#i imagine all of the other characters just call her Alaska

[lime1991]

Baked Alaska inspired Strawberry Shortcake oc

[feastingonfanfiction]

Waiting on the red string of fate

Tanya Denali x fem!reader

Part 3a (Ending1/4[?]):Falling in flower fields never to meet

Summary: hospitalized and at the end of your rope what is there to do except a final goodbye.

A/N:Here's bad ending one of... Maybe two out of four? There will be more, eventually... Let's see how much I write before I run out of motivation or creativity.

This is the first ending of how I thought this whole story would end before the other endings came to be.

Sorry bout the sad end, I just like reading angst no happy endings occasionally and was like, why not try that here, place her in a box and shake lovingly but also despair.

Did this feel sad when I wrote it? Not to me, felt like there could've been more sadness, but chose not to dwell on it and just put it out there, so... here it is, Bon Appétit. There will be a happy ending eventually when I write the other ends.

Read the other parts here:

Masterlist menu

Part 1

Part2

Alt ending 3b

Warnings: Big angst(i think), character death, blood, hanahaki has its own set of warnings (like choking on plants and blood so that) No happy ending (sorry)

Her fated POV:

How did you get here is all you can wonder, as you realized you were somewhere unfamiliar, most likely a hospital room. It was cold and sterile, unfriendly and eerie. You'd just gotten up and noticed this.

The last thing you could recall was having recently gotten back home after feeling you had a really bad hanahaki coughing fit, cutting your grand plan adventure short.

Having made it home and realizing you didn't have any food you remember you were going to go out and pick up some take out, but then your memory at that point was everything getting hazy as you got outside. You can only assume you fainted and someone concerned noticed and called an ambulance.

So here you were now, awake in a place you didn't want to be. Breathing felt next to impossible currently. Every intake of air was hard on your lungs as your breathing was loud in the quiet room. Your voice was ragged and hoarse, having developed into this after so many times of having to cough up petals on your trips. Over time, some petals started to come with blood. You couldn't imagine what the state of damage your throat and lungs could be in this moment.

You could already feel another fit of coughs and flower petals nearing, like the feelings of a calm before a storm.

You feel like you should get up in case you do throw up, but the distance from the washroom to where your bed is feels like a chasm and you're not sure you can trek the distance there. This is the weakest you've felt since the hanahaki took over. Perhaps the end is near.

Pushing the call button hoping for someone to help you or just to see if you could get out of here, a nurse and a doctor eventually come in. The nurse checking your vitals as the doctor asks standard questions, you eventually tell him what you have and can see the look of pity on his face. He asks if you've considered going to tell whoever you like that you liked them and hope for reciprocated feelings, but you can only laugh, you don't even know who she is nor where she lives. There's a chance she could live somewhere in Alaska or maybe she was a tourist and you'd never find her again. You wouldn't do that, though she was clearly with someone that night. She probably didn't want you.

You do ask the nurse if you could have a pen and paper and the box full of letters you'd been carrying with you everywhere.

Eventually, she comes back with the things you'd asked for and leaves you to your writing. Perhaps this is the final letter? Maybe it's not. There were times on your trip you'd think, oh, this is it, but then you'd lived. Something about this though feels final, so you get to writing your final(?) goodbye to someone who might not look for you. The thought hurts, but you still write on.

Finally, after you finish writing(a kindness that this disease lets you write all this down in peace for once without a cough), the worst coughing fit you've felt you've had so far hits you. You feel like a curse was invoked as you cough and choke on the flowers that start to emerge and bloom in your throat, you try to pull them out but the never ending petals and stems and leaves seems infinite as blood also stains what comes out.Your eyes start to water as you gag and choke and realize this is it.

The nurse comes back in and sees you struggling. She tries to help, but there's nothing she can truly do as you cough up flowers and blood, small bits of blood splatter around staining the sheets and flecks hitting the letter you just wrote.

Eventually you can no longer fight it as your eyes grow weary and your vision goes dark from the inability to breathe, uttering a last breath through a cough, your eyes close as you fall back on the bed, heart rate monitor beeping one last beep then silence takes the room.

Tanya's POV:

She was so close. Whoever her mate was, their string hadn't moved in a while staying in one direction. She sped along as quickly as she could whilst maintaining her human facade, when suddenly she felt a deep sense within her feel something was wrong. She couldn't help but speed up a little more. Stopping outside a hospital, she quickly rushes in.

At the front desk, she states her soulmate is supposedly in here somewhere, but having never met them. The woman behind the counter looks weary, but then she looks down at her string and finds that her string does infact trail into the hospital. She allows her in. Tanya quickly follows where the string leads off to, not realizing the slow gradient her string is going through, turning duller and duller a shade of red, almost like that time when she hadn’t had a soulmate yet, yet the darker the string became the more the appearance seemed similar to that of dried blood going unnoticed.

She eventually arrives in front of a room in the icu, the door shut in front of her she slowly reaches for the doorknob, hesitant, how will this go? Why were you here? To visit family perhaps? She tries to reason with herself, yeah there's no way you could be hurt, she tries to listen in through the door, the room is quiet....eerily silent...not even a breath or heart beat amongst the background noise of the hospitals heart monitors and breathing machines, her eyes evident with confusion to eventually widening realizing the implications as she quickly pushes open the door bursting in there, eyes frantic until they land on the figure laying on the bed, her soulmate, you.

She didn't know what to have expected when she opened the door but it wasn't this, she never expected this.

She slowly approaches you, observing you.

There were flowers and bits of blood sprayed on the petals, protruding out of your mouth like an unkept garden and small blood trails dribbling down your chin, your skin pale and ashen, in contrast bringing out the dark circles surrounding your closed eyes.

Tanya is frozen, for she can't hear any signs of life coming from the person in front of her, no breathing or heartbeat....nothing.

She slowly continues to move eventually to stand beside you, lying on the bed.

A nurse walks in and notices her, "Oh, I'm sorry you -" the nurse cuts herself off when she notices the string tying you together.

"Oh......" the look of pity crosses the nurses face, "I'm very sorry miss, for your loss" she walks forward "she passed about an hour ago, the hanahaki finally reached the final stages, I'm very sorry but nothing could truly be done..." Tanya didn't know how to process this news, she wanted to cry as the venom pooled in her eyes, she knew the that tears would not fall, closing her eyes and gripping the railings to the bed.

You were gone, before she was even around to say hello, before she even had the chance to know you, never would she get to know what your heart beat sounded like or the sound of your voice saying her name, nor how warm you'd be to hug. Never will she get the chance to hold your hand and show you off to her family. Never will she have the chance to love you nor see those feelings reciprocated, never getting to hear you say 'i love you' back.

Never will she see how you'd react to learning what she is, nor the potential eternity you could have had together because she was too late, you were gone.

If her unbeating heart worked, it would clearly be torn in two right now.

The nurse walked around somewhere in the room behind Tanya and then hesitantly placed a box near her, "she wrote to you before she passed, at least I think she did, she had asked for this box of letters she was carrying and had written something before she passed" the shoebox lid had scrawled in your handwriting 'to my soulmate'

"I'll leave you alone for your moment with her," the nurse said before leaving the room, shutting the door behind her.

Tanya slowly reached for the box of letters that you had made specifically for her, pulling out a folded piece of paper, the only one without an envelope, what must've been the last thing you wrote.

The letter was legible enough despite the small splattering of blood.

It read:

"Dear soulmate,

I don't even know your name...that's kind of sad. I write this cause I don't know how long I have left till eventually the flowers take over.

I know we don't know eachother and that you probably have that special person in your life already and you'll probably never actually see this letter cause you're with him, you won't need to find me.

But on the chance that you actually do find me after this, I want you to know, I love you, even though you don't know me, and maybe will never see me, I love you. From as young as I was as a kid first learning about soulmates to the first and last time I saw you around a year ago to now as I sit here writing this. I don't blame you for any of this. People can be free to choose who they want. And you clearly chose someone.

I just wish I could've learnt who you were and had the chance to let you know I love you. I was gonna hopefully leave the letters at that one club I saw you at, but times not on my side, so maybe you'll never get them.

Wherever and whoever you're with, I wish you the best in life.

Goodbye

Hopefully I'll one day see you again in another life

Love your soulmate,"

There signed at the very end was your name that she only learns just now.

Her finger traces over the letters of your name.

Tanya couldn't help but have her hands clench the paper, it crumpling where she held it.

She slowly sank to the floor, an anguished cry comes from her lips, oh how she wished she could cry like a human.

She did love you. What do you mean someone else? There was no one else. You were her fated, and she was too late, maybe if she were an hour earlier she could've stopped all this, told you she loved you, maybe she could've changed you and it would've stopped this accursed disease from taking you from her. Changed something in your fate.

She couldn't understand why you would believe that she didn't love you.

You were hers, and she was yours.

But now you were gone.

What's sad is she's known of hanahaki, having seen it in many people in her long life, the suffering the mortals go through was always painful to watch. And knowing you had it, you suffered until your last breath...because you assumed she didn't love you...the flower language didn't escape her meaning either, from your mouth sprouted daffodils, one meaning to it is unrequited love. Knowing that,

her chest hurt like her heart was alive again, only to break apart. She did love you.

Trying to find some reasonings she remembers you mentioning seeing her with someone, confused on what you could mean she looks back at the box, the other letters still there that you've never had the chance to give to her.

Eyes falling to one eventually of the night you first saw her around almost a year ago.

Realizing one of her one night stands was mistaken as a supposed partner broke her.

It's not what it looks like. He meant nothing to her, but you wouldn't know that. You'll never know, and she'll never have the chance to explain it to you.

She goes to get up, standing beside you. You look peaceful if not tired from the dark circles around your eyes. If she tried hard enough, she could almost imagine that you weren't gone, but that's now an impossible dream.

She gently caresses your face, placing a kiss to your forehead. She's not sure what she should do now. She came expecting to find you and bring you home. Now, she might have to bring you home to bury you.

At one point, she hoped maybe, maybe the vampire venom could take effect, but it didn't. It was much too late.

She couldn't help but feel pain, anger at the man she was mistaken to be with, tempted to go after whoever it was, but there would be no point, him gone would not bring you back. She felt anger at herself before sorrow took over. At one point, she wished to go back, to change your fates, but fate would not budge.

She prepared your funeral arrangements, having you buried close to home, the coven attended with her, her sisters doing their best to comfort their leader. But the loss of a soulmate was something different entirely.

She'd go to visit your grave over time to talk to you. She read your letters to her, going way back when to the scrawls of childish hands. She got to know you from your letters but also mourn the person she'd never get the chance to be with.

Thinking of your last words:

'Hopefully I'll one day see you again in another life'

She knows she cannot join you and it hurts.

In the end you'd always been waiting on the red string of fate, but fate decided to cut the waiting short and end this story with just her.

[dailymothanon]

Random things that I know

I’m currently on a road trip, so I didn’t have much time on my hands to draw much but I do have a small wip and old sketch I did! Along with just talking about random ideas and things that I know. Which. I mostly did a bunch of research on Delta Junction, Alaska as you will be able to tell soon

I passed by Delta Junction, and I remembered that they are the city with the most Ukrainian born people in percentage, it’s even higher in ancestry as well! This is because DJ has very similar terrain and climates to Ukraine (I think??) along with the fact there are already many Ukrainians there, there is not much of a language barrier for them! That’s neat :> So I wanted to make DJ as Ukrainian, and this is just one design concept I came up with today too quickly, it is likely to change as I learn more (I don’t have a definitive answer of what gender I’m thinking them to be yet)

also I think DJ would make BANGER cream rolls. Because I know this lady that lives there that comes to my city every summer and sells cream rolls; she’s done this ever since I was little

Alaska is the windiest state, with a windspeed average of 30 mph; in Juneau they have winds called Taku winds, and in DJ they have winds called Chinook winds

DJ was also known as the “Windy City” and “Little Chicago” by soldiers stationed there, as DJ is big on the military presence stuff

DJ is a very quant and neat place I won’t lie. They have buffalos there sent from Montana!! They now roam a lot around the Delta area, most are within the Delta Bison Sanctuary; I like to imagine DJ tells Alaska to tell Montana the bison are prospering

Colorado has a coin collection due to being the worlds top producer of coins (I think that’s cool)

Cali didn’t know what mosquito repellent was or was a thing until he overheard Maine and Alaska talking about them and asked about it, the other two were horrified he didn’t know (this is a tease cuz my girlfriend didn’t know it was a thing until I asked if she had any once)

This is an old sketch of a character my girlfriend made! She based them off Mexican culture, specifically this is based on California’s Lone Star flag from way back when

I think DJ loves the idea of having a family, but the opportunity has simply never been given 😞

Talkeetna was considered abandoned in 1910, before getting revived in aboit 1920 thanks to gold rushes, I think she is a little afraid of being abandoned again tho, but she knows Mayor Denali would never do her dirty like that

Hawai’i and Alaska both have the best air quality out of the states, they’re seriously breathing that great non lower 48 stuff. They are prospering. Manifesting.

Louisiana is actually one of the most, if not the most (it changes per article but they remain one of the top 3 always) stressed states, along with Mississippi and New Mexico

uhhhmm this is all I can think of currently. I hope y’all can wait for me to get back home to post regularly again 👻 that would be cool.

[kusukixcrystal]

MM Classpecting: Yoosung

This is a continuation from my first MM Classpecting post, where I classpected Zen, and clarified how I will go about classpecting the MM characters.

Yoosung: 

Personality/General Info: Human incarnation of a puppy. Friendliest RFA member. Loves talking and spending time with people (joined many clubs in university because he loves new experiences). Naive, gullible, and trusting. Depressed and copes with video games (LOLOLOL addict). Used to be studious, but became aimless/unmotivated due to Rika’s death. His main inspiration for studying and becoming a veterinarian due to Rika and her dog. Can be possessive (yandere). Wants a girlfriend very badly. Can be hard-working if he puts his mind to something.

Role in Narrative: In conflict with V (doesn’t trust). 1st person to question his motives and intentions. Mostly background role (except his route). Isn't a key player in the main story. His character arc is coming to terms with his grief for Rika. Also, taking control of his life and finding his own purpose, his motive not being based solely on Rika anymore, but for himself. He is earnest and wants to have a larger role in helping, and this only happens in his route.

Active or Passive: Seems to be more passive, doing things for others. We see this in his route when he willingly goes to Mint Eye and gets in between Unknown and Saeyoung, getting hurt in the process. He follows through with becoming a veterinarian in his After Ending, healing injured pets. Besides the RFA, he did charity work in the past. In the Secret Endings this is still the case, being there for Rika when she becomes mute, helping her get sent to Alaska for therapy.

Classpect - Heir of Heart: One who changes Heart, or changes through Heart for others.

How this applies to Yoosung: Very malleable, the RFA member who changes the most based on all the endings in the game, based on the people he meets and interacts with (Rika, MC, Jumin, 707, etc.) Defining moments that alter him? Rika’s ‘death’, meeting MC, etc. Alter him drastically, to a point that he is unrecognizable compared to other RFA members in their Good Endings. Can become emotionally distant (in his route after finding out Rika’s apartment has a bomb).

He is the youngest member and needs to do a lot of maturing. Yoosung isn’t a leader, he is a follower and follows his Aspect. He is passive because he does things to benefit others. He lost his eye in his route for the sake of MC.

In the SEs, he has another one by finding out that Rika is alive and that V died. Sadly, we don’t see much of him after this, but it obviously will change him forever. Yoosung does lose himself after Rika’s 'death', being consumed by depression and emotions (this applies to his Heart Aspect), neglecting his studies. He escapes his responsibilities and plays videogames instead. But, we do see him at his full potential in his route by meeting MC. It leads him to being brave and heading to Mint Eye, as well as pursuing his path as a veterinarian, finally having firm goals and aspirations.

Here is what the Hiveswap Extended Zodiac has to say about the Heart Aspect:

"Those bound to the aspect of Heart are very concerned with their favorite subject: themselves. It wouldn't be a stretch to call them 'self-obsessed', but not necessarily in a negative way. They simply want to understand the one thing we all are stuck with for our entire lives, i.e. our own minds. Forging an identity is extremely important to the Heart-bound, and every decision and action goes toward building a coherent narrative of their own story. That isn't to say Heart-bound don't care deeply for their friends and allies; they just have a tendency to assume that everyone is as concerned with identity as they are. They are excellent at putting on and taking off masks as the situation calls for them. At their best, they are competent, imaginative, and steady. At their worst they can be overbearing, inflexible, and cold."

How this applies to Yoosung: The variety in Yoosung’s character and his endings makes sense as he is currently in a phase of his life that is uncertain, and thus has a lot of different paths he can take. This is also because he is someone who lacks a solid identity, a struggle seen in the Heart bond. I think that Heart symbolizes emotions, romance and soul. Mainly, it is all about identity. Depending on the situation, a Heart player adapts different personas and desperately wants to understand who they are. We see this with how Yoosung moves from club to club in his university, never settling on one thing. The way he interacts with people can differ (ex. interacting with V vs. MC). Romance is also something the Heart player is in great pursuit of, along with feeling a lot of emotions. Yoosung, along with Zen are one of the first RFA members to openly take an interest in MC romantically when she joins the RFA. He is also extremely emotional, being very expressive in the chatroom. This leads him to acting on his impulses, like how he can't help but play LOLOLOL even when its a detriment to his health.

Yoosung as an Heir of Heart metaphorically becomes Heart, and just by being surrounded by his Aspect, and taking it in, it impacts the people around him too. An example is that Jaehee brings up how Yoosung’s presence helps cheer her up (Christmas DLC dialogue). Similar to Zen, Yoosung brings levity to the RFA chatroom. His naivety and honesty causing Saeyoung to tease him constantly, his open emotions as an Heir of Heart sadly being used against him here.

He will also change himself constantly, his identity not being consistent as I’ve said. Being this flexible could benefit him for the better. However, due to Yoosung's honesty with his emotions, its very easy for others to influence or manipulate him. Rika has been the one to do this to Yoosung for years, shaping him into a model student and making him fall in love with life. Both her introduction and departure from his life changes Yoosung immensely.

