#literally took 6 tries to get this to post because it kept saying an error

[martyrbat]

Reisner {former chief international lawyer for the Israeli military} is proud to have been the first international lawyer to have defended, at a specific request of then–prime minister Ehud Barak, the policy of ‘targeted assassinations’ towards the end of 2000, when most governments and international bodies considered the practice illegal. ‘We invented the targeted assassination thesis and we had to push it. At first there were protrusions that made it hard to insert easily into the legal moulds. Eight years [and, as he said subsequently in this interview, referring to 9/11, “four planes”] later it is in the centre of the bounds of legitimacy.’ [46]

Asa Kasher, a professor of ethics at Tel Aviv University, has worked with Reisner to provide an ethical and legal defence for targeted assassination. He talks in similar terms about the nature of law and the ways in which it might be transformed: ‘We in Israel have a crucial part to play in the developing of this area of the law [international humanitarian law] because we are at the forefront of the war against terror, and [the tactics we use] are gradually becoming acceptable in Israeli and in international courts of law . . . The more often Western states apply principles that originated in Israel to their own non-traditional conflicts in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, then the greater the chance these principles have of becoming a valuable part of international law. What we do becomes the law.’ [47]

After the Goldstone fact-finding mission on Gaza, Israel’s prime minister emphatically called for a radical rewriting of international humanitarian law. ‘Paradoxically,’ Benjamin Netanyahu said, ‘it is possible that the firm response of important international leaders and jurists to [the Goldstone report] will accelerate the re-examination of the laws of war in an age of terror.’ His Minister of Defence, Ehud Barak, added: ‘We cannot change the law but we can help develop it.’

The actions of the Israeli state against Gaza may become acceptable in law. The siege, ongoing since 2007, the 2008–9 invasion, and the 2009 attack on an international flotilla carrying supplies into the enclave, have all been carried out with relative impunity, and do not appear to have significantly affected Israel’s international standing. Each of these forms of aggression contains within it a multiplicity of small-scale practices and incidents: restricting the supply of food to the threshold of starvation; targeted assassinations; sending advance warnings that then allow the military to kill those civilians who choose not to evacuate; [48] attacks on activists in international waters; the use of white phosphorus in inhabited areas – the list goes on. In these acts – if Israeli lawyers have their way and continue to play with the law as if it was a toy – lie the seeds of new legislation.

Working on the margins of the law is one way to expand them. For violence to have the power to legislate it needs to be applied in the grey, indeterminate zone between obvious violation and possible legality, and then to be defended diplomatically and by legal opinion. Indeed, the legal tactics sanctioned by military lawyers in Israel’s invasion of Gaza in 2008–9 were framed in precisely this way. ‘When something’s in the white zone, I’ll let it be done, if it’s in the black I’ll forbid it, but if it’s in the grey zone then I’ll take part in the dilemma, I don’t stop at grey,’ said Reisner. Proportionality might indeed be thought of as one of the mechanisms for the reshaping of juridical space in a way that increases the extent of and makes use of the grey zone.

The invasion therefore did two simultaneous and seemingly paradoxical things: it both violated the law and aimed to shift its thresholds. This kind of violence not only transgresses but also attacks the very idea of rigid limits. In this circular logic, the illegal turns legal through continuous violation. There is indeed a ‘law making character’ inherent in military violence. This is law in action, legislative violence as seen from the perspective of those who write it in practice.

This use of the law has much in common with that of the George W. Bush administration’s misappropriation of the Office of Special Counsel in the Justice Department, in order to figure out a way to legalize the use of torture. Inherent in this was the clear intention to stretch the law as far as possible without actually breaking it. [49] In this example, US Department of Justice Attorney John Yoo used balancing of interests to authorize certain forms of torture. His famous torture memos were grounded in an Israeli precedent: relying on what is essentially a proportionality analysis, the 1987 Israeli commission of inquiry into the methods of investigation in the General Security Service (the Landau Commission) arrived at the conclusion that the prohibition on torture is not absolute, but is rather based, using the commission’s words, ‘upon the logic of the lesser evil’. Thus, ‘the harm done by violating a provision of the law during an interrogation must be weighed against the harm to the life or person of others which could occur sooner or later’. [50] Some legal scholars have suggested that such legal advice in itself might be considered a crime.

[...]

Gaza is a laboratory in more than one sense. It is a hermetically sealed zone, with all access controlled by Israel (except the Egypt border, now controlled by a still yet-to-be-defined post-Mubarak regime). Within this enclosed space, all sorts of new control technologies, munitions, legal and humanitarian tools, and warfare techniques are tried out on its million and a half inhabitants. The ability to remotely control large populations is also tested, before these technologies are marketed internationally. Most significantly of all, it is the thresholds that are tested and pushed: the limits of the law, and the limits of violence that can be inflicted by a state and be internationally tolerated. This limit, newly defined with every attack, will become the new threshold of what can be done to people in the name of ‘war on terror’. When the legislative violence directed at Gaza unlocks the chaotic powers of destruction that lie dormant within the law, the consequence will be felt by oppressed people everywhere.

the least of all possible evils – eyal weizman

(Bold text was my emphasis. Provided footnotes below cut)

45: See Yotam Feldman and Uri Blau, ‘Consent and Advise’, Ha’aretz, 5 February 2009. [Internet Archive]

46: Ibid.

47: Asa Kasher, ‘Operation Cast Lead and the Ethics of Just War’, Azure, no. 37, summer, 2009: 43–75. [Internet Archive]

48: The military’s ‘international law division’ and its operational branch have devised tactics that would allow soldiers to apply what might be called ‘technologies of warning.’ Delivered to homesteads by telephone or sometimes by warning shots, they aim to shift people between legal designations – as soon as a civilian picks up the phone in his home, his legal designation changes from an ‘uninvolved civilian’, protected by IHL, to a voluntary ‘human shield’ – from a subject to an object, a simple part of the architecture. Technologies of warning intervene in the legal categories of both ‘distinction’ and ‘proportionality’: with regard to the former, they transfer people from illegitimate to legitimate targets by forcing them into a legal category that is not protected; and with regard to the latter, they imply a different calculation of proportionality. Human shields are not designated as combatants but are not counted as uninvolved civilians in the calculations of proportionality which must assess damage against the life lost.

49: John Yoo, The Powers of War and Peace, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.

50: Itamar Mann and Omer Shatz, ‘The Necessity Procedure: Laws of Torture in Israel and Beyond, 1987–2009’, Legalleft, 2011 [Openyls]

[fountainpenguin]

If you were given the opportunity to reboot FOP from the ground up, what would you change, shake up, or put your own spin on?

I'll have to give this a short answer, I no joke spent over 2 hours replying to this, then added a Read More and Tumblr told me that my post was too out of this world and it broke the editor. It kicked me out in a split second without any opportunity to save. Sorry to everyone who has to scroll past my stuff in the future, but I'm not living through this again. Read Mores have no place on my blog.

I'm furious because 1) I tried to copy-paste out of this editor like I always do and save in an external place, but the new editor is busted and only copies one paragraph when you do CTRL-A so I gave up, and 2) literally the last sentence I wrote before typing that was "Before my hiatus, Read Mores broke stuff, but I'm willing to give this another try." It's not even the same error it used to be. I can't. I can't.

At least we're friends and I think you know a lot of my thoughts anyway. Sorry it took so long to write an answer to this message, but I've already let it sit for so long that I HAVE to get it out of my inbox now or I'll never go back to it after losing everything :/ I can't believe that just happened. How ironic that one of the main reasons I went on hiatus was because stuff kept breaking and then it's worse when I return. Bleh.

So... Here's the short version of things I can remember talking about:

Update world lore, especially regarding Anti-Fairies. Anti-Fairies debuted in Season 2 and didn't reappear until Season 5; Anti-Fairy World itself made its first appearance in Season 6 because the Anti-Fairies were only seen in jail before that. Anti-Fairy World is kind of barren and stereotypical, and the general vibe of Anti-Fairies is that they are all evil because their magic revolves around bad luck. I'd prefer some gray area. I also feel like the characterizations for Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda were rushed and we should say it.

Logically I know that Anti-Wanda can be said to parallel Wanda's high-class mafia upbringing, but I doubt that was planned since Wanda's family only showed up in Season 5. In another universe, we could have had a classy evil queen. I love the grubby gal, but there are so many cool aesthetics she could have had instead. The Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda vibe doesn't bring anything to the table that Cosmo and Wanda didn't already have unless you take creative liberties.

Maps. Maps would have been great.

Designs. Cosmo, Crocker, and Dad really don't need the same shirt. Wanda's outfit is pretty bland too, and it's honestly a shame that Anti-Cosmo got a unique outfit but Anti-Wanda's is just a recolor of Wanda's. See also, classy queen.

Also I've never liked Timmy's Channel Chasers adult design; I just don't think it's in character. I feel like his body type would be much closer to his parents, and the existing one is just too extreme for my preferences. Doesn't say "Timmy the average kid" to me.

"Fairly Odd Baby" - As much as I enjoy the idea of Fairies placing a ban on babies because they're destructive and Fairy World likes to push away its problems, I'd have introduced Poof as part of an announcement that Cosmo and Wanda had been expecting a baby for 100 to 1000 years. Their lifespans are so long, it wouldn't be out of the question. A reveal episode could have been fun.

I also don't think I would have chosen to leave Poof a baby who can't speak for that long; I think he has a fun personality (Sasses Foop, deliberately puts Foop in harm's way, but also he's super chill and nice and likes sports) and I would have liked to see more episodes where he talks. I don't love how he was shipped to boarding school as soon as he was able to talk and dialogue was needed.

Vicky takes Mark back onscreen. She canonically decided she wanted to start dating him again, after she found out he was an alien and she broke up with him. She made the choice to take back her alien boyfriend and she loves him and we should talk about it. I'm obsessed with them and will forever treasure the deleted "Foul Balled" scene of them holding hands at the senior home while Mark is in his squid form. I support Vicky becoming the shapeshifting queen of a violent planet and being extremely in love with her squid husband.

Chloe / A.J. friendship. A.J. ended world hunger in Season 2 and he built a time machine a few seasons later, I feel like those two would have really hit it off.

More episodes of Timmy playing soccer. I will not re-elaborate.

More of side characters I love, like Molly and Kevin. I love them. I love Kevin falling farther and farther behind his uncle when they walk together, I love Timmy introducing himself to Molly's fairy by shaking her hand... They might be side characters but I feel like they add a lot more to the world and character dynamics in their few scenes than many of the characters do.

Sharing fairies. Timmy sharing fairies with Chloe (or Kevin) as part of a temporary program (like she was just here for one school year before her parents moved again). I think one of the issues people have with Chloe is that it feels like she's here for the rest of Timmy's fairy-related life, and I think a few months of hanging out with her would have been plenty and then there would have been a reason for her to leave the canon afterwards.

Make Chloe Dinkleberg's niece. My favorite headcanon. Also a perfect explanation for why Chloe's family would move to Timmy's street. Also a hilarious parallel of Timmy seething with frustration at his "perfect" neighbor despite spending the entire series making fun of his dad for doing the same thing.

More Timmy/Chloe "step-sibling" interactions. I support Timmy "I will sit with you while you have an hour-long panic attack" Turner in "The Booby Trap" but I cannot emphasize enough that I equally support Timmy "Will take a call from Chloe, listen to her explain that she vaporized a juice box, then hang up and go to bed" Turner. They are step-siblings...

Timmy, Chloe, and Kevin. I support Timmy - Chloe - Kevin trio interactions in general. They're a comedic trio and I want them to support each other.

Gary and Betty. Unironically, we need to talk more about Gary and Betty canonically being aware of the magical world. Or at least they adjusted really fast to being teleported from California to Florida and back again. Also we should talk about that time Gary rang Sanderson on his cell phone, which gets funnier the longer you think about it. Also I love them and we should talk about the deleted "Totally Spaced Out" scene where they tried to flee to Mexico together.

Ending the series with a proper send-off. I'm not a fan of Timmy keeping his magical memories after losing Cosmo and Wanda. Being the protagonist doesn't make him immune. I feel like there are so many ways this could have been done in a sentimental way that people would have loved... I'm sad we didn't get a proper send-off.

On the list of things we don't need to change - Imaginary Gary, Norm, Mark, Molly, Jorgen, the Pixies, Flappy Bob, Foop, and Ed Leadly. They are flawless, 10 of 10. We also do not need to change Chloe casually swearing, but meanwhile Timmy will call you out for saying "Moron" on the radio, and we definitely don't need to change "This isn't a fancy French restaurant- this is a black hole!"

I love the Pixies. If they didn't exist, I would have come along and prepped some worldbuilding about characters who maintain magical paperwork. I love my snarky monotone wasp boys.

Also I just want to shout-out Chloe and Kevin and their personalities being hilarious. I think there are several Chloe-centric episodes that have flawed storytelling, but I do genuinely enjoy the character you're left with after brushing off some of her exaggerated perfectionism.

Kevin has some of the best dialogue in the entire series, and those two just seem to write themselves when you pit them together. I like the mental image of Chloe venting to Timmy about how unfair it is that Crocker shows him favoritism and then it slowly dawns on her that she also has a history of getting a lot of favoritism.

Thanks for the ask! I'm sad I lost the full responses, but I think I've learned my lesson and will draft in an external doc first. Please learn from my mistakes, I will not take back my venting >:(

Even if I lost it, it's nice to take some time and think about some answers to these things. I'm also pretty satisfied that I was able to make this post long enough to feel like a good answer. Yay.

[skyeofloxlay]

Duskwood - thoughts, observations and summaries - Part 1.

It is likely that there are already people who did this, but I would like to point out some things that I ended up putting aside as the episodes went on, but that I realized when I was reading the prints I took or even when I was playing for hundredth time. Unfortunately I'm not going to put the prints here as they are not in English, so it doesn't help much. And maybe, most of the things I write are obvious, or that everyone already knows, but I would like to write something to have some of my thoughts on some. (or just to have a summary for when chapter 8 comes and I get lost)

(again sorry if it have English errors or something is confusing, English is not my first language @_@)

WARNING: This post will talk about Duskwood events, so you better play before you read! Also, this post is really big, so you might end up getting bored. YOU'VE BEEN ADVISED

1 - Thomas received our number on the second day of Hannah's disappearance, where he himself said he received the night. He immediately spoke to all his friends about the number and then they were arguing for a long time, until finally after thinking hard, the next day, Thomas decides to contact the MC (And of course, there is the fact that the message is gone.)

2 - Thomas tells us that he tried to call Hannah when he received the MC number, someone answered the call, but nobody said anything.

3 - Thomas has a brother, and that is something I always forget. I suppose he is a younger brother? Maybe someone who's not old enough to drive or idk.

4 - Richy tries to fit in with the MC, which is apparently an unusual behavior, since Cleo was incredulous at what he was doing.

5 - Jake acted very cold the first time we talked to him. But I don't remember exactly when it changed ... I think I should see it on the prints and mention it later.

6 - Jake probably follows the philosophy "The ends justify the means", since he does anything, no matter the consequence, as long as he gets to where he wants to go. (In fact, he literally says that the ends justify the means xD)

7 - We have to hack Hannah's cloud because Jake can't do everything, and he says he's busy following other clues, but what are those? I don't remember him commenting on what clues he's following, well maybe I'll find out by looking at the prints of future chapters.

8 - Jake says that we should decrypt the cloud, and clearly decrypting is not a candy crush game with cubes, but I would say that in "real life" (as much as I have researched about decryption, I didn’t find anything that could help me a lot to understand how it works) you use some program that Jake sent you, you take encrypted files that have several strange letters and put them in this program, which happens to be a little slow, so to pass the time you decide to play Candy Crush. Which is why it takes so long before you can send an unencrypted file to Jake.

9 - Cleo adds us before going to work.

10 - Thomas comes back some time later, I would say it could be half an hour after he sent the message saying he had to get his brother.

11 - On the day of Hannah's disappearance, Jake put all of her friends in a group and talked about the situation. By the time Jake did that, Thomas was on his cell phone, so he saw it right away. 

12 - We know that Jake somehow witnessed the kidnapping, but how? How did he see if he didn't even meet Hannah in person?

13 - Richy's house is 5 minutes from Hannah's.

14 - Cleo and Richy have a conversation that we can read. And Cleo asked Richy where all the sympathy had come from (probably about him wanting to put the MC in the group) Apparently before he didn't want Thomas to contact the number.

15 - Richy assumes that Hannah has had enough time to write a single message. If we put him as one of the suspects, as he is being at the moment, then was it he who gave Hannah the chance to send a message? Or was it Richy who sent it from Hannah's cell phone? But…. I don't know ... none of those things really make sense.

Unless Hannah managed to get her cell phone while Richy was away, and then sent the message, Richy soon afterwards arrives and sees what Hannah has done, takes her cell phone and deletes the message. (And answer the phone, but say nothing) 

(Or we can also assume that it was Jake who sent our number on Hannah's cell phone ... but that doesn't fit much for some things in the future, I'll explain later)

16 - Richy thinks that inevitably, if the MC is guilty it will end up escaping something.

17 - We were able to decrypt the first photo, that if I'm right, we are decrypting newer photos to older ones? But that is not a very important detail, I think. We sent the photo to Jake and he asks if we had found this photo in Hannah's cloud. But why? Isn't it obvious that it was from Hannah's cloud? Wasn't that just our only job? Decrypt and send whatever you can to Jake ??? If we say we don't know what exactly to look for, Jake says he doesn't know either. So we're kind of literally in the dark! We have no idea what we have to find and neither does he know. But he says that it is still for us to continue to send what we find, because something can be more relevant if we look in more detail.

(Okay, the next one isn't so much what I thought, but the conversation between Jake and MC, because I love the interactions that it is possible to do with Jake and I couldn't leave it out. * ^ _ ^ *)

18 - Jake wishes us good luck, but now (I think only for premium) you can say you want to talk to him. Jake then looks confused and asks what we wanted to talk about, and we can say we want to talk about him. He seems to be even more confused about why we want to talk about him. I don't remember the other options or if he says the same thing it doesn't matter what we answer, but if we say that we find him interesting he says that "You know I'm not going to tell you anything about me, right?" (Sure, of course Jake, for sure everyone believes that) if we keep insisting, he ends up giving in and says that we can ask only one question. We can ask: I think between his hair color, if he lives in the city or country, or what programs does he use to hack?

His hair color is black, if I'm not mistaken he says he lives in the city and the last question I don't know the answer to.

He asks why we wanted to know (in the case of hair, I don't know about the others, but he probably asks the same thing). I think that regardless of what we answer, he says he doesn't believe in what he just did, because he shouldn't say anything about himself. (That is, this is where we can start to make Jake's walls start to fall and we can get closer to him :) ) He also says that hiding his identity is essential and asks if we are happy now. If we say yes and talk to ask a question, he gets more confused and says "You didn't want to talk to me, did you?" Regardless of what we talk about, he asks us how the weather is. We can say between: What a boring question / It's raining / Very well, I would say. (I think those were the questions). 

He then admits that it was not the most interesting topic, but we can say that it remains interesting nonetheless. He so says he hasn't had a conversation in a long time... (oh, I feel you Jake, I don't know how to talk to people either, but look, you're talking to me :) even though you don't really exist ;_;) He then asks if we were stuck on an island, what would we most like to have. I said that I would like to have books, and he says "hmm" (but if I'm not mistaken he says that for everything we answer) we can ask him what he would like to have, and he says he would choose his computer, but then he tells us to forget what he said and says he has more to do, and asks if everything was clear now.

19 - We can ask him if he doesn't ask himself who we are. And this point I find interesting. He says "You play a key role in all this mess. Why do you suddenly appear in such mysterious circumstances? What do you really have to do with all of this? Obviously, I wonder who you are. I already told you something about me again ... I'm going to have to go now. Otherwise, I will end up saying my name or worse. " This means that he would not have been the one who sent our number by Hannah's cell phone because he doesn't know who the MC is. There is less that he is lying very well, but I think not.

20 - Thomas asks if we have time to talk to him, and then says that in a way MC is one of them now. So he says he will put pictures of Hannah on his profile so that we can try to remember her in some way. 

21 - Did we find a picture of a bridge? That's probably in the forest?

22 - Jessy then contacts us saying that she wants to get to know us better? Is it just me who found this strange and uncomfortable?

23 - Even though she never spoke to us and left the group, she says that MC is part of the group now. And she decides to talk to us in the middle of her work.

24 - We found out that Jessy works with Richy.

25 - She keeps trying to get to know MC more, which made me very uncomfortable because I really didn't want to talk to her and even then she kept talking to MC.

