#it was genuinely a blast and what (UGH) felt like a very fun and real version of misha

[howldean]

that was fucking insane to sit through.

[erekiosuncreativeideas]

Being Human - Chapter 12

<= Chapter 11

Summary : Snatcher has a talk with someone. Also available on AO3 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/24826561/chapters/65084764

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NEW CHAPTER HEEEEY I hope you'll like it ! I managed to work quite well on "Being Human" recently and I finished writing the 14th chapter yesterday (and it's a long one too) ! I had a blast writing the 12th and 14th chapter and I can't wait for you to read it !

Thank you so much for all your support, it means so, so, so much to me. I know I keep repeating this, but this is the truth. Without you, I wouldn't be where I am today.

Fun fact: I will soon draw my 100th drawing on "A Hat In Time" (I'm colouring the 98th one and I sketched the 99th one, I genuinely wonder what the 100th will represent!). I have been extremely productive this year, I think I drew like 150 pictures (in general) from the beginning of 2020 to today. And it's all thanks to you guys !! Thank you so much !

ANYWAY.

The “Oh The Humanity” AU belongs to @doodledrawsthings​ !

Happy reading !

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Chapter 12 - “You’re bad at telling scary stories.”

-“Here, come this way,” instructed Cooking Cat, as she led him to the machine room, her face serious now that the kids were nowhere in sight.

Snatcher’s expression showed how confused he was, seeing where she was taking him. Why there? He didn’t have his place in this room, and certainly neither did she, unless he greatly underestimated her. If she saw his face, she didn’t say anything, leading him further into the ship instead, stopping in front of a green door with the pictogram of a brush on the centre of it. Where would it lead? A playroom perhaps? A room dedicated to hobbies? After all, with such a huge ship, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to find a room like that inside.

The door opened swiftly revealing -another!- hallway, just as sloped as the others. Oh, this was just great, especially with how he fell earlier. His legs hurt. Well, everything did, but mostly his legs. However, the cat seemed to notice the scowl on his face and offered her paw for him to remain stable.

-“Need some help?” she offered, concern plastered all over her face. Ugh, Gods, did Snatcher hate that expression. It just made him feel even more pathetic than he already was.

-“No,” he spat, keeping his eyes fixed on the slope not to stumble, “I can walk on my own. I’m not a stupid baby, thank you,” he added, his stone still very harsh. Deep inside, he knew the other was just trying to help, but he couldn’t keep the words inside. He was too mad at himself, at the whole situation to care. But, surprisingly, Cooking Cat only smiled at him and pulled her hand back.

-“Okay,” she simply replied and the former ghost cringed at her compassionate tone. Still… This was a very different reaction than what he had expected. The hatted brat would have yelled at him, the other one would have given him a sad look… But Cooking Cat just agreed, not looking different than usual, despite his harsh words.

Somehow… Somehow, it felt like he wasn’t rushed to accept his current “condition” for once. It was a nice change. He knew the little girls had been trying to help him, but this was different, in a way he couldn’t describe precisely.

Great, and now he was feeling bad. Just another negative feeling on the top of all the terrible ones he was already feeling, perfect, fantastic. The former ghost avoided looking at Cooking Cat, guilt eating him inside. This was so ridiculous: he was (used to be…?) a soul-stealing spirit, one that forced people to work for him only to kill them afterwards… And now he was feeling guilty? What the heck?

“This is just this stupid human brain,” he thought grumpily as they walked into the hallway, the cat adapting her pace to match his, not forcing him to go faster than he could. He hated to be pitied that much, it just reminded him that he was less capable than any human… Yet, a part of himself felt grateful for it, no matter how much he was trying to repress it.

Snatcher wasn’t weak, he didn’t want to be. How could he, with an entire village to protect against a crazy Queen? It was his responsibility.

They eventually reached the other door, which opened just as quickly as the first one. The sight that greeted Snatcher’s eyes was definitely not one he had expected. His jaw dropped from the surprise, his eyes glancing everywhere, examining his surroundings with much interest.

It was a gallery. The walls were green, with burgundy columns in the corners of the room. The floor was covered in red carpet, with round, darker patterns on it. A long light green rug was in front of them, starting from the door to the opposite wall. On their left was a pedestal on which was exhibited a bust with a golden, shiny necklace. Just as expected, the room was full of paintings, all very different from one another. Most of them represented the hatted girl, others showed people he didn’t know, or ones he vaguely remembered such as the mafia goons who often wandered in his forest. He entered the room, more than impressed with what he was seeing… Until he found a particular painting that caught his attention.

-“Hey, that’s me!” he exclaimed, surprised. He moved just in front of the painting, admiring it in bewilderment: his previous ghostly appearance could be seen in the middle of the picture, as if he were screaming, though his expression wasn’t a horrified one. The setting seemed awfully familiar to him, as if he had seen another version of that painting somewhere else. Huh. Weird.

Confusion replaced his initial surprise as questions echoed in his mind. However, his lips moved on their own, voicing them as he kept his eyes stuck on the painting before him:

-“Who made that?” he asked, unable to look anywhere else.

Cooking Cat stayed silent for a brief moment, as if to think, before replying, unsure:

-“I don’t know,” she answered trustfully: “I’ve only been here once, to be completely honest. I tried asking about it, but the girls avoided the question. They’re usually pretty talkative, but there are some things they try not to talk about. So… I don’t force them.”

The former ghost remembered what the kids told him earlier, about the war that broke out between their people… If this was something like that, it made sense they didn’t want to talk about it. He couldn’t really blame them, considering he didn’t like to mention his own past. However… This was different: his face was literally on the picture, he was directly concerned by this! He never gave anyone the right to use his image! Really, the nerve of some people, he should sue!

But, as he finally managed to inspect the other paintings as well… He realized that he wasn’t the only one concerned, seeing as some pictures featured other people, like that awfully annoying tourist that always managed to avoid his traps…

For real, who painted those? Certainly not the kids: he had seen their drawings and they certainly didn’t look like that. These paintings were obviously made by professionals, people who knew how to draw and how to colour. What a strange mystery…

Snatcher was brought back to reality as Cooking Cat called out to him softly. He turned in her direction, noticing only now that she was sitting on the floor, patting the spot next to her, as an invitation for him to join her.

-“You’re kidding, right?” he asked, with a mix of confusion and mockery in his voice.

-“Trust me,” she answered, patting the spot harder, clearly insisting. The man looked at her for a few seconds, wondering how naive she could be to think he’d sit on the floor just because he was asked to… But no matter how motionless he remained, she just kept her eyes on his, waiting patiently for him to sit, not pushing him nor rushing him to do so.

Just waiting.

It wasn’t long until her stare made him ill at ease, made him feel like he was ridiculous, just like a child throwing a tantrum at his patient mother. But as soon as that thought came to his mind, he realized this wasn’t really far from the truth, given how motherly Cooking Cat had acted up until now… And he had just admitted he was behaving like a kid.

Now that was just great.

With a loud and frustrated sigh, Snatcher eventually gave in and sat next to her, a clear frown visible on his face. His arms were around his legs, keeping his knees close to his chest. He stared at her with irritation:

-“Fine, I’m sitting next to you. Amazing. What now?” his voice sounded bored and exasperated, but he was actually intrigued, if he had to be completely honest. Why would she take him to this room, only to have him sit on the carpet? As if this was going to help him fight his so-called emotions! Ugh.

Being human sucked.

However, before he was able to say anything else, he felt a powerful tug on the collar of his jacket, pulling him down to the floor. His back soon hit the ground, though not as hard as he thought it would. His head thankfully was stopped by the cat’s paw before any possible impact. Snatcher’s eyes were wide open from the surprise and the shock, looking everywhere as the gears in his mind started to turn. And then it clicked.

Cooking Cat had pulled on his collar, forcing him to lie down, his back against the soft carpet.

-“Hey!” he protested, trying to straighten up once more: “What do you think you’re doi-”

Yet, despite his wish to yell at the other for her over-familiar gesture, he was silenced both by the cat and by the sight caught by his eyes.

-“Hush and look up,” she simply said, pointing at the ceiling, forcing him back down. She lied down as well, putting her chef’s hat aside as she did so. Snatcher stopped moving as he stared at what was above him, speechless with awe. A glass ceiling, one he could see through, one that showed him many stars and planets so, so far away from him and yet so beautiful.

-“What-,” started the former ghost, only to close his mouth, not sure what to say. A lot of conflicted emotions were echoing in his mind, like exasperation, impatience but, most of all, confusion. Why would she bring him here out of every room in the spaceship? Why would she make him lie down to look at Space -not that he’d complain about that last point- ? What was she trying to achieve by doing so? Snatcher didn’t understand and that only made him even more irritated.

Thankfully, Cooking Cat seemed to pick up on his emotions without having him explain them in details. It really was impressive how she managed to read people like open books and, in a way, that made the man quite uneasy. Knowing his heart could be so exposed to someone he barely knew… This was not something he enjoyed.

-“Thought you might like this,” she explained calmly: “I wanted to talk to you in private and, well, we might as well be in the nicest room of the ship, right? Plus… We have such a good view, here.”

Snatcher stared at her, not sure what to answer at first. Yet… He could only agree. They did have a really good view. The stars were all shiny, very distinct from the black, interstellar void. Planets could be seen in the distance, like ants walking on the glass ceiling. Somehow, lying down and watching all of that gave the man the feeling of floating above water, as if he were drifting away and seeing the sky moving. In a way… This wasn’t entirely false, as the ship was drifting away. Still, the sight remained particularly magnificent and very different from what he was used to see in Subcon Forest, even at the top of his tree.

-“There isn’t anything to talk about,” replied Snatcher with a scowl, glancing away. Why would he talk to someone he just met? He would be stupid to do so, especially since he didn’t even like talking to people to begin with. Well, unless they could be useful to him in any way, he supposed. In any case, personal topics were a definite no-no and nothing this cat could say would change anything.

-“Really?” answered Cooking Cat with a false surprised intonation: “I thought you’d like to hear about one of the tales I was told when I was only a kitten, you know, the one about you.”

Okay, maybe Snatcher was ready to talk about some personal topics.

He squinted, wary, eying the cat with suspicion:

-“You’re trying to gain my trust to make me talk, aren’t you?” he accused her, though she only smiled more at his accusations, lifting her paw to her heart to feign being hurt by them.

-“Me?” she gasped with exaggeration: “Oh, no, I would never!”

The man just frowned even more. Yeah, she was totally trying to make him talk. At this thought, he let out a long and loud irritated sigh. Whatever, it wasn’t like he could get out of this situation anyway. He had the feeling the cat wouldn’t let him, especially with how he had behaved earlier. And so, what could he do but to endure this, if it meant he could leave faster and stay alone to mope just like he wanted to? Thus, with an audible and exaggerated groan, Snatcher agreed.

-“Fine,” he grunted, already feeling he was going to regret this, “Hope it’s scary, otherwise keep it to yourself,”

-“Oh, it is,” she confirmed, nodding vigorously: “It kept me up at night many times. We were told that naughty kittens would be taken away by a mysterious spirit called “The Snatcher”, only to be eaten and forgotten by their family.”

The former shade listened attentively, wondering where the story would go. Well, so far, the story was half true. He didn’t kidnap kittens, but he did eat people somewhat, so heh, close enough.

-“So, I was your Bogeyman equivalent, basically,” he interrupted, not sure what to think of that. It was nice to know he terrified children, but being compared with such a ridiculous monster was kind of an insult. His words made his interlocutor laugh though, and she continued telling her story:

-“Ahaha, yeah, pretty much! I used to fake not being scared by it in front of my parents, but as soon as night came, I would always shake like a leaf under my bedsheets. It lasted a few years, I must admit,” she giggled awkwardly at the memory: “But you know, I’m glad I was scared of you as a kitten,” she confessed, glancing back at him with a warm smile.

-“Why?” retorted Snatcher, quite perplexed. Why would someone be happy about something like that? Usually, people would do everything to repress childhood traumas like this, or at least laugh about it later… But being happy about it? This sounded off, if not just wrong.

-“Because one night, I was so scared I couldn’t sleep. And so, I slipped out of bed and rummaged through my parents’ bookcase, doing my best not to wake them up… And then, I found what changed my whole life.”

-“And that was…?” asked Snatcher curiously, still wondering how he could have indirectly impacted someone’s life so much. He disliked helping people, so even doing so without actually wanting to made him frustrated.

-“The first cooking book I ever read,” she told him with, perhaps, the most heartfelt expression he had ever seen: “It wasn’t special or anything, just an old book my mother had kept just not to throw it away… But I was immediately hooked on it. Just thinking about creating something new from completely different ingredients… It’s, woah, you know?”

The former spirit remained silent, not sure how to answer. He wanted to retort something disagreeable, he wanted to shut her up, wanted not to listen to her sappy backstory… And yet, he kept his mouth close, for a reason he couldn’t quite place.

Was he becoming soft?!

Hating the sound of that thought, he just scoffed at her words. Yet, he already knew it wasn’t as sincere as his usual mockeries were. It felt like he was just trying to prove to himself that he was still the horrible and terrifying ghost he had been the last few centuries. This just made him feel ridiculous, ugh.

-“Hey, it’s true!” protested Cooking Cat with a little nudge, though she didn’t seem like she was offended by his attitude. Instead, she seemed to take it lightly, like a joke or something: “I remember that time so clearly. I went down in the kitchen in the middle of the night and I tried cooking something from the book. But not only did I end up cooking something that tasted terrible, but I also woke up my parents in the process!” she started to laugh again, staring into space as she looked like she was remembering it fondly: “Oh, they were mad, really mad, I can tell you that. But still, it made me realize how much I loved cooking and it soon became my dream job afterwards.”

-“Couldn’t have guessed,” he remarked sarcastically, hinting at her own name, which was pretty obvious on that regard.

-“Oh, hush!” she nudged him once more, still mischievously. Her smile faded after a few moments and she let her eyes wander in the interstellar void. Silent fell between the two and Snatcher couldn’t help but imitate her, watching the stars drift away through the window, his ears catching up on the many sounds caused by the ship. The constant whirring of the engine was… Soothing, so much that he almost fell back asleep at some point, only to be brought back to reality as Cooking Cat started to talk again:

-“So, I guess… I wanted to thank you. For existing and for being you, I mean,” she said softly: “Without you, I wouldn’t have become what I am today. Thank you.”

Snatcher glanced away, his expression turning bitter. He didn’t want to be thanked for anything. He didn’t want to help anyone, he didn’t want to be nice, even indirectly! He was a soul-stealing ghost, an entity who had murdered countless of people and had done so without feeling any guilt!

… Well, he didn’t anymore, at least. But that wasn’t the point!

Apparently, his face must have been pretty obvious to read as the cat spoke again, an embarrassed tone in her voice:

-“Sorry, I think I said more than I should have,” she confessed, giving him an apologetic look: “I didn’t want to make you feel ill-at-ease. But, if that makes you feel any better, you did give me plenty of nightmares as a kitten, so that makes us even, right?”

The former spirit only scoffed again, this time much more sincere than the last. Gods, this was so sappy, he could almost throw up because of it… Well, figure of speech, considering that he didn’t really want to experience that out of everything possible from being back from the dead. Still, this was some mushy stuff right there, exactly what exasperated him the most.

And yet, he kept his mouth closed once more. The other waited patiently, not pushing him to say or do anything and… It really felt nice. And while he was still feeling pretty… Bad, it was still better than a while ago. At least, he was calmer and less likely to snap.

It is only at that moment he realized that Cooking Cat’s purpose had not been to make him talk about his feelings… But just make him feel better, if only a little bit, never forcing him to listen if he didn’t want to. Snatcher frowned, though it wasn’t from irritation this time.

He was feeling guilty and he hated that. Why did he have to feel things like that?! However, the former shade did his best to push that thought away, very much aware that this would only lead him to snap again. And so, Snatcher took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he did so. He couldn’t describe how much he had needed that.

-“You know,” he reopened his eyes after a few minutes of silence, “You’re bad at telling scary stories,” he eventually said, the tinge of a smile on his lips.

Cooking Cat smiled back at him, not taking that as an insult… Because it wasn’t really one, in the end. Fortunately, she was observant enough to notice that instantly.

-“I know, I know,” she answered with a short giggle, before continuing, her eyes fixed on his as a more serious expression appeared on her features: “I hope you’ll teach me someday, though.”

The message between those words was clear to the man: “I’ll always be there if you need to talk again, never fear to ask”. Although… He couldn’t deny he was quite hesitant on the matter. After centuries spent without talking to anyone about his -ugh- ‘feelings’, suddenly doing so wasn’t really easy. On the contrary, it was pretty difficult. However, another thing he couldn’t deny was how he felt a bit better after talking to the cat, even if they hadn’t talked about anything related to the recent events. But perhaps it was the reason, maybe he was feeling better because she hadn’t mentioned anything about that, because she had let him choose whether he wanted help or not… And it felt nice, to have his boundaries being respected like that.

He had needed this.

-“Maybe,” he finally replied with a small nod, his eyes fixed on the glass ceiling: “not sure you can handle it, though, I am pretty scary,” he joked, even though it was still a little hard to do so considering how he was feeling at the moment. But it did the job and Cooking Cat laughed again:

-“Oh, don’t worry, I’m kind of stubborn,” she assured him. After a few more moments of silence, she stood up, catching Snatcher’s attention: “The girls must be waiting for us, by now. Let’s go back,” she told him, offering her hand to help him to stand up.

