#im posting this early enough in the night that im not actively fighting off the delirium of insomnia

[weepingfromacedartree]

Ten Milestones (Interlude): The Usual Spot

Hi friends!

The last interlude is live 🥳

May 9th, 2022

Monday

This morning, like most Monday mornings over the last twelve or so months, Colin is standing outside a coffee shop in Central London. He’s waiting for Penelope to arrive, which only happens about 33.33% of the time on mornings like this; usually, she beats him here. 

She mouths “Sorry” from across the street at 8:34 AM — approximately seven minutes later than she usually arrives. Colin gives her a thumbs down and a sarcastic scowl in response. For about 30 seconds, he watches as she stands there, an unwitting smile rising then fading on her face; the passing traffic between them cuts up her movements like frames of an old movie. 

Inside, she orders a croissant and a coffee with cream and sugar. He orders a sandwich and a drink with a silly name and a composition of at least 50% sugar. They leave the shop at 8:44 with their breakfasts in hand. As they start on a familiar route, they pick up a familiar conversation.

“So… What’s your pitch for today?” 

“Ithaboutuh,” Penelope mumbles, still chewing on her pastry. She swallows, then clarifies, “About the Premier League.” 

“Really?” Colin chuckles. “That doesn’t sound like a typical topic for a Penelope Featherington column.” 

“Well, it’s less about the club itself and more about the effects it has on local tourism. You know — fans flying in from around the world, hotel rates skyrocketing, local businesses bringing in more cash, drunk Americans getting mugged at increasing rates, et cetera.” 

Colin snorts. 

“Sounds like something Danbury would like.” 

“That wasn’t my reason for choosing the pitch — but Danbury’s approval always helps Monday mornings go smoother.”

When they halt at a crosswalk, Penelope sips her coffee while Colin thinks over her pitch. Just as the little green man lights up and signals for them to continue forward, he clears his throat.

“If you want to do some on the ground research on crazed football fans, I bet Michael could get us two tickets to the Arsenal game on Friday.” 

“Friday?” she echoes, her brows stitching together. She sounds confused, like the two syllables don’t fit together correctly in her mouth. 

“Um. Yes?”

“Friday night?”

“Yes,” he confirms, slightly more assured this time. 

She takes another sip of her drink before saying anything else. From the way she tilts her head back, it appears to be the last sip. 

“That’s a great idea, but I —” She takes a breath. “I’m busy on Friday night. Unfortunately.”

“Oh, that’s —” 

Fine, is what he was about to say. Objectively, it is fine. Penelope is a busy person with a full life. She doesn’t have to come running whenever Colin wants to hang out with her. (Which is just about always, these days.) 

It is fine. But Penelope’s sudden change in demeanour…

“Is something wrong, Pen?” 

“No!” she answers quickly. “I just — I have plans.” 

Colin takes a sip of his own drink. He uses those few seconds to mull over her words. He doesn’t want to pry, but he also knows there is something under the surface that Penelope isn’t saying.

“Do you already have tickets for the Arsenal game? If so, I promise I won’t be offended. Well, not too off—”

“No, I just have a date.” 

She says those words casually, as if they would have no impact on him, past clarifying the nature of her plans on Friday night. Objectively, this makes sense, seeing as Colin has never said anything that would make her believe otherwise. 

They do have an added impact, though. Even if Colin knows that’s ridiculous. Even if he knows that Penelope can and does date people who are not him. Even if they’ve discussed this subject in the past. Even if he knows they could put it to rest once and for all, if only he weren’t too scared to —

“A non-football related date,” Penelope clarifies with a soft chuckle, only after Colin doesn’t respond for several seconds. 

“Oh! That’s —”

He searches his brain for something logical to say. He has trouble doing so, though; his brain is too busy focusing on one particular image, instead. 

A pale blue envelope. One that arrived at his own flat yesterday and is currently sitting unopened on the counter in his kitchen. 

“Does this have to do with Ben’s Save The Date going out? That’s over five months away. You have plenty of time to secure a da—”

“No, Colin,” Penelope interrupts, her tone suddenly defensive. She throws her empty coffee cup into a nearby trash can; he can practically hear it rattle against the metal basin as it drops to the bottom. Then, beneath her breath, she delivers him the most devastating insult he’s ever heard. 

“You sound like my mum.” 

“Woah! I —”

“I do date, you know. And not just to ‘secure’ a date for a wedding several months from now.” 

“I know,” Colin claims, sounding just as defensive as her. He tries to tone it down as he continues, “I know that, Pen. The timing just made me think the two could be related.” 

“Well, they’re not.” 

When she offers no further details — when she doesn’t say anything at all — Colin can’t help but ask the question currently weighing heavily on his mind. 

“So, uh… Who with? I didn’t know you were — uh — seeing anyone at the moment.” 

Penelope swallows, then looks up. They’re a few steps away from her office. 

“A coworker. We aren’t ‘seeing’ each other, he just asked if I wanted to get dinner with him after work on Friday.” 

Stupid fucking wanker.

“That’s great, Pen,” Colin says through a smile and gritted teeth. Then, despite his better judgement…

“What’s his name?”

“Sam Debling,” Penelope says, still looking straight ahead. “You don’t know him. He’s, um, new to the city.” 

She’s right. The name doesn’t sound the least bit familiar to Colin. He sounds like a right prick, though. 

“That’s —”

“Oh!” Her voice goes up nearly an entire octave. She’s looking down to her phone. “I have to run — I can’t be late for this meeting. I’ll talk to you later!”

Before he can return the goodbye, Penelope turns on her heel and disappears into the lobby of Queenmaker Magazine. 

Once alone, Colin raises his drink to his lips and whispers one word into its half-empty interior. 

“Fuck.”

꙳ ꙳ ꙳

On Monday mornings, after dropping Penelope off at her office, Colin usually goes to the gym. Sometimes he visits Anthony at the firm. Sometimes he heads to Mayfair. Sometimes he gets work done at a park or a library or anywhere that isn’t his usual office. (His bed.) 

On this Monday morning, Colin goes straight home to his flat. 

The walk from Central London to Bloomsbury is long and bothersome. He spends most of that time swatting away the first flies of summer and unwittingly recalling Penelope’s words from earlier. Each step only sharpens the sting of annoyance in his gut.

A coworker. Sam Debling.

As he cuts through Russell Square (annoyingly over-populated with happy couples this morning), the irony of the situation does not escape Colin’s notice. For the first 25 years of his life, at least he was ignorant to his ever-growing feelings for Penelope. But what’s his excuse now? Timing? Fear? A lack of a sign? 

I do date. 

As he rounds the final corner to his flat, Colin thinks over those excuses. The ones he has gripped onto and subsequently lost sight of over the last four years. In truth, he doesn’t fully know why he remains quiet. It’s difficult for him to put into words. But still, there’s a block. 

You sound like my mum.

A shiver runs down his spine as he steps into the air conditioning. He wonders how today got off to such a tremendously terrible start. Monday mornings are usually his favourite — 

“Morning, Bridgerton.” 

His footsteps stop short. It takes him a second to realise where they had led him to. 

He’s in the middle of his lobby, about four paces away from the lift ahead. His name had been called out from the left. From the mailroom. 

It takes him another second to realise who had called it. 

“Morning, Cordelia.” 

Cordelia Patridge lives in the flat directly below his. She moved in about a year ago, but due to London’s perplexingly tight social circles, he’s known her from afar for most of his life. 

Over the past twelve months or so, the two of them have formed a routine of sorts. When passing each other in the stairwell, lift, mailroom, etc., the two greet, engage in about 30 seconds of playful banter, then go their separate ways. 

That last part is crucial. Hypothetically, a stranger could walk into this lobby and perceive their “banter” as “flirting,” but Colin doesn’t see it that way. It’s not flirting if you have no intention to turn those words into action. 

Today, Colin doesn’t have the energy for the words alone. After throwing her a polite nod, he turns back to the lift ahead. 

“Running off anywhere special?” Cordelia asks, quickly falling in step with him. Her mail items remain tucked away beneath her armpit. 

Colin hits the button with the upwards facing arrow.

“Not especially.”

“Just a boring day at the office, then?” 

“Well, my office is typically just my bed, so —”

“Ooh.” She snickers. “Naughty.”

Colin clears his throat. Before saying another word, he listens to the creaking of the old metallic lift as it descends the floors. It sounds close. 

“‘Lazy’ would be a more accurate term for it, I think.”

With that, the lift doors creak open. Inside, Colin pushes the “2” for Cordelia and the “3” for himself. 

“Is that it for today, then? Wasting your hours writing in bed?” 

Colin considers the question. 

“Account for several trips to and from the fridge and… Yes, that sounds about right.” As Cordelia giggles, he asks, “And you? What of your day?”

“Working. But not from my bed. Or anyone else’s, for that matter.” 

Perhaps on a different morning, Colin could muster up a halfway decent retort to that. Today, he thanks god that the lift doors open when they do. 

“Toodles, Bridgerton.” 

When those metallic doors screech shut again, an odd feeling washes over Colin. The stinging annoyance from before is still there, but it’s now mixed up with confusion after that interaction with Cordelia. 

Objectively, it was not all that different from their usual random bouts of banter in the halls. It just felt… more than it usually does. Like, for the first time in twelve months, he doesn’t feel so confident in his distinction between “banter” and “flirting. (Even though his intentions were no different than they ever were.)

He doesn’t spend too much time thinking over the interaction, though. Once the lift opens to the third floor, the matter leaves his mind entirely. Annoyance takes over once more. It sticks with him as he walks down the hall to 303. It grows stickier when he enters his kitchen and sees the unopened blue envelope on the counter. It only lets up once he returns to his bedroom and opens the dresser, searching for something more comfortable to don before climbing back into his office for the day. 

On top of the pile of clothes lies a burgundy jumper. The one Penelope wore on her last morning living in his flat. The one she wore most mornings during that awful, blessed month. When he lifts it to his nose, the fabric still smells of honey. 

Objectively, Colin knows this is impossible. He knows that, two years later, even the faintest hints of honey are nothing more than phantom smells from a time he wishes to return to.

Pulling the fabric over his head, he doesn’t give a shit if the honey smell is real or fake. The jumper feels good around his body, regardless. 

꙳ ꙳ ꙳

Tuesday

It’s not fair to say that Penelope’s date with Sam Fucking Debling was the only matter on Colin’s mind for the past 24 hours. It would be fair to say it was the most recurring, though. 

On his way home from the gym Tuesday morning, remnants of their conversation are still coming back to him — as much as he wished they wouldn’t. 

You sound like my mum.

You sound like my mum.

You sound like my —

With a long-suffering sigh, Colin forces his gaze to lift from the pavement below him. When it does, he sees a familiar face. 

Cordelia isn’t looking at him. She’s leaning on the wall outside their building, a phone in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She’s smiling down at whatever it is that’s on her screen. 

Desperate for any sort of distraction from the date he won’t be attending later this week, Colin chooses to see this as a sign. 

“Morning, Cordelia,” he calls out, slinging his gym bag further over his shoulder. 

“Good morning, Bridgerton!” She smiles brightly as she looks up to meet his eye. “What can I do you for?”

After one millisecond of hesitation…

“Are you busy Friday night?” 

꙳ ꙳ ꙳

Friday

Colin Bridgerton has not been on a date in London in over seven years. When he first began travelling, his time at home became too limited and otherwise-occupied to allow for non-essential activities like dating. And though he’s been grounded (mostly) in London for the past two years, this trend has not changed. Still, he only goes on dates when he’s far away from home. 

Until tonight, that is. 

He and Cordelia are standing outside of a Chinese restaurant in Central London. They’re waiting to be seated. She’s smoking a cigarette. He’s chewing on a mint and watching traffic pass by. 

“Beautiful night,” he comments, unsure of what else to say. 

“Every night looks beautiful through a puff of smoke, I think.” She laughs lightly as she offers Colin her cigarette. After thinking better of it, he pinches the little white paper and takes two drags before passing it back.

He’s about to ask Cordelia about her plans for the weekend, but then the hostess pops her head into the night air and informs them that their table is ready. Once inside, they order their drinks, then look down to their menus. 

Colin doesn’t really like first dates. (A fact that’s coming back to him with startling clarity tonight.) He’s always found them to be too unfamiliar at best and dreadfully awkward at worst. His travels only exacerbated this issue; when you spend so much of your professional life making small talk with strangers, the prospect of dedicating an entire night to doing much of the same becomes rather unappealing. 

Since his realisation in Catalonia four years ago, the prospect of a first date has only become less appealing. (The prospect of a second date has ceased to exist.) Now, he only goes on them when he finds himself so lonely or bored or desperate for connection that a night of endless small talk doesn’t seem so bad, in comparison. 

That’s another reason why Colin never dates in London. If he’s bored here, he’ll just hang out with Penelope. Excluding nights when she’s on a date with stupid fucking wankers like Sam Fucking Debling, of —

“Are you two ready to order?” 

Colin says yes to the sudden apparition of their waiter, despite having spent not a single second reading the menu in front of him. He blindly orders Kung Pao Chicken and a side of fried rice. Cordelia gets the Sesame Jellyfish.

“Any plans for the weekend?” he finally asks. 

Cordelia shakes her head lightly. 

“Just travelling north on Sunday. I have a conference in Manchester next week.”

“Oh. Right, you’re uh —” 

Colin’s mind briefly short circuits. He thinks over the countless 30-second interactions they’ve had over the last year. He desperately attempts to recall any concrete details Cordelia has shared about her personal life through all that talking. When he comes up with minimal factual information, he realises just how much of a stranger Cordelia Patridge is to him.

“You’re in finance, right?” 

“Sort of. I’m in marketing, but I work with a lot of pricks who work in finance.”

“Right.” Colin chuckles. After a beat of silence, he asks, “And you enjoy doing that?”

Cordelia shrugs.

“It’s a job,” she remarks unenthusiastically. As she picks up her drink, she laughs lightly. “I suppose when you’re a travel writer, your job isn’t ‘just’ a job.” 

He considers her question. 

“I suppose so. But if you do anything long enough, there will come times when it feels like a chore more than anything else.”

As he delivers those last few words, he feels a buzzing in his back pocket. When he pulls his phone out discreetly and checks who’s calling, his heart nearly skips a beat. 

pen 💛

A millisecond before picking up, Colin remembers that he’s currently sitting across from a woman who is not Penelope, who he did ask out on a date tonight. 

“I’m sorry,” he tells Cordelia just as her mouth opens to say something new. He’s careful to keep his phone screen pointed away from her as he continues, “It’s my mum. She’s, uh — It’s sort of an emergen—”

Before he can get through the lie, Cordelia smiles and gestures for him to take it. 

Outside the men’s restroom, Colin picks up just in time to save Penelope from being transferred to voicemail. 

“Hey, Pen.” 

“Hi! By any chance, do you —” Her sweet voice stops short. “Sorry. Are you busy? It sounds a bit loud on your end.” 

“No.” Colin is almost shocked by how quickly the bullshit falls from his lips. “I’m just, uh — I’m picking up some takeaway. Chinese. Why? What’s up?” 

“Oh!” She chuckles nervously. “Nothing. I was just bored. Thought I’d see if you’re free and want to hang out.” 

Colin’s grin grows even wider. He can’t help it.

“Well, we’ve already established that I’m free. And you know I always want to hang out, so…”

As Penelope laughs softly on the other end of the phone, Colin is suddenly hit by a fact that’s been haunting him for the past four days. 

“So I take it your date didn’t go well?” 

Moments after, Colin can’t believe those words left his own lips. Penelope sounds disbelieving too, her laughter cutting off just as quickly as it came. 

“Oh. It was, um —” 

She clears her throat. She laughs again — just a little. 

“I’m surprised you remember that.”

Desperate to find his footing in this conversation again, Colin audibly gasps and says, “Pen, I’ve known you nearly three decades. By now, I would hope that you are aware of what an exceptional memory I possess. You should be careful what you say around me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she says — mostly beneath her breath. Colin can practically hear her eyeroll through the phone. “Regardless… You want to meet at the usual spot?”

“Yes.”

And he does. He really, really does. But he also happens to be on a date right now.

“Okay, gr—”

“But is it okay if we meet in like —” He checks his watch. “An hour? Sorry. But I’m downtown and this place is an absolute madhouse. I don’t want to keep you waiting.”

“Right. Yes, of course.” She laughs softly. “Is there any way you could pick me up an order of dumplings while you’re there?” 

“Of course. I’ll see you in an hour.” 

“Perfect. See you soon, Colin.”

With that, Penelope hangs up. It isn’t until the line goes silent that the concept of guilt reintroduces itself to Colin’s brain. 

“Fuck,” he mutters beneath his breath, turning on his heel to return to the date he left behind. The food is waiting for him when he gets back.

“This looks delicious,” Colin remarks, taking his seat again. 

“Quite.” 

After chewing a single bite of her jellyfish, Cordelia asks if everything is okay with his mum. Colin briefly considers saying “No” and that he has to rush to the hospital asap, but ultimately thinks better of it. Instead, he nods and returns to their previously scheduled awkward small talk. 

Approximately seventeen minutes later, they both finish their meals and Colin signals for the waiter to bring the check. After such an awkward night, he assumes they’re under the shared assumption that they will go their separate ways as soon as the check is paid, but…

“So…” Cordelia smiles and brushes a piece of hair off her shoulder. “Our living situations certainly make it simple to share a cab home. And eliminate the need to ask questions like ‘Your place or mine?’ Although,” she laughs, “if we’re choosing, I would say mine. Save you a flight of stairs until the morning.”

Colin doesn’t know what to say. In the end, he goes with…

“Could I take a raincheck? I, um —”

His voice momentarily falters. He searches his brain for the lie that will cause the least amount of damage. 

“I actually wasn’t planning on taking a cab back. I think I’m going to walk home, actually. My lungs could use the fresh air.” 

Cordelia’s face tells him that may not have been the best lie for the current circumstances. 

“You want to walk four kilometres in the middle of the night to get some ‘fresh air?’”

Colin nods — a poor attempt to appear convinced by his own statement. 

“And does this ‘fresh air’ have anything to do with what your ‘mum’ said before?”

Fuck.

“I —”

“Save it.” 

With that, she stands from her chair and starts pulling out cash to cover her half of the meal. 

“Oh, you don’t have to —” Colin starts, determined not to be a complete arsehole tonight, but…

“You’re an arsehole,” Cordelia informs him. She throws the money on the table and swiftly takes her leave. It isn’t until she disappears outside that he realises their waiter has returned.

“Your check, sir,” he says, thankfully pretending he had not just witnessed Colin being so brutally, deservedly put in his place. Colin nods in thanks, pulling out his wallet. But just before he can hand the man his credit card, he remembers Penelope’s request from earlier. 

“Sorry.” He clears his throat. “Can I add another item to go?”

꙳ ꙳ ꙳

The “usual spot” is Mondrich’s, a bookshop by day and pub by night. It’s located on the north end of Mayfair and just so happens to fall on the exact midpoint between Colin’s flat in Bloomsbury and Penelope’s in Hyde Park; it’s an approximate 19-minute walk from either end. The establishment also happens to be owned by Will Mondrich, an old friend of Colin’s; though the bookshop portion isn’t open at night, when accompanied by his “responsible friend Penelope,” Will lets them hang out upstairs after hours. 

The two of them are sitting on a couch between the romance and true crime sections. There’s a little plastic container of dumplings precariously placed on the cushion between them. 

“Why did you go all the way downtown for takeaway?” Penelope asks. Thankfully, she sounds more curious than she does accusatory. “They have Chinese in Bloomsbury, don’t they?” She giggles. “Or delivery, at least?”

Colin shrugs, plopping another dumpling in his mouth. 

“Needed the fresh air.” 

Thankfully, the lie works better on Penelope than it had on Cordelia. She doesn’t press the issue any further. Instead, she leans over, takes a sip of her cocktail from downstairs, and allows for a comfortable silence to sit between them for a moment. Unfortunately, Colin uses that time to fester on a subject that has been eating away at him for most of the week. 

As soon as Penelope puts down her drink, Colin pushes away the voices in his head screaming “This is dangerous territory!” and asks her about it. 

“So, how was your date with —” He facetiously stops short. “What was his name? Dan?” 

“Sam,” she corrects, initially throwing him a suspicious look. “It was fine, just…”

Her eyes flick towards the true crime shelf, seemingly racking her brain for the right word.

“Awkward.”

“Awkward?” Colin echoes. Despite his consternation over the subject this week, he’s suddenly eager to hear more.

“Yup. I get along with him fine in the office, but I don’t think we’re meant to hang out outside of it.” 

“Why’s that?” Colin asks casually, his gaze settling lazily on the romance shelf behind her head. 

“I don’t know. I suppose it felt like we were both putting far too much effort into making the conversations flow naturally.” She wrinkles her nose before saying, “Like, he kept calling me ‘Penny.’ He never calls me that in the office.”

Colin snorts. Penelope hates when people call her “Penny.”

“And I don’t think we had much common ground to discuss, outside of office conversations. Like —” She laughs suddenly, bracing a hand across the back of the couch. “I asked him what his favourite type of food is. He said ‘crunchy.’”

Colin laughs, too. 

“Sounds like a sociopath.” 

“I don’t know about that,” Penelope says, laughter slowly leaving her system. “It just wasn’t a good match.”

Colin could have told her that on Monday, but he doesn’t say that now. He decides they’ve wasted enough time discussing Sam Fucking Debling as it is. Besides, his mind has moved on to another topic that has been plaguing him all week. 

“So,” he murmurs, quickly taking a sip of his beer. “Does this mean you have yet to secure a date for Benedict’s wedding in the fall?” 

“Jesus Christ,” Penelope murmurs into her own drink. Thankfully, she doesn’t seem quite as annoyed as she did when he first brought up the subject on Monday. She does appear a little annoyed, though. “I told you that’s not why I went out with Sam tonight.” 

“I know. I just wanted to —”

“I’ve had one ‘secured’ for several weeks now.”

“What?” Colin says, unable to hold the syllable in. If Penelope notices just how quickly he lost his cool, she doesn’t let on. She shrugs, then takes another sip of her vodka cranberry. 

“El asked me to be her date within five minutes of your brother becoming engaged.” 

Silently, Colin wills his cool to return. “Oh,” he says, smiling in a way that hurts his cheeks as much as it grates on his nerves. “How proactive of her.” 

Without much effort, their conversation returns to a natural, un-awkward flow after that. Colin retrieves them another round from Will downstairs. Penelope tells him about the progress she’s made on the Premier League piece. Colin spends the rest of the night listening and laughing and loving each moment he gets to share with her. 

What Colin does not do tonight is consider if now is the right time to tell Penelope the truth. To tell her what he’s been holding inside himself for the last four years. Six months from now, though, he’ll look back on this Friday night at the usual spot and wonder, “What if?”

[bakugohoex]

“we’re you two...from the future”

pairing: katsuki bakugo x female reader

cw: language, violence, fluff

word count: 3800+

a/n: umm sorry for not posting requests, im getting through them all, so hopefully they’ll all be done by the end of the month

summary: in which you and bakugo sneak out intending to go see some stars but are met with the unlikliest of people, explaining their situation, you end up fighting alongside them, and realising just how far your relationship will go with the blond

↞ back to my hero academia masterlist

You laid sprawled against Bakugo, his finger flicking through Tiktok which you had forced him to get. One hand playing in your hair whilst he did so, you were reading some manga that had come out for your favourite series. It was a peaceful mood between the two of you, no shouting, no anger just the sound of the soft music playing from your speakers and the Tiktok sounds off of Bakugo.

His rough hands felt warm in your hair, massaging the scalp occasionally which gave you a burst of love. He looked down dropping his phone to the side as he watched you read. The way your eyes would crease when a serious panel was occurring or loosen when something more joyful happened.

“Stop staring, it’s creepy.” You muttered playfully.

He scowled at you, letting go of your hair and moving his legs to make you fall on the bed. “That’s what you get for calling me creepy.”

Chuckling at the boy you drop the manga to the side, moving back between his legs as you rested your head against his chest. He wrapped his hands around your waist and put his chin on top of your head as he let you on his phone.

The boy who had no apps and only cared about the health one. It worried you and forcing him to get Tiktok had made him hate his phone even more due to spending a whole night just scrolling without realising.

“I heard there’s a new exhibition opening up tonight, we should sneak out and go.” Your soft voice contrasted his much louder one. It was angelic almost feeling like he was around an unearthly presence when you were around.

He raises an eyebrow at the thought, “if it’s another shitty exhibition then were not going.”

“It’s not, they’re doing a midnight watch the stars thing.” He smiled watching you try to find the article but unable to. The photo on his home screen reminding him of how much he actually did love spending time with you.

Another late-night outing to get ice cream and it was a photo of the both of you watching the sunset. It was cute enough, but he’d hate if anybody saw it and tarnished his reputation as confident and independent which you’d often refer to as being a dick.

“Yeah, yeah we’ll go then.” He sounded bored of the situation, but you knew him better than anybody through the unamusement he was melting inside. He would get to watch the stars with his love, and he wouldn’t have to worry about anything else.

Midnight arises quicker than usual, Bakugo was normally asleep by 8pm so nobody bothered to question him leaving early. And you, well he’d probably want you beside him, so nobody questioned that either.

Instead you were met by the balcony, Bakugo’s arms around you as you wrapped your arms around his neck. You both had done this too many times to count, you guessed Aizawa knew and didn’t care. As long as you two came back safe than everything would be fine.

The fall from the balcony sent a rush of wind through your hair as Bakugo’s quirk activated and you felt yourself in the air. He had gotten used to using his quirk to fly and was able to do it with a lot more ease and precision. If you let, go you’d be a goner and he’d probably have to save you.

Seeing his lips twitch he was trying to suppress a smile but instead he stayed stoic as usual. Inside his heart was aching at how you looked in the air. It was his favourite time with you, the way you looked so utterly magnificent in the air. It was a true sight for sore eyes for the blond.

