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shewrites444 · 1 month ago

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one time thing [ art donaldson x patrick's sister! reader smut ]

wc - 5.4k

[ summary - patrick and tashi have been together for a few months now, and art's been a bit jealous. he's in need of a distraction, and given that you're getting over a recent breakup while also preparing to transfer to stanford, you do, too. only issue is how patrick is your older brother, but it's not like that's stopped you and art before. ]

[ warnings - brother's best friend trope, little bit of fluff, dirty talk, oral (m&f), unprotected sex ]

❀⋆˚✿˖° 𐙚 ₊ ⊹ ♡𓊆ྀི❤︎𓊇ྀི

"it's nice to see you lit up about something, even if that something is my girlfriend."

art cringed at patrick's words, knowing his best friend was right, but he denied it, even though it was bluntly obvious to anyone and everyone who knew how he felt about tashi duncan.

he shook his head, glancing down at the table. "patrick, you know i would never do anything to jeopardize your relationship, or our friendship. i'm happy for you, i really am."

all patrick could do was laugh, giving art a cheekish grin before taking a sip of his coke. he set it down on the cafeteria table before looking back to his friend. "hmm. you gonna come with us to her parent's fundraiser tonight for the tournament tonight? she's letting us bring guests... so, you could always bring a little someone?"

"patrick." art rolled his blue eyes, shaking his head in disbelief with a half-smile. "as if. the only thing i'm focused on is tennis. but yeah, the plan was to come, as long as you two don't make me the hate my life as the third wheel."

"we would never." patrick leans back into his chair. "why don't you try.. i don't know, you could try talking to [ y/n ]." he shrugs.

art stops for a moment, blinking as he registers his friend's words. he's got to hide the red on his cheeks, which is a bit hard to do with his paler skin. he looks down from the floor back up to patrick. "are you prostituting your own sister to me, patrick?"

you were patrick's younger sister, only by about a year, and also happened to be enrolling in stanford as a transfer student for the upcoming semester. you weren't there for tennis like art and tashi, rather a pretty good academic scholarship for computer science. art liked that about you, the fact that you had more to you than sports (sports wasn't a bad thing, just different), and that you had goals other than the ones he, patrick, and tashi had. but he hadn't talked to you in about a year, so it had been a minute since he had even seen you. yeah, you two had each other on social media, but neither of you were that active.

"what? no." patrick smirks, clearly indicating otherwise. "i mean, she thinks you're cute, i guess. i can tell. and she'll be there since tashi's letting me bring my family, so you could always just flirt with her, i don't know. something to spice up your night? who knows, maybe you could fu-"

"you're - you're gross." art nudged patrick, an awkward laugh leaving with his words. "[ y/n ] and i wouldn't have anything to talk about anyway besides you and stanford, and she's not even going into the same program as me. and she's your sister, for one, so i'd prefer to not talk to her about you the entire time. weird conversation starter, don't you think?"

patrick leaned closer, holding his coke loosely and taking a sip, before tapping it quickly against art's lips. "not like you haven't accidentally kissed your dear friend before, art. wouldn't be weird to kiss anyone else in my bloodline."

"again, gross." art's cheeks tinted a light pink at that memory for a year or so ago of the two of them with tashi, before he stood up, slinging his bookbag across his shoulder. "enough of that. i'll see you tonight."

"m'kay." patrick nudged art with the bottom of his shoe as he stood up. "see you tonight. text me when you get there."

art left the cafeteria, looking down at his white, court-scuffed sneakers as he walked down the sidewalk. he was in trouble. he wasn't even thinking about tashi and patrick now. that jealousy subsided for the moment.

yeah, he hadn't talked to you in awhile, but it's not like you didn't have a history patrick didn't know about. i mean, you fucked like, what, right before he went to stanford?

there was never anything between the two of you. art would give you a simple 'hey' when he went to see patrick at your parents' house, but that was really it. except when patrick went to hook up with some girl in the middle of the night, and art was in the kitchen getting some snacks at 2 am, high off a bong him and patrick had been hitting for way too long, and you walked in there in nothing a but baggy t-shirt, also extremely high on your own accord, thinking no one else was around, and well... one thing led to another. whoops.

he didn't regret it, and neither did you, but there was an unspoken agreement to never tell patrick because regardless of how much he'd give you two shit for it, inside, he'd probably be extremely pissed off. it was a one time thing, but he wouldn't get that, no matter what the present matter was now.

impulsively, in the midst of stress, art dug into his jean pocket to pull his phone out. he pulled up your number, his pink lips pressed together as he debated what to do. should he text you and give you some sort of heads up? he wasn't going to leave you to the wrath of your own brother, so he started to type. he didn't even know what he was saying, but he had to say something, right?

hey, patrick said you'd be at the fundraiser tonight. i don't think he knows about last year, but he was making jokes with me about hitting on you. so i guess just, be cool tonight.

you were in your hotel room unpacking your suitcase when your phone pinged. luckily, given that your only sibling was patrick and he was staying with tashi, you had a room to yourself, as did your parents. you were glad for that too - you'd be able to focus on everything stanford this weekend to prepare for next semester. art didn't even really cross your mind until you saw his name pop up on your screen for the first time in months.

your brows furrow as you lean down to pick your phone up off the side of the bed. you open the text, your eyes widening a bit. there was no way patrick knew. like, actually no way, so you weren't concerned about that. it was just the idea that he was making jokes about you talking to art that kind of threw you off. why would he say that?

hey. i don't know why he'd say that - no way he knows, he's just fucking with you, so what's new lol. i'll see you tonight, i'm sure it'll be fine.

"great." you mutter to yourself, before setting your phone back down once you saw his immediate 'thumbs up' reaction to your message.

you were both high when you fucked, but you still remembered it. it's not like you didn't know what you were doing, both of you knew exactly what was going on. awkward small talk that led into you stepping closer to art, art stepping closer to you, you making the first move to kiss him, and well... yeah. you remembered well.

you thought art was hot too, obviously, and it was fun, but you never thought you'd have to even think about that again. i mean, yeah, you'd see him again probably at patrick's wedding (if he ever got married), or maybe at one of their matches, but that was really it.

you had been with someone for the past few months anyway, and that was your main focus, at least romantically, but he went away to college, and you both agreed it was best to just, move on, and go in different directions. and it was, because you were sad for a little, of course, but you wisely focused your attention towards school and work. never thought you'd be texting art donaldson for the first time in months right now.

"focus." you said to yourself, averting your attention back to the half-unpacked suitcase before you.

a few hours had passed and you were getting out of the uber with your parents to walk into the banquet room that the fundraiser was being held in, until you were directed to go outside for the social portion of the event before dinner. it was evident the duncans were like, insanely rich, probably from the amount of funding they got from their daughter since she committed to stanford, so i guess that was good on your brother.

you looked around for patrick, knowing that he was already there with tashi. you spotted them standing at a pub table talking to none other than art. of course, you looked back for your parents, but they were already off at the bar waiting for alcohol. shocker.

"[ y/n ]!" you could hear patrick yell your name, waving over to you. he gestured for you to come towards them.

you sigh, plastering a fake, obviously anxious smile across your face as you wave in return, walking towards the three of them. tashi smiled at you, and walked towards you first to introduce herself. you could see art in the corner of your eye, hands in his pockets, while he glanced more towards the floor. way to play it cool, art.

"hi! you're [ y/n ] - i'm tashi." she pulled you into a gentle hug. she was way taller than you, about the same height as your brother. you returned her hug, giving her a soft smile, as welcoming as you could be to your brother's only girlfriend that he had been with for more than a month.

"hey. it's nice to meet you, tashi." you nod, looking up to her as you step apart. you glance to patrick, then to art. you give him a short casual, wave. "hey, art."

art takes a sip of his beer. "[ y/n ]. good to see you."

"you too." you say shortly. patrick furrows his brows, looking between the two of you, before shaking his head.

patrick reaches forward to take tashi's hand. "let's go say hi to my parents. they wouldn't shut the hell about meeting you over the phone this morning." tashi nods, before giving you and art both a wave. "yeah, for sure. see you guys in a bit."

patrick and tashi walk off, before it's now art and you standing at the table alone. you can barely even hear the music around you with how much you were thinking about the situation at hand. you hadn't seen art in person in what felt like forever.

you would be lying to yourself if you didn’t think he looked good. better than good, actually. he was much more toned, you could tell with the way his muscles were tight, but not too tight, against his light blue polo. you could see it in his jawline, his legs, his chest... damn, he looked good. you'd never dispute that.

"so, has he said anything to you?" you break the silence, maintaining your distance.

art shook his head. "no. he's been more focused on tashi meeting your parents. you?"

"of course not." you sigh. you reach to the table next to the two of you and take one of the drinks from a serving tray. "he's distracted. i really don't think he's aware of anything, art. plus, that was like a year ago, it's not like either of us think about it either. i mean, i can barely remember it."

art wouldn't say that he was hurt by your remark, but it didn't feel too good. you didn't remember it? yes, you were both under some sort of influence, but he knew he fucked you good, and he didn't remember you not being aware of that.

"you don't remember it?" he asks, tilting his head in confusion.

you blink. you look up to him, the drink in your hands as you stand straight. you clear your throat. "uh, i mean, isn't it best to just.. act like it didn't happen? not like it keeps us up at night, so why would it be relevant? it was a one time thing."

art couldn’t help but frown, gently shrugging his shoulders as he look up at the marble ceiling. "well, i mean, it happened, so it's weirder to act like it didn't, you know."

"…okay." you trail your words, nodding as you notice him looking away. "so.. so you'd rather acknowledge it?"

his eyes went from the ceiling to you. “i can pretend like it didn’t happen if that’s what you want.”

god, he sounded so disappointed. you could hear it in his voice. he got quieter, and his hands would fidget in his pockets, struggling to express the way he felt to you in fear of stirring up any sort of tension, worse than the amount that was already in the room.

you take a sip from the drink in your hands. it was strong. you wince, setting the glass down on the table.

"no, that's... that's not what i mean." you wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out. your goal wasn't to make him feel like shit, just to be more casual about it. "i don't want you to think i didn't have a good time, i just.. just don't want to think about something that wouldn't happen again, you know."

art's brow raised. a smile creaked at the corner of his mouth. he leaned against the pub table, and glanced up to you. "do you want it to happen again, [ y/n ]?"

your eyes go wide, and you can feel the blush crawling onto your skin. you chew on the side of your cheek for a moment, and avoid eye contact by staring at the table.

"that's... that's a big question, art." you laugh to relieve your own inner tension, grabbing the glass that you had previously set down and taking another sip. maybe you need something strong for this conversation. "it's been awhile, and i mean, we weren't even sober when it happened. so, it's hard to answer that, i guess."

art hadn't thought much about it the past year either, if he was being honest with you. he'd been so wrapped up in tashi and patrick, and tennis, and school, that there wasn't even any room to think about you, or any other women, for that matter. but now that you were right in front of him, he wouldn't pretend that he wasn't thinking about it now.

the opportunity could potentially present itself, if you two were careful. he could fuck you in your hotel room tonight if you wanted him to, or, if you were antsy enough, he would gladly let you ride his dick on that table in the separate dining room that the duncan's weren't using tonight he noticed on his way in.

art was an understanding guy though, so it's not like he didn't consider how you felt in this situation. if you didn't want him to even lay a finger on you for whatever reason, that was fine, too. but if you did want that, god, he'd gladly do so.

he doesn't answer your words from beforehand. he got lost in his train of thought, so instead, he figured he'd have to take some sort of initiative. he wasn't the most dominant man out there, but if you were to want this, you seemed to prefer him doing all the work.

"do you want to go inside?" he asked quietly. the indication was there. you felt a pit in your stomach starting to form.

so, you nod. “yeah.” you answer in the same quiet tone of voice. you brush your hair out of your face to rest behind your ears, before turning yourself towards the banquet room.

you looked around for your brother and tashi, noticing they were standing with your parents more towards the front of the large room. you look back to art as he followed behind you.

“fuck it.” you look up to him, and you shrug, attempting to loosen up. “just follow me.”

art bites his bottom lip, and nods. “mhm.” he sighs. “lead the way. fuck it.”

what the fuck were you doing? you’re in a public place. you’re about to fuck your brother’s best friend, again. you thought you were sick - damn, good thing you didn't know what art did behind closed doors with your brother and his girlfriend.

whatever. maybe this would be a good way for you to get over your breakup (even though you were already over it, you just needed an excuse). maybe it would be a good distraction for art, too, god knows he’s been so buried in tennis this past semester he probably couldn’t focus on anything else.

you wouldn’t lie, you were nervous. when you hooked up, all you did was slide your panties to the side, and you kept your shirt on. and he fucked you from the back, so it was a hook up-hook up. no vulnerability there, so it’s not like he saw you for you.

tonight, you felt it in your gut that he'd see all of you. you'd see all of him. and you weren't high, barely even buzzed from your few sips of your drink earlier, so you'd be sober. fuck. you could be sick right now.

"do you know where you're going?" art laughed to himself. were you so nervous that you didn't even know where you were taking him to? he really has to do all the work, even when it comes to location.

art thought about it. you were a sweet girl, really, and he wasn't the type of guy to try and level you down to someone you weren't. yeah, he could gesture the two of you fuck there in somewhere private, despite it being a public event, but he'd like to think you were both above that, at least tonight.

part of him wanted patrick to know he'd be fucking you, but another part of him knew you didn't deserve to be put in the middle of that. he wouldn't do that to you.

"hey." he gently placed his hand on your shoulder, his fingers warm against your cold, exposed skin. "i'm gonna get an uber. we can go back to your hotel. would you prefer that?"

you think for a moment, and nod. "yeah. that.. that sounds good. thanks."

art nods, and with your permission, he takes his phone out of his back pocket and after a few seconds of scrolling and tapping pretty hastily, he orders an uber to the venue. mostly everyone was inside, and everyone was distracted. patrick and tashi were both so focused on your parents, and they were so focused on them, you wouldn't be missed. neither of you.

the ride to your hotel was quiet, both of you sitting in the backseat of the car, both of you refusing to look at each other, looking out the different windows on each side. luckily, it was quick. your hotel was only about a ten minute drive, so you didn't have that much time to think.

"thanks." art broke the silence by opening the car door, handing the driver a $10 bill before gesturing for you to come through his side.

you slide over, and you run your hands down the front of your dress to brush off any light wrinkles that formed on the drive. you clear your throat, looking up to art and then the hotel, before you turn to walk in.

