#i tried my best to make this decent enough but i think my brain might not be working at its finest so this is all i can do ig

[ayarsi]

Good Omentober + Fictober (1)

Good Omentober Day 1 - pre-fall

Fictober prompt #21 - "Just in case this doesn't work." Fanfiction - Good Omens Rating - G Wordcount - 387

Stars?

------------------------------------

"What's this for?"

A gray formation sprung from the ground, seemingly carefully constructed into a hollow sphere cut in half.

The angel moved close and peered into it.

It didn't have much depth. The inside was smooth and its external surface was embellished with lines and curves forming figures that encircled the whole area. Nothing was in it, but then again, God hadn't started creating anything else yet.

"It's a fountain, I believe," another angel answered, acknowledging the first angel's presence.

"What do you put in it? Surely, it wouldn't just be there and not-"

A book abruptly placed in the first angel's hands cut them short. The second angel, without ever glancing up from what looked like a thin stack of papers on a thin board, told the first of their task.

Millions of things to do, make, create. The book was almost thick enough to resemble their layers of clothing. Although there were many creations much more important to list, one caught the angel's eyes. Stars.

Stars?

"So these star things, what purpose do they have?"

"Not entirely sure, but they help make the immeasurable universe even more immeasurable. I think. You don't have to ask questions, you know, you just have to do what you're told."

"But I want to know why. Why we're told to do it, why I need to do it, and why it has to be done at all. You know, just in case this doesn't all work."

"Don't question it. This is God's Great Plan and you cannot and shall not..." The second angel's voice trailed off.

The first angel was completely mesmerized by the idea of creating these luminous, fiery stars that they had forgotten they even asked a question on what those were. They just knew they wanted to find out and see for themselves. The angel knew that somehow, their questions would be answered if they looked for it themselves.

The second angel had gone off to find other angels to instruct, and so the first was alone. They examined the fountain once more, wondering whether it was alright to touch it, and sat on the flat surface. In their hands was a book that needed some more flipping through but their eyes showed a sparkle that meant the stars would be the only thing they would focus on.

[misspelledwordswizard]

ok, we see waterbending and bloodbending but what about firebending and lightningbending?

I think the Chain going to be crazy see reader redirects a lightning un middle of the battle.

Thank you so much for the request, I really love writing about this! Mixing fandons might be my weakness… hope you like it <3

The dark sky was barely lit by the moon, which was hidden by the dark, heavy clouds, dumping heavy gusts of rain on the world below. The wind howled loudly, carrying the rain with it and making the experience all the more extreme in itself, it was as if the forces of nature were determined to prevent us from advancing. 

All this chaos was experienced by our group of ten, somewhat distant at the moment, while we still had to deal with the horde of monsters that followed right behind us. Due to the darkness and the heavy rain, we had made a mistake, without seeing the monster camp a little further ahead of us, all we could do was try to create distance to gain some time and think of a decent strategy to deal with them. 

The group of lizalfos seemed more than determined to pursue us, without giving us any room to counterattack. Shit, if only I could firebend now. It was no surprise to the heroes that I had a “special” ability to control and produce fire, the firebending that I was so proud of, and my main form of defense, but it wouldn’t be very effective in heavy rain like now. 

The rain seemed to intensify as we advanced, out of the corner of my eye I could see the team aiming arrows at the monsters, I preferred to stay focused on the path in front of me, but from the sound that echoed I could assume that he had hit at least one. Good. The others were trying their best in this situation, looking for various creative ways to achieve some kind of success. 

I felt useless, incapable, too dependent on firebending. Of course I have some experience in hand-to-hand combat, with arrows or bladed weapons, but I almost never use them, after all, why would I do that when a few body movements were enough for me to fight my enemies? Well, now I understand. In the distance I could hear the sound of thunder echoing in the sky, making me shiver. 

The cold of the rain was starting to affect me, I felt my frozen body tremble and my teeth chatter as I continued to advance. A real nuisance. It was when I turned to see how far we had gotten from the group of monsters that I became careless, tripping over a tree root and hitting the ground without further ado. I acted on instinct, trying to get up as quickly as possible when I saw a particular lizalfo coming towards me, approaching at speed, I felt unbalanced, trying to defend myself without even thinking, as I would do with firebending, I closed my eyes in fear as I did, realizing that it would have no effect, but now it was too late to stop.  

The loud sound of thunder echoed in the sky and at the same moment I felt a tingling electricity pass through my entire body, I felt alive, as if my brain sent a high dose of adrenaline to my body. The sensation was different from anything I had ever experienced, it seemed crazy.  I opened my eyes just in time to see the effects of the movements, seeing the lightning strike the monster that was just a few meters away from me, leaving it stunned. 

Did I do that? 

It wasn’t too hard to associate the action with the lightningbending that I had witnessed only once in my life, a long time ago, but that I never thought I would be able to reproduce. I could feel my heart beating fast, my body heating up as I recovered from my shock. How ironic. 

I blinked a few times before realizing again that I was in a dangerous situation, running again to gain distance, now more confident, but still unsure if I would be able to reproduce what I had done. I noticed some looks of surprise and concern coming my way as I reached the rest of the group, but not everyone seemed to have noticed my little discovery. When I considered myself to be at a safe distance, I tried again, remembering how I felt in that moment of pure panic and adrenaline.   

Before I could realize it, my surroundings were being illuminated by the lightning I produced, redirected to the monsters who were suffering without being able to react due to the high voltage that was passing through, until they turned to dust. I felt my head hurt and my heart raced, maybe this was all a bit too much for me at the moment, but luckily for me, I was not alone. Several arrows came from behind me, hitting the remaining monsters, while some of the heroes took the opportunity to get closer and deliver the final blow with their swords, finishing off the rest of the monsters. 

All tired of the rush and adrenaline, we could finally breathe again. I threw myself on the ground, enjoying the feeling of relief that overcame me while a fit of laughter hit me, making me receive confused looks. Who would have thought, right? I managed to calm myself down while breathing heavily trying to calm myself down, the rain now seemed like a relief to my overheated body. 

— I didn’t know I could do that. – Sky’s voice reached me, making me look at him and smile, as confused as he was. 

— Yeah, I didn’t know either. 

— That was really cool! – Wind exclaimed, throwing himself next to me and making me laugh. The others seemed to agree with the brat, yeah, I thought it was really cool too. 

Everyone took advantage of this moment to relax a little and catch their breath, all very exhausted after a long day and a not-so-fun chase. The sound of thunder now seemed more like a victory song, making me feel, in a way, powerful. But not powerful enough to deal with the freezing rain, apparently, because all it took was a sneeze from me for na uproar to start among the men in the group, something between scolding me for getting caught in the rain and looking for a dry and safe place to spend the night, as quickly as possible. 

[pruesgaultier]

a declaration of feelings

desc: singer agatha x actress rio. rio is away filming a movie and agatha writes a song (it’s totally not a love song.)

song used: forever, in this moment.

a/n: welcome to the first installment of my agathario song fic series where I write one shots based on songs from my agathario playlist ! i won't be taking reqs bc i get busy with work and i don't want the pressure of trying to give myself deadlines or trying to feel for songs I don't know, maybe in the future. for now, this is just low stakes fun.

Agatha Harkness sighed as she sat in her home studio surrounded by papers, sheet music and half-written verses alike. She had already tried her usual methods of focusing which included but were not limited to brain-dumping on a white board, petting Senor Scratchy like a Bond villain, writing bad lyrics to good music and good lyrics to bad music, but her mind was too preoccupied. Instead of writing a new song for her band Coven of Chaos’s new album, all she could think of was her girlfriend. Almost 3 years ago, Rio Vidal swept into Agatha’s life like a hurricane and she hated it. 

Well, not really. She hated how Rio not only made her feel other emotions, but she made her want to show them. It wasn’t a super drastic change, but she was much nicer than she used to be…sometimes and she smiled more, a lot more. Rio made her smile, made her laugh, and more often than not, made her think about settling down. 

To put it simply, Agatha Harkness was in love and she hated it, except she really didn’t.

(She just hated that none of this helped her write this fucking song.)

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

After deciding to take yet another break, the singer went to make herself something to eat, she couldn’t cook as well as Rio, but she could make something decent enough. As she moved throughout the kitchen, she found herself mindlessly humming some of the lyrics she had written earlier. 

“My heart’s gone. She no longer lies by my side. She left at dawn and once again I lie alone.” The singer sang quietly to herself. Three weeks ago, Rio left to go to London and even though Agatha spoke to her in every spare moment of their free time, it just wasn’t the same. She missed Rio’s cooking, god did she miss her cooking, but she also missed just being with Rio. No work, fans, or press – just them in their bubble, forever. 

“It’s been three weeks. Your voice is all I have. Awaiting my love’s return.” Agatha continued singing, putting more of the song together. At this point, it felt like the lyrics were pouring out of her and she stopped in her tracks. “Scratchy, I think I finally figured this song out and of course it’s about Rio.” she said, turning to the rabbit with glee. Her food forgotten, she ran back to her home studio, Senor Scratchy hopping behind her. 

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

“You wrote a love song?” her band members exclaimed in unison. Alice Wu-Gulliver, Jennifer Kale, and Billy (just Billy. He didn’t like to use his last name, either one of them because he didn’t want to make his parents, all 4 of them, feel bad.) Agatha resisted the urge to blush. It wasn’t a love song per se, it was more of an expression of her feelings for Rio in song form, but NOT a love song. “It’s not a love song, it’s more of a declaration. I don’t do love songs.” Agatha denied. “The same way how you didn’t do relationships before Rio?” Jen shot back. Agatha let out an exasperated sigh “Look, is it good or not?” she asked. “It’s amazing and I have the perfect music for it.” Alice said, excitedly turning toward her laptop. “This might be one of your best yet.” That did cause Agatha to blush. She’d written one of her best songs and it was about her girlfriend. 

(But it still wasn’t a love song !)

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

“I’m sorry I won’t be there to hear it live, my love.” Rio’s voice came through Agatha’s headphones as she sat in hair and makeup. Tonight, Coven of Chaos were performing Forever – Agatha’s not love song – for the first time. Rio was usually always there during the first live performance, but work kept her away this time.”

“It’s fine. Besides, you’ll be home soon and that’s more important.” Agatha replied, more than understanding about Rio’s absence. “Somebody misses me.” Rio teased, just to see Agatha’s face turn red but honestly she was in the same boat. “Well if these flowers are any sign, I’d say you miss me too.” Agatha gestured to the line of flowers that were delivered to her dressing room, all from Rio. “You bring out the romantic in me.” Rio replied. 

