#i hope i get this finished for august 10th

[maxphilippa]

the inanimate insanity demons got me again have a wip

[xzaddyzanakinx]

Not That Kind of Guy

Part Nine: Stalker!Anakin Skywalker × femme reader series

Warnings: stalking, weirdo behavior, psychotic/delusional behavior, possessive/protective, sexism/misogyny, sexual content/fantasizing, pervy behavior, panty/scent kink, mask kink (Ghostface), gaslighting/manipulation, nude vids/pics, rape mentioned (somnophilia), gen. sexual content, Panic/Anxiety Attack, forced nudity [Be sure to pay attention to future warnings in the series]

Info: Anakin/Ghost having thoughts?? Unselfish ones?? Luke can’t stop roasting/sassing you [diary entries from Ani] [texting/letters/notes]extremely not proofread. MDNI 18+

Diary Entry: August 10th

I think enough time has passed. I think you’re ready to see Ghost again.

I thought it would take longer for you to recover, but as always, the little fawn in you is curious as ever. Quick to forget fear and ready for the newest challenge.

You’ve responded so well to everything. I’m very proud of you.

I’ve been keeping up with my visits, still cleaning, still watching, still following and protecting.

Now that you know of Ghost, I’ve started completing my tasks. I don’t have to leave anything halfway finished, the dishes are done everyday along with the vacuuming and dusting. I even mop twice a week.

And change the cat litter, which might I add, is disgusting. (Worth it though because I love that little menace.)

I thought for sure you’d run and tell me that you didn’t think the alarms I installed weren’t working, but you didn’t, you just repeatedly tested them yourself. It was very loud, very annoying and I know you could hear the woman down the hall banging her pots and pans together to fight back with her own noise. You didn’t care though, you just wanted to make sure the alarms worked.

They do work, I wouldn’t have installed fake ones, that would be stupid. I’m all for keeping you safe so… what’s one more safety measure?

I just know that they can also be very easily disarmed. Even through the inch and a half thick wooden door to your apartment. A piece of sheet metal (credit card sized) and my handy dandy super strength magnet works like a charm.

You’re such an odd bird. You haven’t told anyone, I don’t think it’s really even crossed your mind too much either. You’ve begun to pretend the cameras aren’t even there. You just go about your normal day to day life and occasionally squint and stare at random objects.

You never actually go check them out though. Is it all for show? I think it might be.

I think you like being watched. I bet it makes you feel safe doesn’t it? Knowing I’m always there for you?

——————————————————————————

You know what the best part of all this is?

Ghost will let me love you in the way that is natural and normal to me. I just hope that you’ll be willing to accept that we are one in the same.

Ghost can comfortably do all the things that I’ve been afraid to. I didn’t want to scare you, but it really was difficult not to leave you things. I’m so glad that you brought that up in your list of questions because it gave me the opportunity to act on it without you flipping out.

Do you like them? I love leaving things for you. Especially little notes.

Ghost has been kind enough to stay out of your way when I’m around, but I can resist making you squirm occasionally. Remember when I left you a note, KNOWING I’d be coming home with you later that day?

Oh babe. It was so oddly intoxicating to see the way you reacted when I got back home and pulled up the footage. You snatched up that slip of paper didn’t read it and didn’t toss it in the trash, didn’t put it in your pocket.

You shoved it in your mouth so I wouldn’t see it. Freak.

I saw it all chewed up and gross in the bathroom trash. You didn’t read it. I know you didn’t. So I’ll have to get alittle more creative.

Don’t ignore me.

DATE

August 13th

For the third morning in a row you woke up to a text from your own cellphone number.

‘Sleep well deer?’

Idiot. Can’t even spell. So finally on this third day, you sent a text back and corrected him.

‘Dear*’

Immediately a response buzzed through.

‘No.’

No? What does he mean no?

‘Little doe. My deer. 🦌’

Oh great, so stalkers use emojis and he’s given you a nickname. How cute.

You laid back in your bed and tossed your phone aside, hands covering your face as you rubbed the sleep away.

The longer this went on, the more insane you felt. This wasn’t normal, of course it’s not normal. So why are you allowing it?

You could ask yourself that a million times and you’d never find an answer.

You could throw away every flower he brought you and they’d still keep coming. You could burn every piece of paper in the city and chew every pen until it’s broken beyond repair and he would still find a way to write you a note.

You could swallow every word he writes, throw it up, flush it, whatever. It’s just going to pop back up. Gross and soggy with an amendment attached and in your panty drawer.

You thought maybe it was an important one. So you read it. Quickly discovered it was semi-important, Ghost just wanted to remind you that he loved you and he was proud of you for continuing to drink your tea even though you knew it was drugged. Once you’re out of it, he’s going to set the pills out next to your birth control. So he ‘doesn’t have to fool with measurements anymore’.

The addendum to the note was tucked inside the original:

‘Good girls swallow.’

You could ignore the trinkets, the jewelry or the pretty stones and shells. But he would just move them to a different spot and force you to eventually set it in your jewelry box along with all the others.

He’s not been bold enough to come around with Anakin in your home. The nights that Anakin sleeps over, there are no gifts, no cleaning done. No disturbances.

But Anakin doesn’t deter him completely.

He’s left you one note at Anakin’s apartment, the first time you’d slept away from your own home in ages. Ghost had the audacity to slip a note into the pocket of your shorts while you slept in the same bed as Anakin in his apartment.

It didn’t say anything, no words, just a heart in red ink. Like he just wanted to remind you that he was there and you were his whether you wanted to be or not. Anakin or no Anakin, Ghost didn’t care.

It’s been horrible lying… omitting the truth to Anakin. Sometimes you feel like blurting it out, but something always stops you. Morbid curiosity maybe. Or maybe you just like the thrill of it, that little shiver of adrenaline you get every time he makes himself known.

It would all stop if you told Anakin. Neither would quit until he’d hunted the other man down and gotten rid of him.

They’d kill each other.

——————————————————————————

Anakin worked tonight, so you had plans to meet up with Luke (sans his pet leech) for a late evening dinner. As much as you loved Han and appreciated everything he did for Luke, how happy he made him, you really just wanted some time alone with your best friend.

So you were thrilled to receive a text around 1:00pm from Luke:

‘Don’t be late. I’m dying to catch up babe.’

You quickly opened the message but before you finished typing, a voice message popped up in your notifications, sent from your number.

You abandoned the chat with Luke and opted to open the voice message instead.

‘I’m coming home.’ then a long pause, ‘have fun with Lukey.’

That scratchy filtered voice; you’d yet to hear it over the phone and this being the first time… it sent you right back to the very first time you watched Scream. That icy chill that snuck up the back of your neck, the tightening of your chest… you felt it now, just not because of fear.

You felt it because you were excited.

——————————————————————————

“Okay, seriously what do you keep looking at?” Luke prodded, snatching your phone and sliding it into his jacket pocket.

“Nothing it’s just-“

“My phone is on ‘do no disturb’, because I have missed my buddy, my pal, my best friend.” He paused, his pointer finger jabbing the table between your plate and his.

“I’m sorry,” you sighed. “I haven’t even unlocked it! It’s just sitting there.”

“True, but the obnoxious tapping to check whatever it is you’re hoping for is getting annoying.” Honesty, brutal or not, was Luke’s love language.

“Fine. I’m sorry, I’ll put it in my pocket.” You agreed, holding your hand out palm up.

“No ma’am. This is mine until the check comes.” His answer was definitive, no room for argument there. “What’s so important anyway? I know Anakin is at work.”

“It’s just work stuff.” You huffed.

“Oh? What’s so pressing at the diner?” He scoffed, “got a big shipment of ketchup coming in? Are you ‘on call’?”

“Luke.” You rolled your eyes at his jab. “No and yes. I am ‘on call’ actually. Sara’s son has been sick.’

Not a total lie, he has been sick. Poor guy. But her husband was home with him and he was being well looked after.

“Okay? That’s your problem how?”

“God you’re so negative sometimes.” You sighed. “Her babysitter hates vomit. If he throws up Sara will have to go home.”

“Ew.” He scrunched up his nose. “I’m eating.”

“Okay? That’s my problem how?” You said mockingly.

“Really? Like for real that’s why you keep checking your phone?”

“Yes really.” Giving him a look that screamed duh’. “Her baby sitter is the 14 year old girl that lives next door to her. Do you really suggest leaving a 14 year old in charge of a vomiting 2 year old? When that 14 year old is disgusted by puke? That’s a recipe for disaster.”

It would be a disaster, her sitter is 14. She just happens to be on vacation with her mother right now. Hence the temporary stay at home husband.

“Okay, first of all, 14? Isn’t that alittle young?”

“No? I started babysitting when I was 12.” You shrugged.

“Fine.” Luke sighed. “Here.”

He slid your phone back to you and propped his chin up on his fist. Watching you check it one last time before turning on the sound and putting it in your back pocket.

——————————————————————————

‘I’m walking home now!’

You shot off the text to Anakin after saying your goodbye to Luke at the restaurant. You’d refused his offer to walk you home, you didn’t want him anywhere near your apartment building knowing that Ghost would be there.

Six minutes later he replied:

‘Good girl.🥰 let me know when you get there safe.’

‘Will do💕’

And you did, the moment you stood outside your apartment door.

‘Made it! See you tomorrow💕’

You waited in the hall to receive his response. You didn’t know what would be waiting for you on the other side of this door, and you didn’t want to chance it.

‘Perfect. Sweet dreams doll!’

Your hand poised at the door knob, you inserted your key to discover your door was already unlocked. You very slowly opened the door, but saw no one in your kitchen or living room.

But your bedroom door was closed, boogie hadn’t meowed as loudly as possible and sprinted to you, demanding to be fed. He did say that they were good friends. So they both must be in your room.

Would it be wise to lock your door? The few precious seconds leaving it unlocked would save if you needed to run… no, no. Just lock it. Doorknob. Deadbolt. Chain.

‘Just stay calm’

You kicked off your shoes and tossed your bag to the floor, walking quietly across the carpeted living room to pause in front of your bedroom. A soft yellow glow shone beneath the door, your lamp must be on. You could hear your tv playing something, not quite sure what it was, but it had the all too familiar cadence of a horror flick.

The audacity of this man astounded you.

When you pushed open the door, he was laying in your bed, shoes off, legs crossed at the ankles, propped against the headboard, arms behind his head. He looked like he belonged there. As big a contrast as it was… your soft, pink, feminine room and him. All black, the mask. He just looked so comfortable.

Your cat, the little traitor, was curled up on his chest. It was kind of sweet. How could such an inherently terrifying scenario seem so normal?

Ever so casually he tilted his head toward you, his right hand raising from its relaxed position to lazily give you gloved finger waggle for a wave.

“Have fun?” The filtered voice drifted over to you.

“Yes.” You answered quietly, glued to the spot.

“Are you just going to stand there?” He laughed. “I would come pick you up, but it’s illegal to move a sleeping cat.” He gestured to boogie who had still not moved from her human pillow.

You couldn’t help but laugh, eyebrows raised in an expression of awe filled shock. This was too weird. Too normal. Too scarily alluring.

Yet you found yourself at the edge of the bed, not really knowing how you got there to begin with.

“Sat you some pajamas out.” He said dismissively, the mask fixed onto the tv screen. “Figured you’d wanna change.”

“Huh.” You snorted, seeing that he had.

You expected to see one of your lacy lingerie sets. But he’d chosen something much more modest that you would’ve ever imagined. Loose, thin, stretchy fabric pajama pants, the matching cropped tank top, and fuzzy socks.

“Um. Thanks?” You said awkwardly, picking them up and turning on your heels to change in the bathroom.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He chuckled.

“To the bathroom?” You scoffed, looking over your shoulder at him.

“You can change in here.” He wasn’t offering. He was telling you.

“No way.” You shook your head. “No I’m not-“

“C’mon little doe.” The filtered voice left little room for change in tone, but you could tell from his body language that it was a challenge.

“Ghost. No! I have Anakin I don’t-.”

He laughed. “I don’t care.”

“Well I do.”

“Mmm… not enough. You’re letting me be here. You didn’t tell him. You didn’t mention me to anyone at all actually.” He pointed out.

“Well that’s not-“

“Hush.” He snapped, making you stall. “I’ve seen that pretty little body of yours plenty of times. What’s one more?”

“But-“ your face was so red hot that you could feel the heat spreading down your neck.

“What? I’m not gonna get up.” He said plainly. “I’m comfy right here where I can watch you.”

“I don’t… this isn’t right.”

“Don’t pull that bullshit with me.” He scoffed. “Nothing about this is ‘right’. But you’re letting it happen, yeah?” He said and got just a nod from you in response.

“That’s it.” He moved his arm to point two fingers at you, “get on with it sweetheart. I wanna see my girl.”

“I’m not your-“

“You were mine first.” He snapped.

“Well, that’s not very fair.” Your voice shaking. “I didn’t even know you were…. I didn’t know about you!”

“That might be true.” He growled, “but it’s your fault for being so ignorant.”

“I-I don’t…” you felt like you were on the verge of a tantrum. This man was outrageous, coming into your home uninvited, being a fucking perv, acting like he owns the place, and now he’s calling you ignorant?

“Do you realize how stupid it is for you to argue with me about the morality of all this?” He asked, going back to his former relaxed state.

“You. Are allowing me to be here. You had all day to call the cops if you wanted to. But you didn’t.” That smug little bastard laughed. “I’ve been here for over two hours. You knew I’d be here when you got back.”

“That’s not-“

“I’m not finished.” He held up a finger and silenced you. “You’re mine. You’ve been mine and you will continue to be mine.”

“I don’t care that you are pretending to be appalled by the situation you are in.” His voice was even and unyielding, he was so confident in his statements.

“You know why I don’t care?” He asked, tilting his head toward you condescension oozing from every pore.

“Why?” You squeaked.

“Because I know, without a doubt, that if I were to stick my hand down your pretty pink panties; you’d be wet right now.”

How did he know what color your underwear is? Better question: why is that the first thing you thought of when there were much more pressing matters at hand?

“That’s not true.” Your voice sounded hollow.

“It’s not?” He laughed. “Show me then.”

“What?” You whispered, eyes bugging out of your head.

“Do it. Prove to me that you’re not soaked.” He snickered.

“That’s not fair you can’t just-“

“You’re not running are you? You haven’t said no, you haven’t come over here and smacked me.” He interrupted.

You stood there with your jaw dropped, you needed a dustpan and broom to sweep up your shattered facade of denial. How could you dispute that?

“Fine!” You shouted. “Fine. I’ll just change in here.”

“Don’t raise your voice at me.” He growled. “You’re awfully bold for a spoiled brat.”

