#i read on Reddit that someone had a friend who lives in the same town as her and her family

[fauxpontchartrain]

No matter how annoying she may be, i’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for Eugenia Cooney. She’s beyond the point of return at this point, even if she chose recovery today. Like… y’all know her mom is absolutely behind this shit, right?

[c3m3terygirl]

This was originally posted on reddit by someone whom we are still trying to learn, but they have deleted their account. But the post was able to be archived, and we decided to put it on a few different platforms.

Hi. I feel i should be able to talk about this. Because it's been eating me alive for, well, since awhile. Or since this actually started.

Let's start with when this all kinda started. I was born in a small town in the 70s. Think there weren't even 4,000 people living there, and everyone knew everyone. That's kinda how I knew Samantha. She was a year older than me, and our moms were friends, so we had to hang out. She was shy but sweet.

I remember when we first met, she was hiding behind her mom like a shy puppy meeting a stranger. But we soon became friends. Always playing in one of our front yards. Or we would get our mothers to take us to the public pool and would play silly games. In the winter drink hot coco and watch movies. We grew up together.

It was I think 1986 when this all started. Maybe mid to late September. We were in high school. I was 16, and she was 17. I remember this day so clearly. We had just left our homes for school. Talking about whatever teenage girls do back then. I remember sam wore a turtle neck, her mother got her, and some dark blue jeans with white sneakers. Her dark hair up in a side pony.

As we walked and talked, she told me about the "hot date" she was gonna have with Micheal Adam (i think that's what his name was). Some jock who she liked. When we got to school, I remember waving bye while walking to my class. I remember being confused on why she wasn't at lunch or why she didn't walk home with me. I remember hearing my mom calling hers on the kitchen phone. But some other things are blurry. Like her mother putting up the missing posters. Or the police asking me things. Her mom crying to mine in our kitchen.

Now fast forward to now. Years later. I'm married. Have kids. A job. A life. Haven't even thought about her. Samantha Harold. A cold case. Well, it was.  I was sitting at home watching TV. Clicking through channels when I saw something that i never expected.

There she was. My best friend. Samantha Ann Harrold. On the TV screen. Wearing the same thing she had on that day, she went missing. They said she just. Showed up. Knocked on the door of her mother's house and just gave her a smile and a big head.

But the big thing is. She hasn't aged a bit. Still 17. Still in that turtle neck and in those jeans. Hair still up in that ponytail. I had to turn off the TV and smoke a cigarette to calm myself down to make sure I wasn't crazy. Once I had a cigarette or two, I called my mom. To ask her about the news.

"Isn't it exciting! She's alive!" My mom didn't get it. She only saw it as a cold case solved. Did she not understand how weird it is? I want to say that I'm just as happy that she's back, and alive but something is just so off. How the hell is she still 17?

The news said that there was no scratches on her. And when she was questioned, all she said was she remembers walking to school, then appearing now.

It feels wrong seeing her. Seeing her alive and well. My mom wants me to come and see her. But I don't trust her. It's like..we all knew she was dead. After all those nights we knew sam was dead. Lost to like all the other missing milk carton kids. But here she is.

I've been getting letters in the mail. They are usually short. Nothing to weird. Just stuff like:

"How have you been? How's life?"

Or

"We need catch up!"

On that one there's a phone number. I think about calling it. But I'm to scared. Sorry to all who have to read my rant. I wrote this after a month of it happening. If anything else happens I'll update you.

[choicesficwriterscreations]

CFWC Writer of the Month: Angelasscribbles

Each month CFWC highlights one of our talented fanfic writers, and this month’s writer of the month is @angelasscribbles ​! We hope you will enjoy learning more about her and her work below! Writer is selected at random. More info can be found on the navigation page.

Tumblr Blog: angelasscribbles

Quick Links: 

WordPress Blog: Angela Harrison

And my much neglected unschooling blog: Raising Wild Things

Tumblr Masterlist

How do you want to be known on Tumblr?  Angela

1- When did you start playing Choices? What's the first book you played? 

Back in 2017ish, I played The Freshman series, all of it, without spending a single diamond! (I looked up the diamond scenes on youtube, shhh). I started multiple games trying to diamond mine but kept wanting to actually play them, so I ended up deleting the app and forgetting about it. Fast forward to 2020, the pandemic was in full swing, we were stuck at home, and I was bored. I reinstalled the app and played Rules of Engagement. I spend diamonds. I married Leo. I moved on to TRR because I read that the prince in question was Leo’s brother. 

2- When and why did you join Choices fandom?

I went to Reddit to feed my choices addiction, so does that count? I was on there end of 2020, I’d guess. Everyone was discussing how PB hinted at a polyamorous ending for TRR but didn’t deliver. Then someone said there was poly fanfic out there, and I was like, where? I hit google and ended up on Tumblr sometime in 2021.

3- How did you pick your url name? 

So this is a funny story! When my kids were little, a town we live near, Mckinney, used to have a huge weekend-long extravaganza downtown the weekend after Thanksgiving called A Dickens of a Christmas. One of the big attractions was the train that ran around the square. It was hosted by the local magic shop, but the line, and the wait, was always very long. To keep everyone entertained, they had performers. There was a man on stilts who somehow ended up in some weird rivalry with my then eight-year-old son. I can’t remember how it started, but when one would see the other, they’d point and scream, “BAH HUMBUG!” There were people hula hooping with glow-in-the-dark hoops, and there was a magician. So one night, we are standing in line, and the magician comes over to us and is doing card tricks. He asked my then eight-year-old son (same kid, yeah, he makes friends wherever we go lol) to pull a card. He did. Then he handed him a pen and told him to write his name on it. Now my son is extremely dyslexic and struggled a lot with reading and writing. He tried to decline and hand it back, but the magician insisted. Finally, Todd takes the pen and scribbles on the card, and hands it back. The magician looks at it and says, “This is your name?” My son says, “My name is Todd.” The man replies, “Your name is Todd Scribbles?” Which sent him and me and the rest of my kids into a fit of giggles. He called him Todd Scribbles for the rest of the night. He did the magic trick of shuffling the cards and still pulling Todd’s card, then he gave it to him, and he brought it home and hung it up. His siblings called him Todd Scribbles forever. When I made my WordPress blog, I wanted something cute and memorable for the title. I remembered Todd Scribbles. And I thought scribbles are writing. I’m writing. These are my scribbles. Angela’s Scribbles. I stole his name. He was fine with it. When I came to Tumblr, I just stuck with the blog name I was already using on WordPress. 

4- Go back to your archive and tell us about the first post on your Choices blog. 

It was a one-shot called First Date. It’s TRR book one, the night before the Beaumont bash when Liam asks MC on his first real date. After the date, he walks her back to her room, and they are making out in the hallway when they hear a noise and pull apart. Who was it? They had no servants, and Bertrand and Max knew Liam was there. I always HC it was Drake, inadvertently stumbling upon them. So I wrote that night from his POV.

5- How long have you been writing fanfiction?

Since February of 2021 technically. I posted First Date, another one shot titled Confrontation, and the four chapters of The Proposal between February and March 2021, as well as some Ride or Die chapters, to the sound of crickets. I left and ignored Tumblr until August 2021. I really am not sure why I came back, but I decided to try again. My original idea was to write what happened at Ramsford during those three weeks between book 1 and book 2. I posted the first chapter of Three Weeks in Ramsford on August 1st, 2021, and never looked back.

6- What is your favorite Choices book to write about?

The Royal Romance

7- Share the first fanfic you wrote with us. Do you still like it or would you change anything about it?

My first series was Three Weeks at Ramsford. I definitely think I’d write it better now, I’ve grown as a writer. Also, I now wish I’d gone with my original idea of having Drake show up in person, not just smuggle a letter and a cell phone to her. 

8- What is your favorite fic that you’ve written?

Bad Romance, hands down.

9- Do you have a fic that you didn’t expect to be well received, but it was? What about one you expected to be but could use a little more love?

Bad Romance. I expected people to lose their minds, and they did, just not in the way I expected. It was supposed to be a one-shot and was a direct pushback against the notion that some of my characters were toxic. Basically, I was like, you wanna see toxic? Here, hold my beer! Everyone begged for more, and the first several chapters were really just me trying to see how toxic and messed up I could make everything/everyone. Then somewhere along the way, these characters started whispering motivations and desires to me, and everything changed. I ended up with a still lil toxic but pretty cool, fully functioning, open, honest, and loving polycule.

For the second part of the question, maybe Leo and Liv. I put Leo and Liv together in a one-shot randomly but then loved them together and started a series just for them. But to be fair, I haven’t gotten very far with it. It keeps getting pushed to the side for other projects. 

10- If you could write only angst, fluff, or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why? 

Why would you ask me that? Aaagghh, what a difficult choice! If I’m forced to choose, I guess it would have to be angst. I can’t live without emotion. Emotion drives everything, including the fluff and the smut, right? Angst is where you get to showcase the emotion.

11- Do you ever recognize yourself in any of your MCs or in your writing?

Of course. I think we all do this. I have said frequently, too many people, that while no version of MC is me, there are pieces of me in every version of her. 

12- What element of writing do you struggle with most?

This keeps changing. When I first started writing fanfiction, I was like, “Write smut? Oh no! I could never! It would be too awkward!” Now I’m like, “You want a threesome? BDSM? Just another Tuesday, ho hum.” Then it was humour. I remember the first time I sat down to write something to purposely make people laugh. It was a lot of work, but it paid off. Then I wrote an entire one-shot that was humour. It was still a lot of work. Then I wrote an entire miniseries that was humour and it became easier and easier the more I did it. Practice makes perfect. I never thought I could do tragedy either. I could not bear to hurt my characters like that. Now I think I’ve killed off almost everyone at some point or another. My biggest struggle is neglecting current projects when new ideas occur to me.

13- Do you have any neglected work you really want to finish?

Yes. Heir Apparent and Leo and Liv. Also, my original novel that has been woefully neglected, even though it’s only a few chapters away from completion. 

14- If someone you know in real life (who isn’t involved in fandoms) asked to read your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you recommend they read first? Yes. And I already have. Two of my friends have read most of my stuff. I recommended they start with Bad Romance because it’s my favorite, and they did.

15 - Are there any writers (published authors and/or fanfic writers) who influenced your writing? So many. I was a huge Stephen King fan as a teenager/young adult, and I devoured his books. Consequently, my first few short stories were horror. Anne Rice likewise fed my love of the supernatural, and not just Interview with a Vampire (though it was great), but the rest of her vampire books, as well as Taltos and the rest of the Witches of Mayfair series. Deborah Harkness and her Discovery of Witches are partially to blame for my obsession with witches. I also read copious amounts of fantasy and sci-fi. Marion Zimmer Bradley stands out for turning a well-known story on its head. Changing literally none of the major details we all know and love about the King Arthur story (Mists of Avalon) and somehow, at the same time, making it into a completely different story! (helped with my love of a good plot twist). Also notable are Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, Seventh Son), Robert Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land), Ben Bova (Endless Universe), and Issac Asimov (I, Robot. Robots of Dawn). As a child, Marguerite Henry wrote books about horses that were achingly beautiful to me, particularly Misty of Chincoteague. Louisa May Alcott (Little Women) and Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind) for epic, heart-wrenching storytelling. Sheri S. Tepper captured my attention as a teen with Maven Manyshaped and again as an adult with The Gate to Women’s Country, fostering my fixation of addressing issues of inequality and ingrained sexism in my work. I love a good mystery, and Sharyn McCrumb writes them with all the majestic beauty of Appalachia as a backdrop and liberal amounts of supernatural suspense. The Dark Part of the Forest by Holly Black delighted me for flipping the script, putting the prince in a magical sleep in a glass coffin in the woods, and having the girl hero run around with a sword. At some point, I moved on to paranormal romance. I had never been a romance reader, but these books took me by storm. My favorite authors in that genre are Charlaine Harris, Kim Harrison, and Laurell K. Hamilton. I have read everything all three of them have ever written. If you want polyamory on steroids, you can’t go wrong with Laurell K. Hamilton; she makes my Bad Romance gang look positively sweet, innocent, and vanilla. Let’s not forget the master of poetry and horror alike (according to me anyway), Edgar Allan Poe. He’s the reason I started writing poetry. My favorite poem is by him; it’s called Alone. And of course, The Raven and The TellTale Heart. I am beyond positive I’m leaving some out. 

As far as other fanfic writers go, I strive to be as funny as @harleybeaumont, as angsty  @burnsoslow as tragically beautiful as @dcbbw as evocative as @txemrn for my Drake to have as much swagger and sex appeal as @karahalloway and for my Leo to be as funny and endearing as @queenrileyrose. 

16- Which one of your stories would you most like to see as a movie/series? 

I think Savage Love would make a good action movie. I think Bad Romance would make a good series, like a modern-day Game of Thrones meets Bridgerton.

17- Do you write original stories? 

Yes. My WordPress blog is full of flash fiction, poetry, essays, and one of my original short stories. The rest of my short stories are waiting for me to either submit them to online fiction publications or publish them myself as a collection of short stories. I have three original novels in progress, one is almost complete. My original work is mostly horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance.

18 -  What other hobbies do you have?

Reading. Photography. Camping/Hiking. Live music/sports. Collecting books (related to, but different from reading). Acting.

19 - What’s your favorite emoji? 

20: BONUS - tell us anything you’d like (if you want to).

I guess if you’re interested in my personal life, I can tell you that I have seven children I can claim by birth or adoption and five more that I have partially raised for some amount of time spanning from six months to seven years, making a total of 12 children that have come through my home over the years. My husband and I have been married for twenty years; we live on a small farm in Texas, where we raise chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, and goats currently (we used to raise hogs as well). We have four dogs, two cats, a couple of bearded dragons, two snakes, and run a turtle rehab. We have a couple of box turtles and many aquatic turtles of different types. My 17-year-old (Todd Scribbles lol) is a fierce advocate for them and is the reason all our friends and family now stop to help turtles cross roads (safely and correctly, of course!). Three of my kids play volleyball competitively and are stupid good at it, they did not get that athletic ability from me. I love playing sports but am generally uncoordinated. My favorite sport is baseball, my favorite team is, of course, the Texas Rangers, and the greatest pitcher of all time was Nolan Ryan, and this is the reason my Drake’s middle name is Nolan. 

I sometimes process grief through my writing. When I wrote Maximum Damage, I didn’t plan it, but when I got to that part, Maxwell received the same injuries and recovery time as my oldest son did when he had his car accident. I have also lost loved ones to suicide, so writing that scene was hard as well. I wrote Betrayal after coming home from a memorial service and watching my nephew grieve for his wife. When I wrote Almost, again, it wasn’t planned, but when I got to the end, some of my own emotions about fear of losing a child came into play. Our youngest child is not biologically ours, and we have had to fight for her. We lost. She was ripped away and then given back. It’s why TRH 3 was so hard for me to get through and why I will never write MC losing custody of her child for even two minutes. 

Just because I don’t want to end on a sad note, I need to tell ya’ll more stuff, lol. I was in the Army, I went to Texas A&M for undergrad and got my master's at Texas Woman’s University. When I lived in Laredo, we used to walk across the Rio Grande into Mexico on the weekends to go shopping. I have lived in Texas most of my life, but I did live in Arizona in a hippie commune when I was four. Yes, my mother was a flower child. She had a white mustang covered in those flowers you stick to the bottom of the tub. The car’s name was flower. After my mom remarried, we lived in Oklahoma at Fort Sill (I was an Army brat).  I ran off to Ohio briefly at some point, and I spent ten days in New York City with a theatre group. I love musical theatre though I cannot sing. I was a theatre kid in high school and have done community theatre as an adult. I worked for over twenty years as a child development expert and only recently quit. I’m still figuring out what I want to do next. I worked for Half Price Books for two years in college, and it was a really fun job. My coworkers were all writers, artists, and musicians. I developed my love for live music by going to my manager's gigs on the weekends. Now I’m boring and never go anywhere but volleyball with my kids. I’m a raging night owl and have moderate to severe ADHD, which explains how I write so much. It’s a current hyper fixation. It’s also the reason I tend to overshare. Sorry. 

Ok, that’s probably way more than anyone wanted or needed to know! Let me end by saying how much I love this fandom. I have met some really amazing people here!

[tundrainafrica]

some of the aot fans (probably just casual readers) don't see the parallels between EM and LH???? like the brunettes desire to live with their ackermans together in the woods? they call levihan shippers delusionals. their attacking levihans that they didn't read the manga well and we just want our ship to be canon??? WTH????

I keep wondering if it's just us, levihans, who see these parallels?

im sorry for this rant, it's just soooo frustrating. Basically the reason why i leave twt lol not yet, im still there bcoz of lh filo socmed aus

I have so many things I wanna say about chapter 138 and I am so sorry I only got to it now. I think most Levihan fans already said what I wanted to say but either way, I’ll just give some thoughts I entertained when these came out. 

Coz first of all… 

As a Levihan shipper, I am obviously ecstatic about this but as most people know, I come from a household where everyone is not too enthusiastic about Levihan. They are so very enthusiastic about INVALIDATING LEVIHAN in particular that my sister and my parents who don’t even watch AOT just come up to me while I’m staring at Levihan art on tumblr and go… 

“What are you doing?” 

