#i should tag all this blogging something possibly in case i want to revisit my loom frenzy posting later.

[unopenablebox]

in addition to my general apprehension about overpromising with my amateurish new-craft-relationship-energy enthusiasm, i did develop a real middle-of-the-night sadsack conviction last night that i shouldn't/won't be allowed to weave, because i don't spin, and everyone i've ever met or seen who weaves also spins. however 1. i don't even know for sure that that second thing is true and 2. how would they [karmic loom forces] tell. they don't know. maybe im just using up a commercial yarn backlog and will be starting in on the handspun any day now [i will not]

[ouyangzizhensdad]

RE: WWX and his arc being about trauma. I got into the fandom through CQL and the first time I saw it I actually read a lot of his actions post the burning of Lotus Cove as being influenced by his trauma. He's paranoid even before getting thrown into the burial mounds. He seems to be self medicating with alchohol (which WQ kinda calls him out on). He over-reacts to a lot things, which seems to me like a nasty case of emotional dysregulation as a result of PTSD. He avoids all kinds (1/3)

Of reminders of his tramua, his sword being the greatest example but there were other little things. He never gave much of a fuck about propriety but the way he completely igonres it (and the possible social fallout) later speaks to me less about not caring and more about not *having* the emotional capacity to care, much like what happens with depression. Plus, a lot of his behaviour can be read with various shades of being self destructive, and there are just in general a lot of points (2/3)

Where it's made clear that he's in a pretty bad headspace (him crying about being useless in the burial mounds for example), but none of that ever really gets dealt with so all of those issues are still hanging under the surface even if they're not apparent all the time. I mean, this is just my take, but at least imo WWX ticks a lot of the checkboxes for PTSD in the drama and it explains a lot about the way he acts and the bad decisions he makes. Hope this was helpful! (3/3)

I'm only referring to the drama btw, not the novel (which I haven't read yet). My memory is terrible so I'm not sure if I made it clear or not lol. Anyways, have a good day ^^

Hi there, 

I am always curious when people who have only engaged with CQL end up engaging with my novel-only meta blog but perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised: if CQL posts end up in the mdzs tag, why not the opposite? I’ve seen some of my novel meta reblogged and tagged with “the untamed” and “CQL” so maybe the answer is already out there, staring at me in the face! 

I’ll start by saying that I do not wish to really argue with people’s interpretations of CQL since I consider that MDZS and CQL are very different works because so many changes were made in the process of adapting the novel, and I personally have no interest in analysing CQL except wrt  how it can help us better understand the novel (seeing certain elements removed or changed may help us understand why they mattered in the first place or what their use was). So I will speak to the arguments that could be applied to the novel and why *I* don’t think WWX’s arc in the novel is about trauma, and why I don’t think that picking up certain behaviours that can be exhibited by people with PTSD (but not exclusively by people with PTSD) is enough in itself to support the idea that a character’s arc is about trauma/shaped by PTSD. That does not mean that my interpretation is the only acceptable one--I am aware that a lot of people disagree with me on this and see trauma as a central theme/central part of WWX’s arc--and so I expect that a lot of people will disagree with my points (hopefully after they’ve read this post in good faith). And that’s perfectly fine: how likely is it that we can find another person who will agree 100% with our own interpretation of a work of fiction? And having divergent opinions floating around the fandom, or having to develop counter-arguments is a good way to strengthen our own pov if we don’t find ourselves convinced by that other interpretation, so it’s all good. 

So first, I’ll address the biggest point of my argument before moving to address more specific points you raise in your ask. For me, WWX’s characterisation is not about trauma but about resilience. 

So first, let’s clarify some things. Going through adversity/experiencing a situation that is difficult =/= experiencing trauma. Trauma is a concept referring to a potential response to going through adversity/experiencing something distressing or disturbing. In short, trauma as it is conceptualised and understood is not universal: not only in the sense that is a spatiotemporally specific concept used to make certain experiences intelligible, but as the reaction to difficult events (as well, what is considered to be an experience that falls under that concept is not itself universal and can take many gorms, and the behaviours and thoughts associated with trauma are generally not exclusive to it, ie having certain behaviours/thought processes is not an automatic proof that someone is dealing with trauma/ptsd). So after all this word vomit I want to clarify that my intent is not to suggest that WWX doesn’t go through experiences that are likely to cause trauma, but that to me, what is being portrayed is a different reaction to these events: resilience (if a slightly more “fictional” portrayal of resilience than what it would be presented in psychology/psychiatry). 

Resilience refers to how people adapt or recover successfully from adversity/distressing situation/stress. That does not mean that people’s first reaction to adversity/distressing situations will be not defined by negative emotions, of course. For instance, I don’t think WWX’s heightened paranoia/emotional state directly after the fall of LP when he goes to look for JC is an indication of trauma because at this point WWX is still deep in the middle of that moment of adversity: he’s still a fugitive in the middle of a war, in the middle of danger. This also doesn’t mean that people cannot still have some temporary negative reactions to things that happened to them, afterwards: WWX having to pause when JC presents him with Suibian after he returns from Mass Grave Hill is not inherently an indication of trauma as it can be read that his sword a reminder of the difficult sacrifice he made--and the consequences he faced as a result (just because a situation was not traumatic doesn’t mean we enjoy revisiting it).

Why I think that WWX’s arc or characterisation is about resilience rather than trauma is because of many things, but mostly I want to point out two sections of the novel in particular. 

First, this characterisation of WWX through JYL that we get relatively early in the novel:

Most memories from back then were already blurred. Yet, Jin Ling’s mother, Jiang Yanli, remembered all of them, and even told him quite a few. She said that, after his father heard of the news that his parents both died in battle, he had always dedicated himself to finding the child that these past friends had left behind. After searching for a while, he finally found the child in Yiling. 

The first time they met, Wei Wuxian was kneeling on the ground, eating the fruit peels that somebody tossed on the ground. Yiling’s winter and spring were quite cold, yet the child only wore thin layers. His knees were already tattered, and on his feet were two different shoes that didn’t fit at all. As he was looking down, searching for fruit peels, Jiang Fengmian called him. He still remembered that there was a “Ying” in his name, so he lifted his head. Although his cheeks were both red and chapped from the cold, he still wore a smile. 

Jiang Yanli said that he was born with a smiling look. No matter what unfortunate thing happened, he wouldn’t cling on to them; no matter what situation he was in, he would be happy. Although it sounded a bit heartless, it really was not bad.

This refers to a time of his life that is extremely difficult: he lost both his parents suddenly, at a young age, became suddenly homeless with no means to feed himself except to beg, and yet the only trauma he seems to carry from this experience is related to dogs. To me, this is a clear move from MXTX to position WWX as the kind of protagonist who can face a storm and keep his smile on his face. I can imagine that some people take it perhaps as a subversion, as the text telling us that WWX is weathering it all with a smile but underneath it all he is just a bundle of unaddressed trauma. And that’s certainly a possible interpretation, but it’s not mine. In this case I think the text is being straightforward. What we see of WWX also seems to support that: the way WWX just rolls with being brought back from the death, how easily he finds a way to adapt to things, etc.

I also find it meaningful that the novel choses to include in its ultimate chapter this discussion as part of its wrap-up of WWX’s journey and of Wangxian’s relationship.

After they left the shop, Wei Wuxian still sat on Xiao Pingguo while Lan Wangji held the reins in front.Swaying left and right atop the donkey, Wei Wuxian took the flute from his waist and placed it by his lips. The limpid notes flew across the sky like birds. Lan Wangji halted and listened quietly.

It was the song he sang for Wei Wuxian when they were stuck in the Xuanwu cave. It was also the song that Wei Wuxian just so happened to have played at Dafan Mountain, the song that enabled Lan Wangji to confirm his identity.

When he finished, Wei Wuxian winked his left eye towards Lan Wangji.

“How was it? Beautiful, huh?”

Lan Wangji slowly nodded. “For once.”

Wei Wuxian knew that ‘for once’ referred to how his memory was good for once. He could not help but smile.

“Don’t always be so angry about it. It was my fault in the past, alright? Besides, my terrible memory should be accredited to my mom.” Wei Wuxian propped his arm on Xiao Pingguo’s head, spinning Chenqing in his hand. “My mom said you have to remember the things others do for you, not the things you do for others. Only when people don’t hold so much in their hearts would they finally feel free.”

This was one of the only things he remembered about his parents.

Of course, this is not a direct reference to resilience as it is explored in psychology. But to me it speaks to that idea: one of the biggest lesson WWX has kept with him, one of his only memory of--and thus legacy from--his parents, is this idea that we should not hold so much in our hearts. It also reframes his bad memory as being the result of a philosophy, of an approach to life that not just about being grateful/paying your debts to others, but also a form of resilience, in a sense. 

As well, I find that a lot of people who go with the trauma interpretation see WWX’s actions and thoughts processes dyring his YLLZ’s days as being the result of his ptsd, where I personally read it as the influence of modao. I am aware as well that some people do not think that modao actually harmed WWX during that period of his life, but I don’t think that LWJ would have been worried if there were not reasons to believe it would:

One against two, Lan Wangji still refused to back off. He gazed at Wei Wuxian, “Wei Ying, for cultivating an evil path you would eventually have to pay. Throughout time, there has not been a single exception.”

Wei Wuxian, “I can pay.”

Seeing how unconcerned he seemed to be, Lan Wangji lowered his voice, “The path would not only damage your body, but your heart as well (此道损身，更损心性。)”

So now, onto the specific points you raised in the ask.

Self-medicating with alcohol: WWX is shown to enjoy and drink large amounts of alcohol before the fall of LP and after most of the events of the novel have unfolded. In the novel, while WQ tries to make WWX stop drinking, it is as likely to believe that it is for his health (now that he doesn’t have a golden core) than it would be because she was worried he was self-medicating. As well, heavy drinking is a very normalized behaviour (although most physicians don’t think it’s a good thing) in a lot of cultures and times, and considering WWX’s higher tolerance and his general demeanor while imbricated, his drinking is not shown to have a negative effect on his ability to live his life. The line between “self-soothing” (normal aspect of being humans dealing with emotions and hardships) and “self-medicating” (pathological) is hard to trace with alcohol consumption. As well, just because people with PTSD may self-medicate with alchohol doesn’t mean all people who self-medicate with alcohol do it because of PTSD. 

He's paranoid even before getting thrown into the burial mounds. As I mentioned briefly before, WWX is at the time a fugitive in the middle of a war: he’s still in the middle of those stressful events and his paranoia is not necessarily a maladaptive response since they are still very much fugitives in the middle of a war. Trauma is not really your reaction during but in the aftermath. It would be more telling if WWX were still exhibiting signs of paranoia in situations where he would have no reasons to. 

He over-reacts to a lot things, which seems to me like a nasty case of emotional dysregulation as a result of PTSD. I’m not certain at which reactions you are referring to here, but especially considering that some of this might be chalked up to acting choices since this is based on CQL, I probably won’t address this one point too much in relation to the novel. I do want to emphasize though that we’ve seen prior to Sunshot campaign that WWX can be quite impulsive in certain situations (hitting JZX for insulting Shijie, which he does both before and after the events of the Sunshot Campaign). As well, I do think it’s important to remember that he is still in the middle of the war during the Sunshot campaign, and that he is also hiding something pretty important from the people close to him and living a sort of double life, on top of experiencing fatigue/hunger in a way he hasn’t for years due to the loss of his golden core. In short, there are a lot of things going on that can be used to explain what can be seen as “over-reactions” without necessarily going with PTSD.

avoids all kinds  reminders of his trauma, his sword being the greatest example but there were other little things. I’ve broached in my previous discussions, but it’s also pertinent to remember his mom’s philosophy: we can also see this as WWX trying to leave in the pass this difficult sacrifice he made in order to move forward. 

He never gave much of a fuck about propriety but the way he completely ignores it (and the possible social fallout) later speaks to me less about not caring and more about not *having* the emotional capacity to care, much like what happens with depression. I have to disagree with that interpretation of WWX and WWX’s actions, but again this might just be a case of CQL-only vs novel-only interpretations of the character. One thing WWX thinks about being reborn in a “lunatic’s” body is that he’ll get to have fun, the way he never could when his actions reflected on others. So while at times WWX flaunts propriety, he is aware of how his actions can impact others and show in different situations that he is aware of propriety. His choice to protect the Wen Remnants goes against that, for sure, but it isn’t necessarily a case of not understanding the possible social fallout so much as putting other things (ie his life-debt towards WN and WQ) before propriety, as we can see for example in this exchange.

Jiang Cheng, “I’m the one who fucking wants to give you a thrashing! Yes, they helped us before, but why in the world don’t you understand that right now any remnant of the Wen Sect is a target of criticism! No matter who they are, with a surname of Wen they have committed a most heinous crime! And those who protect the Wen are at risk of being condemned by everyone! All the people loathe the Wen-dogs so badly that the worse they die the better. Whoever protects them is against the entire world. Nobody would speak for them, and nobody would speak for you either!”

“I don’t need anyone to speak for me.”

[...]

Swords unsheathed, the two stared at each other for a while. Neither was willing to take a single step back. A while later, Jiang Cheng spoke, “Wei Wuxian, have you still not realized what the situation at hand is like? Do you really need me to say it out loud? If you insist on protecting them, then I won’t be able to protect you.”

“There’s no need to protect me. Just let go.”

Jiang Cheng’s face twisted.

Wei Wuxian, “Just let go. Tell the world that I defected. From now on, no matter what Wei Wuxian does, it’d have nothing to do with YunmengJiangShi.”

“… All for the Wen Sect…? Wei Wuxian, do you have a savior complex? Is it that you’ll die if you don’t stand up for someone and stir up some trouble?”

Wei Wuxian stayed quiet. A while later, he answered, “So that’s why we should cut ties right now, in case anything I do affects YunmengJiangShi in the future.”

a lot of his behaviour can be read with various shades of being self destructive Which ones, specifically? I’m not trying to be obtuse, but I’m not sure which ones you mean. 

he's in a pretty bad headspace (him crying about being useless in the burial mounds for example) It needs to be said that the crying is only in CQL (it was an acting choice by XZ). My memory is playing tricks on me, but I think pre-rebirth we only see him cry after he kills JZX and after JYL’s death? Someone please fact-check me on this. 

Since I don’t believe it was MXTX’s intent to make WWX’s characterisation and arc about trauma, I do feel like interpreting the different behaviours as signs of his PTSD might lead us to miss out on other potential interpretations or meanings behind these choices, if we put aside the PTSD angle. It may also lead us to deny the text the possibility to signify something different through these behaviours and signs, especially on a thematic level--to explore something about how events and emotions shape us in a manner that exists outside of modern psychiatric classification.

TLDR (because god this got long): My point is not that WWX is unaffected by the things that happened to him or the things he’s done during this portion of his life: of course he is! Especially as they are happening to him, or when he is still stuck in a very difficult situation. But I don’t think his character and his arc is about trauma but instead about resilience. That, at the end of MDZS, WWX is still the person JYL described: No matter what unfortunate thing happened, he wouldn’t cling on to them.

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

34. Ivory

Previous Trigger Warnings for mentions of underage/revenge porn, mentions of eating disorder Word Count: 8388

Between Grace making that post of her rapping along to Captain Hook, her saying "aye aye" to Simon in comments, and this photo of Simon's D print in the gray sweatpants, I'm starting to think he's packing a curve 👀

Simon Laurent "liked"

Commenter: He is! Did you never see the old sex tape?

Poster: The WHAT? No… But, wait… I thought that they dated in school. You mean like something that happened after that?

Commenter: They were in school, but it was online for the longest time before she snitched, so I’m sure somebody still has it out there…

Poster: That’s gross. I’m not that desperate to see it that I wanna look at some kids doing it. No thank you.

Simon Laurent “liked”

Commenter is blocked by Simon.

.

Grace was in the grocery store with her mother and brother, and Zasha, a white samoyed puppy that Mrs. Monroe had purchased from a breeder… to potentially train to be in competitions, and Zasha’s handler. Why did Mrs. Monroe bring Zasha into the store, just to have someone else hold her? For the same reason that the nanny was also there, tending to Montanus. “Because, that is literally what I pay them to do.” But… we’re at the grocery store and didn’t even have to BRING them! Grace didn’t argue.

However, she did wonder if she was suffering from some type of weird mid life crisis, or just a rich, bored woman whose husband was working more and more all of the time, despite supposedly getting closer to retirement. Then, she wondered if they weren’t doing so well. But, she kept those wonders to herself, as it would frighten her to know whatever the truth was if it was anything other than her mother did whatever she wanted because she could afford to. 

Plus, she wanted to get out of the house, and apparently that had been reduced to tagging along with Grace at the grocery store, in case she needed help. “You’re almost 6 months, correct? How has it been? Online, one would swear that you’re Diahanne Caroll in her prime. You’ve rarely broken a sweat. Is that for your fans?”

Grace shook her head and read the label of something before putting it into her cart, “I haven’t had any problems, except for eating way more than I used to and getting gas, but those calcium chews usually help with that and I bounce right back. You know, I’ve always taken really great care of myself, think things through and pay top dollar for the finest self care. I guess that the baby is pleased with their temporary temple.” She smiled at her mom and noticed the woman looked leery. “I know… you had a very rough pregnancy with me. Believe me, I remember this fact, but I haven’t been having that experience, personally. In fact… Did you know that I’ve gained THOUSANDS of new followers since they’ve seen that I was pregnant. Pregnant people have been asking me what I use for this and for that and I’ve been plugging my brand, since we’ve got the pregnancy line now. It’s been sensational. I’ve had a blast!” 

Grace had been working on a blog about her pregnancy, which she began with a video addressing all of the questions to all of the people who were not her. 

“Hey, Those That Are Graced!” She’d cheered into the camera, “Happy New Year! I know that I’ve been unavailable to reach out too, and believe me, I do miss interacting with fans and followers, but I am currently not working on my career, to focus on other things in my life. Just to touch base with everyone, I feel like we’ve had this discussion before and those of you who actually respect me would definitely not need it repeated, but there have been so many new faces of possibly unfamiliar followers that I am revisiting notes that I have in all of my bios… 

First, my professional life is one thing, my private life is another. I extend myself professionally, and over the past few months, even though I have not actually been working, I’ve still been spending time providing everyone with content. Please do not send messages, comments, or questions for me to any of my friends, and especially not to my family members, Hazel in particular. She is 12 and shouldn’t have adults bothering her for information that not only isn’t her concern, but isn’t your concern. She wants to be able to enjoy the limited hours of screen time that she’s allowed. That becomes difficult for her when people are asking her hundreds of questions that literally are related to her mother’s sex life. 

Second, my professional life is offered at my discretion, as well. Whenever there is product that I think you should try, I will announce it. If I’m not familiar with a product or no arrangements have been made for me to try a product or I’m unaware of a product… my comments is not the place for said product. That is including everything from your all natural care supplies, book recommendations, your demos, your dance videos… Like… I LOVE receiving those things, but whenever I open my comments back up, that is not where those things go. 

I have links for email addresses for avenues of business, entertainment, etc on my website, and if nothing else, my website is featured on every form of social media that I have. I am the person who goes through those emails. I am NOT the person who checks my social media messages, so you will never get a response from me through those and run the risk of me not seeing something if you send it there instead. 

Third, my spaces have boundaries and moderators to enforce those boundaries. Whenever you’ve been allowed to be a guest in any of my spaces or my child’s spaces, you treat that shit like Afropunk - “No sexism, no racism, no ableism, no homophobia, no fatphobia, no transphobia, no hatefulness.” And then, since I’m not Afropunk and I have even greater needs, and can’t believe I have to say this much else: No pedophilia, no inappropriate interactions with a minor, no incestuous ideation, and no nudity. My moderators are quick, but not perfect. Your fellow guests and neighbors in my spaces should never have to see jokes about my mother and I engaged in sexual acts together, or worse, my UNDERAGE daughter, and no - Hazel and I posting a dance video is not an invitation for someone to make comments that because she might be fluid in her movements that it is sexually suggestive and if ever we find one of those headass posts where you put a photo of my beautiful daughter up, say something obscene or rude or ask, “Thoughts?” Simon finds out your IP address, sometimes more than that and he doxxes your ass. Ask around. If threats of violence or suggestions of harm are given… he might show up at your house and I don’t know what to even tell you about that one, because I’m not at liberty to say, according to the lawyers.” 

She smiled, relaxed, unclenched her teeth that she realized had been clenched since she began her greater needs. 

“Fourth, leave Hazel alone. She isn’t going to add you, because she is not allowed to add adults that she does not know. If you follow her public figure pages, those are for her poetry, her brand, her rapping, her artwork, her theater program, and whatever announcements she wants to share with her fans about her personal life, which is usually vague and innocent. If Hazel posts that she had a great time at the premiere of some movie, that is not the place to ask her personal questions. The place to ask her personal questions is nowhere! We don’t have a space created for strangers to ask her personal questions. She sometimes will be allowed to grant an interview, in which she will answer a professional about appropriate questions that have been approved.

Fifth, shut up about Simon! Shut up about Simon! I swear to you… In the past few years that Simon and I have been in communication and the ones that we’ve been in close communication, I KNOW that you realize that we are communicating, but that falls under my private life, which I have not created a space in the public for.