26 - So we got to see one more conversation, but this time it's between Thomas and Cleo, where Thomas says that he put some pictures for the MC to see, and said that it seemed strange, and said that there was nothing strange about the MC's behavior. So Cleo tells Thomas that then he cannot draw a conclusion about what role we (MC) play. Thomas then said goodbye and they went offline.

27 - Jessy talks to the MC again, nothing interesting that is worth mentioning.

28 - We found a photo of a cat in Hannah's cloud 

29 - Thomas sends a message again, now asking if we recognize Hannah, replying that we really don't know her, he says "oh, yeah, it's okay" and goes offline. 

30 - Jake answers us and we start talking about our findings. He says he will try to extract information from the photos.

31 - He asks for time to be able to analyze it and says he has an advantage for us, and sends a cell phone number. He says the police are very focused on Thomas and that we should be focusing on someone else. If we ask why we should do this, he replies, "As I said before, you piqued my interest. That's all you need to know at the moment." Then he tells us to add the number. And as soon as we added it, we found out the number was from Dan.

32 - Dan gets worried and says several no, and asks who sent us after him. You can choose from a few people to say who sent you there, but I think regardless of who you choose, he will say the same: "What? Fuck it. I don't care. Damn them. And you leave me alone." And then it goes offline.

33 - If you choose Jessy, he will ask her why she gave his number to the MC, and she says that she didn't, so he says that the MC is lying and that someone gave his number. Jessy also says that if he wants people to stop seeing him as a suspect, he just has to stop acting like one.

34 - We got a call. Someone threatening us.

35 - We contacted Jake and talked about what happened. Jake asks what the kidnapper said, and we can say "That I should stay out of other people's business." Jake asks what he looked like, and we can say he looked like a maniac.

36 - If we say that we had better follow the kidnapper's advice, Jake says that we shouldn't do that, and that there was nothing to worry about. And that we could consider that connection as something positive, because that meant the kidnapper was coming out of hiding, and that would make him vulnerable. And that he is probably concerned about the MC being in the investigation. Jake also says that we are a drag on the kidnapper, and that the MC can't trust anyone in the group. He also said that he was right about the MC and that we are going to save Hannah. 

37 - Jessy calls us and other people in the group saying they found a body. She creates a group and adds us, Dan, Cleo and Richy.

38 - Jessy and Cleo argue.

39 - Cleo says she will tell Lilly about the body.

40 - And then in a way we kind of obliged to tell Thomas about the body.

41 - When we talk about the body found, Thomas immediately goes offline.

42 - We tell the group this.

43 - If we tell the group that we should have waited to tell Thomas, Richy says that MC would not say that if knew how much gossip is spreading around the city.

44 - Dan asks us what we think about Thomas's suspicious actions.

45 - Richy asks what we do now and Cleo replies that the only way was to wait. 

46 - Everyone goes offline and after a while Jake sends a message saying that he has something new, that a corpse had been found. But he was talking about the same corpse that we discovered by the group, that is, we had important information even before him.

47 - He is impressed with how we got the information before him and how MC already seems to be part of the group.

48 - Then he asks if we got the picture of the cat in Hannah's cloud. (again, isn't that obvious??? This is our mission! Decrypt Hannah's cloud photos and files !!! Why do you keep asking that Jake ??) 

49 - If we ask if there is something wrong to Jake, he just replies "Never mind. It's okay." And then it goes offline.

50 - We decrypt what appears to be a medical prescription, but which is in a terrible resolution. Jake says he will try to fix the image better and goes offline.

51 - Jessy says that Cleo invaded the junkyard

52 - Jessy says that the MC should make Cleo tell Richy what she did.

53 - Cleo says he needs to talk to us. She says she can tell us a little bit about Hannah.

54 - If we ask if Hannah has siblings, Cleo replies that Lilly is her younger sister, and asks if we didn't know that until now. If we say, "I meant besides Lilly". Cleo replies that Lilly is Hannah's only sibling.

55 - If we ask Cleo if it was possible that Hannah simply ran away, Cleo replies that there was no reason for her to do that since Hannah's life was starting to go well. She had a great family, an amazing boyfriend and was happy with her career.

56 - If we say that maybe things were happening that she didn't know, Cleo replies that she knows that everyone has secrets, but having such a terrible secret and having to escape Duskwood without a trace, she would know that. She also comments on the fact that the Hacker saw the hijacking.

57 - If we ask Cleo if she thinks the kidnapper could be someone in the group, she says she doesn't believe it is anyone of them.

58 - When asked if Hannah had any enemies, Cleo replies that she was not sure, and that everyone loved Hannah.

59 - At that moment we can question Cleo or not for the invasion of the junkyard. If we don't say anything, she just says that she has to do some things and that she can't sit and wait.

60 - If we ask her plan, she says she'll ask for downtown and maybe know if someone found Hannah before she disappeared. She spoke the names of three of the biggest gossips in the city: Mrs. Walter, owner of the hotel. Mrs. Sully, the queen of gossip and Phil Hawkins, owner of Aurora bar.

61 - She says the bar hasn't opened yet, but we can suggest to Cleo who she should talk to first. And then she says she'll talk to us later.

62 - We found a picture of Hannah apparently in the forest.

63 - We see a conversation between Richy and Jessy. 

64 - Richy is talking about something Jessy said to us. He says that Jessy should be more careful with the MC and then says that Jessy should know something about the MC, but then he needs to stop by the office and not talk about what it was.

65 - Jake, who was reading the messages between Richy and Jessy, is annoyed that Richy didn't say what he wanted to say.

66 - We asked him if he was reading the messages, and he says yes, because you never know where you can find the next piece of the puzzle. If we ask him if he always reads other people's messages, he replies that only the most interesting ones and asks us if the MC was judging him.

67 - If we say that we are judging him a little, he says that the MC was also reading their messages. We can answer that we are doing this because he told us to do this. So he says we're only doing this so that we can find Hannah.

68 - Jake asks ask us what we think Richy and Jessy are talking about us. If we say we have no idea, Jake responds with "Really? Not even a hunch?" so we can say that we’ve never talked to Richy before, and Jake thinks that’s strange. Jake assumes that Richy would tell Jessy why he doesn't trust MC. We can then answer "Don't trust anyone. It's your words, not mine." and "Do you trust me?", Jake answers the question with "Would I have given you access to Hannah's cloud if I didn't?" We can then tell Jake that he doesn't even know us that well, and he says "Maybe Jessy wasn't the only person who felt an immediate connection with you"

If we ask "Is that a compliment?" Jake says yes, and he would talk to us later.

69 - Cleo sends a message saying that she arrived at the hotel, but that Mrs. Walter was not at the reception. Cleo then says that Lilly used to work at the Hotel reception before, but apparently she doesn't work there anymore. Cleo then comments that Alfie, Mrs. Walter's son, is playing in a mud puddle in front of the hotel. We told Cleo that she should talk to Alfie, and after a while she comes back saying that he had called her "Friend of the dead girl" and then Cleo replies that Hannah was not yet dead and asked him who was saying these terrible things. Alfie then says that he saw Hannah being taken by the Man without a face.

If we say that he probably saw a man in a mask, Cleo replies that there is a legend in Duskwood about a "Man without a face" and that we should ask Jessy about it because she likes legends, and then in the meantime Cleo would talk to Mrs. Sully. 

70 - We asked Jessy about the legend of the mwaf, and also commented that Alfie had seen Hannah being taken by him to the forest.

71 - We found out that Jessy was once Alfie's Nanny. And she says that he may well have invented it, since he has mental problems.

72 - Jessy creates a group about the Duskwood legends and puts Richy together, since he was born in Duskwood and could talk more about the legend than she did. But since Richy was working, they had to leave that for later.

73 - Cleo sends us a message saying she talked to Mrs. Sully, who says she saw Hannah coming out of the pharmacy and that she looked very worried, and then she sat on the patio of the Rainbow Café.

74 - We asked Cleo what Hannah had bought at the pharmacy, but she doesn't know. So she says that she will try to do something and that in the meantime we should try to find out more about the "mwaf".

75 - We talked to Richy and Jessy about Alfie and the mwaf. 

76 - Jessy tells the legend of the mwaf. She says the legend is older than Duskwood, they say he lives inside the forest and at night he walks through the dark streets of the city. He marks the door of the greatest sins with a sign from the crow, and then on the night of the first new moon each year, he returns the marked houses and takes all the people from that house, whether guilty or not. No one knows exactly what he does with these people, but supposedly he takes them into the forest and these people never come back.

77 - We can then assume that the kidnapper is trying to copy the legend. 

78 - Cleo sends us a message again, telling us a story that Lilly told her about Alfie.

79 - Cleo said it happened last year, in the fall. One of the guests complained to Lilly about a bad smell in his room, Lilly went to the room, but felt nothing, so she gave the guest another room. When she returned to the room she noticed the smell, but could not find where it came from, she then spoke to Mrs. Walter who spoke with the janitor Old Gray. After he cleaned it, Lilly, as she was curious to know what had given off that stench, goes to the trash and saw that Alfie's canary (Mr. Featherly) was dead and with a crushed beak and broken wings.

80 - Apparently Alfie killed the canary.

81 - We then see a conversation between Dan and Lilly. He was commenting that he was sure that the body found was not Hannah's. Lilly then asks Dan if he could come here (probably to her house), and Dan agrees.

Well, I think I better stop here, because I already wrote a lot and there is still a lot to write. To tell you the truth, I don't even know where I am in the story, I don't know if it's still chapter 1, or it's already 2 or maybe 3. But anyway, that's it. I will continue to write my observations / thoughts / summaries of the story when I have time and motivation. At the moment I want to see if I can draw something with Jake x MC and maybe write some theories that are in my head.

I hope that what I have written can help you in some way, or just remember what was going on at the beginning of the game. (Or maybe all of this is useless and it was really boring, so I'm sorry ;_;) See you later :)

[narcissasdaffodil]

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 8 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome work!

Thanks for the tag @kiki-the-creator ! I’m likely going to ramble, so bear with me! There’s multiple creations I haven’t put in the wild as of yet, so I’m just doing stuff I’ve posted on either here or A03.

1: Love Can Be Chosen

Before I started LCBC, unless you count the fic collab I’m part of, I hadn’t written any fanfic in 5 years. I started LCBC at the end of July, and teaching myself how to write properly again was difficult, along with writing in my natural style without being judged for that. I stopped writing entirely due to a high amount of people being very critical of my work to the point I lost the love for writing. I never thought I’d ever get back into it either, so this is a considerable surprise.

Just as I was going to post my first chapter of LCBC, someone I’d asked to read it for me was critical of it to the point that it seriously hurt, and it went past general consecutive criticism. Telling someone that their grammar is dreadful and there’s major errors without pointing to said errors is hardly useful! For 2 days, I toyed with whether to post it or not, or if they were actually right, and I should stop writing again. I pushed through that, as I refuse to let just one person have such an impact on me. Besides, it’s only an issue one person has, and I have multiple beta readers anyway. The fact I pushed through that makes me proud in general, as I proved both myself and that person wrong.

LCBC means the world to me as it helped me gain back my love of writing. I’ve come on a lot in nearly 5 months, and I’ve found myself writing more personal stuff to me. The fact it’s so big will always wow me, my doc for it currently stands at 166k, I affectionately nickname it my fic monster. I originally called it What’s a Soulmate?, then needed a better title. It was completely unplanned, I put my Spotify on shuffle, then Love Can Be Chosen played and I had a serious brainwave. People aren’t likely to know the song itself, but it’s by Avia Butler if you’re interested! I’ll ramble about it for ages if I let myself, so I’ll cut this here.

2: this Lottie edit

I hated this style of edit for a while, as people kept asking for these edits on my Instagram for other fandoms and literally nothing else, so I was a little fed up of doing the same thing. But it was different when I wanted to make an edit like that one myself, not having people be overly pushy rocks! I absolutely adore having control of what I edit.

3: Another Lottie edit

This one is a new style, but I really, really love it! My best stuff gets made when it’s me who wants it, I went through a period of creating just to get validation, and that was majorly shitty. My other favourite edit in this style hasn’t been posted yet, but for something made on a whim, it’s pretty good! I took a small break from editing and gave myself a talking to, basically told myself that it’s okay to make stuff you want, and not constantly concede to others, especially when the end product makes you feel worse about yourself. In addition, I no longer depend on creative pursuits for happiness, sure I enjoy it, but I don’t base everything about myself on my creative abilities.

4: this oneshot!

I was nervous to write this one, never having written hurt/comfort before. But I fell head over heels in love with the thing. Deciding to do Flufftober was an awesome decision, great job October me! I’ve tried out multiple types of fics I wouldn’t have otherwise, and found a new love for writing fluff.

5: Could You Be my Friend?

This oneshot took two goes. The first go was seriously dreadful, to the point that I was so angry at myself for 2 days straight, which isn’t healthy in the slightest! Anything that causes that much rage in me of all people isn’t a good thing. I stay far away from stuff that provoke my anxiety or anger in general. This one is a HP/LITG crossover, Harry Potter used to majorly be my thing years ago. It’s not as much now, for a multitude of reasons. Because of that also, the LITG/HP fic collab isn’t my thing as much anymore. But I had an itch to scratch regarding Marilecto and a HP au, so I took the prompt competition as the perfect excuse to just chuck it out there. Writing this one was so hard, but once I’d got halfway through my second oneshot, I was good.

6: Cold Coffee

This one was my first ever Marilecto oneshot, and my first oneshot in general, so it’s special for those reasons. I’ve likely written better stuff since, but that one was pretty special to me, as writing it proved to me I could write more than just chunky fics.

7: It Would’ve Been You

This one was part of my uni AU series. My flatmates have alternated between great and challenging, and a good way to not let it get me down was writing about bits and pieces of it!

8: Leftover Sweets

This one was super unexpected to say the least, but I actually love it. I wrote it in 2 hours between 1-3am one night and woke up confused as there was a random oneshot hanging out in my docs, and I didn’t remember writing it! It did scare me a little, but once I reread the thing, I realised I was actually pretty proud of it.

Okay, I’m tagging @lucas-koh @americangrunge, @venueska and @bubblybabynailpolish I have absolutely no clue who’s already done this, so if you want to, feel free to tag me! And if you’ve done it already, oops!

[rigelmejo]

thank u @meichenxi for ur absolutely gorgeous amazing in depth shadowing answer when i asked.

u can ignore the rest of this post its just gonna be me ranting ToT.

i tried the most tiny form of shadowing and. i think i should try doing it more ;-;. I tried doing what you said - listening to the stress in the sentence, chunking how i say it back if i can’t say the whole sentence (like saying the last phrase, getting that right, then trying to say the last 2 phrases in the sentence, etc). And I realized how BAD i am at doing that beyond literally 1 word chunks or short 2 word chunks like 你知道. Obviously plenty of phrases which are just 4-6 hanzi, but i would mess up with even just those! I could read it, and I could read a sentence aloud one word at a time. But I could not shadow without a ton of errors when I tried repeating lol. 

I also took your advice (or maybe the konglongmandarin advice? or both?? i can’t remember who said to do this) of trying to shadow without looking at the text. While i looked at it the first time to read over the sentence, when i actually tried to shadow i just focused on what i HEARD and repeating it AS IT SOUNDS (not as the pinyin look, not looking at the words so i know the tone). just literally listening, then only using the audio to practice saying it out loud myself. and that takes WAY MORE ACTIVE LISTENING SKILLS then i apparently have lol! I could only do this again with 1-2 word chunks! Anything longer and my brain would forget what tones it heard, forget some of the words, and my mouth would forget to say ‘xie’ right even though i would have JUST saw the character and just heard it correctly and i CAN pronounce it... but on the spot, with no aid but ‘hear the sound, now replicate it’ i just kept messing it up! Lol!

I am sure trying to shadow more will improve my actual listening ability, because i had to focus so MUCH on listening in order to shadow. I had to focus even more then in a show or listening to an audiobook - because i had to do more than just recognize words, i had to say them myself and attempt to say them correctly. so... i will definitely be working up to bigger phrases and sentences, since literally this is so difficult lol ToT (the suggestion to phrase chunk and try first just one, then build up to a full sentence, if u can’t remember or do the whole thing, is helpful - also i think its what Pimsleur kind of does). 

I was listening so much harder because i was not looking at the text, and since i was focusing so much on replicating HOW it sounded i didn’t have time to think ‘ok what is this word, what is its pinyin, what is its tone, what tone changes do i do if it’s 3 3rd tone hanzi in a row’... whereas when im speaking to someone, or myself, i can think all of that first (tho it slows down my speech). but since shadowing the point is to replicate and learn from imitating correct pronunciations (instead of seeing pronunciations on paper), it required a lot more active listening. and i think its probably very good training for speaking skills, speaking ease, and again active listening. maybe also for ingraining tones in words and phrases... i know the tones with words, but i constantly CONSTANTLY have to think about it when i’m speaking like ‘did i say the right one? did i change it when i was supposed to? if i say this phrase what part do i change?’ and even if i know what i’m talking about and know the words i just slow down a lot. so maybe more shadowing will help make more of this a bit more instinctive?

anyway. super hard lol.

i tried with some sentences in Chinese Spoonfed Audio files i have, just because its simple learner material, and already has a built in pause to repeat. And i still fumbled brutally over my words lol! doing this from a show sounds even horrifically harder! So... catch me trying to do it eventually, sometime much sooner than i feel ready for it! 

I remember i used to do it just months into learning chinese, but it was just for simple stuff since those were easy words to pick up: 该死，你知道吗 没事吧， 你怎么了，你放心，别担心，明白了吗？，好名字，他死了，没问题，我没事，太好了，行了，行不行，是不是，还有，我喜欢你，什么东西，天的，漂亮 etc. After stuff got more complicated i basically stopped trying to repeat after shows, i felt i made so many tone mistakes etc constantly i decided it was too hard and i might be reinforcing bad habits if i don’t look at pinyin with tones marked ToT (when i say ‘do shadowing’ i do not mean recording myself or doing anything nearly as impressive and structured as you described lol ToT i mean literally just repeating the character whenever they said something i could say easily after - and those kinds of phrases above i heard enough to do that and were short enough to).

while i think yeah that stunted my speaking a lot? i also am not sure if the judgement call i made was kind of solid to be fair. i was very confused by tones until about a year in when i had a language exchange partner for a while - i had been pronouncing 3rd tone like the 2nd tone, had been rising my 3rd tone too often, and was told basically GO LOWER - LOWEERRRRRR. Until i finally grasped ‘ok 3rd tone is more like just the LOW’ tone. and if you pronounce it fully like in an elongated wo... wo bu zhidao, then yeah you will hear it dip then go up. And if its before another 3rd tone its a 2nd tone. but if you just hear it, you’re generally hearing ‘low’ without really much rise, and starting lower than the 4th tone drop (so the drop in 3rd tone isn’t as clear). And until someone TOLD ME 3rd tone was so low i just had no idea, i could NOT even hear it right. And that’s why i still have some fears about shadowing... if i do NOT know a language feature? I have a decent chance of literally being UNABLE to hear it. Unable to hear it correctly, unable to notice it. For me i literally could NOT tell how my 3rd tone sounded wrong. I had to be told to notice ‘THIS IS HOW LOW IT GOES’ and ‘GO LOWER’ constantly until i got it. With 1st tone, i kept accidentally doing 2nd tone because i could NOT hear that i was raising my voice at the end. It took someone repeatedly telling me its not so much ‘high’ as it is ‘completely level’. 1st tone u do not raise or lower ur pitch! i did not even hear myself doing it until i got called out and constantly tried to consciously notice if i was keeping it the same exact level or not. 

And now i get the same issues with ‘c’ and ‘sh’ and ‘b’ and ‘q’ noise in chinese... i use the app 普通话学习 to practice pronunciation (it grades you). And no matter what i can RARELY hear how i do ‘c’ and ‘sh’ and ‘b’ wrong. I have listened to examples, i’ve repeated them, i’ve read different books way of describing the sounds. In the app i try to repeat the hanzi that start with those over and over, and whether i get ‘perfect’ or ‘wtf did you say’ is literally luck. i cannot tell at all how i am mistakenly pronouncing them, when i say them wrong. i can’t hear my mistake at all, i can’t hear any difference between my pronunciation and the examples. (Same with ‘eng’ and ‘en’ endings... but i think i might.. maybe hear a difference in my pronunciation to theirs... still though i have no idea). 