Before Agatha could respond, the door burst open and her manager walked in. “Agatha, it's 5 minutes until showtime, you’re already performing a love song about her, your phone call can wait.” Lilia Calderu, said frantically. 

“It’s not a love song, it's –” “A declaration of feelings.” Lilia, the hairstylist, the makeup artists, and even Rio replied in unison. Agatha scoffed to cover up her flustered state. “You’re a traitor, Vidal.” Rio rolled her eyes affectionately. “Yeah, yeah. I love you too baby. Good luck.” The singer softened “I love you more, my love.” she told her before hanging up.

“I love you too Lilia.” Lilia murmured mockingly. Icy blue eyes glared at her but the older woman ignored her, she was used to Agatha and her moodiness. “Let’s go lover girl. You have to perform your love song for your fans.” 

(Okay, so being in love does wonders for Agatha and she might have written a love song.)

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

The next day, Agatha was in her home studio on live. She doesn’t go live often, but she really wanted to interact and talk with her fans after their support of Forever. She was telling them about her very chaotic time writing the song when a voice sounded behind her. 

“You know if this were a horror movie, you’d be the perfect target.” Rio said, leaning against the wall. Agatha turned around, startled. “Jesus Christ! Rio, what the hell is wrong with you?” The actress smirked, waiting for Agatha’s brain to catch up. “Oh my god, you’re home.” Agatha jumped up making her way over to her girlfriend. “Surprise, m’lady.” Rio held out a flower which Agatha grabbed before kissing her passionately. Rio’s arms instantly went to the taller woman’s waist, pulling her closer. 

When they pulled away for air, Rio glanced at the phone, remembering that they technically weren’t alone. “Baby, the phone.” Rio pointed out when Agatha tried to kiss her again. “Right. Them.” the blue-eyed brunette turned her attention back to the phone where her fans were freaking out. 

“Well that was a lovely surprise.” Agatha said, setting the flower down next to her book. Rio came and sat on Agatha’s lap, the latter wrapping her arms around Rio’s waist. “What were you talking about anyway?” the shorter woman asked. “I was telling them how I wrote Forever.” that made Rio smile. “You mean the song you wrote for me that’s definitely a love song but you refuse to call it one?” Rio asked, raising an eyebrow.

(Agatha hated how attractive she looked when she did that.)

That made Agatha scoff. “Who says I wrote it about you? It could’ve been about Senor Scratchy.” she retorted. Rio laughed loudly before replying. “Scratchy wishes he could inspire such greatness.” she said cockily. “Just admit, you wrote me a love song. It’s really good, but I expected nothing less.”

“Of course it’s good, I wrote it.” Agatha remarked. “She’s so humble.” Rio muttered causing Agatha to pinch her side. “I don’t write love songs, they’re so cliche. The song is a declaration that you and I will be together forever.” Agatha declared. “So it’s a proposal?” Rio asked. “No, that’s also cliche. When I propose, it’ll be a proper one, down on a knee and everything.” 

Blue eyes met brown, “When you propose?” Rio whispered, as if she never considered it. “Sweetheart, I wrote you a love song and performed it on live television, of course I’m going to marry you one day.” Agatha stated as if it was the most obvious reveal. The singer was confused when Rio laughed suddenly. “You called it a love song.” she said, a huge smile on her face. “No I didn’t.” Agatha denied. “Yes you did.” Rio argued. “I know one of you recorded her saying that.” she said addressing the fans, who were going crazy over this whole interaction. 

“It’s already trending on twitter.” Rio laughed reading a comment. Agatha groaned dramatically. “Why do I put up with you? Any of you, you’re supposed to be on my side.” she pouted. “Because you love me and them and you write songs about me that they love.” Rio smiled happily. “Yeah, yeah. Well, this has been fun, but now I’m going to have hot, sweaty fun with my surprise, bye guys!” Agatha announced, ending the live. “You’re shameless.” Rio chuckled, shaking her head amused. “And you love me.” Agatha said matter of factly. “I do, very much.” Rio turned to straddle the woman beneath her. “Now, I believe you said something about hot sweaty fun?” she inquired before pulling Agatha into a passionate kiss.

Okay, so Agatha doesn’t hate being in love and maybe she did write a love song like a cliche popstar, but she couldn’t bring herself to care when the woman she loved more than anyone in the world kissed her like that. 

[ghoulfuckersincorporated]

any thoughts on charon and virgin reader??

As with most questions to which this should not be my response, I have many. This actually isn't the only ask for Charon x Virgin!Reader content, and I'm happy to give you a taste of what I think he'd be like while I finish up the one-shot I have for it.

Charon (Fallout 3) x Virgin!Reader NSFW Headcanons

Pretty terrified of the idea of fucking a virgin. Charon does not fetishize virginity or inexperience, but he won't be disappointed if he finds out you're a virgin...per se. He's disappointed for you that you're choosing him to be the one to take your virginity, even if the concept doesn't mean anything to you. You deserve better than him. Then again, you'd deserve better than him if you weren't a virgin, and you want him anyway, so it's not a deal-breaker by any means. Just don't be shocked if he seems nervous or distracted.

If he doesn't see you take Rad-X with his own eyes beforehand, he'll make you take some, even if you already have. If there's none around, well. Tough. You won't be doing more than fooling around. He's stubborn, and if you've never had sex before, then you've definitely never had sex with a ghoul before and have no way to know how your body will respond. If there's no Radaway for you to use afterwards, same story. No radiation countermeasures, no love.

Tries his best to be sweet, or the closest he can get. It doesn't come naturally to him, kind words and soft touches and such. It never did in his pre-ghoul years so long ago, and the life he's lived since then has only made him harder, colder. Still, he can kiss you softly, pet and caress you as gently as he can. Maybe think of something nice to say (though that is a hard "maybe"). He'll hold your hand when you get nervous and even cuddle with you a little when it's all over, another move that isn't typical of him.

He's worried about how big he is, but he's also just worried about his lack of finesse in general. He's a large, lumbering guy with big, clumsy hands...hands it isn't hard to forget the strength of in the heat of the moment. That looming fear of his own strength isn't an unfounded one; you'll likely come out a little bruised no matter how gentle he tries to be. Spends a lot of his energy during sex holding himself up off of you so he doesn't crush you with his weight if he's on top.

He'll guide you if you want (or need), but by and large, he'll prefer if you're the one in charge. What do you like? How naked do you want to be? What position do you want to be in? If you're so virginal that you're both unknowledgeable as well as inexperienced, and thus unable to provide much input that isn't right in the moment, he's gonna keep things as simple as possible.

Secretly spends the entire first time the two of you have penetrative sex assuming you'll regret it sooner or later. You'd think that would ruin it for him, and it certainly...colors it, but overall he's determined to make the best of what he's been offered and try to show you a decent time. Hopes that if he can at least make it good for you, you might regret it a little less.

Has difficulty finishing. He normally does anyway, as he has trouble relaxing enough to be in the moment a lot of the time. But the problem multiplies tenfold if he knows it's your first time; all the fixating he's doing on you, monitoring you for signs of distress or pain, distracts him from his own pleasure. He might be able to relax enough to cum if you finish him off with your hands or mouth, but he likely won't climax otherwise.

Won't touch you again for at least a few days afterwards. Wants you to have time to properly recuperate more than he wants to feel you wrapped around him again (which is a LOT). Even if you came out of that first time rather intact, he'll treat you like he absolutely savaged you.

The possessive animal part of his brain is suddenly a lot more attached to you afterwards, and he's even more protective than he was previously. It's probably just a coincidence.

[cq-studios]

This one screenshot has so much I want to talk about in it so I’m gonna babble about it below the cut

(TLDR: CQ geeks out about translating the Scala Language)

Okay, so first off I’d like to say how much I love the newspaper vibe they are going for and achieving with menus. It has me gnawing on the walls. There’s just Scala Script (the Scala language, for clarity’s sake) everywhere and my code breaking brain is eating it up.

Speaking of which here’s what I’ve been able to translate so far (out of what I’ve been able to make out… the writing is pretty scuffed up in places and it’s not the highest quality image lol)

So the first thing I’d like to focus on are the banners. Each one has something written in Scalian underneath. Those things in order of left to right are “Daily”, “Item”, and “Avatar”, which uh, makes sense lol.

I think it’s a little strange that “Item” is the only one that isn’t exactly translated… like did they just forget the “S”?

On a more interesting note though, this one for one translation here means we now have an official Scalian character for “V”. Unfortunately the character used is pretty scrapped away, so I can’t be 100% sure, but I do think I know which character is used.

(Click/tap on the images below… for whatever reason they were just not formatting correctly)

I also considered it being the one below, but because of the location of the flecks I lean more towards the first one.

I also might have translated another new Scalian character but I’m not sure…

See, on the bar at the top of the screen it says “[unknown character]ho[same unknown character]colates”. I spent at least an hour trying to find out all the possible English words what it could be. I just filled in the blanks tried anagrams, the whole shebang (except for trying that with the other languages that are most likely to be used. Those being Japanese, for obvious reasons, and Latin, which has been used in Scala Script before on the manhole covers in KH3 Scala) and came out with one possible word: Chocolate.

And I must be wrong because that makes no sense, but in case I’m right, it’s here.

I tried to cross reference with KH3 signs to no avail so I’m a bit stumped…

Maybe the little blurb on the other side makes it make sense but it’s too blurry for me to read.

Next up I’ll talk about the “Weather”.

The top text is decently clear so I was able to work that out pretty quickly (pros of being fluent in this fictional language I guess lol) and thanks to that clear text I was actually able to make out a bit more of what was below it than I would’ve otherwise. See, the smaller letters are pretty blurry but I’m able to vaguely make them out. The “L” and “W” were what I caught first and I filled in the blank between pretty fast with some pretty simple connections. Once I’d seen that I realized that there was probably a high there too, and there do seem to be “H”s on either side of the word above it… and a “G”… and an “I” (I think, I was trying to double check but my iPad has significantly worse image quality than my computer).

As for the temperature, I tried my best but the numbers are probably inaccurate. They are very blurry.

Last but not least, here are a few of my smaller notes.

I’m a big fan of the Moogle stamp, but I could not tell you what the first word on that thing is. The second is “news”, clear as day but the first word doesn’t have any characters I recognize other than the “S”. I tried coming up with possibilities through context but I’m drawing a blank.