Finally landing, you felt the ground under you wobbling a bit. Bakugo grabbed you which helped you a lot more than you realised. His arms holding you upright just as you two were outside the exhibition hall.

Seeing the line, he sees your bright smile and heavy breaths through the air. “i want a good seat.” You take his hand dragging him towards the line as you both stood and waiting in line.

You could hear the line shuffle before hearing a familiar voice behind you. “Baby, we always miss the midnight showings, come on whilst we’re here.”

It sounded too familiar even, like it was your own. You were about to turn around to see but felt Bakugo drag you forward. The voice ringed through your head, it could’ve just been your imagination, but it was weird. It felt like an echo of the future.

The hall was almost empty, a lot more people had bought tickets to the other exhibitions rather than the planetarium one which made it a lot better for the two of you. Underneath the stars alone would be perfect especially if Bakugo could freely watch you as well.

“Two tickets to the planetarium.” Bakugo had already bought the tickets inside but the sound of the same voice again was heard. Trying to look back to see, people had begun crowding around to get other essentials, mostly food. The person was no longer visible, and you turned to face Bakugo.

“What’s wrong?” He crossed his arms waiting for an answer.

“I keep hearing someone, she...she sounds like me.” He comes closer giving you a look before hugging you.

“It’s probably your imagination, it’s late that’s why, come on dumbass.” He let’s go of you right at the end of his talk and takes your hand. Kissing the back to bring some comfort.

You both walk in seeing an almost empty room. It was midnight on a Tuesday you didn’t really expect a lot of people but nobody really.

Both you and Bakugo sat on the back row. It was the perfect sear for him to watch the stars but also see how beautiful you looked under the white light. The sound of more people coming brought relief that this event would still occur. Bakugo’s hand rested on top of yours he watched out how there was only natural light from outside but even then, the moon did little against the darkness.

“Just sit down, we can’t be worrying about seats.” You heard the voice again and this time it seemed closer than usual, almost next to you.

Bakugo’s thumb rubbed circles on the back of your hand. A comfort but as you turned to finally meet the woman you were met with a heavy shock. A scream belched through the room, everybody had gone silent, Bakugo in an instant was up ready to fight whoever it was.

“Bakugo.” The two of you shouted, the woman in front of you looked at you with cares as you looked back at her. The same eyes, same nose, same mouth, hell even the hair was a bit longer for her, but it was there. And the voice, the same shout for your loves.

“Y/n.” This time the two guys who had been standing up ready to see what had happened had spoken and this time a confusion settled between the four of you.

“Outside now.” The blond said, it sounded exactly like your Bakugo but didn’t. Rougher around the edges an even deeper voice. But it couldn’t be, the two had gotten up scurrying outside and you followed.

Apologising to the others as you left, the opened the doors again and were met with the inside of the yellow lamps. It helped to see better and this time you and Bakugo had a full view of the two.

Your eyes widened at her, the hero costume exactly like yours but more seductive, professional even was around her. She stared back at you, the younger her, the one who hadn’t experienced what was to come.

The two men stood in front of each other, Bakugo’s winter outfit on the much taller man. You had remained the same height, but it seemed Bakugo had grown to over 6ft and his much smaller self looked with a snarl. But even then, he looked the same, the same look of disgust, the piercing scarlet eyes along with the same hero costume. He may look more built and even more intimidating but having her beside him making him look almost sweet like a lost puppy and she was his master.  

“It can’t be.” You whispered out.

“Oh but it is.” The woman spoke out, “i missed that ugly haircut you used to have.”

She had said it to Bakugo’s older self who remarked back a scowl and crossed arms, something your own was doing himself, “I grew out of the Pomeranian look dumbass.”

“What the fuck shitty woman? Fucking explain what this is.” Bakugo growled, he was annoyed and confused two emotions he hated being.

You went to grab his hand and he became a lot more settled at that touch. “Did i really only settle down if you were there?” The older Bakugo muttered, he had more of an undercut but even then, you could tell it was Bakugo.

“Yeah, you were a pussy back then.” The older him glared at her, she glared back but even then, he softly pushed her to the side. “Fucking twat.”

“Don’t fucking swear in front of kids.” You and Bakugo stood in confusion at the squabble going on between the older versions of yourself.

“If you hurt me ill wake up from this horrible nightmare.” You kept whispering but even then, it was real.

The two-stop fighting and looked back at the both of you. “Let’s get ice cream, you’re paying.” She pointed at the version of Bakugo before taking your hand. “We have so much to explain.”

“Her younger self was so much better why’d she have to fucking grow up.” The older version spoke with a pissed off tone, he watched the two walk away before looking at his younger self. “The hair was shit, kid.”

“What the fuck, shut up old man, and stop talking about my girlfriend like that.” Your Bakugo remarked back, always the hot head.

The ice cream shop was only a few minutes away and both the older versions of yourself went to order. “Katsuki, what the fuck is happening?”

“They’re us Y/n.”

You pushed his arm which went back around the back of the booth. It skimmed back and forth onto your shoulder as you leaned into his side. “Way to state the obvious.”

“They could be villains, who have some sort of transformation quirk, whatever it is, the first sign of danger I’ll kill them.” Bakugo looked outside, he felt your soft fingers on his thigh out of reassurance that he was real.

The two came back with a tray of both your favourite ice cream. “We did like this when we were kids right?” She said to her Bakugo, he shrugged picking the ice cream and taking a bite of it.

“Who are you two?” You questioned taking the ice cream and mixing it with your plastic spoon to become softer. You watched the older version do the exact same thing and knew it couldn’t have been a villain.

“Younger you sure was fucking unaware.” The older Bakugo spoke a loud.

“Don’t be a twat.” She hit his arm, making him wrap his arm around her as well.

It was like an exact copy of you two on each side and it felt eerie. “We need proof you ain’t villains, if you are, I’ll kill you both.”

“We understand that but let us explain what happened first Katsuki.” She spoke his name with the same love and ease, it felt too familiar to him, like he had heard it so many times before.

You nod starting to lick at the spoon as you waited to hear, “quick version, we were trying to catch this villain, he has a quirk that can send people back in time, and the fucking asshole sent us back in time.”

You smiled at the older boy, how similar Bakugo remained in the future. How he still had the same look of disgust but when looking at you, he saw hope and love. “That’s a shitty explanation.” She continued, “he sends people back in time and follows them to kill their past self to create a loophole.” She plays with the spoon taking a hesitant pause, “we’re you two...from the future.”

“You two idiots got caught.” Bakugo began laughing as if he was making fun of your classmates before he realised. “Wa...” Bakugo kicked under the table at his older self, “you got fucking caught you dumbass.”

“It’s fine, it only lasts an hour, that’s why normally those who get sent back come back to their time but then begin to disintegrate as there younger selves died.”

“We would’ve heard about these cases.” You were confused at how this hadn’t been mainstream news.

“With no culprit, it won’t make the headlines.” She licked the spoon before setting the container onto the table. “Any questions?”

“I don’t believe I’d be that much of a dumbass to get caught, prove you’re us.” Bakugo proposed, his hands had been playing in your hair and he really wanted to imagine this was some kind of dream he was in.

“God kids are fucking annoying, remind me to never give you one.”

“He’s you.” You and your older self-speak in unison and the look of horror at the angry boy in front of him was something else.

“You better not get her pregnant at...” Bakugo mutters seeing your older self, he sees the beauty you retain. How you look like a goddess to him and how you always still remain his love.

“26.” She says smiling happily.

“Are you two married?” You ask, hoping something had occurred by now.

She goes through her pockets, the boy next to her doing the same before finding what she’s looking for. A silver band with a crystal in the middle. it was beautiful, Bakugo’s own having something inscribed on it.

“Engaged.” She shows the ring to you on her finger, it fitted her finger perfectly. Your fingers perfectly. Your Bakugo looked at the sight, he had gotten the courage to do it, to make you permanently his. You both would last forever.

Bakugo coughs to try and get out of his happiness and go back to his angry self. “Go on then, ask us the shitty questions?”

“Why were you at that event?”

His older self looking at her before rolling his eyes leaning back on the booth, “her and her obsession with the stars.”

“We had to time to kill.” She elbows his side making him give a glare to the woman. Not his normal disgusted one but one that you all knew he was joking and mocking the woman.

“What are you both in the Hero Charts?” That was the question Bakugo really cared about; he didn’t need proof anymore he just wanted to know if he made it to the top.

“I’m 5th and umm, Suki...” She let him speak, you were happy to be in the top ten that was an achievement, but you could tell the words that would come out of his older self would not be happy ones.

Before any words could come out the sound of lightening sprung out through the street. “It can’t be, he said he wouldn’t bother killing our younger selves why is he here?” She said seeing the man in the dark black cloak. “He said he just needed us gone for an hour, why is he here?”

“He’s the asshole who sent you back, let’s go capture him then.” Your Bakugo got up and but was stopped by himself.

“You’re a child, I’m not letting myself go out there and die.”

“Let go of me old man.” The tension between the two was thick enough to cut through. But there were bigger issues at hand here. The sound of the villain prowling the street, a menace ready to attack.

“You two are staying fucking put.” Bakugo���s older self-looked tired, it was in his eyes, you could see it, the years getting to the pro hero but at the sight of your older self running out, he followed.

Bakugo tried to get up but you put your arm out to stop him, “wait.”

“Y/n, I’m not letting our future selves die out there.” He grumbled swatting your hand away.

“I want to see how they work together, how we work together.” Of course you and Bakugo had fought alongside each other, but watching them, it would show the progress, your aim and how far you had gotten.

“Hiding your younger selves won’t help you both.” The villain remarked, his hand in the ready with a knife.

She grabbed a hold of him with her quirk smashing him into a wall. The way he indented the wall showed you the sheer amount of strength you had with your quirk. Your ability to not only move him with your hand but also put enough force onto the wall to break around him.

Bakugo’s hands turned yellow, you could almost see the power seethe from him, your own looking at himself, watching intentively at how his explosions had become bigger and bigger in his palm. Even without the gauntlets he had power, an excessive amount that fuelled his rage. He began to attack whilst she remained on defence, but the villain just skimmed past the explosion charging at her.

She grabbed the discarded bricks from the floor bringing your hands up to make them float and tried to encase him, but his pure strength outweighed her own as you could see him nearing her through the window. You ran out, Bakugo running with you as the four of you stood. “I told you to brats to stay inside.” His older version shouted, fire fulling him as he attacked the man who neared you. Your own allowed his quirk to activate and this in turn led to fire and explosions burning the street at how both tried to stop the villain.

You ran up to the older woman, she looked at you with care, “I’m going to teach you something.” She grabbed your hands, and you could feel a warmth from between your fingers. “Think of the rubble, the discarding bricks, anything that has broken off Y/n.”

You did so staring into her eyes, the pools of depth seeping out as she spoke with such confidence. “Keep thinking about it.” You did, thinking of the fallen rubble and discarded bricks and when you opened your eyes, it was up in the air. Both your quirks coming together to allow for it all to surround you both. You both saw the two boys hit the villain missing the reckless knife and knew that the villain was out of breathe from the force of it all.

But now there was you two, and in an instant, she shouted at you, “push it all onto him.” You followed through, everything felt heavy under the movement of your fingers, you could see her own becoming ashy and scarred but she kept a hold of the majority of the weight. You felt the weight of it all and as you pushed it onto the villain, Bakugo’s older self grabbing him to move out of the way. The villain became trapped onto the wall, the two boys came up to you both as they both went to their respective partner. “Are you okay?”

It was in unison and they both grabbed your hands, the ash and spilt skin between your fingers was evident. The action was the same and you knew it would never change, your older self turned to face you both as she glared. “You shouldn’t have come out but thank you.”

“You both did okay, it doesn’t mean anything though, you’ve both got far to go.”

“Shut it old man.” Your Bakugo grinned out, his arm around your shoulder lazily.

His older self tilted his head back in a chuckle before grabbing her hand. “We’re running out of time.”

“But we still have so many questions.” You were hesitant to ask before but now working alongside the two pro heroes you wanted to know more.

“We’ve got two minutes make it fast.” They both walked towards the villain, grabbing the unconscious body from the side. The excessive heat from both the Bakugo’s had caused fires and you could hear the police and heroes come to see the scuffle. Walking into an alleyway, you both stood in front of your selves.

“I guess I only have one question.” You looked at Bakugo and he looked back at you, his hand resting on your shoulder bringing warmth to you.

“Are we happy?” Bakugo held you tighter and the two smiled at you.

His older self began talking, kicking the villain to make him shut up. “There’s ups and down, a lot more to come but we’re happy, aren’t we?”

“We are.” He smiles at her, love in his eyes, even after 10 years of being together there was still love and adoration for her. It was something Bakugo had for you, but it had intensified along the years. It was almost too beautiful, there eyes on one another, how perfectly they fit together, it was perfect.

“Well I guess this is goodbye, have fun and…” You trailed off as Bakugo’s older self interrupted.

“Don’t do anything stupid, and wear a con…” Before he could finish the three disappeared and you and Bakugo were left alone in the alleyway. A confusion between the two of you as you both walked out of the alleyway.

“That was weird.” You muttered grabbing the boys palms.

“You’ve got that right, stupid old man bossing us about.”

“Did you just indirectly call yourself stupid?” You laughed as he rolled his eyes.

“Whatever at least I know your mine forever now.” He spoke softer, something he did when around you as you both walked through the street. The darkness around you as you had walked the opposite direction of where the fire had occurred.

“You’re such a sap.” You chuckled tilting your head backwards, he saw how strong you’d become, and it lightened a fire in how you both were so utterly in love, a perfect pro hero couple.

He held your hand tighter giving a glare, “you’re the fucking sap, baby.”

“Let’s watch the stars.” You hummed having ignored the comment and dragging him up the hill where you could lay on the grass and look right up to the sky.

“Yeah, yeah.” He held your hand tighter before you dropped to the ground and he sat beside you. You laid down looking at that the speckles of white throughout the hues of black and blue. A sight to the say the least and as you stared at the sky all he could do was stare at you. His girl, his love, his future.

i’d really appreciate if you guys could leave a like, reblog or comment, thanks x

if you guys want to be a part of a tag list, just reply to any post and i’ll add you xx

@samusimp @alainarose13 @crispychannie @underratedmage @jennammaee @cathy8taffy @sugacious @moonlightaangel @kat-sukis-hoe @effmigentlywithachainsaw @swankiifiied @maat-the-prescriptive @missmultifangirl @tvwhoresblog @kuroos-world @chrrylevi @katsuhera @answer-the-sirens @animexholic @wapbenders​ @the-shota-king-masayuki​

[tarantulas4davey]

HELLO BESTIE I am currently having Ralbert Brainrot and you're the best person go come to for this, obviously,, so PLEASE share! I would like to hear about ufc albert or youtuber race, or dancing partners!! I love them smm

HI YES HELLO USING THIS AS AN EXCUSE TO WRITE UFC FIGHTER AL PART 2 THANKS BABES

i just witnessed a literal crime and i’m Feeling The Rage (boxing judges at mma events can catch these hands) so here is. my brain on anger.

also the first half of this is pretty fight-talk heavy but the second half is more al/ralbert central so message me/send me an ask if i don’t explain something well enough <3

here is the ask i sent to @we-are-inevitable (thanks jac i’m in love with you mwah) and here is part 1 for this au if you haven’t read that one yet !!

also,,,,, this is fairly obvious. but trigger warning for violence/physical fighting, as well as blood. (it’s a rough gig y’all fjdhdb) oh and swearing but that’s pretty much just me LMAO

here i am, bein mad and writing ralbert. therapy time with chandler ig

OK SO

this is after his debut. duh. continuation

i think he’s probably 5 fights in with 5 wins. he’s been running people through, especially with four full camps after a short notice start, and he’s never even seen a decision in the ufc

let’s just say the hype train is moving FAST and it’s moving LOUD

everyone has to have those people that watch their fights just to see them lose, on top of the majority male fan base that have to have a little bit of toxic masculinity and homophobia in there

so there’s A LOT of people that are waiting for him and his hype train to get derailed. but there’s also a fair amount of fans, so you win some you lose some (the way i would die to see this be a real fighter pls)

now albert’s not always the most confident guy, and he’s never been cocky, but none of this shit gets to him. he’s got his coaches, he’s got his friends and he’s got race behind him. he knows he’s got the skills, and he’s got his support system, so who gives a shit what a bunch of cowards on the internet have to say?

and then they put him against someone known for his grappling and stamina. and the “it’s a wrap for dasilva!” bandwagon starts. it happens every time a rising striker and early knockout artist fights a well known grappler with any semblance of later round power (even if al has a background in wrestling and has gone 5 rounds and won outside of the ufc. it’s a bandwagon for a reason)

and it’s not Upsetting, it’s not really getting into his head in any way that’ll make him do worse, but it’s kinda pissing him off. which is bad for his opponent

the last person on earth you want to be fighting is an annoyed albert dasilva who thinks he has something to prove

he works his ass off in camp, and the press tour is a self-assured albert vs. a loudmouth who thinks he’s hot shit cause a few people on twitter think he’ll sweep

and, to be completely honest? it’s starting to look that way 2 rounds in.

it’s a 5 round fight, co-main event on a big card, and so far all al’s opponent has done is pinned him to the cage and kept him there. a few strikes worth anything - at least enough make al’s cheek bleed, no takedowns, which would at least give him some activity, and so submission attempts, so he can’t even gain any ground that way. he’s just- Stuck. and if THIS is how he loses, he’s gonna be pissed

the bell for the second round sounds, and you can actually see al’s chest heaving on camera as he walks to his corner - not because he’s tired or out of breath, but because he’s MAD, and fuck if he’s not going to do something about it

not only that, but he can not only see race and jack standing up by the cage - plus race’s expression, which is slightly annoyed and super anxious, which hurts his chest to think about - but he can hear them too

jack is yelling profanities, as per usual. he doesn’t that regardless of how the fight is going, but it’s less encouraging when you’re the one losing.

race though,,,, race isn’t really yelling, he’s more talking to himself than anything, but he’s close enough to cage and al knows him well enough to figure out what he’s saying. and if the muttered almost-prayers while he paces back and forth weren’t enough, the shiny gold engagement ring on race’s hand definitely is

round 3,,,, let’s just say it goes a little differently than the first 2 had gone.

he opens with a spinning back kick, of all fucking things, and that truly sets the pace

he’s the taller guy by a few inches, like usual, which makes his arms longer. the only reason crushing his against the cage worked is cause the guy he’s fighting cuts weight like a wrestler, so he’s easily got 20 pounds on albert come fight night

but once he finds his rhythm and starts throwing, he starts connecting too. he manages to stay out of range of his opponent and stay his comfortable distance to start t-ing off

this isn’t a one punch power ending. this isn’t a beautiful head kick, or a giant knee, or even just a clean right hook.

this is albert, who’s arms are starting to feel the 3rd round a little bit, hitting this guy with everything he has cause he refuses to lose this fight.

i mean- everyone watched him get up at the start of the round with a set jaw and a scary determined glint in his eye. he’s not a person you fuck with, and he’s definitely not a person you publicly ridicule before being locked in a cage to fight with

the guy he’s fighting is absolutely battered, but he manages to survive until round 4. the first of the championship rounds, something al’s never seen in a ufc fight before, and it feels like the arena is holding its breath

so when al comes out and does the same thing as round 3 to better results - fight ending results - everyone’s a little shocked, honestly

the commentary team’s in disbelief, cause albert is NOT a slow starter, regardless of what this fight would tell you, and the fact he managed a win at all, let alone such a phenomenal one, is fucking astounding

he gets his hand raised, obviously, but the really interesting part is the post fight interview

“albert, man, what changed between round 2 and 3? what second gear did you find?”

“bro, i just— it was pissing me off, honestly. i don’t come in here to get pinned down for 25 minutes. and, y’know, my team gave me good advice. i had all the pieces, straight from the jump, someone just had to force me to put them in place…”

and then he looks over at race, who gives al one of those half grin, half smirks and winks at him, and al just chuckles to himself and finishes answering the question

“the thing that really forced my hand is race. i won’t get cheesy on you, but watching someone who loves and supports you through everything panic cause he’s scared for you - it’s a big motivator. everyone would figure out a lot more of my motivations if they went and watched race’s expressions back instead of whatever the hell i’m doing in here. he’s always been the brains, i’m just the brawn.”

and that’s a better answer than anyone was expecting, plus he’s just had the fight of a lifetime that’s probably earned him a title shot, so he’s done soon after that and gets to have his little in-cage celebration

he hugs his team and jack, who razzes him a little bit as per usual, and makes some dumb quip about going over tapes later like he’s a coach. and then comes race

he hugs him, all tender and cute and also very sweaty cause That’s How It Works, and the camera’s focused on him, so they can tell they’re whispering back and forth. but there’s no mics on them, so what’s said is missed entirely on the audience, but it’s their usual cheesy, in love mess

“congrats, baby. i’m proud of you.”

“oh please. it was 90% you anyway. i meant what i said, it wasn’t just for the cameras.”

“i know that. i’m gonna have to get you back somehow for telling everyone to go back and watch my awful anxious expression. i’ll think of something.”

“i’m sure you will, sweetheart.”

and then al does that awful, adorable lil nose bump thing, and then kisses race. and then jack covers his eyes and whines until they stop like the actual 12 year old boy he is inside

and then they leave the octagon, race and al holding hands, and al throws his arm over jack’s shoulder and shoves his head down and pushes him, cause even though he was just in a literal cage match he’s still a roughhousing teenager at heart

and he’s got interviews and press shit that separates him from his people, and he’s gotta slide that bulletproof mask back down over all the happy and in love shit he’s feeling so he can not smile like an idiot on camera constantly

but every once in awhile he’ll catch jack giving him the finger and laugh before returning it below view of the camera

or he’ll catch race’s eye from where he’s standing behind all the studio lights and do a little wave under the camera and return the wink from earlier, and the unbothered fighter facade will crack a little bit

but he’s not completely convinced that’s such a bad thing

GOD THIS POST IS SO MUCH LONGER THEN I MEANT IT TO BE IM SORRY

but Yeah. Them.

i love this au a helleva lot more than i should but that’s Fine cause i’ve got thoughts for days on it

[b00ket]

Its been a hot sec since ive done a just text post, so in an attempt to not feel pressure to post art every time I want to drop lore…

✨ Lucas is a dipshit and this is why people don’t like him ✨

Okay this is going to need some context but

Lucas’ presence makes people go on guard, they’re uncomfortable and awkward around him. Even if he is being extremely nice people who have lived there for more than even a year are nervous when he’s in the general area.

Occasionally some people feel threatened enough by his presence to try attacking him, sometimes he just takes it, other times he doesn’t. He’s still a very easy dude to set off.

He’s only been working his job at the docks for just a year. Trying to shake off his reputation has proven extremely difficult.

Family tidbits (this is relevant I swear)

His father, Bekarys Karimov, was well loved by the city, hosting soup kitchens on a regular basis and being known for giving away so much free food. His restaurant often doubled as a safe haven for criminals after dark. People generally knew him as the nice food guy with all those kids.

Lucas’ 2 aunts, Uuliinyagaansetseg and Sarnai Karimov,were constantly organizing and attending protests against Lucio’s rule and helped set up secret words to avoid Lucio’s spies around the city (particularly the marketplace). Most people did just think of them as gossipy and bringing guards to the streets. Also we’re annoying to talk to and had many rumors swirling around them.

Temujin Karimov, the eldest sibling, was entrenched in the Red Market. All sides of it, from the light selling of goods to the nastier side of it. He was a man of secrets and was considered more dangerous as time went on. Needed someone killed, got some nasty narcotics to transport? Hes your guy. Him and his gang of crime buddies are particularly responsible for almost all the bad connotations the Karimov name holds OUTSIDE of Lucas.

Okay actually onto Lucas:

So for the 1st 12ish years of his life Lucas was actually pretty well liked. The most shy out of all the Karimov kids and not known for being social he was a pretty blank slate. Most people mainly knew about him finding his sister in that canal, so pity was given to him. He definitely went more inward with himself as time went on, notably looking just distant most of the time.

The public execution of his aunts is when things started going downhill. Their execution was a big deal, and brought all those bad rumors and talk about them back into the city streets.

Lucas is a protective shit, ESPECIALLY with his family. Talk shit get hit as they say. Lucas walking the streets hearing you talk bad about any of his siblings is going to cause a fight.

That defensive fighting just kinda devolved into fighting all the time. He walked around with a “im going to beat your ass” vibe. Glaring at everyone and being generally disrespectful to anyone that isnt his family. (Lots of reasons behind him being like this that I dont have time to dive into)

So 15 is when his little brother died. This particular death broke the family a little and Lucas got the brunt of it (cause the family did agree it was his fault). Verbally and physically abused, kicked out for days at a time, he was homeless as often as he was at home.

By this point Lucas had been labeled the problem child, a walking bomb of anger that will steal your shit and beat your ass. (An exaggeration but rumors tend to do that) No one really wanting to help him when he was out of the house just made his anger worse.

He was fortunately liked by most orphans and acted as a occasional older brother. (He always had a prep bag at home full of food he snuck off in case he was kicked out, most of that food did go to those orphans)

He did get a small gang that, after Jargal’s death in the coliseum, went full ham in vandalizing Lucio’s shit around Vesuvia and messing up the Heart District.

So here’s the big thing, HE WAS A GLADIATOR. 4 years of being an executioner of MANY did not help his relationship with the people.

Thats cut and dry, he escapes and is under his Temujin’s care. And Temujin is shit and helping him, he hasnt even touched his own issues he cant help with whatever hes going on. Any tries he made just made things worse tbh.

Lucas during and after gladiator times is just mute. Temujin’s few attempts to just take him out into the public backfired hard enough for him to just keep Lucas at home and only take him out when he’s doing his job with his gang.

