#i usually don't make collages and the last time I did was while I was in a psychiatric treatment center and it was made of just words

[dailyadventureprompts]

Do the ethnostates inherent in major fantasy ever feel real weird to you? You’ve got elftopia (full of elves, where everyone speaks elf and worships the elf gods), orc-hold (full of orcs and maybe their slaves, where everyone speaks orc and worships the orc gods), and dwarfton (made by the dwarves! for the dwarves!).

You might have some cosmopolitan areas, usually human-dominant, but those are usually rare enough in-setting that they need to be pointed out separately. Is this just based on a misunderstanding of the medieval era, and the assumption that countries were all racially homogenous?

This has been bouncing around my brain the last little while. Do you have any thoughts on that? Is it just in my head?

I think what you've noticed is a quirk of derivative fantasy writing, which like a lot of hangups with the genre originates in people trying to crib Tolkien's work without really understanding what he was going for:

Though it contains a lot of detail, Tolkien's world is not grounded. It functions according a narrative logic that changes depending on what work in particular you're focusing on at the time (The Hobbit is a fairytale full of tricks and riddles, Lord of the Rings is a heroic epic, The Silmirilion is a legendary history).

One of the reasons the races are separate is to instill the feeling of wonder in the hobbits as POV characters for the reader, other folk live in far off places and are supposed to feel more legendary than our comparatively mundane friends from the shire. The Movies captured this well where going east in middle earth was like going back in time to a more and more mythologized past.

In real life, people don't stay static for thousands of years, no matter how long their people live. They meet, mingle, war and trade. Empires rise and fall creating shrapnel as they go, cultures adapt to a changing environment. This means that any geographic cross section you make is going to be a collage of different influences where uniformity is a glaring aberration.

What the bad Tolkien knockoffs did was take his image of a mythical world and tried to make it run in a realistic setting. Tolkien can say the subterranean dwarven kingdom of Erebor lasted for a thousand years without having to worry about birthrates or demographic shifts or the logistics of farming in a cave because he's writing the sort of story where those things don't matter. D&D and other properties like it however INSIST that their worlds are grounded and realistic but have to bend over backwards to keep things static and hegemonic.

Likewise contributing to the "ethnostate" feeling is early d&d (backbone of the fantasy genre that it is) being created by a bunch of White Midwestern Americans who were not only coming from a background of fantasy wargaming but were working during the depths of the coldwar. Hard borders and incompatible ideologies, cultural hegemony and intellectual isolation, a conception of the world that focused around antagonism between US and THEM. These were people born in the era of segregation for whom the idea of cultural and racial osmosis was alien, to the point where mingling between different fantasy races produced the "mongrelman" monster, natural pickpockets who combined the worst aspects of all their component parts, unwelcome in good society who were most often found as slaves.

This inability to appreciate cultural exchange is likewise why the central d&d pantheon has a ton of human gods with specific carveouts for other races (eventually supplemented with a bunch of race specific minor gods who are various riffs on the same thing). Rather than being universal ideals, the gods were seen as entities just as tribalistic as their followers.

[iid-smile]

⭑ — THE SNOW WHITE PRINCESS IS

お願い KISS で目を醒まして欲しいの

白い棺から連れ出すよう

content — sakura haruka x fem!reader, the reader is referred to as "princess" and wears a dress, brief mention of suo and the class, the reader has parents, he calls you pretty,

wc — 0.9k (how??)

dec 3rd ⭑ event masterlist — for the lovely @hanaeriin !

a/n: pretend i didnt forget to post this yesterday + im gonna edit it because idk what the hell happened while i was writing

princesses, fairytales, fantasy... haruka never got the appeal over why people are so obsessed with romance and happy-ending stories. it's not real, it's made up, and it's stupid.

once or twice, he's taken a peek at your phone whenever you don't respond to him calling your name. maybe you were studying, maybe there's something super important that you just can't tear your eyes off it, but no. it's heaps and heaps of short clips, all having a common theme, ballroom dancing and huge dresses.

now that he thinks about it, he used to hear you gush about disney princes, or how magical and perfect the princesses' lives seem to be, minus any dilemma that takes up the majority of the movie.

well, that's an idea! you can be a princess for a day as a gift, and he'll be your prince. oh, that's cheesy...

with a little consulting from a certain love adviser with an eyepatch, he was forced convinced into committing to his idea, his brief idea spiralling into something much more complicated than it needed to be. either way, he feels almost obligated to, especially since this is your first december together.

here's the catch; haruka has no idea how to dance. he can do the hokey pokey (barely), but he cannot do whatever the hell you see in those videos. he's never had great limb coordination unless it's been for fighting, so basically he's at the level of a baby learning how to walk for the first time.

twenty-five days. he had twenty five days to learn how to dance.

in the meantime, his little helping elves (he did not choose this alias, they did) were fixing up a dress for you, gathering up money from each member of the class to make their grade captain's girlfriend happy.

soon, the day finally came; christmas morning. he's been stressed all the way up until the moment he reached you front door, eyes trained to the ground with thoughts of doubt running all over him. what if he messes the whole thing up and ruins your day? his hand absentmindedly reaches up to knock on the door, dreading the moment he hears footsteps approaching and praying to anybody out there that you're still asleep.

with the permission of your parents and a flustered explanation later, he makes his way to your room, trying his best to keep the long trail of skirt material from touching the ground.

quietly, he enters, and the door shuts, making little to no sound. your room certainly hasn't changed much since he's last been here. as usual, he cringes at your embarrassing collage of photos together, as well as a few additional trinkets he spots dotted around the area.

he lays the dress carefully over a nearby chair and approaches your side. how was he supposed to do this? nudge you awake? call your name? how would a prince wake up a princess? thank god nobody's here to witness this...

here goes nothing.

your brain shakes itself awake from a soft yet firm sensation on your lips. it's familiar, comforting, and something you've grown well addicted to. your head tilts as you deepen the kiss ever so slightly, before leaning back to take a look at the culprit.

there he was, your prince charming now adorned in a fancy suit that you'd never imagine he'd ever wear, hair slicked back with a few loose strands over his forehead, and his thumb gently rubbing over the back of your hand.

did he get ahead of himself? "u-um—" every rational thought slipped from his mind, only a stuttering mess left behind. "i—"

"am i dreaming? you're really a prince?" you whisper, sleep still present in your voice and your hands lazily press against his cheeks. there's a slight burn against your fingertips, yet you still brush them just underneath his eyes, to confirm if you were awake or not.

he'll just go along with it. "yes... and i..." deep breaths, deep breaths. "i'd like to take you to the ball."

your head tilts in confusion. "the ball?" gears turn in your head as you put the puzzle pieces together. "like cinderella? but my hair! my makeup—!"

"you don't need any of that." he mumbles, lips pursing from his honesty. "you're pretty as you are right now."

"what about a dress? i don't have one..."

"you do." and he moves out of you way, enough for you to see the stunning dress that has magically appeared in your room.

you don't even have time to react before you're suddenly yanked up to your feet, one of his hands on your waist and the other still holding your hand. his feet start to move in a graceful pattern, and you somehow manage to fall into the rhythm, even with no music. you can see the amount of concentration on his face, as if he's practiced this day and night, knowing exactly where to go, exactly where to stop and pull you close and hold you tighter. for once, you seem to be more rattled than him.

finally, you're in line with the dress, hands tentatively reaching out to touch the material. it's beautiful, seeming to be your exact size as you lay it over your body.

the sound of you unzipping the back snaps haruka out of his trance, tumbling his way to the door. "i'll give you some privacy." though he can't see it, you nod, a soft smile overcoming your face as you continue to admire the garment in front of you.

now that you think about it, you have had an odd conversation here and there about clothing sizes, plus random visits to tailors because haruka's uniform "didn't fit anymore", plus going to more high-end shoe stores that you've always dreamed of going to, and oh.

he really did this all for you, didn't he?

[hippiegoth97]

Into the Fire: An Eddie Munson x Reader Story Pt. 13

Collage by me :)

Master List

Part 12

Tag List: @rafescurtainbangz @voyeurmunson @xxbimbobunnyxx @taintedcigs @mediocredreams

@slowandsteddie @angel-munson @eldermayfield @munsonsbtch @babygorewhore

@rattkween86 @violetpixiedust @bimbobaggins69 @purplehazed-h @morning-rituals

@eddie-van-munson @msgexymunson @munsoneightysixx @impmunson @mysticalstar30

@jenniquinn @oneforthemunny @succubusmunson @ddeadly-succubus @prettyboyeddiemunson

@sanctumdemunson @stalactitekilla @s6raphic @hellfirenacht @birdysaturne

@ohmeg @h-ness1944 @pretendthisnameisclever @ahoyyharrington @micheledawn1975

@costellation-hunter @josephquinnsfreckles @leelei1980 @yourdailymemedelivery @spacedoutdaydreamer

Content Warning 18+ Only, Minors DNI: swearing, alcohol use, anger, anxiety, smut, masturbation, squirting, unprotected sex, praise/degradation, slight voyeurism/exhibitionism, crying, mild arguing, mentions of a dead parent

Word Count: 8.8k

Divider by @strangergraphics

Part 13: Human

Wednesday, April 12th, 1989

Your alarm clock wakes you up at 7:30am, blaring its harsh trill in a persistent rhythm. The sound hurts your head, your wound throbbing at the back of your skull. Eddie grumbles beneath you, not wanting to get up. You place a whisper of a kiss on his cheek before slipping out of bed to shut the alarm off. His good eye flutters open when the room is quiet again. "Come back to bed, love. You're so warm and cozy." Sleep saturates his voice, it's really adorable.

"I can't, Eds. I have to shower and get ready for my exam. You can stay in bed if you want. I know you're really tired." You stroke his hair, which makes him smile warmly at you. He just nods in reply, closing his eye to continue resting. You don't blame him one bit. If you didn't have your final, you'd be knocked out right next to him all day.

You go through your usual routine, taking your time as your head is pounding again. You take a shower first, carefully letting the water run over your stitches. It doesn't feel great, but the doctor said to keep the area clean and you don't have time to deal with an infection. You return to your room wrapped in a towel, quietly digging around your drawers to pull out some fresh jeans and a t-shirt.

Eddie's snoring again, you watch his chest rise and fall in the mirror's reflection while you dress. You hate to leave him alone all morning, you're sure he'll be a bit stir-crazy without you or anything to occupy his mind. Maybe he'll get curious and dig around in your room, if he hasn't before. You giggle quietly at that thought, picturing Eddie attempting to glean new information about you from old stuffed animals and journals you've long since neglected. You walk over to him, giving another kiss to his forehead. He stirs slightly, an indescribably cute noise escaping his mouth.

You tiptoe out of the room, not wanting to disturb him. You slowly close the door behind you, traveling down the hall to the kitchen. Dustin is at the island munching on some Eggos, and Mom is frying up some bacon and eggs. You see your portion, but she's making more than usual. It's probably for Eddie. "Mornin' kiddos! How'd you sleep?" Mom asks with her back turned.

"I slept alright, Eddie's still asleep." You reply, which makes her face drop slightly. Dustin also gives a worried glance.

"Is he alright? He looked like a zombie when you brought him home last night." Dustin asks, concerned about his friend.

"He's alright. Yesterday really shook him up. He did wake up at first, but I told him he can stay in bed if he wants."

"Well, I'll put a plate for him in the microwave. I'd hate for him to go hungry." Mom says, clearly nervous about today. You've scared the hell out of her with yesterday's incident. And tonight she has to break bread with her ex-husband's mistress and their kids. You feel so guilty for putting her through all this, you wonder if she still thinks Eddie is the right man for you.

"I'll leave a note before we go, I'm sure he'll appreciate it." You keep conversation light, getting a plate from the cabinet to serve yourself. "You ready for your tests today, Dusty?" You ask, Mom's focus has drifted away from him lately in favor of you and Eddie. Another thing you feel very guilty about.

"Born ready!" He says cheerfully, luckily he doesn't seem to have taken the shift in attention personally. He knows Mom has been doting on you for years to get into a serious relationship. And now that you have, she's over the moon. Well, at least she was. The jury is still out on whether that sentiment remains.

"Good." You smile at him, taking a bite of egg into your mouth. The three of you finish eating, and you go back to your room one last time to retrieve your bag. You scribble out a note for Eddie, which reads:

I'll be back in a couple hours, love. There's a plate for you in the microwave, please be kind to yourself today.-Your Girl ♡

You set it on the nightstand, hoping he sees it instead of freaking out when he wakes up to an empty house. You give him one last kiss, unable to resist. He hums lightly, and you worry you've woken him up now. He doesn't do anything else besides shift a little in the bed. You sling your bag over your shoulder, glancing back at him one last time before heading to the front door. Mom leads the way to the car, you in the front and Dustin in the back. The ride is pretty quiet, you can sense a different tense energy growing in your mother.

Dustin is dropped off first as the high school is closer. Claudia pulls away after saying goodbye, and she glances at you oddly. "What's up, Mom?" You ask, your voice faltering.

"Nothing, nothing." She shakes her head insistently, but you're not convinced. You look at her purposefully, and she sighs before speaking again. "I'm just worried, that's all." She says, a tinge of judgment hiding just below the surface of her tone.

"About what?" You want clarification as there's many things she could be referring to. You pick at your hands, anticipating what she's going to say.

"You and Eddie." She says plainly, knowing you're onto her.

"In what way?"

"Well, sugarpuff...I just, I worry that maybe he's not what you need right now." There it is. The other shoe finally drops. You scoff, not in disbelief of her feeling this way. It's more that you had hoped she'd be better than this.

"What's that supposed to mean? You think he's not good enough for me?" You're getting defensive, you've already told her it wasn't his fault.

She sighs again, considering her words carefully. "I don't mean it like that. He's a sweet young man, and he clearly cares for you. And I know you love him, honey. But...yesterday was easily the worst day of my life. I was worried to death. Getting the call at work that you were at the hospital scared the shit out of me." She can't help tearing up a little, the initial thought when she received that call was that you'd been in a car accident or something.

"I know, Mom. It was no picnic for me or Eddie, either. I've already told you, it wasn't his fault. Jason was being a piece of shit because we wanted to do the right thing." Your heart is sinking as this talk continues, you really hope she doesn't ask you to break up with him. You won't, no matter what she says. But to have her even ask would crush you both. Eddie already worries about being good enough for you. If Mom gives even a hint of that sentiment to him, he'll surely save you the trouble and cut himself out of your life.

"I understand that, Y/N. But I need you to understand something, too. You are my child, and it's my job to do everything I can to protect you. This mess had me and Dusty in shambles yesterday. So, if Eddie gets you hurt or in trouble again, I don't want him in my house. And I certainly won't keep that promise I made if that happens. Do you understand me?" Her question rings through the air just as you pull up to the college. She looks at you fully, her face hardened as she expects a quick answer.

"Yes, I understand." You say begrudgingly, resisting the urge to roll your eyes. This is so fucking unfair, she's treating you like a little kid again. You get where she's coming from, you truly do. But she should know by now that Eddie does everything in his power to take care of you. One little mistake, and she doesn't trust him anymore. She's no better than every other fucker in this town that takes one look at Eddie and only sees trouble.

"I can tell you're not happy with me, sugarpuff. You get your bull-headedness from me, ya know. But I'm serious. One more mess-up, and you're on your own in regards to him. Now, go ace that test. I'll be waiting right here with my novel." She attempts to smile, but you don't buy it. The anger in your eyes shines through crystal clear. You get out of the car without another word. You'll say something you regret if you open your mouth.

You make your way to the exam room, unable to calm the seething feeling inside you. Great, now your testing flow is thrown off. Part of you wants to flunk this test on purpose, just to spite her. You could always blame it on your head injury, you could even get a redo if it came down to it. You're just so upset that she would threaten to ban Eddie from your house if he 'screws up' again. This wasn't his fault. Why can't she see that? You dread going back home after the exam. Eddie will know you're hiding something. But you can't possibly tell him what Mom said.

