, it lingers. It stays for almost two seconds longer and almost as if he's starved of such affection.

Secondly was the way he'd swing by at the most random and ungodly hours of the night to knock at your window and go; "I made you a playlist :)" while you just have to let him in and listen to the whole thing with him. You have no idea how he knows that you barely sleep either.

Thirdly is the way he'll always try to put a smile on your face. It'll always be your favorite thing whenever there's a silly thing going on and he looks at you to see if you saw it too, just so he'll see you laugh and laugh along with you.

And one of the more embarassing things to mention were the public appearances. You and Spiderman often went on hangouts, (he called them dates and you unintentionally friendzoned him) and even if you do your absolute best to avoid it, you'll always find paparazzi spotting the both of you. But even amidst the crowd, you can see how his attention is fixed on you. As if nothing could break his gaze if attempted.

You won't ever forget the time that Miles, your best friend and long term crush asked where you got the keychain on your bag from (which was a gift from Spiderman after he pointed at matching keychains and practically declared to everyone in the store he was buying it for you) and you answered: "Someone special to me." You noticed a bit of a glint or glow in his eyes, almost as if he was happy for you.. for some reason.

Though you did admit you found it a little strange.. your best friends sudden Q&A sessions about Spiderman, you mean.

"What do you think about Spiderman?"

"Pretty cool superhero, amiright?"

"His costume does NOT look like hes bleeding from his armpits, surely you'll agree?"

You find it odd but brush it off, at least you're done with class for the day and get to meet with the center topic of every question Miles has asked you today.

"Spiderman." Smiling as he swung onto your rooftop, he arrives on time with the same flashy landing. "(name)!" There he goes to practically tackle you into a hug, squeezing you tightly as you can see the joy in his eyes. "I know that it's only been a few minu- ahem. hours.. since we last saw each other, it's been so lonely!"

You raise a brow in amusement, chuckling a little at his antics. "Aren't you the Spiderman? I'm sure you have a lot of friends or fans who'd love to see you." You inquired but he shakes his head a little and sighs.

"Well yeah.. of course I do, but you're the one I wanna spend time with."

"..That's so unbelievably cheesy-"

"Shut up!" He demands, causing you to laugh at his almost instant embarassment. "You know, my best friend was asking so much about you.. I think he's your biggest fan." You add to the conversation, leaning against a safety fence as he chuckled. "Really? What gives you that idea?"

You huff and cross your arms. "Just.. weird questions. What I think of you, if you're cool and if your costume looked like you were bleeding out if your armpits."

"What did you answer?"

"I didn't answer any of them," You say with a huff, already feeling a headache coming in right after recalling that memory. "But I do think you're bleeding out of your armpits."

"RUDE."

It doesn't take a genius to tell he's unamused even under the mask, how his eyes looked spoke enough volumes. The iconic 'are you serious.' look was evident enough and it makes you giggle, giving him a light nudge. "I'm kiddinggg... kind of."

Spiderman chuckles and crosses his arms, looking at your fit of giggles and smiling softly under his mask. "Cute."

"I'm curious.. you talk about this friend of yours alot.. Miles, isn't it? What's he like?" He asks curiously, knowing damn well he just wants to hear what you say about him to other people. Was this the best way to do it? Not exactly, but curiosity kills the cat.. or whatever the saying is.

"Did I not tell you about him? Well.. he's a bit of a clutz.. rather clumsy at times, usually bumping into me or something.."

Miles was going to pretend he doesn't know the reason he does that is to just be able to be super close to you.

"Sometimes he's a little bit reckless, usually a very messy guy and leaves a mess whenever he goes over to my house.. However, despite all of that.. I really really like him."

What.

"You like m- Miles ???"

He watches you smile fondly at the sky. "Yeah. A lot."

If only you could see the face he's making under that mask, a mix of fluster and absolute joy at those words. You actually liked him. "Well.. what stops you from telling him?" Miles inquired, watching you sigh and bury your head into your hands. "And what? Get badly rejected and lose my best friend? Nah man.. I can't lose him, not like that."

"Hey, look at me."

He places his hands on your shoulders, making you look right at him as he gives you a reassuring squeeze. "You don't have to be so afraid, I don't think there's much to lose.. who knows? Maybe he feels the same."

You chuckle a little at the idea, completely clueless to how excited Miles was gonna be once he gets that text from you. "Thanks, Spiderman."

"You're welcome."

[and-i-like-youuu]

Queerness and I Want To Hold Your Hand

Lately, I've been thinking about the potential queer themes in I Want To Hold Your Hand. The only reason I started thinking about it was because of this quote I saw on one of amoralto's posts where John Lennon said:

"It’s a plus, it’s not a minus. The plus is that your best friend, also, can hold you without… I mean, I’m not a homosexual, or we could have had a homosexual relationship and maybe that would have satisfied it, with working with other male artists. [faltering] An artist – it’s more – it’s much better to be working with another artist of the same energy, and that’s why there’s always been Beatles or Marx Brothers or men, together. Because it’s alright for them to work together or whatever it is. It’s the same except that we sleep together, you know? I mean, not counting love and all the things on the side, just as a working relationship with her, it has all the benefits of working with another male artist and all the joint inspiration, and then we can hold hands too, right?"

— John Lennon, interview w/ Sandra Shevey. (1972)

There's so much to unpack from this quote, but I'm going to focus on the last bit of it which really caught my attention. Whilst talking about his creative and romantic relationship with Yoko, John consistently compared it to the kind of creative relationship he had with male artists and how his relationship with her was a lot like the relationships he had had with other male artists except that he was allowed to be in love with her.

If we deconstruct the quote and bullet point each of the qualities he listed as positives with his relationship with Yoko this is what we get:

"A best friend who can hold you without..." I don't want to speak for John or twist his words, but I think the word "fear" or "disgust" can fit very naturally at the end of that thought. And while he doesn't finish that thought, it's pretty clear where he was going with that because he cuts himself off by claiming "I mean, I'm not a homosexual."

"An artist – it’s more – it’s much better to be working with another artist of the same energy..." My take on the "same energy" means same wave-length or same creative chemistry. Or, his equal.

"It’s the same except that we sleep together, you know?" as opposed to him and other male artists.

"just as a working relationship with her, it has all the benefits of working with another male artist"

"Joint inspiration"

"And then we can hold hands too, right?"

If we take away any sense of pronouns and just look at the way John looks at the kind of creative/romantic partnership he valued so much, he placed a lot of emphasis on the creative energy of the relationship as well as the physical aspect of that kind of relationship. There's this sense that he has had a relationship a lot like the one he had with Yoko except that he had wanted a lot of romantic things he could not have because the other artist was male. But with Yoko, he could have it all because she’s a woman.

And that last bit where John said he could hold hands with Yoko struck me as a bit of an odd example to give, but then when I remembered I'm queer I was like OH.

Because, in the heteronormativity of back then, wouldn't a man and woman holding hands be okay? It would've just seem perfectly natural. But why would he have phrased it like a question: "And then we can hold hands too, right?" unless he had, at one point, thought of the alternative: holding hands with another man.

Just so it doesn't seem like I'm beating around the bush here, I think John was thinking about Paul in that entire quote. Which then leads me onto the song I Want To Hold Your Hand.

"We wrote a lot of stuff together, one-on-one, eyeball to eyeball. Like in ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, I remember when we got the chord that made the song. We were in Jane Asher’s house, downstairs in the cellar playing on the piano at the same time. And we had, ‘Oh you-u-u… got that something…’ And Paul hits this chord and I turn to him and say, ‘That’s it!’ I said, ‘Do that again!’ In those days, we really used to absolutely write like that – both playing into each other’s nose."

John Lennon, 1980 All We Are Saying, David Sheff

I included the above quote because it exemplified the kinds of qualities John liked in a creative/romantic partner. He didn't say it directly, but based off that quote you could tell John thought he and Paul had a lot of creative energy together, "We wrote a lot of stuff together, one-on-one, eyeball to eyeball." You could tell that songwriting with Paul was an incredibly intimate and special activity with him. And he emphasized their closeness again at the end of that quote when he said, "In those days, we really used to absolutely write like that---both playing into each other's nose." (Okay. They totally kissed ahfjkdhas I'm only joking...but am I?).

As I said, there's a sense of physical closeness to his description, but if you'll notice, there's no actual touching involved. Just a closeness that borders on an invasion of one’s space. "Eyeball-to-eyeball" and "into each other's noses." And then, the "one-on-one," this was something only they did with each other. All their focus on each other.

So, compared with the quote about Yoko about how John could have all that physical and open affection with her. I believe this quote exemplifies John's desire to have had more with Paul.

Okay, so I keep saying I'm going to talk about the song, and I am! But first, some context. I Want To Hold Your Hand was written in 1963; homosexuality remained illegal until 1967 in England. Given that backdrop, if John had had feelings for Paul he wouldn’t have been able to act on them even if he wanted to. Assuming, that is, he was aware of his feelings.

So, to the song!

This was a song both of them wrote together; therefore, it’s hard to say who wrote what lyrics, but I’d like to look at it with a queer lens.

If you look at the lyrics as a whole, there are no pronouns. The song is directed at “you.” Which, in general, is brilliant because it means it could be anyone. Fans could imagine it was them they were singing about or they could imagine someone they wanted to hold hands with too. And also when you think about how John and Paul wrote it “eyeball-to-eyeball” and “into each others noses” … well. It could very well be a confession disguised as a song.

The “let me hold your hand” is one or both of them asking for permission to hold hands. Given the backdrop of criminalized homosexuality, an act like that would’ve been considered “gross indecency” and punishable by law. And to sing that in front of millions? Everyone would’ve assumed they were singing about a vague/general “you,” but if John for instance had had Paul in mind, it would’ve been like asking him in front of the whole audience, the whole world, for permission to hold hands with him. Alongside that it also would’ve been like asking for the audience’s permission to do it as well, in a way. Because the only thing that stopped him from doing that or asking that, I’m sure, were the laws and the homophobia of the time. So, it very well could’ve been let me hold his hand.

The “I wanna hold your hand” is the same as the above except it’s a confession not a request. I want to do this, but the I cant goes unsaid. Which begs the question of why? If we look at it from a hetero perspective, the likely explanation would be “oh, because she doesn’t feel the same way” or “she doesn’t know his feelings” or whatever. But from a queer lens, well, we know why.

Given what John said about his thoughts about creative/romantic partners and how much he valued physical closeness, the lines “And when I touch you / I feel happy inside” serve as a reflection of that. Which I can’t help but recall when Paul said John told him:

So, with that lyric, the act of touch would’ve felt especially significant during that time especially since physical affection between men, even if it was platonic, would’ve been seen as taboo. But the “happy inside” is a private feeling, which is being confessed about in the song.

In queer literature, there are often themes of “hiding” to be found. So, I find the inclusion of the lyric “I can’t hide” very interesting. Because the song itself is the opposite of hiding, in a way. It was putting feelings out there without outing oneself.

In a nutshell, I believe I Want To Hold Your Hand is a veiled confessional love song with queer connotations.

[mistress-ofmagic]

Around the Realms in 80 days - Chapter 19

Pairing: Reader x Loki

Story summary: You have fallen through a portal during the convergence into Asgard and come face to face with Thor, and his brother Loki. With no way to return, you must travel with the two men and their hoard of asgardian soldiers to get back home. Things get from bad to worse when you have to share a tent with the god of mischief himself.

Notes: 'Ey up! Phew, this chapter felt strangely frustrating to write at times, it wasn't always doing what I wanted it to do! I know I promised the fire realm this chapter but the words sort of wanted to do their own thing instead! Also a lot of this is not proof read (very sorry for some inevitable grammar and spelling errors). Am I posting this now instead of waiting so I can claim I actually uploaded this month? Yes? Anyway I hope you enjoy the next chapter!

Read this story on a03!

find all parts to this story on Tumblr here

“Okay guys, get into your positions we’re going to have a practice of the elbow grip…”

You groaned inwardly, hating every second of your current predicament. 

T minus 1 day until your trip to the fire-realm, and Stark had decided to shove you into a corporate self-defence class to probably make himself feel better about sending you to your doom the very next day. 

Unfortunately, the rest of the avengers were not around today, out and about doing what you could only assume was top secret avenger business.

Which meant, of course, that no one was available to babysit Loki, so, in a classic move that completely coincided with your luck so far, Loki was joining you on the self-defence course. 

To be fair, Loki seemed to be enjoying this even less than you did, mumbling every so often under his breath about “idiotic mortals” and sending deathly looks at poor old Darren doing the training. 

Darren, in his defence, was a pretty formidable guy. You don’t get to be security for Stark for nothing mind you, but you doubted he had ever had to face an extremely pissed off Asgardian warrior god with a hatred for humans who would rather be doing literally anything else than a self-defence class. 

It was pretty demeaning, which is probably why Stark had rubbed his hands with glee like a cartoon villain when he had told Loki he was going to have to spend the best part of his day doing this. 

Loki had argued that he could just stay in his room or do some training of his own, but Stark insisted that because no one was around to check he wasn’t “coming up with a nefarious plan to take over the world” every now and then, he had to stay under your watchful eye. Loki had then glared at you like this was your fault, and had been in a foul mood all day.

While Loki sulked next to you and passed the odd comment about Darren’s defence methods, you were talking vigilant notes. If you had any hope in literal hell that you were going to survive this, it was better to follow Darrens suggestions. Lest you have another troll incident which you hoped to avoid at all costs. 

The rest of your group split up into twos to practice some of Darrens moves.

You got up and stretched.

“Okay, stand up.” 

“No.”

You had expected this response, but is still made you roll your eyes.  He continued to sprawl across the plastic chair, legs wide open and eyes dark as he stared at you, irritated and bored. 

“Come on, I want to practice on you.”

“You can’t give me commands, little mortal.” He leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. An intimidating look for someone who didn’t know him. 

You narrowed your eyes back as you stared down at him.

“Have you finished threatening me? I really want to practice and no one else will partner with you. Believe me, I asked.” You mumbled the last bit under your breath. 

“This is pointless.” He said, for the 18th time that morning.

“For you maybe!” You spoke as loud as you could without attracting too much attention from the rest of the group.

“For me though, this could be a matter of life and death! It’s okay for you lot, you’re all trained in this sort of shit! The most combat training I’ve had is fighting people off for the last profiteroles at the buffet table on New Years Eve!” 

“You do jabber on about such tosh.” 

You ignored him and continued, 

“I could literally die in the next few days Loki. And you’re not even going to give me this chance to at least try and learn some simple manoeuvres that could help me?” You sounded dangerously close to whiney. 

“Norns above, stop screeching.”  He sighed and, to your surprise, stood up. 

 “I could teach you far greater techniques than these to maim an opponent.”

“Well I haven’t got time to learn about taking over a planet today. Let’s just learn some of these helpful grips.” 

You took your placements in front of each other. God he was tall. You suddenly felt a bit nervous standing like this in front of each other. He was also looking at you rather menacingly which wasn’t helping. 

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like…you’re about to kill me.”

“Ah, if that were only possible.” He grinned at you.

You glared at him, unamused. 

“If someone is going to attack you they’re not going to be smiling and joyful.” 