So a big reason i didn’t shadow much, ESPECIALLY trying to shadow without pinyin to look at and DOUBLE check i know the correct tone etc, is because i worry i will keep reinforcing bad pronunciation i can’t even HEAR in my own voice. I will go ‘ok yes finally! i imitated the audio right!’ and then not realize i fucked up 4 things i just cannot hear properly. I just cannot tell i’m even doing wrong. I worry about that significantly less now, since i generally always get my tones right if i know them... so i’m guessing i have a solid enough sense of how they’re supposed to ‘correctly’ sound now that if i hear them in audio without text, i will have enough in my brain to instinctively recognize its a part of the sound that exists and replicate it as i’m hearing it. (though i am still constantly afraid i’ll hear a tone wrong, replicate wrong, and not even fucking notice i’m making a mistake). Now most of the fear is just with those couple initials and finals i just... fuck up half the time and CANNOT hear why they’re wrong. i can’t hear the difference at all. but i’ve been consistently messing them up for like 4 months now so... if i haven’t improved them in this long, i might as well still do some practice like with shadowing. i’ve been using that pronunciation app, and even with all of it doing its best to tell me ‘it sounds WRONG’ i can’t tell. so i could call using that app ‘reinforcing bad habits’ at that point just as much as shadowing, maybe. i get the sounds right half the time, wrong all the time, cannot hear the difference. so i don’t think shadowing is gonna hurt me much more than i’m already hurting myself here... since its pretty clear unless i get someone to explain, i’m unable to fix these bits. 

anyway that is the tldr for why i didn’t shadow much at all. and maybe... maybe my tones are decent enough now... i might try a bit more. although when i tried yesterday, i was literally so afraid i fucked up the tones that i went to look up the sentences to double check i hadn’t. and i still could not ‘name’ the tones i was saying as i repeated them in shadowing. i was too busy speaking, i had no idea IF i was doing tones or WHICH ones i was just focusing EVERYTHING on trying to remember the sounds i heard and repeat. not the meaning, not the words specifically, not the tones lol. yes i am a mess lol ToT

[dreamcatcherfication]

The Queens of London Part 6 - What Am I To Do With My Life?

Man, I wrote this at like... 1 AM and it shows, it really shows.

Hello everyone, welcome back! I know it’s been a while (2 weeks!) since I’ve posted another chapter for this fic, but I got really busy with a bunch of other stuff, so it kept getting pushed back. I know you guys are used to getting pampered with new fics coming out everyday, but I still have a lot of stuff to balance, and sometimes my longer fics get put on hold as I get things back on track. But not to worry, we’re here now, and I’m not abandoning this fic! I didn’t get to edit this chapter, so I’m going to post it unedited and I’ll go back through and edit it later today when I have time. I hope you enjoy this part and that it suffices for a 1 AM keyboard smash. Sorry for any spelling/grammatical errors, my body is on fire and yes that can be interpreted figuratively or literally.

Writing Masterpost

If you want to send a request or a prompt, my inbox is always open! I publish a story at 8:00 AM PST everyday, so I’m always in need of new ideas. If you want to be tagged in my works, just let me know and I’ll be sure to tag you!

Prompts | More Prompts | The Trifecta of Prompts | Original Prompts

Trigger Warnings: Depression, feelings of worthlessness, self destructive thoughts

Kat was sitting on her couch, legs curled up to her chest and a cup of hot chocolate in her hand. She was in her pajamas and her hair was a complete mess. Kat’s guitar was leaning against the wall, it’s chords unused and forgotten. After her failure with the queens, it had been impossible for Kat to find it in herself to get up and street perform during the day. She couldn’t go out and watch Jane walk by. She couldn’t perform knowing that she had let down the people who had been depending so heavily on her.

It should’ve been obvious to her this whole time. Kat knew from the start she wasn’t a queen, nor was she a lady. She was in way over her head, that much had always been clear. But after the party at Henry’s house, it was practically spelled out in glittering letters for Kat. She didn’t belong. Never had, never would. Plain and simple. So why should she try?

The depressive haze had taken over Kat’s body as she sat in a ball on the couch, her eyes blankly staring at the wall. She didn’t have a television, so all she could look at was the moldy walls that housed her. It was disgusting to her, the life she lived, but it was all she had. To believe, even for a second, that she could trade it for fancy suits and lavish parties… 

Kat was naive to think anything would change. She knew better now. She knew that she couldn’t keep this charade up, and she certainly wasn’t cut out to be a queen. Not now, not ever. 

The knock on the door wasn’t enough to shake Kat out of her blank staring. She didn’t answer it, choosing to stay silent and still. There was rustling on the other side of the door before the lock clicked and it opened up.

Walking into the room with a small bag, Anne frowned at Kat’s appearance. “Kat, why are you in your pajamas, we got a meeting tonight?”

Shrugging, Kat barely reacted to Anne’s question. She hummed something noncommittal and squeezed herself tighter into a ball. “Kat, come on,” Anne set the bag down and moved over to her cousin. “You can’t just wallow here for eternity.”

“Yes I can,” Kat mumbled before groaning and unfurling herself. “Just go away Anne.”

Sitting down on the couch, Anne flicked some lint off the crusty plush furtniture. “I’m not going to leave you here alone. Tell me what’s up?”

Dropping her eyes, Kat sighed. Without looking in Anne’s eyes, she answered, “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.”

Not believing it for a second, Anne moved closer to the teen. “Come on, I can tell that something’s up. You can tell me.” “Why?” Kat glared at her own hands defensively. “So you can make fun of me?”

“I won’t make fun of you,” Anne argued, almost putting her hand on Kat’s back but thinking better of it. “Promise. Cross my heart.”

Kat didn’t trust Anne’s words, but she spilled anyway. “I’m a failure. I let you and the others down. I haven’t belonged here since day one and I’ve only made things worse and harder for you all. I shouldn’t be here.”

Letting the words bounce off her, Anne huffed. “Come on now, that’s not true. We knew from the start it would be hard, none of this is your fault. And I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Anne paused dramatically before continuing, “None of us belong. None of us are really friends - except Cathy and Aragon, and each of our ladies. We’re all struggling Kat, not just you.”

Anne’s confession made Kat feel slightly better, but it was still overshadowed by her fear and doubt. “But at least you all have a reason, a motivation. Something important that you contribute. I’m nobody.”

“And yet you’re perfect,” Anne assured her. “When you watch a spy movie, does the government pick that famous billionaire or the naive looking ‘newbie’ to go undercover.”

Kat shrugged. “I don’t know, I don’t think I’ve ever been able to see a spy movie.”

“Okay -” Anne reiterated, “What I’m trying to say is being ‘nobody’ is exactly what we need. You’re practically invincible if you can’t be tracked down. You’re special Kat, far more special than any of us.”

The words sunk into Kat’s skin, even though she tried to keep them out. Kat wanted to say that she was worthless, because it was easier to hate herself than to look into Anne’s eyes and believe her promises. “I’m going to quit.” The forcefulness of her statement surprised Kat herself, but she held firm. Even when Anne gave her a pleading face, Kat didn’t budge. “I’m going to tell them the truth and I’m going to quit.”

Scrambling for a reply, Anne stood up. “At least come to tonight's meeting. Sit through the meeting and make your decision by the end. If you still want to back out, then I won’t stop you. But please, at least think about staying?”

Kat nodded, although internally she had already made up her mind. There was no way she was going to let the queens convince her to stay. Standing up to go change out of her pajamas, Kat froze a few steps away from Anne. “What’s in the bag you brought?”

“Hmm?” Anne turned her head to the bag. “Oh, nothing much. Just some food I bought from Tescos for you.”

Biting her lip, Kat went into her room and grabbed a change of clothes. She muttered lowly enough that Anne couldn’t hear, “I don’t need your pity,” as she got ready.

The familiar table sent shivers up Kat’s spine as Aragon went over the recap of the failed party. Kat was drowning out the woman’s voice, her shoulders hunched in as she waited for it to end. It felt like all the women were staring at her, blaming her for what had happened. It was all too much, but Kat wouldn’t let herself break down in front of them. She would keep her Katherine Brandon facade for one more night, and then it would end.

“We’ve got some news,” Joan spoke up when Aragon was done. “Maria’s been spending some time creating a code, and she’s finally ready to share.”

Maria made her way to the head of the table and set her hands down. “Yesterday we only had a single earpiece for Cathy, but Maggie’s been making sure we get them for each and every one of you. It took some time, but I’ve figured out the best way we can interact with each other using these. It’s going to seem quite simple, but it’s actually extraordinary. You see, each of you are assigned a number, and with those numbers, we and your fellow queens can contact you.”

“Interesting,” Anna stuck out her bottom lip in appreciation.

Leaning forward, Jane asked, “So what are our numbers?”

“Very basic,” Maria explained, “Aragon is one.” The CEO nodded. “Anne is two.”

Blanching, Anne rocked in her seat. “Really, I’m second to Aragon?”

Narrowing her eyes, Maria shook her head. “It’s not a contest of who’s better. The numbers are a timeline. You’re all arranged in the order in which you met Henry.”

Freezing, Kat set her eyes on the table. She was being put in this pattern that didn’t even apply to her. She was going to mess it up in a matter of minutes when she revealed herself. Anne shot Kat a glance across the table, but the girl missed it. “Three, Jane Seymour.” There was no reaction on Jane’s face, but behind her eyes there was a flash of pain. Maria continued, “Four, Anna.” The German woman tipped an imaginary hat. “Five, Kat.”

Acting like she had expected it in the first place, Kat nodded not particularly caring about her number. She would be five for five minutes, and then it wouldn’t matter. “And Cathy, number six. Whenever we address you in code, it will be using these numbers,” Maria finished.

“Sounds good to me,” Cathy affirmed. “I think that’s the last thing we had planned for tonight. If anyone has anything else to share, please do.”

Nervously, Anne watched Kat. The teen was psyching herself up, preparing for her admittal. Opening her mouth, Kat’s opening words were drowned out by Anna’s much stronger voice. “Actually, I do.”

“Anna,” Bessie warned as if she knew what was about to happen.

Shutting her mouth, Kat let the other woman talk first. “I was delivering a suit to Henry this morning, checking up on him after the party. He had a terrible hangover and straight up told Bessie and me that he’s going to be stuck at his office from tomorrow night through the morning.”

Standing up as well, Aragon scratched her nails on the table. “Did he seem suspicious of you at all?”

“Not one bit,” Anna spoke proudly. “We’re safe, for now. It didn’t even seem like he remembered anything from last night, so Kat’s still in the perfect position to sneak in and get the evidence we need. We aren’t finished.”

Breath hitching, Kat watched her hands. Her cover wasn’t blown? She could still… she could still do her job? If there was any way she could make up for what she ruined… “I’m in,” Kat shot up out of her chair, making a split second decision.

Anne’s mouth opened in shock when she saw Kat’s determination return to her eyes. Kat wasn’t done yet. “That’s good, because we’ll need you now more than ever,” Anna addressed Kat.

“What exactly are you saying Anna?” Jane questioned.

Smirking, Anna cracked her knuckles. “I’m saying it’s time for some good old fashioned breaking and entering.”

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Tag List:

@radcowboyalmondtree @boleynhowards @annabanana2401 @babeebobo @dont-lose-your-queerhead @everything-insanity @mindless-pidgeon @i-wanna-dance-and-sing-six @thedemidisaster @its-totes-gods-will @thatbolxyngirl @thenameisnoone @sixqueendom

[you-a-southpaw-doll]

Buzzed - A Negan One-Shot

Summary: After an incident in the Sanctuary, Leigh takes matters into her own hands. What will Negan’s response be? 

Warning(s): Language. Angst. Attempted rape. Violence. Death. Slight Panic Attack. Anxiety. Leigh being a badass. Negan caught off guard (no pun intended). Mentions of what could be considered self-harm. Daddy kink, but not really. You’ll see. Protective Negan. Fluff. Sexual Innuendoes. Puns (Sorry Not Sorry!). Happy ending. Not Beta’d. I just finished writing this and had to post it! Sorry for any errors.

Author’s Note(s): 

I cut my hair myself, usually every 2 weeks, but no more than 3 weeks. I just can’t have my hair touch my ears; it makes my anxiety 10 times worse, and in a way, I kinda explain the reason behind that in this story. I was cutting my hair tonight, (it’s now 2:30 am, 5/24/2020) and I thought of this story idea and Negan’s reaction to the main character having short hair. 

Also, if any of the warnings are triggering for you, please don’t force yourself to read. The last thing I’d want to do is trigger someone into having a panic attack. Feel free to give me any feedback, thoughts, questions, comments and/or concerns you have with the story. I love hearing from y’all! 

As always, if you’d like to be added to my taglist, just let me know and I’ll happily add you!! 

Word Count: 5,301. (A lot, I know, but I think it’s worth it, and I just couldn’t get everything I wanted across in less words, so enjoy!)

Relationship(s): Negan x Leigh Sullivan (OFC)

Characters: Negan. Leigh Sullivan (OFC). Simon. Dr. Carson. 3 unnamed Original Male Characters. Sanctuary People.

Taglist: @negans-network @prettyboynegan @mychemicalimagines @spnnnxangelsx @rockinkel21 @misskittycat02 @band--psycho@ofxallxwexlost @iron-halt @thamberlinawrites @ravenwings73 @lettherebepink @stoneyggirl

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Story Time:

Leigh’s P.O.V. ~ Then

They’d caught me off guard, for once. 

Normally, I never let anything or anyone catch me off guard. Or at least...I tried not to. Due to having anxiety, I was usually hyper-aware of shit going on. But, today, my anxiety had eased off after the relaxing morning I’d had with my husband. We’d spent the morning, snuggled up in his big king-sized bed, just shooting the shit and goofing off. 

He didn’t have to go out on a run today, so there was no need to rush the morning like we normally had to 95% of the time. Eventually, though, the day had to get started. Dwight came knocking on the door, interrupting our relaxation time, saying he needed my husband for something. Being the man my husband is, he grumbled, cussed Dwight out, and then got outta bed while apologizing to me for the interruption and assuring me we’d finish relaxing when he got back later.

After a kiss, and a soft “I love you,” he was gone. Off to do what he did. It was my day off, so I laid in bed for a little longer before I too got up, dressed, and made my rounds. As the top female Savior, something I’d worked my ass off, fought for, and took seriously, I said hi to who I needed to, did what I needed to, and finally, sat down under my favorite tree out by the greenhouses. 

I laid my leather jacket on the ground next to me, leaving me in my usually black t-shirt, holey but patched up and well worn blue jeans, and faded brown leather boots. Strapped to each thigh was a holster. In the right one was my signature gun, a .357 Magnum, 6-shot revolver. In the left holster, I kept my handcrafted 6 inch blade that I made back when I was 15, well over half a decade, shit closer to a decade ago, considering I was almost 25.

Bending my knees, and pulling them close in a comfortable position, I propped up the notebook I usually kept in my leather satchel with two backup knives, an extra gun, ammo, and a spare notebook for work along with several pens and pencils. The writing equipment was a rare commodity these days, so I always kept them close to me.

As I was writing a story I’d started a few days prior, I zoned out just a bit, focusing on it. I’d started writing when I was just 12 years old, and kept the habit up, even now, 3 years after the world ended and the dead started walking back in 2020 after the Coronavirus outback after the new year, new decade had started. 

I was writing, losing myself in the words I printed on the paper in my chicken scratch. I say chicken scratch ‘cause, well...that’s basically what it was. As a lefty, my handwriting wasn’t necessarily the best, and a doctor’s prescription note was probably more legible. It was a mixture between slanted and curved print and semi-elegant at times cursive. 

But, it was my handwriting, and I could read it. My husband sometimes had difficulty reading it, but he’d always put his black-rimmed glasses on, and fuck if they didn’t make him look sexier than he already was. Because of that, I sneakily wrote a little sloppier when I knew he’d have to read something from my notes about the runs I went on.

It was all an excuse to see him with those glasses perched on his nose, giving him that sexy professor look. He thought they made him look ridiculous, but I loved it. Since I was writing and zoned out, I wasn’t nearly as focused on my surroundings. I didn’t think I had to be. The tree was my safe spot when I wasn’t with my husband.

The Sanctuary was a relatively safe place, and that was thanks to the rules that were in place. So, it’d make sense that I wouldn’t focus on my surroundings as much and relax a bit as I wrote. But, boy was I wrong. I just didn’t realize it till it was far too late. Before I realized what was happening, I was being punched in the right side of my face, slinging my head to the side, as my notebook and bag were jerked away from me and my hair was roughly pulled, jerking my head backwards.

I went to grab my gun and my knife, but they’d already been taken from me. My eyes flirted back and forth in front of me, trying to process what was going on. But, everything was blurry and I was dizzy from the hit. I could barely make out three men close to me, far too close to me. They were basically on top of me. 

Fuck. One of them actually was. I could feel the weight of him straddling my thighs, keeping me from standing. I couldn’t hear anything as the beating of my heart flooded my ears. I tried to fight back as best as I could, but the other two men grabbed my hands and jerked them away from my body and pinning them to the ground as they shoved my upper body down.

When they jerked my arms away, I felt, more than heard, my left shoulder dislocate. I clenched my jaw. The pain wasn’t anything new. I’d been dealing with a shoulder that dislocates when I fuckin’ sneeze since I was 13 years old. The pain, when it happened, was now at a tolerable level since I was so used to it happening.

I didn’t cry out. I knew not to. Plus, the wasn’t the type of person I was. I knew what was ‘bout to happen. It, like my shoulder, was something I’d had to put with for years growing. It wasn’t anything new either. But, that didn’t mean it was enjoyable. It was anything but. I barely processed my jeans being jerked down my hips and past my knees. 

I could just barely hear the men laughing and joking around with each other, talking ‘bout what they were going to do to me and wondering why the fuck I was wearing two pairs of boxers under my jeans. I watched them, as best as I could with my vision being what it was. When the blurriness faded just enough, I could make out their features and recognized them as members of the new group that was brought in last week. 

Members I’d brought into the Sanctuary. Into my house. I dropped my head back down to the ground and groaned to myself. I let my body go slack, waiting for the perfect time. When the men realized I wasn’t struggling anymore, they laughed and the two dumbfucks holding my arms down eased up on their grip.

The man on my legs lifted himself up just enough push his own pants down. Their easing up on their grip was their mistake and ultimately what led to their demise. Since they weren’t paying attention to me, thinking I’d just given up, and instead focusing on getting their baby carrot sized dicks outta their pants, I was able to strike back. 

I immediately brought both my hands up, fingers curled in to form perfect fists without worry of possibly breaking my thumbs, ignoring the protest of my left shoulder, and cocked both the men on my sides straight in the noses. I internally smiled at the sounds of their noses breaking and their screams of pain. 

They stumbled back just a little bit, hands covering their faces as they clutched their noses in an attempt to stop the extensive amount of blood falling. Clearly, I caught the man on top me off guard with my actions and he was shocked for a moment. It was perfect. I bucked him up off me, managed to jerk my pants up as I stood. 

All one fluid motion.

Since he was still obviously in shock at me suddenly fighting back, he stumbled, tripping, and falling backwards on the ground. He tried to scurry backwards as fast as as he could. Despite being 5’3”, I was able to stay with him. I slammed my boot down on his stomach, making him howl in pain and wheeze as he struggled to get the air back that i’d just forced outta his lungs.

I kept my foot on his gut, putting most of my weight on it, digging the worn sole into his abdomen. He let out a sad excuse for a grunt as I did. I just smirked. This fucked had no idea who he’d fucked, or tried to fuck with. I leaned down and started pummeling the shit outta his face, keeping him in place with my foot.

Since he couldn’t get fresh air back into his lungs because of the position of my foot, he was too weak to try and fight back. To say I was a little disappointed at not having a challenge, would be like saying the dead weren’t walking around. It was a lie. I was disappointed, and I fueled that disappointment in with the anger as I literally beat him to death. 

He kept trying to apologize, tried to plead with me, to not kill him, but I didn’t give a fuck. He was ‘bout to rape me, and I’d had ‘nough of that in my life. I wasn’t putting up with it. I eased up just before I knew he was about to die. Gave him false hope into letting him think his words had affected me. I let him get one last breath in as I completely lifted my foot off his torso. 

“Than-” He started to say, but I cut him off as I slammed my boot into his face, effectively crushing his skull. 

“Don’t fuckin’ thank me, prick.” I muttered to him as I wiped my boot off on his once clean but now bloody clothes. “You fuckin’ ruined my goddamn favorite fuckin’ pair of boots, asshole.”

Before I turned away from him, I spit on his crushed skull. Since it was destroyed, I didn’t have to worry ‘bout him coming back as a dean’un. I was a little sad that I wouldn’t get to kill him a second time, but he’d gotten what he deserved. Turning to the other two dumbfucks, I repeated my actions, and did to them exactly what I’d just done to their friend.

