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feanorianethicsdepartment · 3 years ago

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Alright, I read your recent post and need to know - what is your interpretation of Maglor’s relationship with the twins?

askjdhslkjag my biggest self-inflicted problem in this fandom is that my take on maglor, elrond, and elros' relationship is so intensely detailed and specific i am forever tormented by none of the fic i read ever quite getting it right (from my perspective; i’ve read plenty of fic that presents a good interpretation on their own terms, it’s just never mine.) it’s simultaneously way darker than the fluffy kidnap dads stuff and nowhere near as black-and-white awful as the anti-fëanorian crowd likes to paint it, it’s messy and complicated and surrounded by darkness, and yet there’s also a sincere connection within it which mostly serves to make all those complications worse. angry teenage elrond is angry for a great many reasons, and the circumstances around him being raised by kinslayers account for at least half of them. there’s lots of complexity here, and i don’t see it in fic nearly as often as i’d like

(warning: the post... feathers? i already have an internet friend called faeiri this could be awkward - anyway, the post she’s talking about includes the line ‘everyone is wrong about kidnap dads except me.’ this post follows on from that in being as much a commentary about why various popular interpretations of both how the kidnapdoption went and the way people subsequently characterise the twins just don’t work for me as it is a setting out of my own ideas. i’m not really interested in getting into discourse here, i’m just trying to get my thoughts down. i’ve read fic with these interpretations before that i’ve liked, even, don’t take this as a Condemnation, aight? also this turned out long as hell, so i’m putting it under a cut)

i can never buy entirely fluffy depictions of kidnap dads

which isn’t to say i don’t read them! sometimes all i want is something sweet, for these kids to get to be happy for once. it’s not like i think their time with the fëanorians was completely devoid of laughter

it’s just. the pet names, the special days out, the home-cooked meals, it can get so treacly it stops feeling like the characters they are in the situation they’re in and turns into Generic Found Family #272

it soaks out all the complexity - which is the thing i am here for - and acts like oh, these kids were never in any danger, they were perfectly happy being abducted by the people who murdered everyone they knew, there’s nothing possibly questionable about this relationship at all

and... yeah. that’s not the characters i know. that’s not the context i know they belong to

i just can’t forget the circumstances that led them to meet

rivers of blood, the air filled with screams, a town ablaze, a woman choosing to die. every interaction the three of them have is going to proceed from that nightmare

(sidenote: i tend to hold it was maglor that raised the twins, with maedhros looming ominously in the background not really getting involved. it’s mostly personal preference, i’ve been in and out of the fandom since before this kidnap dads thing blew up and when i joined that was a perfectly standard reading)

(also the cave thing was a dumb idea, old man, if only because it implies beleriand had streams safe enough for children to play in at that point. the way it separates the twins from the third kinslaying is also something i don’t particularly vibe with)

probably my least favourite angle i’ve seen on the situation (edged out only by ‘maglor was actively abusive towards the twins’ which no no no no no no no no NO) is the idea that maglor (and/or maedhros, append as necessary) took the twins specifically to raise them

like, i get where it’s coming from, but it makes maglor come off as really creepy

(i have read fics where it is indeed played off as really creepy, but that’s not a maglor i have any interest in reading about)

(’mags 100% bad’ is just as facile a take to me as ‘mags 100% good’)

even if you’re saying maglor took them in because they had no one left to take care of them - i highly doubt they were the only children the fëanorians orphaned at sirion. idk, it always makes maglor seem much less sympathetic than i think it’s meant to

i prefer to think of it as more... organic? something that evolved, not something that was preordained. them growing closer gradually, the twins finding an adult who might maybe be on their side, maglor becoming invested in them almost by accident

and then the twins are so comfortable with the second scariest monster in amon ereb they frequently sass him off and maglor’s gotten so used to not hurting them he’s not even thinking about it any more. no one’s quite sure how it happened, but they’ve made a Connection

‘wait aren’t they a murderous warlord of questionable mental stability and a pair of terrified small children who’ve lost everyone they ever knew? isn’t that kinda fucked up?’ yup! that’s the point! complexity!

another idea i don’t like is the idea that maglor was an objectively better parent to the twins than eärendil or elwing

other people have talked about this already, i won’t rehash the whole thing. i will say that while i don’t think elwing was a perfect parent - someone so young, in such a horrible situation, i wouldn’t blame her for screwing up - i do think she (and eärendil) did the best by them they possibly could

this is one of the few things they have in common with maglor

something i come across now and again is the idea that sure, elwing and eärendil weren’t abusive or horrible or anything, but they were a couple of basically-teenagers with so many other responsibilities, there was only so much they could do. maglor, on the other hand, is an experienced adult who could take much better care of the twins

and...

first off, it’s not like mags doesn’t have a job. he’s a warlord, he has a fortress to help run, military shit to handle, lots of other stuff that needs to get done to stop everyone from starving or getting eaten by orcs. i feel like sirion had enough of a government there was plenty of opportunity for elwing to take days off and play with her kids, but in the fëanorian camp nobody really has the time to chase after a couple of toddlers, least of all one of the last points on the command network. they just don’t have the people any more

(seriously, the twins getting a formal education with tutors and classes and shit is a weirdly specific pet peeve of mine. this is a band of renegades, not a royal household; if there’s anyone left with those kinds of skills they almost certainly have more important things to do)

more than that, though - well, a quick glance through my late stage fëanorians tag should tell you a lot about what i think maglor’s mental state is like at this point. he is so accustomed to violence death means nothing to him, he’s lost most of his capacity for genuinely positive emotion to an endless century of defeat and despair, he hates everything in the universe, especially himself, he’s only able to keep functioning through a truly astounding amount of denial, and he covers it all up with a layer of snark and feigned apathy, which he defends aggressively because he’s subconsciously realised that if it breaks he’ll have absolutely nothing left

(maedhros, for the record, is... i’d say more stable, but at a lower point. maglor may interact with the world mostly through cold stares and mocking laughter, but at least his mind is firmly rooted in the present)

(on the other hand, at least maedhros lets himself be aware of what they are and where their road will lead)

which... this doesn’t mean maglor doesn’t try to be kind to the twins, or rein in his worst impulses around them

there’s just so little of him left but the weapon

he stalks through the halls like a portent of death and gets into hours-long screaming matches with maedhros and has definitely killed people in front of the twins

not even as, like, a deliberate attempt to scare them, but because when you solve most of your problems by stabbing them it’s pretty much a given that people who spend a lot of time around you are going to see you do it at least once

and sometimes, he curls up in an empty hallway, and weeps

... suffice it to say i don’t think elwing’s the more preoccupied, or the less mentally ill, parent here

just. in general, the fëanorians aren’t cackling boogeymen, but they’re not particularly nice either

no one has the energy left for that. not these isolated and weary soldiers at the end of a long losing war and the beginning of the end of the world. they don’t really bother to guard the kids against them escaping. where else are they going to go?

the sheer despair that must have been in the fëanorian camp after sirion, the knowledge that the cause cannot be fulfilled, that they are utterly forsaken, that they’re really just waiting to die -

it can’t have been a happy place to grow up in, under the shadow of loss and grief and deeds unrepentable, and the slow march of inevitable defeat

they would have had a better childhood if they stayed in sirion, raised by people who knew how to hope

but that isn’t the childhood they had. and despite everything i’ve said, i don’t think that childhood was an entirely awful one

yeah, see, this is where the other side of my self-inflicted fandom catch-22 comes in. just as much of the pro-kidnap dads stuff comes off as overly saccharine and simplified to me, i find much of the anti-kidnap dads stuff equally simplistic in the opposite direction

the idea that maglor and the fëanorians never meant anything to elros and elrond, that they had no effect on the people they became at all, that it was just a horrible thing that happened when they were children, easily thrown in the rear-view mirror...

that’s even more impossible to me than the idea that life with the fëanorians was 100% fluffy and nice

like, i’ve seen the take that elros and elrond hated the fëanorians from start to finish. they were perfect little sindarin princes, loyal to their people and the memory of doriath, spurning every scrap of kindness offered to them and knowing just what to say to twist the knife into the kinslayers’ wounds

... dude. they were six. hell, given their peredhelness, mentally they could easily have been younger

what six year old has a firm grasp of their ethnic identity? what six year old is fully aware of their place in history? what six year old would understand the politics that led to their situation?

don’t get me wrong, i can see hatred in there. but something else that doesn’t get acknowledged alongside it often enough is the fear

some of the stuff i’ve read feels like it gives the kids too much power in the situation. they’re perfectly happy to talk back to and belittle the people who burned down their hometown and killed everyone they ever knew, like miniature adults who don’t feel threatened at all

and, like, six. i can see them going for insults as a defensive measure, but it is defensive. it’s covering up fear, not coming from secure disdain

(and a lot of those insults sound, again, like things an adult who’s already familiar with the fëanorians would say, not a scared child who’s lost almost everything. why would a six year old raised by sindar and gondolindrim know what the noldolantë is, let alone what it means to maglor?)

(... i’m just ranting about this one fic that’s been ruffling my feathers for five years straight now, aren’t i)

i mean, i write elrond as the world’s angriest teenager, who snipes at maglor pretty much constantly, but the thing about angry teenage elrond is that he’s angry teenage elrond

he’s spent long enough with the fëanorians he has a pretty secure position within the camp, and he knows that maglor won’t hurt him from a decade and change of maglor not, in fact, hurting him

but as a small and terrified child abducted by the monsters his mother had nightmares about? he fluctuated wildly between ‘randomly guessing at things to say that wouldn’t get him killed’ ‘screaming at maglor to go away in words rarely more complicated than that’ 'desperately trying not to do or say anything in the hopes of not being noticed’ and ‘hiding’

(and i don’t think the twins were never in any danger from the fëanorians, either. quite besides the point that before they started orbiting maglor nobody was really sure what to do with them... well, they wouldn’t be the first children of thingol’s line the minions took revenge on)

(fortunately for them, maglor did, in fact, take them under his wing. by this point even their own followers are shit scared of the last two sons of fëanor, nobody’s going to mess with their stuff and risk getting mauled. tactically, it was a pretty good decision for a couple of toddlers)

more to the point, i feel like a child that young, in a situation that horrible, wouldn’t reject any kindness they were offered, any soothing touch in a universe of terror

in a world full of big scary monsters, the best way to survive is to get the biggest scariest monster possible to protect you. that’s how elros rationalises it when they’re, like, eight, mentally, but at the time they were just latching on to the only person around them who seemed to care about them

that’s how it started, on their end. two very young very scared children lost in a neverending nightmare clinging tightly to the lone outstretched pair of hands

as for maglor...

i’ve called mags evil before, but i see that as more of a... technical term? he is evil because he did the murder, he remains evil because he won’t stop doing the murder. hot take: murder bad

but that doesn’t make him, like, a moustache-twirling saturday morning cartoon villain. he is deeply unhappy with the position he’s in and the person he’s become, and he’s always trying not to take that final step over the edge

it’s not that i can’t see a maglor who is abusive or manipulative or who sees the twins more as objects than people. it’s just that that characterisation is one i am profoundly uninterested in. i do occasionally read fic with it, but it never enters my own headcanons

horrible people can do good things!! kinslayers can do good things!! the fallen are capable of humanity!! people can do both good and evil things at the same time, because people are complicated!! maglor is not psychologically incapable of actually taking pity on these kids!!!!

it’s... again, complexity. the fëanorians straddle the line between black and white, which is a lot less sharp in the legendarium than it’s sometimes characterised as. it’s what draws me to their characters so much, why i have so many stupid headcanons about them. pretending they fall firmly on either side of the line is my real fandom pet peeve

and, like, this moment? this sincere connection between a bloodstained warlord and two children who will grow up to be great and kind in equal measure? i may not entirely like the direction the fandom’s taken it recently, but that beat, that relationship, it still gets me

so no, i don’t think elrond and elros’ years with the fëanorians were an endless cavalcade of abuse and misery. i think there was love there, despite the darkness all around them

an old, tired monster, and the two tiny children it protects

maglor never hurts the twins, not ever, not once. his claws are sharp and his fangs are keen, if he so much as swatted them he’d rip them in half. instead he folds down the razor edges of his being, interacting with them ever so carefully. he has nightmares of suddenly tearing into their skin

seriously, the power differential between them is so great, maglor so much as raising his voice would break any trust they have in this horribly dangerous creature. fics where he does corporal punishment always get the side-eye from me

the mood of their relationship is... i find it hard to put into words. melancholy, maybe, like a sunny afternoon a few days before the end of the world. three people who’ve lost so much finding what respite they can in each other as the world slowly crumbles around them

there are times when it feels like the three of them exist in a world of their own, marked out by the edges of the firelight. maglor telling stories of the stars, elros giving relaxed irreverent commentary, elrond getting a few moments to just be, all their troubles kept at bay

they are the last two lights in a world sunk into darkness, the last two living beings he does not on some level hate. he will tear his own heart out before he sees them in pain

he teaches them to ride, he teaches them to read, he gives them everything he still has left. the twins should never have been in this situation, maglor probably isn’t entirely fit to take care of them, but it is what it is, and they take what love they can

(maglor depends on the twins emotionally a bit more than any adult should rely on any child. he’s still very much the caretaker in their relationship, but that relationship is the only one he has left that’s not stained by a century of rage and grief. he’s obsessed with them, maedhros tells him frequently. maglor’s standard response to this is to try to gouge maedhros’ eyes out)

(that particular darker side to their relationship, where maglor’s attachment to the twins turns into a desperate possessiveness - that’s not something i think i’ve ever seen in fic. which is a shame, it feels much closer to my own characterisation than the standard ways this relationship gets maleficised. darker, in a different way than usual. horribly compelling in its plausibility)

however you want to read it, i don’t think you can deny this is a relationship that defines elrond and elros’ childhood. they were raised in the woods by a pack of kinslayers, the text is quite clear on this

but i’ve seen a lot of talk about how elros and elrond are only sirion’s children. they are completely 100% sindarin, they love and forgive eärendil and elwing thoroughly and without question, they identify with doriath over - even gondolin, let alone tirion. the fëanorians - the people who raised them - had zero effect on the people they grew into and the selves they created

and that, more than anything else, i find utterly unbelievable

look, i get what this is a reaction to. a lot of the kidnap dads stuff paints the fëanorians as elrond and elros’ ‘real’ family, and i’ve already talked about what i think of the idea that maglor-and-possibly-also-maedhros were better parents than eärendil and elwing. i think it’s reductive and overly optimistic and just a little too neat

but to say instead that elrond and elros held no great love in their hearts for maglor, no lingering affinity with the fëanorians, no influence on their identity from the people they grew up around, none at all? that after it happened they just left it behind and resumed being the same people they were in sirion?

that strikes me as just as much an oversimplification. it sands down all the potential rough edges of their identity, all that inconvenient complexity that stops them from fitting into any well-defined box, and replaces it with a nice safe simple self-conception i find just as flat and boring as declaring them 100% fëanorian

we can quibble over who they call ‘father’ (i personally find that whole debate kinda petty) but denying that it was actually maglor who was the closest thing they knew to a parent for most of their childhoods, and that that would, in fact, affect the way they thought of themselves and their family, elides so many interesting possibilities out of existence

(i’m not even going to get into the most braindead take i have ever heard on the subject, namely that because their time with the fëanorians was such a small fraction of elrond’s total lifespan it was like being kidnapped for two weeks as a toddler and had no greater significance than that. do you not understand what childhood is????)

like, i tend to think of elrond as a child as being very loudly not-a-fëanorian. elros is more willing to go with the flow - hey, if the creepy kinslayer wants kids, elros is happy to play into that in order to not be murdered - but elrond is very firm that he’s not happy to be here and he doesn’t belong with them

(this is after they get over their initial terror, of course, when they’ve realised they won’t be fed to the orcs for the tiniest slight. even so, elrond only really gets shirty about it around people he’s comfortable with, whose reactions he can reasonably guess at. naturally, the first person he does it to is maglor)

elros calls maglor their father exactly once, when they’re... maybe early preteens? this is because elrond hears him do it and immediately loses his shit. they have a dad, elrond says, in tears, and a mum, and any day now their real parents are going to come to pick them up and take them home

... right?

it gets harder to believe as the years roll on, as their memories of sirion fade, as they find their own places within the host, as maglor watches over them as they grow. elrond still mentally sets himself apart from the fëanorians, but it’s more of an effort every year. life in the fëanorian camp is the only one he’s ever really known. he can barely remember his mother’s voice

then the war of wrath starts, and the fëanorian host drifts closer to the army of valinor, and the twins come into contact with non-fëanorians for the first time in forever, and it becomes clear just how obviously fëanorian elrond is. he always insisted he wasn’t like the kinslayers at all, but he dresses like them, talks like them, fights like them

the myth cycles the edain tell are almost completely unfamiliar to him, he barely remembers the shape of the songs of lost doriath. even these sarcastic commentary and subversive reinterpretations he made of maglor’s stories - those were still maglor’s stories! he’s been trying to guess at the person he was meant to be, but it’s growing nightmarishly blatant how little elrond ever knew about him

instead, the people he was born to are as alien to him as the orcs of morgoth. he is a fëanorian, through and through

... yeah, elrond (and/or elros) having an absolutely massive identity crisis upon being reintroduced to his quote-unquote ‘true kin’ is another angle i’d love to see in fic that i don’t think i’ve ever come across. all those potential grey areas around who they are and who they’re supposed to be sound utterly fascinating, and i think it’s the complexity i hate to see elided over the most

i really, really doubt they could effortlessly slot back into being eärendil and elwing’s children. not when they’ve been surrounded by, lived alongside, been raised by the people who were supposed to enemies for most of their lives

they just don’t fit into that box any more. they can’t

speaking of eärendil and elwing, while i do agree that they both (especially elwing) get a lot more flak than they deserve, i don’t agree that therefore elrond and elros were never the slightest bit mad at them and fully forgave them for everything with no reservations

because, well, they were left behind. elwing had no other choice, but they were still left behind; it led to the world being saved, but they were still left behind. all the best intentions in the universe don’t erase the weeks and months and years of waiting, of a hope that grew thinner and frailer until it finally quietly broke

that’s a real hurt, and a real grievance. even if the twins rationally understand that their parents were making the best out of their terrible situation, you can’t logic away emotions like that. it’s perfectly possible for them to know they have no reason to resent eärendil or elwing, and yet still harbour that bitterness and pain

(i did write a thing once where elrond loudly rejects eärendil as his father in favour of maglor, but something i didn’t add in that i probably should have is that elrond later regretted doing that)

(not like, several centuries later, when he’d grown old and wise. two hours later, when he’d calmed down. but he was still legitimately angry at eärendil, because the one thing angry teenage elrond was not lacking in was reasons to be mad at the adults around him, and before he could figure out if he had anything less furious to say the hosts of the valar left middle-earth behind)

(it’s another element to the tragedy of the whole thing. in that particular story, which is mostly aiming for maximum pain, the only thing elrond’s birth parents know about their son for thousands of years is that he hates them)

(and he doesn’t, not really. you can’t hate someone you’ve never known)

not that i think they couldn’t ever make up with their parents! fics where elrond and his birth parents work past all the things that lie between them and form a functional familial bond despite it all give me life. i just don’t like the idea that there’s nothing difficult for them to work past

i don’t like the idea that elrond and elros would naturally, effortlessly identify with the mother they last saw when they were six and the people they only vaguely remember. i can see them doing it as a political move, i can see them going for it as a deliberate personal choice, but i can’t seeing it being immediate and automatic and easy

no matter how great a pair of heroes eärendil and elwing are, that doesn’t change the fact that to elrond and elros, they’re at most a few scattered memories and a collection of far-off stories. and so long as the twins stay in middle-earth, they’re never going to draw any closer

compared to the dynamic, multifaceted, personal, and deep bonds they have with the fëanorians - who, and i know i keep saying this but i think it gets tossed aside way more casually than it should, are the people who actually raised them, their birth parents must feel like a distant idea

and that’s why i can never buy interpretations of elrond as 100% sindarin, a pure son of doriath, with no messy grey areas or awkward jagged edges to his identity. given everything we know about his life, it seems almost cartoonishly simplistic

honestly it seems like a narrative a bunch of old doriathrin nobles trying to manouevre elrond into being high king of the sindar or something would propagate. it's neat and nice and tidy, something that’d be much more convenient for everyone if elrond did feel that way

but i just don’t see how he can. this narrative is easy and simple in a way real people never are, it ignores all the forces pulling him apart. elrond being uncomplicatedly sindarin with the life he lives and the people he's close to - that doesn’t make any sense to me

which isn’t to say i think he’s 100% noldorin, from either a gondolindrim or a fëanorian perspective. (i find it a little more believable, given, again, who he grew up around and who he hangs out with, but it’s still a bit too reductive for my tastes.) it’s also not to say i couldn’t believe an elrond who made an active choice to emphasise his sindarin heritage

it’s not how i think of him, but it works. i don’t have a problem with other people interpreting the complexities of the twins’ identities differently

i just have a problem with people acting like it doesn’t exist

in general i think there’s a lot untapped potential that gets left behind when you declare the twins, separately or together, as All One Thing

they’re descended from half the noble houses of beleriand, and they have deep personal ties to most of the rest. they belong to all of the free peoples even the dwarves, somehow, probably and i feel like that was kind of the old man’s point? so many peoples meet in them, to say they wholly belong to any one species is probably an oversimplification

they sit at a crossroads of potential identities, and rather than narrowing down their worldviews to one single path, they take the hard road and choose all of them. that’s what you need to do, if you want to change the world

and, to bring this back to my ostensible topic, in my estimation at least this mélange of possible selves does include them as fëanorians! it’s not overpowering, but it’s certainly there, and the adults they grow into long after they’ve left the host still bear influence from their childhood

nothing super obvious, nothing that wouldn’t stand out if you didn’t know what to look for, but there’s something almost incandescent in how fiercely elros reaches out for his dreams

there’s something almost defiant in elrond’s drive to be as kind as summer

as for who they publically claim as their family... honestly, it depends. while it’s usually more tactically prudent for elros to connect himself to his various human ancestors, on occasion he does find a use for his free in with the elf mafia, and elrond, code switcher par excellence, is famously the son of whoever is most politically convenient at the moment, which is rarely, but not never, maglor