“Well…okay, fine. Just…okay.” 

You looked at him, nervously.

“Are you going to get on with this?” He asked, exasperated. 

“Okay, I’m going to grab you by the elbow now.”

“Don’t announce to your assailant what you are going to do.”

‘I know that, I’m just warning you so you don’t freak out on me.”

You tried to picture in your mind what Darren had been telling you about the grips. If you hold onto someone between the elbow and bicep it’s going to be harder for them to swing at you. Bonus points if you could do it from a “four o’clock position” where they would have to twist in order to get you, giving you a couple of seconds to get away.

You stepped forward to grab ahold of just above his elbows, eyeing him suspiciously and not trusting he wouldn’t fight you back. 

“Well?” He raised an eyebrow.

You placed your hands tentatively on his (rather large) biceps and had to fight the embarrassing temptation not to squeeze them just to feel them under your hands. 

You cleared your throat and practiced the restraint. 

“Okay!” You smiled happily, getting a feel for how to do a simple restraint should it be needed. “Now let’s practice the other grips. You grip my wrists and i’ll get out of it.”  

He rolled his eyes but did what you suggested and took ahold of your wrists.  

When you realised you were basically holding hands with Loki of Asgard, your brain malfunctioned slightly. A sudden dizziness came over you and you felt like giggling like a school girl. Trying desperately not to concentrate on how his cool, slender fingers felt around your wrist you instead tried to focus on remembering how to get out of his hold. 

Unfortunately, the ridiculousness of the situation was taking ahold of you and you were feeling ready to give in to the fit of giggles threatening to overtake you. 

Loki frowned at you. 

“What has overcome you, girl?” 

“Nothing.” You cleared your throat and attempted to act like a serious person.  

You practiced swinging your arms back and twisting them, forcing him to let go of his grip on you. 

“That works!”  You looked up at him and smiled. 

For a brief second, you thought you saw Loki’s stern features soften slightly when you did so, but perhaps you imagined it. 

“I feel like you’re not gripping very hard.” You frowned. “Can you take a firmer gasp of my arm please?” 

Loki tutted, “If I take too strong of a hold, I’ll break your arm you silly chit.” 

“Well okay, don’t do that. Just make it a bit of a challenge for me so that it will be more realistic to when I face the enemies.” 

In a rare moment, Loki actually used your name “You’re not going to be going in and picking a fight with the fire demons.” His face twisted into a smile and you guessed he was imagining that scenario.

“That didn’t stop me from nearly ending up as a light snack for a troll last time.” 

“Look, I- Thor and the others will make sure you are unharmed. Just do what you do best, be observant and pick up on things the rest of them seem to miss about what is going on. There should hopefully be no need for you to engage in any combat.”

“Well I…” You shifted uncomfortably at his surprisingly kind words “I… could engage in combat if I wanted to.” You shot him a glare at the (correct) insinuation. 

“And a fierce warrior you would be, but the best form of defence is to not be in a compromising situation in the first place. Always take an opportunity to leave or hide, despite what idiots such as my brother may say, there is no honour in running headfirst in a battle you are going to loose if you have a chance to get away.”

You mulled on his words. Perhaps running away and hiding sounded much more your style anyway. 

Darren called everyone to listen again. He started talking about a more complex manoeuvre, how to get out if someone strangles you from behind. He demonstrated on a poor volunteer, showing how to pull their arms down, drop their weight and unravel themselves of the hold. 

Oh god, being held in a chokehold by the god of mischief felt a lot scarier than just getting out of grips. You gave a side glance to see how Loki was taking the news. His face gave nothing away. 

You couldn’t decide if he was going to relish the opportunity to strangle you or if he was going to be grossed out by being that close to you. Darren got you back into two’s to practice the move. 

“Okay listen, can you like be nice please? When you’re doing this?” 

Loki gave you a blank look.  

“Like when you, you know, strangle me, can you not actually strangle me please.”

Loki smirked and cocked an eyebrow salaciously.  

“Oh? You’d like that wouldn’t you?”

Embarrassingly, you felt your face heat up.

“N…no” You spluttered. “Stop being a perv and choke me.” 

“Never thought I’d hear you utter those words to me little mortal.” He continued to grin in an annoying way and got into position, wrapping his arm around your throat suspiciously quickly.

“Ugh. I think I prefer you threatening to kill me than flirting with me.” You lied out loud, hiding the strange feeling in your stomach that had started to arise. 

What was that feeling? 

Definitely not the time to be exploring it, so you pushed it deep down. 

You pushed his arm down from your neck, pushed your weight down slightly to try and put him off balance and span out of the hold quickly. The manoeuvre worked, you were able to spin out, but you doubted it would be that easy against an opponent who was actually trying to murder you. 

“Not bad.” Loki stated. 

You narrowed your eyes at him, “you’re being soft on me, which I know is what I asked you to do. I just feel like, in reality I’m not going to have a chance.” You said, sadly. 

“Absolutely not. Loki of Asgard is never soft.” He said, rigidly. 

“Did you just refer to yourself in the 3rd person?” You snorted. 

Before he had time to reply, Darren had called you back in. He demonstrated a few other techniques such as what to do if someone grabs your hair (lean into them rather than pulling away from them) or bites you (lean in and try and activate their gag reflex by pushing their face to your arm) but for obvious reasons you didn’t try and practice those with your partner. 

By the time the training was over, it was nearly dinner time and your stomach was starting to squeeze as the evening drew in; knowing that it wouldn’t be long until you were on your way to fire realm. 

As you made your way to the kitchen with Loki, he seemed to notice you were feeling worried. 

“Come, let us eat a hearty meal and get a good nights sleep to prepare for tomorrow. You have faced new ventures in the past and have always ended up fine. This is nothing that you haven’t already come across.”

You tried to shake yourself out of your slump.

“This is true. Nothing could be worse than coming across you.” You gave him a light, friendly bump to the arm as you walked next to him. 

Loki looked down at his arm and then you, giving you a strange look. By his stiff reaction, it seemed he was not used to playful shoves. Maybe that was an earth thing, you mused. 

“No, probably not.” He agreed with you, slowly. 

There was an awkward pause, and before you could open your mouth to explain you were bantering with him, Loki said, “excuse me.” And walked off in the other direction. 

“I was joking!” You called after him, but he didn’t look back.

“Bloody sensitive gods.” You muttered, making a mental note to remember that Loki might not always understand earth humour. 

Taking a deep breath, you headed to the kitchen alone. 

                                                                    ***

You stood at the strange, raised pattern on the ground where you had been thrown out when you had arrived back on earth through the Bifrost.  

The plan was to go back to Agard very briefly to meet the Asgardians joining you on your trip and then travel to the fire realm one one of their crafts. The Avengers were staying back, and continuing to look into the wormhole openings across Earth. You were pretty sure Natasha was on her way to Havana right now, while you prepared yourself to go to hell. 

Some people have all the luck. 

“Ready Latte?” Thor gave you a friendly clap on the shoulder that nearly bowled you over.

“Ready as I’ll ever be I suppose.” You sighed. 

Your phone buzzed in your pocket and you stole a quick glance. 

    Oliver: Hope your trip goes okay! Make sure you come back alive so we can check out more of New Yorks art ;) 

You smiled in spite of yourself and quickly formulated a response. 

   You: Wow, maybe now i’ll reconsider my decision to move in with the fire demons. 

You briefly caught Loki looking at you as you looked up from your phone and gave him a small smile which he barely returned. Since the incident after the course yesterday, you hadn’t spoke to him much; that evening he came in very late and then was up early again before you had chance to speak to him properly. What irritated you was that when he did speak, he was eerily polite but brief. He seemed distant somehow, and you were starting to think you preferred an outwardly annoyed Loki to a quiet and detached one. 

You looked up at Thor.

“So when are we setting off?” 

“Momentarily, just waiting for Stark to activate the - “

As he spoke, the pattern started admitting a blue glow, shooting straight up into the atmosphere. 

“Is this any good for the Earths ozone layer?” You asked, watching the tube of light hesitantly, knowing you were going to have to step into it and deal with the sea-sickness that accompanied travelling like that.

“Here we go!” Thor made like he was about to push you in again.

“Ah! Not this time, I’m going to enter it myself.” 

Thor chucked “As you wish my lady” and he stepped into the light. 

You thought you might be able to see him travel up the light, like being sucked up pneumatic tube, but in less than a blink of an eye he was gone. 

“You go next, I’ll follow you in.” Loki nodded at you.

“Okay.” You breathed. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath and stepped into the tunnel. 

It was just as awful as you remembered it to be, although this time you were prepared at least. You kept your eyes shut and concentrated not not being sick as you flew through the vortex. 

After what felt like a lot longer than it actually was, you arrived into Heimdall’s keep. Loki was quick to follow in behind you, but you didn’t pay too much attention, placing your hands on your knees and taking some deep breaths. 

“Does that ever get easier?” You choked. 

“Welcome back.” A deep voice spoke in front of you. 

You realised you were staring at a pair of brown boots, standing either side of a large silver point of a sword. You let your eyes draw up slowly as you stood to your height, following the ornate armour up to the golden eyes of the gatekeeper. 

You eyeballed him a little suspiciously, having never really felt you could trust the all seeing God ever since he seemed to refuse to come and pick you up and take you home when you first arrived. 

If you thought about it, really this whole thing was his fault, and you nearly opened your mouth to tell him so when - 

“Latte!” A joyful voice sounded from the entrance. 

“Fandral, Volstagg!” You grinned, happy to see your Asgardian pals.

You quickly walked towards them and Volstagg brought you into a bear hug that nearly squeezed the wind out of you, resulting in a very strange and unintentional yelp on your behalf.

Jesus, you had forgotten how accidentally rough the Asgardians could be.

Loki’s voice cut across the room. 

“Volstagg, you forget your strength, you are going to kill the mortal before we even arrive in Muspelhein.” 

Oh we’re back to “the mortal” are we? 

You turned to him, as he scowled at the scene before him. 

Loki did talk to you that night on the balcony about how being in Asgard was pretty difficult for him and he high key hated being there a lot of the time. All of three minuets had you been back in the realm and he was already resorting to his old tendencies. 

“Loki. Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” Fandral quipped. 

“Does he have to come along with us? Surely we’d be more effective without him.” Volstagg asked Thor.

You still felt kind of bad from touching a nerve yesterday, and you knew that being here probably sucked even more for him than it did for you. You considered sticking up for him but thought that it would piss him off more if a lowly mortal jumped to his defence, and might actually embarrass the guy. 

And there’s only so much sympathy you can harbour for someone who just called you “the mortal.” 

Loki rolled his eyes “Oh? You seem to be forgetting the countless times I saved you miserable cretins from certain death, usually by your own idiotic fault because you are all too impertinent to actually think about the danger of situations before you leap head first into them.” 

Before one of them could reply, Thor attempted to placate the situation.

“My friends, let us not forget Loki’s great wit which has helped us through many a battle. We are going to need all the brains we can to deal with Surtur.” Thors stated, grimly.  “Come, let’s not waste anymore time, we shouldn’t stay for too long lest face the wrath of my fathers temper.”  

Thor ushered you out onto rainbow road, but not before you snuck another glance at Heimdall who, disconcertingly, was looking at you back. 

“Ah!” Thor blocked your view of the Golden-eyed God and you looked round to see what he was exclaiming at. 

There were some horses waiting for your party, you assumed they were there to take you to the docks where you would then fly to the fire realm. 

“Can we Bifrost our way to the fire realm?” You asked. 

Fandral laughed uncertainly, “I have never heard the Bifrost be used as a verb.” 

You stared at him blankly. 

“But in any case, it is considered rude to blast our way into another realm, people tend not to take, er, too kindly to us showing up like that unannounced.”

“Not that that’s ever stoped us before.” Volstagg chortled. 

“Other realms have historically been rather touchy about Asgard having a way to travel through the realms so easily when they do not. It’s more polite to arrive through the proper way.” 

You supposed that made sense, it would be kind of annoying seeing another realm flash it’s fancy cool technology you couldn’t use every time it showed up. Sort of like seeing your annoying cousin turn up in their new car every Christmas. 

“Let’s move hastily.” Thor reminded you all again. 

Looking up, you quickly realised you were reminded about having to face riding horses again. Not a feat you had taken quickly to last time. In fact, you were pretty confident your horse riding days were over. 

“I can just walk.” You suggested, pulling a face at the huge beast that stood in front of you. 

Had you ever really thought about how much bigger these horses were compared to the horses on Earth?

Thor laughed heartily as he pulled himself up onto the horse. 

“Don’t worry my lady, you can ride with me.” Fandral winked at you as he offered you his hand. “We can catch up on our way over.” 

Fandral had a way of making even the most innocent things sound dirty. It was also weirdly comforting to see he was still back on his flirting bullshit. 

“There will be no catching up.” Loki stated, apparently already on his horse as he rode over to be slightly closer to you.  “The girl can ride with me. I would not want to subject her to your frivolous ways so early in our escapade.”

You considered referring to Loki as “the boy” but thought better of it incase he got his horse to kick you clean off the rainbow bridge and straight into space. 

“I really could just walk.” You shuffled not wanting to embarrass yourself as you tried to get up.

“Nonsense.” 

Having gotten a little bit closer with Loki, and spending a lot of time bickering with him, often made you forget how strong he really was; that he really was an Asgardian God capable of things beyond your imagination. 

But times like this, when he reached down with one hand and pulled you up and in front of him on the horse, you remembered his true strength. 

“Holy shit.” You grabbed onto something to steady yourself after the ground had just disappeared from under your feet. 

Realising too late you had, in fact, grabbed onto Loki’s knees, you let go as if you had dropped a hot potato. 

Loki snorted under his breath at you. 

“Shut up, you know I hate it when you do things like that.” You muttered back.

It felt strange, sitting like this on a horse with Loki again. As your party rode up to the top of the rainbow bridge (far, far faster than you would have liked) you realised you were rather happy you were riding with Loki, rather than Fandral. 

An odd change, given that the last time you were here and had to share a horse with the god behind you, you would rather have been literally anywhere else. You felt more relaxed this time, like you could even lean back against him. You didn’t though, of course. 

It didn’t take long to make your way up the bridge and towards the docks, where around 4 other Asgardian soldiers where there to greet you. You recognised the lady, the one that had come in and shouted at Loki for cutting her hair off once.

“Are we a bit thin on numbers?” You asked Loki behind you.

“Best not to go into Muspelhein with too many people, they will think we are coming to attack.”

“Sif! Hogun!” Thor jumped down from his horse in a very cool, swift movement that would have inevitable ended with you falling on your face if you attempted it. 

“We should leave.” The man Thor had identified has Hogun spoke. 

Loki leapt down from behind you as you started at the floor, looking forward to your descent even less than getting on the bloody thing.

 “Need some help?’ Loki shot you a shit-eating grin. 

You glared at him but nodded. 

He gave you a hand to help yourself down, which was quite a considerable jump.

“Very gallant of you.” You snarked. 

“I’m always gallant.” 

“I see why they call you the God of lies.”

Loki chucked lightly and you felt your heart soar. This was the friendliest he had been all day.

Mortified at the feeling you quickly distracted yourself by looking at your new method of transport, a sort of space-ship thing.

