#ive been doing a lot of soul searching and healing and thinking and a better understanding of myself and the world i live in

[penisbilt]

waving hello everyone so uh sorry for just kinda up and vanishing for um. months and months and months. i kind of exploded and then died and then lived briefly and then died again. but with the days getting longer and me being brave and being outdoors more (Even Though its starting to get real wintery outside) it feels like im coming to life again AND developing social tendencies for the first time in uhh ummmm. so anyway yeah hi i can almost handle the thought of communicating with other human beings again in the near future, stay tuned

[fireinmywoods]

the heart of the matter (is Leonard McCoy)

Followers...friends. I come to you today, hat in hand, to ask for your support in a certain fandom matter, a trifling concern of little real consequence which nevertheless has been driving me absolutely cross-eyed bonkers for some years now.

Simply put: can we please all agree that Bones is the heart of the Enterprise???

In AOS, I mean. I’m not aware of any debate over this when it comes to TOS, where the roles of the triumvirate have always been explicit, though there are a few different ways to identify them:

Spock = logos = superego = head

Bones = pathos = id = heart

Kirk = ethos = ego = soul

So clear! So clean! So universally accepted by Trek fandom at large!

Oh, but things get murkier in AOS, and there are plenty of posts floating around which suggest that it’s Kirk, not McCoy, who serves as the heart in the Kelvin timeline. Even the writers of the first two AOS films have outright stated that their interpretation of the triumvirate had the original roles switched, with Kirk as the highly emotional one and McCoy as the arbiter between Kirk’s passion and Spock’s logic. It’s true that this technically counts as a Word of God pronouncement by the actual creators of 2/3 of the series thus far, which some would argue renders it canon. However, it’s equally true that those same creators also felt that Kirk was a fuckboi and that Benedict Cumberbatch wonderfully embodied their vision for Khan Noonien Singh, so honestly, who gives a hot hollerin’ fuck what those dingdongs think. This seems as justified a time as any to invoke Death of the Author, and in fact, it’s my firm belief that despite the writers’ intentions, Star Trek and Into Darkness both support the original triumvirate breakdown.

Under the cut you’ll find a long-winded and self-indulgent ~*~character analysis~*~ of the Kelvin-timeline incarnations of Jim Kirk and Leonard “Bones” McCoy, reviewing why Leonard is still unmistakably the heart, unpacking what the hell Jim’s deal is, and finally taking a look at some key examples from canon, because ya girl believes in showing her work.

Let’s get down to business.

[A quick warning, as this is starting to spread beyond my own followers: if you don’t like McKirk as a romantic pairing, you ain’t gonna like part IV, so I’d bow out before then or just take your leave now.]

i. Leonard

Independent of Jim’s characterization, it should be blindingly obvious that Leonard is the heart. He’s by far the most nakedly emotional of our seven core crew members, a trait we see writ large and small throughout the films. He’s reactive; he’s passionate; he’s humane. He cares, first and foremost.

Not about Starfleet, of course. Leonard doesn’t give a damn about playing the game or advancing his career, or even really about the Enterprise’s mission - he has no desire to explore strange new worlds, he’ll pass on seeking out new life and new civilizations, and he spends half his time trying to convince everyone else that boldly going where no man has gone before is a great way to die horribly. Fuck exploration, fuck space, and fuck the Federation while we’re at it. Leonard is perhaps the most improbable of the Enterprise’s senior officers for the simple reason that he seems to resent everything about the job.

Well. Almost everything.

See, what Leonard cares about is people. He cares about their lives, about their stories, about their hopes and dreams, about their suffering. That’s why he entered and has stayed in an extremely taxing caring profession, and it’s why he’s still on the Enterprise despite his incessant bitching about everything they do. He wouldn’t trust anyone else to take care of the crew he’s become so attached to, and he finds fulfillment in helping the people they encounter out there in the nightmare of space.

In every timeline, Leonard McCoy defines himself by what he can do for others: the pain he can ameliorate, the wounds he can heal, the diseases he can cure, the small amounts of good he can bring to a galaxy filled with so much absolute horseshit. Unlike most of his colleagues, he’s not motivated by curiosity or an adventurer’s spirit or a burning desire to make sense of the universe. (Fuck the universe, too, as a matter of fact.) Instead, he’s driven by the incredible depths of his compassion and empathy and concern for the people he serves alongside and those they meet along the way.

Sure sounds like the heart to me.

ii. Jim

I actually totally get why some people characterize Kelvin-timeline Jim as the heart. He’s quite literally a different man than the original timeline’s Kirk, and he definitely has more of the pathos qualities to him. Early on, he’s a total spitfire, fierce and hot-blooded, quick to anger and other sharp-edged emotions we’re not used to associating with James T. Kirk. Even as he grows into himself and leaves some of those traits behind, he remains spontaneous, passionate, protective, and self-sacrificing - easy enough to mistake for the heart if you squint.

But let’s not confuse having a heart for being the heart. Sure, Jim is more openly emotional and reactive than his TOS counterpart, but there’s still a marked difference between the way he and Leonard express and act on their emotions.

AOS Jim definitely has a lot of feelings - big ones - but at the end of the day, he’s not driven by his heart. He’s driven by his gut.

Whenever there’s trouble, Jim makes a beeline right for the center of it. He’s impulsive as hell, rarely pausing to think past his first instinct, because he just wants to be doing something, no matter the odds, no matter what it costs him. He explicitly calls himself out on this in ST:ID when arguing with Spock: “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. I only know what I can do.” He doesn’t have the patience or the constitution to sit and debate all the options, either internally or with his crew. If there’s a path forward from where he is, even a bad one, Jim’s gonna take it.

[Sidebar: One could make the case that the roots of Jim’s instinct to act reach back to his childhood traumas - canonically ignored abuse and neglect on the one hand, and the Tarsus IV famine and massacre on the other - but that’s a whole post on its own and we ain’t got all day here.]

Jim can’t not act, and while that gets him into a lot of trouble, it also saves lives. Sulu probably appreciated that Jim’s gut drove him to leap off Nero’s drilling platform without a moment’s hesitation after a man he’d only just met. He may have been a real shithead about it, but Jim’s impassioned insistence on going after the Narada and not wasting time on the possibility of a better option was key to saving Pike and Earth itself. And I don’t know why Spock was so surprised that Jim intervened to save him on Nibiru, considering that the reason they were there in the first place was because Jim couldn’t sit back and watch the Nibirans die when there was something his crew could do to help them, even if it meant risking a violation of the Prime Directive.

Jim is a good man with a big heart, and he cares about people, absolutely. But he cares most of all about Doing The Right Thing - which in the heat of the moment often translates to Doing Something, Anything, Hold My Beer.

iii. heart vs. gut (i.e., time for some receipts)

I think one of the main reasons Leonard and Jim’s characterizations get confused is because they both tend to act on instinct, only lightly informed by higher reasoning. However, I’d argue that their motivations and the nature of those actions are super distinct, and those distinctions remain relatively consistent throughout all three films. (And y’all know I really mean this shit if I’m out here calling ST:ID consistent.)

Jim is a big picture guy, figuratively and often literally heaving himself full-body into the mix of whatever problem the crew has encountered for lack of any better alternative. That energy propels the plots of all three films: the chaotic path he carves through the events of Star Trek and ST:ID, and the slightly calmer but still undeniably bananas course he charts for himself and his crew in the second half of Beyond.

As the heart, Leonard operates on a more micro level. His concern invariably lies with the individual people caught up in those grand events Captain Chaos is busy dragging them all through. While Jim’s zooming around flipping plot switches, Leonard can always be counted on to bring it back to the personal.

We frequently see this juxtaposed right there on film. Think of that slow pan through medbay in the first movie after the Narada’s ambush and the destruction of Vulcan: while Jim is stewing over what to do about the Big Bad, Leonard has stepped into the CMO role without fuss or fanfare to care for the wounded crew and traumatized survivors.

Or jump ahead to Beyond: during Krall’s attack on the Enterprise, there’s a gorgeous cinematic shot of Jim sprinting down the corridor with two crew members to take on the invaders - and then we cut to Leonard moving slowly through those same ghastly red-lit corridors, searching for casualties in need of help, visibly affected by what his scanner is telling him about the downed crewman he tries to save.

Actually, Beyond as a whole does terrific justice to each of their roles. (Perhaps because it was not written by dingdongs.) The first act finds Jim flailing around for a sense of purpose and forward momentum - an understandable consequence of a gut-driven character having stalled out for too long - and he ultimately gets his mojo back by spending the rest of the film careening through one insane seat-of-his-pants ploy after another. Meanwhile, in the quieter moments between all the mayhem, Leonard serves as the empathetic sounding board for both Jim and Spock as they struggle with deep emotionally charged secrets and Big Life Questions, helping them untangle their feelings and reminding them of the emotional attachments which are ultimately key to their respective decisions to stay on the Enterprise.

More examples, you say? Don’t mind if I do!

Star Trek

GUT: Jim hurtles around the Narada, improvising almost every step of the way and paying the price for his and Spock’s scheme in bodily harm, and ultimately succeeds in rescuing Pike. HEART: Leonard calls out for Jim as he runs into the transporter room, overwhelmed with relief that he’s made it back, and takes Chris Pike’s weight literally and figuratively onto his own shoulders to begin healing him while Jim runs back off to the center of the action.

Star Trek: Into Darkness

GUT: Jim argues with Leonard, Spock, and Scotty in quick succession as he’s preparing to drag them all off to Qo’noS, immune to their attempts to reason with him because, unraveled as he is by grief and pain, he can only focus on his visceral drive to Do Something. HEART: Unlike the others, Leonard is upset not about the larger moral questions of whether it’s right to go after John Harrison or bring torpedoes aboard the ship, but about the fact that Jim himself is hurt and hurting and won’t accept help.

GUT: Jim makes a snap decision to sacrifice himself by hurling his body against the warp core to realign it and save his crew. HEART: Shellshocked by the emotional grenade of his best friend’s death, Leonard suddenly realizes, through the haze of his own numbness and upswelling grief, that he might still be able to do something for this lonely radiation-ravaged body he’s been brought and the life it represents.

Star Trek Beyond

GUT: At the tail end of an improvised plan to out-maneuver Kalara, Jim quite literally shoots first and asks questions later, igniting a fuel tank and setting off an explosive series of events which he and Chekov just barely escape. HEART: The next time we see Leonard, Spock is opening up to him about Ambassador Spock’s death and his own plan to leave Starfleet for New Vulcan - and while he’s empathetic toward Spock (I can’t imagine what that must feel like), Leonard’s thoughts go immediately to the emotional impact of Spock’s plan on the other people he’s closest with. (I can see how that would upset [Nyota]. / I can tell you, [Jim]’s not gonna like that.)

GUT: Jim frantically strains to reach the final switch in the life support hub, believing that he’s going to die either way since the vent has already opened, but spurred on by the knowledge that his ability to move that switch is the only thing standing between Yorktown and annihilation. HEART: Knowing exactly what’s at stake, with the fate of the station and millions of lives hanging in the balance, Leonard’s greatest concern is that Jim won’t make it out in time.

iv. never bet against the heart

Let’s wrap this up with a deep dive on one of the absolute best examples of Leonard as the heart: his decision to sneak Jim onto the Enterprise in the first movie.

As relentlessly as I drag him for the, you know, poisoning and kidnapping aspects of that whole deal, there’s no denying that it is a god-tier heart move. Is it logical? Absolutely not. Is it really the right thing to do for either himself or Jim, as far as he knows at the time? Nope. It’s 100% the wrong choice for his own job security, reputation, and relationships with his fellow crew, and it’s almost guaranteed to get Jim into even worse trouble. Leonard is a smart dude who must understand that this course of action will likely end up coming back on them both in a real bad way. For someone who argues loudly and often in defense of self-preservation, this is a shockingly bad idea.

But none of that matters, because Jim shakes his hand and tells him to be safe with that horrible empty-eyed smile, and it gets him right in the heart, one-two-three.

One: sympathy, worry, and affection for Jim - his best friend, his wild and troublesome stray, his only family.

Two: guilt over adding onto Jim’s pain, and the instinctive urge to fix whatever‘s hurting him.

Three: fear of heading out into the unknown by himself, the agonizing uncertainty of not knowing what’s coming, craving for the security and reassurance Jim’s presence would give him.

“Dammit,” Leonard says, as his heart wins out over his brain. He knows this is a garbage plan, and he doesn’t care. His heart chooses Jim. That’s all that matters.

So he goes back for Jim, and to his own surprise it turns out that this Very Bad Idea was actually a Very Good Idea because Jim’s impulsive instincts end up saving Earth, and Leonard’s not in the habit of fixing what ain’t broke so he figures he may as well keep on chasing Jim’s crazy ass around the galaxy for a while, through jungles and off cliffs and into the goddamn afterlife when need be, until finally one day Jim’s gut drives him right into Leonard’s arms and he suddenly realizes that this is what his heart was choosing all those years ago: Jim’s wide terrified eyes, Jim’s voice breaking over his name, Jim’s hand pressing hard against his chest, reaching out for what’s his.

But that’s another story.

[sargentr]

my fave drarry fics of all time, part one

so, after discovering i’ve officially been reading drarry fanfic for 4 years now, i decided to show my (quite big) list of favorite drarry fics. there are 46 in total, but i’ve listed 10 down below. the first three are my absolute favorites but the rest are equally as good

most of my notes are fresh from when i wrote them post-reading. i’ve changed some, seeming less like a crazy unstable bitch, but fuck these were all emotional as fuck. enjoy

ps: i dont really know how to tag people i dont follow. i cant try and tag the authors later. soz!!

pps: most of these i read when i was really into a bottom!draco phase, so most of them contain that, some are switch tho (as it should be, yikes past me)

1. Everything That Happen is From Now On / ~43K 

After surviving a brutal assault, Draco tries to navigate the tumultuous waters of his mind, and embrace a bit of love and trust in his life. After all, the smallest steps forward can begin to heal the most fractured of souls

okay so before i get in to how beautiful this story is, i wanna say that it does touch on rape quite explicitly. i cried like an idiot reading the entire thing, because draco’s pain is navigated in the most beautiful and realistic way. it touches on a subject very risky for me, very personal, and i still can’t think of a better drarry story. draco’s very draco about it all, and harry is very harry about it all. it’s just perfect, and messy, and tender, and sad. i’ve reread it more than any other fic, and it doesn’t disappoint. 

2. Pocket Full of Starlight / ~46K

When Scorpius Malfoy and Jamie Potter meet at Quidditch camp, they take an instant dislike to each other. Then they discover their lives are more connected than they could possibly imagine.

ah yes. the magic of kid fics. the TASTE

parent trap au. i read this one recently, like 3 months back, and absolutely fell in love with everything about it, partially because the parent trap is legit one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time. its just. the essence, the IDEA, is soooo mf beautiful. i cant get enough of reading when harry or draco finally meet the other twin, or how they cant stop loving each other even after 11 years. my heart clenched throughout the whole thing. 