“Staring at art.”

“Oh, is that the one couple you like who don’t even love each other or smthg.” 

Cause apparently my sisters who watch AOT and my boyfriend have been SO vocal about invalidating Levihan that even my parents now are on ship that they aren’t even a thing and I’m just delusional but yes, since I live in a house where literally ‘shipping Levihan’ is on the same level as ‘the curtains are blue so the narrator is sad’ type of interpretation, I will start by mentioning a more pragmatic argument to this whole Levihan and Eremika parallel. 

While I am one of those who can definitely see that yes those were clear parallels, there are some louder people( mostly Eruri shippers) who think that LH fandom is just grasping on straws and trying to diminish their supposedly canon ship( because EL and EM ackerbonding thing) so I was wondering what is your view on this?

So, to break down the argument...

It’s a war story blah blah blah. And besides Mikasa loved Eren from the start blah blah blah. 

I think this is an argument I see a lot. Because Yams is writing a war story and I think a lot of people are suggesting that it’s a war story here is no way anyone can be canon or anyone can have romantic relationships. 

AND I HATE THIS TAKE. Relationships are human nature. Yes, being arromantic exists but I don’t believe that in a fictional space, romance can ever NOT exist. Because most---or scratch that--- I believe all humans will search for companionship and I do not believe it is ever reaching to jump from whatever companionship exists between people and contemplate the potential of romance, except incest but that’s another story. 

Yeah because if there’s no kiss or sex then it’s not a romance apparently. 

Well guess what, we’re all reaching then, cause only Eren and Mika got the kiss. But lemme drop some social experiment I did. 

I actually showed the Eremika and Levihan ‘Let’s live together scenes’ side by side to a colleague at work who doesn’t watch AOT and she told me, WITHOUT CONTEXT, that she prefers the scene between Levihan more than Eremika and the reason behind that is because there were undertones, specifically in the Korean translation’ that Hange was tired, and there’s this apparent romantic-ness to it when you dream of something when you’re tired and when you dream of a particular someone. 

Because here’s the thing, when you love someone, when you decide to be in a  relationship with someone, that person will be your HOME. And now that I think about it, it definitely hits for me more, because when Hange was tired, when Hange was completely exhausted and spent, she dreamt of a future with Levi. 

And don’t you think that it’s more romantic that ‘despite everything, she thinks of him’ compared to ‘she constantly thinks of him?’ Because I dunno, when someone is constantly thinking of someone, there’s actually no effort really needed for the feeling to grow, but when ‘they think of someone, despite everything.’ There’s this idea that the relationship can withstand more things and that means they thought long and hard about it. 

Their life is so interesting and eventful, yet at the end of the day, there exists someone who still shines brighter than life itself and that’s why ‘Despite everything, she thinks of him’ rings brighter than ‘she constantly thinks of him’ for me at least. 

Probably a personal preference thing but either way… Just my take. 

Western people don’t consider running away ‘romantic?’ 

This is something I’ve discussed with filo moots multiple times and this is something I’ve thought about reading the Japanese and English translations, reading the Filipino Soc Med AUs and having my friend read the Korean ones.  

The Japanese and Koreans are quick to see the romantic undertones, a lot of my Filipino moots are quick to see those romantic undertones too. But we have the western fandom on Reddit going ‘Yo Erehisu foh evah’ and people saying ‘Levihan not canon they didn’t kiss.’ 

But YO both of my parents are ‘tanan’ (runaway in tagalog) babies. My mom actually ran away with a man and wasn’t allowed to talk to her dad until she graduated. My dad disobeyed his parents to marry my mom. They were setting my dad up with another woman and they were going to have a big wedding and everything but my dad was like…

NOPE Imma run away and marry this woman. 

And can I just say, my parents are the MOST unromantic people but they literally disobeyed their parents, ran away together, literally risked their relationships with their parents to make it work. 

And my parents are one of the few people in their family who are still in a happy relationship even after 25 years of marriage. 

Okay, I admit, sometimes running away is a dumb decision and shouldn’t constantly be romanticized. 

But I don’t think a lot of people understand the gravity of what ‘tanan’ entails. Legit, it was emphasized in 138 already, if Eren ran away, Paradis could have been overrun by military soon. And if Hange and Levi ran away to the woods, ‘what would there have been left for them? 

And in real life, my mom literally gave up her relationship with her dad to try to make the relationship work. My dad gave up the comforts of marrying a rich woman in a lavish wedding to marry my mom. 

They literally had a civil wedding, went out to eat Chinese noodles and China town as a post wedding meal and 25 years later, they have one of the strongest relationships I’ve ever seen. 

AND NO ONE RUNS AWAY WITH SOMEONE FOR THE LELZ. So yes, running away with someone will always be romantic for me.

And the Ackerbond?

Something I always find myself asking. Why do people want the Ackerbond to actually be a thing? Because if the Ackerbond were real, then wouldn’t that invalidate all Eruri and Eremika even more since we know they’re just trapped in the relationship like Stockholm syndrome or something? 

And besides didn’t Yams debunk that chapters ago? 

Anyway, onto the next questions

hi sav! i have a question about the recent chapter. do you think the em and lh parellels were done on purpose by isayama? 

And to answer this question… I am not so sure actually. I talked to a Japanese friend who grew up in the same prefecture as Yams, apparently it was her acquaintance from high school who married Yams and they were childhood sweethearts. 

So maybe Yams got it from them?  My memory on that convo is hazy but it’s only possible that he built Eremika from there. And Levi and Hange’s development is just incredibly different that I don’t think Yams thought that far to do it. 

My theory here is that Yams is writing a war story and he only has one way he could have ever shown romance in a war story and that’s through ‘running away’ so I believe the parallels are unintentional but I genuinely believe that this was Yam’s way of showing romantic undertones. 

And I personally do not think that Levi and Hange would have ever kissed in that time in their life, at least intentionally and I hoenstly commend Yams for doing such a good job with the subtlety of the romance because I’ve literally seen so many great characters in other stories completely butchered by a poorly done romantic subplot so I aint complaining about these romantic undertones. 

But either way,

I hang in the Japanese fandom a lot and there have been lots of fandom discussion on Levihan becoming endgame if 132 didn’t happen. And there are actually articles on this putting Levihan as endgame along with Eremika so I’m kinda suspecting that invalidating Levihan is an anime-only fan and reddit fandom type of thing.

But anyway, thank you for reading, sorry for the long rant.

[taurusborus]

someone translated more of the under the tides event on reddit if you're interested in reading wtf is going on.

I'll also add it under this in case it's easier to read.

Warning, if you don't want to leave the slightest bit of surprise for yourself when the event hits global, TURN BACK NOW!!

I made a comment thread yesterday with a story summary. However, I still left out a lot of things, so I thought I'd make a new post, add in more info about plot I left out, organize the Q&A from the thread, and link to the TLs of the new units. Hopefully a centralized hub of info will help people find the information they're looking for and dispel any of the more wild hearsay floating around.

This will be organized into a few sections, the new unit TLs, my original story summary, a bunch of (my new summaries) separate plot threads that tie into the bigger story, and then some common questions.

Skalter profile + lines TL

Gladiia profile + lines TL

Event CGs

Some good supplemental information about the seaborn hivemind

A much longer summary of each stage, 11 pages - courtesy of Lauli. If you want to know more about the townspeople, Inquisitors, and details on Kal'tsit's end conversation with the Inquisitors, take a look.

The original summary I made yesterday, the fastest crash course on the major story points. I have edited some of the references of the new factions to match the updated TLs from MrSkyblock404 so there's no confusion:

First of all, if you've ever read the manga Claymore, you now understand most of the event. Key differences are that the "Organization" is Aegir. They don't SEEM to be the villains here, and they went the Claymore route to fight the sea horrors fully knowing that their Claymores will eventually awaken into the sea horrors that need to be put down.

The "secret" of the Abyssal Hunters is that Aegirians created them as supersoldiers with the bodies of land dwellers but the blood of sea horrors. More on that down below.

The seaborn is part of the underwater cosmic horror hivemind that's been foreshadowed since the start of the game. Its interest is in learning, evolving, and assimilating everything (a la Evangelion's instrumentality more like end goal of Starcraft's zerg). It's acts primitively... robotic? It doesn't understand things like emotions and "Does not compute. We will learn what you mean" is a large part of its exposition. The church in the town is actually the Deep Sea Church hiding in Iberia and slowly indoctrinating remote towns and turning the people to sea horrors. The ending convo with Kal'tsit implies that Iberia is now completely infiltrated by the cult and if they maintain an isolationist policy, they will be destroyed like Aegir.

The seaborn shows up to impale Gladiia, and reveals the big "you [Abyssal Hunters] and I share the same blood. You are us. We are you." Skadi has a mental breakdown over the truth bomb ("I've killed my own transformed family and friends" etc. Glossing over the specifics, just know she doesn't take some past war trauma well), and it seems like the seaborn can somehow "awaken" the blood and turn Abyssal Hunters like Skadi into one of them.

Skadi is right about to awaken [and probably become Skalter, that seems to be the general consensus on CN forums right now, Skalter = Skadi if she gives in to the call] when Gladiia reveals she was sandbagging (yay superhuman regen abilities) so she could listen in on why the seaborn wanted to meet Skadi so badly. Since the seaborn revealed everything, Gladiia promptly kills it and tells Skadi to get her shit together. Skadi gets her shit together. As the seaborn dies, it says its people will learn to understand everything the Abyssal Hunters have told it, and then they will ask them to join the family again. Also, Specter is now free from whatever "control" the Deep Sea Church exerted over her, she's elated over being "free" now. She's still infected but compared to her previous half-dream state, she considers it a minor setback.

Then there's the Deep Sea Church leader dude who had no idea Hunters were also of seaborn blood and also has a mental breakdown. His entire life's work and dream is shattered because the cult crap he made up believed in is a lie, and the seaborn don't put any special weight on his existence and work. He turns into the SV-9 giant tentacle demon that the 3 Musketeers take down. Before he dies, he curses Gladiia and says some ominous things about how she's different and unlike the other 2, her fate is set. Then in the scene with the mirror, she's shitting on herself for being useless and still ending up like an ugly little bitch. The mirror closeup shows part of her neck starting to look like fish scales, so it seems like she's already undergoing the sea horror transformation.

The town situation

The town has fallen on hard times, and the Deep Sea Church has slowly indoctrinated the population with Iberian values twisted into a pro-seaborn slant. These towns become experimentation grounds for the Church and seaborn. Gladiia confirms that she's been busy destroying many of these experiment grounds. The Church now provides the town with food from the sea when the tide comes. There is also a human sacrifice chosen by lottery, which the Church disguises as "the sea has chosen you to take into its embrace and provide a better life." Kind of like how parents tell their kids their dead dog went to live on a farm. The brainwashed people genuinely believe they have a better life and see it as the greatest honor.

The "food" the sea provides are the "dormant" state of severely injured Dinichthys, which regress into a more resilient meaty form while it recovers. This dormant state is edible (ugh) and what the people harvest during the tide. The unlucky human sacrifice walks into the tide to be eaten by the Dinichthys and thus what the sea giveth, it ultimately taketh.

I would like to note that the Church leader has made an appearance before this event. He has a substantial role in one of the story scenes in Archetto's event. I won't ruin the surprise, but if you pay attention to the setting, you'll know which scene it is before he shows up.

Deep Sea Church agenda and the seaborn

The Deep Sea Church are likely the major instigators of this major "sea vs land" conflict. According to the seaborn that shows up in the Church, the general seaborn population are territorial and generally abide by the animal instinct of survival of the fittest, there is no right or wrong if you kill to survive. The seaborn's behavior and inability to lie show that they indeed don't give a damn about individual seaborn, the Church's plans, or even the Church leader.

Distinction needs to be made between the general seaborn population and the seaborn used by the Church, the latter which could be artificially created. The Church leader is Iberian, but somewhere along the way managed to become part seaborn, which is why the seaborn will listen to him. Being part seaborn allows him to "weaponize" the true seaborn population for his own agenda.

The seaborn themselves indeed have a goal to evolve and and expand (from Skalter's profile). But to what degree the Terra conflict can be attributed to seaborn passive expansion vs. the Deep Sea Church's hostile accelerationism is not clear.

Thus, there's an interesting 3-way disparity between how the conflict is perceived.

* Abyssal Hunters: believes all seaborn must be eradicated * Seaborn: not really interested in the conflict * Church: "it is the will of seaborn to subjugate all"

Regardless, Gladiia has constantly repeated she doesn't give a shit about the seaborn's role in the Church's schemes. Her duty is to kill seaborn, and she's not going to discriminate.

Kal'tsit creates a cliffhanger every time she shows up at the end of any event

After the church-leader-turned-giant-tentacle-demon is killed, its enormous corpse is like a beacon calling to all the Dinichthys zerglings to swarm the area. The 3 Musketeers are like "ok fuck what now" and Kal'tsit swoops in with perfect timing to call Mont3r to completely destroy and bury the ground and its secrets.

She's here to direct the 3 Musketeers to leave Iberia and rendezvous with Misery to go back to RI for a vacation (yes, she actually says they get vacations). The Inquisitors also show up to stop everyone, and after giving them her usual condescending finger-wag-and-lecture, she offers to stay as hostage/information source in an Abyssal Hunter's stead. Her agenda is to convince the Iberian powers to ask for help instead of maintaining an isolationist policy. If they continue to keep it internal, they will be destroyed like Aegir.

She has some atypical kind words for the 3 Musketeers before they leave. To Skadi, she makes a throwback to some cryptic bullshit she said in Grani event. To Specter, she makes some banter about her newfound freedom and moving forward knowing her body's state.

And then it turns out she and Gladiia planned for almost everything before the Skadi sets off for Saltwind City.

The state of Iberia and Aegir

Aegir is pretty much sunken Atlantis. Gladiia says that there's no communication in and out of Aegir after the Calamity.

The Abyssal Hunters were created as just one small piece of Aegir's military power. Aegirians are fully aware of the Abyssal Hunters' eventual fate to turn into the enemy, and have special patrols out to monitor and kill any who turned. The seaborn confirms that they had nothing to do with those deaths. The people Skadi killed and watched get killed, those were all done by her own people. This does not help her mental state.

Iberia has likely attempted to replicate Aegir's Abyssal Hunters. We don't have story on the result of this project, but based on clues in her profile, Andreanna might have some connection to it.

In Kal'tsit's "I know everything" exposition, she states that Iberia once had a prosperous Golden Age, and is now a shadow of its former glory. As stated before, the Deep Sea Church has also infiltrated all levels of Iberian government. Thorns' profile says he left because of "religious strife" and how in recent years treatment of Aegirs in Iberia has gotten worse. All the breadcrumbs are building up to Iberia potentially getting the same kind of Calamity that destroyed Aegir. (See Skalter page's TL note on Calamity.)

Bunch of misc info that don't really fit anywhere else, from yesterday's thread Q&A

It's established that Abyssal Hunters are not allowed to bleed, especially on land. The seaborn says the swarms of cannon fodder zerglings can smell the "same blood" on the Abyssal Hunters. But they're a bit stupid, so their brains only know "this is the blood of my kind, but why is it trapped inside hooman skin?" instead of recognizing it's not a trapped comrade.

Their attacks on Abyssal Hunters are attempts to "free" their kind from the trappings of hooman skin. The more the Hunters bleed, the more frenetic the swarms get, because they know they are getting closer to freeing them.

If you are a Specter fan, you will absolutely love the scenes after she wakes up. The ensuing conversations show that the Abyssal Hunters cherish their close connections like everyone else, despite their usual "stay away from me I'm dangerous" vibes. I really hate how Specter's operator record turned out, and I'll keep salting about it, but this event really did her justice.

Question: Is story Skadi already Skalter? She is wearing the same clothes.

Answer:

No, and this is the biggest misconception that needs to be cleared. At no point in the story does Skadi fully awaken. She comes close but pulls back just in time. The in-universe reason Skadi changes into her wandering songstress wardrobe is that she needs a box carrying her "instruments" (her sword and Specter's chainsaw) and to avoid suspicion while sneaking into Saltwind City. There are two high ranked law enforcement officers (something like that) after her, who know she's an Aegir and a possible threat. In story, she's still guard Skadi. Devs probably wanted to keep the red getup on Skalter to differentiate between the two units.

Question: Why did the seaborn want to meet Skadi so badly?

Answer:

It's not entirely clear thanks to hYpErGRyPh oBtUsE wRiTinG. Every time the sea heir talks about how much it wanted to meet Skadi and perhaps why, Skadi or cult leader interrupt with their mental breakdown monologue. My interpretation of its reasons is a combination of desire to share knowledge with her (learning is constantly repeated as a goal of the sea horrors), extend an invitation to join the hivemind, and ask a question, explained below.

There are flashbacks to this one suicide mission she and her Abyssal Hunter squad had against one particular sea horror. Her entire unit died and she barely made it out after landing a fatal strike on it. Based on Skadi's mental breakdown, it sounds like that sea horror is like the Zerg Overmind, a central connection for the sea horror hive mind.