"sorry if my room is a bit of a mess." you mutter, walking through the lobby towards the elevator. "i got here only a few hours before the event."

art smiled down at you as you stepped into the elevator, watching you click your floor's button. he brushed some of his curls off his forehead and shrugged. "as long as you aren't as messy as your brother, it's no problem."

you scoff, rolling your eyes and nudging him. "if there is any rules for whatever the fuck is going on, one of them is to not mention my brother, art."

he snickered, walking through the now opened doors with you towards the hallway. "fine. only because it's a rule now, i guess."

you grinned, the mood shifting from the initial nervousness and awkward atmosphere to a now lightened feeling. you remembered that you and art could joke around, too, and this wasn't some stranger to you. you had known him since you were kids, it wasn't that big of a deal. no need to be so up-tight.

"here." you say, stopping as you fumbled through your purse to grab the room key, holding it against the pad as the door made a short 'click' noise. you push it forward, and set your purse on the little kitchen nook right as you stepped inside. art followed closely behind you.

his hands slowly trailed along your waist, fingertips dancing against your stomach and thumbs pressed against you outer back. you froze, cheeks burning almost in an instinct while he leaned down, gently pressing a kiss on the side of your neck as his noise pushed some of your hair out of the way.

"is this okay?" he asked softly, his hot breath against your neck.

"yes."

art pressed another kiss against your neck, but this time, he let his tongue come forward, too, gently tracing coats of saliva with each kiss. you could feel his cock hardening, pressing against your lower back while he stood behind you.

you closed your eyes, a small moan escaping from your lips. you take one of his hands off your waist and lead it to the bottom of your dress. he takes note of this, and he slides his hand in between your legs, bunching up the middle of the material as he moved his fingers to your thong, pushing it to the side.

you lean forward, gasping as his cold fingers move to your slit, and he could already feel how turned on you were. you could feel him smile against your lips. he pushed two of his fingers against your clit, lightly beginning to rub. your eyes are shut, and you're already so fucking wet. it's almost pathetic.

"oh, fuck." you hiss, one of your hands pressed against the kitchen counter. "you've gotta slow down, art."

he sped his movements up. he felt your body jolt as his touch pressed harder, too. "get on the bed, [ y/n ]." he pulls away.

you gasp softly, and glance to him from behind. you walk towards the bed, where he follows. you stand before him and you glance to the tent in his khakis.

"no." you blush, but a confident grin slowly wrinkles onto the sides of your lips. "you get on the bed."

art chuckles, holding his hands up in the air before he scoots past you to lay on the bed. he sits down, propping his body up by his elbows as he watches you lean down before him.

you begin to unzip his pants, and slide them off him and off his ankles. you reach forward again, gulping while you take the waistband of his boxers into your hands, before you slide those down, too. his cock points up at the ceiling, long and so fucking hard for you. you had felt in before, yes, but you had never seen it until now.

you stand up to take your dress off, where he follows by taking his shirt off. you both strip, and both toss your clothes to the floor. you stand in nothing but your thong, given that your dress had some sort of built in bra. you were so fucking nervous, but you weren't even focusing on that right now.

you lean back down, reaching forward to take his cock into one of your hands, before you lean up, collecting spit into your mouth. before you can suck his cock, art stops you.

"wait."

you look up to him, your eyes wide. "i-is everything okay? did i make you uncomf-"

"no." art shakes his head, his eyebrows raising at your misunderstanding. "no, not at all. i... i wanted you to get on the bed, too.. i.. i want to eat your pussy, [ y/n ]. maybe we can both.. do it at the same time?"

you thought your eyes couldn't get bigger until his suggestion. you take your hand off him, and slowly rise up. "y-yeah. we can do that."

you crawl onto the bed, slowly turning your body to where your pussy is right in front of him, your folds on display before his mouth. his cock was aching, visibly twitching before you with how desperate it was to fill your holes.

you lean down, starting to slowly suck his tip, earning a moan from art before he leaned up, both his hands taking your ass into his hands. he begins to lick your slit, your juices coating his tongue before it latched onto your clit.

your moans were muffled as you filled your mouth with his cock, your eyes while you sucked. art didn't even notice that he began lightly rolling his hips, gently thrusting his cock into your mouth. you could feel him reach further down your throat, making you gag lightly but enjoy the feeling, nevertheless.

one of his hands moved off your ass and to your pussy, lightly, pushing his middle finger into your hole while he still licked at your clit. you gasped, pulling your mouth off his cock.

"f-fuck sorry, i-"

art didn't reply, he instead curled his finger inside of you, making you gasp and your body push closer to his. he pulled his finger out, before grabbing your ass in full again, squeezing your thick flesh before pulling you closer, until you were on his face.

your face was heated, and you slowly leaned down again, sliding his cock into your mouth in one swift movement, before your hips began to gently roll against him. you could feel his nose against your clit, and his tongue dive into your pussy.

you tried to push your mouth and your pussy into two different worlds. you wanted art to feel as good as you did.

you gagged on his cock, and you could feel his moans vibrate onto your pussy while he tongue-fucked you. you didn't know how much more of this you could take before you came all over his face.

"m-mmmhh.." you moaned onto his cock, slowly pulling your face up. you reached forward to stroke him. "art, i-i need to fuck you now, like right now.. you're gonna make me cum all over you if you don't stop.."

art groaned, pulling his face away, which was now coated in your wetness, before his hands found your waist, and lightly pulled you off of him and onto the bed, on your back. you watched him turn his body around, before he got on his knees between your legs.

"wanna see you when i fuck you." he leaned down to peck your lips before he took one of your legs and moved in onto his shoulder. "too pretty to not see when i'm inside you."

you blink, your cheeks a light pink as you take in his words. you smile, despite your nerves, as you look between your legs. you watch his other hand take his cock, and you reach forward, your hand on top of his, as you both guide his cock to slowly fill you.

you both gasp, watching art slide himself fully into your soaked pussy, before he began to find his rhythm. you look up to meet his eyes, both your hands trailing to your hardened tits, as you slowly began to rub your fingers against them.

art looked down, watching you touch yourself as he touched you, and rolled his eyes as the view only turned him on further. he picked up his pace lightly.

"i forgot how good it felt to fuck you." art hummed, his free hand that wasn't holding your leg up moving down to press his thumb against your clit, making you squeak at the added touch. "you are so beautiful, [ y/n ]. and your pussy is so, so good. so fucking sexy."

"yeah?" you giggle, looking between your legs again to watch him slide in and out of your pussy, each thrust sending a jolt through your stomach. "your cock fills me so perfectly, art. makes me so fucking wet. i missed it."

"you did?" he raised his eyebrows, tilting his head in a playful manner. he moved his thumb off your clit, reaching forward to gesture for you to open your mouth, before sliding his thumb inside for you to taste yourself. "you want me to keep fucking this pussy? i'll fuck you whenever you fucking want when you're at stanford. you make me feel so good."

"mhm." you nod, sliding his thumb out of your mouth as you moan at his now increasing speed while your words continued to build off each other's. "you can fuck this pussy anywhere. i don't fucking care, art. you're so fucking hot."

art shakes his head. he leans down to kiss you deeply, before his strokes become more staggered, pulling himself completely out of your hole and drilling himself right back into you. "let me fill you, [ y/n ]. please. wanna see you all stuffed with my cum."

you didn't give a fuck in the moment. you nodded, probably a bit quicker than you wanted to admit. you returned the kiss, but pulled away eagerly. "yeah, fill me up, do it, i don't care. it's so fucking hot. you’re so fucking hot."

art nods, starting to increase his speed, your muscles contracting as he leaned forward, and his cock pierced into you.

you didn’t remember him feeling so good inside you, and you certainly didn’t remember asking him to cum into your pussy, but you were so whipped in the moment you weren’t really focused on anything but what was between your legs and the man who the dick was attached to.

art reached down again to play with your clit, trying to stimulate your own orgasm along with his as both your bodies rocked onto each other, the hotel bed squeaking underneath you and the headboard hitting the wall harshly.

“i’m gonna cum in you, baby, i’m gonna now.. fuck—” art stammered, gasping as he stopped his movements inside you.

you arch your back while his cock filled you whole, your orgasm and his own warming inside you, your own orgasm dripping out from between his cock and your folds onto the bedsheets.

he fills you for a moment, holding you closely as he catches his breath before slowly pulling out of you, lightly rubbing his wet tip against your clit before rolling himself to lay beside you.

art reaches forward, and he cups your cheek. he kisses your lips lightly, some stupid, boyish smirk on his pink lips. you roll your eyes, looking up to the ceiling as you breathe.

“shut up.”

“i’m not talking!” art holds his hands up, chuckling as he glances down at you. “i’m just surprised, is all. this is not how i expected my night to go, but i’m not complaining.”

you roll your eyes, looking up to meet his blue eyes. they’re soft, and they’re gentle, despite the roughness in the way he just fucked you. you knew he meant everything he said to you.

“oh, hush. i’m sure you expected something to happen.”

he shrugs, a cheekish expression still covering his face. “well, maybe. but like, a kiss, or something like that, i don’t know.” he looks down at you, and kisses you again.

you smile into the kiss, before turning the side, grabbing your phone off the nightstand to check the time. “geez. we missed dinner.” you sigh, before looking back at him. “probably a good thing though.” you snicker.

art chuckles, nodding in agreement with you. the last thing he wanted to be around was your brother and tashi, too. “no kidding. you, uh, wanna grab something to eat? and then maybe i can show you around campus. i know it’s kinda late, but all the buildings will still be open. i can show you where some of your classes should be, if you’d want?”

“hm…” you pretend to think for a moment, before nodding, looking up to him and sitting up. “yeah, sure. why not.”

"great." art couldn't help but smile, watching you stand up and grab your clothes off the floor, handing him his own in the process.

he couldn't help but think that you coming to stanford was a good thing, for you and for him. he wasn't even thinking about how patrick would feel about all this. the goal was for him to not know, right?

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why-animals-do-the-thing · 6 days ago

Note

perhaps a bit of an odd question: so, when I'm scrolling tumblr on mobile, I have a habit of downloading most images i come across, so that I can send them to people who don't use tumblr, especially memes and animal photos. however, i also have severe memory issues, and I may end up forgetting where i got certain images. i know for the photo repository one of the rules is to not repost the photos without any modification- which i might forget, or forget which images on my phone fall under that rule. and while i would guess that that rule doesn't apply to stuff like direct messages or texts, i might forget to tell the person I'm sending it to, who might repost it elsewhere without being aware, or months after downloading i will just forget and use one of the photos in a post I'm making because it felt relevant.

this is something i can pretty easily solve myself by just blocking the photo repository blog, or tags relating to it, but I'd rather not do that because i do really like seeing the photos and all the info and stuff. and i would assume it would be an insane amount of work for you to add something like a watermark to every single photo, so I'm not really sure how to go about this. i like seeing the photos, but i don't want to accidentally break the rules.

You clearly care deeply about doing the "right thing", so, what that tells me is that you're not actually the target audience for that rule. I appreciate all the thought you put into this message. Let's talk about it!

I've been reconsidering if requiring people to get permission for reposting images is the best policy to have and I'd like people to weigh in.

My original reasoning was this: the more I can ensure that reposts are affiliated with credit, the better I can control copyright on the images on the site, and therefore have more ground to challenge any scrapers/fake accounts/AR groups that yoink them for nefarious purposes. The easiest way to do that seemed to be to have people ping and ask, with the expectation of saying yes almost all the time.

But there's a couple problems with that, I think, in practice:

People don't like emailing strangers (I forget this! I have done it for work for so many years it isn't uncomfortable anymore).

This isn't how the internet works. (Tumblr has a specific microculture that encourages crediting creators and not stealing! Once this is shared more widely on other platforms, I don't expect it'll be the same ecosystem).

It actually undermines organic spread of content! (You're less likely to make an excited post about a cool photo if you have to send a maybe-scary email and wait for a response). And I do want there to be lots of eyeballs on the photos.

Realistically, @nexus-nebulae, with the policy right now? If you slipped up and reposted something without thinking, I'd just ask you to add credit to the post so it directs back to the site. The goal of this whole project is community access and engagement - I want to you to enjoy the photos, and send them to your friends! I'm just trying to also protect it from the awful that a lot of the internet has become.

But, I'm also wondering it it makes sense to swap the policy to say that it's fine to re-post images on socials as long as they're appropriately credited and/or linked back to the repository. This isn't the policy yet, but if you're reading this please tell me what you're thinking.

Non-edited image use (like putting them in a scientific paper, using them to build a curriculum unit, or putting them on board game cards - these are just random examples) would still need to be requested; but that's an entirely protective stance and if you ask, my goal is to always say yes.

So OP, please don't worry too much. Enjoy looking at the animals, do your best, and I'll be happy. :)

#exotic animal photo reference repository #asked and answered #housekeeping #policies

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slayingfiction · 2 years ago

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How I push through writing when I don't feel like writing.

Here are some of the techniques that I use to help me write more often or more consistantly when my laziness/depression/anxiety starts to take over.

I watch TV. I don't do it with the purpose of zoning out though. I watch something popular and well-liked such as the LOR or Harry Potter to get new ideas on how I can develop my story and apply their in-depth world-building ideas to help develop mine. Without plagarizing of course!!!!

Zoning out and daydreaming. As I have mentionned before, daydreaming is a huge part of my story outlining and world-building process. I'll stand in the shower, or take a walk and think about how my charcaters would act/react/behave in situations, mundane or not. Doing this gives me a better sense of my characters, and sometimes gives me ideas for scenes I use later on.

Work on writing related projects. These work well at keeping me distracted while still being productive on my writing goals. Example, I have one story I am working now, I made a new language (alphabet and numbers included) to include as a cool and fun component for the book. So, at times when I don't wan't to write, I continue creating the dictionary (very fun, 8/10 would recommend). Also, for the same book, my characters don't work off the Georigian calendar and 24 hour clock, so I've been working at creating a new calendar (harder than it seems, 2.5/10 dont recommend). These are side projects that help my story, without having to write.

Reading. You saw this one coming, I know. Reading is great, especially when you're editing, your writing style will unconsciously change to be more similar the author you were just reading. Also, most importantly, I'll be reading and think, "this story is really good, but you know what story I like even better? Mine." then change to writing.

This one is my biggest life saver!! I learnt about a year ago that sometimes I'll get bored of writing a story, and have difficulty keeping on track. That's why I finished my first book in 2016 and just started editing the first draft last week. The solution for me was to work on multiple projects at once, because it was much harder to be bored of multiple stories. I stick to 2, but will sometimes add a third. This is easy for me, because I have a list of over a dozen series I want to write. Don't abandon one project for another, use them as a distraction/ motivation for each other, so you're always furthering at least one project. I've never heard someone say, "oh no, i accidentally worked on this other writing project for three months instead of the other writing project I was doing. Dammit." No, we're just happy we have written something. Be sure to have well outlined story lines before starting, don't just start writing randomly or you'll reach a point where you don't know where to go from there.