You take your seat, forcing the rage into a deep recess of your mind as you wait for the go-ahead to open your test booklet. You take your time, drawing out every answer in an effort to stall facing your beaten boyfriend. You have a secondary thought process going in your mind as you fill in the scantron bubbles, coming up with a way to hide what Mom said from Eddie. You don't want to lie, but he can't handle something like this right now. He's hanging by a thread as it is, so you'll have to put up an act. The very idea of doing this makes you sick, but what choice do you have? Ugh, maybe I should just tell him. You really don't know what to do at this point, turning the attention away from the subject for now.

You finish second to last, with only fifteen minutes left in the allotted time. Mom will be worried again, this plan is backfiring already. Your professor gives you an odd look when you return your testing materials, she expected you to finish way before everyone else. She's about to ask if you're alright, it reads plainly on her face. You can't take another person worrying about you, so you leave before she can speak. You make your way outside and get back in the car, clicking your seatbelt in place.

"That took a while. How'd it go?" Mom asks while glancing at her watch.

"It went fine." You reply shortly. You don't even look at her, you can't. She's really pissed you off this time. She sighs again, becoming rather annoyed herself. She wonders if she shouldn't have said anything at all. She doesn't mean to be harsh, she's just looking out for you.

"Okay." It comes out of her mouth barely above a whisper, and she puts the car in drive to take you both home. The whole ride is silent, suffocating. You hate it, but you refuse to let this go. There's certainly no hiding this from Eddie now, you're far from a good actress. Let's just hope everyone can calm the fuck down before dinner later on.

Mom stalls the car in the driveway, and you leave her behind to go inside. You leave the front door open for her, though you're tempted to slam it. You find Eddie eating his plate of food in the kitchen, struggling to avoid touching his nose or busted side of his lip. "Hey, darling. How'd the test go?" He asks as his fork stabs the split in his mouth. "Fuck." He mutters, letting the utensil clatter onto his plate.

"Oh, Eds." You gasp, setting your bag on the island to tend to his bleeding lip. You grab some paper towel, folding it for him to hold to his wound. "Here. And it went fine, there's something I have to tell you when you're done eating, though." You say cautiously, not wanting to spook him.

"Well, that doesn't make me nervous at all." He replies, raising an eyebrow at you as he holds the towel up to stop the bleeding. Mom shuts the door and walks past you without saying anything, retreating to her room as she imagines you aren't wanting her company at the moment.

"I know. It's not something I wanted to hear, either." His eyes widen at your words, curious what that means. Did Claudia say something? He starts to panic internally, hoping you're not going to dump him or something. "Eddie, don't freak out. What it is does not change a damn thing between us. Okay?" You take his free hand, emphasizing your point by giving it a gentle squeeze.

"Okay." He says, letting himself relax a little. The blood flow mostly stops, and he finishes his plate before putting it in the sink. You take his hands, pulling him along behind you back to your room. You really don't want to tell him what Mom said, but hiding and lying isn't something you want to be in the habit of doing. Eddie means too much to you for you to deceive him. You sit side by side on the bed, still holding hands. "What's up?" He asks, reminding himself of what you said. Nothing will change between us. He really hopes you mean that.

You nod awkwardly, preparing yourself. You don't want Eddie to be upset, or decide he can't be with you anymore. You can't lose him, he's your everything. "Okay, just gonna reiterate that I highly disagree with this. I have no intention of letting you go, ever." You look deep into his eyes, trying to drive home the fact that you can't live without him. He gives you a nod, nudging you to keep talking. "Mom was driving me to the exam. She told me how scared she was yesterday, that she thinks you're not 'what I need right now'. And she said...that if I get hurt again when I'm around you, that she won't let you in the house anymore." You flinch as you finish speaking, it's like the air has been sucked out of the room.

You glance at Eddie cautiously, waiting for him to respond. He takes a minute to absorb this, you have no clue how he's going to react. "Fair enough." He shrugs. Well, that was easier than you expected.

"Really?" You ask, confused.

"I mean, she's not wrong to say that, Y/N. You're her daughter, and she's worried about you. I know you don't think it's fair, but you're forgetting that this isn't the first time you've gotten hurt because of me." You're surprised he's taking this so well, but you suppose it's better than him trying to leave you.

"But that wasn't your fault, either. I was being a dumbass, biking into the road when I shouldn't have." You retort, unsatisfied with how this is all panning out. You still think it's bullshit that Mom said what she did. Eddie would never hurt you on purpose, it's been your own fault every time. You cross your arms, and Eddie scoffs.

"What do you want me to say, princess? I feel like you're looking for a fight here, when there isn't one." He searches your eyes, and you avert your gaze in annoyance.

"It's just not right, Eds. Hearing her say that, she sounded like every other asshole in this town that judges you unfairly." You hate the way Eddie's treated in Hawkins. He doesn't do or say anything to anyone. But because of his outward appearance, they assume he's a monster, or something.

Eddie sighs, using his thumb and forefinger to gently lead you to look at him. He speaks seriously, hoping he can help you understand. "Whether you like it or not, your mother holds me responsible for your safety since I'm your boyfriend. And so do I, Y/N. Clearly you don't agree with us on this, and that's fine. But you deserve better, and I damn well intend to be better."

You want to protest, shout and scream that he's perfect just the way he is. You don't need him to be better, he's everything you need already. But you're outnumbered, so what's the point in fighting it? "Okay." Is all you can say, anything else will surely lead to an argument. And you're too tired to handle that right now, especially when you have to deal with Angie in a few hours. "We've got a while before dinner, is there anything you wanna do?" You ask, wanting to spend as much time with Eddie one on one as possible.

He thinks for a moment, his features softening once he realizes you aren't going to fight him on the previous subject. He smiles kindly, letting your chin out of his grip. "Anything you want, sweetheart. I'm just happy to be around you." He wishes he could kiss you, but his busted face has taken his favorite things to do to you off the table.

Noticing his wanting for contact, you lean over and plant a warm kiss on his throat. He sighs, his hand snaking up to cradle the back of your neck. You leave a trail of wet marks on him, nipping the skin just below his jaw. He moans quietly, wanting more. "I love you, Eds." You whisper against his flesh, poking your tongue out to lick his sweet-spot.

His breath hitches, the next six days are going to be very trying for him. It'll take every last iota of willpower to keep himself from diving face first between your legs. "I love you too, baby. You're killin' me here." He whimpers, which only pushes you further.

You move his hair aside to purr against the shell of his ear. "Well, lucky for you, my mouth is fully capable of giving you what you want. Let me please you, darling." Slipping a hand down his front to graze over the bulge forming in his pajamas, he moans in your grasp.

"What about you?" He asks, meeting your lustful eyes. Your heart soars at his consideration for your own pleasure, he's always been so invested in it. You shrug, not finding it particularly important at the moment.

"You can watch me get myself off, if you want. Your mouth and hands are kinda out of commission at the moment." You take Eddie's earlobe between your teeth, nibbling on it just the way he likes.

"I think you're forgetting another vital part, princess." He chuckles lightly, and you stop your movements on him.

"Are you sure, Eddie? I don't wanna hurt you." You'd hate to make his injuries worse by engaging in such a strenuous activity. Though the wetness gathering between your legs tells you what you truly desire.

"I have an idea, if you're up for it." He gives you a devilish smirk, a glint of mischief in his eye.

"Shoot." You say, anxious to hear what he has in mind.

"There's still one more page in the book I made you that we haven't tried yet." He gestures for you to retrieve it, and you find the position Eddie is referring to. Number six: Conquest. You can't help going slack-jawed at the illustration, but it's perfect for the current limitations you both face. You look at him with widened eyes, and he laughs at your reaction. "It's good to know I'm still able to shock you, baby. You wanna lock the door?"

"Uh...yeah." You snap yourself out of it for a second, hopping off the bed to click the lock. You hear Eddie shuffling out of his clothes while your back is turned, he's very eager it seems. You turn back around to find him getting into position. He's laying his head on the pillows, knees tented together. You eye his stiff cock waiting for you, the tip leaking sticky precum. "Fuck." Your breath catches in your throat at the sight, your hands instinctively pulling at the hem of your shirt to lift it over your head.

Eddie watches as you undress, he'd be stroking himself while he waits if it weren't for the bandages on his hands. He wishes his left eye could look at you along with his right. The swelling has gone down a little, but it's still in pretty bad shape. You unbutton your jeans, making a show of sliding them down your legs. "You're so gorgeous, love." Eddie says, sending a flare of heat to your cheeks. You're standing in your bra and panties, reaching behind your back to undo the clasp. The straps fall down your shoulders, and you let the bra plop to the floor. "Can you stop for a second?" He asks as you're about to take off your underwear. His tone is needy, almost desperate.

You raise an eyebrow, before realizing why he asked. "You want me to play with them for you, Eds?" You bat your eyes at him while biting your lip. He nods wordlessly, and you apprehensively bring your palms up to squeeze your tits. You moan lightly at the contact, watching his reaction to you touching yourself. You feel bad that Eddie can't do this himself, but it's also very hot to have him helplessly observe you like this. It reminds you of your birthday, which was easily one of the best days of your life. "You wish these were your hands instead, baby?" You speak teasingly, walking closer to the side of the bed.

"I really do. Can you tease your nipples a little, sweetheart? I love the face you make when I do that." You do as he requests, your eyes fluttering shut as you roll the sensitive buds between your fingers. Your mouth falls open, letting out a low moan of his name. "Fuck, just like that."

"Should I touch something else, baby?" You open your eyes again as you pose the question. You really want to feel how wet you are, and tell him all about it. It'll drive him even crazier than you already have.

"Please, take off your panties and tell me how wet you are for me." You can't get enough of the begging in his voice, it's practically a drug to you. You slip your final piece of clothing off, kicking it away with your foot. You watch his gaze follow your hand as it seamlessly glides over your breasts, down your stomach, until it reaches between your thighs.

"Fuck, Eddie." You whine as you finally touch your slick folds. Your fingertips ghost over your clit, before dipping inside your entrance out of reflex. "I'm absolutely soaked for you." You pump your fingers in your pussy at an agonizing pace, preparing yourself to take Eddie's dick when he's ready for you.

"Such a filthy girl, fingering yourself while I watch." He says lowly, unbearably wound up by your little performance.

"Can I have you inside me now, baby? I want your cock so fucking bad." You whimper, tying a knot of pleasure inside yourself that won't hold much longer.

"You can if you want to, sweetheart. But I'd love nothing more than to see you make yourself cum. Can you make a mess for me like a good girl?" Oddly enough, he's the one in control now without even touching you. Shit, he's an evil little genius sometimes.

"I'll be a good girl for you, Eds." You pant, increasing your speed as he stares you down like a starving animal. "Oh, god, I'm so close already." You try to keep the noise down, biting your lip to stifle the moans. Your juices drip down your fingers, gathering into your palm. Eddie's taking in every last detail as you bring yourself to climax, holding back his own high for your sake. He wants you to ride him relentlessly, and the perfect way to get you to do that is to give you an orgasm first. For some reason, one is never enough for you. You always need at least one more to be fully satisfied, and that fact makes him positively wild inside.

Your eyes have screwed shut, and your lips stay parted just enough to let the sweetest noises escape. Your hips begin to buck forward every so often, jolts of pleasure striking your most sensitive parts. You're sheened over in sweat, he can sense you're just on the edge of total bliss. "That's it, keep going. Such a perfect little slut for me. Look at me while you cum, sweetheart." You force your eyes open, chest heaving as you feel the knot you've tied snap into smithereens.

"Eddie一" You bite your free hand to hold back the scream that's trapped within your lungs. Your legs shake, blazing sparks shooting through your body. Arousal rushes from your cunt, spilling onto the carpet. Your walls clamp onto your fingers, trapping them inside as you convulse through your high.

"That's my girl, you did so well." Eddie coos, it takes everything in him not to blow his load at the sight of you. Your knees buckle, and you slump onto the floor for a moment to recover. Your digits are still stuck inside you, you try to release them through your aftershocks. You finally pull them free, moaning at the loss of being filled up. "You ready for me, baby? Or are you done?" He asks, though he knows you're far from finished.

"You really need to ask?" You say breathlessly as you stand again. You climb onto the bed with your back to him. You rest on your knees on either side of him, taking his swollen cock in your hand. He groans at the contact, overly sensitive from waiting so long. You slowly drag his tip through your slippery folds, moaning just a tiny bit louder than you mean to when he touches your clit.

"Shh, gotta be quiet, angel." Eddie warns sweetly. He doesn't imagine Claudia wants to hear you two having sex after what's happened in the last twenty-four hours. You nod, savoring how good he feels against you. You sense he wants you to stop teasing, guiding his length to slowly push into you. His tip disappears into your dripping cunt, and he moans quietly at the beautiful image. You let him out of your grip, sliding yourself down onto him fully.

"Oh, my god." You gasp as he fills you up in the best way possible. You hold his knees just like the picture in the book, using your own as leverage to lift yourself up before sinking back down. "This is so fuckin' perfect, Eds." You confess to him, your stomach rubbing against his thighs as you start to ride.

"Wish you could see the view from here, my cock sliding into that pretty pussy of yours. God, it's fuckin' beautiful." Eddie groans, wishing you'd go faster. You're so hot and wet around him, hugging him the way he likes.

His words fuel your fire, and you bounce on him harder and faster. He hits your g-spot just right every time you land on him, you're quickly building up to come crashing down again. "You feel so good, baby. I'll never get enough of you." You confess, needing Eddie to know everything you think about him.

"I'll never get enough either, princess. Are you getting close?" He doesn't want to rush you by any means, but he's so very near to losing it. He wants to give you what you need, wishing he could use other parts of himself to help you get off. You increase your speed in response, which he takes as a big fat 'yes'. He might not be able to do much, but he can hold your waist to pull you harder onto him. He grips your sides with his bandaged hands, making you gasp. Your skin slaps against his, the two of you sweating profusely.

"Shit, Eddie. Just like that, fuck." You groan through clenched teeth, forcing yourself to keep the noise down. Eddie's tip kisses your sweet-spot harder and faster with his hands guiding you, pounding you into your next orgasm. "I'm gonna cum, baby. Have I been a good little whore for you?" You ask, tempted to look back at him for his response. But you don't want to disrupt the delicious sensation you're feeling.

"Always, babydoll. I'm right behind you, cum for me." He yanks you even harder into him, which sends you flying over the proverbial cliff into a chasm of ecstasy.

"Eddie!" You cry out, before biting down into his leg to conceal any further noise. You shake uncontrollably once again, with Eddie still rutting you into him. You try to keep up your movements to bring him down with you, which only extends your pleasure. Cum gushes out of you, flowing down your thighs, and onto Eddie's stomach. But he doesn't stop, despite the fact that you're both becoming very slippery.

"Shit, Y/N." He grunts, unable to contain himself. He keeps an iron grip on you as his load empties into your cunt. You continue moving until both your highs run their course, relishing every last thrust before collapsing against his thighs. Your breath comes out harsh and ragged, fighting for air.

"Well, looks like we'll need another shower." You joke, letting yourself melt into a satisfied pile of goo. You lay your head on his knees, sighing in contentment.

Eddie chuckles beneath you, caressing your sides with his hands. "That we do, angel. Not to mention some clean sheets."

"Mhm. What time is it?" You ask as your eyes drift closed. Eddie's gone soft inside you, but you can't be bothered to move just yet. He doesn't appear to be in any kind of rush, either, still running his large fingers along your waist and back. It's very soothing, therapeutic, even.

He turns his head to glance at the clock. "A little after noon. How about we get cleaned up and have some lunch, love?"

"I suppose we should, although I'd much rather sit on your dick all day." You say cheekily, clenching around him to emphasize your point.