“I am not a-“

“When will you stop disagreeing with me?” He laughed. “You know it’s true. I’ve spoiled you so much that you’ve rotted to your core. You weren’t always a brat, but you are now. You like being spoiled don’t you? Being taken care of, being treated like a princess?”

“Your little boyfriend does the same thing doesn’t he?” He snickered. “Spoiled. Brat.”

“You’re just a little girl who needs a man to hold her hand.”

“You’re being mean.” You whispered, your voice breaking.

“The truth is hard to hear isn’t it little doe?” He said, his voice going back to its nonchalant, flat tone.

You couldn’t argue. He’d been right about everything and it’s difficult to argue with someone who throws fact after fact at you like he’s doing. So you took a deep breath and closed your bedroom door.

“Atta girl.” He nodded. “Show me.”

So you did, you turned around and began undressing, you could feel his eyes on you, soaking up the display you were crafting for him.

“Turn around.” His voice alittle quieter, the voice box crackling.

Slowly you complied, swallowing your fear and embarrassment. You kept your eyes closed, it made you feel the slightest bit better, I’m the way a kid would think ‘I can’t see you so you can’t see me’.

“Gorgeous.” He breathed out.

Behind your eyelids you swear you noticed a change in lighting, briefly, but enough to take note of. Your eyes snapped open and saw him holding up his phone.

He’d taken a picture of you.

“Ghost, no! Delete that right now!” You squealed, quickly getting dressed in your fresh pajamas.

“Cool it.” He waved you off. “Just gonna add it to my special folder just for you. See?” He turned his screen toward you and you inched forward.

He wasn’t lying. He scrolled through over one hundred images and videos, some of you in public, some nude, some of you sleeping. All in a folder titled ‘little doe’.

“These are for me.” He said simply. “They’re not going anywhere so don’t worry about that.”

“But these…” he turned the screen back to himself and tapped twice, scrolled and then tapped again before flipping it around.

The images in front of you made you nauseous.

You, spread legs and wet cunt, up close.

You with your hand being held up by Ghost, your fingers buried deeply between your folds.

A short video of your pussy being lovingly stroking by a leather glove. Another of one long digit pumping into you slowly.

A picture of your lips wrapped around his cock.

“S-so you did… you did touch me?” You recoiled.

“No.” He said flatly, before you could protest he laughed.

“You loved it.” He snickered. “Never let you cum. I wanted you to be needy for me.”

“Until… until I saw you.” You whispered.

“Mhm, that’s right.” He nodded. “Took care of your poor swollen pussy properly that time.” He cooed, shoving his phone back into his pocket.

“You’re sick.” You breathed out. “That’s disgusting… you-“

“Call the cops.” He said gesturing to your phone laying on the bed.

“What?”

“You heard me. Call ‘em.” He snorted. “If I’m so sick and disgusting and you’re soooo horrified by my actions; call the cops. I’ll wait right here.”

“Are you gonna send those to Anakin?” Your voice wobbled as you ignored his challenge. You both knew you wouldn’t call.

“Not if you’re good.”

“Are you gonna hurt him?” You asked quietly.

“Now why would I do a thing like that?” He scoffed. “I want you all to myself, but I want you to choose me. I’m not gonna go all Dexter on your boyfriend.”

“You promise?” You sniffled. “Swear it?”

“Pinky swear.” He said confidently, holding out his hand with his little finger raised.

For some reason you took it. You believed him. He hadn’t gotten up and forced you to do anything, he stayed right there the whole time. He had yet to share those pictures with Anakin. A million other twisted reasons you’d started to accept that this was becoming a new normal. A thousand other things that pushed you to believe him.

He’d only bruised your self image with his cold, hard truths about you. That’s not a crime. That’s a reality check.

“Good choice little doe!” You could practically hear the beaming smile on his face behind the plastic mask.

“Now come up here.” He patted the spot next to him. “I don’t like seeing you upset, I’m sorry.”

He was apologizing? He was apologizing.

“You’re sorry?” You repeated in shock.

“Of course I’m sorry. You’re on the verge of tears and I’ve caused it.” He said, holding out his hand palm up for you to take.

“I’m not a monster.”

You hesitated before accepting his hand and climbing into bed beside him. You sat a safe distance from him at first but he lolled his head to the side in what you assumed was a dramatic eye roll and tugged you to his side in a one armed swoop.

The action had you frozen. This was it. He was gonna hurt you. You’d been naive and stupid and he was going to violate you, this time while you were conscious, you’d remember it this time.

“Relax.” He soothed, tucking you comfortably against his side, his bicep behind your head as a pillow and his gloved hand on your side in a way that was almost comforting. “I mean it. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” You whispered, what the fuck is happening?

“No, it’s not okay. I could’ve been more gentle with my words.” His opposite hand rubbing his knuckles across your cheek lovingly.

You were quiet for a moment, debating on the course of action you should take. You were in fact very much allowing this to occur. Would it be so horrible to try and enjoy it? He was warm. He smelled nice and familiar, the cologne… you must have a subtle memory of it from all the times he’d been here while you slept. He was comfortable. He was surprisingly kind.

What’s the worst that could happen?

“Before you get comfy.” He spoke quietly, the voice box crackling from his low voice, “you didn’t take your pill.”

“Oh yeah you’re right.” You moved to get up, pink cheeked because once again he proved that you were in fact helpless without him.

“Don’t get up, I have it right here.” He chuckled, reaching over to the nightstand and handing you the pill packet and a thermos. “Tea.”

“Huh.” You stared at him. Gods this was so fucking weird. “Well… wow okay.” You huffed out a laugh and took your medicine with a sip of your tea.

“Tastes different.” You said, handing the packet back to him.

“Mhm. Yeah I poisoned it.” He said nonchalantly, making you almost choked on your second sip.

“You what?” You shrieked, waking up the cat who bolted from his lap.

“Aw look what you did,” he groaned gesturing to the empty space with a few stray cat hairs.

“You- are you serious?” You started to almost hyperventilate. “Should I make myself throw up?”

Why are you asked the man who poisoned you that? Like he’d tell you.

“No, that would be a waste of good tea.” He snorted. “I put cinnamon in it you idiot.”

“What?”

“Cinnamon.” He repeated. “It’s just cinnamon. It was a joke.”

“That’s not fucking funny!” You shouted, smacking his shoulder.

“Ive already told you once.” His hand shot out and grabbed your jaw firmly. “Do not. Raise. Your voice. At me.” He growled.

“I believe you meant to say ‘ha-ha, ghost that was funny. you got me!’” He snickered and released your jaw, soothing you with his hand now gently raking through your hair.

You were stunned. Absolutely shook by his quick turnaround, this should be terrifying. This man can be so gentle one moment and the next he’s speaking to you like he’s ordering you to lay down at the guillotine. It wasn’t terrifying in the right way. Not the type of fear you should be feeling at his unpredictable actions.

You weren’t scared of him at all. But yourself? Yes. Who is this girl? Why is she… why do you like this? It’s scary because you’re not scared. It’s horrifying because you want more. It’s terrifying because you’re morbidly curious about what he’d do if you acted out again.

You shook your head and picked your jaw off the floor, deciding the best course of action was to just tuck yourself back under his arm and watch whatever movie he had paused when you entered the room.

Might as well. You’ve already come this far.

Date

August 14th

When you woke up the next morning Ghost was gone. Your home was devoid of any trace of him, no note, no gift, no messages. Nothing.

He had hardly moved while you sat with him, the only consistent movement was the gentle twist and twirl of one long lock of your hair around his finger. It was repetitive and soothing, just like the calming rise and fall of his chest.

How could he be so calm? So off guard?

You could’ve turned on him at any moment. Ripped off his mask and saw who he was, grabbed your lamp and wacked him with it. Punched him in the nuts and ran.

But, to be fair, he could’ve done the same to you. Yet you stayed there, albeit anxious and on high alert for majority of the time spent with him. Despite the fact that you knew he carried a weapon, even though you were well aware of what he’d been doing to you all this time, even after he’d manhandled your face when you smarted off to him.

It must be a twisted form of mutual trust.

Or you might just be delusional.

Either way, it was wrong and you knew that. You intentionally got naked in front of another man, while he laid on the bed your boyfriend so sweetly makes love to you in. You fell asleep in the arms of this man. Not just *any* other man, the one who has been stalking you relentlessly for months.

You’ve cheated on Anakin. If he knew, it would crush him. It would break apart his big, soft, velveteen heart. Your betrayal would rip a hole right through the middle and slice up the fabric so badly it couldn’t be sewn back up without ending up smaller, weaker, and deformed.

What could you do? Was there anything to do? Telling him to his face��� the thought of it soured your stomach so badly you thought you might form an ulcer.

Telling Ghost to fuck off and leave you alone wasn’t an option either. No matter what you did, the precautions you put in place; he would find you. Not only would he find you, but he wouldn’t allow Anakin the privilege of breathing anymore.

You couldn’t tell Luke. He’d lecture you until your ears bled while he dragged you to the nearest police station. Then Luke would be in danger, Anakin would know, and Ghost would still be your problem. And if Luke didn’t believe you, he’d ship you off to the long term care loony bin.

Your sister? Of course you couldn’t tell her either. She has her own family. Ghost already knows where she lives, he’s told you so.

He knows everything about you. Your family tree, your friends list, your schedule, your medical information, banking account, he has complete access to your home, your phone…

You are a canary in a cage and he is a cat pawing at you through the metal bars.

It’s only a matter of time before one of those claws nicks you. A feather or two might come loose, open up a weak spot on your frail body. The next swipe might draw blood, maybe it won’t. Or maybe he’ll be lucky enough to bat you to the bottom of the cage.

It’s hard enough to escape when there’s someone always watching. When there’s a lock on the door. But to attempt to flee with broken wings? You couldn’t hobble your way to safety anyway. Bird cages don’t have doors at the bottom, they’re halfway up. They don’t have horizontal bars. You can’t climb.

You are stuck.

It’s up to you if you want to be trapped there intact, or if you’d rather wallow at the bottom in pain.

——————————————————————————

Maybe you should just break up with Anakin.

Ghost said he wouldn’t hurt him, but how long will that last? How long until he gets tired of waiting? Should you ask Ghost again? Just to make sure? Make him sign a fucking contract?

Maybe it would be best if-

“Sweetheart?” Anakin whispered softly, waving his hand in front of your face. “What’s going on? I’ve been standing here for almost a minute.”

Anakin was here.

“What?” You whispered back, suddenly overwhelmingly aware of your surroundings.

The diner. You were at The Bluebird. You were working. A glance to the clock told you that you’d been here for over two hours, a quick scan of the tables and the counter proved that you hadn’t neglected any customers. Your notepad and pen were in your hand, there was money in the tip jar.

Anakin was here.

“Hey, c’mere.” His voice soft and concerned.

He gently took the pad and pen from your hands, put an arm around your shoulder and held your hand as he led you through the kitchen. Not an uncommon occurrence, Anakin was well known to everyone at the Bluebird due to his frequent visits to see you. He often walked with you out through the kitchen to sit on the curb with you while you took a break and he smoked a cigarette.

“Vigo, I’m taking her out back.” He said quietly, speaking to the dishwasher.

“I was about to call you man.” He spoke back in a hushed voice. “She’s been actin’ like that since she got here.”

“Yeah? Well next time don’t wait to call.” Anakin grumbled, scowling at your coworker.

The heat of the afternoon sun soothed over your skin, making you painfully aware of the cold sweat lacing the back of your neck. You blinked and it felt like it was the first time you’d closed your eyes in hours. Your mouth was dry, your teeth felt cold and your brain might’ve been better described as soup.

Anakin sat down on the curb and pulled you down with him. Placing you sideways between his legs, your arms immediately threw themselves around his neck and you curled up into him.

“Jesus baby.” He whispered, the wind getting knocked out of him at your aggressive tackle.

“An-” You started to sob before you even finished his name.

“W-what’s wrong?” You could feel his heart beat quicken beneath you, hear it pounding in his chest. He was feeling real, true panic.

“Hey, hey talk to me. Breathe.” He tried to soothe you by petting your hair, rocking you gently, kissing your forehead… anything, anything he could think of and nothing was working.

You were sobbing so loudly that Anakin was glad there wasn’t a back parking lot. If someone wanted to see where this horrible wailing was coming from they’d have to walk all the way around back, thankfully most people didn’t care enough to do such a thing.

Unfortunately though, your coworkers did care.

The back door creaked open and you could hardly hear the conversation over your own tears.

“Anakin!” Vigo whisper shouted. “What the fuck did you do to her?”

“What do you mean? I didn’t do this!” His voice angrily gritting through his teeth. “What happened today?”

“Nothin’ man! I dunno!” Vigo squeaked raising up his hands in surrender. “She just clocked in like that, no cryin’ though. She’s hardly said a word.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t call me!” Anakin grunted, “I’m her emergency contact for a reason you idiot.”

“Hey? Don’t get mad at me!” Vigo scoffed. “I figured she was in a funk because of you, why would I call if I thought it was boyfriend troubles?”

“Jesus- did you even ask her?”

“What?”

“Oh my fuckin’-“ Anakin took a breath to regulate himself, one arm firmly holding you while the other was wildly gesturing as he spoke. “Did you ask her what was wrong?”

“No?”

“Are you stupid? God just fuck- go back inside before you end up crying on the ground too.” He snapped at him, huffing as the back door shut behind a quickly retreating Vigo.

“Sorry baby, I’m sorry,” He whispered, petting your head and squeezing you tightly. “I’m sorry, that probably didn’t help did it?”

“N-not really.” You hiccuped out a laugh.

“She speaks.” He gasped, “want me to yell at him some more? I’ll do it just say the word-“

“Anakin-“ you snorted, wiping your eyes and nose on his shirt. “Aw shit sorry.”

“You think I’m worried about alittle snot?” He scoffed, “Sweetheart, I’d lick it out of your nose like a cow if you’d let me. C’mere I’ll prove it.”

He stuck out his tongue and flicked it at you, chasing your face as you squirmed away from him. Despite to horrible ache in your lungs and the scratchy feeling in your throat, Anakin had a way of making everything better. Even if it was accomplished by making a fool of himself.

You laughed in spite of trying to catch your breath, fighting those awkward stalled inhales with a the goofy little giggle only he could force out of you. He relented finally when you gave up struggling, opting for a kiss on the tip of your nose rather than his tongue up your nostril.

“Wanna talk to me now?” He asked quietly, his playful attitude tucked away and replaced with seriousness.

“I don’t know Ani.” You sighed, feeling horribly conflicted. “I just want to go home.”

“Then I’ll take you home.” He said, not leaving room for argument. “But I’m not letting you get up until you tell me what’s going on.”

“Please? Please I don’t wanna talk about it.” Your eyes already filling back up with tears.

