#ive had this thought since i was a teen ive never gotten over those games despite knowing very little abt the series

[mechawolfie]

if I had the attention span I would play every nancy drew game

[atlabeth]

nightmares - mike munroe x reader

summary: It was a deal made by two almost-friends in the early hours of the morning after the worst night of their lives, when they realized that all they really had left was each other.

a/n: so this is once again. not my normal content but ive been on an until dawn kick lately and fell in love w the characters all over again. i dont know if anyone still reads or writes for this fandom but. here u go. enjoy

warning(s): lots of cursing, canon typical violence, mentions of graphic violence/death (but nothing too descriptive), mentioned depression, insomnia, and alcoholism, some heavy themes but its hurt/comfort so it ends in fluff

wc: 4.8k

You were running.

You were running, and it was freezing — fuck, it was freezing.

You knew your surroundings; how could you ever forget? Every fucking moment on the goddamn mountain was engraved into your mind for what you assumed would be the rest of your life, an assumption that had since been proven correct.

And now, against your will, you were back. Of course you were back.

A shudder ran through your whole body as that all-too-familiar screech rang out behind you, each second of it like nails on a chalkboard in the worst way. Your lungs burned like all hell but you couldn’t stop — if you stopped, you were as good as dead.

Some part of this fucked up thing was almost funny. Humans were always boasting about how they were the top of the food chain, how they were the height of evolution. There was nothing to keep an ego in check like being hunted by a supernatural creature.

Any thoughts of bullshit philosophy were dashed from your mind as you took a hard right, nearly falling over from the sharp curve of the mountain but just able to catch yourself. Your heart was thundering in your chest, the beats nearly lining up with your sprinting. You felt an intense urge to turn around, try and gauge your chances, but the thought of slowing down for even a second terrified you. It’s not like you needed to anyways — you knew exactly what was after you.

You were nearing the end of your road, both literally and figuratively. You stumbled over a tree root, your hands splayed out in front of yourself at just the right angle to keep your momentum going and, in some feat of luck, stay upright and running.

But your luck had just run out.

Your senses were proven correct as the harrowing cliff edge came into view, and a thousand things screamed in your mind at once as your demise stared you right in the eye. You barely managed to catch yourself, very much aware that the snow falling into the void could’ve just as well been you.

That fucking screech again, even closer than before, and you whipped around as you took an instinctive step back. Your hands patted around everywhere, searching for something to defend yourself, but you had nothing. No gun, knife, even the ground around you was devoid of rocks.

You had nothing. You had nothing to defend yourself from this goddamn nightmare creature, and you were going to die.

Your eyes darted around wildly in an attempt to find something, anything, to save yourself, but there was nothing. You took another step back and felt your foot slip, your breath catching as you barely managed to save yourself with a twist and a lunge away from the edge. The shock of the ground and the cold against your skin was just enough to remind yourself that you were actually alive. Another pile of snow mimicked the fate that seemed imminent as it trickled over the side of the cliff, and you screwed your eyes shut as you tried to shut your mind up.

Think, goddammit, if you wanted to get off of this fucking mountain you had to think—

The screech that pierced through the night sky was far too close for comfort, and as your head snapped back towards the woods you swore that your heart stopped beating.

It had caught up. You were out of time you were going to die but you didn’t have anything and you were going to fucking die—

A flash of white pushed off a tree and lunged towards you, teeth bared as it emitted that horrible screech. You didn’t even have time to scream, completely frozen in place as one clawed hand reached your neck, and you braced for the moment of release.

You shot up in your bed, breathing rapid and unsteady with a barely contained cry on the edge of your lips as your hand instinctively flew to your neck. You heaved an almost strangled sigh of relief to know that your head was still attached to your body (it might’ve seemed obvious, but… your head wasn’t exactly on straight at the moment, all jokes aside) and collapsed against the headboard.

You ran your hands across your face as you tried in vain to calm yourself down, ultimately having to turn on your lamp to ease your troubled mind that there was nothing going thump in the night.

It had been this same routine almost every night — horrible nightmare, wake up crying or screaming or both, and start the day at 3 am because you couldn’t fall back asleep.

It was exhausting. You were exhausted.

You knew you couldn’t go on like this, but what choice did you have? Therapy had been mandated by the police for a certain amount of time after the incident, but… it’s not like it had helped. How could it, when no one truly knew what you had gone through?

Well… that wasn’t completely accurate.

One person knew what you were going through, and you hadn’t said as much as one word to him since that night. You didn’t really… know what to say.

Hey. I know we’re not all that close, but I’m sorry your girlfriend and all your friends were killed by a Wendigo and that I made it instead. Hope you’re not going insane with grief. I’ll send you a card at Christmas!

...yeah. You had no idea what to say to him after months of no contact.

The relationship you had with Mike Munroe was a strange one, to say the least.

None of you were the same after that night on the mountain. The horrors of the mines would be forever entrenched in your head, flashes of the Wendigos appearing every time you closed your eyes. You and Mike were the only ones who made it off, and the guilt you carried everywhere was a burden you knew you couldn’t shoulder. And even after the physical scars had faded, you knew the mental ones never would.

Sometimes you wondered how you had even managed to get involved with the group in the first place — bonds that had been made in your freshman and sophomore years had somehow managed to stay strong enough throughout the rest of high school, strong enough to cement your spot in the friend group and the yearly lodge visits. You liked them all well enough, enough to go up to an isolated mountain with them for a weekend or so, but… yeah. Sometimes you did wonder what the hell you were doing with them.

But now?

Now, you would give almost anything to hear Sam’s laugh or one of her compliments, or tease Ashley and Chris about their very obvious feelings; hell, you found yourself missing Matt’s useless football facts. And even though Emily and Jessica weren’t always the nicest, you still had managed to worm your way into their hearts. Knowing that you would never get Emily’s brutal but helpful advice or get dragged to a football game by Jessica again?

If someone had told you the difference between life-long trauma and a completely normal existence was that blonde girl with the braids in your biology class, you might’ve thought a little harder before accepting that party invite.

The days after you were rescued from the mountain passed in a daze, questions and interrogations from police never sticking for too long. And it didn’t even feel like it mattered, the way none of them seemed to believe you.

They kept you separated from Mike throughout the whole process, and you were only able to catch glances of him when you were being transferred to different rooms throughout the long process. It really was like something out of a horror movie — a group of teens go up to a lodge in the woods, and only two return with a story of unspeakable horrors — and rather than try and work out what had happened, they seemed intent on pinning the deaths on you and Mike.

As if you weren’t dealing with enough after watching your friends get murdered by the monster of another friend, the people that were supposed to be helping you were instead trying to charge you with them. If it wasn’t so fucking infuriating, it would’ve been laughable.

The worst part? You could hardly blame them.

When you took a second to listen to yourself, to what you were spouting to the police, you sounded insane. If you hadn’t witnessed it all first hand, you wouldn’t have believed yourself.

You told them to go down to the mines. That the thing that killed your friends would be down there, and they could see it for themselves.

You didn’t know if that was the right choice. Hell, you might’ve been sending those cops to their deaths. But it was the only way you could think of to get them to believe you.

(You doubted they would go down there anyways. What was the word of two crazy college kids over actual logic? Not much, you imagined.)

You were in that damn interrogation room for what felt like forever until you were finally taken to a hospital to get your wounds treated. But even in the hospital bed, police were by your side asking about what happened every day of your stay. After your discharge, you were forced into custody until they got information that they deemed satisfactory.

By some miracle, you and Mike weren’t charged with anything. The news might’ve gotten hold of your story, but you didn’t know. You didn’t want to know. You didn’t ever look at the news after the tragedy, too afraid that you would see the smiling faces of your friends staring back at you, or pictures of you and Mike with news anchors trying to talk about how involved the two of you were.

If there was one thing worse than going through hell, it was other people trying to make a profit off of your spiral.

Your friends’ families offered their condolences, but not much else. You didn’t hold it against them. Your survivor’s guilt was strong enough to know exactly why they didn’t reach out further.

(You blame yourself for their deaths, after all. Why wouldn’t they?)

It was the same situation with Mike.

Maybe you had purposefully drifted apart from him, trying to build up walls of your own so that he wouldn’t be able to spring it on you first. You assumed he hated you after what had happened, and he had every right to. You might’ve helped each other through the night, but you had no other option. Now, everyone else but you was dead — people he cared about more than you — and you just couldn’t face that.

But as you stared at yourself in your bathroom mirror, you realized that you might have to.

You looked awful.

Weeks of sleepless nights were catching up to you, appearing in the form of

hollow eyes and dark circles, along with a slight discoloration of your skin. The scars from the mountain had mostly healed, but there was a particularly nasty gash on your cheek that was still showing — it wasn’t doing you any favors in the ‘looking completely normal and sane and not severely sleep deprived’ department.

You splashed some water in your face to try and wake up a bit, but the slight drowsiness that followed you everywhere seemed to be a permanent part of you now.

(It was almost funny, in a way. You were so paranoid and alert all the time, unable to fall asleep, and yet it was all you could think about in moments like these. You wondered when irony had become such a staple in your life.)

You had tried talking to therapists, your friends, your family, even searching the internet for advice on what to do after a life changing traumatic event. Nothing had worked.

The simplest solution had come to mind more than once, but you had pushed it aside with the determination to work through this on your own. But now, staring at yourself and seeing how much you had deteriorated…

You had to go talk to the only person who would understand.

~

You had considered turning around more than once on the drive over.

Because, really, what the hell were you doing? Showing up at his doorstep in the middle of o dark thirty because— because what?

Because you had a nightmare?

He had gone through the same thing you had, probably even worse. Losing Jessica right in front of him, having to cut off his fingers to get free, spending countless hours alone, dealing with the nightmare that was the sanatorium, and then…

Well, you had been in the mines with him and Josh when it happened. There was no doubt in your mind that the scene replayed in his head endlessly, just like it did for you.

Showing up… it was going to be a mistake. You knew it was.

For all you knew, Mike had moved on already. He was stronger than you, he always had been. Maybe your presence would send him spiraling once more, or maybe it would just earn you a verbal beating like no other. Mike had always been nice enough, but the trauma you had endured was enough to turn a saint into his own worst enemy.

You didn’t know what would happen. You didn’t know anything, and as you turned down his street you regretted more than ever not keeping in touch with him. Maybe then you wouldn’t be in this situation, scrambling after your last hope for salvation after slowly killing yourself over the past few months.

But there was no chance to turn back now, because before you knew it your knuckles were rapping against his front door.

The pause between your arrival and a response was so long that you considered leaving and pretending like this never happened, but just as you began to step back the door swung open.

You didn’t really know what you were expecting, but… he was there. The only other testament to the horrors of Blackwood Pines, and maybe the only person that could help you through this.

“...hi,” you murmured, swallowing the sudden lump in your throat as you looked the personification of your shame in the eye.

Mike blinked a few times, whether to try and wake up a little or out of surprise from his visitor you didn’t know, but it was a few seconds before he responded in kind. “...hey. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you around.”

You chuckled dryly as you nodded. “Yeah. Sorry for the sudden arrival. I’m, uh… I’m kind of surprised you even opened the door.”

He huffed out a short breath in a facsimile of a laugh. “Not getting much sleep these days.”

“That’s something we’ve got in common.” You crossed your arms across your chest and let out a loose sigh, eyes wandering around in an attempt to think of what to say next. It should’ve been so easy, but… but for some reason, it just wasn’t.

“Guess so.” That awkward silence stretched out once more, neither of you knowing how to fill it. Thankfully, Mike continued to take the plunge, but it wasn’t without a slight barb. “What are you doing here?”

“I—” you stopped just as you had begun, because you really didn’t know. You had come here for help, but could Mike really do that for you? He was the same as you — a fucked up teenager trying to deal with something so far beyond him.

“I don’t know,” you admitted as you made eye contact once more. “I… I really don’t know. I’m out of options, and… I can’t keep going like this. So I came here to talk, or— or to try and get some help. I don’t know.”

That same silence filled the air once more, the night ambiance the only thing in between the two of you. You missed when that silence used to be comfortable, but… you could only blame yourself for it.

“So— so, what?” he asked, the beginnings of a frown starting to crease his brows. “You just— we go through all that together up there, and then when we get back down you don’t say a word for months. And now— now, out of nowhere, in the middle of the night, you just show up and ask for help?”

“God,” you muttered. When he put it that way, it was true. It was ridiculous, to expect his help after the way you had just left him to deal with it all on his own for a reason borne of your own insecurity. “You’re right. This was— this was stupid. I’m sorry.”

You had already turned to go when you felt a calloused hand on your shoulder, causing you to stop in your tracks.

“No.” His voice was surprisingly soft as he sighed, stepping back with a shake of his head to make room in the doorway. “No, I—” Mike paused for a moment, as if he couldn’t find the right words to say. “I’m sorry. You can come in. Obviously, you can come in.”

Your eyes widened slightly as you tried to hide your shock at the gesture, but you weren’t about to turn it down. You nodded, and he stepped aside to make space for you to walk in. When you did, you were met with a mess not unlike the one back at your apartment, save for the beer bottles. Clothes were strewn about haphazardly on every surface, so you took a seat on a clean spot on the floor, leaning back against a chair and pulling your knees up to your chest. You actually preferred it this way — it was grounding, in a literal sense. Mike pushed aside a laundry basket and did the same, but pulled one leg up and let the other lay extended.

“Why?” he asked suddenly, breaking the silence that had been accumulating once more. “Why did you just…” he gestured around with his hands to try and get his point across but ultimately settled with a sigh. “You didn’t say anything. You didn’t try to text, or call, or write, or— or anything. Hell, I would’ve probably jumped to get a messenger pigeon from you. But it was just… radio silence.”

You picked at the dry skin on your thumbs as you tried to come up with an answer. “I… I don’t know,” you repeated. “It was stupid, and it was horrible of me to leave you alone. I mean… I don’t know why I did it. I know what I’ve been going through, and I know you’ve been going through the same. So I don’t know why I didn’t try to reach out and see how you were doing.”

He chuckled mirthlessly as his eyes swept over the empty bottles that had accumulated on the coffee table. “I’m not the best with alone.”

“I know,” you said quietly. “I thought…” you shook your head as you looked at the ceiling. “I thought that you hated me. I know that you cared about them all more, you were closer to all of them, and… and I thought you wouldn’t want anything to do with me. That I would just always be a reminder of what you lost. And… and, I don’t know. Maybe it was my way of trying to move on. Was a stupid fucking idea, though.”

That got a genuine laugh out of him as he ran a hand through his hair. “I guess I get that. I dunno why I didn’t try to talk to you either. Maybe since you didn’t say anything, I didn’t want to either. This whole thing fucked me up.” His gaze moved to you. “Fucked us both up.”

“You can say that again,” you muttered as you tapped your fingers on your knees. “I can’t look anywhere without seeing them. I mean, I see that fucking…” you grimaced. “I see Josh, and I see what that thing did to him, and I just— I’m right back to step one.”

He swallowed hard and nodded. “...yeah. That was seven layers of fucked up.”

“You can’t just keep saying everything was fucked up,” you said dryly. “It was shitty, too.”

Mike snorted, some kind of slightly masochistic humor going on between the two of you. “Nothing really gets the point across like fucked up.”

“Guess you’re right,” you finally conceded with a small smile. “This is… this is nice. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to… I don’t know, to talk to someone like this.”

“It is,” he murmured.

Another pregnant pause hung in the air, but the silence wasn’t as uncomfortable now. Trickles of what it used to be like, of your old life, were beginning to poke through.

“I never hated you,” he said suddenly. Your eyes flicked up to meet his, and it was like his brown eyes were piercing through you as he continued. “I never did. After it happened… yeah, I was mad. I was fucking pissed, but it was never at you. You were my friend too, y’know? Even though we weren’t that close, we were still… we were still something. And I’m glad you made it. I just wish you hadn’t convinced yourself that you had to go through this alone. Maybe things would’ve turned out different, these past few months. For both of us.”

You nodded, choosing to avert eye contact first because you almost couldn’t handle the sincerity. Your heart sank a bit at the sight of all the beer bottles, and you knew that he was right. Maybe things would’ve been different if the two of you had weathered it together from the start. And so you said that.

“I still can’t help but feel like I’m to blame for—” you gestured around at the mess with a sigh, “for this.”

“Look.” His voice was raspy as he ran a hand through his disheveled hair, and as he met your eyes once more you were able to see how truly exhausted he was. With dark circles that matched your own, scars that were still healing, and a certain hollowness behind his eyes… It was like looking in a mirror. And it made you realize how fucked up the two of you had really become.

Mike had always been good at holding himself together, putting up his signature egotistical-douchebag-jock act in the face of anything that threatened to tear him down, and more often than not he came out victorious. But not even class presidents were immune to the horrors that they had faced, and it was taking more of a toll on him than you had realized.

“It’s not your fault. You— you did everything you could; I know I’m still alive because of you. Besides, we were idiot teenagers — we still are — and none of them deserved to die because of it. Not Hannah, not Beth, not any of them.” Mike shook his head and sighed. “Not even Josh. Man was fucked up even before all of this, but he didn’t deserve what happened to him. He needed help, but instead he got his fucking… god. I can’t even say it. But he didn’t deserve it.”

You let out a breath you didn’t even know you were holding, the subconscious process having stopped because of the weight of his words. It was cliche, but you didn’t know how much you needed to hear those four words: it’s not your fault.

“Maybe you should be my therapist,” you joked weakly. But as you let your eyes trail back to Mike you bit your lip. He hadn’t included himself in that statement, and it wasn’t too hard to figure out why.

“Mike… it wasn’t your fault either. You’re not just saying bullshit to try and make yourself feel better, it really wasn’t your fault. What do they say? ‘Getting through your guilt is the first step to recovery’ or some shit? You deserve to be here just as much as I do.”

“But it was,” he insisted. “It’s easy for you to say that. You tried to stop it, I… I just went along with it. Fuck, I started it all. Hannah and Beth went missing because of me, Josh went out of his fuckin’ mind, and if he hadn’t brought us all back up there for his revenge plot then they wouldn’t have died. How is it not my fault? Why do I get to live when all of them died because of me?”

“Mike,” you sighed. “I… I don’t know. I don’t know why we made it back when none of them did, but it’s not your fucking fault, okay? You— yeah, that prank was fucking stupid, but— but how could you know what was going to happen?” You huffed a laugh that was only slightly unhinged. “People pull pranks all the time. Native American legend cannibal spirit things don’t try to kill people all the time. You can’t keep blaming yourself. It’s not going to help them, and it’s not going to help you.”

That silence stretched out once more as he took in your words. You didn’t know if he believed them or not, but you did. That had to be worth something, right?

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” he muttered, breaking the silence once more. “And I… I don’t know. I don’t know why it took almost fucking dying from those goddamn things, a— and seeing what happened to all of them...”

“I don’t know,” he repeated, leaning back against the foot of the sofa. “All the shit that happened, all of them dying — I don’t know how long it’ll take until we’re okay again. Hell, I don’t even know if we ever will be okay again. What happened up there was fucked up in the worst way, and the fact that no one believes us makes it a hell of a lot worse.”

You chuckled darkly as you cupped one hand in the other. “You can say that again.”

His lips twitched for a moment as if he wanted to smile but ultimately thought better of it. “I know we aren’t that close anymore, but the truth is we’re the only ones on this fuckin’ planet that know what really happened up there. We’re the only ones that will ever really understand what happened to us, and… and I think we’re the only ones that can really help each other through this shit.”

He met your eyes once more, something resolute in them. “So the next time this happens, because it will, if you don’t want to be alone… you can come here. Any time, any day, no questions asked. Just knock on that door, and I will be there. No more isolation, no more trying to get through this on our own. We gotta be there for each other, because we’re all we have.”

You nodded gratefully, a feeling of warmth slowly creeping through your body with his reassurance. “Thank you, Mike. You… you have no idea what this means to me.”

“I think I have some clue,” he murmured.

As you exchanged weary smiles, you saw a faint twinkle in Mike’s eyes. He was always the kind of person to help others, even if it was for the wrong reasons, and that was one thing that stuck with him after the disaster. And in that moment, a long lost feeling washed over you — safety.

You hadn’t felt safe in… well, it seemed like forever. Adrenaline and pure instinct were responsible for getting you through those twelve hours, along with an overwhelming wave of numbness and denial. But once all of that wore off, the nightmares had begun. Your friends, the Wendigos, the mountain itself — anything and everything that your mind could use against you, it did.

It was a living hell. You could hardly ever sleep anymore, horrific images always jolting you awake after an hour or two and keeping you awake for the rest of the day. It was no wonder Mike had ended up with a drinking problem — it was probably the only way he could sleep, the only way he could bring some form of peace to his mind. By some miracle, you had avoided that fate, but… you would be lying if you said you hadn’t come close.

But somehow, for some reason, you could tell that things were going to be different. Now that you and Mike weren’t avoiding each other anymore in the name of painful memories… you felt like things were going to be okay. Or as close to okay as you could get these days.

You weren’t alone, and neither was he.

He had saved your life on the mountain more than once. Now, he was saving you again. Just in a different way.

-

perm tags: @dv0412 @siriuslyslyslytherin @maruchan77

ud tags: @kwyloz

[excorcismic]

      ❛ remember the time . . . in SAN FRANCISCO ? with me by your side , in SAN FRANCISCO ? you are such a  s i g h t  , the deepest brown eyes , my dear . . . ❜

                                                                      ❛ MISA MISA !! ❜                                            playlist . plotting call . listen as you read !

the mirrors surrounding you did as they were meant to, reflecting back a spitting image of HIRAI MOMO  -  but it’s clear something is wrong from the moment that a vision of VALENTINE’S DAY , 2011 strikes you.  perhaps it was a passing daydream in the frenzy of the funhouse. you reassure yourself  -  you’re MISA AMANE ! ,  a TWENTY-FOUR YEAR OLD STREAMER / MUSICIAN whose virtue lies in your + LOYALTY & + OPTIMISM , although you’ve been told that you tend to be quite - NA��VE & - IMPULSIVE ,  and you’re associated with BLACK PAINTED NAILS HOLDING A FOUNTAIN PEN , RUBY RED LIPS & EYES THAT MATCH , GIVING HIM YOUR EVERYTHING IN EXCHANGE FOR JUST HIS HEART by those around you.  suddenly,  however,  you’ve found LIGHT’S WHITE JACKET on your person - was that always there? from the moment you leave the funhouse,  memories from your life in DEATH NOTE have begun to return - leaving whoever you had been before in the mirror’s reflection behind you.  you can almost hear SAN FRANCISCO by THE DRIVER ERA following in your wake. ( she/her & demigirl )

                       this is the story of a very lonely girl .

