#oops forgot to hit post instead of draft

[sharkface-daydreams]

final AO3 stats for the year! I had a draft I could have theoretically hurried to finish and post but u know what. it's ok. there's a whole new year ahead and there's no need to rush. :)

thank u to everyone who stopped by to read, bookmark, subscribe and leave kudos and comments or send me questions and prompts or just talk about au stuff 💕💕💕 you keep me writing and trying to improve

Top Five for this year:

No Such Thing As Love Potions - Fantasy AU, Lolix; T - ongoing

Scribbles and Bits - Scraps and scenes collection, heavy on mercs content; M - collection

Enchanted Threads - Fantasy AU side stories; T - collection

Drunk On You - Food Service Hell AU, Lolix; Explicit - one shot

Thread Gulch Chronicles - cross stitch project/4th wall touching AU; G - ongoing

here's to 2023 not kicking me in the teeth every time i turn around so maybe i can get some of these wips rolling again :) cheers 🥂

[dragynkeep]

RWBYcritics is hit and miss but someone just posted an edited Adam/Blake video that removed all the "romantic" lines and holy shit is there a massive improvement! Adam wants Blake dead for betraying the cause and not for some ex lover abusive crap. It was so easy yet MK failed to do it.

Oops forgot to share the link. Here it is: reddit(.)com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/rajqlv/adam_blake_scene_removed_all_romantic_hints/

it's honestly impressive how much more intimidating adam seems in this edit by our moot @oddlyhale with just the simple removal of pet names that were honestly super cringey in the original. garrett struggles with his voice acting talent or lack thereof anyways but the lines mk gave him & his own distaste for adam as the flat, one dimensional caricature he is absolutely did not help.

it sucks to see what could've been if miles & kerry didn't have their fragile white egos & allowed rwby to go through an editing process instead of pushing out their in house first draft as the finished product.

[smallpotatoknitwear]

WIP blanket update 6/05/21*

*The information in this post is outdated because I typed the whole thing up, saved it to my drafts to add links… and promptly forgot to do so 😅 I’ve actually finished the ten-stitch by now, and done work on a few others as well, including my Granny Square Quilt!

Hey, y’all! It’s been about two and a half months since I did a blanket update, but I’ve been doing a lot of work on some of them lately, trying to get as much done on the ten-stitch and granny stripe specifically before I go back to work in a week! My goal is to finish the ten-stitch before the 13th of June, but… we’ll see 😅 The reason I’ve been focusing so much on those two blankets specifically is because they’re not so transportable, so, while I am able to bring projects to work with me and work on them during breaks and downtime, I can’t exactly transport an entire, massive “worked in one piece” blanket like the ten-stitch or granny stripe with me. But smaller quilt-style or pieced afghans are a lot easier to transport, because I can throw a few balls/skeins/etc of yarn into my bag for the day and make a few pieces if I have time! Thankfully, 3/5 of the blankets on my to-make list ATM are pieced blankets—you can check out my “coming soon” blanket post to see what some of those are, but two of them are also introduced in this post!

Not pictured: Granny Square Quilt, because it’s still currently on pause, although I plan to start working on it again once I go back to work; Mitered Granny and Tilt-a-Whirl because I’ve finished them both! Stay tuned for individual posts about those two FOs!

Ten-Stitch (Knit)

As of these photos, I was about halfway through this blanket—I was around halfway through cake four, and I’m planning to use eight cakes total and then use the ninth to just finish up whatever edge I run out of the eighth cake on so that I don’t have a weird chunk missing out of it! Since I took these photos about a week ago (I’ve really been procrastinating on writing this post oops—) I’ve finished the fourth cake and have only a little left of the fifth cake! So, even if I don’t finish the blanket by 6/13 like I’d like to, I should be close and can hopefully get it done before work gets crazy again. As you can see, though, my little furry lady seems to like this blanket already! She used to sleep on it a lot before I had to move all my work back up into my room when my brother moved back into the basement, so I’m sure she’s looking forward to being able to sleep on it again when it’s finished!

Floral Beauty Throw

The last time I talked about this blanket, it was in my “coming soon” post. I decided to make a few test squares before starting the blanket itself, because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to use a US H or I size hook, so I made two squares with each size. The two on the left are with the H hook, and the two on the right are with the I hook. As you can see, there isn’t really much difference between them 😂 I plan to block them (the yarn has a wool content, so I’m going to have to soak rather than steam block, which makes me a little sad because steam blocking is so much easier) to make sure, but at this point I’m planning to use the I hook, and, if I can block all four to be close enough in size, I’ll probably just include the two H hook squares in the final afghan.

On the bright side, I won’t have tons of ends to weave in for this blanket, since the yarn is self-striping!

Total pieces: 4/30 (although I may do more squares depending on how my yarn gets used)

Granny Stripe Blanket

It may not look like it, but I’ve actually done a ton of work on this blanket recently! In my last WIP post, I had about 38 rows done—as of these photos, I have about 60 done! It’s officially gotten too long to double over for photos, and the width of it makes it really difficult to take top-down photos, so it’s hard to get good pictures of, but I really love how it’s turning out so far! I also love how the color pooling has been sort of bouncing from side to side the further I go! I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

Scrap Granny Triangle Quilt

I wasn’t planning on starting this blanket just yet—it’s going to be a good one for taking back to work—but I hit a point recently where I didn’t want to work on any of my WIPs so I decided to start this instead 😅 I’m really happy with how it’s going so far! I’m using scrap and leftover yarn for the triangles, and plan to do some mixing of textures in it. You can already see a bit of that here, as I’ve used some bits of fuzzy yarn, as well as some Caron Simply Soft scraps that have different textures than the worsted yarns I’ll be using for the majority of the blanket. I already know that I’ll have to pick up a few skeins to supplement my scraps, so I think I’m going to look for more of the turquoise/grey/white variegated yarn from those two triangles at the top left, as well as some different shades of purple and blue, keeping the red for more accent triangles rather than making it a main color of the blanket. There are a few things kind of bumming me out about this blanket, though—namely that I’m going to need a lot more triangles than I realized to make the blanket as big as I’d like to… and that it looks like I’m going to have to block every. single. triangle…

I’ve also tweaked the pattern slightly (check my coming soon post to see the photo pattern I’m using for reference) because I wasn’t able to neatly work the corners the way the pattern indicated they should be work, so you can see where my rows are joined in the middle of the triangle sides. I don’t mind this too much, though, and I think once the ends are woven in, and the whole thing is pieced together, they’ll be much less noticeable. Hopefully.

Total pieces: 15/225 (approx)

[steve0discusses]

The Full Metal Alchemist Live Action Movie Part 8: Watch This Episode Covered in Butts be the Only One Not Flagged by Tumblr

Gonna be risky business and not only upload all of these caps the way I screenshot them--which has just SO MANY poorly CGI’d butts but also gonna do it on the Tumblr Drafts folder, which I have been assured works now.

I’m so worried about so many things, but considering all the fears I have about like...everything else in the world right now...I guess I’ll take a risk on tumblr.

Edit: I cannot believe that I had 8ish episodes of Kaiba’s tall dueling tower get flagged but not this movie. I just....wow I cannot.

So anyway, last we left off, General Hakuro stepped in and was like “Hi guys, you like my wily plans that no one in their right mind would have ever guessed???”

Yo remember this part of the anime? Where the bodies drop from the ceiling and it’s a hunk out of the final arc--it’s here. In this movie. This movie that can’t possibly afford to do that. Lets get some CGI animated bodies in here ASAP.

(see some texture regrets under the cut)

It’s like a Monet, as the Mean Girls say, because far away and shrinked to 500 pixels this looks kinda neat. They sort of look more like those slime ball that grow in the back of your throat rather than human bodies, but they still look pretty gross hanging up there.

But then.....we zoom in. Remember again that this was full screen on my computer, and at one point was on a freakin movie screen. This level of 3d...was on a movie theater screen.

The mind boggles. The mind boggles!

Like as you know, I am an artist, and I’ve dabbled in...basically everything in my pursuit to make a dollar...and I have taken about 2 years of classes in 3D art with Maya and all those. I’m not thaaat great at it--I’m much more an illustrator/painter--but I feel like I have that reference point. Can I just say--the model is...fine...you can do a lot with layers of bump maps so you don’t need a truly detailed model (not like they did that, because they didn’t do that, but I can figure that maybe they had an intention to do that and forgot?)

But, there’s no connection of the wires to bodies. They just kinda float? The bodies are also all the same shiny-ness? To the point that it looks like a copy paste? (I don’t think it is, the wires are slightly different on a few of them) There’s just not much in the way of a texture map or a bump map. It just...there’s also something missing from the skin.

Skin is actually kind of rough to render, so when I did it back in the day, I followed like a checklist to make sure I had all the layers and steps to make someone look...clammy. Some things are kinda translucent, they reflect light a different way...especially white skin like this wouldn’t be just...white like putty. Dunno if you ever saw a white person, but we got so many veins...there was so much potential to make something really gross and fleshy.

Instead we got silly putty. It’s fine. I’m fine.

So General Hakuro decides to just...kill everyone right now.

This makes no sense to me.

That means that the whole thing of Lust killing Hughes was completely unrelated to General Hakuro. All Hakuro needed was Shou Tucker, who has been in prison for...I assume months since Ed shipped him off. And Shou was only released today? Just now? Just now when Hughes was shot?

So this all just happened at the same time by accident?

I mean the General sent us to the wrong lab initially, so he didn’t actually want us to be here, and now that we are here, he’s going to set off an entire army as a reaction to three people walking in and going “oops”?

So, lets get a look at our army.

Oh it was so disappointing, this reveal. Not just the eyeball that has a bounce light coming from below the top lip there (how did that even happen???) but also when it opened it’s mouth, it had a flat animation of skin breaking--it wasn’t actually rendered 3d skin, it was like a jpg wrapped around it or something (or at least that was the illusion I got. That is fine for a video game or a TV show, but this is a movie. This is shot so that it can be displayed in a size bigger than your own house.

What happened to the animation team on this one? Not saying I can do better, cuz no, I can’t, that 3d chapter in my life was a while back, but I’m just one guy. This was an entire animation studio and they just...didn’t render 3d face ripping (which is their entire job, to work in 3d) and then they kinda just turned on the stock physics dynamics and dropped em instead of animating them.

The way they fell was like fish from a bucket--the same amount of speed, too. they all ragdolled like a 3D shooter, their rigs just hanging on for dear life (and yes, you could see the deforming happen on the joints of these models.) I’m fine with having a computer program render something out with a physics engine...but there is a balance.

You do have to still go in there and finangle it back because...real life is hella stupid. Real physics? So stupid. It was hilarious how nonthreatening it was, too because they’re like...the size of shrimps in that zoom out image. The scale is just so wild!

It was like one bored guy in a sound booth and they multiplied his voice three times. Golden. Absolutely golden.

So these guys stride over, all of them with the same amount of speed (leading me to think it was probably a recorded walk cycle they all share with slight alterations between all of em) and they kinda just...pile on eachother in a weird way.

I will give them this: I was happy to see something that wasn’t physics or procedural. They mo-capped and animated that part for sure. It had the touch of an artist’s hand. It was also a very funny way for Hakuro to die because this guy was on screen for like 5 minutes, and maybe 7 minutes of this whole movie.

Youknow...I think it really says a lot about your nude 3d models if they’re not disturbingly human enough to trigger the tumblr filter, youknow?

Anyway, Envy looks on.

And then Gluttony saves the city.

Meanwhile, they decide to bust out the fire effects and Mustang becomes the most useful person in this entire movie. Like honestly this movie was poorly named, because it should have just been “Mustang saves the FullMetal Alchemist’s Entire Ass.”

The next part seems like I forgot a cap, or maybe missed something. I swear to you, I did not.

First off, Al becomes fullmetal and makes this happen without an alchemy circle. The show doesn’t really care to talk about that though, it’s just a thing he can do now, and you’d only notice it if you were writing a Tumblr post about it.

I swear to you, Winry is just inside of Al and there is no explanation.

There is no explanation for this.

She was on the couch...why is she not on the couch? What?

And then when you think they might have a moment, Ed’s like.

Damn.

For reals what the hell was that entire scene except for a way for Ed to get his arm stitched back on in like 2 minutes?

Outside, Envy and Lust are just strolling around the back-alley of this red brick building we have seen used for this entire movie.