I also love the little Potion and Elixir advertisement in the bottom corner. Like, I’m so charmed by the art for it. That being said though, I also have no clue what the text next to this one says. I’m sure it’s an onomatopoeia of some sort but once again my brain wasn’t working with me.

If you guys have any ideas please let me know. I always love to have discussions and help.

(Also I know I left a whole text box out… I honestly have nothing to say about that. Not enough characters I recognize to decipher anything at this point)

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

Hi Cal my dear! Wishing you a lovely weekend! And sending MAJOR props for everything you’ve posted in the last day it was all fabulous! Here’s lots of emojis to prompt your brilliant mind :)

⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️ (THEYRE MARRIED!!!! LOVE THAT FOR THEM! So looking forward to seeing them with their new house and baby and their beautiful life together!)

🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨(buckley parents suuuuuck! AND ITS FINALLY TIME FOR A DANIEL REVEAL! On the edge of my seat!)

🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟(loved chim’s pov! Thats my sweet guy he’s such a softie romantic! Very excited to see whose pov is next and find out who is approaching the library!)

- PCA <3

HI PCA <3 <3 <3 <3

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

42 for ⚡️(YEAH MARRIED! HONEYMOON TIME):

---

Buck and Eddie have to work three shifts before they can leave for their little honeymoon getaway. Whoever’s idea that - his - is obviously an idiot, because it’s torture. All he wants to do is have lots of sex in the little beach house AirBnb he booked in San Clemente with his husband, but no! He has to go to work and spend several days walking into fires, getting vomited on, and most importantly, not having sex. He barely survives. It’s really quite a travesty. 

It’s actually a pretty decent sign for Buck that he’s really fucking happy with his life that he doesn’t want to be at work. He loves work. His job is the greatest job in the world. His team is the best team on earth. Most of the time? Can’t get enough of it. But in the wake of their wedding - which was perfect and stunning and everyone else wishes they had wedding photos in front of a fire truck from the 1920s - Buck has other things occupying his brain. Much more exciting things. Which is kind of bad, considering he should really just be focused on saving lives. 

By the end of the third shift, Buck is practically vibrating, waiting for the time to end. They’re all packed. They’re leaving first thing in the morning. Not soon enough. 

Adriana and Ravi are coming to stay with Chris for the five days they’ll be gone. Chris thinks this is very cool. Much cooler than the alternative, which was going to be Pepa. Buck thinks this is a little unfair to poor Pepa, who has watched him hundreds of times. But he gets it. They’re younger and more fun and will almost certainly let him get away with more than Eddie would. 

When their shift finally does end, Buck can feel himself motoring through their leaving routine. He tries to light a fire under Eddie’s feet with his eyes so Eddie will move a bit quicker. 

“Changing like you’re between sets at the Eras Tour is not going to make tomorrow come any quicker,” Eddie tells him. 

“Oh, he’s got Eras Tour references,” Buck teases.

Obviously he has made Eddie watch the movie. Twice. But only twice! No matter what Eddie may or may not have complained. 

“We’ve still got hours,” Eddie says. “Calm down.”

“I will not,” Buck scoffs. “I am as excited for this as the wedding!”

Buck has made this point clear. Several times. They made cuts to their wedding budget so they could afford this waterfront rental. Buck is so fucking excited for this honeymoon. 

He understands that this might sound somewhat insane. Maybe a little vapid.

---

63 for 🚨 (yeahhhhh sorry for the angst):

---

It’s not easy or stable or linear. But he’s working on it.

The day after he learns about Daniel, Buck calls in sick to work. Takes a mental health day at Eddie’s insistence. This turns out to be a wise call. There’s a horrific factory fire that almost goes badly, and Buck probably wouldn’t have been in a good headspace for that. To make matters worse, his parents actually show up at the station. Eddie sends them away, for which Buck is grateful. He doesn’t want to see them again. 

And he doesn’t have to. 

Maddie comes over at his request and they talk through everything. He’s mad. Really mad. 

“You should have told me. After everything we’ve been through together, the trial, moving, how could you not tell me?” 

“I was terrified to tell you!” She admits. “Especially after Afghanistan and the trial, Evan! You slip into such dark places. Places where I can’t reach you. I didn’t want to risk it!”

And the thing is, he can understand that. She’s not wrong. He has descended into dark spells again and again since being honorably discharged. 

“And, honestly, Evan… I didn’t know how to talk about him,” Maddie continues. “I was never allowed. She’d get so upset at the slightest mention… It was like even thinking about him made me feel like I would be punished.”

Buck’s anger deflates a lot after that. Because, really. He can’t imagine. He can’t fucking imagine. 

They argue some more. They cry. They make up. How could Buck ever possibly stay mad at her forever? She loved him enough for two parents, when his own refused. 

So he moves forward. He keeps up with therapy. He cherishes his loved ones. He tries to live up to the role Christopher has graciously given to him. That Eddie allows him to have. He works on loving himself, to be worthy of the love they give him.

And life moves forward with him. 

ii.

They have their first Christmas together as a couple. As a family. Eddie, who wasn’t really a big holiday guy ever before Christopher, loves every second of it. It’s like holidays finally have a reason to feel magical, rather burdensome. He has the exact family he was missing before, in order for them to feel perfect. 

Buck goes all out. Decorates, plays music, bakes. Spoils Chris way more than he needs to. He comes back to life, in a way he’s been struggling to do since the whole Daniel thing. He is holiday cheer incarnate. Eddie is so disgustingly in love with him. 

On Christmas morning, sitting around a faux-pine tree, watching their kid open heaps more presents than Eddie got at that age, Eddie can’t help but feel a strange sense of tranquility. Like, oh. Right. This is what life is supposed to be. He can imagine ten more Christmases from now. He can imagine wedding bands. He can imagine more kids.

---

48 for 🧟(it's Eddie!!!!):

---

“Well, yeah,” Buck replies. “Good thing Los Angeles is a very small town. Like one intersection.”

“Okay, smart ass,” Eddie sighs. 

“Where in L.A.?” Buck amends his question. 

Okay, fine. It’s a fair question.

“Mid-City area,” Eddie explains. Not that that might mean anything to Buck. “My wife… Shannon… Her mom had an apartment out there.”

“Her mom?” Buck asks. “You said she was caring for her, right?”

Eddie shifts in the driver’s seat uncomfortably. He doesn’t really want to get into all of it. It’s not easy to talk about. But, then again, he agreed to Buck coming. So obviously Buck is going to have to learn more of it than what Eddie explained to him that first night. Which wasn’t very much. And if they do find Shannon? Well, then Buck will probably hear a lot of it. There’s a lot Eddie needs to say to her. He’s not sure how composed he’ll be able to keep himself, after all this time. 

“Yeah,” Eddie confirms. “She was terminally ill. Cancer.”

“Fuck,” Buck sighs. “I’m sorry, man.”

“Thanks.”

It feels strange to accept condolences for Janet, but he does it anyway. She wasn’t his mother. They weren’t that close. He feels like he probably cost her time with her daughter. Definitely with her grandson. But… Yeah. He’s sad she’s probably dead. She was always very kind to him. In a judgment free way his own parents couldn’t comprehend. Not that he should be thinking badly of them. 

“I don’t know if she died or not before…”

“Zombies?”

“Yeah.”

“Kind of hope she did, for her sake,” Buck replies.

Eddie nods.

[petrichor-reminiscence]

my restoration thots

everything is gonna be under the cut just incase people havent seen it yet, so uh spoiler warning under the cut!

there were a lot of things that bothered me. enough that tbh i don't remember them all, but i wanna start this off with the positives and things i liked ^^

first of all, my favourite thing ever, TEX AND CHURCH FINALLY GOT THE ENDING THEY DESERVED! i actually screamed when caboose brought back tex instead of church actually, and the whole thing also about her being brought back in their memory instead of the directors? their memory of her always kicking their ass and winning and being strong and brave and oaisjdgoasg all of that? screaming actually screaming. and her and church walking away in the memory unit thingy into the distance and jsiogjasdgiojadsgiosdg they got their happy ending that i've always wanted for them and that makes me very happy.

also, the va for caboose, let's talk about him rq. ofc it sounded wrong to me, he wasn't the og caboose, it wasn't joel, but the guy tried his best and i absolutely love that for him. i think he did a pretty good job, especially since the poor guy had 17 fuckin seasons of iconic caboose to live up to so ofc no one is going to actually live up to that. he did pretty damn good and if i see any hate about him i will cry thank you.

now, onto things that i enjoyed kinda but also were just oaijdsgioasdjg ahhhh y'know?

first, sarge's death. ouch. owie ouch ouchies ow. that shit hurt man. i think they did it pretty well though, and the fact that he died protecting a blue?! gave simmons his shotgun and told him he was proud of him?! told grif he never gave up on him even when grif himself had?! oasjdgisadjgs. he's their dad, their dad fr. it broke my fucking heart, but i like how it was handled, i was decently satisfied with it. i like how they buried him back in blood gulch, where it all started. it felt really fitting.

also, the fact that they kept church dead. tbh i'm glad they did. i was thinking with their whole talking about memories around the campfire, like if it were to bring back church, tbh i wouldn't have liked it. his death in 13 wouldn't have been as meaningful, as impactful. plus, them bringing back tex who we haven't really seen since season 10? iconic i loved it they brought my wife back and i loved every fuckin second of it.

next, something i have big big big thoughts on that i don't know how to organise: wash's ptsd and everything. first off, finding out he'd been hallucinating doc the entire time?! fucking OWCHIES :( and like at the end when lina was talking to him and reminding him that these things weren't his fault and how it came across in visions of his other beloved freelancers showing up and talking to him? screaming actually. watching wash and his mental state and how everything unfolded hit particularly close to home for me, as a ptsd-havin bitch myself ^^; the way he was treated like he was fuckin crazy in the hospital made me sick to my stomach, and then finding out oh hey wait he actually is a bit crazy he's hallucinating doc because he blames himself for his death i'm like welp okay that's oaisdjgosadjgoisgj. just seeing how they handled that reminded me so much of things i've gone through myself, and idk if i'd say it was handled well or not but it was certainly handled in a way that's for sure ^^; might just be some of my internal biases because topics like this make me feel sick for personal reasons ofc, but uh yeehaw lol yeehaw.

also, meta tucker. screaming. the flashes of him pulling through while being controlled and him like apologizing to caboose and caboose being like 'i've already forgiven you for whatever you'll do' AOIGSDAIG YEOWZERS :( my brain hurts man. and with sigma too, sadly it wasn't elijah wood, but miles luna did a phenomenal job imo, it really sounded like og sigma to me and had me convinced they got elijah for the final season up until i saw the credits lol. also, the fact that there was such a lack of meta/tucker and wash interactions??? heresy. blasphemy. illegal. i will be beating my head against the wall thank you.