Last family members DIE, Lucas is torn up and is puppetted by Temujin’s old friends into being the muscle for them when they went out to gamble.

So in conclusion

Lucas hasn’t been an active threat on the streets for around a year. His name is synonymous with danger and people react accordingly.

He tries to be nice and kind, not to notice the looks and mood shifts when he enters a room but its hard.

The docks and ash beach are the only places he doesn’t feel completely ostracized. The orphans are mostly too young to feel in danger around him. Plus he brings them food.

He doesn’t want to get in the way or make people uncomfortable. Only shopping either late at night or early morning. He takes back alleys to limit interactions.

It doesn’t always work, some dude attacks him out of fear or anger at the things he’s done. Not sure if he should just be passive and take the beating or letting his anger get the best of him is a battle.

[cicada-bones]

The Warrior and the Embers

Chapter 32: The Battle for Mistward

Sorry for the wait! (and sorry that im posting this in the middle of the night - again.) This one was really hard! 

Also - its a monster: over 8,000 words. But I really hope you enjoy! (sorry in advance about the angst! but y’all already know how this goes down, so you really should be prepared).

Masterlist / Ao3 / Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Early that morning, Rowan hadn’t been able to get back to sleep.

He’d woken up shaking and sweating, his dreams fading behind his eyelids. This time however, as he held Aelin’s dead body in his arms before the burning mountain cottage, it was Namonora’s words that echoed through him.

You must save her, but not for you.

She is different. She could be something different.

You cannot let that girl die.

Rowan’s silent vow in return still ached in his very bones. Because when he’d agreed, he hadn’t really been promising Namonora. He’d been promising himself – swearing that he wouldn’t let his blood oath be the reason for her death, no matter how it tortured him. No matter how it twitched and writhed in his chest.

It had been an acknowledgement of what he knew he wanted, deep down.

Rowan wanted to be sworn to Aelin, not Maeve. To serve her, and be in her court, and at her side. Always. Rowan wanted to give Aelin the blood-oath. And it wasn’t only because she deserved it, or because she needed him.

It was because he wanted to do something good. Because he wanted to be good.

Rowan hadn’t been good in centuries. He couldn’t have recognized good if it had stared him in the face. But now, with this princess, with this Queen just within his grasp, Rowan found that he wanted to be who she needed. To follow the old ways.

To be good, once more, before he died.

Aelin sighed lightly, and turned over on the bed, her golden hair twisting around her shoulders.

Her scent wafted around him, all-encompassing. Overwhelming. That familiar desire coiled in his gut, the desire to reach out and touch her. To reach out and claim her. To bite her, in that lovely space between her neck and her shoulder, or at the tips of her ears. To bite her all over.

Rowan was sure that he would be able to recognize her scent anywhere. That even in a crowded ballroom, he would be able to find her from scent alone. That he would be able to track her down from thousands of miles away.

But it was more than just scent – in the back his mind, or perhaps somewhere deep in his chest, he could sense her. Could feel her presence. In the weeks they had spent breathing in each other’s scents, they had become bonded. No matter how far away she was, Rowan would be able to feel her there. Feel her close.

Rowan closed his eyes, despair joining the desire smothering his limbs. The world had now shown him just exactly how good life could be, and it was about to take it all away.

And Rowan could see it all, could see every detail of that alternate future. It teased him, a delicious fruit just out of his reach.

In that other world, Rowan would leave Wendlyn with Aelin. He would help her form her court, would stand at her side. If she wanted, he could help her take her revenge, or regain her throne. In that other world, he could claim his lands and title, and he could make his suit with her. He could offer her wealth and men and material, and in that other world, he might be able to profess what he felt for her. And maybe, in that world, he could find out if she returned those feelings.

But that wasn’t the world they lived in.

Rowan breathed deep through the fury that rose up in his chest. But he wasn’t angry at Maeve, or the other blood-sworn, or even the gods – not really. He was angry at himself. At how weak he had been. How shortsighted.

Rowan threw off the blankets and strode over to the window where he immediately shifted and soared out into the blackness.

The winds were cold and dark and unexpectedly silent. Usually, the sky was alive with the sounds of the night-creatures; filled with the hoots of hunting owls, skittering mice, foxes playing in their holes, and bats gliding atop wind-rivers, scooping up bugs or pieces of dropped fruit.

But there was only quiet, and Rowan was uneasy.

He decided to take a sweep of their perimeter, his mind still consumed with thoughts of Aelin. But what he found there sent all those worries right out of his head.

···

Rowan roughly shook Aelin’s shoulder, relieved when her eyes shot right open. “Get your sword and your weapons, and hurry,” he said, already halfway across the room, slinging on a shirt and padded overcoat. He could hear Aelin doing the same, her breaths coming quick and copper tinting her scent.

“I think we’ve been betrayed,” Rowan continued, now sliding daggers into position along his forearms, shoulders, and thighs.

“They’re coming tonight,” Aelin breathed.

When Rowan turned to look at her, her eyes were wide as she stared out their small window at the silent forest and the advancing line of black. A darkness that blotted about the stars, blacker than the night.

Rowan’s teeth gritted together. They had only minutes to wake the fortress and get everyone into position.

“I did a sweep of the perimeter,” he said, stuffing a knife in each boot. “It’s as if someone told them where every trap, every warning bell is located. They’ll be here within the hour.”

“Are the ward-stones still working?” Aelin began braiding her hair, then strapped Goldryn across her back.

“Yes – they’re intact. I raised the alarm, and Malakai and the others are readying our defenses on the walls.” He’d intended to wake the old male before Aelin, but found Malakai already up and sitting at his desk, staring into a small fire, the empty bed neat and untouched.

Now, Rowan could only be grateful that they had left Emrys with the healers, no matter how it pained Malakai to be separated from his mate.

Rowan strapped his own sword across his back, alongside the hatchet and hunting knife. Aelin was now pulling on her boots, and her voice was hard as she asked, “Who would have betrayed us?”

“I don’t know, and when I find them, I’ll splatter them on the walls. But for now, we have bigger problems to worry about.”

Aelin’s eyes twitched back to the open window, where the darkness on the horizon had spread, devouring the stars, the trees, the light. Her voice was tentative as she said, “…what is that?”

Rowan’s mouth tightened, becoming a thin line. “Bigger problems.”

···

Minutes passed in a flurry of activity. Malakai took up his station behind the battlements, where he could control the flow of information and direct their movements through the battle. A few of the younger, less capable sentries were sent deep into the castle, guarding the emergency escape tunnel. A few more stood by the entrance, front lines for when the soldiers broke through the front gates.

However, the vast majority of the demi-Fae stood atop the battlements, clutching bows between white knuckles and shaking fists, readying themselves to launch volleys of arrows and pour vats of pitch and oil. Rowan and Aelin stood at the helm of the paltry force, each carrying bows of their own, and trying their utmost to emanate waves of confidence. It wasn’t working.

The men were scared. Rowan had done his best to shield them from the knowledge of their fate, but he couldn’t hide it all. They knew the numbers. They knew their chances.

The ward-stones were the last line of defense before the fortress itself, and Rowan had no idea how long the magical shield would last under an assault by the dark creatures. It could be minutes, could be seconds.

Either way, Mistward couldn’t outlast them forever. And when the creatures broke through, two hundred soldiers at their heels, the demi-Fae would have to face them head on. They didn’t have enough arrows to guarantee the deaths of even half Adarlan’s forces. No matter what, they would soon be facing hand-to-hand combat against an enemy clad in iron and wyrdmarks.

Once they ran out of arrows, the sentries would leave the battlements, one by one, and enter the courtyard – where they would wait. Wait for the gates to be breached, so they could use the entrance as a bottleneck. Wait for the fighting to commence.

With each breath, the darkness on the horizon drew closer, bringing their doom along with it.

The wind gave Rowan barely a few moment’s warning before dozens of animals began to stream past the walls of the fortress, fleeing the veil of blackness. Claws clicked over stone, wings flapped overhead, fur and feathers and scales blending into a medley of creatures, all led by the Little Folk. And though they were barely more than a gleam of nightseeing eyes at the edges of the flock, Rowan could have sworn that they kept glancing toward the woman at his side. To the princess.

Barely seconds after the last of the Little Folk disappeared into the woods, heading up into the mountains to safety, the veil of darkness touched the circle of stones. It rested against them, a dark cloud hovering in wait.

“As soon as the barrier falls, I want you to put arrows through their eyes,” Rowan said to Aelin, though his eyes were forward, scouring the woods for their arrival. “Don’t give them a chance to enthrall you – or anyone. Leave the soldiers to the others.”

Rowan still couldn’t hear or see anything to indicate the presence of the soldiers, but he remembered the strange effects the darkness had. It could easily shield an army from sight or sound.

Aelin nodded, gripping her bow more tightly. “What about magic?”

“Use it sparingly, but if you think you can destroy them with it, don’t hesitate. And don’t get fancy. Take them down by any means possible.”

As he spoke, a reek began to rise from behind the barrier, the smell of death and dust and carrion. The demi-Fae around them began to shift in their positions, murmuring uncomfortably. Their sense of smell was nowhere near as sensitive as Rowan’s – but still, they could hardly not notice the otherworldly stench seeping from the blackness. A smell straight from the lands of Hellas.

A few straggling animals darted from the tree line, their limbs awkward and disjointed, foam bubbling from the corners of their mouths. Aelin’s voice floated up from beside him, her words hollow and detached. “Rowan – they’re here.”

As if she had conjured them herself, the creatures emerged from the darkness, halting barely five yards from the ward stones. They were dressed in all black, their tunics slightly open to reveal the stone torques choking their necks. Their veins bled black, their talons sharp and polished, their eyes piercing the fortress like dark blades of obsidian. The cloud of fear around them was so intense Rowan could barely taste anything in the air other than copper.

And once they emerged from the darkness, he almost felt as though he could feel them, a harsh pressure against his skin. Like rough cotton, or unpicked wool. Three distinct presences that pushed on his soul.

Rowan started slightly. Three, not two. Three.

Aelin seemed to realize this at the same time he did. “But the skinwalkers – ”

Her voice cut off as that male, that beautiful male from before, smiled. It was a look born of knowledge, and of familiarity. A look directed straight at Aelin.

Rowan felt the energy in his body alchemizing, intensifying. Shifting from raw power into violent intent. He wanted to kill that creature. He would kill him.

A rabbit bolted from the bushes, racing for the path between the ward-stones. But before it could make it, a whip of darkness lashed out and passed over the animal. It appeared to have no more substance than a shadow, or a cloud of smoke, but the rabbit fell mid-leap. Its fur matted before their very eyes, even as its flesh shrunk, drying up over its now-prominent skeleton.

Rowan held in a shudder. Together, the creatures were much more powerful than apart. He and Aelin had barely escaped the clutches of one of them, even with the help of the skinwalkers. Together, the creatures had the power of a lesser god. Together, they would crush them.

Even as this truth seeped into Rowan’s bones, the demi-Fae all around him stirred, some cursing in surprise and horror.

Rowan collected himself. “The barrier cannot be allowed to fall,” he said to Aelin, though he made sure that the surety and confidence in his tone could be heard by all. “That blackness will kill anything it touches.”

Even as he spoke, the darkness stretched its reaching fingers around the ward-stone borders, encasing them completely in a cloud of pure black. The blanket blotted out everything, the stars overhead, the forest around them – even the wind was stilled. The only light in the fortress came from their torches and candles, a paltry hint of orange in a world of pure black.

The barrier began to hum violently, sparking and buzzing, almost in agitation. But it held. However, Rowan couldn’t feel particularly grateful for it. They were now entirely cut off from the outside world.

It was as if they had been transported to hell itself.

Aelin shifted at his side, a spark of gold in the darkness. She winced in pain as her ears sharpened to points and her canines pricked her lips, but her focus remained undiminished.

Then, Narrok stepped lightly out from the edges of the trees.

He was undeniably their leader, honed and scarred and powerfully built. He moved with a lithe power, making his authority obvious and indisputable. Narrok’s gaze passed over the demi-Fae, pausing on Aelin, and coming to rest on Rowan.

For a moment, they looked at each other. Measuring and weighing.

Rowan half-expected the male to make some speech, to parlay and offer them a choice between yielding to the king’s power or death. To break their morale. But then, Narrok drew his iron blade and swung it towards the ward-stone gates, a delighted look on his face. And there was nothing Rowan could do as a whip of darkness snapped out and struck the invisible barrier.

Before they had time to strike again, before Rowan even had time to register the effect this assault had on their only magical line of defense, he was moving back towards the gates, shouting for the archers to ready themselves, for them to use whatever magic they had to shield against the oncoming darkness.

There was another strike, and the barrier rippled, the air shuddering around them as if it were a physical thing – a stone in an earthquake, the inside of a drum. The ward-stones began to whine in protest.

Behind him, the demi-Fae were moving into position, their terror barely smothered beneath their desperate preparation. In front of him, Aelin was the only thing standing between the fortress and the ward-stones. The only one who had not moved.

“Aelin,” Rowan snapped, and she looked over her shoulder at him. “Get inside the gates.”

Her face didn’t change, and her legs didn’t move. Instead, she met his gaze in that way only she could, her eyes filled with fire and fury, and slung her bow across her back. When she raised her hand, it was clothed in a glove of flame.

Rowan felt panic begin to seep into his bones.

Aelin’s words were measured. “In the woods that night, it balked from the flame.”

“To use it, you’ll have to get outside the barrier, or it’ll just rebound against the walls.”

“I know,” she said quietly, and Rowan had to actively stop himself from sprinting towards her and dragging her back behind the gates.

“The last time, you took one look at that thing and fell under its spell.” The darkness lashed once again, and the barrier groaned in response, placing a dark emphasis on his words.

Still, Aelin did not move, and Rowan stepped once towards her, his blood spiked with adrenaline. Copper swirled all around them, but surprisingly, none of it seemed to come from Aelin. Her scent was completely blank. This did not comfort him.

“It won’t be like last time,” she said, her eyes on Narrok and the creatures. “I don’t know what else to do.”

But before he could shout at her, before he could say that she didn’t need to sacrifice herself, that she didn’t need to atone for anything, that they still had time to escape together – before he could admit that he didn’t know what to do either, a cry echoed through the fortress behind him.

A chorus of shouts joined it, yells of pain and surprise. Calls for aid. Cries of Rowan’s name. Then the unmistakable screech of metal on metal, the clash of steel and iron. The sound of battle.

And it was as if he were far away, as if he were submerged in water or deep beneath the surface of the earth, as someone said, “The tunnel! They’ve been let in through the tunnel!” and a hope Rowan didn’t even know he had crashed about his ears.

They had been betrayed. And the betrayer hadn’t just undone the traps and bells, hadn’t just guided the army around their makeshift protection. They had shown them the escape tunnel. And now the armies of Adarlan were crawling up from within, creeping through the underground network of tunnels and right into the belly of the castle. The ward-stones were far too occupied with the threat from above to even notice the one the snuck up from below.

The sounds of death and combat grew ever louder, but Rowan did not move. He couldn’t. Not while Aelin was still set on her path.

“Rowan – ” her words were cut off by the sound of yet another strike against the barrier stones. And another. Flakes of granite began to fall from the pillars, a shower of dust and sparks. The groaning grew in intensity.

The barriers wouldn’t be able to hold up much longer. And Aelin knew it. She began to take a few halting steps towards the stones.

A vicious growl ripped through Rowan’s chest. “Do not take one more step – ”

He moved towards her, but Aelin didn’t halt her advance. Screaming had begun from inside the fortress, and Rowan felt like he was being ripped in two.

He grabbed her elbow, forcing her to look at him. “That was an order.”

Aelin knocked his hand away. “You’re needed inside. Leave the barrier to me.”

“You don’t know if it’ll work – ”

“It will work,” she snarled. “I’m the expendable one, Rowan.”

His words were barely legible through the growling escaping from his chest. “You are heir to the throne of – ”

“Right now, I am a woman who has a power that might save lives. Let me do this. Help the others.”

Aelin’s eyes pleaded with him. And they were the eyes of a Queen, of the Queen that he wanted. His Queen.

And she wanted everything that he did. Wanted to be good – to do something good. After all that had been taken from her, all that had been done to her and denied her, she still wanted to help. Wanted to be worthy of her name.

No matter how it tore at him, how could he deny her that?

Aelin had the best, the only chance against those creatures. Yet the determination in her eyes worried him. It wasn’t a resolve born of a desperate fight for survival. No, her eyes spoke more of sacrifice.

I’m the expendable one, Rowan.

Rowan looked at the ward-stones, at the fortress and the sentries scrambling to help below. Weighing, calculating.

If he forced her to run, he would be taking away everything she wanted to be, everything that she was. He would be betraying her, in the deepest, most essential way. And he just couldn’t do it. Even if it meant that the hopes of thousands died, right here, right now. Because it meant death either way.

So instead of asking her to run with him, instead of begging her to hide behind the wooden gates, he did the harder thing. Made the more difficult choice. The words hurt as they slipped out.

“Do not engage them. You focus on that darkness and keeping it away from the barrier, and that’s it. Hold the line, Aelin.”

Her eyes did not change, and her scent was clean of fear as she nodded and said, “Understood.”

“They will attack you the moment you set foot outside the barrier.” Rowan released her arm, and it felt like a stone removed from a dam. ““Have a shield ready.”

The scent of her magic rose, cloaking her body in flame and smoke. “I know.” Aelin said, and she turned away from the fortress, away from the demi-Fae. Away from him. Turned to face the enemy that would likely kill her.

Rowan could help but linger. Couldn’t help but wait and make sure that she survived those few crucial moments, even while those screams tore at his eardrums.

Aelin walked out over the patch of yellowing grass, drawing her golden sword, the sword of Brannon, in her right hand, while Mala’s flames enveloped her left. As she walked her flames grew even brighter. Slowly, the Heir of Fire passed beneath the stone arches and into the darkness beyond.

Rowan tore his eyes away, even as plumes of flame and blades of darkness began to clash on the other side of the barrier. He tried his best to forget, tried his best only to think of what he had to do now. To think that if he could kill enough soldiers, that if she could hold off the creatures for just long enough, then maybe they could all flee.

Rowan turned and began to run back through the gates and into the interior courtyard, rallying the sentries to his side. They blocked the gates behind them, and he left two guards with orders to alert him or Malakai should the barriers fall, and darkness reach the castle.

The rest ran with him through the stone passageways down deep into the belly of the fortress, where blood streamed on the walls and ran in puddles on the floor. Where the dead were already piling up.

Rowan drew his sword in one hand and his hatchet in the other, and threw himself into the fray.

It was hell, but it was a familiar hell. So Rowan endured.

He took up position at the head of their makeshift phalanx, directly before the mouth of the tunnel, and there he stood as time began to flow like bees and honey – thick and slow and yet also swift and jerky and filled with action.

This was the part of battle that Rowan was used to. The part that he was most comfortable in. He sword hand did not falter as it rent through flesh, felling soldier after soldier as they poured up from the depths of hell.

Still, he couldn’t be everywhere. The tunnel was wide enough that Adarlanian men could slide past the touch of his steel, and reach the demi-Fae behind him. Rowan couldn’t protect them all, no matter how much he may want to.

And so he had to listen as the demi-Fae sentries tired, and began to fall. It only made Rowan fight harder, swing his limbs swifter, but he knew that even he would soon begin to tire. That this steady tide of soldiers wouldn’t falter until far after Mistward had been overcome.

Minutes passed as hours, and after some unknowable stretch of time, Rowan was pulled aside by Luca, of all people.

The boy was breathing heavily, a cut on his temple streaming blood into his eyes, marking his brow with gore. “It was Bas.”

Rowan started, but Luca just took a shuddering breath, his light eyes shadowed with devastation. “It was Bas who betrayed us. He – he wanted power. And…a home. A place. They told him that they could give it to him.”

The pain in the boy’s voice nearly broke Rowan’s heart, but all he could manage was to place a hand on Luca’s shoulder, hopefully communicating his sympathy without words. Then he pushed the boy behind him, forcing him back up the tunnel and into relative safety, and rejoined the battle.

Bas had chafed against the inferior position of the demi-Fae more than most. He’d risen in the ranks at Mistward fairly quickly, earning himself the admiration of many of the younger demi-Fae, and the respect of most of the older. Even Malakai had liked and trusted Bas a great deal. But it’d meant that Bas always wanted more. And Mistward couldn’t give it to him.

Rowan knew from the agony in Luca’s scent that Bas had already met his end. He could only hope that the boy hadn’t been the one to do it. Could only hope that the stains on this child’s soul were not yet so black as to be irreversible.

That they would live to see the light of day, so that the boy would have the chance to heal, and forgive.

So, with each swing of his blades, Rowan hoped.

···

Gavriel’s paws pounded into the earth, his breaths ripping through his lungs in pained, ragged bursts, his limbs heavy. They had run through the day, night, and day again. Had run until they met up with Lorcan and Vaughan, and then had run some more. And they hadn’t stopped once.

It was starting to weigh on him. But now, with the sounds of battle and the feel of that strange darkness all around them, Gavriel knew that it had been worth it. That they had reached the fortress just in time.

Unless, a dark voice whispered in the back of his mind, you’re too late. Unless they’re both already dead.

Rowan and the princess. The two people he had come to help. To save.

Ahead of him, Fenrys and Connall’s wolves sprinted forwards through the trees, down the hidden path they all knew would lead out of the mountains and down into the secluded valley that concealed the fortress. They whipped around each other, the black and white wolves, playful to the end.

Above, Vaughan flew in osprey form, his great wings cutting through the mists overhead. Behind, he could just hear Lorcan pounding through undergrowth, his Fae legs fighting to keep up with the four-legged creatures. Even so, Gavriel, Fenrys, and Connall had only had to adjust their speed very little to accommodate the male – Lorcan’s massive height was enough to nearly make up for the differences in stride.

Though they had been running together through most of the night, they hadn’t said one word to each other. Perhaps it was because there was nothing more to say. They had all decided to come. Had all answered their friend’s desperate call.

It felt strange. Different, to choose to be together. To travel and fight and work together by their own volition, wholly and completely. It spoke of something…new. New and dangerous.

Then they reached the crest of a hill, and the stone castle spread out beneath their feet.

It had been barely a month since Gavriel had last been at Mistward, and yet now, the male barely recognized it. It was shrouded in a cloak of thick darkness, through which he could only barely see the hint of broken stone and yellowed grass. The towering barrier stones looked old and cracked, and the dark magic that encircled the fortress was clothed in sparks of bright, vibrant gold - the only light in the utter blackness.

Four figures stood before the gates, and Gavriel could only assume that the strange darkness came from them. All around them, he smelled copper and death and carrion, a stench so potent and intense he felt his hackles rise despite himself. And though the figures stood on two legs as men, and were clothed in the guise of men, Gavriel knew, deep in his gut, that they were as far from human or Fae as a thinking creature could be. That they were demons.

The creatures did not turn at their approach, but the darkness began to spread towards them regardless – like blood in water. Gavriel felt himself slowing, almost subconsciously. Ahead, Connall and Fenrys stopped in their tracks, avoiding the touch of the dark mist, out of fear or knowledge – Gavriel wasn’t sure.

But before Gavriel could do anything, before he could shift or speak or even growl, a piercing light breached the black. A golden blade of fire that cut through the darkness like a knife in butter. And through the breach, Gavriel could just see the image of a figure wrapped in gold. A woman, whose scent spoke of ash and spice and citrus.

The flames formed a tunnel through the darkness, and then the wolves were running. Sprinting through the black as fast as they dared. Vaughn swooped down to join them, and then Lorcan was passing Gavriel, dark limbs joining fur and feather in the golden flames.

But Gavriel was hesitating.

Not to follow his fellow blood-sworn through the breach, but to leave with them. To enter the fortress, and leave the woman behind.

Fenrys and Connall were already gone, and he could hear their furious growls shaking the foundations of the castle as they joined the battle within. Vaughn was circling the battlements, surveying the perimeter before joining them, and Lorcan was forcing open the wooden gates, making to follow the wolves into the depths of the castle.

None of them had spared the woman a glance. Had not acknowledged her, or thanked her, or thought to make sure she was alright. Perhaps, in another world, Gavriel would have done the same.

But instead, he paused, the golden tunnel disintegrating at his back.

The princess was in pain. Her face was splattered in gore, her sword hanging limply in tired limbs, her eyes clouded with exhaustion. She coughed up blood, and it shone in the grass.

But still, her words were fierce. “He’s inside,” she choked out. “Help him.”

Gavriel didn’t have to know her to know that she was begging. That she was desperate for Rowan to be safe, desperate for him to survive. Gavriel didn’t have to know her to know that she loved him.

“Go,” she wheezed through broken lungs. “Go.”

Still, he hesitated. Could he allow this woman to sacrifice herself? Could he allow her to die here, alone and without help?

The sounds of death echoed from the stone building, and Gavriel took a step towards the castle. And another.

The darkness swirled around them, barely held back by the woman’s shields of flame. And Gavriel knew that there was nothing he could do. If he stayed, he would only be able to die alongside her. His magic was nothing to those creatures. He could be of no help.

But in the fortress, he could ensure that Rowan survived. For this princess, he could make sure that Rowan lived. And he could bear witness, could remember her sacrifice, her bravery, for the remainder of his too-long life. He could do her that honor.

So Gavriel turned away from perhaps the bravest woman he had ever known, and dove through the gates and into the waiting battle below.

···

Rowan was far from exhausted, and yet his thoughts were scattered, his limbs slow and unsure. Most of his attention was far away from this dark and bloody tunnel, up at the stone gates, with the female that was risking everything to keep the fortress from being overrun.

No, Rowan was not exhausted. He had fought for far longer and in worse conditions. But the demi-Fae were. Each of their swings were slower, weaker. It took more effort each time they faced an enemy to fell them, especially as soldiers continued flooding the fortress, an unending stream.

