#oof right in the heartstrings on my end

[iciatheguardess]

Icia opens her eyes, blinking uncomfortably to the bright light around her.

She groans a little, rubbing her back as she stretches out in the hardly padded chair. Compared to how she remembers falling asleep- in a large, cozy bed with a warm comforter, wrapped in Lance's arms- she feels as if she had been sleeping on rocks.

Icia stands, cracking her back with a wince and rubbing her eyes until she can properly see around..... the sight makes her blood run cold.

A hospital.

Icia feels her stomach churn and heart race until she glances down. The floor is clean and enough for her to vaguely see her reflection.... not a single piece of ice holding her to the ground. Not a single speck of frost sparkling on her socks.

Icia relaxes just slightly. This is a dream, thank goodness. She's still disturbed and afraid, anxious as always, and she's probably frozen both Lance and at least one of the cats to the bed, but at least this all is just a dream.

Balling her fists and closing her eyes, Icia tries to wake up. If she focuses enough, she'll wake up, and maybe she'll be able to break out of the ice and get the bed dried up before Lance wakes up...

A few seconds. Nothing. A minute. Nothing. A couple more minutes, and still nothing.

Why isn't this working? Icia thinks, lips pursing in frustration. I always wake up after a few seconds, a minute at most. Come on, come on, I have to.... to...

.... wait.... why am I even here?

Good question. Icia's dreams mostly- no, always took place in either a forest, clouds, a coastal city, a house, the Kingdom, or her favorite: anywhere with her loved ones. The bright, modern hospital was none of those, and Icia found herself alone in the hall that stretched so far it faded into a haze in both directions.

There are a couple chairs along the walls, open for equipment or rolling carts or doors. Icia notes that all the doors are blocked out with blinds, and more than likely locked...

Except for the closest door. The one next to the chair she woke up in. It's wide open, to... well, a hospital room. Nothing special. Icia peers inside.... the room is somewhat dimmer than the hall, a welcome sight for her slightly strained eyes. All she can see at the moment is the window ahead of her, blinds rolled up to show the tips of empty branches against the pitch black sky.

She steps inside and peers around the corner. The room is quite a bit bigger than she expected, or maybe that's because there's nothing in the room except a single empty bed and monitor. But someone stands out among the white, blank interior.

"Starro??"

He whips around, stumbling back and crashing into the monitor. It clangs against the wall, a stray wire getting caught around part of his leg, which prompts him to jerk it forward. Before Icia knows it, Starro is on the ground with the monitor on the ground next to him, and a wire around his leg.

"Ow.... I'm- I'm okay... fuck, that hurt more than I thought it would..." Starro groans, grabbing blindly until his hand catches the wire and he throws it off. Icia kneels down in front of him, helping him stand up.

"Are you sure you're not hurt?"

"Yeah, I'm sure... just didn't expect to see you here."

Icia starts to question this 'dream' of hers. Starro seems a bit too.... real. She notes that her senses aren't hazy as they are in normal dreams. He feels real. The cold ground feels real. Everything feels real..... too real.

"I didn't expect to be here."

"Yeah.... I don't know what's going on either. But this dream, it just... it's... different."

"It feels oddly similar to being transported to the kingdom by magic, in my opinion. It all feels uncomfortably real, but not all certain either..."

"Yeah. Kinda."

Icia looks her friend up and down... Starro doesn't meet her eye, rather looking at the bed to their side. His stars, all of them, are a deep, ocean blue... a vivid hue Icia's seldom seen. It causes her worry to grow once again.

"Where are we?" She asks.

"Hospital."

Icia internally curses herself for asking such an obvious question.

"... why are we here?"

Starro remains silent for, maybe 10 seconds at most. It feels more like 10 minutes.

".... I dunno."

His voice cracks, and he visibly swallows back a cry or sob. Icia reaches forward and takes his hand, causing him to glance back in her direction.

"Starro.... what's going on...?"

"... I don't know. You're never here before."

"Before? Is... this a dream of yours? Are... is this something recurring?"

"S-sometimes...." He looks down, sniffling and trembling.

Icia takes his other hand and leans down a bit to try and meet his eyes. She doesn't know what to ask, or what to say... so she stands in silence and waits for Starro to say something else, anything else.

Eventually, he looks up at the dim-ish ceiling light, shakily sighing. "God, where do I even start...?"

"Here, let's.. take a seat and talk. Hm?" Icia motions to the bed. It looks comfortable to sit down on, considering there're no seats in the room, but Starro sinks to the ground and hugs his knees tight. Alright, that works too, I suppose... She kneels down as well.

Starro stares down at the ground, clearly trying to figure out how to say this or even start. Icia waits patiently, hands no longer holding his and rather one on his shoulder. He always does seem to do better with physical affection.

"... yeah. This is my dream.....a memory."

"Are you comfortable saying what it is...? What usually happens...?"

He swallows again. "... it varies. But it's always in this room. Sometimes, there's someone in the bed. Sometimes I'm just... just folding sheets."

Icia nods a bit.

"..... I kind of wish you could remember this place too. You weren't here, though."

".... what exactly is that supposed to mean? Starro??"

Icia stares at him, perplexed and surprised. He looks back at her with tears streaking down his stars.

"......."

".... Starro.... please- tell me what's going on.... what do you mean I wasn't there?"

"You were missing."

"Missing...??? What do you mean?"

The hospital around them suddenly changes and morphs.... as if adding water to a painting, the colors and shapes twist and contort until the room has fully changed. It's.... a meeting room?

Icia suddenly stands, looking around anxiously. Definitely some kind of meeting room... and judging by the emblem on the wall, a police meeting room.

Starro notices the room as well, holding himself tighter. This place definitely holds some bad memories....

Before Icia can ask, she hears yelling from outside. Very loud, very muffled, very angry yelling. Starro squeezes his hands over his ears, he doesn't want to hear any more.

Icia walks to the door and presses her ear against it. Curses be to the twisted non-logic of the dream world, it doesn't help the clarity of the argument.... but she does manage to catch a few sentences.

"Mia, love, please...."

"DON'T YOU 'Mia, love' ME!!! --------.... ------- GOD WILL BRING HER HOME, SAFE AND SOUND!!!"

Icia freezes. The voices sound..... oddly familiar. But from where...?

...... are they.... talking about.... me?

She looks back at Starro, who's still shaking and trying his damndest to block out the yelling. But before she can get to him, a speck of blue on the table catches her eye.

She only has to scan the picture on the file for a second before she recognizes it. She recognizes the tan skin, the bandana, the blue-and-black hair and the scar under her left eye.

The girl from the mirror room.

Her.

The screaming fades into nothing more than a hollow ringing in Icia's ears as her stomach begins aching once again and adrenaline shoots up. Why is her picture on this file? What even is this place? What does Starro know?

She exhales shakily. She has to know.

".... Starro."

He doesn't say anything or move.

"Tell me why we're here."

"......"

She starts asking more questions.

"What do you mean I'm missing?"

"....."

"Who's yelling outside?"

"...."

"What do you know that I don't?"

"..."

".... who are you?"

".."

".... who am I?"

".... Vivian...."

Icia looks back at the folder, reaching out with a trembling hand. The picture slowly slides off as she opens the page....

Only to be met with yet another picture of the same girl. And a caption.

"Vivianna Lucia Marino"

Icia stares at the girl in the picture.... if her face wasn't as horror stricken as it is, she may have confused it for a reflection.

If.... this is me.... and.... does that mean..... I'm.... Vivianna? No.... that doesn't sound right....

Vivian? Am I Vivian?

*ding*

[MEMORIES STATUS: RESTORED.]

Icia's eyes widen as the realization kicks in and she snaps back. They're no longer in the meeting room, but rather, a house. Specifically, a small and homely kitchen. Starro stands up, confused about the new location.

"...... this was our home......" Icia whispers, lips curling into a tiny smile. She drags her hands over the wood counters and checkered towels draped over the oven handle. The overhead lights flicker slightly, although it's hardly noticeable among the fake candles illuminating each corner.

She recognizes this place from some of her dreams, dreams of cleaning and laughter, and delicious food....... but also dreams of yelling. Fighting. Screaming. A defensive feeling, almost like walking on eggshells, pools through Icia's whole system.

Her fingers brush against a metal picture frame on the counter, and she picks it up.... this picture has always been blurry before. But now, it's so clear.

A family photo, on a beach seemingly. The mother of the photo stands tall and proud, with piercing eyes and a short haircut, an older man behind her. His glasses are a bit crooked, and his smile is meek.

But who Icia notices the most are the two teenagers with their mother's arms around their shoulders: an older girl and a younger boy. The girl is undoubtedly Vivian, given the blue hair and bandana... the boy looks somewhat similar, with black hair and a freckled grin so big you'd think it's his birthday.

Memories flood Icia's mind as the puzzle slowly completes itself. She looks towards Starro, unable to see the tears in his eyes through her own.

"..... I'm Vivian...."

He nods.

"And that means.... you're...."

"... Tonio.....?"

He nods again, choking on a sob. She sees a streak of yellow flash through his stars, only to be immediately washed out by deep blue.

"I've wanted to tell you for so long..."

Icia tries to keep her voice from trembling as much as her hands.

"How long have you known?"

"Since Raina..."

"Tonio, you should've told me you knew."

"I‐ I didn't know how...." He buries his face in his hands, failing to wipe away the tears pouring down his face. "I was so... fucking stuck on the idea that I'd know my sister when I saw her, but when... when the thing with Raina happened.... I heard you.... and I heard me.... and we were talking. In the real world. As Viv and Antonio.

"I knew it meant something.... and I kinda pieced it together.... but after the talk during the festival, and what I said..... I.... I couldn't bring myself to do it. Y-you've been right here the whole time Viv. You... you knew. You fucking knew, that's why you called me your brother from the start, isn't it?"

Icia's heart cracks a bit more as sobs escape Starro.

"I can't believe I didn't see it from the start, I was so stupid... this whole fucking time, the only reason I came here was to bring you home, and you were here the whole damn time-"

"Wait. Hold on a minute."

Icia sets down the picture and walks over to him, barely holding back tears. "Tonio, you came here for me...?"

Starro nods timidly.

"How long was I missing?!"

".... four years, by the time I left."

"But everything you worked for!!! The choir, the dance team, the theater, color guard, gymnastics- what about it?!"

"Ma pulled me out of it all."

"I thought Dad was funding it all, though! He had that say, not her!!!"

A few seconds of silence go by before Starro breaks down, gripping Icia's arms.

"Papa didn't make it, Viv. His heart couldn't take it. He died a couple years after you disappeared."

Icia feels her heart sink as the tears breach her eyes. She clutches her stomach with one hand and tries to hold Starro up with the other, although failing as her knees buckle and she falls to the ground. The kitchenscape around her starts to break, large black cracks tearing through the walls and cabinets.

".... Antonio, stop lying to me, no he didn't. He didn't, he didn't, he didn't, STOP LYING TO ME. PAPA IS ALIVE. HE'S WAITING FOR US, HE'S WAITING, HE'S... he's..."

Starro's sobs grow into wails as he shakes his head, unable to form words as he hugs Icia. She stares ahead blankly, tears racing down her face and soaking into Starro's fur. Her mind is numb with sudden grief, refusing to believe he's actually gone.

".... g-gone.... he's gone Vivian..."

He must be. Antonio never lied about death. And he'd certainly never lie about their father.

"..... I didn't even get to say goodbye...." She whispers, hands making their way over and around Starro. She pulls him in tighter, feeling the room grow tighter as chips and pieces of the dream fly off into oblivion.

"Everything got worse when you left for your stupid job," he cries. "I couldn't stop Ma and Dad from arguing. Not like you. She was so sure you would come back, that God would bring you home..."

Icia clenches her teeth. "Isn't that just like her..."

"She wouldn't listen. Dad wanted to stop searching after the first year. It was killing us all, and he knew it. She wouldn't listen to him. We all were fighting daily. I did everything to distract myself from you... drinks, parties, sex, all of it... that got me kicked off some teams.

"And then Dad just..... died. And Ma was so done with him by that point that she couldn't even stand my face, so she took all her anger for him out on me. She forced me out of everything else I was in. She tried sending me to some conversion camp. Tried taking all of my clothes because I wasn't enough of a man, 'just like my papa'. She did everything to try and just.... strip me of me, and replace you."

Icia can barely focus on his words, she's trying too hard to not be sick.

"... wh.... what happened next?"

"... I sent Ma to a dementia home. She tried attacking me, kept calling me by our Dad's name, and said she never wanted to see me again. And.... one of the few friends I had left told me about something I could buy from the black market. A headset. From C&A."

Icia nods.... she sees where this is going.

Starro tries to continue through painful sobs and wheezes as he struggles to catch his breath.

"I had to find you, Viv, I had to bring you home. Ma was gone. Dad was gone. You were gone. Everyone I lived for was gone, I couldn't stay around bearing the weight of not knowing where you were. If I was going to do anything with myself, I was going to find you and maybe get you home."

The walls of the kitchen and house completely rip away into the void, leaving only the floor that the two are laying on. Tile after tile, the space shrinks.

"I'm so sorry Vivian, I didn't want it to be like this, I should have stopped you from ever going to work for these monsters who took you and ripped our family apart...."

Icia pulls back from the hug and reaches forward, taking her brother's cheek and wiping some tears away. He jumps a bit, shocked, as she shakes her head sadly.

"It's not your fault, Tonio. None of this is your fault. You have nothing to apologize for..."

"..... I could have done so much more though."

"You were a child. You weren't even 15 when I went under."

"........"

She gives him a bittersweet smile as she feels the tiles directly around them start to give way.

"..... it's just us now, Viv. It's just us two. And we aren't even in the real world, we're just.... here."

".... I know."

Starro looks down at the few tiles keeping them up in the pitch black before looking at Icia again.

".... We're never going home, are we....?"

She shakes her head, tears soaking into her skirt as she smiles more.

"Oh Tonio, I don't think you get it.... there is a difference between a house and a home. A home has our family. Our friends. Our loves. Our safety. Our comfort. This is... only a house now."

He tilts his head a bit, as only 2 tiles remain.

"What do you mean....?"

Icia's smile grows bright and genuine through her tears as she squeezes his hand right before they fall.

"I mean we're already home, Tonio."

The remaining tiles fly out from underneath both people, and they start falling through the void.

Icia's panic once again sets in as she doesn't dare let Starro go. The two fall through the endless expanse, spinning, plummeting faster, and faster, and faster....

.... until Icia wakes up with a scream.

Her eyes don't need to adjust to the dark for her to see mounds and mounds of ice everywhere... it's all over Lance, all over the sheets, under Icia, it looks as if she had a proper mental breakdown just now.

Which, Icia supposes she did.

She feels her tearstained face with one hand and breaks ice off of Lance with the other... he stirs slightly, but doesn't wake up. Of course he wouldn't wake up....

That's not her concern right now though. She needs to find Starro. She doesn't care that it's the middle of their agreed upon 'nighttime', she needs to find her brother now. Knowing him, if he's woken up as well then he has the exact same idea as her.

Icia gets up and grabs her cape. The ice over her pajamas certainly doesn't help with her shivering, as she slips her feet into the first pair of shoes she sees (aka, a pair of slippers that belongs to Lance) and gets ready to leave.

She pauses before she does so however, and looks back at Lance. The majority of that ice is going to melt and make a mess.... even if more of it dries by the time he wakes up, there's no way all of this will be fully gone by the time he does.

Icia rummages around as quietly as she can for everything. A dry comforter and sheets, a hairdryer, and all the towels she can find. She sets them all on the least iced piece of furniture in the room- her vanity chair- before writing a note. Even in the dark, she knows exactly what to write.