(in the privacy of their own minds, well, eärendil and elwing may have been the parents elros was supposed to have, but maglor was the parent he actually had, and elros doesn’t particularly care to mope over what might have been. elrond, for his part, figures that after all the shit maglor has put him through, the least that bastard owes him is a father)

but honestly? i think before any of their mountain of identities, before thinking of themselves as sindarin or gondolindel or hadorian or haladin or fëanorian or anything, elrond and elros identify as themselves

they are peredhil, they are númenóreans, they are whoever they make themselves to be. that’s how elrond finally resolved his identity, figured out who he was and found something past the pain and the rage

he wasn’t doriathrin, or gondolindrin, or falathrin, or fëanorian, or whatever else. he was elrond, no more and no less

and that person, elrond, could be whatever he chose to be

... elros came to a similar conclusion, with much less sturm und drang that he’s willing to admit. being able to go ‘hey, i can’t possibly be biased towards any one of your cultures, because i’m descended from all of you and i was raised by murderelves’ makes it a lot easier to unite people around your personal banner, turns out

the stories other people tried to force on them shattered into pieces, and the peredhel twins were free to shape themselves into anything they could dream of

and as the new world struggles alive, these lost children of an Age of death begin to bloom into their full glorious selves -

i just. i love the poetry of that. despite every single shadow that hangs over their past, despite all the clashing notes pulling them apart, they harmonise it all into a greater, kinder theme, determined to make their world a better place in whatever way they can

they fail, of course, but so do all things. the inevitable march of entropy doesn’t diminish the long millennia they (and their descendants) held onto the light

and their growing up in the fëanorian host definitely had a huge effect on the noble lords they became. you can see it in elros’ loud ambition to create a land of happiness and hope, elrond’s quiet resolve to heal all the hurts inflicted by this marred reality

it wasn’t a perfect time by any means, but neither was it a nightmare. it was what it was, a desperate existence at the edge of a knife where, nevertheless, they were loved

even after years upon decades upon centuries have passed, it’s hard for the wise king and the honourable sage to separate out and identify all the conflicting emotions swirling around their childhood. they never knew eärendil or elwing, true, but they also never really knew maglor

not as equals, not as adults, not as people who could truly understand him. he disappeared into the fog of history, leaving only childhood memories of razor-sharp, gentle hands

it’s messy and it’s complicated and getting any real closure would be like shoving their way through a thornbush with bare hands even if elrond could find the shithead, and yet at the core of it all, there is light. not the brightest of lights, maybe, but an enduring one

that contrast, above all, that note of warmth amidst the shadows, is what fascinates me so much about their relationship. three screwed up people in a screwed up world, finding a little peace with each other

and the fact that somehow, it does have a good ending - the children grow up magnificent and compassionate and just, they become exemplars of all their peoples, lodestars of the new world born out of the ashes of the old - that makes it seem to me like this relationship must have contained some fragment of happiness

but, fuck, all the darkness that surrounds that love, all the tangled-up emotions its existence necessitates, all the prefabricated self-identities it can never slot into - nothing about it is simple, nothing about it is easy, and i find that utterly enthralling. especially how, despite everything, that flickering light never goes out

well, i don’t think it does, anyway. my take on this relationship is both complicated enough no one else ever quite gets it right and well-defined enough every single ‘error’ in other people’s interpretations sticks out like a kinslayer in rivendell

it is an entirely self-inflicted problem, i will admit. other people are allowed to interpret those complexities differently from me, and it’s entirely my own fault i lack the :waves hands around nebulously: to write my own hypothetical fic on the subject at a pace faster than glacial

still, though. i do wish there was more fic out there that engaged with these complexities. a lot of the common fandom interpretations of this relationship just sweep it all away

#ask #my terrible headcanons #elros #elrond #maglor #elwing #earendil #feanorians #niphredilien #yellow feathered faerie #putting your old url in the tags for archival purposes #post nyanyannya askbox clearout #ironically it turned out almost as long as the songfic that clogged up my askbox in the first place #and it is DONE #fuck this took forever to write #stayed up late just to get it out the door so i don't have to think about it any more #this is a long ramble and i'm pretty sure the end is just me repeating myself ad nausem sorry #i'll admit to a certain pro-feanorian bias in my interpretation #but i also don't want elros and elrond to just. live in a neverending horrorshow for decades #the silm's cruel enough we don't need that #narratively i feel like elrond being All Of The Elves is a good mirror for elros being All Of The Humans #but it didn't really fit the angle i was going for #bleck #let's see how many followers i lose for this

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straighttohellbuddy · 4 years ago

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how the light gets in {Corpse Husband}

2. you’ve gone way too fast for way too long.

Summary: Supernatural Creatures AU. Them/Them Reader. After the success of your first stream, you find yourself wanting to get back to your YouTube roots, and what better way to do that than with a cover by one of the bands who holds a special place in your heart? And maybe you’re using it to distract yourself from thinking about how coming back to YouTube means coming back to the things - the people - you’d left behind.

Maybe it’s selfish, but Corpse kind of wishes you hadn’t come back to YouTube; honestly, if anyone else had taken the world by storm, he wouldn’t complain half as much, except it’s you and he’s still mostly convinced that you might be an angel like him... Except better. Because of course you would be a better angel, you’re talented and driven and personable and essentially everything an angel should be, and - bar the talented bit, Corpse at least knows some of his worth - you’re everything he’s pretty sure he’s not. Except it seems like everyone loves you, and he doesn’t exactly have a good enough reason to be bothered by you the way he is, so he has to act like he isn’t. Which is a lot easier said than done, when you barely say a word to him and it feels like all of his suspicions are confirmed.

A/N: 8471 words. Reader in the fic is stated to be 24. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SUPERNATURAL THE TV SERIES. me, trying to walk the line between 3rd person omniscient narrator and trying to make the narration feel like its somewhat coming from the POV character?? it’s more likely than you think! as always, i really appreciate feedback.

{ m a s t e r l i s t }

Taglist: @nanasort @meme-lord-and-savior-sebastian @theboywhocriedlupin @taikalinna @jaychirps @bingusmode @divine-artemis @realmejay @lovemelikepercy @balla-deer @miniritzcrackers @loraleiix @ppopty @easygoingtheatre @insanedeathwish @siriuslystupid @losvertown @janiathecat @wineandionysus @moonlightsimp @allylyew @chokingonflxwers @sicnesa @xxniksxx @mishisamess @preciousskye @yashinosakura @meleekabenjamin @whatamievendoinghere01 @lxurxn-02 @liljennyx3 @the-fusionist @benjaminka @lilysdaydreams @a-lonely-bic @letsloveimagines @melmachh @tama-chan-suneater @shio-yuki @fairywriter-oracle @easygoingtheatre @pixelbxtch @dreammoutlouddd @abysshaven @mediocrearistophanes @tsukishimawh0re @inkbyajm @jordiee95 @honkcorpse @kaiihaan @takenbyheartstrings @mrtony-stank1 @dangeroustreebread @xibrokensunriseix @corpseglider @artsyally @ellsbells2143 @machine-gun-casie @marvelsmurphy @bigmac-papi @danielle143 @fivedicksinatrenchcoat @starstruckllamapuppy @youretheonlyonewhomakesme @fee-btheweeb @parkerpeanuts @fanfictionenthusiast @evans-dejong @pancakebinnie @minbunbun @sabrinarahaman @thefangirl05 @jades-bullshit @fo-love @roses-and-grasses @thirstyfangirl @lovelysmp @325575 @wrongcielo @lukathecrime @lunariasilver @delicrieux @rebloogggs @kookiesandtae7 @mizxkii @effielumiere @happyyyandcrazyyy @teenageguitarist @prettylittlealiengirl @aroyalharknessblr @kylie-writes-stuff @annshit @haunteddeputymugpersona

taglist is always open! message me if you’d like to be added xx

----

The day after your song drops, it’s on Spotify’s Top 50 Viral playlist, it’s charting on iTunes, it’s splattered across the internet, according to your manager, who sees fit to text you, congratulating you on what she assumed to be a masterful marketing tactic; releasing the song and immediately streaming alongside huge YouTube creators who have a wide and diverse fanbase, all plugging your music. She thinks it was a carefully calculated move, which makes you feel all kinds of scummy, like you were using your new friends. Thankfully, when you fire a somewhat defensive response about how you had no ulterior motive, that all you wanted to do was have fun and make friends, your tone apparently reads loud and clear, as you receive an apology a few moments later. Backtracking, she simply mentions that, even unintentionally, you had great timing, and she’s glad you had a good time, which is better, and you try not to dwell on your initial assumption. Years of your life had been spent worrying that the people you were close to just thought you were using them for views or fame; her words did little to quell that worry, so instead you tried to distract yourself, or at the very least, focus on the good that yesterday had brought about.

The best, of course, was Sykkuno, the hellhound who’d endeared himself to you almost immediately. Something about him makes you feel safe, though perhaps it’s that you’re unused to someone feeling so familiar; you like to think you’re a good judge of character, so for now, you’re trusting in your instincts, trusting in Sykkuno. The next best thing was a tie, between friends and freedom. Yesterday you’d been doing what you wanted to do, not what you thought you should be doing, not what was on brand, or carefully scripted; you were messy, stumbled over your words, and you laughed and deceived your friends as was the aim of the game, it was so freeing to be unfiltered. People kept saying it was nice to see you smile, to hear you laugh again. Huh. Part of you really doesn’t like that you know exactly what they mean, and more importantly, why people are saying that at all. But things are different now, are freer now; your brand was built on you, it’s nice to get back to that.

By mid-morning, you’d been sprawled out on your sofa for almost an hour, glad to be alone, to not have to worry about being seen, as you’ve phased your tail back into reality, and have it holding up your phone as you scroll through Twitter with one hand and fidget idly with the other. More and more you’re seeing supportive comments from people gushing about the few bars you’d sung of 5 Seconds of Summer’s Youngblood on stream yesterday. First your chat had loved it, now it seems the general consensus was that people would love for you to cover more than a few bars. While you tried not to listen too much to what other people wanted, you couldn’t help but admit that it was something you definitely wanted too.

When you text your manager, new idea already taking hold of your focus, your earlier unsavoury text conversation seemingly forgotten, your manager reminds you that you should be working on your new album, putting together the tracklist for your EP. Ugh.

It’s not that you didn’t have ideas, quite the opposite; you’re exploding with ideas, brimming, overflowing with them, for songs you wants to write and feelings you can’t express any other way, but the songs and collaborations you’ve already completed, their mp4 files sitting neatly on your desktop, you wanted to save them for the full album, like it was some sort of penance for getting to collaborate, getting to become friends with people you looked up to, people who inspired you. To you, their contribution was worthy of your full album.

Well, that was part of the reason, the other part was that the songs you had designated for the album had a different vibe to your EP songs; albumtouralbumtour and imposter syndrome had both been written in lockdown, about very specific concerns you were having at the time. The EP was shaping up to capture a very specific moment in time, while the album was so much more than that. You couldn’t put read at five am on the EP, the collaboration you’d done with Troye, a lyrical-lament with a dissonant, upbeat melody, an apology for when you’re the one who cuts off contact with someone you’re close to and don’t know how to say why, and don’t know how to come back; yes, the fact that you and Ethan are talking again means that the song is technically relevant to this period of time, but it’s three years of regret and indirect apology compressed into in three minutes. It’s going on the album.

But being stuck at home all day for months had made you all nostalgic for your roots, for when you’d started uploading all the way back in 2012, at 16, with no idea what a few videos would lead to. You missed covering songs you loved, the songs other people had written and that you had still connected with, the songs that made you want to write your own. Yes, you loved your own content, obviously, but from idea to video publishing, you knew a low-effort cover would take you maximum a day and a half if you were particularly inspired, which you clearly were. By now, you’d been doing this for so long that you knew the legality of it all like the back of your hand, and were in a stable enough place to be more than happy to pay royalties to the band you’d co-headlined alongside for your first international tour.

“What if I call the boys and ask them?” You decided to just call your manager directly, tail curled securely around your phone where you’d put her on speaker, pottering around your kitchen trying to find something to eat. Alison, on the other end of the line, sighed deeply, having been fielding these sorts of calls from you about once a fortnight since lockdown had started.

“Have you finished moment before impact yet?” She countered, and you wrinkle your nose; its as if she can hear the expression through the phone with the way she continues on, not giving you a moment to cut in, “listen, I won’t tell you what to do, but you need to make a decision about your EP tracklist soon, okay? The label’s breathing down my neck, you know you have more than enough songs for it.”

“Alison, the vibes -”

“The vibes, Y/N, I know,” she sighed deeply, but you could hear the faintest smile in her voice.

“I promise I’m working on my own stuff; I think moment before impact is gonna be a collab, but I’m not sure who with yet, but if it makes you happy, once I record this 5SOS thing, I’ll work on a demo of moment for the EP,” you concede, and you hear her hum in approval, “I promise I have all the songs in my head, I just gotta make sense of which ones are the right ones for now, you know?”

“I really don’t,” you could hear her actually smiling now, so you let yourself relax for a moment, hands braced on your kitchen counter as you looked to your phone, “but I suppose that’s why you’re the musical one and I’m the manager.”

“My favourite manager,” you told her sweetly, and her answering laugh is more of a snort.

"Call the band, maybe they can work something out for you regarding royalties, if you plan to monetise it," she suggested, and you hummed, "keep me updated, okay? Make sure you're still working on your own stuff though."

"Alison you're a national treasure," you tell her feelingly; you don't even have to see her to know she's rolling her eyes.

But you take her advice, sending 'what if I covered Youngblood and posted it to YT? I'll pay you royalties' to the mostly dormant WhatsApp group you have with 5 Seconds of Summer, despite it being about six in the morning in Australia. Callum sends back a thumbs up almost immediately. Its all the confirmation you need to get started.

As you’re hunting through your house for a pick, turning over cushions, looking through junk drawers, you hear your phone go off, and you take a moment to check, surprised by what you see. A message from Sean. Huh.

[I see you’ve finally decided to join us in the gaming community, took you long enough 😊 If you ever wanna play something, just gimme a yell, you know Id be glad to have ya on my team.]

Considering the fact that it had been three years since you and Sean had properly been in contact, you find the message both surprising, and strangely heartwarming. There were a few people you’d purposefully fallen out of contact with, plagued by your own fears and self doubts. The people who you’d seen in person almost daily were the ones who you’d felt the absence of the most, but Sean, just by his close association with those people, along with a few other international friends, had been regretfully left behind also. Here and now, you can feel just how much you’ve missed him, how guilty you feel for giving in to your own anxieties and the negativity spewed by others.

But you know you can’t dwell on the past, on your mistakes, all you can do is be grateful for the opportunity to reconnect, and take it.

[ID: A tweet and reply conversation between @yourtwitter and @goldeny/n, followed by a single tweet by @ZeRoyalViking, and a tweet and reply conversation between @yourtwitter, and @5SOS.

@yourtwitter: someone yell at me for doing another cover instead of my original stuff. quarantine got me feeling 17 again. might do the cinnamon challenge next. or finally do that Roast Yourself trend 4 years too late. | @golden_y/n: BRUH YOU BEST NOT BE PULLING OUR LEGS | @golden_y/n: I would empty my bank account to see you roast yourself. | @yourtwitter: Please Don't Do That YouTube Is Free | @golden_y/n: 😳💀💖

@ZeRoyalViking: stream today with some familiar and not so familiar faces!!

@yourtwitter posted an image of Griffin McElroy from the My Brother My Brother & Me TV show. Griffin is a Caucasian man wearing glasses and a blue checked shirt. He is visible from the chest up and is sitting behind a desk with one arm in front of him, with his thumb out, as if counting. The image’s subtitles have been edited, now reading ‘My friends are very much into the following: Bullying me on TikTok.’ | @yourtwitter: @luke5SOS is just mad im gonna sing his song better than him. he doesn’t use twitter anymore so i have the upper hand here. | @5SOS replies with a gif of Jason Momoa, who is incredibly muscular, with dark hair down to his shoulders, a black tank top, and sunglasses on, holding a microphone, standing in a confrontational manner, captioned ‘No, no, no. By all means, speak your mind. You got a problem with my boy?’ | @yourtwitter: HE WENT LIVE UNPROMPTED TO TELL PEOPLE ABOUT HOW I WROTE NOTIMETOSLEEP IN THREE DAYS WITH NO ACTUAL SLEEP, OPENED FOR THEM IN ARIZONA, AND IMMEDIATELY PASSED OUT FOR 16 HOURS AFTER WALKING OFF STAGE | @5SOS: we just miss you tho... and it is kind of funny. | @yourtwitter: the minute im allowed to safely leave lockdown im coming to australia to german supplex the lot of you. ❤️

End ID.]

Corpse’s whole ‘not thinking about you’ plan goes down a lot smoother when you’re not actively stealing his friends- what kind of Angel goes around stealing another person - another Angel’s, no less - friends?! Except, right, he doesn't actually have proof that you're an angel, just a hunch he’s apparently committed to... and, okay, you don't know you're stealing them... Sykkuno and Rae are allowed to have more than one friend. Obviously.

"Honestly, I'm still kind of riding the high from yesterday's stream," Sykkuno’s all kinds of elated in the voice chat, and Rae's quick to chime in, matching his tone, his energy, as she agrees.

"I cannot believe Y/N played with us! I’m sorry you missed it, Corpse, I think you'd love them," Rae is adamant, to which Corpse, from behind the safety of his monitor, makes a face.

"What makes you say that?” Even as he says it, as he tries to keep the negativity from his voice, his nose wrinkles, the expression shifting his eyepatch just a little.

“I don’t know, just something about...” Rae’s voice turns thoughtful as she considers, though Sykkuno takes the chance to pipe up, voice brimming with his trademark sincerity.

“You guys have weirdly similar vibes, like kind of a similar energy?” He tries to explain before a faintly embarrassed laugh escaping him, even with Rae humming in agreement, “not the exact same, obviously, but like, I don’t know, I think you’d really like them.” The problem with having Sykkuno for a friend is that he’s almost always trying to be genuinely kind or helpful. The problem is that Corpse can tell he believes what he’s saying.

An angelic ability that often goes overlooked, even by angels themselves, is the innate ability to tell whether or not someone’s lying. It’s like a faint buzzing, low grade tinnitus, at the sound of a lie, something that can actually be pretty effectively ignored and forgotten, but right now, the lack of buzzing with Sykkuno’s words is frankly irritating. Not that Corpse can say that, he has no real reason to be jealous of your fast forming friendships with his friends, well, not any reason he can admit to on stream.

"You know what,” Sean muses, finally joining the conversation, “It’s been a while since I properly spoke to them, but I totally get what you mean,” fucking great; of course he agrees, “did anyone invite them to play; would love to have them here if they’re up for it.”

"I think they're working on a thing today, but I can message and ask?" It’s Sykkuno who speaks up, the barest hesitation in his voice, and to that Rae makes a proud little noise in the back of her throat.

"You met yesterday on the stream that I organised, and suddenly you're all best buddies? Gonna be honest, I’m a little jealous,” she admits, to which Sykkuno huffs a soft laugh, uncertain of what to say, though Rae’s tone is fond and she continues on, “seriously though, good for you, dude, finally getting the recognition you deserve -"

And on the one hand, yes, Corpse would agree that Sykkuno deserved infinitely more recognition and praise than he currently received, but on the other, the speed at which you two had aparently become close - a day! It had been a day! - sets Corpse’s teeth on edge. It was all he could do to keep quiet as the others chimed in, all their sentiments mirroring Rae’s.

All this frustration and resentment was almost definitely unhealthy, he was more than aware, but something about you had fixed in his mind; if it had been anyone else, anyone less talented or personable or productive, he could have probably handled it, but you...

All he gets is two games worth of peace before Sykkuno announces that he’s gotten a reply. Aparently you’re in the middle of recording a cover. Something about knowing that fills Corpse with discomfort, with envy, like he should be working on his music instead of being here.

"But they say they're gonna take a break in an hour or say, so they might join us for a few games," Sykkuno’s tone betrayed his bright smile, and suddenly the voice chat was flooded with excitement from almost all in attendance.

"Wait, really? Just like that, we'll be playing with Y/N?" Leslie sounds disbelievingly hopeful, but thankfully it’s only a few moments until the next game beings. While none of the others had picked up on Corpse’s silence, his chat seemed confused. Purposefully ignoring their questions and comments on the matter, he instead gives a few comments on the game, trying to come off lighter than he was feeling.

He’s not quite sure what he’s going to do if you join the stream, he’d never actually considered that he might one day talk to you, have to confront the person whose very existence got under his skin, who might very well be the only other person like him on this side of the world. Unsurprisingly, his head’s not in the game.

"Did you get enough sleep last night?” Rae feels the need to ask when whatever response he’d given in a meeting had just come out as an incoherent mumble. Of course he straight up laughs at her question, which is answer enough, and she clicks her tongue disapprovingly, “you’re impossible.”

“Have you drunk any water today -?”

“Sykkuno you’re dead,” Sean interrupts Sykkuno, who had broken one of the main rules of the game simply to question Corpse about his health; he’s far too caring for his own good, but moments like this make for good entertainment, “dead people can’t talk,” Corpse is grateful for all of five seconds before Sean turns on him, reiterating Sykkuno’s question like a traitor; “Corpse, have you drunk water today?” In lieu of a proper response, Corpse groans, playing at being annoyed.

“I say we vote him out because if he is the imposter, we win, and if he isn’t, he has time to go drink a glass of water,” Rae proposes matter-of-factly, which just leaves Corpse spluttering with disbelief.

“That’s fucking stupid; I’m not the imposter, you’re basically throwing the game -” but the votes are already popping up, and unfortunately, for the first time all stream, everyone seems to be in agreement.

“Drink water, Corpse,” Rae, clearly the leader of this mutiny, orders, as Corpse watches his character get flung into lava, and very begrudgingly heeds her words. He takes his sweet time drinking a full glass of water and refilling it to take back with him, intermittently glaring from his kitchen at his computer, despite the game still going on; he’s got several tasks left, if they don’t catch the imposters, they’re doomed, and honestly he doesn’t care. Once the game ends, with the crewmates’ loss, as he’d suspected, they all find themselves back in the lobby. Maybe they’re waiting for him. They can wait longer.

As he settles himself back into his office chair, he pulls on his headphones in time to hear -

“- earlier than I thought because of a whole thing on TikTok and then Twitter, and then my manager texted me telling me-” It’s like he’s turned twenty again at the sound of your voice; you, bright, earnest, rambling to probably Sykkuno or Sean or Rae, probably not even aware of him, but he’s never been more aware of you. Not that he’d ever admit it to anyone, but your second EP, hyperfocus, had been in heavy rotation on his Spotify since he’d discovered it, since he’d listened to the crack in your voice, the exhaustion with which you spoke on i’m going through some stuff when Lofi had just been taking off as a genre. He’s... conflicted, going through an internal crisis while you keep talking, blissfully unaware, “- anyways, I think she’s just worried that I’ll end up threatening to German Supplex Harry Styles, or the late, great, Prince, and I’ll end up cancelled.”