"Jesus, Y/N.'' He groans, overstimulated from being sheathed inside you longer than usual. You giggle at his reaction, bracing your hands on his knees as you slowly remove yourself from your favorite place. The two of you hiss at the sensation, rather worn out now. You manage to stand, walking over to the closet to retrieve your bathrobes. Eddie gets up after you, taking the frilly garment to cover up with.

You scurry to the bathroom, shutting the door behind you. You go over to the shower to turn on the faucet, before helping Eddie remove his bandages. "I'll help you put on new ones once we're all clean, baby." You realize his hands are completely bare, something you've never seen before. "What happened to your rings, Eds?" You ask, hoping he didn't lose them.

"Left ‘em in my jeans pocket. I forgot about them until just now, actually. I can't exactly wear them until these cuts heal." You inspect his knuckles, which are all split open pretty deep from him punching Jason so hard. You tut at the state of them, you hate to see him injured like this.

"I'll dig them out of the laundry so they don't get lost, I know they're important to you." You say, unable to hide your sullen tone.

"Not nearly as important as you, sweetheart." Eddie's words cheer you up a little, a slight smile twitching on your lips. "There's that smile I love. C'mon, we've gotta wash up." He leads you over to the shower, stepping in after you. You assist him in washing his hair, making sure he's turned away from the water so he doesn't mess up his cast. You wash your own hair and body, which Eddie watches closely. He can't help getting a little hard again, but he has no intention of acting on it. You've both had enough, there has to be some energy left for tonight. This dinner will be far from easy for you, and he has to be giving 100% to support you.

You finish off the shower by sudsing Eddie down, smirking when you notice his erection. You let him be, you've got to show restraint at some point. He rinses off, and you help him dry off and put on fresh bandages before returning to your room to get dressed. You reach into the laundry basket to locate Eddie's dirty jeans, feeling around in the pockets until you pull out his rings. You hold them in your hand, noticing the true weight of them for the first time. "How do you wear these all the time? Don't your fingers get tired?" You ask curiously, the metal clinking in your palm as you toy with them.

"I dunno, I've had 'em for years. Got used to it, I guess." He replies, pulling on some clean pants and snaking his signature belt through the loops. You place the rings on your nightstand, standing in front of Eddie. He hasn't put a shirt on yet, a couple drips of water from his hair running down his chest. You wrap your arms around his middle, laying your cheek on his warm skin. "What's up, angel?" He asks, putting his arms over you to keep you close.

"I just like holding you, Eds. Is that okay?" You feel silly even asking, he loves it when you show him affection.

"Of course it is, princess. Always." He says sweetly, sighing when you nuzzle against his shoulder. "You're real cute, you know that?" He muses.

"Mhm, always." You quip, making you both laugh. "You're very cute, too, among other things." You say as you playfully twirl the tuft of hair on his chest with your finger. You pull away after a moment, letting him fully dress. Your stomach is begging for food, the sound growing louder as the minutes tick past.

You and Eddie spend the next few hours having a simple lunch and watching TV on the couch. You anxiously wait for your mother to corral you into the car for dinner, hoping this evening won't turn into a blowout. You lay against the armrest with Eddie between your thighs, stroking his hair mindlessly. His hands run up and down your legs in a gentle rhythm, you're both very touchy without even thinking about it. Dustin returns home from his own tests, giving you two a brief greeting and heading to his room to change his shirt. He comes back out to join you and Eddie in the living room. "How'd it go, Dustin?" Eddie pipes up, and Dustin beams at him.

"Easiest. Tests. Ever!" Dustin says, which earns him a high five from Eddie. He plops down into the armchair, crossing his ankles as he smirks in self-satisfaction.

"Good to hear, big guy." Eddie replies with a chuckle, shifting in his spot to get a little closer to you. The three of you talk for a bit, shooting the breeze. A little bit later, Mom emerges from down the hall. She's dressed nicer than usual, and she's wearing a full face of makeup. That's not like her at all. You assume she's trying to impress Angie, for some strange reason.

"Alright, kiddos. Let's hit the road." She says, eyes shifting nervously between your faces. Everyone gathers their shoes and belongings, heading outside to pile into the car. Dustin sits shotgun this time, with you and Eddie in the back. You stare out the window, knee bobbing as your heart rate steadily increases. Eddie notices your nerves, taking your hand in his from across the backseat. You glance over at him, plastering on a smile. He gives you a sympathetic look, telling you everything will be okay in his own special way. Mom pulls the car into a new restaurant at the edge of town, it just opened a few months ago. 'Applebee's Neighborhood Bar & Grill', the large sign with an apple in the logo says.

The parking lot is pretty full, you imagine it's very crowded inside. Mom glances at her watch, telling you that Angie wanted to meet up in the parking lot before heading inside. You all step out of the car, looking around to find a woman with two kids parked somewhere in the crowd. Your eyes fall on an elderly couple leaving after the early-bird special, some young adults going in to watch 'the game', until you land on a woman with bleached blonde hair. She's standing beside a cherry red convertible, with two small children that look the spit of her. "Found them." You say to the group, pointing to let Mom lead the way. Eddie stays glued to your side, not letting go of your hand.

"Hey, Angie!" Mom calls as the four of you walk over. The woman turns to meet her gaze, and you take in her appearance. She's exactly how you pictured. Blonde updo, trashy cheetah-print clothes, gaudy jewelry, and far too much makeup. The typical slut all the married men love to cheat with. Eddie notices your face hardening as you get closer.

"Relax, baby." He whispers in your ear, which softens you slightly. You nod without looking at him, squeezing his hand a little tighter.

"Claudia. Glad you could make it." Angie speaks in a high-pitched, nasally voice. Shit, the jokes are writing themselves. This is gonna be even harder than you thought. "I’m sure your Mom has told you, I’m Angie. And these are my kids, Jake who's seven and Polly who's five." She gestures with her spindly, red fingernails to acknowledge the children who stand silently at her sides. Jake is dressed in overalls and a striped t-shirt, whereas Polly is wearing a pink frilly dress with matching bows. They don't seem to understand who you are, or why they're in this strange place. They clutch Angie's stocking-clad legs, clearly very shy. You feel bad for them, their faces are a little puffy from crying. But then you remember why they even exist, averting your eyes to stop giving them any sign of sympathy.

"Hey there, kiddos! It's nice to meet you! I'm Claudia, and this is my son Dustin, who's seventeen." Mom nudges Dustin to say hello, which he does awkwardly. "And this is my daughter Y/N, who's twenty-one. And her boyfriend, Eddie."

Angie inspects you and Eddie suspiciously, smirking at how battered and bruised you look. You can sense a particular term blossoming in her mind, 'daddy issues'. Well, you're the one that gave them to me, bitch. You think as you glare at her. "Hi." You say incredulously, trying to set her hair on fire with your mind.

"It's nice to meet you, kiddos. George told me about you all the time. Both of you have gotten so big!" You want to punch her, knock that stupid smile off her overly-painted face. How dare she say such a thing, and how dare your father even pretend he gave a shit about you or your brother. Everyone stands in silence for a moment, not sure what else to say. Angie pipes up again, steering clear of the tender subject for the time being. "Well, I called ahead and got us a table! Shall we head inside?" She gestures with her hands to the entrance, clicking on her heels as she walks ahead with Jake and Polly.

"If she keeps up like this, there's gonna be two funerals this week." You mutter through clenched teeth, feeling your blood pressure rise as the seconds pass. Eddie stops the two of you walking, falling behind the group.

"What's wrong?" Mom asks as the others stop to look at you.

"We'll catch up with you, Ms. Henderson. I think Y/N needs a second." Eddie calls, and Mom shrugs before turning to walk inside with the others. Eddie turns to you, putting his hands on your shoulders. "Sweetheart, you've gotta calm down." He says, worried that you'll attempt to kill Angie before you even get your order taken.

You sigh harshly, trying to steady your pounding heart. "I know. I just- I can't." You look at him with pleading eyes. You just want to turn around and leave. You don't care what Angie has to say, you don't care about any of this. There's no way you can sit down and eat a meal with that woman.

"Yes you can, Y/N." You shake your head, holding back frustrated tears. "Look, let's take a breather, 'kay? But I'm not letting you back out of this. You're the bravest, and the strongest woman I know. Are you really gonna let that bimbo get under your skin in the first five minutes?" Eddie smirks to encourage you, knowing you're more than capable of handling this. He also knows if he frames this in a way to play into your petty side, you'll be on your best behavior just to spite Angie.

"I hate how good you are at pep talks." You pout, crossing your arms dramatically as you hide a smile. He always knows exactly what to say. "C'mon, let's get this over with." You sigh deeply, pulling him along. The two of you step inside, the restaurant is absolutely bustling. You see Mom and the others at a large corner booth at the back, pointing the way for Eddie to keep up.

"There you two are! I hope it wasn't something I said." Angie greets you when you reach the table. Anger flares behind your eyes again, but you feel Eddie's thumb stroking your hand to soothe you.

"Not at all. It's just been a hard week." You say in a sickly sweet tone, hiding your fury behind fake happiness. You're nauseated by this little act, but you know the saying: 'Fake it til you make it'. Dustin and Angie's kids are sitting on the one end, with Mom and Angie in the middle. This arrangement would force you to sit right next to the whore, when Eddie takes the lead to sit there instead. It ought to keep you from stabbing her with your fork.

"Thanks, Eds." You whisper in his ear, and his hand goes to your thigh to say 'you're welcome'.

"Well, the waitress came by with the menus already and I ordered both of you a beer. I hope that's alright." Angie says, handing two menus off to you and Eddie.

"That's fine. Thanks." You reply, taking a look to see what to order. You really aren't in the mood for food, but it would be rude to not get anything.

"Thank you." Eddie adds, avoiding Angie's gaze. She's taking a closer look at him now, from what you can tell.

"You've certainly picked a handsome one, Y/N." Her nasal squawk rings in your ears. You imagine her scream is probably only audible to dogs.

You notice Eddie's cheeks burning, he must be very uncomfortable under her stare. "Yep, he's absolutely gorgeous, even when he's beaten and bruised. And he's all mine." You can't help getting territorial on your final word, reaching over so she can see you grip Eddie's thigh roughly. He holds back a groan, regretting his decision to put himself between the two of you. "What sounds good to you, darling? Maybe we can share something? I'm not very hungry tonight." You look at him, drawing his face to yours.

"Um...I-I'm not sure. I haven't had a chance to look yet." He says sheepishly, fumbling to open his menu. The conversation turns to how school is going for you and Dustin, plus a few more questions about Eddie and how he got his injuries. The waitress comes by with your drinks, and you happily down a third of your beer in one go. You need some booze if you're gonna make it through this meal. You all rattle off your orders, and you notice Angie ordering a salad. Of course, to keep her slutty figure, right? Eddie struggles to drink from his glass, so you open up a straw and stick it in his beer. "Thanks, baby." He says, bringing the plastic tube to his lips.

Angie brings up your dad a lot more now that the food is going to take a while to be ready. It's odd, you know Mom hasn't told her anything about the last nine years. There's no way. But the manner that Angie speaks in, it's almost like she knows everything about you. Where the hell did she get that from? What is she playing at? The problem you're having overall, though, is that she doesn't seem that bad. Outside of her cheap hooker looks, she's a sweet, caring woman. There's nothing inherently wrong with what she's saying, or the way she's saying it. She's just trying to relate to you. And you hate her for it.

The food arrives a bit later, and the conversation dies down in favor of filling your bellies with burgers, salad, and macaroni and cheese. You and Eddie split a cheeseburger with fries, with you cutting the sandwich in half this time. Eddie's nervous about you holding a knife, but you seem to have cooled off a little for the time being. He glances at your beer glass, noticing it's almost empty. Oh, princess, he thinks to himself, knowing you're trying your best to hold it together. There's moments where he catches a glimpse of you fighting back tears, or concealing a potentially snarky comment towards Angie. He rewards you with some light caresses on your thigh, and your eyes snap to his for a moment.

I hate this, love. You send the words telepathically, hoping he can read your expression. He just nods, moving his hand to your back instead. Your lip trembles occasionally outside your control, it's taking all your inner strength not to fall to pieces. You can't let her see you cry. You can't let her think you're mourning George for a single second. You take a glance at Dustin, who's currently entertaining the little ones. They're actually smiling, giggling even as he shows them some basic magic tricks. Quarter behind the ear, severed thumb, simple stuff. The display is rather cute, and you forget how awful every other part of this evening has been.

The check comes around finally, and Angie insists on paying for everyone. Dad must have been rolling in it at the car dealership she was telling you he worked at. "Hey, Claudia? Can you take Jake and Polly with you to the car? I wanna have that talk with Y/N I was telling you about." She gives Mom a knowing look, which makes your eyebrows knit in confusion. What the fuck is going on here? Claudia leads the kids outside, leaving you, Eddie, and Angie alone at the booth. She scoots down a foot or so, giving you some space. She can tell you weren't too keen on being squished next to her during dinner. She looks at you anxiously, twiddling her manicured thumbs. "So...you're probably wondering what this whole thing is about." She says, waiting for a response.

"Yeah. I truly have no idea what the hell we could possibly have to discuss." You reply, letting your attitude come out to play a little bit. She scoffs, admiring your spunk.

"Well, there's some things I felt you should know before Friday. I can tell you don't like me very much, Y/N. I wouldn't either, if I was in your shoes. You have every right to be angry with me. But I want you to have all the facts before passing judgment." You watch her closely, wondering where she's going with this. When you don't say anything else, she turns to her purse to pull something out of it. It looks like a bundle of letters, envelopes torn open and creased at the rubber band binding them together. Angie slides them across the table, and you catch them in your hand.

"The hell are these?" You ask, assuming they're love letters your father wrote to her or something.

"Those are the reason why I know so much about you, Y/N. When George left your mother, she made it a point to track us down using a private investigator. Once she did that, she started sending those. Every birthday, Christmas, graduation, et cetera, she sent a letter to let him know just what he was missing." Your jaw drops at this revelation, Mom never told you about this. You look at the envelopes to find that, sure enough, they're all addressed from Mom to their new home in Chicago. "She also made a point to tell him to never write back, or call, or visit. She said he lost the right to be your father, and George agreed."

"You're damn right he did." You blurt out, unable to hide your frustration any longer. You lean forward, narrowing your eyes. "So...what? You want me to feel all warm and fuzzy inside after showing me this shit? He felt so awful about leaving my mother for you, his secretary, that he kept these fucking letters as self-punishment?"

"I don't expect you to do anything. I just一 I wanted you to see that he still cared for you, despite his mistakes." Her tone changes, she really expects you to buy this horseshit. Eddie watches wordlessly as you two Duke it out with your words, keeping his hand on you as some form of comfort.

"Well, clearly he cared more about getting some young pussy than being there for me, or Dustin, or my mom." Angie's mouth falls open at that, making her look like a blowup doll. Maybe that was part of her appeal to your father. "Is that all? Because I think we're just about done here." You almost spit your words, wanting to hurt her. You start to stand, before she speaks again.

"I want you to give the eulogy, Y/N." She almost shouts, an effort to keep you from storming out. You plop back down in your seat, looking at her like she's grown a third eye on her forehead.

"What?" You ask, hoping you’ve imagined that last part.

"I want you to give the eulogy at George's funeral. You can say whatever you want, no matter how brutal. I see now how much he hurt you, and I don't take your words personally." She speaks carefully, fully aware that you're brimming with anger and resentment. "I loved your dad, whether you like it or not. You can call me a whore, like the rest of this town does. I probably am one, if I'm being honest. It was wrong of me to break up your family."

"Did it take you a whole decade to figure that out?" You cross your arms, slumping back against the seat.

Angie sighs, placing her hands on the table to regain focus. "Look, obviously things didn't pan out how anyone thought they would. But please, I want you to have this chance to say goodbye, and to let go of the suffering we put you through. Not for my peace of mind, but for yours. That pain you're holding onto for dear life will eat you alive from the inside out, I promise you that." She implores you to listen, to at least consider this idea.