I knew my husband was going to be pissed that I killed these men, instead of letting him do it, but I’d deal with that. I wasn’t going to let these fuckers back inside the relatively safe concrete walls of the factory that was the Sanctuary. By the time I was down stomping in the skull of the third man, I looked up, as I finished, and noticed that I’d gathered quite an audience.

Including Simon. The right-hand man, third person in charge of the Sanctuary. His, and everyone else’s, eyes were wide, and everyone was silent. I knew I was gonna be in trouble since they’d just seen me stomp the life outta three men, but I didn’t give a fuck. I had shit to do. I gathered up my weapons, my jacket, and bag after shoving my shit into it and stormed inside the Sanctuary, flipping everyone off, not wanting to deal with their gawking.

Not caring ‘bout my bloody appearance, I made my way to the commissary, needing to grab a few things before I went back to my room. I found what I needed: a new pair of jeans identical to the ones i was wearing, a new t-shirt, undergarments, a pair of boots and a special item, an unopened, brand new boxed set of hair clippers. 

Once I had what I needed, I stormed up to the room I share with my husband, stripping down to my bra and one pair of boxers when i get there.

Leigh’s P.O.V. ~ Now

“What the fuck was that fuckin’ shit out there, Leigh?!?” 

I sigh as I hear my husband storm into our room, the door slamming shut behind him. I look at myself in the mirror as I lay the scissors down on the bathroom counter by the sink and pick up the clippers. Turning them on, I don’t reply to my husband. Not wanting to explain to him what happened at the moment.

I stare at myself in the mirror as I bring the clippers up to my shortened hair. I press the #2 guard to my head and move it backwards from my forehead to the back of my head, sticking to the once familiar hairline I used to see and live by religiously. I watch as the hair falls, joining the rest of my once long, curly locks, on the floor by my feet. I use my fingers to guide my movements, making sure I don’t go too high and completely fuck up my hair.

Once I have the hairline visible, separating what I want to keep and what I want to shave off, I move the guard down below my ear and with practiced ease, I shave the sides and back of head, getting rid of the hair. Keeping an eye on myself, making sure I don’t fuck up my haircut, not that I would since I used to do this every 2-3 weeks, I watch as my husband steps into the bathroom.

I watch as his eyes nearly bulge outta their sockets when he sees me. I watch as the anger vanishes from his face and body, being replaced with worry, sadness, and a hint of curiosity. I watch as his eyes traveling over the reflection of my face in the mirror, taking in my black eye, bruised and split open cheek, covered in blood and even the nasty black eye I’m now sporting.

I watch as he slowly moves his eyes up to meet mine in the mirror. 

“What...what are you doing?” He asks softly. 

My left eyebrow shoots sky high as I look at him. My husband rarely says a sentence without cussing every other word. And yet...he just asked a simple question without one sentence enhancer thrown in. 

“What the fuck’s it look like I’m doing? I’m cutting my hair.” I say. “Decided I needed a new fuckin’ look. Don’t you fuckin’ love it?” 

I know I’m being Captain fuckin’ Obvious at the moment, and a bit harsh, but I’m not ready to tell him what happened. That’s for after I get done. Cutting my hair is the only thing keeping me from completely shutting down and giving in to the panic attack that’s trying to take over. I watch as he lets out a deep breath as he slowly steps into the bathroom, padding across the tiled floor to me.

He places his hands on my shoulders and I do my best not to flinch. But he still sees it and quickly lifts his hands off me, holding them up in a surrendering pose. I know he’d never hurt me, and he was the one to save my life after this shit hole of a world started three years ago. But, I can’t help it. The feeling of those fuckers’ hands on me, plus the fact that my shoulder is still dislocated, keeps me from wanting to be touched.  

“Can...let me help. Please, sweetheart.” My husband’s soft drawl meets my ears.

“No. I need to do this myself.” I reply, tightening my grip on the clippers.

I watch as his Adam’s apple bobs up and down in his throat as he swallows deeply and nods. I keep my eyes on his in the mirror and finish cutting my hair. It’s been three years since I’ve cut my hair, but the muscle memory is still there. It’s like riding a bike. My husband watches as I finish shaving the sides of my head down to where there’s just a bit of peach fuzz. 

Switching the clippers off, I replace the guard with a #1 and go back over the bottom hairline on the base of my neck. Once I have that done, I take the guard off completely and just put the metal of the clippers to the back of my neck doing my best not to flinch at the burning heat coming off it as it meets my skin. 

I take that little strip down so there’s no hair there, running along along the hairline on my neck. I use the blending guard and even out the area, making the hair have a fade. Replacing the blending guard with the #7, I bring it up to the patch of hair on my head, and trim it down. When I finish, my feet are covered with a mountain of what used to be the long, thick, curly hair on my head.

My neck and shoulders are also covered with the little strands of hair that I buzzed off. Setting the clippers on the counter, I run my hands over the buzz cut I now sport and take in a deep, shaky breath. I let my head drop down, pressing my chin to chest and take another shaky breath in after letting out one. 

“Baby?” My husband asks softly.

I lift my head and look up at him. My eyes roam over the unzipped black leather jacket he’s wearing over his standard white t-shirt and down to the grey jeans he’s wearing, held up by two leather belts. I let my eyes rest on his feet, no longer hidden by his own pair of black combat boots, but rather a pair of white socks. 

Taking in another deep breath, I bring my eyes up to meet his. I can see the worry swimming in his muddy water brown eyes. I shake my head as i start to take my bra off and push my boxers down, stepping outta them as the pool ‘round my ankles.

“I need a shower.” I mumble and step ‘round him to walk to the stunning shower we share.

I grip the knobs tightly as I turn the water on, as hot as it’ll go. I need to feel the pain of the burning water over my skin. If I don’t, I know I’ll give in to that panic attack that’s already  on the verge of consuming me. Stepping into the shower, I glance back at my husband over my shoulder. 

“You can…” I mumble.

He nods as he understands what I’m trying to say. I look away, for the first time since we met, and eventually became intimate, not wanting to watch him undress. I know that if I were to watch, I’d see those assholes tugging their pants down, and I don’t want that. I don’t want my husband to be mixed in with them.

Standing under the burning hot water, feeling it flow over and pelt my skin, I bring my hands up and tightly grip what’s left of my hair, tugging on it. I feel Negan step into the shower, behind me. I don’t have to look.  I know he’s there. I can feel the heat rolling off his skin, along with the worry and helplessness. 

He hasn’t seen me like this in three years, and even then, it wasn’t this bad. I blindly reach for the bottle of men’s body wash he and I share and I vigorously scrub my body with it. Trying to get the touch and the blood of those men off me. It takes four harsh washes and rinses before I even begin to feel clean. 

Negan just stands behind me, leaning against the back wall of the shower. He’s giving me my space while still letting me know he’s right there if I need him. The bottle slips outta my hands when I go to pour more of the soapy liquid into my palm. I’d leave it there, but Negan gently reaches around me, picking it up. 

I hear the bottle open and can tell he’s pouring some into his own hands. I figure he’s just gonna wash his body until I feel his soft and gentle touch on my skin. I flinch and tremble at first, but eventually give into the feeling of him touching me. He takes his time, gently washing me, letting me get clean for the final time. 

Letting me know that it’s ok. That it’s over. That’s he’s got me. That he’ll take care of me. Neither of us say a word as he takes the removable showerhead from it’s dock and gently rinses me off after he turns the cold water on, letting the temperature of the water mix until it’s no longer burning, but rather warm and gentle.

He lets the showerhead drop and dangle as he turns the water off and steps out. I keep my eyes closed and feel him wrap a soft towel around me. I open my eyes and bring them to meet his, only to find him staring at my dislocated shoulder. He blinks and his tongue darts out just a little from between his lips.

“Want me to put it back in place, sweetheart?” 

I nod slowly. 

“Put your right arm ‘round my waist, baby, and I will.”

I follow his soft command and a moment later, I feel his palms against my left shoulder. He’s helped me pop my shoulder back into place enough over the last few years that he knows what he’s doing. I suck in a deep, shaky breath right as he pops it back into place. I bit my lip to hold back the whimper from the pain.

As soon as he’s done, he wraps both his arms ‘round me and just holds me close as I bury my face against his wet chest. We don’t say another word for a solid 10 minutes. He just holds me as we stand in the bathroom, water pooling ‘round our feet. Eventually, he gently scoops me up in his arms and carries me to bed. 

Sitting down on it, he just holds me in his lap, not saying anything. I know it’s his way of helping me get outta the panic attack and also letting me know that he’s listening when I’m ready to talk. It takes me a hot minute before I get the words out, and even then they’re just a whisper.

“They...they were trying to rape me.”

I hear him let out a growl and his arms tighten ‘round me, protectively. That’s his number one rule. Rape is not allowed. Followed by the prohibition of abusing women and children. He doesn’t say a word, letting me continue. I tell him everything that happened, as I tremble in his arms. He just holds me close, softly rubbing my back and taking even breaths to help me subconsciously focus on keeping my own breathing even.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there, baby.” He finally murmurs after I finish recounting the events. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. They got what they deserved. I just wish I could’ve introduced them to Lucille.” 

My eyes flirt over to the barbed-wire baseball bat propped up against the wall by our bedroom door. She’s surprisingly clean. I guess Negan didn’t have to dish out any punishments today. Only I did.

“I’m so fuckin’ proud of you, though, baby.” He whispers in my ear.

I look up at him, confused. “Proud?”

He nods. “Mmhhmm. You shut that shit down, and kept your cool until you were up here. I don’t know how you fuckin’ managed that, but I’m not surprised. I heard what you did, heard how you described it, and fuck, baby. I wish I’d seen you go Rambo on their asses. You’re my badass girl. I’m proud of you.”

A small smile tugs at my lips. Despite the events of the day, and me doing what I did, my husband still manages to make me smile. He slowly brings one hand up, keeping it in my line of sight, and cups my good cheek. 

“Will you let me send Carson up here to stitch your cheek up and get you checked out?”

His eyes search mine, waiting for my reply, and hoping I’ll let him. I nod against his palm, and he lets out a deep breath. He reaches over to the nightstand and plucks his radio off it. His thumb pressed against the side button.

“Carson. Get your fuckin’ ass up to my room now, and bring your bag. Fuckin’ now.” He growls into the receiver.

“Yes, sir.” Comes the doctor’s reply not even  a moment later.

Negan then pushes the button down again and talks.

“Simon. Bring two plates of food up to my room. Now. And make sure it’s some good shit too.”

Simon replies in the affirmative and Negan sets his radio down. He looks back at me and places his palm back against my good cheek. A gesture that always makes me relax.

“Can I ask why you cut your hair?” He asks softly.

“I refuse to let another man tug me around by hair, guiding me to do his bidding,  especially during a situation like earlier. It was a flashback to my dad doing what he did. It’s why I’ve also cut my own hair. It’s the one thing I about my body that I can control. So, I keep it short and no man will ever be able to use my hair against me again.” I say, the truth just spilling out. “Plus, having it touch my ears, always made my anxiety ten times worse.”

He knows what my dad did, and he’s known that tugging on my hair was a hard limit for me. So, he never did it, which is why I let my hair grow out. I felt safe around him. I still do. But, having long hair is just a liability, and I refuse to be put in that situation again. He nods in understanding.

“I’m gonna miss your curls, though.” He says. “And waking up with a mouthful of your hair in my mouth.”

I can’t help but giggle at that. It’s true. Most mornings, he’d wake up, sputtering to spit out the strands of my hair that ended up in his mouth as we slept next to each other.

“I left enough on top so you can still play with my hair, babe. And, there’s still enough to run your fingers through it.” I assure him.

“Can I?”

I nod and a moment later, I feel his fingers on his other hand stroke through my wet hair, lightly massaging my scalp as he does. I let out a soft moan at the feeling and lean into his touch on my cheek, closing my eyes. He chuckles as he plays with my hair.

“If that’s your reaction to me doing that every single fuckin’ time, I could get used to it. And I’ll just have to get used to having an even stiffer hard on from the soft moans.” He smirks as he looks at me.

I blush and open my eyes looking up at him. “You're my husband. I think I can manage helping you out with the baseball bat you have in your pants.”

He laughs softly. “Yea?”

I grin. “Mmhhmm. You’re fond of Lucille. I’m quite fond of your own bat.”

He grins, showing off his dimples. “I’m fuckin’ fond of you, baby. Have been since we first met in the woods. Why else do you think I got rid of the wives years ago?”

I try not to grin as I shrug. “It was the only way you were getting in my pants and scoring a homerun.”

He laughs and shakes his head. “Not the only reason, baby. It was because I love you, Leigh.”

I grin from ear to ear and turn my head to place a soft kiss to his palm. “I love you too, Negan.”

Before he can say anything else, there’s a timid knock on the door.

“Come the fuck in!” Negan calls out, holding me close.

Dr. Carson comes in. He’s no longer as nervous as he used to be when I first showed up. But he’s still a little nervous around the man. I’ve gotten Negan to ease up on the fear of himself he’s instilled in people, and gotten him to be nicer in the way he treats folks. He’s not the bat-wielding lunatic he was when we first met. 

He’s the man I always knew he was.

A soft, 6’2” teddy bear wrapped in leather. 

My soft, 6’2” teddy bear wrapped in leather. 

After Carson checks me out, determines nothing’s broken, assures me that everything is good, and stitches my cheek up, he leaves. Negan helps me get dressed in a pair of his boxers under my new jeans and one of his shirts before he pulls on a pair of sweatpants. Simon comes in shortly after I finish getting dressed, holding a tray of food for Negan and I. 

His eyes widen as he looks at me, taking in my new appearance.

“What, Si? Never seen a girl with short hair before?” I ask, teasing.

He shakes his head. “I have. I just wasn’t expecting you to have cut your own. It looks good on you, fitting.”

I smile. “Thanks, Si.”

Leaning up, I kiss his cheek and then kick him out before Negan can Lucille him for staring at me. My husband knows Simon’s like a dad to me, the dad I never had, and that there’s nothing there. He just gets jealous and protective over me, not liking other men to stare. And, for once, I’m thankful, given the events of today.

As we eat, Negan and I stay on the bed, me snuggled up to his side. When we’re finished though, I look up at him.��

“I have to tell you something else.” I say.

His eyebrow raises and he looks at me, grining. “What’s that? You planning on buzzing anything else?” 

I laugh and playfully slap his bare chest. “No, asshole.”

He pretends to be hurt and rubs his chest, grinning. “Damn, girl. That hurt.”

I laugh and kiss his chest where I smacked him. “Feel better, Daddy?”

He grins that dimpled grin again and nods. “Mmhhmm. Now, what else you gotta tell me, babygirl?”

I smirk. “Well, Daddy…you see...”

He growls low in his throat. “Don’t tease me, little girl.”

I giggle. “I’m not, Daddy.”

I bring my hand down to rub my tummy. 

“You full from eating?” He asks, covering my hand on my tummy, rubbing what he thinks is a food baby.

“Nope. But, it’s nice to see you already rubbing my tummy. I can happily get used to this over the next 7 months.”

“7 months?” His brow creases in confusion for a moment before his eyes widen. “You...you’re...we’re…?”

I giggle and nod as I lean up to kiss him softly. 

“Yes, honey. I’m pregnant.” I say. “I’m 2 months along, and found out a few days ago. I was working on a story earlier, and that was gonna be how I told you, but shit happened, so I figured I’d just tell you.”

He lets out a high pitched squeal that I never would’ve expected from him, and pulls me right back into his arms and his lap. His beard tickles my neck as he grins against it, placing a soft kiss there. I giggle and wrap my arms ‘round him. Like I said, he’s a soft, 6’2” teddy bear wrapped in leather. 

My soft, 6’2” teddy bear wrapped in leather and I’m his buzzed haired girl. 

[yayninjabob]

Author Commentary

Ramblings from Yay Ninja Bob about her monstrous creation~

Besides working on my fic, I personally try to journal every day, and I realized that a lot of my journaling has become me pretty much rambling about the process of writing this damn fic lol.  So I thought I'd share some of that for those who may want to know more behind my chapters from my author's perspective. 

It's certainly not everything I can say, but it is a lot haha..

Chapter 1 - Thirteen

Behind the title:

    Well, when I first began writing VillainR, I hadn't planned on having chapter titles at all.  Mainly because coming up with chapter titles (or titles for stories in general) has always been something I struggle with personally.  Anywho after I decided I wanted to challenge myself with chapter titles, I went back and named chapter 1 "Thirteen."  Why?  Well, it is the PpG's thirteenth birthday, of course there is that.  VillainR as a whole is many things, but one major thing is it is a coming of age story for Buttercup/Joey/Jojo, as well as a story of self-discovery.   There's a few important ages I wanted to cover and 13 is around the age where many kids start to "develop" and being a super-powered kid,  Buttercup finally begins to develop her own "special power" at this age.  I wanted this "growing pain" to be the catalyst for the events of Part One.  So, I gave the chapter the title of "Thirteen" to try to highlight the significance of that age for Buttercup. The self-discovery made at this age is that special power (although they are unaware of it at this point).  It's considered an unlucky number, and as it turns out, it is an unlucky year for our main character.

During the writing process:

     First draft was written on Halloween night 2019 and pretty much all of it was completely scrapped haha. 

     I started writing it in first person, like the original Villain, in Buttercup's POV.   I kept the events but approached it again in third person and liked it so much better that way.  One major thing I wanted to improve on with the rewrite was character development which is pretty hard to achieve when writing in a limited POV of a character who eventually loses sight of much around them.  I debated briefly on maybe doing alternating POVs between Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup, but then I felt like it would still exclude a lot for other major characters like Mojo and Princess.  I could add them too but I thought alternating too many POVs would be overwhelmingly difficult (for me as the author for sure but I imagine for the reader too)  Third person seemed to be the best way to handle everything and really my only challenge with that was tweaking the whole "unreliable narrator" trope which I will be honest is my favorite trope ever. It is a challenge to try to recreate the same effect in third person, but I decided that a close third person was the best way to 1) tell a broader story and 2) still set limits on the reader's perspective, and control when and how I drop information and attempt to recreate a similar experience in an entirely new way I've never tried before heh.  (I guess I will spend more time on this on my notes for Chapter 6)

     Second draft I scribbled out in another few days with this new approach.  It began at the start of the carnival and ended where it ends.   Simultaneously I was reworking my overall outline for the fic and began to narrow down all the characters I wanted to be my key players for this epic.  Once my outline was expanded to include everyone, I added the scene with Mojo and Him.  For me, that's when I was like "Ayyy it's all coming together 👍👍" haha.

     Another thing I wanted to improve on was setting and world-building.  So final draft I decided to include some "history" behind Townsville and that's when I worked out the final draft.

    This chapter definitely had the most trial and error during the writing process than any other chapter other than 5 so far.

Inspirations:

     Townsville world-building/history - much of it is inspired by the city I grew up in (for the most part) which is Los Angeles. I mean it has all the sort of settings we've seen in the show which are all pretty diverse right?  Townville had to have a diverse cityscape ranging from a busy downtown setting to quite suburbs to upperclass mansions, beaches, an island, forests, etc.  Well I knew LA had all that and so I tried to re-imagine Townsville as basically an alternate universe LA lol. Monster Isle, I based on research I did on Catalina Island.  I imagined the Utonium household was in a middle class neighborhood like Pasadena- close to the heart of LA but still a relatively "calmer" part of the city.  Morbucks Manor would be in the Hills like Beverly Hills.  Downtown was the heart of the city like Downtown LA.  I debated briefly whether or not to have the Gangreen Gang be from an area modeled after South Central or East LA, but eventually I went with East LA because TBH I am just more familiar with it since that's where my mom's side is from and where I grew up early on in life.  PLUS East LA actually has a pretty big punk scene so that fit the story too with Ace being in a punk band and all that. 

1998 PpG Show References:

     "Oh my gosh they have giant Bunny-Bunny's at the prize tent!"

    (Super Zeroes)

Pop Culture References:

   (OK most of my pop culture refs are just punk references lets be honest lol.  Why Punk?? - because it is rebellion and rebellion is the heart of this fic)

     The Clash - OK in original Villain I established that this was Buttercup's favorite band so I HAD to have that back for the redux. Here's all the refs I crammed into chapter 1 lol:

   "Oh, Man! It's so hard to choose, like, I love literally everything by them. But I gotta say it's a tie probably between their first album and London Calling."

"Hell yeah. Jimmy Jazz is my jam."