3. Temptations on the Warfront / ~180K

Draco Malfoy is forced into hiding with the Golden Trio and dragged into their search for horcruxes. What ensues is a journey of redemption, unexpected friendships and an unwanted, turbulent romance with Harry Potter. Warnings for swearing, sexual content, and dark themes. 

this was the first drarry fic ive ever read, and before this mf i HATEDDD this pairing. so you can imagine how much it took to convince me otherwise, bc i was 100% scorbus before this.

to be fair, horcrux hunting with draco involved is, possibly, my favorite trope ever. its unique. theres tension, both sexual and life threatening. in some ways it romanticizes the war, but fuck it it aint a real war. 

slowest of burns. amazing. life changing. long as hell. nothing else to be said except read it right now i demand it.

4. Clouding the Senses / ~58K

As everyone returns to Hogwarts for a final eighth year, some people are coping better with the aftermath of the war than others. After encountering a very drunk Draco Malfoy one night, Harry realises that maybe those that lost loved ones aren’t the only ones trying to escape the war. Blaise Zabini seems to think Harry can help Malfoy, that the Slytherin might actually listen to him. Harry is not so sure. Dependence is a tricky thing, and one addiction can quickly shift to another.

everyone that reads drarry loves 8th year fics, but this ones just kinda different from all those normal (yet entertaining) ones. draco’s an alcoholic in this, and one night harry tries to help him and whoops, one thing leads to the other and they start having casual sex. its really, really amazing how both draco and harry navigate the addiction, i really cant say it has any flaws. 

i know the author got a lot of hate on their fics and thats why they took them down, but they’re truly one of the best drarry authors out there. i’ve reread this a couple of times, and the tenderness, the love and confusion is all very on character. a+

5. Restraint / ~153K

Someone casts the Imperius curse on Draco Malfoy, and whatever the instructions may be, Harry finds himself an unwilling target. The encounter leaves him torn between pleasure and revulsion. As they fight in the aftermath, a tense game begins. Harry fights to convince Malfoy, and himself, that he was not affected by that initial encounter, or any of those following it.

Faced with a series of escalating encounters, Harry must come to terms with desiring things he never thought he could, things he wishes he didn’t respond to. They each use signs of arousal as weapons against each other in a mad struggle to finally shame the other into backing down for good. 

But it’s only after the game is over that Harry starts to understand.

this is by the same author of clouding the senses, and i read this just this week. at first, it’s shocking, because it plays around with consent in a very unsettling way. when communication comes in, and its starts getting healthier, you can really understand where the author found the idea of playing with consent. it is, in my opinion, 100% characteristic of how they would behave post-war, with that grief and confusion. it’s also dom/sub in some parts, and that’s mf hot. 

it also has my favorite tropes in it, but it’s a spoiler to say which one. i’ll probably mention the trope in the list along with a bunch others, but when u finish reading you’ll know which one ;)

6. Humbug / ~30K

Draco has been taking his casual relationship with Harry for granted. Visits from four key ghosts the night before Christmas just might shake up his priorities in life.

(felt like it was valid to just paste what i wrote in my notes app after reading this)

(FUCKKKKKK HOW TO EVEN START?!!!?? just a fucking bonus, draco is THE best bottom o ever exist i love my bottom son so much. this story isnt only amazing it’s excruciatingly painful to read, harry and draco have been sleeping together but harry is completely in love with him. draco doesnt see how much harry cares for him or how much hes hurting harry by treating their fling like its just that, a FLING. with that, draco is haunted by three ghosts. one of the past, the present and the future, AND THEY SET THAT IDIOT STRAIGHTTTT 1800000/10. the gays DO KEEP MF WINNING!!!

7. in your arms, rests my world / ~24K

Harry presses his mouth to Malfoy's forehead; he wants to tell him that he’ll never leave, that he wouldn’t dream of it.

“You make me feel safe, Potter” Malfoy whispers. “You keep me safe.”

the friends with benefits trope doesnt ever disappoint, top 5 tropes fr, especially if its also 8th year. harry and draco get into their little thing, but of course nothing ever is simple between them. by the preview, you can clearly see how much draco likes harry (also another 10/10 trope, the ‘i’ve been in love with harry potter since i was 11′ one). my only tiny issue with this is that harry fucks it up just a tad, but it of course adds up to the drama of it all, which i absolutely love.

noting it also touches on non-con/rape and, and all in all, is extremely angsty. one i was tense from beginning to end. but i am gonna say it ends amazingly and v happily.

8. Playing the Hero / ~29K

Nobody kissed me like Harry did. He kissed like he flew; he kissed like he duelled - with his whole being, not caring about anything else. I had never felt as vulnerable as I did when he kissed me, seizing all and any control I had over myself. But when Harry kissed me, I felt free...

so the thing about angst is that it ignites that mf feeling side u that even tho it hurts you cannot get enough of. this fic was EVERYTHINGGG. it made cry and laugh and smile. also another trope i absolutely adore is them breaking up and not being 100% ok with that, bc ding ding!! YALL STILL LOVE EACH OTHER!! 

i cant describe how i felt, honestly. i would just paste my notes (i wont bc spoilers) but it looks like i went thru sum shit. deadass

9. fine i’ll hold my breath / till i forget it’s complicated  / ~ 15K with the two parts

Harry and Draco become friends with benefits, and Harry thinks it's more complicated than it actually is.

u know, fluff is a drug. i dont know if its beucase 90% of drarry fics are about angsty get-togethers, but i had butterflies in my stomach when i read this. its adorable. draco is so clearly in love, he jusT SMILES A LOT I CANTTT. 

its cute. i love it to death. have some fluff before starting your day.

10. Un Noël très parisien / ~14K

When Draco crossed paths with Auror Potter at a political function in Paris, he was not expecting their former animosity to change into something rather more intriguing. But he could be certain their casual flirtation would not last more than the night, couldn't he?

look. i know i named a lot of my favorite tropes here, but i cant end this without mentioning how much single dad draco affects me. i love scorpius and how much he changes draco in every fic he appears. i love parent draco and i shant be silent about it (especially when scorpius is legit just a year old in this. i died)

as it states, harry and draco have a one night stand but draco thinks thats it, that it was all he was ever gonna have. he’s wrong of course, and the path it takes, with both scorpius and harry there, just melted my mf heart.

well kids that’s all i have for now. imma work on a part two with 10 other fics i really love!1

[yastaghr]

Carried Skeleton 11 - Death

Chapter Summary: Flowey plays torture with Sans to Papyrus' dismay and Chara and Azriel reach their destiny.

Warnings: Major Character Death, Torture

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17443730/chapters/58940371

Flowey grinned his most twisted grin, the tiny spark of a soul in his stem throbbing with excitement. He was absolutely thrilled. This was dangerous. This was daring. This was fun.

He stared at his canvas and licked his lips. There was Sans, bound to a chair, gagged, and showing real fear. His small, upside-down soul was summoned and hovering in front of him. Connected to it by a long line was an IV of healing magic that Flowey was especially proud of. It would replenish Sans’ health as he lost it, which meant that Flowey could hurt him for as long as he wanted to. He giggled. Yes, this was definitely going to be fun.

As he considered what he wanted to do to Sans first, Flowey let his anger wash over him. Papyrus hadn’t been paying attention to him. He was his brother, Papyrus was supposed to play with him! Not with some fish bitch, and not with the baby. He’d killed the fish and scattered her dust in the river so she would never have a proper funeral, and also so Papyrus wouldn’t suspect that she was dead. Then he captured Sans and got him set up properly for a long, long play time. If he couldn’t get Papyrus to play with him, then maybe he should try playing with the baby himself.

When the idea occurred to him, Flowey’s grin spread impossibly wider. He reached behind him and grabbed the sharpest knife on his table of torture. Seeing Sans’ face when he brought it out…

He was surprised to experience a moment of hesitation. Sans looked so scared. His baby brother looked so scared. Did he really want to… no, he couldn’t think like that. A soulless being wouldn’t worry about hurting someone. He had to do it. He brought the knife forward and prepared to cut.

Not far away, Papyrus was searching. Flowey had said that there was a suspicious monster hanging around their basement door before it blew up. Papyrus might not like the memory of the monster who owned their basement before them, but he knew that machine meant a lot to Sans. If he could find the monster who had blown up their basement then he could figure out why, and if he could figure out why then he could stop them from doing it in the next timeline, and if he could stop it then Sans would be happy. He wanted Sans to be happy.

When he found the abandoned shed in the outskirts of Waterfall, of course he decided to check it out. An abandoned looking shed would be the perfect place to hide after committing a crime! That’s what all his favorite TV shows said, anyway. So obviously he went in!

He wished he hadn’t. Seeing the state that Sans was in, the blood dripping off of Flowey’s knife, the expressions on their faces… it was heartbreaking and infuriating at the same time. They were brothers! Granted, Sans didn’t know that, but Flowey did! Why was he doing this? Sans was bleeding from every bone in his body. Flowey had filetted and carved into his bones to create an almost random design; almost because Papyrus recognized it as Asriel’s signature attack pattern, the one with stars raining down out of the sky.

“FLOWEY,” Papyrus said deeply. Flowey jerked and spun around, a weird expression on his face. It was like worry, confusion, slyness, and fear were all thrown into a blender, frozen with liquid nitrogen, and scattered on a plate of anger and pain. “WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING TO MY BROTHER?”

Flowey’s face contorted as he tried to come up with an explanation that would get Papyrus off his back, but Papyrus wasn’t having it and let it show. He wanted the truth and he wanted it now.

“Um… shit. I-” Papyrus glared at him, “You haven’t been paying attention to me! I’m your big brother! I’m the one you’re supposed to be playing with, not the baby! So, since you’re so obsessed with the smiley trashbag, I had to do something to him to get you to pay attention to me! So I did!”

Papyrus could see it in Sans’ eyes. He hadn’t known that it was Asriel doing this to him. Papyrus tried to mirror that expression, and it must have worked, because Flowey bought it. “YOU- YOU- AZZY?”

Flowey looked shocked for a moment, like he hadn’t meant to say that. Then he jumped on it and owned it. “Yes, it’s me! I’m stuck with my memories in a stupid, soulless flower and I can’t even play with my own brother, so you can imagine the kind of stress I am under. I want your attention and I want all of it! I don’t want to share you with some stupid fish! I don’t want to share you with Sans, either! I don’t want to share you with anyone!”

Papyrus gulped. Oh. So Flowey was jealous. That… sort of made sense. Azzy could get really moody if he wasn’t getting the attention he thought he deserved. This was just kind of that taken to an extreme. A really, really scary extreme. But if Flowey really was soulless like he said, that made sense.

Papyrus raised both hands and slowly stepped forward. “I SEE. UM… HOW ABOUT THIS, FLOWEY. AZZY? FLOWEY. HOW ABOUT THIS: IF YOU LET ME TAKE SANS TO THE HOSPITAL I’LL PLAY WITH YOU FOR AS LONG AS YOU WANT. I’LL DO ANYTHING YOU WANT ME TO. WE CAN EVEN,” Papyrus gulped. This was a really big concession for him, but he needed Flowey to agree to this, “WE CAN EVEN PLAY MONSTERS AND HUMANS. I KNOW YOU LIKE TO BE THE MONSTER, SO I’LL BE THE HUMAN FOR AS LONG AS YOU WANT, OKAY? JUST, PLEASE, LET ME TAKE SANS TO THE HOSPITAL. HE NEEDS HELP, AND I DON’T WANT HIM… I DON’T WANT HIM TO DUST.”

Flowey eyed him in a way that Papyrus couldn’t quite place. It lasted uncomfortably long. Then Flowey shrugged, dropped that wicked knife onto the cold, hard ground, and backed up. “Be my guest. I’m not going to let you out of my sight, though, and you’d better not tell anyone that this was me.”

“OF COURSE NOT, FLOWEY!” Papyrus said as he stepped forward, ready to start untying Sans from the chair he was bound to. “IF I DID YOU WOULDN’T GET TO PLAY WITH ME! NOW, PLEASE STAY BACK. I DON’T WANT YOU TO-”

That was when it happened. Papyrus had been trying to be careful. He’d untied the arm restraints with the utmost care and was moving to the left leg when he bumped it. It was such a little bump! It shouldn’t have done that much damage! But nobody bothered to tell that to Sans’ soul. The little bump jostled the needle connecting that weird IV thing to Sans’ soul. It lost its stability and fell out. Papyrus only had time to look up and see the panicked expression on Sans’ face before his whole body turned to dust.

Papyrus froze. He- no. That can’t have just happened. It was a joke, right? It had to be. He turned to Flowey, and his expression broke that little fantasy. Flowey looked like he was lost and in agony. This… this was real. He really had killed his little brother.

“FLOWEY,” Papyrus asked, his voice sounding as if it was coming from a long way away, “PLEASE DO YOUR WEIRD LITTLE TIMELINE THING. I CAN’T HANDLE THIS AGAIN. I’M NOT… STRONG ENOUGH. I PROMISE I’LL PLAY WITH YOU ALL YOU WANT. JUST, PLEASE, MAKE IT SO SANS IS SAFE.”

Flowey slowly nodded through the shock. It was clear that he didn’t know that Papyrus remembered. Papyrus just hoped that, if he could keep Flowey entertained long enough, Sans would be safe.

“I can do that, cheery doormat. I promise.”

=====

Staring at your own dead body was definitely surreal. So was hearing your brother’s thoughts, especially when they were so steeped in grief. Chara focused on them, trying to pick out the thread that would let them help him.

<... It’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s my fault->

Chara interrupted that thought right there. <Azzy, stop that. It’s no more your fault than it is mine. I told you that I was dying anyway. It was going to be old age before long. We just hurried it along a bit.> Azriel sniffed. Chara felt that, felt the tears in his fur (and wasn’t that a weird feeling), and sighed. <You’re such a needy crybaby! Come on, we have to get out of the Barrier before Mom and Dad come back. Don’t make me move these limbs myself!>

Azriel sniffed again, but Chara could tell that this one was different. This one was just Azzy trying to clean up his face. Chara smiled and felt that smile translate onto Azriel’s face. <Okay, Chara. You wanted to see the flowers in your village one last time, right?>

Chara nodded and picked up their own body. Azriel recoiled, but Chara explained, <I don’t want Mom and Dad to have to figure out what to do with it. We can put it in the flowers on the Surface, okay? I know you’ll like them. They’re golden, even more so than the buttercups. I don’t know what they’re called, though.>

Azriel headed out of their bedroom and towards the Barrier as they talked. <I know. You drew a picture with Sans, oh, twenty some years ago? He still keeps it safe from juice stains.>

Chara nodded, noting absently that walking through the Barrier felt like static and cotton balls. <Yeah, I know. I never thought he would take it so seriously. I figured he would forget about it in a few years, maybe.>

<Monsters live for a long time, Chara, so we have to remember stuff for a long time, too.> Azriel admonished, <It’s still so weird to me that humans can only live a bit over a hundred years. No wonder you changed so much physically! I just thought you were like the Whimsums. They go through so many life stages, and they look so hugely different in all of them. I never thought that you were actually aging that fast. Wowie!>

Chara shivered as they stepped out into the sun for the first time in decades. It felt so weird against Azriel’s fur. He was standing in shock, taking everything in for the first time. Chara was too busy reliving their mad escape to feel that awe, however. The only thing they could do was shield Azriel as best they could from the horrors in their mind. They didn’t want to worry or upset him. If they’d known that this whole soul absorbing thing would involve sharing thoughts, well… they might have reconsidered who they asked to absorb them. Maybe Gaster would have been a better idea after all.