“Y/N,” your name sounds equal parts amused and concerned as Sykkuno says it, with the air of someone who’s been privy to you and your antics far longer than just one day. The response you give is just as bright and cheery as your rambling had been, assuring him that you wouldn’t threaten to German Supplex Prince.

“You sure about that?” Sean was obviously grinning, judging by his fond tone, “sounds like something you’d try -”

“I’ve changed, Jack- Sean- fuck,” your muttered swear undercuts your attempt at earnestness after you correct yourself, clearly not used to calling him by his actual name. To that, Sean gives a fond chuckle, before going right back to ribbing you.

“I’m pretty sure there’s still video evidence of you trying to square up with Mark in person,” Sean points out, to which you grow huffy and defensive, playing up your frustration.

“Well, that was for a completely reasonable reason!”

“Which was?”

“I thought it would be funny,” tone flipping completely, the words come out so sincere and bright it’s almost tooth rotting; if he didn’t know any better, Corpse would probably find himself being endeared by it, “and it was! Plus,” though here you give pause, and something about the tone of the conversation shifts as you chew on the words you’d almost said without thinking, “it was funny,” you said, softer this time. Sean, sensing the shift, does his best to pick the mood back up, reminding you that both you and Mark lost the competition you’d been taking part in anyways, and asking if you really had changed.

Before you had time to answer, however, Rae spots Corpse’s avatar moving ever so slightly, and immediately jumps on him.

“Corpse! Did you drink water?” She asks. He unmutes so they can all hear his deep, beleaguered sigh. “I can and will bully you into taking care of yourself,” her heart’s in the right place, and it is mostly a bit, so he can’t be too put out by the fact that she cares.

“I can’t believe you all voted me out because of it,” he chooses to respond instead, and Rae’s cackle echoes through the voice call.

“She also was the imposter, so...” Ze trailed off, a little sheepishly, to which Corpse rolled his eyes, not that anyone can see. Of course she was. But he’s not even given a moments before -

“You must be Corpse!” The moment the words leave your lips, every single goddamn nerve in Corpse’s body feels like it’s alight; everything overwhelming, unfamiliar,. white-hot, he’s suddenly desperately trying to keep his various abilities in check, since he really doesn’t want to short out his whole system, end the stream early, and probably cause his building to go into a blackout, just because of whatever this is. The whole world has changed with four words; better and worse and more more than anything. It’s... it’s a confirmation of some kind, and he tries to hold onto that vindictive feeling in his chest. You are familiar, you are something he recognises like no-one else he’s ever met before; you are like him. Is it better or worse now he knows it’s the truth?

“Must I be?” He manages to respond, keeping his voice as level as he’s able, shooting for vaguely amused and trying not to let any of the past few seconds sudden overwhelming panic and triumph bleed into his voice. But the moment you hear him, there’s a sharp gasp; that same something, understanding, recognition he’d felt, you feel it too.

“Y/N, you okay?” Ze had asked, and you made a vaguely muffled noise of unconvincing confirmation. Out of sheer, idle curiosity, Corpse opened a new tab and searched up your YouTube channel where you were streaming.

“Maybe we should have warned ya’,” Sean offers with a light laugh, before lowering his voice, immitating and announcer as best as he could, “warning! Corpse is about to speak!” Which at the very least got Corpse to laugh, though he refused to give anything away as your stream loaded, and the banter continued in his ears.

“Har har,” you muttered sarcastically into the voice chat, right as the stream finished loading, and - you. Well dressed, face in your hands, heels of your palms pressed against your closed eyes; honestly, he doesn’t exactly have any prominent initial thoughts about you, watching you scrunch your face up in your hands, dealing with the same thing he had to, though your face was live to thousands. Beside you, the text chat for your stream was going almost too fast to read, but he managed to follow a few threads of thought here and there.

[an eye thing! they’ve got an eye thing!] [someone @ y/n_creature_spec on twt!!] [who has an eye thing??] [lmao love that they were so shocked hearing corpse that it set off their eye thing] [hello!! vampire here!! we have eye things!!] [u cant be a vampire it’s the middle of the day] [THERE ARE COUNTRIES OTHER THAN AMERICA YOU KNOW] [i am willing to put MONEY on the idea of them being fae of some kind.] [^^yeah they just didnt want us to see their eyes sparkling like an anime character.] [that feels like smthn corpse could bring out in people]

And then you’re blinking back to reality, bringing him from his thoughts as for one terrifying moment, it’s as if his gaze locks with yours. Expression so bright and inviting, despite the way your eyes were watering just a little, you hold eye contact with your camera for a moment before looking at your screen, mumbling something about an eyelash in your eye; Corpse lets out a shaky breath. Chat seems unconvinced, but at least the other streams take you on your word. For a few more moments, he quietly watches you, watches the way your eyes roam your screen as you order your thoughts, and for all that he’s thought of you, he’s never properly looked at you. It’s taken him until now to acknowledge that there was definitely a reason for your success beyond just your talent; certainly you could have become successful from your music alone, but your career certainly wasn’t hindered by the fact that you’re actually quite- suddenly, Corpse is overcome by the sense that he’s intruding, exiting out of the window immediately, even going so far as to push back from his desk, fingers spread wide, braced against the edge, trying not to think too hard about... any of it. If he thought too hard about what it meant to have another angel in LA, he would drive himself mad.

“Well, Corpse, it’s good to meet ya, been told great things,” to him and him alone it’s so clear you’re trying so hard to play it cool, though Corpse couldn’t fault you for that, doing the exact same thing; again, when you speak to him, it’s like his whole being is hit with a rush of warmth; it’s less overwhelming this time, somehow scalding but bearable now.

“I see Sykkuno’s been spreading lies about me,” Corpse fires off instinctually, to which Sykkuno splutters protests at the implication, despite your bright laughter, and Sean’s shout to the contrary.

“Don’t be mean, Corpse, Sykkuno would never lie about you,” Sean is adamant, and Corpse can tell he’s being honest, just as the tell-tale ringing in his ears knows the next words from Sean’s mouth are utter lies; “me on the other hand? Y/N whatever you do, do not listen to Corpse’s music, it’s just the worst.” Before the implication, the reality of what he’s saying sinks in, for just a moment, Corpse feels a rush of affection for Sean, so clearly and earnestly plugging his music, right before your voice re-joins the chat and Corpse remembers exactly who Sean is plugging his music to.

“Fuck you, J- Sean, I do what I want,” while you played along, amused and light, Corpse himself was at a loss for words. You ask him - him specifically, he knows, he knows with absolute certainty you’re asking him - if he’s a musician, and everyone else chimes in before he can even think about finding his voice.

“Don’t search him on Spotify! Don’t do it!” Sean, on the verge of laughter, seems delighted by the turn this conversation has taken as the sound of aggressive typing fills the chat from your end. What the fuck. What the fuck?! No matter his thoughts and opinions about you and your possible supernatural origins, you were still Y/N, literal Grammy winner and Golden Child from the Golden Age of YouTube, playing along as Sean used the world’s worst reverse psychology on you to get you to listen to his music. Oh fuck, this is not how today was meant to go.

“I don’t wanna hold up the game, I’ll listen as I play,” you tell them, almost painfully polite, though Ze agrees to start the next game. If Corpse’s mind wasn’t in the game before, there’s no way in hell it was now.

Three minutes into the first round and he’s failing miserably at card swipe when he chances a look at his chat; people were spamming lyrics from Miss YOU! and Cat Girls Are Ruining My Life! which was sweet but nerve wracking, since he’s pretty sure it means you’ve already listened to one and moved on to the next. If you’re an angel, and you know he’s an angel, what in the hell would you think of his music? Honestly, even if you weren’t an angel, you’re still you, and his music was... well...

When the first meeting is called, and it’s discovered that you’ve been murdered, there’s a strange sense of relief that comes with it, even as he’s being accused of your murder. He’s got a solid alibi, so they end up voting out Sean, and the game continues. Despite the brief reprieve from your possible judgement, his heart still feels as though it’s skittering erratically around his ribcage.

Rae comes along when he’s doing Simon Says, and shoots his little avatar. The moment he becomes a ghost, he lets out a long breath, giving himself a moment to relax, to collect his thoughts, catching back up with some questions with chat he hadn’t quite realised he’d been holding, and chances a look at his chat again.

“Of course I’m tense,” he finds himself musing quietly to his chat while the remaining players were arguing over the top of each other in a meeting, “pretty sure most of hyperfocus has been in my Spotify wrapped every year since it was released,” for a few moments, it doesn’t even occur to him what he’s said, or that he’s said it out loud, but when it hits him- oh, oh no, it feels like too much to admit, and he has no idea what to say next, how to backtrack, how to at least pretend like he doesn’t think about you or your music any more than any other person would. However much he may resent certain aspects of it, he still knows he has a reputation to uphold, and panic and denial have never been a part of his reputation.

So he keeps his mouth shut, bites down on the half-hearted excuses and explanations that keep springing to mind, keep pressing against his teeth. He does his tasks quietly, thanks the people donating, and pretend it never happened until the round ends, heart in his throat. He knows, the same way a human survivor in a zombie apocalypse movie knows, that he’s just putting off the inevitable, and that someone’s definitely already clipped it and is probably uploading it to Twitter or Tumblr faster than he could protest.

“Y/N I’m so sorry!” Sean’s the first one to talk when they’re back in the lobby, which leads to your laughter filling the voice chat, telling him it’s okay.

“I didn’t even care, honestly I was just vibing,” the smile in your voice is almost enough to distract from the strained edge to your words, something not quite right, but so faint Corpse isn’t sure if it was really there, and he’s not quite sure anyone else heard it either. Except -

“Y/N?” Sykkuno says your name like it means something that no-one but you and him can decipher, something concerned, almost a question, checking in without being too obvious.

“Yeah?” There’s that strained tone, just a little more audible this time, before you process who’s talking, how he’d said your name, and - “yeah,” firmer, calmer, a reassurance.

“Vibing?” And he says it like that was his question all along, like the two of you hadn’t had a full conversation in three words. When the others started asking about what you thought of the music, it’s clear none of them have picked up on the hint of strangeness that had been in your tone, and you deliberate before answering.

“Am I- is it- it’s weird if I quote it, isn’t it -?”

“Jacksepdicy how I whip that!” Sean practically yells into his microphone, cutting you off and somehow making the line sounding even more Irish than he himself did naturally, which startles a laugh from Corpse, “it’s my name in a song, I think about it daily,” he announces, voice oozing pride, and despite the situation and headspace he found himself in, Corpse feels his heart grow warm knowing that even a line like that had brought Sean joy.

“I thought,” you pause for a moment, presumably to double check which song you were about to reference, “I thought Miss YOU was a whole mood,” you admit, the faintest smile in your voice, and something tightens in Corpse’s chest at that.

“You not gonna quote it?” Rae teased.

“Too nervous to follow Sean,” you fired back.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get there one day, Y/N,” Sean laughs fondly, and you all joke around, playing up the bit, while Corpse’s mind is stuck on the fact that you never once addressed him when talking about his music. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, it meant he didn’t have to deal with the sudden, fiery sensation your voice brought with it, so not bothered, persay, if anything he’s glad to know you liked it... But it’s weird that he knows so acutely -

“Hey,” and you don’t even say his name, but there’s that feeling again. Each time it grows less intense, like he’s been inoculated, and no instead of his nerves being ablaze, it’s as if he’s suddenly sitting beside a bonfire, each and every time you speak to him. The others voice their confusion at your sudden vaguness, but Corpse answers without even thinking, because of course he knows.

“Yeah?”

A few moments pass, while the others carry on amongst themselves for the moment. The two of you sit in this one moment together, neither quite sure how to feel about it.

“You’ve been awfully quiet,” you point out, though there was only the barest him of the earlier strangeness in your voice, now overpowered by something that made it almost sound like you were pleased. At this, however, even more confusion arises when the others figure out that Corpse had ‘guessed’ correctly, that you’d been talking to him. But he can’t really hear them, or, well, he finds himself tuning them out, swallowing hard before he pushes to talk.

“Am I not allowed to enjoy the moment?” He asked, trying to ignore the weirdness of it all, keeping his tone light.

“I’m just surprised; it’s your music after all.”

“You like hearing my voice?” Despite the surprisingly cocky way with which he speaks, he regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth, wincing internally. Of all the people he could have said that to...

“I never said that,” and though your own tone matched his, something teasing, something that could almost be misconstrued as flirty in the right circumstances, he’d heard the faint thread of discomfort, feeling it all too much himself. But your words, and thankfully your tone, was overshadowed by both Sykkuno and Sean jumping in to assure Corpse that they enjoyed hearing his voice.

“If you and Y/N ever collaborated, you know it’d break the internet, right?” Rae interjects, all kinds of smug and knowing, followed by a chorus of approving voices all broke out in unison as the rest of the lobby considered the possibility.

“Rae, you know our Twitter mentions are going to be going off for the next month now, don’t you?” You groaned.

“Maybe it’s a sign!” Rae exclaimed, delighted, before her tone turns teasing and fond, “and besides, aren’t your mentions always going off?”

[ID: The first four posts on Y/N’s Tumblr dashboard.

blueheart-anon hearing y/n and sean interact again after like 3 years unlocked memories like im a fucking sleeper agent. having war flashbacks to 2017′s ‘y/n is septiplier’s kid’ phase. how do i lock the memories up again im going to die of embarrassment why were we like that [tagged: #y/n #y/n y/l/n #jacksepticeye #sean mcloughlin #i WILL NOT add the ship tag i mentioned #blue talks] [7 notes] [▶️🗩↪️🖤]

fangloriousbastard ↪️fangloriousbastard fangloriousbastard Rae: Y/N & Corpse Collab When? Y/N: 🔪 - fangloriousbastard Y/N IMMEDIATELY MURDERING RAE AND THEN CORPSE I- - fangloriousbastard Y/N MUTTERING THE JACKSEPDICY LYRIC WHILE MURDERING HIM WTF IS HAPPENING?? - fangloriousbastard SYKKUNO NO BBY IM SO WORRIED - fangloriousbastard Y/N IM BEGGING U TO STOP SAYING CORPSE LYRICS BEFORE U KILL UR FRIENDS - fangloriousbastard WAIT WHAT Y/N AND SYKKUNO BOTH VOTING FOR THEMSELVES INSTEAD OF EACH OTHER - fangloriousbastard “ride or die guess im gonna die” y/N PLEASE U MET HIM YESTERDAY - fangloriousbastard y/n’s still listening to corpse’s music we love to see it - fangloriousbastard WAIT NO ZE KILLED SYKKUNO IN FRONT OF THEM AND THEY WON OMG SO MUCH IS HAPPENING DID THESE MOTHERFUCKERS QUOTE AN ACTUAL THE OFFICE MEME AT EACH OTHER - fangloriousbastard Y/N: YOU KILLED MY BOY Ze: you’ve known him A Day! Y/N: you don’t have all the facts Ze: which are? Y/N: I love him. Y/N: Not in a weird, shippy way tho, but like, come on, man, look at him! Sykkuno’s avatar: 🌱 👁👄👁 Sykkuno irl: 🥰 - fangloriousbastard ahem anyways corpse & y/n collab when? - y/n 🔪❤️ - fangloriousbastard 👁👄👁 - fangloriousbastard aren’t you supposed to be streaming?? [tagged: #HEWWO??? #among us lb #why do i only remember they’re following me when i post outrageously stupid content #btw y/n if u kill sean again i’ll cry] [43 notes] [▶️🗩↪️❤️]

fyahproof-y/n ↪️ selkiey/n selkiey/n y/n’s explicit ‘i love him but not in a weird shippy way’ is the LOUDEST fandom vague i’ve ever heard in my life [286 notes] [▶️🗩↪️❤️]

crpshsbnd ↪️ 221b-theres-a-bee crpshsbnd hope corpse is feeling okay he’s been kinda quiet this stream - 221b-theres-a-bee if someone suggested i make music with a grammy award winning artist i might be kind of quiet too - crpshsbnd asjdskldfjkdsf u right, still, hope that’s the reason. [tagged: #how do i always forget they won a grammy #actually i know why i keep forgetting #because every time i remember they won a grammy i remember the video where they jousted corndogs with joe sugg #and the winner had to deepthroat theirs for the camera #and y/n won but felt like an asshole for making joe deepthroat his corndog alone #and they ended up almost throwing up because they went too far with it #so hot #so talented #so very stupid sometimes] [3 notes] [▶️🗩↪️🖤]

Twitter is kind of a hellscape, Corpse decides, scrolling through his notifications as the stream’s winding down, seeing about a thousand different people tagging both you and him, asking for a collab, or seeing fit to show you both every single time one of you had mentioned the other in stream. Or had simply interacted. He’s not quite sure how to feel about hearing you mutter ‘make it rain, leave her wet, like a snowflake’. Unsurprisingly, a considerable few people had thought to clip the interaction where he’d apparently instinctively known you were talking to him, which he thoroughly regrets. There’s enough speculation about him online already, he doesn’t need people cluing into the fact that he might not be entirely human as well.

So now, he’s sitting idle in the lobby of the game as everyone’s thanking each other, discussing when they might get together to stream again; he’s quiet, disconnected from it all even though he knows he’s still live, he can’t help but stare at his phone, frown at your Twitter profile. You’re not following each other. A lot of his friends follow you, are mutuals with you, but you and he are not following each other, and he’s not sure if he’d like to change that. But it would make sense, right? It’s what’s expected.

Your pinned tweet is the single you released yesterday, which he still hasn’t listened to. The cover is cute; you’re - fuck. He refreshes the page. In the few moments since he’d clicked on your profile and now, you’d tweeted, thanking everyone for joining the stream, while you’re still in his ear, alongside everyone else, distinctly not addressing him. Maybe he should DM you, be upfront, ask about what you are, if his suspicions are true.

He hits the back button and goes back to scrolling through his mentions.

“Hey.” Your voice, soft and earnest despite that warmth that crackles through him; he’s half distracted, hand moving instinctively to push-to-talk, and -

“Yeah?” God fucking damn it. Not again. He’s really gotta stop answering on instinct just because he knows you’re talking to him. He hates that he knows.

“Good to meet you, Corpse,” and there was a strange sincerity in your voice, and he responds in kind, but his heart’s not in it. There’s too much on his mind, too conflicted in his heart to tell the truth; his own words makes his ears ring. He can’t even lie to himself.

So he says his goodbyes, waits for the lobby to clear out and chatters away to his stream about when he might be on next. Upon ending the stream, he immediately opens the latest email from his producer, his latest project glaring back at him from the screen.

Yes, his various ailments have his body aching, but the interactions he’s had with you are giving him a headache when he thinks too hard about them, and he feels woefully unproductive. Never Satisfied stares back at him, so close to being finished, mocking him. Scowling harder, he listens to what he has so far, making tweaks and notes, glad for the distraction, glad that his producer had as chaotic of a sleep schedule as he did. This was the home stretch; one more all-nighter and it would finally be done.

He texts Heartful that he’s getting to work.

It’s four in the morning when he finally stops for a break, his good eye starting to itch from staring at a screen for so long. With a yawn, he leans forward, out of his chair, groaning as he straightens up to a mostly standing position. Hands braced against the edge of his desk, he lets out a resigned sigh and wills his wings into existence. The weight of them curled up tight against his back, as was customary for them to be when non-corporeal, has him leaning a little further forward. Another yawn and he lets them uncurl, lets them stretch out behind him, knocking over an empty microphone stand as they went. He’d get that later. A grateful groan escapes him, it’s been far too long since he’d even had a half-assed stretch like this, wings helping to stretch all the aching muscles in his back that were simply impossible to stretch otherwise, no matter how much he’d twist. Even so, his studio wasn’t big enough to properly stretch them, and he really didn’t feel like laying on his living room floor right now; he’s kind of concerned he’d just fall asleep there. Instead, he kicks his chair to the side and hits shuffle on one of his Spotify playlists, doing what he can for himself in the limited space, and finally going to forage through his cupboards for something resembling a meal. Maybe drink water, Rae’s damn voice in his head.

At least with his wings around he didn’t need to bother turning on any lights; he’s gotta find joy in the little things.

Today, or well, the past twenty-four hours, was a series of cruel jokes, he decides, all leading to the moment he curls up his wings and sits back down at his desk. The moment he puts his headphones back on, he’s greeted by your voice, and he almost jumps a foot in the air, concerned that you’d called him.

"- who I became, dreading when the music stops, what if I just fade away?” In the split second he’s realised that it was just a song, just your voice, crooning, gentle and sad against a soft beat and the sound of rain, as i’m going through some stuff playing in his ears, it’s too late. Already his aura had gone off, and his computer cuts out, as his monitor cuts to darkness, so suddenly all he can see is his own, exhausted reflection in the monitor, backlit by his own wings... Not exactly flattering.

Thankfully, it was only his computer that was affected, as he can still hear his refrigerator humming in the other room, so he wedges himself beneath his desk to reset the breaker for the power board that his whole system was connected to, grumbling to himself the whole time.

If he was being honest, however, he was glad he didn’t have to hear more than a few seconds of your song. For a long time it had been one of his favourites, though at this point he’d rather die than admit that. Yes, it’s a good song, but it’s the last thing he needs to hear right now. If he listened to you voice half the fears he still tried to ignore, well right now it may kill him, and he was so close to being finished with Never Satisfied. So close.

Instead, he gives himself the moment in which his system is rebooting to scroll through Twitter and Instagram on his phone, checking his mentions for good fanart to appreciate, only to stumble across one of your stan accounts tagging both you and him in a clip that he hadn’t seen earlier. He’s not sure what possesses him to click it.

“Don’t follow me baby, swear I’m going to hell,” Corpse’s own words leave your lips as you’re focused on the game, on being imposter, leading Sykkuno into electrical to fix lights, and something about it sounds wrong and he can’t quite put his finger on it. He’d heard other lines of his leave your mouth, clips from the stream he’d been tagged in, and it always manages to surprise him. When you sing his songs, even just a little bit, something in the back of his mind, something that had appreciated you as an artist all this time, it’s grateful, it’s excited, it’s overwhelmed. He wouldn’t deny that part of himself, he couldn’t, it didn’t feel right, but upon hearing this line, that grateful part was overshadowed by a visceral bitterness.

The line had been a moment of self deprecation, the only Angel he knew of who, granted it was by some of his own choices, was almost certainly going to Hell, if you believe in that sort of thing of course. But you? Every single part of you seemed to be the exact antithesis to him; you’re what an Angel should be, and him? Well, the line said it all really. It’s just... it feels like you’re mocking him at every turn now that he knows, or well, strongly suspects. With evidence. Which you’re probably not; if you’re an Angel, you wouldn’t go out of your way to mock another angel, so now he’s all in his head, frustrated at himself for being frustrated at you for just... liking his song?

