#it probably felt like forever during school hours but like they had so little time actually being together which they didn’t realise until | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

appleblueberry-pie · 11 months ago

Note

yandere miles 42 when a guys asks you out to prom yk like where they make a whole scene a cardboard box cut into a square and it has will you go out to prom with me 😭😭 and says the most cheasy thing making you cringe and a large group of ppl are surrounding you two but we reject them and they get mad and you tell miles all abt it ^^ i love your posts btw🙏🏽

[Come back home to me.]

You knew something funny was gonna happen when people were smiling your way, giggling and whispering about you. And the further you trekked down the hallway, the more crowded it was. You tried to keep your eyes to yourself as you slithered through the crowd. Clutching your backpack straps harder. Phones were out and on you, you felt a little nervous. This day has been hard enough for you. Long, grueling hours in class, people chatting up a storm in your ears, a mind-blowing headache that you've had all damn day that you could only take medication for just 30 minutes ago. You were tired.

"Hey, Y/n!" You tense up before sighing, shoulders dropping. How much happier would you be if you just ignored the call of your name and dealt with the backlash tomorrow, instead? You recognized the voice, and knew that if you ignored him...you'd be dealing with the consequences forever. You decided to turn around.

There goes Travis. His dark brown complexion and well-maintained dreads make him stand out. They were pulled back into a low pony, probably because he knew these videos would be the talk of the school for a while. He always loved the spotlight. A junior, like you, giving you that smile that all of the girls bothered him to give to them. It's directed right at you while he holds a beautifully made sign. It's humongous. And pink. And purple. Colors that you don't remember telling him were your favorite. Your head begins to hurt again when you notice your name drawn in amazing detail and care, followed by something among the lines of "prom" and "love of my life."

Somehow in the time span that you scanned your eyes over the sign that determined your possibly inevitable doom, a perfect circle was formed by the students who stood and watched you two like hawks. The flash on phones made you calculate that these videos wouldn't leave the internet for at least a month. Great. A month of reminders. A month of prodding and picking at your sanity from a place you have to go to damn near every day for an education. And a month of replays of a rejection.

You're not telling him yes.

Travis's homeboys hoot and holler to encourage him. "Y/n..." He starts, taking a step closer to you. A fake smile wobbles onto your lips and you stare up at him. "......yes...?" Everyone suddenly goes silent as you two begin to converse.

The way he stares at you makes you feel like....what he's looking for in you isn't something you'd give up for any high school boy anytime. Because what he wants, you know it isn't genuine love. So it makes you nervous the way he seems to tower over you during his, so called, "profession of love".

"Your beauty and smarts is something I've always wanted in a girl." His voice is loud and clear. It echoes throughout the hallway, like he wants everyone to hear. You don't think the halls have ever been so quiet. "Everyday, I'd pass you in the hallways while you carry your textbooks and wonder what it'd be like talking to you every morning before class. What it would be like to love you the way you deserve to be loved." His vague explanation of his love towards you had you wondering if anyone else also realized how fake this whole thing was.

His dark brown eyes never leave your face and he's right in front of you now. "So, I made this sign...to show you how much I love you. And how much I want to be with you. So, if it isn't so much to ask," Travis slowly puts the sign aside and drops to one knee, taking one of your hands into his, holding it carefully. "would you please go to prom with me? And let me be your man?"

The longer he watched the live feed, the harder it was to not burn his work space to the ground. The longer he listened, the harder he tweaked his claw he was attempting to fix. He was trying. He was trying so hard to stay calm. Because it's not like you'd say yes. But at the same time, no matter how often he kills or beats niggas up, "They just keep fucking touching you, puto cabrón!" He swipes the table, his tools and broken claw flying to the ground. Miles takes deep breaths, holding his head in his hands.

He stands up, turning off his phone and begins pacing. He didn't wanna see the rest of that. Why does he have to keep doing this? Don't they understand your his? Just his??? Yes, you're the shining light that keeps Brooklyn alive, yes, yes, this isn't news. But he's always with you. So why do they keep bothering you?

It doesn't matter because he's gonna keep killing them until they get the message. The more roaches he brings into the light, the better. He suddenly rushes to his phone and quickly dials your number, chest heaving as he tries to calm himself.

Your phone silently vibrates in your back pocket and your heart drops. It had to be Miles. Because he wasn't at school today and this definitely wouldn't have happened if he was here. You're so fucked, you think to yourself as everyone cheers at Travis's speech. And it goes silent again as they wait for your answer.

Suddenly, Travis is so hard to look at. You didn't want to be stared at like that when he's gonna die in the next few hours. Miles was gonna get him and it'd be your fault. He always said it wasn't and would caress your face as reassurance, but there's no excuse when he only kills these guys at school because they talk to you. And not for any other reason. You always have to be where the line is drawn.

"No, I can't go to prom with you." You say, chest lifting of the thousand pound weight that held it down. Travis didn't even look sad, he still had that adoring look in his eyes. And you then knew that he was faking all of this. "Why not? Is it because of Miles?" He stands, still holding your hand and shakes his head. "If he's bothering you, I could....get rid of him if you want. Cause that nigga, he a fucking weirdo. And he clearly, like, has you hostage or something, cause he ain't nothing special. Any one of us is better than him." He scoffs at the mention of him and his friends laugh with him.

You shake your head and take your hand away. "No, sorry, Travis. I just....don't wanna go." He rolls his eyes and smiles at you, picking up his sign. "Whatever. That's aight." He tosses it in the nearest trash can. You wonder if he even made that himself with the way he tossed it with zero regards. He turns back to you one last time and nods. "I'll holler. Let me know when you get rid of yo little guard dog. He be stinking the halls anyway."

And everyone dispersed.

You let out the breath you didn't know you were holding. You think this city is going to be the death of you with how many times you've gotten unwanted attention based on your looks. You tense up once more when you remember that Miles was calling you. The sudden silence after multiple calls was never a good thing. You yanked your phone out of your pocket and saw the 20-something missed calls and whispered to yourself in fear.

Immediately, you began your journey to his place.

His room was dark and cold. Only the light from outside his window illuminated it. You softly dropped your backpack into the usual corner and backed up to sit on his bed, but your back softly collided with a warm wall that also wrapped it's arms around your torso. You flinched as Miles exhaled in your ear, his head resting on your shoulder. "Miles, what the hell...."

He squeezes you a little and backs you both up, until he brings you to sit on his lap on his bed. He shifts you, so that you're facing him, his hand caressing your face and rubbing your back. "Hermosa como siempre, mami. How was your day?"(Beautiful as always, mami.) He whispers it to you, to calm you down. You're visibly nervous at his actions, expecting him to explode any minute.

"Um...it was alright. I did my project in 3rd period and got a coffee drink with my lunch. And..... I got asked to prom." You stare down at him, watching him scan you up and down, and let him 'check' your pockets before resting his hands on your waist. "Yeah? Who asked?" He already knew the answer, but wanted to hear it from you.

You severely struggled to tell him it was Travis. You were tired of him killing people. You were tired of the apologies from men who were beaten half to death because of you. You scrunched your eyebrows as your throat began to close.

"Hm?" He asked. You hated how calm he was about this. How he held you so dearly as you fidgeted with your uniform skirt. Tears built up in your eyes and you shook your head. Miles pulled you closer, immediately wiping your eyes. "No, no, por favor no llores, nena. No estés triste. I just want you to tell me who did it, that's all."(No, no, please don't cry, baby. Don't be sad.) You break into full out sobbing and wipe at your eyes.

"I don't- don't want to because you're gonna kill him!" You stutter and manage to spit out your words, voice wobbly. Miles shushes you and rocks you back and forth, resting your head on his chest. His voice rumbles in your ears when he speaks. "You don't have to worry about a thing when I'm here with you, N/n. All I want is for you to drop his name, and everything else doesn't matter."

He kisses your forehead sweetly, letting his lips linger for a few seconds. "Okay?" You nod and try to take deep breaths. You couldn't win against him. He probably already knew who proposed to you, and Travis's fate still wouldn't be unavoidable. "Travis." You felt immense guilt and despair the moment you dropped his name.

"Travis...." Miles repeats. Just putting his name in the air made him pissed all over again. He stays silent for a few seconds before tilting his head to the side. "I just realized why that name is so familiar," He starts. "That's that nigga who robbed and threatened you last year, ain't it?" Miles scoffs and turns to look at you. "Is that why you didn't leave when he brought up that sign? Cause of what he did to you?"

You scrunch your eyebrows at his words and sit up. "How do you know about that?" You didn't meet Miles until a month after you were robbed by Travis in your sophomore year. So, him knowing about that was weird, especially since you never brought it up to him before. Miles ignores your question and continues. "I should've known some shit was off." Miles places you on the bed and gets up, grabbing some clothes to change into.

You rush to stand in front of him to stop him. "Miles, wait! Please- please don't do this. He didn't even do anything to me. All he did is ask me out. I said no. What's wrong with that??"

"What's wrong with that is that nigga is gonna keep fucking getting at you until he can get into your pants, baby. I'm not stupid. These niggas know what they doin' riling you up and sending you back home to me crying and shit. Ain't you tired??" Miles begins to size you up, backing you towards his bedroom door, clothes clutched in his hand as he stares down at you.

"I am fucking tired. And I'm also tired of you ruining my life by making more rumors for niggas to spread about me. Nobody wants to be near me because of you, Miles!" You jab your finger into his chest and he grabs your hand. "You don't need nobody else." You hear his breathing speed up and realized you should've kept your mouth shut.

It's too damn silent for your liking. All you can hear is him and your heartbeat in your ears. "When the fuck have you ever needed anyone else besides me?.....I take care of you. I feed you, I do your fucking hair every morning, I walk you to and from school, I protect you. Es que no es suficiente?(Is that not enough?)" You don't respond and stare up into brown eyes that glare down at you. "How 'bout I show you how good you got it?" You try to pull your hand back, but his iron grip isn't letting up. "What.....? Miles, let me go."

"What's wrong, mi corazón? Don't wanna see?" Miles almost jokingly asks about your sudden concern. He steps into your space once more and firmly grabs your face. "Look at me when I tell you this,"

He shakes his head. "You don't know how to protect yourself. I'm the only one who knows how to keep you safe in these fucked up streets. When was the last time you felt protected before you met me? Huh? Cause I know you haven't. I'm meant to be here with you! I'm protecting you from the horrible fucking things that are happening out there that could've been happening to you, baby. You heard?"

You struggle to remove his hands from your face and he makes no move to stop the distress he's putting you in. "Okay, okay, Miles. Just...please stop."

Miles places a kiss onto your forehead before holding you in his arms. You sigh relief at the release of pressure and let him hold you. "Volveré pronto, okay? And then we can do whatever you want."(I'll be back soon) You allow yourself to relax and your eyes flutter shut. Sometimes you wonder how much it'll take for him to stop taking his obsession out on Brooklyn.

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yandere character #reader #across the spiderverse #itsv #atsv #yandere atsv #yandere atsv x reader #yandere 42 miles x reader #yandere 42 miles #earth 42 miles morales #earth 42 miles morales x reader #yandere miles x reader #yandere miles morales x reader #yandere miles morales #miles morales imagine

575 notes · View notes

kayentokk · 7 months ago

Text

Easy Peasy Sukuna Squeezey(Part 3);What Could Go Wrong

Pairing;Sukuna x Fem! Reader

Summary;What could go wrong during your weekend with Sukuna? Not much except one thing, or one person.

Contains;fluff, lots of fun, ex, sukuna gushing, childhood memories, some cussing

Wc;2,010

A/N;I am literally so sorry, tbh I forgot I made this a series 😅 and then I checked my comments and I was like oh. So my bad guys I will try to update this regularly and get my schedule back together. Also just comment on any of the posts for this series that you want to be tagged to get on the tag list.

Tag list 🏷️; @charlie-xo

Prev. Series M.list Next

The week felt like it took forever to be over, exams, loads of homework, part-time job, all that hectic stuff. But this weekend you get to-well you’re not really sure exactly what Sukuna has in store for you but whatever it is you’re excited for it.

You had texted your roommate the day you were over Sukunas apartment that you’d be staying there at least until the weekend was over. You often stayed at Sukunas for long periods of time when you needed a break or just wanted to hang with your best friend. He never really minded you were pretty good company, in your own words, and he was used to spending long periods of time with you. During school, after school, in the summer, whenever your moms wanted to have a girls night, just whenever.

Anyways your roommate was obviously cool with it, she had mentioned she wanted to have “company” over anyways so it all worked out. You took Sukuna’s advice and blocked your ex, you were probably going to do that anyways since the relationship was definitely over, so you have no idea if he’s texted or called. Not that you care though, he’s an ass and he should have enough shame, decency, and brains not to call and understand it’s over.

To be honest you’re at the acceptance stage of grief, it is what it is he wasn’t the one for you, but it still sucks. Sukuna has actually been really helpful, he’s been, for lack of a better word, a great distraction. He won’t tell you what he has planned for tonight though, all he said was to be ready in pajamas. Maybe a movie night?

You guys used to do those every Friday, but then college got too hectic with it being senior year and all. Sukuna said his classes are pretty easy, although you aren’t too surprised on that one he’s always been exceptionally intelligent, he claims it’s because he just decided to major in business since he’s not exactly sure what he wants to do.

He didn’t want to be a chef, even though he’s exceptionally talented in cooking too, but he’s a waiter at a restaurant for his part time job. When he first got that job you visited to see the restaurant, and him, it was a nice little quiet diner. He was annoyed and disgusted about it on the outside but you could tell he was embarrassed about you visiting, mostly because one time there was a couple that sat in the booth behind you and made comments about, “young love.” And every time you would sit in that same booth just to annoy him because you knew he thought about it each time, it was honestly hilarious. You and him? Being a couple? What a joke.

Sukuna texted he was on his way back, he had a lecture that was in the evening that day and he left a little early to start you guys’ weekend plans. Apparently you hadn’t been paying much attention to any calls or messages because you had about 10 missed calls from your friend and a dozen text messages. You immediately called back.

“Hello? Girl! Why have you not picked up, I’ve been calling you for forever.”

“I’m sorry! I was just laying here, and I had on dnd from when I was in classes earlier. I guess I never turned it off,” you replied in an anxious tone.

Mai just sighed before continuing, “anyways your boyfriend-“

“Ex,” you cut her off before she could even begin.

“Your ex-boyfriend,” she corrected herself with irritation, “has been showing up like every other hour asking about you, and I wasn’t paying much attention before but I’m pretty sure his car was outside yesterday for a while. He’s probably waiting on you, has he texted?”

“I don’t know if he’s texted I blocked him. That’s probably why he’s showing up, he thinks I’m home. Just ignore him, and if he continues to knock call the police or something.”

“Why can’t he just leave you alone? It’s clearly over, there’s nothing there anymore.”

“I know, I’m so sorry by the way.”

“You’re fine, enjoy your weekend babes! I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

“Thank you so much.”

“Mhm my company should be over soon, talk to you later, be safe.”

“Kk you too, bye Mai,” and with a small beep, the call ended.

He was coming by every hour? How insane. You hoped he wouldn’t give Mai much trouble, but then again she could handle herself. What if he knew you were at Sukuna’s? Well he didn’t know the address….he’s dropped you off before though. Maybe he doesn’t remember it? Oh no what if he shows up?! And then your whole weekend of distraction will be ruined, and all of Sukuna’s hard work will be-

“-n? Y/n! Hey, Earth to y/n again. Seems like I’m having to do that a lot this week huh?” Sukuna jokes.

“Hm, oh yeah sorry-“ you say lost in your thoughts.

“Uhh you sure? Why’re you all spaced out?”

“It’s nothing-“

“We both know it’s not nothing you might as well tell me, you’re not very good at your poker face I’ll have to teach you sometime,” he says playfully.

“It’s just- he showed up at my apartment. He was looking for me-“

“But you’re not there so what’s the problem?”

“Mai is there, which I’m sure she’s fine he’s not crazy he’s just a whore, but what if he shows up here?”

“Wow never thought I’d hear you slut shame someone, that’s a new low y/n,” he smiles and then continues, “but you don’t have to worry about him showing up here. That is if he knows what’s good for him.”

Oh yeah one small thing, the time your ex dropped you off him and Sukuna did not get along. It was the briefest moment, it felt like when your dad dropped you back off at your moms’ after spending a weekend with him, but it was tense. You could tell, Sukuna’s sharp maroon gaze stayed on him even after you had stepped inside. So, safe to say he’d have to be pretty ballsy to show up here.

“Put on some boots or something we’re going out,” Sukuna says gruffly.

“Going out where? I’m in pajamas-“

“I know, good. I told you to be, glad to know you listen.”

You scoffed, “no way I’m going in public like this-,” you gestured with your hands waving in an up and down movement to your unprofessional getup.

“Relax. You won’t be the only one, I’m about to change too.”

“Oh because two of us looking like we just rolled out of bed is better than one,” you said sarcastically.

“Exactly, I knew you’d get it I had to admit I was getting a little worried there,” he teased.

“Oh shut up dimwit,” you said smiling.

There it was again, stunning.

Sukuna went to quickly throw on some sweats and an old faded t-shirt, probably sporting some random band. He grabbed his keys, and you were out the door.

You loved night time drives, everything just hit different. The music vibed better, especially when Sukuna let you have the aux, the car ride is just more fun at night. When you arrived at the destination Sukuna parked the car and reached to turn the knob on the volume down.

“Look where we are,” he said turning to stare at you.

You immediately turned to look out the window, and even though it took you a second you realized-

With a big shriek and gasp you turned back to Sukuna, “this is-!”

“The ‘best convenience store ever in our hometown’ I know you said it to me so much it’s engraved in my brain.”

Sparkles were in your eyes, along with some unshed tears. So many great memories were here. Every time you passed a test with an A your mom would bring you here to get your favorite snack, and since Sukuna always did well on tests you’d take him about once a month to continue the tradition. But then you guys’ campus was at least a 35 minute commute from here, and when it was busy during the day maybe 45, so you stopped coming. There just wasn’t enough time and you guys got really busy. But not many people were on the road at night, and with Sukuna’s driving you guys probably made it there in 20-25 minutes tops.

You were so happy you could scream. It was apparent in your face, the brightest smile. You jumped out of the car and immediately ran into the store, Sukuna not far too behind you.

You had already grabbed one of the small dark green dingy looking baskets, ah the same as always, from the entrance and were halfway down your favorite aisle by the time he got inside.

He greeted the kind old lady at the register who had witnessed your excitement just moments ago, screeching with joy, which scared her when you rushed in.

He quickly found the aisle you were in and watched you decide which snacks you wanted, carefully picking the items and placing them in the basket.

You rushed from one place to another, grabbing drinks, chips, snacks, anything you wanted because who knows when you’ll visit here again. Then you just stopped, and Sukuna watching your madness didn’t think you were ever going to. Then your eyes started to well up with worry.

“What’s wrong?”

“I- I left my wallet back at your apartment, I can’t buy any of this-“

“What? I’m obviously buying, dimwit,” he scoffed repeating your words from earlier.

“Really?” You asked, the excitement immediately perking back up inside you.