"You know, my band does a cover of White Riot," Ace continued to talk music with the teenager as he lit his cigarette and took a deep drag. He held the smoke in his lungs as he continued, "Only we call our version Green Riot."

Blondie:

     The one artist Buttercup had introduced Robin to that she instantly obsessed over was Blondie.

(Some) Symbolism:

     - Blossom is 5'9" and Buttercup is 5'8" - Buttercup is always falling one step behind Blossom.

     - Bumper Car scene - has some foreshadowing and well...

Blossom sat behind the wheel of a red bumper car at the opposite end of the metal floored rink. Buttercup crossed her arms in protest, "No way. I'm driving." she demanded.

Blossom also crossed her arms from where she sat behind the metal wheel. "So you can just rampage and crash into everybody here? No way." She fastened her seat belt with a quick snap and placed her hands firmly on the steering wheel again.

"Ugh. That's the whole point of bumper cars! It's to bump the other cars! You're supposed to try and bump everyone before the times up!"

"You always take it too far, Buttercup. I'm driving, so get in." The redhead grasped the steering wheel in her hands firmly, and refused to move.

And...

"You drive like an old lady," Buttercup shook her head in disbelief as her sister managed to avoid yet another collision.

"Well, that's your opinion," she shrugged off the insult, "Personally, I think it takes just as much skill to avoid every single car in here, as it does to hit every single car," she smiled at her sister.

And finally a brief allusion to the OG Villain lol...

"Blossom!" Buttercup shouted louder so she could get her sister's attention. She pointed at the fast approaching purple car that zoomed towards them from their right side. Behind the wheel of that car was Bubbles who wore a rather determined look on her face as Robin cheered for her.

Blossom saw, but by then it was too late. Bubbles and Robin's car slammed into Buttercup and Blossom's car at full force, spinning Buttercup and Blossom's car into the wall of the arena. The loud buzz which signified the end of the ride then sounded.

    - the roller coaster is Buttercup's ideal carnival attraction; it's got the thrills, twists, turns, ups and downs.  And makes Bubbles sick.

     - the Ferris Wheel is Blossom's ideal carnival attraction; it's a staple of any fair, grand and big, overlooks everything, and traditionally romantic

YNB's favorite scene:

     Personally, I loved writing the whole exchange between Buttercup and Blossom in the car.  Establishing their rivalry, Buttercup's jealousy over Blossom's special power and heroism, Blossom's projection of her own insecurities, their differences, and their commonality. 

Final thoughts on the chapter:

     I was pretty satisfied with how it turned out but I did wait to post it until I had a decent headstart on chapter 2.  I was pretty nervous about whether or not I could stay personally committed to writing this fic so I just wanted to make sure I was really feeling it first, lol.  It had been so long since I'd written fanfic so I just needed to be sure.

     When I outlined everything I estimated the chapter length to be around 6-7k words... And I was surprised that it was double that at about 12k.  Which was wild because on my outline each opening chapter for Part 1, 2 and 3 were supposed to be shorter and more like preludes to everything else.  Well, I guess they ARE shorter chapters but STILL definitely longer than any chapter I used to write for my multichaptered stories.   At the time I thought "Ok obviously my writing has changed but surely I wont go much longer than 12k for future chapters...."  Hurr hurr.

     Personally, I was pretty proud of myself for spending so much time on it and rewriting it over and over and all that.  In the past, TBH whatever was my first draft was pretty much also my last draft haha.  I cranked out a chapter in one sitting usually and edited it mayyyybeee lol.  I just wanted to get it posted so I could move on and get to that next point in the story.   But I suppose now that I'm older and a bit more self aware, I realize a lot of my own anxieties manifest a lot in my writing though and I can recognize it in my old works like the OG Villain where I JUST WANNA GET TO WHAT I WANT TO WRITE RIGHT NOW OK??  I forced myself to slow the hell down this time, take it one scene at a time, and when things felt off I took breaks, slept on it for a few days and came back with new approaches or ideas.   And so far that's how I continue to work on it.

   Also, CHVRCHES.  I listened to a ton of that band while working on this chapter especially.

[captain-aralias]

More-than-six Sentence Monday

got some unexpected last minute sunday tags from @vkelleyart​ and @carryonsimoncarryonbaz​ \o/

Rules:

Writers: post (approximately) six sentences from something you’re working on. If you aren’t ready to do that, add six sentences to your WIP.

Readers: challenge yourselves to leave a six sentence comment or give a writer a six sentence prompt. (or a total of six sentences for the day)

Fans and creators alike: reblog a fandom post and add some love in the tags. Aim for 6 posts - or 6 tags. Whatever you can manage!

I tag some people who aren’t in this fandom, which i don’t think is the point. BUT... it means maybe they haven’t seen the meme, so there we are. @agapi42 @thisbluespirit @neveralarch @shipaholic

--

Great! I love talking about myself,

BUT... i literally have no works in progress. NONE. i posted the thing i was working on yesterday and i haven’t started anything else/have no idea what i will write next yet. (Give me your ideas. Can we have a kink meme or something? I love kink memes.) 

So - I will do the commenting one someone else’s thing for 6 lines instead, because that’s nice. 

And I will also give you (should you wish to read it) the original beginning from ‘Sex and Blood’, and loads of stuff I cut out of ‘The Mages Heir’ because I found the off-cuts hanging around in my docs folder, so why not? They’re yours if you want them.

Sex and Blood

This was the original beginning. Then I added Simon’s scene because... I can’t remember ... and cut most of this for a reason i DO remember, which is that I was like ‘Baz is supposed to be so sick he can’t even think. Why is he banging on about garlic?’ You’ll see I also sort of re-used some of it in the third part where Baz is in the library. 

I know fuck-all about vampires. 

To begin with, it was a matter of principle. Of pride. Finding out anything about them – about the creatures who killed my mother – was as good as admitting I was one. Which, obviously, I am – but that didn’t mean I had to think about it. (Much the same approach my father wishes I’d take to my sexuality, I expect. Being gay is bad enough – I could have the decency to repress it.)

Now, I think I’m afraid of what I might find if I looked. 

Everything I do know, I’ve found out by trial and error. By surviving. 

I know I can eat garlic. I know I can go out in the sun, although it burns me (sun-cream doesn’t help. Not even factor 40. I’ve learned that the hard way). I know I can cross water and see myself in a mirror. I know I need to drink blood regularly, but that I don’t need to take it from other people. I also know I want to – and that for some reason, the people I want to take it from most are also the people I’m most attracted to. (Or rather, from one person in particular.) So I know that sex and blood must be linked together in my brain in some horrific way that fortunately I haven’t had to fully explore yet. (Simon Snow’s disdain for me is a blessing in some ways.) 

--- 

Lots of stuff was cut from The Mage’s Heir: 

1. I switched this scene to Simon’s POV:

I let him kiss me. Then I let him take off his shirt. He sits on the edge of the bed, golden in the candlelight, and swallows as I open my mouth to show my fangs. Maybe it’s finally hit him. Either that or he knows what that swallow does to me.

“You’re sure?” I ask around a mouth of teeth, and he nods. “Bite me.”

And so I do – right where I’ve always wanted to bite him, at the base of the throat. I can tell it hurts because he stiffens and swears. His fingernails dig into my back.

Blood, incredible, warm and rich, Simony blood is filling my mouth, but I try to pull back anyway – then Simon relaxes and I have to catch him to stop him falling.

“Oh yeah,” he croons against my ear. “I knew it would be nice.”

It’s much more than that. I feel as though I’m on fire.

Gently, I lower him backwards onto the mattress, teeth still buried in his neck. My body is humming. And my erection is back - even blissed out Simon can feel it. One of his hands gropes vaguely around my crotch for a while. I rip the zip open and press his hand against me. He let me hold it there as I fuck myself rabidly against his hip and his hand.

This is from Part 2 and is about Penny bonding with Fiona over botony - but I thought that scene was going on for too long so it’s cut

I’m looking round at the plants. I think some of these are illegal in this country – things I’ve never even seen except on the internet.

“That’s moly,” Baz’s aunt says as I lean in to take a better look at something that looks like a massive snowdrop. “Useful stuff. It––”

“It repels magic,” I say.

She looks impressed. “That’s right. And it’s good for crazy people.”

“Are you’re sure it’s OK to have it in your house? Even the pollen could be dangerous.”

“Both of Bunce’s parents are on the Coven, Fiona,” Baz says pointedly.

“So were mine,” she says, unimpressed. “Anyway, I’ve obviously got a permit. Lapsed botanist,” she explains when I look quizzically at her. “But it’s good for field work.”

That makes sense, although I didn’t know there was anyone in London with all this stuff – I thought the Watford greenhouses were the best stocked, but even they don’t have moly (because it’s really dangerous). Baz never said. I’d have come ‘round earlier. Or if he’d told me his aunt was a botanist (even if she is lapsed) – it’s a really good magickal profession.

“Are we going to use any of this tonight?” I ask.

“No idea,” Fiona says.

Part 3 - this was the original opening - again, you’ll see i re-used some of it. I cut it once I realised that characters were literally saying ‘this is boring’ to each other

I wake up and it’s dark. And I’m on the floor. And I feel like complete shit.

I think about trying to sleep it off (that works sometimes), but now I know I’m on the floor it’s hard to get comfortable, so I sit up instead.

The good news is I don’t hit my head on anything. That means that Nicky didn’t probably hasn’t pulled the ceiling down, but now my head feels a lot worse because I tried moving it, and I still can’t see anything.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

I’m not really sure what happened, if I’m honest. I remember Baz telling me he had a plan, and I remember him biting me, although I’m not sure whether that was the plan or whether he just got carried away. I think I must have passed out after that. And now I’m here – alone, on the floor, in the dark.

“Baz!” I shout stupidly.

Nobody replies to that either.

I get up and walk forward until I hit a wall (not literally. I had my hands out). That’s good, though. It means I know where the wall is. I drag my hand along it until I find a corner (that’s great! This is a room with corners, I’m making progress) and along the next wall. This time there isn’t a corner, exactly – there’s an open space. And then a metal bar. After that, another bar.

That’s not so good. It feels a lot like this is a cell. I’ve never been in a cell before (though I’ve been locked up plenty of times, mostly with magic) and I can’t say I’m enjoying it now. Especially if I’m the only one here. Maybe I’m the only one they kept alive.  

“Baz?” I shout again. “Penny?” I’m really trying not to freak out. “Baz!”

“Shut up,” a girl’s voice says from somewhere I can’t see. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”

“Sorry,” I say. “I’m just trying to find my friends. Do you know if they’re all right? It’s a boy with soft black hair and a girl––”

“Don’t talk to me. I’m ignoring you,” the voice says.

“Yeah. But have you seen them?”

When the voice stays silent, I smash my hands against the bars. The bars rattle – loudly – and it makes me feel better, so I kick the nearest one and then slam my shoulder against them. I don’t really expect the bars to give, which is good, because they don’t, but I know I’m pissing off the owner of the voice, which is something.

Then I think, why not actually try and get out of here? And I begin the incantation for the Sword of Mages.

I don’t really expect it work now I’m actually trying, but it does. The hilt materialises in my hand and I feel the comforting weight of blade, even though I can’t see it. I know it’ll be as sharp as ever.

My magic must be coming back. It’s coming back to me, like the sword did, but this time it’s my magic, my real magic. I’ll be a magician again, like Baz and Penny. I just took a break for a while, like Nicky did.

This is amazing. It’s actually amazing. Even though I’m still locked in a cell, and I have no idea where Baz and Penny are, I feel like laughing. This is so great.

Neither of them has ever said it (Baz actively denies it), but I know that both them wish I still had magic. Any magic. They both love being magicians. And I know they both feel sorry for me – for what happened, for losing the thing that’s most important to them. And they worry about me.

Now they won’t have to.

And it’s kind of like I’m starting again, right back at the start of my magickal education. The incantation is not only the spell I always got right, it’s also the first spell I ever learnt.

The Mage felt I should be armed from the beginning.

“It will be a burden,” he said as I swung the sword around his office that first day. “A heavy one. But you must be able to protect yourself, Simon – I won’t always be there.”

At the time I didn’t understand what he meant about it being a burden (It was a magic sword, a sword I could pull from the air just by saying a few words).

I do now, though.

He meant things were going to try and kill me and that I was going to have to kill them first, even though I was only eleven. I didn’t really mind back then, I just felt I had no choice. I guess eleven-year-olds aren’t really ready for the big questions.

“Use the sword well and it will always come back to you, so long as you are my heir,” the Mage told me. He put his hand on my shoulder. “Use with courage and with wisdom. Be worthy of it.”

“I’ll try, sir.”

“I know you will, Simon.”

And I meant it. Obviously. But over the years I was at Watford, I used the Sword of Mages for all sorts of stuff I probably could have used a less-magical sword for. Things like spilling blood for my room at Mummer’s House or opening tins of beans. It’s just, it’s easy to get used to things. Take them for granted. And the sword seemed to be all right with it.

But if I’m getting my magic back, I can start over – do things right.

Starting with breaking out of here. That seems like a pretty just and courageous thing to do, as I have to be free if I’m going to rescue my friends and my boyfriend from goblins. Assuming they need to be rescued (which at the moment I think I have to). I can’t wait to tell them.

I feel for the lock. It’s right at the edge of the bars where they meet the wall (as you’d expect, basically) and it’s got a big, obvious key hole. It’s probably locked with magic as well as iron, but I don’t think that’ll be a problem.

I swing the sword up and down about where the lock is. It cuts in, though not all the way through.

“What are you doing?” the voice from next door says as I brace one of my feet against the bars and tug the sword free. “Are you breaking out?”

“That’s right.”

I swing the sword again, hitting the same point, even in the dark (eight years of almost constant practice paying off). The lock cracks and gives. And the door creeks open.

Light flares in the cell next to me as I walk out into the prison corridor.

There are quite a few other cells, but the others are all empty except the one next to mine. And in it is a girl, like I thought, holding a small light in her hand like Baz does. Except that her hand is green, because she’s a goblin.

I didn’t think goblins locked up other goblins (I thought they probably ate them, which I’m glad I never said to any of them as it sounds a bit racist now I think about it). This one looks about my age, and she’s as gorgeous as Agatha.

“Take me with you,” she says.

“I thought you were trying to sleep,” I say.  

“That’s when I thought you were just a prisoner reciting the traditional first-night dialogue,” she says. “You know, where am I? Where are my friends? I’ve heard it all before.”

“But people don’t usually escape.”

“Not usually,” she says. “Because there’s a really good alarm system down here. That’s why we have to be–– Bloody Cap.”

Somewhere behind the door to this prison someone is running along a corridor – fairly fast by the sound of it, in heavy shoes.

“Forget I said anything,” the goblin girl says, extinguishing her light. “I didn’t speak to you. I’m asleep.”

I raise my sword to a fighting stance. “I think it’s just one person.”

Or I suppose, one person making a lot of noise and several other people who are aren’t. But they’ll all have to come through one door, so I should be able to take them all.

As the door opens, I shut my eyes in case they brought a bright light that’ll blind me. I hear the heavy wood of the door swing inwards and I bring the sword down and round in a wide arc. I’m just about to make it very hard for this guard to walk away from the fight (kneecap damage – I’m not going to kill him) when he says,

“Simon! It’s me – it’s Nicky.”

“Nicky?”

I pull back so fast I almost fall over. I open my eyes, and blink a few times, and he steadies me. It’s definitely him, not a goblin wearing his shape – I recognise his smell (leather jacket and strawberry vape). I don’t hug him, because I don’t like hugging most people, but I’m really pleased he’s alive.

“Is Baz OK? And Penelope?”

“Yeah,” he says. “We’re all fine. How about you? You’ve been out for three days. Healing magic’s a bit dodgy.”

I shrug this off because I don’t want to think about it right now. “Where’re are the others?”

“Upstairs.”

“Cool. Let’s go then.” I turn towards the other occupied cell. “Stand back and I’ll split the lock.”

The goblin light flares again and I see her standing at the back of the cell trying not to look excited.

“Well, hurry up about it.”

“Hang on, Lancelot,” Nicky says as I raise the sword. “I didn’t give you the message yet. You’ll want to hear it. It’s from His Nibs.”

I sheath the sword and it vanishes. “From Baz?”

That sounds good, it sounds like Baz is alive. (I am so fucking grateful Baz is alive.)

“Right. Essentially, he says, stay where you are, don’t attract any attention to yourself, and definitely don’t break out of prison. You can see why I thought it was a fairly relevant message at this particular time.”

“Baz wants me to stay here?” I say. “In a dungeon?”

“Not exactly the place to get over heavy blood loss, is it?” Nicky says. “I told you: Pitches care about magic and power and that’s it. But you can see how it would be awkward for him if you start running around the place, since he’s only king ‘cause he killed you.”

“What do you mean, he’s the king?” I say.

“Who’s the king?” the goblin girl says.

“My boyfriend,” I say. “Do you mean king of the goblins?”

Nicky scowls. “I knew you weren’t in on it, I told Fiona. Listen – if you want to start a revolution let me know. Otherwise, sit tight, eat this, and I’ll bring more news when I have it, OK?”

He’s pressed something round like a Coke can into my hand (the one that isn’t holding the sword). Now he claps me on the shoulders and shuts the door behind him.

“How can your boyfriend be the goblin king?” the girl asks. She’s close to the bars now, looking at me with undisguised scepticism.

“I don’t know,” I say. I think I’m still in shock – maybe Nicky’s right and it’s the blood loss. “He wasn’t yesterday.”

Except – shit. It wasn’t yesterday, was it? It’s been three days. (I’ve missed the start of term.)

I go back and sit in my cell. There’s nothing else really to do. In the light that’s still coming from the girl next door, I can see what Nicky’s given me is actually a tin of spinach – a tin of spinach without a ring-pull. I’m not sure how he expected me to eat it, but I guess I’ve got a magic sword I’m not using for anything else right now.  

“That man called you Simon,” the girl’s voice says. “You’re the Goblinslayer.”

I didn’t know they called me that.

“No wonder you’re hiding in a dark,” she says. “I would be, if I were you.”

It’s lucky I now trust Baz absolutely, because this doesn’t feel good. It feels like one of Baz’s family’s plans to get rid of me.

And it feels like it’s working.

this is the end of part 3... i don’t really remember it very well, although i do remember that i had massive trouble with the doctor wellbelove convo, because it’s a massive info-dump disguised as a scene

“The treaty with the goblins is going very well,” he says. “As well as these things ever do, anyway. Queen Ilex and I have a meeting next week to negotiate the finer points of the treaty.”

Ilex is Holly’s royal name.

“She’s attending the Coven later this month with some of her people, to get the treaty magically ratified by both parties. I’d like you to be there, if possible.”

I swallow. “To stand trial?”

Dr Wellbelove looks surprised. “What on Earth for?”  

“Because,” I say. Isn’t it obvious? “I’ve broken Mage Law, haven’t I?”

Dr Wellbelove nods. It’s definitely more than once.

“But,” he says, “you’ve also done what few others could have managed and helped reached a peaceful accord with a race of dark creatures.”

I shrug. I guess. I mean I was there, although I was unconscious for most of it. I wouldn’t say I helped.

“You may be interested to learn that one of the terms of the treaty was a complete ban on goblin consumption of humans, in exchange for animal livestock. Queen Ilex suggested it herself, although it seems the goblins have developed a taste for Scottish beef. I don’t need to tell you that will save many lives.”

“That was Baz,” I say.

“It wasn’t just Basil, though, was it?”

“Right. It was Penny’s plan that got us of there––”

“She claims it was your plan.”

“I guessed it.”

“And that it wouldn’t have been possible if you hadn’t already formed a relationship with the imprisoned queen.”

“Penny exaggerates,” I say. (Even though he said I wasn’t, I feel like I’m on trial here.) “I talked to Holly for, like, half an hour.”

“Well, how about we return to the numpties then?” Dr Wellbelove says. “You’ve already admitted you responded to a situation  

“That was Nicky!” I say.

Well, I guess I shout it. Dr Wellbelove looks surprised.

But it feels wrong. He’s got it all wrong. I know what it’s like to do big, important stuff and this isn’t it. I’m not the Chosen One any more. I’m not anything. I’m just trying to clean up my own mistakes. And the Mage’s.

“Because you asked him to.”

“Yeah.” I’m getting confused here. “No. I feel like you want me to say that I did all of this stuff, but I didn’t. I didn’t do any of it. None of it was me.”

this is earlier in part three - it’s penny’s POV. i really like that bit about there being worse people to turn into. might re-use it later. 