And like...it’s so funny to me because they weren’t trying to run or hide. It makes complete sense why they got shot. This is what happens when you just...walk away when the whole military guard wants to kill you.

Now lets go see how Hawkeye is faring.

Luckily, all of the ambling bodies have decided to walk slowly through this one weird grass section between extremely long buildings.

And Hawkeye tells everyone “You have to shoot their heads off” and I want you to look at that scene and tell me how many of those bodies still have heads.

Oh, all of them. Don’t worry about it.

Kinda hard to see, but Ed shows up to give Mustang a hand, which was fully unnecessary but we’ll get to that in a bit.

This movie is such a gem.

Ed goes big brain and realizes that Envy is still burned up, and thus is about to pass on.

And whatever, I’ll take it. It’s not like the movie has told us that they are made out of 1000000 lives, for all we know, in the movie universe, they really are only 4 lives. Like half a cat. Maybe Father only killed half a cat instead of an entire city.

Yugi Muto would be so freakin proud of Envy for how often this guy gets hit square in the chest with fire balls. It’s basically every scene where Envy and Mustang share screen time.

And don’t worry, I don’t think Envy died? But they sure made it look like he did, which I’m sure everyone everywhere was really happy to see, since Envy’s death was one of the climaxes of the whole series. Like people used to make these lists of “top 10 saddest anime deaths” and how many people had Envy on there? Like everyone? People freakin love Envy and they did him so much dirty in this movie.

Again I have no explanation for Winry.

So Mustang is like, Ed, you make sure Winry doesn’t biff it in that corner, and I’ll do my actual job over here on this side. And yo, he did.

And so then that’s it, Lust is dead, and now we have a Sorcerer’s stone.

Man it looks delicious, right?

I’d eat the hell out of that.

Anyway, we only have one more update and we’re done with this movie!

I know!

I know! They only have 10-15 minutes to resolve pretty much everything, and that’s assuming that the credits don’t take up a heap of that. Hell, I might only have 3 caps next episode if that’s all credits. I honestly don’t remember.

Anyway, hope y’all take it easy this February, here is a link for people who just got here to read these FMA recaps in Chrono order.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/fma/chrono

[imclumsy]

Livestream

(peter parker x actress!reader)

Summary: the reader is an actress starring in stranger things. she starts a livestream as she chills with her best friend, peter. they get flustered when her fans point out their flirting. the fans go crazy once something happens.

Warning: idk, language maybe? if that counts??

A/N: i found this in my drafts on wattpad lmao. thought it was cute and decided to continue writing it for my first tumblr imagine post. oh and ‘Y/c/n’ means ‘your character’s name’.

“Hey, guys.” You smiled at your phone screen, holding up a peace sign as you started a live stream on Instagram. Comments started to flood in.

avengersfan01 - OMG UR LIVESTREAMING FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AGES

y/niswifey - WHERE HAVE U BEEN,, LAST TIME U POSTED WAS A MONTH AGO

msmarvel19832 - notice me senpaiiiii 😭

strangertingzz4life - hiiiiii ❤️❤️💖

"So, I'm kinda bored, my parents aren't home and I thought 'Why not do a Q&A?' since I haven't been so active on Instagram lately because I’ve been busy filming." You shuffled, trying to find a comfortable position to sit in.

"Stop moving, Y/n. I’ve almost got a 10 streak kill." Peter nudged you, keeping his attention on his video game as he ran someone over with a car.

Who knew Spider-Man would enjoy running over pedestrians.

"I'm trying to get comfortable, dickhead, let me be." You smiled, moving the camera so it was away from you and Peter. You finally decided to lay your head on his stomach as he let you lay between his legs.

"Ok, sorry about that, technical- well, physical difficulties." You laughed at the camera, making Peter chuckle, "Anyways, questions anyone? I'll answer as many as I can."

You waited for the comments to load and read out the first one you saw, "From captainamericaswhore, love the username by the way, 'Who's legs are those?'" You giggled as soon as you finished reading.

Everyone in the comments started to freak out.

y/n.y/ln.is.my.queen - YO I BET IT'S PETER SKSJAK

dontreadmyusername - who tf is peter-

peterxy/n.otp - ALJSSJAK IT'S MY SHIP OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M WITNESSING THIS

madmax751300 - [dontreadmyusername] get outta here u uncultured swine

elevenseggos - those r some thicc legs wInK wOnK

suziep00 - [elevenseggos] and i fucking oop-

“Are you livestreaming?” Peter asked, pausing his game and taking his headset off, reaching away to place it on the table.

“Yep,” You replied, popping the ‘p’. Your fans already knew who Peter was since he made a regular appearance in all your social media, especially your stories. “It’s Peter’s legs by the way. Say ‘hi’ to everyone, Pete.” You turned your camera to him.

“Hey.” He waved, sending the fans a charming smile.

“Alright, next question-“ You said, sitting up before hitting your head on Peter’s nose.

“Fuck.” He held the bridge of his nose. You laughed, letting your head fall forward as you clutched your stomach. “That fucking hurt, you idiot!” He shoved your shoulder, laughing to lighten up the mood instead of making it serious.

You turned around, looking at the tears welling up in his eyes, “Aww, alright. I’m sorry.” You reached behind him to grab a tissue from the tissue box on the small table and wiped his tears, “You good?”

"Yeah, kinda hurts, but I'm fine." He laughed, giving you a smile to reassure you that he's okay.

“You’re such a baby.” You playfully rolled your eyes before quickly kissing his nose. “You know, my lips kinda hurt too.” He smirked.

“Nice one, Parker.”

“I try my best.”

“Well, it might just be working.” You flirted back, making Peter blush profusely.

You completely forgot that you were still livestreaming as you felt your phone violently vibrate in your hand. Everyone was going crazy; crazier than normal.

noahpotatoes - WTF WTF WTF WTAF I’M SCREAMING

lucasisunderrated - Y'ALL SHE SAID 'WELL IT MIGHT JUST BE WORKING' OMFG ALL THAT FLIRTING IS GONNA PAY OFF I’M GONEEE

finnwolfhardofficial - real smooth peter,, real smooth

dustybun4life - i wonder what’s gonna happen after this livestream ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

steve_the_mom - [dustybun4life] SOME OF Y'ALL ARE NASTY OML-

Your face heated up after reading some of the comments. “What can I say, Finn? Practice makes perfect." He managed to say one last bold comment before his face turned completely red after reading all the comments shipping you two.

ironlad01762 - PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT-

elizabethz04 - SO I WASN’T HALLUCINATING LAST LIVESTREAM WHEN Y’ALL WERE FLIRTING OML I’M GONNA PASS OUT

sadiesink_ - you guys better get together by the end of this live otherwise we’re no longer gonna have movie nights in my trailer

therealcalebmclaughlin - your flirting is so cute it makes me want to puke

gatenm123 - just saying.. i better be in the front seat for your wedding

elevenseggos - I'M LOVING THIS INTERACTION AND ALL BUT PLS CONTINUE THE Q&A, I WANT THE TEA SPILT ALL OVER THE TABLE CLOTH

You felt really flustered now, feeling Peter’s body heat radiate as he wore his headsets to continue his game in order to avoid showing his flushed face. You cleared your throat, “Alright, guys, come on. Elevenseggos is right, let’s continue the Q&A.”

elevenseggos - OH MY GOD I'VE BEEN NOTICED, WHAT A BLESSED DAY

gayforrobin - [elevenseggos] CONGRATS

milliebobbybrown - [elevenseggos] "I WANT THE TEA SPILT ALL OVER THE TABLE CLOTH" I'M USING THAT FROM NOW ON

flayedforbilly - [milliebobbybrown] MILLIE OMG @elevenseggos IS HAPPY-CRYING ALL OVER ME RN, WHAT DID U DO

You waited until some questions pop up and read the first one I see, "From stony4life, 'What's it like playing a fan-favourite character in Stranger Things?'" I bite my lip as I think of an answer, "I mean - obviously - it's really cool. I actually originally auditioned for a smaller role since this was my first big thing but ended up getting the role of Y/c/n. It’s really fun to be able to play this character; she’s strange but in a mysterious yet cool way, she clicks with everyone in the group and she just straight up vibes.”

You waited for another comment, “Ooh, from peterxy/n- oh, hah, okay.” You blushed because of the username, “Have you met your celebrity crush? See, I actually ran into him 3 years ago but that crush has worn off now.” You shrugged, “But! But this guy,” You turned the camera around to face a deeply concentrated Peter, “does have a celebrity crush and he won’t tell me who it is.”

He immediately paused the game again and took off his headsets, “Because it’s embarrassing.”

“I’m sure it’s not, don’t be so dramatic.”

“Trust me, it is.”

“You know I can probably get my agent to get you to meet them.” You pointed out.

“Yeah, but what if I already met them?”

milevenisrealmfs - OH MY GOD GUYS BRACE YOURSELVES IT’S GONNA HAPPEN

eggosaresuperior - SHIT SHIT WAIT LEMME GET MY SCREENRECORDER ON

milevenisrealmfs - omg y/n better get what he’s saying otherwise i’m gonna cry

“Oh my God, when? Why didn’t you tell me?” You asked. He looked at you like you were joking, “Seriously?”

“What?” You furrowed your brows in confusion.

“You’re actually so dumb.” He said before softly grabbing your jaw and kissing you. You almost dropped your phone from the sudden action but he pulled away just before you could.

You were left with a dumbfounded gaze, you glanced at your phone and saw all the comments flooding in again, “Alright, gotta go guys, bye.” You quickly ended the live.

You sighed then looked at Peter, “You like me?” You asked.

“Well, yeah. I thought it was pretty obvious.” He shrugged, nervously avoiding your eye contact.

You studied his features before gently placing your lips against his. He kissed back, leaning into your touch as you held his cheek. You pulled away, both of you smiling, “Then it’s a good thing I like you too.”

-

-

-

[ladytp]

(EDIT: Oops, I thought I had posted this already a while ago but apparently forgot, as it still sat in my drafts... D’oh!)

The second and the last chapter of my Sansan Christmas in July 2019 fic to @sincerelydayyy, “Jumping from the Ropes” takes us into the conclusion of this short and hopefully sweet story… “The Jump” is also up at AO3. Merry Christmas in July once again!

Sansa

The Hound had been right: the shit did hit the fan soon after.

Bobby Baratheon suffered a massive cardiac arrest, and while he was recuperating in the hospital, his wife and co-owner Cersei Lannister called a meeting of the WWA board and announced a ‘friendly’ takeover with her and Joffrey at its helm. The board agreed, and sooner than one could say ‘contractual obligations’, Ned Stark was out of a job.

He took it well though, telling Sansa that he preferred not to work for ‘that woman’ anyway. In a family meeting it was decided that Ned would fly home and consider his next step back in the North, while Sansa would finish her semester before following him.

As for the Hound, Sansa saw him in the shows, of course, defending his championship and delivering his characteristic brusque promos, threatening to gut any of the ‘gnats’ who imagined themselves to be a match for him.

He saw her too, often glancing in her direction during the show and between the matches. Sansa was usually seated in the prime seating area – advantages of the Premier Pass she had received from her father and which even Cersei in her pettiness hadn’t revoked. That meant that she was close enough to the action to be fully aware of his looming presence and attention – which, however, was quickly withdrawn when she looked back at him.

Only once had he and Sansa spoken, and that more by accident than by design. She had gone backstage after the show, and when turning the corner, had almost collided with him, only her abrupt halt preventing a head-on crash. Instead, she had found herself eye level with his sweaty, heaving chest, covered with dark hair.

While Sansa had murmured her apologies, he had asked what she was doing there and if she was looking for someone. Then Joffrey had walked past and greeted her – and The Hound had slid away without another word.

Still assailed by the intensity of their meeting at the party, Sansa had stooped as low – as per her usual standards – as to find out everything she could about him from the internet, searching by both his ring-name and his real name, Sandor Clegane. His biography was scanty, he rarely featured in news or articles outside the usual wrestling sites, and his social media presence was non-existent. His only entry on Twitter, apparently forced upon the employees by the WWA, was a one-liner, “So here I am – enjoy”, not followed by any other tweets.

Even adding “girlfriend” after his real or ring-name didn’t bring up any hits in Google – which was unusual by itself. If not real news, most wrestlers’ profiles were inundated with gossip and speculation about who they were dating or not – but not him.