"I'll try and be home before you wake up. If not, here is everything you may need to clean up (although hopefully, when you do, most of it will have evaporated). I had a breakdown and iced the room. I'm sorry, but I need to find Starro. If you need me, I will be with him. Ti amo, mio re. I will be home soon, take care.

Love, Icia"

Icia leaves the note open on top of the stack of towels before hurrying down the stairs, not caring to keep her footsteps quiet as she goes downstairs with a towel. She gives it to both cats (who are soaking wet from melted ice) and makes sure they're alright before finally leaving her house, closing the door, and racing towards the circus tent.

[kabukiaku]

What do you think of the Ghovie? :D

holy HELL man. to give my spoiler free thoughts: it was loads of fun. the concert footage was absolutely gorgeous. the sound quality was insane, I sang along through all the songs. ending left me shook and have more questions than answers.

for my thoughts that do involve spoilers:

my only real criticism but I guess it's just a personal preference: this was me merely having my specific expectations, but I was hoping to see Copia talk to his brothers in ghost form.

I did NOT expect Sister to kick the bucket.

Damn I'm not even a huge Copia enjoyer and yet I wanted to hug this man. He fr looked so stressed and conflicted.

FRATER IMPERATOR??!?! fuck man. I'm gonna draw that outfit.

SECONDO-STAINED GLASS SHOT!!!!

the animated segment of Mary On a Cross was so so cool. i guess they finally gave in to the scooby-doo chase music allegations xD

NEW GUY? who are you. who aaaare you? I vote for resurrected terzo. hah. yeah right.

the implications of copia having a twin!!?!?

I saw terzo ONCE and I pointed at the screen. my boy....

copia getting a lil jumpscare when he inverts his cross necklace. haha.

how will this new era play out? will it be an homage to the first era?

nihil you were a delight. silly old man.

cant get the new song out of my head. good music. good message.

copia's speeches throughout the concert, ahhh really pulls at your heartstrings.

copia on the hot air balloon, fr thought something bad was gonna happen, but good chances are he was lost in his mind, and fuckin fainted. oof.

RAIN SPOKE. him saying 'so no encore?' had the same cadence as the vine 'so no head?'

ghouls were lovely. not as feral as usual? poor swiss. he didn't get much good footage.

the. GHOULETTES. PERIOD.

phantom's wacky head tilts. he's so crazy. /pos

when nihil asked him to do the 'grucification' pose during SH my ass really thought they were gonna kill him on the spot or something.

OVERALL: a damn good concert movie. so thrilling. so much fun. I am happy that I got to experience this. despite the absence of our previous papas, we cling onto so dearly, I know the spotlight isn't shining on them anymore. it makes me sad, as I would've love to see Terzo in some narrative type media. Now, I await for what this new Era will bring.

[fuckinuhhh]

Architectural Finds, 06/25/2023

Today's walk was short, I was just going in to DoBro to get some things from target but of course I had to stop and take some pictures along the way. Here are some architectural highlights from the walk there.

First were these row-houses along Fulton St, and this cool corner window aspect that the end house had.

Built 1882.

Located at 664-674 Fulton St these seemed like they were all the same architect save for the third house in at 668 that looked like it been rebuilt at some point or maybe covered with a brick facade.

You can see some of the rusting from the old Cast-Iron facade that was cutting edge technology in the day in the second picture.

Another row of houses that caught my eye were this row of brownstones with their beautiful ornamentation around the door frames. This is right around the corner at 109-117 S Elliot Pl.

I have no way of knowing if they were all built by the same owners originally as I cant seem to find any records for them online :/, but they were likely built around the turn of the last century 1890-1910 when this style of building was commonly constructed. It was likely that they were built by separate owners/architects, as their ornamental stone decorations aren't all exactly the same.

Moving on, A CHURCH! That's right I love a good ornate church and this one surely delivered. Just look at that gothic stone articulation above the entrance! Its so organic looking, it sends shivers down my spine just looking at it and I want to sink my teeth into it all in one.

Built in 1931 to the tune of the Hanson Place Central United Methodist Church, and today it sits abandoned, boarded up, and full of black mold.

The overall shape of the building is so interesting it has so much going on with its MASSIVE brick pillar motifs, likely intended to vertically gesture up toward the creator.

One source describes it as "Gothic restyled in modern dress, an exercise in massing brick and tan terracotta that might be called cubistic Art Moderne."

Someone with more theological architectural background could go further in depth than I can on it I'm sure, but it's always exciting to see the passionate attention to detail that a good cathedral has in it's architecture.

Next I don't know if I love this one but I just wanted to shout it out as having a BIG clock face! Like that thing is so high upppp it must be 100 feet in diameter!

Without even looking it up I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say this is maybe Brooklyn City Hall, or another government building??? It resembles the thing they're doing in all of the governing buildings I've seen up in Albany.

I don't particularly like this architectural style its boring and chunky in my opinion, but I have to say its not the ugliest thing I've seen. I respect the sense of radial symmetry its upper terraces and flanks suggest, and cmon you cant knock that clock.

Second to last, we have this red & black beauty. Love the Greek-Revival pediments on each wing of the building as well as the renaissance revival inclusions in the carved cords/ribbons hanging in between the pilasters.

After some research, this seems to be an old Schoolhouse built in 1892 that has unfortunately since been absorbed by the ultra-modern townhouse on the end of the street at 81 Hanson Pl and transformed into a massive painting studio/home by painter David Salle. Wish I could find more info on the original schoolhouse tho :/

(Second photo ripped from google images)

HONORABLE MENTION: Caught this Mansard Roof moment on my way into the subway station and oof, tug at my heartstrings this is cute.

Across the street from the dream studio/abomination this guy sits pretty at 83 Hanson Pl and is the only brownstone on the block with a cute hat (mansard roof).

[cuppajj]

Just a newbie reaching out. Are there any moments in transformers that made you really emotional?

SPOILER WARNING FOR SHATTERED GLASS AND MTMTE/LL!!! And the readmore command for mobile doesn’t work so I can’t make a cutoff 😭

3 2 1 Percy

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.

A little thing about me is that I don’t actually cry or get emotional at everything when it comes to stories (the only things that have really gotten me have all been a few Pixar movies and one video game called RiME that really messed me up), and I can acknowledge an emotional moment but I won’t necessarily get emotional beyond an “oof that’s rough”. For some reason while I’m easy to be super emotional in some places, in others such as TF, it’s more difficult?? It’s a mystery to me right now 😂

That being said, there haven’t been many moments where I got emotional, but there have been some. Particularly three, from IDW:

Rewind’s death in MTMTE #15 was something I’d unfortunately already been spoiled before reading for the first time, and when I finally read it I wasn’t emotional. However, on my second readthrough, it finally tugged at my heartstrings enough for me to feel a twinge in my gut long after I’d put the book down. It was less about feeling bad for Rewind, and more about feeling bad for Chromedome; after so many boyfriends, he was finally on good terms with one! And before he could say he was sorry for what he did with the needles, it was too late… that was a mega ouch.

The other was Rung’s death and the subsequent aftermath in LL #25, which I found both sad and later on angering! The twist he was Primus and made the Matrix was fun, especially with the hints and all, but him giving up his life to make five of them was both heartbreaking and also stupid. Worse yet, after saving the day, everyone in the main cast ended up forgetting who he was, subsequently eliminating all of his relationships and impact on the characters! I’ve only read LL once but that part was hard to read. I felt so bad for Rung already, sacrificing himself to save everyone, but everyone in turn forgetting him was a gut punch that I really felt. The more I look back on it, the more upset than sad I am. That’s not character assassination, that’s character development assassination :(

Starscream’s fate in Shattered Glass also got to me on the first readthrough, and I’d say it was the most emotional out of all three! The whole first series was basically subtle skystar fanfiction and yeah, yeah that ending got me. Jetfire losing a friend due to his own self interest, realizing his mistakes, but getting Starscream killed before he could fully apologize for leaving him was very heavy. I remember reading it, gaping at the pages, then going “wait what?? He’s dead?? What the heck? No god are you serious??” And yeah while I’ve accepted the CDRW tragedy, the skystar one somehow gets sadder the more I read it over. A lot of it is probably to do with Jetfire’s internal dialogue throughout issue 5 which certainly doesn’t help lol 😭

Other than those two, I can’t think of any particular moments where I got emotional. I acknowledged that many parts were sad (such as Bee in TFP’s finale but I kinda knew what would happen), but not to the level where I felt anything physically. I’ve had some close calls though, which range in level of emotion:

Skids at the end of MTMTE

Pipes’s and Trailcutter’s deaths

A lot of what happened in LSOTW

The end of LL

The TFP season 2 finale, which also slapped hard

The Dinoforce members protecting their leader from Star Saber in Victory

Giga and Mega’s arc and subsequent death in Masterforce

[wicked-jade]

⛰ 🎧 🔬👽👀🔪📬🥚 (okay I'll stop now, I liked too many of these)

⛰ Hardest fic to write?

If It Wasn't For Bad Luck, by far. That fic took like, nine months, from start to finish. There was a lot of medical research involved, and many of tears of frustration went into the writing of that one. I got stuck so many times. On top of a lot of just emotionally rough material to write.

🎧 A certain song you listened to while writing a fic?

I listened to both "Songbird" by Fleetwood Mac and "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young while writing some of the more emotional scenes in "Bad Luck." They both ended up featuring in the fic itself.

And I listened to "Tape Song" by The Kills a lot while writing "tape ain't gonna fix it." I ended up just using lyrics from it for the title, lol.

"Going to California" by Led Zeppelin plays a big role in Strum My Heartstrings. So it got quite a few listens. I think it got a mention in Bad Luck, as well.

🔬The fic you had to make the most research for?

And the winner is once again "Bad Luck." A lot of time went into making sure I got the scenes dealing with Johnny's injuries and the medical stuff right.

👽 Strangest fic you ever written?

I answered this one already, but most of my fics are pretty straightforward, no weirdness. Unless you count the more obscure rarepairs I've written as being strange.

👀 What’s an idea you had for a fic that you never did anything with?

I had another idea for a Halloween fic last year, but I never actually wrote anything for it. The basic plot was divorced dad Daniel buying the old Weinberg mansion, which has been sitting mostly empty for the better part of three decades. Rumor has it that it's haunted. But Daniel doesn't believe in ghosts, so he doesn't let it dissuade him...until strange, disturbing things start to happen around the house. Eventually, he realizes that a certain ghost from his past his very, very real, and still holds a grudge.

There was going to be a whole murder mystery about who killed Johnny, plus an eventual star-crossed, ghostly romance between Johnny and Daniel. Ghost Johnny also ended up befriending Sam and Miguel, and becoming their ghost sensei. 😊

Originally, the idea was inspired by the Murder House season of American Horror Story. But it's me, so the idea ended up leaning more towards the Casper end of the haunting spectrum, lmao.

🔪 The fic/chapter that hurt the most to write?.

I sound like a broken record, but again, it's "Bad Luck." Specifically, Chapter 10. That's the one where Johnny opens up about his mother's death, and all of his regrets about not being there for Robby. That one was really tough to write, pretty sure I had to take a break after that chapter.

Also, "tape ain't gonna fix it" was a really heavy one to write. Chapter 7, when Johnny finally breaks down...oof. That one hurt.

📬 The best comment you ever recieved?

One of the most gratifying was probably the nursing student who told me that all of the medical info I put into "Bad Luck" actually seemed legit. That made me feel a little better about all the time I spent on it, lol I've gotten so many sweet, supportive comments, and I love them all. My favorites are the ones when a reader tells me that a fic helped them through a particularly tough time, or made a bad day better. Those make it all worth it.

🥚 Any easter eggs you put in a fic that you hoped people would notice?

Answered this one, too. None that I can think of!

Thanks for the asks! 😘

[rune-writes]

One Date

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII

@zerith-week » Day 1: Church

Word Count: 3178

Rating: G

Summary: Zack visits the Sector 5 slums church with a mind to ask Aerith out on that date he promised, but when rambunctious kids are involved, nothing goes as he planned.

Chapter 1 of Of Wishes and Promises: Zerith Week 2021

Read on AO3.

~*~*~*~*~

When Zack visited the church that day, he’d already had a mind where to take Aerith out. A date filled with excitement, he called it. He’d bring her to the Upper Plate as he’d promised. It’d be a surprise—one he planned not to tell until they boarded the train heading for Upper Midgar. He’d show her the cute cafes Kunsel told him about, then the flower shops that might interest her to invest more in her own business. They could visit boutiques, and he’d buy her all the dresses she wanted; threw in a couple of shoes and maybe a hat too. His SOLDIER salary could afford it. He’d checked. Then, they could go to the food plaza with those sweet, fluffy crepes with an overabundant of cream. They could even visit the theater at Sector 8, if that was more of her thing. But one thing he knew was that at the end of their date, he’d bring her to Midgar Tower—the highest commercial tower in all the metropolitan city, bar the Shinra building. With no other skyscrapers to block their view, he’d show her the sky, stretching as far as the eye could see.

She’d love it—he knew. So bright, so blue, so deep. It was the most beautiful place to witness it in the entire Midgar. So when Zack reached the Sector 5 slums church and pushed open the heavy double doors, his entire being brimming with enthusiasm—

A sharp jab to the center of his stomach; Zack doubled over, clutching his abdomen as tears sprang to his eyes. Gleeful squeals filled his ears. Kids, around six to eight years old, ran back down the aisle to the flower bed at the church’s other end, where Aerith sat next to a girl making crowns from her lilies.

“Oates!” she called, stern, but even from the distance, Zack could see her suppressed smile. “You don’t jab people on the stomach.”

The smaller of the two kids running from him skidded to a halt, mumbling “aww, shucks” or something of the like, though he didn’t look apologetic at all.

“Now go back and apologize to Zack.”

Zack remembered the kid now. He was the one who'd stolen Zack’s wallet the first time Zack was here. Oates, was it? He'd never gotten the kid’s name.

Oates reached his side a moment later and, eyes downcast, mumbled a half-hearted apology. Before Zack could say anything, however, the kid had rushed back to where his friends waited, leaving Zack staring after him. His mouth quirked up into a little amused smirk.

“Sorry, Zack,” Aerith said later when he reached her flowerbed. Brows drawn back; her face split into an apologetic smile. “You know how he gets.”

He knew. At least from their brief encounter before. Proud. Cocky. But with a good heart. Zack couldn’t help softening as he watched the boys wrestle.

“So.” He turned to Aerith, who offered him one of those bright, inquisitive looks. A soft little “hm?” that tugged at his heartstrings. Zack fought to contain his bursting emotions as he addressed the issue at hand. He nodded at the children playing at the church. “What’s all this?”

“Oh, Leaf House is having some renovations today, so the teachers asked me to watch over them for the time being.”

The explanation was short and simple, yet it was as though the sky—or, well, the steel sky here in the slums—had crashed down on him.

“Babysitting?”

She met his question with a giggle. “They’re not exactly babies, but, yes, something like that.”

There went his date-with-excitement plan out the window, ripped and blown into smithereens until not a speck of it remained. The tower… The sky…

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Zack shrugged. Well, what could he do if Aerith was already preoccupied? They could save that date for another time. Meanwhile… He sat down next to her, stretching his legs in front of him. A date at the church with a handful of kids in tow wasn’t bad either. Right?

Beside him, Aerith tilted her head to the side. Zack grinned, then noticed the loose hair coming out of her braid. He reached out and slipped it behind her ears. It had been a reflex—the way his hand moved. He only realized it when he spotted the blush coloring Aerith’s cheeks. Even the girl at the flowerbed gasped, quiet. He glanced at her; she ducked her head.