We see in some of his bad endings that if allowed to change for the worse for the sake of someone he likes, he could end up becoming extremely possessive. He could lose himself and his life. So, this is why he needs to mature. To move on from the things he is constantly stuck on.

As an Heir of Heart specifically, he can help the people around him realize their romantic feelings/emotions/true selves. I suppose you could argue he does help do this in the SEs? Yoosung does ‘follow his heart’ in a lot of ways, using his compassion and empathy to reach out to Rika in the SEs, despite finding out that she lied about her death. He also comes to terms with his distrust with V at his funeral, learning to understand him. He roots for Saeyoung and MC when they want to go and save Saeran. He welcomes Saeran into the RFA with open arms despite all of the madness surrounding them.

I see Yoosung throughout the story as not a fully realized Heir of Heart, but he does become that by the end of SE and the GE of his own route.

[pinewoodpipit]

so long, we become the flowers - Cowboy AU - Fic Beginning Meta

So, "we become the flowers", a.k.a. my cowboy au is finally out and being worked on! I'm super excited to be posting this. I'm delighted to have gotten it done already as I was hoping to have it posted before the 17th to celebrate the RDR re-port hahah. I got lucky!

Here is a link to the fic midpoint meta, posted along with chapter 5!

Here is a link to the post-fic meta, posted after the fic was completed!

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General thoughts

This fic is meant to be a western style of story, and as such I wanted to follow one of the three western storylines (bounty hunting, revenge, and political stories). I chose revenge! Bounty hunting is technically in there too, but I’d call this more of a revenge story than one about picking up a bounty.

I kind of blended this Western revenge genre with Austen-style romance because ooughh,,, the romantic and homoerotic tension in wanting someone SO BADLY but not being allowed to make a move for fear of scandal… it’s tasty stuff.

The au is meant to be set in a fantasy alternate - real-world in many ways, but flowers can bloom whenever I feel like it because I want cute flowers throughout the fic. I wanted an early-spring discussion in the beginning of this fic, but Fade gives her a peony, which bloom starting from late spring.

The town was named Vennecoate both as a reference to Venice and also to Bloodwritten Silver. I chose Venice as the inspiration behind Venshire in that fic and I liked the reasoning well enough to do the same here - that reasoning being Venice is both a huge part of Valorant lore and also where the training range is. I just like it! I chose this specific naming style after a real old western town, too - Kennecott in Alaska, which was a mining camp abandoned after natural resources dried up in 1938. It’s a national historic landmark now and can be visited.

Fade and Neon are called Hazal and Tala in this au, but like I did with bloodwritten silver, I’ll be calling them and other named characters by their codenames just for my own sake in meta posts.

Neon’s dog is called Kidlat which means lightning… bc “lightning strike”… she has Lightning and Strike… I’ll go now

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Moodboards

I made mood boards for Fade and Neon’s rough looks, as well as examples of their horses with their counterparts in RDR2. I also have Sims of them and their horses which I’ve shared before!

I’ve made more moodboards for this fic, but those are spoilers which I’ll only show in the fic ending meta…

Someone on Discord actually drew these guys too, and they managed to NAIL the exact vibe I was going for without ever even seeing the moodboards. Huge shoutout to WissyDumb / wizzul on discord! Sharing these with their permission of course.

They don’t have their piercings in the fic (piercings wouldn’t become commonly used until around the 1950s) and Fade actually has some trauma related to infection and disease (we’ll learn more about this later), so she wouldn’t risk it even if they were commonly worn at this time.

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Playlist

I have a playlist for this fic of course, as I do with all of my larger projects. I imagine this will continue to grow as I work on the fic but I'll share the songs on there so far!

In A Week - Hozier (where the fic's title comes from)

Throne - Saint Mesa

Beautiful Crime - Tamer

Mausoleum - Rafferty

notre dame - Paris Paloma

Habibi - Tamino

Setting Sun - Lord Huron

The Night We Met - Lord Huron

You're Gonna Go Far, Kid - The Offspring

Dangerous Woman - Ariana Grande

the fruits - Paris Paloma

labour - Paris Paloma

Stacy's Mom - Fountains of Wayne

Eyes on Fire - Blue Foundation

Hey, Little Songbird - Hadestown

She - dodie

Let Me In - Snowmine

Coyotes - Modest Mouse

Can't Help Falling in Love - Haley Reinhart

The Wolf - PHILDEL

Hand of God - Outro - Jon Bellion

Breathe (In The Air) - Pink Floyd

The Great Gig in the Sky - Pink Floyd

Family of Me - Ben Folds

All Along the Watchtower - Bear McCreary

My Name is Carnival - Stranded Horse

Requiem on Water - Imperial Mammoth

Short Change Hero - The Heavy

Little Girl Gone - CHINCHILLA

I Wish A Bitch Would - Delilah Bon

One of Us - The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride

No Surprises - Radiohead

Something About Us - Daft Punk

Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want - The Smiths

Creep - Radiohead

Nights in White Satin - The Moody Blues

Blood In The Wine - AURORA

Rawhide - Frankie Laine (hahah)

I See Red - Everybody Loves an Outlaw

House of The Rising Sun - Five Finger Death Punch

The Yawning Grave - Lord Huron

Burn The Witch - Shawn James

Grow as We Go - Ben Platt

Spectre - Radiohead

Long Long Time - Linda Ronstadt

Arsonist's Lullabye - Hozier

Pretty Little Head - Eliza Rickman

Never Love an Anchor - The Crane Wives

That Unwanted Animal - The Amazing Devil

Cowboy Casanova - Carrie Underwood

What Makes A Good Man? - The Heavy

Asleep - The Smiths

The Everlasting Muse - Belle and Sebastian

Layla - Derek & the Dominos

Senden Daha Güzel - Duman

Resistance - Muse

We Could Be The Same - Istanbul - maNga

Last Flowers - Radiohead

Man of War - Radiohead

WHEWW this is a long one. Sorry!

[hottpinkpenguin]

Number 5- "I wouldn't mind death as long as I go out with your name on my lips" with Aro and fem!reader?

Seeking Death

a/n: yessssss as i wrote this i realized just how beautifully perfect this quote is for him, great pairing anon! this one's a bit longer and i served it up a hot side of angst. let me know what you think <3 Characters: Aro x Fem!Reader (used y/n = your name) Word Count: ~4100 | 15 min. read time Warnings: (light) Breaking Dawn spoilers, and of course angst/fluff

Note: vrăjitoare = Romanian word for 'witch'

Y/n had grown tired of the world. The longer she existed – living no longer felt like the right word – the more the planet felt like dusty decay. People were born, lived, and died all in the span of an eye blink.

She envied humans the ephemerality of their lives. It made moments sweeter, love stronger, and gave a sense of urgency to their day-to-day. For y/n, who’d been made immortal thousands of years before, time felt torturous and death was the sweet release hanging just out of reach. All the people she’d known and loved had died. The people she’d met in the years, decades, and centuries immediately after her transformation had died as well. Now, she saw a blurred parade of faces.

Meeting other vampires had once been a thrill, but at this point even they felt inexplicably dull. So many of them were so young and naïve, still clinging to the morality of mortals and basking in the afterglow of a time-limited existence. The drudgery of existing for close to a millennium would wear them down, eventually, like it had worn her down. But, in the meantime, she couldn’t stand to be around them.

So, she chose to exist far from others: humans and vampires alike. There was nowhere on Earth she hadn’t seen before, but occasionally the faintest whisper of a thrill could still be found in the solitude of nature. She chased that fleeting sensation to the remotest corners of the globe, challenging herself to go further into the wild then she’d gone before.

She’d stayed a while on Easter Island, her only company the large stone monoliths made by a civilization of humans long dead. Alaska and northern Russia had also afforded some opportunities for life away from the world. She found the cold agreed with her much more than heat, but after a century even snow-swept mountain vistas lose their luster. She called a few remote islands in the South Indian Ocean home for a time; after that, a cave in the Alps, an abandoned lean-to in the Amazon, a plateau in Tibet. She didn’t stay anywhere for too long before moving on, and she knew that her restlessness was reaching a fever pitch. Although she’d never imagined herself dying by another’s hand, it seemed that death was now a luxury she’d be made to beg for. And so, with that intent in mind, she set off back into the world of the living, hoping to find a vampire or two who would be willing to oblige her final request.

It was in her travels to this end that she first heard of the Volturi. The idea of a semi-governmental body in the world of vampires was not unknown to her; before this Italian regime, the Romanian coven had been long in power. She’d met the leaders of the Romanian coven – Stefan and Vladimir – and found them mildly intriguing for a time. She’d even lived amongst them for a brief period, but found that ruling over others was almost as boring as being ruled over. Despite Stefan’s objections (and eventually, pleading), she’d left the coven to strike out on her own. It seemed in the time since she’d left the world of organized vampiric clans behind, there’d been a change in leadership, and a rather bloody one. It was listening to the tales of the Volturi’s violent overthrow of the Romanians that piqued her interest; surely if the Volturi were threatened enough by other vampires in power, they’d be happy to rid themselves of one other potential rival. If needed, y/n was prepared to make direct threats to their rule to ensure that they responded with the violence she was hoping for.

With a plan in mind, y/n arrived in the sun-soaked city of Volterra. Y/n had lived in a region now known as Italy when she’d been transformed from mortal to vampire, freezing her forever at the age of 24. When she’d last drawn a breath, this land had been known as Maegna Graecia. Y/n supposed that, if anywhere in the world held the mystical title of ‘home’ for her, it was Italy. Therefore, it seemed tragically fitting and oddly poetic that this would be the site of her demise.

Volterra was densely inhabited by humans, a fact which surprised y/n in a vague, disinterested way. The Romanians had preferred to isolate themselves from humans, holing up in expansive, heavily fortified castles in the mountains. These Italian vampires seemed much more content to surround themselves with mortals. Y/n had little doubt that there was likely a strategic motivation for having one’s food source so easily accessible and apparently so ignorant to the threat that lived among them.

Unsure of how to find the Volturi herself, y/n decided that if she was patient enough, the Volturi would likely come to her. From all that she’d heard from the other vampires who had told her of the Volturi, they were keen administrators of their own territory and would no doubt know if an unidentified vampire loitered about long enough.

Careful to avoid the strong beams of sunshine that snaked through the narrow streets of Volterra, y/n allowed herself to explore the city, taking note of the new gadgets and unusual styles of dress that the humans wore. For all their weaknesses and shortcomings, humanity was an insatiably fad-driven race of beings, and it brought y/n some much needed amusement.

By the fourth day in Volterra, y/n finally had enough cloud cover to brazenly explore the unshaded outskirts of the city. As she meandered down a dusty road between two vineyards, a figure came into view ahead of her. To mortal eyes, he would appear a man, although y/n saw clearly the red tint on his eyes and the vaguely marbleized quality of his skin. He had dark, shoulder-length hair and was wearing an outfit of all-black. Exquisitely tailored Italian silk, y/n registered. If there was one quality that most vampires shared, it was a love for beautiful things.

Unafraid, y/n inclined her chin deferentially to the vampire by way of greeting, keeping her gaze even and her expression neutral. He returned her greeting with an interested smile, his head cocking slightly to one side as he approached her.

“Enchante, mademoiselle,” he purred, gently grasping y/n’s hand and placing a chaste kiss on the back of her knuckles. “I do not believe I’ve had the pleasure.” Y/n watched as he ran her hand through his fingers, his eyes darting back and forth as if reading something only he could see. A sad smile spread across his lips as his eyes met hers.

“You have a request for me and my companions.” His statement was not a question, and the certainty with which he said it revealed that he’d been in her thoughts. Y/n was not surprised nor offended; she’d met a fair amount of vampires who were imbued with certain powers during their transformation from mortal to immortal. She herself had not acquired such gifts, but she had assumed that the Volturi would have at least some number of their contingent with extra abilities.

“I do,” she agreed, her voice even. She watched carefully as he considered this admission, his fingers still tracing over her hand. No doubt she had quite a lot of memories for him to sift through, and she found that the intimacy of the act was not unpleasant.

“It’s a shame to lose one among us who’s seen so much,” he mused, his eyes still flicking through her memories. “Perhaps, I could convince you to reconsider.” He looked at her with hope in his eyes. Y/n was oddly struck by that. It had been so long since she’d felt cared about by another that she’d forgotten the feeling. Lonely wasn’t the right word for how she felt, for she didn’t find herself missing companionship. Unlike many other vampires, she’d never found a mate, and had largely given up on the idea. Resigned to an existence of isolation, she’d become quite comfortable with solitude. But to see another so affected by the idea of her not existing, it sparked a flame in her that she’d long thought extinguished.

She wasn’t convinced that this spark would be enough to change her mind, but she couldn’t help to smile back at the man.

“I’d be willing to hear arguments on the matter,” she quipped. The vampire smiled a genuine grin of eagerness as he let her hand fall from his.

“Please, allow me.” He offered his arm to her – a gallant gesture that earned a demure smile from y/n – and led her back towards the city.

*****

That day had been almost forty years ago. Y/n had never expected to find her mate in the Volturi, the vampires she’d planned to petition to end her existence, but fate clearly had other plans for her.

Aro had proven to be an exciting partner, and he’d rekindled y/n’s long dormant zeal for exploration. Together, they’d traveled the world, and although y/n had seen it all before, she found that with Aro it felt as if she were given a fresh pair of eyes. Sunsets were more vivid, flowers more fragrant, mountains taller.

Through their travels, Aro had introduced her to many vampires he knew scattered throughout the world. She hadn’t realized just how many of her kind there were, and she felt a certain affinity for the others she encountered. The Cullens were a particularly intriguing coven, subsisting entirely on animal blood and welcoming a mortal girl into their fold as one of their mates. Y/n saw Aro’s keen interest in the particulars of that storyline, and she felt herself similarly enthralled by the unorthodox practices of Carlisle and the handful of vampires who lived alongside him.

Although y/n was unconcerned by the threat of mortals knowing about vampires, Aro and the other Volturi were deeply unsettled by this, and it was the crux of their leadership to protect the secrecy of vampire kind from humans. To an even greater extent than his companions Marcus and Caius, Aro was particularly discomforted by the threat of exposure, and it was on this premise that he took great exception to Carlisle’s practices with the human girl, Bella.

And so, she found herself alongside the entirety of the Volturi coven – the mercurial Jane and her diffident brother Alec included, amongst others who lived under the Volturi’s protection in Volterra – standing in a large field in the Pacific Northwest across from the Cullens, an assortment of other vampires, and several large werewolves. Y/n had crossed paths with werewolves only a handful of times in her existence. They were natural-born enemies of vampires, and the only creatures y/n knew of that could kill a vampire (save other vampires, of course), so to see such a large pack apparently co-existing with the Cullens was a shock.

The werewolves bristled and growled eagerly, their sharp canines glinting in the late afternoon light. Y/n sidled closer to Aro, a coil of fear twisting around her gut. Not fear for herself, but fear for him. Aro was the leader of the Volturi, and she could practically see the target their opponents had placed on him from across the expanse of bluegrass. Next to her, Aro placed a protective hand along her back, his eyes dancing in her direction for the briefest of moments. Y/n knew he felt the same fear twining around his core for her, and the ferocity with which they would protect another was undeniable.

Tearing her eyes away from the wolves, y/n’s eyes grazed the other vampires assembled next to Carlisle and his clan. She recognized a few, including Benjamin with his smug smirk and the Denali coven, a group of vampires with similar “vegetarian” lifestyles to the Cullens. There were a few faces y/n did not recognize, including two striking Amazonian women with luminous cinnamon skin and an eccentric looking vagabond who hung back from the group near the treeline, uncertainty in his eyes.

Then y/n saw them. The Romanians. Stefan and Vladimir had aged since she’d last seen them almost 1500 years ago. Their skin was so white it was almost translucent and their bodies looked stiff with disuse. They had the same diffident, superior expressions y/n remembered. In the same instant that y/n saw them, Stefan saw her. A murderous glitter flickered in his red irises as his lips curled into a snarl, his body springing into action.

When y/n had decided to leave the Romanians, Stefan had implored her not to, and promised her a seat beside him as his equal, his mate, and the queen-apparent of the vampires. Y/n had known that Stefan’s affections for her far outweighed the benign friendliness she felt towards him for some time. Partly out of self-preservation and partly to avoid parting on poor terms, y/n had lied and told Stefan that she refused his offer based on the fact that she didn’t want that kind of power. In truth, y/n cared little for a potential mate’s power - or lack thereof; she had simply wanted to exit the Romanian coven without having to kill any of them. They’d been kind enough to let her live with them for nigh on three hundred years, and she’d enjoyed their ostentatious, violent lifestyle for a time.

Y/n saw the irony of her arrival in that clearing from Stefan’s perspective. The memory of her rebuke was fresh in his memory, that much was crystal clear from the savagery with which he responded to seeing her. And now, to see her standing next to the leader of the Volturi, the de facto vampire monarch, exposed her true motivations for turning down Stefan’s offer of eternal partnership. Y/n hadn’t anticipated meeting the Romanians here, but it seemed she had gravely underestimated the lengths they were willing to go to exact their long-desired revenge on the Volturi for usurping them centuries ago.

As these facts coalesced in y/n’s mind in an instant, she watched as Stefan, shortly followed by Vladimir, sprinted across the field. The ghostly white faces of the two Romanians were twisted into masks of bloodlust, and they were closing the gap between them with astounding speed. Acting on instinct, y/n threw her arm in front of Aro, shoving him backwards with as much force as she could muster. Aro was powerful, and larger than her, but the element of surprise worked in her favor. She felt Aro lift off his feet and begin hurtling backwards, away from the two Romanians closing in. In the distance behind them, the Cullens and their counterparts were all wearing various expressions of surprise, befuddlement, and horror. It seemed that the Romanians’ offensive was not part of the plan. Y/n hoped this would work in her favor, but she was unable to give that hope much thought before she was face-to-face with her two former associates.