“It’s nothing really! It’s okay.” You pleaded with him, “I’m just… I’ve been thinking about a lot of stuff and it’s all overwhelming.”

“That’s not okay, don’t say it’s okay. You just wailed like a banshee.” He said sternly. “Talk, let me help.”

“I just feel like I’m losing my mind.” You scoffed, “Im going nuts. I don’t… I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it without you thinking I’m insane.”

“Princess.” He said, his voice cracking with pain. “You can tell me anything. You know that.”

“W-what if hypothetically…” you whispered. “It’s only hypothetical okay?”

“Okay. Imaginary scenario, let’s hear it.” He nodded solemnly.

“Hypothetically, if I was having… nightmares of someone being in my house. What would you say.” You whispered.

“Hypothetical nightmares?” He asked, one eyebrow raised. “Well… I’d suggest that maybe you… go to therapy? See if you can find the root of the problem.”

Therapy? To find the root of the problem? That would work if you didn’t already know where to find the problem: in your apartment at any given moment. Hell, he was probably there right now.

“Are you having these dreams because of that night at the bar?” He asked softly, tucking loose hairs behind your ear. “You know we didn’t see anyone put anything in your drink. No one left at the same time as you but your friends.”

“Now like I said before, just because we didn’t see it on camera… it doesn’t mean that no one slipped something in your drink. Stuff like that unfortunately happens all the time.” He sighed.

“I know.” You nodded, your eyes wet and sad, you knew you weren’t drugged there. You were drugged in the security of your own home. “I know, I think maybe I was just alittle more tipsy than I thought I don’t-“

“Hey, no… it’s okay.” He soothed you. “I believe you.”

“But there was no one who followed you home from the bar. I can say that with 100% certainty okay?” He said sternly.

“Ani but-“

“Look at me.” He said sharply, his voice turning soft again immediately after. “No one followed you home. I watched that video a hundred times over from every angle possible. No one else left the bar until about 17 minutes after you and your friends left.”

“Now don’t get upset baby okay? Listen I know, I know that it scared you shitless.” He said in a pained way, his face not quite matching his tone of voice like he was having a hard time trying to decide how to respond.

“Which is perfectly valid. It’s totally okay to be terrified if you saw something like that.” He soothed you, squeezing your upper arms. “I’m not saying it didn’t happen, I would never say that. If you say that you saw something, I believe you.”

“But, just because you saw it… doesn’t mean that it was truly there. Those kind of drugs can really fuck with your head baby.” He said gently.

“I know.” You sniffled, wiping your eyes and hiding against his chest again.

Gods… this man. He really was one of a kind, not just any man or person in general for that matter, would respond so well to such a strange temporary delusion. Your past boyfriends would’ve run for the hills. But not Anakin. It was clear he wasn’t deterred easily, he was your personal emotional support pet leech.

It was strange, feeling so comfortable like this with someone you hadn’t known for very long. After this conversation you thought maybe it would be okay to tell Anakin the truth about it all. He’d handle it perfectly well wouldn’t he?

But, you can’t risk putting him in harms way. You wouldn’t know if Anakin would be safe without first speaking to Ghost. If Anakin was your pet leech… Ghost was the the neighborhood street dog who’d decided your porch was the safest place to sleep. Who would be heartless enough to kick the poor thing out without a proper meal first?

That’s the problem with strays. Give them a scrap and they’ll love you for life.

Diary Entry: August 14th

Jesus baby I’m sorry. I thought things went well last night, I didn’t mean to make you so upset. I really didn’t. I guess you weren’t ready to see Ghost after all.

That’s my fault, I apologize. I should have known better.

It’s just… you seemed kind of excited for it you know? I thought we had a good time. Was the stripping down in front of me what freaked you out so much? Or seeing the pictures? I shouldn’t have done that. I really shouldn’t have, that was too far, too fast.

I see now that I made a mistake and I plan to rectify it as soon as possible. I’m going to give you a choice, one that I really don’t want to give you. But I will for the sake of your sanity.

I’ve been selfish for too long.

I’ve not truly considered your feelings on the situation, I’ve taken your response at face value and never attempted to dig farther than that. It won’t happen again I can assure you of that. Ghost will still be Ghost, but perhaps just a bit more considerate of your opinions and boundaries.

You must understand though, it’s hard to deal with this for me too. I know it’s not fair to compare our separate sides of the situation like this, but it’s true. It’s painful to watch you get so upset over something I’ve done, knowing I can’t really resolve the issue. I don’t know how to help, or fix this.

I’ve dug myself into a hole. A Pit if you will.

How could you ever forgive me now? After all this time that I have been so stupidly self-centered… I imagine it would be unlikely that you could find it in your immensely kind soul to forgive and forget my transgressions.

Maybe not though? I do see you as a godly entity, my own personal deity. If I leave enough at the altar, bow at your feet for long enough, serve you unconditionally… maybe then you would see that I have discovered the error of my ways. You could see that I am truthful in my pursuit of repentance.

Date

August 15th

Anakin drove to the opposite side of the city to purchase your apology gifts from Ghost. He knew well enough that Luke never had a set schedule, Han was always at the gym and you were at book club. There was limited space in time and even smaller proximity of location for him to safely collect the supplies he needed.

If someone saw him buying a dozen red roses and told you about it without his knowledge… well there goes Ghost. It’d be real hard to explain that away.

So he went to the florist, chose the most beautiful bouquet he could find and tucked it away in a large brown bag with tissue paper over the top so he wouldn’t accidentally bruise the petals.

He strolled down the side walk to another small mom and pop store, just to browse through stationary and cards. Ghost needs to be alittle more classy in his opinion. Maybe if his notes are on nice paper and written in plain black ink… that could ease the discomfort of it. It’s probably not super welcoming to find a ripped scrap of paper with red ink scrawled on it now that he’s come to think of it.

It was amusing to him before, but after your display of emotion, he’s feeling guilty. Very, very guilty. There was no reason to go the extra mile on stupid little things like that.

So, pretty grey paper and matching envelopes join the bouquet.

Now he just has to find something else. It can’t be chocolate or something generic. It has to be something meaningful. Something thoughtful to solidify the sentiment behind his offer for you. Something that will push you to make the right decision.

——————————————————————————

Anakin walked into your apartment, and went straight to your bedroom, it was time for Ghost to set up his apology present.

The big red bouquet was carefully placed in the center of your bed along with the pretty stationary propped against it. Your name carefully and neatly written in **black ink** on the envelope.

Your other gift, had turned into two. A small black box accompanying a short and squat black gift bag with grey tissue paper.

He was proud of his staged display, so proud that he couldn’t wait for you to see it. He was itching for you to get home, he needed to know what you’d choose. He was dying to see your pretty face light up with joy at his thoughtfulness.

So against his better judgement, he snapped a picture of himself standing at your bedside. The photo taken from a high angle to capture just the corner of your red rose bouquet, with himself taking up majority of the frame. His mask tilted to the side and his free hand held up a gloved peace sign.

He’d wait to send it.

He wanted to see your face when the message came through.

Anakin was prepared to be patient, but he didn’t have to be patient for long. He got the notification that there was movement out front of the building, he pulled up the live feed from the stairwell camera on his laptop and excitedly jolted up out of his seat before sitting back down quickly to scoot his seat back up to the table.

He rubbed his hands together and practically combusted from the inside when he confirmed it was you. His fingers moved quickly to send the text message and just as he thought you would, you paused and pulled your phone from your hoodie pocket.

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion, a bit of panic and maybe a bit of excitement. But mostly, Anakin was saddened to see fear. You were scared, but so brave as he watched you sprint up the steps. He shook his head and let out a deep breath, pulling up the split screen of all the cameras in your home.

You burst through the front door and slammed it shut, tossing your bag aside. Anakin turned up the volume just a bit and immediately realized that was a mistake because you yelled directly underneath the kitchen camera. The audio crackled as you shouted out for Ghost, Anakin realized then that you must think he’s still inside your home.

‘Just missed me.’ He texted quickly, watching you check your phone quickly and let out a sigh of relief as you muttered under your breath.

He thought you might text back, but why would you when you knew he was watching at that very moment?

“Hey!” You said, spinning in place, your eyes darting around to scan the room. “Where did you go? I didn’t see you!”

You rushed over to the living room window and down to the alley below, then up the fire escape, your gaze traveling over to the next building’s roof.

‘You won’t see me unless I want you to.’ He texted back.

“Jesus.” You muttered, rubbing your wrist anxiously. “I guess you want me to go to my room huh?”

‘Yes please.’

“Fine.” You sighed, kicking off your shoes as you walked over to the bedroom door, flinging it open quickly just incase he was still hiding out.

Your eyes drew to the center of your bed, the roses, the bag and box, the envelope. If the situation weren’t so strange you might consider this a romantic gesture. But it’s not, it’s not romantic and you shouldn’t want to open the gifts and sniff the pretty, sweet smelling flowers. You should want to call the police and have them haul the shit off for evidence.

“What’s all this for?” You asked alittle quieter than before, holding up your phone to read the text as it came through almost instantly as you knew that it would.

‘Letter.’

“Letter? That’s all?” You scoffed, “you did all this for a letter?”

‘It’s important.’ The response came quickly, followed by a second in rapid succession. ‘Gifts first.’

“Okay… alright. Gifts first.” You sighed, pulling your hand back from where it was inches away from the grey envelope.

The small box seemed like a good first thing to open, easy enough to snap shut if you didn’t like what you saw inside. Tentatively shifting the lid back and forth you wiggled it free and lifted the small square of padding to reveal a very nice, very ornate, obviously hand crafted hair-pin with a silver rod for the pin.

You gingerly lifted it from the box and held it in your hand to examine it, walking over to the window to open the curtains and see it more clearly. Smooth, black ceramic, gorgeously curved and curled silver fittings. But the most intriguing, the most breathtaking part of it, was the delicate lines and the daintily carved cameo in the center of the ceramic oval.

A woman standing under a willow, with a fawn at her feet.

You wanted to hate it, but how could you hate something so beautiful? How could you pretend to be unappreciative of something that clearly took time and effort to find, it wasn’t just vintage, it was antique. The fact that he’d searched for and seized the jewelry was a feat in itself.

You gingerly laid it back in its box, almost too afraid to hold it. Afraid of its fragility, afraid of what it stood for, how it made you feel. The tiny claws of emotion ripping at your throat stole your voice, you could only hope that Ghost couldn’t see your face from where you were standing or he would clearly see what he’d stirred up inside you.

You picked up the small bag and lifted the tissue paper gently, hoping it wasn’t another emotionally draining surprise.

It wasn’t draining, but it sure as hell was a surprise.

“What’s this?” You snorted, turning the bag over and dumping out a few cat toys.

You waited, checking your phone periodically but got no response. You knew he was still watching, so why wasn’t he answering? Sighing you shook your head and opted to take a look at the toys.

A felt kicker toy shaped as a bloody knife. A couple of fluffy spiders, eyeballs with bells inside, and a little vampire bat that was almost too cute to be a cat toy.

“Thanks.” You said quietly.

It was infuriating how well he knew you, he knew how to crawl into your brain and make you want more. How could you not when he did things like this? Thoughtful, well planned gifts, including your pet too. He knew that your cat was your baby and he’d taken the time to befriend her, cared about her enough to buy her things.

It made it all the more irritating that his choice of toys was just alittle funny. But you’d die before you admit that seeing the knife made you crack a grin.

Finally you decided it was time to open the envelope, as soon as you did, you understood why he’d asked you to open the gifts first.

LETTER

Little Doe,

I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused you. The hurt I saw, the words heard… I felt it in my soul when I watched you crumble.

My purpose is to love you, my job is to keep you safe, my goal is to make you happy. I’m only doing one of those things, it’s selfish of me to love you the way that I do. I know that.

What I’ve done is wrong, I’m aware. I can’t justify or explain it to you. Just know that the long and short of it is love, it’s not a normal love, but it’s mine and I’m giving it all to you.

There’s no way you’d understand the lengths I’d go to, the things I would do for you. You’d never comprehend how deeply I adore you. That’s okay. It’s hard for me to understand myself too.

The hairpin, it’s the goddess of the hunt and her fawn. I thought considering it all, it would be more than suitable for our situation.

You’re a saint, a deity, someone worth the labors of worship.

Goddesses aren’t meant to be touched, held, loved corporally. They’re meant to be imagined, a comforting presence that you feel all around you, bowed to in hopes of receiving grace. I’ve tried to go beyond the altar to reach you and for that I’m truly sorry.

Please, please take my offerings.

I love you, I need you, but I don’t deserve you. No one deserves attention from the heavens, especially not me. But if you are listening, if you’re willing, I’ll try my best to be the perfect follower.

So I’ll ask for a boon from my goddess:

Grant me passage on the road to repentance, or take my hand to walk through the valley.

You sat on your bed in silence for a long while, your cat coming to join you and accept the gifts left for her excitedly. It brought you a moment of peace to watch her waller around and smack the eyeballs across the floor.

So the overwhelming weight of the thin grey sheet of paper in your hand felt even heavier when she scampered off with her brand new bag toy hanging from her mouth like a fresh kill. She’d left you alone and undistracted again. Just you, your thoughts, and the suffocating silence surrounding you, the creeping tingle on your neck that told you he was still watching the cameras.

He was waiting.

So you sighed and crawled off the bed with your bouquet in tow, cutting the stems into the kitchen trash can and filling a glass vase with water to display them on the counter.

The grey paper followed you from room to room, seat to seat, from one hand to the other as you read it over and over. You could recite it by memory, it was burned into your retinas, you could still feel the indents of his pen on the paper long after you’d sat it aside, the smell of the paper dye singed your nostrils and didn’t leave even after your shower.

You thought you could clean yourself, wash your hands of the problem both literally and metaphorically.

No amount of scrubbing could rinse your brain well enough to wash away the thousands of jumbled words swirling around. You’d been trying to formulate one, just one, coherent sentence for a response. But each time you made progress, you changed your mind on the decision, you scrapped the idea, sent it to the shredder and recycled it into a slightly different, just as illegible mess.

He’s giving you an out. Take it.

Who cares if he still watches you? He won’t interfere. He won’t show up for visits, he won’t leave you gifts or notes.

He’d left you with an offering. A little piece of himself in exchange for your so called ‘divine intervention’. He was asking for the hand of god to stir the pot and serve it too. At least, that’s how he saw it.

For you it was just an awkward toss up of a bunch of jumbled pros and cons.

On one hand he was offering you freedom. Opening the bird cage and giving you the option to escape but clipping your wings, ensuring you can’t go too far.

He’d still watch, just not make an appearance… keep himself hidden like before.

This would also solidify Anakin’s safety, which you valued highly. You’d be free to have your beautiful blossoming relationship, without the worry and stress from the Ghost that haunts your apartment.