“Hey, Mister.” A bump on his head; Oates stood behind him in that self-important way. The kid should really learn some manners. “Are you going out with Aerith?”

With that question alone, all eyes turned toward him: the wrestling boys, the girl making flower crowns, and a couple others playing with the abandoned piano. The off-key tunes that had filled the church ground to an abrupt halt.

“It’s Zack, Oates,” Zack said into the sudden silence. “I thought we’d introduced ourselves to each other.”

Oates frowned, the way six-year-olds frowned when they were being told off, and folded his arms. “I don’t remember telling you my name, Mister.” Zack struggled to maintain his composure. “Well, are you or are you not?”

“I am.” More gasps, mostly from the girls. The boys only stared, some wide-eyed, some skeptical, including Oates.

Oates looked over his shoulder at his friends. Determined nods from all around. Zack had a bad feeling about it.

When the boy's gaze returned to him, he pointed an accusatory finger at him. “Then we challenge you! Come on, guys! We need to see if this Mister guy is right for Aerith or not!”

The air split as cries erupted everywhere—boys and girls and even the kids at the piano. Before he could prepare himself, the little rascals had leaped from all sides, tackling him to the ground.

***

Aerith jumped when the children pushed Zack to the ground. Muffled sounds came from that squirming pile of bodies. They pinned him around his waist and straddled him on his chest. A couple climbed up and held his arms to the ground, maneuvering their way around that big sword hilt behind his back.

“Got it!” one of them yelled. A small square object held high in his grasp.

“Hey, you little, that’s my wallet!”

They squealed and shouted and laughed, jumped away when Zack tried to get up. “Spread out!” came a voice louder than the others, and they did, spreading out to the benches and the fallen beams and the room behind the altar. Zack pushed himself off his back, leaped to his feet, then put his hands on his hips. He scanned the church, a little frown playing across his lips.

“Lost something?” Aerith couldn’t help but ask. She pressed her lips together to stop herself from giggling.

“My wallet,” Zack said under his breath. “I know they’re good kids and it’s got nothing much but…” He stopped, glanced sideways at Aerith on the flowerbed. “Nothing,” he muttered.

It was unusual to see him blush, but there it was, the pink shades on his cheeks. She took a picture of it in her mind then saved it in her heart, shifting her attention back to the flowers by her knees, only to feel a stare at the side of her head. Leila, who'd been making crowns, was looking at her. Aerith arched her brows in a silent question, but before neither of them could say anything…

“Look!” Another call came. One of the older boys—Basil—waved a piece of paper in the air. “I found something!”

In the blink of an eye, Zack had disappeared from her side and crossed the church’s length. "Give that back!" she heard him say, and when Basil refused, running to the other side of the church, leaping over benches and hiding behind pillars, Zack quickened his pace. He caught the boy from behind and wrestled for his wallet. Soon, the other children had crowded around them, helping Basil keep his hold on the paper. Aerith snorted. Never had she thought she would see the day when Zack Fair wrestled with a child. That paper had to be very important.

“Are you really going out with that man, Aerith?”

The voice was soft; Leila looked at her with big, brown eyes. Curious, wary.

“I am.”

The frown deepened. The girl looked back down at the crown in her hand. Almost finished, Aerith noticed. Just a little more touch. Behind her, Zack shouted, “A-ha! Got it!” She glanced back just enough to see the fluttering paper caught between his index and middle fingers, before another boy—Finn—leaped from the nearest bench onto Zack’s back and grabbed the paper from his clutch. “Brat—!” Zack swung around trying to catch him, but Finn only clung to his back, laughing with glee.

“Isn’t he from the upper plate?” Leila asked again, pulling Aerith’s attention back to her.

“He is.”

“Aren’t they scary?”

Aerith blinked and stared, before the realization hit her. Like many people of the slums, the only things Leila knew of the upper plate were prejudice and discrepancy, hate and violence. Having to scrap for a living, only to be kicked and shoved by the so-called securities the people they called their government had stationed there; then watching the news and ads on the big monitor at Central District, only to realize how big a difference their lives were. Leila's father was taken to the war, and when they'd refused, those securities had almost crippled her grandfather.

“Zack’s not scary, though.”

“But the sword…” The girl lifted her eyes and looked at the massive sword on Zack’s back.

“He uses that to protect people.” Aerith's smile was warm. “He protected me before. I’m sure he’d protect you with it too.”

The nine-year-old still didn’t look convinced. Maybe there was something, anything, Aerith could use to show the girl that Zack was harmless. A thought just occurred to her mind when, suddenly, a weight pressed itself on her back.

Oof!

“Aerith, look!”

Oates had climbed onto her back, arms dangling down from around her neck. He waved a small piece of paper in front of her, where she glimpsed her face, smiling, on it.

“Got you!” The weight disappeared; Zack stood behind her, holding Oates on both arms as though the boy weighed nothing more than a sack of rice. “Stop squirming and hand over the photo.”

“Does the photo worth more than the wallet to you!?”

“Yes! Now give it—“

The photo lay on Aerith’s lap, now crooked after having so many hands wrestling for it. She picked it up and turned it around. Her own smiling face looked back at her. Hair braided back; a little smudge of dirt on her cheek; she'd crouched before her flowers as she'd tended to them, eyes crinkling at an ear-to-ear grin. When did Zack take this?

“Why would you put a picture of me there instead of your parents?” she asked the first question that popped into her mind. Zack had left home when he was thirteen without ever telling them. She’d thought they’d be foremost in his mind. But she knew the answer, even before she looked up and saw his beet-red face.

“And why are you blushing?” Oates asked.

“Oh, shut up!” He finally let Oates go. The children had gathered around them then, their expressions ranging from bemused to mischievous grins.

“You’re blushing too, Aerith,” Leila noted beside her.

She believed she was. Her cheeks felt hot. She met Zack’s sky-blue eyes, and as she beamed, he started beaming too.

***

Aerith asked Zack to tell the kids about his adventures—adventures, because the kids shouldn’t hear about missions or wars; adventures where he went to all corners of the world to protect people and their homes.

“Who wants to hear about my adventures?” Zack asked then. Silence…

“I wanna know more about your sword,” Oates said. “Why is it so big?"

Another voice asked, "Is it real?”

“Of course it’s real!”

“Can I touch it?” Zack didn’t realize a kid was standing behind him, and when he reached out to touch the steel blade, Aerith and Zack shouted at him to stop. The kid jumped, retracting his hand as quickly as it’d come.

“That’s dangerous, Finn!” Aerith said from her seat.

“But it looks so cool!”

“And also very heavy and sharp,” Zack said. “It could easily cut your arm off if you so much as touch it wrong.” Gasps and grunts and nervous gulps. Despite the glare Aerith was shooting him—maybe he should have toned down the gore, though he’d only spoken truth with it—he thought that was enough to scare them away. But then a voice spoke up:

“But you can use it.” It was the girl who’d played the piano before. Jet-black hair tied in twin tails.

“That’s because I’m trained in combat.”

“Show us!” she said, prompting the others to chant yeah, show us, show us.

At the urging, Zack broke into a grin, wide and proud. He told them to give him a bit of space, and they stepped back. Then he reached over and behind his back and curled his fingers around the hilt. He’d show them. Yes, they would see that he was the coolest guy they ever saw.

Pulling the Buster Sword from his back one-handed was an easy feat. He gave it a wide swing in the air before landing it, tip-down, on the church’s wooden floor. Oohs and ahhs greeted his ears. Even Aerith’s emerald-green eyes were wide, joining the children’s cheer. Then he lifted the sword with both hands and bent his knees in his battle stance.

“Want me to show you some battle moves?” he asked them, and they did, so he obliged.

The “show” ended with a series of claps, thrilled cries, and jumps. What skepticism and mischief he’d seen in their eyes were now gone, replaced by nothing short of awe. Zack couldn’t help the smirk that he’d somehow won their hearts.

“What do you do, Zack?” the oldest of the boys, he’d heard Aerith called him Basil before, asked.

“I’m—“ Then he stopped, and he remembered how Aerith had talked about SOLDIER and Turks and Shinra when they first met, and figured he should omit that part. “I’m a mercenary,” he said instead. “I help people whenever they need me.”

“Like how?”

“Finding lost items?”

“Rescuing a cat?”

“Yeah… And, like, bigger schemes.” The kids looked at one another. “Like protecting people from monsters.” More oohs and ahhs. Zack felt proud of himself.

But then, someone said, “I wanna have something like it.” It was Oates. He turned to his friends. “Just imagine: we can be our own Protection Squad! Defeating evil and helping people around the slums.” The idea immediately appealed to everyone’s minds. Before Zack could do anything about it, they’d already crowded around him and begged him for a sword of their own.

Zack broke into a small, weak smile as he tried to figure how to handle this new onslaught. He looked at Aerith for help, but her features reflected the resignation he felt. She offered a shrug, a silent permission to do what he thought best. In that case…

“Want me to make you wooden swords then?” The children’s eyes sparkled at that. They nodded, crowding closer that Zack had to step back and raise his hands, shoulders shaking in a chuckle. “Well, if you can find a good chunk of wood and some sawing equipment, I think I can make some.”

They'd bolted out the church’s double doors before he realized maybe he shouldn’t have told them to grab a saw. But Aerith was laughing, and she patted the spot next to her. Zack sat down with a loud sigh.

“You think they’re okay handling a saw?” he asked.

“Don’t worry, the carpenters won't let them hold it that easily,” Aerith said.

Zack wondered about that. Seeing how the kids had been, it wouldn't be a stretch to think they'd find some way to bring a saw there. But he was too tired to go look for them, so he hoped the carpenter would be so kind as to bring it himself. He sighed again, feeling the tension rolling off his shoulders. Who would’ve thought babysitting was even more exhausting than going on a mission?

Warmth enveloped his head. When he looked, Aerith was patting him, a bright smile on her face. “Great job today.”

And Zack would have broken into a grin, would have leaned in and rested his head on her shoulder and claimed it as energy recovering, if he had not noticed the girl on the flowerbed still weaving flowers into a crown. Aerith seemed to notice his line of sight too, because then she introduced the girl as Leila. In a whisper, she added that the girl had lost her family in the war, so she was a little taciturn around armed strangers.

The reason Aerith had suggested for him to talk about his adventures finally dawned on him. Zack scooted to the girl and peeked beneath the brown bangs. Big, brown eyes were focused on the flower crown in her hands. He noticed she’d braided her hair to match Aerith’s.

“You’re not going with the others?” he asked.

Leila shook her head. When she spoke, her voice was small. “I’m not really into those sword stuffs.”

“What are you into then?”

She lifted her flower crown, then continued weaving in more flowers. Zack fumbled for more topics, but before he could, Leila had risen from her seat. She walked over to him, then plopped the flower crown over his head. Zack blinked.

“That glow in your eyes—I’ve seen it. They took my dad away to the war, and he never came back.” Leila pursed her lips. “But you’re a good guy, Zack. At least, I think so. Everyone likes you. Aerith, too. And, you know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her laugh so hard like that before.” Zack blinked again, and this time, the girl softened her features. “She really likes you.”

With that, she turned toward Aerith and plopped another flower crown on top of her head.

“Well, I’m off. Think I’m going to catch up with the others and make sure they don’t hurt themselves.”

Her footsteps disappeared behind the double doors. The silence that followed stretched awkwardly. When Zack turned his head, Aerith was still staring at the church's entrance, half in daze.

“You really like me, she said.”

She jerked, glancing at him from the corner of her eyes. A frown formed across her lips, even as a deep shade of red tinged her cheeks. “She didn’t emphasize it, you know.”

Even so, that was not a denial. A slow grin split his features. Zack crawled to her side, then gazed at her scarlet face.

“What?” she asked.

His reply was a soft kiss to her cheeks that rendered her speechless. “I really like you to.” He beamed at her stunned face. It wasn't much of a date, but he enjoyed it nonetheless.

~ END ~

[beyond-the-mirror]

The Blue Eyed King’s Gift

Oof! After an eternity incredibly long time I’m finally back to writing! This one will be a three part fic to accompany the Fairy Tale AU one I wrote with Dante x Fem!Reader.

Can you guess which tale I got inspiration for this fic? I won’t include it in the tags for now, but as the story progresses you will start to get the idea of which tale it is.

Warnings: Slight violence against children. Don’t worry, it’s nothing too serious.

Story under the cut.

IMPORTANT EDIT: I decided to make this a four-part fic rather than a three-part, mostly because I realized that the second part may be a little too long to be included in just one chapter.

Part Two - Part Three - Part Four

............................. 

Part One

"(Y/N)!! Where the fuck is my breakfast?!!"

Your father yelled from his bed chambers in such a loud volume you swore the entire house trembled in fear at his wrath. Letting out a defeated sigh, you hurried up placing all the served plates and the warm teapot on the tray before heading upstairs.

Life hadn't been easy at all for you, especially these recent years. Ever since you had memory, your father has been a cruel man to both you and your poor mother, the only reason she had ended up marrying him was because of an arrangement both their families had agreed upon. He was the sole heir of his family's fortune, but needed to marry a woman in order to keep their status unblemished. Eventually your grandparents passed away and your parents received the inheritance, the only problem they didn't take into account was their son's unmeasurable greed and hedonism. Soon enough, your father had wasted pretty much all your fortune in alcohol, unsuccessful business deals and gambling, reducing all your family's possessions to merely a modest but still pretty chateau in the countryside and a few valuables.

You still cried at the memory of your mother wilting away on her bed due to a most terrible illness, the medicines she needed to recover were far too expensive, not that the price mattered much since your father wouldn’t even bother to pay for them anyways had they been any cheaper. Alcohol and gambling were far more important for the man than his dying wife.

"Finally! I swear you're doing this on purpose." Your father scowled from his bed as you placed the food tray on his bedside table. "Do you wish for your own father to starve to death? Talk about an ungrateful child. Get out of my sight already!"

You only resigned to silently nod before leaving, the harsh words from your father never failed to hurt you deeply, cutting down your heart so much you weren't able to mutter a single word to him.

A few tears threatened to escape, but you forced them down. A new day full of possibilities was right before you, so you wasted no time in collecting some of the many fruits and vegetables you grew by yourself in your own garden. This year had brought an exceptional harvest, your crops would certainly make a great profit at the town's market.

Unlike your father, the townspeople respected you and treated you with utmost kindness. Often would they offer their help knowing your situation, something that you would forever be grateful for. You promised to yourself that one day, shall your economy ever recover that is, you would repay them to the last penny for their unwavering support.

After another successful day at the town market you decided to return home, all your produce sold out and now replaced by a small satchel of silver coins, some of them spent in meat, spices and bread for cooking meals at home.

It was a simple life, but you were happy with what little you had. Now if only your father weren't so cruel and abusive...

.............................

"C'mon V! Let's explore over here!"

You were in the kitchen when a soft giddy voice in the distance caught your attention.

"Wait Nero! I don't think it's a good idea to stray further. What if Father becomes worried?" A second voice answered back.

Peering out the window, you noticed two little children playing not too far from your chateau's front yard. Both had pristine white hair, one of them seemed to carry a black kitten in his arms while a blue bird was perched on his shoulder. It was a rather endearing sight and an odd one too since they weren't familiar to you at all, not many people lived in the countryside area you resided in. Perhaps a family recently moved nearby without you noticing.

"Don't worry V, after all he sent Griffon and Shadow here to look after us. Look brother," One of them pointed at your residence with the small wooden sword in his hands. "I found a tiny castle!"