Author/ writer projects. Maybe this is building a following, or community to share your projects and engage with. Tumblr, Insta, Reddit, whatever it is. My hope this year is to start up my website to offer publishing services (editing, graphic design, short writing courses) and build a following as a writer. (See what I did there? Never a bad time to self-promote ;) ) Having your own projects like this will help you in the future when you're going to try to publish and sell your books!

Talk with friends and a writing community. Never underestimate the passion that will burn inside you when talking about your story, or when others are talking about theirs. Surrounding yourself with a positive writing community can be the best thing for you as a writer.

Write or read (your story) every day. I'm not going to be one of those people that say you need to write 1000 words a day, that's a lot. But maybe try for 100? That could maybe only take 5 minutes, and at the end of the year that's still over 36 thousand words of a novel. Or just read your story, and I've always found it helped me get in the creative mood.

Make a playlist of songs that remind you of your characters, your story, or just puts you in the mood to write. Then play it ONLY when you're having trouble writing. Playing it while writing will not help, you'll get annoyed with the songs.

Just really can't do it today? That's okay, take a break. You deserve it. There's always tomorrow.

Does anyone else have ways they push themselves to keep writing? Let us know in the comments!

Happy Writing!

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legy · 7 months ago

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hi! i'm caelum. you might know me from @goldentruths-pod or from posting online. im in a financial quicksand pit and i really, really, really need help.

i'm disabled and receive approx ~$950 a month from social security. this has gone from "rough but survivable" when i first started receiving SSI to "i am literally not making ends meet" in 2024. right now my current status is that i am covering my basic needs but any kind of extra purchases are impossible. and the extra purchases i need to make keep piling up because i just can't afford them. some things i need include, in vague level of priority:

dolphin, my cat, is years overdue for a vet visit. this is going to be $300 minimum, possibly more because she has an adversarial relationship with the vet. she needs dental work done which they had quoted me as being $1500 but ive been putting it off for so long that i would not be surprised if that's more expensive too

i have learned today that my gold crown needs to be replaced. really unhappy about this one. it was a miserable experience the first time (everything that went wrong did go wrong, i'll spare you the details) but what is relevant here is that my insurance does not cover this and it was $900 last time. insurance also does not cover extracting the tooth either so that's cool. i have some time before this one is due (my next consult is in july)

my phone is approaching "unusably broken". i've had it for close to 4 years now. the call speaker no longer works (i can only use the phone on speaker mode) and it struggles to run apps or a web browser which makes things like GPS pretty dire. this would be like ~$100-$150 probably, i havent done serious phone shopping yet

my driver's license is expired and i need to get a new one. this was $110 last time. note i havent driven a car in years due to the disability but it's really valuable to have a universally recognized form of photo ID and ive already been hassled over it being expired

god this one is so embarrassing to get into but i had to flee my previous apartment last year due to it escalating into a DV situation. the other tenants did not pay the heating bill, which was in my name (and my dumb ass didnt close the account because it was the middle of february and i didnt want to freeze them to death) so i have a $250 utility bill in collections. i might be able to dispute or debt forgiveness this one but tbh ive been so fucking drained given everything else going on and also my phone barely works so i havent pursued it. especially since i can't afford to pay it if i cant challenge it

i would really like to have a passport again. my previous one was destroyed by my landlord in 2018 but even if it wasnt it'd also be expired now. not sure how much this one costs. likely $200?

my food stamps were slashed in half (covid emergency ending lol) and do not cover my food costs for the month so im paying like $150 a month on food that i didnt have to previously. i can maybe fix this one but im slowly losing my mind from malnutrition from trying to not go into debt and also eat. so i havent had it in me to go 1v1 welfare bureaucracy and possibly make everything even worse

my shoes are probably two months out from fully decomposing. they were $100 three years ago and id like to get something comparable given they lasted me this long

the rest of my clothes are also very literally becoming threadbare, falling apart, or are too big and keep slipping off. i legitimately feel embarrassed to go in public these days because i dress so shitty all the time

insurance doesnt cover my HRT anymore so that's $30 a month i didnt used to have to pay

im sorry this turned into such a ramble. i'm in such a bad way right now, i have been for quite a while and the dental work news is really just the final straw. i can't really have a fundraising goal because due to the SSI asset limit i can never own more than $2000. & i'm aware both that this is the poor people sending each other the same 20 dollars website and that there are people urgently trying to raise money to escape an active genocide. but i held off from making this post as long as possible & idk what else i can do

anyway if theres anything you can contribute to help me i would appreciate it more than anything. at the very least i need to do something about my tooth.

http://paypal.me/hivehum

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deqdlyowl · 9 days ago

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I actually have some old doodles TPtR au related... This one portrays an event from the second chapter.

I have a few more things, but they're kinda spoilers and I'm not really into spoiling... Though one of them is just a spoiler of one interesting detail I want to add (the event my sketch shows most likely won't appear in the fic), while the other one is a WHOLE AHH SPOILER of the shit happening in, maybe like 10+ chapter, I'm still not sure how big I want to make the fic, ahaha.

Also rambling and venting out my feelings under the cut because I forgot to take my meds yesterday. You don't have to read but I would be happy if you do.

Every time I start something I like, it begins to feel like a small obligation after some time, no matter how I feel about the thing I create. I love my fic and I really want to finish it, because it's also a huge emotional boost for me when I understand that I passed my word count goal in the chapter and I finally can write down my 24/7 daydreaming about CotL (even if not all of them, I often think about selfship, sorry, ahaha),AND I have a nice feedback. BUT. My ability is to abandon things. I have many unfinished drawings, unfinished crafts, like, a crocheted Spycrab or a full-sized HHH tf2 weapon, even though I really want to finish it all, but since I took a really long break, I just abandoned it all. That's usually the reason why I don't make comics. (The only comic I've ever made is that one silly meme about bees). And a month ago I started writing TPtR.

I'm scared of this happening to my fic, that's why I force myself to write if I'm not doing so for more than two days. Somehow it boosts my motivation, but at the same time, the thought of having to force myself to do something, even if I love it, makes me anxious. Why am I not doing anything if I love it? Perhaps it's just my depression with AuDHD kicking in, and sometimes I forget to take my ADs (I don't have ADHD meds yet) that makes me suddenly apathetic about everything. And then anxiety. And then I get sad when I can't come up with words.

Today I was describing the thing I have no experience in. I made tonnes of research, watched many videos of how people do it, tried to find words, but it looks... Meh. And I'm sad. And when I'm sad about something I do, I abandon it. BUT I WON'T. I will force myself to not, because I still want to write! I try to reassure myself that it looks shitty because it's still a draft and written in my native language. However, if looking at my current word count, the chapter won't be short, and it makes me happy. I'm sad and happy. I'm confused about my feelings about what I do!! I can just abandon doing ANYTHING and be lazy for years as it happened in middle school! But I have to force myself. To do anything at all. I already bed rot when I'm not studying, and if I'm studying at home, I still do it in bed. I'm losing weight (I'm severely underweight), my dogs feel bad (they're almost 12), it's my final year in school so I also study hard for my finals, my dreams say weird things (I believe in dream-telling or whatever, and I kinda can decipher them) and it all devours me from inside. But I can't give myself a rest. Or. I'll. Abandon. The thing. I love!

I'm repeating, but my head repeats everything most of the time as well, it's either loud and messy (adhd) or quiet and agonizing (autism), my ADs make my body parts twitch, I don't think that I need my therapist anymore, because it feels like there's no different between me before and me after talking to her.

I love my friends though. Their cheerful reaction to my fic or sketch updates is something that also boosts my motivation of doing something. I love art because of the feeling of creating something, but after finishing, I get the desire to see someone's reaction to what I did.

That's all, I think. I mean, not all, but I don't want to repeat again and again, my memory is getting worse as well, I feel like I kin Shamura ahahahha. I want to take an MRI. What if I have a tumor.

#tptr au #art #artists on tumblr #sketch #cult of the lamb #cotl #leshy fanart #bishop leshy #cult of the lamb leshy #cotl leshy #leshycat #leshy x yellow cat #follower leshy #leshy #cotl yellow cat #yellow cat cotl #yellow cat #personal vent #lake hoot hoot

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tyrantisterror · 5 days ago

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At Sea Without a Map Post-Script

After two months of so, my little writing experiment At Sea Without a Map has come to an end. And because I'm vain, I not only felt compelled to share it, but to talk about it in depth after the fact, so here we are. This is going to be long, though, so I'm not only going to break it into sections, but put it all under the cut for the sake of your dashboard. So go ahead and dive into the depths of the Sea of Monsters with me one more time!

Part 1: Never Stop Blowing Up

The writing process of Wizard School Mysteries Book 3 was really strained - not because of the book itself, mind you. When I was actually able to work on it, Book 3 came together really well - I think it required the least substantial rewrites of any my novels thus far. It's just that real life was kind of beating the shit out of me while I was trying to get it done - or maybe the better metaphor was that it was just slowly but steadily draining me of energy all the time. I'm honestly surprised I got the book out in roughly the same amount of time as the first two - by the way life had been treating me, it should have taken longer.

But when I got done with it I was accutely aware of how tired I was. I still had the creative drive, but fuck I needed something simple as a palette cleanser - something easy, and more importantly, something that was allowed to be bad. I needed something creative to do that was surplus to requirements and fully within its rights to suck ass so long as I had fun making it.

Around this time, I decided to rewatch Dimension 20's Never Stop Blowing Up. Brief explanation of what that is: Dimension 20 is an actual play show, i.e. a recording of people playing D&D and other TTRPGs. I'd say its reputation is built on the contrast of its main DM, Brennan Lee Mulligan, who makes these meticulously crafted campaign plans, and his chaotic band of improv comedian players who promptly derail those plans spectacularly. Like, a good deal of the show's humor comes from Emily Ashford or Ally Beardsly doing something so off-the-wall that it shatters whatever the scene was going to be and creates a far more absurd and zany spectacle in its place. Which is why Never Stop Blowing Up is pretty notable, because it's the one campaign where Brennan himself is the agent of chaos, fully unleashing his own brand of madness that the players struggle to keep up with. And fuck does he seem to have fun with it.

Of course, all of the analysis above is purely from the outside looking in - it's likely that a lot of the "chaos" is played up for the audience. But still... there is something to the idea of a person who's been working on meticulously structured stories letting loose and just doing something extremely stupid.

So I decided to give myself a Never Stop Blowing Up moment - a short story that would be simple by design, with no standards to live up to or goal beyond "have fun telling a silly little story." I then came up with a few key criteria:

It can't be set in the Midgaheim/ATOM universe. I don't want the burden of figuring out where this story would fit among others.

It's gotta be a romance. People who've read my books might have picked up on the fact that I like to write about people falling in love, for the same reason I like to write about fire-breathing reptiles and friendly monsters (i.e. I use writing to indulge in things I'll never experience in real life). I've only used romance as subplots in my fiction before, and tend to feel a bit guilty if I focus on it too long - like I'm being self indulgent. Well, this is all about self indulgence, so the romance should be front and center.

It's gotta be SIMPLE, episodic even. Not complex plotting required.

I almost chose my xenomorph romance for this, but I had developed its outline to the point where it would be too complex to fit. I then considered a sort of superhero story that could be pitched as "what if Bringing Up Baby but Katherine Hepburn's character is a Harley Quinn-esque supervillain and Cary Grant's character gets turned into some sort of horrifying genetic mutant in the first ten minutes." That one hit a weird roadblock when I got to the character brainstorming phase (the first phase of any writing project I do) - I was trying to figure out what the mad scientist who turns out Cary Grant-figure into a mutant would be named, came up with the name "Dr. Skullfuck," immediately realized that having a character named "Dr. Skullfuck" is a Mark Millar-ass writing move that I could not allow myself to do, but then couldn't stop thinking of the name "Dr. Skullfuck" and giggling, which just brought all thinking to a grinding halt on that project.

(I'll still probably do it someday, though - just, you know, without Dr. Skullfuck)

Inspiration struck again, though. I'd been getting into Epic: The Musical, a musical retelling of The Odyssey, and it put me in the mood for a sea monster story. But, more than that, it got me thinking about one particular archetype from sea monster stories - but that brings us to the next part of this Post Script...

Part 2: It Was Always About Calibani

Ok, so, one of the big changes Epic: The Musical made involved Odysseus's encounter with the sirens, and before you read more of my rambling, I'd like you to watch two animatics for the two songs in question here:

youtube

A summary: one of the sirens takes the form of Odysseus's wife to try and tempt him into getting in the water, Odysseus tricks her into giving him directions, captures her and the rest of her kind, and proceeds to have his men slaughter them horribly. In the OG story the sirens don't die - nor does their song involve imitating a man's wife, for that matter, it's just a really pretty song.

This is done for an important narrative purpose - Epic: The Musical is focused on analyzing the moral ambiguity of Odysseus, and how it is constantly challenged by the impossible choices he is forced to make in his attempt to get home. At this point in the musical, Odysseus has decided to stop trying to be a compassionate man, shirking all mercy in favor of utter ruthless pursuit of his goals. These two songs are meant to be unsettling as hell - this is the beginning of a series of heartless choices by both Odysseus and his men that will culminate in the mutiny and complete annihilation of Odysseus's crew, as well as Odysseus himself being so hopelessly stranded that nothing short of divine intervention will save him.

I bring this up because when I first heard these two songs - specifically while watching these two animatics - it, like... it devastated me. I was so horrified and sad, so shaken by it. And part of it was for the reasons outlined above, but admittedly that wasn't the gut reaction I had. No, my immediate reaction was, and I quoute my own broken brain verbatim here: "You can't kill the sirens! They're not for killing, they're for loving!"

...now, those of you who know me are probably not surprised by this very stupid sentiment coming from me. One of my more popular posts is just me talking about how down bad I would be for various folkloric monsters whose whole shtick is "looks like a pretty lady but Watch Out." But as a person filled with immense self loathing and doubt, my brain immediately looked at that very stupid sentiment I expressed and said, "Wait, no, that's fucking dumb, I'm fucking dumb. The sirens are remorseless murderers. These sirens in particular preyed upon a man's love for his wife, who he has not seen in twelve years, to convince him to let them kill him. They are, by all standards of morality, Very Fucking Evil, and if they were not women you would not feel bad about them getting killed."

And as my brain argued with itself over this topic, I got to thinking about the various monstrous/othered sea women of The Odyssey - not just the sirens, but the witch Circe, the nymph Calypso, the monsters Scylla and Charybdis. And I thought about the others of their kind in other myths and folktales - selkies, mermaids, etc.