ALSO. LACK OF DONUT WAS FUCKING TRAGIC. but, ADMIRAL donut? proud of our boy for working through the ranks! but i'm so upset we didn't get to see him other than a simmons flashback/vision of him in a fuckin cheerleader outfit - which honestly? iconic. at least we got something.

and the last thought of the post, fuckin grimmons. grif and simmons. i'm gonna put my head through the wall osaidjgsioadjgsdiogjsdag. the way that the first thing simmons did as red team leader was set grif free because he's always known about how much he wanted to leave, 'if you love something let it go' or whatever oiasdgjdsoiagjsd. grif deciding to stay for the fight before heading out, their goodbyes and grif inviting him to visit even though he knows it's probably never going to happen but he had to try anyways, aiojsdgoisjgoisdjg i'm screaming crying throwing up actually. they should've made out though so rip for that missed opportunity :( i enjoyed the moments we got but i also wish we got more if that makes sense, y'know?

anyways that's all i have the mental energy to blab about for now, because oaisdgjodsiag agh y'know? drained from fuckin sobbing so much all day lmao i'm just a lil guy ^^;

might post a pt 2 to this though, copy-pasting the notes i took on my phone like while i was watching lmao. fair warning though it's a MESS because i was typing without looking plus a lot of autocorrect haha. i'll probably post it anyways though because i find it really funny tbh lol

[underworld-office-fan-account]

I hope it's not too much of a hassle but

What would everyone think about mitski (I LOVE MITSKI I LOVE MITSKI.) :3

Hi! Don't worry I also do really love mitski for reals MITSKI FAN UNITE!!! :D

_____

‹Eugene›:

★ Was recommended by Joy and also River because they said Mitski's songs were amazing.

★ The both didn't disappoint because it was absolutely mind-breaking

★Had a phase for a while where'd they daydream about the songs for a while without realizing it and was like 'oh no I am obsessed!!!'

★ Favorite song would probably be Last Words of a Shooting Star, thought it was pretty calming and related to it

★Realized the meaning and tried to relate to other songs but failed, second favorite is Francis Forever but they liked all of the songs.

‹Boss›:

★ River recommend. Genuinely overwhelmed. What the hell.

★ He's usually stubborn and listens to those old Korean songs/rhymes or some random K-drama track for no reason, but Mitski was an surprising exception.

★ Genuinely goes dead silent (Like completely stiff, not a normal quiet), if someone around him plays Mitski.

★ Favorite song probably Class of 2013. Could not get over the lyrics and was like 'why is this kind of me' but in a more noble fancy way I can't think of

★ Mommy issues for real lmao He mainly likes the calmer parts of her songs.

‹River›:

★ Wanted some girly pop songs and thought Mitski was the most woman of a woman she'd ever seen.

★ Head over heels hehehe

★ Flexes off the fact the knows many Mitski songs and also listened to her other songs that weren't included in her albums (she liked cop car).

★ Favorites were the songs in her Lush and Puberty 2 album, and Drunk Walk Home!!! Rock is life for her :]

★ Oddly took a liking to A Pearl a lot.

‹Hayden›:

★ Doesn't Really understand the meaning but likes the sounds of the beats and lyrics so there's that!!! Of course, heard Mitski from River.

★ Occasionally listens to her songs for a bit before going back to coco melon rip Hayden you would've loved being an ipad kid

★ The cats seems to like the songs though, so Hayden will usually steal River's phone to play songs for them.

★ Favorite is My Love Mine All Mine since its calming, reminds him of those highschool musicals prom scenes, and his mum used to sing in the same soft voice a lot. Might get emotional.

★ Also likes Strawberry Blonde :3

‹Joan›:

★ River recommend. Although she doesn't really like modern music, she could probably listen to Two Slow Dancers all day.

★ Probably likes those cliche calming love songs like old people do. I don't really know what genre but yea

★ Doesn't have much of an opinion on her, but will say her music's are decent enough

★ Favorite is of course, Two Slow Dancers and probably My Love Mine All Mine.

★ Doesn't like the ones with a rock kind of sounding.

‹Sean›:

★ Thinks she's a really good artist. Secretly sobs to her songs.

★ River recommend while yapping about Mitski and he said he'd give her songs a try. Never forgets about his promises and listened.

★ Likes First Love/Late Spring since it sounded like it'd smells like flowers.

★ Didn't know how to react ngl

★ Overall she's cool!!!

‹Charlie›:

★ Depressed. Will combust from the trainwreck of derealization hitting them in the guts and chest.

★ Of course, River kept playing Mitski on full blast and Charlie hated to mentally admit Mitski was actually a good artist.

★ Will listen to her as a background music while making paper crafts. But ends up zoning out and full on have their attention on the music instead. Hides the fact they liked Mitski because River was egotistical enough already.

★ Favorite was sadly Class of 2013 and Your Best American Girl, she was gonna genuinely go insane listening to it.

★ I think she's reacted pretty well (cue the mental breakdown)

‹Mike›:

★ Doesn't have much of an opinion, mostly because I'm still learning to write his character,,,

★ Heard her from boredly scrolling through TikTok, her song just ticked his brain in the right place.

★ Have only listened to her more optimistic-like songs, wait till he hears Lush and Be The Cowboy >:)

★ Favorite is probably Your Best American Girl

★ That's all I have </3

‹Luke›:

★ Joy kept recommending Mitski songs while doing karaoke one night.

★ Couldn't believe he only discovered her songs now because one: it was good. Two: she was popular??? How has he not herd of her???

★ Found out the whole group likes Mitski due to Joy now and was like 'eh, worth it'

★ Favorite is definitely Francis Forever and Once More to See You.

★Will now imagine music in his dream incase kitty ever listens to it with him.

‹Joy›:

★ BIGGEST. FAN. EVER. Genuinely obsessed. Loves every music released.

★ Loves yapping about Mitski even if her friends aren't listening, she's glad no one's stopping her from talking.

★ Wish she could go to concerts but she didn't have the money for concert tickets and flight tickets. Year for it to come true one day.

★ Loves her Laurel Hell and The Land is Inhospitable And So Are We albums, but adores every each songs.

★ You could tell she's obsessed with an music artist and it's either expectantly or unexpectedly Mitski.

‹Oliver›:

★ Joy kept telling him to listen to Mitski and he was like 'what if I don't want to' (Joy ends up making an empty threat saying she'll be in his walls if he didn't and he kind of took that seriously)

★ Thinks she's a pretty good artist, a solid 7/10 to be nice because Joy is going to haunts in his sleepings if he puts a 5

★ Occasionally finds himself singing a lyric and contemplate his life choices.

★ Likes Stay soft since it sounds really good.

★ Pray for him that Joy doesn't execute him with a lobotomy due to only knowing one album 🙏 /j

‹Finley and Tatum (Teenagers)›:

★ I'm also practicing on writing these two, so patience,,,

★Finley heard about it from Eugene talking about it while they were passing by, which they asked Tatum to listen to Mitski together.

★ They're faces were genuinely :0 because it was actually surprisingly good (listened to FL/LS)

★ Finley likes how good Francis Forever is and Tatum was Real Men since it sounded tough.

★ Yeag,,,,

‹Linda›:

★ Her adopted children (Finley and Tatum, my hc) kept yapping about it on some occasion so she went and tried it for herself.

★ She listens to the more calmer peaceful songs since rock might just give her a heart attack.

★ Likes First Love/Late Spring since it sounds like it'd smells like flowers.

★ Wonders if Sean would've love this kind of music just like she did.

★(Funny thing that's not a spoiler alert; he does)

_____

Ngl,,, I genuinely had fun writing this!!!

Although I probably wouldn't go with music artist since I'm not good with it but this was certainly fun to try out and write the characters I don't know much aswell :]

[i-hear-a-sound]

RWBY

Thank you for the ask! Here we go:

Favorite female character? Ilia Penny Pyrrha Ruby Nora(!!!!) Emerald Weiss and most of all… maria😔she’s so fucking funny i loved her energy v6. Further explanations, Ilia has an adorable design, great voice actor and decent enough representation. Nora’s timeskip design was unmatched and she’s very quotable, plus her personality reminds me of one of my close friends irl. Ruby’s struggles in V9 (until they fucked that up) really hit with me as I’d gone through something very similar, and Penny… Penny just makes me happy. What they did with her makes me angry, but Penny makes me smile. :D

Favorite male character? I got a couple but at the moment it’s tied by Sun and Roman. Sun has fun energy and Roman is himself and iconic. Others are: James is hot and so is the bad bird BF he got by being autistic. Mercury is cool for the 5 seconds of screentime he gets every volume now. Tyrian and Watts got impeccable swag and the 5 hour long make out scene between the two of them was very interesting. Adam is cathartic and fun as hell to write my little meow meow. Jaune is best when he’s just a little loser dork, and Ren is very pretty.

Favorite Volume? Surprise surprise, Volume 3. I fucking love tournament arcs. I. Love. Tournament. Arcs.

Favorite Episode? That whole Apathy Arc in V6!!! Great horror in my opinion. I wish they’d show off more creative Grimm like that again. And as a side note, V6 is just… the best looking volume.

Favorite cast member? If they count, Jeff and Casey!! SUCH good music.

Favorite ship? *cracks knuckles* Freezerburn, Catmeleon, Monochrome, Schne//ekos, Pussy Magnet Purrah, Greek fire, nuts and dolts, Bees Schnees, Khali, Spicecream, Seamonkeys, Emercury, If there’s one between Ilia and Ruby put it here, Ginger Snaps, Arctic Winter, Silver Lotus, *looks at writings on my palm* Snow pines, Ironqrow, James x Oz, Crimsun, Strawbana, Nuts and Volts, and Rosebird. To name a few. Some might not be my favorites, these are just ones I like/like in concept. :) Character I’d die defending? Sienna fucking Khan. The whole White Fang, honestly. I do think protesting through violence against your oppressors is very swag and real actually. Plus she’s hot.

A character I can’t sympathize with? Uhhhhhh…… SALEM!!!!!!!!!! Cinder too ish but Salem mostly. Like, I feel a TINY bit bad, only because the gods are undeniably awful garbage horrible terrible. She still sucks though.