"Whoa, what a lovely house! Do you think a tiny princess lives there too?" The other brother pointed out. You couldn't help but giggle at their adorable antics as they approached your yard.

Reaching for some of the pastries you had bought earlier, you decided to grab a few to give to the brothers. You were about to reach for the back door when-

"GET OUT OF MY PROPERTY YOU BRATS!!"

As soon as you stepped out, you witnessed your father in a very drunken state harassing the poor children. "I SAID GET LOST NOW!!!"

You watched in absolute horror how he harshly grabbed one of the kids by his arm before throwing him to the ground, prompting his brother to wield his toy sword in an attempt to defend him, but ultimately failing as he was backhanded so roughly he too fell to the ground.

"NO! FATHER STOP!" You immediately sprinted to them, basically throwing yourself over harm's way as you shielded the children, pulling them away from your father's relentless attacks. Even the black cat and the blue bird that accompanied the kids had started attacking him, effectively helping you keeping the man at bay as you hugged the kids protectively.

"Damn animals, GET AWAY FROM ME!" The man struggled and flailed against the bird and the cat, missing every strike as he was too drunk and unfocused for their agility.

"Please father, you're completely inebriated and you will only hurt yourself and others. Just go back to the house, please?" You implored doing, your best to calm him down until he finally relented.

"Fine. Food better be ready soon though or you're sleeping outside tonight." His words came out slurred as he stumbled back inside.

Letting out a sigh of relief, you turned to the young twins in your arms, kneeling down before them to check for any wounds they may have gotten. The poor little ones were crying, a few bruises and cuts on their knees and faces.

"It's okay little ones, the bad man is already gone." Gently wiping their tears away, you comforted them until they calmed down. "Are you alright?"

"I-I think so... How about you V?"

"I... I’m fine. That man was so scary though."

A sigh of relief escaped you as you determined all the wounds were minor and merely superficial, nothing you couldn’t handle quickly.

"I'm truly sorry for what happened. Please come inside, let's get your wounds treated."

.............................

“Much better now, isn’t it?”

It didn’t take long for you to finish cleaning and disinfecting the boys’ wounds. Luckily yout homemade medicinal balm was already working wonders, their skin already healing considerably.

“Here! A gift for being the bravest boys in the world.” You handed each one the pastries from before. The brothers’ eyes began sparkling at the sweet treats before them, they didn’t hesitate for a second before grabbing them and taking a bite.

“Thank you so much lady (Y/N)! These are so delicious!” they happily ate their pastries, even sharing a bit for their company animals too.

“I’m glad you like them. And you don’t need to call me lady by the way, just (Y/N) is fine. May I know your names too?”

“I’m Nero!” The twin with short hair and blue eyes answered.

“My name is Vitale, or V if you prefer.” The twin with shoulder-length hair and green eyes replied. “Oh! And these are our friends Griffon and Shadow!” V hugged Shadow close to his chest while Griffon perched himself on Nero’s shoulder.

“A pleasure meeting you four! Does your family live nearby by the way?”

Nero nodded as he kept chewing on his pastry. “Our house is just north from here actually, but Papa doesn’t let us go out often.”

Oh?

“And why is that?”

“Well...” V started, looking a bit down. “Father is very protective of us, that’s why he only lets us play outside as long as we stay close to the house. But today we tried convincing him to let us go explore a little bit farther, it was difficult but he finally agreed as long as we promised we would be alright...”

“I really hope he doesn’t get mad at us after he finds out what happened.” Nero added worryingly. Their saddened eyes really plucked at your heartstrings.

You knelt down so you could look at them in the eyes. “Don’t worry my children. How about I write a note to your father explaining the situation? I’m not sure if this would help much, but at least he would know he has my word that no harm will come to you. And if that doesn’t work, I could always go and meet him personally to get to an agreement.”

“You would really do that for us?” They looked at you expectantly, and when you nodded your answer, their faces lit up in so much joy that they unexpectedly enveloped you in a hug. You chuckled before wrapping your arms around them, returning the hug.

.............................

Since the brothers wanted to continue playing, you allowed the children to stay for a few more hours while you finished cooking. You let them keep playing in your garden, a place where you knew your father wouldn’t spot them and risk another scene like the one before.

Politely excusing yourself to your little guests before leaving to deliver your father’s meal. Luckily this time he received his food without saying much of a word, a very welcomed improvement from this morning’s rant.

As you returned to your guests, you noticed they were looking at you in concern.

“(Y/N), is that man really... your father?

“Yes, he is. Why the question?”

The glanced at each other briefly before V continued “Why did he treat you like that? I thought fathers were supposed to love their daughters...”

To say the question took you a bit by surprise would have been a underestimation. You simply sat down at one of the wooden benches, not knowing exactly what to say.

The brothers sat down next to you, each one by your sides.

You fumbled with your words, tears already pricking your eyes before you managed to control them.

“I know he is not exactly a good man, he made many mistakes in the past that cost our family so much… But, despite everything, he is still my father. Maybe I’m wrong, but I want to think he still has a good heart deep inside. That’s why I can’t give up on him. I stay with him in hope that one day he would finally change for the better.”

You forced a smile so you wouldn’t make the children worry anymore about you, and yet they managed to see through your façade. Their little arms wrapped around your waist and hugged you, an attempt to give you some comfort for the pain you were going through daily.

A warmth unlike no other enveloped your entire self, maybe it was cuteness of the situation or the great empathy of this wonderful children felt for you, but it felt so soothing how peace seemed to overtake you at the moment.

It was strange, yet so familiar. Like a distant memory of better days gone by.

.............................

The sun was about to set in a few hours, so you decided it was time for the children to head back home before it became dark.

As you had promised the brothers, you wrote a note for their father apologizing for the incident that happened and gave it to Nero. You also packed a few slices of fruit in a pouch for them to snack on during their trip back home.

“Um (Y/N)... can we come to your house to play again some time?” V asked in a shy voice. Both he and Nero had so much fun playing and staying with you, for them it felt that they had genuinely met a new friend that day.

“Of course little ones. You can come here and play whenever you want, as long as your father agrees to.” You ruffled their pretty little heads, making the brothers giggle.

“We promise to visit as often as we can! Right V?”

The younger one nodded his head enthusiastically.

And so, Nero and V departed. It was odd, how the chateau felt a hundred times emptier without them despite just meeting them earlier.

They were both so sweet and innocent, you just hoped their father wouldn’t get angry after reading your short letter. It would be a shame if the boys got punished for something that wasn’t their fault.

Going back into the kitchen, you cleaned a bit before tending to the plants at your garden, wondering if your new friends would soon brighten your day again with their presence

.............................

At the throne of a majestic palace, an all-seeing orb conjured at his hand, a demon king watched over his two sons.

The day they were born, he vowed to The Creator above that he would always protect them, even if that meant giving up his own life, he would gladly pay the price if it guaranteed they would keep living theirs in peace.

His kingdom may not be a vast one, completely isolated from others, but the land was prosperous and peace reigned over everyone. The king knew his sons would grow safe and sound behind the powerful barrier that surrounded the kingdom, but he couldn’t help a small seed of doubt that gnawed at his chest.

He feared for the day curiosity would awake in the hearts of his twins. They would want to know everything about the outside world, their innocent minds not knowing how cruel and dangerous it could be. The king often taught them of the outside world through the many books and scripts in the royal library, but he was afraid that would not be enough for his children.

So when that morning they had insisted of going beyond the barrier, no matter how much he had prepared himself mentally for this moment, his heart still ached with worry.

But he wouldn’t take their freedom away. Doing so is one of the most horrifying acts one could bestow upon another.

So the king allowed them to venture beyond their home. He had to let them fly, not clip their beautiful wings.

However, as much as he wanted to trust his sons, his concerns were bigger. He tasked two servants to keep them company, knowing that their eyes would keep guard on them. Using his demonic power, he summoned an oracle that would let him watch over them from his throne.

He watched as they approached a small chateau outside the forest, they were happy and playing along the way which brought a smile to his usually stoic face.

That contentment was gone in an instant.

A drunk man stepped out of the house and attacked his sons, scaring them and making them cry.

The king immediately stood from his throne, his fists tightly clenched as his eyes filled with immeasurable wrath and ire. He was about to unsheath his own sword to open a portal and go there, ready to end the miserable man’s life, when another figure ran into the scene. A woman who shielded his sons from the attacking man.

And when he finally managed to look at her face, he froze, almost dropping the sword in his hand.

For she looked exactly like-

… No. It couldn’t be her.

And yet there was a tenderness in the way she treated them. The way her soft hands cleaned the boys’ tears and kindly healed their wounds. The way she offered them a few pastries with a sweet smile in her face and warm light in her eyes. It was rather endearing, how this woman gained his sons’ trust in just a few minutes.

Releasing a breath he didn’t know he was holding, the king sat down at the throne once again, attentive to what the oracle revealed to his eyes.

Maybe the outside world wasn’t so dangerous after all.

[holeyweasel]

༄ daniel padilla, cismale, he/him + the color orange, impressive explosions, fireworks in the night sky, trolley carts ignited into flames, graffiti on stop signs, and quivering palms concealed by a nifty hand-buzzer. – is that george weasley ? their ministry records say that they are twenty-five , a pureblood , and went to hogwarts . currently they are the owner of weasley’s wizard wheezes . whenever i see them saintlike by jakey starts playing in my head. i think this may be because they’re astute & whimsical , but they also happen to be deviant & reticent . (       BIOGRAPHY. | PINTEREST. | PLAYLIST.     )

TRIGGER WARNING: MENTIONS OF ALCOHOL & SUBSTANCE ABUSE / ALLUSIONS TO ALCOHOLISM.

basics .

name & origin : george felix weasley ; based on the Greek word georgos; meaning farmer. the word georgos is a combo of two Greek words, ge (γῆ), meaning earth, soil, and ergon (ἔργον), meaning work. && george doesn't apply much of a personal meaning to his name; perhaps molly was following the trend of her late, twin brothers, gideon & fabian, or maybe it'd just been a coincidence. george doesn't know; it's possible he never will, since molly doesn't talk about her brothers that have passed too often. nicknames : forge, fred, georgie, gred, twin #2, & weasel. preferred name : george is fine. age & birthdate : twenty-five ; april first. gender & pronouns : cis male ; he/him. orientation : straight ; heteroflexible ; questioning. ethnicity & nationality : filipino ; english. hometown : ottery st. catchpole, devon, england. current residence : the loft above number ninty-three diagon alley. occupation : owner & operator of weasley’s wizard wheezes. hogwarts house / school graduated from : gryffindor.

miscellaneous .

phobias : he can’t be alone, because when he is, that’s when he gets into more compromising situations. he excessively relies on others to fulfill his own emotional needs (eg. fred, specifically) his codependency to fred ran, and continues to run, so deep that even his level of confidence changes without his brother around. he needs fred around to feel okay with himself. he fears being rejected and abandoned as lone unit; rather than the one collective unit he was with fred. quirks : when disinterested in something, doesn’t put the effort in; rarely expresses his true emotions unless it’s through anger; jokes so much it’s hard to tell when he’s being serious; sometimes doesn’t realize when a joke has gone too far & unintentionally hurts people’s feelings. when his emotions are too much to handle, can act rashly, and do something stupid; he often winds up in trouble since he couldn’t careless what others think. also he’s not great at overly complicated math. fred was better at math, while george is better at reading/writing/words in general. basic addition and subtraction is fine, but once you get to double digits? oof. he uses his fingers to count. hobbies : comforting others & giving advice anonymously, creating his own spells & potion recipes, dueling, inventing things, quidditch beating, quick-wit, speed reading, stand-up comedy; there’s never a dull moment with him; he’s always able to entertain an audience and make people laugh. likes : adventures, biscuits, breaking things, causing chaos & confusion, conjuring up ideas & schemes, creating inventions, discovering new things, explosions, fireworks, flashing lights, freedom, friendly debates, hippos, irony, jokes, laughter, memes, mum’s home-cooked meals, parkour, philosophy, petty arson, punching things, puns, quidditch, quotes, rebellion, rioting, sweaters, & unlimited knowledge. dislikes : being alone, being controlled, boredom, commitment, conformists, copycats, cucumbers, disloyalty, early mornings, feelings that aren’t joy, grapefruits, hypocrites (ironically), instant tea, judgmental people, ordinary living, pocket watches, purists, restrictions, school, sellouts, silence, sitting still, spinach, the government, the rich, the status quo, & unnecessary rules. wand :  10 ¾ inches ; dogwood ; dragon heartstring core. patronus : previously, his was a magpie; along with fred’s. since fred’s death, he struggled to conjure one for many years, but eventually was able to - and it’s now a peacock.  boggart : him, completely and utterly alone. without fred or just without anyone in general? the world may never know. reverse amortentia : burning cedar, broom polish, firewhiskey, freshly baked biscuits, & roasted chestnuts.

history .