Stefan reached her first. In a fit of spurned rage, he grabbed her forearm and began wheeling her towards Vladimir, a few steps behind him. Despite y/n’s initial assessment that Stefan had looked marbleized and immobile, the sheer force with which he seized her knocked her off balance. Her feet dug into the soft, muddy ground up to her ankles, but Stefan had already brought her in Vladimir’s direct line of attack. Y/n vaguely registered movement around her as the rest of the vampires and wolves assembled in the field sprang into combat. Vladimir’s lips peeled back, revealing his fang-like canines as he cocked his head, his eyes bored onto the side of her neck, his target.

Y/n had just enough time to crouch down. Stefan’s iron grip on her forearm didn’t yield, however, and she felt a sickening splintering sensation in her shoulder - accompanied by a sound like shattering glass - as her arm threatened to snap off at the root. Vladimir wasn’t able to correct, and he sailed over her head, grasping futilely at the air as he tried to stay his momentum. Before he’d hit the ground, y/n grabbed Stefan’s ankle, the closest part of his body to her, and wrenched his foot with all her might. The same crackling sound preempted the gratifying snap as his foot broke clean off his leg. He collapsed to his knee, loosening his grip on her arm, a roar of pain mingled with blind rage erupting from his throat.

Y/n seized her momentary advantage, rising to her full height and gripping the sides of Stefan’s face. She began to twist, fighting against him to wrest his head from his neck. The sides of his pale face cracked, and he snarled viciously at y/n, his red eyes boring into her. She saw nothing but hatred there, and a small distant part of her felt sadness for him. Stefan had been an entertaining companion, but his heart was shallow and fickle; one of many reasons y/n knew she could never love him.

As that spark of pity for Stefan flickered through her, y/n felt hard arms wrap around her neck from behind, lifting her off the ground. An accented voice laughed coldly in her ear.

“Nice to see you again, vrăjitoare,” Vladimir sneered as he put his arms to the task of twisting her neck. Y/n knew immediately that Vladimir had outmatched her; he was taller than she, so she wasn’t able to catch her footing, and with him behind her she had almost no chance of overpowering him, a tall order even from the front with proper footing. As y/n felt the flesh on her neck erupt into a thousand splintering fissures, she felt a panic set in.

Panic over death was not something y/n had felt since she’d lost her mortality. Even before she’d become world weary and set off on the path to seek her own demise, death hadn’t held the mystique over her that it had when she’d drawn breath as a human. But now, as she saw darkness seeping in at the edges of her vision, there was an indisputable terror coursing through her body. Y/n realized it wasn’t terror of dying so much as it was terror over not being with Aro.

Aro. She had lost track of him since she’d made sure he was clear from danger, but she knew without a doubt that he was watching. Undoubtedly, he was probably making his way back towards her at that very moment. Y/n could picture his expression, the franticness with which he would try to close the distance between them to prevent her demise. She knew his eyes would be trained on hers, gliding over her features, trying desperately to stretch out the fractions of instants between now and her death. Y/n felt a pang of regret rip through her; she refused to allow Aro to see her in her final moments giving in to pain and horror. He’d once rescued her from the edge of death; how ironic that he should now bear witness to it. The least she could do was give him an image of her at peace before she could no longer give him anything.

Y/n let herself relax into Vladimir’s death grip as she called up images of her life with Aro.

Their first hunt together, the fascination and adoration with which Aro let y/n pick her target… the shy way Aro had first shown her his chambers (“our chambers”, he’d called them) at the Volturi’s compound in Volterra… the swell of pride in his chest when he introduced her to old acquaintances he’d made across the globe, always using the term “my long awaited mate” to present her to the vampires he considered friends… the gleeful way Aro would scroll through her infinite memories, holding her palm against his bare chest with both hands…

These images, and the bone-deep serenity they conjured in her chest, allowed y/n to completely surrender herself to the inevitability of death. She waited, her face relaxed and her eyelids fluttering closed, for the final fracture before darkness took her.

But it never came. Instead, y/n felt Vladimir’s arms slacken like loose tree trunks around her neck as an ear splitting crack resounded across the field. Y/n fell to her knees, grabbing instinctively at her neck, a white hot pain radiating around her throat like a necklace. She was distantly aware of a figure stepping over her towards Stefan, who’d remained where she’d left him to watch greedily as Vladimir had made to end her. Y/n looked up to see Aro, his eyes afire with bloodlust, as he emitted a guttural growl and ripped Stefan’s head from his body by the root of his white-blonde hair. Stefan’s severed head dropped to the ground, his face still contorted in a frozen mask of shock and fear.

Aro sank to his knees in front of y/n, cradling her face gently between his palms.

“My love,” he murmured, his voice laced with horror. Y/n looked up at him, and although it had been thousands of years since she’d last used lungs, she felt breathless. His eyes poured into hers with unbridled intensity, and as he saw her return his gaze his face broke into a cry of relief. He pressed his lips to hers - messily and needily - as his hands raked through her hair. He gripped her close. Around them, y/n heard the sounds of combat lessening, and Carlisle’s gently but firmly given command of “enough!” silencing the final few moments of battle. Y/n cast a quick glance around; aside from Stefan’s and Vladimir’s headless corpses, it seemed that the remainder of the Volturi and the Cullens’ assembled forces hadn’t suffered any casualties. She noticed a werewolf limping away from the field, favoring one of its legs, and saw Carlisle helping one of his children - the surly looking dark-haired one who was mated to Bella - up from the ground.

“Why didn’t you fight? Why did you give up?”

Y/n had hardly registered Aro’s worried murmurs as questions until he repeated them several times. Gently, he guided her face back until her eyes were square with his, his palms still framing her face and stroking her tenderly, careful to avoid the ragged wounds on her neck.

“Why did you give up, mi amore? Why were you going to let him end you?”

Y/n had difficulty grasping Aro’s meaning at first. She felt her mind tiring as the adrenaline of battle wore off. Slowly, the moments she had thought to be her last slid back into her memory: the surrender she’d thrown up in the face of certain death, the peace she’d felt at recalling the beautiful life she’d discovered with Aro, all at a time when she’d thought herself entirely drained of capacity to care for beauty anymore. As the pieces fell into place, she realized that Aro had indeed been watching her at what she’d thought was the end, but that he had misinterpreted what he’d seen. He’d seen her giving up, when in fact she’d been giving over to the happiness he’d given to her.

Suddenly intent on correcting his mistake, she brought her hands to his, lacing her fingers with his as she brought their hands to his chest, inviting him to read her memories.

“Was it not enough, my sweet? Our life together?” His voice shook with emotion as he contemplated his deepest fear: that he had saved her selfishly from the end she’d wanted, and not given her anything in return.

“My love, no, I was not giving up,” she replied. She saw Aro listening and also watching, her memories becoming his as he watched her memories. His thumbs glided softly over the backs of her hands. Y/n remembered fondly the first time he’d done so, in the outskirts of Volterra, the day he’d saved her immortal life.

As she watched him read through her memories, she smiled indulgently at him.

“My dear Aro,” she murmured, “I wouldn't mind death, as long as I went out with your name on my lips.”

She saw his handsome mouth turn into a smile as the sincerity of her words soaked into his ears. He reconnected his lips with her, this kiss deeper and fiercer than the last, as he gave her his firm agreement on the subject…

[guccigarantine]

Michael Woe.Begone is the most character of all time and I refuse to shut up about him so please enjoy 4 minutes of everyone’s favorite time traveling cowboy 

Transcript: 

Mike: Anne found some settings that suggested that “excess travelers” as we had been calling them could be “consolidated”. I was skeptical. I couldn’t imagine a scientific mechanism through which that was possible. Once it happened you defacto had two different people with two different minds. I knew first hand how different, how disagreeable and incoherent those minds could be. One of mine was a fucking cowboy.

[Honk from episode 73 begins playing] 

“Hey Mikey, nice to meet you. Name’s Michael, around here they call Mikael.”

“Well, Mikey boy good news is big dog Mike Walters here to bail you out.”

“I’m too damn old for people to call me Mikey. I’m leaning into this whole grizzled old man thing.”

“Well, I don’t wanna get blood on my clothes and, uh you’re the worst dressed here so I think it should be you.”

“Enunciate my boot up your ass how’s that for grizzled old man talk?”

“’Cuz I’m smooth as butter partner.”

“You see her face when I tipped my hat? She got a kick out of it.”

“Damn straight partner.”

“I’ll have you know I’m the fastest gunslinger in this whole car.”

“I understand Cthulhu he’s literally just a guy chilling.”

“I’m just a cowboy with a heart of gold.”

“Surprise buckaroo it was me all along.”

“Gimme my hat back you ungrateful, green horned, son of a—“ [STATIC]

“Ornery is what he is. Ornery, what a word. Ornery. Ornery.”

“We kill people all the time and normally it’s just ‘cause someone told us to and we don’t even get to eat those people.”

“It’s a dummy LinkedIn page. Did you think I had a real LinkedIn page? What would I put on it?”

“Those were tactical cheese burgers.”

“Yep, he’s touching my bumper!”

“Hey! Wake up fuckass!” [SMACK] 

“I’m a goddamn cowboy.”

“Get your finest hostage taking attire on pilgrim.”

“It’ll be fine… or we’ll die. I think it’s about fifty fifty.”

“Eyes on the prize Mikey-bear. 

“The end with the hole in it is the one you point at the other guy.”

“You know you’re a lot easier to stuff into a car dead.”

“Mike, I know you’re a scared little puppy-dog in an unforgiving world but just take his phone, okay? I need you to do this for me it’s not weird until you make it weird.”

“Ahoy matey. If it isn’t the scurvy cur, Mike Walters.” 

“We are in the Gulf of Alaska. You’ll never guess what ocean that’s in.”

“It’s high noon, pilgrim.”

“Get in dipshit, we’re going for a ride!”

“And if I’m not back by then you can assume that I got enticed by a merman.”

“Look all the way out there and then out there too— every direction. See all the favor you did us.”

“Hang onto your hat partner!”

“I should join the rodeo.” 

“Shame I don’t got my hat. Hope he can still tell that I’m a cowboy.”

“Did I leave the oven on? Whatever.”

“Darn tootin.”

“Bruno! [Snaps] Сидеть! Хорош! Хорош, Bruno!”

“Turns out waking up to your upper half being separated from your lower half by some drywall ain’t pleasant.”

“Darn tootin.”

“I’d take you lot yelling over Mike’s baby voice he keeps doing for the dog.”

“Howdy, Mikey.”

“Hey, you little snitch.”

“Quit yelling over each other, you’re scaring Bruno. Sorry Bruno. Сидеть.”

“Shuffle the deck better next time dipshit.”

“Mike, I swear if you don’t throw that ball for him you and Bruno are going missing too.”

“Yes, sir Mr. Walters! I’ll be a good boy.”

“I bought him a whole chicken just for him.”

“Anyway, I love that movie, Grizzly Adams. It’s really gay.”

“Must of got you two mixed up then huh? Guess I’m lyin’ then.”

“I would be rubbin’ it in.”

“Shit! Shit! What time is it?”

“Was they close? Apologies Charlie, he don’t know everything I do.”

“I fucked up!”

“We killed him,” Michael said. “Mikey, we’re trying to recruit her we can’t pussyfoot around.”

“10-4 good buddy.”

“The Cowboy Iteration, if you will.”

“Get it together quick Mike I done fucked up.”

“Be seein’ y’all,” Michael tipped his hat. 

[Music fades out]

Michael: Do you think that he thought that was my actual voice?”

Mike: Maybe not at the very end, but for almost the whole time, yeah I think he did! 

[natashasfilms]

Chapter Twenty-Three - Two Lovers

Summary: Returning to Hawkins for spring break, Aria is finally glad to be back at home to see her mom and friends. However, she soon finds out that the danger they’ve all faced before, is back yet again. This time, she may or may not fall at the center of it.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Original Female Character

Warnings: This story contains mature themes such as sexual content, strong language, violence, mentions of alcohol and drugs, blood, gore, and death.

Note: I imagine Aria Kaul as South Asian but I have decided to let you, the reader, imagine her appearance, hence the reason why I have not given her a face claim. However, her race does not affect the story, whatsoever. You, as the reader, are free to imagine her however you want. If you don’t see her as South Asian, then that’s fine. It won’t affect the storyline.

Series Masterlist

It was two days after everything went down. Aria visited Max at the hospital, the guilt coursing through her as she silently cried to herself. Her entire body was covered in bandages and the girl herself fell into a coma.

She tried to calm herself down but every time she did, the guilt came rushing back. It should've been her instead of Max. She failed to protect the kids once again, even after telling herself she would always do so.

All she wanted was her mom. She didn’t know where in Alaska she was so she couldn’t call her. She just wanted to hug her mom tight and have her tell her that everything was going to be okay. She needed her more than ever.

She was at the Wheeler’s house helping them sort out boxes of many items to donate. Her gaze fell back onto Steve every so often, her heart telling her to finally talk to him.

She felt terrible for blowing up on them that night, screaming at them for what happened to Max. She didn’t know where it came from. Maybe it was from years of pent up frustration or from the lack of sleep. She apologized to them later on for her outburst but they all shook their heads, giving her reassuring smiles that they thought nothing negative about it.

Steve had given her a letter from Max, who had written them letters in case she died. She didn’t know how long she cried but it was long. She hated letters ever since Hopper’s.

She saw many people packing their bags and leaving Hawkins, getting the memo that the town they lived in was indeed cursed. She watched as cars on cars left the city, leaving forever.

She pursed her lips as she found herself looking at Steve again, knowing it would be best to just get it out of the way. She took a deep breath and walked over to him, tapping a finger on his shoulder. He turned around and saw Aria, a grin automatically forming onto his lips. “Hey. Can we talk?” She asked him, tilting her head.

Steve arched an eyebrow and nodded his head, the two walking away from the others as they stood near the hood of the car they were loading boxes into. “What’s up?”

“I…” Her eyes were on the ground as she tried to think of what to say. She let out a deep breath and lifted her head to look at him, biting the inside of her cheek. “I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for putting up with me that night.”

He gave her a soft smile, shaking his head. “That was nothing, Riya. I would do anything for you.”

She reciprocated his smile, nodding her head. “Um, about the dream you told me—“

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” He reassured her. “I understand if you don’t feel the same way.”

She shook her head, furrowing her eyebrows. “No, no. I…Steve…I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Steve felt like his heart was blooming in joy, his head lifting up so fast to meet her eyes. “Really?”

Aria bit her bottom lip, nodding her head. “But…”

Steve furrowed his brows. “But?”

“I can’t give you what you want, Steve.” She whispered, looking away as tears began to fill her eyes.

His lips parted in confusion. “What? I don’t understand…”

She turned her head to look at him again. “You said you wanted a family. That you wanted kids of your own…”

Steve nodded his head in agreement, most likely knowing where this was going. “The six kids part was just an over-exaggeration. We don’t need to have kids at all—“

“That’s the thing, Steve.” She cut him off, voice cracking. “I do want kids.”

Steve was still confused. “I still don’t understand.”

She pursed her lips as she looked around them, making sure no one overheard. “I…I can’t have children.”

His lips parted in shock but he immediately shook his head, gently holding her arms. “That’s okay.” He whispered, trailing his hands from her arms up to her face to cup her cheeks. “We don’t need kids. All I need is you.”

Aria felt the tears roll down her face, Steve quickly wiping it away with his thumb. She shook her head. “Let me tell you why I can’t have kids.” He nodded his head, letting her continue talking as he kept holding her. “When I was in Russia, they performed these special operations on all the girls.” Steve listened intently, his thumbs gently rubbing her soft skin. “We all were forced to get a hysterectomy.”

Steve’s heart ached in pain. To know that she went through so much as a child angered and upset him. “God…”

“I’m sorry, Steve.” She cried. “I can’t give you what you want.”

Steve shushed her immediately, bringing his forehead down to hers. “Would you just shut up?” He breathed out, closing his eyes. “You are the only one I want. The only one I need. I don’t need anything else, okay?” He lifted his head to look at her, seeing the despaired look on her face. “You are the reason I’m still breathing right now. Without you, I’m incomplete. I’m nothing.”

Aria let out a shaky laugh, to which caused a huge grin to form on Steve’s lips. “I missed you.” She breathed out, nudging her nose against his. “I really missed you.”

He brought his head down lower, one of his hands from her face moving to the back of her neck. “And God knows how much I missed you.” He chuckled, his breath fanning over her lips. “I love you so much.”

The girl closed her eyes, bringing her hands to wrap around his neck. “I love you.” She whispered, before bringing his head down to attach his lips to hers.

They moved their lips in sync, the taste of longingness evading their senses. Steve’s hand went down to her waist, pulling her closer towards his body as he chased after her lips. “I love you, more.” He said softly, pulling back for just a second before smashing his lips back onto hers.

It had been way too long since he had felt the soft plush of her lips against his. He bit her bottom lip, which caused a soft gasp to leave her lips, and took the chance to slip his tongue inside.

He gently lifted her up off the ground and Aria started to giggle against his lips, feeling her feet no longer touch the surface of the cement.

They heard a few chuckles and coughs, the two immediately pulling away from one another. “I’m happy you two are back together but can you guys not eat each other’s faces off in front of the Wheeler’s?” Dustin told them off, Nancy and Robin sending them playful smirks.

Steve glared at him as his hold on Aria’s waist tightened. “Shut it, Henderson.” He bit back, pointing a finger at him. Aria giggled, leaning her head against Steve’s chest. This is where she was meant to be. In his arms. It just felt right.

“Did someone order a pizza?” Mrs. Wheeler asked, causing all of them to turn their heads towards the pizza van that parked near their house.

