#i’m trying to do chrome since i got some new colors and i really love the way it looks especially the silver one

[delicatepoets]

tried to do something new with the designs for my nails and almost gave up 💀

[10-porgs-in-a-trenchcoat]

Selfies, Tea, and Photography

AO3

Pairing: Commander Fox x GN!Reader Pen Pal Fic

Premise: based off this post I made a while back where I mused on the concept of a clone/reader insert pen pal fic. Starting off with Fox based on a suggestion by @istanmyman

Word count: ~3.9k 

Rating: G

Other notes: Gender-neutral reader, no use of Y/N, apparently I can only write Thorn as Fox’s best bro and nosy wingman 

--

When you heard the news that the Grand Army of the Republic was starting up a correspondence program for troopers and civilians to connect and communicate, you immediately signed up for it. Not that your friends and family weren’t enough for you, it was just that you itched to learn more about the galaxy and what it was like to live and travel among the stars. Enrolling in the program was the closest you were going to get until you were able to travel yourself.

(That, and you were curious to learn more about the clones who were fighting for the Republic.)

Around a month after signing up for the program, you learned you were matched with CC-1010, also known as “Fox.” A few days after learning about your match, you received your first message from him.

Hello,

I am Commander Fox of the Coruscant Guard. I am stationed on Coruscant, where I oversee the security of the Senate, manage operations at the military base on the planet, and coordinate with local authorities to maintain public safety. My fellow Guard Commanders and I are participating in this correspondence program to connect with Republic citizens we have sworn to protect and defend. I look forward to communicating with you.

Regards,

Commander Fox

His opening message was … something. It read like he didn’t want to be in the program, like his fellow Commanders may have forced him to do it with them. You also supposed he may have not known how else to introduce himself, and that was the best way he could think of to make a good first impression.

Regardless of the reason for his overly stiff and formal introduction, you wrote up your first message to Fox:

Hello Commander Fox, it’s nice to meet you!

I live on Naboo, in a small town in the lake country. I have a job in my grandmother’s tea shop. It’s not nearly as exciting as guarding Senators or catching bad guys, but it’s quiet and peaceful. I’m saving up to travel the galaxy one day, and until then the next best thing is talking with people like you who live in different places.

I do have some questions for you: what’s it like living on Coruscant? What do you do in your free time? Do you have any exciting stories about saving Senators from Separatists that you can share?

Hope to hear from you soon!

You signed with your name and sent the message.

A few days later, Fox sent his response. He greeted you by name in his opening line then went on to say:

Coruscant is loud, crowded, and messy. Feels like the planet never sleeps, with all the noise and lights at all hours of the day. My troopers and I live in barracks on the surface, and we don’t get much free time. Some of the boys like to go to this bar called 79’s that a lot of clones frequent. It’s not my favorite place, though. When I have free time, I like to relax with a good book, watch holodramas, or catch up on sleep. The work we do is important and a great service to the Republic, but a quiet peaceful life on Naboo with no excitement would be a welcome change of pace compared to my current station.

I haven’t rescued any Senators in the line of duty, but I did help Senator Amidala arrest Ziro the Hutt at the beginning of the war. I like Senator Amidala, she has a good head on her shoulders.

(She’s your Senator, isn’t she?)

I hope that’s what you were wanting to hear.

Looking forward to your response,

Commander Fox

You smiled to yourself as you read his message, and you imagined him in full armor laying back in a bed reading a book. Quiet, restful moments that you took for granted in your quiet life must have been sacred to a man like Fox.

The following day, you hiked out to the nearest lake to take pictures. You made sure to capture the lush green grass surrounding the lake, the colorful wildflowers growing along the shore, the sparkling crystal blue waters, and the majestic waterfalls that poured water into the lake. You made sure to include the pictures in the next message you wrote to Fox:

Senator Amidala is indeed from Naboo. She was our Queen too, back when I was younger. Everyone in my town loves her, and my grandma even has her royal portrait on display in the shop.

Not much has really happened since I last wrote to you. But I did go out and take some pictures of a nearby lake! The pictures are included with this message. I hope they can give you a small taste of my quiet life here.

--

Three weeks went by, and you hadn’t received a message from Fox. At first you figured he was busy with his duties. Then you worried that your pictures of the lake soured his mood, reminding him of something he couldn’t have. Then … you feared the worst.

One day after work, you went home and checked your message inbox on your computer. There was a message waiting for you from Fox. You breathed a sigh of relief as you opened it and read:

I’m sorry it took me so long to write you back. There was a bombing that took out the Senate’s power grid, and then a hostage crisis with bounty hunters, and then Ziro the Hutt escaped from prison. When I haven’t been scouring the city for Ziro or his accomplices, I have been neck-deep in paperwork.

Ironic, how right after I brag about helping bring Ziro into custody, he escapes.

I appreciate the pictures you sent me. Naboo looks like a beautiful planet. I would love to visit someday.

~ Fox

You took note of how he signed off with just his name, not his rank, and then you leaned back in your chair to mull over what to say to him. Your first idea was to invite him to visit Naboo once the war was over, but who knew when that would be. Unable to think of anything to say, you decided to come back to it later as you went about your evening.

The next day while you were at work, you served a customer some herbal tea that was supposed to have a relaxing effect. The customer didn’t stick around long enough for you to see if it worked, but you took a tin full of the loose-leaf tea home with you after your shift. You reviewed the rules of the correspondence program, confirming that it would be appropriate to send a package to Fox, and then you packaged the tea up and took it to the shipping depot to send to Coruscant.

Stars, shipping items to Coruscant was expensive. Fox better like that tea, you thought.

Hello Fox,

I don’t mind that you wrote late. I’m just glad that nothing happened to you.

That really is some rotten luck, Ziro escaping. I hope you or the Jedi catch him and take him back to prison. In the meantime, remember to rest and take care of yourself! Coruscant needs a great Commander like you looking out for it, and I like having you as my pen pal.

I sent you a package with some tea from the shop. It’s a relaxation blend. I haven’t tried it, but it’s popular with customers. It should arrive in the next rotation or two. Hope you like it.

Three days later you got his next message:

The tea is wonderful. I had a cup of it an hour before going to bed, and I had the best sleep of my life. Thank you.

~Fox

Short and sweet, but you couldn’t ask for more.

--

Over the following weeks you and Fox continued to exchange messages. The two of you discovered that you shared a common interest in a holodrama series and dedicated several messages to discussing it and predicting what might happen in the coming episodes. You sent him more pictures of the countryside and of your village, and he sent you pictures of the Coruscant skyline at sunset: the way the golden light of the sun glinted off the shining chrome towers was one of the most beautiful things you had ever seen, and it moved Coruscant up a few spots on your list of places to visit.

At one point you looked up pictures of the clones on the Holonet to get an idea of what Fox might look like. However, the only pictures of the troopers you could find showed them with their helmets on. The closest you could get was a ten-year-old picture of Jango Fett; Jango was ridiculously handsome, so it would stand to reason that Fox would be too.

Fox gradually began loosening up, and he shared stories about growing up on Kamino or shenanigans his brothers got into. He hinted at there being some interpersonal drama among some Senators, but he didn’t name names since he knew the supervisors of the correspondence program read his messages before sending them to you, to make sure he wasn’t divulging information he shouldn’t be.

Fox also asked you more questions about your life. You told him about your childhood, your relationship with your parents, how you got your job at your grandmother’s shop, about your friends that moved to Theed for work or university studies, and all the places in the galaxy you wanted to visit.

You mentioned wanting to see Felucia, and in his next message Fox included pictures of the planet’s colorful trees, plants, flowers, and shrubs – including a few at night, when the vegetation gave off a bioluminescent glow.

One of my fellow Commanders spends a lot of time doing missions on Felucia. I asked him for pictures to show you and he took these and sent them to me.

I’m trying to get him to join this correspondence program too, but he won’t agree to it. He spends a lot of time with his Jedi, maybe that’s enough for him.

I’ve had a lot of mixed feelings about not having a Jedi. I think about how some of them seem like a pain to work with and that it might not be worth the trouble, but then I see other Jedi treat the men under their command as friends or even family.

Which is why I’ve come to appreciate your messages. When I get them, they’re the highlight of my day. For a brief amount of time I feel like a normal person. I’ve never met you face-to-face, I don’t even know what you look like, but I consider you a friend.

~Fox

Getting pictures of Felucia from Fox made you feel all warm and fluttery inside. What he said about feeling like a normal person did as well, but it broke your heart at the same time. You wanted to stow away on a ship to Coruscant to give him a hug, and then go kick the behinds of anyone who ever made him feel bad about himself. Especially since he and his brothers worked so hard to keep people safe … it was a crime that they weren’t getting the recognition they deserved.

You snapped a picture of yourself to include in your next message, making sure the lighting and angle were just right so you looked your best. It also helped that you just happened to be wearing a color that you thought you looked good in.

Thank you for the pictures of Felucia! When I look at them it’s almost like I’m actually there. Please pass my gratitude along to your brother who took them.

I think of you as a friend too. I’m grateful to have you defending the Republic, and I’m glad to have you as my pen pal.

I don’t have much to offer you right now, other than a picture of me. At least now you can know what I look like.

You sent the message with the picture, leaned back in your chair, and watched the monitor of your computer. You knew that Fox wasn’t going to write back that same night, but you imagined him opening the message, reading your words, seeing your picture, and smiling the way his message made you smile.

Oh.

Oh no.

Were you developing a crush on him?

…

…

Then again, so what if you were? You didn’t have to tell him, you could hide it. He was parsecs away on another planet. And he was a clone; would he even be allowed to date if he wanted to? Nothing would or could come of it. If a crush was forming, with any luck it would go away on its own. But that didn’t stop you from double-checking how many credits you had in your savings and comparing that number to the cost for a ticket to Coruscant.

--

Four days went by during which you went about your usual business, often distracted by thoughts of Fox how his day might have been going. Maybe he was chasing Separatists or criminals around, or maybe he was buried under another mound of paperwork. You wondered if he caught the newest episode of the holodrama you both liked; you couldn’t wait to talk about it with him. That little crush you were sure would fade away wasn’t going anywhere, and it both delighted and frustrated you.

The first thing you did after you got home from your shift was check your messages. It had become routine at this point, especially since a new message from him easily became the highlight of your day. However, the message in your inbox – presumably from Fox – was not what you thought it would be:

Greetings, Fox’s Pen Pal!

I don’t know if you’ve noticed yet, but Fox has it BAD for you. I’ve been watching him write these messages to you and hemming and hawing around the barracks and his office making sure he gets every word just right. He’s got your pictures of the lakes and fields on Naboo framed on the wall of his office, he drank all that tea you sent him and he still keeps the tin on his desk right next to your selfie. And if you knew the amount of favors he had to cash in to get our brother Bly to get those pictures of Felucia for you! (it’s a lot, trust me)

Anyway, I thought you ought to know. I told him to make a move and be honest about his feelings but he’s shy. So even though I might be overstepping some boundaries, I feel like it’s my brotherly duty to intervene on his behalf. If there’s a chance you might feel the same way, you should tell him. If you don’t, proceed how you will but please go easy on him.

If it influences your decision-making process at all, I included a picture of him. He’s a good-looking guy if I do say so myself, although he’s not as handsome as me 😉

Yours truly,

Commander Thorn

PS – please don’t tell Fox that I wrote you using his account.

You sat at your computer, staring blankly at the words on the screen, taking minutes to process what you just read … and then you remembered there was a picture attached to the message, so you opened up the attachment.

Jango Fett may have been handsome, but Fox was gorgeous. He looked like he was in his early- or mid-twenties, although there were wisps of gray hair above his ears by his temples. His hair was cropped close along the sides and longer on top, and you took a minute to admire his curl pattern. He wasn’t smiling in the picture, his face wearing a more neutral resting expression that showed off the scar running along the corner of his mouth. Finally, you noticed his eyes: framed by dark circles, his irises were a deep, inviting shade of brown. What would it be like to look into his eyes in person, or run your hands through his hair, or trace his scar with your thumb before you went in to –

You stopped yourself. You were getting carried away. Heat rose up the back of your neck and across your cheeks.

For the rest of the evening you mulled over what to do next. You knew you wanted to tell him that you liked him too … but doing it over a message didn’t feel like enough. Turning up unannounced was a bad idea too. Would he even want you to show up in person? And since you didn’t have his contact information outside of the correspondence program, you didn’t have a way to call him for a face-to-face talk via holotransceiver.

Unsure of what to do, you fired off a message as soon as the fleeting idea for it popped into your brain. Would you regret it? Maybe. Only one way to find out.

Hi Fox,

I want to come visit you on Coruscant. When will you be free?

It only took a few minutes for him to respond, but it felt like hours. The entire time your heart pounded furiously in your chest, and you bounced your leg up and down since you could barely contain your jitters inside your body. There was a chance he would say no, Thorn did say he was shy after all. But when his message came through, you opened it immediately, and all the jitters melted away.

I see you got Thorn’s message … lucky for us he’ll be available to cover for me when I’m off-duty to host you. Let me know when you’re coming.

Your mouth instantly spread into a grin … you could hardly believe it. It hardly seemed real, even as you opened up a Holonet page to book a roundtrip ticket.

--

Four rotations later, your transport came into orbit around Coruscant. A shuttle took you from the transport down to the planet’s surface, and you were in awe of the densely-packed constellations of lights twinkling up from the planet’s surface. Descending into the atmosphere, those lights morphed into buildings, and lanes upon lanes of speeder traffic, and seemingly endless grids of buildings. At one point you saw several buildings whose architecture differed from the others; the pilot pointed them out and said they were the Senate Complex and the Jedi Temple, respectively.

You disembarked from the shuttle and paused to look around. Coruscant was nothing like Naboo. Not a speck of green in sight, no signs of nature, just duracrete and grays upon grays as far as the eye could see. And it was loud, just like Fox said it was, with the revving engines and blasting horns from speeders breezing by above your head.

You checked your wrist chrono, seeing that you had two hours until you were due to meet Fox at 79’s. Next, you pulled a datapad out of your bag that contained a map of the planet’s surface and studied how to get from your current position to the hotel you booked for your stay. The hotel was only a couple of blocks from the bar – not that you had certain expectations for this trip or anything, you thought it would be easier to stay nearby.

All in all, it took one hour and fifty minutes to get from the shuttle landing pad to the hotel to drop off your things, and then another eight to get from the hotel to 79’s. In your rush and panic as you navigated Coruscant’s taxi and public transportation systems, you didn’t have time to be too nervous about meeting Fox in person for the first time. But as you walked up to the entrance of the bar with its painfully bright neon signs and the muffled music spilling out from inside, it all hit you.

You took off to a strange planet by yourself to see a man you only knew through messages. If your grandmother had her way she would have stopped you from going. What if he didn’t like you after the trip … what if you didn’t like him? What if something went wrong?

But then you saw him standing by the entrance to the bar, recognizing him by his red-painted armor and the gray hairs above his ears and the thick curls on top of his head that you admired so much. He was surveying the area with a soldier’s laser-sharp focus, perhaps looking for your arrival, and he clutched a small bouquet of colorful flowers to his chest. When his eyes met yours, his face lit up with a smile, the most beautiful smile you had ever seen. Your worries seemed to matter less as you broke into a brisk jog to meet him.

“Fox?” you asked, smiling yourself.

“Indeed,” he responded before he handed the flowers to you. “I- uh- I got you these.”

“They’re beautiful, thank you,” you said. No one had ever gotten you flowers before; in the past it didn’t seem like anything to miss out on, but now that you held a bouquet in your arms, you felt special. Treasured, even.

“And, uh, as for the venue ….” Fox’s voice trailed off as he glanced over his shoulder at the bar’s garishly bright neon signs.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” you said, trying to be reassuring.

“I’m not allowed in most places, even when I’m off-duty … and I would have liked to take you somewhere nicer ….” He paused and rubbed the back of his neck. You could hear in his voice just how nervous he was.

“Because … well … you’re special to me. In a way no one else in my life is.”

You smiled at him again, and then wasted no time in leaning forward and pressing your lips to his cheek. It felt right to kiss him like that, but when you pulled back and saw him staring at you in shock and awe, you worried that it was too much too soon.

“C-can I …” he stammered. You nodded, and he angled his face so he could return the gesture. His lips were surprisingly soft against the skin of your cheek, and you couldn’t help but wonder what they would feel or taste like on your own lips.

There would be time for that later, you reminded yourself, if all went well.

“Does this place have food?” you ask him.

“Yes.”

“Drinks?”

“Well it is a bar … they have non-alcoholic drinks too, if that’s what you prefer.”

“Then it’s got everything I need. I don’t know what I would do with myself at a fancy restaurant anyway.”

“I imagine a restaurant would be quieter and allow for some proper conversation … but Thorn told me about a spot inside where we’ll be able to talk and hear each other without having to shout over the music.” Fox added.

“Sounds perfect,” you said with a smile.

Fox offered his arm to you and you took it, wrapping your hand around his bicep just above his elbow so he could lead you into the bar. Throughout the evening any time your eyes met his you felt safe, like you were the only person in the universe, and that you needed to figure out a way to make regular visits to Coruscant.

No matter what, you would always be glad you got Fox as a pen pal, and that you came to visit him. Especially since it was more fun to rant and rave about the newest episode of the holodrama in person.

[dontshootmespence]

Home Again

Summary: Spencer and Luke are happily married when the world goes to shit. In the chaos, they’re separated. After years, each one presumes the other dead. Until one day.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Luke Alvez

Word Count: 3,564

Warning: Zombie apocalypse shit. Character deaths. 

A/N: This fulfills my apocalypse au square for @cmbingo​. 

Inside their mid-size apartment, Luke dances to his favorite music as he moves about the kitchen, getting dinner ready for when Spencer comes home. A medical researcher’s work was never really done, but in the years since they’d gotten married, Spencer made a commitment to be home by every night at 6PM unless they discussed otherwise. 

Turning on the nightly news, Luke saw what looked like a pretty severe car accident on the road that Spencer normally took on the way home. He pulled out his phone and dialed, hoping to give his husband a head’s up about the driving conditions, but it went straight to voicemail. “Hey, Spence, it’s me. I mean, of course it’s me,” he laughed. “But anyway, I’m working on dinner now and I just saw the news. There’s a big accident on I-275 so you might want to take another way home if you can. I’ll see you in a little bit. Love you.”

As Luke slipped the chicken into the pot, he heard what sounded like another car wreck and ran to the window, sticking his head out to see a car on its side and one man running clumsily after another. A knock at the door distracted him from the damage on the street below. 

“Luke, it’s Steven. Open up.”

Steven was their neighbor and a college student. They rarely ever spoke. “Steven, what’s wrong?”

“There’s something wrong, man. People are going crazy out there. They’re attacking each other and...and eating each other. It’s like there are...”

Luke couldn’t help but laugh. “Do not say zombies. There’s no such thing, kid.”

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Steven insisted. “Something is happening. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll pack up some essentials and get moving. Apparently, it started at the Recovered Exploration Lab downtown and people, zombies, whatever they are, they’re headed this way. I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

Steven sped down the stairs in a panic, leaving Luke’s focus to drift back to the television. “We’re here just above Recovered Exploration Lab where the breakout of what looks like zombies seems to have started,” the news anchor started. “On the ground, people are ripping and tearing and eating each other in what seems to be a real-life apocalypse, folks. At this time we don’t know what caused it, but we can assume that the staff at Recovered Exploration have been keeping secrets. This is WLVW Channel 2 News. Back to you in the studio.”

Luke couldn’t believe what he was hearing and ran back to the window to see even more people than before ambling down the street. Cursing under his breath, he pulled out his phone again and dialed Spencer again. “Spence, have you heard what’s on the news? Are they talking about it on the radio? They’re saying it’s a real life zombie apocalypse out there and I’m, I’m, I’m, uh, looking out the window and people are attacking each other. There’s a swarm of people heading toward the apartment so I’m grabbing some essentials for us. Meet me at our diner okay? Then we can figure out what to do. Be safe, Spence. I love you.”

Running into their bedroom, Luke grabbed the biggest backpack he could find and anything he thought they might need. Spare clothes, toiletries, canned food, a can opener, toilet paper, some sharp knives and his guns from work. “What else?” He spoke into the empty room. On the wall hung their favorite picture from their wedding. He and Spencer wore matching tuxes and walked hand in hand along a lit-up, tree-lined path. Lost in thought, the commotion brought him back. He stuffed the picture into the backpack and ran downstairs, hoping that this was all a dream.

----

Having heard both of Luke’s messages, Spencer took an alternative route home, but unfortunately, he ran into another accident, slamming on the brakes as two cars crashed into stopped cars in front of them. With traffic at a standstill, he pulled his phone out and tried to call Luke. Obviously, there had to be another explanation for what was happening. 

As he was about to try calling for a second time, he saw someone in the wreckage ahead, who he’d previously assumed to be dead, jerk back to life. Slowly, she go up from the ground and shuffled toward an office that had his back turned. When an ear-shattering scream resounded through the air, Spencer dropped his phone. She wasn’t the only one.

A man from a nearby car knocked on Spencer’s window. “Buddy, we need to get out of here. You have anything that might help?” 

“Like what?” Spencer asked, voice quivering as he picked up his phone from the car floor and shoved it back in his pocket. Quickly, he searched the car for anything that might be helpful. His keys.

���Anything in the trunk?” The man asked, grabbing Spencer’s arm and yanking him away from the incoming crowd. “We need to move now.” 

His mind had blanked. After grabbing the emergency preparedness bag from the trunk of the car that Luke insisted he have, he and the unnamed man ran over the highway barrier and away from the traffic. “I need to get to the diner on Jones and Washington,” Spencer said. “Do you know it? My husband said to meet him there.”

Staring back into the growing see of screaming and ambling bodies, the man replied. “I don’t think you’re going that way, kid.”

----

Stumbling down into the street they lived on, Luke looked around in horror. He ran. He ran as hard and as fast as his body would allow, staying clear of any of the infected like his life depended on it. Right now, it did. 

Luke wavered between walking and running in the general direction of the diner he knew so well. For five years, every Friday, he and Spencer would head there for a greasy burger and fries and some of the best milkshakes either of them had ever tasted. 