You just gawk at her, wondering if you've gone insane. The one thing you've wanted to do since you found out Dad died, is to tell everyone exactly how you feel about him and what he did. And here is the woman you’ve blamed for all life's problems, offering you that exact opportunity. "I'll think about it." You reply, standing to leave once again. You glance at the letters sitting on the table, before looking at Angie one last time. "Can I keep these?" You ask, wanting to know what exactly Mom wrote. You hope she didn't hold anything back.

"Yes, please. I've probably read them a thousand times. I don't need them anymore." She sniffles, carefully wiping away tears.

You take a second before speaking again. "Just, answer one question for me?" You ask, your own eyes beginning to water.

"Anything, hon." She gives you a small smile, which you can't help returning.

You're unsure why you're about to ask this, but it's like you're being compelled to. You have to know the answer to the one question you've had all these years. "Did he ever want to come back?" Your lip is trembling again, but you don't care if she sees you let go this time.

"Every day, sweetie. Even if it was only to say goodbye, one last time." She assures you, making your hand clench tightly around the bundle of papers.

To be continued...

[epersonae]

The cooking project - Crêpes

If yesterday's post was probably one of my most-made recipe cards, this might be my most-made recipe in my binder, which is sort of a Binder of Theseus. My sister made me a binder full of typed-out recipes as a gift when I was a sophomore in college, and I still have the section separators, which were collages of images cut from magazines, and I have some (most? all?) of those typed recipes, though the binder itself has been replaced. And of course I've added many more recipes, printed from the internet or sent to me by email or clipped from magazines. (I had a subscription to Sunset for a while in the late 00s!)

This recipe, though, was copied from a webpage into probably a Word document and then printed out, and dates from March 15 2003. The URL in the image no longer works, but the contents can be found in the Wayback Machine (ctrl+f, "crepes"). It was posted as part of the author's "French Week" as sort of an oblique protest of the impending Iraq War. In any case, I have been making it since then.

Because this can be found in the Wayback Machine, and because the instructions are hilariously long, I am not going to retype the whole thing here.

My only personal notations are combining "whole wheat flour" and "white flour" into a single line (I've literally never made these as savory crepes in 20 years), and a note that 1 egg approximately equals 3 crepes.

Making the batter

One of the things I love about this recipe is that it scales really well: one egg to 1/4 cup flour. The sugar ratio is weird and I usually have to do a rough approximation, because 1/4 cup sugar is 4 tablespoons, but also it's a very forgiving recipe that way.

I have learned over the years to beat the eggs first and THEN add the flour/sugar/salt, much less lumps that way. (ironically, 20 years and I just noticed he never says when to add the salt, altho clearly it's with the flour)

I have literally no idea how much milk I use. I mix in a bit at a time until it looks like the right texture/color. It's all vibes, baby.

I don't think I've ever let it sit two whole hours but it definitely does change texture a bit, for the better, if left to sit at least a half an hour. (I have also never drunk a glass of red wine while waiting for the batter.)

Below is: just after mixing in the flour/sugar/salt, then after some milk, all the milk, and after sitting for idk half an hour? 45 minutes?

Jam! Eating while making!

As I said, I've literally never made them savory, altho the last time I had them with a little bit of local whipped goat cheese and strawberry jam, and that was FUCKING TIGHT.

My usual is to take out whatever jams I have (today: strawberry and raspberry freezer jam that I made in 2020 and 2021 respectively, quince jam that a friend made, and marmalade) and just alternate flavors as I make them. I usually end up eating some while I'm making them. (As the guy says, bachelor mode™️.)

Two eggs' worth did in fact make about six crepes, I think, which is kind of a lot for dessert but I guess I had dessert for dinner, it's fine.

(Oh, and I think I've tried flipping them without a spatula exactly once, I am just not that bold.)

In any case, this continues to be one of my favorite recipes of all time, I will make it for anyone at any time for any reason. (The longest stretch I ever went without making it was after Ryn died, and I finally had eggs and milk and enough energy...and found BUGS IN MY FLOUR and about lost my damn mind. But I have made them a couple of times since then.)

Fanfiction bonus content!

So if you are reading my fic for the benefit of all the broken hearts, and you have already read chapter 16, then you know why I posted this today. If you are reading it and have not yet read the new chapter, consider this a teaser.

If you are not reading it: for the benefit of all the broken hearts is a fix-it fic for Water Flowing Underground, a very strange beautiful fic that blurs the line between Actor AU and RPF, that plays with questions of identity and choice and intention and also what we are even doing with fanfiction. My fic picks up from the end of that fic, from the point of view of a character who is dismissed by the narrative of the original, and who finds a way out of the wreckage. (it's the weirdest goddamn thing I've ever written, and yes, I think that includes the Bigfoot fic, and also I think my best writing ever. Certainly the most work I've ever put into any writing in any medium.)

And also there are crepes.

[faceglitchsworld]

It's the first of November!

First and foremost, I hope you celebrated a good Halloween yesterday and spent a good time.

Now, let's enter into a new month by celebrating an old ma-I mean leader's day.

Happy birthday, Dann 🥳

As always have a look at the collage I made.

I know what you are thinking. It looks a little weird. Well, look at the center 🥺

I wanted to dedicate this collage to Dann's leadership instead of just focusing on just one member relationship so, here you go, you got Kingdom group selfies 😭

Finding these two pics has been a little difficult since Dann nowadays doesn't hold the phone like he usually did before. And I get it. Hwon is tall 🤣 Better use him as the selfie maker instead of forcing him to shrink himself 🤣

I also used a couple of two old screenshots of mine for making this collage! I needed to dive a little deeper in my phone's memory to find them but you can see them now! 😭

I might do the same for the last letter I should write for this month probably...

Anyway, here's the letter.

Today, we're celebrating the day of a leader who's the perfect example of what happens when you struggle to make others respect your authority.

Our Dann is a very simple man. He speaks a lot of languages—Mr. Worldwide indeed. He's experienced, a talented singer, and he might be a good actor, too. He's friendly and open—the perfect idol, if you ask me. But there's one last thing that our fox still struggles to get.

His members' respect.

If you've been into K-pop for a while, I think you perfectly know the entire gimmick/inside joke of the Leader that sometimes isn't able to manage the members or the jokes about the oldest members. Well, Dann is literally an incarnation of both.

This man tries everything, everything to be listened to by his members and what he gets is always one thing: S T R U G G L E. I never saw a leader struggle more than him. The disrespect he gets every time, how the members, especially Louis, mess up with him, and the betrayal ™ Arthur, his long-time member and friend, gives to him. This man deserves a break 🤣

But our man didn't give up; he fought back. And what's more effective to counterattack than embarrassing your fellow members? Dann is well aware that he's not just a leader but also the oldest member, so why not make your youngest fellows cringe by embracing the "how do you do, fellow kids?" meme? Since then, he has become unbeatable. He perfectly knows how to counterattack, like the respectable leader he is.

Jokes aside, I love Dann. He's my second bias in Kingdom, although he doesn't share the same spot as Ivan (I love my artic hare more, sorry Dann, hope you understand haha). His album is one of my favourites, it's in my top three.

I always had a soft spot for traditional music blended in pop music (spoiler, I will keep talking about it in the next letter for sure haha) and Dann's album immediately got my heart out when I listened to it for the first time. It's also the album that got a "better" treatment, considering he got two MVs instead of just one. And I wished the albums after Dann's followed the same formula, which would have highlighted the ballad or one of the b-sides in it. But oh well, guess we can't have everything in this world.

And what about his character inside the Kingdom's lore? The hero who first fought to bring peace to his kingdom but he gets broken immediately after all that struggle because of one, last tragedy? Perfect, immaculate, kinda relatable too. I have no idea how he will develop later in the story, I see him as kind of the wiser king compared to the others. He might not have the strongest powers as the other kings have or be "manipulative" but if he notices that something is going wrong, he notices it immediately and he'll do everything to find a solution before history repeats again and he'll see another tragedy happening in front of his eyes.

I don't know if it's the most accurate depiction of the character, again, I followed my vibes but it's an image that kind of fits Dann, both in the story but also in his career as an idol. I don't think I need to explain to you the entire history of Dann, I think almost everyone who digged a little into his past knows that, he already experienced the hardships and the suffering of seeing your dreams crushing and burning instead of blooming.

I think he saw the debut in Kingdom not only as a second opportunity but also as a way to make sure that his members would not go through the same path he went through. He protects them in any possible way and I think that, deep inside, he's also seen as that old, funky big brother everyone wished had by the members.

Dear Dann, I wasn't expecting this letter to be this long and I just highlighted a little part of you. Yesterday (in my timezone at least, I know it was midnight in Korea haha) you wanted to bless us with another cover and show us your vocal talent. I, and I think other Kingmes do too, love your passion for music, especially if we talk about your vocals, which bless us every time.

I briefly mentioned your struggles because I wanted to make this letter light-hearted. It's your birthday after all, haha. But I want to remind you that, whenever you feel down and think you might not make it this time, there's the love of your members and Kingmakers right on your back.

I'm glad you're taking more and more steps in songwriting too and you're building your place into Kingdom's history by writing cool songs. I loved Gundam and I can't wait for the day you'll be able to write a title track too. Hope this day will come soon.

My birthday wish for you is that you'll finally manage to be listened to by your members for once. It will probably happen soon I believe, but if it will not happen, well, keep going, I believe in you 😤

Happy birthday, little cute fox 🦊

[a-cloud-for-dreams]

Trick-or-Treat Gift Exchange (@choicesfandomappreciation)

This was my first year of doing a gift exchange in this fandom and I'm so happy I did because it ended up being super fun! My secret pal is @ladylamrian aka one of the sweetest creators I know on this app <3

I haven't played ITW yet so ofc I decided to make a Nightbound edit/mini blurb about Alex and Nik! It's a page from a scrapbook and occurs a year after she decides to stay with Nik and the gang. I don't know if she actually keeps a scrapbook in your headcanon, but I thought after finding out she's half-fae, she would be inspired to commemorate her favorite moments. Hope you like it!

"Hey, Rook!" Nik calls out when he enters his apartment, wait, their apartment. "You home?" There was no sign of response, and that made him nervous. Alex wouldn't just disappear on him, not after things have been going so well this entire year, right?!

His first instinct, against his will, was to panic. He needed to calm down now. Alex wouldn't do that, think rationally.

He strolls over to the coffee table near the couch and finds a note written in Alex's handwriting. He picked it up and skimmed through what she wrote.

Hey! I'm sorry I had to leave without calling. Garrus wanted me to pick up decorations for the party later, so I'll be back a little late. And before you tell me, I'll stay safe I promise. But I do think it's sweet how caring you are, XOXO! - the love of your life (Alex)

He chuckled at the short note, her enthusiasm lighting the room through mere words. Oh, thank God. See Nik? Maybe Katy was right, thinking rationally can pay off...

His gaze turned to the scrapbook next to the note on the same table. It was opened to a page Alex seemed to be working on before she left. It was a collage of Polaroids with notes jotted next to them from over the past year.

He picks up an untaped picture of the two of them on their first date after defeating Thomas. She looked even more gorgeous that night than usual, her unique silvery hair glistening under the warm lights. Nik begins to smile and picks up the hefty scrapbook, his interest piqued. He reads the notes she's written on the side, one in particular challenging him to another sparring match.

Oh, you're so on, Rook, and I won't go easy this time.

He would have kept looking, but Alex unlocked the front door and was welcomed by the sight of his girlfriend. She raised an eyebrow as she saw him with her scrapbook in hand.

"I thought you said you didn't like my 'sentimental scrapbook'" she emphasized with air quotes while mimicking his voice.

He furrows his eyebrows and frowns. "I don't sound like that."

She laughs in response. "Oh yeah? Everyone last night said it was pretty realistic." Nik rolls his eyes. She sits on the couch and motions him to sit next to her. "It's nice, huh? I took so many photos this year, I don't think I'll be able to fit them all! In fact..."

Her voice fades as she enthusiastically explains her plans to explore more of the supernatural world. He gets distracted by how mesmerizing she is. Maybe it was because she was part Fae but every moment he spent with her never failed to make him feel like a real person again. Alex notices his lack of response and tilts her head in confusion.

"Nik! Are you paying attention to what I'm saying?!" She crosses her arms.

He chuckles. "I'm just...happy you're here, Rook."

Her expression fades into a soft smile. "Me too."

[angelltheninth]

Flirting Above the Paygrade

Pairing: Silco x Fem!Reader

Tags: fluff, teasing, suggestive, coffee shop, customer!Silco, flirty!Silco, barista!Reader

Word count: 0.8k

Ao3

Ko-Fi | Rules | Fandoms and Characters

A/N: This man could make me want to work any job if he was there while I did it. No really.

There he was again, that older man with the big coat and his slicked back hair and the scar on his face. He's been coming here for over a month now, without ordering anything and sitting in the corner, reading something that he brought with him.

Reports maybe? From the looks of him, the things he wore, the coat, the tie, the rings, the shoes, he was a very rich man. One that shouldn't have much interest in this quaint and plain little coffee shop. And yet he was in here every day, at the same time in the afternoon and left at the same time, always looking at you on the way out, smiling at you. Most places would kick out people who don't order anything but you understood that some people just needed a quiet place to think. So you let him stay, and maybe someday he would make an order.

You were going about your day as usual, him in his usual spot again when he suddenly stood up and walked up to the counter. Odd he usually never leaves this early, "Could I get two coffees? One should be the sweetest thing you have on the menu, and the other the strongest." His voice was not quite as deep as you imagined. Not that you imagined it a lot! Only a few times, purely out of curiosity.

"Um... is there another person joining you, sir?" There was an uncomfortable bubbling feeling in your chest which didn't make sense at all. You didn't know this man at all, this was the first time you spoke to him. For all you knew he could be married. God, why did you have to make it weird, "I didn't mean to pry, I just-"

He held up his hand and you instantly closed your mouth. A deep blush dusted your cheeks when you saw the way he smirked at you, "My daughter is joining me later today. She's attending collage on the nearby campus and we won't to get to spend as much time together these days."

"Oh. I see." He was a dad... but there wasn't a ring on his wedding finger...

"I'm single in case you're wondering." That came out of his mouth in such a natural seductive tone that you almost spilled the coffee over the counter. Was he flirting?

"I... can I have your name? T-To write on the cups! The coffee cups!" It was better when he was sitting in the corner, at least then you wouldn't embarrass yourself in front of him. He didn't seem to mind, in fact judging by his smile he really enjoyed it.

"Silco. With a C not a K. It's a common mistake people make. And for my daughter you can put Jinx." Silco with a C. Silco with a... C.

You stared at him, perplexed how you didn't put two and two together before. "Silco, the CEO of Shimmer Productions? The pharmaceutical company?" He gives you a grin and and nod. Well now you're even more confused, why would he be here of all places? Surely there are many more, much more high-end places for him to go to? But it would be rude to tell him that, wouldn't it? He might feel like you want him gone and that's the last thing you want. "Thank you for coming here so often."

"It's much cozier then my office, plus much better company." Oh yes, he was flirting for sure, "Did I overstep? You always look at me when I'm here, I assumed you wanted to... talk more."

"No! I mean yes! I'm sorry, I'm being weird. Uhm... here's your order, sir." For a moment you thought you saw his eye shimmer when you called him that. It must have been your imagination.

"Thank you. Would it be too forward of me to ask you when your shift ends? You've been very hospitable to me and I reward kindness."

"W-What kind of reward?" God you hated the direction your mind just went to, you were still at work!

His smirk almost reached his scar, "I was thinking something to drink but it seems to me like you have other things in mind." Caught red handed. "We can negotiate, I'm very good with that."

"I... yeah, okay, I get off at 8." Or much, much sooner if he keeps looking at you like that. Silco seemed to have been aware too, his fingers pressing against yours as he took the cups from you, "Enjoy your drink, sir."

