#i love their floppy little mushroom hat

[hockpock]

Okay so I don't know what this being's deal is (model influencer indie designer ???)

but the vibes of these photos from Japanese Fashion week ...

WEN NING GOES TO FASHION WEEK

[mosses-gate-3]

What are yout Tavs' physical builds like? Do they resemble their in-game models, or do you imagine them to be different in any way?

oooh i had to think about this one!! i really love your asks tysm <333

Not all my tavs have ingame models but I've done my best :) (cw mild body horror for the Andis section)

Andis is much less muscular than his in-game model and probably shorter. More body fat as well. He does still have relatively pronounced shoulders and pectorals from drumming. Of course there are the mushrooms growing from his skin, definitely a lot more intense than what I draw, I'll do a real reference someday. He's also got a ton more scars than what shows up in-game, including his top surgery scars. He also has a lot of almost surgically precise scars in the shape of rectangular strips along his skin. This is where the fungal crusting is the strongest, and in some heavily scarred areas it's almost like plate armor or an organic-looking scale mail. His skin doesn't grow back, it gets replaced, and in places where it's taken excessive damage it looks more like myconid flesh than humanoid. I imagine he's relatively insecure about this and trims at the more inhuman looking parts as well as he can, but after having bits of his flesh removed for years it's hard to hide. The scars that haven't fully become myconid-like have a more puckered, burned texture than what the tissue would normally look like. There's also the sense that there are raised webs and veins of the fungus under his skin. Otherwise his face and hair are largely accurate to the game.

Monty has a similar build to his in-game model, but less dehydrated six pack and more fighter build. He doesn't eat very well though. He has more body fat than his game model, but there's the distinct sense that he survives off cheap ale and beef jerky and very little else. His tail is a lot thicker than in-game. His face is relatively game-accurate, although his snout is slightly different, more square at the end and less pointy. His horns don't curve quite as much as they do in-game. There's a great deal of scarring on his body, which the game doesn't let you do for dragonborn for whatever reason. There are notable scars across the bridge of his nose, on his jaw and forehead, and crisscrossing along his tail and the rest of his body. He gets in a lot of fights and I don't think most of them heal very well - he has a lot of broken and chipped scales from times when he didn't have healing potions. In addition to his canon piercings he also has a tongue piercing for completely heterosexual reasons on my part.

Cesair looks pretty much exactly like his in-game model because that's where I designed his appearance (rather than my other tavs who were cooking in my brain long before I actually made them in character creator). I especially like his face paint. The only real difference I'd say is that he has his big floppy jester hat. I haven't looked at his in-game model shirtless but I'm assuming it made him ripped. In my mind he looks gaunt almost to the point of being malnourished; he's lived on the streets for a while. He makes his living telling dumb jokes so there's really nothing in his daily life that would give him any sort of muscle mass. Otherwise I imagine him almost exactly as his model. Sorry this bit's not as interesting lol

Once again thank you so much for the ask! I don't always have time to complete them right away but it always makes my day to recieve one <3

[mayullla]

Title: Wonderland Caterpillar

Character(s): Kakashi Hatake (Naruto)

Summary: When an Alice leaves wonderland (Be that they died or managed to escape the place), a new Alice falls from the rabbit hole. Faith strings pull and look at your memories and thoughts and decide how the residents of wonderland would look at the new Alice. The first Alice was loved and cared for, after they died many grieved their death. The next Alice was hotty, spoiled and uncaring they died because they were abandoned by the residents. The next died becoming an experiment of a resident they too were not loved and the next and the next and the next. The residents adopted the idea that whenever a new Alice comes they would experience a horrible faith in the end... well that is when you came along. A small 10 year old child.

Today you will meet the Caterpillar.

Warnings/tags: Fem!reader, young reader, purely platonic, yandere themes, kidnapping, use of drugs

Kakashi was shocked to see that a small child was the new Alice. Why and How you came here just kept running through his head as he looked at the sky and then at you again. The Wonderland world is a dangerous place and the Alices were usually adults who could take care of themselves. (Or as much as they could..)

He watched as the small kid tried to climb up the toadstools to get closer to him. As a man who was always alone with only his porn books to accompany him, he found your antics adorable as you were having trouble climbing. The small huffs you made were just adorable. And the proud smile when you finally reached him from the rows of stacking mushrooms made him want to smile.

He was also glad that there was space on his toadstool as the man used to smoke it was all taken by his servant Asuma who said that it was bad for a noble's health to rot like that. As if he wasn't the one using it for himself.

But it is good. Kakashi didn't want a small child to be sniffing that thing anyway.

“What is your name, Alice?”

“Hmm? My name is Y/n, I am not Alice.” You curiously looked at Kakashi. The floppy hat he wore looked very funny to you.

“Mhm”

You and Kakashi talked, you were telling him a little bit about your world as the two of you sunbathed, Kakashi loved your eyes when they sparkled as he told you all the magical things about this world. He wanted to keep it that way and you running around this place filled with war would not save you.

“You can walk on trees and water? That is sooo cool! I wanna see wind magic and water magic! Turning small sounds also fun, I will be the same size as my doll back at home!” You waved your hands trying to mimic the action of what you thought everything the caterpillar said would look like.

You looked away from him to stare somewhere else.

“Do you want to become small?” Kakashi pulled out a little bit of the toadstool, the one they were on. He was a bit displeased when you mentioned home but for now, pushed those feelings back. You nodded wanting to experience becoming small or even big! It sounds so much fun!

“Here, eat this.” Kakashi gave you the toadstool which you without hesitation plopped it in your mouth. You hurriedly swallowed the whole thing waiting to become small like an ant but as you waited you started to become sleepy with the corners of your eyes darkening.

“Just give it a moment.”

Kakashi let you lean on him, supporting you in case you might fall from the toadstool. Taking you in a princess carry he carried you to his mansion where you could be safe and out of harm’s reach. He was sure that his servants Guy and Kurenai would absolutely adore you.

He will be taking the role of your father, no questions asked.

[joyseuphoria]

She hated how much she liked him now

Thank you sooo much for the prompt!!!

The “him” in the prompts are replaced with “her” since this is a fem!jily fic!!! I had too many ideas for this fic...maybe I’ll write some of the rest in the future, but here you go!

You can read it here or on ao3

THE CURLY SQUAD

(Tuesday 16:00)

Sirius Black: moony and the rest of you pay up

Marlene Mckinnon: why should we pay u?

Remus Lupin: u still owe me 20 btw so i dont think i will

Sirius Black: ofc ppl like u wouldnt know smh

jamie finally asked lily on a date

Peter Pettigrew: Wait what

Marlene McKinnon: afsjtksjdggehej

when 

how 

tell me everything 

Sirius Black: well little prongsie finally sucked up and asked ickle lilykins on date

voila 

Marlene McKinnon: give me the details black

or i s2g ill kick u out of the group 

Sirius Black: empty threats

if u really wanna know u can go ask em

(Marlene McKinnon has removed Sirius Black from the group chat)

Peter Pettigrew: Remind me to not ever cross paths with Marlene 

_____________

THE CURLY SQUAD

(Tuesday 17:00)

Jamie Potter: good riddance 

thx marls 

Marlene McKinnon: got u covered hon

now spill 

Jamie Potter: i hv a date with lil on friday:)

Lily Evans: that she does;)

Marlene McKinnon: i demand details ppl

(Dorcas Meadows has removed Marlene McKinnon from the group chat)

Remus Lupin: wh did u do that for 

Dorcas Meadowes: She was being too nosy

I didn't like it

Jamie Potter:.........thx??

Dorcas Meadowes: Welcome sweetie

_________

THE CURLY SQUAD 

(Tuesday 17:34)

Mary Macdonald: wait what????!!!!!??!

__________

JILY LAMES TALK

(Wednesday 16:30)

Sirius Black: r v up for spying on them on fri?

Marlene Mckinnon: u kno it;)

Mary Macdonald: hell yeah

Peter Pettigrew: Yes! ofc

Remus Lupin: we should give them some privacy sirius

tho ik its a foreign concept to you

Dorcas Meadowes: Obviously

And of course I wanna spy on them

Remus Lupin: but still...yes

Sirius Black: ther is no privacy between  frnds

YAAY

Marlene Mckinnon: so v meet up at 4 outside the bistro next to three broomsticks 

Peter Pettigrew: Wait when’s their date and where?!??

Mary Macdonald: at 5 in 3 broomsticks pete cmon keep up

Remus Lupin: how did u know that?

Sirius Black: im her brother and both their best frnds its obvio that id be the first one to kno

Marlene Mckinnon: and im lilys best frnd too sirius 

Dorcas Meadows: You spied on them didnt you?

Sirius Black: v hv all the rights to spy on them

Mary Macdonald: wait i thought that i was lilys best frnd

Dorcas Meadowes: I can confidently say that it’s neither of you

I’m her best friend

Sirius Black: prove it

Marlene Mckinnon: yeah!

Dorcas Meadowes:  (sends an attachment)

Marlene Mckinnon: shit

Mary Macdonald: …...fair

___________

Private chat between Jamie Potter and Lily Evans 

(Thursday 19:45)

Jamie Potter: cant wait for our date tomorrow 

Lily Evans: ik u cant 

Jamie Potter: 

Lily Evans: <3

;)

______________

Private chat between Jamie Potter and Sirius Black 

(Thursday 19:48)

Jamie Potter: sirius sirius sirius 

lily just sent me a winky face emoticon!!!!

what do i do???!!!?!!!?!?!

(Message read at 19:49)

______________

Private chat between Jamie Potter and Lily Evans 

(Thursday 19:51)

Jamie Potter: :D

_______________

Private chat between Jamie Potter and Lily Evans 

(Friday 16:30)

Jamie Potter: u ready?

Lily Evans: yes ! 

wher r u

Jamie Potter: cool

just reached ur door

______________

JILY LAMES TALK

(Friday 16:30)

Sirius Black: where tf r u guys 

its only me and marlene here

Mary Macdonald: just outta class 

be there in 10

Remus Lupin: home

Peter Pettigrew: At the ice cream parlor for ice cream

Dorcas Meadows: Oh get me some too Pete?

Remus Lupin: me too pls pete

Mary Macdonald: oooh id like some too

mint chocolate chip for me pls

Peter Pettigrew: Sure thing! wh abt the rest of u??

Dorcas Meadowes : Strawberry! with a lot of strawberries as toppings!!!

Remus Lupin : devils choc ofc

Sirius Black : guys can v focus at the matter in hand??!!

also charcoal ice cream pls

just as black as my soul

Peter Pettigrew : ...k

U marls??

Marlene Mckinnon:..........vanilla. thx

____________

JILY LAMES TALK

(Friday 16:45)

Sirius Black: where tf r u guys?!!??!?

theyll b here any sec

Remus Lupin: sirius everyone is here

except for u and marlene

where tf r u guys?!!???

Marlene McKinnon: we r at the spirit store 

where tf r u guys????

Sirius Black: i told u guys to meet us here

Dorcas Meadowes: Wtf is a spirit store?

Sirius Black: a store that sees our spirit 

Peter Pettigrew: Ur ice creams starting to melt!!!!!!

Mary MacDonald: oh the halloween costume shop?

why?

Sirius Black: to dress up ofc

Marlene Mckinnon: honesty guys?

lily and jamie will recognise us if v go like this

and v cant afford that!!!!

Remus Lupin: that is smart….

didnt expect it from u both

Sirius Black: fuck you remus

fuck you

Dorcas Meadowes: So what are our disguises??

Marlene McKinnon: dog ears and nose 

a gily suit

a moon suit

rat whiskers and ears

a tree hat and glasses

and a big floppy hat and sunglasses for my beautiful girlfriend

Dorcas Meadowes: ………….

Peter Pettigrew: Dorcas and remus took ur ice cream btw

Something about it melting, u being stupid and u not being here

 Sirius Black: remy how could u

Marlene McKinnon: ffs dorcas 

i thought u loved me

Peter Pettigrew: Who’s wearing what costume?

Remus Lupin: also sirius 

do u really think that we can pull it off?

itd be tooo obvious 

Mary Macdonald: nd theyll realise that we r spying on them

Sirius Black: they couldnt even realise that they had a crush on each other until i intervened

do you think that theyll realise that its us???????

Remus Lupin: …...point

Sirius Black: so im wearing the dog ears and nose 

marls gonna wear the gily suit

the moon hat and the silver suit is for u remus 

Marlene Mckinnon: the rat whiskers r for peter 

and the tree hat and sunglasses r for mary :)

____________

JILY LAMES TALK

(Friday 16:55)

Sirius Black: ok now positions!

marlene mary and i r sitting in the booth behind the big fat hydrangea 

nd remus peter nd dorcas r gonna sit 2 rows behind them in the corner table outside

Peter Pettigrew: How do u even know where the r gonna sit?????!!!!!???

Marlene Mckinnon: v bribed the receptionist obviously

Sirius Black: she will make sure that they sit second in the row between the hydrangeas and the window 

Remus Lupin: how can v hear them if v r outside??

Marlene Mckinnon: oh hush remus 

ever heard of privacy?

Remus Lupin: wtf do u think we r doing rn??!!?!??!?!!

Dorcas Meadowes: Making sure the date goes perfectly?

Sirius Black: thank u dorcas

Mary Macdonald: yeah!

exactly 

Remus Lupin: …………

i give up 

Peter Pettigrew: Just now?

Thought u gave up when Jamie successfully insulted Lily two yers back when in fact she was supposed to ask her out on a date :/

Sirius Black: that was a good laugh

___________

JILY LAMES TALK

(Friday 17:04)

Peter Pettigrew: Ok they’re sitting rn 

Dorcas Meadowes: Don’t they look cute together

Remus Lupin: do i hv to wear this silvery rocky suit?!??!

Sirius Black: yes

and yes they look perfect 

our ship is finally sailing 

Dorcas Meadowes: Is is is Jamie stuffing a breadstick in her nose

Peter Pettigrew: No I think she’s trying to look like a walrus

Remus Lupin: she does not need to embarrass herself more

Mary Macdonald: u really think this is anything compared to the time when she tripped over her cat and fell on lilys bday cake?

Sirius Black: lolol

the bruise she left him with lasted for two weeks

Dorcas Meadowes: I stg that woman has the best boxing skills

Marlene Mckinnon: dorcas!!!! not me????

im ur girlfriend!!!

Mary Macdonald: lolololol

she thought that jamie did it on purpose for years lol

Marlene McKinnon: and why tf is lily doing the same

i thought she had more sense than that

Remus Lupin: love can do that to you ya know

Sirius Black: u would know

Marlene McKinnon: ohhh look jamie snorted the breadstick out of her mouth!!

neat

Mary Macdonald: lily did it too

Mary Macdonald: i think she has enough sense to not offend lily 

Remus Lupin: ya think?

u want me to remind u about all the times she offended lily?

Peter Pettigrew: Yeah so much that she hated Jamie

Sirius Black: nah she didnt 

if anything lily hates how much she likes her now

Marlene Mckinnon: do u think theyll order soup?