He didn’t even get to answer before you continued happily on your shopping spree, how could he say no anyways? By the time you were done you couldn’t even pick up your basket. You quickly looked to Sukuna for help, and he rolled his eyes taking the basket with his left arm. You began to giggle watching him walk to the register. You couldn’t help it, the sight of him carrying a basket like a soccer mom was just too funny.

A stuffed full basket being carried by his well built arm, the vein bulging from the somewhat strenuous task being carried out. His hand flexing and unflexing to stretch after putting the basket down, making the veins even more visible as they pop out due to his contractions-

“Y/n? You coming? Don’t you wanna get home to eat all this stuff?”

You quickly snapped out of your haze, and ran up to the register where Sukuna had already taken his wallet out to pay, making a comment about how you were most definitely going to eat it in his car. You left a happy customer that day.

Before you left you made Sukuna stop in front of the shop so that you could snap a quick photo of the two of you together, you wanted to send it to your moms.

You smiled the whole car ride home, and when you got in the house.

“Thank you,” you said sincerely with a huge grin on your face.

“Yeah, yeah I know I’m the best,” he replied with a smirk.

“Can you cook the ramen please?”

“Who else was gonna-“

And then the shrill ring of the doorbell rang.

“Are you expecting someone?”

“No, no one comes over here. Maybe it’s just a package.”

“At 10pm?”

“I don’t know, maybe some drunk has the wrong door.”

Then it rang again.

“Okay maybe not…”

“Sukuna just go get the door I’ll start prepping-“

Before you could finish your sentence though, he already opened the door ready to tell off the drunk.

“Oh. It’s you.”

You didn’t like Sukuna’s tone, and being the nosey person you are sometimes, you rushed to the door. You immediately understood his tone.

“Oh, of course it’s you.”

@/cafekitsune for the divider

159 notes · View notes

astrobei · 9 months ago

Note

hi i love your fics and I was wondering if you had any byler fic recs

thanks

hello there! in all honesty, i have not had the time to read a lot of byler fic as of late, but it’s been a while since i posted some recs so i’ll drop a few that i’ve enjoyed recently! as always, i do endorse every fic in my bookmarks to the highest possible degree, so always feel free to look through those for new reading as well <3

say it with your hands by pseudologia (@hellfiremike) — will is a new employee at the movie theater mike works at, and mike starts thirsting over will’s hands to a degree that’s downright detrimental to his employment status

GOD. this fic. i gushed in their dms immediately after finishing it because this might be my favorite modern will characterization of all time, and this is coming from someone who has a million and one takes on modern era will byers. this fic just checked all of my boxes — from the summertime romance to mike’s painfully in-character teenage angsting to will being a frequenter of star wars reddit threads and an enjoyer of sufjan stevens. and the TENSION. oh god the tension. i’ve read all their fics probably three times over each, and i also highly recommend like i am home again, a college au set during a halloween party which made me stare at my phone refreshing ao3 hourly until it updated, and can this be a real thing (can it?) wherein mike and will reunite in a gay bar. enough said

landslide by chamb3rs — the party’s senior year of high school

i don’t often reach for chaptered fics since i usually have such limited reading time, but i’m sooo so so happy i stumbled across this one. there have just been very few fics that have touched me like this one did. i blew through this in one sitting a few weekends ago and subsequently experienced the full range of human emotions (and then some) all in the span of a few hours. everything about this was perfect — the will pov, the weird liminality of transitional periods, the party and byhop family dynamics, down to my favorite portrayal of theeeee jennifer hayes in any fic ever. on top of all of that, this fic perfectly captures the heartbreaking euphoria of being in love with your best friend, and all the ups and downs that come with it. i crawled out of the ao3 tab covered in blood and my chest was hurting and i was shaking and i had damn near chewed my own arm off — and then i sent the link to my friend 10 minutes later and watched her experience the same exact thing like a train wreck in slow-mo HAHAHA

what a time to be alive by passerine_in_jade (@newlesbianprideflag) — will disappears and haunts mike from the upside down

i’m forever a total sucker for a good haunting metaphor, so it’s absolutely not a surprise that this fic is appearing on this list. the premise for this was so so so cool and interesting, and it’s another chaptered fic i’m glad i had a little extra time to read. the way the author had me rooting for mike and will the whole time even though half of the pairing was offscreen for a large majority of the fic is a highly commendable feat. mike’s unyielding loyalty to will and will’s constant faith in him felt so true to their canon selves, and there were so many moments that were so quiet and intimate and tender that i really felt like i was intruding on something. good good stuff

that’s what you get for falling in love by harriet_vane — will gets his first boyfriend in college, and mike, ever the ally, has very normal feelings about it

i want to preface this by saying that this fic is rated m, mostly just for mentions/allusions to sex, and one largely non-explicit portion of a scene in the last chapter. if that’s not your cup of tea, it’s easy to tell when it’s coming up and to skip past it without detracting from the plot, but i think it would be a greater detriment to not rec this fic at all, because it has quickly made the list of my favorite byler fics of all time. something about this take on jealous mike especially resonated with me — his inner monologue is simultaneously hilarious and depressing, and his obliviousness regarding his feelings for will feels so true to life without being overdone or cartoonish. you can tell just how much they really care for each other, and the conflict in this actually made me start crying because it felt so visceral and so fundamentally them. you can tell this author really understands their characters, and the love put into this fic is soooo palpable. it’s the kind of fic where you want to bonk their heads together to knock some sense into them, but you are helpless to do anything but hold on as you’re swung along for the ride.

finally, i try not to just rec fics written by my friends, but my recent reading list would be incomplete without these two wonderful additions:

the way you love me by strangeswift (@strangeswift) — byler exes (absolutely heartwrenching edition)

i’ve been hearing abby talk about her ideas for this fic for the better part of a year as she worked on it, and she actually edited and posted the first two chapters while i was visiting her! and by god is this world a better place with her byler exes concept in it, because if you want angst, you’ll never have to look further than her ao3 page. something about the way she writes will in this fic just makes my heart shrivel up and die in my chest — his quiet resignation, the bitterness (always love a good bitter will byers moment) and the Longing that never quite went away. mike’s characterization is also top notch, and you can really feel the chemistry between them during every interaction. at the time of me posting this list, chapter 4 is not yet up, but trust me when i tell you guys it’s going to soooooo be worth it. :-)

the end is here by bookinit (@bookinit02) — a speculative byler-centric season 5

if you’ve been following my blog for any amount of time, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that haven’s canon rewrite series is hands-down my favorite series across any pairing and fandom. her creativity with her season 5 concepts never fails to astound me — from the scripts she’s been working on as an alternative to the episodes she rewrote for s1-4, to her ideas for possible plot lines, and just incredible writing all around. i’ve had the privilege of reading through her scripts before she posts them to her blog (definitely go check them out) but special privilege bias aside, it takes soooo much skill to create such a visually powerful story in a medium that allows for such little narration, and the corresponding chapters just totally pushes it over the edge. pre-s5 required reading for every byler, and 100000% my new canon if the show doesn’t pan out

this definitely is not an exhaustive list because i have a million and one fics on my to-read, and one day i will get around to reading them all, but i hope there is something on this list that strikes your fancy!!

#mutuals specifically there are so many fics i need to catch up on im sorry #once i’m done w school im coming for you all truly #anyways i hope there are some here you guys like! sorry it’s not the longest list and sorry i babbled #actually no i’m not #i have a lot of feelings abt fics i like.#these r all fics that likeeeeee. make me want to Write #which is the highest compliment i can personally bestow #byler #byler fic rec #suni reads

194 notes · View notes

osakhee · 23 days ago

Text

timezone, exchange student!shotaro x japanese major!reader

! angst, taro is an asshole

you fidget nervously with the string of your hoodie and check once again the time on your phone. it's really happening, you're about to meet him. around you, your classmates are happily chatting about what's to come.

today you're meeting shotaro. it's been months since you chose him as the student from japan you would exchange letters with during your classes. your first letter felt awkward, the characters on the paper didn't look the best and you were sure the person on the other side would probably not even reply. osaki shotaro. that's all you knew about him when that letter got carried away from your university to his.

when your teacher shared that the letters from japan arrived to your school, you felt nervous and excited, you wanted to hold the paper with your name written on it and discover more of the student you're exchanging words with. shotaro's letter was a bit hesitant but his handwritting was pretty, round letters drawn on the paper.

shotaro told you about his economics major, and his english classes that were the reason he got to write to you. he told you about his friends, his love for sport and dance, his younger siblings he teases all the time, his favorite restaurant close to the university... it was simple sentences, yet you could tell he was excited to share little details with you.

from letter to letter, you felt like you were getting closer to shotaro. you started sharing your daily worries, some trouble you had with your classes or how much you missed your family. even though it took days for shotaro's reply to arrive, he would always be reassuring. you both got better at each other's language, making the communication much easier.

you started looking forward even more to your japanese language and education classes, just to feel your heart flutter when you see the teacher bring the infamous box full of envelopes. it felt nice that someone completely outside your country, that you had no strings or connection with, cared for you.

when you came home after a long day once, you found a letter silently sitting in front of your door. it took you a second to recognize shotaro's pretty handwriting on the piece of paper, your name beautifully written in black ink. and that's when things started to go down.

in this one letter, shotaro not only told you how much he wanted to talk more with you, he also gave you his number and social medias, and anything that you could contact him with. you felt like your heart was going to explode in millions of fireworks while going through his instagram pictures and seeing his pretty face.

it took you a day or two to gather the courage to message shotaro. he sounded as nice and happy in the texts on your phone as in the letters you got every few weeks, and you felt even warmer when talking to him. through the official communication in your classes, you and shotaro played innocence, as if you were not calling him in the middle of the night when the both of you were available.

months went by, and now you are anxiously waiting for his familiar face at the entrance of your university campus. yours and shotaro's teachers decided to plan an exchange trip, allowing their japanese students to stay and study at your university for a few weeks. it took more time to organize than you thought, but both you and shotaro excitedly talked about it everyday.

you check the last text you got from the japanese student, a picture of him and his classmates in the plane seats, ready for take off. it was hours ago, and the only thing you have in mind is how slow the time is ticking. they should be there any minute, but seconds felt like forever.

when finally you hear loud chatters, only catching a glimpse of japanese words in the conversation, your eyes quickly wandering over the unknown faces. you almost miss shotaro, with his cap hiding his eyes, but it's his smile that you saw so often when facetiming him that you recognize. the japanese teachers introduce themselves and your classmates greet the group with shared excitement.

you watch as your friends call for the names of the person behind the letters, discovering each other at the same time. shotaro takes off his cap and look right at you with the same gentle smirk on his face. you can feel your cheeks burning when you walk up to him, lifting your eyes up to meet his.

"hi."

"...welcome shotaro."

"is it not just 'taro' anymore?"

you look down and you hear shotaro chuckles, his hand patting your shoulder. his voice is much lower than you remember, he's also much taller than you imagined. you are too shy to admire his face, but you caught a glimpse of his newly done piercings on his ears and the metal rings on his fingers.

you walk next to shotaro to your classroom, the large auditorium feeling much more alive now that the japanese students joined. you sit down at one of the shared desk and shotaro drops himself on the chair next to yours. you can feel his eyes on you, tracing the features of your face, but you try your best to ignore it and focus on the teachers.

you don't care much about the exchange students' class planning, all you want to know is when you'll be able to finally talk freely with shotaro for the first time face to face. you feel shotaro shrugs next to you, his shoulder hitting yours when he leans closer to whisper in your ear.

"you're not doing anything after this right? you're free for me?"

your throat is dry when you swallow and just nods to the japanese student next to you that smile at your reaction. the introduction of the exchange couldn't end soon enough. shotaro leans back into the chair and lets out a satisfied sigh. he couldn't wait.

you are free from your university class. you walk in silence next to shotaro, on the way to your student dorm. shotaro kept telling you how tired he was from the travel when you were having lunch together and the dorm for him and his classmates were not open until the evening so he had nowhere to go. being a good friend, you told him to come over, but you're starting to feel nervous about it. what if your room is a complete mess? you can't remember how it looked when you left in the morning.

you finally feel comfortable enough next the tall student to talk with him freely like you usually did on long calls or through texts at any time. shotaro is more serious and calm that you expected, but it's the perks of finally meeting someone in real life, it's not always the same. you open the door of your room and thank yourself for cleaning it. shotaro looks around with a smile, he finally discovers the room he only saw on facetime calls.

"it looks all the same, except it's real now."

"it is... it still feels weird i can't believe you're really here."

"did you believe i was not real?"

"no it's not that taro i just... never really thought we would get to meet so fast..!"

"me neither... but i'm very real you know."

shotaro's words catch you off guard and you only look back at him when you hear his backpack drop on the floor. shotaro comes closer to you, his hand gently playing with a strand of you hair before tucking it behind your ear. you can feel your heart stop with each breath.

"i can prove i'm very much real if that can help you believe..."

you have no idea what he has in mind until you feel his hands cup your cheeks and give you an experimental kiss. his lips feel warm against yours, you grab his wrist in your fingers feeling your knees tremble. your mind races with thoughts and the butterflies in your stomach are flying everywhere. shotaro cut the kiss and you feel his breath hit your lips, his eyes deep into yours looking for any kind of answer to his actions.

this turn of events is not the one you expected but it's not like you are going to complain. you can't count all the time you thought telling shotaro about the fluttering feeling you felt each time you heard his voice in a phone call or saw his smile in pictures on social media. right now is the best way to tell him. your arms find a comfortable place around his neck and shotaro presses his lips against yours again in a more eager kiss.

one of shotaro's hand grip your waist, his lips moving perfectly in sync with yours, getting more desperate each second. he pushes his tongue inside, fingers tangled into your hair and he drags you closer to his body. you part away from his lips and look at the string of saliva still connecting the both of you. everything about shotaro has you addicted, from his scent to the feeling of his hand wandering under your hoodie, the look in his eyes and his pretty lips swollen from the heated kiss.

"is it more real to you now?"

"taro... i wanted this for so long..."

"let's keep going then."

shotaro backs you down your bed, still holding your waist when you lay down in the middle of your pillows. he climbs on top of you and crashed his lips on yours in a heavy kiss, devouring your lips completely. he shamelessly presses himself against you, finding his place between your legs and he drags his mouth down your neck, sucking spots on your skin that has you moaning softly. you push your fingers into his hair and let him bite on every little bit of skin he wants.

you feel shotaro's hands travel under your hoodie, his nails going over the curves of your waist and he's quick to push the clothes over your head. he has your chest fully exposed only for himself to see and he lowers his lips to put open mouth kisses down your chest. his fingers massage your hips, digging into the skin.

you tug on the sleeve of his sweatshirt and shotaro gets the hint, sitting on his knees to take off his top. you admire his toned chest and the swift muscles of his shoulders, shotaro smirking at your eyes traveling his body. it's not your first time seeing shotaro's chest, you had seen it on some of his friends' instagram pictures when he went on holidays -no it's not stalking you convinced yourself, you were just trying to know him better-. but now that he's in front of you, you don't remember if you ever felt this hot in your stomach when you saw those pictures.

shotaro goes back to his initial place, he captures your lips in another kiss and presses his chest against yours, his skin providing a comfortable warmth. his body is so hungry for yours, the pace of his lips and the slight grind of his hips make you lose your mind, your hands wander on his back.

shotaro is not as out of breath as you are, maybe he isn't feeling as hot as you? the way he grinds the obvious bulge in his black sweatpants against yours inner thigh say otherwise... shotaro hands fumble on the button of your pants, dragging it down your legs and you catch his wrist. the soft smile he gives you is enough to quiet your nervous heartbeat and shotaro finishes stripping you naked for him.

he pulls down his sweatpants and underwear impatiently and drags slowly his hand over his cock, just gasping at the sight of you. you watch him jerk off, precum dripping from between the tight grip of his fingers around the dick. the low groan that leaves his lips make yourself grow even hotter and you squirm on the bed for any kind of attention.

"i'll make you feel good now i promise."

shotaro lets out a low chuckle and push his free hand down your thigh to part you legs wider, positioning himself for what's to come. he slowly rubs his cock against your folds, his tip teasing your entrance so deliciously it could have you crying his name. shotaro pushes entirely himself inside and grab your thighs to get even deeper.

shotaro loses any kind of self control he had the second he's inside of you. the way your walls flutter around him, the way you're so tight just enough for him to fit in, the way your back arches just because he's so deep. he rolls his hips slowly eliciting a loud moan from you and it only encourages him to go harder. he thrusts inside you at a quick pace, stretching you even more at every move.

he bends down to burry his face into your neck, both his hands reaching the behind of your thighs to push them apart. the sound of his hips crashing into yours and the bed hitting the wall each time he's deep inside your core has your head spinning. you grab his shoulders, your nails dig inside his skin. you hear him groan in your ear but he bites down on your neck to silence himself and soon you can only hear his heavy breathing.

shotaro grind his hips into yours expertly, he reaches point so deep inside it has your eyes rolling back into your head. you mumble his name over and over again through whines. one harsh thrust has you crying, your lips parted in a silent moan and your head thrown back, allowing shotaro to spread kisses on your throat.

shotaro goes back to his initial position, grabbing your hips, completely still inside, only pushing himself further. he rolls his hips extra slowly with a grin on his face and watch you fall apart. he loves to see the way you grab the sheets beneath you and how his name drips from your swollen lips, he wants to see the tears in your eyes until you can't keep your eyes opened.

shotaro's hands reach for your leg that he drags over his shoulder, now pounding into you and gripping your skin. the new angle has him reaching so much deeper inside, he abuses the same spot inside of you that makes you see stars. you're only cries and moans, you just can't handle this much pressure and the tight knot in your stomach could burst any second.

shotaro knows that. one of his hand reach between your legs and his fingers rub your folds at a quick pace, enough to make your legs shake. a long whine escape your throat as your orgasm hit, shotaro pushes you over the edge again and again with deep thrusts of his hips. you body feels tired and sore, your eyes barely flutter open to watch shotaro quickly fisting his cock, his hips stuttering and curses falling from his lips.

shotaro gets closer to you as he cums, the thick fluid hitting your chest and dripping down the skin of your stomach. shotaro pumps himself empty and sit back on the bed, his chest heavily rising and falling at the speed of his breath. he comes close to you and kisses your temple, you can feel him smile against your skin and it gives you the comfortable warmth you always felt when you talked to shotaro.