<Is that your village, Chara?> Azriel’s voice interrupted their thoughts.

Chara blinked, trying to focus on what Azriel could currently see. He had to have been walking for a while, because he was approaching the clearing that their village used to be in. It looked bigger now. There were a lot more houses and buildings. It could hardly be called a village anymore. It was now a small town.

<Yes, this is it. The clearing with the flowers is over by that big tree there. At least, it used to be…> Chara said. There was now a fence and a gate around the flowers. That hadn’t been there before.

Azriel walked over and carefully opened the gate, setting Chara’s body down on the flowers and sitting next to it. Chara ran their hand through the flowers, getting Azriel’s fur covered in seeds and pollen. Maybe when they got back home Dad could have some fun trying to grow them. Of course, he wouldn’t need to if they did what they had planned to do. Chara forced his body to stand up and look around. There were some humans not too far away.

<Chara… what are you doing?> Azriel asked uneasily.

<I’m doing what Dad always said to do and being the Saviour of Monsterkind.> Chara said stubbornly. Then they stepped forward and brought Azriel and themselves into their destiny.

[kaitlynpcallmebeepme]

I’ll Fight For You

I’ll Fight For You

Peter Parker x Reader 

Warnings:  Fight scene, explosions, hurt descriptions, starving self, swearing I think, nursing organ facts (tell me if you think of any more), fluff, and a hint of angst

A/N: This is the work I have for @keepingupwiththeparkers for her 4,000 follower writing challenge. 

#kuwtp4kwc

Thinking about making an origin story for Gargoyle. The good title I thought of I want to save for my series. Comments and feedback are always appreciated. Requests are open and Messages are open if you want to chat. The gifs came from google, so credit goes to the person who made them. I don’t own Gargoyles the show either.

Background: Only slight endgame spoilers for this description. In my world, Carol snapped the gauntlet to kill Thanos and made it through the time machine, but left the mind and time stone so they could bring Vision back and returned the soul stone to save Natasha, and Steve didn't go back in time. Avengers Tower was bought back until the compound could be rebuilt and remained as a kind of a base since Queens is closer to the tower than the compound.

Tag list: Send me an ask if you want to be added. 

@trashinaglass and @peter-pan-hoe ♡

Dialogue prompt:

8. “I thought I’d lost you”

Word count: 1,860

The intel was terrible at best. When have you ever heard of a hydra agent defecting.  That didn't matter anymore. What mattered is that your team, the Avengers, got the intel about chemical weapons Hydra was developing and get out of the base as quickly as possible. 

Taking revenge on the people who tortured you is one of the sweetest things ever. You were Y/n. Last name you never knew. Part of a species of bat-human hybrids that you were the sole survivor of, thanks to hydra of course. Mainly a human body with slightly pointed ears, retractable claws, an echolocation trackability, better hearing, sharp teeth, bat-shaped wings protruding from your back, skin that can turn to stone, and slight healing powers, which were amplified if you turned completely to stone for some time. You took the name Gargoyle after Peter showed you The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It was his job to catch you, Steve, and Bucky up on all of the pop culture stuff you missed.

You and Peter had the bottom floor almost cleared with the task of searching for hostages. You liked the curly-haired nerd. You two were around the same age when the Avengers raided the Hydra base you were kept captive in. He was the one to hoist your bloody body over his shoulders and carry you out of there. You both valued stealth and sticking to ceilings. You both often trained together and we're interested in both of your talents, yours of which was blacksmithing and Anatomy. You both tested your powers to see how far you could push each other and discover what your limits were. Peter could spend an hour upside-down before he started to feel fatigued and your healing ability worked better if you have a lot of what was hurt. For example, a kidney would heal a lot faster than a heart because there are two kidneys and one heart. 

Okay, back to the mission. No hostages or test subjects have been found as you and Peter kept making your way around your floor. It was mainly storage rooms with few people in the hallways. Not as exciting for you, but you didn't want to go into a room where you two couldn't handle what was inside.

You and Peter got on the ceiling in front of the last room you had to check off your floor. When all of a sudden the door burst open on its own and the air was filled with bullets. Two big guys with miniguns. TWO?!?! Normally it would be one and a lot of smaller henchmen covering him. You looked at Peter for some silent sign of a game plan. He drew a 'Z' with his fingers and pointed to his web shooter. Then made the cracking fist motion with his hands. You nodded and made a silent prayer that this worked because you hated having to play fair when taking out minigunners. Peter shot the two guys with taser webs, which brought them both to the floor. You two then dropped down and started going ham on betting these two up. You just hit the back of their head until their occipital lobe knocked out their vision. Fury would be by later to arrest everyone, but you wanted to make sure they stayed down. You cut up their arms and legs a bit just so it would make it difficult for any of the men to escape. You disarmed the miniguns and Peter webbed down the guys as best as he could. 

"Wonder what they were guarding?" 

"I don't know Gargoyle, but we better be careful."

You gently pushed the door open revealing a planning room covered in blueprints. Some were for cannons and others were for what looked like experiments. Turning humans into other creatures, which in turn would be used for Hydra. 

"Make sure to have Karen scan all these."

Before you could analyze the plans in front of you, you were knocked to the ground. Your body went into full fight mode preparing to stab whoever tackled you. Good thing your mind caught up to your instincts and realized it was Peter who was on top of you. Your senses were thrown off as all you could hear was bullet shells hitting the ground and an AK-47 going on full blast. You extended your arm and hit a button to make a small sharp disc fly out from above your wrist. The disk shot under the table and took the last man standing down. You kicked the gun away and gave the guy a few scars with your Assassin's Creed wrist knives. 

It was only then when you realized that Peter didn't get up. He was groaning in the middle of the floor where you left him.  He was on his side, but you could see the number of bullets in his left side. You turned Peter over and realized he's bleeding a lot faster than he should be. 

"Hit near the pancreas and spleen. Shit." If there was one thing you remembered from all your time studying Anatomy, it was those two organs have a lot of blood going through them. "Nonononono. Kid, you gotta stay with me. You gotta stay awake." You hit his face a bit to keep him conscious. 

You didn't want to move him because that could make it worse and you were definitely not qualified to remove bullets on a battlefield from an advanced human. So you did the next best thing. You held the button on your earpiece. "Code Blue. Underoos's been hit. I repeat. Code Blue. Underoos's been hit." 

"What? Where are you guys?" Tony's panicked voice wasn't helping your demeanor.

"Basement; in a room full of blue-." Your eyes grew wide for a split second as you saw the guy who shot Peter with a grenade in his hand and his thumb in the ring.

"Hail Hydra." 

You didn't have time to think. You scooped up Peter and ran as fast as you could before the pin could be pulled. You both barely made it to the doorway before the whole room exploded. You wings protected the two of you from most of the flames, didn't mean it didn't hurt. 

"Kids, you ok?" There came the Dad voice from Clint again. Clint, you liked to call the perfect mix of sass and fatherly advise.

You slowly lifted your wings but kept them up to keep the rubble dust out of your eyes. You looked over at Peter who you could tell was still losing consciousness. "We're fine. The basement's clear. I can run him back to the quinjet and rush him to the medbay of you guys can meet me there." 

"We're done here. Everyone meet at the jet and we're rushing the kid back. Do you need cover?" Natasha was one of the few people to keep Tony's mind straight besides Pepper.

"No. I can run him back up. The basement's clear." Just as I scooped Peter back up and started to run to the stairs, remote turrets came online. "Of people."

Your bare feet skidded across the dirty floor as you made a break for the Northwest stairs while trying to avoid the bodies that littered the floor. Your wings covered you both, but the bullets that hit your legs still hurt. Your heart pounded in your ears as the only person you were worried for was Peter. Did he lose too much blood? Was his body healing around the bullets? Would he ever wake up from this? You pushed your thoughts to the back of your head and focused on running. 

The snow of Ireland made your bare feet bleed, but you were numb to pain at this point as you layed Peter down in the jet. You tried to focus all of your healing energy to your hands, but it wasn't helping. You just decided to step back and let Bruce and Tony try their hardest to help as F.R.I.D.A.Y flew you back to the tower.

They took Peter to the Intensive Care Unit and only when they gave him a transfusion of blood and took all 12 bullets out of his side were you allowed to see him. He had a slight concussion and his face was bruised from the fall. You couldn't do anything to help him but hold his hand with the IV still in.

"Do you remember when we met? It was my first day. Still getting used to the compound. You were hanging from the ceiling as I was quenching a blade in the garage and scared the shit out of me I almost left the blade too long in the oil. I was a mess then. Still thinking that I was undeserving of love. That hydra had used me too much that I wasn't worth anything anymore. Even before Hydra my parents never made me feel good about myself." A shaky breath left your cut lip as you let tears silently slip out. "You're too good for this world Peter. You go out of your way for the little guy. You made me realize no matter how many people kick you in the jaw, even if it's one person or just yourself that wants you to keep going, you get the hell back up. I am that now for you. Please wake up. Please. Just don't be dead. Please." You were crying waterfalls at that point that any words you tried to make came out shaky.

"You are my sunshine 

My only sunshine 

You make me ha... ha-ppy

When skies are gray

You'll never know dear

How much I love you 

Please don't take

God please don't take 

My sunshine away."

A week he was asleep. A week too long. His body was healing fine and fast. His brain just needs to realize he's ok and wake up. May visited a lot and talked to you. She felt like another mother to you. In fact, all the women you met through the Avengers were your mother. Well, Shuri was a little older than you, so she's your older sister.  You refused to eat and got ticked off at anyone who tried to get you to. Of course you couldn't die, but starving was slow and it hurt. Eventually, Wanda had to put you in a dreamlike trans in order for them to put an IV in you. You couldn't leave Peter, you couldn't.

One morning you woke up from the side of Peter's bed and saw his eyes open and him sitting up. 

"You okay?" 

"Yeah. I woke up in the night and the nurse brought me water and said you haven't left me since I got here." His hand went up and whipped away a tear that you didn't realize was falling.

"You got me there Parker. Don't ever scare me like that again. I thought I'd lost you."

"I won't and you can't get rid of me that easily." He kissed your forehead as you kept smiling through the tears. "Now we better eat before we get suffocated in Aunt May and Mr. Star's hugs." 

"Agreed."

[musingmycelium]

so im writing a Thing set in the immediate aftermath of noure leaving the circle for the last time and i have Thots about them and their path so like: dump time

directly after ellanis 'conscripts' noure after broken circle noure takes off and just, runs. they don't really have any direction at first, they're too overwhelmed to know what's going on and what to do. i think they flee ferelden quickly, they want nothing to do with this place anymore and they head north as quickly as they can.

and im not sure they contact their parents after being freed. i think its too big for them, thinking about it makes their freedom feel too real and they dont know how to handle it so noure just ignores it. but they think about them, a lot.

they end up in nevarra after a couple of months just slumming it in the woods and in really small villages and in nevarra they meet a mortalitasi by the name viuus (yes that viuus) who, due to a conflict of interest, finds himself in need of an apprentice. Viuus offers to take noure in in exchange for fullfilling the duties of an apprentice and noure takes it on the spot since they don't really have a better option and they're interested in learning from a mortalitasi since their own magic is pretty heavily focused on spirits and shape changing.

which, sounds kinda odd but ive been thinking about it. i write about noure's elemental connection with fire but i dont think its their most powerful magic, nor is it their most natural. i think, in the circle, the fire magic is a manifestation if their mental state (a burning, seething hatred wrapped inside a deep terror) and their more familiar magic falls to the side because they associate it so heavily with the alienage and the past. it becomes too painful for them to access and it blocks itself off from them.

but once theyre out of their circle? i think it comes back to them slowly. it becomes a part of their healing process, reopening those channels of magic which made up so much of their sense of self. noure's first shape shift after leaving the circle is taking the form of a sparrow. they stay in that form for nearly a full day and when noure shifts back they're drained and exhausted but theyre also so overcome with the freedom of it, with how far they've come, noure just collapses in the forest and cries.

but anyways, their spirit magic is another large part of themselves and in nevarra theyre able to explore it. viuus takes them under their wing and shows them how mortalitasi communicate with spirits and noure molds their own history and knowledge with what they learn from viuus into something different.

it works out for the most part. noure's phylactery got destroyed so no templars come for them at first. they're also sheltered by viuus and he makes fake papers for noure when they come under some heat about where noure is from. they work there in viuus' shop and in the catacombs, cataloguing inventory and spirits for the most part but also working with sigils some.

noure becomes really adept at spirit to mortal communication. their time in nevarra also marks a time when theyre exploring their faith in andraste. there was a post i saw once talking about the possible differences between human andrastianism and elven andrastianism and i loved it. ive done thinking about it and noure isn't someone who prays to the maker but rather puts all of their faith into andraste herself. the maker is more.... hmm a little more inconcrete than andraste. when noure prays their pleas are meant for andraste and they fall into a habbit of just, conversing? with andraste? just out loud when they're working on something or when theyre out gathering supplies or any time they feel they have something to talk about noure just addresses those thoughts to andraste and it shapes their experience. they dont thinj andraste is a spirit per say but they do think she's something similiar

that and the whole thing about spirits being the makers first children gives noure a sense of something holy when theyre working and developing their spirit based magic

they make friends with a bunch of spirits. wisps are kinda difficult to talk to because they just don't have a lot of substance but noure talks with higher spirits like Purpose and Joy and Ardor. but theyre closest with Valor. noure does a lot of soul searching in those two years. andrastianism is pretty strong in nevarra and noure's faith was really tested -lost honestly- in the circle and so they come to terms dealing with their trauma and experiences and relate it back to andraste's struggles. honestly this is where noure's habit of talking with andraste develops

at the End of those two years templars find noure quite on accident and one of them is recently transferred from kinloch. the templar recognizes noure -since they uh, stand out a bit- and tries to arrest them. which! historically! has never gone well for anyone involved. noure kills the templar that recognizes them in the struggle but a second one lands a pretty solid blow on noure -opens them from hip to shoulder with a nasty swing. the templar leaves them to die alone and he isnt wrong for doing so. noure is, Real Close to dying. but Valor comes to their rescue and they merge.

merging with valor definitely terrifies noure but its not a bad kind of fear? if that makes sense? it does mean they have to book it out of there fast.

but this time they know where they're headed. rumor has it karl's been moved to kirkwall and noure doesn't know that anders is still alive -when they left kinloch anders was in solitary and noure was going to be made tranquil so they never knew what happened to each other- so they head to the free marches and oops! da2 happens and i havent given as much thought to fleshing out da2 with them yet, but i think i Will be sooner rather than later

[ofangelos-archive]

angelos almeida back with his third studio album entitled, “are you proud of me ?” 