Now… you may speak with Simon about whatever things he speaks about in his private life, I can’t control that, but what I can control and do control is what he will or won’t say about me, even in HIS space. Yes. I got it like that, and what will happen, is Simon will be seeing this, and he is very good at remembering details and he will memorize everything that I’ve said here and he will respect that and enforce it, even in HIS space. 

Which leads me to my last thing… There’s a lot of Esmoroth fanfolk in my spaces now and you all act a certain way in your little Esmoroth corner of the Internet… but in here, in Grace’s space, you better act like you’ve been tossed to the feet of the Idol Princess when her pheromones are igniting the internal flame of servitude. Because, we stan the Idol Princess in this space, and you’d better act right.”

After the release of the 3rd book and return of the Idol Princess aka the Future Queen, several fans were disappointed and had called Simon out for “pandering.” But, several MORE fans came around. He was competing for top spots with the YA novel greats after the 3rd book. But… that also meant more fans to be in Grace’s business. 

Her New Year’s announcement remained pinned at the top of her page and the next post was text, “Oh, yeah. Last but not least, you may have noticed that I’m pregnant. I’ll be featuring some of my favorite findings on my maternity journey here, so please stay tuned if you’re pregnant, expecting, or planning, for what I think and hope will be some helpful tips for your journey!”

Most of the Esmoroth fandom didn’t like her very much, but they also “just couldn’t stay away. Aside from the Grace in Maternity blog, she still didn’t have social media open for commentary, though she did sometimes pass through Simon’s or Hazel’s comments and engaged a little bit with them. She pinned the video to other sites and then just didn’t really visit them again much.

“I could barely walk whenever I was six months pregnant. I had the finest of everything, too,” Mrs. Monroe broke into her thoughts. “Then again, I had what they now call an eating disorder for several years. I… wasn’t completely… well whenever you were announced…” she looked guilty, like she did whenever she faced her own failures as a mother. “We had to get a 24 hour nurse to keep me… healthy. By seven months, I could hardly get out of bed.”

Grace furrowed her eyebrows, “Mom… you’ve never told me that you had an eating disorder. Did you ever get help for it?”

“Help? Oh… like… whenever I had to be rushed to the hospital multiple times? Yes. I got help.”

“MOM… Did you ever heal?”

“Wait, are you asking me if I have disordered eating now? Heaven’s no, Grace. I was trapped with your father by the time you were born. I eventually realized that I had to be more… alive and well than I did flawless. We hired a nutritionist and personal chef.”

“Mom… a lot of people need psychological help for something like that.”

“And I come across to you as ‘a lot of people’? Hmph. It’s pathetic enough that I allowed myself to be so weak. I wasn’t going to beg someone to give me the strength I needed.”

“That’s not what it’s like at all…” Grace cupped her mother’s face and said, “There may be things that people need to help you with, Mom. That doesn’t make you weak or whatever else you’ve convinced yourself of. It didn’t make me weak when I needed to get help. It doesn’t make Hazel weak when she needs help…”

Mrs. Monroe waved Grace’s hands off of her face, “As long as you’re fine, have no other concerns.”

“Mom…”

“Were you done with the shopping?” Grace sighed and continued moving. 

.

Simon was pacing, clenching and unclenching his fists. Several of the message boards, every one of his social media platforms, and even at least one of Hazel’s. He’d taken her devices away, but now she was angry and he certainly couldn’t find the words to explain beyond, “You can’t be online right now.” She was scribbling aggressively in one of her paper journals, and fuming. They both were fuming from different but related reasons.

Grace came in with her little shopping entourage and Hazel rushed to her, furiously. 

“Your BOY TOY took my devices DURING screen time and REFUSES to give them back!” Grace’s eyes went wide and she turned to look at Simon, who was pacing and didn’t even seem to hear the accusation, notice that she came in or to see Monty. Something was absolutely wrong here. 

“Help get the groceries and I’ll get your devices, okay?” Grace said and cupped her chin. Hazel was still breathing heavily as she stormed out towards the groceries and Mrs. Monroe settled on the couch. Grace took Simon’s hand and he was startled by her sudden touch. But, the moment he realized it was her, he let out a deep breath and wrapped her up in a tight hug. “Hey. Let’s go talk, okay?” She suggested, rubbing his back. He nodded his head, but didn’t move from the spot or lessen his hold on. She squirmed a little bit and said politely, “Oxygen, Gray Eyes..” He let up and rushed out of the room. Grace followed and watched him flop on the bed and cover his face with his fists. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“We’ve been doing SO well…” He said, shaking his head. 

“We have.” So, this is something that he did wrong? “And the only way that we continue doing well is to be open and caring with each other.” He slicked back the wild hairs that weren’t pulled into his ponytail. He appeared to be in a lot of pain, but she had to get whatever this was settled. “Should I go online? Will I see what happened, if I do?” She pulled out her phone, mumbling, “I’m guessing that’s why Hazel’s stuff was confiscate-” He snatched the phone from her hands and she let out a yelp, both at the audacity and the fact that she didn’t even see him get up. 

“No. I have to tell you. You can’t find out on the Internet. SHE can’t get on. She CAN’T!” 

“Why can’t she? Because, she’s pretty pissed and it IS her screen time…”

“Because, the internet is relentless and unkind, and she’s too young to have to deal with how much. Not today. She’ll… I’ll… give her extra time once it's died down.”

“Tell me what’s going on, Simon.”

He frowned, “Someone brought the tape up.” At first, she was confused. Was this something about the movie? Why would he be so upset as to take Hazel’s… “And it’s recirculating again. I’ve been reporting it and fans have been reporting it and it gets taken down, but more and more people have seen it now and it’s just… too much. I don’t want her to run into it…” NOW, she understood. That tape… which… technically… it was done with a webcam, so it was never a tape, it was a recording, but… “I saw it again… not watched it, but you know, saw a portion of it whenever I was reporting it… God…” He sat down on the bed, “You’re a kid, Grace. You had the rounded face and everything…”

“Ummm… You’re a month and a day older than me, Dude.” she said, sitting down, trying to pretend that she was more calm than her heart was allowing. She could barely breathe, thinking about the feelings that just mentioning that used to bring up for her. She wasn’t sure how she might react to seeing it come up somewhere. But, maybe she should try…

She gently took her phone back, despite his struggling. One stern look and he let it go, realizing that she was determined and he was probably already in a lot of trouble, if something had been triggered. She nodded, “Yep, looks like a few people have tagged me, asking me if I saw that somebody posted it…” She went to the video and he clenched the bedspread, moving his legs uncontrollably and looking straight ahead. “You know, a lot of people used to say that you couldn’t see your face in it, that it was out of frame, but it does come into frame a few times…” she said. She paused, “See?” He shook his head. “Simon, you’re not even gonna indulge me a little bit at a time like this?”

His frown deepened and he took another long breath. She was right. SHE was the victim in this. The least he could do was take a look at his disgusting handiwork. He saw himself and he recoiled. “You were a kid, too,” she said. “Sure, at the time, this hurt more than anything my brain can recall. But… I do know, as a grown ass woman, you were wrong and also were a child. Both of those things can be accurate.”

“We’re only a few years older than Hazel, there. If some kid did something like this to her… I would…”

“I would hope that you’d remember that you were their age once and just as bad.”

“Is… is that how you would react?”

“Oh, hell no. I’ve never done anything like this. I’d kill that fucking kid. But, you would have to be the adult that fucking pulls me off of him…” She laughed and scratched at his beard, “But, nothing like this will happen to Hazel. She’s a good judge of character and we know all of her friends.”

“Your parents knew me too, and I think that they’re pretty good judges of character. Your mom at least. She always knew that I was rotten.”

“No she didn’t! She knew that you weren’t rich, and in her head those two things were the same thing. She knew that you were controlling, and she thought that I was going to sacrifice myself for you, but she didn’t think that you were going to straight up try to assassinate my entire character.” He looked away from her, “And NOW, you are very diligent in making sure that you aren’t crossing any lines, with me and with Hazel, my mother, my father, and I think people in general. This wasn’t long enough ago that it’s not hurtful to think about… but it was long enough ago to not beat yourself up over. But… It is a burden that you designed. So, it’s only right that you explain to Hazel exactly why she shouldn’t be online right now.”

Hazel took it so much better than she had taken him taking away her computer and phone. “Are you serious? I’ll just avoid social media. You KNOW I don’t wanna see anything like that, myself, but I already knew that it existed out there somewhere.” She shook her head, “I don’t like the way you look with clothes ON, think I’d run the risk of seeing you without them?” 

Grace suggested, “Is there anything else you want to say to him? Maybe about how you broke the news to me when I got home?”

“Oh..” Hazel flared her nostrils and rolled her eyes, “Sorry I called you Mom’s Boy Toy… You kinda are, but I shouldn’t say it…” 

Simon laughed, mostly because he was relieved that she wasn’t scarred by him having to talk to her about this video resurfacing. “You kidding? I’m gonna put that on a t-shirt.”

“No cap? Because I have SO many where that came from.”

“We’ve gotta brainstorm.”

“Simpsona T-shirts can be your new thing…” And just like that, Grace watched them be best friends again. Hazel could get mad and stay mad for a long time, but she didn’t like to argue, so even whenever she got mad, she tended to stay to herself until she wasn’t. The two of them left to go sit on the swing set outside of the house they were renting, and Grace sat by her mom on the couch. 

“I don’t even want to know what that was about.”

“Cool, because I wasn’t gonna tell you.”

“You don’t have to. One of your “boy toy’s” fans will.” Grace laughed and then threw her head onto her mom’s shoulder. The woman gasped at first, taken aback by the show of affection, but then placed her hand on Grace’s. “You’re a very good mother to both of them. You’ll be a good one to that one too.” she pointed her free hand at Grace’s belly.

“Did you just…?”

“Come on, you’ve been raising yourself a man since you met him and I’ll stand by that forever. Might get it engraved on my headstone.”

Grace cackled, “I absolutely AM NOT raising him!”

“He is literally a life sized puppy that went through a rebellious phase where he kept biting you!”

“Well, I finally realized that I have the power to curve that behavior… and trust me, Mom… It’s not something you’d do with somebody you’re raising.” Grace stuck her tongue out.

“Get off of me you scoundrel!” Her mother joked. Grace just laughed and held on tighter. The woman put her arm around her. “Are you okay, Darling?”

“Whenever I was hurt or scared as a little girl, I was more afraid of admitting it to you and Daddy. I would be more hurt by the thoughts of how little you would think of me if I openly showed imperfection. Not feeling that way took a long time and a lot of work. So, now, if I have a hard day, I’m not too proud to lay on my mommy and say so.” She looked to gauge her mother’s reaction. She was always speechless whenever Grace got emotional. 

She’d never learn past those suppressing ways and it amazed Grace that her mother didn’t realize how much her and Simon were alike in that way. Simon had to work really hard at it and her mother was too proud and pampered to put in such effort. But, whenever Grace booped her nose, the woman’s eyes flickered amusement, ever so slightly. Now, she pushed Grace off of herself and opened her arms to receive Montanus. “Take a photograph of me with my children,” She told the nanny. “One with the two human ones, then we’ll add the new fur baby…”

.

She still hadn’t made any announcements about her status with Simon, nor had she spoken about her pregnancy outside of the maternity blog by the time Valentines’ Day rolled around. But, one thing that she did was allow for Simon to share maternity photos. That was her “gift” to him. 

There. Were. Tons. 

Simon took photos of everything. He had a copy of every ultrasound. He had an electronic journal of every detail that came up. So, whenever he posted the album “Countdown to Ivory’s Arrival,” he had more photos than most of the fans were probably going to look through. Therefore, he left many of them private, with only close friends able to view, and the ones that were public were his favorites of the candids of Grace being pregnant and gorgeous, some of the ones from photoshoots that she would post, and the professional maternity photos that they had taken so far. They took some each trimester, as a family. 

The ones at her three month mark were taken in New York, early November (around their anniversary, whenever he was in town. They had fall colors and all three of them were absolutely stunning. Hazel was impressed with how well that Simon cleaned up, so much that whenever he showed her older photos of himself, she thought he was a different person. She had no idea how right about that she was. Simon being both subservient and also a mega diva himself was absolutely salivating every time Grace did something, but also, it was him who insisted, "We have to have a photoshoot each trimester, each with a different theme.” She agreed on the trimesters, but wasn’t feeling the theme part so much. She told him that they could simply have the season be the theme.

They had three changes of outfits for each set. Grace had a gown made much like the one that she had worn to the fall festival in 9th grade (the one that the Idol Princess’ gown was very heavily based on, the one that Simon had taken photos of her in, getting her first beauty deal underway), one that Simon saw her in and immediately began crying. “You’re… gonna ruin the photos,” Hazel told him. 

There were candid ones of him crying. Her favorite was one where he was crying, Grace was trying to comfort him and Hazel dropped in front of them, bombing it with a prison pose and her tongue out. She had on a yellow pantsuit with fall leaves in her hair, her signature look being wearing leaves in her hair. Simon’s yellow suit was similar to hers, but way more expensive and the red accents, instead of the orange ones that Hazel elected. 

The orange outfits were Hazel in orange overalls, Grace in a romper and Simon in a jumpsuit that Hazel insisted was “the most expensive prison wear in the world.” The red ones were regal matching dress attire, Grace in a two piece dress to show off her belly, Hazel in the same floor length evening gown, but one piece, and Simon in a red suit, made of the same material. Hazel’s hair was down and flowing. Grace’s was gathered up, with most of her afro pulled forward, cascading out of the jeweled red head dress she wore, and Simon’s usually (these days) flowing hair was pulled into a ponytail, with the undercut showing. He was generally self conscious about it, but Hazel put little red jewels over his scar, so even though he was still anxious about his hair, he was proud of her accessorizing enough that he wanted to confidently show it off.

The six month ones were taken in January, and done in all white, which Hazel said, “Looks fabulous on mom and me, but you look like the abominable snowman,” to Simon, on the day of. They were in California by that time, but took a little trip to the mountains because the Monroes had property there that Simon remembered had beautiful scenery that he wanted to have family photos at. 

They did all white shots and winter blues. 

Whenever Simon posted them on Valentines’ Day, Hazel joked in the comments, “I still say that we need to crop your face out.” 

People loved the maternity photos, noticed that Grace did NOT have any on her page and she didn’t comment or react to any on Simon’s page. (Yes, these people pay entirely too much attention to the lives of celebrities that they didn’t even KNOW), but someone did some investigating and found Grace’s pregnancy blog. So… even though that was mostly a completely different following, others stormed into the space, thinking that FINALLY, some place where Grace has actually been interacting and will interact with us. She literally ignored anybody that wasn’t asking about helpful tips for their own pregnancy or giving her helpful tips and the title changed from, “Grace in Maternity” to “Y’all Can See This is a Mommy Blog, Right?”

A few people were seething, but funny enough, Grace’s faithful mommy following were more along the lines of, “Wait… You’re FAMOUS, Monroe Mommy???” After that, she had a hoard of moms check out her other life. She enjoyed having more of them in her fan base, though she also had a lot of ones who had always known being like, “Y’all seriously didn’t know Grace Monroe?” and her favorite quote ever on that blog, “Hell, her album is the reason I AM pregnant!!!”

Meanwhile, Simon had been less likely to play around with any of the fans ever since the video thing. He’d made that very clear, and then sort of stopped interacting with them. He didn’t even go through to like people’s comments anymore. Some of them would say things like, “Whoever resurfaced that video, if we find you, it's on sight for making Simon hate speaking with us!”

Sometimes a person would “Lol” and contend, “He’s too busy working on the Esmoroth movie. He’s not here because of the movie not some fuzzy sex tape from years ago.” 

Those were the only ones that he’d respond to just to say, “No, they’re right,” and nothing else. 

He wasn’t as busy on the Esmoroth movie as he intended to be. He was working on more tech and models for the movie than any other movie things. For one thing, the script was being adapted, and casting was hard. The casting director wanted to get a different type for the Idol Princess, but Simon was extremely firm and clear that the Idol Princess HAD to look exactly as described in the book. “There are parts of the story that are directly related to her looking the way that she does.”

“We can adjust those parts,” the director had said, hoping to appease him. 

“The Idol Princess looks like my childhood best friend. Her look is non negotiable,” he had told them. They didn’t believe in non negotiable, apparently, because the girls that were being considered were all much too light. Whenever Simon had rejected them all, they informed him of those girls’ filmographies and their agents and other people said agents represented.. “Maybe they have that type of record because people are hiring them for roles that were meant to be for someone else. Just… give me all of the call sheets for girl characters who auditioned.” 

He went through and disqualified half on looks alone (not to say that they weren’t pretty children or whatever, but they didn’t look like the Idol Princess). Whenever he had the stack of dark skin girls, he went through, checking their filmographies and auditions.

He asked Hazel for her opinion and she suggested a name that he recognized from his rejected stack. He pulled it back up and looked at the light skinned girl in the photo, "Do you mean this girl, Hazel?" He wondered.

"Yes! She's a really good actress!"

He furrowed his eyebrows and pointed out, "But she doesn't look like the Idol Princess. The Idol Princess has dark brown skin, tightly coiled hair, full nose and lips, and dark brown eyes. This girl has none of those things."

Hazel shrugged her shoulders, "She's really good though."

"Well… maybe some of these other girls are really good and people just don't want to see them in stuff like this." 

Hazel frowned and she asked, "Are you accusing me of favoring her because she's got features like mine?"

"No. I'm just saying that she doesn't look the part. You're usually really good about that kind of thing, Haze."

"Well… I don't know anybody in the age range that looks like the description of the Idol Princess." She folded her arms, "But like you said, maybe that's because people take the easy way out and just get the pretty Black girl that they know of to play a part instead of being true to characters. I've definitely read more books with dark skinned girls than I've seen in movies…"

"Here are some of my choices," he said and spread the sheets out before her. "I think this one has the look, but I think this one had a better audition. BUT, she was auditioning for a background character and this one was auditioning for the Wicked Heiress. Maybe she just didn't have that role in her and should audition for the Idol Princess, so we can know for sure.."

"I think that maybe they should all audition for the Idol Princess again. What if they just didn't believe it would be realistic that they'd get offered a job like this, especially if bigger stars are being considered? Sometimes, I have to talk kids into auditioning for our productions because they're worried that the same actors will win out anyway."

He gave her a side smile, "I think you're onto something, Haze."

.

Hazel sent out the invites for Grace’s baby shower. Unfortunately, all of Grace’s friends lived elsewhere, so it would be an expensive trip. Fortunately, they had money, so the Monroes could foot the bill for everyone who didn’t just have the means to travel across country for an event. 

Meta flew in with Damita from New York the previous week, but he made some business plans to collab with a Cali artist that week, so he was working, as well. Meanwhile, Damita and Grace were spending the week reconnecting and chilling. Shana and Iza came in from Atlanta the night before. Gharrisahn was already in LA for work, so she would swing by the day of. Grace’s parents arranged for Mikayla and Tulip to come down. They were in coach on the same flight that Lucy’s and Lindsay’s moms and they were in first class, so they’d all meet the driver upon landing.

Hazel had on a headset, along with Simon’s assistant and Grace’s assistant, because Hazel had arranged the shower and she wanted to make sure that things went how she meant for them to. 

Grace was in a custom made gown that was inspired by Book 3 of Esmoroth and Simon had been at her side simply staring at her for the entire time she had it on. It had been a surprise. A very nice one that he apparently loved. She hired the costume designer for the movie to make her several pieces, but this one was like the one that the Idol Princess resurrects in. Grace was now hip to the lore enough, mainly from paying attention to Hazel’s ravings, and her and Simon’s movie chat. 

For the most part, Grace didn’t want to have a shower. All of her friends lived elsewhere, the baby was due sort of close to Hazel’s birthday and she still wanted Hazel to be able to have a party - which she doubted would be able to happen if she waited until after they were born, so she wanted to have Hazel’s birthday party, INSTEAD of a shower and Hazel said, “How about you just worry about slaying everybody in your peak perfection pregnancy, and I’ll take care of the shower?” 

With the financial backing of GlamMother, her dad’s big brain, and her own penchant for moments and aesthetics, Hazel tended to be very good at making things come together. She even produced some choreography (Doereography, as she called her pieces), for her and her mother to perform, because, yes, Grace was good and swollen by May, but she also could still do mostly everything that she was doing before with that additional bundle. It did throw her balance off a little and she couldn’t lift Hazel at the moment, but she kept up with every step of the Irish step dancing that Hazel put into the choreo, and she absolutely could still nail every Haitian movement. Hazel wanted to make a birthday choreo with ties to her heritage, and Grace was always very supportive of her doing anything that made her feel connected to her identity. 

For good measure, Hazel looked up cultures from Grace and Simon’s heritages too. She was most accustomed to American jazz/hip hop and ballet. She started at 6, with Grace and when they were apart, Grace used to make instructional videos and post them just for Hazel. Whenever she was 10, she started to tap, and all of the other things in between, she and Grace perfected, and whenever she really wanted to nail something, they’d call in a world class trainer. 

Hazel felt that a world class trainer was needed for the baby shower. Grace very much so disagreed. So, Hazel got her grandmother to get them. “Next time, simply come to me first,” the woman had said. 

Hazel opened up with one of her raps. Her mom’s friends (as always) got their entire lives whenever she would flow - which was possibly the reason that she honed her talent, if she thought about it - and even Simon would be into the groove with things. He didn’t have the best rhythm, but he certainly always looked way taken up with her talent. Grace bouncing around with a round belly was everything in the world to Hazel, and when she was done, she waddled over to hug her. 