"I'm sure I will. Do you want the tip?" Fuck. He really did know what he was doing. "Naughty little thing aren't you?" He chuckled and payed, giving you a very generous tip indeed. After that he returned to his table, completely unfazed while you really, really wished there was someone to cover your shift so you could take a break in the bathroom.

[felixxthefrog]

oh, my love.

we are definitely cool now. certifiably. we've made so many friends and they all definitely deem us cool. and funny. we're funny now too.

the playlist might've been chaotic, but yknow what? despite not remembering it at all, i predicted what our answers to the questions would be so id say you did wonderfully.

i haven't read the letter yet. i'm sorry. i don't know if i want to. but i know you wanted me to, so maybe i will.

the panic attacks have gotten better. i promise

we don't go to the bookshop too often anymore, but only because we have so many unread books already and we live 5 minutes from the library. not that i've really made a dent in the books we've read. i don't think i've finished a single one... sorry to disappoint. maybe this year.

my hair is short. and brown. and you'll be happy to know... very, VERY curly. i haven't bleached it in a long while, i promise. i cut them off, but only to make them healthier. and honestly? i love the short hair. i feel so much more confident when i look in the mirror. i know it felt so scary, but it's not so bad.

the cats are... fine. eggy has acquired more and more vet bills with his dumb piss problems and a special new diet, but they are BIG boys now. egg is 13lbs (dubbed healthy by the vet), binny and ass are 10lbs. chaotic as always, problem children.

🐀 is now 🌷 and she's doing wonderfully. she shaved her hair off as she bleached it stringy, but she's gorgeous all the same, has a much better job, more confidence, more self-assuredness, more kindness, more self control, and is still becoming the woman she wants to be. my favorite part of living is calling her my wife.

🧸 is alright. they've got a partner and a new job too - busy, but happy and crafting as per usual. still over every weekend.

🪱 is still young, but growing. in a relationship. having lost some friends, and gained some. coming over every other weekend, and we talk to them all the time.

we've mostly stopped talking to j🐦, but not because of a fallout! just distance and time differences. still definitely friends.

🐧 is okay, a new job, always tired. he wears a cowboy hat everywhere now and it.... somehow suits him? he's more confident too. confidence looks good on him.

🐻‍❄️ and i are BESTIES now. we talk almost daily, gossip, flirt, are affectionate, go out together, and talk about our heaviest troubles and deepest secrets and raunchiest moments. if she'd looked at you or touched you a year ago the way she looks at and touches me, you'd have fallen over dead. luckily, im cool now. aka i hyperventilate inside every time she makes eye contact with me.

🕷️ is better in some ways and worse in others. no better luck in terms of relationships, but we'll see how the next year goes for him...

we voted. i'm so so proud of myself, and you, for doing it for the first time ever. but we.. lost. the outcome isn't. isn't looking great. the future looks bleaker than we've ever seen, if i can be honest. knowing wasn't any less scary than not knowing. but the anxiety has faded. faded into resignation and determination to live. just. live. find community and hold on as tight as we can.

palestine hasn't gotten any better. sudan, congo, yemen. BUT. bashar al-assad was overthrown in syria last month. despite wars still ongoing, we all celebrated for days. syria is free. hopefully, she will be first of many. there is an ICC warrant out for the arrest of netanyahu, but with trump coming into office in 9 days, i really... don't know. i'm sorry the world isn't any better.

pandora is a pretty name. i still think about having a kid sometimes.

the living room wall is pink now. a soft peach. it's so warm and welcoming. i've thrifted more art and started collaging in my journals and i've just gotten jelly gouache for christmas, so i'll start using those soon. and alcohol markers. GOD i love alcohol markers.

mom is mom. she knows our name but doesn't use it. it doesn't affect me much anymore. i don't care too much about mom's opinions of me anymore.

i am still felix. i'm transmasc, funny enough. but still a lesbian! i promise. labels are hard, and while my sexuality is a bit more complex than that (along with the whole. dissociative multiple personality disorder we discovered) socially i am still a lesbian. i'll never give that up. i've fought so hard for it in the last year. for myself and for you.

the pothos IS alive, and has cuttings! tho its looking rough right now as its winter. and no, i still don't really drink.

still at home, growing, learning, caring, providing. trying. staying alive and keeping everyone else alive too.

there's not much else i have the energy to say right now. maybe another time.

scheduling this for January 1, 2025 at midnight. a letter to my future self.

for whoever the fuck i've become by the time i'm reading this later.

hey, i guess?

it's january 4th and i just put my playlist in dumpster for u. hope u like it. it's kinda shit, and the Bow Weevils don't fit the vibe, but then neither does Gravy.

i hope ur cool. ive been trying to get cooler. read more books, listen to more music, better books, and better music. i hope you're cool like i want to be cool. educated. witty. funny. i don't know if i'll ever be funny. but maybe you will be.

if you haven't yet, make sure to read that letter i left for you in the start of the green journal. it's sad, but it'll show you the parts of me that you'll inevitably repress.

the panic attacks have started coming back. i'm sorry. i hope you got better.

are you any closer to jacob? do you still go to the bookshop? how many books have we gotten in the last year? how many have we read? enough?

it's never enough books, is it.

have you found any new book shops? any new coffee shops?

how long is your hair?? what color is it?? did you bleach it??? i'm gonna be so mad if you've bleached it. is it curly again? i miss my curls, i hope you have them. take care of them, please. please don't cut them off. i miss them.

are the cats okay? they're big boys now, aren't they? officially two. they're all asleep right now, but they're menaces. does aster still get on cabinets? i bet he does.

what about 🐀? how is she doing? better? closer? comfier? more confident? how is work? still shit?

what about 🧸? how are they? and 🪱?

what about j🐦and 🐧 and 🐻‍❄️?

what about 🕷️?? does he have a partner yet?? i hope he's happy.

(i hope u know who i'm talking about with all the censored names. internet creeps and all. you never know)

how... how was the election? you voted, right? we did? how did it go? is everything okay? i know it probably won't get better but god i hope it does. and if it's not better... i hope you're ready. hurry. get ready, if you aren't. i hope everything is okay. you'll have to tell me who won. i wish i could reassure you. reassure me. know what you know. it's so scary, the not knowing

what about Palestine? israel is getting war crime charges from South Africa soon i think. i hope they get what they deserve. and i hope Palestine is free. i hope they're healing. thriving. i don't know if they will be. but i hope they are. the war isn't over yet but i hope it will be soon.

do you still have hope? do we still have hope? if we ever have a little girl, we should name her pandora.

have you painted the wall more? have you made more art? have you written anything? what about edith hamilton and ishmael reed and maya angelou? do you still love them? are they still with you?

what about.. mom? is she okay? has she grown? changed? is she accepting? does she call you felix? probably not. even if she was accepting, idk if she'd like the name felix.

are you still felix?? do you still use that name? still genderfluid? still a lesbian? jesus christ i hope so. i've been waiting to call myself a lesbian for 6 years now, since we were 14. i'm not giving that up any time soon. i hope.

is that stupid pothos still alive. do you drink more now that you're legal?

do you work? or are you still at home? are you going to school? i'm assuming ur not going to school. can you drive?

i don't know what else to ask. tell me everything.

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

I scrutinize each photo Each letter, each tape, each story Digging further and further back through history Hoping to pinpoint Where the weight on my shoulders originated

Who carried it first How many generations of suffering do I hold How many ghosts are tearing at my flesh How many generations of knowledge have I been denied How much has been lost How much will be lost As my fingers slowly erode paper As obsession wears through the tapes As each memory slowly becomes unrecognizable

The film strips undulate like intestines The dust and ink sticking to my hands like flecks of gore When you cut into my gut Is it blood that spills out Or history?

Salamatullah Eldritch (2022), Archival Violence, Mnemonic Gore [digital collage]

[Image attribution & sources for images used]

[hettyoon]

❥︎ Character; Riddle rosehearts Game; Twisted Wonderland

❥︎ Title; when you attempt to kabedon him + bonus drawing at the end <3

❥︎ Warnings; reader has a teasing personality? riddle might be a bit ooc?

❥︎ Notes; starting off 2022 by a post for our sweet, tart loving dormhead ♡ + might make more of these kabedon oneshots for other characters since this was so fun to write !

It was a boring day for you at Night Raven Collage. All your classes seemed to somehow double in time, and each passing minute seemed more like an hour to you.

You let your head slide down onto your arms that were propped down on your desk, sighing out in boredom as you tuned out Crewel's lecturing from your mind.

It wasn’t long before a quite interesting idea popped into your mind, one that involved a certain strawberry haired boyfriend of yours and the 'kabedon' challenge that you saw resurface on your social media a couple of times before. The more that you thought of it, the more your curiosity to see Riddle's reaction increased. Plus, when did you ever turn down the opportunity to see the flustered look on your lovers face?

A few more minutes passed and the bell for your last class had finally rung. It was now officially time for you to put your plan in action.

You waited until the rest of the class and the teacher had left (you weren't that cruel to do it while the other students where still there, boy would die of embarrassment). Your eyes glanced towards the red haired boy who was standing right next to the class's door, waiting for you as you (purposely) took your sweet time packing your stuff up.

"Y/n hurry up, we're going to be late for the the unbirthday party." He ushered you, taking a look at the time displayed on the large clock hanging on one of the classroom's walls.

"I'm done, I'm done." You assured him, picking up your bag before heading towards the boy. "I was just checking to ensure that I didn't forget anything." Swinging the bag in your hand over your shoulder, you made your way to where Riddle was standing, hoping that he would stay where he was until you got to a close enough proximity to him, since his standing place next to doorway was great for what you were about to do.

Now standing next to Riddle's side, and right as he was about to turn his back to make his way out, you raised up both your hands, quickly and swiftly slamming them onto the wall behind him, successfully trapping Riddle's figure between your arms.

A look of pure shock graced the boy's face for a brief moment before it slowly morphed into one of embarrassment as he realised the position that you were both in. You proceeded bend both your arms a bit to move even closer to the boy; the space between you now so scarce that your noses were nearly touching. A dark shade of red crept up Riddle's neck, spreading to his cheeks and all the way up to the tips of his ears. His heartbeat picking up as he failed for the first few moments to form any comprehensible words. "W-what are you doing?"

You internally smiled at the cute reaction he showed in contrast to his usual serious self. It was really adorable how quickly flustered he gets by your actions even though you both have been dating for quite a while now.

You decided it was enough teasing him and leaned out a bit to place a quick, sweet kiss on his nose before you completely pulled yourself away from him. "I just wanted to give you a kiss, that's all." You grinned.

The heat on Riddle's cheeks had tamed down a bit now that your faces were't so close together like before. "You didn't have to do all that just to give me a kiss!" He huffed out, seemingly a bit annoyed by the fact that you knew how easy to fluster he is. It was hard to take him seriously though when the tips of his ears were still coloured in red. "What if someone came in and saw us? That would've been inappropriate."

"Aww, don't act like you didn't like it~"

He shook his head, turning his back to you as he made his way out of the classroom with you alongside him following his lead. "You're so childish."

"But you still love me!" Your hand reached out to slip into his, lacing your fingers together as you gave his hand a slight squeeze, feeling the warmth of his hand slowly seep into yours.

Riddle didn't say anything in return, and you thought you wouldn't get a reply out of him until a few seconds later you felt his grip on your hand tighten, to which you smiled, knowing that it translated into an wordless affirmation to your previous words.

Here's a quick sketch of a flustered riddle I did as I was thinking of this oneshot idea <3

❥︎ reblogs, comments and likes are always appreciated <33

Hetty

[hanna-kin]

Swedish facts- graduation edition

Swedish graduation is called Studenten.

Gymnasiet (High school) last for three years and you graduate (tar studenten) in the beginning of june.

Bare in mind I graduated many years ago so this is based on my experience and my school. But the basics are pretty much the same.

You don't have the same type of final exams many other countries have but for some subjects you have nationella proven (national exams) that are the same in every school of the country and you take them at the exact same time.

In other subjects you'll take normal tests and hand in your tasks throughout the year and the final grade will be based on how you perform over all.

But now to the fun part, studenten.

Usually you'll have some activities in the months before Studenten. Fun things you do with your class. The last month is especially filled with these things. It's usually both fun and a bit sentimental and it's pretty chill. (Was for me at least)

A common tradition which I didn't do is mösspåtagning which collerates with Valborg which I've previously written about.

This is what the hat looks like though the colour of the thingy in the middle depends on what program you studied (I did social science and mine was dark blue) you also write your name and your class and our year.

You also write messages in eachothers hats for memories.

👗Prom

A week or so before graduation you commonly have a prom. It's pretty straightforward. Many people have a date but it's also super normalised to just go with friends.

Since you typically only have one prom during your time at gymnasiet your final one is a big deal for many people. It’s very common to do your hair at the salon and maybe even your make up.

We had a "fancy" three course meal, danced and then left to go to a night club later in the evening.

The day of graduation often start super early. I think I woke up between 4.00 and 4.30 to get ready.

🍾 Champagne breakfast

On graduation day you usually start off the day with a champagne breakfast. It can start as early as 6-7 in the morning because you have busy day. Together with your classmates you buy lots of nice foods that you eat with your class before the cermony starts. You also drink alot (if you want to)

🍇🍉🍒🍓🍍🥭🥝🍑🍌🥖🥐🥞🧇🫒🍸🍾🍸🍾🍷🍾🍾🍺🍺🍺🍻🥂🥃🍸

Here's some of the typcial food you eat. Many people are wasted from like 8am to 4am the next day.

This is typically when you write in eachothers hats.

The "boring stuff"

Then there's usually some kind of cermony in school. You'll spend more time with your class and your teachers, the headmaster etc. You get your grades and say goodbye to your teachers.

There are often photos taken too by a professional photographer.

There will be speeches and scholarships handed out (not scholarships for collage or uni. That's still free. Basically just money)

We ate lunch in school too.

Then begins the fun part.

Utspringet

A common tradition is something we call "utspring"

Family and friends if the graduates gather outside and then you run outside either together with your class or one by one.

At my school it was divided by class and one my one your class will be called. You run out to a stage and everyone cheers you on and then you have to try to find your family among the sea of people which brings us to the next tradition.

Each family have their own poster that they can hold up in the crowd. It has picture of you (baby pictures are common) and your name and you usually try to find your own in the crowd which is very intense.

Then you typcially are greeted my family and friends and you get little bouquets of flowers, stuffed animals and small bottles of wine etc that you hang around your neck. You may get a whisle too to make you extra noisy.

I got a vuzuela.

After a while you typically gather with your class again and go into the next tradions (the order may vary)

Studentflaket

During the school year you safe up money with your class to rent a huge truck like the ones in the pictures. You decorate them with branches of birch and sheets that you write on. Then someone drive around in the middle of the city while you party on them and play music, sing, dance and drink alcohol.

Usually there's a cortege with these and it causes huge trafic jams. But mostly people will just be happy and cheer on.

We also had a walk through the main street where we just played music and did the same thing but walking. Instead. A little redundant if you ask me.

Studentmottagning

Then you typically go home where your family have gathered to celebrate you. You get presents and there's usually food or fika ot both depending on the family.

The house is usually decorated with branches of birch and the swedish colours (blue and yellow) if your family is swedish. It's common to have some sort of buffet style so people can help themselves with food and drinks.

Many studenrs are still wasted but try to hide it from their grand parents and other relatives. You try to eat and recover a bit but are typcially exhausted and or wasted. (I was exhausted but everyone thought I was wasted)

Studentfesten

After you've celebrated with your family its pretty common to meet up with your class again for a pre party and then go to a night club. Usually the night clubs have their own event specifically for the students so you meet up with other students and party for as long as you can.

It's not uncommon for the party to continue in a park when the night club closes and since it's june its only dark for a couple of hours.

It's common to be awake for 24 hours and when you wake up again you are officially an adult and the real life starts.