“this album... it’s probably the most personal one i’ve put out yet. there was a lot of hesitation with this one-- a lot of push and pull. i had to delve back into my past to write some of these songs, and honestly it was... scary. it was terrifying remembering the mental state i was in. i’ve never claimed to be a good guy: you can listen to my second album if you want a taste of how bad my actions were. this album though, i’m not talking about what i did, or who i did or... anything like that. it’s how i felt. and i realized i need to open up more about my past. i need to be more upfront and honest. this album is a journey from beginning to end. i started off alone, but... now i’ve got people who love me, and that means the world to me. but no matter how much i’ve grown, i need to realize that i’m still me. that this growth is me. i hope you like it; i hope you’re proud of me.”

i. sorry. “i don't love myself, yeah, i'm no good for my health. i was tryna find happiness somewhere else, but i search, search, search and found nothing. keep finding nothing. i regret all my pasts but i like when i bleed, ‘cause if i'm feeling something, then i'm feeling free. numb to the fact that my heart black, so many missed calls, i lost track, put on a facade like i'm all that. deep down, feeling like i lost that. feel like i lost myself, feel like i lost it all. am i the only one that feels like this ? sorry for the man i am, sorry for the man i’ve been.” 

“before i met my wife, i went through a lot of people. i kept looking for this thing called love, but i never found it in anyone. people would make me feel less empty-- like i was wanted, but... it was just never enough. i was numbed out most of the time, faded as fuck because that was the only time i could really feel anything. it’s... hard to talk about because i didn’t just use the drugs and the alcohol... it got to a point where i needed them to function. i still deal with addiction to this day-- i’m clean now, but... it’s always something i have to look out for. it’s always going to be a part of me. i started with this song to get the apologies out of the way. if i’m going to acknowledge my past, i have to acknowledge the people i’ve hurt. and tell i’m sorry. because i am. and they deserve that.”

ii. maybe it’s today. “what's the world to a man without his soul ? yeah i've had it all, had it all but still alone. hate that i'm so empty, wish that i could change. well maybe it's today... yeah i had it all, built me up on hype but still feeling less. see me living out dreams, but don't see my emptiness. i had to hit the ground, dark depression building up. you could say you understand me, but really nobody does.” 

“i’m just not an open person. especially when it comes to my family. the only people that really know everything about me... my mom... my dad... are marnie and ricky. ricky’s been there since i was a little kid--- he’s been there through everything. he’s never once given up on me, and i know that’s hard to do. marnie’s my soulmate. she knows everything about me: i think she knows me better than i know myself sometimes. but that’s it. i’m not trying to excuse my past. because most of it is unacceptable under any terms, but... there’s more to the story than most people know.” 

iii. alone. “and i hope you don't judge me, all i know is how to be who i am. and if you start to touch me, i hope you know the place where we stand. don't tell me that you love me, ‘cause i won't love back. don't tell me that you need me, ‘cause i don't need that. don't tell me that you want me, ‘cause i'm on my own.”  

“this song is about... literally all of my past relationships. i couldn’t really handle the emotional side of relationships as well as i could handle the physical side of things, to put it in short. even when i was in a relationship, i just felt so alone because i couldn’t make that connection. i wanted to feel wanted because... i just... i had never felt that before, and it was addicting to know that people thought of me. that someone thought i was worth something. but whenever someone expressed that openly, it terrified me. because i knew i would let them down without a doubt. i was alone.” 

iv. myself. “i'm not concerned with drama, i left that shit in school. i'm more concerned with commas than keeping up with you. keep that away from me, i put the heisman up to bad energy. no empathy, especially when the kid off hennessy. fake friends to me make my mood go south like tennessee, make the fool come out like, "who is he ?" i mean, i'm trying to tell y'all, i'm better by myself.” 

“there’s some more recent influence in this song. but the overall message about being better by myself is based in the past. i shut people out... i still do to most people.”

v. i’m gone. “designer on me, i’m covered in that gucci. is that tension in the air ? or baby, is that just me ? too strong, i'm gone, yea. let me switch this flow up real quick. go getter, v for vendetta. whatever, i just do better. trendsetter, search for the cheddar, no pressure, float like a feather. smooth dude, big moves, big trees, like snoop. now i'm back, let me bring it back to the track, oh, yea, can't stop, won't stop, yea. it's too late, for me. i poured it too strong, now, baby, i'm gone.” 

“if you would’ve told me back then that i’d have the life i have now, i would’ve laughed right in your face. i was gone. i thought there was no coming back from who i’d become. i was living just because i kept waking up in the morning. there was no reason besides that.”

vi. bruv. “now my state of mind is every single thing i drop. you told me never lose yourself just to reach the top. you say i'm growing up, but got a lot to learn. stopped living reckless when i felt the afterburn, always had a passion that be different from the rest. i’m to driven to give you anything but my best. remember when i thought i had this figured out ? i don't know what i'm doing now... but i wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't for my brother now. it's all you, yeah, it's all you i'ma make you proud of me.” 

“he knows who he is.”

vii. i just. “i just want you girl, never can i want more, got my mind right but you’re still here. no one knows what i feel here. couple scars from my past now, but i’’l let them heal here, yeah i'm scared to death, you deserve the best, i’m not good enough.” 

“marnie was different. from the moment i saw her, she was different. maybe it’s ‘cause i was faded off my ass, but... the way she carried herself... the way she didn’t take shit from me like everybody else did. she wasn’t afraid of me. she made me feel human. i thought she was great. i thought i wasn’t good enough. she’s helped me heal more than anybody else. she taught me that i’m not broken.” 

viii. lookatyou (interlude). “for you, i’ll travel 'cross the world. 20 hours in a plane just 'cause you my girl. wanna see you smile; fuck the diamonds and the pearls. promise me your pretty heart will never ever change, promise me your pretty soul will always stay the same. hope one day i can see your ass like all the time, wake up in the morning; wish you right here by my side. see all of these boys holler at you all the time. you were lookin' at these boys like it's funny that they try. yea, yea. i hope all of your dreams come true, yea, yea. i hope i get to see you improve, yea, yea. even though for you, that's a tough thing to do, ‘cause look at you, look at you, look at you.”

“i found this little song that i wrote when marnie and i first started... well... not dating. both us insisted we weren’t dating. but she was the only person i was seeing, and i was the only one she was seeing too.”

ix. dreams. “i had a dream about you last night, your eyes were shining so bright. those lips and that bittersweet smile, i need this forever. beautiful dream, yea, yea. don't know what it means, yea, yea. all i know is i don't know, but i need this forever. you give me feelings that i can't explain to you. girl, i was cold for a while, now i'm something new. tell me what you want, anything at all, i got it though. swear to god we unstoppable, yea.” 

“marnie completely changed me as a person. she’s made me so much more confident in myself. so much more secure in my thoughts... i’m something new. because of her. i give her full credit for helping me become the man that i am today. the man that’s happy to tell the world that i have a badass wife and a beautiful kid. i need this forever, and now i have it forever.”

x. cartier. “and that's the thing, that thing right there. yea, that's my girl, i can't share. maybe i'm selfish, i get a little jealous. i lose my mind when you say that. balmain silk slip off your back, you get so impatient. i know you got your cravings, so tell me you didn't tell all of your girlfriends about this. tell me you still think my neighbors don't know, girl, you shout it. girl, i know that you've been trying, i swear i'm the proudest, but the question is, girl, do you think that you could live without it ? nothing on you when you naked ‘cept a cartier bracelet. silhouette through the shower, fuck you 24 hours. sun peeking through the curtains, know i'm with you when you're hurting, baby girl, the world's ours.” 

“marnie and i are both jealous people. god, especially when we first started seeing each other. shit was wild. she’s wild. i love her. i can’t stop smiling. maybe we weren’t the best couple when we started off-- maybe we still aren’t to other people. but i love us. i love everything we’ve been through.”

xi. mine. “you so fucking precious when you smile, hit it from the back and drive you wild. girl i lose myself up in those eyes, i just had to let you know you're mine. i'm so fucking happy you're alive, swear to god i'm down if you're down all you gotta say is right. girl anything i can do just to make you feel alright, oh. i just had to let you know you're fine. running circles 'round my mind, even when it's rainy all you ever do is shine. you on fire, you a star just like mariah. man this feel incredible, i'll turn you into a bride, you're mine.” 

“i could talk about marnie for days, and it wouldn’t be enough time to truly express how i feel about her. i want to be the best person i can be for her. the growth never stops. i’m constantly trying to improve. she’s my girl. i’d do anything for her. i love her so much--- more than i thought it was possible to love someone. it’s exhilarating. 

xii. fuck this club. “hair done up high, dressed to the nines. tell me what is a man supposed to do ? with that gucci black dress and pearls around your neck, thinking 'bout how they would look up on my floor, so by any little chance you want to take a chance. we could close up our tab, hit the road. baby, let's go, girl, fuck that club, leave with me...” 

“i also found this old song and had to put it on the album. i remember this night exactly. it was the first night i met marnie. i couldn’t take my eyes off of her. i couldn’t stop talking to her. i couldn’t just... walk away. god, she’s so perfect. i love her.” 

[obscuraxrp]

#ASKANADMIN: ROUND 1

Hello members, and welcome to the first volume of our #askanadmin compilations!

#askanadmin is a Discord channel dedicated to Q&A from the admin team, where we can quickly answer any minor, miscellaneous questions that come up for members. As it’s impractical to search the channel and not even available to all members and applicants by default, however, we (with great help from the lovely @obshyerin​) have taken the liberty of compiling all of these answers into tumblr posts for your ease of reference! For the most part, answers have been edited to include proper punctuation and grammar, but other typing quirks (such as emojis) are left in context.

We hope that these answers are useful to you, and remember, our inbox, IMs, and question channel are always open to questions!

— Obscura Admin Team

GENERAL/SETTING QUESTIONS

Given the use of silver in hunting and protection from some supernaturals, would it be more expensive or would it be cheaper and more widely available?

I would imagine that the demand for silver is higher with hunters needing it commonly, but in the same vein, I’m sure there are strong alchemical and other magical efforts made to produce more silver for those purposes. Hence, I would say that it’s possibly somewhat more expensive due to the increased demand, but there’s also an increased supply keeping that from being overwhelming.

Interestingly – silver is probably less common in jewelry in this world as well, since despite supernaturals having to be on the downlow… Businesses know they’d be losing some market if they make everything silver. :P Must have been harder being a vampire/were in the old days when they hadn’t figured out a lot of alternative metals to make things out of :V You’d have to wear gold jewelry mostly. These days there are lots of alloys that’re safe.

(Also if you’re buying silver for protection, beware of assholes scamming you with it. I’m sure that happens, because you know, it’s one of the few things that’s Known To Work.)

Does the same apply to the production of iron? Just wondering since it’s a very common metal used pretty much everywhere.

Iron is more common but in order for it to be effective against fae, it does have to be processed – raw iron doesn’t do the trick. Also if it’s mixed into other things, it loses effectiveness for that purpose.

But yeah, iron’s not something you have to worry about the price of, it’s the most common metal on earth in our world so it’s certainly still available enough

What do you mean by processed iron?

All iron that humans use has been forged; that’s what “saps” the magic from it and makes it dangerous to fae. According to legend, that’s how that works ouo but like, the raw iron ore in the earth isn’t dangerous. That’s what I meant!

But don’t people encounter processed iron more often in everyday life?

Definitely; gotta be careful of those wrought-iron fences! It takes a lot for just ambient iron to become a problem, though, and in a small area. Fae just have to be careful not to touch anything that’s made of actual iron, or it smarts pretty bad.

Bless the modern era of strong plastics and polymers, honestly! That’s probably part of what has fae interacting more and more with human culture; it’s becoming less danger-laced to do so.

Can I send my muses to universities that exist in real life?

Yes, that’s fine. Those things still exist.

Are there doctors that specialize in different species?

Probably! They wouldn’t be able to advertise that outright, but there are definitely fae doctors around especially, but also doctors/healing magic practitioners who know different species in depth. You’d mostly find them through word of mouth. Beast-blooded probably have the hardest time on this front, though, since there’s a pretty wide variety of them.

Are ghosts a thing in this universe? Like if my muse went ghost hunting, would they actually find something?

Ghosts do exist in some capacity, but generally you can only interact with them if you’re a witch and you know how to do that—you’re more likely to find daemons or fae playing poltergeist. Though you’re free to hunt ghosts regardless of if you find anything, you usually won’t find anything ghost hunting to begin with ww

Can healing/regenerative powers be ranked? Like if a person was to practice or be coached in how to make their healing faster could we spend points to improve that?

Yes!

So if you can spend points to increase healing capability, how would that work out in character? From what I understand it’s not something a muse consciously works on.

Sometimes there’s a concentrated effort on getting better at it (like, meditation type things? focusing on that innate magic in an effort to strengthen it), sometimes it happens naturally due to getting hurt a lot, sometimes it just…… happens.

What do you think would be the biggest difference between Rank IV and Rank V level healing? Like what would be a speed or property that serves like a cut off point?

I… I really don’t think I have an answer to that in simple terms? It seriously depends on the muse and how they style the ability. In general terms, a rank V indicates the best you could possibly be at something (species limitations in mind), whereas IV would have not quite have everything.

Can wards break? Specifically wards that are powered by a living being.

Generally wards lose power or ‘fade’ over time, with the time depending on the power and magic imbued into the ward or the power of the person that cast the ward. Wards can “break” suddenly under certain circumstances, but this is much less common. For instance, if there was some sort of “flaw” in the magic of the ward—it could either get “broken” by making contact with some other spell, or it could fall apart due to some other unforeseen trigger. Magic is rarely perfect in nature, so these flaws would not be unheard of by any means, simply that exploiting them would be somewhat rare as it’d be unpredictable as well. It’s also possible that a ward could be “broken” by counter-magic in general.

Is magic an internal power source, kinda?

Magic is very much metaphysical and born into living things, and things assigned meaning by living things. Humans have the greatest influence over it in a cosmic sense. Something without that “soul”, for lack of a better word, won’t be able to interface with magic unless magic is imbued into it. So yeah! I’m sure there are nice fancy expensive wards for detecting (fae) magic traces though.

RULES QUESTIONS

Can I be on a semi-hiatus? There are days I might be totally MIA because of work so my posting might be sporadic.

You’re allowed to post while on hiatus without penalty, so we don’t distinguish between full and semi hiatuses. You’re free to take a hiatus for safety and post if you can! Or just let us know if it happens that you can’t post for a full week, we’re pretty flexible as long as members keep in touch with us.

can we use non-asian fc’s? I know we’ve had non-korean faces, but what about non-asian entirely faces?

