#i'm perfectly happy for this to get 2 notes haha

[madisoncounty]

"and then you look at it, and it looks... otherworldly. this is denis. he just creates this shape. it's not perfect. it's timeless. it reminds me of... do you remember arrival? you know those big alien creatures? that's the shape." — rebecca ferguson in an interview with hollywood insider

[vtoriacore]

✧ the flirtiest one of all! [2]

note: part two of this, fun fact it was actually 6.9k words on the original doc and i’m not telling you this for any particular reason haha i am the epitome of maturity i promise <3 (lying)

characters: azul, jade, floyd, kalim, jamil, vil, rook, epel

synopsis: pretty simple, you confess by out-flirting just about every human being, merman, beastman and fae on planet earth. because you’re suave babe, go for it!

heartslabyul & savanaclaw | ignihyde & diasomnia

♡ OCTAVINELLE

✯; azul ashengrotto

azul quirked an eyebrow when you entered mostro longue with that mischievous smile of yours but what caught his attention next is the purple rectangular box you were carrying, addressed as 'Ashengrotto'

"My, my. Got something for me, prefect?" 

"Depending on the answer you'll give me, maybe."

the little spark of excitement in his azure blue eyes which perfectly reflected the light definitely confirmed your suspicions on whether he knew or not

"Hm~ Well then it seems I'm inclined to ask for the question."

"That was a statement."

"Is that relevant?"

"No I just wanted a reason to talk to you longer~" 

the slightest surprise on his face quickly vanished as he tried to control his rapidly increasing heartbeat

"Well, don't keep me waiting [Name]. I'm a very busy merman after all. "

"Haha, okay I'll spare you the embarrassment."

"So, will you accept my feelings or are you just going to continue blushing?"

"Me, blushing? N-never."

"I have eyes, Ashengrotto. You'll have to do better than that!"  

"There is no winning against you . . . Regarding your first question though, it would seem a waste if I said no."

"Yeah, a waste of the countless affection I'd be willing to give~" 

"Affection doesn't produce a profit dear."

"No, it produces mutual feelings instead. And happiness, with the right person!" 

as always, your witty remarks never failed to make him gain those adorable red hues across his cheeks 

"If I ever die of exhaustion, it will be because of your antics."

"Correction, my cute antics :)"

"Well my dear angelfish, the exit is that way if you're done tormenting me."

"But the entrance to your heart is this way."

"Whatever will I do with you?"

"Dunno, but you got time to figure it out cause I'm not leaving." 

.

✯; jade leech

his cryptic smile stayed on the minute he saw you at mostro lounge, discussing something with azul as the merman gave this huge sigh of exasperation and nodded his head at whatever you had asked

he (naturally) came up to you once azul decided to walk away from you 

"Oya, oya~ What are you doing here my pearl?"

"Good question~ I'm sure you're smart enough to figure it out."

and figure it out he does once he catches a glimpse of the heart shaped turquoise box in your hand addressed to him in beautiful handwriting

"Hm, it would appear I'm totally clueless. If only you would be so kind as to explain the meaning of this." 

"Oh what a true shame, Leech."

"Yes, very unfortunate indeed."

"Need I make it more obvious?"

"I might have to request a verbal explanation, fufu~"

"How about I give you the physical one instead~?"

undoubtedly, the wink and statement you gave him managed to make even the jade leech's heart itself skip a beat as he gulped slightly

"I wouldn't be entirely opposed to that."

"I'll take that as a yes for the feelings I'm confessing to you, then."

"And who am I to decline such proposal?"

"Just about the most charming man in existence~"

"Ah, you never do fail with coming up with pick-up lines it seems."

"Of course not, deem yourself lucky for being my test subject in that aspect Leech."

oh jade would definitely consider himself a winner if this is what he gets to hear after today

"Well I cannot say they're not entertaining~" 

"And completely genuine, by the way."

if there was a world record for the most times someone manages to make the merman even slightly flustered, you'd definitely take the title with ease

"At this rate, I'll have to start coming up with my own quips. I can't be the only one getting swept of my feet like this."

"Hmph, that was smooth I'll give you that one!"

.

✯; floyd leech

has this stupid grin the second you step foot into his dorm room when jade is out, and it only widens once he realises what you're carrying with you 

"Heya Koebi-chan~"

"In high spirits are we?"

"Hmmmm? Have I ever not been?" 

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that. And are you not going to ask why I'm here Leech?"

"No, why would I~ You're obviously here for me!"

"What if I was here for Jade?"

"Then I would make you stay here for me instead!"

even with his playful response, you could definitely tell that if you brought jade into this once more, floyd wouldn't spare you any mercy and have you be a victim of his infamous squeeze

"No need~ I actually did come here for you."

"Ehehe~ Of course you did!"

"Tsk, confident one aren't you?"

"Mhm~ Confident enough to say that the chocolates you're carrying are for me Koebi-chan!"

"Won't you look at that~ You guessed it right!"

the beat that floyd's heart skipped amplified the excitement he felt when you handed him the box of goods

"They smell really good! Are you sure you don't wanna work as a chef for the lounge"

"I'm good. And they look good too, I spent around an hour making them for you." 

"No fair! I was going to confess first on white day. Spoiling my plans like this, the nerve~"

"I didn't confess yet Leech! But now that you reminded me, you better accept my feelings." 

"Threatened with a confession? Didn't think that was your style haha!" 

the merman definitely felt nothing but pure joy as he unwrapped the first chocolate and popped it into his mouth 

"Hm~ So what if I did? As far as I know, the law doesn't prevent me from wanting to be with my crush." 

"Ah, ah~! One more word and I'll give you a lil' squeeze." 

"Did I ever say I would mind that?"

"Then I guess you won't Koebi-chan! But just so you know, I don't plan on letting go!"

___

♡ SCARABIA

✯; kalim al-asim

pleasantly surprised to find out that you're visiting scarabia and is immediately beaming at you when you enter with a cute looking box of what appeared to be spice laced chocolates (the smell made his mouth water!)

"Good morning [Name]! What a nice sight to see so early on!"

"Morning Asim, you're in a good mood~"

"That's because Jamil let me host a banquet for Valentine's day! Isn't he the best?"

"Let me guess, he made you promise to not cook with him after you insisted you wanted to help, right?"

"Woah are you sure you don't have magic yourself? That was so accurate!"

"You're too sweet sunshine, unfortunately that's still a no."

kalim grinned at the nickname as his heart palpitations grew, amplifying when he looked at the crimson box of chocolates with golden trimmings again

"So, is there a reason as to why you're visiting Scarabia?"

"Yeah, you're actually the whole reason." 

"Ahhhh that's cute! Would you like to stay for the night?"

"Depending on your answer, maybe~" 

"My answer to what?"

"To whether you'll accept my feelings or not."

the pearly white haired boy swears he felt his heart leap out his chest as his ruby red eyes widened 

"Oh my- I'm so happy you feel the same way! I absolutely do accept yes!"

"You should also be happy about the fact I spent an hour making these!"

when you handed him the chocolates his perpetual grin only became bigger if that's even possible

"Awe thank you so much [Name]! You're the best!"

"Mhm no problem~ I made it a point to ask Viper for your favourite kind of chocolate."

"You're so sweet, how about we go on a magic carpet ride?? Like the one of that very old tale where princess Jasmin and-"

"Ah spare the details Asim, I know exactly which one you're talking about."

"Great! I heard it's very romantic. Ooh! Maybe we can do a cute duet too!"

"Whatever you want, just make sure you'll focus on the steering."

"But how would I focus on anything but you?"

"You asking me this so genuinely is actually surreal."

.

✯; jamil viper

the moment his smoky grey eyes landed on your form and the maroon heart shaped box you were carrying with you, he immediately knew what was up, or hoped he knew what it was

"Oh prefect. Good morning."

"As formal as always I see?"

"Were you expecting anything but?"

"I don't set unrealistic expectations, Viper."

"Was that an insult?"

"Are you taking it as one?"

"Do you ever give straight answers?"

"No but I will be needing a very straight answer from you though."

the teasing smile you gave jamil never ceased to make his heart skip a beat, no matter how much denial he was in at the present moment

"Depends on the question you ask, [Last name]."

"Hm rude~ I should be asking Kalim if he would accept my feelings instead . . . Too bad I'm already super invested in you, no?"

just the mention of kalim alone made a scowl appear on jamil's face as he gazed straight in your eyes

"Yes, and too bad I'm already accepting your feelings so you can't back out. What a shame."

"Woah Viper~ Possessive much! Not that I don't like it, ehe." 

"Tsk, you're really irritating when you want to be."

"But it's only because I love your reactions. They simply get cuter as they go."

jamil looked at the ground as a red hue crept over his face, he feared that if you said anything else he might just lose every bit of self restraint he has

"And . . . you're sure you want to be with me? You know what it means . . ."

"Absolutely, 100% positive that you're the one and I am not budging on this no matter what you say."

"Tsk, you're not making this easy for me at all."

"Easy wouldn't be fun, just accept that we're totally fated already."

"Because you're madly in love with me ;)"

"Why do I even bother. . ." 

"There you go, being delusional again."

♡ POMEFIORE

"Wouldn't have to be delusional if you didn't make me darlin'!"

___

✯; vil schoenheit

notices when you walk in right away, and is very quick to spot the velvety box you're carrying, definitely surprised when the tag reads 'Schoenheit'

"Afternoon prefect, do you need anything from me specifically?"

"Yeah your attention on me for a second or two."

"Well in that case, make it quick."

"Wow being this rude should be illegal~" 

"So should taking up someone's time. Someone who has a scheduled shoot in approximately 4 hours."

"Are you saying I'm wasting your time?"

"Did you take my statement as such?"

"Guess I'll go confess to LeBlanche then~ I'm sure he'll like what I made." 

vil's eyes narrowed in the slightest as a light scoff left his lips, he didn't expect such a reply but your fiery nature was one of the things as to why he fell for you in the first place so he didn't have a place to complain

"You're really something else entirely."

"Always have been, love~" 

the nickname itself made the blonde shiver, but combined with your killer smile, he couldn't help but avert his eyes for a few seconds

"So I'm guessing you're here to confess after all?"

"Yeah, so if you would be as kind as to accept my feelings please~" 

"You were already aware of what my answer would be, weren't you?"

"Oh definitely~ Now before you deny the gift, it's dark chocolate. And won't affect your daily calorie intake too much."

"Good, I do admire the thought behind that."

vil couldn't help but smile at the notion of you caring enough as to take care of the small details, but may have become even more smitten with you when he opened the box to see the beautiful designs which were clearly inspired by him

"You better appreciate them, took over an hour to make~"

"Would you really spend that much time and effort into making something so superficial?"

"Duh~ Only for you though!"

"In that case, thank you dear. Please do expect something in return on white day." 

"Positively can't wait. Anything you do is bound to turn out great!"

.

✯; rook hunt

chances are he already knew you were making something, but didn't know for who so when you came into the pomefiore dorm and requested to see him, boy was he mildly amused (not to mentioned excited)

"Bonjour mon amour~ I've heard from Roi du Poison that you inquired about my whereabouts?"

"Well then your hearing must be excellent because that's exactly what I needed!"

"My, my you seem to be in a bonne humeur~"

"That's because my hard efforts to make the greatest chocolates ever paid off!"

"Oh? Tu as fait du chocolat? How intriguing, for who~?"

"For the person who stole my heart~"

rook glanced at the velvety red box in your hand yet to his dismay, couldn't see what was on the tag. however, that didn't stop him from wishing it was reserved for him

"As always, tu es très énigmatique, my dear."

"Hehe~ I saw you glancing at the tag. You must be curious~"

"Naturally, anyone would be, non?"

"Well, you better appreciate the effort I put into this because it's for you~"

the blonde haired hunter couldn't help but smile at the sweet gesture as he anticipated the confession which was sure to follow with a hitched breath

"Well I'd love to accept them." 

"Since you're accepting the chocolates, you have to accept my feelings too Hunt~"

"With pleasure, [Name]. Or mon cœur. Whichever you prefer!"

"Are you trying to woo me with the way you say my name? Because it's working."

"That wasn't my intention, but I'm glad to hear this."

despite the cool facade rook maintained, he would definitely be lying if he said he didn't feel his heart drum faster throughout his chest at your endearing words

"If that's the case, then I should politely ask for you to stop charming me like that, it just isn't fair~"

"You're as equally charming mon amour, does that not equal out?"

"Unfair! You're doing it again."

"Je n'ai rien fait, je promets~" 

.

✯; epel felmier

the way you came into his dorm with an apple pie laced with cinnamon, he definitely tried to suppress a smile that was threatening to break out on his face

" Hey prefect, what brings you here?"

"Oh you know, my legs."

"Hey- you know what I meant!"

"Okay, okay~ I'm here for a very important reason."

"That would be?"

"You're very impatient, read what's on the tag~"

"Uh, 'Felmier'. My last name?"

by this point, the lilac haired boy began to suspect what was up but nonetheless waited for what you'd say next with a hitched breath

"Congrats, you can read~ Now guess why I'm here."

"W-wait . . . Don't tell me you're . . . confessing?"

"That's exactly what I was about to do but I guess I won't tell you."

"Ah- wait that's not what I was sayin'- uh saying!"

"You should stop hiding your accent around me, it's so adorable~"

"Gh- whatever ya say just spill it!"

"Okay, okay~ Well I'm here to ask if you'd be willing to accept my feelings?"

"I- yeah . . . Yeah I do-"

"You're making it sound like we're getting married~ You should ask for my hand first!"

the red hues decorating epel's face along with the loud beating of his heart did not make it easier for him to look you straight in the eyes

"Oh just hand over the pie . . . I'm puttin' your efforts to the test."

"Hehe~ Okay, okay but you better appreciate it or else."

"I do . . .. And don't make a comment on that!"

"Okay I won't haha! For now."

"Hah- tsk I'll never carve apples for you again . . ."

"Hey Felmier! You take that back this instant!"

"Maybe if you beg for forgiveness."

"Is this how you treat your future spouse?"

"[N-name]!"

[shunin-gumis]

Nagi Initial SSR Story

A Taste of Happiness (Part 2)

Any notes with a * are at the end of the post!

Location - Mountain path

Nagi: ...No good, the bike's completely stalled.

Momiji: Oh no, what do we do now... We're in the middle of the mountains and it's in the dead of night now... I don't think we can call anyone for repairs. Do we start pushing the bike down the path?

Nagi: No, it's ok, this one's a champ. I just have to give it a little nudge to get it started again.

Nagi: This is exactly why Sonia left the tools in my bag. Just wait for a bit, Chief.

Nagi: If you could cheer me on, that would lift my spirits and make me happy.

Momiji: Haha, should I wave an uchiwa* for you? ...Wait, you actually have one!?

Momiji: Um... I'll just hold the flashlight instead, ok?

Momiji: How's this? Can you see clearly?

Nagi: Perfectly. Please hold it up for a bit.

Momiji: Got it.

Nagi: Seems like... the problem's here.

Nagi: Alright, I should be able to fix this right away.

Momiji: That's some impressive technique, you're just like a professional!

Nagi: It's just because I'm used to it. I'm confident that I could pass for the mechanic certification on the first try.

Nagi: Ah. Or maybe not. I'm worried about the actual writing part. I can imagine all my stationary ending up falling apart.

Momiji: Ahahaha.......

Nagi: The atmospheric pressure was stable too....

Nagi: I guess it's because I managed to get my hands on some rare flowers that are usually never stocked at the market...

Momiji: This is about Nagi-kun's "Theory on the Yajirobe of Fortune and Misfortune"...*

Momiji: A balancing act of his happiness... Whenever something fortuitous happens to him, it's guaranteed to be followed by misfortune to balance it out again...

Momiji: Still, something like that is...

Nagi: But the fact is that you ended up being affected by my misfortune too.

Nagi: ...Sorry, Chief. Are you fed up with me now?