There's an archetype of sea monster that focuses entirely on one specific anxiety sailors are prone to, namely the fact that (for a good deal of human history) being on a boat meant spending a lot of time away from women. The horror of this monster is how it uses that desire for female company to tempt people into danger - like a mirage, it leads you to expose yourself to danger in pursuit of an illusory comfort.

But, unlike real world mirages, these monstrous sea women DO exist in their stories. More than that, they're often, like, sad and lonely. Their narrative purpose is just to be a temptation, but that doesn't change the fact that they do have lives of their own in these worlds. And, softie that I am, I can't help feeling sad for them, especially the ones who actually seem to want the same companionship the sailors they tempt want. Sailors don't stay with their Circes, they don't marry their Calypsos. The sirens live on a barren rock, alone, Scylla is left to wallow in misery at her monstrous form, and the selkie always has to leave for fear of being trapped by a person who won't love her on her terms.

I realized I had my hook for this simple, easy, silly little sea monster romance story: I was going to give a sea woman the happy ending she'd never get from anyone else.

Sailor may be the protagonist, but make no mistake: At Sea Without a Map was always, always, ALWAYS about Calibani.

The goal with Calibani was simple: I was going to set up a fairly standard Monstrous Sea Woman, but where other stories would let her be in one episode of the travel narrative and move on, this one would stick around. She'd be an unambiguous predator of human beings - an open and admitted maneater - but she would have no true malice to her. She, like all predators, eats what she can get to survive, and it just so happens that she's adapted to eat humans. And the story would pose the same question to the reader that my brain posed to me during Different Beast: is there any way you could make a siren-style sea monster sympathetic? Can you make a normal person who doesn't have my particular brain rot look at a maneating siren and think, "You're not supposed to kill her, you're supposed to love her!"

One of the few unavoidable plot points of At Sea Without a Map was that Calibani and Sailor's relationship would become romantic. What kind of romance it was could have varied substantially - it could have been one-sided, it could have been toxic, it could have been far more tragic OR far more comedic. But it was always, always going to be a romance of some sort - the goal of this experiment was to make you, the reader, love Calibani. All else was icing on the cake.

I decided to base Calibani's personality on Miranda from The Tempest - i.e. a sweet girl who is both wordly and naive, who understands the strange setting of our "lost at sea" story far better than the audience viewpoint character does, but views the mundane world of the audience viewpoint character with wonder and naiveté. In fact I almost named her Miranda outright... except I already had a character in the setting I chose for this story who had that name, and as an allusion to the same Shakespearean character no less. So I settled on naming her after Miranda's adoptive sibling (of sorts), Caliban - more fitting in some ways, as Caliban is a fish-human hybrid who is arguable more native to the magic island in The Tempest than Miranda herself.

(Calibani isn't the only Tempest name homage, either - her mother, Sycorax, takes her name directly from Caliban's unseen but oft-spoken of witch mother. Dr. Antonia Warefore takes her first name from Antonio, one of the human villains in The Tempest who hopes to use being lost at sea as a way to perform a coup. And the mothman Iriel takes her name from Ariel, the wind spirit in The Tempest who aids the wizard Prospero in controlling the magic island. If Sailor has a "real" name, it's probably either Ferdinand or Miranda, the two lovers who manage to blend civilization and the wilderness together with their romance.)

Visually, I wanted Calibani to not be any common archetype of sea monster woman, but rather something that evokes the popular images while still being her own thing. She's not a mermaid or a siren or a selkie - she's basically "what if a sea serpent was also a girl." In-universe, she's chubby because she, like all marine megafauna, needs blubber to survive. Out-of-universe, she's chubby because I've found that routinely drawing cute chubby girls is good for my mental health.

Part 3: CYOA

Now, while we live in a post-Muncher society where shame and cringe are emotions only the cowardly should experience, I am nonetheless Very Catholic about expressing my own feelings of, like, liking girls and shit. I cannot help feeling guilty when publicly expressing adoration of women without, like, an excuse - it's gotta be a joke or something, you know? I can't be genuine about it, or else Jesus will beat me with a cane for disrespecting women with my lecherous gaze.

But luckily I've cultivated a loyal audience of fellow monsterfuckers, which meant I had an excuse lined up: if I made this a choose your own adventure type deal, a story with audience participation, then you all would be my accomplices. And Jesus can't cane all of us! He doesn't have enough hands! I found a loophole bigger than his stigmata!

Plus I love collaborative story-telling - there's a thrill in not having total control of where the narrative is going. As Brennan Lee Mulligan must know, there's a joy in having to deal with the chaos thrown your way by letting others grab the figurative ball, even if just for a moment.

Part 4: Offbeat Melody

Since I did not want to set this story in Midgaheim, I decided to steer myself away from a vaguely medieval setting altogether. But I also didn't want to limit myself with the need for "realism" that putting it in a normal sea would require, and making a new setting whole cloth would start pushing this project into "not easy" territory.

Luckily, I had a setting lying around that I hadn't played with in a while, which just so happened to have a location that was PERFECT for the sort of Never Stop Blowing Up style madness I was aiming for. For a few years I ran a Monster of the Week TTRPG campaign called Offbeat Melody, and one of its core setting elements was taking the goblin universe hypothesis in paranormal science (yeah it's a real hypothesis) to an illogical extreme. We had specifically seen glimpses of the Sea of Monsters in Offbeat Melody, i.e. the parallel universe where monsters like Nessie, Ogopogo, Champ, and the like all hail from. Well, why not have a whole story set there? It's literally a universe devoted solely to creating sea monsters - what better place to strand our modern Odysseus?

Offbeat Melody was always sort of a Never Stop Blowing Up project, or at least NSBU adjacent. Some of my most unhinged story-telling moments are in that campaign - you could make a supercut of just the "commercial breaks" in the various sessions and it'd basically be an I Think You Should Leave episode. Taking one obscure corner of its multiversal world and exploring it in detail was perfect for this project.

Part 5: Monster by Monster

With our main romance as sorted out as could be for a CYOA story, it was time to figure out the "episodes" of this sea voyage. I settled on there being ten to roughly align with The Odyssey - just in terms of number, mind you, not in a one-to-one comparison. The first was, obviously, Calibani herself, which left nine more slots for me to fill with monsters. Let's go through them together in brief:

Tree Storks - any lost at sea story eventually has to get its protagonist into an island at some point, but this immediately begs the question, "Why don't they just stay on the island where it's safe?" The answer to that question has to be, "it's not safe there, actually." The Odyssey does this quickly and cleverly with a one two punch: the first island seems safe until you realize the food on it brainwashes you into forgetting everything except your desire to eat it, and the second island is full of delicious sheep but also giants who will eat you just as easily as they eat the sheep. When other islands show up in the story later, you immediately regard them with suspicion, because you don't know HOW they're going to be fucked up, but they definitely will be. My goal with the second episode was to establish the same sort of danger - that land is NOT safe, that islands WILL be fucked up and dangerous in ways you might not expect.

I also wanted to establish that this is not just a sea of monsters, but a very WEIRD sea of WEIRD monsters. It couldn't be any old monster on this island - it had to be one that was unique, unexpected, and maybe just a bit silly while still being menacing.

I've always felt that there's a lot of un-mined horror potential in storks, cranes, and herons - any bird with a long neck and spear-like beak it uses to stab smaller creatures from above. Just imagine yourself in a frog's place in the world - tiny, going about your business, when suddenly something shoots down at you from above and impales you before you even feel the shadow fall over your face. Or perhaps you did see the shadow - some of these birds spread their wings to create shade specifically to attract fish, and then spear the poor little bastards.

Well, what do people often look to islands for when out at sea? Shade - the shade of a palm tree. And palm fronds kinda resemble feathers, don't they? Wouldn't it be both ludicrous and terrifying is there was a stork big enough to mimic a palm tree - and wouldn't that be a DEVIOUS trap for a sun-drenched sailor to fall for? So the Tree Storks were born.

The Globster - I made a list of sea monster archetypes in the early planning for this project, and one I wanted to include was a kraken, i.e. some sort of tentacled sea beast. But I didn't want to do JUST a big squid or octopus, or even a riff on them. I wanted to take the idea of "big sea monster with lots of tentacles" into a stranger direction.

Since the Sea of Monsters is explicitly the home universe of lake and sea monster cryptids, I thought it might be fun if ASWaM's kraken equivalent was a globster - just a big ball of rotten meat. I love drawing monstrous faces, so I decided it'd just be, like, MADE of hideous rotten faces, all melting and congealing together, with its tentacles doubling as the tongues of its many mouths. A perfectly wretched image that, like the Tree Storks, would do well to establish how Fucked things could get in this setting. Plus similar monsters had appeared in Offbeat Melody, which would make for a fun sense of familiarity for the, like, five or so readers of mine who had listened to that campaign before.

Captain Peter & the Dolphin - Another thing I did in the early planning stages of this project was make a list of the different sea voyage stories I know and love, the most contentious of which is The Life of Pi. That's a story that I love on a literal level but kind of hate on a figurative level - its whole theme/message is that doubt is the worst thing you can have, that if you don't commit to believing something with zealous conviction you are a coward. As a person who thinks doubt is valid, that "I don't know" is sometimes the ONLY truly valid answer to a question, I have issues with that message.

But I can't help loving the beautifully ludicrous idea of a non-anthropomorphic tiger sailing the ocean on a big Odyssey of its own. Like, if that story didn't actively hate me for being agnostic, it would be one of my favorites.

So I decided to, you know, just steal the idea of a tiger Odysseus. The tiger in The Life of Pi is named Richard Parker. Richard Parker also happens to be the name of Peter Parker's dad. Hence we get Captain Peter - the figurative son of Richard Parker, if you will. And to ratchet up the absurdity of a tiger Odysseus, I made him a pirate and the sole sailor of his voyage. Somehow, this tiger has manned a boat on his own.

Captain Peter was intended to be the hero of another story - a sign for the readers that it IS possible for a stranded person (or, in this case, tiger) to survive out here. To that end, he had to rescue our heroes from another threat, but not one that would be interesting enough to take the focus off of the tiger pirate. Originally I planned for that threat to just be a big shark, but I ended up liking my shark design too much to put it in a role that small, so I quickly designed a nasty dolphin for the role instead. I think that worked out well, honestly.

Dr. Neptune - Episodes 5 and 6 were the mid-point of this journey, so I wanted the two monsters of those to escalate things significantly. I figured episode 5 was probably a good place to FINALLY give some meaningful exposition on what was going on, and there are a lot of stories about mad scientists doing weird shit on islands in my big list of sea voyage stories I love. So we get Dr. Neptune, a classical brain-in-a-jar mad scientist who's affable enough to give more-or-less accurate exposition but loony enough to be a problem. This also felt like a good spot to remind the reader that Calibani is not just a girl with a tail but rather a Sea Monster herself, and one that we'd been making stronger by allying with.

With his human-but-not-quite nature and cyclops eye, Dr. Neptune could sort of be seen as the Polyphemus of this story, couldn't he?

The Crocodisle - One of the sea monster archetypes on my list was "the island that's actually a sleeping monster," of which there are many in mythology and folklore. My favorite is the Jasconius from the voyage of St. Brendan, mainly because it's more or less benign and actually comes back to help St. Brendan and his crew at the end of the story. I always love when I can find an old story with a friendly monster in it.

When thinking of my own spin on the island monster concept, I remembered the only Magic the Gathering card I had as a kid, which I still have and love to this day: The Sandbar Crocodile. This card already inspired Crocogon's color scheme in The Atomic time of Monsters, but I felt I could go to that well again one more time, and so made a crocodile that wasn't just a sandbar, but a whole damn island to itself. And, like Jasconius, it turns out he's pretty chill.

I did not think of the pun name "Crocodisle" until I was actually writing the chapter in question.

The Femdom Mermaids - These three were a late addition to the roster. When I had Calibani bring up mermaids early in the story, I realized as soon as I wrote her rant about them that we'd HAVE to meet some later on in the story.

The readers had significantly shaped Calibani and Sailor's romance by this point, and I decided that it could be useful to have a chapter that was devoted to showing definitively how these two were good for each other. I thought the mermaids could provide a good contrast: have them act out a seemingly more benign take on the monstrous sea women trope (they abduct our hero to protect and care for them!) only for it to quickly feel MORE deranged than Calibani's comparatively simple desire just to eat him.

The spirit of Calibani's rant about mermaids was taken from weird* girls I knew in high school complaining about cheerleaders, so I wanted the mermaids to look like the sea monster equivalent of popular kids to Calibani's chubby weird girl. Two of them got the names of famous beauties - Helyne = Helen of Troy, Clio = Cleopatra.

(*when I say "weird" I mean it in a complimentary and affectionate sense)

Bob, meanwhile, kinda... rebelled, I guess? Before I had names for them, I listed "bob" by her as just, like, a descriptor for her hair cut, but then I liked it as her name, and once she was named Bob she became more than just a mean popular girl. She was a weirdo too, the little punching bag of the two mean popular girls who did their dirty work and smiled through their abuse because hey, at least they included her. It gave the trio an easily defined dynamic, helped make two of the three more visibly nasty, and gave us comic relief in an arc that could very well have gotten too uncomfortable otherwise.

And I guess it worked - readers REALLY loved Bob, and were very vocal about it, and I realized mid-arc that I had accidentally made her too likable to just leave in this arc. So Bob got to be rescued from her awful friend group thanks to readers like YOU.

Lord Ironteeth - yeah, this was the shark that was too cool to be a minor threat. When I drew his noggin, I realized he would need a chapter of his own, one with gravitas. I decided he'd specifically be the threshold guardian -once we beat him, we'd know for sure how to get home, even if there were a few more threats in store.

Spindle Inc and Sycorax - when I was a kid I used to have this recurring nightmare about being on some sort of underwater sea station that had this huge sea serpent trapped inside it. I'd look at the sea serpent from a window within the station and see it coiling in its tank, only for it to look at me with fury. In that glance I would suddenly realize two things with absolute clarity: first, it was going to break free and kill everyone, and second, we deserved that destruction for what we had done to it. The terror of the dream was less that the sea serpent was going to break free, and more the guilt of knowing that all the mayhem that was about to unfold was our fault to begin with.

I thought that would be fun to homage with the penultimate chapter of this story. OBVIOUSLY the sea serpent was Calibani's mom, obviously the trauma of its capture was why Calibani grew into a predator that specializes in hunting humans, obviously we would have to free the sea serpent despite that running counter to Sailor's goal of getting home. Easy, easy, easy plot point to include.

Spindle, Inc. is the primary antagonistic force in Offbeat Melody, so they easily slotted into the role of the arrogant humans who captured this monster for nefarious and selfish motives. They could tie a lot of other plot threads together too - Dr. Neptune was a scientist who worked for them as a contractor only to get screwed over (i.e. they stranded him in the Sea of Monsters, expecting him to die, and then used his research to make their own base of operations in it), we'd learn of him through a spindle briefcase left behind by some unfortunate rogue agent who got eaten by the Globster while he was trying to escape, hell they could even be one of the possible origins of Sailor themself (more on that later). Very useful villains, Spindle.