A character I grew to love? …Adam. I did not give a single shit about his decently attractive redhead ass until that reveal and his death in V6. He has become my blorbo; my skrunkly. My cringefail loser, my girly pop. Engrained within my brain like a silly silly worm. He’s fun to draw. Fun to write. REALLY fun to write. I can put him in so many situations. So many bittersweet, melancholic situations. And in so many outfits.

My Anti-otp? Ive got a couple.

Bumbl//Bee. Not my thing. Could have been, had they not continually tried making “Only disabled main character losing her arm” something “romantic” as well as paralleling said character to her partner’s… um… ex abuser? Hello?

Embe//rald. Fuck Abusive ships.

Taura//donna. Fuck Abusive ships.

Frostbite. This one is actually one of my least favorite ships, as it is essentially a pairing between the ex-racist ex-heiress of a huge company to the in universe minority said company enslaved and branded while he was a child. Plus, again. Fuck. Abusive. Ships.

Ar//kos. Not… my… thing.

Winter and Marrow or Robyn and Marrow. Nope nope nope. No. Thank. You.

Etc etc etc I could go on all day. Thank you for the ask!

[crescent-cubed]

Tried my hand at writing a parody since I got inspired after hearing Chonny's Inferno for the first time (I'd already heard Charlie's Inferno, too).

So I present to you,

Decent Man's Inferno

-

Here lies... well, me.

I just wanted to tell you all, so you know what to expect.

-

I liked my showers pretty fair,

not too chill and not too warm.

Did my best to get to work,

Even when it's hard and cold.

-

I did like being kind,

To my friends and family, but

I kinda always felt like it never was enough.

-

I was always kinda different, a bit too shy and strange

But I found some love and life to get me right through ev'ry day

Weird I can't remember what age I wound up dead

But I know that at least that I had lived my best.

-

While my friends and family talked,

I wound up on golden stairs,

As they reminisced about all the good times that we shared.

"I'll miss you all,"

I cried as I walked upstairs,

And I looked up to the light only as much as I'd dared.

-

There were two angels at the entrance,

One pristine and one less so,

And I waited silently in line til it was time to go.

The perfect one gave me no mind, but the other took me aside.

-

"Excuse me sir,

We all thought that we'd let you know before,

There really isn't much you'd like beyond those right there pearly doors.

Can't say you don't belong here, but we have a better plan,"

He whispered in my ear as he took me by the hand.

-

He said, "Excuse me sir,

We all thought that we'd let you know before,

There really isn't much you'd like beyond those right there pearly doors.

Can't say you don't belong here, but we have a better plan,"

He whispered in my ear as he took me by the hand.

-

"All hope abandon, ye who enter in."

I faltered at the flames, but the angel said I hadn't sinned.

-

We kept walking on and on,

Through the brimstone smell and flames,

Right until my guide stopped short and he shouted out a name.

-

With a flap of raven wings,

A figure came down from the dark,

And he smiled at us both,

Saying it's time to depart.

-

I was so confused.

If I'm not heavenbound or damned,

Then where in the world,

would they take this simple man?

-

The new guy laughed,

As he gave my guide a kiss,

Saying "Let's not make him wait, my love,

Take too long and you'll be missed!"

-

They took my arms in theirs,

And high and high we climbed.

And then the three of us,

We're out of hell in record time!

-

Then off there in the distance,

I could see a gentle light,

Not as burning as the flames of hell,

And unlike heaven, not as bright.

We landed near a town, and they said...

-

"Excuse me sir,

We think that this is what you're looking for:

A place where you live happily, no guilt or fear forevermore.

If heaven's for the saints, and hell's home for the damned,

Then this new limbo is the decent people's land."

-

They said, "Excuse me sir,

We think that this is what you're looking for:

A place where you live happily, no guilt or fear forevermore.

If heaven's for the saints, and hell's home for the damned,

Then this new limbo is the decent people's land."

-

Even when you try your best, some might say it's not enough,

But if you still do what you can, then just tell them to shut up.

Even when you try your best, some might say it's not enough...

Even when you do your best, you may think it's not enough,

But if you still did what you could, then tell your brain "shut up."

Even when you do your best, you may think it's not enough...

-

And so, "Excuse me sir,

We think that this is what you're looking for:

A place where you live happily, no guilt or fear forevermore.

If heaven's for the saints, and hell's home for the damned,

Then this new limbo is the decent people's land."

-

"Excuse me sir,

We think that this is what you're looking for:

A place where you live happily, no guilt or fear forevermore.

If heaven's for the saints, and hell's home for the damned,

Then this new limbo is the decent people's land."

[overdevelopedglasses]

Tojoctober Day 15 - Trash

(Chikyuu wa mawari hi wa nobori)

Alt title is from 24-Hour Cinderella

Majima gets stuck in a trash can. Help comes from a really weird place.

(no spoilers!)

—------------------------

Oh, god damn it.

Majima wriggles around where he is. Or at least, attempts to wriggle. He can’t really move much. His legs are bent up over his head, and his arms are wedged… somewhere, he isn’t sure where. He can feel his tanto poking him in the side. He’s been in more uncomfortable positions, but this is just embarrassing, even for Goro Majima standards. 

Part of him wonders why he’s even in this thing in the first place. He initially thought of climbing in here to surprise Saejima into a fight or scare the shit out of a family member of the clan, but now his brain is running too fast for his liking and he can’t focus on anything concrete. His feet are probably about 2 inches from his ass, his hand is bent backwards, and he is really glad he can’t see himself right now.

Light creeps through at him, and Majima shuts his eye, anticipating something really gross being thrown onto his face. But nothing happens.

“Can I help you?”

Majima opens his eye and looks up at the source of the noise. There's someone looking back at him.

Ok, maybe this is actually worse.

The man looking at him looks decently young, at least compared to Majima. His black hair styled in a really messy part frames his brown eyes and sharp features. From his weird angle, Majima could see he was wearing a white shirt and a slick black leather jacket that was open at the front. The look he was giving him was one of both confusion and wariness. Ya know, now that I think about it, the view could be worse. Majima thinks to himself.

“So uh… Why the hell are you in a trash can?”

“Haw?” Majima makes the only sound that comes to mind. Great, not only is cutie over here staring at me like I did somethin wrong, he’s askin me why I got myself stuck???

“Listen. I don’t wanna go into it. Can ya… help?” Majima manages to get some words out, moving the trash can around as much as he’s able to.

“Uh… sure. What do you need me to do?”

“Hmmm….” the younger man’s brow creases, while Majima decides a bit of sleuthing is what he deserved right now. However, he could barely tell what this guy even did for a living. At least, he looked like a civilian, from what he could see. But in his eyes, Majima could sense this guy had seen some shit.

Majima ponders the question for a second. How the hell was he going to get out of here? He tries to consider his positioning to no avail.

“I can’t really see myself right now… what looks best?”

“This might work… I just hope I’m strong enough.”

Majima feels the sensation of being lifted into the air, and then begins to tilt. This lasts for a few seconds before he hears “Woah oh!” and he unceremoniously falls onto his side.

“Augh!” Majima cries out, as something hits him straight in the ass. He’s unsure if it’s his foot, or something in the trash can he forgot to move, or what. This is not a good day.

“Shit, sorry. Here, hold on.”

He feels the trash can stop rolling, then he’s tilted once again. His feet find purchase on concrete. I guess they weren't near my ass...but then what was? 

“Do you think that’ll help?” the guy's voice is a bit more muffled than before, distracting Majima from his ass.

Somehow, his feet being level does make Majima feel like he’s more in control. It's a bit darker, but the situation feels a bit more manageable now that there's only 2 compromised limbs.

“Wait, lemme see…”

Majima contorts his arm, and gets it shoved between his legs. Maybe not the best position, but it’s not as tight. He moves his other arm flat against his back.

“Can ya lift this thing offa me?”

“Yeah, here.” Majima feels his prison begin to slowly rise off of him. Majima rises along with it, slowly moving his body to be upright. His arms move to the top of the can, and assists in pushing the can off fully.

“Phew! Freedom at last. Thank ya…”

Majima’s words trail off as he finally gets a full glance at his helper. His slim, athletic build is something Majima wishes he could have. Part of him wants to see him in a fight, but the last thing he needed to do was weird out a guy who saw it in good conscience to help. 

Damn, he really is cute. Not my type, necessarily, but wow.

“What’s yer name, kid?”

“Yagami. I’m a detective.”

For some reason, the name turns a cog in Majima’s brain, but he’s not sure from where. Maybe the news? Someone in the clan? He ignores it for now

“Well, Yagami-kun, thanks for the help. Ya didn’t need to do somethin like that.”

“Nonsense. Part of my job is to help others, and help those who get overlooked by the law. You’re no exception.”

Majima is about to open his mouth to ask how Yagami realized he was a yakuza, but then remembers both his appearance and the Tojo crest make him easily stick out. At the same time, Yagami’s words strike a chord within him, and he feels his heart both sink with grief and rise with hope.

“The Tojo Clan isn’t that scary to me. Even if you’re unrelated, I want to help when I can.”

“When’d ya get so sentimental, Yagami-kun?”

“Honestly?” Yagami looks off into the distance. “I’m not so sure.”

“Well…” Majima lets his softer tone kick in, “I’ma bit more at peace, now I know that there are more people like ya within this world. Makes life worth living, ya know?”

Yagami chuckles, a small redness flushing his cheeks, “Thank you…” he stares blankly at Majima.

“Majima.”

A smile graces Yagami’s face, and Majima finds it so hard not to see a resemblance to someone else. “Thank you, Majima-san. That’s wonderful to hear. Take care.”

Yagami turns on his heel with a wave, and walks away. Majima watches him go. In the distance, he vaguely sees Yagami look at his phone, and then sprint into the city. 

Wonder what got the guy so worked up? Majima ponders, then shrugs his shoulders, puts the trash can back in place, and wanders away.

Yagami, a local detective? Hm… I’ll keep the guy in mind.

[esc-is-holding-me-hostage]

The annual pre-show quick-fire "reviews"

Guess who procrastinated for a month and a half on this post!

Albania An Albanian song starting with a woman going "AaAaAAaaaAAAAA"? Groundbreaking. Duje is a very run-of-the-mill Albanian folk power ballad and at this point, I'm kinda tired of these.

Armenia Music good, lyrics clunky.

Australia It is, dare I say, alright.

Austria A song that everyone thought is gonna be a musical shitpost turned out to be an absolute fucking banger, god bless.