Yep, all fcs are allowed as long as they’re signed (not social media famous), alive, and over 18!

DRUGS QUESTIONS

How long does moonlily root/lunar dust stay in a were’s system & when does it start wearing off? it’s probably different for everyone based off of height & weight and stuff, but maybe there’s an average?

A: Depends on the dosage. Obviously too high of a dosage would result in an overdose, but smaller doses would wear off more quickly. I’d say the average for a medium sized dose for someone of average height and weight, it takes about 30 to 45 minutes. Larger doses that aren’t fatal could last up to 2 hours while a very small dose might last about 15 minutes.

What would happen if a were that’s agitated or high on lunar dust got a whiff of werenip? Would they just explode?

A: Generally mixing drugs is a bad plan. Likely they might get sick; since lunar dust is a upper and werenip is a downer, the drugs would clash quite strongly. So they might just cancel each other out, in a way, and result in the were laying on the floor with a terrible headache, stomach problems, and strong desire to kill but not move enough in order to do so.

H: Mixing uppers and downers is a really bad plan in general; might cause heart problems, seizures, even a coma, death is not unlikely… so in short: Not Recommended!

VAMPIRE QUESTIONS

Hypothetically, could a progeny kill their sire?

They… could, though I would say that is unlikely, since a sire could prevent that from happening via compulsion, and the pain link would be a bit of an issue.

Given that vamps have accelerated healing, would body modifications or major cosmetic surgery work or would their body forcefully heal those over and nullify whatever you were trying to do?

This can be done, but they would need to be sealed in with magic.

Can hell-drinkers go back to normal?

With approximately a bit more difficulty than ghouls going back to being human, yeah. As in, that might require chaining yourself in a basement for a few weeks/months at worst.

If someone becomes a vamp at a young age do they maintain the emotional maturity of that age forever? Like an eight year old just doesn’t have the mental capacity to understand some things, so would they maintain that or would they just mature as the years go by without physically maturing?

I am going to go with that they will mature with time, since the body is in stasis but the spirit is kept alive by magic? For child-vampires this may be more of an issue since the body never developed far enough—but for ones in the teens and on, they should mature in time. A lot of vampires don’t seem to mature though—not because they can’t, but because they get trapped in a mental stasis that’s kinda psychological in nature due to their body not changing. That’s just a character trait though. Vampires have some issues to deal with. Many cope with immortality by doing silly things like creating obtuse rule systems and imposing them on their progeny or something. Vampires. I’m rambling.

If a vampire shape shifts into a non-vampire creature (like a cat), would they still be weak to sunlight?

Yes. The nature of what they are doesn’t change.

Do vampires have reflections in this universe? Can they be recorded?

That’s a great question because I actually stole this answer from a great tumblr post. They do have reflections in newer mirrors, but not in old ones—due to the old ones having silver backing. Must be a trip when old vamps see an aluminum-backed mirror for the first time! But yes, they do appear in recordings!

Since vamps can be recorded in this verse, can someone live stream a vamp attack?

If millennial can do it, they will do it.

If a vamp lost a body part, big or small, while they’re young and have limited healing ability, could they regrow it years later when they’re much stronger?

Yes, assuming they can survive long enough without that body part. Vampires in a way represent stasis; given a bit of effort, they can almost always return to a previous form. Unless magic gets involved. That can change things.

FAE QUESTIONS

Do changelings have greater illusion?

Yes but it’s… kinda wonky? They almost look photoshopped, like “someone seems to have airbrushed some spikes off here”. No, not like “someone just stuck the wrong face on this body sloppily” level photoshop; it’s a bit more like “upon squinting that does not appear to be correct but I cannot put my finger on what is wrong; it just looks Wrong”.

What would happen if a fae ate another fae or any magical creature?

You know admittedly this is one of those things I haven’t put that much thought into. I mean as far as eating other species…. they probably taste funny…? May not be healthy depending on what we’re talking about here. Vampires are not tasty.

As far as cannibalizing a fae… it would probably be fine if the one eating it was a fae. If not, it’s gonna taste super weird and be fae madness central! (Also, this may not even be possible if the true form of that fae is something non-fleshy.)

What do fae smell like to people with advanced sense of smell? Do they smell like their alignment or is there a universal fae smell?

There is a universal “weird fae smell”, but the alignment smell would be stronger, so that scent would be caught first.

How long do binding contracts last with fae if unspecified? Can a fae lengthen a pre-existing contract if they wanted? Could they have multiple binding agreements with one or more people?

How long they last would depend on the power level of the fae and the strength of the agreement. For most fae, they won’t last that long, they’ll taper off after a few weeks/months/after the terms of the agreement have been reached. Powerful fae could make these bind for an extremely long time, though, through a person’s whole lifespan even.

Yes, fae can add onto a contract, and yes, they can have multiple bindings with one person. It’s most likely though that the agreements will become less powerful (less binding) if there are many of them!

If fae are immune to illness, are they vulnerable to fae-specific illnesses? Are those even a thing?

They’re immune to human illnesses (though they could potentially carry them) but yeah, they could get fae illnesses that may or may not be roughly equivalent of human illnesses.

since fae are saturated in magic would there be like… magical residue on their fingerprints if you understand what i mean like… a magic detector would be able to pick up traces of magic from their fingertips or w/e they touched–

I would say… probably yes? though those traces would be difficult to pick up without a very powerful magic detection ability!

is there like magical engineering devices crafted like has anyone/the government made machines that could detect magic/magical beings?  i know fae and their specific magic go against modern day machinery and all of that but??

There’s probably a spell for it, but technology that can detect magic in general is… pretty impossible to manufacture, for some odd reason, unless the tech is enchanted itself in some way. Probably because magic is a strictly… “spiritual” thing, for lack of a much better word? It can’t be manufactured mechanically; there has to be some sort of “living” component here.

WERE QUESTIONS

Can someone be a were-insect? A were-fish?

No, weres can’t take their animal form as an invertebrate; the biology would be way too different from their human form. Leave the insectoid stuff to the fae sphere! As for fish (including sharks), it’s possible, though extremely unlikely—they’d definitely have to live near the water, so…

Can someone be a were-pomeranian?

Were-animal forms shouldn’t be as specific as individual breeds, especially if those breeds only exist due to domestication. You could have a were-dog, but their animal form would look more like a wild dog (though they’d be able to communicate with a pomeranian) unless they specifically honed their shapeshifting to get a pomeranian form out of it. The same applies to individual breeds of cat, horse, cow, you name it; the most specific you should ever get is at the species level (ie, tiger versus lion), though the “general type of animal” level is generally sufficient.

the page on were’s says that “Weres are intensely burned by silver and weapons otherwise charmed to harm them.”, so does that mean they’re resistant to normal weapons or heal abnormally quickly from regular wounds?

They heal about twice as fast as a normal person from mundane wounds and feel ordinary amounts of pain from them. Silver weapons cause more pain (a burning sensation) and the wounds heal at a slowed rate.

Ooh so like if they got a paper cut, it’d be gone by the end of the day instead of taking two days?

Yep, something like that!

Do weres remember what they did on the night of a full moon the next day?

It probably depends on the were, honestly, whether it’s all a blur or they remember bits and pieces or what. I wouldn’t think that most of them remember perfectly since it’s such a primal thing, but I also wouldn’t think they’d forget entirely either, so.

If say, one were is shifted, while the other is human, would they be able to communicate still? Or would it possibly be only limited to weres of the same species?

Hmm, the communication would probably be difficult, but not as bad as trying to talk to a literal animal. Like… it’s a bit like if there’s a language barrier? One of you speaks the language fluently, but the other is conversational at best.

should a were have a silver earring that is completely silver, would it eventually fall out?

No, but they’d want to tear it out. Silver burns, but not badly enough to melt/disfigure the skin or anything like that. Injuries made by silver weapons are the same as injuries made by other metal weapons, they just hurt more and heal more slowly.

BEAST-BLOODED QUESTIONS

Were the (humanoid) ancestors of beast-blooded definitely human? Or could they have been something like a fae?

Probably a witch! They’d have had to be human, and since some heavy magic was involved in the birth of the beast-blooded themselves, I’d say they were witches.

Were the “beasts” fae, then?

The other creatures are… literally beasts, flesh-and-blood magical creatures that in this day and age are very rare, but may still exist somewhere. Once again, definitely not fae—fae are not truly biological and cannot reproduce sexually!

Would they have turned into beasts, or turned the beasts into humans, to reproduce with them?

Either way; it probably depends on the beast in question, but… trust me, given humans, someone is always “into that” in either direction.

Could a beast-blooded have hatched from an egg?

This seems very unlikely, but… as far as first-generation beast-blooded, the answer is a strong maybe. Beyond the first generation, the answer is no; beast-blooded are human.

WITCH QUESTIONS

So witches are basically the same as humans, just they more adept at magic?

Yep. Witches are just humans who’ve studied magic.

at what point do you draw the line between a witch and a normal human who happens to know how to perform some spells?

The line is more or less drawn when the character chooses to draw the line themself. Witches, generally speaking, have done a good bit of study, even if they’re self taught, significantly beyond a simple hobby level.

if witches can learn magic later on in life, is there a specific process they have to go through / do they have to attend classes for this kind of thing? or can they be self-taught like I picked up a book on magic at the library, it seems cool, I'ma dabble

Witches can be self taught, and humans can also dabble in magic without being witches! There is no specific process; it works differently for each person, just like how we all learn differently in reality.

HUNTER QUESTIONS

is it possible to play as a freelance/third-party affiliated hunter? or do we strictly have to stay within dsem/aequitas? if we can go freelance/third-party, what limitations would our muses have? what is deemed illegal/non-illegal behavior/actions for hunters?

Freelance/third-party hunters are acceptable, naturally, but bear in mind that it can be difficult to find hunting jobs as these types due to the stronger prevalence of the other factions. Third-party hunters likely have their own ways of getting resources and information; freelancers are going to have the hardest time here, and hence will most likely only be able to find paid hunting work in… rather shady dealings.

In general, even Aequitas’s work isn’t strictly legal, but officials are often willing to turn a blind eye in the case of actions related to hunting supernaturals if justification can be presented. Of course if hunting is a “hobby” for a muse and they don’t expect to make a living doing it, that can drastically change things—but ones who do it purely out of moral conviction are most likely to find a home in Aequitas! On the same note, remember that Aequitas hunters are loosely affiliated at best; a hunter in the guild may never so much as speak to other guild members apart from the times they need information or to buy wards or silver weapons. Aequitas is a guild, after all; while some of then may consider each other family, others barely interface socially at all.

would a hunter that hunts hunters still be considered a hunter or something else?

I mean if they want to call themself a hunter they can… but that sounds a bit like a serial killer. Not that a lot of hunters are much better, though…

can a human just be a regular human civilian? because all the humans I’m seeing on the mlist seem to be hunters.

Humans don’t have to be hunters, and hunters don’t have to be human. “Hunter” is an occupation, not a species.

SILLY QUESTIONS

(note: Helsing answers silly questions in utmost seriousness because they are completely devoid of humor.)

What would happen if a vampire bit a were?

Weres can’t be turned, and becoming a vampire is much more complicated than just biting. Only “humans” can be turned — where weres, fae, and vampires are considered “non-human” supernaturals, and witches and beast-blooded are considered “human” supernaturals.

Can my vampire shapeshift into a cockatoo?

… Yes.

Can weres get cones of shame?

I don’t see why not?

Do hunters have cone of shame devices that can like zap weres into being good?

I would not think….. that DSEM wants weres hunting under them. since they’re kinda anti-supernatural in the writing. Aequitas people can do….. whatever they want i guess as long as it’s not hurting innocents?

Are there otherkin who identify as supernatural? Are there beauty bloggers who do “supernatural looks”? Are supernaturals fetishized? Can you find spells on youtube? How does atheist youtube feel about that?

… The internet is, and always will be a deplorable place, in every universe. So yes. Go wild. (Within reason).

(As a note, I feel beast-blooded probably suffer the most from the fetishization aspect. Not all beast-blooded are sexy “nekomimi” types, but nor are they all huge freakish monsters from bad horror movies… though I’m sure that’s exactly what the internet would lead you to believe. Being such a varied species that exists on the line between human and not is hard.)

(And on the note of spells on youtube, I feel that there are some very angry activist witches trying to get people to stop doing just that because doing magic without understanding the first thing about magic is extremely dangerous.)

Male witches are cucks.

Please ask questions only.

Why are there no elves in Obscura?

Because elves are fae.

This is 100% a serious question but like…can a witch get cursed…to have tentacles? Like octopus tentacles?

yes.

if a fae doesnt know what a belly button is by the time they make their greater illusion… or nipples… 

The greater illusion comes naturally from the collective human unconscious of magic, don’t worry. Most fae won’t have that problem, though it may occasionally be an illusion flaw…

SILLY NSFW QUESTIONS

(beyond this point, these questions and answers may be somewhat nsfw!)

does viagra exist still in obscura? or is there magic to fix that?

There’s both.

will it work with fae?

Only if the dosage was made with fae magic in mind. Fae are non-biological, in the strictest sense, so non-magic medicines aren’t going to work on them.

Since vamps are dead, can they still get one up?

They have blood in their veins and can imitate all biological functions. Though doing so may require conscious effort and therefore not be worth it At All, vampires can nonetheless breathe and sweat and cry… and get boners.

does this mean weres get a little…needy during the spring time??

iiiii will leave that COMPLETELY to your interpretation. The official verdict is no a/b/o (words like alpha and beta should only be used to denote pack rankings, nothing about a were’s actual biology), but I’ll leave mating season urges to people’s personal tastes because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

is bad dragon a popular thing in obscura verse????

I, uh… well, beast-blooded exist…

[notyoavg-bytch]

So I'm suppose to forget about him...