They played games, did some traditional shower things and some new things too, that Hazel consulted with celebrity event planners for. When it was time for gifts, Grace froze, looking at the way that everything flowed. It was like her 16th birthday again and she felt like she might have a panic attack. “Grace… It’s okay,” Simon said. She looked at him on the other side of the tete a tete and he smiled, “I learned my lesson. This is straight up simply tribute.” He kissed her on the forehead and she calmed down to receive gifts and cry about everything, but manage to not look ugly doing so, because no matter how comfortable she had gotten over the years, that was still engrained in her as a huge no-no.

Winding down from the party, she found Hazel and her friends at the photo booth, having switched out their baby shower outfits for their birthday party outfits. “Where’s Simon?”

“Bullying people about their gifts,” Hazel said nonchalantly. 

“Oh God…” Grace raced over and smiled, “Hey… what’s uh… what’s going on?”

Mrs. Monroe stood behind Simon with her arms folded and Mr. Laurent was in front of them. Simon answered, “Well, I’m giving people things back that went against the specifications for the list.”

“I don’t remember making specifications for the list.”

“You wouldn’t, because you didn’t, I did. You aren’t particularly great at meticulous things and you don’t pay attention whenever I’m telling you plans like these,” Simon said.

“We’re not gonna send a gift back with the person who gave it to us.”

“What are we gonna do, donate it to charity? Because I am not putting this together for our baby. This company uses…”

“Thank you, Mr. Laurent. Thank you for coming and thank you for this gift.” She gave the man a pat on the hand and smiled at Simon. He was still frowning, along with her mother. “You’re backing him up, now?” She got flashbacks of whenever they used to gang up on her and she was very salty that she had to defend MR. LAURENT of all people against the devastating team and Simon and her mother could be.

“He specifically said nothing from that company ON THE LIST,” her mom said, beginning a tirade against this man, with her and Simon taking turns on letting him know exactly how he’d fucked up.

“Their product is cheap and substandard.”

“They’ve decimated the supply of the people in the area they harness things from TO make cheap product.”

“And they use slave labor!”

“Child slaves.”

“OKAY! Okay… That’s a good company to boycott. But hear me out… Mr. Laurent is a simple man who shops at like three places and definitely doesn’t look up things like that,” Grace said.

To which Simon and Mrs. Monroe both reminded her, (loudly) “It was on the list!”

“I made it clear which companies we weren’t accepting gifts from!”

“It’s already bought.” Simon was going to continue complaining, but Grace took his hands and placed them on her belly and he immediately softened up and stared at it. “This is the most important thing, right?”

He looked up at her and cupped her face, shifting himself to touch foreheads with her. Hazel appeared out of nowhere to bomb the photo that they weren’t even expecting Lucy to take. 

.

“Wait, that was it?” Grace wondered. Let’s be clear… she did go through a lot of pain and it was a tough time in the birthing house, even with Simon right beside her and Hazel, her mother and her best friend nearby. But… it felt like there should be something else happening or that something was missing, that she had neglected something, or like something didn’t happen that was supposed to. 

She supposed that she had simply set her expectations so deeply into the thought of pain, struggle, blood, sweat and tears, that when it came… her imagination had actually run wild. Simon had kept telling her she was doing well and how he was proud of her and other affirmations. He was holding the baby now while she was being cleaned up. 

“Did everything happen?” Grace asked. 

Hazel went over the checklist with her. Yes. Everything happened. “Did I pass out?” No. She was awake. She was there for every grueling minute. It just was a different experience for her than what her mother described, than what she read and interpreted. 

The professionals explained to her how her birthing went relatively well, what to do next, etc. Charlotte, from the center, even talked to her about how it’s not only different for everyone, but how all four of her own pregnancies and births were different from the last. Grace was expecting something terrible to happen within the first few days, just because it didn’t seem like everything had happened! The paranoia died down on day 3 and she simply was back to cuddling with her new baby.

They looked like her, so far. Hazel made them a stuffie of a potato in a diaper… the baby just looked like a potato. She didn’t know how else to express that. Simon worshipped them. He was constantly holding them whenever Grace wasn’t. He was close by whenever she fed them. He took so many photos on his phone that within days, he surpassed all of the ones he had of Monty from the past several months.

NONE of those were going online any time soon. Grace had only posted a few days after giving birth her experience with having done so. She bounced back so quickly and looked so effortlessly beautiful that some people were claiming that she had been trolling and was never actually pregnant. She found that funny, but it also was her cue to duck away from the Internet for a while again. 

The first month of Ivory’s life, they were for the most part a quiet baby. Simon frequently worried that something was wrong, checking, rechecking, then coming back and checking again that they were breathing, awake, happy, etc. Grace was more like, “You’re so gross. Look at you! Drooling all over everything. Little slobbery monster!” She spoke in a high pitched voice that made Ivory smile and kick their little legs around.

“GRACE! Don’t say that!” Simon insisted. “You’re gonna make them feel bad.”

“No way! Ivory’s a tough little cookie, like their Mama. I gonna bite you, Cookie! Mama gonna bite you!” Then she playfully nibbled at their feet and hands. 

Simon studied the baby for a while and determined, “They seem to be enjoying it.” He would then relax a little. 

Hazel was the only person allowed to post photos of Ivory, and comments were always closed. The first one was on Hazel’s birthday. She was in a sundress, tanned a little more than usual and Ivory and she had on matching rompers and sunhats. “Ivory came 13 days before my 13th year. They really said, “I’ma be 13 too, Sis.” Look at them. Tiny. Tiny Potato. Sis has your back for life. #taurustribe #jk #idcboutthat #MonroeSibs #Doetography #HouseLaurent 

And there it was. All that anyone needed to see. You honestly couldn’t tell what the baby looked like, but how could anybody doubt Hazel’s hashtag “House Laurent?”

Simon sort of liked having a private family. He wasn’t sure why he had been so eager to have people acknowledge things before. Even one year ago, he needed for somebody, anybody to know that he slept in the same bed with Grace Monroe. He needed for her to say “I love you.” He needed to hear Hazel call him “dad.” He still loved those things, but he had everything he could have ever wanted… it just looked different than he thought it would. 

Why did he want to “take care of” Grace for so long? She was caoable of taking care of herself, probably better than he was of himself. She had talents (was ALREADY back to working on new dances with Hazel and new music), qualities… God… that smile made him weak… She had several other things too, but if he sat there making a list, he’d be there for a while, and he COULDN’T be there for a while, because Ivory was six weeks old and Grace told him that he could take them with him to work. 

He began strapping the baby into the stroller… “Are you… where are you trying to take my baby?” Grace asked.

“My calendar says that they’re six weeks old. I can take them to work with me.”

 Grace put her hands on her hips and Simon frowned. “You said it. I have a recording of you saying it.”

“Well, I said that we shouldn’t take them anywhere before six weeks…”

“And I set my calendar,” Simon completed the thought and pulled the diaper bag onto his shoulder. “Abigail is bringing Monty, so they’ll have a play date.”

“Oh, she is?” Grace asked, toweling herself down. “Hold on. I’m coming.”

“Grace, I’m gonna be late!”

“I’m not letting you go be a Daddy sized snack with TWO cute babies on you with a cute, perfect bodied nanny with no friends!”

“I don’t think she’s all that cute and I have no idea what her body looks like!”

“It doesn’t look like she pushed a baby out of it six weeks ago!”

“NEITHER DOES YOURS!” 

She came into the room, changed up and smiling, “Awww. That’s so sweet.”

“How did you?” She looked perfect. She looked perfect and she couldn’t have taken any longer than five minutes. And she thought she had anything to worry about? But, he wasn’t complaining. If he had Grace and the baby around, that was just better, all around. 

“I’m staying here,” Hazel told them and continued dancing in the mirror.

Grace was standing on the scooter, with Simon behind her, sporadically kissing her on the neck every now and then, making her smile and gush. Whenever they pulled into the studio Simon took the baby out, which Grace noticed was wearing an oversized heather gray, “Proof he got lucky with Grace Monroe” onesie. “Simon! What did you…?” She gasped and saw that he had a shirt, the same color that read, “I got lucky with Grace Monroe.”

“In my defense, you weren’t supposed to be here today!” Simon told her. 

“How many shirts and onesie sets did you buy?”

“Not a lot. I bought WAY MORE t-shirts than I did onesies.” She fell behind a little and the back of that man’s shirt said “Grace’s Babydaddy.”

“Simon…”

“In my defense… You were right there whenever I walked out of the house wearing it.” She laughed. “It’s just in the studio. I’m working on some mechanics. There’s not gonna be cameras on me or anything.” She was still pouting. “I know that you’re super secretive, but I’m sure that most of the people who give a damn about what we do already know that this is indeed my baby…”

“It’s not that.”

“Well, what is it?”

“Ugh. I wanted to do this whole reveal thing for you on Sunday! I was gonna make this long, sweet post and open my comments and EVERYTHING. Now, I feel like it won’t have the same effect…” His eyes were already all watery, just from her THINKING about doing so.

“Sunday is Father’s Day…”

“Yeah. I can keep my own secrets. Not tell people about my pregnancy or who I bone or how I share time with my daughter or whatever, but I didn’t plan on making you stay in the shadows of my spotlight for the rest of our lives, especially when it comes to this. You’ve been an immense pain in the ass, but you’re a wonderful father and I figured it’d be a good… coming out of sorts for me to acknowledge that on that day.”

He cradled Ivory closely, “You can still do that.”

“Well, you’ve announced it all over your clothes and also… I just told you the entire plan!”

“I love knowing plans!” Simon said. “Here.” He took off the shirt and threw on his hoodie, which it was too hot for and then they changed the baby’s onesie too. “I sort of want to eat it up whenever people actually find out from you that I am indeed, who you bone.” She laughed. “This is the best spoiled surprise that I’ve ever had!”

“Well… I didn’t tell you ALL my plans, so there’s still stuff to look forward to.”

“Yeah?” He asked, casually as they walked inside.

“Mmm hmm.”

“Can I have a hint?”

“Something that starts with the letter P.” Simon turned red and she smiled brightly.

“Uh. Didn’t put THAT on your calendar, did you?” 

His lip dropped, “I DIDN'T!” He frowned, “In my defense… we don’t really do that enough for it to have been something I was counting down to.” He smirked, “But every time we do…” He raised his eyebrows and smiled at her. She bit her lip and shook her head, “Nope. Sunday. You aren’t gonna beard break me, Mr. Laurent.”

Next

[a-marlene-s]

Unknown Reality: pt. 4

Au: Hades x Persephone Modern AU, PJO au.

Couple: Jason Todd x Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Jasonette

Summary: Jason, or as many know him as… Hades.He lost his luster for  the living and nonliving, just a constant repeat. That was until he met someone that tug on his heartstrings just the  right way. He takes her. Without a second thought.

Preface

Pt. 1

Pt. 2

Pt. 3

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Lila grinned wickedly at the sight of a very down trodden Marinette as she and Adrien entered the bakery. Her grin only grew when she saw Marinette glare at her openly. There was no point for the baker to hide her hatred for the liar. They were no longer in school together, and they both know, Lila had won. Lila had accomplished what she promised she would do.

Except for Juleka and Nino… but at least Lila got the majority of them and that included her prize. Adrien Agreste. Sure, the blonde is a mortal, but the blonde has power and fame. Even more so now that he has inherited his father’s fashion company. He has everything she could ever ask for, well… demand is more like it. All she has to do is say the right words and threaten to ruin the life of his friends, it’s not that hard considering who her grandmother is.

People listen to Lila’s words, it’s not her fault many are just so easily manipulated into believing her words. They should have known better… like how Marinette should have known better to go up against her. It’s not her fault, she had warned the baker girl what she would do if she didn’t back down.

“Hello, Marinette~” Lila smiled widely at the obviously annoyed Marinette.

Marinette didn’t bother to cover up her obvious eye roll. Doubling it when Adrien shot her a look. It seemed neither one grew up considering they are still up to their old tricks. Sad really. Marinette would have thought after defeating Hawkmoth, who ended up being Gabriel Agreste, finding out who was behind the masks, and so on, Adrien would have changed. Nope. Nothing changed. He still wanted her to take the high road and she wasn’t having it. This prompted her taking away the Cat Miraculous from Adrien. As Guardian, she did what she believes is the right thing to do. Hawkmoth is gone, there wasn’t a reason to have everyone running around anymore.

Fortunately for Marinette, the only people that know of her identity as Ladybug, are Adrien, Nino, Kagami, Juleka, Alix, Aurore, Mireille and Luka, due to them being there in the final battle. All of them were promised into secrecy to on each other identities. Luckily, Alya wasn’t there considering what she had posted when Rena Rouge wasn’t called in to the fight… but that’s a whole other issue for another day to deal with again.

“That’s very bad customer server, Marinette~” Lila pouted, her grip in Adrien tighten.

“My parents own the bakery…” Marinette deadpanned, reminding Lila of this widely known fact. “And my mother happens to personally know the local anchorwoman… Could we just call it even just for you to get out of here?”

“Marinette, please, let’s not fight.” Adrien said almost pleadingly. “We just came here for some food is all.”

“She had Alya to create an article that apparently we have mice running around the bakery…” Marinette narrowed her eyes at the model, not all amused by his behavior. “Who in the world would complain about mice at a place that sells food then come back to get some food? Apparently her.”

“Heh… what an idiot.”

Everyone paused, they turned around to see a tall figure standing in front of one of the display cases. Marinette revisited the urge to slap her face at the sight of one Jason Todd. Lately, Jason has been doing his best to avoid being detected by her, (better yet, her mother,) whenever he entered the bakery. Today just happened to be one of those days by the looks of it. “Hello, Monsieur Todd, what could I do for you today?”

“My usual.” Jason responded without taking his attention away from the display case. He pointed at something in the case. “And a slice of coffee cake.”

“Of course.” Marinette nodded, all too happy to get away from Lila. She went around to gather up Jason’s order, but still keeping an eye on Lila to make sure she doesn’t do anything underhanded with a customer in sight. Of course, that doesn’t stoop Lila from saying anything.

Lila started to say how the bakery’s quietly of bread is extremely subpar and that Marinette had tried to sell her day’s old bread once. Just a continuous list of lies that has Marinette wondering if she should chase Lila and Adrien out of the shop with a baguette. The longer Lila spoke, the more the idea sounded more appealing to Marinette.

Jason finally looked away from the display case to look over at Lila with a look of complete disinterest. When Lila caught Jason’s eyes, her words got caught at the back of her throat. Adrien tried to ask her what was wrong but all he got was Lila grabbing his arm tightly and running out of the bakery. The scene before her caused Marinette’s jaw to drop. That’s a first… and she loved every second of it. But that brings up the question, why did Lila run? She’s still running by the looks of it too with Adrien right on her heels.

“She sounds very annoying.” Jason shrugged, not even bothering to acknowledge the fact Lila had run out without a single word. “Does she do that often?”

Marinette gulped before she nodded. She then thrusted Jason’s order into his arms. “It’s on the house! That was amazing, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen her speechless.”

Jason grinned before he shot her a wink. “Well, I hope I don’t scare you away.”

Marinette blinked a couple of times before she started to shake her head. She had to give it to Jason, he’s improving his game and he really won a lot of brownie points for doing whatever he did to Lila. Still… there was just something about him that makes her wary of him.

“Would you like to go out for dinner?”

Marinette pursed her lips, this is a first coming from Jason. Sure, he would try to flirt with her and she would turn him down as nicely as she could. The last thing she needed is to get into a relationship when she isn’t ready for one. With Lila still trying to meddle with her life and had turned almost everyone against her. That pretty much ruined any possible chance of a love life. Adrien doesn’t count, that boat sailed with his insistence that Lila’s lies are not harming anyone.

Maybe… maybe this time it’s different.

“Marinette, don’t you have to get ready for your other job?” Sabine asked, interrupting Marinette’s train of thought.

Marinette took a step a back, she looked over at the clock that hung in the bakery to see the time. Nino wasn’t picking her up today as he needed to take his brother to the dentist today. “Oh! Right.”

Marinette turned to give Jason an apologetic smile. “Perhaps another time, Monsieur Todd-”

“Jason, call me Jason.”

“Jason…” Marinette tried out the name before giving Jason a small smile. “Until next time!”

With that, Marinette ran into the bakery to head up to her room to get ready for her job at the flower shop.

Jason pursed his lips when he saw Sabine walk up to the counter, maintaining eye contact with him. “So… how’s life?”

“I take it you know what the girl is?”

“The legacy? Yeah, I’ve dealt with several of her victims… not a pretty sight.”

TBC.

Tag List:

@ladylucina28 @starberry-mina @spicybelladonna @sassydepression​ @zebrabaker @gingerdaile@cadencehood  @sassy-spocko @xxkelsey39@vixen-uchiha @alexresides @thepeacetea@mystery-5-5 @littleredrobinhoodlum @latina-2312@souleateralicestein @eve-is-the-dawn @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @destinationdesignation  @imfreakingmagical @slytherinhquinn​ @iggy-of-fans​ @graduatedmelon @ranger-gothamite@shizukiryuu @queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm @crazylittlemunchkin@ginamarie1512 @mysteriouslyswimmingfan-blo-blog @lunaaugurium@fandomkitty8​ @driftingmoonlitpetals​ @northernbluetongue​ @bamagirl513 @todaylillypads  

[khrrarepairweek]

Frequently Asked Questions

I’m curious, what is this week all about?

KHR Rarepair Week is a fanweek dedicated to the many rare ships of our beloved manga/anime series, Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

Awesome! So what exactly do I have to do?

Anything you can think of! As long as it is your original work, it will be gladly accepted.

Do you like writing? Fanfiction is the air we breathe!

You’re savvy with editing? Gifs/graphics are a delight.

You’re an amazing artist? Fanart is our lifeblood!

Perhaps you have a lot of ideas, or maybe a list of songs that remind you of a certain rare pair? Headcanons and fanmixes or AMV’s are always welcome! So are songs, cosplay, moodboards and any kind of other fanworks!

Again, as long as it is original (not reposted… that’s a no-no, tsk tsk), then anything under the sun is possible.

However, if a certain post happened to inspire you, then we say go for it! Just remember to credit the original poster, and please do make sure that the inspired work is an original one as well.

Alright, let’s do this! *has completely no idea what to do/is overwhelmed with a lot of ideas* Uhmm, help?

Fear not, dear one! We try to provide a list of prompts that might help guide your creativity. .

Next to that, if you have no idea what pairing to write for, we have a list of suggestions right here: x  (Please note: this list was compiled in 2018, please cross-reference this with our list of the current top 10 AO3 pairings before starting to write. The top ten changes from time to time).

Remember: The prompts are just your guides, and doesn’t have to be followed to a T. If you’re inspired by something else, then go for it! Everything is also subject to your own interpretation, so have fun playing with them.

Aw, bummer. I don’t think I’ll be able to do all of them. Is it alright if I skip a day or just choose a particular day?

It is most certainly alright! Don’t worry, it’s a lot of days and a lot of prompts too! No need to feel pressured.

Just Keep Calm and Rarepair On!

(Alternately) I want to do all of them, but I won’t be able to post it on the day itself! Can I submit/post it beforehand?

As much as possible, we are encouraging creators to post on the day of the given prompt, in their most convenient time. Also, Tumblr has this nifty little thing called ‘queue’, which lets you schedule a post, so you might want to consider that option. But, if both are not feasible, then please tell us so, and we’ll make accommodations. However, please know that we will post it on the day the chosen prompt was scheduled.

But I love both of the prompts! Can I submit more than one work a day?

Of course! The more KHR rarepair content, the better! Just make sure to label/tag/link properly so we’re not reblogging duplicates. We suggest including the prompt used in the body of the post, so we can also identify where it’s supposed to go in the blog’s tagging system. Feel free to do multiple pieces for one day/prompt!

Are NSFW entries allowed?

We accept NSFW submissions, but as we want to make this blog and this week accessible to all parties, we won’t directly be reblogging these submissions. Instead, we’ll post a list of all NSFW submissions made to each prompt at the end of the day. You are, of course, strongly urged to post your work to the AO3 collection, regardless of whether or not your works are SFW.

Please make it a point to label/tag NSFW and trigger-warnings appropriately.

(This is to ensure that no one accesses NSFW content without knowing exactly what they’re walking into. Or accidentally reads any work with content that could potentially trigger/upset them.)

I have my own blog though. Can’t I just post it there?

It’s your work, so of course you can post it there, silly goose! Then we are going to reblog it from there.

The purpose of this blog is just to collate all the works, so fans would have a go-to place if they want to see/check out the works again.

Basically, this blog exists for archiving and posterity’s sake.

*squints eyes* Are you sure you’re going to reblog it?

We will, promise. Scout’s Honor! We have to ask you to follow the tagging guidelines properly though.

Our tracked tag is #khrrarepairweek2020 (or, in case of a mini-event, the appropriate mini-event tag mentioned on the prompt post), so please make sure that they are within the first five tags of your work.

You may also link the blog directly, in the body of your post.

But, should it happen that we missed your post for some reasons, then feel free to send us a message, and maybe a link so we can reblog it.

But what about me? I’m too shy to post it in my own blog (>_<) Can I submit directly here instead?

Sure! The submission box is open just for that. :)

This is all so interesting, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to fully participate, but I really do support your cause. What can I do to help?