The farther he traveled from the apartment, the less insanity he seemed to encounter, but still, his heart beat with reckless abandon as he peered around every corner. If whatever this was didn’t get resolved soon, every street, every city, every state would be something to fear. No longer would he and Spencer be able to go to the local park and bask in the sun. No more walks on the beach. No more calm and colorful sunsets. “You’re getting ahead of yourself,” he muttered to himself. “Just get to the diner.”

Using landmarks to guide his way (so that he could keep his phone on and pray for a call from Spencer), he crossed what he believed was the halfway point between the apartment and the restaurant. They now lived in a world where people ate each other and rose from the dead, but it was the groups of human beings taking this whole situation as a free for all that he had to avoid most of all. 

As he hurriedly turned the corner, Luke bumped into a group of nervous but determined young adults. The youngest couldn’t have been 16 and the oldest topped 25 at the most. By the looks of the straggling adults, most of them had already lost someone or taken this new world as an excuse to ditch their families and fend for themselves. The most self-assured of the bunch stepped in toward Luke and looked at his bag. “Seems like you’re well stocked.”

“For a couple days,” he replied, carefully taking a small step backward. “For my spouse and I until this whole thing blows over.” He spoke the words, but something told him ‘this whole thing’ wasn’t going to be over anytime soon. 

With each step Luke took back, the young man stepped forward and tried to yank the bag from his grasp. “Sorry, kiddo. That ain’t happening.” Before the other man could swing his gun from his back and into his hand, Luke had his pulled and aimed. “Don’t. I don’t wanna hurt people. You walk away. I’ll walk away and we’ll pretend this never happened.”

The next moments passed by in a blur - kids running, bullets flying. Luke didn’t glance back, running away from the screams and toward the diner with tears in his eyes. He just shot a kid. A kid who was just trying to survive in whatever the hell this new world was. 

----

Days passed before Spencer and his party of misfits arrived at the diner. Jim was the man that shook him to reality. On the way they’d also run into a single mother named Avery and her 3-year-old son, Chase, who were being harassed by a couple of guys who just didn’t want to take no for an answer. Although they tried to resolve things peacefully, Jim killed the one that pulled a gun on him and the other ran away. From there, they all went to Jim’s former precinct and grabbed whatever guns they could find. Unlike Luke, Spencer wasn’t used to holding guns, but he was going to have to get accustomed quickly.

Normally, the diner looked reminiscent of the 50s. Crisp black and white checkered floors, red leather seats, clean white tables and chrome chairs at similarly colored bar-tops. Now there were skid marks on the floors, dinged counters and bits of food all over the floor. The kitchen had already been ransacked so very little decent food was left, but they stocked up on what they could and waited. 

Nearly a week went by before Jim insisted they leave. “I know your husband was going to meet you here, Spencer, but if we stay any longer we’re putting ourselves in danger. We don’t wanna use all our gunpower to defend this place when we can’t stay here.”

Spencer knew he was right, but the thought of leaving hurt his heart. “I’m never going to see my husband again, am I, Jim?”

The older man just looked at him sadly, resting his hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “Call him. You’ve still got a little power left. Leave a message. And hope for the best. I’ll give you a minute before we head out.” 

Spencer thanked him softly and went into the back room before pulling out the phone. Shakily, he dialed Luke one more time. “Hey, babe. I’ve been at the diner for almost a week. I don’t know what happened to you...or,” his voice broke, “or if you’re even still alive, but if you are, I’m headed toward my mother’s nursing home. I need to see if she’s okay. I have no idea if we’re ever going to see each other again. I hope we are. But if we aren’t, I need you know that the years we’ve been together, the years we’ve been married, they’ve been the best and happiest of my life. Studying what I study, it can suck the life out of you, but seeing you in the mornings, the sun shining on your face, it gave me that little push I needed to go do what I do. You changed my life, Luke. I love you so much. If you’re out there, and you can’t get to me, just know that, I love you with everything I have.”

Quickly, he ended the call and shoved the phone back in his pocket before breaking down sobbing. He allowed himself a few minutes and then met Jim, Avery and Chase outside. They’d all agreed to head in the direction of his mother’s nursing home. Spencer prayed that Luke and his mother were still alive. And safe.

----

After shooting the kid, Luke ran into a building a melted down. Sure, he’d had to shoot people before. He’d killed people before. But this was different. This was practically a kid whose only crime was trying to look out for the group he was with. Between dodging zombies and dodging other people, it took Luke almost two full weeks to get to the diner, but by the time he arrived, if Spencer had been there, he was gone. 

Despite the possibility of nearby zombies or walkers or whatever he’d heard people calling them, Luke screamed at the top of his lungs and lost it. Without finding him here, there was no guarantee that they were ever going to see each other again. In his search for any salvageable supplies, he came across random papers, broken glass, ripped bandages - but nothing of use. 

When he glanced down at the floor, he saw Spencer’s signature and hurriedly picked it up, but the other pieces of whatever note he left were too ripped up and dirty and stepped on for him to make out what it said. As his fingers slid over his husband’s name, a tear fell from his eye. If Spencer was still alive, he was likely headed in the direction his mother lived. 

“Hello?” A small voice broke Luke from his train of thought. He spun around, his hand on the gun in his holster. “Please don’t hurt me,” the girl said. Dirt and dried blood covered her face and her eyes conveyed a lifetime of hurt. “Please.”

Luke lowered his gun. “How old are you?”

“Fourteen.”

Luisa had been right in the eye of the storm at the start of this whole thing weeks earlier. “My papa died trying to save my mama. And then she was bitten trying to save my sister and I. She saved me, but it was too late for Josephine. My mother lost too much blood. She fell asleep and never woke up and I had to- I had to put her out of her misery. I’m all alone.”

“Not anymore, kiddo. “You’ll stay with me.”

“Thank you - “

“Luke.”

“Thank you, Luke.”

----

The weeks that followed put Spencer’s band of misfits went through the ringer. After detouring around a group of people that would’ve outnumbered them three to one had they decided they wanted trouble, they had to fight their way through a hoard of walkers. Though they had few weapons, they managed, but not without Jim being bitten. 

“Kid, you know without a medic around this tourniquet is just stopping the inevitable. The bastard nicked my brachial artery,” Jim said, heavily drawing in each breath as it came to him. “You’ve got to take the weapons and keep those two safe for as long as you can. Maybe find your husband again.”

Spencer swallowed the lump in his throat. “I could go find-”

“No way. There’s a hoard at our backs and only Lord knows what up ahead. I won’t have you risking that for me.”

Over and over again, Spencer tried to reason with him, but in a way Jim was right. He had no idea what was up ahead and even if he found a medic there was no guarantee that he’d get back in time to save Jim. “I’m sorry,” Spencer said, placing a handgun in his palm. “I really am.”

“I know, kid. I have you find your husband again. Now get going.”

Once Spencer grabbed the weapons Jim had, he gathered up Avery and Chase and headed out into the unknown. A gunshot rang out and the crows fled into the sky. Hope was waning fast.

----

On their way to Diana’s nursing home, Spencer, Avery and Chase faced no further challenges. As soon as they detected voices, they headed away from them, preferring to stay in their small group of three than risk bringing other people into their ranks. They crossed the occasional zombie, but they were quickly dispatched.

Finally, they reached Diana’s home, but they were too late. Spencer found her alive, but too bloodied and bruised to move. “Mom, I’ll find someone. I won’t let you die,” Spencer said softly as he cried. “I can find someone to help and we can get you out of here.”

Diana was nothing if not a realist. “I’m going to die, Spencer. Soon probably. I just hope I can keep my wits about me until the sleep sets in. How’s Luke? Where is he? Is he-?”

“I don’t know,” Spencer sobbed. “You really want to talk about my life right now?’

“Yes. When I first saw this on the news, I thought I was having a nightmare, but it’s real and it’s unreal and I just want a sense of normalcy.”

Spencer radioed Avery to tell her where he was before curling in next to his mother. “I was on my way home from work when this all started. Luke was home. I-I haven’t seen him since and I don’t think I’m ever going to see him again. Mom, I’m so scared of being alone.”

“You’ll find him again,” Diana said weakly. 

“How do you know?”

“A mother knows. Remember?”

Spencer grabbed her hand and started reading the nearest book he could find. “Spencer...” she said, whisper soft. “It’s time for me to go to sleep.”

“No, mom, just a little bit longer.”

“Promise me something.”

“Anything.”

Diana fought for each breath. “Don’t let me turn into one of those things.”

Spencer choked out a sob. “I won’t.”

“And stay hopeful.” 

He promised he would, though he wasn’t sure it was a promise he could keep. “Mom?”

Nothing.

Before she could come back, he took a small gun out of his pocket, aimed, and fired. “I’ll try, Mom.”

----

Days passed into weeks passed into months passed into years. In a world changed, it changed those within in. Luke, once a confident and self-assured government agent, turned inward, going from one “safe haven” to another and sheltering himself and Luisa until their hideaway was discovered and they needed to move on, never once fighting for a place to call a makeshift home.

Through the years he lost himself, finding that instead of helping others, he did only what he had to do for he and Luisa to survive, never once taking a life, only dispatching zombies when need be. 

On the other hand, Spencer found himself hardening against the world. More than a year after everything began, Avery was overtaken by a hoard they passed, shoving Chase out of the crowd and toward Spencer. With her last breaths, she begged Spencer to take care of her son. Five years later, he and the almost nine-year-old boy headed a group of nearly 50 people, though numbers dwindled and rose from month to month. 

Spencer became a leader, but he confided in no one, killed if it was necessary to defend his “home”, and rarely spoke, shutting down in the face of any emotional connection. To connect was to lose, and he had lost enough. 

“Daniel and Alexa, you’ll accompany me into town for some supplies.” In addition to defending the makeshift community they’d developed, Spencer always sent out scouts to ensure that no one touched the supplies in surrounding towns. Less-looted stores were low in number and eventually he would need to conduct another reconnaissance mission to find supplies, but for now they would survive. “We leave within the hour.”

Smiles were few and far between, for Spencer more than most. However, the little boy he’d ended up raising as his son brought him a sliver of joy, along with his memories of Luke. They coaxed him to sleep at night and in the morning, he used them to make it through the day. “Chase, you know I love you, right?”

“I do, Spencer. Be careful okay? I can’t lose you.”

“I’ll be back.” He never promised, knowing more than most that sometimes the world was cruel. “Be good for Sandra.”

Though he was born before the world went to shit, Chase had essentially grown up in this new world. He was disciplined and trustworthy and more an adult than any almost nine-year-old boy should ever have to be.

On the way to gather supplies, Spencer zoned out, only gathering little bits of the conversation going on behind him. Both Daniel and Alexa had lost spouses at the start of the apocalypse and something told Spencer they were seeking comfort in one another now that they were “safe.” Funny how the meaning of a word could change in such a short amount of time.

While out for supplies, Spencer had insisted that no one go anywhere alone, so the three entered the hardware store in search of anything they could use as a weapon. As he gathered ropes and zip ties and wrenches into his supply bag, he heard Alexa and Daniel call for him. “Boss!”

Spencer approached the two, their guns raised and ready to fire. In the line of sight was a young woman, sheltered by a man. He closed his eyes and begged the universe for this not to be a joke, his mind playing tricks on him. When Spencer opened his eyes, he remained. “Luke?”

He smiled and immediately broke into tears. “Spence? You’re, you’re-”

Pushing past Daniel and Alexa, Spencer ran into Luke’s arms on the verge of tears, pressing his lips to his husband’s for the first time in nearly seven years. “I’m alive. And you’re here. How are you here?”

“Because I’m a different person. You?”

“Me too,” Spencer said sadly. “Everything’s changed. Except what I feel for you. I’m finally home again.”

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #253: CONQUERING VISION

March, 1985

The Vision vs. Quasimodo... in the heart of a machine!

ITS A ROBOT RUMBLE

ON THE INTERNET!

The Avengers seem very perturbed. Or maybe they’ve placed bets and are yelling at each other.

Anyway. Anyyyyyywayyyy.

Last time on Avengers: Vision became confined to a tube and was only fixed when Starfox hooked him up to Titan’s supercomputer ISAAC. While it helped Vision fix himself, it also seems to have changed his personality. Vision began conspiring with ISAAC to build a take-over-the-world-for-its-own-good device so he could take over the world for its own good and erase the evils and inequalities of man.

Vision was hesitant to pull the trigger on becoming a well-intentioned extremist and tried to gain power and influence by becoming the Avengers chairman and trying to make them more prominent with a branch team and closer ties to the White House.

But when anti-mutant arsonists burn down Vision and Scarlet Witch’s house during a new wave of anti-mutant fear, Vision decides ‘mmm yup, taking over the world time’. He distracts the Avengers by sending them to babysit the army as they poke Thanos technology that they shouldn’t poke and accidentally summon the Blood Brothers. And distracts Captain Marvel to go check out Thanos’ ship several light hours away past Pluto. Black Knight shows up unexpectedly but Vision shoves him into a tube to keep him out of trouble.

And now I guess Vision is going to fight Quasimodo the robot guy? Not sure how that fits in.

But first, some West Coast Avengers!

Like I said last time, they didn’t stop doing stuff just because their book is over.

Mockingbird happens to run into some drug runners while getting in some flight practice and figures heck why not beat up an entire boat full of gun-toting people as a light workout.

I guess the Quinjet can hover? Doesn’t seem to have thrusters or repulsors on the bottom or be a VTOL but hey, super advanced possibly Wakanda tech. It can do what it likes.

Mockingbird turns the drug runners over to the Coast Guard and returns to Palos Verdes and even gets to fly into one of those cool cliffside hangers disguised as a perfectly normal cliff. The West Coast Avengers revamped the hell out of the compound they bought.

Can you even legally excavate into a cliff like that? You can if you’re a superhero, I guess.

For some reason, there’s a fakeout where its implied Tigra is licking herself, cat style, but she’s just stretching. At least I hope the joke is that it sounded like she was cat cleaning herself and not something else.

One can never tell.

Anyway, I assume Hawkeye is just annoyed that he’s going to be vacuuming hair out of expensive equipment banks later. But really its that what if he threw a meeting and only he and Tigra came?

Mockingbird comes in not long after Hawkeye complains, slightly delayed from beating up drug runners. Wonder Man comes in shortly after, delayed by

FASHION

You know, this is a pretty great costume for Wonder Man. Its what all his modern outfits are based on when he’s not just dicks out energy man. I think I like the red jacket outfit more because being the only guy who dresses in ‘normal’ clothes while still looking somehow out of fashion with normal people fits for Wonder Man.

But I do love this one too. Its got a simple charm. Deciding that Wonder Man’s colors are black and red instead of Christmas green and red was a great decision and I’m sure that nobody will ever try to put him in red and green again.

Hawkeye grouses “Next, I suppose Iron Man will show up with a new chrome job!” but Iron Man is Sir Not Appearing in This Comic.

And the reason why is... looks like Tony and Rhodey are beating the crap out of each other in Iron Men armor this same month in Iron Man #192.

I don’t know the details but dammit Tony!

Anyway, over at last issue’s plot, the Avengers are still in Thanos’ ex-secret base in Arizona, still rolling their eyes and smh at the US Army for poking things what should not be poked.

Starfox and Scarlet Witch find a chamber blocked by rubble which has a symbio-nullifier which Starfox proposes to use to symbio-nullify the Blood Brothers.

First, he flexes on the US Army.

Army Guy: “It must weigh tons!”

Starfox: “Tons? Yes. But only about eight-and-a-half! Hardly any bother at all!”

Good flexing, Starfox.

Meanwhile, Captain America’s scolding has born fruit. The Pentagon has agreed to seal Thanos’ base, pending further investigation. And Colonel Farnam agrees because his training never prepared him to deal with MONSTERS FROM OUTER SPACE.

Also meanwhile, the army took pity on Hercules’ poor pantsless state and slash or were intimidated by it and have lent him a uniform.

He wears it as you’d expect Hercules to wear it.

With plenty of plunging neckline.

Since the Blood Brothers have a psionic link which makes them stronger the closer they are, Hercules has chained them up on very distant parts of the base.

But this precaution is rendered moot pretty quickly when Starfox returns with the  symbio-nullifier to symbio-nullify the Blood Brothers.

Starfox suspected that Thanos had one of these lying around as a precaution if he was going to let the Blood Brothers into his base.

Hercules lightly complains that he didn’t get a good fight with the Blood Brothers especially since the hordes of Muspell and Maelstrom’s wacky minions were interesting but not all that much of a challenge for the prince of power.

Back at the Avengers Mansion, the giant holographic head of Vision is still dealing with Dane Black Knight Whitman. Mostly by showing him video footage of how the other Avengers are tied up.

Dane is confused for multiple reasons, including that when last he heard Wasp was the leader.

Vision: “My failure to anticipate your arrival was an unfortunate lapse. I regret that, as a result, you must suffer the indignity of incarceration.”

Dane: “But... why?! What does keeping me in a tube accomplish?”

Vision: “It prevents you from interfering! You see, I have come to the conclusion that the only way I can fulfill my duty to make the Earth a safer place... is to run it myself!”

Dane: “What?!? But that’s crazy! Uh... I mean, you can’t possibly...”

Vision: “Exactly the sort of reaction I expected!”

Vision: ‘See, this is why you’re a tube boy now.’

Vision turns off the hologram saying that Dane will understand when its all over.

As usual when somebody says something like that, Dane isn’t reassured, just more convinced he needs to break out and warn someone.

I’m not sure if its not already too late since Vision is safely ensconced in his take over the world chair in his secret take over the world room.

ISAAC’s head hologram shows up to Vision and asks him what the delay is, chop chop get to taking over the world for its own good.

Vision: “Sorry, ISAAC... I was just remembering how much I enjoyed having a body.”

Oh my god.

ISAAC: “What’s the sense of that? This entire world will soon be your ‘body’! How can the mobility of a single humanoid form compare to that?”

Vision: “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, ISAAC. It’s odd, though, so many times others have controlled my body... the robot Ultron, the Mad Thinker, Necrodamus... All have tried to subvert my mind and take me over. And now here am I... about to initiate the greatest takeover of all. One would almost think there were some mad connection -- !”

ISAAC: “Vision! You must not tarry!”

.................. Um, okay. So, rather than just being influenced by his brush with death and also brush with supercomputer, I think Vision is being actively manipulated into this by ISAAC.

I don’t know why but I do know that Vision continues being a viable character for decades so he probably can’t be burning all his bridges here.

Anyway, Vision uploads his psyche into the internet.

And like immediately starts taking over everything. One page montage immediately. The Pentagon, Cheyenne Mountain, SHIELD, satellites, the Kremlin.

Presumably the best security systems in the world barely warrant a mention for Vision’s mighty synthezoid brain.

He’s pulling a Skynet (for the world’s own good, so he says) and its barely an effort.

The scenery of being on the internet is, I dunno, pretty standard? Bright colors  and dashes of light? I feel like I’ve seen it a lot of places.

But if we’re on page 13 of a book and Vision is effortlessly Skynetting, whats the rest of the issue going to be about? Interestingly, to me anyway, despite this being Vision’s turn villainous or well-intentioned extremist, another villain gets shoved in anyway for him to fight.

As Vision is nyooming around the Kremlin’s computers, he nearly runs into another AI, Quasimodo.

Helpfully, we get a recap of Quasimodo’s ENTIRE LIFE STORY because this is pre-fan wikis and I don’t think Quasimodo has appeared in Avengers before.

He was created to be the ultimate computer by the Mad Thinker but was abandoned when he developed a mind of his own.

Quasimodo was found by the Silver Surfer who used the cosmic powers of the Power Cosmic to transform Quasimodo from a computer into a robot.

Turning to the wiki for more information: He turns on Silver Surfer because he doesn’t like the body he got, so Surfer turns him into a stone gargoyle. Let that be a lesson about ingratitude.

Somehow, he stopped being a gargoyle and fought various people until he was defeated by the Fantastic Four and the Sphinx and wound up a disembodied intelligence in a Russian computer system. And here we are!

Quasimodo begs Vision to help him escape this digital hellhole but Vision just turns and leaves because he doesn’t have time for these shenanigans. And also because he knows Quasimodo is a villain who tends to turn on the people who help him so fuck that.

Quasimodo: “You know of my past - of my power - and you still would dare deny me?! There can be but one name for such as you... and that is fool!”

He then hauls off and punches Vision. Because they’re both digital intelligences on the internet they can punch each other and have a fight scene. That’s how internet works.

That’s why Mega Man X can beat up so many people in cyberspace.

Quasimodo says if Vision doesn’t help him get back to the physical world, he’ll destroy him.

Vision: “Now, listen to me... I am consolidating all computers worldwide. I gave up my own physical body to do this, and I’ll not tolerate any interference from the likes of you!”

Quasimodo: “You willingly abandoned your body?! You’re not a fool... you’re mad!”

Faced with an irreconcilable set of priorities, Quasimodo trips them both into “the irresistible currents of the IMPULSE VORTEX!”

Sure. That sounds like how internet works.

Meanwhile, over at Pluto is very far away, Monica Marvel nyooms past the moons of Uranus. Apparently her visual acuity is REALLY good because she takes in the scenery while she’s nyooming and finds it frighteningly beautiful out in the outer planets.

Anyway, Vision scolds Quasimodo for plunging them into a torrent. Which makes me laugh. Surely its too soon for torrents to be a thing. He’s just using it in a metaphorical sense.

Quasimodo tries to shoot EYE BEAM at Vision, which misses the digital synthezoid but obliterates an electron.

In a cutaway that would be at home in a Marvel movie, the scene briefly shifts to a Soviet computing center and a guy named Alexey complaining that his program just crashed.

Quasimodo does Vision some punches but Vision decides to start trying since Quasimodo’s attacks risk alerting people that something is amiss on the internet. And Vision’s powers work just as well on the internet as Quasimodo’s do. In fact, screw that, they work better! Vision just gets more and more powerful the longer he spends on the internet!

Vision: “You might have slain me earlier, but now this world is mine -- and there is no place in it for you!!”

And at Vision’s command the internet launches Quasimodo from Earth itself.

The internet can do that.

Meanwhile, back at Avenger’s Mansion, Dane Whitman determines that the tube he’s a tube boy in may look like glass but its as strong as steel. He’s not punching his way out of here.

But his recently uncursed cursed sword (the curse never stays not cursed for long so I hope Dane enjoys having a notcursed but very enchanted sword) is just a few feet away with the rest of his luggage. And there’s a mystic bond between himself and the sword so if he just thinks about the sword hard enough, surely it’ll manifest in his hand.