I . WELL , LOOK AT YOUR WATCH NOW !

born in alucard , pennsylvania - misa amane was the child of celebrity parents who settled down in the small town . as of course , a TEMPORARY break . a director father and a failed actress mother , they were determined their daughter continue the legacy and turn into a star . and after a few good , normal years ( if ‘normal’ involved going to school & playing during the day then coming home to intense acting , singing , dancing practice ) , she managed to get wrapped into the world of stardom . 

first , it was through commercials . then , small parts in movies that called for cute little girls . then . . . a deal with a children’s network at age nine to star in a series about a child detective . affectionately called , THE MYSTERIES OF MISS MISA-MISA !

from nine to sixteen , she’d work tirelessly - becoming an instant hit the moment the pilot episode aired , selling merchandise all over the country and making appearances on other television shows . 

but then there’s the inevitable - kids start to grow up . the childish charm is lost & the children start to realize they were deprived of so much for the sake of fame . such things , like friends . and misa . . . although initially asked for a sequel series that would tackle the child detective now as a high schooler , declined in favor of going back home to pursue her high school years as a normal teen . of course - to the chagrin of her parents . she’d go back home to live with an aunt in alucard for a year , finishing her sophomore year , then her parents would follow - she’d move back in again at the start of her junior . and . . . it was not at all easy . considering a , she already had a reputation as a child star - which was equivalent to a target along her back . and b , the lack of friends was obvious - and even when she smiled at everyone , complimented their styles , helped them out with work she could assist with . . . most of the time , she’d sit by herself at the lunch table . or , with people that she didn’t know if they were actual friends or not . 

graduation comes , and misa amane stands to accept her diploma . there isn’t a graduation party ; she just sits in the back of her parents’ car , ready to go out to a fancy dinner she isn’t looking forward to .

II . YOU’RE STILL A SUPER HOT FEMALE !

BUT ALL HOPE IS NOT LOST ! graduation is the end of a chapter - and the beginning of the next rests in amane’s hands . three months pass , and once again the family puts pressure on her to go back into showbiz . it isn’t too late , you’re young & pretty - you’re meant for movies . but . . . misa , of course , refuses . she actually is looking into maybe making another name for herself . . . but in a very different way than her parents would hope .

it’s an argument . an argument about how misa has talent she’s ignoring & an argument about how her parents can’t control her forever . one friend she has sits in her truck in the parking lot as misa packs her bags , and the heated argument ends with the blonde girl slamming the door and her parents telling her to come back only when she has her head screwed on straight . but it’s fine . misa’s alright with this - she’s going to be a star in her own right , since a band she’s started playing in underground has just gotten noticed . YOUR FRIENDS & THE SKELETONS - a hard pop-punk band influenced by the likes of my chemical romance , paramore , two door cinema club , the 1975 , what have you . 

alucard is left behind when the recognition comes since misa amane needs the change of scenery . but that doesn’t mean she is gone forever , as sometimes the pursuit of other things only lasts for so long . 

III . YOU’VE GOT YOUR MILLION DOLLAR CONTRACT !

the next few years are kind . the band experiences a nice success that means misa gets to live her dream - but she realizes the burnout when she looks back on everything she’s accomplished . the constant moving around , always only talking to the same few people or never anyone she gets to know - it registers that she’s still in some sort of box . and maybe a break from said box is needed .

your friends & the skeletons goes on a touring hiatus , retiring back to alucard . misa does not tell her family she’s going back - she doesn’t give a shit , and she doesn’t think they do , either . she gets an apartment by herself , and starts frequently streaming to still connect with her fans even though she’s taken a step back out of the spotlight . 

alucard is quiet . and alucard is home . but there’s a lot that misa again has to face .

she has a history here , yes - but nevertheless , there is still that feeling of loneliness . in every aspect - she never had many friends . little of her relationships lasted long , always ending with unrequited love , quick heartbreak , what have you . only her bandmembers did she have , even though she tried to throw herself at every friendly face she saw .

because she’s always been friendly . always a friend to everyone else , even if they aren’t a friend to her . only hoping maybe SOMEONE ELSE can see her as someone - begging to be somebody’s top-pick , somebody’s vip , somebody to someone . because her whole life she’s lived as only the bridesmaid , but never the bride in the eyes of those looking away from stardom . because it’s one thing to be adored by fans - it’s another to be adored by individual people .

IV . AND THEY’RE ALL WAITING FOR YOUR HOT TRACK !

nevertheless , amane is never one to give up quickly . because she believes that someday , maybe she’ll get what she wants . . . even though of course , when things go south , she still quickly accepts maybe she isn’t meant to be somebody’s someone . 

but she always smiles .

misa amane is one of a kind . she’s got so much love in her heart to share - she’s sensitive , maybe she gets hurt easily . maybe she’s IMPULSIVE and naive to where she bites off more than she can chew and believes things she shouldn’t . she jumps into things without realizing how much she could get hurt . talks without thinking . but she is friendly - she’s kind , outgoing , and cherishes those she admires even if they don’t cherish her back . her heart is forever on her sleeve , and all she wants to be loved . she’s been lonely for a long time .

she’s talented ! not only fronting her band with vocals & rhythm guitar , but also taking interests in visual art , crafting . aside from streaming , she runs a little etsy shop where she makes jewelry and keychains of her own little style . she of course can act , but hates it at this point . she also knows how to play the piano & the drums !!

she regularly streams for her fans - whether it’s to watch movies or shows with them or to play video games she has with them . she’s social , in that she always loves to talk to someone . her batteries recharge through social interaction , as an extrovert’s extrovert .

i wouldn’t say misa is stupid . she’s clever - witty . but sometimes she’s a little ditzy and acts without thinking ; i like to thing she did pretty well in school in terms of her grades , but her tendencies to both act and speak without thinking and sometimes forgetting simple things can give the impression she isn’t too smart . but she is ; just in her own special ways . she’s not dumb at all .

she also knows no fear - courageous to some points where it’s even dangerous . she regularly likes to go on adventures in the dark to investigate possible haunted areas , always is the one to kill the bugs when everyone else is scared , heights and the dark are never an issue . she also lives and breathes for the occult , heavily believing in everything supernatural . she even practices witchcraft ! 

also she's hardcore pan if u think misa is straight U Are Mistaken

it is almost a certain guarantee that misa amane is perhaps one of the friendliest faces in alucard . the one that only hopes you like her as much as she likes you . and maybe one day she’ll find that - until then , she will never stop persisting . she goes everywhere and she smiles at everyone ; a shimmer of sunshine in black platforms & cross earrings .

WHAT YOU WAITING - WHAT YOU WAITING - WHAT YOU WAITING - WHAT YOU WAITING - WHAT YOU WAITING FOR ?? . . .

                    . . .  holding on , i’m holding on to our story . . .

there is a girl . a very lonely girl . a very lonely girl that looks back at misa when she stares into the house of mirrors . and that lonely girl is a thought that misa can’t get out of her head , along with the newfound feeling that there is something - no , someone missing from her life that should be there . or was there . a missing piece that she doesn’t recognize . and the white jacket , a bit too big for her to fit , that appears on her person - the attachment she feels to it gives her security , like a safety blanket ; even though she has no clue where it came from , or who it actually belonged to . . . 

god i fried my own brain writing this but anyway HELLO EVERYONE once again i am hylia and . . . i have finally finished . my monster of an intro for misa . once again if u want to look at my plot/connection ideas pls click the plotting call link at the top of this post !! i love this girl to death and i hope u guys like her too c: bc she is my BABIE and i ,,, am so stoked to write her here . I’LL SEE Y’ALL WHEN I GET OFF WORK !! <3 

[lollytea]

What are your opinions about Jungle cubs? I loved that show as a kid!

hi hello!! thank u for humoring me!! i love getting asks about the stuff im currently obsessed with that nobody really cares about, it makes me feel valid! also i dont have well constructed opinions, i just have a very messy, manic head so i just babble all my thoughts. for that i am sorry 

im not gonna say jungle cubs is the best damn cartoon to hit the tv and maybe its just my own biased love speaking when i call it a good show but it means a lot to me personally. it brought me comfort as a little kid, i came back to it as a teen when i was feeling very alone and came back to it again as an adult just cuz of my recent love of baloo and talespin and needing something to keep me upbeat during the quarantine. 

and ive watched quite a few cartoons i loved as a kid that i dont really vibe with anymore. i tried rewatching gummi bears. its not my thing. but jungle cubs is?? really good?? its just so charming to watch. i love the expressive animation, i love the smooth flowing dialogue, i love the playful and naive tone it has of just a bunch of kids being kids, i love the depiction of these characters, i love the performance of the voice actors, i love the layers it adds to the original film. layers that were never intended to be in there in the first place but isnt that just the beauty of interpretation and ones own imagination. 

its such a formulaic concept isnt it. to take a classic show/movie and make its protagonists babies for a spinoff. but i dunno, i always got the feeling that whoever was the backbone of this story actually cared about the characters they were writing and took a sincere approach to it. 

they thought in-depth about how to devolve them from their current personalities in a realistic way and what aspects of themselves are so core to their being that they would have been ingrained since childhood. the cubs feel pretty three-dimensional and considering theyre cash grab spinoff babies, that is an amazing feat.

but also, i love it for the very very very simple reason of its really adorable. bagheera especially. to see such a stoic and levelheaded character in his earliest stage as a child just Hits for me. cub bagheera is clever, hes cautious, hes a little stuck-up, all traits he has in the movie. hes also not the best hunter, doesnt know how to roar yet, is a little cowardly, sorta awkward at times and is often trying to prove that hes the best even though hes aware that he is nowhere near the best.

like its easy to believe the kind of person he grows up to be but at the same time, its really interesting to see the more childish aspects of himself that he eventually matured past. and hes adorable dude! baby bagheera voiced by EG Daily is the sweetest goddamn thing, i love him so much 

also shere khan who is a fuckin doozy. hes very interesting in this too. everything about his attitude is reminiscent of a preteen who says mean things to you on voice chat while playing overwatch but if you tell him you’re gonna call the police on him, he starts panicking. thats shere khan’s vibe, a real edgy little tiger who thinks hes hot shit cuz he probably caught something bigger than a mouse like one time and its gone to his head. 

hes constantly stalking around, subtly bragging about what a natural predator he is. but at the same time, he’s still around?? hes still hanging around with the other cubs cuz hes ALSO a cub and likes to play around with other kids his age. and he fucking loves his friends. the amount of times he’s scared off bigger animals who were about to harm them. and its really sweet cuz they like him too. while his attitude is definitely annoying sometimes, they still consider him their friend and enjoy his company. its just wholesome. 

plus hes also pretty vulnerable as hes a cub. he doesnt stand a chance when they come across a grown animal as a threat. he gets scared just like the rest of them, hes just so arrogant that he never admits it. 

in fact the appeal of the show in general to me, is the vulnerabilities of all the characters that comes with being in their most immature state. they dont know any better when it comes to stuff. this show is real dumbass hours 

EVERYTHING about baloo is just great. he does not change even slightly. he is exactly the same except hes little and his voice hasnt broke yet. his child voice is amazingly fitting also.

i mean i guess one thing that differentiates him is adult baloo had some semblance of a philosophy. he was wise....in a way. baby baloo does not know shit about shit. he does not think. he just vibes, okay?? i love him mwah

i dont have much to say about the others but i DO like this interpretation of them more than their adult selves. it also just feels bittersweet that they grew up to be such dicks. Haithi is lovely, i love that hes just out here TRYING to be a colonel but he lacks the authority that comes with being a grown elephant and he doesnt have the self confidence to command anybody yet. he is simply babey.

 louie is a very cute little dude, i love him and baloo as just an idiot squad. he also has a very good voice

kaa.....i dont trust. on one hand, hes very sweet as a child but on the OTHER HAND he grows up to be the creepiest fucking creation disney has ever put in a movie so that snake will always rub me the wrong way even when im trying to like him. 

also ONE THING thats driving me crazy about this show is like. it has the best depiction of pre-adolescent boys that i have ever seen in a cartoon ever. just the way they behave. theyre sweethearts one minute, extremely mean the next minute, going from building eachother up to lightly bullying eachother, lots of unprovoked play fighting, laughing over dumb shit, rude to strangers for no goddamn reason, theres just a lot. 

it fuckin knocked me back like 15 years cuz it reminded me so much of kids i used to play with. and these arent even human children whose brain development is documented, these are animals, this show had no business being this spot-on.

i dont like season 2. it has a few gems here and there that i get a kick out of. but as a whole, its really disappointing. since the show swapped production companies, they seemed to uproot it completely and start from scratch. and its kinda sad cuz i think they were TRYING to do something poignant when it came to a future narrative but it just didnt land. firstly there was a huge animation downgrade and looking at the two season in comparison is kinda depressing. 

also they redesigned the characters, some looked worse than others. baloo looked fine but i still preferred his og look. bagheera....was the worst. rip bagheera. 

they all underwent a huge personality change. and not in the way that showed subtle maturity, i mean a vapid exaggeration of their original personality. the only characters who were left relatively alone in this regard were baloo and kaa. and i dont mind gradually changing a character since there IS an adult version of them that they should be growing into. but the season 2 depictions are literally the furthest things from their adult selves that its unbelievable.

 another pet peeve is they changed a few of the voice actors and.....i love these season 2 voice actors in other work theyve done. dee bradley baker and cree summer specifically who are both very talented people. but they did not fit these roles in the slightest. (not to mention having cree summer play an APE and suddenly having her do a LOT of monkey noises that the previous va never had to do. im not gonna get into all that BUT hmm.) and if youre gonna recast the characters to make them sound “older” as least make them sound somewhat similar to the jungle book actors, so you can picture them eventually growing into those voices. 

also the tone shifted so much between seasons. the way they tried to make this jungle more of a “society” with shit like talent shows and sports games and celebrities and like fuckin. STOP. theyre animals. just let them be animals. along with that the writing just feels really off and its just. not fun. i dont like it 

and as i mentioned, they WERE trying to do something here. the fact that the cubs didnt hang out with eachother as much and were starting to drift apart is kinda sad and wouldve liked it see it handled a little better. but instead i got season 2, which was stupid. and im 21 and im petty. 

anyway i am very sorry that ended so negatively and im very sorry that rant was completely all over the place i have no sense of proper organization i just wanted to gush about what i love. but on a positive note i love jungle cubs!! its very dear to my heart and makes me very happy and i wish it had gotten more episodes

[supercasualtj]

                      truth or dare: totally cool and chill

from cleo raja — truth: since coming back together again, who can you not stand? or just don’t like all that much? or dare: kiss everyone here, besides me, and tell us who’s the best.

“I’ll be the first to admit, I definitely think Kai’s too hot now, so fuck that,” TJ began. She was feeling pleasantly loose, having helped herself to a shower smirnoff before the game began. “But in general, everybody’s exactly the same as they were. The only difference is that Julian and Jenny are stuck with us and can’t ditch us for all their richer, cooler friends. I’m glad to be hangin’ out with my old buddies.”

from dakota harrison — truth: what’s one time you felt like the squad let you down? or dare: eat something you don’t like, right here and now.

Eating gross things was a Powell family tradition, and TJ had always had weird taste buds anyway. She considered, peering around the hotel room. “Did anybody bring a slim jim or jerky or something?” Since they had roadtripped, the teriyaki jerky was eventually produced-- TJ opened a new drink in preparation to eat a single nugget, choking it down before downing the third wine cooler just to rinse the taste of haunted cow from her mouth. “God, that mummy heat is so gross. It makes me feel like a zombie and I don’t know how anyone can casually snack on it-- but make note my mamma ain’t raised no bitch.”

from jenny jordan — truth: have you ever had a crush on someone in the room or dare: compliment me for three minutes straight.

She could already feel her cheeks burning at the idea of confessing to a crush, even in her late twenties, amongst her friends, so instead TJ was content to bite the bullet. She leaned forward, looking deeply into Jenny’s eyes and stated: “Start the timer.” Waiting for the go ahead, she began the flow of words. She’s already drunk, so they flow quickly and with sincerity. “Jenny, you’re so hot you put us all to shame. Your skin looks, and I cannot stress this enough, amazing. You could crush my head with your thighs and I would say thank you.  Your hair smells like sunshine and your teeth are super white. You never made me feel out of place when I was an awkward androgynous teen, and I’m really grateful for that. I’ve always loved your fashion sense and it’s only gotten cooler in the last decade. Remember when you loaned me a scrunchie in the eleventh grade? I do. It was the cutest part of my whole damn outfit, all thanks to you. I always thought you were really clever, and sometimes I used to suspect you could read minds. I think your job and the connections you make there are super cool, and I really envy your jetsetting lifestyle. You should have a show about your life like Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and you are so interseting I really would watch every episode--” The timer went off and TJ drew in a deep breath, feeling a little nauseous for having gushed nonstop without coming up for air. “Don’t let any of that go to your head, now, babe.” 

from julian campbell — truth: what is the cruelest thing you have ever done to a friend? or dare: let the person on your right give you a hair cut, right now.

“Well what I’m not gonna do is give any of you drunkie-drunks a pair of scissors,” TJ asserted. She was drunk but she sure wasn’t that drunk. Besides, if it wasn’t something she could undo after her hangover wore off, she wanted absolutely no part in it. “So I guess I’ll just have to admit to trying to exclude Cleo a little when we were all in school, y’know, cus she was such a baby and it kindof made me feel bad to be willfully providing her with booze and weed and things that would rot her tiny pre-teen brain. Sorry, Cleo. I already told you you’re way cooler now, though, so now return the favor and don’t do anything to me while I sleep.”

from kai eastaughffe — truth: would you kill a spider for me? or dare: kill the spider in my room for me.

TJ let out a dramatic sigh and got to her feet. The booze hit her then, she realized as the world tilted sharply to the right and she braced one hand on the wall behind her, trying to look casual as everything slowly righted itself. “C’mon, A-Kai Berry, show me where the spider’s at. I’ll keep you safe.” She didn’t even really want to kill the thing, but a dare was a dare so she made quick work of it with Kai’s hotel room remote.

from salem st. ives — truth: do you think your family was right to warn you to stay away from the dirtbag? or dare: phone any one of your brothers and tell them kai has always had a crush on him.

TJ barked out a laugh, completely forgetting the first option as the tantalizing dare was presented. “Oh, baby, you got it,” she agreed, pulling her phone out and waiting for the Face ID to unlock it. “Siri, call Miley Cyrus.” The phone rang a few times before TJ’s youngest brother Miles picked up. “To preface this, I do need you to send me a picture of Gizmo, stat, because I miss him,” TJ started, not even waiting for Miles to ask why it was he was calling her at such a late hour, clearly intoxicated. “But I did call you to let you know that all those years ago? My friend Kai was like, totally in love with you. Used to stare at your closed bedroom door while you were being a super emo, and pine for you, waiting for you to come out.” “Well, you’re clearly drunk,” Miles responded finally. “But that’s good to know, I guess. Which one’s Kai, anyway?” “Oh, you know the one. Skinny, big hair, looks a little nervous. He’s a lawyer now, though, so you could do worse.” Miles snorted, which TJ knew was an acknowledgement-- he knew exactly who she was talking about. “Yeah, yeah. Your dog’s asleep, do you still want a picture?” “Absolutely I do. Thanks for pickin’ up, Smiley. Go to sleep soon I’ll see ya in a couple days.” “Yeah, yeah. Night, Teej.” “G’nite!” She let the call end, looking over at Kai. “Miles is just a simple woodworker, but I bet he thinks you’re cute. He could be your trophy husband.”

from samuel flores — truth: do you wish that the squad had never parted ways? or dare: let each member of the squad send one text to anyone they want in your phone..

Since TJ had already tucked her phone away, she decided to take the truth, nodding empathetically as she finished her drink. It seemed wise to steel herself before this confession. “You guys were my only friends, like ever.” She lets out a nervous half-laugh. “Seriously, when I moved here nobody thought I could talk, remember? It wasn’t until I was accepted by all of you guys that I felt like it was, y’know, even worth it. Talking. And now I’m doing too much of it, a little? It would’ve been nice to celebrate everyone’s accomplishments when they happened. Coming together again like how we did is a real bummer.”

from skylar murphy — truth: what’s your biggest worry in life? what keeps you up at night? or dare: confide in someone you normally wouldn’t confide in.

Skylar’s question is the one that gives TJ the most pause. Maybe its because her drink is gone, maybe its because her tongue feels funny, but she takes a long time, chin tucked into her knees before responding. “I think I worry that, I’m going to be alone. Not like, romantically or whatever,” TJ clarifies, waving that away in case anyone tries to remind her that she don’t need no man. “I’m not worried about that. But... I just said you guys were my only friends. I think I just loved you all so much it’s been really hard to make space in my life for new people even after all these years. I think I worry that I can’t ever get our old friendships back, so I’m going to be alone.” Since that was thoroughly depressing, she reached for a cup that wasn’t empty and tried to settle comfortably back into her spot. “Who’s next?”