He really should message you about earlier, clear things up, get out of his own mind and stop jumping to conclusions. Finding another angel was big, no matter his personal reservations, he should try and take this opportunity, right? Except that you hadn’t reached out to him either.

Damn it; he knows he needs to stop thinking about you and focus on his own shit. He turns off his phone and gently tosses it to the floor, out of sight out of mind.

Maybe he’ll feel better when he finishes his song, feel more productive, feel... complete for just a few moments. Maybe he’d stop comparing himself to you. Maybe.

[ID: Two tweets, one from @sp00kybihh, and one from @yourtwitter, followed by a retweet and reply conversation between @ashton5sos, @yourtwitter, and @y/nirwin.

@sp00kybihh: why did y/n’s smile every time corpse just knew they were talking to him without them having to say anythign make me feel things?? u no we love day 1 ride-or-die y/nkunno, but corpse & y/n just seem to get each other wtf 🥺🥺

@yourtwitter: australians are asleep post forbidden youngblood cover

(Thumbnail of Y/N sitting in front of the camera, dressed casually, visible from the chest up. There is a black microphone on a stand in front of them that they’re holding. Their mouth is open, as if halfway through singing, their eyes are closed, their background is a simple, white wall. Above Y/N, in black, VCR font, is the word ‘youngblood’. There is a large play button in blue and white in the middle of the thumbnail, to indicate that it is a link to a video.

Link: youngblood - 5 seconds of summer | y/n y/l/n cover i miss my boys. i miss people. thank you 5sos for being cool about me covering this <3</i> twitter: @yourtwitter 🔗youtube.com)

@ashton5sos retweeted the link and commented: Y/N you said it was gonna be low effort, this is killer! All it’s missing is some drums. Reminds me, I’m still sad we never got to record that thing we wrote in New York. | @yourtwitter: ASHTON IT IS 8AM I HAVE HAD NO SLEEP AND WAS NOT EXPECTING SUCH A QUICK RESPONSE I WOULD DIE FOR YOU | @yourtwitter: also lmfao i forgot about that ny thing that was good, from what i remember. do u still have that recording of us?? i may or may not have forgotten everything about that night apart from it being a blast #bringbacknewyork | @ashton5sos: Calum has it but also its 2am and he’s asleep, which you should also do. You know the boys are gonna love this... #bringbacknewyork | @y/nirwin: thank u both i have decided to pass away effective immediately #bringbacknewyork

End ID.]

#corpse #corpse husband #corpse husband imagine #corpse imagine #corpse x reader #corpse husband x reader #sykkuno #jacksepticeye #valkyrae #how the light gets in #shut ur pretty mouth #cyltlanp

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fmdkiana · 4 years ago

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*youtuber vc* WHATZ up famerz. i’ve got another SICK character for you to get to know! so SMASH that follow button! MAIM me with that like!

...anyway hi i’m demi, the famed hag, and this is my fourth child (following sung, andy, n jeonghwa) her name is kiana, also goes by ki and kiki, and if that nickname brings to mind anything But kiki’s delivery service u shall b Wrong. she’s fuse’s main dancer and lead vocalist, iconic qwen. here’s her pinterest, bio, public profile, private profile, timeline [wip for links], plots, & social media [wip for insta]. i’ll leave a condensed version under ze cut <3 you can reach me easiest at fmdjoosung or demi#6468 on discord if you’d like to chat abt this girlie!

okay first things first i’m gonna nip this in the bud. if ur like excuse? iu in fuse? ur coocoo for cocoa puffs for that one. u would be right! and i intend to prove to u that she Is fitting. example a-z demonstrates an at home kiki and a fuse ki. thank me later for all this pretty laydee content

background

may 28th, 1994 ya girl is a gemini

from seattle

born to a pediatric surgeon and a software engineer (who specializes in ai bc her mom is Cool) kiana developed a love for science... then tossed it away to be A Star

not immediately though

really it all stems from the desire to be unique in a positive way

with seattle’s large east asian population, she was lumped together with everyone else, and places where she stood out, kids made fun of her for

she felt like an outcast in every sense of the word, which is why when A Boy gave her the genuine time of day, she latched on

they quickly became bad for each other, codependent at its best

kiana’s lil ass rly thought they were romeo and juliet torn apart when her parents made them break up

she kept sneaking out to see him, and eventually it became troublesome enough that her parents decided to move the fam to korea

heartbroken and with the desire to feel desired, she auditioned for gold star

since she was young, she had dance classes, just as her mom did before giving it up for something more stable

dance isn’t what drove her as much as the feeling of a crowd being entertained by her

trained for 3 years, gold star had high hopes for her given her dance background + looks, hence her role in impulse’s a

a couple years after debut, the company manages to snag her an ost, and when that does well, they shove her onto as many osts as possible, but it manages to do basically nothing to help her or fuse’s fame, no matter the impact of the song itself, and they slow down on trying

that *big bad wolf vc* my dears, is what sets up her overall Thing, that no matter what she does, or how many people claim to love her, they don’t show up for her as a solo celebrity

it leaves her a little dejected, fearful, worried, but idol life isn’t something she minds doing anyway. part of her still wants to strive for more attention, and claw her way there, because she aches terribly to feel special and different, and to a degree, idol life will always give that to her

personality

the archetype of the kid in middle school who calls themselves L and only draws in anime style and comes to school in cosplay and naruto runs around and randomly speaks japanese........ yeah, that was kiana as a kid

and really, she’s only let the problematic parts of it go. she’s still a big fat weeb (& has lots of other fandom type interests too)

an internet kid, someone who never got a big following. draws fanart, has written fanfiction, engages on fan forums. stays at home unless she’s dragged out by friends

she’s a very Normal, Everyday type person in most ways, and that bugs her to no end

she’s someone who as a kid thought she had superpowers, like full on believed it, and to this day still thinks well maybe it’s just not kicked in yet

considers herself ~an empath~ because she naturally has very strong emotions, and seeing or “feeling” the emotions of others makes her feel that way too. that includes positive And negative emotions

she can and is wrong about what she “feels” from others, but the emotional effect on herself is still the same

and because that happens so much, kiana retreats into herself

she has a very small inner circle, and isn’t very interested in more than surface level relationships with most people because it’s exhausting to feel so much all of the time

that means usually, most people meeting her will meet someone who can be doin a little doodle, you’ll say hi, she’ll say hi back, then go right back to her doodle

she’s Nice and polite enough, but doesn’t take those first steps. some ppl might view her coldly bc of it

HOWEVA if someone were to bring up one of her ~special interests, she would come off like a completely different person

animated, kinda loud, won’t shut up. that’s more often the type of person her inner circle gets to see

she’s also a reversal of the hard shell soft inside trope, as a lot of her outward self and personality can seem soft, gentle, maybe even naive depending on someone’s view, but there is a core to her affection thats... dangerous

but i’ll leave that for the dms

and finally, here’s a phat list of personality traits that apply to kiana, depending on her relationships with who she’s talking to and how she’s feeling. yes some are complete opposites. see: gemini. if you wanna kno how to get a certain trait from her, i’ll be glad to explain

abnormal, apathetic, artistic, clingy, contradictory, dedicated, demure, disorganized, earnest, effeminate, emotional, empathetic, excitable, fanatical, guarded, hesitant, insecure, introverted, jealous, loyal, mercurial, modest, neat, needy, nervous, numb, obsessive, organized, overthinking, passionate, persevering, protective, quiet, romantic, scatterbrained, silly, stubborn, tactful, temperamental, vigilant, vivacious, volatile, wall flower, withdrawn

fun fax

claims her style inspiration is the 70s but really mixes in influences from ~the 40s to 80s

if she’s dressing herself, heavily prefers skirts and dresses over pants

doesn’t like being touched unless she’s really close with someone, then she likes a lot of it

plant mom. apartment basc a greenhouse

insists one day she will make her own jam but has yet to get around to it so she just has a bunch of jars in her apartment and uses them for plants and paper clip holders and the like

her fictional character romantic Type is the tsundere. is convinced fictional characters are the best dating partners

always wears glasses when at home, and a good amount of the time when not working in general

her mario kart main is link bc nostalgia and valuing a strong stat set that favors zoom zoom

the furthest she goes for environmental impact is always using a hydroflask

prefers having bangs and hair with a wave

always carries bandaids and bandages in her bag because she gets eczema patches when she’s stressed and it’s Embarrassing to her so she covers em up

#fmdintro #'condensed' i say #tbf this muse is well over a year old i just have a lot to say abt her #i luv her v much

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squarecarousel · 4 years ago

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Challenge 144: 10 Years, Looking Forward: A-Frame Studio Life Buckle up-- this is a long one! Wow, ten years. It’s hard to believe a whole decade has passed since Square Carousel began, and since I graduated college. In some ways, it feels like another lifetime, and in others, it feels vastly shorter than the decade before that, from ages 12 to 22. Time is fascinating that way. College was such an incredibly impactful time period, but just a measly 4 years-- I could have done college 2.5 more times back-to-back in the years since I graduated, but somehow those four, from 2007-2011 were monumental. It’s hard to believe I’ll be in a post-college world without Square Carousel, since the group has been a constant in my life these last ten years. I’m really proud that we made it this far and are able to choose to end the journey, rather than it fizzling out or dying from lack of interest. Sometimes it felt like that might happen, but other times it felt like we were blooming. There have been many ups and downs over the course of this journey. And damn, it was a lot of hard to work to keep running, but I am so grateful for the learning experience. I know so much more about leadership now than I ever would have before-- the delicate balance of having rules to keep the group running (deadlines, participation requirements, our dreaded “strike system”) and keeping up morale (knowing when to forgive slip-ups, keeping challenges sufficiently entertaining and well...challenging, making sure the group feels like it’s a community). Elizabeth and I were reluctant leaders, just naturally having to take those roles as other original members of the group left and were replaced by folks who needed guidance. We definitely didn’t seek it out, but we knew that if the group were to stay alive, we had to put some structure into the system. Pretty early on we made our rules and guidelines, extended the challenges to 3 weeks from just 2, and worked on our visual image online. Our awesome logo was made by former member Casey Crisenbery, and we switched from Wordpress to Tumblr, purchasing a URL, and Casey using special code for custom organization on the site. Sketch critiques were now a halfway point through our 3 weeks-long challenge, which helped a lot with the community aspect and engagement. We started doing interviews for each member, reaching out to other illustration groups, blogs and submission sites and had our work featured on a few of them. Some of us even got jobs from the connections made through Square Carousel! There was a bad stretch several years ago when I wasn’t sure we’d make it through, with toxic behavior and a few folks petitioning for removing deadlines and structure, making everything optional. One thing I can tell you with certainty after ten years of working with artists is that 95% of us require deadlines to do anything, and incentives/obligations for meeting those deadlines, or it just isn’t going to happen! Elizabeth and I, along with a few other solid members, were able to keep the structure we’d worked hard to create, but the toxic culture had already killed group morale and we lost a lot of members simultaneously. That was a sad and scary time for Square Carousel, but I didn’t want to go out on a sour note. So the small group of us picked the pieces back up again, did a little refocus on our goals as a collective and created an “Admin” so Elizabeth and I didn’t have to carry the entire burden alone. I am forever grateful to Sayada and Jordan for stepping up into these roles to help us get the train back on track. Sayada especially picked up a lot of responsibilities that a newer member shouldn’t have to worry about, and was a total rockstar for Square Carousel. I wish we’d had her with us for the whole ride. I’m so happy that we’ve had a few really great years with some really loyal and talented artists to round out the experience at Year Ten. There is nobody I’m more thankful for than my Good Cop, Elizabeth, though. She was so reliable, always able to provide balance in our leadership roles, and such a wonderful shoulder to cry on when things got too stressful. Elizabeth, thank you for this journey and for being my SC Wife all these years! It’s so funny because of all the original members, you were one of the only ones I hadn’t really known from SCAD classes, yet you’re the SCAD Illustration friend I have remained most connected to most consistently. Nothing bonds you quite like running an illustration collective does! It also cracks me up that in all these years, we hadn’t ever facetimed or talked on the phone until a few months ago--I didn’t even know your mannerisms or voice, but knew you so well anyway. My greatest internet friend! I love you dearly and it truly won’t feel right, the absence of our weekly SC conversations. Thank you for all of the memories! As just a member and artist, this group has helped me grow so much professionally. It was my client when I didn’t have clients. It was my motivation to paint when I didn’t feel creative. It was my source of portfolio-worthy work, but also my safe place to experiment and fail when I was trying something new. The girl who started as a Square Carousel member freshly graduated in 2011 was working part-time at Urban Outfitters, had basically no money, and no clue how to promote herself. The “studio” was a corner of the bedroom and nobody took her seriously. But a stubborn dedication and the security, purpose and structure of Square Carousel helped the slow change from that lost girl to a full-time freelancing woman. Now, in 2021, I have been doing freelance illustration fully for six years, through contract jobs, editorial, publishing, advertising, commission and local work, as well as selling prints and products online, in local shops and events. I am not making the big bucks, certainly, and I still have goals I’m working towards, but damn, if that isn’t a glow-up, I don’t know what is. Thank you for helping me achieve my impossible dream, Square Carousel, and always being a place with the right amount of advice, support and critique. Ten years, 34 artist interviews, 38 artists, and 144 challenges. I’m the only member to have completed every single one. 144 illustrations through the years. Some were game-changers for my style and my portfolio. Some were total stinkers and I hope you don’t go looking for them. But all were an important step in my career. So, in ten more years? I’ll be 42 years old, which is very weird because I have never imagined myself that old before... it’s hard to honestly say what that would look like, especially considering the world we are currently living in and how the last 4/5 years have proven that anything (awful) can happen. Jordan and I have a goal to move to Colorado in the next 4 or 5 years, and I’d love to have a little A-Frame in the mountains with a loft studio, shown in my illustration here. Texas has become extremely problematic, especially after the winter storm in February of this year, and will be impacted greatly by climate change, both environmentally and economically. Right now, Austin is still booming, but at some point the lack of foresight in this state’s government is going to screw over the residents and it will be one of the places from which climate refugees run. Is that tomorrow? No, obviously not. But I want to already be settled someplace more stable, having grown some roots, before other folks start to roll in. But, to be able to do that, I need to rely less on my local jobs and connections and be able to have an “anywhere career.” So right now I am focusing on expanding in that way, particularly with book cover illustration and design. I’ve been doing a lot of portfolio work and self-publishing jobs, and hope to get an agent that can shop my work to big-time publishers sometime in the next year or two. Let’s say I succeed at all of those things in five years-- we’re in our Colorado A-Frame, I’m illustrating book covers (and I’ve also convinced my parents to come with me, and maybe a couple friends!). The next five years after that? I don’t know... hopefully a lot of adventures. Hopefully a lot of cool jobs, but also a lot of work/life balance. Right now, I don’t want kids, so the A-Frame will be filled with cats. Maybe we’ll have an old camper van for regular road trips around the western National Parks. I’d love for my work to reflect those passions-- more jobs with outdoor brands, parks, organizations. More book covers for stuff I’d personally love to read and keep on my overflowing shelf. That’s the vague goal for me in ten years, but I don’t want to plan any further than that, because life just also needs to happen the way it’s going to happen. There are parts of my current life I planned for in 2011... and there are parts I never, ever would have guessed. I hope there’s some fun surprises in 2031, too. Thanks for the decade, Square Carousel. Joining illustration collectives will always be the first bit of advice I give fresh graduates. Caitlin

#challenge 144 #caitlin alexander #caitlin b alexander #goodbye square carousel #ten years

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britts-galaxy-brain · 5 years ago

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The Normalization of Toxicity

This will be my last post, and unless some miracle occurs within the greater Tumblr community, my last time on Tumblr in general. I’ve been thinking on giving some sort of final update for a while now just to get some things off my chest. This may be long and/or rambly. I will be linking some resources at the end of this post that have helped me tremendously over the past couple of years.

First off, I would like to express my utter disgust at what this website and by extension the fandom communities in general have devolved in to. I greatly underestimated just how out of control this beast had become. Before I got on Tumblr for the first time, I had heard the rumors but assumed they had been wildly exaggerated. How wrong I was, and yet I remained in denial during most of my time here, including when I was sharing information and speaking openly with people I should never have trusted. That is the only thing I feel I need to sincerely apologize to Lily for. Yes, what she has done and continues to do is reprehensible. Yes, everything I have shared about her is true and I have done my best to keep every bit of this sensitive information as accurate as possible. I absolutely should NOT have shared it with the people I did. All I succeeded in doing was feeding the beast, and contributing to the mental distortions and distresses that causes her to act the way she does in the first place. I did so with the best of intentions, albeit I was tainted with anger in such a way that I was denying at the time. I didn’t handle this well. I didn’t research the audience I was sharing this information with. That was a massive mistake which ended up producing the exact opposite results than what I hoped would happen (either Lily would see the pain she caused people and would be inspired to change for the better, or would be ousted from her position and be unable to hurt others).

I stupidly believed the people who claim to care about this sort of thing were being genuine. They aren’t. These self-described ‘hunters’, at their core, mainly care about fueling the drama they use as an escape from their real life. The worst of them use it as a means to cover up their own closet skeletons and stroke their own egos. In the short time I was regularly involved with all of this, I witnessed an increasing amount of instances that have left me completely dumbfounded. Open predators are defended by some, while the ones who claim to want “justice” do nothing that would actually bring any sort of justice. These people are quickly forgotten within the internet’s short attention span, and they are left to continue to do what they do. People bandwagon around them, reducing the impact these people leave and making it harder for their actual victims to be taken seriously. It’s difficult to know how much of the dishonesty is intentional, or a result of moderate to severe uncontrolled mental illness. In Lily’s case, most of the conversations surrounding her involve debating her political and entertainment opinions rather than things she’s done that actually warrant discussion, and even that has been handled incredibly poorly and has just fed into her self-defenses. I do not excuse myself from feeding into it as well.

On the topic of mental illness, I realized a hard truth during my hiatus. The things we use most as coping mechanisms are actually harming us. I quit social media entirely for a few months, and realized I really was addicted. I also realized the memes and self-deprecating jokes we think are cathartic and helpful are feeding into these negative feelings about ourselves. They reinforce the identities we’ve built around ourselves. “Being trash”, “depressed”, ect become a comfort zone because that is what becomes familiar. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not railing against social media in general, just how we’ve been using it. Think about the last time you scrolled your Facebook feed, or whatever you spend a lot of time scrolling on. You automatically relate to and maybe even laugh at self-deprecating images and jokes. “Hah, I’m so fucking depressed.” “Hah, I’m garbage.” “Hah, I have no friends.” “Hah, I want to kill myself.” Now think about when you see something positive. “Psh, that’s not me.” “I don’t deserve that.” “I’m actually ugly, but okay.” You push against anything positive because on a deep level, it scares you. It threatens the identity you’ve built around yourself, which is the thing that gives you a sense of grounding to the world around you and the role you play in it.

I was an absolute MESS when I first started challenging my own darkness. I hadn’t realized just how deep I had gone. I was horribly paranoid. Angry. Deeply depressed. My memory is still recovering from the several years of constant extreme stress I went through. I’m finally getting stable, which is genuinely the first time in my life I can say that. It felt fucking weird for a while, and it still does at times. It feels strange being comfortable in my own home. It feels uncertain but great that I’m at a point where I can afford my bills and still have some money left over. I’m finding interest in old and new hobbies. I have real goals for the future that I am actively working toward. I have a support system that cares about me enough to tell me the truth instead of enabling my bad habits and behaviors, and it took a long time for me to trust that they truly had my best intentions at heart.

It has been one of the most difficult things I’ve ever experienced. I had to break and completely reshape myself. It has taken daily maintenance, practice, research, ect and I have gotten lazy and fallen off the wagon multiple times, but I absolutely refuse to let myself go back to where I was. Never again. It has cost me quite a few people that I thought were friends, and most of my family. I’m still not quite where I want to be with myself, but I’m taking steps to get there and I feel like I’m making real progress.

I guess the point to this is to hopefully send out a message of hope to those of you who want to get out of the dark, and are ready to do so. There are ways to heal, and you deserve that, regardless of your past or what other people have said about you. It’s never too late and it’s okay to hurt and grieve during this process. It isn’t easy, it can take quite a while and a LOT of willpower, but it is doable.

I may check back at some point to see if anyone has any questions or would like advice, but I won’t be discussing Lily any longer, nor will I be resharing any information about her. It’s out there in multiple places if you really want to find it.

That’s all for now. I wish you all the best and hope this reaches someone. - Thought Bubble https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpuqYFKLkcEryEieomiAv3Q - Therapy in a Nutshell (licensed therapist specializing in anxiety, depression, attachment styles, and trauma-related mental illnesses. Uses neuroplasticity along with other therapeutic practices. This one has helped me the most.) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCybBViio_TH_uiFFDJuz5tg - Einzelganger (Philosophy channel with a focus on stoicism and individual existentialism.)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiRiQGCHGjDLT9FQXFW0I3A - Academy of Ideas (Philosophy channel with a focus on self-mastery.)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-tLyAaPbRZiYrOJxAGB7dQ - Pursuit of Wonder (Philosophy channel with a focus on existentialism in relation to the world as a whole.)

#toxic #philosophy #self-help #self esteem #fandom #mlp #mlp fim #thought bubble #update #peet post #lily orchard

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firstagent · 4 years ago

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Review: Digimon Adventure: (2020) Episode 16: The Jet-Black Shadow Invades Tokyo

In this episode, Taichi, Koshiro, and Mimi arrive back in the real world eager to return home, take a shower, and eat fancy cheeseburgers. Then they realize this is the Bad Place.

A character arriving home prematurely is always a weird experience. They’re suddenly thrown from the terror of Digital World fighting and having their lives on the line to the relative safety yet constant bustle of Tokyo. There’s that uncomfortable sense of familiarity after spending so long in the wilderness. There’s the inevitable realization that there’s still business to do away from home and they’ll have to leave their homes and family to return to battle. And that’s when it’s actually happening! Now take all of those emotions, then add in red flags that build to a world that is genuinely wrong, and you’ve got yourself a real trip.

This standard-fare disorientation is what makes everything work. If not for those, all of the warning signs could have been discovered sooner. They’re not used to the usual noise, so they don’t realize it’s too quiet. Taichi might know how long it should take for the train to surface. Mimi might remember which way is home without relying on faulty signs. Most of all, their relief and enthusiasm to actually be home makes them desperate for it to be true, even when evidence suggests otherwise. This creates this lovely buildup where everyone processes the weirdness that they’re supposed to experience, only to be thrown by the weirdness that they’re not.