Like the Force but slightly more convenient.

Dane Whitman: Nothing’s happening. Must not... be concentrating hard enough! Maybe the link was broken with the curse. No... no, I mustn’t even think that! I need my sword! I must have my sword! I must!

He do it!

The Notcursed Ebony Sword appears in his hand and he slices through that steel glass like its just glass.

Meanwhile, over at Arizona, the Avengers finish up nullifying the Blood Brothers and putting them in suspended animation, or if you prefer, naptime timeout.

Captain America receives a buzz from Hawkeye who wonders what he’s doing within hailing range, ie in the western half of the US.

Captain America: “Arizona... government business... And I’m as surprised to hear you, as you are me! I take it that your team finished its mission in the Pacific early!”

Hawkeye: “Mission? What are you talking about, Cap? We haven’t been on any mission!”

Which is a dun dun dun considering their whole reason for being sent on this mission was that the West Coast Avengers were ostensibly busy.

And Vision lying about that raises a whole lot of questions for the Avengers.

Cap and Wanda Witch rush over to the Quinjet and contact the Mansion.

Vision: “Then you’re aware of my deception. I... am sorry, Cap. I didn’t want to mislead you, but I felt it necessary to carry out my plan.”

Scarlet Witch: “Plan? Vision, what do you mean? What have you done?”

Vision: “I... well, there is no easy way to put this... But I have taken over the world.”

You never want to hear “I have taken over the world” from a friend, unless its followed with “and I want to get you in on the ground floor of this exciting new opportunity.”

Vision promises the two that he’s taking over all of Earth’s computers for a really good reason like ending war and strife. And signs off by telling Wanda everything will be alright and that he loves her.

Aww?

Cap: “He meant it... he meant every word.”

Scarlet Witch: “He’d been upset lately, but I never thought... Cap, we have to stop him!”

Cap: “Yes. If there’s still time!”

DUN DUN DUN!

Follow @essential-avengers​ because I don’t know when I’ve been more excited to get to the next issue! Like and reblog?

[purplesurveys]

1044

survey by a7xbabii 

Do you use e-mail often? I use it for eight hours, five days a week for work, so yes.

Do you hear any animals right now? I’m in a Starbucks inside a mall situated in the middle of a busy highway. It would be very unlikely to hear any animals right now.

Are you in a well-lit room? Sure, I’d say this establishment has good lighting. There’s no light directly above me unlike the other seats, but it’s okay in this case as I don’t want other people seeing me take surveys.

Is your trashcan full? The main one we use at home just got full, so the last time I checked this morning my mom was airing it out.

What was the last crunchy thing you consumed? My chicken barbecue sandwich from last night.

Did you view anything disturbing today? Hmm, I guess so? I wanted to entirely redo one part of my embroidery piece since I wasn’t happy with how I did it, so I had to remove the threads and stuff. When they were all gone the template was filled with holes and it looked like one of those trypophobia photos. I’m not personally disturbed by that phenomenon, but I know a lot of people are.

Are there any holiday decorations in your house? Yeah, we’ve had our Christmas tree up since the beginning of November. We also usually put a wreath up our door but idk why my mom didn’t this year.

When was the last time you had a terrible headache? Last night, because I had not eaten all day. 

Have you recently put lotion on your hands? No. I don’t like the feeling of lotion, so I don’t apply it on me a lot, if at all.

Are you hungry? Not so much, actually. I don’t feel too hungry today; I didn’t even finish my breakfast and that’s the only meal I’ve had so far today, and it’s already 4 PM.

Is it rainy where you're at right now? No, it’s quite fair. The sun’s not too strong anymore because of the time, but it’s still very much bright out.

Do you carry a purse? If so, describe what it looks like. I take a wallet with me. It’s pink, made of fake leather, has three main slots inside, and it also has some tiny bite marks on the outer edges from when Cooper was a lot younger.

Is your cell phone on vibrate? For certain notifications only, like texts and Viber.

Is your dishwasher full? We don’t use a dishwasher.

When is the last time you saw someone you like/love. Around a week and a half ago.

Do you like to wear gloves? No, I find them too itchy and I don’t need to wear them anyway.

Is there a body of water near where you live? There’s a creek that passes through my village near the clubhouse area, if that counts.

What are your thoughts on Avenged Sevenfold? No opinion. I never listened to them; though I am reminded of this one mutual I used to have on Tumblr/Twitter. She used to be a wrestling fan and was a part of our main circle, but she gradually shifted her main fandom to Avenged Sevenfold. By the time she cemented her new interest she then went on a huge unfollowing spree of wrestling fans on her feed and she apparently PM’d each person she intended to unfollow, including me. I remember her explaining that she was now in a different fandom and was gonna have to stop following me which I found...kinda extra to be honest lmao because nobody does that, but I appreciate the effort to approach each one of us, I guess.

Are you wearing anything pink right now? Nope, but my wallet is pink and so is my keyboard cover.

Do you like to swim in the ocean? I prefer beaches, but sure.

What is the creepiest bug you've ever saw? Cockroaches.

Do you currently have split ends? I don’t think so.

When is the last time you used the bathroom? Around five hours ago when I took a shower before heading out.

Do you chew on your lip? Almost never.

Are you afraid of needles? For the most part yeah, especially syringes. I’m not afraid of them when I do my embroidery, but that’s the only time I feel comfortable with a needle.

What is the last thing you lost? A pen, I think.

When is the last time you saw a bald person? Five hours ago, when I said bye to my dad.

What car were you last in? [continued from two days ago] My own. I was driving home from the mall.

Do you like Batman? I tried to get into Batman and the whole shebang of comic books when I was a teenager, but I just couldn’t.

Have you ever played tennis? Never have, actually. I’ve always wanted to try.

Can you see a star shape in the room you are in? Probably not in my bedroom.

What are you sitting on? A pillow I’ve placed on my work chair so that it’s more comfortable. My parents got me a basic chair initially meant just for my internship, so it’s not the comfiest of chairs haha. But now that I have a job, a more suitable work chair is probably one of things I’ll have to invest on.

What is the last warm thing you touched? My chest felt itchy just a few seconds ago, so I was able to feel my skin scratching it.

Do you use hand sanitizer? That’s kind of a necessity now, so...

Where do you want to go in life? [continued from...I don’t even remember anymore] I don’t know if I even plan to make it past 30 at this point. I can’t answer this right now.

Are you sweating? No, I’ve been in air-conditioned rooms all day and it feels so damn good.

When is the last time you had to scratch an itch? A few minutes ago when my neck itched.

Are you in any kind of club or group that is trying to save animals? No, but I very much support the cause.

Who is the last blonde you saw? At work today I saw someone who had her hair dyed blonde.

Where were you two hours after you got up, and what were you doing there? I needed to go to the office today because my team and I needed to pack some stuff to seed to certain media. It was the first time I got to visit the place and it was sooooooo homey and pretty :) I wish we can be allowed to work in the office soon; it would be best for my mental health at this point.

Do you wish for world peace? Um, of course.

Have you ever played fetch with a dog? We were able to teach Cooper how to pick up items that we throw but he’s still slowly learning that he actually has to give it back to us, haha.

What is the nearest object that is wood? The table I am typing on is made of wood.

Do you use Netflix? Yes, we have a family subscription.

Does your house have a fireplace? No, we don’t. And I can confidently tell you all other houses in this entire country, and probably the whole of Southeast Asia, don’t.

Do you wake yourself up in the morning, or does someone else? I wake myself up. On important days, I’ll put an alarm on.

What kind of hoodie did you last wear? It was a white hoodie with a UP seal on the left side.

Do you play games on your computer? No, my laptop isn’t equipped for games. I tried downloading Sims 4 when they made it free for a few weeks back in 2018, but my laptop’s fan started whirring like crazy and the battery got drained super fast. The entire period of me booting it up and then deleting it took like, a literal 15 minutes.

What is the last video game that you played? Mario Kart 8 on the Switch. I want to get myself Switch games as gifts, but I’m just so stingy towards myself hahaha.

Have you ever pet a stingray? I’m 50% would like to at least once and 50% I know of what it did to Steve Irwin, and I’m not messing with them.

If you were on vacation, would you ever go to Ireland? It’s not a big item on my bucket list, honestly. I’d love to go to Ireland, but it would probably be a part of a bigger itinerary, like if I decided to take a trip to that part of Europe.

Are you logged into Myspace right now? I haven’t been on there for more than a decade.

Did you have anything bad happen to you today? Yeah, but they’re stuff that happened at work that are a little hard to explain. 

Have you ever been to New York? Nope. I’d love to take a trip there.

Do you use the term "lol" if you don't have anything to say? Not really. I use it in the end of my messages more so that I don’t sound mean.

Should you be sleeping right now instead of taking this survey? Hell no. It’s a Friday night so the last thing I want to be doing is sleeping.

Can you truly say you hate anyone? I don’t think so. I greatly dislike my brother, but I guess I don’t hate him. I find it too strong a word.

Have you ever disected a baby pig in a class at school? Not a piglet, no. We dissected an earthworm, a fish, and eventually a frog.

What brand of dish liquid do you use? A local brand you wouldn’t recognize.

When is the last time you ate a Hershey Kiss? It’s probably been more than a year. It’s not my favorite candy.

Do you ever feel unappreciated? Yes.

Do you currently have any blemishes on your face? No. My pimple finally went away, hallelujah.

Who is the last baby you held? My cousin who is now 13 years old. I’m too anxious to hold babies; I always feel like I’d drop them so I find myself declining even when I have the chance to hold one.

Are you a lover? I guess.

Do you use smileys often in text convos? Yes. Not a lot of people like them but it’s better to sound friendly and approachable than stoic.

Do you have the Google toolbar on your computer? Like...Chrome? I have the program, yeah. It’s my default browser as well.

Do you like Sunkist? I’ve never had it.

Would you ever consider being a cannibal? I mean...I guess only if I was in a life-and-death situation, like if a plane I was in crashed on an island and I was starting to get hungry. I certainly don’t fantasize about cannibalism on any regular day.

Did you forget something important in the past week? I made a few mistakes at work due to me forgetting things, yeah.

Do you like learning new things? Sure.

What color is your toothpaste? White.

Are the floors in your house creaky? Nopes. I don’t think our doors are creaky-level just yet as well.

Do you fear death? I hate the uncertainty of what happens while it’s taking place, and what happens after. But I’ve been wishing for it for a while as well. There’s a difference.

Is your mouth dry? Not right now, no.

Do yoou have any scars from an animal? Yeah I’ve got a few marks and scratches from Cooper. I never run out of them, really.

Did you have fun with this survey? It was okay.

Was it random enough? Sure.

[ltleflrt]

I have some thoughts on the fanfiction app.

My first reaction was “oh no, someone is scooping up fics again”, but then I saw that it was just a GUI (graphical user interface, for those of you who don’t know the term... it’s the same term used for your computer’s operating system, btw, and thank god we don’t have to use DOS anymore right?), and I calmed down.  They’re not hosting the fics, alright, that’s fine.

But then I got swept up in the general anger about the ad revenue and subscription fees and donations.  Because I’m upset that someone else can make money off my fics, but I can’t.  And I’d really like to, but I don’t want to have to rewrite them as “original”, since I love them so much as they are.  I do get jealous that fanartists can take commissions and have patreons, but fanwriters are still treated like the lowest thieves.

But then I learned that these apps have extra features.  The ability to change the font, or go to dark mode.  Things you CAN do on the AO3 page through your browser, but the options aren’t always as robust as some people want.  (I prefer to use Firefox, but on the tablet I read on all the time, I can’t get the font big enough so I use Chrome.  And whooooboy, Chrome LOVES how much money it makes off me).  There’s even more features for the subscription fee, which is nice. 

I saw that comic going around about the app maker being someone chopping a new door into the library, and I laughed and agreed, and reblogged.

But the more I think about it, the less I agree.  And I feel like we’ve done the app maker a huge disservice.  (especially for the bullying, wtf guys, for reals)

I’d like to offer an alternative view. 

Instead of chopping a new door in the library and charging people to go through it, the library door is still the only one, the walls are intact.  The app maker sets up a little booth outside the library, just close enough to be seen, but not blocking the entrance.  Heck, most people barely notice that it’s there.

At their booth they offer nifty glasses that change the page color or font when you put them on.  The glasses took time and effort to create, time the app maker could have been spending on literally anything else, so they put little ads at the bottom of the lenses as a way to gain compensation for creating them. 

They offer little bookmarks, also with ads, but they’re special bookmarks that can save your spot on the page, not just your page in the book.  They also put little ads on the bookmarks, because again, they spent their time creating these little marvels of convenience. 

And if you don’t like the ads, well you can pay a small subscription and use the nifty glasses and bookmarks ad free as long as you want.  Even if it’s just long enough to read that one book.  Oh, and as a bonus, here’s a few suggestions for things you might like to read based on what you’ve already checked out at the library.

There’s also a tip jar on the app maker’s little stand.  Voluntary gratuity is just that.  Voluntary. 

The librarian (AO3) pokes their head out and says “hey, just make sure you don’t use our logos n’ stuff so that we don’t look affiliated, and get in trouble with the government, please”.  The app maker repaints their stand purple instead of red, just in case.

I can understand people being concerned about the legality issues.  That’s what AO3 is concerned about too.  They can’t be seen to be making a profit for hosting fanfiction.  But the money issue?  I think if we can pay fanartists, then we should look at a GUI app as a type of fanart.  A special piece of fanart created specifically for the readers.  The fic stealing issue?  It’s not like they’re slapping their name on our stories and offering them to publishing companies.  They’re making an effort to make sure the app users can still leave kudos and comments (from what I understand, it’s buggy, but at least they’re aware that feedback should be given to the writers).

Edit: to be clear, I'm ONLY defending GUI apps. The apps that let you view ao3 through different lenses, but they're not storing the fics on their own servers OR trying to make it look like their app is the only place to access the fic. We conflated mirroring with view access, and attacked some folks who didn't deserve it.

[tisfan]

So Many Beds

Title So Many Beds Collaborator(s) @tisfan Link https://archiveofourown.org/works/24480112 Square Filled B4: Bucky/Clint Ship/Main Pairing Bucky/Clint Rating - teen Major Tags/Triggers/Warnings - none Summary Bucky and Clint need a new bed Word Count 1264 For @buckybarnesbingo

Bucky could have sworn that he didn’t look at his phone for more than about four minutes; he got a beep for an email, and he was hoping to hear back about a contract job soon. It might be nice to have a job that wasn’t shooting at people, but hey, he’d only been out of the Army for less than a year, what did he know? He knew he still didn’t have steady work. He’d had a couple of contracts for doing heavy lifting and other stupid stuff like that, but not a real job, or a real paycheck.

What he did know was that, after half a year of being home and stepping cautiously around a super cute roomie who he wasn’t quite positive wasn’t hitting on him -- and he’d talked it out about sixty million times with his friends before finally taking a chance.

Six months in, Clint finally said, “Look, this is great and all, believe me, I love snuggling, but man, it’s gonna get hot soon, and sleeping two in a twin is just not going to cut it.”

Bucky had a small amount of savings; there really hadn’t been anything to spend money on aside from hookers and booze, while he was deployed, and no, really, not either of those either, because guess what, the middle east wasn’t big on actual relaxing. So, he had savings.

Which did not really mean he wanted to spend three hundred dollars or so on half a bed, and a boxspring, because he didn’t do that shit of sleeping on the floor. Plus sheets and pillows and all that stuff.

On the other hand, moving into the same bedroom with Clint would mean that they had a spare room in their apartment that they could use as an office.

Maybe he could get some work doing computer software. From home.

Bucky blinked at the email. “Your breakdown backup.” The fuck even was that? 

Spam, as it turned out. It didn’t seem to matter how careful he was, or how thoroughly he triaged his inbox, some amount of “let me sell you shit you don’t need and can’t afford” seemed to slip through.

All in all, though, he was looking at his phone for less than ten minutes. Probably.

And when he looked up, Clint was gone.

Like, not just not beside him, but gone.

He’d either kept going -- not noticing Bucky’s signal to stop a minute -- or he’d gone back.

But in either case, Bucky was now standing alone in the middle of one of those furniture outlet stores that was the size of an airplane hanger, filled with discount sofas and tables, as well as beds, televisions, and electronics.

And the worst part was, in order to give people the idea of space, the floorplan was made up of about half a hundred or so “room sized” display areas that weren’t evenly spaced. 

Which meant sight lines were nothing but a wish and a dream.

Bucky couldn’t see more than fifty feet in any direction.

Bucky wanted it known, period, that he wasn’t scared. That wasn’t even on the list. He was just  annoyed. He was in a big ass furniture store. In New Jersey. Alone.

Because his parter-slash-boyfriend had vanished while Bucky looked like an email.

Annoyed.

Bucky called his name a few times, but Clint was partly deaf, and while he wore hearing aids, they didn’t always help. Especially not in a high noise clutter environment like this. He might even have taken the ‘aids out, if things were bothering him. Bucky usually signed when he talked anyway, just to be polite.

Deciding that Clint probably wouldn’t have gone on ahead, Bucky decided to backtrack through the last few showrooms.

No Clint.

He checked the room with the bare mattresses, piles and piles of them, for laying down on and testing -- Clint had laid down on about forty of them, and Bucky only two.

He couldn’t seem to relax enough to test a mattress -- with his boyfriend -- where people might see them. Call him a self-hating, still in the closet gay man. Which was kinda true, but also because laying down made him vulnerable, and he was still jittery from being in the Army where laying down sometimes meant people shot at you.

Some things took a long time to unlearn.

No Clint in the mattress room.

Bucky backtracked even further, thinking of the rows of sofas that Clint had tried, excited as hell about things like heated seats and consoles where you could store your remotes and cup holders and fancy gizmos.

“Can I help you find something, sir?”

“I’m lookin’ for my roommate,” Bucky said, scowling.

“Well, I can have him paged,” she suggested. “Since he’s probably not in the clearance section.”

“Yeah, we can try that,” Bucky said. Although it was entirely likely that Clint was in the clearance section. He could be a real cheapskate that way, and maybe he was looking for a good deal there.

Bucky texted him like six times while the store intercom system went off. Nothing. 

Bucky wasn't worried.

Yet. 

"Do you have a first aid station?"

"Uh," the salesclerk said. "Technically, yes, because safety and liability, but there's never anyone there."

"Just point me, I'll check on it," he said. Clint was often sporting any number of bandaids and wrist compression grips from hurting himself.

It did take him a while to find the first aid station. But Clint wasn't there either.

Bucky even checked the kitchen area, since Clint had once fallen asleep on the table in Steve apartment and called it the best night of sleep he'd ever had.

Finally, sitting in one of the kitchen chairs, face buried in his hands, Bucky remembered a conversation they'd had, about Clint's brother Barney. 

"He always got the top bunk," Clint had complained. And you know I like high places."

“Miss,” he said. She didn’t look happy that he’d come back again, still sans companion. "Do you have any kid's beds? Like for two kids sharin' a room?"

The salesclerk looked at him as if he’d lost his mind, but that was okay. He was pretty sure she’d decided that he was imagining a roommate entirely. That said, she didn’t follow him this time, when she pointed the direction. Let the crazy guy be someone else’s problem.

The kids’ rooms were cute, the walls were shorter, and everything was colorful. Bright blue and red, purple or pink. Giant numbers, letters, and animals painted on it. Adult furniture was boring. Brown, light brown, reddish brown, chrome, white, or black.

It was no wonder people had kids; kept you from drowning in how boring being an adult could be.

And there was Clint, tucked up on one of the top bunks.

Sound asleep.

“Wake up, beautiful,” Bucky said, leaning over Clint, his mouth practically buzzing Clint’s hair. He ended it with sticking his tongue in Clint’s ear, which got him swatted and nearly knocked off the ladder, but it was worth it.

Absolutely.

“Yuck,” Clint said, finger in his ear, wiggling it around. “No call for that.”

“Sure there was,” Bucky said. “Let’s go, Sleeping Beauty.”

Clint yawned. “Yeah, we’re all done here?”

“I’ve been walkin’ around here for nearly an hour looking for you. I’m done.”

They were most of the way back to their apartment when Clint groaned. “Aw, bed, no.”

“Huh?”

“We didn’t-- we were there for hours, and we didn’t pick one!”

“Guess I’m squashin��� you in the twin again tonight,” Bucky said.

“There are worse fates.” 

[lady-divine-writes]

Husband, Guardian, Muse - Chapter 1/3 (Rated NC17)

Summary: After the untimely death of his husband and muse, Crowley tries to find the simplest, most foolproof way to join him. But in the days that follow, he discovers that sometimes what looks like an ending can turn out to be a beginning, and that no one is ever really gone if we find a way to remember them.

Notes: This was the piece I wrote for Celestial Harmonies Zine :) Go check it out. Human au. Warning for heavy angst, death, alcohol abuse and thoughts of suicide. But it does have a happy ending :)

Crowley hated working over his vacations.

Wasn’t the point of being a semi-famous artist that he got to make his own hours, work alone, and spend as much time at home with his husband as he wanted?

Not this time, apparently. Not since Alciston & Selmeston Village Hall decided to do a complete renovation, including replacing their hospitality-grade art with original work from local artists, he had been stuck in meetings and consultations all week while his husband occupied himself at their cottage.

Aziraphale said he didn’t mind since he was doing renovations of his own – a new work space for Crowley, an extension to his library, expanding the wine cellar. Being alone gave Aziraphale the opportunity to putter over fabric samples and color swatches in peace without his husband intervening every five minutes with his supposed “expert eye for nuance”.

But Crowley had enough of forgoing lunches with his husband (as well as afternoon delights) in favor of another discussion over whether or not a Monet-inspired acrylic of waterlilies would be appropriate for the treasurer’s office. He launched his escape when an argument over abstract sculptures for public spaces broke out. He grabbed a blank canvas under the guise of starting a new piece and slipped away in his Bentley. He hit the interstate and sped off like a bat out of hell, making it to their cottage in record time.

Crowley loved how secluded it was in their small patch of heaven. Tucked far and away from any other living souls, no one complained about their activities – amorous or otherwise - be it at three in the afternoon or three in the morning.

Crowley shed his jacket, his keys, and his phone at the front door, then he wandered the rooms, the canvas from earlier tucked beneath his arm, making as much noise as possible to alert his husband of his arrival.