[katnissmellarkkk]

Okayyyy here comes the next chapter ! Number .... lemme look. Okay, number six! 🥳🥳🥳

And yes, my thoughts as usual will be a messy, very Everlark-biased and full of typos. Letsss gooooo 🥰🥰🥰

Is this the first time Katniss and Peeta have been to their floor or is this just the most opportune time to explain and introduce the Tribute Center living quarters?

Also why are they called tributes anyway? That word suddenly seems weird to me after nine years... 🤔🤔🤔

“I've ridden the elevator a couple of times in the Justice Building back in District 12. Once to receive the medal for my father's death and then yesterday to say my final goodbyes to my friends and family” .... 😶😶 so only good memories and connotations to elevators then, huh?

“The walls of this elevator are made of crystal so that you can watch the people on the ground floor shrink to ants as you shoot up into the air.” My mind is just imagining the elevator in Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone’s Spider-Man movies 🤗.

“It's exhilarating and I'm tempted to ask Effie Trinket if we can ride it again, but somehow that seems childish” this is so cute and innocent omg. Katniss, like I said in my last chapter blog, still has some childlike innocence left in her 🥺🥺🥺. I’m a sad.

Also excuse the unnecessary extra gif use but 🤭🤭🤭

Oh wow, so Haymitch hasn’t been around since they were on the train? No wonder neither Katniss nor Peeta fled they could trust him for basically the entirety of the first book. 😐😐😐

You know it’s bad when Effie being around feels like a blessing to Katniss. Girl has more restraint than me, I’d have ripped off this woman’s janky wig by now without remorse. 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️

Effie acts like they’re her purebred show dogs. I know I know how is this news, that’s a blatant fact. The movies really softened her up tho for the general audience. And I bleed the movies and books together more than I should 😔😔😔

Well at least she’s made herself useful, trying to get Everlark sponsors ... even if it’s ultimately to benefit herself above anyone else .... 😤

Effie calling Twelve barbaric while she’s preparing them for the slaughter isn’t even ironic it’s like literally just brainless. Johanna probably had the nickname floating around for a lot of people before she officially knighted Katniss with it 😭

“Everyone has their reservations, naturally. You being from the coal district.” Is this how they refer to Twelve? So basically if a district makes a better item, it’s a more worthy one in the Capitol’s eyes? So essentially, if District Eight made like diamonds or pearls or whatever then it would be more worthy? So are the districts assigned their numbers (one, two, three, four, etc) based on their order of importance to the Capitol’s lifestyle? I always thought it was based on their distance in relation to the Capitol? Okay so I didn’t really pay much attention to these facts previously when I read these books ok look away I’m an idiot

Omg 😭😭😭😭 Effie is such an idiot. But the coal turns to pearls thing is my favorite line from her only because it serves as the cutest inside joke when Peeta makes a callback to it in Catching Fire and Finnick is just like “why are these two teenagers so stupid who did I ally with? 🥵😳🥵😳🥵”

“I wonder if the people she's been plugging us to all day either know or care.” After reading Songbirds and Snakes, I’m sure they don’t have a clue, boo. 😑😑😑😑 although not everyone was an idiot back then ... maybe Snow is putting lead in the drinking water?

“But don't worry, I'll get him to the table at gunpoint if necessary.” I know she’s trying to help and I know we say this kind of thing today, but considering this is two kids she’s well aware will be heading into a death match this is just bad wording I know surprise surprise 🙄🙄🙄😬😬😬😬

“Although lacking in many departments, Effie Trinket has a certain determination I have to admire.” Katniss really does see the best in people. What’s sad, y’all, is I think Katniss unconsciously really tries to like people and that’s why she has her guard up so high. Because the softer you are, the easier people will step all over you. Terrible phrasing here, Samantha, I’m so sorry to any of my readers ... okay now that sounded arrogant, implying I have readers 🤭🤭🤭🤭🤣😅🤣😅🤣😅

“My quarters are larger than our entire house back home.” Omg? I mean, yes, I knew this already obviously no duh but like also. Just the fact that three people live in a space smaller than a bedroom and bathroom arena is saddy sad sad. Also do they have indoor plumbing in the Seam or is their backyards just full of—okay, I’ll see myself out. 😶🤭😅🙃

“The shower alone has a panel with more than a hundred options you can choose regulating water temperature, pressure, soaps, shampoos, scents, oils, and massaging sponges.” I’m just imagining a Spongebob scene ngl.

I’m sorry there’s so many gifs this time around it’s probably taking us out of the reading headspace I’ll never do it again 😩😩😩😩 I talk like I have a class of people listening to me 🤭🤭🤭

“Instead of struggling with the knots in my wet hair, I merely place my hand on a box that sends a current through my scalp, untangling, parting, and drying my hair almost instantly” I need this someone invent this NOW my brush is yanking out my hair 😔😩

“I program the closet for an outfit to my taste.” ‘Yes, Alexa, I’d like a hunting jacket, some boots and a green shirt. Yes, it can be brown.’

“You need only whisper a type of food from a gigantic menu into a mouthpiece and it appears, hot and steamy, before you in less than a minute.” I like this idea because it means that Peeta could order hot choccy to comfort Katniss after her nightmares in Catching Fire from the comfort of her their own bed. 🤗🤗🤗 also I want this for myself. The bad people are giving my greedy self ideas look away everyone 😬

“I walk around the room eating goose liver and puffy bread until there's a knock on the door.” 🤢🤢🤢🤢 Of everything you could have chosen, child, this is what you decided on? Someone help my girl and her rotten tastebuds now.

“Effie's calling me to dinner. Good. I'm starving.” Baby, you were just eating. She’s so nutritionally messed up. 😔😔😔

Katniss trying wine 🥳🥳🥳 she’s so funny, trying to find a way to improve the taste 😅. She’ll make a good taste tester for her baker husband one day.

Hahahaha Katniss not liking the feeling and judging Haymitch for always being tipsy. Also this is sad because she ends up addicted to morphling later one which is far worse than a little wine.

I’m glad to know Baked Alaska survived the apocalypse 😅🥳

Katniss just constantly trying to decipher the recipe of every meal and how to recreate it reads cute on a surface level but it’s actually so tragic because everything to this girl is based around food. Like even more than is typically noticed. They really should have given a hint at this in the first movie. Good thing she marries a man who can always keep her full.

I’m just forever side-eyeing you, Gare Bear.

That’s Gary Ross for the confused kids in the back.

Why does Katniss yelling mid-sentence, “oh! I know you!” add to her innocence? 🥺 it’s because she was overwhelmed by all the food and new luxuries she’d never even been able to imagine ... and also this is pre her first games so she’s still got some childhood left in her 😩😔

I wonder how Lavinia felt seeing Katniss volunteer and knowing she’d be her Avox? I wonder if she, like Cinna, somehow volunteered to be her Avox?

I mean ... talk about convenient placement that this specific girl was assigned to Katniss’ district—oh wait, y’all, I just caught myself. She’s from Twelve. She was assigned to Twelve’s tributes because she’s from there, duh. I’m such an airhead omg just call me Effie.

Don’t you actually dare.

“When I look back, the four adults are watching me like hawks.” Meanwhile, Peeta is just like 😬😬😬 eating his dinner.

Actually, ngl, this could be such a reach and it probably is but like maybe Peeta sensed a confrontation coming and, because of his implied upbringing, he naturally becomes silent or makes himself invisible when trouble starts looking like it’s gonna arise. 🥺🥺🥺 I don’t know why I say these things I’m just hurting my own feelings but ya know the drill. I thought it so I said it.

Why is Effie yelling at Katniss for saying she knows the Avox girl like omg overreaction much? And I know, the sky is blue 🙄🙄🙄 she’s prejudiced against basically everyone, I know, I know

Rip her wig off, Katty Deen 🤗🤗🤗

Oh I stupidly forgot that Avoxes are supposedly known by everyone to be traitors or criminals. So I suppose this isn’t Effie’s worst offense but I’m keeping a tally anyways

Katniss is blaming her stuttering on the wine but my girl just has social anxiety 😔😔😔

Peeta coming in with a save 😭😭😭 he’s already trying saving his girl 🤧

Alsoooo the unspoken friendship, the covering for the other and teaming up against the adults, is still riding high and going strong here 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 look away, y’all, the shipper comments are coming in strong

Also why is this the first real interaction with Peeta in this chapter yet? My baby needs more page-time 🤭🤭🤭

“Delly Cartwright is a pasty-faced, lumpy girl with yellowish hair who looks about as much like our server as a beetle does a butterfly.” Now why did Katniss just tear Delly to shreds for no reason at all 😭😭😭 this was a surprise assault on the poor girl 🙃🙃🙃🙃

“She may also be the friendliest person on the planet - she smiles constantly at everybody in school, even me.” Okay not to tie absolutely everything back to Peeta ... but to tie absolutely everything back to Peeta ... this description of poor, sweet Delly is actually indicative of Peeta’s character? Since Delly, we find out in Mockingjay, is Peeta’s childhood best friend, her personality being this sunny, kind, good-natured person tells us Peeta has always probably been somewhat like her and perhaps not as much like the other town kids Katniss implies to be stuck up or snooty. Maybe Katniss is just shady and deflects onto others 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️.

Also the fact that she gives this like ... mean description of Delly but saw Peeta as popular, even though surely Delly and Peeta spent time at school together, implies further that Katniss did indeed harbor a secret crush on Peeta even before the reaping. A very mild comparison of his on her though, of course 😅😅😅

“It must be the hair” “something about the eyes too” their piggybacking on the other’s comments really is just chiefs kiss 😘🤗🥰🤧 FYI I know the saying is chefs kiss but I made the typo once a long time ago and decided to add it forever to my brand 🤗🙃🥳

Also though this Everlark interaction is reminiscent of when two kids get caught by their teacher goofing off in class and covering for each other 🥰 only it’s a lot more deadly stakes

“A few of the other couples make a nice impression, but none of them can hold a candle to us.” She’s so modest 🤧🤧🤧 her narration here and during the Tribute Parade just has the vibes of ... well .... sorry in advance

Haymitch’s comment “Just the perfect touch of rebellion. Very nice” leads me to think he and Cinna and maybe Portia were always in cahoots about the rebellion even before Katniss and Peeta came along and well ... lit their match on fire 🥁🤗🤣🤭

Katniss is like “rebellion??? Rebellion where??? What’s that you old people speak of???” And yet, girlfriend goes out to the woods and hunts illegally every day of her life 🤣🤣🤣🤣.

“But when I remember the other couples, standing stiffly apart, never touching or acknowledging each other, as if their fellow tribute did not exist” too lazy too look it up but there’s a quote from Ballad about Lucy Gray and Jessup being distinguished by their visible friendship too that set them apart from the other tributes.

Either Suzanne thought of drawing a nice parallel showing what a failed Everlark attempt looks like, because I firmly stand by the fact that without their real feelings behind their act, even Katniss’ unconscious ones, they wouldn’t have pulled it off, or Suzzie just reused her own content. I prefer the former but I think it’s probably the latter 🤭🤭🤭

“Now go get some sleep while the grown-ups talk." I know Haymitch is being facetious here but this quote reminded me of the fact that the movies would have hit differently if they’d cast actual sixteen year olds in the roles.

“When we get to my door, he leans against the frame, not blocking my entrance exactly but insisting I pay attention to him.” This is such a flirty, high school boy pose, you cannot convince me otherwise 😭😭😭

Also I definitely feel like Peeta is getting more and more confident here because he’s oblivious to Katniss’ inner monologue as much as she is his actually we all are his sadly and he probably thinks she’s starting to like him 🤧🤧🤧

“So, Delly Cartwright. Imagine finding her lookalike here." 🤣 He honestly cracks me up idk why this line isn’t even special or that great. He’s just so ... subtly nosy / funny. Which brings me to that quote from Mockingjay where Katniss talks about his sense of humor because it’s one of the things she loves most about him 😭😭😭

But he’s like, “I can keep a secret, Katniss, tell me who that tongueless chick is to you 😬”

Katniss stop talking about debts, friends cover for the other all the time 🙄🙄 I know it’s in her character stop yelling at a fish for swimming that’s not a real phrase I know that too

Okay first of all, they’re about to share a secret 🥰🥰🥰🥰. My shipper goggles are on tight and obstructing my vision. I know this and am proud 😬🥳🤗

And secondly, “Maybe sharing a confidence will actually make him believe I see him as a friend.” Hey, butthead, you two are already friends. She doesn’t even recognize that the girl who constantly sits with her, talks to her, eats with her and trades with her is her friend either though, I’m shocked she calls Gale her friend

Does Peeta get to know Cinna too? I don’t think so but it’s mentioned now a couple times in this chapter alone that Peeta has interacted with Cinna. Katniss never interacts or has a conversation with Portia.... then again, is that even surprising? Katniss isn’t ... what you would call ... social. Hashtag relatable.

Awww, they’re communicating so effectively together 🥰😭🤧🥳

Also rooftops belong to Everlark only 😍😊😉 I mean, seriously, Katniss never goes up on a rooftop with anyone else. Besides Haymitch in the first movie but we ignore.

“Electricity in District 12 comes and goes, usually we only have it a few hours a day.” Earlier she said the Seam didn’t often have electricity, in particular, so either she’s not specifying her section of the district anymore or Suzanne is backtracking.

“But here there would be no shortage. Ever.” I’ve had two power outages recently so clearly the Capitol isn’t based on us currently today then 😐😐 I’m just joking ok

“I asked Cinna why they let us up here. Weren't they worried that some of the tributes might decide to jump right over the side?” .... boyfriend, where does your mind go sometimes? Peeta’s darker than we realize, y’all 🤭🤭🙃🙃

“He holds out his hand into seemingly empty space. There's a sharp zap and he jerks it back” between this and Catching Fire, Peeta is addicted to getting shocked by forcefields 🤧🤧🤧

“I wonder if we're supposed to be up here now, so late and alone.” If this was a romantic drama or comedy, that line would have meant something a lot more fun 😒😔😬😉😏

“On the other side of the dome, they've built a garden with flower beds and potted trees.” Is this meant to resemble Snow’s grandmother’s garden???? Like he had them put a garden there to like ... put a piece of his Grandma’am in the games? Idk this made zero sense it was a stupid thought

Two people in a garden at night, with wind chimes, sounds romantic in any other context. 🥺🥺

Ummm does everyone in the entire district know Katniss and her father used to hunt together?

Oh nevermind, Lavinia is not from District Twelve. My bad, guys. I should go up and edit my previous thoughts but that’s a lot of work. 😅😅😅

Katniss, stop being so hard on yourself. You and Gale were kids. 😣😣

Ummm, Katniss for a girl always complimenting Peeta’s storyteller, you’re pretty good at painting a picture yourself...

Peeta noticing she’s shivering 🥰🥺

He gives her ... his jacket 😭😭😭😭 such a romantic troupe Samantha, get over it there’s literally children dying

Oh wow, Lavinia was from the Capitol originally. Hmm, it is sus now that she got District Twelve this particular year.

But also 🤧🤧🤧 “he secures a button at my neck.”

His hands .... are .... often .... at her .... neck .... 😶😬 .... look away, y’all

Oh wow, Katniss is over here thinking, “who’d leave the Capitol if they were from here???” And Peeta’s like instantly, loudly, without hesitating, “well I would 🙋🏼‍♂️”

Hot take, y’all ready? Peeta was a bigger rebel than Katniss from the start. At least internally.

Awww, Peeta is so jealous 😭😭😭😭 and kind of nosy 🤭🤭🤭

Katniss : “me and Gale are not related” Peeta : “😬🙃😭😩😶”

“I'd set out to tell her I was sorry about dinner. [...] my apology runs much deeper. [...] I let the Capitol kill the boy and mutilate her without lifting a finger. Just like I was watching the Games.” I feel like this is actually a good comparison though, because of you grew up in a society where you have to watch kids die, your whole entire life you’ve watched it in a glorified television show, you would be really desensitized to it...

“You don't forget the face of the person who was your last hope.” Here she’s talking about Lavinia but it applies to Peeta too. Katniss was Lavinia’s last hope and she feels like she let her down but Peeta was her last hope once and he came through. And, as she said in chapter one, she’ll never forget him for it. And for other things too. Later on. 😏

Of course my last bullet point was focused on Everlark 🤣 is anyone surprised you shouldn’t be we all knew who this post was written by right? 😅

And once again, if too made through this marathon, congratulations 🥳🥳🥳🥳 maybe next chapter I’ll talk less not likely though so don’t count on it 😅

[anistarrose]

Summary: Winters running the Mystery Shack are difficult, but two unexpected guests improve Stan’s day.

Characters: Stan Pines, Mabel Pines, Dipper Pines, Ford Pines

Relationships: Mabel Pines & Stan Pines, Dipper Pines & Stan Pines, Dipper Pines & Mabel Pines & Stan Pines

Happy Holidays, @halogalopaghost! I'm your Secret Santa, here to mash together a couple different prompts through the power of time travel (and Mabel)!

***

It doesn’t take Stan many years to learn that winter’s no good for the rural Oregon tourist business.

Granted, he can hardly blame the tourists — he has to drive on Gravity Falls roads himself, much to his disgust. Between the paved, plowed streets that always turn slick with ice where you least expect them, and the winding gravel roads that you might as well ignore when road and wilderness alike are under identical four-inch blankets of snow, he knows no gallery of fake haunted paintings or taxidermied coyote’s ass is worth the trip in these conditions.

He’s on his third winter in town, now — not counting the first, worst one he arrived at the tail end of — and if there’s a right way to run a business this time of year, he hasn’t found it yet. He always scrapes together just enough to pay his bills, thanks the occasional local who wanders over to purchase a seasonally appropriate if overpriced snow globe — but he’s lucky if he breaks even in December, and knows January through March are a lost cause before they begin. He’ll make it back within the next year, sometimes even before summer ends, but it stings to know he’s about to fail at his one goal for the next three to four months straight, and there’s nothing he can do to change it.