The Abyssal Mother - I knew the last sea monster would need a lot of punch to it. I briefly considered just a big whale - the Moby Dick to Spindle's corporate Ahab - but it felt underwhelming after all that came before. So I went for arguably the most dramatic possible sea monster, a full on Cthulhu-style elder god. If you're a frequent follower of this blog, you might know I have particularly high standards for Eldritch Abominations, so I realized this was going to be a pretty big challenge for me to live up to, and decided to keep the cthulhu in question reserved to the last few entries as a result - the less it appears, the less it has to live up to.

I realized I had a good angle when my experiments with the Cthulhu "squid for a head" concept ended up having a face framed in shadow - you know, the same visual that our protagonist has in most appearances. That provided some very juicy parallels between the two that made this final monster feel particularly noteworthy to me, ones that I'll leave you to ponder, since they tie into...

Part 6: Themes

I did not set out to have a theme in this story. I just wanted to make a sailor and a sea monster kiss. That was my only goal.

But I really don't begin with theme in ANY of my writing. I figure out topics I want to address, but for all my novels I feel like the themes didn't start coming together until about halfway through the first draft, when enough of the elements of the story had been set down and interacted with each other enough for me to realize what I was saying with them. A huge part of my second and third drafts for my novels have focused on making the themes of my stories more concrete and unified.

Well, ASWaM is very much a first draft of a story, but it's a simple enough story that I think the theme found itself pretty well despite lacking subsequent drafts to refine it.

ASWaM is about doubt and direction. It's about being adrift in a world that is in many ways hostile by nature, about not feeling like you're where you're supposed to be or even WHO you're supposed to be, and about setting off aimlessly in the hope that maybe you'll find your way to that mythical land of "what my life is supposed to be."

When I began the story, Sailor had amnesia and wore clothes that obscured their identity as a way to make it easier for anyone to step into Sailor's role. Sailor had to feel like You, the Reader, and so we don't know their name, their gender, their eye color, their hair color, even their skin color (note that their hands are always wearing gloves, and their face is always in shadow).

But it also meant Sailor is, well, undefined, at least at the start of the story. Sailor doesn't know who they are, what they are, how they came to be. Sailor feels distinctly that they should be Something Else, should be Somewhere Else, should be Someone Else, should not be who/what/where they are. Sailor is plagued by doubt, by a need to go in a different direction, by a need to be other than they are.

This initially contrasts with Calibani, who begins the story very confident that she is doing exactly what she was designed to be doing and acting exactly like she should be. As they interact, they begin to shift each other in opposite directions - Calibani questions her existence and nature, sometimes to a self destructive degree, and Sailor begins to find something about who and where they are that they like. They find a healthy middle ground together - doubtful enough to want to be better people, but with love for themselves that allows them to not feel the need to up-heave their lives entirely.

I knew at the start that I would build an expectation for there to be some answer to the question of who Sailor is and where they came from, because those are the questions that begin the whole narrative. I brainstormed a number of answers to those questions, but once I got a few chapters into writing the story and saw this theme of doubt developing, I realized I couldn't answer them. From a thematic standpoint, the doubt HAD to remain. So I gave hints to possible answers, bits of evidence to support the possibility of them being true, but never planted a smoking gun that answered it for sure.

Sailor can't know the answer because NONE of us know the answer. Outside of blind Life of Pi style faith, you cannot know for sure that you are living the life you're supposed to live. All you can do is figure out whether you're happy with the life you've got, or if you need a change. Sailor will never know who they are supposed to be, but they did learn who they are, and they love that person now.

For those curious, the possible Sailor origins are:

Occam's Razor: they're exactly what Dr. Neptune theorized, i.e. a human who got stranded in the Bermuda Triangle (or the Devil's Triangle or any other number of paranormal triangles) and fell into the Sea of Monsters. The trauma of that experience gave them amnesia. It's just brain damage and bad luck.

A Spindle Experiment: Dr. Warefore mentions that Spindle has been trying to find a way to make a human who can evolve like the denizens of the Sea of Monsters. Sailor may well be an attempt to do just that, perhaps one they wrote off as a failure and abandoned (they do that a lot)

A Deep One: Sailor is the offspring of one of the denizens of the Sea of Monsters (most likely the Abyssal Mother herself) who has somehow been tricked into believing they are human, to the point where they seem to be human to everyone else, even other monsters. Maybe a human summoned a sea monster to breed with on earth, and Sailor ended up being subconsciously drawn back to the Sea by their blood. Maybe Sailor never actually lived on earth at all, but was only made to THINK they had as part of the transformation into a human.

The Platonic Ideal of a Sailor: the Sea of Monsters is full of archetypal concepts, and arguably a sailor trying to find their way home is just as archetypal as any sea serpent, mermaid, or kraken. Our only proof that humans aren't native to the Sea of Monsters is Dr. Neptune, and he's not as reliable an expert as he claims to be.

This theme of doubt and direction also made the compass more important to the narrative than a simply mechanic for audience participation - a compass, after all, gives direction, and the feeling that Sailor is not where they're supposed to be, that they need to head in a different direction, is ultimately the catalyst of the plot. The compass is, in many ways, the antagonist of the story - the force that keeps Sailor from accepting themself. I realized this a little after I started making the different directions have personalities - initially they just represented broad concepts (North = follow conventional wisdom ala the North Star, South = preserve your short-term self interest at all costs, East = act with curiosity and be willing to take calculated risks, and West = throw caution to the wind and do anything that seems novel and exciting), but over time they became little characters themselves.

Since it was our thematic antagonist, I decided to pepper in some ideas about what the compass might be in-universe - and, in a move that would no doubt frustrate the compass, we also don't know for sure which of those is "correct." Is the compass a poltergeist, some amalgamation of dead sailors who try to steer other lost souls home? Is it a malign entity that leeches off of those desperate enough to seek its aid, living through them while pretending to aid them? Is it a device Spindle made to lure sailors to their clutches, OR to guide their experiments in human/monster hybrids? Was it a cursed item that forced a sea monster to assume a human shape? Who can say - the compass sure can't, it can only tell you a direction to go in.

Part 7: Q&A

Since this was an interactive story, I felt it was only fitting to add one last interactive element to this post-script write up, and some of your happily obliged me by sending in questions.

When I noticed how fast readers were falling for Calibani, I figured there was a good chance we'd end up staying in the Sea of Monsters. By chapter 7, I figured it was more or less a given, and by the end of the Lord Ironteeth encounter I was almost 100% sure Sailor would remain at sea. There was always a chance, though - while a look at the polls shows that the audience got more and more on the same page towards the end, there were always dissenting voices, and the desire to get an answer to the question of Who Sailor Was remained strong, as a number of people kept trying to find angles where they could get that AND stay with Calibani.

I was surprised early on by how easily the audience fell in love with Calibani, to the point where I made a few posts commenting on it. I mean, I shouldn't have been - as I said earlier, I have cultivated an audience of fellow monsterfuckers on here, and I know at least a few of them saw my bait and knew they could get me to be freaky in a way we found mutually agreeable (thank you all again for helping me escape being caned by Jesus for being horny).

Like, we REPEATEDLY ignored developing the plot in the Tree Storks chapter for several days just to spend more time with Calibani - something that I enjoyed immensely (this whole thing was an excuse for me to write and draw a cute chubby sea monster girl as much as possible aftter all) but also knew as a storyteller was not what most would consider a good story call. I like how it turned out, but it defied conventional narrative wisdom, you know? I was surprised.

On the other side of the coin, I was also surprised by how the audience NEVER chose an option that was humorously disastrous. I gave plenty of them, and, like, generally in collaborative storytelling there will be at least one moment where your collaborators decide to do the really, REALLY stupid thing that makes everything spiral out of control really quickly. I figured at least once the audience would choose the troll response, but no, you guys worked hard to keep Sailor and Calibani alive. You refused to let them hurt each other, refused to let them throw themselves into danger, refused to imperil them for your own chuckles. It was very sweet and unexpected.

I say "you refused" but to be fair it's not like NO ONE voted for the troll options - they generally got a handful of votes, just one that was beaten by a landslide of more reasonable options. Hopefully those of you who voted for the troll options enjoyed Bob throwing you a bone by disintegrating Dr. Warefore - that was my consolation prize to you.

Yes. I knew at the beginning that there would be two endings for this story: either Sailor leaves the Sea and goes home, or Sailor stays there forever. Or, you know, Sailor dies as a result of you guys choosing several stupid options in a row, but as stated above you guys avoided those scenarios pretty decisively.

Had Sailor gone home, the following would have occurred: first, they would forget everything that happened in the Sea of Monsters. Second, they would wake up in a hospital, having been found in the Atlantic Ocean by a human-recovery charity run by... oh, isn't that funny, some tech company named Spindle Inc! Spindle would foot the medical bills and even offer Sailor a job, but Sailor would decline because even now they're still not sure what Spindle even does. Sailor would go back to their life and find it familiar and utterly mundane, but not particularly happy. Their father died when they were 18, their mother was never in the picture, they have no siblings. They worked an office job and were sort of a nonentity - that position has long since been filled, but Sailor gets a new job and lives out much the same life: simple, mundane, dreary. Every now and then they get a pang of desire to leave, to go to sea, but they push it out of mind. They never even see the ocean again as long as they live.

Sailor would have gotten the normal life they thought they were supposed to have, the normal memories and name and identity, the mundane life of a normal person. And they just had to trade everything they found in the Sea of Monsters to get it. A question is answered, a direction is followed, but is it the right answer, the right direction?

Well, I think doubt would have remained.

I had a very vague idea for there to be some sort of man-eating giant in, like, a crystal castle. He got cut to make way for the mermaids.

I wanted to fit in a big whale and a giant crustacean, but there wasn't room or an interesting angle for me to want to make room for them. Saved for a possible sequel, I suppose.

I also wanted to have a scene with, like, DOZENS of sea monsters, including some of the ones from Offbeat Melody, but the goal of "this should be EASY you dumbass" made me kill that idea pretty quick.

Thank you!

The primary inspirations were:

The Odyssey and Epic: the Musical

The voyage of St. Brendan

The many "weird shit happens on an island" movies in Toho's filmography, i.e. Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, Son of Godzilla, Yog Monster of the Deep, Matango, etc.

The Island of Dr. Moreau

The Boy and the Heron

Ponyo (specifically Ponyo's parents - I wanted Sailor to have the same desperate energy as that wizard who fucks the giant sea goddess)

The Life of Pi

Slay the Princess (perhaps most obvious in the use of second person narration, multiple voices in the protagonist's head, and falling in love with a creature that has tried to kill you at least once)

I'm going to use this to springboard to a related point in a second, but first a genuine yet humorous answer: Yes, absolutely yes, I am enough of a big romantic sap that I would give everything about my life away to be with a person who loves me and explore a world of monsters in a heartbeat. Hell, I would have jumped in the water the minute Calibani asked and died with her fangs in my neck and a smile on my face. I am dumb this way. Do not follow my example.

On that related point, though... Most stories like this, I daresay ALL stories like this that I know of, end with the hero abandoning the fantasy world in favor of reality, never to return. And that seems like the proper choice and lesson on the surface - we don't want to tell audiences to give up their real life in favor of a fantasy, after all. That's encouraging escapism, and that's not healthy!

But, like... textually speaking, the fantastical world IS real to the characters in these stories. And it's often not really an escape - was Sailor's life devoid of conflict and suffering in the Sea of Monsters? Fuck no! It's just that they figured out how to deal with that conflict and suffering - they built skills and a support system, they adapted, they learned how to overcome what was there.

I think it can be argued that sometimes the return to a "normal" world is, in itself, an escape - the idea that your life can spiral into chaos but that's ok, you can just reset everything and go back to The Way It Was and Should Be is just as unrealistic and unhealthy an idea as You Should Escape to A Better World. Sometimes your plans for your life fall apart, sometimes you're thrown into a place you never intended to go, sometimes you have to learn skills you never anticipated needing and ally with people you never thought you'd befriend to deal with problems you never dreamed you'd have to overcome. And sometimes it's ok to look at your derailed life, your Not Where You Should Be life, and say, "Well, I've learned how to live here... maybe I can stay."

Especially if there's a cute chubby sea monster girl who loves you.

Bob was never supposed to appear past chapter 7, but about halfway through that chapter I realized the audience and I myself would be heartbroken if we didn't rescue her. Definitely for the best - she provided some well-needed comic relief in the final chapters.

This is gonna sound snarky, but, yeah - there were 58 choices with four options a piece, and we only chose one of the four. While some of the options would have similar results, almost none would have had identical outcomes. And some would have been VERY different.

Like, to go back to the beginning: when Calibani attacked, we could either throw a net on her, harpoon her, try to drive around her, or hide below deck. We picked the net, but for the other three options:

Harpooning would result in us hitting her in the thigh, causing her enough pain that she collapses on our deck and we, horrified at the violence we committed, just sort of push on. Calibani would be wounded for at least the next chapter, perhaps longer, and significantly weaker (and probably harboring a great deal of hidden resentment while also being genuinely scared of Sailor). She would be vulnerable during the stork attack, forcing Sailor to take a more active role in that chapter.

Trying to steer around her would result in us essentially fighting her with our boat, resulting in the boat capsizing and Calibani getting tangled up in it. We'd wake up alone on Stork Island and have to travel in search of our boat, alone and vulnerable among man-eating trees. We'd run into Calibani again, also beached and in trouble, end up recruiting her to help us get our boat out of the sand.

Hiding below deck would end in a sea storm that leaves us inside our boat as it's beached on Stork Island. We'd fend off the storks alone, and run into Calibani once we get our boat out to sea, as she got away more or less unscathed.

All of these would have majorly changed the trajectory of our relationship with Calibani and our identity as Sailor, despite seeming to have the same component parts on the surface. Now account for how similarly slight changes in the other options could have gone, and we could have had a very different story indeed.

Part 8: Our Girl

I just think she's neat!

#At Sea Without a Map

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wileys-russo · 1 year ago

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childhood sweethearts (5) II a.russo x reader

series playlist part one part two part three part four

and as we await the fate of our two main protagonists eventual kiss. its time to find out what really happened six years ago. childhood sweethearts (5) II a.russo x reader

"do i need to pick you up tomorrow then?" your older sister lily asked as she pulled up outside the russo household, drumming her fingers on her steering wheel as you unbuckled and shook your head.

"no i'll probably stay the full weekend and just go to school with less on monday." you shrugged, reaching around to grab your bag off the backseat. "what about your uniform? books? your bag?" your sister frowned as you opened her door.