Rowan yanked his sword from the gut of a falling soldier, his dagger already slicing the neck of the next, when a deep growling shook the stones of the fortress.

Relief, deep and profound, threatened to bring Rowan to his knees.  

Many of the demi-Fae around him froze in fear as twin wolves leapt down the staircase, closing their massive jaws around the necks of enemy soldiers. Massive wings flapped, and then white light flashed and a glowering, dark-eyed male was before him, already swinging a sword to decapitate another solder.

Vaughan merely nodded grimly at him before taking position on his left side, never one to waste words. Beyond him, the wolves were nothing short of lethal, not bothering to shift into Fae form as they tore through enemy ranks.

The demi-Fae began to rally once more, taking up arms once again with more vigor than Rowan had yet seen. Now it was the soldiers from Adarlan who looked fearful. Who blanched and stumbled, wide-eyed in the darkness.

That was all Rowan needed to see before he was running, sprinting back up the stairs and dodging the bloodied and worn demi-Fae. Dread clenched its fingers around his quick-beating heart. Darkness had not yet fallen, the stones of the fortress still stood, which meant that she had to still be breathing, that she had to still be holding the line, but –

A mountain cat skidded to halt on the stairwell before him and shifted. Rowan took one look in Gavriel’s tawny eyes before he demanded, “Where is she?”

The male’s eyes tightened, almost imperceptibly, and he held out one arm. As if to stop him. “She’s in bad shape, Rowan. I think – ”

And Rowan was shoving aside his oldest friend, already sprinting up the stairs. Not waiting to hear the end of that sentence. Not waiting to find out what he had allowed to happen to the princess. To his Queen.

Another towering figure appeared on the steps before him – Lorcan.

Even Lorcan had answered his call. Rowan shouldered past him without a second glance – the time for gratitude would come later, and the dark-haired demi-Fae didn’t say anything as Rowan rushed headlong to the battlement gates.

What he saw there nearly drove him to his knees.

The wall of flame was in tatters, but still protecting the barrier. But the three creatures…Aelin was standing in front of them, hunched and panting, sword limp in her hand. They advanced, and a feeble blue flame sprang up before them.

They swiped it away with wave of their hands. Another flame sprang up, and her knees buckled. The shield of flame surged and receded, pulsing like the light around her body.

She was burning out. Why hadn’t she retreated?

Another step closer and the creatures said something that had her raising her head. Rowan knew he could not reach her, didn’t even have the breath to shout a warning as Aelin gazed into the face of the creature before her. And there was absolutely nothing behind her eyes. No fire, no fury. No life.

A wave of emptiness replaced the panic strangling Rowan’s limbs, and it felt as though all of the life vanished from his body. She had lied. She had lied to him. And this realization hurt almost as much as the knowledge that they were about to die.

She had wanted to save other lives, yes. But not her own. She had gone out there with no intention of coming back. Of surviving.

Fury rippled, deep in his gut. He would not, could not, allow it. Even if she had succumbed to her grief, Rowan wouldn’t allow her to just vanish. To let herself be annihilated.

Rowan took in a breath – to roar, to run, to call his power, but then a wall of muscle slammed into him from behind, and tackled him into the grass. And though Rowan shoved and twisted and writhed, he couldn’t do anything against the four centuries of training and feline instinct that had him pinned.

Gavriel knew him, had helped train him, had worked with him for centuries. And Rowan could do nothing to thwart him. Could do nothing about the magical shield Gavriel had raised, nothing about the muscled limbs clenched around his arms and legs.

They both watched as the creature took Aelin’s face in its hands, and her sword thudded to the ground, forgotten.

And Rowan was screaming. Screaming as the creature pulled her into its arms. Screaming as she stopped fighting. As her flames winked out and as the darkness swallowed her whole.

Gavriel held him through it all, keeping him from sprinting through those broken gates and into that blackness that destroyed worlds. The blackness that was well on its way to destroying his.

Rowan was aware of Lorcan lingering behind him, a dark presence at his back. He had no room to wonder why. Why he stayed. Why he watched.

Rowan writhed in Gavriel’s grip, and the barrier fell.

It fell without ceremony, without sound. One second it was there, a dark, crackling energy, and the next it was gone. Had winked out of existence as easily as the sun passes behind a cloud, or a fog fades at break of day.

Rowan hurled his power at the cloud of darkness with all the force he could muster; summoned gales of winds and storms of ice, but nothing could pierce it. The cloak of darkness held, a black shroud that hid his Queen from him. And it did not advance.

Though the barrier had fallen, the creatures did not attack. The darkness did not move. And Rowan thought he knew why.

The creatures and Narrok had captured a prize far greater than the demi-Fae. The joy of feeding on her was something they planned to relish for a long, long while. He had felt their joy as they consumed the female in the caves, had sensed the curling anticipation of the male that had chased them through the woods and into the arms of the skinwalkers.

The creatures fed on pain and suffering, and hers was far greater than any they could’ve possibly imagined.

Minutes passed, and though Rowan did not stop his useless assault on the darkness, time felt stagnant. Nothing changed. The sounds of the battle raging beneath them did not slow, nor did Gavriel’s grip on his shoulders slacken. And Aelin did not succumb.

Rowan wasn’t sure how he knew: he just did. Aelin was still alive. Her heart still beat, and until it stopped, he would fight. With everything he had, he would fight.

Even as he began to hear that soft, warm female voice. Beckoning to him. Calling him to her, begging him to join her. Saying that if only he came, she could live. If only he came, they could be together again, forever. If only he came, she would forgive him for everything, for all of it.

It tore him to shreds. And the minutes ticked by.

“Rowan,” Gavriel murmured, tightening his grip on Rowan’s arm. Rain had begun pouring. “We are needed inside.”

“No,” he snarled. They didn’t understand. It didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered but the girl dying in that dark. Dying alone. Thinking that he had left her to die alone.

“Rowan, the others – ”

“No.”

Lorcan swore over the roar of the torrential rain. “She is dead, you fool, or close enough to it. You can still save other lives.”

They began hauling him to his feet, away from her. “If you don’t let me go, I’ll rip your head from your body,” he snarled at Lorcan, his commander. The male who had taken him in, who had trained him. Who he had traveled with through the long centuries.

But Rowan said it anyways.

Gavriel flicked his eyes to Lorcan in some silent conversation. Rowan tensed, preparing to fling them off. They would knock him unconscious sooner than allow him into that dark, where Lyria’s beckoning had now turned to screaming for mercy.

It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.

But Aelin was real, and was being drained of life with every moment they held him here. All he needed to get them unconscious was for Gavriel to drop his magical shield.

“Let go,” Rowan growled again, preparing to strike.

But then a rumbling shook the earth, and the three of them all froze. Beneath them, some huge power was surging, so massive and primordial it set the ground trembling. So massive that Rowan felt it in his very bones.

They turned toward the darkness. And Rowan could have sworn that a golden light arced through it, then disappeared.

“That’s impossible,” Gavriel breathed. “She burned out.”

Rowan didn’t dare blink. Her burnouts had always been self-imposed, had always been born of that iron cage, the bars that she hadn’t been able to rid herself of. That she had clung to, through all these long weeks.

The creatures fed on despair and pain and terror. But what if Aelin could let go of those fears? What if she walked through them, and learned to embrace them?

As if in answer, flame erupted from the wall of darkness.

The fire unfurled, filling the rainy night, vibrant as a red opal. Lorcan swore, and Gavriel threw up additional shields of his own magic. Rowan didn’t bother. They did not fight him as he shrugged off their grip, surging to his feet.

The flame didn’t singe a hair on his head. It flowed above and past him, glorious and immortal and unbreakable. It embraced him. Welcomed him as a friend.

And there, beyond the stones, standing between two of those creatures, was Aelin, a strange mark glowing on her brow. Her hair flowed around her, shorter now and bright like her fire. And her eyes – though they were red-rimmed, the gold in her eyes was a living flame.

The two creatures lunged for her, the darkness sweeping in around them.

Rowan ran all of one step before she flung out her arms, grabbing the creatures by their flawless faces – her palms over their open mouths as she exhaled sharply.

As if she’d breathed fire into their cores, flames shot out of their eyes, their ears, their fingers. The two creatures didn’t have a chance to scream as she burned them into cinders.

She lowered her arms. Her magic was raging so fiercely that the rain turned to steam before it hit her. A weapon bright from the forging.

He forgot Gavriel and Lorcan as he bolted for her – the gold and red and blue flames utterly hers, this Heir of Fire. Spying him at last, she smiled faintly.

A Queen’s smile. Full of relief and friendship and care and tenderness. It was a smile he wanted to look at for hours. A smile he wanted to see every single day until the day he died.

But there was exhaustion in that smile, and her bright magic flickered. Behind her, Narrok and the remaining creature – the one they had faced in the woods – were spooling the darkness into themselves, as if readying for attack. She turned toward them, swaying slightly, her skin deathly pale. They had fed on her, and she was drained after shredding apart their brethren. A very real, very final burnout was steadily approaching.

The wall of black swelled, one final hammer blow to squash her, but she stood fast, a golden light in the darkness. That was all Rowan needed to see before he knew what he had to do. Wind and ice were of no use here, but there were other ways.

Rowan drew his dagger and sliced his palm open as he sprinted through the gate-stones towards Aelin.

For even if it was all for nothing, even if he couldn’t help her, even if it made no difference at all whatsoever, he would at least be by her side. Neither of them would be alone. They could be together, as the darkness consumed them.

Rowan reached her, panting and bloody, and he held out his hand for her to take.

They were carranam, and he had come for her, just as she would have for him. And Rowan saw in her eyes that this would work. That she believed it too. He didn’t know if his power was strong enough, didn’t know if they would survive.

He didn’t know, but he hoped.

Aelin held his gaze as she grabbed her own dagger and cut open her palm, right over the scars that marked her blood-oath to avenge the death of her friend, her oath to save her nation.

And even though she knew he could read the words right off her face, she still asked him, “To whatever end?”

Rowan just nodded, and she gripped his outstretched hand, joining them. Blood to blood and soul to soul. He wrapped his other arm around her, grasping her tightly and feeling her heartbeat on his skin, the contours of her body against his. He leaned close and whispered softly into her ear, “I claim you, too, Aelin Galathynius.”

The wave of impenetrable black descended, roaring as it made to devour them. But they were together, no longer alone. They had both survived horrific things, had both weathered darknesses much greater than the one they currently faced.

So Rowan was not afraid of that crushing black, not with the Queen in his arms. The woman who had lit up his night. Who made him want to live once more.

Rowan breathed deep, and let the barriers within his mind fall, one by one. And he felt as Aelin’s mind entered his, felt as her fire flickered in his veins, her power new and bright and hot.

She drew his power into her, and it flooded out of him in a great rush, Rowan letting it flow freely between them as their blood dripped down their entwined arms.

Her well of power was near-empty, but its sheer size still astonished him.

It was fathomless, an enormous, hollow expanse. Was as vast as the sun – as the very core of the earth. She was the Heir of Fire, the Heir of Brannon, and she had no equal.

Rowan felt vulnerable in a way he never had before as Aelin sucked his magic from him. Vulnerable, but completely unafraid. To her, who’d had nothing and no one, who had been left completely alone, he gave the one and only thing he could. Himself.

Aelin’s knees began to buckle as the weight of their shared power took its toll, and Rowan held her in place, supporting her body while her mind bore the immense weight of their combined magics.

Then, Aelin struck.

The black wave had not even hallway fallen before Aelin shattered it apart with an arc of golden light, leaving Narrok and the remaining creature gaping.

She didn’t give them a moment to recover. Aelin reached into Rowan, drawing his power into her own body, his ice and wind and lightning becoming fire and light and heat in the alchemy of her blood. And then it exploded out of them in a torrent of golden flame.

Together they burned, surrounded by the force of a thousand stars. Embers crackled in the air all around them, flickers of flame like millions of fireflies. It was like standing on the surface of the sun.

Narrok and the creature were shrieking, and the sounds tore up his eardrums, a blade digging in and twisting. He and Aelin clung to each other as she crammed the light down their throats, burning up their black blood.

There was a sudden silence. And before he was destroyed completely, Narrok looked at Aelin, his eyes piercing her deep. For a moment they stared at each other, seeming to exchange something. A final goodbye.

Rowan clung tight to Aelin, keeping her anchored to him as the light around them intensified, becoming so bright it was actually painful. But Rowan forced his eyes to remain open. Forced himself to watch.

Aelin called the light to her, bending it to her will. And then she forced it into the creatures, pouring all of that beautiful, golden light into every shadowy corner of them.

The ironclad expression on Aelin’s face did not shift as she stared back at Narrok, and burned him to dust and ashes.

The remaining creature only managed to crawl two steps before he succumbed as well, a silent scream frozen on his dark face as he was incinerated.

Slowly, the light and flame receded, and Aelin’s exhausted mind fell away from his own. And all that remained of Narrok and the three creatures were four Wyrdstone collars steaming in the wet grass.  

Their bloody palms fell apart at last, and Rowan felt Aelin’s soul slip out of his grasp. He shivered, suddenly cold.

Rowan looked up for the first time, and found that the darkness was completely gone, utterly eradicated. And though Aelin had burned as hot as a falling star, the trees around them were still green, the mists still chill. Towards the east, Rowan could just see the faint rays of dawn beginning to peek around the mountain peaks. The tips of Mala’s fingers stretching to greet them, washing the last of the darkness aside.

Aelin swayed slightly, utterly spent, and Rowan wrapped his arm around her more tightly, guiding her over the uneven grass and up the blood-spattered steps, towards their rooms. But before they left, Rowan leaned over and scooped up the stone collars, sliding them onto his swordbelt.

Gavriel and Lorcan were already gone, presumably to assist below. The sounds of battle had died down, the clash of metal and shouts of pain dwindling into silence. The fortress halls were quiet and empty as they walked side by side.

The second Aelin’s head hit the pillow, she was dead asleep.

Rowan pulled off her boots, rolling her over in order to pull the blankets out from underneath her. Then he tucked her into bed, carefully arranging the covers over her sleeping form.

But before he left the small stone chamber, his fingers found their way into her golden hair. Rowan smoothed the golden strands back behind her ears, gave her one last, lingering look, and walked out.

...

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@aelinfeyreeleven945tbln @booknerdproblems @queen-of-glass @westofmoon​ @morganofthewildfire​ @fangirlprincess09​

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[cirilee]

i just found a text my browser had saved on a word count website, and i apparently typed it last november while being sad - i just wanna have a place to post it, and it explains why i was gone for most of may through november last year.

if you’re interested, u can read, it’s basically just a long long long vent and i wanna save it somewhere :’)

(and if you wanna, you can tell me what u think of the whole thing, maybe share if something like that happened to you too, because man, this whole thing was WEIRD for me)

bottom line is: i’m much better now and have way better friends then back then and in general, i’m a pretty happy person again^^

My parents and me had been fighting a lot the past years. I still love them. For a while though, it was just shouting matches between us. We weren't really speaking to each other throughout january 2019 until april 2019, so i wasn't informed by them that they were planning to mOVE OUT. And the place they wanted to move to only had enough space for 2 people. now my brother and me had 3 months total to find and finance our own flats. i was desperate. 2 months i unsuccessfully searched for a job or a flat or a way to make a deposit for said flat, without any saved up money. an old school friend offered to move out together. i only saw him once every month for group activities. he was nice, but we also had a bit of a history. 3 years ago he had acted kinda scummy and tried to get me to be his girlfriend because "he couldnt find anybody else” - ending in a "movie night with friends" that turned out to be a trap, where the only one spending the night was me because he only invited me. creepy. he apologized and i forgave him and we were chill and it was normal between us. i realize now, that i should have just left him out of my life at that point. but time was running out, so i gave in and asked myself "whats the worst he could do. i’ve known this person for 12 years and the he's part of my friend group" we set up basic rules, how we would pay for stuff, etc. .. we moved in. it seemed fine. then i noticed that he talked A LOT. and he wanted A LOT of attention. after a day of working on my diploma or working at my job, he would assert himself in my room and try to engage in smalltalk. i am not the hermit type. i engaged with him, i joined in on his conversation. but when i was already tired he wouldn't accept "i'm gonna go to sleep". there was always something else he needed to talk about. I was trying to make clear to him that i needed alone time too, but no matter how honest i was, the message either didn't seem to stick, or he'd get upset and start asking me if i hated him. With that, i could have kept up with in the long run. Then he started knocking on my door. even when it was already late and i already told him i was gonna go to sleep. Repeatedly knocking on my door. At some point he just opened the door. It was 1am. I pretended to sleep. I could hear him breathing, it sounded angry. He eventually closed the door. The next morning i confronted him. He argued it away as him trying to warn me that he was going to take a shower, so that i wouldn't use the bathroom. He started commenting on how i wasn't funny enough around him. in that friend group, i'm the funny one :c. but i cant keep up that energy 24/7 (this was supposed to be a home, not a free neverending standup act, for this one guy). that confused him. the next day he asked me if i had depression. My parents had given me a griller/toaster as a parting gift (there’s a backstory for that too but anyways) my flatmate ALSO had that same toaster. He demanded we make up our minds which one to keep. i didn't understand why this was important to him and i hated discussing this useless topic with him so i stored the toaster in my room. He repeatedly suggested i throw mine away (?). One evening i got hungry and decided i'd make myself a toast in my room. So i made some toast. Suddenly he bursts in. And he starts ranting. "why are you doing this are you CRAZY you cant TOAST in your own room thats DANGEROUS you're gonna start a fire, don't ever do that again, we have a KITCHEN for that. why don't you want to use the kitchen you cant just HIDE from me every day, this is OUR flat  and i want us to live TOGETHER!" He didn't stop talking and it overwhelmed me, so (this is embarrassing, but) i actually started crying and i turned away from him so i could try to control myself. and he just started babytalking me "awww its alright i didn't mean to scare you, but you see, you shouldn't have done that". he tried putting his arms around me, i told him to stop. "you need a hug right now" ...... i was so angry i think my brain might have short circuited because the next hour was me just acting the whole way through. i told him everything he wanted to hear. i was so sorry for almost burning the house down and made up some explanation that my parents were still making me sad, so i needed distance. The next big thing involved one of my best friends. she wanted to spontaneously go out for an evening. so i put on some pants and of course: HE appears in my room, asking where i'm going. i was surprised by the question and just answered "going out with Lina" he left it at that. then suddenly: "can i come too?" He threw me off with that question. Lina had said she needed some advice on personal stuff, so I said "no" because i didn't have a better answer. he got ANGRY. i explained. "Lina wants some privacy, i'm sorry" He starts arguing that Lina is just as much his best friend, and that he should be allowed to hear what she wants to say to me. Before i can reply he slams his door shut. "Don't even try to explain yourself", he says. I told my friend while meeting up with her and she began with the sympathetic "you should have said yes" and we argued about it and then she came out with this absolutely horrifying sentence: "you know how he is. you cant be *too* honest with him. he's sensitive. you need to lie to him so he doesn't get mad" it was as if i'd been splashed with cold water. i said i didn't agree with that. that that was actually unfair to HIM. nobody likes being lied to and treated less than. she called him, told him i was gonna apologize and he showed up with the angriest expression i ever saw in his face. he accused me of being depressed and that he now has the burden of my mental issues to bear. This he assumed because one night i told him about me dissassociating sometimes a few years ago. Then he wanted me to promise i would never leave him, because he's afraid i won't be able to pay my part of the rent. the crowning moment was my friend Lina mostly agreeing with him and both of them berating me for not having my life together because i still hadn't managed to find an open-ended contract job, only limited-time jobs. at the end he justified himself by saying he cant stand my parents phoning me. (at that point they had started calling me everyday and showed genuine concern ... i was trying to reform a bond with them) - apparently he resented that. he knew about my parents disciplining me with face slaps as a kid (when i was 9-11 yrs old) (they feel bad about it, and they they stopped doing it fairly early) in that moment my flatmate chose to tell me ..... (hoo boy i need to get ready to type this) .... "i'm concerned about you. if your father would ever beat you, i would beat him  to a bloody pulp" then he repeated "i would beat him/kill him" a few times, VERY agitatedly. it was scary and at that point i was numb. i didn't really respond, i just said "its fine" or something to that extent. the  thing that made me decide to move out (although certainly among many that followed that night) was this: one morning i informed him i was going to visit my parents that weekend. we had started talking again (as i mentioned before and i wanted to meet them without fighting for once). he says "but you're coming back, right". i say "of course don't be so nervous". i go to work. i get a LOT OF texts from him suddenly. i skim through it. he's mad about me calling him "nervous". i don't reply/read bc i am at work. Then he actually CALLS me. i don't pick up.  now i'm thinking: What is so  important, that he has to call me during work.  there's a 4 paragraph essay in my inbox. "watch your mouth", "you have no right to speak that way to me", "you should have more respect". he was mad i called him nervous. i responded that i don't have time to reply. he argued back. at one point i said "if i cant even call you nervous then i'm ACTUALLY gonna stay with my parents" he fiNALLY didn't reply to that. after a 10hour day i come home. i wanna shower. i go to my room, close the door and start undressing myself. of course, there's knocking on my door. i say "No" he flips out. i calmly tell him i'm only half dressed. he flips out even more, says i'm a horrible person who WANTS to fight because my "no" wasn't a good enough answer and i should have explained in full detail why he couldn't get in. he was actually SERIOUS. this was his reasoning for flipping out. he goes away. not even a minute passes by and he hammers his fist against my door again. "OPEN UP THIS TIME I *HAVE* TO COME IN" at this point i'm beginning to get kinda scared  so i say "come in" He comes in and says he needs me to disconnect with the wifi because he needs it for his work. i calmly say "ok" and disconnect my wifi. he goes away, leaves the door open. i stand up to go and close my door. HE ACTUALLY GOES AND PULLS AGAINST ME TO TRY TO PRY IT OPEN AGAIN. eventually he lets go and then he flips out FOR REAL. he starts screaming about how i'm a psycho, and that im crazy and awful and he has been nothing but nice and that he "saved" me and i haven't been thankful enough.

.... ..

yes, i was in a difficult position. but that flatmate arrangement was made on even ground. he had wanted to move out from his parents for years. i fled and left. called my parents, but they were miles away and laughed it off. i would have probably too. i called my friends. Lina offered to come and mediate. He continued screaming even with Lina there. It culminated with him roaring at me, pointing at the door saying "if you don't like how i treat you, there's the door, leave right now" with lina replying "don't say that, you NEED her money to pay rent!" it was awful, and an eye-opener. the next day, on the way to work, i decided i was gonna move out. and before i could tell him, i get a message from him (!). An ultimatum. he tells me i have 3 options. 1) leave immediately and take my stuff away within a week. i wouldn't have "pay any more than i've already payed" (it was the first day of that month and i had already payed my rent. nice) 2) stay for half a year, but immediately pay him something so that he knows i'll stay 3) stay indefinitely, but set up a " bevahiour contract" with him, so this "never happens again" i told him i'd take option 1 and then i stayed over at a friends house. then at a friends shared appartement. then at dormitary and soon i'm gonna move in with my younger brother. we've been estranged a bit but grown closer through this whole thing. now Lina and him are still friends and lina blames me for "everyone in our friend group" being mad at him. one of her first concerns, was that her birthday parties are gonna be weird now. i am completely done with her as well and don't want her in my life anymore. according to her, I left him with a rent he cant pay  and i should feel bad for that. except i dont. should i though?

[cgirat]

i’m not always proud

brain big so this is a bandersnatch (2018) and pride (2014) crossover fic purely because theyre both set in the 80s and i think that joe & stefan would be a sweet couple. title is from thos moser by gupi ft fraxiom because im like that

joe cooper/stefan butler

Pride 1985. Joe marches proudly; lesbians and gays do support the miners, it's an act of solidarity as they're both treated unfairly by the government and the police. It's the best feeling being proud of who he is because for so long he'd hidden it for fear of how his family might look at him, he was out to practically everyone but the people that were meant to be closest to him. Within just a few months a lot has changed, he's moved in with Stephanie, he's working at a café near Gay's the Word, the pastry chef likes him enough they Joe gets to help out sometimes and the activism is going well so life is really looking up. It's a new way of living and he's getting used to it and overall he's happy with it.

Love does not seem to be something that's going to happen for Joe. He deals with that as best as he can, he doesn't try and force anything, if he goes to the bars and a man there wants him he's okay to make out. But no one asks him out or seems to be looking for commitment, he gets it they're young and he's still early into adulthood so it's whatever.

A young man seems to be loitering after the march is over with his hands in his pockets, eyes wide open and lips set in a straight line. Joe sees him across the street while Steph's abandoned him for some goth lesbian and they make eye contact for a brief moment before he looks away. Joe finds him a weird kind of beautiful, something about him is sharp and Joe doesn't look away. He wouldn't have crossed the street towards the man if he hasn't looked back at Joe. Pride is as good a time as any to be friendly.

Close up the man is shorter than Joe. He's still weirdly handsome at this distance and his dark hair and green eyes are intriguing.

"Did you have fun at the march today?"

The dude looks startled if wide eyes are anything to go by. "Uhhh, well, I didn't catch much of it, I was just on my way back home, actually."

"Oh cool, you should come to next year's march it'll be bigger and better hopefully." Joe smiles politely, getting the cue that the dudes not like him and he's prepared to turn around until he hears him speak again.

"Stefan. Me, uh. I'm Stefan." Stefan falls over his words, smiling sheepishly, revealing rows of shark teeth. His smile is endearing. He puts his hand out for Joe to shake.

"I'm Joe." he accepts Stefan's hand in a shake and Joe notes that his hand is warm but his shake isn't very confident.

They smile at each other for a bit even though it's awkward when Stefan releases Joe's hand and his own retreats to the pockets of his jacket.

"Well if you're not in a rush home feel free to come to our post pride party. It's at Gay's the Word; last years was good so hopefully, this year will be too."

