#its just not my vibe thoug

[whos-hotter-jjba]

Hottest JJBA Outfit Bracket - Round 3 Match 7

[probablydinosaurs]

five joking about his life or throwing it in their faces makes the siblings uneasy. they cant FATHOM it and it hurts. tbh i feel once they aren't all in such danger and ignoring his warnings and ring leader like behavior , they would slowly start spoiling him a bit. he wouldn't notice at all at first but over time, he gets a deep sense that everyone pities him but he cant place it. he'd start denying any hand outs or good will bc he doesn't want to be seen as a headcase that needs coddling. and i think different siblings are in different camps if u put "baby" and "old man" on a sliding scale. none of these are like extreme stances, more just the vibes they feel from five.

Luther: old man 80% bc hes the only one that see's five's "older" self and can 100% say. same guy no changes. mentally unsound…. but like five stated in that whole fiasco, Luther has daddy issues and cant like. see that old man in such a young man. Luther has 1 half a brain cell. his need to nod and agree to every old man he listens to illnesses wont allow it. so he weirdly flip flops. he also develops the habit of trying to pick five up to calm him down, witch ends very poorly each time.

Diego: protective brother energy. cant fathom his brother got THAT much trauma in him. and is older then him. 13 years of being all the same age. 13 years of sharing the same birthday. and now well everyone ages up together, five is in his own corner being like 67 well the rest are like mm idk math 40 something. Diego just cant…think that far. denial. every time he thinks he's used to this old man or starts seeing him as the same age as everyone, five info dumps about the inner workings of a specific gun or the how good the wine in the celler will be 37 years exactly from now and to wait…Diego just mentally reboots.

Allison: baby camp. didn't take him very seriously back in the day either bc his ego is the size of a watermelon. and oh look the lil guy thinks bc he has more life behind him then us, he thinks he's the smartest one here. yeah right. she makes him his coffee when he wakes up or folds his Landry bc she needs to do hers and he forgot to take his out. five just thinks shes being passive aggressive but its more "if i don't then he might hurt himself or mumbling to himself about how forgetful he has become and i do NOT want to here that right how. il just do it. " tough love babying. five sometimes lets her brush his hair when he's in a bad state of mind.

klaus: depends on the day. he is the one who tease him about his height the most. i think Klaus tries to pinch his cheeks at least once a day and nearly got a blade through his hand at attempt # 23. but he also is second one that weirdly respects him the most. complementing how happy he looks DUE to his retirement and not just in general. likes buying him the stuffiest old man clothes ever from off the road and down an alley thrift shops, thinking everyone would find them silly but five like. genuinely adores them and borderlines on feeling the want to hug him but neh. too stubborn. almost though. witch is rare. five will never admit that he thinks Klaus has a good fashion sense.

ben: the brother that ruffles his hair the most. the two that severed the family. they have a unspoken energy about them. you don't mention my death, i wont bring up your past deal. Ben doesn't really care anyway. on the "i got my brother back, that's all that matters." camp with viktor. fuels five's need to bicker on topics. their hard ass but still playful energy balances each other out. is the one that tells klaus that the clothes he picks out for five is too much and he will hate them but gets surprised every time five likes them. riiight right. he wouldn't have the tastes as the 13 year old i remember him as. he downs scotch like a mad lad. gotta remember that.

viktor: leader of the "he could have come back to us as an acorn like dad warned and id still keep him in my pocket." camp. just happy to have his favorite sibling back. though they admit five also being the most open with him makes him uneasy. he wants to listen about the past 45 years but it can be very existential for viktor. five understands and lets him breath if its too much. (stealing this from this post) i feel like five owns and somehow still has on him a very worn and well loved copy of viktor's book. with notes and highlights scribbled in them. the cover fell off and five sewn it back on then poorly laminated it with the commission's laminating machine . viktor would cry if he saw it. full blown meltdown together.

[redraven393]

watching The Wild Robot Let's gooo

sun is shining and girly is clearly a morning person-love the multilinggual introduction.

someone out there has just wasted what I assume must have been millions of dollars to get this state-of-the-art robot only for it to be stranded in the middle of NO WHERE.

she is every managers ideal sales person omg her Voice acting is soo good!

OPP Gilry NOO (hits by waves) GILRY CLIMB Like a Crab

OH MY GOD SHE CAN MAKE STIKERSS- and she give them to all them.

Rozzem is fukin overwhelmed. her city-girl vibe is not meshing well with the Wild life.

ohhh~ learning mode? guess we doing the talking animal things huh, but from what I see from the day and night cycle it at least took Rozzem 8 days to learn the Animal language.

ROZZEM HONEY NOOO- omg they are all assholes-Rozzem sounded so sad omg honey.

Zeus is being an asshole - the Raccoons are being Assholes!! >:(

OMG NATURE IS JUST BEING AN ASSHOLE TO HER T-T

all of this was just from the first 10 minutes of the movie holly shit.

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

OMG WE KILLED A FAMILY T-T Rozzem is not catching a break

THE BABY!- GET THEM ROZZ-

A BABY!!!!- BABY - A BABBY

no wait Rozz honey you cant just left a new born baby what to heck.

that's what you get for ignoring a toddler Rozz, they break your shit.

I've seen this view a lot.

SHUT UP MOM THEIR ACTING IS ON POINT (also night shade salad?)

helo Pinktail- a mom friend Rozz need- OMG did someone die?- he lived YAY

The possum mom and her Kids are great

________________

Rozz a while ago: I need to go back I no longer have a task I CAN'T FUNCTION WITHOUT A TASK so I must left this newborn

PinkT a tired mom of 7: oh honey being a mom is a full-time task

Rozz immediately committed to be a mom: :D happy to serve my task

___________

Rozz Honey, please be gentle with the newborn. oh shit, it's the FOX, what do you want FINK-local Goose EXPERT?

Rozz please tell your manufacturer to add some self-preservation program in you the next time you see them FINK PLEASE AT LEAST HELP THE CHILD

oh yeah no one has named the newborn yet

"Kindness is not surviving skill" The audience would remember that and judge you when the time comes.

OMG Rozz you cant just admit to murder like that get a lawyer first at least

OMG BABY NOOO- oh yeah Rozz? and launching the Baby into the air like last time is???

NEW HOME Project Let's GOO- omg that is a big hole, man is gonna be a cause to a plot point later I can tell.

BABY FIRST WORDS- love that the baby is learning by mimicking Roz & Fink's banter

Roz no you need to encourage the Baby

Yes-yes name for the baby! BRIGHTBILL

home finish, Fink is living that sugar baby lifestyle

it's not copying its taking inspiration you beaver!

Storytime for the baby!

for a fox that was so ready to kill the kid you sure do worry about their innocence Fink

ahh motherhood~

YOU CANT RUN FROM FATHERHOOD FINK- This is to heal your inner childhood

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

TIME SKIPS!!!!

oh-oh no- OH NO BRIGHTBILL NOO why cant you inherit you Fox!dad personality instead T - T

THE ROBOT NOISES!!!

oh but Roz did teach him another language POG

glad you're still here with us Fink- and they're not WEIR they are Special.

aww they are so close to one another thoug- omg she is raising him to be a scientist

hi PinkTail and Kids- are they your new litter Pink?

SWIM TIME!- FINK is fukin savage to our boy

it's a swim alright....- aww Roz your mothering Program is on point now- Roz~ you need to let your teenage son do things on his own for once

hi mr. Beaver- huh i didn't expect to find more of them in this island

it may have because my teen years is not that long time ago but GOD do I feel the secondhand cringe

of course! even in the wild we will find Bullies- OMG BB NOO- GO TO HIM, MOM!

SHUT UP YOU PUSSIES FUCKING RAN AT THE FIRST SIGHT OF ROZ

BB call Roz MOM!!- SHUT UP BEFORE I FUKIN HUNT YOU DOWN FOR DUCK SEASON- Fink you are so the GOAT man- BB that is not how you talk to your PARENTS

omg Mr. Beaver hi??? why are you holding a knife??? Mr.Beaver???

off Roz honey we need to get you back in the factory buddy-

oh no the Back story reveal- ahh the Teen angst moments

EYYO BB THAT IS TO FAR !!

------

Oh we're back at the crash site? ANOTHER ARM?? there were Other Robots in that POD???

HOLLT SHIT

huh so they reall are just mass-produced- so where are they going to anyway???

Hey other Roz! or Rummige? Rumi is what I gonna call you

Roz honey you need a fukin break or else you might just have a meltdown

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

Roz, a tired mom to a teen goose: I have a Kid

Rumi, just being resurrected a minute ago: Girly Excuse me Wtf??

Rumi, flabbergasted by Roz's problem-solving idea: Gurl we were not meant to be a MOM

Roz still a tired goose Mom: I KNOW BUT I MUST

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

OKAY BUT LIKE- shout out to Rumi who didn't even care that she wouldn't survive long, she just saw this fellow robot like her struggling and giving up her own way to be back home and prioritize Roz

Fink is struggling without his bodyguard but is willing to climb a fuk ass mountain to check up on Roz is just AGGAHJYGUIS.

EYY you're in this thing too Fox.

Aww Rozz you're great hon, don't let some teenager make you down like that.

UGH her voice!!! she sounded so longing to be needed!-

"Maybe there is someone small there that needs my help" roughly translated to "maybe there is someone out there that WANTS me to HELP" - IMCRYING OMG

uh oh, winter is coming - Fink really saying that BB has no friends

BB you ungrateful lil shit- tell em Fink.

wait Rozzie Honey if you could have learned the proper way for Geese to fly now why didn't you do the same with the swimming part, Rozzie??

aww i forgot Roz lost a leg :(

OLD MAN MR. PEDDLER YOU ARE THE GOAT

He's UP! - He's down - oh no, yeah Rozz you need that self-preservation program installed soon you either learn em yourself or imma break 4th wall to install it.

THUNDERBOLT! And yeah i love how Rozz is having more friends in the Island

BB gonna be flying like a fukin Predator bird this winter, those fukin bullies won't know what hit em!

hello longneck sir, your group has been terrible to Rozz's son

"we Geese are a cranky lot" sir do you know that your whole species is a fukin menace???

why does he sound like a school principal telling the Protag's mom that she needs to make sure his grade is stable if she want her son to have a shot at the team

Roz honey why do you know the size of your son's heart?

YEAH GET HIS ASS PinkT!

The Forest guys are warming up to the Odds Fam Aww :3

and it's DONE the Boy can FLY! >:D

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

opp it's time everyone- wdym thing between you two is still weird

oh god he's really going away now huh? well at least LongNeck is a good fellow

"this Flight is a gift from Roz to you-" "do you see any others that are as small as you?" - YES! give that kid a lesson in perspective!

noooo Rozzie you don't need to hesitate calling BB your son

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

BB: will you be here when i get back? Roz: no me seeing there is still like 40 minutes left: uhhhh -------------------------- Say sorry you lil shit, or like thank you.-ah, and there he goes.

AUYSUGJAVXBXAVXAG FUCK T o T

THE LAST GOODBYE MY HEART FUHCHHKKK

welp, task over yeah Fink now you can go back to your unkind life where everything wants to kill you all the time.

help why do they sound like divorced parents already, the kid literally just left for college not a minute ago

JUST SAY YOU GUYS STILL WANT TO BE FRIENDS OMG

i mean she is clearly running on minimum energy with a deteriorating body because Nature is a bitch so uhhhh

FINK FUKIN COME BACK YOU COWARD

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

oh shit there are actually humans defuq I forgot about them.

checking in with Goose Child they are landing in what seems to be a very futuristic corn farm.

OMG ANOTHER ROZ- OH SHIT ANOTHER ROZ

YES, Grandpa LongNeck you know what's up!- UFF and too think all this is caused by a herd of Geese jeez

THAT'S NOT A ROZZEM - WHY DO THEY HAVE A FUKIN WAR MACHINE IN A FARM!!- YEAH LET'S GO BB!-

wait no Grandpa LongNeck - NO

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

oh hey! Awww i knew you guys will stick together.- bad storm huh- Rescue MISSION

PINKTAIL!-Lmao Finks no- Thunderstrom!!- MR. PADDLER SIR! (he is still going at it wtf)

ROZ honey you're wasting to much energy love- the BEAR TOO???

ah, shit-this is too much chaos- "the jerk wants to speak" lmao.

YEAH SO DON'T BE A JERK ASSHOLES!

oh no Rozzie please stay safe

The bear's name is THORN

Rozzie you okay hun?- SHE LIVES!!- and to wait for baby- HE'S HERE!!

aw LongNeck- aw Rozzie- ROZZIE STAY AND TALK TO YOUR SON ISTG

uhhh-UHHHHHH- UH?????? - Vontra?- uh?- why she is so touchy???

uh OH , ROZZUM- ISN'T THIS A BIT MORE THEN NECESSARY??

THORN!- THE GANG'S ALL HERE

NATURE vs AI LET'S GOOO

TITLE DROP SHE DID THE TITLE DROP

FIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHT

the acting school are doing wonders

NOO ROZZIE- VONTRA U BITCH

YES BB SHOW THEM WHY GEESE ARE FUKIN MENACES

also the forest fire...

give it up Vontra you could never defeat God's biggest mistakes

oh- oh kid- oh kiddo i am so sorry- oh honey

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH- fuck

oh?-oh! ROZZIE!

back to the Gang and the forest fire- hope we didn't left anyone behind-

oh MR. PADDLER SIR! we need your tree!

THUNDERBOLT

RIP i guess hope yu went to hell Vontra

Roz?-ROZ?- ROZZIE?!! WHAT'S WITH FLASH BACK ROZZIE??- ROZZUM WHY DID YOU THROW AWAY YOUR HEART?!- ROZ??!!

oh damn, that is a big Tsunami-

Rozzum?- aww you get a 10/10 finally Roz- oh -oh sheesh-

oh Rozzie- oh BB- Oh Fink- oh god YOU GUYS!

OMG THE ART

wtf Roz you can't make me sad like that.-

well, at least the gang is still as strong as ever- ROZ CAN HAVE WINGS???

nah you guys can't just let her be stuck as a farmer bot after ALL THAT!!

glad Fink and Mr. Peddler are friends now

i see what you did there Dreamwork- give us a "nice" ending but not the actually good one

[lousylemonseminar]

Surhhg it I posted this early oh my goszzhhhfh.

cw gore and viscera I think and also extreme levels of silliness

Phineas . I know what I'm doing today but I'm kinda scared I'll do it an injustice.

@fish-fever is an artist that I've been eyeing for a while because of the jrwi fandom and vamps art makes me go a bit AJAHGRVRVFF maybe? Kota has very unique shape language present in zir style that makes it easy to distinguish characters from another--even if you don't know the characters too well LIEK. Not even touching on color rn.../pos

Ill be referencing a lot of art reblogged over on @/yaoicraft but I will so link pieces if thays what's up

Something I noticed from zir line art, in sketches/doodles I believe, that I particularly absorbed(loved) was like. How major or more defined spots are inked on top

[1] [2] like. Around eyes or to bring out the nose and it's so fucking dmcooll to me, especially in that example with Vynceny where the "sketch-sketch" is a different color

This isn't always applicable, but of course anatomy and details-like those zapin zig zags thayahdhbfffn-are consistent (as they would be in an art style???????)