Without having much to go on with your limited experience of spaceships, this one seemed fairly small, and from what you could see if the inside, probably wouldn’t fit any more people than you had in your party, which was just as well. It was a silver/gray on the outside, and had some steps leading up to the seating area inside and you could just make out what you presumed to be the control area at the front. 

You followed Thor onto the ship and instantly felt drawn to the large glass front of the space craft, allowing you to see out into the space in front of you. 

“This is so…strange, it’s like I’m playing an arcade game or something.” You spoke out loud to yourself.

You blinked heavily a couple of times, as if you were trying to orient yourself to the surrealism of the current situation. Without thinking you looked around to remark about how strange this all was, before remembering that this was completely normal to your present company. A pang of loneliness hit you briefly, remembering how difficult it was to relate to most of the current people in your life. 

Sighing you took a place in the seating area of the ship, as Hogan stood at the controls. Once everyone was on, the steps rose back up into the ships floor and a metal sheath lowered to seal you in. 

Loki sat himself down next to you but you barley noticed, trying to take everything in. 

“Do you have the stone?” 

“Hm?” You didn’t comprehend his words. 

Loki tutted. “The stone I gave you, do you have it?”

“Uh, yeah.” You reached into your pocket and found it still sitting there. You pretty much always had it on you.

“Good.” Loki sighed, and sat back in his seat. 

You however, stayed on edge listening carefully to the clanking of metal as the ship started to set off. 

“Woah…” You whispered more to yourself, as you watched the stars pass by the window at the front of the ship. 

You stole a quick look at Loki next to you, and to your surprise you found him looking back at you, as if he had been watching you.

He blinked at you, rather ungracefully for Loki, and looked upwards.

You smirked to yourself, knowing that you had caught him out, but the satisfaction was only short lived as you took a deep breath, preparing yourself for the next part of your adventure. 

A/N: Woo! What did you think? All of your comments mean the world to me and are keeping me going as I struggle with gallbladder attacks rn!

Taglist:

@creationsbyme  @kikster606  @slytherinintj13  @th0rswh0res  @huntress-artemiss  @jannieka394 @stefffrs  @misswimberly @thedistractedagglomeration  @yoongissidebitchh  @purplekitten30 @mischief2sarawr  @johnmurphys-sass 

@lonadane  @imalovernotahater @lokisgoodgirl  @laliceee @dlwrish  @paetonnn  @lovelysizzlingbluebird @reas-writing 

[tacroyy]

god im going through my diana wynne jones archive notes and apologies to all the howls moving castle fans out there bc here's the sum total of what i wrote for the hmc& sequels boxes:

DWJ 02 01 01 01 ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ & ‘Howl minus by Miriam’

Not utterly sure whose edits these are. But they’re relatively illuminating. The manuscript looks pretty finished; mainly phrasings are being changed. It’s odd, all of the edits seem really obvious, like they we meant to be, idk. Earlier edit excising mention of Fanny from a description of Sophie being alone in the hatshop.

DWJ 02 01 01 02 ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ setting copy ts

Very cool—I think this is the editor’s official version. Description of all the fonts being used. It’s falling apart a bit, so it’s all in silver pages. Difficult to handle. Not too much to get out of it; I’m not incredibly interested in HMC. So, skipping right by. I read a bit of it, but I’m not too sure how distracted to get.

DWJ 02 01 02 01 ‘Castle in the Air’ Typescript

No edits. Just the typescript. Interesting—such thin paper. Missing some pages at the beginning, about six. Doesn’t look discernibly different from book form, but I don’t have it utterly memorized.

DWJ 02 01 02 02 ‘Castle in the Air’ proof pages

Definitely legit proofs—format is perfectly as is in book, with font and all. No edits. Moving on to another box.

[iheartgod175]

Olivier Coyote

I’m still working on the Zula Patrol stuff, but I got hit with some major, MAJOR ideas for stuff regarding Blazin’ Trails again—specifically, the prequel series, Terror of the Rio Grande, which stars Ricochet’s great-grandfather as the main protagonist. This is his deputy, Olivier Coyote, who is Droop-a-Long’s great-grandfather and his best friend.

Olivier, unlike Droop, had a pretty tragic upbringing—born into slavery, he spent seven years of his life without having a name (a practice done to show ownership), and bounced from cruel master to cruel master, many of whom were prey animals like Ricochet I. Despite the horrors he suffered, he still had hope that he would escape, and if not, then he’d die a free man. He almost went through with it when he attempted to escape being sold to another master, only to be beaten half to death. Ricochet I stumbled upon the scene, drove away and arrested the purchasers, and treated the coyote himself when no other doctor wanted to treat him. Olivier would be wary of Ricochet I at first, but the rabbit’s actions when the purchasers came to finish the job convinced him that he was a rabbit of his word. After being hired on as his deputy, the pair went on many adventures together, forming a strong bond in a time where predator/prey friendships (or any kind of relationships) were outright illegal. Basically, they were the “unbreakable pair” before Ricochet and Droop-a-Long.

I can’t share TOO much of his history since it’ll spoil things, but sadly, Olivier dies near the end of the series, courtesy of Red Scorpion. Ricochet I avenges him, but the loss of his best friend is one that haunted him until his dying day, and he regarded it as the greatest failure of his career. Olivier’s death also resulted in the Rabbit and Coyote families losing contact with each other for decades, only reuniting years later due to Ricochet and Droop-a-Long becoming the “unbreakable pair” of their day.

His personality is somewhat lax like Droop’s, but he’s a bit more optimistic, and considering how he lived, it’s amazing he even has an ounce of optimism. He’s also sharper than his great-grandson (who’s occasionally slow on the uptake but can come back with biting wit) in both wit and weaponry. Appearance-wise, I decided to go for an actual “natural” color for him rather than an odd color like Droopy. BT Redux explains that Droop’s fur color is due to his mother’s family having odd mutations that result in bright, technicolor fur patterns, whereas his father’s family all have natural fur colors befitting their species. It’s somewhat the same with Ricochet’s family—Grandpa Ric (whom I’ll draw later) is one of the few in the family with a black fur pattern due to Reece’s family, and Ric’s yellow sclera comes from his mother Regina’s side.

Finally coming up with a design for Olivier was so much fun ^^ And I originally wasn’t gonna do a background, but it felt empty without it, so I decided, “aw what the heck” and did it anyway. It looks nice! I got to break out my awesome markers again and I gotta say, I might be using these again in the future ^^

I also realized he looks a lot like Han Solo, minus the attitude. LOL XD

Enjoy!

[fyrefrostanimus]

Anyone who was watching me post remember that little meme I made about making a FNaF crossover AU because I noticed some characters were similar? Yeah that wasn't a joke, I actually have a bit of a plan now.

I feel like the first thing I should really do is quickly explain the other inspiration of the crossover. It's called Scary Stories for Young Foxes, written by Christian McKay Heidicker. To avoid spoilers if anyone wants to read it first, I'll place this below a cut. There's also a basic rundown of the AU story later which doesn't include detailed descriptions of gore, but is pretty dark as far as I've gotten.

Scary Stories for Young Foxes is a collection of interconnected stories in the same universe of sentient foxes, with small sections in-between where the storyteller (who is indeed a character) finishes a story and sees that one of the kits she is telling the stories to has run away in fear. She tells tales about rabies, a story that somehow turns Beatrix Potter writing things like Peter Rabbit into a horrifying situation, and, suspiciously enough, a nigh-unkillable and murderous father figure trying to end his son's life.

So you see why I chose the fox book of all things now, right?

The only things I could see as needing a TW are

The main character of the AU is Evan (Crying Child if you don't know that's one of the fanon names of his), and it pretty much starts out like normal FNaF minus the fact that everyone's a fox person. Yes, the fox person aspect is important and you'll see why later. Michael sets up some prank involving an animatronic like what caused the Bite, but it's not Fredbear and it's not involving its mouth. I have no idea what/who the animatronic would be, or what exactly happens in the way the prank was planned, but let's just say Mike realized at the last second this could actually kill Evan and takes the blow for him instead (death by bleeding out, represented by a snake on the drawing as the death swap was inspired by an event in one of the stories in the book). He's left shaken from this, partially because his brother nearly killed him, and partially because Mike died instead.

What really confuses him is his father's lack of reaction to Michael's death. Despite how much Evan was devastated, nothing much changed at home. Elizabeth (who you may note is 7 years old) hasn't changed at all. It's like he's the only one who misses Michael in the whole house. Something doesn't seem right about not getting scared from around corners.

It stays like that for a few months until Elizabeth starts acting odd. Evan starts locking his door as soon as she begins glaring at him, and he refused to open his door for anyone if Elizabeth was nearby. He's tried to bring it up to his father, but he's not doing anything about it. Not even when she starts getting aggressive.

That's right folks, Elizabeth got rabies.

This ends up being too much for Evan, and he starts running off to stat with Henry and Charlie, where he actually feels safe. Henry sends him back home the first few times, until he realizes Evan is actively in danger back at home and lets him stay. At least until Elizabeth dies from her sickness and it's safe again.

William is absolutely disgusted with the fact that Evan refused to stay home and be with Elizabeth when she had a fatal disease, even if that disease could be passed on to him if he stayed home. Upon finding out that Henry was letting him stay with them, Charlie gets murdered, kicking off William's child murder spree. The others happen when he begins experimenting to bring Elizabeth back.

From this point on I don't have much on the AU, but I'll try to think about this.

[elendiliel]

Gone

(I split this chunk of series up a bit differently compared to the original; it just made more sense this way. This fic is mostly "Minus One" from Glitch's perspective, but strays into "Persuasion" at the end.)

---

Two pairs of servos, one bronze, small and delicate, almost organic in their construction, the other steel grey, larger but just as dexterous, far more clearly mechanical, worked together as though guided by a single mind to reconstruct a fifth servo as best they could. The prosthetic, a replacement for Ultra Magnus’ right hand, lost in a battle with a Predacon, combined Autobot alloy from two different universes – as much of the original as could be retrieved, supplemented by some of the stock sheets Glitch always had in her repair kit – with both Cybertronian and human technology. The mixture might have been called symbolic, but to the medics and engineer who had built the device the choice of materials was entirely practical. It was simply what had been – pun unintended but still regretted – to hand.

As the rest of Team Prime, even the human children, looked on, Ratchet finished connecting the new servo to Magnus’ arm. “We’ve done everything we can,” he reported at last, “considering the limitations of our equipment and less than ideal spare parts.” Glitch thought he was selling himself short. The prosthetic wasn’t pretty, but it did have five digits, though not quite as much articulation as the original. They’d even managed to integrate some of the sensors salvaged from the old servo, which might help Magnus adjust to his new circumstances. Hopefully.

Monitoring her patient as he came out of stasis, she only half-listened as Ratchet continued briefing Prime (and was reassured by him), and as Arcee checked on Wheeljack, who had survived the same battle with all his parts still attached, and clearly hadn’t forgiven himself yet. Which meant she wasn’t fast enough to head Smokescreen off before he compared Magnus’ new servo to what passed for Bumblebee’s voicebox, infuriating the scout. Glitch had picked up the audial code he used only piecemeal, and didn’t understand everything he told the semi-rookie, but that was probably a good thing. She got the gist, though.

“Not tactful,” she informed Smokescreen with an authority born of much trial and too many errors as Bumblebee stormed off. “And this is just a first draft. I have every intention of refining it, if that’s what Magnus wants, once we have better materials. Could even be an opportunity for an upgrade.” Her smile was faintly tinged with homesickness, as it often was when her thoughts wandered to her own reality. “One of the best field-techs back home, Red Alert, lost her left arm to a Decepticon trap in the war. Had it replaced with a Transfer Interlink, which is both a scanner and any surgical tool she needs, made of hard light. Very useful.” Her sense of humour hadn’t been that easy to restore, according to one of her teammates, Ironhide, an old friend of Glitch’s.

“No doubt,” Ultra Magnus put in, having woken up moments before. “But I would prefer something closer to the original.” He examined his new servo, flexing the digits, starting to explore the limits of its sensor network. “This will do, for now. You did well.”

Glitch blushed furiously, knowing that Magnus was always sparing with praise. “Ratchet did more than half the work, and Wheeljack helped with the design. How does it feel?”

“Odd.” He turned it over a couple of times, studying it intently. “But… I could get used to it. I must, if I am to continue to fight alongside you.” Of course that was his priority.

“I don’t think Ratchet will let you do that for a while,” she warned him. She was proved right when, some time later, Agent Fowler alerted the rest of the team to an ongoing Decepticon raid, the second that solar-cycle, and Ultra Magnus’ immediate reaction was, “Let’s roll.”

“Ep, ep!” Ratchet objected. “Your ability to roll remains predicated upon further exploration of your manual dexterity.”

Ultra Magnus looked to Glitch for support, but found none. “I’m sorry, but I’m with Ratchet on this. Going into battle with an untested weapon is a good way to get someone killed, and that someone could well be you.”

Magnus still didn’t want to back down – good commanders made terrible patients, Glitch thought, almost as bad as medics – until Prime intervened. “I’m afraid Ratchet’s authority supersedes my own in medical matters.”

Even Ultra Magnus couldn’t argue with that. Nor could Wheeljack, though he clearly wanted to do so. Glitch’s spark went out to the grounded Wrecker commander as the rest of the Autobots headed for the groundbridge, and one digit traced the scar on her upper chestplate, a reminder of a near-death experience at the servos of a rogue ‘Con. For decacycles afterwards, she had been confined to base, and literally climbing the walls by the end. (Well, those bulbs had needed replacing, and Optimus had put her on light duties.) Every time her team went out on patrol, part of her had been convinced one of them would come back wounded or not at all. Only throwing herself into research or her favourite hobby, music, had kept those thoughts at bay. But she didn’t have time to tell Magnus any of that; there were Decepticons to fight. Without him.

One Decepticon, as it turned out. As the Autobots drove through the bridge, another opened for the Vehicon raiding party, probably courtesy of Soundwave, their air support. Not even Bumblebee could have caught them in time. From her position at the back of the Autobot formation, beside ‘Cee, Glitch heard Soundwave and his drone Laserbeak approach from behind, but Prime barely needed her warning. Before anybot else could react, he had transformed and engaged first the Mini-‘Con, then its master, sending the latter crashing into a power line and into stasis. He’d be fine, though, Glitch reassured herself as Prime called for a groundbridge and the appropriate precautions. Tough beggar, that ‘Con. Well, he was a former gladiator. That didn’t bode well for any attempts to wrangle information out of him, but they had to try.

And try they did. Prime and Soundwave between them taxed everyone’s patience as the master of words sought to persuade the voiceless, faceless spymaster to cooperate, and the Decepticon only replied with a remix of his interrogator’s questions and a flipping emoji. Even an emotional plea combined with the threat of torture didn’t break Soundwave; instead, he unleashed a sonic attack that nearly incapacitated almost all his captors.

Almost all. Glitch knew that Soundwave lived up to his name in both that universe and hers; the one in her reality had used sonic trickery to hypnotise an entire city and control a team of Autobots. So, as she kept an optic on the prisoner’s wellbeing, she had turned her audials’ sensitivity to minimum, a precaution that had paid off. While her teammates tried to shut out the audio assault, she responded with a low-level, painless electromagnetic pulse from Ratchet’s equipment – enough to stun Soundwave for a few nanokliks, but keep him conscious. They still needed information from him.