"thank you."

shotaro chuckles in your neck and press your body closer. you don't understand why he's thanking you, is it because it was good? or because he's happy to be with you? your mind wanders away and soon you can only think about shotaro's quiet breathing and his arm around your waist.

two weeks. it's all that was given to you and shotaro to be together. for now. and it's like you were glued together, sitting next to each other in class, eating together, going out together. you don't think his classmates have seen shotaro once in the exchange students dorm since he's been staying with you every single night since the first day. you could only swear it now, you are so deeply in love with shotaro.

you would say the way shotaro loves you is the same as yours, just hornier. the japanese student uses your time efficiently, and you wouldn't really complain. you sucked him off under the table in class, he had you riding him during a particularly long lecture, you made out on the teacher's desk in the late evening, and you believe he bent you down on every surface of your tiny room. each time was better than the previous one, you grew addicted to the feeling of him inside of you and you loved to see the red marks covering your chest in the mirror.

the last day, you felt heartbroken. shotaro was going to be so far away again, and it's not like any of you can afford to meet anytime soon. but shotaro was just giggling the whole day, always holding your hand, and you couldn't get yourself to be as sad as you felt on the inside.

shotaro kissed you goodbye in front of everyone, earning stupid noises and laughs from his japanese classmates. you can still remember the taste of his lips on yours. the second the bus drove away down the street, the tears filled your eyes and you knew it was going to be even harder than you imagined.

it's been 10 days since you last heard of shotaro. he messaged you when the plane landed, telling you he's heading home now, and after that, silence. no one in your class had news about him, and you started to get really anxious. maybe something happened? maybe something went wrong?

you found his instagram empty. all the pretty pictures of the sky or food disappeared, only his name on his profile could be read. you wander through his following to check his friends' instagram like you used to do when you started talking together. most of the profiles were private, but you recognized some of the exchange students on pictures.

you finally found a photo that was taken at shotaro's university. it was shotaro's class, with some of their friends, a large group of people smiling for the camera. you weren't sure if shotaro was on the picture. you read the caption without thinking much about it, and slide to the next picture. this time you recognized shotaro almost immediately and your heart drops.

he's kissing someone and it's obviously not you. you read the caption again, your heartbeap ringing loudly into your ears.

"our dear friend that won our months lasting bet, thank you for treating us so well~~"

tears filled your eyes as you read the sentence over and over again, checking the picture as if shotaro was going to disappear from it, and it was all going to be a lie. he was going to message you and tell you everything is wrong. he'll tell you he loves you. though he never did.

the picture shows a random account is tagged on it, and you click on the profile. its private, but you can see his mischievous smile and the cap hiding his eyes on the profile picture. it can only be him, but you don't want to believe that. you read the japanese characters written on the account. 大崎将太郎. this time you can't lie to yourself.

"osaki shotaro."

sorry this was mean i loved writing it 🙂‍↕️

#riize smut #shotaro smut

43 notes · View notes

wheels-of-despair · 11 months ago

Text

The Family Holiday Pairing: Eddie Munson x You Summary: It's December of 1985, and Evil Woman is ready to spend her first real Christmas with Eddie… why is he being weird about it? Contains: Christmas stuff, insecurity, love, a meaningful gesture, tears, being hopelessly devoted to Eddie Munson, a happy ending. Words: 1.6k

"We're putting the tree up and decorating tonight. Probably end up drinking some hot chocolate and watching something Christmas-y. You in?"

You and Eddie had finally been sprung from detention, and thinking about tonight's festivities was the only thing that had kept you awake. The rest of the boys had escaped your cruel fate and gone home when they were supposed to, so it was just the two of you in the van now.

"You need help?"

"What, like 'oh please, big strong man, won't you come help us feeble women-folk put up this heavy plastic tree'?" you tease. "Don't NEED help, but we'd love for you to come hang out."

"Actually…" he licks his lips and concentrates on the road. "I think I might just go home tonight."

"What?" Eddie Munson, passing up Family Fun Time? And hot chocolate?!

"I'm, uh… I'm just really tired. Think I might be coming down with something."

You reach over to feel his cheek, which does look flushed and feel a little warm.

"Are you okay?" He hadn't said anything. Not that he'd been allowed to make a peep during the last hour, but he'd seemed fine at lunch.

"M'fine, just wanna sleep."

You watch him suspiciously as he turns onto your road. You know something's brewing in that twisted little mind of his, but you don't know what.

"Okay," you agree, deciding not to pry. Maybe he just needs a little time to think about whatever he's got going on, and he'll get over it on his own. He pulls into your driveway.

"You want us to wait and do it tomorrow?" It would probably require a little groveling, but you'd do it. You'd do anything for him.

"Nah, don't change your plans on my account."

"Okay," you say again, a little hurt. "If you change your mind, you know where we'll be."

"Don't wanna get you sick too."

"Eddie, you had your tongue down my throat just a few hours ago. That ship has sailed." You tilt your head and wait for a smile. He forces one that doesn't reach his eyes. Maybe he really is getting sick.

"Call me if you need anything?"

He nods. You lean across the van and kiss him on the cheek, then hop out and walk to the door. He doesn't start backing out of the driveway until you've got it open. But this is the first time in forever he hasn't come in with you. It feels strange. You don't care for it.

He didn't come that night, and he didn't call.

Your mother had asked about him, and you'd said he wasn't feeling well. Which, as far as you knew, was true. You thought of him the whole night, from the time you helped wind the lights around the tree, to hanging the stockings, to watching the marshmallows melt in your mediocre cocoa while some claymation special played in the background. Everything was better when Eddie was around.

He arrived the next morning to pick you up for school as usual, but still felt a little distant in the seat next to you. You let the boys ramble about the current campaign while you watched him out of the corner of your eye.

You made an effort to act normally throughout the day. Like nothing was wrong. Like he hadn't unexpectedly bailed on something he was supposed to be a part of. Like he wasn't being weirder than usual.

Despite your efforts to act normal, Eddie remained quiet. He nodded and let out a half-hearted laugh or two at your attempts to break him out of his funk on the ride home. When he pulled into your driveway, he didn't even turn off the van. The rest of the boys had gone to Jeff's to play video games. No one was home. Eddie should be jumping at the opportunity to spend some time alone with you. Unsupervised. Instead, he glances at you like he's waiting for you to get out.

You turn in your seat to face him.

"Alright. What's going on?"

"Nothing."

"Bullshit. Tell me what's going on."

"It's nothing."

"Edward."

He sighs.

You cross your arms. "I'm not getting out of this van until you tell me, so you better either start talking, or get fucking comfortable."

He turns off the ignition, then sits quietly for a moment.

"Don't you ever get sick of me hanging around all the time?"

"Nope. Try again."

"Doesn't your mom?"

"You are aware that she refers to you as her favorite child, correct?"

He huffs out an exasperated breath, and it fogs up the windshield in front of him.

"Look. I appreciate you including me. I really do. But Christmas is a family holiday. Like, THE family holiday."

"You ARE family, dummy."

"I'm not."

"You are. You're more family than most of the people I'm related to."

"That's not how it works."

"That is absolutely how it works. I chose you. WE chose you. Those other people are just assholes we happen to share DNA with."

"Look, just…" He grips the steering wheel. "I appreciate you trying to include me, but eventually you're all gonna get sick of me. I don't want to wear out my welcome."

Your heart sinks. Your annoyance fades. How has he not realized that he's your entire world?

"Eddie, you're always welcome, wherever I am," you tell him gently. "You're my favorite person in the world. I fucking love you. I want you with me all the time. Whether it's Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or a random Wednesday, or the day we get married."

He stares at his lap.

"What's it gonna take for you to realize how much you mean to me?"

He shrugs.

And then, you get an idea.

"Come with me."

You get out of the van, but he doesn't. You walk to his side and open the door.

"C'mon, I want to show you something."

He slides down and follows you with his feet dragging, like a big insecure baby. You kick off your boots and drop your jackets, and you take his hand and lead him to the living room. You come to a stop by the fireplace.

"Look."

He lifts his head and takes in the garland and the holiday-scented candles and the nutcracker and the four stockings…

You can see him re-count.

He looks to you with tears welling up in his eyes.

"Told you so."

Your mom has made him a stocking. It matches the ones you and your brother have had since you were babies. She's even stitched Eddie's name onto it. His stocking fits right in, just like he does.

He bursts into tears. He hides his face in his hands and sobs, and you wrap yourself around him the best you can.

You want to tell him that THIS is why you wanted him to come over last night. That you wanted your mom to see his face when he saw his stocking for the first time. That you wanted him hang it himself. But the lump in your throat won't allow it. So you hold him and let him cry and hope that he finally gets it: He's family. The best kind of family; the kind you all chose, because you all love him.

His eyes are red and puffy when he pulls away from you. You brush his hair away from his face, before the tears can dry and glue it to his skin. You don't know what to say. Apparently neither does he.

You take his hand and tilt your head toward the tree. You lead him to it and flip on the power strip. The tree comes to life. You cross the room and switch off the overhead light, letting the tree's colored bulbs fill the room with a warm glow.

You return to the tree and sit down in front of it, lie back, and maneuver your head underneath the branches.

"C'mere," you finally get out. Eddie sits on the floor beside you and copies your movements, his head coming to rest beside yours on the white blanket your mom has wrapped around the base. You reach for his hand and hold it tightly as you stare up at the inside of the tree.

"When I was a kid," you begin, finding your voice again in the familiar calm of the tree's glow, "I used to spend half the holiday season under the tree. Dad always insisted on a real one, but Mom fought him and switched to a fake one after an unfortunate incident involving sap in my hair. THAT was fun."

Eddie chuckles. You're so happy to hear that sound again. You lie there and hold his hand and stare up at the twinkling lights in a peaceful silence.

"I haven't had a stocking since my mom died."

"Really?" you ask, turning your head toward him.

"Mhm," he hums, still staring upward.

"Wayne wasn't a Santa Man?"

"No chimney in a trailer," he says matter-of-factly, like he's heard it a few times before. "Wayne said that's why Santa sometimes forgot to bring me stuff at Mom and Dad's house. Because they didn't have a chimney either, and Santa couldn't remember how to get in."

Wayne's solution brings a smile to your face.

"Did Santa figure out how to get in at Wayne's?"

"He left the presents on the porch," Eddie grins. "Me and Wayne would put out a can of beer and a bag of Fritos for him. He said Santa would want something salty after all those cookies."

You laugh. "Good thinkin', Wayne."

Eddie finally turns his head toward you.

"I love you."

"I love you too, Eddie."

This is the fic that I fought for 2 days, posted, trashed... and then took another run at and gave it a better ending, inspired by this thought from @munson-memories. 🥰

#writings of despair #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x evil woman

127 notes · View notes

ponett · 10 months ago

Note

Was rereading your FFXVI article the other day and I got curious to know why you don’t like Bravely Default and Octopath. I agree that Octopath is a tedious dumpster fire, but I quite liked the Bravely series apart from That One Bit of Default (and also the entirety of BD2, which plays a lot more like Octopath and is therefore dogshit). I’d be interested to hear your thoughts in more detail, if you’re willing to share?

I will definitely say that I liked what I played of Bravely Default 1 (the only one of the Bravely games I've touched) better than Octopath 1. It's not the worst. I can see how people who are more patient with it can get a lot out of it. I think most of my problems with it mainly come down to pacing. The story takes a long time to go anywhere, and the writing along the way didn't grab me. (Ringabel's constant womanizing certainly didn't help.) You unlock additional jobs slowly. It felt like I had to stop and grind a lot, either to level my jobs or just to have enough gold to buy shit. Compared to the whirlwind pace of the classic FFs it was riffing on, it felt like I was making very little progress during the time I played

But the thing that really bothered me is that, even in the early game, bosses are massive damage sponges with tons of HP that take forever to fight. My casters would run out of MP halfway through the fight, and because of how rare and expensive ethers were I'd have no way to restore their MP, so I'd just limp along to the end of the fight without magic. It was miserable. Most old school JRPGs are also pretty strict about MP recovery items, sure, but in those games boss fights tend to be MUCH shorter until later in the game, and they're generally designed so that going in with a full HP/MP party already puts you at an advantage. Those games also have items like tents so that you can restore your party at save points, whereas Bravely seemingly just expects you to turn off encounters and walk all the way back to the nearest inn. These are VERY strange design decisions in a game that's trying so hard to be accessible and low-friction, to the point that you can just turn off random encounters whenever you want. This balancing feels like the worst of both worlds when it comes to classic and modern JRPG design

I can pinpoint the exact moment in the story that was my last straw, though, about six hours into the game. I took a photo of it. It was this:

In a better story, I could roll my eyes at this line and move on. But I was already having a generally unpleasant time, and the story felt like it had barely gone anywhere in six whole hours. (By that point in FF6 you could be nearing the opera!! In Chrono Trigger you'd probably be in Magus' friggin' castle!!!!!) So I decided it was time to cut my losses

I took this as an opportunity to just go and play FF5, rather than a modern game that's imitating it. I still need to actually beat FF5 someday (I am terrible about finishing long games because ADHD etc. etc.), but god, I loved what I played of it, and it really just highlighted how much better it is than Bravely Default. WAY better story pacing, way better bosses, you unlock the jobs way quicker, the party is way more likeable. It was still a game where I found myself grinding, but in FF5 it felt like I was actively making the choice to invest time in my character builds because I was having fun with those systems, rather than feeling forced to grind for gold or whatever

TL;DR the moral of this story is that everyone should play FF5

#anon #ask

79 notes · View notes

rendy-a · 2 years ago

Note

idea; fem S/O has the power of freezing and slowing down time but only reveals that in a sappy way.. The perfect placed a note that holds a very honest confession inside a small box, and tossed it at her crush really fast, only for it to suddenly freeze infront of her crush's face. No momentum, frozen in time before it hits the confused and concerned guy. Leona, Riddle and Jamil; fluff with mutual feelings, please! the idea of S/O using her (newfound?) powers to confess is just <333 (GN S/O is fine too if you'd rather write that way btw!!)

I tweaked it a little bit but the general idea is still there. Hope you like it! Thanks for requesting.

Making a moment last

Life is strange. When you came to Twisted Wonderland, you were a magicless Prefect assigned to a rundown dorm. Then Overblots happened, several of them. You’d been involved in those incidents, getting far closer to an Overblot than most people do. According to Crowley, that is probably what triggered your magic awakening. It felt too good to be true, after all this time, to finally have magic like your peers. For that reason, you had hid your blossoming abilities. The staff had given you remedial lessons in magic after school hours, to help you catch up to your classmates. Now, you finally feel confident enough about your magic to tell others about it. You know just who you want to start with; your crush.

Your crush isn’t the type to waste time fooling around, so it was hard to convince him to meet you out near the forest. However, after everything you’d done for him during and after his Overblot, how could he refuse you? So, he’d come. Now, you are standing before him nervously shifting the small box you hold from hand to hand. “So, Prefect,” your crush starts curiously, “what’s this all about?”

You smile at him and speak, “I have something I’ve been meaning to tell you but I wasn’t really sure how to go about it. That’s why I thought it might be easier to show you. All the things that happened between us back when, well you know when; no need to bring that back up now.” He grimaces, recalling the trials he had put you through with his Overblot. He gives you a small nod of understanding and you continue. “Well, it’s changed me and I’d like to think for the better. Anyway, I know we’ve become a lot closer since then, so I wanted you to be the first to know about…well…”

It was then that you took the small box you’d been holding and tossed it high in the air, angling it to come down near your companion. Only it didn’t come down, for right as it hit the highest point in it’s arc, you used your unique magic to freeze it in time. Your companion stood rapt, mouth falling open in shock as he looked up at the unexpected sight before him. This was your chance to slip away; you had courage to confess but… maybe not in person. The letter in the box would say it all.

When your magic hit its limit, the box resumed it’s decent, falling neatly into the hands of your waiting crush. He turns to speak to you, to tell you all his thoughts on your display and what your comments had meant to him but…you were gone. Without you there, his attention immediately goes back to the mystery box, which he notices has his name written on it in neat lettering. He opens it carefully and finds a letter inside.

To my Dearest One,

Meeting you has changed my life, so much so that it has now changed me (as I’m sure you’ve noticed). If I could take every moment we’ve ever spent together and freeze them in time, I would. I want out time together to last forever. I guess what I’m saying is that I like you and maybe I always have. I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough to tell you to your face but I’m glad I can say it here. I really like you.

Yours, the Prefect of Ramshackle Dorm

He reads your letter over several times, willing the familiar words to settle into understanding. Each time he reads it, it sends butterflies to his stomach, making him feel so agitated, he questions whether he has really read the message correctly. And so, he reads it again and again.

Finally, he forces himself to stop, takes a deep breath and gazed into the distance where Ramshackle lays. Can it really be that you feel the same for him? Even after the way he hurt you during his Overblot? He hadn’t allowed himself to hope for that, keeping his own feelings buried deeply within himself. But now…

If you are too shy to confess to him in person, then he’ll just have to take the lead. He struts determinedly back to Heartslabyul to begin preparations for a proper tea party. After all, there are rules to romance; a proper confession must have a proper setting.

You suppose it is a good sign that you are still being invited to tea parties at Heartslabyul after…yesterday. You are sure that your face can’t get any hotter when you think back on your confession to the strict Dorm Leader of Heartslabyul. You hid in the nearby forest to watch his reaction but all he’d done was stare at your letter and then return to the dorm. You took that for a rejection and resigned to never speak of it again.

For that reason, you were surprised to receive an invitation to a tea party at Heartslabyul so soon. You considered skipping out on the event but finally decided that, if Riddle was going to put the incident behind him, then you should too. You could still meet him as a friend, at least. That was something. So you put on your nicest outfit and went to attend the party; perfectly on time, just as Riddle likes.

When you step through the mirror, Trey is waiting for you. “Ah Prefect, right on time. Riddle will be so glad.” You can’t help but smile, hearing your own thought parroted back to you. You start following Trey (the rose maze can be quite confusing for students who do not reside in the dorm), and chat with him as you walk. “I’m glad I could join you all today after, well no, never mind.” Trey turns his head slightly, “With us all? I think you might have the wrong idea about today.” You might have asked him more but he suddenly stop, steps aside and gestures for you to go on. “We’ve arrived.”

You look at Trey questioningly as you close the distance and then pass him, entering the space in the maze he has lead you to. Inside is a single table set to hold a tea for two. At the far end of the space, Riddle paces back and forth. When he hears your steps fall on the paving stones, he turns to look at you. The coat on his dorm uniform settles against the back of his legs and he nervously rubs his hands over it, making sure it falls perfectly into place while he gathers himself. Then, having collected his thoughts, he moves to pull out a chair for you. “Won’t you please join me for tea, Prefect?”

You gaze around one more time, verifying that it was really just the two of you here and then you take the seat he has offered you. He pours you both a cup of tea and adds the traditional number of sugar cubes to each glass. You sip at your tea and wait for him to speak, not trusting yourself to speak first. Finally, Riddle does begin. “It’s very improper to give a confession and run off without hearing a response. Did you know that?” Your mouth falls open and works trying to form words, leaving you looking like a fish. Riddle seems to realize he’s falling too deeply into his strict nature and shakes his head, “Never mind that. What I mean to say is that I’d like to answer your confession now.” Riddle reaches out his hand, placing it palm up on the table. You look at it a moment before hesitantly placing your own hand in his. “Prefect, you said you wanted our time together to last forever. I also feel the same way.” You gaze at him, gasping aloud at the acceptance you hadn’t expected. He looks at you and his chin raises slightly, “Only…”

“Only, I don’t think you’ll be able to make time freeze forever if your magic is only at that level.” He starts, face flushing as thought he has just heard himself saying all those romantic things just now and felt the need to change the conversation. “I think you will need to practice quite a bit more, don’t you? Maybe…. maybe you need a tutor?” He looks shyly across the table at you. “I could help you out, if you’ll stay by my side.” You smile widely at him and squeeze the hand you hold. “I can’t think of anyone more suited to teach me than you, Riddle dear.” He lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding and smiles back at you. Romance was new to him but education he knew. This was a foundation you could build on.