[3] the thicker lines are there thoug!! like under the jaw or between the thighs in this example - line weight seems to be huge always

THE ZIG ZAGS. I found them a lot on noses - which are incredibly varied!! - or just when skin is being defined in general

[3] on the shouldersz , elbows ,and knees.. those three places ALWAYS, even in sick ass finished pieces

It's also on more traditional rendering like hair. Or guts!! So more natural aspects of the body or whatever that means. Clothing has similar cool cartoonisg wrinkles, but the texture being indicated is very distinctive and. separate 👍

[4] [5] [6] it goes crazy hard

I THINK ITS VRY PROMINENT IN THIS DAKOTA DRAWINGn!!

[7] The rendering is sketchier here in a way and it's so!!!!

Can't put down more examples, but the diversity in designs are so so so what I wanted to talk about

[8] Idfk these guys (I should watch Scott pilgrim somebehow)) but it showcases this so so well

All vir designs have a VIBE ve presents amazingly!!!!! Even designs all having attributes - that I think are very definitive to gores style - like the two nose lines (AUGRHRR) or the goofy cheek line for smiles, they are all very unique! Like how eyes are drawn are almost alwaayss specific to that character and it's so so so!! They all got that snchonnzer that I adore

I could go on about things I admire but imma chill for a sec thanks for coming to my Ted talk

This creature also does commissions so check it tf out!!!!! Ze makes the most things I've ever seen I think 💚

[miniimapp]

Random 4*TOWN Headcanons

Gen ;; Fluff + Crack - Headcanons

Warnings ;; nah

Proofread + Edited ;; no

Auth. Note ;; WELCOME TO DAY 8 OF THE 4*TOWN CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN !!

Am tired and this is p low effort and last minute, sorry, better stuff will be coming today is just not my day lmao

Enjoy !! <3

✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈«

Tae Young, Jesse and Robaire were classically trained instrumentalists when they were kids. Tae Young was violin, Jesse was flute and Robaire was piano. T plays ukulele don't ask me why he just does and also the kalimba. Z can play the harmonica. Jesse also plays the guitar

Z learnt the harmonica from his grandad - they had a really close relationship before he died.

Jesse cycled through a lot of different instruments trying to find the one for him (clarinet, trumpet, drums, piano, violin, double bass) before landing on flute and then later on guitar as well

There are some really odd demo tracks and some completely unreleased songs that just go ham with any instrument that they felt like throwing in

They're utter chaos

Truly just a wall of noise at some points

Fun noise,, but still noise

I feel like they have a theatre thing,, all of them

Just like random improv games or,,

Suddenly acting out a famous scene in a very melodramatic way or,,

Randomly bursting out in songs from musicals and somehow knowing the full choreography for them..

Jesse is the one who starts their musical outburst 8 times out of 10

Sometimes though he'll start singing and the others will start to join in,, realise they have ko fucking clue what he's singing and then just listen to him solo like the king he is

T will 100% just start garbling rubbish if he doesn't know the words,, improv king over here

Seriously,, this man can go on with a bit for eons if he feels like it

He'll stay completely in character and be going string while the others are creasing and have no idea wtf to say

Mans lives for it

Oh your singing ?? Tae is adding a harmony onto that for you <3

Somehow he manage to find a harmony for everything and he finds it FUCKING IMMEDIATELY

Does make Robaire a lil jealous with his harmony abilities sometimes

Sometimes though Tae will just go from some ethereal harmony into a goblin voice while still singing the harmony

He's a great impressionist tbh

His voice can go deeper than most people expect,, its a lil uncomfy and he just doesn't like how he sounds so it doesn't happen often

When it does though, Tae is using it for evil

I'm talking demonic noises in the corner while the light are out

Z is the one who somehow knows all th dance moves to every musical ever

Mans starts teaching it to the others too as if they're not complete disasters

My guy has too much faith in these numpties

Z is also really fucking sneaky

So Jesse will be wiping the counter and all of a sudden there's something blowing on his neck

Dramatic ass jumps like 3 feet in the air and shrieks so loud

Z loves jump scaring all of the other members when he can

Also because this is a struggle for me and I need someone to relate to.. caffeine of any kind makes Z so incredibly tired

Like,, half a cup with half him out for 6 hours straight, wake up for dinner because Jesse went to get him and then straight back to sleep

Mans gets over 24 hours of sleep that day

Problem is Z is an energy drink fanatic

And zap the energy right of him

SO

The boys somehow manage to find him caffeine free energy drinks and he's never been more thankful istg

Z just wants to pretend he isn't about o pass out when he's supposed to be wired to high heaven

What's the point of having a drink that's really bad for if you don't even get the short-lived fun effects ??

Robaire loves to flaunt his coffee in Z's face all of the fucking time

Z doesn't even like coffee but it's the principle of the thing

Anways

Robaire would be having his main character moment as they're all jamming out

Singing into Jesse's hairbrush in front the mirror type vibes

Z gets so fed up with it so quickly

Ro doesn't care though

He's having his moment

It's his time to shine

And shine he will

Definitely broke something once trying to climb up onto the kitchen table in a feat of dramatics

Probably a vase Jesse made

Jesse was p upset about it tbh

So the others took it,, glued it back together and then decorated one of the broken pieces each

Now it's the statement piece

And it's glorious

Really wish to bask in it's shine tbh

[puppy-the-mask]

Couldn't decide if i wanted to keep my initial idea of having her only have purple legs or if i wanted her to be fully purple since the outfit washes her out. Either way this is what she'd look like if Cas got caught by the Spider Queen! She is now 'Recluse*' the experiment. {* Name has since been changed to 'Fiddle')

{THE COLORS LOOK WAY DARKER ON MY PHONE- on my comp the purple looked more lavender. I don’t wanna edit it rn though cause I put my comp away :/ I’ll see about color picking from a different ref or something idk}

She isn't treated the best by the spider crew since she doesn't want to help them take over the world, constantly using her brain to figure out loopholes in the Queen's orders. Her personality is very casual despite her situation, constantly making jokes and teasing the others. If she wasn't so good at her job then spider queen would've gotten rid of her ages ago- the two have a very strained relationship because recluse will call SQ out when she thinks her plans are bad and find any way to challenge her that she's able. Despite this she's actually pretty nice towards the other spiders!

She has a love-hate relationship with Syntax. He finds her really annoying and thinks she's stupid- like the queen's own personal jester- she never takes anything seriously and it bugs him. Meanwhile Fiddle finds his insults funny and informative and actually likes his company- he's the one who she spends the most time with since he's trying to fix the venom she was injected with, constantly running tests and keeping her close in his lab. When it's later revealed that the venom is actually working as intended and she's been acting this whole time he's floored. He thinks his data is off or the tests got tampered with because there's no way that she could have been playing them this whole time. When she confirms this he suddenly sees her in a new light- drawn to intelligence he wants to know how smart and crafty she Really is. She becomes a puzzle he wants to solve. Fiddle is more open to letting hints of her true self slip in front of him because she relates to him, she wants to save him from the queen and help him lead a normal life again. She also just thinks its funny to see his face when she corrects him or adds onto a theory when he's thinking out loud- especially when she's Right.

Goliath is her buddy, her favorite spider of the bunch. He's the only one who goes out of his way to visit her in her little corner of the lab since she is/is going to be part of the group soon. He wants to make her assimilation into the group easy so they can work together flawlessly. Where with Syntax she purposely drops hints, with Goliath she legitimately is slipping up and letting her walls down. She talks about her past and hobbies and anything under the sun when they're having their private chats. They also work out together- both being brawlers they share tips and their routines. He's the only one of the group she'll sing for- though it's just small jingles or a couple lines whenever a song gets stuck in her head. He's the only one who can get close when she's going berserk- physical proof that she's starting to trust/care for him. He helps her look after her cat since she's cooped up in the lab almost 24/7. He gives me big bro of the group vibes- strong and silent but when he talks he can definitely talk some shit/sass. I feel like he'd make quiet offhanded comments when Syntax and Huntsman are bickering that Fiddle would pick up on and laugh with him about.

Huntsman is interesting because they don't have much to do with each other at first. He doesn't really interact with Fiddle unless he has to and finds her to be a waste of time and resources. An opinion he Loves to share with Syntax and hold over him since the new venom and experiment fall under his responsibility (Queen got tired of dealing with her even though the venom is supposed to be Her thing while Syntax is computers- she figures he's smart he'll figure it out) Though when the two actually talk he finds it kind of hard to keep an aggressive or mocking attitude, either his jabs roll off her like they're nothing and they end up having a semi-normal conversation after she steers him away from insults and into an actual topic. Or she's so weirdly positive that it infuriates him, he's not used to people reacting to him with kindness and positivity- especially when he's Trying to be Mean. He ends up leaving in a huff and sulking that He's the angry one now or finding something else to do to distract himself. After his encounter with Sandy is when things start calming down with him- he's nicer to her cat and even offers to look after it when Goliath can't. She still infuriates him but now it just reminds him of how Sandy was acting and gets him thinking about their encounter again... he kinda ignores her to avoid thinking about it too hard. But it'd start keeping him up and so he ends up coming to her to ask some questions and share some thoughts. She's completely blindsided that somehow Huntsman of all people has been sent down a redemption arc/is becoming self aware but wholeheartedly supports it and encourages him to come back and talk to her ("or this new person who's got you thinking- no? ok ok i don't mind the conversation anyways!"). She becomes something of a confidant to him since he feels he can't share this with the others and it's not like Fiddle would call treason considering her position, plus nobody would ever believe her if she tried!

I see Fiddle as their gofer- since her upper body looks normal enough she can go into town and buy (or steal) things for them without much fuss. Of course she's heavily monitored through a tracker and surrounding cameras but she likes doing grocery runs since she gets to go outside and have a couple minutes to feel like a normal person again. She also takes over chores and some of the cooking since they can't reliably make her do anything else. Spider Queen would've made her into her handmaiden, but doesn't trust that she won't ruin her clothes or hair or Something just to spite her.

And then there's LBD, Fiddle doesn't trust her and the only time she gets openly serious or actually acts like a part of the group is when she isn't around. She's constantly trying to advise SQ against having her around, she can Sense the power in her and does not trust it for a second. She's spent lifetimes dealing with demons and there's no way someone with that much power is just here to help SQ of all people. She doesn't know who she is, the true extent of her power, nor her motive, but Fiddle avoids LBD like the plague. Once SQ finally gets wise to LBD's true nature Fiddle doesn't hesitate to tell her they should run- where Huntsman chokes Fiddle is standing up and saying it without a hint of fear for her queen. She may not like the woman but the venom compels her to do whatever it takes to keep her safe and there's no way they can take LBD on while still sharing the underground caverns. They need to get far away and regroup because she obviously wanted Something from them and the mech isn't complete yet. In this Au the spiders survive at the cost of Connie, Fiddle unleashes the full might of the consumption to hold LBD and the Mayor off so the others can get away and gets captured. idk if they needed SQ specifically or just a powerful demon's soul so i'm going with the latter in this one. There's specifics to what happens exactly for they to get connie without killing Fiddle- who ends up getting away thanks to a last act by Connie- but that'd be a bit graphic so lets just say the jacket used to have sleeves 6-6 anyways during the fight Fiddle gets to help by tapping into her connection with Connie- who was used to make the mech- and waking them up so to speak- having them help destroy the mech from the inside, then after LBD's defeat Fiddle reclaims the lost shards and her little sibling. Lots of character development could happen in the time they were apart, relationships could change and the spiders could become more of a closer knit group- maybe pull a DBK and chill out on the world conquering idk. this is just a base idea but a fun one to consider. i could just let lbd have sq but there's no way the others would let her get captured without dying first and the venom still affects Fiddle so she can't leave her either (even if she really wants to)

[shoia]

rip draco's neck (she died for art)

[dancer-me]

2021 Fic Wrap Up

I was tagged by @onelonelytortillachip and @marjansmarwani, two wonderful authors and humans I met this year thanks to fic writing, AO3, and tumblr! Thank you both 💖

Total Number Of Completed Works: 6

Total Word Count: 132,342

Fandoms I’ve Written In: 9-1-1 and 9-1-1 Lone Star (for the cross-over fics!)

Looking Back, Did You Write More Fic Than You Thought You Would This Year, Less, Or About What You’d Expected? Oh absolutely more, considering I had zero knowledge that I would ever get back into fic writing this year. The vibe snuck up on me and I'm very thankful for it! I expected to write a total of zero (0) words for non-academic purposes.

What’s Your Own Favorite Story Of The Year? Oh this is tough... I think it's Giving Up Ground (Part 2 of Chaotic Energy) because 1) it's my first longfic at 76k that I've completed in nearly a decade and 2) I really love how it turned out. Writing the characters and the action and the drama and the interaction in the comments I got from it was really so much fun.

Did You Take Any Writing Risks This Year? Biggest risk I'd say is getting back into writing fic at all. I haven't really written since I wrote for Naruto back in 2007-2014 (which HUGE gaps in between). I wasn't sure how it would go, but everyone who has interacted with me since has made me feel great about reviving this hobby of mine. In terms of risks, Chaotic Energy is the first time I've ever written a cross-over so that was scary. It's not THAT big of a jump because at least 9-1-1 and Lone Star operate in the same universe, but it still felt risky to write cross-over content for characters who haven't had that much canon interaction with each other.

Do You Have Any Fanfic Or Profic Goals For The New Year? I want to finish my Chaotic Energy series and write a 9-1-1 Bodyguard AU that has been taking route in my brain. Maybe try to also write more smaller (<5k words) fics so when I try to write speculation fic I can actually finish it in time to still be partially relevant.

Most Popular Story Of The Year?  by kudos its Express to Nowhere (Part 1 of Chaotic Energy), my first multi-chapter fic in the fandom that I dearly love. By comments and hits, it's Giving Up Ground (Part 2 of Chaotic Energy), which gives me warm fuzzies since I believe this was the first time I ever successfully wrote a sequel to anything so I guess it's very true for me that detailed outlines make magic happen!

Story Of Mine Most Under-Appreciated By The Universe, In My Opinion: Hmm... I think just from a hits and kudos POV I'd have to say Home Is Where You Are, my super fluffy buddie Christmas fic. It is seasonally specific and domestic fluff which are both things that are not really my brand, and there is very little action / drama / angst to accompany the romance which I like to think IS my brand, so I get it. That said - it's still pretty well loved I think for having posted it on anon for a few weeks! 🎄😊

Most Fun Story To Write: Oh hands down it was Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You. Creating Tucker Davies was an absolute blast, and I had a stupid grin on my face for most of the time I spent writing it. I also wrote this fic faster than I think anything I've ever done in the past which was exhilarating.

Most Unintentionally Telling Story: I think I put a bit of myself into every fic I write in one way or another, but perhaps I'd pick Pull me Under, my 4x14 fic for this one. It had a lot of introspection and spiraling and misplaced responsibility, grief, and love in it. I visited some feelings while writing it.

Biggest Disappointment: Being shiny and new and having written comparably few works, I think I've been so lucky this year to not have many disappointments. I think I think I'm actually my biggest disappointment this year because I fell off the wagon updating my Chaotic Energy series somewhat regularly in November when life got busy and overwhelming for me and I feel like I let a lot of people down. I'm working on Chapter 2 right now though, so it's definitely not on hiatus at all I just... disappeared.

Biggest Surprise: Everything haha. That I wrote 132k when I didn't think I'd be writing anything at all, that so many people enjoyed my fics, that I even dared to write a cross-over fic SERIES, and also that my itty bitty fic Quarter Life Crisis is as popular kudos-wise as it is. I think it's cute and funny and I liked it, but I didn't expect it to really go anywhere in a sea of coda fics. I think maybe it's because it's a short one at <2k and those are easy to pick up and read?