“Thank you.” Prime sounded as shaken as Glitch had ever heard him. No wonder; he’d been closest to Soundwave, and hit hardest by the attack. That might have been part of the reason Ratchet demanded that they open Soundwave up and take what they needed from his hard drive directly.

Before either Prime or Glitch could object on ethical grounds, Soundwave took the decision out of their servos. Cybertronian text began to scroll across his visor, but instead of downloading data, as Bulkhead thought, he was erasing it. Very efficiently. Moments later, his visor went black, apart from an oscilloscope trace, and a chillingly familiar voice declared, “Soundwave superior; Autobots inferior.”

Some things don’t change, Glitch thought even as Soundwave powered down. As Ratchet said, he’d crashed his own drives to prevent the Autobots learning anything from them. Talk about commitment.

“Nuts and bolts,” she half-cursed, examining the damage. “I was hoping I could restore his memory core from his internal backups, but important parts of them are missing. Inside Laserbeak, I bet. Sound strategy – pun neither intended nor regretted.”

“Do you remember any of the data he displayed?” Prime asked, almost drowning out Smokescreen remarking that her attitude was “cold”. (Maybe it was, but that was how she was built.)

“Enough to tell us that Soundwave has a sense of humour after all, and knows more about human popular culture than I thought. That was the first page of a famous children's novel.” The first Harry Potter book, to be exact.

“Hm.” Rather than dive into the fathomless depths of Earth culture, Prime strode off to consult with Ultra Magnus, leaving her to try to bring Soundwave back online.

She was still trying a megacycle later when Agent Fowler reported another break-in – at a research institute at the South Pole. Once again, Ultra Magnus considered himself ready to roll out; once again, Ratchet objected, but that time Wheeljack stuck up for his commander. The fight with the Predacon had solidified the Wreckers’ previously shaky relationship into one as strong as Decepticon alloy, and Glitch for one was glad of that.

“They’re right,” she said when Ratchet appealed to her. “Magnus has been practising with that hand practically non-stop all day. And if we don’t let him go, we’ll have a stir-crazy Wrecker on our servos.”

Ratchet caved in and stalked away. As Prime assigned Bulkhead and Smokescreen to guard duty, Glitch commented to Arcee that, “at least we’re going somewhere nice and cool.”

“Speak for yourself,” ‘Cee replied. “I’ve ended up in the Arctic too many times for comfort. Nearly died the first time.” Glitch remembered then that Cybertronians of that reality didn’t handle extreme cold well. She was rather more tolerant to it; heat was her enemy. Nevada was almost too warm for her.

“When you visit my universe, steer clear of Blitzwing. Decepticon Triple Changer with three personalities, three faces and more loose screws than a hardware store. One of his personae, Icy, favours his jet mode and a hyperfrost emitter, and another, Random, can use either that or a tank and superheater cannon. The third, Hothead, just prefers the tank and cannon.” She grinned as she remembered something her Bee had told her. “It’s possible to insult him into switching from Icy to Hothead, and therefore from jet to tank. Particularly effective when he’s in midair. Tanks don’t usually fly very well.” Arcee was still laughing when they arrived at their destination and saw the damage the ‘Cons had already done.

Glitch paid little attention to Prime’s conversation with Ratchet, who had realised that Megatron might be trying to rebuild the Omega Lock and cyberform both Earth and Cybertron (though she agreed with Prime; the Decepticons could not be allowed to threaten a living planet). She was too busy watching the party’s rear. ‘Con raiding parties often had air support; that one, it turned out, had a Predacon.

Magnificent, she thought as the winged giant swept towards them, silhouetted against the full moon. Unfortunately, he was also justifiably furious – Magnus and Wheeljack had recently destroyed a squadron of young Predacon clones – and very dangerous. Her magnetic shield barely held back his flames, and he easily dodged Prime’s attempts to shoot him down. As he swept back towards them, ready for another attack, Prime ordered the rest of the party to keep going while he, their only flier, dealt with the Predacon. Glitch saw the logic in his decision, and wished she didn’t.

Up until she heard movement in the next corridor, and signalled the others to wait while she sent a hologram of herself on ahead. When a trigger-happy Vehicon tried to shoot it in the head, they knew they were in for a fight. As Wheeljack remarked, they had been expected.

One of the Wrecker’s grenades shortened the battle dramatically; Glitch was pleased to see that he and Ultra Magnus had become as close in the field as they had been back at base, Wheeljack having asked permission to deploy the explosive automatically and not ironically, though the loss of life still pained her. The sooner the final bugs were removed from her and Wheeljack’s latest joint invention, the better.

More Vehicons were waiting for them further on, along with Shockwave, the Decepticons’ chief scientist. While the rest of the raiding party dealt with the foot soldiers and secured their objective – the particle collider needed to power the Omega Lock – Magnus engaged the tank mech in servo-to-servo combat, trading barbs about Magnus’ prosthetic and Shockwave’s single optic that made even the outspoken field-tech wince. (Although she would love to know how Shockwave had any depth perception with only one optic sensor.)

Magnus fought well, especially considering his servo situation and lack of his signature weapon (the Forge of Solus Prime, also broken by the Predacon and not yet repaired), but Shockwave still managed to buy himself enough time and space to aim his blaster mod at the Wrecker commander. (He was in no position to comment about missing servos; one of his had been replaced by a cannon.) Before he could fire, however, a laser scalpel severed the blaster’s power cable with surgical precision.

“Mind if I cut in?” Glitch asked from behind Shockwave. While Magnus could probably handle Shockwave by himself, the rest of the team could definitely cope with the Vehicons without her; helping the commander was, as their foe would say, logical.

“Not at all.” Magnus might be six metres taller than her, but the pun still went right over his head. He and she still made a good team, though; Shockwave was well and truly beaten by the time Arcee dispatched the last Vehicon and reported that the objective was secure.

“Now might be a fine time for surrender,” Ultra Magnus told the bleeding, sparking Decepticon.

“A logical assumption,” Shockwave somehow managed to get to his peds, “were it not for…”

The Predacon. It – he – crashed through the roof, setting Glitch’s spark humming with fear for Prime as much as for her other friends in the nanokliks before he threw her into a wall, hard enough to dent both it and her, made equally short work of the others and took off with the particle collider and Shockwave. The Autobots were in no fit state to pursue him, or otherwise do more than make their way outside to meet up with Prime – battered, but still functioning – and call for a groundbridge.

Only to find that that solar-cycle could, in fact, get worse. Ratchet didn’t answer Arcee’s comm; Bulkhead did, sounding a little out of it. When asked where the medic had got to, all the green Wrecker could say was, “He’s… he’s gone.”

[a-friend-of-mara]

Fuck you I got bored of waiting ima start writing and you can't stop me

Good soldiers follow orders and you, well your job was to lead a group consisting of yourself and six of the meanest fucker uppers in your company on a black op with almost no odds that any of you would make it back out alive.

The mission? Oh that was simple, infiltrate an enemy compound rescue [REDACTED] and their kid and bring them to [REDACTED] the hard part was that once the alarm was raised the compound has so many gaurds that the only safe extraction method was the same way you got there, an underground tube system that used to be used for sending important packages between installations that hadn't been used in more than two decades. With any luck it'd still work.

You asked why not a helicopter for exfil, that one was shot down pretty fast because the insurgents managed to "tactically aquire" anti air missles

Your commander told you that each pod could carry a lot of weight, his assistant, an analyst who's job it is to know this stuff corrected that each pod can hold up to 1500 pounds bit only in theory due to them only having as much internal space as the trunk of a mid size sedan meaning that exhilarating the vip and their offspring would take the first pod by themselves. The worse news was that there was only one line left running because the return line had been damaged from an earthquake years back so you and your squad would have to wait almost ten minutes for the pod to come back.

The even worse news was that only one of you could fit each trip because during a firefight you wouldn't have time to drop your gear and even if you did you'd need to break someone's leg to be able to get two people in because your squad of genetically modified soldiers are all six feet or taller.

Knowing that the odds of you all making it out was almost zero you said you'd only lead the mission if you'd be the last to leave... nobody objected.

You suited up and the mission was going well, minus the few gaurds with some extra ventilation in their armor. You and your squad managed to get the vips to the exfil point, loaded them in and sent them off.

At this exact moment, during the longest ten minute wait of your life a hostile came around the corner, one of your squadmates ended their subscription to living but... the alarm went off

During the inseuing firefight you fought bravely

Even when your shields started failing you still drew fire from your squad

Unfortunately during your efforts to make sure that everyone you were leading would see their families agian you took a kinetic lancer round when your shields were down

The impact hit you like a truck

That was the last thing you remember

Right now you seem distinctly... not dead in fact you feel weightless

Wait... no you're just in a healing pod

You try to signal to the medic that you're awake but when you try to move you arms they don't respond

They're still there and you can feel them but they feel... odd

It must be some new medi gel formula... what else could make your whole body feel this different yet familiar.

The medic notices that you're awake... wait isn't this place a little barren and has too many mechanical parts for being a normal medbay? Do you need a new arm? The medic grabs a whiteboard and writes something on it, flipping it around it says two words

"I'm sorry"

What? Why would they say that og ll things? Why wouldn't they just say it instead of writing it? What are they sorry for?

While you were busy overthinking the apologies of a medical professional they wheeled a large mirror in front of you, in which you see your reflection

But it's not you... well it is you because it moves its head when you do but that's

That's

Ight breaking the fourth wall here

It's 3:10 am

I'm going to sleep

Remind me to finish this tomorrow

Good-night loves

[marieskey]

Well I had started writing but I didn't save bc u was on the phone oh well. Sex was fire I'm not waking up horny this time. Lol. I can't masturbate anymore. Okay well I can but I won't cum. He broke me lmao. We can literally never actually be together but he want me. He gave me a foot/leg massage. He had been offering because my foot was hurting. He put my socks back on so nicely with thought and care. Last time I was there, he fixed my blanket. That too was with thought and care lol. I found the draft! But I'm just going to stay here. He thought I wanted him to cum in me, but less talk about it. I said you're trying to feel me up before I go. And he said you want me to fill you up are you on Birthcontrol? Do you want kids, no you dont want kids bc you take take of kids? Then at one point he says yeah let the kids know. (at that point in like wtf) I what do you think I just said to you????

He was like to cum inside you. I said no I don't want kids has nothing to do with me taking care of kids all day. No you can not cum in me. If you fuck around and get me pregnant I'd be pissed. I did not say I don't want to be attached to you forever. Stopped myself. From that point on I repeatedly said you cannot cum inside me. CANNOT cum inside me. Bc listen no.

Before we actually started fucking there was a conversation about how he was always going to fuck, given the massage and food. The massage made me so wet he could fucked right then. A whole episode happened before he fucked. He was very indirect about the anal. I honestly thought he was going to say he wanted me to peg him. Which is why people need to just go head and tell me. Well before the big reveal I told him he could fuck me however wanted to fuck me. Minus the ass that was true. He bit my neck and nipples. He also choked me lightly. He put his fingers in my mouth for me. I personally think that is stupid but I sucked on them. I'm legit not horny. He stuck it in pretty much everytime I wanted him to. I told him how much I wanted him. 🙄🙄🙄🙄 asked him if he's missed me 😂😂😂 he said yeah. It had been too long. Keep telling me how good my pussy was. Think that was bc I told him he doesn't cum. Which is both good and bad. Like if he's not coming he's not getting me pregnant. But if how much fun is he having if he's not coming. Think his nut has been more intense than it usually is bc he like me more than he'd like to admit. I like him too. He's the only person. I would layup with after sex. Everyone wants me to stay 😭😭😭😭 doing a horrible job at “get that dick and go” but I don't really call him so there's that 😭😭😭. But really everyone has wanted me to stay I've always left. This nigga implies he wants me to stay I stay. Although in my defence the one time he said he wanted me to stay I left. That was mostly bc of my doctors appointment tho. I guess next time I'm not going to pretend I'm not staying when I am.

Morning sex is fire. I've been missing out not staying the night. 😭😭 so do I really like the nigga or do I like the morning sex. One could argue both. For some odd reason I don't feel the need to recount every detail of the encounter. It was good. Ima go back. I even slept a bit this time. Although I wonder about the cleanliness of the sheets/pillow. He ate me until I tapped out. I came thought he was done so I went to move. He looked up and said I'm not done. His roommate probably hears me coming. I'm really glad I haven't seen him since Jeff and I started having sex. I can't. The good news is I can probably still watch Physical 100. We didn't finish the episode. 🤣

Last thoughts, I'm glad I never fucked him in college. I would not have been able to handle it. He would have fucked me like that 10 years ago and I would've been dickmatized it would've been awful. I have less feelings for him in that way. Like I wanted to be his girlfriend. Today, he could get me pregnant and i’d be like we not together. I asked him while he was fucking me, legs in the air he's thrusting inside me, if he'd care if I was fucking someone else. He didn't answer, asked me if I wanted him go care. (wtf kind of answer is that). Had asked me if I care if he was fucking someone else. Told him were not together just fucking but he'd have to use a condom. He said okay🤷‍♂️ that's truly the extent of my care. He cannot fuck me raw and be fucking someone else. We barely kiss as it is, but we probably wouldn't do that much. Bc he'd probably eat her ass and pussy too so id be good. He shouldn't be fucking me raw but here we are toying with being parents lol. There was a point, when he was fucking, that u considered letting him fuck me in the ass. Only for two seconds tho. Snapped out of that quick. 😂

[grand-admiral-asshat]

TAGGED!

Three Lines from a WIP: MEME!

I’m writing something now so the timing is perfect xD tagged by my wonderful friend and the coolest Zabrak fan I know, @arwenkenobi48 <3

Anywho, to surprise you with some Prometheus/Alien work I have been doing lately (I know you may have been expecting Star Wars xD)

1.  The mere notion of them triggers a sharp intake of air.  He breathes, despite his lack of lungs.  Each breath is short and soundless.  A result of his human-esque design.  This sudden breath inward was a reaction not by design but of reflex. Humans, for the most part, disgust him. They’re a flawed species.  David has known it since his first day of life. 2. “I…  I can’t answer that, David.”  

It’s already more than the first time he asked.  That time, all she had done was give him an astonished stare (she never expected a synthetic to question that sort of thing.  Then again, David is no ordinary synthetic) which caused him to feel embarrassed, apologise for asking, and walk out of the room.  

As she anticipates, he looks suitably thwarted, mouthing an “oh…” 3. He looks up quickly.  One more glimpse at her face.  One more glimpse at Elizabeth – his Elizabeth.  He’ll always consider her his.She hasn’t stirred once.  Even now, with his hands on her throat, she doesn’t even flinch.

“I hope your God is kind to you, Elizabeth.  You are the finest of all his creations.”

And like that, not even a heartbeat later, it’s over. David unhooks the cross from her neck, and places it around his own.  It dangles elegantly.  

I will be tagging @darthbiscuits, @sleepyysalamiri and @khara-chan but it’s totally open to everyone!