Leona was angry. If you are going to have the gall to confess to him, don’t think you can just run away after. All his life, he has felt abandoned and overlooked and now you go running off on him too. The more he thinks over your disappearance, the more upset he gets. He stands at the edge of the forest, tail twitching irritably, replaying the scenario in his head.

Each time he thinks of the part where you just run off and abandon him, he gets more and more angry. Finally, it builds to a point where he uses his unique magic to turn your gift to sand. Whelp, he hadn’t actually meant for that to happen. Now he feels more disappointed in himself for getting carried away. This calms him down enough to think and thankfully, Leona is quite adept at turning unexpected incidents to his favor.

Leona smiles cunningly, he has lost his keepsake letter but perhaps not his prey. He stoops down and gathers what he can of the sand left from the magic and shoves it in his pocket. He just needs to purchase one little thing to bring this plan together. Time to head to Sam’s Mystery Shop.

You were nervous. Springing a surprise confession on Leona and then bailing on him was not your best idea. Now you’ve got to be on guard for when you’ll see him again; imagine what he’ll say, what he’ll do. Perhaps he will be angry; you don’t want to be around an angry Leona. You walk cautiously through the halls of Ramshackle, as though you might step around the corner at any moment and find Leona there. But then you laugh to yourself, Leona coming to Ramshackle? No, that is too high effort for him.

The more you think on it now, the more amusing it seems. You chuckle as you imagine princely Leona napping on the dust covered sofa of your rundown dorm. Your laugh quickly turns into a yelp when you round the next turn of hall, headed toward the kitchen, and bump into someone. “Ahh!” you cry out. “Geeze, calm down,” your intruder says, “It’s only me.” You stop shouting as you see your intruder more clearly; it’s only Ruggie.

“You scared me to death! Gah!” you give Ruggie a mock punch to the arm. “What are you even doing here?” Ruggie gives you a strange look, “What did you do to him?” You tilt your head questioningly, “Who? What?” He rolls his eyes at you, “Leona. He’s been strange since he got back from your meeting. What did you do to him?” You grimace at the thought of having to explain your confession to Ruggie, “Um…none of your business! I guess…I guess you’ll just have to deal with his moods.” Ruggie smiles at you, “Nope. He’s sent me to fetch you. So, it’s actually YOUR problem now. Shishishi.” Oh, great. Leona in a mood and he was all yours; just what you wanted…right?

You hesitate outside his dorm door, wondering if it was too late to give him time to cooldown, but of course he has heard you. “You coming in Herbivore or am I going to have to come out there? You won’t like what happens if I do.” You grimaced, knowing he’d make good on that threat. You take a deep breath and head inside. You see Leona standing in front of his desk, not lounging on his bead. How rare, you think, for him to be so alert rather than napping.

You look at him bashfully, rubbing the back of your head with one hand. “Um, I’m sorry if I burdened you before with my…gift. If you don’t want it, you can just give it back.” Leona’s eyes go wide before his expression becomes somewhat guilty seeming. “What, did something happen to my box? I spent a long time making that, you know!” He puts one hand to his temple and squeezes his eyes shut. “What do you want me to say? I’m sorry?” You shake your head at him, “Leona! What did you do?” He reaches behind him on the desk and pulls something out. “Is that sand? You turned my heartfelt gift into sand?” Then you looked at it closer, really taking in what it was.

“It’s an hourglass. I filled it with the sand from your gift.” At this, his expression softens as he continues, “I guess I thought that I’d give it back to you and you could use it to remember our time together. If that was something you still wanted.” You get a wistful look on your face, “And what if I just want more time together?” Leona smirks, “Just point me at anything that bothers you and I’ll make you as much sand as you need.” You scoff at him but can’t keep a smile from growing on your face. “What do you suggest we do with this time?”

His smile takes on a predatory edge. “Oh, I had a few ideas.” You turn the hourglass over, allowing the sands to start spilling from one end to the other. “Why don’t you show me then.” He pulls you close and gives you a breathtaking kiss. When it ends, you lean in for more but Leona only turns his head to look at the hourglass, which has spent its sand. You roll your eyes and turn it over again before grabbing him and pulling him down to claim another kiss. When you part again, he turns his eyes to the hourglass and laughs. The sands had been stopped with your magic. “You’re an awful bold one, aren’t you?” You smile as you wrap your arms tighter around his neck. “I’d have to be to love someone like you.”

Jamil feels very conflicted. Don’t get him wrong, the first thing he felt was deep happiness that you shared his secret feelings. Then though, the bitterness rises. He isn’t free to chase after love like a regular student, he is bound by his duty as a servant of the Asim household. Is this confession meaningless after all?

He reads your letter again and finds himself focusing on the opening statement. Change. Its something he has often longed for but found out of reach, so much so, that he questions if it’s even possible to change your situation. Only, look at you; you’ve changed so much. It gives him hope that he may someday change his fate as well.

Holding your letter tightly, he thinks about the opportunity it represents. It’s not just his chance to be with you but a chance to change his fate. That is something he can’t pass up on. You are someone he can’t pass up on. So, he will need a plan. Thankfully, Jamil is a denizen of Scarabia, founded on the mindfulness of the Sorcerer of Sands. Planning, he could do.

The sound of knocking caught your attention, taking you out of the book you had been reading. It takes you a moment to identify because the sound comes not from the door but from your window. That was somewhat alarming, considering your room is on the second floor. There is only one mischievous fae who’d come calling at the window like that. You jump up from your desk and give the window a good shove to open it. “Lilia, how many times do I have to tell you… oh, Jamil.”

To your great surprise, Jamil stood outside the window; a feat accomplished with the aid of a magic carpet. You look out at him and feel a smile slowly blooming on your lips. “What’s all this?” you ask playfully. Jamil smiles at you and holds out a hand in invitation, “You showed me something magical today and I thought I’d return the favor.” You grin, grasp his hand, and let him tug you over the windowsill onto the magic carpet. You settle yourself in next to Jamil and wrap an arm around him for safety. He smiles and turns to you, “Do you trust me?” You smile back in response and he pulls the carpet off and away onto a thrilling and wonderous ride.

It was an experience not to be forgotten. Jamil took you all over Sage Island, sometimes slowing to point out scenery or interesting sights, other times taking the carpet on sudden drops or turns; a sly grin appearing on his face if these maneuvers cause you to grasp him tighter. After a time, you find yourself back at Ramshackle Dorm, sitting on the roof and looking at the stars.

You gently squeeze the hand you are holding. Neither of you had spoken about the letter you’d sent but both of you acknowledging that there is something between you. However, the realities of Jamil’s life hold him back from speaking about what he wants and how he feels. His life is laid out like a pre-determined path with no room left for him to blaze his own trail. You have always known this but were still glad to have sent the letter. There was a sort of freedom in ending the secrecy, having your own feelings brought into the light.

“Do you really believe that?” Jamil asks suddenly. You blink up at the stars, “Hmm? Believe what?” His gaze is locked on the darkened sky but you sense an intensity in it. “That people can change. That your life can change.” You turn to look at the dark haired boy laying next to you. “Yeah, I do. Whatever your situation, if you hang on, things can always change. Just look at me; coming here, learning magic… meeting you.” You give a please hum as you consider it. “Even today, my life has changed a lot. Right now, I feel like I’ve stepped into some fairy tale.”

Jamil turns to look at you with a small frown. “One where the royal ends up with a servant?” You chuckle at him. “Is that so bad? I don’t know, maybe that servant was a diamond in the rough. Either way, he is a prince to me.” Suddenly Jamil squeezes your hand very tightly, “And if things can’t change? If in the end they don’t end up together?” You rub your thumb comfortingly over his own and, after a moment, the pressure of his hold lightens. “At least we will have this time. If I can, I’ll make it last forever.” You gaze at the star gemmed sky, sparkling above you like a cave of wonders, underneath which lies that which you both treasure most.

#twst wonderland #twisted wonderland #twst #riddle rosehearts #riddle rosehearts x reader #riddle x reader #leona kingscholar x reader #leona kingscholar #leona x reader #jamil viper x reader #jamil x reader #jamil viper #twisted wonderland x reader

471 notes · View notes

eddiemunson-reader-shame · 7 days ago

Text

A Freak and a Basket Case— The “Seven Inches of Satanic Panic” Edition

An Eddie Munson x OC Fanfic

[ Click here for “Sounds From A Freak and A Basket Case” ]

All my love to @writhingg and @eddiemunsonmash for some productive workshop sessions that helped me get chapter 2 out.

This was one of my favorite chapters to do, honestly. I loved writing from Eddie’s POV and adding that little bit of spice that was the true Poverty Experience™️. Oh and especially the Lamb Chop references. Today I learned that Lamb Chop was a drunk back in the 70’s.

Warnings: period typical racism, swearing, mentions of suicide, mentions of abuse (more tags to be added as the story progresses), references to the film “Deliverance”

Divider by: @strangergraphics-archive

Chapter Two - Made in Heaven

“ When stormy weather comes around

It was made in heaven.

When sunny skies break through behind the clouds

I wish it could last forever… ” - Queen

The ’85-’86 academic year had to be his year.

It had to be.

It was his last shot. The last hoorah. He had just barely made the cutoff age at twenty for his re-attempt, and it was a miracle in itself that Principal Higgins had a modicum of decency to give him a break and let him even try to attend school again. He would be cutting it too close for comfort, and during the summer, Eddie Munson had sworn to his uncle that he would get his head out of his ass this time around. No more screw ups. No more bullshit scams. No more throwing his life away to be something he wasn’t.

He was going to graduate, and once that diploma was in his hands, he was going to get the hell out of Hawkins and live his goddamn life.

That promise was made at the beginning of summer break. Once school ended in the middle of May, all shackles of oppression were off: he was able to sleep in, hotbox the feelings of shame and guilt away in his van, and gorge on junk food during unholy hours of the early morning before passing out until noon. Hello darkness, my old friend.

Now in August, it was back to hell. Uncle Wayne was coming into his room at four thirty in the morning and kicking the mattress, jolting Eddie awake to get dressed. He’d done it, and then instantly fell back asleep until the shrill sound of the radio alarm pierced through his ear drums. Conveniently just before he’d had the chance to fully wake up. Eddie was ready to throw in the fucking towel by the time he threw a half ass lunch together and got into the van, bitter thoughts swarming in his mind.

Fuck it. Kick me out of school. See if I give two shits. Do me a fucking kindness.

It was one of those things one didn’t really mean, but in his heart he knew he could only slam his head against the brick wall so many times before it got old. School was going to get easier, and he was just going to continue getting tired and bored of what he felt was busywork. Since third grade, all work felt like busywork. Eddie could recall the answers in the textbooks and run circles around the teacher in calculus, but with the constant depression, school didn’t hold his interest long enough for him to really care.

He was at the point where he was forgetting what was important.

Last year was a year of losses. Almost losing the Hellfire Club to bullshit blackmail orchestrated by a sadistic son of a bitch of a principal that he did not fully trust. Ronnie had at least reached out via letter after a time, and she sent a few clipped sentences written with an electric typewriter all the way from New York whenever she had enough money left over from dorm expenses to buy postage stamps. But Dougie had gone nuclear. Played nice that one campaign, and then never talked to Eddie again. Whenever Eddie saw the messers Teague in their HVAC truck, Dougie made a point to look the other way. He had never quite forgiven his best friend for what he had almost undone.

And then there was Paige…

Eddie had been thinking of that mess for some reason, nonstop the first day back at school. Paige was probably still doing the same old thing, images of record deals and bigwig execs sucking their penis sized cigars, laughing at a table she headed, danced in his mind’s eye. Almost as if mocking himself, he’d hear: This is what you could have had if you’d just not fucked it up. This is what you could have had if you’d just been a rockstar, not a Munson.

Hawkins wasn’t cursed, Eddie was. Straight up.

After running late, getting stuck behind a green Dodge with wood paneling, battling the commuters during the clusterfuck that constituted rush hour in Hawkins, nearly sideswiping his van when trying to get over into another lane, he was done. He didn’t know why he bothered to hurry anymore. There was nowhere to go, and no money for the gas it cost to get there. Emotions were running high and low, he felt like he was trapped on a broken-down roller coaster at a shoddy side of the road carnival. Wanting to jump off, throw up, scream, and cry all at once as the reality of everything set in.

Eddie Munson had fucked everything up. Lost a potential record deal, lost a girl, and lost friends over his own stupidity. Once in a lifetime opportunities lost to the ages in the year of 1984.

’86 had to be his year. Otherwise, he had nothing else left.

He was on his way to his locker when a string bean of a freshman wearing khakis and a button down polo from the Gap slammed into him from behind. Eddie immediately turned around to catch him before he hit the ground. The kid yelled out at someone as Eddie lifted him by the armpits. After asking the dazed boy if he was okay, Eddie then looked for the attacker in the crowd of students. He assumed it was a jock, it always was, but he saw no suspicious green letterman jackets lurking in the throng of mindless zombies looking to get their class schedules and locker assignments.

Something was different in the air. He could sense it.

There was a gaggle of girls laughing and pointing, but he couldn’t see the object of their teasing. Once he came within five feet of their gaggle, they saw Eddie the Freak and bolted. So far the first day back was shaping up to be one of those weird days. Stopping to piss before homeroom, Eddie was mid stream at the urinal when he heard whispers from the stalls behind him. Vitriol most vile of some bitch that had run crying in the girl’s bathroom. Between farts, the other guys described a curly haired dork dressed for a cold front in August apparently was trying to terrorize the school.

“She’s some gap-toothed bitch of a basket case.” One of them said, “Ugly as hell too.”

For obvious reasons, Eddie was intrigued. A gap-toothed bitch of a basket case was new. Especially ones wearing winter coats in summer when the humidity drowned you before the heat got to you. He doubted there was any merit to the rumor that she was ugly, truth be told, but he had to see it for himself. Zipping his fly and giving his hands a careless rinse, he immediately vacated the bathroom to conduct his research. The journey to find the bitch took him high and low, and he decided to ditch his first period class to see if he could catch a glimpse.

Fifteen minutes had gone by, and there was no sign of her anywhere. Sighing, he made up his mind that maybe he’d misheard the whispers. Maybe it was just some bullshit that two morons made up in the spur of the moment.

And then like an answer to his prayers he heard a siren call:

Metallica on cassette. Kill ‘Em All Album. Side 1. Approximately thirty nine minutes and six seconds into the album. Track number nine. Seek and Destroy.

Blasting so goddamned loud that from his distance it sounded faint, but he knew that whoever was listening to it directly would be deaf before their twenty-first birthday.

He saw a short girl beelining passed him for the front door, and instantly Eddie was fascinated.

Ah ha! Speak of the devil, there was the little basket case herself.

Sure enough, she was all bundled up in her jacket like a blue collar worker braving a blizzard, gray skirt swishing as she power walked down the hall. The music beckoned to him, and the Black Sabbath patch on her blue backpack encouraged him to follow. Despite the stormy look on the girl’s face and the fuck off aura radiating from her, Eddie couldn’t help but allow the admiration to take over.

Seek and Destroy was one of Eddie’s screaming vents to the ether when the world pulled down its drawers and took a shit on him.

He wondered if the world had done the same to her.

He wasn’t intimidated, he wasn’t repulsed by her demeanor or appearance. Quite the contrary, Eddie could see something in the way the girl’s body communicated to the world:

She wasn’t a bitch, or a basket case. This was one of his little lost sheep. A lost, pathetic little lamb. Bleeding from the heart. Trying to butt heads with everyone and everything, unaware that the world was fanged and scary, and it could spit her out in a malformed bolus should it so desire. And yet she was still trying to fight back.

It was as if his body was moving of his own accord. His heart knew before his brain could logically process what was happening. A compulsion— his inner wild child— sent signals to his feet to quicken his pace as he raced after her. Adrenaline was coursing through him as he heard nothing but the steady pace of her gait matching the pulse of Seek and Destroy. Eddie didn’t stop until he was so close to her, he was breathing in her scent.

Fresh lemons.

Citrusy.

Sugary.

Delectable.

In a sudden burst of confidence, both hands flashed out and snatched her by the backpack straps, yanking her up until she was flush against him. He pulled off her headphones, getting in close until his lips were grazing the shell of her ear.

“You’ve got bitchin’ taste in music there, princess. Metallica, right?”

“FUCK ME FREDDY!” She bleated.

Her scream cut him off, and he held onto the girl like he was holding a wild stallion steady. Nearly went up with her when she jumped like a frog. Eddie kept her pressed to his chest, her own heaving with fear.

“You scared the shit out of me!” She cried.

Laughing hard, he spun her around to face him, hands steadying her broad shoulders as he smiled in her face.

“Sorry, sorry… Relax. Didn’t mean to scare you there. But hey, at least that got your attention, right?” He grinned.

The girl hit the Walkman’s pause button and killed the music, looking up with a stormy and defiant expression. Her eyes, minimized by the thick coke bottle lenses within the frames of her glasses, began to soften when she looked at him. He could see the tightly wound tension leave her body. The facade was slipping. Before him was an individual army crawling through hell to survive.

“You uh… you heard my music, huh?” She murmured.

Eddie nodded enthusiastically.

“Oh yeah. From all the way down the hall. You like Metallica?” he asked.

“Uh huh…”

He gave another full dimple smile at the shy answer. Adorable.

“Hell yeah, good taste. Metallica is one of my favorites too.” He replied, “Let me guess, you had someone show you their music, right?”

There was a brief hesitation as she gathered her thoughts.

“… Kind of. A lot of my tios- my uncles- like their music. My brother likes them too.”

“Older or younger brother?” Eddie asked.

“Older…”

“He get you into metal?” He asked.

“Yeah.” She said, “He started me on Black Sabbath and Ozzy when I was a kid. Um, and they’re my favorites. My dad was the one who showed me Alice Cooper, and Mötley Crüe…”

“Rad… your dad and your brother got you set up with the best of the best.”

He noticed she wasn’t much for eye contact. As hard as he tried to meet her gaze, she wouldn’t look right at him. It seemed as if she was closing herself off from everyone, a purposeful and calculated act. Understandable if Eddie was being honest. The girl’s eyes were red rimmed, nose still red and dripping like a moistened cherry, and her thick glasses were smudged with tears.

The morning must not have been kind. For a moment he saw her vulnerability in her sorrows, and he remembered that she was just a lost little lamb.

“I’m Eddie, by the way.” he said gently, holding out his hand as the chainlinks on his bracelet clinked.

The lamb cocked her head to the side, sweet little face looking up at him as if expecting a trick.

“Eddie?”

“Yup.”

Eddie playfully popped the consonant at the end, and he tried to give a sweet disarming smile to show his sincerity.

“That’s me… Eddie Munson. Hi.”

Gently, slowly, he felt a warm, shaky hand envelop his. He shook it just enough; not too firm of a handshake that he scared her off, but not so weak that it seemed he didn’t want to touch her. Because, if the way his heart was racing was any indication, he very much did want to touch her, and some part of him yet wanted her to know it.

After gulping, clearing her throat, and glancing briefly up at him with wide, brown eyes, she finally spoke up.