The thought of seeing the brats again after the incident in the kitchen made him quite uneasy, for obvious reasons. It would be stupid to wonder about what they talked about, considering what had just happened. He didn’t really want to see them now, yet some part of him knew that waiting would just make things worse. And as they were the only persons in the world able to revert him to his spectral form… It was best to avoid any conflict with them.

And so… Snatcher took Cooking Cat’s paw, the cat waiting patiently for him to do so. He stood up just like her, his posture tensed as he agreed to her words:

-“Yeah… Let’s go back.”

Whether the bad feeling he had about this was going to become reality or was just the product of his pessimistic nature… He didn’t know yet. But he would very soon.

Snatcher did not look forward to it.

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I had so much fun writing this dialogue when, in reality, dialogue is one of my weak points, alongside writing action scenes. I hope you liked this chapter ! It wasn't the longest one but it was one of them! (7 pages and approximately 3700 words).

I read all of your comments and I love every single one of them. Thank you so much for following me and my fanfictions, thank you for leaving kudos and thank you for leaving such lovely comments. It really means so much to me, I mean it.

See you on the next chapter, take care everyone ! :)

=> Chapter 13

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #403

“ashes to ashes, watch me disappear”

If given the opportunity, would you like to star in a musical? Definitely not. I don't like musicals. Name one person you’d take a bullet for: There's honestly a lot, but Mom immediately came to mind. Any posters of a band on your bedroom wall? Yeah: Metallica and Marilyn Manson currently. I want lots more, especially an Ozzy one. Do you think you’ve already met your soulmate? I don't believe in soulmates. Do you share your bedroom with anyone? No, unless you include my cat and snake. Is your favorite color yellow? No, it's actually one of my least favorites. Were you born in a hospital? I was. Do you know the name of the person that delivered you? No, but Mom does. I think he delivered me and my two sisters, and I know Mom has seen him since for other reasons. Was your birth recorded? God no. Good call, Mom. Did you eat a peach this week? Would you believe me if I told you I had a small bit of peach pie for my sister's birthday? For some reason, I just really wanted to try some. It was okay, but the aftertaste sucked. Are you leaving the house tomorrow? Yes, for TMS therapy. Every weekday. Do you enjoy romantic movies, even when they’re cliche? I honestly do. If you could get free vocal lessons would you take them? Probably not. I don't like singing in front of anyone, and it's not like I wanna get anywhere with my singing, so. Is your mother diabetic? She is. Are you? No. Ever sang someone to sleep? No. Who do you stalk the most through Facebook? Nobody. Have you ever deleted your Facebook, then brought it back? No. What is your main responsibility each day? Be sure to take my medications. Do you feel like you fulfill those responsibilities? Yeah. There are rare mornings where I forget, but I almost always remember. I don't fw skipping out on meds that keep my mental health stable. When was the last time you used spray paint? Good question. Do you know the middle name of the last person you kissed? Yep. Who is the friendliest person you know? My mom, probably. Something that annoys you about summer: THE HEAT. THE HUMIDITY. UGH. Something that annoys you about winter: Hm. That's hard to say, given I love winter. I guess the fact it doesn't snow enough here. Are the doors of your fridge side by side or on top of one another? Side-by-side. If you’ve moved out of the house you were born in, do you know the people who live in that house now? Nope. Have you ever cried in a movie theater? Not sobbed or anything, but I've definitely teared up and gotten the sniffles because of multiple movies. Do you read comic books? No. Do you force your way into conversations in which you are not involved? No. Have you ever seriously pretended to be clinically insane? I didn't need to pretend; I'm pretty damn sure I was for a while. Might I add that it's EXTREMELY inconsiderate to pretend you're insane, btw. Insanity is not "cool." It's not "funny." It's not "edgy." It's a serious, confusing, heart-wrenching issue that can ruin lives. Do you know anyone with a stutter? Yes, myself included when I'm even mildly nervous. And sometimes just randomly. With a lisp? I don't believe so. What was the last board game you played? The Disney version of "Pretty Pretty Princess" w/ my niece and even my nephew, even though his sexist-ass dad didn't want him to. Like let your kid have some fun with his sister and aunt, goddamn. They had a blast. It was Aubree's birthday present from me, so I am SO glad she loved it. Did you win? Ha ha, no, I always let Aubree or Ryder win. I came super close once, but I let the kids bend the rules a bit. They don't like losing, and even though they definitely need to understand that just happens and is totally fine for it to, I wasn't about to be the one to make them sad about it. When was the last time you tried to speak with an accent? OH MY LAAAAAWWWWWWD. Also at Aubree's b-day party, at one point, I spoke in a snobbish British accent while I was winning at the aforementioned game. Ryder asked, "Why are you speaking Spanish?", and I fuckin DIED. Have you ever made up a word before? Yeah, I know at least a few instances for fantasy animals in writing. When was the last time you went to a museum? A couple summers ago when my brother and his son visited, we went to a science museum. My nephew was sooooo into it. Do you have a nice yard? If so, do you spend a lot of time outside in it? If not, where do you go when you want to relax outdoors on nice days? Our front and back yards are both small and honestly very boring. The grass is a pretty green, but that's the only nice thing about it. I don't go to sit outside here on any day. Do your parents enjoy any of the things that you enjoy? Do you bond over these things? My parents and I have very similar music tastes, so there's that. I also didn't know for the longest time that Mom likes to write, which I sure as hell do, too! She doesn't really write anymore though, and she's self-conscious of it anyway, like I am. She and I also love a lot of the same shows. What is the movie that you have waited the longest for/which film do you remember anticipating the most/are still anticipating? I think The Incredibles 2. I aaaalways wanted to know what happened after the end of the first film. Do you have any ideas for a story or movie you’re planning to write or you’d write if you had the time/had the talent? Please share a synopsis! I genuinely think some RP I've written is series-worthy, but I don't feel like re-writing the YEARS of RP into a book format, and I sincerely worry that the ridiculously dark parts could inspire people like serial killers and cause A LOT of controversy, crime-blaming, and just general hate. I don't want to be involved in that. What is something that an interested guy/girl could comment about you, that would make you instantly open to them (e.g., “That book you’re reading is from my favorite author”)? Compliment my Markiplier tattoo, obviously knowing it's a tribute to him, and we're essentially besties. Is there a person in your life (maybe barely) that you feel in constant competition with (even just in your imagination)? Maybe you feel they are consistently outshining you? Ugh... there's a local photographer that's much more successful than I am that I admittedly am very envious of. I swear to whatever god you may believe in that I mean it from a modest perspective, I really, really do, but I genuinely think my skills surpasses hers, and she's only more prevalent because photography REALLY is about who you know. She's talented, yes, but like... come on. If you are single, even if you are normally happily single, are there certain specific things you witness that make you wish you were in a relationship (e.g., people getting engaged)? I mean yeah. I miss cuddling, holding hands, kissing, just being cute together, and especially people getting engaged or having kids. It's such a trigger to me. Once upon a time, that's all I wanted with Jason. I wanted to be that beautiful couple that got married and had two or three loved-beyond-words children, but then he left so abruptly, and I feel like it was so brutally robbed from me. I don't want kids anymore like at all, but the point still stands that I felt like my dreams were just ripped away. Out of all your usernames for websites, which one is your favorite? Do you use it for more than one site? I use "Ozzkat" just about everywhere. Have you ever spent the whole day (or multiple days) just looking up one thing on the internet (e.g., videos of your favorite band, how-to videos, quizzes, etc.)? OHHHHHHHHHH YEAH. There have been a couple days or so where I was totally glued to looking up various tattoo designs, bingeing let's plays or conspiracy theory videos, etc. etc. If you ever think about getting married, what are some aspects of the wedding that you would like to see in a non-traditional manner (e.g., a different color dress or “partners” over “husband” and “wife”)? I WILL NOT get married in a church, first of all. I'm also not having the traditional vows, and I probably won't wear a white dress, but instead black. Salt & vinegar, barbecue, sour cream & onion, or cheddar? Ohhhh, I like all those options but barbecue. I think I've gotta go with sour cream & onion, though. Bow ties on guys, dorky or adorable? A D O R A B L E ! ! ! I think they're ordinarily geeky, but I mean, geeky is cute in my world. :^) Do you believe in demonic possession? How about ghosts? Angels? Angels, no. Spirits/ghosts, 100%. I don't exactly believe in demons, per se, but I do question if evil spirits can possess someone. What is one romantic movie that you enjoy enough to watch more than once? I've seen The Notebook numerous times. Name three countries you want to visit; why those three? South Africa to interact with meerkats at the KMP, somewhere up in Canada to see the Northern Lights, and Germany just because, really. I took German for four semesters, and the culture and all just interests me. Do you have a good luck charm? No, considering I don't believe they do jack. Do you use Skype to talk to your friends? Only Sara. Now that I have Discord semi-figured out now though, we'll probably use that for voice chatting. Are you allergic to any animals? I might be allergic to dogs. Do you usually spend your weekends out, or at home? I'm like... always at home. Do you think it’s wrong for people to say "retard/retarded" as an insult? Absofuckinglutely. Don't pull that shit when I'm around. Have you ever had to go to the police department? No. Have you ever lived through a hurricane? Plenty. Have you ever had a home-grown tomato? Yes, from my old friend's garden. We'd have delicious tomato, mayo, and bacon sandwiches. The only instance where I've enjoyed tomatoes. Have you ever held a real gun? The former friend I mentioned just before, her husband always carried a gun, and he just needed me to hold it for a sec for some reason I don't recall. I hated the feeling. Would you rather wear Converse or Vans? I like both, but I think I prefer Converse. Have you ever been called bipolar? Yes, because I clinically am. Have you ever made fun of a handicapped person? FUCK no. And like the "retarded" thing, don't you fucking DARE to do this in front of me. I WILL deck the shit out of you. Do you think it’s okay to have sex before marriage? Sure, as long as you're being safe and are very thorough in communication. Do you like to watch old sitcoms? I don't really watch TV as I say in like every survey it seems, but I do enjoy some old sitcoms I grew up watching with my mom, like The Nanny, The Golden Girls, The Munsters, etc. If asked, could you run a mile nonstop right now? Being completely serious, I don't even know if I CAN physically run right now. My legs are so incredibly weak, and I'm humiliatingly close to what my heaviest weight was back in 2016, so I can almost guarantee my knees would crumple if I tried. Do you wear those rubber wristbands? I used to. I don't really like bracelets nowadays. If a necklace/ring gives you green marks, do you still wear it? Nope. Have you ever driven an electric car? No. When was the last time you saw someone you went to high school with? Uhhhh idk. What breed was the last dog you saw? A fucking GOLIATH of a lab. I shit you not when I say my sister's roommate's dog Hudson is the size of a goddamn bear. How long have your parents been together (or how long were they together, if they no longer are): I wanna say they were together at the very least 20 years. What has been your most epic cooking failure? I once accidentally put something (I don't remember what) in the microwave for around 45 minutes I believe, and I walked away and completely forgot about it. I remembered a long while later, and safe to say, it wasn't edible, whatever it was, lmao. Have you ever been to Mexico? No. Have you ever had a parrot sit on your shoulder? No, but that'd be cool. Has anyone in your life ever treated you abusively? No. How long has it been since your last breakup? Somewhere around two years ago? My memory is so garbage nowadays. Can you concentrate well while listening to music, or do you find it distracting? It's distracting, usually. What’s something you’ve been struggling with lately? I've been pretty bad about drinking too much soda lately. :/

[professorspork]

it was an EVEN BUSIER DAY in the Andromeda Galaxy than I’m accustomed to because I ended up playing for something like eight hours today no one look at me I did like all of Eos 

BUT ANYWAY

The Tempest is fabulous, and I’m obsessed with my crew. from Kello being like UGH DON’T MAKE ME BE FRIENDS WITH TANN to the repeated meme about how I’m surrounded by nerds (Suvi’s 60 pages on dirt being hardly more than a summary, Lexi having a 500 page limit on her Krogan thesis) to the new and improved, elevator-free layout, everything is just... amazing. and I super dig the like “tell me a [joke/war story/bit of gossip]” mechanic because it really does make the relationships feel more naturalistic-- and as Helen will attest, my favorite bit is getting to interact with my peeps. and what peeps they are. I really do think Lexi summed it up best when I told her I felt I was in good hands and she, mortified, pointed out “I JUST STABBED YOU”

(on a related note, Ryder and Peebee have peak “what do you have?” “A KNIFE” energy)

I’m still getting used to combat and overworld trekking (cannot believe the second gear of the Nomad has me missing the Mako, if only because the Mako could somehow go almost straight up), but I’m having a blast! i’m trying out being a melee specialist because that’s not really something I’ve tried before, and so far it’s going pretty well! but then again, i’m still playing on narrative mode, so.

but really the thing I’m most enjoying is feeling out who my Ryder is, and how very different she is from my Shepard. while there’s certainly a level of like goody-two-shoes overlap, because of her youth I feel a lot more freedom to play Ryder as someone willing to admit when she’s scared, or be goofy, or to step on toes and tell people when they’re being bitches. my Ryder is also, for just for fun, an INTERMINABLE flirt and I genuinely don’t know who I’m going to romance because I like so many of my options!!! how far we have from Liara having to always retire to her fainting couch in ME1, truly.

as I was telling Helen earlier today (sometime after arguing over whether Peebee has more Entrapta energy or more Catwoman energy), I appreciate the stakes of Andromeda for much the same reason that I felt awed by the simple cruelty of the “god is a machine that wants to kill you” vibe from the Reapers in the first game-- it’s hard to get past the elegance of scale. the game never shies away from reminding you the cost of being here-- that this was a one-way ticket and everyone we’ve all ever known is dead. I ask literally every person I meet about why they joined the Initiative. and if we fail out here, on the edge of space, then we LITERALLY died for nothing, suffering needlessly when we could have just stayed home. it gives everything so much significance.

at any rate. I was feeling real proud of myself for not sugarcoating the fact that our dad is dead and the golden worlds were lies to my poor twin, only then he had like a coma panic attack so maybe that was Too Much Truth? i am Learning.

but also, forget scott’s sadness, i’m not sad anymore that my jerk dad is dead because Drack is my dad now

and also SAM trying to make jokes [“calculating the trajectory of the punchline... that was not the joke :(” ] has emphasized to me all over again that I will never be anything but a toaster fucker

-

PS FINAL THOUGHT: are there seriously not gonna be any quarians in this game? that’s kind of absurd given that the whole MECHANIC of being a pathfinder is literally just like the quarian lifestyle. frankly this game would make a lot more sense if the Initiative were a quarian endeavor and not a human one, down to like crafting gear etc, only of course in-universe they could not afford it unless the Citadel was literally like “we will pay you to go away” which would have been peak yikes 

[inkykeiji]

omg clari u listen to asking alexandria?? i haven’t listened to them in ages but after seeing u mention dont pray for me and touya-nii i had to go listen to from death to destiny again LMAO

but ur RIGHT this song is so touya-nii ugh i can just picture him blasting this as he drives way too fast in his fancy car with a hand on reader’s thigh... bonus points if she doesn’t like this kind of music, if he likes seeing her squirm and get uncomfortable at the screaming UGHHHH it’s not even that heavy but god just picture it

now i’m missing shows so much 😭 i saw asking alexandria on their tour w crown the empire and black veil brides in 2018 (lmao i was real emo) n they were SO good ...oh to go to a show w touya-nii and have him get all possessive when some dude accidentally rubs up against me in the pit

OKOK ILL STOP RAMBLING NOW LMAO hope you’re having a good day and getting lots and lots of rest!!!!! mwah </3

-🦖

i do!!! or, i did ehehehe <33 (threw this under a cut because it got loooong ehehe)

i stopped listening to them after from death to destiny because, yk, danny left and i was very :(((( because he was my fave but yeah!! i’ve lost track of how many times i’ve seen them live; AA + a7x + slipknot were my FAVOURITE bands for so fucking long it’s unbelievable. i met them, too!!! super super nice guys, james and sam smell SO good ahahaha danny’s the only one that was a lil ._. because he clearly did not wanna be there, but once we got him laughing he was a lot nicer! my best friend loves ben tho ehehe <33

i know danny’s back now, and they’ve made what?? two albums with him once he returned??? into the fire i liked a lot, but the rest of that album just made me :/// idk i really hated it aaaaaah 🙈 reckless and relentless is my favourite album out of all of them!! BUT YES YES YES I CAN TOTALLY SEE TOUYA-NII BLASTING ASKING OMFG!!! dear insanity, welcome, to the stage, someone somewhere, a lesson never learned, and another bottle down are all on my touya-nii playlist 🥺🥺

OH MY GOD i went to that tour too!!! my best friend also LOVES andy with her entire heart so when we heard they were touring together we absolutely had to go!!! that was a fun show ehehe aaaah dino babie i miss them a lot too :(( you know what i REALLY miss??? metal fests. literally all of the metal fests i went to as a teenager n in my first year of uni have been fucking cancelled before covid was even a thing and i’m so angry about it >.>

OOOOOOH MY GOD WHAT A FUCKING CONCEPT DINO WAAAAAAAH I KIND OF WANT TO ????? WRITE THAT OH MY GODDDDD like okay imagine; touya’s favourite band is coming to town, right? and god, he rarely gets this excited about anything, but he loves music so much, and reader just can’t bear saying no to him when his eyes are so bright and clear (without the drugs) and a genuine smile’s slapped across his face, so she agrees to go with him even tho she fucking hates his music 🥺 n then she gets like omfg knocked down or something (during a wall of death, maybe??) or felt up like u said and touya fucking loses it!!! AAAAAH DINO UR BRAIN IS HUGEEEEE oh my god oh my god 🥺

it is, once again, my turn to apologize for rambling ehehehe 🙊 it seems like we have similar taste in music tho, that’s super cool!!!