There's some exposition about how the Overmind isn't really dead, and it's gone into Hibernation Mode because though it no longer responds to communication, the sea horrors can still feel its pulse.

His specific question was whether Skadi heard the Overmind say anything before it went dormant. More Skadi breakdown, because she did. It said (rough TL) "[our] suffering is eternal." The "our" is ambiguous. It could be referring to Skadi and the Abyssal Hunters, since she's the one narrating, or it could be the Overmind and the sea horrors, who Skadi is repeating. I'm leaning toward the Abyssal Hunters since "being abyssal hunter is suffering" has been a core takeaway of this event.

And then Gladiia stops playing dead and kills off our sole source of Aegir lore :)

Question: Is Skalter/Under Tides canon?

Answer:

The events that happen in Under Tides is canon. Skalter's canon status is in existential limbo. As MrSkyblock404 has reiterated, devs have directly said Skalter is a POSSIBLE future in which Skadi gives into the call.

Question: But isn't the fate of every Abyssal Hunter to eventually turn into Seaborn?

Answer:

Technically yes. The call will never fade, so the moment it overpowers the Abyssal Hunter's will to resist, it will have won. But I say technically because the other side of the tug-of-war is the Abyssal Hunter's own willpower. There are hints scattered throughout that their fates aren't set in stone. As Gladiia said to Skadi in her "get your shit together" moment, if you don't want to become a seaborn, then you won't. Not to mention, they can always ask to be killed by another's hands before they fully turn, so they can die as "themselves". This is like the black card system in Claymore. Skalter's E2 promotional record also has this part:

Well, but that's not what I want to say to you today. What I want to say is that when they want to acquire a structure, they transform in that direction.

Skadi, since those creatures can become what they want to be of their own volition ...... Then you can also not become a certain way by your own will. You can do what you want to do.

For example, an Abyssal Hunter. Or, a little more freely, a bounty hunter.

The seaborn as a collective are naturally able to "focus" their evolution toward a specific direction. So as an individual, Skadi should also have a degree of control over what she does and doesn't want to become. Gladiia is implied to still be undergoing transformation despite her obvious obstinance, but the Deep Sea Church leader says she's different from the other 2 and her fate is sealed. As one of the first Abyssal Hunter prototypes, Gladiia might not be able to resist like the later Hunter prototypes.

If you made it this far, nice job! I hope that helps the EN community understand the tsunami of information that got dumped on us in the event.

If there are questions, post in the comments and I will do my best to answer them. Corrections to information in this thread and swapping notes with other CN readers are very welcome!

EDIT: Removed the spoiler bars since I got feedback that it was annoying to click on each paragraph. I've also added a new section "Deep Sea Church agenda and the seaborn" to clarify all the relationships defined in the story.

Also loving the connections the comments are making to other media. I personally made this post because I am a massive Claymore fan. Seconding one commentor, I highly recommend Claymore, it's a gem that's passed a lot of manga readers' radars. I'm also giving Bloodborne and Dragon Age a shot after the event.

EDIT 2: Thanks to the awesome ak-lore group on the official Discord, I've since made a number of corrections on key points. They are in the sections The town situation, Deep Sea Church agenda and the seaborn, and The state of Iberia and Aegir.

[felicia-cat-hardy]

My 'Pretty Little Liars' Obsession Led Me To My Best Friend

“Got a secret, can you keep it?” Well, I’ve got one: Though Pretty Little Liars ended in 2017, the seven-season mystery thriller schemed its way into being an integral part of my life for the long haul, so much so that the opening credits live in my head rent-free. To this day, each time I hear the sinister theme song — “Secret” by The Pierces — I’m brought right back to my childhood comfort show (ahem, obsession). The visuals begin with a swipe of mascara, the smear of red lipstick, and a clasp of a heel onto a porcelain doll, which makes me feel like I’m watching someone get pampered for prom. Until, of course, it cuts to four girls standing in front of a casket. It's a chilling moment, one that, until Season 6B, ended with Aria Montgomery (Lucy Hale) delivering her iconic “shh.” I got cast under the show’s spell the first time I saw it, and I wasn’t the only one: Pretty Little Liars led me to my best friend.

Ironically, plotlines about deceit and betrayal actually helped ignite a long-lasting friendship. In 2011, the only other person I knew to be watching PLL was my now-BFF, Taylor, who’s been by my side for over a decade. We were only about 11 and 12 when it premiered, so shout out to our parents for letting us watch a show that dealt with very adult themes like substance use disorder, assault, and grief. Unlike our classmates, who watched tween-appropriate hits like iCarly and Victorious, we became PLL stans.

As fans know, the show is loosely based on the Sara Shepard YA series of the same name, and the first book was my entry point into the PLL universe. I loved reading about blackmailers and murderers navigating high school, but I thought I was the only one who was into it. (Was this my ~I’m different~ complex showing, or were my peers just naturally more inclined to recap Dance Moms? I’ll never know.) So, Taylor first struck up a conversation with me at school because she spotted the first PLL book on my desk — you know, the one painted with porcelain wax dolls warning to “never trust a pretty girl with an ugly secret” in a Gothic script. She asked if I’d watched the TV adaptation yet and we immediately exchanged phone numbers to text about upcoming episodes. We then fell into the fandom. Fast.

I’d never talked to Taylor before this interaction — we had only been in a few classes together — but I always saw her as approachable and friendly. Universally, the beginning of middle school is a big and terrifying year when kids from different elementary schools unite. Eager to meet new people, I reached for friendship at any chance I could get. Taylor made it easy. Aside from being a genuinely kind person (a rare trait for a middle schooler!), she was fangirling over the same thing as me.

Fast forward over a decade later, and the show still feels timeless, especially in its accurate depictions of how dramatic high school can get. It’s no surprise there’s a PLL HBO Max reboot on the way along with the remakes of other buzzy shows from that era (hello, 2010s nostalgia). Ah. It was a simpler time. Back then, Freeform was still ABC Family and for me, Tuesdays meant one thing: PLL is on. What first started as a solo viewing experience soon became a designated hangout time, a time slot reserved for me and Taylor to gush over how much we loved Ashley Benson. (We still do!)

The series had a vibe similar to Gossip Girl or Bridgerton in that a mysterious, unidentifiable pot-stirrer keeps fans guessing each episode, but it was arguably so much better since “A,” the anonymous villain, is out for, you know, murder. Ultimately, it was the type of whodunit that made me and Taylor (and millions of viewers) go down a couple of Reddit rabbit holes — remember the “Aria is A” suspicion? — and this is where my and Taylor’s experience with fan theories began.

Oh, and let’s not forget the location. PLL takes place in the fictional suburb of Rosewood, Pennsylvania, and for two girls from Bucks Country — aka the Philadelphia ‘burbs — we ate it up. The beloved “Welcome to the Dollhouse” episode was exceptionally creepy not only because the Liars get locked into a life-size replica of their bedrooms, but also because our real neighborhood looks extremely similar to their hometown. It operates like Rosewood, too, in that small-town gossip travels at lightning speed.

The Pennsylvania-based plotline also made it easier for us to identify with the characters, who felt like extensions of ourselves. In many ways, we got to know each other through their personalities. Taylor is studious and high-achieving, obviously a Spencer. And I owned feather earrings because I saw Lucy Hale sport them in Season 1, so obviously an Aria. Asking “Are you more of a Hanna or an Emily?” held as much weight in 2012 as asking someone their rising sign in 2021. While it might not say much, it also tells you everything you need to know about a person.

PLL got its start right before live-tweeting shows became popularized, so when we weren’t together, I used to text Taylor on my slide-out keyboard phone (only Zillennials will remember) to compare notes without stumbling upon many spoilers. They read something like this: “Caleb and Hanna are soul mates, TBH.” Like every other fan, we theorized about why A had to be Ian… and Melissa… and Jenna… and Mona… and, you get the point. When our elaborate speculations ran cold, we’d pause DVR’d episodes to gather more clues, like glimpses of Red Coat’s face in her second season introduction, or inspections of those eerie-gloved hands assembling dolls and sharpening knives at the end of each episode.

This game of Clue made room for conversations about all the things. We were in high school during the show’s peak, so it felt like the Liars had laid the groundwork for how to operate our school’s halls. Rosewood High was not traditional — uh, multiple students came back from the dead (*cough* Mona and Alison) — but it did prepare us for the stressors of college applications and first romantic relationships. In fact, Benson’s Hanna Marin would be proud of my matchmaking skills because back then, I introduced Taylor to the boyfriend she’s still with today.

As we both grew up with the show, our friendship got even deeper. The Liars weren’t the only ones to share secrets, and I found it incredibly easy to confide in Taylor. She’s trustworthy, level-headed, compassionate, and an excellent listener. She’s someone I know will always pick up on the second ring and is the type of friend to be there with advice, reassurance, and a quick-witted one-liner. She once joked about never needing a diary because we’ve transcribed the past 10 years of our lives via text.

Our bond has remained strong, especially because the most outrageous PLL-esque plotlines of our lives are ones we’ve experienced together. I love Taylor because I don’t have to provide background for my stories. I’m even so familiar with the cast of characters in her life that when someone re-enters after a long period, I like to say they Alison DiLaurentis’ed her.

And on the off-chance she’s not there to witness something meaningful happen to me IRL, she’s always ready to decipher what went down over texts or dinner and drinks — just like we did when we were teens trying to figure out who A was (minus the wine, of course).

The way she can reconstruct my way of thinking and offer up a perspective I hadn’t seen before is almost paranormal. Whether these are Taylor’s naturally given talents or traits learned from peeling back all the layers of the series, I’m not sure. But she’s always there to decode situations with me — whether they relate to a TV show or during moments when I feel lost.

I couldn’t be more thankful that Taylor entered my life and that PLL played a role in our friendship. I feel so incredibly lucky to know someone like her. Plus, now I have someone who is obligated to watch the reboot with me. Ali was right: Friends do share secrets. And she’s ~quite literally~ the reason Taylor’s got all of mine. Spencer and Aria, you’ve got some competition.

Get Relationship Advice Here

[jessadamsdraws]

Sanders Sides Ghost au

Chapter one: The “haunted” house

‘There was a house in the sunshine state of Florida, near a small town at the end of Maron road that is considered infamous among the local housing community. It was an old three-story house that was first built in 1951. It was built for a wealthy university professor and his wife of two years. The man’s name is unknown in the community, long forgotten because he was a very reserved man and because the files are no longer there due to a fire at the precinct that destroying many files. According to many people who lived in the community he only would leave for work early in the morning and come late in the night. Only his wife would attend any social gathering events mainly in a women’s book club. If anyone did see him, they would try and talk to him, but he would keep the conversation very briefly and he would not be very normal. He wasn’t one for small talk as many would recall and would just nod in agreement or talk as if he were from another planet (like many of the local children would say).

But, one thing that everyone would agree on was that the man was indeed intelligent. He was the top teacher at the old University (now a theater), as well as, a part-time teacher at the local high school. Many students didn’t like him. He was strict and very cold. However, many students that struggled academic wise were very fond of him. Even though he wasn’t very good at socializing he was a great teacher. “Even if he could never attempt it, he loved teaching.” One student said.

However, for all the things that were good most come to an end. The professor was found dead in his home with multiple stab wounds. The killer was never found.

Years later (1964) another man moved into the house. Patton Smith was very different than the last owner of the house. He was bubbly and loved telling jokes, everyone who knew him would say ‘he could put a smile on your face without saying a word.’

He would work at the Cawalty Foster home. There he would cook and clean, tell the children so many dad jokes that most would groan at them but still have a goofy smile on their faces. He was just so loved by everyone. But the house claimed its second victim. He started going to the foster home less and less. Many of the children became worried, then one day he stopped coming. He was found dead in the same spot as the old owner.

After that many people called the house cursed and the bank, for the longest time, refused to sell it. Many locals believe that it's haunted by both owners, seek out the person that wronged them. But, years later and being much wiser and needing to sell the house. The bank finally fixed to house and put it back on the market…’

Thomas looks up from his Joan’s phone, pausing in the middle of reading the small article that Joan begged him to look at. For you see Thomas and his friends were standing in the front yard of said house and Thomas (without knowing it) had just bought.

“Told you that that’s the house. I remember reading about it while scrolling Reddit years ago.” Joan said while fixing their beanie.

“Thomas this is so cool. You will be living in an actual haunted house!” Talyn stuffing their hands into their pants pockets.

“Come on, guys. It's not haunted. It just had some not-so-nice-things happen inside its walls.” Thomas said, more to himself than to Joan or Talyn.    

The truth was he was so excited to be having his own place now. Living with Joan and Talyn had been fun and an enjoyable experienced but, the apartment was barely big enough for one let alone three. Joan and Talyn had made it work because they aren’t at home as much, with Joan having a day job and Talyn a night one. Thomas’s job was very much unique. For he worked at a very popular and highly rated theater. Many traveling shows would perform there, and Thomas would end up working behind the scene making sure everything ran as smoothly as possible. Making sure the tech team was on cue for lights and effects and so on. When there wasn’t a big play in town the theater would host one of their own. Sometimes they would hire new play writes that wanted a shot in making it big, sometimes (if it was meant to be a musical) they would hire Thomas to write the songs for it (which was his favorite part of this job).

The main reason for the big move was mainly for space but it was also because Thomas didn’t drive. I was currently on a college scholarship that would pay for him to get his A.A degree but after that, he was on his own. Because of this he needs money which was the theater but the transportation system in Florida is the worst, buses were always late and there wasn’t really any taxi’s around, and Uber was WWWAAAAAYYYYYY out of his price range. However, this house was a 10-minute walk from the theater a 30-minute walk from the campus he was attending, it was a win-win. Plus, the house (even though big) was a steal. But Thomas who had no idea about the two deaths that surrounded this house had already paid for the house and was now the owner of a haunted house. Lucky him.

“Well, even if it is haunted it's too late now you already signed the paperwork is it indeed yours so, let get these boxes in before it rains” Joan picked up on of the boxes that were lying on the yard floor and walking straight throw the front door. Thomas could feel his anxiety and blood pressure going above this comfort limit.

                For the first few days inside the house was almost torture. Thomas’s imagination would play tricks on him so often that he would have the sudden reg to run out screaming if there was any kind of noise. Even common sounds of pipes shacking or a police siren outside. He would end up talking to himself trying to calm his nerves saying that it wasn’t real. Some nights he wouldn’t get sleep at all.

              But as he continued living in the house things started to get better. He would be able to sleep in peace (or as peaceful as he could muster), he could finally unpack his instruments and computer into one of the biggest rooms in the house and decided it to be the drama room. For you see Thomas would sometimes he would take a copy of the script that they would be hosting that no one would miss home with him. He would act out a part or to by himself just for fun. He did not have the courage to actually audition for any part himself. No, he was content with being behind the scenes and making sure that the play was a success.

              One thing he did notice a lot was the house would randomly get cold from spot to spot. But never in the same spot twice. Like wherever the source of the cold spot was it would move around in the house.

              ‘I need to call someone about that before January.’ Thomas noted while walking up to the third floor of his house. He hadn’t actually gone up to the third floor in the now two weeks living there. Considering that the first week he was a bundle of nerves, jumping at his own shadow.

              The house itself was very weirdly built. The stairs that lead to the second floor did not lead to the third, it more or less cut off like the third floor didn’t exist. It was only when you took a sharp left and another left did you see a door, once opened will you find a very narrow and claustrophobic staircase that led to the third floor. Which Thomas was currently climbing. The one thing that he observed from the very narrow staircase was it felt more like they were leading to an attic rather than another floor of the house. The saw that there was only one lightbulb hanging from the ceiling and not in a decretive manner. Like how one would use in their attic or garage, one thing was very current, Thomas didn’t like it. For one this staircase was easily the hottest area in the entire house. There was no air vent for the AC to pump through and no window or anything really, just a one-way staircase that leads up to another door that leads to the top floor.

              Finally making all the way up Thomas notices something less. The higher he climbed the more he could see his breath, but he wasn’t cold at all. It was like suddenly the air around him got cold, but he didn’t. Thomas grabbed the handle of the door and turned, but the knob didn’t.

              ‘Oh, come on really?’ Thomas breathed as he tried to wiggle the knob and bang his weight against the door. But Thomas wasn’t really built for such things so all his attempts where failures.

              “Guess - gonna have ta call - someone about -bout this too.” He said in between pants of breathes as he made his way back down the small staircase silently muttering to himself about having to actually talk to someone on the phone which was something he’d rather not do.

                The next month in the house was just great. He would go to class then go home to change then head out for work then coming home to watch re-runs for Parks and Recreation before turning in late and repeating. It was a much better lifestyle. Joan and Talyn would come to the house when they had a day off and would try being ghost hunters seeing if the “legends” were true.