[sublimecatgalaxy]

I don't know if this is planned out well but maybe ash gets bullied at school bc fez didn't come to his eight grade graduation because he needed to help Lexi and then they have an argument when fez comes home?

I like this a lot! I hope it's what you were thinking of, the pov is a little odd but I tried my best! This isn't completely proofread cuz I have a terrible headache.

I'm sorry again for not posting, I should have been and I'm sorry. I hope this is good.

Ash always thought that he had a fair life.

He was born into drugs and violence but was also born into a job, a lifetime job where he could kick ass and take names beside his favorite person in his whole world. He was always safe, even if he was in unfavorable environments, he never got terribly injured other than a broken arm when he was three and that one time where he ate to many pot brownies (which he did not know were pot) and threw up all over the inside of his grandma's car.

But he was happy and he got to do whatever he wanted.

Minus one thing; he never really got to do well in school because his mind was always elsewhere and the adults around him didn't really care too much. That is until Lexi came into the picture.

He'd be lying if he said that he wasn't the slightest bit jealous when Fez started to spend all of his time texting and talking with the young, bright girl. But once Ash met her and actually sat down to get to know her, he began to understand why Fezco loved her as much as he did. She was special and inspirational and a little bit insane.

But when finding out that Ash didn't attend school or when he did, he failed, she was really mad at everyone involved; especially Fezco.

Fez didn't go to school as much as he should and ended up failing out at the ripe age of sixteen. But he was met with support from his grandma and never really saw the importance behind finishing school. The same attitude applied to Ash when he didn't do very well early on in school so he didn't push the kid to go.

Trying to fix family trauma and poor life choices, Lexi immediately made it her job to enroll Ash back in school and get him tested to see where he lies in the academic timeline. She stayed late to help him study for the test and helped him catch up in places where he was lacking like history and english. He didn't struggle much in math and science since his job since birth really revolved around the two subjects.

He ended up passing the test and it was calculated that he fell around the seventh grade mark. It matched his age pretty well so he didn't feel like he would stick out like a sore thumb, but he didn't really know how to socialize with people his age without corrupting them with his ways of life.

But he did well.

Better than Fez or him could've possibly imagined.

He passed seventh grade with an 85% and even got an award for being the most improved at their award ceremony at the end of the year. Lexi and Fez were there front row, along with Rue, and they cheered and clapped and made him feel appreciated in a way that he never felt before. He was finally doing something that he was supposed to and he was doing good too. He was talking to people his age and making friends, getting out in the world in a safe way, doing normal pre-teen things with other appropriate, safe people.

He was beyond proud of himself and it changed his whole outlook on the world and where he thought he was going in the world. Just because Fez wanted to deal drugs and be a stoner for the rest of his life, it doesn't mean that Ash had to do the same thing with his life.

And he didn't want to be Fez, even though he loved and looked up to him more than anyone.

By the time eighth grade came and went, Ash was increasingly more nervous about his middle school graduation, knowing that he would soon have to enter high school but also that he had to walk across a stage that looks out over hundreds of people.

It scared him more than he could put into words but he would never tell anyone, not even Lexi even with how supportive she was about everything that had come before.

When he started to think of people to invite to his graduation, his mind immediately went to his main three people; Lexi, Fezco and Rue.

Rue would be there without a doubt cuz she never has anything better to do, so he could check her off the list.

Lexi had promised him, the minute she found out about the graduation, that she would get Fez dressed up enough to go out and sit there in the audience to cheer for him and Ash tried to put the anxiety and worry out of his mind the minute she promised him that. Lexi never broke her promises.

But she did.

He never realized the repercussions that would come following his graduation when only Rue stood up to cheer for him. He didn't have his phone on him so he didn't see the missed calls and missed text messages that came from both Fez and Lexi, explaining that they couldn't make it because Lexi and Cassie had a full blown fight and that Lexi needed to go to the ER.

Ash was angry, sure, but at first his disappointment was covered by his worry for Lexi. The anger and fury that came later stemmed from the bullying and nagging that he was getting from the other students following graduation, teasing him for not having parents, teasing him for not having parents, for not having anyone.

He kept it on the down low, not wanting to make Fez or Lexi feel bad.

Until Fez asked him if he was excited for high school.

"You think I'm the slightest bit excited to go into another four fucking years of school only for you not to show up?" Ash asks as cool as he can, his eyes slitting as he stares at Fez, shocked that he even would ask him that.

"Man, who put a stick up your ass-"

"You! And Lex!" He yells, his face reddening with anger as he remembers and feels the humiliation he felt the day of graduation. "When Rue stood up and you weren't fucking there, I was worried- fucking worried." He laughs bitterly, looking down at his fists that are clenched in his lap.

"I don't know why you're so angry dude." Fez huffs, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed firmly in front of him, head shaking in confusion. Ash can feel the tears rising in his eyes, frustrated and angry at Fez's obliviousness.

"The amount of shit I got from the other kids there, kids who had their parents, their grandparents- hell, their fucking fourth cousins." He sniffles, rubbing his hands down his face as he blows out a breath and Fez lets out a quiet sigh of realization. "I get that you were there for Lexi but..." He trails off, looking up at his brother with wide eyes, practically breaking Fez's heart as he approaches his younger brother.

"But I shoulda been there for you." Fez mutters, reaching forward to place his hands on his brothers shoulders, pulling him into a tight hug as Ash cracks a bit, a tear sliding down his cheek as Fez pats his back reassuringly.

"Yeah- fuck." Ash laughs tearily, gripping the back of his brothers shirt as his shoulders relax a bit, happy to finally have his frustrations out in the air. "I'm sorry."

"Stop fuckin' apologizing. It's on me."

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o- Taglist: @bubblebuttwade @rafelover2405 @leslienjazzy @sorceresss @grxnde-dwt @alex–awesome–22 @bunnietoof @niyamar1e @serialghost @plantlungs @geniusohn @akaliltimmytim @lilaalouuxx @xshariex @elliotsbeigeguitar @elle4404 @lelieja @srhxpci @joselyn001 @taysirene @spinkspanther @thedivineuphoria @peter-maximoffs @tsukishimawhore @poohkie90 @szlaco @distantsighs @nstyles4299 @wolflover384 @givemefoodandlovesstuff @vane2828 @yeswhatever33 @amirrahfranson @vvaalleennttiinna @f-mu @yaspillz @jeyramarie @skylievin@abbybarnes17 @jointherebellion215 @visiondaddy @steezysimfinds @its-ya-gay-boi-luigi

@crunchytoenailsyum@glizzymcguirex @beth123lg @melovesmut @rafecameronswhore @ariianelle @write-from-the-heart @vampviolets@haylee-e@popehaywardssecretgf @honee-chai-tea @lokiandbuckywife @smoke-and-fire @officiallyunofficialperson@heyaitsklaudia@rosepetalsparks @bluetreecloud20 @scenesofobx @double-shot-of-tequila @1dluver13xx @colbysbrocks @iamasimpingh0e @smoke-and-fire386 @loveshineslikethesky @id-3-kbro @diorsitgirl @errorfound101-allideasburnedout @neverwillknowme18 @ellyskey @taylors-folk @loversjoy @myaloveee @thyris-is @lagataprrr @aaaaslaaaan @minjix @luvrosee @storytellingwitht

[bluejayblueskies]

Hi!! I’m looking into bookbinding, specifically ficbinding- contemplating getting into it, not committing yet bc i know have a history of researching, investing in, then abandoning hobbies. Right now tho im still in the research phase, and I’m wondering how it went when you bound It Will Be This, Always - thats on my list of fics i want to bind (has made me cry more than once) and id like to know the size of the paper and font you used, so i can estimate how much hypothetical supplies id need to replicate it for myself 👀 also any tips you might have for someone totally new!! thanks for your time, have a great day :)

hey!! i love seeing more people get into bookbinding--it's such a fun and rewarding hobby, and one of the best things about it is how versatile it is. there are people who have lots of specialist equipment and get really invested in the materials, there are people who work with what they have around the house, and there are people (like me) who are somewhere in between.

resources and commentary under the cut!

first off, here are some helpful resources for getting started out:

How to Make A Book, by ArmoredSuperHeavy

Sea Lemon's video about how to make a casebound book (she has a lot of other good videos too if you go poking around that are excellent for beginners)

DAS bookbinding videos (a bit more complex but good for research purposes and incredibly detailed)

A reference guide for a wide variety of different types of binding

Casing in a textblock - this is the method I use for casing in and it works pretty well!

Free icons to use when typesetting

Join the renegade discord! You don't have to have bound any books at all to join, and there's a ton of super helpful info and resources in there.

you can pretty easily do a pamphlet-bound notebook using some copy paper, a piece of cover paper, and staples if you want to start small and work your way up. (i did not do this haha, but i've seen a lot of other people do it and they can be pretty nice first projects!)

for it will be this, always specifically, i did a half-bound case-bound book, which means there's three separate pieces of bookcloth--one for the spine and two for each cover board. that kind of binding is detailed in armoredsuperheavy's tutorial from start to finish, which is pretty much what i used (minus the 'sewing with tapes' part because you don't really need to for smaller books).

in terms of equipment that i used for iwbta (which is a case bound book), the main things were:

an awl, for punching holes in the signatures (household alternative: a thumbtack or a strong needle with some sort of cushion on the end, like an eraser)

a bonefolder, for creasing the pages (you can also easily just use the back of your thumbnail, a credit card, or any other thing that will crease the pages crisply without damaging them)

pva glue, for gluing the spine, the cover, and attaching the textblock to the cover (household alternative: elmer's glue. it won't last as long but is good for just starting out and is easier to find at craft stores)

gluebrush/paintbrush, for applying glue (you can use one of those foam ones in a pinch, but something with bristles generally works better in my experience)

ruler + pencil, for measuring

needle and thread, for sewing the signatures (you can use regular sewing needle and sewing thread [doubled up for more strength], or you can use waxed thread. i personally have a block of beeswax [purchased for ~$4 from a farmer's market near me] that i use to wax embroidery thread for large books and regular sewing thread for small books)

paper (i used 8.5 x 11 hammermill 20lb cream colored paper, but you can also use just regular copy paper. the difference is that bright white paper can look blue in books, but honestly, i've never noticed anything odd about it, and i definitely have some published books that use bright white paper. the one caveat for this is that 8.5 x 11 paper is long grain and usually you want short grain paper for bookbinding, but i honestly wouldn't worry about this at all unless you decide to really go all-in on bookbinding)

bookpress, for pressing your pages and keep everything flat and together (household alternative: a few heavy books work, or you can use C clamps and thin boards)

printer + ink (or a printing service like Staples)

bookboard, for the covers. this is essentially chipboard, which you can find at local craft stores. you can also cannibalize an old textbook/binder for the stiff boards there, or use thinner cardboard in a pinch (i used some sheets of thin cardboard for my very first book). those cheap thin painting canvases also work well but can be a bit on the thick side. for the spine, thin cardboard is definitely the way to go (i usually use bits of old sparkling water boxes)

exacto knife or boxcutter, for cutting things (i can't think of a good household alternative to this--you'll want something that you can use in conjunction with a ruler so you can cut things straight)

bookcloth and/or decorative paper, for covering. bookcloth is basically fabric with a paper backing on it. you can make your own using heat and bond, tissue paper, and fabric, but for just starting out, you can also just use either a thicker fabric that glue won't soak through or cover the whole thing with paper. i've seen people cover their first book(s) with paper bags or other things they just had lying around!

i have a few pics of some of my early supplies here if you'd like to take a look!

for the typeset, i actually don't mind sharing it if you want to use it as reference (or just use it in general)! you can find a PDF and a copy of the word doc here!

the fonts i used were Garamond for the body and a Andragogy for the title/author/chapter titles. i've actually shifted to using Perpetua for my body font lately because i'm not fond of Garamond's italics--you can play around with serif fonts and see what you like best though! that's a lot of the fun of it <3

and here are some tips i have for people just starting out:

when typesetting, you're going to want to pick a page size for your document that aligns with the size of one page of your book (eg. if you're printing on letter-sized paper and doing a full-size book, half-letter or 5.5 x 8.5 is what you're looking for) and then use this imposer to put your document in the correct form for printing. esp. if you use word don't use word's built-in booklet settings--this is much easier and more flexible

do a blank notebook first using cheaper materials to catch any mistakes

do test prints of your typesets on cheap paper to make sure everything looks the way you want it (esp. colors and gradients, which look different when printed, and printer skew, where the front and the back won't always line up quite correctly)

there are a lot of videos out there about how to do things!! if the ones i've linked don't work for you, you can shop around through youtube until you find one that does.

it can be really easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer amount of information that comes up when you research bookbinding, so the best thing i find to remember is that a) there are many different ways to do this and while some ways may last longer than others or make more archival-quality books, ultimately, pick the way that you enjoy the most, and b) there are so many tools very few of which you actually need, so tbh you can ignore most people who try to tell you that you absolutely must have [xyz] piece of equipment

i hope this was helpful!! i've absorbed a lot of stuff since i started binding (and continue to absorb a lot of stuff, mainly from the renegade server) and there's a lot to learn, but it really can be as simple or as complex as you make it 💜

[topazy]

Unspoken lies

Paring: John Murphy/reader, Clarke Griffin sister x reader

Chapter: 1.02

Warnings: swearing, mentions of violence

You wake up to a pain in your stomach as your stomach growls in pain. With a groan, you finish the small pack of rations you have. A handful of nuts wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.

You slowly made your way towards the gates of camp to wait on Clarke. She couldn’t have been far away. Lost in your own world, you didn’t realise someone was behind you until you felt something smacking against your backside.

You spun quickly to face a grinning boy and spat, “Did you just grab my ass?”

“What if I did?” he shrugged.

“Pig!”

“God,” he scoffed. “You need to lighten-“

Before he had a chance to finish his sentence, your fist connected with his nose. “Touch me again, and I will rip your hands off!”

You turn to storm away when you meet a pair of brown eyes watching you. A smug smile was pulling on Bellamy’s lips; “not bad. What’s your name?”

Your eyes scanned his bare-toned, topless chest. Bellmay knew you were watching and began to flex. You rolled your eyes, “Lavina.”

A half-dressed brunette and a redhead excitedly exited the tent behind him. Both of them shot you a dirty look, as Bellamy continued to stare at you, and not even look back at them. “Woman of Rome. Pretty.” A blush began to creep up your face, making him breath out a laugh. “It’s rude to stare.”

"I need to go," you said, before quickly walking away.

Maybe it was because you grew up in a cell, with very little interaction with other people minus the guards, or the odd visit from your ‘family’, but you couldn’t understand the way others were acting. All these teenagers throwing themselves at each other, you just didn’t see the fun in that. You turned a corner to see Wells arguing with another boy before Bellamy appeared beside them.

"This is home now. Your father’s rules no longer apply." He snatched the clothes from the boy's hand, causing him to lunge at Bellamy, but the other boys stopped him. Bellamy motions for him to let Wells go. “You want it back? Take it.”

After glaring at each other, Wells threw the clothes to the ground, causing others to run forward and take what they could. “Is this what you want? Chaos?”

Bellamy grinned at him. “What’s wrong with a little chaos?”