➵ the fifth son born to arthur & molly weasley right after his twin brother, fred, george was practically born a prankster & inventor. after graduation, he planned to become a successful entrepreneur. from birth, both him & fred were attached at the hip; getting into all sorts of shenanigans together. not much has really changed regarding that. growing up, they successfully set off a dungbomb during christmas dinner, turned ron’s teddy bear into a spider after he broke fred’s toy broomstick, gave ron an acid pop that burnt a hole in his tongue, and nearly tricked ron into taking an unbreakable vow. ➵ during his first year, him and fred swiped the marauder’s map from filch’s desk; this aided more in their mischief. ➵ george, while not being a hat stall, could definitely have been a fair candidate for slytherin with his ambitious & cunning nature — if only he wasn’t a red-headed, reckless weasley. ➵ this curious boi might have a teeny, tiny case of undiagnosed ADHD. he definitely exhibits all of the symptoms; he’s never gotten officially checked out, though.  ➵ second year, he joined the quidditch team as beater. at one point, ron informed harry that george received ”really good marks” for his first few years. ➵ the summer before his fourth year, he stole arthur’s ford anglia with fred and ron. this was in order to rescue harry from the dursley’s and bring him to the burrow. ➵ the summer after fourth year, george went on a trip with his family to visit bill in egypt. with fred, of course, he tried to push percy into a pyramid. ➵ fifth year, he & fred graciously gifted harry the marauder’s map since they’d already memorized it. ➵ sixth year, he attended the quidditch world cup with his family, harry, & hermione. he and fred gambled on the outcome & won a great deal of money from ludo bagman. however, they were never paid, and harassed bagman all year. fred wanted to inform the ministry; george was against it since that’s considered blackmail. after harry won the triwizard tournament, he gifted fred & george his winnings to make up for their lost bet. they put this money away with the intention to invest it into their future joke shop. this is also the year they began selling their inventions and he took his ordinary wizarding level exams; received 3 OWLs in, what’s assumed, charms, defense against the dark arts, & transfiguration. ➵ seventh year, he spent the summer before school at 12 grimmauld place. after being given harry’s winnings, george had no interest in returning to school, but did anyway. he spent most of the year selling his and fred’s products. he also joined dumbledore’s army; not being a huge fan of umbridge. ➵ later that year, umbridge kicked him, harry, and fred off the quidditch team after george & harry got into a fight with draco malfoy. once the DA was discovered, george decided with fred, that he didn’t care about getting in trouble, and they began an all-out rebellion. they shoved an inquisitorial squad member into a vanishing cabinet, set off an array of fireworks that they made themselves, & created a portable swamp in the corridor. after the vandalism & chaos, george flew away from hogwarts with his brother; encouraging others, and peeves, to follow their example. ➵ after fleeing the castle, george worked with fred to establish a weasley’s wizard wheezes storefront. the summer before the golden trio set off for their sixth year, they had their grand opening. they remained open in diagon alley even while growing tensions of the war ensued. draco malfoy even purchased peruvian instant darkness powder from their shop, which assisted him during the battle of the astronomy tower. in theory, the twins unknowingly helped the death eaters twice, but we don’t have to unpack all that right now. ➵ him & fred lived in a loft above their shop. ➵ sometime after turning of age, george joined the order and assisted them during the battle of the seven potters. he was paired with remus lupin, and sometime during this mission, snape hit him with sectumsepra. he lost his ear and it was unable to be healed due to being cut off with dark magic. ➵ the burrow operated as a new headquarters for the order until they were ambushed by death eaters and they had to flee. ➵ george & fred were frequent guests on lee jordan’s radio show: potterwatch. ➵ george was hit with snape’s sectumsepmra curse and ended up losing his left ear. since it was dark magic, his injury wasn’t able to be repaired. he has permanent hearing loss and a scar where his ear used to be. he’s picked up BSL (british sign language) since the incident.  ➵ he split up from the rest of his family after the death eater ambush, but remained with fred. him & fred were apart of lee jordan’s radio broadcast, potterwatch, so it’s assumed they were with lee in some way. ➵ there was an incident where george, alone, was taken in front of the wizengamot while fred had stepped out for the afternoon. he was brought on charges of aiding and abetting the mass breakout of muggleborn criminals. supposedly, they had items sold at weasley’s wizard wheezes that’d aided in their ultimate escape. ➵ questioned & tortured at the hand of umbridge, they almost sent him off to azkaban… but the department of magical law enforcement requested time to gather more evidence to build a stronger case of george’s involvement. his blood status wasn’t in question, and therefore, he was free to go. ➵ during the battle of hogwarts, george lost his twin brother, fred, in an explosion orchestrated by augustus rookwood. the years that followed were absolutely the hardest thing he’d ever gone through.  ➵ upon fred’s demise, george might have taken up a biiit of a drinking problem. while it hasn’t entirely taken over his life, some would definitely consider him a “functioning alcoholic.”  ➵ depending on a potential charlie mun, after fred’s funeral, george followed charlie to romania in order to “travel” and “find himself” without fred able to stand by his side anymore.  he eventually stole a dragon from charlie and took it across the world. goooo georgie! he returned about a year after fred’s funeral initially took place. ➵ for quite some time, george struggled to conjure a patronus. with all of his “happy memories” linked to fred, the charm became quite difficult for him to perform. of course, george is a determined individual; he continued to try anyways.  ➵ eventually, two years after fred’s passing, george was able to cast a patronus. although, instead of a cheery magpie revealing itself, a peacock took its place. this was significant because, slowly but surely, george was beginning to detach his identity from fred. ➵ george continued to build the business he’d started with his late brother. these days, he fills his time with work; occupying his mind with weasley’s wizard wheezes instead of the void fred’s passing left within him.

[mimik-u]

“Little Graduation” Thoughts:

Baker boy Lars is so soft. 🥺

AWHWHWH, SADIE LOOKS SO GOOD!! The ponytail, the jacket around her waist!

Oh, and the fact that Steven is taller than her now has me feeling some sort of way.

“Everything just feel so easy.” OH, I love that for her. 🥺

Lmao, Steven fjdkdjdknske where’ve you been if Shep and Sadie have been dating for two whole months

The theme of this episode is going to be moving on, isn’t it, and Steven struggling to do the same. 😭 Ouch.

Lars asks Steven, “Don’t you want to try something new?” It’s an echo of something that Amethyst said in the first or second episode of Future, where she asked Steven what he wanted to do.

“Except for me... I’ll still be... right here.” 😭😭😭😭 (You know, I really want some gem or human to tell Steven that it’s okay that he doesn’t have it figured out yet. Everyone’s path to growth is unique. Hell, when Sadie and Lars were his age, they certainly didn’t have it figured out yet. At the same time, though, I think this existential angst comes a very specific place. For so many years, Steven’s identity was predicated around the possibility of war and his role as a savior, a healer, and a confidante to so many broken people and gems. And now that the war is over, he absolutely doesn’t know how to leave those paradigms behind, to move onwards, and to grapple with the fact that things change.)

(I’m reminded me of the Odyssey. At war for ten years, Odysseus struggled to leave the war behind on his journey home, turning to violence and bloodshed as his go-to solution for confronting a tricky problem. It’s hard to escape an established pattern. Indeed, at the end of Book 24, a goddess had to tell him to lay his weapons down.)

Steven casually floating downwards to say hi to Sadie and Shep and then falling is such a good detail djdjdnsnssn.

SHEPPPPP!! I love them. 🥺

I’m going to have a lot of secondhand embarrassment watching this episode, aren’t I?

Nooooooo, don’t bring up the island, Steven.

Noooooooooooooooo.

I love how tall Shep is compared to Sadie djdjdidns.

Lars in a black leather jacket is a Look™️.

Lmao, Steven has always been Larsadie’s #1 fan... and not necessarily in the most productive of ways. When he was younger, he interfered with them a lot then, too, trying to artificially produce the resolution between them that he thought was right—like that time he possessed Lars’s body.

“Yeah. Are you okay?” Oof.

BUCK????? MEDICAL SCHOOL???? HELLO?????? That’s so good, but omg, unexpected.

I want a jacket for my phone. 🥺

I keep pausing the episode when I sense an embarrassing moment coming up, haha. Why am I like this

“Oh, jeez.” Lars knows that Steven’s spiraling over all these changes. Man, I love their friendship.

THE SECONDHAND EMBARRASSMENT IS SO REAL. AGGHDHDHDJS. STEVEN, NOOOOOO.

Oh, this song is so pretty. ;-; Also, anyone know what instrument Shep is playing? It’s like a recorder but electric????

UGHHHHH. His powers are manifesting a literal dome around everyone to prevent anything changing. OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH.

“I think this dome activated as a reaction to some powerful feeling someone here has been bottling up. And, I guess we all know who that is. Lars!” STEVENFNDKDDKJDDJ.

You know what’s so sad and simultaneously poignant? If Steven were human, there would be no pink dome that served as a visible metaphor for his feelings of abandonment and displacement. And yet, if he were human, that dome would still be there, just invisible.

“That’s because it was private!” And now, because of Steven, it isn’t anymore. Aughhhgghhhhhh.

And another thing that has me sad. Like, in Sadie and Lars we’re getting an example of how friends can drift apart. Y’know, it isn’t anyone’s fault; it’s just a part of growing up. Jesus, this show.

“But if there’s nothing to work out...” And then the camera pans out to everyone staring at Steven. HHHSHSH, I’m laughing, but I’m also crying.

And now the “walls are literally closing in on Steven.” 😭😭😭

“... all my friends are going to die!” / “It wouldn’t be the first time.” ISOSOSSKSKS. Lars, I love you.

Lmao, Shep gets it.

“Steven, you’re great, but you need to let us live our own lives.” 😭😭😭😭 Sadie’s right, but it still hurts.

I like how Steven just almost literally killed his friends with the force of his emotions, and then they all casually walked away, like, “Bye. See you, Steven. Same time next week?” (But hhhhh, I also kind of hate it, too. Give me catharsis!!)

I’m sensitive. I’m sitting here tearing up at Lars and Steven hugging. 😭😭

The “Welcome New Students” banner is unfurled, and Steven glances down. Old students move on, and new students arrive. That’s the nature of life... and Steven doesn’t know where his place is between it all.

Not Steven laying on the top of his car in the middle of the woods with an empty pizza box. 😭😭😭😭 No, my heartstrings.

God, this episode. I’m in pain.

[spnfanficpond]

April 2020 Angel Fish Awards

(New Angel Fish design by @slytherkins!!)

Every month all of you fantastic writers work your asses off to post some truly incredible stories. Our Angel Fish Awards are the way for all of us, as a community of writers and readers, to lift each other up and give praise to those who have captured our attention and deserve a few kind words.

The monthly Angel Fish Awards are peer-nominated, meaning ANYONE IN THE POND CAN NOMINATE ANY POND MEMBER’S FIC. While the Pond was founded to support the Guppies, everyone in this community deserves to be showered with love and feedback, and we hope that by opening this up as a Pond wide system, we’ll be able to share the love as far as it can go.

NOTE: WE’VE BEEN HAVING OCCASIONAL PROBLEMS WITH ASKS GOING MISSING. Please use the Submit button when submitting your nominations and make sure you’re signed into Tumblr or your URL won’t show. (If the form asks for your name and email address, then you’re not signed in.) If you like, you can also send a message to Michelle @mrswhozeewhatsis or Mana @manawhaat to check and make sure we got your submission.

**Also, due to the number of afas and multiple nominations, each person on this list will only be tagged once. Please be sure to read the entire post so you don’t miss multiple nominations/comments!**

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, HERE ARE APRIL’S ANGEL FISH AWARDS!

Nominated by @thoughtslikeaminefield

Slow (oneshot) by @sunlightdances

Intimacy is sooooo sexy xox

Nominated by @manawhaat

Ritual (oneshot) by @winchester-fantasies

This fic is grounded, subtle, realistic, and has an incredible energy between Dean and the reader! There’s so many little things that play into the bigger picture to make this really flow and work seamlessly as a whole!

Temporary Scars (series) by @thoughtslikeaminefield

Fucking hell. Dean x Donna x Benny is such a rare pair that it’s NOT something I knew I needed, but everything about this dynamic is fucking perfect. It’s a bit of an AU, but I still love the way each character was represented. What they all brought to the table and how they balanced each other out in exactly the ways they needed. There’s a dynamic here that I haven’t seen before, especially not with THESE characters, and they complement each other fucking GORGEOUSLY! 

Boyking fic (oneshot) by @whispersandwhiskerburn

This shit is fucking CRAFTY! There’s a lot of little things that carry through this and the way that ‘control’ is presented in each scene of this fic is very cool. 

Calm (series) by @winchesterswoonathon

Oof! This John series just totally fucks me up. It’s perfect in the way you swoon over him and yearn to see a side of him he so rarely shows others. Maggie definitely knows how to nail the pining for John angle! 

Dream Drabble (oneshot) by @theychosefamily

Sam’s comfort and sincerity in this kill me! It may have been inspired by a dream, but this tracks so well for each of them and could definitely be a scene plucked from the show! 

The Unexpected (oneshot) by @impalaimagining

Goddamn this is sexy as all hell! It’s intense and passionate and scary and dazzlingly wonderful! 

Nominated by @flamencodiva

Three’s A Crowd (series) by @1000roughdrafts

So I was browsing Kay’s Masterlist and came upon this very lovely Gem! I would love to see what happens next and I know Kay is extremely busy, but she is a talented writer and I wanted to put this lovely work out there. It is a wonderful concept and I can’t wait to see what happens!

Just Me & My Baby (oneshot) by @deanwinchesterswitch

A good way to rot your teeth with Dean fluff. This story pulls on your heartstrings and can be just what you need when you feel down.  

The Pact (series) by @coffee-obsessed-writer

This is an amazing AU Sam Fic! It is well written and traps you into the fantasy world from the very beginning. I can’t wait to see the roller coaster that is this story as it is beginning to unfold! 

Nominated by @deanwanddamons

The Sullivan Series (series) by @katehuntington​

I binge read this series and adore it. Zoe is such a badass and an awesome OFC.

It is so good it could easily be written as a series of SPN and I am really hoping it is continued as I can’t wait for the next series. Kate is such an awesome person, hugely supportive and a big influence on me as a writer. This series deserves so much more recognition.

Ride With Me (seires) by @katehuntington

This series is divine. I am so invested in this right now. The way Kate writes is a true inspiration to me and this AU is stunning. Her story telling and descriptions are totally immersive and I am so excited to see where she takes us on this journey.

He’s Not You (series) by @mummybear​

This series is awesome! It’s really building momentum and I’m loving where it’s going. Such a great idea for a story and can’t wait to see where Chelsea takes us!

The Man on the Side of the Road (series) by @supernatural-jackles​

This series was beautiful. I was so invested in this and so sad when it came it an end. It was very cathartic for me to read as I related to the reader so much.

Shatter Me (series) by  @winchest09​

This series is incredible. Such a superb concept and I love the way it has been written. The feeling of isolation and Dean’s desperation to save her had me engrossed all the way through. A must read.

D.W. (oneshot) by @kittenofdoomage​

I have recently ventured into dark fic and was recommended this.

Demon!Dean is just 🔥 and this fic is dark, sexy and very explicit. And holy shit I LOVED IT!

Nominated by @moosekateer13​

House of the Rising Sun (series) by @kittenofdoomage

What I really loved about it shows the love can change your whole perspective of the world when love is thrown into the mix.  

The Ones You Love (series) by @kittenofdoomage

It shows how far the Winchester's are willing go when it comes to their family.  

Cosa Nostra (series) by @kittenofdoomage

Loved how in the end love and their bond was stronger than an obstacles that were thrown in their way.

Paid In Full (series) by @kittenofdoomage

Loved it! It taught you look past what you see at first.   

Poor Little Rich Girl (series) by @winchesterprincessbride​

Love how it showed the money is isn't everything love is more important.  

Political Animals  (series) by @winchesterprincessbride

Loved the sometimes it showed the its better to break away from people who are trying to control your life.  

Bed of Roses (series) by @crispychrissy​

Loved how it to taught you to look past first impressions and that there is always more than meets the eye.

Nominated by @thegirlwhorunswithwinchesters​

Control and Release - 30 (series) by @thecleverdame​

I think I might’ve nominated this series before, when I wasn’t caught up yet, but I am now and I just have to recommend this chapter. The entire story is gold but this chapter in particular had me sucked right into the scene at the end. The intensity of the fight and the way they deal with everything that is going on; the emotions, the worlds outside of their little bubble of safety. I don’t want to say too much and spoil it for whoever hasn’t read this series yet. But, if you are one of those people, I highly recommend you change that ASAP.

The Secrets We Keep (series) by @princessmisery666​

Better late than never, right? At least that’s what I’m telling myself to ease the guilt I’m feeling for how long it took me to finally read this series like I said I would. I didn’t enjoy it any less, that’s for sure. And that was even before I got to the twist that made it even better. I loved the vulnerability between Sam and Erin, and the different kind of friendship she had with Dean.

Cabin Fever (long oneshot) by @slytherkins​

I’ve already attempted (and failed) to express my thoughts on this story to the author privately, so I won’t try again here, in risk of my heart shattering all over again. But what I definitely will say (and I will break into my upstairs neighbor’s apartment to scream it from their balcony if I have to) is this: STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING and go read this fic if you haven’t already. It’s a heavy read, yes. But it is more than worth it, I promise you.

Equanimous (oneshot) by @imagineteamfreewill​

I love the tension in this scene. The boys are so in character and I could picture the demons perfectly. And, of course, Cas storming in, being badass, and saving the day, that’s always a plus.

Non-existent (oneshot) by @waywardjoy​

I’m definitely a sucker for a good crack-fic. To be honest, when I read the summary I was already sold. That signature bickering between the boys never gets old, does it?

Nominated by @impalaimagining

Handy Man (oneshot) by @deanwanddamons

Physically speaking, on the list of things I love about Dean Winchester, this checks almost every single box. I love the little things you’re noticing about Dean as the reader - his freckles, the contrast between his skin and the black shirt he’s wearing, exactly which Zeppelin song he’s singing while he works. The teasing is a nice touch too, especially the line about the night before. Proud Dean is so cute, and it’s exactly how I would expect him to react to being the hero around the house.