“My favorite person in the whole wide world is an Eddie…” the lamb mumbled softly.

“Yeah? Who’s this other Eddie?” He raised an eyebrow, dimples showing with the big cheeser he had on his face.

He noticed she wasn’t in any big hurry to let go of his hand. His ringed fingers squeezed her hand to ecourage her.

“Um… uh…” she attempted.

God… she was so cute when she was scared. She had that soft murmur like the little drunk sock puppet lamb that Eddie loved as a kid. What the hell was its name…?

“Eddie V-… Eddie Van Halen…” she stammered.

Eddie’s heart nearly stopped. Eddie Van Halen was a fucking god among men. His guitar skills were phenomenal, and Van Halen was also the reason why Eddie had gotten punished with the buzz cut in middle school. After that, Eddie tried growing it out again, finally successful.

“No way, are you shitting me right now?” he demanded.

Lamb shook her head.

“No… I’ve seen him live… he’s… he’s really cool.”

Inhale through the nose, hold for five seconds, exhale through the mouth so he didn’t start having a heart attack.

“How the hell did you end up going to one of those concerts?” He managed.

“… my dad. He took me for an early birthday present…”

So okay… skittish little lamb evidently had good taste in music, had a dad that took her to concerts like Van Halen as an early birthday present, and was just parading around the school halls unattended?!

“They were pit side. I got one of the shirts at my house.” She continued, oblivious to his existential crisis.

God dammit… No. There’s no way. There’s no way in the hell that this little thing in the brown jacket was real…

“Which concert was it?” He croaked tentatively.

“The 1984 tour last year… I saw them and Autograph play… Live in Albuquerque.”

He had to stop her right there.

“Okay wait… Just wha— hold on, your dad seriously took you out of Indiana all the way into the middle of nowhere in buttfuck Albuquerque, New Mexico just to see Van Halen… for your birthday?!”

He would have known if some girl from Hawkins was going out of state for Van Fucking Halen’s 1984 tour for their sixth studio album. Both him and Ronnie had been trying to scrounge up money for tickets, but between the two of them selling the last of their food stamps, they’d still managed to come up short. The first leg of the tour didn’t come closer than Roanoke, but when the concert started migrating towards Indianapolis, the rent on the Forest Hills lots experienced a price hike. Because Ronnie and Eddie had still wanted to come home to a roof over their heads every day, they had given up on trying to make it to the show in Indy and forfeited the cash to Wayne and Granny Ecker.

Meanwhile, this girl had been right there in the middle of the action. Basking in David Lee Roth’s versatile vocal range and listening to Van Halen himself shred the shit out of his Fender.

“Wait, wait…” he suddenly realized she said she had seen them in Albuquerque, not in Indianapolis.

“They came to Indiana three times, and you went to New Mexico?! How in hell did your dad figure going to a whole different state to see Van Halen play was a feasible option?! That’s a twelve hour drive at least!” Eddie demanded.

“I used to live in New Mexico, like… not that far from Albuquerque.” She said softly. “I’m not from here…”

Yeah, yeah of course she wasn’t from Hawkins. Eddie should have figured. There was no way in shit someone as cool as this little lamb, someone who had been pit side to Van Halen, could be from Indiana. It almost gave him flashbacks to shades of his ex, and he nearly wanted to pull away from the conversation entirely. Don’t go messing around with out-of-town ass, Jeff had told him. In fact, none of his crew even wanted him to start messing around with any kind of ass again after he’d been trying to uproot his life for a woman.

Yet this one was so quiet, and at the very least they were both on the same high school turf. Couldn’t they at least be friends? Even if he was still uncertain about the potential age gap problems, he knew if he let this sweet face just become a random anecdote in the annals of time, he would be throwing up for weeks and contemplating the jump into traffic. Especially if he saw her being poached by someone else, and God help him if the goons on the basketball team sniffed her out. Big guys that threw around their athletic power climbed over hot coals to bang short chicks, and a new girl who had no status was open season.

He pressed on. Heart racing and trying to maintain his composure so that he didn’t spook her.

“You’re from New Mexico?” Eddie asked.

She nodded.

“Could’ve fooled me, you don’t have the accent for it.” Eddie said, leaning up against one of the tan lockers.

The lamb hesitated and bit her lower lip, nodding and rocking side to side on her feet as she began to pluck at the loose threads of her jacket cuff.

“… people here don’t like to hear it. So I cover it up…” she mumbled.

Eddie let out a puff of air in annoyance.

“It’s not worth going to the trouble… You’re in Hicksville now. Hawkins isn’t the first narrow-minded white bread town, and it’s not going to be the last.” He said, waving his hand absently for emphasis, “You already have like, what, three strikes for being new, being tan, and being a chick. Sorry to say their club is restricted— if you know what I mean— couldn’t get in even if you tried. Hell, I don’t even fit in. I don’t doubt you’ll get the same amount of bullshit I do.”

“You…?” The lamb blinked, confusion written on her face, “Why would anyone make fun of you?”

Harsh laughter erupted from his throat, and he was so consumed by the absurdity of the question that he didn’t notice her flinch backward.

As if he was being crucified, Eddie held out his arms dramatically wide, his battle vest opening up to show off his Led Zeppelin baseball tee dotted with holes where the fabric had worn down from the friction between the fabric and his jean rivets.

“Take a good look at ‘Eddie The Freak’, lamb chop.” He said, voice lowering an octave and taking on a nondescript tone in the way that one might try to imitate a psychiatrist giving a mental health diagnosis.

“I’m a long haired, satan worshiping cult leader. I play disgraceful Pantera and Slayer covers in a dive bar for maybe two perpetually sloshed deadbeats and three cockroaches. I deal speed and grass to the preppy kids that have more money than sense. I lure innocents into my nonexistent basement to play my little satanic games where we sacrifice animals and engage in sodomy, and then I hotbox it in my van afterwards.”

He went on and on, the word vomit not stopping. If he was going to be honest with himself, he knew this potential thing the two had going on was dead on arrival from the moment this princess opened her purty little rose pink mouth and started talking about Van Halen.

“I’m a Munson, not a schoolboy. And Munsons are not proper Hawkins pedigree. No, no, we Munsons drop out of high school and go to jail young, and we die young in some tragic accident that leaves our kids orphaned bastards.”

She was way out of his league. From what he gathered this girl had money— or at least her dad did— if he was able to take her to shit like Van Halen concerts. Something Eddie could only dream of. Everything about this whole interaction was scary. It was scary and horrifying and the only thing he could think of doing was self sabotaging and scaring off this pretty faced lamb before he got too attached to her.

And then she frowned, still looking at the floor. It took time until she finally spoke up, looking him directly in his eyes.

“That doesn’t make no sense… Sounds like a bunch of horseshit to me.” She said.

He watched it all happen so suddenly and he couldn’t look away. His large brown eyes widening and his heart turning cartwheels in his chest when he saw the little twinkles of light, the little pinpricks of stars beginning to glimmer in her eyes as the new girl held direct eye contact with him. It wasn’t just that she was cute, because Jesus H. Christ,she was the cutest thing he’d ever seen in his life. She had so many lovely qualities: an eleven inch height difference, a round face, Rick Moranis type glasses, and the most beautiful chocolate brown eyes that glimmered, like amber cognac, in the sunlight filtering through the double doors of the school.

There was also honest to god romance novel pining on her face, soft lips parting slightly as if she wanted to speak but had lost the words. Her body moved in closer to him, and his own reciprocated purely on instinct, inviting her into his space.

Magnetism.

Pure, unadulterated magnetism.

“None of it makes any sense does it?” He said, voice so low his lamb chop had to lean further in to hear him, “But this is Hawkins. Judgemental jackanapes abound and people like you and me are lambasted for the crime of being different. Double for you I’m guessing, since you’re the new Hispanic kid in town.”

She nodded, very solemn.

“But you know what? Right now, you are the coolest fucking person in all of Hawkins.” Eddie praised.

The solemnity on the lamb’s face became joy. He wished he had complimented her sooner, because now that he had her giggling, he caught a glimpse of a huge gap between her front teeth.

“… and that’s a hell of a smile you’ve got there. And a cute laugh to match.” He smiled.

“Quit it…” she chuckled.

“Hell no, you can’t just tell me to quit it the second I give you a compliment. Gotta take the compliments where you get them. So take it.”

There was that imperfect smile again, flashing the gap and letting loose that goddamned cute giggle. The reaction he wanted. The lamb covered up her mouth as she began to shake from trying to contain the giggles. Eddie loved people like her. Naturally giddy, as if they had taken a fat hit of reefer and had the permanent giggles. But he didn’t like how she was trying to hide those gap teeth from him. He wanted to see it. Wanted to see that smile and bask in the good feeling it gave him.

“Ah ah, none of that!” He scolded, holding up a finger, “You quit hiding that pretty face from me.”

“Nuh uh!” She giggled.

“What? You don’t want me to see your teeth?”

“No!” She said, scrunching up into a ball, “No…”

A devilish grin came over Eddie’s face.

“You gonna make me get forceful here?”

“Noooooo…!” The girl whined, laughing harder as she quickly shook her head.

Eddie creeped closer. Hands to his face and fingers wriggling in anticipation.

“You knock it off, now.” He joked, his new cadence not unlike the hicks in that one John Boorman film, “Git that hand down girl, lemme see that purty mouth.”

Eddie began to wrestle the girl’s hands from her face. The squeal of delight made him holler, laughing at the moment he was having.

“Stop! Stop!” She begged, face red, “Uncle, uncle, uncle!”

“Squeal piggy, weeeeeee! Weeeeeeee!” He cried, and she gasped when it dawned on her what terrible movie he was referencing.

There was a pause, and Eddie wondered if he’d just fucked everything up with his bad Deliverance jokes.

“A la maquina!” She exclaimed, her grin huge, “You are fucked up!”

She started laughing and trying to pull away, and Eddie realized this one’s humor was just as fucked up and dark as his was.

This was heaven. He was enjoying this, enjoying the feeling of giving in to his compulsive behavior, and not having his face slapped or being punched in the stomach for it. Instead Eddie’s lamb welcomed his touch, almost craved it. She flew into a fit of hysterical laughter when he played dirty and grabbed her by the sides, tickling her pliant abdomen so that she was forced to move her hands away from her face to shield her pudgy belly.

At the end of it, Eddie was breathless with laughter, holding the girl’s sides and swaying. Coming down from the fun, he saw the full extent of that smile for the first time. No pearly whites. Just the huge, glaring gap and yellowed edges from where the toothbrush missed.

Something real… When you find it, you can’t look away…

This was real. Eddie holding this girl by the love handles was very much real. She was warm and soft and real underneath his fingertips.

“Sweet thing.” he breathed.

The lamb cocked her head, swaying side to side as she gave him a big smile. Her eyelashes were even batting at him, and they were so thick he was again reminded of the sock puppet lamb…

“There we go.” He said softly, stroking her sides, “There’s that smile. See? Much better when you’re not hiding it behind your hands.”

“My dad calls it my Elton John face.”

“He does?” Eddie grinned.

“Yeah… y’know… because of the gap. He and my brother used to call me Honky Cat when I was eleven…”

Eddie burst out laughing.

“Honky Cat?! Oh my god… that’s goddamned adorable.”

They both laughed aloud, swaying together in each other’s arms.

“Is that your name?” He asked, getting into her face and using an exaggerated southern twang, “Are you not a sweet thang? You a Honky Cat?”

Her eyes were shimmering. There were stars in them. Whole galaxies that looked at him with sincere awe.

He’d only ever seen hungry eyes before. Only ever been desired like one desired a succulent steak or a rich slice of cake. Paige’s glance had been predatory, hungry like her mama did not bother to feed her. Last year felt like he was giving up so many vital aspects of himself trying to appeal to that hungry gaze.

He felt like an imposter. Trying to change his image so the hungry gaze wouldn’t turn away from him. He thought he wanted it, a smidgeon of acceptance and a shot at a better life. But like always, everyone had taken from him; gnawing at the bones of his exquisite corpse until there was nothing left.

Paige looked at me like she wanted to eat me…

But you…

“-jandra…” she mumbled.

“Huh?”

He leaned in closer. She was red faced, twirling a lock of brown hair already curling even though it was evident she had gone through great lengths to style her hairdo straight.

“Aleja-... um… uh… Alexandra.” the lamb said, then quickly clarified when he looked at her funny, “I forgot to-… My name is Alexandra Perea. But uh, you can call me Alex…”

He frowned a little. She was holding something back. He clocked it immediately: that wasn’t her name.

“Is that really your name…?” Eddie asked.

“Kind of.” she admitted, “Um, it’s uh… It’s what everyone around here calls me, anyway.”

“What is it like, your white name or some shit like that?”

She nodded. Looked embarrassed. Like she’d gotten caught.

“What about your real name?” he insisted, “The one on your birth certificate?”

“It’s uh… It’s Alejandra.” she said.

“And do you want to be called that?”

“I don’t really care…”

“No, you need to tell me so I’m making sure I’m calling you by the right name.” he insisted, shaking his head, “Everyone always calls me Junior, or freak, or fucking Eds. Anything except what I tell them I want to be called. Makes me mad as hell. So tell me… what do you want to be called?”

“I dunno… I… well, maybe.”

He tested the name. Alejandra. Even butchered to hell, it was sweet on his tongue.

“And you’re sure you don’t want to be called anything else?” he asked, looking her in the eye.

Alejandra paused, and then shrugged.

“Okay, well then… I’ll call you Alejandra.” Eddie said, a confident smile on his face, “It suits you. I like it. And who knows? Maybe I’ll find something fun to call you later on, if you’d like me to, of course.”

There was that look again. As if she were awestruck by him, and as shocking as the feeling was, it made him feel beautiful for a split second. He felt important. He felt valued, like he’d been the epitome of good alignment his whole life and the chaotic parts of it didn’t matter.

Alejandra looked at him like she was seeing a mythical hero. As if her village was burning to the ground all around her and he’d just come in the nick of time, clad in mithril armor, immune to the flames and devastation and ready to swoop her off her feet.

But that defiance when she first faced him, the fire, it was a strength. A raw untapped power he was drawn to. Realistically he knew if he were to swoop in it wouldn’t be to save Alejandra. It would be to help this poor, mousy girl pick up her own sword and fight alongside him.

He wanted that. He wanted someone to face the demons of the past alongside him.

Eddie wanted that someone to be her.

“ Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic. ” - Frank Herbert

#stranger things #eddie munson #eddie munson x oc #eddie munson x original character #eddie munson fandom

16 notes · View notes

embrosegraves · 4 months ago

Text

𝒟𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓂𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒟𝒶𝓎

Mind Reader!Sebastian Vettel x Male!Reader Reader is a daydreamer, who loves to dream about their future. Sebastian is a mind reader...and also Reader's boyfriend.

1k Read-a-thon (!!!!) || (main) || (sebastian)

Everyone has dreamt of their future at least once in their life. Whether or not someone can admit to it is a different thing entirely. Some people love dreaming of the future, some people hate it. Some people like the idea of dreaming about it, but think it’s better to focus on the present. Y/n was someone who loved dreaming. He would spend hours and hours just imagining what his future would look like. His dreams of the future were always changing. When he was little, Y/n would imagine that he was going to live in a floating castle in the clouds with all his stuffed animals for company. When he was in primary school, he’d imagine that he’d live in a big treehouse with all his friends. At the beginning of high school, he imagined that he’d live in a cute suburban house with a nice girl, and they’d have a dog and maybe a cat.

It wasn’t until Y/n was in university for a degree in environmental engineering, that he experienced something that would change his life forever.

His first gay thought.

Y/n had assumed, since his dream of living with a nice girl was incredibly short lived, that he was asexual. Or more accurately, aromantic.

He was, evidently, wrong.

He had gone on a class trip to watch a Formula One race in 2014. Why was the class trip to an event that was not environmentally friendly? Y/n didn’t know, he was just happy to be included. Though no amount of happiness could disguise his disdain for how bad the fuel consumption was for the planet.

Since the class was full of adults, they were all allowed to do as they’d pleased. They only had to make sure that they met at the hotel lobby every morning and every evening. So Y/n had gone to explore the paddock (somehow his lecturer had gotten the school to pay for three day paddock passes and Y/n was not about to complain). It was during his paddock exploration that Y/n had bumped into who he thought was the most cocky– and attractive– man in the world.

Sebastian fucking Vettel.

Had Y/n known previously about Sebastian’s abilities, he would’ve made sure not to think so explicitly.

But Y/n didn’t know. And so who could blame him for thinking about Sebastian and what Y/n could only assume was nothing less than the physique of a Greek God with a tastefully enticing sleeper build.

Sebastian certainly didn’t, that’s for sure.

In fact, if someone were to ask Sebastian now how he’d felt after accidentally reading Y/n thoughts that day, he’d probably be a little bashful and maybe even a little modest. If you’d asked Sebastian the same question back then? The bastard would probably smirk and say something along the lines of how he always knew he could pull men and women.

Sebastian had had the time of his life, going out of his way to talk with and read the unfiltered, borderline raunchy, thoughts of the man who ‘smiled and blushed so prettily’.

The rest was history. Sebastian had managed to exchange phone numbers with Y/n, who over the years had managed to instil in Sebastian the importance of environmental sustainability. Sebastian had been very blunt about his attraction to Y/n, and in turn Y/n had been a blushing, flustered mess as he confessed to his own attraction to the German.

They’d started dating and they were happy, incredibly content with each other. Y/n witnessed as Sebastian mellowed a little when in public, slowly starting to no longer live up to his ‘Menace of Red Bull’ persona. Of course, as they both grew older, Sebastian had slowed down in terms of being a pest to the other drivers, however that had not meant that he completely mellowed out in private.

He would occasionally do something that reassured Y/n that Sebastian was still the cocky, smug bastard that he was when they’d met.

As they spent more and more years together, it was evident that they were not the only thing to change. The world around them was changing and soon same-sex couples were given the right to marry. Marrying Sebastian was something that Y/n had often dreamed about. The scenario had always played out differently but the overall message and desire remained the same.

Y/n was more than ready to spend the rest of his life with Sebastian.

It was because of your recurring thoughts of marriage that Sebastian had decided that he needed to have what could potentially be the most important conversation ever with Y/n. He was going to tell his boyfriend the truth about how Sebastian had always managed to know exactly what Y/n wanted for his birthdays, or how he’d always been able to know what Y/n needed before Y/n even had time to realise himself.

It was a shock to Y/n’s system when Sebastian had told him about being able to read his mind. So much so that the very first words Y/n managed to say to him were, “So it’s like Edward from Twilight?”

Sebastian had laughed loudly, before explaining that it was more like Queenie from Fantastic Beasts. “Oh…” Y/n had said, “So when we first met–?” Sebastian smirked. “Oh yeah, I saw all of those vivid thoughts in your pretty head..” “A-all of it…?” Y/n asked, eyes wide at the realisation that his first thoughts of Sebastian were in fact, not as private as he’d originally assumed.

“All of it.”

Y/n was silent for a moment before–

“Don’t be smug, you rat bastard. I could’ve been thinking of someone else.”