"i've got a spare uniform here, i can borrow a bag to put my stuff in and i've already got my books with me, i have to study." you patted your overnight bag as the girl rolled her eyes. "of course you do, does your brain even know what a weekend is or do you mentally go to school 7 days a week?" she jeered as you mocked her and flipped her off, closing her door as her window rolled down.

"some of us have aspirations to graduate lilian." you smiled, your sister having dropped out early to pursue a career in cosmetics which had lasted all of three months. "have a shit time dickhead!" your sister called out after you as you made your way down the driveway, flipping her off again without turning around.

"none of that here thank you young lady." your face flushed red as carol opened the front door for you before you'd even arrived, having seen you through the window. "sorry carol." you smiled guiltily, giving her a hug as she let you in with an amused smile.

"lessi's just showering sweetheart." the woman explained as you hummed, leaving your bag by the lounge and following her to the kitchen, you'd been wondering why the girl hadn't responded to you on the way over here and now it made sense.

"shortstack! i saw your hot sister dropped you off." gio wiggled his eyebrows suggestively before pulling you into a gentle headlock as you rounded the corner. "urgh you're like my brother gio thats so weird!" you gagged at the comment, wrestling to try and remove his arm to no use.

"oi get off her!" his grip disappeared as alessia entered, bottle blonde hair pulled up into a damp bun on her head as she punched her brother in the ribs, immediately pulling you into a protectively tight hug as gio let you go with a loud groan of pain.

"mum!" the boy huffed in complaint, your girlfriend rolling her eyes and mumbling an apology as the older women told her off. "i wish you'd fuck off back to jordan." the boy sulked, grabbing an apple and heading back upstairs to his room as carol yelled after him for swearing.

your girlfriend had only just gotten back yesterday from a week away at a junior lionesses tournament which had been held in jordan. as much as you'd missed her dearly you couldn't have been more proud of her or the two goals she scored, getting her rightful start in the final game. you'd only wished you were able to be there but you didn't have the luxury of a national call up as an excuse to miss a week of school.

"we'll be in my room mum." alessia announced, arm slung over your shoulder as the woman hummed and waved you off, head buried in a recipe book making you smile as your girlfriend lead you away, stopping to grab your bag for you, silencing your protests with a very quick peck to your lips after she'd triple checked no one else was around.

the pair of you had been seeing one another officially for almost two years now however no one but each other actually knew that, and just assumed you were best friends, forever thick as thieves and inseparably close.

neither of you had any idea how no one had caught on yet, maybe it was because you and alessia had always been so close and so affectionate nothing seemed out of sorts to the average eye.

you'd always loved alessia in one way or another. but when it was just the two of you behind a closed door and your lips were pressed together, cold hands roaming one anothers bodies, murmuring everything and anything you loved about the other, you were absolutely infatuated with her in a way so intense it was almost scary.

and that was one sort of love you both agreed you weren't ready to share with anyone but each other just yet.

though both of you did need to often stumble through pools of awkward lies and ramble quickly made up stories as you'd be called out by your friends for the occasional poorly placed or forgotten about hickey.

this was normally your problem. ever since she'd figured out how sensitive your neck was the taller girl utilised every and any opportunity to capitolise on that.

riled on by the whiny begs for her not to stop as she hungrily attacked and devoured your neck late at night, silencing you with a hand pressed over your mouth and a gentle warning in your ear that if you weren't quiet she would stop.

"hi." you breathed out with a grin, looking up adoringly at the striker once the two of you were finally alone behind the safety and security of her locked bedroom door. "god i missed you." alessia sighed, pulling you into a bone crushing hug as you reveled in one anothers touch.

"we spoke every day lessi!" you laughed into her shoulder, alessia having been told off both by her roommate ella and her coach for the hours spent on her phone when she was supposed to be resting and recovering.

"we could be together every minute of every day and i'd still miss you." the blonde pulled away with a cheeky smile as you rolled your eyes playfully. "don't wish that on me please, what a nightmare!" you groaned teasingly as your girlfriend scoffed, holding a hand to her chest in mock offence.

"lessi!" you squealed as she tackled you down onto her bed, hovering over you. "that's baby to you, thanks very much." alessia pouted as you laughed, thumb stroking her cheek affectionately. "there is also something else i missed that we can't do on the phone." the blonde smiled suggestively, cocking her head to the side as her hair fell around you both like a curtain.

"mmm...nothing comes to mind." you looked off into the distance as if deep in thought, hand coming to stroke your chin as alessia playfully shoved your head. "kiss me then star girl." you smiled softly, tugging at her shirt.

as your eyes met, the world seemed to fade away. you felt her hand gently touch your cheek, slender fingers tracing a line down your jawline. hearts raced as her lips met yours, soft and gentle at first, then with a growing intensity as she poured into the kiss just how much she had missed you.

if you were sentenced to death the next day and were allowed one last day to do as you pleased, you'd be sure to spend it kissing alessia.

every single time felt just like the first. the same nervous butterflies would flutter around inside you, lips would tingle as if you'd just smeared them with popping candy, your heart grew five sizes to the point it felt it might burst in your chest.

each kiss was full of tenderness and passion, a dance of two hearts in perfect harmony as the girl who you trusted with your heart and your life drowned you with her love.

you felt her arms wrap even tighter around you, pulling your bodies close as you lost yourselves in the moment. the world around you ceased to exist, leaving only the two of them in a sea of pure unbridled emotion, two hearts beat as one.

her lips always slightly chapped melded against yours perfectly, kissing you with just the right amount of firm pressure to have your stomach in knots, and yet each touch felt so soft and so tender that your brain went fuzzy at the sensation.

her hand would always reach out to tangle in your hair as your own gently carressed her cheek, thumb stroking her jawline, feeling it clench at the featherlight touch.

and then suddenly your lungs would scream for a reprise and you'd pull away, collapsing into the mattress as both of you lay on your sides, eyes locked as chests heaved and alessia leant forward to brush a few flyaways behind your ear.

gone were the afternoons of her kicking a ball at your head, smearing mud on your face as the two of you wrestled and rolled around in the dirt like steam rollers.

your afternoons now were spent wrapped up in the others arms, sharing kisses as you filled one another in on the seemingly more mundane parts of your day the other hadn't been present for, you and alessia only sharing two classes in your final year of school.

on the days alessia trained after school you studied, often at her house in her bedroom eagerly awaiting her to return.

the striker would have left her boots outside at her mums strict request, trudging up the stairs with an exhausted sigh as you'd perk up hearing the squeak of the infamous stair the two of you learned to avoid when sneaking downstairs for a midnight snack.

she would shoulder open her door and dump her kit bag on the ground, making a beeline for her bed and belly flopping normally on top of you, face buried in your neck as she clung onto you tightly with a mumbled greeting hello.

sometimes you'd wind her up and tell her you wouldn't kiss her until she showered, dodging her attempts as you teased her for smelling terribly which normally ended in her trapping you in a bear hug beneath her until you tapped out on her back and gave in, allowing her lips to finally meet yours.

other times she'd have been told she wasn't starting next game and her head would hang low from the moment she entered the room. you'd immediately sit up and brush your books to the side, opening your arms for her to melt into. carding your fingers through her hair and slipping a hand up her top you'd hold her tightly, rubbing circles on her back, lips lingering on her sweaty forehead.

as you'd always known, you loved alessia, nowadays in a way much more intimate and tender than you'd have ever understood in your youth.

"you're so beautiful." the taller girl spoke softly as you lay side by side, words melting you like butter as you couldn't help but blush, no matter how often she complimented you it still had you swooning.

"why are you so shy? it's very cute baby but we've known each other like our whole lives." alessia laughed as you hid your face in your hands, the blonde prying them away and attacking your face with kisses only making your cheeks heat up further.

her leg nudging yours as you lifted one, allowing hers to slot in perfectly, your limbs tangled up as your foreheads pressed against one anothers.

"il mio bel bambino." (my pretty baby) her lips moved to gently kiss your fingertips, hands held captive in hers.

"you learned more italian!" your face lit up in pride as alessia eagerly nodded, beginning to ramble about how she had made it her mission to continue her online lessons even while away.

"alessia mia teresa russo studying in her free time? has there been an doomsday i wasn't aware of? are you feeling okay?" you gasped holding the back of your hand to her forehead, squealing as her fingers jabbed sharply at your sides.

"yeah well unlike school work this is something i actually want to learn!" she rolled her eyes and you grinned, kissing her nose and swooning as she scrunched it up adorably.

"hey. can we talk about something?" the blonde asked hesitantly, eyes dropping down to avoid yours, messing with your fingers as you nodded, eyebrows knitting into a curiously concerned frown at what was to come.

"okay but i don't know how you'll react so we have to do the thing." alessia decided, looking to you for confirmation as you hummed, the two of you sitting up and spinning around suddenly.

you shuffled slightly so your back was pressed against hers, hands finding one anothers and intertwining your fingers as your heads slumped onto one anothers shoulders, eyes closing.

"what's on your mind lessi?" you asked softly, squeezing her hands supportively as she let out a long sigh. "well. when we were away a few of the girls were talking about their...well their first times, with their boyfriends." alessia started quietly, her heart hammering away in her chest with every word.

"and i guess it just got me thinking about it." she spoke a little quicker now, clearly nervous for your reaction to her words, squeezing your left hand to signal she was done talking for now.

"some of the girls at school have been talking about it too." you confessed. "are you thinking about...wanting to do that?" you asked gently, not wanting her to feel as though you were judging her in any way. "maybe? does that make you feel...weird, or anything?" she asked slowly.

"no, definitely not weird." you promised, the two of you sitting in silence for a moment. "i guess i think i'm ready? to do that. but i don't want you to feel like...pressured into anything. we can do it soon, we can do it later, we can never do it if you didn't want to." she assured, starting to ramble as you squeezed her hands, grounding her into silence again.

"i want to do it with someone i love and someone i trust and you're the person i love and trust the most lessi. i think i'm ready too, whenever it happens." you spoke softly, unable to see the blush creep up your girlfriends neck at your words.

and it did happen. it was a couple of months later when you had your house to yourselves, your parents having taken your brother away for the weekend for a cricket tournament and your sister disappearing around to her boyfriends house.

the first time it was awkward, nervous, weird and clumsy of course, neither of you had done anything like this before and you'd have been lying to one another if you said you both hadn't tried to do some...research on your own to try and best prepare.

but despite that, it was with alessia.

you felt safe and you felt comfortable and loved the whole time, it didn't quite have the ending either of you expected (that sort of ending came a few weeks later and boy oh boy...no amount of research could have prepared you for the feeling) but it only strengthened the trust between the two of you, and was yet another first you'd experienced by one anothers loving side.

they always say your first love is a little foolish, some may even say there isn't something called first love. but what makes those initial feelings of love most beautiful are it's innocence.

when you fall in love for the very first time, that innocence inside you, that's a precious thing. it feels like you give your whole heart to someone, and as if you wouldn't ever know anyone else to treasure and care for it.

which is why it was all too easy for alessia russo to be both your first love, and your first heartbreak.

it all started the day you got the letter.

your mum had found it first, fighting her every urge to rip it open and read your fate, instead leaving it neatly on your pillow for you to find when you returned home that afternoon.

you'd spent the day with the russo's, thermos of her dads famous hot chocolate in your hand, bundled up in a hoodie with your girlfriends jersey tugged over the top. you sat shoulder to shoulder with her brothers in the stands, watching your favorite blonde play in one of her final games of the season.

you didn't pretend to understand half the rules of football much as alessia had dedicated years of her life trying to teach you, and so her brothers knew to hit you with running commentary throughout. but the one thing you would always understand was the sense of utter euphoric pride which rushed through you watching her play, especially when she scored.

her arms would shoot up into the air and her eyes would always find yours, pointing up at you and her family with a lopsided grin, sprinting to celebrate with her teammates as you all screamed out encouragement, drowning her in whistles and claps before play resumed.

coming away with a 4-1 win meant they were in pole position to finish top of the table, and so alessia was unable to wipe the shit eating grin off her face as she emerged from the change rooms afterwards, waving goodbye to her team mates and jogging over to where you all waited for her.

she'd always hug her dad first, your girlfriend was the true epitome of his girl, and mario reveled in teasingly holding that over carol. you were always last, alessia always saved the best for last, picking you up and spinning you around off your feet as you'd laugh and sing her praises, the two of you hugging tightly.

"i love when you wear my jersey." she mumbled in your ear, sending you a soft smile as you bumped your shoulder into hers and the two of you made your way back to the car, her brothers talking her ear off about the game as you stayed stuck to her side, watching on with a quiet amusement, not understanding most of what was said but feeling nothing but pride for the taller blonde beside you.

luca had driven himself and gio as they waved you both off and headed across the lot, you and alessia slipping into the back of her dads car. her mum would always fuss over the two of you, throwing a blanket over your legs and ignoring alessia's insistence that she was still warm after running around for two hours, carol always winning out as your girlfriend rolled her eyes and gave in.

but the blanket gave the opportunity for your hand to grab hers, squeezing softly as you looked at her in admiration, her head falling tiredly to your shoulder as the two of you chatted along to her parents, waving them off as you pulled up outside your house.

you promised you'd give your mum a hug for carol, hugging them both goodbye. normally her dad would warn he'd be out the front no later than eight since you both had school the next day, but now graduated there wasn't a reason the two of you couldn't spend the next few days together if you wanted, likely flittering from house to house as you often did.

appeasing your mum with small talk for a few minutes you grew impatient, tugging on the back of alessias hoodie with a longing look as the girl would make an excuse, the two of you hurrying off to your room.

"why do you always make me end the conversations. i quite like chatting with your mum!" alessia rolled her eyes as you closed your bedroom door. "because she loves you more and she actually listens to you. and because i haven't properly congratulated you yet for winning!" you grinned as your girlfriend sat on the end of your bed.

"mm that so?" the blonde smiled, arms settling themselves around your waist as her chin rested on your stomach, your own hands playing with the baby hairs on the nape of her neck.

you were about to lean down and kiss her, when your eyes spotted it.

alessia noticed your frown right away, squeezing your hips to gain your attention as you shook your head, stepping away from her and making a beeline for the letter.

"shit is that-" "i think it is." "well, open it!"

"i'm scared. what if i didn't get in?" you admitted, biting your bottom lip nervously as alessia sat right by your side. "you're the most intelligent person both intellectually and emotionally that i've ever met baby, and you got phenomenal marks in our GCSE's. open it!" she knocked her knee against yours and you nodded.

"oh for god sakes." alessia huffed impatiently as you fiddled with the corner, peeling it off painstakingly slow as your girlfriend plucked it out of your hands, ripping the letter right open.