All she could glean from her search was his career development from a solitary youth, who had discovered pro-wrestling as an outlet to whatever demons he had on his back - and now Sansa knew what they were – via indie circles, hard-core death-matches and small promotions, all the way to the WWA. That, and that the cause of his scars was universally accepted to be a house-fire in his bedroom when he had been just a child - just as he had first told. His brother’s – another wrestler in the WWA under the ring-name ‘The Mountain’ – web entries had lots of information about his career, but no hints about the atrocity he had committed.

---

It was the day of Sansa’s departure. She had packed all her belongings and sent most of them ahead by airfreight, leaving only one carry-on bag to take with her on her flight.

She eyed her room for the last time. It had been a good year and she had enjoyed every moment of it, and part of her felt sorry to leave it all behind, but another part was keen to get back home to her family and friends. This year things were going to be different for her: she was going to move away from her parents’ house, possibly with her best friend Jeyne. She was going to focus on finishing her studies, maybe get a part-time job… she was going to start her adult life for real.

Sansa sighed and glanced at her watch. She still had a few more hours to kill before she had to be at the airport so she decided to pay one last visit to her favourite café only a block away.

Stepping out of the front door, she was hit by a blast of brilliant sunshine. The weather was warm and there was a hint of spring in the air, lifting her spirits even higher. The sun in her eyes blinded her so that when she first heard the humming sound of a car engine slowing down beside her and heard a shout, she had to squint her eyes and cover her brow to see better.

“Little Bird!”

The car was big and black, one of those four-wheel utility drives favoured by rugged outdoorsmen and adventurers with extra cash. The tinted side window lowered and she saw the man driving it.

The Hound.

“Hello,” was all she could manage, surprised by his unexpected appearance. Why was he here – had he come to find her? Or maybe it was just a coincidence that he was driving by at that precise moment?

“You have a minute?”

The car had stopped right next to her, but the motor was still running. If she said no, explaining that she was in a hurry, would he take her at her word and drive away?

The thing was, she didn’t feel like saying no.

“I do have a moment, but not much more than that,” she said, bending to peer through the window. She saw the same big black dog on the backseat, its ears perking up as it saw her. The Hound reached for the door handle and with a click, the door opened.

Once Sansa had settled in the seat, the Hound steered the car to the first available parking spot and stopped, this time turning the ignition off. The silence following the death of the motor was deafening - he didn’t even have a radio on.

“So, how are you?” Sansa asked. That’s what people ask after not seeing each other for a while, don’t they?

“I’m leaving.”

“You’re leaving WWA?”

“Everything.” The Hound’s hands rested on the steering wheel, which looked awfully small in comparison. The backs of his hands were hairy but his fingers were unexpectedly long and there was something delicate in the way he slowly rubbed the spokes of the wheel, probably not even realising he was doing it.

“I told Cersei she can shove my contract where the sun doesn’t shine and packed my bags. I’m done with the Baratheons and Lannisters.”

Well, he had told her so, so Sansa wasn’t terribly surprised.

“What do you plan to do?” she asked, out of genuine interest.

“Don’t know yet. I could be a free agent for a while, wrestle in indie circles.” He looked at Sansa then. “I think I’ll leave the city, go somewhere else for a while. North, maybe.”

Sansa’s heart started to race. It was quite ridiculous, really. What was it to her what he decided to do? In the name of mutual sharing, she decided, however, to tell him about her plans.

“I’m leaving too. As a matter of fact, I have to be at the airport shortly for my flight to Wintertown.”

“I know.”

“How?”

“Cersei told me.”

“She did?” Sansa remembered mentioning her departure in the parting email she had sent to Bobby and Cersei. They had been welcoming to her and her father when they had first arrived and it was only good manners to bid them farewell, no matter how things between their families had ended. Besides, Ned and Bobby’s friendship still endured, and Bobby had sworn to pay his old friend a visit as soon as he had recovered enough to do so.

The Hound turned to her fully. “I could give you a ride.”

“That’s very nice of you, but I’ll be fine. I only have a carry-on bag and I can easily take an Uber,” Sansa said.

She wouldn’t have really minded accepting the offer, but what would have been the point of it? They were probably not going to see each other again, and the awkwardness of their interactions was unlikely to pass during the short drive to the airport. There was something between them, Sansa had realised over the last few weeks, something that had been ignited that evening at the university party. Something unsure and fragile, something that was more of a promise of potential rather than a thing on its own.

Yet it didn’t matter. Even should he move to the North and wrestle there, their life situations were so far apart that…

“I didn’t mean to the airport.”

Sansa’s trail of thought was so abruptly interrupted, she was confused at first. If not to the airport, then –

Oh!

“You can’t mean Wintertown? It’s halfway across the country!”

“I know.” Seemingly realising that it was not enough, The Hound continued. “I like driving. And I’d hate to confine Stranger in one of those crates for the flight. And I couldn’t leave him behind.” He reached to scratch the ear of the dog, who had poked its head between the seats. Sansa looked at the dog warily. Those breeds had a reputation, after all.

“Go on, pat him. He’s a big sook,” The Hound urged – and she did. The dog’s fur was silky and soft and its nose, when it sniffed her hand, was cold and wet. Tentatively, it licked her fingers.

Sansa’s head was whirling. For her, the notion was crazy. It would take at least four or five days to drive up, whereas in a plane it would be a matter of hours. She would be back at home this same night, embraced by her mother and her many siblings. Why should she even consider such an offer?

“That’s a very long drive,” she offered. As if he didn’t know.

“They say the route along the coast is pretty. And the scenery in the Vale is supposed to be breathtaking. I might take a few side trips. Haven’t seen enough of this country, as it is.”

The Hound glanced out of the window, which he had wound down when they had stopped. He might have appeared nonchalant and not caring a whit whether Sansa accepted his offer or not, but his fingers, tapping against the wheel at an increasing tempo, gave him away.

He is nervous, Sansa realised, to her astonishment. And something warm started to bloom inside her chest.

Every sensible brain cell in her head screamed 'NO' – it would be the height of stupidity to ditch the plane and join a man she hardly knew for such a long ride. Gods, if her mother knew she was even passingly contemplating it, she would have a fit.

And yet, every cell in her body and every nerve-ending that was ignited by his proximity screamed 'YES'.

She would be safe with him. It didn’t make sense to think so, but deep in her core, Sansa knew it to be so. True, he was a gamble, all odds stacked against him – but maybe he was worth the risk.

“Okay, then,” she breathed out.

The fingers stopped their drumming and The Hound stiffened. His eyes widened and brows lifted so high that it actually looked a bit comical, and Sansa had to stifle her instinct to giggle.

“Okay what?”

“I accept your offer. I need to call the airline to cancel my ticket – luckily it’s fully flexible – and get my bag from my room, and then we can be on our way.” She glanced at the back of the car and saw two large suitcases and a couple of boxes. “Do you have all your stuff with you already?”

“You’re for real?” The Hound stared at her, brows furrowed. “I mean… we wouldn’t have to take any side tours. And we could drive just as fast and directly as you want. And stay in proper hotels for the nights – in separate rooms, of course.”

Was that a flush creeping up his face? Sansa’s amusement grew. He was like a dog chasing after a car, who didn’t know what to do when one actually stopped.

“I’d certainly hope so; I hardly know you. But side trips would be fine. I haven’t seen enough of this country myself.”

Getting no answer from his flustered companion, Sansa clutched her handbag in her lap and straightened herself in her seat. “Well, I better get my things and make the necessary calls. Can you take us into the parking lot next to my building, the big red one in front of which you saw me?”

It took a moment longer before The Hound acted, turning the ignition on and manoeuvring the car around.

“What should I call you, then? I think ‘The Hound’ may not be quite appropriate. I know your real name is Sandor – do you mind if I call you that?” Sansa asked while he was reversing into an empty spot.

“Ah, yeah, sure – call me Sandor,” he muttered, seemingly still in shock at the turn of events.

“My name is Sansa, not a Little Bird. Can you wait for just a moment, Sandor? I’ll be right back.”

When Sansa climbed the stairs to her room, something vibrant and exciting started to bubble inside her. She felt lightheaded and couldn’t stop grinning. The whole thing was outlandish and bizarre and against all common sense.

It was… as if she had just climbed up the turnbuckle again and was standing high up, looking into the bright lights of the stadium, into the middle of the ring, so far away. She was nervous, she was anxious – but it felt right. Sandor was going to be there to catch her if she leapt.

It was time to jump from the ropes.

                            -- THE END --

[imnotinclinedtomaturity]

Love Yourself (Chapter 7)

title: Love Yourself summary: A lot of things about Dan’s life are pretty great. He gets to make the music he wants, he’s got a great fanbase, and his manager is his best friend. A few things about his life suck a bit more. He’s currently lacking inspiration, he’s rather lonely, and he’s stuck in a rut. Dan’s been going to the same coffee shop for years. It’s quiet, it’s quaint, it’s near his home. Most importantly: none of the employees give a shit that’s he a world-famous singer. Things change when he meets the new barista. chapter words: 8.5k story words: 35k (so far) chapter: 7/? rating: m warnings: language genre: singer!dan, coffee shop au, barista!phil, slow burn [[ao3]] [[previous chapter]] [[first chapter]]

Phil ran around his apartment, collecting the things he’d planned to show in his liveshow. He always found that liveshows went more smoothly (and avoided too many personal questions) when he had some concrete, pre-planned topics to talk about — especially when there were hot topics his fans knew about that he was trying to avoid.

Like this week.

It had only been four days since Dan had first tweeted at him and, well, those four days had been packed full with at least a few dozen tweets exchanged between them. If his viewers reactions on twitter were anything to go by… well, it was sure to be a hot topic tonight.

Phil’d spent a lot of the day thinking about how he wanted to spin his interactions with Dan. In fact, he’d genuinely considered canceling his liveshow just to avoid having to get into it. They’d both agreed that giving the proper truth — that Phil worked at a coffee shop Dan frequented — was out of the question. They valued their privacy far too much to disclose that information. But obviously, he had to say something.

Being as vague as possible seemed like the best option: they’d met through his work (not a lie), and had seen each other a few times because of it. Phil didn’t need to divulge the nature of their relationship — and honestly, he barely knew how he’d describe it anyway. They were more than just a barista and a customer for sure. Dan had flat out said several times that he considered Phil a friend, and Phil thought of Dan as one, too. But sometimes… well, sometimes their interactions didn’t feel like friendship. Or at least not any friendship Phil had ever had before.

It felt more… flirty.

Which was insane. For a multitude of reasons. Not the least of which being that Dan had a girlfriend, with no visible history of dating, well, not girls. Against his better judgment, Phil had done a bit of digging on Dan. Which he knew, he knew he shouldn’t have done.

For one, they were friends and it just felt somehow creepier to internet stalk someone he was actually fairly close with. And second, he knew how it felt to have more information about himself on the internet than he was aware of, and imagined Dan was just as uncomfortable with it as he was. Plus, it felt wrong to learn things about his friend that Dan hadn’t explicitly chosen to tell him.

Regardless, Phil had looked him up. Along the way, he’d learned that Dan had had some mental health issues a few years back that were arguably still present, depending on the source. He’d learned that with the exception of Isabella, Dan had never been in a relationship — or at least not one that he’d made public. Phil learned that Dan was incredibly private about his family life, to the extent that almost nobody even knew the names of his immediate family.

If it had been just a normal friendship, Phil would have needed to wait until Dan decided to — if at all — tell him about things. But this friendship was different. They were both very public figures and now he was sitting on all of this knowledge and he wasn’t sure if he should hide the fact that he had it or not.

His only condolence was that Dan had apparently binge watched a bunch of his videos, which meant he undoubtedly knew a lot more about Phil than he’d elected to share so far as well. Hell, he’d finally just confessed that he was kind of famous too (if giving Dan the necessary information to find out on his own could even be considered confessing, that is).

By now, Dan was sure to know that Phil had never had public relationships, with the exception of some dubious, long deleted evidence from his early, early days of YouTube. Dan also probably knew that Phil was incredibly close with his family, to the point of possibly oversharing about them in his public life. Dan had also likely caught on to the fact that his AmazingPhil persona was a bit different, a bit more innocent and bubbly than his day-to-day personality. Oh well. That was what Phil had signed up for when he’d started broadcasting his life all over the internet. And in some ways, Dan had signed up for the same gig.

Once Phil had gathered his… props, for the show, he set himself up on his sofa, and pulled up YouNow. While the streaming site loaded, Phil drafted a tweet so that all he had to do was hit post once he was live.