[lovelytonys]

PLEASE GIVE ALL OF YOUR THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS AFTER FFH

I LITERALLY DON’T THINK I CAN DO THAT BC IT’S WILD UP IN MY BRAIN RN BUT LET’S ATTEMPT SOME BULLET POINTS

•it was SO fun. Everyone got me so scared to go see it but instead I had a blast. Sure the emotional parts were a little rough but what no one told me is that the movie put the pieces back together too! It felt very healing as far as Endgame sadness and no one told me it would be like that. Plus I thought it was so funny and Peter & his friends & teachers were GOLD

•I love this MJ. GOD do I LOVE this MJ. Zendaya is wonderful. “Awkward teen” is such a common archetype that it never seems to feel real and miss zendaya waltzes in with her impeccable acting instincts and realistic quirks and mannerisms and just nails this teenaged character with complete authenticity.......wig

•in the same vein I’m head over heels for this version of petermj GOD YES I don’t want perfectly romantic high school couples because things don’t WORK like that!! Why did things ever work like that!! Plus like every version of Peter Parker is a big nerd anyway it’s just unrealistic to expect him to have any game, you know? I love watching Zendaya & Tom play off of each other bc they both have SOLID instincts honestly they’re a joy to watch when they share the screen

•jake gyllenhaal man,,,,,jake gyllenhaal,,,,I don’t even know where to go with this. Mysterio was a cheesy level of evil, like he was ridiculously theatrical, and it would have been cheesy and ridiculous in less skilled hands but INSTEAD mr jake SNATCHED my WIG. He was so goshdarn charming in the first half that I caught myself wanting to like him (when I wasn’t mentally challenging him to fight me in a Walmart parking lot for being such a huge jerk) and that was all well and good but once he got to let his villainy loose? WOOOOOO okay first of all that SMILE that goshdarn SMILE the second Peter left the bar haha oh MAN he just, like, flipped a switch, you know? WILD. Riveting. mr jake’s teeth get 20 Oscars ALSO his villain speech? I can’t get into it there’s a lot to unpack but his delivery was so great. SO great. I loved how he was generally reserved and charming even when evil so that the moments when he had an outburst were scary. Like any time when he got angry and started yelling felt like a Moment bc of how he held back for the rest of it. He was always so deliciously menacing too like ugh sometimes I just love a good old fashioned villain, you know? He’s not terribly complicated, he’s pretty much just evil! Simple as that! Woohoo! And his dying line gave me CHILLS it wasn’t even just the line even tho the words are chill-enducing enough but it was his DELIVERY that just SENT ME like the way he’s trailing off and ESPECIALLY that creepy & deranged little smile AAAAHHHHHHH

•while we’re on the last line I get chills when I think about it bc when remembering the moment you fit the mid credit scene in with it and it’s like,,,,so THAT’S what that means,,,,THAT’S what the smile is for,,,,,THAT’S why you’re so pleased that anyone will believe anything,,,,,W I L D

•and I thought it was so cool how they updated Mysterio. He’s a special effects guy, right? That’s how the story goes when you look back at his origin comic, yeah? So to see him working with modern special effects instead of the practical effects of the era of his debut was so cool. Seeing Jake Gyllenhaal walk around in a Marvel movie wearing a morph suit was kinda meta and I kinda dig it. I thought it was all very creative

•if you had told me years ago that Back in Black by AC/DC would be the thing to set off an emotional outburst for me I literally would not have believed you but here we are

•no joke I was doing a relatively good job of holding it together (and relative is good for me) until AC/DC started playing, then I kinda lost it

•TOM HOLLAND SMASHED IT

•HE JUST SMASHED IT IDK

•THE SCENE IN THE PLANE. YOU KNOW THE ONE. 3000 OSCARS FOR MR TOM real talk I would kill to see him do a legit drama piece and I also can’t even imagine what he’ll be doing when he’s older. I mean. He’s pulling this out in a summer blockbuster of all things before he’s 25.....imagine what he’ll be doing if he gets to the point of having, like, decades of experience behind him

•the part when he was building his suit.......I cried

•as far as the plot...on one hand? Predictable every step of the way. On the other hand? I find a weird satisfaction in watching a movie that flawlessly fulfills basic beat structure and yeah it would be boring if every movie did that but it’s okay sometimes

•the first scene. the first. goshdarn scene. I have never truly known what it was like to laugh and cry at the same time

•MJ AND A MACE!!!! YEAH!

•I like how this movie begins with the question “is Spider-Man the next Iron Man” and proceeds to answer it with “no. He’s Spider-Man and that’s more than good enough.” Tony’s shadow is a huge one to live under and I love that the movie explicitly places Peter outside of that shadow. Like, yeah, he’s similar to Tony in some ways but at the end of the day? He’s his own hero. It’s highlighted even more by the fact that Mysterio is his foil and Mysterio wanted to be the new Iron Man.

•I don’t know what I was expecting from the second credit scene but that......wasn’t it. The two credits scenes threw me through more loops than the entire actual movie did

•J Jonah Jameson got a bigger reaction out of me than anything else in the movie by far

•I swear to you the words “pizza time” were uttered in this film I just don’t remember where

•I literally thought I was going to die when looking at Peter immediately after he got hit by the train

•the consistency with the limp throughout the whole second half really heckin Got Me and also how he touched his ribs in the final battle bc they were injured from the train accident. It’s the little things like that that make Peter seem more human & genuine

•WHEN HE SAW HAPPY AND WAS AFRAID OF HIM BC HE DIDN’T KNOW IF HE WAS REAL,,,,THAT HURT MY GUYS,,,,POOR BBY BOYYYYY but then when he hugged Happy I thought I was going to have a meltdown don’t worry I didn’t

•the scene where Mysterio seriously gets in Peter’s head, you know the one, good golly was that overwhelming. Like. I was feeling the need to jump up and start pacing the floor, you know? It was really well done and it stressed me outtt

•Iron Zombie had me feelin a little queasy if I’m being totally real here lol I was not feelin good about that one

•it took me the whole 2 hours to bounce back from “even dead I’m the hero” oh my god that was SO Tony. I can hear it in his voice. I miss him.

•can’t believe Tony is still out here fully protecting Peter with a whole army of drones from beyond the grave wow the irondad JUMPED out

•BUT OVERALL I FEEL SO GREAT AND EXCITED ABOUT THIS MOVIE WOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[leahxx129]

Fun Fact (Steve Rogers X Reader)

Okay, this one’s for the lovely @waiting4inspiration​ ‘s #staysafestayhomechallenge, my prompt can be found in bold. This is my second fic ever posted on here, but I hope you enjoy it. :) 

Summary: Fun fact: when you’re dying, your life does flash before your eyes. Well, not all of it of course, just the snippets that actually made it worth living. For you this means four memories that portray different stages of your relationship with Steve Rogers.

Warnings: angst, a little bit of smut, character death

Word count: 3.567

When you arrived in the middle of the battle that was raging on in Wakanda, Natasha, Okoye and Wanda were struggling to fight Proxima Midnight. You hit her with a ball of blue fire to aid your friends, and she stumbled back hard.

“How dare you?!” she screamed.

Your only response was another ball, but this time it was a bigger one. It caught her with such force and velocity that she flew against a Thresher and got shredded to pieces.

“Steve’s in the forest with Thanos!” Natasha shouted knowingly.

You ran into the woods as fast as possible and the scene playing out in front your eyes was gut-wrenching. Steve had the upper hand, but he was undeniably struggling, and it was a matter of seconds before he’d lose his advance. A blue blast coming from you sent Thanos crashing into a nearby tree.

“Y/N!” Steve uttered your name, but you couldn’t be bothered.

You appeared in front of Thanos in just a fraction of time and disabled him with the fire. You could hear voices all around you, coming from various people – Thanos bellowing, Steve demanding you to stop, Bucky telling him to flee – but you ignored all of them and closed your eyes, feeling the blue fire rise.

Fun fact: when you’re dying, your life does flash before your eyes. Well, not all of it of course, just the snippets that actually made it worth living. For you this meant four memories.

You clearly envisioned the day you met Earth’s most exclusive redheaded spy alongside with the man who awakened feelings in you that you yourself didn’t even know you were capable of experiencing.

It was a humid hot day in July, your short-sleeved yellow uniform and red apron stuck to your body in all the wrong places, making you feel uncomfortable. You took in a sharp breath as your bandaged palms came in contact with the plates you were supposed to deliver to table 3 and put them down in an instant.

“Hey Mike! I am so sorry, but I just don’t think I can wait tables today… how ‘bout I take up all the orders and you bring them out?” you called out to your co-worker.

“What’s in it for me?” he furrowed his brows.

“I’ll buy you coffee.”

“So, it’s a date, right?” a grin formed on his freckled, yet handsome face.

“No, Mike. It’s coffee.”

“So, it’s a coffee date?”

“Nope, only coffee, Mike. No date. I’ll buy you one in the morning and just give it to you when I arrive.”

There was a moment of silence and his grin turned into a small smile.

“You know you’re lucky you’re hot and I’d do anything for you, free coffee or not.” he said picking up the plates and disappeared.

The diner was packed, a loud buzz filled the place as everybody was talking simultaneously. Having spotted a raised hand, you hurried over to get the order. Sure, your palms hurt holding a notepad and a pen, too, but remotely not as much as when you picked up those full plates.

“Welcome to Pop’s Diner, what can I get you?” you recited without even as much as sparing a glance at the consumers.

“A conversation would be nice.”

Your eyes immediately shot to the speaking man and his companion and widened in shock.

“Oh my God! You… you’re…” you felt the heat rise in your cheeks as you tried putting together a coherent sentence and failed.

“It’s okay, don’t be nervous.” the read headed woman smiled kindly. “I’m Agent Natasha Romanoff and this is Captain Steve Rogers. We’re here on behalf of Nick Fury.” she continued on, making you gasp loudly.

“We’d just like to talk, that’s all. Would you mind sitting down for a second?” Rogers chipped in.

You opened your mouth to protest since you were working after all, but promptly decided against it and sat down across them. When Captain America asks you to sit down, you sit down.

“May I… May I inquire what this conversation is in relation to?” you cleared your throat.

“Your palms.” Rogers stated calmly. He flashed you a smile what you assumed was supposed to be reassuring, but all he managed to do was make you even more flustered.  

“My palms…? Wha- what about them?”

“It seems like you had burned them pretty badly.”

“Uhm, yeah. I was cooking and I didn’t realize how hot the pot was until it was too late.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

Agent Romanoff took out her phone and placed it in front of you on the table. A security camera footage started to play and after a few second there you were, making your way through the diner’s parking lot a day ago. When you got to your car, a man pressed you hard against its side. A short grapple ensued and two minutes in an intense light emerged from your palms, making the stranger fall to the concrete. He was weltering on the ground, touching his own face and you just stood there. Satisfied. After a while you got in your car and drove off. The video stopped.

“Wanna re-think that answer?” she asked.

You didn’t even realize that a couple of tears escaped until they made their way down your face. You wiped them away furiously with the back of your hand. You winced when she called you by your name since you didn’t remember introducing yourself, but you shouldn’t have been surprised – you were convinced that by then S.H.I.E.L.D probably even knew what your favorite color was.

“Look, we have no idea what we witnessed on that tape and that’s one thing we’d like to know-”

“Well then that makes three of us…” you cut in bitterly. “ ’Cause I don’t even know what that was… Just to be clear, I did not want to melt that man’s face off even though he attacked me. I just felt threatened, and when I get angry or feel like I’m in danger, this incredibly cold sensation swipes trough me and just... wants to surface. By the time it reaches my palms it’s so cold, it burns… It burns right through my skin and looks like blue fire.”

Agent Romanoff and Captain Rogers exchanged a quick glance and the latter started off to Pop’s office.

“Where’s he going?” you asked in panic.

“He’s handing your boss your resignation.”

“What??”

“Relax, душенька. I think you’re gonna like your new job better than this. But first, you’ve got a lot to learn.” she smirked in response.

The second scene playing before your eyes was about the night you and Steve kissed for the very first time.

You won the battle of New York. At a painstakingly high price paid in body-count, but you’ve won it, nevertheless. The city slowly started to revive again and tried getting back to the old routine, but deep down everybody knew that would never happen. The harsh reality that Earth wasn’t the only populated planet and that humans were not the only superior beings in the universe settled in every heart and mind and there was no way of changing that.

Stark of course felt like the victory was something to celebrate so he threw a rather extravagant party in the Stark Tower. You tried to enjoy it, you really did, but you didn’t succeed in doing so. The music struck as too loud and all the drunk people soon became annoying instead of entertaining. Consequently, you grabbed your half-empty glass of whiskey and headed up to the roof top to get a breath of fresh air. The cold gusts of wind felt wonderful against your skin.

“You shouldn’t sneak up on me like that, Rogers. I almost threw a blue fire ball in your face.” you said without turning back. He chuckled softly and strolled to your side.

“Sorry, I just had to get away from the crowd. Plus, Stark’s hammered and he insisted on teaching me how to dance. I don’t think I’m ready for that tonight. Or ever will be.”

You didn’t notice how captivated he was when a genuine laughter ripped out of you.

“And here I was, thinking you deliberately followed me up here to finally get me alone.” you looked him in the eyes, smiling.

“You wish, doll.” his expression mirrored yours.

Your heart began racing as his face started to inch closer to yours. Your lips almost touched when a loud noise made you jump apart – courtesy of a very drunk Tony Stark trying to open the exit door with an equally drunk bimbo on his side.

“Whoops…” he said, then went on “… what was I saying? Oh, yes, sweetie, you can totally see Asgard from here. You just have to squint a little, then concentrate real hard and-”

Steve cleared his throat to make your presence known before Tony did something neither of you wanted to see.

“Rogers! Y/N! What are you two doing here? Oh, wait- did he… did he confess to you already?” he asked, looking straight in your eyes.

“Confess what?”

“Stark. Please stop talking. Now.” Steve’s voice was laced with nervousness, but Tony being Tony, did not stop talking.

“That he’s got a thing for you, Darling.” he informed you, then turned to Steve “Ugh, for God’s sake, Rogers, just kiss her already! Because if you won’t, I will!”

“Hey!” the bimbo screamed, clearly offended and went back to the building. A second later when Tony realized what happened he rushed after her shouting he didn’t mean it; he was just trying to motivate a friend. Or maybe he meant it a little, but just a little. Then all the noise died out.

“Soooo… you have a thing for me?” you spoke up after what seemed like an eternity of silence.

“Yes. I do. Although I planned on presenting it to you a bit differently.” he admitted.

“I see. Since it’s confession time, can I tell you something, too?”

“Sure thing, doll.”

You closed the distance between the two of you and stood on your tiptoes.

“I’ve got a thing for you as well, Steve…” you whispered in his ear.

He cupped your face and crashed his lips against yours in response. He did not like booze at all, but if anyone asked what his favorite was, he said whisky, because that’s what he tasted on your tongue that night.

Another clip of your life you were seeing was about the first time Steve made love to you.

You entered your room after a mission gone a bit sideways, exhausted to an extent that’s impossible to describe and with bruises and cuts covering the majority of your body. Steve stormed in just seconds after and slammed the door shut so hard it almost broke off its hinges. His beautiful face was hardened by anger and those blue eyes that often reminded you of the peaceful sea promised storm.

“What the hell was that?!” he demanded in a raised tone.

You sat down in front of your boudoir table and started peeling of your shredded suite very carefully.

“Answer me!” he shouted when he realized you had no intention of getting into an argument with him.

“Well, Cap, we went on a mission that in the end required some prompt, unplanned decisions on our side and I made them. Mission turned out successful. End of story. Is oral summary sufficient or would you like me to hand it in in written format?”

“Don’t “Cap” me, doll. And the attitude won’t bring you any closer to the end of this conversation…” he warned a little bit calmer, but still with a shaking voice.

“I’m sorry, Steve, I just don’t see what your problem is.”

You finished getting out of the top part and stood up to get done with the bottom, visibly struggling. With a couple of quick steps Steve appeared in front of you and tore it apart. You wore nothing but your underwear.

He then grabbed your chin and forced you to look him in the eyes.

“My problem is every single bruise on your body that’s not supposed to be there. Every single cut. Every single wound. Just because you learned how to use the blue fire without getting burnt it doesn’t mean you should use it excessively. I saw the effect it had on you today, don’t think I didn’t. For a split second it appeared as if it was consuming you from the inside…”

“Steve, if I hadn’t overdriven myself a little today, some of our greatest agents would’ve died. And I could not take that risk.” you said with gritted teeth. Tears started to sting your eyes, but you held them back.

“Well, I could! You know what risk I cannot take?! Losing you, doll.”

“I’m sorry…” you said in a small voice without a beat. Apologizing was not your genre, but the realization of how much Steve cared for you just dawned upon you. A mix of emotions took over you – you felt immensely loved, but at the same time, you were scared. “I gotta go take a shower. Will be back in no time.”

You slipped out of his grasp and let the tears flow as you closed the bathroom door behind you. Having stripped your underwear, you stepped into the shower and started cleansing yourself. You hoped the hot water would wash away the shame and guilt you felt, not just the dried blood and dirt. You were so caught up in your own thoughts that you jumped a little when Steve opened the shower cabin door.