Choice 1: I'm surprised rather than fed up

Momiji: I guess I'd say I'm surprised rather than fed up… I can barely believe this is actually a thing. Momiji: But it's also true that I got to experience something that was only possible because I was with you, Nagi-kun. I'm being honest when I say I really learned something today. Nagi:... I guess you're kind to even someone like me, Chief. Thank you.

Choice 2: Not at all. In fact I find it exciting!

Momiji: Maybe it's a little inappropriate to say but... it's kind of like experiencing a thrill ride, I get excited wondering about what's gonna happen next! Nagi: Chief, you're amazing. Your heart is as big as the Pacific Ocean.

Momiji: It's nothing like that.

Momiji: Besides, it must have been really hard on you, to deal with this all on your lonesome. When it's the two of us, we can gain courage from each other to overcome our challenges.

Momiji: Troubles or misfortune, come what may, feel free to share them all with me.

Nagi: ....Ok.

Nagi: Ah, got the engine to start up again, Chief.

Momiji: That's great! Now we just have to head home.

Nagi: Um... before that. I have some place I'd like to take you to, is that ok?

Nagi: If we get a move on now, we should reach it time.... Although, I'll still stay under the speed limit.

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

Nagi: ...Here we are. Nice timing, if I do say so myself.

Momiji: Wow...! The sun's rising! It's beautiful....

Nagi: Right? This is my secret hideout.... Wait, hideout might be the wrong word for it. Um, special spot?

Nagi: I come here once in a while on my bike, just to see this sunrise.

Momiji: Was it alright to bring me here?

Nagi: I wanted to share this with you because it's you, Chief.

Nagi: Drinking coffee while I watch the sunrise is a small reward I treat myself to.

Nagi: But today, I'm not alone. I have you with me, Chief.

Nagi: Today... Well, I guess it's yesterday now. I couldn't even imagine something like this happening when I woke up yesterday.

Nagi: There's plenty of happiness and unhappiness scattered all around this world.

Nagi: But that just means the possibilities are endless, right?

Momiji: Hehe, I agree. This world is full of possibilities!

Nagi: ...With that said, have this coffee as thanks for accompanying me all the way to this morning.

Nagi: A tumbler of Sonia's special blend. It's hot so be careful.

Momiji: Thank you!

Momiji: Good work today, Nagi-kun.

Nagi: You did good too, Chief.

Momiji: The coffee I had together with Nagi-kun while watching the sunrise... was very warm and delicious.

*uchiwa is a flat hand-fan that's usually decorated in the style of one's bias in support of them.

*Yajirobe is a term used for Japanese balancing toys. The mechanism involves balancing the main body at a fulcrum and making sure it doesn't tilt too far in either direction before it's balanced again, swinging back like a pendulum.

Part 1

[celestie0]

ok. wow. i just spent all day throughout my free time binging your kickoff fic, and the way you truly brought the story and characters to life AMAZES ME. i'm not going to lie, I've found some great fics in the past before, but within 3 chapters I noticed they use chatgpt with how the description/dialogue/and pointless paragraphs are written. it was SUPER refreshing to notice ZERO AI in your story, and it truly kept me engaged, and I loved reading your writing and how your brain picked through the plot.

in all honesty, i haven't read many gojo x reader fics in YEARS. like, probably since early 2023. I am so glad I gave your amazing fic a chance because this story is one of the stories I will always think of and won't leave my mind, truly. the way you have put in the character conflict IS GENIUS. most x reader authors want to throw 2 characters in a relationship and make it all happy-go-lucky but what is a relationship, especially a STORY without conflict---especially between characters that have feelings for each other. it is not interesting if there are no problems to work through!!!!!!!!!!!!, which, you captured perfectly.

ANOTHER thing to note is, it is oddly hard for me to get engaged enough in a longer story to feel giddy. THE AMOUNT OF TIMES I CAUGHT MYSELF GIGGLING TO MYSELF AND KICKING MY FEET WAS INSANE LMAOOOOOO especially the most recent chapter where gojo stripped in the field, you are an absolute mastermind. AND THE FACT YOU MADE THINGS FINALLY OFFICIAL WITH THAT OH MY GOD. never getting over this. i truly felt like I was there. AND TO ADD ON THAT LOL I really appreciate the fact you haven't rushed their "first time" with each other, because SO many authors do that and its just like bro there goes your story and the entire plot u rushed it so baddddddd!!! THANK U FOR MAKING US WAIT LOL

don't mind my rant and just know I truly love and appreciate this work of art you have created. i cannot wait to read more of your work!!! <3

hi darling i'm so sorry i took forever to respond to this!! but thank you so much for your sweet words it means so much to me :''0 i am just rereading this right now as i took a writing break n i was feeling kind of down about how writing has been going for me recently but your ask put a smile on my face and gave me courage!! so thank you so much

oh that's interesting that you run into lots of AI fics? i don't really read fics anymore, but i don't think i noticed AI much unless i'm like kinda naive n clueless xd but yea i mean i use chatgpt too but only to find synonyms for certain words lol i think it's better than google's thesaurus

i'm so happy to know that you enjoy kickoff and that it aligns with your reading interests! and the fact that it makes you giddy HAHAH i feel that way when i read my fave romance novelsss n it's an honor to make other readers feel similarly LOL. and awh i mean whatever works for other authors is fine haha, i don't necessarily think my fics are much "better" than other authors' but i do cater to a specific audience i think :'') mostly ppl that like torturous slow burn LOL

you're so sweet!! so much love from me <3 you have a wonderful rest of your dayyy!

[pikapeppa]

hi!! i've been rereading your fics in all of the veilguard hype and i just wanted to say your writing is just so good, i love your dialogue and characterization, especially how perfectly you write solas! like it really feels so true to how he speaks and carries himself!! so yeah haha just wanted to say happy veilguard summer and ty for sharing your awesome fics with the world!! 🥰 have a nice weekend!

Awww thank you so much!! I love how Dragon Age readers/friends have been poking their heads out of the woodwork and we're all getting in touch with each other again in the hype, IT'S THE CALLING 🤣🤣🤣

I'm so happy that you enjoy the characterizations, especially re: Solas -- he's such a tricky biscuit, so this is the most wonderful praise!! 🥰 Actually, I hope it's okay if I use this ask as an opportunity to plug some of my fics...

Pikapeppa's reading list for refreshing your Dragon Age memory: fic self-recs for those who don't have time to replay Inquisition

(see below the cut for more!)

Lovers In A Dangerous Time: in a nutshell, Fenris is the Inquisitor with Hawke as his wingwoman. This fic is literally a novelization of DA:I with the mindset of "what would Fenris do?" It covers all of Inquisition and touches on every sidequest, and also covers all the DLCs: JOH, Descent, and Trespasser. So if you don't have time to replay Inquisition, you can basically read it here LOL. There is also some theorizing sprinkled throughout about various Big Unanswered Questions™ in Thedas!

The Love That Grows From Violence: this is a Felassan/f!Lavellan romance fic set post-Trespasser. For those who don't know, Felassan is a character in the novel The Masked Empire who was an agent of Fen'Harel, and whom Solas killed at the end of the novel. This fic addresses the questions: 1) what if Felassan was made Tranquil instead of being killed by Solas in the Fade? 2) What if Felassan and a bitter Solasmanced Lavellan fell in love? and 3) what if Felassan actually told us everything that Solas refused to share? This fic is my attempt to pull together the existing lore and meta (with references back to all the original sources) to try to answer as many Big Unanswered Questions™ as I could.

A meta post about the qunari that I put together after reading Tevinter Nights, with my own theories about how Sten might play into things. I also wrote a Sten/f!Mahariel fic that's set immediately post-Origins; it's a romantic tragedy, but it does contain some discusssions about the Qun that may be interesting to refresh our memories about the Qun/the qunari for when Veilguard drops.

A oneshot about Varric and Solas that I wrote after the very first Dreadwolf trailer dropped back in 2020. It seems relevant again now... LOL

Solavellan fic: pure smut and romance. In case you wanted to refresh your memory of how he captivated us in DAI -- or, alternately, if you didn't romance him and want to know why the Solavellans are the way we are LMAO, you can read my take on the romance. 🤣 I have two Solavellan series on AO3: one for my own Elia Lavellan, which has a sad ending, and for Elbenherz's Nare Lavellan, which is "unfinished" in the canon universe, but includes a modern AU with a happy ending.

Beyond that, I have written romance fic for a ton of pairings in Dragon Age if you're just looking for some smut and romance! You can check out all my DA works on AO3, but I've written (M/F) pairings for the following LIs: Fenris, Solas, Abelas, Felassan, Blackwall, Cullen, Samson, Cole, and Sten, and most recently, a little oneshot of Teia and Viago from Tevinter Nights.

Again, Nonny, THANK YOU for your lovely words, and I hope it wasn't weird to hijack this ask for some self-promotion LOL!! Sending you all the love and a happy Veilguard summer!

A QUICK CAUTIONARY NOTE: if anyone does want to chat with me or send me an ask about Veilguard, please do not mention any spoilers from the Game Informer article. I want to go into the game with as few spoilers as possible when it's released, and I'm unhappy that I've already seen spoilers without meaning to. Thanks in advance! 🥰🙏

-- all the love from your friendly neighbourhood Pika! xoxo

[mysticstarlightduck]

OC Questionnaire

Thank you so much for the tag, @willtheweaver!!! (here)

MY QUESTIONS WERE:

Is there anything that would make you lose trust in others?

Do you think anyone could love you?

If you could relive one day, which one would it be?

YOUR QUESTIONS ARE:

Where is your favorite place in the world?

What food do you hate the most?

Do you like watching sunsets or sunrises?

The characters answering will be Corah and Scarlet from Of Starlight and Beasts, Renn from my still-unnamed fairytale fantasy WIP, and Sam Delaways from Enchanted Illusions!

1. Is there anything that would make you lose trust in others?

Corah - Betrayal, abandonment and dishonesty are pretty far up on the list, along with unwarranted cruelty, people who like to make others feel uncomfortable, or those with a just generally jerkass attitude.

Scarlet - Finding out that person works for the King, or is too buddy-buddy with the constabulary in the city usually sets off all of my alarms all at once. I also cannot stand cowards, liars and people who cannot be trusted to hide a secret.

Renn - Hmm. I guess that being lied to or used by someone tends to be what breaks the deal, but I also lose trust in people who are too indecisive, or whom I know would choose the set laws and rules over the wellbeing of individuals.

Sam - Trust is important, alright, but it ain't more important than staying safe. I tend to give people a lot of chances before fully losing all trust in 'em. I think what would make me lose trust really fast is finding out someone is sadistic or cruel to innocent people, or discovering someone I trusted had intentionally hid something important from me.

2. Do you think anyone could love you?

Corah - ... I sure hope so? Haha. Asking the hard hitting questions, are we now? But on a serious note, I think that almost anyone who is good - or willing to become good through effort - deserves love. I strive to be a good person and help others whenever I can - I just hope this is enough...

Scarlet - Yes, absolutely! I am a delight to be around. I think. I have lots of friends, and my sister and I have a really close bond. The love for one's family is one of the most special ties in the world, and I wouldn't ask for anything more.

Renn - I think so, if they ever get to know me beyond what the rumors and scare stories of the villagers will have you believe. Most don't. I don't really care - but some days I just wish more people gave me a chance.

Sam - Yep. I have two little brothers who say that I'm their hero! While in my opinion that is very flattering on its own, I'm very thankful to have them both in my life, despite most things not going as planned. Don't know what I would do without 'em.

3. If you could relive one day, which one would it be?

Corah - The day I met Arammys. I know its two days before my whole life was thrown upside down, but that day was perfect. Not only was it the day I met my closest friend, and current boyfriend, but everything was so perfectly normal - almost like everything was going to go exactly as I expected. Turns out they didn't, but that's not the point.

Scarlet - The day I taught Nimwen how to shoot the bow and arrow, and I stole a cherry cake from a shop in town that lasted us two whole days. That was a pretty great day given our standards. I'd love to relive it.

Renn - Hmm. The days before my Dad went on the voyage that got him killed. Before I had to figure out how to survive alone away from our land and villagers with torches and pitchforks became the biggest threat to my way of life. We were happy, and I was just a little kid having the time of my life with a parent cared about me. That was great! Or used to be.

Sam - I dunno. Days are all pretty similar in Strystead - an endless grind of work, survival and learning to stay out of trouble. My happiest moments are the ones where I get to just spend free time with my little brothers without having to work myself to the bone in the factories. Those days are rare though, and will likely keep getting rarer - because the Mayor sure ain't about to pay working folk a proper salary, but that's a whole other issue.

Tagging: @illarian-rambling, @kaylinalexanderbooks, @littleladymab, @little-peril-stories, @oh-no-another-idea, @rickie-the-storyteller, @lassiesandiego, @thepeculiarbird, @eccaiia, @late-to-the-fandom, @diabolical-blue, @writernopal, @mk-writes-stuff, @tabswrites, @winterandwords, @frostedlemonwriter, @clairelsonao3, @autumnalwalker and OPEN TAG

[kissiki]

I was going to my best friend Zoe's house, and I knew perfectly well that her brother had been there, her brother was perfect perfectly perfect, he was good at school, he had a nice physique, tall, fit, dark-haired, with a always pissed off look .Well he was 2 years older then 17 I was 15, all the girls in school looked at him every day with their eyes in love, they followed him to the library, to class, to the bathrooms, to the changing rooms, to the gym and even put notes in his locker. Let's say I was lucky because my best friend was his sister. So I saw him almost every day. He was mysterious, he didn't notice all the girls who hit on him, he wasn't interested, he had closed feelings, he wasn't a whoremonger or anything like that, I spoke to him very little, but I liked him since the first grade, from the day I met my friend, our parents introduced us and his brother was there too . James William Handerston, it seemed like a dream to be able to see him almost every day, my problem was that he didn't take me seriously, we greeted each other but we never had a serious conversation, the thing that made me fall in love with him was his look . Fuck he looked like he wanted to eat me he stared at me for 2 whole minutes and then he looked away and a look like, will you?

I want mine.

every time he looks at me I get butterflies. When I arrived at my friend's house, I went up to her room. Her parents weren't there, we did a few things, the kind you do between best friends. Just that day. At that moment Zoe remembered that she had to go and collect some papers. "Giorgia, I have to go and collect some papers, it will take me about 2 hours if there is no traffic, in the meantime you can stay here, my brother is here" panic, anxiety, I looked at Zoe with happy but sad eyes, I was anxious about being alone in the house with her brother, would I still look like shit? “Don't worry, it's just my brother, you've seen him forever haha���

"Yes, I'm very calm" "You know, it doesn't seem like much to me but ok" I looked at her with a smile straight in the eyes, I knew that James had heard the discussion, he had the bedroom door open and so did we. Zoe left and he and I were left in two different rooms. Since I had to sleep I took my pajama clothes and changed, I was taking off my shirt delicately until I heard a voice whispering at the bedroom door "fuck" I turned my head and saw James I was scared at first "james what are you doing here? I'm undressing"

he looked me straight in the eyes like he always did and here he scared me I turned around pretending nothing had happened, he came closer to me and put his hands on my hips, no one had ever done this to me and not even him, I let out a sigh of relief , I was shirtless with short shorts that reached halfway down my butt. The only thing I thought was that he wanted to or just wanted to tease me "we have 2 hours to ourselves baby" he whispered in my ear he continued to touch my hips but he went down and down and down again. He began to kiss my neck with an absurd delicacy, the delicacy that provoked you. meanwhile his private part was resting on my butt, I felt it hard and this provoked me even more. he took me and made me sit on the bed he started kissing my breasts and licking them with circular movements, he took off my trousers and panties, he undressed too, I was shocked for a moment I was about to fuck the brother of my best friend who I like since 1st grade. at first I thought he did this with everyone until "giorgia damn you're the first one who manages to provoke me so seriously, I can't resist you anymore I've been waiting for this moment for years" "me too James" I told him so he started to touch my pussy slowly on the clitoris and then he put 2 fingers inside me and started banging them in a fast way at the speed of light. The pleasure I felt was absurd. No one has ever fingered me. No one has ever touched me. While I was footjobing him, he moved his toes so hard that I squirted. He put it inside me 17.5 cm of cock inside me whole. he was moving back and forth we had lost the time condition I couldn't take it anymore he kept hitting my pussy hard, he comes, he comes in my mount that taste of good cum in my mouth that I felt was very good hearing him panting from tiredness excited me even more it was after 1.30 and my friend had to come back soon and he kissed me "giorgia I really like you a lot I love you I don't I've never felt anything for a girl, it makes me too excited to fuck you"I looked him in the eyes and kissed him he got up and went over there I didn't know whether to tell everything to my friend or not but I think he would have barely understood I was walking from the other room he was watching me dress with difficulty I had just fucked my best friend's brother friend, I didn't feel better.