Thank you for the interest! Reblogging the announcement post whenever you come across it would be very helpful in spreading the word and recruiting more people to join our cause. Please help us signal boost as much as you can!

What counts as a rarepair?

As we only accept rare pairings, it’s logical this would come up! Our definition of rare pairing is as follows: any pairing not in the top ten pairings on AO3. That means we do not accept entries with these pairings:

Gokudera Hayato/Yamamoto Takeshi

Reborn/Sawada Tsunayoshi

Superbi Squalo/Xanxus

Hibari Kyouya/Sawada Tsunayoshi

Gokudera Hayato/Sawada Tsunayoshi

Dino/Hibari Kyouya

Hibari Kyouya/Rokudou Mukuro

Sawada Tsunayoshi/Xanxus

Rokudou Mukuro/Sawada Tsunayoshi

Reborn & Sawada Tsunayoshi

Everything else, however, is fair game.

Do threesomes count or are you just accepting "pair" pairs?

Threesomes are fine and so is poly and/or harem!

I was just wondering for this rare pair does it have to be romantic ships or can it be like platonic ships as well?

We accept all kinds of ships for this event, including platonic and aromantic! The content we’re attempting to generate aims at fics that have interaction between characters who don’t always interact with each other, so all kinds of interaction are lovely. How explicit, inexplicit, ship-py or not you want to make this interaction is up to you.

If I already have a work in progress, can I add it to the collection regardless of how long I posted it on AO3? Or does it have to be a brand new work for the rarepair week?

This is a perfectly valid question, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to say no. Mostly because, while we’d love to have your work, this week was started because all of us wanted to generate more content for rare pairs in the fandom. Meaning linking works that have already been posted or are WIPs defeats the purpose.

However, we’re happy to have offshoots of a previously published work, or a WIP! Meaning, if you’d like to write and submit a separate one-shot set in the same ‘verse as your WIP for the week, we’d be glad to have it.

I’m writing fic for my entries, are there any word count restrictions? 

No, entries can be however long you want. You could have a multi-chaptered fic, or write one-shots, whatever you like! The goal of the KHR rarepair week is creating more content, so don’t feel the need to set the bar high if you don’t feel like it! A 100-word drabble? More than enough if that’s what you want to do!

On the Topic of OC Ships In the 2018 event, we allowed Canon Character/OC ships. At the time, there was no definite conclusion that us mods could come to so we decided to allow OC ships and would revisit it at a later time. We mods have finally come to answer.

We have chosen to define the following:

Rarepair – a pairing between canonical characters that is not popular.

Popular – in the top ten relationship tags on archiveofourown.org

Canonical Characters – a character we know at least the following 1) their name, 2) their appearance 3) the tiniest bits of personality and ideally 4) history. A loose rule of thumb: Can you google them and find canonical information? If yes, then you’re good.

Based on the definitions above, we regret to say that OC Ships are not allowed. And as always, crossover ships are allowed. (Crossover characters fit our canonical character definition, despite them not being from KHR)

We hope you’ve learned enough about the event! If you still have questions, just hit the ask box and we’ll get back to you as soon as the mods are able! :)

We would like to thank the lovely mods of @kurodai-week​ for allowing us to use their FAQ as a base!

[quarterfromcanon]

1-4. For the asks

Thank you so much for sending these! <3 

Once I started to answer them, I realized there were comparatively few recent television shows appearing on the list. I seemed to keep gravitating toward older ones I remembered from years ago. I took a handful of days to mull it over in case I was forgetting something, but nothing else comes to mind. Maybe my ongoing list of Shows to Watch During Quarantine will turn up some fresh results but, for now, it looks like I’ll be taking a little trip down memory lane. :) 

This turned out to be a pretty long and rambly post, so I’ll stow it under the cut!

Top 5 TV Shows 

1. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - I can’t imagine this surprises anyone who has been following this blog for the past two years or so. It brought fellow fans into my life, got me back into writing fic, and prompted countless tags of meta. It’s the show my mind drifts to on a weekly basis (if not daily) even a full year after the finale. Just when it seemed I’d reached an age where that level of intense fandom involvement and character attachment might be fading, it proved that quite the opposite was true. I’m very thankful to the series for that, and for the people whose paths have crossed mine as a result.   

2. Schitt’s Creek - This is my #1 Feel Good show and, though I’ve been dodging spoilers for the final season until it gets uploaded to Netflix, I get the impression that it will remain in that top spot. The world feels softer and more hopeful there. It’s healing for my soul. I’m going to have a dreadfully difficult time saying goodbye, but I’m glad there are six season to revisit whenever I want. 

3. Stranger Things - The theme song alone sends such a rush of excitement through me. I love the aesthetic and the atmosphere. I sometimes have mixed feelings about the romances but the FRIENDSHIPS sure do have a direct line to my heartstrings. I think the way they’ve combined media influences into their own story is really neat. You get something that’s new and engaging, but you can also go back and enjoy the sources of inspiration with fresh appreciation. 

4. Joan of Arcadia - I can’t help it. The snark, the jackets, the early 2000s songs, the performances -- the nostalgia for this show is so strong. It’s not without its problems, but it did have some really good things to offer as well. I remember an episode that was one of my earliest introductions to the concept of a trigger, and the effect it could have on a person if exposed to one of theirs. The series dealt a lot with grief and the many forms it can take (I STILL can’t hear Fiona Apple’s cover of “Across the Universe” without getting misty-eyed). I’m also surprised, looking back, at the somewhat positive way I recall them discussing homosexuality on the several occasions that it came up in the show. Not to give too much credit since I don’t think there were recurring canonically LGBTQIA+ characters but, for a kid who spent most days around closed-minded people of a certain religious leaning, it was meaningful along my individual journey. I’d like to provide the several examples that are most vivid in my memory:

A. A girl with short hair, short nails, little to no makeup, and a bulky leather jacket is generally assumed to be a lesbian by the bullies at school. The show directly confronts the fact that “gay” should not be used an insult, that identity should not be assumed without the person telling you so, AND makes sure that the character in question never pushes back by saying harmful things about lesbians despite not actually being one herself. 

B. A boy who is questioning is able to confide in his big brother and have a fairly calm conversation about it; the awkwardness mostly comes from neither of them being accustomed to openly discussing emotions, not from the possibility of a negative response regarding the subject matter. 

C. Another character is accidentally discovered to be gay (he only appears in the one episode, if my memory serves), and some of the leads have the opportunity to share that for personal gain. However, even though he is a popular jock who is a bit of a jerk in the hallways, the show makes it clear that the right choice is still to leave the telling of that information up to him and him alone. 

Like I mentioned, it can’t be said that representation was in abundance here - for instance, I don’t believe anything other than straight or gay was presented as a possibility - but any accepting acknowledgement in a faith-centric series was something for me to hold on to in my still-deeply-closeted days. As a final Very Important personal side note, this show brought Judith Montgomery into my life (pictured below on the left), and that feels like it merits a shoutout for being what I consider a rather significant marker in my awakening. 

THE OVERWHELMING CRUSH I HAD - and still have - is one for the books. 

5. Pushing Daisies - This is another show with an aesthetic I adore. The series has such a fun, whimsical energy. The crime-solving! The clothes! The cast! There's a lot to love. It’s the kind of world I wish I could visit... well, minus the evidently rampant murder rate. 

Top 5 Overrated TV Shows

1. Once Upon A Time - *deep sigh* I tried to stick with it for so long. I think I’ve seen five out of the seven seasons in their entirety. It just felt like everything got mired down by excessive (and increasingly convoluted) subplots, often for the purpose of tossing in as many fairytale and/or Disney characters as possible. Plus, quite honestly, there was too much emphasis on romantic love. For a show whose first season involved a curse being broken by [potential spoiler, I suppose] a mother kissing her son’s forehead, I ultimately found myself up to my ears in romantic ships. It reached such a stifling extent that, if you were not particularly attached to those pairings, there wasn’t a whole lot else to entice further viewing. 

2. Under the Dome - I don’t know for certain what the general public opinion of this series was, but it felt like the commercials always featured alleged rave reviews, so I figured I could include it here. I was vaguely interested in Season 1, mainly as a fan of Rachelle Lefevre’s work. Season 2 pulled me in with the introduction of a new townsperson and I threw WAY too much of my heart into that attachment, which backfired when that character was killed. I made quite the spectacle of my heartbreak, so much so that my family doesn’t let me mention this show around them anymore. :P Season 3 was, to phrase it delicately, not a great time. The series did introduce me to a few new-to-me actors, though, so that was cool. 

3. Bates Motel - Even the incentive of learning that the two characters I liked most share a lot of screen time later in the series hasn’t been enough to call me back to this one. I don’t know if it was the pacing that put me off or what, but the prospect of finishing the remaining seasons feels so daunting. There are evidently five seasons in total and I believe I’ve only seen two of them thus far. I will probably muddle through it someday just to see how it goes, but the fact that I am so disinclined to prioritize it made this feel like a fair addition to the list. 

4. Lost - My interest in this series unfortunately waned right before fervent fandom spiked. I don’t have any specific complaints that come to mind about what I saw; I just sort of drifted and then stayed away. Teachers I liked and peers I spent time with were starting to latch on to the show and I couldn’t find even the slightest inclination to give it a second try. However, did I still dutifully read all the latest installments in my friend’s Sawyer Ford and Kate Austen fanfiction when she passed me handwritten copies at lunch? Sure. I was glad it made her happy, even if I was no longer a viewer. 

5. Hemlock Grove - I say this as someone who still mourns the fates of some characters in this show, so I wouldn’t go so far as to claim that the series stopped being able to make me feel anything. I’m just of the opinion that, in some ways, it might’ve been better off stopping at one season. That’s where the book it was based on ends, and things just didn’t feel as cohesive after that. Season 3 especially was - borrowing from my above review of Under the Dome - not a great time. That being said, there are also certain elements from the book that I could’ve done without in the Season 1 adaptation but... well... here we are. 

Top 5 Underrated TV Shows

1. Picnic at Hanging Rock - Another one that won’t surprise followers of this blog. I have rhapsodized about it quite frequently since I found it a little over a month ago. It’s a period piece mystery miniseries with LGBTQIA+ representation, gorgeous costumes, and Samara Weaving. This felt specifically designed to wedge its way into my heart, and I’m quite content with the space it now occupies.

2. Dark - I’m so intrigued by the overlapping timelines with all of the morally gray characters. It’s possible to like one of these people in the timeline where they’re young but dislike them as adults, or vice versa. It also makes me think of Rant by Chuck Palahniuk a little tiny bit with the idea that time travel, specifically tampering with your own timeline, might make you physically and behaviorally unrecognizable to yourself. And the SONG CHOICES! I have gotten some solid new music selections from this series. 

3. Sense8 - I still need to watch the finale. I really do. But I knew it would make me sad so I’ve avoided it for... two years now? Pretty close, I think. The concept is fascinating and the cast is so strong. Plus the cinematography! They came up with some of the coolest ways to depict the link these characters share and what it’s like when they connect over distance. The planning and careful editing it all must’ve taken... I remain in awe. 

4. Penny Dreadful - There were definitely some story/writing choices I didn’t particularly like along the way, but I did get engrossed in the creepy goodness and the performances -- Eva Green’s Vanessa Ives most of all. It left me wishing for more period piece “monster mash” stories, because having all those classic characters in one place was a blast. It also helped me understand why Helen McCrory was once slated to play Bellatrix Lestrange because she can be terrifying. Oh and Sarah Greene in her Wild West outfits? Perdita Weeks with short red hair in fencing garb, and later in all leather with boots and a long jacket? I WAS NOT PREPARED AND I HAVE STILL NOT RECOVERED. I NEVER WILL.

5. Wonderfalls - There’s some cringe-inducing handling of certain representation in the series, but I have such a weak spot for quippy outcasts who become reluctant chosen ones (Joan Girardi in Joan of Arcadia, Wynonna Earp, Jaye Tyler in this series, et cetera). I also really love the sibling dynamics here. They bicker, tease one another, help each other out of trouble, and have rare but genuine heart-to-hearts. Caroline, Lee, and Katie all did such a great job blending their characters’ adult personalities with certain childhood attributes that rise to the surface in the presence of family.  

Top 5 Movies

1. Addams Family Values - I’ve rewatched this movie at least once annually since I found it in Media Play at age 13. Usually, I’ll play it around Halloween or, at the latest, Thanksgiving. It’s mouth-along-with-every-line level ingrained in my memory. I find myself leaning forward in my seat before favorite parts because I’m still that excited to relive them. Why this movie, and why this devotion to such a degree? It’s hard to explain, even to myself. I can tell you, however, that I hold up every other portrayal of the Addams characters to the versions found in this. Everybody in the cast just feels that perfect for their part. 

2. Clue - I was already pretty fond of this movie to begin with, but then my sister got older and claimed it as a favorite of her own, so now she just supplies me with further excuses to watch it repeatedly. It’s also been a bonding piece of media with a couple of close friends and such through the years. It’s incredible to think not everyone in it was the first choice for their roles; what everybody brings to the table is so top-notch that I wouldn’t have it any other way. I also LOVE knowing that it originally went to theaters with different endings depending on which showing you attended. I gather people weren’t terribly thrilled with the stunt back then, but I kinda think some moviegoers would be into that approach these days? Then again, one hit that tried something different tends to start a fad, so maybe I’d end up regretting the suggestion after a while. :P

3. The Craft - This. Movie. Yes, Act III is a major bummer even though I know it’s coming, and I’ll always wish it ended differently. Even so. This. Movie. I tend to headcanon mostly for shows and sometimes books, but The Craft is a beloved exception. I love so much about it: the magic, the music, the clothes, the settings, the dynamics within the friend group, the performances. I had no idea when I first got the DVD at 17 that it would become such a part of my life, but I’m so glad it found its way to me. 

4. Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion - The soundtrack is a glorious ’80s and ’90s treat for my ears. The colorful costumes are perfectly suited to the main characters’ version of the world. There are so many great lines and it feels like everyone is having a lot of fun in their roles. I LOVE HEATHER MOONEY SO MUCH. She’s my awful, scathingly sarcastic, little grungy grump and she fills my heart with joy. 

5. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - I was pretty sure at least one of the three had to appear on here. I think, if I were to tally them all up, The Return of the King features most of my favorite moments, so it wins the spot. “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!”, ‘Edge of Night,’ Éowyn in battle, The Army of the Dead, ‘Into the West’... I end up crying during the end credits every time. So, yeah, ultimately, I would choose the third part of the trilogy if I could only watch one. 

Phew, that’s it! All the questions answered, all the shows and movies listed! Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read it all, and thanks again to @monaiargancoconutsoy for sending in the prompts! <3

[kae-karo]

Since you mentioned being in the mood for asks: I think I like my best friend. She knows I'm not straight. But has never actually said she's not straight but has discussed possibility of her sexuality being fluid? She doesn't open up to anyone. And so it's really hard to understand her feelings and I am always afraid of crossing the line by asking her too many questions? So I just avoid asking a question twice. I know our friendship will be ruined if I let her know about my feelings ( 1/2 )

But idk what to do with all these pent up feelings :( she gets close to me but then seems to be very distant after a while. Back and forth. Idk what to do. Especially with all this time in my hand during quarantine all I do is overthink about everything in my life including her. Oh no I'm ranting. Sorry have a great day !!! Love you Katie !!! 🖤🖤🖤 :) ( 2/2 )

hello dear!! 💜💜💜 okay first and foremost never never feel like you have to apologize for sending long/multi-part asks/rambling/etc i adore getting asks and it is never something you should feel bad about!!

now, onto advice here...there are a lot of different options ofc for what you could do, and i won’t say that there’s one right answer or one thing that’s better than another. i am and always will be an advocate for communication and honesty in relationships/friendships/etc, but i think the first thing that needs to happen is you need to decide what route you want to go

the kind of key directions would ofc be to 1. explain your feelings and see if she feels the same 2. decide that you do Not want your current friendship with her to change and that you would rather move on from being interested in her without mentioning that you have feelings or 3. keep on the same path you’re currently on and sort of just...wait it out

uhhh i will say that option 3 is usually...one to avoid, if you can. specifically bc this will probably leave you feeling Bad and that’d be something that’s uhhh not good lmao

so say you want to try telling her how you feel, naturally this comes with the risk (as you mentioned) that she might not feel the same/that you might ruin the friendship by saying something about it, but unfortunately...there’s not really much of a way around that risk. that said, and keeping in mind that idk her or how she tends to act/react to certain situations, there are probably ways to go about this that mitigate some of the risks

if i were in your shoes and decided i wanted to go this route, i might genuinely try to keep it as lowkey and casual as possible, and try to avoid making it some Big Thing™. i’d probs just say smth like ‘hey y’know i think i might have feelings for u beyond just friendship, i wanted to just let you know in case you felt the same, but if not, no worries! it doesn’t change that i still want to be friends with you, and i obviously am not gonna act any differently toward you if you don’t feel the same.’ like. i would try to make it clear that 1. i wouldn’t want anything to change if she didn’t feel the same and 2. that i have no expectations of her

especially since it sounds like she’s still figuring out who she might be into, i might also add something like ‘i totally understand you’re still figuring stuff out, i don’t want you to feel any added pressure, just wanted to be open and honest with you’ (sometimes being open can help others open up too!)

now, that said, it sounds like you might be erring more on the side of wanting to move on and get over your feelings for her - which is totally valid! or, ofc, if you tell her and she’s like ‘yeah man sorry i’m just not into you!’ then u would naturally want to move on without making things uncomfy. in that event, i have one very major recommendation: distractions

i get it! it’s hard with quarantine to keep your mind occupied with other things/people/etc, but unfortunately, moving on isn’t something that can just be done, it requires practice and patience and time

one thing you can try is choosing something you already enjoy and finding an aspect of that to dive deeper into. for example, fan of a show/book? go search for fanart or fanfic if you’re into that! come up with an oc just for fun in whatever universe that piece of media is in, even if u never show it to anyone. pick a few blogs you’ve seen who post a lot and check them out, maybe follow if they seem cool! write fic or draw art, whether it be of an oc or existing characters or even just scenes or something! especially try this out even if you’ve never done either of those things before - and don’t get discouraged if those things aren’t perfect, just give them a shot and you might find something you really enjoy! grab a character or ship you usually don’t give much attention to/haven’t seen before and go check out their tag!

along this route, i speak a lot about fandom/fictional media bc that is what i personally use as an escape, but the same goes for activism/politics/languages/animals/other subjects/literally anything that is of interest to you! there is almost always an unexplored aspect of something that you can dive into. but! in the event that you can’t or don’t find anything interesting...

another thing is to find something new! a show you’ve heard about but never watched (or a show you’ve literally never heard of before but like just keeps popping up on ur netflix page), a book you’ve been putting off reading, a youtuber that seems p cool, a skill or language or craft or really, literally anything you haven’t done, and trying it. invest a bit of time and energy and just see where it takes you, let yourself think about this new thing and follow your line of curiosity. some of the best (and worst/dumbest/most cursed) ideas i’ve ever had came from just. randomly following the line of curiosity in my head and seeing where it takes me. hell, that’s what led to me writing fic in the first place!

and be forgiving of yourself too, don’t associate thoughts about this person with any kind of ‘oh shit i’m not supposed to be thinking about her’ kind of reactions, just gently redirect your thoughts to that one episode you just watched, or the question you have about the universe it exists in, or what crocheting pattern you want to try out first, etc etc etc. again, this kind of thing takes time and patience and won’t happen overnight, but you absolutely can get there!

the last ‘distraction’ i tend to go for is revisiting old interests! that fic or book you read a long time ago but still have/still have bookmarked as a fave? pick it back up and give it a reread - the cool thing about stories is that, over time, our perspectives change, and the way we experience the story and the emotions we feel over it change as well. same goes for old shows, esp if it’s been a minute! you can even do this in tandem with the first distraction type and dig back into fandoms you haven’t seen in a while!

it can be hard to remember sometimes - esp while we’re in quarantine! - that worlds exist outside our current interests and spheres of influence. whatever you decide to do, dear, just remember that things will be okay in the end (even if they’re not okay at first) so long as you try to do what’s right for you and be thoughtful and caring along the way. i hope this helped at least a little!

[japanessie]

Hi Shelly! Hope you're doing well! Thank you so much for this blog, it is so very appreciated because as I discovered MFS through OOR, I was nearly discouraged from the band by all thr comments and the lies. Thank god I decided to learn more and came across your blog. Now I wanted to ask you about yout thoughts about yesterday's Coldrain show in Paris, specifically about what Masato said when he was asked about a collaboration with My First Story. And he was like noooo, if it's One Ok Rock yes.

Hello 😊

Thank you for writing to me and thank you so much for reading. Always happy to hear from a fellow fan 🤗

【If something has never been said or discussed with the other party, isn’t it wise to just answer “No"?】

Honestly, I don’t see anything weird or sinister with Masato’s answer. He was being professional. At the very least, a collab already happened between OOR and Coldrain. They probably talked about more future possibility during their hanging out time together. Masato could only answer on behalf of Coldrain that they’re not doing anything with MFS and he also was not in the position to answer on behalf of MFS either. Hence, “No" is the right answer here, isn’t it?

−−−−−−−−−−−−−−

Now let’s see things from Masato’s point of view and not our angle as ordinary fans. Artists do collabs mainly for TWO reasons. One is the fun factor and the other is for what it can bring to the table (either creatively or even business benefit).