To prove how long ago I graduated. This is the song I remember the most from the dane floor and it brings all the memories.

[togglesbloggle]

As a data point, I did read (and greatly enjoy!) your book as a direct result of this account being made, and plan to read the rest of them now as well. The number of new sales from Tumblr may have been zero; the number of new fans was not. I was fascinated by the ways it was and wasn't similar to the fiction I'm used to, and there's some kind of deeply compelling Principle of Genre going on there that I'll be chewing on for a good long while.

Having been on Tumblr for a while now, I'll say that you're a dramatic outlier in terms of words written per day, particularly as a measure of original essays rather than replies to existing content. If you went down to one of these effortposts per week, that would be closer to a reversion to the mean than anything, albeit in larger lump-sums rather than distributed in small batches.

I'm on the opposite side of the bell curve, with a real effortpost maybe every month or two. (One of the reasons I'm here is to practice writing as a craft, so I do try not to let it completely devolve in to mere reblagging, but the blog proper is a victim of my success- I get paid to write these days, so I have less need of a casual sketchbook in my downtime and less itch to write when I'm resting.) Like you, I got a small boost to follower count early on from certain people highlighting me, and since then I've grown at a steady clip. 3-4 years was kind of the inflection point for me, after which my follower count started growing as fast or faster than my post count, I started to feel like I was 'in public' and 'writing to an audience', and a large majority of the posts I consider important started to land in that 'fire' category. But I've only very rarely tried to monetize anything here, and I suspect it wouldn't work very well.

I think it's pretty natural for you as an author to engage with Tumblr primarily through longform text, but it is countervalent to the local culture. Part of that is just the usual dynamic where the most viral content is the most zippy, of course, and another part is that terrible thing that happened to all our attention spans in the 21st century. But there's also a genuine multimedia culture on this website in particular and among these people in particular. A Homestuck fan can and will read Ulysses if it's mixed in with a brightly colored collage of jpegs! I experimented with this myself (random examples), to the limits of my own style preferences, and I'm fairly sure that tossing in the occasional visual element has a pretty dramatic result. I do it somewhat sporadically, since it takes time away from writing per se, and growing a large audience on Tumblr isn't my goal, but it's still a mainstay when I'm consciously writing a 'science essay' as an artifact nominally intended for general audiences. A minor example of the many ways that social media offers us a devil's bargain, but I suppose that's true of art in general when you get right down to it. Anyway, it's there as an option if you want to prioritize building a fanbase here.

The biggest problem with Tumblr, as I mentioned earlier, is that trying to get money out of it is absolutely squeezing blood from a stone. The userbase is aging, but it's still dramatically skewed towards people that don't have a lot of disposable income or social prestige; an unavoidable side effect of being one of the last great pseudonymous social media sites is a selection bias in favor of people that gain little value from trading in their real names. That often means youth or poverty. It's part of what makes Tumblr so uniquely creative and quirky, and I've stayed because I'm so fond of that culture, but it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the site is far better suited to being a creative crucible than it is a source of revenue. This is the land of masks.

My 6-Week Tumblr Return Trial Period Is Up

Happy Autumn! Today is the Autumnal Equinox. (That is, if you're in the Pacific Daylight Time zone or earlier; it's actually tomorrow, the 23rd. The moment of equinox is 11:49 pm PDT this year.)

I came back to Tumblr six weeks ago (actually a little shy of seven weeks but six is the highest whole number) and said that I was going to give it consistent effort till the Equinox to see how I felt about it. Well, that day is today!

I've decided to significantly reduce my Tumblr presence, but not go back to zero like before. I still plan to post at least once or twice a week, and more whenever the fancy catches me. I don't want to slow-roll you, so there's the bottom line.

For those interested, I thought I would talk about my experience since returning.

Why I Came Back

A few years ago on my birthday I set myself a challenge of posting in my journal every day for a year—which I more or less did, and then promptly stopped because it had been a laborious thing for me with limited rewards.

This year on my birthday I decided to try that challenge again, except this time "soft": no formal public announcement, and no penalty if I missed a day. Good thing, too, because I missed a day right away! 😅 But I definitely was doing more and better writing on my journal than I had been, and I liked that. Maybe there was a sweet spot between the strict artifice of one journal entry every day and the sad default of no entries for weeks.

Then, a few days into the challenge, I got the idea of diverting this energy away from my journal and into social media, to try and begin the long process of building an audience for my creative works. I recognize with some dread that when I eventually do finish my next novel, no one is going to read it—because no one is going to know it exists. But that's not set in stone; this is something platforms can help with! And you can't just build a platform overnight. You have to start well in advance. In this post-mainstream-publishing era where independent artists' only hope is to create their own following, I knew that I would have to at least try, if I wanted people to actually read my work.

Building a platform is something I had done years ago, around the time the Prelude to After The Hero was coming out, and I was hugely successful at that time in creating lots of content and lots of channels—i.e. the platform part. But I didn't actually get anywhere in building an audience. Then my life fell apart from multiple catastrophes in a short period, and for many years I had no ability to pursue "platform growth" at all.

But I have that ability again, at least temporarily, and maybe this time I could do better.

Marketing and being social are very hard for me. They don't come naturally to me and I am not good at them. But what I can do is write about my creative work, my life, my take on the world, and anything else that comes to mind. With any luck, that would attract some eyeballs. It's the same thing I was doing eight years ago in my platform-building work, but I could be smarter about it this time, and learn from my past mistakes, which involved a lot of wasted effort that no one ever saw. This time I could try going specifically where the people are: social media! Social media was a part of my original platform-building push eight years ago, but only on the periphery. This time I could put all my platform-building into it, and not all the different channels at once, but just in one single place. Concentrate all my effort on a single point!

So I chose Tumblr: the only social media platform that still seems to reward long-form, thoughtful content. (Not counting YouTube video content.) Facebook is definitely on the way out as a relevant social media network, Twitter was unusually toxic even before the idiot took over, and TikTok to put it politely is not my jam. But Tumblr...I still use Tumblr! I still read several people's pages, and have done so for many years.

I was never actually active on Tumblr as a creator myself. As far as posting my own content goes, my social media home has always been on Facebook (and, for a while, Google+). My "return" to Tumblr this summer wasn't really anything of the sort. Even though my account is many years old, this summer was my first time making a big effort here.

And here's what I learned.

What Worked and What Didn't

I went in with very low expectations. In other words, I didn't actually expect anyone to see my work. I expected to put in my six weeks, toil away in obscurity the whole time, and leave.

But a couple people did notice my return, and reblogged my early posts, and between them they had enough followers that their reblogs got me a small influx of followers. (Hi!) So there were eyeballs, at least. I wasn't talking to the wall. It was a good bet that anything I wrote would at least have a chance of being seen by multiple other people.

A good start!

I set about trying to learn about the Tumblr algorithm and people's usage patterns. I learned that there is a very strong signal to set apart the content that people enjoy seeing and the content they don't. On the scale of Zero to Fire, a lot of what I wrote was either hard Zero or pretty decently Fire.

In the Zero category: My short-form humor was dead on arrival. So was my Tolkienian vocabulary series. My fat liberation essay—by far the biggest effortpost I made during my six weeks here—attracted a single troll and no legitimate engagement whatsoever. At 7700 words I doubt many people even read it. Cool art reblogs were also pretty much a Zero. The people in my tiny audience don't want to see any of this stuff, at least not from me.

In the Fire category: People liked my hot takes on copyright law, left-handedness, rationalist-adjacent topics and framings, some personal anecdotes (but not others), and—most promisingly—some of my discussion about the mechanics of authoring and writing, including topics such as redemption arcs, body diversity representation, losing interest in one's own stories, and long sentences. To the extent I am going to attempt to build a larger Tumblr following over time, this "mechanics of authoring" area is probably where I will focus my primary aim.

Not everything was Zero or Fire. There were also some posts in the middle. My posts actually discussing my own work, The Curious Tale and Galaxy Federal, landed in this space. They mostly fell flat for my general audience, but did noticeably better than the hard Zero stuff due to the consistent engagement of a tiny handful of fans. (Thank you, especially you Fip!)

In terms of financial support, six weeks of content creation on Tumblr yielded no book sales and no new patrons on my Patreon fund, though I did get one pledge increase from an existing patron! This isn't a big surprise, since I didn't make any push to attract new patrons and have made no attempt to hide that my book is also available for free. Still, zero is a noticeable number.

What Tumblr Feels Like

I'll be honest with you: I don't really "do" social media. I never have. I don't like social media. I am a creature of individual websites, web journals / blogs, and message forums. Facebook is the social network I use most (if you don't count YouTube), and my Facebook is set up more like a walled garden than a social network node—i.e., it is almost completely restricted to the people on my deliberately-short friends' list. I use it to look at cool pictures of clouds and landscapes, learn about things going on in my city, and keep in touch with friends. I've never really been one to use social media the way it is intended these days.

Nevertheless: Of all the social networks, I've always had a comparatively positive view of Tumblr. Tumblr is where freaks and weirdos come to be freaky and weird, and I love it. (Sometimes in principle more than practice, but still.) There used to be a tumblr called "Fuck Yeah Fat Upper Arms," and that was what I would point to whenever I had to explain to someone why I love Tumblr.

I also know there are notorious amounts of drama and pettiness on Tumblr, but in my experience it isn't so hard to just sidestep it most of the time. Also, I don't follow all that many people, so I probably just don't see much of this stuff in the first place.

When I returned to Tumblr I am pleased to say that it was basically what I hoped for: lots of wonderful niche and countercultural stuff; really thoughtful discussions that get a lot more depth here than almost anyplace else I've seen; and amazing art and fanart. There were lots of takes I didn't like, of course. Lots of stuff that rubbed me wrong. And the drama is definitely alive and well. But that's just life, right? As amplified by social media in all its unnuanced might. On the whole, I have enjoyed my time spent browsing Tumblr these past six weeks.

One thing actually did bring down my spirits about this place, though, and it has nothing to do with drama or takes I don't like: Tumblr feels kind of addictive. Like a giant industrial vat full of churning slurry, and if you fall in there's no getting out. I have an addictive personality, not to booze or drugs (as far as I know) but to content sources, specifically "content-firehose" websites that always have new things to read. I was stuck on GameFAQs for years back in the day, long after it had become a net-negative for me. Right now my big content addiction is Reddit, and it's definitely a net negative in my life for all the time it wastes for so little in return. And there have been many other content addictions in the years between. It's very hard for me to leave a content-firehose website once I've gotten sucked into it. And I really, really don't want to get sucked into Tumblr.

Like, this place is genuinely cool, but it doesn't "do it" for me like it did the last time I paid close attention to it. Fuck Yeah Fat Upper Arms is gone, and with it the innocence of my youth. Social media just isn't my scene, and returning to Tumblr has definitely given me the impression that I've "outgrown" it altogether. (I wrote a few days ago about one of the reasons why I think this.) I don't particularly want to spend a lot of time here. I don't have that content addiction to Tumblr yet, and I can feel myself actively straining to avoid developing it every time I'm on here. That's why I've only been reading my dashboard a few times a week.

I'm not saying social media is something juvenile that everyone is supposed to outgrow; I'm just talking about my own preferences and issues. My ideal use case for Tumble is to check in with Tumblr periodically and see new Samus Aran fanart and hot takes on cool things I've never heard about or thought deeply enough about. But, in practice, reading my Tumblr dashboard feels like dipping my feet in that vat of slurry I mentioned: It's very time-consuming and a lot of the stuff I see I don't really "need" in my life.

This six-week experiment has actually helped me to realize that, going forward, I should be looking to use social media less in my life, not more. It isn't just all-consuming and energy-draining; it has become kind of evil over the years. Tumblr isn't nearly as bad as some of the worst offenders, but on the whole we're slowly being pushed to use these services in very particular ways, ways which degrade us, and it's nefarious. Not just the abuse of our personal information and privacy, but the way we spend our time and think about the world. Social media seems to be making society actively worse on the whole, and that's down to the profit motives of the people who make the rules about how these services operate. It's probably not a coincidence that Tumblr, as one of the least-problematic major social networks, is also not particularly profitable.

I have lamented for years that I wish we would go back to individual people's websites and enthusiast–owned-and-operated message forums. I really think that this viewpoint is not just my nostalgia glasses talking; I think the individual websites paradigm was a better way of experiencing the Internet and interacting with each other. But while I can't do much to change society's patterns in general, I can at least be deliberate about how I engage with social media myself. And I think I'm going to be doing less of that as time goes on.

My actual public face is my Live Journal, even though it has languished for years. Either it or some successor blog is likely to be an ongoing constant for the rest of my life. I hope people will gradually find me there.

The Long Game

You're not gonna build an audience in six weeks. I know that. Also, in my time here, I've only done one of the two things that one needs to do to build an audience on social media: I've created content. I think my content has been more or less decent. (You can tell me if you think otherwise.)

What I haven't done is heavily engage with other content creators. I haven't done many reblogs; I've done zero asks; and I don't follow other tumblrs in a businesslike mindset of network—I only follow the ones I think I might like to read.

If I were to continue, the next step in my trial period would be a 3-month experiment. I've had enough success here in the past six weeks to justify dedicating another three months of my life to daily Tumblr posts if I want.

In that time I would need to focus more on the "networking" side of social networking. On the content side, I would continue trying to figure out what people like to see and what they don't. But it's the networking stuff that would be next in line for my full attention.

I'm also aware that all of my data are biased by the small size of my audience and the nonrandom composition of it. There is a danger in optimizing for that, from a long-term scalability and optimization standpoint. My social networking efforts would have to be geared toward diversifying my audience as much as growing it, because the truth of the matter is that I don't know yet who "my" audience truly is. Most of the people here now are people who are here because they like other creators and respected those people's recommendations—not because they necessarily like my art. The poor showing of my posts discussing my art kind of speak to that point.

So the question is, do I have a 3-month trial period in me? Or even just another 6-week period?

And that's a really tough question. I need to be writing my books, and I need to be paying my rent, and when I'm here on Tumblr I'm not doing either of those things. The best-case scenario is that by being here I'm setting myself up to pay future rents and have more available time for future creative writing. But in the meantime there are rents coming due in the immediate future, and my mental bandwidth is sickly and limited.

Is Tumblr even the place to build my audience? It might not be! It might be YouTube. It probably is YouTube. But Tumblr isn't nothing, and writing short essays is a hell of a lot faster than producing videos. A few loyal Tumblr followers might be just the pop I would need to get a future YouTube effort off to a running start.

One of my flaws as an entrepreneur is that I hate thinking like one when it comes to this whole sales / engagement / audience-building / marketing stuff. I like thinking about people as people, not as economic partners whose tastes and needs I must carefully accommodate to in order to hopefully earn a living from this someday. And I don't like thinking about my own content here as "content." I hate that word. But I am under no illusions about why I am here. I am not here for fun. I've done my Live Journal "for fun" for twenty years (as of last month!) and I have no audience to show for it. Growing an audience is not about having fun. Bonus points if you can manage to have fun along the way, but what it's really about is giving people an experience that they enjoy and want more of.

Social media is a hungry beast, a dehumanizing force (in my view), and an algorithmic rat race. I would much rather create content on my own terms, rather than try to play the social media game. This is one of the many reasons why I am so bad at the whole marketing side of building a business. Successful entrepreneurs dive right into it and give the people what they want. Like that "emotional damage" mate on YouTube: He gave an interview talking about how he just tried different schticks, not even comedy per se, until he found something that worked on people.

In an ideal world, when my next book is finished I could just press a button and everyone in the world know about its existence, and everyone who is interested could buy it and read it. But in the real world, you have to peck and scrape your way to attention, and I'm just so bad at this that it discourages me from even making the attempt.