He and Baz are already all over each other, as though three days apart is unbearable. I chat to Holly the goblin while I wait. And keep waiting. (Micah and I haven’t been in the same country for three months. And it’s not as though there’s any reception down here so I can Skype him.) If you’re up for a round of snogging your boyfriend in public, you can’t be that sick.

Snakes, I think I’m turning into my mum.

I suppose there are definitely worse people I could turn into. Since Mum has almost everything she ever wanted and is pretty much always right. Just like I know I’m right now. Simon is – weirdly – OK.

and the same scene - simon’s POV

“Actually, I did tell you,” I point out.

I watch Baz mentally re-play the last twenty minutes to find out that yes, actually, I did tell him. And he was too busy fussing about his wand.

He shrugs. “Whatever.”

I don’t mind. Him not apologising means he’s not feeling stupidly guilty any more. I lean into him and he frowns.

[leehanji]

The Right Partner

In light of recent events, I’ve decided to post a little preview of a new stucky fic I started working on literally the second I posted the last one! This is an unbeta’d wip so sorry for any errors!!! Also it’s probably going to be long and this is literally all I’ve written so far so it’ll be a long while before the whole thing is done, but I hope you enjoy anyway!!!

It’s an Assassins/Mr. and Mrs. Smith-esque AU where modern Steve and Bucky work for SHIELD and HYDRA respectively and don’t know the other is their rival agent... Check it out! (But also check the tags first!!! :D )

———

Steve brushed a finger down the spine of a blue hardcover surrounded by a dozen of its identical twins. He pulled it out and examined the cover.

La Combinazione Perfetta, it read. The Perfect Match.

Steve put it back. Romance wasn’t exactly his favorite genre. Not in English and definitely not in Italian. He glanced out the bookshop window at the café across the piazza. A middle aged woman sat in the afternoon sunlight with a small cappuccino in one hand and her phone in the other. Steve had never seen the allure of fancy coffee; probably because his enhanced metabolism negated any effects the caffeine would have on him.

He turned back to the bookshelf and perused a little more, occasionally pulling a book out and flipping a few pages before putting it back and glancing out the window again. The woman was still sipping at her coffee. Steve estimated she’d continue sipping for another 12-18 minutes before returning to the Embassy at the far end of the piazza. Why Martina Giudici had chosen to ignore the death threats sent her way, Steve didn’t know, but apparently, she was essential in finalizing SHIELD’s authorization to eradicate HYDRA in Italy and Fury insisted on her making it to the meeting that afternoon alive. Giudici was a politician so perhaps she thought the threats were good publicity and that being seen out in public with no bodyguards would make her seem tough. Maybe she was secretly trained in advanced martial arts and could totally take whatever assassins HYDRA threw at her. Maybe she was just an idiot. Either way, Steve and his team were forced to keep a distance, protecting her in secret from the HYDRA agents aiming to slit her throat as the meeting ticked closer.

“Report,” Steve whispered, keeping an eye on the woman at the register and the hearing aids he could see under whips of long white hair.

“East corner, clear,” Gabe said.

“North corner, clear,” Dernier reported.

“South corner, clear,” Jim whispered.

“West corner,” Dugan grunted and Steve heard the sound of someone getting kicked in the stomach, “clear.”

Steve checked his watch, wiping a small smear of blood off it with his thumb. The HYDRA gunmen on the roof had gone down a little messily.

“Keep an eye out,” he muttered, glancing out the window again, “Jobs almost over.”

“Copy.”

Giudici was still sipping her coffee. Eleven minutes to finish. Two minutes to pay. One to gather her things. Four to walk across the square. Two to get through security and then it would be over. It would be a piece of cake from here on out anyway. He and the Commando’s taken out nearly three dozen guys in the past twenty minutes, proving that their perimeter was impenetrable, as always. Steve knew HYDRA’s tactics well and he wasn’t worried.

He switched the com in his ear to radio, monitoring the chatter around Giudici as she casually returned her cup to its saucer. Steve pulled out another book when the bell above the door to the little shop rang out and a man stepped in.

A quick once over revealed to Steve that he appeared to be a civilian. He was wearing jeans, a red henley, and a light olive jacket. American, Steve assumed due to the soft, poorly articulated “Ciao" he greeted the owner with, but not a tourist, judging by the lack of backpack, sweat, and sunscreen. Bright blue eyes met his and a small smile twitched on the mans lips. Steve had never known himself to be into guys with long hair but he quickly found himself making an exception. The man was attractive, that was undeniable. He had a square jaw, wavy brown hair that hung half above his shoulders and half pulled up into a little ponytail, and kind eyes that crinkled in the corners. Steve found himself watching as the man approached the small English section of the store along the far wall. He was built, his broad shoulders accentuated by a narrow waist and defined pecs.

Steve blinked and glanced out the window again. Guidici was typing something on her phone. Ten minutes.

“Mi scusi.” The man approached Steve with a small paperback in one hand and a shy smile on his lips.

“Hey,” Steve replied smiling back.

The relief on the man’s face was instantaneous.

“Oh, hey, thank god,” he sighed, laughing at himself a little, “my Italian is okay but boy does make my anxiety go through the roof.”

“I hear you,” Steve agreed easily, glancing over the man’s shoulder at the café. Guidici lay her phone down and picked up her half empty cup again, “what’s up?”

“I was wondering if you happened to know a good place to get a cup of joe around here,” the man said with a wry smile, “American style.”

Steve suddenly wished he knew more about coffee. He immediately tried to remember whatever it was Gabe and Jim had been complaining about that morning.

“You mean something that doesn’t taste like a shot of bitter non-alcoholic ass?”

The man threw his head back and laughed. Steve watched his smile light up his whole face, making his blue eyes sparkle in the early afternoon sunlight. God, he was a vision.

“Yeah, exactly,” the man laughed, “I need sugar man, with a shot of vanilla and whipped cream on the top.”

“I think I saw a Caffe Nero a few blocks over,” Steve suggested, trying not to get too carried away, “It’s technically a British company but they might have something you’d like.”

Steve glanced out the window again. Guidici was still there. Eight minutes.

“Oh, perfect,” the man grinned, his eyes flicking down Steve’s chest and across his shoulders before finding their way back up to his face.

Steve felt his face start to flush involuntarily. He blamed his penchant to blush at the slightest hit of flirting on the fact that up until he was 23 he was a 90 pound asthmatic with scoliosis who came up to around 5’4 on a good day and even now any reference to his appearance made him unfathomably shy. It was his biggest weak point, one that his teammates teased him about relentlessly.

“I’m Bucky, by the way,” the man—Bucky— said, holding out his hand.

“Steve.”

Bucky’s hand was warm and firm. Solid and gentle.

“Well, Steve,” Steve’s name rolled through Bucky’s mouth like he was savoring the taste, “I should get going.”

Steve nodded with a small smile, stepping out of the way so Bucky could head to the register.

“Maybe I’ll see you around,” Bucky added as he handed a handful of bills to the lady working the counter, who seemed to be resolutely apathetic toward the pair of them. He was buying an old second hand copy of  Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. It might last him trip down to Naples, Steve thought, maybe Florence if he took his time.

“Yeah,” Steve found himself agreeing as Bucky tucked the book under his arm.

It was harmless to flirt, Steve told himself, after all, he’d be on a plane home in less than an hour. The odds of him seeing Bucky again were slim to none.

“I’ll buy you a Frappuccino,” Steve grinned, “heavy on the whipped cream.”

The man laughed again, low and resonant. It made Steve’s skin tingle.

“Throw in a chocolate croissant and you’ve got yourself a date.”

Steve felt his blush return as Bucky tossed him a wink before pulling the door open and stepping back out into the sunny piazza. Steve watched him cross the square and disappear down a small side street before reluctantly turning his attention back to the task at hand.

Guidici was pulling coins out of her wallet. Steve flipped his com back to the Commando’s channel.

“Update?”

“Since you asked three minutes ago?” Falsworth replied, “I’ve got nothing.”

“I saw a dog steal a bread roll from the bakery in the east corner,” Dernier said.

“I saw Cap blushing at some long haired dude in the bookshop,” Jim contributed gleefully.

“Oh! Was he hot?” Dernier demanded.

“He looked pretty ripped from here,” Jim replied, clearly holding back his laughter, “What do you say, Cap? An 8? A 9, tops?”

“I didn’t know you were into long hair, Cap,” Dugan chimed in with a low chuckle, “Always figured you were more of a clean cut kinda guy.”

“Well, who doesn’t love a rebel?” Gabe added, “an Italian rebel, no less.”

“Can we focus, please?” Steve muttered, glaring out the window toward the rooftop he knew Jim was perched on and rolling his eyes, “6 minutes.”

Guidici stood and stepped out into the piazza. Steve left the bookshop empty handed and kept to the opposite side of the square, pretending to examine the pastries in the bakery window and the ornate stone sculpture of various gods pouring water into the wide fountain in the piazza’s center as he discreetly watched Guidici cross the cobblestones until she reached the steps of the embassy.

Steve breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped under the archway, officially relieving the Commando’s from duty—

Guidici hit the ground with one foot over the threshold. By the time Gabe was at her side half of her body’s blood content was dripping down the steps of the embassy from the severed artery in her neck.

“Package down, mission failed,” Gabe reported grimly.

Steve was already hunting for the shooter amidst the chaos of the panicked crowd. There had been no audible gunshot, the angle must have been high, a sniper most likely. He examined the buildings but the only viable vantage point he could find was currently occupied by a stunned looking Jim.

Clean, precise, efficient, and deadly. Too good for HYDRA’s usual MO.

Whoever the shooter was, they were something else entirely.

~TBC~

[whetstonefires]

fictober prompt #5: “Take what you need.”

“Take what you need,” Tim said, waving toward the tiny armory, and he probably shouldn’t have been surprised that the little tribe of assassins immediately started pushing and shoving to get at the best gear. It made sense to have his armory in an easily concealed recess when it was just for him; he hadn’t anticipated it being utilized as a weapons buffet for a small army.

He decided to let them sort that out amongst themselves. “No murder,” he directed, sinking into his chair, his hands already going a mile a minute over the keys as he checked all his systems for updates and alerts.

“We wouldn’t,” said one of them.

“Not each other,” said another, which Tim could tell by rhythm, but not by any difference in the sound.

A lot of people wouldn’t be treating them like people. Tim knew that. The impulse had been there for him, too, especially when the suspicious little face staring up at him in septuplicate had been that of someone he had never gotten along with, who had in fact consistently used his every moment of generosity or compassion against him.

But he couldn’t call himself Connor’s friend and not respect the rights of a bunch of clones who’d run away from their maker seeking independence.

If they turned out to be evil then he’d regret arming them, but he had a lot of sympathy for how naked they obviously felt without any means of self-defense, and under the circumstances that was a pretty decisive reason to arm them.

No major local Gotham issues developing he had to somehow balance this with, a relief. No signs of movement from the League as a whole, outside Talia’s personal staff who were definitely moving. No word from the family, either. Had the kids actually made it all the way here without raising any alerts?

He started digging.

“We’re ready,” said one of them, directly to Tim enough that it broke through his screening-out of their ongoing bickering. He looked over.

“None of you need high explosives,” he announced. “I don’t even carry those unless they’re specifically called for in a mission plan. None of you need any bombs, actually. Put all of those back.”

There was a lot of grumbling, but astonishingly they appeared willing to listen. He hadn’t even needed to invoke the specter of Bruce’s disapproval. New bickering started up as previous trades were declared invalid by those who’d received explosives they weren’t allowed to keep.

Tim was probably very poorly adjusted, six year olds squabbling over grenades shouldn’t be adorable. It was increasingly obvious that either Talia had been educating these telepathically, or letting them out of the tubes for training of some kind. He was used to people whose ages didn’t match their bodies, and these didn’t quite give that vibe, but they weren’t normal, either.

The little boy who’d told him they were done kept staring at Tim; he didn’t seem to be carrying any bombs. He had one of Tim’s bandoliers draped across his chest; it was cinched as tight as it would go and the bottom edge still hung against his upper thigh.

“Yeah?” Tim asked, after the silent staring had gone on long enough.

“You’re helping.”

“Yeah?” Tim said, because that wasn’t an answer or a question. “You asked.”

Well, one of them had. They’d all been dressed alike before they started putting on his stuff, he didn’t know which one had called out wait, when he’d pretended he was going to leave them to fight off eight adult ninjas on their own, without weapons.

He’d half-expected someone to call his bluff, or else give up theirs, but the tone of that wait hadn’t been that at all. It had just been.

Well. He’d turned around.

“You brought us to your home.” Did the League disincentivize asking questions? Yes, they did, come to think of it. Damian had avoided asking them too, though it was less obvious when papered over with that much bluster and arrogance and homicide.

“My place was closest,” said Tim. It had been literally a block away.

“You haven’t called anyone else.”

There wasn’t a nice way to say that if they were a trap, he’d prefer it only caught him.

“Do you want me to?” he asked instead.

The little spokesman slowly shook his head. “He’d come. Wouldn’t he.”

Bruce? No. Damian. “Robin?” Tim asked.

He still wasn’t happy that the name belonged to the demon brat now, but the little horde had responded to ‘Damians’ when he rallied them after they put the League hunters down, and he didn’t know how uncomfortable it would make them to have it applied to just the original. Assuming he was the original, who even knew. He could be version twelve.

The spokesman nodded.

“You want to avoid him?” Then why come to Gotham?

The little spokesman shrugged.

“We don’t want to see him yet,” said another boy over his shoulder, one of the ones who’d strung half a dozen grenades on one of Tim’s belts and had now replaced them with smoke bombs.

“Yes,” said the spokesman, whose nickname was already starting to seem ironic.

Tim addressed that. “Okay, and by the way what do I call you? I can’t just keep saying ‘Damians.’”

The Damians, all of them now fully armed and without visible bombs, clumped up briefly for a silent conference. Were they psychic? He hoped they weren’t psychic.

The names they gave when they were done hopefully whispering were just ordinal numbers in Farsi. More horribly, they weren’t contiguous.

“Will more of you be joining us later?” Tim asked, and got ‘no’ from the spokesman in the bandolier, whose number was Sizdahum, thirteenth.

This was not the time and Tim was not the person to compromise their stoicism on that, so he moved on without comment. If they needed to leave Gotham again to avoid meeting Damian before they were ready, that was acceptable to the collective. Yes, they would welcome his help making a satisfactory entrance. Yes, they realized making a good impression on Batman was at least as important as making one on Robin.

“And now?” asked smoke bomb kid, numbered Haftum, seventh. He was the one who moved the most, was hardly ever still, in contrast to Sizdahum who didn’t seem to move at all without a specific reason. It was going to be a struggle learning to identify them all by cues like this before they used or rearranged some of the equipment he was using to tell them apart for now; Tim suspected they’d forgive some errors.

He shut down most of the processes on his computer, though he left it on in case of any important updates, and turned his back to it. Folded his hands, his elbows propped on his swivel-chair’s arms. He was slightly taller than they were even sitting down.

“Now we plan. Our options are limited, especially if we want to avoid Robin. My defenses here are good against intruders, but if they don’t want you alive they can just destroy the building.”

He looked expectantly at the attentive row of pint-size Damians. Tactical information please, first graders.

“We’re just spares,” scoffed Haftum.

“They won’t hold back,” said Chihaarum, fourth. He was the lowest number in the room, unless you counted Tim, whose number was of course three.

“Ra’s would prefer me alive, but not enough to make it easy for me, and these are Talia’s people. I have a much better-secured bunker some way out of town. If we can shake off pursuit I can access a van that can get us all there. If necessary, I have contacts that can help with extraction to a secure location.” Kon and Bart would be 100% willing to be called in on this. Tim would rather not risk them, but they couldn’t possibly be the intended targets if this was a trick, so it was better than calling the family, and he wasn’t going to let these kids get killed for his paranoia.

“Objections, concerns?” None were volunteered. Tim could enjoy working with such a professional team if it weren’t so creepy. He initiated system lockdown. “We’d better move out.”

They nodded, and Shishum took point out the roof exit once its location was indicated. Tim let him, because they’d apparently made it halfway around the world without his supervision and he remembered how annoying it had been trying to get adults to take him seriously and having his competence utterly dismissed on the basis of his age.

Tim did insist on being the first one to step out of cover once they were all on the roof. No one seemed to be holding any of the sniper posts that could target his roof, so he motioned the kids after him. Counted them off, 4-6-7-9-11-13-14.

“Chahardahum,” he whispered, identifying the boy by the oversized Kevlar vest he’d thrown on. “Stay lower, we’re trying for stealth. And can I call you Chadah?” He wanted to respect their individuality even if it was numbers, but four syllables, three of them fairly long, wasn’t ideal for this sort of situation, especially when it sounded so similar to Chiharum that no mumbling could be allowed.

The boy named Fourteenth rolled his shoulders in a shrug, then nodded. He didn’t like the idea, clearly, but he accepted it.

“Great. Thanks. Let’s go.” Red Robin took off over the roofs, leading his trail of ducklings and keeping an eye on what their comfortable jumping range was as he tried to plan a sneaky route that was physically possible.

The order they fell into was unexpected, with Shishum at the front instead of a flank and Sizdahum bringing up the rear, and he resisted the urge to give directions about who should be where. They knew their own skillsets better than he did, micromanaging was not going to help here.

Of course, with the size of his current forces, any managing he did would be micro.

[regansheasparks]

Our Pregnancy Journey:

Pregnancy Journey: 

We started trying to get pregnant in August of 2018, every month there was more and more negative pregnancy tests. I kept taking them even though I knew I wasn’t pregnant just hoping for a positive to show up. By January 2019, I was having very intense periods. They came with crippling pain that just seemed to not be letting up at all. I had always had really rough periods but they were just getting worse I felt. I started asking my doctor what we could do because I felt that there might be a bigger issue than just a normal period. We talked about a few different conditions and medical conditions that ran in my family on my moms side to see if that could be an issue. We ended up doing an Laparoscopy on February 13th, 2019 to see if I had endometriosis. After surgery, I was told I did indeed have endometriosis and that he cleaned it all out while I was in surgery. That was good and bad news. I knew that it can and will always come back and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to have kids. He reassured me that I still have just as much of a chance as anyone else. I was feeling very good about it all. The healing process was about a week or so, and then I started feeling much better. 

On the 26th of March I woke up in the wee hours of the morning and had this very weird feeling that I needed to take a pregnancy test, but I was like no - just go to the bathroom and go back to bed so I wouldn’t get my hopes up. So then I got up and was getting ready for work and decided to go ahead and take it. I hadn’t even had a period since my surgery which was so odd. The test was faint but it was positive, I immediately started freaking out and was like yeah there’s no way this isn’t real - I just had surgery and my levels must be messed up right? So, I took another two tests with me to work and decided that I would give it some time and then I would take another one. Well the next one was positive too. I still was like freaking out but in denial that the tests were faulty. Then I took a 3rd test, still thinking it was fake positive. (Usually if you get 2 they’re real……) So on my lunch break I drove to the store and got the digital pregnancy tests by Clearblue that come in a pack of 2! I was sure these would be negative. I took one and it was FAULTY - it said error and was defective so there was no result. Of course by this point I have to wait a little while because I don’t have to go to the bathroom yet. It’s been about a few hours or so I want to say and I took that test and gave myself a pep talk in the bathroom mirror while it was loading (YES - I know i’m weird). About 2 minutes later I go to grab the test and it says *PREGNANT*. If you know me at all, you know that I am shaking and crying and extremely overjoyed but also freaking out all at the same time. I knew I had to tell Derek that night because I can’t keep a secret or a surprise from him - its sooooooooo hard. I texted my friend who has a cricut and was like look, I get off in a few hours can you please make me a baby onesie that says “FACT YOU’RE GOING TO BE A DAD” with the Dwight Schrute glasses on it. I then told Derek I had to run an errand for a surprise for him when I get off work. I ran over to her house and grabbed that onesie and headed home. I haven’t gotten to post this video anywhere so I will post it below of his sweet face when he found out he was going to be a daddy. 

We had an appointment to see how far along we were on Friday - April 12th, 2019. We then found out that we were about 6 weeks along! Later on that night I started having some really intense cramping and was starting to get scared that something was happening. It let up and I went to bed and just tried to relax. Saturday morning April 13th, I was having some more pain and slight bleeding. I called the doctor and they said if the bleeding is not bright red and heavy to not worry. The pain became intense - I had another appointment coming up that following tuesday and I was trying to make it to then but the pain became too intense and the bleeding got heavier. I was in so much pain - I had Derek take me to the Emergency Room. After a few hours of being in the ER and having ultrasound and blood work done, we were told that we lost the baby. As you can imagine this was one of the hardest things we have ever dealt with. Time heals all wounds and this was not something that we would just heal from or forget. This would take time, and a lot of it. Even though we lost this baby at 6 short weeks the pain of losing him/her was unbearable. Any and all loss is hard loss.