1. The “fun factor" ~ Coldrain and OOR are peers and real life buddies

The two bands started not too far apart and were in the same scene before OOR became exponentially bigger. They are “brothers". The “When I get married you’re my best man, bro,“ and “Bro, you’re in town? Let’s go have a drink!” kind of friendship. They meet up when they can and hang out. Did you see Masato celebrating Taka’s birthday in Hong Kong 😁?

For two groups of people to work together voluntarily, isn’t it imperative that they should also be able to gel together well? 

Though they are also friends with MFS, they don’t really have that kind of friendship with each other as bandmen. Hiro in particular, besides being Taka’s lil bro, was more like a mere fanboy of Coldrain in the early days. Certainly not a peer because Hiro was just a rookie bandboy at the time.

OOR’s Skyfall certainly falls into the “fun" category. They did it as friends. The main songwriter was Mah from SiM. They put it together with John Feldman whom OOR was working with at the time. Roping in Ken (Crossfaith) and Masato, it was obvious they did it for the sheer enjoyment as J-Rock peers and real life buddies 😊.

Between OOR and MFS, it’s a no brainer that Coldrain would pick OOR. They already have the working chemistry with OOR. They’re closer and they know each other better which are important factors if you want to work together.

2. Would it bring something to the table musically?

There’s a reason why artists tend to collab with those as far outside their genres or styles as they can. You want to create something new. You want to bounce ideas from each other which you probably wouldn’t think of within your own group. You want that freshness but most of all, the challenge. So you can learn or at least appreciate each other.

Coldrain fans might remember the time when Alexandros invited Masato to feature in one of their songs?

Now THIS is a good creative collab 😍! Both sides stepped out of their comfort zones and ended up producing something you wouldn’t normally get from each of them.

Honestly, I can’t envision a Coldrain/MFS fusion to even give us anything new musically 🤔. The most it can achieve is them looking cute together 😂.

3. It’s pretty pointless from a business angle

You do collab to expose yourself to the other party’s fanbase. Coldrain and MFS pretty much share the same crowds. In other words, the OOR crowds 😑. Their fanbase won’t expand that way. MFS knew this and had already stepped away from touring with similar artists since 2016. The closest MFS got to “revisiting" those crowds was when they invited The BONEZ. I think that’s more because The BONEZ bassist T$UYO$HI, formerly of Pay Money To My Pain, also works professionally alongside MFS’ Sho and Nob as sessionist musicians. 

Just from this factor alone, the Coldrain x MFS collab is already unlikely. What’s the point of Coldrain doing that with MFS when they already got the same exposure and even more impact with OOR?

4. Coldrain & MFS’ paths don’t really cross

Where and how 🤔? 

Coldrain has already been in and out of Japan for years doing overseas tours and performing alongside non-Japanese artists, even before OOR did. MFS, on the other hand, insists on not touring overseas till after doing Tokyo Dome in 2021. At most they do one-off shows like Taiwan and China. 

How about Japan? Well, MFS also is not focusing on bands from the OOR crowds like Coldrain to tour with nowadays. Apart from the occasional music festivals, Coldrain & MFS actually walk on two different roads. 

5. A collab with MFS at this point will make Coldrain look like an “opportunist"

Masato and Taka are “bros". Yes, they had worked together. Yes, Coldrain had been invited to be on OOR Tour too. Now imagine if they suddenly announce working with MFS. It will look like they’re trying to cash in on the Moriuchi brothers’ popularity. Yikes! 🙊

Back in 2013 or 2014, it might not look bad at all but this is 2019 and MFS already surpassed Coldrain in terms of sales and marketability. Coldrain tagging along with MFS after working closely with OOR will only imprint an image of an opportunist. 

“Oh, so you are doing both brothers, huh?“

6. Japanese artists sometimes refer to “touring together” as collab

This is something I’ve been observing quite some time. It seems like the word “collab" isn’t limited to working on a song together to them. Forget doing a song, there is not even any indication nor inclination of Coldrain getting invited to be on MFS Tour and neither is MFS getting invited to be on Coldrain Tour. No. They are each focused on their own marketing strategy to strengthen their fanbase.

−−−−−−−−−−−−−−

There is no bad blood, don’t worry 

I know some people like to talk garbage about “so-and-so-hating-so-and-so" and whatnot. In case someone tries to do so, please feast your eyes on these photos.

An old photo of Hiro with his natural black hair and Coldrain bassist RxYxO 😊.

Hiro fanboying at the back …. LOL. Told ya he’s a Coldrain fan 😉

If you can find any video of Coldrain’s performance at Japan Jam Beach 2015, you will see that Hiro actually stayed throughout Coldrain’s set 😊. How cute!

Also, I’m positive that Coldrain got invited to do VAMPS Halloween Party 2017 after HYDE opened the door to MFS before that in 2015. Indirectly, MFS does make a good impact on the highly respected senior JRocker which have benefitted bands like Coldrain too 😍. Rottengraffity was invited in 2017 too. Nowadays, HYDE has also worked with Pablo (Pay Money To My Pain) and is regularly seen catching up with OOR here and there 😊

So, there. It’s all good! See? 😉

Oh my God *gasp* 🙊, I ended up answering this long …. as usual LOL 😂

[aramis-dagaz]

How do you come up with names for your fictional settings, factions, characters, etc? -a fledgeling DM

In all honesty, through a lot of pain, wailing, gnashing of teeth, beseeching of dark and eldritch powers, and wrestling with my crippling self-doubt.  I can come up with an interesting and intertwining system of government, religion, social castes, and the history of it spanning a thousand years in a day, maybe longer if I’m doing a lot of research.  Coming up with names will literally take me weeks, completely stalling the project until then.  God help me if I ever have children.  If you have trouble coming up with names, you’re not alone.

In the naming of things, you’ll want to follow these three Rs: Research, wRite it down, and Remix. - Research: exactly what it says on the tin.  Hit the books, visit websites, keep your ears and eyes open to anything that sounds or looks interesting. - Write it down: you will forget.  Don’t let those thoughts get away from you.  Also record where you got those ideas from so you can revisit that particular well. - Remix: the fun and/or painful part where you torture your initial fodder into something useful.

Thankfully, there are a lot of tools and resources to help make this process easier, though it really depends on whether you’re basing your names on an existing or historical culture or making something more unique.

If you’re basing your naming schemes on existing cultures or fictional settings, then your best bet is https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/.  This site, by far, has name generators for just about anything you can possibly want as well as generators for things other than names.  Best of all, Emily, the site creator, explains her logic for why the names sound the way they do.

Another good resource and the one I use probably more often than fantasynamegenerators is http://www.behindthename.com/random/.  This site provides actual real-world names along with some mythical, ancient, and literature-based names.  Best part of using this site is that you can look up what the names’ etymology, historical development, and what they actually mean, which is perfect if you like to give your characters symbolic names.  There’s also a sister site for surnames as well, https://surnames.behindthename.com/.

Sometimes, though, you’ll either not find what you’re looking for on the previous sites or want to dig a little deeper into the logic behind certain naming schemes.  In that case, you’ll have to do some legwork.  Doing an Internet search for “[whatever] name generator” or “[whatever] name lists” can help.  Avoid baby name sites, they are complete garbage.  Wikipedia can also help if you want lists of kings or historically important people (such as this list of ancient Egyptians, though admittedly these are for very important people who had their names written down somewhere, so your mileage will vary).  This will help you at least get an idea of what these names look and sound like, if not actually create as-close-to-authentic names as you can.  Also look up the languages involved so that you know how they look, sound, and are put together.  Anglicized versions of names from non-European languages can be fraught with peril, as the combinations of letters you read don’t always translate to what you think they should sound like (especially Irish Gaelic and Chinese.  Whomever did the Latinization of those languages needs to be slapped).

If you want to make names that are essentially just basic words from another language (like naming a character “Radish”, only in, say, Japanese), Google Translate is a good start and will give you an idea of what those words would look like written in English as well as similar words.  However, I highly recommend trying out other online translators as it’s already firmly established that Google Translate is not completely reliable.  I named a character this way, Altarus Almakhzun, which is bastardized Arabic for “Gears Inventory”, which fits because he’s supposed to be a djinni artificer.

If you’re looking for place names that are based on a real world culture or language, a good method is hopping onto Google Maps or getting an old road atlas that shows all of the tiny towns and villages, picking a random spot, and then just wandering around, making note of any interesting-sounding place names.  If you’re ever on a road trip, keep a piece of paper and a pen handy to jot down interesting names you see on the roadsigns, but please please please be careful if it’s just you driving.

Okay, that covers names that are at least grounded in some version of reality.  But what about truly unique names?

In all honesty, the sky’s the limit and you’re kinda on your own.  But here’s my process: - Start with a strange or interesting-looking word or name (eg, Inpalav evolved out of Impavide, meaning fearless, the motto of the 90th Missile Wing) - Find the syllables and sounds that appeal to you.  Make a list. - Load those syllables and sounds into the Hadron collider of your brain.  Smash them together, rip them apart, twist them into a fractal gordian pretzel as many times as you please - Take a few of the results that stand out, and then mutate them through a thousand permutations, swapping out letters and syllables each time - Imagine someone saying this name in casual conversation, awed, reverent tones, and at the top of their lungs swearing eternal vengeance - Pick the ones that pass this Darwinian struggle

That said, though, here are a few other rules to make sure that you have something that’s workable: - Say the name out loud.  If you can’t pronounce it on command, adjust it so you can. - Make sure how it’s pronounced and how it looks jive together.  In my experience, I’ve found names that look cool and sound cool, and they don’t always coincide. - Keep apostrophes to a minimum.  One per name is fine, especially if the apostrophe is culturally or linguistically relevant, but avoid them if you can. - Share your ideas with friends and see what they think.  If they immediately think of a cutesy nickname for your Dark Lord of Ancient Evil or just immediately call your Elven Prince of a Thousand Apostrophes “Bob” in lieu of twisting their tongue into a klein bottle, it’s back to the drawing board.

Once you have some workable names, think about the fictional etymologies of them.  You don’t need to go all Tolkien here and actually write out the exact origins of these names, but at the very least think about a few rules for this particular culture.  Does the name mean something?  Are there any common or reoccuring syllables?  Does a particular syllable denote something about the character, such as gender, place of origin, or social class?  This will help make the names feel more real and part of a larger culture.

A couple examples from my own settings: - The Fhalsnir are a very widespread species and have multiple cultures (they are the humans of the Firmament), but there are a couple of etymological holdovers from their homeworld.  Typical names are about two to four syllables long and typically end in -ig, -rig, -vig, or -ith (eg, Sorvig, Sorvith, Maegrig).  -ith is usually considered feminine, but cultural drift and change has made that rule largely irrelevant in the present day.  Some cultures cleave to these rules, some ignore them entirely and adopt names from other cultures and languages, and most adopt some combination thereof. - One culture names everyone with numbers, with some of the longer names resembling a fantasy version of an IP address (given name, parents’ names, clan/tribe name, perhaps town of birth, etc). Should such a character found a ruling dynasty, they may end up be Primus of the Third Dynasty of the Nation of Seven, with their parents retroactively given negative number names for the history books, never mind that Primus of Third (informally Prime-Three) was originally Twelver, child of Octus and Quint, born of the Fiftieth Tribe of the One-O-Sixteenth Province.

As a reward for reading all of that, I’ll share a couple of links for some more esoteric and whimsical names: - 16th-19th century Puritan names: https://aramis-dagaz-imaginarium.tumblr.com/post/134169440876/brookenomicon-sonnetscrewdriver - If you want to give your characters some descriptive names but want to use some very esoteric words, such as Sagacious Zu from Jade Empire, this site has got you covered: http://phrontistery.info/clw.html - A collection of blog posts on names, including some random generators, ways to create fantasy names, and some name-based humor for writers stressing out over naming characters: https://aramis-dagaz-imaginarium.tumblr.com/tagged/names

Hope this helps!  May your characters and nations get the memorable names they deserve!

[chungledown-bimothy]

Trust Me: Chapter 8

Hello hello hello! Thank you so much for your patience. I hope you enjoy it! <3

Chapter 1 Chapter 7 AO3 Chapter 9

Warnings: A brief mention of the wounds from last chapter’s violence

Author’s Note: The cipher is difficult, but crackable. Consider this a challenge! <3 I linked to it in the fic when it is first received, but here it is as well

Word Count: 2786

Tag List: @ccecode​ @emo-sanders-sides-loving-unicorn​ @ren-allen​ @ilovemygaydad​ @bloodropsblog​ @funsizedgremlin​ @raygelkitty​ @roxiefox23​ @thomasthesandersengine​ @spookyingarbageisland​ @band-be-boss-blog​

One Week Later

Patton's living room, 6 pm

"Logan, is there anything you wanted to tell me?" Patton's voice seemed sweet as usual, but Logan knew his sibling too well to miss the icy undertone.

"Nothing comes to mind. Is there something you'd like to hear?" Logan tried to keep his voice even, but the twitch of Patton's mouth made it clear that he had failed.

"What have you been up to lately? I realized that between putting in more hours at the shop and spending so much time with Virgil, we haven't really talked in the last week or so."

"Nothing remarkable. As you know, it is winter break, so I have been catching up on grading. I truly do not understand why some of these students think that what they turned in is remotely acceptable. Especially for this lab, which is worth 10% of their final grade. Do they not care about their education at all?"

"Now, Logan, I'm sure they're trying their best. You don't know what's going on in their lives outside of class, and you should know better than most how outside circumstances can affect someone's work. Is that it, then? Just grading?"

"For the most part. I read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd again, which was as pleasant as always."

Patton sighed, and the smile dropped off their face. "You, dear brother, are a terrible liar. Why did you borrow my car without asking while I was at work yesterday?"

Logan sputtered. "I- I did not- how did you know?"

"I'm not an idiot, Logan, and I'm more observant than you seem to think. Did you really think I wouldn't notice the fact that the odometer went up?"

"It was less than three miles round trip."

"Logan, my car is 63 years old. Every single mile matters. If you paid enough attention to the things I tell you that aren't about killing people, you would have known that. Virgil drove me to and from work; I would have said yes if you'd asked. So what could you possibly need to do within a 1.5 mile radius that required my car without my knowledge?"

Logan took a deep breath and steeled himself for the impending argument. "I required the use of your car to dispose of a body."

Patton's face flashed with anger and betrayal before returning to a neutral, calm expression. "I'll start with the easy question- why couldn't you use your car? Apparently you did all the rest by yourself, and your car is bigger than mine."

"There is a near-infinitesimal chance that someone might have seen him get into my car. The chance is almost indescribably small, but it does exist."

"How long ago?" Patton's voice was cold and harsh as they got off the couch and stood in front of Logan, the light casting a shadow that made them look like a dark angel.

Logan hesitated; he'd never seen them this angry before. "One week ago. I lack your talent for keeping them alive for long."

"One week… my date with Virgil." They scoffed. "And you say you don't feel emotions. Who, pray tell, did you target in your little temper tantrum?"

"It certainly was not an emotional breakdown. You pursued your desires independent of us when you went to the museum with Virgil. I pursued mine in punishing Jason Dean."

"Jason Dean… JD. Logan. Tell me that you did not kidnap, torture, and murder your own student. Was he even 18 yet? What could a CHILD possibly have done to deserve whatever you did to him? I assume it was some of the things I told you even the scum we punished deserved. Liquid nitrogen? Fire? Hydrochloric acid?" Logan flinched at each accusation, but he stood up, closing the height difference and looking Patton in the eyes.

"He was a murderer. He was responsible for the murders of three of his peers. He deserved punishment, and I deserved freedom with my experiments."

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Logan was taken aback by the sudden softness in Patton's voice.

"Of course not, Patton. In your own way, you are brilliant. I have told you this before."

"Don't patronize me. Is there anything else you left out? This is your one chance to get everything out in the open without consequences. I will know if you're lying, and you will regret it if you do."

"I… yes." Logan sighed, knowing full well that they would not hesitate to follow through on their threat. "I sent something to Roman Prince, the journalist who has been covering our kills."

"What, pray tell, did you send?" Logan could tell that their patience was about to snap, but he would not submit. Not this time.

"A note. A cipher. A challenge."

"Oh my god. You're looking for your Poirot, aren't you? I'm not enough? We aren't enough?"

"Patton, you are being absurd. Judging by his writing, this reporter will not be up for the challenge, but perhaps someone else out there can begin to compete with me intellectually, and it would be a welcome change of pace. Regardless, nothing will ever come between us. I fail to see how my search for a worthy intellectual opponent is any different from your burgeoning romance with this Virgil you are always going on about. It is hypocritical in the extreme to seek to satisfy your needs that cannot be fulfilled by our partnership while maintaining that I cannot. I deserve better than that, after all I did for you."

"There's a difference between going out on a few dates and putting us in danger and risking everything trying to prove that you're so much smarter than everyone else. You were reckless and stupid, and I'm disappointed in you. I don't know if we can keep going, if you're going to keep acting like this."

"Surely, you do not mean that. Our work means too much to you. People are only beginning to hear our message. That is truly why I sent that note to the reporter; so he can spread our word even further."

"I told you to stop fucking lying to me!" Patton shouted, raising a hand. Logan flinched, and Patton blanched, realizing what they had been about to do. "You should leave, Logan. I can't even look at you right now. Don't make me act like him." It was clear from their tone that it wasn't a request. Without another word, Logan pushed past them and walked out the door.

Golden Gate Park, 4 pm

Virgil walked onto the crime scene, shocked by the lack of reporters. He was greeted by Captain Sanders, further confusing him.

"Hello, Captain. With all due respect, why are you here? And I'm not complaining by any stretch, but where are all the press vultures?"

"Ah, hello, Virgil! They aren't here because no one knows about the body but the two of us. I found it myself, and called you and Vincent directly. No one but the three of us knows."

"Vincent's here?"

"'Ello, Virgil!" Came an energetic British voice from behind him. Virgil couldn't help but smile. 

"Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see you, but what are you doing here?" Virgil let himself be pulled into a hug from the shorter man.

"I have crime scene tech training, and Captain Sanders needed someone he'd be sure wouldn't call the press. And given my history with journalism, well, I know that I talk a lot, but never to the press."

"Remind me to ask for that story later. How long has the body been here?"

"Judging by insect activity, I'd wager about twenty-four hours, but I'll send photos and samples to our entomologist for confirmation once we're done here. Did you know that the first documented case of forensic entomology was in 13th century China, documented in Sun Tzu's book about his work, entitled The Washing Away of Wrongs? He recounted finding a murder victim by noticing the flies that remained on the murder weapon, despite it being cleaned of all blood." 

"That is super fascinating, Vincent, but we've got a 2019 crime right here to solve. Do we know anything about the victim?" Virgil asked, putting on gloves.

"The only thing on him was a Mission High School ID- name's Jason Dean, he's a senior." Vincent handed him the ID.

"A kid? That's a huge change in victimology. Have you checked his mouth?"

"Not yet. Just got here a couple minutes before you did. Care to do the honors?"

Virgil sighed. "Not sure how much of an honor it is, but sure." Vincent led him to the body, and he started dictating notes.

"Victim is Jason Dean, per his Mission High School student ID. Whereas previous victims had knife wounds, the victim appears to have extremely severe frostbite, acid burns, and heat burns. No obvious cause of death, although shock seems to be a reasonable option. Opening his mouth now, and there is a paper inside. Same stamp as previous victims- this certainly is our killer. The note says 'killer'. Is the victim a substitute for himself? The profile suggests someone in their late twenties or early thirties. Perhaps something about Jason reminds the killer of himself as a teen. He shows no sign of stopping soon, though. Why kill a proxy now? Revisit profile after autopsy and gathering more information about Jason."

"Interesting analysis, Virgil." Virgil jumped, not having heard the captain walk up behind him. Captain Sanders laughed. "Easy there, it's just me. It looks like you've got this all under control, so I'm going to go back to the station. This change in MO and victimology is concerning, though- get me a written revised profile by the end of the day."

"Yes, sir." Virgil went back to discussing the details of the injuries with Vincent, and Sanders left the scene.

Presidio Heights, 6 pm

With a sigh, Roman forced a key into the ancient lock on his slot in the mailbox unit. He rifled through them as he trudged up the flight of stairs to his apartment, flipping past coupons, ads, and bills, frustrated at how mundane his life had become. He hadn't realized just how monotonous his routine was until he got the opportunity to write those pieces on the Park Puzzler; now life in between them just felt gray. He knew that having another chance to write about the killer meant someone else would have to die, so he didn't hope for that, but the thrill of a real story left him hungry for more adventure. Which is why his heart stopped when he found an envelope with no address or postage, just his name.

He ran up the rest of the stairs and unlocked his door as quickly as possible, throwing the rest of the mail on his coffee table. The pile let out an irritated meow.

"I'm so sorry, Meeko, my love! But this looks to be quite the mysterious delivery. Can you smell the adventure?" Roman freed his cat from the pile of papers and scratched under his chin. Meeko let out a small chirp, which Roman understood as forgiveness.

Turning back to the envelope, he was truly at a loss for words. The envelope was made out of cardstock, and the only writing on it was his name in big, black letters. He carefully took a picture of it before turning it over and opening it. Inside was a note. Once again, he took a picture of it before calling his boss.

"What is it, Prince? You're off the clock."

"I just got a note that claims to have been sent by the Park Puzzler."