@AmazingPhil: Lions and plants and socks, oh my! Come hang out with me on YouNow and help me decide if I should keep the stuff I bought on Amazon this week [link]

When Phil saw the green icon indicating he was live, he sent the tweet and waved hello to his audience. He was always astounded at how many people were there at the very beginning of his shows, as if they’d just been lurking on his YouNow, waiting for him. Phil didn’t know if it was flattering or creepy

“Hi guys! How is everyone doing today?”

As he read out some of the funnier responses, he watched the number of viewers steadily climb. “Sarah says she’s watching me instead of doing her maths homework. Bad Sarah! Do your homework. Adam says he’s trying to make a cake he saw on the Great British Bake off. Good luck Adam, I’m not a very good baker but I believe in you.”

As the stream continued, Phil reacted to another handful of comments in order to give people time to arrive. After a few minutes, he glanced at the viewer count to see if he was near his typical audience size yet.

Seventeen thousand. That was a full seven thousand more than usually showed up for his shows.

Phil had a hunch that it had to due with his recent twitter activity. It was probably best to start his pre-planned activity before everyone started nagging him to talk about it.

“Laura wants to know how my week’s been. Pretty good so far, nothing to complain about,” Phil said, scanning the chat for anything else innocent he could answer before switching tactics completely.

“Okay guys, are you ready to help me decide if I should keep the stuff I bought on Amazon? Kelsey asks why I bought stuff if I’m not sure if I want it. Well, Kelsey, it was really late at night, I was bored, and it all seemed like a good idea at the time. Haven’t you ever heard of impulse shopping? It’s a real problem. See this is what happens when you live alone. You don't have anyone to tell you if the stuff you’re buying is cool or not. ‘Get a roommate’ someone said — sorry I missed your name. I only have a one bedroom flat, it’s definitely not big enough to share with —”

Phil was interrupted by a high pitched diiiing from his phone. Oops.

“Sorry, guys, I forgot to turn my phone on silent.” Phil embarrassedly grabbed his phone and toggled it to silent without looking at the screen. “Everyone’s asking who it is. I don’t know, I didn’t check. Let me have a look.” Curious himself now, Phil flipped his phone over.

@danielhowell liked your tweet.

Not so subtly, Phil threw his phone to the other end of the couch as if it were on fire.

Holy shit. If Dan liked his tweet about his liveshow did that mean…? No. No way. Dan was a busy celebrity. Surely he had better things to do on a Wednesday evening than watch Phil’s liveshow.

Phil tried his best to arrange his features into a more neutral expression before turning back to the camera. Naturally, the chat was flooded with people asking why he looked so surprised and who the message had been from.

“Just a twitter notification,” Phil said, aiming for nonchalant. Hoping to brush off the topic, he grabbed his first item off the table. “Okay, so first Amazon purchase is…” Phil attempted a drumroll noise “...socks!”

Phil held the pack of socks up to the webcam, flipping through the different pairs as he described them. “See, they are all plant themed. There’s cacti, and succulents, and bamboo. What do we think, do we like them?”

Not that he was surprised, but virtually no one in the chat seemed to care about his dubious Amazon purchases. Almost every single question was directly related to his interactions with Dan, both on Twitter and in real life. Until now, he hadn’t realized how much their fanbases overlapped.

This might be a harder topic to avoid than he’d initially thought.

Phil filtered through the Dan-related comments until he found a few people reacting to the socks and focused on those. “Amanda says she thinks they’re cute and Ashley bets that they’ll mix and match well. I agree, Ashley. Great. I’ll keep the socks.”

Phil sat the socks down on the table and picked up the next item, showing it to his audience and making another hopefully witty comment. As Phil struggled to push through the mass of comments related to Dan, he went through his next few purchases a bit slower than strictly necessary. He figured the more time he spent on this, the less free time he would have to talk about unplanned topics — namely Dan — at the end.

The charizard plushie and the grow-your-own-terrarium kit were his to keep, but everyone agreed that the Buffy figurine was more demonic than cute and needed to go back. From what Phil could tell, the comments had been split in regards to the aesthetic hat he’d picked out, and he chucked it away with a, “Maaaaaaybe.”

A quick glimpse at the clock told Phil that he’d been live for a little over half an hour already.

“This last one I’m a little more unsure about, guys.” Phil held up the jumper, trying to center it so that the lion on the front was in focus. His uncertainty was mostly for his viewers benefit. Phil was pretty damn sure how he felt about the jumper — it was bloody hideous. The lion design had looked adorable online, but then again that had been a small picture, it had been one in the morning, and he’d had a few mixed drinks by then. In reality, though, the lion was incredibly disproportionate and the quality was something he’d expect from a cheap, knockoff vendor on the street.

Nonetheless, Phil peeked around the jumper to read people’s comments. Those who were engaging in the Amazon conversation were all agreeing with him. “Sounds like most of you don’t like this one as much. I didn’t think so either. I love lions a lot, but this one isn’t very cute is he? Okay, back to Amazon that goes, then.”

Phil made a show of dropping the jumper and throwing it out of sight. He scanned the chat, looking for more reactions. His eyes landed on the word jumper and he read the comment out loud without processing it first.

“Max says to talk about Dan having the same pug jumper that you own.” Oh crap. That’s not what he’d anticipated when he’d seen the word jumper. “I, uh, yeah.” Phil fumbled for a second before pulling himself together and smiling brightly. “Funny, right? Definitely not his usual style. Honestly, when I lent it to him, I wasn’t sure he’d even want to wear it in the moment, much less at his own house when he had other options.”

Belatedly, Phil realized his mistake. He’d just confirmed that Dan didn’t just happen to own the same jumper as him, Dan had Phil’s actual jumper. Phil’s eyes tried to follow the chat, but it was moving too fast to comprehend. The only thing he could make out was Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan.

Well, I guess that topic is officially being discussed.

With a deep breath, Phil finally addressed the questions everyone had been tweeting at him, and he assumed were flooding the chat. “Everyone’s curious how I know Dan — Dan Howell, that is, in case anyone hasn’t been looking at my twitter this week. I met him through work. Don’t get too excited, it’s not like we’re actually working on anything together, I’ve just seen him around a few times.

“Maddie asks why I lent Dan my jumper.” He was well and truly in this mess now. Phil grasped for a story, settling on something plausible. Hopefully Dan didn’t mind too much. “Did you see Dan on Innuendo Bingo last week? It was really funny, right? He got so wet though. I ran into him in the bathroom afterwards. I was just being nice and helping him out because he looked like a drowned puppy.”

Phil chuckled, trying his best to brush the topic off, maybe bounce off some easier questions to answer about Dan before heading off for the week. Suddenly, though, the chat started filling up with the same messages. Half of them appeared to be copy and pasting something into the chat from some other source, and the other half were just keyboard smashes and different variations of “oh my god” and “did you see what he said?”

Phil assumed it was the other message they were freaking out about, the one everyone was spamming, the one he was clearly supposed to be noticing. Warily, Phil froze the chat so he could read what it said.

Daniel Howell: um excuse me i thought we were friENDS but go off i guess

Phil cocked his head, trying to figure out if this Daniel Howell was his Daniel Howell or an impersonator. It certainly sounded like something Dan would say, and Dan had liked his tweet. And Phil knew Dan had a YouNow account because he did liveshows of his own sometimes and… yup. That was definitely the real him.

Oh, great.

“Hi, Dan!” Phil smiled and waved, trying to figure out how the heck he was going to respond. He settled on teasing Dan back. “I don’t know, I haven’t seen you since Saturday. I thought you forgot about me!”

Of course, that started up a whole new flurry of questions. He should have known.

What was he supposed to say? How much was he allowed to say? It was intimidating enough having to talk around his and Dan’s relationship live to so many people, but to have to talk about it with Dan listening? That was so much worse. Dan would know instantly if Phil said something embarrassing, or too revealing, or flat out stupid.

“Everyone wants me to talk more about Dan.” With a sigh, Phil resigned himself to properly answering a few questions about Dan, hoping that if he actually gave his viewers some information they would let him switch topics.

“Justine asks how often I’ve been seeing Dan. A couple of times a week.” Four or five counts as ‘a couple’ right? “Tyler says that it must be cool to be friends with a famous singer. I guess? He’s just Dan to me. He’s a pretty normal guy. I kind of forget that he’s super famous most of the time.”

Phil skimmed the chat for more questions he was willing to answer.

Amee: have you met isabella because ngl she kinda seems like a bitch

Phil snorted, unable to completely control his laughter. From what he’d heard about Isabella, or Izzy as Dan tended to call her, he was inclined to agree. Not that he was about to voice that opinion online to seventeen thousand avid viewers. He looked for a less controversial question.

“Misty asks if he actually sent me a preview of a song. He did! I don’t know if I’m allowed to say anything about it though, so I’ll just say that it was great and I liked it a lot. He’s definitely really talented.”

Phil glanced at the clock in the corner of his screen.“Alright guys, one last question and then I’ve got to go. It’s been forty five minutes already! Samantha asks what we usually do together. Well, we started out just chatting because of work, you know, when we happened to both be around. But yeah, we’re friends now and we, er, we grab coffee or snacks together a lot. Most of the time we just hang out and talk, but sometimes we both work on whatever we need to. If you guys have more questions, you can tweet them at Dan, but I can’t promise he’ll answer any of them.

“I’ve got to go now, guys! I hope you all have a good night.” Phil started waving, making it clear he was going to leave. “Bye Brittany! Tiffany says she’s going to do her homework. Good! Bye Peter, bye Jim.”

Phil moved her cursor to the end button, trying to stop the stream. Like usual, younow was slow to respond. Awkwardly, he kept waving at his viewers while he punched the end button a dozen times. Eventually, the screen turned black, and Phil huffed a sigh of relief.

Now that Phil was finally done livestreaming, he tabbed back over to twitter. There was a new DM from Dan, which surprised Phil less and less each time it happened, but he was especially unsurprised this time — Phil didn’t expect to get away with talking about Dan in a livestream that he was watching without hearing from him. The message had been sent while he was still live, and was neither teasing nor admonishing, which had been Phil’s top two guesses at what Dan might have to say.

Daniel Howell: i’m glad you think of me as a normal guy and not just some famous rockstar

Phil felt his cheeks flush. He was eternally grateful that he’d thrown his phone to the other end of the couch and hadn’t seen that message while he was still live, or else seventeen thousand people would have seen him blushing and Dan… well, knowing Dan, he probably would have noticed the correlation between when the read receipt showed up and when Phil started turning pink.

Phil Lester: :) of course. I mean, it’s cool that you make music, but you’re more than just Dan Howell, Singing Sensation

He left his phone unlocked on the couch while he went to the loo. When he came back, the screen had dimmed but there was no new notification from Dan. Phil wasn’t sure if that meant Dan hadn’t watched the end of his liveshow, or if Dan had started doing something immediately after, or what. But apparently, he wasn’t going to respond now. Phil sighed and shoved his phone into his back pocket.

Phil’s phone was silent the entire time he cooked and ate dinner. By the time he crawled into bed with his laptop at half past midnight, he’d just about given up on hearing from Dan again. But he should have known late hours of the night meant nothing to Dan.

Daniel Howell: thanks. i think you’re more than just a famous youtuber for the record

Dan stared at the message he’d typed out to Phil, debating if he really wanted to send it or not.

Daniel Howell: i’m glad you think of me as a normal guy and not just some famous rockstar

He glanced back at the YouNow tab. Phil was still talking about him, now having moved on to loosely discussing the somewhat shitty snippet of the song that Dan had sent him. That song was basically all he’d been eating, breathing, and thinking about since Isabella had left Sunday night.

Working on his song was easier to deal with than trying to think about the things Izzy had said, than what had happened while she was at his flat, than the possible repercussions of their fight. So instead, he’d been hibernating alone since then, holed up working on his song. The only people he’d talked to were Phil and a few miscellaneous fans on twitter.

Before he could second guess (or third or fourth or fifth guess) it, Dan pressed send on his message to Phil, and shut his laptop, perhaps with more force than necessary.

With a sigh, Dan decided it was time to face the world.

He picked up his phone, and rang Louise. Despite it being nearly eight o’clock at night, she answered on the second ring.

“Daniel, there you are.” Her voice was hushed but stern. Of course. Darcy was probably in bed. Dan knew it was Darcy’s bedtime and he felt bad for calling, but if he didn’t do it while he had the nerve, he would back out. Again.