“Aziraphale!” Crowley called, walking through the kitchen in search of his muse. “Aziraphale! Where are you, angel? I miss your ass!”

“I thought you had to work this afternoon.”

Crowley smiled. “I am working. I’m doing a portrait of a gorgeous man, as soon as I find him.”

“No …” Aziraphale chuckled. “You’re supposed to be doing a landscape for the city planner’s office.”

“No,” Crowley insisted, inspecting another empty room. “I’m painting you. Naked if I have my way.”

“You just want to snog,” Aziraphale teased.

“Nothin’ wrong with that. Now where are you? This cottage i’n’t that big.”

“Out here, installing the track lighting.”

Crowley turned the corner to the patio – a space they’d recently added to give Crowley a protected outdoor area to work. There was Aziraphale – his intrepid Aziraphale – braving their rickety, eighty-year-old ladder to install a row of lights. The chrome runner and bonnets gleamed in the midday sun, right in Aziraphale’s eyes, so he was installing them blind, his eyes shut against the reflected light, feeling around for the holes to put the screws in. Crowley winced when the ladder shivered beneath Aziraphale’s weight, but Aziraphale seemed oblivious, balancing precariously on his toes to screw the fixture to the wall.

Crowley put the canvas down and held the ladder secure beneath his husband. “I really wish you’d let me do that. Or wait till we buy a new ladder.”

Aziraphale looked down at Crowley with playful blue eyes. “This ladder is fine. Besides, I don’t have much more to do. It’ll only take a ---” Aziraphale leaned sideways. The ladder lurched. Luckily, Crowley reacted in time to keep Aziraphale from toppling head first into the retaining wall.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Crowley said, pulling on Aziraphale’s pant leg. “Get down now.”

“But I only have one screw left!”

That’s an understatement, Crowley thought bitterly in reference to the dozen or so times he’d asked Aziraphale to wait on this project. “I don’t care. Get your ass down off that ladder.”

“Geez,” Aziraphale huffed, carefully navigating the rungs. “You certainly have a fondness for my rear.”

“It happens to be a glorious rear.” Crowley grabbed Aziraphale’s behind and squeezed for emphasis. “I don’t want anything happening to it.” He drew Aziraphale close, relishing the way their bodies fit together, as if some higher power had carved them both from the same slab of stone.

Like they’d been made specifically for each other.

Aziraphale tilted his head, pouting in mock offense. “So, you only care about my rear?”

“Among other things.” Crowley captured Aziraphale’s lips, not waiting for an invitation, trying his best to kiss the pout from Aziraphale’s face.

If Aziraphale’s whimpers were any indication, Crowley was winning.

But Crowley’s cellphone, ringing where he’d left it, called a foul on his game. He had no intention of stopping, but Aziraphale annoyingly felt that job and responsibility came before snogging.

“You should get that,” he struggled to say, voice muffled by Crowley’s lips pressing insistently against his.

“Nope.”

“But it’s probably village hall, wondering where their artist is.”

Crowley frowned as his husband squirmed out of his arms while laughing at what Aziraphale called Crowley’s “sour mug”. Crowley narrowed his eyes at his husband.

“I’m going to go answer that, but just to tell them to get lost, and then I’m getting you naked.”

Crowley peppered Aziraphale’s cheeks with kisses to a symphony of his giggles. Then, with a heavy-handed swat to his backside, he reluctantly released his husband and ran inside to answer the phone.

Despite his frustration at having to put his escapades with his husband on hold, Crowley couldn’t help smiling. He loved his life. He loved his marriage. He especially loved the time they spent at their cottage in the South Downs. He’d always be a city dweller, but this place was paradise. He loved bringing his husband here and having him all to himself.

Crowley and Aziraphale had been blessed with a wonderful five-year-long honeymoon, and he didn’t see that ending anytime soon.

“Coming, coming,” he yelled at his insufferable phone, but he wasn’t exactly rushing to get it. By the time he reached it, it stopped ringing.

“Oh, no,” he joked. “I didn’t get here in time. Whatever shall I do?”

It didn’t matter to him anyway since no power on heaven or earth could have convinced him to leave his husband right as he was preparing to ravish him.

And to make sure they weren’t interrupted again, he turned his ringer off.

“Well, now that that’s settled …”

A sharp noise pricked at Crowley’s ears. Nothing too alarming. In fact, it could have been a bird chirping. But it filled him from head to toe with dread.

He didn’t know how he could possibly feel the ladder tilt from inside the cottage, but he felt the sway of it as if he was standing on it instead of Aziraphale. After a swoop of sudden and inexplicable nausea hit him, everything happened absurdly fast. He heard Aziraphale yelp, a loud metallic clatter, then a horrifying crack, like pottery hitting pavement.

“Aziraphale?” Crowley called, and then he waited. When his husband didn’t answer, he started to panic. “Aziraphale!” He ran for the patio, having the sense of mind to start dialing 9-9-9, knowing in his heart that his husband would need an ambulance. “Aziraphale! Are you alri---?”

Crowley got his answer the second he burst through the patio door.

No, Aziraphale wasn’t alright.

Aziraphale definitely wasn’t alright.

***

It rained the day they buried Aziraphale.

This weather was such a marked change from the weeks of sunny skies and no clouds. Aziraphale had mentioned how they needed a good, all-day rainstorm to trap them indoors where they could snuggle together on the sofa with mugs of cocoa and listen to the drops fall. Aziraphale was a quintessential pluviophile. He found peace in the rain.

Crowley hated the rain. He hated getting wet. He hated when his soaked clothes stuck to his skin and cold water ran into his socks. He hated sloshing inside his shoes, and the way they never completely dried. But as much as he hated the rain, he loved Aziraphale, and the rain made Aziraphale happy.

So Crowley became a pluviophile for Aziraphale.

Crowley stood by Aziraphale’s casket beside his open grave and waited in the rain. He waited while the mourners paid their respects. He waited while everyone hugged and cried. He waited until the final mourner wandered somberly away. He waited until they lowered Aziraphale into the ground, and even after there was nothing left to witness, he waited until nightfall, when the rain stopped, the clouds parted, and the stars came out.

Crowley had painted stars hundreds of times. They were one of his favorite subjects to paint.

Now, he didn’t want to look at them.

Tracy, one of Aziraphale’s dearest friends, and her husband Sergeant Shadwell, returned to the cemetery a little before midnight in search of their missing friend, convince him to go home, but Crowley refused to leave. So they waited with him, not pressing the issue even though Crowley was sopping wet and stifling sniffles he knew would bloom into a full-blown cold later on.

At some point, Crowley finally came to the conclusion that Aziraphale wasn’t going to magically return, so he took Tracy’s hand and let himself be led away from his husband’s final resting place. Crowley’s forehead burned with fever by the time the couple got him back to the cottage, but Crowley turned down Tracy’s offer to stay. As much as Tracy objected, in the end, she didn’t have the strength to battle her own grief and Crowley’s, and they left the man alone.

Crowley walked through the unlit cottage, straight out back to the patio, shoving aside a morbid sense of déjà vu. He dropped heavily into a wicker chaise and looked up at the clear night sky, but his vision was obscured by something shiny hanging a few feet above his head.

The light fixture.

That stupid track lighting.

Crowley stared at it in shock as it dangled on its two screws.

The fixture was there, brand new out-of-the-box, installed except for one damn screw, but because of it, Aziraphale was dead.

Crowley snapped.

He spotted an abandoned hoe over by the retaining wall, a few feet from where Aziraphale had fallen. He grabbed it and, with a renewed vigor, attacked the lights.

“Goddamned lights!” he screamed. “What the fuck did we need these for, Aziraphale? Why did you have to put them up when I asked you to wait!? Why didn’t you wait, Aziraphale!? Why couldn’t you just sit on your ass and fucking wait!?”

The sound of the hoe hitting the lights and the brick behind it echoed. The force of the blows caused the hoe to vibrate painfully in Crowley’s hands, but he only tightened his grip and struck harder.

“Fuck you, Aziraphale! Why did you have to put up these stupid lights!?” Crowley screamed, shattering the bulbs and sending a spray of glass falling over his hair and clothes. “I told you to wait! I told you I’d do it! I don’t need the lights, Aziraphale! I need you, Aziraphale!”

He pounded the bonnets flat, chipped away a good portion of the brick wall, but it didn’t make him feel better. He didn’t feel avenged. He could pick those lights apart piece by piece, chop them up until they became dust, but that wouldn’t bring his husband back. And why was he taking out his anger on the lights? He should turn that hoe on himself. Why the fuck hadn’t he held the ladder till Aziraphale finished? He knew how stubborn his husband was, how determined he’d be to finish something he’d started. Why didn’t he take Aziraphale’s place and screw in the lights himself, get it over and done with once and for all? Those lights didn’t kill his husband, nor the ladder. And it wasn’t Aziraphale.

It was Crowley.

He was the only one to blame.

Panting hard and with blistered palms, he dropped the hoe on the ground at his feet.

He’s the one. He did this. He killed his husband.

He destroyed his muse.

He stumbled into the cottage and rifled through the cabinets, searching for a fresh bottle of whiskey. He couldn’t stand being sober any longer. His hand came in contact with a bottle that felt mostly full. He grabbed it and pulled it down. Except this bottle wasn’t his spare bottle of Jack.

It was a lone bottle of Hennessy … and it had belonged to Aziraphale.

Crowley’s first instinct was to toss the bottle up against the wall and smash it. He looked around for an open space to hurl it when he caught sight of his paintings - a new crop he had started working on for a show in the fall, all of them featuring his muse.

Aziraphale.

Crowley hadn’t set them up in here. Aziraphale had. He was so proud of them, he’d displayed them. That way he could look at them while Crowley toiled down at the village hall, wasting his talents painting hillsides and sunsets.

But Crowley couldn’t look at them. They represented everything he’d had and lost in an instant. Being in their presence made him realize that he couldn’t go on this way. He couldn’t keep being the artist he was when the only subject he enjoyed painting was gone.

He didn’t want to keep existing when the only man he’d ever loved was dead.

He took a swig of the Hennessy to steady his nerves. With his body burning hot and fire in his veins, he grabbed up the paintings, every last one, and carried them outside, dropping them in an undignified pile on a patch of bare earth a distance from the cottage. He doused them with the cognac, gritting his teeth as the liquid assaulted the paint, causing it to bleed, distorting Aziraphale’s face, twisting it, like Aziraphale’s body would eventually be, decaying inside his coffin.

When the bottle was just about empty, he rummaged through his pockets for his silver Zippo. He didn’t smoke, but he liked keeping a lighter on hand for emergencies. And why carry around a common plastic BIC when he could spend over a hundred dollars on something he only used once or twice a year? But that was the man Crowley was.

Frivolous.

Over-the-top.

Who in their right mind chooses to make a living as an artist anyway? He didn’t even want to be a painter initially. But when his trust fund matured and he gained control of it, he realized that he had more than enough money to live the life of a rock star and never work a day in his life. On a whim, he began to dally with watercolors and voila! He unlocked a secret talent.

But he should have done something respectable - gone to law school, or medical school. If he’d done either of those, Aziraphale might still be alive.

He’d give it all away, call a complete do over on his life, to get Aziraphale back.

He flipped the lighter open and an orange flame sprang to life. Crowley tossed the lighter into the pile. The flame barely touched the heap before the whole thing went up in a blaze. Crowley stood back and watched it burn, watched the past three months of his life go up in smoke. The paint melted, the canvas crackled, sparks of color went flying into the sky.

“There, Aziraphale,” Crowley grumbled, his throat raw from screaming. “It’s done. All of it. No more muse … no more you … no more paintings. I’ve buried it all with you. I’m done!”

Weak, tired, and sick, Crowley drank the dregs of Aziraphale’s cognac while fire devoured his paintings … and the love of his life.

It seemed too much work to trudge back to the cottage and climb into bed, so he lay down on the hard-packed earth next to the destroyed canvases. They maintained a slow burn, the air around him reeking of chemical smoke. Crowley hoped it would seep into his sinuses and suffocate his brain. Or maybe an errant cinder would jump onto his alcohol-soaked clothes and he would burn to death in his sleep; a sudden temperature drop freeze him to the ground where he lay. Either way, without Aziraphale, his bed wasn’t his bed, his home wasn’t a home, and Crowley wished more than anything that he could find the quickest and most efficient way to die.

Crowley had prayed that he would black out, surrender to an unconsciousness where time passed outside of memory, but he had no such luck. Locked inside sleep, he had the same dream over and over - Aziraphale falling from the ladder and cracking his head on the wall. And no matter what Crowley did, no matter how fast he ran, no matter if he didn’t go into the cottage to answer the phone, Aziraphale still died.

That was an absolute. It never changed.

Which meant that doctor, lawyer, or artist, Aziraphale would still die.

Before dawn, Crowley had no idea when, he heard a rustle, followed by footfalls on the ground, and he wrestled through the fog in his brain to open his eyes. If he was about to be mauled by wild animals, he wanted to know. But what he saw was a man – a beautiful man - approaching the charred pile, focused on it as if a sick, drunk, and urine-smelling Crowley wasn’t lying mere feet away. The man bent over the burnt canvases, a trembling hand pressed to his lips, and a gasp escaped his mouth.

Crowley had an overwhelming urge to reach out to the man, apologize for setting the paintings on fire, but why, he couldn’t explain. Crowley groaned, trying to form words with his sticky tongue. He rolled slightly, blinking to get a better look at his paintings’ solitary mourner, but when he opened his eyes, the man was gone, and Crowley fell asleep once again.

Crowley awoke after sunrise to the sound of laughter breaking through the haze of his fever-induced stupor. It was high-pitched, familiar. It sounded like heaven and home and the future Crowley had always dreamed of having, starting during those days when Aziraphale was completely clueless that Crowley had a crush on him. He could punch himself in the eye for the time he’d wasted not outright saying, “Aziraphale, I’m in love with you!”

Time he could use now.

Time he would never get back.

Back then, it took him longer than necessary to realize what he’d known from the beginning, from the first moment they met.

He wanted Aziraphale. Just Aziraphale.

Crowley peeled open his eyes and craned his head in search of the laughter, fixing his gaze on the cottage, and the patio he planned to tear out brick by brick by hand as soon as he was physically able. Somewhere in the midst of his pounding headache and the fog that refused to lift, he spotted piercing blue eyes – blue like the sky in summer – staring at him from behind a golden hibiscus. It was that exact spot Crowley had planned for his painting - the one he’d rushed home to start, of Aziraphale lounging on a chaise in front of the outdoor fireplace, the hibiscus behind him, its golden hue mimicking the highlights in his hair.

Crowley sat up too quickly to see who the eyes belonged to. His head swam, his stomach flipped, and before he knew it, he was on his hands and knees, vomiting over the ground. Crowley heaved until there was nothing left, eyes squeezed shut as his body wrung the past several hours’ worth of alcohol from him. As quickly as he could, he looked back at the cottage with watery eyes, but this time, he saw nothing. He dropped his head. It felt too heavy for his neck so he let it hang while he blinked what remained of his tears from his eyes. He caught a glimpse of his hands, filthy and paint-stained; the ruined cuffs of his suit reminding him that he still wore it. He pictured himself covered in dirt and vomit and knew that if Aziraphale could see him, he would be sorely disappointed.

Slowly, ever so slowly, with that thought lodged in his mind giving him an impetus to move, he crawled back to the cottage on his hands and knees. He felt lousy with fever, but his head began to clear. Small pebbles cut into the palms of his hands, but, unable to get to his feet, he continued to crawl, distracting himself by considering his options.

By the time he made it to the patio, his path seemed certain.

Crowley didn’t want to live, not without Aziraphale. His mind was made up.

He would settle his affairs.

He would finish his commissions, complete his obligations.

And when the cottage and his flat were put up on the market, and all was said and done, he would find the quickest, most foolproof way of being reunited with his husband again.

[shochmonster]

84 Questions

original: https://fuckyeahsurveys.tumblr.com/post/61049002526/84-questions

Put your music player of choice on shuffle and list the first 10 songs Guns of Brixton - The Clash Holiday in Cambodia - Dead Kennedys  Chainsaw - Nick Jonas California - Joni Mitchell Make It Wit Chu - Queens of the Stone Age This Woman’s Work - Kate Bush The Bad Thing - Arctic Monkeys Between the Bars - Eliot Smith Drown - The Smashing Pumpkins Different People - No Doubt

If you could spend a week anywhere in the world, where would it be and why? Would you take anyone with you? I’d take @duoloopo to the UK. I’d like to see places other than London.

What is your preferred writing implement? (eg. Blue pen, pencil, green pen)  I use my iPad stylus the most, but I have this heavy mechanical pencil I really like for drawing. 

Favourite month and why? October. I just love the fall vibe. 

Do you have connections to any celebrities (even minor)? List them. I went to undergraduate school with Rebecca Sugar. We used to ride the bus between NYC and DC together on holidays. 

Name 3 items you could pick up from where you are. Can of seltzer, pencil case, stack of bills

What brand logo is closest to you currently? REAL Skateboards

Do you ever play board games or other non-computer games? Got any favourites? I love Small World and Munchkin. 

A musical artist you love that isn’t well known Laura Stevenson and the Cans

A musical artist you love that is well known Red Hot Chili Peppers

What is your desktop background currently? Thomas Barrow on the beach in the Season 4 Christmas Special

Last person you talked to, and through what you talked to them @duomaxwell02 with my face :O 

First colour name you can think of that isn’t in the rainbow White

What timekeeping devices are in the room you are currently in? Two wall clocks, though one is very old and doesn’t wind anymore. I also have a clock @duoloopo ‘s dad made for me. It’s on the piano. 

What kind of headphones do you use? JBL Bluetooth, noise canceling 

What musical artists have you seen perform live? Foo Fighters (3x), Incubus (3x), Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, Audioslave, Justin Timberlake, Troy Sivan, Arctic Monkeys, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Queen (but with Roger Daughtry, not Freddy... for obvious reasons.). Probably a whole bunch of others I’m blanking on. 

Does virginity matter to you? Not really. 

What gaming consoles do you or your family own? PS4, PS2, PS1, XBox 360, N64, Gamecube, Wii, NES, SNES, various Gameboys, Nintendo DS, PSP

What pets do you have? What are their names? Two cats, Hemingway and Renji

What’s the best job you’ve ever had? I like freelance art gigs the best. As for ‘normal people jobs’, I once was a sign painter for Whole Foods. That was pretty fun, minus the work drama. 

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? Food service. 

What magazines do you read, if any? I’ll pick up Time once in a while

Inspiration behind your URL? My classic original URL was LinkWorshiper and had been since AIM first existed. I picked it because Zelda was the first fandom I ever joined. Now I’ve changed all my handles (except on AO3) to reflect my actual name, as my literary agent thinks it’s more professional. 

Inspiration behind your blog title? Mean Girls. I always chuckle imagining Thomas and Jimmy as some Edwardian version of the Plastics. 

Favourite item of clothing? My Downton livery waistcoat. And the stiff bosomed shirt and collars I have to go with it. 

Are you friends with any exes? Nah. By the time I felt comfortable enough to possibly try, I also didn’t care enough to. 

Name at least one book you loved as a child. His Dark Materials (the trilogy by Philip Pullman). I still love them and am jazzed that he’s writing more these days. 

What’s your native language? If that language has distinct regional variations, which variation? (eg. AU English, US English) US English, mostly a northeastern dialect/accent

What email service do you use? Gmail

Is there anything hanging on the walls of the room you are currently in? So much stuff. I have a mood board full of Downtons stuff over my desk, various DA posters and memorabilia, plus some artwork I’ve done, and some of my JC Leyendecker collection. The aforementioned wall clocks, a San Francisco cable car bell, Sailor Moon and a few other little knickknacks, like my hamsa. To name a few lol. 

What’s your favourite number, and why? 212 because it’s Manhattan’s area code and also because it used to be the notation for one of my favorite ships in an old fandom. 

Earliest moment in your life you can remember? Sitting under the table and looking at my grandma, who was wearing a Cruella Deville dress she’d knit herself. Like, it had the actual Disney character on it. Pretty cool to a little guy, I guess!

What did you have for dinner yesterday? Quesadilla 

How often do you brush your teeth? Whenever they feel gross

What’s your favourite candy/chocolate? Lately, I’ve been into Junior Mints. 

Have you had other blogs on Tumblr? Do you have any other blogs currently? This blog used to have my old handle, linkworshiper. I did a small Whole Foods blog when I worked with them, but it never went anywhere. 

If you were suddenly really hungry, what would you choose to eat? Sushi

What fandoms would you consider yourself a part of? Downton Abbey, though lately I’ve been crazy busy and not as active as I once was. Casually still poking at old fandoms like Zelda and Gundam Wing to name a few. 

If you could study anything, what would it be? More art education can’t hurt. Maybe some formal history education. 

Do you use anything on your lips? (eg. Chapstick, gloss, balm, lipstick) Chapstick 

How would you describe your sense of humour? Seinfeld 

What things annoy you more than anything else? Mouth noises

What kind of position are you in at the moment? Sitting

Do you wear much jewellery? Nope

Who is the leader of your country, currently? Any other levels of government with leaders? (State, region, province, county, district, municipality, etc) Three supposedly equal branches of government, currently being run into the ground by a clown 

Last 3 blogs on your dashboard, not including any of your own @halcyondaze @mab1905 @lavender-hued-melancholy

What do you carry your money in? I try to never carry cash, but I carry a small wallet 

Do you enjoy driving? Why or why not? I like it but sometimes it feels like a chore, especially during a commute. @duoloopo thinks I’m a shit driver so she tries to drive whenever she can, which has pluses and minuses. 

Longest drive you have ever been on? Savannah GA to San Francisco, CA in a UHaul

Furthest away from home you have ever been? Germany 

How many times have you moved house? God, I don’t even know. More than ten. 

What is on the floor of the room you’re currently in, not including furniture? Cat toys, unused canvases

How many devices do you own which can access the internet? Phone, computer, iPad, various game consoles 

Is there is anything that is guaranteed to always make you happy? Thomas and Jimmy <3 <3 

Is there anything that always makes you sad? Thinking too hard about being a failure

What programs do you currently have open? I just rebooted, so only Chrome, Spotify and Photoshop

What do you associate the colour red with? This line in the Kate Bush Song Blue Symphony, which goes, ‘I associate love with red, the color of my heart when she’s dead.’ 