As she often does, Mimi provides us with the most vibrant and satisfying reactions. She’s the fastest to accept reality, storming through all the logical hurdles and happy to return to the comforts of home. With some characters, that would come across as annoyingly naive, especially when Taichi and Koshiro are still piecing everything together. It is naive no doubt, but what helps us join in on Mimi’s enthusiasm is how much she wants to share her world with Palmon. It’s not just about getting home and showering and eating fancy cheeseburgers, it’s about introducing Palmon to her parents and treating her to the revelation that is avocado. They’re also subjected to the wonky signage dragging them around to the point of exhaustion and gets the team’s first glimpse at the world’s creepy customer service. Mimi’s always going to have bigger reactions to these than the boys.

At the same time, the boys offer a nice contrast in their reactions. Koshiro asks all the right questions, pointing out that they haven’t saved anything, haven’t found the Holy Digimon like they were told to, and finds it odd that the phones and internet are down when they were the only things that weren’t affected by the blackouts in reality. Mimi drowns out his suspicions, and Taichi doesn’t help, hesitantly entertaining the idea that this is real and going through the motions. He’s not exuberant about it the way Mimi is, but he’s still playing along and suggesting they go home, falling into the same traps.

Once the trap is sprung, you’d expect all the episode’s interest nuance to vanish. With everything exposed as illusion, you run the risk of a standard battle, an instant return to the Digital World, and ultimately no consequence. Taichi in fact uses this to his advantage, blowing a hole in the ceiling with no concern for the property damage. He’s the one who tells Mimi the world isn’t real, despite Koshiro probably figuring it out well before him. But Koshiro figures out something more important, which in a nice turn adds color to the fight: not only is Eyesmon stealing data from the real world and causing the blackout, he’s using this data to shield himself.

All of this matters, and it’s the most important thing this episode could offer. Otherwise it’s just eeriness for the sake of eeriness. It even marks the big reunion as Yamato, Sora, and Joe show up for reasons we hope will be touched on later. It’s the first time we get to see all six Ultimates in action, fighting off random artifacts from the real world that could have been just weird Digital World background objects in the original series. A combined attack finally blasts its way through in a massive, glorious shot. Even this doesn’t fix everything. They’re still in the fake reality. Koshiro gets live updates from the real world (which itself is odd) showing that everything’s still terrible and time is running out. Eyesmon is still alive and scurrying away as a new threat configures itself. You expect these sorts of episodes to deliver on both mood and impact. There are moments where those are in doubt, but in the end it delivers enough of both to be more than satisfied.

My Grade: A

Loose Data:

As unusual as the kids find their sudden re-entry in the real world, the show is good about showing how the Digimon react to Tokyo. It’s completely foreign to them and while they don’t have the opportunity to make mischief, their awe is nice to see.

While Koshiro is perfectly logical about his assessments of the situation, Mimi raises a very good counter-argument in suggesting that maybe Sora’s team did everything while they were messing around riding Kiwimon and stuff. Also love how Mimi refers to it as Sora’s team. Screw you, Yamato.

Love how Mimi chalks up her endless circle around Shibuya Station to construction complicating all the usual routes. That’s a mood.

The real world update is far more important and far better integrated this time around. Though we do have to wonder how Yuuko is so stable when Taichi’s been missing for almost three days in all of this. Even if it isn’t perceived as the ages spent in the Digital World, that’s still a long time for a child to be missing in this chaos. But go ahead, just leave him a note. Also: Miiko’s alive again!

Mimi could have had a serious wave of depression after realizing the world isn’t real. Instead she uses it as a moment of motivation, promising to treat Palmon to an avocado cheeseburger.

Love Joe confirming that damaging property is acceptable before charging in with an attack.

See reviews of every Digimon episode at Digimon: System Restore! Support the site by joining our Patreon!

#digimon #digimon adventure:#digimon adventure (2020)

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vaguely-concerned · 5 years ago

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Some Alec Ryder Meta

So since I couldn’t find the screenshots of Alec Ryder’s dying ‘thoughts’, I went and got them myself!* And I am uh way closer to crying than I thought I would be, Alec sort of surprised me here. Let’s go!

I was NOT prepared for his literal first thought to be of his children. And notice -- this is not his children being impressive or special or idk ordered/obedient. It’s them being happy and safe and playing and chaotic. I uh did not expect this, frankly.

I’m guessing this is where they used to live when the kids were small! (Would this be before or during their time on the Citadel? The timeline there is so hazy to me haha, I can never quite remember how that works)

Baby Scott on the swing ;______; I wonder if Alec is ‘there’ off screen in this scene, pushing him, since we start off with a shot looking over Scott’s shoulder like that

Can I just say how quietly charmed I am by the fact that in Alec’s memories Ellen isn’t captured when she was ~*young and beautiful*~ or whatever nonsense -- she’s a mature woman, the same age as himself. It feels like there is something sweet and telling in that, like they were partners/equals in his mind. (This also makes me very uncomfortable to think he didn’t ask her/didn’t get her consent at the last moment on her death bed to put her in stasis, after the twins left the room at least; he seems to have respected her so much, if he went against her wishes that’s... such a breach of everything she seems to have meant to him and really should have been addressed more because it would essentially be his big sin as a character. So I choose to believe for now that when the kids left he did one last ‘give it this one last shot and I promise that if I find nothing within a certain time I’ll let you go and grieve like a normal fucking person’ sales pitch, possibly with prepared Science to back him up because they were both kind of weird like that and I think that if anything could have worked that would. ‘But think of the scientific implications tho babe wouldn’t you want to be able to find out how worked?’ ‘...You’ve got me there’)

More confirmation that Ellen had probably come to terms with her death and Alec Really Hadn’t lol. (Ellen might have just been grateful she lost neither of her children to the eezo exposure, actually -- she would have understood intimately how phenomenally lucky they were that both the twins survived and were healthy to boot) If I were to hazard a guess I’d say that Alec probably was in pretty bad need of space therapy even before his wife got ill, she was just his emotional support and he was intelligent and driven enough to hide most of it until that stability came under threat

:( this is upsetting. It doesn’t come across as well without the movement but he’s bowing his head and putting his face in his hands. Either Ellen when she’s really sick or when she uh ‘died’

I’m fairly sure that’s Ellen’s eyes -- and crucially they’re opening again.

Mom and the twins :’) I think it’s pretty clear Alec did that thing some people (especially men) do where they sort of organize all their feelings through their partner -- “Your mother would have been proud of you, of both of you” JESUS CHRIST ALEC JUST TELL YOUR CHILDREN YOU’RE PROUD OF THEM LIKE YOU ACTUALLY MEANT TO SAY, THEY ALREADY KNOW THEIR MOM LOVED THEM FOR GOD’S SAKE YOU ARE THE UNCERTAIN ELEMENT HERE

ETA: actually this might also have something to do with how convinced he seems to be that the kids don’t need him -- that his love and attention and regard doesn’t matter or count, or would even be seen as an imposition (he consistently refers to himself pretty self-deprecatingly in connection to them, their ‘old man’ coming in and messing up their lives, like he considers his absence to probably be the best he can do for them? He certainly devalues his own impact massively, positive or negative). Meanwhile Ellen’s place in all their lives is a clear and uncontested positive so maybe that’s why he goes for her pride and her love like that. Again: who the fuck raised this weird dysfunctional man to be like this and how did he get away with it for so long haha

Alec and adult/at least teenaged twins! a) I suspect going to another galaxy with them to explore might honestly have been his idea of how bonding works, which... well and b) Sara is right behind him, leaning in like she’s listening and interested in what he’s saying and maybe even speaking too, and Scott looks to me like he’s sort of stranded on the side, looking in but not quite able to connect the same way. (This might be coloured by what I know about their respective relationships from the rest of the game, granted)

The same memory as before BUT interestingly --

the camera is turning around, like Alec is trying to get a look at his children’s faces and can’t :) this is fine and not at all illustrative of his entire deal *everything in my heart is on fire*

sOME observations:

- These flashes give you more emotional insight in him than all the unlockable memories put together, and you’ll literally never see most of them unless you’re a freak like me, painstakingly frame by framing your way through it. That... seems like a waste??

- Despite his numerous flaws and shortcomings as a parent and as a person, literally every single thought he has at the end is about his family -- and not only his wife, all of them. There’s no place for his work here at all. That doesn’t absolve him of anything, of course, but it makes me sad that he never found a better way to show it, or to emotionally connect with his children, which he seems to have a real wish to. (”Maybe six hundred years can change a man”) Bioware... Bioware sequel pls don’t leave it like this ;_________;

- He himself does not figure prominently in his memories, and when he does he is faceless and vague -- except for when he is completely alone with his grief and Ellen is gone. I think there is something to be said about the fact that he makes all these huge inspiring speeches about the unknown and exploration... and yet his actual motivation is so firmly rooted in this immense fear of the unknown and of himself, of not knowing who to be without his wife, of not knowing how to go on living, of being alone. I wonder to what degree he knows this himself. (From what I’ve read so far of Mass Effect Initiation he certainly isn’t as idealistic about the whole thing as even the game portrays him, where he’s show to be pretty clear-eyed about the Initiative already -- or maybe he sort of is an idealist, under the fear and the jaded exhaustion. Either he genuinely believes Andromeda will hold answers and that science can achieve the impossible or he’s just too scared to consider any other outcome. Oh Boy tm)

- Ellen’s illness is such a cataclysmic event for him that I really have to assume he was never that stable to begin with. And as we’ve seen: When a Ryder goes off the rails they do so in STYLE and drag thousands of people with them to an uncertain fate haha

- My personal headcanon is that Alec used to be a better dad before Ellen got ill and when the kids were still very young; when all they really needed was to be held and loved and made to feel safe, and then became more and more distant as his work with SAM progressed and the children’s emotional needs grew more complex and demanding. Sara remembers this part of their father better (or clings to it more desperately, depending on your point of view) and is also more like him in general, being driven, competitive and intensely intellectually engaged (no matter how you play her in-game, Sara is always presented as vastly more A Nerd than Scott is -- its own can of worms of course but it’s there in the text). Meanwhile Scott has reached a resigned sort of ‘It’s perfectly plausible my dad would not be able to pick me out from a crowd’ place about it and given up on expecting anything more a long time ago in self defense. I think they’ve both hit on different parts of the truth there lol

(Also Sara and Alec seem to have bonded over making fun of Scott a little bit and considering him the underachiever of the two and like Not Cool guys!!! :( )

- Anyway Alec Ryder is a very interesting and immensely flawed character and killing him off and never meaningfully engaging with him again seems like throwing away a golden opportunity. Sequel where ‘Ghost Riders’ takes on a new meaning when??? I just want the twins to be able to either yell at him or connect to him better, as appropriate to the feelings of the individual player (I totally get why people would want to give their Ryders a chance to straight up hate him)

I think where it really hurts for me is that he clearly has these feelings, the capacity for it. There’s a wealth of affection and... tenderness? reverence, nearly? in these memories. None of his outward hardass needs-everything-to-be-under-control persona. And yet he could find no way to express this or even really meaningfully stay with his own feelings and his children suffered for it. It’s just all so fucking sad

*Courtesy of DanaDuchy’s youtube channel, which is truly one of the marvels of the internet; please check it out if you have any interest at all in Bioware games or indeed RPGs/games in general, there’s SO much content and it’s all neatly organized! If like me you want to listen to all the banter of every game... this channel’s got you covered

#mass effect #mass effect andromeda #meta #alec ryder #is a real SOB but the more I learn about him the more grudging confused affection I have for him lol #this must be what it's like to be the ryder twins #today in the 'I know no one asked for this but my brain won't shut up about it' report lol

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surveys-at-your-service · 4 years ago

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Survey #325

tired of seeing me in the survey tag yet? lmao me too

Would you date someone who’s shorter than you? I have absolutely never understood why there would be any correlation between someone's height and whether or not you would date the person because of it. What, do you think the person has any control over that? So basically, yes, I would, without a second thought. Have you ever fallen in love on the Internet? "Fallen in love," no. I had to meet Sara first to see how we meshed in the same environment. Have you ever had a crush on your best friend’s sweetie? Yes, hence the Joel mess. Have you ever had a controlling boyfriend? No. Good luck getting me to date someone like that. Can guys be sluts? Who the fuck cares so long as the person is safe and open with their partner. Ever had a crush on your best girlfriend? Twice now, haha. Would you ever kiss someone who’s taken? No, I'm not that kind of person. Do you mind being the third wheel? I don't care, really, so long as my friend doesn't totally ignore me. I very much enjoy seeing people in love. Has a kiss ever made you weak in the knees? Yes. Have you ever been in a love triangle? No, and I absolutely would not if I was aware. You pick me or you leave me alone. Do you feel comfortable buying condoms? I've never had to, but I'd probably feel a hint of awkwardness. Have you ever run into your ex with his/her new partner? No, and the only case where that would be a problem would be with Jason. I know in my heart I would feel at least some hatred towards her. Have you ever felt guilty after doing something sexual? Yep, when I was first actually getting truly sexual and felt like I was betraying my "abstinence." Would you stay friends with your sweetie’s friends if you broke up? I'm still friends with Jacob, mine and Jason's former roommate and his then-close friend. So yeah. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? I hope more than words can explicate that I have a stable job that I love, my driver's license, and my own place with a long-term partner, since I think living alone would be very detrimental to me. I also hope I have much better control over my social anxiety. Oh, and can I PLEASE be fit again? What was the last thing you bought for less than a dollar? No idea. Who was the last person in your bed? My niece Aria was sitting on it with me. I miss Misty's kids. Do you have a nice phone? Not particularly, but it does the job. Is Marilyn Manson creepy or cool? I find him creepy in a cool way, haha. Well, at least aesthetically. With his recent sexual assault (or abuse? idr) allegations however, I don't know how I feel about him because I don't know the facts. I really should actually read up about it. Regardless, I love his music; he's one of my favorite musical artists. Do you like talking to strangers? Depends on my mood and the person. Do you have OCD? Yes. Are you clumsy or graceful? I'm clumsy as all getout. Have you ever ran into a door because you didn’t know it was closed? Haha, no. Have you ever woke up and didn’t know where you were? After my cyst removal surgery, I was confused for a moment or so. Do you own a Wii? Yep. Do you like to talk about yourself? Depends on with whom, the subject, and my mood. Has anyone ever called you conceited? No; I'm very much on the other end of the spectrum. Tattoos or piercings? I love both, but tats win. Have you ever had ants ruin your picnic? I’ve never had a picnic. At least that I remember. What’s the last gross movie/show/video you saw? Recently, I watched The Dark Den dissect his recently-deceased tarantula to figure out why she died. It was serious impaction, and it was disgusting. Would you rather live in a huuuge house or a little cozy one? A lil cozy one! Not TOO small, though. I'd feel claustrophobic. Have you ever blow dried something other then your hair? Maybe? What is your favorite piece of equipment at gyms? Treadmills. Do you have a tutor for anything? No. Does your sibling(s) have braces? My older sister did for a little while. Did you tell your last girlfriend/boyfriend that you love them? Yes. What was the last thing your parents got mad at you for? Apparently I somehow forgot to wipe crumbs off the kitchen counter. Have you ever had a bathing suit fall off of you while swimming? Not a suit, no, but when I wore bikinis and I jumped into the pool, it's happened before where my top would go up. I'd obviously fix it super quick. Do your pets have favorites? I'm absolutely Roman's favorite, but he loves Mom, too. I'm the only one who interacts with Venus. What’s the longest you’ve ever liked someone without telling them? A very long time. I had a big crush on Girt my freshman year, and some time after Jason, my crush for him came back, but he didn't ask me out until years later. Turns out we'd been friends just too long and the relationship felt too weird for me, so I broke up with him after I think... four months or so? We're still great friends. That's my bro. Did you prank anyone on April Fool’s Day? I never do anymore. I don't like pranks. What’s the sweetest thing a gf/bf can do to get you to forgive them? Changed behavior. Do you dislike when surveys ask to describe your underwear? Well, I'm almost always in my pajamas, sooo I generally don't even have any at that moment. Did you check to see how much fat/calories was in the last thing you ate? No. If the last person you kissed gave you roses, what would you do? Blush and thank her. Anything happened lately that you never expected to? "Never?" No. Are you the person you thought you’d be when you were younger? I'm a massive disappointment and embarrassment to that little girl. Are you a confrontational person, or the peacekeeper? I am absolutely a peacekeeper. I avoid confrontation like the plague. The last time you did something with BOTH of your parents was? They've been divorced since I was I think 17 and I am now 25, so... Do you like pumpkin pie? Absolutely not. Do you believe in any conspiracies? I am 100% sold on that the government had some involvement in 9/11. Look into the evidence - there is an overwhelming amount. There are others that I consider as possible, but no others do I absolutely believe. I'm around 50/50 on the simulation theory. Do you have a little sister? What’s her name? Yeah, Nicole. Have you ever changed yourself to impress someone? Who? Nah. Who was the last person you gave up on? Why did you give up on them? Colleen. We simply butted heads way too much, and she just had this volatile meanness towards others I couldn't watch anymore. What was the last thing you printed? Is there even ink in your printer? Probably a paper for when I was in school. I don't know if our printer does. Have you ever gotten your nails done? Or do you get them done regularly? Yeah, with Colleen and then another time with my sisters. It was really just to hang with them, though. It's not something I'm interested in. Have you been outside yet today? What were you doing? Nope. When was the last time you got a new bed? Is your bed comfy? Not since I was an older teen did I get Mom's bed, but it wasn't new. This was actually her parents' bed, too. Well I mean, the mattress obviously isn't that old, but the bed itself is pretty ancient. It's comfy enough. Do you remember the first time you ever drove a car? Who were you with? Yes: on the dead-end road that led to our old house. I was with Mom obviously and probably my sister, since I think I did it on the way home from school. Do any of your friends drink excess amounts of alcohol? Do you? Not to my knowledge. I definitely don't. Have you ever been in handcuffs? Why, exactly? Yes, because it's mandatory when being transported to a mental hospital. What’s your favorite thing to do when drunk? Would you do this sober? Never been drunk before. When was the last time you bled? What happened? Well it's my time of the month, so. Are you a fan of dogs? Do you have any pets? I love dogs, but don't currently have one as a pet. Mom's looking intently. How often do you bathe? I'm going to be completely transparent and say not as much as I should. Doing my hair is fine, but moving all around, bending and propping my legs up exhausts my legs so much that I avoid showers as long as I can take it or until I have to go somewhere. I want strength back in my body. So. Badly. Do you have any tattoos? What, where and why? I have six that I'm not all explaining, but locations: right upper arm, right inner wrist, left inner forearm, left upper arm, right collarbone, left breast. What do you wear to bed at home? Pajama pants and a tank top. What do you wear to bed when you're somewhere else? Pj pants, tank top, and usually a bra, depending on where I'm at and with who. Do you have any phobias? What? Why do you think you have this/them? I have a lot, but I'll discuss my strangest/strongest: pregnancy, maggots, parasites, and whale sharks. Pregnancy would be because a fetus is technically parasitic, and, to cover that topic, I'm just generally terrified of anything living in MY body. I also find it absolutely disgusting to see a baby move from the outside. I will actually scream if I see this, and that is not an exaggeration. I'm afraid of maggots (larva in general, really) because I think they're just disgusting, and I once brought something in from outside and put it in my dresser (idr why), and one day I opened it and reached in for something just to find lots of little larva squirming around. That's when it started. Now, whale sharks: it's literally because of World of Warcraft, hahaha. There's an underwater zone in the game where they roam as boss enemies, and their mouths look so weird and are actually a bit toothy. Irl, they just have mouths that are just way too big for my comfort. I know they're entirely harmless, but still. If you could ask God (to atheists - IF there was one) one question, what? "Why." Why so much evil, pain, and unfairness. Briefly describe your family. Kinda broken, but still loving and try to stay close. Big "ohana" mood: everyone's loyalty is endless. Where do you stand on the death penalty? For it in extreme cases. Where do you stand on wearing fur? Disgusting and horribly morbid unless for survival purposes in cold climates. Could you kill somebody? In self-defense, yes. What are your political beliefs (anarchy, communism, democracy etc.)? I just say I'm Independent. My beliefs stretch over so many titles; plus, I'm not very educated on all types and what they entail. What, if anything, WOULD you sacrifice your life for? To save those I love most. How would your ideal partner look? *shoves picture of Mark Fischbach in ur face* Would you ever have an affair? Nope. I'm telling you: pick me or leave me be. I'm not a side-chick. Would you ever have a one night stand? Also no. What one thing would you change in this world (free Tibet, abolish Sweden)? Honestly... probably abolish all militaries. I do not in the least support war, and it's just... sad to know countries stand ready to kill the moment they "need" to. Distrust seems to make the world go 'round. Sure, a country may try to rebuild them in secrecy, but that's a preeeetty big thing to succeed in keeping under wraps. "But what if a terrorist or something rises?" I'm quite sure we could handle that without an full-on army. Maybe I'm not well-informed on this topic, but I've just never supported military presence. I WANT TO MAKE IT CLEAR AS DAY, I have endless respect for veterans and aspiring soldiers, because I DO understand the mentality of wanting to protect your home, but yeah. I just wish it wasn't a thing. Would you ever choose a career or job where your life was at risk? Nope. Do you have any famous relatives? Ancestors, yes, and I have a distant cousin who wrote a fantastic book, if that counts. Are you a loyal member of any organizations? No. Desired weight: At MOST 140. :/ I'd like to be closer to 120, but I'll take 140. What are your opinions on marijuana legalization? Legalize it, but treat it similarly to alcohol, like prohibiting driving high, obviously. What do you think about tipping at restaurants? Tip a minimum, and THEN increase according to service quality. Are you addicted to anything? Soda. Would you ever get back together with any of your exes? Yes. Never mind what gender you ARE, what gender do you WANT to be? I'm a female and content with that. Do you ever feel ashamed revealing your age? Yes, considering how behind I am in just being an adult. What does your parents call you? Generally just "Britt." Mom occasionally still calls me "Twinkie." ;-; Has anyone ever threatened you with a knife? Wow, no. Do you ever watch The Simpsons? No. What’s the last thing to make you scream? Truly scream, a mix of depression and anger. I screamed into my pillow. Do you play games with boys/girls, like ‘hard to get’? I'm an adult. I'm a tease in some romantic situations, but "hard to get" is definitely the wrong term.

#survey #surveys #questions

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honeymoonjin · 6 years ago

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darlin’ - kim seokjin x reader

A/N: welcome to my favorite thing I’ve ever written. You are an actress that needs to learn how to ride a horse. Jin is the insanely hot cowboy that’s been tasked with teaching you. If this gets enough attention, I’ll be uploading the sequel (aka a pwp). 2.3k.