"no you read it." you shook your head as she tried to give it back to you, alessia nodding as her eyes scanned over the paper, face unreadable as you nervously bounced your knee.

"we regret to inform-" your body crumpled at that, flopping back into the mattress as you felt tears prick at the corner of your eyes. "only joking baby. you got in!" alessia pounced on top of you with a grin as you shot upwards, accidentally smacking your head into hers.

"oh my god i got in?!" you breathed out in shock as the blonde clutched at her throbbing head. "oh god baby i'm so sorry!" you squeaked out as she waved you off with a wince, opening her arms expectantly.

"i am so fucking proud of you. my pretty, smart, funny, kind, gorgeous-" the older girl kissed you with every word, the grin unable to be wiped from your face as your mum burst in, alessia very quickly jumping away from you as you filled her in on the news.

and as you jumped up to embrace her, your sister next to run in to congratulate you, alessia couldn't have possibly been any prouder.

but she also couldn't help but allow her mind to drift back to the box sitting in her wardrobe, signed four year scholarship and enrollment papers filled in and ready to be sent off to the states.

she knew she needed to tell you. but the thought of doing so punched a hole in her chest, and so she put it off as long as possible.

well, as long as she could until you found out yourself.

it was around a couple of weeks later, you were spending your usual friday night together, movies loaded and armfuls of snacks spread out on the bed awaiting consumption.

"lessi baby can i have a hoodie please?" you kissed your girlfriends jaw softly, the girl humming and pointing her foot toward her cupboard, engrossed in a video on her phone.

"yeah thanks, such a gentlewoman." you muttered, smacking her thigh as the girl whined and shoved you away. with a roll of your eyes at her lack of attention on you, you thrust open her cupboard, hunting around for your favourite hoodie which you knew she'd hidden, no longer wanting you to steal it as it was also her favourite to wear.

with a victorious grin you spotted the sleeve poking out from a pile of jumpers in the corner, rolling your eyes at her poor attempt at hiding and yanking it out. you frowned as a box lay hidden beneath the material, UNC on the front.

curiousity getting the better of you, assuming it was likely a new pair of trainers she'd bought and hidden from her mum as to not be told off for her spending habits, you opened it.

god, how you wished you hadn't.

your stomach leapt into your mouth as your eyes scanned just the first few words of the letter sat atop a bright blue sweatshirt.

"less. what's this?" at first she only hummed, attention still fixated on the video. "alessia. what is this?" you spoke louder now, the girls phone dropping from her hand as she looked up and saw what you had in your hand.

"baby-" "why the hell have you got a four year american football contract hidden in your wardrobe?"

"i wish you hadn't found that." she sighed, burying her face in her hands as you advanced toward her. "were you even going to tell me?" you whispered now, her head shooting up at the sudden change of tone.

"of course i was! i just...i didn't know how." she admitted guiltily, standing and trying to come toward you but you held your hand up in warning for her not to. "you didn't even tell me you were thinking about something like this, we tell each other everything." your voice cracked and with it so did alessia's heart at the look of utter betrayal splayed across your features.

"love-" "stop. don't fucking coddle me, explain." you forced out, letter still gripped tightly in your hand as you took another step back. "it's a four year scholarship to go play in the states. so long as i play with their junior team i can go to classes, live on campus and get my degree for free, and i get a hell of a lot of experience with a completely different style of football." she explained, a smile tugging momentarily at her lips, wiped right away at the look of disappointment on yours.

"i knew you wouldn't want me to go, or you'd try to talk me out of it." alessia admitted quietly, refusing to meet your eyes. "you what?" you managed out, shaking your head in disbelief. "i-" you started, trying to find the words.

"alessia i have always been your biggest supporter. i don't even like football but i go to every match, i make sure your kit bags got everything in it before you leave, i wear your jerseys, i let you kick balls at my head for years! you adore football. why on earth would you think i'd try to stop you from following that passion?" you frowned, shoulders slumping in defeat at her lack of faith in you.

"because it means we'd be apart for four years. don't even try to tell me you wouldn't have had an issue with that!" you were caught off guard at her sudden shift of tone, this one much more abrupt and sharp.

"don't try to project your guilt for not telling me into me being the reason why you didn't. that's not fair!" you shot back, alessia only shaking her head with a laugh. "you shouldn't have even been snooping around in the first place!" she snatched the letter off of you with a glare.

"snooping? i can see that offer is signed alessia, were you even going to tell me before you sent it off?" you asked with a hard stare, face falling as guilt flashed across her face momentarily. "you've already sent it." you realized quietly, her head hanging low all the confirmation you needed.

"wow." you breathed out, moving to sit down on the edge of her bed as you tried to come to terms with everything, feeling her sit down a few feet away from you. "when do you leave?" you whispered, feeling her eyes pierce into the side of your head but not having the heart to look up from the floor, the room starting to spin.

"two weeks."

your head did shoot up at that, alessia wincing at the anger, hurt, betrayal and disappointment clear as day in your features. "two fucking weeks. you didn't tell me and you leave in two weeks?" you breathed out, tears welling up in the corner of your eyes.

"i was going to i promise but i just...i thought it would make everything easier if we didn't-" alessia struggled with her words, tripping over herself as her fingers twitched and she rubbed her palms against her sweats.

"make what easier?" you caught on right away to what she meant, the room starting to feel awfully small as your chest tightened. and meeting your eyes alessia knew you knew what she meant. "everything." the blondes own eyes welled up with tears as you wiped at your face with the back of your arm.

"were you even going to tell me?" you asked, scarily calm as you stared her down, watching her wither underneath your piercingly angry gaze. "no." she admitted after a moment, burying her head in her hands, body wracking with quiet sobs as she began to break.

your legs buckled at that and your body fell to her floor with a small thump, your knees tucking into your chest as you curled into a ball. "so you were going to just leave and what? expect me to just...be okay with that?" you asked, unable to even wrap your head around any of this.

"you're going to college here, i'll be over there. it wouldn't have worked for four years and we both deserve to be able to make the best of this next chapter, i thought i was making it easier if we never had to say goodbye." alessia admitted quietly, both of you refusing to look at one another.

"never mind the fact i'm in love with you. i've been your best friend since we were five less, and you were going to just...get on a plane and leave me for four years without even telling me where you were going." you whispered, barely able to get your words out as red hot guilt flooded the blondes body.

"i was trying to make it easier."

"for who alessia? for you? by avoiding having to even tell me anything and just leaving me without a word? you're a fucking coward!" you almost screamed those last four words, chest heaving as you struggled to hold back a sob.

her silence told you everything you needed to as you broke down, your body convulsing as you sobbed into your hands, alessia covering her ears unable to handle the noise, tears rolling down her cheeks leaving a bitter salty taste in her mouth.

"get off me!" you spat out, shoving her off as she moved to sit down next to you, trying to wrap herself around you in a hug. "get off!" you yelled again, voice cracking as she shook her head, holding you firmly.

eventually she let go, collapsing into herself as you stood to your feet, vision blurry with tears as you stumbled around trying to collect your belongings.

"stop!" you sobbed as she hugged you from behind, yanking your bag out of your hands and dropping it on the floor. "don't leave me, please." she begged, voice no louder than a whisper as her face buried itself in your neck.

"i'm not the one leaving." you pushed her away, the force causing her to stumble as she caught herself and managed to stay standing. "you know now. we still have two weeks!" she tried, almost begging now as you scoffed.

"oh so i have two weeks to wait for you to break up with me? lucky me!" you spat venomously, trying to pick up your bag as alessia kicked it away. "we have two weeks we can spend together before i go. please! i made a mistake, a huge mistake. baby please i love you so much but-" her hands balled at your top, holding you against her.

"if you loved me you would have never lied to me about this. you would have told me the moment you even starting thinking about it! we could have talked it out! worked things out together! now i don't have a fucking choice and you don't understand how unfair that is alessia!" you pushed her harder and harder with every sentence until she smacked into the wall, blue eyes welled up with tears.

"baby please don't go! not like this!" she grabbed you again as you tried, wrapping her arms around you as you fought her furiously, hitting her over and over as her body shook with silent sobs but she refused to let go of you, feeling her tears drip down the back of your neck.

"i would have been okay if we were able to talk about this. if i had time to process this, to make plans with you, to talk about what it could have looked like for us and what we'd be when you were there. i would have supported you and this choice if you'd given me the chance." you finally broke free, stumbling away from her as you gestured between the two of you before furiously wiping at your eyes.

"but you didn't and you weren't going to. you're a liar and a coward and i can't believe i wasted so much of my life trying to show you i care for it all to mean nothing to you in the end. if you love me less, if you ever loved me, then you will do as you planned. you will get on that plane and you will stay out of my life. you're not my girlfriend, not even a friend would do what you just did to me." you wanted to say more, you wished you could find the words, you wished you could hit her again and scream that you hated her and mean every single word you just said to her.

but you didn't, you couldn't, you wished you could, it would have made it all easier.

you didn't allow her the luxury of a response, far too afraid of how easy it may have been for her to talk her way out of this, to lull you into a false sense of safety and security with sweet words and gentle intimate touches. to shower you with affection and quality time and praise, only to rip the rug right out from under you in just two weeks time.

so you left her before she could leave you, and you didn't turn once to look back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

part six

#alessia russo x reader #woso x reader #woso fanfics #alessia russo #woso blurbs #woso imagine #engwnt #woso

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mrsparrasblog · 9 months ago

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Makarov x Price daughter pt.4

This chapter is just to explain what Price did in the whole year since his daughter is gone. Its different then the other ones I still hope you like it. I'll try to set myself a goal to publish the next chapter tomorrow.

Previous Part. next part

Four months he was away from his home, from his wife Tina, and you. God, he missed you and couldn’t wait to see you again. He planned the whole month how he would apologize to you for saying you were a disappointment. Of course, you weren't a disappointment; he just didn't know how to show it to you. You weren't his little girl anymore, so grown and independent. Tina needed him more than you, or at least he thought so. Tina was a spitfire, always getting in danger, disrespecting teachers, while you were a perfectly behaved little girl. Never once in his life occurred the thought that you could do anything wrong. So he neglected you, and he knew that was a mistake now.

During this time off, he would give you all the attention you needed and finally be the dad you deserved. If only you'd accept his apology. He finally arrived in Cardiff, his clothes still dirty from the long flight, his beard overgrown, and he looked a bit like a Neanderthal, but this time he couldn't wait. He rang the bell, Tina and his wife already running into his arms.

"Where is she?" he asked curiously, eager to find out where you were. You mostly took the day off when he came back from deployment. Maybe you couldn’t or did overtime again because a birth took longer than planned.

"Dunno," his wife said bluntly, not mentioning the fact that you hadn’t been home for three months. She saw you making out with an older guy again the day you went "missing". In her mind, you were a spoiled brat who didn't appreciate everything she gave you. She wasn’t your mother and still tolerated you. Shouldn’t you be grateful for that?

After 10 hours at home, your dad grew anxious. He always had a great gut feeling, and something felt off, so he needed to investigate this situation, making sure you were okay. You were his little girl, after all. Telling his wife a white lie, he went to the hospital where you worked.

The delivery station looked weird to him. Everyone was smiling brightly, as if there wasn’t any pain or war in the world. The midwives walked around in pink scrubs, and everywhere were damn cupcakes. It was the first time he visited you at work, and he felt guilty about how he reacted the day you told him you wanted to become a midwife. He should have been proud of you.

After looking around and not finding you, he asked one of the midwives, explaining that he was your dad and had returned from deployment. He got more confused when the midwife told him to sit down and your supervisor came out, taking him into her office.

"Look, your daughter was our best midwife apprentice, but she hasn’t been at work for the last three months without any notice," she explained.

"What do you mean three months? She loves her work," he said.

"We know that. If she ever gets out of her phase, she can come back to work. But for now, could you please gather her stuff from the locker?"

"Phase? What phase?"

"Her stepmom told us she had psychological issues, Mr. Price."

He never heard of it. Why didn’t his wife tell him before? He would have tried to be there for you. The midwife guided him to your locker, opening it for him so he could take your stuff out. His lips curved into a smile when he saw the pictures in the locker: one of your best friend and you at graduation (he missed it), a picture of you on your first day at work with pink scrubs, and a picture of him barely 20, holding you in his arms. You were so precious, such a little thing looking up to him. Dozens of pink scrubs, a calendar marked with vacation NYC and Taylor Swift concert. This didn’t look like a locker from someone who lost it.

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"Where is my daughter? Don’t bullshit me."

"I don’t know."

"Her boss said you told her she is mental."

"Well, she certainly is. She sleeps around with men your age."

"Do you know where the fuck she is or not? When was she last here?"

"Three months ago."

"Fuck it! My daughter is missing, and you only told me about it now?"

"She isn’t missing, John. She probably married some old fart and ran off."

"Shut the fuck up." He never screamed at his wife. His captain demeanor was always something he left at home, but you were missing, and no one told him. What if something happened? After three months, the traces were hard to find. "Fucking hell."

He walked away to the only place he could think you were. But when your best friend called him a deadbeat dad for only searching for his daughter after three months, he knew something must have happened to you.

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

"Kate, please, anything will help."

"John, there is no trace of her. I'm sorry."

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"We searched through every man she interacted with, Cap. She isn’t anywhere."

"She is there somewhere outside, Ghost."

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"How many more innocent people will you kill, John? She is gone."

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"We should hold a wake for her."

"She is still alive, Kate."

"John, it’s been a year. You know the statistics."

"I won’t stop until I see her corpse."

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

"Makarov will marry, holding a big public celebration and everything, invited us somehow."

"Why should I care if that bastard marries, Nick?"

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

"We found your daughter, Captain."

"Where, Kyle?" He asked desperately. He never lost hope after searching for you for a whole year. He wasn’t the man he was before. He was rougher, he didn’t care about anything anymore. He divorced his wife, killed just to have you back.

"You won’t like it." Please don’t be dead. His eyes started to tear.

"Where?" He needed to take his little girl home, bury you properly, a thing he never thought he needed to do, bury his own daughter, but the world was cruel for people like him.

"Alive"Kyle placed some articles of a Russian gossip journal on his desk.

"'Princess of Russia'," John read aloud. "Vladimir Makarov's longtime love was seen shopping for her wedding dress suspiciously holding her belly. Already pregnant?"

"We can't wait for the wedding of the century," Kyle continued, pointing at the article. "From worker to billionaire spouse, she is living the Cinderella dream."

John's heart sank. He knew what this meant. His daughter, his little girl, was about to become a pawn in Makarov's twisted game. And he would do anything to stop it.

Tag list: @multifand0midi07 , @whos-fran , @cassiecasluciluce , @the-faceless-bride

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vikygoestheextramile · 9 months ago

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Do the numbers all in red make me feel bad?