Sirius Black: yeah ig

jamie wants it to be all fancy

Marlene McKinnon: pls dont order tomato soup

Mary Macdonald: it awfully looked a lot like the waiter said no tomato soup

Peter Pettigrew: Really? Lily hates tomatoes why would Jamie order em

Thought she wouldn’t today

At least

Sirius Black: thank hell jamie didnt order the tomato one

Dorcas Meadowes: Remember when Jamie made marinara for Lily to impress her lol

Remus Lupin: that plan backfired soo bad 

Marlene Mckinnon at least lilys prank to get back at her was awesome

Sirius Black: that was such a power move!!!

and including taylor’s song

shehgeueytoaknd

Remus Lupin: tho she coloured her cat the so called emerald green and not key lime green and v had to listen to her go on and on abt how lily knows her fav colour 

Mary Macdonald: jamie continued to think that it meant that she knew it for three months

:/

Dorcas Meadowes: As if u didnt like it

Mary Macdonald: lol i did love it

Peter Pettigrew: They are bonkers 

Dorcas Meadowes: Bonkers for each other

Sirius Black: lol

Dorcas Meadowes: Their soup’s here

Sirius Black: spinach soup???

ewww jamie 

Peter Pettigrew: Ahh creamy mushroom soup for Lil ig

Awesome choice 

Mary Macdonald: they really ought to try new things

smh

___________

JILY LAMES TALK

(Friday 17:16)

Remus Lupin: wh did u guys order?

we ordered a lasagna 

Marlene Mckinnon:?uhh same 

ohhh look 

Peter Pettigrew: The waiter’s back with pasta for both of them YAY

Do you guys think that they realised that we are spying on them??

Marlene Mckinnon: nah they’re hopeless Pete so no

Sirius Black: thank hell that they r cute

Remus Lupin: lol

Dorcas Meadowes: 3 yrs ago I wouldnt have thought that they would be here together on a date

Mary Macdonald: hell they woulnt have even been here as friends 

Remus Lupin: or come here with us

Marlene Mckinnon: lily didnt even kno that she is bi then

Dorcas Meadowes: Yeah

It was quite a rough time for her

Peter Pettigrew: Guyssss

I have a question 

Dorcas Meadowes: Shoot Pete 

Peter Pettigrew: Why is the group name curly squad?

I mean only Dorcas’s hair is curly I only gathered that much

Dorcas Meadowes: Lol no Pete

Sirius Black: LOLOLOL

Marlene Mckinnon: lolll 

Dorcas Meadowes Ohk so

None of us here are just straight so we’re curly lol 

Sirius Black: lil nd i r bi

u r ace

dorcas nd mary r pans

remus is gay

jamie is lesbian 

Marlene Mckinnon: i am bi too 

u already knew that but still

Sirius Black: so yeah thats why 

Peter Pettigrew: Oh wow

Ok

Thanks guys 

Sirius Black: np pete 

Peter Pettigrew: Jamie just leaned over to brush the remnants of pasta from lilys lips!!!!!!!!

Mary Macdonald: thats soo cute they r perfect

Sirius Black: nauseating more like

Dorcas Meadowes: I’m just revelling in the fact that she didnt brush him off

Marlene Mckinnon: thats second year of uni lily

even first fits in the category 

Peter Pettigrew: and she held her hand!!!!!

Bold

Sirius Black: is that…...snep

Remus Lupin: snep?????

Dorcas Meadowes: Where

Sirius Black: behind u guys

Remus Lupin: OHHHH FUCK

Mary Macdonald: do u think that he knows abt their date

Sirius Black: well jamie did post it on her insta so…….

Dorcas Meadowes: Oh shit

Peter Pettigrew: Shit alright

Marlene Mckinnon: hes coming over ig

Mary Macdonald: yup hes in

Sirius Black: WHYYYYYY MUST YOU DO THIS TO ME GOD

COULDNT YOU LET MY SHIP LIVE IN PEACE!!!!

Remus Lupin: well u know what they say abt cannons sinking a ship :/

Sirius Black: remus theodore lupin u dare say that jily lames is not cannon

Marlene Mckinnon: remus ralph lupin wtf

Dorcas Meadowes: Remy, how could you?

Peter Pettigrew: Why would you say that Remus?

Mary Macdonald: remus john lupin u take that back right this instant

oh we r playing call remus wrong names 

sry I didnt realise

 Remus Lupin: i am sry guys I ship jily as much as u do

Sirius Black: LAMES

Remus Lupin: but i had to lol

i think v should go stop him from disturbing them

Mary Macdonald: hes already headed their way

its too late

Marlene Mckinnon: i s2g i will punch snep today if he does anything to them

Sirius Black: ill tackle him 

Marlene McKinnon: perfect

Mary Macdonald: v might blow our cover too

not that im worried abt that

tho they might not appreciate the sentiment 

Sirius Black: v shld go

Dorcas Meadowes: I feel like they'll want to handle this themselves

But ok!

Mary Macdonald: ok he hates u and remus the most so dorcas and i should go first 

Sirius Black: but im their best friend

Dorcas Meadowes: Too late they’re already talking

Sirius Black: NOOOOOO

Remus Lupin: ig he just mentioned siris name

Sirius Black: seems that way

if he says anything abt jamie or reg i will lose it

Dorcas Meadowes: I think he’s berating lily for being out with jamie….

Mary Macdonald: ofc what else does the greasy slime ball know

Sirius Black: ok im gonna go

Peter Pettigrew: How to grease your hair 101??

Sirius Black: lol yes

Marlene Mckinnon: is he

is he pointing over to us

Mary Macdonald:k they r looking at us

Peter Pettigrew: Did Lily just call ur name out, guys?

Dorcas Meadowes: Mary, make sure Marls and Sirius don’t do anything stupid

_________

“Sirius, no!” Remus shouted, as the boy in question marched over to Jamie’s and Lily’s table. 

“Well, hello there snivellus. Looking positively greasy today aren’t we?” Sirius taunted. 

“What are you doing here Black?” Snape sneered. 

Sirius hummed before responding, “We just fancied a dinner here. What about you?”

“Looking for something to grease?” Marlene chimed. 

“Marlene,” Lily warned. 

“Thought I’d visit my friend Lily here. That’s all Black,” Snape answered. 

“More like crash her date,” Dorcas muttered, as she joined the group around Lily and Jamie’s table with Remus, Mary, and Peter.

“I am not your friend Snape.” Lily stood up, accompanied by Jamie.

“Lily!” The greasy haired man faced her pleadingly, “I care about you a lot. That’s why I’m telling you to not date Potter! Thinking that you’re bi may well just be a phase that’ll go away, Lily. Moreover, she doesn’t really care about you! She just thinks that you are some sort of prize to be won.” 

Jamie looked like she wanted to dislocate Snape’s jaw, her fists curled at her sides. But the warning glance Lily threw her, made her insides calm down 

“You know nothing about me Snape,” Lily said, with gritted teeth. “Now go away before I dislocate your nose.” Sirius whistled in support. 

“Lily, we’ve been best friends since we were ten. I know you, Lily. Please listen to me,”

“If you were my best friend you’d have supported me instead of behaving like an ignorant ass. Now please go away.”

“Lily, please.”

Barely a moment later, Lily’s fist connected with Snape’s nose. Blood leaked down his front, while the rest of the gang rushed to vocally support her. 

 “You’ll regret that Lily!” Snape glared threateningly. 

Before long, Sirius had tackled Snape to the ground, and accidentally splattered the lasagna the waiter was bringing over to their table, on Snape’s head. 

“I...“ Lily began.

“You can save your breath, Lils,” Sirius started, “he’s a harmless, entitled prick”

“Looks like you have a lot of grease to get rid of, Snep,” Marlene announced. 

“And Snep, pro tip: the only shampoo that keeps the grease at bay is the Sleakeasy shampoo. You should try it out!” Jamie, ever so helpful, advised, and moved to position her hand behind Lily’s back. 

“Sorry about that Sir, we’ll cover the charges for the ill-fated lasagna,” Sirius apologised to the waiter as he helped him up from the ground. 

“Could you please get him out of this shop? He’s been troubling us, as you can see,” Dorcas asked, politely. 

The waiter simply looked baffled. However, he nodded and successfully escorted Snape out of the restaurant. 

“Now this is going to be quite the first date story to tell at the wedding.” Peter spoke up for the first time since they gathered at the table between the hydrangeas and the windows. 

Jamie blushed and looked around, anywhere but at Lily, though her hand never left Lily’s back, while the redhead laughed at her.

“Well, since we’re all together, we can have dessert and you can continue spying on us while sitting at our table,” Lily said. “Nice ears you’ve got there, Sirius. Though I’d prefer Dorcas’s floppy hat.”

“Yeah! I personally love the whiskers, Pete. Seriously, Marlene? A gily suit? Inconspicuous much? And Remus, you have enough sense to stop them!” Jamie put on. 

Remus just shrugged, his big crescent shaped moon hat toppling Mary’s tree hat downwards. “Sorry,” he said, bending to pick it up. 

“Thanks,” she said, when he gave the hat to her, “why did we agree to wear these again?”

“So we would be incognito, Mary”

“And we were successful! These oblivious dorks didn’t even realise that it was us until old snivelly pointed it out,” Sirius stated.

“Also, we did have ice-cream before coming here, so you guys should continue, we’ll leave,” Dorcas said. 

“Hey! We didn’t get to eat that ice-cream! You and Remus took it from us,” Marlene reprimanded. 

“Yeah! So we’ll be staying here and you guys can shoo away,” Sirius included. 

“Well in that case you can all leave and get yourselves ice cream while Lily and I can finally enjoy our date,” Jamie, now pushing Sirius, and shoo-ing the others to the doors, said. 

“Say what you want Jamie, I am enjoying our date,” expressed Lily. 

“You are?” Jamie turned around, completely forgetting the others in the room. 

“Well, looks like they’re more nauseating and lame than before. Should we go?” Asked Marlene. 

“Nah. Let’s just sit outside and spy on them through the window,” Sirius smirked. 

[there-must-be-a-lock]

Daisies

Sam Winchester x Harry Styles

Word Count: ~1330

Warnings: All the fluff. Recreational drug use. Dean snark.

A/N: Rockstar AU, continued. You don’t really need to read Handshake to enjoy this, but it’s basically a follow-up. Pure silly fun. I blame it on @fookinghelljensensthighs​. 

Dean claps and whistles as Greta Van Fleet file offstage with one last wave. He doesn’t want the set to stop; it’s been a long time since he’s been able to hang out in the pit at a show with any sort of anonymity. 

He could’ve been watching from sidestage, up in the artists-only bleachers, but where’s the fun in that? 

Dean’s gotta hand it to the kid, the “disguises” he’d suggested are surprisingly effective. Dean feels utterly ridiculous with a bandanna over his mouth, like some sort of fuckin’ Old West bandit, but it did help with the dust all day, and between that and a low-angled hat, he hasn’t gotten more than a few double-takes. Harry, in his blue wig, massive sunglasses, and long skirt, didn’t draw so much as a second glance when they were walking around yesterday. Trust the former boy band member to know how to get around unnoticed. 

Speaking of, better get back to them before they decide to go on an adventure, or (worse) before the kid manages to talk Sammy into another fuckin’ genius idea like the Silly String Incident of 4am yesterday. It’s almost sunset; he’s pretty sure Harry turns into a pumpkin when you get him wet after dark. Something like that, anyway. 

About four months ago, this ostentatiously pretty dude showed up on the doorstep of the Winchesters’ Nashville house, toting a fucking Gucci overnight bag, and he just… stayed. It’s become normal to come downstairs for coffee and find an international pop star helping himself to Dean’s favorite cereal, absent-mindedly singing Prince songs while decked out in a silk kimono and a leather collar. Dean’s life is weird. 

Sammy’s been smiling a whole lot lately, though… the real, big, brilliant smiles that Dean didn’t see enough of, for a while. 

They had a few rough years, getting the band started; they’ve had their ups and downs, and sometimes Dean feels guilty for dragging Sam all around the country in a van when this music thing wasn’t really his dream to begin with. Then Dad died, and Dean might’ve been drinking too much, and Cas almost quit when they were recording the first album, and it was touch and go there, for a while. It felt like Sam grew up too fast. He grew up before he was ready, always trying to be the responsible one, the peacekeeper, always working so hard to live up to what he thought Dean expected of him. 

Anyway. Anything that makes Sam smile like that is fine in Dean’s book.

He makes his way past the VIP checkpoint and into artist camping, and he spots Harry and Sam from a distance. They’re right where he left them, thank fuck, sprawled out on a blanket under some trees in a relatively private clearing near the parked tour bus. 

Sam’s sprawled, at least. He’s lying back with his head on Harry’s lap, and… oh dear god he’s wearing a flower crown. Dean stops dead in his tracks, blinks, and rubs his eyes, as if that might change what he’s seeing. No such luck. 

It’s not some fuckin’ Coachella fake flower bullshit, either. Sam’s got an honest-to-fuck daisy chain around his head, and as Dean gets closer, he realizes Harry’s currently braiding more flowers into Sam’s hair. There’s a fuckin’ piece of grass in there, too. A florist just moved in and set up shop on his head.

“Hey, Timberlake,” Dean barks, trying to make his voice come out stern instead of soft and embarrassingly fond. 

Harry looks up as Dean approaches and declares lazily, “If it isn’t my favorite Dean-Bean.” 

“Did you pop down to Rivendell while I was out? Who’s the elf queen?” Dean snarks, and Sam finally tilts his head to look at Dean and give him a floppy-armed sort of wave and a goofy grin. 

“Dean! You’re back!” he says, with way more excitement than Dean thinks his ninety-minute absence really warranted. “Check out this sunset!” 

Dean glances up, to where the sky is just beginning to turn vaguely peach-ish, and looks back down at Sam, who’s now holding his own hands up in front of his face and examining them with a seriously enraptured stare. 

Harry, meanwhile, is looking up at Dean with the world’s most innocent, dimpled, picture-perfect, squeaky-clean, teen-mag grin, the grin that means he’d probably be in a lot of trouble right now if he wasn’t Harry fuckin’ Styles. Dean raises an eyebrow. The kid bats his goddamn eyelashes, like butter wouldn’t melt in his goddamn mouth. 

“I wasn’t even gone for two fuckin’ hours,” Dean grumbles. He sits down on the blanket next to them and looks down resignedly at his brother’s spaced-out grin. “What’d you do to him? Mushrooms again?” 

“What do I look like, some sort of drug pusher?” Harry says mournfully, managing to look wounded for exactly two seconds. 

Dean rolls his eyes. “No, you look like a stray teenybopper wearing his grandma’s clothes.” 

The impish smile returns with a vengeance. “Just a bit of LSD. D’you want some?” 

Dean sighs and looks down at his little brother. “How ya doin’, Sammy?” 

“Pretty fucking fantastic, actually,” Sam says, and then dissolves into laughter for no apparent reason, rubbing his cheek against Harry’s thigh (the paisley velvet pants he’s wearing do look pretty soft, to be fair) like some overgrown cat. 

Harry’s already pulling a bit of tinfoil out of the pocket of his cardigan and unfolding it. 