[crazy-ache]

Fanfiction Ask Game

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 21

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 184,514

3. What fandoms do you write for? ACOTAR (my current obsession), and I used to write quite bit for Avatar: The Last Airbender (back in the DAY with fanfiction.net and livejournal.com just to show my AGE), and I have dabbled briefly in GOT haha

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?  

when destiny keeps calling (Zutara, ATLA)

the other side of mercy (Zutara, ATLA)

surround me (Zutara, ATLA)

Call Me Selfish, Call Me Wreck (Elucien, ACOTAR)

Dear Lucien, Dear Elain (Elucien, ACOTAR)

Major love to my old Zutara fandom.

5. Do you respond to comments? I didn't always understand the importance of doing it and I used to be very shy in fandom, but now I do my best to always respond! I have made friends from engaging on fics on Ao3 which I love. It makes the writing experience feel like a community event which has been really fulfilling.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I usually leave on a hopeful note, but I did write water can heal, water can break which was slightly Zutara with anti Kataang vibes and the implications of the ending break my heart because they were aligned with the canon for Katara. I basically was so disappointed by the absence of her story in LoK that I needed to explain why it wasn't her fault and her own internal heartbreak about it.

Call Me Selfish, Call Me Wrecked is happy but also has my special mix of angsty-HEA. 7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? All of them LOL. But maybe Courting Lucien Vanserra because I was just in a silly goofy mood when I wrote it. But I also still technically need to write the epilogue....shit....

8. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Oh! I used to not. @zenkindoflove influenced me lmao. Now I am getting better at it. So, yes, I do. I'm going to call it smut-with-lots-of-feelings.

9. Do you write crossovers? I have not!

10. Have you ever had a fic translated? No, but please tell me if you do LOL

11. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Oooh yes. Me and @zenkindoflove have written two works together. I highly recommend it to anyone else considering it. It was some of the most fun I had writing in a long while- a true creative experiment. We basically have our own "Canon" universe of crazykindoflove that we have established in our heads. It helps we very much have the same tastes.

12. What is your all-time favorite ship? Zuko/Katara was the ship that started it all for me. It taught me fandom obsession, fandom community, it spurred a life-long passion for writing....I think I have to give it credit where it is due. Elain/Lucien is getting up there. Their book might be the very thing that puts them into the number one slot.

13. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Divine Punishments....the multi-chapter fic I had grand plans for that I abandoned after the first chapter LOL.

14. What are your writing strengths? Metaphors. I can come up with a damn good metaphor. That's my poetry background coming into play. My writing is very lyrical, descriptive, and introspective. I love finding a beautiful metaphor that just perfectly describes an emotion or situation.

Because were she to ever wear the dress, those stitched sunflowers, with their bright yellow petals, would be a declaration to the whole world exactly what his heart intended. That she was the sun and he was the humble sunflower, forever loyal to follow her, forever in adoration of her shine; for the sunflower only grows facing the sun’s light, in an eternal chase of her orbit. It didn’t matter where either of them moved, he would be there, waiting to bloom at her smile. 

Like damn look at this. I still think about this one LOL

15. What are your writing weaknesses?  Plot LOL. I was a oneshot girl my entire life and could never tackle multi-chapter works with elaborate plots. Until ACOWAR (Elucien's Version)!!

16. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I'd love to incorporate my Spanish but haven't had a reason to yet in a fic.

17. First fandom you wrote for? ATLA!

18. Favorite fic you’ve written? This is really hard. Several are near and dear to my heart. But I'm going to say ACOWAR (Elucien's Version). Because I'm really proud of the quality of the writing, the interesting take on Canon AU, the characterizations, and the time spent mapping out the chapters. I'm halfway through and it's already been beyond rewarding.

I feel as though everyone has been tagged on this one, so feel free to steal and share!!!

[ralphlanyon]

For the TC ask game: 2, 6, 10, 15, 17, 22, and 24!

2. Scene that lives in your head rent free.

So many! But I'll go with "Come and say goodbye to me," which speaks for itself.

6. Wackiest (but hilarious) Laurie opinion™.

Laurie trying to convince himself that Ralph and Bunny are happily in love despite all evidence to the contrary and that he isn't incredibly jealous and resentful of Bunny!

10. Laurie/Andrew and Laurie/Ralph: discuss.

Obviously I'm a Ralph Lanyon and Ralph/Laurie girlie through and through! I think they are just extremely similar and compatible, in terms of their personalities, their idealism, their values, their sense of humor, their beliefs and attitudes towards queerness and towards the war, their past trauma, their need to be needed, their intense loneliness and desire for intimacy and affection (and of course Renault makes it clear that they are very sexually compatible). They also both understand what it's like to be abandoned by a parent, to become permanently and visibly disabled by war injury, and to not feel a sense of belonging or attachment to anywhere. So many themes and parallels with their relationship - it makes the literature nerd in me happy. 🤩

Laurie/Andrew doesn't have nearly the same emotional pull for me, although intellectually I get its place in the novel and Laurie's development. Part of it is that for most of the book Laurie seems to be unconsciously projecting his fantasy of school-age Ralph onto Andrew (as well as various moral ideals), so I never felt like I got to truly know Andrew as a person (or that Laurie did, for that matter), just what Laurie thinks he is, or ought to be. It's not an accident I think that Andrew is the same age as Ralph when we first meet him (and when Laurie last sees him at school) and that he often feels less a fully fleshed out character than an ideal Laurie carries in his head.

15. At which point did you know TC was going to be One Of Those Books for you?

Haha, I will have you know that the first time I read the book, I was being perfectly normal about it up until the party chapter, and then Ralph showed up again and ruined my life and now I'm here eight years later still totally obsessed! If it had ended unhappily with Ralph dying or Laurie and Ralph not getting back together (which would have been the conventional Queer Novel ending back then), I probably would have just moved on, but it had the temerity to actually end on a hopeful/happy note so I guess I'm just going to be invested forever.

17. Most ??? passage (ambiguous/unclear/etc)

"As Laurie got up he found he was levering himself on a pile of hymn books; some almost submerged tactile memory remarked, Ancient and Modern, not Songs of Praise." I was not Raised In A Christian Home and still do not get why that distinction is at all relevant, lol.

22. What was the soldier at the party about to reveal about Alec/Ralph?

Hmm, I actually didn't interpret it as being about Alec/Ralph specifically, just about Ralph! I thought he was going to drop some salacious gossip about Ralph's sex life or kinks - like "The man acts all uptight and strait-laced, disapproving of everything going on here, but I hear this is how he really behaves when he's in bed..." And then Laurie cuts him off with, "I've known him for years," which the soldier interprets as, "I've slept with him," prompting him to ask Laurie for confirmation if the sex gossip about Ralph is true.

24. Most surprisingly modern aspect of TC.

I guess actually acknowledging that bisexuality exists, even briefly? Ralph rattling off the historical figures he considers bisexuals and Ralph and Laurie talking about Shakespeare being "normal plus, not minus" amusingly remind me of how queer people nowadays discuss their favorite queer historical icons.

[lamialamia]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you! get to know your mutuals and followers ♡

Yay! Thank you for the ask!

I'm sharing with you my favorite new recipe x5. I try to put in here youtube link instead of tiktok vid which was where I found most of these recipes. So thanks to the creator who put their stuff on multiple platform.

1/ Cilbir. also know as Turkish egg. Oh it's a good simple meal that blend savory and sweetness and sourness and very filling. I often eat with any kind of bread I have on hand and a cup of cappuccino.

2/ Beef Stew. But in particular this recipe from the Final Fantasy cookbook in this video lol Simple recipe but insanely tasty. Gosh I wanna make it again haha

3/ Bibim-naengmyeon. I ordered this everytime I go to a korean place, and coming across the recipe for it to make at home has been a godsend. This one in particular's secret ingredient is apple and fuck. fuck. it changed the cold noodle game for me. I love it so much.

4/ Tomyum soup. Another unbeatable soup for cold weather. Can be eaten with rice, or bún, or ramen or whatever you choose. this recipe is in vietnamese but tomym soup is very popular you can find a recipe in english easily.

5/ Pasta aglio e olio. This dish have replaced instant ramen for late night meal. It's probably the easiest dish in this list and so tasty. The light olive go perfectly with the lemon note. I used parsley flake because I don't often have fresh parsley on hand.

I like cooking, can't you tell haha

[tartrazeen]

I have finally seen Across the Spiderverse!

tl;dr - amazing movie, folks here need to be more normal about Miguel

The longer version:

1. I'm so happy you people put that "Gwen is trans" theory in my head.

I got to watch the whole beginning of the movie like, "Omg, her dad is so supportive of her!"

And then I got to watch that part where Miles tells her, "We're the same. Uh - I mean, in the important ways, we're same," and be like "(⁠☞ﾟ⁠∀ﾟ⁠)⁠☞ Solid recovery, man."

And then I got to watch the part where Gwen comes back home, and when her dad asks her where she's been, appreciate the metaphor that'd be in, "I was off murdering all my best friends." Like - oof. I would not have caught the added meaning in a trans girl telling that to her father without this theory. A bit of "I guess he's not that supportive" followed by "Oh thank God, he's going to try harder through the power of movie magic and love and acceptance."

And that really hammered home the "Spider-man is a metaphor for coming out" with Miles, because he can't exactly pull a Misha Collins and come out as straight. As bi, though? As part of a big, interconnected web of LGBTQ2I+? Yeeeesssss.

Separately from that, I hope he and Gwen get together, really building off the "I'm gonna do my own thing" arc he's going through, paired with the "It doesn't end well" bit about Gwen falling for a Spider-man.

2. Loved how quickly they set up Spot.

I get him, I get the story, but they kept the pacing perfectly focused on the Spiderverse stuff. Spot's in the background but also developed well in the background. It's a perfect case of 'not too little' but especially - more importantly! - not too much.

3. Hobie is a fucking bro.

He showed up to help everyone - like one of the first things out of his mouth was, "Hey Miles, you can do better with your powers, here's some help." Loved him. And the fucking COMMON SENSE this guy had? I loved his little "haha anarchy" jokes, but this guy was on the Spiderverse's side completely - right up until he realized, "Nope, this shit has crossed a line" and immediately fought back against them. He didn't just help Miles and then quit. He helped Miles, quit, probably left assuming that Miguel wasn't gonna go completely batshit, and despite that assumption, still had the presence of mind to pass on his not-a-watch to Gwen.

And I think someone else wrote that he ran away? I disagree with characterization. He didn't panic and leave, and he didn't even abandon anybody. He disagreed, withdrew his support, and then left the others to come around at their own speed. I mean, Miguel hurried that speed up a lot, but that just speaks to how fast Hobie moved from "I agree with the Spiderverse" to "You guys are fucking facists." And the second he was tagged to help - after realizing how correct he was about the 'facist' thing - he was immediately back to actively fighting alongside Gwen. There was no passiveness on his side whatsoever. What a bro. And he even gave Gwen a place to stay when she needed it, which was such an extra point of community. 💖

4. Uhhhhhh can everyone please be more normal about Miguel...?

Because I watched that movie. I know like 5% of who this guy is. They gave us the Cliff notes of Sad Backstory and a glimpse - a glimpse! - into how he probably felt, but it was all from behind an iron mask. We haven't gotten into any of the real him yet, just the anger and outrage and fury.

So... people taking running with an obviously incomplete character? That's normal, fine, sure.

People taking that and running with it to slot him in as an uwu Top for Peter B.? Did you only go in looking for a ship, and did you have to be so weird about making it be the guy whose only defining traits are "Big" when his other and MORE IMPORTANT defining trait is "PoC whose race has been historically and actively fetishized for being violent sex objects"? 'Cause it's like everyone just scrubbed that 5% of what we know away to put him into this predefined "Big Dom Top" role with zero self-reflection, and handwaved how that once again perpetuates every racist stereotype this relates to. All to woobify the white guy some more.

I'm all for shipping, but you people literally don't know him. His story's pretty clearly being saved for the next movie, comic book sales show so many of you don't read those and definitely didn't before this (likely just stopping at what Wikipedia says), and went off of ~v i b e s~

And just happened to not notice how creepy and fetishizing it is that those were the vibes you were left with.

5. I teared up when Miles' story started. Yes, right after the opening title.

I wasn't expecting it, but as soon as the music started and that atmosphere was set, I just got hit with such a wave of, "This is unapologetically black." I heard the Puerto Rican vibes coming in later and both of them perfectly throughout the movie, but the centering of his blackness through the music alone. It was a 'great opening for a sequel' before that point. At that point? It was 'a brand-new story.' 💖💖💖💖 Representation bbyyyyy

[quaranmine]

AO3 link and notes below the cut:

PEARL HAS APPEARED IN THE FIC!! Y’all, there were NOT supposed to be other characters than Scar and Grian (and briefly Mumbo) in this fic but she just snuck in. Also, my recommendation? Do not show up at anybody’s house uninvited for a vacation, it’s really rude to put that on someone else last minute. Like in some situations surprise visits are fun but I think a lot of the time…it’s just so stressful on the “host.” Pearl knows Grian well though, and she’s super worried about him, so her reasoning was that if she arranged it ahead of time he would have plenty of time to perfectly clean up his life and pretend nothing was wrong. Part of the reason she wanted to visit him was because she knew something was wrong. I think Grian’s friends and family, most of them in England but Pearl in Australia, have been worried for quite some time about how he’s doing, but living on a different continent is a great way to self-isolate. 

Also I shouldn’t have to say this but don’t read anyone’s mail, even if it’s out. Pearl is allowed to be a little dysfunctional, as a treat…. hashtag god forbid women do anything. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for friends to ask for financial help from friends, or for friends to take it on themself to help out where possible and maybe slip you something. but girl there’s a time and place for it!!! LOL anyway you know that the woman who created a whole cleaning service in HC S9 would be happy to help Grian declutter in this situation too haha

As for architecture, there’s a bunch of different programs but the one I’ve been using as reference for this fic is a 5 year degree with around 2-3 years of apprenticeship/internship/field training. It is generally a pretty intense job to get. Grian did his whole degree in England plus part of the training, but finished the rest and got his license while in Colorado. He did not have his license very long at all in the beginning of the fic, which is partly why he was so resistant to taking off work to go with Mumbo–he was brand new and had to prove himself! Also, architecture work often includes compliance related things in addition to designs (from what I have read.) Grian got demoted after his stunt in the last chapter, so he mostly does things like “contact the electrical company to get power to this person’s house” or “call the county to get information about the local building codes” and so on.  Mumbo is a mechanical engineer. 