Stefan smiles again. It's toothy and contagious.

They spend the rest of the night getting to know each other. Stefan isn't as closed off as Joe was a year ago, he talks about work and geeks out over computers and video games. He works at Tuckersoft and has already developed a "choose your own adventure" game based off of a book that received decent reviews. Joe thinks he's probably being modest. When he talks about it it seems very complicated and Joe instantly knows that Stefan is way smarter than he'll ever be because he knows smart, educated people things. It's like looking into the past, Stefan is 20 and he's closeted? Straight? Joe doesn't want to ask as it's none of his business no matter how much he wants to kiss him a little.

Joe and Stefan walk arm in arm to the bus stop and stay linked there while waiting. Stefan is a little drunk and so he talks a lot but Joe welcomes it. Joe's laughing at Stefan who can't seem to get over the fact that Joe's nickname is so shit.

"Bromley, of all the town's to be named after-"

"Even now I wonder if it's meant to be cute or if they're taking the piss."

Stefan huffs out a laugh, "I'm thankfully uninteresting so I don't have any nicknames." He pauses. "Having two friends helps as well, one of them is my dad but he's not the nicknaming type."

"It's lonely in the office?"

"Very." Stefan rests his head on the glass of the bus shelter. "Especially today, I wasn't even supposed to be in but my therapist forgot to tell me that she'd moved my appointment to Tuesday so I went there instead. I bet she was at the march today." he pauses for a moment. "Why does she even do appointments on Saturdays? Overworking is my thing."

Joe can't take his eyes away from Stefan's face. His eyes are closed and his face glows in the orange of the street lights.

"She's a lesbian?" He may be curious but whatever Stefan goes to therapy for is none of his business. He wants to know, though, one day.

"I'm not sure, I didn't ask, but you know when you can kinda just tell?"

Joe gulps. "I didn't meet a lesbian until my 20th birthday."

Stefan laughs, eyes opening and staring at Joe incredulously. "Wow, you were incredible sheltered. Can't you just tell? Like Colin's girlfriend, I don't think she's a lesbian because she's dating him but something about her isn't.... Normal."

It's past midnight. June 30th. It's officially his birthday and Joe can't catch a break. "I'm Bromley, remember?"

Stefan's laugh is glorious to hear. It's aided by a few cans of beer but welcome nonetheless. "Well happy gay birthday Bromley." he laughs, gesturing to the pin on Joe’s jacket that he’d forgotten about. of course he blushes, that’s all he’s capable of doing.

Stefan’s bus comes too soon after that. Joe says that if ever he wants to meet up again he should just go to Gay's the Word and ask for him. Then he's gone. Joe's heart flutters.

-

The next time they get the opportunity to hang out Joe ends up going to Stefan's workplace. He brings pastries and coffee which Stefan's boss eyes and makes a point of mentioning how disrespectful Joe is to come to the offices without offerings. Like the weakling he is, he gives Thakur the pain au chocolat that was meant for himself. Stefan laughs to himself, even if he keeps his eyes trained on his monitor. He and Stefan spend the day there, Joe dicks around on the computer next to him and they talk easily about the game, the book and work. Stefan reveals he wasn't really planning on releasing any games after Bandersnatch but he just kept on living after its release and with nothing better to do he started coding again. Joe hates being presumptive but he sees why Stefan's seeing a therapist.

On the way out, they swing round the record shop.

"I told my dad about you. I told him I have three friends now..." But he quickly looks up looking for reassurance from Joe, "if that's alright with you. If we aren't friends he won't be surprised if the number goes down I'm not the easiest person to get along with so-"

"Of course we're friends. You compliment my baking and photography I'm an easy man."

"Really? How easy?"

Joe flushes.

"Bad joke, sorry I didn't take my medication."

"Your medication makes you less inquisitive to your friend’s private lives?"

"Well yeah. I found out most of what I know about Colin when I was flushing them."

"Funny how that works...."

Stefan rolls his eyes while he picks out a record. Pearl jam. Steph loves them.

-

Stefan's a welcome addition to his life. He's easy to get along with, not as loud as Joe's other friends and he makes time for Joe.

He's helping at the book shop (filling shelves, taking some books upstairs for storage) with Mark.

"Y'know Bromley, I'm surprised you have time to be here between work and that boyfriend of yours." He says offhand.

That strikes Joe because boyfriend? He's been single forever having never dated seriously. He tries to never think about that because he's only getting older. He pauses from flipping through the book that he's holding.

"Boyfriend?"

"The one from pride. How'd you not know your own partner, the one with the dark hair and leather jacket?"

"Stefan?" Joe can feel himself flushing. "We're friends, what?" He laughs nervously.

"Oh, poor naive Bromley. You sheltered folk sure do congregate." Mark laughs. It's a joke that Joe doesn't really get it. It's not funny because they're not into each other that way. Joe rationalises it to himself, how Stefan and him just wouldn't work out because Stefan seems preoccupied and Joe doesn't fight for attention. He won't.

[archiefm]

         ... claws my way up from hell once more and vomits onto the dash.... hello. its nora. i used to write rory bergstrom, but if u were here before that u might remember me as greta or alma putnam or..... som1 else.... an endless carousel of trash children..... this is finn, who i actually wrote for an early version of this rp abt 5yrs back now...... grits teeth..... so forgive me if im rusty i havent written him in a long time but seein honey boy gave me a lotta finn muse n im keen to get Back On The Horse yeehaww...

DYLAN O’BRIEN / CIS-MALE — don’t look now, but is that finn o’callaghan i see? the 25 year old criminology and forensic studies student is in their graduate year of study year and he is a rochester alum. i hear they can be judicious, adroit, morose and cynical, so maybe keep that in mind. i bet he will make a name for themselves living off-campus. ( nora. 24. gmt. she/her )

shakes my tin can a humble pinterest, ma’am....

finn has a bio pasted at the bottom (n written in like.... 2015.... gross) but it’s long  so if u don’t wanna read it here’s the sparknotes summary..... anyway this was written years ago n a lot of it seems really cliche and lame now but..... we accept the trash we think we deserve

grumpy, ugly sweater wearing, tech-savvy grandpa

very dry sense of humour and embraces nihilism. 

if ron swanson and april ludgate had a baby it would be finn

he was raised in derry, just south of dublin.

from a big family. elder sister called sinead. he also has a younger sister (aoife), a younger brother (colm), and a collie named lassie because his father lovs cliches (finn hates cliches but loves his dog). 

his father was a pub landlord and his mother worked at the market sellin fruit n veg when they met but got a job as a medical receptionist when she had kids cos it meant she cld be there with them in the day and work nights.

his parents met when they were p young and fiesty and rushed into marriage cos they were catholic n just wanted to have sex. his family were literally dirt-poor, but they had a lot of love i guess

hmmmmm his relationship w his father wasn’t the best cos i can’t write character who have healthy relationships w their parents throws up a peace sign. yh, had a pretty emotionally distant, alcoholic violent father n so gets a lot of his bad habits i.e. drinking as a coping mechanism and poor anger management from him BUT anyway

as a kid he was never very motivated in class, he always had a nervous itch to be off somewhere doing something else. struggled under government austerity bcso there just wasn’t the resources to support low income families where the kids had learning difficulties n needed support. fuck the tories am i right 

his mum suggested he try sports to help w his restless energy but he was never any good at football so he took up boxing and tap dance instead. he took to tap dancing like a fish to fuckin water. as adhd n found this as a really good way to use his excess energy in a creative way

had a few run ins with the police in his early teens for spray painting and graffiti, but he straightened himself out n now actually considering becoming a detective inspector??? cops are pigs.

he had a youtube channel where he posted videos of him tapdancing and breakdancing as a kid, basically would be a tiktok boy nowadays, n had like... a small fanbase in his early teens. attended several open auditions unsuccessfully, until he was finally cast in billy eliot when he was fifteen.

during billy eliot he began dating an italian dancer called nina. they became dance partners soon after and toured across the republic with various different shows (inc riverdance lol the classic irish stereotype). their relationship was p toxic tbh, they were both very hot tempered people and just used to argue and fight all the time.

he went semi-pro at tap dancing, and nina couldn’t stand being second best so she moved back to italy with her family. ignored his texts, phone calls, etc, eventually he was driven to the point where he used his savings to buy a plane ticket, showed up at her house and she was like wtf?? freaked out and filed a restraining order accusing him of stalking.

he was fined for harassment and then returned home to derry, but after the incident with nina he quit dancing for good and finished his leaving cert before heading to university in the US to get as far away from nina and his past life as poss. and basically since he quit dancing to study forensics (death kink. finn cant get enough of that morgue. just walks around sayin beat u) he’s become a massive grump and jsut doesn’t see the good in people any more.

u’ll find finn in an old man bar drinking whiskey bc he is in fact an old man at heart or sat on his roof smoking a joint, drawing wolves and lions and skeletons and shit, playing call of duty or getting blazed or at the corner of the room in a house party ignoring everyone and scrolling through twitter. is a massive e-boy. always up-to-date on memes and internet slang. has reddit as an app on his phone

not very good at communication. rather than solve his issues by talking, he’d prefer to just solve them through fighting or running away from his problems hence why he has come halfway across the world to get away from an issue which probs cld have been solved w a few apology emails.

takes a lot to phase him, but when his beserk button gets pressed he can become a bit pugnacious like an angry lil rottweiler. in his undergrad he was in a few fist fights but doesn’t really do tht any more as he doesn’t condone violence.

 in the previous version of this rp he was hospitalised like 5 times. pls, give my son a break. stop tryin to kill him. he literaly got a bottle smashed over his head and bled out all over his favourite angora rug that was the only light of his life

works at the campus coffee shop n always whines about how he’s a slave to capitalism. always smells of coffee

lives off campus with an elderly woman named Marianne, and basically gets reduced rent bcos he makes her dinner / keeps her company. they have a great bond

fan of karl marx. v big on socialism

insomniac with chronic nosebleeds

cynical about everything. too much of a fight club character 4 his own good n has his head up tyler durden’s sphincter

always confused or annoyed

statistics

basic information

full name: finnegan seamus o'callaghan nickname(s): finn age: 25 astrological sign: aries hometown: derry, ireland occupation: phd student / former street entertainer fatal flaw: cynicism positives: self-reliant, street smart, relaxed, intelligent, spontaneous, brave, independent, reliable, trustworthy, loyal. negatives: hostile, impulsive, stubborn, brooding, pugnacious, untrusting, cynical, enigmatic, reserved.

physical

colouring: medium hair colour: dark brown, almost black eye colour: brown height: 5’9” weight: 69kg build: tall, athletic voice: subtle irish accent, low, smooth. dominant hand: left scar(s): one on the left side of his ribs from a knife wound that he doesn’t remember getting cos he was drunk distinguishing marks: freckles, tattoo of a wolf howling at a moon allergies: pollen and the full spectrum of human emotion alcohol tolerance: high drunken behaviour: he becomes friendlier, far more conversational than when sober, flirtier, and generally more self-confident.

psychological

dreams/goals: self-fulfilment, travel the globe, experience life in its most alive and technicoloured version, make documentary films, help the vulnerable in society, grow as a human being.

skills: jack-of-all-trades, very fast runner, good at thieving things, talented tap dancer, good in crisis situations, dab-hand at mechanics, musically-intelligent, can throw a mean right hook and very capable of defending himself, can roll a cigarette, memorises quotes and passages of literature with ease, can light a match with his teeth.

likes: the smell of the earth after rain, poetry, cigarettes, shakespeare, whiskey, tattoos, travelling, ac/dc, deep conversations, leather jackets, open spaces, the smell of petrol, early noughties ‘emo phase’ anthems.

dislikes:  the government, parties, rules, donald trump, children, apple products, weddings, people in general, small talk, dependency, loneliness, pop music, public transport, justin timberlake, uncertainty.fears: fear itself, drowning alignment: true neutral mbti: istp – “while their mechanical tendencies can make them appear simple at a glance, istps are actually quite enigmatic. friendly but very private, calm but suddenly spontaneous, extremely curious but unable to stay focused on formal studies, istp personalities can be a challenge to predict, even by their friends and loved ones. istps can seem very loyal and steady for a while, but they tend to build up a store of impulsive energy that explodes without warning, taking their interests in bold new directions.” (via 16personalities.com)

full bio (lame as fuck written years ago..... pleathe...)

tw homophobia

born in quigley’s pub on the backstreets of sunny dublin, young finnegan o'callaghan was thrown kicking and screaming into the rowdy suburbs of irish drinking culture. the son of a landlord and a fishwife, he never had much in the way of earnings, but there was never a dull moment in his lively estate, where asbo’s thrived, but community spirit conquered. at school, finn was pegged as lazy and unmotivated, though truly his dyslexia made it hard for the boy to learn in the same environment of his peers and only made him more closed-off in class. struggling with anger management, finn moved from school to school, unable to fit the cookie-cutter mould that school enforced on him, though whilst academic studies were of little interest to the boy, he soon found his true passions lay in recreational activities. immersed into the joys of sport from as young as four, finn was an ardent munster fan and anticipated nothing more than the day he could finally fit into his brother’s old pair of rugby boots.

his calling finally came unexpectedly, not in the form of rugger, but through dance. to learn to express himself in a non-academic way, he began tap dancing, finding therapy in the beat of his soles against the cracked kitchen tiles (much to his mother’s disgrace). it wasn’t a conscious choice, finn just realised one day that dance was something that made him feel. a king of the streets, finn made his fortune on those cobbled pavements – dancing and drawing to earn his keep. by default, finn became a street artist, each penny he earned from his chalk drawings saved in a jam jar towards buying his first pair of tap shoes. though many of his less-than-amiable neighbours called him a nancy and a gaybo, finn refused to quit at his somewhat ‘unconventional’ hobby, for the young scrapper found energy, life, and released anger through the rhythm of tap. soon he branched out into street dance, hip hop, break dancing, lyrical, his days spent smacking his scuffed feet against the broken patio into the night.

when he was thirteen he took up boxing, and as expected, his newfound ‘macho’ pastime conflicted with his dancing. the boxers called him ‘soft’; the dancers called him ‘inelegant’. he felt like two different people; having to choose between interests was like being handed a knife and asked to which half of himself he wished to cut away. he couldn’t afford professional training in dance, with most schools based in england and limited scholarships available. instead, he made the street his studio, racking up a small fanbase on youtube. when he was fifteen he made his debut in billy eliot at the olympia theatre in dublin. enter nina de souza, talented, beautiful and italian; ballet dancer, operatic singer, genius whiz kid, and spoiled brat. she was selfish, conceited, hell bent on getting her own way, and every director’s nightmare. finn fell for her like a house of cards. he’d always had a soft spot for girls who meant trouble. and so their hellish courtship began.

by the time they were seventeen, the two young swans had danced in every playhouse across the republic. they were known in theatres across the country for their tempestuous personalities, their raging arguments with one another, their tendency to drop out of shows altogether without any notice, yet the money kept rolling in and the audiences continued to grow. for three years, their families continued to put up with their hysterical fights followed by passionate reconciliations. he was too possessive, and she was too wild. their carcrash of a relationship finally came to a catastrophic halt when nina broke off the whole affair and returned to italy with her family. for months finn tried to contact her, yet his phone calls, texts, facebook messages were always ignored, until finally he was driven to drastic measures and used his savings to get a plane to her home town. when finn turned up uninvited at nina’s house she freaked out – and rightly so – she contacted her agent, accused him of stalking her, and had a restraining order placed against him. finn was arrested, held in a station overnight, and charged with harassment before he was allowed to return to dublin.

after the incident with nina, finn lost the fight in his eyes. he became far more hostile, far less likely to retaliate with his own fists, and picked fights not for the thrill of feeling his own fists pummel another into a wall, but for the sensation of his own brittle bones cracking. he dropped his tap shoes in a dumpster, stopped talking to his friends, followed his father’s advice and went back to school to complete his leaving certificate. a few short months later, and finn was packing his bags, saying his bittersweet goodbyes, and travelling half-way across the globe to be as far away as possible from his past self, his mess of a life, and most of all nina. it seemed somehow ironic that the boy who had been cautioned by the garda so much during his youth for spray painting, busking without a liscence, and raucous parties would become the grumpy, aloof overseas student studying a degree in criminology; that his once reckless spirit could be crushed so easily. 

of all things that finn could be called, straightforward would never be one of them. ever since his first days in atticus, the boy was pegged as hostile, hot-headed, cynical, rude. he seemed to spend more time in his thoughts than engaging in conversation. like a ticking time-bomb, finn’s anger was of the calm kind, liable to explode without a moment’s noticed. his unpredictable personality make him something of an enigma to those who aren’t amiable with the lad, though hostile as he may appear, he harvests a good heart. loyalty lies at the centre of his affections, and whilst his friends are few in number, he makes a lifelong partner. somewhere within finn, there’s still some fight left, but mostly he has recognised that his hedonistic lifestyle did little to leave him fulfilled – mostly, it just emptied him out – and over his three years at university has resigned himself to a nihilistic predicament.

        if u wanna plot with me pls pls pls im me or like this post!! i am always game for plots i love em so excited to write with you all here r some ideas

study buddies. finn is now a phd student so has to start takin shit seriously. he gon be in the library every day doing that independent study. if he had ppl who were also regular library goers n they get each other coffees to save time.... tht wld be sweet

ppl who love techno dj sets and going super hard on the weekends!!! fuck yea

friends with benefits. exes on bad terms. ppl he tried to date but couldnt because he’s always emotionally hung up on someone else. spicy hook up plots

ppl he met touring?? maybe ppl who were also in the entertainment industry..... anyone got a character who is ex circus hit me up

does anyone else study criminology / forensics / criminal psych / law? phd students sometimes lecture so he cld be an assistant lecturer / tutor if ur character is in a younger year

gamers !!! social recluses !!! hermits !!

finn goes to the skatepark and all the young boys there think he’s a gradnpa which he is! 

[notyourpocket]

𝐃𝐫. 𝐋𝐮𝐝𝐰𝐢𝐠 || 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜

                               - - permanent relationship & plotter call - -

Hello everyone! My first version of this was written way before I really fell into a good groove with Ludwig, so I’ve gone ahead and remade/updated it. Liking this post means that you’re open to interaction and are aware of the content warnings for his blog!

What you might get from me for liking:

IMs for plotting! Either here or Twitter!

Unprompted threads, with permission?

Mentions of your muse or musings inspired by them

Memes on Meme Day

Shenanigans

You can hit me up on IMs here, message me on my Twitter, or ask for my discord if you ever need to contact me! I love to chat about muses and bs!

Note that while I do make an effort to tag my posts with content warnings and I do check for triggers on muns’ about pages, things may and probably will slip through the cracks. Let me know if this happens and I will remedy it! I’m happy to tag anything!

That said, Ludwig is a morbid personality and extremely prone to bringing up topics involved with medicine, surgery, and violence. He is capable of cruelty, his anger may lead to insult, and his idea of fun can range from biopsies to practical jokes. He is friendly when he wants to be, is in his early 50s, and has fought in wars.

If you’re still open to have your muse interact with him regardless of all of that, amazing! You’re hired!

The types of relationships that could be formed with Ludwig are:

FRIENDS

Friendship is a bit of a strange area for Ludwig. His first instinct upon meeting somebody who isn’t outright trying to kill or insult him is to put on a happy face, clap them on the shoulder, and act as though he’s already willing to become allies.

The reality of the situation is that Ludwig does not trust easily; while a muse may seem to hit it off with him, he will not fully trust them until given good reason. What this so called ‘good reason’ is can be up to interpretation, whether that means surviving a traumatic event together, having his own life saved, or as simple as someone being kind to his birds.

If friends with Ludwig, whether he trusts you or not, you can expect advice when needed, advice when not needed, stories about the war or his work, and an ear happy to listen to everything you’re willing to say. He adores gossip and idle chatter.

Getting too affectionate, however, may lead to grumpiness. He is not a touchy man and prefers others to stay outside of his bubble unless he’s the one initiating, save for those select few he truly trusts. If you can hug him without fuss, then congratulations! He will kill for you.

ENEMIES

He will kill you.

Just as easily as he makes friends, it’s not hard to earn him as an enemy. Threats towards Ludwig won’t quite do it, of course, but acting on those threats? Fights? Hell yeah, he’ll hate you. Insulting him, genuinely insulting him or his work? His birds? And then keeping it up? Fuck yeah he’ll hate you!

Threaten his birds? He might just straight up come at you, man. I can’t promise your safety at that point. Under no circumstances will I allow anyone’s muse to hurt any of his birds, but kidnapping, insults, and threats are free reign and the most surefire way to set him off. The birds are serious business.

If you want an enemy that’s totally willing to go for a kill and not afraid to be nasty, go for it. Hell, if you want to kill someone and have them come back for another round, go for it!

COLLEAGUES

This could just as easily fall under friends, but professional relationships are more than welcome as well. Ludwig is always looking to expand his practice outside of shady back alleys and would be more than happy to work alongside somebody, just don’t expect him to follow your rules.

Talk about science (medical or not), literature (though the mun admittedly isn’t an academic), birds, etc.

This is- okay this is just ‘friends but smart’ I guess?

PATIENTS

All friends are patients, but not all patients are friends!

This is open to anyone and is an entirely casual business relationship. Ludwig is capable of treating most any injury of most any severity, most illnesses, and has dabbled in veterinary medicine.

If you come to him for help, he will do his very best to give you what you need. Just be aware that his bedside manner, while not terrible, has few filters. He may endear you to him one moment and the next talk about the last time he had someone come in with a shattered femur and the horrible amputation it required!

ROMANCE

Oh, wait.... you’re serious? Uh, sounds fake but okay!

Ludwig is not actively searching for romance. He might flirt, he might even eye people up, but he doesn’t expect it to go farther than a single night of fun if that far at all. Sometimes feeling handsome is all you need.

He is in his 50s. He has an ex wife. He’s jaded, he’s been hurt. He’s eccentric, hard to deal with, not terribly affectionate, he’s done horrible things (without regret), and most of his hobbies are downright disturbing. There might be a good enough man to love under all of that and if you’ve managed to properly worm your way into his life to the point that he enjoys your company, you might have a chance. Might.

But he’s going to fight it. Relationships are something Ludwig is wary of, nowhere near fearful but reluctant to consider. He’s been cheated on. He’s lost at least one good friend in Isola, so he’s aware of the fleeting nature of things in the city.

Good fuckin luck, bruh.

MISC

Anything that I didn’t list is also totally fine!

Want a dad/granddad? Go for it, he’d probably be game to teach you weird science. Want somebody to play bingo with you every Thursday? Hell yeah, but he cheats! Want somebody to dote on your pets when you walk them? Absolutely!!

Anything and everything is on the table!! Try me!!

-------

Ludwig can be found just about anywhere for just about any reason you’d like! Stores (pet stores and pharmacies, especially), hospitals or vets’ offices, bars, anywhere with good food (the one thing he’s truly homesick for), at parks feeding the pigeons/ducks, grave robbing, etc.

He probably wouldn’t be anywhere super technology oriented, as he is from the 1960s and still a bit shell shocked by the future, but just about any setting should be perfectly fine is what I’m trying to say.

He’s a ridiculous character, let’s get fuckin weird.i

[xanthicantag]

omg do all the dnd asks im so curious !!!

Long boi this one is

1. A favorite character you have played.

This is a hard one, I was a real big fan of my storm barbarian Tiffany, or Unfaceable the ranger I played awhile ago.  They were more or less the same character

2. Your favorite character that someone else has played.

Oh absolutely Ragnarok the Winged One, he was my friend Juan’s first character I think (if not first one of the first).  He was a white dragon born sorcerer, who didn’t actually have wings for 96% of the campaign.  He also hated capitalists so goals really. 

3. Your favorite side quest.

One time I tried to set up a One night ultimate werewolf side quest, and it kinda worked, it’s just we stopped playing for like 2 months and they didn’t finish it.

4. Your current campaign.

I’m currently in Dungeon of the Mad Mage as an Aasimar Warlock!

5. Favorite NPC. 

Pit Man.

6. Favorite death (monster, player character, NPC, etc).

So, technically they didn’t die, but one my players character went into the Negative Plane to marry a nightwalker who was going to be the final boss, but I felt really bad for all of them after making them do a like 4 stage thing.

7. Your favorite downtime activity.

Rivals!!!!!  They are the coolest thing.

8. Your favorite fight/encounter.

The Strahd fight when I ran CoS last year was p cool, they all died but it was really not close (They got him to like 15 hp but there’s still tons of bullshit to do after that) or the final fight I did as Unfaceable, we fought a beholder and I was paralyzed for like 6 rounds.

9. Your favorite thing about D&D.

Honestly, I enjoy seeing people get excited about playing the game.  Like when Juan (Tbh he’s just my all time favorite player sorry everyone else) got a crit while we were playing in the cafeteria and just fucking yelled about it.

10. Your favorite enemy and the enemy you hate the most.

OH fccuk this is a hard choice.  I really think Nightwalkers are like the coolest right now since I love Negative plane shit.  I think dragons are kinda overrated as enemies tho, i don’t hate them really tho since dragons are dope as fuck.

11. How often do you play and how often would you ideally like to play?

I Dm about twice a week and play once a week, Ideally I’d play or dm every day and have no other obligations but life is simply unfair

12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from.

Temaridy

13. Introduce your current party.

We’ve got Krosnis, my Celestial Warlock, Temaridy, a Tiefling Fiend Warlock, Sigil, a Warforged Eldritch Knight, Ketla, a uh, the elvish giants, FIRBOLG, Moon Druid, and shit fuck uh, the Abjuration Wizard, who’s name is, uhh, Enzio?  Idk his name but the player canonically decided he looks like Fenris so that’s all that matters.  