My Favorite Part Of Fandom This Year: Getting involved in fandom in May and everything that came with it. All the new friends I've made on tumblr and discord, all the people I've interacted with in the comments of fics - you've made me so happy and really welcomed me into a space that has given me a lot of fun and joy this year. Thanks to all of you for being you and proving that the internet isn't just full of trolls - we have the good ones too!

Unsurprisingly I am late getting to this so I'm going to tag some people and anyone else who wants to participate! Just say I tagged you - I want to read what you wrote! If I tagged you and you already did one, maybe @ me in the comments so I can see yours? No pressure tagging @221bsunsettowers, @sadieyuki, @tinselbuck, @stellalore and @hopeintheashes.

[queenabstract]

OH MY GOD THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR PATIENCE!!! I know its been forever since I posted a request and I'm getting to work on all of them. For now...

Here's a Jussy x Cooper request

Poppy, Branch, and the rest of the Snack Pack were on their way towards Vibe City for a get-together party. It was true that the funk trolls could’ve gone to each tribe themselves to pick them up, but the other tribes had assured them that they didn’t need to go through all that trouble. The leaders and small groups from each tribe were going, and the Snack Pack would’ve gotten there sooner if it weren’t for what Branch spotted falling from the sky.

“Guys, wait. What is that?” Branch asked, pointing at the falling figure.

“I can’t tell from here, it’s really far away.” Biggie said.

“Wait, it looks closer than I thoug-”

“OH MY GOD! It’s a troll!” Smidge freaked out. A troll fell down from the sky and landed somewhere in the forest not too far away from them. The Snack Pack raced to find the troll to make sure they weren’t hurt.

“Where did she come from?!” Poppy exclaimed when they found her. “Is she…alive?” Branch checked her over. Mr. Dinkles made a sound.

“Oh yes! You’re right, Mr. Dinkles! I will give her the kiss of life!” Biggie said and started to lean down.

“Wait no!” Satin and Chenille held him back with their hair.

“I don’t think that’s necessary, buddy!” DJ Suki said as she and Fuzzbert tried to push him back.

“Hey guys, relax. She’s breathing.” Branch said. The troll’s eyes fluttered open.

“Hey, are you okay? You fell from really high up!” Poppy exclaimed.

“Oh, I uh…” The troll looked confused and lost for a moment before snapping back to reality.

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m feeling great actually! My name is Jussy.” Jussy held out her hand.

“My name is Queen Poppy.” Poppy said as she shook Jussy’s hand and helped her up. “Also, this is Branch, Biggie, Mr. Dinkles, Guy Diamond, Tiny Diamond, Satin, Chenille, Dj Suki, Legsly, Smidge, and Fuzzbert!” Poppy introduced them all.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you all.” Jussy said.

“By the way, we were heading to a party back in Vibe City, wanna come with us?” Poppy asked.

“Uh, yeah!” Jussy nodded.

“Come on, then. Let’s go!” Poppy grabbed Jussy’s hand and started running.

“Guys wait we don’t even-” Everyone else ignored Branch and started running too. “Know where she…came...from nevermind.” Branch rolled his eyes and started to pick up the pace.

Everyone kept running until they came to a river where a raft was waiting for them.

“Well itz bout time you showed up!” Dickory exclaimed.

“Dickory, we’ve only been waitin five minutes.” Hickory smirked.

“Hmph.” Dickory crossed his arms. The group got on the raft and started floating down the river.

“Why the raft?” Jussy asked.

“Well, when we float down the river far enough, the Funk Trolls will be able to pick us up and bubble us up into Vibe City!” Poppy explained.

“They use bubbles to get us into their UFO thing.” DJ Suki said.

“Oh, that’s so cool!” Jussy clapped in excitement. The group chattered for a while until they got to the pick-up point.

“So, Jussy, which tribe are you from?” Poppy asked.

“Tribe? Oh…I’m uh…not from any of the tribes.” Jussy said.

“Really? Okay then, you can be our guest of honor!” Poppy said.

“Cool!” Jussy cheered. The bubbles came down all around them and pulled them up into Vibe City.

~Somewhere in Vibe City~

Cooper was finally done getting ready for the party after putting on his silver rings in his dreadlocks and brushing out his fur and tinsel. His parents had already gone out onto the stage, but his brother was still with him to help him figure out the rings.

“And that’s it!” Prince D said after putting in the last ring. “Looking sharp, Coop!”

“Thanks, D!” Cooper thanked him.

“Now come on, mom and dad are already on stage!” D said and led Cooper to the stage. One of the funk trolls’ instruments had been broken, so the music wasn’t able to start yet. Cooper took this extra time to meet up with his friends.

“Hey, Cooper!” Poppy waved and ran up to him.

“Hi, Poppy!” Cooper ran towards her too. They met in the middle and gave each other a big hug. Everyone else except one joined in on the hug.

“We missed you, Cooper!” Satin exclaimed.

“It’s been a while!” Legsly said.

“Pop village hasn’t been the same without you.” Branch said.

“Nice seein ya again.” Hickory smiled.

“Aw, guys! I missed you too!” Cooper said as they all parted from the big group hug.

“Oh! Oh! Oh! Cooper, I want you to meet someone!” Poppy said, jumping up and down. “We met her on our way here! I want you to meet, Jussy!” Everyone moved out of the way so that Cooper could see her.

“Hi!” Jussy waved excitedly. Cooper felt his heart skip a beat as soon as he saw her. She was the most beautiful troll he’d ever seen. A dark blush was forming on his face, he wasn’t sure if his lungs were working right. Even his legs were frozen.

“EARTH TO COOPER!” Branch wildly waved his hands in front of Cooper’s face.

“Wha- huh?” Cooper asked.

“You completely spaced out, you okay bro?” Prince D asked.

“Y-Yeah. I’m fine.” Cooper said, the blush fading a little bit.

“Well then, let’s get Partying! Ow! Ow!” Poppy cheered and skipped towards the stage. Cooper turned back to Jussy, barely keeping himself from getting lost in her eyes.

“SO! I-I mean…uh…So…what-where. WHICH tribe are you from?” Cooper asked her.

“I’m not from any tribe.” Jussy said, walking alongside him as they walked towards the stage.

“Oh. S-So you’re like a…solo…troll? Like Smooth Jazz Chaz? I mean not like Smooth Jazz Chaz but like-as in-not his music. I don’t have anything against smooth jazz! I mean…the others probably do. Not that I’m saying it’s a bad music genre! I-I just…” Cooper trailed off when he heard Jussy chuckling.

“Y-Yeah. I’m a solo troll I guess.” Jussy shrugged.

“Cooper! We gotta go come on!” Darnell called him.

“I’m coming! I’ll see you in a bit.” Cooper said.

“Okay, see ya.” Jussy smiled and waved at him as he walked away. Cooper blushed again seeing her smile and accidentally tripped over his own feet. He blushed harder in embarrassment and ran to the stage.

~Later~

Quincy and Essence almost immediately noticed how flustered Cooper was around the new troll. They decided to let Cooper go off stage to hang out with her after Darnell made a comment about it. She seemed nice enough.

“Hey, Cooper! Not singing anymore?” Poppy asked.

“Nope! H-have you seen Jussy anywhere?” Cooper asked, looking around to see if he could spot her himself.

“Yeah. She’s right over there.” Poppy pointed over to where Jussy was getting a drink. “Wait, why do you wanna kno-”

“Thanks Poppy!” Cooper cut her off and started speed-walking towards Jussy.

“What was all that about?” Branch asked as he walked up to her with a drink in each hand and handed her one.

“I don’t know.” Poppy took a small sip of her drink. After a few seconds she gasped and ended up choking a little.

“Woah, are you okay?” Branch asked worriedly.

“Yeah! I’m fine. I just realized it! Cooper has a crush on her!” Poppy squealed.

“Wha- really?” Branch asked.

“Yeah! Isn’t that sweet?” Poppy smiled widely.

“I guess so. But with how he was stuttering and literally tripping over himself earlier, I don’t know how he’s gonna talk to her now.” Branch asked.

“I know what to do!” Poppy’s face lit up and she started running towards the stage.

“Poppy? Poppy! What are you doing?!” Branch called out and chased her.

“H-Hi, Jussy.” Cooper was still a blushing and stuttering mess.

“Hi, Cooper!” Jussy smiled at him excitedly. Cooper was almost starting to wish she would stop so that he could just breath normally. He did his best to get himself together and put together an actual sentence.

“I hope you’ve been enjoying yourself. A-As one of the princes of Funk I want to make sure everyone is having fun.” Cooper said nervously.

Okay, going good so far.

“Yeah, I’m having a lot of fun! I just feel like a bit of a stranger…so it’s a little awkward.” Jussy shrugged and laughed. Cooper himself started feeling a little awkward.

Oh shoot.

“Oh! Looks like Poppy got them to change the music.” Jussy pointed towards the stage. Cooper turned around and spotted Prince D high-fiving Poppy. The music had been changed to a love song.

~with D and Poppy~

“Great idea you two, hopefully Cooper gets the message.” Prince D said.

“No problem, he’s also our friend, we’re happy to help.” Branch nodded.

“I already ship them, I hope this works!” Poppy squealed.

“Cooper is a lot like mom, so even if he was tripping over himself earlier, he’s probably got himself together by now.” Prince D smiled.

~Back with Cooper and Jussy~

Cooper smiled knowingly. He silently thanked them for this chance and held his hand out to Jussy.

“You don’t have to feel like a stranger around me. Wanna dance?” Cooper started blushing again. Jussy was blushing too.

“Absolutely.” Jussy accepted his hand. Cooper did his best to keep his breathing under control despite his quick-beating heart.

Wise men say,

Only fools rush in.

But I can’t help, falling in love with you.

Shall I stay?

Would it be a sin,

if I can’t help falling in love with you?

Cooper couldn’t relate more to those lyrics right now. He barely met her today and she had him wrapped around her finger.

Like a river flows,

surely to the sea.

Darling, so it goes,

some things are meant to be.

Cooper took a deep breath and spun Jussy around. He gathered up the courage to sing as well.

“Take my hand, take my whole life too. For I can’t help falling in love with you.” Cooper continued dancing with Jussy and kept spinning her around, making her laugh. “Like a river flows, surely to the sea. Darling, so it goes, some things are mean to be.” Cooper loved the sound of her laugh. “Take my hand, take my whole life too. For I can’t help falling in love with you.”

I can’t help…falling in love with you.

Even after the party was over, Cooper and Jussy promised that they’d meet up again soon. Jussy didn’t think that Cooper would visit the next day.

~The very next morning~

“Hey, Jussy! Rise and shine, sleepyhead!” Poppy shook Jussy awake. Since Jussy didn’t have her own pod, Poppy let Jussy sleep over in her’s.

“Oh, good morning.” Jussy yawned and stretched.

“Get ready I have a friend I want you to meet!” Poppy jumped up and down excitedly.

“Really? I thought I met everyone yesterday.” After the party, Poppy had shown Jussy all over Pop Village and introduced her to almost every troll.

“There’s still one left, I accidentally forgot.” Poppy shrugged.

“Oh, okay. Just give me a minute.” Jussy got up and started getting ready.

A little bit later, Poppy led Jussy to the other side of the village. Jussy noticed that they had walked very well far from any of the pods and it seemed that they were heading out of the village.

“Where exactly is this friend of yours?” Jussy asked.

“Well…she doesn’t exactly consider me a friend.” Poppy shrugged. “But we still talk sometimes. She’s a hunter and a designer. When she was little, she promised to make a special outfit for each and every troll. Satin and Chenille called her out when she learned to make clothes and forgot her promise. She dedicated herself to her goal just to spite them. When she heard about you, she asked me to bring you to her so that she could make you something too.” Poppy explained.

“Oh! Well that’s nice of her.” Jussy smiled. The two kept walking until they reached a tree. Poppy pushed a bush to the side to reveal a small door.

“We’ll have to crouch down to get in, she’s still working on making the doors bigger.” Poppy said. Jussy got on her knees and crawled through. The door led to a small tunnel that was just as small as the door. There wasn’t any light, so she kept blindly going for a few minutes before she suddenly started falling. Jussy let out a scream and kept falling for a few seconds before she landed on a big pile of cotton. Poppy landed next to her, laughing and giggling like a child.

“Poppy! What did I tell you about using that entrance? Its easier to enter through Branch’s bunker.” A voice said.

“But it’s a lot more fun this way! Also, this is Jussy. Jussy, meet Abstract.” Poppy introduced her. Jussy rolled off of the pile of cotton and looked up at the troll that was towering over her intimidatingly. She was a sky-blue troll with pink hair and pink markings on her shoulders and a pink techno troll on her chest. There were pink markings on her ears and freckles that covered most of her face. Abstract stared at Jussy with a glare and leaned down. For a moment, Jussy thought Abstract was about to hurt her, especially with the way she was showing her fangs.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have the best vision. I broke my glasses last week and I can’t find my contacts. I’ll be right back.” Abstract sighed and walked away.

“What…huh?” Jussy turned to Poppy, extremely confused.

“What?” Poppy asked.

“I…she…” Jussy pointed in the direction Abstract had left. Poppy kept staring at her for a few seconds before she understood.

“OOH! You thought she was going to hurt you? No, no, no. She looks different compared to all the other pop trolls, but she’s still one of us. She naturally gives off that scary vibe cause of her eyes, fangs, and hunter instinct. But she never has and never will hurt a troll no matter what. That’s a promise she never forgot.”

“HAH! I FOUND THEM!” Abstract came back running and got a better look at Jussy without glaring at her.

“Okie let’s get a good look at you! Definitely can pull off any color of the rainbow. Green would suit you best though. Butterflies? Yes! Butterflies! I have the perfect materials for you!” Abstract exclaimed as she circled around Jussy.

“I’ll leave you to it!” Poppy smiled and skipped away.

“Come on, I have all my things in another room.” Abstract led Jussy out of the small room. Once they were out, Jussy saw that they were now in a huge room that was filled with different plants. “This is my underground bunker. Its connected to Branch’s by that tunnel.” Abstract pointed towards a tunnel that had a cart sitting in front of the entrance. “We also have a few other backup tunnels incase one collapses. He collects all of his backup food from here, and its also one of the main sources of food for the entire village.” Abstract said.

“Wow! How long have you’ve been doing this?” Jussy asked.

“Ah…since I was around fifteen. I helped Branch build his bunker a long while before I even started making this one. Our brother Cooper was a tiny little troll at the time.” Abstract smiled.

“Cooper is your brother?” Jussy asked.

“Yeah. The three of us had the same adoptive mother.” Abstract stopped for a moment. “We’ve always had each other’s backs from the start. Being the three most different from everyone else…you met him already?” Abstract asked.

“Mhm! Yesterday at the party in Vibe City we danced together and became really good friends.” Jussy blushed a little.

“You both danced togeth-oh…oh…” Abstract suddenly looked annoyed. “So that’s why she brought you up…jeezuz. Follow me. I have all of the things I need in my room.” Abstract picked up the pace. She had Jussy stand in the center of the room on top of a stool. She took a few quick measurements and pulled out green, black, and white fabric. She put a blindfold around Jussy’s eyes.

“Hey! What’s this for?” Jussy exclaimed.