Did you know it actually didn’t snow til really late in the season in Denver in 1988? It’s an interesting juxtaposition for how early the snow was in Yellowstone that year. I’m not from Colorado but from what I googled most ski resorts have at least limited runs open by Thanksgiving so I think it’s reasonable for them to go together. Higher elevation places in the mountains likely did get snow by late November. Anyway, I like skiing. I went twice as a kid and it was a lot of fun but unfortunately now i'm cursed with knees that like to dislocate so i don’t dare go again and risk injury

Also yeah I’m not gonna list out specific numbers but the long distance (especially international) rates WERE atrocious then, and grian is just not getting paid as much as he used to on top of having to cover all the stuff Mumbo used to. It’s not sustainable in the long run, both financially and in that it’s far too easy for him to isolate from everyone who cares about him. 

Finally, a  lot of the little bits of day to day lookout information I have comes from the book Fire Season by Philip Connors, that I’ve been slowly reading while writing this fic. I think I’m around 160 pages into it? It’s a very interesting book, I recommend it. You will also get a lot of information about forest fire history and wildland firefighting in general. So much of my information about when fires are left to burn, when they’re suppressed, when they’re monitored, helicopters and smoke jumpers, Grian’s work schedules and days off, etc all comes from that book. 

Oh, I finally mentioned Grian’s age in this. He’s 28, turning 29 in a few months.. That’s why he says he’s floundering on the cusp of his 30s. To be clear, I do not think there is anything terrible about being in your 30s. I do not think he is old. I do think, however, that he’s looking at a couple of fresh 21 year-olds doing a summer job in between semesters and thinking about how thoroughly he’s torched his own career and life (and how life has hurt him first) to end up where he is right now. 

Cicadas! Yes, England does not have them (as far as I could tell through research.) This is shocking as a Texan, given they have been the staple summer background noise of my entire life. I would not know what to do without them doing their little calls nonstop. Also, I lied a bit in that second sentence–England DOES have a species of cicada, but it’s so endangered it hasn’t been seen for over a decade and only lives in a specific forest. RIP. 

The Incandescence of a Dying Light (Chapter Six)

Someone’s worried about Grian, and the Forest Service comes to collect Mumbo’s bike.

Chapter Six: 8,724

<< Chapter Five | Masterpost | Chapter Seven >>

The other half of the fifth chapter! I hope you enjoy this 1988 sequence especially, I was looking forward to it a lot (and it single handedly made the chapter so long it had to be split in two!)

No real CWs this time. I personally think that if you have made it this far then I don’t really have to warn you about the themes of loss and grief anymore, but just in case: yep, still very present.

November 20, 1988

It’s about noon on a Sunday, and Grian is…not doing much, actually. He has a thousand things he needs to do, ranging from cleaning out the refrigerator to trying to change his car’s oil to looking into a part-time second job, but instead he’s lying on the couch trying to watch TV.  Somewhere along the way he tuned out of the program and started staring at the ceiling instead, mentally tracing out the patterns in the spackle. 

The man on the drones on and on in the background, until he’s just part of it. Grian can feel himself starting to drift to sleep. 

Then the phone rings. 

Grian startles awake and sits up, scowling at it in the kitchen. He hasn’t the faintest idea who is calling him, other than maybe a telemarketer, but do those people work on Sunday? Well, perhaps they do. Everyone is home then, afterall. 

It rings twice more, so he gets up and answers the phone. “Hello?” he says. 

“Griba!” shouts a voice on the other end of the line. 

And–it’s a very familiar voice. 

“Pearl?” Grian says, just the slightest bit baffled. “Is that you?”

“Hi!” she says. “How are you doing? Are you busy?”

“I’m fine,” he says. “How are you? What do you need?”

“Can’t I just call to say hi?” Pearl asks. 

“Of course, but–”

“But the international rates?” Pearl says. Then she laughs. “Oh, shush, I know you were thinking about it.”

“Oh noooo,” Grian says. “I don’t care about that at all, we can talk as long as you like.”

 It’s a lie. He was definitely thinking about the international rates, and then immediately feeling bad about it because Pearl is a friend. He puts friends before money, of course, it’s just…well, it was expensive. But worth it! Pearl is Pearl. But every minute on the phone eats into his checkbook, and it’s hard not to think about. 

Pearl laughs again. “Well, I’m glad you don’t worry about that. Not that it matters anyway; this call is local.”

Local. Local?

“Huh?”

“Yeah, you were right Griba, I did need something when I called,” Pearl says. “Can you pick me up from the airport?”

Grian’s head is spinning. “You’re at the airport?” he says incredulously. “Like, in Colorado? In Denver? Right now?”

“Yep,” Pearl says. “And I need a ride. Well, I could go get a taxi somewhere. But I figured I’d ask my friend first. Are you busy?”

Yeah, busy falling asleep to daytime TV on the couch. “Um, no,” he says. 

“Great! I’ll see you there!” Pearl says. “Wait, how long will it take? I don’t know where you live, actually. Ooh, this is exciting! I’ll finally get to see your place.”

“Um, give me like half an hour and I’ll be there,” Grian says slowly. 

He and Pearl say their goodbyes for now, and after she hangs up he finds himself staring at the phone for several moments. What just happened? First of all, Pearl’s in Denver, apparently. Second of all, he did not know this was happening. Thirdly, his afternoon just got way more interesting.

He grabs his keys off the counter and makes his way downstairs. 

»»———-　　———-««

When he arrives at the airport, in the long line of cars waiting to pick people up and drop them off at the terminal, he does not expect to see Pearl waiting outside for him. Yet he picks her out instantly, a familiar face in a crowd of strangers. 

She’s bundled up in a black hoodie. The hood is up over her head, but he can see the long wavy tendrils of brown hair peeking out from behind it. Her hands are shoved in the hoodie’s pocket, and her nose is pink from the cold. When she exhales, he can see the faintest cloud of her breath. 

He can hardly remember being so happy to see someone before. The second he sees her face, any doubt or mild annoyance at her unexpected stay just melts away. 

He pulls his car up as close as he can to her, and throws it in park. She doesn’t know what car he’s driving, of course–she’s never visited him here. He leaps out and calls her name. 

“Pearl!” he shouts. 

She spins around and a grin breaks out on her face the moment she spots him. He races up to her on the curb and she throws her arms around him in a hug immediately. They cling to each other for a moment, before letting go. 

“Oh, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you!” Pearl says.

“Oh, yeah,” Grian says. “A few years, right? Not since I’ve been here.”

“Ah!” Pearl squeaks. “I can’t wait to see it. I should’ve come for a visit so much sooner.”

Grian breathes a sigh, not of any annoyance or tiredness, but perhaps–of relief? Relief from what, he doesn’t quite know, but he’s so happy to see Pearl it’s like he can hardly speak. His breath clouds in front of him. 

“Let’s get you in the car,” he says. “It’s so cold out here, why weren’t you waiting inside?”

“Well, it might be cold out here,” Pearl says, attempting to pick up her bag. Grian steals it out from under her grasp before she can, though, so she just trails after him to the car. “But it certainly isn’t cold at home. It’s kind of nice, actually. Anyway, I wasn’t out here waiting the entire time, I just walked out a few minutes before you came.”

“Well, don’t freeze on me before you even get here,” Grian says. He loads her things in the car, and they hop in. He starts to navigate out of the airport traffic. “How long was that flight?” he asks. “I mean, I assume you flew in from Sydney.”

“Ugh, it was never ending!” Pearl says. “It was like 12 or 13 hours, and that only got me to Los Angeles. Then I had a connection here.” She glances at the clock on his dashboard. “Did you know it’s almost the same time I left?”

“Huh?”

“Yeah. I left around noon on the 20th. Then I landed and now it’s around noon on the 20th again.”

“Wow.”

“It feels like I got put in a time vortex or something and they zapped a whole day from me. And then I woke up and I’m repeating the day again.”

Grian side eyes her in the passenger seat. “Are you, perhaps, a little tired?”

“Exhausted.”

He smiles just a little. “I bet you’re hungry too,” he says. “Let’s get lunch on our way back to my apartment.”

»»———-　　———-««

They get lunch, and it’s great. They talk about various, mostly mundane things about their lives over the past few years. They’ve kept in touch ever since graduating university together, even as their lives diverged on totally different paths on totally different continents. But that was mostly just letters and phone calls. It’s entirely different to be face to face again. It’s so much better to be face to face again.

Grian asks about her career in Australia. “So, have you designed the next Sydney Opera House yet?” he teases. 

Pearl gasps in fake horror. “Of course not! There can’t be a ‘next’ Opera House, it’s iconic!”

“Eh,” Grian says. “I think you could come up with a cooler one.”

She rolls her eyes affectionately. “Alright, stop it.”

“I’m dead serious. I think you could make a better one.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “Seriously though, I mostly just do office buildings.”

“Hm, well that’s boring,” Grian says and takes a sip of his water. “We for sure don’t need any more of those.”

“That’s what most of the work is,” she says. “Lots of new development to work on! So what have you been up to? Any interesting projects lately?”

Grian hesitates a bit in replying. The answer is no, of course. Pearl’s aware of his job from some of their previous communication in the past three years, but now that they’re sitting here face to face she clearly wants to hear all about it without the constraints of a phone call or letter. 

He just, well, has nothing to say. He hasn't even really received projects lately. 

He and Mumbo came to Colorado a little over two years ago after Mumbo was offered an engineering job in Denver. Grian had figured he might as well dust off his completely unused dual citizenship and follow him here–it’s not like it was even a difficult process for him. It was the perfect sort of adventure to follow up five years of intense schooling, and an interesting place to put his new skills to test. 

It had been that which enticed him to go with Mumbo. That, and the way his stomach had twisted when he thought about saying goodbye. They’d been inseparable for over a decade and Grian refused to accept a reality where his best friend lived so far away. Truthfully, Mumbo was a little apprehensive about moving to an entirely new country alone, so this had worked out perfectly. 

Grian would go with him. They’d split an apartment and get settled in for a while and experience life in a new country. Grian would finish the rest of his architecture field training in Colorado and finally get his license. Mumbo would work on creating machines and learn about computers. 

It was fine. It was fun. They had a good time–there were endless things to do, from skiing to hiking to rafting to biking. 

Then Mumbo went missing, and Grian was just…still here, but missing everything that was worthwhile. He was struggling. Not showing up to work. Getting demoted.

“I haven’t really had anything interesting to work on,” he says finally. “There was this one house–way too massive, really, and the owner could never really decide what he wanted but he wasn’t so bad. But then I had to leave to…” 

He trails off. Pearl glances at him and opens her mouth, but she rethinks it after a moment and shuts it again. She’s smart, and part of that intelligence is knowing when to not poke around. 

“Mostly they just have me working on codes and compliance right now,” he finishes quietly. 

It’s still an important part of the process, making sure that all of the projects are in alignment with local building codes. Sometimes it’s even frustrating, when he has to figure out things like getting a water line from whichever locality is closest for someone’s house perched high on a mountainside. 

But he doesn’t have any of his own clients anymore. He does work for his coworker’s projects. He doesn’t do any drafting. He doesn’t touch any blueprints. He doesn’t design anything. 

It’s not really the update that he wants to give Pearl. They met each other in university because they studied in the same architecture program. They spent long nights in the library together. He’s seen her rip up her papers in frustration when things weren’t working quite right, and she’s seen him start crying on the floor of her dorm room the night before a particularly major test. They graduated together. 

It just doesn’t look good. Of course, he knows Pearl very well. She isn’t going to think anything less of him. It’s more, well, himself that he has to worry about. 

Pearl purses her lips, and moves on. “Well,” she says, “that’s all very important. God knows we studied it enough. Don’t worry about projects, you’ll find some cool work soon.”

“As cool as office buildings?”

“With any luck, even better,” she says. 

“How long are you staying?” he asks, realizing he still doesn’t know. 

“Little over a week,” she responds. “I’m leaving next Monday.”

He frowns. “I probably have work, but maybe I can take off a morning to take you back to the airport–”

“I can survive in a taxi,” Pearl says. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Well, you asked me to pick you up this time.”

“Mm, well, I wanted to see you,” she says, “and I had a feeling you weren’t going to be busy.”

He hates that she’s right, but only just a little. He’s sort of glad he wasn’t busy so that he could see her, since she’s apparently decided to drop this entire trip on him with no notice whatsoever. It does not miss him that she could have done this basically any weekend in the last several months and landed on a day where he wasn’t busy. 

“What are your plans for this week?” he asks.

“I want to see everything!” Pearl says, and stretches her arms wide to accommodate the words. She has to pull her arm back in quick, since she nearly smacks a waitress walking by. They both descend into laughter. 

“Pearl,” Grian hisses, “we’re in public!”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” she whispers. “I’m just so excited! I want to sightsee!”

Grian leans back in his chair and regards her with a critical eye. He’s smiling. “I don’t know if a week is enough to see everything,” he says. 

“I am going to do my best,” she says, mock-serious. 

It suddenly hits Grian. “Wait,” he groans. “I seriously have to work tomorrow. And Tuesday. I could ask off, but…” He winces as he trails off. “I kind of have a track record with my boss and I don’t think he really appreciates me calling out last minute.”

“That’s fine,” Pearl says. “What? I know I came here without telling you but it’s not like I wasn’t prepared to take care of myself. I’ll just see some things on my own.”

Grian nods. “I have a half-day on Wednesday,” he says, “but I think he’d be more amenable to letting me have that as a full day. Then Thursday’s off for Thanksgiving, and Friday too. Then of course the weekend.”

Pearl looks self-satisfied. “Good. I meant to plan it that way so you’d have a little time off.”

“So what do you want to do?” he asks. “One of them, I guess, since everything’s on the table.”

Pearl leans closer to him across the table. “Please,” she says. “I want to go skiing. I’ve never been skiing. Can we please go skiing? Please?”

Grian laughs again at the face she’s making. She’s so dead serious in her begging. “I’ll call around and see if any places are open. As you can see, we don’t have any snow around here right now. But further up into the actual mountains probably does.”

“Eee!” Pearl squeaks in excitement. “I’m so ready.”

“Oh?” Grian says. “I will literally bet you on how many times you fall.”

“I’ll take your money,” she says. “I’ll be the greatest first-time skier there ever was.”

“You will fall on your butt no less than a dozen times,” he shoots back. 

They continue talking for a while, back and forth. Pearl tells him about various stories and adventures from Australia. She begs him to come visit–she came here, so now it’s his turn to come to her. Maybe next summer, when it’ll be cooler in Australia and hotter down here. 

She’s obviously prepared for their trip and seeing him again, because she’s also brought photos to share with him. He looks through a few photos of what her house looks like, what a few buildings she’s worked on looks like, a picture of her by the ocean (she says he can keep that one, as long as she gets to go home with a photo of him), and even the two cats she has adopted. 

They get the check–Grian pays for the whole thing without blinking–and head back to his apartment.

They’re discussing sleeping arrangements as they walk up Grian’s stairwell. He has his keys out already, and they clang a little step-by-step. 

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” he declares. “End of story.”

“But,” she says, “I’ll feel so bad taking your bed from you.”

“You’re a guest!” he says. “I’m not letting you sleep for a week on the couch! You can take my bed.”

Neither of them mention that there’s a third option. Or really a fourth, because Pearl could always get a hotel room if it didn't work out, but she had asked to stay with him. She must have spent so much on flights already, it was the least he could do. 

So there’s really only three options, and only two are being discussed. The apartment is a two bedroom. Mumbo’s room has sat empty for five months now, completely untouched. But that room isn’t up for grabs–it’s a time capsule, frozen from the moment he left it. Grian doesn’t mention it. Pearl is smart enough to not ask about it. 

“Ugh, fine,” Pearl says, rolling her eyes. “I guess I’ll take your room. If you make me. I still feel like it’s weird though.”

Grian freezes on the top step, and Pearl nearly bumps into him. “Oh no,” he mumbles. “My apartment is–Pearl, listen, I didn’t know you were coming, so I didn’t really take a chance to clean up anything, so it’s definitely a little messy in here, and–”

She cuts him off, voice bright. “So what I’m hearing is the couch might be better than your room?”

“No, ugh, I’m just saying I’m sorry that this place looks so bad.” He sighs. 