“I dunno, he’s never done this before, what if…” Dean hedges. 

Sam flails upright, refolding his long limbs to sit cross-legged, and reaches out to grab one of Dean’s hands with both of his. 

“Dean,” he says, painfully earnest, eyes huge and pleading. “Please do this with me? I’m having so much fun, and I want you to have so much fun. With me. Us. Fun. You know? I just want you to see how amazing these trees are right now!” 

“If you think those trees are cool, just you wait til we find some music,” Harry says, leaning in conspiratorially, draping himself over Sam’s back and clinging like a drunken octopus, as he tends to do. “Don’t worry, Dean-Bean, I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” 

The combined power of their dimples could probably melt steel beams, and that’s before you take into account the puppy-eyes. Dean just rolls his eyes and opens his mouth, and Harry cackles with slightly alarming glee as he places a tiny square of cardstock on the tip of Dean’s tongue. 

“Down the rabbit hole, I guess,” Dean says, smiling in spite of himself at the childish joy on Sam’s face. 

“Right,” Harry says decisively. “Time to gear up and find some fun.” He scrambles to his feet, pulling Sam up after him, and Dean follows. 

They only make it a couple steps before Sam side-swipes him into a gigantic bear hug. Dean returns it bemusedly at first, but after a second he relaxes into it, giving Sam a squeeze. 

“I love you, Dean,” Sam mumbles, and he’s doing that sincere thing again when he pulls back, his expression open and honest in a way that Dean knows shouldn’t make him quite so uncomfortable. 

“You’re on drugs and there’s a fuckin’ shrubbery in your hair, it’s real hard to take you seriously right now,” Dean grumbles, trying to ignore the lump in his throat. “But… I love you too.” 

Sam laughs and slings an arm around Harry’s shoulders, and the two of them start quoting the Knights of Ni at each other as they walk unsteadily down the path. Dean doesn’t mind that they’re a few steps ahead of him. It gives him a second to wipe his eyes. 

It’s still new, this version of Sammy, the one who hugs Dean for no reason and says “I love you” without thinking twice. He’s just been happier, these last four months. 

Dean thinks he could get used to seeing his brother smile like that. 

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More in this ‘verse over HERE! 

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[hlupdate]

Harry Styles isn’t exactly dressed down for lunch. He’s got a white floppy hat that Diana Ross might have won from Elton in a poker game at Cher’s mansion circa 1974, plus Gucci shades, a cashmere sweater, and blue denim bell-bottoms. His nail polish is pink and mint green. He’s also carrying his purse — no other word for it — a yellow patent-canvas bag with the logo “Chateau Marmont.” The tough old ladies who work at this Beverly Hills deli know him well. Gloria and Raisa dote on him, calling him “my love” and bringing him his usual tuna salad and iced coffee. He turns heads, to put it mildly, but nobody comes near because the waitresses hover around the booth protectively.

He was just a small-town English lad of 16 when he became his generation’s pop idol with One Direction. When the group went on hiatus, he struck out on his own with his brash 2017 solo debut, whose lead single was the magnificently over-the-top six-minute piano ballad “Sign of the Times.” Even people who missed out on One Direction were shocked to learn the truth: This pinup boy was a rock star at heart.

A quick highlight reel of Harry’s 2019 so far: He hosted the Met Gala with Lady Gaga, Serena Williams, Alessandro Michele, and Anna Wintour serving an eyebrow-raising black lace red-carpet look. He is the official face of a designer genderless fragrance, Gucci’s Mémoire d’une Odeur. When James Corden had an all-star dodgeball match on The Late Late Show, Harry got spiked by a hard serve from Michelle Obama, making him perhaps the first Englishman ever hit in the nads on TV by a First Lady.

Closer to his heart, he brought down the house at this year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony with his tribute to his friend and idol Stevie Nicks. “She’s always there for you,” Harry said in his speech. “She knows what you need: advice, a little wisdom, a blouse, a shawl.” He added, “She’s responsible for more running mascara — including my own — than all the bad dates in history.” (Backstage, Nicks accidentally referred to Harry’s former band as “’NSync.” Hey, a goddess can get away with that sort of thing.)

Harry has been the world’s It boy for nearly a decade now. The weirdest thing about him? He loves being this guy. In a style of fast-lane celebrity that takes a ruthless toll on the artist’s personality, creativity, sanity, Harry is almost freakishly at ease. He has managed to grow up in public with all his boyish enthusiasm intact, not to mention his manners. He’s dated a string of high-profile women — but he never gets caught uttering any of their names in public, much less shading any of them. Instead of going the usual superstar-pop route — en vogue producers, celebrity duets, glitzy club beats — he’s gone his own way, and gotten more popular than ever. He’s putting the finishing touches on his new album, full of the toughest, most soulful songs he’s written yet. As he explains, “It’s all about having sex and feeling sad.”

The Harry Charm is a force of nature, and it can be almost frightening to witness in action. The most startling example might be a backstage photo from February taken with one of his heroes, Van Morrison. You have never seen a Van picture like this one. He’s been posing for photos for 50 years, and he’s been refusing to crack a smile in nearly all of them. Until he met Harry — for some reason, Van beams like a giddy schoolgirl. What did Harry do to him? “I was tickling him behind his back,” Harry confides. “Somebody sent me that photo — I think his tour manager took it. When I saw it, I felt like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction opening the case with the gold light shining. I was like, ‘Fuck, maybe I shouldn’t show this to anyone.’”

In interviews, Harry has always tended to coast on that charm, simply because he can. In his teens, he was in public every minute and became adept at guarding every scrap of his privacy. But these days, he’s finding out he has things he wants to say. He’s more confident about thinking out loud and seeing what happens. “Looser” is how he puts it. “More open. I’m discovering how much better it makes me feel to be open with friends. Feeling that vulnerability, rather than holding everything in.”

Like a lot of people his age, he’s asking questions about culture, gender, identity, new ideas about masculinity and sexuality. “I feel pretty lucky to have a group of friends who are guys who would talk about their emotions and be really open,” he says. “My friend’s dad said to me, ‘You guys are so much better at it than we are. I never had friends I could really talk to. It’s good that you guys have each other because you talk about real shit. We just didn’t.’”

It’s changed how he approaches his songs. “For me, it doesn’t mean I’ll sit down and be like, ‘This is what I have for dinner, and this is where I eat every day, and this is what I do before I go to bed,’” he says. “But I will tell you that I can be really pathetic when I’m jealous. Feeling happier than I’ve ever been, sadder than I’ve ever been, feeling sorry for myself, being mad at myself, being petty and pitiful — it feels really different to share that.”

At times, Harry sounds like an ordinary 25-year-old figuring his shit out, which, of course, he is. (Harry and I got to know each other last year, when he got in touch after reading one of my books, though I’d already been writing about his music for years.) It’s strange to hear him talk about shedding his anxieties and doubts, since he’s always come across as one of the planet’s most confident people. “While I was in the band,” he says, “I was constantly scared I might sing a wrong note. I felt so much weight in terms of not getting things wrong. I remember when I signed my record deal and I asked my manager, ‘What happens if I get arrested? Does it mean the contract is null and void?’ Now, I feel like the fans have given me an environment to be myself and grow up and create this safe space to learn and make mistakes.”

We slip out the back and spend a Saturday afternoon cruising L.A. in his 1972 silver Jaguar E-type. The radio doesn’t work, so we just sing “Old Town Road.” He marvels, “‘Bull riding and boobies’ — that is potentially the greatest lyric in any song ever.” Harry used to be pop’s mystery boy, so diplomatic and tight-lipped. But as he opens up over time, telling his story, he reaches the point where he’s pitching possible headlines for this profile. His best: “Soup, Sex, and Sun Salutations.”

How did he get to this new place? As it turns out, the journey involves some heartbreak. Some guidance from David Bowie. Some Transcendental Meditation. And more than a handful of magic mushrooms. But mostly, it comes down to a curious kid who can’t decide whether to be the world’s most ardently adored pop star, or a freaky artiste. So he decides to be both.

Two things about English rock stars never change: They love Southern California, and they love cars. A few days after Harry proclaimed the genius of “Old Town Road,” we’re in a different ride — a Tesla — cruising the Pacific Coast Highway while Harry sings along to the radio. “Californiaaaaaa!” he yells from behind the wheel as we whip past Zuma Beach. “It sucks!” There’s a surprising number of couples along the beach who seem to be arguing. We speculate on which ones are breaking up and which are merely having the talk. “Ah, yes, the talk,” Harry says dreamily. “Ye olde chat.”

Harry is feeling the smooth Seventies yacht-rock grooves today, blasting Gerry Rafferty, Pablo Cruise, Hall and Oates. When I mention that Nina Simone once did a version of “Rich Girl,” he needs to hear it right away. He counters by blowing my mind with Donny Hathaway’s version of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy.”

Harry raves about a quintessential SoCal trip he just tried: a “cold sauna,” a process that involves getting locked in an ice chamber. His eyelashes froze. We stop for a smoothie (“It’s basically ice cream”) and his favorite pepper-intensive wheatgrass shot. It goes down like a dose of battery acid. “That’ll add years to your life,” he assures me.

We’re on our way to Shangri-La studios in Malibu, founded by the Band back in the 1970s, now owned by Rick Rubin. It’s where Harry made some of the upcoming album, and as we walk in, he grins at the memory. “Ah, yes,” he says. “Did a lot of mushrooms in here.”

Psychedelics have started to play a key role in his creative process. “We’d do mushrooms, lie down on the grass, and listen to Paul McCartney’s Ram in the sunshine,” he says. “We’d just turn the speakers into the yard.” The chocolate edibles were kept in the studio fridge, right next to the blender. “You’d hear the blender going, and think, ‘So we’re all having frozen margaritas at 10 a.m. this morning.’” He points to a corner: “This is where I was standing when we were doing mushrooms and I bit off the tip of my tongue. So I was trying to sing with all this blood gushing out of my mouth. So many fond memories, this place.”

It’s not mere rock-star debauchery — it’s emblematic of his new state of mind. You get the feeling this is why he enjoys studios so much. After so many years making One Direction albums while touring, always on the run, he finally gets to take his time and embrace the insanity of it all. “We were here for six weeks in Malibu, without going into the city,” he says. “People would bring their dogs and kids. We’d take a break to play cornhole tournaments. Family values!” But it’s also the place where he has proudly bled for his art. “Mushrooms and Blood. Now there’s an album title.”

Some of the engineers come over to catch up on gossip. Harry gestures out the window to the Pacific waves, where the occasional nude revelry might have happened, and where the occasional pair of pants got lost. “There was one night where we’d been partying a bit and ended up going down to the beach and I lost all my stuff, basically,” he says. “I lost all my clothes. I lost my wallet. Maybe a month later, somebody found my wallet and mailed it back, anonymously. I guess it just popped out of the sand. But what’s sad is, I lost my favorite mustard corduroy flares.” A moment of silence is held for the corduroy flares.

Recording in the studio today is Brockhampton, the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest boy band.” Harry says hi to all the Brockhampton guys, which takes a while since there seem to be a few dozen of them. “We’re together all the time,” one tells Harry out in the yard. “We see each other all day, every day.” He pauses. “You know how it is.”

Harry breaks into a dry grin. “Yes, I know how it is.”

One Direction made three of this century’s biggest and best pop albums in a rush — Midnight Memories, Four and Made in the A.M. Yet they cut those records on tour, ducking into the nearest studio when they had a day off. 1D were a unique mix of five different musical personalities: Harry, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik, and Liam Payne. But the pace took its toll. Malik quit in the middle of a tour, immediately after a show in Hong Kong. The band announced its hiatus in August 2015.

It’s traditional for boy-band singers, as they go solo and grow up, to renounce their pop past. Everybody remembers George Michael setting his leather jacket on fire, or Sting quitting the Police to make jazz records. This isn’t really Harry Styles’ mentality. “I know it’s the thing that always happens. When somebody gets out of a band, they go, ‘That wasn’t me. I was held back.’ But it was me. And I don’t feel like I was held back at all. It was so much fun. If I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t have done it. It’s not like I was tied to a radiator.”

Whenever Harry mentions One Direction — never by name, always “the band” or “the band I was in” — he uses the past tense. It is my unpleasant duty to ask: Does he see 1D as over? “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t think I’d ever say I’d never do it again, because I don’t feel that way. If there’s a time when we all really want to do it, that’s the only time for us to do it, because I don’t think it should be about anything else other than the fact that we’re all like, ‘Hey, this was really fun. We should do this again.’ But until that time, I feel like I’m really enjoying making music and experimenting. I enjoy making music this way too much to see myself doing a full switch, to go back and do that again. Because I also think if we went back to doing things the same way, it wouldn’t be the same, anyway.”

When the band stopped, did he take those friendships with him? “Yeah, I think so,” he says. “Definitely. Because above all else, we’re the people who went through that. We’re always going to have that, even if we’re not the closest. And the fact is, just because you’re in a band with someone doesn’t mean you have to be best friends. That’s not always how it works. Just because Fleetwood Mac fight, that doesn’t mean they’re not amazing. I think even in the disagreements, there’s always a mutual respect for each other — we did this really cool thing together, and we’ll always have that. It’s too important to me to ever be like, ‘Oh, that’s done.’ But if it happens, it will happen for the right reasons.”

If the intensity of the Harry fandom ever seems mysterious to you, there’s a live clip you might want to investigate, from the summer of 2018. Just search the phrase “Tina, she’s gay.” In San Jose, on one of the final nights of his tour, Harry spots a fan with a homemade sign: “I’m Gonna Come Out to My Parents Because of You!” He asks the fan her name (she says it’s Grace) and her mother’s name (Tina). He asks the audience for silence because he has an important announcement to make: “Tina! She’s gaaaaay!” Then he has the entire crowd say it together. Thousands of strangers start yelling “Tina, she’s gay,” and every one of them clearly means it — it’s a heavy moment, definitely not a sound you forget after you hear it. Then Harry sings “What Makes You Beautiful.” (Of course, the way things work now, the clip went viral within minutes. So did Grace’s photo of Tina giving a loving thumbs-up to her now-out teenage daughter. Grace and Tina attended Harry’s next show together.)

Harry likes to cultivate an aura of sexual ambiguity, as overt as the pink polish on his nails. He’s dated women throughout his life as a public figure, yet he has consistently refused to put any kind of label on his sexuality. On his first solo tour, he frequently waved the pride, bi, and trans flags, along with the Black Lives Matter flag. In Philly, he waved a rainbow flag he borrowed from a fan up front: “Make America Gay Again.” One of the live fan favorites: “Medicine,” a guitar jam that sounds a bit like the Grateful Dead circa Europe ’72, but with a flamboyantly pansexual hook: “The boys and girls are in/I mess around with them/And I’m OK with it.”

He’s always had a flair for flourishes like this, since the 1D days. An iconic clip from November 2014: Harry and Liam are on a U.K. chat show. The host asks the oldest boy-band fan-bait question in the book: What do they look for in a date? “Female,” Liam quips. “That’s a good trait.” Harry shrugs. “Not that important.” Liam is taken aback. The host is in shock. On tour in the U.S. that year, he wore a Michael Sam football jersey, in support of the first openly gay player drafted by an NFL team. He’s blown up previously unknown queer artists like King Princess and Muna.