              Thomas was starting to believe they were not, but strange things would keep him guessing otherwise. For example, Thomas was very much a bookworm he had a tall shelf that had all the book has read over the years but could not part with. On occasion, he would feel like reading them again to spark some inspiration or feeling of going on the character's journey again once done he would place them back on the shelf but when he would go back, he would find it in a different spot. Now that wasn’t really the weird thing, no, the weird thing was that the book on the shelf itself was full and correctly alphabetized by book title. Something Thomas didn’t have the passions for or the nerve to do and it definitely could be done on accident. Or how when he (on the rare occasion) was cooking some food would hear his music coming from his Drama room only for it to disappear when he got close. Thing like those made him second guess if the house was truly haunted or not. But if it was the ghost had not hurt him yet in the month, he lived there so the thought was pushed to the back of his mind.

              But today he was definitely sure it was haunted. Thomas had just woken up from its long sleep by the sun in his eye. He then turned over and saw the time. 9:15 am.

              “WHAT!?” Thomas yelled jumping out of bed but fell because of the sheet he was tangled in.

“Why didn’t my alarm go – GAH I forgot to set it are you kidding me!”

              Thomas raced around his room gathering his clothes to wear while a toothbrush was still in his mouth. Finally, fulling ready he grabbed his phone and bag and raced down the stairs.

              “Of all the days I had to forget to set my alarm it had to be today. Right when ‘Be more Chill’ is doing their dress rehers--” Thomas didn’t get to finish his thought for you see Thomas forgot yet another thing. The laws of physics, for Thomas, had put on his socks before descending down the staircase, that was hardwood flooring. Sending himself forward and hitting the back of his head on the edge of a stair and tumbling all the way down the rest, knocking him out cold.

                “Oh, I hope he didn’t hurt himself too bad.”

              “I don’t know he was an idiot for wear socks while running down a hardwood staircase.”

              “Don’t call our son an idiot!”

              “Virgil is correct Patton, if he had just taken his time, he wouldn’t be lying on the floor like he is now and instead be at work.”

              “Pardon me, but shouldn’t we be a bit more worried about if this man is dead or not.”

              “Roman if he was deceased, he would be amongst us and not on the floor like he is now.”

              Thomas could hear people around him. He didn’t recognize them at all, in fact, the voice themselves sound very echoey like they were there but very far away.

              “Well when he does pass on, I hope he doesn't stay here.”

              “Now, now Debby downer he’s not dead he’s just … um… Logan what’s that thing called again the thing that makes light.”

              “A lightbulb”

              “That, he’s just out like a lightbulb.”

              “That’s not how the saying…”

“Can you please shut up… ow, my head…” Thomas said finally having the strength to get up.

              “Did… did he just...?”

              “No, that would be improbable”

              “You mean impossible?”

              “Well, no, considering our current state I’d literally say that nothing is impossible.”

Thomas finally looked up to see who was talking. But what he saw almost made him faint again. There, standing (well most were floating) in a circle around him were four ghosts. Plain as day clearly see through ghosts each dress in different time period clothes three had blood-stained clothes of some kind. Thomas did what any normal human would do. He ran off the house screaming.

 End of Chapter one.

Chapter two coming soon.

The story is inspired by @literallyglitchn @tssidesghostau

go check out their blogs it's amazing. Also, I took some creative changes for what they had but, keep most. The main change is with Patton.

Edit: I fixed the issues with Joan and Talyn. I apologize for the air on my part I did not know they were non-binary. If I ever make any mistakes like this again please let me know so I can fix it in the future. Chapter 2 will be coming out soon. Thank you so much for all of the support I look forward to writing more.

[kainetestament]

WandaVision Theory

Good Day Everyone, my 1st post for the year 2021.

I was unable to post anything back then (because Tumblr is not letting me post images), and now I am posting for possible theories for WandaVision, and this is as of Episode 7. Please be reminded that this post contains spoilers, so if you don’t wanna read them, you have been warned and you can go back. Also,  I’m gonna skipped on some references as those has been tackled by others already (such has Malcolm in the Middle, Kick-ass, etc), I will focus only on Marvel related franchise, character behaviors and sentence phrasing interpretations.

For those who hasn’t seen it yet, we can simplify that WandaVision is a Online Drama / Sitcom style series by Disney and Marvel Studios that stars both Wanda Maximoff and the Vision. Wanda and the Vision are trapped in the world of sitcom and is being broadcasted to S.W.O.R.D temporary base. So far, Episode 1 takes back in 1950′s sitcom, episode 2 is 1960′s, Episode 3 is 1970′s, Episode 4 is current reality, Episode 5 is 1980′s and Episode 6 is 1990′s, and now its the current era (based on the console game the kids are playing which looks like a Wii).

But before we jump to that, lets talk about first the "WandaVision Plot Leaked" which was first published in 4chan and someone reposted it on reddit (I dont have the name so I'm sorry).  Of course when I first read it, I was also skeptical about it, but at the same time, lets give it the benifit of the doubt and lets see which one will come true and which one is not.

I just numbered and bolded them for easier read, and added ❀ for my side comments about the "plot leak". Also, I'll refer to X-Men Pietro as PETER (because that's how he's called in that world), and ATJ as Pietro.

1. Wanda is a SWORD agent after Endgame which you might already know includes Darcy, Jimmy Woo and Monica Rambeau.

❀ No conclusive information yet, though not impossible because we saw in Episode 5 Wanda stormed into S.W.O.R.D HQ, looking angry and took Vision's body. Hayward said in his comment that its a highly sensitive material and Vision's body location considered a top secret. It's impossible to get this information unless she has an access to it or at least someone she knows has.

2. Woo was recruited from FBI to SWORD to keep check on superpowered beings after Sokovia Accords lost influence.

❀Agent Woo is indeed working in partnership with S.W.O.R.D as of the moment, but he is still wearing his "FBI" vest, indicating he’s still with FBI and is just working alongside with SWORD because he was with Monica and witnessed her disappeared.

3. Wanda was sent to investigate as a SWORD agent..but she was also a part of the team to keep check on her.

4. Wanda as of now is placed in a real illusion. The sitcom world she sees is real with real people of the town – but one can't see so from the outside.

❀ This is true, this is the current event going on in the series.

5. Wanda came in contact with Mysterio who allowed her to gain Vision back and live a peaceful life – based on sitcoms she used to watch as a kid.

❀Mysterio, a lot of people commenting ill about him (for this post – and was thinking it could probably be a typo for Mephisto), but if we look at the timeline, Spiderman Far From Home is set 8months after the blip reversal, WandaVision however, is 3weeks to a month after the blip was reversed. In Episode 4, Hayward mentioned "It's been 3 weeks, and you're first to report" to Monica, and if we go back, the huge TV screens (just after the Marvel Intro) in SWORD's HQ lounge captions the news with "Globe Celebrations Continues" "The Blip Brings Back Loved Ones" indicating the blip just reversed.

6. Mephisto will stay close to the couple and keep watch over them (he is in the rabbit currently). His plan is to obtain Wanda's kids in the hopes they'll be powerful sorcerers he can control. He deems Wanda too dangerous to control in the long run.

❀Agness is INDEED keeping a rabbit and has been seen in Episode 2 and current Episode 7. But whether that is Mephisto or not is not yet conclusive.

7. Sword is trying to maintain contact with Wanda who is lost in her subconscious. Whenever she realizes it, she rejects it.

❀This happened in Episode 4 when Agent Woo and Darcy tried to contact Wanda from the outside the HEX using the radio.

8. The entire show isn't gonna be a sitcom as marketed. We'll see Wanda fighting Sword near the end until Woo manage to make her realize that she's lying to herself.

❀Still inconclusive if Agent Woo will really do that but she already confronted the SWORD in Episode 5, Hayward is indeed planning the attack.

9. The couple will face numerous villains in the final episodes – the ones who were manipulating them...!

10. Kathryn Hahn's Agnes is Agatha Harkness. She was a witch who was given away by her son (I'm not sure if her son will appear onscreen or not) and was burnt alive.

❀It is finally revealed in Episode 7 that Agness is indeed Agatha Harkness, but we will probably find out if she was sold off by his son in the next upcoming episode.

11. She too made a deal with Mephisto who allowed her to live. She befriended Wanda for her children but will become an actual friend to her.

12. However by the end she will be possessed by Nightmare who'd take advantage of Wanda's powers to break open the Multiversal seal – which will of course carry forward to DS2.

13. Dottie will be revealed to be Clea.

14. Grim Reaper will act as Ralph – Agatha's "husband" who Vision would go against in the climax.

15. Sword has a special device which was implanted on Wanda before she was sent. Essentially the events going on are being translated by her subconscious as a sitcom which can be seen by Sword agents (like Darcy) who are confused about what's happening with Wanda.

❀Still inconclusive but not impossible considering Darcy is the WandaVision sitcom.

16. Monica managed to enter Wanda's town while she was asleep in a helicopter. Sword will again try to break in. ❀Half wrong, half right - Monica sent a drone helicopter inside the HEX and Wanda first felt its presence as shown in Episode 2 (after the Marvel intro) when Wanda was still asleep (she heard noises), and in Episode 4, Monica came close to the HEX after her drone disappeared and got sucked inside of the HEX.

17. Monica would try to help Wanda realize the truth after getting her conscious back, but Wanda will get pissed off when she says her Vision isn't real and will throw her away from the town (to the outside world) using her powers.

❀Half wrong, half right - Monica is indeed making Wanda realize the truth and this occurred on Episode 7. In Episode 3, Wanda did sent Monica out of the HEX calling her an outsider when she commented that Pietro was killed by Ultron, not because Vision is dead.

18. Quicksilver will return! And I know it sounds stupid, but Evan Peters is playing him. Aaron will appear in a couple of episodes.

❀Indeed, Peter (Even Peters) of X-Men Universe showed up at the end of Episode 5 and is present the whole Episode 6, and Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) did appear in flashbacks (so far).

19. Wanda slowly starts remembering a few people of the outside world (including her brother). She is trying to figure out if she had a sibling herself, finding it weird why she wouldn't remember him.

❀Inconclusive - so far, it is projected that Wanda is in a state of denial. Though other than Vision, not a single one of the Avengers are mentioned here by her.

20. Meanwhile her subconscious starts to associate powers of the heroes she has known to random civilians of town.

21. She has twins Billy and Tommy who also have powers. One of them has superspeed and she remembers her brother (but not fully).

❀True - Wanda now have twins and Tommy is shown to have super speed, as shown in Episode 6 and Billy having telepathy, clairvoyance and telekinesis, similar to her mom’s power

22. There's one more. Vision will feel a bit weird none of the kids look like him. So they'd create a daughter based off Vision (Viv).

23. Quicksilver returns played by Aaron. However the presence of a real dead dude starts breaking the illusion. ❀Yet to happen but, makes one wonder how he'll get back to life.

24. Grim Reaper (Ralph) will be revealed and he befriends Quicksilver. He'll get him written out of the show and Quicksilver gets recast to Evan Peters.

25. The only one who finds it off is Viv. She is confused why Quicksilver doesn't look the former one. She tries to make others realize that. But they think she hates her uncle.

26. There will be a rerun of all the sitcom episodes. Wanda will break out from her illusion midway in the show to her actual living room in her subconscious.

❀I'm not sure of the rerun as its yet to happen, and I'm not sure if this break out of her illusion is the one that happened on current Episode 7 where Wanda fixed the couch and the TV.

27. Vision here is nothing but a puppet. At this point Wanda realizes the entire illusion but she gets heartbroken realizing her children weren't real.

❀It is already implied that Vision is indeed a puppet. Wanda realizing everything is an illusion is yet to happen.

28. She flips the channels to find her children again and decides to enter the sitcom-y world once again.

29. Darcy will end up there too and she will reveal Vision the entire truth (having watched all the sitcom episodes and analyzed what causes the changes).

❀Exactly as shown in Episode 7.

30. Wanda will be unwilling to leave her world even after her fight against the Sword stops.

31. Mephisto will take control of Quicksilver's body. Agatha will turn on him.

32. Wanda will try to send Quickie back to his universe in the end with Agatha's help but Nightmare will use it as an opportunity to seize control of Agatha.

33. The Nightmare part will only be revealed to the audience (not Wanda herself). Story carries over.

34. There are flashbacks of Wanda's life. A lot of which are seen by Darcy who tries to understand the extent of her trauma.

35. Yes Aaron will appear in flashbacks. Wanda will be shown a lot of these in the final episodes where she'd also find how the Mind Stone just unlocked her innate powers.

❀He did

36. Evan Peters will tell how in his universe Mutants are pretty common (just a tease).

❀ If this is true, then its only Peter will be the only mutant to appear in the series.

37. The ads in the show are all related to her trauma. There will be ads about Pietro's death, Lagos explosion and even a vacuum cleaner based on Thanos.

❀ The Ads - somehow true, related to her trauma. The first commercial with the oven possibly be a reference to Age of Ultron where commented Pietro and Wanda commented that when they were 10y.o, a bomb shell fell into their house but did not detonate, they were staring at it for 2 days because they were trapped and waiting for help while thinking every shift on bricks will set if off. Episode 2 has the Strucker watch referencing also to Age of Ultron where Strucker experimented on them using Loki’s scepter. Episode 3 is about escaping reality with the Hydra Soap (with the shape of the Tesseract), Episode 5 with Lagos Paper Towel representing her messed in Captain America Civil War when she tried to save Cap, Episode 6 with the animation of Yo-Magic with a Shark talking using a caption "If you're hungry, eat Yo-Magic", and lastly Episode 7 with Nexus medicine that promotes killing when you are depressed.

38. The couple in each of the ads is her parents who are acting as stand-ins for events based off her trauma.

❀Yes, that is the speculation.

39. Vision will help Wanda accept the reality and move on. He gives her his farewell and fights Grim Reaper, hoping to destroy the dome after sacrificing his life.

40. Wanda saves Vision in a scene which mirrors Age of Ultron. He will return back to real world along with their children, Agatha, Quickie and rest of the town/Sword.

41. Wanda is happy Vision is alive and sings a song to him, but it turns out he is effectively rebooted after the fight. Unable to bring his memories back, Sword leaves with Vision.

42. Her children are also hidden by Nightmare-Agatha. Wanda gets torn and tries to move on, unaware to her Nightmare is opening up the Multiverse for unknown reasons.

I will end this first here as the post is getting longer, and will continue with the part 2 and will discuss it further.

[transthaumaturge]

trans asks: 3, 19, 40

and bonus chosen without looking at the question: 27

--- Sorry I was a few days late to answer this, @foxoftheasterisk! I just re-reblogged the ask game as of the middle of the day on 12/24 so that it’s easier to see what I’m responding to. Responses under the cut so that this doesn’t dominate anybody’s dashboard.