“I get it,” she says. “Don’t worry.”

“It’s not how I wanted it to be,” he says softly, and slots the key into the handle. “Just let me work on it, I’ll get it fixed up.”

They go into the apartment. Really, it isn’t that bad, but he’s embarrassed about it nonetheless. It isn’t filthy or grimy, it’s just cluttered. He’s always been a cluttered person. There’s stuff lying randomly about, like the somewhat muddy shoes by the door, the jackets shed across chairs, or the laundry basket of unfolded clothes sitting on a dining room chair. At least three random empty drinking glasses are sitting on the coffee table in the living room. And, well, he could have probably bothered to do the dishes from the last three days, but there’s only one of him and he doesn’t cook much, so really it isn’t very much even if it looks bad.

Everything in here would be so fast to clean up, but whenever he tries it feels like an insurmountable barrier. He does things a little at a time, so that it never gets too out of hand, but he can’t remember the last time it looked good. It’s just something that’s continually slipping further and further away. It feels like one day he’ll wake up and it will finally be completely out of control. 

Pearl doesn’t say anything. She just walks in and drops her bags–which she had insisted on carrying since he insisted on paying for lunch–on the floor and puts her hands on her hips. “This is a cute place,” she says. “I like the lighting from the windows. And you’ve got a view of the mountains!”

“It’s cute when it’s clean,” he mutters. It’s like he knows how to be ashamed of how the place looks, but not how to do anything about it. He’s got the external motivation of another human being seeing it now though, and he’s itching to work and hide everything here.

Maybe it’s concerning that his main motivation after months on end is just so that he can hide. This thought does not cross his mind, because the sort of people who hide things from others are fantastic at hiding things from themselves, too. 

“I saw your dorm room in university,” she reminds him. “You can’t seriously think I wasn’t prepared for your clutter.”

“This is worse,” Grian groans. 

“Eh, not really,” Pearl says. “I think you’re doing well, all things considered.”

All things considered. Grian bites his lip. It’s nice that she thinks so. He isn’t sure where she got that impression, but if he can spend the rest of the week cultivating it then maybe she’ll stop worrying. 

She walks over to the laundry basket on the chair. “Is this clean?” she asks. 

“Yes, of course,” he responds, and he wants to add “I’m not that bad" to the end of the statement until he remembers the floor of his bedroom, which is exactly “that bad.” 

“Great!” she says. And then she sits down. And starts folding it.

“What are you doing?” he asks, and snatches the basket away from her. “You’re a guest! You’re on vacation! Don’t be doing that?”

Pearl frowns. “Um,” she says. “Just helping?”

“I don’t need you to help,” he says, and it comes out a bit harsher than intended. “Just, like, go relax or something. Take a nap. I know you’re exhausted.”

A brief look of hurt flashes over her face, and vanishes almost as quickly as it arrives. “Grian?” she asks. “What do you think I’m here for?”

“To see me?” he says, confused. 

“Yeah,” she says. “Of course it’s to see you, I missed you. But also to help.”

“I missed you too,” he says automatically, but when the rest of the sentence catches up to him he shakes his head. “I don’t need help.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You don’t? Then why can nobody get a hold of you, Grian? Why does your apartment look like this? Why do you deflect phone calls and make excuses? We��re all worried about you, you know. We don’t know what’s going on.”

“We?” Grian says. “You’re talking about me behind my back? Who’s we?”

“Well, we wouldn’t be talking behind your back if you talked to us,” Pearl replies, matter-of-fact. “And the ‘we’ is your friends. Your family, Grian.”

“I’m fine,” he snaps. “I’m sorry to have you worried but you don’t need to be.”

“You don’t get to try that on me,” Pearl says firmly. “I know you too well.”

“Maybe that’s why I don’t talk to you,” he says. 

Pearl looks back at him, for a long time. He doesn’t return her eye contact, and instead begins to pick up the glasses from the coffee to take them into the kitchen. He knows looking at her will just make him sad. He also knows that he really, really wants to look back at her. 

He misses her so hard it hurts. Mumbo hasn’t come back, but she did. She was never really missing, though–just separated far, far, away by circumstance. 

She takes a deep breath. “Well. Maybe that’s why I didn’t tell you I was coming.”

He says nothing, and turns on the tap. It’ll take a moment for the water to heat up. 

“You always try to hide,” she says. She picks up another item out of the basket and begins to fold it. “But you can’t hide if you didn’t expect me to come.”

She reads him like a book every time. It was a definite contributing factor to their friendship–they’d clicked fast and gotten very close in university. They understood each other well, and shared not only the same area of study but also the same ideas about pulling mischief on campus. There used to be a point in time where her reading him like a book served both of them well, but not today. 

“I told you to stop folding that,” Grian says.

Pearl drops it with a huff. “No,” she says. “I’m not going to stop. You said I was the guest, right? Guests get to do what they want. And maybe I want to help you clean up.”

He finally turns to look at her. Her blue eyes are wide and just the slightest bit watery. He’s done that–he’s been the one to make her that worried. He turns back to the sink. 

“Okay,” he says quietly, words almost lost in the water running into the sink. He says okay because he can’t imagine even trying to fight her on this. “We can work on it together.”

»»———-　　———-««

The cleaning goes well, up until it doesn’t.

“Grian, what is this?” Pearl says from the other room, loudly. She’s finished folding his things and has fortunately just left them all in the basket for him to put up himself, declining to go rifling through his dresser and closet. The next task she has taken upon herself has apparently been working through the clutter in the living room area, which is always a dangerous place.

Grian sticks his head around the corner from the kitchen. He’s finished doing the dishes, and is just drying them off now to put in the cabinet. “Let me see,” he says. 

She turns around and Grian’s heart sinks immediately. She’s standing by his desk, the nice one by the window that he always liked to sit and draft at. She’s holding a few pieces of paper that Grian really didn’t mean to leave out. Because he definitely did leave them out–Pearl is nosy, and she’ll fly all the way across the world to drop in uninvited, but she isn’t the kind of person who goes through drawers. 

But he did just say she was nosy. Nosy enough to read something he left out. 

He drops the dish towel. “Give me those,” he says, and crosses the living room to the corner she’s in. He tries to snatch it out of her hand.

“Nope, not so fast,” she says, and holds them higher, squinting at them so she can read. Grian is, at this moment, extremely annoyed that she is so much taller than he is. He can’t quite grab them out of her hand. 

“Pearl,” he whines. 

“Shh, I’m reading.” Her eyes widen, and she looks back at Grian. He feels the slightest bit locked in her gaze’s intensity. It’s equal parts scrutinizing and empathetic. Like she feels bad for him, but is also a little disappointed. “Are these late notices?”

She files through them one by one. Grian cringes. He’d rather melt into the floor than be here. “Most of them are already paid,” he says feebly. 

“Most of them?” she looks back at him. Her brows are knit up, and it creases her forehead.

“I, uh, get paid this week,” he says. This is another lie. He gets paid at the end of the month, but she doesn’t need to know that.

She doesn’t seem fully convinced, but she hands them back to him and he takes them from her so sharply he almost tears the paper. He puts them in the drawer and slams it shut. It rattles the whole desk.

“The top one was about your credit card payment,” she says slowly, as if she’s halfway between deciding whether to say something and not, but was already saying it before she could finish the debate. 

Grian fixes her with a glare and she wilts under it, immediately looking away. He shoves his hands behind his back, because suddenly they seem shaky. His chest is tight, and his jaw is set, and–he’s angry. He’s so, so angry, and it feels like it’s burning him up, white-hot. 

“Why did you read those?” he demands. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to find it, it was just laying on the desk–”

“You could have ignored it.” 

Pearl crosses her arms. He’s activated her fight mode, and he rarely does well against her when she tries to be stubborn. 

“I’m just worried about you,” she says. 

Grian shakes his head. “I can’t with you right now,” he says. His tone is icy even while his whole body feels hot. “They were laying on the desk because I didn’t expect to have any guests.” 

He turns away from her and walks partway across the living room floor toward the kitchen, and then whirls around again. “You’re just..showing up uninvited, messing with my stuff, reading my mail? Is that where we are now?” his voice cracks a little on the last time. “It’s the first time I’ve seen you in three years and this is where we’re at now?”

Pearl takes a breath. “I just wanted to help,” she says. It falls flat. 

“It isn’t your business.”

“You never said you needed money.”

“Because it isn’t your business.” He enunciates every syllable clearly. 

She runs a hand through her hair in a nervous, agitated gesture. “None of know what’s going on with you, Grian,” she says. “We didn’t know about this, so what else don’t we know about?”

He doesn’t answer. 

“Okay, fine,” she says desperately. “This wasn’t my business. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have looked at it. But I meant what I said, okay? We don’t know anything about what’s going on with you!”

“There’s the ‘we’ again,” he says. 

She shakes her head, incredulous. “Do I have to literally spell it out for you? Did you forget our names when you moved to America? It’s Jimmy, and Joel, and Martyn, and Netty, and Lizzie. It’s your mom. It’s Mumbo’s parents.” She pauses for just a moment, taking in a short, if slightly hysterical, breath. “It’s me.”

He doesn’t want to hear their names again. He misses them enough already. 

“I’ve talked to them,” he says instead. Simple.

Pearl throws her arms in the air. “For hardly more than five minutes!”

“Well,” he says, with a bitter laugh, “you certainly know I don’t have the money for long-distance calls.”

“I guess I walked into that one,” she says. She stops, but there’s a funny look on her face that keeps Grian quiet. He’s still standing a few feet away from her after he walked off earlier. Her face scrunches up, like she’s trying not to cry, and after another moment she speaks softly: “Mumbo was my friend too, you know.”

It’s soft, but it still hits Grian like a ton of bricks. 

She continues, and doesn’t look him in the eye. “I know he was your friend first, but I cared about him too. We all did.” Suddenly she’s crossing the floor toward him again, closing the distance he had put between them. “But it almost hurts just as bad to know you’re still out here alone. And that you aren’t okay.”

Grian swallows back against the lump that is rapidly forming in his throat. “I’m fine,” he whispers. 

“I don’t believe you,” she says. 

“I’m fine,” he insists. 

“You need to go home to visit,” Pearl says. “Even just for the holidays. Please. Everybody’s worried about you.” She huffs a small little laugh. “They’re all worried and then they’re calling me because they think I know what’s going on. Because I always used to know what was going on with you. And then I have to tell them I don’t know either.”

Grian doesn’t respond.

“They’d be so happy, you know,” Pearl says. “To see you.”

“I’d never come back,” Grian mumbles. “If I went.”

“What?”

“They wouldn’t let me leave,” he says, stronger. “If I went home they wouldn’t let go.”

“Is that such a bad thing?” Pearl asks.

Grian shakes his head like he’s breaking free of her request. “I have to stay here, because Mumbo is here.”

Pearl blinks, and then sighs. “Okay. I still think you should visit, though.”

Her eyes drift away from his face and over to the hallway behind him, the one all the bedrooms and bathrooms break off of. She speaks again sharply. “The money problem, it’s because of Mumbo isn’t it? You used to split all of the rent and stuff because he was your roommate. But now it’s all on you.”

“Something like that,” Grian admits, and it feels like he’s speaking around a block sitting in his mouth.

Their apartment is nice. Not luxurious by any means, but still a decent place to live. His neighbor down the hall yells at him sometimes if he comes back home too late and their door used to slam unpredictably until the landlord finally fixed it months later, but isn’t that all just everyday woes of having an apartment? 

The apartment is nice, but it was never meant to be paid for by one person. Well, maybe a well-paid person. It’s not like his landlord wouldn’t have rented it out to a single person if they could pay. But Grian had never planned to pay for it by himself. And while architecture could be a well-paying job, he was very much still at the entry level. He’d only barely gotten his license after years of schooling and on-site training. 

And then he’d gotten demoted for not showing up. The demotion wasn’t in job duties only, as he’d discovered on his very next paycheck. 

So now he does what he can. He pays the major, important things first. Sometimes they’re a little late, depending on if his check has hit his bank account yet, but it gets done. He starts to depend more and more on his credit card for other things. He pays his minimum payment every month but he doesn’t feel good about watching it accrue. 

“I can help you pay it off-” Pearl starts to say. 

“No,” Grian says. “You aren’t doing that.”

“I can help you pay it off,” Pearl repeats stubbornly. “But Griba, if you can’t afford this place by yourself, you need to just move to someplace else. Smaller. Cheaper.”

“You know I can’t do that,” he says. 

She tilts her head, expression gentle in a way that makes him instinctively recoil. “You can’t keep living here if you can’t pay. This is bad.”

“It’s okay,” he says distantly. “It’s only temporary.”

Pearl pauses. She has a horrible look on her face, so Grian looks away from her instead. “Temporary?” she asks. The word is tentative.

“Until Mumbo gets back,” he says. He grabs her hand, and pulls it closer to him, feeling suddenly like it’s very important that she hears him and understands this. “I can’t leave,” he says earnestly. “All of his stuff his here. It’s his home too.”

Pearl’s eyes are wide. “I can help you pack it,” she says. “You don’t even have to mess with it, or look at it, I can do that for you.”

He drops her hand. “No,” he says, baffled. “I’m not moving anything of his out of here. When they find him, he deserves to actually come home. He can’t come back to a strange place!”

Pearl squeezes her eyes shut. “Griba, please,” she says. He notices all at once that she’s brought his nickname out these past few times, which is a fact that should be comforting but instead starts to set off alarm bells in his head. 

“I’m not moving, and that’s final,” he says. “I’m not going to abandon him.”

“You’re not abandoning him, you’re just…”

“Just what?”

“Being smart.”

It hurts Grian. “He deserves to come home,” he bites. “I don’t care if it isn’t the smart thing to do, it’s the right thing to do.”

Pearl backs up. “Okay,” she says. “Okay.” She takes a deep breath and exhales long and slow. “You’ll stay. I’ll just help you then, yeah? Bills, cleaning, everything else…”

She turns away from him, and starts picking up various items once more to organize them. “I’ll just help,” she repeats.

She wanders around the room. She’s not getting much done, but she looks busy, inspecting everything around her for one more easy thing to do. Grian just stands in the middle of the room stock still, and both says and does nothing. 

Pearl continues to busy herself for a few minutes before grinding to a halt again. “Griba?” she asks, and Grian turns to her again as an answer. “You do have other people to talk to, right? People who live here?”

It’s a valid question. It’s a hard question. 

“Of course,” he says. 

“Stop lying to me,” she pleads. “I already told you I know you too well.”

He swallows hard. “I have people,” he defends. “Had people.”

It’s just that–it was difficult, after Mumbo disappeared. The new friends that Grian and Mumbo had made, they had mostly made as a pair. They each knew a few people from work, but nobody to really hang out with. So most of the friends they met were people they met while doing an activity together some weekend or evening after work. 

So the new friends missed Mumbo too, when they heard about what happened. But they didn’t know Grian the way Mumbo did, or the way Jimmy or Joel or Martyn or Netty or Lizzie or Pearl did. They knew Grian as one half of a pair who was missing his other half. And Grian didn’t know how to interact with them alone. He didn’t know how to go to them for help when they’d barely been in his life for a few months or a year or two. 

There’s layers to friendships, everybody knows that. None of the people Grian had met in Colorado had made it to the layer where he could talk to him. They were nice people. They wanted to help. Grian didn’t know how to let them. 

So he withdrew. 

“You had people. But not anymore?” Pearl asks. 

“I didn’t know them very well,” is all he says. 

Her expression breaks again. Grian has to stop doing that. “But you know us and you still don’t talk to us.”

“I just want to be alone,” Grian says. “Please, it isn’t personal. I just want to be alone.”

“I guess you’ll have to suck it up,” Pearl says. “Because I’m staying here for a week. And I will drag you outside to go skiing with me. I’m going to make you leave this house and we’re going to have fun together. Because I think you need that. And so do I.”