“Oh my God, you scared me!” but he didn’t say a word.

He pushed you against the cold shower wall and kissed you violently, while his hands explored every curve of your body. It took all your willpower to break the kiss.

“Steve, do you really want our first time to be shower sex?” you asked panting.

“It doesn’t matter where we are, doll. I love you and I want you.” he growled, kissing down your neck.

Every fiber in your body ached in protest, but you ignored them. You ran your nails down his back as he put his hands under your thighs and gently lifted you up. A moan escaped you mouth when he entered you and slowly started moving. Steve swore it was the most beautiful sound in the whole goddamn universe. It was not long before the tension started building up in your body and having noticed this, he picked up the pace. You’d never moaned anyone’s name during orgasm before, but Steve was the only exception. He reached his bliss second later.

“On second thought, shower sex was just great for a first time.” you said, and he chuckled. “Where did you, uh, where did you hear about it?”

“Uhm, do you remember the mission like eight months ago when Stark and I got stuck on a desert island for six days?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, turns out, Stark opens up quite easily about his sensual experiences…”

“Noo. No way!” you laughed as you stepped out of the shower and started drying your hair with a towel.

“Yes way.” Steve followed you and took over the towel to dry your hair. “I also heard about other stuff, but those require a bed.” he smirked suggestively.

“In that case it’s a good thing I happen to own one.” you kissed his lips and wished that day would never end.

The last memory could not have been any clearer and it was breaking your heart all over again.

It was no question who’s side you were on when the civil war between Tony and Steve broke out… You got used to the life being on the run with Steve, Natasha and Sam in no time, although you still missed the others as well. They were the closest thing to a family you’ve ever had, and the rupture pained you badly at times. When Steve decided to collect the rest to unite in the fight against the greatest threat that ever endangered the universe, you were glad. You never knew how this beginning would mean the end of your relationship.

The first avengers Steve decided to recruit were Wanda and Vision in Europe, and frankly, you got there just in time. There’s a chance that a couple of minutes later there would’ve been no one to recruit… Your heart skipped a beat when you realized who you were up against, but you couldn’t allow yourself to ponder – lives were on the line. You helped Natasha stab Glaive and when Proxima Midnight grabbed your shoulder and turned you in her direction to deliver a punch, her fist froze mid-air.

“Y/N?” she asked uncertainly, but you didn’t answer. Sam flew in and kicked her to Glaive’s side. “Your father will hear about this, I promise.” she threatened before vanishing in blue light.

Everybody was panting, the fight exhausted all of you. Other than that, no sound could be heard.

“What was she talking about, doll?” Steve spoke up finally, asking the question everyone was dying to hear the answer to.

You all boarded the Quinjet, but you and Steve went to a separate cabin to discuss matters first.

He didn’t shout. He didn’t hit you or try to kill you on spot, though you were absolutely certain you would’ve deserved it. He just sat there. Quietly. He didn’t utter a word while you were telling him that you, in fact, were not human. You were a member of a species called ‘Inhuman’, which was the result of mixing Kree genes with human ones, and this is the reason why you possess the blue fire. He didn’t say a thing while you were telling him that as a child, Thanos snatched you and brought you up as his own daughter alongside two other girls, Nebula and Gamora, and turned the three of you into the most feared assassins in the entire galaxy. His mouth stayed shut while you were telling him that coming to Earth was a mission ordered by Thanos to gain intel on what was going on here and you were deemed fit for it as you looked like humans.

“But I stopped delivering information years ago, Steve! Do you know why? Because I fell in love with you! And because I realized the error of my father’s ways! He lied to me throughout my entire life and manipulated me into believing his false ideology! Steve? Please, say something, Steve…”

“Leave.”

You were not sure if the word echoed in the room or was it just your own mind.

“What?”

“I said, leave.” he stood up. There was no sign of fury on his face. Only disappointment. You didn’t move, so he continued.

“You were the very first woman I loved after Peggie, which I thought would be impossible for a long-long time… I loved you, Y/N. You saved me in more than one way, and after the war I wanted to settle down with you. Start a family. But you know this damn well, for fuck’s sake… And now it turns out I never even knew you…”

“But Steve, you knew me, in fact, you know me!” you interrupted with a cracking voice.

“No, doll, I didn’t. And I don’t.”

You ran up to him and cupped his face, but he refused to look at you. Your palms were wet from the tears he shed. He peeled your hands off him slowly.

“I’m not gonna hurt you, I could never do that. But I want you to leave. I don’t care who’s side you’ll fight on in this war or if you decide to sit it out, just whatever you do, stay away from me. God, I can’t even look at you, Y/N.”

You couldn’t stop the sobs surfacing from your chest.

The flashback scenes stopped, and the blue fire was burning more than ever inside of you. Steve had been right all those years ago… if you overdrove yourself, it would consume you from the inside and everything else in your immediate proximity, too. But if this was the only way of defeating your father and saving the universe, so be it. Suddenly, numbness took the place of pain and you subjected to it.

A high number of people showed up to your funeral organized at Tony’s lake house. Everybody placed a white rose on top of your empty casket and expressed their condolences to Steve, but he wasn’t paying attention at all. He tried to, really hard, but he just couldn’t. Tony was the last person to go there and place his rose.

“You know Rogers, I’ve never been one to sugarcoat things and I’m not gonna lie this time, either.” he said, his words making Steve look him in the eyes. “From what I hear… If you had kept your mouth shut, she’d still be here… At least there’s a high chance for that. But there’s also a high chance that half of the fucking universe wouldn’t. Respect her choice... That’s what I’m trying to do.”

Respect your choice... These three words became Steve’s mantra – the first thing that came to his mind in the morning, and the last at night. They were the glue that kept the pieces of his heart together just enough to function as a human being.

[crazy-little-cool-cat]

Gold Digger - Chapter 4 | Gwilym Lee x OFC

A/N:  Well, worlds collided. And merged into one, big, chaotic universe.

Warnings: Unexpected plot twist ahead. Swearing. That's pretty much it.

Word Count: ~2K

The Playlist (Updates Regularly)

Chapter List:  Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3

"Mornin'." Joe murmured when he entered the kitchen to find Lizzie.

"Morning." Lizzie echoed and covered her mouth as she yawned. "Sleep well?" 

"As well as a hangover will allow." He chuckled, his voice an octave deeper than it usually is after a night of partying and drinking. "Is that breakfast?" 

"Mhm." Lizzie nodded and shoveled a forkful of omelet into her mouth. "Help yourself." 

"My God, it's like a hotel buffet up in here!" he remarked as he loaded a plate with pastry, eggs, hashbrowns, and vegetables. "Is this what you have for breakfast every day?" 

"Only on weekends," Lizzie said after swallowing. "Shelly, my roommate, works at a club and comes home at the crack of dawn, so she stops by the bakery to get the first batch of the day." 

"Oh?" 

"Yeah. Shells tends bar. Sometimes she's sort of a go-go dancer." Lizzie shrugged. "She basically makes people get drunk and spend money, either way." 

"Huh." Joe tore a piece of a croissant with his fingers and tossed it in his mouth. He noted to himself that he could see Shelly's bedroom door over Lizzie's shoulder. 

"So, last night was..." Lizzie started. 

"Fun." Joe finished her sentence. 

"Oh, definitely." Lizzie blushed slightly. "The thing is -" 

"Calm down, kiddo." Joe smiled, "it was a one-time thing. I know the drill." 

"Oh, that's not what I was going to..." Lizzie fumbled to find the right words. "It's just that I didn't expect to..." She wanted to slap herself into using language properly again. "You're Gwil's best mate, you know?" She noticed Joe nodded blankly as she spoke, not making eye contact. Following his gaze, she noticed he was staring intently at Shelly's door as if willing it to open with his mind. "You've met Shelly, then." _________________________________________________ 'About last night...' 

Lizzie held her breath as she waited for Gwilym to reply to her text and say something. Anything. She woke up with a horrible sense of guilt for hooking up with his best mate. Yes, she was drunk. Yes, she was gutted that Gwilym didn't seem to give her the time of day... but she still wanted him. He was just... better. For her, that is. He was taller, wealthy, British. Classy. A gentleman. Smooth. Charming. Other than that, Joe was wrapped around Shelly's finger, and all it took was for them to meet once. She wished Gwilym was like that with her. She had no idea he secretly was. 

'Don't worry about it. Did you have a good time?'

'You mean at the party?'

'Yeah.' Lizzie mulled over her answer. Yes, she had a blast. Did she go home with the man she hoped she would? No. Did she regret hooking up with Joe? Not at all. Did she wish he was Gwilym? Definitely.  

'Yeah, it was good stuff!' she finally replied and mentally kicked herself once the message was sent. 'Sorry for being a drunk mess.'

'You were adorable.'

'Yeah?' Lizzie felt her heart stop. 'Thought you found me a bit of a bother. You hardly spoke to me.'

'You were busy. I didn't want to intrude.' 

'You could never!' she wanted to reply. 'I wish you had!' was a close second option. 

'Joe's a blast!' was all she could manage to type out. _______________________________________________ "Do you happen to have that redhead's number?" Shelly asked as Lizzie brushed her teeth. 

"Huh?" Lizzie asked with a foamy mouth, holding her toothbrush pointing up as if it were a magic wand.

"The one you hooked up with. Joe?" Shelly leaned against the door frame. "Or were you that far gone that you don't remember hooking up with someone?"  

"Ugh." Lizzie rolled her eyes and rinsed her mouth. "Yes, I have his number. Why do you want it?" 

"I'm doing a telephone survey about your levels of oblivion." Shelly snarked. 

"You are just so bloody cunty sometimes!" Lizzie laughed. "You fancy Joe, eh?" "Just give me his number." 

"No."

"No?!" Shelly guffawed and took a step back.

"Nah." Lizzie shrugged.

"Elizabeth, you will give me his number." Shelly squared her shoulders. 

"If you fuck anything up with that man and fuck my chances up with Gwilym -" 

"Oh, unclench. It'll be impossible to ruin your chances with Prince Charming."   _________________________________________________ Lizzie and Gwilym sat on the sofa in Lizzie's flat, sharing a bowl of popcorn, watching Netflix on a rainy Sunday. They sat in what felt like comfortable silence for Lizzie but was clearly awkward for Gwilym. "I'm recently broken up." Gwilym blurted out. 

"What?" Lizzie's handful of popcorn froze halfway to her mouth as she turned to look up at him, raising an eyebrow. 

"I'm... I'm recently broken up." Gwilym repeated. 

"I'm aware." 

"Oh. Didn't think you knew that much about me..." Gwilym looked down at his hands and rubbed his thighs, sinking lower into the sofa. "So, yeah. There's that." 

"Okay." Lizzie shrugged. 

"You don't care?" Gwilym raised an eyebrow. "She's still very much around. My ex."

"I know." 

"Oh." Gwilym blinked, perplexed. "So..." 

"Do you need to talk about it, Gwil?" Lizzie asked and paused the episode of Stranger Things the two had been watching. 

"No, no." Gwil shook his head slightly. "I'm just... I felt like I should tell you. If I'm acting weird or distant or something, it's not you. It's Clara." 

"What happened to you two?" 

"Disagreements. Fights. Routine." Gwilym seemed to be brainstorming for reasons. "I think... I just didn't see her in my future. I wanted to end it for a while, but she ended up making that move for me and left me. Said the connection died, and she wasn't feeling it anymore." Gwilym took some popcorn in his big hands. "It's fine, though, because I felt the same way. I was just shocked that she actually made that move, you know?"

"Huh."

"What?" 

"Nothing. Just feels a bit knobby to leave someone like you." Lizzie put her hand on top of Gwilym's and gave it a squeeze. "How long ago did it happen?" 

"Thought you've heard the story," Gwilym smirked cheekily. 

"There's a difference between what really happens and what the press says, don't you think?" Lizzie retorted. 

"Touche." Gwilym chuckled. "Two months before I met you."  

Lizzie quickly did the math. She's known Gwilym for just about three months. 

"Wow. That is quite recent." _________________________________________________ Annie felt exhausted. Dealing with a colicky Alfie, a whirlwind of a Rory and Ben being away on some fashion appearance yet again had her running on very few hours of sleep. Gwilym, however, came to the rescue and used the opportunity to run his thoughts by one of his favourite people. 

"So, the problem is...?" Annie pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. 

Her hair stuck out of her messy bun in different directions. Ben's cutoff t-shirt was skewed on her shoulders. Her sweatpants had unrecognizable stains adorning them.

"Either she's hitting on me because she knows who I am and everything that comes with it," Gwilym bounced Alfie on his hip, "or she genuinely likes me." 

"Do you think she's after fame and money?" Annie looked at Gwilym as if he grew two heads. "Really?" 

"Look, Banana," Gwilym hoisted Alfie up higher, "when we first met, I had to chase her like a dog chasing a fox. She was unreachable. Aloof. She could give two shits about me."

"Right."

"Now she's texting me all day, every day. She's giving me these looks..." 

"How dare she!" Annie cried mockingly. 

"Look, I mean it. Something's off."

"Could it be that she genuinely likes you, you fucking insect?" Annie groaned. "It's not that deep! She likes you!" 

"How would you know? You've met her once, and she hooked up with Joe." 

"Because you kept pushing her away, you twat!" Annie scoffed. "What?" 

"I did not -"

"This is my friend Lizzie!" Annie lowered her voice to sound more manly and glared at Gwilym. "Over and over and over and over and -"

"I get it." Gwilym groaned.

"You played yourself there," Annie noted. "Pushed her right into Joe's arms. You have a thing or two to learn from Ben about neutralizing that Mazzello charm."  

"Shut it." Gwilym huffed. 

"Never." Annie smiled sweetly. "And either way, it's obvious you two are into each other. The ball's in your court, Gwilly." 

"It's too soon, Clara and I -" 

"Had a great run, but it's over, and it's time to move on."  

"Christ, Annie, have some emotion, will you?" Gwilym laughed. "It's hardly been half a year!" 

"There's something you should know -"

"I don't want to know." Gwilym interrupted her. "Whatever it is you're going to say, I don't want to know. Her life is no longer any of my business." 

"Gwil, we can't keep you two separated forever. Things are too weird." 

"And this, right here," Gwilym pointed at Annie, "is why I'm not doing shit with Lizzie. It's too weird. What if they meet up and -"

"Oh, are we playing the What If game now?" Annie feigned enthusiasm. "What if I ended up with Joe and not Ben?" 

"What?!" 

"What if Alfie was a girl?" 

"Annie..." 

"What if you and Ben were gay lovers?" 

"Your point's made, Annabelle." 

"So, what are you going to do?" She asked and took Alfie from him as he fussed around. "Hm?" 

"Nothing." _________________________________________________ "Do you think he knows?" Shelly asked Lizzie over brunch on a cold Sunday morning.

"Who?" Lizzie frowned in confusion, "Knows what?" 

"Gwilym." Shelly rolled her eyes. "About his ex." 

"What's there to know?" Lizzie looked puzzled. 

"You live under a bloody rock, eh?" Shelly chuckled. "She's getting real close with the Jamie bloke." 

"That's just tabloids being tabloids." Lizzie waved Shelly's comment off. "And even if it is true, I doubt Gwil gives a shit. They're over." 

"Enter Lizzie, stage right!" Shelly raised her eyebrows playfully and smirked. "To the rescue!" 

"Oh, come off it, Shells." 

"You clearly fancy him." Shelly laughed. "Make your bloody move!" 

"No!" Lizzie countered. "If I make my move now I'll look like some clout chasing, gold-digging -" 

"Who cares?!" Shelly groaned. "Dig that gold! Chase that clout! Maybe you'll be able to quit your teaching job and become a human again!" _________________________________________________

'Greensleeves Castmates Caught Up Close And Personal!'

Gwilym stared at his laptop and blinked, his mind utterly empty of any thought. He would never have imagined that this would ever happen. He was utterly shocked, and yet not at all surprised. 

On the screen, in bright, vivid colours, were Clara and Jamie, snogging on a white, sandy beach in the Caribbeans. He took a long swig from his beer and pursed his lips, scrolling down to read the article. On the one hand, he resented Annie for sending him the link. On the other hand, he was thankful. It was finally time for him to move on; Clara sure did. 

He sighed as he read what he already knew. Jamie's engagement broke off abruptly just weeks before the wedding. A couple of weeks earlier, he and Clara had broken up. He didn't really think she could do this, but at this point - who knew. 

'Did you read it?'

'Yes, Annabelle.' Gwilym replied.

'Are you livid?' her response came within seconds. 

'Not really, no.'

When no reply came swooshing in, he tossed the phone on the sofa next to him. He looked at the picture of a bikini-clad Clara and board-shorts clad Jamie kissing again. She looked happy, as far as he could tell. He was positive Jamie was over the moon. He always suspected there was a weird love triangle situation going on in that close-knit friendship, but now he knew for sure. 

Biting the inside of his cheek, he closed his laptop screen and looked at his phone. His fingers were tingling. He had to text Lizzie.

____________________________________________________

TAGLIST: @ramibaby @filmslutt @lose-you-to-find-me @sonic-volcano  @nosferatyou @rogertaylorin1976

[vaguely-concerned]

I played Death of the Outsider finally and I have some Feelings about it

and most of them not very positive. nice stuff first tho!