[stevesharrlngtons]

hey.

steve harrington x reader

summary: he was such a staple piece in your life, that as a child and young teen, you never saw your life without him. late night promises and pinky swears were made in blanket forts that you two would be friends until the day the sun burned out in the sky. it was just a given that’d he be there, that you never worried about the two of you drifting apart or being separated. he promised he’d always be there, and you had believed him. you now corrected yourself, foolishly believed him.

word count: 3.6k

title from this song.

a/n: sorry for the wait, but here is part two (again)! enjoy and feedback is appreciated 

chapter i / iii / iv / v / vi / vii / viii

                                                         chapter ii

Unlike Jonathan, Steve didn’t mind that if you smoked in his car, he even asked to bum one. Steve looked distressed and the way he was exhaling seemed tight and shaky. You wanted to ask him if he was okay to drive but the words never left your lips. The two of you sat in complete silence as he drove, you weren’t even sure where you were going, but decided to only push the issue if you started to feel uneasy or in danger. But once the car took a left turn down a long street flanked by trees, you knew exactly where you two were headed. His house. You hadn’t been there since the eighth grade, but as the two of you pulled up, nostalgia and memories flooded over you.

“This place still looks the same.” You commented causally, just trying to break the silence.

Steve didn’t say anything, just got out of the car and started towards the house. A little offended by his attitude, you followed, but not before slamming his car door loud. He flinched at the sound but didn’t turn around. Once you both reached the front door he muttered something about making yourself at home before he walked off into the kitchen.

It felt weird being in his house. It was like you had been away from home for years and were just now returning. Everything felt warm and familiar, but you were trying to hold up your cold indifference about the whole thing. You were still taking in the sights of his living room when you heard the sound of the sliding glass being opened, but not shut. You walked towards the door and looked out into the back yard to see Steve sitting on the edge of one of the beach chairs facing his pool. There were two beers sitting in front of him, but the distance of them apart made it clear that one was for him and the other was for you. You took the hint and walked into the back yard. You sat in the chair closest to Steve and your new beer and took a drink of it. When you looked at Steve he was lost in thought. The reflection of the water and pool lights dancing across the planes of his face in such a way that you wished you had a camera to capture the quiet perfection of the moment.

“Bullshit.” He said, not angrily, but like he was recalling something.

“Hmm?” You asked, mouth full of beer.

“Nancy told me at the party that me, our relationship and our love has all be bullshit.” He shrugged sadly.

You sat in silence again. You had no clue what to say.

“I’m sorry.” You settled for.

“Me too.”

“I’m sure she didn’t mean it. People say stupid shit when they’re mad.” You continued.

“Yeah, but not like this. You don’t say this if you’re just mad.” Steve said.

“Yeah.” Was all you could say in return. Nothing else would have helped.

Steve Harrington was reeling in heart ache and you couldn’t say a thing to make it better. This whole night felt weird. Like a dream? It felt to eerie sitting with Steve like this. It didn’t seem right for you to be consoling him when you were sure he’d rather be with one of his actual friends right now.

“Do you want me to call someone? Like someone who could do a better job of cheering you up?” You joked slightly.

He shook his head in a shocking seriousness.

“No.”

Silence again.

“You can go if you really want to.” Steve said, he was still looking at the water.

You sighed, “I want to help you, Steve. That’s what I want, but I have no idea how. I haven’t done this in a while.”

He chuckled macabrely, “You can’t pull out any of your old tricks to make me smile like when we were kids?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure my PhD in Steveolgy has expired, so I don’t think any of my old tricks would work.”

“Can PhD’s expire?” He questioned.

“I don’t know, let’s pretend they do so my analogy works, okay?” You said, and he nodded and laughed quietly in response.

“I wish you still had the Steveolgy PhD. I wish I had the (Y/N)olgy one, too. It would make things a lot easier.” He sighed, taking a drink.

“How so?”

“Everything was always just easier with you around.” For the first time he looked over at you.

When you looked at him, you wondered if he thought you looked beautiful with the pool lights reflecting on your face like you thought he did. You looked at him and thought about how he was right, things were easier when he had been around. Life had been simple. They had been happy. Steve seemed to let his eyes trail around your face in a calm moment where neither of you said a word. Just stared. That’s when a piece of your indifferent resolve shattered and you realized that no matter how long it has been since you two talked or hung out or what have you, you always wanted him to be happy… to help him.

You got up without silently and walked to the small shed of pool supplies on the grass. You heard him question you, but you just kept looking for what you wanted and came back out.

“Okay Harrington,” You said placing the basketball down to take off your shoes and socks, “game to ten, fifteen if we get competitive. No cheap shots, if you can make it from this line,” You motioned to where you were standing, “Then that’s two points, deal?”

“Are you kidding?” He asked with a laugh.

“Absolutely not! Now get your ass in the pool.”

“We don’t have swimsuits.”

“I know.” You said stripping off your sweater so you were left in nothing but your jeans and a white tshirt.

Steve’s eyes widened. He started to think that you were both stripping down to nothing to play and wasn’t going to object until he saw you jumped in with all of your current clothing on. He couldn’t deny the pang od disappointment.

Once you surfaced, your teeth started to chatter.

“Fuck! Tell your parents to heat this, will ya?”

“Will do.” He laughed, a genuine smile gracing his lips as he jumped in, fully clothed, shoes and all, into the pool after you.

You weren’t exactly an athlete, and the combination of the freezing water and the star player you were against, didn’t really make for a fair game. You had stated in the rules that there weren’t to be any cheap shots, but that were basically the only points you made. From splashing Steve to get the ball to pretending you were hurt to catch his off guard to steal the ball with a smirk. The two of you were having fun, and it surprised you how natural it all felt. Just like you were falling back into old patterns. Steve seemed at ease now, and even if he wasn’t, at least this was a good distraction.

“Maybe my PhD is still very much valid.” You thought cheerfully to yourself as Steve made his fifteenth basket.

“Oh!” He said mockingly, “Looks like it’s now fifteen to four.”

“I know like ten of those points you were cheating so we aren’t counting those ones.” You countered back as the ball floated towards you.

“Man, still a sore loser, aren’t you?” He quirked an eyebrow.

“Oh, shut up!” You splashed him and tried to hold back a grin.

“I’m cold, I’m getting out.” You said, but Steve stopped you.

“Where do you think you’re going, (Y/L/N)? You haven’t even dunked one yet.”

“Uh yeah, because I’m pretty sure I don’t have the means to do that.” You laughed awkwardly as you made your way towards the edge.

“I’ll help you, then we’ll be tied and then, only then, can we go inside.”

“Tied? Seriously?”

“Ten of my points didn’t count, remember?”

You finally let the small smile overtake you as you looked at Steve and shrugged. You grabbed the basketball and Steve swam behind you. He grabbed your waist tight with both hands and thrust you into the air, just high enough so you could tip the ball over the rim of the hoop to have it fall down through the basket.

“And the crowd goes wild!” Steve exclaimed, making faux cheering and chanting as you laughed.

You two were now back to being submerged to your shoulders in the water, but Steve didn’t let go of your waist. You turned in his arms and he allowed this, but still held you firm. Once you were facing him, you were almost touching your nose with his. Both of you stopped moving and just stood there, the only sound was of the water splashing around you, which caused you both to sway slightly back and forth with it. You felt your breath hitch and everything faded away. The smell of chlorine and Steve Harrington filled your senses and it was surprising pleasant. The feeling of his arms wrapped tightly around you made stomach tighten and your head feel hazy. All you could think about was his skin touching your own.

Steve seemed to be thinking everything you were, as you felt his hand settle briefly on your cheek and slowly drag down to let his fingers ghost along the edge of your lips. His eyes followed his hands and you were just starring at him with a passionate intensity that you hadn’t given in quite some time.

When he finished his movements, his eyes flashed from your own to your lips and you panicked.

This wasn’t how he was going to kiss you. Not like this.

You snapped out of your daze, and removed his hands from your waist.

“My clothes are sopping wet and I’m freezing so I vote we head in.” You said as normally and causally as you could.

“Yeah, let’s go.” Steve said in the same manner, but the shared knowledge about what almost just happened lingered between you two.

Steve had ushered the two of you to his bedroom and had gotten you a towel,a pair of his sweatpants and an old t-shirt of his to wear.

You smiled and accepted them.

“I’m going to go change in the bathroom, so feel free to change in here.” He said as he walked to the door.

You said okay and thanked him and he left you alone in his bedroom.

His room looked almost identical. It was less cluttered with posters and magazines than you remembered, and he had a new bed and duvet cover, but other than that, everything was in its place. As you dried yourself off you walked to a picture that was framed on his work desk. It was a photo of him and Nancy. It was proper, they were both in high necked thick sweaters and Nancy sat on his knees and he had his arm around her waist. They both smiled so beautifully and you felt a wave of sadness roll over you. They both looked happy and in love, but picture Steve had no idea it was all a farce. You decided to turn the photo away so neither you or Steve could see it.

You peeled away your clothes and put on his. After looking at yourself in the full-length mirror in his room you smiled. You had a strange sense of pride wearing his clothes. You weren’t sure if they were exceptionally comfortable or if anything would have been comfortable after you had been in your dripping wet clothes.

You sat on the edge of his bed and waited for Steve to remerge. When he did, he knocked before he entered.

“So,” He began, “I don’t want you walking home this late, so I think you should just stay the night and I’ll drive you home in the morning.”

“Okay.” You replied.

“You can have my room and I’m just going to be in the guest room down the hall if you need me.” He scratched the back of his neck and gestured towards the hallway.

You laughed, “Remember when your parents sat us down when we were eleven and told us it wasn’t “appropriate” for us to sleep in the same bed anymore?”

“Yeah?”

“Well your parents aren’t here, and I know we both thought it was a stupid rule anyways.” You smiled at him and patted the spot next to you.

Steve smiled back at you and agreed. You both got under the covers, and stayed an “appropriate” distance from one another.

“Remember when my mom got me that really expensive blanket, the cashmere one? And told us not to use it for forts, but then, y’know we used it for forts,” Steve spoke, a smile in his voice

“Because it was the softest and best of the ground layer, yes I remember.” You replied nonchalantly.

“Yeah, and then we fell asleep in the fort and someone spilled that entire bottle of grape soda on it.”

You both laughed.

“I honestly thought she was going to murder us!”

“You don’t even know the half of it! At least you got to go home, I lived here! She made life a passive aggressive hell!”

You laughed and covered your face with your hands.

“Remember when our parents had that dinner party for our dads work friends and we both threw up?” You asked through your hands.

“Holy shit! Yes! Fuck, how did I almost forget about that?” Steve exclaimed.

“It wasn’t even my fault! When I see people puke I puke, and you started it!” You were laughing so hard now.

“It was food poisonings fault not mine!” He was laughing just as hard.

“Wait, do you remember when we stole my dad’s car to go to Diary Freeze?” Steve said, turning on his side to face you.

“Of course.” You said, doing the same.

“How the hell did we get away with that?” You added.

“Beats me! We were so un-stealthy about it and nervous wrecks the next day at breakfast.”

“Oh God, when your dad reached for him keys I swore you were going to fess up!” He laughed and nudged you.

“No way, solidarity, man.” You smiled at him.

The two of you just smiled and let the laughing die down until the room was quiet. You borrowed your head deeper into your pillow and sighed contently. You were happy. Until Steve spoke again.

“What happened to us?”

Your eyes glanced up and his face was forlorn. You always thought if he ever asked you that, you’d give him a speech about how he was a jock asshole and how he ditched you. But now didn’t seem like the right time. Tonight had shifted things, if only a little.

“People grow apart. We were best friends, now we aren’t. Not a tragedy, just life.” You spoke more frankly than you guessed he’d liked by his response.

“So, it doesn’t ever make you sad? Like ever?” He seemed a little angry now.

“I mean, yeah. But what was I going to do? Go beg for you back while you sat at a table full of girls fawning for your attention alongside Tommy and those other popular guys? Yeah, no. I decided to save myself the embarrassment.” You were getting a little mad now too.

“You could of, I wouldn’t have minded.” Steve said in a softer voice.

Now this really pissed you off.

“Yeah you would’ve, Steve. You made it clear that we weren’t friends anymore after eighth grade. I had nothing to do with that.”

“No, I didn’t! You could’ve still hung out with me!” He was sitting up now.

“I didn’t want to! You cut me off like dead weight and I didn’t want to be somewhere I wasn’t wanted. I found my new clique while you found yours. Stop saying all this stuff and acting like this great guy when you and I both know you ditched me to fuck hot girls and hang out with the popular kids.” You didn’t sit up, you just turned away from him.

“I was having a shitty night, so thanks for making it worse.” He snapped back at you.

“Fine, I’ll leave then.” You threw the blankets off of yourself.

“No!” Steve exclaimed, grabbing your wrist.

“Don’t, I just, fuck, it’s just, dammit!” He stammered.

“Just don’t leave. I’m sorry.”

You hesitantly laid back down and in turn accepted his apology. He held your wrist until the both of you were under the covers again.

“I’m sorry, just for everything, okay? Not just tonight.” You knew what he meant.

You wanted the apology not to be enough, but for now it was.

“It’s okay. I’m sorry, too.”  Steve nodded at this.

You turned away from him and shut your eyes, you felt him do the same. But there was something else you wanted to say before you slept.

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“She doesn’t fucking deserve you.”

-

You woke up at five in the morning, wrapped in Steve’s comforter and to your surprise, his arms. You were pressed securely to his chest and his chin was resting on the crown of your head. You reveled in the feeling. It was safe and familiar and if you could have stayed in one moment, you wish it would have been this one forever. You wanted to be in a moment like this with Steve Harrington since you were in the seventh grade. That’s when he wasn’t just Steve Harrington your best friend, he was Steve Harrington, your love interest. But even then, you were a master at masking your emotions, and never let on to him, or anyone your growing feelings. Maybe that was why it stung so bad when he abandoned you. You never let yourself call him your first love, because you never wanted to believe that you had ever loved him romantically. Sure, you had an intense crush, but that was all. Once you got love involved, it seemed more serious than you wanted it to be. But, then again, maybe Jonathan was onto something that night when he said Steve was an idiot for not loving you back. Maybe you did, had and presently were in love with Steve?

You had had a few other boys catch your eye in your life, but none ever like him. And now that you were being honest with yourself, the night you lost your virginity, you had thought, if only briefly, that you wished it had been to Steve.

All these thoughts and realizations where making your skin feel hot and breathing quicken. Suddenly his arms felt restricting, like they were keeping you from inhaling. Your palms felt slick and you head swirled trying to calm yourself down.

You had to get the fuck out of there.

You quietly and gingerly slipped out of Steve’s arms, taking a moment to memorize the carefree expression on his face before tip toeing to your wet clothes. You scooped them into your arms, though they were still damp, and made your way to the door. You gave one fleeting look to Steve and pondered leaving a note but decided against it. You wanted to leave without a trace. You weren’t sure why, but that’s what you wanted. When you were downstairs, you found your shoes, socks and sweater by the sliding glass door from the night before, and you were thanking your past self for not swimming in them so they were dry when you put them on. You went to the front door, but unlike in Steve’s room, didn’t take one last glance around. You just left and started your cold, thought riddled walk back home.

[pinkipie100]

Lance and the 25 Days Chapter V: Clay

Yo, guess who? Also, later that usual! HAHAHAHAHA, THAT MEANS ANOTHER MORNING REBLOG, HAHAHAHAHA!!! Okay, hysteria and sleep deprivation aside, I’m pretty proud of this one; Pidge is my favorite character, and I’d die for her, so whenever I get to write her, it’s a real blast! Another note is that at the end of this chapter, I included something as a humor aspect that I should have realized was a stupid idea. The thing about Ficcember is that I want to keep it as broad as possible, so I want to keep it both strictly clean of ships, as well as clean in general; it seems my sense of humor simply cannot go long without dropping swears. I apologize, but I because of this, I have censored the word completely. Those who know the book, or heck, even those who haven’t can probably fill in the blank if they so desire. Thanks for reading, and happy holidays!

Words:2012

Category: Gen

Contains: brOT3 Shalluridge, dreidels, Holt Family Feels [esp. Matt], triggering peanuts, Gunderangst, black paladin!Lance, in a way, considerate!Lance, bedtimes stories, censorship, Go the F*ck to Sleep

Takes place the afternoon after the Space Mall escapade in Chapter IV.

Allura was observing Pidge carefully as she measured out the sculpting sand. The young paladin appeared to run complex calculations completely mentally as she determined the correct proportions and weight for the dreidel to spin properly, like a top. Hunk had given the teen a set of tools to help her sculpt, and she had smoothed the sides of the dreidel to perfection. Allura gasped when Pidge picked up a tool only to ruin the perfectly flat sides of the dreidel, carving in an indent. Pidge explained that the princess had no need to worry, as everything she was doing was intentional. Allura resumed spectating while Pidge carved strange symbols. They had some features similar to Altean, but they were otherwise unrecognizable to the young Altean woman.

Pidge, once finished carving the indents, held one side of the dreidel up to Allura. She told her, “So this one-” she pointed to a three-pronged symbol, “-is shin. When you spin that, you add a piece of whatever game currency we’re using to the pot. This-” Pidge signaled to a symbol on a different side, “-is nun. When you get this, it means you don’t do anything, and the next person spins. This next one-” Pidge gestured to a symbol that looked like and unfinished box, “-is hey, and the player who spins this gets half of the pot. This word, everyone’s favorite-” the green paladin smirked mischievously, “-is gimel, and it means you get to take the whole pot.”

“Fascinating! So, this is a gambling game?” Allura asked. Pidge nodded with a cute smile, and the princess voiced, “I thought that gambling was illegal for children on Earth, Shiro. Isn’t that what you told me?”

Shiro, leaning not far from the two on the kitchen wall, chuckled a response, “Well, it is if it’s real money, but this is just a game. You gamble with things like chocolate coins, or typically other small food pieces. Sam always told me Katie hated it when they used peanuts as the currency.”

Pidge concurred furiously, saying that Matt suggested it every year, and their mom always complied, much to Pidge’s chagrin. The smallest paladin complained that Matt did that specifically to rig the game against her since she wanted nothing to do with the gross, dry nuts, so she did everything in her power to get rid of them, even cheating by feeding them to Bae Bae. She recalled with a cringe that last Chanukkah, Matt had just sat across the table, staring at her, crunching down the peanuts when he won.

Once Pidge was finished regaling of her family’s dreidel shenanigans, she sighed, her figure collapsing. Shiro and Allura’s faces shifted to mirror the green paladin’s despairing countenance, and at Shiro’s sympathetic prompting, Pidge revealed the cause of her upset. She vented, “I was just thinking about playing with Matt, you know? He had his own dreidel, and he whittled it himself, just like I carved this one. My mom showed him how… Anyway, we played our own separate games at the Chanukkah parties my parents would host all the time, and I just remember that he loved playing dreidel. Probably because he won,” she cringed fondly, “but looking back on it, we created a lot of memories from playing together, just the two of us. The thing is…” Pidge paused, shoving her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose as her head drooped and Allura put a supportive hand on her shoulder, “…I brought his dreidel with me to the Garrison.” Shiro uttered the paladin’s name in sympathy, walking closer to her and placing his own hand on Pidge’s free shoulder. “It’s the one that Hunk probably saw, and I brought it because I wanted to give it back to Matt when I found him. Only, the night we found you, Shiro, I didn’t realize that I had been playing with it that morning, so when I went out to scan for frequencies that night, I forgot it wasn’t in my bag. By the time I checked for it in my bag, we had already taken down that Galra ship with Voltron for the first time and become the Defenders of the Universe. I still regret it, and I’m worried that I may never get to give it back to him, even if I do find him…”

Shiro stopped Pidge there, cutting her off, “Pidge. You’re going to find your brother. We’re going to bring him back; you have to know that. You’ll get to play dreidel with him again, this time with your own lucky dreidel.”

Allura agreed with the black paladin, putting in that if the two faced off using Pidge’s own dreidel, Matt would finally lose to his sister. Pidge laughed at this, claiming that she doubted it, but she wouldn’t mind losing to Matt again as long as it meant that he was right there with her, doing something other than worrying about a Galra attack or one of them being in the custody of those villains. Shiro guffawed and added that Matt would probably feel the same.

Allura straightened back up as Shiro patted Pidge’s back, and she scanned the kitchen for the other Altean on the ship. “Where is Coran? Shouldn’t he be learning about Chanukkah games as well? He’d love this! …especially since it’s gambling; it’s practically a mini version of the unilu swap shops he used to love so!” Pidge answered that she noticed that Lance had dragged the Altean off to a private room right after they had gotten back from the Space Mall, this time unscathed by Varkon’s pursuit. She assured the young woman that Coran could learn to play dreidel when she re-explained it to the other boys.

The trio was disrupted, however, when Lance came over the intercom of the ship, calling for all to meet on the bridge. Pidge proudly dunked her finished dreidel in the water for it to harden, then obeying Lance’s orders. Shiro and Allura followed too, and the princess joked to Shiro that it seemed that Lance was the holiday black paladin, earning her a hearty chortle from Pidge whilst the man himself scoffed.

Hunk had met up with Shiro, Pidge, and Allura along the way to the bridge, and upon entering, they encountered Lance standing front and center authoritatively, Coran standing behind him and to the side in support.

“Alright, Team Voltron! I was a little busy doing some holiday logistics after we got back from the Space Mall, but I think we’re all ready for a report now!” Lance proclaimed. He pointed to his best friend, inquiring, “Hunk, what’s the food situation?” Hunk answered that there was more than enough to feed the whole team including Keith as their plus one. Shiro brought up Hunk’s idea for the Olkarion feast, and once the yellow paladin delineated his idea, Lance pondered for a moment, then confirmed, “Yeah, that sounds like a super selfless idea! Maybe selfless enough for the Olkari to throw us a para-” a groan from the team indicated to Lance that this was not the time, so he finished, “-Ahem, Hunk, we should absolutely do that. You and I can contact Ryner and make plans for a refugee cookout in the Olkarion woods! So, Shiro, you’ve got some decorations for the ship, right?” Shiro smugly smiled before grabbing his shopping bag from his paladin seat and picking some representative decorations from it. He showed off the Anbytorian stones he’d foolishly purchased, believing them to be peppermint bark, but then proposed that they could be made into tree ornaments. Lance applauded Shiro’s creativity, followed by the rest of the team. Shiro then pulled out some silver string along with cerulean ribbons so that the team could make the halls festive for Hanukkah. Pidge gave her approval, and Lance’s accompanied hers. The man then started pulling out some deflated-looking items that looked like balloons, explaining that they were, apparently, floating lanterns that could be both lit and inflated by simply charging them through a Galra-issued charging station. Lance questioned if they even had one, to which Shiro pointed to his Galra arm, grasped a lantern with the prosthetic, and illuminated it. The lantern puffed up at a frightening speed, then ascended into the ceiling like a rocket. Coran suggested that Shiro should probably charge them with the lowest power setting his hand could offer.