“Hi Louise,” Dan’s voice came out smaller and more upset than he’d meant for it to. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d been holding back.

“You’re lucky you’ve been active on twitter recently or I would have worried you were dead and just shown up at —”

“Lou,” Dan cut Louise off. “If I ask you for a favor, can you promise to just help me and listen and not lecture me?”

“Aw, love, what’s wrong?” Her voice was instantly softer.

“I just, um, you’re not too bad at arts and crafts, right? Like gluing broken stuff back together?” Dan fiddled with the hem of his shirt, running his fingers through the growing holes at the bottom.

“I’m fairly handy. Do you want me to fix something for you?”

“Yeah, do you mind?”

“Of course not. When do you want to bring it ‘round?”

Dan’s hands moved from his shirt hem to tap at his thigh. “Um, I was thinking now actually. If you’re not busy that is.”

Louise responded without hesitation. “Do you want tea or hot chocolate? Or should I open something stronger?”

Dan felt a wave of relief wash through him. “Hot chocolate sounds lovely, Louise. I’ll be there in fifteen.”

“Be quiet when you come in, please? Darcy’s asleep.”

“I will.”

Dan hauled himself out of bed. He slipped on a pair of black shoes that horrendously clashed with his white joggers, but whatever. He glanced back at his bed, where Phil’s jumper was bunched up, and considered pulling it over his tshirt.

It was just — it was soft. His week had sucked so far. He hadn’t seen Phil in ages, he’d been ignoring all of Izzy’s calls since she’d left, and he was bloody upset. He was allowed to wear something soft and comforting.

He decided it was worth whatever prying questions Louise might ask, pulled it on, and made his way to the kitchen.

Carefully, he stepped over the shards of glass, pots, and pans that still littered the kitchen floor to the breakfast bar. He really needed to clean that up before the maid came tomorrow.

Dan was thankful that he had saved the pieces of the bright pink mug from the floor during their fight. They were still tucked away on the breakfast bar, safe from further harm. Dan piled the pink shards of glass into a container with painstaking care. He glanced around the floor, making sure that he hadn’t missed any pieces. Sticking out from under the ledge of the counter was a bright pink handle. Dan scooped it up and gently added it to the container. With a determined flick, Dan turned the kitchen light off and left.

The night air was colder than he’d anticipated. He probably should have gone back upstairs to fetch a warmer coat. Instead, he pulled Phil’s jumper more tightly around his body, taking care to not jostle the box in his arms too much.

With cold fingers, he dug his keys out of his coat pocket and shakily unlocked the door to Louise’s townhouse. A welcomed rush of warm air hit him when he stepped into the entryway of Louise’s home.

To her credit, Louise was probably the best friend he could have asked for. When he walked into her lounge, he was greeted by Louise sitting on the sofa in front of two mugs of steaming hot chocolate.

Wordlessly, Dan climbed onto the couch, careful not to shake the box too much, and rested his head in Louise’s lap. Louise seemed to switch to full mum mode at the action, running her hand soothingly through his hair and letting him wallow in silence. She didn’t question anything — not the container he was cradling to his chest, nor the bright blue jumper he was wearing that clearly didn’t belong to him, and not even the barely-faded purple marks on his neck that she was bound to have a perfect view of from her position. She didn’t even question why he came over with fifteen minutes notice after three days of radio silence. She just let him be for a few minutes.

His eyes wandered the room as Louise played with his hair. There was a box labeled crafting supplies on the arm chair and a half empty bottle of liquor on the coffee table. He rolled onto his back and looked up at Louise.

“Peppermint Schnapps?”

“Just in case.”

“I love you Louise, you’re the best.” Dan sat and pressed a small kiss to her cheek. He leaned forward and poured a generous splash into both of their mugs, his destroyed mug resting in his lap.

Louise giggled as he handed her one of the mugs. “I know you too well, Dan. Now, are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

Dan shifted the container of glass in his lap. “Please, Louise. Can you promise not to lecture me tonight? I know what you’re going to say and I really don’t want to — I just want to talk. And fix this. I need you to fix this.” Dan shoved the container into Louise’s hands.

She opened the box and peered inside. “Oh no! The mug from your grandma. Out of all your mugs, this is the one you broke?”

“Erm, not exactly.”

Louise looked at him curiously.

“They’re all broken. Except one. This is just the only one I care about fixing.”

Louise gasped. “What happened? Did your shelf break or something?”

“No, no. The kitchen’s fine. It was... um, Isabella.”

“Isabella,” Louise said tersely. It wasn’t a question, but Dan knew she was expecting him to explain.

“She came over. Sunday. That’s part of why I’ve been… not around.” Louise stayed silent, waiting for him to keep talking. Dan took a deep breath and continued. “She’d been on twitter and seen Phil and I talking. She accused me of being flirty. When she figured out he was Phil from the coffee shop, she lost it even more than she already had. I know she has a temper, I’ve seen it plenty, but I’d never seen her that livid. She greeted me by throwing all of my pots and pans on the floor and when she ran out of those… well…” Dan nodded at the mug in Louise’s lap in lieu of any further explanation.

Louise studied the broken shards for a minute. When she finally spoke, Dan half expected the lecture he’d begged her not to give, but it didn’t come. “Isabella did this. To all of your mugs?”

Dan nodded. Louise’s eyes flickered down to his neck.

“And then what?” she asked.

“She said a bunch of shitty things. You know she’s not quite comfortable with the… bi thing, and she went off about me being gay and not liking girls and… I don’t know. I lost it too, I guess. One thing lead to another and…” Dan shrugged and took a long sip of his hot chocolate.

Louise narrowed her eyes, appraising him studiously. “You know I have to ask, love. Was it all consensual?”

Dan’s eyes grew wide. “Yeah, yeah of course! It was angry and rough, as I’m sure you can see, but of course. She consented.”

“And you? Did you consent?”

Dan had to fight rolling his eyes, even though he knew she was just looking out for him. “Yes, Mum, I consented too.”

True to her word, Louise simply nodded and moved on. “Let’s see what we can do about your mug, then, shall we?” She sat the container of mug fragments on the coffee table and got up to gather a few supplies from her box of crafting materials.

Dan smiled gratefully at her retreating figure. This was exactly what he’d needed. A chance to talk about their fight without being told how stupidly he’d acted, how big of a bitch Isabella could be, or how unacceptable both of their behavior had been.

Louise came back and diligently spread the bright pink pieces across the table. A comfortable silence fell between them as Dan drank the remainder of his hot chocolate and watched Louise’s delicate hands work out the puzzle. Once she’d figure out how the pieces went together, she motioned him onto the floor next to her.

“Come here, love. I’m going to need your hands too.”

Dan clambered off the sofa and curled his legs under him, settling on the floor by her side. Her hand grasped his and wrapped it around the mostly-intact base of the mug. Louise unscrewed a small tube of glue and lined the jagged edge. The next hot pink chunk fit almost perfectly on top of it. Instinctively, Dan reached out and held the piece in place.

“Push them together firmly. Not too hard, though,” Louise instructed as she reached for the next piece.

Together, they worked silently to rebuild the mug. It was nice to have something to do with his hands, to not be alone. For the first time in days, Dan finally let his mind drift, finally properly contemplating everything that had happened with Isabella.

Their fight was bad. He knew it was. The things that Isabella had said, about his sexuality, about their relationship, about Phil — for days Dan had thought he was angry, livid even. But now that he was here with Louise, finally letting himself think about it, he realized that more than anything, he was hurt.

“Look, I know you hate her, and probably with some good reasons,” Dan started.

“Hate is a strong word. How about avidly dislike?” Louise’s fingers were sticky as she manhandled his hands to grip the mug how she wanted.

Dan chuckled a bit, despite himself. “Okay. I know you avidly dislike her, with good reason. At the moment, I’m not her biggest fan either, trust me. Sunday night was shitty — I mean, really fucking shitty — but, I do kind of miss her. And I know, I know this is a dead end relationship. It’s just… comfortable, I guess. And it’s better than nothing, ya know?”

Louise hummed, but didn’t say anything. Dan could tell she was biting her tongue.

“Just say it, Louise. What are you thinking?”

“Are you missing Isabella or the companionship?” Louise questioned without looking up from the mug.

Dan knew his answer instantly.

“Does it matter?” he sighed.

Louise glued the final hot pink shard to the reconstructed mug, and rearranged his hands to cup the entire thing.

“Do you want a real answer?” she asked softly.

Dan sighed. He had a feeling he knew what Louise was going to say. Or at least, the general theme of what her message would be.

“Not really, but go ahead anyway,” he said.

“Of course it matters. I know you like having a person and I can understand that. But companionship is so much better, so much more, when you actually love the person that you’re with. Trust me. And you deserve that. But you’re never going to find that if you stubbornly stay in a broken relationship. Can you honestly tell me that empty companionship is enough?”

Dan contemplated the mug in his hands and slowly loosened his grip. The pieces were fused together. There were dark lines down the sides where it had been glued back together, and there were a few chips missing, pieces that must have been too small for him to notice in the wreckage of his kitchen. There was no way it would be functional ever again. Even if the pieces were glued tightly together enough to hold liquid, the glue probably wouldn’t survive.

But it was intact again. Not whole, not undamaged, not perfect. But intact.

Good enough.

“No, it’s not.” Dan leaned back against the couch. “But it’s good enough.”

The thermostat in Beans and Grind appeared to be broken.

When Phil had unlocked the door to the coffee shop that morning, he had been assaulted by a wave of absurdly hot air. He’d power walked straight to the thermostat when he’d got inside, frantically shedding his coat as he crossed the shop. He’d turned the dial all the way down, pointing the arrow to the lowest temperature option. At the time, it had seemed like a potentially extreme reaction, but forty five minutes later, it was still just as hot and the heater wasn’t showing any signs of relenting.

With a resigned sigh, Phil pushed the sleeves of his fox patterned jumper up over his elbows. He was slightly disgruntled that he was undoubtedly wrinkling the sleeves; he had been hoping to film a video in it later, and now he’d probably have to change into something neater.

All morning, the before-work crowd had commented on how warm it was in the shop, as if Phil wasn’t aware that it was approximately four thousand degrees. He was grateful when the clock struck nine and the steady stream of customers stopped coming in.

Phil waited until the shop was empty for a few minutes before yanking his oppressively-hot jumper over his head. His white tshirt would have to be professional enough. It was better than suffocating, anyway.

In his haste, his shirt got rucked up with his jumper, both getting tangled around his glasses. He fought the jumper, trying to free it from his face and simultaneously pull his undershirt down, but wasn’t particularly successful at either.

Ding

Shit, just his luck that a customer would come in at this moment.

He heard a loud, booming laugh.

He knew that laugh.

Dan.

Suddenly, cold hands were brushing against his chest and tangling in the clothing wrapped around his head. Phil felt Dan grab his tshirt and pull it down his torso, his cold hands grazing his ribcage as he did so. The touch was shocking, and not just because Dan’s fingers were so cold. Everywhere Dan touched, sparks radiated through Phil. Without his consent, his mind rushed to imagining Dan’s hands running up and down his ribs for far different reasons, under far different circumstances. Phil was almost glad his face was hidden because he was positive that his cheeks were flushed red.

When Phil’s shirt was adjusted, Dan’s hands slipped inside the bottom his jumper, sliding inside, and reached up to his face. Carefully, Dan held his glasses in place with one hand and coaxed the neck of the sweater over Phil’s head with the other.

Finally, Phil was free from the jumper. His eyes adjusted to the light again and he was greeted by a smirking Dan stretched far across the counter, Phil’s fox jumper held tight in his hands. Even being as tall as Dan was, Phil was fairly certain that his feet had to be dangling over the other end

“Morning, Philip. I didn’t realize coffee was coming with a show now.” Dan’s face was cheeky, his eyes roaming up and down Phil’s body.

Phil’s cheeks flushed. “You’re one to talk. You stripped your clothing off last time you were here without any concern about customers.” Or me.

Dan shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t see you objecting.”

Phil rolled his eyes and grabbed his jumper out of Dan’s hands. “You don’t seem to be objecting either.”

“You’re lucky it was me that walked in. I feel like not everyone would have taken so kindly to seeing you half-naked so close to all the food.” Dan retreated slightly across the counter, but not much, landing with a soft thump on the floor.

“Shut up, you’re making it sound worse than it was. I was only taking off my jumper.”