On the other hand he gave you the choice to join him in some capacity. To walk through the valley with him; would he walk two steps behind? Two in front? Or side-by-side?

It’d give you the opportunity to explore this stranger you’ve discovered living inside your mind and body. That weird itch that only Ghost can scratch, the thought of him alone just doesn’t do it for you anymore.

You’d have the chance to see who is under that mask and that was more intriguing than anything. You felt like the more you spoke to him, the more you watched him in person… maybe you’d be able to narrow it down to a few people. That might be worth the risks that come with allowing him to continue visiting.

So, you swallowed your fear and closed your eyes. A few silent moments later you spoke aloud, assuming Ghost was still listening.

“I’ll walk with you.” You said slowly, tasting the words as they left your lips. “On two conditions.”

‘What are they, deer?’ His response came instantaneously.

“You leave my friends and family alone. You swear on your life they’re safe and that includes Anakin. I mean it, I’m not fucking around about it okay?” You said confidently. “I already feel guilty enough, don’t make it worse for me.”

‘Guilty?’

“Yes guilty! I have a boyfriend, who I really, really like.” You said, feeling exhausted from the complexity of your choice. “This isn’t fair to him!”

“But it’s… it’s not fair to me either!” You said frustratedly as you blew out a long breath of air through pursed lips. “I deserve to know who you are! You’ve been watching me for god knows how long and I haven’t even heard your real voice.”

“And… and it’s not fair for you either.” You admitted quietly.

‘Why?’

“You’ve been… mostly harmless. Kind.” You confessed, considering saying more, much more. “You’ve been helpful. Despite everything you’ve done, you obviously care about me. I can’t ignore that especially now.”

‘Mostly harmless??’

‘Why ‘especially’ now?’

“You’re joking right?” You snorted in disbelief, shaking your head and trying to stifle a laugh of indignation. “You… well I mean it feels wrong to call it what it is. But- you.. you know what you did!” You crossed your arms frustratedly.

‘Ah… the extracurriculars.’

“Sure if that’s what you want to call it.” An expression of, strangely enough, amusement, crossed over your features. “What it is… well you know what it is.” You sighed.

“But for some reason… I don’t want to call it that.” You said quietly.

‘Hm. I’ll remember that.’

“I’m sure you will.” You huffed in spite of yourself, because if you were honest you’d be telling him you liked it. Your body liked it, your brain liked it, asleep or not, he’d affected you in ways you were unsure you could get with anyone else. Including your sweet and precious boyfriend, he’s too tender and loving.

“Second condition: you promise me that you’ll eventually tell me who you are.” You said firmly. “I deserve to know.”

‘I accept.’

“Okay then.” You sighed with relief and a bit of resignation. “You still have to warn me if you’re gonna be coming to visit though!”

��Yes ma’am.’

“Ew. Add that to the list. Never call me ma’am again.” You snorted and it rolled into a full laugh when you finally looked up and caught your own gaze in your bedroom mirror. You were sitting in your room alone, speaking aloud, having a fully fleshed, seemingly one-sided conversation.

If anyone were to walk in on this scene playing out, they’d think you’ve lost your mind.

Maybe you already have.

Part Ten

The pendant that inspired the hairpin! I forgot to add it in sorryyyyyy

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One Step Away From You (Chapter 19: The Final Chapter)

BSF!Eddie Munson x PlusSize!GF!Reader

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Chapter Summary: Moments of you and Eddie's future together. WC: 3.3k Warnings: MDNI. Explicit language. I honestly don't really have anything to put here. Pure tooth rotting fluff for these sweethearts. References to passed parents, and pregnancy. After procrastinating writing this last chapter for like a month, I've finally sat down and wrote it. I hope you all enjoy! Series taglist: @littlexdeaths @eddie-is-a-god @siriusmaraudeers @amandahobblepot @person-005 @thicksexxualtension

Sunday, August 10th, 1986

Steve trudges in with another box, giving you a tight-lipped smile as he sets it down on top of another by the door of you and Eddie’s new apartment.

“That’s the last of it.” he announces to you, placing his hands on his hips. A light sheen of sweat covering his forehead.

You share a glance with him before looking around to confirm his words. Every box you can remember packing is here, either already being unpacked by your friends or sitting stacked and waiting. Max and Lucas are finishing unloading all the kitchen supplies. Robin has efficiently organized each box by room and purpose. Eddie and Dustin are unpacking all his DnD belongings, enthralled in conversation.

It happened so fast, but of course it would with seven sets of hands to help.

As you look amongst your friends in your new apartment, images of the memories you’ve all made together this summer replay in your mind.

Countless hours at the lake; Swimming and laughing, basking in the sun, and watching it set in content. 

Cookouts in Steve’s backyard; Sharing beers and stories.

Playing at the arcade, trying to beat each other’s high scores.

Campaigns in Mike’s basement.

Entranced while watching new movies at the cinema.

Memories you’ll hold dear in your heart forever.

Eddie’s words ring through your mind.

This isn’t the end, sweetheart. It’s only a new chapter.

You smile softly to yourself.

A soft, red light shines through the windows of the living room, evidence of the setting sun over the city buildings surrounding yours.

“And this…” Eddie begins, holding his copy of the Dungeon Master’s Guide in his ringed fingers. Cover slightly faded and spine bent from years of use and love. He takes one last look over it in admiration before turning his attention to Dustin, kneeling on the floor beside him in front of the moving box.

“Now belongs to you, Sir Dustin Henderson.” He says with a smile, handing the book over. Dustin’s own toothy grin falters as his mouth falls agape and eyes widen, looking between the book and Eddie.

“Are you serious?” Dustin practically squeaks out in disbelief, making Eddie chuckle softly. He pushes the book into Dustin’s open hands before clasping his hand on Dustin’s shoulder.

“Hellfire’s in good hands with you.” He begins, before cocking his head to the side, raising his brows humorously. “Don’t make me regret it.”

His smile quickly returns as Dustin throws his arms around Eddie, pulling him in for a tight hug.

“I won’t let you down.” Dustin promises, his voice quiet and sincere.

Eddie’s eyes flicker up to meet yours as you watch the interaction before you, leaning against a short stack of boxes with your arms folded, quickly giving him a warm smile as your heart thumps in your chest.

You hear Steve sigh softly at your side, turning your head to look at him.

“I guess it’s time for us to get going.” Steve remarks softly, giving you a one sided smile as the red glow has retracted from the windows, the lights of the apartment now primarily illuminating your surroundings.

You reach out to pull him in for a warm embrace. 

“Thank you for your help, all of you.” You say loud enough for everyone to hear as your friends begin to collect their belongings.

You and Eddie hug each one goodbye, a slew of thank you’s and see you soon’s blending in the mix.

Too quickly, the clock turns to the very early morning hours, and you and Eddie have made a significant dent in your unpacking tasks. Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors record spins on a player, music softly flowing through your cozy, new apartment. Eddie’s in the bedroom, putting away your clothes as you sit on the living room floor. The last box sat in front of you, FRAGILE in big, black words written by your hand across the tan cardboard.

“Honey” you call out to him. “Can you come here for a minute?”

After a few moments, his head pokes out from the bedroom door frame. Curls that have fallen loose from his messy ponytail frame his face.

“Yeah? You alright?”

You nod lightly at him with a sweet smile.

“I have something for you.”

He eyes the box in front of you as he approaches before they return to your face as he rests on his knees beside you.

“It’s a… apartment-warming gift.”

He looks at the light blush warming your cheeks, the bashful smile playing on your lips, your eyes that look at him in adoration and excitement. He chuckles softly, giving you a wide smile before kissing your lips sweetly.

“Baby, you didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to.” You remark quickly before gently nudging the cardboard box toward him. “Open it.”

His hands briefly run along the material before he begins plucking at the edge of the tape sealing it closed. As the flaps concealing its contents open, your breathing slows and nearly stops as you intently read his reaction. 

His smile slowly fades as his eyes take in the gift before him. Inside sits a dark blue milk crate, filled with records. He knows what this is as soon as he sees it. Gulping down a lump forming in his throat as his fingers flick through each record he knows by heart, the replacement Muddy Waters record he bought in Hawkins 2 years ago sitting in the forefront.

“I went to every record store here in Indy, tried to find every one of the same records I can remember. I know it’s not the same but… I thought you’d like it.” You elaborate gently, almost cautiously despite knowing in your heart he’d love it.

He stares down at the records in bewilderment. It’s a blast from the past. A near exact replica of the milk crate and records it held that sat in the living room of every place he’d ever lived growing up. His mom’s records that held so many of the few memories he still held of her. The crate and records he’d lost in the fire two years ago that completely devastated him.

He takes a shaky inhale through the nostrils as his eyes brim with tears. One single look at you is all it takes before his hands are on your plush waist, pulling you to him. His mouth crashes onto yours in a desperate, deep kiss, effortlessly conveying every emotion and thought within him to you.

He takes a heavy sigh as your lips part and his forehead rests against yours. Fingers gently squeezing your waist.

“Thank you, sweetheart. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” His wet, brown eyes bore into yours, his voice quiet and overwhelmed with emotion.

Wordlessly, he rises from the floor and pulls you with him. Careful not to let either of you trip as you cross the short distance to the bedroom wrapped in each other’s embrace. With a strength you didn’t know he had, he lifts and lays you onto the bed, set on conveying just how much he loves and appreciates you, christening your new bed and apartment in the process.

Two years later

Friday, March 18th, 1988

Your apartment is buzzing with energy, music floating into the bedroom as you and Eddie move about, getting ready for the exciting night you’ve had planned for a month now.

A month prior on your anniversary, Eddie had taken you to a lovely Italian restaurant in town, his own way of recreating your first date at Vito’s in Hawkins, except this place was much nicer. Toward the end of your meal, he slid your anniversary present across the table toward you, enclosed in a white envelope. You’d felt like your stomach had fallen to your ass as you held the tickets in hand.

Market Square Arena presents

Michael Jackson

The Bad Tour

March 18th, 1988

“Eddie! How the hell did you get these?!” You squeal at him, trying your best to keep your voice down in the fancy restaurant. He gives you one of the proudest, goofy smiles you’ve ever seen.

“You know all the long, late shifts I’ve been working at the shop? I’d been saving up money for it ever since it was announced, got up early and made sure I was one of the first in line when they went on sale.”

You shaked your head in disbelief with a smile plastered on your face as you leaned across the table and planted your lips on his.

“Thank you, baby. You’re the best.”

After a month of anticipation and excitement, the night is finally here. You’re just about finished putting on your makeup in the mirror when you hear an unexpected knock on the apartment door. You look at Eddie in confusion.

“Who the hell could that be?”

He does his best to hold his lips in a straight line, shrugging his shoulders as he strides out of the bedroom. A shit-eating grin gracing his face as he passes the threshold to reveal one of the surprises he has in store for you.

“Are we ready to get this party started?!” You hear a familiar voice boom from the living room, Steve and Robin’s smiling faces soon following as they appear in the doorway to your bedroom. Your mouth falls open at the sight, soon turning into a wide smile as you jump in the air, pulling them in for a hug. 

“You guys are really coming with us?!”

“Yep, Eddie and I planned it out and bought the tickets together.” Steve announces with a satisfied smile.

You look at Eddie as he stands between your best friends, watching you with a grin. Excitedly swaying side to side with his hands behind his back.

You give him a quick but deep kiss, lips smiling against each others. You don’t even need to say anything, he knows.

You quickly finish getting ready and the four of you share a ‘pre-game’ shot before heading out. Now that you live in the city, the arena is conveniently only a couple blocks away. You all chatter in excitement walking down the Indianapolis sidewalks, soon merging with other groups of people heading toward the concert.

The atmosphere inside the arena is indescribable, only heightening when you finally take your seats inside. Your whole body is tingling, your stomach flipping as you wait in anticipation. A smile is permanently fixed on your face, and it warms Eddie’s heart knowing he’s responsible, that he can make you this happy.

The lights drop and the crowd erupts into cheers including your little group, standing from your seats and clapping before the man of the hour finally appears on stage. You swear you must be dreaming. That is until he begins singing the first song of the night, Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’. You realize it’s all real, and you couldn’t fight the tears from streaming down your face if you tried. It’s an experience and emotion so overwhelming to finally see one of the artists you’ve loved for practically your whole life perform. You feel Eddie’s warm hand grab and gently squeeze yours, looking at you with a loving smile.

You feel like you’re on top of the world. Frozen almost, as if nothing exists outside of the arena in this moment. Singing your heart out, swaying in beat to each song with your boyfriend and best friends. You couldn’t have asked for anything more.

Half way through the show, you scream out upon hearing the first notes of your favorite song begin to play, feeling your eyes welling with tears again. 

Looking out,

Across the nighttime

The city winks a sleepless eye

You can already feel your throat beginning to dry out, knowing it’ll be sore in the morning but you don’t care, you sing along to every word as loud as you can.

Eddie spares a glance over the top of your head to Steve, who turns to meet his eyes. Steve nods softly, a big smile spreading across his lips. A knowing look, a planned look. Eddie returns the nod before looking back at the stage, taking a shaky, deep breath as his hand anxiously fiddles in his pocket.

He looks down at you next to him, his hand reaching to softly caress your lower back. As your singing quiets, letting yourself just absorb it all, he knows it’s time.

“Sweetheart,” he coos softly against your ear. “I have another surprise for you.”

It takes a moment for his words to process through your brain amid the flurry of stimulation around you. Your brows furrow together in confusion as you turn to look at him, only for them to shoot up when you see your boyfriend drop to one knee beside you. Fishing in his pocket before he brings out a small, red box. Your heart stops and your mouth falls open at the sight in shock. His big, round, brown doe eyes staring up at you.

“I love you, Y/N” You watch his lips move as he tries his best to speak loud enough for you to hear over the crowd and music without yelling.

“Will you marry me?”

You don’t even need to hear it to know exactly what he’s saying, exactly what he’s doing in this very moment as the red box opens to reveal a beautiful ring. The lights from the stage glimmering off the diamond. Your mouth shuts as your lips form into a pout and whatever tears are left in you flow down your cheeks again.

“Yes!” You choke out, nodding your head fervently at the question, allowing the beautiful smile to grace his face again before he slides the ring onto your finger. Not wasting a second to stand up and grab your face, pulling you into a passionate exchange. You faintly hear some people around you who’d witnessed the interaction cheering, including your friends beside you. But at this moment, it’s just Eddie, continuing to make you the happiest you’ve ever been in your life.

Another two years later in the early summer months of 1990, you and Eddie finally tied the knot.

You have a small ceremony in a park on the outskirts of Indianapolis, surrounded by nature and your closest family and friends, it’s everything you could’ve asked for. Robin was your maid of honor, Dustin as Eddie’s best man, and Uncle Wayne graciously and tearfully accepted the offer to walk you down the aisle.