It might sting less if he had another way to spend these winters — if he had a good reason to formally close the Shack for a few months, like an experienced business owner making a grounded and responsible decision. But he can’t even search for Ford’s journals in this weather — he’s learned from his mistakes, his countless brushes with frostbite, throughout those cold, desperate months in the wake of the portal shutting down.

He’s useless right now, and worse, this season’s shaping up to be the bleakest yet. His usually-scammable neighbors have already lined their shelves with winter knicknacks from Mystery Shack visits past, and the bulk of Stan’s meager sales have come from shivering out-of-towners who’ve never tried to take a Pacific Northwest road trip in December before, and probably won’t be keen to try again.

What seasonal merchandise hasn’t he sold yet? Bumper stickers for miscellaneous holidays, maybe — but neither timely bumper stickers nor the usual selection of tchotchkes will convince people to visit the Shack in the first place, under these road conditions. He can’t even walk around selling merch door to door, for the same reason he can’t look for the other journals — he’d freeze to death, presuming he could make it through the snowdrifts to somewhere worth visiting in the first place. Even with snow chains on the Stanmobile’s tires and a bucket of salt in her trunk, grocery runs alone are perilous enough.

Damn it, Ford, he thinks, why couldn’t you have gone missing in Florida?

He could always do what he does best and lie, maybe — send out word that there’s free hot chocolate or something with every purchase at the Mystery Shack, and hope that people hand over their hard-earned cash before they pick up on the false advertising. He might draw in some local customers that way, and even if he loses their trust for the next few months, they always seem to forget about his cons eventually — as if he never scammed them, and they’ve never so much as heard the words caveat emptor.

He’s just about to dial the local paper’s number on the phone, hoping to flatter Toby into letting him run another ad for free, when he hears a telltale knock at the gift shop door. The bell atop that door doesn’t ring, which means that despite the hostile winds and snow they braved to get here, his visitors are still out loitering on the porch — or so Stan thinks for a moment, before it dawns on him that he doesn’t even remember unlocking the door this morning. He’d just been that pessimistic about even seeing a customer.

“Hello?” someone calls — a fairly young voice, probably approaching the tail end of puberty. “Are you there, uh…Mr. Mystery?”

“On my way!” Stan shouts, throwing on his fez and bolting for the door. His neighbors in Gravity Falls might forget and forgive a lot, but he doesn’t want to risk the wrath of a parent whose teenage kid froze to death on the local grifter’s doorstep, so he unlocks and flings open the door as fast as he can. “Welcome, travelers! Prepare to be baffled and bemused by our mind-boggling boreal mysteries, here at this last refuge at the edge of the Arctic we like to call the Cryptid Cabin!”

His visitor — no, his two visitors — both blink slowly, proving to at least be baffled, if nothing else. Both are bundled up in what Stan assumes to be several sheep worth of wool garments, lovingly knitted into sweaters, hats, and scarves.

“But you call this place the Mystery Shack,” the girl speaks up, and the boy nods.

“Yeah, and we’re nowhere near the Arctic! This is Oregon, not Alaska!”

Stan groans — the only customers he might see all week, and of course they’re teenagers. “Look, punks, business is slow these days! I’ve had a lot of time to think about a seasonal rebranding, and not a lot of chances to workshop it, alright?”

The teens’ expressions instantly soften, and the girl exclaims: “Well, you can workshop it with us!” She grabs the other kid — her brother? — by the hand, and pulls him into the gift shop.

Maybe Stan’s judged them too quickly — he’s still not thrilled to have strangers pitying him, of course, but he’ll take it over strangers mocking him any day of the week.

“Dang, you’re right,” the boy comments once inside, and face-to-face with shelves of untouched merchandise. “It really is empty in here in the winter.”

With little light coming in from the windows, and a flickering bulb overhead that will soon need replacing, the often-bustling room is now dim and eerie — aside from the junk food wrappers on the floor, which Stan hastily kicks under his desk.

“Look at all the lonely snowglobes in need of homes!” the girl pipes up, swiping a glass-encased antelabbit off the shelf and giving it a hearty shake. “Good thing I’m here to adopt this lucky little guy — how much is he?”

Stan takes a second to run the numbers — the maximum amount of money a teen would have on hand, versus what Stan needs to charge to make a profit — and replies: “Twenty-nine ninety-nine and nothing more. We don’t do sales tax here, ‘less you’re a cop.”

“Bet there’s a lot of other taxes you don’t do, either,” the boy snorts, rummaging through a shelf of hats until he unearths one with the old Murder Hut logo on it. “Aha! Now here’s a collector’s item!”

“Oh, did you come here before the rebrand and forget to grab a souvenir?” Stan asks. He doesn’t remember these two, but it’s been a couple years since he painted over the last Murder Hut sign — and they do seem pretty familiar with the building, not to mention Stan’s whole… business model.

“Oh, uh, that’s a funny story, actually! Real funny!” the boy stammers with a whole lot more trepidation than the topic should’ve warranted, and looks to his sister for help.

Sure enough, she steps in. “We lived here for a while — in Gravity Falls, I mean! Not here in the Shack, obviously — wouldn’t that be ridiculous, if we lived in your house for months without you knowing? Could you imagine —”

“That is to say, we still visit sometimes!” the boy supplies. His eyes are a whole lot more fixated on the snowglobes than with anything in Stan’s general direction. “You probably don’t remember us — we weren’t in town for very long, or anything…”

Stan sighs. They’re lying, obviously — but hey, there’s no cops in the Mystery Shack, and he doesn’t have a dog in whatever fight compelled the duo to spew this bullshit. He’ll keep an eye on the cash register, of course, but these kids are tolerable company when they’re not being suspicious as hell — so if they want to invent a bad cover story for a low-stakes tourist trap visit, more power to them.

“Well, the hat’s vintage, so that’ll be double price. Twenty bucks,” he announces matter-of-factly, and the boy groans — but there’s a smile behind it, like he’d expected this and now he’s just playing along. If there’s one thing Stan’s willing to believe, it’s that these kids have been to the Mystery Shack before.

“You’re a highway robber, old man, and I’m the coward who’s gonna let you get away with it,” the boy declares, and Stan can’t help but laugh. The kid reaches under several layers of sweaters to pull out a wallet, with a blue pine tree embroidered on, and miscellaneous charms of fantasy characters hanging off a chain on the side. Stan doesn’t recognize any of them, but they still tug at his heartstrings, because he can tell they’re the exact kind of nerdy references Ford would love.

He does take note of the pine tree design, though — it’s generic enough that slapping it on some shirts and hats wouldn’t quite be plagiarism, and in Stan’s eyes, those are always the best souvenir designs.

The kids put their money forward, hovering awkwardly as Stan rings up their items — the girl busies herself attacking a loose string on her brother’s scarf, nimble fingers tying it back in its approximate place, while the boy twiddles his thumbs and stares at the snowy, gray scene out the window. At the moment, only light flurries fill the air, but tomorrow night promises a blizzard… and Stan, grump with a soft side that he is, can’t help but hope that if these kids are really on vacation, then they aren’t planning to drive anywhere tonight.

With it being winter, and him running the business that he does, he doesn’t have much charity to give — but, if he’s going to play along with his customers’ little lie, then he should probably at least bring up the topic.

“You’re not hittin’ the road any time soon, are you?” He makes eye contact only with the green illustrated presidents in his hands, so not to come across as overly invested. “Weather forecast says tonight’s gonna be a doozy.”

“Aww, you’re worried about us?” the girl coos, because apparently both parties here are damn good at picking up on each other’s lies. “That’s so sweet — but you don’t have to be! Our great uncle’s waiting for us in town, and he’ll… well, let’s just say he’s planning to bring us back home before the blizzard hits.”

“He’s, uh — he lived here back in the seventies, so he knows what he’s doing,” the boy adds. “On the roads, that is. Mostly.”

“Well, you two take care,” Stan tells them, hastily adding on: “So you can come back when the weather isn’t terrible and buy more keychains, that is.”

“Oh, we will.” The boy grins, sharing a conspiratorial glance with his sister. “Maybe don’t count on it being next year — or the year after that, even — but you can count on it.”

“Well, uh…” Stan stops himself, resisting the impulse to divulge things he really shouldn’t. “You just shouldn’t count on me running this place forever. Be sure to get your novelty cryptid pins while they’re hot, y’know.”

He’s never really wondered what he’ll do with the Shack when he gets Ford back — and yes, he has to believe that statement deserves a when, not an if — but he figures the Shack’s fate will depend more on Ford’s own whims. If reality lands somewhere between the nightmares of Ford wanting him gone and the fantasies of finally sailing around the world, if Ford doesn’t hate him but still wants to spend more time with Important Science Experiments than with his brother, then Stan could see himself returning to a mediocre life in his moderately successful tourist trap… but with the search for the journals still coming up empty, Stan can only try not to think about the future, and accept that he’ll just cross — or burn — that bridge when he comes to it.

“Okay, Mr. Mystery,” the girl suddenly declares with a tone that frankly reminds Stan of his mother, “you look like you could use a pick-me-up!”

“What?” It’s starting to freak Stan out how well she can read him, and there’s no telling whether it’s just a sharp intuition, or something significantly more Gravity Falls-y. “If I look tired, kid, it’s because it’s December in Oregon, I haven’t seen the sun in a week, and I am tired. Only pick-me-up I need is for you to get out of my hair, and let me go back into hibernation like nature intended.”

“Okay, but counterpoint: you hear us out,” the boy insists. “We’ve got a little something up our sleeve to really light up your winter —” He winks at his sister. “Don’t we?”

“You bet we do!” She pulls a bag of marshmallows out of not her sleeve, but her backpack, and grins. “Prepare to be amazed and astounded by the natural wonders of this town, and also the miracle that is processed sugar and gelatin!”

“Are you imitating my sales pitches?” Stan asks, dumbfounded. “And do you carry those on you at all times?”

“In winter in Gravity Falls, I do!” the girl replies, already heading for the exit with her brother. “C’mon! If this doesn’t put a smile on your face, nothing will!”

“We all know you’ve got time to spare, Stan,” the boy adds, cracking open the door. “Get a move on!”

“Spare time doesn’t mean I’ve got spare limbs to lose to frostbite,” Stan grumbles, but follows them anyway. There’s something captivating about these little punks — not so much this mysterious phenomenon they’re trying to sell him on, as if they could really out-charlatan Mr. Mystery himself, but rather the way they’re not put off by his frigid facade. They see right through him, showering him in alternating kindness and acerbic wit.

Stan can’t help but wonder if their uncle’s kind of like him — tired, bitter, and pretending to be indifferent, but secretly soft on the inside, like a marshmallow that’s burnt on the surface but melted within. It would explain why they’re so good at calling him on his shit — but then again, Stan and this mystery guy can’t be too alike, because if Stan had a niece and nephew like these two, he’s sure he’d be living his life a whole lot differently.

He exits the Shack, and all his questions are immediately replaced with new ones when he sees the teens just hurling marshmallows towards the edge of the woods. The wind’s in their favor, so some of those sugary little fuckers fly far.

“Okay, so I’ve already got a couple concerns,” Stan tells them, shivering. “First off, what the hell?”

“It might take a couple minutes before one shows up,” the girl admits, as if it’s a totally reasonable stand-alone explanation for whatever the hell’s going on here. With about a third of the marshmallows now blending into the snow on Stan’s lawn, she and her brother stop with the throwing, though they still hold onto the bag. “Our grunkle theorized that they move slower in winter, to save energy — oh wait, never mind! Here comes one now!”

“Sorry, what? And where?” Stan squints out into the woods, terrified to lay his eyes upon a woodland monster these kids just lured to his doorstep — but all he sees, at first, are a few wisps of smoke dispersing in the wind above the trees. He’s not even convinced it’s smoke, really, because these aren’t the right conditions for a fire — but to his surprise, he glimpses an orange light within the woods, glowing steadily brighter until the trees and bushes around it are all casting faint shadows.

When it steps into the clearing, Stan realizes he has seen something like it before, albeit only from the overcautious distance he tries to keep from all anomalies. It’s an otherwise normal campfire perched on wooden, spiderlike legs, and it melts a path in the snow as it trots forwards, then lowers itself to the ground to absorb the first of a dozen marshmallows.

It lets out a satisfied little sound — a low, steady crackle that sounds almost like a purr — then scampers up to the next morsel of food to repeat the process.

“It’s called a Scampfire!” the girl explains, beaming. “There’s a bunch of them out in the woods, and they’ll always wander over if you leave out enough campfire food — especially sugary stuff! Isn’t that cute?”

“Our great uncle figured out this amazing trick when he used to live here, and he passed it down to us!” the boy adds, practically bouncing up and down in place. “If you leave them a trail of food, they’ll follow you around until you run out — which means they can clear your driveway, warm your hands, even save your car if you drive into a snowbank! Or help you make s’mores, of course.”

“Our grunkle says he even skipped paying his heating bill a couple winters,” the girl adds with a grin, “but I dunno if we can recommend that in good conscience.”

As the scampfire draws a closer, continuing to purr as it consumes more of the sugary trail, the boy slaps a handful of marshmallows into Stan’s palm. “Give it a try!”

Stan’s not thrilled about bringing a fire onto the wooden porch attached to his wooden house, even as cute as said fire is, so instead he tosses his ammunition at something much more disposable — the golf cart, since if this one croaks, he can always just steal another from the insufferable rich family up on the hill. His aim isn’t great — he blames his cold fingers — but exactly one marshmallow lands right in the cart’s driver seat.

The scampfire breaks course from its path towards the Shack, clearing a path through the snow before it crawls into the cart, absorbing the final morsel and curling up atop crossed legs. Nothing explodes, and in fact, a few of the icicles on the awning start to melt, dripping water into the patch of bare muddy ground surrounding the cart.

“Huh,” Stan mutters. Dozens of harebrained schemes flash before his eyes — if he could find a slingshot, or even better, some kind of cannon to mount on the cart’s front hood, then he’s sure that with practice, he could entice some scampfires to clear a path through any snowdrift…

But no matter his exact solution, it’s a way to get into town consistently. He can finally go door-to-door selling knickknacks, instead of sitting in the gift shop every day and hoping some poor soul would get bored enough to brave the roads and visit. He can actually work out a way to line his pockets even in the winter, instead of constantly waking up from nightmares about getting foreclosed on —

“See? They get food, and we don’t freeze — classic mutualistic symbiotic relationship!” the boy declares, and his sister gently socks him in the arm.

“Nerd!”

“Hey, you knew that too! We’re in the same biology class!”

It’s familiar, but the kind of familiarity that Stan doesn’t treasure anymore. It’s more like the kind that he hides in the basement or in boarded-up rooms whenever he can, and grins and bears with a heavy heart when he can’t, like every time he looks in the mirror or hears someone call him Stanford. He comes so close to asking these teens if they’re twins, because he figures the answer can’t be worse than wondering — but the question dies in his throat, and he tells himself it’s for the best.

“Is your uncle who invented this trick the same one who’s waiting in town for you?” he asks instead.

“Yep!” replies the girl. “He probably won’t get worried about us for like, ten or fifteen more minutes, though — I’m sure he’s got his nose buried deep in a book right now.”

“Do me a favor and let him know he’s a lifesaver,” Stan says. “Also tell him I’m glad he moved out, because he sounds a little too smart to fall for the fake monster wares that I peddle.”

The kids exchange a look that Stan can’t even hope to comprehend, though he’s damn sure it’s worth a thousand words to the two of them. Twins or not, he’s getting an “inseparable” kind of vibe from these two, that’s for sure.

“I’m not sure he’d like the Shack at first,” the brother muses, “but I’ve got a hunch it would grow on him.”

“He does like cryptids — sometimes even fake ones!” the sister chimes in. “Oh, shoot — we still need to grab a souvenir for him! I knew we were forgetting something!”

“Huh.” Stan throws a few more marshmallows in the direction of the woods, and the scampfire stumbles off the cart before trotting along on its merry way back to the forest. “I can get you something, no problem — I don’t call this place a gift shop for nothing, y’know. But for the love of Paul Bunyan, let’s talk about it inside.”

He’s not great at mental math, but he doesn’t have to be to know he owes a lot to these teens and the mysterious uncle he might never meet. Hell, even forgetting the business perspective — he can actually look for the journals in winter without risking frostbite, if he gets one of his fiery neighbors to tag along. Even if he finds nothing, even if he only winds up with more failures to contend with, he’d rather rule out locations than be useless to Ford for months at a time.

None of this weird family that he might never see again, these three benevolent strangers that he can only put two faces to, could possibly know how much they’ve just changed for him — and he can’t tell them, as much as his oversized heart promises he can trust these snarky kids who remind him so much of himself. But he does owe them, so when he reenters the gift shop, he goes straight for a seldom-opened and never-advertised box of knickknacks that he has no intention of charging them for. It’s got the dimensions of only about two side-by-side shoeboxes, so he lifts it onto the counter with hardly a grunt, and opens it up.

“Got lots of goodies in here — mostly stuff that I made or, ahem, acquired in bulk, so they never quite sold out by the time everyone and their mother in town had already bought their own. Take a gander.”

He knows that gander will reveal some Murder Hut-branded shirts with the words written on in marker, plastic six-sided dice with a different cryptids pictured on each side, cheap whistles purported to attract Bigfoot, cheap flashlights once advertised for attracting Mothman, exactly three cool rocks that Stan found in the woods… and the pièce de résistance, a little wooden Mystery Shack-shaped music box, which chirps out a pleasant tune when Stan flips up the roof. That last one’s a rare knickknack that Stan really put effort into personally crafting, back at the height of last winter’s monotony, through cannibalizing parts of premade music boxes and sticking them into brand-new shapes — but he couldn’t sell them for enough to be worth the cost of making more, and could never sell this last one at all.

“Oh, wow!” the girl gasps, clearly delighted. “How can I even choose between —”

“No, take it all. It’s on the house — but don’t you dare tell anyone about this, you hear me? I’ll know if you blab, ‘cause people will start asking me if they can get free crap, too, and I don’t wanna hear a word of that nonsense.”