“Speaking of jumpers, I seem to have forgotten yours. Sorry.” Dan didn’t sound very apologetic.

Phil giggled. It almost seemed like Dan liked wearing Phil’s jumper just as much as Phil enjoyed seeing Dan in it. “If you want to borrow it for a while, all you have to do is ask.”

Dan flushed red and tried to hide his small smile in his chunky scarf, but Phil caught it anyway. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled.

Phil smiled, secretly pleased that Dan apparently liked his jumper so much. “For here or to go today?”

“For here. I have a meeting at eleven but I figured I’d head out early and see you first.”

“Good, I was hoping you had time to stay for a bit.” The porcelain mug clanked against the coffee machine as Phil shoved it under the spout a little too eagerly. Phil tried to ignore the bit of coffee that splashed out against his arm. At least he was no longer wearing his jumper.

Dan pushed the sleeves of his leather jacket up, probably just as affected by the heat in the coffee shop as Phil had been. Phil’s eyes flickered down to Dan’s exposed forearms, eyes catching on the thin red scratch marks running the length of them. Briefly, Phil wondered if Dan had been playing with a cat or a dog recently. He’d pay good money to see that.

“Mmm, of course,” Dan hummed. “You have some explaining to do, mister.”

Cockily, Phil flashed Dan a smirk. “Really? Seems like you watched enough videos that it should be pretty self explanatory.” Phil wasn’t normally one to pay too much attention to new likes and comments on his old videos, but out of curiosity, he’d checked his first video after he knew Dan had watched it. He’d sorted the comments by date and hadn’t been disappointed. Beneath a string of comments screaming about Dan discovering Phil’s first video was a comment from the man himself.

Daniel Howell: being this precious should be illegal

When he’d found Dan’s comment, Phil had been too curious for his own good and clicked on Dan’s account. Much to his surprise, Dan’s recently liked videos tab was just pages and pages of Phil’s videos. Phil wondered if Dan knew that his likes were public.

Phil had half been expecting Dan to blush when he teased him about watching his videos, but instead, Dan’s lips just quirked up to match Phil’s smirk.

“That’s true, I guess.” Dan reached out to take his coffee from Phil’s hand before he could set it down on the counter, their fingers lightly brushing together. It shouldn’t have affected him the way it did, not when Dan’s hands had been on his bare ribs just moments ago, but Phil had to bite back a gasp at the touch. “I suppose I know a lot more about you now than I did, but all it did was leave me with more questions.

Phil rolled his eyes, trying to appear like he found Dan silly, but really he got it. He so, so deeply understood what Dan meant. The more Phil learned about Dan, both in person and from his dives into the depths of the internet, the more Phil wanted to know.

He’d learned that Dan had a childhood dog at his parents that he adored, but he didn’t know if Dan wanted a dog of his own. He’d learned that Dan was amazing at Mario Kart, but he didn’t know what other games he enjoyed playing. He’d learned that his inspiration for his songs usually came from his own life, but he didn’t know what was inspiring him at this moment.

With a mock resigned sigh, Phil wiped down his work area — he’d accidentally made a mess of it during the morning rush. “Alright, then, Howell. Let’s hear your questions.”

As soon as the words were out of Phil’s mouth, Dan’s questions poured out of him the same way his words always did when he was passionate about something — fast, loud, and all at once.

“Why did you decide to start youtube? Was it hard to get into it? What’s it like working with the BBC? Why the heck do you work at a coffee shop? Do you think —”

Phil threw his drying rag at Dan, smacking him in the face. “Slow down, will you? I can only answer one question at a time.”

Dan’s boisterous laugh filled the coffee shop. “Sorry, I got excited.” He threw the towel back at Phil, sprinkling black coffee grounds onto Phil’s white shirt in the process. “Start at the beginning then. How’d you get started on youtube?”

Between fans, interviewers, and confused adults, Phil got that question a lot and had an answer ready. “I got a camera in a cereal box and just started making videos.”

Dan cocked his head, considering Phil. “That’s it then? You just found a camera and your first thought was I’m going to make youtube videos?”

Something about the way Dan’s eyes bore into Phil coaxed out a deeper answer, an answer he usually kept private. Dan had a way of doing that. Those big puppydog eyes could probably make Phil confess to anything. “At first, it wasn’t a thing. YouTube wasn’t a thing. I just kind of posted the first video for fun, and then, over time, I found myself coming back to it. I was living at my parents after uni. Most of my friends either didn’t live near me or were disgustingly in love and… I don’t know. I was bored I guess. I wanted a way to connect with new people, maybe a way to make some friends. So when I discovered the youtube community, which was so small and close-knit back then, it seemed like the right thing to do.”

Phil wasn’t sure what he expected from Dan after he let all of that pour out — perhaps pity — but it wasn’t understanding. Which was exactly what he ended up getting.

“That’s kind of how I got started in music, actually! I hated so much that was happening in my life, I didn’t have friends, I just needed to do something I loved.”

“Exactly!” Phil agreed. “And I made so many good friends so quickly. It was exactly what I needed. As for getting popular, it was a lot easier back then. Like I said, it was really close knit, so we all collabed together and promoted each others’ channels. I was even part of a few community things, like ApartmentRed. And slowly, my subscribers grew and grew and grew until I woke up one day and I had over four million subscribers. I couldn’t believe it. All I could think was, I’m just Phil, from Rawtenstall.” Embarrassed that he’d been talking about himself for so long, Phil tried to switch the conversation over to Dan. “What about you? How did you get popular with music?”

Phil already knew, sort of. He’d seen clips of Dan talking about how an up and coming producer had come into a bar he was playing at by complete chance one night, and asked him to come to the studio the next Monday to play some of his original pieces for their boss. But Phil was willing to bet that Dan, like himself, only ever told part of his origin story during interviews.

“I was eighteen and I had been accepted to study law at Manchester University, but I hated the idea of it, so I decided to take a gap year and really give music a go. My parents fucking hated it. They said that if I wasn’t going to be working towards a more viable future by taking this horrific internship at a law firm, then I wasn’t allowed to live at home. I think they really thought I’d give in. But. I don’t know. I was young and passionate and reckless and stubborn, so I packed a bag, grabbed my guitar, and left. I got a job at a DIY store — which I was horrible at, by the way — and a really crappy studio apartment, and spent every free night I had playing gigs at shitty dive bars. And eventually, it paid off.”

Phil shook head, a bit in awe of Dan’s courage. He’d never realized how much Dan had risked when he decided to chase his dreams.

“Wow, that was so bold of you. I guess I was really lucky. My parents were really supportive of the youtube thing. I think initially they were just happy that I was doing something, making friends. But when it became clear that it might become profitable someday, they did everything they could to help. How do your parents feel about you singing now?”

“They’ve come around,” Dan answered as he shrugged out of his leather jacket all together, draping it on the stool next to him. Clearly, the heat in the store was beginning to get to him. “I think they were only really against it in the beginning because they wanted what was best for me and, well, I guess you know how difficult trying to make it the entertainment business can be. But we’re close now and they support what I’m doing. What about your family? You seem really close with them.”

“Yeah,” Phil agreed. “We are. They all think it’s cool, and my brother actually does a lot of behind the scenes stuff for me. My extended family is a bit confused by it all though. Like, outside of my grandma, I think most of them are convinced I make a different type of internet video.” Phil attempted a wink and immediately regretted it — he was well aware of how unsexy his two-eyed attempt at winks were.

Dan laughed, loud and unrestrained. “Now there’s an image. Innocent AmazingPhil fucking someone on the internet for money.”

“Hey! I am innocent,” Phil argued indignantly, pretending to be offended.

Dan laughed, doing his best to give Phil an incredulous look despite it. “Right. Do I need to remind you that you called me daddy like three days ago?”

“I was kidding!”

“Right, and we know only innocent people joke about daddy kinks.” Dan tugged at the chunky grey scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. Was Dan okay? Phil was kind of surprised Dan had lasted so long all bundled up he way he was.

“Jesus fuck, it’s really fucking hot in here,” Dan grumbled.

“I know,” Phil agreed. “That would be why I was trying to take off my jumper when you got in. You’ll probably be more comfortable if you take your scarf off.”

It seemed the logical thing to do, but Dan looked unsure, his eyes flickering between his half-finished coffee and Phil, as if the last thing he wanted was to remove his scarf. Phil squinted at Dan, confused

“You have to promise not to give me shit,” Dan tried to threaten.

It occured to Phil, then, that Dan was embarrassed. Cocking an eyebrow, Phil taunted, “I don’t think I can make any such promises, but go on then.”

Dan grumbled something incomprehensible, but obligingly lifted his hands to his scarf. A bit reluctantly, Dan unwound the grey fabric. Suddenly, Phil understood that the scratches on Dan’s arms likely weren’t from an animal — not if the marks on his neck were anything to go by.

Phil could feel his heart plummet into his stomach at the sight. He knew, obviously he knew that Dan had a girlfriend. And she was gorgeous. Of course, of course they were having sex. It was just — he’d never thought about it. Not really. Isabella had always been a distant figure in Dan’s life, one he didn’t even really talk about that much.

But now...

Now, Phil had no choice but to think about Dan and her having sex.

He felt like an idiot. His thoughts of Dan falling apart underneath his felt like distant fantasies all of a sudden. Instead, he was falling apart with someone else — his girlfriend. Girlfriend.

With a jolt, Phil realized he’d been silently staring at Dan’s neck a bit too long. Deliberately, Phil forced out a laugh, which came out weaker than he’d been hoping for.

“Damn,” Phil added.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Dan mumbled into his coffee cup.

With a monumental effort, Phil did his best to revert back to his joking self, trying to emotionally distance himself from the thought of Isabella leaving those marks on Dan. “And here you were saying that I’m not innocent. I don’t think you get those kinds of marks from being a good boy,” Phil teased.

Phil saw a flicker of something flash through Dan’s eyes. He’d forgotten what those words apparently did to Dan.

Evilly, Phil leaned forward on his elbows, resting his chin in his palm. “Were you a bad boy, Daniel?”

Instantly, Dan’s cheeks turned a deep, dark red. The expression was far prettier to focus on then the hickies covering his neck. Apparently bad boy affected Dan just as much as good boy.

“Fuck off. We got into a bit of a fight, if you must know.”

“A fight?” Phil prompted against his better judgment, taken by surprise.

“Yeah, protip: angry sex may feel great in the moment, but it hurts like fuck for days.”

Phil hadn’t been expecting Dan to actually like, admit to being a bad boy. And if Phil was being honest he kind of hated Dan confirming what he’d suspected.

“Those marks are days old?”

Dan huffed. “You should have seen them Monday.”

“Oh, wow. Um, are you guys okay?”

Why did he ask that? There was no potential good answer. If Dan said no, Phil wouldn’t be able to keep himself from feeling kind of sort of happy about it, despite feeling bad for Dan at the same time.. If Dan said yes — well, Phil’s heart just needed to get used to taking a beating when it came to Dan.

Dan didn’t answer right away. His eyes bore into Phil’s, almost as if he was looking for something, but Phil didn’t know what.

Finally, he spoke, sounding defeated.

“I don’t think we ever are. But we’re good enough.”

what did you thinkkkkkkkk? a bit less angsty than the last chapter? right?  

thank you @auroraphilealis for all of your wonderful editing and suggestions. you always make me a better writer <3 

[[next chapter]]

[as-breakable-as-glass]

Monsters of a Different Kind

Two children lay floating on their backs in an inky black expanse of what appeared to be a void. Their heads were nearly touching and the pair almost looked like they were stargazing except there was not a speck of starlight to be seen. Instead a reset button floated above and between them and even that was dark. The light it normally emitted was muted and dull.

They had to wait for the file to reload, again. Who knew how long that would take? Sometimes it felt like only an hour passed before they could reload, other times it was months.

Without getting up or turning his head Chara asked, “Want to tell me why you reset this time?” He knew why, but he wanted to hear it from them.

He couldn’t see them from the position they were in, but he heard Frisk shift above his head. “It wasn’t the right ending.” they whispered.

Chara held back a snort. Not the right ending.

“What, exactly, are you looking for?”

“I told you, I want everyone to be happy.”

“Everyone looked happy to me last time and the time before that and before that etcetera, etcetera…” Chara waved his ghostly hand in a slow, circular motion to make his point.

Frisk was probably shaking their head above him. “It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t what it should have been.” They murmured. “Everyone should get better than that. They deserve it. They are all so kind, each one in their own way. I can do better for them, to return their kindness.”