How do you forget about someone you love so much, like you’ve grown to love yourself. I can say, Im so fricking sensitive now. Smh... Like seriously, I know Ive grown in ways I can't explain. I do see love all around me. I was watching some folks dance to afro beats, which I love, Ive always liked reggae, its similar, but watching them made me think of the year (sadly) that I was on drill team. It was so much fun. Just watching them brought joy to my heart, like I was vicariously living through them and I cried for joy. I was moved by that shit, it was a different feeling. Made me wonder if thats where Twin saw me first. Ive never felt so with myself. I wondered too how long had he been aware of me, I mean I know our souls have, probably desperately searching for each other. Me going through hell, I remember the night I cried out. I think I wrote about it in here somewhere. I remember the time I was dancing and yea, I was one with my soul. Like that alter ego kind of thing. If that is accurate, Im not sure how to describe it. Maybe its a feeling of fulfillment. So I plan to get more into that. I found a class near, hopefully other people will be there so it won't end because of participation. the group I watch online is in London or something. they always have stuff there. I want to live there for a while, always have for some reason. And Australia or something. Maybe Ill end up there one day. I know I have so many things to do. I feel like Im being groomed to be a wife and Im going to have so much fun doing it. But Im different definitely got to be myself. Having a time integrating with people, something I know I have to do, like last quarter when I heard a student friend of mine refer to growing pains, this feels more like that, than that damn panic attack I was having last quarter. I have to focus on all those things and power up out of this funk, there are some things I have to sharpen, especially with that Intercepted Virgo, duh.... So its not the easiest. Ive asked other people for help, I ask a lot now, all things that are so simple the brainiac is having a time juggling. Im so much more suited for lazily sitting up under a tree reading a book about the cycles of life, musing over thoughts for a while, then writing things when I see fit, and only after desiring other company than myself after a few days, wonder out to test what developments I have come up with. Lol. Those days of Socrates and Plato seem to be long gone, Im jealous. but what about Jung, how do philosophers BECOME philosophers, it seems you just are. Maybe I have just not BECOME yet. Although I have this gift I perceive, I don't want to have to meet the demands of a bunch of people right now. I don't want to obligated to anyones healing anymore, only my own. Thats what I have learned, If Ive learned nothing else in my life. So how does that fit in with me wanting to help people. Maybe someone else can be my face and I just write in the background, idk... I think its too early to decide. Maybe that depends on if Twin actually shows up, if we’re able to do it. Who knows, the other night of his birthday was soooooo disappointing, but I accepted the outcome willingly. Maybe not at first, because I still attempted to go, but that was me being unsure of my spidey senses. In time I believe I will get better. I realize I do have power, power that I have not even begun to understand. All this to say I know it will be a journey. I believe my moon will allow me to hold space for my love as I continue down my path, hopefully I will see him soon, and until then the Universe will support me, for my heart needs it.

[dylan-ohbrien]

A Place to Call Home pt. 5

PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR

Pairing: Dylan O'Brien x Reader

Wordcount: 7,069

Warnings: Mentions of the assault, language, miscarriage 

A/N: To be honest, I thought this would come out better than I think it actually did. The idea was there, not sure the writing lived up to the idea lol. Again, thanks to Chloe ( @writing-obrien ) for helping me with the idea! I hope you guys like it! Let me know what you think! 

It felt as though my heart stopped when those three little words left his lips. I wasn’t even sure I’d heard him right until I questioned him and his reaction told me I’d heard exactly what I thought I did. I watched him for a moment, trying to process what he had just told me.

“I love you too.” I said finally causing him to whip his head around and look at me.

“You do?” He asked as if he was surprised by what I said.

“I do. So much.” I admitted, I think I had known for a while but was too scared to ever say anything.

Dylan smiled down at me, I could see the happiness in his eyes which only made me smile and cause butterflies to flutter in my stomach. He leaned down and softly pressed his lips against mine, careful not to cause me any pain. I kissed him back, smiling into it as I reached up to rest a hand on his cheek.

“I love you so much.” He whispered as we parted. “I think I’ve loved you since the moment I caught you in my arms in the club. And I know it’s crazy that I already feel this way, we’ve only known each other a little over a month but I’ve never felt this way with anyone before. It’s like I’ve found this piece of me that’s been missing, it sounds so cheesy but it’s like I finally feel whole when I’m with you.” Dylan’s tone was sincere, I could tell he meant every word he said which only made me fall for him even more.

“It’s not cheesy,” I smiled, “well it is but it’s okay because I feel the same way. It’s like when I’m with you I feel like I can finally breathe, like I’m home.” I said softly, my hand searching for his and tangling our fingers together once I found it.

I had never felt something for someone the way I felt for Dylan. I couldn’t help but wonder if I was finally learning what it meant when someone said they’d found their soul mate, something I’d never really believed in until now.

“Ms. [Y/L/N]?” I heard an unfamiliar voice say causing Dylan and I to look away from each other, “I’m Dr. Robbins, I’ve been overseeing your care while you’ve been here. It’s nice to finally meet you.” The woman said walking over to me and holding her hand out for me to shake. “I just wanted to come and talk to you about a few things now that you’re awake, let you know what’s going on with everything.”

The doctor pulled up a stool and sat down next to my bed before reaching out and introducing herself to Dylan with a handshake.

“Dylan.” He said simply with a smile. He moved off the bed and sat down in the chair next to me, taking my hand once more after getting settled.

“Well as I’m sure your nurses have told you, all of your scans from today look good, you seem to be healing well and at a normal rate. The trauma to your head caused some swelling in your brain which is what caused you to fall unconscious for so long but the swelling has gone down a lot and should be gone completely in the next couple days. Your skull was fractured along with your occipital bone and jaw. The jaw fracture was minor so, we were able to avoid wiring your mouth shut. You’ve got some stables in the back of your head where the trauma was and some stitches there on your cheek which I’m sure you’ve seen. The staples we’ll be able to remove in a couple days and the stitches should start dissolving on their own soon. You also suffered a stab wound to your side which caused a lot of internal damage and caused you to lose a lot of blood.” Hearing everything that those girls had done to me made me sick to my stomach and I could feel myself start to shake, my mind flashing back to that night. Dylan noticed and placed his other hand on top of our hands that were linked and gently gave my hand a squeeze to try and calm me before the doctor continued. “There was also a lot of vaginal trauma from whatever they used to penetrate you-“

“A golf club.” I whispered, tears beginning to fall.

“What?” Both the doctor and Dylan said at the same time.

“They u-used a golf club.” I sobbed, unable to control it anymore. Hearing about my injuries, remembering what they did to me all made it real and I couldn’t take it.

“Oh baby…” Dylan said and I could feel him move closer to me. “Shhh..” He cooed.

Dylan moved back to the bed and pulled me into his side gently, holding me close to him. He stroked my hair gently and kissed the top of my head, I could feel myself slowly starting to calm down the longer he held me until eventually my breathing had slowed and the tears began to dry on my cheeks.

“I know this all must be hard to process,” the doctor finally spoke after a few minutes of letting me cry. “And I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but due to all the vaginal trauma and the trauma from the stab wound, you lost the baby.” I looked over at her, eyes wide confused at what I had just heard.

“B-Baby?” I asked in a stutter.

“I’m sorry, what did you just say?” I heard Dylan say, obviously confused as well.

“You were about six weeks along. We were able to repair most of the damage that was caused but unfortunately you may not be able to have children in the future. I’m so sorry.” I heard the doctor speaking but I wasn’t comprehending it.

I felt like I couldn’t move, like the world around me had stopped. I didn’t know what to do, what to think, what to feel. I was completely numb.

“We should be able to have you out of here in about a week. If you need anything just let your nurse know.” I heard the doctor say and felt a hand on my shoulder, then heard footsteps leaving the room.

“[Y/N]?” Dylan asked but I stayed silent, what was I supposed to say?

I heard Dylan sigh next to me, his arms wrapped around me and pulled me into him once more, his hand resting on my head, fingers playing with my hair lightly. I closed my eyes as tightly as I could hoping that maybe everything that had happened was just a horrible nightmare. When I opened my eyes I was still in the hospital, tears began falling freely from them. When Dylan noticed he only held me tighter, his head resting on top of mine, gently rubbing my back. Finally, a loud sob escaped my throat, there was no stopping it.

“Shh, I’ve got you love, I’ve got you.” Dylan whispered as he held me and just let me cry.

“No! No, please stop…please…Stop!!!” My legs were kicking furiously, my arms swinging trying to get them off of me but nothing worked. They wouldn’t stop. They wouldn’t leave me alone. They were going to kill me and there was nothing I could do to stop them.

“[Y/N]! Baby! Wake up. You’re dreaming. [Y/N], it’s me! It’s Dylan, you need to wake up, you’re having a nightmare.” I heard his voice and my eyes shot open. His arms were holding me tightly as he tried to keep me from moving everywhere, trying to calm me down. “It’s okay, it’s okay…you’re okay.” He said softly.

I couldn’t breathe. It felt like the air had been sucked out of my chest and I couldn’t get it back. I tried to get a breath but nothing happened, again I tried but it was like my lungs were glued shut.

“I c-ca-can’t..I can’t b-breathe.” I wheezed, tears starting to form in my eyes from fear. A machine next to me had started beeping which must have alerted a nurse because she came rushing in.

“I think she’s having a panic attack.” Dylan told her.

The nurse grabbed a mask and placed it over my face, “breathe, honey.” She told me and I tried once more to take a breath. “Close your eyes and count to ten then take another breath.” I did as she said and closed my eyes, counting slowly in my head. Once I got to ten I tried taking another breath. This time I could actually feel air fill my lungs. “Good, and again.” I repeated it a few more times before my breathing had finally returned to normal.

The nurse removed the mask from my face then began cleaning up my arm. I looked down at it and noticed that my IV had come out causing blood to drip down my arm. She put the IV back in, checked my vitals and then headed back out of the room. I leaned back in bed, Dylan still sitting next to me. I could feel his eyes on me, like he wanted to ask what happened but at the same time, he knew exactly what it was. He sighed and I finally looked over at him, he had a sad look on his face, like he didn’t know what to say to make it better.

“I’m sorry…” I told him looking away again, feeling to ashamed to make eye contact. I didn’t know why he was even still here, I had gotten pregnant after sleeping with him twice, knowing him a month, then lost the baby, he had no reason to still be here when he could be back working on his movie and moving on with his life.

“Hey,” He said softly, placing his hand under my chin and gently turning my head to look at him, leaning down so we were closer together. “[Y/N], you have absolutely nothing, nothing to be sorry for.” He said shaking his head. “You haven’t done anything wrong, there is no reason for you to apologize for anything, love.” Dylan’s voice was soft as he gently brushed his thumb over my cheek wiping away a tear that had fallen.

I nodded, closing my eyes as a few more tears fell. I didn’t understand why he was being so supportive, so nice, when I had basically ruined his life.

“Ma’am?” A deep male voice said causing me to look towards the door. I saw two cops, standing there, holding a folder. “We need to ask you some questions about the night you were attacked.” He said again walking closer to my bed.

“O-Okay,” I said, sighing trying to calm myself down. I knew this was only going to bring back the memories, memories that I only wanted to forget.

Dylan sat by my side the whole time, I could only image what he was thinking as he heard me explain what the girls had done to me. He probably thought I was weak, that I should have fought harder, that I should have yelled, something. Hell, I thought I was weak, I thought all those things about myself, of course he would think them about me too. Finally, the cops told me about what had happened at my apartment, that Dylan had been there and caught the girls but they needed me to identify them. They showed me a couple sheets of paper that had nine pictures each on them. The second I saw the girls who attacked me I felt the air leave my chest, it felt like I was living that night all over again. After I pointed them out the officers told me that they had confessed they just needed me to confirm it was them before they officially charged them. I was told there wouldn’t have to be a trail since they had confessed which was a relief, the sooner I could try and forget what happened the better. I didn’t think I would be able to live through having to tell anyone what happened again.

After the cops left Liz and Tyler came by to visit, it was nice to see them, especially Liz. The boys left the room and let us have some time alone. She told me about what was going on with her and Tyler, what had been going on in her life with work and everything, it was nice to have something to talk about other than what had happened to me. My parents came by too, they talked mostly about how much they loved Dylan and thought I had picked a “keeper” with him. I hadn’t exactly pictured my parents meeting him while I was unconscious in the hospital, but at least they liked him, although at this point I wasn’t sure how much longer he would be around.

The next few days went by slowly but Dylan was there each second, always making sure I was doing okay. A few of my friends came by to visit, the cops came back by to tell me the girls has been charged and locked away so that I had nothing to worry about, it was over. The staples in my head came out, the stitches in my cheek and on my side came out, the doctors did one last x-ray and scan to make sure everything was healing okay. Thankful, they said I was healing rather quickly and I was finally in good enough shape to go home.

While the nurse left to go get my discharge papers ready I changed into a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie, it felt good to wear some real clothes for a change.

“So…..I was thinking…” Dylan said nervously making me look at him, a slightly confused look on my face, he never sounded nervous. He was looking down at his hands, twiddling his thumbs nervously. “I think you should come to LA with me.” He said finally.

“Dylan, I don’t know...” I said with a sigh, looking away from him.

“I know your job is here and everything but…I want you to move in with me. I want you near me so I can keep you safe. And Liz and Tyler are there so if for some reason, I have to leave and you can’t come they can stay with you and make sure you’re okay. You can bring your pets, I have no problem with that. When you’re all healed, you can look for a teaching job out there, they need more amazing teachers like you in Los Angeles anyways.” I couldn’t help but smile as I listened to him list off all the reasons I should go with him. “And your apartment...well it would probably be easier to just pack stuff up than get it cleaned up.” He said reaching over and taking me hand. “I know it’s a huge step but I love you and I want to do whatever I can to keep you safe. Please, at least just think about it.”

“Okay, I’ll do it.” I grinned and took his hand.

“That’s all I can ask for.” He said with a sigh and I couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.

“No, I mean I’ll move to LA, I’ll move in with you.” I told him.

“Oh…Oh! Oh my god okay, yes! Great. Perfect.” I laughed at his reaction, it was almost as if he hadn’t expected me to actually agree to it. “You’re not going to regret it.” He pulled me into him, his arms holding me tightly. I wrapped my arms around his stomach and rested my head against his chest, closing my eyes and sighing to myself.

“I love you.” I told him, just before the nurse walked in with papers for me to sign.

After all the paperwork was signed and all my flowers and cards that had been sent to me were gathered up the nurse helped me into a wheel chair, apparently it was required, and rolled me out of the hospital. Liz was waiting for us in her rental car with Tyler. They all loaded everything in and we made our way to my apartment. I was nervous to see just how much damage the girls had done, nervous to see how much I had lost because of them.

We pulled up outside my building, the first time I had been there since the attack, and chills went up my spine.

“I can’t do this.” I said when I stepped out of the car, Dylan walking around the car to stand next to me. He wrapped his arm around me and gave me a small squeeze to try and reassure me.

“It’s okay, we’re all here, you’re going to be fine. We’re going to go in, pack up the things you need and then we’ll go to a hotel for the night. You can do this.”  He grabbed my hand and linked our fingers together, leading me up the stairs to my apartment.

I took a deep breath and walked into my apartment, the second I walked through the door I froze, the whole place was destroyed. Shelves were knocked down, pictures frames were shattered, pictures were ripped, furniture torn up, it was like I was walking into a home that wasn’t mine. I was just thankful my parents were still talking care of my pets when all of this happened.

The four of us started picking some of the mess up. I didn’t worry about salvaging any of the furniture since I knew Dylan had everything we needed in his place. I started packing up my clothes, filling up suitcases until everything was out of my drawers and closet. I walked over to my bed and saw the picture of Dylan and I that had been sitting next to it torn to shreds. My heart broke that all of this happened just because we had fallen in love and someone couldn’t accept it.

“It’s not fair…” I whispered, mostly to myself as I sat down on my bed looking at the ripped up picture. I felt the bed move and looked over to see Dylan sitting next to me.

“We’ll take more pictures.” He said softly taking my hand.