Stupid men. A loud screaming noise rips through the camp. You take off running in that direction. You're disgusted to see Murphy holding a petrified girl over the fire.

"Bellamy! Check it out." He calls out. "We want the Ark to think that the ground is killing us, right? Figure it’ll look better if we suffer a little bit first.”

You quickly shove Murphy back, causing him and the girl to land on the ground with a thud. You extend your hand to help the girl up, while Murphy gives you a murderous glare.

Wells turns to face Bellamy. "You can stop this."

"Stop this?" Bellamy smirks, "I’m just getting started."

Before you know what’s happening, Murphy brushes aside you before charging at Wells. His fist connects with Wells' face, then the fight escalates from there. The two boys continued to punch each other until a bloodied Murphy pulled out a makeshift knife and Bellamy intervened. For a moment, you thought he was going to stop the madness, but instead he handed Wells a knife to make it a ‘fair fight.’

You shake your head, “idiots.”

Bellamy turns to you and says, "Not a fan of fighting?"

"You’re really going to let them kill each other?"

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “According to what I've heard, he's the reason your dad got floated, and I thought you'd want him dead.”You stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he was bluffing or not. “Oh shit, you didn’t know, did you?”

You blink away the tears that threaten to spill from your eyes. You’d always thought your father was killed because of you. Clearing your throat, you turned back to face the ongoing fight. "I don’t care what happens to Wells. But what about the likes of them?" You pointed towards the group of boys who had been living up Bellamy's ass since you landed. “What happens when all the wells are gone? Who are they going to fight then?”

Bellamy shoots you a dirty look, but you shrug it off. Wells gets Murphy into a chokehold and holds the knife to his throat. “Wells! Let him go now!”

Clarke reappears in the camp, as a guy named Monty helps Bellamy’s sister, who’s limping. It takes only a few seconds for you to realise they are empty-handed. "Where’s the food?"

"We didn’t make it to Mount Weather."

You step closer to her, "What happened?"

Clarke looks at you with a worried expression. "We were attacked."

"By what? Animals?"

Finn’s voice answers first, "Not what. Who? It turns out, when the last man from the ground died on the Ark, he wasn’t the last Grounder.”

“It’s true. Everything we thought we knew about the ground is wrong.” Clarke talks louder as more people gather around her. “There are people here, survivors. The good news is that it means we can survive. Radiation won’t kill us."

"Back up," you were confused. “If the radiation doesn’t kill us, the people living here might?"

Clarke said nothing, but nodded.

Wells stepped forward. "Where’s the kid with the goggles?"

“Jasper was hit. They took him.” Clarke’s eyes fell to his arms. “Where’s your wristband?”

You let out a scoff, “ask Bellamy.”

“How many?” She asks.

“Twenty-four and counting.” Murphy answers smugly, before looking at you. “Soon to be twenty-five.”

Clarke shook her head, furious. “You idiots. Life support on the Ark is failing. That’s why they brought us down here. They need to know the ground is survivable again, and we need their help against whoever is out there. If you take off your wristbands, you’re not just killing them. You’re killing us!”

You stepped back from your sister, feeling like you’d been punched in the gut.

Bellamy glared at Clarke before turning to face the gathering crowd. “We’re stronger than you think. Don’t listen to her. She’s one of the privileged. If they come down, she’ll have it good. How many of you can say the same? We can take care of ourselves. That wristband on your arm? It makes you a prisoner. We are not prisoners anymore! They say they’ll forgive your crimes. I say you’re not criminals! You’re fighters and survivors! The Grounders should worry about us!”

The others yell in agreement, but you can’t pull your eyes away from your sister, who was trying to avoid your gaze. Within the last ten minutes, you’d found out two things: the ark was failing, and everyone on it would most likely die, and Wells had somehow caused your father's death. Not you.

Clarke stepped towards Bellamy and spoke in a hushed voice. "I hear you have a gun." He looks down and lifts the edge of his shirt to reveal the gun in his waistband. "Good. Follow me."

Bellmay stays in the same spot, “and why would I do that?”

“Because you want them to follow you, and right now, they’re thinking only one of us is scared.”

Bellamy reluctantly agrees to help look for the injured boy. You share a soft smile with Octavia before following Clarke. "I’m going as well."

She let out a sigh, "I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Lav. It’s dangerous when-"

“When what? You can’t fully hear?”

She gives you a sympathetic look.

You scoffed, “don’t worry sis, I’ll watch my own back. I always do.”

—

“So you're the sister, huh?” You looked to your left to see a boy smiling widely at you. “So, who’s older? You or Clarke?”

“Clarke,” you answered. “She’s two years older than me.”

“I’d never heard of siblings on the ark, and now we have two sets of them on earth. It’s crazy,” he remarked. “I’m Finn, by the way.”

"I know," you replied, with a smile. “I’ve seen you talking to Clarke. So do you think Jasper is alive?”

He let out a sigh, “I hope so. He saved Octavia.”

“I hope so too,” you replied.

Finn speeds up to catch up with Clarke, as she waits for him impatiently, leaving you to walk alone. Bellamy and Wells walked together in front of you and seemed to be in some kind of hushed conversation. You liked walking alone because it meant silence without distraction. Well, it did, until Murphy caught up with you.

“I heard you threatened to cut Connors' hands off and punched him in the face. Why?” He asked.

“Because he’s a pig,” you frowned. “Doing whatever the hell you want doesn’t extend to harassing women.”

The amused look on Murphy's face fell away, and was replaced with a scowl. “What did he do?”

“He grabbed my ass,” you shrugged. You waited for Murphy to say it wasn’t a big deal, or that you’d been dramatic, but surprisingly, he didn’t. You felt uncomfortable as his eyes lingered on your collarbone. “What are you staring at?”

“Nothing,” he tutted. “Why haven’t you taken your wristband off? Don’t tell me you care about the ark.”

“I don’t...” you paused before answering. “Honestly, I don’t want to give you jackasses the satisfaction.”

A sly grin spread across his face, “then take it off yourself.”

You thought about it for a moment. Who would care if you were dead? Your mom? You open your mouth to reply, but close it when you see Clarke emerging from the bushes with Finn. They stopped walking as she looked around, “Do you hear that?”

You were confused; you couldn’t hear anything. Murphy leaned in close to you and said, “Someone’s crying out in pain.”

“Jasper. Oh, my God!” Clarke takes off in the opposite direction, towards a large clearing of grass.

You all take off after her, and as she gets closer to a tree, you can see Jasper tied to it. Oh my god. He was alive. Your sister starts to disappear among the long grass, letting out a cry for help.

“Clarke!” You screamed out.

You and Bellmay both lunged forward at the same time, grabbing hold of a wrist each. “Bellamy, help me!” You snapped. He glanced at you without saying anything. Finn, and Murphy both appeared and helped you pull Clarke up. After landing on the grass with a thud, you sat panting for a moment before breaking the silence. “We need to get him down.”

Finn moves closer to the tree, “I’ll climb up there and cut the vines. The safest way to get him down.”

Wells nods in agreement and says, “Yeah, yeah, I’m with you.”

Finn shakes his head, “No. Stay with them.” He turns to look at your sister. “Let’s go.”

“There’s a poultice on his wound.”

You furrow your brow in confusion, “Medicine? Why would they stab him, then save him?”

“Maybe they are doing it to try and catch dinner.” Bellamy looked down at the pit of spears.

You gulped down, “Maybe what they’re trying to catch is us.”

As Clarke and Finn lower Jasper down, you take a step back when you hear a low growling sound. “What was that?”

Bellamy looks around, “Grounders?”

The growling grows louder, and you watch as Wells tenses up.

“Bellamy, gun!” Clarke yells.

You look over at Bellamy, as he pats his waistband, looking for his gun. At the same time, he opens his mouth to speak but is cut off. A shot rings out, and you are shoved to the ground. Another shot rings out, and you let out a yelp as a black panther lands at your feet. Your mouth drops open in shock, and you turn and look at Wells, then Murphy. He held your gaze before, before kicking the panther with his foot to make sure it was dead. As he was the closest one to you,

“Lavina,” Clarke knelt beside you. “Are you okay?”You nod, not sure what to make of what just happened. Clarke takes charge of the situation. “Wells, get the parachute out of your pack.”

He pulls the parachute out before handing it to her. She turns to you and says, “You need to bag up the panther.”

You get to your feet and help Bellmay and Murphy wrap the parachute around the panther while Finn, Wells, and Clarke hold the injured boy. Quickly, you all make your way back to camp.

—

Bellamy and his ‘men’ make quick work of using the cooked meat to their advantage. If you removed your wristband, you got a meal.You didn't agree with using hunger as a weapon against starving teenagers, but you had to admit that the eldest Blake recognised a good opportunity when he saw it.

Most of the kids had handed their wristbands over without thinking twice. You sat by yourself, observing what was going on around you. Clarke and Finn seemed to be doing a good job of rubbing Bellamy the wrong way, which was quite amusing to watch.

You sit with Harper for a while, but when she asked you to join her along with some other rowdy teenagers who had found some nuts that apparently gave you a ‘buzz', you politely declined. It didn’t feel right to have fun while Jasper lay dying.

Murphy sits down next to you and hands you a stick of meat, saying, “Take this.”

You eyed him suspiciously. “I still have my wristband on.”

“Whatever the hell we want.”

You accepted the stick of meat from him, “thanks.” You sit in silence while you eat. You wanted to figure Murphy out. He was cruel to most, but so far he had given you a weapon, food, and had saved you. When you’d finished eating, you looked up and noticed the boy who’d grabbed your ass earlier was now sporting two black eyes. He was glaring at Murphy. “I’m assuming you did that to him?”

“What if I did?” He scoffs.

“Then nothing,” you shrugged. “I’m sure he had it coming.”

“Connor was always a smug bastard back on the ark. I was glad when he got arrested and I didn’t have to see his face every day. What station did you grow up in?” Murphy swallows the last of his food before turning to face you.

You twisted the small necklace around your finger. Memories of life on the ark flashed before you. How lonely you felt. Every time you heard someone talking about life on the ark, it made you feel sick to your stomach. You reach for the knife in your pocket and use it to break your wristband off. You stand up and toss the wristband into the fire, “I didn’t grow up in a station.”

When you spin back around, your eyes meet Clarke’s cold glare.

[layce2015]

Red Dead Redemption 2 (Arthur Morgan x Female!Reader)

The Gilded Cage

Previous Chapter / First Chapter / Next Chapter

The next few days, everything started to slowly go back to normal with the gang. It also didn't take them long for some of the members go out on jobs, especially Arthur. (Y/n) stayed at camp a little bit more as she wanted to be around her daughter. Annebeth being kidnapped had scared (y/n) to death that she was scared to leave her alone and the doubt of staying with the gang was starting to pop up in her mind.

She hated thinking that as she felt that leaving the gang would be a betrayal to Dutch, Hosea and especially to Arthur. If it wasn't for them, she and her daughter would be dead. Plus she cared and loved most of the gang members, minus Micah and Molly, and she didn't want to disappoint them.

She is forever grateful for all they’ve done for them; even owes them her life. (Y/n) had bonded with most in the group, going as far as calling them her friends; her family. Even Annabeth had warmed her way into their hearts, which she was happy to see the smile she loves so much, lighting up their spirits.

Annabeth loves them as much as she does. The last thing she wanted was to leave the group without sounding selfish.

And Arthur, oh Arthur…he’d be devastated if he found out. Now thinking about him leaves a churning feeling in her stomach. She leans against the wall outside of Shady Belle and closed her eyes, trying to hold back the nausea she feels coming. But a powerful wave of nausea comes up and she doubles over and vomits.

Minutes later, after she finished puking, she sits by the campfire and sips her cup of coffee. "Hey (y/n)." Mary-Beth greets as she walks up to (y/n). "Mary-Beth." (Y/n) greets back. "You alright? You look a little pale." Mary-Beth points out. "Yeah, I'm fine. I guess I'm just feeling under the weather..." (y/n) and Mary-Beth gives her a worried look. 

"Do you need a rest?" She asked the older woman. (Y/n) shakes her head. "Nah, I'll be fine. Although, I want to know what the hell Pearson put in the stew..." (y/n) said, her nose scrunched up in disgust. "What do you mean?" Mary-Beth asked. "I don't know...the stew just doesn't smell the same." (Y/n) said and Mary-Beth furrows her brow.

"(Y/n), he makes the stew the same way everyday." She said. "You sure?" (Y/n) asked and Mary-Beth let's out a soft laugh then places a hand on (y/n)'s forehead. "You sure you're okay?" She asked and (y/n) sighs. "I don't know...maybe I'm just going crazy." She said and Mary-Beth chuckles a bit.

"Or could be some sort've sickness going around." Mary-Beth said. "Maybe." (Y/n) said, shrugging, and she goes to sip her coffee. "So...I wanted to ask you, have you seen Kieran?" Mary-Beth asked and (y/n) thinks for a moment.

Come to think of it, the last time (y/n) saw Kieran was the night of the celebration for the safe return of Jack and Annebeth. Since then, she hadn't really seen him around the camp, which was pretty odd. "No, not since the night of the party." (Y/n) said and Mary-Beth had a worried look on her face.

"I'm really worried about him. Everyone says that they haven't seen him either." She said and (y/n) gives her a sympathetic smile and places a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sure he'll turn up soon." She said and Mary-Beth looks down then nods, slightly. "I sure hope so." Mary-Beth said. She lets out a sigh then goes to stand up. "Well, I hope you get to feeling better!" She said and walks away as (y/n) takes a sip of her coffee.

Meanwhile, Arthur had been out doing jobs and gather up some money as usual. But as he did this, he started to think about the recent events and a thought he never thought he'd think comes up in his mind. Maybe the gang isn't as safe as I thought. He couldn't believe he was thinking that but ever since Annebeth's kidnapping, he was worried and scared for her safety.

Once this thought came up, he started to think that maybe after they collect enough money, he could get Annebeth and (y/n) out of this and maybe start a life together. This idea kept growing and growing with each day passing and he decided that maybe he should talk to (y/n) about it. 

He was lost in thought about it after he just helped a monk named Brother Dorkins with freeing a couple foreigners, who were chained up in the basement of the Fence and getting ready to be traded in as slaves, when he heard a female voice call out to him. "Hey…you want some company, mister?" she asked, trying to sound seductive. "No." Arthur said as he kept on walking, not looking at the woman.

"You sure?" The woman asked and Arthur stops and sighs. "I'm already spoken..." he stops once he turns to the right and sees the woman, who looked familiar. "Hey…" he said and the woman turns. "What?" she asked as she comes into view and Arthur's shocked by this. "I know you. Mrs. Downes?" he asked and Mrs Downes recognizes him and she begins to panic.

"Oh, no. Not you. Get away." She said as Arthur approaches her. "How, I mean…" he stammers, shocked and confused, and she backs away from him. "Now." Mrs Downes shouts as she starts to run away from him. "Hey…" Arthur tried to talk to her but she walked past him. "Help." she shouted and she runs towards a lawman.

"Hold on…" Arthur called out but she made it over to the lawman. "This man is bothering me. Someone help me. Officer, help!" she said and Arthur began to run into the crowd, get to his horse and gets out of town.