"The serial killer?"

"Yes, sir. The note looks like it's in some kind of code, and it says I should publish it. What should I do?"

"The journalist in me says yes- it's a hell of a story. But this is a very public active case, and I don't want you charged with obstruction of justice. Take pictures of it, and then take it to the cops."

"I already took pictures- consider me on the way to the station now." Roman threw his jacket back on and left for the station.

Richmond Station, 20 Minutes Later

"Detective Mason, it's Roman Prince here to see you."  Virgil looked up from his profile write-up to see a beat cop whose name he couldn't remember nervously shifting his weight from foot to foot.

"Roman Prince… oh. The journalist. Did he say what he wants?"

"Wouldn't give me details- he just said that it has to do with that serial killer case you're working."

Virgil fought to not roll his eyes. "Okay, send him over here."

"Will do." The officer all but ran away, quickly returning with Roman in tow.

"Hello Prince. Rumor has it you have something for me." Virgil said, feigning boredom.

"Not quite. I have something that was delivered to me that might be of interest to you." Virgil's interest was piqued.

"If it's half as important as you seem to think it is, it is evidence, and therefore will be mine shortly."

"Hang on, Surly Temple. Before I show you anything, I need you to promise me exclusive rights to this. It was given to me, out of all the journalists in the city, by the Park Puzzler, after all."

"Don't call him that. Public attention is his goal, and giving him a name like that only validates him. But fine. If this is something important, you will be given SFPD's permission to write about it once we've decided the best course to do so." Maybe I can make this work in our favor. He's so desperate to get a big story, I'm sure we can use him to say what we want, not what the killer does, Virgil mused.

"Fantastic! Here it is. It was in my mailbox when I checked the mail about half an hour ago." Roman handed him the envelope.

"When was the last time you checked your mail?" Virgil asked.

"Yesterday at around 6 o'clock. I check it at about the same time every day." 

"Good. Patterns are good," Virgil muttered to himself. He put gloves on before taking the envelope from him. He pulled the piece of paper out of the envelope and read it. "Come with me, Roman. We need to talk to my captain right now." He stood up and started walking; Roman hurried after him.

When they got to the captain's office, Virgil didn't even knock.

"Captain, you need to see this. This journalist says this was left in his mailbox at some point in the last 24 hours." Virgil handed him the note.

Sanders went pale. "What is this?"

"I'm confident it's a cypher of some sort. He's getting desperate, Captain. He hasn't been getting the attention he wants, so he's reaching out to the media directly."

"So why code it?" Roman interjected. "If he wants to use me to send a message, why make it one people won't understand?"

"That's a really good question. What's your name, and who are you writing for?" Sanders asked.

"Roman Prince with SFGate."

"Ah, Humphrey's crew. Well, Virgil? Why is it coded?"

"He doesn't just want attention. He's telling us that he's smarter than we are- publishing this code is a challenge for someone to decode it. Not unlike the Zodiac killer."

"So what do you suggest we do about it? I'm not inclined to do what he wants us to."

"If we don't give him some attention, he will escalate, and with the combination of his recent change of MO and victimology and reaching out to Roman directly, I don't want to know what his next escalation would be if we just ignore it."

"So you're going to let me publish it?" Virgil fought to not roll his eyes at Roman's excitement.

"Not yet. Give me 24 hours to crack it. I already have a couple of ideas. If we can prove that I'm smarter than he is, he will reach out to me, and we can use that connection to catch him. He's almost as smart as he is arrogant, and that's the rope he's going to hang himself on." Virgil made eye contact with the Captain, almost pleading.

"Ooh, I like that phrase. I'm totally going to use that." Roman broke the tense silence that had fallen.

"Okay, Virgil. Roman, meet us both here at 7 pm tomorrow. We'll regroup from there. Virgil, godspeed." He handed Virgil the note.

"Thank you sir. Roman, you can see yourself out, right? I have to get to work."

The two young men left the office, heads swimming with ideas and plans.

[pllandcompany]

Concentrate

Summary: Surgeon!AU. Dr. Logan Taylor is a jigsaw puzzle and it's up to his former enemy Dr. Roman Courtland to put all of the pieces together.

Warnings: brief discussion of surgical procedures/illness, some swearing, brief description of nausea/vomiting, anxiety attack, hurt/comfort

Pairings: Platonic Analogical, Platonic Logicality, Platonic Logince, squint and you can see it Moxiety

Tagged: @ziallwarrior  @thefallendog  @jakesmolbean  @a-ghosts @band-be-boss-blog  @thecatchat  @flyingfreeyt  @apologieslogan

Notes: Look, guys, I actually wrote a one shot! Yes, it is angst again but it's not all sad, if you can hang in there with me, hopefully you enjoy it! Also, this fic, while understood without it, does reference a previous one I've written so I'll provide links for that here and here (parts one and two, respectively). As always, feedback is appreciated!

The first sign of trouble came in the form of dizziness, a symptom so benign even Logan didn’t even think it meant anything more than what it was.

“That was a good save, man,” Virgil said, lightly clapping Logan’s shoulder, “thanks for the assist in there.” The cardiologist considered shrugging from underneath the younger man’s grip but decided against it. He had become close to the trauma surgeon as of late and while he didn’t typically indulge in such frivolities as friendships, he found Dr. Davidson’s (no...Virgil’s) company…pleasant. Logan didn’t want to risk doing anything to damage their tenuous bond. The contact between them ended up being a blessing in disguise as when Logan turned to respond to Virgil’s compliment, he swayed dangerously as a wave of vertigo rushed over his consciousness. Virgil reacted quickly, grabbing him by the shoulders and gently leaned him against the nearby wall, the surgeon’s head drooping into his chest with an audible groan. “Whoa, hey, you’re okay, I got you, I got you.” Logan didn’t respond, too overwhelmed by the shift of his equilibrium to do anything other than just exist.

Eventually, the dizziness passed and the fog lifted from Logan’s brain, a sense of embarrassment settling in its place. The older surgeon tried to move out of Virgil’s hold but firm hands simply adjusted to the extra movement, keeping Logan still. “Easy, dude, easy, just breathe. Stand up when your body is ready.” The stoic doctor groaned again but remained leaning against Virgil, taking deep, slow breaths to regain control. Finally, he gently lifted his head, a slight flush on his cheeks and avoiding eye contact with his current rescuer. “I am…adequate now, Virgil. I apologize; I am not sure what came over me.”

“It’s no big deal, dude, it happens to the best of us. Think you can make it to the chairs over there?” Logan opted for nodding instead of speaking out of tiredness, a move that concerned Virgil just ever so slightly. The two slowly shuffled their way to the plastic chairs against the opposite wall. Logan unceremoniously dropped into the seat and leaned his head back against the wall with his eyes closed. Virgil gazed at the side of his face, worry blooming in his chest that he fought to ignore. “Still dizzy?” His voice shook slightly and he hoped Logan didn’t notice.

“A minimal amount but it’s mostly passing.” Logan cracked open an eye to peer at his friend who looked just shy of grabbing a gurney and admitting him to the hospital. “You do not have to sit with me, Virgil. It’s just a dizzy spell. They come and they go.” The cardiologist's words trailed off at the end of his sentence; he was definitely still a bit out of it. Virgil sighed, releasing a bit of pent-up tension. “It was a long surgery. When you’re ready, you should eat something soon and hydrate. That’s probably all this is.”

“Precisely,” Logan said tiredly.

“I’m gonna hang out with you until you’re good, though, can’t have you collapsing on my watch. Although, if I knew complimenting you would make you swoon, I would’ve done it sooner.” Logan’s head turned slowly, an incredulous look on his face. “Are…are you flirting with me, Dr. Davidson?”

“Oh, don’t get formal on me now, Logan. It was a joke. I’ve been hanging around Patton a lot lately, my bad.” It was Virgil’s turn to be embarrassed, a sheepish grin gracing his features. Logan nodded and turned back to rest on the wall again. “Hmm. Very well. See that it doesn’t happen again,” he said with mock sternness.

The two promptly shared a smirk and a laugh, moving on as if nothing even happened.

****

The second sign of trouble was more alarming: nausea.

The first and second signs actually coincided in the most unfortunate way, in Logan's opinion, and in front of Dr. Patton Parker of all people. Logan was unaccustomed to being...mothered, particularly while being ill. His mother viewed almost any illness as weakness, a mere inconvenience that was to be worked through not “babied” in her terms. Subsequently, when he had an ailment, he did his best to secretly treat himself while hiding his symptoms and carrying on as usual. To his detriment, this particular symptom was not one easily hidden and as Dr. Parker was so obnoxiously adept at detecting…feelings, he knew he wasn’t getting out of being mothered on this one. The two surgeons were sitting in the fetal surgeon’s office discussing a case of an expectant mother with a heart defect when without warning, a powerful dizzy spell struck Logan mid-sentence. They had been coming on more frequently as of late but this one seemed particularly intense. Logan’s heart pounded and he placed a hand on his forehead, drooping alarmingly close to the edge of Patton’s desk as he leaned forward.

Patton was on his feet in a flash. “Logan? Logan! Oh my God, Logan, buddy, what’s wrong? Is it a headache? Are you dizzy? How can I help?” Logan had intended for the standard “nothing, I’m fine, it’ll pass” to come up but instead, his body decided to revisit his last meal and he gagged. The hand on his forehead quickly clapped over his mouth and his eyes widened in horror. Patton’s face remained calm as he grabbed a trashcan and quickly held it in front of Logan’s face, rubbing his back while his friend retched miserably. The mortifying moment seemed to last a lifetime for the cardiologist but finally, his body stopped convulsing enough for him to catch his breath and finally speak. “I am…so sorry, Dr. Parker. I should have been able to make it out of your office.”

“Don’t you dare apologize,” Patton’s face was firm but still caring, “you couldn’t help it. You’re sick, it happens.” Logan flinched at the word sick, his mother’s voice ringing in his ears. “Still, I am not a child. I should be in…better control of my body-…“ He gagged again and clamped his mouth shut to avoid a repeat performance. Patton rubbed his back again, shushing him soothingly. “Now hush. I don’t know where you got this idea that you’re supposed to be able to dictate a thing you can’t possibly control but that’s just nonsense! You’re allowed to be less than perfect, especially when you’re sick. That’s why you have people around you to help!” Patton noticed a flash of something cross Logan’s face. “At least…you’re supposed to. Was that not always the case for you?”

Logan sighed heavily. Damn his perception. “My mother…did not respond well to illness. I never took a sick day. She always…forced me to go to school or work. When I got sick as a child, she would have the nanny look after me. And she was nice enough but…”

“She wasn’t your mother,” Patton finished.

“Correct.” Logan went silent and stared at his hands. Patton frowned deeply for a second before straightening his face into a gentle smile. He struggled to hold back further commentary on just how awful he felt for little Logan and how disappointed he was in his mother who couldn’t even handle the basics for her own family. Logan didn't need pity or reminders of his past pain; he needed a friend. Instead, Patton simply pushed back Logan’s hair, checked his forehead for a temperature and said brightly, “Well, I’m here now to take care of you! Good news, I'm gonna check just to be sure but you don’t seem to have a fever so hopefully it was just something you ate and not a virus. Why don’t we get you to an on-call room so you can lie down and I’ll clean up here, don’t apologize, and the fellow can cover your post ops for you, okay?” Logan agreed shakily, still trying to recover from the physical effects of being sick. “Thank you, Patton. I appreciate your kindness.”

“Don’t sweat it, friend. That’s what I’m here for. I want to help.”

In retrospect, Patton was probably the perfect person to be vulnerable around.

****

The third sign of trouble initially seemed unrelated: mood swings.

Virgil Davidson was having a pleasant day. His patients were all thriving after surgery, his anxiety was well under control, and the Chief had actually complimented him twice today. He was simply taking a moment in his office to review postoperative scans when Logan burst through the door, red-faced and panting.

“Yeah, sure Lo, just barge in- holy crap, dude, are you all right?!”

Logan was pacing back and forth, chest heaving. “I lost a patient.” His voice sounded deceptively even to the average listener but Virgil knew better. Logan was on the edge and he needed to tread carefully.

“I-I’m sorry-“

“I shouldn’t have lost that patient. I did everything right. My approach was inspired, my technique was flawless, the patient was young. It should have been a success. I should be celebrating but now my patient is dead!” He was near hysteria now. Virgil stood carefully, planning to stop the man’s frantic marathon and talk some sense into him. “Logan, you know you can’t always-“

“No! Don’t you dare tell me it couldn’t be helped! It is our job to help and instead I killed her! If I can’t help anymore, if I can’t do my job, then what the hell am I here for? What is the point of any of it? What is the point, what is the point, what is the point-“

“Logan, Logan! Look at me! Breathe with me, okay? Count and breathe. That’s it, good job, Lo. Now I’m gonna take your hands out of hair…let go for me, Logan. Good, you’re doing great. Keep breathing for me.” Virgil waited a bit to continue, rubbing circles into Logan’s palms. “You with me now, Doc?”

Logan exhaled raggedly. “Yes, I’m here. I’m sor-“

“Gonna stop you right there, dude. It happens; you don’t need to be ashamed.”

“But it does not happen to me, Virgil. What…what is wrong with-with me?” Suddenly and to both of their horror, Logan began to laugh. Loudly. “I mean, seriously, what the hell is my freaking problem?! I’m crying like a child over a person I barely know! It’s…it’s…pathetic! And hell, I probably botched the damn surgery anyway! So why am I upset? Can you tell me, Virgil, can you tell me why I’m this upset because I am trying and failing to come to any logical conclusion here so please tell me what the actual fuck is my problem?!” The trauma surgeon stared on in shock at the deeply unsettling sight of Logan unraveling in front of him. He was right, this wasn’t normal at all and Virgil had a horrifying suspicion of what was causing it.

“Logan? Are you…are you using again?”

Logan immediately stopped laughing and glared at the accusation. “What?! No! Absolutely not!” A familiar clench twisted his stomach and Logan’s eyes bulged with panic. Oh God, not here. “Ihavetogo,” he mumbled hurriedly and bolted from the room, just barely making it around the corner before emptying the contents of his stomach in a hazmat bin. Once it was over, he lifted his head, gripped the sides of the container with white knuckles and for the first time since all of this started, he began to truly worry about what was really happening to him.

****

The fourth and last sign was the most terrifying one.​

"Dr. Parker, it appears the patient is experiencing a slight elevation in blood pressure, how is the fetus faring?" Patton smiled behind his surgical mask; working with Logan filled him with such a sense of joy. The doctor was normally so reticent and the opportunity for partnering was so rare with their specialities. It made him happy to see the cardiologist invested in teamwork.

"Heart rate is steady, Dr. Taylor. Don't worry, I will most certainly let you know if I need to step in. Hopefully we can keep the little guy in her a bit longer though, his lungs need more time."

"I am almost done here. Johnson, 2.0 silk please, I'm ready to clo-" A loud, metallic clatter filled the OR and left everyone frozen. Patton was the first to hesitantly speak up. "Dr. Taylor? Are...are you all right?"

Logan stared at his right hand in shock. "Yes, Dr. Parker, I am...satisfactory. I'm just...feeling a bit under the weather, Johnson, could you close? I need to step out."

"Logan." Patton sounded nervous. Logan turned around and tried his best to smile reassuringly behind his mask. "Don't worry, Patton. Johnson can close. It'll be all right." Once he was out of the OR, Logan snatched off his mask and gloves. He looked down at his hand again and started to walk, clenching his fist repeatedly. Open. Close. Open. Close. Stay calm. Open. Close. Open...

"Roman?"

Roman looked over his reading glasses, a smirk across his face. "Dr. Taylor! You must mean to charm me calling me by my first name. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit-"

"I want you to scan my brain." Open. Close.

"Ah, ever direct, as always. Now, why would I scan your perfectly healthy brain?"

"Because it's not perfectly healthy. I've been experiencing...symptoms. Headaches, mood swings, dizziness, nausea-"

"Oh, come now, Specs! You're been a heart guy for too long."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Open. Close. Open. Close.

Roman walked around to sit on the front edge of his desk. "Look, when patients come to see you, it's usually a worst case scenario. Their heart has taken all it can stand and they need you to fix it, which you do brilliantly. But it doesn't always work that way in neuro. You know as well as I do that all of that could be due to migraines or stress even. Your training is making you think the worst, you probably just need some time off-"

"My hand went numb, Roman! In surgery." Roman looked up and gasped at the tears filling Logan's eyes. "There is something wrong. And there has been for weeks but I've foolishly ignored it. But now I can't be a surgeon because of just how wrong that something is. You're the best neurosurgeon in this hospital, there's no way you can't figure this out. Please...help me."

A moment of silence went by then Roman nodded solemnly. "We'll get you admitted and do a full workup then I'll schedule a scan for tomorrow. It's gonna be okay. Just breathe, Logan. It's gonna be okay, I have this."

****

"You can't be in here, Pat," Roman said sadly. Patton ignored him and marched straight to the seat next to the neurologist, flopping down into it with a stubborn glare. "Like hell I can't. He's one of us now. He's family."

"Dr. Courtland, it's fine. He broke protocol on my case with your brother; it seems fitting he does it here too." Logan's sarcasm sounded over the intercom, drawing a mock gasp from Patton and a snort from Roman. "Truly, though, I don't mind. I probably terrified him during surgery, he deserves to know what's going on."

"No worries, Logan. I just want to make sure you're okay." Patton spoke up, trying to squelch his nerves to make way for something more cheerful. He wasn't totally sure he succeeded.

"Agreed there, Doc," Roman chimed in. "All right then, just give me a minute and we'll get started."

"Wait!" Roman and Patton's heads snapped up at Logan's shout. "Dr. Courtland...before you do this, I need you to promise me something. Promise me that you won't treat me like a patient. If you find something, anything, you tell me immediately. I may be sick but I'm not weak, I'm not fragile, I can take it. I've dealt with every illness I've ever had alone, I can handle...handle this too..."

"He's panicking," Patton stated firmly.

"I can see that," Roman shut off the intercom and hopped out of the booth. "Logan? Logan, look at me." Fear-glazed eyes finally met with Roman's gentle gaze. He grabbed the cardiologist's hand while he spoke. "Logan Taylor, you have my word that I will do anything and everything I can no matter what we find. If it's benign, cancerous, or absolutely nothing, we will handle it. And you're right, you're not my patient, you're my partner. We are now in this together and whatever we find, we face it together. You are not alone anymore. That sound good to you, Specs?" Roman smiled down at the trembling man, patiently waiting for the eventual nod of agreement. He ran his hand through Logan's hair and felt him finally relax. "Now try to hold still, okay? Got to get you from your best side." Logan rolled his eyes and laughed through his nose, surrendering his care to Roman who was already settled back in the booth. "Starting the scan now, Lo. Just relax."

Patton smiled at Roman and rubbed his knee gently. "You were good with him just then. Look how far you two have come." Roman smiled sheepishly. "He saved my brother, Pat. I owe him."

"You find anything yet?" Virgil rushed in twisting his scrubs anxiously. "Damn surgery, I almost missed it, did you find anything?"

"He just started the scan, Virge, let him work." Patton whispered, eyes never leaving the screen.

"God, I accused him of using drugs. If he dies-"

"Stop that! No one is dying here, all right? Don't do that to yourself, kiddo, not now. Right now, we have to be strong for Logan-"

"Guys. Look." Roman pointed at the tumor illuminated on the screen.

"Damn," Patton and Virgil both muttered.

"It's likely benign but...the good doctor was right, it's definitely something. Thank God that's he stubborn."

"Please tell me you can operate." Virgil sounded desperate. Patton reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezing gently. Virgil had gotten to know Logan the best out of all of them. It was no surprise he was taking this the hardest. "For God's sake, Roman, tell me you can save him."

"You're damn right I can, Virge. And I'm gonna do everything I can to do just that."

"Roman? It's a tumor isn't it?" Logan's voice shook over the intercom.

"Yeah, Lo...it is. But I can get it. I'm gonna get it, don't you worry. Partners, remember?"

Logan nodded, holding back tears. "I'm holding you to that."

****

Three months later, when Logan was back to work with full use of his hand, he marched right into Roman's office and hugged him impossibly tight, thanking him for being a man of his word.

[salaciouscrumpet]

Fic Writer Tag Meme

I was tagged by @cinlat. Thank you, this was fun to do! I’m not going to tag anyone because I think most folks have done it.  :)

What is your total word count on AO3?

*does math* Holy shit, I’ve got 599,236 words spread across 8 works and 3 fandoms. How is that even possible?!?

How often do you write?

I’m trying to make the effort to write every day, but in the interests of being honest I’ll say that on a good day I can write for upwards of five hours (taking breaks to fulfill various biological needs, of course) and on a bad day I won’t write anything at all.

Do you have a routine for writing?

After my partner leaves for work (around 5:30 AM) I sit down at my laptop in the kitchen and dick around for a good 30-60 minutes (email, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, lather, rinse, repeat) and then, made profoundly depressed and anxious by the current state of the world, I open up Word and try to write something to take my mind off things. Sometimes this is successful. Sometimes I go play video games or watch Netflix.

What are your favourite kinks/tropes/pairing?

Kinks:

Hmm. I think I’m mostly into the comfort aspect of hurt/comfort, so I like putting my characters through painful situations and then using sex or other kinds of physical intimacy to help them cope with and/or recover from it. I don’t know if that’s actually a kink, per se, but I’m not an especially kinky person. I don’t think. I mean, there’s stuff I’m intrigued by (breathplay, for example), but I’ve only dabbled in writing it a bit.