THINGS I LIKED:

- billie is such a good character. still new to her old self and slightly tender from coming out of the protective shell of lies that was meagan foster, full of old scars and doubts and bitterness but trying for something better, something kinder even though she still doesn’t quite understand what she’s walking towards -- the genuine care and tenderness in her voice when she talks to daud or thinks about deidre. I love her.

all that and she effortlessly IS also the queer disabled woc the gamer bros refuse to believe could possibly exist. exquisite. 

- the idea of ‘killing’ the outsider is compelling, but it’s the sort of idea that needs a full length game to support it and its implications. cool idea, completely wrong execution.

- saying that: I love that the injustice of the outsider’s creation being righted is only made possible by a long unbroken line of mercy and kindness. daud saved billie from the streets, corvo spared daud, daud saved emily and spared billie after her betrayal, billie tried to save aramis stilton and became entangled in the void, emily spared billie, billie took this job in the first place partly because she loves her dad daud and wants him to find peace. that idea is so beautiful that I wish the rest of the narrative was strong enough to hold it up lol.

there’s also something going on here with other people holding on to the important pieces of you -- that billie is ‘all that is left’ of daud after he’s dead. once he saved a child from true loneliness and gave her a purpose, made her feel seen again, gave her the closest thing she had to a home, and when he’s completely lost himself in the void... that kindness is still alive in billie, and she helps him find his way. again that is really touching and thoughtful and plays wonderfully into the chaos system in these games thematically! too bad about all the stilted dialogue and characterization messes and uh. everything else. 

- most of all I love how clear it is that billie and daud love each other. it’s a quiet love that has nothing to prove anymore, it’s survived all the blood and the ugliness and everything they’ve done to each other and to the world, a love with no demands left. it’s not the sort of love you usually see, in all its unsentimentality, but it’s real. when daud tells her he’s proud of her and trusts her no matter what she chooses to do, you feel how much he means it. (making his insistence on trying to make her choice for her all the weirder -- see my long rant of lamentation about his characterization in doto below lol)

there’s something about daud’s undramatic yet complete acceptance of and respect for billie that... I didn’t know I needed this, but it was a nice gift nonetheless haha, thank you. (it’s similar to how good it feels in D2 when you realize corvo just likes emily a lot as a person, even aside from her being his daughter. a good series for father & daughter stories)

- this carries over from D2, but I think the journal/log entries are better written and more insightful than the stuff out in the world.  

- it cannot be overstated how much the gameplay loop of these games is just... pure crack cocaine for my brain haha, very few things give me this specific kind of brain tingle. I love the sound of looting and I love the art style and ambiance and I love planning out a strategy after finding all the options and I love never being spotted or killing anyone and I love the puzzle elements they put into exploration sections and I love the feeling of how you move through the environment. it’s one of the few games where I routinely get so into it I end up with a crick in the neck because I’ve been so focused for so long and never noticed I’ve been sitting in a way that makes my entire spine hate me. I needed something to get me through the last few days and it did deliver that, at least. karnaca is pretty enough that I didn’t even mind that most of the levels were recycled from D2 either. 

- I’m not quite sure whether I understood this right but there’s a woman standing behind daud in the void -- I wonder if that is actually his mother and he’s been so close this whole time? at first I thought maybe it was jessamine but god no I hope she’s finally at peace after All That Nonsense, she shouldn’t have to hang around there anymore. there’s also a figure near him I could swear was corvo with his mask on, but he’s not dead canonically so that would make very little sense. oh well I’ll take my feels where I can get them even if I have to make them up wholesale  

- the bankheist was cool as fuuuuuck, that and the emotional impact of daud dying was sadly the height of this game for me, after that it all went mediocre real quick     

- paul nakauchi as shan yun was, as I have said before, a blast. ‘ugh I cannot continue my throat is as raw as a plucked pheasant’ fsdkfhlsadjkhfas

- daud’s funeral is genuinely touching. she gave him the entirety of her old life for a sendoff, battered and worn and dear as they both were. someone hold me 

THINGS I  H A T E D:

- the stuff they did with daud’s characterization. I am so unreasonably angry over this haha, the more I think about it the more I hate it. I think there are paths you could go with his ACTUAL character to make this work, but this was not it. I’ve said this before, but his most iconic, most defining scene is him surrendering himself to corvo’s judgement without justifying himself or deflecting the blame for any of what he’s done. this isn’t even regression in his character, it’s just.. a different character altogether. they could have gone for the angle that delilah almost managed to end the world b/c daud showed mercy and that’s the reason he’s moved to action, I think that might be a more compelling motivation for him at least. OR have him be more conflicted about how to do things -- violence is still the only tool he knows how to use but it’s not what he wants to or even can be anymore and the conflict troubles him, ‘His hands do violence, but there is a different dream in his heart’. or even use a different character for the ‘kill kill kill’ angle, he didn’t need to be here for this dlc at all.   

also, just on a purely practical level... for all his flaws and longstanding moral shortsightedness daud is not a stupid man. why the FCK would he be so sure that killing the outsider will fix anything? if I, dumbass extraordinaire, could within half a minute wonder if maybe something even worse would take the outsider’s place if you removed him... why does that never occur to the Knife of Dunwall tm, a man about Void for like half a century or whatever?? ugh fuck this, I’m having a hard time explaining exactly why it all feels weird and wrong to me, but know that it does and that I Do Not Like It lol. I feel cheated out of something important I thought I had.  

- again, this should have been a full game. (I think it is sold as one already, but it just hm isn’t) there’s way too much shit of literal cosmic importance for the game’s universe being picked up here for something this short to cover. save this HUGE idea for a rainy day should you ever want to do another game in the series and do something else with the dlc, honestly. 

- god but the outsider is insufferable in this. I don’t know what happened, but by the end I was like ‘*thoughtfully strokes chin* maybe daud has a point billie keep that knife handy’. he’s annoying and boring, which is wild to me because he was always a lot of fun in the other games.

for real tho I don’t know if this is just my atheist-but-still-angry-at-god-somehow??? talking, but daud HAS a point. people are responsible for their own actions, but the outsider didn’t have to do any of what he did either. he could have chosen to be bored through the centuries instead of seeing what people would do if you gave them such ~*morally neutral*~ abilities as y’know summoning a bunch of rats to eat other people. the game wants me to buy the ‘but really this black eyed boy is woobie tho uwu’ so badly and no I’m not buying that give me my refund I want my chaotic neutral bastard back pls. I’d probably be more inclined to want to help him like that. where’s his salt gone, arkane. if you didn’t want him to be edgy why did you make him look like that.  

- this is the lamest possible version of the outsider’s backstory lol, it feels like the pearl clutching panic about satanic cults back in the day all over. listen if it’s this easy to make a god the thrill is sort of taken out of it, if these randos did it anyone could. also how the fuck are they just normal-ish people anyway? why do they follow modern fashions? haven’t they been hanging around for thousands of years, haven’t their culture changed in any meaningful way? (I realize these aren’t the same guys as back in the day but it’s just weird) why do they speak a language billie and the player can understand? why did anyone think ‘idk some cultists no one’s ever heard of before with no thematic significance whatsoever’ was the way to go world building wise? they’ve taken all the unknowable eldritchness out of the eldritch horror and we’re all poorer for it now haha 

relatedly the last level is... just not very good. you come down from the awesome bank heist and then there’s... whatever the fuck this was.

- while I do like billie finding daud in the void and him remembering her I hate that he goes out still full of self loathing and rage when you talk him into the nonlethal option, that he can’t forgive himself or find any sliver of hope or peace. I wish there had been a few more moments for the two of them to come to peace with themselves before he gave the outsider back his name, some real catharsis. as it is I was annoyed when the outsider ‘woke up’ or whatever b/c it felt like he was stealing attention from what I was actually emotionally invested in and not done with.    

they had  n o t  built up billie’s or my sympathy for the outsider well enough either. again this is something I think they could have done if they’d structured things differently, if they’d been more deliberate in making you understand he was basically a child and letting you dwell on it. because there is a parallell there between him and billie, and billie and daud, but I, how do I put this, did not give a fuck  

in short this was really similar to my experience with D2 in that there’s enough good there that it’s all the more painful when it fails to deliver on it again and again, and it ruined things I already liked about this story from the first game (daud’s arc and everything to do with the outsider, mostly). give me some months of denial and hard core headcanon work and I’ll probably be able to live with it

[imdoingthismspaintadventure]

Worm 2.2 - In which we browse a superhero forum

The run had helped to wake me up, as did the hot shower and a cup of the coffee my dad had left in the pot.  Even so, the fatigue didn’t help the feeling of disorientation over just how normal the day seemed as I made my way to school.  Just a matter of hours ago, I had been in a life and death fight, I had even met Armsmaster.  Now it was a day like any other.

Yeah, I’d be suprised if you pay any attention to anything they teach at school today. The feeling of coming back to normality and routine after that must be something else

I felt a bit nervous as I got to homeroom.  Having basically skipped two classes the previous Friday, failing to turn in a major assignment, I figured that Mrs. Knott probably knew already.  I didn’t feel relieved when Mrs. Knott glanced up at me and gave a tight smile before turning her attention back to her computer.  That just meant the humiliation would be redoubled if and when class was interrupted by someone coming down from the office.  A part of me just wanted to miss this class too, just to avoid the potential humiliation and avoid drawing attention.

Ugh, falling out of schedule and/or failing classes because of the bullying is rough as hell. Keeping your grades acceptable can be used as escapism from your own thoughts in these kinds of situations and if that starts falling apart too... what’s keeping you in school at all?

If you start missing classes it can quickly slowball into full-on not attending class at all.

All in all, I felt anxious as I made my way to my computer, which kind of sucked because Computer class was one of the few parts of the school day I didn’t usually dread.  For one thing, it was the one class in which I was doing well.  More to the point, neither Madison, Sophia nor Emma were in this class, though some of their friends were.  Those girls didn’t usually feel the need to harass me without the trio around, and I was further removed from them because I was in the advanced stream of the class.  A good three quarters of the people in the room were computer illiterate, being from families that didn’t have the money for computers or families that didn’t have much interest in the things, so they practiced typing without looking at the keyboard and had lessons in using search engines.  By contrast, I was in the group that was learning some basic programming and spreadsheets.  It didn’t do a lot for my already geeky reputation, but I could deal.

Oh interesting that Taylor’s favourite class is Computer Science! I am studying to be a Software Engineer myself! Nice!

It’s good that those three aren’t in every class, so you at least get some moments of respite from their bullshit. That’s good.

We never had the basic kind of keyboard-training classes and all that. Is computer science taught early in America? Here we basically don’t learn anything until we are like 16 or 17 at the very least.

Mrs. Knott was an alright teacher, if not the most hands on; she was usually content to give us advanced students an in-class assignment and then focus on the more rambunctious majority for the rest of the class. This suited me just fine – I usually wrapped up the assignment in a half hour, leaving me an hour to use as I saw fit.  I had been recalling and going over the events of the previous night during my morning run, and the first thing that I did when the ancient desktop finished its agonizing load process was to start digging for information.

Lucky you! Assignments stress me out a lot, generally. I wish I could just do them easy-peasy like that. Although I suspect Taylor’s are much simpler, just because of her age and school education vs college.

The go-to place for news and discussion on capes was Parahumans Online. The front page had constant updates on recent, international news featuring capes.  From there, I could go to the wiki, where there was information on individual capes, groups and events, or to the message boards, which broke down into nearly a hundred sub-boards, for specific cities and capes.  I opened the wiki in one tab, then found and opened the message board for Brockton Bay in another.

Ok I love this. I love this a lot.

This is one of the most realistic things the serial has done so far. Also one of the most fun. If superheroes were real, you bet your ass there would be forums about them, probably more than one. With hourly threads and a lot of speculation and debate.

I imagine there would be like a serious one with strict rules for talking about world events relating to capes, like if it was the news. Cause they aren’t just a tv show or a videogame, they have a real impact in the daily lives of people everywhere.

There would also be whole fanclubs or communities for each super-group and for each city/country, where they talk about the popularity, newcomers, fights, etc...

I can also see entire pages dedicated to romantic relationships or rumors, fanarts, conspiracies, versus battles (who would win?) etc....

Basically, supers being real would absolutely reshape the whole internet forever.

I had the sense that either Tattletale or Grue were the leader of the group I had run into.  Turning my attention to Tattletale, I searched the wiki.  The result I got was disappointingly short, starting with a header reading “This article is a stub.  Be a hero and help us expand it.”  There was a one sentence blurb on how she was a alleged villain active in Brockton Bay, with a single blurry picture.  The only new information for me was that her costume was lavender.  A search of the message boards turned up absolutely nothing.  There wasn’t even a hint as to what her power was.

Grue seemed the one calling the shots, but I could also see Tattletale as a short of “shadow leader” type, yeah...

Tattletale has almost nothing about her in her page! That’s very interesting. So she’s very secretive or at least good at hiding information about herself...

Heh, ironic that the Tattletale is the one who keeps secrets. I like the name she picked.

I looked up Grue.  There was actually information about him, but nothing detailed or definitive.  The wiki stated he had been active for nearly three years, dealing in petty crimes such as robbing small stores and doing some work as an enforcer for those who wanted a little superpowered muscle along for a job.  Recently, he had turned to higher scale crime, including corporate theft and robbing a casino, together with his new team.  His power was listed as darkness generation in the sidebar under his picture.  The picture seemed crisp enough, but the focus of it, Grue, was just a blurry black silhouette in the center.

So Grue is an experienced criminal! Somewhat at least. Three years of experience is certainly better than one night!

He was doing low-level crimes until recently, when he adquired his new team, and they seem to be doing big heists now! How did Grue find the others? Seems like a pretty big increase in notoriety and strength in a short time!

Darkness generation....that could potentially be very cool. I wonder if it can be used offensively, like fire with Lung. I always imagine the darkness element (when used as blasts the same way they use fire, in some media) to feel like being devoured by some parasite, like if darkness ravages and devours you. Light on the other hand just scours and obliterates everything it touches. At least those are my headcanons for the more esoteric elements.

I searched for Bitch, next.  No results.  I did another search for her more official title, Hellhound, and got a wealth of information.  Rachel Lindt had never made any real attempt to hide her identity.  She had apparently been homeless through most of her criminal career, just living on the streets and moving on whenever police or a cape came after her.  The sightings and encounters with the homeless girl ended around a year ago – I figured that was when she joined forces with Grue, Tattletale and Regent.  The picture in the sidebar was taken from surveillance camera footage – an unmasked, dark haired girl who I wouldn’t have called pretty.  She had a squarish, blunt-featured face with thick eyebrows.  She was riding atop one of her monstrous ‘dogs’ like a jockey rides a horse, down the middle lane of a street.

Huh, so Bitch, or Rachel, had never had a secret identity or a secret life! Seems like her cape and normal life are one and the same! She was homeless and running from one place to another, along with her giant eldritch dogs.

I assume they took her into the group and she prefers it to being alone and without a place to be.

According to the wiki entry, her powers manifested when she was fourteen, followed almost immediately by her demolishing the foster home she had been living in, injuring her foster mother and two other foster children in the process.  This was followed by a two year series of skirmishes and retreats across Maine as various heroes and teams tried to apprehend her, and she either defeated them or successfully evaded capture.  She had no powers that would have made her any stronger or faster than the average Jane, but she was apparently able to turn ordinary dogs into the creatures I had seen on the rooftop.  Monsters the size of a car, all muscle, bone, fang and claw.  A red box near the bottom of the page read, “Rachel Lindt has a public identity, but is known to be particularly hostile, antisocial and violent.  If recognized, do not approach or provoke.  Leave the area and notify authorities as to her last known location.”  At the very bottom of the page was a list of links that were related to her:  two fansites and a news article relating to her early activities.  A search of the message boards turned up too many results, leaving me unable to sift through the crap, the arguments, the speculation and the villain worship to find any genuine morsels of information.  If nothing else, she was notorious.  I sighed and moved on, making a mental note to do more investigation when I had the time.

Damn, can she control her powers all that well? Or at least, at that time? Cause that sounds to me like the type of situation where her newly-found powers go out of control and cause problems.

She had a foster-home, but then had to run away from the people she hurt ,the authorities, heroes and everyone! And she lived two years like that! No wonder she is antisocial now, jesus.

Also she can apparently turn any dog into those boney creatures of death. Wow. Depending on where she is, she could be incredibly powerful in a fight!

She also seems to be the most famous one so far, having even online admirers and fansites about her exploits. Interesting. She seems to be dangerous though, as she is said to be violent to everyone she meets.

The last member of the group was Regent.  Given what Armsmaster had said about the guy being low profile, I didn’t expect to find much.  I was surprised to find less than that.  Nothing.  My search on the wiki turned up only a default response, “There are no results matching this query.  32 unique IP addresses have searched the Parahumans.net Wiki for ‘Regent’ in 2011.  Would you like to create the page?”  The message board didn’t turn up anything else.  I even did a search for alternate spellings of his name, such as Regence and Recant, in case I had heard it wrong.  Nothing turned up.

Woah, if Tattletale had little to no information, this guy is straight-up a nonentity! Absolutely hidden from the public eye!

We don’t even know his powers, story or place within the group. How fascinating.

If my mood had been on the sour side as I got to homeroom, the dead ends only made it worse.  I turned my attention to the in-class assignment, making a working calculator in Visual Basic, but it was too trivial to distract me.  The work from Thursday and Friday had already given us the tools to do the job, so it was really just busywork.  I didn’t mind learning stuff, but work for the sake of doing work was annoying.  I did the bare minimum, checked it for any bugs, moved the file to the ‘completed work’ folder and returned to surfing the web.  All in all, the work barely took fifteen minutes.