On May 18th, 2019 the day we got back home from seeing System of a Down in Ohio, Derek told me that I needed to take a pregnancy test. I was like oh hush, there’s literally no way I’m pregnant right now. So I took a test just because he said I should and well…. it was positive. Not even faint, this was VERY POSITIVE. I was SHOCKED. Our first doctors appointment was on June 7th and we found out we were 8 weeks pregnant already. I had no idea how this was even possible and my doctor couldn’t believe it either. They said its possible that I was pregnant with twins and lost one, but the timeline still does not add up. Nothing makes sense as to how we’re pregnant and how far along we were at the time we found out. It’s literally a miracle, this baby is a miracle. As I’m writing this it is October 29th, 2019 and tomorrow I am going to be 29 weeks pregnant with this rainbow miracle child. 

He is due on January 15th, 2020 and his name is Kai Anthony Sparks. 

I’m writing about our pregnancy journey to show those struggling with pregnancy loss not to give up. We stopped trying and it happened again for us. I hope that our story helps one of you who might be struggling with pregnancy loss. Please reach out to me if you need to talk or ask me any questions that might help you get through your journey. 

[atopearth]

Final Fantasy X HD Remaster Part 8 - Someday the Dream will End

(Thought it’d be a great title since the above is my favourite soundtrack and this is my last post on FFX! XD)

Yay! I got Lulu’s Venus sigil! I was hesitant to start the dodging lightning thing since you have to dodge 200 in a row, but omg, after going on YouTube and knowing that there’s a ditch where you can easily gather the rhythm to do it 200 times, it only surprisingly took me like an hour and a half after getting distracted a few times and failing lmao. Gotta say though, much easier than the stupid Chocobo race for Tidus!🙄 Next thing you know, I try the butterfly catching game for the Saturn sigil and start to contemplate whether I really want to be a perfectionist lmao. I totally forgot that I hate the butterfly game the most, like THE MOST. It’s literally frustrating me more than the Chocobo and lightning combined, I don’t know why everyone on the internet says it’s the easiest of the mini games😣😣 Okay, fine, after another half an hour with trial and error, I finally got the Saturn sigil too, not that bad I guess….

Finally got all the celestial weapons too yeee~ I’ve never gotten everything before so I’m pretty happy right now hahaha! So Yu Yevon is the one that’s been constantly causing this all for a thousand years, hiding within Sin using him as an armour, and then when people defeat Sin with the powers Yunalesca tells them about, he merges with the Final Aeon to continue this cycle of life and death. I guess when everything works out, it’ll be good, but once they defeat Sin, the Fayth will stop dreaming and Tidus will disappear… It’s kinda funny how you used to be all concerned about Yuna dying and now near the end of the game, you instead have to be concerned over Tidus disappearing instead. Why can’t they just be happy together sigh..

Well! I legit spent a day farming sphere levels for Rikku and Tidus to finish off the sphere grid getting all the strength and agility nodes but omggg, can I just say that having triple AP instead of double AP is like the biggest difference ever? LOL. And omg overdrive -> AP is like the best thing ever. So easy to level lol. Funniest thing was when Don Tonberry did 83k damage on my Tidus though hahahaah, did I really kill that many monsters with him🤣 But yeah, it’s cool that I’m progressing with my sphere grid but I’m kinda sad that I’m one hit KOing everything lol. I mean, this is the first time I’ve ever gotten so far in FFX so I feel like I’m killing my experience haha! But I really want to fight nemesis and penance and all the dark aeons so oh well. Btw, it’s because I OHKO Seymour in Sin and didn’t get to see him do anything with his cool music hahaha. At least Yuna finally sent him to the farplane lol. Anyway, back to farming monsters, just need to finish Sin and Omega Ruins and I’m doneeee!

GG though, Omega Ruins took sooo long (I guess Sin did too) but dang was it annoying lol. So anyway, after much leveling with Don Tonberry again, and getting all the strength, defence, magic, magic defence, agility, luck and fortune spheres, I am legit done with the whole sphere grid! I’m honestly not dedicated enough to do 255 everything, so since 255 luck = 255 accuracy and evasion, I am not going to bother lolll. Agility maxes out at 170 as well so yayyy, don’t need to farm moreeee. I’ve legit been spending my week doing all this lmao, watching TVB and farming, that’s been my life hahaha. It’s kinda crazy seeing myself finish all this though. It was super time consuming but it’s nice to see my characters deal 99,999 damage haha. Coolest thing was defeating all the creations by the Monster Arena guy and then beating up Nemesis! Yesssss! It could have been easier if I set my overdrive mode to Comrade (charges overdrive when allies are hit) since he dealt so much damage lol, but silly me left it on Warrior (charges overdrive every time I attack), so yeaaaah, that took longer than I wanted hahaha. Btw, Nemesis is ugly but yay! I’ve completed another goal of mine! Oh yeah, I also beat Omega Weapon, of which, he was so underwhelming, especially with the random monsters you have to fight along the way, FFVIII was so much more annoying and challenging imo with the Ultima Weapon and other guys. I guess we’ll see how I feel once I defeat all the Dark Aeons and fight Penance hahaha.

The Dark Aeons were relatively easy! Especially if you have ribbon/stoneproof, not being petrified and shattered is like the most important thing imo lol. Dark Bahamut kept killing me and pissing me off because he kept petrifying my guys and killing them lol, I had to put stoneproof on my armour to survive, worked out well since I needed it for the Magus Sisters too haha. And yes, I was lazy to fight them altogether so I separated them and fought the sisters one by one to save myself from the agony lol. And what do you know? Dark Yojimbo was actually the one to bring the most trouble! It’s not even because he was hard, it was because I had to fight him 5 times to defeat him and initially, I didn’t know and just defeated him four times and was like wth, why isn’t Penance appearing?! So then, I googled and realised that I had kept missing the true third battle in the green room, so yeah, that frustrated the hell out of me because I legit defeated him 10+ times because I went to the wrong place, didn’t understand etc, yeaaah I was raging lol. I really wanted to finish the game and defeat Penance in the same day with the Dark Aeons so yeah, I was annoyed that I was not on schedule lolol. Oh well, more time to prepare for Penance I guess.

So…. I tried Penance and I died hahahah. Gotta revise my armour lolol. I think ribbon, auto-potion (with only x-potion), auto-haste and auto-protect might be the best combo. I’ll try that and see. Or not lolll! My biggest problem with Penance was not surviving his immolation attack that does a lot of HP damage and sucks all your MP too. Well, anyway, after much googling etc, I revised my armour again, luckily I had 6 million to spend bribing monsters for stuff lmao. I used auto-potion, auto-haste, auto-protect and defence +20%. This accompanied with Rikku’s Ultra NullAll mix (lasts the whole battle as long as you don’t die!) gave me enough defence to survive the whole battle (yay!). After that, it was really rinse and repeat of destroying the arms and then hitting the main body whenever I could. It probably legit took 20-30 minutes. Crazy for sure. Not sure whether it’s really worth it since I didn’t feel very accomplished LOL, I just felt like a robot constantly using quick hit (throwing a three stars so it doesn’t cost MP), dispelling after every immolation attack and thankfully, I had auto-potion because it would have killed me if I had to heal myself every turn. So yeah, after that, it was really just a waiting game where I just kept doing the same thing for 30 minutes, yeah it was pretty boring. I liked the optional bosses from previous games more.

And now I can finally fight Sin! Honestly, seeing Tidus finally open up to Jecht a bit more and be a bit more honest, I felt happy for Jecht. He’s always loved Tidus. Too bad it wasn’t meant to be for them to ever be able to hang out together like buddies. Since I maxed out my stats, last boss was so easy, I barely did anything. Kinda feel like I should have let him do something so I could see it lol, but I was too fast hahaha. Pretty devastating to see Yuna summoning every single summon for Yu Yevon to take over and then we kill it to stop Yu Yevon from having anything to take over anymore. It was heartbreaking to see all the Fayth go like that. But at least, as they said, they can now stop dreaming… Auron always has to be cool doesn’t he lolll, even when Yuna sends him to the Farplane. It hurt when he told Yuna that it was okay to send him. I really liked Auron. It was also saddening when Tidus was like, this is his last battle with them because he’s going to disappear, I guess at least he told them. Slack to Yuna when she wanted to hug him but he was disappearing. Especially when at the end, she kept whistling, waiting for him to come back.

Never even know the Eternal Calm video or whatever existed. Kinda feels weird though because it’s set two years later where all Yuna has been doing is being something like a counsellor to people until a sphere of someone who looks like Tidus (Shuyin~) is found by Kimahri, given to Rikku and then shown to Yuna and then she decides to go look for other spheres like it and soon becomes a sphere hunter. Considering that FFX-2 is set two years later which I assume is not long after this, her personality sure changed quite a bit after getting some freedom haha. I guess it’s true that Yuna has never truly lived for herself until now so it is nice that she can do that now, but how did she learn to use a gun so fast? Lol.

Overall, I enjoyed FFX, but honestly, it’s not one of my favourites haha. It’s one of the first I played as an adult probably but yeah, if I had to really choose, I prefer the previous much more. But I do like FFX because of how much more, simple it is? It’s simple, straightforward and emotional. Rikku and Yuna will always be my favourites. Wakka being silly is also a highlight. Cool Auron will always be the dream guy though hahaha. Happy that I can finally say I’ve finished it completely! Now on to getting 100% completion for FFX-2! I got like 98 or 99 on my first playthrough with the help of a guide every now and then but now I’m gonna use a guide for the whole thing and hope I get the 100% this time around hahaha, wish me luck~

[jhope-seok]

I have a lot of things to say about Tinder.

This is a personal rant about idiot boys on tinder. So if you’d like to read my CRAZY FUCKING ESCAPADES IN THE DATING WORLD. PLEASE. GO AHEAD. CLICK READ MORE. IT’LL BE INTERESTING. And fun. To watch me implode then explode.

Warnings: mentions of sex/sexting, lots of cursing, men being disgusting--potentially triggering, and one angry ass woman.

Warning part 2: this is A LOOOONG ASS POST, probably with a lot of grammatical errors. It’s 2am. (just so we’re all aware, it’s about 2.3k worth of ranting plus pictorial evidence)

So here’s the thing about me and tinder. I’ve been on the thing since I was in college, probably around junior year when I really came into the realization of my sexuality/being a pansexual person. Keep in mind this was like.....5 or 6 years ago now. I was interested in exploring my options, exhausted from going to countless frat parties and having random makeout sessions with boys who never asked for my number, and/or went on to makeout with the next girl they found at the party. Over the years I have collected an INFLUX of over 1,000 matches. I am not saying this number to brag, I am saying this number to give you an idea of how much of a credible fucking source I am when I present my case. And my case is as such.

ALL MEN ON TINDER ARE THE FUCKING. ABSOLUTE. WORST.

For perspective I have also dabbled in the following dating apps:

OKCupid (absolutely horrid. don’t do it. the shit i went through on this app....just. don’t get me started. I could make a whole other post about the atrocities of this site)

HER (really sad option for lesbian/bi/pan/women looking for other women)

Bumble (pretty successful but forcing the woman to speak first is annoying as hell and then giving a STRAIGHT MALE ONLY 24 HOURS TO RESPOND. Utter hell.)

Hinge (just...downright annoying)

CrossPaths (for christians. Honestly a good idea. Poorly executed. Poorly advertised).

Badoo (honestly...what the fuck)

Coffee Meets Bagel (good idea; too complicated)

Skout (nope)

The Game by Hot or Not (i don’t remember using this but my phone says it’s in my cloud)

And probably some others I can’t remember

What you should take away from this list is that

I’m a needy bitch

I was VERY DESPERATE at times

And i’ve tried a LOT OF OPTIONS.

therefore: don’t comment on this saying: well this worked, well that worked, try this, try that. No. Tinder is still one of the only options that actually works consistently and will continue to work because it is one of the least complicated among the dating apps.

Now. To my point that all men on tinder are the absolute fucking worst.

Time for some examples.

I will not be using these people’s real names, because that’s just mean. So I will present them to you in cases.

Case #1:

Me and this man matched about a year and a half ago, end of 2016. We were unable to meet up because I had a bunch of plans going on--at the time I worked in a law firm and my commute was hell so i only had time to go on dates on the weekends. And being that it was december I was busy every...single...weekend. Which he was fine with! (Awww what a kind gentlemen). No.

He had made it pretty clear from the beginning that he was really only in it for the sex. which for me at the time was fine. I let him know that I didn’t just fuck around on the first date. I lived--and still do live--with my mother and so he couldn’t just come over whenever and i couldn’t just leave whenever i wanted to spend the night at his place in D.C. He said that was fine. However, apparently he was not fine with that.

We talked for a month, lots of sexting, lots of naked snaps, whatever, whatever, we were basically waiting to jump each others bones. But I had also told him that I did not fuck on the first date. I had a rule. I would not break that rule. Again, he said he was fine with that.

On our first date--in a CROWDED RESTAURANT--for brunch, he kept whispering to me about how he wanted to push all of our plates off the table and fuck me in front of all those people. I politely told him to shut up because there were people sitting less than two feet away from us and that was inappropriate for sunday brunch to be talking like that (how proper of me....). Anyways, I let him walk me to my car in a garage, and as we approached it he came up behind me and forcefully turned me around to kiss him. I was like “ooh how hot. I like this.” Anyways, I drove him to his car, we made out a little, then we went on our separate ways. We had a second date not much longer after that, where we had agreed to go out to dinner BUT that first we were gonna fuck in his car. So we met up in a garage and we waited for the cars around us to leave and then we made out, and i sucked his dick. I did N O T let him have sex with me because I was annoyed that he was trying to push me to it--he had a daddy kink--and kept saying “ooh how hard do you want daddy to fuck you”. I said “You can only fuck me when I say you can, and I say no.” thank god he respected my boundaries. So I sucked him dry, then he “MAGICALLY” got a call from his work calling him in. I barely heard from him after that. Because he told me I should come over and spend the night so we could fuck. I said no. He ghosted me.

Case #2--Who knows:

Soooo many fucking men. Have ghosted me. For no reason. Like we’ll have a good few opening lines. And then....nothing. Forever. Where in the FUCK DID YOU GO?! Did you find someone better? Did you grow uninterested with our conversation?! Did you forget how to speak the English language? Did you decide you regretted swiping on me? The worst is when they don’t unmatch you and then it’s just left there....hanging.

Case #whatever:

The fucking men who ask if it’s okay to text. And then don’t text.

I don’t even remember this dude’s NAME in the first place to omit it, but we got into an argument because he supports the store brand cheese puff that is America’s president, and I matched him only so I could yell at him (yeah I know...whatever...I like to prove my dominance and tell boys why they’re wrong. Also because half of the time I use dating apps just to have conversations with people because I’m bored). Anyways. we got in this heated debate and he was like “I like your fire, you should text me here’s my number ____” blah. So I texted him cause i was interested enough in our debate to continue it. THE BITCH NEVER ANSWERED ME. LITERALLY....FOR MONTHS. PROBABLY OVER A YEAR. And then out of fucking nOWHERE he responds like “hey who is this again?” Dude...... NO.

Case #The Never Ending Message Senders:

These men are the worst. So I should explain myself first. I don’t really ever unmatch someone unless it’s for a good reason. Like they’re being disgusting, racist, homophobic, gross, call me fat, ugly, whatever. For the most part I don’t unmatch with someone because in the old days of tinder, unmatching would just PUT THE PERSON BACK IN YOUR CIRCUIT (good job tinder). I’m assuming they did this in case you deleted your tinder, or your app crashed and you had to restart, or you accidentally unmatched someone, whatever. So I don’t unmatch for the sole reason that I don’t want these jerks, who never took the time to respond to my hello or witty opening statement, back in my playing field. I don’t revisit my old matches, I don’t try to restart conversations with them.

If only men could learn the same fucking thing. I have so many men who CONSTANTLY message me. I’m talking like once in every blue moon. It’s like they let the conversation lie for a while, and then BAM another message. The ones I do actually unmatch are the ones that don’t wait a while. They just constantly message, hour after hour after hour until I either respond or unmatch. I don’t know a woman who WOULD respond after having gotten 10 messages of the same “Hello? You there?” “Member me?” (yes one dude has actually said “member me” to me. Not “remember me”...”member me”) etc. etc. in the course of a few hours. Take the hint dude. Please. I don’t enjoy being ghosted, but I know when to take a hint.

A perfect example of such case is the following!

(Context: I just updated the pictures in my tinder account today! So through tinder’s cool new facebook timeline! you can see when your matches update their profiles. to scroll through and judge them even further to see if they’ve gotten cuter or uglier through time).

Please take note of the dates attached to the message. For clarification, “today” is August 27th, 2018!

I have since unmatched him. Buddy. Please. Take the hint. (Also, how fucking creepy of him to say that I’ve gotten closer since a while back....like are you tracking my distance every time you message me? Please dear lord, no).

Case #THE IDIOTS WHO WAIT YEARS TO RESPOND.

This. THIS. THIIIIIS RIGHT HERE. IS WHAT HAS GOT MY BLOOD BOILED SO MUCH I NEEDED TO MAKE THIS POST. THE FUCKING IDIOTS WHO MATCH WITH ME. AND THEN CLAIM THAT THEY DELETED THEIR TINDER. OR THAT THEY LOST THEIR PHONE. JUST REDOWNLOADED. DIDN’T SEE MY MESSAGE. FOR FUCKING. YEARS.

OOOOOOOH BOY. You’ve gotta have some damn nerve to pull that shit. If you lost the app, deleted it, got a new phone, WHATEVER. Your profile would not continue to show up on the matching feed. People would not be able to swipe on your face to find that they matched with you. You would not exist in the eyes of tinder. You would be GONE from the system.

So don’t pull that shit with me. So many dudes have had the audacity to pull this shit with me, and when I call them out on it, most of the time I get either one of three responses: they say “oof yeah I’m sorry, I’m a dick can we move on?”, “Hahaha sorry” and then they continue to ghost me, or people who pull the shit I listed above.

These next photos are from THE SAME DAY AS THE PREVIOUS PHOTOS. Please take note of the date of the first message. (“today” in this sense is technically August 28, 2018 because it’s past midnight.)

Although I deleted his name, I gotta say. My insult was pretty on point. Anyways.

Like how the fuck can you live with yourself with that fucking lie?! Own up to that shit. Be like “yep oops sorry, didn’t think you were cute the first time but this snapchat filter making u look damn good” like don’t be a DOUCHE DUDE. Men are just honestly so fucking frustrating. And yes you better fucking believe I sent that reason for unmatching to tinder. You best fucking BELIEVEEEEEEE I did that. I’m so fucking mad at men. Like how in the hell.

I’ve HONESTLY had better luck matching with MARRIED COUPLES on tinder than I have had with straight men. Married couples at least know how to respect people. God damn.

YOUR MOTHERS DID NOT RAISE YOU TO BE LIKE THIS, MEN. LEARN HOW TO BE DECENT HUMAN BEINGS. JESUS CHRIST.

All in all, if you’ve ever toyed with the idea of downloading tinder: Don’t. Stay out of the fucking awful shit that is Tinder and dating apps for as long as you can. I have my settings set up to men in their 30s, and honestly older men do not mean more mature men. Just absolutely frustrating.

Also, as an addendum: 

Case #Don’t put my height in my bio/or do and say “Cause I guess it’s important/matters”

To all males on the planet earth: PUT. YOUR. FUCKING. HEIGHT. IN. YOUR. BIO. It fucking matters. As a tall as woman, it is so fucking annoying to match with a cute dude and then have them say “Hey I’m 5′2″ is that okay?” um....no. I’m sorry buddy. That is not okay. I have strict height limits for this ride and 5′2″ does not pass the riding restrictions.

We’re gonna call in a CELEBRITY SHOT for this story, I matched with this dude on bumble who didn’t have his height in his profile. (Context: my bumble profile says “5′10″ cause it doesn’t matter” <--a nice jab at all the straight dudes out there) and we go about having this great conversation, we’re clicking, he knows one of my friends from college, we bond, we go on a date. THE FIRST THING OUT OF THIS ASSHOLE’S MOUTH ON OUR DATE WAS “WOW. You’re taller than I expected.” BITCH HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CAN U READ. IT’S THE FIRST THING IN MY BIO.