So, adding it all up, what I come up with is that it would be wasteful for me to just abruptly give up on Tumblr as suddenly as I returned to it. I've started a ball rolling here, and I can build on that beginning if I want. But I also don't think that people need to hear from me on a daily basis. I'm probably not doing myself any favors by posting effortful content every day, not just in terms of my own sustainability but in terms of the algorithms of Tumblr and the mental bandwidth of my readers.

So I've come to the conclusion that Tumblr is probably not where my audience is going to be built, if indeed I ever manage to build one. But there is some potential here, and, more importantly, this is where the vast majority of my current fans are.

Ergo, going forward I will be reducing my posting frequency to a target of once or twice per week, plus whatever extras I see fit to add. I will continue to test out different types of content to see what catches interest. And I will start playing that social networking game that I dread so much, and try to engage more with others and hawk myself far and wide without looking like I'm trying to hawk myself, because for all that we claim to live in an age of sincerity we absolutely don't, and we will see where things go.

I will revisit this at Halloween, and see how I feel about it.

In the meantime, I will try to take some of this bandwidth I am freeing up and allocate it to other audience-building work. More on that as I have it for you!

If you made it this far, thanks for reading and for giving me some of your time. Please please please do give me some feedback if there's anything you want to know or want to see me discuss.

[straykidsworldwild]

DUSKWOOD

Phil x MC (pregnant part 4/4)

Plot : MC and Phil are finally parents.

(I don't own the pictures. I only own the collage. Credits go to the owners.)

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

~ 6 months later ~

- How are my two princesses doing? I hear Phil's deep voice asking me sweetly as he walks in our shared bedroom. I am facing my wardrobe, doing some stretching. The bottom of my back and of my belly has been hurting me since last afternoon. It started in the middle of it, around 4p.m... It felt like small cramps but it was strong enough for me to feel it. Maybe baby is just moving around...

- Well, one is sleeping pretty well inside mommy's belly and the other one feels like a huge whale, I reply as I turn around and face Phil. I cannot wait to meet our baby. One, because I'm just so excited to hold this little bundle of joy that I created. Two, because I cannot wait to see my feet again...

- Well, mommy is very beautiful the way she looks, replies, Phil, smiling gently at me. I chuckle as my boyfriend places his hands on each side of my belly. Wow...! I push Phil's hands and hold myself with one hand onto the wardrobe behind me. The other one holds my belly, rubbing it softly. The pain wasn't that important before... Your back hurts? Or did I hurt you? I hear Phil asking me, looking confused and surprised at the same time. Yest, he seems concerned. I don't reject him usually...

- No, it's not you. I've been having cramps since last night, I admit to my boyfriend as I take a deep breath in and out. Of course, I haven't told him how bad the cramps feel... Okay, seems like it's gone.

- Is it normal? Are you okay? He continues to ask me questions as he sounds more and more worried.

- Yeah, it's just... Intense time to time, I confess to him. I don't want him to panic. He looks already so worried...

- Wait, sit down a bit, he tells me with a caring tone as he softly places a hand on my belly while his other one snakes around my back to help me walk a few steps. Phil leads me to our bed and we sit on the edge of it. It feels nice to sit a bit... Are you sure you're not in labor? He then asks me, sounding serious. What?

- The baby is coming in ten days, Phil. It's not now, I remind him while rubbing my stomach.

- But it's possible that it comes sooner, no? He questions, sounding unsure of his statement. Phil might be older than me and he might know a lot of things, he still has this naive side of his which I find totally adorable.

- Yes, of course. But I'm fine. Really, I respond, trying to comfort him. I give him a smile as I stare lovingly into his eyes. However, despite my words and my smile, Phil still looks unsure. Well, even I didn't convinced myself... I would have been a terrible actress... I need to do the laundry, Phil, I say while placing my hand on top of his.

- Don't worry, I'll do it, he says, getting up quickly to grab the white basin.

- I need to do something, Phil. I can't just sit around and... I begin to say to Phil as I stood up from the bed to join him. However, I wasn't fully standing on my feet when a wave of pain hit my lower abdomen. I groaned in pain as I fell back on the bed side. Those are definitely not cramps...

- MC! Calls me, my boyfriend, dropping the basin while rushing up to my sides. Oh God...

- Okay, maybe you're right. I'm in labor-Ahh! I tell him all while wincing in pain. And I beleive it's just the beginning...

- Okay, hum... What should I do? He tells me with some panic in his voice. I look at Phil as I take deep breaths in and out. His eyes are so full of stress and worry... He tries not to show it but he actually panics... His hands are lightly shaking. I take hold of them and make him look at me.

- First, don't panic. Second... I tell him with a calm tone before stopping abruptly talking. Something dripping down my legs... My water's breaking, wait... The two of us look down. I don't see anything, obviously, but I can feel the water dripping and hear it falling on the floor.

- Oh... Is-is... Did...? Starts saying, Phil, as he looks back up at me. He seems lost and a bit scared.

- The suitcase is all packed in our closet. You just need to put it in the car, I remind him calmly as I feel another wave of pain hurting me. I groan out of pain as I feel Phil placing a hand over my belly and the other one finds its way to my hand. I squeeze his hand until the contraction is over. Staying calm is the best I can do right now...

- You're okay? Is it over? He asks me with a caring tone. I nod before looking up at him with teary eyes.

- I need to go to the hospital, Phil, my boyfriend didn't waste time and ran to get the suitcase to place it in his car. I stayed by myself for the next two minutes before he came back to get me. We left the apartment and walked to his car.

The ride felt so long for me. Maybe for Phil too... I don't know. He seemed so focus on the road but so worried at the same time. My boyfriend kept his left hand on the stirwheel while his other one held my hand tightly. He didn't let go once. Every time I would get a contraction, he would give it a squeeze and say sweet and encouraging words to help me go through it. It's like he was trying to take the pain away from me. The contractions are getting longer and they are more and more painful each time. I'm not going to lie, I let a tear rolling down my cheek as it felt like I was being snatched from inside. I don't usually cry over pain but this kind of pain... Wow! Phil wiped my few tears away instantly before taking hold of my hand once again. And to add more, during the ride, my water broke twice more which made me feel embarrassed and a bit more nervous. Staying calm is definitely the hardest thing to do right now... I told Phil, but he didn't seem to care about it certainly ruining his car seat. Instead, I just felt him rubbing the back of my hand softly. He just wants to calm me down the best he can all while driving us safely to the hospital.

At the hospital, he helped me walk inside the building all while rolling my suitcase. Phil screamed, calling for help. Doctors or nurses came to us instantly and they took care of me. Not even fifteen or twenty minutes later, Phil and I were in a room for patient in the maternity section. The doctors told me that I have to wait a few more hours as I am not dilated enough to greet our baby to this world. Thus, Phil stayed with me and helped me go through all of the hard moments so far.

Doctors came to check on me an hour ago. They said it was still not enough dilated for the baby to come but it's getting there. So I wait and wait, and endure the pain the contraction are giving me. I can't describe the pain with words. It's at such a level that, to understand it, we need to go through it.

Three hours later, I am slowly walking around the room with the help of Phil. I can feel myself sweating and my thighs starting to hurt.

- Wait, stop, stop, I say to my boyfriend as I hold my belly and lean forward a bit. I let groans of pain out which are almost screaming at this point. I agreed to take the epidural, but the pain is still intense... Phil is standing behind me, massaging my lower back to relax me. It hurts so much! I say with pain in my voice as I take deep breaths in and out.

- It's going to be okay, MC. Just tell yourself that we're soon going to be three at home, he tells me with a small cheerful tone as he keeps a positive vibe. But I can't bring up the positivity in me when I feel such pain at the moment.

- Phil, I need you-Ahh! I cry through the pain as I ignore his comment. Phil went to grab a chair from the room and helped me sit on it. I continue to groan in pain while my boyfriend kneels before me. I grip onto his shirt so tightly that my knuckles turned white. Phil lets me do, not bothered if I ruin his shirt or not.

- Breath, MC. Take deep breath, he tells me softly as he holds onto my hand that is griping his shirt. I groan and let a sudden sob out. The tears are coming up again... I start to slowly relax as the contraction is coming to an end. Phil feels it and rubs my hand as a sign of encouragement. You're doing very well, Gorgeous, he tells me as he wipes my tears away.

- Promise me you'll stay with me during the whole time I'll be giving birth, I tell him with some fear in my voice.

- Of course I will. Don't worry of me leaving because it's never going to happen, he says with a comforting tone. I nod to his response before letting a long breath out. I get up from the chair with Phil's help and walk back to the bed. My boyfriend helps me lay back on it. How much longer? I look at the monitor next to me when another wave of pain get me. They're getting closer and closer... And more intense. They seem to get closer and closer, states, Phil, as he grabbed my hand to let me squeeze it one more time. Ugh, what's this...?

- Get a nurse, please, I tell him with a surprising rushed tone.

- Something's wrong? He asks me, panic heard in his voice for a second. Something's wrong? What?

- Get a nurse, Phil! The baby's coming! I tell him as the urge of pushing feels more and more important. Without wasting time, Phil runs out of the room and go get a nurse like I asked him.

A few seconds later, Phil came back with doctors running behind him. He gets to my side and takes my hand in his one more time as the doctors get ready to help me give birth. It was one of the most intense moment in my life. I've never felt such pain before. I've never gave such energy before either. And I don't remember when was the last time I was this nervous. However, despite all of this, when our baby was finally here, I couldn't help but to feel overjoyed, alive. I just gave birth to my first baby... I made this little bundle of joy and I get to hold it for the first time! Phil almost fainted when they handed me the baby. It's so tiny! So adorable! It's mine. She's ours. The doctors gave a chair to Phil so he could sit. I looked at him and saw him shred tears of joy. I smiled as I was watching at the two loves of my life...

~ Few month later ~

- You, my little princess, are very beautiful in this pyjama. You definitely got the beauty from your mommy, you know that? Oh yes, you have a beautiful mom. But between you and me, you're the most beautiful one, I hear Phil saying discretely, yet not so discretely, to our daughter. The two of us are still living in this small apartment with our baby, but next month we are moving out to a new home. I cannot wait to be there. One, because we'll have more space. Two, because we'll get to make incredible memories there, and I can't wait to make them.

I am leaning against the door frame, smiling, when I see Phil tickling our baby girl. I hear her laughing which is just so adorable. She's so perfect!

- Should I be jealous? I suddenly say as I walk in. Phil softly laughs as he picks our baby up and turns around to face me.

- So jealous. Have you seen her face, Gorgeous? So adorable! Tells me, Phil, before he covers our daughter's face with sweet kisses. Our princess laughs once again under the tickles Phil is giving her. I laugh back and take my baby from her father's arms.

- I carried this baby. I gave birth to this baby. I was the first face she saw. Of course, I've seen her face, I reply with love as I kiss the top of her head delicately. Phil smiles at the sight of the two girls of his life before snaking his arms around my waist. He leans in and places a soft kiss on my lips, expressing all of his love.

- I love you, MC, so much, he whispers with love after pulling away.

- I love you too, Phil, I whisper back, getting on my tip toes to peck his lips once more. I let a small giggle out before walking out from our baby's room to go to the living room.

- Jessy agreed to take this princess for the weekend, so she comes in a few hours. We have two days for ourselves, tells me, my boyfriend, as I watch him taking a cigarette and his lighter out from his pocket.

- Mmmh... Should I understand something? I say with a suggestive tone while smirking. Phil chuckles as he walks towards the kitchen.

- Well, if you didn't, it's fine. I'll just have to show you tonight, my love, he responds before entering the kitchen and closing the door behind him. Phil has taken the habit to smoke away from me since I am pregnant. And ever since we brought our baby back home, he doesn't want to smoke near us so he locks himself in the kitchen and smokes by the window. I appreciate that. I really love his caring side. He's very thoughtful. I chuckle at Phil's comment as I sit on the sofa with my baby sitting on my legs...

- Daddy definitely knows what he is doing to mommy. Oh yes, I say to my baby girl as I hold her against my chest.

~ Later that night ~

Jessy came about two hours ago and picked up our little girl for two nights. I'm not going to lie, I already miss her. I can't wait to go pick her up from her aunt's. I haven't been separated from her ever since we brought her home. It feels weird.

On the other hand, I'm really glad to have a real dinner just between Phil and I. It's not our first one, but all of those little things we do for each other always make them special to me.

I got ready about an hour ago and now I'm preparing for the super. Phil is getting ready as well. He should be done by now but I haven't seen him got out from the bathroom yet. Oh, where's the salt?

- Phil? Where’s the salt? I ask my boyfriend as I look in all of the closets in our kitchen. I wait for an answer but I don't hear anything. Phil? Babe? I call him once again as I thought he didn't hear me. Why is he not answering? I frown confused and step out from the kitchen to enter the living room. Phi...? I was about to call him when I hear one of my favorite songs playing. The floor is covered of petals of roses, the light isn't too bright or too low which gives a romantic atmosphere, and candles are lite up around the room. In the middle of the living room, Phil is standing there, wearing a nice black trousers with a white shirt half button up. His hair are well tied back in a bun. He looks amazing! Phil, what’s going on? I ask him while giggling. We had romantic dinners before but this one... Wow!

- MC, he calls me as he walks over to me. Phil offers me a beautiful rose which I acceot. The petals are colored of a deep red. You’re so beautiful, he says with a sincere tone. However, he sounded surprisingly nervous. His voice shaked a bit.

- You alright? I've never seen you nervous before, I ask him with some concern. Phil smiles and nods before taking a step back. He clears his throat and take a deep breath in and out. What's taking him?

- Before meeting you, I was... Nothing. I mean, I was just Phil Hawkins, the guy who owns a bar and loved sleeping around with women. That’s all I was and that’s all I knew. But... Things changed... I stare at my boyfriend, listening to his speech. He seems so nervous... He's taking all of his courage to do this confession. Ever since that night we had together at your birthday, you helped me learn that I could have more than what I had. You helped me learn how to be a real man. You helped me realized that I am worth something. You showed me that I could have a real woman, with a real home, and a child of our own. I realized that I could create a whole story with the partner of my life. You gave and keep giving me what nobody ever gave me and... Phil suddenly stops talking. I smile at his words as I start to feel teary. Why is he saying all of this suddenly? Why is he so nervous and emotional? Suddenly, Phil gets down on one knee and pulls a red velvet box out from his pocket.

- Phil...! I exclaim, covering my mouth with my hand.

- You’re the person I want to spend the rest of my life with, MC. You gave me a beautiful daughter, you gave me the chance to change and to become a better man, and you gave me real love. I love you so much, Gorgeous. So... I watch Phil opening the small box, revealing a beautiful ring. I gasp in surprise as I feel my first tears rolling down my cheeks. Wi... Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife and to live the rest of your life with me? Asks me, Phil, popping the question that can change our whole life. My eyes alternate between the ring and his eyes.

- Yes... Yes! Yes! Yes! I exclaim with happiness as I cannot stop the tears flowing down my cheeks. Phil smiles brightly as I feel him putting the ring on my finger. My man stands back up on his feet and envelopes my waist with his arms before crashing his lips on mine with so much fierce. I answer to his kiss, the two of us giving as much love as we can through the kiss. The two of us pull away, but he sticks his forehead on mine.

- Let's go make another baby, he tells me playfully, yet, with seriousness. I laugh and give him another kiss before pulling away.

- Fine, but you carry it this time, I reply with the same playful tone he used. Phil picks me up and I circle his waist with my legs.

- I can't do that. And you did an amazing job with our first baby. You can only just do as amazing with the second one, he says as he begins to devour my neck and jawline while bringing up to our bedroom.

That night was one of the best and most magical night I've ever had. Everything is just going so well. I have my baby girl, my boyfriend is now my fiancé, we're moving inside a new house next month... And who knows, maybe our family will grow in a few months. It's a whole new beginning for us and I cannot wait to live it the fullest!

[faceglitchsworld]

It's the 5th of February here...you know what that means.

It's Terr-I mean Taehyun's birthday, wohoo!