Yes.

Does the slight drop in the numbers make me feel better.

Also yes.

I was thinking about trying to set a few realistic goals for the month of April. I know that the best case scenario is losing 1kg per week, but no matter how hard I work, it never happens, so I usually try to aim for 3kgs per month instead of 4. And even as pictured above, I've lost 3kgs during a month and a half.

But since I finished the acting seminar that required most of my attention last week, I can now focus on my workouts and meal prep a bit more, I feel optimistic about setting a goal of -3kgs for April, and hopefully the drop from the 70s will fuel me to keep on going strong! 💪

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡ APRIL GOALS ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡

Lose 3kg 🏋️‍♂️

Keep hitting 11k steps/day (hopefully some of it in the sunshine)!🌞

Get the house back in shape. ✨

Restructure the pillars of my morning routine, step by step: First of all, Morning Yoga, then Skincare Routine. (maybe I'll do a post on just this). 🌅

Finish YWA's HOME 30 Day Yoga Journey, and start another one of Adriene's 30 Day Yoga Journeys, one that I haven't completed in the past. 🧘‍♂️

Document (and Hit) Water Intake consistently. 💧~2lts

Work on my Character (Sonya, from Uncle Vanya😍) at least twice a week, on my own, aside from any rehearsals. 🎭

Re-read Uncle Vanya, at least twice. 📖

Mend my Sleeping Schedule💤 (this is a big one, will focus on this more specifically next month).

Visit at least 1 Museum/Gallery. 🖼

Read (not listen to!) 1 book. 📚

#measurements #personal #personal fitblr #me #mine #fitblr community #fitblr #weight log #weightloss #monthly goals #setting goals #april goals #renpho #renphoscales

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teewritessmth · 9 months ago

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Arranged Marriage

(Part 01 / ?)

(Niko Omilana x f! reader)

Warnings : None

Summary : In order to be the grateful daughter, you have to comply with your father's request. But what is it?

"WHAT!?!!?", you stand up abruptly, question whether you had misheard the sentence.

"Y/n, you're gonna listen to your father, we're not going to argue over something as trivial as this". Your stepmum, Ryona, interjects rudely as she pulls a chair and sits down.

"TRIVIAL?", you exclaim.

Why did she care, you ask? Nope, I don't know either.

"Dad, why are you doing this? I mean give me a proper reason at least. You can't spring up a topic this serious and tell me to go with it." You try pleading with your dad, but he remains unfazed at your outburst.

"We've always wanted the best for you y/n. I've given you everything you wanted, done everything you asked me to. And when I tell you to say yes... You question me as your father?"

Your eyes drop to the floor. It was true. Your father was an amazing man and an even better parent. A sense of shame crawls through your spine as you realise just how much you owe him. He had done so much for you, yet you couldn't agree to one thing he had asked?

"Dad please, this is so stupid. I don't want to be married right now. I just started my career-", you reason.

"Making little videos isn't a fucking career, Y/n. Maybe you're pulling a few hundred dollars here and there, but that doesn't mean that this is a stable job. Do you even know how embarrassing it is to tell people that our daughter makes 'videos' on the internet. I mean even the phrasing of it is absolutely hysterical and shameful!" Ryona finishes her comment with a quick glance at her husband, motioning for him to speak.

"Y/n, please... ", Your dad looks at you with hopeful eyes. What you failed to notice was how that man's eyes filled up with tears as you sighed and started walking towards your room.

The following week was uncomfortable. Whenever you came down for breakfast, they'd stop talking. They'd drop whatever the hell the were doing and wander off somewhere else. I mean, you were used to Ryona pulling shit like this all the damn time, but not your dad.

He avoided you like the plague. This had gone to such an extent that the old man couldn't bear to be in the same room with you, avoiding your eyes everytime you tried to speak.

Perhaps it was how they treated you, or perhaps how that bizarre idea had implanted itself into your head. You weren't interested in anyone, and god forbid to say that you didn't have any personal goals to hit. You'd love to have a family, you'd love to have someone at home, just for the sake of it. You'd build the family you could never get as a child.

But how?

The were talking about marrying you off.

Or that's how you heard it.

Yeah, Definitely marrying you off.

But how does an option like that sound so much better than living in this hell hole.

Fucking hell.

It's been one month, that your dad and your stepmum have completely iced you out.

"I'll do it". You state, matter of factly, raising an eyebrow as your 'parents' turn towards you. They weren't gullible, they knew what you wanted to say.

"Y-you'll marry him? You'll marry Nikolas!", Your dad pulls you into a bone-crushing hug which you don't return. How could he be so happy at the thought of his wife sending their child away to a man they don't even know.

Well, they know him. You don't.

He's the son of your dad's bestfriend. Of course the know each other to an extent.

Whatever.

You had dug your own grave, might as well get it over with.

"But, I can't just say that I'll get married to him? He has to agree in order-".

"The boy has agreed a month ago. It was YOU who kept stalling the wedding. How long were you planning on doing this? Don't you see that we have an image to maintain? Now stop your wailing and mentally prepare yourself. You'll both get married in a week's time. I'm calling the Omilanas and confirming". Ryona makes herself very clear, making it painfully obvious that they were going to get you married forcefully if you didn't agree otherwise. Or else how could they manage a whole venue within such an acute time frame?

You nod weakly and head back upstairs, feeling defeated. Your future was written already, your yes meant NOTHING.

You've heard of him. He's big on YouTube, people in his comments often ask him to collab with you. You'd be lying if you said your comments said otherwise.

Oh how'd the internet would have an absolute field trip if they found out that their two favorite creators were about to me married.

Well....married for the sake of marrying.

Married for the sake of a title.

Married for the sake of your father.

You look at the dress and accessories you had picked out and sigh into your hands. It was happening.

Your wedding..........was tomorrow.

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iamnot-crazy · 5 months ago

Text

Pushing the line part 2

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Summary: The heart pirates have finally collected 98 hearts and are in the final stretch on your goal to promote your captain to warlord. However Law had other plans. He finally confronts you regarding the adjustment to the plan which you don't take well. This happens months after part 1 and you and law refused to talk about that day and continue as if nothing happened between the two of you but your actions and judgement for each other has slightly changed.

****

You sat in the library, surrounded by newspapers, poring over notes and calculations. A sudden entry caught your attention, and you jumped up excitedly. "Captain, we just need two more hearts before you can ascend to the Warlord ranks!" You breathed, showing him your notes. "I think we should go all-out for the last two, and I've narrowed it down to four pirate captains. They all have incredibly high bounties and large crews, but with the right plan and timing, I think we can do it." You smiled proudly, gesturing at your notes and charts. "I've outlined plans for each of them and ranked them by difficulty. You can decide which ones we should target."

Law flipped through the pages, his expression impressed. "It'll be so nice to reach Warlord status. No more people running scared from us. We can relax in towns without worrying about the government." You fantasized, while Law grimaced. "I can finally talk to my sister again without fear of her trying to arrest me," you added, smiling blissfully.

Law sighed, lowering your notes. "Y/n, we've discussed this. Our plan is to use the Warlord title to destroy that system."

"I know, but it'll still be nice, even if it's just for a little while," you insisted, smiling.

Law slumped down beside you. "Maybe," he sighed, his frown deepening.

You raised an eyebrow, concerned. "What's wrong?" you pressed.

Law shook his head. "Nothing."

"You're not telling me something. Captain, as head of tactics, I need to stay informed."

Law sighed, removing his hat and fidgeting with it in his lap. "Remember how I told you about Corazon and how he died protecting me?" His eyes remained fixed on his lap. You reached out and squeezed his hand reassuringly. Law continued, "The person who killed him was Doflamingo... his brother."

You squeezed his hand tighter, patiently waiting for him to finish. "The day he died, I swore to avenge him by not only killing Doflamingo but destroying everything he created."

You nodded in understanding. "And becoming a Warlord will bring you closer to that." Law nodded. "Okay, we can make that happen. I'll go through everything we have on Doflamingo, and when you become Warlord and get access to government information, I can help formulate a plan."

Law shook his head, gripping his hat more tightly. "I already have a plan, but it's something I need to do alone."

Confusion creased your brow as you searched his face for clues.

"I went out last night and got the last two hearts already," he admitted. "Tonight, I'm going to the marine base with all 100 hearts alone, and Bepo will take you and the rest of the crew to Zou."

"What!" you exclaimed, standing up angrily. "No! We worked so hard to get you here. You can't just abandon us! We can help! We are a team!"

Law shook his head. "No. I have to do this part alone."

"Why!" You slammed your fist on the table. "You haven't done any of this alone, why now!" Your blood began to boil as you hovered over the captain.

"Because it's too dangerous. I can't lose anymore people I care about."

"I can take care of myself! The entire crew can! We knew what we were getting into as soon as we joined a pirate crew!"

"It's a discreet mission. I need to operate quietly, and you know as well as I do that this crew doesn't operate like that," he reasoned.

"Then take me! Just me," you pleaded, starting to sob. "I can help you! I can protect you."

Law stood up and grabbed your shoulders, steadying you. "I can't lose you," he said, placing his forehead against yours. "And you need to take care of the crew."

You pushed back, looking into his eyes. "It's Bepo's job to take care of the crew. It's my job to take care of you," you sobbed, tears filling your eyes. "Please you don't have to do this alone."

Law kissed your forehead and pulled you close, holding you tightly. "I'm sorry. I can't risk it."

You grab his back holding him tightly. Before you could respond, his form disappeared from your touch. You whipped around to see he had transported himself to the door which he quickly slammed shut locking you in.

You ran to the door, screaming and pounding, "Law don't do this! Law please! Law!" You shout as you watch Law walk away, looking back at you longingly he mouthed some words before putting his hat back on and disappearing down the hallway.

You continued to scream and pound on the door, trying to jiggle the handle, but it wouldn't budge. You searched the room frantically for anything that could help you escape, throwing the bookshelf in frustration when you found nothing.

After an hour of destroying the room, you sat by the porthole, watching the bubbles pass by as the submarine moved through the sea, and began to cry. You didn't understand why he could just leave you like this on a possible suicide mission. A shadow passed in front of the porthole, and you jumped up. Peering out the window, you saw Penguin walking past.

You slammed on the window, gaining his attention. "Penguin! Help! I accidentally locked myself in here!" you shouted, causing him to turn around and look at you. "Penguin, please! I've been stuck in here for an hour," you begged.

Penguin slowly approached and stood in front of the door. "Captain said he locked you in here for your own safety," he said, and you cursed under your breath.

"Okay, fine, he did, but did he tell you why?" you demanded, looking at him with pleading eyes. He shook his head. "Law wants to go on a suicidal mission and leave us behind."

Penguin's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

You slammed on the window. "Let me out, and then I'll explain!" you shouted angrily, growing impatient. The ruckus finally drew in another figure, Shachi.

"Penguin? Y/N? What's going on?" he asked, stepping away from the door as your angry aura seeped through.

"Y/N says that Law is trying to go on a suicidal mission," Penguin answered. "Do you think it's the Doflamingo thing again?"

You slammed on the window, scaring the two boys. "Again! You fucking knew about this shit! He is basically your brother and you just THINK that he might still be hung up on this vendetta!" Your face turned red with anger as you shouted at them. "Let me the fuck out now! I need to go with him!"

Penguin and Shachi looked at each other, terrified, before sprinting down the hallway. You screamed and pounded on the door some more, practically denting the metal.

You groaned in defeat, resting your head on the window. You looked over to see a white figure peek over across the hall. "Bepo?" you called, causing the figure to jump out of sight. "Bepo! I know you're there! Please! I just want to make sure he comes home when everything is over," you cried, your voice now raspy from yelling.

Bepo crept back into view, looking at you with sympathy. "Is he really trying to go after Doflamingo again?" he asked shyly. Tired of yelling, you simply nodded. He looked up and down the hall before placing a hand on the latch. "And you promise to make sure he comes home?"

"On my life," you stated confidently. Bepo shook his head.

"That's why he won't take you or anyone else. He doesn't want anyone to sacrifice themselves for him again," he sighed.

"Who gives a shit! If that's what it takes to keep him alive!" you shouted, causing the bear to step back. You sighed and lowered your voice. "Please, Bepo. I'm sorry. I just... I... I love him," your voice cracked as you finally confessed your feelings. "I'll do anything to keep him alive." Tears began to flow down your face.

Bepo sighed, reaching for the latch again. "Just try to come back alive. I don't think Cap can live in a world without you either," he said, lifting the latch and opening the door, freeing you.

You bolted out of the room and dashed down the hallway. As you ran, you skidded to a stop and turned to Bepo, jumping into a large hug. "Thank you," you sobbed into his fur as he wrapped his arms around you. "I promise to bring us both home."

You felt the submarine shake as it docked, and you jumped off the polar bear before dashing down the hallway.

You ran out the door to the deck tosee Law walking off the sub, holding the crate full of stolen hearts. When he reached the dock, he placed the crate down and gave one final look at the submarine before hitting the side twice to signal for it to leave. You took your chance to jump off the deck and onto the dock as the engines whirled up.

Law turned around in shock, staring at you. "Y/N!" he gasped before raising his hand to cast his room ability to summon you back into the submarine.

"No!" you screamed, running up to him and pushing his hand up in the air, preventing him from activating his powers. You huffed in his face as you held his arm. "I am coming with you, that is not up for debate!" you snarled.

Law's breath began to shake as he stared down at your angry expression. "Why?" he asked.

"Because I can't stand the thought of losing you," you declared. Law paused as he searched your eyes. "Because I love you!" you shouted, confessing your feelings. Law blinked, pulling his arm out of your hold, dazed.

"Why?" he asked again.

"Does it ever matter!" you retorted, grabbing the back of his head and pulling him into a deep kiss. Law initially froze but slowly melted into it, wrapping his arms around you for support as he kissed you back. You could barely hear the cheers from the ship as it began to float away, and you lifted your finger in a rude gesture at the crew.

Law pulled away from the kiss, looking into your eyes. "Fine, but promise me that you won't die protecting me. I don't think I can live in a world without you."

You smiled, hearing the words Bepo had said echoing through him. "I promise if I die, it will be through my own stupidity and actions, not for protecting you. If you promise to not get yourself killed on purpose."

Law shook his head. "How about we both promise to do everything we can to stay alive?"

You smiled. "Deal." You pulled him back into the kiss, sealing your deal.

****

A/n thank you for reading let me know if you want a part 3 or if I should finish it here.

but hey if you wanna read more of my work check out my MasterList

#one piece #writing #trafalgar d law x reader #trafalgar law #one piece x reader #trafalgar d water law #straw hat pirates #one piece oc #one piece original character #trafalgar law x reader #trafalgar one piece #law x reader #gn!reader

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