14. Introduce any other parties you have played in or DM-ed.

Hmmm this is a tough choice there’s tons of them....  I’ll do the first party I solo DM-ed for I guess since they were p cool:  Hellspawn, a Tiefling Monk with the homebrew way of the 8 gates of hell subclass (He was so goddamn edgy, and played by @t-rexquefuturus even tho he doesn’t really use tumblr), Thargus Irvin, a Totem Barbarian (Played by @themonotonyofdays fun fact i guess?), Borges, an Alchemist who was just trying his best, Mikono, who was also trying his best but was much sadder about it (Played by @tsurikun so double fun fact in one post actually boom), uhhhhhh, Delgor?  Delgar?  Del-something, a Battlemaster Warlock multiclass, i’m not sure what delgar was triyng to do (other the complain about hellspawn yeah i went there they don’t have a tumblr so none of you better snitch on me i stg) and last (literally he joined in towards the end of the campaign) Magnus, a uh, Mystic, he was there

15. Do you have snacks during game times?

Yeah usually, me like snackys

16. Do you play online or in person? Which do you prefer?

I do both!  I prefer in person since it’s harder for people to talk online since it all gets muddled

17. What are some house rules that your group has?

Er, on the sly anything goes tbh if it seems cool enough

18. Does your party keep any pets?

In the current one we have so many familiars it’s crazy.

19. Do you or your party have any dice superstitions?

Amy (The one who loves pit man) rolls all her dice at the start and takes the one that did the best

20. How did you get into D&D? How long have you been playing?

In highschool i played 2 times for like, 10 hours each time?  that was so fucking long holy shit, and the freshman year of college i started co-dming a group and then it took off from there

21. Have you ever regretted something your character has done?

Tbh, not really?  Like, 80% of them are dumb as fuck so jot that down, but I don’t usually do stuff in game that I regret, except that one time i died but it was to be a hero so worth it

22. What color was your first dragon?

I think it was a baby black dragon?

23. Do you use premade modules or original campaigns?

I use both depending on how busy I am

24. How much planning/preparation do you do for a game?

Depends?  I usually do a lot of long term planning early on and then not too much per session

For DMs

25. What have your players done that you never could have planned for?

The one group got really attached to some meaty boiz, and then the one player killed all of them and like most of the party, great way to end the campaign

26. What was your favorite scene to write and show your characters.

Oooo, hmmmmmmmmm, I really had a good plan for the end to this arc (the one with the nightwalker) but it kinda didn’t really happen how i planned which was a bit of a bummer, but it worked out in sort of a better way

27. Do you allow homebrew content? Yeah as long as it doesn’t seem like super busted

28. How often do you use NPCs in a party?  I usually give npcs if they need like a healer or something, like Kargol

29. Do you prefer RP heavy sessions or combat sessions?

I don’t really have a preference for either?  My groups get a lil bloodthirsty if they go too long with a fight usually (Except you @themoragontrail just pacifist running a whole session and a half)

30. Are your players diplomatic or murder hobos?

Oh definitely murder hobos

For Players

31. What is your favorite class? Favorite race?

Oh this is hard, I’m a big fan of Warlock customization and flexibility, I don’t really have favorite race (It’s tieflings I read homestuck feel free to at me)

32. What role do you like to play the most? (Tank/healer/etc?)

I’m usually a tank/front line, It’s where I like to be, does it always end well?  Not even close, does my warlock have more hp than our fighter?  Hell fucking yes

33. How do you write your backstory, or do you even write a backstory?

So, it depends?  I usually do it last once I’ve made the rest of the character and use it as a reason why their the way they are now.  And I give like 65% of them heterochromia cause i thinks it’s sick as fuck

34. Do you tend pick weapons/spells for being useful or for flavor?

as someone who loves lances, need i say more?

35. How much roleplay do you like to do?

It depends on what game i’m in, i usually don’t do too much rping in combat heavy stuff, but i like to, and also i love rping sub 8 int, or 14>= int but that’s just me irl and let me tell you, I’m a dumbass who will eat the exploding rock

[survivornavarino]

Episode #1: I Tried Giving My Heart To Him Once, And He Ate It -Drew

*Extreme keyboard smashing* I love this cast so very muchhhhh

https://i.gyazo.com/9496850dcc77a64b212b20a2651ef2c3.jpg Is this where we post or selfie? Also So pumped to get this party started!

I'm having fun, it feels like everyone knows each other so that's- yknow that's like... it's fun... like 2 people know me

I’m actually really glad with who is in my tribe so far. Like tim and heather. Hopefully this doesn’t screw over my plan since they all ready know how I play. Isbdownriwkd maybe I shouldn’t have revealed everything to them. Maybe loyalty will perserve and they won’t fear back stab me ;-; This will throw a kink into things. I’ll see how much I can get the loyalty of the others to have a buffer against this chance

I just got situated on my new tribe and I was absolutely delighted to meet everyone. Everybody seems super friendly and excited to play. Right off the bat I recognized 3 other people from Zwooper, where I usually play Survivor games. Two of them I know vaguely, and another I am actually pretty close with. I know he’s a brilliant player and I have every intention of working extremely closely with him but I also know he is a huge threat, makes great speeches, and wins a ton of games. So I am just checking every avenue at this point. I am making sure not to get too comfortable in my little zwooper alliance. I have been talking to all the other new players - particularly Tim who seems really cool. It will naturally be in our best interests to keep our Zwooper background under wraps else we could easily be targeted for knowing each other. 

So I'm going to summarize my night one experience!!! The cast seems very very promising ! I love my tribe although I haven't spoken to everyone privately just yet. So inside the rules were an extra search up the mountain and I took it! I'm positive that I'm not the only one who found it though but it did in fact come in handy. The first task was to photoshop a picture of Zach riding a rhino during some historic event and that was hilarious lol. Its not the best quality since I made it for speed. On the second trip, I had to do a puzzle and omg do I hate puzzles why must yall make me suffer. I spent like 20 mins trying to do that puzzle lmao!!! This definetly puts everyone who took the advantage ahead by atleast one step. So the challenge!! Its a scavenger hunt and im happy that we get to do that! I really am stoked about the shakespearean stuff but Tim isnt a fool. This is fans vs faves after all and its important to be aware of the game collectively. Your boy  (partially) studied the cast as of last night more specifically the favorites and I am aware that Rebecka is extremely fond of scavenger hunts so Im going to make sure I put some extra effort into the challenge. I'm super excited for the game to pick up and really start rolling. Hopefully I can be able to make it pretty far and at least past first merge boot. Let the battle begin I guess!

Me and my PC are gonna have a freaking fight because it wont upload my Youtube Video!!!!! Fotr the hunt!!!! But anyways everyone seems to be contributing a bunch and being active in the chat maybe except for Kaugh? If that is their name? I haven't spoken to them yet but Pocket is also afk but I've spoken to him. 

I finally got to writing a confessional. YAY. I'M IN ATHENA WAITING TO BE FIRST BOOT. FUN FUN FUN. I am super excited that the first thing is a scavenger hunt. I am going to do an impressions thing when I get a better feel from everyone, and when the challenge is not taking up my time.

omg this game is fun it is a tad much to take in all at once but i am slowly getting comfortable with people and how to maneuver the tasks i think Tyler and Tim are my closest so far even though it is early but we are having fun with the challenge i think it helps us talk some since we just met. 

I am just beginning my takeover of this game, I am close with Pocket and Trixie and they will be my royal advisers. I will dispatch them to gain info for me tonight.

Im literally having so much fun filming all of these videos but my data is sufferingggg. Its worth it though because im having fun! Also one of our tribe mates is dead so thats an easy vote in the event that we lose which I see might be likely (Faves are strong man)

Live footage of me after picking path 3 on level 3 and falling, notifying the tribe of my searches:

I love dodging possible situations that could blow up my game with memes 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃

Heather just asked me what level I was on and I wasnt gonna actually tell her I was on level 3? So I told her I was on level 2 and picked path 2? Hopefully the trend of rocks falling on the number that is its path and level is a thing. Or she picked path 2 and saw rocks fall and now she thinks it was her fault. Either way I hope this zooms by everyones head. :/

So Shoib came to me and told me about the extra search which I already knew about but I plaued it dumb and was like "omg thank". This atleast means he is looking out for me or trying to befriend me in some way. Browny points for him but he's a clever one. Also Pocket was like .. did you get anything... NO  lmao! I wish! I hope he doesn't think I have some advantage somewhere.

Ok and another thing! Heather is on level 3 im sure of it and she picked path one know that. She used the same excuse as me after I said i didnt search on day one but she she claimed to be on level 2 and picked path one. Sure Jan. Also I don't think she saved her extra search just yet.

Im going to slow down the rate at which I search the Dientes de Navarino. Im speculating that once you use all 5 paths on level one up you're searching potential is over. Its smarter if I wait foran alliance so we can collaborate on which paths to use, ensuring that we dont run out of searches. I can also use that knowledge to sabotage them mwahahaha.

Shoib told me not to take path 4 on level 2... you know what im gonna do? Take path 4 on level 2 so that I can get back to level 3. Thanks pal you just helped me more than you could've ever known.

https://youtu.be/UgiNE3GvbNs

So, first challenge, I haven't done anything to help at all and that worries me. While I'm writing this there is a spider like a couple feet away from me and it's moving.

Im really enjoying this tribe and the tribe call! Alliance question mark? (Me, Heather, Jake, Tyler????

Can Vi and pocket leave the call so I can form an alliance fksgfhvhb.!

Can Vi leave the group call so I can make an alliance already!! Like sis has said she was leaving like 80 times already but shes still here! LET ME LIVE LOL

Well well well

I'm back at it again I LOVE this new pink room with pretty smiling faces at the top. The other confessional rooms could never. Ok so it's the first full day of the game, which feels a lot like the first day of school. You find your friends, see who's in your classes, and come up with a game plan. Obviously I don't know everyone, but I know enough. Mitch, Julia, Rebecka, Benjamin, Jake, Tim, AND Shoib?? Oh it's lit. So far I love my tribe and that will probably bode well for the season but you never know. I know there's beef between Eddie and Benjamin which is PERFECT for down the road, but for now I'm pretty happy and don't plan on turning up anytime soon

Now we know Mitch, Jacob, and Rebecka are my Himalayas family and I want to work with Benjamin too BUT I definitely have a Day 1 that I can count on and that's Julia. The tea is Julia and I joked about getting cast together and being allies and then it happened haha so we love a premade Final 2. At first I was nervous but Julia is great when she's not pissed and that reminds me a lot of myself lmao. She's literally Cher from Clueless- very high energy, sociable, and smart; which makes me Dionne- very chill, supportive, and strategic. Jules and I are redeeming ourselves after All Stars y'all heard it here first- the cracked queens are sticking together

Me thinking about the things I said about working with Vi.

I'm always reminded of the ravages of time while playing these games, i know it doesn't seem like a huge age difference but it def feels like decades between us, though everyone seems nice enough I feel like the camp councilor trying to stay relevant 

Me af rn

https://youtu.be/uEQYZMaNN94

This scavenger hunt is great. So far is seems really fair and equal. I don't get how the 100 likes is possible ;-; but lipsyncing was fun. I had to practice bc I dunno English *shrugs. Also I feel like there are a lot of inactive members but it usually takes me all the way until merge to learn people's names so... uh hopefully Heather and Tim will lead me. The tribe is so great, the discussion on games and musicals was fun. It really was a destresser. Hopefully we do it again soon!

Its the final day of the scavenger hunt and its going very well! Except for the fact that some people aren't lipsyncing or making cards! The lip sync is worth 10 points so like YALL GOTTA DO IT OR ELSE WE LOSE. We're gonna lose tho because peeps arent lip syncing but Katherine should be the easy vote. *Squints aggressively at tribe*

so far shoib and jake and Tyler have been talkative and definitely seem like they are possibly allies as we move forward im not impressed with any of the girls it is really hard to keep meaningful conversation going with them so we will see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXFWMjhrAIk

So im pretty sure Rebecka actually went to the zoo to see a real rhino cuz she's a queen lol and I saw on my youtube that Ben made a paparrazi lipsync because he made it public and not unlisted fksksks i love knowledge its power

ahhhh i have so much to do today

I need to have a good conversation with autumn today and speak to her before immunity results come out an basically hey girly!!! I got your back ;)... but i need to talk to her like a lot this afternoon before i bring that up!'

I need to talk to Rebecca more too and have another conversation with her too and I really need to knock it out of the ball park in terms of making her feel like I’m somebody who she could work with going forward and like who cares if I don't like your best friend!!!

I also need to talk to Julia a lot today too but I’m like trying to wait for a time to message her that’s not like immediately in the morning aka like right now so it doesn’t feel like i rushed to say hi to her just to make my rounds, but do it at a more later part in the day to make it seem a little more relaxed and less like it was a plan to message people first thing in the morning.

Mitch and I had a really good convo last night I think. I mean we talked about candles and his love for them and the normal stuff that I couldn’t be less interested in but a binch needs numbers so you gotta do what you gotta do.

Matt Summers posed on for a quick second and replied to my hello from 10 in the AM. He replied and said hey what’s up and then never answered the message I sent to him immediately after which like ok,,,,, i just hope this is how he’s being with everyone else because if so we sure do love an easy first boot!!!! It also gives me time to really since my fangs into these people and find me some numbers!! (lady vamp)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfnPSVP08-w

I just wanted to say that the GAME SO FAR IS LIT!!!! I LOVE ALL THE NEW FRIENDS I'M MAKING!!!

Y'all........

Listen I am just here to live a good life as a strong Christian woman, I don't need any attention, and what kind of hell has come down for me...

Like was casting me and Eddie in the same season payback for casting Amanda, Emily, and Francie together?????? WE BOTH HAVE GOTDAMN MONGOLIA HOST IN OUR NAME???? And you bring in Ben, who Eddie JUST fought with in the Mongo VL, Autumn who is basically his bestie these days...Like if you wanted a bitch to get 20th, you could've at least reached out for All Stars so I could have spared Karen!!!

Like okay listen, I love Eddie like a brother I sometimes flirt with too much and then have to hide from for a month. If we can get past day 6, we could do some great things in this game. I think we're finally ready for that experience. But jesus fuck if those 6 days aren't gonna be tough as fuck...

Highkey do you know what my ass needs??? A SWAP! GET ME WITH THE MENINIST ZWOOPER BOYS. GET ME TO MY JAKE P AND EVERYTHING WILL BE RIGHT WITH THE WORLD, LITTLE BOSTONIAN MUFFIN OF LOVE. TAKE ME AWAY TO SHOIB, WHOSE NAME IS ACTUALLY SPELLED LIKE THAT. AND DEAR SWEET POCKET ROCKET, WHOSE NAME IS AS RHYTHMIC AS IT IS RAUNCHY, IDK YOU BOO BUT WE CAN STILL SQUAD UP. Like I need access to allies people aren't going to know I have. Eddie? Too obvious. Mitchy? Too obvious. Jacob? Slightly less obvious but the boy won't keep it a secret. Rebecka? It's an option??? But she shady as fuck. Matt Summers? I already tried giving my heart to him once, and he ate it. Julia? Lowest of keys one of the better options I have, I'll take the witch, I'm down to clown, but also gotta watch out for that Crossroads connection to Autumn, which is also a through-connection to Ben, so we're in for a clusterfuck of love. (that's all I can think of right now, and if I haven't named you yet, you're probably too irrelevant to consider) (I just checked and the only person I didn't name is Mo, so I stand by the irrelevancy statement)

So if we can't trust in allies, we have to trust in that patented Drewcifer challenge strength! Just get me to a damn swap, I will do all of these ridiculous tasks, and lip sync to Paparazzi of all fucking things, and dress like Jeff Probst (which was actually just my normal workwear with an ugly baseball cap so now I feel gross), just get me to the next round and we can build from there.

I feel guilty because this is how I act in like a group project at school like pretending I'm helping by little comments but in reality I'm just sitting there because I don't know what I'm doing nor do I have access to stuff that can help. Nobody has messaged me about an alliance yet, so that's fun, I still think I'm getting first boot if we lose this challenge which is why I'm grasping at straws to try to help. I counted how many points we had and told everyone the total like "look I'm being helpful" so people will think "oh he's in it to win it guys" 

First of all this is adorable http://prntscr.com/idx4yh Second of all HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO VOTE ANYONE OUT??? ALL OF THESE PEOPLE ARE AMAZING????

https://youtu.be/tD1HjZTlqE0

Me looking for results like:

it isn’t fair we lost after all the work we put into the challenge but that’s the game i guess now we just have to survive a tribal and first vote is the worst 

Respect to the other team for coming so close, their efforts were admiradorable.

Pretends to be shocked that we lost. If only everyone did a lipsync. Smh but you cant force people do to things they dont want to I giess but special accomidations were even made to where they had privacy. Anyways Im bonding more I hope aleast with people but this should be an easy vote.

What an emotional rollarcoaster. Where is my tea? Slightly pissed at the people who didn’t do the lipsync. We could have won. Oh well this means rebecka is safe so maybe it’s worth it. Who knows what could have happened. We shall see who gets voted out but I’m thinking it’s someone who didn’t do anything TimIm feeling extremely sick about the loss in hindsight. All that effort just thrown down the drain? It feels extremely terrible and is definitely a shot to the heart. 

Sorry im confessing again fjsksks but this is the mood after the first results: the third one is me being upset at [redacted] https://confsnavarino.tumblr.com/post/170818412711/moodboard-after-the-loss

I forgot to confess this but like... im convinced my tribe mate is a model. https://confsnavarino.tumblr.com/post/170818459861 BLEASE

I'm feeling... ANNOYED. I know I participated a lot to that challenge and I had fun doing it! So even though it didn't result in a win I do NOT regret taking flour to the face or shanking three balloons or any of the other crazy stuff I did. With that being said we COULD have won this challenge if everyone pulled their weight. Four people didn't lip sync. If those four people had taken the five minutes required to make a half-decent lip sync video we would have beaten the fans by ONE point. The four flops are Shoib, Tee, Trixie, Katherine. Tee and Trixie did a lot of photos and seem pretty cool, so they are off the table. That leaves Shoib and Katherine. Shoib is in my Zwooper alliance of four so I have to cover for him... which is really unfair. If he wasn't a number for me I would not at all be opposed to voting him off for this. He really let the tribe down and contributed a whopping TWO things to the entire list. I used his rule-reading video as leverage while trying to point out who contributed more between Katherine and him. Most people seem to kind of agree that Katherine didn't do much, doesn't talk much, and isn't an asset to the team. Hopefully, we can just trim the fat and send her packing. 

I plan on getting the vote on Kathy because I feel like she contributed the least amount to the comp and I haven't talked to her much.

Whelp, Guess who lost the challenge. HEHEHE I wanna cry. I put so much into scavenger hunts, but the faves got the immunity. However there were definitely some people who didn't contribute so I feel they should def go first. but here are some impressions

Tim: I love him with all my heart and might actually be able to work with him, which is litty. Vi: She tried in the challenge and I really like that. I get good vibes from her, so hopefully I can get to working with her Tee: Her picture is gorgeous and she seems very sweet. I get REALLY good vibes from her and really want to Tyler: He is very cool and said he admires my contributions to the challenge and would like to work with me going further into the game Pocket: He looks like my cousin and Jesus. He seems chill. Not too active but not too inactive. And he sings and acts so I love Trixie: Haven't exactly talked to her much yet, hopefully chill. Kathy: The 2 games I'm in with her shes inactive. Ill try talking to her again Jake: I love Jake. I love Jake. I love Jake. I love Jake. I LOVE JAKE. That is all Shoib: He came off too strong for me, but he genuinely seems nice. Someone make me stop liking people. Its bad for my game and I will prob cry if someone backstabs me

I'm disappointed in my boy Shoib's contribution this challenge but Katherine is the ghost around camp and my theory is she is jealous of my body hair and for this reason shes too overwhelmed to compete. C'est La Vie.

When I saw that we lost I was Wouldiwas Shookspeared that we could've one is everyone lip synced 

Hi all!! Rebecka here!! Running 20 mins late to my psychiatrist appointment so what better a time than to confess about this game??? Ok so first off this cast WHEW!!! I love autumn and would love to work with her but every time we try to work together in a game it's like cursed so here's hoping third times the charm??? Julia the witch is cool af I hope we can work well together after I voted her out in crossroads!! Lol!!!!!! I hosted circle with drew this past season and he hasn't said much to me/I'm pretty sure he's hated me since day 1 which idk why Bc he's never said anything about it but I just have social anxiety and I feel like he doesn't like me!! Idk here's hoping. He approached me asking if I'd wanna secretly work with him which I'd be incredibly down for because I'd love to work with drew but I just hope he's not fucking with me!! I'm unsure how I feel about Jacob Albright Bc we've met before but I feel strange vibes from him too. MITCH IS MY ONE TRUE LOV AND I BETTER BE ABLE TO WORK WITH HIM IN THIS GAME BECAUSE I LOV HIM???????????? That's how I feel about that. Love him. He slay my life. Idk the other ppl in the game but Eddie seems nice and has been messaging me.   I AM glad we won the scavenger hunt Bc I honestly don't know how a tribal week 1 would've gone down. Lastly I'm just still confused as to how I got picked as a fav but I'll roll with it!!! Ok ya!! Xoxo gossip Beckka 

https://youtu.be/MaPWQeclcOM

[This confessional is for before the immunity results, basically the first two days of the game)

Ahhh yes, time for my 2nd org. Last time I placed 2nd and this time I'm coming for the crown. 

Being on a fan's tribe is kind of intimidating, just because I think that all the players on the favorite's tribe are more experienced than us which could be an advantage. 

So let me just give a quick rundown of the cast. 

I actually know Tyler, Pocket, and Shoib from Zwooper. When we got added to tribes, Pocket & Shoib added me to a chat with them and were like "Zwooper Alliance!" And I was like umm, Tyler is from Zwooper too? Lol. They wanted to create a separate chat with him, so I don't think they trust him. I definitely trust Tyler the most though, we've been friends for a while.

As for everyone else on our tribe, I've talked to Tim and Trixie a bit, and they both like Nintendo so I like them! Heather seems cool too. I talked to Tee for a while as well, but the conversation doesn't feel that exciting. I haven't talked to Katherine or Vi much.

I am worried about the Faves tribe because Autumn, Julia, and Rebecka are there from crossroads. I backstabbed Julia and Rebecka in that game, oops. And I feel like they might form a tight alliance because Autumn told me that her and Rebecka wanted to be secret allies in crossroads, and I know that Julia and Rebecka got stoned every night in Ponderosa so they're def close. 

However, Drew is on the Faves tribe and he is a good friend of mind. He wanted me to play this game with him before we got cast so I think he would be loyal to me if we ended up on a tribe later on. 

Sooo we just lost the challenge, great. And we would've won if these people just did a FUCKING LIP SYNC! How hard is it to fake sing for 3 minutes?? Gtfo. Tyler is GUNG HO on getting someone who didn't lip sync out, and he brought up Katherine's name. And I'm fine with that. We barely talked Day 1 and she hasn't said a word to me in two days. Her name is going around because others are bringing her up to me. I feel like this vote should be more intense since the first vote for crossroads was, but then again that was a starting tribe of 6 and this is a starting tribe of 10, so maybe people are just focusing on challenge threats rn. Either way, I just hope my name isn't going around. That's all I care about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6mVJIKDIBQ

sooooo im gonna let yall know whats good with the admirador tribe. so first of all i think i only know three of them BUT i like them. so first they have jake. i love jake price!!!! but like we kinda went against each other in crossroads but we became really good friends after and we got a streak! but honestly if i swap, i want jake on a tribe. i would DEF love to work with him. next they have trixie who i LOVE. she is a feminist and we have worked together and i see it happening here. im just afraid of her and jake being a mess tbh. and than there is shoib. i love shoib but the child has a MOUTH on him. so he is also pretty freaking messy like omfg. its exhausting girllllll! but if i swapped it would be ideal to have them all on a tribe of mine because we could all kick it together. the rest of them I honestly have no clue about like y'all really scouted for them. but hopefully shoib jake and trixie live after this tribal bc i really wanna work with them. but lowkey wouldnt care if admirador kept flopping lol! 

http://youtu.be/xiJFcgShj1A Woo?

So far everyone has been telling me Kathy, which I am fine with. Just means an easy round for me and gives me time to take a well needed nap :)

So miss katherine decides to show up and talk after we lost.LMAO. Sorry but you're a couple days late. Also Pocket joined the club pf falling from the mountain and i love it. I just wonder how far he got up it... Time to vote katherine out.

OMG Heather fell too. PS: Im a smart cookie. I discovered that  if you fall you only fall by two levels therefore all the paths on level 1 and two are safe wig. I also know to avoid number 3 on levels 3 and 4 but im gonna pick it once I get to level 5! Also thanks Heather and Pocket for confirming this.

D*UCK Heather found out you only fall by 2 levels just as i confessed. Well I guess that info was inevitable to discover.

After tonight we will have 9 tribe members in the chat,which will feel different because, i guess it won't because Katherine doesn't say anything :S oh wait she complimented my beard.

im going to be second boot

Im getting weird vibes about this tribal.

Pre-season cast assessment! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWtdLG4Hquo&feature=youtu.be

[dreams-for-the-apoplectic]

something i will probably never finish but like enough that im posting it anyway

Bro leans in the doorway of your room, 

(and you see him from your periphery: boxers loose on bony hips and patterned with hearts, no shirt, can of orange soda in hand with shades neatly tucked on the bridge of a strikingly crooked nose) 

and tells you, 

(over the sound of the fans, three, overclocked on some jury-rigged upgrades he threw together last year when the air conditioner went schizo cherry apeshit, just like now, again, for the second time this week spewing out mad fumes all grey-black and choked from its old, dusty vents) 

that you and he should just ollie outie of this midsummer popsicle stand and move somewhere the sun don’t actively to attempt murder you in the crispiest degree, KFC style. 