“I don’t like trolls seeing how I make the clothes. It’s kinda like a secret family recipe. Nobody’s allowed to know but me and my brothers.” Abstract explained. “Just try to stay as still as possible.”

~Meanwhile~

“You’re gonna visit her already?” Prince D asked. Smirking at his brother.

“Yes! I am! Plus, it’s not like I’m just visiting her, I’m also visiting my other friends.” Cooper said, digging through his dresser for his hat.

“Mhm. Cause you can’t help, falling in love, with, her.” Prince D sang, teasing Cooper. All that did was earn a glare from his twin. Darnell laughed. “I’m just messing with you. Plus, you don’t have to rush. Its really early in the morning.” Darnell yawned. “Honestly, you should’ve just been waking up right now.” Prince D said.

“Sorry, I’ve always woken up right before the sun rose growing up in Pop Village.” Cooper said.

“But why though?” Darnell asked.

“Ever since the pop trolls took me in, that’s just how its been. Abstract said that Branch always woke up an hour before sunrise to leave the pod and work on his bunker before our adoptive mother could catch him. She got him to sleep a little later and she started waking up early and would have me get up too so that the three of us could work on it together. We tried to adjust to a later sleeping schedule after it was finally done, but we ended up stuck like that.” Cooper laughed.

“Adoptive mother? You never mentioned having one before. You said Abstract raised you and Branch.” Darnell mentioned. Cooper stopped looking for a moment.

“We used to have one. I don’t remember her much…anyways, have you seen my hat anywhere?” Cooper asked. Darnell shook his head.

“Nah, bro. Where’d you see it last.” Darnell asked.

“I don’t remember!” Cooper exclaimed. He kept looking through drawers, under the bed, and everywhere else in his room. But no matter what he moved or shoved around, he couldn’t find his hat. There was a knock on his door.

“Hey, Cooper. Have you seen-oh.” King Quincy noticed his son panicking.

“You lost something too, huh?” Quincy asked.

“I can’t find my hat anywhe-what happened to your cape?” Cooper asked. Quincy was wearing a purple cape with yellow stars instead of his usual golden one.

“I couldn’t find my cape anywhere.” Quincy laughed.

“Sorry, I forgot to tell you both.” Queen Essence walked up next to Quincy. I took your hat and your cape to Pop Village. The hat had a rip and the cape had an unremovable stain in it. I asked Abstract for help.”

“You did?” Cooper asked.

“I think Poppy said something about taking Jussy to meet Abstract today.” Darnell mentioned.

“She did!?” Cooper started to worry. Abstract had always been protective of both Cooper and Branch. If Jussy was meeting Abstract today and Poppy told Abstract about his crush on Jussy, he didn’t want there to be an ugly fight. “We gotta get to Pop Village now!” Cooper exclaimed.

~With Jussy and Abstract~

“Eek! That tickles!” Jussy giggled.

“Sorry.” Abstract tried not to laugh. She was putting the finishing touches on the outfit and she had accidentally poked Jussy with the needles a few times, causing her to laugh. When Abstract had started, Jussy felt like a bunch of blankets were thrown on top of her, then they slowly started to wrap around her and started to feel lighter. Abstract finally took off the blindfold.

“I could do better than this, but its still one of my best works yet. What do you think?” Abstract spun Jussy around to face the mirror. She was wearing a short green fairy-like dress with black sleeves that had green butterflies, silver leggings, and a green sparkly silk fabric that was wrapped around her waist and connected to her wrists.

“Woah.” Jussy stared at herself in the mirror.

“Oh! Almost forgot.” Abstract left for a moment and came back with something in her hands. “And there! Done.” Abstract had given Jussy a pair of silver butterfly earrings.

“You do this for everyone?” Jussy asked, surprised.

“Everyone that will let me. It helps me feel connected with the other trolls. Each one has their own unique design that I create on the spot. I have made some other unique pieces that have them come back for another outfit for a party or other special occasion. I’m not as popular as Satin and Chenille, but I have a hella lot more customers.” Abstract beamed proudly.

“You run a shop?” Jussy asked.

“Mhm. You have a crush on Cooper?” Abstract casually changed the subject.

“Maybe.” Jussy blushed. “Wait, why’d you change the subject so suddenly?!” Jussy became flustered.

“Well, he’s my brother. I like to get to know the trolls that possibly want to date him.” Abstract shrugged.

“Uh…I remember Poppy saying you’re a hunter?” Jussy mentioned.

“Mhm. I am. I don’t have much of a choice. I have to hunt down predators for meat.” Abstract smiled, showing off her fangs. “You seem like a nice troll, and I made a promise to protect my village, but when it comes to my brothers, I won’t hesitate to hurt someone to protect them. Ya got that?” Abstract crossed her arms.

“Yes, I understand.” Jussy put her hands up.

“Good. Cooper should be here any minute now. Queen Essence dropped off his hat and King Quincy’s cape after the party yesterday so I could fix them. I assume the real reason Poppy brought you here was to use me to set up another date for you two. Which I don’t mind…but it would’ve been nice if she had actually told me. Anyways, Queen Essence should be here any second. I’ll ask her if she can take you with her to Vibe City so you can see Cooper. Just…no funny business.” Abstract pointed a finger at Jussy as she grabbed the hat and cape and put them on top of a desk.

“Yeah, got it!” Jussy put her hands up again. There was a sudden slam that caused them both to jump.

“Uh…Queen Essence must’ve sent a guard to get them instead?” Abstract asked more than said.

“ABSTRACT WAI-ACK!” Cooper came running in and ended up tripping over his own feet and fell down.

“Cooper!?” Jussy exclaimed.

“Cooper!” Abstract smiled. Cooper rushed himself to get back on his feet and froze when he saw Jussy. “Hey Coop, whatcha doin here?” Abstract asked, she had expecting him to still be in Vibe City. Jussy sighed in relief when she realized he was okay and smiled.

“Hi Cooper!” Jussy waved at him. Cooper was starting to blush again.

“Uh…Coop?” Abstract asked, a little concerned.

“If being super cute is a superpower, this troll has it!” Cooper thought to himself.

He already knew Jussy was the most beautiful troll he ever laid his eyes on, and she somehow looked even more beautiful. The sparkle in her eyes and the way her smile seemed to light up the entire room made Cooper’s heartbeat quicken. Abstract started to realize what was going on. She grabbed the hat and put it on for him and handed him King Quincy’s cape.

“Your mom dropped these off yesterday. Sorry if you turned your room upside down looking for it this morning.” Abstract turned to Jussy. “Hey while you’re here, should may as well take Jussy with you.” Abstract pushed Jussy towards Cooper.

“Oh, uh h-hi Jussy!” Cooper managed to finally find his voice.

“Hi Cooper.” Jussy giggled. Abstract saw the way Cooper melted at the sound of her voice and smirked.

“Damn he’s got it bad.” Abstract muttered to herself. She gave Jussy a little nudge towards the exit. “Why don’t you go ahead and go outside. I need a minute to talk to Cooper.” Abstract said.

“Oh, uh, okay!” Jussy nodded and skipped outside. Abstract waited until she heard the door close and then turned towards Cooper.

“I know that look.” Abstract said to him. Cooper smiled awkwardly and turned away. “As much as I love teasing you sometimes, which is the only reason I made that dress,” Abstract laughed when Cooper gasped and glared at her. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.” Abstract became serious. “We went through a lot when we were younger. A lot of trolls deceived and tricked us. And even today its easy to mistake a liar as a genuinely kind troll. Jussy seems nice…but I just want you to be careful.” Cooper listened to her and sighed.

“I know you worry, but you gotta believe me, she’s not that kind of troll.” Cooper said.

“You just met her yesterday and I can see that you’ve fallen crazy in love with her.” Abstract pointed out. “Sometimes it ends up with the sweet happy ending, but I’ve witnessed it end with broken hearts firsthand. Are you sure you can trust her even as a friend?” Abstract asked.

“We’ve encountered a lot of bad trolls in the past, but she’s not like any of them.” Cooper smiled and blushed a little bit. “I’m sure, without a doubt, that she’s the one.” Abstract sighed and nodded.

“I just…I want you to be safe. You know I’m just looking out for you, right?” Abstract asked.

“Yeah, I know. I’m just glad you didn’t scare her away.” Cooper chuckled.

“Oh, I was close to doing it. But she’s a lot braver than most pop trolls when it comes to seeing my fangs, or me in general, I’ll give her that.”

“That’s good. By the way, why did you make the dress the way you did?” Cooper glared at her again.

“Whaaaaat? I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s not even one of my best works.” Abstract tried to refrain from smiling. “I just happened to make her sparkle like a star and look like a fairy, so what?”

“YOU MADE HER LOOK LIKE A GODDESS!” Cooper burst. Abstract started laughing. “I’m already barely able to keep myself up and put a sentence together around her, are you trying to make me have a heart attack?!”

“Oh, stop being dramatic and get out there. Woo your goddess and show her how much you love her. Just remember what I said.” Abstract gave Cooper a shove.

“Yeah, I got it.” Cooper said and ran outside to find Jussy. Abstract waited a few minutes until he was gone to go outside as well and found Poppy waiting for her.

“Proud of yourself?” Abstract asked.

“Yes!” Poppy squealed as she watched Cooper and Jussy walking and talking to each other. At least, Jussy was doing most of the talking. Cooper was a blushing mess. Any troll could see how deeply in love he was with her at this point.

“You could’ve just asked me to help set up a date between them instead of tricking me into doing it.” Abstract said.

“I didn’t mean to do that. I just wanted you to get to know her since Cooper has a crush on her-”

“Head over heels, deeply in love with her you mean?” Abstract asked.

“Yes…I didn’t know Cooper was going to show up.”

“But you were counting on it, weren’t you?”

“…Maybe.”

“Just let me know when they start planning the wedding so I can help with her dress. I might have my doubts, but I have a feeling that they aren’t separating any time soon.” Abstract said. Her ear started twitching. She could literally hear Cooper reciting poems to Jussy now.

“Well someone found their courage fast.”

@jade-green-butterfly

Once again I am so sorry for making you wait so long for this. I got major writer's block while writing since I'm not used to writing OC x character requests. I hope you don't mind me inserting my own OC into this. It was the only way I could find a break through my writer's block. Also, here's an offer if your interested.

I'm working on a Trolls AU and this is how I pictured you in it. The wings not only are actually working wings for flying, they're extra armour for the back. Jussy most likely wouldn't come in until extremely late in the story, but if you're interested, let me know!

Here's a lil extra fanart

I was teaching myself how to use my different colored pencils while coloring these so some of the pictures have a weird color. I used filters to fix it as much as I could.

[shadeslayer]

sorry if this is a weird ask, but I'm writing an essay on why patohlogic 2 fails at anti-colonism (leaning on tropes that were used to dehumanize poc, carelessly mixing cultures together, equating the loss of culture to the loss of childhood) but I'm only coming from the perspective of filipino with the effects of colonization still affecting my country, and post-colonial theory. R there other concepts I should research since I don't have the pov of an indigenous person? I want to be respectful

not weird at all, very cool to get, im very flattered! i cant say i have any strong resources to look into (im actly not very well read on the topic, mostly i just speak from personal experience and synthesizing others experiences ive heard + my NAS classes) though i know braiding sweetgrass is hailed as a very strong writing about NA experience

my other biggest piece of advice would be to do some research into buryat people and indigenous russians, since a lot of the stuff i know comes from a very specific history of native american (+ some first nations canadian) experience and politics which is what formed the stereotypes that are harmful. i know in the past with pathologic in particular, a buryat person pointed out that the "negligent/bad father" stereotype was not one that had any relation to the buryat people, so there can be big differences between the "main discourse" and its talking points and stereotypes which is very americentric and the actual issues the game itself is tackling in the sphere of indigenous russians. as well i think the game has a lot of post-soviet context which an outside audience would struggle to understand, so just in general remember that the context theyre writing in and writing for is different than what you or i may know about

that said, from a lens that is fully death of the author and is purely about the work outside of its creation or intent and more about its impact as a translated work in non-western spaces (esp its popularity with western english audiences), issues/concepts/keywords that may be of interest to look up would be: the stereotype of the noble savage, the "hawkeye" character trope (not like marvel, as in hawkeye from last of the mohicans, the original story not just the movies), imperialist nostalgia, and in fact the three key tropes in NA film in american history that i learned in my recent NAS film class: primitive purity, savage violence, and inevitable disappearance.

id love to talk this more even if you wanted to, either through here on tumblr or we could talk on discord (cuz i have a lot to complain about LOL) or something else! but my main issues with patho2 actually are centered in particular on

1) the endings feel like a slap in the face about being mixed where actually you Do have to choose and both the options are without nuance and are shit and make almost no sense and make some strange statements

2) the kin themselves are a mess, they feel completely hollow, and tbh they feel a bit like the noble savage trope a bit. but in general they do nothing, have no agency, are completely defanged in comparison to patho classic, and literally do nothing but angst and cry or whatever until artemy mixed white boy who went to the city comes in and tells them whats the Right thing to do and then they thank him and make him leader

3) the racism is so "beat you over the head" overt it feels hamfisted, it butchered characters in the name of basically trying to americanize the game and make it more abt the racism and not the world when the whole thing was that the kin were a PART of the world and added to the horror game vibes with their weirdness the same way the kains do, and it just ruins all sense of nuance and actually existing in a world about race in favor of "racism bad!!! everyone racist!!!"

and well. i can GO ON about my different Opinions on patho2 at length xD so just let me know if ud want to talk more on it or not! i have a couple friends ive discussed this with as well (though one is mainly in another fandom atm) and i could pass along some of the stuff weve discussed. that said, i actually do enjoy patho2 very much and i dont think its completely terrible or problematic or anything, i just think it fell flat a bit on the elements i wouldve otherwise enjoyed most and while its a diff game from classic, as "pathologic 2" it will be compared and i find it comes lacking in regards to the kin and race stuff in a lot of places, which is a shame since p2 tried to more actively address it and put it in the foreground ... which is kind of why it flopped

[newdeobis]

confession: i just realized the fact that it’s not there in a switch, it’s just that i’m a super intense bratt sub and i hide that side of me saying i’m a switch bc i know that a lot of people would find king of bad if i just go there and tell them that i need to get into my submission side with a LOT of domination like they need to put me there HARDLY and idk maybe this is sad and not horny lmao bUT i don’t like that much the spanking and hitting it’s kind of weir or like the humiliation i hate that lmao I KNOW IT IS WEIR WHAT IM ABOUT TO SAY but i feel like kevin is one of the only idols that i feel they could put me in my place without being like violent or spanking like he wold talk to me in a way oH LORD (by hardly i mean with a lot of intense vibes not like for long time, i go into sub pretty fast thoug ITS WEIR OKEY?)

and another not that sad confession: chanhee turns me on pretty much even though i don’t see him as a dom, my mind is weird i know -liv

oh no, that's not bad, everyone has their own taste/preferences, maybe you just couldn't find someone who can make you talk about this comfortably?? because a lot of ppl are down for that, believe me

i feel ya, idk why but kevin just has this vibe? he can control and put in your place just with the way he's talking, voice dropping a few octaves, but his gestures would be so gentle??? oh my

i think chanhee is more of a switch or just the type that don't really care about being in charge or not, so it's completely understandable

[songbird-musing]

Virtuoso: Chapter Three - Verses

Enjolras is Saint-Michel Academy’s brightest young composer. He runs the orchestra, the Musician’s Rights board, chairs the scholarship program, teaches free classical music to children, and is in the middle of his dissertation. He has never been anything less than a prodigy, until his teacher forces him to write a pop song.