So much has changed in the last few years, even the last year alone. You’d just graduated from college, and throughout your time there you’d picked up a job at the college’s radio station and took elective classes in sound engineering. Learning even more about music and how to produce it. You’d discovered the pathways into the industry around Indianapolis and last year in 1989, a label showed interest in the lovesong you’d written for Eddie those few short years ago. Months later while driving around the city, you heard your song playing on the radio performed by the Cure, and the whole world stopped around you. Said best by Eddie, this only marked the start of a new chapter for the two of you.

Saturday, May 9th, 1998

Nashville, Tennessee

The cool, morning breeze gently cascades over your exposed skin, moving stray strands of hair out of your face. Your fingers are wrapped around a warm mug of coffee as you sit on the back porch of your house, letting your eyes slowly travel along the rises and dips in the mountains surrounding you, listening to the calming sounds of the lake lapping against the shoreline.

Absolute peace.

“Mommy?” A soft, quiet voice pulls you out of your trance. You turn to look behind you, greeted by the sight of your 3 year old daughter standing at the back door. Still in her jammies, holding her favorite stuffed toy to her chest. Wild, honey brown curls falling past her shoulders. Sleepy eyes and a soft smile.

“Hey, baby girl. What’re you doin’?” She takes short steps closing the distance between you, rubbing the sleep from her eyes before climbing into your lap and laying her head on your chest.

“Daddy woke me up, a-and told me to bwush my teeth.”

Your hand softly rubs up and down her back, looking down at her in amusement.

“And have you…?”

She's quiet for a moment before only responding with soft giggles, giggles that turn into loud cackles as your fingers tickle her sides making her body wiggle against yours.

“There she is!” Eddie walks out onto the porch with a tired sigh. 

You hold your daughter in place, dramatically gasping at Eddie’s appearance.

“You better hurry and get ready before Daddy gets you!” You emphasize quietly in her ear, sending her squealing past Eddie and back into the house. He watches her run past in amusement before turning toward you, rising from your seat to greet him with a kiss.

It’s been a couple of years since you’d made the move to Tennessee. Back in Indianapolis after graduating and getting married, Eddie continued to work at the shop part time and you found a part time job in your field, while you both also worked at a recording studio. You’d honed your skills producing and continuing to write music, producing your songs yourself and sending them off to record labels, waiting for one of them to take a bite. Eddie’d gotten his own stroke of luck after the success of your song, the unimaginable happening again when Metallica took up one he’d written, ‘Sad But True’. 

After a while, you’d both craved a change of scenery, seeking out somewhere you could settle down for the long run. After months of thinking, Nashville seemed like the perfect place to land. Returning to his and his mother’s home state of Tennessee before they moved to Hawkins felt right. It made sense for your future, too. Outside of LA, Nashville is the second city with the biggest music industry presence and connections. Though country music is often portrayed at the forefront, that image vastly underestimates the variety of musical artists and genres held within the city.

After taking some time to find your footing, Eddie now owns his own mechanic’s shop. Giving himself more freedom to take care of your child and to work at the studio you work in full time. The studio you both now own after busting your asses for so many years. All the years of hard work and dreams have finally come into fruition. You’d produced and written number one songs and worked with so many artists, while staying away from the overwhelming and toxic fame that often came with the industry. Allowing yourselves to live the quiet life you’ve always wanted while still doing what you love.

It’s only a four hour drive from Hawkins, and your loved ones still make trips to visit you and vice versa. Amid all of your busy lives now, you all still make a commitment twice a year for your friends to come down and have a get together. A weekend full of cookouts, bonfires, hikes, swimming in the lake, exploring the city, and DnD campaigns.

“How’re you two doing this morning?” Eddie asks softly, his voice still heavy with grogginess as his hand gently caresses the growing bump of your belly. You smile, resting your forehead against his.

“Good,” your head nods softly against his. “No more sickness, I think we’re in calmer waters now.”

“Only a few more months to go and we still haven’t decided on a name for him.” Eddie reminds you teasingly, making you playfully roll your eyes. 

“I know, I know. We’ll figure it out.” 

He wraps his arms around you and your body relaxes into his. Meeting his lips again in a deep kiss, a kiss filled with years of memories and love. A kiss filled with the promise of a lifetime to come.

[hulkscannibal]

A random essay that I wrote about nico for school that i thought i’d share, it’s below the cut!!

Word count : 1975

✦ ─ ˗ˋ ୨୧ ˊ˗ ─ ✦

Nico Hulkenberg, born on August 19th, 1987 in Emmerich, Germany, is a high performing athlete who partakes in the FIA formula1 world championship. Nico holds the record for the most Grand Prix’s started with no podium, currently at 226 as of October 2024. But this does not define Nico’s racing career and I hope to show you why Nico Hulkenberg is still insanely talented, despite his lack of titles and podiums.

In 1997, at ten years old, Nico began his racing career by entering several German karting leagues and championships. He won the German Junior Karting championship in 2002 and won several more in the following years. Nico continued karting for another year until he moved to motor racing to start his journey to Formula one. Though this was a successful move, speaking as Nico would’ve been the German BMW champion until he was deemed of cheating by the Stewards and demoted to a third place finish in the championship in 2005. He moved to formula three after his failure to finish first in the BMW championship, but chose the less competitive German series rather than the European, where he finished fifth after one win. He entered A1 grand prix in 2006-07, where he won 9 races, leading his team from 15th to the champions. He moved back to formula3 in 2007, where he won a few impressive races and overall finished third in the championship with four wins. He followed with another year of formula3, becoming champion while also working as a test driver for the formula1 team Williams. He moved to GP2.

During the off season, Nico scored several poles in the Asian GP2 races, causing an impression on formula1 teams watching the young driver. These pole positions he scored may have been the reason Williams chose him as the first to test the newly modeled FW30. Nico won three consecutive races with ART in the main GP2 series, bringing him to the championship battle with Grosjean, who graduated to F1, leaving Nico to be the first rookie to win the championship since Lewis Hamilton in 2006.

This then led Nico to his debut in formula1 as a full time racer for the Williams team. Nico’s rookie season consisted of him constantly chasing points and performing well, though he was outperformed by his veteran teammate, Rubens Barrichelo, and finished 14th by the end of the season. His best moment of the season was his pole position in Interlagos, which was a complete surprise to everyone, though it did not lead to a win nor a podium.

Nico left Williams after his rookie year and spent one year away from an official seat in 2011, now working as a reserve driver for Force India and usually racing FP1 for the team, then followed by taking a full time seat for the team in 2012. Nico had nearly earned himself several more wins and podiums in his time with Force India, but seemed to always lose them when he was so close to reaching them. Nico finished the 2012 season with eleventh place in the standings before announcing his departure from the team after an earlier signing with Sauber. Nico raced there for the entirety of the 2013 season but had no outstanding moments and finished with a dull season before returning to his previous team, Force India, once again for 2014. The car had benefits from the Mercedes high-classed power unit, and Nico often took it into points but did not get a podium. He finished the season in 9th with 96 points, finishing above his teammate, Sergio Perez, even though the Mexican had stood on the podium that season.

In 2015, Nico continued another season with Force India, where he faced many problems with his car and his own doings. He finished the season in 10th behind Perez, his best finish being 6th in Austria. Nico still failed to receive a podium, but instead won the 24 hours of le mans in a Porsche 919, being the first active formula1 driver to do so in 24 years. 2016 was a similar season where a podium did not come to him, yet again to teammate Perez. Nico finished 10th in the standings, and soon decided to move to a manufacturing team, Renault.

His first season with Renualt was another of the same, followed by constant Q3 qualifying results, trios of sixth place finishes, and DNFs when he was so close to a podium. He finished the season in 10th and scored a total of 43 points. He was a promising contender to help the new Renault team to be a competitive team once again. Nico’s next season with Renault was promising, taking 7th and 6th several times throughout the season, though the pressure from Sainz continued to grow throughout the season. Nico finished the season in an impressive 7th, proving to be the best of the midfielders, finishing just behind both Ferraris, Mercedes and Red Bulls. Nico still was unable to gain a podium, but was beyond ready. For the 2019 season, Nico was no longer racing with Sainz, yet now Ricciardo, who took the higher results for most of the races, where Nico faced pressure from both his teammate and the aggressive McLaren drivers, the rookie Lando Norris and his previous teammate Carlos Sainz, Nico finished the season in an overall 14th with 37 points. A month after Nico had a rough crash, Renault confirmed his departure for the team and their decision to replace him with Esteban Ocon.

For 2020, Nico failed to find an official seat to race with, and everyone had deemed this as his retirement. He returned as a reserve and test driver for Racing Point in this year, and replaced Perez twice after the Racing Point driver tested positive for Covid19. One race was unsuccessful after an issue with the car, and the next he finished 7th. Nico did not race in a formula1 car again, other than occasional testing and reserve, until 2023.

He returned to the sport with Haas, racing alongside Kevin Magnussen. This was a complete shock to everyone both in the sport and watching. He replaced 7 time world champion Micheal Schumacher’s son, Mick Schumacher, who did not receive a seat for 2023. Nico finished the uneventful season in an overall of 16th, his highest finish being 7th. Most of his races resulted in no points, but he outperformed his Danish teammate who finished the season with a mere 6 points compared to Nico’s 9.

The 2024 season, which is not finished by the writing of this document, Nico is tenth in the standings, right behind both Mclarens, Redbulls, Mercedes, Ferraris and one Aston Martin. Nico has had a swell season, constantly making it into the points and having 31 points for the season. He has finished all races, minus Monaco where he DNF’d due to a battle between Kevin Magnussen and Sergio Perez, where the spinning car of Sergio took Nico out with it.

Now that I’ve given you a full recap of Nico’s career and its lack of wins and even podiums, I’m going to explain why he is a talented driver, if his results didn’t do it for you. Nico was described as “the best driver that never was” by Frederic Vasseur, the team principle of Scuderia Ferrari, which is a lot coming from a person who owns a team with 16 world championships to a driver without a single podium. Haas has been around since 2016, having 6 drivers, and Nico has been the most consistent driver out of all of them, finishing constantly around 10th-5th, which I personally believe is beyond impressive. Even though Nico has just recently stepped up to be a constant Q3 contender, he has always been known as a threat to everyone else in the mid-pack. I also believe it is a matter of the car Nico is driving. Though he has managed to bring all of his midfield cars to their best results, he lacks the powerful car to challenge the Redbulls, Mercedes, Ferraris and no McLarens. It was later revealed that in 2014, if Mercedes hadn’t signed Lewis Hamilton, they would have taken Nico. I think this would have absolutely made Nico a champion. The multi time junior champion was thought to be the next world champion, and could’ve done so just with a faster, more powerful car. Nico has an adaptable and quick driving style, adjusting to anything thrown at him. I mean, it takes a pretty adaptable driver to have driven for 7 teams, right? His driving style in early GP2 days and rookie year was so aggressive and he drove the car to its limits to keep it in its grip limits, but modern tires required smoothness that his driving style did not fit. Nico is an early breaker and is insanely talented when it comes to managing the pedals, though his style changed from aggressive to smooth to be kinder for the tires, he is great at qualifying for his quick one-laps, where he’s constantly on the grip limit.

The difference between Nico and his teammates, Magnussen in specific, is the fact that Nico breaks earlier than the Dane, leaving him with less speed on the turns and giving him a better exit than Magnussen, where he then accelerates faster by a quicker ability to full throttle. Even through the chicane, he can hold out a faster speed through all parts, including the quick turns, which gives him an overall faster time compared to his teammate. He keeps a higher minimum because of this. He decelerates way harder and gets a huge advantage on the turns.

As Nico is a veteran driver on the grid, third oldest behind Alonso and Hamiltom, he is experienced, more so than some of the younger drivers. Nico doesn’t rely on dangerous and harmful driving, yet his smooth and level headed mannerism and his very important adaptability that draws teams in to consider the German as a contender for a seat. If anything changes in the race or doesn’t go how Nico had wanted it to, he is quick to adapt and continue out the race with the challenges or changes that were thrown at him.

While most drivers are described to be all bark, no bite–like Norris, who talks himself up then ;proceeds not to perform in the way he said he would–Nico is quite the opposite, all bite no bark. This goes in the sense that the veteran driver is insanely humble and quiet, doesn’t speak up and is not very boastful. This also goes on the track. Nico is speedy and there’s no telling that he’s behind you until he’s pressuring and takes a late break overtake.

Nico Hulkenberg is seen as a champion in waiting and the career he deserved never came to him. He spent years being crowned champion, winner, podium sitter, then entered the sport he’s been waiting his entire life to be in, to never stand on even the lowest step of the podium ever again. Nico had won Le Mans, and sometimes I start to wonder if his career was fit for WEC instead, and how it would’ve changed if he stays. June 14th, 2015, was the last time Nico had ever sat on a podium, and it wasn’t even for the career he loved most. Nico never succeeded, and his talent was left to waste and rot and never seen for what it truly was. Nico truly was the greatest driver that never was.

[docholligay]

DOCDOC BIRTHDAY WEEK EXTRAVAGANZA

HELLO AND WELCOME! For my birthday, i am getting to do things that *I* want to do, but I hope that you will love as well! Stuff we don't normally do, stuff I don't always have time for, etc. I hope this looks as fun to you as it does to me: BMuch of this I have handpicked as "Fuck I would love to do that if I had the time"

Saturday, August 10th: That evening, we'll have a lovely fun stream. The movie that won the draw out of the pitches was:

I FUCKING LOVE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD I HAVEN'T WATCHED IT IN YEARS THANK YOU FOR REMINDING ME IT EXISTED. It's so bad, it's so bad. It is so very much a shitty modern girlpower type fucking movie, it has NOT ONE IOTA of subtlety, it was basically a 60s-70s Western made with A Girl but trying to do business with the grittier Westerns of the 90s AMAZING. I CANNOT WAIT to tell you everything that is wrong with this movie, it is so fun and fucking stupid.

Sunday, August 11th: I'm running a race Full Send because this is how I have fun I guess but then, that evening, Jackbox games!

Monday, August 12th: The Patreon release of some more of Justified Episode one, and then that night, the movie club for The Lucky Mill! There's a separate post on that, I'll make sure to reblog it again a few times.

Tuesday, August 13th: First of all, It's Lena's birthday! According to my canon, the only one that matters. Weirdly this is not related to it being close to my birthday--I picked it out of a book about birthdays that I use for that sort of thing. I 'found' her personality and just made that her birthday. It's how I did it for all the Overwatch characters. ANYWAY.

It'll be a 'liveblog' (More like a series of long posts) about Season 2, Episode 9 of Vinland Saga. I streamed this show, and really really liked it, but Oath was, I think, my favorite of a series of very good episodes, and I can't wait to really talk about it.