Sub case: I once had a guy match with me, tell me he was shorter than me, then asked me if I would be okay owning him as my slave. I understand and respect everyone’s fetishes, considering I have a slight dominance fetish as well, but a hello would have been nice first.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[zukazukazuka]

Takarazuka ~World of Dreams~ in Seattle

I waited until I got all the way home to Boston to post this because I have so many things I want to get out and it would be impossible to do on my phone, so here I am, waiting for some late night Chinese food to arrive, and I’m going to just sort of wordvomit everything from this past weekend before I put it off too long that it’s just too stale to do anymore or I’ll forget these 5000 thoughts going through my head.  It took me until Friday to finish it, so I wrote it in a couple different chunks and it’s a bit rambling, so....apologies for the length (ahaaahahaa...) and also if I repeat myself...I tried to add pictures in to make it more interesting, ahaha.

As I said in a (forthcoming) podcast of all of us rambling about our thoughts and impressions after the show, it still somehow doesn’t feel real.  There was so much build up prior to the event that now that it’s over I’m still sort left with this lingering feeling of “did that actually happen?”  So much happened over the course of three days.

We flew in on Friday after staying up until 2:30 AM EST finishing costume details and packing.  Our flight was at 9 but I still got up at 5 because I’m a masochist or something, and only grabbed about 3 hours of sleep on the six hour flight (more than usual because I recently purchased a TRTL neck scarf thing and it’s freaking life changing because I can never sleep on planes and neck pillows are bulky and uncomfortable but this thing is MAGIC).  We got to our hotel probably around 2:30, took showers, were starving, so I poked around for potential spots to eat and since it was chilly and rainy I googled for ramen on google maps, and the closest spot was a place called KIKI RAMEN, so, naturally, we had to go (it was delicious btw).

We didn’t have any drinks but those looked pretty great too (yes, it says OG Kiki and Kiki favorites and the actual punchline of this joke is that Kiki herself doesn’t drink so it’s amusing - sidenote: as a testament to her acting talent, she plays a very good drunk.  See: MeMy 2016).

So then, Al and I had a special meeting on Friday evening, which was a costume fitting.  I kept under wraps for months that Sakiko had asked me to provide costumes for this performance for the Rose of Versailles numbers.  The thought of siennes wearing my silly cosplay costumes floored me, and even though I knew I’d have to rework (and actually remake) a few pieces, I enthusiastically agreed.  I knew there would be challenges in the sense that I have very little experience sewing for another person, much less someone I wouldn’t physically have access to ensure a proper fit, but long story short, it happily worked out.  

I can see the mistakes, and there were a few snafus and some misunderstandings, but both Ayaka Rei and Shiho Nanami were so so nice gracious and patient with me that even though I was NERVOUS AS HELL especially going into the first fitting on Friday and had to rework some rework on Sunday (I literally was sewing in a zipper and tacking down the sash right before they had to get dressed for the show), in the end everything turned out fine.  Eriko-san, their manager, was super sweet and multiple times gave me food or snacks (a lifesaver on Sunday hurk).  The header photo is a really bad screencap from some video I took during dress rehearsal, and the photo above is from Eriko-san via Sakiko, as I’m 10000% kicking myself for being too damn shy to ask for a photo for at least my own posterity, but there also just wasn’t a lot of time to do so anyway. 

I remade the brooches (hand gluing several hundred individual rhinestones that took about 3.5 hours per brooch) and they glittered like the flipping sun.  The Oscar coat I had to make a new one of completely because I have 0 experience altering already made garments and my own would be far too big.  Luckily I had the resources to put together something that worked and chose a different version that meant I wouldn’t have to spend 4 hours per sleeve embellishing (and as cool as that would have been and I in theory had time to do it since I had months of advance notice, I also worked 6 days per week from about May through October, so unfortunately the time and sanity just wasn’t there).

These are the original costumes, Andre’s is basically the same. 

And here’s a WIP of the new Oscar coat I made for this show - these are the tails, which you don’t get to see really so...now you do! 

I used some fancy materials because I’m Extra, and if there’s a time to be Extra at all in your costume making it’s when you’re making a Takarazuka costume for actual Takarazuka actresses to wear on stage.  I worried Andre might be too plain, but I had forgotten that there’s actually a solid amount of sequins on that costume too and it sparkled in the stage lights and I was just so happy.  Extra shoutouts to the lady at the fabric store in Pike Market place who had a separating zipper in the exact color and almost exact length I needed, everyone who cheered me on as I was freaking out about Mood not sending my fabric, my friends who did the resin jewels for the center of the brooches, Jen and Becca who sat with me while I sewed down to the wire, and of course my ever patient and wonderful partner Al, who was guinea pig and model and motivator while I sewed for about 4 days straight over Thanksgiving weekend.  A huge huge thank you to Sakiko, the wonder woman of this whole event, for even extending me the opportunity to do this.  (Extra shout out to MAITII (Minami Maito) AND LUNA (Saezuki Runa) for loaning their boots for the performance, THANKS LADIES).

But of course, the deepest thanks and gratitude, from the bottom of my heart, to Ayaka Rei and Shiho Nanami, who again were so kind and patient (especially Ayaka Rei as I had to make the most adjustments to her costume and some trial and error after a couple things didn’t work out), who looked amazing and performed wonderfully and I will just never ever forget those moments for the rest of my life.

Me with the costumes after we got home because idk reasons:

ANYWAY, so we got to quickly meet all four of them briefly on Friday, and I also got to hand off our super modest (本当につまらないものですが）gifts of Boston tea to each of them (because what else do you give people as a representation of where you live when you’re from Boston that isn’t overly MURRICA but is still notable - tea).  Mariho Erina greeted us in English and I felt like all weekend she was excited to use it as much as she could - she and Tama Mayura were both so sweet.

On Saturday we met up with lovelies  @zukadiary​, @suitsuite​, @hoshigomi​, and S for some wandering around Pike Place Market (I’m only slightly bummed that because of the craziness of the weekend it didn’t afford much time for actual sightseeing), lunch, and some brief shopping before going our separate ways for a few hours.  I spent some time doing some fixes to the costumes before getting ready for our dinner party / ochakai with the “superfans” (lololol) and the OGs, which ended up being in a more tea party format and was so fun to spend time with other fans that I hadn’t met before in person or don’t get to see often - @suitsuite did a great writeup of the events here, so I’ll let you wander over there to check out her account.  We ended up in the front row center (lawl) which was pretty great for when they sang for us, ngl.  Unfortunately I started the event with a headache that proceeded to a nasty migraine by the end, so we had to skip out on karaoke and head back to the hotel immediately after everything was over because I got full on sick shortly after.  Luckily I felt much better after that and passed out.

Oh yeah, while walking around the Pike Place area, I spotted this restaurant: 

(By the way yes I realize it’s probably not that uncommon of a name but it works with the theme, ok)

On Sunday we got up earlyish (still being on east cost time it meant I was awake at like 6 AM but stayed in bed for a while after) and ate at Biscuit Bitch which was nextdoor to our hotel and was flipping d e l i c i o u s.  120% recommend.  I got their Seattle Fog drink which was Early gray, vanilla, steamed milk, and orange zest.  So A+.  They have gluten free versions of their biscuits and gravy, too!

Sunday was fun (I am being both facetious and serious at the same time here) because I ended up having to go run around looking for a fabric store for a zipper, since my original hook and eye closure for Oscar’s jacket wasn’t going to work for the change they needed to make for the next song, so I googlemaped this place called Our Fabric Stash, which is a cool concept of being able to sell off your extra fabric and maybe pick up some other stuff for a project - awesome recycling concept, and she had a bunch of vintage patterns and all kinds of stuff, including aforementioned gold find of a zipper (which I ended up putting in in a stupid way the first time and fixed later after dress rehearsal).  The woman there was super super nice and I wish I’d had more time to spend and talk with her and look around, but it took five of us like 20 minutes just to find it since it was buried in the market (I ended up running into several other zuka people down there during my own hunt who were also looking for the same shop) and I had limited time left to go put this thing in.

We made it to the theater just in the nick of time for dress rehearsal, realized there were still other things I’d need to fix afterward which became evident during that part of the rehearsal, so I stole the jacket away to rework the zipper again and fix a major flaw.  It was a great learning experience because I had to rewire my brain to not think like a cosplayer in the fact that I can’t just pin everything because these pieces all have to come off relatively quickly, and you only get a few minutes to actually look at them.  I had zero time to even put much makeup on at all during the whole day because there was just no down time to do it (I was literally hand sewing up until maybe 10 minutes before the show).  Not a BIG deal obviously but I like to be fancy when I can (luckily I had had the chance to not look like a scrub the past two nights so yay).  Eriko-san, their manager, graciously gave me two onigiri because I hadn’t eaten anything since that morning and I’m pretty sure it’s the only thing that really kept me from full on passing out later in the day.

Suddenly, it was time for the show.

There was a big center block of us right in front, which was honestly, so, so much fun - to go see a show with other foreign fans is rare, and it’s stupid rare for so many of us to be all together at once.  I wonder what the rest of the audience made of us, particularly at moments like when we all whispered “STAR!” to Ayaka Rei for the English word of her troupe when she forgot during her introduction.  But at any rate, Becca and Jen gave a wonderful short introduction to Takarazuka and foreign fans, and then they played the video from the English website that went a little more in depth (if you haven’t seen it, it’s a Time) - it’s actually a good overview despite a few funny quirks.  And then - OH AND THEN - the curtain raises and ahh the four of them are standing on stage, the Mariho Erina and Tama Mayura in lovely beautiful dresses to either side of Ayaka Rei and Shiho Nanami wearing my costumes, and they just glittered, literally and figuratively, and wow.  I’d forgotten how many sequins ACTUALLY were on that Andre jacket and it just glittered.  I could see some mistakes, worried that people would notice them, but in the end I just hoped that all of the sparkles were a big enough distraction that it wouldn’t matter.  I never imagined these costumes would be on stage, nevermind on actual former Takarasiennes, and just - hell.  It was amazing.  It is amazing, and I’m so happy I could make something so beautiful and bring together both of my stupidly expensive, ridiculous hobbies together like this.

The show was so fun - lots of familiar favorites of course, @suitsuite did another great writeup of the whole thing here, so I’ll just mention a few of my favorite scenes, which was of course the berubara opening songs, getting to hear Mariho Erina’s beautiful Watshi Dake Ni not once, not twice, but THREE times (because I got to sit in and listen to dress rehearsal) was pretty ace, but the moments I LOVED was them utilizing the stairs along the audience and high-fiving Nanami-san, all of their energy, the smiles on their faces and the tears in their eyes when we cheered and jumped to our feet at the end of the show.  I was so happy that the rest of the audience in the theater also enjoyed it, whether they already knew Takarazuka or were experiencing a taste of it for the first time, it was just so, so wonderful.  I LOVED the “rock” version of Sumire no Hana, and it was just SO MUCH FUN.

After the show we had to hang around for a while before grabbing the costumes, and since Al had been roped into doing the merch table, I chatted with some people who wandered by wanting more info before a few of us were used to help stage for the interview.  After that was done we grabbed the costumes, unfortunately had a really quick time to say goodbye, and then we met up with so many of you wonderful, amazing people for a post-show viewing party where we recorded reactions for the podcast, ordered enough pizza to feed a small army, and @hoshigomi and I polished off two bottles of sparkling rose like champs while watching SANTE, HOT EYES, Romance!!, and half of Sports day.  In all honesty, that was my favorite part of the weekend.  I’m so, SO sad we’re all so far flung that we don’t get to see each other very often at all, I’m SO sad for the people I didn’t get to see or meet because you couldn’t make it for one reason or another, but that’s what made this all the more special, what makes me wish we could ALL get together at some point, some day, JUST to hang out and scream and talk in person, to wear out our voices rather than our fingers, and as mentioned somewhere - the incredible concept of just LEANING OVER and showing someone new iride photos rather than sending them on LINE or twitter or whatever.

I said this on the recording that you’ll get to hear later, but I love Takarazuka for the love that it encourages - the love and happiness you feel watching a show, the love you have for the actresses, the love that other fans spread by paying it forward, by the random acts of kindness, by finding ways bring that love and happiness to others.  Especially in the past couple of years, I’ve needed that love more than ever.  I miss all of you so much, and I hope someday to meet those of you I haven’t yet in person to be able to soon.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[impertfectedchoices]

I Promise - PT.3

Prompt: In a Heartbeat Ship: James X MC POV: (Point of View): James Word Count: 1,653 Tags:

@hhiggs | @destinio1 | @marryjanewaston

Artist Comment: Holaaaaa, So, pardon the, AGAIN, long break. Life’s been kicking my WHO-LE existence 😭.

This one, unintentionally, is going to be a really emotional part. This wasn’t my original plan, but it just… kind of happened. The past two months have been pretty hectic, and I’m really trying my best, But when you go through bs, it seems like you’re alone. A quote I’m gonna be using in this pretty much sums up what I’m going through. And I feel like it fits in this fic too well. So, I hope this comes across well. While writing this part, I actually cried, like, semi-broke down 😭. This hits a real personal note to me, and I hope you guys understand it. So, FAIR WARNING! I’m trying my best to not look at the situation, but how I’m going to get out of it. And your “now” won’t be your “future.” Anyone can come out of a crappy situation and thrive. You just gotta go through the storm. And all that sappy stuff, lel. 💕

PS, This, as well, was on a whim. No planning, drafting, or prethinking about plot before I write…. just gonna try to spot all the spelling errors this time 😂

le’Enjoy!

•

8:01pm

It’s feeling like elephants are sitting on my chest, since getting back to the car. I’ve never, necessarily, had problems with my breathing being under control. But sitting here; watching the car lights from main road dance across my windshield, I find that I’m constantly reminding myself to take breaths. The more I force myself, it seems, my breathing gets more shallow. I’m repeatedly feeling on the inside, each attempt to grasp at anything stable. I’ve always been able to zone out, and let my mind center on my sane points. But, as of recent, there’s nothing to feel. Numbness has replaced any form of joy to my life, leaving me a drained form of myself.

From the library, past… past MC’s house, to the highway that took me a few miles away from Hartfeld.

Familiar roads allowed for the holes to appear slowly into the wall I temporarily built up, within a 30 minute time span. I parked, went inside and felt the anxiety creep its way back in. My mind tried to put itself back together, but seemed conflicted with the storm’s leftover mess that wasn’t letting up. Every time I attempted to collect my emotions, regain what stability I believed consumed my existence, something happens to throw my progress out the window to clean, discard, and replace. One fall after the next.

My hands were still, wrapped around the wheel. Never leaves, but tightens every so often. I could feel myself tense up, veins more visible, and the white peaking through from the grip I’d had. I needed to focus on something, Anything.

There’s like… maybe over 30 cars in the parking lot.

40?

Just turned red…

Counted off 5 cars turning right at the light.

…now 6,

7?

Yea, 7.

Turned green.

White… Toyota

Um, think it’s a Camry.

The left side’s light always seems to last lo-

• knock, knock •

Now, just realizing the knocking happening next to me, I’d subconsciously whipped away any traces of emotion left on my face to greet who it’d been. To my surprise, I was greeted back with a less then stable face bundled up in her jacket. Unlocking the door, Abbie walked to the passengers side. I opened the door for her, as she climbed in, with semi-urgency. “W-wow, it’s a lot colder than I thought I’d be today.” She said with a bit of a stuttery smile. It had been getting colder since fall started creeping in, but the temperature rarely came to mind, with everything else taking up room. I tried my best to disguise any strain that I’d been feeling earlier, to save face. “Yeah, falls been catching up on us.” mentioning with a halfhearted smile. As I began fiddling with the knobs; turning switches to adjust the heat, she cleared her throat before she began breaking the silence again, “James,”

Looking back up, her face, almost immediately tensed up. Actually looking at her, you could tell she’d been worn out. She looked as if she’d been crying, and her eyes grew puffier the more seconds passed by. Abbie seemed very resilient at times. But in this moment; just like everyone else, I was stunned to see her so weakened. “Abbie. MC’s going to be oka-“ “Don’t lie,” The cracking in her voice was low, but audible enough to ring throughout my head. “James, ?Kaitlyn and Zack told me everything. I went to meet up with everyone, got inside and… and everyone was just, falling apart. Chis pulled Tyler to the side. And I’ve, I’ve never seen him look so broken. Zach couldn’t even look me in the eyes, and Kaitlyn could barely get enough words out without breaking down mid sentence…” The more she spoke, the more the reality of the situation sunk back into me. “…They told me you left, and that’s not like you. So I had to find you.” She’d been turned directly to me, eyes swelling. Looking down at my steering wheel, my hands at some point fell back into position. Feeling myself tense up, still forcing myself to control my breathing enough to speak, “I just, it was hard for me to stay in there for much lon-“

“JAMES, THAT DOESN’T MATTER!” Wide-eyed, My eyes darted back up to her. Her face had gotten a hint redder than normal, and her expression was drenched with frustration, annoyance, worry, and concern. She had been trying to do what everyone felt was impossible; break through the walls I built up when placed in these circumstances. I understood what she was trying to get accomplished, but of all moments, now wasn’t the time. “Abbie,” Attempting to bite back any amount of sternness in my voices, I continued, “… I know how your feeling right now, this isn’t easy on me either. But the last thing we need to be doing is losing it on each other.” It seemed like everything I was saying, though, was just fueling the fire. “What an excuse. So is this your way of ‘solving the situation?’ Running off and hiding in your car?” “No, but staying in there isn’t going to make it any better.” “So, what is staying locked up in here is proving? All I see is someone running away from their problems!”

I could feel every ounce of me radiate irritation. It was getting harder to swallow it. “So do you truly believe I don’t care about MC? Really?” “If you did, you’d be in that room waiting for her! You already took her for granted before, and to think I thought better of you James. I had high hopes, but she’s given you way too many chances for you to get your act together… and you just SIT HERE! You may have had a lot on you plate, but she’s literally given every chance to fix her schedule to make time for you. And all she can get is a few texts, Time you give her for newspaper club meetings? You literally stand her up to work on some dumb paper when you knew she’d been sick. And no apology? Nothing?”

I’d still been staring at the steering wheel as she spoke. The more she yelled, the tighter my grip had gotten. What she didn’t understand was that this was literally killing every inch of my being inside. It felt like I was falling in this hole; ever since Vasquez passed, plummeting. Im just ready to hit the bottom, look at the distance I have to climb, and start climbing, but there isn’t a bottom. I just keep falling. It never ends. This constant torment doesn’t seem to have an end. And I just want it to be over. Everything emotion warped around in my head together; anger, fustration, sadness, guilt, irritability, brokenhearted-ness, fear, heartache, pain. It all reeked in my body, consuming me as all I could hear in my head was yelling. Abbie’s voice faded out, and all I could here was my subconscious talking: It’s your fault, you should’ve been there, you did this, where were you, she needed you, you weren’t there, your no good for her, she’s wasting her time, your taking her for granted, she deserves better, let her go…

“God James, I would thought you’d learn better from everything you put her through. Even with Vasq-“

BEEEEEEEEP!

“BE QUIET!!!!!”

I slammed my fist into the wheel instinctively. I needed the voices to stop, the agony to stop, I just needed to be able to hear thoughts that were my own. She jumped, looking shocked towards me. She didn’t expect such a response from me.

“Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, it’s not true… it’s not true. I care… I care, I swear.” I’d kept repeating this to myself, extensively tight clutch on the steering wheel, hunched over it.

“I care, I swear I care about her… I love her so much, God. Please, make her okay, i swear I’ll do better I care I care I care She means the world to me she does I need her”

I kept repeating it, over and over again. I needed what I believed to overpower what was going on in my head. But I didn’t have the strength to keep up the facade. They were right, it was my fault. She’s been so stressed because of me. I didn’t deserve her, I should have been a better partner, a better friend, a better boyfriend… I didn’t notice Abbie grab me from my stance and held me. She had been the one consoling me this time around. The hold I had over my emotions just gave out. It felt as if me as a person broke, shattered for the first time, as I was left to face my emotions, instead of disguise them.

“I’m so sorry, MC. I’m so fucking sorry, I’m sor-ry I’m so- I’m so-rryyyy.” I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Dropping my face into my hands, my heart wrenched and I dissolved in myself. Shaking, all I could do was replay what she’d told me, making my soul call out for her more;

”I’m fine James, it’s just a small cold. Nothing I… *sniff* can’t handle!”

”I’ll be okay James, I promise.”

”Geez, so mushy.”

”… but I love you too, my darling.”

•LAST •NEXT