What do those flags onstage mean to him? “I want to make people feel comfortable being whatever they want to be,” he says. “Maybe at a show you can have a moment of knowing that you’re not alone. I’m aware that as a white male, I don’t go through the same things as a lot of the people that come to the shows. I can’t claim that I know what it’s like, because I don’t. So I’m not trying to say, ‘I understand what it’s like.’ I’m just trying to make people feel included and seen.”

On tour, he had an End Gun Violence sticker on his guitar; he added a Black Lives Matter sticker, as well as the flag. “It’s not about me trying to champion the cause, because I’m not the person to do that,” he says. “It’s just about not ignoring it, I guess. I was a little nervous to do that because the last thing I wanted was for it to feel like I was saying, ‘Look at me! I’m the good guy!’ I didn’t want anyone who was really involved in the movement to think, ‘What the fuck do you know?’ But then when I did it, I realized people got it. Everyone in that room is on the same page and everyone knows what I stand for. I’m not saying I understand how it feels. I’m just trying to say, ‘I see you.’”

At one of his earliest solo shows, in Stockholm, he announced, “If you are black, if you are white, if you are gay, if you are straight, if you are transgender — whoever you are, whoever you want to be, I support you. I love every single one of you.” “It’s a room full of accepting people.… If you’re someone who feels like an outsider, you’re not always in a big crowd like that,” he says. “It’s not about, ‘Oh, I get what it’s like,’ because I don’t. For example, I go walking at night before bed most of the time. I was talking about that with a female friend and she said, ‘Do you feel safe doing that?’ And I do. But when I walk, I’m more aware that I feel OK to walk at night, and some of my friends wouldn’t. I’m not saying I know what it feels like to go through that. It’s just being aware.”

‘Man cannot live by coffee alone,” Harry says. “But he will give it a damn good try.” He sips his iced Americano — not his first today, or his last. He’s back behind the wheel, on a mission to yet another studio — but this time for actual work. Today it’s string overdubs. Harry is dressed in Gucci from head to toe, except for one item of clothing: a ratty Seventies rock T-shirt he proudly scavenged from a vintage shop. It says “Commander Quaalude.”

On the drive over, he puts on the jazz pianist Bill Evans — “Peace Piece,” from 1959, which is the wake-up tone on his phone. He just got into jazz during a long sojourn in Japan. He likes to find places to hide out and be anonymous: For his first album, he decamped to Jamaica. Over the past year, he spent months roaming Japan.

In February, he spent his 25th birthday sitting by himself in a Tokyo cafe, reading Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. “I love Murakami,” he says. “He’s one of my favorites. Reading didn’t really used to be my thing. I had such a short attention span. But I was dating someone who gave me some books; I felt like I had to read them because she’d think I was a dummy if I didn’t read them.”

A friend gave him Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. “It was the first book, maybe ever, where all I wanted to do all day was read this,” he says. “I had a very Murakami birthday because I ended up staying in Tokyo on my own. I had grilled fish and miso soup for breakfast, then I went to this cafe. I sat and drank tea and read for five hours.”

In the studio, he’s overseeing the string quartet. He has the engineers play T. Rex’s “Cosmic Dancer” for them, to illustrate the vibe he’s going for. You can see he enjoys being on this side of the glass, sitting at the Neve board, giving his instructions to the musicians. After a few run-throughs, he presses the intercom button to say, “Yeah, it’s pretty T. Rex. Best damn strings I ever heard.” He buzzes again to add, “And you’re all wonderful people.”

He’s curated his own weird enclave of kindred spirits to collaborate with, like producers Jeff Bhasker and Tyler Johnson. His guitarist Mitch Rowland was working at an L.A. pizza shop when Harry met him. They started writing songs for the debut; Rowland didn’t quit his job until two weeks into the sessions. One of his closest collaborators is also one of his best friends: Tom Hull, a.k.a. Kid Harpoon, a longtime cohort of Florence and the Machine. Hull is an effusive Brit with a heart-on-sleeve personality. Harry calls him “my emotional rock.” Hull calls him “Gary.”

Hull was the one who talked him into taking a course on Transcendental Meditation at David Lynch’s institute — beginning each day with 20 minutes of silence, which doesn’t always come naturally to either of them. “He’s got this wise-beyond-his-years timelessness about him,” Hull says. “That’s why he went on a whole emotional exploration with these songs.” He’s 12 years older, with a wife and kids in Scotland, and talks about Harry like an irreverent but doting big brother.

Last year, Harry was in the gossip columns dating the French model Camille Rowe; they split up last summer after a year together. “He went through this breakup that had a big impact on him,” Hull says. “I turned up on Day One in the studio, and I had these really nice slippers on. His ex-girlfriend that he was really cut up about, she gave them to me as a present — she bought slippers for my whole family. We’re still close friends with her. I thought, ‘I like these slippers. Can I wear them — is that weird?’

“So I turn up at Shangri-La the first day and literally within the first half-hour, he looks at me and says, ‘Where’d you get those slippers? They’re nice.’ I had to say, ‘Oh, um, your ex-girlfriend got them for me.’ He said, ‘Whaaaat? How could you wear those?’ He had a whole emotional journey about her, this whole relationship. But I kept saying, ‘The best way of dealing with it is to put it in these songs you’re writing.’”

True to his code of gallant discretion, Harry doesn’t say her name at any point. But he admits the songs are coming from personal heartbreak. “It’s not like I’ve ever sat and done an interview and said, ‘So I was in a relationship, and this is what happened,’” he says. “Because, for me, music is where I let that cross over. It’s the only place, strangely, where it feels right to let that cross over.”

The new songs are certainly charged with pain. “The stars didn’t align for them to be a forever thing,” Hull says. “But I told him that famous Iggy Pop quote where he says, ‘I only ever date women who are going to fuck me up, because that’s where the songs are.’ I said, ‘You’re 24, 25 years old, you’re in the eligible-bachelor category. Just date amazing women, or men, or whatever, who are going to fuck you up, and explore and have an adventure and let it affect you and write songs about it.’”

His band is full of indie rockers who’ve gotten swept up in Hurricane Harry. Before becoming his iconic drum goddess, Sarah Jones played in New Young Pony Club, a London band fondly remembered by a few dozen of us. Rowland and Jones barely knew anything about One Direction before they met Harry — the first time they heard “Story of My Life” was when he asked them to play it. Their conversation is full of references to Big Star or Guided by Voices or the Nils Lofgren guitar solo in Neil Young’s “Speakin’ Out.” This is a band full of shameless rock geeks, untainted by industry professionalism.

In the studio, while making the album, Harry kept watching a vintage Bowie clip on his phone — a late-Nineties TV interview I’d never seen. As he plays it for me, he recites along — he’s got the rap memorized. “Never play to the gallery,” Bowie advises. “Never work for other people in what you do.” For Harry, this was an inspiring pep talk — a reminder not to play it safe. As Bowie says, “If you feel safe in the area that you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you are capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”

He got so obsessive about Joni Mitchell and her 1971 classic Blue, he went on a quest. “I was in a big Joni hole,” he says. “I kept hearing the dulcimer all over Blue. So I tracked down the lady who built Joni’s dulcimers in the Sixties.” He found her living in Culver City. “She said, ‘Come and see me,’” Hull says. “We turn up at her house and he said, ‘How do you even play a dulcimer?’ She gave us a lesson. Then she got a bongo and we were all jamming with these big Cheshire Cat grins.” She built the dulcimer Harry plays on the new album. “Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison, those are my two favorites,” he says. “Blue and Astral Weeks are just the ultimate in terms of songwriting. Melody-wise, they’re in their own lane.”

He’s always been the type to go overboard with his fanboy enthusiasms, ever since he was a kid and got his mind blown by Pulp Fiction. “I watched it when I was probably too young,” he admits. “But when I was 13, I saved up money from my paper route to buy a ‘Bad Motherfucker’ wallet. Just a stupid white kid in the English countryside with that wallet.” While in Japan, he got obsessively into Paul McCartney and Wings, especially London Town and Back to the Egg. “In Tokyo I used to go to a vinyl bar, but the bartender didn’t have Wings records. So I brought him Back to the Egg. ‘Arrow Through Me,’ that was the song I had to hear every day when I was in Japan.”

He credits meditation for helping to loosen him up. “I was such a skeptic going in,” he says. “But I think meditation has helped with worrying about the future less, and the past less. I feel like I take a lot more in—things that used to pass by me because I was always rushing around. It’s part of being more open and talking with friends. It’s not always the easiest to go in a room and say, ‘I made a mistake and it made me feel like this, and then I cried a bunch.’ But that moment where you really let yourself be in that zone of being vulnerable, you reach this feeling of openness. That’s when you feel like, ‘Oh, I’m fucking living, man.’”

After quite a few hours of recording the string quartet, a bottle of Casamigos tequila is opened. Commander Quaalude pours the drinks, then decides what the song needs now is a gaggle of nonsingers bellowing the chorus. “Muppet vocals” is how he describes it. He drags everyone in sight to crowd around the mics. Between takes, he wanders over to the piano to play Harry Nilsson’s “Gotta Get Up.” One of the choir members, creative director Molly Hawkins, is the friend who gave him the Murakami novel. “I think every man should read Norwegian Wood,” she says. “Harry’s the only man I’ve given it to who actually read it.”

It’s been a hard day’s night in the studio, but after hours, everyone heads to a dive bar on the other side of town to see Rowland play a gig. He’s sitting in with a local bar band, playing bass. Harry drives around looking for the place, taking in the sights of downtown L.A. (“Only a city as narcissistic as L.A. would have a street called Los Angeles Street,” he says.) He strolls in and leans against the bar in the back of the room. It’s an older crowd, and nobody here has any clue who he is. He’s entirely comfortable lurking incognito in a dim gin joint. After the gig, as the band toasts with PBRs, an old guy in a ball cap strolls over and gives Rowland a proud bear hug. It’s his boss from the pizza shop.

In the wee hours, Harry drives down a deserted Sunset Boulevard, his favorite time of night to explore the city streets, arguing over which is the best Steely Dan album. He insists that Can’t Buy a Thrill is better than Countdown to Ecstasy (wrongly), and seals his case by turning it up and belting “Midnight Cruiser” with truly appalling gusto. Tonight Hollywood is full of bright lights, glitzy clubs, red carpets, but the prettiest pop star in town is behind the wheel, singing along with every note of the sax solo from “Dirty Work.”

A few days later, on the other side of the world: Harry’s pad in London is lavish, yet very much a young single dude’s lair. Over here: a wall-size framed Sex Pistols album cover. Over there: a vinyl copy of Stevie Nicks’ The Other Side of the Mirror, casually resting on the floor. He’s having a cup of tea with his mum, Anne, the spitting image of her son, all grace and poise. “We’re off to the pub,” he tells her. “We’re going to talk some shop.” She smiles sweetly. “Talk some shit, probably,” says Anne.

We head off to his local, sloshing through the rain. He’s wearing a Spice World hoodie and savoring the soggy London-osity of the day. “Ah, Londres!” he says grandly. “I missed this place.” He wants to sit at a table outside, even though it’s pouring, and we chat away the afternoon over a pot of mint tea and a massive plate of fish and chips. When I ask for toast, the waitress brings out a loaf of bread roughly the size of a wheelbarrow. “Welcome to England,” Harry says.

He’s always had a fervent female fandom, and, admirably, he’s never felt a need to pretend he doesn’t love it that way. “They’re the most honest — especially if you’re talking about teenage girls, but older as well,” he says. “They have that bullshit detector. You want honest people as your audience. We’re so past that dumb outdated narrative of ‘Oh, these people are girls, so they don’t know what they’re talking about.’ They’re the ones who know what they’re talking about. They’re the people who listen obsessively. They fucking own this shit. They’re running it.”

He doesn’t have the uptightness some people have about sexual politics, or about identifying as a feminist. “I think ultimately feminism is thinking that men and women should be equal, right? People think that if you say ‘I’m a feminist,’ it means you think men should burn in hell and women should trample on their necks. No, you think women should be equal. That doesn’t feel like a crazy thing to me. I grew up with my mum and my sister — when you grow up around women, your female influence is just bigger. Of course men and women should be equal. I don’t want a lot of credit for being a feminist. It’s pretty simple. I think the ideals of feminism are pretty straightforward.”

His audience has a reputation for ferocity, and the reputation is totally justified. At last summer’s show at Madison Square Garden, the floor was wobbling during “Kiwi” — I’ve been seeing shows there since the 1980s, but I’d never seen that happen before. (The only other time? His second night.) His bandmates admit they feared for their lives, but Harry relished it. “To me, the greatest thing about the tour was that the room became the show,” he says. “It’s not just me.” He sips his tea. “I’m just a boy, standing in front of a room, asking them to bear with him.”

That evening, Fleetwood Mac take the stage in London — a sold-out homecoming gig at Wembley Stadium, the last U.K. show of their tour. Needless to say, their most devoted fan is in the house. Harry has brought a date: his mother, her first Fleetwood Mac show. He’s also with his big sister Gemma, bandmates Rowland and Jones, a couple of friends.

He’s in hyperactive-host mode, buzzing around his cozy VIP box, making sure everyone’s champagne glass is topped off at all times. As soon as the show begins, Harry’s up on his feet, singing along (“Tell me, tell me liiiiies!”) and cracking jokes. You can tell he feels free — as if his radar is telling him there aren’t snoopers or paparazzi watching. (He’s correct. This is a rare public appearance where nobody spots him and no photos leak online.) It’s family night. His friend Mick Fleetwood wilds out on the drum solo. “Imagine being that cool,” Gemma says.

Midway through the show, Harry’s demeanor suddenly changes. He gets uncharacteristically solemn and quiet, sitting down by himself and focusing intently on the stage. It’s the first time all night he’s taken a seat. He’s in a different zone than he was in a few minutes ago. But he’s seen many Fleetwood Mac shows, and he knows where they are in the set. It’s time for “Landslide.” He sits with his chin in hand, his eyes zeroing in on Stevie Nicks. As usual, she introduces her most famous song with the story of how she wrote it when she was just a lass of 27.

But Stevie has something else she wants to share. She tells the stadium crowd, “I’d like to dedicate this to my little muse, Harry Styles, who brought his mother tonight. Her name is Anne. And I think you did a really good job raising Harry, Anne. Because he’s really a gentleman, sweet and talented, and, boy, that appeals to me. So all of you, this is for you.”

As Stevie starts to sing “Landslide” — “I’ve been afraid of changing, because I built my life around youuuu” — Anne walks over to where Harry sits. She crouches down behind him, reaches her arms around him tightly. Neither of them says a word. They listen together and hold each other close to the very end of the song. Everybody in Wembley is singing along with Stevie, but these two are in a world of their own.

[foreveralwaysanauthor]

oooh I’d definitely like to see mick and xander for the character sheet thing!

Alright! I’ll do Mick on this one and a separate one for Xander.