Wednesday, August 14th: IT IS MY BIRTHDAY SHOWER ME WITH AFFECTION. I am going to the fair all day. It is also, no joke, Doc Holliday's birthday. How's that for fuckin kismet?

Thursday, August 15th: A series of unhinged essays about the television show Interview With The Vampire, deeply informed by the fact that the Vampire Chronicles were akin to my Harry fucking Potter when I was a deeply weird 13-16 year old. HUGE spoilers for the books, but honestly the TV show has been so different that it might NOT be a spoiler for the show ahaha. (I do very much like the show, in case anyone is worried it'll be a hateblog.)

That night: @keyofjetwolf and I will be watching S2E5 of Interview. She will have only seen UP to that point, and it's one of my favorite eps (I am sure all of you who have seen it know why)

Friday, August 16th: We finish off with a drunken stream. I will be asked to identify anime and what they are about in what I can only assume is some kind of Who Wants To Be A Weeaboo Piece of Shit, while I am drunk. May include audience participation. For any more detailed instructions/explanation, @ultrace is the main runner of this, with a heavy assist by @keyofjetwolf I think it will be very funny and I will do badly ahahah.

And that will be it! a full week of fun celebration! PLEASE JOIN ME AND HAVE FUN

[percy-and-rachel-events]

Perachel Bingo Week F.A.Q.

Q: What is Perachel?

A: It's the romantic relationship between Percy Jackson and Rachel Elizabeth Dare.

Q: I prefer to make fanworks of them as friends. Is that allowed?

A: Absolutely! Just make sure that Percy & Rachel's friendship is the focus of the fanwork.

Q: When is the event?

A: It's seven days long! July 28th, 2024 to August 3rd, 2024.

Q: How does a bingo week work?

A: I have provided prompts, link here. For everyday you participate, you create one work based on one of the prompts on that list! Totally up to you which ones to choose. You must use a different prompt everyday, no repeats.

Q: Do I have to participate everyday and make 7 works?

A: Absolutely not!! However many works you want to make is fine! If you just want to do one, that's great! If you want to do all 7 that's amazing!

A: ...For the one insane (/affectionate) friend who said they wanted to do all 12... you are one of a kind. Please take care and don't burn out. The point is to have fun, not to stress!

Q: What if I don't finish in time?

A: I will leave the ao3 collection open and continue reblogging fanworks on tumblr until August 10th.

Q: Where is the ao3 collection? How do I add my fanwork?

A: Its right here. To add your work to the collection, when you're about to post it to ao3, scroll to Associations -> "Post to Collections/Challenges" and type in: Perachel_Bingo2024 as shown below.

Q: I want you to reblog the works I made for this event! Why didn't you?

A: I want to reblog them! Just make sure you follow the regulations on content.

Q: What are the regulations on content?

1. The focus of the fanwork must be on Percy and Rachel. 2. No Percy Jackson or Rachel Elizabeth Dare bashing. This is a hard rule that will be enforced. If I see bashing, I will remove the works from the ao3 collection and I will not reblog it here. 3. NSFW content is allowed, however it must be appropriately tagged here and on ao3. Additionally on tumblr all nsfw content must be hidden under a "read-more" to be reblogged on his account. That is another hard rule. This event is open for all ages, and I hope to provide a safe space for everyone.

Q: What does Rachel or Percy bashing mean?

A: Bashing for this event will be defined as inventing qualities etc. to hate on the characters [Percy or Rachel] and not giving them any redeeming qualities to balance it out.

Q: Does that mean I can't write any tragic stories where they die/suffer?

A: Tragic stories and sad endings are absolutely allowed!! I just don't want Percy or Rachel to be morally demonized. As long as you steer clear of that, you're good!

Q: How do I insert a "read-more" on laptop and mobile?

A: On laptop web, when you start a new line you'll see these icons (in the pic below). Click the grey one on the far right, with the squiggly line instead the two straight horizontal lines. The "read-more" should pop up immediately!

A: On mobile, type :readmore: . No spaces, just the colons plus the letters. It won't pop up immediately; but it should show up when you save as draft, queue or post.

Q: What kind of fanworks can I make?

A: Anything! Fanfics, fanart, moodboards, poems, playlists etc. If it's made/complied by you and complies with tumblr and ao3's rules, then you can submit it!

Q: Is there a minimum or maximum wordcount for fanfics?

A: Nope! Want to challenge yourself and write a 50 word mini fic? Go for it! Your one-shot spiraled into a novella? Please share, I'd love to read it!

Q: You didn't choose the 12 most popular prompts from the poll results!

A: Nope! 4-5 prompts were already chosen, regardless of the poll! The other 7-8 were determined by the most popular poll results. That's the perk of running the event, I get to decide everything :)

Q: I have more questions that aren't answered here.

A: My inbox is open. Feel free to ask! :)

[pricechecktranslations]

The heavenly yard blog infomine, part 7: More Albums and Events, Collaborations, Cloture of Yellow, then, a Break! (to do more work)

Mothy is pretty busy in this set, primarily working on making his songs and videos as well as attending events, so we don't get as much concept and idea discussion, but we do finally get him releasing Cloture of Yellow!

4 March 2010 ~ 26 August 2010

---March 2010---

4th

-mothy announces that he'll be uploading "Last Revolver" to NicoNico.

8th

-mothy releases Last Revolver to NicoNico. He talks about it a little bit--he actually made the song in September of last year, but it was much longer than even Moonlit Bear at the time so he's spent a lot of time cutting the song down to size.

-Naturally, Ichika did all the work on the PV this time around.

18th

-mothy announces his participation in VOCALOID PARADISE 3. He's going to be selling Prelude to Forest there.

-he's also working on a new album that'll have his recent song releases on it.

---April 2010---

6th

-mothy thanks everyone who came to the VOCALOID PARADISE event (apparently it was his first Kansai event)

-mothy will be releasing his new album, Evils Forest, at the next event.

-He also announces that he'll be releasing a new song, "Wendy" for the "Haiten Girl 2" CD.

10th

-The Daughter of Evil musical performs tomorrow. The Classical version of Servant of Evil has also released.

20th

-mothy makes the official announcement that he's going to VOCALOID MASTER 12 alongside twinkledisc (SignalP's doujin thingy). He'll be selling Evils Forest there. He makes clear that some of the new album songs will also get videos in the future, as well as the fact that the album booklet itself will have more content than his previous album releases.

25th

-mothy's going to have Regret Message on the VOCALOGENESIS album.

-He answers one or two questions about the distribution of his new album.

26th

-mothy uploads the video for Heartbeat Clocktower onto NicoNico (and specifies it's a re-arrangement of the one he uploaded onto Piapro before).

---May 2010---

8th

-Tomorrow is VOCALOID MASTER 12. Mothy will be in the same space as Twinkledisc, and he'll be selling content alongside SignalP, Ichika, and Tamura. He lists off a few behavioral requests for anyone going to attend (ex, don't take photos of the booth) and a few other minor things people can expect.

-He thanks people for watching Heartbeat Clocktower.

-Someone asks him if he really intends to retire after the Seven Deadly Sins series is finished. Mothy is just "what lol I didn't say that" (this is HILARIOUS).

10th

-VOCALOID MASTER 12 is over. Mothy's been getting so much attention he's had trouble responding to everyone, so he's sorry about that. He's also selling Evils Forest on consignment at D-Stage now.

-He can't give a lot of details yet but he's gonna be hard at work on the series still.

25th

-he talks a bit about the VOCALOGENESIS album. Someone's made an MMD for all the songs on it, including Regret Message, and the album has also topped the charts at Oricon.

-That doesn't mean he's a millionaire or anything. He doesn't even have a girlfriend!

-He's got some work he'd trying to finish by the end of May, and hopes to start making videos in June.

---June 2010---

8th

-mothy announces he'll be at VOCALOID MASTER 13 (this time by himself it looks like). He doesn't have anything new to release there, but he does intend to have something for Comiket later on down the line.

-Unfortunately, despite lots of requests he isn't going to be reprinting Evils Theater. It's all available for digital purchase still, but as an independent producer it's a bit complicated for him to get another physical run of an album that's a year old by now.

---July 2010---

7th

-mothy's going to be participating in the Supernova 3 album with his new song Desert Bluebird (which he intends to upload a video of very soon)

9th

-mothy uploads Desert Bluebird's PV.

17th

-mothy thanks everyone for watching Desert Bluebird. He's switching to a new video editing software, so he's hoping to make more dynamic videos with it. However, it apparently makes the video quality unnecessarily high, so he's concerned some people might not be able to play them. He'll work on fixing that.

-He says the song is inspired by the "Blue Bird" fairytale (I'm not familiar with it but it looks like it might be a French story?), and has some influence from a Wii game he was playing before making it (some kind of…tank RPG??? I think?). He likes the change of pace, making more of a Sci Fi after so many Medieval style songs.

18th

-Tomorrow is VOCALOID MASTER 13. He gives a brief rundown of what he's selling there (again, nothing new). He doesn't expect it to be as crowded, but he'll also be there by himself so he might be busy anyway.

20th

-Mothy thanks everyone for coming to the event, shares his impressions of it a little.

-He makes oblique hints at a book (and I think we all know which one) which has gotten pre-orders on Amazon, but he can't give details just yet.

-Unfortunately he doesn't know what's going on with the Gemini CD for the stage play.

-He doesn't have time to make a new album for summer Comiket, but he will be selling some CD-Rs that he'll be burning himself.

-He'll be uploading videos for Lunacy of Duke Venomania and Twiright Prank very soon.

25th

-mothy gives official upload dates for Lunacy and Prank.

26th

-Lunacy has been uploaded to NicoNico!

29th

-Mothy finally announces his new novel, Cloture of Yellow!!!! Oh, also Venomania's hit 100000 views. He'll talk about it some other time.

-He includes the publisher summary of the book, as well as purchase details (again, it was already getting pre-ordered on Amazon). There is a fanbooklet that's included with purchase at select locations.

31st

-mothy finally talks about his new novel in more detail. He answers questions first, such as where it'll be sold, the format it's written in, if it's a standalone (he says he wants to make a sequel but it depends on how well this one sells), what's in the booklet (mostly creator commentary stuff--I don't think there's anything that isn't included with the VG re-release), etc.

-He talks about the contents a little, clarifying that while it is based on the simple plot he provided for the writers of the stage play, it's different in a lot of ways (such as character names). He's added a lot of things and characters that never showed up in the songs. However, despite all the changes, it does still adhere to the plot of the songs--nothing outright contradicts the earlier work, that is.

---August 2010---

1st

-mothy is going to be participating in the DEBUTANTE5 album with his new song "Flames of Yellow Phosphorous". The song is a collaboration with JounetsuP--apparently they've been wanting to collaborate for a long time now.

-He answers questions. He won't be selling the novel at Comiket since it's an officially published work, so that'll still be Evils Forest and the hand-made CD.

-Also apparently there are some issues with the Daughter of Evil pinups included in Cloture of Yellow? But it won't delay the novel's release or anything.

3rd Page 1

-Twiright Prank has been released on NicoNico!

Page 2

-mothy confirms that the pinup issue has been sorted out and there will be no complications with Cloture's release. I guess there was some kind of copyright dispute? In any case it's been taken care of.

Page 3

-Evil Food Eater Conchita will be released on the VOCALOANTHEMS CD by Exit Tunes. Apparently Exit Tunes will have done a lot of remastering for the VOCALOID parts of the song, so mothy's not sure how it will sound by comparison. Additionally, another, separate remastering of Conchita's song will be on the hand-made CD that mothy is releasing at Comiket (I think this is the Evil Food Eater Conchita CD).

5th

-mothy talks about the novel some more. More sales info, and then contents (primarily the characters this time around). He gives a basic rundown of who everyone is, with name and place in the story. No spoilers. He does note that Elluka might seem a bit of a forced entry, but that's because they weren't selling Elluka at the time the original song came out. He goes on to list Gumillia, Gast, and Keel as additions to the story that hadn't debuted elsewhere, and he applied VOCALOIDS onto them retroactively (so--they might not have originally been the VOCALOID that he turned them into, but their characters already existed previously).

6th Page 1

-Evils Forest will be available online on KarenT

Page 2

-Cloture of Yellow now has its own website (the site has since folded, unfortunately)

7th

-mothy gives some more information on promotional events and goodies for the book, though he reminds people that this is just his personal blog and so it might be better to ask questions to his publisher or the retailer they're planning to buy from, as he doesn't know everything.

9th

-More info on Summer Comiket. He is indeed going to be selling the Evil Food Eater revision CD (which has Evil Food Eater with Meiko's vocals revised as well as any other songs that are not on his other albums), as well as Evils Forest.

-These include the old Clockwork Lullaby demo he made with Len instead of Rin.

-Debutante5 is also being sold there, but not by him.

10th

-Cloture of Yellow releases today!

-mothy answers some questions on Venomania and Twiright Prank. Apparently some people recognized a sound effect at the beginning of Venomania from Umineko no Naku Koro Ni--this is news to him, as he hasn't played Umineko and just took the sound from a collection of free sound effects.

-He confirms that Twiright is deliberately mispelled for reasons of having a double meaning. 1. "Twi"=twist "right"=correct, normal, etc. 2. R=Rin, L=Len, and it was Len that shared his snack, not Rin.

12th

-Flames of Yellow Phosphorous has been uploaded to NicoNico.

16th

-Summer Comiket wrapup. Mothy thanks everyone for attending. He ran out of the Conchita CDs really quickly, so apologizes for that. Apparently due to the logistical issues in making them, he doesn't intend to do any more hand-burned CDs. He doesn't intend to make more of those CDs, but he'll come up with a way for people to get the music on it some other way.

-mothy also intends to take a break from attending events as a producer for the time being. He was so busy with the events and writing the novel that he ran out of songs to upload. He wants to shut himself up and take a good look at how he's going to work on his projects going forward. Though, he'll probably still go to events as a member of the general public.

-…That being said, he is participating in the ECHO charity CD. Despite the uplifting theme of the charity, his song is going to be depressing, apparently.

17th

-Servant of Evil has hit 2 million views!

20th

-Daughter of White has hit 50000 views!

26th

-Little announcements. Riliane and Allen are getting their own avatars with the online game TinierMe, Dwango is releasing Evils Forest ringtones, and the Vocaloanthems crossfade has been released (the revised Evil Food Eater Conchita is on it).

[z-raven]

Crushes I have had

I guess I can write about all my crushes prior to August 2016.

1996: 1st Crush I was in Kindergarten and it was Rene, they were someone in my class and we hung out a lot

2000-2001 2nd Crush I was in 4th Grade and she was named Elizabeth and we were really good friends and I used to hang out with her a lot.