“Free stuff at the Mystery Shack?” The boy narrows his eyes. “Are you feeling okay, old man?”

“Kid, stuff only goes in the Free Bullshit Box when I can’t sell it anyway.” Stan crosses his arms with a huff, even though he’s technically telling the truth. “The only catch is take it before I change my mind.”

A sudden spark of recognition in the brother’s eyes morphs into a grin on his face, and he nods. “Oh, we will. Don’t worry.”

“I think our grunkle will love this! Especially the dice,” the sister adds. “Hey, maybe we could give all this to him piece by piece for Hanukkah! There’s enough here for a new surprise every night!”

“Whoa, there is! Man, the look on his face the first time we bring out a Bigfoot whistle is gonna be great —” The boys eyes dart to the watch on his wrist, and he coughs into his hand. “But we should probably get a move on, huh? Don’t want to get caught in, y’know, the blizzard tonight.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Stan returns the lid and hands the box over. “You, uh, need a ride back to town? ‘Cause being a man of mystery and all, I know this neat trick to clear a whole road with just a bag full of marshmallows —”

The kids both start cackling, so hard that the box almost escapes the girl’s hands, and Stan laughs with them — not because he thought his joke was that funny, but because the kids’ laughter is absolutely priceless. The isolation’s definitely getting to his head and his heart, but he’ll take whatever reprieve he can get.

“I think we’ll manage on our own,” the boy finally wheezes out, “but thanks for the offer, Mr. Mystery. Thanks for everything, really.”

“See you later!” his sister adds as they leave. “Don’t let the feral gnomes bite!”

“You take care, too,” Stan replies, not nearly as loud — but he figures that the kids can read his lips. They can read so much about him, and know so much about the town, that he’s honestly a hair’s breadth away from assuming they’re two more anomalies from the woods themselves, just in more recognizable shapes than most…

Though if Stan’s honestly considering that theory, then more of Ford must’ve rubbed off on him than he likes to think about — which is to say, it’s a good a reason as any to stop thinking about it. What or whoever they were, the duo were actually pretty tolerable for teenagers, and Stan’s pretty sure they didn’t put a curse or whatever magic mumbo jumbo on him — because if they could manage that, they could definitely tell some less conspicuous lies, right?

He kinda likes the idea of one goddamn supernatural force in this town that’s actually benevolent, actually watching his back when his mood’s at its bleakest, and coming to his rescue with — no, he’s dropping that train of thought. No baseless hoping, just letting himself down easy before he gets up.

It does occur to him, several minutes after the gift shop door swings closed, that Hanukkah has already come and gone this year. Which probably just means the kids are prepared to hide that box for another twelve months… but maybe, when Stan finds the other journals, he’ll double-check for entries on helpful teenage cryptids who can’t lie. Just to be sure.

***

Mabel, Dipper, and Ford barrel into the living room so suddenly that Stan almost drops his mug of hot chocolate. They’re all covered in a ridiculous amount of snow, considering how briefly they were just outside, and Ford looks awfully delighted for someone whose glasses are someone whose glasses have just turned opaque with fog.

“Grunkle Stan!” Mabel shouts. The cardboard box in her arms has seen better days, but she’s cradling it like an infant. “You’ll never guess when we just were!”

Dipper points a gloved finger in the air. “You mean, when we just — oh wait, did you already —”

“Yeah, I beat you to it this time!” Mabel pumps her fist. “Anyways, Grunkle Stan — you’ll never guess who we just visited!”

[theskywaslookingback]

You can’t just say that and Not tell us more about your oc’s 👀

(I started writing the response to this at work and it got uhhh long, sorry. Also I came home and then had to drive back to work to activate a keycard so you know...that's why this took like nine hours to post, sorry. And thank you both for asking!)

*shows up six hours late with Starbucks and a powerpoint presentation*

Welcome! Have a seat! We might be here for a while :3c

So like I guess about six years ago or so I started a pet project that I told my friends about calling it “the novel I’ll never write” which has spiraled out of control and now lives in my mind rent free but also refuses to be written down. (I even made a blog for it @thisisnotanovel and my friends and I call it tinan) It’s changed several times in the last few years as I’ve made plot changes and character changes but the basis remains pretty much the same.

“This Is Not A Novel” is not a novel about Alecsandyr “It’s Alec, asshole” Summers (who a friend once called Alex sand hair dryer and now I can’t stop calling him that in my head) who’s a mid-twenties burn out who lives with his mom, dropped out of college, and has severe anxiety and depression issues. While on a trip with his mom to visit his grandfather up in Alaska, he steals his stepfather’s car and tries to take it for a joyride. He crashes pretty spectacularly, and it’s literal luck that he survives the crash - though, if asked he wouldn’t call it luck, he’d call it a failed suicide attempt like he’s failed everything else in his life. Anyway he gets air lifted to a hospital and is put on life support.

Now, Alec’s mom is a piece of shit and she makes no secret that she hates her son and hates that he still lives with her and doesn’t want him around. She starts asking the doctors when they would know for sure if he’s going to make it and starts making funeral arrangements even before he gets out of surgery. (Syl, you might be saying, this isn’t how hospitals work. And my answer is that it’s my not novel and I get to make up what I want. I’ll do actual research if I decide to write it.) All of this gets the attention of Alec’s nurse, Dante Lebasque.

Dante is an older, sympathetic man (who in my mind version of this not novel as a not movie is Idris Elba) and he decides that if Alec does have to fully go on life support and if Alec’s mother decides to let him go then he’s going to do something about it. Because -and this is where my emo 2007 self comes into full spotlight- Dante is the head of a small vampire coven, so in order to preserve Alec’s life he decides to turn him into a vampire.

So imagine you’ve decided that you’re going to steal a car, okay? And that you’re going to drive that car off the side of a mountain. And there’s pain and then it’s dark...and then you wake up in a coffin. Because that’s how Alec’s shit goes down. He’s laying there, fully dressed in a suit he’s never worn, and somehow he can see? And he’s not breathing? And his heart isn’t beating? And he’s starving?? And of course he’s freaking out because he’s locked in a box of some kind and he has no clue where he is or why and then suddenly there’s shifting sounds and scraping metal and he’s blinking up at a solid black sky and the greenest eyes he’s ever seen and a deep voice saying “Took a bit longer than we thought. Welcome to the legion of the undead, kid.”

And that’s how we meet Richard Davis, like 100 years old but somehow also the most “new and with it” of the group. He is the hipster meme personified. He used to like Starbucks but now he’s really into this one coffee chain you’ve never heard of. He doesn’t listen to music, actually, just Gregorian chanting. His last living breath was probably saying “well, actually.” And he’s Alec’s guardian, the one who teaches him how to like, ya know, be a vampire. Alec calls him Dick.

Also at the graveside is an angel of a woman, wearing a white dress with bright curly red hair. The first thing Alec notices about her is that she’s barefoot. Her name is Erika Chambers and where Richard is blunt and impatient she’s kind and measured. She was turned by a different vampire and left to fend for herself and she killed a lot of people before killing her sire. When Dante found her she was practically feral and just looking to be taken out by a hunter. He helped her understand what was happening to her but let her decide if she wanted to stay. She did, and she’s never left.

Alec hates all of this. It’s a special hell to want to die and not be allowed to. He refuses to believe that Dante turned him for purely selfless reasons.

When Dante has meetings with the governing council, Alec finds a way to spy on him and overhear, which is how he learns that Dante’s coven was about to be absorbed into a larger one because it was too small and he needed more coven members. Alec is furious and tries to leave but Richard stops him and explains that fledglings can’t go anywhere without a guardian. Alec tries to fight Richard and loses.

Alec confronts Dante later and Dante admits that, yes, part of the reason he turned Alec was because he was about to lose his coven, but it was also because he didn't want to see a young life ended so soon blah blah blah.

So during that fight Alec totally forgets about this other part he heard between Dante and the council where they mention some concern about missing vampires from smaller covens that they haven't heard from in a while and Dante mentions that they were loners and they'll likely show up in a few years.

But alas! They have been murdered! By my favorite villain of all time, Ariadne Rosewood, who is a witch using immortal blood to keep herself immortal.

So you have Alec struggling with himself and his feelings of self worth and depression vs his struggle to trust those around him vs the larger villain that wants to kill them all.

And then we have such wonderful characters as: Karazeda Sloan, Erika's girlfriend and a vampire hunter born into the trade that kind of maybe wants to be a vampire herself. Dominic, the leader of the wolf pack that I added as a joke because I made Alec a furry and it infuriated my friends. Carolina Davenport and her girlfriend Ava Lopez with their coven of vampires, Blaise, Ambrose, and Cole.

So yeah!! Horribly long post and now to the actual joke of it:

(H)imbo - Dominic, because he's a big beefy wolfman with no braincells but much love in his heart

Mean Bisexual - Alec, because he's a bitch and I love him so much

Meaner Lesbian - Karazeda, because she's an even bigger bitch and I love her So Much

She/theys - Carolina and Ava

He/theys - Cole and Ambrose

Token Straight - Dante, but he's also ace so he gets a pass

Astrology Bitch - Erika, I bet she keeps everyones birth charts on the wall

Short King - Richard, 5'5" tiny motherfucker and the more he acts like a brat the shorter I make him. He used to be 6'2".

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

[sasarahsunshine]

I have a strange tendency to create alternate universes in which my favorite character has a dissociative identity disorder. In this case Hotch so imagine that due to the abuse at the hands of his father Hotch and Aaron are two different personalities hotch just stopped taking control once their father died and Aaron had control most of the time or at least That was until David Rossi told Hotch that he would be very useful in the FBI. the one who joined the FBI was Hotch not Aaron. Aaron is the loving husband and lawyer while Hotch is the serious and stoic FBI agent. I just have one question, how do you think the team would find out?

Anon, my sweet Anon— your brain is so amazing. Like, oh my goodness.

So I personally have not done any research whatsoever into DID, all I know is what I’ve seen in various media’s online (tiktok mostly- which I know isn’t a good place to get information but some people on there like to share their own DID experiences), and the couple of episodes of Criminal Minds where they explored it (however I have read that Tobias wasn’t a good example of it).

In a fictional sense, I could see this being executed really well on the show (or in a fic). Especially if nobody knows about the two different personalities (or even if only Rossi knows).

Hotch is this stoic, no nonsense unit chief. He’s a badass who takes care of his team, his family, and his “unit” (I’m not sure if everyone with DID calls their multiple personalities a unit but I have seen two different people call themselves that so… idk). He comes out when things get too overwhelming for Aaron to handle. When emotions and tensions are high, Hotch fronts to take care of things.

I can think of some perfect examples of this too! Like when Emily and Reid were trapped inside the church of that cult? And the governor showed up to try and regain control of the situation- Hotch just got in his face and told him off. “Those are my people,” type of attitude. The whole “sit down and shut up” scene in the Alaska episode too- ugh.

And then when the team needs a calm mind, a soft hand, a small smile to show that they’re doing the right thing- that they did okay- Aaron is there. He’s a father first, a friend second. He cares too much and his heart is too fragile.

I’d like to think there might be another personality in there, but with no name. The broken man who seeps through the cracks every once in a while, gripping that glass of whiskey as he sits alone in his apartment, staring at a photo on his desk of Haley. Someone who is there to deal with the emotions Aaron can’t handle. Someone to cry and scream and punch the wall so Aaron doesn’t have to feel the burden of Hotch’s failure as a husband and father.

Okay that got sad, whoops.

Gonna talk about the team finding out under the cut!

Also, I legit think is anyone found out it would be Reid first. Not because I’m a Hotchreid whore, I swear. I legit think that he would know what to look for after the Tobias incident, and it would kind of be an accident. He would be speaking with Hotch and notice the subtle shift in facial features, the faraway look in his eyes as Aaron fronts for a moment to check on his team. He’d take note of that, maybe store the info in the back of his mind. Then pay attention as it happens again. Eventually he’d find a safe place to speak with the man, alone, to ask about it as delicately as he can (once he has enough evidence on his side). Hotch would be reluctant to admit anything, but Aaron might feel a weird sort of relief that he has someone to share his secret with.

Over the years he might eventually feel safe enough to tell some people. Garcia first, because he knows she’d love and accept him no matter what. She promises not to tell his secret as she hugs him, burying her face into his shoulder and telling him how ungodly happy she is that he trusts her with something so big. (I can see her getting or making him some sort of gift, kinda like the reversible octopus toys? One side is for Hotch and the other is for Aaron. Aaron thinks it’s cute, Hotch feels weird about having a toy on his desk lol).

When he tells Emily she just smiles and places her hand on his. She doesn’t really say anything, but she kind of insinuates that she knew. Which, she might have. She’s been a spy, for crying out loud. That woman has seen shit, lol, and she’s observant. Unlike Reid, she just left Hotch alone about it. But she feels endlessly grateful that he feels safe enough to tell her (even if it’s 6-7 years after they met). Emily is the only one who can help him front who he needs (Hotch or Aaron) when in situations where it’s almost impossible (panic attacks for example). She learned trigger words on her own.

Hotch doesn’t tell Morgan, not with words. They’re at a bar after closing a case but before going home. It’s just the two of them, sitting at the high top and sipping from their beers, watching whatever sport is on the TV (not paying attention). Hotch let’s himself slip and Aaron fronts. Morgan watches the shift, the way his facial features relax a little, his eyes dazed for a moment before brightening up again. Aaron glances at him after that, and Morgan understands. He doesn’t say anything, just tips his beer and clinks it with Aaron’s. They don’t talk about it.

I honestly have no clue how JJ would find out, but I can imagine Garcia or Emily tells her. She’s kinda weirded out at first because she doesn’t understand (and her only experience with someone with DID almost killed her best friend). She’s wary around Hotch for a week or so, but eventually goes back to the way things were when she can see that he’s still the same person he’s always been.

And then Rossi just watches the team in the bullpen, laughing and goofing off, as he sips his coffee from his own office, and he smiles. Because Aaron is with them, leaning against Emily’s desk and pretending to be annoyed that they’re not doing their work. And Rossi is glad that Aaron has a family he can be himself around. That he can be both Hotch AND Aaron around.

[popculturebuffet]

Uncle Scrooge by Don Rosa:  The Isle at the Edge of Time (Thank You Comission For Rosie Isla)

Hello all you happy people! Today’s review is a bit special as it’s the result of another review. See I had trouble finding a translation of the subject of last weeks’ mother’s day special, Family Ties. 

No not that one. I have Paramount+. I can watch all the Family Ties I want and that’s a fact that i’m pleased as punch about. 

No it was the story 80 is Prachtig, called Family Ties in the copy used, Della’s first major comics appearance and one that explains what happened to her in the classic continuity, one that clearly served as the foundation for her far more fleshed out 2017 versions personality and backstory. It also had Pinocchio in it for some reason, and spent most of it’s large run time on a meta comedy plot that had nothing to do with the reason anyone wanted to read this story in the first place.

But despite being a vitally important story, it never got an english translation, something that baffled me till I read the story and found cameos of the racist indigenous stereotypes from Peter Pan. In 2014. You may commence booing. Even with how weird the story was I simply couldn’t find the story googling it and the Della tag is too vast and deep to go spelunking in.

So what’s all this have to do? Simple I put out a post last month when neither I nor Kev, who wanted to comission it as part of Moons, Millionares and Mothers, my coverage of all three season 2 Ducktales story arcs, could find a copy and offered a review to whoever found it.  Weeks passed I got nothing.. then in the 11th hour I got a break as the lovely @rosieisla​ found a translation that was on this very site, one she seemed to have helped with. As a result I could do the review and as a man of my word, offered it up despite her clearly having not seen that part of the post and simply having done this to be nice. Still she gladly took up the offer and offered me my pick of two stories: The Carl Barks Story Back to Long Ago or this one. 

As for WHY I picked this one Back To Long Ago didn’t seem bad, i’m just not a fan of “The Cast is put in the past as their own ancestors” type deals. Or in some cases put the cast as people from that time period. It’s just not for me and is most often done in TV where it can get really goofy, Beverly Hills 90210 being a prime example of this, though Girl Meets World was no slouch in being embarassing... that being said I really need to finish that show and miss it. 

So yeah when put up against a story with two intresting hooks and FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD, even if i’ts not the version that’s my boy, it was no contest. So what are these hooks you ask? Well join me under the cut and find out. 

We open with a weird stylistic choice: This story has a narrator complete with caption boxes. Now for those of you familiar with comics or pastiches of comics in tv and film, this probably dosen’t seem like a big deal. It was a common thing in comics from their inception to 90′s to have caption boxes, big boxes of text narrating the action to help move things along faster. It did start to fade out by the 80′s and was gone by the end of the 90′s for the most part, replaced instead with first person narration. It’s the kind of thing you’d see most often in the Golden and Silver Ages, with stuff like tihs

It’s not a BAD device, it’s good old cheesy and bombastic fun and some writers did get clever with it.. like that time Chris Claremont used the narration to yell at a greiving cyclops after he lost a teammate early in his long and storied run on the uncanny x-men. 

This is a objectively weird scene that’s still somehow effective by the by. On the one hand it does come off as Chris Claremont essentally bullying Cyclops who already feels guilty for a death that was not in fact his fault as Thunderbird was told the plane he was attacking with fleeing villian Count Nefaria was about to explode and refused to listen.. and that they needed to get rid of either him or Wolverine as both served the same purpose and chose the non-white guy. 

On the other htough it comes off just as much as Scott beating himself up in his grief and anger over the event and his perceived failings as a leader. It’s good stuff and shows why this run caught on as this was only three issues in. Also the rest of the issue features the X-Men fighting a giant cyclopian demon that Cyclops accidently freed in his rage by destroying the stone thing keeping him imprisoned. No really here’s the cover

Huh so tha’ts what Nifty’s dad looks like. Neat. Also I REALLY hope we get the X-Men fighting aliens or demons in the MCU. Unlike the XCU the MCU isn’t alergic to getting batshit.. and for the record Deadpool and New Mutants are the exception, not the rule.