Last strong smell you can remember smelling? The Greek food I ordered in for dinner

Last healthy thing you ate? Roasted veggies

Do you drink tea or coffee, and how much per day? I prefer tea, and I drink coffee for energy, though sometimes I think it just makes me crash harder. 

What do you associate the colour blue with? The sky

How long is the closest ruler you can find? 12 inches

What colour pants/skirt/etc are you currently wearing? Dark blue

When was the last time you drank water? About a minute ago

How often do you clear your browser history? Rarely

Do you believe nude photos can be artistic, rather than erotic? Yes

Ever written fanfiction for anything? Oh God, yes. You can still find it under Link Worshiper on AO3, though some of my ‘classics’ have been removed since I turned them into original manuscripts 

Last formal event you attended My cousin’s wedding

If you had to move your birthday to another date, which one would you choose and why? Maybe inch my birth year up just by two so that I’d stop being called a damn millennial. At my age, I really just don’t relate to the generation even though technicalities make me a part of it. 

Would you prefer to be at a beach or in the countryside? Beach

Roughly how many people live in your town? 52,000

Do you know anyone with the same birthday as you? Leonard Nimoy :D 

Favourite place to shop? Can be a certain store or a place where there are multiple stores I haven’t really gone shopping since the pandemic. Right now, it feels like the only place to buy anything is Amazon XD

Do you have a smartphone? What kind? If you don’t, do you want one? Samsung. It’s not a Galaxy but is a new model and a fraction of the price. 

What is your least favourite colour, and why? I don’t think I dislike any colors honestly. 

How do you spell grey/gray? Grey. I’ve got too many British online associates to ever go back. 

Go to your dashboard and describe the image shown in the radar section (below the “Find blogs” link) It’s Umbrella Academy fanart of Klaus. He’s in black and white with this hands over his eyes and the background is red. It’s very graphic. 

What difference is there between how many followers you have, and the number of blogs you follow? 736

How many posts do you have? 8,859

How many posts have you liked? I can’t find the stat D: 

Do you post mainly reblogs, or your own content? Mainly reblogs but I pepper in my own content when I can. Lately, I haven’t had time to do as much fanart though, and I kind of feel like it’s not worth bothering to post my original stuff. Nobody follows my blog for that. 

Do you track any tags? No. 

What time is it currently? 7:33 PM CMT

Is there anything you should be doing right now? Waking up @duoloopo. TIME TO JUMP ON THE BED. 

tagging, if they feel like it: @abbys-little-whippersnapper​ @bumblebarrow​ @irrationalgame​ @downtoncat​ @mab1905​ @duoloopo​

and everyone who I’ve forgotten

[lovemesomesurveys]

1. have you ever gotten soap in your mouth for cursing? do you think that’s right to do to kids who curse?: Nope. I didn’t say any curse words as a kid for one, but also I’m pretty sure my parents wouldn’t have done that if I did. They would have just talked to me about it and tell me not to say them. I personally don’t like the soap punishment, I think it’s dumb. I’ve heard of some parents who use hot sauce instead, which is just horrible. I understand if you don’t want your kid to curse, but you don’t have to torture them. Just talk with them and explain why it’s not nice to say and that kids shouldn’t speak that way or whatever. Don’t make too big a deal about it. Try not to curse around them either, that’s where they likely hear it and you can be an example for them. If talking doesn’t work then take something away like a toy or some computer time or whatever. I think it’s also important to reward kids when they’re behaving, even just acknowledging it. That can go a long way.

2. what age do you think is appropriate for kids to start watching horror movies with lots of gore?: Well, I personally don’t think kids should watch that at all. I’d say wait until they’re in high school. 

3. do you know what the word “polyamorous” means? and did you ever hear that song by breaking benjamin?: Yes I know what it means, no I haven’t heard that particular song by them.

4. how many bug bites do you currently have?:  Zero.

5. what’s one word you always have trouble spelling and can’t remember the correct spelling of?: Whenever a question like this comes up, “onomatopoeia” always comes to mind. That’s a word I never use except for these questions haha, but yeah I can never seem to remember the spelling, I have to Google it each time.

6. what’s one band that really sucks live?: I’ve never seen a bad live performance, but I’ve heard things about some bands that I haven’t seen, such as Maroon 5. I’ve heard they’re pretty bad. :X

7. do you go to warped tour? why or why not?:  I’ve never been.

8. do you have any wind chimes outside your house? how many?: Yes, a couple. 

9. do you know someone who actually had someone give them a bouquet of real roses and one fake one, and tell them they’ll love them until the last one dies?:  I’ve never heard of that lol but awww how corny and sweet.

10. which do you like better, firefox or internet explorer?: Firefox out of the two, but I use Chrome.

11. who is the most attractive person on your street?: I haven’t seen all my neighbors, but I don’t find the few I have seen attractive. 

12. do you have a flat stomach? would you ever wear a belly shirt to show it off?:  I have a flat stomach, but noooo you’ll never see me in a crop top. I’m waaaaay too self-conscious for that.

13. which do you prefer on yourself, long or short hair?: Long, which is what I have, but it takes more energy and maintenance than I can give right now and I should just cut it short again. :/ I just can’t bring myself to do it for some reason, though.

14. what about on your preferred sex? long or short?:  Short.

15. with eyebrow piercings, do you prefer the ring or the curved barbell?:  I don’t care for eyebrow piercings, personally.

16. have you ever pierced something yourself? why and what was it?: Nooooo. I would never. I’m terrified of needles and don’t do well at all when getting blood work done, and that’s by professionals. I could never attempt to pierce myself with no experience at all. I’d also be scared of doing something wrong or causing an infection.

17. would you date someone who was five years older than you?:  Maybe. I think that’s the oldest I would go.

18. i heard of a girl whose boyfriend cheated on her with a 13yearold (he’s 18) and got her pregnant, so she left him. what would you have done if you were in her situation?:  Omg. I’d have left him, too, but I also would have reported him.

19. how old was the youngest person you ever found attractive? and how old were you?:  Just a year younger than me.

20. isn’t it annoying when you’re trying to start conversation with someone and all they say is “yup” or “really now” or something like that?: Ugh, yes. If they’re clearly not into it or they’e distracted then forget it, what’s the point? I can’t keep a conversation going if the other person isn’t putting anything into it nor would I want to even try.

21. if you have aim, do you have any linked screen names? how many?: AIM died.

22. which of your favorite bands released a new album last?: Hmm. I’m blanking at the moment.

23. are you waiting for any bands to release new albums? which ones?:  Not in particular, but I’m always down for new music.

24. what’s your favorite store for buying cds and such at?:  I haven’t bought a CD since like 2011. I usually just went to like Walmart or Target. I also bought a few CDs from a place that sold old records/albums/cassettes, though. That’s also the place I sold all my CDs to.

25. what’s the point in buying dvds like “girls gone wild” and other porn if you can get tons more online for free?: I don’t know, ask someone who watches porn. 26. if you had to have one drug (illegal ones, like marijuana and cocaine and all of them) right now, what would it be?: Marijuana is legal here, but that’s the only drug I would do.

27. would you ever get a sleeve or a half sleeve on your arm (we’re talking about tattoos)?:  No. I only want one little one.

28. do you have a wireless mouse and/or keyboard?: I have a laptop, so it has a built-in trackpad and keyboard. 

29. do you think your biological parents love each other?: Yes.

30. do you have callouses on your feet?:  No.

31. did you see the commercial for that “foot grater” on tv that basically shaves the callouses off of your feet? isn’t that nasty to think about?: Gahhh, yes. 🤢 It was so gross.

31. what’s your favorite color combination (ex. pink and purple)?: I love pastel colors together.

32. ever been to watchmovies.net? what do you think of the quality of the movies there?:  Yeah, back in the day. I totally forgot about that. The quality wasn’t too, too bad on the ones I saw.

33. what’s one movie you’re dying to see but haven’t had the chance to see yet?: There’s a few movies that were supposed to come out this year that I wanted to see, but that’s obviously not going to happen. 34. would you rather live alone in a huge mansion or alone in a small studio apartment?: I don’t want to live alone at all, but if I had to choose I’d definitely choose the small studio apartment. I wouldn’t want to live in some huge house by myself. That would make me a lot more anxious and uncomfortable. I don’t even want a big house like that for my family and I, it’s just so unnecessary. We’d only need a house big enough for 4 adults and a doggo to live in. 

35. if you came across child porn on your computer, what would you do?:  Omg, that would mean I was hacked somehow. I’d be disgusted and horrified and try to get rid of it as quickly as possible. Are you supposed to report that kind of thing? I would think so, so that it could be taken down and hopefully catch whoever distributed it.

36. what’s the last computer game you played?: The Sims 4. It’s been a couple years, though. I get urges to play, but I’m too lazy.

37. what’s the name of the street you live on?: I’m definitely not sharing that.

38. would you ever dye your entire head blonde?:  No.

39. what’s the randomest thing you ever heard of someone collecting?:  *shrug* I have a rock collection, so who am I to judge. lol.

40. how often do you use “<3” or “:]”?: I don’t use :], I use :) Anyway, I don’t use emojis or smiley faces super often, but sometimes when I feel they’re fitting. I know some people who get a little carried with them.

41. isn’t it annoying how people walk around thinking hollister logo tshirts and ripped jeans are preppy, even though those things would never be allowed in a prepatory school because of the dress code?: >> *stares blankly in “I don’t care”* <<< Hahaha, for real. 

42. how do you feel about abortion?:

43. what’s one thing your grandmother does that you can’t stand?:  She doesn’t do anything that I can’t stand. My grandmothers were/are (my maternal grandmother sadly passed away 15 years ago) sweet, loving, and adorable. haha.

44. did you ever notice how it’s more tragic if a younger person dies than an older person, even if they both died of the same cause?:  Loss of my grandparents was heartbreaking for me, I had a really hard time with their loss. Them being older didn’t make it any easier. I think why people find it even more devastating when a child dies is because they were so young and hadn’t even had a chance, yet, like their life had just begun. There was so much still to experience. They should have had a lot more time. Even a young adult because it’s like their life is also kind of just beginning in a way, perhaps they just started or finished college, were about to start a new job, or were about to get married and start a family. They, too, have so much still to experience and should have had more time. But still, losing someone who is older is still just as sad. I think some people just can sometimes find a little comfort in the fact that they had lived a long life and got to experience a lot. 

45. when’s the last time you snuck around, and where did you go?: I don’t have to sneak around. Never have.

46. how often do you wash your hair?: Every couple days.

47. do you think the price for a movie ticket is too high these days?: Well, these days movie theaters aren’t even open. However, I don’t think it’s the movie ticket price that’s too high, it’s getting stuff at the concession stand that racks it up. The food and drinks are ridiculously overpriced. I just have to get some popcorn, though. I miss movie theater popcorn with salt and lots of butter.  48. have you ever been to a drive-in movie theater?:  Yeah, a few times as a kid. Actually, the last time I went was to see the Willy Wonka movie with Johnny Depp when it came out. I wish they still had drive in theaters where I live. I think they should make a big comeback, I mean that’s perfect for social distancing. We can stay in our own cars, closed off from others, but still enjoy movies on the big screen.

49. what’s your favorite musical?:  Sweeney Todd (the one with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter). 

50. what do you think of dr. seuss?: I was a fan as a kid, I loved his books. They’re classics. I actually have a Star-belly Sneetch stuffed animal, which is a character from his book, The Sneetches. 

[pipesflowforeverandever]

If you can do a quick summary of your hymms of struggle au please? I can't read very well and is really long.

No worries!!! I try to tell people that it’s fine if they don’t read it, since it’s so long. Before I get started here, I do want to let you and some other people that might benefit from it that there’s extensions you can get for Google Chrome that’ll read highlighted text to you! As of late I’ve been using that a lot to read fanfics, since I love listening but I need constant visual engagement (video games, videos, etc). I use “Read Aloud: A Text to Speech Voice Reader” and it does a pretty good job!

I’m also starting a podfic of Hymns which you can find here. There’s only one chapter read so far, but I have friends that are recording future chapters and I’ll be working on recording too, now that my illness woes seem mostly cleared up and I can spend my weekends having fun. I got a brand new mic and I’m excited to use it!

Listening to that much in itself is still- y know- a lot, so don’t worry if none of this appeals to you.

So with that all said and done, here’s the summary you wanted. Kind of obviously, spoilers for basically everything about the story.

(This summary did not turn out quick at all so skip to the bold headers if its too much.)

Hymns of Struggle is an AU I started before chapter 4 with it being based only on the canon of chapters 1-3 of the game. It’s about a college-aged woman who falls into the depths of the studio and comes across the circumstances and characters that Henry did before her. But unlike Henry, she becomes convinced that she’s not going to leave anytime soon. So instead of using her willpower to escape- as Henry did- she uses it to survive the experience, especially in an emotional sense. She meets the monsters of the studio and discovers their humanity, and as she holds out hope for them, their bitter perspectives start to turn, and they began to see hope in her in turn. 

Sammy is the first to meet her and treats her not unlike Henry; she is prepared as a sacrifice. However, as the ink demon not only ignores this request but heals her injuries (not really but she’s not dying anymore), Sammy comes to terms with this by begrudgingly taking her as his ward, as the ink demon for whatever reason wants her alive. The woman, of course, sticks with him at first only out of fear and morbid curiosity, but eventually they become friends that have genuine cares for each other. A big plot point is Sammy presenting the ink demon as a god before the woman gets any other impression, and so she’s inclined to view him similarly. The other characters- mainly Alice and the projectionist- have a similar arc with her of reluctance before they view her as empathetically as she views them.

The woman is only named in the fic once Sammy asks, which isn’t for a good 20 chapters or so. 

Gingie (within the fic simply called the usual Joey Drew) is the main antagonist of the story. About half way through it’s revealed that he is still alive, and not physically changed like the rest, and that the others don’t know about it. Francine has to decide whether or not it is good for the studio to keep it this way, although Joey makes his misgivings very clear. The fic from the second half on shifts to this walking on eggshells of what it means to care about others- if it ignores other kinds of morality like lying and condescending, or if you have to be able to brave for the worst even if you could have prevented it by said lying and condescension.

This is played out in the fact that the ink demon towards the very end is revealed to be an extension of Joey’s deepest desires. Joey can’t control him- in fact often does the exact opposite of what he wants- but the demon plays entirely off of what Joey really wants. The demon makes sure Alice stays where she should. The demon made Sammy blind without his mask of faith (literally and figuratively). The demon fights the projectionist if he decides to leave his maze and find Francine when she goes missing. Joey doesn’t want anyone to be hurt. He’s afraid of what he’s made- the studio being a curse born out of a desire to see his son Henry again, that ended up swallowing everyone inside the building and trapping them for 80 some years. They’re inside his world, and he knows it’s terrifying. He stays by himself, trying to keep himself calm, to prevent something like with Henry happening again to the others and now Francine, who still has her own body, blood, and soul to keep from joining the disfiguring ink. 

With Francine there, Joey’s tension builds. He’s both hopeful, as he watches her befriend the others, and he is very, very afraid. It’s not true, but Joey believes Henry is dead from that visit 30 years after he left. He’s so forlorn he can’t bring himself to find his soul in the ink. As Francine finally finds him- the demon bringing her to Joey against the studio itself (another, slightly more controlled extension of Joey’s emotion)- Joey has to decide on the spot to make up a lie that the studio stole his freedom as it stole Sammy’s memory, Alice’s identity, and Norman’s voice. But of course, he wants to know her too. Francine found lovely things in everyone, helped them remember who they were before the ink…who like Joey wouldn’t long for the same?

But as that becomes more and more true with each of her visits, her curiosity about things that don’t make sense become dangerous in his eyes. After Francine pieces together that something must have happened to Henry and Boris (who has never appeared to her), the ink demon abruptly rips her out of Sammy’s arms and at Joey’s feet, where the old man decides that in order to keep what remains of his family- to keep the studio from imploding on itself- she has to stay with him.

With her upset at this, he breaks down and the walls around his chamber fall apart and the others finally see him for the first time. Alice screams at him as he tries to call her his angel, and Sammy breaks down at proof that his god is not at all who he seemed. With everyone all at once screaming at him, Joey uses the curse to push everyone away from him. The remainder of the story is Francine and her friends Sammy and Alice defeating the ink demon, finding out the truth about Henry, and convincing Joey that he can set everyone free after all. In the resolution, everyone becomes human again, Alice/Susie and Francine have their first kiss, and they find Joey curled up and crying in his childhood home, having to come to terms with the fact that he is still alive even after all he had done.

Joey discovers Henry’s daughter, Linda, is still alive and he visits her in a nursing home. Sammy assures Francine that the eyesight he lost in taking his human form again won’t stop him from making her keep the promise she made of showing him every song he’s never listened to.

The series that takes place after is heavily focused on the studio’s survivors recovering from trauma, forgiving, and learning to enjoy themselves. Francine finds herself the caretaker of a real life Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, the young matriarch of people waiting for their surviving families to be found and reunited with them. 

LONG STORY SHORT:

Sammy makes friends with a young woman he tried to sacrifice. His memories are forcefully blocked and she helps him find them again. 

Alice and the young woman gradually fall in love.

Joey is the secret villain who caused the studio to be cursed and transform people into ink. He loves the studio deeply but assumes a parental role that is toxic- and is the reason Henry left long ago.

Francine gets Joey to realize what he’s doing and he sets everyone free into the modern world, where they have to learn how to live again.

OTHER DETAILS:

How the curse happened was that Joey found a spell that would- in his view- reconnect him and Henry forever. The ritual required Henry’s consent and thus failed; it needed a part of him (like hair or blood) and Joey used the first sketch of Bendy instead. This, combined with his mother’s ashes and his own blood, flooded the studio with ink, created the ink demon, and transformed both the building and the people inside it in a symbolic world of Joey’s unstable, tortured emotions.

Joey/Gingie before the studio’s downfall was very jovial and saw the *most* in everyone. He made people want to make him proud, and Joey believed of himself thanks to his mother that he was obligated to only be the best for the world and his loved ones. This results in a mentality that only perfection and ultimate happiness was good enough, which leads him to success and the beloved role of father/grandfather until Henry saw cracks in the man he laid his foundation/life upon and turned tail as soon as it felt unstable for the first time.

The ink demon is in the role of a god. The story is heavily based on Christian/abrahamic views of religion. Joey is the father, the ink demon is the son, the studio is the holy spirit. All the same, yet all different.

The themes are: the importance of names, being empathetic vs being selfishly loving, religion vs faith, and family. Francine is the color pink, Henry is the color blue, Joey/magic is yellow/gold, green represents the world outside and freedom, and black is the ink demon and the curse.

[rigelmejo]

Review of Lingq and Reader Language Apps

My tentative review of lingq: Literally seems to serve the same function for me as the Pleco Reader. The positive benefit of using lingq - it highlights words you don’t know in blue, words you’ve started learning in yellow, and words you already know are left unhighlighted. This is motivating because the progress you make is clear, and the words you already know you don’t try to over-study or re-memorize (because my perfectionist tendencies LOVE to get hung up studying things I already know before progressing). Lingq also counts the words you’ve marked as known. That is the primary reason I’m trying the app - I wanted to gauge how many chinese words I actually can read and am familiar with.

However, the core negatives to lingq: their dictionary/lookup function for words is clunky and inconvienient. It only shows the most common translation at a quick click pop up and that isn’t necessarily nuanced or correct. The pop up is hard to get rid of because you have to expand it then exit out of it, which is inconvenient and slows down reading (I wish I could just click the pop-up again or click the word again to remove the translation pop up). It has options to search more in-depth definitions on sites like baidu, but all the steps that takes makes doing so just as time consuming as opening the internet browser or baidu app and searching it that way. So the dictionary option I find is lacking and inconvienient, and that affects ease of reading/ease of use. The dictionary feature IS better than the Idiom reader app, but Idiom reader app also has the ability to look up more in-depth definitions which takes just as much time as lingq/a web browser. 

Basically - Pleco Reader is eons better than both of them. Pleco Reader’s only draw back in definitions, is it provides so many that the less familiar you are with chinese, the more its a puzzle of which definition applies (but usually the top ones are the most common, so it’s rarely an issue) - but a reader can’t be expected to know which meaning of 15 possible a writer may have intended, if that meaning’s one of the least common. So it’s just nice that pleco provides the less common ones so it’s easy to look up when those situations arise. In addition, Pleco Reader is very convenient to flip from dictionary explanations back to reader, not slowing the reading experience. Lingq ALSO has very few chinese materials in varying levels. It seems to rely on users uploading their own materials. So a lot of it seems to be ripped from a textbook, or web article, or native book. Pleco Reader in comparison has several graded readers available to purchase, which are great for picking materials at your actual reading level, with relatively high frequency words to learn, and with grammar that should be comprehensible. Also, pleco lets me import any of my own pdf, ebook, and txt documents, along with any website. So I can read webnovels on there, my own graded readers I’ve got from other places, etc. Pleco Reader is MUCH more convenient for reading virtually whatever you want, and it’s definitions are both easier to access (including most idioms you’re likely to encounter) and more likely to have most helpful definition. 

Probably the biggest difference - Lingq is 12.99 a MONTH. Pleco Reader has a one time cost of 10-20 dollars (depending on the package you buy). Then Pleco sends you a code so if you ever lose your app/get a new phone/something goes wrong, you can enter the code and get back all your purchases. A one time cost is eons more affordable, and really kind of them. I especially like that they put in the effort to give you the ability to recover your purchase if you have any issues. I bought the 20 dollar package I think - so I could get the expanded dictionary, with pretty much any word or idiom I’d ever see, natural speech audio, and the Reader. It has been well worth it. I’ve been using pleco for like 4 months, so the longer I use it the more that cost seems minimal (it’d be like the equivalent of 5$ a month before, free now. Or the equivalent of the cost of Lingq for less than 2 months).

Lingq’s cost PER month I’m not sure I could feel justified in spending. The ONLY added benefit I see of using Lingq over Pleco, is lingq has color coded the words you know/don’t know/are learning, and lingq counts how many words you know. Those two features are motivating. But they’re just motivational benefits. 

Other then that, Lingq has the following features: audio (Pleco Reader has this too), flashcards (using anki or memrise for free appear to be equally good or better than lingq’s feature, especially because you can simply export from lingq), cloze-like questions (again, memrise, anki, Quizlet, and even in some ways clozemaster are free alternatives). I personally hate flashcard type study, so I use memrise when necessary but generally would never use such features - so lingq’s flashcard features aren’t worthwhile for me. If they’re something you’re interested in - again, there seem to be free options available that are as good as or better than lingq. 