You at least get experience and speed in doing these kinds of things! And calculators can be fun to program!

Also yeah, having nothing to do and being able to use the internet the rest of the class is pretty sweet!

I looked up Lung on the wiki, which I had done often enough before, as part of my research and preparation for being a superhero.  I’d wanted to be sure I knew who prominent local villains were and what they could do.  The search for ‘Lung’ redirected to a catch-all page on his gang, the ABB, with quite a bit of detailed information.  The information on Lung’s powers was pretty in line with my own experience, though there was no mention of the super-hearing or him being fireproof.  I debated adding it, but decided against it.  There were security concerns with my submission being tracked back to Winslow High, and then to me.  I figured it would probably be deleted as unsupported speculation, anyways.

They are really underselling Lung huh. No wonder Taylor was suprised about how OP he could be! And yeah better not to edit anything in a trackable device, or without any solid source for that matter.

The section beneath the description of Lung and his powers covered his subordinates.  He was estimated to have forty or fifty thugs working for him across Brockton Bay, largely drawn from the ranks of Asian youth.   It was pretty unconventional for a gang to include members of the variety of nationalities that the ABB did, but Lung had made it a mission to conquer and absorb every gang with Asian members and many without.  Once he had the manpower he needed, the non-Asian gangs were cannibalized for assets, their members discarded.  Even though there were no more major gangs in the east end of town to absorb, he was still recruiting zealously.  His method, now, was to go after anyone older than twelve and younger than sixty.  It didn’t matter if you were a gang member or not.  If you were Asian and you lived in Brockton Bay, Lung and his people expected you to either join or to pay tribute one way or another.  There had been local news reports on it, newspaper articles, and I could remember seeing signs in the guidance counselor’s office detailing where people who were targeted in this way could go for help.

He seemed to want to grow quickly by recruiting every asian person in Brockton Bay, cape or not! And if you were Asian, you would have heard of his band and their threats or extortion.

You are partly responsible for the capture of one mayor threat to the safety of the citizens of Brockton Bay. You did great last night, Taylor!

Lung’s lieutenants were listed as Oni Lee and Bakuda.  I already had some general knowledge about Oni Lee, but I was intrigued to see there were recent updates to his wiki entry.  There were specific details on his powers:  He could teleport, but when he did so, he didn’t disappear.  As he teleported, his original self, for lack of a better term, would stay where it was and remain active for five to ten seconds before disintegrating into a cloud of carbon ash.  Essentially, he could create another version of himself anywhere nearby, while the old version could stick around long enough to distract or attack you.  If that wasn’t scary enough, there was an report of him holding a grenade in his hand as he repeatedly duplicated himself, with his short lived duplicates acting as suicide bombers.  Topping it all off, Oni Lee’s wiki page  had a similar red warning box to the one that Bitch/Hellhound had on hers, minus the bit about his public identity.  From what they knew about him, authorities had seen fit to note him a sociopath.  The warning covered the same essential elements: exceedingly violent, dangerous to approach, should not be provoked, and so on.  I glanced at his picture.  His costume consisted of a black bodysuit with a black bandoleer and belt for his knives, guns and grenades.  The only color on him was an ornate Japanese-style demon mask, crimson with two green stripes down either side.  Except for the mask, his costume gave off the distinct impression of a ninja, which just added weight to the notion that this was a guy who could and would slide a knife between your ribs.

Oni Lee sounds like a mayor fucking threat! The ability to teleport-shadow clone yourself multiple times to get to a thousand places quickly AND leave behind copies who could stab, shoot you or even blow themselves up seems really really dangerous.

And he’s a sociopath to boot! You were lucky he wasn’t there last night, he could have probably just teleported to the roof and knifed you.

Bakuda was a new entry, added to the ABB wiki page just ten days ago. The picture only showed her from the shoulders up, a girl with straight black hair, large opaque goggles over her eyes and a metal mask with a gas mask styled filter covering the lower half of her face.  A braided cord of black, yellow and green wires looped over one of her shoulders. I couldn’t pinpoint her ethnicity with the mask and goggles, and her age wasn’t any easier to figure out.

This was the bomb expert, right?

She looks menacing with that setup, which is probably true! Her powers also sounds really worrying!

The wiki had a lot of the same details Armsmaster had mentioned to me.   Bakuda had essentially held a university ransom and she did it with her superhuman ability to design and fabricate high tech bombs.  There was a link to a video titled ‘Bomb Threat @ Cornell’, but I didn’t think it wise to play it in school, especially without headphones.  I made a mental note to check it out when I got home.

Damn, she was basically a domestic terrorist back then!

It’s probably not a good idea to play a bomb threat at a school IN a school, you’re right.

The next thing that caught my eye was the section heading titled ‘Defeats and Captures’.  I scrolled down to read it.  According to the wiki, Lung had apparently suffered a number of minor defeats at the hands of various teams, ranging from the Guild to the local teams of New Wave, the Wards and the Protectorate, but consistently managed to evade capture until last night.  A blurb read, ‘ Armsmaster successfully ambushed and defeated the leader of the ABB, who was weakened from a recent encounter with a rival gang.  Lung was taken to the PHQ for holding until the villain’s trial by teleconference.  Given Lung’s extensive and well documented criminal history, it is expected he will face imprisonment in the Birdcage should he be found guilty at trial.’

Huh, so he WAS bested before! Just not captured! He always evaded prison, until now thanks to Taylor and co.!

Or thanks only to Armsmaster, according to the official story, which to be fair, is what they agreed upon.

The birdcage? What is that, some sort of super-prison like The Raft, Blackgate, Impel Down in One Piece...

Is that place safe? Cause prisons and jail breaks are pretty synonymous in comics

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  I wasn’t sure what to think.  By all rights, I should have been angry that Armsmaster took the credit for the fight that could have cost me my life.  Instead, I felt a building excitement.  I felt like shaking the shoulder of the guy sitting next to me and point to the screen, saying, “Me, I made that possible!  Me!”

Hehe. Excited and happy Taylor is just the best.

With a renewed enthusiasm, I switched tabs to the message board and began looking to see what people were saying about it.  A post by a fan or minion of Lung threatened violence against Armsmaster.  There was a request by someone asking for more information on the fight.  I was given pause by one post that asked whether Bakuda could or would use a large scale bomb and the threat of potentially thousands or hundreds of thousands dead, to ransom Lung back.

Eeash, seems Arms was right about the consequences of this!

That Bakuda threat is really scary

I tried to put that out of my mind.  If it happened, it would be the responsibility of heroes better and more experienced than I.

True, you can’t carry everything on your shoulders.

It struck me that there was one person I hadn’t looked for.  Myself.  I opened up the advanced search page for the Parahumans.net message board and did a search for multiple terms.  I included insect, spider, swarm, bug, plague, and a mess of other terms that had struck me when I had been trying to brainstorm a good hero name.  I narrowed the timeframe of posts to search for posts made within the past 12 hours and hit Search.

Huh, I don’t think you would find that much honestly. I mean, fight aside, you were pretty stealthy on your way in, and the only people who directly met you are the fire dragon currently going to jail, a couple of mooks without their boss, a group of very cryptic teenage villains and the superhero who was going to keep you hidden sooo yeah.

Also kinda hard to search for yourself without having decided on a name yet!

My efforts turned up two posts.  One referred to a villain called Pestilence, active in the UK.  Apparently Pestilence was one of the people who could use ‘magic’.  That is, he was if you believed magic was real, and not just some convoluted or deluded interpretation of a given set of powers.

Pestilence sounds awesome as an insect-power name. One of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse!

Huh, so there are powers that seem more “magical” and others that are more “technological”. Nice.

The second post was in the ‘Connections’ section of the message board, where rescued damsels left their contact information for their dashing heroes, where conventions and fan gatherings were organized and where people posted job offers for capes and the cape-obsessed.  Most were cryptic or vague, referring to stuff only the people in question would know.

That is a nice system to have, to contact people anonymously.

The message was titled, simply, “Bug”

Oh

Well damn, seems someone did notice you

I clicked it and waited impatiently for the outdated system and overloaded school modem to load up the page.  What I got was brief.

Subject: Bug

Owe you one.  Would like to repay the favor.  Meet?

Send a message,

Tt.

OH

IT’S TATTLETALE.

IT’S THE TEENAGE VILLAINS REACHING OUT TO HER AFTER THE LAST FIGHT.

This opens up so many possibilites oh my god

The post was followed by two pages of people commenting.  Three people suggested it was something important, while a half dozen more people decried them as tinfoil hats, Parahumans.net’s term for conspiracy theorists.

Hah! I imagine a message like that would cause speculation even in OUR reality! Considering Taylor’s the protag, those tinfoil hats may be on to something there...

It was meaningful, though.  I couldn’t interpret it any other way; Tattletale had found a way to get in contact with me.

She sure has!

So now both Arms and Tattletale have contacted her, both with offers maybe! Damn, she sure got popular after that one night!

Oh, oooh

What if they offer her to join them?

And what if she accepts?

Oh god the story could go in a wildly different direction now. I hadn’t even considered that in my list of possibilities!

It seems at odd with her desire to be a hero, so maybe not.... But what if?

I’m liking where this is going.

[thatmademadej]

Um okay, here’s a prompt!!: the boys sneak out of work early to go around and do some stuff, romantic pining (:D) and maybe a confession or two is made.

Hi nonny! Sorry this took a lil while but I am in Dundee and I was very drunk last night soooo

(forgive me mistakes in geography, if any, i do not knowabout the states. Theme for this one is Barcelona, by Ed Sheeran (a tune and ahalf.))

It was summer in the City of Angels, and Shane was dreamingof the beach. 

There were very few things he missed about Illinois, buteven in the air-conditioned office his shirt was sticking to his back, and hefound himself longing for the cooling blast of a chill wind. His co-workerswere lounging around in various states of lethargy - Steven had his faceplastered against a window, searching for any cold coming in from the outside,Jen had one of those mini fans close enough to her face to be concerning, andRyan was slumped back in his chair with his shirt rucked up around his midriff,appropriate work attire be damned. Any excuse to be shirtless. 

But yeah, the beach. Shane was dreaming of the beach, andnot Ryan shirtless, yikes. The beach, and the sea, the lovely, cold sea…andice cream. Holy shit, Shane would genuinely have killed a manif it meant getting ice cream at that point. 

Also, flipflops. Flipflops were optimal footwear. The slap,it was good. His head was starting to feel fuzzy-

“You okay, big guy?” Ryan lifted his head and squinted athim, forehead glistening in a way that very much appealed to Shane.

“What? Yeah, no, yeah, I’m just…dying…” Shane mumbled,unsticking his bare calves from the edge of his seat. He’d worn shorts, a rareoccurrence, but it wasn’t enough.

“Hey, do you wanna get out of here?” Ryan said, lowering hisvoice and leaning closer. “We could escape this hellhole.”

“You mean…ditch?” Shane said, tilting his head in confusion.

“Yeah, ditch. I’ll tell them you’re not well; you alreadylook like you’re suffering.”

“Could we get icecream?” Shane asked.

“We could do anything.” Ryan assured him, jumping to hisfeet and hauling Shane up with him. The feeling of Ryan’s hand around his wokehim up.

They managed to convince the higher-ups that Shane wassuffering heatstroke – he swayed pretty convincingly – and it was mild enoughthat he desperately needed Ryan to make sure he got home alright, but not sobad that he needed hospital. Then they were out onto the street, Ryan punchingthe air in victory and laughing uproariously, the burning sun highlighting thebronze undertones in his skin.

“We should go to the beach,” Shane said, feeling thatimplacable teenage feeling that this day was one that would stamp itself ontohis brain indelibly; a feeling of being too big for his skin, for this life.

“Hell yeah,” Ryan said. “Right, we can swing by mine and getsupplies. God, that means we’ll have to get in a car. That’s going to be hell.”

It wasn’t too bad, not with Ryan. Nothing ever was.

The beach was teeming with people. Shane felt a sinkingfeeling in his gut, before Ryan whooped and ran straight for the edge of thewater, ditching his bag somewhere along the way and kicking his shoes off.Shane stared, then ran after him, almost tripping over his long legs, followinghim into the water with a yell.

“Fucking - amazing!” Ryan cried, reaching down and splashinghis face with the salt water. Shane laughed, apprehension at the crowdforgotten. Ryan had never cared about having an audience, and it made Shane feelless…awkward.

“Heads up, big guy.” Ryan splashed him full in the face. Hespluttered, snapped out of his reverie, and lunged for him.

“You’re in for it, Bergara.” Ryan cackled and danced out ofreach, splashing Shane again. Shane splashed him back, feinting before divingafter him and tackling Ryan straight into the water.

“Oh my god you dick! I’m soaked!” Ryan yelled, his peals oflaughter belying the harshness of his words. Shane laughed too, before realisinghe was basically lying on top of him and scrambling to the side, lying on hisback next to Ryan in the shallows.

“I’m cold.” Shane muttered dreamily, feeling the water lapat the backs of his ears. “So cold.”

“Watch out,” Ryan said, sitting up, and a wave crashed overShane. “Oh, it’s Cthulu, come from the depths to ravage mankind.”

“Ravage?” Shane said, wiping salt water out of his eyes toreveal Ryan with his wet shirt plastered to his back. Jesus.

“I dunno, dude, you’re an eldritch horror. Just laugh.” And Shanelaughed, obediently.

They changed out of their wet clothes, Ryan stripping offhis wet shirt and lying back in just his trunks. Shane sighed. This was goingto be a trying day.

“I’m gonna need about a litre of sunscreen,” He muttered,slapping the stuff on his arms and down his legs.

“The curse of the white guy,” Ryan said, shoving hissunglasses on – aviators, because he really though he was that cool. “Here, letme get your back.”

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” Shane stuttered. If Ryan touched him,bare skin to bare skin, he would probably implode. “That’s cool I got it.”

“Are you no-homoing me, dude? Can’t a bro just want to stopa bro getting burnt?” Ryan grinned, just a hint of mocking and maybe somethingelse.

“Whatever,” Shane threw him the bottle, and Ryan slapped thestuff on his weird, long back unceremoniously. Shane managed not to whimper ordo anything else equally embarrassing at the feeling of Ryan’s hands againsthis bare skin. “Thanks.”

“Just bros being bros,” Ryan winked, and Shane’s brainshort-circuited. Was this flirting? Was this what flirting looked like?

Surely not. Ryan was just his…bro. Ugh, that word made himwant to vomit. Just bros being bros.

“You okay?” Ryan was staring at him. “You look like you’regonna be sick.”

“I’m good, I’m fine.” Shane muttered, and flopped down onhis towel, closing his eyes against the glare and examining the way his eyelidsturned all pink and veiny.

Fine, maybe his feelings for his best friend weren’tstrictly…friendly. It wasn’t that big a deal. He couldn’t tell him, so he justhad to keep the feelings inside until one of them died. No big deal.

The two dozed in the sun, Shane periodically getting up toreapply sunscreen. Eventually, as work days ended and schools let out, thebeach started to grow impossibly more packed. The sun dried them off, leaving acrust of salt in Shane’s hair and on his skin. Ryan rolled over to face him,sunglasses slipping down his face to reveal dark eyes.

“Didn’t you say something about ice cream?”

“Oh shit, yeah,” Shane said, struggling to his feet andthrowing his shirt back on. His skin felt rough and new, and he realised that hehadn’t quite been zealous enough with the sunscreen.

They walked along the boardwalk, icecreams in hand. Shanekept getting distracted by Ryan licking at his, and not noticing when his ownstarted to dribble down his wrist (pullyourself together, Madej.) They came to a little café piping salsa onto thestreet, and Ryan grabbed him by the elbow.

“Do you know how to dance?” He asked, forgetting the icecream.

“Ryan,” Shane gestured to his weird, long body, and flaileda little to emphasise the point.

“Come on, it’s easy,” Ryan scoffed, putting a hand on Shane’sshoulder and stepping back and forth, rolling his hips in a way that made Shane’smouth go dry.

“Isn’t that a little…stereotypical of you? Latino guyknowing how to dance?” Shane teased, and Ryan poked him in the shoulder.

“Fuck you, salsa is great fun. I used to do it with Helen.”

At the mention of Ryan’s ex, Shane realised how close theywere standing, and leapt back like he’d been burned.

“What’s your deal today, dude?” Ryan complained. “You’vebeen acting weird. Have you got heatstroke for real?”

“I’m fine,” Shane muttered. “Let’s head back to the beach.”

The sun was finally starting to dip in the sky, castingshadows across Shane’s face and picking out the flecks of brown in Ryan’s darkeyes. He was suddenly, inexplicably angry with himself for feeling this way,for not having the courage to just fucking tell him.

“Come on, dude, what’s wrong?” Ryan hurried after him,catching him by the wrist.

“It’s nothing,” Shane practically choked on the words, and Ryan’sbrow furrowed.

“Was it the dancing? I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,dude, I’ll keep my hands to myself-”

“No! No, don’t do that,” Shane said, too quickly, and thencursed himself. Ryan finally caught up, swinging around to block Shane’s pathon the edge of the sand.

“What the fuck, Shane?” He had to tilt his head backwards tolook him right in the eye, and it was too much for Shane.

“I’m like, stupidly into you,” He blurted, and then coveredhis face with his hands.