Ask 3: Do you have more physical dysphoria or more social dysphoria? I’d say probably more social dysphoria. I have enough bottom dysphoria that I don’t like looking at myself in the mirror while I’m in the bathroom, but the biggest source of trans-related discomfort for me is not knowing whether I look or sound feminine to other people when I’m interacting with them in public. I’ve learned two important things from having a lot of social dysphoria: 1) You probably notice the nuances of your voice and appearance much more than any random person you’ll meet on the street--especially when it comes to cis people. I spend a lot of time thinking that my voice doesn’t sound natural, or that my face isn’t “feminine enough” (whatever that means), but people notice a lot less in general than I think they will. If you’re trying to pass, whatever that entails, you’re already doing a great job ^_^* 2) Passing is a shit metric for trans people to be judged on, and a shit metric for us to judge ourselves on. I’m just as much a lady now as when I had a full beard shadow two years ago, and I’m much happier with my no-makeup appearance nowadays than I was when I tried to dress hyperfeminine every day in my first year as myself. Give yourself a break. I still get anxious over my voice and appearance, but I don’t let it convince myself that I’m “failing at being a woman” anymore. I am a woman. If some rando on the street thinks otherwise, it’s their right to have terrible opinions. Ask 19: Would you ever go stealth, and if you are stealth, why do you choose to be stealth? I’m fully out in my day-to-day life, and that includes in my job as a high-school science teacher where I have a trans pride flag on my desk and co-advise the school GSA as an “LGBTeacher”. I like being visibly trans, especially to the kids that I work with, because it makes me a “possibility model.” It shows trans kids that they’re safe being themselves around me, and that there’s a real possibility that they’ll grow up happy as their true selves. But would I ever go stealth? I suppose I would if I felt like it was a matter of safety, and I’ve done so in the past for that reason. In the summer that I was interviewing for teaching jobs back in 2018, I had been out to myself as trans for several months but made the choice to pretend to be a cis man for all of those interviews and also for a full year into my teaching career. I knew that if I came to my interviews in a dress, I stood less of a chance of being hired and couldn’t afford to be jobless. And I knew that if I presented as a woman in my first year of teaching, it might introduce an element of danger into my life that I didn’t need while I was still working on coming out to those around me and building a support network. I took a calculated risk to go from being stealth to being out in my daily life because after a while, it was just too painful to not be my authentic self. But that took a lot of work. I spent a lot of time working with the local teacher’s union to make sure that I had someone to protect me when coming out to the district and school administration. And in my personal life, I waited until I had my own health insurance, my own car, and a handful of other things before I came out to the dad who threatened to take all of these things away from me if I wore women’s clothes in public again. If anybody reading this is trying to make that same decision of “when to go full-time”, I would strongly suggest that you do what you can to make sure that you have resources available to you if the worst happens afterward. You may not be as lucky as I was with the timing of my coming-out, but make sure that you have something to steady yourself with. A place to go if things get ugly at home, some money or possessions stashed away where the people who want to control you can’t get to them. At the same time, don’t let family manipulate you into waiting and making yourself miserable for years and years because “it’s just not safe right now”. My dad tried to do that once he realized he had nothing on me anymore, and I saw it for what it was. Nowadays, if I went stealth, it would be to pretend to be a cis woman rather than a cis man. I think that I could do that, but only if I was in an interaction where people knowing I was trans would put me in danger. It would particularly suck because I wear a kippah wherever I go, but I would even take that off if I needed to. I’m not so self-sure that I don’t realize there are places in my own country, some not too far from me, where there are people who want me dead. My goal is to make sure that I never end up in those places if I can help it, and if I do, to fake it until I make it. Ask 40: How did/do you manage waiting to transition? In this respect, I was luckier than most because I slowly came out to myself over the five years that I was in college and away from my parents, and wasn’t fully out to myself until I was 23 and about to get a job that I could use to support myself. I know that it’s not that easy for a lot of people, especially because my relative privilege helped me to get into a stable, independent living situation after school. But even with all of that, I still spent an entire year pretending to be a man while I taught my first year of high school science and waited to complete my full social transition. It was really hard. On the days that I wore a button-down shirt and dress pants to school, I felt trapped; on the days that I wore a school t-shirt and loose jeans, I felt like I was falling apart. Using my “guy voice” made me flinch almost constantly, because it didn’t feel like mine. I had to constantly remind myself that I was a woman, and that I would get through this. It’s difficult, when everyone around you is using your deadname and misgendering you. Here are the three things that helped me the most: 1) I built a support network for myself in my personal life. When I was looking for a house to move into, I made sure that my housemates were okay with me being trans and that they wouldn’t be uncomfortable with me being myself at home. Coming out to strangers like that was difficult, but I couldn’t bear another year of only being myself when I was in a locked bedroom. I was also lucky enough to have a queer community center in my town where I attended weekly trans support group meetings, which gave me a way to dress authentically and be seen and affirmed. I’m not lying when I say that I looked forward to those support meetings every second that I wasn’t in them. If you’re in a pre-coming-out situation and don’t have a physical queer community space right now (or that space is closed because of quarantine), online spaces are also amazing places to seek out affirmation and be seen. Discord, Reddit...just make sure that any Facebook groups you join aren’t marked public or everyone you’re friends with will be able to see your posts and comments from that group on their feeds. I learned that the hard way, thankfully long after I came out. Many queer community centers, if you live relatively close to them, are also doing weekly online support meetings right now to try and keep those affirming spaces alive during covid. 2) I started saying daily self-affirmations. Mine went “My name is Rachel Tikvah [Lastname], and I am a woman. I am a sister, I am a daughter, and I am enough.” I set phone alarms to say it in the morning before work, in the afternoon after work, and I also whispered it under my breath anytime that I felt like I just couldn’t take pretending any longer. Not only did it help me in the moment, it helped me to get used to my new name while my deadname was still being regularly used. If the above affirmation doesn’t feel like it would work for you, I have no doubt that there are plenty of trans self-affirmations that you can look up online and choose from. 3) I focused on the approaching milestones. I got through my first autumn by building my wardrobe and picking out my new first and middle names. By then, I had decided that I would start hormones on my birthday in February and counted down the days until then. Starting hormones brought a bunch of early transition milestones with them that I could focus on, and I worked out a deal with school administration that I would come out over the summer and start my second school year as a woman. That gave me an ultimate goal to work towards. Every step I took, every accomplishment I made, brought me closer to the light at the end of the tunnel. Knowing that kept me strong, and it kept me hopeful for the day when I would never have to worry about pretending to be a man ever again. If you’re currently in a dark place and not sure when you’ll be able to transition medically or socially, figure out what those milestones are for you and focus on what steps and amount of time it will take before they’ll come true. If you don’t have any milestones to look forward to, try to create some for yourself. Order some trans gear to start wearing if you have a safe way to do so! Work towards choosing a new name for yourself if you want a new one! Celebrate the anniversary of coming out to yourself with your friends each year! Whatever you can think of, put it on your mental calendar and look forward to it while you wait. Bonus Ask 27: What do you do to validate yourself? The self-affirmations that I mentioned in ask 40 really helped, and I still say them almost daily now that I’m out. They’re especially helpful when I’m feeling particularly dysphoric. As someone who is also very proud of my Jewish identity, I also say the blessing “thank you god for creating me as a woman” when I take my hormones or when looking at my body makes me smile. Those are beautiful moments that I thought for the longest time would never happen, and I want to sanctify every one of them. The Hebrew for this modified blessing can be found on this blog post: https://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2012/03/on-bodies-blood-and-blessings.html Apart from that, one of my big refuges is clothing. I have a wardrobe full of cute clothes (there’s something beautiful about coming out of the closet and then filling it with dresses) that I’ll wear if I need to feel extra-feminine or sure of myself. I’ll put on makeup before going outside, and if I need it, I’ll take a picture of myself and post it to one of the queer discord servers I’m part of with a request for positive affirmations about my femininity. Knowing that I’m being seen by people that I care about and that they think I’m beautiful always means a lot and helps me feel better if I’m having trouble chasing the dysphoria away on my own. Between positive self-affirmations and being seen and cheered on by friends, I’m usually able to make myself feel better if I need that extra boost of validation. I should also mention that while it doesn’t come up a lot now that I’m not being regularly deadnamed, I used to ask friends to use my chosen name more in conversation than they would otherwise. Hearing it more chased away the intrusive thoughts, most of which at the time were my brain saying my deadname to me whenever there was a moment of silence. My brain was quieter when my friends were using my real name regularly. Okay, I hope that that gave you a little bit more insight into me and my transition! I am living proof that trans people can come out to themselves in adulthood and turn out alright. Gender is a galaxy, and I’ve remade myself out of the stardust. I hope that any trans people reading this have been/are able to transition safely as well. You’re all amazing, and you deserve happiness.

[lunawho47]

Buzzfeed Unsolved: The Mysterious Doctor and the Omen of the Blue Box (Part 1)

Fandoms: Buzzfeed Unsolved and Doctor Who

Genre: Total Crackfic, Humor

Rating: 16+ (for language)

Summary: A script for Buzzfeed Unsolved, in which our two favorite jackasses, the Ghoul Boys, discuss the various internet theories surrounding the identity of various mysterious figures known only as “the Doctor” and the blue box that tends to appear around them.  Well, Ryan wants to discuss the theories; Shane thinks it’s all urban legends and bullshit.

A/N: So, I’ve read a lot of these mock scripts going around for Unsolved discussing CW’s Supernatural as though it was real, and I thought they were hilarious.  So, my brain started wondering what theories the reddit and conspiracy boards would think up about mentions of the Doctor, the Doctor’s companions, UNIT, and Torchwood.  And to be honest, my brain came up with A LOT of theories that would make sense, and this format seemed a fun way to discuss all of them.  It was originally going to be a one shot, but as I started writing, Shane kept interrupting in my head about how stupid all of it sounds, and that kept making the script longer and longer.  So, it’s now going to be a few parts long cos the history of DW (even when seriously truncated) takes a long time to go through when you try to use the serials to make arguments about the Doctor’s potential identity(s).  

So, here’s part 1.  Please let me know if you like it and would like to see more.  And if Shane and Ryan sound anything like themselves because if they don’t then the whole thing is nowhere near as funny as it should be.

Ryan: Today on Buzzfeed Unsolved we're looking into the puzzling mystery of an entity known only as "The Doctor" and the corresponding omen of a blue box.  It's a mystery that, in its more comprehensive moments, is whimsically strange and, most of the time, is just plain batshit bizarre.

Shane: Okay, so I can hear the air quotes around the name, and you called it an entity.  Are we talking like, cryptid creature that is based in reality or am I going to be sitting through theories about zombie plagues and Ant-man Ax murderers again?  Just what am I in for here?

Ryan: No zombie plagues, and the Doctor has never murdered anyone with an ax.  At least, not in any of the records available. It's just...well, it's hard to explain here, so let's just get right into it.  Just bear in mind this is Gene Wilder Willy Wonka levels of weird when it's at its most sensical.  And it's rare that this story makes any sense at all.

Shane: Alright, I'll confess I'm...intrigued.  I'm ready to listen.

Ryan: Alright, here we go.  *opens folder*

Ryan (in his Unsolved VO):  The first documented evidence of a being calling itself "The Doctor" is in the files of now deceased British UNIT officer Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart.

Shane:  Wait.  UNIT?  What's that? Sounds like something out of a video game.

Ryan: (wheeze) It does a bit, yeah. But there is paperwork evidence that verifies this group -- lame as the acronym is -- actually existed.  They were set up in the mid-1960s by the United Nations to look into unexplained phenomena and for a long time they were a covert operation.  The British Prime Minister knew they existed, and they answered to Geneva, but they weren't known to the wider public until after they shut down three years ago.

Shane:  I'm sure that meeting went GREAT.  'Hey, everybody, thanks for coming down this Monday morning. Erm...thanks for protecting us from alien invasions for the last 50 years and for keeping such a great secret about it.  Here's your reward: you're all fired, and we're going to tell the entire world what your names were and let you deal with the press about it for the rest of your life.  Have a great rest of your Monday!'  (Wheeze) What a bunch of shitty bosses.

Ryan: I mean, based on what little there is to read about how UNIT operated, the Brigadier we'll be talking about really had to go to bat for the organization in front of the Prime Minister a lot over the years in order to keep the operation going.  After the Brigadier died, they were able to keep going for awhile, but as you'll see from some of these stories we'll be looking at today, the organization was considered obsolete long before it was disbanded.

Shane: Okay, so the Doctor first appears in conjunction with this UNIT?

Ryan: Right, so in the 1960s, there was some weird circumstance that led to the London Underground shutting down and the Brigadier, who was only a Colonel in the regular British army at the time, ran into what he described as a "(quote) man with a foppish haircut, ratty waistcoat, and tartan patterned clown pants; a young teenage girl; and a full Scotsman (end quote)."  

Shane: So which is the Doctor?  

Ryan: In this case, it's the first description.  The man with the clown pants on.  (wheeze)

Shane: (wheeze) Do you think he had clown shoes on, too?

Ryan: See, I know exactly what you're picturing right now.  You're thinking of a guy with a depressing Beatles haircut and complete clown regalia, including the extra large shoes.

Shane: I am.  100%  And you know, given some of the things we saw when traveling around London, including on (*with a terribly fake posh Oxbridge accent*) the Tube, a man dressed as a clown running around the platforms underground wouldn't even register as weird on a normal day.

Ryan: (Conceding) That is true.  And on a normal day, I'd agree with you.  But, bear in mind, this was the 1960s -- not the modern day -- and the Tube at the time was closed to the public because of this unknown threat the army was trying to deal with.  And what's even more notable -- the reason why the future Brigadier apparently wrote about it in his official report to the Prime Minister -- is that the man who called himself the Doctor, together with the two other civilians, saved the day.  The details are sparse, but the Brigadier makes it clear that the Doctor is the one who figured out what was really going on and managed to deal with whatever the situation was with minimal casualties.

And that's just the first time the Doctor and the future Brigadier crossed paths.  There are later documents that report the Brigadier -- now promoted from Colonel and officially a Brigadier -- came across the same man and Scotsman, but a different young girl in London just weeks after the military organization known as UNIT was founded.  And AGAIN, whatever the situation actually was, the Doctor and his friends were the ones that helped UNIT save the day.

Shane: Am I the only one who finds it suspicious that the details are always missing?  Like, shady organization set up by the government to look into extraterrestrial happenings?  Sure. (*puts hands in the air in surrender to argument*) I'll buy that.  Governments do shady shit all the time.  But, I mean, things like shutting down the London Underground and alien happenings in the city of London itself.  People are going to notice, right?  And how shitty are the Brigadier's write ups that no one remembers or knows any of the happenings in Britain's capital?  "Dear Prime Minister, stuff happened.  Doctor did some other stuff.  Stuff stopped.  The end.  TTYL."  Sounds like someone was crap at his job and when things just luckily worked out, everyone just swept it under the rug.

Ryan: You see, I would agree with you there.  BUT...there are pictures.  We can't show them to the audience because of copyright, but if you know where to look online, people love to discuss the Doctor and all the people who have gone missing while looking for the Doctor, so.  Investigate at your own peril. But, Shane, here you go.

*the audience can't see the photos hidden by Ryan's open folder, but we see Shane's expression.*

Shane: (*laughs*)  That Doctor looks like a moron.  I mean, I still think the Brigadier must have been crap at his job, but he was bang on his descriptor of the Doctor looking like a clown.  And I take it the guy in the kilt is the Scotsman?

Ryan: Yeah, I looked up what full Scotsman means when I read the description and apparently it means a guy who wears a kilt with no underwear on underneath it.  Before that, I just assumed that it meant this other guy was wandering around the Underground, playing bagpipes and singing songs from Highlander or something.

Shane: You thought this guy was wandering around singing Who Wants to Live Forever over a decade before the film came out.  (wheeze)

Ryan:  Well, when we get into the theories that idea won't seem entirely out of place, I don't think.

Shane: Well, I'm going to go ahead and call a preemptive bullshit on that theory.

Ryan: Noted.

Ryan: (back in Theory VO) The next record of the Doctor's appearance comes about in the 1970s when a man is admitted to a local hospital after collapsing outside of a blue box in the woods.

Shane: There was a blue box in the woods?  Like, human sized or was he scrunched up in it like Shroedinger's cat?

Ryan: We'll get back to the box in a minute, but it's larger than a human, yeah.  In fact, it was something called a Police Public Call Box, which were common to see on city or town street corners in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. The idea was that if police or citizens saw a crime being committed, they could either phone the police from the box or shove the criminal in the police box and go fetch a policeman.  But what's weird about the box in this case is: 1) it's in the middle of the woods, and not even on like, a hiking path or anything.  But, the legit WOODS.  And 2) it's the 1970s and police call boxes are no longer really a thing at this point.  But, once the man calling himself the Doctor gets to the hospital it gets even stranger.

Shane:  I mean, everything about this story so far feels like the Brigadier spinning a yarn, but keep going.

Ryan: So, the Brigadier gets a phone call from the hospital that a man called the Doctor has been admitted to the hospital.

Shane: Wait, how did the hospital know to call the Brigadier about that?  Was there a national bulletin?  Is the Doctor a wanted man or something?

Ryan: I don't know, man.  Maybe the police just call UNIT whenever something with the label "fucking weird" comes across their desk.  I don't know.  This is just what the report says.

Ryan: (theory voice) Due to a situation UNIT was overseeing in the area at the time, the Doctor's appearance was notably auspicious for the Brigadier, so the UNIT officer went to see if his friend could help with the investigation.  However, when he got the hospital, he discovered that he the man calling himself 'The Doctor' was not anyone he recognized.

Shane: Wait...what?

Ryan: (laughing).  I told you the situation at the hospital is weird.  So, the Brigadier is told that this man who has helped him out before has been admitted to a hospital that is nearby a situation that UNIT is investigating -- a clear sign, in the Brigadier's mind, that this Doctor who is injured is the same one he's met twice before -- and then discovers that it's a completely different man.

Shane: Well, I mean...that's not *too* weird.  I mean, the man is in a hospital, and you usually see doctors in a hospital.  And I'm sure a lot of doctors are known more by their title than their surname.  There are millions of doctors on the planet, so I don't know if two different people wanting to be called Doctor is all that unusual.

Ryan: (with a haughty smile) That makes perfect sense, but listen to this.

Ryan: (Theory voice)  The Brigadier assumed at first that the patient calling himself the Doctor was a coincidence and started to leave the room.  However, he found himself called back when he heard the unknown man call the Brigadier by name. The conversation made it clear that, not only did the patient know the Brigadier's full name, but also knew the circumstances under which the Doctor and the Brigadier had met both times before. Information which, at the time, was highly classified and known only to those in the Prime Minister's office and those who had been in the UNIT planning room at the time of the situational crises.

Shane: Okay, I'm going to call it.  I'm going with spy.  I think the Doctor is a code name and this guy inherited  the call sign and the information from the Doctor's previous operations.  

Ryan: So, you think this is like, a 007 scenario?  

Shane: I mean, I'm sure you'll peddle some alien abduction theory or some other supernatural bullshit, but...yeah.  I'm going spy call sign.  Makes sense to me so far.

Ryan: Well, you might not be a *total* dipshit, but...we'll see.  There's still quite a bit more to cover. This isn't even the tip of the weird iceberg.

Shane: (sarcastically) Oh joy...

[haileygonzales]

First Chapter of Nerdy, Aro Novel!