Dotted orange text is category

Numbered bold text is subcategory (ie. favorite food and favorite color under Favorites)

—————

Name: Makana Kaya Birch

From: Broken Record and Creating a Rift (my Teen Beach Movie fanfictions)

Age: 16 (Broken Record) and 18-19 (Creating a Rift

Appearance: Brown hair, just past shoulder blades. Brown eyes with a green ring. Wears mostly shorts and t-shirts in her world, but wears more dresses and play suits in Wet Side Story.

Preferences:

Sexuality: Straight

Favorites:

Food: Tacos

Color: Red

Animal: Octopus

Weather: Snowing. She visited New Hampshire with her parents for Christmas one year and fell in love with snow.

Season: Summer

Time of day: Afternoon/Evening

Music: Beach Boys

Foods they will/will not eat.

Will: Pretty much anything.

Won’t: Chili and yogurt. (Frozen yogurt is fine, just not regular yogurt)

Religion: The attend church, never said which. It’s up to the reader.

Political Beliefs: Independent. (She chooses whoever seems best, not by their status as either a Democrat or a Republican)

Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw

Personality: Empathic. Laid back to an extent, but mature enough to know when to be serious. She has a good head on her shoulders and has high hopes for attending a college in Florida, the other side of the country.

Family:

Parents: McKenzie Phoebe Birch, née Ellis, and Brady Aaron Birch

Any siblings? No.

Family life:

What was it like growing up? Pretty nice. Mack was the more serious one and Brady was the more laid back one. They evened each other out enough for Mick to have a simple, yet loving childhood.

Anything from childhood that affects them in their present state? Being taught to surf at only 3. Her great-grandfather (Mack’s grandfather) teaching her that communication is important in relationships. Her parents making her watch Wet Sode Story all the time and listen to their stories about being there.

Discipline as a child? If she got in trouble at school/at home she was kept from surfing, dancing and listening to music. If she got grounded for any reason, she was kept between home and school along with the aforementioned discipline. Getting low grades was never something Mick worried about, but her parents knew that if she got a grade lower than a C, she would get a tutor, but that was all.

Rich, poor or in between? In between. They weren’t rich rich, but they had enough to not worry about money much. Due to Mack being a professor and Brady creating new technology along with taking over the surf shop, they were well off.

Cultural history:

Any affects? Not really. She is French, Italian and a touch Scottish. Mack and Brady taught her that she was no different from anyone else and that skin color/cultures don’t mean you can treat/be treated by others differently.

Traditions? Visiting her Mom’s family back in New Hampshire every other Thanksgiving. They visit Australia to surf every year. Brady’s family will take the family for a vacation every once in a while.

Flaws

Overthinker. Mick takes things apart bit by bit until she’s come to her own conclusion, whether it be right or wrong.

Too straight forward. She has no filter to keep things from going directly from her mind to her mouth. Sometimes, she’ll catch herself, but other times, what she’s thinking will make it’s way out.

Over emotional. I think we’ve all seen her overreact to things like the whole journal thing and the idea that Butchy might drop her for someone better.

Wants

Attend a college.

Get married, maybe get a dog.

Visit England and maybe Japan.

Help her dad make new kinds of surfboards.

Needs

Family time.

Medication (EpiPen and inhaler).

Love, both familial and otherwise.

Pictures of cute animals.

Fears

Heights.

Alzheimer’s/Dimentia.

Losing the ability to surf.

Being strangled/attacked.

Losing her best friends/family/husband.

How do they handle:

Disappointment: If directed toward herself, she clams up and holds it against herself for a while. If directed towards others, she will make sure to say she’s disappointed, yet not make it a big deal after maybe a day or so.

Anger: Depending on the range, she can go from rolling her eyes and scoffing to full on assault mode where she can (and will) harm the person *cough* Xander *cough*

Embarrassment: Try to fight it and pretend her face isn’t a cherry look alike.

Betrayal: From a friend, probably alienate herself from them slowly until there isn’t any more contact between them. From others, most likely just say “why?” and try to move on.

Fight or flight: Depends, once again. In an attack, fight. In a situation she really doesn’t wanna be a part of, fly like a bird.

Money: Mick hates to spend money on herself. She likes to save her money and use it when necessary if it’s on herself. She’s all for spending on her friends, though, as long as it’s in reason.

Lack of sleep: Insert Red Bull and energy pills.

Alcohol: Hahahahaha! Fucking drunk off her ass. I could see her going through this, stage by stage, within maybe an hour of drinking:

Injustice: Try to find a way to make things right again. “There will always be a solution as long as we try hard enough.” -Mick from a future chapter...

Mental illness: She gets so frustrated about it, lemme tell you. When she got her memory back, a seed of fear planted itself in her that she may lose her mind someday. She’s not from the perfect world Butchy’s from, she’s scared of forgetting everything again.

Grief: Closing herself off so nobody can see her crying or worrying over existential fears.

Exercise: Other than dancing, surfing, and maybe riding her bicycle, she despises exercising. Her gym teacher in elementary school made them run laps on the track around the football field almost every class, so she developed a hatred of exercise. (My school had a mile long track around the field that our teacher forced us to do. Use that as a guide for how far the teacher made these 5-9 year old kids run)

Defining moment: You’ll see it soon, let’s just leave it at that.

How do they feel about:

Glitter: Every Halloween, Mick will run to the costume supply shop and stock up on all of the glitter they possess. Pressed glitter, yup. Little bottles that you’re supposed to put on as necklaces, you betcha! Glitter eyeliner, ooooh yeah! Glitter witch hats and sparkly crowns, she owns three of them already!

Ferris Wheels: HECK NO.

Camping: In a camper, yes. On the ground, no. Not with all the mosquitoes and other creepy crawlies lurking about. In other words, Mick is our average Glamper.

Coffee: Brown water with ground up beans? Yeah, no, she’ll pass.

Crispy or floppy bacon: Any bacon is good bacon. She likes it in the middle, but anyway is good, really.

Mushrooms: Allergic.

Twilight Saga: Sparkly boys and werewolves and a fucking creepy cgi baby and-, hold up, is that Jay? Like, Mal and Malina’s friend? Wtf??? 🤨🤨

Guns: Owns a mini gun for protection and shares custody of a shotgun with Butchy. Butchy taught her how to use them both properly in case of an emergency or if someone were to break in. She is a licensed owner and never has had to use them before. She believes that guns don’t kill people, the people holding them do.

Extras

Do they have a signature smile? Not really.

Do they have a tell when they lie? Fidgeting with fingernails or scratching her head.

Do they have any nervous ticks? Her fingers shake, she bites her lips/cheeks, and her legs bounce if she’s sitting at a table or something.

Do they speak loudly, softly, or average? Average, leaning more toward loud.

Quality of voice. Smooth, like a lake on a windless day. Her voice rises more toward the middle of her sentences, but can also fall into a deeper tone if she’s not really concentrating on her inflection. It’s almost like watching a pinball rise and fall throughout a game, never sure where it’ll go.

Do they gesture when talking? She’s French. Of course she talks with her hands. Perhaps she should take up sign language, that might help her to stop gesturing so loudly 😆

Do they understand personal space? Yes, very much so. She enjoys her personal space and grants that to other as well out of habit.

How do they greet others? Usually “Hey” “Hi” or “What’s up?”

How do they say goodbye? “See you later/around!”

Something they always have with/on them. The bracelet with Butchy’s initial that matches the one he has with her initial. Her engagement ring. The flower ring. Her lucky shell necklace with a heart bead dangling from the center.

Do they recognize people better by their face or their name? She’s terrible with both, to be honest. She knows the names of people, but can never decide if it’s them or not by looking at them.Reversely, if she were to recognize someone as familiar, she wouldn’t be able to place a name with them until they said who they were.

What do they admire most in others? Honesty. Fairness. Compassion. Love of animals. Love in general. Intellect.

Pet peeves. Silverware grinding on ceramic plates/bowls. Questionably sticky floors. Loud people when there’s no reason to be loud.

What grosses them out? The smell of sliced cheese with nothing else on/with it, the smell of peroxide/rubbing alcohol, moist objects, the smell of diesel radiating off of a truck.

[lgbtsheep]

my aj characters

buckle in pardners cause this is gonna be a looong ride

ya this is gonna be a really long post lol

i finally got a membership!!!!!! so i can make a post with all my characters!!!! which ive been wanting to do for AGES

i’ll put my Main Kids here and then put a read more for those who are interested!

so get ready folks because this is like a big dysfunctional family

MAIN KIDS

Meadow

the “main” boi, the face of the whole group

usually manages stuff like den stores and trading

genderfluid, will go by any pronouns

pansexual

very friendly and sociable! he’s the one you see and think “i should talk to them”

lives in peck’s den, but needs to redecorate it

he loves his bedroom, even if desert went a little crazy decorating it...

this is his pet, Mumbleimus:

he’s a star and he knows it

will probably strike a pose for u

gender roles whomst? he only knows fashion

occasionally makes bad puns

Desert

secret mira fanboy

kind of edgy

tries to act mean or secluded but he’s not really that mean

he/him but he isn’t totally a binary dude

his sexuality is a mystery to everybody, even himself

his bird tendencies are. through the roof. he is just. so very bird.

wants to become a therapist stationed in the basement of secrets

lives in peck’s den or the treehouse

he......... lov his bed................

this is his pet, Musicalfrost!

desert’s PRIDE AND JOY, he would kill for this little gal

punk rock

might try and attack you

mischievous

Atom

me, but cooler

Hip With the Kids™

they/them

bisexual

starts celebrating halloween in august

probably a demon

cryptid and space enthusiast

lives in any of the dens, but most primarily peck’s den and the enchanted hollow

what a nerd.

this is their pet, Oddpebble!

a little fucking rascal

very good at percussion (he has many hands)

definitely a demon

lovable weirdo

Magical

THE OG!!!

very first animal, ever

literally just me

he/they

pansexual

has anxiety issues

tries very hard

huge nerd

lives with greencloud in the default den, but is putting together another den to move into

one of the nonmember kiddos

goes on the land missions/adventures

they really like plants

this is his pet, Windowbee!

kind of creepy but aesthetically pleasing

a lot like onion from steven universe

those feathers he’s holding are what remains of his enemies

Magical loves him

that’s all the main kiddos! the rest are under the cut!

PRIMARY KIDS

Greencloud

was going to be a tertiary, but he complained so much he became a primary

the cooler Magical

probably cooler than you

also hip with the kids

unmedicated ADHD

he/they

bisexual

kind of annoying

acts like he isnt trying, but he really is

lives in the default den

this is his pet, Silverysky!

quiet, tiny punk

kind of shy

is actually pretty cool when you get to know him

Soft™

likes metal and screamo

Bean

kind of freaked out by all the other animals

lives in the default den, but is rarely ever seen there

quiet

always weirded out but tries to go along

he/they

heterosexual (or... attracted to women?? idk) aromantic

the other nonmember kiddo

never talks to anybody

this is his pet, Misscrystal!

the mom friend

all of the animals adore her

she loves u

Pear

a REAL PIRATE!!

goes on the water missions/adventures

adventurous

he/him

heterosexual

YARR

isnt lgbt but is a very enthusiastic ally

lowkey a softie

lives in either the treehouse, the lost ruins den, or the sky kingdom

this is his land pet, Microbook!

he’s very old and kind of kooky

has embraced the pirate aesthetic

wants to be a pirate just like his dad

gets very excited about adventures

loves adventuring w Pear

this is his ocean pet, Summershell!

he loves her to death

isn’t necessarily fond of the pirate aesthetic but doesn’t mind it

she especially loves when Pear gets excited about dressing her like a pirate and coos over her

loves attention

was the product of a crappy trade but Pear didn’t want to get rid of her

not as enthusiastic about being a pirate

Apple

an absolute ray of sunshine

very carefree and friendly

there’s a running gag between the animals about Apple and Pear being a duo called “the fruit bowl”

doesn’t talk very much but will make sure u know he loves u

he/they

asexual aromantic

lives in the lost ruins den, but they really need to decorate it

this is their pet, Uberimus!

he’s pretty spooky but actually very friendly

needs more friends. he scared all his old ones off

quiet

just wants to be loved

gets lots of cuddles from Apple

gentle

Rainy

avid australian

very adventurous

tomboy aesthetic

loves all the freaky animals out there. the more exotic, the better

wants one of those shows where they go to australia and do a lot of dangerous stuff with the wildlife

“that over there is the most venomous animal in the world!...”

“...I’m gonna poke it with a stick.”

she/they (usually they)

homosexual

lives in the treehouse

the only time they’d be seen without their aviator’s hat is if they were dead

Desert got to decorate the bedroom, and, uh... yeah.

this is her pet, Macroimus!

she would kill for this “dapper little fellow”

used to have a top hat and monocle

recently went into an anime phase

loves adventures

Rosy

loves pink

has a very masculine build that he is very happy with

loves flowers and cute things and everything girly

lives in peck’s den

he/him

sexuality? who has time for that? i only have time for fashion.

probably asexual homoromantic (but he’s never really looked into it)

total fashionista

fuck gender roles

luxury.

this is his pet, Toyturtle! (sorry for the bad picture oops)

very pampered

the sweetest little turtle

loves her little beetle friend

friendly but a little airheaded

Lilac

is an artist

a nervous nerd

likes anime

she/her

grey asexual panromantic

lives in the enchanted hollow

shy, but once you get to know her she never shuts up

this is her pet, Sircrystal!

narcissistic

very much like King George’s depiction from Hamilton the musical

probably plotting your murder

he is the best. everybody else in inferior.

thinks he’s an actual king, higher then the alphas

“i’ll kill your friends and family to remind you of my love”

possessive

materialist

Lilac is kind of terrified of him but she still loves him

Sunny

obsessed with nature

an actual child

impulsive

has to be closely monitored or else she’ll probably make stupid decisions

ridiculously friendly

a mildly annoying ray of sunshine

she/her

she’s a literal child she doesn’t know romance

the equivalent of like an 8 year old

lives in the mushroom hut with her brother (she needs to decorate it though!!)

this is her pet, Gummyturtle!

can kick ass

kind of like a tiny bodyguard for Sunny

loves being dressed up

essentially teaches Sunny how to take care of her and properly treat pets, since Sunny does behave much like a child

kawaii as fuck

big,, floppy ears,,,,,,,,

likes spicy food

from Japan

DJ Kawaiimoon

demands you call him by his full name while staring him in the eye

tsundere type

grumpy

secretly soft

likes screamo bands

he/him

bisexual but still figuring it out

the equivalent of 13 years old

Sunny’s brother

lives in the mushroom hut

relatively quiet, but usually complaining if he’s talking

this is his pet, Jellyninja!