My point that I swear I do have is that this was common practice for most comics.. but never really for Disney Duck comics. It popped up ocasionally, like with Scrooge’s introduction, but Barks and those after him never really used them that much. Sure they’d have caption boxes for flasbacks and what not but Barks and Co geninely only used this sort of thing to set up a story. The most i’ve seen it in a duck comic is life and times and even then i’ts usually only used for gags or to set up the passage of time, as the story IS covering decades and thus often needed to have montages to show time passing, and in the case of chapter 11, had to cover decades in the span of a single chapter, so it’s not like they had many other options. So even Rosa as a personal quirk didn’t really use these often. 

Rosa used this specifically because he felt the plot was complicated by the use of the international date line. As for what it is, it’s essentially a line marking calender dates from one side of the hemisphere to the others. To use the offical defentition from the National Ocean Service I found via a quick google:

“The International Date Line, established in 1884, passes through the mid-Pacific Ocean and roughly follows a 180 degrees longitude north-south line on the Earth. It is located halfway round the world from the prime meridian—the zero degrees longitude established in Greenwich, England, in 1852.

The International Date Line functions as a “line of demarcation” separating two consecutive calendar dates. When you cross the date line, you become a time traveler of sorts! Cross to the west and it’s one day later; cross back and you’ve “gone back in time."

Despite its name, the International Date Line has no legal international status and countries are free to choose the dates that they observe. While the date line generally runs north to south from pole to pole, it zigzags around political borders such as eastern Russia and Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.”

Rosa felt this made the story complicated.... and that... really isn’t remotely true. The narration is mostly used for gagas and really dosen’t clarify anything. it’s mostly used well in the opening.. but the actual explinations for the date line are clear enough in the story that even if I hadn’t looked the thing up, I still would’ve got it and i’m sure a kid would’ve too. It just feels like a weird thing to ruminate on, especially because he’s got actual things to make up for: while to his credit the native american characters he cribbed from carl barks are sympathetic, their culture respected and treated decently and used for a green aseop, their dialouge is stitled and sterotypical something he dosen’t even comment on (And these trades ewren’t THAT long ago) 

And of course it dosen’t help that he dosen’t even comment on using a common device in american superhero boooks.. in the same volume where he ONCE again makes an unwanted and outdated diatribe about superhero comics. I’ll probably cover the Super Snooper Strikes again so I can throughly tear this apart but higlights include: Calling superhero comics “Unwanted” just because he dosen’t like them personally, when people like me would disagree and they’ve lasted through a LOT of highs and lows, outdately saying they took over the American market as the only suitable comics which while true for a TIME,but by 2015 when this book was printed is laughably out of date, as non superhero works like The Walking Dead, Saga, and Scott Pilgrim were massively popular, one of my faviorite comics that is entirely slice of life and would go on to bea huge hit, Giant Days, re-debuted that very year. He also has the fucking gal to insult The Uncanny X-Men by name and I swear to god I did not know this when I made those references earlier, but as you probably guessed REALLY god me livid. 

And this is just on his COMMENTS on the story I can’t imagine just how bad the content itself is and having read the first few pages which come off as Rosa using Donald to essentially do an “old man yells at cloud rant” about superhero comics, I really don’t want to. Might make htis a patreon exclusive or again would do it on comissoin. You all make the call.... the point is I don’t likes his elitist bullshit about superhero comics, and this is clearly something that gets my hackles up as I just spent a good two paragraphs of an entirely unrealted review yelling at the guy for it. I don’t like when he does this and this authors notes entirley felt like an excuse. I GET the dark age of comics were bad, they REALLY were that bad, but I will NEVER accept painting an enitre genre as bad just because one work in it is bad. And I wont accept it from someone who himself writes about an often throughly unlikeable anti-hero for a living.  Scrooge may not have a gun on his gun on his gun or get to stabbing or have pouches, but he DOES finacially abuse his nephew, scoff at people’s personal troubles, and often refuse to use his wealth to help others in general. So yeah in conclusion Rosa really needs to say less about this subject. 

Okay so where were we.. right the story hadn’t even started yet. Jesus. 

Okay so our story begins with the narrator. Whose going on about time and what not. The main point of this speech about time is that it’s night in Duckburg and Scrooge is going to bed as, even being the workhorse that he is, he can’t keep going 24 hours. While he’s snoozing though something major happens and it’s the hook that made me pick this story along with the international dateline one.. an island rises thanks to volcanic erruption.. and the lava is GOLD. That’s just pure unabashed classic Duck Stuff: a mysterious treasure or phenominon of gold bound to bring scrooge in. 

But Scrooge isn’t stupid: the sun comes up and the world still spins while he sleeps, so he set up a satalite to monitor for this sort of thing. The thing naturally goes nuts.. and even more naturally breaks down becasue Scrooge bought cheap parts. A nice gag and a fully in character way to bring our antagonist into the picture, as the Satellite of Loaded falls in the middle of South Africa... right on the property of my boy Flintheart Glomgold. 

This is something Rosa brought up in his commentary for the story i’d never thought about. It turns out Glomgold being a citzen of Duckburg WASN’T an invention of the original Ducktales but the comics: some overseas had understandably moved him from his home country of South Africa. Him bieing in the same town as Scrooge instead of half a world away allows for easier setups and more intresting ones.

Rosa however being obdient to Barks Version of things, ketp Glomgold in South Africa like barks did, which was an .. ifffy decision given Apartheid had JUST ended at the time of this story. Not so much in the reboot as not only had apartheid been long gone by the time of the reboot, but that’s more fair. Still we do get some gorgeous vistas as a result as Glomgold’s minon goes to look at it and finds it’s from McDuck Mining company... Glomgold’s reaction is obvious. 

So on that note we cut to Scrooge rushing to Donalds house and forcing him awake and not telling him anything at first. Look his Ducktales Counterpart straight up kidnapped his donald in my last review, I’d call this a win. He also tries to dress Donald while explaning both his panic to find the crashed satlitle and what it found: the golden island. The end result of him dressing donald is worth a chuckle

So after Donald puts his shirt and little hat on our heroes get rollin rollin rollin what keep rollin rollin rollin who to Manilla. On the plane we get the scene I mentioned: The boys make a quip about Scrooge having lost a day and the group go over the international date line. It’s a fun little scene especially Donald trying to get paid early at the end. Classic scrooge and donald stuff without the abusive undertones some of their classic stuff has. 

Meanwhile Glomgold works out the data and finds out about the gold island, and his excitement accidently wakes a giraffe outside.. welll it was nice knowing him, Giraffes are the deadliest species known to man.. here’s an educational video t back that up....

So at Manilla Airport, Scrooge finds out abotu the south african crash, figuring he’ll get a laugh out of glomgold being there ... only for Donald to spot the Jet. Scrooge figures this can’t be anything good... now come on man maybe he’s just promoting his energy drink. 

As super sayin god super sayian as my witness, I will never get tired of Ultra Instinct Glomgold here. 

Scrooge isn’t so nice about that though and figures he better find out if Glomgold knows about the island and bribes one of the fueling crew for his uniform. He sucesssfully eavesdrops on Glomgold talking to his pilot, finding out from him exactly WHERE the island is. He ends up hilariously botching the mission though: when getting ready to leave Glomgold complains abotu the price of gas and that naturally causes Scrooge, just as cheap, to join in... and Glomgold to find out it’s Scrooge. The two wrestle outside the plane but before this can progress to a game of Naked Robber an airport security guy comes up and Scrooge cleverly claims that Glomgold’s plane has an infestiation, requring it to be quanrantined and allowing Scrooge to jet on.. thoguh not with an actual jet. With Glomgold seemingly dispatched, he can afford to save some money and take his time with a seaplane and I know just the man for the job. 

Oh nope looks like he’s busy. So one time related rambles later we meet Keoki, their asian pilot from the tiny island of Wookawooka.. and no that’s not a real place i checked... and no Fozzy dosen’t own it his check bounced. That being said it is a very well done represntation of someone from a smaller country: he’s doing this job to try and bring money back home, but being a seaplane captain just isn’t enough and his island is dying. Scrooge naturally is about as sympathetic as you’d expect, having apparently never even heard of the idea of a bonus when Huey, Dewey or Louie suggests it. 

Even less suprising is that Glomgold streaks by in his Jet:turns out Manilla was already overun with the bugs Scrooge claimed and Donald rubs it in that had Scrooge got a JET this wouldn’t of been an issue. 

So Glomgold easily beats them there, and to add insult and actualy injury to a cash based one, our heroes get blasted by golden lava on the way in and crash. Should’ve gotten launchpad... got the crashing professional. Keoki is dispondent as this means his people are doomed. He also dosen’t know waht staking a claim is when Scrooge mentions it and the boys bring him up to speed with the poor guy saying he wish he could for WookaWooka. Donald also makes a valid point about how greedy and heartlress scrooge can be.. and really billiionares in general.

No no YOUR the Grouch who refuses to have one drop of emapthy. Donald’s just pissed at your general selfish and terrible behavior. 

Glomgold glomgloats and has seemingly won... but naturally that rant that seemed extranious at the time about the date line comes into play: turns out the Island is on it, and since glomgold put his marker int he west, Scrooge simply puts his in the east which is a whole day before. Now GRANTED there’s nor eal legal prescendice for the intetaoinal date line itself , as noted above... but there’s enough witnesses in Scrooge’s favor that it simply does not matter anyway. Scrooge SEEMINGLY wins.

But Huey, Dewey Or Louie instead backs another claim: Keoki’s from earlier. While it was made in gest, he and the others along with Donald back it as witnsses instad. WookaWooka is saved and SCrogoe ends the story yelling at the narrator.

Final Thoughts: Don Rosa.. did not like this story, feeling it wasn’t one of his best and apologizing for it. I however.. really loved it. It’s not PERFECT: the narration feels not entirely necessary and the gag isn’t as funny as he thinks, though the payoff of scrooge saying “it’s time for this story to end” is fucking hilarous. I also feel it’s a bit too compressed: the story is only 16 pages and was only THAT long because Rosa added a few for exposition, a worthy addition. This feels like one of his 30 page adventure stories but slightly crammed into half the length. I also feel the golden island bit was BADLY underused as it’s such a cool setting but barely shows up in the story. 

But despite that.. it’s still a fun story: as is standard for Rosa the art is gorgeous and the humor is great. And unlike some stories where Rosa casually ignores how terrible scrooge is, here it’s his own greed and hubris that do him in: had he actually agreed to help Keoki, the boys likey would’ve let him keep the island but his own cold refusual to be a human being does him in, just as his cheapness nearly did. Flintheart is also decent here.. not the deepest foe but frankly most classical duck antagonists really aren’t all that fleshed out, and we still get some good bits with him. The dateline bit, while telegraphing that it will be important, as I said REALLY isn’t that hard to understand. All in all while i’ll agree with Rosa this isn’t his BEST, it’s still a really damn good story and one he shoudln’t be ashamed of. 

Tommorow: Green Eggs and ham is back for some train shenanigans! Kay. 

Saturday: The Tom Retrospective returns for it’s last detour! Eclipsa and Moon team up to stop meteora but grapple with diffrent wants: One to save her daughter.. the other to stop waht she clearly sees as an out of control monster. The result.. will only lead to tragedy and a hell of a two parter. 

If you liked this review consider joining my patreon, patroen.com/popculturebuffet. At as low as 2 bucks a month you get accesss to my patreon discord, exclusive reviews, and to pick a short when I do one of my shortstragavanzas, a marthon of theatrical shorts honoring a characters birthday. And given Donald’s is next month, now’s the time to get on board. 

But if you go up to 5 you get a guaranteed review of whatever you want every month, and will get me to my next milestone, which will give everyone including yourself a monthly public darkwing duck review, reviews of the two Ducktales minis’ I haven’t covered (Time is Money and SuperDuckTales) and a reivew of the Danny Phantom film the Ultimate Enemy. So please join today and if you cannot, like this review, subscribe and give me your opinions on it bellow. Or even if you can feedback is always appricated and I will see you at the next rainbow. 

[chayacat]

Devil’s Sweet Star (27)

Fandom: Dead by Daylight

Ghostface x Female Reader  

Rated M for Violence, Language and Smut  

***

Who would have thought that one day you would have your own establishment, as well as employees? Seriously who? Even you didn't think it would happen. You've been dreaming about it since you were a little girl, you weren't like other little girls who wanted to be stars or singers. No, since you were a little girl, you were attracted to the cooking and that in a way, that was your father's fault. He wanted to share his love of cooking so much that he more than passed it on to you... He's infected you. Cooking, a world of exotic flavors that was offered to those who wanted to enter.

So, you studied a lot of recipes, whether simple or complicated, you watched and helped your father make the meals, as well as your mother who sometimes also made pastry. And since that early childhood.... you dreamed of having your own establishment or you could put it all into practice. Whether it was a café or a big restaurant, all you wanted was to bring a smile and good mood to people via food. And today... this little girl's dream has come true. You were the owner of the Nebula, the most attractive café in all of Roseville. And all this in such a short time! It's very impressive! If only your parents could be there to see it...

“Excuse me boss... Do we have any March cakes left?”  

You blink for a few seconds looking at Amy. Then you come to your senses before smiling at her and stopping what you were doing.

“Of course! Here they are! they've just been finished! they are fresh and ready for sale. Are you going to make it?” You ask with a smile.  

“Yes, ma'am! you can count on me!” answers Amy before taking the tray where the cakes were.

“Amy! Don't forget what I told you. You call me by my first name, not boss. Ok?”  

“Oh...right. Excuse me (Y/N). I would try to remember that.

Amy left the back shop, smiling, to return to the room. On this side, the room was full. Corey didn't lack work between cleaning tables, serving and re-serving customers and taking orders. Yet he found a way to talk to Amy. They're both so adorable. It's the perfect duo. The other candidates were interesting but... Amy and Corey stood out from the crowd. They had a future these two. They will go far... you were sure and certain of that. If one day you had to leave Roseville... You knew the Nebula would be in a very good hand.

“Everyone's been through something tragic, sweetheart. I'm one of them. And I'm going to make everyone pay for it. Until my last breath.”

What did he mean? Did he know about it? No... No, that’s not possible. He couldn't have known. The only ones who know about your parents aren't the type to go and tell everybody about it. Especially Jed. Yet the words of Ghostface crossed your mind. If he knew about it... he would have let you know. But it's Ghostface... and subtlety could be part of his vocabulary. With this man, anything can happen, anything can surprise you. What is most surprising... is that he's ready to protect you. But above all, it was his last words that surprised you.

“I know that one day... You'll call on me for that. Everyone has a dark side to the bottom of their heart; it only takes one click to bring it out”.

We can deny it as much as we want, but Ghostface is right. We all have a dark side. And it only takes one thing to get it out. A single provocation, a single remark or a single wrong move in a moment when you have to be calm and need support... and it's the explosion. And the problem in this case... it's that you don't know how far you can go. If we go further than the red line. But will you go so far as to ask a murderer for help? A murderer who, for some reason always unknown to you, decide, proclaim, that you were his and only to him. While he knows that you already have someone.

“Miss (Y/N)! Sorry to bother you but... There's a guy who wants to see you! He says his name is... Jed Olsen. Do you know him?” ask Corey.  

Speak of the Devil...

“Well, if we assume that it's my boyfriend... Yes, I know him, Corey. Tell him to come, he's got a VIP pass.” You respond with smile, laughing a little.  

Corey left with a smile and a few moments later, Jed entered the room. And the first thing you did was to put down your things and kiss him tenderly. How could he be so beautiful from day to day? You remember the first time you met, so shy, so unconfident... and today it is the exact opposite. He wears less and less his glasses when he’s not in front of a screen and leaves his hair looser more often. Jed has definitely changed. And for the better.

“I see you ended up choosing your employees. Are they doing well?” Ask Jed, smiling.  

“Very good indeed! for their first few days, they are quite reactive and motivated. That's exactly what I was looking for. Even though Amy still has a little trouble taking the initiative, she's doing well. Corey almost fell several times but he managed to hold back each time.” You respond with a smile.  

“Good. it's going to make you feel a little relieved at least, you won't have to manage everything on your own. Is it official or are they in a testing period?”

“Technically they are in a testing period. But from what I see we can say that it is official. What about you? How's it going?” you replied.  

“Wilhelm is always grumpy... But at least we're moving forward. Hoggins met someone a few days before threatening McKellan. And it's possible he's the murderer. After that's just speculation, when we find this guy, Wilhelm will make him have a bad time, you can believe me. While we wait for news, we'll continue our work at the paper. I never have accumulated jobs. Because between us... Roseville police officers aren't really smart...” Jed responds scratching the back of his head.  

“I see. Poor you... You must be exhausted. Courage once the murderer is in prison everything will return to normal...I hope.”

“You still think about it, right? You know if you need to talk about it, we can... do as a kind of therapy every night, I'm not a psychologist but... talking from time to time feels good. And in exchange you can play the psychologist for me... because sometimes... I could use it. And I think you do, too.

You nod as you bow your head. It's true that you both need to talk. And it feels good. it feels good to take all that weight off your heart, just as it feels good to have someone you trust to talk about it. And there's nothing better than Jed for that. You know that with him, your secrets will be well kept. Not that you don't trust Melina or Mattew.... But you feel more comfortable with Jed. Even if you don't feel comfortable with your boyfriend, who would you be? You drink a glass of water before looking at your worktop. Many pastries were being made.

“Yes... I'll think about it. But I promise, if I need it... I'll come and see you. And the same, if you need... Come to me. I'd have extra pastries.” you said with a wink.  

“I'd just come for that then... I can't resist your cakes. Do you think they'll listen to my stories?”

You hit Jed's arm, who laughs, before kissing and leaving you to work in peace. He, too, still had work to do. You get back to work quickly, as customers continue to flock. And you may run out of cakes in shop windows. The rest of the day passed quite quickly, guests sometimes staying a good half hour, asking for drinks and food again of course. The day was a little more lucrative than usual, which is a very good thing! And we must not forget that now that you have employees, you would have to pay them a salary.