He turns and stalks back into the kitchen. He’s flipping between so many emotions that he doesn’t know which to settle on, so he seeks out something to busy his hands with instead: the dishes on the counter that still have to be dried. 

If he stays in the living room, he might start arguing with her more. He might say something that will make her not want to visit again. 

He’s angry at Pearl. Furious, even. Offended. He could look past her coming unannounced to visit, but the whole thing seems like a plot now. She’s got ulterior motives. She’s purposefully trying to catch him unaware and sneak past all his guard walls. She’s snooping through his things–his mail. It makes his spine crawl to think about. She’s literally trying to get him to move, even though she’s barely been in the state of Colorado for three hours, and even though it means Grian would have to disturb Mumbo’s belongings. 

And still there’s another part of him that just really, really wants to go skiing with her. 

Because–he misses her. He cares about her. And he misses even the simplest things, like getting out of the house to go do something with a friend. It’s just the littlest piece of normalcy. 

So he dries the dishes, and she finishes up in the living room. Then he goes to his bedroom and starts working there–without her, because he doesn’t want her in the room until he’s made it look nice. Safe, even. Clear of any items that could incriminate him in anything at all. The sheer irritation of the afternoon fuels him harder than anything in months, and he finishes the task even quicker than expected, his movements stiff and jerky with anger. 

On one of his trips back and forth to put things back where they need to go, he spots her sitting at his desk. She looks a little sad, staring at the pattern of the wood grain instead of the pretty view outside. He ignores her and goes back to work. 

They exist like this in silence, for a little over an hour. 

Then Grian walks back into the living room, picks up the phone book from the shelf, and sits down at the table by the kitchen where the phone is. 

Pearl whirls around and he can feel her watching him with intense eyes. “Griba, I…” she trails off. “I wanted to say I’m sorry again. I shouldn’t have pressed you like that. I shouldn’t have looked at your bills. And I shouldn’t have come here without telling you.”

Grian just nods slightly. “Yeah.” He flips through some more pages. He doesn’t say anything else to her, just continues on his search. 

She cocks her head slightly. “What are you doing?” she asks. 

“Trying to find a ski resort to call,” he says with a weak smile. “Because I still really want you to drag me out skiing with you.”

»»———-　　———-««

June 1989

It’s two days later when a pair of rangers come to collect Mumbo’s bike. 

They ask him if he has everything he needs, or if he has any requests for supplies that they can pass on to the main office. So Grian takes the first opportunity to ask them about the Cloud Lake Trail, and if it was really closed last season. 

It’s then that he realizes that these two probably aren’t actually rangers at all. They may be dressed in uniform, but they’re just a couple kids several years younger than Grian is. They want to be helpful so earnestly, and their disappointment is clear when they can’t answer his question.  

They inform him that it’s their first season working here, so they’re not exactly sure about what the Cloud Lake Trail was like last year, but that it’s open right now if he’s interested in it! Grian realizes that they’re a couple of seasonal workers just like he is, except they’re on summer break from college and Grian’s floundering on the cusp of his 30s. 

They’re friendly. Grian tries his best to match the energy, for the sake of politeness.

He asks them what the plan is about Mumbo’s case, and doesn’t really expect much. Apparently, there’s a bit of gossip about the case around the ranger’s office, so they do know a little. The plan seems to be to conduct a few aerial searches of the area the bike was found in with a helicopter. They also told him he could expect a more detailed phone call soon from the main office. 

That’s a little amusing to Grian, given his tower does not have a phone line. 

He bids them farewell at midday and watches them disappear into the woods. Then, he decides it’s about time for lunch. He takes an hour, locks up the cabin behind him, and heads to a rocky outcropping he knows nearby to the tower. 

It’s a beautiful spot to sit and stay a while, and a good vantage point into a little valley. Grian sits on a boulder and finishes his lunch, and tries to think about things that aren’t so negative for once. 

He’s so used to looking. Looking for fires, looking for helicopters, looking for storms, looking for lightning, looking for Mumbo. It’s what he’s good at, so he tries to challenge himself to look at something else for once. 

A few feet from him, there’s a small stand of light purple flowers with narrow, silvery green leaves growing. They’re snagging their spot in the ground amidst the surrounding rock. One of the features of his tower is a somewhat excessive amount of posters left there from years past, most of which were fire, forest, rock, or plant related. Grian thinks he’s seen this little plant several times before. He’s watched it spread from just a few sprouts in May to coating the meadows in a wash of purple the past few weeks. 

It’s a lupine. Growing alone, but steadily. 

He looks more into the mini valley below. It’s not so much a vast sweeping valley as it is a wide little canyon for the stream that flows at the bottom. It’s fascinating to look at though. To think how long it might have taken for that little body of water to have carved it down like this. There’s some small rocky cliffs along the edges in some places, and he can see the darker parts of the rocks where the water pours off during a storm. 

It’s as quiet as the forest can be. Which, in the summertime, isn’t very quiet at all. There’s cicadas buzzing all around him right now. That was something new for Grian ever since he moved–they didn’t have cicadas in England. But as loud as they are, it’s a pleasant background noise he’s become adjusted to. 

He leans back on the rock and stares into the sky for a bit, watching the handful of clouds that there are today drift along. There’s a hawk or an eagle or something flying high up there too, gliding effortlessly along the air currents. He watches it for a while. 

When Grian’s hour is up, he gathers his things, and walks back to the tower. 

Scar calls him on the way. 

“Are you there, G-man?” he asks. 

Grian pulls out his radio from his pocket. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I am. Some kids came and took Mumbo’s bike away earlier.”

“Yeah?” Scar says. “How was that? What did they say?”

“They didn’t know much,” Grian says. “A couple of seasonal workers. But it’s fine, I guess. I know the main office will be looking into this again. They told me there might be some aerial searches in the future. I just wish it was higher on the priority list, I guess.”

“Well, they have their priorities and we have ours,” Scar declares. “But I think I can shed a little light on it, maybe. I spent most of the morning on the phone.”

It’s kind, what Scar is doing for him. That Scar is helping him like this at all, not even accounting for spending time scouring his notes from the prior season or spending all morning on the phone. Grian needs to thank him, or convey his appreciation somehow, or apologize for snapping at him so much, but instead all he says is: “What did you find?”

“I wish I had better news,” Scar says. 

Grian locks away the part of him that is always stabbed with instant anxiety over statements like that. He takes it, locks it away, and smooths it over. He’s walking on the trail back to the lookout right now, one foot in front of the other. He can handle just another conversation. 

“Well, I seem to always be lacking in good news,” Grian jokes lightly. “So just give me what you got.”

“I talked to a friend in the main office, she’s really sweet. She went to pull the records for me.”

“They’re still on file? Good.”

“Everything’s on file, Grian,” Scar says. “The government will keep an old shoe for a decade if they think it’s a record, let alone anything that relates to an open case.”

Grian grimaces a little. “Well, go on then.”

“She found his backcountry permit information from last year. And…” Scar trails off for a bit. “He’s permitted for Cloud Lake Trail. He even had designated camping spots, she even told me which ones.”

“So the trail was open?” Grian says. 

“Not exactly,” Scar says. “The trail was closed.”

“What?” Grian says. “They permitted him for a closed trail?”

“Apparently?” Scar says. “That’s what I got.”

“Why?”

“I wish I knew.”

“What else did she say? Who issued the permit?”

“She didn’t say anything else, so I don’t know. I’ve never worked in the main office. I don’t think she was even supposed to tell me that, honestly, but we’ve always got along pretty good since she started working here.”

“Right,” Grian says. “You’re not an information wizard…”

“I have no more information to give, unfortunately,” Scar says. “I am a wizard, though.”

“You are not a wizard.”

“I’m many things, Grian. You’re just a nonbeliever.”

Grian just shakes his head at that, leaving that thread of the conversation behind. There’s just so many questions that keep coming up. 

“So we can agree he was on Cloud Lake,” Grian says. “Right? Regardless of all that, we can assume this right? He told me he was going there, his car was there, he was permitted for it, and someone said they saw him there. So he was there, right? We searched there, and he was there.”

But…

“It seems likely,” Scar says. “At one point, at least.”

“But then someone found his bike over on Pinnacles. How did it get there? Did he go there for some reason?”

“There isn’t an official trail that connects Cloud Lake and Pinnacles. It’s not a loop or a network or anything. Maybe he could have found a way between them or went on an unofficial side trail. There’s a lot of things that look like they could be a trail that aren’t really trails.”

“No,” Grian says. “He knows better than to take an unmarked trail. He said he was getting maps at the office when he got his permit too, so he would have known where the trails were. He wouldn’t have done that.”

“Grian.” 

Just his name, the weight it holds, and nothing else.

Grian’s face crumples a bit. He doesn’t want to admit it. It hurts to admit it.  “Okay, fine!” he cries. “Maybe he did go off-trail, maybe he did make a mistake, whatever. But it’s not his fault if something bad happened, okay? It isn’t.”

There’s another option to all of this that Grian hasn’t said out loud yet. He’s been thinking it off and on though for a long time, as he tries to fit these pieces into the larger puzzle. Nobody had any reason to think about foul play but him. There’s no evidence. But what other evidence do they have?

He went camping. He went missing. The search failed. Some of his belongings were found in the wrong place. 

And that is, essentially, it. 

“Do you think what happened to him…” he trails off. “Do you think it could have been someone else?”

Maybe Mumbo never did make a mistake. Maybe he was exactly where he was supposed to be, sans closed trail, and there was just something else that got in the way. 

“Someone else?” Scar says, tentatively. 

“Do you think someone out there might have taken him? Hurt him?” Grian is back at the base of his tower now, and he looks up at its spiraling staircase. He begins to take the steps one by one, watching as the horizon slowly inches into view as he climbs above the trees. “Did someone steal his bike? Is that why it’s somewhere else?”

“I…” Scar trails off. “I guess we don’t know if something like that happened. G, there’s a lot of ways someone can get in trouble back here.”

“And one of them could have been someone else,” Grian says. “Doesn’t this connect some of the dots, Scar? So much of this doesn’t make sense, but if someone else was involved, couldn’t that answer some of these questions?”

But the words hang heavier in the air now that he’s spoken to them. 

If Mumbo had just gotten lost, or injured, or something else while alone in the woods, Grian has some hope of saving him. Mumbo is blindingly smart, with an engineer’s eye for designing devices and contraptions. He could be okay. He’s a little lost, but Grian can find him. 

But if Mumbo’s incident was linked to another person, the odds in Grian’s mind plummet. If Mumbo ran into someone bad at some point during his trip, would he have escaped that confrontation? If someone had decided to hurt him, or take him, or rob him, or whatever–then Mumbo’s continued absence just looms more and more ominously. 

Would he make it out of something like that? Would he survive it? 

Grian reaches the top of his tower. If he looks straight through the windows of his cabin and out the other side, he can see Scar’s little cabin far in the distance. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “But I don’t think I want to talk about this anymore. Thank you for the new information though.”

He turns his radio off and goes inside. He spends the rest of his work day in silence, watching the smoke twist in the air. 

<< Chapter Five | Masterpost | Chapter Seven >>

[hoarder-of-stories-27]

Hi!Umm, I was a reader of your works on AO3 (the same one who commented on how beautiful your writing was at the end of March on “Forever and Ever”). At the time, I felt pretty bubbly about it. Your stories in general (which I know perfectly well are mostly soft porn and not replicable in real life and still enjoying them for other reasons) gave me quite a few perspectives and debates with myself (in a good way) Part 1/?

1. As a queer kid, you opened up a world to the possibility of HRT, binders, and top surgery. 2. It has helped me to identify signs of triggers and help correctly in real life and 3. It was healthy to read an autistic adult enjoying something they love to do (at least, you always seemed to enjoy writing in your notes. My lil sis is autistic, and sometimes I wonder how I could encourage her as she grows up.) Part 2/? After you told me to stay away from your AO3 - online security issues, which I appreciate because I suck at using the few social have - I kept my promise. At that time I couldn't, now I take to express my sincere apology if I was invasive (or am I? I'm starting to question writing this that I shouldn't have looked for your Tumblr:c) and/or made they uncomfortable ( I was seriously concerned and saddened that this). But this is not exactly why I searched for them after 4 months. Part 3/? Not long ago I created a Twitter account. I started following TGCF artists and other danmei accounts. Inevitably, the hashtag system led me to a danmei confession account in spanish and I said why not *shrugs* In one of his pinned tweets was a doc with a pretty nasty description. It was the callout. Part 4/? Damn, I swear it's the worst vibes text I've read in a long time (only comparable when Jun Wu act canonically being manipulative). Seriously, I've only just started getting involved in fandoms (one year and a half), and I think that scared me from getting with the english MXTX fans. The witch hunt they committed narrated as if it were a pride was quite ... hmm wtf. And when I realized that the user they were attacking was you, I look if you had answered. This brings me to the next point Part 5/? I read your POV and I truly apologize of everyone who bullied you (bc they never will). I really apologize for all the anguish he has been through. I hope that becomes a reality for a full-time commission writer in the future. I am sad that you have lost friends to something that shouldn't have happened. I really apologize for my own behavior in AO3, because the last thing they wanted to do was be a problem when they already had enough on their plate. 6/? I would really love to say “hey, I want to meet you. It doesn't matter what your status is, it's who you are” (and I mean that because you're really cool, but this is probably our only interaction anytime soon [until your consent to it]). I will truly tell you “you deserve love, and I am confident that you will find your special person(s) despite this setback”. Part 7/? I am very happy to read on your tumblr that you already feel (relatively) better about it, that you are flourishing as people, and that your transition process is going very well! It's news that makes me smile, like a queer kid. I hope that you will feel comfortable again and have many cute friends like you. Plural kisses for you! And sorry for writing so much haha. Part 8/8

(Context - this person told me they were a minor in a now-deleted AO3 comment on an M-rated fic. Also, here is my response document.)

Hello! Thank you so much for this message. 🥺❤️❤️❤️ I really appreciate it.

I'm really glad my stories have been positive for you. It means a lot to hear that, and to have confirmation that you understand that they're fiction and (especially with the ones tagged with "underage") not intended as an accurate reflection of how real life works. I do enjoy writing!! It's helped me through a lot of things, and I've had a lot of fun doing it.

Re: making me uncomfortable... if you've read my response document, you know I have P-OCD. I'm sorry I didn't explain myself much when I replied to your comment earlier, but that's a large portion of why I was uncomfortable - I understand that teenagers will seek out porn, and I sought out porn myself as a teenager and it didn't harm me, but it triggers my P-OCD to know that a specific minor has read porn I've written.

Of course, I was also concerned about your safety. It's not good to let people know you're a minor on an account where you engage with sexual content or fandoms for adult media - I've seen too many predators online who will view you as a target if you do that. But there were personal reasons involved for me as well. I really appreciate you caring about that.

You haven't broken any boundaries by sending asks to me on here! This blog is intended to be safe for anyone over 13 (Tumblr's required age) - I do mention topics like kink here from time to time, but nothing more than mentions or mild jokes (or, I think, one singular sex education post once), so I'm okay with minors interacting, with the understanding that minors are not my target audience. I would prefer not to interact anywhere other than this blog until you turn 18, but once that happens, please feel free to kudos/comment on my fics again and/or interact with me on Twitter, etc.!

I really, really appreciate you saying all of that. 🥺❤️ You absolutely don't have to apologize for writing something long. I do have a lot of wonderful people supporting me! I would not be doing so well without them.

I hope you're doing well, other than having that nasty document inflicted on you. 😐 Please stay safe on Twitter, and take care of yourself!