He dropped his hand. Yeah he’s heard this speel before. This was how the goodie two-shoes planed on repaying them for all the idiots’ kindness and friendship.

“Yes,” he replied, patience wavering, “but what was so wrong with that one?”

His question was met with silence that only stretched the more time that passed.

“You don’t even know what you’re looking for do you.”

“I know I could have done better. I could have done something to make everyone happier.” Frisk had that familiar tone in their voice they always took on when they were filled with determination.

Chara sighed through his teeth and closed his eyes. Why was Frisk so annoyingly stubborn? It had been easy enough to tolerate the first couple runs, but this was getting ridiculous!

It wasn’t like Frisk was taking so long on purpose, but Chara didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. If they were taking their sweet time, then they could be pushed to hurry. But if they weren’t, if they were being methodical, then they were likely to be stuck the way they were for a long, long time. All thanks to that stupid dream of theirs.

It was slow progress, getting the final ending, but Frisk tried so hard to make up to him that it was almost funny. They had gone so far as to promise that he could be part of their happy ending along with their little friends, but Chara didn’t believe that would ever happen. Not because Frisk didn’t mean their word- he was quite confident the sap meant even the most ignorant of their promises- but what kind of future was there for the ghost of a dead kid? Nothing that’s what. He would just follow Frisk around until they died of old age or something equally bland. Chara had no interest of playing chaperone for the rest of his existence.

Forget the ending, Chara had a job to do and he had to get to the surface to do it.

Chara felt his fists clench. The surface. That’s where he wanted to go, where he needed to go. It was like an insistent itch he was prevented from scratching. But rules and resets be damned, once Chara got to the surface he was going to scratch it bloody and no one was going to get in his way.

Cutting down the monsters was fair substitute he guessed. After all that they’ve done, they definitely deserved it, but punishing them lost its appeal after you did it so many times. It’s not like they even remember it; he and Frisk weren’t even making a difference and the monsters never learned.

Chara didn’t realize how much his frustration had built up inside him until he sensed Frisk flinch above him and the words of guilt started pouring from their mind. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry please don’t be mad please please please please I’m sorry we’ll get to the surface don’t be mad please please don’t leave m-

“It’s all Jake, Frisk.” He said briskly. The silence afterward was painful, even for him, so he broke it, softening the edge from his words into a more gentle tone. “It’s fine. I’m not mad at you. You’re only doing what’s expected by trying to make everyone happy.”

Frisk nodded even though Chara wasn’t looking at them. It didn’t seem to matter anyway. He knew Frisk didn’t quite believe him so Chara continued, his voice as sweet as sugar. “It’s just more annoying than anything really. We’ve tried almost everything imaginable, but we still can’t get that ending.

“I almost think it’s time we did another dust run.” Ah there we go. He could tell he had Frisk’s attention now.

“…What? Why?”

“We still have more to learn Frisky-bits. We-”

“But- haven’t we learned all we can from… that? You said the last one would be our final one.”

They really were naive. You know it had almost been endearing before it had gotten so annoying.

Chara poked the top of Frisk’s head with a ghostly finger. “Hey what have I said before about interrupting me?”

He waited patiently for them to mumble a soft apology before continuing.

“It’s fine. Now, we don’t necessarily need to do kill anyone this time around, but we’re just wasting our time repeating the simple stuff. We already know what will happen if we eat Toriel’s pie and what will happen if we don’t, if we complement the Froggits or ignore them, but we still haven’t done all the death endings.”

“Do- do we need to?” Frisk asked quietly. “You speak like this is just a game to you.”

“It’s not a game, but let’s not pretend that this is real either. What we’re doing isn’t permanent unless you decide to never go back. You can just reset to the start and no one remembers what we did. And think of all the new possibilities we get to explore this way. That’s what you want right?”

Frisk didn’t say anything, but he felt their thoughts spiraling out of control again.

“Calm down Frisky-bits remember I’m not saying we have to do it this round, just what if we did? It’s for the best Frisk.”

“I know.” They whispered. “I-I don’t think I can keep doing this.”

“What? I thought you wanted this. You’re the one who wants to find the perfect happy ending. I’m just suggesting ways to find it.

“Just say the word and we can end this. We can live on the surface with everyone like the big, happy family you want.”

Frisk didn’t say anything, of course they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t stop until they knew what they wanted.

Chara carried on. Their conversations usually left him to do most of the talking and this one was no different. “I get it, you don’t want to hurt your friends. It’s alright if the idea of it is too much for you. I’m sure they will be perfectly fine with a plain, old, average ending.” He rolled over to be able to look down and meet Frisk’s eyes. “No one expects you to put your friends before yourself Frisk.”

That hit the nerve he was aiming for, the other flinched. Frisk looked nauseated, but still didn’t say anything.

Chara pulled back. See this was why he was getting so tired of this cycle. Frisk was just too easy to read now. He knew their mind just as well as he knew his own, especially since Frisk made no effort to shut him out.

Slowly he moved back down to lay next to Frisk and took their hand in his. It was a pointless gesture as his incorporeal form couldn’t actually hold anything, but they both curled their fingers around the other’s and pretended they could feel it. The action was only meant to calm Frisk down anyway, Chara knew when he was beginning to toe the line.

“We don’t even need to decide yet. It’s just some food for thought while we wait. There’s still plenty of time before our save file reloads.”

Frisk simply nodded. It looked like they were doing a lot of thinking already. Chara let them be, turning his thought towards the next run.

It wouldn’t be the surface, but it was about time he scratched his itch and serve the monsters some more retribution. Even if they wouldn’t remember it consciously, Chara liked to think a part of their souls did.

Frisk could have their perfect little ending for all he cared, their monster friends too, but not the ones on the surface. No, there was justice to be served for them and Chara was more than happy to be the bringer. There was no good left there anymore.

Admittedly Frisk was a bit of a special case, at least they wanted to do good, but they were still a weak pushover. People like them were mere pawns to be used by stronger demons. Like their parents. The thought of those pigs made Chara sick. He was glad that they were gone. He could take care of Frisk better than those demons ever could.

Chara couldn’t stop a smile from stretching across his face. Oh and he knew he was a demon too. He wasn’t much better than human scum on the surface, but at least he didn’t leave blind destruction in his wake. No, at least he had a reason. He was a demon, but he was also a demon with a calling and sometimes small things like that could make all the difference.

________

Yet again I found a drabble in my drafts that I completely forgot if I already posted :,) If I haven’t, then oops maybe I shouldn’t have been talking about Frisk and Chara like I introduced them already. (Not like it matters since they were never asked any questions, but still)

Anyway, an important thing to note is that resets work differently in Glasstale than to what you might consider canon. For one, resets are not instantaneous. It takes a varying amount of time for Frisk’s reset powers to charge. It’s actually kind of unreliable, ranging to a couple days to a couple months. (I like to think it’s because they aren’t as determined as some of their alternates but shhhh) While Frisk and Chara wait, they are stuck in a part of the void that we see as the save screen. Their void is a different part of the void than the area Gaster is trapped in. They could probably contact him if they really tried though… Chara would find that beyond fascinating.

An interesting side effect of the resets not being instantaneous, is that time moves forward between their runs. That means all the stuff that Glass and Gen have been doing is going to be new to them. If they did something drastic, like Gen quitting the guard, or Glass getting a new favorite jacket, the changes would stick when Frisk and Chara come back and they will have no idea what happened to cause it.

Ha alright so you got a drabble and an info dump hurray for long annoying posts! :D

[wordsdrippinginink]

Modern Pokemon Go Au, anyone?  (*-_-) I can’t believe I forgot this was in my drafts, oops.

Marco gets Pokemon GO downloaded onto his phone three hours after midnight the night it comes out while he asleep.

He wakes up to a post it note on his screen and 20% battery, already knowing it’s Ace’s fault.

‘That Pokémon game that I’ve been waiting for finally came out, but my phone doesn’t support it. :(.’ Ace’s scrawl is even harder to read early in the morning. ‘Our starter is Charmander.’

Marco blinks slowly at the note and understands less than he normally does. Instead, he stumbles to the bathroom to get ready for work, putting the game out of his mind until he’s at the office.

The start-up music is loud, enough so that Marco slaps his hand over the speakers and shakes his head as he thumbs down the volume. He blinks at the tiny person that appears on screen, his head tipped to the side.

The username isn’t AceOspades like Ace normally uses in games, the name FireBirb in the corner by the bar that measured how far away from the next level they were.

Marco backs out the app and pulls up messenger, hoping to get up message to Ace before he went to sleep.

'FireBirb?’

'Fire for me and Birb for you.’ Ace answers almost instantly. 'We are the mighty FireBirb.’

Marco rolls his eyes and goes back in, prodding a button that pulls up the list of Pokémon that Ace had caught the night before.

The highest level is 1350 and it belongs to a fire unicorn named Striker. Beside it is a fire cat, maybe a fox, called Flareon only a hundred points under that. The weakest is a fire lizard with 55 called Phoenix.

He scrolls through the fifty-something Pokémon that Ace caught in the course of the night, a disproportionate amount of them were something that Marco would use the word fire to describe.

Marco jolts when his phone buzzes, bouncing in horror and exiting back to the map to find a fire dog, like the one that Ace had named Stephan, on the map before him. He taps and startles when it appears closer and he throws the balls that appear at the bottom of the screen and catches it. Marco grins.

There’s a strange thing at the front of the building in yellow, Marco taps it and blinks as he appears to get himself in the middle of something, tapping at the screen until he wins. When he gets back to the map, the things is gray and empty, he taps it again and next thing he knows the thing belongs to him?

“Morning,” Izo says breezing past only half an hour late, “Has Pops come in yet?”

“No.” Marco answers as a purple rat looking thing appears on screen. “Neither has Thatch. Or Curiel.”

Izo sighs, “Thatch is always late,” He pulls out his own phone and starts doing something. “Ugh.”

“Ugh?”

“The gym at the office is held by Valor.” Izo pulls a face. “Who is FireBirb?”

Marco blinks, already knowing what he has to do, “We have a gym?”

“In the Pokémon GO app,” Izo answers, “We have a gym and two convenient PokeStops. Played a bit last night.”

“That’s what Ace downloaded onto my phone.” Marco says slowly.

Izo laughs, “Ace needs to get a new phone.”

-

Ace lounges over Marco’s bed, phone in his hand and Pokémon music loud in Marco’s room. His feet kicking back and forth.

“Sabo said that FireBirb took over the gym at your work,” Ace says going through everything that Marco caught at work. “Good job.”

“I didn’t know what I was doing. I just tapped the screen. FireBirb?”

Ace hums, “Yeah. Normally you don’t play any of the games that I play, so I figured it wouldn’t be cool to use my personal username and you were sleeping. So the FireBirb came to life.”

“You’re ridiculous. And a fox appeared.”

“Eebee!” Ace shouts tapping horrified and relaxing only after it was caught. “I need all the Eebees, Marco.”

“Eebees?”

Ace nods, “E-e-v-e-e. Eebee.”

“Wouldn’t that be Eevee?”

“Shush, they are Eebees. They are cute little Eebees, Marco, the cutest.” Ace insists.

Marco rolls his eyes, “ So Eebees. Why do you need all the Eebees?”

Ace bounces upright on the bed, eyes glowing, “The Eebee, Marco, is the very best Pokémon to have because it will evolve into any of three Pokémon.”

“Wait, what’s evolving?”

“Most Pokémon can change into other Pokémon,” Ace pulls up Flareon. “This was once an innocent Eebee.”

Huh, Marco tilts his head to the side and stares at it, the Eevee was pretty cool.

“And in later games, the Eebee gained five more evolutions. But don’t worry about them,” Ace assures. “They aren’t in the game.”

Marco nods and understands nothing.

-

Pokémon is fun, for all that Marco isn’t too sure about what happens in the game. It doesn’t always make much sense but it isn’t the worst time.

Besides, it means that Ace is around more and Marco can get behind that.

“FireBirb is going down today!” Izo declares throwing his fist up. “Today, I, Flintlock, shall take this gym!”

Marco ignores Izo’s shouts and checks the paperwork in his inbox. There’s a file that Pops wants double checked for errors before they send it to the customer.

“No!” Thatch shouts rolling his chair into the walk space between Marco and Izo’s cubicles. “Team Mystic can’t take down this menace. I, seachef, will lay claim to this gym."