“It’s not just the picture. It’s all of this. They tried to kill me, tried to destroy my life just because I fell in love with you and you feel in love with me. They ruined everything.” I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand trying not to cry, I was so tired of crying.

“They didn’t ruin everything. They didn’t ruin us. You still have me, I’m not going anywhere.” Dylan kissed the side of my head and pulled me into his side carefully.

After I spent the next few minutes crying I put myself back together and finished packing up my things so we could get going. I decided it would be best to just have my stuff shipped to Dylan’s place in California instead of trying to check it all on the plane so we stopped by a FedEx store and dropped it all off to be shipped. Once we were finally at the hotel the four of us ordered room service and put on a movie, things were starting to slowly feel like they were getting back to normal.

Once the movie was over Tyler and Dylan stepped out on the balcony to smoke and Liz slid over to me on the couch, wrapping her arms around me in a big hug.

“I’m so glad you’re okay. I’m so glad you’re moving to LA.” She grinned. “I knew it was only a matter of time before you joined me out there. I’m just sorry this is what it took.” She shrugged. I nodded and gave her a weak smile, resting my head on her shoulder. “Hey..” She said making me lift my head back up. “What’s wrong? You’ve been really quiet, even with Dylan.”

I knew she was right, I had been quiet, I was just hoping no one had really noticed or chalked it up to me just getting out of the hospital. Liz knew better though, she could see right through me and could always tell when something was wrong. I had told her about the attack and everything but I hadn’t told her everything that had happened to me because of it, I didn’t know how.

“[Y/N] you know you can tell me anything.” She said sitting up straighter when she noticed how I tensed up.

“I um…I didn’t tell you everything,” I said glancing at her quickly before looking away.

“What else did they do?” She asked, fear and worry in her voice.

“I didn’t know…I didn’t know until the doctor told me when I woke up that I…” Tears started to fall, again with the fucking tears, I was surprised I still had any left. Liz placed her hand on my back rubbing it lightly. “I was p-pregnant an-and the…the assault and the stabbing c-caus-ed me to l-lose it.” I had never said it out until that moment. Saying it out loud made it real.

“Oh [Y/N].” She said pulling me into her tightly as I began to sob.

“Th-They don’t know i-if I’ll ev-ever be able to…to have k-kids now.” I cried into her shoulder. “H-He hasn’t said it b-but I think D-Dylan is mad a-about it and he’s prob-ably going to b-break up with me because w-why would he wa-want to waste hi-his time with s-some-someone who c-can’t give him a fa-family? He’s j-just doing a-all this b-because he feels s-sorry for me. I know it.” It’s like everything I was thinking and feeling over the last few days was finally coming out and there was no stopping it.

Liz let me cry, she let me get it all out without saying anything or trying to prove me wrong. She just listened and comforted me. That’s what I needed. Eventually I calmed down and felt like I could hold an actual conversation. I was surprised the boys had been outside for so long, but thankful because this wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have with Dylan or let Tyler hear.

“I’m so sorry, [Y/N]. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through with any of this, especially that. But I do know that you’re wrong about Dylan. He loves you, he’s crazy in love with you. He flew across the world to be with you. I’ve never seen anyone love someone as much as he loves you. He would never leave you because of this. Besides, you don’t even know if they’re right. You could still get pregnant, you never know.” She was trying to reassure me that everything would be okay but it was too hard for me to believe. Why would anyone want to stay in a relationship with someone who couldn’t give them a family? “You just have to give it time, you’ll get through this. You’ve made it this far.” She smiled and I did my best to smile back to show her I believed her, even though I wasn’t sure I did.

 It’s been a few weeks since [Y/N] moved in with me in LA and I felt so much better knowing that she was close and I could get to her quickly if need be. I was taking a few weeks off from the movie to make sure she was situated and feeling okay about everything here. Most of the time we spent getting her things moved in, I let her do some redecorating so that she would feel more at home. I wanted her to feel like this was also her place, I didn’t want her to feel like she was a guest in my house. It was ours now.

Ever since we’d gotten to LA something about her had been different. She wasn’t talking to me as much, she never seemed to want to do anything, she was distant and not the girl I knew. It worried me. I knew that she was probably processing everything from the attack to the baby to the move but the way she seemed to be doing it didn’t seem like it would do much good. Whenever I would talk to her she would give me one word responses, she would want to spend most of her time alone in the bedroom, I couldn’t help but feel like I had done something wrong.

Usually whenever I would have to leave the house Liz would come over and stay with [Y/N], I didn’t want her to be alone and I’m not sure she was comfortable with it yet either. However after a few days of convincing me that she was ready to stay home by herself while I ran errands I finally agreed. It made me anxious but I knew I couldn’t hover over her forever.

“You’re sure you’ll be okay?” I asked walking over to her at the kitchen counter.

“I’ll be fine, I promise.” She smiled at me which was reassuring.

“Alright, well just call me if you need anything, I should be back in a couple hours. Love you.” I gave her a kiss and made my way out the door.

I was meeting Liz for lunch, it seemed like [Y/N] had been talking to her lately more than she had me and I needed to find out if there was something going on. I tapped my fingers nervously on the steering wheel of my car the whole way there, I just needed everything to be okay, I didn’t want to hear that she was planning on leaving me which is what it felt like her behavior was leading up to.

I pulled into the parking lot and sighed, trying to relax myself before getting out of the car and headed inside. I saw Liz sitting at a table by the window, she waved me down and I gave her a smile, walking over to join her with a quick hug.

“Hey, thanks for coming.” I said pulling out my chair and sitting down across from her.

“Of course, is everything okay?” She asked, taking a sip of her water that was on the table.

“Well, I’m actually hoping you can tell me that.” I told her just before the waitress came over to take our orders.

“What do you mean?” Liz looked at me as if she had no clue why I would need to ask her if everything was okay.

“Has [Y/N] said anything lately about…being unhappy with me or…I don’t know…anything?” I asked, sure I sounded crazy by the look on her face.

“What? Of course not! Why on earth would you think that?” Her eyebrows furrowed, looking at me like I had two heads. I sighed and shrugged my shoulders taking a sip of my drink before responding.

“I don’t know she’s just been weird lately. She hardly talks to me, she acts like she doesn’t want me around, she’s distant and I just get this feeling that…maybe she’s thinking of leaving me and I don’t understand. I don’t understand what I did wrong. What I did to make her start acting like this.” Our food was delivered as I went on my rant, I’m sure the waitress probably thought I was some pussy who needed to man up, on the verge of crying.

“Dylan, that’s not it.” Liz finally said after the waitress left our table. She sighed and I knew she knew exactly what was going on. I was upset that [Y/N] felt like there was something she couldn’t tell me but glad that whatever it was, it wasn’t that she wanted to leave me.

“Then what is it?” I asked her impatiently.

“She thinks that you’re going to want to leave her.” When those words left her mouth I almost choked on my food. I couldn’t imagine what I had done to make her think that.

“What? Why would she think that?” I questioned the girl furiously needing answers.

“I’ve tried to tell her a million times that she’s wrong but she can’t seem to get it through her head. She feels like you’re not going to want to be with her now that she might not be able to have children. She thinks she’s a waste of your time.” I felt my heart break when Liz finally told me what had been going on with [Y/N] and I wracked my brain trying to figure out what I could have said or done to make her feel that way.

“I would never leave her because of that. I would never her leave her ever. Why does she think that?” I asked hoping maybe Liz knew something I didn’t but she just shook her head.

“I don’t know, I think it’s just her mind telling her these things, I don’t think it’s anything you did. Deep down I’m sure she knows you would never leave her, especially for that reason but I think all the hate and the attack just has her feeling really…worthless.” She shrugged. “Oh, she also thinks you’re leaving her because you didn’t ask her to go back to South Africa with you.”

I took my baseball cap off my head and ran my fingers through my hair before placing the cap back.

“I didn’t ask her to go because I didn’t think she would want to do that much traveling or be that far away from her family after all this.” I sighed resting my head in my hands. “I have to fix this, I have to tell her she’s wrong, I wouldn’t leave her even if it was certain that she couldn’t have kids.”

Liz and I chatted for a little while longer while we finished our food. I was glad to finally have an answer as to why [Y/N] had been so distant lately but now all I wanted to do was get back to her and tell her how I really felt. Liz and I hugged goodbye and went our separate ways. On my way home I stopped at the store and picked up her favorite ice cream and a bouquet of orchids and lilies, remembering that she had told me they were her favorite when we were getting her ankle looked at. Once I was home I stopped in the kitchen to put the ice cream away and made my way into the living room where [Y/N] was laying on the couch watching Friends.

“Hey beautiful.” I smiled, sitting down next to her and holding out the flowers for her. She smiled, a bigger smile that what had crossed her face before I left earlier.

“What are these for?” She questioned as she took them, smelling them. She closed her eyes as she took in the smell, smiling to herself as she did.

“Because I love you.” I stated simply. She looked up at me over the flowers, a questioning look on her face. “I had lunch with Liz, she told me why you’ve been acting so distant lately.” I confessed. She set the flowers down on the coffee table, turning away from me.

“I just don’t understand why you would want to keep wasting your time with me when I’ll never be able to give you a family.” She spoke softly, the weak sound of her voice breaking my heart. I hated seeing her like that, doubting herself, feeling like she wasn’t enough.

“Hey,” I said moving over closer to her making her turn to look at me. “I don’t care if the doctors say you may not be able to have kids. That doesn’t change how much I love you. That doesn’t change the fact that until I met you, I never knew what being in love really felt like.” I said placing my hands gently on her cheeks.

“But I’m damaged.” She whispered, looking down to not make eye contact.

“[Y/N], you are so far from damaged, to me you’re perfect. You’re everything I could ever want in someone and so much more.” I dipped my head down trying to get her to look at me, when she finally did I smiled at her.

“But I can’t give you a fam-“ I stopped her before she could finish.

“If you can’t get pregnant then that’s something we’ll deal with, there are other ways to have a family, there are so many kids out there that don’t have anyone, we could adopt, have a surrogate, we have options baby, but we don’t even know for sure that you won’t be able to get pregnant, so don’t let that control your life.” I told her hopefully. “We will have a family one day.” I smiled and saw her searching my face.

“So…you see us lasting that long?” She questioned and I couldn’t help the small laugh that fell from my lips.

“Well you obviously do, why is it so crazy that I do too?” I asked and just got a shrug from her in response. “I can see myself with you for the rest of my life.” I confessed, “you’re not getting rid of me that easily.” I winked and pulled her into me, falling back on the couch.

I kissed her softly, my fingers tangling in her hair gently as she slowly started to kiss me back. Her hands rested on my chest, her hair falling around us.

“You’re amazing,” she whispered against my lips, “how did I get so lucky?” she questioned and I shook my head.

“I’m the one who got lucky.” I told her, kissing her again.

We stayed like that for a while, kissing and enjoying each other’s company. I rolled over onto my side, my back to the TV, her back to the couch. I laid there staring at her, happy that things were finally starting to feel normal again.

“I’ve missed this so much. I’ve missed you.” I told her, brushing a few stray strands of hair from her face and behind her ear.

“Me too.” She agreed and leaned in to kiss me which I happily returned.

Our legs tangled together as I pulled her closer to me, our bodies pressed together, our lips mingling with passion. This continued for a few moments, our lips turning red and puffy from the fiction they had been missing for so long. We were soon brought out of the moment when my phone began buzzing in my front pocket. Groaning, pulled back from the kiss and pulled my phone out to see who was calling, I sighed when I saw it was Wes, knowing I had to answer.

“Hello?” I said giving [Y/N] a small smile of apology.

“Hey Dylan, listen, I’ve got some bad news.” I rolled my eyes, sure I already knew what he was going to say.

“What is it?” I asked, sliding down so I was on my back, letting [Y/N] rest on my chest.

“We’ve had some scheduling mistakes and we’re going to need you back here in the next few days instead of next week.” By the tone of his voice I could tell her felt bad about it but it was still disappointing to hear.

“Alright, well I’ll see about getting the next flight available.” I sighed.

“Thanks man, and sorry about this, I know you’ve got a lot going on, we just can’t risk losing any more time.” He said and I nodded even though he couldn’t see it.

“I understand, I’ll let you know when I get it sorted. Bye.” I said and hung up, shoving my phone back into my pocket.

“What’s wrong?” [Y/N] asked looking up at me.

“They need me back to set sooner than we’d agreed on, something about scheduling mistakes or something.” I told her, seeing a hint of sadness cross her face. “You should come with me.” I finally said and her eyes widened.

“What? I thought…you hadn’t asked me before so I thought you didn’t want me there.” She said sitting up so we could both see each other better. I quickly shook my head, remembering that Liz had said she thought something like that.

“No! Of course I want you there, I just hadn’t suggested it because I didn’t think you would want to be that far from your parents or be traveling for that long. I want you to come.” I told her sitting up as well.

“Really?” She asked, smiling with eyebrows raised. I laughed and nodded.

“Yes, really.” I reassured her.

“Okay, I’ll come!” She said excitedly. It was so nice to finally see her happy and excited for a change.

“Great, I’ll get a flight booked for us, why don’t you go start packing, then when you’re done, there’s some ice cream in the freezer we’ll need to eat.” I winked as she headed up the stairs.

I booked two tickets on the next flight out that we would be able to make and sent Wes all the info so he knew when we’d be arriving. I called Tyler and asked if he would be willing to take the animals while we were gone, he already had some so I knew he wouldn’t mind a couple more. Once everything was all sorted out I headed upstairs and found [Y/N] sitting in the closet surrounded by a pile of clothes, the sight making me laugh.

“I think you’re going to need a bigger suitcase if that’s the way you pack.” I winked at her and she rolled her eyes at me before throwing a shirt at me.

“Shut up! I’m not use to packing to be gone for months at a time and I don’t know anything about what it’s like there, is it hot? Does it get cold? Should I take anything dressy? There’s just so many options.” She said looking around at the clothes in front of her. I laughed again and grabbed my suitcase from the shelf.

“It’s hot, so pack cool clothes, we may go out occasionally so if you want to pack something nice you can, sometimes it can get cold at night so you may want a pair of sweats or something. But anything you don’t pack, we can always go shopping for when we get there. That’s usually what I end up doing, I pack some stuff but then buy more while I’m gone because there ends up being something I forgot or didn’t even think I’d need.” I told her while I threw some shirts and shorts into my bag, most of my stuff was still there from before.

I helped [Y/N] finish packing up her clothes then we moved on to packing up her toiletries and extra things she wanted to take with her like a pillow, some books, and movies. Once we had everything together I hauled everything downstairs setting them by the door.

“Oh, I called Tyler and he said he’d be happy to watch the pets while we’re gone and I’m sure he’d be happy to let them facetime you.” I winked knowing how much she would miss them.

“Perfect.” She said picking up the cat that I had grown awfully fond of and scratching its head. “So where’s that ice cream?” She asked setting the cat back down and heading towards the kitchen.