CHAPTER ONE

They’re not looking at you. They’re not looking at you. They’re not-

“Um, where do I sit?” I ask, shifting my weight to the side. It’s a lie. They are. I had arrived thirty minutes early for nothing. Mr. Zhong had arrived just as bell announcing class rang. What ever happened to teachers coming to school early? I’ve never been a new student before, and Greensville never had new students. Did teachers actually expect you to stand and introduce yourself? And it’s not like I could just sit down. Its October, seats are already in place. Taking someone’s spot would be a cardinal sin.

Mr. Zhong looks up from his papers he’s just slammed onto his desk and smiles warmly. “Sorry- sorry just running a bit behind today. What’s your name?”

“Paige Solano.” I glance nervously at the students slowly piling in, most of them glancing curiously at me. My body feels hot. I tense up. They’re not staring. They’re not staring. It’s fine. I’m okay. I push my glasses up further on my face.

“Let me see… There it is. I have a seat right there, Ms. Solano.” He points to the back of the classroom next to the door. The tightness around my chest eases. At least I don’t have to worry about being in the front. I make my way to my seat with my head tucked down.

I pull out my binder, glancing at the piece of paper tucked into the side. Right. My goals for the year. I’m always making to do lists and goals. It’s supposed to help me focus, but I’m a procrastinator down to my core.

PAIGE’S GOALS FOR THE YEAR

·              Make true friends

·              Don’t be afraid to tell your interests- Anime! Fanfiction! Art!

·              Wear nerd shirts for two whole weeks

My hand trembles around my pencil. I glance back up at Mr. Zhong. There’s something missing. It’s been in the back of my mind but writing it down just feels odd. Mr. Zhong is in the zone, pointing to the grammar example on the screen projector. It’s been years since I’ve seen one of those. I look around making sure that no one’s checking out my paper. Screw it. I said I’d make the best of this move.  If I’m being honest, I wasn’t even sad to leave Greensville. I wouldn’t miss the people I hung out with because they weren’t actual friends. We just hung out, so we wouldn’t be by ourselves. I take a deep breathe. Okay, I’ll write it.

·              Lose my virginity

My face burns. If my mom sees this, I’ll just about die. It’s a funny thing being aromantic. I had only just discovered that word about a year ago, but hearing it changed my life. I’m in my junior year right now and I had never had a crush. I didn’t understand people that did. I just… I never felt that way. I didn’t feel romantic attraction. I never had the thought: I want to date him.

For a while, I thought romance books were a lie because I hadn’t felt what they told me I should feel. Of course, that’s when I discovered a reddit forum and found the word aromantic. No romantic feels necessary here. Though that left a problem. I’m not asexual. I do feel lust. I think guys are hot and I want the sex. I’m ready. But I don’t want a boyfriend and the thought of having one just makes me feel all gross inside, so that left me with one option. A hook-up. No yucky feelings about being attached to romantically. Just sex.

I close my binder and pull out my notebook. There’s no way I’m letting anyone see that list. I write down the examples Mr. Zhong has on the screen, but my mind is elsewhere. I didn’t want those distant relationships I’ve had with friends. The sad thing is those are the kind of friends I’ve had all my life.

But I’m going to change that with this move.

I swear it.

“How was your day, sweetie?” Mom asks once she comes home from work. When Mom upped and announced our move out of nowhere, I hadn’t questioned it. I was relieved, but too shy to tell her. But I knew being relieved shouldn’t have been a normal reaction. According to all the movies and shows, I should’ve thrown a fit and hated her. But I wasn’t. Greensville just felt so stifling. I grew up with the same kids from kindergarten to junior high and by now, their opinions of who I was had already caged me in. Shy Paige. Quiet Paige. Nice Paige. But I’m not that. Or rather, not just that.

I hadn’t realized until we left town with all of our stuff jammed into our car what it truly meant. That Dad wouldn’t be just a ten-minute walk from school. That my memories of him were just getting further and further away…

I’ve wanted to ask her why. Bowden is similar to Greensville in many ways. There’s nothing to do here. But I knew Mom wanted this move, because she had no reason to. Mom had a secure job as a fifth-grade teacher back in Greensville, and she moved here for the same job. Why did she want to move so suddenly?  

“It was good.” I lie as I shift from my spot on the couch to turn and face her. Our living room is filled with boxes. But at least we had the TV set up. I don’t want to talk about school. If Mom knew the truth, she’d feel bad. Because the truth is that I had wandered around lunch the whole time trying to find a spot where I could sit by myself without feeling like a loser. I thought it’d be easy to make friends, but everyone kept to themselves and my stomach curled at the thought of approaching groups.

“I’m glad.” Mom smiles, the corner of her eyes wrinkling. I know Mom’s worried about me. She’s been worried since she announced the move. I should’ve been angry for the sudden move, instead I couldn’t stop smiling. Maybe Mom thought I was leaving behind a gang or something. “I was thinking… Let’s go out for dinner today.”

We only just started to unpack yesterday. Our house is part box, part living-space. My room looks like I’m moving out for college or something. I head to my room after giving Mom the remote. Talking just seems… exhausting. I could start unpacking, but any strenuous movement sounds gross, so instead I upload Crunchyroll on my phone and start One Piece. There’s, like, nine hundred episodes. I’m only a hundred in. I figured in about three to five years, I’ll catch up.

That leads me to watch My Hero Academia. I only watch two episodes, but three hours pass. I have this routine to scour the internet after every show, searching for opinions. It’s very cathartic to see that other people thought Bakugou is a brat that needs some justice shoved into his face. Man, just thinking about him irritates my skin. At least, Midoriya, that little flower child, can cheer me up.

“Paige, it’s time for dinner!” Mom’s voice shakes me out of the latest reddit forum. There’s a ping on my phone. As I walk forward, I can’t stop the smile that spreads across my face. About a year ago, I started posting my fanart on Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter. It’s not successful or anything but I get a hundred likes a photo. Each like just makes my heart want to burst. Though I try to have a variety, most of it is just Leaf’s Epic Adventure. That anime has hit me in the feels, and its hit me hard.