“No, I seem to remember a very detailed image of my body–”

“Ahlalalala, I can’t hear you, lalalalalala…”

I honestly don't even know what to say. I'm simultaneously upset at having to redo this whole fic but also I feel glad that I'm at least happy with what I managed to rewrite.

The original version was probably not as humorous, but I felt that given the situation, I needed at least some crack fic element to this.

(I also made some friend rice to make myself feel better after writing this, and boy oh boy did that work) ((Thank you for reading <3 I love you so much <33))

#⚜ 1k Library Read-a-thon! ⚜#formula 1 x you #f1 x reader #f1 fluff #formula one #formula 1 #sebastian vettel x reader #sebastian vettel x you #sebastian vettel #sebastian vettel x yn #sebastian vettel imagine #sebastian vettel fanfic #sebastian vettel fic #sv5 #sv5 x reader #sv5 x you #sv5 x yn

37 notes · View notes

literary-motif · 2 days ago

Note

how do you stay so consistent with your work without getting burnout/procrastinating and still maintaining the level of your writting doesn't it get monotonous??? Any tips on how to be consistent with your work without overwhelming ones self

Sometimes it does get monotonous -- not the writing, but what is being written. I feel like I only have so many ideas about the Sakuverse characters, and although requests bring a sort of gust of fresh air into my writing because I am forced to think about a specific scenario and build a scene from there, I wonder if perhaps the way I write and the way my mind interprets these requests might get a bit repetitive.

It takes me about two hours to write a one shot; from having a (vague) idea about what to write to having the full thing proofread and edited and ready to post. I used to have the time to spare back when I was finishing school -- especially after I had finished it and was doing some other stuff while waiting for university to start -- so I wrote a lot and put it all in a queue to post daily fics for about a month while I used that time to finish my Asirel novella.

Long story short, writing, in a way, is an art of habit. Again, I used to write about one fic a day back when I was in school, because I had the time. And I believe I've said before that I sat down and just did it -- no matter if I felt motivated or not. That's the art of it, in my opinion. Just to do it, even if you don't feel like it; more often than not, at least that's the case for me, the motivation will come during the process.

As for tips, that really depends on how you write and how your creative process works. I recommend creating a writing playlist (if you can stand listening to music while writing) and only putting it on when you sit down to write. Also, try changing the font to Comic Sans? It sounds ridiculous, but I've found it to further creativity.

What I think is the most practical advice is just do it, even if you don't feel like it. If you wait forever for the muse to strike you'll never get it done. I know starting is the hardest part, and overcoming that initial fear of staring at a blank document is the true mastery of the craft.

These are big words for someone who hasn't done a lot of writing recently, part of that is because I feel a little burnt out. The Asirel novela truly took everything out of me, and although I feel the need to slowly start writing again (for context: the novella was done by the end of autumn), I also have to admit that I currently really don't have the time for it. And I could make the time, but I'm also weary of pushing myself too hard this time around.

It will probably be a long time before I could get close to anything resembling my previous publishing schedule of daily fics, and hey, that's totally alright as well.

Despite what I said about writing even if you don't feel like it, it shouldn't feel like a chore. It's a hobby and a form of art -- and if you really don't want to do it then you shouldn't push yourself out of a sense of obligation.

#asks

12 notes · View notes

back2bluesidex · 24 days ago

Note

Idk if this is something you’d want to read but after reading your post about being lonely, i definitely feel the same way 😅 albeit probably a little different. I dont really have anyone to talk to about this feeling so i thought maybe i’d share this. I just started a seasonal job in retail at 22, ive never had a “real job” because since i was 14 i was considered the “family babysitter” & once i turned 16 i kept applying for jobs so i didnt have to keep babysitting, nothing worked out because i was always met with “you need more experience “ & i kept getting that until i was 20 (when i just gave up & accepted I’ll probably be a babysitter for family/family friends forever 🥲). Ive only really been surrounded by kids & family, my mom took me out of highschool in my 1st year because she hated the public school system & decided to “homeschool” (which was go get my ged at 18), so i never got to experience the highschool life & friends, i was pretty isolated. Aside from getting rejected from jobs constantly, i wasnt able to go to college after either because it was too much money & that “nobody would be at home watching kids”. So ive just constantly felt very alone & whenever i would mention it i was met with things like “dont be selfish. you should be thankful youre not out there in the world, it’s evil” etc etc. Along with the fact i dont know how to drive, i had a huge fear whenever i was 15/16 so i never learned then but when i was 18 i didnt have that anymore & wanted to. I was constantly trying to get people to teach me, but no one would and driving school costs a ton which i didnt have bc no paying job. That added on to that feeling & i kept feeling behind

So fast forward to now at 22, i was finally able to get a seasonal job at victorias secret and nov 4 was my first training day. I still have that feeling & now im just stressed about everything. They immediately put me on cash register & very vaguely explained things to me, so i wasnt the best when trying to check people out & i know in retail you’ll get horrible customers sometimes and that’s literally all i got. I was so overwhelmed & i did accidentally mess up someone’s change (which was fixed!) so i had them screaming at me 2 hours in my first training day. And i cant stop thinking about how inadequate i felt during that & that whole day really. I would get judgmental looks from the other workers when i would ask questions, because ive never done anything like this before. I kept getting looked at like i was stupid for not knowing things & that messed with me (still is). I dont think itll be like that entire time im there, im hoping at least.

And i still dont know how to drive, i tried once this year from my older sister but she started grabbing the wheel when i was trying to drive because she panicked (i was going in a straight line in a empty parking lot) & stated she’s never trying to teach me again. My younger cousins learned how, have their license and new cars already & i hate that i feel jealous and angry about it because it is family, but everyone who helped them constantly told me they couldn’t with me year ago & still now. I get subtle remarks of “your cousins can drive already/youre 22 & relying on others to drive you” etc. (they also all have jobs already & not a seasonal one like me) But yeah, i feel so alone & inadequate at literally everything, have for years. Breakdown all the time because i have no clue on what to do & i have no one to talk to about it.

Rant over, sorry for how long it is, im probably being dramatic too, there are people who have it worse than i do 😅 but yeah, i get that feeling! I do hope you feel better better about it 🫶🏻🤎

Don't say sorry! It's alright. Rather I am glad that you found me and my blog safe enough to share your troubles with.

and let me tell you that you are just 22. You still have a whole lot of time ahead to make money, to learn driving, to make friends, to enjoy life and do everything you want to do.

Don't ever think you are late or that time is slipping away from your clutches! It's not.

I am 25 and I can't even cook. Can you believe it? a 25 year old woman who can't even fry an egg properly while cooking is a basic survival skill? my friends can make a whole feast if they want to and I only know how to boil some instant noodles. At times this made me feel like an inferior too but no, none of us are inferior to one another because what I can't do - you can and what you can't do - I can. we are all lacking and it's okay.

Also, if those people made you feel like a fool just because they didn't train you properly then it's their fault, not yours. when you start working you need to learn one thing that is to make you skin thick. It's only you who needs to know the truth - that it's not your fault - and the rest of the world can go fuck off.

and what if you did some mistakes? we all are allowed to do so. mistakes are the only way we get to learn, isn't it?

So, please, darling. Cheer up! You have a ton of time to buy that car or get that job or tell people to fuck off when they ask you to watch their kids. Things aren't over yet. You are doing good. You will do even better tomorrow and one day you will be the best! I believe in you and I am proud of you!

even though I know we are basically strangers but just know this person right here, an elder sister to you, will always be proud of you no matter what!

if you want to talk, slide into my inbox any time. I will always welcome you!

Love you!! 💕💕💕💕

P.S: You should have charged for those babysitting sessions.

P.S.S: I, too, don't know how to drive. LMAO!

#nika's askbox #sweet anon!!!#don't worry you have a ton of time ahead!

2 notes · View notes

fizzingwizard · 9 months ago

Text

work n stuff

This was crunch week at work before graduation. I usually stay late to do stuff, but boy, did I stay late this year haha.

First off we have one teacher who's had to leave for the rest of the term for very valid personal reasons. On top of that, one of her coteachers is being sent to another campus for half or all of every day for reasons I don't actually know. So in her class it's kind of just her third co-teacher. But fortunately the company had time to anticipate for that and they put a leader in her class to train some new teachers while helping the class. So things aren't normal for them but they're stable.

For me things were normal until Wednesday when my coteacher called in sick. My other coteacher was also noticeably sick though she came to work. I was sick last week, and took Monday off. The rest of the week I felt so crappy, mainly just full body exhaustion which is rough when you're on your feet with demanding little ones nipping at your ankles all day. Fortunately I've been fine since Sunday.

On Thurs the same coteacher was still too sick to come in, and my other coteacher ended up going home around noon. Then another teacher went home at the same time because her daughter had a fever. There were also some part-time subs calling out during these days as well. So we were suddenly extremely short-staffed.

Thursday was the worst because no one had anticipated so many teachers being out, especially with my class, and all the help had already gone to other classes. The teacher whose daughter got sick had to leave her class with one coteacher and a sub. Until noon, I had my sick coteacher and a rotating round of subs coming from our other school. They have their own job at their campus and can only stay for an hour at a time and honestly are not helpful. They're good people and teachers, but they don't know our kids or our routine and they're used to older children. I hate getting them for subs except when they were former teachers at our school first.

After co-teacher went home, I had the rotating subs, and... a secret third person! no really. No one knew who was supposed to cover for my co-teacher. It was the admin assistant for a while, until she suddenly said "A visitor is here, I need to go." She would be coming back so I said okay and we would just power through what time she was gone for.

But like five min after that the rotating sub said "I'm supposed to be back at my campus now" and no one had come to cover for her?? The admin assistant was with a visitor, and the manager was also with a visitor! There was no one even to talk to and I had my ENTIRE class in the hallway basically by myself. I couldn't tell this sub she could leave because it would leave me alone with all these two and three year olds IN THE BATHROOM. I don't even have Nanny iPad to help bah.

So I called for the visiting leader, who ran out to help. Then another class teacher said "Oh, so and so from my class is supposed to help you now, and I was going to send her, but no one came to cover in my class for her." So while I was dealing with my own kids, the leader, the manager, and that class teacher were standing in a circle in the hall talking for what felt like forever about what to do. That was one of the most stressful ten minutes I've ever spent at this school x'D or probably anywhere tbh! I have "the difficult class" this year and they're hard enough to manage with all three of us regular teachers there and healthy. Now it was just me!

Finally something got decided and you know what I don't even remember what it was in the end. The point is we survived the day somehow. It was really nuts. Really nuts. The leader though now knew my situation and she kept checking in and helped with lunch clean up and putting out the futons for nap time.

Her being there was a good thing for me, because she kind of validated my feelings about these crazy times. She even went to the manager and asked her to figure out what would be done in the event both of my coworkers were out sick on Friday too and to tell me ahead of time so I could have some idea and not just be surprised by it. To some extent that's not possible because people call in sick in the morning of the day they'll be out. But when you can plan in advance, you should, I think was the message, which is one I really agree with. It seemed to make the manager think about me a little. I had to stay even later than I'd planned, because since my coworkers were gone, I was the only one there to organize all the kids' belongings that they need to take home after graduation, which is a big job: they have a lot of stuff. The manager came in at one point and helped me sort some crafts.

Then, on Friday, both my coworkers did call in sick, so I was on my own again. The teacher with the sick daughter was also still out, and of course the other two teachers mentioned in the first paragraph were still gone. Being so understaffed, I thought for sure I'd lost prep time in the morning to cover their shifts. But I didn't, and I found out it was because the manager did it instead. I think that this was probably due to how crazy a week I'd had especially Thursday, and looking at a crazy Friday too... She took pity on me xP

Friday was easier even without both coteachers because I had finished almost all of the graduation-related stuff, and my two subs were people who are used to our school and know our kids. It wasn't the same but it was much smoother. (Also Thursday was a school event day so it was a little extra craziness on top of all the rest.) I am disappointed that I haven't been able to enjoy my last days with my kids. Normally I'd take it easy and just do fun stuff with them. But I have too much work to do so I'm constantly doing things instead of playing with the kids. I gave everyone hugs and did my best anyhow.

Grad prep this year was especially difficult because the whole staff changed this year except me and two other people, one of whom was one of the teachers out sick, so it was just the two of us actually plus the manager. No one else was familiar with how to wrap up the year. There was a bit of confusion but I am lucky that everyone I work with is a hard worker and helpful to others, so it seems we got everything done. Not as wonderfully as we'd have liked but good enough. I still have some work to do next week but then I have a little break before starting to prep for next year.

In sum, while this week was kind of a nightmare, I'm lucky that I felt really healthy during it so I didn't struggle as much to pick up the slack. And I'm grateful the leader was visiting and validated my stressed out feelings. I'm kind of proud of myself too because I got three teachers' work done with only a few mistakes (still make a few though ;_;) and I did my best to help other classes too, because mine was obviously not the only one shortstaffed and rushing around all week hahaha.

Fell asleep as soon as I got home every night. Now I just wanna veg and play games this weekend. Gotta do some cleaning too though. Cheers to the new term... lol

#work

2 notes · View notes

juiroll · 9 months ago

Text

rambling about mi and my art for a sec. ups and downs. downs and ups.

back during covid restrictions i was basically free to make my art as long as i needed/wanted. every post could take weeks and it would be fine because i had more energy than i was used to.

physically going to & from school took so much hours of my day not just bc of commute time but bc i'm just always so tired from something, and simple tasks take... forever. not having to deal with that 6 days a week gave me so much. time. i could actually sleep a good amount of hours and take care of myself and the house... and draw what i wanted. and have some free time for other activities. and participate in [albeit online] social stuff.)

in 2022 after the end of the restrictions, i got back to uni and it felt... i don't know. i got so used to not being questioned (abt my names, my gender) and used to being surrounded by nice or like-minded ppl and i had to, lose that. i was being seen physically again, by all sorts of people and i felt so, slow. i couldn't make friends for a year and everyone felt so ahead of me.

i eventually lost knowing how to draw/talk about the things i liked in ways i wanted. i felt like i got replaced by someone else without noticing. i felt lost. i lost very important people in different ways. one died and one... got tired of me.

some updates & positives though yippee :]

i started making art of me n my closest friends again. we got very disconnected in 2021 (and to some extent, 2022) bc all of us were experiencing our own fucked up shit due to the isolation. i think talking to each other made us all too aware of how separated we were and it didn't help anybody.

[also bc their main game is Leeg of Lehgehnds and i'm noooooooooot interested /j]

some of them who now live in other cities visited a few times and it was always fun (and very, very, loud.)

also started reconnecting with other people i lost contact with over the restriction.

got to draw a lot in February actually, especially after meeting some new friends. they're probably like the nicest people i've ever met irl. i don't think i've met nicer people (sorry closest friends </3.) i feel bad swearing around them bc they don't even do that lmaoo omg.

got my teeth cleaned and one of my molars removed after weeks of aching and noticed a small inflamed part of my gums 😭

i bought a little table :D so i didn't have to work with my stuff on the bed or the floor anymore.

relearning to b nice to myself. relearning a lot of things. raaa

#nagsasalita #obviously there's more stuff than this but i just wanted to talk abt general feelings #raaa #i wish you could set individual posts to not appear in tumblr search

2 notes · View notes

jasmariswonderland · 2 years ago

Text

Shining Hearts Chapter 17 ~ Hydrangea (FINAL CHAPTER)

Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter Summary: “It was my flooding weakness that crushed you...shivering from the rain, plucked from the stem, I’ll continue to sing forever. So please continue to laugh for me. And promise you’ll never forgive what I’ve done...”