2004-2005 3rd Crush I was in 8th Grade and my crush was Ashlee Simpson (The first celeb crush) Used to watch The Ashlee Simpson Show a lot and heard LALA a lot. I used to force myself to sleep a lot during those days and I constantly dreamed about her.

2005-2006 4th Crush I was in 9th Grade and my crush was named Ryan and I used to hang out with her a lot at lunch and I eventually told her the following school year after she already had a boyfriend and she told me that she would have dated me if I told her earlier.

2008 5th Crush I was in 11th Grade and my crush was Avril Lavigne and she was in my yearbook, like I kept seeing her picture in the musical influence page of the yearbook and the more I saw that image the more I started to crush. I had a friend who called me out on it, I denied it, but I did crush on Avril.

Really late 2008 6th Crush I was in 12th grade and my crush was Miley Cyrus and I kept watching Hannah Montana for some reason and started to dream of her constantly and it was weird.

Sometime during 2009 7th Crush I had a crush on a girl named Lisa that I used to have a biology class with and I made these Youtube videos of me singing songs about her, I feel like I went overboard with that crush. I did eventually tell her I had a crush on her, but she said that she thinks it would be best to remain as friends and so we did.

Sometime before Summer of 2009 I had my 8th Crush I had was of Hayley Williams of Paramore, like this crush didn't last that long, but it was nice. I liked her a lot and Paramore was really awesome tbh.

Summer 2009 9th Crush I was taking my 1st college class at a community college and I became friends with this girl in my math class and we talked a lot before class about our interests and what we wanted to do in the future. She talked a lot about Ghost Whisperer and that was a pretty good show tbh. I donated blood for extra credit for a different class and showed her where the mark was and she kept telling me not to show her it and she kept rubbing it to make it feel better (It didn't hurt) I found that really sweet of her. The day of my math final I wanted to tell her my feelings after taking the exam, but she was already gone by the time I finished. The last time I ever saw her was during the following Fall semester, but I was too busy talking to an old high school friend and didn't get to talk to her long.

Early 2010 10th Crush I wrote a story that had people I knew in college and eventually I kept dreaming of her, she was a friend of mine. That relationship didn't work out and to be honest it was for the best.

January 2011 11th Crush I had was of a Youtuber that used to watch a lot on Blogtv when she did livestreams. I dreamed a bunch about her and it was mostly a celeb crush, but whatever

November 2011 12th Crush I had was a college friend of mine that I honestly didn't even know I had a crush on her, like I had a friend that used to talk bad about her artwork and I constantly defended her, that friend eventually asked if the reason I was defending her so much was due to having a crush on her. I honestly didn't think of liking her in that way, I just didn't want him to talk bad about her art (Her art was awesome and is still awesome now) I confirmed to myself I had a crush on her due to worrying a lot about her when we lost power due to a lot of wind (We lost power for a few days) I was hoping she was alright, then I had a dream about her on the 20th of November.

Sometime after 2011 and before 2016 13th and 14th Crushes started to develop on both Rooney Mary and Mary Elizabeth Winstead around the same time, I found it really strange to crush on 2 people at the same time, but this was the first time I crushed on multiple people at once and I think this is the start of me learning I was poly. Both crushes never really ended and sometimes I start getting feelings emerge again even today. Celeb crushes don't fully count as crushes, because they are both people I would never be in a relationship with and Mary is married. Rooney is dating someone at the moment and I would never want to come between someone and a relationship.

Really Early Summer of 2016 15th Crush, I started to have a crush on a speedrunner that I found really beautiful that streamed on Twitch at the time. The more I watched her the more I learned more about myself and that crush didn't last more than I guess a few weeks or so idk.

Shortly after the 16th Crush I developed a 15th Crush on someone that came from within me, this one is someone I doubt anyone will actually understand at all. She appeared in my dreams and after I started watching a speedrunner I started dreaming about a girl that went by Raven and she talked to me a lot and went to a lot of events with me in the dreams. Raven used to be really closed off, but only talked to me. I kept dreaming of Raven and she helped me realize my gender identity, so they are a huge part of my growth. Raven eventually started going by her real name which is Erika. I took the name Raven for my name to honor her. Erika is a personality of mine and I do talk to her from time to time and she is now really open and radiates happiness, I thought about Erika when I was in a really dark place where I self harmed and she brought me out of my depression that happened in like 2017. I still do talk to Erika from time to time and she tries her best to keep me happy internally. I love Erika and always will, she is one of my alters after all, she tends to like all my friends and sometimes you can even pick out which of my Tweets are her.

I am not writing about any crushes that I had after 2016, because that is way too recent and I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable.

[study-with-aura]

Monday, August 12, 2024

First day of my 10th grade year! This is part of my personal study desk setup, but you'll probably see the usual "on top of Aura's pink unicorn blanket" posts from now on unless I add to this space.

Literature is going to be wild this year. Most of my study time today was for that course! I think once I finish the book that I'm working on for side reading, I will focus on the outside of school time reading for my Lit course since it is additional reading outside of required class reading making it possibly over an hour of reading a day just for that course. I'll know more once I get into it more, but it is a good thing I like literature!

Today was also my first day back at dance, and it was so amazing to be back! There are a few new girls in my class, but mostly, everyone is the same as last year, which is nice. What else is there to say?

Oh yes! I cannot believe that it slipped my mind until now, but I had mentioned interviewing for this volunteer leadership position? I got it! We don't officially start until next month, but I am so excited to meet all the other girls who will be apart of it and to learn new things through the experience!

I hope everyone has a wonderful week, especially those of us who are starting school again this week. Let's have an amazing year!

Tasks Completed:

Algebra 2 - Reviewed order of operations + reviewed evaluating algebraic expressions + reviewed simplifying algebraic expressions

American Literature - copied vocabulary terms + read about Native American oral literature + read "The Earth on Turtle's Back" + read "When Grizzlies Walked Upright" + read the Navajo Origin Legend + completed Native American Myths questions + read Chapters 1-2 of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne + watched a video summary of the book + looked at part 1 of the study guide for the book + read about how to do close reading of a literary passage + read about how to annotate with close reading

Spanish 3 - reviewed alphabet + reviewed consonants and vowels in Spanish + completed exercise

Bible 2 - Read 2 Samuel 1-2

Early American History - read over questions for first several lessons + read about Native American Cultures + read about the Anasazi + answered first few questions on study guide

Earth Science with Lab - Read "What is a Biblical Worldview"

Music Appreciation - Listened to Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring

Khan Academy - Completed US History Unit 1: Lesson 2 (parts 1-9)

Duolingo - Studied for approximately 30 minutes (Spanish + French + Chinese) + completed daily quests

Piano - Practiced for two hours in one hour split sessions

Reading - Read pages 264-318 of 6 Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did) by Tess Sharpe

Chores -  Cleaned my bathroom + cleaned windows in my bedroom and in the study

Activities of the Day:

Personal Bible Study (Proverbs 12)

Ballet

Contemporary

Gaming with Julien

Journal/Mindfulness

[visionrailmepls]

today was my last day of school! i can’t believe i just finished 10th grade. gods. i’m gonna be a junior in august. posting YBNESM will be more frequent. i’m gonna have a writing schedule bc i have to divide my time between writing and finishing my drivers ed that i was supposed to be done with a year ago now but my mom didn’t sign me up for it until the end of feb and my temps expired in april so i had to get those renewed the next day and now i’m finally getting around to finishing my drivers ed!

i hope you all have a good summer!!!

[sinisterexaggerator]

Little life update teehee

The school district in Austin, TX screwed me over. If I can’t find another job before August 1, fuck it — I’m going to try my luck in Seattle/PNW, job or not. I’m sure I’ll find something to pay the bills until I make it into the library there.

Long story short, dumb ass who hired me didn’t know what credentials I still needed when I investigated and thought all I needed was to take a test and hand them my transcripts. TX Education Agency says in order to be allowed to take the library media exam I need ANOTHER two years of course work in a school librarian prep program like I did for Region 13 for SPED and that right there cost 12,000 dollars when I’m barely finished with my MLIS. Somehow, my teaching experience, master’s, endorsements, and 2 years at the library in Florida isn’t good enough. Worst thing though, I relocated to Austin banking on this. I feel like I should be compensated for this fuckery. Who hires someone without knowing for sure if they are 💯 qualified and leaves it up to the employee in a case like that? I’m not a fucking school district. You tell ME what I have to do — and before I sign a prehire agreement, how about that!? I thought I had everything I needed, but they should have been there to tell me no, you are not qualified - please do this first instead of saying yeah, come to Austin, we’ll get you in somehow. No, obviously you can’t. UGH.

Got an air bnb until the end of the month. Not even gonna bother looking for an apartment at this point. I applied to places like UT, ACC, and APL but 🤷🏻‍♀️. Also if the last person I lived with would have let me take my damn time looking for a job like I asked, finish school first, and not stress out about this, well, I’d still have a job in Orlando atm but I was rushed out because “you were going to move eventually, anyway.” Yeah, maybe in six months or so. Maybe in a year. But noooo, I had to leave to have his “friend” move in by August, when guess what — they didn’t even wind up moving in because they lost their job.

I just hope I don’t fucking run lot of money before I get something else lined up. I refuse to teach again. I refuse to pay 12,000 for 9 more classes. Why the fuck do they make everything so HARD FOR TEACHERS AND NOW LIBRARIANS!! There is LITERALLY A SHORTAGE. Gee, I wonder why?!!? 😡🤬😡🤬🤬

Guess i'll keep applying to every job I see. Oh, and my period decided to come early - a week early - so that's fun, and before that I was SICK and had a FEVER while packing for the move! Not to mention before THAT I didn't even get to see the Hondo animatronic like I wanted to because Disney can't get their shit together and he was already broken for a week straight by the time we arrived.

Of course, can't get help from anyone either. My parents are dead, I have little family, and even though I have savings no one wants to rent an apartment ( even if you can pay for six months up front ) because you don't have proof of income?!?! How do people even move?! Ugh. And my bf's parents are dicks and won't even help us cosign. They are in the middle of selling/building a new house for the 10th time because his mother is bat shit crazy, so we don't even have a room to crash in worst case. We could sleep on a futon in his brother's living room, but fuck that.

I really just want to go to Portland, or Seattle, or Vancouver, Spain, California, fuck. Idk.

I wish I wasn't bleeding like a God damn wounded animal and the cramps don't help. I should be doing things - productive things - but all I want to do is watch reels on Instagram.

Oh— and one more thing. My boyfriend works from home normally and he can’t do his job because the air bnb failed to list that the internet is SPOTTY AF. It cuts out all the time and I am definitely leaving 3 stars.

[genopaint]

I'm having a bit of art block at the moment. So I thought this might be a good time to go back and talk about the 3 games I released this year to give them one little bit of love before the year ends!! As well as some thoughts on where they'll be going next year!

First Up: Released August 10th, BOYZ: WORLD WIDE WEST! (x)

 This was a "pseudo-multiplayer" quickdraw game. Make your very own BOY, and battle foes in quickdraw matches! The big draw was using codes from other's wanted posters to duel their BOY in your game!

This was the game I actually planned to make at the start of the year. I had the idea in my head for a bit, and I think it came out pretty good! Sadly very few people actually participated in the #BOYZWWW tag to share their wanted poster. But I stand by this concept! I've got ideas for updates to make to this game in 2023. I would really like to add real back buttons to each option so it's easier to enter codes and build a boy. But I think there's also potential to touch up some menus and make them look more original and less like RPGM menus. I wouldn't hold my breath for it coming out any time soon. But yeah... I do already have a small idea for a sequel to this game! It's a bit more ambitious than I can do at the moment, but I'll keep my mind on it. This was my favorite game I made this year! 

Next: Released November 6th, DaRoach! (x)

A maze running arcade styled game. Play as DaRoach and try to collect gems and treasures! There's a 10 stage arcade ladder with a small story, and an endless mode with various layouts to try and master! 

This game was something I wasn't planning at the start of the year, but randomly I had the idea that I could make a simple arcade game pretty easily. It took a bit to figure out what it should be about and how DaRoach should look, but I think it came out pretty good! This game really needs to get touched up a bit in 2023. Thanks to SumRndmDde's custom menu plugin I can FINALLY add a score present during gameplay. But I also would like to potentially touch up tilesets and gameplay to look and run a little better. I know this sounds silly. But I already have plans for the next 3 DaRoach games. I'm not joking. The whole DaRoach lore is already figured out. 3+4 won't be able to be made soon. But DaRoach 2 isn't entirely out of the question eventually. But I'd still need help to get it done.

Lastly: Released December 13th, FLYTRAP! (x)

FLYTRAP is a simple Game & Watch styled game where you control Marty the Flytrap and stop flies from biting your stem! It's a simple blocker game, jump in front of the flies before they reach the center!

This game was completely spur of the moment. After playing Garden Gaurdian and redrawing old G&W fanart. I realized I could make a GW game pretty easily. And people seemed interested so I sat down and made it quickly over a weekend. I'm still shocked by the love this one got! There's not a whole lot to the game that can be cleaned up in 2023. But I certainly think there's room for improvement with playing on phones. However my main goal is to add additional game modes that make the game harder/slightly different since it's easy to edit. I do have an idea for a sequel to FLYTRAP but it'd be more of the same. Nothing too fancy. I don't know when I'll get around to it but it's one I could even potentially do in RPG Maker. Maybe. We'll see. No promises.

---

And that's all the games I made in 2022! Thank you all so much for your support, and thank you for playing anything I put out there! It all means the world to me! As always, these smaller games are leading up to me finishing Once Upon An Adventure, my full scale RPG. I don't know when it'll will be done. I'm at a point where I'm pushing myself to just be happy with what I am making currently, I want this to be the last round of asset making I do. I don't think it'll be done by 2023. But I'm hoping I might be able to show more videos by then. Currently Im working on the maps! I'm on the second to last chapter for dungeons. Then I can do towns, then hidden areas! Once that's done I can build them all in game, then start working on overworld sprites and then when its all put together I can record footage of maps! There's still a LOT of work to do on Once Upon An Adventure, but please look forward to it and please look forward to more updates in 2022!

I do still plan on doing 1 short game per year. And I have a couple of ideas. I'm thinking of maybe letting people decide which one I should attempt? We'll see. A big goal I have for game making in 2023 is to try and enter some game jams. I've made games in really short times already so I think entering game jams could be a ton of fun. So don't be surprised if you see stuff like that from me. And as always I'm working with @CloudyGamesLLC and @SeafloorGames for various projects. Please check them out!

Once again, thank you all so much for your continued love and support. I hope I can make even cooler things next year! Here's to a great 2023 with many more video games to come!