[cattles-bians]

damie vibecca exes au part 8

post directory

obsetress: now i just want fanart of damvibecca at the gym

em: well. pitch it to me comrade ghostfucker

obsetress: idk that's about as far as i got i just reread that bit about vibecca in their matching gym outfits and my brain got stuck

em: hypothetically do u have a colour palette in mind bc i associate gym outfits w like. bright loud colours and

em: idk if it works w our earth sign queens

[em note: emily is a liar and did NOT draw fanart of damvibecca at the gym]

[em note 2: we have the gym art now [x] [x]]

obsetress: i was imagining like charcoals tbh, or jewel tones

obsetress: i could see them in like jewel tone purples or that jewel tone blue green color

obsetress: yeah viola jewel tones or blacks n charcoals

obsetress: becs pastels and camels but jewel tones at the gym

em: it’s about Matching

em: And Destroying Ur Ex (platonically)

obsetress: yeah

obsetress: viola's feeling particularly smug about it but then

obsetress: dani's in an old school tshirt and shorts and jamie's in............ one of dani's old school tshirts and shorts

em: YES

obsetress: not intentionally, she just grabbed whatever was there

obsetress: dani chirps "oh you two look so cute! baby look, they have a matched set"

obsetress: viola arches an eyebrow "and so do you, it seems" and dani laughs "not on purpose, jamie just grabbed whatever was on top in the drawer"

viola: you two... share... a wardrobe?

dani: yeah?

em: god cute

obsetress: cute n dumb

em: they can share nearly everything except pants

em: well. pants as a treat

em: haha pants

em: trousers

obsetress: also rly nice rly clean smooth funny juxtaposition in my brain of vibecca being the ones who intentionally match and damie the ones for whom it just accidentally happens

obsetress: hahahah pants

obsetress: they can share pants but................ should they

em: idk miss chapter 12 danis thighs jamies pyjamas

em: should they

obsetress: PLEASE

obsetress: that's exactly what i was referring to THANKS

obsetress: anyway

obsetress: rebecca just laughs

obsetress: viola huffs and bex is like "sorry, babe, but it is kind of funny"

em: dani jamie wearing like

obsetress: YEAH

obsetress: MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY

em: poor viola

obsetress: thinking about dani's ass in those

em: yeah....

em: violas huffing until jamies exercise flush lasts a little Too Long

obsetress: big blush jamie taylor

em: she’s still like ‘oi dani close ur mouth’ but then she

obsetress: yeah

obsetress: just ogling each other

obsetress: (they briefly pause to ogle vi and rebecca passing a medicine ball back and forth as they do squats and have to acknowledge that, yeah, they've all done alright by themselves)

em: funny montage of the gang doing exercise while surreptitiously taking Peaks

obsetress: omg all i want

obsetress:sometimes having friends as a lesbian means they're all your exes except one, who's your gf, and you're all checking each other out always anyway

em

And That’s Beautiful

obsetress

obsetress: dani: checking out viola's biceps, rebecca's abs

viola: checking out dani's thighs n ass

rebecca: minding her business

jamie: scowling n scrawny

obsetress:(n also checking out dani's thighs n ass, viola's biceps, and begrudgingly peeking at rebecca's abs)

obsetress: every other woman at the gym: checking out jamie, trying to figure out the entire dynamic here

are they a polycule? what

em: jamie probably like

em: maybe she gets really into running bc she just checks out and listens to her audiobooks but like

em: slow twitch vs fast twitch fibers so stays scrawny

obsetress: i can see that

obsetress: just gets on the treadmill and zones tf out

em: jamie ‘why don’t i have biceps’ taylor vs jamie ‘no u gotta lift w ur hips’ taylor

obsetress: she hates it but her psych told her it'll be good for her routine so you know she was like yes ma'am every day ma'am

em: cant believe safe lifting procedures screwed her over

em: ‘yes ma’am every day ma’am’ ur just Going for it arent ya anshdjdh

obsetress: sorry but don't tell me you can't hear it

obsetress: jamie's the person who takes notes in therapy

obsetress: jamie, in the locker room after their workout: do my biceps look bigger?

dani, patiently, already knowing where this is going: bigger than what, baby?

jamie: than yesterday

dani: mm, rome wasn't built in a day, you know

jamie: do they look bigger at all?

dani: well

em: i mean not to perceive her too much but mattresses scene indicates AE/jamie like. at least some muscle in the leg area

em: poor jamie

em: not playing to her strengths

obsetress: yeah she does

obsetress: i mean ae has toned af arms

obsetress: she's just wiry

em: how could i forget the benchpressing dog gif

obsetress: dani's like "jamie, baby, come do squats with me and vi" "m'good" "baby, c'mon, you'll like it" "don't wanna do squats" "it could be good for you" "don't wanna do squats with you two"

em: dani: you gotta like. eat more

jamie: i eat plenty

dani: no u graze all day and then u don’t eat dinner

obsetress: dani: five biscuits spread out across a day doesn't count as eating more

em: dani: protein jamie it’s abt protein

obsetress: dani: you need more protein, which is why i think some lentils would really––

em: jamie thinks protein shakes are Nasty

obsetress: jamie does think protein shakes are nasty but dani will make her a smoothie and sneak it in like she's a child

obsetress: viola and rebecca, with their matching monogrammed blender bottles, just staring

obsetress: becca's like "jamie, just drink it, really, it's fine"

obsetress: viola just does this haughty sniff at her and that's what finally gets jamie to start

em: jamie can deal w being a brat but the idea of viola having Anything over her drives her Insane

em: Drives Her Fuckign Nuts

obsetress: she hates it

obsetress: just the absolute fuckin worst

em: do u think dani ever like

em: like they REALLY need to clear out storage but it’s a boiling frog situation where it’s increased so gradually that

em: like jamie thinks it’s Fine storage is Clear Enough

em: it’s Not

em: danis like. should we invite rebecca and vi over

em: just be Idea of A Snide Viola Comment fills jamie w a burning rage

obsetress: oh my god

obsetress: i'm obsessed with this

obsetress: i would read a whole oneshot about this

em: eventually dani comes clean abt it n jamie thinks it’s v funny bc yknow; open and honest communication is a v important part of their dynamic

em: jamie: next time just tell me my storage looks like shite dani or i will be grumbling abt viola for a Week

obsetress: inevitably

obsetress: when they do have to come over to clean

obsetress: dani offers them takeout and wine ("step up from pizza and beer at least," jamie grumbles) and viola's like "jesus, dani, let's just go out to dinner. my treat"

obsetress: at dinner, viola's like "if you want more storage, i have some wonderful properties––"

obsetress: rebecca's mouthing "sorry" from next to her across the table

em: every time they go out rebecca takes vi aside n is like ok sweetheart so you promise you’re not gonna try convince them to sell the apartment again

em: and violas like (mock horror) of course i won’t. ye of little faith

em: and every time

em: every time she does

em: she’s tryna HELP

obsetress: she would too she'd be like

obsetress: "i'm just trying to HELP"

obsetress: "they're our FRIENDS"

em: i’m on a mission to figure out like

em: this is way way down the line

em: but i wanna believe eventually viola and jamie start to, at the v least, Tolerate each other

em: jamie might even be fond of the crazy bird but she’ll NEVER admit it

obsetress: god like vi's on business or some shit in like

obsetress: the UAE

obsetress: negotiating some Deal

obsetress: and so dani and jamie get dinner with just bex and they're driving home after and having a perfectly mundane conversation and then jamie's just blurting like

obsetress: "i think i miss vi"

em: she’s HORRIFIED

em: she tries to play it off as like um

em: she’s Too Comfortable

em: things are Too Boring

em: which is weird knowing everything we know abt jamie

em: but actually she just... maybe misses viola

em: danis like god i wish i was recording this

obsetress: jamie's passed out next to her at home later (it's ten pm) and dani's chattering happily away on the phone with vi (drinking a martini in her dubai hotel room at one am since, y'know, no bars) in bed right next to her

obsetress: "jamie, uh, said she misses you. i know. no, i KNOW. don't tell her i told you. yeah, yeah, you win, vi, we know. uh-huh. uh-huh. i'm gonna pretend you didn't just ask me that"

em: CUTE

em: u can’t lord it over her vi it’s a little secret

em: vi's like when have i EVER

em: she does

obsetress: once they're good again, dani and vi absolutely just. lose time (there's a metaphor in there) talking to each other still

em: this is wholesome tbh

em: i really like the damie stories where like

em: look it’s nice when damie have each other but it’s also nice when they have their own friends and stuff

em: dunno how to articulate that well

em: it’s a balance! it’s a balance

obsetress: yeah! exactly

obsetress: because that's part of the love n possession thing too yk

obsetress: not to say either of them would ever be like "no friends for you" but

obsetress: wanting to have a life outside of your partner yk

obsetress: they're meeting vi and rebecca for dinner after vi gets back and vi's just grinning and sweeping jamie into a hug "i heard you missed me"

em: she gets jamie a souvenir t-shirt

em: it’s too big

em: OR

em: child’s t-shirt

obsetress: (jamie sleeps in it that night)

obsetress: oh childs might be better

obsetress: she's like "you're a little scrawny, so..."

em: jamie sleeps in it.... soft bitch

em: she feels too much

obsetress: jamie taylor softest bitch

obsetress: dani watches her pull it on and raises an eyebrow and jamie's just like "wot"

em: jamies like (grumbles) i knew she was comin back i’m just

em: shouldn’t you be HAPPY about this development dani

em: ‘s’a gift... s’rude not t’....’

obsetress: YEAH

obsetress: dani just grins "mmhm"

em: it accidentally makes its way into jamies workout clothes pile

obsetress: oh my GOD oh my god

obsetress: viola's shit eating GRIN when jamie shows up at the gym in it

em: jamies like fok

em: mental maths tryna figure if she wants to just. work out in a sports bra

em: she Doesn’t

obsetress: she Doesn't!

obsetress: (she's shy)

em: god it’s one of those shirts that’s like

em: someone who loves me went to UAE and got me this t-shirt or something

obsetress: dani corners her in their empty row in the locker room "you could've just taken it off, you know" "dunno, not everyone needs to... see that, you know?" "i'd certainly like to see it" jamie rolls her eyes but she's grinning "you can see that any time" "well maybe i wanted to see it during my workout" "dani......."

em: jamies embarrassed bc of her gnarly farmers tan means her tummy is at least five shades lighter than the rest of her

em: crisp tan lines

obsetress: god jamie's farmers tan

em: once again i am bringing my tan lines jamie agenda

obsetress: dani loves jamies dumb farmers tan so much

obsetress: she giggles

obsetress: but it's the most loving giggle possible

em: and then when she gets into running...

em: god when i was rowing there were a couple ppl w like what i called a neapolitan icecream tan which is

em: gimme a second

obsetress: jamie gets all huffy when dani giggles at her tan but then dani's like "baby, no, i think it's cute" and jamie gives her a look and dani grins mischievously and ducks her head

obsetress: and then she's licking and kissing and nipping her way along jamie's dumb tan lines

em: there it is

obsetress: it was inevitable

em: so caught up in the joy of jamies dumb farmer tans i forgot abt her gnarly scar she keeps under wraps

em: baby

em: the most baby

obsetress: baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

em: jamie decides the only way to claim the stupid t-shirt as hers is to cut off the sleeves

em: it’s abt the ritual of the thing

obsetress: she shows up at the gym wearing it and

obsetress: that's viola's "oh no she's hot" moment

em: YEAH BABY

obsetress: literally just like

obsetress: world stops

obsetress: viola stares

em: jamie finally gets to do an exercise that shows off her sinewy manual labor grip forearms

em: viola’s probably just as horrified to find jamie hot as every time jamies like oh no

em: violas hot

em: and once again jamie CANNOT know she’s hot bc she will be insufferable

em: she will be the Worst

obsetress: viola's tugging rebecca aside "why didn't you tell me jamie was hot" "what?" viola waves a hand and rebecca just furrows her brow a little and is like "that's just... what she looks like, vi"

obsetress: viola corners dani next "why didn't you tell me jamie was hot" "i did" "oh. right" viola pauses, then "why didn't you make sure i was listening?" dani just gives her a look and walks away

obsetress: dflksdjfldaj god the way jamie and viola are. the same

obsetress: kind of incredibly, in the same ways dani and rebecca are the same

em: “hey baby, did viola seem different today? seemed off”

em: jamies like. is she mad at me. did i break another social taboo.

em: rebecca ‘jamie looks like jamie’ jessel vs dani ‘my gf is so hot i can’t stand it’ clayton

obsetress: "i tell you how hot she is at least three times a week, vi"

em: danis tryna goad her into making the damn shirt a crop top

em: jamies like yeah but isn’t that a step too far. i feel like i am destroying this shirt too much

em: she does it anyway

em: so jamies workout clothes are danis endless grey baggy school t-shirts and this one ugly souvenir shirt that like

em: psychological warfare and she doesn’t even know it

obsetress: i would........ like to see it

obsetress: also crop top jamie is one of my favorite jamies

obsetress: she is severely underrated

em: crop top jamie is

obsetress: and we do not talk about her enough

em: jamie wear More crop tops

obsetress: viola and rebecca in bed, in matching facemasks, after going to the gym post-epiphany that Jamie Is Hot

obsetress: viola: are dani and jamie hotter than us?

rebecca: what?

obsetress: and like

obsetress: viola is NOT insecure

obsetress: she is constantly confident that she's the most attractive woman in the room at any given moment, but

obsetress: she's just so staggered by this realization

em: some neutral third party (ms grose and mr sharma probably) are like well. u guys definitely have a little more of a scary thing going on

em: i’m imagining rebecca and viola at brunch w hannah and owen v seriously discussing this

em: viola brings it up and rebecca GROANS but then she gets invested in the convo

obsetress: GOD yeah

obsetress: she's leaning forward and gesturing with her fork "when you say 'scary'..........."

em: owens like scary is a compliment

em: hannah grose sips her tea knowingly

obsetress: rebecca just narrows her eyes at hannah grose and hannah raises her eyebrows and shrugs

em: after a week or so viola bursts into a room w stupid big sunglasses and a tray of take out coffees and she’s like Don’t You Worry Jamie I Have Concluded You’re Hot But I’m Not Threatened By It

em: jamies like sorry WHAT

em: you’ve been thinking about WHAT

em: viola leaves without ever following it up

obsetress: dani is entirely unfazed

obsetress: doesn't even blink

em: danis like neat she remembered the oat milk

em: everyone in this au is insane

obsetress: any lesbian in 2021 is insane

obsetress: par for the course

em: was gonna protest but

em: Yeah

obsetress: this lesbian meme account i follow on insta is doing “stop asking who’s the top and who’s the bottom. start asking...” posts

obsetress: and one of them is “start asking who’s baby and who’s fuck around and find out” and it just makes me chuckle

obsetress: jamie taylor baby

obsetress: viola lloyd also baby

em: dani is baby passing and jamie is fuck around faking

obsetress: oh my god that’s why that’s why i think we cracked it

obsetress: dani (fuck around) dated jamie (baby) and vi (baby)

obsetress: rebecca (fuck around) dated jamie (baby) and vi (baby)

obsetress: the reason they could never cross further even tho per the transitive property dani (so similar to vi) should be able to date beccs and jamie (so similar to beccs) should be able to date vi is because

obsetress: you can’t have two babies and two fuck arounds in a relationship together

em: oh of course. i see. i see

em: however in the rare rare crack ship of the ‘jamie viola hatefuck’ a similar phenomenon to ‘social anxiety mum friend ordering food’ instinct takes over and someone fucks around and finds out

em: this is just my unhinged jamie viola hatefuck bulkshit which is. it’s ironic ok it’s ironic it’s ironic it’s

em: ok one last thought bc i know it’s super late for u but

obsetress: omg i also have a last thought let’s trade

em: what if mikey is about isabels age n jamie ends up looking after him for one reason or another for a bit

em: and viola absolutely Dotes on him

obsetress: omg

obsetress: that’s what does it. jamie seeing viola w mikey

em: grumble grumble i guess she’s not that bad

em: except then she’s like god what if mikey likes her MORE than me

obsetress: “dani what if mikey gets one of those weird first crushes on vi”

obsetress: dani doesn’t even look up from the laundry “who hasn’t had a crush on vi”

obsetress: jamie’s like “mE” and dani just gives her the most withering look

em: danis like It’s Par For The Course Jamie

em: danis a teacher she’s like it happens don’t sweat it

em: anyway

em: what was. what was ur last little thought

obsetress: i was just thinking more about viola also baby and how also she’s been so privileged her whole life that sometimes there are just some things she can’t do for herself because she just doesn’t know how

obsetress: like she’s never had to learn

em: rebecca gets um

em: freeze dried coffee

em: nescafé

obsetress: but like

obsetress: rebecca genuinely loves taking care of vi for whatever reason (it’s because she loves her) when she really needs it but

obsetress: rebecca also takes no shit and is like “i’m not making the nescafé for you. you’re 36 years old, vi, you need to learn to do it for yourself”

obsetress: and she’ll stand there and watch her do it and then she makes vi do it at least three more times for posterity

obsetress: “i’ll make a plebeian of you yet, viola lloyd”

obsetress: (god only the two of them would think a line like that is funny)

[jazziehart]

Taylor Swift Albums Reviews

Hello my lovely blog readers,

I want to thank those of you who stick around through all my crazy rants and long Glee posts. You guys are the real MVPs and I will always appreciate you.