Enter the effortlessly cool Grantaire, with his smudged eyeliner and lovely guitar-playing fingers. He really digs Enjolras’ “vibe,” whatever that means.

There's wooing, and revelry, and all sorts of things that don't quite suit Enjolras' sensibilities.

Chapter One

Chapter Two 

Verses

“So, are you conducting at any upcoming concerts?” Grantaire asked, lit only by a flickering outdoor lamp.

“Not anything official... I’m performing a cello solo and some ensemble stuff at the showcase next week, though,” their faces were blistered by the heat from the tea.

“Wait... What is your main instrument?” Grantaire filled his lungs with smoke, “Can you play the whole orchestra?” he joked.

“Pretty much,” Enjolras scuffed his toes against the floor, “Pushy parents...” he paused, “I’m grateful, though. I don’t know where I’d be without music.”

“Do you not think you’d have found it anyway?” Grantaire asked, eyes closed, lips parted.

“What? Music?” Enjolras tucked his hands under his jacket to warm them. “Who knows? I’d probably have ended up as a lawyer, or a banker or something.”

“What... like ninety percent of the Saint-Michel graduates?” he slumped his head to the side and traced a bird through the sky with a half-amused tilt to his mouth. “Anyway, I don’t believe that for a second. You’d have found it... it’s who you are.”

Enjolras watched him closely, mouth suddenly dry.

“Do you want...?” Grantaire asked, tilting the cigarette towards him.

“Oh no... I don’t smoke.”

“Tobacco?”

“Anything,” Enjolras answered, lungs recoiling at the scent.

“Man of strong morals,” he said, yawning slightly. “I’m afraid I have none.” He kicked the end of his cigarette into an overflowing pile. “Let’s finish this masterpiece.”

A laugh bubbled in Enjolras’ chest and burst through, clattering loudly in the patch of cobblestones.

“Grantaire,” he asked, and the boy turned around with a look in his eyes, as if he hadn’t expected Enjolras to even know his name. “Why are you even at Saint-Michel’s?” He stood, hands still warming beneath his arms. “Surely there’s a contemporary school of music you could study at?”

“Um,” said Grantaire, turning slightly red. Enjolras couldn’t tell whether he was blushing, or if it were just the sunset bouncing off his cheeks. “I’m performing at the showcase next week, so maybe, if you stick around, you’ll see why.”

They stepped back inside, the air gracefully far warmer.

“What does that mean?” Enjolras asked, itching for Grantaire’s answer. “Do you play like the oboe or something?”

“You’ll see...” Grantaire lifted a corner of his mouth and Enjolras inexplicably had to drop his gaze, a strange feeling stirring in his chest. “Can’t give away all my mystery at once,” he leaned in, “My mystery is all I have going for me.”

“Very mysterious,” said Enjolras in a small voice, laugh curling the edge of his breath. His senses snapped from the moment as a shrill ringing screeched from Grantaire’s phone.

“Oh,” the sound poured from his lips like carelessly spilled water, his eyes glazed. “I didn’t realise it was so late.” He threw his phone roughly onto the bed and stretched his limbs out.

“Plans for the evening?” Enjolras asked, hovering by the keyboard, fingers longing for the keys.

“I forgot all about it...” Grantaire cursed, grabbing a fresh shirt from his wardrobe, patterned with an unexpectedly intricate Victorian design in forest green. “I could call it off...” but the words eked from him, as if cancelling his plans was not on his mind at all.

“No, of course not... Um... I’ll just...” Enjolras cleared his throat, making for his scarf. “Nice shirt.”

“It’s my wooing shirt,” Grantaire laughed, mirth smeared in his eyes.

“Oh, you’re going on a date?” Enjolras said with a smile, shouldering his coat.

Grantaire laughed again, shaking his hair out of his eyes. “A date...” he made quick work of the buttons on the shirt he was wearing. “Sure... let’s call it that.”

With a swift movement, he slithered from the material of his top and threw it onto a lump of clothing.  Enjolras caught a glimpse of his russet shoulders, marked with delicate black ink and masses of freckles before he turned to the door, cheeks heating.

“I’ll head off then,” he said, blinking a little too rapidly.

“One sec,” Grantaire said, “Catch!”

Enjolras was forced to confront the image of a half-shirted Grantaire and apologised fervently, missing the memory stick soaring towards him and hearing it clatter by his feet.

“Sorry for what? I have no shame regarding the human form...” he quirked an eyebrow.

“You sound like Jehan.”

“Jehan sounds like me...They used to do life modelling for me.”

“Huh?” Enjolras gaped.

“Yeah, I have the pictures somewhere. They’re very artful... Do you want to see?”

“I feel like I would have to ask Jehan first...”

“You’re such a sweet boy,” Grantaire said in a deeply southern accent. “Didn’t you see Jehan in that exhibition where they stood naked in a forest or something?”

“Oh...” Enjolras recalled it well, “The Adam and Eve thing. It was certainly an interesting take on religious gender non-conformity...” He tilted his head, “I think they still get death threats sometimes.”

Grantaire threw his head back in a laugh, and Enjolras wished he could throw such a glorious laugh around with Grantaire’s ease.

“Hang on, I’ll show you out.” He bumped open the door with his hip, towering a myriad of plates and empty cups in his hands.

“Thanks for doing this with me,” Enjolras said, voice shatteringly polite, “Seriously, Grantaire, I’m so grateful.”

Grantaire grazed his shoulder up into a shrug and brushed Enjolras’ comment away with finesse. “Ép,” he said, slamming the dirty dishes onto the table before her. She peered up from a clunky Mac, headphones nestled in her hair. She gazed at him briefly before her eyebrows slanted downwards.

“What’s with the wooing shirt?” she asked, dragging the headphones from her ears.

“Are you going to be here all night?” he asked, grabbing an apple and sinking his teeth into it.

“Yeah...?” she said after a pause, “Ugh, don’t make me leave,” she complained, “I’m literally in the middle of producing right now.”

“No, its fine,” Grantaire’s eyes were burning hazel under the setting sun, “I’ll be back in a few hours. Just tell Claque if I find any more of his masks, or creepy merchandise in my room again, he’s banned from ever coming here again. I’ve had enough. He’s doing it on purpose now, I swear...” Grantaire looked to Enjolras with a dark shade in his gaze, “I found an ornamental dagger in my pillowcase last night,” he said in way of explanation. “It’s getting beyond weird now.”

“He does it to show affection,” Éponine said, “Like a cat.”

“That’s even worse!” Grantaire said, “Like at least ten billion times worse! Tell him there is more to life than aesthetic.”

“Try to tell that to anyone in the band, my dear,” Éponine laughed. “Well, have fun guys!”

Enjolras blinked.

“Éponine!” Grantaire hissed, shaking his head frenetically. “The shirt’s not for him.”

The moment stretched out and Éponine let out a giggle, collapsing her head onto her forearms. “Oops!” she snorted, “I totally thought you were gonna...”

“Why would I make us go all the way back to his house?” Grantaire said, smirk playing on his face, “I’m a good host, Ép. You would be kicked out.”

“This is weird...” Enjolras interjected, feeling a little flushed.

“You’re right. This is weird, and it’s all your fault,” Grantaire said, pulling a face at Éponine. “Right, I better get ready.”

With a spin, Grantaire reached their front door and presented it to Enjolras with a bow. “It has been a pleasure to work with you, Enjolras. When’s the lesson we have to perform in?”

“Monday at nine,” Enjolras said, “With Valjean.”

Grantaire groaned. “Very devious of you to tell me that at the very end... Monday at nine! Okay, okay, fine. I’ll see you then. Maybe I’ll catch you before to practise.” Grantaire’s eyes were drifting away, “Seriously, though, we should hang sometime. Courf seems really cool.”

“Oh, yeah,” Enjolras said, “He really is.”

“You don’t sound convinced,” Grantaire joked. Enjolras eyed the pattern of his shirt.

“No, he is! Anyway, I don’t want to keep you... Enjoy your... thing.”

“Thanks,” Grantaire said, giving another laugh, but peering through narrowed eyes. “Are you alright?”  

“Hm?” Enjolras started, “Oh sorry... just have Beethoven on my mind.”

“What?” Grantaire asked, “Well... Good luck with that?” he leant forwards and briefly embraced Enjolras, kissing the air beside his cheeks casually. “See you later. Safe travels!”

Enjolras travelled back on the metro with a strange, roiling sensation shifting in his stomach. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and let the haunting melodies of Shostakovich ensnare his senses for the ride.

~*~

“House meeting!” shouted Combeferre, who perhaps called house meetings far more than necessary.

“What’s wrong now?” asked Courf with a playful groan, “Did I eat your last avocado again?”

“The issue to discuss is a certain Courfeyrac’s attendance in this household,” said Combeferre, opening his journal and scratching down a title. He flicked to another page and nodded, “You’ve been absent five out of the past seven nights...”

Courfeyrac lounged back on the sofa, letting his mass of dark curls flop over his eyes, “Sorry, dad.”

“I feel like you shouldn’t be paying full rent,” Combeferre said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “But... there is a way to rectify your missteps.”

“You can tell he’s going to be the most intense teacher in five years time,” Courfeyrac said with an eye roll to Enjolras.

“No backchat,” Enjolras quipped, quietly letting his fingers drift over the strings of his harp.

The three of them laughed in tangent.

“Seriously though, you have to give an opinion on my dissertation,” Combeferre said, throwing a chunky booklet into his friend’s hands.

“No!” Courfeyrac elongated, letting the vowel ring out through the flat. “Why am I subjected to such cruel punishment for taking advantage of my youth?”

“Love you so much!” Combeferre said, giving Enjolras a roguish wink. “We’ve sorted him out,” he said in a mock whisper, ignoring Courfeyrac’s dramatic complaints. “What’s wrong, Enj?”

“Hm?” Enjolras leant his forehead against the gilded edge of his harp.

“You’re playing Tchaikovsky again.”

“What does that mean?” Enjolras sighed, stilling his fingers.

“Darling,” Courfeyrac rolled his eyes, “The last time you looked this mopey was when I said I didn’t like Bach that much.”

Enjolras instantly frowned. “You should be expelled from Saint-Michel’s, you heathen.”

“Stop deflecting,” Combeferre interjected, “Do I have to call the second house meeting of the night?”

“Do you guys think I’m not living in the student life as much as I could be?”

“Absolutely,” Courf said.

“One thousand percent,” Combeferre added, “But since when have you wanted to act like a student?”

“Has that nasty boy Grantaire been corrupting you?” Courfeyrac asked, “I’ll be having words with him.”

“I think you might have a chance with him,” Enjolras tilted his head, watching the flare of interest in Courfeyrac’s eyes.

“Nah,” he said after a moment, “It would break Jehan and I’s agreement. No sharing.”

Enjolras licked his cracked lips and his eyebrows folded. “Jehan and Grantaire...? They were a thing?”

Courfeyrac laughed lazily. “You know Jehan... Free love... There’s literally no-one in that circle that Jehan hasn’t slept with... Well, apart from Gueulemer... he’s painfully straight. We’re both trying to see who can crack him.”

“You’re awful, Courf,” Combeferre said, “Leave the poor heterosexual alone.”

“Are you going out tomorrow night, Courf?” Enjolras asked, the words tasting brassy on his tongue.

“Dunno,” he turned his wide-eyed gaze to Combeferre, “Can I go out tomorrow, dad, please?”

Combeferre grimaced. “Stop calling me dad.”

“Daddy says yes,” Courf said with an exaggerated wink.

“House meeting!” Combeferre shouted, mirth in his eyes, “The issue on the table: never do that again.” He shut his notebook and stalked away.

“Well, I’ll come with you.”

“Ooh, Enjolras!” Courfeyrac said, scandalised, “On a school night as well! You little rebel!”

~*~

After university the next day, Enjolras contemplated himself in the mirror, red shirt as stark as blood against his skin. He buttoned it to the top, but unfastened the button closest to his neck. He imagined calling it his ‘wooing shirt’ to literally anybody and almost turned as scarlet as the material. With a glimpse at his alarm, he noticed the lateness of the hour and snapped at Courfeyrac to hurry up.

“Me?” Courfeyrac gaped, “I’ve been ready for the past four hours,” he exaggerated, still shirtless and barefoot. “I’m not the one raunchily exposing a slither of neck and blushing at myself.”

“That’s not-” Enjolras blushed, “That wasn’t what I was doing!”

“Gosh! I’ve heard that Enjolras is a floozy, you know?” Courf called to no one in particular, “I once caught a glimpse of his ankles!”

“His ankles?!” Combeferre called from a distant room, sounding aghast.

“You both are the worst,” Enjolras said, still flushed. Courfeyrac grinned and ruffled a hand through Enjolras’ mass of blonde curls.

“Come on, you harlot,” he tiptoed to smack an affectionate kiss to Enjolras’ cheek, “We have some revelry to revel in.”

By Courfeyrac’s standards, revelry was measured in how blisteringly high one could become.

“That’s not what I’m saying, and you know it,” he drawled, after they had arrived at the party, passing a joint to Jehan, arm crossing over Enjolras’ chest as he did so. “I just think that if the moon was real then it wouldn’t be such a symbol of mystery... I’m just saying... who looks at the moon and isn’t a little bit creeped out?”

“You get creeped out by the moon?” Joly asked, head resting on Musichetta’s lap.

“Like...” said Courf, eyes drifting shut, “Like just a tiny bit...” a small cough rattled in his throat, “I just don’t trust it.”

“I think the moon is lovely,” Jehan said. Joly peered up and shared an eye-roll with Enjolras. Joly was the first violinist in the Saint-Michel orchestra, and had dealt with the whole bunch of orchestral stoners more than Enjolras had had the will to.

“You think everything is lovely, Jehan,” Enjolras said. Jehan looked at him with starry, brown eyes and slumped against the column of his neck.

Then, amidst the smoke haze of the room, time seemed to unfold far quicker than it usually did, and Jehan had led Enjolras to their room, to show him the life paintings Grantaire had mentioned.

“Yeah,” Enjolras said, head a little fuzzy, “Very artful... he said they were.” The pictures captured Jehan as they looked in the current moment, lazy-eyed and oozing contentedness. “They’re incredible, Jehan.”

“Tell Grantaire... he was the one who did the hard work.”

Enjolras was not sure what came over him, but he ducked his head and felt the edge of Jehan’s lip between his own. He felt a hand leap to the back of his head, and the warm curl of fingers lace themselves through his hair. Jehan’s lips feel like a revolution – Enjolras had never kissed someone so well versed in the art of kissing. The lips on his neck made him gasp for air. He contemplated how long it had been since the skin of his neck had been worshipped so... too long. A year ago with the pretentious cellist that was too attractive for words, (Enjolras had called it off when the sex had been the only part that didn’t bore him half to death.)

“Jehan,” he mouthed, feeling mind-spinningly blissful. His hand dropped to Jehan’s waist, feeling for a seam of material. His fingers searched blindly, tracing the edge of Jehan’s hips, increasingly frantic. Enjolras broke away with a tut and stared at Jehan’s attire.

“It’s a romper,” Jehan said in explanation. Then, as Enjolras moved his hands to the zip on Jehan’s back, they said, “What are you doing, Enjolras?” Enjolras pressed his lips to Jehan’s collarbone, who laughed breathily and batted his head away. “What’s gotten into you?”