“Great! So, it looks like we’re all set with decorations, except for the tree. Here’s the deal,” Lance began. “Allura, Coran, and I weren’t able to find any Christmas tree, or flora of any kind, at the Space Mall.” The boys and the Alteans groaned in disappointment, at which Lance twisted his face at the Alteans because, hello, they were there, but he amended, “That doesn’t mean we won’t have a tree, though! I won’t sleep until one is found! If I have to wormhole us to the next dimension MYSELF, I’LL DO IT!” Shiro squinted slightly, anticipating another threatening Christmas spirit episode, but Lance seems to have averted it. The red paladin announced, “In the meantime, we’ve got lots to do, Team Voltron, so…!” Pidge slumped in dread of more work, expecting Lance to start bossing them around to start hanging decorations and whatnot. “…get some rest, everyone.” Pidge, caught off guard at Lance’s tender tone, gazed back up to him while he added, “Today’s been a hard days’ work, so we’re going to need to rest our muscles for all of the hard labor of decorating for tomorrow. I’m proud of you, team, you really pulled it together on short notice!”

Hunk expressed hesitance, since Lance always decorated on the first of December no matter what, but Lance answered that he, himself, was tired as well. Lance dismissed everyone, and Hunk softly and fondly grinned at his best friend’s consideration. He, of all people, knew how hyper Lance was about Christmas, so the teenager was proud of his lanky friend’s restraint for the team’s sake.

Lance abruptly protested to everyone leaving, though, as there was one more favor he needed done before he went to bed. The team sighed.

Shiro yawned, smacking his lips while he waited. The sound of the shower had stopped a considerable amount of time ago, and he couldn’t but help growing slightly impatient. He called for Lance in the bathroom, wondering when he’d be done, and for the fifth time, Lance stated that he was ‘almost done.’ Shiro sighed through his nose.

At last, the bathroom door slid open, and Lance exited through it in his pajamas and blue lion slippers. Lance apologized to Shiro for taking so long, but made the excuse that the art of after-show skin care simply could not be rushed. The red paladin then tucked himself and and shimmied into the position of optimal comfort.

“Okay, so, the whole thing should’ve been transcribed on there by Hunk. It’s under the file ‘Lance’s Christmas Bedtime Story,’” Lance told the black paladin.

“This one?” Shiro indicated, and Lance confirmed it. “So, your mom still read you this even while you were in the Garrison.”

“Oh, yeah,” Lance bobbed his head enthusiastically. “We just did it over a video call; it was practically just like she was there! She read me this for the first time back when I was four, back during that December I woke up to decorate.”

Shiro nodded, then opened the file on his tablet. He then recited the transcribed script: “‘The cats nestle close to their kittens, / The lambs have laid down with the sheep. / You’re safe and warm in your bed, my dear. / …please go the ~QUIZNACK~ to sleep,’ Lance, your mom read this to you?”

“Yeah,” Lance put simply. “What of it? Go on.”

Shiro, eyes bulging out of his head, dramatically turned back to face the script, shrugging off his concerns. He continued:

The windows are dark in the town, child.

The whales huddle down in the deep.

I’ll read you one last book if you swear

You’ll go the ~QUIZNACK~ to sleep...

[fertile-delirium-blog]

You know, everything I ever worked towards, care about, love or have been lucky to come across or been given an opportunity to, I’ve always gotten to a point where I fuck everything up realise where I went wrong or what I keep getting told I do or am and honestly everyone I ever believed enough to let in and be a bit of the real me or all of the real me, since I was little, I been trying to run from this sadness that I later found out is developed or called depression that I realise, I’ve never understood it, I never thought id have mental illness and I ran, I denied for so long.. people telling me I need help, I had a system that worked, a system that never allowed me to be verbally honest with anyone enough to actually get to know me , without the fear and what ifs that I now know is anxiety, funny I never really, really knew what it was but turns out the two together destroy my life, ever since high school, ive wanted to continually improve myself no matter what anyone said and the same time I maintained an image where I made myself make everyone view me the opposite of what I felt I was, when im angry, im actually upset, I made myself seem like I was okay enough n making it on my own so people wouldn’t view me as weak or a being who needed sympathy or attention or some street kid goimg nowhere when really, for too long all I wanted was to find where I belong n do what in my heart I felt n feel like will come back, be music that expresses things I can’t say or feels weird coming out of this mouth that isnt mine, dont feel right. Communication.. something ive never had real, experience with.. was mainly mute other than my outward image for my protection and other peoples shit for so many years before I met her, she made me want to talk, opened up n be the me I feel I am on the inside, but, how easy did I really think it was gonna be? …a lot easier than it was/is.. I’ve always been a lone wolf.. why did I think I could have a family life like that when… I convinced myself with this act I was over shit I wasn’t, that was my fuck up this is all before I fell in love and its funny… it’s a boy cries wolf story, she loved me.. I loved her but something in me didn’t let me properly love her the way I should’ve but if I knew then what I know, my god things would be different and this is what I was afraid of.. completely giving in to her that… I wouldn’t care about myself as much just wanted to make her n kids happy, that’s what made me happy that’s the reason for my being as the opportunity to do so after terrible things n times had us far away for a long time and realised that they the family I chose to have n m sorry I let you all down I’m sorry my bpd, bipolar depressive states is what im trying to focus on to gwt better, since I actually believed everyone but 18 years of unsaid, undealt with and put away in the black box f nothing, isn’t easy to unfold , realise grow, accept, change, love, heal myself and be what was wanted or needed to best of my ability, truth is with her, this focus on making my life a certain way disappeared, never thought it would happen.. i want to do n cater n help n just be n do or try to what it s she wanted if me, I tried I fucked up in the beginning, but still pay to this day.. sigh the balance of who I on the inside is out of whack n has changed.. I don’t think anyone ever did I thought I showed n expressed enough to understand, I guess, if im too sick to love I shouldn’t get on the way of where she wants to go n do, its a shame really, right girl wrong time, don’t care if we were meant to be or not the universe chose you that I loved that much I wanted to make a life, thins I did out of spite, jealousy, anger, major depressive states too much drugs or too long on drugs wasn’t really me, the me I thought you knew n loved was that you made me happy, only person to do that that’s not my siblings.. then there are your beautiful kids I’ve let down too many times.. idk what made me think I deserved you 3.. maybe the fact that I was hoping we all changed n we were happy, we were, that’s not fantasy, we had some great, great times ill never let go of wanted my career I chased for since I was a kid n ended up getting n wanted to have the normal family as well but I chose them in the end n always will but I gotta keep away for her, for them.. every time I get into this stupid certain major depressive state.. I do things to make it harder on myself but you know what the problem is.. the real me is hidden in a cube within and I can see everything.. and that’s not the real me. That’s something dark attached to me that wants to keep me hidden away.. so how do I defeat this other person I’m watching from the inside take over a beautiful physical being I don’t feel is mine and causing such pain for both her, I and my ex gf and her kids and tearing everything that’s mine (the inside) and hers(outside) causing such hate n was for each other n causes such distress for those who actually love me.. I would like you, any of you to hold my hand throughout me getting better.. but I also know I’ve had my times with help n no help n I run away.. I know how hard it is for anyone to love me.. or be there for me I want all to be happy n move on with their lives get And do things the deserve.. I don’t wanna hold anyone back jus because they care.. I’ve been alone since I was little.. may as well stay alone to the end.. cant bear to love.. there’s only her I will never have kids, it’ll always be them, don’t want to cause pain because I’m hard to love because I’m sad with myself n wanna make you happy same time.. god how did I get here.. I got nothing n no one.. at all n all I had before her was a dream I made into reality then set bar higher only to fall that fucking hard to be half the reason I hate myself and before that tried to be an accepted part of my family n moved on to my dream knowing my family will never know.. what ive felt, how low I sank at the age of 8, understand or acce ppl t me enough.. the most truth I can give them is that I want to die cos im not good enough for this world.. items are not feelings, being raped and beaten for 5 yrs of my childhood n being too scared to tell anyone due to death threats then once it comes into the open is apologetic and sad for then my mum gets angry at me cos she cant accept it sober,.. I do blame him.. but I also know that its my fault ive let him win and affect me as a person n how I grow for so long and being told o can do something bout it going to yoir mum n her telling me its no use they wont find anything too late to be then told 5 yrs later that, I can still do something about it.. and I havent.. all these little bits and pieces make sense from the moment of my mums impregnation to now that maybe, just maybe I was never supposed to have been born.. I don’t belong on this world, I was an unwanted mistake that had no friends got bullied, raped, beaten as a child to getting away from that man that is your brothers dad also and my brother ended up being my best friend mid teens to not even know what a friend is other than knowing not to let anyone know the bad I been through and alone.. always have been alone no one sees the me that stands behind this beautiful, sad but always fake smiling so i don’t seem so broken shell of mine.. no one can hear me but the people in my head and none of them want to let me out.. guess I don’t deserve anything else but being alone trying to fight people I can only hear.. if I used to see any of them..when I did see silhouetted bodies before I had too many drugs and certain.. things went away.. im sorry I blocked you out.. oh silhouetted bodies I miss you.. as scary as it would be sometimes.. you always helped me be strong enough for the next step, if it is you that torments me today.. why? And if it isn’t.. is it just mental illness?. Or is it so much more than that..

Was I killed or kill myself too early in past life I went straight through to this one??.. from the moment I was born I was not meant to exist.. im sorry to the people who love and care for me… none of you will see me again.. ill save you all the energy, the stress and the pain I’ve previously caused due to my own mind and my feelings but know if you could hear me.. not this voice of mine verbally.. but if you or i could translate it or if you could hear my inside voice I promise that all would be understandable.. no confusion, no bullshit, no actions I didnt make but she or they did.. they just want to break me.. all but one laugh at me, mock me, talk to me and then to her on the outside as a fucking game or to make us continually clash and that ruins me, my ex gf, and well because of all that I distanced from kids when asked.. and have gotten so far it breaks my god damn heart.. gonna be like my brother, like my sister.. cant be apart of their life, cant watch them grow but silently love all 3 of them silently from afar.. I don’t want anyone to love me and I don’t want to love anymore than I already do as long these people and depression n whatever else they say I got continues to win this fight.. hopefully at the moment.. they make m e want to die. For silence, no more memories, feelings and they make it known that this is not my body.. I a excluded from all beings.. even the one I reside in.. no support. Don’t want friends, don’t want family.. I just wish I could’ve gotten better for the ones I love and who love me.. im sorry .. I dont want a life anymore. I really realize .. I was not meant to.. I hope that everyone I love will hate me, already does,or will and can forget me.. I did have some real, real hapy good times with you mum, lola, jaiden, mia, rachele, LJh and TRh.. sorry Ive said and done some fucked up things and I hope if you do remember or think of me it wont always be bad because I had and was a genuine happy and fun girl at times. Especially with you guys. And im sorry if you guys dont know which ones are real and fake..im sorry .. I wanna get better but realising I was never meant to be here,n if I was it was to be alone n silent I was right tho.. im not here to have a life for me or make one for myself nd hurt people in process. I love in times of darkness and undenying voices… I dont need your care.. I dont want you to feel sorry I just hope when you think back on me maybe.. youll see the peaks of the inside me get let put due to the help from my outside n i ts something we don’t n wont talk bout..I wont make anyone put up with me just because they are or I am loved. Not anymore.. I love you all.. hope everyone gets what the want and deserve. And to the parents of whos kids I love as my own then just fucking distanced due to how I am not thinking boit if or how itd affect them.. im sorry fo all the wrong ive done by them but know how happy and grateful I am for you guys bringing them into this world.. we all know im shit at doing what im supposed to and moat times I was shit to them.. I dlnt k know if i t was noticeable but I did try.. but thank you for letting be apart of that and being “snips”.. and giving me a chance to love them and treat them like my own I wish I did better with all of you, their family, my family im sorry whatever this thing is im just sorry I ruined some good things and hurt people I love n who love me.. never again.

I love you all.. I feel like I didnt get to say it all.. but, o can’t keep crying.. I been typing for 2 hrs… I will be making another account and this will be my lalst post as mariah elrington. To the world and the people I love… im sorry. I hope ypu forgive me and see the good person I always tried to be I will love yo and appreciate you all forever.. im sorry that since I came to world I was doomed to be nothing but a problem but I swear.. I swear on everything… I always try to be better but fall harder.. doing this on my own and voices, my thoughts and the opinion of those who love me see the opposite to what im doing or how I am.. its really hard.. ive never done it this mentally tough before.. well on drugs trippin on non real stuff but this.. this is real life and for once, I dont have anyone to talk to even on a vague level.. not even a pen and paper.. this, this is all so o guess thank you tumblr idk how worst id be without you ..I love you all… this is the fkn truth.. I never meant for it any of it to be als bad as they are between my two families I love. I hope you can get it right, now without me, the problem, the burden,.the dralin and be happy I meam that from thr deep.side of my heart, I really hope I haven’t fucked it enough you wont recover.. but I may be a bit over my head.. they won’t care.. I mean they will for a short time,, but will be happy not long after no Im not saying im gonna kill myself, we all know I can’t. But none of you will see or hear from me again.. because I love you. And I love you alll im deeply sorry I couldn’t express or show it enough for that you guys to believe that a whole lot or know the extent of how much with how ive been but ti my blood family and made family… I love you all so much its because of you gus im doing this for you other wise ill never leave y'all alone cos I need y'all but can’t and won’t hurt anyone but myself anymore.. almost 3 hrs writing.. I still got more to say but gonna leave it there.. god damn it,I love you and I do hope my whole family have a good life n im sorry I ruined the parts of it that I did but be worry free I dont want anyone trying to reach out to me after this. Wil be ignored or unseen..

I love my families and im sorry I couldn’t get it right to be good enough well enough to not negatively affect you.

Have a great life, drink, party, love do the things you want and think o f me as okay if it helps just please,if you love me dont ever get worried.. dont ever assume anything just be be fucking happy, experience, travel, grow Chase dreams.. trust, they are possible no matter situation, lonliness or head space,long as you believe youre gonna.make i t real and do what you gptta to make it gappen, if some like me not even suppose to be alive can do it, you strong, smart beautiful family of mine I believe in you.. to all of you every age. and each everyone of you deserve it. The good fun or happy life with its obvious small obstacles that isn’t as stressful or hard t fix asits been as of late..

I am sorry. I love nd appreciate you all. And you will all always be in my mind And my hearts im sorry im too mental im sorry for all ive done.

I love you all.

Goodbye forever.. all 7 of you ill love always. Pls keep the good bout me in your hearts if you can’t forget. I miss you all like crazy wish I could see you all again to give a goodbye hug.. but a visioned one is gonna have to do. Know that’s the last thing youd recieve from me if that were the case.

Goodbye my precious family I loved dearly but took for granted and couldnt get better.. im sorry I put you all through so much. I really am I wish all of you could see how much love I got for each and everyone of you cos I know I didnt do that good of a job to make sure it was known but I hope it is not.. love you please be happy for me too, if its worth anything to any of you, cos idk how long it'll take to feel it again.

Goodbye fams.

-Mariah Elrington

[woohooligancomics]

Webcomic Whimsy: Tales of Midgard

Welcome to the Woohooligan Weekly Webcomic Whimsy! I've given a couple of interviews in the past, but this is my first experience with reviewing. If you have any suggestions for improvements, feel free to leave a note. If you're a webcomic author and would like a review, you can see my announcement and review rules here.

Title: Tales of Midgard: the Age of Magic

Writer: Attila Polyák • About

Illustrator: Erzsébet Schlett aka Lizbeth von Rabbit • About • Patreon

Site: TalesOfMidgard.com • Facebook

Genres: Action/Adventure, Fantasy, Medieval, Middle Ages, Victorian, Anacronism

Rating: PG, T for Teen - some language

Updates: Every Weekday (Mon-Fri) - (used to be full chapters in 3-week intervals)

Synopsis: (from TalesOfMidgard.com) - Tales of Midgard is a collection of fantasy stories, mostly comics, set in the world of Midgard, which is not the same as in Norse mythology, but if you are vigilant enough you’ll find a reference or two here and there. While all stories are set in the same world, the actual settings for each individual tale varies a lot. Depending on the time and age of a story, the settings of some might be more modern than others. The “main” storyline, titled The Age of Magic, will be about the adventures of a young knight named Anne White.

As the authors described, Tales of Midgard contains very little reference to Norse Myth (despite the title), and in the long-run it reminds me a lot less of mythology and more of some sessions of Dungeons and Dragons. I managed to read a little more than the first two out of nine chapters, and while magic is mentioned with frequency, it's rarely seen (that may change in later chapters). What seemed much more common than the appearance of magic however was the appearance of modern ideas and inventions; trains, newspapers, democracy, modern capitalism with beauracratic corporations. From what I can tell, there are even approximations of "cell phones" and "the Internet". The main charater, Anne, is a knight, except that the title would be a misnomer in our world, since she works for a corporation instead of a monarch and her first two jobs are both illegal "smash and grab" operations. In our world, her title would be "mercenary". As a side note, the term "freelancer" originates from an old military term for mercenaries, "free lance" (that of course you pay for, after all, it's "free"). Anne is also a mage, although the first two chapters only show her working any magic once and very briefly. If you replaced swords with firearms and "info boxes" with flash-drives, this would almost be a modern action story.

I had a really difficult time deciding on the first image to display here. I wanted it to be either the best page I could find or the page most representative of the story as a whole... but I couldn't seem to find either of those, so I opted to use the first page. The difficulty finding a single page to represent the series is that the individual pages vary so wildly. I'll find a page that includes representative dialogue, but the art shows backs of heads, and then I'll find a page with better art, but it's a splash page with little to no dialogue or narration and it tells you virtually nothing about the story.

The story opens with Anne and Erik planning their first job, stealing an "info box" from several guards who are carrying it through the city of Kessheim. These are the kinds of planning sessions I remember from a slew of tabletop roleplaying games over the years. In a game session, this is part of the fun of the game, although I'm not sure it adds much to the comic. In some of the scripts for Return of the Jedi, the film included some planning scenes, explaining how the heroes would get Lando Calrissian, Leia and the droids into position inside Jaba's Palace before the ultimate rescue of Solo. Lucas cut those scenes because in the long run it was felt that they eliminated a number of surprises that made the film more enjoyable.

This is only the eighth review I've written, and already "focus on your pacing" is becoming a frequent refrain from me. It seems like pacing the story is one of the things that challenges most webcomic authors. The first couple chapters of Tales of Midgard tends to vassilate between pages with a lot of text, and splash pages with little or no information. A lot of text on a page can be forgiven sometimes if a situation really calls for it (lord knows that's something I've struggled with), however this story has a lot of pages where the extra verbiage that's added isn't delivering any new information. Splash pages can be great when properly and sparingly used to punctuate dramatic reveals and action sequences, however, several of the splash pages in Tales of Midgard seem to be splash for splash sake (or in Latin, splish pro splash es gratia). The page above is the second page of content, opening the story with two pages of Anne and Erik discussing the plan for their first job. The second page doesn't reveal much about it, just that Erik wants more reconnaissance and that he suspects it will reveal a more challenging task ahead. And then the third page is a splash page, just for Anne to repeat that she's preparing for the job (she already said so), while striking a heroic pose.

Heroic!

I'm ribbing them a little here, but this isn't really a huge problem. I'm just pointing out that the above page could have been entirely left out and nobody would have noticed, and that the first two pages of planning could have been one page with a little more editing. The opening dialogue for example reads: "Seems like we still have about an hour. Let's revise our plan, and after that I'm off to prepare for plan B." If this were a script for a movie or a TV show that might be fine, but in a comic you have to remember that dialogue can take up a lot of realestate on the page. That line could have read: "We have about an hour to revise our plan before I prepare for plan B." And that's before you consider the elements that aren't necessary because they're mentioned elsehwere in the script. It really could have been "we have an hour to revise our plan." ... Or in retrospect it could have been dropped entirely, since the reader doesn't need to know how long they're planning, just that they are, which is apparent from the rest of the art and script on that page.

Also, paring the script down would help the artist, who inevitably has to spend more time working on the comic than a writer does. Liz had to fit in a splash page, plus five panels for a minimal portion of the story. If the script had been pared down to fit onto one page, that could have been two to three, maybe four panels of art. I'm sure that would have been easier for Liz.

It turns out Erik's suspicions were right, the job will be harder than they thought.

There are two more pages of planning (a total of six) before the job starts. The pacing on the first page of the job is better, although I think the art jumps the gun on exclamation points and burst lines (I can't remember the western term for that effect). There's not been any action yet, this is still the "suspense" portion, leading up to the action. I would have used just two panels - the first with Anne entering and the second seeing the guards carrying the box with "there they are," and a background. As I said before about the pacing, these aren't huge problems, just areas that could use some polish.

Even here I'm not convinced we're quite ready for the dramatic splash page yet, although it makes a lot more sense on this page where she snatches the box than it did during the planning phase.

Honestly, I think the three bumbling guards turning into the Three Stooges is kind of a nice touch.