“Thank fuck,” He heard Ryan say, and when he dropped hishands to ask him what the hell Ryan reached up and kissed him, fingersthreading into salty hair. Shane groaned and kissed him back immediately, handsdropping to his waist and pulling him closer. He heard people muttering, a fewwolf-whistles, but he didn’t give a fuck.

Ryan’s hand slid out of his hair and down the back of hisneck, and Shane flinched away.

“What?” Ryan asked, breathlessly. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Shane mumbled, pressing his foreheadagainst Ryan’s. “I got burnt, I didn’t put enough sunscreen on.”

Ryan started to giggle, and Shane giggled too, the sundancing over where Ryan’s hands rested on his shoulders. Bronzed hands ruckedhis shirt up, hot against his stomach, and a white smile that warmed him morethan any ball of gas in the sky could. His back pressed into the sand as Ryanleaned over him, trailing kisses down his neck and grinning against hiscollarbone when he gasped.

It was summer in the City of Angels, and Shane was dreamingof the beach.

—-

Thanks for reading! Send me the fic you wish I would write, and maybe I’ll write it ;)

[apriki]

WARS OF THE STARS

So ya homegirl finally saw the last jedi and oh, there are THOUGHTS to be HAD below the cut for spoiler purposes but guys. GUYS.

I LOVED IT

I LOVED IT 

IT WAS WEIRD AND AMBITIOUS AND OVERTHREW THE CONVENTIONS OF THE STAR WARS UNIVERSE IN A WAY FORCE AWAKENS SPECIFICALLY DIDN’T AND I LOOOVVVED IT

when luke threw the lightsaber over his shoulder at the very start i was like OHHHHH YES BITCH...... ITS FUCKIN ON

‘this isn’t going to go how you think’ INDEED

my heart siezed when i saw leia ugh.... and this film treated her with the gravitas she deserved and i loved that 

POE IS A COCKY FLYBOY BUT OKAY THE HUX SCENE WAS LEGITIMATELY FUNNY and domhnall gleeson is having THE MOST FUN 

ROSE’S SISTERRR and i feel like this film took pains to show a more diverse range of people in the resistance and also in the background on the star destroyers? and i really loved that

snoke’s red room of pain lmaoooooooooo. and his mara jade bodyguards

snoke forcing kylo to take his helmet off because he knows kylo needs it to disconnect shut the fuck up

kylo tantrum™ and him wrecking the mask because snoke shattered its meaning to him but also YOU DON’T GET TO WEAR THE MASK IN THIS MOVIE, KYLO. A BITCH IS GONNA BE OUT HERE VULNERABLE AS FUCK

the timeline of this movie was... odd? i feel like we were meant to think rey was with luke for weeks but the rebellion plot was suuuuuper super fast. i employed some mental time dilation to make sense of it lmao

KYLO NOT BEING ABLE TO TAKE THE SHOT AND KILL LEIA

EMO SON LOVES HIS MOM 2K17

holy SHIT i really thought they were going to kill leia off 20 MINUTES IN for a hot minute there

but then she FORCED HER WAY BACK INTO THE SHIP? SUCK ON THAT DUDEBROS WHO SAID SHE WASN’T STRONG WITH THE FORCE LIKE DIE

SPACE LAURA DERN

We Need To Talk About Rey And Kylo’s Sense8 Plot

THAT FIRST SCENE WHERE SHE DIDN’T HESITATE, BITCH

and he FELT IT. HE FELT THAT BLASTER

THEIR FACES when they force felt each other what the guuud FUCK

kylo: you will lead me to skywalker

rey: i think the fuck not

‘i don’t see where you are... only you’

BI.......TCH

THE REST OF THE WORLD FADED AWAY AND THEY WERE STUCK WITH ONE ANOTHER

luke’s sad hermit routine lmfao

luke: the jedi weren’t shit really

me: absolutely fair and true

when rey was like ‘please take this lightsaber and all the responsibility that comes with it’ and luke was like ‘this bitch empty YEET’

porgs are whatever. i wouldve eaten that one on the stick lmao chewbacca is a softie

am i the only one who like doesn’t remember the millenium falcon’s dice in the mirror lmao

sidenote like, adam driver’s voice. right? right?

KYLO CALLING HIMSELF A MONSTER WAS WHAT MADE REY START TO BELIEVE HE WASN’T? WHAT KIND OF BYRONIC NONSENSE......

‘i’d really rather not do this right now’ / ‘yeah me either’

I CACKLED. 

THESE TWO SHIT KIDS WITH A SENSE8 CONNECTION THEY DON’T WANT DROPPING IN ON EACH OTHER’S NARRATIVES

I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS MOVIE IS REAL.

i heard that kylo ren had a sixpack. that kylo ren is shredded

DON’T YOU HAVE LIKE, A COWL OR SOMETHING?????????????????????

MAZ KANATA IS LIVING HER OWN ACTION FILM SHE DOESN’T HAVE TIME FOR YOUR BULLSHIT

loved the casino world that was so obviously based on monaco and dipping into the muddy waters of arms dealing and showing how deep the fight between tyranny and freedom runs in the galaxy. it can get quite baroque with the skywalkers and their drama and i felt like it was a smart smart move to have finn team up with rose to see how exploitation and cruelty don’t always have to be in the form of sith lords or first orders

this movie is so busy dismantling the ideas of heroes and villains. it’s just people making choices and that’s the point and it’s TRRRUUUUUUE

benicio del toro is the new era boba fett and i love HE

poe getting SLAPPED and BLASTERED like multiple times lmaoooooooo like i like him well enough but bitch listen to your betters!

i kind of loved that finn and rose went off on this grand plan to save the resistance and it.... didn’t work. like everything they kept trying just DID NOT WORK but there was still hope at the end? friends it was beautiful

YOU’RE NOT ALONE

KYLO SLIDING OUT INTO THE CORRIDOR IS UHHHHHH THE STRAIGHT UP BEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN

HE’S A SIXTEEN YEAR OLD LINKIN PARK FANATIC AND I LOVE

rey in the rain

the first time she’s ever felt it?

and then the world goes QUIET AGAIN

WHAT KIND OF WOLFGANG AND KALA BULL SHIT

and okay the end of this scene where kylo pulls his hand away

AND WIPES OFF

THE RAIN

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

CANNOT

I CANNOT.

WHAT IS THIS AGE OF INNOCENCE FUCKING BUFFONERY SCREAAAMM

‘did he tell you what happened?’

and like, kylo could just say it himself

but he knows rey wouldn’t believe him 

and luke fucking LIED

‘THAT SKYWALKER BLOOD’

me two years ago: what’s an adam driver

me now: (laughing nervously) what the f

‘why does the force keep connecting us?’ BITCH ME TOO LMFAO 

the way the world STOPS ALL AROUND THEM

oh my god the flashbacks

like i feel like we got more than enough of this alluded to in force awakens but some people need it in black and white i guess and HERE THE FUCK IT IS

‘and the last thing i saw were the eyes of a frightened boy whose master had failed him’

and okay WOW @ ME EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO HAS CONTINUALLY SAID HAN, LEIA AND LUKE DIDN’T FAIL KYLOHE LITERALLY TRIED TO MURDER HIM

look.

i am the most stoic bitch in a movie theatre. like shit does not phase me but i fucking teared UP my face just CRUMPLED LIKE UGHHHHH

AND ADAM’S DRIVER’S STUPID FUCKING FACE AND HIS DUMB EYES

HIS PARENTS SENT HIM AWAY BECAUSE THEY WERE AFRAID OF HIM AND HIS UNCLE TRIED TO FUCKING MURDER HIM

‘YOU WERE WRONG TO THINK HIS HEART HAD DECIDED!’

and THIS is what’s at the heart of the last jedi - dismantling the myth of the hero. there are no heroes, only people, and luke is the embodiment of thatto rey he’s a myth but to kylo he was a man and that’s how he stumbled but he stumbled because he believed his OWN myth i’m just..... dying slowly

THEIR HANDS TOUCHING

THEIR FINGERS

FUCK OFF

THE ELECTRICITY

I FEEL THE CONFLICT IN HIM

REY CRYING AND KYLO TEARING UP

GOODBYE BITCHES I’M FUCKIN OUTTA HEEEYYYYA

rey: i saw you at my side

kylo: well i saw YOU at MY side

me: fellas,

REY BLASTING OFF RIGHT INTO THE HEART OF THE ENEMY CAUSE SHE BELIEVES SHE CAN SAVE BEN’S SOUL

REY GOING INTO THE DARKNESS AND NOT BEING AFRAID

AND TRYING TO SEE HER PARENTS BUT ONLY SEEING HERSELF

snoke claiming that he mainpulated rey and kylo looks up in FURY because he realises he was manipulating him too

LIKE HE ALWAYS KNEW

BUT HERE IT IS IN BLACK AND WHITE

his fingers twitching 

the saber moving

me in my seat: boy he bout to DO IT

AND KILLS

HIS

TRUE

ENEMY

i SCREAMED

well i didn’t scream because i was in a theatre but i screamed on the inside. i would watch kylo or ANY character kill every person who ever manipulated abused used them and HOW oh my GOD 

HE COULDN’T KILL REY AND HE KILLED SNOKE INSTEAD.

HE COULDN’T KILL LEIA AND HE COULDN’T KILL REY

JUST A BOY IN A MASK

THE EYES OF A FRIGHTENED BOY

like he just wants someone to to TRUST and they all keep FAILING for all his talk to rey of her constantly looking for parental figures like all he fucking wants is to belong to something??

it’s whatever.

like i can but i also can’t believe we actually got this character so shaped and formed by abuse and manipulation KILLING HIS ABUSER. like KNEELING IN FRONT OF SNOKE and being beaten down and down and FINDING THE STRENGTH TO KILL HIM ANYWAY

the conflict of this series is happening in the galaxy but it’s also happening in ben solo’s heart and that’s just about enough for me to mcFREAKING lose it

THE WAY REY CONSISTENTLY CALLS HIM BEN.’

BEN. BENJY. BENJO BOY

REY AND KYLO FIGHTING

BACK TO BACK

BACK! TO BACK!

REY WITH THE CROSSGUARD SABER KYLO WITH ANAKIN’S SABER

KILLING THOSE RED DUDES MAYBE THE KNIGHTS OF REN? THE SLOW MO

FIGHTING TOGETHER................. 

POETRY

I DIED

I FUCKING STRAIGHT UP ASCENDED

REY CALLING HIM BEN AND HIM FLINCHING

EVERY

SINGLE

TIME

‘you’re nothing to the story - but not to me’

LOOK,

LISTEN,

I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS MOVIE IS REEEEAAALLLL

when kylo asked rey to join him i swear to god i heard the opening synth of carly rae jepsen’s ‘run away with me’

FORCE FIGHTING FOR THE SABER

DARKNESS AND LIGHT TO MEET IT

BUT ALSO DARKNESS IN HER AND LIGHT IN HIM

THE BALANCE

THE BALANCE!!

THEY’RE EQUALS THEY’RE SO EQUAL THEY FUCKING

TORE

THE SABER

APART

i seriously thought this was going to be the film’s climax but there was like 40 more minutes after this ksadjfkdsfj

LAURA DERN AND LEIA wow that was some BUSINESS 

and leia explaining to poe about doing the right thing vs. looking like a hero MY GOD this film is on another level. how the fuck did it both take star wars to town over like its most fundamental conventions but still feel true to the series and respectful and genuine? I AM... AGOG

LAURA FUCKING DERN LIGHTSPEEDING INTO A SPEED DESTROYER HOLLLLYY SHIT

and the no sound CRACKING APART of the cruiser the LIGHT 

this movie was shot so beautifully thanks disneymarvelfox conglomerate

honestly i’m still astounded that a film so rooted in nostalgia, nearly dependent on it in a way, firmly and deeply embedded a ‘let the past die’ moral through its narrative. LIKE, WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF BLOCKBUSTER???????? but i loved it, i loved that luke and kylo were both so determined to bury the past and rey was equally determined to dig it up. because how can you have balance without it? 

the whole hoth version 2 snow planet was beautiful and the BURGUNDIES the contrast i love an aesthetic!

(tastes red substance hesitantly) ‘Salt.’

i want a crystal wolf

LMFAO YODA JUST BEING A FUCKING TROLL WHAT THE HELL

they couldn’t phone ewan mcgregor for a yung hot jesus obi wan cameo? i’d be into it

LUKE’S FOOT NOT SHOWING A RED PRINT THAT’S WHEN I KNEW HE WASN’T THERE

kylo: .........i’ll destroy the girl

luke: no you wont

kylo: yeah no i wont u right u right

LUKE AND LEIA OH MY GODDDD the GRAVITAS of mark and carrie!!! it was so beautiful

when kylo gave an order and hux repeated it super loud and kylo GAVE HIM THE WILDEST SIDE EYE I FUCKING CHOOOOKEKEKKEKEKED

i’m glad somewhere along the way they realised hux is like the biggest joke character lmfao

bye phasma

finn’s storyline really god sidelined this movie huh? i loved rose a LOT and i loved them together but did we need the poe plot like really

all the scenes with the og trio have been so layered and beautiful you can 

though i thought luke died in the fire and it was his force ghost not him like force astral projecting lmao

LUKE WALKING OUT OF THE RED SMOKE FROM THE GUNFIRE DDDAMMMMNN

‘do you think you got him????????’ KDBFKSHDFKHDS

ooof that final confrontation scene though

damn right you should apologise luke lmfao

SEE YA, KID

kylo’s anger in the last third is just wooooof like he thinks he can destroy every person and every remnant that rejected him but he’s just running on his own anger until he realises luke isn’t really there and there’s nothing else for him to fight

OOOOF

THE BINARY SUNSET

that GOT me i was verklempt

rey and poe meeting was cute

i hope they’re not setting up a love triangle cause like that shit is tiiirrreeeedddd

i like finn and rey and also finn and rose like im happy to go down whatever road they take

THAT FINAL SCENE

SNOKE WAS WAY FUCKING DEAD BUT THEY WERE

STILL

CONNECTED

HIM BENEATH HER ABOVE

YES BITCH LOOK AT EACH OTHER

and shutting the door but like the FALCON

I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S GONNA BE TWO MORE YEARS

is the fucking novelization out yet?

or the script?

i want to swim in this movie god stay tuned as my thoughts #develop and #grow

[survivemiddleearth]

Rites of Passage

-

Crow- Bruh. I thought we were going to be friends/allies in this game but then I hear you were telling the entire tribe how I was not to be trusted and as much as you mock me for my lack of a social game, it sure saved me there! But still love ya and hope things have gotten better, and hey, maybe you were smart for targeting me from the start :P

Dennis- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmc21V-zBq0 

Roxy- runaway with me noww  oh its come away with me fuck

Dylan- king of first boot

Well mine was short lol. but I think Crow has played an amazing game and def deserves this dub :)

Crow- Although I personally trusted you, you were just unfortunately the outsider from the start and with having proof of Drew/Zach sparing me, I didn't want to risk reaching my neck out for you and getting labeled as trying to play both sides. You were robbed though, it was just because our tribe was so garbage at comps...

Dennis- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2WWrupMBAE 

Roxy- We didn’t meet in this game

Dylan- king of second boot

-

Crow- Legendary flop! You were hilarious and completely messy and if there's any way to bond with me, it's that. Unfortunately flops are always targeted for some reason pre-merge (maybe cuz they wreck their tribe average??? no shade, but) but I would have KILLED for your commentary from post-merge onwards cuz I felt completely alone being the only one constantly hogging the spotlight :/

Dennis- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfHHv7yOYX0

Roxy- skinny legend

Dylan- you would have killed the lip syncing comp but these losers flipped the vote

Aah, what a fun time I had during this game (from the little I remember). I still would like to say it was a wonderful tribal, 8-0? wow so great. COuldn’t do it without people hating me <3 jkjk. Anyways! It was fun while it lasted and hopefully was fun for everyone that was in it too.

Crow-  Okay, truth be told, I really thought you were like the social queen of your tribe but when tribal came around and people said your name, I felt powerless, as the only person from Pikachu, to try and sway it, and especially when you seemed okay with it. Thank you for having a graceful exit, not many people can do that nowadays....

Dennis- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CID-sYQNCew 

Roxy- http://sketchtoy.com/68755176 

Dylan- queen of having crazy fast internet. accepted her defeat which was iconic 

This game seemed very fun and I loved the opportunity to play, I wish I didn’t get so busy so I could’ve backstabbed Roxy like I planned. Ah well. Congrats on getting so far I hope the game was fun for you all!

Crow- I know I'm a big reason why you were cut just shy of merge but it was more of a move to solidify Sammy/Johnny (and supposed to be Eric...) and break apart the potential trio I saw in you, Roxy, and Dennis (I mean, now I'm sitting next to both of them in f4 so can't say I regret it :P ) You were a very intelligent, brash guy and I hope you know that your placement was not indicative of your game. Hope the novel turns out well!

Dennis- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1tAYmMjLdY 

Roxy- MY AUSSIE BUDDY UGH/ I wonder how this game wouldve gone with you here. You were fun to talk to and play  with and i loved chatting about the shows we both loved together/

Dylan- king of being blindsided. second season where I watched you get blindsided from a different tribe. 

-

Crow- Thank god you didn't try in this game. I didn't even want to get into the ring with you again and go for Round 3. Thanks for making this one easy :P

Dennis-  You freaking stole my tom bombadil to just be inactive -.-

Roxy- L

Dylan-  making it to merge without doing anything ? queen

That damn bitch Beyoncé got me again huh. I swore I wouldn't let her after last time but she always has to have the last word. Thank god she's been outed as a satanic black witch!!! Thank you to the brave former drummer for walking in the light and exposing her depravity. I will expect my reparations settlement money in the mail.