He makes it back to Shady Belle and dismounts his horse then thinks about Mrs Downes, her hair was unkempt and she looked like she had sores around her face mainly around her mouth. The feeling of guilt crept up in his mind but he pushes it back as he shakes his head then walks into camp and sees Hosea and (y/n) sitting and talking.

"Hosea. (y/n)." He greets as he walks up to them. "Hey, Arthur." Hosea greets and (y/n) smiles at him. "Hey." She said to him, softly, when Dutch comes up to them. "Come on. If we’re gonna make it to this party…we sure as shit better clean up a little." Dutch said. 

"So we’re doing this?" Arthur asked. "Oh yeah. Old friend Dutch van der Linde…has finally shown his true colors…social climbing." Hosea said in a sort've joking manner. "Old Signor Bronte, that horrendous snake…has invited us to the ball, Cinderella. So my suggestion is…we go and get you a gown." Dutch said then he laughs as he walks away. "You son of a bitch." Arthur grumbles as Hosea follows Dutch. Arthur and (y/n) share a look before they go and get ready.

"Aaaand...there!" Mary-Beth said as she finished up fixing (y/n)'s makeup. Karen, Mary-Beth, Tilly and Abigail helped (y/n) get dressed and ready for this party. The dress was pretty much like the ball gowns (y/n) vaguely remembers her mother use to wear. It was blue and the shoulder was a low décolletage, which exposed her arms, and the skirt was cone-shaped, which was narrow at the waist and gained fullness near the bottom.

​​​​She was wearing white gloves that went up to her elbows, a short pearl necklace and a long pearl necklace and her hair was waved in a soft pouff to the back of the head with puffy curled bangs.

​​​​​​"Now you look like a proper wealthy woman." Karen said before she laughs. "You look great, (y/n)." Mary-Beth said and Tilly nods. "Yeah, I think once Arthur sees you, you're gonna leave him speechless." Abigail said and (y/n) blushes at this.

"Thanks, girls." (Y/n) said, appreciatively. "You look pretty, Momma." Annebeth said and (y/n) smiles at her. "Thank you, sweetheart." She said just as Hosea comes up to the doorway of the room the girls were in.

​​​​​​"Well, I never thought I'd ever see you in a dress." Hosea said and the girls giggle. "I didn't think I would either." (Y/n) jokes. "Well..I came up here to let you know we're ready to leave." Hosea said and (y/n) nods. "Okay." She said and she walks over to Hosea then waves a goodbye to the girls. "Have fun!" Karen exclaims as Hosea and (y/n) head to the staircase and make their way down stairs.

​​​​​"You alright?" Hosea asked her. "Yeah...it's just been so long since I've been to parties like this. I think I was just a child." (Y/n) said and Hosea nods. "I know whatcha mean, it's been awhile since I've gone to a ball like this." Hosea said as they make it to the bottom steps.

​​​​​​"I just feel a bit ridiculous in this dress." (Y/n) said as they walk to the front door. "Nonsense. You look stunning." Hosea said and (y/n) smirks a bit at this. "Thanks, Hosea." She said as he opens the front door.

They walk out and see a horse drawn carriage, Lenny at the driver's seat, and Dutch, Arthur and Bill standing by the carriage, all three of them wearing tuxedos. Dutch glanced over and saw (y/n) and smiles. "Well, look here! Ain't you just lovely." Dutch said and Bill and Arthur turn to look at her. 

Bill smirks a bit but Arthur was speechless when he saw her. His eyes widen and his mouth slightly agape as his eyes roamed her body. (Y/n) smiles, shyly, as she walks up to him, looking down. "Wow...y-you..look..." he stammers, truly lost for words. Her smile grows bigger as she looks back at him and Dutch pats Arthur’s shoulder.

"We better get going." He said and he goes to open the carriage door and gestures towards it. "After you, m'lady." Dutch said and (y/n) makes her way inside and takes a seat just as Arthur takes the seat next to her. They share another look and Arthur goes and gives her a kiss on the cheek as Hosea and Dutch get inside while Bill goes up to the seat next to Lenny.

Sometime later, Dutch, Hosea, Arthur and (y/n) were laughing as they make their way to the party. "We are ridiculous." Dutch said. "Utterly." Hosea said, nodding. "I ain’t never been to a ball in my life." Arthur said. "Nor have I, if I am being honest." said Dutch. "Been years since I've been to one." (Y/n) admits. "I used to quite often…there could be fine pickings." Hosea said but Dutch shakes his head.

"Oh, no, no, no, no. No pickpocketing. We are here to make real contacts." He said. "What kind of contacts?" Arthur asked him. "Well I don’t know. We’ll find what we can. All I know for sure is…we are going to a party at the mayor’s house…and the guest of honor is the worst crook in town. I’m sure that we will find something." Dutch said and everyone laughs again as the carriage arrives at the Mayor’s manor.

Lenny stops the carriage and Bill gets down as Dutch opens the door and everyone gets out, Arthur helped (y/n) out and they walk over to the doorman. "Gentlemen and lady." the doorman greets then he turns to another man. "Luca…" he said and the group start to walk in but the doorman stops them.

"I’m afraid the mayor does not allow guns at official functions…after last year’s incident." He said and the gang hand their revolvers to the doorman. "Luca here will take you to Mr. Bronte. I believe he is expecting you." the doorman said and the man in a white suit addresses them. "Follow me, gentlemen. This way please, gentlemen and lady." Luca said and the gang follow him.

"Signor Bronte will be so pleased that you made it." Luca said to them. "We are honored to be here." Dutch said as they make their way inside the manor. "That’s wonderful, wonderful. Come come, this way. What a beautiful evening it shall be…Mr. Bronte is very good friends with the mayor." Luca said then another man comes up to him and they began to talk amongst each other.

.

"Hosea, Bill, you join the party. We’ll meet you out back after we pay our respects to Signor Bronte." Dutch tells them and Hosea and Bill nod as they head off. "We’ll meet you out on the balcony when you’re done." Hosea tells them and Luca gestures for Dutch, Arthur and (y/n) to follow him. Arthur crooks his right arm out to (y/n) and she loops her left arm around it as they head upstairs, down a hall and out towards these double doors that lead out to a balcony.

"Ah, the angry cowboys, you’ve arrived…and you’ve washed." Bronte said, happily, then he turns to his friends. "For the first time this month no doubt." he said in Italian to his friends and they laugh. (Y/n) narrows her eyes and Bronte took notice of her. "Ahhh...and here I thought you couldn't get more beautiful!" He said and he takes her hand and kisses the back of it..

(y/n) gives a fake smile to him as Dutch said. "This is quite a party you’ve invited us to." Obviously, he was trying to derail the conversation. "Yes, quite something…although I’m not quite sure what." Bronte said as they look out towards the grounds below.

"So…this is Saint Denis high society?" Dutch asked Bronte. "Yes, apparently so." Bronte said. "And all these people…th-these are friends of yours, Signor Bronte?" Dutch asked. "No, no, no, not quite…not quite…but they certainly are afraid of me. Like that one. See that wretch…he’s the Mayor. Henri Lemieux. He’ll do anything for a dollar…and I mean anything." Bronte said as he points out a tall older man with sideburns on his face and wearing small oval shaped glasses and a tuxedo. "Politics is a foul business." Dutch jokes and Bronte chuckles.

"Yes. Oh, and that one too. That is…Alberto Fussar. He owns a sugar plantation out on the island and he…comes here to whore and despoil himself." Bronte said as he points at a man with tan skin and black hair and wearing a uniform with medals. Bronte laughs with Dutch then he points out another man, who was a bit on the heavier side and a young woman was hugging up on him.

"Oh, oh, and that…that is Hobart Crawley. A Confederate…major in the war. A big hero they say, but that is his…his very young wife. I mean…a young mistress. That’s the natural order of things, yes? But a young wife…it’s unseemly." Bronte laughs then he points out to two Native American men, who walked up to the mayor.

"Oh, oh, the redskins. I have no sympathy for them because whoever is stupid enough…to be tricked by the Americans…they get what they deserve, huh?" Bronte laughs. (Y/n) watches them in pity as the Native Americans hands a letter to the mayor.. "Yes, hand a letter to the mayor. Oh yeah…that’ll save you." Bronte taunts and (y/n) shakes her head in pity. "And that…that is Hector Fellowes. The self-righteous newspaperman. Maybe, maybe you will kill him for me one day?" Bronte said to Dutch. Dutch gives him a look before he speaks.

"Well, we’re not paid killers as such…not in cold blood anyway." Dutch said and Bronte seemed a bit taken aback by this. "I did not know you were so particular that uh…you wouldn’t help a friend." he said. "Oh, I’m willing to help in any way I can…within reason." Dutch replied and Bronte seemed confused but (y/n) could've sworn she saw a flicker of anger in his eyes.

"I’m going to pretend to understand what that means." Bronte said. "I meant no offence, sir." Dutch said, raising his hands. "None taken…none taken. All these vulgar people…they hate me." Bronte said then he turns out towards the balcony and waves at the people below. "I look forward to watching you die." he said in Italian and he and his friends laugh.

"Well, uh, it has…been wonderful conversing with you. But I can tell that you are very busy…and I won’t waste anymore of your time." Dutch said. "Yes, yes, yes go enjoy yourselves…and mingle with these vulgar scum. It’ll make you long for the days…when you could shoot each other…and screw cows out on the open range." Bronte said, laughing, and Dutch just gives him a look.

"Those sure were the days…Good day, gentlemen." Dutch said, holding back his annoyance. "Good day to you. But before you go…what exactly are your plans here?" Bronte asked. "We’ve not made any…" Dutch stops then turns back to Bronte. "...well…we are going to need some money."

"Money…yes, of course. Well, there’s, there’s money at the trolley station. They keep a lot of cash there in the day. Now I could not involve myself in such matters…but you…as a guest, yes…As my guest, do it. Okay, good day, gentlemen." Bronte said then he laughs as Dutch gives a small smile. "Goodbye." Dutch said and the three of them leave as Bronte and his friends laugh and drink.

"I’ll show you to the party, gentlemen and lady. If you’ll kindly follow me." Luca said and he leads them down the stairs. "Gentlemen and madam, enjoy your evening and welcome once again to Saint Denis. Ciao, ciao." Luca said and Dutch, (y/n) and Arthur head outside to meet up with Hosea and Bill.

"Gentlemen…let’s go ingratiate ourselves." Dutch said to them. "Okay." Arthur and (y/n) said. "Go find the mayor if you can, and stay outta trouble. And steal nothing…unless it’s information." Dutch tells them. "Of course." Arthur said then Dutch turns to Hosea and Bill. "Hosea, you go find us some place to rob. Bill, go make us some new friends. I’m gonna find out if old Cornwall and what’s-his-name, Milton, knows we’re here. Gentlemen, be well." Dutch said and everyone spreads out and looks among the crowd.

Arthur and (y/n) walk around the crowd when they hear a man choking. They walk over and see the man choking and Arthur goes over to him and helps him. Finally, the man coughs the nut and begins to catch his breath. "You okay?" Arthur asked the man. "Oh, my Lord…The pesky nut…what a way to go, eh?" the man said as he catches his breath then he turns to Arthur.

"Thank you, sir, oh…yes…thank you…Algernon Wasp." Wasp said, appreciatively, then he holds his hand out to him. "Hello…uh, Tacitus Kilgore." Arthur greets and he shakes Wasp's hand then he gestures to (y/n). "My wife, Caroline." He said and Wasp shakes her hand.

"Hello, Mr. and Mrs...Kilgore…W-what is it that, uh…that you do?" Wasp asked Arthur. "I’m, uh…I’m an adventurer." Arthur replied. "Oh! Me too…pursuer of the exotic and the remarkable. An aesthete in this land of common place…heathens." Wasp said then he pulls out a small card and hands it to Arthur. "My card, sir. Pay me a visit in my…atelier…Algerie. I-I must just go and purge…I intend to stay thin…until I pass away. Good evening." Wasp said and he walks away.

"What an odd fellow." (Y/n) remarks as Arthur pockets the card. "Yeah..." said Arthur then he looks over at a small table with some glasses and a bottle of champagne. He walks over to the table, grabbed the bottle and holds out to (y/n).

"Champagne?" He asked her and she smiles then nods to him. He pours a glass for her and hands it to her. "Thank you, Arthur." She said and she takes a sip but something about the drink tasted odd, which made her scrunch up her face in disgust.

Arthur noticed the face she made and gives her a worried look. "(Y/n)? You okay?" He asked. "I'm not sure. The champagne tastes odd." She said and he takes her glass and takes a sip. "It tastes fine to me, darlin'." He said and (y/n) furrows her brow. "Maybe I'm coming down with something. Things have been tasting weird to me lately." (Y/n) said.

Arthur was about to say something when they hear someone say. "It ain’t complex, Lemieux…and only an idiot like you, buddy, would try to make it so." They look over and see the Mayor with a group of men and he didn't seem to like one of his companions that much. "I will not deny idiocy, sir, but perhaps now is not the time." Lemieux said. "Typical pansy." the drunk man sneered and Arthur and (y/n) walk over to them.

"You’re drunk, Ferdinand." Lemieux said. "I’m not drunk, you fool…but this man…this man loves darkies." Ferdinand laughs then Arthur pats his shoulder. "You are pretty drunk. What’s say you and me cool off?" he said and he leads Ferdinand away. "Get your hands off me." Ferdinand demanded as Arthur walks him away from Lemieux.

"Come on, sleep it off." Arthur said then he throws the drunk off the party. "Sit down and calm down…count to a thousand. Then you can rejoin the party." Arthur tells Ferdinand then he walks back over to Lemieux, (y/n) and some of Lemieux's friend.

"Thank you, sir." Lemieux said and he shakes Arthur’s hand. "My pleasure." Arthur said and he places an arm around (y/n)'s waist. "Henri Lemieux…I hope you’re enjoying my party." Lemieux said. "The mayor?" Arthur asked. "Allegedly." Lemieux jokes. "That’s quite a place you got here." Arthur said and Lemieux chuckles. "It’s not mine… and the city is horribly in debt…but we can still put on a good show. Do you know Evelyn Miller?" Lemieux asked as he points at a man with dark hair and (y/n)'s jaw dropped a bit.

"My Lord…the writer?" She asked and Miller seemed taken aback at this. "Well, we seem to have another deranged drunkard on our hands." he jokes but then the fireworks begin to go off.

Everyone stops what their doing and look up at the colorful explosion of lights appear in the sky. "Wow, beautiful, isn't it?" (Y/n) asked. Arthur looks up at the sky for a moment then looks over at (y/n) to see the wonder and enjoyment on her face. "That it is." He said and (y/n) looks over at him and they share a look before they lean in and share a loving kiss.

At that moment, a servant of Lemieux approaches him. "Excuse me, pardon…excuse me, pardon…Messieurs, please…Mr. Cornwall was quite insistent, I’m afraid…he shouted down the telephone for several minutes." the servant said and this catches Arthur and (y/n)'s attention as they break their kiss and listen in on the conversation.