If I were writing, I might have started the entire story on the last panel of that page, with the guards already chasing Anne. All that talk of running down streets, and how many guards there were, and "plan B" could easily have been part of the narration during the chase. In fact most of it is repeated in the chase narration anyway, making most of those planning pages redundant. Starting here would have gotten the reader into the thick of the action straight away (just like the opening scene of Star Wars IV: A New Hope) and probably done a better job of holding people's attention.

The first "magiknight" appears right away, you can see him behind the other three guards in the last panel of the previous page. Anne confirms that's what he is on the following page after he's overtaken the regular guards and is gaining on her. The second magiknight appears immediately after and oddly decides on a WWE wrestling move instead of the kind of thing you'd expect from someone in full-plate armor... or a spell (remember, he's also supposed to be a mage).

But the most shocking thing on that page was the democracy! SHOCKING! Remember, peasants, the King needs your vote! Again, I kid, although it is another part of the overall theme of this world being modern day with a veneer of medieval or renaissance themes. That's the kind of atmosphere that I've found a lot in D&D or other roleplaying games because the players are never historical scholars and I suspect even for them, it's hard to put yourself in the shoes of someone who lived even sixty years ago, much less several centuries.

After Anne avoids the first body-slam, the third magiknight appears immediately, following a page of Anne wondering where they are, and showing a map of her run up to this point. (The map doesn't seem necessary.) Throughout the entire chase, the third magiknight is the only one to talk, and then only to call Anne a bitch (rather than "halt" or alerting the other guards).

(EDIT: I was wrong! I forgot the last magiknight makes the comment "what are you" when Anne stands up after he knocked her down.)

I suppose I should point out that most of the first chapter is the chase with a lot of jumping and swordplay. Although if Tales of Midgard is going to be an action/adventure story with a lot of fighting like this, Liz should probably brush up a little more on drawing action sequences. This one is probably the worst and I might not have pointed it out here except that it looks less like Anne is expertly dodging a sword than she is expertly dodging a giant penis.

Like I said, most of her illustration is better... although the page immediately following this sword swing is another weirdly placed splash-page.

My penis can shatter stone!

If there were a splash page in that sequence, I think it would have been better used on Anne's dodging the blade than on the aftermath of the miss.

And that's followed by a carriage that appears to be in the Matrix Loading Program instead of the street.

Anne gets past the carriage and points out that all the maginkights so far have been "brutes with no speed or accuracy". These guys are mages? Working in service of the monarch? It does get more difficult as there are now two of them ahead of Anne, which she expertly dodges again. (Plus, there's that background that was missing behind the carriage.)

The very last magiknight appears to have a fighting style that involves constantly being off-balance and occasionally presenting his back to his enemies.

He does eventually land a blow against Anne on another splash page (and a good place for one), although the art is rather confusing... I couldn't really tell what was happening here.

Apparently she blocked the blow, but was knocked back into some barrels (empty?) that broke open. The magiknight is amazed that she's able to stand after taking the knock, although I'm not sure that explains why he didn't have time to catch her.

So Anne is able to get to the water-mill for her much hyped "plan B".

Which turns out to be jumping from a high window into the river while wearing plate armor.

And then it's time for a recap from the magiknights. I'm not sure why their dialogue is suddenly an ominous white-on-black.

Also, many of these balloon tails are confusing, and black on a dark background doesn't help.

When Anne comes up from the water, we get our only glimpse of magic in the first two chapters. How many magiknights was that? Eight of them? And not ONE spell between them? Was the wrestling leap a spell?

The second chapter opens with our first real glimpse of the anachronisms; a train.

And another couple anachronisms; a newspaper and the Grand Archives, which from context sounds a lot like the Internet. A little work on the composition of that first frame could have allowed us to see Erik's head and fixed the problem with the dialogue that's causing those parts that don't have full balloons. (Although to be honest, I think full balloons could have been used there without causing any problems. They're done that way to reveal parts of Anne's armor that aren't necessary to understand the story.)

Oh, and a third anachronism in that page also; the corporate bureacracy of the Dyrian Knights Order. Magic is also treated in this modern way, with the characters discussing "units of magic energy" as often happens in roleplaying games.

I understand that there's a goal of showing the height difference between Anne and Erik on this next page, however, with a little work on the composition, that can be done without cutting off his head in the third panel. The first panel showing the stairs and the delivery sign isn't necessary. The second panel should have been in profile so we could see all three of the people speaking. And in the last two panels, Erik could be standing more behind her so that their heads are side-by-side in the shot, allowing you to get those two panels side-by-side instead of above-and-below.

The silent disagreement between Anne and Erik is a classic trope and a well placed joke. Nicely done.

The dialogue balloons didn't have to cut into Erik's head in the 2nd panel - you could have used the extra whites-space in the lower-left corner where nothing's going on. In general, don't cut into a character's head if you can avoid it.

"That's what I'm afraid of" is another classic trope, and I would say it's a fairly well placed joke. I'm personally nonplussed by the fact that it's perpetuating the negative stereotype of women as spending their money frivolously.

Honestly I think the backgrounds are sometimes the better illustrations. Although those lamp-posts and buildings look pretty modern. There's a lot of glass for even a rennaissance period and especially the top of the building in the back of the second panel looks like a modern office building. I suppose the lamp-posts could still be oil-based rather than electric, but the design aesthetic just looks really modern to me. To be honest that clothing looks pretty modern too.

This is the point at which Erik starts second-guessing the job they just finished. He brings up some of the things I was already thinking during the chase in the first chapter.

And now the lettering starts getting weirder. We see a bunch of places where dialogue balloons follow unnatural right-to-left reading paths and a few other issues that make it hard to know which block to read next, who's speaking, etc. Many of these problems could be resolved by pruning the script (like I mentioned before), improving the panel choices, composition and character placement. This page is crowded but not the worst to read.

Pardon me for a moment while I nerd-out on writing dialogue... If you write comics yourself you might find this interesting, otherwise, skip down.

I would have simply trimmed a lot of this writing.

In the first panel, for example:

Anne: Hey Erik! What's up.

Erik: I booked passage on the August Albatross tomorrow morning.

Anne: The expensive cruiser from Dyr to Ilial?

Erik: That's the one.

That's genuinely all the information that's relevant for the reader in this first panel. Having "everything we need" until they get home should be assumed -- the only time it should be mentioned is if they lack things or there's a question about resources. The second panel runs dialogue balloons for Anne and Erik together, which was probably an oversight, since I saw that same thing fixed on a later page.

Also, the rest of the page:

Anne: Woohoo! That'll be great!

Erik: Hope so. Also, Sir Alvis wants that yearly report as soon as we reach Dyr.

Anne: Uhh... Thanks.

Erik: You've got enough cash, you should fix your orb if you don't replace it.

Anne: Yeah, I can totally afford a new one. Good night.

Erik: 'Night.

On the next page, nice backgrounds with street-lamps that definitely look electric, since they hang down from above. Dialogue balloons in the 2nd panel that are round like they're spoken? But she's alone, and the balloons in the previous panel were cloud-formed thought balloons... but neither of them have any tails, and using the bubble-tails for both would have clarified that they're all thought balloons, whether cloud-shaped or not... but they really should be one way or the other, not both. If thoughts are cloud-formed, they should always be cloud-formed to avoid confusion. Also, when balloons are separated on a wide panel like this, left-to-right takes precedence over top-to-bottom, so the text in these balloons is in the wrong order.

More nice backgrounds the next morning. Some of the water on this page is particularly nice. And then the beginning of dialogue balloons that run the wrong direction (right-to-left), which could have been easily avoided by placing Anne on the left and Erik on the right while they're sitting there on the dock.

These dialogue ballons run the wrong direction again and again.

There's a couple of pages of elegance on the Albatross before they arrive in Dyr. Stepping off the ship, it becomes apparent that the "orbs" are cell-phones, and they even ring like a telephones. It turns out a few pages later that Anne and Erik's second assignment is stealing back the "info box" (flash drive) they stole in the first chapter. D'oh! Personally I feel like the plot ought to have started developing this kind of complexity at least in the second chapter if not by the end of the first, but as I've said, these pacing issues are pretty easily resolved.

I realize that I've offered a lot of criticism of the trade-craft of comic making here, however, those are all minor and to be honest easily resolved issues. I think this story has a lot of promise, it just needs some cleaning up. If you enjoy fantasy stories with roleplaying-game-styled anachronisms, it's worth a look at Tales of Midgard.

If you are a webcomic author and are interested in a review from me, you can check out my announcement and my review rules here.

If you enjoy my reviews and would like to help ensure I'm able to continue publishing them, you can contribute on our Patreon or if you're short on funds you can also help me out by checking out and sharing my own webcomic, Woohooligan!

Thanks! Sam

[gamesmakers]

That Time We Took Over the World

For @mores2sl.

Kensington, England

April 13, 2015

Local Time: 8:42 AM

“Everdeen.” He rose his glass to her before taking a long swig of what had better be water. “And here I thought you didn’t like me anymore.”

“You know, I just spent eleven hours flying here from Los Angeles. I even paid fourteen bucks extra for internet so Effie could get ahold of me if your condition changed. The least you could do is act like you had a heart attack this morning.”

“Yesterday morning, but I’m all right. They’ll get me some stints, and I’ll be better than ever.” Now that she got a good look at Haymitch, she saw what Effie had been so worried about when they talked this, fine, yesterday morning. The IV bag was all too obvious, but all the quips and one-liners in the world couldn’t hide the fifteen years he seemed to have put on since she’d seen him last Christmas. With the extra gray in the beard he never shaved but had never quite filled in and the deep bags under his eyes, he looked far older than fifty-nine. Those decades of hard living had finally caught up with him. “Y’know, I was thinking earlier.”

“You don’t say.” She didn’t care if he had been dead for almost two minutes yesterday. Haymitch walking into his own favorite insult was too good of an opportunity to pass by.

He glared at her. “As I was saying, I was thinking about your career after these goons were still trying to figure out if they’d saved me or not.” If he thought the legion of medical professionals who restarted his heart were goons, he had to be feeling better.

“And what did you decide?” she prompted.

“Now, hear me out. This might not seem like the most natural pairing, but the more I think about it, the more I think it could really work out well. People really dig that fusion shit, you know?”

“Haymitch!”

He took another drink of his water, then set it aside. “So, kid, tell me. What do you know about Peeta Mellark?”

Chelsea, England

April 13, 2015

Local Time: 11:27 PM

In the late nineties, nobody could escape the Tributes - not that anybody besides a few jealous teenage boys and tired parents really wanted to. The more enthusiastic members of the media heralded the five boys as a return to the Golden Age. They sang. They danced. They even made a film that, surprisingly enough, wasn’t terrible. “Like five Frank Sinatras,” one Rolling Stone critic wrote about them, “but more good-looking.” For teenagers who had been holding down part-time jobs at McDonald’s and Burger King not a year prior, it was high praise indeed. But the longer one watched them, the more justified the comparison seemed. With fourteen chart-topping singles and practically constant sellout world tours, they were on the road to the kind of superstardom that actually manages to worm its way into the history books.

But tastes changed, interest waned, and almost as suddenly as they had shot to fame, the Tributes’ career fizzled out. The former teen idols were suddenly the butt of jokes everywhere from late night talk shows to schoolyards. There was an attempt at a comeback, then another, but the only mercy came when the group officially announced their breakup. With that last blast of publicity, the group somehow managed to fade from the public consciousness completely.

Only one member managed to emerge from the rubble unscathed. Finnick Odair had in some ways always been the star of the group. The man was the closest thing the world had to a living, breathing Adonis. Nobody could really blame the army of managers, executives, and publicity workers that fueled any operation as big as the Tributes for wanting to place him in the center of every photograph or giving him the most solos. Issues of consent and sexualization of a sixteen-year-old hadn’t been the world’s main priority as they collectively drooled over the most recent pictures of him. At least publicly, Finnick seemed to have been able to brush that off with no big impact. Even fifteen years later, his new releases were almost guaranteed to land in the top ten, and he snagged the starring roles in some of Hollywood’s biggest movies.

Katniss had never been his biggest fan, but like every other heterosexual female she knew, she followed him on Instagram. Something about the muscular star holding his new baby and grinning really did it for her. She’d blame it on evolution.

Tonight, Finnick Odair wasn’t her main focus. She scrolled down the Wikipedia article to find the section on Peeta Mellark. Okay, she vaguely remembered him from the poster Prim had hung in their shared bedroom when she was in middle school. The article said he had released his first and only solo album seven years ago and continued to tour, though a quick scan of the upcoming dates and venues showed that he was mostly going to small casinos and clubs. Katniss kind of wanted to judge him for that, but then again, Haymitch wouldn’t go around trying to pair her up with a successful artist. Sure, she played guitar – really well, actually, well enough to make a very comfortable living off of session work – but you couldn’t start a conversation with random strangers on the street about Katniss Everdeen’s style.

She clicked out of that article and returned to the YouTube mix entitled ‘Tributes and Peeta Mellark Ultimate Fanmix :-)’. As a thirty-two-year-old woman and devoted artist, did she feel ridiculous sitting here, listening to ‘90s pop? Absolutely. Did she find herself humming along? Well, the Tributes had gotten popular for a reason.

San Bernadino, California

May 4, 2015

Local Time: 9:56 PM

Peeta Mellark took his job very seriously. One would have to if they were going to go onstage at the San Manuel Indian Bingo & Casino in an outfit straight from a music video that came out twenty years ago. The black pants and tight-fitting, primary colored t-shirts had looked a little too Star Trek in 1997, and the look hadn’t aged well. She applauded professionalism and devotion to one’s craft as much as the next person, but there came a point where one should walk away with their head held high and try something outside of entertainment. Katniss estimated Peeta had reached that point about ten years ago. The cheese value of this routine was through the roof. He did more flirting with the audience than actual singing, and every joke had the muddy flavor of having been used night after night for years. In a few spots, no matter how hard she tried to be polite, she had to roll her eyes. Good thing Peeta had managed to comp her a ticket for this show, or she’d be out more than the mileage to drag herself out to San Bernadino.

“For my next song, I’d like to mix it up a little and take suggestions from the audience. Anything’s fair game, mine or not.”

The crowd ate it up the same way they’d gobbled up the jokes earlier. Could they not see that he had a plant? At best, he might take a suggestion from an actual audience member and accept it if it happened to be in the lineup of songs he and his backing group had rehearsed, but otherwise, he’d move on to the predetermined ‘guest’ who’d lob him an easy one. Oldest trick in the book.

“Um, how about you, ma’am? Dark hair, braid, right in front of the stage, very pretty. What would you like to hear?”

It took Katniss a second to realize that he was referring to her. Her mind scrambled through an inventory of thousands of songs, but one kept coming up again and again. “’Til There Was You’.” Not exactly her usual style, and it came as a missed opportunity to see what he could do with something more folky, but oh well. She could grill him on folk’s greats later. It wasn’t like he would actually play her song anyway.

“Gotta love musicals. Who here likes The Music Man?” The crowd cheered as Peeta moved to the piano. Wait, was he actually going to follow through with this? She had to give him some respect for that. His accompaniment wasn’t what she would expect out of a professional pianist, but it got the job done. “I’ve got this on the CD I play when I’m driving to work. It’s one of my favorites.”

The voice she heard then barely sounded like the one she’d heard earlier. That had been as stale as his jokes, but now, he sent emotion rippling through the room. For a moment, Meredith Willson’s metaphorical bells were very, very real, and she did hear them ringing, and maybe, just maybe, Haymitch had been on to something.

San Bernadino, California

May 4, 2015

Local Time: 11:05 PM

After the show, several women her age and older loitered around the stage. Peeta chatted with them one at a time, all winks and smiles that promised something naughty. Now, she had hung around with enough big stars to know that chatting up women after the show was to be expected, but did he not remember that they had a meeting scheduled? According to the schedule Effie had found for her, he had three more shows at this very venue in the next week. There would be plenty of other chances to get laid, but he had royally screwed up his first meeting with a potential business partner. Good to know he had his priorities straight.

Only after he had gathered a few telephone numbers did he deign to join her. “Katniss?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yes.” He smiled, and she rose to shake his hand. “After that show, you don’t need any introduction.”

“Nice to finally meet you in person.” Maybe he was just a good actor, but the words sounded genuine. Then again, he had sounded pretty genuine a few minutes ago when he was prepping new notches for his bedpost, so maybe she shouldn’t put too much weight on that. “Sorry to put you on the spot back there. I didn’t realize it was you.”

“You did really well with it.”

“Thanks. I really do have it on CD in my car, but I’d never performed it live before tonight. Especially coming from you, it’s great to hear I did all right with it.” He sat down at the table for two that had been hers alone for the show. “I’ve been reading a lot about you since we talked on the phone. I didn’t realize how many of my favorite albums you’ve been on.” God damn it, she couldn’t let him charm her the way he had those other women, but goodness did it feel nice to hear her work praised. “I mean, you’ve worked with everyone around. The Stones, Madonna, I think I saw McCartney on there too. I know you want to do something more on the folk side, but your catalog is pop and rock and roll royalty.”

“Thanks.” She was going to start blushing if he didn’t tone it down a little. He leaned in just a little, and Katniss met those gorgeous blue eyes, and well, it was too late on that whole not blushing thing. “Really, thanks.”

“Sorry, I just don’t think you studio musicians get enough credit. You’re the ones who make the rest of us look good, and we don’t bother to say thanks often enough.”

Definitely buttering her up, then. Good. That meant he wanted to go through with Haymitch’s scheme, erm, idea. She smiled at him. “Flattering as this is, if we don’t stop trading compliments, I think we’ll be sitting here for hours and I’d really like to go home at some point.” Two could play that game. “I’d like to hear your thoughts on Haymitch’s proposal.”

“Wouldn’t want that to happen,” he laughed. “Y’know, I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and…” his voice trailed off and he shook his head ever so slightly. “I’m not sure it’s what’s best for my career.” Wait, what? How was it that Peeta Mellark, corny C-grade casino performer, was the one putting a stop to this? She had an actual career. At any moment, there were five or ten requests for her to come in and play, and with the big names too, and he thought this wasn’t right for him? Her knuckles went white as she fisted her hands into the tablecloth. He must have noticed, because he immediately backpedaled. “That sounded bad. What I mean is, well, this might not seem like a lot to you, but I kind of like it. I get to travel all the time. I constantly get to meet new people. It’s not a very glamorous part of showbiz, but it keeps food on the table and lets me sing instead of working at the bakery back home.

“That being said, I’ve been doing this at varying levels nonstop for twenty years, and I’m ready to try something new.”

“So you want to go for it.”

“I’d at least like to test some things out, yeah.”

“That’s about at the point where I am too,” she admitted.

He had a great smile. It wasn’t fair, really, that he got the eyes, the smile, and the voice all rolled up in one package. How was the female portion of the population supposed to resist? Katniss stopped herself before she could take that line of thought too far. If things worked out, they would be business partners, and even if people didn’t always respect professional boundaries in this industry, she was better than that. “Then I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”

“Casablanca and The Music Man in one night?”

“Hey, if someone’s said it better already, why not let them say it for you?”

“I hope that’s not the approach you take to songwriting,” she deadpanned.

Peeta winked. “As you wish.”

“Princess Bride, and you’d better.”

Los Angeles, California

June 25, 2015

Local Time: 3:09 PM

“I’m so sorry, that session was only supposed to last the morning. He promised we’d be out by noon.” She really ought to spend some more quality time with that stupid treadmill she’d shelled out six hundred bucks for the Christmas before last. Katniss had only run from the corner to the front door of Haymitch’s office, but even after a few seconds spent panting and wondering if she was about to collapse dead, she still sounded like she was trying for a personal best marathon time.

On second thought, maybe dying wouldn’t have been so bad. Three sets of eyes were on her, the expressions on them a rainbow that went from concerned to amused to annoyed. Yes, an hour and forty minutes late was bad, but she had called as soon as she knew the session was going to run long.

Peeta broke the silence first. “Hey, Katniss. How are you?”

She smiled at him as she took the remaining seat. “I’m pretty good. Howa bout you, Peeta? Effie?” She didn’t need some smartass answer from Haymitch right now, so she left him out.

Not that that strategy ever worked. “So, who chased you up here?”

He got a well-deserved glare for that one. “I just couldn’t wait to get back in your presence. It’s such a magical place to be.”

Effie giggled at that, light and tinkling, but then it was all business. “We’ve been filling Peeta in on the basic business plan we have for you. Katniss, you’ve said that you have quite the catalog of songs built up, so we figured it would be best to use one of them for first single.” She turned to Peeta. “You’ll love them. She won’t brag about them, modest thing she is, but Haymitch has played a few of her demos for me, and they’re just lovely.” If Peeta wasn’t here, she would have hit him. She’d never given Haymitch permission to show any of those recordings to anybody. “If we can’t find anything we like in there, we can always find something to cover, but well, neither of you is getting any younger, and it’s better to get something out as soon as possible.” Katniss did her best not to flinch at that. She knew age was more of an issue for her than Peeta. Female stardom seemed to have an expiration date of around thirty-five, and she was getting closer every day. “Ideally, we’ll have you in the studio next week, have a single out on iTunes in six weeks tops. Then we’ll get you out on tour and hope for the best.”

“Do you ever hope for anything else?” Haymitch asked. “Ouch!” Oh good, if Effie hadn’t kicked him for that, Katniss would’ve had to, and after that admittedly short run, she didn’t feel like moving at all.

Effie smiled at them. “Any questions?”

She and Peeta exchanged glances and shrugs. “I think we’re good.”

“Excellent. Then let’s get started on the paperwork.”

To both of their credit, neither groaned audibly, but Katniss was pretty sure it was a shared sentiment.

Los Angeles, California

June 29, 2015

Local Time: 9:40 AM

Buttercup had only stayed with her for a week while Prim was out of town, and that had been a month ago, but she still found orange cat hair all over her furniture. On days like today, when she wore black, she might as well just add a pair of Tigger ears to complete the costume. Peeta’s black pants were going to be a mess when he got up too. Fingers crossed, he wouldn’t notice.