Crow- Okay I literally feel so bad like comforting you in that round but know that I was completely blindsided by it myself so I really hope that wasn't misunderstood as me trying to make sure you were blindsided asghsgsho but thanks for taking the bullet then! Love a good shiel- bodyguard.

Dennis- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdCslA8xs98

Roxy-  nnnn I remember when I saw you in merge I was hyper excited to play with you. I never really allied with you or met you in games so finally getting to play with you finally a familiar face from your tribe was refereshing and welcoming. I told you to f2 me or im quitting lmfao. That lasted long ... rdfc Your vote off was a mess of flipping multiple names thrown and idols. I feel like we drifted during the day or 2 leading up to the tribal and we didn't really talk game that round which was sad. I really wanted to have you as a clsoe allly that game but it ended up the way it did since I saw jg as a closer ally.

Dylan- literally actually the most robbed person in this entire game. you were missed

This game was pretty fun. All of the people I was close to voting me out and losing on a twist was pretty shitty. I’d just never do these challenges ever again. :P

Crow- You're honestly just a mess. P.S. My beard is now gone because of you.

Dennis- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRh_vgS2dFE

Roxy- hahah hi hi johnny. “Daddy”. You are always a great blast to play with even though we have yet to truly get somewhere together. ALthough in hos we were close it was just a diverging of end game interests that tore us apart. I remember the jokes we made about applying for this org. I had no idea when I was applying that I would make it this far and when I applied for you as a joke haha. My biggest regret is not telling you about the vote and what was going down. Our relationship this game was sort of foggy but it was great while it lsted. 

Dylan- voted for me but you’re so lovable 

-

Crow- We were never on a pre-merge tribe together, then you made the big-ass move to blindside Drew at the first vote (without telling me, which no hard feelings) so when it came down to our mini-tribe's tribal, I felt like it was too little too late for both of us to try and make something happen together? I'd say we just fell on opposite sides rather than being enemies. But I hope you've been watching because I know you're an analytical guy who's obsessed with Survivor so I would love to hear your input as a juror.

Dennis- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YShWLjj1TO0 

Roxy- UGH SO ROBBED!!! We had so much potential to play a fun game together but the unmerge robbed us of that T_T im glad we got to play together for one round at least

Dylan-  you and I have a lot in common, we both put our trust in the wrong person.

Hey y’all! This was game was fun and fresh and I did better than last time so I definitely achieved my goal! There really wasn’t anything shady going on until the night I left and I’m sure that was aired out so I have nothing to spill. Tbh I was just bored and wanted to be messy and have fun. It was a fun last night! I had a great time playing with everyone and good luck to the final 4!

Crow- Truth be told, I really didn't see myself voting you out so soon. I thought we were working together, sorta, but it always felt like you had better allies? Which I don't fault you for, I know I was not the most critical ally, for like, anyone in this game, but that's purely the reason I decided to vote you out over Eric. I might regret it though since Eric pretty much shunned me from there on out and I know you would've really appreciated me saving you.....but it is what it is. (also you didn't swipe on my tinder so im kinda insulted but dats fine!)

Dennis- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfWlot6h_JM 

Roxy- Hey zach!! You seem like a really sweet person. We didn’t really hit if off and we never clicked together. WE had different allies and diff groups so us allyining was never really an option. I recon its just how the game unfolded and you were loyal to your allies while i was to mine and i respect you for that despite the mess of how you left. 

Dylan- why didn’t you give me the legacy idol. I’m kidding I would’ve misused it 

I really didn’t know what I was getting into here, and I REALLY liked it!! Who knew performing arbitrary semi-public tasks with complete strangers could be so much fun? I wish each of you the best, in the game and out of it. May Manwë smile upon those who walk the world; may Mandos rule with steady hand those who rest in his hall.

Crow- Literally, you were the only one I was just like, hey, he's probably not going to lie to me. And so it's ironic that we also never talked game other than the casual vote here and then....you were a very interesting person though so I wish I hadn't got caught up in the game as much and really tried to connect with you as a person, and for that, I take the blame.

Dennis- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE-1RPDqJAY 

Roxy- Ford!! When I first saw you in the scvanger hunt I asked "are you single ?" nnn you seem like a cool dude and you were fun to play with despite the fact we never really talkde game and we werent really aligned this game/ I still promised you to be honest to you and I think i pulled through on that. It was amazing fun to play with you and i hope you luck in yoru studies.

Dylan- you were amazing sweetie as a newbie you made it so far omg 

Hey guys! Like I said before I quit, I have no regrets about the game and how I played it. If I stuck around the community I would have loved to be friends with all of you! Best of luck to you all and may the best player win!

Crow- Hope everything is okay in your real life and I hope you were never offended by anything I did or said. I completely understand your game decisions and you don't ever need to apologize for them. You were a chaotic mess, but genuine and real, so you have my respect. You also proved what I've always thought you were (even back in Great Lakes) as a really go-getter type of player.

Dennis- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrcMMyNeJJs 

Roxy- rip gl with life

Dylan- I loved how we found middle ground during the F7. 

hiii yes i don’t have much to say. i had a blast and made some amazing friends and just goofed off a lot. No hard feelings, you are all icons...I’m rooting for one of you but i wish you all good luck!

Crow- Okay I love you as a person, but like, you also betrayed me for no reason so I'm a little confused as to why or how we stand now, but just know that whatever your reasons for doing so, it doesn't change how I see you as a person. And even through my bitterness in the betrayal, I will admit, you didn't deserve to go out like that.

Dennis- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSvFpBOe8eY 

Roxy- Sammy!! Weve had a very varied ride in our org careers and this game was no exception/ I feel like timezones really got to us this time round and early on our games diverged when I tried to save stephen and you tried to save Eric.  During merge and then unmerge i think you bonded more with jay and that tribe so we never really played as allies. Howveer i think the way you left did not give you justice. Jay letting you get idoled out after you were one of the few who stuck with her and then her quitting just because people were voting her out. You did NOT deserve that. And I was honestly  mad at jay for doing you dirty. 

Dylan- cirie who ? Jay shoulda used that idol on you you were the second most robbed queen 

-

Crow- Well, I had your back. I knew of multiple of your misdeeds in previous rounds and I think you knew that? But game-wise we were very compatible in playing styles (not similar, but definitely compatible - you were the strategic one, I was the......other...one) so although your exit was less than glorious for me, I do hope you find comfort in your gameplay and know that you were really impactful on the game, for better or worse.

Dennis- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXzDu071RdQ 

Roxy- nnnnnn she snapt

Dylan- there’s not enough space to describe anything but the takeaway is that I hope you know that like I actually genuinely care about your well being 

We just want to say a sincere thank you to everyone who came to have fun and played to their fullest extent. Jo and I have worked on this game for months and like we’ve said all along: the goal for this was for everyone to have fun in the chaos and the world of LOTR and Survivor combined. There’s a lot of drama and toxicity in the org community and in the world right now and if this game provided you with any sort of reprieve from either that’s all we could ever hope for. We hope you had a great time, we know we did, and we want to reiterate again: thank you all for bringing this game to life and for participating. Good luck to our final 4!

Love, 

Olivia and Joanna <3

[arkus-rhapsode]

My Current Thoughts on Fairy Tail

Hey guys. This is a bit of an off the cuff post, but fuck it, I want to talk about this. There isn’t going to be any flash or snark, this just going to be me speaking from the heart.

So we got only two more chapters of Fairy Tail, and the raws of 544 are already out and it’s not good. Like by no means is it good. But I think people are waiting for me to review this chapter, and I will, but it’s not good, but this is not 0/10 worthy. Like is this one of the worst chapters of Fairy Tail? God no! But I do wanna take kinda this time to reflect on this series.

I make it no secret that this arc is awful and before someone does the inevitable “Well if you don’t like it don’t read it”, I hope you realize that I’ve taken the time to list everything positive that comes out of a chapter as well as the bad. I don’t imminently write it off as “This sucked”, but what’s good about the series has kinda been fading for a while now. Now is Fairy Tail the worst manga out there? Fuck no. If you honestly think FT is the worse manga then I dare you to read Freezing or Wolf Guy or Air Gear. I stayed with this series because despite every flaw it had, nothing was ever bad enough in the past to be like, “Wow this is awful”. This series produced a lot of likeable characters, pretty fun world, and some legitimately great moments and arcs. So telling me to abandon a series that gave me all that before this current mess, and before it really got bad, like don’t tell me that.

And don’t tell me that these flaws have been here since the beginning, because I’ve read this series since the beginning, it did not suffer some of these problems. Was there fanservice? Sure. Was there friendship speeches? Yes. But here’s the thing, every shounen series has done stuff like that. Like this is something that wasn’t pioneered by FT. But the difference was like tons of other shounen series, FT knew how to balance those aspects with compelling narrative and character development. Like early on, there was consequences like death and expulsion. There was a genuine edge. Not everything was an easy answer.  “because we’re fairy tail” wasn’t the end all answer. But then around like the Oracion seis arc it started to take a lot more of the easy answers.

Like it wasn’t fully consuming the story, but it started to become noticeable. It wasn’t till the GMG that it just consumed the story. It feel back on the lazy elements. And I know tons of people were declaring FT garbage at that time and some still kept reading and I can tell you why I wasn’t blasting the series when that happened, because before this arc there was nothing really horrible. Declaring a whole series trash because of one arc is so damn reckless, because with the story not over and all the stuff that came before the GMG, you know that Mashima would’ve learned and noticed what was happening and he did. 2/3s of tartaros felt like a goddamn apology letter. Like it was doing things similar to the beginning of the story, but then near the end it kinda started falling back on it’s repetative easy answers.

I think that Mashma, just did that because I think he just lose some of his spark. Like he wasn’t going to try and take as many chances. And that sucks. Mashima seems like a very nice guy, he always is working, and damn I give him credit on how much effort he’s put into his art. That what hurts when the story telling doesn’t match the effort being put into the storytellng.

Look Im not going to blame the whole decline in quality on the shippers. Trust me, love the big 4, hate the big 4,but shipping has been around for a while and I don’t claim I can’t see why a guy writing a story is trying to appease the most vocal fanbase. Now do I think shippers are except from criticism? No. But then again, it’s not them writing the damn story. Is the fact a lot of them stick around solely for the ships kinda head scratching? Yeah, but here’s the thing, I’m sure a lot of people have felt that way at one point or another. I fully admitted to getting into the series because of a ship. Ships are one of the most subjective things on the internet.

But, back to this rant, these last two arc are just so bad. There’s no real effort, there’s no real consequences, and it’s just so easy. For the longest time this series wasn’t awful, maybe just hovering around average, but nothing truly bad outside GMG. But Avatar and Alvarez have just been disappointments. Again there is like no effort and that hurts even more because this is the conclusion. So many things are to be wrapped up in the last arc that have had this great build up and it just crumbles. Like it’s so hard to watch characters I like just dick around or this big thing I’ve been waiting for just to be resolved in such a wet fart manner.

Like are these last two arcs enough to call FT a bad series? No. Even with all the shit that’s pulled, it’s not enough to screw over all the beginning arcs and tell someone not to read it, but these two arcs have confirmed that this is a terrible conclusion. 

Ugh... Look despite all this crap, I can’t say FT is the worse, but this arc definitely is. Anyway you’ll see my review later but honestly I just wanted to say what’s been on my mind for a while now.

[atlantias]

date #2 of 2017

so i saw the 22 year old TA again from this story and it was actually one of the best dates i ever had. we spent a long time together so get ready for it lol

he planned on taking me to this cove right by the ocean to show me the night sky with all the stars and the moon in all their glory and he was obsessing over the sky being just perfect with minimal clouds

so i drive to his house n im not as nervous as i was from the first story. he invites me in and i sit in his kitchen as he makes a smoothie lmaooo it was actually kinda grody....spinach, kale, mango flavored fish oil, and blueberries was the combination. he got me to try it and i was lowkey disgusted and he laughed a lot at my reaction lol. i learned he was just casually reading a book of war poetry by WWI poets and i was like shit dude ur intelligent...

i told him i didn’t eat dinner and that i was gna eat mcdonalds (i remember from the last date that he didn’t enjoy mcdonalds) and he actually was down to go! as we drove on the way there we talked more music n stuff and he let me look at his music and i got to choose the songs!! he and i like the same shit! blink 182, the killers (my fav), flume, joywave, old fall out boy, etc. also come to find out he likes one of my FAV SONGS EVERRR (i actually found it on tumblr 23858 years ago here and i had never met anyone else who knew about the song). he and i sang it together n i felt so happy. he’s super into films and we bonded over how we liked the inclusion of alfred hitchcock’s psycho into the song.

so we eat our mcdonalds n blast music and we decide to watch bates motel (neither of us had seen it) because it related to psycho lol. he and i cuddled on the couch and after a couple of episodes we took a break and i actually MET HIS MOM????? his mom was pretty and very sweet. she asked me about myself and was very inviting and kind. i was so surprised to meet his mom..... and i was surprised by how comfortable i felt. it was a nice contrast from experiences with my ex in which i freaked out about meeting his family weeks in advance and i didn’t feel comfortable during the introductions when i finally met them. 

at one point we ran out to his car and he drove to the cove but unfortunately it was so cloudy you couldn’t see anything. however, we did walk out a little bit to hear the ocean and i smiled up at the moon thanking the moon for being there for everything n for giving me these rly nice moments ill remember forever. i thanked the moon for sharing this contentment with me. he also showed me some of his fav places in the town growing up, mostly places he smoked weed lmao

when we got back to his house, we kept watching bates motel and honestly he reminds me of freddie highmore from bates motel bc they’re both a lil quirky and nerdy and totally dorky. he even mentioned how he is like freddie highmore “when it comes to things like this” right before he turned my head to kiss me :) then we just started making out and at one point he just laid his head down on me as i was stroking his hair and rubbing his back and it was genuinely one of the most calming experiences ever. he told me my hair smells good and i confessed that he smells good everywhere lol. i apologized for blue balling him at one point and he told me it was totally fine and didn’t make me feel bad about being on my period. he told me he was falling asleep on me and so we ended up going up to his bedroom. he gave me an oversized t shirt he brought back from college with the word "fargo” (the capital of north dakota) on it, the place his mom his from.

up in his bedroom we cuddle, and i notice how neatly i fit into his arms and intertwined with his body. it’s not uncomfortable, it’s not too hot, our bones don’t hurt each other, and our breathing is in sync. our heartbeats are straight up the same rate. he smells really good too. he smells like a home. we started making out more and for a second time i apologized for blue balling him. he told me not to worry about it because he knew there was a chance we wouldn’t have sex and he was okay with it bc he still wanted to hang out with me. we talked a lil in the dark (where i feel the most safest) and we talked about our relationships with our parents and our families and our struggles as divorced kids. 

in the morning at 7:30, i noticed he got up and left and didn’t come back to bed. i rolled over and he had left me a note on his pillow next to me apologizing about the indigestion he got from the blueberries from his smoothie the night before. he wrote “feel free to wake me up if you rise before me” LOL. it was cute. i wanted to spend more time with him, so i headed down to his basement where he was sleeping on the couch. i asked him if he had to get up at a certain time in the morning and he said no, so i ended up canceling my work, lying about a car problem. he welcomed me on the couch, tucking me in under the covers, but 2 minutes later i told him he could come back up to bed. 

we cuddled more in bed, i didn’t really let him sleep lol and we talked more. he asked me about my favorite books and we talked about our friends and china and just random topics. we stayed in bed for 3 more hours haha :) we made out a couple more times too and he told me he likes my icy cold feet. he keeps me warm n i smile a lot when im with him :) i felt super comfortable with him, we were able to banter. at one point i said “i like hanging out with you” really softly and he went “what?” and i repeated it just a bit louder and he said “what?” again but then said “im kidding, i like hanging out with you too” and i got pretend mad at him by turning my back to him and telling him he’s an asshole and it was cute. he told me we fit together like puzzle pieces and i was like wow is he a real human being???? this is so random but i taught him a lil about periods (he’s an only child n never learned about these things) 

fast forward, we go to a diner that i had always wanted to go to! and he pays! wow! we talk about random shit like fav movies and school and food. i dared him to eat an entire gob of botter and to chug the small glass of maple syrup; both of which he did, and i gagged each time. we also went to whole foods (my first time going) and he bought me green tea and mango mochi! at one point it was so cold that i coughed all the powder from the mochi all over myself, my phone, and his car and he laughed so hard. on the drive back to his house, i asked if i could play a song, and i played one of my fav songs, lonely lullabies by kweku collins, and he said he really liked it ahhh!!

before we parted ways, he kissed me briefly and then hugged me (picking me up ugh). i made him promise that he wouldn’t watch bates motel without me. we pinky promised and he kisses the pinky which is something i do and it made me so happy :) then he texted me later saying “that was a whole lotta fun. we should do that again soon” 

summary n notes: i like that he keeps his eyes closed when we kiss. he keeps them squeezed shut. i rly like him as a human being, he’s interesting and he’s interested in me ? confused. im kinda nervous bc our universities are 1.5 hours away from each other. his mom asked how far away our schools were when we met and he randomly asked me if i had a car at college. i rly rly do like him but i dont know what he wants or what i even want. also back at college i have a fwb that i get along with rly well as a person n this sounds so selfish but i don’t want to cut my fwb out of my life either. i have only one more week of break so i hope i see him again :)