“I’m looking for my wilder side,” Enjolras said, eyes dark.

��I’m not going to sleep with you,” Jehan said lightly, “I thought this was just a friendly make-out session.”

“You sleep with everyone,” Enjolras said, drawing back and resenting the whine that had infiltrated into his tone. In lieu of offense, Jehan merely snorted with a grin.

“Look, I’m down for casual flings aplenty, but you, my friend, are not.”

“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”                                    

“No,” Jehan shrugged, “You wouldn’t be here if you were.”

“That makes no sense,” Enjolras frowned, “Your pseudo-deep doesn’t work on me.”

“Come on, Enj,” Jehan said, patting Enjolras good-naturedly on the chest, “If you actually wanted a hook-up, you wouldn’t have come to the one person you thought would never turn you down... I’m sorry, but I am just not dealing with the emotional nonsense you are sure to bring.”

“What?” he gaped, mouth dropping open.

“You’re a drama queen, Enjolras – you can’t even deny it...” they smiled, “Let’s not do this.” Jehan tucked the sketches back into place and stretched out their arms. “Wow,” they said with a hazy blink, “I am too high right now.”

“You always are,” muttered Enjolras.

“Don’t get grumpy with me, darling,” Jehan said, “I still love you.”

Enjolras flushed a little, still not as open with his words as Jehan could be. “Yeah, and I love you as well. Besides, I’m not grumpy with you, I’m grumpy with myself.”

“Enjolras,” Jehan tutted, “Don’t mope... I can shower you with positive affirmations, if you’d like... You’re the loveliest boy I’ve ever met, anyone would be blessed to have you, and you’re as beautiful as the sun itself... I am at once blinded by you yet cannot take my eyes from you... happy now?”

Enjolras couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his mouth. Jehan laughed and pressed a friendly kiss to his lips.

“Ugh, I’m so embarrassed,” Enjolras said, covering his face.

“About what?” Jehan said, smile lazy, “I’m so high, I’ve forgotten already.”

[meltypes-blog]

sakura seeds

[because the shared post looks weird as hell on desktop im putting the story in text post format] ao3 link

Hanzo Shimada hated himself.

That much was obvious.

He hated himself as he trained, the muscles on his arms and back straining until they cascaded tears of sweat, until his entire body burned and ached for rest. He hated himself while he ate, the simple pleasure of sweet and savory foods on his tongue only serving as a reminder of one other thing he had deprived his own kin from. He hated himself while he mediated, as if he could fool his brain into thinking that peace and quiet could erase the tumult in his mind and smooth over the jagged errors of his past.

His self hatred was apparent even on his countenance, his “RBF” as Genji had called it. Hanzo’s disgust for himself was soul deep, a seed that had planted itself in his heart since the first day his father had instructed him to murder in cold blood (“the master of the clan must protect the clan”) and had dug its claws deep the minute his blade had grazed Genji’s skin. His entire life was a culmination of all the wrong choices one could make, and it turned him into a bitter being, one that only survived out of the reasoning that even death was too honorable for him at that point.

His existence was unforgivable.

“You know I forgive you, Hanzo.” The brothers were seated on one of the many outlooks at the watchpoint staring at the sky, the sunset reflecting off of the younger, and irritating the older.

Hanzo only hummed in response. They were supposed to be meditating in silence, as per Hanzo’s request.

“I know why you come here.”

Hanzo exhaled through his nose and opened his eyes to glance at his brother. “To meditate, Genji. Shizukani.”

“No.” Genji turned to face him. “You come here in order to make yourself feel guilty. I know you, brother. You used to do it to me all the time when I went to the arcade. You would stare at me until I felt shame.”

Hanzo’s fists clenched on his knees. “How could you possibly know what I am doing or thinking? I have changed.”

“I know, because I am doing it as well,” Genji said softly. “Back then- I could have been more compliant, I could have helped you but I did not. I was young and stupid, and did not realize the gravity of my decisions, but I understand now. My actions were dishonorable. It was shameful of me-“

Hanzo stood up and turned on his brother, furious. “Do not. Speak to me of dishonor and shame.”

He walked a short distance then glanced back at his brother.

“Not until you have killed me for yourself.”

Later that evening, Hanzo messaged Genji that should he need to meditate, Zenyatta would most likely be available.

That had been the end of the their sessions.

He had been a fool to believe his brother could reconcile with him.

Genji still visited him, as Hanzo holed himself up in his room instead of socializing with the rest of the team- but that only ended in loud arguments.

“It has been weeks, Hanzo,” Genji stated exasperated, outside of his door. “How are they to know you if you do not allow them?”

“I am fine by myself,” Hanzo said.

“This is not healthy, Hanzo.”

Hanzo sighed. “I am perfectly healthy Genji.”

Genji threw his hands out. “You look like shit! You’re depressed and-“

Hanzo bristled, hand already reaching for his door. “Thank you for your concern, brother. Good bye.”

“Hanzo-!”

The door slid shut on the cyborgs face and Hanzo inhaled, exhaled, inhaled once more and breathed out.

Not healthy? Hanzo looked about his room. Healthy people had clean rooms, and his was pristine.

His closet held his various kyudo-gis, color coded. Organized. His small kitchenette held a shining kettle, small teacups and no dirty dishes. Clean. His bed was always made, not a pillow out of place, his furniture never covered in clothes and out of the way as always, orderly. His room looked brand-new, completely spartan. Nothing was worn down. Nothing was old or used or broken. It was clean. Healthy. It was as if no one had ever stepped foot in it before. As if no one lived in it at all.

Despite Hanzo’s fervor to abstain from socializing, that did not stop the others from coming up to him. Hanzo was out of his room to fill up his water container in the main kitchen, when one of the younger members had come up to him. They popped their gum in the awkward silence until-

“So...what’s your deal?”

Hanzo glanced at her confusedly, then turned back to his jug. If he remained silent, it was sure to deter her.

“Like- me and Lucio wanted to know since you’re like the base cryptid. We never see you until team simulations, and even then you’re only on defense so...you’re actually really good with a bow and arrow. Hey, can I call you Legolas?”

“What?” Hanzo blurted.

She smiled. “Y’know, that old fantasy series, he’s a meme because of those short guys and elf eyes and stuff.”

Hanzo felt himself soften. She was very similar to a younger man he once knew, one with green hair and bright eyes. “I believe they’re called Hobbits.”

“Hah! So you are a nerd! Lucio didn’t think so, but you look like someone who plays Pokémon. Actually, now that I think about it, you’ve got the whole samurai vibe going on too. Have you ever used a sword before?”

Hanzo mumbled no, then hastily escaped with a half empty jug.

Hana stood in the kitchen alone, a frown etched on her face.

The only other person that Hanzo conversed with aside from Genji was Dr. Zeigler- although, even then, that was less than desirable. He grabbed his sleeping pills and sighed when he realized the bottle was empty. Genji had annoyingly told the doctor not to give him more than a few days prescriptions at a time- not to deny that Hanzo had never thought of going out that way, but considering the fact that he was surrounded by those who risked their lives on the daily, it was extremely dishonorable.

Hanzo entered her office and she gave a strained smile, and he nodded in kind- the routine.

“Shimada-san, how can I help you?”

“I require another prescription, if you will,” he said placing the canister on her desk, making sure not to touch her. The first time she flinched when their hands touched had hurt him more than he was willing to admit.

“Of course.” She turned to grab a new prescription, placed it on the desk- but held and didn’t let go. “You know...Genji is concerned about you.”

Hanzo grunted in response, refusing to look at her.

“He says that you’re not...coping very well. From what he describes, it sounds as if you have depression, PTSD, perhaps even social anxiety-“

“Thank you, Doctor Zeigler, for the free consultation,” he interrupted coldly, looking at her with narrowed eyes. “But I am perfectly fine and would like to take my leave.”

Another strained smile, and she released the bottle. “Do come again, Shimada-san.”

And thus was Hanzo’s routine for months. The self-loathing, arguing with Genji, awkward and often tense food and water runs, picking up pills from the doctor. It went on for two months until-

“Howdy there.”

The cowboy had found Hanzo on his perch on the skywalk. He had come there to drink in peace after his fifteenth quarrel with Genji in two months.

Hanzo hummed.

McCree took a seat next to him and brought out his own flask. They drank in silence, the night air cold on Hanzo’s exposed skin. He was far too inebriated to be bothered by the gunslingers presence, and found himself actually drawn to his warmth.

Hanzo respected the American, despite his bluntness and overall...loud demeanor. He was a good shot, perhaps one to rival Hanzo, and he was tactically intelligent. More than once had the cowboy saved the team from dying due to his quick thinking and precise aiming.

More-so, he never approached Hanzo unwanted. He seemed to recognize when Hanzo was welcoming of a short conversation and when he was on the verge of seething rage.

An intelligent man. Warm. Hanzo subconsciously leant towards him, the alcohol getting the better of him.

“D’yknow the Deadlock gang?”

Hanzo grunted. “I am a former yakuza. What do you think?”

McCree chuckled. “Alright, alright. I may not look like it, but- I was their best asset. They used to call me,’The Undertaker.’”

“That does not surprise me. You are greatly skilled and smart.”

“O-oh. Well...” McCree coughed. “Anyways...I used to be real close to one of the members- his name was Jackie. J and J they used to call us, cause we were practically inseparable. Jackie was like my brother. I loved him.”

Hanzo turned to face McCree, slowly gaining an idea of where this was going. The gunslinger was looking down, fingers fiddling with his flask.

“Then I...I had to kill him. Turns out he was sellin’ information to Overwatch. Or maybe he was undercover. I don’t really remember. All I remember...”

McCree swallowed and he looked to Hanzo. “I remember feelin’ angry. Angry and sad and just- destroyed. And after he was gone all there was- there was nothing. I...felt empty.”

Hanzo’s heart seized. McCree looked away, pained.

“I kept askin’ myself, ‘how are you goin’ to go on now?’ I thought I was gone, gonna be empty forever. Then Overwatch found me and I decided that maybe I deserved a second chance. People believed in me. They saw me and saw hope.”

“Hope?” Hanzo murmured.

“Yeah,” McCree said, turning back to look Hanzo in the eye. “Hope that maybe even after a lifetime of all the wrong choices, one right choice can set you on the good path.”

Hanzo stared at him breathless. McCree’s eyes glinted in the moonlight, and then he noticed how close they were- their shoulders and thighs touching. Hanzo leant back, still transfixed on his bright eyes.

“Hope,” he repeated.

McCree nodded. He looked up at the stars and breathed deeply. “Come train with me tomorrow, archer. Ya won’t regret it.”

There started the deviation in Hanzo’s routine. For five mornings a week, the archer and sharpshooter trained together. They conversed about little things, favorite foods and drinks, then playfully argued when one named something that was distasteful to the other.

Hanzo’s self deprecating thoughts began to move away to make room for newer thoughts- one involving a tall man, red and flannel, bright brown eyes and a crooked smile.

Hanzo’s first real smile came during an intense training session. Both men were sweating profusely, challenging each other to see who could lift more. Of course, Hanzo prevailed- and Jesse cracked a joke at his own expense.

“Damn,” he breathed. “I’m pretty sure you could arm wrestle with Orisa and win with those beasts. Me? Can’t even lift Torb a couple of inches off the ground.”

His first real laugh had shown up during a team lunch. Hanzo had taken a seat by McCree and Genji, as he usually did, and said his thanks for the meal. Jesse pointed curiously at his food.

“‘S That wasabi?”

“Yes, it is.”

McCree snorted. “Weak shit. My hot sauce does more damage than that.”

“Is that so?” Hanzo raised a brow and gestured to his plate. “Why don’t you try some. You just need a small portion to see-“

“Don’t mind if I do,” McCree interrupted, spooning the entire portion into his mouth to Hanzo’s horror.

Genji winced from across the table and got up to get a glass of water. When he came back, he saw McCree red in the face, coughing, and Hanzo doubled over in laughter. The entire room laughed softly at the ridiculousness of the situation, and Genji felt a surge of happiness.

The first time Hanzo held hands with McCree was in their usual drinking spot on the skywalk. McCree had been blathering on about some old western movie when Hanzo moved his hand to cover the gunslingers.

McCree stopped talking immediately and looked down at their hands. Hanzo felt a surge of shame and slowly drew his hand away.

“I did not mean to-“

McCree gripped his hand before it could go any further, and gave him a bright smile.

“It ain’t no thing, darlin’.”

It was also the first time McCree had called him that.

Hanzo had opened up more. He did not feel so alone after meeting Jesse, no longer so isolated.

He began meditating with Genji again.

“You seem well, brother.”

Hanzo smiled softly. “Yes, I am.”

“It is because of McCree, is it not?”

“Partially,” he said. “I have come to realize that...one right choice can set me on the path of good. People believe in me. It would be a great dishonor to prove them wrong.” Genji lunged at him, hugging him close, and Hanzo was proud that he was able to hold in most of his tears.

Hana attacked him in the rec room a while later. “Yo, Samurai Legolas!”

He grunted not looking up, engrossed in an article written by Joel Morricone. “Do not bother me, Usagi. I am busy.”

It was quiet for a moment. Then-

“Did you just- what did you call me?”

“Usagi. It is the name of a popular anime heroine and also means rabbit. It is my nickname for you, since you seem adamant about mine. Trust me when I say it is an honorable one. Usagi was a powerful warrior, and also the cutest.” When he did not get a response, he looked up.

Hana was staring at him with wet eyes, and a huge smile. “I want to change mine for you.”

Hana now called him Big Bro every chance she got. When Hanzo turned in his sleeping pills, Doctor Zeigler looked at him in surprise.

“Are you sure, Shimada-san? You’re-“

“Perfectly healthy, Doctor Zeigler. And please, call me Hanzo.” He turned away from her, ears growing heated. “I have not needed them for...a while now.”

Angela’s eyes widened. “Oh! Oh, well,” she giggled,” alright then, Hanzo. Do come back again.”

“You believed in me.”

He and McCree were standing together in Hanzo’s room soaked, the rain pushing them from their usual spot.

McCree looked at him, and Hanzo’s heart stuttered. “I did. I used to be like you, back when I first joined so I understood. I still believe in you.”

Hanzo tentatively walked closer to him. “You had hope for me.”

McCree visibly swallowed and took his hat off, running his hand through his hair. “Yes. I still hope yo- still have hope for you, that is.”

Hanzo took a couple of more steps. “Why?”

McCree looked away. “I know a lost soul when I see one, s’all. Everyone deserves a second chance at redemption.”

They were nearly chest to chest now, and Hanzo had to strain his neck to look into his eyes. “You gave me hope. You have helped me to be better, and I...thank you, Jesse.”

Hanzo rested his head on McCree’s chest and Jesse’s arms came around him almost immediately, engulfing him in warmth despite their wet clothes. Jesse rested his chin on the archer’s head, and Hanzo nuzzled into his chest, face flaming and heart pounding.

“It ain’t no thing darlin’.”

Finally, after months of dancing, tripping and falling, McCree held Hanzo’s hands in his and grinned shyly.

“I really like you, darlin.’ Hope ya don’t mind that.”

Hanzo laughed and pulled McCree towards him. “I would hope that you do cowboy, considering we share the same bed.”

“I reckon people who like each other ought to kiss then, right?”

Hanzo’s face warmed and he leant up into Jesse’s space. “I believe that is how they express that, yes.”