So, at least for my own personal learning preferences, lingq does not seem to be worth it. Everything it provides is available somewhere else for cheaper, for a one time cost, or free. Pleco Reader I think offers the most benefits and convenience out of every Language-Reader app I’ve tried. Compared to: Lingq, idiom, using Baidu itself on a webpage, etc - closest comparison is the free ZhongWen chrome extension on chinese sites, I think that’s nearly as convienient as Pleco Reader and obviously the alternative for when you’re on a computer. Idiom is actually a really nice app considering it’s free, and it does serve the basic purpose (Pleco Reader is a one time purchase cost) - idiom has sometimes incorrect translations/audio, but over all if you read enough content then that’s just a few words a paragraph or page that you won’t be able to study.  Those words can be looked up separately in a free dictionary app (like free Pleco’s dictionary, or google translate, or baidu) if they keep confusing you or keep seeming to be wrong. 

Lingq just... does not seem worth 12.99 a month, for only the added benefit of making it obvious which words you know/don’t know/are studying. Other than that single ability, there are comparable tools out there that already does what Lingq does or better, for cheaper or free. 

Overall, readers I would recommend:

Pleco Reader (10 dollars, or a bit more if you buy it in a package, single time purchase) - benefits include the only dictionary you’ll need, audio (per word or for entire text), flashcard making ability, option to import any ebook/txt/website, option to one-time purchase graded readers. Although paid, I appreciate that all purchases are one time only. On a phone, this is the app I overwhelmingly rely on - it has everything I need in one area. I personally like to open up mtlnovels.com and read the novels with dual chinese/english, so I can look at the english sentences afterward - and use Pleco Reader as I get through the chinese chunks to make sure I can look up words I don’t know. If I were going to start translating, I’d probably use this method so I could get a gist of the meaning in english, then go through each line and fix errors and improve the translation for idioms and less straightforward meanings. For reading for Ease, that method’s the best for me to get through the novels I want to read. For reading intensively, I just open up a novel I want to read in all chinese and chug through it using pleco to look up words I stumble on. 

Free alternative: Zhongwen chrome extension. Equally extensive dictionary, links to grammar points, audio (per word), can read anything online or opened in a chrome browser (so you could open your txt documents in it) - sometimes works on subtitles on videos too. Subtitles on viki, on netflix, seem to be readable by zhongwen. It may work on some pdfs opened in chrome. Only available on computers. It’s really fantastic. If you’re on a computer I’d just recommend using this one overall. 

Free Alternative: Idiom - app. dictionary is decent, but some errors or limitations mean occasionally looking up words in another free dictionary app (Google Translate, Baidu Translate, Pleco Dictionary). Machine audio (per word), also sometimes has errors. Can read anything on a website. There are some other readers that serve the same function as idiom, I’ve seen one for webnovels... but I think at idiom overall is as good as or better than the other options out there. Idiom does not auto-link you to novel websites, but if you can find them then you can put any url in. Idiom also works for MANY languages - so you can also use it for french/spanish/japanese/etc. Idiom is the app I use for french, since obviously Pleco Reader is just for chinese. For free readers, and readers in other languages, I think idiom’s the best bet. Lingq might have more appeal for language learners of other languages - since it IS a little better than idiom with providing the correct translations, but lingq’s translations are still off sometimes TOO. So, if you’re learning a language that isn’t chinese, I’d recommend trying Idiom for free and seeing if it’s useful to you before shelving out money for anything paid. 

Not a reader, but there are two netflix dual subtitle chrome extensions that work really well for reading with a dictionary too, I’ll list them later when I look them up. These are ALSO available to use in many languages, so that’s nice. for both of the free dual subtitle extensions, Zhongwen also seems to work for them (if you ever want to look up a secondary definition).

Dictionary Apps:

Google Translate - good for drawing the characters, at least for me it has the easiest time recognizing what I’m trying to look up (I’m left handed and draw characters with my right on my phone so). When I’m watching tv its easy to open google and draw an unknown character in the app when I don’t know the pinyin. It usually only offers the most frequent/common definition, so it has limitations - but for a quick lookup of one word its usually convenient. For a quick gist of bigger chunks of text, google translate is also a quick way to do it although at least some words and phrases WILL probably be incorrect. 

Pleco Dictionary - this part of the pleco app is free. The definitions are the most thorough I’ve seen, and the easiest to get a meaningful definition if google translate is inadequate. Pleco’s definitions hands down seem to be the best. You have to pay for one of the packages to access the ability to draw characters to look them up, to access idiom translations, natural voice pronunciations, and a much more massive dictionary. I just bought it - and now I rarely have to use google translate. Only negative - have to look up things word by word, or by idiom/phrase. Other then that, it’s the best one probably.

Baidu Translate - also free. Biggest benefit is the ability to put a url in and have it machine translate the entire page. Like google, it’s very useful to get a quick gist of bigger chunks of text, and a handful of those words or phrases may be translated wrong. It’s fun to use it to translate english pages to chinese (again, some errors will crop up). It’s sometimes better than Google translate for looking up individual words, and phrases - but also has its limitations. 

Overall I use Baidu and Google for chunks of translations, and then Pleco or Zhongwen for specific words or phrases. It’s why I like using dual chinese/english mtlnovels.com in Pleco Reader - because then the big-chunk machine translated english is already provided (and the only thing Pleco Reader can’t do), and so I can just use pleco to go by word and phrase to get specific pieces of translation that are more accurate. 

I use Google translate or Pleco Dictionary for looking up words by drawing characters - but this is only a free feature in Google translate (and honestly I think Google translate recognizes my handwriting better - so I usually use Google, then if the definition isn’t helpful I copy paste the text version of the word into pleco dictionary). 

[purplesurveys]

1129

[created by: youvebeensurved - LiveJournal]

How often do you get fountain drinks from a gas station? I’ve actually never tried getting a drink from one of those fountains. I find them nasty, and the fact that gas stations aren’t the most hygienic of places certainly doesn’t help their case.

If you get online and look at graphics, what website(s) do you go to? I never find myself looking for graphics. The closest thing I search are vector icons, and for those I have an extension on Chrome that lets me look for icons to place on slides and such.

Who would you say your favorite celebrity is? At the moment it would be Rosamund Pike, but my all-time favorite would be Beyoncé.

Have you ever slept in your car? If so, explain. Sure, mostly when I took naps in between classes. There were also a few times I had late nights out and didn’t have a place to crash at, so I’d sleep in the car for the night before heading home in the morning.

If you were forced to murder one of your parents, which one would it be? This is a horrible question.

What song are you currently obsessed with? Find Me Here - Hayley Williams.

Explain your last run in with the police: Never happened.

Who was the last friend you hung out with, and what did you guys do? In terms of a physical get-together, I was with Angela, Hans, Pia, Kyelle, Al, Gab, and Sam and we had dinner and drinks at this gastropub that announced its impending permanent closure by the end of February. Virtually, I hung out with Andi, Peter, Carmel, Rita, Robin, Mik, and Elis to have a Jeopardy game night over Zoom.

What time do you usually go to bed and wake up? On weekdays I try to turn in anywhere between 9–11 PM and wake up by 6:30. On weekends, I try to stay up until midnight at the earliest, but I’m trying to make it a habit to stay up until like 2–3 AM just so I can catch up on my hobbies and shows. I wake up anywhere between 5–7 AM.

If you could have any job in the world, what would it be? What's stopping you? Lawyer, which is a route I seriously considered for a few years. I get extremely tense in arguments though so I doubt I’d be the best fit for that kind of career.

Do you have a friend that's in a horrible situation right now? Explain. Yeah, my college batchmate (who’s now also my co-worker) Aimee tested positive for COVID this week after being in and out of a fever over the last two weeks.

What was the last store you were in, and what did you buy? I suddenly needed plastic bags while I was packing groceries at the office the other week, so I went to the nearby convenience store to check if they had any. They didn’t, so I left without buying anything.

Who was the last person you texted, and what did this text say? I was texting some media friends to tell them some shoes we had ordered for them to try out are going to be delivered to their address within the day.

What is the reason for the last time you cried? A show I had been watching had an emotional scene.

Who is your favorite character in your favorite movie? Joanna, of course, mainly because that’s the character Audrey Hepburn plays.

What color did you last paint your nails? I can’t remember the color I chose the last time I had my nails painted 79472394348 years ago.

It's 112 degrees out today, describe your attire: A very thin tank top with airy shorts.

Do you have any friends that are currently in jail? Explain their situation. Not friends but I can think of a couple of relatives who’ve gotten ‘in conflict’ with the law. I won’t get into their cases but for both of them, it was because they got tricked by their respective abusive bosses, hence the quote marks.

Do you tend to take long or short surveys? I like taking those whose lengths are right in the middle - anywhere between 35-80 questions. Shorter ones look boring and I find the longer ones too time-consuming.

What do you currently desire? I changed my mind about La Creperie and will be going to Ramen Nagi instead since I just remembered they currently have a truffle ramen thing that’s only going to be around for a limited time, and I want to get my hands on it before they take it off the menu.

How often do you honk your horn? Depends on how stupid the people I’m driving with are on a given day.

For what reason were you last at a park? We don’t have too many parks here so there’s little opportunity to stay at one. I remember seeing one with Gab when we were at BGC a little over a year ago, but we only walked through it since it was part of the route we were taking to get to our actual destination.

What junk food can you never pass up? Salted egg chips and pizza.

If you're a girl, what is your favorite brand of feminine hygiene products? If you're a boy, what is your favorite brand of condoms? I don’t have a favorite.

Where was the last place you went on a walk to? Just around the neighborhood. I also wanted to make this morning’s route with Cooper a little longer so he could walk more, so we went to parts of the village we don’t normally reach.

How are you feeling today? I’m content :) It’s the weekend so I’m not too tense like I normally would be on weekdays. I also have plans to go out later today so I’m looking forward to that.

Do you ever make your own surveys? Never tried because I know I wouldn’t be able to come up with new and interesting questions.

How flexible are you? Not very. I can’t even reach my toes when I do stretches.

What is your favorite class? Any history elective. I also like biology, anthropology, and some aspects of political science.

What is your boyfriend's name? I don’t have one.

What is your favorite drink? Non-alcoholic, cold water. Alcoholic, Long Island Iced Tea for mixed drinks, and tequila.

Who is your best friend? Angela.

What time is it? 11:20 AM.

What is your middle name? My second name is Isabelle, but I’m not sharing my legal middle name.

What 3 websites do you visit daily? YouTube, Google Suite, and Twitter.

Where do you work? At home, haha. But under normal circumstances I’d be working in an office somewhere in Metro Manila.

What is your favorite band? Paramore.

How do you feel about abortion? Personally not a fan of the procedure for myself, but I am as pro-choice as it gets.

Do you want any kids? Very much so.

Have you ever microwaved soap? Nah, but I know what happens to it from watching YouTube videos hahaha. It’s so fun to see it gradually expand and become a pretty lil cloud.

Are there any new movies that you want to see? I Care A Lot, but I feel sooooooooo lazy about watching new movies. Idk if I’ll ever get around to it.

How many places have you lived? I’d say around five in total, including the house I currently reside in. I’ve lived in my parents’ apartment in Manila, then we briefly moved in with my dad’s parents, and then I spent most of my childhood in a duplex living with my mom’s side (and got to live in both houses), until we finally settled here when I was 10.

Do you have any health issues? Yeah, the main one I have to live with is scoliosis.

Are you texting anyone? Nope. And I don’t really text anymore, either. Most of my conversations take place on Messenger or Viber.

What do you drive? A Mitsubishi Mirage hatchback.

Have you ever had a crush on a teacher? Sure, both male and female ones.

Are you drinking or eating anything? Nope but I am starting to feel a bit hungry.

What color is your shirt? Yellow with some grey text.

Do you drink? Like...alcohol? Sure. I have the occasional soju night.

What year do/did you graduate? I graduated high school in 2016, and college in 2020.

Do you play any sports? Table tennis, though it’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to play. I got to take it as a PE elective on my last sem, but my time with it got cut off because of COVID :(

Do you pop your fingers? Yeah, I just cracked my knuckles a few minutes ago.

What is your shoe size? I can wear a size 6 or 7.

Have you ever had a UTI? Apparently I’ve had one, but all I got from it was a persisting high fever. I didn’t actually have any difficulties or felt pain in my urinary tract, though of course I felt scared to pee during that time because I thought it would hurt lol.

What was the last thing you baked? Cookies. A lifetime ago, since I don’t normally bake.

When was the last time you showered? Yesterday afternoon when I was finally able to clock out of work.

Would you rather go to the dentist or the doctor? Dentist. I actually find the procedures soothing. There’s a whole lot of issues that can be unpacked when you visit doctors, so I’m kinda scared of that.

Have you ever been in love? Yes. I miss the feeling and being able to act on it, but I’m liking being with myself too.

How do you feel about public speaking? I’m ok with it for the most part. I know I can speak well and generally have a good hold of my thoughts, so I don’t mind if I have to do it unless I have to talk about something I’m greatly unfamiliar with, like insurance or economics lmao. The latter situation is the only time I’d feel unprepared or scared of public speaking.

Do you see anything green? Yeah, since we have artificial plant accents on the coffee table.

What shoes do you usually wear? Sneakers or running shoes.

Do you take any birth control? Nope.

Who is the last person you talked to? My sister; I just asked her to turn the volume down on the TV.

Are there any fast food restaurants that you refuse to eat at? Just Tokyo Tokyo. I can take or leave Burger King but for the most part I find their burgers too plain.

Do you recycle? Whenever I can, yeah.

Do you know what you want to major in in college? I wanted to take up journalism. I suppose I don’t regret it, since I ended up wanting to be in a field that’s close enough to it anyway and I don’t feel like the skills I learned went to waste.

Have you ever snuck anyone in your room? Nah, I always let my mom know if I’m letting someone over since she doesn’t knock and would find out anyway.

Who was the last person in your bed besides you? Gabie.

Have you ever been in the hospital? Other than when I was born, yeah, at least once.

What's the last movie you watched? I watched Midsommar with Nina and some cousins last Christmas lol. We unknowingly downloaded the Director’s Cut, which we found out wasn’t as good as the main version since they added cheesy scenes to it, which ruined the suspenseful mood of the movie.

What's your favorite fruit? Avocado.

What do your bathroom walls look like? The bottom half has coral-ish tiles, while the top half is just a plain white wall. In the downstairs bathroom the setup is the same, but instead of coral tiles we have light blue wall tiles instead on the bottom half.

What do you spend most of your money on? At the moment, most of the money that I do take out of my account is the money I give to my parents every couple of weeks to help out with the bills. The next main thing I spend on is food, because I always have cravings I need satisfied haha.

Do you have any weird obsessions? Reading about serial killers and unsolved crimes isn’t really considered ‘weird’ anymore since a lot of other people have taken up the interest. But that’s probably the most out-there ~obsession that I have.

Do you bite your nails? I do but not obsessively.

What's the last color you dyed your hair? I’ve never tried dyeing my hair yet.

How do you feel about mustaches? Not my personal preference, but you do you.

Is there anyone that you really want to see in concert? Beyonceeeeeeeeeeeeee.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

i walk in 20 hours late sipping a starbucks hot cocoa

i don’t like coffee

promethea!!! 

awwwwww yis

tl;dr: uhh wow i talked a lot today, sorry. Mostly about whatever the fuck that thing Rhys is handing us is, how it ties into the dig site we see like maybe it’s a piece to activate it, maybe the dig site isn’t a Vault but instead a teleporter or something and needs multiple pieces to activate. so i guess kinda like a Vault but not that kind of Vault. Also if said dig site is actually on Promethea because that’s, like, DEFINITELY Elpis behind it. and like, okay, maybe we used the giant space gun to destroy the asteroid fields and make room for elpis and teleport elpis there, or maybe we teleported the dig site to pandora because it needs to be opened since Moon = Key and maybe Promethea’s moon was destroyed by the giant space gun (TM) and turned into asteroid belt, or maybe the dig site was always ON pandora and it’s not actually a Vault (because the Map would have pointed it out), but still. lots of possibilities here. oh and i go over the Battleborn easter egg and talk about Tannis is Not What She Seems (and pray she won’t end up being evil bc I love her) and I wanna believe the Eridians sent that message, not the cult ‘cause fuck those guys they probably can’t see the future they probably just adopted the name. also I ramble about how gorgeous this planet is for like... 30 minutes. but damn it really is pretty.

man this was a fun thing to wake up to and then have to wait like 8 hours to actually fully take a look at lmao

“Home to the Atlas corporation headquarters, Promethea is a metropolitan world covered in futuristic towers of chrome and glass. A recent siege by Maliwan has turned the urban environment into a warzone; their mechanized infantry patrol the streets, rodent/insect hybrids known as Ratches infest the sewers and back-alleys, and the Children of the Vault are seizing the opportunity to recruit displaced and disgruntled citizens. Atlas CEO Rhys Strongfork is getting desperate.“

“... Children of the Vault are seizing the opportunity to recruit displaced and disgruntled citizens”.

yeah that’s the most important part of this description for me. I really really like the idea of that, and it could tie into the whole Mayhem is Coming tagline for the game as, like many people have speculated, the Mayhem we hear about is the spreading of the cult/the psychos across the universe. A very interesting tie-in to the marketing campaign, as it’s clear we’re now the target of this cult propaganda, like the citizens of Promethea are (were? this is all past-tense since marcus is telling this story, isn’t it?)... like the citizens of Promethea were.

And we know that Atlas is trying to protect the citizens in the tunnels, so it’d be really interesting to see the two get into a direct conflict over a group of citizens. Like Lorelei tells us it's a hostage situation or whatever and we run in and it’s more of a brainwashing situation. Worse if the citizens decided to switch over without any brainwashing. oof.

im also curious about the number of hexagons we see on Promethea. The shapes look identical to the ones on Pandora’s page, so I’m curious if this is an accurate representation of how many areas will be on each planet.

just sayin’.

We do know that Pandora has more than those 3 listed areas (from Supmatto’s new video! can’t believe i missed the stream. ah well.)

“Covenant Pass”. I wanna believe this is near the area where we go find Sanctuary-III, at the very least that one tunnel-y area?

you know the one

this one, it’s right next to Sanc-III afterall.

Also thinking it may not be the name of a huge area, but instead the name of one of the smaller areas within that area? like the ones where when you discover it you get experience points? yeah.

the name makes me think this is someway related to the CoV cause of the word ‘covenant’, an agreement. We also know this area is directly near this one bandit camp which I’ve theorized before is a sun smasher camp

(you can see the back of sanctuary-III near both areas) 

so it’s possible there was an agreement made and both could pass freely through that one tunnel, or the twins were able to build that wall close to this camp. idk, just spitballing ideas.

So then it is possible there’s only 3ish areas on Pandora, but I really hope not unless they are BIG areas. There are most likely more than 3.

oh but we’re here to discuss Promethea

sorry i forgot.

For Promethea we got the Titan Skyway, the Atlas Campus, and the Meridian Seaport.

Titan Skyway reads to me like that giant road we keep seeing in the trailers 

like this one, which is giving me huge Bloodshot Stronghold (Damtop) vibes. Which is one of my favorite levels to play as melee Zer0 with execute and many must fall so... please let this be what i think it is. i may end up running that map just for funsies at the end of the game. mm if it didn’t take running the actual bloodshot stronghold every time i wanted to play the damtop level, i’d be running it all the time. sigh.

Atlas Campus immediately made me think of the Meridian Metroplex, but that’s definitely not it. In the instagram trailer we see Rhys on the ‘Atlas HQ rooftop’ with Zer0, so I’m gonna imagine Rhys is somewhere in the Atlas Campus.

Now if this is like an actual college campus, which i don’t think gearbox would do due to the implications, that’d be wild. I heard they had a mall designed for somewhere in the meridian metroplex, but we’re probably not actually allowed inside. which makes me sad, but also it probably holds no significance on the story. but then again... neither did caustic caverns. hmmmmmmmmm

oh also rhys is holding

whatever the fuck this is

uhhhhhhh... huhhhhh...

tbh i legitimately thought this was their attempt at macgyvering a vault key at first lmao

i know it’s a mission object because it has those glitteries, but... it reminds me a bit of Gortys’s core but i really don’t think that’s it. maybe another Atlas project to try and open a Vault? It just doesn’t look Eridian to me.

then again

this appears to be at the eridian dig site so... maybe it actually is Eridian. Definitely new to me.

some way to get inside the Vault area maybe? I can’t imagine that’s the actual Vault Key, because the one we see in the We Are Mayhem trailer doesn’t match.

you know i’ve been thinking more about vault colors

this one appears pink which... alright. maybe something to do with seraphs/seraph crystals.

The bl1 Vault was blue, the bl2 Vault was purple, the Vault of the Sentinel was... purple? blue? pink? all of the above? ... bisexual? tbqh there was a LOT going on there lol. wasn’t the Vault of the traveler yellow? either way

the big question here is: does each Vault have its own color scheme?

I wonder what that means since the Vault Mey has turned red now... it’s probably leading us to the big boy. the Vault to end all Vaults. 

now wouldn’t that be fun

right back to Promethea sorry

final listed area we get is called the Meridian Seaport. Which, if you know me, has got me all like 👀👀👀👀👀👀

water area? why yes PLEASE

i was actually talking to someone on reddit about said ‘seaport’ and it got me wondering if maybe this area is where we’ll find that one car from the Mask of Mayhem trailer. 

i can’t imagine what else those wing-like things on the side would be for. but i am definitely not a car person, like the closest i get is being a fan of Transformers, so maybe someone can enlighten me.

I am wondering if this area is the one we see in the instagram trailer with Moze

here

also i know we see water near where we find Zer0 in the demo, but that’s not really a dock area, more just a viewpoint. this has me thinking it’s an actual dock because the buildings are all off in the distance. It reminds me a lot of NYC actually lol

and interestingly enough i write about an assassination mission at a port on Promethea in one of my fanfics, but tbh i wasn’t actually expecting anything like it to be in-game. That was kind of an assumption I made since the area with Zer0 had water and I can’t believe I’m going to have to go back and edit it to be canon-compliant, cause I legitimately didn’t...

anyway.