Threesomes. This is less of a kink for me, and more of a “hey, I’m polyam, let’s write about polyamorous characters!” Not kinky, just me trying to find a place for myself and my loved ones, trying to see us in the world.

Tropes:

Broken Bird. I love the idea of the healing power of love. Not that love fixes everything, but that it’s a start, a step in the right direction.

I don’t know if it’s a trope, but I like writing established relationships. I’m not big into the Will They/Won’t They trope, because honestly, you know they will, so ... why don’t you just start there? Also, though, I’m not very good at writing the beginnings of romance. I want to write about what happens after that first blush wears off and the couple (or threesome, in my case, I guess) are in for the long haul.

Pairing:

Theron Shan/Vector Hyllus/Imperial Agent (Miranza Gerrick, in my case) (Star Wars: The Old Republic): I mean, duh, it’s my longest-running series. I love these idiots.

F!Sith Warrior/Malavai Quinn (Star Wars: The Old Republic): Yup, I know it’s unhealthy. I can enjoy reading/writing about the pairing without wanting to emulate it in my own life, thank you very much.

Cullen Rutherford/F!Inquisitor (Dragon Age: Inquisition): Back to my whole “healing power of love” thing, I’m also quite into the idea of someone striving for redemption, and Cullen’s story plays into that nicely, especially if you romance him with a mage. I’m also aware that it can be seen as icky. I like what I like; you do you.

Dorian Pavus/Iron Bull (Dragon Age: Inquisition): I’ve read blog essays about how it’s an unhealthy relationship and essays about how it’s healthy, and the writers put forth very eloquent and convincing arguments either way. My personal take on it is that it’s a healthy relationship, and I’m not really interested in arguing the matter. I like them together. I, like Bull, think they “could be good for each other.”

Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla (Star Wars: Rebels): (I haven’t finished the final season, but it’s been spoiled for me.) Speaking of established relationships ... these two. *sighs dramatically* They mess up, they support each other through the mess-up, they move on. They’re there for each other.

Dr. Julian Bashir/Elim Garak (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine): Revisiting a childhood crush (DS9 started when I was 15), I’m rewatching the series on Netflix and holy crap, I know these two never canonically became a couple but they were totally a couple. (Sweet summer child that I was, I never saw it back then, but man, the moment Garak introduces himself to Bashir he’s flirting with him.) Thank goodness for AO3 and approximately 2000+ stories where this is a thing.

Do you have a favourite fic of yours?

My first fic on AO3, The Voices of Thieves and Robbers, is probably my favourite (published on AO3) fic. There are issues with it, yeah, but it’s one of the few of my own pieces that I can go back and read and genuinely think “Well, shit, maybe I am a good writer.” Which, if you know me at all, you would know is something I don’t really think all that often.

Your fic with the most kudos?

This Ain’t a Love Song, my Fallout: New Vegas fic, is standing at 118 kudos, with Scars Beyond Counting (my Dragon Age: Inquisition fic) closing in at 115 as of this morning. In fairness to my SWTOR works, DA and FO have much bigger fandoms, so the higher kudos count isn’t really a surprise.

Anything you don’t like about your writing?

Oh, tons of things. I suck at action sequences (I choreograph them beautifully in my head and they fall apart on paper). I struggle with tenses, which often results in me switching tense and not even noticing, or leaves things bland and unexciting. I can be very dialogue-heavy and I spend a lot of time inside my characters’ heads, which can be off-putting to some readers. I have a tendency to tell, rather than show. I don’t ever really feel like I’m doing anything original, and I frequently worry that, because I read so much, I’m inadvertently stealing from other authors. I’m impatient, so things end up being rushed and weak. I second- (and third- and fourth- and ...) guess myself, struggling to make the most people happy rather than focusing on what best benefits the story (you can’t please everyone, Crumpet, you should know that by now).

Now something you do like?

Um. I think I’m good at writing hurt/comfort. I don’t shy away from the consequences of what happens to my characters: Bad Things™ have lasting impact. I think I’ve got a good grasp on the voices of my characters, and it’s distinctive when I shift from one third-person POV to another (for example, I think my version of Iron Bull sounds very distinctly different from Cullen Rutherford, and neither of them sound like Miranza Gerrick or Malavai Quinn or Courier Six). I think I’m good at shifting tone depending on the genre (another example, This Ain’t a Love Song “sounds” very different from Bad Medicine, because the genres and voices are different).

[t-baba]

A Beginner’s Guide to Working With Components in Vue

One of the great things about working with Vue is its component-based approach to building user interfaces. This allows you to break your application into smaller, reusable pieces (components) which you can then use to build out a more complicated structure.

In this guide, I’ll offer you a high-level introduction to working with components in Vue. I’ll look at how to create components, how to pass data between components (via both props and an event bus) and how to use Vue’s <slot> element to render additional content within a component.

Each example will be accompanied by a runnable CodePen demo.

How to Create Components in Vue

Components are essentially reusable Vue instances with a name. There are various ways to create components within a Vue application. For example, in a small- to medium-sized project you can use the Vue.component method to register a global component, like so:

Vue.component('my-counter', { data() { return { count: 0 } }, template: `<div></div>` }) new Vue({ el: '#app' })

The name of the component is my-counter. It can be used like so:

<div id="app"> <my-counter></my-counter> </div>

When naming your component, you can choose kebab case (my-custom-component) or Pascal case (MyCustomComponent). You can use either variation when referencing your component from within a template, but when referencing it directly in the DOM (as in the example above), only the kebab case tag name is valid.

You might also notice that, in the example above, data is a function which returns an object literal (as opposed to being an object literal itself). This is so that each instance of the component receives its own data object and doesn’t have to share one global instance with all other instances.

There are several ways to define a component template. Above we are using a template literal, but we could also use a <script tag> marked with text/x-template or an in-DOM template. You can read more about the different ways of defining templates here.

Single-file Components

In more complex projects, global components can quickly become unwieldy. In such cases, it makes sense to craft your application to use single-file components. As the name suggests, these are single files with a .vue extension, which contain a <template>, <script> and <style> section.

For our example above, an App component might look like this:

<template> <div id="app"> <my-counter></my-counter> </div> </template> <script> import myCounter from './components/myCounter.vue' export default { name: 'app', components: { myCounter } } </script> <style></style>

And a MyCounter component might look like this:

<template> <div></div> </template> <script> export default { name: 'my-counter', data() { return { count: 0 } } } </script> <style></style>

As you can see, when using single-file components, it’s possible to import and use these directly within the components where they’re needed.

In this guide, I’ll present all of the examples using the Vue.component() method of registering a component.

Using single-file components generally involves a build step (for example, with Vue CLI). If this is something you’d like to find out more about, please check out “A Beginner’s Guide to Vue CLI” in this Vue series.

Passing Data to Components Via Props

Props enable us to pass data from a parent component to child component. This makes it possible for our components to be in smaller chunks to handle specific functionalities. For example, if we have a blog component we might want to display information such as the author’s details, post details (title, body and images) and comments.

We can break these into child components, so that each component handles specific data, making the component tree look like this:

<BlogPost> <AuthorDetails></AuthorDetails> <PostDetails></PostDetails> <Comments></Comments> </BlogPost>

If you’re still not convinced about the benefits of using components, take a moment to realize how useful this kind of composition can be. If you were to revisit this code in the future, it would be immediately obvious how the page is structured and where (that is, in which component) you should look for which functionality. This declarative way of composing an interface also makes it much easier for someone who isn’t familiar with a codebase to dive in and become productive quickly.

Since all the data will be passed from the parent component, it can look like this:

new Vue({ el: '#app', data() { return { author: { name: 'John Doe', email: 'jdoe@example.com' } } } })

In the above component, we have the author details and post information defined. Next, we have to create the child component. Let’s call the child component author-detail. So our HTML template will look like this:

<div id="app"> <author-detail :owner="author"></author-detail> </div>

We’re passing the child component the author object as props with the name owner. It’s important to note the difference here. In the child component, owner is the name of the prop with which we receive the data from the parent component. The data we want to receive is called author, which we’ve defined in our parent component.

To have access to this data, we need to declare the props in the author-detail component:

Vue.component('author-detail', { template: ` <div> <h2></h2> <p></p> </div> ´, props: ['owner'] })

We can also enable validation when passing props, to make sure the right data is being passed. This is similar to PropTypes in React. To enable validation in the above example, change our component to look like this:

Vue.component('author-detail', { template: ` <div> <h2></h2> <p></p> </div> `, props: { owner: { type: Object, required: true } } })

If we pass the wrong prop type, you’ll see an error in your console that looks like what I have below:

"[Vue warn]: Invalid prop: type check failed for prop 'text'. Expected Boolean, got String. (found in component <>)"

There’s an official guide in the Vue docs that you can use to learn about prop validation.

See the Pen Vue Componets - Props by SitePoint (@SitePoint) on CodePen.

The post A Beginner’s Guide to Working With Components in Vue appeared first on SitePoint.

by Kingsley Silas via SitePoint https://ift.tt/2XrymCO

[briteboy]

MORE ASKS I’VE BEEN IGNORING!!!!!!!

GET ‘EM WHILE THEY’RE HOT

P.S. ALL OF U WHO SENT ME THE CHAIN THINGY ILYSOMUCH 

Why is her step-douche such a foken piece of shit? omg i hate him

some mysteries are never meant to be explained tbh. why is he so ugly and evil? who wronged him? but also who cares he’s in jail forever now good riddance ugly

I know this is probably really bad, but after I saw the newest molly posts, I thought of that video where the little girl is yelling "MISS KEISHA, MISS KEISHA, oh my fukin gosh she fukin dead"

OMFGFD I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT THAT VIDEO WAS SO I JUST WATCHED IT AND I’M LAUGHIN

i don’t blame u i bet when it happens i’m gonna be like “u know she ded”

(To the previous anon) i agree with you so, so much! In Poland, these dumbass politicians are letting shooting pregnant bisons (?? Im not sure how they're called) become legal. Like BITCH WHAT. Can you imagine??? A fucking pregnant lil' cow getting shot????? I feel Molly's pain on an emotional level rn (sorry if this is too nsfw, just needed to get that outta my system...)

i think this was in response to someone saying that hurting pregnant women is one of the worst crimes but um WTF shooting animals at all makes me itchy but pregnant ones..............nah that’s......nah

it’s ok get it outta ur system i’m here 4 u

the first thing I check in the morning is your account.... you have me whipped! ;|

OMG WHA LMAO REALLY that’s wild. i feel like i’m the only one who looks at my page which is dumb but like idk i still feel like a little kid that no one cares about lmao. but then you guys exist and amaze me with your responsiveness every day and i just ;____________; ily all

hi Sunny. first of all i'm gonna say i love your story and your editing style so much! your blog is goals like literally. i need an advice if you don't mind. you always find such amazing angles for your pictures while mine are so boring. any tips or tricks you can share?

HI thank you so much ;-; sooooo i’ve been thinking about this question the past couple of times i went in game, trying to figure out how to describe how i take pictures. for one thing i live in tab mode lmao. meaning you press the tab button on your keyboard to go into camera mode and get all these sexy angles and super zoom and stufffff. i almost always zoom in super far idk why. so there’s one tip. i honestly just play around with going up and down with the q and e keys (i think?) until i find angles i like. i take a lottttt of pictures with so many different angles just so i have a lot to choose from. basically i try to focus on different things in each picture in order to get a mix of the most diverse and dynamic shots possible. you just need to experiment and get creative. i know that’s the most vague advice ever but really just try a new angle that you’ve never considered before and i bet you’ll get cool results. an interesting setting is also the biggest factor, because certain objects and their placements will give you interesting results. 

i honestly want to print out your reaction pic to that one post and just hang it on my wall, put it in my heart locket necklace, stamp it on people's faces, start an email thread with it. i love it.

an add on to the last ask i sent about your reaction pic. i've been looking at it religiously since it was posted, and i dont regret a minute of it. LMAO I'LL STOP NOW.

SAKJDLJKGKSDAF STOPPPP LMAOOO i looked so ugly but that was my pure unadulterated reaction to that question and i trust you all to not judge my ugliness and instead share this reaction with me. i’m glad u liked it that much, i just printed it out and i’m cutting it into a small heart to put inside ur locket ok

everytime i hear cigarette daydreams by cage the elephant i think of a serious case of the novembers like its so fitting and then i get all emo when i listen to it lmao rip

OMMMMGGGGGGG YESSSSS how have i never made that connection before honestly. cage the elephant is one of my faves and i’ve seen them perform twice actually!! i’m watching the music vid for that song now and even that reminds me of my story ;-; i cry

thank you for sending this, and also i cry @ the fact that you used the actual title *dies* now this song is gonna make me emo til the end of time thx

i might sound like some crazy stalker fan but i just want to say you are so freakin awesome and nice and funny and cute and (i can go on forever) so caring! i love your blog so much and all the hard work and care you put into all your posts and followers. thanks for making my day and making me smile so much. you have no clue how much i look forward to seeing your posts and your hilarious hashtags and answers from asks and AMAZING story posts. im sorry i just wanted to let you know ur awesome ily

OFMG WHAT!!!!!! I AM ONLY AN EEL!!!!!! but no you don’t sound like a crazy stalker, i actually love this, you’re too sweet, thank you ;-; i’m just blushin so much reading this omg. YOU EVEN LIKE MY TAGS WOW that’s true love. ily ;-; <333

how do you get your sims' facial expressions to line up with your scenes? I feel like my sims' faces are never right :(

tbh i just use a lot of the same neutral poses...my go-to’s are @helgatisha‘s poses lol. they’re the easiest to work with when i do just plain talking scenes, and often i tweak my sims’ eyebrows and mouths with the liquify tool if i want them to look a bit more concerned, sad, mad, happy, etc., it works like a charm!! i also tend to play around with angles, you’d be surprised how much a different angle can enhance a scene.

Hey smol bean, I'm sent you an ask and now I feel bad that it probably made you feel anxious because you didn't answer it. It was the one about you not liking my posts, I have anxiety too so I'm sorry If I made you feel sad. I think I'm just looking for validation from people I look upto you get me? Anyway sorry again, don't worry about it! Love you!

hiya bb, i know you saw my answer to your original post (and i’m sorry it got some negative attention, i didn’t mean for that to happen by any means) anyway don’t sweat it, and i really appreciate this follow-up message. you didn’t make me feel sad, i just wanna know what i can do. it’s just a hard question y’know. i understand what you mean, i think everyone wants validation to some degree. tbh you can just come off anon and message me, i promise it’s not as nerve-wracking as it seems! ily

How did you make Santi's tattoos? I want some like that for my Sims but idk how to do it

boop

I HAVE A FEELING THAT MOLLY IS GOING TO DIE DURING THE BIRTH OF THE BEAN OR IT HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH HER STEPFATHER FINDING OUT ABOUT THE BEAN

WELP U WERE RIGHT ABOUT ONE THING

how did you make your characters page on your blog like that?

uoohhh like what?? i used this theme (monolog) if that’s what you mean aheh. here’s a guide on how to use custom page themes

okay so THIS IS MY THEORY: they might keep the baby and molly might actually carry it to full term, but then the kid dies in childbirth and either molly also dies or maybe kills herself or gets killed later? or maybe she's still alive but just won't speak to santi anymore cause she like can't look him in the eye after all of that or idk?? since ppl were sending theories i wanted to add mine lmao. another possible theory is that the stepdad finds out and kills her but thats TOO DARK omg

TOO DARK U SAY...WELL!!! it’s not AS dark as you guessed but only marginally

If Molly turns out to be alive and raising their kid alone (though from what I'm seeing in response to most questions I think that may not be the route) am I allowed to slap Santi (unless Molly didn't give him the option to help) because raising a child alone is not easy I've watched my mom do it for years.

YEAH i would give you permission to slap him lmao he would be a grade A piece o’ shit if that were the case. i would never ever write that tho because santi does own up to his actions if they’re that detrimental. his altruistic nature, no matter how backwards, would never allow him to do that.

There will be complication with the abortion so she will not be able to carry a baby anymore and she's going to kill herself OR her step dad is going to find out and he'll beat her to death. And in both situation Santi his blaming himself because he wasn't there at the right time... Okay I really really hope I'm wrong now !

I don't even follow your story very closely but every time I see your posts my heart hurts.

OMFG...that’s how u know the pain is real

but like wow my stuff is really so visceral that even my apathetic followers can feel the hurt...that’s real...that’s real my guy

omg!! you should 100% play or at least watch a playthrough of life is strange! legit the best game ever made, its so beautiful. the storyline kills you a thousand times over (much like your beautiful story) <3333

yaaaa i’ve heard lots of good things about it!! my bf played it actually, maybe he’ll revisit it again someday and i’ll watch him do it (i’m only a fan of video games if i can watch them like a movie lmao) thank you btw <3

I am shook and I worship you and your story and you are amazing WOW BYE

WORSHIP LMAO WHAT!!! PLS I AM UNDESERVING...ily tho don’t worship false gods

Do you let Molly and the younger versions of your characters frolic around your main save or do they have a separate one?

UM YES LMAO because i didn’t even know you could have separate saves until after i started the flashbacks lmao i’m...a noob. i don’t want separate saves anyway because 1) it’s too much of a hassle switching back and forth and 2) it gets too confusing for me and i’d be afraid of overwriting one save with another and NOPE too much anxiety for that soooo yeah there’s three santis in my game: child, teen and adult lmfao (fun fact: teen santi’s name is literally just Lil Santi)

I made it to my senior year with 6 A's and 1 B ... Be proud of me too? 😂 Lmao I told this to people and some of them were just like .. okay cool?! LMAO it's so funny but also kinda sad

I AM PROUD OF YOU TOO!!!!!!!!! my smart childrens

“okay cool” UM PLEASE that’s a feat...at my school if you got an A in a class in senior year you were allowed to be exempt from the final. so yeah that rules. ily

[ravikherva]

If you’ve been wondering how to start a blog…

Or putting it off because you’re afraid you’ll mess it up.

Well – today’s the day!

You’re FINALLY going to cross “create a blog” off your to-do list. And it’s going to be way easier than you expected. Even if you’re not good with computers.

In this beginner’s guide, I’m going to give you foolproof instructions for how to set up a blog, get your own “.com,” and find a design you love – with tons of pictures to guide you that make it impossible for to get wrong.

Along the way, I’ll share some tips that will save you time and money, too! Here’s what we’ll cover:

6 easy steps for starting a blog

Pick your blogging platform.

Choose a host for your blog.

Decide on a domain name.

Set up WordPress (the easy way)

Choose and customize a design.

Start writing!

I promise: I’ll make all of this so straightforward, you’ll be able to start your own blog in just one sitting:

1. Pick a blogging platform.

When I say “platform,” I mean the software you’ll use to run your blog. You’ve got lots of options: WordPress, Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace to name just a few.

You can read a detailed review of the 10 most popular platforms here — but let me save you some time:

WordPress is your best option if you want to start a blog on a platform that…

Is beginner-friendly

Makes blogging as easy as writing an email

Allows you to have your own “.com”

Has no monthly fees (you only need a host and a domain name)

Comes with 5,000+ themes to suit your style, and

Gives you the power to make money from your blog one day,

There’s a reason why WordPress.org powers over 91% of all the blogs on the web, including 62% of the top 100 company blogs.

But please don’t rush out and sign up just yet!  I’ll be showing you how to install WordPress in just one click in Step 4 – and how to configure it all — but there a few quick things we need to do first.

Couldn’t I just start a blog for free on a site like Blogger?

Yes, you can create your blog for free on sites like Blogger. I don’t recommend it, because there are some pretty serious drawbacks you should know about:

Your site will be hard to find.Want a nice site address like “Yourblog.com”? Too bad. With a free site, you’ll be stuck with something like “yourblogname.blogger.com” – so less people will find your content.

You won’t control the content. Imagine losing years of work when your blog is taken offline because you broke a rule without knowing it. Sound far-fetched? It happens all the time.

You can’t customize your site the way you want to.No free plugins to add functionality like calendars or online shops. Limited themes, so your site looks like everyone else’s. Boooooring.

You’ll find it expensive to switch.When you decide you want more control, switching from a free platform to something like WordPress can take hours of manual work and formatting.

Someone else will profit from YOUR hard work. This is the worst one: free platforms reserve the right to put ads all over your content. Imagine seeing a huge, ugly pop-up for a product you don’t even support on your blog– and not making a penny off of it! Unfair, right?

You’re better off creating a WordPress blog that can grow with you.

Unsure how much it costs to start a blog? Less than you think!

With a self-hosted WordPress blog you’ll pay less than $10 per month, get a design that’s all your own, AND have your own “.com” to boot. Not bad for the added control and flexibility!

2. Choose a host for your blog.

Assuming you’ve chosen WordPress as your blogging platform (smart move!) your next step is to choose a web hosting service.

Hosting explained in 10 seconds:

Your blog is just a bunch of files. WordPress is the software you create them with. And hosting stores those files so they can be viewed through the web.

TL;DR – Without hosting, nobody will be able to see your blog online. If you’d like a detailed outline of what hosting is/how it works, check out this post.

When it comes to hosting, three things REALLY matter:

Uptime: You want a host that won’t go offline randomly (bad hosts do this all the time!)