Nominated by @impala-dreamer

Almost Paradise (oneshot) by @amanda-teaches​ 

Amanda always always writes the fluff so well, but this little bit of bittersweet longing is delicious. Also, she nails Dean EVERY TIME. One of those writers who just gets Dean’s voice down so perfectly. Very Very well done!

Enough Time (oneshot)  by @dissect-me​ 

I was just scrolling the pond list and found this wonderful Destiel fic. I mean… the emotions were intense and I was a mess by the end. Just lovely and so well done. I will be diving back through their masterlist for more Destiel!!

  Nominated by @kittenofdoomage

Life For Rent (series) by @winchest09

@katehuntington told me to go read this so I did and I do not regret it. An amazingly sexy (and at times, heartbreaking) series, not for the faint of heart. Totally waiting on edge for the next chapter.

Call Of The Ocean (series) by @flamencodiva and @anatheweirdo​

I’m fairly certain I’ve nominated this before but it’s so good, I’m gonna nominate it again. You will absolutely become invested in Thasman’s well-being.

Nominated by @fangirlxwritesx67​

Communion (oneshot) by @thoughtslikeaminefield

But Dean’s natural state is this – nesting, nuzzling, curled up and warm. He speaks softly and quietly. His voice isn’t always rough and hard. He sings. MY FEELS. This is beautiful and heart-wrenching all at once.

Sex with Dean is always really good. A lot of times it’s a rushed, life-affirming kind of thing. So when we have time, every touch is at once charged and grounded. And when we have time and are also able to imbibe? It’s metamorphic. All of this, just one perfect line after another. WOW

Just to be his in our own little bubble. And this, this is exactly how this story feels- so close and heavy and perfect Amazing work,.Like, really astounding.

Synesthesia (oneshot) by @there-must-be-a-lock​

Lou took this prompt and did something wildly creative! It’s so well done that the reader can see and feel and taste it.

Wild Thing (series) by @there-must-be-a-lock

I am in love with the Everything series so, so much. Lou has done a beautiful job of building a world with J2 x reader, so loving and creative and hot. This one is, for sure, a favorite! Incorporates one of my favorite quotes into a smoking hot fic. Good work!!

Dear Mr. Fantasy (oneshot) by @itmighthavebeenintentional​

But there’s one particular Other Dean, a favorite one his mind drifts to during rare peaceful moments. Daydreaming when he should be researching, drifting off when a particular song plays on the radio while he’s working on Baby, even washing his hands sometimes will pull him back to those dreams.

6 paragraphs in, and I knew Val was going to break my heart. This is a gorgeous gorgeous story! Creative premise, great characterization, and written so that you can see and taste and feel every moment.

I found myself wanting to both read faster, and slow down and savor it. And yes, it broke my heart, but so beautifully that I would let it happen over and over again.

Weight (oneshot) by @67midnightwriter​

This one is short and both painful and beautiful. So very heavy with experience and meaning. An excellent example of the ways that our favorite characters can help inspire us, lift us and encourage us to keep going

The Second Hand Unwinds (oneshot) by @mskathywriteswords​

Kathy is new-ish to the SPN family but not to either writing or fandom, and it is immediately apparent in her first piece of SPN fanfic. Her creative storyline, her grasp of the characters, and her way with words make it immediately apparent that you are reading the work of a master!

Salvation (oneshot) by @dontshootmespence​

This story feels like an episode of the show from earlier seasons, just the right balance of angst and monster fighting with tantalizing peeks of smut and feels. Excellent job!

There are no words that come close to explaining what she means to him. How she saves what soul he has left. These flashback scenes are both hot and tender. The voice the author  gives to Sam is spot on, achingly familiar. The contrast between the flashbacks and the action is painfully good.

What’s more frightening, a man like Dean, practiced in his violence out of necessity? Or a man like him, on the verge of losing everything and nothing left to lose? This is a well drawn distinction between the Winchester brothers, and such a good characterization of Sam! It’s easy to forget sometimes what a fearsome hunter he is, but this author reminds us with razor sharp clarity.

“You’re safe with me, Sam. You never have to hide from me.“ Such a beautiful relationship between Sam and this woman! It’s no wonder he’s fighting so hard to save her.

This story has an imaginative plot, fast paced action and some sweet hotness! Plus the author does such a good job with Sam, I’m in love with him all over again. I haven’t read this author much before but you’d better believe I won’t miss a story now!

Casual Affair (oneshot) by @fookinghelljensensthighs​

This Dean x Benny fic is short, smoking hot and painfully good. A must read!

Nominated by @mariekoukie6661​

The Force of Habit (series) by @littlegreenplasticsoldier​ 

I read that series at least 3 times now. I love this story, its witty and funny. This fic just makes me smile without trying! Even after reading 3 times, I still thoroughly enjoyed it like it was the first time.  

Satisfied (series) by @crashdevlin​

This is so good, the emotion that this series makes me feel is just out of this world!

Dangerous Signs (series) by @kittenofdoomage

Rhi always has brilliant idea!!! This is one of those and I just can’t get enough of her writing.

Control and Release (series) by @thecleverdame

What start as mostly just porn turned into such a great series with twist and turns!

Hunger (oneshot0 by @impala-dreamer

Oof… what to say about this? it’s Beka! It’s hot and sweaty and makes me want more! Like everything she writes!

Nominated by @myinconnelly1​

Couldn’t Resist (oneshot) by @impala-dreamer

This is fun, funny, and sexy. Short sweet and to the point, while still getting you hot under the collar!!!

Dark Obsession (oneshot) by @impala-dreamer

Where do I even start in this drabble! It's so fucking cute and funny! I was laughing out loud and could totally see TFW trying to play their parts here

Promise Me We’ll Be Alright (oneshot) by @impala-dreamer

What a pain in the heart this fic was. It hurt so good!! I was ready to cry

Say My Name (oneshot) by @idabbleincrazy​

Smoking hot! While in general Baby-girl is a turn off for me, this fic is so far from it! funny at the start with some cracky dean who is caught in the middle, then getting some possessive Sam which is like my fav! 

I’ll See You on Your Birthday (oneshot) by @sorenmarie87​

SOOO MUCH FLUFF!!! Like seriously i needed a dentist after. Some cute ABO pregnancy right here!

Just A Number (oneshot) by @crispychrissy

Again Sexy and Funny (I have a type ok) This was a great use of Age Gap and it wasn't creepy and didn't need a little blue pill at all!

Happily Ever After (oneshot) by @dontshootmespence

HAPPILY EVER AFTER! It's all i need to say!!!! Read It!

Missing Person (oneshot) by @emilyshurley​

This fic is by my favoritest human in the world!!! It’s hilarious and silly but also almost canon. Plus I make a cameo as Garth’s friend!!! What’s not to love!!! 

Nominated by @lovetusk​

The Only Exception (series) by @ne-gans​ & @negans-lucille-tblr​  

While only the prequel so far, I’m too hyped for this beauty to NOT nominate it.

Survive (oneshot) by @kittenofdoomage 

I’m always here for some Alpha!Sam, but this one punched me right in the feels. How dare anyone keep him from his Omega.

He Wasn’t In Love With You (oneshot) by @sorenmarie87  

Dawn doesn't angst often, but sometimes she does and I love it.

Nominated by @there-must-be-a-lock

Noises (oneshot) by @67midnightwriter 

Just. HOT. Hot hot hot like burning. Dom!Cas playing Dean like a goddamn fiddle... what more can you ask for!?

Come For Me (oneshot) by @fangirlxwritesx67 

My favorite thing this author has published so far! There are a whole lot of emotions in this one, adrenaline and fear and relief and lust and tenderness, and you can feel the depth of everything going on between them and the chaos of the moment. Also, nailed the “oh shit where did this predatory hotass come from” feeling that I totally imagine would happen during a first time with Sammy.

Plus One (oneshot) by @thoughtslikeaminefield 

This is smutty and raunchy and HOT but it also manages to nail the sweet, loving side of Dean. Smut can so easily be one-dimensional, but this fic managed to be both filthy and tender in a way that feels 150% true to character.

Dear Mr. Fantasy (oneshot) by @itmighthavebeenintentional 

An absolutely stunning exploration of some parallel universe Deans. Gorgeously vivid language, such incredible character accuracy, borderline heartbreaking but in a way that isn’t hopeless; it makes you feel FULL. My favorite SPN fic I’ve read in a long time.

The Second Hand Unwinds (oneshot) by @mskathywriteswords 

Incredibly evocative, gorgeous wistful tone, and a couple little plot twists that hit you with all the right feels.

Nominated by @winchest09

All I Want (series) by @katehuntington

I love this, so much. I love the take on this particular episode and how in fact it brings back the reader instead of *spoiler*. It’s still ongoing and it’s already tugging on heartstrings and has made me cry so if you read this, grab your tissues!

Ride With Me (series) by @katehuntington

This series has my heart. Like this could be a published book that i would read cover to cover, over and over. The spine would be broken, pages glued in because i would have read it that much. How everything is described, how the world is painted, the characters, the setting…just everything. It’s a must read..A MUST READ.

I Just Called to Say I Love You (series) by @talesmaniac89​

This broke my heart. This was so beautifully written to the point i was sobbing behind my screen mumbling incoherent words to my husband before talking to a few other tumblr blogs about it. If you read this, have tissues handy. Dean was so in character and my heart will never be the same. Must read.

The Man In Apartment 43 (series) by @talesmaniac89

This series has me so intrigued! It’s written amazingly, has me gasping, has me seriously flinching at some of the creepy goings on and I cannot wait to see where this goes! It’s an ongoing series and I’m loving it!

Handy Man (oneshot) by @deanwanddamons

This lovely little drabble satisfies all my domestic dean needs. Covering his fine ass, arms and back. I mean…Come on! It’s just everything that you need in a bite size package. I absolutely loved it!

Nominated by @katehuntington

One For Tomorrow, One Just For Today (oneshot)  by @thoughtslikeaminefield

Sex with Dean is always amazing, but there’s nothing hotter than him singing a classic while he’s doing it. After reading this, that famous song by The Doors will never sound the same. Sit back, relax and listen to the music.

Handy Man (oneshot) by @deanwanddamons

Dean fixing a blocked drain under the kitchen sink in a black shirt and Levi’s jeans; what a sight that must be. The writer of this fic is able to describe the scene in great detail. Besides the obvious appreciation of the gorgeous man, it’s great to see him doing something normal and domesticated. It’s the life we all wish for him. A great little drabble for a Sunday morning with a cup of tea on the side.

You’re Home (oneshot) by @impala-dreamer

A drabble that’s absolutely worth mentioning, is this short story. Beka does Dean’s PTSD more justice in 682 words than the writers have ever done on the entire show. A beautiful piece of art. 

Imagine Dean debating asking you out (oneshot) by @luci-in-trenchcoats​

Dean has a crush on a girl, Sam is calling him out. When his little brother threatens to expose his secret, Dean tries to silence him, and it’s honestly the funniest read I’ve had this month. Writing comedy isn’t easy, but this was flawless.

I Just Called To Say I Love You (oneshot) @talesmaniac89

This one hurts bad, but in the most wonderful way. It’s exactly how Dean would go down, the characterisation beyond perfect. The descriptions, the dialogue, the details, the choices. It’s a Rembrandt painted with letters.

Side By Side (series) by @talesmaniac89

Another brilliant creation, based on the song Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol. A song which surfaces a lot of emotions, much like this poetic and amazing piece of fanfiction. Words that come to mind are heart wrenching, tear jerking, and in a way comforting as well. A must read.

The Voices (oneshot) by @fictionalabyss​

Based on ‘I hear the voices when I’m dreaming. I can hear them sing’ from the Supernatural anthem Carry On My Wayward Son, comes this breathtakingly beautiful piece of fanfiction. Perfect lines, spot on dialogue and it couldn’t have been more true to the character. It’s painfully raw, sad, and tears will fall. It makes you feel for Dean in ways that are difficult to describe. The writer of this story is known for her talent with words, but she outdid herself here.

Nicotine (oneshot) by @talesmaniac89

This story is inspired by the song Nicotine by Chef’Special and was written for my 1K celebration. The lyrics to this song are surprisingly depressing, despite it being an upbeat song, and the writer has captured it better than I could have ever hoped for. If her writing was music, it would be a symphony played by an orchestra. Her way with words is melodic and moving. Goosebumps all over. 

 My Hero (oneshot) by @plaidstiel-wormstache​  

What I love most about this fanfic is the medical accuracy. I am no expert in any way, but after seeing countless medical dramas and having done plenty of research for characters and stories, I really appreciate it when knowledge about medicine practically drips from my screen. A lovely read. 

Thank you all for the awesome work and great feedback!

These are not actual awards! This system is set up so everyone in the pond has a chance to share the love and promote a fic/author that has grabbed your attention. The more people that participate, and the more everyone remembers to submit their own fics after posting, the better this will be :D

THANK YOU ALL AGAIN, KEEP UP THE AMAZING WORK, AND AS ALWAYS, HAPPY WRITING!

[5-falsehoods-phonated]

Sorry for bothering you, but I couldn't help but wonder, what do you think of Janus' playlist? After several days of analysing it, I'm so overwhelmed with all the emotions towards the snake boy! The character potential, possible development, ideas for fics are just bashing me on the head and heart! I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter. Lots of love and have a good day! P.S. Expect some requests for songfics for sure!

It's not a bother, thank you for asking! Oh I have many feelings, as I usually do for all the playlists but this one...man. Hope you like long answers XD

First just the overall impression is great. I love the sort of contradicting roaring 1920s nihilistic aesthetic. Makes me think of a tired anti-hero, their cape swirling behind them as they turn away from the chaos, knowing they'll have a mess to clean up later but for right now they would very much enjoy a glass of wine. Its smooth. Its jazzy. It's dark. Its nostalgic in a different way from Patton, where instead of tugging softly at your heartstrings it settles a weight on your shoulders. Not in a bad way, just like someone added an extra five pounds of awareness to what you were already carrying, if that makes sense?

He boils down to an emo with class for me and I love it.

I'm not gonna go song by song but heres a few thoughts.

I absolutely love Black Hole Sun being on it as a vintage cover. Soundgarden is such a good band and this song in particular is one of my favorites, right up there with Tighter and Tighter and Spoonman. It's a dark song that has contrasting themes and means different things to different people, which is perfect for Janus' outlook on life and Thomas. And of course the reference to the snake fits right in.

It Seemed The Better Way is one of my favorites on the list. The style of the song and Leonard Cohen's voice reminds of Mark Lanegan's style and is so soothing.

Talking at the same time just made me think of all the Sides talking through a dilemma but really just arguing and talking over one another, contradicting each other and themselves in the process. It makes me want to bang all their heads together and yell "COMMUNICATION BITCH" which I really hope season 3 addresses the important of good and healthy communication and it takes the last side to do it but I digress. It's a song that points out unfairness and frustrating contradictions and I love that the angsty snake likes this song.

Scarlett Johansens Trust On Me is one I'm posting a fanart of soon, it put such a clear image in my head of Janus smoothly talking to Thomas about listening to him and taking care of himself while below surface level hes desperately trying to hold this vision together of everything being fine while the world crumbles. It's just Tbomas walking along with his sides as they smile as the sunshine while Janus is stumbling behind with an old umbrella, batting away dead branches with his staff while everyone else is oblivious.

Mandy Goes To Med School. Janus canonically listens to the Dredston Dolls and no one else I've ever met listens to them or knows who they are and it fills me with unreasonable happiness that someone on the team got this song on the playlist. Many have interpreted this song as back alley abortions and illegal sex changes, both elective surgeries that have consequences if done improperly. I honestly think the bare bones of this song apply to Janus. Percieved "selfishness over selflessness" and the consequences being up in the air for both. A sort of damned if you do, damned if you dont situation, which definitely paints Janus, at least for me, as a world weary tired ex-optimist who's experiences have shaped his perception of the world in a way that can be hard for others to understand. I think this song fits him to a T.