DJ Kawaiimoon LOVES him

is like the only person DJ Kawaiimoon is nice to

friendly and boyish

really likes sweets

TERTIARY KIDS

Juniper

still figuring out what the hell her look is supposed to be

frenemies with Lilac

the bad kind of weaboo

pretty problematic

probably posts edgy things in hopes of getting attention

probably fetishizes “yaoi” (ew)

she/her

calls herself bisexual to look “cool” but is actually straight

lives in the enchanted hollow

this is her pet, Snowytitan!

smol

love-hate relationship with Juniper

quiet

absolutely loves everybody (except Juniper sometimes)

if you feed him he’ll keep you in his heart until he dies

quiet

River

is a witch

very very creepy

takes the hyena laughter trope to heart

freaks everybody out

not as mean or scary as everybody thinks she is

they’ll still hex your ass if you wrong them though

she/they

demisexual aromantic

lives in the sky kingdom

not many of the other animals understand her; only really Mellow, Atom, and Magical

this is her pet, Puppyfrost!

also very creepy

spooks everybody

probably posessed

River’s loyal assistant

quiet

can receive prophecies and communicate with spirits

Mellow

blind

mute

just trying to get by

nonchalant and just sort of accepts all the weird shit that happens with the group

mildly edgy

he/him

bisexual demiromantic (has a preference for dudes)

lives in the volcano den

gets along with Bean

sometimes helps River with their magic

this is his pet, Mirrorfrost!

he adores her

sometimes mischievous

quiet and very intelligent

from China

DJ

is a dj

“yooooo that’s radical dude!”

surfer dude personality

very leisurely and kind of lazy

he/him

bisexual, but the type of person you wouldn’t expect to be lgbt

lives in the volcano den and needs to decorate it

very friendly

this is his pet, Zippynote!

DJ thinks he’s such a weird little fellow

and he is

very quiet

kind of just there?

relatively friendly

Quill

moved from India

think’s he’s the “chosen one” picked by Zios to defend Jamaa

wants to be part of “the fruit bowl”

self-proclaimed air-bender

he/him

heterosexual

lives in the sky kingdom

doesn’t really know anybody

heavy accent

this is his pet, Starrymantis!

he ADORES her. he thinks she is the absolute most adorable thing

he still needs to dress her up though

very sweet and friendly

loves cuddles

Mister Wonkybuddy

literally just. a dad. he is dad

he/him

heterosexual

lives in the volcano den to “keep track of those rascal teenagers”

really likes mythologies

used to be an adventurer and even got to meet sir gilbert

this is his pet, Gummypeach!

quiet and kind of creepy

it’s probably just because of his outfit though

Mister dressed him up when he was really absorbed in a book on Egyptian mythology

loves his dad and Mister loves him

Peach

the newest member to the family!

like, she is BRAND SPANKIN NEW. she doesn’t even have a pet

soft pastel nature aesthetic

clumsy due to her masculine frame

socially awkward

autistic

she/her

heterosexual (shes been experimenting with girls though)

lives in the treehouse

WHEW THATS ALL OF THEM!!!

i really hope you love my kids as much as i do!!!! if you like them please reblog them!! i’ve put so much energy into these kiddos. my children. i love them

if you’ve made it this far, holy shit thanks this took me a really long time to put together

bye!!

[kaaramel]

I know you're getting a lot of these but if you could post wolfgangs gorge lines I'd be eternally grateful

of course! 

QUAGMIRE_ONION = "Wolfgang eats like apple when not cooking."

Oh My God

QUAGMIRE_POT = "Wolfgang brought most important ingredient: love."QUAGMIRE_POT_SMALL = "Friends, do not look! Pot needs to boil."

good

--QUAGMIRE_FOOD_SOUP = "Is like Wolfgang Mommy used to make."QUAGMIRE_CASSEROLEDISH = "Is shame Wolfgang forget cabbage casserole recipe."

full: 

QUAGMIRE_WRONGKEY = "Is wrong key.",ACTIVATE = {LOCKED_GATE = "Let Wolfgang in!",FOODFULL = "It must enjoy first yummy food from Wolfgang first!",NOTDISH = "Wolfgang serves only best dishes!",INUSE = "Wolfgang will wait for friend to finish.",REPLATE =MISMATCH = "Food need different dish.",SAMEDISH = "Wolfgang already put on dish.",QUAGMIRE_ANNOUNCE_NOTRECIPE = "That was not good recipe!",QUAGMIRE_ANNOUNCE_MEALBURNT = "Little meal cooked too long.",QUAGMIRE_ANNOUNCE_LOSE = "Sky beast is mad!",QUAGMIRE_ANNOUNCE_WIN = "Is time to leave. Goodbye, good food!",QUAGMIRE_ALTAR =GENERIC = "Little stone. Wolfgang will cook for you.",FULL = "Enjoy hearty meal from Wolfgang!",QUAGMIRE_ALTAR_STATUE1 = "Nice stone lady.",QUAGMIRE_PARK_FOUNTAIN = "There is no water for little birdies.",QUAGMIRE_HOE = "Wolfgang must do farmwork for tastiest veggies.",QUAGMIRE_TURNIP = "I will use in many dishes! Yes!",QUAGMIRE_TURNIP_COOKED = "Smell is very good.",QUAGMIRE_TURNIP_SEEDS = "Is little tiny seeds for burying.",QUAGMIRE_GARLIC = "Is good flavor for stewing.",QUAGMIRE_GARLIC_COOKED = "Flavor is good now.",QUAGMIRE_GARLIC_SEEDS = "Is little tiny seeds for burying.",QUAGMIRE_ONION = "Wolfgang eats like apple when not cooking.",QUAGMIRE_ONION_COOKED = "Crispy, brown, sweet.",QUAGMIRE_ONION_SEEDS = "Is little tiny seeds for burying.",QUAGMIRE_POTATO = "Wolfgang's favorite veggie.",QUAGMIRE_POTATO_COOKED = "Is golden brown! Texture like sun!",QUAGMIRE_POTATO_SEEDS = "Is little tiny seeds for burying.",QUAGMIRE_TOMATO = "Is good for sauce makings.",QUAGMIRE_TOMATO_COOKED = "Roasty and toasty.",QUAGMIRE_TOMATO_SEEDS = "Is little tiny seeds for burying.",QUAGMIRE_FLOUR = "Is for dough and many good noodles.",QUAGMIRE_WHEAT = "Flour! Wolfgang will grind with bare hands!",QUAGMIRE_WHEAT_SEEDS = "Is little tiny seeds for burying.",--NOTE: raw/cooked carrot uses regular carrot stringsQUAGMIRE_CARROT_SEEDS = "Is little tiny seeds for burying.",QUAGMIRE_ROTTEN_CROP = "Ground turned veggie to gunk.",QUAGMIRE_SALMON = "Is floppy, floppy fish.",QUAGMIRE_SALMON_COOKED = "Fish is cooked now.",QUAGMIRE_CRABMEAT = "Is meat of tiny pincher.",QUAGMIRE_CRABMEAT_COOKED = "Yummy, yummy pincher.",QUAGMIRE_POT = "Wolfgang brought most important ingredient: love.",QUAGMIRE_POT_SMALL = "Friends, do not look! Pot needs to boil.",QUAGMIRE_POT_HANGER_ITEM = "Makes pot hang above fire.",QUAGMIRE_OVEN_ITEM = "Is fire box bits.",QUAGMIRE_OVEN = "Friends! Wolfgang will cook for you!"QUAGMIRE_SUGARWOODTREE =GENERIC = "Is little tree of yummy goop.",STUMP = "Tree has been cut down!",TAPPED_EMPTY = "Little bucket needs to fill up.",TAPPED_READY = "Little bucket is full!",TAPPED_BUGS = "Wolfgang will crush tiny creatures.",WOUNDED = "Little tree has boo-boo.",QUAGMIRE_SPOTSPICE_SHRUB =GENERIC = "Is little shrub for eating.",PICKED = "We took the food bits.",QUAGMIRE_SPOTSPICE_SPRIG = "Is nice little garnish.",QUAGMIRE_SPOTSPICE_GROUND = "Wolfgang will cook delicious things.",QUAGMIRE_SAPBUCKET = "Is for get yummy tree goop.",QUAGMIRE_SAP = "Is yummy tree goop!",QUAGMIRE_SALT_RACK =READY = "Is ready!",GENERIC = "Is not ready yet.",QUAGMIRE_SALT_RACK_ITEM = "Mighty hands make quick work.",QUAGMIRE_SAFE =GENERIC = "What is inside?",LOCKED = "Punches do nothing.",QUAGMIRE_KEY = "Wolfgang have key to treasure.",QUAGMIRE_KEY_PARK = "Haha! Wolfgang open gate now!",QUAGMIRE_PORTAL_KEY = "Is heavy key but Wolfgang strong!",QUAGMIRE_MUSHROOMSTUMP =GENERIC = "Wolfgang could use in soups.",PICKED = "No more for Wolfgang.",QUAGMIRE_MUSHROOMS = "Mushrooms need cooking!",QUAGMIRE_MEALINGSTONE = "We must grind grain for bread!",QUAGMIRE_PEBBLECRAB = "Hello, itty bitty pincher!",QUAGMIRE_POND_SALT = "Is tiny ocean.",QUAGMIRE_RUBBLE_CARRIAGE = "Is not work.",QUAGMIRE_RUBBLE_CLOCK = "Wolfgang cannot tell time.",QUAGMIRE_RUBBLE_CATHEDRAL = "Someone is smashed it.",QUAGMIRE_RUBBLE_PUBDOOR = "Is not going nowhere.",QUAGMIRE_RUBBLE_ROOF = "Wolfgang lift it, then Wolfgang have roof over head.",QUAGMIRE_RUBBLE_CLOCKTOWER = "Is working? No is not working.",QUAGMIRE_RUBBLE_BIKE = "Is busted.",QUAGMIRE_RUBBLE_HOUSE = {"Is no one here.", "Someone crushed homes.", "Must have made something angry.",},QUAGMIRE_RUBBLE_CHIMNEY = "Wolfgang will punch whatever did this.",QUAGMIRE_RUBBLE_CHIMNEY2 = "Wolfgang not do this. But Wolfgang could.",QUAGMIRE_MERMHOUSE = "That house is for smelly fish men.",QUAGMIRE_SWAMPIG_HOUSE = "Wimpy house for hairy pigs.",QUAGMIRE_SWAMPIG_HOUSE_RUBBLE = "Little house is ruined.",QUAGMIRE_SWAMPIGELDER =GENERIC = "He seems like good fellow!",SLEEPING = "Gone beddy-bye.",QUAGMIRE_SWAMPIG = "Is big teeth you have!",QUAGMIRE_PORTAL = "It did not go home. Is no surprise.",QUAGMIRE_SALTROCK = "Wolfgang will crush bits into salt shaker.",QUAGMIRE_SALT = "Is make food taste good.",QUAGMIRE_FOOD_BURNT = "Is sad sight.",--QUAGMIRE_FOOD_PLATE = "Plating is best part!",--QUAGMIRE_FOOD_BOWL = "Is hat? Nope.",--QUAGMIRE_FOOD_SOUP = "Is like Wolfgang Mommy used to make.",--QUAGMIRE_FOOD_SNACK = "Is tiny bit of food.",--QUAGMIRE_FOOD_BREAD = "Is keeping Wolfgang going.",--QUAGMIRE_FOOD_PASTA = "Is full of wheaty things.",--QUAGMIRE_FOOD_VEGGIE = "Wolfgang always eat his vegetables.",--QUAGMIRE_FOOD_MEAT = "Meat! Wolfgang like.",--QUAGMIRE_FOOD_FISH = "Is meal with floppy fishies.",--QUAGMIRE_FOOD_CRAB = "Is make Wolfgang big and strong!",--QUAGMIRE_FOOD_CHEESE = "Gooey parts is good.",--QUAGMIRE_FOOD_SWEET = "Wolfgang save room for dessert.",QUAGMIRE_FOOD =GENERIC = "Wolfgang will feed big sky beast!",MISMATCH = "Is not what sky beast wants.",MATCH = "Is good for sky beast.",MATCH_BUT_SNACK = "Is tiny food, but good for sky beast.",QUAGMIRE_FERN = "Is tiny leaf plant.",QUAGMIRE_FOLIAGE_COOKED = "Is garnish now.",QUAGMIRE_COIN1 = "Goat lady and fish men would like.",QUAGMIRE_COIN2 = "Goat lady and fish men would like.",QUAGMIRE_COIN3 = "Goat lady and fish men would like.",QUAGMIRE_COIN4 = "Sky beast liked Wolfgang's cookings!",QUAGMIRE_GOATMILK = "Maybe goat lady got from hair cows?",QUAGMIRE_SYRUP = "Yummy sugar goop!",QUAGMIRE_SAP_SPOILED = "Wolfgang cannot cook with yuck sludge.",QUAGMIRE_SEEDPACKET = "Give your seeds to Wolfgang, tiny paper!",--QUAGMIRE_SEEDPACKET_SMALL = "Give your seeds to Wolfgang, tiny paper!",--QUAGMIRE_SEEDPACKET_MEDIUM = "Give your seeds to Wolfgang, tiny paper!",--QUAGMIRE_SEEDPACKET_LARGE = "Give your seeds to Wolfgang, tiny paper!",--QUAGMIRE_SEEDPACKET_MIX_SMALL = "Give your seeds to Wolfgang, tiny paper!",--QUAGMIRE_SEEDPACKET_MIX_MEDIUM = "Give your seeds to Wolfgang, tiny paper!",--QUAGMIRE_SEEDPACKET_MIX_LARGE = "Give your seeds to Wolfgang, tiny paper!",QUAGMIRE_POT = "Wolfgang put this over fire.",QUAGMIRE_POT_SYRUP = "Wolfgang put in sugar goop. New sugar goop come out.",QUAGMIRE_POT_HANGER = "Wolfgang hang things over fire.",QUAGMIRE_POT_HANGER_ITEM = "Is make pot hang over fire.",QUAGMIRE_GRILL = "Is put fire to food.",QUAGMIRE_GRILL_ITEM = "Where will Wolfgang put this?",QUAGMIRE_GRILL_SMALL = "Is put fire on tiny food.",QUAGMIRE_GRILL_SMALL_ITEM = "Wolfgang needs put this down some place.",QUAGMIRE_CASSEROLEDISH = "Is shame Wolfgang forget cabbage casserole recipe.",QUAGMIRE_CASSEROLEDISH_SMALL = "Is making of small foods.",QUAGMIRE_PLATE_SILVER = "Is for fancy eating.",QUAGMIRE_BOWL_SILVER = "Is for fancy eating.",QUAGMIRE_MERM_CART1 = "Wolfgang could lift it.", --sammy's wagonQUAGMIRE_MERM_CART2 = "Wolfgang could lift it.", --pipton's cartQUAGMIRE_PARK_ANGEL = "Is scary.",QUAGMIRE_PARK_ANGEL2 = "Wolfgang don't like.",QUAGMIRE_PARK_URN = "Is burned dead person pieces.",QUAGMIRE_PARK_OBELISK = "Wolfgang could lift it.",QUAGMIRE_PARK_GATE =GENERIC = "What nice things is in pink park?",LOCKED = "Is needing key.",QUAGMIRE_PARKSPIKE = "Is pointy spiky thing.",QUAGMIRE_CRABTRAP = "Is for catching tiny pinchers.",QUAGMIRE_TRADER_MERM = "Is having things for Wolfgang?",QUAGMIRE_TRADER_MERM2 = "Is having things for Wolfgang?",QUAGMIRE_GOATMUM = "Is fluffy goat lady!",QUAGMIRE_GOATKID = "You grow up strong like Wolfgang, yes?",QUAGMIRE_PIGEON =DEAD = "Is dead.",GENERIC = "Silly bird does not matter to Wolfgang.",QUAGMIRE_LAMP_POST = "Wolfgang loves lamp.",QUAGMIRE_BEEFALO = "Is old.",QUAGMIRE_SLAUGHTERTOOL = "Wolfgang use to kill things.",QUAGMIRE_SAPLING = "Is broken.",QUAGMIRE_BERRYBUSH = "Is all gone.",QUAGMIRE_ALTAR_STATUE2 = "Is silly statue. Wolfgang not afraid.",QUAGMIRE_ALTAR_QUEEN = "Is big lady.",QUAGMIRE_ALTAR_BOLLARD = "Is post.",QUAGMIRE_ALTAR_IVY = "Is plant.",QUAGMIRE_LAMP_SHORT = "Wolfgang loves lamp.",

[angryrabbit42]

Muddy Prints

(Written for my friend Amy B. The character names are her irl children and dogs. She asked me to write a fun story including her dogs and this is the fun result. - K)

“Lash is out,” Ralph whispered, giving his sister, Charlotte a poke. “Wake up Char, c’mon.”