Azerbaijan I'm not sure whether I actually like it a bit or it's just me being happy that Azerbaijan has finally let local artists write their song. Now wait until the twins flop and Azerbaijan goes back to swedes-for-hire next year.

Belgium It's fine.

Croatia Is it weird that I don't have much to say about a song like this? Mama ŠČ is shocking the first time you experience it, and I do like the layers of interpretation, but it's not something I want to return to after a couple listens.

Cyprus Imagine Dragons-ass production, ugh.

Czech Republic It's pretty good but I can't fully enjoy it because of the fucking controversy. Look, I think that the girls had the best intentions in mind when writing My Sister's Crown but didn't realize that singing about Slavic unity and "choose love over power" while having a russian member might come off as problematic. Classic ignorance over malice. Still, I wish they had someone Ukrainian-speaking in the band, at least temporarily for ESC.

Denmark This type of "uwu cute softboy" music is not my thing, but eh, it's fine, I'll let zoomer kids have this one.

Estonia Well someone had to fill the ballad quota this year.

Finland It's crazy, it's party, I'm going to throw hands if it doesn't win the televote.

France Fulenn flopped so now we're back to being aggressively French. Evidemment is a bop, I like it.

Georgia It feels like they had a song that made sense in Georgian and then asked a third-grader to translate it. I'm not opposed to silly lyrics in general, but Echo is clearly trying to be meaningful but then fails at basic english grammar.

Germany "We have Rammstein at home". Blood and Glitter is fine but, I dunno, it feels a bit too "smoothed out". It just doesn't go hard enough (bold words from a Slovenia stan, I know).

Greece The most remarkable thing about this entry for me is that I've been watching Eurovision for longer than Victor has been alive.

Iceland Wish Diljá stuck with the Icelandic version.

Ireland I didn't mind We Are One at first but with every listen it just kept getting worse. This is such a formulaic, cliche, cheesy love-love-peace-peace wet napkin of a song. I've already complained about Portion Boys making a generic "eurovision unity anthem" for UMK but at least they tried to be funny. This one feels like a lazy attempt to game the system WITHOUT KNOWING HOW THAT SYSTEM ACTUALLY WORKS.

Israel My god, so much hype before the song's release and we got this? There are so many parts in this song but somehow forgot to put in a proper chorus, it's like Sekret all over again.

Italy L'essenziale is the one Italian ESC song that I always forget about. And now Due Vite is bound to join it. Eh, at least my mom loves it.

Latvia Didn't care about it when the Supernova songs first dropped, but now I'm vibing with it so much.

Lithuania It's okay ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. The "Čiūto tūto"s saved it from being totally forgettable.

Malta Somehow they've managed to find a half-decent song in the pile of garbage that was MESC. It's alright but I wish that I liked it more.

Moldova So "token pagan rave song of the year" is a thing now, huh? Glad to see Pasha's back.

The Netherlands It starts off really boring, but picks up around the second verse and becomes pretty good by the end.

Norway I think I like it but for some reason, my brain doesn't register it as a song??? It's hard to explain, but I don't see Queen of Kings as something you would listen to without some kind of visuals.

Poland Ughhhh. It's basically impossible to judge Solo on its own merit, but I'll try. And my impartial judgment is: I don't like it. Rigged selection or not, I just hate this kind of songs in general.

Portugal One of those songs that I like a lot but don't have anything specific to say about.

Romania The song's okay, and the vocals are good, but the staging is just beyond tacky. Dude, you can't pull off this type of cool, sexy image while looking like a wimpy history major freshman who barely ever shows up to class.

San Marino ... I'm a Piqued Jacks apologist now. Yeah, the lyrics are cringe, but the music? I enjoy it absolutely unironically.

Serbia "I just wanna close my eyes And just get it over with"

Yeah, dude, me too. The most relatable song of the year.

Slovenia I've jumped on the Joker Out hype train as soon as they were announced as Slovenia's participants and I'm riding that train all the way to Liverpool. Favorite song of the year.

Spain Hey, spaniards have finally gotten an artsy song about motherhood as their ESC entry! I have similar feelings about Eaea as I did about In Corpore Sano last year: absolutely mesmerizing on stage, but not something I would listen to casually.

Sweden She's gonna win, ain't she? I mean, Tattoo is fine, and the staging elevates it immensely, but it's such a predictable winner. I want more INTRIGUE, okay?

Switzerland Oh wow, boring AND tone-deaf? Switzerland is breaking new ground this year. I initially placed Watergun 31st but since then it sunk to the very bottom. Like, someone wrote this song, sat on it for several years, and decided that NOW is the best time to send it to Eurovision. Nothing against Remo, but "war bad, i don't want to go to war :c" is uhhh, rich coming from someone living in fucking Switzerland.

Ukraine I can't shake the thought that they first came up with a standard "I'm so cool, you can't hurt me, idgaf" song and then retroactively tried to give it a deeper meaning.

United Kingdom I don't even think it's a bad song and yet I lowkey hate it. It's the beat, it's driving me nuts for some reason. People hate the spoken word part, but I like it because you don't hear that bloody "dun-da-da-dun" for once.

[musewritingsforyou]

A Nervous Tic kind of Day

a/n: Hey everyone!!! thanks for all the love on my first post and welcome to an official posting streak. This one is close to my heart and a little more recent than the last one, I hope you enjoy it!

still with Medic!y/n

2.4k fluff, comfort, angst

tw: anxiety, ADHD, medication, crying, one swear

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sometimes you just get nervous. That’s part of having anxiety. Sometimes no matter what’s happening or how happy you are or what’s going right in your life, you just have days where you’re nervous. It sucks, but eventually, you get used to it. You get used to the awkward conversations and the explanations over why you can’t go out today or why your knee is making the table shake. You try to ignore the people that are staring at you in line, reminding yourself that they don’t even know you, even though your brain will tell you that they do. The only thing that makes these days a little easier is when you have someone to go through them with.

One of the first things that made me realize Harry was going to be different from the other men I had dated was the fact that I was so comfortable with him physically so soon in our relationship. For a lot of people, it can take months if not years for me to even be able to give them a short hug without feeling all uncomfortable afterward. But with Harry that was never an issue, it was barely something that crossed my mind when it came to spending time with him. This is also something that made it so much easier for him to be able to comfort me later on in our relationship. Instead of comforting me by words (or attempting to anyway), he is one of the only people in my life that could see my knee bouncing, and stop it simply by placing his hand on my leg.

When I woke up this morning and immediately opened my eyes to a blaring alarm I knew I was in for a long day. By the time I was dressed and downstairs Harry had probably been up for hours, letting me sleep in as long as possible before we had to go to meetings all day. Meeting days have always sucked to be a part of. Not because they are too boring (though they can be very slow) or because I don’t like the people there, but just being in a setting like that with the people that sign my paychecks and allow me to do everything that I do with my best friends in the world, is just a setup for anxiety.

“love you want coffee or no?” Harry asked as soon as he saw me bouncing down the stairs to put my shoes on quickly. I hesitated for a moment, knowing that I really shouldn’t, but the exhaustion deep in my bones was saying otherwise.

“yeah love I would, just some ice and-“

“Ice, almond milk, and a bit of maple syrup, I know love.” He smiled at me while I was throwing on my shoes. I was dressed decently enough that it was perfect for meetings with supervisors and tour managers and all that, but still comfortable enough that sitting in this outfit all day wouldn’t bother me one bit. Harry of course was wearing skinny jeans and a white t-shirt with his vans because he is technically in charge of everything else going on so he doesn’t need to think about whether he is being formal enough. Finally, with shoes on, bags, and coffees in hand, Harry and I left the house in the SUV and headed into London for our first meeting. One good thing about being with someone at the level of fame that Harry has is that usually when we both have to go to meetings and such, not only are they all going to be in the same building for security reasons, but he also usually gets to sit right beside me if he likes, there is no separating us for the meeting on different sides of the table or any shit like that. Every time someone from management has tried to tell him to sit with the boys, or next to a sponsor or something like that he always refuses, “s’not school anymore, no assigned seating far as I can tell” and then sits beside me.

Today we might not even have to move rooms for the different meetings which would be nice I suppose, though sometimes at least a change of scenery can help with my running brain and fidgety limbs. Before I had enough caffeine in my system to be awake, I found myself sitting at the far end of a large mahogany table, spinning black office chairs all around it with only a few empty. Harry was sat on my left, to my right was the very edge of the table and then the head where no one ever seemed to sit. At least that could help with the nervousness a little bit, the only person to sit beside and have to think about would be Harry, I tried to keep that in mind. Harry first, everyone else comes later.

As the chairs started to fill in and my brain fog finally lifted I could start to become conscious enough to know that both of my legs were bouncing under the table and my hands were sitting on my thighs, the skin on the edge of my fingers raw from being picked at. I put my hands on top of the table when I noticed, at least making it more visible for me and others so that I won’t keep doing it. Or at least, that’s the hope. It seemed there was nothing to do about my tapping legs or my racing mind however because the second the meeting had begun every single thought in my brain seemed to speed up and come to the front so all of the sudden I was left staring into space trying to sort them all out.

“and I think that actually, it might be nice to hire another-“ Harry placed his hand on my leg while a woman from across the table spoke. He leaned over into my ear

“s’all right love, we’ll have a break in a minute, yeah?” I nodded meekly but didn’t want to speak aloud in case someone heard. He kept his hand on my leg to relax it and moved the other up to take one of my hands from the table and place it over his thigh, keeping them there together so that my movement was restricted. If anyone else had tried this I would have either gone straight into a panic attack or would have more likely screamed at them for being an imbecile. But not Harry. For some reason, he can do barely anything but place a large tattooed hand on me and that’s all it takes for me to be cured. He’s my miracle worker.

“Alright, we’ll break for some lunch and all meet back here around 1:30, sound good?” There was a mumbling agreement and all but two of the black office chairs spun around as people got up and left to go get lunch or use the bathroom in the short little break they had given us from their incessant talking.

“What's going on, love? Ye’ tappin’ so fast you’d be fit for a marathon.” He laughed a little making his tone more lighthearted but I could still see the concern in his eyes.

“I don't know, just having one of those days.” We spun our chairs a little away from the table once everyone else had left the room, both of his hands were on my legs and he was letting mine fidget with the rings on his tanned hands while we spoke.

“something upset ya?” I kept my vision on his little cross.