Evil Night Together makes me think of him, Remus and Virgil just having a ball of a night causing chaos together and laughing all the way through. It fills me with a lot of happiness thinking of the idiocy those three got up to when they were on better terms with each other.

Dont Tell Mama...makes me way too excited fr the last dark side. I get this strong feeling from the song the Janus very much works in the shadows, to the point where hes even a bit secluded from the other 'dark sides' to an extent. Maybe the last one is someone who really tries to run the show and wouldnt be pleased with what Janus is trying to do. Not saying Mystery Orange is evil, none of them are.

I feel like You're A Cad is a comment on him and Virgils relationship. The way that they are now, secretive and closed off, a friendship cant really work between them but they keep coming back no matter how many times they broke eachothers trust. I don't think Janus and Virgil hate each other, I just think they need to communicate better like everyone else does but they kept trying without knowing how and hurting each other in the process.

As Far As I Can See feels like a self deprecating view point that all the "dark sides" have and it makes me want to hug not only him but Remus, Virgil and even Orange until they feel even a little bit better. In this house we love and appreciate our good bad boys.

Change. Okay first: the first line of this song is "theres something in the wind" and in Sally's Song on Virgils playlist the first line is "I sense theres something in the wind." Coincidence maybe and probably but I'm holding out for Remus' for the third. 'Lately, I've been thinkin' it's just someone else's job to care Who am I to sympathize when no one gave a damn?' is such an OOF I just cant. I strongly feel like this is Janus rethinking what his purpose could possibly be if no one is willing to listen. Could apply to Logan too but he has Erase Me already so.....

Come Little Children by Erutan. That's it, Janus also canonically also listens to the Willow Maid and cries the first time he heard no you cant change my mind. He also watches Hocus Pocus every year and loves it. Remus joins him. Virgil did when they were on better terms. You also cant change my mind on this. I think this song is just commenting on how Janus hides the truth for Thomas so he can see the world from a better perspective than what it actually is. Self preservation and lying to ourselves and all that.

Into The Unknown from Over the Garden Wall I think is telling us everything is changing and revealing itself the farther we go with Thomas' dilemmas. They're all stemming from somewhere so where will we end up? Who can say, but in the meantime aren't the lies we're telling ourselves pretty? Janus is observing everything falling apart and hoping he isn't lying when he tells himself everything will work itself out. Only time will tell. It's a sad, longing note to end the playlist on, but it's very fitting.

Overall this playlist cements the fact the the Angst Train really just said "Choo choo mothfucker" and steamrolled on regardless of the fact that were stuck on the tracks. And I love it.

Janus is a sad, angsty boy tired of everyone's bullshit and honestly just wants everyone to get along so he can finally sit back and play his game cube without his gloves on in the common room of the mindscape without being hissed or glared at, and is that really too much to ask? Also, he's crying in the art on spotify, with such a resigned look on his face and I just...my heart.

Sorry this is so long, like I said I have a lot of feelings. Add your own thoughts if you like, you and anyone else who wants to. This is my interpretation of only some of the songs so of course there are more and different things worth mentioning. This is a judgement free blog where all opinions are welcome.

[ninja-muse]

End of the Decade Favorite Book Tag

Turns out I have a hard time narrowing down books (shocker) so I decided to make a tag game!! Feel free to adjust the questions for your personal need (add or exclude genres to your liking, or categories, everyone reads differently). I’m trying not to repeat books, but hey, what happens happens, right?

Tagged by @bookcub and @brightbeautifulthings. Thank you!

1. High fantasy books that are obsession worthy

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. I think this one goes without saying. (This was my fourth read-through.)

2. Urban fantasy books filled with people you want as friends

The Greta Helsing novels by Vivian Shaw. Everyone’s just so nice to each other and practical. Would cheerfully befriend any of the protagonists.

3. Portal fantasy you fall in love with multiple times

The Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy by Laini Taylor. The writing is just “ooh” and every twist was a “gasp—yes!”.

4. Novella that just makes you sigh cause it’s so lovely

In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire. Lovely writing, lovely world, lovely magic system.

5. Historically inaccurate but laugh out loud

The Temeraire novels by Naomi Novik. Because dragons, on both counts.

6. Satire that makes you reconsider your whole world view

Look Who’s Back by Timur Vermes. Hitler comes back from the dead and narrates his rise to Youtube stardom and talk show fame.

7. Happy, happy, happy and sad, sad, sad

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. There’s so much joy and family bonding and love of reading—and then there are awful, sad things.

8. No, I’m not to old for kids’ books, what are you talking about???

George by Alex Gino. A kids’ book about a kids’ book, and so heartwarming.

9. I’m also not to old for picture books either and never will be

Nobody Hugs a Cactus by Carter Goodrich. A funny story about friendship and personality-induced loneliness, in a gorgeously illustrated American Southwest.

10. Whoa, never expected that ending and to have that much fun!!!

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey. Who’d have thought that a zombie novel could tug my heartstrings, have wonderful writing, surprise me, and not scare the pants off me?!

11. Like I’m scared, but I’m happy about it

Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis. I almost literally stayed up all night because every single chapter ends on a cliffhanger and I had to know. (And was having so much fun, obviously.)

12. Classically favorite

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Way more than I expected it to be!

13. Party in your ears

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. Not a book I got on audio, but you can hear the voice of the narrator perfectly from the first sense. (He’s totally the 1800s version of a stand-up comic.)

14. Boom!!! Pow!!! Wham!!!

The Expanse by James S.A. Corey. The action, emotions, twists, explosions, and painful truths just. Keep. Coming.

15. Oh wow, that’s me!!

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman. Frances is the girl I needed to read in high school.

16. I can’t stop thinking about this book

The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. Scientific advancement in a world without a West. It’s not so much I can’t stop thinking about it as it’s sort of a steady background noise of “this could’ve gone differently, White people aren’t all that”.

17. A book you got from Tumblr that made it to your fave

The Diary of a Bookseller

by Shaun Bythell. Saw it quotes on @immzies-adventures-through-books and knew I had to read it. British humour + bookselling = guaranteed fave.

18. A book you had high expectations for and then the author OVER delivered

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire. Favourite author, and then she did her thing all over the place and went places I never expected her to go.

19. Oof I’m glad that’s over but in a good way

The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan. So much information. So much. But it was a refreshingly different perspective and I needed that.

20. Non-fiction that learned you all the things

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe. Yeah, this is partly because I read it this year so it’s fresh, but I closed this one knowing so much that I never even knew I didn’t know.

21. Unexpected surprise

A Hundred Thousand Worlds by Bob Proehl. I thought it would be a fun bit of fannish fluff and it ended up in that year’s top five for poignancy and beauty of language.

22. Underrated or indie/small press

The Accidental Turn novels by J.M. Frey! A great and pointed take on portal fantasies, literary tropes, and other metafictional stuff.

23. Favorite fairytale/mythology retellings

The Immortals trilogy by Jordanna Max Brodsky. I’ve never seen someone blend mythology into urban fantasy quite like she did.

Tagging: @boneseasonofglass​ @lizziethereader​ @thelivebookproject​ @dragonbadgerbooks​ @howlsmovinglibrary​ @the-forest-library​ @sixofravens-reads​ @baldursgatekeeper @heretherebebooks @books-are-portals

[bekahdoesnerdshit]

no one else has reblogged ask meme Mondays so I'm just going fucking apeshit with u. from the big boy: b7 for raini bc it's funny, c1 for cog bc it's inchresting, h3 for brilliance bc I know there's some gay shit going on and I want to hear more, then a17 (character proud of themselves or ur proud of ur rp as them) L5 and L6 for whomsoever u want to talk about

I won’t need a readmore for this one, I tell myself. There’s not that many questions, and they’re not proseboys. I was a fool. She’s too long to be allowed to run on people’s dashboards unrestrained 😔 Thank you! For going apeshit!!

Raini

B7. How do they respond to babies crying in public? I guarantee the image you have for how Raini would react to a crying baby is 10000% correct. She’s unhappy. Uncomfortable. Unimpressed. Can you please make that thing be quiet. Why did you have it if you can’t mange it. This is why she’s never having kids. Like she’s not gonna say anything to the parents or shoot them dirty looks, because she’s not that specific flavor of asshole, but she’s going Mind Her Business and vacate the premises if possible. People who want to take care of something should just get a cat. Goddamn. There is ONE (1) baby that may qualify for an exception, and that’s Red. This is because (and please, picture Raini, the absolute picture of ‘fed up’, squatting down to look a fussy Red in the eye while she says this) “Baby Lent. You’re better than this. I know you are, and you’re letting me down. You need to stop making that noise.” This is unrelated to the question, but please also picture a Raini who was asked (blackmailed?) into babysitting using her Mage Hand to change Red’s diaper. It has nothing to do with the question but I think it’s a Very funny mental image. Thank you.

Cog

C1. Does your OC have a moral code? If not, how do they base their actions? If so, where does it come from, and how seriously do they take it? Absolutely! The way Cog approaches the world is defined by three main mantras: - Kindness is a discipline, not a character trait. - Doing the right thing isn’t always easy, but it is always worth doing. - If you are able to help someone, you have an obligation to do so. Between these three things, Cog sees the world in pretty black and white terms. There are right decisions, and wrong ones. The difference between the two is usually clear to anyone who cares to look, and so most of the evil in the world is born of selfishness. Consequently, Cog does very poorly in morally grey situations. She will commit without hesitation to any course of action that she deems “right” and “kind” no matter how drastic or dangerous it is, but she pretty much shuts down the second she’s faced with a decision that has consequences for someone regardless of what she does.  I’m sure that has not, and will not, come in her life ever at all. Ahah!  I think originally, this worldview was born of naivety. She grew up that religious kind of super sheltered where everything in the secular world was dangerous and dirty, and so when Cog began to realize that definitely wasn’t the case she made the choice to intentionally see the best in people and the world around her to fight what she was told growing up. When she started traveling with her party and actually seeing more of the world than the extremes of a) shitty cult town b) shiny clean magic school, she began to realize that the true state of the Wasteland was somewhere between what her Mama had told her and what she wanted to believe it was. But I’ve never in my life made a character who is stubborn as hell deep down, so instead of letting the world she found herself in change her Cog took a deep breath, rolled up her sleeves, and settled in to be the one changing it by loving and helping the people around her.

Brilliance

H3. Does your OC believe there’s only one ideal partner (or multiple ideal if not monogamous) for everyone, or that there are many people who could be right? I think Brilliance absolutely adores the idea of two people being made for one another. Two souls, wandering the world looking for one another? Who slot together so perfectly that when they find each other it’s clear they never could have fit anywhere else? Bruh. Yes, she knows love takes work. Sometimes you and your partner are going to disagree, and sometimes there’s going to be conflict. The world isn’t “love at first sight” then smooth sailing for the rest of your life. But you put in the work to make your lives better, together, because the universe gave you this person to care for. Maybe there are many people who you could be happy with, and those relationships aren’t anything to look down on. But when you find The One, Brilliance thinks, you know. She certainly did.

Don’t Worry About It

A17. What’s one of your OC’s proudest moments of themselves? Gonna hijack this question to talk about rp moments I’m proud of because Alex sorta kinda gave me permission to do that! Alright! For Raini, the biggest rp moment I’m proud of was her “I’m getting our memories back” speech a few sessions ago, specifically the line, “We’ve been fighting with one hand tied behind our backs for too long. If we’re going to die fighting this thing, I want to know exactly what I’m fighting for.” Morgan and I had been planning to kick off our return from July Hell Hiatus with Wish Two for a couple of days, which meant I was lucky enough to be able to spend a little while planning what to say. I feel like that line in particular embodies Raini’s unwavering confidence in her magic, her determination, and her specific brand of caring for the people around her without actually admitting that’s what she’s doing. I also really liked the way the scene of her apologizing to the party for being Bitchy post losing Magic for a minute went! Idk if anyone else remembers it, because it was pretty short in game, but! I thought it was a very good moment of Raini finding the most Roundabout way to say “thank you for looking out for me while I was defenseless”.  If I can pat myself on the back a little, my Cog monologues kick Ass. The most recent one was when she was talking to Ace about how War is Bad (radical, I know) and there was a moment where she looked at him and said, “...I’m not going to ask for your help, because I don’t know what I’ll do if I do and you say no.” Which. OOF. That was her and I realizing in real time that she and Ace were very much on different sides of this issue. When the session ended everyone said they Loved how good and hurtful that conversation was and I :’) Also, there was a really small moment when Cog was pleading for Maelo’s life (when Sunny’s dad had him locked in a cat carrier. It’s a Long story, made slightly better by the fact that Maelo was wildshaped into a cat at the time) and Cog went Straight for the dad heartstrings by sniffling and asking if, please, would Robert at least let her say goodbye to her friend before he killed him? Please? 😢  She is using her baby face for EVIL!  And oh my god how could I forget! Arcane Timeout! When the party went back to New Alexandria and was confronted by Ace for helping a prisoner escape (which, in fairness, Maelo did do) and Cog brought the encounter screeching to a halt by casting Wall of Stone to make a timeout hut with herself and Ace inside. She then sat herself down, looked Ace dead in the eye, and told him that the wall wasn’t coming down until he actually talked to her, or until he broke her concentration on the spell. She banked hard on him not being willing to hurt her, and it paid off. There were tears all around, both in and out of character. It was Wonderful. Also! I do just want recognition for the fact that I did not give into my impulses to be a little Shit as Cog last session by subtle casting Heal in Ace’s face after he Counterspelled my Healing Word. it was what I Rebekah wanted to do more than anything; unfortunately Cog is a better person than I am. There is No worse feeling than wanting so badly to do something you have no choice but to admit isn’t in character. Rip.  For whatever reason, all of my favorite Brilliance rp moments came during combat. Pressing her forehead to Sabre’s after he died in silent grief, forcefully taking a Narzugon off his Nightmare and then using Misty Step to mount it herself and take off after her friend, planting herself in the chokepoint of a hallway to stare down three minotaurs so she could keep her party safe behind her, pushing deeper into the hellwasp nest to rescue Dembe and Sabre despite knowing that doing so all but destroyed her chance of making it out alive, the list goes on. There were good out of combat moments too (despite the rest of the party’s best efforts 🙄), but I feel like for once I made a character who really shone in combat.  oh GOD I just remembered one really really good rp moment, when our rogue Zihro died when he got separated from the party during combat. We finished taking care of the main devil we were fighting, then began searching the dungeon for Zihro and the npc he was with. We, instead, found both of their corpses. Dembe looked to Brilliance, our healer, and demanded to know why she was just standing there instead of fixing their friend. We were only level three or four at the time, so Brilliance had to tell Dembe, again and again, that she couldn’t fix Zihro. It was too late, she wasn’t powerful enough yet, her goddess wouldn’t answer a prayer like that- It was a rough scene, and without question one of the best rp moments I’ve had with that group. Tae, if you’re reading this, you’re the only one with rights. Also, please unfollow this blog immediately.  Now as a quick pick-me-up after that mess, Pip’s best rp moment was when our barbarian Durokal -who couldn’t read and had a habit of running off and causing Problems- found a plaque he could tell had five words on it, and called Pip over to read it for him when Pip finished chasing him down. Pip, annoyed and out of breath and all of two feet tall, looked up at this 7 foot half-orc and told him, “It says: I’m. Gonna. Kick. Your. Ass.” Also, he regularly called very powerful figures in Barovia by sweet nicknames with “Mr.” in the front. As a sign of Respect. Because he’s the Best. sdfhsdkfj he also he couldn’t think of a fake name quick enough one time so he told an npc that is name was Dick and he was Very embarrassed about it. She: bought it!