Word Count: 8525

A/N: If you have continued to this point, thank you everyone for reading this. Please be sure to read my final notes at the end of this fic. The chapter summary are lyrics from the song “Hydrangea” by Kaya. The song can be found here and the lyrics can be found here. I feel the song is very fitting for the mood of this chapter, as well as Vil and Danica’s mutual feelings for each other at this point.

~~~

Pomefiore Dorm ~ Danica’s Room

As Danica pulled her body upwards to turn on the lamp, she expected to feel as though she had sandbags strapped to her shoulders. Such was the heaviness in her heart as she finally managed to fall asleep earlier that evening, and she expected to carry over as she finally awoke. But strangely enough, she felt none of that as she stretched out in the bed and picked up her phone again. She stared at it in curious silence before deciding to ignore Iman’s text for the time being. It had been sent two hours ago and considering Iman had made no other attempt to reach out to her, Danica figured it couldn’t be too serious.

In truth, she wanted to ignore VDC related matters for as long as she could; waking up, Danica felt almost normal for the first time in hours. Though normal might not be the best word to describe what she felt. In truth, Danica felt empty but figured that was still worlds better than slowly dying inside.

Despite Iman’s warning, Danica subconsciously went to magicam, half out of curiosity and half out of a need to distract herself until she fell back to sleep. Immediately she knew she should have known better because as she scrolled the countless posts, the hot topic on the app was, of course, the VDC. Danica scrolled through several videos of the performances, posts of people either approving of or berating the final result of the votes, and quite a few still photos that appeared to be taken by the press.

One post she noticed right away was from the magicam profile for the major entertainment news station in Shaftlands, it was of three pictures taken during rehearsal, pictures of her and Vil. The first was taken when Vil took her hands and kissed them in the middle of the stage, the second was during their interview and the third was of Danica after she accepted her VDC trophy, with Vil watching her in the background looking incredibly happy. The post headline told her all she needed to know, a sharp feeling seizing her stomach:

Romance On The VDC Stage: Vil Schoenheit’s Absolutely Beautiful New Love Interest?

Under the headline was a rundown of the VDC. How Vil had once again lost out to Neige Leblanche but might have won something far better in the form of a speculated new love interest. Followed by a brief profile of Danica based on some public knowledge either from school records or about her family.

While Mr Scheonheit declined to comment on the nature of his relationship with Miss Ledelle, it’s evident from all who watched them that sparks were flying! What do you think? Will these two be Pyroxene’s hot new celebrity couple?

“Hmph, she may look sweet but not with the way she was moving on stage!”

“Of course such a sultry creature caught Vil’s eye!”

“Did you see their performance, how they were dressed? THAT’S how she seduced Vil! Little vamp!”

“So she was just pretending to act shy and cute? Typical! Good girls don’t attract bad boys like Vil Schoenheit!”

Danica shook her head as she read a few of the comments, many of them disparaging against her. She knew many of these people probably adored seeing her with Vil prior to the VDC, more attached to the image she presented than herself. And she found it rather ironic, too ironic to be too upset. At her core, Danica was still very much the same person she always was, shy, pensive and introverted when not on stage. She might have gained some confidence through this whole ordeal, but the only thing she felt really changed was her fear of judgment that was slowly fading.

And because of it, she finally had the courage to perform in the way she always secretly wanted to. And the audience had responded to her confidence in turn, allowing her and her black swans to win. While these comments hurt, Danica was more annoyed than anything. Annoyed by the hypocrisy, annoyed by the presumptions and, more than anything, annoyed by the whole double standards that resented her in the first place. But she could no longer afford to be bothered. Not after she had persevered and dealt with so much to finally be in this place mentally.

No one is taking my power away again…

She tapped away from the post and continued scrolling, she saw that Ione had spent some time with Crisanta, Ayse and Isabel after the VDC, smiling at the selfie they took together. She also smiled at a picture of Farron and Andrew, and giggled at some of the incensed comments from NRC mutuals, shocked to see him fraternizing with an RSA student. Unfortunately, the next post she saw was from Neige, of him and Lilianne together on their ice cream date. He certainly wasted no time pressing her to keep her end of their bargain and Danica shook her head again. Lilianne’s expression was extremely subdued though Neige appeared very happy, and likely completely oblivious to the discomfort his date was feeling. Who ate ice cream outside in late winter anyway? The next post Danica scrolled on was another from Neige but she immediately tapped out of it, seeing just enough to see that it was a picture of him and Vil. She scoffed under her breath.

I really should just block you already. Unlike Vil, there’s no need for me to keep up the pretense of liking you when you’ve nothing but made my and my friends’ lives difficult.

And just as she was about to do that, Danica’s phone chimed, indicating a new email coming in. She tapped on it and saw it was a message from her mother, it was a long message but even from looking at it for only a moment, she could tell it was just another long lecture. Most likely she was expressing disapproval of Danica’s VDC performance, she was never very keen on her daughter’s pursuits outside of ballet. Her eyes scanned it, mentally beginning to form her defense when she replied to it a few hours later when she’d be in a better state of mind. That’s when she inevitably came across one sentence in particular.

“When I think about where Fiona was at your age, I can’t help but feel disappointed.”

Danica gripped her phone, she should have expected this much, but it still stung. In a fit of rage, she flung her phone across her bed, just as it was lighting up again with a new message.

You’re just like the rest of them! I’m sorry I’m not like Fiona! I’m sorry I couldn't be a perfect swan like her!

She curled up into a ball, pressing her face to her legs as she exhaled loudly. Clearly going to Magicam was a mistake. Her phone continued to light up from across the bed and when she finally picked it up again, she saw that it wasn’t her mother this time, but another message from Iman.

“Hey, Missy! Are you awake? Taima and I really would like to talk if you don’t mind.”

Danica sighed, but decided that this time she would respond.

“Hey, I just woke up. I passed out soon after coming back to Pomefiore. What’s up? Can we video chat?”

At once, Danica’s phone lit up once again with an incoming facetime request from Iman. She tapped on it and Iman immediately added Taima to their call.

“Heeeeyyyy, Dani!” Taima smiled. “How are you? We were getting a little worried.”

“I…I’m alright, I guess,” replied Danica. “I’m…surprised to see you two talking to each other, let alone with me.”

“What do you mean by that?” Iman asked.

“It’s just that, the VDC is over. We won, but now that's over, you two don’t have to be around each other as much now. I know you two don’t exactly get along.”

“That’s true, we don’t see eye to eye most of the time. But Taima has impressed me and I don’t mind working with her in the future if she continues becoming more talented and mature.”

“Hmph, well I don’t mind working with Iman either,” Taima smirked. “If she continues working on her attitude!”

“The future?” Danica perked up. “So…we’re definitely creating a permanent unit? I know we talked about it casually but…”

“I definitely want to!” Taima jumped up and down in place. “It can be a continuation of our idol club at TGA! Mimi might not be with us but we can hold auditions for more members and really try out a wide range of new music!”

“AND we can win at the VDC again next year!” Iman added with a sly grin. “I overheard one of the visiting teachers say next year’s culture fest will be at RSA! Imagine defeating them on their own turf!”

“Doesn’t that sound like an awesome idea, Dani?”

“Y…yeah, it does…” Danica responded, clearly hearing them but finding it hard to really listen. Iman noticed her dejected expression and asked if she was alright. To which she responded, “Forgive me if I seem out of it, like I said I just woke up and I’m still trying to process all that happened today.”

“I get that, speaking of which, I hope you weren’t looking at Magicam recently. Remember I texted you about that earlier?”

“Yeah, I got that message,” Danica sighed. “I did look because I had a few unread messages and tags to go through. I…saw a few upsetting things, but…”

“Ughhh, Danica!” Iman groaned. “I told you not to look!”

“No, no, I’m not upset! More annoyed than anything.”

“Well that’s good I guess,” Taima spoke up. “You really shouldn’t give them any of your attention either way. They’re just a bunch of nasty fucks anyway!”

“And such crude comments! Accusing us of using sex appeal to win the VDC. It’s ridiculous!”

“Hmph! As if Neige didn’t do something similar with his whole stupid cutesy bullshit!” Danica scoffed, irritation suddenly waking her up. “At least we worked hard to get our performance perfect!

“That’s the spirit!” Iman grinned. “We were worried about how you’d feel if you saw people slutshaming us. I had Vidi and Heloise report most of the people making these comments but they just keep coming!”

“Someone even made countdown clocks for you and Iman!”

“Countdown? For what?” Danica asked.

“Counting down until we’re both eighteen and they can treat us like whores in good faith!” Iman rolled her eyes. “Pitiful street rats, the lot of them!

“Ugh! That’s just…ugh!!!” Danica wrapped her arms around herself, a sudden feeling of sickness mixed with rage coming over her. “AND THESE ARE THE SAME PEOPLE WHO WOULDN’T HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY IF WE STAYED A WHITE SWAN QUINTET! It’s so stupid! It’s so…”

“That better not be regret I’m hearing!” said Iman. “Especially when most of the feedback for us has been positive.”

“Regret? Please! I regret nothing!” Danica shook her head. “I’m past that! Now I’m just angry! Maybe some people did vote for us because they thought we were sexy, but so what? People voted for Neige because they thought he was adorable! Different concept but it’s still the same thing!”

“It’s NOT the same thing though, because our performance was still a thousand and one times better than Neige and his seven little clowns!” Taima replied.

“But I’m glad to see that you are determined to be unbothered by the idiots,” a smile came to Iman’s face. “A week ago, you would be sobbing in your pillow.”

“Well unfortunately, I don’t have any more tears left to cry,” Danica said blankly. “You know my mom emailed me not too long before Iman texted me again. She compared me to Fiona AGAIN and said she was disappointed in me.”

“Oh Dani…” Taima sighed. “I’m…so sorry…”

“And between that and how Rook basically fucked over Vil and ghosted me in favor of Neige, today has been such an overwhelming day.”

“Well, maybe some good news will help you,” said Iman. “Taima and I spoke to Crowley after you left and guess what? He’s giving us the green light to start an idol club!”

“Oh! So it is official after all!” Danica managed a small smile. “That’s good to know!”

“Yeah, and we’ve already decided on when our next performance should be!” Taima added. “We thought a birthday live for Ione would be nice!”

“We know your birthday is technically before hers, but we’ll have more time to prepare for hers since her birthday isn’t until the end of May.”

“No, no that actually makes sense,” Danica’s smile became wider. “And I really would love to do something special for her since she stuck out with us until the end despite how hard it was.”

“Exactly what we were thinking!” Iman smiled. “So try and think of the positives. We won the VDC, the first real victory against RSA in decades even if it’s only a half victory. And we’ll get the chance to be on stage together again soon.”

“And the festival is still going on so we’ll still have a chance to hang out with Lili and Mimi.”

Danica gazed at her phone and at her two teammates, she was certain that if not for their support, she would likely be in a much darker place now than she was. From the moment they came together weeks prior, Danica wondered why Vil had chosen these girls to perform beside her, now she understood. It was partly because of the support of the other black swans that Danica felt the courage to stand true to what she wanted, even when she experienced pushback from her dorm leaders or judgment from the world.

Together, they were capable of amazing things and together, they would continue to hone their skills and grow together as performers. And as people.

“I’d like that,” she finally said. “Thank you, guys.”

“Thank us? For what?” Taima asked curiously.

“Just…for being here for me, I admit I’m still a little sad, but talking to you two has been helpful. Maybe…I think I might be able to sleep peacefully now, I hope.”

“That makes me happy too!” Taima grinned. “I hate seeing you like that. Speaking of which, how has Vil-san taken all of this? He looked upset at the awards ceremony.”

“I’d be too if I just found out my second in command betrayed me!” Iman shook her head. “It wouldn’t surprise me if you guys have a new vice dorm leader soon!”

“I…don’t think that’s going to happen, he…” Danica sighed, recalling how Vil had addressed her earlier that evening, defending Rook while disparaging her in turn. The recollection of his words stung her and she momentarily went silent. “...Vil-san is…he…”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” Taima saw the downcast expression in her friend’s eyes. “We just hope you’re doing alright, Dani. Try to get some rest and we’ll chat later.”

“And if you don’t feel like sleeping, try to focus your mind on other things,” Iman added. “And please, PLEEEEASE! Don’t go doomscrolling on Magicam!”

They hung up and Danica made a point of setting her phone back on its charger on her nightstand, out of reach so she hopefully wouldn’t feel the need to go back to magicam anytime soon. She stretched out on her bed but her eyes remained open, she glanced over at the nightstand and saw her music box, reaching out to wind it up. The soft, twinkling melody was a little soothing, but did little to lul her to sleep.

I hate this! I feel so restless!

Danica couldn’t sleep like this and after a few moments more, she conceded defeat and jumped out of bed. She took the time to finally remove her stage costume, having fallen asleep with it still on, and wipe away the last fragments of makeup off her face. Hopefully Vil wouldn’t find out she had fallen asleep this way. A gray, loose fitting nightdress was pulled over her head and she gave a relieved sigh at finally having something on that wasn’t so constricting. Walking around her empty room, Danica thought more about the events of that day and all that led up to everything.

“Innocence is the absence of knowledge, and in your case, to remain innocent would be to remain ignorant of the incredible power you have as a performer.”

She understood now Vil’s concerns about her image, and after seeing how people treated him over Neige, she could see firsthand how his image affected him as well. She also thought about Sidonie’s words to her and how it was all finally connecting in her mind. Somehow, Danica felt herself placed in a narrow box, that box being the world's expectations for her. And she could see that Vil was in a similar box as well.

I wonder…If I remained a white swan, would Vil have had a better chance at winning? Could his overblot could have been avoided if I…no…NO!

The more she thought about it, the more upset she became. At the end of the day, Danica knew what she wanted for herself and she felt it unfair that Vil was never given a chance to prove himself by more legitimate means. She knew she wasn’t responsible for what happened to Vil, but it upset her how blind everyone was to just how talented he was. That Neige’s act could even stand a chance against him in the first place. Why was it so difficult to acknowledge brilliance?

Everything he did, everything he said, he just wanted people to acknowledge him. I…I get that. Even if…

Danica couldn’t forgive how Vil had exposed her through the Magicam leak. After giving her the cursed chocolate, she was unsure how long it would take for her to trust him again. But after living a life always in the shadow of her sister, it was easy for her to sympathize with him. And even with this realization, there was still one thing Danica couldn’t help but wonder.

This is too much, I need to focus on something until I feel sleepy again…

~~~

The entirety of Pomefiore was silent, most of its inhabitants sound asleep. Ballet shoes in hand, Danica quickly made her way towards the ballroom. This was something Vil would always scold her for, dancing alone in the ballroom after hours and forsaking proper sleep. But after all that had happened, Danica couldn't help but not really care whether Vil found out or not.

There wouldn’t be classes tomorrow and she could sleep all she wanted later. But right now, this was the only way Danica could think of to make herself tired. She was already wide awake and felt that an hour honing her ballet skills wouldn’t make much difference. And dance was one of her few emotional outlets anyway.

Something was amiss, it was almost too quiet and Danica suddenly found herself paranoid. The sensation lingered on as she reached the door, along with a growing irritation. This feeling was not new to her and in the past, it often could only mean one thing. But rather than the nervous, giddy excitement of knowing someone she liked was watching her, she only felt disgusted.

Even now, you still think you can play games with me!

Clenching her teeth, she angrily turned around, only to be met with an empty hallway. There was no indication that she wasn’t alone and taking a few steps back, Danica took a few deep breaths to calm herself. Yes, she was alone, Rook was nowhere to be seen, and he surely wasn’t watching her again. With that in mind, she reached out to the door leading to the ballroom. She half expected it to be locked and quickly recalled the lock-breaking spell Sidonie had taught her. But when she began to pull at the door, it opened with ease.

“Mira, Mira…”

Her heart stopped, she wasn’t imagining it after all. There was someone in the ballroom, but it wasn’t Rook.

How long had Vil been there? Danica recalled seeing Vil enter the ballroom soon after they returned that evening, she had wanted to talk to him then but Rook had stopped her. Now past midnight, she wondered if he ever left the ballroom to begin with.

“Who is…most beautiful?”

She stopped short of entering the ballroom, something sharp and heavy overtaking her chest. His voice was soft, but even in its softness carried so many emotions that spoke to all he had lost that day. He sounded so sad, so hurt, and thoroughly broken. Even whenever she watched Vil act on stage or on screen, she had never seen him display such emotions. It was crushing, the way he wept and whispered to his phone, hoping for even a scrap of proof that he wasn’t as horrific as he feared.

“Mira, Mira, please…”

Please…don’t look at me…

Her heart dropped, recalling how he screamed and cried before being overtaken by his overblot. How he lamented his guilt at what he could have done, how he lamented his ugliness. All that made him horrific in comparison to Neige, and his sorrow when Rook only confirmed it with his vote.

DON’T LOOK AT ME WITH THOSE EYES!

“You won the VDC with your seductive wiles and became the black swan you always wanted to be!”

Why?! All I wanted was to be the fairest one of all. So why…why am I so…

“What? Do you honestly think people voted for you because of your talent and skill? Spare me!”

…ugly? UGLY?! WHY AM I SO UGLY?!

With so much guilt in his heart, Vil couldn’t possibly say all the cruel things he said to her in good conscience. Danica knew this, and hearing his heartbreak from behind the ballroom door was far more painful than anything he could say to her then or even now. It was clear Vil had been holding back these tears for a long time, that he managed not to break down on the VDC stage was a miracle in and of itself.

All of his hopes, all of his insecurities, trapped in a cruel dichotomy that left Vil cursed before he even had the chance to prove himself. And his one hope that maybe he could finally break out of his villainous mold, dashed by Neige’s foolishness and Rook’s apathy. The longer Danica stood behind the door, listening to his sobs and peas, the worse her heart felt. And the more she began to realize that she and Vil were far more alike than she ever would have guessed.

But regardless of that realization there was still one final thing Danica couldn’t help but wonder.

“You don’t think it’s odd that I’m developing feelings for two people at the same time?”

“Not really…at some point, one of them will stand out more in your heart and your feelings for the other will eventually fade. So I wouldn’t worry.”

The softness of his weeping was suddenly cut through by a loud, impassioned scream, followed by the sound of something shattering. Terrified, Danica recalled Vil’s overblot and immediately feared the worst. She didn’t care if Vil was likely to scold her again or even that she might come across something that she wasn’t equipped to handle on her own.