The sky outside the window was silvery gray. Morning was still a long way off and Lash was out. The Siberian husky had a habit of getting into trouble if Gomez, their golden wasn’t there to watch him. Ralph shook his sister again. This time she grumbled a bit before opening her eyes.

“S’morning?” she asked, rubbing at her eyes.

“No, Lash is out,” Ralph repeated. “C’mon. We gotta go get him.”

Charlotte tossed her covers off and slipped into her trainers. Ralph was in PJs, so she didn’t bother with clothes except for her jacket and her tiara. It was sparkly with a pink boa around it and she was convinced it was lucky. Besides, a princess would never be caught out of bed without hers. She pulled the covers farther back to reveal Gomez.

“Wake up, Gomez. We have to go out,” Charlotte told the dog.

Gomez got up and beat both children out of the room. Ralph stuffed a tiny Charmander into his pocket for luck and followed his royal sister. The house was silent except for children and dog out of bed but still, they kept quiet. It would go better for everyone if they caught Lash themselves and got everyone back into bed before breakfast.

Slipping out the back door, they stood and stared at the thick mist creeping up over everything. The trees seemed haunted, the slide seemed even more haunted and worse, there was no sign of Lash. Ralph whistled. Gomez’s floppy ears perked up but there was no answer from the husky.

“C’mon Char, he can’t have got far,” he whispered.

Charlotte adjusted her tiara to give herself a moment to think. “Wait Ralph, Gomez can find Lash. He’s a good tracker. Right?”

Gomez sneezed.

“See? He says he can,” Charlotte insisted.

Ralph started walking. “We don’t have time to mess around.”

Charlotte knelt down next to Gomez. “You are a big, good dog and you can find Lash, can’t you?”

Gomez huffed in her direction. Charlotte pet his head. Ralph rolled his eyes as the big dog sat down. Charlotte gently took hold of Gomez’s ears to get his attention. “There’s a treat in it for you.”

Gomez didn’t budge.

“Okay, two but that’s all I’ve got in my pockets,” Charlotte said, standing up.

Gomez sniffed the air before taking off down the road. The look Charlotte gave Ralph was very annoying. But he followed his sister as she took off running after Gomez. The air smelled wet like rain was coming but Ralph thought it felt too still. He couldn’t hear a single thing rustling. All the animals were asleep still, or gone. He put on a burst of speed to keep up. There was no way he wanted to get left behind when everything was so eerie.

Gomez didn’t stop at the edge of their property but dove headlong into the trees. Charlotte had grabbed his tail to keep him from getting too far ahead. The dog took this with a limited amount of dignity, occasionally stopping to give the human puppy an annoyed eye roll. Charlotte would roll her eyes back and he would be off again.

“We can’t go too far,” Ralph said.

“Can too, if Gomez says so,” Charlotte replied. “We’re already in trouble.”

“What’s a little more?” Ralph replied, snorting as his sister shrugged.

Gomez stopped. He stood stock still and the twilight bleached the yellow out of his coat, making him look for an instant like a stone statue. He stood before a circle of mushrooms, tail low and straight. Ralph pulled Charlotte back before she entered the ring. In the center of it were two large pawprints. Ralph pulled Charlotte back to see where the pawprints entered the circle.

“Lash went that way,” Charlotte said, pointing to the opposite side of the ring.

Ralph shook his head. “No Char, Lash went in this way, but he didn’t come out the other side. There’d be more prints.”

“Dogs don’t just disappear Ralph,” she said and moved forward.

Gomez growled and Charlotte turned to comfort the big dog. Ralph examined the ring from all angles. It was wide enough for a bunch of people to have a picnic inside. It smelled like mushrooms and wet grass. Gomez growled when he touched a mushroom, warning him away.

“Lash is in there,” he told his sister and dog. “It’s a fairy ring.”

Fairies are nice,” Charlotte said. “Like Tinkerbell.”

“Right, are you sure?” Ralph asked Char because he wasn’t convinced.

“Mm-hmm,” she said, bobbing her head. “‘Sides, I’m a princess. They especially like princesses.”

Ralph didn’t know anything about fairies. He liked nice normal things like numbers and video games. Charlotte was good with animals and fairies were a sort of animal. Plus, he trusted Charlotte.  “Okay, but we go together. Hold hands.”

Gomez disagreed. Rumbling, he wouldn’t move, going so far as to sit flat, facing home. Charlotte took Ralph’s hand and led them into the center of the ring. At first, they just stood in the center of the grass but the air shimmered and Lash appeared. Lash barked and crashed into them, knocking them to the grass.

“Down boy!” Charlotte exclaimed while high voices giggled around them.

Ralph got Lash to sit and spotted a boy with dragonfly wings sitting around the dog’s neck. The boy has pointed ears, bright green eyes and wore a pair of jeans and a Minecraft Tee. He also had a tiny gold crown on his head. In the air around them, more fairies were fluttering around the circle. They were all colors and wore normal people clothes.

Charlotte was mesmerized. “Wow!”

“Dance! Play,” a girl fairy commanded.

The circle expanded and they couldn’t see poor Gomez in the grass anymore. Instead, they spotted a square for dancing next to a horseshoe pit. Beyond the pit was a fire where several strange creatures with hooves for feet were roasting marshmallows on sticks. Ralph saw groups of fairies carrying large hoops and dipping them into soap to create giant bubbles.

“Look! That’s why Lash ran in here! Silly dog can’t resist bubbles!” Charlotte squealed as Lash jumped and popped bubbles.

Gales of laughter escaped the fairies. Charlotte jumped and popped a few herself as Ralph watched nervously. This was cool but if they couldn’t see the ring any longer, how could they get back to Gomez? How would they get back home?

“All dance and play to honor the king!” the girl fairy commanded.

A ball landed in his arms. It was small but the right size for kicking, so he kicked it back to a group of tiny gnomes in red or green hats. They beckoned him over. Not wanting to be rude and seeing the girl fairy still hovering, he joined the game.

They played for hours. Charlotte found herself and Lash draped in flower crowns while Ralph was shown how to play ten pins. Fairies were good fun and had loads of sweets on offer. Charlotte ate a fluffy frosted purple cake. Ralph stuck to the weird sour hard candies and Lash ate whatever no one else wanted.

Breathing heavy after another round of horseshoes, the kids sat on the grass and grinned at each other. Fairies started curling up in balls around them. Some snored softly while others quietly talked to one another while drinking dandelion tea. It was clear that the party was coming to an end.

The boy in the crown bowed low before Charlotte. “Your majesty,” he said, “you have honored me. But the party has ended.” He winked. “I love a princess at my parties.”

“Your majesty,” Charlotte said and bowed low. She kicked Ralph in the shins until he bowed too.

The king grinned and disappeared.

The girl fairy who had commanded them to play appeared. Her long pink hair floated in the breeze her glittery dragonfly wings made as she hovered near them. She smiled brightly. With a bow, she waved a wand around the circle. They blinked and spotted Gomez, still sulking in the tall grass.

Lash barked. Gomez flicked an ear. Lash barked again. Gomez hopped up and spun to see the two children and the Siberian Husky. He huffed very disapprovingly at them. Lash licked his ear and set off toward home, not worried at all about the trouble he had caused.

Gomez, with a dignified sniff, herded the children back down the path where the mist was lifting. Charlotte looked at the sky. “How long were we gone, Ralph?”

“Hours,” he replied.

“Still dark,” Charlotte whispered back.

They reached the house and the lights weren’t on. Lash was by the back door, waiting with bright, knowing eyes.

“Could be the next day?” Ralph wondered.

“Mom would have called the police,” Charlotte argued.

“Yeah,” Ralph agreed. “Should we tell them?”

Charlotte grinned at her brother. “No.” To Lash, she said, “Thanks for letting us meet your friends.”

With an eye roll, Lash went inside. Gomez did not follow. He did block the kids way back inside. Charlotte tried to go around the dog but he wouldn’t budge.

“Move! We can’t get in trouble now!” Charlotte growled.

Gomez growled back and nosed her pockets.

“You owe him two treats,” Ralph reminded her.

“He’s going to get us in trouble,” Charlotte replied.

“Not if you feed him,” Ralph said.

“Oh, alright,” Charlotte agreed. “I did promise.”

She handed the dog the treats and he inhaled them before Lash could turn up. Dropping his jaw in a doggy smile, he let the human puppies return to their beds. He joined Charlotte under the covers.

In the morning, they got grounded. Muddy footprints had given them away and parents don’t believe in fairies.

The End.

(if you like this, consider supporting me so I can write more  ko-fi.com/fuzzym)

[lovelornrocketscientist]

Alphabet Meme

IT’S HARDER THAN YOU THINK. NO USING GOOGLE. EVERY ANSWER MUST START WITH THE FIRST LETTER OF YOUR MUSE’S NAME.

PLEASE REPOST; DON’T REBLOG.

• NAME. Fitz

• ANIMAL. Field mouse, Fox, Ferret, Flying squirrel, Frog, Fish, Fruit bat, Falcon, Floppy-eared rabbit, Flamingo, Flea (sorta)...that’s all I got.

• BOYS NAME. Fred, Fritz, Frodo, Flynn, Frank, Fabrizio, Fenton, Fabian, Fletcher, Floyd, Franz, Fillip, Finn, Fisk

• GIRLS NAME. Farrah, Fenella, Flora, Frances, Francesca, Freida, Fiona, Felicity, Felicia, Freya, Fay, Fatima, Freddie, Flossie, Furiosa...that’s it. I’m all out of F names. (...Amazingly enough because I love names and words that start with “F”. Admittedly, my fave only has four letters...but still.)

• COLOR. Fuchsia, French Blue, Fluorescent any color, Foam, Fern, Fawn, Flaxen, Flint, Ferrous steel...I’m stretching now. That’s it.

• MOVIE. Frozen, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Fade To Black, From Here To Eternity, From Russia With Love, For Your Eyes Only, Flight of the Phoenix, Flowers for Algernon, Fog of War, Fright Night, Face Off, Failure To Launch, Fly Me To The Moon, Foxy Brown, Four Rooms, Fletch, Freaky Friday, Fast and Furious (should’ve thought of that sooner), Father of the Bride, Father’s Little Dividend, Five Easy Pieces, Fearless, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fight Club—I feel you’re getting to see too deeply into my psyche and I think I’ll stop now. :-|

• SOMETHING YOU WEAR. Fez, Floaty dress, Floppy hat, Froot Loops (as a necklace), Fabulous jewelry (beats Froot Loops), Floral blouse, Fruit hat (if you’re Carmen Miranda), Flaxen hair, Famous brands, Florsheim Shoes, Ferragamo belt, Fear on your face, Fleas, Fatalistic attitude... Fin. (Which could mean “end” or maybe you like wearing shark fins, I dunno.)

• DRINK.  Fanta, Frappuccino, Fruit punch, fruit smoothie, fruit juice, Fizzy drinks, Frozen Coke (AKA Coke slushie), Fenugreek tea,  Fennel tea (This was the hardest category to do more than a couple ’cause “F”. Not a lotta drinks.)

• FOOD.  French fries, Frites, Fettuccine Alfredo, Fortune cookie, Fig Newton, Fish, Flounder, Filet of Sole, Fine caviar, Frozen yogurt, Fire-roasted salsa, Fondue, Fritos chips, French onion soup, Fly (in the soup), Fungus (AKA mushrooms/truffles) (Now I want fish and frites with fungus. If you got that joke 🤣  ✊  If not, it was super funny, okay?)

• SOMETHING FOUND IN A BATHROOM. Faucet, Floral soap, Fuchsia towel, ferret taking a bath, foam, flavored mouthwash, fresh mint toothpaste, finger paints, floaty pillow, flower-shaped anti-skid stickers, flu medicine, flip-flops, floss (could be for your teeth or elsewhere), Froot Loops (some people use them for “target practice”), Framed posters of soothing bathroom things. Okay, I’ve reached the dregs. 

• PLACE. Fallujah, Flint MI, Fremont, Fresno, Florida, Farallon Islands, Faroe Islands, Falkland Islands, Far, Far Away, Frankfurt, ’Frisco, Fargo, France, Fiji, Flitwick (Which is a real town in England. Damn you, Harry Potter trivia!) 

• REASON FOR BEING LATE. Flat tire, Fell asleep, Fate of the world in your hands, Faked being engaged for reasons, Frozen starter, Forgot something, Fed your homework to your dog, Flaked, Frizzy hair, Frat party in the street, Frickin’ traffic, Flight canceled, Found Jesus and had to go to church, Fought the law and the law won, Flipped out, Flew into a rage, Frozen pipes, Flimsy excuses ran out, Fell off a toboggan, Found yourself lost in Tolkien, Faked liking your sisters boyfriend and got caught, Frazzled after being asked out by a guy who looks like Chris Evans...I could keep going but I’ll stop now.

NOTE: I did not use Google. I’m really just this weird. I challenge you to find a logic to this beyond the bizarro connections in my own strange brain. 

ALSO: You do not have to do this many, one or two is fine! Don’t be intimidated by my vast time-wasting ability and odd desire to challenge myself in increasingly crazy ways. 

I WAS TAGGED BY: @whiskeyandtwoshotglasses​ (You always tag me in this one and I can’t do “L” because you did it already! XD)

TAGGING: @secondchaircellist @imthcboss @shesnipes @snowinabottle @whydoyouthinkileft @scarletxntrs​ @xscarletvvitch​ and anyone else who wants to, tag me.

[spajonas]

Sunday Update - June 17. 2018

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share News. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

We’re winding down the school year here in the Pajonas household. This past week was lots of tales from school of cleaning out desks, compiling art to take home, returning books to the library, etc. Then we had a half day on Friday, the first of three to end the year. School is over on Tuesday, and though it means an end to some free time, I’m looking forward to it. I get to “sleep in” in the summer since camp doesn’t start until 8:30am on most days. I’m looking forward to the extra sleep.