Should i go over the instagram stuff now? I feel like i should go over the instagram stuff now.

see here is my problem with this

no moon

you’ll understand why once i compile my evidence

no moon

no moon!!

no moon

i even watched both time lapses during the amd stream and there was no hint of the moon (i understand promethea is in a state of perpetual twilight, but i thought maybe it would show up somewhere. it doesn’t. in fact it only shows the sun and this asteroid belt).

where is my moon, randy?

well let me tell you what i’m thinking here so you’re not even more confused

let’s go through that instagram video showcasing Promethea again

you should recognize this!

this is from that one video i reblogged like 4 times because i kept debating whether or not it was on promethea or pandora. now we can assume it’s on promethea but let me ask u something

if promethea doesn’t have a moon...

what the everloving fuck is that?

in fact, let me ask something

what does elpis look like in bl3?

look familiar?

hell yeah it does

now...

is this actually promethea?

I can’t imagine gearbox would be using footage that ISN’T from the planet they’re showcasing in a video about said planet. because that’s naughty. Plus, Rhys is shown giving us something that looks very similar to the tech in that area, and I can’t imagine we’d go through all that trouble just to get that tech then immediately go back to Pandora with whatever it is. whatever happened to the Promethean Vault Key we see in the We Are Mayhem trailer?

so there’s 2 options here if we’re under the assumption that dig site is/was on Promethea.

This dig site was moved from Promethea to Pandora

OR

Elpis was moved from Pandora to Promethea

Now i went over ALL of this in an old post. (seriously, give this a read if you haven't already, i go into this in a lot more detail than i will here). but we kinda got some new information.

My first instinct is that this dig site is on (or moved to) Pandora. just, 100% Pandora. the moon, the spiky rocks in the background, what look like Rakk near the back, there’s no asteroid belt in the sky. etc. etc.

do the blue sparkles have anything to do with it? maybe!

Also again, im not 100% certain this is actually a Vault. It just... doesn’t feel right to me. If this was actually on Pandora the entire time, then we’d have known about it through the Vault Map. We would have gone to open the 3rd Vault on Pandora before bl3 even began. If this really has been on Pandora the whole time, I do believe this isn’t actually a Vault. I go over this in that previous post I’ve made and I’m still standing by it. I think this is just an Eridian ruin and the Vault shape is just a statue or whatever. I could be 100% wrong, but that’s my first instinct if we’re being lead to believe this is on Pandora. 

Now I’m curious why this dig site was never mentioned in bl2 if it WAS on Pandora this whole time. And, again, if it actually does end up being a Vault, there’d be a huge plot hole with the whole Vault Map thing if it was on Pandora all along.

So was it moved here? Yeah... probably. For what reason? I... have no idea. How? similar answer. Lily couldnt’ve done it, she doesn’t have her powers anymore. Maybe activating it with whatever Rhys gives us makes it teleport to Pandora. For... reasons.

If it is a Vault, maybe it requires Elpis to open it. for some reason. We know Moon equals Key, so it could play into that. It definitely looks like it’s positioned directly in line with elpis.

but why would a Vault built on Promethea need a moon from a totally different planet to open it?

Because Promethea’s moon was destroyed.

That asteroid belt? I don’t think that’s there just for funsies (okay maybe the artists had funsies but the actual writing? yeah). And that big gun looking thing we see in both concept art and in the trailer? i think that thing fucked up Promethea’s moon to the point it shattered. So they couldn’t open that Vault.

alright, we all cool on this version of the theory?

let’s flip it on its head.

let’s consider:

Elpis was moved from Pandora to Promethea

NOT possible i hear you say

but hear me out.

what’s our reasons for saying this is Pandora?

“the moon, the spiky rocks in the background, what look like Rakk near the back, there’s no asteroid belt in the sky. etc. etc.”

Elpis? teleported! bah!

Spiky rocks? Well! We hear typhon mention a quarry, don’t we? one with brittle rock. This very well could be the quazmarian quarry he talked about where he found that very first Vault (and Vault Key). After all, if he fell into a hole and found it, it makes sense that there would be a shitload of dig teams trying to clear it out for easy access.

Rakk? We see those on Athenas, too, during the Happy Together trailer. Plus, they’re super chubby on the bottoms compared to what we see of the Rakk in the Claptrap Presents Pandora video. Maybe they’re not even Rakk.

Finally. Ah. The asteroid belt.

Well, if you believe that that giant gun could’ve obliterated Promethea’s moon, then is it so hard to turn around and believe that it’s actually obliterated the asteroids surrounding Promethea?

in fact, if we really ARE moving Elpis to Promethea, wouldn’t it make sense that we can’t have asteroids hitting Elpis for fear of worsening the Crackening and breaking our own moon?

In FACT, do we even SEE any asteroids above Promethea in that trailer shot of the bigass gun?

I THINK NOT.

There’s more to this theory, though.

from claptrap presents pandora

from the we are mayhem trailer

yeah, they COULD be celebrating the destruction of Elpis (because i would not be surprised if those are both near the same area)

lets think of something new, though. Elpis being blown up was totally 2015, with Zarpedon. That’s SO last season, Calypsos.

Plus, why would the calypsos even want the moon destroyed? is that not the home of a Vault that would allow them to see the future? how fucking powerful would that be, being able to see the future??? Jack knew what he had to do to win the Pandora games (even if he uhhh didn’t get to see that last bit because of Lilith), so why wouldn’t the Calypsos want to see their own futures?

There is the argument that they’ve already gone to Elpis and didn’t like what the Vault showed them, but I kinda assumed that they’d have gotten the funky eye things like Zarpedon did if they really did see what the Vault showed them. Given that Jack’s was interrupted by Lilith, we don’t really know if that’s truly the case.

I’m 100% down to blow up the moon cause Good Riddance, but also it needs to make sense WHY the calypsos want it blown up other than like shits and giggles? which... fine, but the story..? Elpis has to be important somehow. They have to want it blown up for some reason. A show of power? awesome, maybe they got that giant space gun. Moon = Key, so maybe they think if we can’t get this Vault, nobody can? sure why not. Destroying Pandora? Sure, but why blow up elpis when u could just also blow up pandora? 

either way, if the game gives us an actual reason as to why the twins are blowing up the moon, we’re all fine and dandy. if they’re going it just because then yeah, im gonna get kinda testy. 

anyway my point IS

The effect around elpis here looks strikingly familiar to the effect that appears around Lilith (and the cultists) when they’re teleported.

so it would be much cooler if, instead of blowing up Elpis, they were actually celebrating its movement. 

And it would be very interesting then, if this tied into that Easter Egg we got.

You know the one:

Because yeah im still iffy on the implication that this is from the Calypso twins. Why wouldn’t they want the Vaults opened? isn’t that the grand plan?

maybe this could be from the Eridians or the Guardians on Elpis. If Elpis was teleported from Pandora to Elpis, maybe the translation from Eridian -> English is slightly off, or simplified for the message. (on vs orbiting for example)

Visit Promethea -> Where we are right now, or where we’re going to go. We need you there.

Children of the Vault -> Yes, it could be the CoV cult that’s being referenced, but the way this is broadcasted, through morse code, spoken like an actual cryptic message and not, you know, with that Calypso flair... me thinks the cult simply adopted the name “Children of the Vault”. I think this may either be referencing Sirens, or the Vault Hunters/Crimson Raiders. Maybe the twins picked up this broadcast and that’s why they immediately head to Promethea after they steal Lilith’s powers.

We are not on Pandora anymore -> shit dudes we got yeeted to Promethea, help us. Or... we’ve moved elsewhere. We’re not nearby, we escaped, we fled, come find us on Promethea. 

Tannis is not what she seems -> this one... I don’t believe the Calypsos actually know anything about Tannis. If they do, then she was possibly the one to rescue/experiment on them, turning them into artificial Sirens or whatever, but then... isn’t Tannis exactly what she seems? She’s crazy, she totally would experiment on the twins. That is EXACTLY what she seems like. 

The people who would know about Tannis not being what she seems... the people who can see the future? The Guardians of the Sentinel’s Vault (maybe just the Guardians/Eridians in general). The Watcher can speak (speak? she uses telepathy, doesn’t she? that’s why Brick asks Lilith what she says) eloquently, I imagine there has to be more than one Watcher-like Guardian. Or this is the Watcher herself sending the message. 

Either way, if, later on in the game, Tannis starts showing signs of not being what she seems, then... wouldn’t it make sense that the only characters who knew this were the ones who could see the future? And given the new info, it makes sense that the Guardians/Eridians/yougetthegist would know her by name, because she could be the one who turned herself into an artificial Siren.  Or figured out how to create artificial Sirens. Whichever (both?). Which is kinda big news in the Eridian world, I’m sure. Plus, the wording using ‘What’ instead of ‘Who’ is kinda a big pointer. I’m almost leaning towards the idea that Tannis tried to give herself Angel’s phaseshifting abilities. I can’t see Tannis with actual offensive abilities... It wouldn’t really fit her character. But I can 100% see her with mad computer hacking skills, to the point she could ruin anything with a flick of her wrist. Yeah, I can see that. 

And I really hope Tannis doesn’t end up being a villain. She could do so much good with her intelligence and newfound powers and tbh it’s really nice seeing a character with autism not treated like Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory (the butt of every joke). She feels real to me (as someone with autism)- she’s got her obsession (Eridians/Sirens/the Vaults), her crazy intelligence, the social phobia/unawareness. I really like her as a character (going from betraying us in bl1 to realizing her mistake and immediately trying to help and assisting the Crimson Raiders) and I’d really hate for her to become the villain just for... idk a shock twist? The shock twist should be that she’s a Siren or whatever, not that she’s going to betray us. I like Tannis :( And all the message says is Tannis is Not What She Seems, not that we shouldn’t trust her or that she’s going to betray us.

Do Not Open the Vaults -> well this is the whole thing, isn’t it? this is why I think this message has some sort of Eridian origin, instead of the Calypsos cult. The Calypsos WANT the Vaults open. They want that ‘universe-destroying’ power. They want to absorb the powers of the Vault monsters. Shit, even we Vault Hunters want to open the Vaults for some of that sweet, sweet loot. But who doesn’t want the Vaults opened? The Eridians.

oh yeah we were talking about Promethea. how the fuck did i get here?

oh the moon

yeah it could have just been a shot in the Instagram trailer they used to show off the ‘Eridian alien technology’. that’s not fun to talk about tho lmfao. plus the thingie Rhys holds matches up so well with the cool technology we get

anyway

the instagram trailer. we’re not even like halfway done with this post btw. still gotta do those beautiful screenshots

oh

trailer

sorry it’s like 1am im starting to lose focus im shifting into sleepy mode

i just love the aesthetic of this city.

also. that one building with the 0 on it? you can’t convince me Rhys didn’t give Zer0 their own skyscraper.

oh, you want an entire building to store all your loot and trophy kills? OF COURSE ZER0 ANYTHING FOR YOU

yes....... Eridian log.

im really excited to see it glowing. especially since it’s glowing red, like the Vault Map/key/you know. I hope that has some significance. 

i did boost the brightness and noticed it was part of a wall, not just one slab found elsewhere. makes me think this is part of a Temple. maybe part of the dig site below? we know that one is connected to some sort of building. and if it glows red, that’d be a really neat tie in to why Atlas always has that glowing red aesthetic going on in their bases.

still not done talking about this shot. yeah the stuff on the right looks similar to the thing Rhys hands us. NOT why i brought it back up tho. The guardian statues in the back seem very ‘low poly’. VERY different to the guardian statues we have on Pandora. they’re also holding staffs which is new. 

compare

these ones also seem much buffer than the guardians we see. with shorter necks, as well.

Maybe these are statues of ACTUAL Eridians? not just Guardians or any other construct (further proof for my theory Pandora was a Guardian production planet lol) but like what Eridians actually look like.

shorter necks, thicker limbs (because why would the constructs NEED muscles?), actual bodies that aren’t thin as twigs. I think we found it boys

this is the ideal Eridian body

no cause, seriously, if they ARE guardians, why are they so BUFF?? i don’t GET IT

also weird  this atlas gun isn’t wrist mounted. Atlas sniper confirmarinoed? or just an Old Atlas gun. sure. that too.

Moze on a turret near what i assume is the Meridian Seaport. She has what i think is an Atlas pistol equipped. There’s a dead guy leaning up against some cinder blocks, all cozy-like. 

better shot of the area. We talked about this earlier, so moving on!

Okay... so is THIS the New Atlas sniper? it looks like nigel thornberry’s nose

smashing.

we saw this before, too. im actually really excited to look out over the Promethea skyline from the top of a skyscraper. also, idk, rhys’s hand looks like a yaoi hand to me. like his fingers are above the F in strongfork, right? look how far away his thumb is. YEESH.

it’s actually ONLY rhys lol

An Atlas soldier at work! I like that their gear has the crimson lance logo on it. And the new Atlas symbol. I feel like if we have to fight these guys, the crit spot is gonna be that backpack.

maliwan robo!!!

a big boy. one of the flying ones too iirc from the We Are Mayhem trailer. 

Atlassss in the back. it’s weird that the second A in Atlas is the logo, not the first one. the first one is a triangle. that’s weird is it supposed to be signalling something else? a triangle with a circle around it. i don’t even know what that might be a logo for. hm.

oh also police bots i guess, but we see these dudes a lot.

im more interested in this thingie in the back. wonder what happened to it/what it is

ratches. blegh.

i hate these things jfc. they’re so gross.

i like that maliwan is just claiming things by throwing their flag up on it. that’s not how this works! that’s not how any of this works!

anyway.

how are those screenshots lookin

pretty good.

im pretty sure i’ve mentioned this before, but i love that they named this part of the city Meridian and then kept the Eridian logo in the spelling. it’s so fuckin dorky to me.

also i know we’re supposed to hate these robos, but at least they’re getting some characterization as enemies. the loaderbots in bl2 do this but not to a degree that they get their own interactions (LB being the exception of course). I like this.

also i love that parts of the city are color coded. like red and blue parts are different areas. It’s such a neat way to help people not get lost (cough, me) and it fits great into the design of the city with the neon lights and bright colors. I noticed this in the gameplay demo as well, tho i don’t remember if it was followed. Also I’m pretty sure that symbol up there

is what the blue area is called. could be wrong. but i think i saw this during the demo as well.

i think this is going to be my favorite area to visit on Promethea, hands down. I love this little living area. It feels so unlike anywhere we’ve visited in previous games, like it feels like somewhere Gaige could be from. Actually, iirc Roland was from Promethea, wasn’t he? Be wild if we visited his house here. Anyway, I’m also excited about the trees. Fucking! Trees!

and cars!!! holy shit yeah on Pandora we only ever saw like light runners or bandit technicals and the occasional bus. all the cars were broken down and stripped for parts! It’s really cool to see actual full cars here.

wow i am excited over the most mundane shit lol

wait till you guys hear about the PARKING LOT

OHHHH YEAH

CROSSWALKS TOO

lol im actually- i just love this area. i love it so much. this is lovely. i love the giant glowing reactor in the background too, i 100% hope we get to interact with that (posssssibly blow it up. maybe just a little.) I can see this area being the area we have to run through to reach the entrance of that thing. I mean, it’s just RIGHT THERE.

Also would not be surprised if this KV fellow is waiting for us there. “Who wants to BANG a billionaire indeed”. He’s totally gonna be a boss fight. BANG i imagine means more shooty shooty than innuendo... innuendo...

it sounded better in my head.

the symbol for the red area possibly on that tower in the back?

I’m like, 60% sure this isn’t the area we explore with Lorelei, so maybe this is the Titan Skyway? also maybe the bridge Moze and Fl4k drop off of in the Happy Together trailer.

hate. i would quote AM here but im tired so just imagine the entire ‘Hate’ quote here because i HATE these things.

there’s also a big skelly in the back, i wonder just how big these fuckin things can grow. hopefully uhhh like a cow died here or smth. cuz fuck man.

this area is also super green and watery so i wonder if this is a sewer or smth. that’d be wild lol

Another shot of the city. It’s so fucking beautiful. I really love how they went all out for this. Opportunity was great, but it wasn’t nice to look at. Promethea is fucking STUNNING. I love this place way too much. Never even been here before.

also i love the fog coming up from the bottom. Maybe this shot is taken from the water? god if we get to go on the water and then it starts fogging up i might actually start crying lol.

this building is my favorite by far i think. I love the way the middle turns in. I have no idea how that’d work like... from an inside standpoint, cause the ground would just be slanted under you but im sure they made it work somehow.

anyway. im gonna go cry myself to sleep over how beautiful this game is. sorry i talked like... WAY too much during this one lol.

also i just thought of this while writing the tl;dr but maybe that item rhys gives us is after all the Promethea stuff is over, even the Vault(s), maybe we need it to activate something in that vault statue area on Pandora and that’s our way to like some important Vault or the Eridian homeworld or smth and we gotta collect all the pieces to activate it. like it’s a teleporter. Maybe Rhys had a piece because that’s what was in the Vault of the Traveller. I mean it would make sense because if you didn’t want someone to have something, you fuckin hide it in a box that’s teleporting across the galaxy at random intervals. That might be our way to the Eridian Homeworld. Now wouldn’t that be neato...

[bxcketbarnes]

A New House

picture not mine

Pairing: Ashton Irwin/Reader

Words: 2968

Author's Note: This picture gives me very domestic!ash feels so that's what I basically provided. I find this super duper cute and again... It's been in my docs for quite a while. I hope everyone likes it. I'm really glad I'm getting into writing again. ❤

Morgan and I were walking down the downtown streets of LA, a couple of shopping bags in our hands as we walk towards Panera.

The phone in my pocket vibrates and I do my best to fish it out, the handles of the bags cutting into my wrist a bit. I click the home button, seeing a text message from Ashton and a smile comes to my lips.

Hey, beautiful. Can you come over after you're done with Morgan? I gotta question/surprise! ❤

I chuckle, typing out a surprise as my brunette best friend glances towards me. “That Ash?” She asks, a smile on her lips and I nod, shoving my phone back into my pocket.

“Yeah, he says he has a question and a surprise for me. Should I be afraid?” I laugh while raising an eyebrow.

Morgan scrunches her face before shaking her head. “Nah! I'm sure it'll be cute. He fucking treats you like a princess and I'm here for it,” she tells me and I blush lightly while moving my gaze to the sidewalk.

“Shut up he does not,” I mutter and shake my head. I open the door to the restaurant, letting Morgan go in first before I follow.

We grab a table after ordering our food and I place my phone onto the table. I see that Ashton texted me back and I open it as Morg heads towards the drink area.

{Multimedia Message}

I miss you :(

My heart flutters, awing at the picture of him pouting as his curls are slightly covering his forehead. I open my camera, making the same face before sending it to him.

I miss you too, Ash :,(

I lock my phone just as Morgan sits down, the Panera worker dropping our food off before leaving us be.

“So,” I start before taking a small bite of the sandwich, “how did your date with Mike go?” I cover my mouth as I chew, watching as she pokes at the pasta in front of her.

The smile on her lips widens, shrugging her shoulders. “It went well. I'm hoping that he'll call me and if he doesn't I'll just call him,” she tells me and I chuckle.

“Get it, girl,” I laugh before taking another bite and lets out a content hum.

“What about you and Ash? What do you think his surprise or question is gonna be?” Morgan asks and I shrug my shoulders, ripping a piece of baguette.

“I don't know, honestly. We've been together for what? Almost seven months now? It could be anything,” I mumble and eats the piece of bread.

“You think he's gonna ask you to marry him?” She questions, raising an eyebrow and I choke on the food, coughing loudly. I place a hand on my chest as I cough a couple more times. “Sorry!” She mutters as her eyes are wide.

I let out a huff of breath, clearing my throat while wiping the tears from my eyes. “Oh my god, you don't think…?” I murmur, feeling my heart beat quicker in my chest. I slightly panic, my eyes shifting towards my phone and Morgan lays a hand on mine.

“Hey! I'm sure he's not. I didn't mean to put the idea into your head,” she frowns and I give her a small smile.

-

Honestly, the proposal thing hasn't left my mind since Morgan mentioned it. After walking through the door of Ashton's apartment, setting my keys on the table beside the door.

“Babe?” I call out, slipping my shoes off.

“Kitchen!” He calls out and I smile, skipping off towards the kitchen to see my curly-haired boyfriend sitting on the island with a small tub of ice cream in his hands. “Hey, baby.”

I furrow my eyebrows, giggling a bit as I stand in front of him. My hands rest against his thighs, leaning on my toes to press a kiss to his lips. “Hi,” I grin and begin to pull away from him when he reconnected our lips.

A happy hum leaves my lips and I can hear him set the tub of ice cream down before his hands press against my cheeks.

“Did you have a good day?” He asks against my lips. I nod my head before glancing towards the ice cream.

“You okay?” I ask, biting my lip softly. “Usually when people eat ice cream they're eating their feelings.”

Ashton laughs, pushing me back a bit before he jumps down. He brings his hand up to my face, gently stroking my cheek as he just stared down at me for a few moments.

“I'm great. I was just in the mood for sweets. Uhm, that surprise I was talking about? Can I give it to you now?” He asks and I gulp a bit before nodding my head.

He presses a quick kiss to my lips before running off, leaving me in the kitchen. My pulse quickens, getting a bit nervous and turns around just as he comes back.

“I've thought about this for a month or so and I thought it was finally time to take the next step,” Ash mumbles and my breath hitches in my throat, feeling my face blush as I expect him to get down on one knee.

Ashton pulls a set of keys out from his pocket, grinning as he hands one to me. My lips part, confused as I analyze the chrome key in my palms. “Wha-,” I cut myself off, looking up at Ash.

He licks his lips, his hazel eyes looking from my hands to my eyes. “Y/N, will you move into our new house with me?”

I snap my head up quickly, a quiet gasp leaving my lips. “A-Are you serious?” I ask and he nods, smiling softly. “Oh my god, yes, of course. Oh my god, Ashton.”

I grip the key in my left hand, wrapping my right arm around his neck and hugs him tightly. “I can't believe you bought us a house,” I whisper into his ear, feeling his hands rest on my lower back. “When do we move in? Oh god, I gotta tell my landlord I'm moving out.”

“Hey, hey. Calm down. We've got a week before we can move in. You've got time,” he chuckles and presses a kiss to my forehead.

-

Ashton's thumb rubs along the back of my hand as we drive to our new place. I glance back, seeing a bunch of our things stuffed into the back.