Anyway onto why we're here, in the wake of Taylor rereleasing her albums I found it fitting to take a look back at her discorgaphy so far! Thanks to my good friend Aly, I decided to relisten to all of her albums which the order was randomly decided. I will be talking about the deluxe editions so enjoy!

Let's start off with the first album that was drawn first which was Red.

One of my favorite albums right off the bat with probably her best album cover. I remember how excited I was for 22, mostly because my girl Dianna Agron's name was in the liner notes. Let's dive into what I thought now about 9 years later!

Favorite Track: Begin Again Least Favorite Track: The Last Time (featuring Gary Lightbody) Bonus Track I Wish was on the main album: All of them!!! Favorite Bonus Track: The Moment I Knew Album Ranking: 6th/9

Overall I adore this album so so much. The only track I didn't care for in the least was The Last Time. I think you'll find a trend with me that my least favorite Tayor tracks tend to be her duets (the exception being Everything Has Changed which is also on this album and is the purest of all). The album has held up and even moreso I love it than the first time I listened. Crazy. Anyway onto the rankings of each song. DISCLAIMER: These are just my opinions and you can disagree with them but please be respectful.

1) Begin Again 2) The Moment I Knew 3) State of Grace (Acoustic Version) 4) I Almost Do 5) Stay Stay Stay 6) All Too Well 7) Everything Has Changed (featuring Ed Sheeran) 8) 22 9) Come Back...Be Here 10) Red 11) I Knew You Were Trouble 12) The Lucky One 13) We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together 14) Starlight 15) Girl at Home 16) Sad Beautiful Tragic 17) State of Grace 18) Holy Ground 19) Treacherous 20) The Last Time (featuring Gary Lightbody)

Honestly I adore this album so much as a whole and ranking every song was so hard. Holy Ground honestly had a lot of potiental I hated the arrangement but if I heard an acoustic version I would be sold, much like State of Grace which I wasn't huge on the original but the acoustic I'm obsessed with. Moving onto our second album which is one of Taylor's newest.

folklore! Funny enough on first listen I wasn't as into it as everyone else was but trust me, the relisten definitely helped me change my mind. I also heard the lakes for the first time which I loved. Since it's the only bonus track I'm going to say I definitely wished it had made the main album over some of the other songs on it. Let's dive into my thoughts and rankings.

Favorite Track: mad woman Least Favorite Track: invisible string Album Ranking: 9th/9

1) mad woman 2) the 1 3) the last great american dynasty 4) mirrorball 5) hoax 6) peace 7) seven 8) august 9) my tears richocet 10) the lakes 11) cardigan 12) betty 13) illicit affairs 14) epiphany 15) this is me trying 16) exile (featuring Bon Iver) 17) invisible string

Okay I know cardigan and betty being so low is going make people unhappy but honestly I just loved the other songs better listed above it. So many gorgeous songs and a great era for Taylor. It's not my favorite era and still falls in my lower half of her albums but I can appreciate the tracks on it more than I did before with the relisten.

Now onto Taylor's most recent album which came up next in our randomization in evermore

Unlike folklore on original listen I absolutely adored this album and had it in my top tier Taylor albums but will that opinion hold up? Let's find out.

Favorite Track: no body, no crime (featuring HAIM) Least Favorite Track: gold rush Favorite Bonus Track: it's time to go Album Ranking: 7th/9

1) no body, no crime (featuring HAIM) 2) happiness 3) champagne problems 4) willow 5) cowboy like me 6) dorothea 7) majorie 8) evermore (featuring Bon Iver) 9) closure 10) long story short 11) ‘tis the damn season 12) ivy 13) it’s time to go 14) coney island (featuring The National) 15) right where you left me 16) tolerate it 17) gold rush Okay let's talk about the relisten, it still held up but to me the one thing I didn't love about the album was the bonus tracks didn't add much to the original album so I kind of see why they were bonus tracks. I enjoyed the album none the less and I do think that most of my opinions are somewhat popular. I only see people being mad about 'tis the damn season being so low but honestly 1-11, I loved all the tracks so.

Up next is the rerelease that started it all, Fearless!

Now let's see after 13 years (hey Taylor's lucky number) if my opinion of this iconic album changed. Back in the day I was so obsessed with this album so let's see how I feel now!

Favorite Track: You're Not Sorry Least Favorite Track: The Way I Loved You Bonus Tracks I Wish was on the main album: Forever and Always (Piano Verison) and Come in with the Rain Favorite Bonus Track: Forever and Always (Piano Version) Album Ranking: 4th/9

1) You’re Not Sorry 2) White Horse 3) Love Story 4) You Belong with Me 5) Change 6) Forever and Always (Piano Version) 7) Fifteen 8) Hey Stephen 9) Come in with the Rain 10) Jump Then Fall 11) Fearless 12) Forever and Always 13) The Best Day 14) The Other Side of the Door 15) Breathe (featuring Colbie Cailaitt) 16) Untouchable 17) SuperStar 18) Tell Me Why 19) The Way I Loved You

I still remember when this album was first coming out how jazzed and excited I was for it. It was highly anticipated for me being that I had fallen in love with Taylor from her debut album and listening back it still holds up as one of my favorite albums. The only two tracks I wasn't into back then and still am not into are Tell Me Why and The Way I Loved You. Other than those two tracks the entire album is incredible to listen to. I'm so excited to hear Taylor's versions of all these songs and who knows maybe my mind will change on some of them.

Moving onto the next album to be randomly selected which is almost every Swiftie's favorite 1989.

Funny enough, originally this album isn't in my top favorites so who knows if my opinion will change on a relisten. Let's find out!

Favorite Track: Clean Least Favorite Track: I Wish You Would Bonus Tracks I Wish was on the main album: All of them?! Come on Taylor what's up with 1989 and Red having like some of their best tracks as bonus tracks. I'm mad haha. Favorite Bonus Track: Wonderland (gee I wonder why) Album Ranking: 5th/9

1) Clean 2) Wonderland 3) Wildest Dreams 4) This Love 5) You are in Love 6) Welcome to New York 7) Shake It Off 8) Blank Space 9) Bad Blood 10) Style 11) How You Get the Girl 12) Out of the Woods 13) New Romantics 14) I Know Places 15) All You Had to Do was Stay 16) I Wish You Would

Okay listening back. I now get the hype behind it. Listening to it with bonus tracks honestly makes all the difference. No joke. It's a much better album with the bonus tracks added. Honestly if Wonderland and You are in Love were on the main album it would've been top tier to me. Thank God for the deluxe version but team Taylor what is up with you hiding some of her best tracks and only releasing them on the bonus tracks? I'm mad. Also speaking on Wonderland, I adore the song even without the rumours of it being about my favorite celebrity Dianna Agron. Had the bonus tracks been on the main album it would higher but as a whole I love the album.

And now for our next album, which is reputation!

This is probably Taylor's most controversial albums, some love it and some hate it. I actually am somewhere in the middle. I love some of the tracks while others I could've done without. Let's see where it goes for me listening back.

Favorite Song: New Year's Day Least Favorite: Dancing with Our Hands Tied Album Ranking: 8th/9

1) New Year's Day 2) Gorgeous 3) Don’t Blame Me 4) This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things 5) I Did Something Bad 6) Dress 7) Delicate 8) Call It What You Want To 9) ...Ready for It? 10) Look What You Made Me Do 11) King of my Heart 12) Getaway Car 13) So It Goes... 14) End Game (featuring Ed Sheeran and Future) 15) Dancing with Our Hands Tied

Okay I feel like my choices here are controversal especially Getaway Car being pretty low on the album. Honestly I liked the song just wasn't into the hype that everyone else said about it, sorry you guys. Also Dancing with Our Hands Tied on the ALBUM is my least favorie song. I absolutely adored Taylor's acoustic version that was in the rep Tour. Had she released that on the album it would be after Look What You Made Me Do. The arrangement on the album I just didn't care for and I prefer acoustic Taylor which I think a lot of you gather from my top picks.

Anyway moving onto to our next album that was randomized which is...Taylor Swift!

Ah yes the album that started it all. 15 years ago I discovered Taylor Swift via this album thanks to CMT. I was a huge country music stan back in the day who knew how this one album would lead to a career I've been following for 15 years. Now how does this album hold up? Let's find out!

Favorite Song: Should've Said No Least Favorite Song: A Perfectly Good Heart Bonus Tracks I Wish was on the main album: Invisible and I'm Only Me When I'm with You Favorite Bonus Track: Invisible Album Ranking: 3rd/9

1) Should’ve Said No 2) Invisible 3) Cold as You 4) Picture to Burn 5) Our Song 6) The Outside 7) A Place in This World 8) Teardrops on My Guitar 9) Stay Beautiful 10) Tim McGraw 11) I’m Only Me When I’m with You 12) Mary’s Song (Oh My My My) 13) Tied Together with a Smile 14) A Perfectly Good Heart

This album still holds up 15 years later and made me so nostalgic. This had to be the hardest album for songs to rank thus far. Taylor hit it out of the park on her very first album crazy. She set the bar very high, funny enough it's the first album that a bonus track is my least favorite track but the entire album is a great listen, especially if you love country. It's very different from anything else Taylor did but that's what's so charming about it.

And now onto our second to last album which is another one of my favorites and the only album Taylor wrote fully on her own, Speak Now.

The album cover is up there with Red as my favorite and I'm excited to listen back to this album. I remember how much I enjoyed it when it was first released. Excited to see what I think 11 years later. Let's find out.

Favorite Track: Haunted (Acoustic Version) Least Favorite Track: Last Kiss Bonus Tracks I Wish was on the main album: All of them. Dang it Taylor they deserved to be on the main album. Favorite Bonus Track: Haunted (Acoustic Version) Album Ranking: 2nd/9

1) Haunted (Acoustic Version) 2) Long Live 3) Haunted 4) Better Than Revenge 5) Back to December (Acoustic Version) 6) Mine 7) Back to December 8) Mean 9) If This Was a Movie 10) Innocent 11) Dear John 12) Speak Now 13) Ours 14) Never Grow Up 15) The Story of Us 16) Superman 17) Enchanted 18) Sparks Fly 19) Last Kiss

One of Taylor's absolute best albms and it was incredibly hard to rank these songs. I know people are going to be mad about Enchanted being low but I just didn't love it as much as the other tracks on the album, this after all is one of the best albums she ever released so it's incredibly hard to make the call.

Moving onto our final album which I've called my absolute favorite, Lover.

It's only been an year since its release but will it hold up as my favorite album? Let's find out!

Favorite Track: Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince Least Favorite Track: It’s Nice to Have a Friend Album Ranking: 1st/9

1) Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince 2) Paper Rings 3) Lover 4) Soon You’ll Get Better (featuring The Chicks) 5) You Need to Calm Down 6) The Archer 7) The Man 8) Daylight 9) Afterglow 10) I Think He Knows 11) False God 12) Death by a Thousand Cuts 13) Cruel Summer 14) Cornelia Street 15) I Forgot That You Existed 16) ME! (featuring Brendan Urie from Panic! at the Disco) 17) London Boy 18) It’s Nice to Have a Friend

Yep it held up. This album is my favorite thing Taylor ever released. It was a tough call because I loved all of her top albums so much. Miss Americana still is my favorite performance which is no surprise, I was obsessed when this song came out 2 years ago. It's Nice to Have a Friend is the weakest track on the album but by no means is it a bad track. The entire album is a great listen all the way through, the only song that's hard to listen to especially if you have a sick parent "Soon You'll Get Better" I literally bawled after I finished it. So if you don't want an emotional song that might make you sad, it's best to skip it even though it's one of favorite tracks.

And that does it for us here. Hope you enjoyed my album reviews! Just to recap here's the rankings of all of Taylor's Albums:

1) Lover 2) Speak Now 3) Taylor Swift 4) Fearless 5) 1989 6) Red 7) evermore 8) reputation 9) folklore

Excited to see what's to come with the rerelease of Fearless and to hear the songs released from the vault. I've heard a few of her unreleased songs and honestly there are quite a few that I'm hoping are released. Thanks for enjoying us on this journey as always be kind and always spread love <3

[adamalade]

I posted 2,199 times in 2021

483 posts created (22%)

1716 posts reblogged (78%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 3.6 posts.

I added 585 tags in 2021

#mcu - 92 posts

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#daredevil - 63 posts

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#spiderman - 48 posts

#matt murdock - 45 posts

#the punisher - 43 posts

#frank castle - 41 posts

#spider man - 31 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#let me give back to mother earth in a way i fundamentally can't when i'm a selfish sentient human being without giving up my happiness!!!!

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

YWSBHT alignment memes (part one)

See the full post

294 notes • Posted 2021-07-09 05:06:16 GMT

#4

space orcs

the humans and aliens are working together. the humans are playing terran music. it sort of confused the aliens, but whatever, it’s fine.

*bohemian rhapsody begins to play*

8/9 humans: IS THIS THE REAL LIFE? IS THIS JUST FANTASY? CAUGHT IN A LANDSLIDE (NO ES)CAPE FROM REALITY!!!

aliens: what

*a few minutes*

humans: SOMETIMES WISH ID NEVER BEEN BORN AT ALL - DUNDNDDUNDDUDNDNUDNU

aliens, frantically calling the captain: PLEASE CAPTAIN ZIRK WE MUST INFORM THE COUNCIL!!! THEY ARE SCREAMING AS A PART OF A HIVE MIND!!!!

378 notes • Posted 2021-02-24 19:43:27 GMT

#3

percy, taking a pic with a shark: haha

his mortal friends viewing the pic on instagram: wtf

441 notes • Posted 2021-03-19 02:36:35 GMT

#2

karen: FIGHT ME

frank, 2 feet behind her: i am perfectly aware that she is able to take care of herself, but you bet your @$$ that if you touch a single hair on her head you will never see the light of day ever again

frank: she has a gun that she will use, even if she dislikes using it. i have many guns that i actually really like using. you can see where i am going with this

475 notes • Posted 2021-05-16 18:14:20 GMT

#1

space orcs

human: *cutting nails*

alien: WHY ARE YOU PURPOSEFULLY HURTING YOURSELF??? IS THIS A FORM OF SELF HARM?? DO I NEED TO CALL SOMEONE???

human: what no im just cutting my nails?? theyre dead, they dont hurt or anything

alien: like... like your hair?

human: yeah, we cut our hair and nails so they don’t get too long and get in the way of stuff

alien: how strange. *writing: some parts of human body are actually dead. do not worry if you see human purposefully harming these parts.*

edit: why is this my most liked post?????? please,, i have so many other posts and this one is so random,,,

849 notes • Posted 2021-02-24 18:54:52 GMT

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