Marco rolls his eyes and checks the gym curiously. The Flareon in the gym is over 1000 cp and there's a second one that Ace set up that's bordering on 2000 that he can use to wipe them out with or put in. The gym won't leave his hands.

He wins.

He doesn't even have to change the Flareons out. Which is nice. There's another gym down by Ace's station that he wanted to take over.

'How r the kids' Ace texts later after both Izo and Thatch have lost horribly.

It’s a joke of a sentence, something said for a laugh, but it makes Marco’s heart clench and something warm curl in his chest.

‘Fine, we still own the gym.’

‘My eebees?’

Marco smiles, taking the time to take a snapshot of the Eevees and send them to him, having caught two more of them because of the Poke-stop that is just at the edge of his building and his character is well within the range of. It’s kept well lured by the Pizza place that it represents.

‘EEBEES!’ Ace exclaims. ‘Look at all of them!’

‘They’re fine,’

Ace sends him a text that’s full of random letters and symbols, as if he tapped random buttons and then hit send.

‘Yes, they’ll be ready to go when you get home dear.’

‘Thks Darling!’

Marco drops his phone onto his desk and groans.

~

“Kids!” Ace shouts taking Marco’s phone before he’s gotten through the door. “How are you, babies?”

“I evolved the weird crab, now it is a bigger, weirder crab,” Marco says tugging off his shoes and dropping his sweater over the back of the couch.

Ace bounces excitedly, “Aw, one of you grew up!”

“I don’t think they can understand you,” Marco resists the urge to call Ace sweetheart because that would be going too far.

“Don’t listen to him, dad’s just cranky because he’s been at work all day.”

Marco bites the inside of his cheek, “Hungry?”

“I am ashamed that you even thought to ask that,” Ace returns sliding Marco’s phone into his back pocket. “How was your day?”

“Long, Izo tried to take over our gym and I beat them horribly, you?”

Ace slides into one of the stools at the breakfast nook, “Slept, harassed Luffy into doing the dishes, actually saw Sabo while he was also awake. Worried about our children.”

Marco ignores the flutter of his heart, the butterflies in his stomach as they eat and Ace launches into some story about something. Marco misses out on the point of it and doesn’t bother to ask.

“I love your bed,” Ace groans, flopping down on it as Marco moves to his desk, dishes in the dishwasher and kitchen cleaned. “It’s the best.”

“Shoes!” Marco warns, turning to catch Ace spread out over his sheets and turning to his computer quickly.

It’s Ace’s fault, all of this because now Marco is imagining them as married and he can’t. He’s spent years shoving aside this stupid crush and he won’t have this ruined because of a joking comment.

~

Ace frowns at Marco’s phone, the Poke-stops closest to the station are all lured and there’s plenty of Pokemon around to keep him from going crazy since his other duties are done.

“You okay?” Jiru asks, dropping into a seat. “Brought you dinner, courtesy of Thatch.”

“Thanks,” Ace grins, “I’m good. Just running on less sleep than normal, I wanted to see Sabo today, you know?”

Jiru laughs, “That’s what you get for working such polar opposite work hours. He’s still working for that Politician, ain’t he?”

“Yeah, Lu’s dad.”

“That is not a tired face, however, I would know I have more siblings than you have fingers. That’s a mooning face.” Jiru states with the ease of a man who knows he is right. “Tell me.”

“I might have made a joke about family, or about us being together, and he played along.”

Jiru stares at him, “You are adorable. That is adorable. I need to tell Marco about this,” Ace pales. “Oh,” Jiru grins, looking far too pleased with himself, “but you mean Marco, don’t you?”

“Hate you,” Ace mutters. “Should ban you from the station.”

“You can try,” Jiru promises, “But I think you’ll break in under a week, you like the lunches too much.”

Ace doesn’t deny it, it’s not inaccurate after all.

“Are you here to harass me too? Because I’m gonna have to take my lunch and tell you to leave.”

Jiru grins, “You could, or you could let me stay and tease you about your crush.”

“It’s not a crush!” Ace shouts, ducking his head as the rest of the station glances down to them. “It’s not,” He hisses softly.

“It’s not?” Jiru asks. “Then what is it?”

Ace doesn’t have an answer and Jiru doesn’t push. He waves Jiru off, staring at the screen of Marco’s phone as he waits for his shift to finish.

~

Marco groans when Ace bounces onto his bed, “I’m suppose to have the day off, which means sleeping in, not being woken up by you.”

“I wanted to show you what I caught at work!”

Marco holds his hand out for his phone, thumbing down the brightness and blinking sleepily at the screen as he scrolls through to look at whatever it was that Ace had caught.

He blinks, reordering the Pokemon when he catches changes to some of their names. He laughs, dragging Ace closer, grinning.

“Really?”

Ace grins hopefully, “So?”

“I think we have to date before I marry you,” Marco answers, kissing him. “But if you want, you can try again after dinner tonight?”

“It’s a date,” Ace agrees, “Tonight.”

“Tonight. Now let me sleep, some of us are still tired,” Marco yawns throwing a blanket over Ace’s face.

“I’m taking the kids for the morning!” Ace laughs taking Marco’s phone as he rolls off the bed. “Expect them back by noon!”

“They better be well rested!” Marco shouts after him. “I don’t want to have to deal with cranky kids!”

Ace shouts something affirmative back as Marco sighs and stares at the wall of his room. There was no way he was getting back to sleep anytime soon.

[carrot-jimin]

2017 in review; Busan

I am typing this as I sit at a table in the lounge area, in my hostel at Busan. It’s been a rather long day involving a lot of walking, so I’m feeling really tired right now and will probably make less and less sense as this post continues. I’ve been meaning to write a new post to you - future me, hello - for months, but never really got around to writing a full post. Instead, I just have a bunch of unfinished drafts sitting around, but I can’t continue those posts to their completion because, well, I forgot what I was thinking at that particular point of time. It’s kind of like half-eaten kimchi bought from the supermarket, long past its expiry date but you just can’t bear to throw it out. Or rather, you kept forgetting to eat it but don’t know if you want to throw them out?? I don’t know. Since everyone’s now coming up with their end-of-year reflections and waxing lyrical about all the personal growth they’ve accomplished in 2017 and their hopes for 2018, I figured tonight is the night to just get down to type out another nonsensical post.

I am seated about 50 centimeters away from the airbnb cat, which has just awakened from a short nap. It finishes licking its paw, does not even cast me so much as one gaze, before leaping from the sofa and back onto the parapet floor. It doesn’t really like me. Cats don’t like me very much, except for the one cat I hung out with at Gamcheon Culture Village today. It felt nice when it nestled against me and clung onto me, refusing to let go. It might be because of the fish and chips I had right before I met it. We will never know. I hope that when you’re reading this, you might have more popularity with cats than current me. 

Anyway. 2017 in review. Yes. 

Everyone who’s shared a “year in review” post so far are so happy, optimistic and philosophical about their lives. Well, I’m fine, I guess. Not as exuberant as them, but not too pessimistic either. I’m not sure when this happened, but if I were to weigh myself on a balance containing “Optimism” and “Pessimism”, the present me would definitely be leaning towards the “Pessimism” side. 

Truth be told, I’m not sure how much growing I did this year. I certainly did a lot of tangible things - which I’m tired of thinking of but have to continue thinking of because of fellowship applications - but on the intangible side, the emotional side, somehow, I feel very impoverished. This is the one year where all my new anxieties about “adulting” come out to play, because, well, it’s been a very busy year for me! Busiest year of my life, no joke. 

I know I was super stressed about getting a legit paid internship in the first 4 months. Boo, I didn’t get my first-choice internship (heritage consultancy in Hua Hin), but instead ended up in publishing, which was fun because I did a huge variety of jobs for 10 weeks! That first rejection was a blessing in disguise. Learning how to deal with rejection is one of the largest lessons I’ve learnt this year. I can’t say I’m now an expert in coping, but after being ignored for 10+ applications, embarrassing myself in front of NS and TTY, I feel my skin thickening ever so slightly. (But well, I applied for JET a while back, and the embassy hasn’t gotten back to me, so... into the septic tank my application goes.) 

Then, during the summer, my life revolved around 2 internships-GRE prep-helping Q with her documentary. Thinking back on those 3 months, I am pleasantly surprised that I managed a day job and studied for GRE at night, while simultaneously doing translations and helping with story-boarding for the documentary. I remember waking up at 7.45, leaving the house at 8, memorising vocabulary on the bus to work, and then resuming the memorisation when I board the bus for home after work. On the weekends, I went to Ubin and worked on my part-time internship. At home, I sat at my table and studied, just like the old days in JC, maybe even more studious than I had been... how strange it is, thinking back upon the summer. How strange it must have felt, studying for exams reminiscent of A-Levels. I remember thinking to myself that “Verbal” and “Quantitative” examinations are largely useless for anthropology masters or PhD. My mock exams were quite a mess, but I did rather well for the actual exam, aided (or impeded??) by my recurring IBS syndrome. I think I started studying 5 weeks before the exam? Hence, the extreme cramming. I don’t like it when smart people say the GREs are easy; as an average person, I don’t think they are easy to ace. All in all though, it was an exhausting summer. I really, really did not want to return to school for senior year, but somehow adjusted naturally when senior year began. But still, a summer like 2017-summer? Never. Again.

Even stranger is how, up to October, I was hell-bent on applying for graduate school this application cycle. But now I’m not. Now, I can’t be bothered to apply this cycle. I reached this decision after two bouts of tears hit me when I least wanted them to - the first, in C’s office; and the second, in a consultation with S. Then I realised that if I cried so fucking much about this grad school thing, maybe I’m not ready for it at all. I don’t know what I’m doing in life. So yes, future me, 2017-me did not have her shit together. I hope you do though! PLEASE. For the sake of us. 

This grad school thing is also tied in with a whole host of self-confidence issues, which I have related to several people in varying degrees. But if I were to post about the full extent of these issues at my lowest moments, I think you will hate me, future me. Even present me will just be depressed by past me. Anyway, I am quite un-confident about my future, but I do try to be hopeful and apply for things that I want.

Capstone was quite fun but mentally and physically exhausting. Y4S1 was strange. Hung out with friends here and there, hung out a lot with my suite mates, because they’re gone next semester. In doing so, neglected other friends; C expressed that she hasn’t hung out with me as much this semester. Struggled with a 17-MC semester that felt like a 27-MC semester. Which is weird because I did 29/30-MC semesters before and should be better than the shit senior that I am now.  

I’m procrastinating on capstone now, actually. Still trying to figure out how to do this capstone alongside my winter school commitments and exploration. I did end up reading 50+ pages of the novel for my winter school readings today though. Yay me. But no yay to the story because it’s very sad. Colonial Korea is a very sad place to live in as a woman. I should probably start writing my responses for the coming week tomorrow. 

And now. The million-dollar question. The cherry on top of the cake. Drum roll please. 

Where will I be this time next year??? 

This is the question I have been asking myself the whole semester. Well, fuck me, because I don’t know. I am legit scared and anxious because I feel very un-employable and I think things like: will any job even want me? what job do i even want? why am i such a pleb and just going through these motions of adulting? should i brave the winter cold to go down and buy cup noodles? 

But it’s also quite exciting, I admit. If it were me in a more adventurous and better mood, that version of me would think it to be exciting. But now I’m just very sleepy and craving some cup noodles but am too lazy to head down to the GS25 across the street in my 1-layer pajamas to get it. Even so, I’m still 99% anxiety and 1% excited usually. 

As a whole, it’s been a year filled with anxieties and cold calls and minor successes. Still don’t know where I’ll be, what I’ll be doing next year, but well, I’m too sleepy to care about indefinite things like a far-off future now. Also don’t know whether I really “grew up” more this year or not, but like i said, too tired so fuck it.

Because I am away in Busan for the weekend (and from Singapore for the next 2 weeks!!), the distance allows me some degree of breathing space from things like applying for jobs, writing my capstone, other miscellaneous matters like my RA thing. The list goes on...oops. 

Anyway. I’m doing fine now, future me. I have things to do, I know what they are. I just need to do them. I’m still anxious and un-confident, maybe even more so than my past selves, but I’ll continue doing the things that I can do in the present. 

16-year-old me wanted to grow to be a cool person that does amazing things, like a detective or something. 

22-year-old me still thinks the same, except she realises that she’s just a normal person after all.

Maybe growing up is just realizing that there is nothing special about who I am. And that it’s okay.