“no, I just feel so fidgety today, like I can’t stop moving or something. I’m not even that nervous, I’m just frustrated.” He took one hand away from my leg to place it on my chin and lift my head so that I was forced to look at him.

“but you promise you’d tell me if something was wrong, yeah?” I nodded as best as I could with his hand still holding my head. He saw it but still held there for a moment before moving the hand from my chin to cupping my cheek, stroking the skin there with the pad of his thumb before pulling my chair in with one leg and kissing the top of my head.

“Well, let's go get some food in you, and besides, poor Niall looked like he was fidgeting bad too, guess these meeting days are hard for some.” After we managed to thread our way around the halls to a vending machine and a few people standing around it we ran into Niall waiting there for a cup of coffee from the machine. I looked at him and then at the machine back and forth a few times.

“do you honestly think that’s the best idea?” He glanced back at me and nodded.

“Forgot to bring my meds to London.”

“I have some.”

“you have my meds? Why do you have my meds?” I laughed and Harry looked down at me while we were still standing with his arm around my back, side to side.

“Do you forget what my job is?” He grabbed the now full cup of coffee and held it in his hand for a moment, losing at it longingly before handing it to Harry.

“guess you're right, besides if I’m going to have to sit still for another four hours to talk about what color we want as the trim for the next stage I’m going to need some drugs.” Even though we were able to walk around the building it still felt a little like we were caged animals trying to escape every time we left the board room. There were only a few floors in the building that had anything on them but more boardrooms and offices, and we didn’t think leaving would be a good idea if we wanted to keep our heads.

Eventually, we found some snacks and ate them in an empty room together before heading back to the big mahogany table where dreams go to die. This time when we sat back down Harry didn’t even have a moment's pause before hooking my leg with his ankle to pull my chair closer and taking my hands in his on his lap. I looked up at him with a little smile, thankful for all he was doing to help me today.

“Thank you.” I whispered to him as people started to file back into the room to continue our meeting. He looked down and stared at my eyes for a minute before kissing me on the forehead.

“you can thank me after we get to leave this bloody meeting”

-----

Contrary to all of our beliefs there was in fact five more hours of meeting, not three, and I had to give Niall more meds twice just to be able to control the shaking of the table from the two of us bouncing our knees so badly. But eventually, after the sun had set and what was a beautiful day was gone and done with, we all filed into the elevator with Paul and then into our cars and headed home. By the time we had gotten home and eaten some real food, it was already nearing eleven. Haz and I headed up to our bed and did our usual reading for a while before he abruptly grabbed my bookmark and placed it in my book after putting his own down on his bedside table.

“yes?” I asked him as he was staring at me while laying on his side.

“ You need help relaxing.” I raised my eyebrows at him and gestured to the book.

“thanks Bub, but I think the book was helping so-“ as I reached back for the book he shook his head at me and pulled my hand away.

“baby, you were picking at your fingers that entire time.”

“oh”

I sat there for a minute in silence, not quite sure what the next step was going to be. It wasn’t like this would be the first time Harry would be helping me to relax before bed or anything like that, but it never gets easier for me to ask someone for help. Especially not with something that I felt so ashamed of. He took a hand and placed it under my chin before moving my head up slightly to look at him.

“you know that it's okay to ask for my help yeah? That’s what this is, right poppet? You help me when I get scared before stage or when I’m sick. So let me help you with this okay?” While he said it I was looking into his eyes. Even though most of my brain is telling me what he said isn't true, I know that I need to start believing it. So even as a single tear slips out of my eyes I nod anyway and turn over to place my head on his chest. He turned off the lights and shuffled around so that my whole body was encapsulated in his grasp. He started to move one hand in my hair, running it through over and over while the other one did calculated circles on my back. After a few minutes of doing that in silence, he could feel my body start to tense up as I got fidgety from the lack of movement.

“shhh, don’t pay attention to it, okay? Just pay attention to me.” The hand on my back went to doing larger and slower circles with a little more pressure, every single touch taking a second of my attention away from the itching feeling I had to move.

“It'll pass baby, just give it a second.” He spoke softly and almost directly in my ear. Eventually, whether from his iron grip on my body, forcing me to stay still, or the sound of his familiar voice, my eyes started to flutter close.

“Let it happen, love, I’m right here, nothings going to go wrong” he kept speaking and rubbing my back while my eyes closed, the dark only getting marginally more so from my head being pressed into his chest. I know he kept speaking after I closed my eyes but I only heard a few words here and there.

“Sleep, I’m not going anywhere, you’ll be just fine.”

[veebs-hates-video-games]

Ok more catching up, featuring a bunch more mini-posts condensed into one, for several things I don't have all that much to say about (and then later at some point a couple bigger ones for things I have bigger opinions on: Visions of Mana and 1000xRESIST).

I don't think I ever got around to mentioning Zenzizenzic, but even if I did it's now getting an acknowledgment that I'm giving up on it cause I'm not good enough at it to get any further. It's a shame it's not available for sale anywhere anymore though because it's a good and stylish twin stick bullet hell game. It's also a shame the soundtrack was pulled for sale from everywhere at some point, because it's great and I'd gladly pay money for it.

Jewel Match Solitaire Summertime exists. It's more Jewel Match Solitaire. No more and no less than any of the other games, just a slightly different theme. I pull one out every now and then when my brain won't brain enough to do anything else, and I replenish my stock when they go on sale really cheap.

One Deck Dungeon seems alright. I like the idea of a dice-based roguelike, and it seems to have decent enough mechanics and decision-making. I just didn't really feel compelled to keep playing past the first run. Didn't really grab me for some reason.

Clear Skye Thinking is cute and fun and ebi-hime back on form after whatever that last one was that I tried and bounced off really hard. As usual it's good without quite being great and probably won't leave much of a lasting impression on me, but it's cute yuri fluff, and sometimes that's all you need.

the static speaks my name...exists? Probably? I apparently played it but remember almost nothing about it beyond a vague slightly-positive-of-neutral feeling about it. It was just strange enough to be a little bit interesting, but not strange enough to stick with me at all for more than a day or two.

I finally got around to trying RYB after however many years, and it's got some good puzzles. I didn't finish it though because some of the stuff introduced later on made the puzzles not read as clearly to me visually, and that made it enough less fun that I didn't want to bother.

On the plus side that led me to 20 Small Mazes by the same person, which feels better put together. Good puzzles, good presentation, and knows exactly how much to explore its core concepts without overstaying its welcome. Very much looking forward to their next game that's already been announced that I'm blanking on the name of. Strange Jigsaws, maybe? Whatever it was it has the best trailer for anything ever.

And then finally I tried playing Dad of Boy God of War. I was feeling hopeful about it because people had made it sound interesting, and even though the first hour was not my usual thing it seemed like it had potential. I really, really didn't enjoy playing it as a game though, so I'll probably never find out what happens with it. At least I got my periodic reminder to stop thinking I might actually enjoy big AAA games like that though. Nearly every time I try they extremely don't really do it for me. One of these days that lesson will stick permanently instead of me needing a reminder every once in a while.

[prentissluvr]

Rossi also joins Emily singing, but almost takes over and attempts some Pavarotti song, its not good... but it could be alot worse. And Emily tries to join in but she just makes up the tune as she doesn't really know the songs.

Oh and obviously penelope joins in but loudly asks evey two seconds what song are the singing and then breaks out into either a Disney song or an early 2000s club tune, no in-between.

So many thoughts entered my brain in such a short amount of time but I belive that I am done for now aha

- 🌨

i’m just gonna answer these all together! i LOVE your thoughts <33

i completely agree with everything you said hehe. luke’s voice isn’t stunning or out of the ordinary, but it’s almost unexpected how nice it is!! it’s not like he goes around singing for everyone and he doesn’t necessarily strike you as the type to sing enough to have a decent voice. but it’s sort of just naturally nice!! plus us latinos spend lots of time dancing and singing and there’s no way his abuelita didn’t make him sing hymns too when he was younger lmao. i think he mostly hums classic spanish songs that he grew up listening to. cielito lindo, etc. anyways!! he actually really enjoys singing, he just doesn’t do it for other people often. ahhh and the idea of him singing to roxy is soooo so cute!! he definitely lets loose more at home!! and will totally sing for his s/o with a wide grin if they ask him to <33

and emily HAHA i have no defense for her LOL I AGREE. she’s the kind of person that you expect not to have a good singing voice and she absolutely matches those expectations HAHA. she’s not trying to be bad :,) but she’s never had a natural nice voice, is kind of tone deaf, and certainly has never actively tried to improve. she thinks of it as a special skill to annoy people when she sings!! but i 100% agree that it’s so endearing to see her let loose a little and sing her little off key songs LOL. it’s really nice to see her feel comfortable and having fun so yeah, everyone lets it happen. and garcia 100% encourages it!! she’s always trying to get emily singing because it’s so sweet to see her tipsy smile and the way it makes everyone else crack up or cringe lovingly lol. jj totally makes fun of her, but also joins in for the fun of it.

and rossi HAHA he’s the type to cringe at emily’s bad singing because he holds such a regard for the beauty of classic italian music lolol. he definitely sings those songs during parties to “show her how it’s done.” and while he’s mostly in tune, he doesn’t actually have the best voice lmao. definitely better and more practiced than emily though of course.

and back to penny! yes she’s trying to join in because it’s fun!! but the songs are kind of boring to her so she switches things up. that’s when emily will really get into it and jj and other folks will join in!!

jj knows all the disney songs and totally gets down to the club songs with the girls <33 it might turn into a sweet but sort of unhinged dance party hehe

your honor i love my cm family so much <33 tysm for sharing your thoughts bestie

[the-enigmatic-universe-theory]

Chapter 1

Arawna Segrey

The stomping of feet, the scratchiness of his voice, the scraping of the knife, the pounding of flesh on flesh. The slamming of the screen door. So many sounds, too many. I just want to get out. Get out, get out, get out. But even after I get out there's noise. The cars, the people, oh GOD the people. They make the most noise. And now I'm going somewhere where the people are numerous, and the noise unending. So much noise. 

***

My feet shuffle along the sidewalk, making a scratching noise as I go. Shuffle, shuffle; shuffle shuffle. I left too late, I missed the bus. I'm going to be late and miss most of my classes. By the time I left 2nd period had begun, and although it was a small town, the walk to school was still long; even longer since I had to avoid the new dangerous areas. I used to be able to take the short way, walking across grass patches, and ducking into the alleyways, but the frequent kidnappings prevent it now. It's not like it would be easy to snatch me up and take me away, due to my powers of course, but I’ve gotten into enough fights this morning and received enough bruises, no need to add any more to the list. 