It would be a lot harder to ignore the fact that she’d said she was going to the kitchen to find some snacks but would return empty-handed. She blamed it on the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. Her minifridge currently held the three-day-old remnants of a meal at Chili’s, three bottles of beer, half a jar of dill pickles, and a thing of ketchup. She didn’t even like ketchup. The pantry wasn’t much better. She’d been trying to cut down on her salty snacks habit, which was both doing nothing to help her slim down and not very helpful when it came to being a gracious hostess.

Opening the fridge a second time did nothing to help finger foods magically appear. What a time for witchcraft to fail her. She settled for grabbing two of the beers and heading back to the living room. A+ hostess. They ought to stamp her high society entrance ticket right now.

Peeta sat cross-legged in the center of the room, eyes closed and swaying along with the music flooding through the oversized headphones. She had spent hours over the past three days going through the songs she’d written over the years. Like everything, ninety percent of them were absolute shit, but she hadn’t touched some of them since high school, and revisiting them had brought her almost as many smiles as cringes. Almost.

“Anything sticking out to you?”

Peeta slipped off the headphones. “Yeah. How do you not have a solo career? Your voice is great.”

“Not what I was asking.”

“But inquiring minds want to know.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Want a Bud Light?” She hadn’t even been prepared enough to buy decent beer.

“Yes, please.” She handed him the bottle, and he cracked it open and took a long sip, studying her the whole time. “You know, I’m not sure what to think of you.”

“Thank you very little.”

He grinned. “Caddyshack?”

“Yep. Two can play at that game.” She sat down on her sad, worn couch and opened her own beer. “And one can win.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to turn it into a competition. I’ve been touring at least eight months of the year for the past decade, and Netflix and I have spent a lot of quality time together.”

“I thought you liked traveling.” He had said that, hadn’t he? She probably should’ve been paying more attention to the words he said and less to the lips that said them during their earlier meetings, but who could blame a girl for looking? A painfully single woman whose only serious relationship had petered out eight years ago had every excuse.

“Oh, I do, a lot. And I try to get a good taste of the local culture wherever I go, but when you’re in Boise for the sixth time, you kind of run out of new things to do.”

“Fair.”

“Okay, you’ve dodged the question for long enough. Who are you?”

That question made her feel like a Bond girl: sexy, mysterious, and more likely than not playing both sides flawlessly. Too bad she had no idea what those two sides would be in this situation and all her foreign, ‘exotic’ accents were shit. “I’m not sure what you’re after.”

He scooched away to lean back against the room’s single chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s not a bad thing. You’re just hard to figure out is all.” Peeta paused for a minute, collecting his thoughts. “What I mean is, I don’t understand why you’d be interested in this arrangement. You’re a rock guitarist, and you’re very successful at it, but the stuff you want to record is all pretty folky. I’m open to anything, but my background’s in pop.”

“Haymitch suggested it, and I thought it sounded like a good idea.”

“That doesn’t add up either. Why is it that you have a manager that’s mostly involved in the country scene?”

“Oh, that’s just coincidence. Haymitch was married to my mom for a very short time when I was a teenager, and we stayed in touch after they divorced. He actually got me my first break.” She rose one eyebrow. “That, or we’ve carefully crafted an intricate spider web of lies with which to entrap you.”

“A guy can never be too careful. The pretty ones are dangerous.”

She made note of that comment so the part of her that was still fourteen could overanalyze and obsess over it later. “Do you have a song picked out?”

“I’ve got it narrowed down to three, but I’m leaning toward ‘Mockingjay’.”

“I like that one too. Want to go for it?”

He laughed. “We’ve really put a lot of careful consideration into all of this, haven’t we?”

“Let’s call it great minds thinking alike instead.”

Annapolis, Maryland

September 1, 2015

Local Time: 9:07 PM

Peeta looked over to her and grinned. Ready? he mouthed.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, hoping the butterflies would fly out of her stomach as she exhaled. When had that ever worked?

“Don’t worry. You’ll be great.” He could say that all he wanted. He’d been doing shows practically constantly for twenty years. Bill Clinton had still been president the last time she did a live gig. No, maybe it had been in 2001, right after Bush the Younger came into office. Either way, if it had been long enough that she didn’t remember the year, she certainly didn’t know what it would feel like. Fuck, it had been a few years since she’d been able to ride a roller coaster without feeling sick to her stomach the rest of the day, and that was way less adrenaline than getting in front of two hundred people and singing. Never mind that most of them were there to see Peeta, and that she was a sideshow attraction at best, she’d still be up there with him, and –

“Katniss, don’t worry. It’ll be fine. I mean it.” Peeta gave her upper arm the gentlest of punches. “You’re great. If you can play for Paul McCartney and impress him, you’ll amaze these people.”

Like wax strips, sometimes it was just better to tug things off as quickly as possible, bleeding or other bodily injury be damned. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“All right.” He winked. “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

She frowned at him. “Casablanca, and that’s not the spirit at all.”

Peeta gave her another one of those grins that she was quickly coming to hate – or love, if there was any difference. “But it got your mind off of it.”

Annapolis, Maryland

September 1, 2015

Local Time: 10:56 PM

There wasn’t bleach strong enough to wipe the smile off her face. Who cared if she’d forgotten some of the words in the third verse of “Blowin’ In The Wind”? It hadn’t been her favorite song since middle school, and nobody could understand what Dylan was singing half the time anyway. It lent authenticity to their performance. The adrenaline had kicked in somewhere around the third number, and she hadn’t even wanted to take a break in between sets. While Peeta had gone to grab them some water, she had stayed on stage, singing any song that came to mind. Rock, folk, show tunes, at this point, she didn’t care. Why had she ever cared about that? Distinctions were stupid. She could play one thing as well as another, and if the audience didn’t mind, she wasn’t going to act all high and mighty about which things were better than which. Who got to decide what was good and not? Not her, that’s for sure, and if she had her way, they’d stop using words like that. Outdated language was what it was, not taking into account personal taste. As always, the patriarchy stayed hard at work, grueling over their 1950s-era language like they knew best. They’d be upset when they got home and realized she didn’t have dinner ready for them, but their time was long gone, and hers had dawned.

“It’s about time that we wrap up for tonight.” A few audience members groaned at Peeta’s words. He cocked his head and grinned. “Don’t be too sad. We’re going to miss you too. But, before we head out, we’ve got a real treat for you: our first public performance of our new single, ‘Mockingjay,’ now available!”

“One, two, three, four!” She started with the guitar, and there it was, out for the world to see. Katniss had practiced this song hundreds of times since Haymitch and Effie pulled this tour together two weeks before. Every night before bed, every morning when she woke up. If she wasn’t playing it, she was thinking through it, running through the chords, quizzing herself on the lyrics. Her fingers knew what to do, and the word slipped out without any conscious thought, and for the first time in years, she could just be.

She watched, and she listened, but mostly, she floated above everything. It sounded so cheesy in retrospect, but she felt like she was in the audience more than on stage, watching herself and Peeta as an outsider. She loved it, all of it. The words sat right in a way that only her own words could, the representation of feelings that, though shared in some respect with the rest of humanity, were hers and hers alone. She basked in his voice, swayed with her accompaniment, and the chorus slowly pulled her back to herself. At the second chorus, she and Peeta locked eyes, and they didn’t break their gaze until the last chord finishing reverberating through the room.

Applause made her nerves light up brighter than the Christmas tree at the Rockefeller Center. Heat rushed to Katniss’ cheeks, and as soon as she finished two stiff bows, she got the hell out of there. Though Peeta had spent several minutes greeting fans after his show in San Bernadino, he followed only a few steps behind. “You were great!” he said, beaming. Post-gig afterglow was definitely a real phenomenon.

“You think so?” She should say something nice about his performance back, but her mind was still reeling from all of it, and that had only been a hundred and fifty people. What would she do if they ever sold out a stadium? Probably too early to be thinking about that, considering that before the show, they’d only sold ninety-seven copies of ‘Mockingjay’ on iTunes, and that number included Prim, her mom, and all of Peeta’s family, but it never hurt to plan ahead.

“Incredible.” He’d moved even closer. From here, it was impossible not to notice how brilliantly blue his eyes were, and she just wanted to stare at them for a while, commit every detail of them to memory. It didn’t register that there might be a reason Peeta’s face was so close until his lips met hers.

One hand found his shoulder while the fingers of the other carded through thick blonde hair. He wrapped his arms around her, warm and strong, and she sighed against him, moving herself in closer still. Peeta’s breathing turned ragged as his fingers brushed against the back of her neck, and though she keened into the touch, the rational part of her brain finally kicked in. Katniss wanted nothing more than to give in, to do as she’d wanted to from the moment they’d met, but as warmth and desire curled and pooled within her, she moved her lips away from his. “Peeta,” she said, breathless. “Peeta, this is a bad idea.”

His forehead furrowed for the briefest of instants, then he stepped away. “I’m sorry. I thought – never mind. I apologize.”

“No, don’t.” God, she wanted to kiss him again, replace that regret with the passion she’d felt just seconds prior. She wet her lips, and his eyes followed the motion. “I mean, don’t be sorry. Just don’t do it again.”

“Of course,” he responded, avoiding her eyes. Somehow, she doubted the plain white wall was really that interesting, but Katniss wasn’t going to call him out on that. She’d done enough damage already. “Um, should I go, or do you want me to stick around and walk you back to your room?”

She was more than capable of finding her way from the hotel’s club back to her room, thank you very much, and any other time, she would make sure he knew that. “I’d like to walk with you.” Katniss glanced down at his hand, thought about how nice it would be to walk up hand in hand, invite him inside, let herself cut loose for the first time in months, but he stuffed his fists into his pockets. “Peeta?” she asked. “It really is all right.”

He gave her the stiffest nod she’d ever received.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

November 7, 2015

Local Time: 8:31 AM

“Katniss!” The door rattled on its hinges as he knocked. Wanted to wake up the entire hotel, did he? “Katniss!”

Eight thirty was way too early to be dealing with this kind of shit. Still, she didn’t want the poor guests that got stuck next to her to have any more of their mornings ruined. With a sigh, she hoisted herself out of bed and padded over to the door. “What’s wrong?” she said as the door swung open to reveal a far too excited Peeta.

“Wrong? We’re in the top ten!”

“Wait, really?” Any remaining grogginess disappeared in an instant. “Let me see!”

He pressed his phone into her hands and stepped further into her room.

Her hand flew up to her mouth to cover her gasp. There it was, everything she’d been dreaming of. A top ten chart, and there they were, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, right at sweet, sweet number three. She never thought she’d live to see the day. It had seemed impossible, the ultimate pipe dream. No, some random pipe had a better chance of being stolen and made into a found art item valued at a million dollars than she had of releasing a hit single. Incredible. Just incredible.

She turned at a popping sound to see Peeta standing next to the dresser, pouring two glasses of champagne. Usually, she’d say it was too early to start drinking, but today, Katniss could get away with anything. Damn responsibility. Who was going judge her for a little early-morning alcohol? The only other person who knew about this was right there in the same boat with her.

Wait, what chart was this? God, she hoped it was the Hot 100. Anything was a godsend, but Billboard… Billboard was something else, and –

Sverigetopplistan. There was no way that was a real word. She couldn’t even begin to pronounce it. But it had the words ‘top’ and ‘list’, and that couldn’t be good.

A quick Google search told her everything she needed to know. “We’re only number three in Sweden?”

“We’re actually at three in Finland too. ‘Mockingjay’ is doing really well all across Scandinavia. I know it’s in the top twenty in Denmark and Norway, and I want to say it’s doing about the same in Latvia or Lithuania – I don’t remember which. Isn’t it great?”

“Uh, yeah.” She couldn’t help that her voice sounded a little flat.

Peeta winced. “Sorry, the way I said that made it sound like we had it on the British or American charts, didn’t it? I wasn’t trying to get your hopes up.” He held up the glass. “Champagne? I shelled out for some halfway decent stuff.”

She accepted the glass. “Thanks. To us?”

“To our continuing success,” he replied. They clinked their glasses together. “You know, I think we’re looking at this the wrong way. We are now international pop stars.”

“We appeal to the more refined tastes of the European market,” she added.

“America might be our homeland, but it is also our respite from our legions of devoted fans.” The CDC probably classified Peeta’s smile as a communicable disease. “Why would you want to be on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood when you could be on the one in Stockholm? Much cleaner.”

Katniss laughed and went for another sip of champagne only to find it was all gone. He noticed and went to fetch the bottle. “We can’t have you running out of champagne. After that first hit, you never know when the diva behavior is going to start kicking in.”

“You know, you’re really lucky that you’re cute, because otherwise, there’s no way I would put up with that.” The words just slipped out before she could really think about what she was saying. She hadn’t drank enough yet to blame it on the champagne yet, either. Damn it. Alcoholism was a terrible disease, and she understood that, but what she wouldn’t give right now to use Haymitch’s ‘I haven’t been in complete control of my actions for a decade’ excuse.

Peeta’s grin widened. “Just how much would you let me get away with?” His expression was pure sin, and Katniss blushed practically down to her toes.

“Has Haymitch heard the news yet?” Time to change the subject before she said anything even more regretful.

And as though flirting was as easy to turn on and off as a light switch – and for him, maybe it was – Peeta was back to friendly but professional. “Yeah, he’s the one who called me. Believe it or not, I don’t spend my mornings browsing the Scandinavian pop charts.”

“You might have to start now.”

“Good point. Guess I can work it into my busy schedule somehow,” Peeta laughed.

Gary, Indiana

November 23, 2015

Local Time: 10:14 AM

Peeta was a world-class pacer. Unless social niceties dictated that he absolutely had to sit, the man kept to his little four steps forward, right turn, four steps, right turn habit at all times. And so when Katniss walked into his hotel room – they’d left knocking behind weeks ago – to find him talking on the phone and standing stock-still in the very center of the room, she immediately grew concerned.

He didn’t notice her presence, too focused on his conversation to hear soft footsteps against the carpet. She moved back towards the door. He deserved his privacy as much as anyone else. “Yeah, for sure. That’d be a great opportunity, and I’m sure Katniss is on board too.” At the sound of her name, she froze. “I just need to check that the schedule will work out. We’re on the road right now, and you know how I am with dates.” He paused while the person on the other end spoke. “Of course. I’ll call our manager right now and get back to you as soon as I’ve got something. Yep, talk to you soon. Say hi to Annie and Ronan for me.”

“Who was that, and what am I on board for?”

Peeta jumped at the sound of her voice, but he quickly recovered. “Finnick. He’s got a big tour coming up, and his opening act canceled on him at the last minute. He’s wondering if we’re available.” She managed to keep her mouth from falling open, but only barely. Peeta laughed. “Yeah, that was my reaction too. He says he really likes ‘Mockingjay,’ and Annie – that’s his wife, she’s a sweetheart – has been playing it nonstop for days.”

In any other circumstance, she would be flattered, but her mind could only focus on one of those ideas at a time. “He wants us to tour with him?”

“Yeah. Isn’t it great? I mean, you do want to, right?”

“When?” She sounded breathless. Accurate.

“His first show’s in Seattle on the fourteenth.”

“Three weeks.” Okay, they could do three weeks. It might be a little bit of a logistical nightmare to get everything together, but it was an achievable logistical nightmare with some fantastic benefits. How many people attended each of Finnick’s concerts? She’d gone and seen him at the Hollywood Bowl a few years ago with friends, and that place had to seat twenty thousand, easy. He could probably sell out much bigger stadiums, too, and even if the audience wasn’t super excited by the prospect of listening to something kind of folky before the pop show, that was still twenty thousand more people exposed to their music, and even if only one, two percent wanted to go and pick up the album…

“Katniss? What do you think?”

She snatched his phone out of his hand. “I’m going to call Haymitch. He and Effie can make this work. I don’t care if we have to rearrange a few other dates.” She laughed, probably looking like a crazy woman. Oh well. Crazy old witch was one thing, but successful crazy old witch was pretty freaking fantastic.

Los Angeles, California

December 9, 2015

Local Time: 4:21 PM

Beyond a nice dinner with Prim at Sae’s, Katniss scheduled nothing for the two weeks she would be in Los Angeles before they started touring again. Nothing was going to get in the way of her sleeping as much as possible. She put in a grocery order with a delivery service and checked out of life for two weeks. After more than two months of almost-nonstop touring, she deserved it.

It got old after two days. By the third, she was ready to pull hair, and whether it was hers or someone else’s didn’t much matter. Most of her friends weren’t around on an everyday basis – she supposed that kind of came with the entertainment business – and anyway, she’d never been the most social sort. Katniss knew she should be resting up for the next tour, but instead, she found herself filling every waking moment with something. The pervs that hung out on practically every street corner in Los Angeles had always turned her off of walking around the city by herself, but almost every day, she took hours-long walks around her area. She ducked into art galleries and coffee shops she’d noted as places to check out but never managed to get to and wandered around the city’s parks, snapping photos and picking the occasional flower when no one was watching.

As she explored, she allowed herself to think. Big mistake. She didn’t confine herself to any single topic, and she covered quite a bit of ground. Art, the meaning of life, whether or not she’d remembered to lock the apartment on her way out, all of it came up. But she mostly thought about Peeta. He was three thousand miles away in Boston, and she still couldn’t get away from him. Peeta Mellark had ruined ogling cute blond guys, because none of them could quite measure up. She’d see some diet-busting pastry in a window, and her mind would leap to the cheese buns and raspberry tarts she’d tried from his family’s bakery when they’d played that gig in Worcester. He had even infiltrated her blessed TV-watching, because flipping through channels, she’d end up on TCM, and there he was again with one of those movie quotes that she hated but couldn’t get enough of.

When she ended up watching one of the films, she’d text quotes to him, and no matter the time of day, within thirty seconds, he replied with the title. Katniss hoped he cheated and googled them. Nobody should have watched No Orchids for Miss Blandish enough times to be able to quote it.

Damn boy was driving her nuts. She’d given Delly a hard time in high school for crushes far less consuming. How low had she fallen?

Three more days until she saw him again, but who was keeping track?

Seattle, Washington

December 12, 2015

Local Time: 3:09 PM

“Peeta!” She ran towards him, luggage in tow. Two little old ladies moved to one side so she could pass, and one flashed her a thumbs up. Katniss had him wrapped in a hug the instant she got close enough. “How are you? How was Boston?”

He squeezed her. “I’ve been good. Kind of wondering why I thought it was a good idea to visit home in February, but it was good. Nice to see everyone.” He broke away first. Smart move – airport baggage claims were hardly the place for public displays of affection, even completely platonic ones between friends that definitely didn’t want to screw each other. “So, how’s California? Ten below and covered in snow like Boston?”

“Isn’t it always?”

Peeta laughed, and wow, had she missed that. Cliché as it was, Katniss was convinced that one noise could light up an entire room, maybe power all the street lights in Seattle for the rest of the year. “I’m sure you froze half to death.”

“I wore shorts every day I was home.”

“So did I. They only had to amputate one limb.”

“If you two are done, we’ve got the car waiting outside.” She spun to find Haymitch standing behind them and waiting.

“Hey, Haymitch. How’ve you been?”

“Good. Get in the car.” He pushed Peeta in front of him and stayed behind with Katniss a moment. “What do you think you’re doing, kid?”

She shook her head. “I have no idea anymore.”

Seattle, Washington

December 12, 2015

Local Time: 11:30 PM

“You know, I’ve been to rehab three times, and marrying your mother is still the worst mistake I’ve ever made.”

“Rehab was a mistake?” She couldn’t let something like that slide.

“No, the choices I made that landed me there were mistakes.” Haymitch took another swig of his Southern Comfort. “And the first time I went to rehab was a mistake too - made me think that getting clean was gonna make me come to Jesus or some shit like that, scared me off the idea for years – but that’s not the point. They always tell you that your drinking is affecting the lives of the people you love, and trust me, they’re right. They’ve got more scientists than I can count running all kinds of studies and coming up with figures to show you how right they are. And I’m good at fucking up the lives of the people around me – you’ve seen it more times than I want to remember.”

Katniss nodded, wary. She was used to Haymitch drunk, or angry, or the quiet, determined way he got when he had a plan that he was dead-set on seeing to completion, but she hadn’t seen this kind of open emotion from him before. Frankly, the thought of some baring their soul, particularly to her, made Katniss a little nauseous. She had signed up for Thursday night drinks and catching up, not a feelings orgy worthy of the Hallmark channel.

But he kept going, a steamroller headed downhill at a hundred miles an with no brakes. “Well, I really thought I had things under control this time. Y’know, I’d been to rehab, managed to stay clean for a whole year. Still wanted a drink from the moment I got up right up ‘til I fell asleep at night, but I figured that was to be expected. I know you’ve heard all that before, but it bears worth repeating. Your mom, she just seemed perfect. Too perfect, looking back on things. Gorgeous, smart, patient as can be – you’d have to be, to put up with me.”

She had her own opinion on that matter, but now wasn’t the time. “Haymitch, I’ve got things to do today. You sure that –“

“Let me finish. Long story short, she was too good for me, and I knew it, but I somehow managed to con her into marrying me anyway. And guess what? All I wanted to do was make things better. I really did, and still do, care about how you all ended up, but I couldn’t keep it together, and I ended up taking you all with me. Made you move, have to do the whole new school, new friends thing, made you deal with my problems, forced you to deal with my divorce because I wasn’t responsible enough to deal with my shit by myself.” Tears had gathered in the corners of his eyes. She wasn’t sure if she should try to comfort him or bolt. Katniss settled for reaching over and giving him an awkward pat on the back. Beyond a few handshakes over the years, this might very well be the first time she’d touched Haymitch. She’d been twelve when he’d come into her family’s life, and at a point in her life when she scorned physical contact with everybody, and neither of them had ever been the touchy-feely type. “Cut it out. You see, it’s happening again. I’m the one who made you hurt, and now you’re cleaning me up. That’s what happens when you let someone who’s too good for you in. You take and take until there’s nothing left to give, and when they finally give up and leave you, you’re both left with nothing.”