You sit gloomily on the rocking chair sitting on the front porch of the ranch. Less than a week ago you had been given the role of your lifetime; the leading lady in a period piece k-drama. Unfortunately for you, this job required horse-riding skills, something you very much lacked. You had begged for a stunt double, not wanting to go anywhere near those beasts, but there were too many scenes with actual dialogue that took place while the character was on a horse, and the budget had to be spent elsewhere.

So, here you were, waiting for the instructor to arrive and questioning if this was even worth it. Luckily it was warm enough to warrant your thin cotton leggings and workout tank, seeing as no one had really told you what to wear when coming here. The sun was high in the sky but there was enough cloud to ensure it wouldn’t be beating down on you. Beyond the ranch, there was an open expanse of fields and paddocks that slowly sloped up into hills at the horizon line. You reluctantly admitted it was a very beautiful place.

You hadn’t met the instructor yet; apparently, he wasn’t even a teacher, but he owned this place and was the only one qualified for miles. Shooting in the middle of nowhere did mean your options were limited.

“Ah, there you are, I’ve been lookin’ all over for you, missy.”

You start at the voice and look up to see a torso right in front of you. Incredibly worn and washed out jeans were cinched at his surprisingly delicate waist with a cut strip of leather, and a somewhat baggy white tank top was slightly tucked in, exposing his glorious arms and some of his collarbone. You had to admit that a life on a farm certainly looked good on him.

You glanced up, shielding your eyes slightly from the sun that was behind him, and just about choked on your own spit. With his hair lit up by the sun, glowing orange on the ends, and lips of an angel, he was possibly the most gorgeous man you’d ever seen, and that was including the actors you’d starred with before.

Belatedly, you remember he had spoken to you, and was now watching you drink up the view with an amused grin. “Oh, Jin, right? Uh, I thought if I got closer to the house, I might be able to get some Wi-Fi. Sorry.”

He chuckles, and your thighs clench together at the satiny sound. “Bless your heart. Darlin’, there’s no internet here. Old Marge down the road has her own cell tower or somethin’, but not me. Don’t need it.”

You gape at him. “What do you mean? What if, I don’t know, there was an emergency?”

He holds out a hand to help you stand, and you take it, marveling at the callouses on his palm and the effortless way he lifts you up out of the seat. “You don’t gotta worry a single hair on that pretty little head o’ yours, missy. I’ll take good care o’ you.”

You swallow hard at the double entendre, unsure if he even means it like that, and follow him down an uneven dirt path around the back of the ranch. Without letting go of your hand, which feels completely swallowed up by his, he leads you to a small stable beside a significantly larger barn.

“So, what animals do you have here?” you ask conversationally, looking to disperse the strange tension that had arisen.

“We got cows, we got some chickens, these horses o’ course. At some point you might meet Winston, he’s my farm dog. Keeps the livestock in line.” He comes to an abrupt stop, leaving you with a close-up view of the expanse of his back, just enough of his tanned shoulder blades visible to make you want to drool. “Now, darlin’, you ever ridden before?”

You shake your head. “I’m a little nervous, actually.”

He steps aside and swings an arm over your shoulders, pulling you in tight. “Don’t be, don’t be. The old girls‘ll love you, they’re absolute sweethearts.”

He kept his arm around you while he slid the lock across and let the wooden gate swing open. Slowly, two horses lumber out and look around curiously. You instinctively try to pull back, but the arm behind you prevents you from moving. “Shh, you’re okay,” he coos, rubbing the bare skin of your shoulder with the rough pad of his thumb. Jin reaches out with his other hand to let one of the horses, a tan one, nuzzle at his knuckles while the chesnut-brown one snuffles and stretches its legs. “They won’t hurt you. This here is Rosie, and the dark-haired beauty over there is Juliette. I took ‘em both out for a ride this morning, so they won’t be too energetic or bouncy, okay? Come on, I think Juliette wants to say hello.”

You jump in fright when a furry ridge is pressed against your arm, just below where Jin’s hand rests, and whirl your head around to see Juliette rubbing her long forehead against you. Jin continues to hush you and calm you down, and eventually you work up the courage to tentatively hover your hand in the air, fingers curled slightly inwards to present your knuckles.

Happily, Juliette pushes softly at your hand with her muzzle, until you get the idea and begin to run the flat of your hand up and down her forehead.

“You see, Juliette,” Jin calls out from beside you, “I told you she’d be sweet as a peach.”

You flush at the compliment and clear your throat. “Do we just get on them and go?”

“Darlin, they’re animals, not rollercoaster rides. They need to be comfortable with you just as you’re needin’ to be comfortable with them. Would you normally ride someone just after meetin’ ‘em? Come on, I’ll help you up.”

You bite your lip as Jin lifts his arm up off you, only to place both hands on your waist and gently push you forward until you’re standing at Juliette’s side, just beside the saddle.

“Now,” you suck in a breath when the hand on your right side slides down your thigh and cups the back of your knee, “you wanna lift this foot up and slip it into the stirrup facin’ forward. There you go. Next, you’re goin’ to hold on to the reins and grab some of Juliette’s mane, don’t worry, it won’t hurt her if you’re gentle, and lift yourself up and swing your leg over.” He takes his hands off of you and steps back, holding Juliette’s head steady.

You freeze and blink dumbly at him. Slowly, you reach up and grab the reigns, softly holding onto the thick hair of Juliette’s mane. He smiles at you, his eyes crinkling shut, and nods. Encouraged, you push off the ground and try to hoist yourself up, only to slip down again without enough momentum to get on. “I can’t do it,” you say, “I’m too short.”

“Nonsense,” he rebukes, “d’you think jockeys use a stepladder? You ain’t too short, you’re just too scared. Come on now, darlin’, one big jump is all you need.”

You take a steadying breath, squat slightly, and jump off, swinging your leg up. But again, your knee catches on the saddle instead of making it over, and you land heavily back on the ground, hopping around on one foot a bit to catch your balance. Juliette harrumphs and starts shifting back and forth impatiently. “Jin, I can’t do it.”

Jin lets go of Juliette’s head to come beside you again, reaching down to slip your right foot back out of the stirrup. You wince at the stretch in your hip muscle as you stand back on two feet. “Maybe you’re more of a beginner than I thought. That’s okay, I’ll tell you what; how’s about you and I ride the same horse together for now? I can handle the reigns and keep you steady and you can just get used to being on a horse?”

Reflexively, your eyes dip down to his crotch before returning to his face. “That sounds good, yeah. Let’s do that.”

He chuckles quietly to himself, wiping his hands on the front of his jeans. Wordlessly, you watch him unbuckle the saddle off Juliette and replace it with a longer one that has two sets of stirrups dangling from it. “Alright then, little lady, I’ll lift you up and get on right behind you, okay?” You step back up to Juliette and let him maneuver your hands to be gripping onto her mane, before he abruptly grabs your hips and lifts you up with an unprecedented strength. You squeak and jolt forward, pressing your chest against Juliette’s back to balance yourself as you lift your left leg over her and sit down on the saddle.

With your feet dangling, unable to locate the stirrups in your fright, and a death grip on the thick hair of Juliette’s mane, you feel your heart racing. “Jin,” you cry out, startled further when Juliette begins to shift beneath you.

You feel a weird tugging sensation on your right side, and then a pressure on your back. Two strong arms wrap around your middle, lifting you upright so your back is pressed against Jin’s solid chest. “Easy, easy,” he soothes, “you’re alright, I’ve got you.”

You let yourself calm down, going lax in his arms and tipping your head back so it rests on his shoulder. You feel his chest vibrate when he talks, and suddenly you become aware of just how much contact there is between you. “Fuck, that was freaky.”

“Language,” he scolds in a light tone, “don’t make me wash your mouth out with soap. There now, this isn’t so bad, is it? Should we go for a little wander?”

You sit upright and shake your head quickly. “I think I want to get off now.”

“Don’t be silly,” he retorts, “you’re doin’ just fine, missy. Come on, I’ll take it slow.”

Jin reaches down for the reigns and holds them taut but not tight, and he must have some secret command you don’t know about, because the horse begins to move forward slowly. Your heart jumps and one of your hands lets go of Juliette’s mane to latch onto his forearm, but he just shushes you and transfers one of the reigns to his other hand, holding his palm flat for you to grab a hold of. You place your hand in his and he interlocks your fingers, rotating his wrist slightly so that he can pick up the reign again with his thumb, pulling it in so that it is clasped between your joined hands. Jin turns his other palm up with the reign resting across it. His voice is low in your ear. “Your other one?”

More reluctantly this time, you let go of Juliette’s mane and hold Jin’s other hand. So focused on the feeling of his calloused palms against your much softer ones, you almost don’t realize Juliette has been picking up speed, the only indication being the way you begin to bounce a little in the saddle.

“That’s it,” Jin praises, “you’ve got the hang of it now, darlin’. Now, to make a horse speed up, you give her a little push with your heels, and to make her slow down, pull the reigns a little tighter. I want you to make her speed up a little bit, and then slow down again.”

You bite your lip and tentatively squeeze your feet inwards onto Juliette’s body. She immediately picks up speed and you gasp, letting her go at the quicker pace for a few moments before tugging the reigns back with the hands you have interlocked with Jin’s.

“Good, there you go, you’re a natural.” Jin shuffles a little, and you suck in a quiet breath when his new position leaves his crotch pressed right up to your ass. “We’re going to go faster now, I want you to try and push your pelvis down a little into the seat like I am, so that you don’t bounce around too much.”

Acquiescing, you shift your hips forward a little so that your core is flattened against the saddle. You shiver when you feel your clit press against the solid leather. This really wasn’t the time to be getting turned on, and so you cleared your throat. “Okay, let’s go.”

Jin squeezes your hands once. “There’s my brave girl. Hold on tight, now.”

You focus on doing just that as Juliette begins to gain some serious momentum, until eventually she’s just short of a full-blown gallop. Your stress-level is high and you’re trying to keep breathing, but every time Juliette lands, a jolt shoots up your core and Jin’s jeans rub against the tender skin of your ass underneath your leggings.

It takes you a while to realize with your senses already overwhelmed, but once Jin pulls your hands back to tighten the reigns and slow Juliette down, you can feel a hardness against you, and hear the sound of Jin’s heavy breathing in your ear.

You almost feel like panting yourself, knowing that by now your underwear is probably a mess. “Why are we stopping?” you ask with a shaky voice.

“Oh, darlin’,” Jin murmurs in your ear in a gravely tone, “you can feel what you do to me. Did you think a horse was the only thing you’d be riding today?”

#bts x reader #jin smut #jin fanfic #jin fic #seokjin x reader #bts au #ksj

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stereksecretsanta · 5 years ago

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Merry Christmas, @flynnifox!

The prompt by @flynnifox:

I really like soulmates, and please fluff as it's christmas, coffee shop au's are also great, I like wolf Derek, werewolves are known, all the AU's, did I say please fluff? I totally love slow burn, kissing, nipping, scentmarking, sassy Derek, sassy Stiles, Alpha Derek, having to share a bed, snow, ice-skating

Here's to hoping that I blended these elements together in a satisfying manner that captures the soulmates + scents + sass + fluffy adorableness. Most of that brought by Derek's red eartips (because he's embarrassed so frequently).

Read on AO3

*****

Chocolate and Notebooks

Stiles pulls his eyes from the road, taking a glance at the clock as the trees zip past in the dark and chilly evening. One glance at the clock confirms his suspicions.

"It's 5:43 in the morning and this is a very dumb time to be driving through unfamiliar territory." He tilts his head, as if considering an argument. "And yet, we're perfectly safe because the shields are up and the path is true." His head cocks to the other side. "And yet, we are definitely feeling sleepiness come on." He hopes the next town is near, and avoids the part of his mind that would happily confirm for him that he's getting closer to his destination.

Built-in GPS is a great tool for a spark, but it can take the mystery and adventure out of life if he indulges the spark too much. And despite what others might say, he's not entirely convinced that there isn't a limited amount of magic available to any one person or to all beings and he feels responsible for not flaunting his magic with every waking moment.

"Beacon Hills: Next two exits" reflects back at him in bright white text on a shiny green background. The name sounds like an omen. A good one he hopes, and a town with a good little history, he double-hopes. Can't be too careful when there are many town that are just full of weird and sometimes bad things. Hunters are less likely to come make a mess in a peaceful town than they are in one with a reputation for trouble. Beacon Hills is, as far as he dimly recalls, not a name that's appeared in association with anything terrible in the last many years. He and whatever supernaturals may be around should be fine, so long as nobody upsets the balance.

Which is exactly the problem: The spark that constitutes the magical expression of Stiles is actually very interested in mischief. Supremely interested in making some things very much tougher for Stiles, and he tries to remind himself it's also done a lot of good for him over the years. A nudge here to take this turn, and a thought of just stopping and waiting somewhere on the sidewalk for a minute can both lead to finding old friends and good times, or missing a falling chunk of the facade from some ancient brick building. He can't often tell ahead of time despite pleading with himself to make it work.

He's decided that Beacon Hills has to be a good place, with good WiFi and good coffee and all that stuff. Nature is also calling more insistently against his bladder and he really hopes there's someplace open this early with internet service and decent restrooms.

"If I find that nobody in this town is awake at this terrible hour, and that they haven't got decent WiFi, I'm going to write them a very bad review and hex their coffeemaker. There are standards for how these things should work and that last place was a disaster!"

Of the four diners in the last town, some eight hours ago down the highway that specifically avoids the big urban centers, he found no curly fries on any of the menus. They seemed completely unimpressed with the idea of tater tots and he considered hexing them in some way or other but ended up just snagging food from the hot case at a convenience store and busting a move out of town.

When the first exit for Beacon Hills comes up he passes without exiting. It seemed too wild, like it was a regional wildspace, or something. Maybe this was more of an industrial exit for logging and whatever else they do here. The next exit surely showed promise.

Quietly in the back of his mind, a tiny version of Leslie Nielsen's voice replied, "And don't call me Shirley."

Erica had been ready for several minutes. Derek's routine for how to open the store properly had been whittled down to just 12 minutes for the cleaning prep, six minutes to get all the food out and presentable, and another full minute just to go around and make sure everything was in order. Derek usually closed the shop up, but today claimed he was feeling restless and arrived before she had and was already bustling around.

"Derek, you pay me to worry about these things. Why are you even here?" She watched as Derek redid everything she had completed already so he could be sure it met his extremely specific standards that are in no way related to what actually makes customers happy. Well, he's the boss, so he can ask for what he wants, but she's going to do it the way she knows is best when he's back on his regular routine.

She hollers at him from the cafe's dining area while Derek is in the back organizing and cleaning things in the kitchen he'd definitely organized and cleaned the night before. "You should go run out in the preserve or something. You have too much energy to be in a confined space before 6 AM on this day or any day." Her supernaturally-enhanced hearing helped her catch every syllable in reply.

"I'm here because it's my place and I don't really need a reason to be here, now, do I? I can come whenever I like."

Erica smirked.

"Shut your pie-hole, Reyes, or I'm switching you to the lunch shift and giving your boyfriend the morning."

"He'll hate you for that."

"I'm the alpha. I can take it."

At Erica's snicker, Derek growls to himself. As the alpha, his hearing is even more enhanced, but he can also feel her perpetual sniggering through the pack bond. He tells himself he should be used to it by now but he just can't. Wolves aren't monsters, they need to behave in a respectable way.

"Are you lecturing me mentally on how wolves should behave respectably in polite society? I mean, I know these customers and though some of them are gems, some are definitely not polite and don't belong out in society."

"Erica," Derek says as he enters the room. "Keep it down. You don't want anyone to overhear you talking trash about others."

"It's three minutes to six and I'm going to open up."

"It's too early. We open at six. Don't mess with people's expectations."

"Anyone here this early is here because they have no expectations, just a demand for coffee, bossman. You really don't have anything to worry about."

Erica walks to the windows and turns the lights on in the displays. She admires the way the colorful borders around the windows twinkle in the early air. They cast bright splashes of light into the intersection, visible from any direction of the street. Derek does fine display work and has made a version of the town in a huge diorama lit with tiny LEDs in the windows of the shops and homes, and decorated with the tiniest versions of people Derek knows. Customers, family, random people who caught Derek's eye are all represented in some way in the display.

She thinks it's the softest, brightest, most wonderful thing Derek does and he pretends to everyone like it's no big deal. He's the most ridiculous rough-edged marshmallow-soft man she's ever met. When she told Boyd about it, he agreed with a knowing nod of his head before he returned to mixing beverages for the fine residents and visitors who came through the door.

The subtle change in the air alerted her to potential danger, and she spun around to catch Derek standing at the door, looking confused and surprised at the man standing there.

"Uhh, if you're not open, that's fine, but I really need to use a restroom. Can I come in anyway to take care of the call of nature? She's been really, really going hard these last few miles."

Erica's snort escapes unintended. The man at the door snaps to look at her and grins, holding a thumbs-up. He gives her a sort of look that says, "Is this guy broken?" and Erica replies with a look that yes, totally broken, and harmless.

"Hey, welcome to Beacon Hills! We're opening right now and the bathroom is right down there. Go for it."

The man exhales and seems to weaken for a moment before taking off at a fast walk between the chairs and to where Erica had pointed. "Close your mouth and the door, Derek. I hear the landlord hates when people waste energy heating the outside."

The door closes with a click at the same moment Derek's jaw slams shut. She watches him transform from bare surprise to guarded watcher in an instant. "Watch out. I didn't hear him at the door when I want to go put the mat out."

"You still have that in your hands, Derek." She looks at him as he seems to realize the truth. Derek opens the door and half throws it out, trusting it to land however it lands as Derek seems to listen to the back area.

"Are you listening to him pee?"

"No, I'm—" He flashes his eyes at her. There's a visceral reaction for any beta to the flashing of one's alpha's eyes, but Derek does it so often they've all become somewhat immune to the power of it all. Derek's mother warns him about overusing his strength when a simple word will do, and while Erica see's he's gotten better with her coaching of him, he's still got a long way to go before Talia's advice actually makes a solid difference for him. "I can't hear anything. Nothing at all."

"He's probably just shielded, Derek. There are a lot of good reasons for that, especially when traveling alone."

Derek is a good-hearted alpha, and he's young, but Beacon Hills has been stable for long enough that his parents leaving him in charge isn't a disaster. Talia and her husband are consulting for another pack in Idaho and Derek's putting his training to use at home. The pack in Idaho had lost their alpha and Emissary in an attack of some kind, and they some serious help getting back on track. The mission, as it were, will be for a couple of years, but they're not far away and so the territory isn't really at risk even if Derek has some trouble to deal with.

"I don't think he's a threat, Derek. He seems kind of fun.." Which Derek would have considered if he wasn't being totally weird about this guy.

"Anyone who can sneak up on us is a potential threat, Erica. I shouldn't have to remind you of that." Indeed, Erica flashed right back to the moment she and Boyd finally returned to the territory after having been abducted by a nutty grandpa hunter and his daughter.

"Yeah, but like you also said, we can't just go in being suspicious of everyone. What if he's one of the good ones? You're the guy in charge, so people need to know they can come to you. He's probably not even aware this is our territory."

"We can't know that."

"I can just ask him, dude." Derek looks at her with an expression of disgust. She's solid in her sense of this new guy and his not-at-all-threatening intentions. Whoever he may be, or whatever he may be, he's good people. And he's not a werewolf, so there's no direct threat there. Derek's had his heart broken and his trust trampled on extremely effectively, so he's far less willing to consider his instincts and defaults to threat mode whenever something both supernatural and unexpected comes around. She regards him for a moment.

"I think we'll be okay. I'll find out about him and you hang in the back and listen, okay?" She considers for a moment. "What do you think he likes to drink?"

"I have no idea," he mutters and heads to the back room. Derek's taking things down to DEFCON 3 from DEFCON 2, which seems like a mark in her favor. She's not his first beta, but she does seem to be able to get him to think about other stuff sometimes when other people can't. When anyone happens to notice she says it's her brilliant curls, but the blonde really does seem to get his concern in a way the rest of the pack don't. Except for Boyd, and he's too busy being silent to really help Derek so directly. She lets a smile fill her face and nods to herself. Derek is trusting them more. He's been training them hard, and it's working, and she sets herself to figuring out who the new guy is and what new guy is up to.

She forgets for a moment how weird he was when he opened the door.

Stiles throws his bag onto the bench in one of the high-backed booths with a good line of sight to both the counter and the entryway and heads to the counter.

"What can I get you?" Erica says in her warmest 6-am customer service voice.

"Well, I think I want a coffee, but I also need to sleep soon, so that's probably a bad idea. I mean, caffeine can put me to sleep if I have a little, but it's been a while since I've taken my medicine and my ADD is probably going to fight me for sleep if I don't indulge in some delicious beverage action."

Erica laughs. Stiles beams. "I'm here with the jokes, folks."

"Oh, yeah, I can tell that about you."

Too quietly for normal hearing she hears, "Ask him who he is!" in an urgent tone from the back. Erica rolls her eyes briefly, making sure the visitor doesn't see it. She growls subvocally.

"Welcome! Sorry you had such a weird first experience with my boss at the door. He's not normally a weirdo."

"Eh, I'm not worried. I'm plenty weird. But he is okay? I mean, he seemed kind of... surprised?" Somehow, in some manner she didn't interpret, she heard the meaning behind it. The boss seemed both surprised and actually afraid of something, and the new guy had picked up on it.

Erica beams. "Yeah, we get that all the time. Boss is a total weirdo." Derek growls in the back and sets something hard against the table.

Stiles glances in the back then makes eye contact with Erica. "Is he alright?" he mouths at her.

She shrugs her shoulders. She isn't about to explain the weirdness on display right now. Derek's never been like this before.

"I am not sure he slept at all last night. He normally works the closing shift. I'm here to open, but when he needs pre-dawn fun, I'm apparently the one he needs to hang around."

"Oh, really?" Stiles raises an eyebrow.

"Oh, no, not like that. I'm taken. Boyd's a really good guy and he's not into sharing."

Stiles had glanced again to the back room but that comment brings his full attention right back to her. "Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to flirt! I am just like this all the time."

Erica leans back. "Hear that, Derek? He's like this all the time." She adopts a theatrical pose for a moment. "Oh, gosh, I'm sorry, I've completely forgotten to introduce myself. I'm Erica, and that's Derek."

Stiles doesn't miss a beat. "I'm Stiles, and you're one of the betas, then? Is he the only alpha around? It seems a little..." Stiles seems to taste the air, sort of. Erica isn't sure how to describe the way he takes an open-mouthed whiff and kind of lets his eyes go blurry. "Oh, I see. Got it."