I laughed and pulled it out of the freezer while she grabbed a couple spoons from the drawer. I hopped up on the counter and she joined me, digging her spoon in right away.

“They’re not going to mind that I’m there, right? Like I know they were okay with me visiting but this is going to be a lot longer than that, they’re okay with it?” She asked, swinging her legs back and forth.

“Yeah, they’re not going to mind at all. Besides, Kaya’s husband is there too so it would be wrong of them to be okay with that and not you. And, I think everyone is really excited to finally meet you.” I told her, shrugging as I licked my spoon. “Also, they were probably getting annoyed just hearing me talk about you all the time so maybe if you’re there I won’t have to do that.” I winked and nudged her side playfully.

“You talk about me a lot?” She questioned.

“Well yeah, I mean I had to make sure they knew how amazing my girlfriend is.” She laughed but I saw a blush forming on her cheeks making her look even more beautiful than I thought possible. When I looked at her I noticed a drip of chocolate on her chin. Smirking, I leaned over and kissed it off, letting my tongue brush against her skin. “You had some ice cream there.” I winked, then kissed her lips quickly.

“Thanks,” she said, the blush on her cheeks only growing.

It didn’t take long before we had finished the entire tub of ice cream and both felt like our stomachs were going to pop from so much of it. I tossed it in the trash and washed off our spoons, putting them away after drying them. Looking over at the time I realized that we had to be at the airport in just five hours to get through security to make our flight on time.

“Come on love, we should get some rest, tomorrow is going to be a long day.” I told her, taking her hand and leading her upstairs.

We both changed out of our clothes, I put on a pair of pajama pants, she put on one of my t-shirts and crawled into bed. Although we had been sharing a bed every night since she moved in she would usually lay off to the side, facing away from me so, when she moved next to me and curled into my side I welcomed the gesture and wrapped my arms around her. She rested her head on my chest as I pulled the covers over our bodies. I sighed happily to myself, running my fingers through her hair, feeling myself drifting off to sleep. I knew this was the girl I was going to marry someday.

“Dylan! H-help!” I shot up at the sound of her voice, yelling, panic filling my body. 

[eddycurrents]

For the week of 11 June 2018

Quick Bits:

30 Days of Night #6 concludes this retelling of the original 30 Days of Night story. The art from Piotr Kowalski and Brad Simpson has been great, but as the series has progressed, I’ve increasingly been wondering what’s the point? While there have been minor differences, this essentially amounts to the same story extended out further. Personally, the decompression doesn’t add a lot for me.

| Published by IDW

A Walk Through Hell #2 continues this weird and creepy horror story, with Garth Ennis, Goran Sudžuka, and Ive Svorcina giving us an ever present sense of dread with this story. It’s heavy. It’s dark. Ennis is dealing with some dark and depressing subject matter through politics, homophobia, and child sex trafficking and that’s just the backstory in the flashbacks. In the present, we get more terror and the appearance of one of Ennis’ favourite recurring story items. Also, the art is gorgeous.

| Published by AfterShock

Analog #3 takes a bit of a detour following up on Oona’s night out and the ramifications of it. I really like how Gerry Duggan and David O’Sullivan are teasing out this story, giving us glimpses into Jack’s character and supporting cast, making us really care about them and their predicaments, even while his job and being snatched by the government continue to simmer.

| Published by Image

Animosity: Evolution #6 begins the next stage in this story, as Adam continues to search down what exactly happened in the death of most of the lex animata. I love the mix of politics and thriller that Marguerite Bennett is throwing at us with this series.

| Published by AfterShock

Astonisher #8 kicks things into high gear as we approach the end of this arc. We get some impressive action sequences from Al Barrionuevo in the second half of this book, as Magnus begins to enact his plan to stop his brother’s nefarious plans and save his girlfriend from the clutches of Dr. Saperstein.

| Published by Lion Forge / Catalyst Prime

Babyteeth #11 nicely plays with conventions as Sadie trains to enter the hell dimension of the Red Realm to rescue Clark. In a typical action/horror story the hero trains and finds herself ridiculously good at everything, Donny Cates doesn’t play it like that. It’s kind of hilarious. Also, Gerry Brown shows off some impressive hellscapes as we get a little more information on the Red Realm.

| Published by AfterShock

The Ballad of Sang #4 takes an interesting turn as we focus on the Dandies capture of Sang and Lucy trying to talk some sense into the Black-Eyed Betties. This series has been over-the-top violence and fun, this issue is no different.

| Published by Oni Press

Betrothed #4 sees the crap hit the proverbial fan as the betrayal of Kieron and Tamara lies out in the open and everything goes to hell pretty fast. The action from Steve Uy is particularly nice.

| Published by AfterShock

Bloodshot Salvation #10 takes us almost in sync to when the series began, giving us a look at why Magic and Jessie were on the run, and what Ray was doing in 4002. It’s interesting how Jeff Lemire has been using time in this series.

| Published by Valiant

Bloodstrike #0 is an oddity, beginning the “Brutalists” arc that runs through this issue and then the two missing issue numbers from the original ‘90s series, #23 & #24. I’m not exactly the target market for this, as I have no real affinity towards Bloodstrike, but this is still interesting. Michael Fiffe is presenting a kind of origin story here, so you needn’t worry about having read any Bloodstrike before, but what makes it stand out is Fiffe’s approach to the artwork and storytelling. It looks and feels like an indie book out of the ‘80s, the offbeat and highly violent stuff that was out there and it has a nice appeal about it.

| Published by Image

By Night #1 is a fun debut issue, featuring all of the charm and humour that John Allison brings to Giant Days, plus some great art from Christine Larsen and Sarah Stern.

| Published by Boom Entertainment / BOOM! Box

Coda #2 is every bit as good as the first issue, possibly even better, as Hum finds himself the prisoner of an old wizard with dementia and his doting daughter. I loved Matías Bergara’s art in Cannibal, but the art here, with Michael Doig, is incredible. Bergara makes it look like he was born to draw this kind of weird fantasy.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

The Damned #10 begins “Daughter’s Danse”, with Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt kicking off Maura’s scheming. It adds another wrinkle to the already complex mess of the series’ crime drama.

| Published by Oni Press

The Dead Hand #3 keeps this thriller chugging along, with a new obstacle in an obstinate MI-6 agent trying to find his missing friend. The missing friend who, last issue, was murdered after stumbling upon the series’ mysterious test city in Russia. Some particularly nice action sequences from Stephen Mooney and Jordie Bellaire this issue, great layouts and use of colour washes.

| Published by Image

Deadpool: Assassin #1 reunites Cullen Bunn with another Deadpool mini-series, this time with some impressive art from Mark Bagley, John Dell, and Edgar Delgado in tow. Bunn writes some good Deadpool.

| Published by Marvel

Death of Love #5 ends this series in an unexpected way. Sure, some people are likely to be angry about it, but when you think about it, and read Justin Jordan’s missive in the backmatter, it makes sense. Dudebro Eros is also pretty funny. Good art from Donal DeLay and Omar Estévez.

| Published by Image

Dejah Thoris #5 is a bittersweet end to this first arc, with Dejah finding Ephysium and the source of the waters of Mars. Amy Chu and Pasquale Qualano are largely playing this as straight-forward adventures and it certainly works as that.

| Published by Dynamite

Domino #3 begins to give us some flashbacks to Neena’s childhood. I’m somewhat reticent when characters who bank on a mysterious past start to have their backstories filled in, but I trust what Gail Simone is doing here.

| Published by Marvel

Dry County #4 goes into the expected territory of an amateur detective’s professional (and personal) life suffering due to obsession with a case. Despite being expected, it’s still highly entertaining.

| Published by Image

Hunt for Wolverine: Adamantium Agenda #2 continues this bunch of New Avengers members search for Wolverine. It’s still one of the groups investigating that makes the most amount of sense, and the picture of what’s going on here comes even more into focus with a couple of other character reveals. Good stuff from Tom Taylor, RB Silva, Adriano di Benedetto, and Guru-eFX.

| Published by Marvel

Kick-Ass #5 shows again how easy it is to get in over your head when doing the wrong thing and addicted to the cheap, “easy” fix. Then everything goes to hell. Definitely like what Mark Millar, John Romita, Jr., and Peter Steigerwald have been doing with this story.

| Published by Image

The Magic Order #1 is an interesting start to this first series borne of Millarworld’s sale to Netflix. The art from Olivier Coipel and Dave Stewart is suitably gorgeous, with some really nice designs for the villain and one of the tricks to take the family off the board.

| Published by Image

Marvel Two-in-One Annual #1 is possibly one of the best things that Chip Zdarsky has written. This is an excellent character study in Doom, wrapped in revelations of bits of Victor’s past, the end to Secret Wars, and more. All with gorgeous art from Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire.

| Published by Marvel

Nancy Drew #1 is a great first issue, presenting the kind of fun and exciting, beautifully illustrated mystery adventure that I’m used to seeing mostly from Boom these days. Kelly Thompson, Jenn St.-Onge, and Triona Farrell pack a lot into the initial salvo, giving us a conclusion to a goat-napping adventure, before propelling us into a personal crisis for Nancy Drew, while delivering a fairly large supporting cast. It’s fun and the art is wonderful.

| Published by Dynamite

New Mutants: Dead Souls #4 has the X-Men of all sorts coming together for Rictor’s funeral. Matthew Rosenberg and Adam Gorham put Magik through the wringer as she tries to deal with the loss and the burdens of leadership. Then the other shoe drops.

| Published by Marvel

Oblivion Song #4 has a lot of quiet moments, allowing for Lorenzo de Felici and Annalisa Leoni to really show off their chops.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Old Man Logan #41 begins another two-parter. I like how Ed Brisson is structuring these arcs, contributing pieces to the larger whole of the elder Logan’s story of his diminished healing factor, while telling discrete, entertaining stories in their own right. Also, some really nice art here from Francesco Manna and Carlos Lopez.

| Published by Marvel

Port of Earth #6 foreshadows something horrible happening at the port, as the introductory interview starts diving further into potential problems with one of the agents, looking for what looks like a target for blame. I like how Zack Kaplan is setting this up, even if the story does move relatively slowly in execution.

| Published by Image / Top Cow

Proxima Centauri #1 is some very weird sci-fi. It’s being done by Farel Dalrymple, so it should come as no surprise that there are odd visuals, strange characters, and bizarre occurrences, just as it’s rather entertaining and beautiful to look at.

| Published by Image

The Punisher #226 pivots Frank’s direction a bit to attacking Hydra. Matthew Rosenberg is layering a lot of humour into the script and it’s working very well.

| Published by Marvel

Quicksilver: No Surrender #2 continues what is an excellent character study of Quicksilver. I would argue that Pietro’s characterization of himself is a little too favourable, but don’t we always cast ourselves in a better light than we often are? Great work from Saladin Ahmed, Eric Nguyen, Rico Renzi, and Chris Brunner.

| Published by Marvel

Stellar #1 sees the return of another creation from Robert Kirkman and Marc Silvestri’s turn at Top Cow’s Pilot Season back in 2009/2010 after Demonic in 2016. You don’t need to have read the original one-shot to follow this. Joe Keatinge and Bret Blevins handle the creative and this is, well...stellar. Blevins’ artwork is amazing, with some truly breathtaking sci-fi imagery. This is a damn fine looking comic. The story of a reticent soldier trying to make amends for her horrible past is a common one, but it’s entertaining. Especially when you add the mix of possible unreliable memory and fuzzy reality. This looks like another winner for Skybound.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Thor #1 begins the third act in Jason Aaron’s epic run, turning towards the War of the Realms and the previously Unworthy Thor reclaiming his name and mantle. The various Thor series have been blessed with god-tier artists from Esad Ribić through Russell Dauterman, and this book continues that traditional with Mike del Mundo handling the main story and Christian Ward the back-up. Even if the story wasn’t exciting, with an added amount of humour that’s been missing for a bit as the last volume took a serious turn, the art alone would be worth the price of admission.

| Published by Marvel

Tomb Raider: Inferno #1 follows on from the story in the Survivor’s Crusade mini, with Lara travelling to Antarctica to discover the secret that Trinity is willing to kill to protect there. It’s nice to see Phillip Sevy doing more Tomb Raider artwork. If you like the games since the 2013 reboot, I largely consider these comics a must. 

| Published by Dark Horse

Transformers: Lost Light #18 continues this arc that, like its counterpart in Optimus Prime, is bringing all the chickens home to roost.

| Published by IDW

Venom #2 is just as excellent as the first issue, with Donny Cates, Ryan Stegman, JP Mayer, and Frank Martin building upon Eddie Brock’s legacy and adding new lore to the history of the symbiotes. Stegman is probably doing the best art of his career here, this book looks incredible.

| Published by Marvel

The Weatherman #1 is an interesting debut, bringing to mind to me some of the weird, offbeat, and humorous sci-fi like The Fifth Element. Jody LeHeup and Nathan Fox start this series off straight enough, with a future Mars mourning the loss of Earth, seemingly transfixed only by the “extreme” antics of the titular weatherman. It’s a weird premise, sure, but it’s entertaining, and gets even more so when the other shoe drops. Some really great art from Fox and Dave Stewart.

| Published by Image

Witchblade #6 sees Alex assemble her Scooby Gang to help investigate the kidnapping of her guardian demon, Asher. Caitlin Kittredge is doing a great job of building up the supporting cast, as well as giving us glimpses into Alex’s past. This continues to be one of Top Cow’s best looking books, with phenomenal art from Roberta Ingranata and Bryan Valenza.

| Published by Image / Top Cow

Xena: Warrior Princess #5 brings the first arc of this series to a conclusion. The art from Vicente Cifuentes and Triona Farrell has been a real high point for the book and this issue is no different.

| Published by Dynamite

X-Men Blue #29 jumps ahead a bit, taking us past the original five’s return to Earth and the events of Venomized, to spotlight a transformed Jimmy Hudson on the run from the team. It’s a good follow-up to the Venom event so far with some very nice art from Nathan Stockman and Matt Milla.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Accell #11, Betty & Veronica: Vixens #7, Copperhead #19, DuckTales #9, Exiles #4, The Fix #12, Invader Zim #31, Kaijumax: Season 4 #1, Mage: The Hero Denied #9, Marvel Rising: Alpha #1, Mech Cadet Yu #9, Monstress #17, Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #305, Resident Alien: An Alien in New York #3, Rose #12, SHIELD #6, Spider-Man vs. Deadpool #34, Star Wars: Darth Vader #17, Star Wars: Thrawn #5, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #33, World of Tanks: Citadel #2

Recommended Collections: Babyteeth - Volume 2, The Beauty - Volume 4, Dakota North: Design for Dying, Defenders - Volume 2: Kingpins of New York, Invincible Iron Man - Volume 2: Choices, Rumble - Volume 4: Soul Without Pity, Slots - Volume 1

d. emerson eddy thinks it’s probably a bad idea to eat deep fried mozzarella sticks and marinara sauce at one in the morning, but is doing it anyway. Clearly, he’s a demented rebel just asking for a heart attack.