"Mr. Cornwall is a horse’s ass…and a bad horse." Lemieux said to his servant, Pierre. "I’m very sorry, sir." Pierre said. "It’s not your fault…I’m a fool for trusting him. I’ll come and sign it in a minute…let me enjoy the fireworks." Lemieux said. "Of course." Pierre said and he starts to walk away as Dutch comes up to the duo.

"Did he just say something about Cornwall?" Dutch asked in a whisper. "Yes." Arthur and (y/n) said, in unison. "Find out what." he tells them. "Sure." Arthur said and he takes (y/n) by the hand and they follow Pierre as all the guests look up at the firework.

"No problems?" Pierre asked a guard as they make their way towards the side of the manor, Arthur and (y/n) keeping their distance. "Everything’s fine…we have the place well secured." the guard said. "Good, Mr. Bronte has a habit of wandering about and reading whatever he likes." said Pierre. "We’re watching him and his men like hawks." the guard said and Pierre nods. "Thank you, Mr. Terapin." Pierre said and he makes his way inside of the manor, Arthur and (y/n) follow him until they duck by the doorway.

"Is everything taken care? The telephone, it keeps ringing." Luca asked Pierre. "The mayor said he will sign later." Pierre said and Luca walks away as Pierre heads to the back part of the house, the duo still on his tail until they go to hide. "Marie! Marie!" Pierre shouts and a maid comes up to him. "Have you lost your mind? I said, have you lost your mind? Come here. Come here…look at me. Look at me!" Pierre demands then he slaps her. (Y/n) jumped a bit at this and gasped as Pierre continues to reprimand the maid.

"Who do you think you are? This area is not meant for the likes of you, you know this. The standards in this house are slipping. This is a final warning to you miss. A final warning! Now get out of my sight." he shouts and the maid runs off then Pierre starts to turn and, quickly, Arthur pulls (y/n) back, to keep them out of sight.

(Y/n) leans up against the wall and Arthur stands in front of her, his hands braced against the wall on either side of her head. They look at each other for a moment and (y/n) felt her heart beating hard against her chest, as well as did Arthur. Arthur glances over and sees Pierre starting to head upstairs.

Arthur and (y/n) follow him and they see him go into another room. They hide around the corner as they see Pierre go up to a desk and hides some documents in the drawer before he leaves. Arthur and (y/n) walk into the room and Arthur gets the drawer open and pulls out the documents and flicks through them.

"Mr. Leviticus Cornwall…Top secret…extremely confidential. Very interesting…" he mutters as (y/n) looks around. "We better get back to Dutch." She said and Arthur nods then the two make their way out of the room, down the stairs and towards the balcony where Dutch was standing. 

"Find anything?" Dutch asked them and Arthur pats his pocket, which is where he was hiding the documents. "I think so." he said as Bill and Hosea comes over to them. "Nothing…this town is a waste of time." Bill grumbles. "Maybe not…Arthur…Gentlemen and madam…I think we’re done here." said Hosea and they start to go head back inside the manor and back towards the front door.

"What did you find out?" Dutch asked Hosea. "There’s plenty of money moves through here, of course, and I…I think I found out how we can grab some of it. A big bank…a real one, I mean, but not yet." Hosea informs. "A city bank?" Dutch asked, intrigued. "Maybe…and a stuffed one. If we’re gonna leave, that could be the one thing we need." Hosea said.

"There’s also that trolley car station Signor Bronte told us about, and I heard about a high stakes poker game…Come on…" Dutch said as they head back outside and get their weapons back from the guard. "Here comes Lenny. Alright, let’s get in…and go home." Dutch said a d they get into the carriage and drive away.

"I ain’t never felt so awkward in all my life…all them folk, all so pleased with themselves. High society’s pigeon shit. If you ask me…it’s more like torture." Bill said, loudly, from the passenger seat. "Well, that’s sort of the point of it isn’t it…let the people torture themselves." Dutch yells back at them just as Arthur hands the documents to him.

"Here’s them papers I took." he said as Dutch takes them. "Anybody see you take this?" Dutch asked him as he flicks through the documents. "I don’t think so." said Arthur as (y/n) shakes her head. "I didn't see anybody." She said and Dutch places his pointer finger and thumb on his chin. "I might have an idea…let me think on it." Dutch said as they make their way back to Shady Belle.

The next day, Arthur wakes up then looks down to see (y/n) had curled up to his chest, her head laying on his chest over his heart. Arthur smirks and kisses the top of her head and, quietly, starts to get up and change clothes. He walks by a small cot, where Annebeth was sleeping, and he smiles down at the young girl then kneels down to the sleeping girl and kisses the top of head then he walks out of his room and Dutch walks out of his own room and comes up to him.

"Interesting times…" Dutch said. "I guess. So, what’s next? Dancing lessons? Deportment?" Arthur asked. "More along the lines of armed robbery. Hosea’s handling reconnaissance on the bank. He and Abigail are gonna run some distractions. See how the law reacts." Dutch said. "Good." said Arthur.

"Oh, and I spoke to Evelyn Miller. A fine man. Here helping the Indian chief we saw." Dutch said. "Yeah, I met him too, with the mayor." said Arthur. "He’s lobbying officials in Saint Denis on their behalf. Maybe we could help?" Dutch said, questioning, and Arthur shrugs. "Maybe." he said.

"Now, I think there’s a lot of money on the riverboat. A lot of money. And Trelawny, he’s investigating for us. He says to meet him at the tailors." Dutch said. "Okay." Arthur said and Dutch smiles then pats Arthur’s shoulder. "One big score down here, Arthur, and we disappear. We’re almost heading home." Dutch said.

"And where is home?" Arthur asked him. "I don’t know…exactly. But I can smell it." Dutch said with a small smile. "I’m gonna go investigate this trolley thing…old Bronte was talking about." Dutch said. "Okay." Arthur said and Dutch goes over to the staircase and heads down the stairs.

@starjane312 @trinswhimsys @reiya-djarin @sukunas-cult-leader

[descendantofthesparrow]

Regained Passion - Harry Hook x Reader - Part 3 - Bonding

=

Welp…there he was…in an intermediate dance class, thankfully Bert taught the class (he actually taught a good handful, he was just the main beginner class teacher) so Harry wouldn’t be thrown into a whole new class with no familiar faces. Harry held down a smile as he remembered the jealous faces of his ex-dance classmates as Bert told him about his ‘level up’ the day before. He had only been at the studio for a month before he was leveled up, his schedule had changed a bit as well, before he was only going to the studio three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Now he would be going Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. His hour-long classes turning to two as Bert led Harry’s fellow dancers through new and much more complicated steps.

The only good thing that had come out of this was that his classes now ended at the same time as (y/n)’s, and now he would be able to go across the hall to pick her up instead of going from the back of the school to the front as he did when he was still in beginner.

Harry sat on the floor as he slid on his ballet shoes, strapping them to his feet and tossing his bag against the wall, standing with a sigh and walking over to where Bert was talking to the dancers.

“Any of ya hear of the ol’ bamboo?” Bert asked, taking a step back and grabbing a long stick, twirling it in his hands. The whole class shook their heads, well minus Harry, who just rose his brow. “well, this is what ya gonna be learning for the end of spring performance next year, the beginners are doin’ Step in time, ya will be doing ol’ bamboo, and the expert class is doing ballet, with miss charming as their star” Harry perked up at that, so that was the performance Esmerelda was talking to (y/n) about huh?

“So!” Bert clapped his hands, grinning at his students “let's start with the lyrics, shall we?! It is a musical performance after all”

-

By the end of the two hours, Harry was kinda exhausted, less exhausted than the rest of his classmate's thanks to his isle-bred stamina but still…very tired and very sweaty. Harry wiped down his face and neck with a cool towel and changed out his shoes.

“Hi~” Harry looked up, unable to keep the smile off his face as (y/n) looked down at him, hanging her head upside down while doing so “How was class?”

“Like usual” Harry simply replied, looking back at his shoes “Wha’ are yeh doin’ here? I thought yer class ended a bit after mine?” (y/n) just hummed, grabbing Harry’s bag and holding it open for Harry to toss his dance shoes in, then handing it to him as he stood.

“Ended early, Esméralda had an appointment…do you want to go get ice cream?” Harry rose his brow as he looked to (y/n), who gave an unsure smile.

“Ice cream?” Harry hummed, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he looked to the ceiling “Do I-Harry Hook-want ice cream?” (y/n) rolled her eyes and punched his shoulder gently. “Ice cream sounds good” Harry chuckled, patting (y/n)’s head and offering his arm again, once again ignoring the spark running through his skin as (y/n) hands wrapped around his arm.

“Yay! There's this new place I've been wanting to try! But no one will go with me! I'll drive us there!” Harry smiled at (y/n)’s rambling, leading her to pull him along to the parking lot where her car was.

-

“No-no no no no, the egg travels back in time and it creates a new timeline, and then later it's revealed that there's another egg that was corrupted that ALSO traveled back in time, but that one’s helping the yiga clan.” Harry licked his lips free of his chocolate ice cream, narrowing his eyes as (y/n) finished her mini-rant about one of her favorite games lore.

“So,” Harry started, setting down his spoon and tilting his head “the egg? Is-a time-traveling mini guardian?? And-the princess, Link or whatever-“ (y/n) looked at him with puffed cheeks.

“Zelda! Link is the knight! Zelda is the princess!” Harry made a face.

“But if the stories mostly follow Link, why is it called Legend of Zelda!?” Harry gave a smug smirk as (y/n) huffed and wiped the corner of her lips free of her ice cream.

“Becauseeeee oh! I remember! Well don’t quote me on it, but the first game was originally going to be about Zelda exclusively, then they made Link and they found the new story worked better, they just kept the original title.” Harry hid his smile behind another mouthful of ice cream, (y/n) was pretty cute when she went on her video game rants, Legend of Zelda being one of her favorites. “Okay, at some point you have to play one of the games, especially breath of the wild, you can barrow my switch” Harry chuckled, setting down his now empty cup of ice cream.

“Alright then” Harry started, grabbing a napkin and wiping his mouth “sounds fun?” (y/n) beamed in excitement, dancing in her seat a bit.

“Yes!...I can’t wait to see your ass kicked by a lynel” (y/n) cackled, laughing louder as Harry gave her an odd look.

“From how yer laughing, that tells me it's not a fun thing ta fight?” Harry guessed, smiling as (y/n) nodded through her laughter.

“Lynels are harder to beat than the final boss, which is bullshit but I digress” Harry turned to see Audrey, who was smiling at (y/n)s giggling self “side note; it’s a little odd to see you two hanging out” she waved off Harry’s slightly offended look “not in a mean way, more; you're both from a different crowd and Chad likes to say shit about you to (y/n)…though she” she gestured to (y/n) who was coming down from her giggle fit. “doesn’t like listening to Chad, so I should have expected this.”

“Damn right, hell will freeze over before I actually listen to his dumbass” (y/n) chuckled, finishing off her ice cream and looking up at Audrey, who was picking up her shopping bags again and going to leave “What are you doing here by the way?”

“Oh just some shopping, trying out a new style and all that, good day you two!” Audrey sauntered off, leaving (y/n) and Harry alone once more.

Harry looked back at (y/n) at the same time she did, they both smiled and (y/n) nodded back towards the parking lot of the mall they were at “Wanna get started on breath of the wild?”

Harry smiled, turning to toss his empty ice cream cup in the trash can behind him “Sounds fun”

-

“No! Dodge to the side! YES! Okay, mash the Y button!” Gil and Uma stepped into (y/n)s dorm room, having been looking for Harry for the past two hours after he didn’t return from dance class, and Gil had suggested looking for Harry in (y/n)s room.

Uma had thought it was a stupid idea but humored Gil, only to be surprised to see Harry and (y/n) in bean bags as Harry button mashed the controller he held in his hand, sticking his tongue out slightly in concentration. “Uhhhh Harry?” Uma called out, leaning back a bit as Harry shushed her.

“I’m fighting a lynel and am about to die I need silence!” Harry yelled, leaning forward into his controller, tossing his hands up in shock as the red-maned lynel finally died “FUCKING FINALLY!” (y/n) cheered along with Harry, laughing as he pulled her into his side.

Uma and Gil gave each other a look, Uma smirking before walking towards the two and pulling Harry up to his feet “Awesome, you beat a video game mini-boss, I've been looking for you for two hours” Harry seemed to come down from his victory high and gave a sheepish smile.

“Oh uh…sorry?” Uma hummed and nodded, grabbing his arm and waving to (y/n).

“Say bye to (y/n) Harry” Harry waved (y/n) goodbye as she giggled and saved Harry's game, switching the profile to her game.

“Bye (y/n)” (y/n) beamed at him, waving at him as he was pulled backward by Uma towards the door.

“Bye Harry!”

Uma pulled Harry out of the room, rolling her eyes a bit as Harry continued to wave until he was out of (y/n)s sight. Gil followed them out and closed the door behind him. “You are so smitten” Gil laughed, very much enjoying the way Harry’s face lit up.

“No-no I’m nae” Harry stuttered, pulling out of Uma’s grasp and stomping ahead of them “Yer out a yer mind Gil” Uma and Gil shared another look.

“He’ll realize it at some point, I give it another month or two” Uma mumbled, smirking as Gil patted his pocket where his wallet was.

“Three, twenty bucks” Uma nodded and the two shook hands to seal their bet, jogging forward to catch up with their flustered friend.

-

Jane sat against the wall of mirrors, watching you move about the almost empty room as you practiced your part from the duet Esméralda had assigned you. Jane wasn’t all that knowledgeable in the world of dance but it wasn’t hard to see you were struggling, not in the way of movement but in the way of conveying emotion in your dance.

It almost seemed….stale, if anything, the dance was supposed to convey two people falling in love, but Jane; as far as she knew, knew you had never fallen in love so it would be hard to convey that exact emotion. You had really only known platonic and familial love.

You stopped, collapsing to your knees as you heaved for breath, sweat dripping off your brow. Jane furrowed her brows in concern and stood, grabbing your water bottle and walking over to you, she kneeled beside you and handed you the bottle, staring at you as you greedily downed the water. “Are you okay?” Jane asked, mentally wincing as it was obvious that you weren’t.

You gasped as you finally took the bottle away from your lips, shaking your head “I just-I just can't seem to get this right, Esméralda says if I can't find the emotions I need to convey in this duet then she’ll replace me and-and”  you sighed, letting your head fall between your shoulders. “I can't let them down” Jane furrowed her brows.

“Let who down?” Jane asked, unsure of who you were talking about, as far as she knew your parents didn’t really pressure you about your dancing, they were wholly supportive and understanding through every bit of your journey through dance.

“…I don’t know” you whispered, curling up and resting your chin on your knees. “My parents? Me? Grandpa? Esméralda? I’m not sure…but I feel like if I don’t get this right, I’ll be letting someone down” Jane rubbed your back, unsure of how to comfort you. You stood after a few moments and walked over to the stereo. “One last time, okay? Then I’ll be done for the day”

“Okay,” Jane mumbled, going to sit back down against the wall, starting up the camera on your phone to record you one last time at your request so you could see any mistakes you made.

You stood in the middle of the room, closing your eyes and taking a deep breath as the music began.

And you danced.

-end of part 3-

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@daughter-of-the-stars11​ @musicarose​ @random-thoughts-003​

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