"What do you think you get, Stiles?" Erica says with a dash of suspicion. She'd heard Derek freeze in the kitchen, his heart racing now. She tries to be a cooler customer than her alpha and hopes that Stiles isn't offended. She's not really sure what a spark is, or what they do, but Derek's got an idea and it's shocked the hell out of him for whatever reason.

"Eeek, yeah, sorry! Sorry. I find I do this all the time, and usually on accident, if I haven't prepared ahead of time. I'm a Spark, and I'm really just here to find a quiet place to rest and drink something hot and warm. I'd like to write for a bit in the booth," he says, gesturing with a huge swing of his arm to the booth.

Erica nods at him. "I am pretty sure we can accommodate that request and we won't even have to do some paperwork for it," she makes a show of stage whispering, "Since my alpha is hiding in the back instead of greeting important guests like he's supposed to do."

This time the growl is clear to everyone. Erica smiles wickedly. "Alpha Hale, I believe you have some alpha-level responsibilities here with regard to our guest. Don't you think you should get out here and be polite?" She winks at Stiles, who returns the wink with a laugh he tries to stifle behind his fist.

Derek comes out and now Stiles looks at him without saying anything. He seems to close-off a bit, looking at the alpha in his black shirt and forest-green apron with the cafe's logo on it.

Erica notices the two of them and then grabs her phone from the counter and stepping out of the way.

"Stiles, you're welcome to be here. We have no restrictions against visitors," and by this Stiles heard between the words that the alpha meant. "of the supernatural variety." Stiles hadn't met an alpha so formal as this before. He mentally knocked his hand against his temple to try to recall proper protocols. He was not successful.

"Hello, Hale. I mean, alpha. Gah. This isn't going well. I don't do many formal introductions and I'm sorry to mess it all up. I hope you're not offended."

"No offense taken." Derek looks at the counter and then at Stiles. "Do you know what you'd like to have to drink this morning?"

"I hadn't decided that, though I imagine you already heard." Erica and Derek watch him as he catches himself glancing back. "And crap! I left my shields up without regard to any possible werewolf packs in the area. I'm sorry!" he said emphatically. "I would have taken them down in the parking lot if I'd have been thinking. It's been a long trip, and again, I—" he waves in the direction of the restrooms in the back and at that moment Erica and Derek both got a whiff of the spark without his protections. It took a moment to realize he was still talking.

"...distracted, on top of that, I've got ADD. You know how it goes? Wow, this probably explains why Alpha Hale had some trouble deciding what to do with me when I was at the door." Erica couldn't tell if Stiles noticed Derek was taking deep breaths, seemingly to scent him over and over again, which our staunch Alpha Hale never, ever does.

It was the, "You can call me Derek," said in a very warm and cozy tone that persuaded Erica to get the pack here. Whatever was going on needed witnesses, and she wanted to be sure someone else could verify this totally bizarre behavior by their alpha. Stiles didn't lie about being a spark, though if he were doing sexy mojo on the boss she doesn't know if she could tell. The scent of magic in the air happened only after he released the shield, and even hen he's been fading into the background. She snaps a picture of them with her phone and sent a broadcast message to the pack. Derek's phone vibrated, and he subconsciously pulled it out and put it on silent, no vibration, as he continued talking with Stiles.

Something is odd here, and Derek's doing things with his eyebrows that are perfectly adorable. Erica wants to find out what's going on, and she wants witnesses. While Derek and Stiles worked out the beverage order for a specialty hot chocolate, Stiles had also talked himself into a muffin and some veggie snacks. She's been providing summary notes to the pack and comes to a conclusion about this situation that she debates momentarily, then shares with the pack.

She's certain that Derek is deeply smitten by this newcomer.

By 6:45 the pack had all arrived, even those who had other jobs they were supposed to be getting ready for. Derek seems to have blithely missed the fact that the pack had arrived at the cafe and had been huddling together at one of the larger tables getting the play-by-play from Erica about whatever each had missed before they arrived.

Stiles had developed his senses such that he noticed Erica noticing them, and noticed that there were more wolves coming. Their energy wasn't hostile, but it was actively engaged. As he talked with Derek, he couldn't help but wonder why the alpha didn't seem to notice the rest of them. During a break in their chat about a particularly delightful staff he'd made friends with at a diner in Nevada, Stiles nodded to where the pack was sitting and waited for Derek to follow his gaze.

"Why is your pack here, Derek?"

"I don't know." He seemed surprised at not noticing. Derek looked at them and noticed that yes, everyone had arrived. He gave a glance at Scott who was loosely affiliated, being an alpha in his own right but mostly disinterested in claiming territory and building his pack.

"Don't you have work, Scott?"

"I'm sure Deaton won't mind that I came for the show at the cafe." Stiles laughed, and Derek looked at him, confused. "What show?"

Stiles isn't sure how to break this to him, so he tries to ease the wolf into the idea in a roundabout sort of way.

"Derek, what time is it?"

Derek glances at the clock above the exit. "It's almost seven. Why?"

"When did I arrive?"

"Just before we opened, I think." He scrunches his eyebrows. Stiles smiles, having already started learning the way the wolf's expressive eyebrows communicate thoughts he doesn't speak with his words. "Yeah, I opened the door and you were there."

"So you've been here talking with me for an hour and haven't noticed?"

Derek looks at Stiles, and the pack, and then moves to leave. Stiles gently sets his hand over Dereks' own hand, interrupting his sudden (and fearful?) escape.

He opens his backpack and pulls out a notebook. He then slides out of the booth and heads to the pack table, and pulls up chairs for him and Derek to join them. He sets the book down.

Wrapped around the book is a worn leather cover. It's got a few scratches and stains, and it is soft to the touch. Stiles loves this book, and as he holds it up for the pack and explains the leatherwork. Derek looks at the cover, surprised. Erica brings over a plate of cookies from the display and they show the same triple-spiral pattern, a triskelion, curled into itself in a familiar form.

Erica seats herself in the lap of one of the pack members. "Good morning, Boyd" Boyd nods to Stiles, unfazed by the recognition. Derek looks surprised that Stiles knows Boyd's name, and even more so that his packmate seems unbothered by the way Stiles already knows his name. Stiles says hello to each of the pack members. He gets to Scott and instead of "hello," Scott asks, "Why does your book have Derek's tattoo on it?"

Derek finds himself flushing and he's not half-sure why. The triskelion is a common symbol in supernatural circles. They've got it on their cookies, as the plate suggests. He grabs one of them and takes a bite. Stiles laughed at Scott and confesses that he sometimes blurts questions out, too. When Scott beams back at him, Derek sees how the two of them will become fast friends.

Then he tilts his head to the side. The pack takes notice, and then so does Stiles, who has turned to him with a sly smile.

"I hope you will allow me to share something with you all that I haven't shared with anyone, not even my dad." They nod, and then Stiles looks at Derek and raises an eyebrow.

"Go ahead, I guess. Not sure what you need our permission for."

Stiles grins at Erica, who knows something special is about to happen that will make all everyone's grumbling about being up early disappear in an instant.

"At three years old the little wolf, with his bare little feet and scruffy face and pointed ears, was poking around at the wild things in the area near his home. He couldn't control his shift yet, so sometimes he was half wolfy and half boy, and he barely noticed."

Stiles tilted the book at Derek who took a look at the image and said nothing, but his heart skipped a beat and his eyes opened wide.

"And the little wolf saw a lizard. The lizard told him that they could be friends, but that they needed to learn how, because one day, the little wolf might have to remind the lizard who his friends were."

Stiles didn't glance at Jackson, but a couple of the others did. Danny set his hand on Jackson's shoulder and squeezed gently.

"The little wolf did not understand the lizard. He asked the lizard how he would know him in the future. The lizard said they were family, but they didn't know that yet."

Scott's excitement overruled his better judgment again. "Jackson was a kanima and we found out that he was Derek's cousin!"

Stiles glanced at Derek and nodded. Derek avoided looking directly at anyone, but remained attentive in his listening. When Stiles continued, he looked at Jackson and smiled slightly. They had a rough go of things at first, but they've come a long way. Jackson really has worked on letting his fears go, the ones that fed the kanima and he's becoming a better man. Derek likes to think the experience has humbled him, too. After all, it isn't every day you discover that a dangerous were-creature was basically possessed by the darker side of his own fears and ended up doing some pretty awful things until they got it all worked out.

Jackson is reliable now, and Derek is one of the people he sends texts to when he is looking for advice. Derek considers it good progress that Jackson doesn't just ask about pack advice anymore, and instead about real-life stuff, like running a business and all that stuff.

Stiles has moved to a new story and Derek catches his name again. He inhales once more, and Stiles stops to scoot a little closer.

"Oh, sorry, this one is out of order. I'm not sure Derek will remember it." Derek sets his hand on Stiles' knee almost as an afterthought. It is as if being with Stiles is a thing that has already happened, and they've been together for decades. They haven't, but it's so easy to believe it, to trust Stiles, and to trust Stiles with his pack.

"When the little wolf had his first birthday, his asshole uncle creepy pants..." ("That's exactly who he is" slips Lydia under her breath, echoed by "yeahs" around the table.) "...gave little wolf a box. Little wolf was a boy at this time, almost never being wolfy at all. The box in front of him had a very interesting handle. Uncle creepypants showed little wolf boy that he could spin the handle around and around and listen to the music the box played. Little wolf boy was so excited! He squealed with delight and turned the handle in his tiny fist and laughed himself silly."

"But when the box clicked and the lid opened to reveal an ugly clown on a spring, the surprise of the moment caused little wolf boy to change, with little sharp teeth and little sharp claws and he knocked the little box over with his mightiest growl." Derek chuckled at this. The image was adorable even if he still has a thing about clowns."

("Derek's got a thing about clowns." Scott chimes in. "Perhaps we should not keep interrupting Stiles, Scott?" Lydia said with a glare. Scott was suitably threatened into silence and put his hand over his mouth as a reminder.)

"After little wolf hit the toy he ran to his father. The man was tall, friendly, and even for a human he was strong. This man was not a wolf like the little wolf was, but he seemed just as strong as everyone else to the little wolf and Derek felt himself scooped into his father's arms and held close as he cried about the toy. His father soothed him, promising to damage his uncle's personal things in retribution for such a prank. Little wolf was happy, and though he dreamed of bad clowns for a week, he also dreamed that he and his dad would fight them together."

The pack seemed to adore the stories, and Stiles kept reading. Derek would have preferred if the pack never heard some of these stories because many of them revealed parts of his life he'd forgotten about, or didn't want to talk about. Stiles was a good storyteller, though, and he found that as he wrapped his arm around the other man's shoulders, and felt the lean muscular strength there, and smelled the way the chocolate and spice and scent of orange blossoms filled his nostrils, and how there was almost a flavor to the frisson of electricity in the aura of the spark. He felt cozy, and watched as the pack listened raptly to this master storyteller at work.

"This one is set in the future. Not even today, but in the near future." The pack looked at each other. Stiles looked at Derek, sat-up so Derek couldn't read ahead, or see the drawings in the margins. He wanted them all to experience this together. After all, the future isn't set, but this particular event isn't one of great triumph or struggle, so it shouldn't impact much of anything one way or another.

"It's the kind of Christmas morning where the windows are foggy and the lights on the houses nearby are blobs of color on the glass. The snow is on the ground thick enough to muffle noise, but not so bad you can't walk through it. In the great house in the preserve the pack meets. The little wolf is now a big wolf, but not a bad wolf. He's got his own pack now, and they welcome family and friends from far away every Christmastime."

"In the kitchen big wolf makes hot chocolate using a secret recipe he's developed at his cafe and which delights everyone. He prepares a cup for his electric friend, and for his friend who knows the ghosts, and for his cousin and his betas, for his sisters and their partners. He brews a magical potion of love and chocolate for everyone and makes it only at this time of year, as a treat to himself for his birthday, and as a cherished present to those he loves." Stiles grabs a cookie and munches it and glances at his notes.

"Oh, dang. Sorry, everyone, but I need to skip the rest of this."

"What, is it PG-13? We can handle a little of that. You two are already cuddling up."

"No, it's not that. The future is not set, and these stories might be pretty close to reality, but they're not facts. I don't know if the newcomers — No, sorry, I just don't know what I should say, so I'm going to skip it. And don't go trying to get into it later, Erica, you literally cannot read it, on top of getting a nasty burn if you try to open the book without my permission." She grunts back at him something about Batman with all his tricks and traps. "We'll get to it when we come to it. Together."

Derek nudges him with his shoulder. "Oh? Have you already decided you're staying?"

"Well, yeah, duh. When people meet their soulmates they really shouldn't just keep going."

"What? You did?"

Erica takes a cookie and throws it at Derek. "You're an idiot!" Derek looks at her confused, and annoyed. Boyd gives him a look that says to Derek that he is, in no uncertain terms, "being so stupid right now I can barely stand how stupid you're being. Would you please figure this out right now so we don't have to hold your hand through this life-changing event? What the hell, dude?"

Derek looks at Stiles, looks at the pack, and Jackson says, "Yo, dude, just check your threads."

It's Jackson's way of referring to the bond the pack has, and how they're bonded together with something that mentally looks like an energy string tying them together, supernaturals and humans alike. It's also the thing that Jackson knows will have Derek realize the truth of the situation. Derek tends to have to feel things out for himself. He doesn't think his way so much as do and feel and goes with that. The pack bond is one of the alpha's most powerful tools for relating to the people he's responsible for, and Jackson knows it's the kind of thing that will quickly get Derek out of his stupid place.

So Derek does at Jackson suggests. The pack are held with bright yellow bonds, the links between betas and between betas to their alpha. There are links to his family in colors that are tinted mostly with greens. Even Danny and Scott, both of whom are loosely associated with the pack, still have bonds to the alpha which show as gold from Danny and red from the other alpha. But there's a new line now, one directly to Stiles, and from Stiles come lines to the rest of the pack. There's a sort of hum to the group, a frequency that sounds like a cat's purr, or the perfectly tuned note on a piano, or the breeze through the forest in spring.

And the smells are incredible. He can now tell each member by scent just by thinking about them. Stiles being part of the group enhances his abilities considerably. He has the scent of desert clay and expensive wine from Jackson. There's the mixed whiffs of poppy and rain from Erica and Boyd. There is a tickling scent of dust from Lydia that underrides the floral of begonias and sparking wine. Allison smells of metal and snickerdoodles, and Scott of cane sugar and browned butter.

"Why can I feel your dad, Stiles?"

"Oh, well, we're a package deal. I bet you that within two years he'll move here, become Sheriff, and everyone will know him. He's just that kind of guy."

"How do you know this?"

Stiles opens the back cover of the notebook and holds it up to Derek so that only he can see. He folds it quickly before the pack can lean over enough to catch a glimpse. "Does that answer it?"

"Yes and no. I mean..." Derek glances at the window. Erica watches, and Lydia gasps minutely before catching herself. She barks an order.

"Boys, why don't you go get those figures and bring them to the table?" Jackson and Scott rise without a thought, only belatedly realizing they came to attention at her order. She's got no direct power over them, but yet, she somehow really does. She's just that intimidating. When she and Jackson broke-off their relationship, they took some time to heal from it, and now it's genuinely a good, close friendship between them. But he still does her bidding without necessarily meaning to, at times, to his minor annoyance. Danny just laughs at the situation, having been Jackson's best friend for ages and aware that Jackson really just kind of likes to be told what to do sometimes.

Stiles sits upright as the figures are laid before them. Derek is red-faced again, up through the tips of his ears. It's easily one of his most endearing qualities that are entirely outside of his control. Stiles loves that about the man, that his embarrassment and pride show through even when he doesn't mean to. and he's adorable when he's struggling with it.

"Wait." Stiles holds one, and then taps the rest, seeming to sense something about each. "You made these figures? The whole pack?" Derek nods. "These are great! Look, you even gave Jackson a little lizard tail. So cute!" (Scott had brought the Jackson doll over and hadn't realized that feature had been added. "Asshole" is all he says before sitting back in his chair and watching his cousin squirm under Stile's scrutiny.

"They're wonderful, and I think you did a great job. You could sell work like this for some pretty big bucks online, Derek. But why are we looking at them?"

Derek rises from his chair and goes to the window display. There's a house there between some tall trees. He reaches to the back, opens the door, and looks at whatever it is outside of Stile's line of sight.

"Come on, big guy. You don't need to hide your toys. Bring it over!" Stiles says playfully, and the pack giggles. Derek's ears flush brighter red and he steps over to Stiles and holds up to him a tall, thin figure with wild hair, a backpack just like the one he's got (down to the star and moon diagram in the middle), and sets it in front of Stiles next to the figure that looks like Derek.

"When did you make this?"

"I've had dreams about you for a long time. I could never see your face, but I knew the hair, and the bag, and the flannel shirts and tight jeans. I knew you were coming, but it wasn't until a few minutes ago that I realized this was you."

Erica holds her hands out. Several pack members put fives and tens into it. "I told you they were soulmates, but you all didn't believe me. All Stiles had to say was that he needed to pee and Derek just couldn't control himself."

Stiles and Derek could not help but laugh at that. Lydia and Boyd both gave half-disgusted, half-amused looks at her. Danny and Jackson were just laughing their asses off and Jackson silently filed that quote away for use later.

On Christmas day, not a week after they'd all met Stiles for the first time, the alpha and his soulmate had organized the pack to put up decorations inside and outside the Hale family home, they'd been cooking food, with Stiles giving Derek a flavor suggestion that perfected the recipe Derek's been working on, and they gathered everyone together for a huge pack picture. Stiles' dad and Derek's parents were able to get to town in time to welcome the happy couple to their first major holiday together and celebrate the blending of their families and pack.

As it turns out, the cafe has excellent WiFi and Stiles never has to worry about his things disappearing when he has to make runs to the restroom between writing chapters of his children's books about the Little Wolf and the Boy in the Red Sweater.

#flynnifox #*stereksanta18 #*fics19 #*gifts19

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judas-had-a-crown · 5 years ago

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Sooo. Though 8th November is almost over where I am, it’s still ma birthday today. 24 years, folks. I’m old as heck. XD

For the first time, I think, I felt the urge to write more than simply throw in a gif of a birthday cake, scream HEY GUESS WHAT B*TCHES and leave it at that. I blame the wine I’m drinking right now. For anyone interested, I’ll put it under the cut. Have a lovely day or evening as well, either way :)

I might also feel this urge due to the fact that, in contrast to the blog I kept before this one, I actually plan to stay here a little while longer, since I’m content with the design – if you haven’t noticed yet, I might have grown to be a huge lover of site codes and color palettes to tinker with. I mostly have my fandoms and tags in order, unbound to any label I have yet escaped any huge discourse to wound my own character and pairing conceptions, and I even somewhat brought my writerblr blog to life as well. Should I actually get my butt up and post content on the regular there, it waits for me to take action which is kinda nice.

So, 24 years now. Hm. Since twelve is (one of) my favourite number(s), the double of it seems very pretty to look at, actually. Or, at least, 24 is prettier than 23 in my opinion.

I think to remember how 24 should be an age where people have figured out at least some basic guidelines and pathways in their life, or so I was once told. Who told it, I don’t remember, and maybe I wasn’t told, but I read it in some forgotten corner of the internet, as I do most things. Some small, fickle article or a single sentence. Let’s be honest, the brain is a silly bugger for that alone.

Well, I still don’t know what to do with my life, or myself, or if I as a person actually turned out worse this year than before as a whole. And that’s really okay. I got a whole life ahead of me. Wouldn’t it be boring to know already where I end up?

Then there are other questions to consider, their origin all the more obscure so I don’t even try to trace them back to their source.

Have I actually grown personally since my last birthday? You see, whenever I think my mind has settled for a constant personality trait, things happen and my sense of self, my thoughts and decisions are thrown back into opposite directions, scatter like pebbles on a beach. Often enough I’m neither resistant nor am I stable in my assumptions or reactions – I just do things and then I don’t and I couldn’t tell you why. So I don’t grow, I scatter. And that’s fine with me. The only constant, at times, is my love for certain passions, animals and, sometimes, people (big wow, in that regard. Yes, I’m trying to be funny here, let me).

Are there memorable memories to toast to? Well, I can’t say I remember much of this year in outrageous detail, but I still hold my glass up. There are times when I don’t recall February or August to have ever happened, then again I feel like more has happened in 2019 than it has the year before and the year before that. But even I know that is a pile of rubbish that my forgetful mind either makes up to annoy or protect me because every year has its events, its ups and downs, its wuthering heights and breakdowns. I do remember some events, sure, rather bad, rather good and rather mediocre. Things have happened that gave me shapes I didn’t know I could possess, and I still don’t know if these shapes suit me or if I have to saw them off before New Year’s Eve chimes in. We will see, I guess. We don’t exactly have the chance not to.

Have I made more friends than enemies? I strongly believe I have, in fact, done quite the contrary. But honestly? Some people really mean to be shit so I’m humble enough to announce that I wasn’t always the first to cast the first stone, but often the one that walked away. It isn’t wrong to choose self-protection over hypocrisy.

I then remember new people I met, and people I once knew, met again by intention or coincidence. And sometimes, these re-meetings were either fine for a while, but not bound to last, or like a wave that washes both your bodies ashore and you have nothing else to do than lie beside each other in the sand, talk, freeze and be content with the company.

The people I have now are good people, I think, few but good, with my understanding of being good also being corrupted by the fact that I’m deeply fond of them, and love, as the saying goes, not only turns blind, but also deaf for any criticism mentioned. I take it as such that I love them in my own way – one of many since we all know romantic love is not the only one of value. And that they, graciously, opt to tolerate me. Which, however, doesn’t exclude the undeniable truth that I can be and still am being a huge bitch at times and sometimes they are too and we have to deal with it on each side of the mirror. Well. Where would be the fun found otherwise?

Do I regret having cut people out my life? I’ve come to a point where I say no and mean it. I love the people I love and at times I still feel strongly for those I don’t or simply can’t anymore due to reasons that hurt me or made me feel unsafe. When I’m sad - especially, when I’m sad - I have no choice but to love either way, I guess, even if the subject of said love is a song, a book, an actor or a video game. Remember, hate drains the blood from your veins and the color off your flesh in the long run, so don’t get stuck on it like a habit. Don’t let it become your only confidant. It smiles merely to show teeth.

Am I meant to have reached a certain stage now? Be a complete person ? I still feel like a work in progress and slowly lose the belief that I’ll ever be finished. And maybe, frankly, I shouldn’t be. Completed works lack the opportunity of change and evolving measurements. It’s like you put a painting into a frame and hang it on your wall to stare it down for the rest of your life. I don’t want to be caught in a frame of any conception or rule. The thought of never being able to crawl out of it, to melt the colors while people stare at me, saying „This is her. This is all she’ll be. We have figured her out now.“ outright terrrifies me. So instead of awaiting someone else’s defintition with fright, I choose to live without definition – ever wavering between what I have been, what I could have been, what I masquerade as now and what I might become one day. A caterpillar of sorts – and a spiky one at that. For the aesthetic only, of course.