I shove my phone in my back pocket and head out the door.

~~~

You can subscribe to my newsletter HERE to be informed when this book will be released! (Coming November 20, 2020). You can also read the summary HERE. 

[mustardprecum]

27 for harringrove please 🥺 (it’dbe appreciated if steve’s the one that’s preggers thank you!)

[27 “I’m pregnant.”]

Steve had decided to try and get pregnant. The notion came to him shortly after El’s birthday, when Steve realized that all his kids were over twenty-one. The abrupt ache of an empty nest got the ball rolling, and after more researching and reading than he’d done during any one year of school, he made his decision.

Most of the people in his life were well meaning when he told them, but also rudely disbelieving. After all, Steve was a single omega in his mid-twenties, mostly living off a trust fund from his parents and a hefty inheritance from his great aunt. Money he was very grateful for, considering he’d never be able to afford owning a house in the new development near downtown with his sporadic part time jobs. 

(Good ol’ Aunt Phyllis would have been stoked to find out that he choosing to be a single parent.) 

The issue with the public perception of his personality was the fact that it was largely based off the person he was in his sophomore and junior year of high school. Steve had grown and changed from the flakey teenager. One could almost say he was literally an adult. 

At least Dustin supported him. Mostly. 

“Steve, you can’t be serious.” 

Dustin sat at the island in Steve’s kitchen, eating a bowl of cut up strawberries that Steve had put out for him. Old habits die hard, and Steve had been one of the few people who could get a young Dustin to eat his fruits and vegetables. “I mean of all the people in Hawkins, in the world, why him?��� 

Earl grey tea was kind of gross, but Steve was trying to stop drinking coffee for his caffeine fix. He took his time stirring in a packet of stevia while he considered his answer. 

Billy Hargrove had come along in Steve’s senior year of high school and had promptly become a massive pain in the ass. Although, one thing that set him apart from all the other alpha meatheads was the fact that his taunts and jabs were purely personal for Steve, and never once did he resort to misogyny. 

God, the bar had been so low at that time. 

Over the past ten years, Billy had mellowed out slightly but noticeably. He worked at the mechanic Steve frequented for oil changes and tune ups, and lived in the periphery of Steve’s life because of his association with Max. And he still seized every opportunity to try and rile Steve up by getting in his personal space and commenting on his ‘ugly’ shirts. 

(Steve didn’t know when Billy developed a hatred of polo shirts, but it was apparently long lasting.)  

In the grand scheme of things though, none of it mattered more than one thing: Billy’s genes. He was a dick of the massive variety but goddamn if he hadn’t spent the past ten years being the most gorgeous person Steve had ever seen in his entire life. 

He smoked like a chimney and often had a beer in hand, but his skin was clear, his hair was soft, and his abs were extremely enviable. 

“I don’t want to go through a clinic,” Steve started. He quickly held up his hand before Dustin could start ranting. “I’m not going to ask someone I babysat to donate. I’m not really close with any other alphas in town, and an alpha is my best bet.” 

Dustin knew all of that. As a male omega, Steve would have fertility issues with a beta for scientific reasons he didn’t actually understand. Mike and Lucas had both been presented as options in Dustin’s argument, but the idea was too wrong. 

“Billy is…close enough, but far enough. You know?” Steve set his mug down; he honestly didn’t want to drink his tea. “If he says yes, working on inception will be pretty easy. If he says no, it’s not really a big deal. We’re not friends, so it won’t have to be awkward.” 

Privately, Steve assured himself that it had nothing to do with the crush he used to have on Billy. Therefore, it wasn’t inappropriate to ask. 

“But he’s such a tool,” Dustin said around a mouthful of strawberries. “Do you think he won’t be a tool about it?” 

“God. I know he’s going to be a tool about it. But,” Steve shrugged. “Just think of how cute my baby would be.” 

Dustin raised an eyebrow. 

“I would have a really cute baby, Dustin. And you would have a really cute little baby pseudo-sibling.” 

Poor Dustin, the only child, twenty-three and still wanting that younger sibling. He perked up, still looking skeptical but finally chewing quietly. 

“Plus, it’s all going to be in a contract. No parental or financial obligation,” Steve added to sweeten the deal. “I’ll get a positive test, pay him, and he’ll fuck off to wherever he spends his time.” 

Dustin hummed, drumming his fingers on the table. “I’m still godfather?” 

“Obviously.” 

“Okay,” Dustin bounced, smiling broadly. He was excited for a baby, and when he smiled, he looked like a cheetah cub. “Well, Max said she’d text you his number so…good luck?” 

“Thanks.” 

-

Sending the text was nerve-wracking, even though all he sent was ‘can we get lunch?’ Steve had put his phone face down and tried to distract himself with scrolling through reddit and Tumblr, but waiting for a response was even worse than sending the message. 

He’d followed up with several messages explaining who he was, once it occurred to him that Billy probably had no idea who was texting him. Eventually, Billy finally responded telling Steve to stop blowing up his fucking phone. 

Despite Steve’s fears of Billy’s attitude after that response, he was invited to a Starbucks in between their homes. Steve distantly recalled Max mentioning that she was envious of the studio apartment that Billy was renting over a storefront. How privileged was he that he couldn’t imagine having the same room functioning as the bedroom/living room/public space? 

Billy was already there when Steve arrived. He was sipping a green frappucino and staring down at his phone. 

The last time Steve had seen Billy even in passing was the month before during the Hopper family’s Fourth of July party. He was even more gorgeous than Steve remembered even looking a little grimey like he’d come straight from work. 

“Hey,” he approached the table, trying to smile when Billy’s blue eyes snapped up. “Thanks for meeting me. Mind if I grab a drink real quick?” 

“Depends, pretty boy,” Billy leaned back, smiling in that special way that gave Steve a major sexuality crisis in high school. “Why did you ask me out?” 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Steve whipped his head around as if anyone else cared about the two of them meeting up. No one was looking. He sat down heavily and sighed. “I’m…I have a favor to ask. But I kind of wanted to ease into asking.” 

“Interesting,” Billy drawled. “What could ‘King Steve’ possibly want from little ol’ me.” 

“I’m almost thirty, Billy. Please don’t call me that.” Steve looked down at his hands, maybe this was a bad idea. There was no way Billy would agree to being a donor. 

“Look Harrington, I’m leaving in five minutes so spit it out.” 

“Oh come on,” Steve whined, bouncing his leg. “It’s not the sort of thing you just spit out!” 

Billy slurped loudly at his drink. “You want me to murder someone?” 

“Obviously not. Kind of…the opposite?” Steve winced when his voice went squeaky toward the end. He cleared his throat, deciding to continue because Billy had wrinkled his nose. “Okay, so, I used to babysit a lot and I know how to take care of kids. I miss taking care of kids. And, well, I have money and time, right?” 

“Right,” Billy said blankly. 

“Right,” Steve nodded and took a deep steadying breath. “So I’ve decided that I want to start a family. With a baby. And me. Single.” 

Bringing up starting a family generally brought up the question of Steve finding someone to settle down with. The issue was that he didn’t want a partner or a romantic relationship; he didn’t feel that having a child should presuppose finding a mate.

“But I need a sperm donor and, uh, well,” Steve’s nerves were completely frayed at that point. Which was probably why he ended doing the saddest jazz hands. 

The blank look was gone and Billy’s eyes were practically sparkling, which Steve translated as trouble. He bit his lip, knee still bouncing noisily under the table. 

“A donor,” Billy practically purred. “You want me to get you pregnant.” 

When he phrased it like that, Steve couldn’t help but blush. He cleared his throat, wishing he’d just gotten a drink before bothering to speak to Billy so that he could sip it and buy some time. “Basically. You don’t have to sleep with me, the cup method works fine.” 

“And other than not-sleeping with you,” Billy sounded a little snotty. “What’s in it for me?” 

Only a little mocking was infinitely better than outright refusal. And he was getting to the part Steve was actually comfortable with. “$600 for each attempt,” he said. It was a lowball, but considering it was under the table, the supplemental income wasn’t half bad. “I’m tracking my cycle, so we’d only need to try about two days each month.” 

“And after?” 

Steve paused. “After inception I’ll give you an extra thousand.” 

“No, I mean once you’re pregnant, how does it work?” The serious look on Billy’s face was unnerving. Steve was briefly worried that he was about to say he wanted to stay in the picture. “You know how to take care of kids that don’t go home at the end of the day?” 

“Does anyone?” 

Billy’s face hardened. “You don’t just have a kid on a whim, Harrington,” he said lowly. “Can you actually take care of one for the rest of your life?” 

Living in a town like Hawkins and having a direct relationship with Max meant Steve was familiar with the Hargrove family history. How Billy’s mother abandoned him, how his father abused him, how long he’d lived in that toxic place before finally escaping and taking Max with him when it seemed Neil was turning on her as well. 

Despite how horrible that was, Steve couldn’t help the warm feeling in his chest. 

“I don’t yell, I don’t believe in corporal punishment, and I’m on book four of twenty on my parenting book reading list.” He didn’t add that they were all audiobooks because he had such a hard time reading. “I wouldn’t try to have a baby if I wasn’t ready to do everything I could to give them a good life.” 

Steve hoped his face was as open as he wanted it to be as Billy searched him. Of all the reactions he expected, this hadn’t been one. It made him feel better about Billy as a candidate. 

Finally, Billy slurped his frappucino again and grinned wolfishly. “When do we start?”

Continued on AO3

[purplesurveys]

754

Does anyone know your bank pin number other than you? Who? I don’t even have one of those yet.

Have you ever had a boyfriend/girlfriend who was depressed? I'm not sure. I know she's told me before about being diagnosed with depression, but I’ve forgotten if it’s mild or severe, or if she has the whole thing or is just showing symptoms of it. She only mentioned it in passing so I figured it wasn’t something she wanted to touch on further.

Would you be able to climb out your bedroom window to sneak out? Probably but I’d have to be really careful to not end up shattering my legs or any other part of my body haha, but knowing me I’d probably land badly. I live on the second floor but the house isn’t that high, so I think I could give it a shot.

What would you do if you found out the last person you called was pregnant/got someone pregnant? I’d be very confused because she’s very gay and also because she’s only been staying at home since March.

Can you taste the difference between brand name food and store brand food? I wouldn’t be able to relate since store brand’s not really a thing here. Only SM makes their own stuff but they’re purposely cheaper because they’re meant to be of lower quality to begin with. Other than that, we don’t really have a choice but buy brand name.

Would you be embarrassed to buy pads/tampons/condoms? Which one more? Just the tampons, probably. I never need condoms so I have no reason to feel awkward buying them, and in fact I’ve volunteered to buy them for Angela whenever she feels shy haha; I definitely have no reason to be embarrassed buying pads because periods are a thing. I will likely feel most awkward getting tampons since I don’t know any one person who uses them where I live and it’ll most likely be seen as an unusual purchase since they’re quite uncommon.

If a stranger went in your room, would they be able to tell what gender you are from just looking at it? Probably. I have a poster of Nam Joo Hyuk, several Audrey Hepburn memorabilia, and a lot of pink stuff so it very much looks like a stereotypical girly room. I do think it’s kinda balanced out by the amount of WWE merch I own, but yeah otherwise my other stuff screams girly.

Are your parents gullible? When it comes to home stuff my mom is basically a witch; she can immediately tell if my dog peed somewhere, if I lost something, or if a dining chair isn’t positioned right. But when it comes to fake news on Facebook she will occasionally flock to them hahaha I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to remind her that phones DO NOT emit radiation from 12AM to 5AM and that it’s only a ploy to get people to sleep early lmfao. My dad is pretty intelligent and won’t be easily fooled about anything.

Do you still own a VCR? I know my parents owned one but I don’t know if they still brought it here when we moved 12 years ago or if they already threw it out.

About how much money have you spent on food in the past two weeks? :( Zero pesos. The only thing I’ve spent on this entire quarantine was a bottle of soju I asked my dad to buy and I paid him after.

If you were in a car accident would the last person you kissed care? Yes.

If you were looking for a new pair of shoes where would you go? UPTC since they have like ten shoe stores there.

How much was the last pair of shoes you bought? I haven’t had a new pair in like a year now, but the last one we bought cost arounddddd ₱4200, if I remember correctly.

What color is the computer/laptop you’re on? Did you buy it yourself? Gray. No, it was a gift from my parents.

Do you have a second home? I guess I count my childhood home my second home. My grandma and cousins remain in that house, so we visit from time to time and when we’re there I’ve noticed that I still retain the same tendencies and habits from when I still lived there.

Would you be surprised if you saw the last person you texted smoking? I’ll use the last person I chatted in this context since I haven’t texted in a hot minute, and that person would be Andrew. I’d be quite concerned since they’ve told me they’ve quit smoking, so there must be something extremely stressful going on for them to start smoking. I’d check up on them immediately.

Does the smell of cigarettes, weed and beer repulse you? I do super hate the smell of beer even though I have no other choice but to drink it sometimes; I still find the smell of cigarettes disgusting although my contempt for them has lessened over the last few years seeing as a lot of people I know are smokers so I’ve been around that smell a lot, and also because I’ve started too. I’ve never been around weed and I don’t know how it smells.

Was the last person you kissed younger or older than you? Younger by a month.

Do you think people have any misconceptions about you? Not really? What I get most frequently is people thinking I was grumpy at first, but tbh I am pretty grumpy so they aren’t far off from the truth. With me it’s usually a what you see is what you get thing whether someone’s meeting me for the first or the 78th time.

Have you ever purchased Girl Scout cookies? Nope, not a thing here. I’ve always found the variety of cookies so fascinating though and I’ve always wanted to try the Thin Mints and Samoas since they’re what I hear about the most :(

Do you like waffles? They’re okay, though I only ever eat waffles with fried chicken and never just by themselves. I prefer pancakes.

Do you watch birthing videos on a day-to-day basis? Nah man wtf? I have no reason to be doing that lmao.

Do you find piercings/tattoos attractive? I don’t find either attractive. I get curious when I see tattoo because I wonder what the story behind it is and what it means to the person who has it, that’s all. As for piercings, I don’t really like them < Pretty much. Like I don’t go looking around for tattoos on a person to find them attractive; I just like hearing the histories behind them. Same with piercings, I don’t need them to be attracted to someone.

Would you talk to someone you don’t know on the internet? Only on social media that I’m already familiar with and comfortable in, like on this Tumblr, or Twitter, sometimes Facebook. I wouldn’t go to like Quora to ask something or join forums or even post anything on Reddit.

How often do you drink Monster? Never. Energy drinks scare me lol.

Have you ever made totally pointless videos with your friends? I’ve made those for myself, but not with friends. I remember filming a house tour with my flip phone’s video camera back when I was like, 8 hahaha I was ahead of our time for sure.

Do you like to buy those Warped Tour compilations? I don’t even know those existed. I just knew of Warped Tour and that all the cool bands of the time would play there, but that’s it. I’m clueless about everything else that goes on in there.

Do you like sitting on the inside or outside of a restaurant booth? You mean just a restaurant? Inside, for sure. I would never agree to eating outside and am always willing to wait a few extra minutes. I hate having to contend with passersby while I eat my food as I feel that it ruins the experience as well as the time I have with the person/s I’m eating with.

Do you own a nightgown? No but I had duster dresses that I’d wear to bed as a kid, if that counts lol.

Have you ever made a house out of a giant cardboard box? Probably not. My mom wouldn’t allow us to play with those and she’d immediately view them as trash that needs to be thrown out.

Have you ever made a tent out of sheets in your bedroom? No. I usually used the sheets as a cape or robe, then I’d pretend to be a queen.

Do your grandparents know how to operate a cell phone? My paternal grandparents do. My maternal grandfather used to regularly use a phone before he passed. My maternal grandmother refuses to learn :(

Have you ever had sex or something like it? Hahahaha ‘something like it.’ Yeah, I’ve had sex.

Have you ever read a George Orwell book? I tried reading 1984 when I was like 13 but didn’t understand it from the get-go. I haven’t continued it since but honestly I’m very open to revisiting it one of these days.

Have you ever worn fishnets? I don’t remember ever doing so. I feel like it’d be so uncomfortable; I hate wearing stockings as it is.

How many piercings and tattoos do you have? I only have my ears pierced and no tattoos < Sameeee.

Is someone in your family affected by Asperger’s? Nope.

In a hotel do you always nose through all the drawers and cupboards? Hahahahaha yeah, just out of curiosity. I’ve never seen anything interesting, but I keep trying.

Would you rather go out to eat or be eaten out? Be eaten out right now. I’ve had too much abstinence from sexual activity for my own liking lol < Ok it’s 1 in the afternoon but SAME lol

Do you always wear your seat belt? Honestly, no and it’s a shitty habit that I need to correct ASAP. I never notice that I’m not wearing them until it’s one of my parents riding with me and they scold me for driving out of the village without a seatbelt. I do put it on when I enter bigger cities with more police patrolling the area like Ortigas and Makati, or when I drive out of town, but usually it stays off.

Have you ever liked someone much older than you? No. I’ve had a crush on a teacher, but I obviously didn’t legit like him haha.

Have you ever been in a play? Just the annual school plays we do that all students are required to be a part of. I forgot to mention this in a recent survey but I was in an acting club in Grade 1 and I played Cinderella’s prince in our culminating play, heheh.

Do you have any secrets that nobody knows about? Sure.

Is there ice cream in your freezer? Yeah. My parents love ice cream so we always have an ample supply of their favorite flavors. Sometimes we’ll also have a tub of cookies and cream since it’s our (the kids’) favorite flavor.

Have you ever started to laugh but played it off as a cough successfully? For sure. I always laugh at inappropriate moments so I do fake coughs a lot.

Have you ever liked the lyrics of a band but hated the music? I suppose so. Hate is a strong word and I’d rather not use it, but while the music my girlfriend listens to wouldn’t be what I’d tune into on a regular basis, the lyrics are admittedly very well-written and intelligent and reflective, and I don’t mind it when she shares her favorite songs with me :)

Does your bathroom have a window? Yes but they’re high up on the wall.

Do you go somewhere to get your eyebrows done? No, I’m really scared of threading :( Everyone always gets out of the salon with their eyebrow area all red and tingling and it’s enough to scare me off of threading forever lmao. I’m not very conscious about how my own eyebrows look, so I just let them grow out.

When you were younger did you read the A Series Of Unfortunate Events books? I’ve only seen snippets of the movie.

Who was the last band you saw live? Paramore. I miss them already.

Do you believe prayer really works? I’m not gonna invalidate the fact that it works for a lot of people. But it’s just not my cup of tea, and I honestly don’t know how to feel whenever someone says they pray for me since I don’t believe in it anyway. Of course I thank them, but on the inside I’m always a little puzzled.

Are you a fan of the band Gym Class Heroes? Never been. I know Stereo Hearts and that was always a fun song to sing, but it’s not my favorite either.

Frosted flakes or frosted mini wheats? I don’t really have either, but I’d go with frosted flakes I guess?

Have you been on a date in the park? I would love to have one of these if we actually had parks. How nice would it be to take a long stroll, have a picnic, and just sit on a bench talking for hours?

Ever dated someone you were best friends with first? Yes. At first I didn’t want to risk it since we were reeeeeally close, but I don’t regret asking her out.

Are there any diseases/health problems that run in your family? Thankfully no. Although my grandpa and his sister did pass from heart attacks and I’m starting to be scared that it might develop to be a pattern for some of us. But other than that, both sides of the family are relatively healthy.

Do you have asthma? No. But Gab does and I get really worried once her breathing becomes labored at night. I keep telling her to get a new nebulizer after her old one broke, but I dunno what’s become of that request of mine.

Are tongue piercings slutty? No, and it’s not like being slutty is a bad thing lol.

Is there anybody you think is hot over the age of 40? No one in real life but I do still have a crush on CM Punk who’s turning 42 this year hahah. I don’t think that crush is ever gonna go away.

Last person to take off your pants, besides you? Gab.

Do you remember those cool highlighters that smelled like popcorn? I knew about markers and ballpens, but not highlighters.

Might you enjoy hanging out in the woods for day or two? No thanks. I’d rather have somewhere to go home to or rest at by the end of the day, and if I was gonna do this I prefer to be with someone who knows a thing or two about surviving in the woods.

Have you ever written something on a bathroom stall? Nope. The worst thing I’ve done was write on one of the desks in grade school.

Least favorite alcoholic drink? Out of the ones I tried, I didn’t like whisky at all. Too bitter for me < Twins. I hated the ever living shit out of Jim Beam and Jack Daniels when I tried them.

Have you ever kissed someone named Paul or Luke? I haven’t. I have a cousin named Luke that I used to babysit and I kissed him a lot when he was a baby, if that counts lol.

How did you meet the last male you texted? I met them at the Marcos heroes’ burial protests. I have no idea how I started talking to them, but I think it was because they were wearing a Nexus shirt and I told them I like it, and we started talking from there.

Have you ever had an embarrassing email address? Yup. I wasn’t allowed to make an email address when I was young so I had to sneak around and make a fake Yahoo username so my parents would never find me. I don’t remember what it was anymore but it was for sure embarrassing so I’m just grateful my brain threw that memory out.

Do you put shampoo in your left or right hand? OMG this survey is so long. I put it on my left hand.

Do you have a bull ring through your nose? Nope, no piercings.

Do you and your dad get along? Better than my mom and I.

Can you see your purse right now? Nah, it’s in my room upstairs.

Are you wearing any perfume? What kind? I am not. I haven’t had a reason to in a while.

Are there products in your hair? Just shampoo and conditioner.

When you get colds, do you use nasal spray to help get your nose unstuffy? No. Whaaaat, those exist? I just blow my nose or just live through the stuffiness.

Do you actually like sneezing? I love it, it’s such an underrated sensation lmao. It feels better when you’ve actually been needing to sneeze for a while and it finally comes through.

Have you taken a shower yet today? Nope, I usually take them at night.

Do you have one best friend who is always there for you? I have two.

Do you wear skirts a lot? Not really, I don’t like skirts because I feel exposed wearing them. I prefer shorts.

Do you wear sweatpants a lot? Nope.

How many pairs of jeans do you think you have? I can remember five pairs right now, but I have many other kinds of bottoms in my closet like culottes and leggings.

Do you like hoodies? They’re okay. I find them more comfortable if they belong to someone else, hah.

Big ones or the form fitting kind? Form-fitting if I’m buying for myself; big ones if I’m borrowing from Gabie.

Do you wear polo shirts a lot? I never wear them. My mom made me wear them often as a kid and it made me feel like a boy, so I’ve kinda had a predisposition to be wary of them as I got older since I was teased frequently enough about being a tomboy as a kid as it is.

Did you ever actually have a rubber duck? I think we probably did.