“You think Peeta’s too good for me.”

Haymitch’s eyes were steady as he nodded.

“Fuck off.” God, she wanted to leave with that, but something kept her rooted in place. She choked on something that wasn’t quite a laugh and bordered on a sob. “That’s precious, coming from you.”

“There’s a reason we get along so well, sweetheart. Here, have some.” He pushed the bottle towards her, but she pushed it away as she rose, spilling fat drops of amber liquor all over the pristine white couch. It’d be a bitch to clean up later, she reflected, but then again, so would she.

Katniss didn’t stop running until she was well into the parking lot, and even then, she only stopped because there was no place to go.

That seemed to happen a lot these days.

Toronto, Ontario

January 10, 2016

Local Time: 11:11 AM

When she and Peeta had gone on tour previously, it really had been just the two of them, Peeta’s Lincoln, and four different hotel rewards cards. They didn’t have a lot of extra equipment, so there was no need for anyone to help them haul anything, and though there were at least daily phone calls with Effie and Haymitch, nobody needed to be there to hold their hand and get them to the gigs on time. It was bare-bones, but it was fun. Yeah, that meant that she had spent an evening in Peeta’s car with a bottle of nail polish remover after a less-than-successful attempt at giving herself a pedicure in a moving vehicle, but they also got to talk and joke and stop at stupid roadside attractions whenever they felt like it.

Finnick’s touring was as far away from that as one could get. First of all, they had a private jet. She supposed that made sense, as thirty-five people accompanied Finnick everywhere. Family, security, personal assistant, sound engineer, stage coordinator, the backing group, Katniss, Peeta, and two people whose purpose on the tour remained a mystery even four weeks into the three-month stint. She blamed those people for her current situation.

There was a timid knock, then the door opened just a crack. “Are you feeling okay?” Peeta asked.

“The only reason I know I’m not dead is that everything still hurts.” Her voice came out as little more than a whisper. Katniss had always liked to think that she could tough her way through just about anything. How nice of this cold/flu/sinus monstrosity to rid her of that delusion.

Peeta didn’t move away from the door. Smart guy. “Do you think you’re going to feel good enough to perform tonight?”

“Yes.” That wasn’t even a question. She would have to actually be dead to not show up for tonight’s show. In the halo ring that was this tour, tonight’s show, the only one that would be broadcast live to millions of home viewers, was the pendant diamond, the one your friends were really complimenting when they said how pretty the whole thing looked. They forecasted that twelve million viewers would tune in tonight. She was going to wow every single one of them.

“You can’t talk. How are you going to sing?”

“I’ll rest until then.”

Peeta frowned. “I’ll go to CVS. Do you like pills or liquid cold medicine better?”

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“Liquid then. I’ll get some soup too. Don’t go around infecting anyone else.”

She mumbled something at that, but even Katniss wasn’t quite sure what point she was trying to get across.

Toronto, Ontario

January 10, 2016

Local Time: 4:55 PM

She loved those green lights. They should make all the lights green. Then the cars could go faster because they’d never have to stop, and all the people would be happy because they spent more time with their families and less time driving. Lots of good things were green. In fact, she couldn’t’ think of a single bad green thing. Money, trees, kale, those rain boots she’d been eyeing at Target since last winter… they should make everything green. It would be nicer that way. “Don’t you think so?”

“Don’t I think what?”

“That everything should be green.”

Peeta shook his head. “I think you’re a lot less coherent on cold medicine than you led me to believe. I don’t have any strong opinions on the color green.”

“That’s too bad.” Peeta had a green sweater that made his arms look fantastic. Maybe she could convince him to wear it more often.

He had other things on his mind. Peeta’s voice dropped. “Look, we’re going to have you lip sync tonight, all right? Haymitch has a tape of your part on all our songs, and all you’ll need to do is mouth along with the words and pretend to play your guitar.”

“Okay.” She hated lip syncing, but it was hard to be upset about things right now. Why think about the bad things when there was so much green?

Toronto, Ontario

January 10, 2016

Local Time: 7:21 PM

The wiggles went through her entire body when she tried to shake the nerves out, tickling enough that she giggled out loud. Her fingers felt fat and sluggish as they danced over her guitar. The object was so familiar that it might have been another limb, but holding it now, it could just as easily have come from another planet. The weight was off, the balance just not there, and when had the strings gotten so little? No matter. She’d made it through three songs. She could handle two more before she went backstage and conked out.

‘Mockingjay’ shouldn’t be too bad. The first chords were easy. It started nice and slow, perfect for beginners and heavily-medicated Katnisses, before picking up speed. She knew what she was doing. Same thing, just faster, and faster, and faster, and then –

She realized an instant too late that this was her verse. Her eyes widened, and she did her best to start mouthing along, but the damage had been done. Whispers from the crowd rolled over her in waves, and it was all she could do to not cry on stage.

They struggled through that next number. She gave it everything she had – so not much – but she couldn’t sell it. Because of her fuck up, both of them would be in the papers tomorrow. They’d never have a successful album. Hell, they might not even be able to record an album. Nobody would invite them on tour again. Peeta might be able to go back to his old career, but maybe not. Opportunities dried up quickly in this business, which she knew better than anyone.

Katniss fell apart as soon as she got backstage. “Katniss, hey, it’s no big deal. I should have told Finnick you couldn’t go on. I’m so sorry.” Peeta’s words burned like acid over fresh wounds. He knew what she had ruined, and here he was, comforting her. If she was going to wreck something for someone, why couldn’t she pick some awful person who kicked puppies or something? Why did it have to be the nicest, sweetest man she’d ever been lucky enough to meet? Haymitch was right. “Katniss, I’m really –“

She kissed him. “Shut up.” Another one, this time harder – and now that he had gotten over his initial shock, he responded. Peeta dragged her close, pressing her tight against his chest. One hand found her waist, and the other toyed with the ends of her braid. His heartbeat was going nuts, but so was hers, so she supposed that was fair, and she –

“Hey, you two have a dressing room for that.” Peeta pulled away, and she turned to glare at Haymitch. He wouldn’t be cowed so easily. “Hey, if you don’t want to start damage control right now, I’m gonna enjoy the concert.”

“It’s okay, Katniss.” Peeta pulled her into their shared dressing room. “It’ll be okay, all of it. I promise.”

The worry swelled over her again. “You can’t promise that.”

“We can avoid the internet for a couple days. It’ll blow over.”

She closed her eyes and nuzzled up against his chest. “Maybe.” At least he smelled nice. Small consolation, but she’d take what she could get.

He kissed the top of her head. “Either way, we can’t do anything about it now.”

Another thought came to her. “I’m sorry if I gave you the flu.” Because she just couldn’t stop screwing up today, could she?

“Hey, it’ll make it easier to not go online, right?” he laughed. Then his voice dropped. “But since I’m already infected, I suppose there’s not anything to keep me from kissing you again, is there?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her level.

Boston, Massachusetts

October 11, 2028

Local Time: 7:31 PM

She’d been convinced that it was Haymitch who always edited the “Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark” page on Wikipedia, but in the two years since his death, it continued to change. Every week, some new, strange story popped up that managed to keep the basic outline of their story the same while putting them into the strangest circumstances. She rather liked this one, a fairy-tale themed story involving dragons (poor Effie), a knight in shining armor, and herself as the beautiful princess trapped in the castle of studio work while she longed to be out among the people. Pity it had to go.

She copied and pasted the short version of the group’s history into editing window and hit ‘submit’. Nowhere near as interesting, but at least there were no beheadings in this version.

Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark are an American folk-rock duo. Since the two artists began collaborating in 2015, they have released four studio albums and toured extensively. Though best known in the United States for their first single, ‘Mockingjay,’ and a lip-syncing controversy that occurred during a televised Finnick Odair performance, the duo has achieved great critical and commercial success in northern Europe. They are most popular in Sweden, where their third studio album ‘Girl on Fire’ held the number one chart position for thirty-one weeks between 2021 and 2022. The duo began dating shortly after meeting in 2015 and married on June 11, 2017 in Mellark’s hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. They are parents to three adopted children: Aster Mellark (born 2019), Rye Mellark (born 2024), and Senna Mellark (born 2026). In September of 2028, Everdeen and Mellark released dates for their Everlark tour, their ninth world tour, with dates across Europe and East Asia.

Only when she was reading it through for the second time did she notice that she’d forgotten to delete the prankster’s last line. Katniss smiled. She highlighted it, and her finger hovered over the backspace key, but she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of it.

And they lived happily ever after.

After all, who was she to argue with the truth?

So sorry I posted this early on Ao3 and FFN. I promise that I can count. Don’t take away my math degree.

[sarcasticlykaeon-blog]

Caught Between Worlds

Stuck. Thats how it felt, every hour of every day, for as long as I could remember. Like i was some sort of freak, on the outside looking in. I can remember when i was small, barely old enough to really walk and talk, two and a half, three...and i hated dresses. I hated pink. I hated lace and frills. If i could choose or make my will known it was pants. Tshirts and sweatshirts. Childrens overalls. I hated games in preschool. The girls always wanted to play house, with husbands and babies in some sort of elaborate roleplay. The boys wouldnt let me play with them. "No girls," theyd say. "You wont know how," or "girls arent any good at this. Go play with dolls." somehow...just because i didnt have the same lower regions i wasnt good enough. So i played alone, with blocks or toys, making up elaborate adventures or stories in the process. My mother, my aunts, my grandmother...they all wanted me to be a girl. They tried to take me underwing in baking, playing with makeup, dressup, dolls...they tried to teach me about playing with hair. Me? I just wanted to test out the new computer, watch ninja turtles, and kick butt like she-ra. My one concession to female marketed programs was Jem...but honestly? I loved the story and drama, not the glamour, glitter, fashion, or fame. I was the oldest...five years between me and my brother meant i was dads son substitute until i was almost 11. I learned things like changing the oil in a car, ms-dos programming and how to kick ass in Doom, how to tackle and fight back if grabbed by a bigger opponent. Of course...the instant my middle brother was old enough to do son things....fwip! I was ignored. About the only thing i could get the old man to do was D&D. My grandfather insisted it was a phase i would grow out of, that id become a seeker of a strong man and an actual woman eventually. My mother tried to force me to conform to gender standards. My aunt was disappointed. My father only started caring about gender normativity when i hit puberty. I never told them things like "i want to grow up to be a boy" because even at three, i knew it didnt work that way, on some instinctual level. But i dod wail and growl about the unfairness. Why is x okay for boys but not girls? Why are girls expected to be like this but boys arent? And the answer...oh the answer just upset me and angered me. "Because youre expected to be a young lady." By puberty, the words "young lady" were guarenteed to trigger a huge emotional fit of rage...but i couldnt explain why. Just like the fact that i had to fight for my place amidst whatever boys lived in the neighborhood. I had to work twice as hard to prove i was worthy of being allowed to hang out...and still they sought to ditch me at every opportunity. School was even worse. I was overly tall, strong, and hyper intelligent. I was part of the "Gifted Program" (which in most school systems is naught but busy work or a careful way to set up classes in high school to fix the averages of a class.) I was, in every concievable way the outcast. And then puberty found me. Early. The first time i bled in sixth grade, i cried myself to sleep, hiding blood ruined underwear in the back of my closet until i could throw it away. I didnt tell my mother until i was sixteen--hiding this horrid, agonizingly painful thing that happened to me once a month. When i grew breasts i hated them. I hated bras. And of course, i have breasts that grew huge. I survive with super tight sports bras and tshirts because nothing else fits my fucked up frame: ive got broad shoulders, long legs, and huge feet (size 12 womens, which is impossible to find), and im like 5'8". Id be taller but my arms and torso are short, and ive got wide hips and huge breasts and butt. I hated my body and i still do. I feel like i was a crapshoot built out of the mismatched leftovers of several people. And the shit my parents tried to enforce for gender conformity to this "new identity of a young lady." first was acne management. I wasnt a pizza face, but i did and still do have a bit of an issue with blackheads (Glasses have that effect.) But my parents tried to force me to pop my zits...and when i refused because it hurt, they basically held me down and popped them for me. Then was "shaving my legs". Okay. Underarms i get because pits stink. I shave those because it feels less stanky when i do. But their issue? My legs. I refused to do it. "Boys dont, why do i? Thats not fair!" i fought. Hard. But...like the zits...theyd hold me down and buzz my legs for me from knee to foot while i thrashed and begged...all to force on me a title i never wanted, a mold i didnt fit. And i didnt understand WHY. Why was my behavior, my life and interests and hobbies and clothing all supposed to be dictated by something so unimportant? And then...when i was sixteen, i met a person i hit it off with. A sweet and funny youth my age with hair as long as mine and a goofy smile on his face. In a few months we were dating long distance and i suspect my family sighed in relief that i wasnt a lesbian. Our fathers got to be friends(which was useful, since 200miles between us put a crimp in relations.) But this had another side effect. You see, that next year i learned something id never heard before. Something id never considered until that day in 2002. His father...felt he was a woman trapped in a mans body. I was floored. This could happen? What? So i researched what i could to understand (there wasnt much, back then.) And...i began to wonder....because all I could find was for males becoming females. Even joked with my boyfriend that the universe "got us backwards" (he agreed, seeing as how he was girlier than me) And then it all crashed to a halt one night at dinner. His father, him, me, another mtf person and two other adults were at a restaurant, and the kne guy at the table with no knowledge on trans folks was asking questions. I listened, enraptured as the emotions and disconnects id always felt were described from the other side. Emboldened, 17, and perhaps seeking some form of connection or...validation for my feelings, i piped up, expressing how i felt the universe had gotten me backwards. That was the worst thing to say, as his father unloaded on me verbally for being mocking and insensitive and jumping on a bandwagon i had no business on. Treated me like i was being scum--damn near drove me to tears and made me feel small and useless. And i thought "if this is what trans ppl are like...i dont want to be like them ever." it crushed my desire to understand my gender identity and sexuality for years. It didnt help that as time went by ot seemed every trans person i encountered was one of two things: a dramawhore with the emotional stability of a 14year old girl, or someone like my bf's father who decided that i couldnt belong to his elitest club in a fashion that echoed years of "no girls allowed" from boys everywhere. The internets vast collection of professionally offended "keyboard warriors" who spew bigotry and hate and small minded idiocy while calling it "truth" or "just what X group deserves" is a steaming cesspit of shit I dont want to be part of on any level, and unfortunately many of them claim to be whatever "alternate" gender identity or sexuality is the fad this month. Its not winning me over at all, and made me shy further away from actual people i might be able to relate to...maybe who can help me. I finally did own up to something when i was 23--I was more sexually attracted to women than men. In fact...beyond a few emotion driven crushes as a teen, the only male i have ever found attractive was that same goofy, funny, smiling boy with the long hair...except these days hes my supportive, goofy, smiling mate with the softest heart of gold ive ever known inside a powerful and intimidatingly sized viking-esque exterior. But again...because on the outside, our relationship seems very "normal" im not welcomed much by the vocal minority and so im super wary of all parts of the lgbt crowd. I dont advertise or tell my relatives--my parents and their respective siblings are between 50 and 70 years old. They barely believe this stuff exists. I still dont want to be a girl. I dont want the societal expectations of it. I hate having breasts that risk knocking my teeth loose if i move too fast. And dont get me started on the fucking shit show that is my sex life. Its a complicated shit show that starts with the disconnect of parts and ends with kinks i can never actually engage in because, guess what? Im a GIRL. But at the same time, i stare at the only transmen examples and stories i can find, which seem to be rare and hidden somewhere, at places like fb and tumblr and twitter...at pride rallies and news stories...at stuff recounted by friends...and i dont want to be associated with people whose actions turn them into examples of literal human garbage. And so here i sit, caught between two worlds, never part of either one and feeling like im slowly drowning. It seems like one doesnt want me and the other i dont want... Im so tired of being stuck.

[azanycollectormilkshakeworl-blog]

New driver trying to get insurance... Quote for 1750 in November... Why has it gone up to 4400 now?

"New driver trying to get insurance... Quote for 1750 in November... Why has it gone up to 4400 now?

Hello all, I'm 17 years old (male) and passed my test earlier this month. In November I just thought I'd get a rough figure for insuring a 1.2L Corsa (2001)... I got a quote from Quinn Direct for 1750 (I put in the details as if I had already passed etc). So yes, more than the car is worth, but my parents and grandparents were willing to help me out with it, and I was pleased. So, Christmas has been and I thought I'd get looking... I went back on to Quinn Direct and now for a 1L Corsa (2001)... The quote is 4450!! That is ridiculous! It's true, I'm a 17 year old male... Bla bla... But 4450 for a 1 Litre car? All my friends are with Quinn Direct, and their 1.3L Fiesta's etc are only 1900 to insure! Gocompare and all those don't give me much better quotes either. I've also done the Pass Plus. Can anyone shed some light on this please? Thanks!

BEST ANSWER:  Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://howmuchisinsurance.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr 

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I am writing and essay on why insurance is important and the consequences of not having it. I just wanted to know some of your thoughts of why you think insurance is important to help me get a better understanding ! thanks in advance !

""Would you rather have a law against gay marriage, or affordable HEALTH INSURANCE that can't be canceled?""

Admittedly a false choice, but still...electing a GOP/Teabag/Fox 'News'/Jesus freak government would enhance the chances of a law against gay marriage and diminish the chances of some form of Medicare for all. Feel free to substitute 'Christian right for 'Jesus freak...consider it a figure of speech or an expression of art.""

New driver trying to get insurance... Quote for 1750 in November... Why has it gone up to 4400 now?

Hello all, I'm 17 years old (male) and passed my test earlier this month. In November I just thought I'd get a rough figure for insuring a 1.2L Corsa (2001)... I got a quote from Quinn Direct for 1750 (I put in the details as if I had already passed etc). So yes, more than the car is worth, but my parents and grandparents were willing to help me out with it, and I was pleased. So, Christmas has been and I thought I'd get looking... I went back on to Quinn Direct and now for a 1L Corsa (2001)... The quote is 4450!! That is ridiculous! It's true, I'm a 17 year old male... Bla bla... But 4450 for a 1 Litre car? All my friends are with Quinn Direct, and their 1.3L Fiesta's etc are only 1900 to insure! Gocompare and all those don't give me much better quotes either. I've also done the Pass Plus. Can anyone shed some light on this please? Thanks!

What are cars that don't cost much for insurance?

Im turning 16 soon and a lot of cars I've wanted are vintage so they don't cost much, like the chevy vega but of course the insurance for them would be ridiculous, so my dad is suggesting junker cars but of course i don't want a junker (im paying for the car) what are some cars that are affordable without having to spend a fortune on insurance?""

How to find the cheapest car insurance company?

Is anyone know the best way and cheapest way to insure the car thanks?

How do I become a 220/440 insurance agent in FL?

How do I become a 220/440 insurance agent in FL?

Do you think IQ should be used in determining car insurance rates?

Do you think IQ should be used in determining car insurance rates?

What are the best health insurance plans in Massachusetts?

...for individuals available through the Mass Health Connector?

How much would car insurance cost for me?

Im seventeen. And female. The car is a black 94 Jetta standard (if that has anything to do with it) Im just confused about insurance. People are saying it would be very expensive but I turn 18 in a month should I wait until then? Also people say insurance is cheaper for girls. Is this true? And what insurance company is cheapest?

What reputable health insurance companies are out there?

What reputable health insurance companies are out there My mom doesn't have health insurance and my job doesn't give insurance to family members. I would like to pay monthly to a health insurance company so my mom could get health check up when she needs it. Do you know any health insurance companies that can accept low monthly payments since I don't get paid that much?

What is the insurance price for me to buy an 05 Toyota Solara?

I am a 16 year old from MN and I was wondering how much it the insurance would cost to buy an 05 Solara. I have been a B student most of my life. I know that 2 door cars cost more than 4 door. just spill out some price it would be per month. Thanks

What is the cheapest best kind of individual health insurance?

What is the best kind of individual health insurance...that is the cheapest?

Insurance price.?

how much would insurance cost for a 16 year old buy. like on average?

What type of driving course reduces insurance?

What type of driving course from the driving school reduces insurance for new drivers?

How much would a person pay for car insurance?

Let's say I buy a BMW M5 made from the year 2006, how much would I pay for the insurance? Also, let's say it's a new car, too... If you just buy a brand new car, how much do you pay every month? (I'm doing a research... so, please help me)""

Can't afford college Health Insurance...?

I need some type of advice regarding my options. I feel like i've hit a dead end. I have a 4.0 and financial aid, however my state requires student have health insurance... and the only insurance my school offers is over $80 a week on top of the $85 a week lab fees, dr visits, and meds because I have a severe blood disorder and need to go get my blood check every week. I also have specialist visits once a month. I have medicaid right now and if I go to school at all I will lose it and I can't afford the student insurance. It would total up to be more than my rent each month not to mention they don't cover pre-existing conditions. I feel totally hopeless. I'm willing to move to another state if necessary where insurance is more affordable. I just really wanted to go to medical school and now I feel like my future is shot all because I'm not healthy.... Also, i can't take out a loan because i don't have credit being so young and although I was born in this country and my parents were from here, they relocated to a foreign country so they can't help me either.""

Best Health insurance for a young mom and college student?

I'm looking to find a health insurance suitable for me, a young mother (20) and college student. I did have Medicaid but they're saying I make too much and I'm only allowed to make 188 a month.. O_0 So I decided to just stop wasting my time and invest into my own insurance. My fiance said maybe I can get on his after we get married but Idk about that. What are some good affordable Health insurance for someone like me?""

Second Owner of a Car = Insurance? (FL)?

This is for the state of Florida. Yes, I could have looked it up, but there are too many answers to get a straight one. Scenario: Say a parent owns a car. They pay insurance. There's an 18-year-old who still has their permit but wants to get a license. They should become a second owner of their parent's car. However, there's word going around that there would be a second insurance? 1) How will the second insurance work? 2) Do you LEGALLY HAVE to have insurance? I'm not sure what else to ask, but, if someone could shed some light on how this has to be done, just let me know. Thanks.""