“So, the place came with furniture?” I ask, turning my head towards him.

The curly-haired man turns down a different street before glancing towards me. “Actually no. I thought we could go shopping for furniture,” he mumbles and I grin, squeezing his hand.

“That sounds fantastic. Kinda like what you see in sappy movies, “It won't be mine or your stuff. It'll be ours.” I like it. You're cute,” I tell him and leans across the middle console to press a kiss to his scruffy cheek.

“You're gorgeous,” he replies while giving me a cheeky grin. I roll my eyes, scoffing a bit. “What?! You are! You don't believe me?”

I shrug my shoulders, glancing out the passenger window. “Sometimes I just think you could do better than me,” I mumble quietly.

We stop at a stoplight and Ashton removes his hand from mine. His fingers gently grab my chin, turning my face towards him. A frown was settled on his lips as his hazel eyes bore into mine. “There's definitely no one better than you. You are so incredible in so many ways. I fall in love with you every day. I wouldn't wanna experience this with anyone else,” he mumbles and a horn blaring loudly snaps us out of the moment.

I jump at the sound as Ashton curses, driving forward. We sit in a comfortable silence the rest of the drive, music quietly coming from the radio as Ash's hand finds mine again.

“I love you,” he tells me and I look over at him, smiling softly.

“I love you so much, Ash,” I mumble quietly and squeeze his hand. We pull up to a white medium-sized house, my eyes widening as Ashton parks the car in the driveway. “Holy shi-.”

I jump out of the car, jogging up to the front door and fishes the house key from my front pocket. I unlock the door, letting out a sharp gasp as I step into the place.

Tears begin to pool in my eyes as I walk through the entire house. “Ash-,” I cut myself off, covering my mouth with my hand. His hands land on my hips as we get to the master bedroom.

“I was thinking that we could go to Sherwin Williams or Lowe's and get some paint. Whites a little too plain for a bedroom,” he mumbles into my ear as his chin rests on my shoulder.

I turn to face him, nodding my head before placing my hands on his cheeks. “Absolutely. This place is amazing… beautiful. I love you and our new home,” I whisper and bring his face closer to mine, connecting our lips.

His hands slide around my waist, resting on the small of my back as he pulls away. Ashton rests his forehead against mine, letting out a quiet sigh. “I'm so glad you love it. I was getting really stressed that you'd hate it then you'd leave me,” he mumbles and I let out a chuckle, shaking my head.

“I could never leave you. You… you make me the happiest I've ever been. I've never been more in love with any of my past boyfriends like I am with you,” I whisper while moving some of the curls from his eyes.

Ashton lets out a sigh of relief, kissing my forehead. “God, I fucking love you so much. You ready to do some shopping?” He asks and I nod excitingly, letting out a small squeal.

“Yes, yes!”

-

Ashton and I stood in front of the paint pallets in Sherwin Williams, trying to find the perfect color for our bedroom. A lot of the house was white and we've been debating if we wanted to change it or keep it like that.

“What about this one?” He asks, reaching forward grabbing a light neutral tone. “It's called caramelized.”

I chuckle as he wiggles his eyebrows, punching him in the arm lightly. “I mean it's not the ugliest color. It's kind of calming actually. You know what? Fuck it. Let's get it,” I grin while taking the paint card from his hands.

We head over to the worker and the guy gives us a friendly smile. “Hi, can I help you with something?” Todd asks and I nod.

“Yeah, can we get two-gallon cans of this color?” I ask and hand him the card.

He nods, tapping his finger against it and Todd opens his mouth to mention something. “I-You don't have to take my suggestion but it's best to prime your walls first before painting it. Would you like the primer as well?” He asks, his eyes darting between Ashton and I.

I look up at the drummer, raising an eyebrow before I slowly shrug my shoulder. Ashton chuckles and turns his attention to the employee in front of us. “Yeah, we'll take some primer,” he nods.

Todd gave us a small smile before going to collect our paint. I wrap an arm around his waist, resting my head against his side. “Babe?” I call out and he hums. “We should probably get some paint brushes and rollers.”

“Oh… good idea,” Ashton laughs and pulls away from me, gathering the brushes. Todd comes back just as Ash did and sets the brushes, rollers, and roller try onto the counter.

-

“Yeah, thanks for coming on such late notice. We just got the house and we were too excited to wait,” Ashton laughs while paying the three movers.

I sit on our new couch, smiling as I run my hands over the navy blue sofa. The curly-haired man ran back into the living room, jumping onto the couch and his head lands onto my lap.

“Jesus, Ash,” I giggle and runs my fingers through his hair. “Don't break the furniture already.”

He gives me a toothy grin, winking slightly before adjusting his position. “Do you wanna invite the guys and Morgan over? We can order pizza and they can pick it up on the way,” Ashton offers and I continue running my fingers through his soft hair, humming in response.

“Yeah. We can do that,” I smile and leans down to press a kiss to his lips. “I'll call Morg.” I pull my phone out of my back pocket, tapping on Morgan's contact before calling her.

I press the phone against my ear as I stuck my foot under my leg, Ashton's head still in my lap.

“Hello hi!” Her voice answers and I can't help but giggle, shaking my head.

“Hey! Are you with Michael right now?” I ask as my the fingers on my free hand went back into Ash's curly hair.

It was silent for a few moments before Morgan spoke up. “... Maybe, why?”

I let out a chuckle, shaking my head as I roll my eyes at her vague response. “Well, Ashton and I are chilling in our new place and wanted to know if you guys wanted to come over… maybe pick up a pizza??” I ask, biting my lip softly and I can hear Michael groan a bit through the phone.

“Yeah, we’ll be there soon,” she laughs and Mike groans a bit more. I smile softly, bidding her goodbye before hanging up the phone, texting the other two boys to come over in half an hour.

Ashton connected his phone to the speaker that sat on the island, music softly playing through the half-empty house. My muscles were straining slightly as we had to help the movers bring our king-sized mattress up the stairs since two of them were working on getting the bed frame. His slender fingers rub against my forearms, sitting in silence as we wait for our friends to get here.

“So, all we need to do is unpack the boxes of our belongings then this home will be complete,” Ash mentions and I nod.

The doorbell rings and Ashton quickly gets up to meet our friends at the door. “Congrats you guys!” Cheers and hollers echo through the house as I let out a laugh, seeing the four of them walk into the living room with pizza and champagne in their hands. “Let's celebrate!” Michael grins.

-

The sound of our balcony doors open, the creaking bouncing off the walls of our master bedroom. I turn over in bed, letting out a groan as the sun shines brightly in my face. My eyes slowly open, stretching my arms and legs a bit.

A quiet squeal leaves my lips before sighing, pressing the duvet against my lower face. Ashton stands on our three-foot balcony, a white sheet draped around his waist as he looks at the city view.

I bite my lip softly, noticing the red claw marks that litter his back. I comb my fingers through my messy hair, thinking about the events of last night after everyone had left.

“Morning, handsome,” I call out and Ashton jumps a bit, turning his head back to look at me.

A smile comes to his lips and he steps back into the room, keeping the doors open and plops onto the mattress that lies on the floor. “Morning, beautiful,” he mumbles while dragging his fingertips up and down my arm. “Did you sleep well?”

A content hum leaves my lips while nodding my head. “Actually, yeah. The bed we picked out is extremely fucking comfortable. Even after a long night of…” I trail off and wiggles my eyebrows.

Ashton let's out a laugh, tilting his head back before shaking his head. “You mean a long night of fucking? Yeah, I agree.”

I smack his chest and giggles while lying onto my back, my breasts poking out above the duvet slightly. “Shut up. You knew what I meant. You didn't have to say it,” I tell him as his arm drapes over my waist.

“Why not? We've fucked plenty of times. It's just me. I'm not gonna tease you,” he smirks and presses a kiss to the side of my head. “Although I do say you handle me quite well.”

A blush appears on my cheeks and I bite my lip to hide the smile, turning onto my side to hide my face in his chest. A few more giggles leave Ashton's lips as his large hand moves to my exposed back, dragging his nails up and down it slowly.

“Did you want to paint the room today?” He asks after we laid in silence for a couple of minutes. I pull my head away from his chest, glancing around the very white room.

“Yeah, we can do that. It'll be easier to pick the furniture for it once we see the color on the wall,” I tell him and he nods in agreement.

Ashton untangled from me, standing up without the sheet on his hips. I couldn't help but lick my lips and stare as he stood completely nude, raising his arms to stretch his muscles. Jesus Christ… “First things first… I'm gonna take a shower,” he tells me and I sit up on the bed, letting the duvet fall to my lap, exposing my chest. “Do… do you wanna join me?” He asks while biting his lip, hazel eyes glancing downward.

“Yes,” I answer immediately. Throwing the covers off my body, I roll off the mattress before grabbing Ash's hand to lead him into the en suite.

-

Taglist: @asht0ns-world @tequila-clifford @dukesnumber1 @maddz-world @singt0mecalum @gotta-try-something-new @morningfears @twilightparker @ashs-cheergirl @dashlilymark @babylon-uncrowned @thebookamongmen @lukeskisses @shower-me-with-roses @calumsendgame @thatcheekychic @therainydays4

[dceshims-blog]

↳ damn, is that MOON DAESHIM ? the IM CHANGKYUN lookalike gotten quite the reputation around here. the 23 year old RAPPER / PRODUCER has been in london for ONE year now. people say they are only HEDONISTIC + SELF DESTRUCTIVE, but they’re actually CHARMING + ADVENTUROUS once you get to know them. don’t get too comfortable, though, no one knows HIS AGENCY / COMPANY PAID TO HAVE SOMETHING HE DID HIDDEN FROM THE WORLD.

 HIYA  HEY  HELLO,  i'm  gem,  i'm  21+,  i  go  by  she  her  pronouns  &  live  in  the  cst  !  i'm  also  a  hot  mess  who  likes  hurting  my  characters  ...  hence  the  reason  that  dae's  life  is  as  big  of  a  mess  as  it  is.  he's  a  new  character,  which  means  not  everything  is  fleshed  out  like  i  would  like  it  to  be  but  you  can  find  his  basic  information,  stats,  bullet  point  bio,  personality  &  a  few  wanted  connections  ideas  under  the  cut  !  

tw:  mentions  of  alcohol  abuse,  drug  abuse,  car  accidents,  hit  and  run  scenario,  death  &  injuries  !

                                         basic  information.

full  name:  moon  daeshim. nickname(s):  moon,  dae,  shimmy,  daedae.  (  the  last  one  is  use  by  his  mother  &  mother  ONLY  ) age:  twenty-three. date  of  birth:  tbd. birthplace:  daegu,  south  korea. gender:  cismale. pronouns:  he  /  him  /  his. orientation:  pansexual. occupation:  rapper,  producer,  composer. language(s)  spoken:  korean,  english,  japanese,  chinese,  thai,  french  &  spanish.

                                    physical  appearance.

faceclaim:  im  changkyun  (  i.m  )  of  monsta  x. hair  color:  changes  pretty  frequently,  currently  black. eye  color:  brown. height:  6  ’  0  ". weight:  175. build:  athletic. tattoos:  quite  a  few,  far  to  many  to  name  ...  mostly  black  &  grey. piercings:  7  in  his  left  ear,  8  in  his  right,  tongue  piercing,  eyebrow  piercing  on  his  left  brow  &  scars  from  old  snake  bites  under  his  bottom  lip.

                                                    health.

physical  ailments:  alcohol  abuse,  drug  abuse. neurological  conditions:  n/a. allergies:  seasonal  ailments. sleeping  habits:  3-4  hours,  restless,  tosses  &  turns. eating  habits:  lives  of  of  fast  food  &  take  out  usually,  sometimes  goes  to  'fancier'  places. exercise  habits:  has  personal  trainers  who  he  works  out  with  three  times  a  week. body  temperature:  hot  natured. addictions:  alcohol,  tobacco,  drugs,  sex. drug  use:  frequent. alcohol  use:  frequent.

                                       personality. (  pt  1.  )

label:  tbd.

positive  traits:  charming  &  adventurous. negative  traits:  hedonistic  &  self-destructive. fears:  tbd. hobbies:  cooking,  video  games,  shopping,  board  games,  swimming,  poker,  going  to  the  movies,  traveling,  exercising,  eating  out. habits:  jiggles  leg  up  &  down,  taps  feet  on  occasion,  runs  fingers  through  hair  often,  constantly  glances  at  his  watch,  rolls  his  eyes,  cracks  knuckles  /  bones,  shifts  in  his  seat  when  nervous  /  irritated,  clenches  jaw,  gestures  when  speaking,  props  feet  up  on  desks  /  tables,  constantly  checks  his  phone. quirks:  wears  a  lot  of  jewelry,  good  with  technology,  paces  back  &  forth  when  in  deep  thought  or  when  nervous,  mumbles  to  himself  on  occasion,  constantly  on  social  media,  bites  &  chews  on  lips,  night  owl,  addicted  to  texting,  can  play  musical  instruments,  dyes  his  hair  a  different  color  constantly,  addicted  to  caffeinated  drinks,  always  has  to  have  the  'best’  of  everything  he  owns,  has  to  have  a  fan  on  to  sleep,  chews  ice  cubes.

                                              favorites.

season:  fall,  winter. color(s):  matte  black,  chrome,  army  green,  gold  &  silver. music:  will  listen  to  anything  as  long  as  he  likes  it,  doesn’t  matter  what genre. movies:  watches  pretty  much  everything,  mostly  enjoys  suspense,  action  &  comedy. sport(s):  doesn’t  really  care  for  sports,  watches  it  if  it's  on  at  bars. beverage(s):  anything  and  everything,  other  than  sparkling  water. food:  anything  from  luxurious  5  star  meals  to  instant  ramen  cooked  at  home. animal:  dogs.

                                                  family.

father: tbd. mother: tbd. sibling(s):  n/a. children:  n/a. pet(s):  tbd. family’s  financial  status:  upper  class.

                                                  extras.

zodiac sign:  tbd. mbti:  entp-a.  (  the  debater.  ) enneagram:  type  eight. (  the  challenger.  ) temperament:  sanguine. hogwarts  house:  slytherin. moral  alignment:  tbd. primary  vice:  tbd. primary  virtue:  tbd. element:  fire.

                                             biography.

born  in  daegu,  south  korea  to  two  extremely  wealthy  parents.

his  father  was  a  very  well  known  idol,  his  mother  a  fashion  designer.

meaning  that  dae  was  in  the  spotlight  since  BIRTH,  he's  never  known  anything  other  than  fame  &  fortune.

that  of  course,  went  to  his  head  from  a  very,  very  young  age  &  it  caused  this  sort  of  god  complex  in  him.

his  nannies  HATED  having  to  work  for  his  parents  &  take  care  of  him  because  he  made  their  lives  a  living  hell  basically.  not  because  he  was  MEAN  or  something  like  that  but  because  he  was  just  picky  &  was  used  to  getting  what  he  wanted.

which  did  cause  him  to  be  bratty  &  he  did  have  the  tendency  to  throw  fits  when  he  didn't  get  what  he  wanted,  always  going  to  his  parents  whenever  the  nannies  wouldn't  give  dae  what  he  wanted  &  they'd  end  up  either  quitting  or  getting  fired.

things  didn't  really  change  through  the  years,  to  be  honest.  he  got  less  'whiny'  about  things,  but  was  still  use  to  just  asking  for  whatever  he  wanted  &  getting  it  as  soon  as  humanly  possible.

he  was  fourteen  when  he  first  started  showing  interest  in  music,  though  he  didn't  follow  in  his  father's  footsteps  by  becoming  a  trainee.  he  was  more  into  producing  &  composing  than  anything.

it  wasn't  until  a  few  years  later  that  he  started  rapping  to  the  music  he  was  composing  in  order  to  try  &  get  them  bought  by  companies.

people  thought  that  he  was  actually  wanting  to  be  a  rapper  instead  of  just  a  producer  /  composer,  so  when  the  companies  kept  asking  him  if  he  was  interested  in  being  a  rapper,  he  figured  why  not.

that  was  the  start  of  his  career,  his  first  mini-album  skyrocketed  his  name  further  into  fame,  quickly  becoming  the  most  talked  about  rookie  in  the  business.

things  only  got  better  from  there,  each  album  he  dropped  debuted  at  the  top  of  charts,  keeping  his  name  in  the  spotlight  CONSTANTLY.

after  years  of  that,  things  started  getting  to  him  ...  the  stress  of  always  having  to  drop  something  new  and  fresh  caused  daeshim  to  start  to  spiral,  drinking  &  doing  drugs  almost  every  night  as  a  way  to  get  away  from  all  of  it  even  if  it  was  just  for  a  few  hours.

this  started  the  rumor  mill  to  begin,  articles  of  his  partying  ways,  the  clubbing  &  everything  like  that  starting  to  pile  up  one  after  the  next.  as  well  as  the  rumors  and  scandals  of  his  nudes  being  leaked  &  him  taking  home  as  many  people  he  wanted  to  because  he  truly  just  didn't  care  about  his  image  or  anything  like  that.

it  was  his  twentith  birthday  that  would  change  EVERYTHING  for  dae.  he'd  decided  to  go  out,  celebrate  by  drinking  &  going  wild  for  the  night  ...  stupidly  driving  home  from  the  club  that  night.

mid-way  home  he  happened  to  get  into  a  crash,  car  getting  totaled  as  well  as  a clipping  a  few  passer-bys ...  causing  one  to  pass  away  &  the  other  to  get  severely  injured  as  well  as  dae  getting  a  laundry  list  of  injuries  as  well.

he  was  okay  enough  to  walk  away  from  the  incident,  though  not  without  some  problems  of  his  own...  walking  back  to  his  agent's  home  as  it  was  the  closest  thing  he  could  get  to.

he  wasn't  expecting  his  agent  to  instantly  try  and  cover  everything  up,  calling  doctors  to  come  visit  daeshim  at  his  home,  sending  people  out  to  clean  up  the  scene  of  the  accident  &  make  sure  that  the  people  who  were  witnesses  or  involved  were  paid  off  to  keep  their  mouth  shut.

that  guilt  weighed  on  him  pretty  instantly,  his  injuries  being  hidden  from  the  media  while  they  healed  and  the  other  people  involved  continued  to  be  paid  off  so  that  no  one  knew  what  had  happened.

he  dealt  with  all  of  that  for  a  few  years  but  after  a  while,  he  couldn't  do  it  anymore.  deciding  to  publicly  declare  he'd  be  taking  a  break  from  making  music,  producing  &  composing...  taking  time  out  for  himself  &  his  own  mental  health  &  wellbeing.

it  was  only  a  week  after  that  when  dae  found  himself  in  london,  hoping  to  be  able  to  start  over  the  best  as  he  could.

                                    personality. ( pt 2. )

literally  the  Worst.

is  a  rich  bitch  and  makes  sure  EVERYONE  knows  that  even  if  he  doesn’t  speak  it… comes  in  the  form  of  his  clothing,  sports  cars,  accessories… literally  everything.

has  kinda  made  a  name  for  himself  in  the  london  that  isn't  to  far  off  from  what  the  media  constantly  talked  about  and  that's  him  being  a  Party  Animal.  goes  to  clubs  /  bars  every  weekend  (  sometimes  more  frequently  depending  on  his  mood.  )  as  well  as  a  bit  of  a  'player’.

extremely  hedonistic  and  a  bit  of  a  shopaholic.  is  always  seen  with  the  latest  &  greatest  makes  and  models  of  things.  always  has  designer  clothes  on.  always  is  out  shopping  for  something  new  at  least  three  times  a  week,  sometimes  more.

can  be  pretty  cocky  at  times,  he  knows  how  he  looks,  he  knows  how  much  money  he  has  and  sometimes  he  lets  that  go  to  his  head  &  his  ego.  though  he  TRIES  not  to  be  like  that  just  because  he  honestly  can’t  stand  when  other  people  boast  about  their  wealth  or  looks  on  a  daily  basis.

is  actually  really  relaxed  when  it  comes  down  to  it,  as  much  as  he  loves  to  party…  there’s  a  part  of  him  that  just  loves  lounging  at  home  watching  movies  just  as  much.  but  usually  refuses  to  do  so  alone,  will  invite  someone  to  come  over  just  so  he  doesn’t  have  to  be  in  his  (  cough…. giant …  cough  )  house  alone.

tends  to  hate  being  told  what  to  do.  comes  from  having  to  conform  to  what  his  agent  /  company  wanted  him  to  do  &  say  for  as  many  years  as  he  did  so  now  he’d  rather  just  do  what  he  wants,  when  he  wants  to  do  it  and  because  of  that  he  can  be  a  little  bit  selfish  sometimes.

he  wants  to  be  able  to  LIVE  and  have  fun,  do  what  he  wants  on  his  own  terms  and  go  from  there.

genuinely  not  a  bad  person,  though  his  ego  &  cockiness  sometimes  tend  to  cover  that  side  of  him  up. as  well  as  the  grief  &  guilt  of  what  he’s  done  in  the  past  causing  him  to  be  extremely  guarded.

loves  to  SPOIL  the  people  he  knows,  if  he  goes  out  shopping,  he’s  probably  buying  something  for  his  friends  in  the  process.  

is  the  type  of  person  that  just  loves  to  give  people  shit  but  does  so  in  a  loving  &  caring  way.  aka  will  roast  you  but  then  offer  to  take  you  to  dinner  or  something  like  that.

he’s …  trying.  not  trying  his  BEST,  sure.  but  he  is  still  trying  and  ig  that  counts  for  something,  right  ?

                                                plot ideas.

flirtationship.  he  absolutely  LOVES  to  flirt  his  ass  off…  with  whoever  he  can  because why  the  hell  not  ?

enemies.  whatever  the  reason  might  be,  they  just  don’t  get  along.  maybe  they  just  bicker  back  and  forth  or  perhaps  they  actually  just  despise  each  other  in  general.

hate  sex.  lsn… i’m  a  sucker  for  this  and  there’s  a  lot  of  reasons  someone  could  dislike  or  hate  dae  &  well  he  also  like  sex  so  why  not  pair  the  two  things  ?

best  friends.  he’s  never  really  had  anyone  he  fully  thought  he  could  rely  on  or  lean  on,  so  someone  he  met  here  who  he  bonded  with  instantly  would  be  gREAT.

will  add  more  as  i  think  of  them  !