And you jokingly tell him sure, fuck it, anything is better than clawing my way up Fire Death Concrete Mountain aka Texas Mordor, clutching this bitchin’ ring of power and muttering all manner of rapturous obscenities and salacious innuendos for my precious. Sign me up Major Douchenozzle, I’ll shimmy my fine ass up this fabled air-conditioned igloo any day. 

A week later and you've packed your shit, grabbed your ticket, and are hopping the next flight to Vermont.

--

(four hours, fifty-one minutes, seven seconds, and Bro practically jumps off the plane hyperventilating when you touch down. you didn’t know how much he hated flying. you’ve never been on a plane before; if you didn’t know better, you’d think he hasn’t either. and if you quirk an eyebrow just over the rim of your aviators, and the side of your mouth makes a confused downturn for a second or two at just how fucking strange that that is, well, that was just a trick of the light, and the light is a dirty liar.)

He and you stick out like sore thumbs here 

(with Bro in a crumpled white polo and asshole jeans and dumb fucking anime shades, one hand in his pockets with an impassive, calculating kind of expression that you’re more used to than the panic, checking through tabs on Complete Bullshit for god knows what reason; you in the same shirt you wore yesterday, hair a meticulously crafted unkempt, posture slouching something awful as you bop right the fuck along to some sicknasty new bassline Jade dropped on you the night before, thinking of ways to remix it into this new beat you’ve been working on) 

among a crowd of home-grown New England faces haughty white and upturned and staring down at you and Bro like some trash that just rolled in from Doesn't Fucking Belong Here, USA.

(the luggage belt is moving so slow, so, so slow, it’s like watching a retarded crippled snail attempt a marathon against the goddamn salt shaker, and you wish you could just shake off the lingering, disdainful stares these people give the two of you, and you can, and you do)

(except you don't.)

--

You’re rolling through Montpelier an hour later, crammed up in the shotgun seat of an old, dirty, piece of shit pickup Bro apparently had nesting in the airport storage unit,

(it’s a rust hulk straight out of the early eighties, all torn up vinyl and engine rattling, with tacky, outdated bumper stickers on the back and a pine air freshener that does nothing to mask the smell of two-decade old cigarettes, and somehow you aren’t surprised this is his car because it is exactly how you imagined it.)

(you want to ask why he had a car in bumfuck, vermont and not in houston. you want to ask him if he even knows how to drive, but you hold your tongue nice and pretty and settle into the split vinyl seat cover)

moving past the city limits and into the countryside, over the state border and into New York. You give Bro the ‘what the fuck are we doing out here, man, is this the setup for a horror movie or some shit, because I’m not down to being the unwilling accomplice to some new echelon of fucked up smuppet snuff’ look, your fingers tapping in 4-4 on the dash, not really nervous so much as habitual. 

(he ruffles your hair with a smirking, mean kind of half-smile, all teeth and teasing and unnatural. you swat at him uselessly.)

And then the road is quiet, and the sky is misting grey. It’s all evergreen and shrubbery and dark soil here, and small towns by clear water: fishing ponds, creeks and rivers, and more wildlife roaming these secondhand backroads than you’ve ever seen in Texas. It starts to rain a bit, ghosting against the glass, and over the soft creak of the windshield wipers Bro asks you if you wanna put on some music, little man, heard you were working on a new track and can I get a sneak peak at that delirious biznasty? And fuck yeah you have, even if it isn’t quite done yet, and you plop your phone on the dashboard, and the drive is comfortable, 

(and you cannot shake this feeling that something is wrong.)

---

It isn’t an apartment, it’s a house in the goddamn woods; no, a fucking mansion in the goddamn woods, the design of it ripped straight from the personal architectural smutjournel of Frank Lloyd Wright, complete with white-foam waterfall and neo-American art deco pretension. Your mouth hangs open, and you know, you just fucking know a fly is about to buzz in that shit and set up a cozy little cottage, but you don’t care. This is straight wack, man.

(it looks vaguely familiar too, like something nostalgic stuck in your mental gears, cracked and rusted from disuse; something you saw once, a long time ago, in a place you can’t quite remember.)

Bro gestures you along along the concrete path, and you tell him no, wait, put the fucking brakes on Anime Goldilocks, what the fuck are we doing here, because this sure as shit can’t be where we’re living now, and I don’t wanna piss off the three bears. He pinches the bridge of his nose, and tells you in that deep southern mumble of his that, shit, kid, did you expect we’d just take a plane and end up in the same shitty apartment? And of course you didn’t

(even though you kind of did)

because that would be ridiculous, but-- you don’t know, you’ve been sharing a seven-hundred square foot living space with him for the past fifteen years. How are you supposed to react to a fucking mansion that just suddenly up and settled before you on delicate foundational popliteals and a stark-white concrete strapless all alluring and sultry? Just stand there stone-faced morose and stoic and fuck, that is exactly what you should be doing, isn’t it, because that was what he taught you, to

(stitch up the cuts slowly, careful with the needle and don’t fucking rush it, lil’ bro, even if they’re shallow you can’t just take it and jab that shit in, and for the love of god you gotta work on your dodge game, how the fuck do you expect not to get your ass served up sunnyside in a real fight?)

(̶̥̘͗̉̾̊͝ ̷̦̙̦͌͊̒́̍͛̀̀̈́́̚͘̕̚n̷̨̜̲͓̹̪͎̒͋́̊̎̐̍͌̆͘͝ͅͅͅ ̸̤̥̏́̌̑͒̈́̿́̃

̶̧̝͎̝͔͔̣̬͈̗̥̠̔̀͌̈́͆̒̇̋̋́̈́͐̈̚͝ ̷̡̛͕͚̰͉̦̼̤͍̘̝̹̮̩̈́̑̇̃̔͝͠ơ̷̡̧͔̘͇̖̫͉̳̳͖͇̰̻͗͛̿̋̾̏͘͝ ̸̨̧͈̱̫̩̲̦̭͖̿̃́̔͛̓̓͌̌͗̍̔̾͜ͅ

̷̢̮̮̠̠̬̖̙͈͋̍͛͆̔̈́̓̌̂̀͌̽͝͠ ̸̨̗̯̓͐̿̇͂͊̓́́̄̃̚͘͜͜.̷̲̙͓̮̮̬͓̈́̋͂͒̓̃͘͠͠)̸̧̖̪̦̥̪͙̫͍͙̩̻̺̩̒̌̈́͒͋͝ͅ

̵̬̯̪͛̓̈́̎̒́̂

It isn’t our house anyway, he says, 

(and your mind slams on the brakes so hard you think you might flip this shit frontways, slam the roof on that motherfucker into the burning asphalt and skid off the edge of this brutal synapse fuckup.)

(you can’t remember what you were thinking. it’s blurry, and forgotten, and everything is normal again)

moving forward in long, atypical strides that you scramble to follow. The rain is still coming down, you realize, in a softer drizzle that dampens your shirt. Friend of mine lives here.

Holy shit, he has friends?

Yes, I have friends, you little shit, and you flinch when you realize you must have said that out loud. His arms flex, shoulder blades audibly popping with the contraction of muscle, and you flinch, and nothing happens. Her name is Roxy.

And shit, you guess that’s all there really is to say on the matter, because he doesn’t provide any further explanation and you sure as hell don’t ask. You duck under the porch roof and he raps a fat bar of knuckles on the door.

---

Roxy isn’t anything like you expect. 

You don’t know what you were expecting, actually, considering you’ve only just heard about her, but she is perky and kind-eyed and so fucking sincere that the saccharine emotional font of exuberant delight that straight up sparkles from her is making you real uncomfortable.

She hugged you.

She hugged you and you liked it.  

(and she hugged Bro too, made his spine go all weird fucking c-shaped wrongness as she crushes him against her chest, calls him Dirk like she fucking owns him.)

You’re ushered in as she turns on heel and sways away with a tipsy strut, sauced and sauntering and high stilettos tapping on the dark hardwood. She tells you to drop your things by the door, she can set each of you up with a room in a bit, and Dirk, honey, we have got so much catching up to do, I haven’ seen you and the lil’ guy in ages, and god yer both so fuckin’ tall I forgot about that bit,

(christ on the cross, she can speak at a mile a minute, accent a thickly laced New York staccato that matches Texas about as close to the intersection of nil and fuckall as you can get without running head-on into traffic.)

and Dirky, Dirkle, Dirk-a-licious, oh my god come here right now, I gotta show you this badass shit I‘ve been working on, it’s fuckin’ lit as hell, it has got switches and gizmos and all of the cool techy shit I know you swoon over, and you need to check out this code I wrote because you know I’m not about to trust anyone else to parse my sick lines, so come ooooooooooooon and there they go, Bro dragged stiff as cardboard across the floor by the hem of his fucking shirt. He gives you a side-eye look that says crosses somewhere between  ‘don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back’ and ‘help me.’

You shrug and flip him off and leave him to his fate. His death glare could kill a lesser man.

(holy shit.)

And then, quite suddenly, you are alone.

It’s not quiet, you notice - just a more subtle murmur than the scream of a city, made emptier without Roxy to fill up the room. Slow, churning movement below signals the languid rush of water as it tumbles beneath the floorboards and off the cliffside. Some woodland creature skitters in wet dirt beyond the window pane, which filters in ghost-grey light and shakes a bit when a particularly heavy set of raindrops hit. 

You shuffle about awkwardly, and glance around for a second,

(the interior is lavishly decorated, you notice. posh white starkness for fineass digs. sir asshole the stone swamp wizard sits plainly in the foyer, nested in arcane robes of the dimwitted and tacky. a cat is nuzzled up at the foot of some kind of bronzed vacuum. the whole place smells like perfume and vodka. it’s kind of intoxicating.)

before deciding the panicked, lingering gaze is kind of stupid, and waiting for Bro to come back like a pining factory girl in the nineteen-forties writing sappy missives to the brave boys in Okinawa was lame as shit, so you flop down on the couch, all loose, gangly puberty limbs and feigned indifference and the muted light of your phone glaring back at you. You pull open a pesterchum window, shoot a few messages to Harley,

(some off-the-cuff rap cooked slow on these sick fires, like just put some whip cream and a goddamn cherry on that shit and call it a sunday. you also make sure to attach a file for the new sbahj comic you’ve been working on. you’ve lovingly dubbed the new arc ‘the spaztastic furry hatesex maelstrom,’ and you hope know she’ll love it.)

and Egbert,

(and you admit, muddled up in tangents and similes that take forever just to get to the goddamn point, that you actually took his recommendation and stuck through the bitterly tasteless cinema assassination of the week. you even wrote a shitty review for it on one of your ironically maintained critic blogs, and send him a link)

(you won’t admit you laughed at groundhog day. he will never let you live it down. never.)

and Lalonde,

(who is on, surprisingly, because you know she has school right now, and fuck if the flighty broad doesn’t take every swat of the educational ass whooping with a snide, condescending seriousness that has a way of getting just under your skin. she wants to go to Harvard, or Cornell, or Oxford, because she is smarter than you, and John, and maybe not Jade but damn is she close.)

(she doesn’t respond either, though, so you cast the thought away and send her some custom made memes deep fried in a hundred layers of crystalline  jpeg illegibility and wait, fuck, holy shit)

and then someone is standing over you, peering with an appraising interest, like they’re looking at a slab of beef splayed out dumb on the chopping block. And you don’t flinch, you really don’t, even though you’re about five seconds away from flipping this shit backwards and kicking dust up as you run for the hills. 

You can tell this girl is nasty. She is stygian lips and white-blonde hair and violet eyes that politely inform you that this is indeed the fucking slaughterhouse, that you guessed it right, and you’re about to get served up with a side of collard greens and barbecue sauce.

So of course the first words out of your mouth are 'sup, Rose.

Wait, wh

(you see her past the glow of a verdant sun, because even a double universe killing superbomb can't outshine her. cascading orange silk stitch wrapped in a star-shimmering supernova of violet eyes and pallid skin. it's like a goddamn angel come from the heaven; a smirk beneath the hood and fire in her belly. she is the fucking sun now, and nothing can even fucking compare.)

at.

(what the fuck.)

What the fuck.

(what the actual fuck dude.)

Do I know you? Her voice is just dripping contempt.

And you don't fucking know her. She isn't here. Rose is a billion lightyears off in the gay space commune, deep encoded digital vaporware that went out of style twelve fucking years ago. She is a string of chat logs and embarrassing Fruedian slips that didn't happen, no, Rose, you don't have undercover mother-lust. 

And she is here.

You've never even seen her picture, but you know. You know far beneath the skin, something deeper than blood or bone or anything else seething something above that spiritual core. You know on a fucked kind of metaphysical. It's self-evident. It cannot help but make itself true.

Uh.

Shit.

Shit dude fucking say something. She’s just standing there, and the downward curvature of those lips is about to break out of the spatial plane and into some hyper paranoid fourth dimension. You guess she has a right to be weary. Your gangly ass is seated firmly in her territory.

[festfashions]

Insomniac Founder Pasquale Rotella Did A Reddit AMA Live

Insomniac founder Pasquale Rotella did a Reddit AMA Live to answer questions on EDC 2018 and here’s all the questions and answers he responded to.

The live AMA took place Sept. 27 at 3pm PST. Lots of questions came up, but only a few were answered. Since some of them offer us new insights into EDC 2018, I’ve compiled them all for us! Check it out below and read the Reddit thread here. Some of the questions got off the topic of EDC 2018, so I’ve reorganized them to be at the bottom.

Q: jtet93: Can we have details about how the shuttle experience will be improved? I can't really express how bad my experience was last year, and I was personally really frustrated that it was so challenging after the cancellation of third party shuttles. I swore I wouldn't come back to EDC unless the transportation improved. I know you're handing off the planning to an outside company but any details you can provide on how their plan will make a real difference to the shuttle experience would be awesome. I'm also wondering if there will be reentry for campers? And how the issue of sunlight will be dealt with in the "turnkey" tents - will there be any effort to create shade or darkness in the camping areas? Thanks Pasquale! I will say that once I'm inside EDC it's definitely one of my favorite places ever and I love attending. I would love to see the logistics improve and come back year after year A: PasqualeRotella: We have confirmed the third party company we will be using for shuttles and they provide transportation for the largest live events in the world. I am excited about collaborating with them to make it the best it’s ever been. Also, great camping question! The tents we are setting up will provide protection from sunlight. There are also multiple shade areas for not only activities around the campgrounds but also at the center camp, which is called The Mesa. We’ll have more details about this when we announce camping soon!

Q: Shannonraczka: Can we get a ball park range for camping passes? Also will they be available in a payment plan as well? Lastly can we get an estimated time that they will go on sale? Thank you!! A: PasqualeRotella: It will be between $250-$275 to bring in your RV, and we’ll have hook-ups available for an additional fee. As far as campers, there will be several different packages available. It depends how many people you’re with and what packages you choose, but you’ll be able to get something between $450 to $2,500 for 4 days of camping. This will all be laid out clearly before we go on sale with camping options.

Q: RaveMeSilly: With camping being added and festival hours being extended, are there plans to change the re-entry policy? I'd love to party from 3pm to 6am, but it would be clutch to be able to hit up the campgrounds for a bit in between to relax and recoup. A: PasqualeRotella: Yes, during festival hours you can come in and out of the show as long as you have a camping wristband [additional response on the same post] We will have in's and out's at the festival for campers, but non-campers will not be able to enter the campgrounds.

Q: TheHans215: How likely would it be to get a small stage, maybe even sponsored by like 7-Up again, inside of the huge shuttle tent outside the speedway? Waiting in the early hours of the morning would be way better with some chill music to groove to. Even better, have campers host the stage like a "sound camp" type thing. Doesn't have to be crazy lights or effects, just some sound to keep peoples moods high. A: PasqualeRotella: We're capable of building that, no problem. No plans for that right now but I like the idea. Thanks for the suggestion! That said, we do not plan on having a long wait at shuttles with our new provider.

Q: ekapote: Hi Pasquale! I have a question regarding security on shuttle waiting lines. Last year a huge cause of frustration, along with long waiting times, was due to large groups of people jumping the fence dividers and cutting lines leaving the festival. Does the new company plan on upping the amount of security monitoring these lines? There was no way cops on the outskirts could see what was happening inside the tents based on the layout. My group witnessed several fights break out, and we were concerned for the safety of everyone involved. Thanks so much for taking the time to answer our questions! Can’t wait for 2018. ✌🏼🌼🦉 A: PasqualeRotella: The answer to that question is yes. Shuttle operations are gonna be completely different next year.

Q: juanmiindset: Im a Cast Member at Disneyland and Ive seen you and Holly at the park often, how much inspiration from Disneyland goes into these festivals if any? A: PasqualeRotella: I get inspiration from so many different places. Even going all the way back to the original LA warehouse underground scene. But yes, theme parks as well!

Q: DeClann: Will the livestreaming experience be improved for 2018? Having a continuous stream for each stage would be much more appreciated than 10-20min sets from only a handful of DJ's. I can't wait to see what you have in store for EDC 2018! A: PasqualeRotella: I've gotten mixed opinions from people for what they'd like to see on this. I do appreciate your input. We're capable of doing longer sets. Maybe I should get a vote on this from fans.

Q: brandejae: You advised that EDC 2018 will be getting longer hours, new shuttle service, camping and new stage designs. Does this include the neonGARDEN as well!? We've had the "TechnoTeepee" for going on three years now and it's definitely getting a bit stale. Personally, I really enjoyed 2013/14's designs with the larger structure and feel that Insomniac could take note from Awakenings & Time Warp for their new Factory93 experience. Techno has definitely been growing in the states and I feel like we are definitely past due for some upgrades! Thank you! A: PasqualeRotella: Agree! We are working on new designs for next year's neonGARDEN.

Q: Rekari: Are there any plans to update QuantumValley stage? This year was great, but could have been better with the addition of CO2. Also it seemed like it was too small of a venue for some of the bigger acts like ATB and Gareth Emery where it was completely packed this year. A: PasqualeRotella: Yes, I'm excited to say that it’s going to be a new open-air stage.

Q: Ilovewingsnthings: Pasquale, I LOVE all the main stage designs, but can we please have more LED on the main stage? I really like Insomniac visuals, but the last 3 years they been obstructed. Kinetic Cathedral has been the perfect balance. A: PasqualeRotella: We pretty much use all the LED in the United States for EDC Las Vegas every year so that might be difficult unless you own an LED company.

Q: Redrunk: Where exactly is the camping going to be on the speedway grounds? A: PasqualeRotella: Surrounding properties outside the Speedway grounds.

Q: slombar: As a big trance and Dreamstate fan, I have to admit the QuantumValley experience just didn't compare to the old Megastructure of Circuit Grounds. Is there any plan to bring a megastructure stage back? A: PasqualeRotella: There are no plans right now, but there's the possibility of bringing the megastructure back, just not for the circuitGROUNDS. It's not big enough to accommodate the people at that stage.

Q: xxalexmxx: Pasquale will you improve premier parking for edc 2018? I spent $150 this year and left at 4am and no one in the lot could leave till 8am friday it was horrible Everyone in GA left before us. The pass was for faster in and out but we were the last ones to leave Ive had premier for 3 years in a row. 2015-2016 was better so why change it Youve also moved it into a diffrent bigger lot which makes me think its more about the money now. Edit: Can you let us know if premier parking lot will be in the new 2017 lot again or will go back to the good lot they had in 2015-2016? A: PasqualeRotella: The only way that we’ll have it as an option is if it is 110% improved.

Q: vanewho: Pasquale! The announcements you made regarding the changes to EDC have definitely lived up to the hype and shows that you are actively trying to improve things for us. I've been attending EDC for 3 years now and this past year just felt.... off. It bummed me out a little but this gives me hope that 2018 will be great again. Question #1: Are you going to continue this trend of booking artists that are not part of the EDM scene? (DJ khaled, metro boomin, etc.) Question #2: A lot of headliners complained about being ripped off by the water vendors and being denied ice in 100° weather. Are you aware of this at all? A: PasqualeRotella: Thanks for supporting us for the past three years and reaching out to me today! For your first question, we'll always experiment with things out of the box. We are a dance music festival first and foremost, but we're gonna have fun sometimes, especially in Las Vegas, California. ;) As far as the water question, I never heard this before but thanks for bringing it to my attention. I'll speak to the head of F&B at the Speedway. Good thing is the average temp in May is 64 at night. Thanks again. I'll get on this.

Q: Bertillcious21: Hey Pasquale! Just a quick question... Will shuttle prices go up with this change? When will you announce shuttle stops? Can we expect to have the same ones as last year? We want to book our hotel ASAP. A: PasqualeRotella: Not only are the prices not going up but shuttles will be immensely improved. All stops will be announced before the shuttles go on sale.

Q: kunfuz1on: Having a large quantity of DJ's at EDC is good for diversity but have you thought about lowering the amount of DJ's at the event in place of longer sets? It would be nice to see multiple DJ's play for 1.5 - 2 hours. A: PasqualeRotella: We will have artists periodically play extended set times depending on the genre or stage they are playing at.

Q: nnicot: Hi Mr. Rotella, as an 'older' festival-goer it's been amazing watching the evolution of Insomniac festivals through the years. present-day EDC especially is mind-boggling with its production quality and lineups. My mind was completely blown this year watching Valentino Khan throw down his ridiculous set while all the fireworks were going off in our faces right behind the Basspod stage! First question: after so many years of holding EDC in June, what was the final tipping point for you to move EDC to May? Second question: moving forward, how much involvement do you think you will have with the HARD brand of events, and what is your vision for the Hard brand? The recently revealed Holy Ship lineups are absolutely insane and have definitely served to calm the fears of many of the die-hard Ship fans. Thank you and my crew and I are eager to see what Insomniac brings in the future! A: PasqualeRotella: The biggest factor in our move to May was the cooler weather. It allows us to do camping, have extended hours, and the temperatures are way more comfortable for Headliners. It also takes if off of Father’s Day, which is great for me and all the other Dads. We’ve owned HARD for 4 years but haven’t operated it, with the exception of helping with HARD Summer at Glen Helen this past August. Moving forward we’ll continue with operations.

Q: IIcantstopwontstopII: Every year you manage to up the ante with production design, you see to have the perfect layout stage by stage at the speedway. Wil we ever see stages que relocated? Or since the system is already in place, will things forever stay the same? A: PasqualeRotella: We don’t have any plans to but if you think there’s a reason to, please let me know.

Q: mycleanaccount96: Why wont you release all dj sets recorded at edc? A: PasqualeRotella: We leave that up to the artists to make that decision.

Q: soondubu23: How safe is camping? Are personal items susceptible to stealing/looting while we're at the festival? A: PasqualeRotella: If you're in an RV I suggest you lock it. If you're staying in a tent, we ask that you bring your own lock as the zippers will have luggage lock holes. Security will be roaming the grounds as well. [later to the same post] You'll be able to access your vehicle if you want to lock items in there too.

Q: A_burdenless_pig: Hi Pasquale! Just wondering what the timeline for camping? What date could people check in and what is the latest they could check out? Thanks A: PasqualeRotella: Campers will definitely be able to check in on Thursday, but we're looking at the possibility of Wednesday. Checkout will be Monday around 7pm.

Q: sheriffChocolate: So my question, like so many others, is related to EDC camping. In the campground can we get above ground pools and have pool parties with DJs? Since we're so far away from the strip I feel like this would be a great way to supplement some EDC week pool parties and cool off! A: PasqualeRotella: That is being explored and likely to happen. Plus a lot more activities will happen. I'm excited about it.

Q: alpatt: Pasquale, Will EDC LV be going "cashless" and make the attendees utilize wristbands for payments in 2018 similar to other music festivals? A: PasqualeRotella: No plans for it right now but is that something you think we should do?

Q: Psirocking: Was edc ny ended over low turnout, high cost, or a bit of both? A: PasqualeRotella: The reason we no longer organize EDC New York is because we felt like we needed to find a better venue.

Q: shotnuke005: Where do you lean on the pineapple on the pizza argument? A: PasqualeRotella: All toppings are welcome here :)

Q: Ilovewingsnthings: Pasquale, I've always wondered this, what happens to the main stages after you're done using them. Where is Kinetic Cathedral for example. Scrapped for parts? I like to daydream that one day there will be an EDCLand full of all the mainstages A: PasqualeRotella: I have some artifacts in my backyard, there are some in the Insomniac warehouse, and we are looking to make an Insomniac Production Museum.

Q: cu4tro: Do you have any updates on a location for Middlelands? Lots of Texans hope it doesn't leave this state. Being from Texas and going to EDC since 2014, it was amazing to be able to RV camp at an insomniac festival so close to home. It was awesome running into you to personally thank you and welcome you back to TX since Nocturnal in Rockdale. Cant wait for RV camping at EDC! A: PasqualeRotella: We are still searching for the right venue and the plan is to definitely bring it back but not before finding the right place. Glad we crossed paths!

Q: throwaway3921218: What was the first festival you ever attended? A: PasqualeRotella: Grateful Dead show in Southern California with Mama Irene.

Q: king_of_nogainz: Mr. Rotella, my question to you is, have you ever Kandiflipped? A: PasqualeRotella: Yes but I’ve been sober for many years now

Q: wookin: Hey Pasquale, what's going on with the Mexico on sale? Do you have plans to donate to those affected by the earthquake? A: PasqualeRotella: The on sale will be October 16/17 for EDC Mexico and will raise funds for those affected by the earthquake. The same goes for EDC Orlando for those affected by the hurricane. And it doesn’t stop there. All of our major festivals support communities in need.

Q: manny-rr: Hey what is your favorite non insomniac festival and why? If it is burning man, what's your second favorite. A: PasqualeRotella: If you’re not letting me pick Burning Man, then I would say Boom Festival.

Q: aquino661: Would you ever consider throwing an edc inspired cruise? #EdcCruise A: PasqualeRotella: Yea an EDSEA has been considered many times. We will make it happen one of these days.