Brilliance, Again

L5. Which OC do you think is the most decent morally or behaviorally?  AKA, which is supposed to a “good guy”? The answer is Cog, but we already went in depth on her morals this ask. She’s HAD enough screen time let’s move on. Brilliance is the only other character who, if asked, would say they saw themselves as a good guy instead of just “a person”. She strives to do right by the people around her, and to protect the light and beauty found in the world. She doesn’t have the same illusions about the world wanting to be a good place that Cog does, and she very much understands that sometimes the best thing you can do for the world is to put the things that make it dangerous six feet under. What’s interesting I think is that, despite being a paladin, she isn’t Lawful Good! She’s Neutral Good, because you know what? She wants to do the right thing, and laws aren’t always right. It’s up to you, as a person with a mind and free will and agency, to look at a situation and decide what you think is the right thing to do. And, for Brilliance, generally the right thing to do is heft her sword, raise her shield, and face trouble head on.

Raini, Once More

L6. Which OC do you think is the worst morally or behaviorally? AKA, which is supposed to be a “bad guy”? I don’t have any evil aligned characters, because I personally find things like “getting along with my party members” sexy, but the character who’s the shittiest and the worst is obviously Raini. She’s not a bad person per say, she’s just selfish and results oriented. Very much “the ends justify the means” and in a party like hers she’s aware that somebody has to be the bad guy sometimes, and she’s not afraid to make sure that’s her. She’s also very very likely to fall victim to her hubris making her feel like she definitely knows what’s best, and acting on that maybe without consulting other people (see: the whole fucking premise of the campaign). She sees a goal, she sees a way to accomplish that goal, so why shouldn’t she begin taking the necessary steps to reach it? I think the events of the game have mellowed this flaw out a little bit, but you can still see traces of it in the way she, for example, wordlessly handed Lent a bunch of diamonds before launching her consciousness into the Abeast and very nearly dying in there without consulting with the party first. It happens!  Also, behaviorally, she’s just. I mean. She’s like that. The worst. And that, I promise, will never change. 

[nellie-elizabeth]

Outlander: The Ballad of Roger Mac (5x07)

Boy howdy. Let's dive straight in to this one... I'm going to put everything under the cut so as to avoid spoiling stuff.

Cons:

If you've been reading my reviews all along, you'll know I've gone back and forth on how I feel Murtagh has been integrated into the story, since during these events in the books he is already dead. Now that we are saying goodbye to Murtagh's character, and I have a sense of his full arc on the show, I can make a firm ruling on how I felt he was utilized. Honestly, he didn't have a lot to do for a couple of seasons there, just sort of vaguely there in Ardsmuir, and then appearing only to constantly vanish and never really establish a role in the main story. I also think his romance with Jocasta was a total failure. I was not compelled by it at all. In fact, Murtagh being the kind of man willing to die for his principles makes it all the more frustrating that he'd have this relationship with a member of the landed gentry. Yes, Jocasta is Scots, but she's also a plantation owner, a slave owner, and a firm upholder of the status quo. They didn't really go into the implications of that, beyond the fact that it made their love story "forbidden" and "tragic." And as I've mentioned in the past, I don't have a lot of sympathy for Jocasta as a character.

All of that said, I did thing there were things about Murtagh's story-line, this season in particular, that really, really worked, and I'll talk about those in a moment.

We should talk about Roger, though, right? Why was this episode called "The Ballad of Roger Mac"? It ends on a cliffhanger (oof I feel insensitive even using the word "hanger" like that), and book readers will know what comes next. It just felt odd to name the episode for him when his plot is basically relegated to the background. This was Murtagh and Jamie's episode much more than it was Roger's. I also thought that the foreshadowing of Roger's doom was really heavy-handed. Showing him singing to Jemmy, and promising his son to come back and sing to him again... book readers, once again, have a unique reason to know why this whole thing is so ironic, but it didn't have the deft touch that one might have hoped. Also, the grief and pathos of Murtagh's death overshadows how we should be feeling about Roger. I'm not the biggest fan of Roger and Bree, especially in the show, unfortunately. But he was kind of given short shrift here, and it felt odd to name the episode for him when clearly it's next week that we'll be focusing on his character more. (I tried to write this whole paragraph without spoilers for the crowd who hasn't read the books... not sure how I succeeded!)

Pros:

I want to linger on the Roger situation a bit more, though, before moving on to other things. I did like his little side-quest, the way he went to find Murtagh and warn him that the Regulators were sure to lose - Brianna remembers the battle of Alamance from her school books. He gets to have utility here, gets to try and do right by his fellow country-men, and even though his mission is pretty much doomed to failure, it says a lot that Jamie is willing to trust him with it.

We also see him reunite with his ancestor Morag MacKenzie, and try to warn her about the coming fight. And... we meet William Buccleigh MacKenzie, the bastard child of Dougal MacKenzie and Geillis Duncan! Played again by the same actor who played Dougal, Graham McTavish, which I think is quite fun. I hate to keep saying "readers of the books will know," but readers of the books will know of this character's coming importance, so I think it's so awesome that Graham McTavish is back to play him. The connection between Roger and Morag is a strange and oddly intense one, for good reason. Roger knows he's speaking to his many times' great-grandmother. He is a man who lost his parents young, and longs for the connection of family. And Morag is reunited with the man who saved her life on Bonnet's ship, when she and her baby might have been thrown overboard. Of course they would feel a bond, and stupid Buck has to come along and misinterpret things, setting off all manner of trouble and heartbreak.

In the main plot, we've got the War of the Regulation coming to a head at Alamance. Tryon on one side, Murtagh on the other, with Jamie stuck in the middle. This is where I think Murtagh's continued presence on the show really worked well. The image of Jamie Fraser wearing the iconic Redcoat of the British army is really striking, and it works all the better when he comes face-to-face with his godfather in the woods. Jamie knows, and Murtagh knows, that in a couple of years they would have been fighting on the same side. Roger even reminds Murtagh of it. But Jamie has decided to set aside his principles for the sake of protecting his family, and Murtagh has decided he's alright with dying for his own beliefs. In this moment, right at the end, neither can truly blame the other for any of it. I really believe this is a well-written tragedy, at the end of the day. These two men, bonded by their love for each other and long life of friendship and loyalty, forced by circumstances to fight on opposite sides.

And Murtagh's last act on this earth is to protect Jamie Fraser, like he promised Ellen he always would. That's some heartbreaking stuff, yo. The way Jamie took Murtagh's body to Claire and begged her to heal him, wishing for a miracle, the way he yelled for her to do something, the way he told Murtagh he took it back, he won't release him from his oath, "you can't leave me"... all of this stuff just tugged at my heartstrings in the best way. And then Claire saying her quiet final goodbye, to the first true friend she met in the past. Murtagh is the one who saved her from Jack Randall in her first minutes in the 18th century. Their friendship spanned literal centuries, and I was almost more touched by Claire's grief than I was by Jamie's. Well, maybe it's a tie. Murtagh will be missed. This last episode was one of his strongest.

Lest we forget that this story is a romance between Jamie and Claire, we do get some cute moments lifted straight from the books, including the conversation about "taking stock" on Jamie's fiftieth birthday. (Holy shit does he not look fifty. Sam Heughan is ten years his characters' junior, and they might have done a bit more to reconcile that, in my opinion!) They have their cute banter about Jamie's parts all being present and accounted for, Jamie reflects quietly that he has now lived longer than his father ever got the chance to, and then Claire treats Jamie to a Marilyn Monroe-style happy birthday serenade, which was a lot of fun. We also got Jamie's promise to Claire that while they one day will be forced to separate, today is not that day. This proves to be true, although the day does bring other grief, of course.

Jamie's outburst to Tryon at the end of the fight was something I believe really was altered quite significantly from the books. It makes sense that in a TV show setting, you'd need to forego some of the subtle, nuanced stuff that can be portrayed in a novel. I think it quite worked for Jamie and Tryon to discuss how this battle is going to be remembered throughout history. Tryon insists he was restoring order and doing right by the law, while Jamie says "there is the law, and there is the way things are done." He knows that the slaughter of innocents, men just fighting for a cause, can never be right. He has known the bitter taste of being on the side of the oppressor, and you can really sense that his disgust is for himself as much as it is for Tryon, when he takes the redcoat off and throws it to the ground. This was a great performance from Heughan!

There are other things I could talk about, like Isaiah Morton's brief subplot, or Brianna's heroic ride to the camp to warn them that the Regulators are going to lose (which honestly - duh, but whatever, I'll let it go). But by and large, this was an episode about Jamie, and about Murtagh. I'm really excited to find out how they handle certain aspects of the plot moving forward, especially as regards our secondary leads Brianna and... well... let's all just tune in next Sunday to see what's next!

8/10

[piracytheorist]

Personal stuff, and I'm on mobile so sorry for the lack of cut.

There are times when I'm hit with such a big wave of reluctance to do anything that doesn't bring me any direct happiness or satisfaction and all I can think of is Holly in P.S. I Love You cutting herself off from social interactions when the time to open the next letter was drawing near. Like, I only read the book once like nine years ago, but if I recall correctly, there was one moment where she left a party or something and stayed on her couch, unwilling to do anything until the clock struck midnight and she could open the next letter.

And bruh, that resonates with me so much sometimes. My circumstances are different, but the feeling is so, so similar. Holly held onto her husband's letters, I'm holding onto new Colin content. And sometimes it creeps me the fuck out how needy I am of it. Right now my mind is so focused on JJ Sneed and DCC that doing even the smallest thing that stresses me out seems impossible. It didn't help that my therapist told me that my stance with studying, from the POV of someone who is not a psychotherapist, might come off as laziness. And I can definitely see merit to what she said, and I'm terrified of my professors seeing me this way. I know nobody's obligated to see through the first layer and realize that I'm seriously struggling with more than focus issues, but it's just fucking hard trying to convince myself to keep studying when I fear that what others see - and not just the professors whose lessons I have to pass this year - is laziness from my part. I don't want to "battle" laziness, because that's not what the problem is, but I also need to know I'm being taken seriously. I'm greatly motivated when things are clear between me and my superior... and as I think of this I realize why two of the lessons I haven't passed yet are from the same professor who has a huge problem communicating with students to the point where that's one of the things most talked about by students when it comes to her.

I know it's silly. I know not everyone I'll have to answer to will appreciate the true me and it's silly, in my line of work, to base so much motivation around it. Maybe it's the youngest sibling in me talking because at times I still feel I'm not being taken seriously by certain family members exactly because I'm the youngest.

And all that ties to my... need for new Colin content. I genuinely felt warm inside seeing the Heartstrings trailer. A lot of my missing motivation happened after OUAT ended, where I'd stopped having new Colin content, no matter how little, every week. And now that I have the trailer... I just wanna curl up in bed, not talk face to face with a single person and just watch the trailer on repeat. Just to avoid even thinking about my studies, let alone actually studying.

Oof. I don't even know anymore. At least writing that down helps a bit, especially since I'm making my thoughts more coherent in order to share them with my therapist on our next session.

[threelxttledxcklngs]

((Alright, finished KHII, thoughts under the cut, although there’s not much to say tbh. 

Edit: LOL PAST ME THATS A BIG EFFING LIE I THINK YOU PUT MORE THAN YOU DID ON YOUR 358 THOUGHTS 

The ending was real cute, ngl. I don’t like how forced Kairi’s importance felt when she only did a handful of things that were actually helpful. One: be kidnapped. Two: fight back with a Keyblade. Three: write a message in a bottle. That’s literally about it. And yet she was important because the writers said she was. Riku did a lot to help on the other hand. Kairi just fought some Dusks, and that was about it. Her Nobody was more helpful than she was. And I dislike that. 

It got to a point where she felt more annoying than lovable, which is a shame because I do like her. It’s just that...

Think of the story of this game like this: You’re playing with one of those inflatable pools for your dolls, and you fill it to the brim with water. You start splashing your dolls around in the water, and the water splashes out onto the table, and spreads out everywhere, dripping and expanding as far as it can reach. That’s the story, and that’s how it should be. But your mom yells at you for the mess you’ve made, so she takes a rag, cleans up the water, and wrings it back into the pool. That’s the writers, and Kairi’s the pool. That’s what I mean when I say it feels like the story feels forced. It’s forcibly gravitating towards Kairi when she does very little to actually contribute. 

Nothing unfixable though. If she had a bigger role in the next games, such as actually fighting back or being a temporary party member like Mulan or Jack, then she’ll genuinely feel more important. Please let this happen. 

Speaking of Kairi’s “Nobody,” it took me a minute to piece together how she even had a Nobody to begin with, but I think I figured it out. It was in the very beginning of KHI when her heart went into Sora’s, right? Although her heart wasn’t without a body, therefore, it never had a chance to be consumed by Darkness and turn her into a Heartless, she still had a body that was left without a heart, therefore she was technically heartless....therefore technically a Heartless. Am I on the right track?

Also, something that...still kind of confuses me, that I hadn’t really thought about until I started explaining how Namine came to be. (Pardon the lack of accented e, I don’t have accented keys on my laptop.) 

So Heartless are beings without hearts....but Nobodies are the bodies of these people who have turned into Heartless, but without hearts??? And the Heartless have their hearts??? And when they are defeated, the hearts that the Heartless have are released by the Keyblade and go to Kingdom Hearts???? Uhhhhh....What???

Maybe I’m not remembering what Heartless really are completely correctly...Maybe I’m just too tired for it. Oof.

Heccing...Anyway. Kingdom Hearts II, I liked the ending, it made me super happy. Especially Donald nuzzling Sora?????????????? Yes???????? YeS!!! MORE OF THIS PLEASE????? 

LOOK!!!! HOW HAPPY!!!! THEY BOTH ARE!!!!!! I’d love to see more of this kind of stuff with HDL in the KH universe in canon, but I know it’ll never happen. They’re just shop keepers. ;n;

Also, Donald is wearing a belt on his head...I just noticed that. Uh...anyway...

I said in my post on my thoughts of 358/2 Days that the prerendered cutscenes blew me away, and that was an incorrect statement. I misused the word “prerendered.” The above screenshot is an example of a prerendered cutscene. The ones I were thinking about were just...cutscenes I guess asjfhsdk. But they were still pretty. I think I prefer them just a snatch bit in comparison to the prerendered stuff. I don’t care much for SUPER ULTRA MEGA HYPER REALIZM!!!11!!!1!!1!!! But eh. What can you do? 

Overall, KHII was good, it looked way fun, the bonus content in Final Mix was great too, awesome music. Always a must-have with me. 

SPEAKING OF MUSIC

Roxas’s boss fight. Oh my God. Oh my effing God. I know KHII came out before 358, so this was the first time they had used that, rather than the Xion fight, but I still loved it. Didn’t shed a tear like I did with the Xion fight, but it was still enough to tug at my heartstrings. 

I really enjoyed watching KHII, more so than I did 358. Next on my list is....Kingdom Hearts: Coded. 

So far I think Re:Chain of Memories is my favorite in the series, but KHII is a close second I think. If only because of Port Royal. Between that, and writing Shootin’ N’ Lootin’ for my Cuphead project, it got me to start playing PotCO again. Hope there’s more Port Royal to come in Coded~ I know it’s in KHIII, but that’s as far as I know.

~ Double Z))