McCree smiled and pressed his lips onto Hanzo’s, soft and sweet, the pull slow and languid. Hanzo nibbled on his lip and the kiss deepened, Jesse’s hands moving to bring Hanzo’s hips closer to his.

They separated to catch their breath and Jesse moved to Hanzo’s jaw.

“Ya know any other way people express how much they like each other, darlin’?”

Hanzo gasped a laugh, and gripped McCree’s shoulders as he kissed his neck.

“I am aware of a few, yes.”

McCree chuckled and nosed at Hanzo’s cheek. “Only a few? I got some evidence on my back that states otherwise.”

“Are you looking for more?” Hanzo smirked.

Jesse shivered and put his head on Hanzo’s shoulder. “What is it that ya always say? ‘The wolf marks his prey?’”

Hanzo flushed and smacked his shoulder. “Do not tease me, Jesse.”

McCree laughed, smiled at him, then gripped Hanzo’s hands, dragging him to their room.

Later, when both men were sated, they laid wrapped around each other, kissing lazily.

“Jesse,” Hanzo whispered, kissing under his ear.

“Yea, darlin’?”

“I love you.”

McCree shifted, laying on his side, Hanzo tucked into his chest. He leant his head on his elbow and dragged a hand down his lovers body. Hanzo shivered.

“It ain’t no thing, darlin’.” Hanzo let out a noise of protest, smacking his chest indignantly, and McCree laughed, wrapping his arms around him. He kissed his face repeatedly until Hanzo’s mouth met his, moving with intent, slow and hot.

“I love you too, Hanzo.”

Hanzo Shimada hated himself. Not as much as he used to, but the self doubt still lingered, the hatred a shriveled seed still present in his heart.

However, when he was with Jesse McCree, Hanzo hated himself just a little less- and a new seed blossomed in his heart, one he believed in and one he had hoped for all his life.

[daydreamingcow]

A new start

1/8/22

I want to explain everything so lets go back to monday... New week with new people (all front Germany). I was still mad with the world and it didn't happen much. Well just new roomates... we have a rusian one its nice she doesn't talk much thoug. Oh i know! We went to antibes because we really needed to go to the supermarket. I bought a body soap, some fruit potitos and a weird drink. We went to some vintage shops and i fell in love with a black night party dress. My friends said that it matched very good my vibe and it try it on... It really loked amazing on me so i just bought it ^^. I haven't told my mum yet... But when she seas me in the dress i don't think she will mater and if she does i can pay It back. I wered that dress that same night and i felt amazing. Lots of girls in the campus have the same dress though, but i really don't mind.

[staysuki]

lmao u thought, i doubt you d write an angst-ending fic 😌 felix and jisung,,,,? 👀 very sus and interesting. joking just really isnt chan s forte 😔 but seeing chan trying to be funny is something i would want to see every day :"> im really glad to know that you re planning on reaching this til 4 seasons :">>>>>

omaygad hi 🍕 👉👈 damn, good luck on your work <33 and its fine hehe, as ash said, no pressure in responding huhu take your time and rest as much as possible after work ! thanks for the blog recommendation

i also love food but i dont know how to cook ;-; i mean, i haven t really explored the wonders (??) of cooking yet so you never know, i might be a gordon ramsay in disguise 😎 but yes food is life. as for me, idk... how i am online is how i am irl (with my close friends). i dont really like meeting new people, maybe that s why i appear as a shy type, IDK I JUST DONT REALLY CARE (???) FOR THEM. unless it s a person i really admire or someone who got my attention, then im willing to throw all my shame out of the window to befriend that person. im actually the opposite of you 2. my looks dont look intimidating, not one bit. and that s why no one really takes me seriously 😭 it s not even funny anymore huhu. it s such a drag cuz many people think im a pushover bc of it 😀👍that s why a lot are rude and often steps out of the boundary at first meetings. but it s fine now, the people i hangout with has known me for over 4 to 5 years, so they know when to stop 💀

oh yeah, if the 3 of us are in some kind of kpop group 🤩😎 i feel like 🍕 would be chan bc you really give off big sister vibes ✨. ash would prob be jeongin?? the way how you seem to give off "the sister that needs care and protection 24/7" atmosphere ✨ based on how you described yourself in your friend group AND jeongin is always babied LMAO even though he doesn t like it very much. i can see ash in jeongin 👀

MOVING ON TO THE TEASER, im excited huhu. if you were to make a poll on which smau should you do next (YHM, EHALOJ S2, SLC) i wouldnt be able to choose sINCE im rly looking forward to every single one of your works :"> omaygad im curious about the revelation that will happen once they found out each others identities. will they throw away their pride, accept each other, and live happily ever after ✨✨✨ OR more drama 😎 abangan sa susunod na linggo.

minho is a star, im ded 💀 wut tsunderes are delicious ice-creams ?? i love this comparison 😋 chan representing the infinity symbol is accurate af. actually all of them are, i love the explanations 🤩

- bs

onga pala hola sa pinoy anon dyan uWu

true, even my ANGSTY bang chan fic turned into a fluffy jeongin wedding ending 💀🙌 i just can’t be sad, i don’t have a single angsty bone in my body. and yes, 4 seasons at least 🤧♥️ i doubt it’d reach five, but if i think of more arcs, it probably will. i don’t think it would be very long though because chan, changbin, and minho are juniors rn and in season 3, they might be graduating already who knows 👀

you should cook uwu. it’s v v fun!! but i agree, apparently some people are born with it, some people are not :,))) maybe you’re one of the innately talented ones though. either way, learning a skill is still fun even when you’re not good at it right away. i personally come from a cooking family so making food feels like breathing to me that for the longest time, i can’t wrap my head around how other people can’t cook (???like, i can’t grasp the concept). it wasn’t until when i tried to make brazo de mercedes with a friend, we were following the same exact recipe but we were working on separate ones. she ended up making a sugary omelette while i was able to succeed and i was just like ?????? and she was like “i can’t cook 🥴🥴🥴”

as for me, idk why, it’s not that i look intimidating, like, i don’t think i do at all but apparently i exude intimidating vibes. like an “ohohoho” ojou-sama vibe ig 🤥 i’m poor tho so idk why. so many times i’ve heard the phrase “i thought you were mean lol”

you would 100% be jisung tho 🤪🤪🤪. and jeongin pls— 😭😭 honestly i can’t even fault that, i act the same way around my older siblings, i’m also *very* clumsy (i have very fast reflexes though so it balances it out). like, i can’t think of anyone else. maybe i’m also a little bit of hyunjin? intimidating at first glance but a big softie. i’m also v v sensitive 🤧🤧 like, even when i close the door a little too loud i worry if i come off as rude or smth, i’d open and reclose it sometimes actually JSHWJJSSA. i wanna be felix tho 💔

JSHWJSHS don’t worry 💀 seungmin’s smau is gonna finish soon, i doubt that one will take two weeks. then hyunjin i’m currently writing for which is nice— i plan for it to be long so it’ll continue alongside EHALOJ 🥲 i’ll balance them together so two smaus. but ya know, i can handle it 😤. so season 2 will probably be in 2 weeks AT MOST.

and how do you know y/n is talking to hyunjin anonymously hm?? 🤨🤨 why so assuming JKJK

JSHWJSHS also thank u for entertaining our shape comparison 😇

“sa pinoy anon”— “hola”

[coreytravelogue]

Vancouver, BC - August 1, 2020

Here we are in August already in a summer that came later here in Vancouver but no less hot and stuffy. I am sitting in a sweat box writing this because I feel like today is as good of a day as any to post something on my travelogue though I am doing anything but.

August has always been a transition month for me for most of my life. As a kid August was often the month me and my parents went on a vacation on whether it was to Disneyland, Newfoundland, Florida, Ottawa or British Columbia. August always meant the end fo summer for me or the end of freedom which meant school was coming soon which often happened during the last day of the month. Fiscal year for businesses end around March, end of the year for most normally is at the end of December but for me year ends always feel like they are at the end of August. Last year I left for Europe at the end of August, 2 years ago I left for Australia, 6 years ago I left for Europe of the first time, 14 years ago I graduated fro Vancouver Film School but it was 15 years ago that I left my hometown of Fort McMurray for to move to Vancouver. It’s this that I wish to talk about today.

The 15th anniversary is on the 8th I believe but I feel as thought today is as good of a day as any to talk about it. Moving away from home is something I am sure most people remember as though it was yesterday, for me it does feel like 15 years, maybe sooner but still a long time ago simply because so much has changed for from that time to now. I am pretty sure I have talked about all of this before but t his si my blog and this blog is more for me than for anyone else.

In terms of moving away from home one could say I was probably late in that regard. I graduated from high school in 2002. During that time I was still undecided as to what I wanted to do with my life. Part of me still wanted to be a pro wrestler but that dream was getting dangerously close to dying as my love for film and video editing was growing. I knew high school life was not over for me though. I graduated easily but not with grades that could get me anywhere, anywhere that I wanted to go anyway. I wanted to go to Nait or Sait to study film there but my English grades were not good enough. So I decided to upgrade my English marks as well as some sciences while I worked.

It makes the most sense to stay at home, so much that it wasn’t even a question really. Fort Mmcurray was very expensive to live. At this point it was all about saving money and preparing for where I was going to go, wherever that would be. By 2003 I improved my English marks and tried applying to Nait and Sait again but my marks were still not good enough for them. I worked at McMurray TV at this time and while I liked working for them the hours were inconsistent and the pay was practically minimum wage. I knew I wouldn’t be able to save enough money to leave working there so in the summer of 2003 I took a second job at the Safeway Gas Bar.

By this time I was losing friends left right and center, they were either moving away, moving on or we would having falling outs with each other. 2003 was a year where I lost most of my friends by the end of it and 2004 wasn’t that much better. In fact 2004 come to think of it was a pretty shitty year for me though the music was great. By this point I was ready and willing to have a fist fight with one of my childhood friends over losing a computer game. I was also burning the candle at both ends for the most part. If I wasn’t working at the gas station dealing with angry Albertans who only wanted to blame me for high gas prices and for whatever shit was bothering them in their lives I was working for peanuts at McMurray TV but at least there I could work my ass off but not have to deal with assholes while listening to my music and what not. I usually did not have days off and if I did they were spent working on AMVs, watching movies or playing video games.

While I have come to at times regret moving to Vancouver the more I think about how I was back in even 2004 I needed to leave Fort McMurray, if I didn’t I probably would have had a nervous breakdown or do something that would have involved me getting fired because I would have inevitably got in a fight with a customer over their bullshit and my lack of being able to take it. With no friends and no love in my life or anyone really AMVs were the only place I could pour myself into, it was my therapy but by the end of 2004 it wasn’t enough. My Alberta anger was getting so bad that I would break my PS2 controller because of how angry I would get at losing to a computer.

I also decided to try one more time at upgrading my English in 2004 and while I improved it Sait and Nait raised the required again making it impossible for me to be accepted again. I came to realize I didn’t have good enough marks to get into a academic film school, a school that cares more about grades that is.

2005 began and at this point it was not uncommon for me to be crying myself to sleep hating myself, everyone and everything. I was begging to any imaginary god that would listen to bring back the only friend I felt I had left which was RJ. Call it a coincidence but the night I wished it I got a call from him telling me he was moving back to Fort Mac for awhile and was looking for a place to stay. Without asking my parents I said yes. From January to May he stayed with us rent free, thankfully my parents never opposed it. In fact I think they were thankful for it. I tried my best to keep my demons from my parents but they knew I had issues, they knew I was having a hard time. They just didn’t know how to help me which would be a common theme for most of my life if not all of my life. My mood went from angry and miserable to calm and happyish.

From January to May of 2005 would be the happiest times of my young life at that point, living with my best friend whom I could hang out with every night provided me with comfort and company I hadn’t had in years. It was not without its red flags, I came to find out my friend had a drinking problem that I would inherit years later. The more I think about it it must not have been that fun for him living at my house. He was a year older than me was back living in a city he hated working at McDonald’s sleeping on his friend’s sofa bed. His plan was always to save up money again and leave and that he did in May, we would not really speak to each other a little over a year. Not because we didn’t want to but....maybe I will get to that later.

I will probably remember the day he left for as long as I live, I can’t remember the exact day in May but I remember it vividly. It was a morning shift, Rj and a Adam who was also one of my friends though not quite as much of one came in to fuel up and leave. Adam came in to say good bye and fuel up while Rj didn’t come to say goodbye. It hurt but it was also a busy day so I had no time to really dwell on it. By the time I got home I was tired. I sat down on my computer chair and noticed that for the first time in months the basement was quiet. For the past five months I got so used to looking to the right of me and noticing RJ either playing video games, sleeping in or just doing something in general. Now there was no one there but a couch finally folded up in place and a empty space where he used to be. I never felt more lonely than I did at that moment at least at that part of my life.

It was then I realized that I needed to leave Fort McMurray or the city was surely going to kill me, not to long after even the smallest things was starting to piss me off again. I decided that I needed to go somewhere that could teach me film. If I could not do it in Alberta maybe British Columbia would be the ticket.

I had been to British Columbia more than a few times in my life but most of the times that I did we all in the early 90s and they were all in the Vernon/Kelowna so my experience in BC was limited and even then outdated.

However there were two options for film schools in Vancouver at that time; Simon Fraser University and Vancouver Film School. After being burned by Nait and Sait so many times I gave up on the thought of a academic film school. VFS was a private school that only really cared if you could pay for it more than how good your marks were. My parents saved a nest egg for me since I was a child for school which they used for this.

I can’t help but feel bad for using that next egg for this as you can tell by now I never got anywhere in my film career, I never even really had one thoug not for the lack of making an attempt. Me and my dad went to a seminar they put up in Edmonton which impressed both of us and made us confident that I could get a good education there. Boy were were hoodwinked.

Look I have spent way too much time harbouring bad vibes for what would happen from August of 2005 to August 2006 but the more I think of it with 15 years of hindsight behind me I set myself up for failure before I even arrived for my first day of film school.

The day I left Fort Mac is another day I remember vividly at least the the part of leaving. I said goodbye to our dogs Kelly and a Prince feeling I would see them during Christmas, we went to the Gas Bar where I worked for the last two years to fuel up and said goodbye to a girl I had a crush on but felt that she was so far out of my league it wasn’t worth trying. I would never forget how nice she used to be to me when I worked there, at that time of my life she was one of the few women around me that did treat me like I was a monster or some creep. When I came back for Christmas I passed by her for the final time and she invited me out to eat and I never went with her. That would be the first of many regrets I would have in the next 10 years involving women.

So we drove to Calgary and spent a night there then headed straight to Salmon Arm where my cousin Pam was to be married. I hadn’t seen Pam since the early 90s so seeing her married felt surreal. However not even 3 hours passing the border we get a call from one of my uncles who’s as taking care of Prince to tell my dad that he lost him and that he was gone.

For as angry and miserable as I was I should say I did have one friend who was always there for me during those dark points and that was my dog Prince. Prince was like the brother I never had, the one person I could cry my eyes to and not feel judged and shamed for doing it in front of. The more I think about it dogs have seen me cry and break down fairly often. I loved Prince, I told my dad that my uncle could not be relied upon to take care of him and this confirmed it. I remember finding out about this and crying all the way to Salmon Arm. From that point and for the next two years I would hate my dad’s guts for not listening to me and I made it known any time I could as any Scorpio would to twist the knife on him and remind him of his fuck up and how much I hated him for it, he knew it and from that point one he never let any family member take care of our dogs while we were gone ever again however it didn’t matter to me because Prince was my dog and I haven’t had a dog of my own ever since. First day in BC and already experienced my first traumatic event, it would not be the last.