All that mattered to her at that moment was going to him, and if need be, pulling him back from his sorrow once again, before it was too late.

~~~

Pomefiore Dorm ~ Ballroom

Moonlight poured in through the large windows and in the far corner of the room sat a figure curled up and shaking, not yet aware that he was no longer alone. Softly, Danica stepped lightly towards him, her eyes not leaving him for even a second. In the moonlight, she could see his bright blonde hair as his face was buried into his knees and not visible to her. Silently, she thanked the Great Seven that Vil’s sorrow hadn’t overwhelmed him a second time and he was still here.

But actually seeing Vil in this state was far more heartbreaking than just hearing him from behind the door. Danica was unsure what she wanted to say to him, or even if anything she said could make a difference at this point. But she knew that she would not have any rest that night until she knew for certain that Vil would be alright.

CRACK!

Razor sharp pain shot up the ball of her bare foot and she let out a small cry as she grabbed her foot in reflex. Even with little light, she could see a large piece of glass now stuck in her foot, stained bright red. Another small whimper escaped her as she squeezed her eyes shut and slowly pulled the piece of glass out of her flesh, holding it in her palm and wondering where it came from. Danica received her answer when she finally looked down and saw Vil’s phone laying shattered beneath her.

She picked it up very carefully and could see that it was still functional and when the screen with alight, she inwardly recoiled at what she saw. It was a Magicam post from Neige, the very same one she had clicked away from earlier when she was scrolling the app. A photo that Neige all but begged Vil to pose for after they had finished singing. They were smiling together and from the looks of it, one would never guess how painful it was for Vil to pose for it in the first place. Only agreeing as a matter of professionalism. Refusing would only confirm the worst for those eager to see him as the villain they already assumed him to be. Regardless of what the truth was, Vil still had to preserve whatever dignity he could.

neige.leblanche posted: RSA BEAT VI-KUN!!! And he was so cool about it! ❤️

realscheonheit commented: I hate you 🙃

neige.leblanche replied: I love you too! Hope we can see each other again soon! Dani too! ❤️❤️❤️

R commented: BEAUTE! 100!!

This post had been made less than an hour ago and the people who resented Vil were likely eating this all up. Danica clenched her teeth, not just from the pain in her foot but also from the sheer audacity of it all. Neige really was clueless to post this after seeing how much losing affected Vil. And Rook was beyond tactless to comment as well. The shattered glass prickled at her palm but as she wondered what to do with the phone, she heard Vil’s cracked voice, calling out to her.

To say Vil was surprised to see Danica would be an understatement, certain she wouldn’t emerge from her room until dawn at least. Secretly, a part of him was glad to have her there, but that happiness quickly vanished as the seconds passed and she came closer to him. Seeing her eyes upon him like this, crumbled on the floor, weeping and pathetic, was the height of humiliation for him. Whatever had happened between them, as her dorm leader, Vil was supposed to set an example for her.

He had to be a model of integrity and poise and yet here he was crying and going on like a child because he had lost a contest that he didn’t even deserve to win. But that wasn’t even the worst part; twenty four hours ago, they were still at Ramshackle. Vil watched Danica sleep peacefully beside her teammates, his mind still full of all the possibilities that VDC victory would open up for both of them. They would gradually reconcile and rekindle their feelings for each other and soon enough, all kinds of opportunities and offers would pour in for him.

The world would fall in love with his perfect swan and would adore him in turn when they saw just how perfect they were together. Vil even, briefly, entertained the fantasy of he and Danica staring together in a future film where he would undoubtedly play the hero to her romantic heroine. Falling in love both on screen and off in a way not unlike how his own parents fell in love while filming Curse of the Winter Rose. So many wonderful, beautiful things to look forward to, only to now look back on losses and all that could have been if he could only seize being so ugly and cruel.

But Vil should have known better, his hopes and dreams were the thing of fairy tales and never meant for a villain like him. Instead of showing the world his beauty, he was still second best to Neige Leblanche, reminded once again of his place as a bad guy unworthy of a happy ending. And if that wasn’t bad enough, in his ugliness and rage, Vil had nearly cost Danica her life, destroying the most beautiful thing in his world.

“Ah Roi du Poison, I understand your ire at Danica, but the way you spoke to her, that was quite harsh. But I suppose I should not be surprised, your harshness towards her was very in character for you. After all, every rose has thorns. Even the fairest ones of all.”

That Danica was still able to look at him kindly was beyond baffling. But surely, after all he said to her earlier, his ugliness would finally drive her away from him. It was just as Rook said, his harsh words were very in character for him. It was all he was capable of and Danica did not deserve that. She deserved someone like Neige, kind and pure who would never hurt her, not someone who flung cruel words at her and went behind her back. Someone who was still deserving of having a happily ever after.

“What are you doing here?!” Vil asked, his voice shaky but quickly trying to regain its usual icy, stately cadence. “Do you have any idea how late it is?! What are you doing up at this hour?!”

“I…I could ask the same to you, Vil-san…” Danica softly replied, still glancing down at her feet to avoid the broken glass. “What are you doing up at this hour yourself?”

“Don’t get cheeky with me! That’s a bad habit you've picked up from your mentor!”

“I’m NOT trying to be cheeky!” Danica felt her voice breaking but she quickly bit the inside of her lip. “I thought I heard something in here and I…I…” she sighed. “Vil-san…please. Can we just talk? Won’t you let me…”

“Get out!” Vil sharply pointed to the door. “There’s nothing to discuss! Go back to bed now!”

“I won’t!” Danica took a few steps forward. “I’m not leaving! Not until you talk to me! I don’t believe you want me to leave, so won’t you please stop pushing me away? What have I done?!”

“I gave you an order and yet you’re still running your mouth!” Vil tried to glare at her. But his mind was tired and his body still aching from the after effects of his overblot. His face did not give off the intimidation that he intended, but he hoped his words would. “Don’t make me ask you again! Get! Out!”

“Vil-san…”

Glancing up at Vil, she could see anger that would normally make her tremble away from him. He really was an incredible actor, she thought. Even now she wondered if she was being incredibly foolish still trying to reach out to him. She closed her eyes, thinking about what to say next.

“Fine, Vil-san. I’ll go. But can I ask one thing first?”

“No! Absolutely not! Leave now otherwise…”

“ARE YOU ORDERING ME TO LEAVE AS MY DORM LEADER?! IF YOU AREN’T THEN I HAVE NO OBLIGATION TO OBEY YOU!”

Vil started, eyes widening at the boldness of her statement. In his mind, he was mercilessly flinging beratements at her for her audacity but he found that he couldn’t bring himself to voice them. He stared silently at her, truthfully too tired to try to argue further. And his silence was precisely the answer Danica needed.

She took another step forward, keeping her eyes on him. When he made no objection, she took another breath, about to speak again before another sharp pain shot up her toe. The glass had scattered further than she thought and she cried out as another shard pierced her foot.This time, the pain was too much and she found herself losing her balance.

No, Danica…

Momentarily forgetting his sorrow, Vil rushed to her side, scooping her up into his arms and eliciting a surprised gasp from her lips. Her eyes fluttered up at him and in his arms, she couldn’t help but blush. It was so similar to how he lifted her during their new years pas de deux. She glanced down at the ground, seeing the fragments of his phone screen scattered about and hoping Vil wouldn’t decide to drop her.

But such was the last thing on Vil’s mind. A piece of glass cracked under his heels and seeing his broken phone in her hands made him realize what had happened. He gently sat her on a clean part of the floor before going to turn on the lights and grabbing a first aid kit that was stationed on the wall in the hallway. When Vil returned to the ballroom, he saw Danica softly whimpering as she held her foot, several red prints stained the floor where she had been walking.

“I truly am terrible,” he murmured as he softly cleaned the blood off her foot. “A dancer as magnificent as you must keep her feet in tip top shape and yet look at the mess I’ve made of them.”

Vil applied a small amount of healing potion, cringing inside at how she whimpered. As he bandaged her foot up, he noticed acutely how the bones in her leg protruded more than usual. She had lost so much weight, likely due to the stress he had placed upon her. He sighed, hesitantly placing his arm on her ankle, when she didn’t object, he softly ran his hand up and down her leg in a caressing manner.

“It seems all I am capable of is causing you pain, Little Potato, and yet you still wish to speak to me?”

“Yes, it’s true, you have hurt me, Vil-san,” Danica replied. “But this is the least of it. And a little broken glass is nothing compared to how awful Rook has made me feel.” She locked eyes with him and sighed as well. “It’s…clear I’m not the only one he has hurt today either.”

“Danica…” Vil’s hand stopped at her knee before reaching out to touch her shoulder. “I…don’t know what is going on between you and Rook. Honestly, I don’t want to know and as your dorm leader, I probably shouldn’t anyway. But even if I can forgive Rook for betraying NRC Tribe, if he’s hurt you, that I cannot forgive.”

Danica hesitated, in truth, she didn’t understand why Vil was so willing to forgive Rook’s actions against him. If not for him, Vil would finally, for once, have risen against Neige and proven his worth to the world. All Rook had done was reconfirm all Vil probably felt about himself, that he was ugly and cruel. Even if Vil had done cruel things, somehow, this punishment didn't seem to equate the actions, especially since Vil was already aware of all he had done wrong.

How long would it be now before Vil once again had a chance to prove himself? Would he ever have the chance to prove his worth? And would Vil ever see it for himself? As Danica asked herself this, she felt something small and wet tap her leg. She glanced down and saw Vil’s gaze cast downward. From the angle she sat at, she couldn’t fully see his face, but she could feel his hands tremble against her skin.

“Vil-san…” she whispered, hesitantly placing both of her hands on top of his. His hands quickly pulled away from her grasp but not cruelly, he pressed them to his face and that’s when she understood. “Vil-san…please…”

“You never deserved any of this,” he whispered, more tears sliding down his face, falling onto her leg. “Just because I’m meant to be a villain, it doesn’t mean…”

“Vil!”

“It doesn’t mean I had the right to say all those terrible things to you! It's true, I was just jealous of your victory, I was jealous and I was angry at Rook but I took it all out on you!” His whimpers quickly morphed into full on sobbing once again. “All this time, I’ve stressed to you that a black swan cannot stand beside a prine, but in truth, a villain has no right to…to…”

A villain has no right to stand by the side of an angel.

Vil bit down hard on his tongue before he could say things better left unsaid. But Danica had heard enough, and understood enough of what he was trying to convey to her. At that moment, she couldn’t bear to remain angry at him, nor could she hold back her emotions any longer.

It was bold, it was sudden, and for Vil, it was completely unexpected and even more shocking. His body froze as he tried to comprehend what she was doing. Besides his father, no one had ever really shown Vil affection, let alone embrace him like this. He was used to keeping people at a distance, used to people being intimidated by his aura and even Rook remained at arms length of him for the most part.

But while the lack of affection in his life made this embrace all the more shocking, it also made Vil realize just how much he needed it. How much he was secretly craving this tenderness, and how much he never wanted her to let him go.

“Vil-kun, what’s wrong?” Erik asked, gently stroking his son’s hair. “You did so well, you should be proud of yourself. Why are you crying?”

“I hated it! The way they looked at me!” Vil sobbed into his father’s chest, his small body swallowed up by his father’s embrace. “Everyone in the cast got flowers but me! Neige got the most but I didn’t get any! And the other kids made fun of me and said bad guys don’t get flowers! I don’t want to play bad guys anymore but those are the only parts I keep getting!”

Erik hugged his son tighter, letting him cry as he glanced at the framed photo on the table in front of them. If only Valerie could still be here. For as much love as he gave Vil, there were times, like now, that he wondered if it was enough.

“I’m not a mean boy! I just pretend to be mean when I’m acting!” Vil went on, staring up at his father with tears streaming down his face. “But I’m not mean! I’m not! So why do they always assume I’m mean?!”

“Oh Vil…”

“Why can’t I be the good guy for once?! Why can’t I ever be enough?!”

“Shh shh, it’s alright,” Erik spoke in a soothing tone, gently wiping the tears away from Vil’s cheeks. “I know you’re upset, Vil. I know, I know. But you’re such a talented boy. And every part you play, you perform so wonderfully.”

“But no one loves villains,” Vil sniffed. “And no one cares when villains are defeated. Everyone cheers for the hero but no one cheers for the villains. No one likes us because we’re mean and hurt people!”

“Yes, that’s true, but stories need villains, just as much as they need heroes. If there were no villains, there would be no obstacle for the heroes to overcome and the stories would become boring and fall apart.”

“So you mean…heroes need villains?” Vil asked, wiping the rest of his tears away. “But people still don’t like villains.”

“Not always,” Erik smiled. “There are some people who like watching villains more than they do heroes. Because the hero is always destined to succeed in the end, sometimes people take more interest in the villains because they want to see what they will do. Heroes always have to be good and do the right thing. But villains, they can do whatever they like because they don’t play by the rules.” He winked at his son. “That’s personally why I think playing the villain is more fun.”

“Dad…”

Vil glanced up at his father, recalling a moment the previous halloween when his father returned home from performing in a musical. Erik was still wearing his special makeup that made him appear disfigured and it scared Vil so badly that he ran away from him and began to cry. He hid under the coffee table and It wasn’t until his father soothed him with a song from the musical that Vil recognized his voice and finally approached him. Though his appearance was frightening, beneath the makeup was still his kind and caring father. And in Vil’s young heart, he was everything that a hero should be and more.

Finally, Vil’s tears began to fade and he smiled up at his father with new found confidence.

“Well, just you wait, Dad!” he said. “Next time, I’m gonna play a hero! I’ll work extra hard on my next audition and I’ll leave everyone in tears! Just like Neige!”

“Oh I have no doubt, Vil! After all, you’re my son!” Erik scooped Vil up in his arms, lifting him up in the air as he and Vil laughed together. He hugged him tightly to his chest. “But regardless of what role you get next, you are a good and beautiful boy, inside and out. And regardless of what roles you play in the future, you will always, always be enough.”

“Danica…” Vil murmured, still dumbstruck by this sudden show of affection. “Why…why are you?”

“May I speak plainly, Vil-san?” she asked softly. He did not respond right away but she decided to continue on anyway.

“A few years ago, I watched you in a movie, it was The Twisted Prince,” at this, she felt Vil tense up slightly. But he didn’t stop her and she went on, “I remember how taken I was with your performance in that role. But it wasn’t just seeing you bring the twisted prince to life, it was also listening to your interviews around that time. I vividly remember one, yes, where you talked about the challenges of getting into the characters mindset because it was so far removed from your own. And how you said that you enjoyed the challenge and considered yourself a better actor because of it. That’s why I admire you, Vil-san. That’s why I still admire you even now.”

Vil remained silent but in his mind, he was considering his words. This wasn’t the first time someone had professed to being taken with one of his villainous roles, he had learned early on that there was a certain subset of people who naturally gravitated towards villains. But something about the way Danica spoke, there was such plain, brilliant honesty in the way she expressed herself and her admiration of him. Something he always found quite intriguing about her.

“You lost your heart to the villainous prince, did you?” he asked, chuckling softly.

“No, I lost my heart to someone driven in his goals and always determined to succeed, his efforts rivaling even those of the Fairest Queen of legend. Someone…I wanted to be like.”

Danica closed her eyes as she felt her face becoming hot. She was coming dangerously close to revealing something she was very unsure she wanted him to know. But somehow, she couldn’t stop herself.

“From the moment I set foot in this dorm, I saw first hand how determined you were in everything you did, and it made me want to become more determined myself. That’s why, whenever you gave me tasks I thought were impossible or daunting, I still tried to do them because I wanted you to see my determination too.”

And every test I gave you, you passed with flying colors, Little Potato. Vil continued listening to her and slowly, the beginnings of a smile began to form on his lips.

“But I’m so tired,” she went on. “I’m tired of the idea of heroes or villains, or white swans and black swans. In the end we all fucked up in this situation, Vil-san.”

“Ara, your language, Little Potato!” He tried to take on a scolding tone, but he found himself biting back a smirk.

“Forgive my language but it’s true!” she giggled through the tears she felt forming in her eyes. “You hurt me, but I also broke my promise to you too! Rook betrayed us both and even Neige isn’t fully innocent either! He’s using his victory to guilt Lilianne into go on a date with him instead of accepting her rejection with grace!”

Hmph, he always had a way of getting exactly what he wanted. Vil scoffed under his breath.

“And anyway, what is a hero really? The only thing being a hero means is to be the antagonist to a villain’s journey. But villains have their own hopes and dreams too.”

This was it, there was no turning back now. It almost didn't matter how Vil responded to what she said next. If Danica didn’t say this now, she never would, and she would regret it for all eternity.

“There’s no way I can forgive what you’ve done to me, Vil. You did a lot of messed up things all to keep up with a standard that hates us both! I can’t forgive you, but I also can’t forget how much you've changed me for the better. You’ve inspired me to be the best version of myself that I can be. Before, I was always so afraid of people’s eyes on me but under your guidance, I feel myself really becoming confident in myself, I can’t forget that.”

“Danica…”

Vil had not yet pulled away from her embrace and she tightened her hold on him as she took one final breath before finishing her tangent.

“I can’t forget any of that, even if I can’t forgive how you’ve hurt me. So if you can’t be my hero, then I’m fine with being damned.”

From the moment Danica began speaking, Vil could feel his emotions beginning to shift. But with every word she continued with, he felt his heart racing faster. It seemed almost too good to be true and in fact, she made no statement about love or even anything regarding her feelings. She didn’t have to though. After all that had transpired, it would be extremely forward for him to even imagine that they could rekindle their feelings for each other now. At least, not at this moment.

The truth was, they both had many lessons they needed to learn before they could even begin to entertain such a thing. Vil would have to reconcile with his fate to always be a villain. Danica would have to decide whether or not she could accept that side of him in all that it entailed. And they would both have to learn to see each other past their labels, as full human beings.

However in that moment, Vil was more than willing to accept this and learn any lessons needed, make any amends required, if he could even have just a chance to have this one thing he wanted. Something that, by some miracle, Neige hadn’t managed to take away from him. Something that, if such a thing like miracles existed, perhaps he could finally earn in time. It would be a miracle achieved through his own efforts of course, but a miracle all the same. And maybe, just maybe, the first sign that all hope wasn’t lost, and that he might one day finally be free of his curse.

“Ara, ara, for you to see me in such an undignified state,” he sighed, finally returning her embrace. “I’m…afraid I’m going to have to have you sign an NDA, Little Potato.” Very gently, Vil reached out and cupped her cheek, using his thumb to wipe away a tear from the corner of her eye. “Why the tears? Don’t you dare waste them on me.”

“Vil-san…”

“Fear not, Danica. There is one thing I’ve always found admirable about villains. Care to know what that is?” She glanced up at him and nodded. “Villains never give up, they continue fighting on until the bitter end. And so shall I. This might be a minor roadblock but it doesn't mean I’m giving up. I won’t stop fighting until I’ve reached my goal to finally be better than Neige. And I won’t give up until I’ve finally reached my goal and become the fairest one of all.”

More tears fell down his face which made her tears return as well. But they were both smiling through them, smiling and holding onto each other, neither of them willing to let the other go. It was only the ringing of Vil’s shattered phone that finally forced him to pull away from Danica to take it to see who was calling. He glared down at the broken screen, it was the headmage.

“Yes, what is it headmage?” Vil asked, barely attempting to mask his annoyance. “Why are you contacting me at this late hour?”

As it happened, Grim was missing. Yuulan had gone looking for him back at the VDC stage and he had strangely attacked her. Now he was on the loose and Crowley certainly couldn’t have a dangerous beast running wild around campus. Particularly with so many guests attending the cultural festival which would soon be in its second day.

“I’m rounding up all of the dorm leaders to assist with the search for Grim,” said Crowley, his voice coming through sorted and static though Vil’s defective phone. “Please meet us as soon as you can, Mr Scheonheit.”

Vil groaned as he agreed and hung up the phone, wrapping it up in some bandage cloth before placing it carefully in his pocket. He finally stood up, and prepared to leave but not before guiding Danica back to the hallway and locking the door to the ballroom.

“We’ll have to clean up the broken glass later,” he said to her. “But for now, try to get some rest, Little Potato. I’ll be back before dawn, hopefully.”

Danica stood in the hallway as she watched Vil leave. A plethora of emotions ran through her heart, none of which she imagined would be sorted out anytime soon. She hoped Vil would return back to the dorm safely but until then, she would return back to her room and continue to think about what she initially was wondering. What she would say to Vil the next time they saw each other. And she would continue to ponder the cruel price they both had to pay for their perfection.

~~~

(A/N: I had many ideas for the ending of this story which, if it isn’t obvious, ends right where Book 6 begins. As this story was heavily inspired by Swan Lake, I considered ending this story in a similar way as the ballet but the thing is, there are several endings to the ballet ranging from happy to tragic and everything in between. In the end, I decided on a more open/ambiguous ending since I felt it might be a little awkward for the endgame ship to become official now after all that has occurred.

But if it isn’t obvious by now, Vil will be Danica’s official endgame ship and in the future, she will be the only oc I will NOT be open to shipping with others weather canon or oc. Also, in my twisted mind, a sequel to this story does exist and may or may not already have several chapters already written. Unfortunately, this sequel will never see the light of day due to some heavy themes that border on dead dove territory. Without going into much detail, this hypothetical sequel involves heavy yandere themes, Danica temporarily transferring to Diasomnia and eventually overblotting. I might post hints to this overblot au in the future but for now, all everyone needs to know is that in time, after some serious mental work on both their parts, Vil and Danica will eventually have their true happily ever after.

I’m not sure how “good” this fic is, since I decided to write it on a whim, completely trashing out what I originally had in mind for it. And the main reason why I really wanted to write this fic is, as mentioned, I was really affected by Vil's arc and very upset with how certain corners of the twst fandom mischaracterize him so badly. And because I see so much of myself in Vil, this may sound pathetic, but I felt that every time someone misjudged Vil, I was once again being placed on trial for my own traumas from my past and forced to defend myself and some of the not so nice ways I acted out when I was truly hurting and needed help and love. Even if I can't right all the wrongs in my past, I can at least see to it that Vil will have a happier ending than I did, even if it's not canon.

But I did enjoy writing it, even when it was difficult at times. And I truly hope people enjoyed reading it. It’s been such a long time since I’ve been inspired to write seriously and I am so thankful to twst for finally sparking inspiration in me once again and reminding me that I actually can write, and when I’m not overcome by crushing anxiety, I actually have interesting ideas too.

In the meantime, Heloise’s birthday celebrations will happen this coming Monday (March 27th) and now that this fic is done, the next thing I’m planning is a Vidaria-centric overblot AU. But because the plot is partially dependent on what happens in Book 7, it might be a while before I begin posting it, though I will share excerpts soon. Also, I feel Danica has been thought ALOT in recent months, so come April 12th, we will be having a big celebration for her birthday on this blog and I hope everyone (and your ocs too!) will come and celebrate her with all the love and wagashi she deserves.

I’d like to once again give a special thank you to @twst-the-night-away and @twstinginthewind for giving me permission to use their ocs in this fic. The latter of whom inspired a part of this chapter with her wonderfully angsty art that you can find here. Yes, this is where I got the idea for Vil’s shattered phone, something I decided on for the ending months ago even when I was still thinking about everything else.

And once final time, thank you everyone for reading this fic, and feedback is very, GREATLY, appreciated! 💙💙💙)

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland oc #twst oc #oc x canon #vil x oc #OC: Danica #shining hearts ~ melodies and melancholy #things i write #twst fic #otp: vildani

10 notes · View notes