[prideoftheknights]

SPRING TROUPE 10TH PLAY: MOON TRAVELER — ムーン・トラベラー 【CHAPTER 3】

PREVIOUS CHAPTER | MASTERLIST | NEXT CHAPTER

translation under the cut!

Hisoka: Zzzz......

Chikage: ......

(I'd like to leave him alone but...... Sigh...... I've got no other choice.)

Wake up, sleepyhead.

Hisoka: Marshmallow......

Chikage: Of course you'd be dreaming about something like that. Get up already.

Hisoka: ......August.

Chikage: ––

Hisoka: Mm......?

Chikage: Really now, if you're going to sleep outside, at least consider the season it is.

Hisoka: ......Welcome home.

Chikage: I'm home.

Hisoka: ......I wasn't just sleeping. I was waiting for Chikage's thing to finish.

Chikage: Sleeping defeats the point of waiting, doesn't it?

Hisoka: The 10th play, you're the lead for it right? Congrats.

Chikage: Ah, yeah.

Hisoka: What kind of play is it?

Chikage: The script isn't done yet, so I don't know. But it'll probably have something to do with astronauts or space.

Hisoka: ......Astronauts?

Chikage: Seems like Tsuzuru heard about my childhood dream of being an astronaut, so he suggested it.

Hisoka: Chikage's childhood dream was too be an astronaut...... So even you had a time like that, huh.

Chikage: ......It was a really, really long time ago. I don't even remember what I was thinking at that time anymore.

That's also why I said that we should try to make the play's theme something more fitting of Spring Troupe.

Hisoka: ......Hmm.

Chikage: What is it?

Hisoka: ......It's nothing. August and I will be there to watch your play, so do your best.

There, I've given you my congratulations. It was low-budget though.

Chikage: I don't want it.

Itaru: The script is done.

Citron: How fast!

Tsuzuru: Well, the movie that Chikage-san recommended to me was pretty interesting, and it fit the Spring Troupe surprisingly well.

I decided to have our play this time pay homage to it a little.

Izumi: (So the main character is Roberto, an astronomer who dreams of going to the moon, huh.)

(While Roberto is swallowed by his dream, his friends around him try to send him to the moon and back to earth.)

It's a little sad, but also a positive and heartwarming story.

Chikage: It's a fantasy play thats fitting of Spring Troupe, isn't it?

Sakuya: There's an unexpected atmosphere to it. I think it's great!

Citron: I get to play a space alien!

Tsuzuru: But, I feel like there's still some things that don't feel right......

Izumi: Really?

Masumi: During Zenmai [Jikake no Kokoro], you couldn't decide on the ending until the very last practice. Won't it be fine if you just fix it little by little this time around?

Citron: There's still lots of time!

Tsuzuru: Thanks.

Ah, but there's still one more thing that I can't come up with an idea for that we have to decide on.

I've thought of many names for the alien species he'll meet on the moon, but I'm wondering if it might be better to leave them nameless.

Izumi: If that's the case, then how about you try to come up with a name Chikage-san?

Chikage: Me?

Itaru: Roberto and the aliens form a friendship because they can empathise with each other. Maybe if you help name them, you'll feel some kind of attachment to them.

Izumi: The aliens aren't a real entity, so giving it a name might make their image easier to imagine in a performance right?

Tsuzuru: I see, good point!

Chikage: ......Well then, I'll see what I can come up with.

But I've had very little experience in naming things till today, so don't get your hopes up.

Tsuzuru: If you come up with any more requests for the script, please let me know.

Chikage: Thanks. I don't have any complaints about it right now though. If I think of any, I'll let you know.

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[asmusdiary]

August 7th 2023, 03:14 in the morning

Hello everyone. This is a place where I will talk about the progress of my band. I’m doing this because there possibly are some people that will find it interesting to follow the progress of some small band, but I’m mostly doing this as like a diary for myself. This is inspired Ed’s Diary. Ed being Ed O’Brien from Radiohead. I apologise if these blogs are hard and annoying to read through.

I am 18, turning 19 on the 10th, and I am from Denmark. I’m on summer vacation right now but will return to school, also on the 10th, for my third and final year of gymnasium. I am very much into music. Ever since I was little I really liked it. I started having piano lessons when I was 6 years old - that was in 2010. Now I play piano, bass, guitar, drums and I try to sing.

At school I have a lot of friends that are into music. In fact, I am in a ‘music class’, where all my classmates have chosen music on a high level as a main-topic. It’s a lot of fun. I was aware that there were a lot of music people at my gymnasium before I even started. I was really hoping to meet some people that I could start a band with, and make music that I really enjoy, since music is what I want to do with my life. Though there were definitely cool talented people at my gymnasium, there weren’t anybody that I could see myself starting a band with unfortunately. Some people liked the same music as me, but I didn’t like their approach to music. At all. I found a lot of people’s approaches to music to be regressive and unauthentic, and I wouldn’t wanna be in a band with those kind of people, because they would ruin the authenticity.

Now two years later after starting at the gymnasium, I have found some people. They’re not all from my gymnasium, in fact only one of them is, and he’s a year above me. It doesn’t really matter where I know these people from, and it would take forever to explain where I know them from but they’re all perfect, and exactly what I’m looking for. Here’s a quick rundown

Daniel - bass, guitar, clarinet, keyboards, lyrics. Daniel is one of my best friends. I’ve known him for almost 3 years, and he is the sole reason that I know the music I know and love today, because he always shows me stuff. Rate Your Music guy hehe. Daniel has a really good sense of the abstract and is comfortable being experimental. He is also comfortable in lyrics, which is a skill don’t see myself learning anytime soon. Me and Daniel have actually played together in a band before called Musik 3. It was alright, but tensions were bad between the members so we broke it up. Don’t miss very much lol. But me and Daniel still wanted to do music together.

Romeo - Guitar, Piano, Synth. I haven’t even known Romeo for a year yet. I met him last fall. I met him at a music camp thing (which, fun fact, all of us went to at the same time). We were split into groups with people that we didn’t know, and we had to write a song together. I was in group with Romeo. He played guitar and I played bass. The song we made was really bad, but we enjoyed making it. I was just so amazed at Romeo’s ability to come with tasteful guitar lines on the spot. He is the only person I’ve met that has had as great relative pitch as me.

This was the song we made

And this is us playing it live

Theodor - bass, guitar, piano, synth, drums, singing, rapping, producing, lyrics. Theodor is a genius to me. I am amazed every time I see him play. He just finished his last year at the same gymnasium as me, so that’s where I know him from. I’m pretty shy, so it took me me some time to really get friends with Theodor. I’ve always thought he was a cool guy, but I was still scared to connect with him, because he was one of the older students - and because he was GOOD at music. He’s in a rap group from Roskilde which are seeing some success right now in the underground rap scene in Denmark. Other rappers are talking about them and mentioning them. But some months ago I finally got friends with him, and I asked if he wanted to make a band, and he said yes. What a blessing.

Robin - drums, synth, rapping, producing, lyrics. Robin is the one I know least well. Solely because I haven’t spoken to him as much as the other guys. But we’ve had some laughs where you really could tell we thought each other were cool, so I’m pretty sure it’ll work out. Robin is very very close friends with Theodor. He’s also part of the rap group which Theo is in. And inside the rap group, they are the ones that work together the most. They’re like me and Daniel. Theo and Robin have a lot experience, and they are so good at making really good stuff really fast, which me and Daniel can be pretty slow at. I asked Robin to join, because I heard he was a good drummer, and I really wanted a good drummer. When I asked Theo if Robin was a good drummer he said “Eh, he’s probably as good as me” and that was good enough, because Theo is a pretty alright drummer. I’m looking forward to work with Robin.

Now, the band is finally starting up, and we have our first session on the 20th. We are all 5 really excited. We are all sending pictures of our pedals, and writing demos, and fantasising about how the concerts will play out, so we’re all very excited. I will probably do another blog post before the 20th. Don’t know that it will be about.

This is all very new and exciting. It seems like us 5 guys will work out perfectly, but it’s still hard to know how it all is gonna play out..

Until next post - here’s a song I’m listening to a lot:

[jrpneblog]

What`s another year!

So as we put 2023-24 to bed, we reflect on a campaign that saw us four points clear at the top after seven games and dreaming of the promised land. However, the joy was short lived as results began to fade and after beating Birmingham at home on 19th September we won just four of the next twenty two league games before beating Ipswich on the 3rd of February at Deepdale. It was a shocking sequence of results and to go almost half a season winning just four games would have been way too much for plenty of owners. North End saw fit to retain the services of Ryan Lowe and the Ipswich win was the start of a five game run which saw us win four and draw one. We were, once again, incredibly, on the brink of the play offs but a draw at home against Hull was the start of a final twelve game run in that saw North End take just eleven points from the thirty six on offer which is relegation form in anyone`s book. We won three, drew two and lost seven of those final twelve games including losing the last five games on the trot. In those two runs of twenty two and twelve games we won just seven out of thirty four which is an appalling return. I know people will say we finished tenth on one of the bottom six budgets but if money were all that were needed in football then why would clubs bother employing a coach. Ipswich have spent just 4.2m and look where they will be starting next season!

I wanted a change after the defeat to QPR in December as I had seen more than enough of the brand by then. Lowe bought himself some time with the results in February and hopes were raised as we clung on to the tails of the play offs. However it is much more than the brand on the pitch that made up my mind about the manager. The comments about fans and badges was the end for me, for in what other business would a company slag off or disrepect the opinion of it`s customers? The fan base is undoubtedly split on Lowe but I talk to many people and I would say that at least two out of three of the fans would like a change in the hot seat. The manager has calmed down a little since those appalling comments in December, no doubt some sage advice coming from above as to his future conduct and comments in the media, but he still has rather an annoying habit of throwing his charges under the bus in his post match comments.

Anyway, enough about the manager as thoughts move to next season. With Millar and Browne gone North End need to strengthen and if Lowe insists on playing the wing back system then he needs to buy two wing backs. No doubt there will be a good take up on season cards once again as North End have a very loyal fan base in spite of everything. 63 years without kicking a ball in the top flight is an appalling record and while the current owners have little to do with the first fifty years of that it is worth mentioning that North End had four Championship play off campaigns between 2001-2009 and have had none since. No doubt people can make their own mind up about that stat. My fear for next season is that the club have put all their eggs in one basket with the manager and if we get off to a poor start then the club will have nowhere to go with most of the fan base saying I told you so. However, we all hope that scenario does not happen and that the close season investment is wise and appropriate. We could possibly have new owners by then, who knows, and things may look very different. I have no doubt that the Hemmings family will sell for around the 40-45m mark, to the right investors, but sometimes with new owners you have to be careful what you wish for. For now we can only wait and see how things evolve between now and August 10th, but the club feels stale at the moment and something must be done before the new campaign begins to freshen things up.

And finally this week:- whilst waiting to get off a very slow moving car park at West Brom last Saturday I had the pleasure of bumping into Nick Scholes and his good lady wife. For those who don`t know Mr and Mrs Scholes have given immeasurable support to the youth set up at Preston North End over many, many years. Nick was very proud as he told me that the youth team had won the Alliance league last Saturday morning, therefore completing the league and cup double this season. There are many unsung heroes at football clubs up and down the land and if we had a competition for the PNE unsung hero then my vote would, undoubtedly, go to Mr and Mrs Scholes for their enourmous contribution to the Youth set up at Deepdale. Thanks Nick, and it was a pleasure, as usual, to meet you and your good lady again last Saturday.

[ledenews]

Downtown Wheeling’s ‘Big Dig’ Getting Worse Before Better

It’s become an evil word – streetscape – with many who frequently travel through downtown Wheeling or to those who own businesses along Main and Market streets, but paving is expected to take place this summer and mid-2025 is the target time for completion. But not before it gets worse, of course, according to Wheeling City Manager Bob Herron. “The only way to describe our downtown right now is that it’s pretty torn up. There’s a lot of construction taking place right now,” he said. “And there are going to be some traffic interruptions at the end of the week, too, when the DOH closes 10th Street on Friday. And there’s going to be a lot of intense over the next six weeks. “There’s a lot of things that still need completed so the paving can begin on Main Street, and we’re hoping that happens by the end of June or early July,” Herron continued. “And the landscaping engineer is moving along nicely and when certain areas of Main are finished, the grinding and the paving will take place and we’re all looking forward to that.” The storm sewer separation project on Market Street represents half of the "streetscape" that has been taking place in downtown Wheeling since late 2022. The roadway was opened to traffic again more than a week ago. The $32 million, state-funded project initially was proposed and adopted in 2015 by then-mayor Andy McKenzie and former W.Va. Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, but the scope and design have morphed many times since. The original cost estimate was below $10 million when including only paving, new curbs and access ramps, and new sidewalks, but the cost doubled after the issue of underground vaults was discovered in 2017. Design changes, new signalization, the inclusion of the three cross streets between 10th and 16th streets, and an extensive storm sewer separation project also increased the cost estimate to where it is today. Triton Construction was awarded the bid in August 2022, and the company started work in late September of that year. At first, the "done date" was November 2024, but that deadline was extended earlier this year. "I know when we talk about the construction in downtown, we mostly refer to it as the ‘streetscape,’ but there are actually two projects that are taking place,” Herron explained. “The streetscape has a lot of different parts to it and all of that is taking place now along Main Street and it’s started on the south end of Market, too. But the storm sewer project is what’s been happening all along Market Street for a year or so. “The separation took place along Main Street several years ago before The Health Plan constructed their new headquarters in the downtown,” he said. “But once it’s complete along Market Street, the downtown will be able to handle any new construction that takes place for years to come.”   As the project has moved forward this spring, several downtown intersections have been restricted by construction work that will implement safer walkways for pedestrians. City officials expect heavy traffic in the downtown area this weekend with several events scheduled for Wheeling’s riverfront area. Not only will the Wheeling Miners indoor football team play their second home game at Wesbanco Arena this Saturday evening, but the “Believe Dance Competition” will take place at the Capitol Theatre and Waterfront Hall will host live music, a one-mile race, and a Kentucky Derby Watch Party. The city manager wishes to remind motorists to pay attention while navigating the downtown area. “There are a lot of construction workers, barrels, and detours in downtown right now with the streetscape and with the construction of the new parking garage,” Herron said. “Plus, we have a projects taking place inside the Stone Center, on the Newbridge property on the corner of 10th and Main, and there’s the ongoing work at the Bridge Tavern, too. That’s why I hope people are being extra careful when they are traveling on Main and Market. “When it’s all finished, it’s going to be great and the downtown will have a completely new look that’s going to be very attractive for our current businesses, and for the ones in the future,” he said. “I know it’s frustrating for everyone, and it is difficult on some days to get around those streets, but the storm sewer separation and the streetscape both were long overdue. I believe all of the frustration will be worth it when it’s all finished, and traffic gets back to normal.” Read the full article