Are you one of those people who claim to live with no regrets? I have one big regret and the rest of my ‘regrets’ are small and are stuff like “I regret not picking up food on my way home because I’m now hungry.” The way I’ve always thought is that I did the things I did before because I chose to do them and I was happy to do them, and I’ve honestly felt barely any regret even though things didn’t turn out the best. There’ve been mistakes but I’ve just chosen to learn from them instead of regretting them at the same time. Do you love your computer? Love it.

Do you drink coffee? Yeah. I’ve been doing it a lot this quarantine but I think it’s been giving me headaches, so I stopped for now.

Do you basically like all of your clothes? No. There are some at the bottom of the pile that I’m no longer crazy about anymore.

Do you shop mostly with your parents, your friends, or by yourself? My mom. She tends to know what looks best on me, and she also pays for the clothes hahaha.

[stusbunker]

Below the Surface and In the Wild

For Better or Worst: Chapter Three

Featuring: Sam Winchester x Emery Simmons-Winchester OFC

OCs: Bandit (their dog), Sam’s coworkers Gretchen, Lourdes and Cady. Neighbors: Trudy and Jason Schneider and their dogs Mox and Sho.

Season 14 AU

Word Count: 2481

Summary: Sam is a doll. A sneak peek into what life was like those rough, first, few weeks. Then the newlyweds unknowingly start to understand just what being bound on a soul-level means.

Warnings: Mixed reality, magical persuasion.

Series Masterlist

^*^*^

One morning, inside the library building and down two flights of stairs, Sam approached his cubby, which housed notes for his current project, a small wireless speaker and a picture of Emery and Bandit, taken when he was a puppy. This trek toward work only reminded Sam how old he actually was, relative to his coworkers, at least. Gretchen was helping Lourdes fill out her taxes with an online program, as this was the first time the young woman had held a job. They were two of many graduate students that made up most of the labor for the archive department, though Sam worked full time. A position, though he had been teased for nepotism, he quite enjoyed. At this point in the term, he had given up reminding the twenty-somethings that Emery had just started with the school as well. He had started drowning out the phrase “trophy husband”, however, as they not so quietly gossiped.

               Luckily, Sam was almost positive to be left in peace, as he was transferring video footage from guest lecturers from the 80s and 90s into digital files for the school’s preservation society, in one of the soundproof rooms due to the availability of the allotted equipment. He didn’t need it to be silent, but it wouldn’t stop him from taking advantage of the location. Somewhere between fall ’84 and spring ’85, Cady knocked on the heavy door. Sam had very little interaction with the former volleyball player, but it wasn’t for her lack of trying. She smiled until he removed the headphones he wore, teeth pristine against spray tanned skin. Even post spring break, no one was that shade naturally.

               “Hey, we’re going to the union for lunch, did you want to join us?” Cady cocked her head to the side with a hand on her hip, toe twisting at the end of her oh so long legs.

               “I’m good, thanks,” Sam nodded and turned back to checking volume levels on what had transferred so far. He felt her linger behind him, but he didn’t look back until the door clicked shut. Sam closed his eyes in relief.

               Once he heard voices in the common area, Sam ducked out for his own late lunch walk. He hated being stagnant for hours on end, even if he didn’t remember it, his body was used to roller coastering between seated research and quick intensive work outs. It was a Tuesday, a day that always sat wrong with him. He found himself wandering towards Owens Hall, following the steady flow of traffic into the massive building. Just as the doors were closing to Lecture Room B, Sam slipped inside and found the last aisle seat, near the middle of the auditorium. As soon as Emery stood and offered a cordial good afternoon, the hall fell silence. Sam didn’t notice the small grin that had seated itself on his face as he watched her pace in front of her projected bullet points as she spoke. She wove her lecture like a narrative, intriguing and informative, it was almost a performance to hear her speak of the Crusades instead of course work.

               Halfway through the allotted time, Sam remembered he was supposed to be back to work, and he stood at an angle to duck out of the hall unnoticed.

               “Excuse me, but the lecture isn’t finished,” a stern voice called to him from the stage. The students whispered in both mockery and annoyance as Sam got called out for interrupting.

               “Sorry, I was just stopping by—my lunch break is over.” Sam nodded, frowning in chagrin.

               “So, you’re rude AND decided to waste my students’ time, the same people who are paying to be here?” Emery raised her eyebrows at Sam, a sinister tilt to her painted lips.

               “I guess so– Sorry, about that. I just wanted to see the hot new History professor I heard about,” Sam spat back, putting some humiliation on her plate as well. The crowd erupted.

“I’ll be going though, don’t want to waste anymore of y’all’s time,” he called over the fuss.

               She bit her lip as he turned to go, cursing under her breath. As soon as the door closed behind his flanneled back, Emery was back in professor mode.

               “Alright, that’s enough, he’s my husband—don’t get too excited.”

               Come six o’clock, Sam beat Emery to their crossover, though he could have kept working. It was tedious and any of the grad students could have taken the project, it was just nice to have a reason to stop for the day. Sam hadn’t allowed himself this kind romance in what felt like lifetimes and without the ability to pinpoint why, he was holding fast to his marriage, his partnership. Leaning on someone he respected was natural to Sam and he felt doubly blessed to have a woman like Emery to be there to support him, day in and day out. It was a small, simple life, but it is was theirs.

They had plans with their neighbors Trudy and Jason, which they had rescheduled once already because Bandit had a go with a skunk. They were nice people, but Sam was still adjusting to the social expectations of living nearby other couples in their thirties. New town meant new friends, right? That’s what Emery had kept telling him, trying to brush off some of his awkwardness. As he waited, he caught up with the news on his phone, preferring to lean against the car than inside it. Though it had the headspace, not a lot of vehicles had the leg space for him to sit comfortably and it felt less creepy of him, somehow. It’s not like he was on a stakeout, why would he sit inside the car?

Emery clicked the unlock button on her keys, intentionally startling Sam from his latest article.

“Crash any good lectures today?” She taunted, leaning up for a quick kiss.

“Ha-ha,” was his only reply. She tossed her bags in the backseat before sliding into the driver’s spot. They drove home easily, flirty glances and light banter, the sounds of NPR in the background. Sam took the dog for a walk while Emery changed, and she prepped the dessert she bought while he did.

Cheesecake and wine in hand, they strolled out the back door, over the sidewalk a whopping sixty feet and were then promptly greeted by Jason and Trudy’s two rottweilers, all by seven o’clock sharp. Jason kneed his way to the door before taking Mox and Sho by the collar to allow their guests inside. Sam, handed Emery the wine before leaning down to greet the dogs, letting Emery present their gifts. Jason, both burly and gregarious, nodded to the back of the house to the kitchen where Trudy was finishing up. The conversation flowed easily over the dogs as everyone calmed down with the company.

“Now, I know you can’t partake, but I figured–,” Emery was nearly apologizing to the very pregnant Trudy over the passing of the bottle of wine. The somehow still lanky redhead waved off Emery’s concern.

“My doctor says a half a glass at this point won’t do anything besides let me relax and with those boys eating through the latest diaper bag—I could use it,” Trudy shrugged. “How’s your week been?”

The two couples ate al fresco, enjoying the Schneider’s large deck, on the back of their house built when they moved in four years before, along with the matching eight-foot fence. Emery kept her free hand on Sam’s thigh while they got settled, but after a few glasses of wine, they were all chuckling easily. Trudy had grilled steaks and asparagus that rivaled celery stalks in size. Jason had tried a couscous recipe which everyone politely and silently agreed to never speak of it again.

“Man, I gotta say, I’m glad we did this,” Jason handed out mushy bear hugs at the door.

“Anytime,” Sam replied, patting Jason on the back as he grabbed Emery.

“Yeah? Nice! Didn’t scare you off,” Jason teased. “Seriously though, after those first couple’a weeks I thought you were a douche.”

“And now?” Sam swallowed, putting his hands in his pockets.

“Jury’s still out,” Trudy dropped out of left field, causing everyone to break away with their own laughter. “Don’t be strangers just because my husband can’t cook.”

Perhaps they hadn’t all agreed to leave it be. With a signature awkward wave and a tugging at his elbow, Sam turned toward home. On his arm, Emery was humming from the gentle buzz of her share of the bottles of wine. Sam struggled to remember what would have made Jason say what he had.

Sam hadn’t been paying attention, but a passing glance at the date stamped on the sub/reddit he was reading made his blood run cold. It was Dean’s birthday, his fortieth. They needed answers, a timeframe, something. He deserved to know that this was all worth it, that it was working. Emery came home an hour later to find Sam sitting in the dining room, that they had yet to use. A third of a bottle of Johnny Walker gone.

“Hey, everything okay?” She held her stomach as uncertainty and alarm battled to creep out of her cool demeanor as accusations. She didn’t know much about Sam yet, but that much alcohol that quickly wasn’t good for anyone.

Sam turned and his lip curled in spite. “What’s it matter? It’s all in their hands now isn’t? We just play house and wait on the angels. Like that ever really worked before.”

“Sam, we both, we need this—" Emery looked to her feet as her throat thickened.

“Save it. I know. I’ll play the part. It doesn’t mean I am going to be quiet about them leaving us in the dark,” Sam snapped at the ceiling.

“So, what, you’re just gonna get drunk and scream at the sky? Really?” Emery huffed and walked away. “Classy.”

He dried out in time to go to church with Emery on Sunday morning, the sanctuary feeling much smaller than it had during their private ceremony the week before. The reverend commented on his change of facial hair and Sam smiled at the implication that he didn’t need to impress Emery anymore. He had already landed her. Sam cocked his head and took a few deep breaths, his shoulders and lungs straining as if in a vice, desperate he excused himself from the coffee hour crowd and into the stark gray morning.

That night Emery went to bed alone again, leaving Sam to pass out on the couch as he pretended to watch something in the den. She fell asleep with tears in her eyes and a lamenting prayer on her lips.

The more Sam thought about it, the more it felt like he was chasing smoke. Nothing stuck and his mind felt blank. All of the sudden, he was upstairs, watching Emery peel off her clothes. When his ass hit the bed, she sauntered over to stand between his legs, nimble fingers threading through his hair. That was enough of a distraction to leave the concern for another day.

April 23, 2019

               There are days and there are dates, some days suck, while some dates are entombed in the psyche. Birthdays, anniversaries, heartbreaks and deaths: dates that could be forgotten, but usually aren’t. Some that should be forgotten, but refuse to leave the confines of memory, seeping into the very soul. It is a date as such that pierced through, causing Emery to wake up at 3:26 in a cold sweat, arms heavy with emptiness and head throbbing with unshed tears. She slipped out of bed and down to the den, the moment her foot moved from the last step to the hardwood floor, Bandit was at her knee, knowing something was the matter.

               Dogs are some of the greatest blessings in the lives of humans, even when those humans don’t deserve their unconditional comfort, perhaps especially then. Emery sank down on the staircase, all-consuming grief over taking her as she held Bandit to her chest, burying her face against the thick strands covering his neck. The hollowness inside ruptured into the stillness of the predawn quiet, reverberating in the large empty rooms of their playhouse. As needed as Bandit was, he was still a portion of her life before, signifying what she had lost and how far she had yet to go. He was reality incarnate, a touchstone even. There they sat, one mystified, one overrun with sorrow until Sam broke their trance as he called from the landing.

“Baby? What is it? What happened?” Heavy yet agile foot falls announced his progress until he slipped behind her, wiping her hair from her face where it stuck in sweat and tears. His eyes searched for injury, for entry, for any disturbance at all. The room and her body were as right as rain, yet she cried, and Sam let her. Feeling not lost at her inexplicable melancholy, but awash with it. He clung to her, and Emery leaned into him; life rafts and castaways in the same storm.

Moments or minutes later, they stood and stretched, no less in pain, but slaves to their bodies’ needs; they broke apart. Slowly they began their day, quiet and uncertain of what it would bring. If this storm would pass as quickly as it came or, if it was a hovering sort. As the hours floated by, each in their respective autopilot politeness at work and in the neighborhood.  During an unenthused walk with Bandit, Sam realized just how much he had been empathizing with Emery. It was at the forefront of his every thought, this drilling sadness. Buildings or miles apart, he still felt it in the hidden corners of his very being. Whatever this was, he wasn’t sure he could stand such unfounded torture for long.

               Back home, up the dark stairs and through the closed door of their bedroom, Emery sat on her side of the bed. Once Sam came out from brushing his teeth, she tried to give him a grateful smile. “Sorry about today, it sort of hit me out of nowhere.”

               Sam inhaled and nodded, pulling back the covers and holding his arms open for her to crawl into. “Can I ask what had you so upset?”

               “Today is— just a tough day for me. It was once a beautiful memory, but–,” her voice cracking once more. Sam shushed her as she once again started to cry.

               “It’s okay, we’re in this together. I got you,” Sam whispered into her hair.

               “For better or worse?” The first time it was a question more than a promise.

               “For better or worse,” Sam sealed their goodnight ritual. They fell asleep, emotionally depleted and awoke as if the day before had been like any other.

^*^*^

Read On: In Heaven Lies

[eldritchsurveys]

688.

What does the shirt you are wearing look like? >> It’s black and it has a design for the band Cradle of Filth on it. Don’t ask me what the design is, I can barely figure it out. I think it’s, like, a vampire pope...

What was the last thing that stressed you out or upset you? >> Sam. God, fucking Sam. What a weird time last night was. Apparently I don’t have enough to deal with in this incarnation and timeline without having to bear the inexorable trauma of other ones.

How do you stay positive with all that life throws at you? >> I mean, staying “positive” isn’t necessarily my goal.

What quality do you admire most in other people? >> I’m not sure.

What is the highest level of physical pain you have ever been in? rate1-10 >> Meh.

...same question, but with emotional pain? >> Meh x2.

What is your most prized possession? >> I don’t have any prized possessions.

Which youtuber do you feel like you could be friends with easily? >> I don’t know.

Do you like your natural hair color? >> I don’t think much about it. It’s pretty unremarkable.

Do you think you will dye your hair when you start going gray? >> Of course not. I look forward to being grey.

Are you pale right now, or do you have a tan? >> I’m dark-skinned, sis.

Do you think you look best with a tan? >> ^

What is your favorite app on your phone? >> I don’t have a favourite, just ones I use the most. I use CloudLibrary, Reddit Is Fun, and Spotify the most.

How old were you when you got your first smartphone? >> Somewhere in my mid-20s.

Do you ever meditate on Scripture? >> No.

Are you living a life you want to escape from? or do you love your life? >> Sometimes I love it, sometimes I want to escape from it. Sometimes I’m completely apathetic towards it, sometimes I wish I’d never been born.

When was the last time you felt that life was good? >> I don’t know, man, I don’t keep track.

Do you have one big mistake that you've made that you want to fix? >> No.

Do you wish people would forgive you for your past so you could move on? >> I mean, no. That’s not necessary at all. I can move on on my own.

Do you wear green on St. Patrick's day? >> No. I don’t even own any green clothing.

Are you Irish at all? >> No.

Do you pray to God every day? >> No.

What are three things you are currently looking forward to doing soon? >> I don’t have any plans that I’m looking forward to. Maybe we’ll make it to Sapporo (a really good ramen place) on Saturday. That’d be nice.

Do you ever dance in the rain? >> No.

Have you ever sat on a rooftop? >> Yeah, we did that a lot in NY.

Who is that last good musician or band you discovered? >> The last band I discovered and liked was Dreamcar. Honestly, though, I doubt I could flat-out dislike anything Davey Havok is a part of.

Do you like to watch talent shows like America's Got Talent and X Factor? >> AGT can be fun sometimes (I liked the episode that Puddles was on), but eh.

Have you ever tried avocado toast? >> I mean, yes, I’ve had avocado on toast.

Name three items on your wish list right now. >> ---

Are you more talented musically or artistically or neither? >> Neither.

Are you better at English or math? >> Math, ironically. The rules of math are easy to follow, but the rules of English as a subject completely baffled me when I was in high school and I doubt I’d be too much better at it now.

What were your best subjects in school? >> ---

What was your favorite subject in school? >> ---

Have you ever visited a teacher at their home? >> No.

How many windows are in your bedroom? >> One.

Who was your first roommate? >> Hm.

Who was your first best friend (besides a sibling)? >> ---

Do you have a sibling who looks like you? >> ---

Name three women you know who have lost a child. >> Wh-- no.

Whose was the last funeral you attended or watched? >> The last funeral I attended was for someone in Sparrow’s family.

What types of cancer are in your family, if any? >> ---

Do you have big dreams for your future? >> No.

Do you feel alone? >> Sometimes. Loneliness is the most common theme amongst my incarnations.

What is this month's calendar picture? >> ---

What is the theme of your wall calendar for this year? >> ---

Have you ever seen a double rainbow? >> I think so.

How old will you be on your next birthday? >> 33.

Which nationalities have you been told you look like? (i.e., Asian, Irish) >> *shrug*

Have you ever had an outstanding library fine? >> Yeah, I’ve had a lot of them over time.

What book are you currently reading? >> My Friend Anna by Rachel Deloache Williams.

Are you poor/broke right now? >> I mean, I’m poor in general. Like, that’s my economic class. Poor.

Do you hate social classes? >> Not really. I just hate extreme class inequality and how it affects people.

Have you ever received any scary, threatening messages on social media? >> No.

What is the name of your youtube channel? >> ---

How many subscribers do you have on youtube? >> ---

Do you wish that life were more fair? >> I never expected life to be fair in the first place.

Who was your first kiss? >> ---

Do you feel you have found your soulmate yet? >> I don’t care about soulmates, that doesn’t resonate with me as a concept.

Are you single or in a relationship? >> I’m in several relationships.

If you're single, do you want to be, or do you wish you weren't? >> ---

Ever collected shells at the beach? >> Yeah.

Would you rather paint or carve a pumpkin? >> ---

Who are three of your favorite youtubers to watch? >> Ethys Asher, Wisecrack, The Take.

What year did you graduate high school? >> 2004.

What do you miss about high school? >> Ha! Miss high school? That’s a joke, right?

What do you miss about college? >> ---

What color was your first car? >> ---

Do you have a car now? >> No.

What color was the house you grew up in? >> I don’t remember. Brown, maybe?

Growing up, what floor was your bedroom on? >> Second.

What is your birth order in the family? >> I was the last of my father’s children, born so long after his other ones that I was the only child in the household, so I might as well have been an only child period.

What would your name be if you were the opposite gender? >> ---

What were you almost named? >> ---

Does your bedroom have carpet? >> Yeah.

Best camping experience? >> I don’t know, I’ve only had a couple and they were equally good.

What are the top three travel destinations on your bucket list? >> ---

Do you get heartburn? >> Rarely.

What are three things you are known for in your town? >> I’m not known for anything in my town? That’s a weird concept.

What are three things you are known for on social media? >> I mean, I don’t know. I’m mostly not known on social media.

What is your Instagram account name? >> ---

Have you ever used Snapchat? >> Yeah, just to play with the filters and save the photos to my phone. I didn’t post on it or anything.

Did you want to be famous when you were younger? >> I don’t know. Maybe, before I understood what the concept meant.

What show did you most want to be on as a kid? >> None.

First celebrity you were obsessed with? >> Matt Damon, for whatever reason.

First celebrity crush? >> “Obsession” is what functioned as “crush” for me...

What was your first favorite stuffed animal? >> I don’t remember now.

What was something unique about you as a kid? >> I was hyperlexic.

Were you ever goth/emo? >> I’ve been goth for most of my life.

Do you want any more piercings? >> I probably wouldn’t mind, but it’s not a priority.

How many tattoos do you have? >> Three.

Do you want more tattoos? >> Always.

If you had to get a tattoo, what would you get? >> I can never really remember my ideas off the top of my head. The only one I can remember is the Fountain one on my left arm.

Do you mostly write in cursive or print? >> Print, because most of the time I’m writing longhand is for forms or other things that require printing.

Were you ever homeschooled? >> No.

Describe your dream wedding in five words. >> ---

Pick three animals that you think resemble you, and why? >> I don’t think I resemble any animals.......

Are you unique? >> As unique as anyone, I’d imagine.

Do you get called a free spirit? >> No.

What day of the week were you born on? >> Thursday.

How are you feeling right now? >> Kind of emotionally hungover (thanks, Sam). Could be worse, though.

[nie-ming-daddy]

So, while I thought about a Sugar Daddy!Hua Cheng AU it somehow ended up as a Model/Designer AU. 

It even can stay with gods and ghosts since famous people are just like modern gods in these days with their temples made out of social media and millions of followers.

I didn't read all of TGCF yet! And I want to keep it as spoiler-free as possible. So bear with me for not including He Xuan, since I don't know him yet! ;-;

- Xie Lian could the son of a famous designer and got scouted at a young age to work as an model. He was really, really popular especially by younger fans and girls. But later his family got thrown into turmoil, lost all their money, houses and lastly their lives because someone secretly worked against them. The only known survivor is XL. After XL got fired by the agency (to not get bad reputation?) and lived in the streets and tried to get by with scrap collecting and street performance.

But you also can make it work with 800 year old XL. Just putting the original timeline in the modern era. He gets scouted by a rival non-godly agency while collecting scraps and is like all flustered. And later despite all ends up in JW's agency again. (I'm pretty sure it's SQX's fault) But isn't really successful because nobody knows him and there are so many other famous people in the agency who overshadow him. So he's still poor, but now poor with a job!

- Hua Cheng owns the towns most famous Casino "Ghost City". Everyone knows he does shady deals, but at the same time does a lot of charity. Nobody knows what to think about him.

- Shi QingXuan would be the most famous model! Like really famous and popular! He would wear male and female clothes, whatever he likes at the time. And he'd always be with his fans giving autographs or taking pictureswith them.

- Ming Yi would be his bodyguard (and unwillingly best friend) and got his hands full with protecting SQX from crazy fans

- Jun Wu is the CEO of the model agency most (if not all) of the gods work for. He's respected but no one ever sees him really

- Ling Wen does all the work tho. And totally needs vacation for at least one year. Everyone admires her for her work. She's often seen in coffee ads.

- Pei Ming is the one scouting for new models. (Poor girls) He's probably one of those agents you can sleep with to get better deals (Pei Su does damage control)

- Shi WuDu is a partner of PM's in scouting. He's more reliable and very respected but hard to talk to. He has some things going on in the background tho...

- Feng Xin and Mu Qing are both rivaling designers who always end up to do shows together despite fighting all the time.

- Qi Rong just hates all of them. He's your typical hate poster / troll who stalks all the social media pages and keeps posting nasty stuff. He edits fake naked photos of all the models and spread bad rumours. He's famous on reddit tho. And he tries to bring down HC's casino, after HC once had him beat up because he flamed XL. (He won't succeed)