You clean the worktop, while Amy and Corey took care of the room. They were talking at the same time and just hearing them... you think they're adorable. They laughed, provoked themselves a little and gave each other advice. Let's say that for that last point, it was more Corey who advised Amy. How lovely they were together. Kind of like you and Jed, either. If these two are not already in a relationship, you hoped they would form a nice couple for as long as possible.

You chat with them for a little while, in order to learn more about them. Amy lives a little out of town, while Corey lives in the town hall district. He had taken over the house of his mother who moved to Alaska... himself wondered why. You greet them both before doing your daily surveillance ritual and closing the café. As you were about to go home, your phone rang. Melina.

“Hey Melina! How are you? Not too tired?” you ask cheerfully.

“Hey! I'm fine, I'm fine. We can't stop running today. I was thinking we could have a little girl outing tonight! Nothing but you and me! just to decompress a little bit! What do you think?” She answers.  

“I don't know... I had a lot of work and still I have to work on other recipes and …”

“Oh, Come on. You need and you have the right to rest a little! your coffee is working very well so far. You don't have to rush to the top. Take your time and think of yourself! I know a small bar restaurant, believe me if you like the jazz atmosphere, you'll love it!”

“Okay ok... You won. At least let me change and you'll pick me up at home. Is that okay for you?”

“Sure! I'll be at your home in 30 minutes!

You both hang up and you sigh while shaking your head. Decidedly despite the day she had, Melina still finds a way to go out at night. She doesn't lack energy! This is what completes her character in itself. How could one imagine her other than that? That's impossible. You go home to take a shower to remove the smell of whipped cream, coffee... and sweat too. You take the opportunity to send a message to Jed, a message that turned into a conversation. He asked you to be very careful because even though it is a small town, Roseville can be dangerous at night. To which you reply that with Melina, it is more the aggressor who will suffer than you. He laughs, tells you that he loves you before wishing you a good evening and a good night. Melina arrived as planned after 30 minutes, ringing home, excited to have this girls' night out. You laugh at her attitude, she's really adorable sometimes.

“You'll see this little Jazzy side makes all the charm of this place! I often go there when I need to decompress. I confess that it’s been a little while that I did not go there but I know that it has not changed thanks to Mattew!” said Melina cheerfully.  

“I trust you with that! I've never been to a restaurant bar like this. I can't wait to see what happens!” you respond with a smile.  

“That's the dress you put on for the date with Jed, isn't it? I understand why he broke down, you're so cute. The black floral dress, a classic but still as effective. Let's go before there are too many people!”

You both get in Melina's car and head to the restaurant bar. The music could be heard from the outside, and frankly it was nice. You both enter the property and the waiter greeted you in an immaculate smoking. You both sit at a table and one of the servers brought you the card. There are so many delicious things on this menu that you don't know what to take. Melina already knew what she was going to take... And just by the expression on her face, you know it's delicious, and that's surely what she takes every time. The server returned a few minutes later to take your orders and cards. You let yourself be tempted by a good steak with fries, all with a small homemade tartar sauce, and for dessert a sublime glass of banana split ice cream. Melina had taken a veal blanquette and the same dessert as you.

“So... You see it feels good to sit down a little and enjoy your evening. it relaxes and that's all you need!” She said.

“I guess you’re right. Thank you, Melina.” You respond

“No problem! Let's enjoy this evening without the boys, just two women who are free as air.”  

You smile while raising your glasses, wine for her and water for you before you drink. Then came the dishes. Melina salivated and took a bite, emitting a little sound of satisfaction. It was good to be able to land without worrying about work. Melina's right, it feels good. And you're going to enjoy it! the music relaxes you completely and you let yourself be dragged into the rhythm. Melina did the same, you chat, laugh, and even dance on the small dance floor.

Tonight, is your night. Tonight, you're free to do whatever you want, without doing too much either. But tonight, you put your work aside, your doubts, your fears, your questions, everything disappears for a night out. And tomorrow we'll see if they come back. They will come back one day, for sure but for now, we are holding out, making the most of it, all with an incredible friend.

No Ghostface. Just you and a great night waiting for you. And a good sleep on the way home, too. Make the most of it.

Because God only knows when you can do another one like this.

Make the most of it, my little lady.

Because you may not have others like this for a long time.

Or even never.

***

(I came to my driving hours and for my first two hours, it's not too bad XD but hey I will progress over time! Besides, I started in Stardew Valley and I love it! I'm going to spend my weekend playing there to relax. I hope you’ll like this chapter like the others ones! Well, it's time for my brain to rest! Have a great weekend to you all! See ya!)

[apenapaperandadoofus]

omg, yes, i was referring to saeran's route. it is my favourite buuuut i think they tried to portay did and didn't do a good job at it. not because of his symptoms, but because he was 'cured' after mc returns his affections :( i don't like rika as a character, i feel she could have been a good villain but with the whole v after ending + rika behind they kind of killed her character :( they basically took any responsibility from her and i feel they left her kind of empty as a character :/

Ohoho that’s very interesting~

I hope you don’t mind me going on a rant lmao

For the Saeran route, you’re right, the whole cured after MCs love thing was super rushed and I mean, if it were maybe with more time, I could sort of see it? But it was far too much change for just 11 days, but I get why they would do it like that (IMAGINE MM if the routes where like 30 days long I WOULD DIE PFT)

As for Rika, here’s where I go on a ramble lmao

I absolutely love her character. Mind you, I don’t LIKE what she does, it’s horrible in every way, but I love the way they did her character. ForVs after ending,I hated it though, the way they portrayed her and everything I just hated it so much. Also in the SE, where Rika just went off to Alaska or smth to chill lol

What I like about Rika, is the way we see her origins. Rika’s behind story I feel, it’s not a way to go “oh look! It was actually another person who made the cult! Rika is innocent!” I see it more as Cheritz showing us how Rika became...well evil or whatever. I like that they showed the ways V actually enabled her behavior, I mean, it is Rika’s fault about everything she did,but let’s not forget that V actually sort of? How do I say this...

Like when you have a kid and you reward them for something they did? That’s what V did with Rika. They’re both to blame about everything, Rika of course, for giving in to her dark desires and hurting people, and V for making her think it was ok, for him to enable her behavior, to even reward her in a way.

Mika also helped a lot because she fed more into Rikas dark side, she was the... last straw I think? Mika ENVIED Rika, who has admired her her whole LIFE! The person who she loved dearly, actually hates her, and envies her life, not knowing the abuse Rika has gone through, not knowing that this girl had been literally sexually abused by a Pastor, I’m sure Rika’s step mom porbably knew what was going on too, but she turned a blind eye. Mind you, I don’t see this as in a way “enabling”her behavior. I see it more as an origin story. To explain everything.

I love when villains are complex like this. We see how Rika suffered, how she became the person she is today. We see why she thought that she was doing the right thing, why she thought she was protecting people that went through what she went. Rika in her own mind is, well, the Savior. That’s why she gets called that. In her story, Rika is the heroine. The RFA are the villains, the people she has to protect, to fix, that’s how she sees it.

She can’t tell what’s right or wrong anymore. She wants to help in her own way, she thinks she’s helping when in reality she’s destroying everything. And we get to see that.

We get to see how Rika turns into the dark side, and how it was her actions, along with others that made her who she is. We get to see how she thinks of herself.

She isn’t just a dumb villain who’s doing everything for no reason. She isn’t your typical VN villain! I mean she’s complex, we get to see what she thinks, in her Behind Story, in the SE where we see snippets of V and Rika’s conversations. Hell,even in V route we get a closer look at Rika.

The SE and Vs AE did an absolutely shitty job. I hated it. Because they made her into...into the dumb villain that “changes” in the end.

I want to see Rika actually realize what she did.

She has to feel the guilt, the pain. And then the RFA unable to forgive her.

After all, who would just go like “oh you tried to literally drug us, probably kill us and make a cult but you said sorry that’s fine luv”

No no, Cheritz let me see where Rika is regretful, where we get to see her realize that all along, she was the bad one. She was hurting everyone. She would break...but it’s more relaistic. She would probably deny it at first, but then slowly realize that yes, she was wrong.

I want for years to pass before the RFA even manages to speak to her, to look at her. For Rika to take years to finally change, just like V in his AE, and apologize correctly, not because everyone is mad at her, but because she understands what she’s done.

I want Rika to change, but in a realistic way. She has to take time to mend the wounds she caused, to fix herself. If V can do it, why can’t she?

Also I want V to actually apologize to her too, to actually admit that he had a fault too. I don’t like how we always make Rika the bad one but V a Saint. Don’t get me wrong, V has good intentions, but he just screwed up. He was using Rika to feel better, to actually feel love and give someone love, a thing he’s always wanted to do

Anyway I’ll leave it at that for today lol, sorry for the super long rant, I’m just super passionate about Rika’s whole story pfttttttt

[starring-movies]

Killing Eve: Episode Analysis

*SPOILERS*

Season 2, Episode 8 - You’re Mine

The finale of Season 2 begins with the continuation of the operation in Rome. Hugo comes back with coffee for himself and Eve, after they slept together the night before, and he calls Eve, “Mrs Robinson”. This is a reference to the 1967 film, ‘The Graduate’; which is about a young college graduate (just like Hugo), who is seduced by a much older woman, called Mrs. Robinson (like Eve).

While Eve is in the hotel room, listening through the earpiece, she hears Villanelle say the safe word, “gentleman”; after Villanelle sees that Raymond is one of the buyers coming to look into the weapon that Aaron Peel is selling.

After hearing Villanelle say the safe word, just as Eve is about to tell Hugo, she hears him being shot and she hides from the shooter by lying under the bed in the room. After the shooter has left, Eve goes to help Hugo, but she just tells him to put pressure on his wound and then decides to leave him behind, so that she can go to help Villanelle. As Eve is walking away and Hugo is shouting for her to help him, ‘Her’ by Unloved can be heard in the background. Some of the lyrics of the song are:

“There were no candles lit,

The room was dark as night,

Just like the corners of my mind,

I gave my heart to her,

She has my heart”

The last time this song was used was in S1E4, but in that instance it was used for Villanelle, while she was waiting for Eve to come to the crime scene, but Eve doesn’t show up. When the song was used in S1E4, it was to illustrate how Villanelle had given her heart to Eve, and so Eve was the one who had Villanelle’s heart. Whereas this time, it is used to show how Eve has given her heart to Villanelle, and so now Villanelle is the one who holds Eve’s heart. In fact Eve’s heart belongs to Villanelle so much so, that she is willing to leave Hugo (who for all she knows might die) just so that she can go and ‘save’ Villanelle, who is perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

When Eve arrives at Aaron’s palazzo, Aaron tells Villanelle “I’ll give you everything you want”, which echoes when Villanelle asked Eve “will you give me everything I want?”, in S2E5. In saying this (in the same way that we are reminded of what Villanelle said to Eve), Aaron might have similarly reminded Villanelle of what she had previously asked Eve - and in turn, reminded her that Eve is actually everything she wants. So when Aaron asks Villanelle to kill Eve, she knows that if she does kill Eve like he’s asking her to do, she will never be able to have “everything” she wants.

After Villanelle kills Aaron, she and Eve decide to split up because Eve needs to get the recordings from the hotel room and Villanelle needs to find them a way to escape. When Eve arrives at the hotel room, everything has been cleaned up and Carolyn is waiting in the room to speak to Eve. Eve tells her that Aaron is dead and Carolyn asks her “did you kill him?”, indicating that she has obviously been observing Eve’s behaviour and thinks that she is capable of killing. Eve indignantly, and rather taken aback, tells Carolyn “of course not” when she is asked this, which foreshadows the argument that she and Villanelle have at the end of the episode - everyone else (Villanelle, Carolyn, The Ghost) can see her darkness, but Eve herself is still unwilling to accept it.

While Eve is speaking to Carolyn, and Villanelle is speaking to Konstantin, we can see the trust that Villanelle and Eve have in one another, as well as how they both are aware of how much they mean to each other. The two paralleled conversations are almost mirrored with one other: Eve says “you don’t know that” to Carolyn, when she tells Eve that Villanelle “wouldn’t do the same for you”; and Villanelle says “she wouldn’t”, when Konstantin says “what if she’s left with Carolyn already?”.

The entire goal of Villanelle and Eve’s characters’ journeys in this season is encapsulated when Konstantin asks Villanelle “what is it about her?”, and Villanelle tells him that it’s because “we’re the same”. For the entirety of Season 2, we have been shown how Villanelle and Eve are two sides of the same coin, and especially how Eve has been becoming more like Villanelle in her behaviour; so Villanelle saying this, just ties together everything they’ve done throughout the season that has made them become more “the same” as each other.

As Villanelle is waiting for Eve outside of the hotel, she gets anxious and goes to look for Eve inside. When Villanelle climbs the stairs of the hotel, she finds that Raymond has been waiting for her so that he can kill her (like Konstantin warned her). A fight ensues and Raymond starts choking Villanelle, nearly killing her. But when Raymond sees Eve with his axe, he says to Villanelle that “she’s not going to do it is she? She doesn’t have it in her”, which parallels when Villanelle said to Eve in S1E8 “you can’t”. In both of those moments, Eve was being underestimated and surprises the person who was underestimating her by following through and doing what they claimed she couldn’t - by stabbing Villanelle in S1E8 and killing Raymond in this episode.

While Villanelle is trying to encourage Eve to finish killing Raymond, she shouts “imagine he’s a log” at her. In S3E5, Villanelle tells Pyotr “I used to do woodwork”, so her knowledge in woodworking is probably why the first things that comes to her mind is to tell Eve to imagine Raymond is a log.

When they escape to the Roman ruins, after Eve has killed Raymond, Villanelle tells her that they could go to live in Alaska and that “we’d be normal”. We can see that normality and a mundane life, like that which Eve lives, is something that Villanelle has been yearning for since Season 1. In S1E5 she tells Eve “I know I’m not normal”, in S1E8 she says to Eve that she wants “normal things” and in S2E1 she tells Gabriel “I’m not normal you know”. She also offers to make dinner for her and Eve, and tells her “I’ll look after you”, which similarly shows her desire to have a normal and domestic life with Eve.

After Eve finds out that Villanelle manipulated her into killing Raymond, Villanelle tells her “I wanted you to know how it feels, how did it feel?”. In doing this, Villanelle is actually answering one of the things which Eve tells Villanelle that she thinks about in S1E8. In S1E8, Eve says to Villanelle, “I think about your eyes and your mouth, and how you feel when you kill someone”. So by getting Eve to kill Raymond, Villanelle probably thinks she’s being caring and doing something helpful for her, so that now Eve will have an answer and get to know for herself “how you feel when you kill someone”.

Eve goes on to tell Villanelle that “I’m like you now”. This is probably true, as although Eve had already been displaying a number of similarities to Villanelle, she had not gone as far as to cross the line to kill someone. But crossing that line is most likely what allows Eve to start to accept her “monster” and the existence of her “darkness”, becoming the most like Villanelle, in Season 3 - while she is holding onto denial regarding these aspects of herself, she can not truly be like Villanelle.

We also see Villanelle’s confusion at Eve’s reaction to killing Raymond, which is what she thought would help Eve, telling her “it’s what YOU wanted”. Villanelle can see Eve’s darkness (and has done for a long time), just like The Ghost did in S2E5 when she asked Eve “do you want to do it yourself?”; and so Villanelle can also see that this actually is what Eve wanted, and in turn she can’t understand why Eve does’t see what she sees. However, because Eve hasn’t come to terms with, nor accepted her darkness, she rejects Villanelle (and therefore also rejects her own darkness) - which is a problem we see repeated in S3E5, and why Villanelle similarly decides to kill her mother just like she shoots Eve in this episode.

Villanelle goes on to tell Eve that she loves her, but Eve says to her that “you don’t understand what that is”. Villanelle then possessively tells her “you’re mine”. Villanelle saying this proves that, although she may have deep feelings and an obsession for Eve, it’s not until S3E8 that we can see that Villanelle has found out what loving Eve really is - when she’s willing to let her go and never see her for the rest of her life, rather than claiming Eve as an object which belongs to her (like her clothes or money).

Villanelle also says to Eve that she “thought you were special”. Villanelle thought that Eve was different from her mother, Anna and Nadia; all of whom either weren’t able to do the things that Eve can or wouldn’t accept the darkness they had inside of them - Anna and Nadia weren’t able to shoot Villanelle like Eve was able to stab her, Anna wasn’t able to admit her feelings for Villanelle to herself and Villanelle’s mother wasn’t able to accept her darkness (like Villanelle thought Eve would be able to accept her darkness). Konstantin’s prophetic warning about Villanelle to Eve in S2E3, that “she’ll love you to death”, has indeed come true.

You can read my previous Killing Eve posts here:-

First Introduction to Villanelle

First Introduction to Eve

S1, E1 - Nice Face

S1, E2 - I’ll Deal With Him Later

S1, E3 - Don’t I Know You?

S1, E4 - Sorry Baby

S1, E5 - I Have a Thing about Bathrooms

S1, E6 - Take Me to the Hole!

S1, E7 - I Don’t Want to Be Free

S1, E8 - God, I’m Tired

S2, E1 - Do You Know How to Dispose of a Body?

S2, E2 - Nice and Neat

S2, E3 - The Hungry Caterpillar

S2, E4 - Desperate Times

S2, E5 - Smell Ya Later

S2, E6 - I Hope You Like Missionary!

S2, E7 - Wide Awake

S3, E1 - Slowly Slowly Catchy Monkey

S3, E2 - Management Sucks

S3, E3 - Meetings Have Biscuits

S3, E4 - Still Got It

S3, E5 - Are You From Pinner? [Part 1]

S3, E5 - Are You From Pinner? [Part 2]

S3, E6 - End of Game

S3, E7 - Beautiful Monster

S3, E8 - Are You Leading or Am I? [Part 1]

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