I wrap my arms around my small middle, huddling into myself for warmth. The thin red jacket is all I have, and with fall settling in, it might not be enough. I have the money to buy a new jacket, and my job pays decently, but I have no idea whether or not it’ll suddenly go missing within a couple of days. That tends to happen anytime someone brings food, clothing, or anything you can sell, into the house. It's one of those lessons I learned the hard way. I can still remember the day I decided to start hiding my things. 

My uncle usually goes out to a bar to drink, except for the times when he has a bunch of his friends staying with us. I try to be scarce around the house when this happens because even if I had no brain I’d know, grown men, beer, and a teenage girl mix about as well as pineapples on pizza. Unfortunately, this was one of those times, and I had no one else’s house to crash at. I didn’t have any other choice but to stay there. Well really, I did, but I know from experience sleeping outside was the last thing you want to do in the middle of winter. So I stayed up in my room, trying to avoid them the best I could. I managed to stay up in my room all night, with little to no interaction with the men. I thought I would be fine, and that I was secure up in my room by myself. It was a mistake to think that, and an even bigger mistake to fall asleep. By the time I woke up that morning, all the money I had saved up, all the things I had bought myself to survive, and all my uncle's friends, were gone.

After that, I took a knife out of the kitchen and started carving out hiding spots. The whole time I was fuming, but I couldn’t blame anyone but myself, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how many times I cursed his name as I stabbed into the wood of my bedroom floor. But I knew it was my fault, for being so careless and trusting of others. I should've known better, and for a while after, I thought I did. I thought I had stopped being that naive little girl who had let strangers take her things, but I hadn’t. It took losing something far more important than everyday items for that little girl to understand. She’s gone now, forced to grow up in the cruel world, but at least I know now, that the only person you can trust in this world, where snakes and serpents are disguised as saints, is yourself.

***

For the rest of the walk to school, I contemplated everything that had happened that morning with my uncle. How I might've been able to avoid the situation. I can’t afford to miss too much more school, I had already been held back a grade, and the sooner I could leave this wretched town the better. 

It wasn’t just my uncle that made this town horrible, it was everything. The weather sucked, always being dreary and with little to no sun, even in the summer. There was trash everywhere, making the whole place stink. And as far as I could tell, the people here are all pieces of shit. I’ve met only a handful of decentish people, and even then, the decentness tends to wear off after a couple of days. I’ve been saving up money for a while, since I was 13, and am only making enough to buy myself necessities, plus a little extra - which I save. My pay isn’t bad, it's just that I can’t get as many hours as I need to make more money, with school and all. It helps that I have nothing to do in the summer. The boss of the car wash I work at usually lets me take on more hours then, but still, I don’t know if I’ll have enough to move out when I graduate. My uncle made it clear that, by the time I graduate, I’m getting kicked out, whether I have somewhere to go or not. That's why I’ve been applying everywhere I can, hoping they’ll be able to pay me more than the car wash. I kind of feel bad about leaving them, when I’ve worked for them for almost 6 years, but I need the money. 

It's money, and my uncle I'm thinking about when I walk into the school building, signing myself in for being late. I try to clear my head as I make my way down the halls and to class. My 5th period has just started, and luckily, it's the easiest class. Since people began getting inhabited by spirits, and coming back with powers, our school decided to put in a new class. Everyone who has powers has to take it, and for the most part, it's fairly easy. They have us do exercises and different activities to try and help us control our powers. I’ve been taking this class for many years now, so I’m a pro at using my powers. Others. . . not so much. I don’t mind the class, but a lot of times, the people with the least control cause accidents.

Usually, you can hear these accidents happening a mile away: students screaming, banging on the wall, loud explosions. So I'm grateful when I make it to the quiet classroom. I don’t bother knocking on the door, - it's always unlocked in case someone causes a fire - before I use my powers to turn the handle and push it open. The door creaks, and slams into the back wall with a loud bang, letting me know I used too much force. Thanks door. 

I turn back to the room, and a set of eyes fix directly on mine. Well, technically, almost everyone in the room has their eyes on me after that display, but these are new eyes. Weirdly enough, they're kind of pretty. 

That's the last thing I think before a migraine shoots through my head, my eyes going blurry. My whole body spasms with a deep chill, and I squirm with discomfort, and then it all unexpectedly stops. I look up and for a millisecond we make eye contact. The pretty-eyed boy looks away, breaking eye contact, and giving me a chance to clear my head. The migraine that was once pounding through my skull is now only a dim ache, the chill is gone, but I can still feel it - whatever it was -, like a ghost of a touch. I’m ok, physically at least. I stare at the boy, the only person who could be responsible for this. I’m not stupid, this is a power education class, and before I barged in here, he was the only one standing. Plus, he’s new, and new kids always have to do a power demonstration, I just didn’t think I’d be on me. 

“What was that?” I ask him. His face is pink and he still won’t look at me. He has to answer the question, it’s the most important. I don’t like others using their powers on me; my body is my body, and to fully make sure I'm ok I need to know what he did to me. 

“I-um kinda sorta, usedmypowersonyou?” He still doesn’t look at me when he says this. It’s like he has a problem with eye contact.

“Well no duh dipshit,” I sigh, “but what do they do?”

“Uhhh it depends, what I did on you was um- mind reading I guess?” 

“You guess? What do you mean you guess? Do you not know what your powers do or something?”

“I mean yes and no? I know what some of my powers are, like mind reading and illusion but I don’t know if there’s anymore.” Of course, he doesn’t. This is fucking great! I have an amateur messing with my head and looking into my mind. I swear to god if he fried a part of my brai-.

“Fuck off okay, I only got them a few years ago, excuse me for not being perfect.” Damn, okay, this boy has attitude. Too bad for him cause not only do I have attitude too, but I also happened to have had a shitty morning. I kind of hope he can hear me, so that he fully knows I don’t appreciate some dickwad poking around in my head, seeing things he shouldn’t be seeing. But, what did he see? And then I stop breathing, and even though my lungs start to burn I don’t continue. I’m frozen to the spot, terrified of the answer he might give.

I look at him, with his pink cheeks and pretty eyes that won’t meet mine, and then slowly start to breathe, I need to pull myself together. He’s waiting for an answer. The whole class is waiting for an answer. We’re making a scene, and they’re all watching us, like a new TV show. I don’t blame them, it might’ve been enjoyable for me too if I wasn’t involved. But I am, and everyone is still waiting, and I need to pull. myself. together. I focus on my breathing, evening it out until my breaths are steady and coming at a normal rate. I flex my fingers, curling them into fists and then out. They work fine, not frozen. 

I look around at everyone else, they don’t need to hear the rest of this conversation, it’s none of their business. 

My gaze focuses back onto the boy, the boy with pretty eyes who still won’t make eye contact with me. Is what he saw that bad? Maybe, but I won’t know until I ask. 

“Can we go outside, to talk.?” I ask, gesturing with my hand to the door. “ I promise I won’t bite.” He lets out a light huff, almost akin to a laugh.

“Sure.” 

I begin to walk back out of the door, the stupid door that slammed shut. I thought about kicking it for a good second before shaking off the thought. That door had caused me enough problems for one day, I didn’t need to add a stubbed toe to the list. 

When we were both outside with the door firmly shut I turned to him. 

“What did you see!” I demanded. 

“If you're talking about what your uncle did then yeah, I saw that.” 

I shook my head. “That’s not specific enough. What exactly was he doing?” Her uncle did a lot of things, and she wasn’t about to reveal more than she needed to.

“I don’t think we should be talking about what he did in a public setting, but since you’re so insistent then I’m talking about him murdering your sister and most of the horrible things he did to you.”

I was shaking my whole body. Out of all the memories he could have seen, every horrible thing, every touch he forced on me, every threat and beating, he sees the thing I didn’t ever want anyone to know about. 

I nod, because I don’t know what else to say. This boy is a total stranger, and in a matter of seconds, he has gotten into my head, finding things out about me no one ever should have. “What do you want?” Despite my shaking, my voice is calm, I refuse to be weak.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? What do you want, money, service, a house?”

“What the fuck are you talking about!? The only thing I want is for you to leave me the hell alone!” Is this dude whack? 

“You’re the one who asked me out here!?”

“Because I wanted to know what you saw! I wanted to know whether I had to worry about you opening your big mouth to say shit that you shouldn't be saying! So what do you want? What do I have to give you to shut you up about what you saw?” I don’t understand him, what game is he playing? Is he just fucking with my head?? Jokes on him, too late for that, I'm already fucked up as is.

“You don’t have to give me anything! I feel bad enough about invading your privacy like that. If anything I should give something to you so that I’m not guilt-ridden for the rest of my days here.”

I stare at him. “Are you kidding?” I'm in shock, I don’t know what to think about what he just said. Hell, I don’t even know if I believe him. “Are you being serious, like actually?”

“Yeah, Why wouldn’t I? I genuinely feel bad for doing that to you. Like I said can I make it up to you?”

I look away from him, the stranger boy with the pretty eyes who’s apologizing for reading my mind and ‘invading my privacy’. I don’t know what to think of him. I’m used to people treating me like absolute shit, I'm used to insults, and threats, I'm used to mean mean people., I’m not used to this. 

“Just, don’t say anything. It isn’t your problem. You don’t owe me anything except your silence. Besides, I don’t take charity, from anyone.”

“Fine, I won’t give you anything. But, could you possibly show me around the school? You don’t have to of course, it’s kinda weird for me to ask that of you now, sorry.”

“To be honest, I don’t want to. I want to go . . . somewhere that isn’t here, and forget this happened. I want to wish you out of existence because I don’t like that you know what you know. But I will show you around I mean, because I'm not a total shithead, and the sooner you manage to navigate the school the more time you’ll be able to spend figuring out your mind power thingies, and that's something you're gonna need to do to survive here. Other people won’t be as chill about you getting in their minds. Got it?”

“Yeah, I know I just wasn’t expecting someone to y'know break down the door in the middle of class, apologies for being surprised.”

“ I didn’t break down the door. I just closed it, a tad too roughly.”

“You almost sent it off its hinges.” 

“Almost, I didn’t break it down.” I let out a sigh of frustration. The door is perfectly fine. 

“Anyways. Are you going to show me around now?” 

“Yeah, I guess. But we should go back to the classroom first. Tell the teacher what we're doing.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that, Let’s go..” 

“Don’t tell me what to do,” I say, then turn toward the classroom.