My year in film school could only be compared to my own version of going to my own Vietnam War, it was that traumatic for me it would dictate and basically fuck up residuals for the next 9 years ruining my relationships friends, mainly and women possibly interested women all along the way.

I am not going to go into much detail of that year because it was only one year in 15 that I have lived here and I no longer want that part of my life define me but to ignore it would be omitting a important part of my life no matter how bad it was.

I remember the day I arrived Vancouver again.....vividly. I have been through big cities many times as a kid and as a teenager but it was always on vacation. Vancouver was the first city I feel I truly experienced as an adult for the most part on my own. We drove in and in my dad’s tradition of being in big cities we got lost but this time it wasn’t entirely his fault it was a easy mistake to make. We finally made it o the house I would spend the first four years of my life in. You couldn’t have asked for a better place to stay to tell you the truth. It had a amazing view of Playland (right across the highway from it actually), the rent was affordable for the most part. Well it would be very affordable for today’s Vancouver but this was before the city became too expensive to live in. My landlord was a cool guy who never had a problem with me butt hen I can’t imagine I ever really gave him a problem. I was always quiet, paid my rent on time and never caused any serious trouble. The only knock would be that I would use his drum kit whenever I knew he and everyone in the house was gone which wasn’t often.

Once we dropped everything off we drove to downtown via Hasting Street and that is when we saw something that disturbed us, a place I would basically call cracktown, located on the easy side of downtown Vancouver which sadly in the last 15 years has never really changed. I heard of this area before and was warned about it, when I was still in high school I was shown a documentary about drug abuse on the downtown east side which was enough to scare anyone into not wanting to get like that but seeing it up close was unsettling. We stayed at a hotel for the weekend as I did orientation at VFS and me and my mom would explore a good. Portion of downtown Vancouver. An exercise that was good for me because I would be spending a great deal of time in downtown Vancouver for at least half of my time here.

I was hoping Vancouver would be a new start for me, a new beginning where I would make new friends, finally find a girlfriend, lose my virginity and begin a career either as a film maker or at least a video editor. None of that really happened.

Thus is where I feel like I should talk about how I set myself up for failure but this is all in hindsight. The more I think of it now this was all bound to happen and maybe needed to happen for me to grow into who I am not though no perfect much more of a man and emotionally stable than I was then because for all intensive purposes I was emotionally unstable, I was ticking time bomb ready and looking for someone to explode on.

I loved a extremely sheltered life up to this point, I never had to worry about rent, making my own food though I knew how to, I never knew how to talk to girls let alone socialize. In school I always just kept to myself and did my work as hard as I could and hoped for the best. I was never educated in living life away from my parents. Now here I was in a city I knew nothing about, completely alone and without much of a financial safety net (though I knew my parents would come and save if I called but I never did) and desperately lonely.

I never had a girlfriend before, to tell you the truth my plan was never to go after girls in school my plan was as it should have bee. Get an education and get into making movies but I found myself falling in love with a girl named Katherine. My obsession with her basically destroyed any chance I had at making a decent chance at making something of film school because I spent most if not all of it obsessed with her and trying to “win her over”. I can tell. You many traumatic stories but I feel more like a piece of shit about them where as if I spoke of this prior to Europe I would still try to swing it in a way that it was her who hurt me and not myself but at the end of the day I made my life a living hell and I pinned my future happiness on someone who didn’t ask to be put on a pedestal, who didn’t deserve the grief and stress I put on her, someone who really did want to be my friend but me reeking of such a concentrated dose of toxic masculinity and white male privilege would refuse to see her as a friend and only as a possible love interest.

When I look back on that year I could have been so much more productive than I was, that being said I wasn’t very skilled or I should say I don’t think my set of skills would have been appreciated. I feel fact I should have never have went to VFS but then that is hindsight. How would I have known.

It could be so easy for me to say I wish I had stayed in Fort Mac an extra year till I found out about YouTube and learned film making there.then I would have money to o make my own film and the means to do it there but again I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown in Fort McMurray I doubt I would have lasted another year. The fact that when I moved to a Vancouver and happening lay messed up my own life in a Vancouver basically solidifies that my emotional nosedive was inevitable and bound to happen.

If I could have went back in time to talk to 20 year old me I probably would have told him to instead travel but tot ell you the truth 20 year old me had no interest in travel at that time so I doubt a trip to Europe would have been fruitful for him, maybe to Japan but who knows.

August 2005 to August 2006 was a nightmare year for me where I would cling to any kind of hope to keep my alive and it just seemed like everything just wasn’t working out no matter how hard I tried. It was from this year that I also started drinking more and got into hockey. Before this time I had no interest in drinking I mean I did drink and get drunk no and then but if I got drunk it was e other once a month to once every 3 months. As for hockey I could care less about hockey unless I was playing it on the computer.

I got into being a Oilers fan basically out of a bet I made for myself. I remembered being at a bar with Kat and two other strangers. I was depressed as fuck hoping she could save me from it but she couldn’t and I can’t blame her. I feel like shit for forcing her to be responsible for my salvation but I remember her bringing up hockey. She was a always fan, another guy a Habs fan, the other I can’t remember who but another Canadian team. She asked me what team I cheered for. I said the Oilers only because it was the only team I had any sort of care for but to say I was a fan would be seriously stretching it. She said who knows maybe my team will win the Stanley Cup. It was there that I said to myself the chances of them winning the cup was the same chances of getting her to love someone like me. Coincidentally enough that was the year of the Oilers last great cup run so.....yeah all a desperate and emotionally unstable person needed to continue to peruse a woman who only wanted me be my friend. Let’s just say the aftermath of the Oilers losing to the Hurricanes is very comparable to what inevitably happened to me and Kat. A trauma that would stick with me for the next 9 years and come close to killing me on more than one occasion.

So I graduated, I spent that entire fall applying to work any film set I could at the time figuring it would be so easy because for that year I was at film school film sets would basically park guys in front of our door all the time poaching many of us to come and work for a night or two but by the time we graduated the Canadian dollar was going up and the film industry was starting to dry up in Vancouver. I applied everywhere I could but I never got a call from anyone. I had one chance at working on a film set but it was on a “date” or what I thought was a date. I remember walking past the set and seeing the guys I went tos chocolate with there and the looks on their faces was enough o convince me it wasn’t worth going the route they did. One of them had such a look of disappointment on his face the look of “I just spent 30 K just to watch wires.”

I would try to look for work still but I never got anywhere with it, I would say only a quarter of our class got somewhere in their film careers maybe more but definitely not more than half, if anything only a third.

I only have myself to blame for the failure of film career I never had. I wanted to make my own film and decided that I would just save up money in order to do it but by the time I saved up enough money to where I could have probably done it the love and desire of making a movie is 2014 was more or less gone.

When it was obvious that I could not find film work I worked at HMV for two Christmas’s and I started working at Petcetera and the Old Spaghetti Factory at the beginning of 2007. I again was burning the candle at both ends, desperate to make a buck to make my movie all while I was still clinically depressed and woefully lonely. I only had one friend who was Tyler who was the first person I truly me in Vancouver and is someone who is still my friend to this day though we rarely hang out anymore. If I did not have him in my life to at least just be there I would have probably been dead by now and that is the truth.

2007 was another very rough year in my life. I was working two jobs a day working basically over 60 hours a week from February to August (again), I lost the other dog that was apart of a good portion of my life in Kelly and I was continuing to basically fail finding a girlfriend dogging women who only wanted to me and giving up too soon one women who could have went out with me. I quit both of my jobs in order to work on my short film only to find out that all the money I spent would have been a drop in the bucket and that I needed more money that what I had, 3 times more. Plus everyone I asked to help me either said no or just never returned my calls. Within one month I went back to work at the pet store, worked HMV for another Christmas only to quit the pet store at the end of the year and not be hired by back by the other. It was also by the end of the 2007 that I made my first true suicide attempt, an attempt that I am already starting to feel the effects of now.

I know what you are thinking, my god Corey why didn’t you just leave Vancouver if all it was doing was making you miserable and why are you tell me such a sad fucking sorry, surely there is a happy ending to all this? Very good questions.

Why did I not leave Vancouver? Well the question then is the same as it is now. Where the fuck should I go? You have to understand BC was and still is biggest city for film in Canada. I could have went to Ontario but that would cost money that I didn’t entirely have and I wasn’t entirely sold on leaving. I didn’t want to go back to Alberta because I felt like if I went back it would have been admitting failure also the film industry was and is barely there. Then much like now the only jobs in Alberta are either in the oil industry or to serve the oil industry. I could have decided to just work abroad and you know what they would have and should have been a good idea. I would have been more open to this idea by this time but again I didn’t have that much money and the travel bug had no bite me yet.

Is there a happy ending to all this? Well I am alive now aren’t I and I seem to at least have my head on straight despite how much I enjoy referring tot he past. Well I guess I am one of those people who feels to rule the future you must conquer your past, I feel as though I conquered it for the most part it only took all my 20s to do it.

With that being said my life would start to slightly look up. Thanks to Tyler I was able to get a job at Electrionic Arts in 2008 a job that would provide me with financial stability for the next 6 years. It was not without its own forms of stress but for all intensive purposes I can’t really say much bad about EA; though they paid me peanuts I got good dental and health benefits, I was able to take December’s off to be with my parents, save money like crazy (though I lived on peanut butter and crackers for most of it in order to do so) I had more stability. I just stayed there for too long and that is more on me than them.

In 2009 I had to leave my place of residence because my landlord was ready to start a family and was tired of having room mates though honestly up to this point is as pretty lucky in the room mate department. I moved a few blocks up the road and lived with a older lady and a German man who would not stop bragging about German beer. I was a cider guy at this point and had no interest in beer in general much less German beer (yet).

By this time my alcohol consumption had steady increased to where it is sort of today where I would basically get drunke very weekend but from 2008-11 was probably the most calm time of my life. I had become friends with the landlord and we would have movie nights every Friday enjoying pizza, cider and art movies. I was still failing in my love life at this time but it wasn’t so bad at this time as I was all about writing, watching movies and saving money. I was still reeking of toxic white male priviledge and my land lord tried to get me out of it as she was worried about me however she had her own stresses in her life which led her to move out of the house. By early 2011 I either had the choice of becoming the land lord where the only tenants was a ex convinct and the other was a asshole who always tried to take advance of previous landlord by dodging rent whenever he could. I had enough stress in my life and decided to get my own appartment for the first time in my life near Metrotown.

2011-13 I lived alone for the first time and while it was painfully lonely and horrifically expensive I enjoyed the privacy. Since I no longer had someone to hang out with on Friday nights, online dating was a failure and nothing was changing I decided to go out every Friday night and try to change my luck. While I have many stories to tell long story short I failed all of the time. I also decided to try and upgrade my high school diploma again focusing on sciences. It was around this time that I had beer that I liked for the very first time. It was Okanagan Spring’s Summer Wiezen. I started having it in my head to maybe be a brewmaster. I didn’t care about beer that much but the industry was starting to boom and I was starting to like what was coming out of it but I was still a cider guy for the most part.

In 2011 was when I also made my second suicide attempt and failed. It was embarrassing and slightly eye opening, I didn’t learn much from it but I was starting o learn that things needed to change because the third suicide attempt may be the last one.

Living even in a studio apartment was way too expensive for myself and I decided to move into where I live right now in 2013. It was dirt cheap and run down but it provided me a perfect back drop to save a considerable amount of money o make my film or do something.

At around age 23 I made a promised to myself that I had to accomplish something before I turned 30. At age 28 in 2013 it was looming but I was nowhere closer to doing anything or accomplishing anything that I set out to do.

RJ was turning 30 and like his 25th I went to see him and be there for him though he never was there for me for the last 10 years. Our friendship slowly dissolved after this due to me pursuing his girlfriend because at that point I was still desperate and I felt that our friendship was too one sided and he didn’t care about me so why should I with him. This wound up being another thing that inevitably blew in my face but at least I gain a friend out of it whom is still my friend to this day despite all of the drama.

2014 came and I was now 29 still with nothing to show for it. Lonely and no where closer to beating my demons as I had tried every form of therapy I could. After a trip to Seattle a few years back I became more interested in traveling now than I once was. It was either make a film or travel to Europe and I decided on the later. You know the story of that already.

I think at this point we. Have nearly come full circle as from 2014 and on I have documented my life here. Europe was extremely impactful to me in was that you know yet can’t fathom but I needed time for it to sink in with me. By the time I came back I felt rejuvenated and thought I could get on a saddle now only to fall flat on my ass more than a few times before 2014 ended. I had turned 30 and now I was unemployed, still loveless and much more poorer but at least I had done something no other from my family had done before as of yet.

It was would be in February of 2015 when I had my last true breakdown where the light finally came on. From August 2015 to August 2017 I went back to o school, prior to then I finally met a girl who actually loves me and by the time I graduated I already had a job that was paying twice the amount of was being paid at EA.

In 2018 and 2019 I was travel more than I had for most of my 20s and more happier than I had ever been all things considering.

Now here in 2020 I guess I am at another cross roads. While my living quarters has allowed me to save a considerable amount of money it is not a place I should live in anymore, it is a nearly toxic environment with a shit head room mate who was her before me. The city itself is too expensive to live in and I can’t afford to live in it. I am now sort of being forced out unless I want to make sacrificed in my life to stay her, sacrifices I do not think are worth it.

At this point I have very few if any friends, all the friends I have made have either moved away or moved on (sound familiar). Living here now causes a lot of needless stress. The problem is where the hell do I go from here?

It is funny though for much of the 15 years I have lived here I have hated Vancouver and the Albertan in me tried to find anyway he could to place blame on this city any way I could for all the problems in my life even though at the end of the day I was the harbinger of my own sadness all along. Now at the 15 year mark I actually love being in Vancouver. Is it perfect? Fuck no it is expensive, drives and cyclists are idiots, it barely snows and when it does this city refuses to handle it.

That being said the weather is very mild, people are not angry here or look to take their anger out on you here, the politics lean to the left here the most and the beer is the best in Canada for the most part. Maybe it is Stockholm Syndrome maybe it isn’t but I am used to being here and I can’t entirely see myself being anywhere else right now. For awhile I thought Alberta was a option now that I have career to build but with its politics and the province’s penchant to fuck itself up I am wary of going back there. So where else do I go?

I was born and raised in Alberta but I basically was a baby, child and teen in Fort McMurray, I grew up there. However it was in Vancouver where I became the man I am today. Before I came here I hated myself beyond measure, now while I have have money of self hatred I don’t hate myself entirely anymore. I see someone who was deeply flawed and caused harm to other but mainly to himself in his pursuit of his own truths that never made any sense but I also see someone who learned from his fuck ups and no longer allows them to define him. It is part of the portrait that is me but it is not all of me and. I refuse to let the next 15 years be defined by it either. I will still make mistakes and have many regrets, I can only hope at age 50 I will be a better man then than I am at 35.

In the next couple of weeks I will talk about Australia and Europe. I ain’t ravelling this year due to COVID obviously. It makes me feel so lucky that I got to go to those places to which talking about it feel is the closest I can get to actually being there again anyway.

Anyways this has been the last 15 years in my life. There are many stories that I have not told but that would be a novel’s worth of stories and I feel I have probably tired you out by now I know I am. So here is to the next 15 years wherever I may be at that point. Shazbot nanu nanu.