As always, I've made a collage for him ☺️

Ok, just for clarification, I needed to take a screenshot from his Sugar Rush Ride fancam. Why? Because I needed a picture of him sleeveless. You need to admire his muscles, the boy works out and you need to see the muscles 😤

The selcas on the middle are my favourite of him honestly, he gives such ✨ S W A G ✨ energy, I couldn't not put them.

Enough with the explanation, it's time for the emotional part (there's a language switch here, I'm sorry).

Taehyun is really important to me, especially for this blog's history. I still remember how I was spending the night reblogging birthday content for him when, out of the sudden, I thought: "Wait, isn't it too boring? It's his birthday and I'm just adding the usual tags..."

I kept scrolling until I found another birthday gifset dedicated to him. I don't remember exactly which gifset was, I just remember that I went completely in AWWW mode and I screamed "Ah ma che patato che è". That moment was like an epiphany for me, I really started to use that word more and more just for him. And then that word became his personal tag. Yup, his personal tag, my first personal tag, was born on his day. What a coincidence, uh? Since then, if I have enough fantasy, I always give a personal tag for every member of every group that I stan (I'm crazy, I know perfectly, don't worry).

So, yeah, if my blog has become even more "personal" for me, tagging wise, it's thanks to Taehyun.

Of course this is not the only reason why I love him. I don't know if it's just me but I noticed that Tae has a very special duality. Tae seems the most mature and chill member if you just watch a couple of TxT videos. A little savage, sure, but it seems the more mature, the voice of reason sometimes. But then you dive a little more deeper and you discover that, at the end of the day, he also loves bring chaos like the rest of the maknae line. He just has his way of being chaotic. I'll always remember the To Do episode where TxT were doing the Police Playbook and Tae did that magic trick with the pen out of the sudden. I'm still laughing about it. It's this duality that makes me love him even more.

I can't talk about Taehyun without mentioning my love for his voice. When I discovered TxT and I started to listen to their discography, Taehyun was the first vocalist I immediately recognized. Probably I should thanks his highnotes but, uhm...I don't think I just love him for that. I love the way he modulate his voice for every song. He immediately understands which song he's singing and he makes sure you can feel the right emotion while singing it. He's singing an happy and upbeat song? He makes sure to put a smile on your face while singing it. A sad and emotional song? You'll surely cry thanks to him. You get it. Singing is his way of "acting" for me. He knows how to communicate a certain feeling and, like a real actor, he makes sure you'll feel those emotions. And I love him for this.

Dear Taehyun, I don't have enough love words for your day. I only wish for you to never stop being curious. Trying new things and challenges has always been one of the best trait of yours and you demonstrated this with the last album too. Knowing how much work and energy you put every time, new challenges will be a new occasion to show to us more sides of you and I can't wait to see them. Don't worry about the result. Even when it's not perfect, MOAs will always appreciate your effort and your courage to try something new.

Hope you'll celebrate this day happily with the members and your family too, you deserve it.

Happy Birthday Taehyun 🐿️

[dragon-kazansky]

Dangerous | Helmut Zemo

AU! Race car driver Zemo 😎

Gender neutral reader

Collage by @realremyd

I AM ONCE AGAIN SORRY

[Masterlist]

[Previous chapter] - [Next chapter]

Part 9

When Zemo got to the bar, there was no one there. He had gone inside looking for you, had asked all the staff when he couldn't see you there. He began to panic when they told him you had left a while ago.

Rushing back outside, he looked left and right rapidly. He saw no one. He got back into his car and drove. He would drive all night if he had to. He just had to find you.

He kept trying to call you, but you wouldn't pick up. At some point you turned your phone off, which just made him worry all the more.

Pietro Maximoff.

He hadn't heard that name in years. What happened back then had always hung over him like a dark cloud, but it had been so long since anyone had ever said that name to him.

He had to explain. You needed to know what happened. If Zemo lost you, what would be the point? How could he race without his lucky charm? He couldn't let this get between you both.

He felt horrible lying to you. There was so much he hadn't told you, but he had never wanted you to find out like this. He should have been honest from the start.

Zemo could only imagine what you were thinking. What must you think of him now?

How long had been driving? He had no idea. He hadn't found you yet. It was becoming harder and harder to keep up his facade. He wanted to yell, scream, punch something.

Everything was falling apart.

The only place he hadn't checked was home. He had no idea how you would have got there, the walk being too far, but it's all he had left.

He makes the drive back.

His grip on the steering wheel was tight. He was full of worry, anger, regret.

He pulls up to the house, but all the lights are off and there is no sign of life. He has the key for the door, there's no way you have got in. He looks down the path to the garage, it looks undisturbed. The garage is locked up tight.

You're not here.

His phone rings.

Zemo scrambles for the device, nearly dropping it from how bad his hands had begun to shake. He looks at the screen, but is left disappointed. It's not you.

James Barnes

He answers it.

"Whatever it is better be important. I have urgent business to attend to." Zemo is surprised by how level he can keep his voice right now.

"I'd say this is important."

"Well, what is it?"

"I bumped into Y/N on my way home. It's only because of Sam I was able to recognize them."

"Where are they?" He asks, almost urgently.

"On the last train home for the night. Zemo, what the Hell happened? They were hysterically upset. I swear I'll kick your ass if you did something stupid."

"It wasn't something I did. Were they alone?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Y/N had gone to meet someone. A wicked young woman who I may run over if I see her," he hisses down the phone.

"I didn't see anyone else."

"I have to go."

Zemo hangs up. He has to go to you, but first, he has to meet with Stark. The only way that nasty little woman could have known about that incident is if Stark had told her.

Tony Stark had been there that day.

Zemo gets into his car and he drives. He drives like a man on a mission. He doesn't care how late it is, Tony Stark will see him tonight.

If Zemo loses you, he will never forgive himself. He will never forgive Tony Stark.

He will never race again.

The lights are on at Stark's homebase. Zemo spends a few minutes parked outside looking at the window. The curtains were drawn, but movement could be seen vaguely behind them.

He gets out and marches up to the door. He knocks harshly.

In the seconds before the opening of the door, many thoughts flashed through Zemo's mind. He had no idea what would happen here tonight, all he did know was that Tony Stark was a cruel man who wanted to ruin everything good in his life.

Zemo had been beyond lucky they even let him race again after what happened.

The door opens. Stark stands there.

The way he looks at Zemo, it pisses him off. He stands with his chin up, head held high, looking down at Zemo. He knows why the Baron is here. He had anticipated his visit.

"What a surprise," Tony says, no emotion to his voice.

"What have you done?'

"What I had to." Tony walks away, leaving the door open. He walks over to his alcohol cabinet and pours himself a drink. Zemo steps inside, glaring daggers at the man. His hands clenched into fists as he grinds his jaw.

"That was six years ago."

"It still happened."

"You know it wasn't my fault."

Tony stands, drink in hand, looking at his rival. Here was a man who had been broken once before, and stands broken again. Stark did you a favour. Zemo wouldn't be here now if you had gone back to him after that, so he can only assume you left.

"You are the reason that kid is dead. Everyone knows it."

Zemo shakes his head.

"You are the reason people see me as a murderer. I did nothing to you. That, out there, is competition. We play the game by the rules and we play fair. At least, we're suppose to. I do not like your dirty tricks, Stark."

Tony doesn't move. He stands there, still.

"I was lucky they even let me race again, but even luckier when Y/N came into my life. You are taking away everything I hold dear, piece by piece. You are ruining me."

"You ruined yourself when you took up racing," Tony says, coldly.

"You just can't let it go, can you? You don't like that I am better than you."

Tony doesn't reply.

Zemo takes slow, careful steps toward Tony. His eyes, glazed with tears, do not look away from his gaze. He only stops when he is directly in front of him.

"If I lose Y/N, you will never hear the end of this. You're cruelty knows no bounds, Stark. I fell so very sorry for Miss Potts. How can she be so fond of a man like you who turns careers and flaunts around with other women. Does your little bird know you are a heartless bastard?"

"You don't scare me, Zemo."

"Not yet, I don't."

Zemo grabs the glass from Stark's hand, throws it at the wall behind him, and then marches away.

He has to see you.

By the time he reaches your town, it's about one on the morning. Though there is the chance you're sleeping, he is here and he will takes his chances.

He knocks on your door.

There are no sounds, no sign of movement, but there is a light which he can see under your door.

You're home.

"Y/N." His accent is heavier than usual, wavered by emotion. He leans up against the door, ear pressed against it.

You're there.

He knows you're there, listening.

"I'm sorry," he says, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about me. Pietro Maximoff died in a terrible accident. His car malfunctioned. It was an accident that turned into a case because someone decided to ruin my career."

He waited, wanted to see if you would say anything.

You didn't.

"I have raced before. I won on my first race. I won again, the second. A racing star, they called me. That was the first time Tony Stark had lost. Suddenly, he had competition. Real competition. Before, he would leave everyone in the dust, winning over and over again. Then I showed up. After my second win, he had my car checked. He was furious because it was legal. He assumed I had altered it against the rules because there was no way his cars would lose. Then that happened."

He hears you move. You're right behind the door.

"Pietro Maximoff was a crazy good driver. Apparently he was awed by me. I told him if he crossed the line that day, I would tutor him. We made a deal. However, his car malfunctioned after the third turn. He drove head first into the barrier, full speed. His car caught fire. He was alone. It took too long for the team to reach him. He died on impact, they say. He was dead whether they got to him or not."

He sighs, hand resting up against the door.

"I did not tamper with his car. I did not kill that boy. Tony Stark made them believe I did with no evidence to prove it. I was found not guilty of attempted murder, but I was disqualified from racing up until I finally made an appeal. This season is my first racing season in 6 years."

He waits.

He hears shuffling, but nothing else.

"You have to believe me. If I lose you too... i have nothing left."

Nothing.

You don't say anything. The door does not open. He steps back in defeat. He doesn't know what else he can do, what else he can say.

Except, "If you still hold feelings for me, then please be at the next race. If you come, I'll know you'll forgive me. I know you'll still love me. If you don't, then I will never bother you again. I'll know that I have ruined everything and I will live with that regret until the day I die."

He takes a deep breath and steps away further.

"I love you. I want you to know that. I love you."

You cry silently as you listen to him walk away. It's not until you're sure he has gone when you let your cries out.

On your coffee table sat your laptop. As soon as you got home, you had been researching what had happened that day.

There was no evidence.

Just articles and speculation.

The fact that you even believed for a moment he had killed a young man like that made you sick. How horrible of a person could you be?

Helmut deserved someone better than that.

He has spent so many years living with a tragic accident over him, and you hadn't even talked to him about it.

You felt awful.

You spent most of the night heartbroken. Sleep eventually paid you a visit, but it was hardly restful. You just woke up in pain.

Race day was coming fast.

What were you going to do?

@ajeff855 @moonstuffsteve @sky-writes-stuff @lieutenantn @lostghostgirl94 @friday18eo @yaskna @my-blood-is-maple-syrup @gingerwriter97 @lunamooney2406 @wilder-fangirl @nectav @whovianayesha @thesuitkovian @cathrin2405 @deathtothepatriarchy @belle82devart @dxrksxul06 @killeromanoff @alex-the-nb @latenightartist-author @hb8301 @goddessofmischief03 @xxidontwikeitxx @themeanestlittlewitch @scuttle-buttle @fillechatoyante @lucky-luck-lucky @zemosimp420 @avengersofmischief @breadsquash

[goldentemplariumcrow]

'I'm sorry.' The man didn't have to apologize at all, it wasn't him who placed Hood in that position and forced him to relive what bad experience he had, and yet, he still did it. He empathized and apologized to Red Hood for something he had no idea of what it was.

Then, he heard the questions about being back and an airy laughter escaped him so spontaneously it almost felt like it wasn't his own, no sound to it at all, but the noise of air escaping through the speaker in his helmet and some wheezing that turned into muffled snorting noises when he tried to keep it all in. His body still trembled and Corvus began to feel cold, but he couldn't help the reaction.

'Define normal.'

Because he hadn't seen the world for what it was in years. It was always a sort of weird collage of reality and times way before the present, with windows, doors and ladders out of place that the rest of his senses peeked on way before his eyes did. It got better in the last couple of years of his life, no doubt about that, which meant his control over whatever abilities his genetic making provided him with was getting stronger and more stable, but it was still one hell of a leap to say it was normal.

'I can feel your arms. Your voice too. There's a street lamp twenty feet from us. A car just passed on the main street blasting its horn.' Corvus named some of what he could see, hear and touch to show that he was present. 'And I'm sticky and cold. I'm bleeding.'

Finally, his center of focus turned to himself and he stretched his left arm ahead of his body to see what was going on, only to see some of his sleeve had burned from inside out and now part of his skin was exposed with glowing marks showing through the rip on the material and his own blood mixed with that of his victims over it.

No wonder his head was spinning. If that little bit of skin was like this, the rest of his body was bleeding as well... and he'd need to deal with the consequences of the memories that were trying to take the forefront of his mind right at that moment later, but for now he needed to get a grip of his own body again.

Body, marks, alley, cold... blue eyes behind the visor widened when he finally acknowledged Hood wasn't just close, that he could feel some of his chest moving as the man breathed on his back and the soft pressure of some of his weight on his shoulders. Red Hood was holding Corvus!

And never in his life had he moved so fast to cut the contact short and put some distance between himself and another body. Not for the usual reasons though. Sure, life memories and all were a huge deal, but most of all, he pushed the arms that held him in place and stepped away to avoid any accidents.

'Sorry.' Corvus braced himself while looking at Hood, then wobbled to the wall on the side and leaned on it. 'Don't want to know your identity. Not like this.' His body language pointed to the issue being the uncovered patch of skin and the marks as he tried to cover it with his other hand. 'That's not how I do things.'

That explained his habit of keeping his hands to himself though, the way he gestured, but any approach was always with his hands close to Corvus' own body or behind his back, and why he made an extra effort to keep a reasonable distance between Hood and himself. It was all out of respect for the man's secret identity, to keep it from even having a chance to accidentally be found by himself.

After that, Corvus took a few seconds to gather what he had of strength in his body and reached in his belt for an injector similar to an epidural siringe filled with a blue, somewhat glowing liquid that he took to the back of his neck, then, lowered his own head in order to feel the right place where to insert it on his armor and pressed the needle through the area that opened once the material of the siringe was close enough to make the parts rotate and free his skin of its protection.

It hurt, but it would stabilize his body in a minute or two. Make him stop bleeding. His strength, however, would take a while longer to come back.

'Hood?' He tried to call after pulling the injector back and placing it back on the same compartment it came from. 'Thanks for stopping me.'

There was still fight in him by the time the last of the men that threatened his life fell to the ground, there was still rage, disdain for life and that logical reasoning that if something didn't help the system it was placed in, elimination was the better way to deal with it. The man behind the mask gave place to someone else, a being more ancient and tired, still him, but not quite, one that didn't see other humans as creatures with free will, but tools in a box.

And that was what looked over to Red Hood when the sound of his heavy boots skidding at the corner of the alleyway made its way to Corvus' ears, then the silence that he could only suppose came from shock or a second to analyze the scene of manslaughter, and he was about to turn completely to fight the distorted version of whatever demon filled his mind when the rest of his body froze in place.

There was some conscience still there, the more humane side of Corvus stopped the beast from continuing its rampage upon recognizing the thread to someone who didn't deserver that judgement of death. And thus, Hood had his chance to catch him between his arms and deliver the antidote.

The vigilante in black trembled with how the antidote had his veins burning as it cycled through his body and head, nearly had his will to fight kick back as his gloved fingers nearly dug into Hood's forearms, but as soon as some of his senses returned, he leaned back into the wall of a man behind him for support and relaxed some.

'You okay?'

The words flashed on his visor as his face turned up to try to look at Hood, completely ignoring his own head that spun with the chemicals still going around it and his own biological conditions threatening to send him back into days he thought were long past himself.

'Hood?'