Support: You need fast support from actual experts if something goes wrong.

Price: You deserve fair pricing – and no hidden fees!

If you want web hosting that is cheap, but secure and reliable, I strongly recommend Bluehost. 

Why you’ll love Bluehost:

One-click WordPress installation (fast; no messing with tech stuff)

Their uptime is excellent

WordPress recommends them (since 2005!)

PLUS…

You can get a great plan for just $2.75/mo and they throw in a FREE domain name!

(Because I continue to use Bluehost and have had a great experience, all links to Bluehost are referral links. I’ll earn a commission if you make a purchase, and you’ll get that discounted price.)

Of course, you’re free to use any other web hosting provider suitable for WordPress, but to keep this guide focused, I’m going to use Bluehost to explain the setup process.

Sign Up for BlueHost

To take advantage of the discount and free domain, click this link to visit Bluehostin another window. Then, mash on the big fat button to get started. Wahoo – you’re on your way!

IMPORTANT: The site might look a little different, but the steps are exactly the same. Just push whatever “Get Started” button they’re currently running.

Choose the “basic” plan (and save some $$$)

The Basic option is perfect for beginners, and you can always upgrade later when you’re ready.

3. Decide on a domain name.

A domain name is just the address people can find your blog at, like “www.yourblogname.com”

I recommend you get the .com if you can, as it’s easiest for most people to remember, but it’s ok to get an ending like .net or .co if your first choice isn’t available.

Quick tip: Struggling with names?

Try using NameStation or Instant Domain Search! Simply enter a keyword or topic and get dozens of ideas for available domain names all at once.

If you’d like a little more help, this post on choosing a domain name will give you 10 of my top tips!

And if you’re really stuck on a name, just click “Skip this step” along the bottom of the screen above. You can always add your free domain name later, when inspiration hits.

If you already own a domain name, fill out the form on the right. You won’t break anything, even if you’re already running a live site.

Once you’ve added your domain, click “next.”

Complete your registration

There are three quick parts to this step. First, add your account info using a real email address (because you’ll need it to log in!)

Choose your package and optional extras

Next, select the options you want for your account. Your first choice you have is the “Account Plan” – 12, 24, or 36 months. I recommend just 12. Why? Well…

You’d potentially save money by paying for three years upfront. But at 12 months, the price is quite reasonable and you’re not out any extra money if you decide blogging isn’t for you after a year.

Finally, you can choose whether to add on extra features.

Quick tip: Most extras are a waste of $$$ for beginners, but two are absolutely worth considering:

1. Domain Privacy – $0.99/mo (must-have)

When buying a domain, your contact details are added to a public database by law. Buying privacy means Bluehost’s details are listed instead, preventing you from being spammed with hundreds of calls from telemarketers—well worth the tiny price tag.

2. CodeGuard Basic – $2.99/mo (optional)

Losing all your content to a hack or glitch would be a nightmare, agreed? CodeGuard Basic ensures your site is regularly and securely backed up, which is great for peace of mind. You can always add this one later on.

IMPORTANT: If you don’t want any of the optional features, make sure you uncheck the boxes before moving on! It’s very easy to miss.

Enter billing details

Pop in your credit card details, and you’ll be off to the races! If you’d like to pay with PayPal, select “more payment options” at the top above the fields.

Set a password and log in

You should now see something like the screen below. Click the green “Create your password” button.

Then, set up a secure password, click “I have read and agreed to Bluehost’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service” box, click “Next”…

And finally, click the “Log in” button. That was easy!

Quick tip: You’re about to get an email from Bluehost with your login information, and possibly an activation link. If you can’t find it, check your spam folder.

Save the emails you get from Bluehost with your login details just in case. I usually “star” them in my inbox.

4. Set up WordPress (the easy way)

Good news: now that you’re logged in WordPress is just sitting there, waiting for you!

On the first screen you see, you’ll be asked to pick a theme.

I recommend you skip this step by clicking the link below the pictures of themes, as I’ll be showing you how to explore more (and better) options later.

If you DO choose a theme now, you can always change it later without any problem.

On the next screen, click the “Start Building” button. If you accidentally click the “Or, go to my Bluehost account” link, just push the back button.

Quick tip: If you chose to use a new domain name, your blog may show up on a temporary domain name for a little bit. It’s NOT a glitch!

It can take a few hours for a host to sort out the tech stuff; Bluehost will automatically fix the domain as soon as it’s ready.

You should now see a screen that looks like this:

Welcome to your WordPress dashboard! This is where the magic all happens.

Quick tip: Wondering how to log into your WordPress after you’ve logged out?

You don’t need to revisit Bluehost: you can log into your WordPress dashboard quickly by typing in: “http://www.[YOUR DOMAIN NAME].com/wp-admin”

Just replace [YOUR DOMAIN NAME] with your actual domain name 

It’s a super handy shortcut – consider bookmarking it!

On the side bar, you’ll see a few different tabs. Some quick highlights (don’t click any of these for now!)

Posts: This is where you’ll go to write new blog posts or view old ones.

Media: Check out the library photos and files you’ve uploaded or add more.

Pages: Create static pages (if you ever decide to.)

Comments: Manage the comments on your content.

Appearance: Choose new themes or edit the one you have.

Users: If you create content with others, you can add them as users here so they can edit blog posts.

Plugins: Add and remove plugins that give your blog new features.

Don’t worry about the others for the moment.

At this point, you’ve got two options to focus on in the center of the screen: Business, or Personal.

Pick whichever best applies to you right now, and again: don’t worry. All of this is EASILY changed later. Nothing is permanent, and you literally can’t screw this up.

If you clicked “Business” or “Personal”, you’ll see something like this:

“Site Title” is just going to be your blog’s name for now. Punch ‘er in – and don’t add the “www.” – just write it in plain English.

“Site Description” is your chance to write a short and sweet summary of what your blog is all about. Keep it brief – as if you were explaining your blog to a friend or potential client!

As always, don’t worry: all of this can be edited later if you change your mind.

On the next screen, you’ll be asked if you’d like to update your site with news or blog posts. Just click “Yes.”

Now, you get to choose what you’d like for people to see on your home page: the most recent blog posts/updates, or a more “static” home page. I recommend choosing the first option.

Next, you can set up a “Contact Us” page if you’d like people to be able to send you a message through your site. This one’s up to you!

Finally, you’ve got the option to connect your “Jetpack” profile to WordPress to improve security, grow traffic, and track your site’s stats. Jetpack is completely free – so I do recommend going through this quick process if you have a moment.

BUT!

You can always do this later, so simply click “Not now” if you’re not in the mood.

Quick tip: If you signed up with a new domain name, make sure you check your email from Bluehost for an activation link inside the message.

Click it to complete the activation process and bring your new blog to the world.

5. Choose and customize your design

Finally, the most fun part: it’s time to choose a design you are really excited about. In WordPress, they simply refer to designs as “Themes” – don’t let the language throw you.

The good news: You have over 5,000 FREE options to choose from!

The bad news: With so many options, you can spend HOURS going down the design rabbit hole.

I’ve put together a list of 30+ of the best free WordPress Themes if you want some ideas (though some are better for blogs than others!)

But, let’s get to the installation part. To access the Themes, click the “Appearance” tab, and you’ll see a screen like this:

Simply click “Add New Theme” to get started Here’s a quick video that shows you what to do next to find and install a great free theme for your blog – or change the theme you already have.

<VIDEO>

Found a theme you like? Then it’s time to do a little more customization.

My friend Karol put together an AWESOME beginner’s guide on how to customize your WordPress blog in some really important ways, like…

How to make sure Google can find your site

How to edit your site’s menu in WordPress

How to set up your home page

How to improve WordPress security

How to customize your WordPress theme (advanced tips made simple)

You don’t need to do all that right now (I’m about to show you how to write your first post), but I recommend you bookmark Karol’s guide for later.

It’ll be INVALUABLE in saving you some time and keeping things simple later on.

6. Start writing!

The good news is that if you can use Microsoft Word, Pages, or Gmail, writing a blog post in WordPress is just as easy. Let’s walk through some of the important features you should know!

To start writing a post, just click “Posts” in the side-bar, then click “Add New.” If you’ve logged out of WordPress, type inhttp://your_domain.com/wp-admin/ to log back in!

What you’ll see is a very friendly editor screen that should remind you of MS Word or Pages on Mac:

Let’s break down what you’re seeing here:

1. Title Area: This is where you write the title of your post.

2. Content Area: This is where the body text of your post goes. The whole area works just like text editing in Word or Pages.

3. Standard Editing Tools: Here are options like bold, italic, lists, paragraphs, and headlines.

In a moment, I’ll show you how to use this section to add links, images, and more to your post.

At the very end of the Standard Editing Tools is the “Toolbar Toggle” that looks like this:

Click this to add even more options to your Toolbar, such as Undo/Redo buttons, text color formatting, indentation, and more.

4. Publishing Tools: This is where you get your post shown to the world.

The most important thing to note here is the big, blue “Publish” button you’ll push when your blog post is ready.

You can click “Save Draft” on an incomplete post to save your work without pushing the post live.

The “Preview” button can be useful to test out how your post will look when it’s live without having to publish it right away – especially when adding images or videos.

You can also use the options in this section to schedule a post for the future, make posts public or private (password required), or even UNPUBLISH a post by changing the “Stats” back to “Draft.”

5. Additional Fine-tuning Tools: You’ll sometimes use these tools to update your blog post, tag it with a category, or add a featured image – but for now, you won’t be using this much. You can learn more about

WordPress categories and tags here.

Quick tip: Do you write your blog posts in a program like Word, and then copy and paste them into WordPress? You may get frustrated by how WordPress formats the text you paste.

To avoid problems, make sure you’ve clicked the “Toolbar Toggle” button, then click the “Paste as Text” button that looks like the below:

WordPress will strip out all of your previous formatting, so you can customize the text to look exactly how you like.

Adding headings

Headings help you structure your content and make it easier for people to read. For example, in the text above, “Adding headings” is my heading!

This helps people who want to scan content find what they need. Consider adding headings for each of your main points.

To add a heading, scroll up to “Paragraph” drop-down menu and select the heading you’d like to use.

Note that the “Heading 1” is usually reserved for the post’s title, so stick to the smaller headings (with larger numbers) inside the post.

Quick tip: “Heading 1” is usually reserved for the blog post’s title, so you shouldn’t use it again in the body of your content.

Consider using “Heading 2” to break down the different sections of your content, and “Heading 3” for sub-headings inside those big sections.

Trying to get more traffic from Google? Google loves to see the keywords you’re targeting in your headings, so try to use them naturally!

Adding Links

It’s a good idea to link to other (credible) websites: whether to share a piece of content or back up a claim you’ve made, or share another one of your own posts. WordPress makes it easy.

To add links to your posts, highlight the desired text (for this example, I just wrote “Add links” as my text) and then scroll up to the blog menu.

Click the button that looks like a paperclip, to the right of the “Align right” item and above the “Add BWS Shortcode”.

From there, add the URL you want to link to:

Then, click the Settings icon on the right (the wheel-looking item above, next to the arrow).

Click the “Open the link a new tab” box. This is important—you don’t want people to leave your site when they click on a link!

Adding images

I touched on this briefly before, but I’ll explain it more here. Start by scrolling up to the top of the blog menu and click “Add Media” in the top left corner of the menu.

From here, select the files you’d like to upload. You can find previously uploaded files from the “Media Library” at the top-left corner next to “Upload Files” – no need to upload them again!

Once you’ve uploaded an image, you can choose its size and placement.

Adding a “Featured” Image

A featured image is simply the image that will be displayed at the very top of your post, and will be used in the thumbnails of your article when you share it on places like Facebook or Twitter.

To add a featured image, run your mouse along the right sidebar of your blog menu. You’ll see an option titled “Set featured image”.

Click that, then go through the same uploading process to add an image as you did in the step above.

Quick tip: Try to pick a featured image that draws the eye – you’d be surprised how colorful, weird, or interesting images can make a HUGE difference on how many people will click through to read your blog posts!

Adding videos from YouTube

Videos are AMAZING! Whether you want to showcase your own vlogs or just share a video you love, adding this type of content is a great way to keep people interested.

To add a YouTube video…

Visit the page of the YouTube video you want to share and copy the URL.

Paste the URL into the content area of your WordPress blog. Make sure the link is on its own line (no text before or after) and is NOT clickable (don’t make it a link!)

As soon as you push “Publish” on your post, the video will appear on the live version.

Still stuck? Our friends at WPBeginner have a guide for this if you need any further help—check it out here.

Customizing your “Slug”

What the heck is a “slug?”

It’s the URL of your post – for example, if your domain name is “yourdomainname.com,” the slug would be the address of the specific post you are publishing, such as “yourdomainname.com/my-post/.”

That last bit at the end? That’s the slug.

You want to make this slug clear and concise. This will make it easier for people to share your content on social media.

You can find the slug underneath the post title. It will say “Permalink: https://ift.tt/2wZ3TfR”.

By default, WordPress will make the title of your post the slug. But usually, this is way too long. You should change it so that it’s no longer than 2 – 4 words.

Here are some tips for optimizing your WordPress slugs:

Target SEO keywords. Think of what people would type to Google when they search for the information you share in the post—those are SEO keywords.

Avoid duplicates (make sure it’s not the same as another slug on your website).

Don’t change the slug after publishing the post (unless you absolutely have to) as this will result in lost traffic.

Publish Your Post

All done? Click that “Publish” button. Then click “View post” when the link appears to see your new post live in action!

Congratulations! You just published your first blog post. But don’t stop there!

Here are some tips for creating strong blog content that your audience will love:

Start by creating a lead-generating content marketing strategy.

Follow this guide for creating strong blog posts.

Develop a reading habit, so you can internalize how great writers write.

Make your content scannable with headings, short paragraphs, and high quality images.

Write content that helps your audience solve a problem.

Follow this strategy to become a better blog writer in 30 days.

Use this formula to create stronger headlines (if your headlines aren’t compelling, people won’t read the content!).

Next Steps

Now that your blog is live, it’s time to put it to work for you!

[getfoundfastblog]

The Blogging Guide Every Start-Up Needs

Why start a business blog? What elements does your blog need to be effective? How can you capitalize most effectively on the marketing opportunities a blog creates?

We’ll answer all of these questions in our relatively brief but comprehensive content marketing and business blogging guide for start-ups below. You’ll learn some of the most important markers of quality for an effective blog, how to develop a content marketing strategy that translates blog traffic into real leads, and what factors promote your search ranking (SEO) success.

So, without further ado, let’s get started!

1. Why Bother With a Business Blog for Your Start-Up?

Simply put: a business blog is an effective tool for achieving all of your most important marketing goals. It can:

Augment your other marketing efforts

Warm people up to your brand

Generate awareness for your startup

Work people into the start of your marketing funnel

Help you develop relationships with loyal visitors

Much more!

Creating a blog differs from traditional advertising techniques in that you expect the leads to come to you. This approach is referred to as “inbound marketing,” and it’s incredibly effective in an era where most of us are straight up burnt out on ads.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, small businesses that have a blog earn 126% more lead growth compared to businesses without one. A blog can also convince 61% of surveyed U.S. online consumers to make an eventual purchase. On top of that, HubSpot notes that blogs can earn your business 97% more inbound links, effectively multiplying your site’s traffic potential.

Since a start-up needs as much attention, awareness and clicks as possible, content marketing through a business blog seems like a no brainer!

So where should you start when planning your future blog? By planning and forming a strategy with your audience firmly in mind.

2. Conducting Audience Research

Your blog is first and foremost for your audience. If they hate or don’t care about what you’re writing (the second one’s actually worse!), then you won’t accomplish any of your business goals.

Search engine algorithms have also been refined over the past decade to provide results they think the audience will like. Things that hurt the audience experience, like writing misleading headlines or ripping off articles verbatim from other websites, therefore also tend to hurt your search engine ranking.

Writing for your audience is therefore essential to get the results you want from your blog.

There are a few research methods that can help you understand your audience better:

Common traits within your current prospecting list and lead opportunities (you can even survey them!)

Social mentions of your brand through social listening tools

Existing reviews and press coverage of your brand

Profiles of your competitors’ current client/customer list; these can also help you determine the subtle variations between their audiences and yours!

Research of audience traits on forums, popular industry blogs, and trending social topics related to your core business

There are many other ways of conducting market research to define your audience — including hiring a firm to do it for you outright — but your own customers and experience within your industry can often be your best resource.

3. Developing an Audience-Focused Blog Strategy Through Personas

Once you have a good view of your audience, separate them into a few key segments. Your segments should encompass all the shades within your audience’s buying tendencies, especially if different segments buy different products.

For example, maybe computer repair stores are ideal targets for the regular tier of your workbench and job ticketing software, but enterprise-employed IT heads are targets for your top-tier.

Using your segments, create buyer personas. These distill each of your segments into a single, imaginary person.

Now, write content for your personas! Pay close attention to the things your personas care about most and the type of content they seem to read most voraciously. Helpful topic prompts include questions they may have about your industry and “how to...” articles for alleviating related pain points.

Note that no piece of content will likely cover 100% of your buyer personas, and that’s ok! Just be sure to cover each equally (or in proportion to their priority) and provide a little something to encourage each one to read if they see your latest posts.

4. Have a Sensible, Effective Keyword Strategy Based Around Persona Intent

Your keyword strategy should be an extension of the things that motivate your buyer personas. After all, keywords are intended to serve as signals for search engines related to queries, and they also send signals to human brains that “this is relevant to me and worth clicking.”

A good practice is to use a keyword generator tool to come up with a list of keywords related to your current website, your competitors’, or a generic subject prompt. Then, plan how each keyword would relate to your segment.

For instance, searching “IT ticket software” on the free tool keywordtool.io generates many related results, including “trouble ticket software open source.”

Using our two generalized buyer personas above, let’s imagine how two different segments might use this query:

General Manager of a Small Computer Repair Workshop

Searches “trouble ticket software open source” because they want a free tool and likely don’t have much of a budget

Motivation: get a free piece of software

Suggested content suited to intent: “8 Best Open Source Trouble Ticket Software Products”

Possible CTA: “...many open source tools are limited in their functions, though. See why going free could actually cost you by downloading our ‘5 Factors That Hurt Computer Repair Store Profitability’ now!”

Head of IT for a Medium to Large Corporation

Searches “trouble ticket software open source” because they are curious what is out there and want to weigh their options

Motivation: make the best choice for their organization, including both money spent and end results

Suggested content suited to intent: “Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Open Source Trouble Ticket Software”

Possible CTA: “...but our product offers several advantages over open source, even when considering cost. Watch our brief video to see the advantages XYZ Product offers!”

From this exercise, you can see that keywords can guide a lot more than just where you stuff things in your content. In fact, don’t keyword stuff at all, but instead, use intuitive keyword groups and variations on your focus keyword to get the best results.

18% of top-ranking results for high-volume keywords don’t even have an exact match keyword anywhere in the body text!

So let keywords be a launching pad for playing into the search intent of keyword use, and segment your content ideas based on what motivates your buyers’ personas.

5. Make a Few Important Business Decisions

Knowing your audiences and the keywords they use as important intent signals are the most important foundational steps to starting your start-up’s blog.

After getting oriented, you can make a number of decisions with the end goal of satisfying your audience personas:

Will my blog be branded differently than my main site? Separating your blog with its own brand can help win your audience’s trust, but it adds complexity to your strategy. Consider the pros and cons as you research well-branded blogs like Adobe’s CMO.

How often will I publish? Your publication schedule is dictated by A) Your bandwidth, and B) The typical amount of news coverage in your industry. Also keep in mind your capacity to do “theme days,” such as posting a video every Friday recapping one of your most popular blogs.

Who can I network with to promote my content? Email and social will be effective channels for content promotion, but getting amplified by someone with a lot of traffic/followers is even better! Identify blogs that allow for syndicated content or submissions, and identify micro-influencers in your niche so you can write content they’d be likely to share. (Hint: it never hurts to quote that person and tag them when you share your blog!)

How will my blog lead to the next stage of my marketing funnel? Every blog concludes with a call to action (CTA). Strong CTAs command the reader with an action verb to perform a simple task that provides a concrete benefit. Tailor your CTAs to your segment and their approximate buyer stage. As a general rule of thumb:

If they are further away from a purchase, invite them to sign up to your mailing list to download premium content pieces.

If they are closer, invite them to get a quote, schedule a demo, or take a direct look at your product information.

6. Monitor, Measure, Analyze, and Optimize

Your blog will be an evolving creature that adapts to the signals your audience sends you.

Pay close attention to the data you get from readers, both on your website and with any promotional announcement, such as a social media post. Your data will reveal things like which headlines get the most clicks, which articles get the most shares, which CTAs convert most effectively, and overall which types of content people prefer.

Use this data to revisit your content strategy and tweak it to find better success over time.

Should You Outsource Your Start-Up Business Blog to a Writer or Content Agency?

Performing all of the above steps yourself can help you understand what your content needs to find success. But even then, you may wish for better performance, a more efficient process, or for someone to take the task of writing, publishing and promoting completely off your hands.

If this is the case, working with a content marketing agency could be the answer for you. They can use your research, branding, and guidelines to develop content suited to your unique flavor. Weigh your options, and then decide what will ultimately be best for your business and especially your audience.

If you need help getting started with your business blog contact our office today. Get Found Fast

  First Posted on: The Blogging Guide Every Start-Up Needs