On the writing front, I continued to work on the Miso Cozy novella, MATSURI AND MURDER, all week long. I mostly hit my word counts for each day, and I’m on target to finish on time. I’ve enjoyed this story and the mystery, the change in location. I’m looking forward to publishing it for you all.

This weekend was lots of pool! Yay! The weather was fabulous so we were there both days. Today we celebrated Father’s Day by going to the pool, treating my husband to a day where he had to do very little, and grilling outside. It was a great way to spend the day.

What else happened this week?

I love taking photos of wild mushrooms. This one is growing off the tree across the street from my house.

The deer have been around a lot lately.

Our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share started this past week! Lots of greens means lots of salads. Mmmm.

I had breakfast with a good friend of mine halfway through the week. These red velvet pancakes are so good.

My park has been so beautiful, so green.

I enjoyed some middle-of-the-day Ben and Jerry’s this week.

Father’s Day dinner was swordfish on the grill, corn on the cob, and dill potato salad.

And yes, my trips to the pool comprised of big floppy hats and long-sleeve SPF shirts.

Coming up this week on the blog: Top Ten Tuesday, a service update about my books, and a Book Chat (I think it’s time, it’s been a while.)

Sunday Update – June 17. 2018 was originally published on S. J. Pajonas

[djseaward]

spring awakening + wild garlic pesto recipe

hi all! we have just had a glorious month of april here in the czech republic and the constant warm weather and sunshine just seems never-ending! sometimes there are rumors of a thunderstorm but they always seem to pass our sunny little corner of bohemia by.

oh, i have been busy! with all good things. as many people, i've been taking full advantage of the beautiful days and weekends with plenty of trips to the forest  and the annual malše river trip. we didn't bring our little dog as he pretty much hates water and the idea of him hanging out in a raft that has been splashed with water is laughable.

another form of soaking up as much outside time as possible: plenty of spending quality time in various gardens with great company has been on the agenda and reading a great paperback outside with a dog and a big floppy hat. i have really full woken up from my hibernation and i'm not the only one, it seems -- the months of february and march were particularly dreary at times so it feels like i'm living my best life now. (can i just live outside?)

i think this year the coming of spring has awakened such an enthusiasm in me that i've begun to study herbalism through a course and a series of local workshops! i'll be studying for a beginners' certificate over the remaining spring and summer months and it really gives me new life and already has caused me to look at plants and flowers differently. this subject is something i've been wanting to know more about forever and it gives me such happiness to finally learn about it, especially in a formal way. i wasn't lucky enough to grow up around relatives or grannies who taught me things about plants and gardening, but i  hope i can be that person for someone else someday! i'm realizing it's all about sharing and spreading knowledge about what these super plants can do.

one of my favorite anecdotes about plants & life in czech is a story someone once told me: when he was about eight years old, he and his brother were playing in the woods, somewhere near jindřichův hradec in south bohemia. he and his brother came across an older man who said, “hey! do you want to see a great place to find mushrooms?” the boy and his brother agreed and they followed this stranger through the forest. FOR ALMOST AN HOUR. (to my american sensibility this sounds a little sketchy but here in czech republic it probably is not given another thought) finally, the man leads them to a glade in the forest where it is a veritable mushroom wonderland. the best part is still, to this day, the boy (now man in his forties) still visits this special spot regularly and brings his kids! i love that.

below, foraging super vitamin-rich dandelion leaves in the forest near petříkov.

i can't believe i'm adding another language to my repertoire as well, in preparation for our trip to france next month (yesss, i can finally say "next month"!) i booted up the ol' duolingo for french, as well as my continued use for german language. does anyone else use duolingo out there? i find it is fantastic for really fact-checking common grammar mistakes as well as a much-needed vocabulary revision. i haven't yet started the program for czech yet, but i hear it's available in beta version and once this france thing blows over, i'm definitely going to give it a go. last summer i completely released all language study until october (sad but true!) but this year will be very different in that regard, especially with plans to study intensive german in berlin this summer. 

with spring comes the arrival of produce! bear garlic (also known as ramps or wild garlic) has been a mainstay in the kitchen for the past few weeks, and i've been making pesto like a mad-woman. here's my recipe if you want to give it a go. i like that it uses the whole plant so you don't have to throw out the stems. they're still good, too!

wild garlic pesto

you’ll need...

100g wild garlic 50g hard italian cheese*, grated 50g pepitas (green-colored pumpkin seeds) juice of half a lemon 4-5 TB extra-virgin olive oil approx half a cup of water salt & pepper to taste

1. wash the wild garlic, then chop it (stems and all) and throw it into a blender or food processor.

2. dry toast (no oil) the seeds in a frying pan on the stove on low heat. watch their condition carefully - you want them to taste and smell deliciously toasty and nutty. after a few minutes, quickly remove from heat and place in another bowl or plate. be careful not to just leave them in the pan because they'll continue toasting even off the heat.

3. throw the garlic first into the blender/food processor, then the cheese and pepitas, then juice and oil on top. use about a 1/4 cup of water at first if you are using a blender, only a tablespoon or so if using a food processor.

4. blend & puree for about 4-5 minutes or until contents are as smooth as you can make them.

5. add a pinch of salt and pepper and blend again. taste and add more if you'd like.

6. if you are working with a blender, and it's not blending well, continue adding a glug of oil and a splash of water (in equal parts) until things get moving. but only as much just things get moving.

7. put into a jar or use immediately in pasta, as a spread on bruschetta or toast, or really anywhere to add some flavor to your meals.

note: makes one jam-size jar. will stay fresh in the fridge for at least a week, but place into a freezer-safe container and freeze if you want it to stick around longer.

*this recipe can be easily made vegan by subbing 2 TB nutritional yeast and a couple extra pinches of salt for the cheese. i’ve been doing it like this most of the time, lately!

i love using it with tagliatelle, but i've also used it as a base for these schmancy appetizers i made, or in this recipe with asparagus, tomatoes, and poached eggs to give the dish a little more oomphf.

what spring produce inspires you?

i’m so looking forward to this holiday weekend! for half of it, i’ll be visiting a place in the czech republic that i have been wanting to go to for years and am beyond enthused about it to finally be going there! you can tag along on instagram, if you’d like. x

[jelysabe]

Sunday, 26 November

Yesterday I had the most perfect date ever.

On Sunday, 19 November 2017 Aaron asked me to spend the day with him on Saturday. As I was still recovering from my surgery, I said I would see how I would go as by that stage I was still not able to eat solid foods. 

The week went on and by Thursday night I was pushing through the pain to eat solid foods. Pretty sure I had chicken that night and it was delicious haha

On the Friday, Aaron casually asked me to come out to watch Justice League with him. It was so unexpected because he didn’t normally try to make plans with me. Won’t lie, it was very nice to be invited to come out. I hadn’t seen any of the trailers for this movie but it was Justice League so I would watch it regardless. Side note, the CGI was not great. Not sure I would recommend seeing it in the cinemas to be honest.

As Saturday rolls over, I oddly struggled to wake up that morning. It was a nice warm day and I was pleasantly sleeping like a baby. Aaron and I had arranged for me to come over to his place at around lunchtime, sometime around 12 or 1. I had wanted to buy a Chi Chi Aphrodite palette at Target as there was a 30% off sale but seeing as I had woken up at 10 am to a message from Aaron saying “Come over whenever you are ready”, there clearly was no time to do so. When I eventually got up out of bed, I had a nice calming shower and dressed for the beach. I wore my brand new burnt orange Nookie beach swimsuit (my favourite swim suit/bikini purchase this year), my blue and white hi-lo dress, my floppy hat and red white and blue thongs. I let my parents know I was heading out with Aaron to Cronulla today and then was out the door.

I drove down the M7 to get to Aarons and when I got there his dad was on the couch watching the cricket whilst Aaron was drenched from training that morning. It was pretty hot haha As he got ready, I chatted to his dad about the cricket and mentioned that I would be going to my first cricket match in January. He mentioned that the crowd gets a little happy by the afternoon and to preempt inappropriate chanting haha

Once Aaron was ready we set off to drive to Cronulla. I got the driving tour of the different suburbs along the way. From Miranda through to Caringbah then onto Cronulla. We stopped by a fish and chips store where Aaron spent $77 on Barramundi, salt and pepper squid, oysters and garlic prawns. It was a very expensive order of seafood but was absolutely worth it as we enjoyed it on the grass in the sun near Wanda beach. There Aaron commented on my small thongs, referring them to car air fresheners - that was pretty funny haha it made me smile. But then again his smiles always made me smile. When he does, his eyes light up and makes cute little creases in the corner of his eyes. 

After we finished eating we lay under a tree and rested. It was so nice just lying there on that towel, resting my head against him and just listening to the ocean breeze and birds chirping around us. When I would open my eyes, I could see the sun rays try to break through the branches above and it was just beautiful. Every time I turned to a Aaron as he rested, all I could think about was how handsome he looked and how happy I was to just be there next to him. I remember noticing his american college cap, his crisp white t shirt and striped shorts - its always hard to not check out his butt, even more so in those shorts :P

After a while we decided to get up and go for a walk along the beach. I really enjoyed doing this with him. Just walking along the water, feeling the warm sand between my toes then feeling the cool fresh water rush through them. It was so nice walking alongside Aaron. He would point out funny people and we would judge them together. It was funny when we would do that. After we had walked up North for a while I wanted to sit and just enjoy sitting on the sand which we did. I remember the dogs we passed including the sausage dog who spotted us then began to run up barking - look at him trying to be a dog haha, the two South Asian men fishing on the beach and the man parasailing by the shore.

As we sat on the beach, Aaron commented on how white he was and that he had mostly dated white blonde girls in the past. Things are a bit different for him now given that I’m tan but I hope it doesn’t make him do anything he doesn’t like. I ended up doing that dumb thing again where I talk about my past and my exes. I really absolutely hate that I do that. Honestly, why can’t I just shut up and never mention those things? But once its starts, I struggle to stop. I mentioned how I’ve always just been attracted to white guys and that I had tried to date other people before. Truth is, I’ve just always been this way. I can’t explain it myself, but for as long as I can remember, I was always attracted to Caucasian males. I genuinely love Aaron’s skin. I hope he doesn’t think I’m a creeper because of it. But I think it looks so nice on him and I wouldn’t want him any other way. Aaron mentioned that he doesn’t seem to have a type. I guess that’s lucky for me. I won’t question it. Just count my blessings.

We then decided to walk down South. We passed numerous surf life saving tents and young children building castles in the sand. Next time we go to the beach, I want us to bring buckets and try to build an epic castle. It’ll be the most pimped out castle ever, just you wait!

Our walk took a slight detour through the promenade as we stopped by to get a refreshment. We went to Boost, mostly because I wanted a boost juice. I ordered a Watermelon crush and Aaron got a Wonderberry. They were delicious and just what we needed in the heat. As we continued along, Aaron pointed out a good burger joint and Fusions - a place he used to go to for drinks when he was younger. There were a few good brunch places. I think I’d like to go to 1908 one time. It looked just a little bit fancy and was covered in greenery. My type to place haha

After this we ended back up at the beach, this time at South Cronulla. We sat on the lawn watching the little nippers and some guys try acting cool with their fake american football and really bad sportskills. Once we had finished our brief people watching session, we walked up the track to where a few coastline apartments were. During our walk we didn’t talk much, but I felt like we didn’t need to. I just really enjoyed being out and enjoying the scenery and having Aaron’s company. We passed by a small wedding and joked about how there were still too many people there; there were honestly no more than 20 people haha We sat on a bench to rest again. Looking back out at the Cronulla coastline was stunning. I liked resting my head against Aaron’s shoulder. It made me feel connected to him without having to say a word. 

We soon decided to walk back and by we, it was just me. I was done walking and was happy to go back home. So we took the footpath route back where midday Aaron accidentally set off a group chat with his mates. It was so random but so classic Aaron - it was great. 

En route back to Aaron’s place I requested we stop by Miranda so I could squeeze in my sneaky makeup purchase. I could tell Aaron did not want to do it, but he did it anyway. It was so sweet of him. He is such a lovely guy and he didn’t try to make me feel bad about it at all.

Once I grabbed my palette we went back to his. We both had quick showers and lay in bed for a scheduled afternoon nap. Whilst the nap did not actually happen, we were both very quiet hehe yes I am proud of myself, and Aaron went for his third shower of the day.

We then went down to make ‘our omelette’. I like that we have a routine for making our omelette. Its actually a really good staple meal haha egg, bacon, mushroom, cheese and butter. yes, yes, yes. Once we finished cooking and eating, we spent the rest of the night on the couch watching the Arrival - which surprisingly was a good movie about linguists, time and relativity. We then watched Office Christmas Party, which comparatively was not at good but provided some good laughs. 

By this stage of the night my mind was being flooded about thoughts around what was actually happening with Aaron and myself. Were we dating now? Didn’t he say he wanted to do something official? Was I making it up? I just didn’t know. Did he change his mind? Where are we? I tried to leave a few times because I was having these thoughts, but being there with him outweighed that decision. By about 11:30 pm I really did need to go home as it was very late. We said our goodbyes and Aaron waited as I drove up his driveway. I like when he does that. It makes me think he is watching to make sure I leave safely, its nice.

However, as I turned the corner I had a flood of emotions rush through me and I started to cry profusely. I messaged Aaron and as I got down Fairford Road, I pulled over as I could no longer drive safely. I carelessly told Aaron that I was upset which was obviously so dumb of me to do. Classic Jen ruining good things as usual. But I just couldn’t leave. Part of me felt like I needed to talk to him. So I asked him to meet me at the top of his driveway. I drove back and we sat in my car as I cried and explained to him that I was still so confused about where things were with us. He told me that he had explained everything the week before - which is true. I just needed him to say it again. To reassure me that it was still true. He didn’t, but he sat there, was patient and held my hand the whole time. It was so touching to have him there. Just sitting. Just being there. Making me feel like it was okay to have this conflicting ideas and feelings. And that would still be there for me either way. I told him that the day he broke my heart, I had lost a little bit of the magic. I was scared that saying so would scare him away and question things again but surprisingly, he responded with, ‘then we just have to work on it then’. Hearing that made my heart happy. He might not say the things I want him to say when I want him to say it. But sometimes he surprises me with the rarest things which just makes me the happiest girl in the world. Him saying that made me feel like he would be there for me to see it through no matter what. For me that meant the world. That he was really in it. And that made me feel so much better in that moment. By the end of it, we were laughing and joking. He told me that this phase was called the “I getting a surprise ready for you” and that it would come when it was ready. I’m not sure what that means but I absolutely love surprises, i.e. surprises and not secrets. So I guess for now, that’s what I’m holding out for. We also joked about making a love song playlist which I don’t think he will do, but I will be truly impressed if he does.

Once I had calmed down, I went home and slept like a baby once again.

All in all, Saturday 25 November 2017 Aaron took me on the most perfect date ever. I’ve never know what my perfect date would be, but this definitely was it. Naps, beaches, boost juices, oysters, walks, shopping, “other naps”.. I don’t think I can think of anything that could have made the day better. I hope I never ever forget this day.