How do insurance companies verify the adress you use for your car insurance is your actual adress?

I want to get my car insurance in a different state see how do car insurance companies know that the address and provide is where I live. And if I get caught what is the penalty

Cheapest bikes for insurance?

I'm 19 and want to take my CBT early next year and start riding motorcycles. Im tired of paying thousands of pounds for car insurance but need some sort of transport as i commute a lot in town for my work so a motorbike seemed the logical solution. I have been getting quotes for a few bikes and the cheapest i have got is 500 TPFT on a yamaha YBR. I like the look of the yamaha but is this one of the cheapest bikes to insure? A few sinnis bikes have come close to this price but have read mixed reviews online, would love to hear off anyone who owns a sinnis bike about what they think of them. Also the cheapest insurance company i can find is Scooters & Bikes, if anyone knows any other cheap insurance companies i would love to hear them.""

Need help insurance gurus?

What is the best route to getting insurance for weight loss procedures? I haven't had insurance in 3 years

Would zero demerit points mean that my insurance rates wont be effected?

In terms of my driving record, etc?""

Is this car insurance thing true?

I heard online that in Texas if you drive less than 35 miles a day, you'll get a HUGE discount in your insurance. It this true? Or is this just a lie?""

Insurance quote questions?

I'm doing a math assignment and I need a few questions answered: 1) What happens to the insurance quote if you increase the Liability Limit to $2,000,000 from 1,000,000? 2) If there are two or more minor offences, by how much does the quote increase? 3) Does the number of kilometers change the quote? 4) If you have completed a drivers training course, does it lower your quote compared to a quote where no course was taken? 5) Does theft protection lower your quote? By how much?""

Geico insurance: how so cheap?

geico's quotes are the cheapest. are their policy the cheapest also? whats the catch? how could State Farm, AllStates be so expensive and geico claims to be so cheap. Whats going on. I don't buy the every comapny is dift line they throw at you. How are they different? At claims time?""

Will Vandalism affect my Car Insurance rates?

My car was vandalized last night, they ripped off a piece on the back and cracked the bumper in the front. If I make a claim with my insurance company will this affect my rates?""

Does anyone know of an insurance company that would insure a car for a newbie?

Looking for cheap car insurance Does anyone know of an insurance company that would insure a car for a newbie? I am looking at buying a used car ASAP to get to work.

B Average for Car insurance Discount?

Is 84.86 considered a B average in the eyes of the insurance company? My school doesn't give grades on a 4 point scale- only the percentage

New driver trying to get insurance... Quote for 1750 in November... Why has it gone up to 4400 now?

Hello all, I'm 17 years old (male) and passed my test earlier this month. In November I just thought I'd get a rough figure for insuring a 1.2L Corsa (2001)... I got a quote from Quinn Direct for 1750 (I put in the details as if I had already passed etc). So yes, more than the car is worth, but my parents and grandparents were willing to help me out with it, and I was pleased. So, Christmas has been and I thought I'd get looking... I went back on to Quinn Direct and now for a 1L Corsa (2001)... The quote is 4450!! That is ridiculous! It's true, I'm a 17 year old male... Bla bla... But 4450 for a 1 Litre car? All my friends are with Quinn Direct, and their 1.3L Fiesta's etc are only 1900 to insure! Gocompare and all those don't give me much better quotes either. I've also done the Pass Plus. Can anyone shed some light on this please? Thanks!

Will motorcycle insurance be expensive for me I'm 19?

I'm nineteen year old and had my license since April 2011, I have a 93 Nissan 300ZX and it gets 18mpg city so I want a small motorcycle used. I was wondering around how much insurance will be for me if I get one? I have no points on my license I'm clean""

Shouldn't Pres. Obama step up to the plate and tell them he just wants affordable insurance for all now?

Tell em to screw the lobbyists, so what if the health care lobbyists payed the House and Senate members over $500 million last year, I mean donated that much to them. They will have to wait, but people are dying now..""

Why has the cost of Car insurance suddenly shot up?

Got my renewal quote today, car insurance has risen by over 250 extra, I phoned around and the companies are saying that the quotes have just gone up without explanation. Is this just sheer exploitation and profiteering?, in this time of recession how can they seriously do this and ask for such things hand over fist.? Rip of Britain indeed. Is there an insurance regulator people can go to to get an opinion on it?""

First time getting insurance?

I'm going to study abroad in the UK and my university sent me an email about my insurance. In the attachment, there was a document that stated my name, one of the attachments was the policy and the other one was titled Statement of Insurance, it states my insurance date and holder, the holder was my uni. Its my first time getting insurance so I was thinking this might not be my insurance document since it had no data about me.""

Car insurance / liability coverage?

My brother, who is insured with a different company, had an accident with my car. There were 3 cars involved in the accident. He hit the first car in the back which hit the second car and so forth. I don't know whether it was his fault or not, and we did not informed my brother's insurance because it was my car that was crash. The problem now is that, I have only had basic coverage, and my insurance is telling me that my liability coverage ($5000) can cover only one car, meaning that I have to take care of the 2 others cars. So I am wandering what should I do? Please advice""

Car insurance 99 s10 blazer ?

Is it cheaper two have two cars or one car ? Also how much would you stay how much my insurance would be for 99 s10 blazer 4 doors. Blue and 4 wheel drive with full coverage? is it going to be more than 200 dollars a month? I have one car crash and one not stopping at a stop sing. And im male and I will be 18 and live in mn and in a small town

Do Muslims pay more for insurance?

I live in Slough, Bucks. My car insurance is very expensive due to where I live. Some insurance companies wont even provide insurance at all in my area. I looked at a map at an insurance brokers that showed high risk areas and I have noticed that the high risk/expensive areas happen to have a high Muslim population. Are the government aware of this.""

What do you think is the cheapest insurance out there? i'm trying to switch from my current one.?

i currently use allstate. I pay about $160 a month and its not even full coverage

What is the best online source for shopping for health insurance?

My son is 20, full time college student in a different state (PA.) Home state is Ohio. I am on disability so my insurance (and my husbands') is through Medicare.. I am shopping for an individual plan for my son, and there are so many sites which offer so many choices...Not only do I need to get the insurance plan, I need to find the best web site for the query. (tried einsurance, etc..)""

Car insurance information?

If you have full insurance on your vehicle and you was driving reckless and got into a accident is it covered.....

Which car insurance companies offer temporary insurance?

I'm a 20 yr old male that has had his license since age 18 but has never been insured. My mother would prefer to simply add me on hers, but her insurance company does not offer temporary insurance, which is what I need since I will be going back to school in late September. Which car insurance companies offer temporary insurance (3 months)?""

Explanation for Insurance quote in Oregon?

Hi folks, I just moved to Oregon from CA. I got a quote from State Farm which suits my need. I just got a quote from an agent. She mentioned something like this in the quote. I have me and my wife as drivers. Automobile liability with W/P $25000 50/100/50. I mean to ask what does W/P $25000 mean? Is it mandatory to have PIP in Oregon? Thanks for your help.""

What's a good auto insurance company that has a good rating?

I have four cars.... no tickets or claims in years.. I have insurance now, but I think I am paying too much. Only one of them is driven on a daily basis..... the others very infrequently.""

Health Insurance in US?

I would like to know if health insurance is mandatory in some states of the US.

Is there a dental insurance college students can go on?

I am a college student without insurance. My college doesn't offer any type of insurance for their students, and my parents do not have dental insurance either, but I was wondering if there is a low cost dental insurance I could go on.""

How does the new 1-50 insurance group rating work?

Ive read that most cars insurance group will more or less double But what I want to know is if 2 cars are group 5 under the old rating and one goes up to 11 and the other only to 7 does that mean the 7 will cost less to insure than the original or will 7 be about the same and 11 be more? sorry if this didnt make sense. 10 points to anybody who can answer?

""Buying a car, how much will title transfer and all that cost?""

So I'm going to buy a used car and I was just wondering how much it will cost for me to legally drive it? Not including insurance. I live in Illinois and I'm 16 years old, if that matters. I've checked the DMV site and it's kind of confusing so I figured I might be able to get a quick answer here. Thanks!""

Cheapest car insurance company?

hey can u tell me the cheapest or most resonable car insuarnace company that covers northern ireland.... i have tried gocompare.com but it dosnt give me quotes with certain insuarance companys like directline or autoline thanks

I'm a 17yr old male in the UK - how can i make my car insurance cheaper?

Confused.com is telling me it will be 1600+ per year with provisional and 2500+ per year when i pass my test. I'm hoping to pass in february and would rather like to be driving to college then :/ I'm 18 in november and would rather not wait till then. These prices are taken from quite a few different affordable cars i've found on autotrader. Any tips on lowering the price?

""Will my car get tow,i change the insurance to my father name.?""

I financed a car and all the paperwork is under my name,but i change the insurance under my father name.now i received a letter saying i don't have insurance,and i told them is under my father name.they want me to change it in my name,but i don't want to.if i put my name in the insurance it will be high. can i leave it under his name,or put my name in it.""

What is the average price for insurance on teenage drivers?

If I want to insure my teenage driver on my car, how much do you think my insurance would go up? And how much would it cost to insure my teenagers own car? I've heard that insurance is normally lower for teenage girls. Is that true? Thanks""

How do I get car insurance?

I am 18. I am not in college nor do I have a diploma. I don't start college till Fall 2011. Is it possible that I can still get car insurance? If so, how?""

Insurance on an el camino?

I'm thinking of getting an el camino, late 70s or 80s, and I'm a new 17 year old driver, I was wondering what ibwould have to expect on insurance? From what I've heard it's considered a pick up, so it as close to a muscle car I can get without having to pay super high insurance, how much would decent coverage cost me with a v8? And what if I had gotten an SS model? Im not sure which one ti get and I want to know if there is a huge difference between them, obviously I won't be paying it on my own, my parents are until I get a job, so how much woukd it general cost? Considering one parent is 48 hs dropout, other is 38 graduated college, if it helps any at all. Regardless of the answer thank you for your time.""

Insurance for a mustang?

All the insurance sites I have seen require me to register, and add my personal details before get a quote, and i do not want to do that. so i will ask for your opinion. I am 25, just got my drivers license, and have a 1997 mustang. I am in Louisiana. How much would the basic insurance be? I have never been in an accident, and the mustang is just the basic model. I need the cheapest coverage, and do not plan to use full coverage, because the car is not worth that much.""

Is pregnancy considered a pre-existing condition in florida?

IM PREGNANT!!!! I am 7 weeks along and just found out! The problem is I start a new job next week and will not be eligible for insurance until after 90 days.. By then I will be over four months along and I'm not quite sure if they will accept me or if they will say that it is a pre-existing condition? So, my dilemma is either: pay out of pocket until my 90 days are up and hope they accept me OR apply for medicaid and use the health department? If it changes anything the insurance I would be applying for is Florida Hospital private owned insurance.""

New driver trying to get insurance... Quote for 1750 in November... Why has it gone up to 4400 now?

Hello all, I'm 17 years old (male) and passed my test earlier this month. In November I just thought I'd get a rough figure for insuring a 1.2L Corsa (2001)... I got a quote from Quinn Direct for 1750 (I put in the details as if I had already passed etc). So yes, more than the car is worth, but my parents and grandparents were willing to help me out with it, and I was pleased. So, Christmas has been and I thought I'd get looking... I went back on to Quinn Direct and now for a 1L Corsa (2001)... The quote is 4450!! That is ridiculous! It's true, I'm a 17 year old male... Bla bla... But 4450 for a 1 Litre car? All my friends are with Quinn Direct, and their 1.3L Fiesta's etc are only 1900 to insure! Gocompare and all those don't give me much better quotes either. I've also done the Pass Plus. Can anyone shed some light on this please? Thanks!

Is it true you dont need a license or insurance to drive a scooter?

Im interested in buying a scooter because i have heard you dont need a license or insurance to drive one. I need a way to get to work easier (right now i take the bus) and i cant afford any kind of insurance right now. I dont have a car and i dont have a drivers license. Plus from what i have seen scooters are way cheaper then cars. why dont you need a license for a scooter and what is the difference between a scooter and a moped? I think i read you DO need a license for a moped but not a scooter.

Buying insurance for an old car -- collision option - worth it?

I'm buying a 1995 car for about $3,000. The insurance company said it isn't worth buying collision insurance because the car is worth so little. They also said if in an accident, the repairs needed are more than the car is worth, they won't repair it. Instead, they'll pay book value. So, if my car got in an accident that would cost $4,000 to fix, which is more than the car is worth, would they pay for the car's value at $3,000 or for its value based on how much it's worth after the damage? So, if the car is worth $500 as is after an accident, is that how much I'd get? thanks""

WIll my mom know if i go to planned parenthood under her insurance?

I am 18 years old and under my mom's insurance. I want to go to planned parenthood, but don't want her to find out. I can't afford to pay on my own, but if i use the insurance, would the insurance company notify her?""

What is a non-standard property/casualty insurance company?

How can you find out if your insurance company is non-standard? What makes a company non-standard?

How to reduce my insurance price?

I have been trying to find insurance as I will be 17 next year and have decided on a car I would like which is a Peugeot 206 2001 y reg and every time I use a comparison site I get quoted 4 grand or it says their insurers cannot provide insurance. Please help :(

Car Insurance decrease or increase?

I'm purchasing a 2012 Toyota Aygo within the coming weeks but I cannot be quoted on the insurance as the 2012 registration plates have not yet come up on the database of the insurance company I would like to go with. I have had a quote for 'nearly' the exact car but a 2011 version. Does anybody have a rough idea if the insurance is likely to increase or decrease with it being a 2012 model? Thanks :)

How much it cost for normal birth delivery in california without insurance?

How much it cost for normal birth delivery in california without insurance?

What happens when the insurance company totals your car?

What happens when the insurance company totals your car?

Car accident now what? insurance question?

I was in my first major car accident, my car was totaled. I was waiting at the light to make a left turn, the green arrow came on and i went and some one coming from the opposite side of the lane in the opposite way ran a red light and hit me, he claims on the report he doesn't know how the accident happened. I just wanted to know what do you think will happen? A witness was talking to the cops but his information is not on my police report. It has to go through his insurance what are the odds that they will know that he was in the wrong and not me??""

Does Car Insurance increase after an accident on Learner Insurance.?

Hi, I am a few weeks away from my test, and have been driving with my parents with my mums car. I have insurance on the car for a month with a private website. Today, I had an accident with another learner, where the edge of my car scraped the edge of the learner's car. The damage was only a few scratches, but apparently it's going to cost around 300. My dad is pondering whether to go privately and pay the learner the money, or go through the insurance I have. His main concern is that if I go through insurance, then when I pass, my insurance price will be a lot higher than without. If I pass and get insurance, will this accident be notified by the companies, who may increase the price of my insurance? Thanks""

Insurance pricing for a Honda Civic Coupe vs Sedan?

I'm looking to get a new car and was wondering if the insurance would be pricier if I got the civic coupe? I mean it's technically not really a sports car and is not much different than the sedan aside from its appearance. I'm 21 and have had my license for over 3 years if that makes any difference.

Car Insurance For An 18 Yr Old Female.?

I am a full-time student, studying at Brighton University and currently commuting from Bexhill to the Moulsecoomb by train and I have actually underestimated how expensive it is. I am currently learning to drive, and I am hopefully taking my test within the next month so I can drive to and from Uni. However, looking at some of the insurance prices, I have been put off slightly! I am hoping to also do pass plus which will make it a little cheaper, and I believe there is a black box that monitors your driving that makes it cheaper also? For those who know, what are some cheap insurance companies, and other methods to make the insurance cheaper? I am looking for a Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 (1999-2001), it will be kept at home on the driveway overnight, and will be parked in the car park at University, and I have no children under 16 (just things I have been told are some factors they consider). Any information will be appreciated. Many Thanks, Jade""

""How much will it cost to insure a mini cooper, for a young driver?

just about to start driving and would like to know the costs?

What are the different types of life insurance?

and which ones are better to get, middle age ,non smoker""

Would a 1.4 honda civic be an ideal car for a new driver?

17 year old. Male. Would it be wise getting a 1.4 civic say 1999 plate for a first car?

CHEAPEST AUTO INSURANCE COMPANY IN SOUTHERN NEW JERSEY?

i have a 2009 camry paid off

Is this normal for auto insurance?

I have got quote from almost all the comapnies, esurance, geico, state farm, farmers, allstate, and some more . All of them gave me quotes in the upper $2500 for full coverage. The only one were less was allstate $2100 and Geico for $1400 thats full coverage for 6 months. Do you guys usually pay this much. I'm 21 and this the first time I'm gettin insurance.""

What is the Average cost for Horse Insurance?

My mum has nearly agreed with me getting a horse! :D And we are trying to work out prices. The only cost we haven't got is horse insurance. I just want the Average cost for Horse Insurance? They age of the horse will be 6 - 10 years old? Thank you.

Cheapest auto insurance in CA?

Cheapest auto insurance in CA?

How much might will I pay for insurance at 25?

I'm 25 years old and I will be getting my liscense soon, How much could I expect to pay for car insurance as a first time liscense holder? I understand that 25 is the magic number for the costs to go down, but how will just now having my liscense affect my cost?""

Will my insurance pay off my car?

My car was considered totaled due to fire damage in the engine, i only purchased the car about 2 months ago wich means my policy is also new, will my insurance pay off the car or what will happened? Has any one experience something similar??""

Car insurance in Tennessee help please?

A girl I know the tags are in her name but her bf drive's the car he is currently teaching her how to drive she's new to the road..... but my question is can her bf get the car insurance in his name if the car tags n her name

Will having to file a SR-22 with that state of Illinois cost me more in insurance?

Will having to file a SR-22 with that state of Illinois cost me more in insurance?

What are some problems with mandatory health insurance?

In California, you are required by law to insure your car...so what would be some problems with similarly requiring that parents provide health insurance for their children? This pertains to minors only...what if parents were required to insure their minors?""

I need cheap insurance help?

i live in Dearborn Michigan insurance here full coverage starts from $2300 and up Oneway insurance is $950 i cant even afford any of that. Does anybody know any cheap insurance places or companies. I drive a 2004 hyundai Tiburon GT 120,000 miles clean title and im a college student age 20 whos never ever got a ticket or have been arrested. Iv had my drivers license since i was 16. Iv never been in any accidents im also a 3.2 GPA college student all A's and B's im asking is their any cheap insurance or no?""

New driver trying to get insurance... Quote for 1750 in November... Why has it gone up to 4400 now?

Hello all, I'm 17 years old (male) and passed my test earlier this month. In November I just thought I'd get a rough figure for insuring a 1.2L Corsa (2001)... I got a quote from Quinn Direct for 1750 (I put in the details as if I had already passed etc). So yes, more than the car is worth, but my parents and grandparents were willing to help me out with it, and I was pleased. So, Christmas has been and I thought I'd get looking... I went back on to Quinn Direct and now for a 1L Corsa (2001)... The quote is 4450!! That is ridiculous! It's true, I'm a 17 year old male... Bla bla... But 4450 for a 1 Litre car? All my friends are with Quinn Direct, and their 1.3L Fiesta's etc are only 1900 to insure! Gocompare and all those don't give me much better quotes either. I've also done the Pass Plus. Can anyone shed some light on this please? Thanks!

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cheapest-car-insurance-huseman-angeline"

[vampyjoong]

Tag Game

Tagged by @supercriminalwolf!!

1. You’re given one chance to have tea/coffee with a celebrity. Who do you meet with?

My choices would either be Park Chanyeol or Dougie Poynter. My reason for PCY is because I wanna know how small i am compared to him, and also because i feel like it would be a good conversation and i want to know what he's like when he's not on camera. For Dougie, I've loved him since i was very very young, and people might not know this cos not many people will have read the McFly biography I want to talk to him about life and see how life has gotten for him in the past 10 ish years

2. What would you do if you had a million dollars?

I would pay back my mum and nan for everything i owe them, pay back anything that needs to be done, maybe do some shopping for things, then out most of the remaining money away for a rainy day, and then spend the last money on anything i want I've thought about this before

3. Are there any years in your life you would like to do over?

i wanna redo the first three years of high school. So i can study more and so i can stop myself doing some bad decisions, cos the consequences have carried on to even now, and my self esteem is so so low because of it

4. What’s your favourite dessert?

either chocolate ganache pots or Panna cotta with salted caramel

5. What’s your cure for a hangover?

i have never gotten a really bad hangover, but my remedy is just lots of water cos i know science behind it and any food i can stomach

6. What’s your favourite kpop album and why?

oooooooooooooooooo

Its close between “Teen, Age” by SVT or “Wings” by BTS. Teen, Age has so many good songs, and seungkwans vocals makes me almost cry, but wings shows off everyones skills individually and shows their fears, and yoongis song makes me cry

7. Are there any kpop concerts you’ve been dying to see, but haven’t seen yet? If so, which group/artist?

everyone :)))

the main ones are SVT BTS EXO because those are my three favs, but they're never gonna come to scotland in my life :)

8. What’s your current song you play when you’re in a bad mood?§

sounds really counteractive but i listen to sad songs, so Agust D- The Last, Flower - SVT, Sorry - The Rose

9. You have the chance to live in another country for free for a year. Which country do you live in?

Either Korea, Spain, or France. Ive been to spain twice and loved it, But i want to go to France and Korea because I've always wanted to go and I'm trying to learn the languages

10. What piece of clothing can you not live without?

Black skinny jeans and baggy hoodies, they are two of my favourite items of clothes :)

11. What’s your favourite season and why?

Autumn or Spring. Autumn because i really like when the leaves fall and when its starting to get cold enough to wear big jackets and scarfs and hats, and spring because i love seeing the flowers start to bloom and seeing everything start anew

I tag @verngyu, @icantatoryourtots, @dirtydirtychimchim and anyone else! <3