Q: ZerophoniK: Pasquale, do you play Fantasy Football? If so, who are your top players on your roster? A: PasqualeRotella: I don't play Fantasy Football but I do play Galaga and Donkey Kong

[kiingmango]

11 questions meme

rules: 

1. always post the rules. 2. answer the questions given by the person who tagged you. 3. write 11 questions of your own and tag 11 (or however many) people to answer them.

I was tagged by @notbrogues @thisbirdhadflown and  @embersofimagination  thank you! (under a cut because this will be looong)

notbrogues questions:

1. Describe your least favorite character

Okay so if I’m being completely honest, my least favorite characters all really come down to just plain irritating behavior. Daisy in Bones has a sort of insensitivity to her that bothers me, and Sophie in the BFG due to her almost blunt treatment of the BFG.

2. A go-to comfort meal/snack/treat

Noodles and Rice because I’m the most Korean to ever Korean

3. Describe a perfect vacation, with no limit on funds or how long you can stay there.

Honestly I would probably take a vacation in Europe, touring all the sites there and traveling between Germany and France and England with only a car (Is this how people travel between countries though? I feel as if Ive been misinformed)

4. Do you listen to podcasts? If so, what are you favourites?

I have to say that I do not listen to Podcasts. I actually don’t understand what a Podcast is exactly?

5. One widely accepted fanon headcanon that you just don’t agree with?

The name of Eggsy’s younger sister. When i first came in I thought it was canon but now I’m kind of eh about it. What if they change her name in the second movie? 

6. One story/movie/song/album/piece of art that resonated with you and that you will never be able to forget?

Really for me I have read multiple first-hand account stories of people experiencing an array of different situations. that I won’t forget that I probably couldn’t choose one. (I find it hard to emotionally connect with music, and I’m not really a big art person)

7. If you have a day off, no responsibilities or pressing matters to attend to: what are you doing for the rest of the day?

I’m probably playing some soft music, reading for a while with a comfy blanket. Alternatively, I’m hanging out with my family 

8. Favourite past trend that you are most nostalgic for?

When everyone had DS’s (I’m pretty sure this is a trend..?) IDK I miss when I could whip out my DS and play Mario Kart and then switch to message my friend to come battle me. Technically, I could do that on my phone but my DS was pink and I had a cute carrier for it

9. What’s a hobby/skill you’ve always wanted to learn?

How to defend myself. Like i can throw a basic punch, and fight off someone if I need to but I’ve always wanted to learn how to box, or do karate or something super cool. (Idk don’t ask me I’m strange)

10. Where do you see yourself in ten years?

Done with school, and maybe with a family. I’ve gotten quite a few of my life goals done and now I’m ready to settle with someone :)

11. What was your first fandom? First OTP? First NOTP? Any memorable experiences from those early days?

My first ever fandom was Avatar the Last Airbender. My first ever OTP was Katara and Zuko, and my first ever NOTP was in the Avengers fandom, being Cap and Natasha. I just could only ever see them as friends, or in a brother/sister way

thisbirdhadflown’s questions:

1. We all did embarrassing things as teenagers. Share a story!

So there was a lot of fake piercings in sixth grade that I made from key chains and a nail file.

2. What is a headcanon for one of your OTPs?

Im going to go with Hartwin on this one. For them it’s a lot of lover’s squabbles about not wanting to do the dishes, folding laundry, and then kisses and smiles and deciding they would do it together. 

3. One book that had a huge influence on you?

I read this book called Wonder by RJ Palacio that I found helped me when I was younger to understand people who were different from me, and it opened some doors for me to understanding people’s disabilities and what they needed. 

4. Who is one misunderstood character?

Probably Natasha Romanoff. I feel like because people who watch the movies have such little information on her background that she’s easily misinterpreted. 

5. What are your pet peeves?

Lying. I mean, sometimes lying is necessary, but most of the time if you’re lying to me I’ll be very annoyed. 

6. One thing you wish you knew as a child/teen that you know now?

That I can wear what I want and it doesn’t matter what other people think. I struggle with it even today, but back then it was a lot of loose t-shirts and pants. Now, I feel more comfortable wearing dresses and crop tops. 

7. Would you like to be famous? In what way?

I’m comfortable not being famous, and really I have little desire to. But if I was famous I would have to say I would want to be famous as a movie producer, or script writer. 

8. Best part about getting older?

I’d have to say independence. 

9. One thing you really enjoy and one thing you really dislike about fandom?

So I am going to base my answer off Kingsman since that’s my main fandom right now. I really enjoy the talent and creativity, and the people in it are all friendly and so welcoming! I really love how simple things like how OTP’s spend their down time can bring people together. I also love how little drama this fandom has. However I dislike the occasional anon hate that we get, and of course like in every fandom we have the “we don’t have enough of this but I’m not going to do it so YOU have to do it” 

10. What makes and breaks a fic for you?

I think it’s the flow of the writing, I really can’t read choppy writing. It makes my brain go “huh? why?” 

embersofimagination’s questions:

1. Do you prefer tea, coffee, or neither?

Neither. I’m more of a juice person really. Although occasionally I’ll have some fancy coffee with my mom 

2. Do you go through “phases” with fandoms? Where you are all about one fandom for days, weeks, months, etc. then go onto the next or do you have one primary fandom you don’t stray far from?

I feel that I’m actively in multiple fandoms, but I switch my focus. If something is happening with Sherlock that’s where all my attention will be. I’m pretty much knee 

3. Are you an extrovert or an introvert?

A bit of both. I can really only handle one or two people at a time, but I will go out with more. I always come home from those days absolutely exhausted so then I spend a few days by myself. I love talking however, so yeah. A bit of both

4. Do you have otps? If so, name three.

Ah yes, I have many. Hartwin, Merwin, and Stony (from marvel)

5. Why do ship what you ship? Ex: they look pretty together, they compliment each other’s character, just for the lolz?

I ship Hartwin and Merwin for the same reason. Not only does Eggsy look good with both of them (ugh Merhartwin is swoon worthy also) but there’s so much to play with! Physical Hurt comfort? Emotional hurt comfort? fake/pretend relationship? Domestic fics???? #Blessed

6. What is one thing you learned/know that you wish more people knew about?

How to cook honestly. I get a lot of “I burn water” and sometimes people can literally not cook anything. But a lot of the times people just never had anyone to teach them how 

7. Are you a morning person or night owl?

Night Owl. Which in turn makes me hate mornings haha

8. Do you like tropes or trope subversion?

I think I enjoy both. I love a twist at the end but I also love when a scene plays out like I wanted it to.

9. What inspires you?

Other people inspire me. I think it’s the idea that other people believe in me and want me to succeed just as much that pushes me. Of course, I try my best to return the favor, and it’s that mutual system of support inspires me. 

10. Do you have an aesthetic? If so, what is it?

I think it would probably be rainy days and warm kitchens. Also, copper pots. (Oh god I love copper bottom pots)

11. Favorite season (if you have one)? 

Autumn! Sweaters make me so happy <3

Thank you guys for tagging me! I had fun answering your questions! Now here are my 11 questions :)

Favorite Character? Why?

What’s the weather like where you live?

Do you have a major goal in life you haven’t completed yet?

Do you have something from your childhood that you miss? 

Favorite memory from school? 

Any strange phobias?

Are you a hugger or a no touch kind of person?

Describe something that made you happy this week

Do you get motion sick/carsick/airsick?

Is there a special skill you have that most people can’t do?

What’s a phrase you say a lot?

I'm gonna tag people in the next post!

[ramblingsandruminations]

When Suicidal Ideation is the norm

All the help in the world becomes a muddy puddle of shitty affirmations, thorned gaslighting, and useless guilt. If one more person tells me "have you tried yoga/deepbreaths/vitamin B..." Ugh. Who am i kidding? This is tumblr, where you can always find somone who says exactly what you are thinking ( #omgmetho #datme #meirl ). Weve all heard the "stop giving advice and atart taking it " speech, we're all likely to have read some post about the "evils" and " abuses" of therapy and inpatient treatment, and I'll bet a paper hat, some vending machine doodad, or some shitty-yet-adorably-hipsterly prize that within 100 reblogs someone links to some news article about "Queer Youth Completes Suicide And We Think You Will Pay Us to Feel Bad About It, Don't Forget To Like, Share, and Subscribe to Trevor Project, Your Reblog Will Save A Life (And Keep Us Relevant For Our Advertisers)." Tomorrow(well, next daylight hours) my 26-year-old depressed college freshman self is going to walk into my schools coubseling office and tell them i never recieved the location for the therapist they reffered me to (true story--Honestly not avoiding treatmwnt, even if it is useless) and request a second referral. Ill sit through some lecture about self-advocacy veiled in "concerned questions" and once again be misgendered, deadnamed, and criticized for giving a fuck (note: commenters looking to describe me with the word "cuck," i see you there, good for you, let me know how that white kkknight holier than thou red pill rage fest dopamine addiction is filling the gaping void of existential dread within you). After that, there is always a small chance they'll see just how depressed i am, and faster than you can say "looney is a word based in misogynistic beliefs of womens mental health and menstrual cycles being unhealthily and unscientifically connected to the moon," ill be fielding questions which boil down to "do you want to kill yourself" and "do you have a plan." By this time in my life, i've gotten pretty used to BSing my way around psychology. All it really takes is knowing that all they can take you on is your word, and nothing else. "Do you want to kill yourself?" they ask, and i reply "*short pause, heavy, short exhale denoting weight and truth* Well, yeah. But quite frankly, suicidal ideation is a part of my everyday life- nothing i do isn't plagued with some form of "i should wrap this mouse cord aroubd my neck and die" or " i wonder if that branch is strong enough to support my weight" or "man, my head hurts, but i bet a bottle or two of ibuprofen could make it stop." For me, its not a question of wanting to die, its a matter of what do i have to live for, and ive been through enough inpatient DBT and group therapy to help me cope, using breathing techniques and self-care tips to push me through the worst of it." This is usually if not always all they need to hear. Sure, im depressed, but anything they could tell me is something i know and am already doing-i sound to them more like a patient leaving inpatient than one entering it. Our hospitals are overfilled, understaffed, prqctucally unfunded; if im "stable" im staying out of their ledger book. Occasionally, they still worry, having one of those "consciences" their peers claim to have lost when a schizophrenic patient tried to bite their ear off, and ask a follow up "but are you sure? You seem distressed, and if you need some help, we are here for you," to which all i have to do is look at them through sad, but strong eyes and say "Thank you, but i have a great support network of friends and of course, my boyfriend. He's fantastic, and one of the most important things to have happened to me. He keeps me on this side of the dirt." A small tired chuckle, and their focus diverts towards affirmations of how good it is to have support, their therapy brains running on autopilot. Then all it needs is some "active" listening, uh-huhs, and compliant assurance that ill keep working on myself to assuage them of any guilt or corncern. Maybe, though, ill tell them the truth, and let them take me in. Three hots and a cot, after all. I'll fight through my dysphoria as they ogle every nook and cranny of my malformed body trying to see if im hiding a weapon or some drugs; I'll continue to insist on a private room and remind them calmly yet firmly that no, i will *not* room with a male, and their lack of knowledge on how to treat a transgender non-binary patient is well behind on proper treatment according to WPATH, the APA, and our state govt. When i get a room, theyll say that i should take as much time as i need to get acclimated, and not worry about what the rwat of group is qorking on, and then contradict themselves within 5 minutes and say i need to go to group, theyre waiting on me. In my fresh new scrubs, ill walk in and within seconds, ill identify how th staff monitors who came in when (usually different colored scrubs based on different halves of the week, and of course, anyone likely to leave within 48 hours wearing "normal" clothes), and see the therapist or doctor talking about emotional management techniques. When i sit down, eeyes will be on me, some with looks of angey jusgemwnt, some with awe and wonder: what could THEY be in for? The group leader will ask me my name, ill state it and my pronouns (to several uncomfortable shifts in the room), and theyll let me know what they were talking about. Ill make a good effort to participate, play along, etc. Someone in the group will be desperate to control the conversation, talking more and more as if this entire experience is just for them- another person will be too dissociated to say anyrhing, despite the doctors attebpts to get them to open up. Already, the cliques will become apparent; humans are aocial creatures, after all. When we leave for the next scheduled activity (either rec or lunch, depending on the time) the docs will be watching me- im on suicide watch, and they expe t me to jump out a window or try and slit my wrists with a paperclip or something. Im not a danger in this regard; ive been threatened with solitary and ECT if i dont comply before- i am their prisoner and i must comply. Within an hour or two of being there, ill be able to notice how well funded they are (or more likely, arent.) The quality of their reading materials; the availability of puzzles abd how well taken care of they appear. Recreation will be the most bare of kindergarden activities; coloring books, maybe a tv with basic cable. A daycare for adults, abd not the cool buzzfeed articles. Someone, probably an addict, will be trying to fanangle their attendee into giving them special treatement- a snack, or an extra smoke break. I'll be sitting in a corner, smirking- the staff arent even an eigth as dumb as this person thinks, and they've seen this type before. They might get something, but itll cost them sour looks from staff and less accommodating treatment with the doctors. After the second hour, we'll have another activity (second group, rec, or maybe "outside time" if its a particularly fancy facility; while the sun will certainly be shining, our feelings of freedom will be dampened by the high fances and walls keeping us from getting away). This is usually wheb the realization sets in that im stuck here for 72 hours plus, and ill be counting them down to stave off boredom. 15-30 minutes in to this third hour, ill be called in to meet tye psychiatrist, fisrt meeting with an attendee to fill out the generic details, then 30-45 minutes of diagnosis before im told ill be put on ab antidepressant, an anxiolytic, and tramodol, a sedative marketed as "something to help me sleep" and "another antidepressant" which makes me laugh every time. Tramodol is the auppressant, the "slow down" drug which helps keep everyobe on a nice, calm level thats safer for the orderlies. Were i violent, id concur; instead, i begin to wonder how long it will take before i no longer feel persistently asleep once i leave. A couple weeks, likely. Hopefully, the food will be good, but not likely 5 star- one place ive stayed had been cooking for us in the break room, sometimes PB&J, sometimes microwaved quesadillas. Maybe theyll have more drink options than coffee, water, and sugar-free koolaid- maybe not. Likely not. Some of us will complain; most of us will know it is a fruitless endeavor. After another group or two, it will be dinner, then wrap up group. We will discuss what progress we think we made today, and be sent to bed after meds are distributed in little paper ketchup cups. Most places wont do the "cuckoos nest" tongue check, but some will, particularly the ones with kleptos and pill ODers. Lights oyt will be around 10 pm, the beds will be plasticky and the blankets thin, and sleep will only cone rhanks to our sedatives. Day two, we'll be woken early, around 6-7, by an orderly checking our blood pressure and body temp. Well all gather in the hallway, rubbing sleep out of our eyes and head to the eating area for breakfast- which loooking back will likely be the best meal of the day, not the least be ause we have access to augar and caffiene. By now, i will likely have made a friend, probably with an older woman or two, and we will enjoy surreptitiously smirking at each other when the teoublemaker patwnt tries to get an omlette or something silly. Someone will start telling fanciful stories dreamed up in the night; talk will eventually turn to who is leaving today. The orderlies will be trying to not look too interested in what we reveal to each other instead of them. They will not succeed in this. Ths first morning they will use as a test of how i deal with frustration. An older nurse will act exasperated, as though taking care of me is a curse she was tasked with. She will try to cut theough any response i give her, and rudely discount anything i try to say, as if accuaing me of lying. Knowing it is coming doesnt help it hurt less. If it overwhelms me, ill be labeled as dramatic- if not, as detached. Sluggish from the new medications, i will be treated as though i ahould not be here, and will be led aroubd more quickly than i am rady to be. I will notice that part of it is that i am beginning to realize how broken down i feel i am. Reaching out will result in canned answers and "the doctor is busy's". After all, this iant about me, and theyve seen my type before. At lunch, i will be upset by the bland meal, abd ask if they have any hot sauce, or maybethey will be out of a preferred tea, or the food will not be enough to feed me. The newcomer who arrived at morning group will share a look with the quiet patient. I will try not to notice the parallels. A therapist will ask to talk to me today. It may be a nice session, but will essebtially boil down to "let me give you ideas for solving your problems, so that your depression seems more managed." By the end of the day, they will already begin my release plan. Theyve fixed me, they are sure. I will also get my clothes back. The aurvey will be slightly different today; instead of asking on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being best abd 10 being worst how was my day, it will be the opposite: scale of 1-10 with 1 being worst and 10 being best. This way, they can track how much is me being honest, and how much is me remembering numbers to fake it. (Once, a nurse messed up so often that it was a sentence by sentence change). Later, if there is any improvement, it will be used by the hospital as signs that treatment is helping; if it gets worse, that i had a rough day and shouldnt think much of it. Bedtime will come, and i will relish it- being sedated takes a lot out of a person. When morning comes, the eggs will feel soggy and cereal with be a much better choice. A bagel will be carried into morning group and more DBT will be discussed. I will mostly be checked out; they are pulling most of their material from a 12 step program, and the leader is a student of psychology learning how to help people, but ive heard it all before, and that sense of guilt just pushes me towards suicide harder. At this point, ill feel just how desperate they are to get me out; nurses eill hint at things being the "wrong" answer with " you dont REALLY mean that, do you sweetie?" and " well, you cant keep thinking THAT way, or we'll have to keep you here longer." Boredom and longing for home will encourage me to pretend to be better, and not tell them how last night before falling asleep i stared at the vedfrane wondering if i could take it apart and form a springwire noose, or tear the blankets to make a rope. When they ask if im feeling better, it will actually mean "are you done with your timeout from reality? Have you learned how to fit in properly yet?" The meds wont really begin having a noticable effect for months- they know im lying. What they hope for is a glimmer of hope and a mountain of guilt for wanting to hurt others by hurting myself. Ill fake those, too. Still, ill be misgendered. Still, theyll blame hormones and buzzfeed rather than neurology and chemistry. After all, im well-adjusted, not at all like the Caitlyn Jenners and Wachowskis they read about on their facebooks. Its just a phase, and im just confused. I didnt try to hurt myself- nothing is *really* wrong with me. What can i do? Try and strangle myaelf, or others? That just means im lashing out, and ill get a new med regime and another 3 days, this time strapped down. Being strapped to a bed and left alone is mind-numbingly boring. If i tell them i still want to kill myaelf, theyll just nod their head and tell me it will go away soon; if i say i have a plan, rheyll keep me playing chess and reading AA papers until i apologize. Their job is not to fix me, their job is to stabilize me and make sure i dont break myself more. The fixing is my responsibility. Day four is release day. They will claim i have made improvements and have me fill out an action plan for when i feel depressed again. It will include people i can call, and ways i can push through bad feelings. It is my exit exam.when i pass, ill be set up with a therapist outside the hospital later in the week, and told how to connect with various resources. They will think i didnt know there were trans support groups. I will think that if it was just a support group i needed, i wouldnt dream of death. Neither of us will admit these things. And so, ill come back to school. Late on homework, i will have to prostrate myaelf with dictors note beggibg for forgiveness. I will get it, more due to policy than empathy, and at the end of the day, i will lay in bed, stare up at the ceiling, and contemplate which of my top three anchor spots would be the best ending to my story. Other than medical bills, nothing will have changed. Life drones on. I think i understand why death seems,so much better. In death, i can pretend there is a solution. In death, i can imagine a cure. In death, i can envision a caretaker and easier existence. It doesnt matter that death is the end of it all- i can pretend it willl be more, and my imagination can create many comforts in that void. But even death is a lie, and nothing will ever stop hurting.

[buckykingofmemes]

ice cream man answers

(you guys sent in so many asks im posting all my answers to the ones you asked at once, so i dont take up your whole dashboard.)

chocolate marshmallow: favorite brands of candy? not sure about brands, but i tried pop rocks and they changed everything i knew about reality and what food is

peach: how do you relax? sometimes i fight nazis. thats a nice way to vent steam. petting dogs or cats or birds or literally any other animal is a winner every time. making food is a good because its constructive and at the end i get food. sometimes steve and i go running. but not early in the morning because mornings are terrible.

coffee: favorite cosmetic brands? i dont wear much makeup but pepper breaks out some sephora stuff when we have to go on tv? i like OPI nail polish.

birthday cake: favorite books? i recently read and loved the harry potter books. im a hufflepuff, just so you know.  (Mod Hell loves the Dresden Files, pretty much everything by David Webber or Robin McKinley or Tamora Pierce)

french vanilla: how old are you? buddy, i dont fuckin know anymore. a little under 100, by the books, but how the heck am i supposed to count the cryofreze?

(Mod Hell: I regularly forget my own age, but I’m pretty sure I’m 24)

fudge: turn offs? nazis. really not into nazis. 

chocolate: when was your first kiss? i was…7, probably. grade school sometime. me and stevie saved this girl mary from a real jerk of a bully and she kissed both of us, one right after the other. sent stevie straight into an asthma attack, poor kid. but she was both of our first kisses.

neapolitan: things that stress you out? public speaking. steve inside any aircraft. trains. not having any weaponry. bad hair days.

bubblegum: books or movies? totally depends om my mood. movies, maybe, because they can be more of a group activity, but dont require a ton of social interaction.and the novelty of being able to watch films in your own home hasnt quite worn off.  but i do like to read a lot.

toasted coconut: the beach or the pool? my beach experiences involve either a lot of 1. storming +fighting nazis or 2. sand in my cool robot arm,  which is not fun. so pools. even though im not buoyant enough to float anymore so i wear swim fins on my left arm.

mint chocolate chip: indoors or outdoors? outdoors, when the weather is right.

moose tracks: favorites for manga? orange sherbet: favorites for anime? i read fullmetal alchemist.and then watched the anime. all of it. it was really good, although i feel like clint only showed it to me because of the robot arm thing. its the only manga or anime ive experienced so far, but i really liked it!

blueberry lemon: favorite blogs? i love @iguanamouth‘s crazy animals, and i follow a couple knitting blogs, as well as @dailybadjokes, just so i have some really terrible puns to use when nat breaks out her dad jokes.

superman: do you like sweaters? do i like sweaters. friend, i live in sweaters. i haveta knit em special though so they dont have a left sleeve because otherwise the plates in my arm catch on the knit.

blackberry: have you ever laughed so hard you cried? yes. the first time steve tried out the vibranium shield he missed the rebound and hit himself in the head with the flat side. he flew a good six feet through the air, knocked himself clean out. it was beautiful. i was crying. howard fell over, he was laughing so hard.

cherry: do you drink tea or coffee? yes. it is how i am alive. 

raspberry truffle: favorite kind of music? i have a hard time with this one because im still learning so much about modern music. me and thor like listening to heavy metal, and i like tonys classic rock n’ roll, but im also really fond of the music of the 30s and 40s, the stuff i grew up with. 

praline: a popular book you haven’t read yet? i havent gotten to game of thrones yet. people keep telling me such and such a character is gonna die, but im not sure how they can have that many dead characters and still have enough people for a book.

(Mod Hell has not, and never will, read Fifty Shades of Grey)

toffee: a card game that you’re good at? so far, all of them. but rummy is my game, friends. i will kick anyones ass at rummy.

(Mod Hell has an inexplicable affinity for Up the River/Down the River. And Irish Poker, if you wanna count that as a card game)

mango: when and why did you start your blog? my therapist recommended i write about things that were happening in my life, and mentioned that blogging was a good way to do so. i dont think this was quite what she had in mind, but here we all are, so... anyways, this blog was started on october 10th, 2016.

rocky road: favorite songs at the moment? can i count the entire discography of pink floyd? tony recently introduced me to them and they’re pretty great.

(Mod Hell has been enjoying Down Like Silver’s Wolves, because my taste in music is very very morbid)

butter pecan: favorite songs for life? this is a hard one. lately i have been enjoying fleurie’s ‘soldier’ because im a cliche sonovabitch 

strawberry: a language you wish you could speak?

dog. do dogs talk? not sure but if they do i want in.

butterscotch: what color are your nails right now? uhh... silver on the left, none on the right? except for my right pinkie, which is black because thor accidentally set his hammer down on my fingertip. so theres a blood blister there. gross. but they were red last week. me an nat had a nail night. 

(Mod Hell is rocking a matte black and gold french manicure. I’m getting good at those!)

mint: the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done?one time me an the howlies were having a night on the town and i drunkenly forgot steve was huge and i tried to pick him up (i mean literally lift him. i wasnt hitting on steve) because i thought he was still tiny.  i failed. steve did not budge at all.  and in the process of trying to regain my balance i overcompensated and fell into the thames. which wouldnt have been so bad if all the howlies and the girls we were with hadnt been right there laughing at me. its probably not the most embarrassing thing ive ever done but its the first that comes to mind.

 (Mod Hell accidentally flashed a lifeguard once, so quickly I was never sure if he actually saw or not. Still super embarrassing.)

green tea: favorite flavors of ice cream? yes. all of them. now, please.

(Mod Hell:  chocolate chip: what’s your most popular post?  If you’re counting this blog, the “new years resolution: 1080p” post got picked up by a couple bigger blogs and is the frontrunner at 21,000+ notes. Original posts at hellenhighwater usually fade out at like 20 notes. So there’s a bit of a gap there.

Mod Hell: black raspberry: do you have any pets? Oh man yeah. I have two cats, Nimitz and Yamamoto. Nim is small and black and puffy and made primarily of homicidal urges. She is the Terror of the Underbrush; the Reaper and Eater of Souls. Yamamoto is 23 pounds of superbly useless cat. Her favorite activity is slowly petting the stair banister post with her paw. I also have a mated pair of domestic Violet Ringneck doves named Vexation and Vendetta who live in my bedroom, though I’ll be building them an outdoor coop to vacation to in the summer. Vex and Ven are the most wonderful idiots. They live life like it’s a spanish soap opera. Everything is very dramatic and seductive and not in a language I understand.)