24, and I know nothing. 24, and I haven’t found a role to settle in yet. 24, and that’s quite alright. 24 still is an age where you’re allowed to be lost and free in your uncertainty.

Actually, you’re allowed this at any age. Happy birthday. For more to come.

#personal #birthday post #a Lotta blabber #very weird #oh well

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early-sxnsets · 6 years ago

Text

Don’t @ Me

Archive Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18215168/chapters/43092371

Chapter 1/10 of It’s A Handheld Disaster

Word Count: 3118

Fic Summary: Teenage life is hard enough, but with the added weight of their lives, both Simon and Baz thrive online in a fandom for the British crime show, Gastrell, about the genius Huxley and his "flatmate" Sam. Through Tumblr, they find each other, and sink into something more than just being mutuals.

Chapter Summary: A shitpost is taken a little too personally, and an argument breaks out. In true Baz fashion, he seeks to prove himself right in the most ridiculous way possible.

BAZ

Morning routines are the most menial shit in the realm of existence of arbitrary tasks.

Everyone seems to have them, yet nobody really has a set one. For example, my step-mum has a long, seemingly pointless hour of simply facial cleansers, serums, and hair products. When I’d asked her years ago why she does it all, she shook her head and said “You’ll never be an aging woman, Basilton.”

I couldn’t quite argue with that.

Regardless, it’s a part of life. The routines. Wake up, morning routine, morning activity, eat, afternoon activity, usually afternoon snack, evening activity, dinner, night-time activity, sleep.

A boring, underwhelming cycle of the day.

Although, I suppose it’s shittier for me, since the homeschooling doesn’t give me a chance to do much besides sit and read. Of course, I have my car and I can drive off to whatever. Hell, father even suggested I get a job to occupy myself, but I don’t quite see the point given how much money we have (and the risk factors with moving around so frequently).

So, here I am. Finishing my classes in a matter of months, then having an entire year of pointless bullshit.

Needless to say, my entire day’s routine isn’t the most thrilling. Wake up at 10 on a good day, check social media and emails, then just lay here until I can’t wait to piss. Piss. Go to eat breakfast and get greeted by screaming children and my poor step-mum trying to wrangle them in. Go upstairs, go back online, see whatever’s on my dash, reblog some shit, then try to do something vaguely productive. Check Archive, check email again. Nothing’s on the emails, ever. Text Dev and Niall, who get awfully pissed since they are in school. Get more food. Eat. Bring tea upstairs, despite the disdained look from our maid (who hates collecting my piles of mugs). Write for a couple hours. Take an afternoon nap, if I please. Wake up and sit there (again). Maybe lonely wank. Go back to the bathroom, stare at myself in the mirror for a good few minutes. Sit on the toilet for half an hour for no reason besides the fact that my phone seems more interesting while sitting there as compared to sitting in bed. Sit then on the bathroom floor doing the same thing. Go back to my bed, listen to music on my phone and work on my laptop. Write, maybe scroll. Get dinner brought to me as they tut that I should be more active. Eat. Go downstairs for an evening workout (they’re right, I shouldn’t confine myself to my bed). Come back, do exactly what I do for half the day until I pass out somewhere around 3 am. Repeat.

Dream life for an 17 year old. Social life of a god.

Somewhat.

It’s shit to say (and sort of embarrassing to share) that there’s sort of a social media presence around me. Not quite the Instagram model bullshit, but based around fan life.

Yes, it’s a laughing stock. That’s where my popularity lies--a mixed grab-bag of various ages gathering around various platforms to enthuse about certain topics. And I’m somehow lucky enough to have the slightest bit of popularity here.

As in, a large following. A large, somehow active following.

It isn’t exactly thrilling as one would like to think. Sure, it’s fun to see a scattered group of regulars pop up, and I have my mutuals, but it’s a sad existence to sit around and make various shitposts with nothing better to occupy my mind. Or, at least, that’s what Dev and Niall tell me.

All in all, I blame Fiona. She’s the one who got me into the show, saying she thought the character was a bit like me. After I saw it, I found the three connections she’d grasped at.

Gay, dark-haired, and violinist.

As if that’s a rarity.

Yet, surely enough, I did love it. The cinematography, the characters, the storyline. It was intriguing--captivating.

It doesn’t hurt that the online community was still on the smaller side when I first got there. The show was only a season in when I made my blog, and I’ve stuck through all this bullshit to get me here. One of the regulars. Reposted everywhere, uncredited usually. Big fics, large interactions. Shitposts with thousands upon thousands of notes. I’m recognizable; a suggested name.

Don’t get me wrong, the attention is spectacular. I love interacting with people beyond this depressing household, and they’re usually fairly nice (usually) (except those ravenous for an argument). It’s just awkward to share at times when people ask why your mobile’s got 99+ symbols next to the apps and you just shrug and say “I’m shit at checking it” to avoid the conversation because most people see it as childish.

It’s a shame, really. Especially since I feel emotionally attached to these goddamn fictional fuckers.

I suppose that’s what makes it all the more personal, then. Even the shitposts mean something to me.

Which is what makes this is a long, winded way of saying fuck whoever’s arguing with me about whether or not Huxley is a fucking Ravenclaw. (He is. Hands down.) How’d I get here, staring at my mobile in disbelief at a brief back and forth post turned fight? Because it feels like a reasonable question to wonder.

I got here because, as almost all mornings, I woke up, opened my phone, read my notifs, then sat here, thinking of something. Anything. Then, in a tired haze, typed out a single text post on tumblr.

huxley gastrell is a ravenclaw send tweet

Following so, I went about my typical morning. Of course. Then--then--I check my phone as I’m going downstairs and I see it. I see the “@bi-sammy mentioned you in a post!” notif, then read the God-forsaken reblog.

@gaystrell op do you take criticism on your posts?

I frowned at my phone, typing out a quick response before tucking it back into my pocket.

@bi-sammy no.

What I hadn’t anticipated, though, was the reply I’d open up to soon after I’d started poking at my morning meal.

@gaystrell well too bad bc ur WRONG and ur opinions are UGLY

#he’s clearly a slytherin this is slytherin oppression #don’t tell me he and bryonie aren’t from a slytherin family

Now I sit, staring and completely awestruck at such a post. Now, I won’t deny Bryonie Gastrell is definitely, in all possible ways, a Slytherin. Cunning and ambitious as fuck, as any political spy may be, but fuck anyone who tries to dismiss Huxley’s clear Ravenclaw leanings.

It takes me a moment to fully process, mouth robotically chewing my eggs as I contemplate my answer.

@bi-sammy there is absolutely no proof of huxley being a slytherin and more than enough support towards him being a ravenclaw. get your clueless negativity off my blog, you utter tit.

With that, I settle my phone face down onto my table and try to enjoy my lovely plate of scrambled eggs, barely ignoring the boiling of my blood.

SIMON

My phone lights up with the new notification, dragging my attention away from my laptop as the words slide down onto the screen. “@gaystrell mentioned you in a post!” I hate to admit that I get a little pattering in my heart, urging my hand out to grasp the mobile as I pause the Youtube video currently playing. As I read his words, I slowly blink out of my excitement.

Tit. He called me a bloody tit.

Of course this fucking wanker called me a tit.

He must think that since he’s this big bad blogger, he can call me a tit right out in the open. (Although, he is talking to me, so that’s a plus) (No! No no no, bad validation, Simon. Bad). What, with his thousands of followers and fans of his own, he thinks he can try to say shit out in the open?

Fuck it. He’s either getting a DM or a bloody fist fight from me. I’ll take a train to wherever the fuck he lives (which is somewhere in England, since that’s what his bio says) (and his aunt lives in London, since he’s posted about visiting her) (I really do wonder where he’s from and how close he might be--what if I run into him one day?) (No wait fuck I don’t want that anymore).

Clicking on his blog, the little person drop down gives me the option of a message. I barely think as I type it out, vision going spotty from the adrenaline of the twinging anger.

bi-sammy: i swear to god there was no point to the battle of hogwarts if you’re just going to go around and absolutely slander the slytherin name and dare say that huxley is not one of them and, rather, is a ravenclaw

At first, I grin at it, watching my lone message appear into the empty chat. It’s so freeing--so powerful to send it. I pride myself, in the moment, for this solid move of communication. Of course I’m fucking proud. I messaged the arse myself and gave him a space to fight.

Maybe Penny’s right, I should dial down the confrontation, but it’s just the internet. Nothing important happens through a stupid little argument over Huxley’s true Hogwarts house (although, I’m sure I know I’m right in my heart), but it is a bit of fun to fuck around with someone. It’s a distraction. And that’s why I’m here, afterall. To have a distraction.

Penny thinks it’s a bit silly, but she doesn’t really complain. All she’s ever said was “I thought we left fandom stuff behind us when we were 14.” She said it over lunch, watching me scroll through my at-the-time new tumblr.

It’s funny, I thought I did leave it behind when I was younger. It seemed unneeded as life shifted. I’d just found a stable foster home, with someone who was going to keep me for a while. I found Penny a couple months before I deactivated my old account. I was happy; we were free. I didn’t need a venting place.

Shits been sort of hitting the fan recently, though. No uni plans, David’s been getting more controlling, and of course, Agatha dumping me. It all crashed on top of me a few months ago, and somehow, the only place that I could find healthy coping was online. So, I started fresh. Made a blog and settled in. It’s not big, but I’ve had a few posts get noticed. I have a good few hundred followers, and one nice anon who asks me how I am every few weeks. It’s not a lot, but it’s comforting.

I feel at home here, even with a little discourse.

Well, only when the discourse is answered. Which, in this situation, I don’t know if it will be, given it’s been over an hour now and Baz hasn’t answered.

If that’s even his name.

It’s what his bio says, at least.

baz. 17. cisguy (he/him). gay. don’t interact if you think huxley is remotely straight.

I’ve wondered for a while what Baz stands for. He refuses to answer it in asks; he always says it’s too personal. He’s sort of odd like that--never posts pictures of anything that could be linked back. Seems sort of creepy, but then again, a lot of people follow him. It’s reasonable to want space.

Maybe that’s why he’s not answering. He probably wants space of some sort, but it’d be at least decent to answer someone who tried to have a discussion (that’s at least what I’m calling that message I sent--a discussion starter).

I frown at my phone, keeping it on silent as I slide it into my front pocket and settle into my seat in maths. I’ll say it--I sulk in class, a little bitter that I don’t have his attention (despite the fact that he seems like he’s always active online, which seems odd). Eventually, I exhale and try to let it slip away. There went my one interaction with him. My few seconds of the weirdest fucking bliss online, gone.

Then, it happens. As the class is ending, I pull out my screen just enough to see and there it is. A clear notification telling me he’d answered. Oddly enough, it’s just him sending me a link to a Google Doc.

Weird.

I ignore it for the moment being, letting myself ride the wave of relaxation that I actually got a reply. It passes my mind until I’m sitting in the back of Agatha’s car, listening to Penny and Aggie in the front talking about whatever’s on their mind. The rides are sort of awkward as of recently. At least Agatha agreed to drive me home (it’s a good 45 minute walk, if not) after some convincing from Penny, but her and I don’t really chat. It’s just the two of them.

Given that time, I have a chance to pull out my mobile and thumb through what was sent.

gaystrell: https://docs.google.com/document/d/175qFASmqD7hey8lE0eoE-6VhhFYE9DP6bpnI32Aay98/edit?usp=sharing

I click on it, not expecting that much (or, really, not expecting anything at all). Yet, the second it pops up and loads, my jaw drops.

“Jesus fuck,” I say aloud, scrolling through it. Penny turns her head, frowning as I stay locked on my screen.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“No--no nothing,” I say, waving a hand. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s got to be something for that reaction,” she says, keeping turned in her seat as she eyes me up. “Just tell us, Si.”

“I mean it when I say it’s nothing.” My voice gets quieter as I shift, reading the title. “It’s just fandom stuff. It’s really nothing.”

I hear her disgruntled huff as she turns back, mumbling something about me reacting too dramatically to this. “It isn’t even real.” It’s said under her breath, yet it still rings clear in my ears.

It isn’t really fake, either.

Hell, this is six pages of real. “Why Huxley Gastrell is, Without a Doubt, a Ravenclaw”. Shared by Basilton Pitch (is that his actual name?!). Fucking hell, it’s detailed to no ends. You’d think, with this much writing, there’d be pages of pointless filler where he’d just type “im gay hi huxley is also a gay we’re all gay here aren’t we”, but no. It’s full, grammatically correct sentences detailing his points.

It’s a bit much to read in the car, so I settle my mobile face down onto the seat as I’m left reeling. That… was a bit more than I’d expected.

Shit, did he write that for me?

This isn’t real. This can’t be real.

BAZ

Whoever says that having a flair for the dramatics is pointless has clearly never met me, because I wouldn’t quite call this masterpiece of an essay “pointless”. In fact, I should send it to academics. Rename it “A Study In Multi-Dimensional Characters and their Associated Generalized Personality Traits”. I’ll be hailed as a genius, as I deserve to be.

I crack my knuckles, and see the little person pop up.

Surely enough, it’s @bi-sammy’s name that he has listed online, Simon. It’s curious, he has his last name listed as “Snow”. Although, the smallest part of me believes it’s a pseudonym. Given our interactions, I doubt he’s clever enough to think of a solid pseudonym. And, even at that, why pick Snow?

Either way, it’s surprisingly endearing. Simon Snow. Sounds sweet. Sounds innocent.

I watch his cursor turn on, then his icon goes grey after a few moments. My heart starts to trip, making my cheeks begin to flush. Is… he ignoring this?

No. He can’t be. I put in hard work and dedication into this work, and I deserve the respect I’d sent into it. Fucking hell, three fully developed points (his devotion to intellectual work, his effort to step out of public light for Sam’s sake, and his overall lack of ambition for moving forward). I clearly set it out, and ended it properly; I’d proven that Huxley is a Ravenclaw. Case and point, opinion made, the end.

And, here I sit, watching him have the audacity to open it up then close it back. That was my hard work put in there, and he closes it? Who in the name of all that is sacred thinks he’s that above other people to the point where he just ignores--

Oh. He’s back on. Nevermind.

He’s… probably a school student. It’s roughly the time that most classes end, I suppose.

I make a mental apology to him, despite having never ranted directly to him in the first place.

He stays active for a good bit; long enough to show he’s reading. I assume that he’d just close off and message me, but after minutes, I notice a little highlighted comment pop up on the last sentence.

Simon Snow i………. owe you every single possible apology

Each word makes me grin like I haven’t in a while. A wide, cheek-creasing grin. There’s something so sweet to that--so personal. It feels like a note passed to me in a classroom under the tables. Like a cute “Blink if you like me”, although I doubt he has quite an intention.

Nevertheless, it warms my chest, sending my head back as I smile. I’m not sure whether or not it’s the satisfaction of winning, or his words, but I laugh outwardly into the room. It stays with me, reverberating onto my skin and my throat.

I look back at the comment, then leave it untouched. If he won’t remove it, then I won’t either.

With a glance at our personal messages tab, I figure that’s that. Even field, no more argument. No more interaction. It’s a bit of a shame, given the effort I’d just extorted for his sake, that he hasn’t answered in our chat.

While I’m disappointed to close off the document, I smile at it one last time. Sometimes I have to move on from random people, especially when they come on a bit strong.

Except, I find, moments later that I’m wrong about one thing--the moving on. He didn’t just stop his interaction, but instead made a public post.

“@bi-sammy mentioned you in a post!”

This time, I really laugh. A full bellied, hand-covering-mouth laugh.

i guess i have to suck @gayhuxell’s cock now because i was wrong and the bloody arse was right. huxley is a ravenclaw.

#fuck me i guess

I take a minute, rereading over his words a few times before typing a simple answer with my reblog.

i’m available anytime behind a mcdonald’s parking lot

#fanfiction #fanfic #carry on #fic #mine #it's a handheld disaster #snowbaz #simon snow #tyrannus basilton grimm-pitch #tyrannus basilton grimm pitch #baz pitch #simon #baz #hhehehehe #this is like the longest chapter just a heads up #it's a short fic it's under 20k

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migleefulmoments · 5 years ago

Note

I have mixed feelings about telling Darren’s team about Abby and the CCC. On the one hand, maybe they think it is better to ignore the tinhats. On the other hand, I worry that this group isn’t taken seriously enough. They have thoroughly convinced themselves that Mia is evil. I worry about them taking things too far. A kiss throws them into a downward spiral, what will happen when Mia eventually gets pregnant? They will completely lose it. They get less stable and more vicious by the day.

This is exactly where I am at. Darren does ignore the tinhats-ignoring trolls is PR 101 because you just can’t make everyone happy and trolls exist because people are mean and miserable and the internet makes it easy to bully. But they need to take this group seriously because they don’t understand boundaries and they have demonized Mia. I truly believe that Abby believes everything she says about Mia. She spits out her criticisms with the hatred that of a scorned lover.

Anonymous asked: Question cuz im a confused new bean, Why is there so much negativity surrounding Ds Wife??

New Bean:) I do not even know where to begin!! But in a quick summary, she is a lazy, entitled, narcissistic brat that treats D deplorably, has used extremely dirty methods to elevate herself to the position of playing the role of his wife, is mentally unstable, thinks because of her family’s money and who she associates with she is better than everyone else, and completely disrespects his fans. She is a terrible human nonnie.

Hey lacey lime-o-Rita…you actually look more pathetic by the second. You are the definition of loser:)

Never ever would I want my entire identity to be about someone else. And that’s if it was real.

Oh and I guess as the ass kissers aren’t around you remembered SC. And as SA’s guest, the festival will print whatever fake name they are told. But I give you credit for dropping Von!! You tried. You failed.

it is disturbing enough to think he could ever love someone like her, who belittles everyone around her including D, yet has no accomplishments that she has earned on her own, and no work ethic, not to mention she openly lives of life of excess and partying that she proudly displays to the world with nothing to balance it out, but if it were real, i would question his character further as he treats her terribly. If you watch the moments they don’t know they are being filmed, even sometimes when they do, he is constantly dismissing her and saying condescending things to her.

Her followers repeat her lies back with almost as much vengeance. Boom- my mind blows every time. Nonnies write asks repeating how much they hate Mia based entirely on Abby’s lies and it is all lies.

Abby of 4-years ago wasn’t as deranged and unhinged and the 2019 version. That is what scares me.

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surveys-at-your-service · 4 years ago

Text

Survey #278

“they will seduce you, get through the door; then they bite you in the neck, leave you bleeding on the floor.”

Do you believe in dream symbolism? If so, do you ever look up what certain things in your dreams may mean? Some, yes, others, no. A lot just seem way too random to have stories behind them, but just as well, some dreams are obviously stemmed from our experiences, fears, desires, etc. Who was the last person who exploded on you? What was the reason? I have no idea, but probably Mom. Is there a certain name that keeps popping up in your life, like a name that many people you know have? No. What is something you have a "love/hate relationship" with? What do you hate about it, and what do you love about it? The first thing that comes to mind is technology. I grew up way too dependent on in despite my mom being a good mother that really tried to limit my time of it. It just never worked. Almost everything I do involves a computer. Through the Internet though, I’ve made spectacular friends, discovered great things (coughcoughmark), it helps me through depression and stuff… but I nevertheless hate how attached I am to it. Sometimes I feel like I’m so disconnected from the “real” world, “real” experiences, but then again, I also believe tech is a part of the “real” world. Idk how to really explain it; I have such mixed feelings. Do you like things that are cliché or not? What kinds of things that are regarded as "cliché" do you like? Sure, especially romantic cliches. I’m just such a sucker for that kind of stuff. What was the last quote you read somewhere, and who said it? “Speak your mind even if your voice shakes,” Ruth Ginsburg. We truly lost a hero. Have you heard any song mash-ups (when they put two or more different songs together) that you like? If so, which? Oh, quite a lot, I love those! The first one that comes to mind is “Centuries” by Fall Out Boy and “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons. How many boyfriends/girlfriends have you had in 2014? Well, this is old. But anyway, I had one. How often do you say ‘lol’ in a computer or text conversation? Quite a bit. Idk, it just changes the tone of what you’re speaking. Whose hoodie did you wear last? My own. Have you ever listened to music you hated just to fit in? Ha ha… not devoutly, but I’d explore “cool” metal bands to try to get into. I didn’t make myself listen to them if I didn’t like ‘em, though. What’s an interesting fact about you that not many people know? Hm. Well, I don’t consider it “interesting,” but very few people (besides the Internet lmao) know that I essentially stole my then-best friend’s boyfriend by mutual flirting to the point he broke up with her and wanted me instead. I cut that shit the fuck out once he told me he loved me. It’s one of the things I’m most ashamed of. What do you want to do after high school? I’m long past high school, and let’s just say things are NOT going as planned lmao. At all. I had such, such a different vision. Do you do anything embarrassing when no one is home? No. If you had the chance to move to a completely different state/country, would you? I deadass want to move to Canada but am unwilling to move so far from my family. How old were you when you stopped believing in Santa? I don’t know age; it’s funny, I tend to remember things by school grades versus my age. Even in this situation, though, I’m not positive. Towards the end of elementary school, maybe? Do you have any saved texts? Yes, from Sara and Ashley. Do you ever play online games with your friends? Which one(s)? Once upon a time, my friend/”big brother” Sam and I would play WoW together every day and just chill out over Skype. He helped keep me company during my worst depression. We haven’t played together in quite a long time, though. I should message him. Which emoji did you use most recently? The upside-down smiley face on Facebook. Who was the last person to cry in your presence? Mom, probably. Or one of my nieces or nephew. Do any of your friends have small children? Yes. One of my closest friends had her son not even two weeks ago. Do you ever wear accessories in your hair? Which ones? No. What kind of fruit do you like? A good chunk of it. Strawberries, apples, grapes, pineapple, bananas, peaches… Is there anything you've always wanted to do that you've never told anyone? *shrugs* Maybe. Do you flush the toilet with your hand or your foot? ”I use my hand at home and in other people’s bathrooms, but I use my foot in public washrooms.” <<<< Same. What is your Myers-Briggs Type Indicator? (Ex: ENTP): INFP. Do you read any blogs? If so, which ones? No. Would you rather have curvy legs or skinny legs? I’d prefer to have an in-between. What is your favorite game show? Family Feud with Steve Harvey. How many times a day do you use the restroom? Hm. Depends on how much I drink. What was the last thing that made you cringe? Idr. What is your favorite ‘80s movie? I’m not sure, given how I don’t tend to recognize movies by decades. Do you have your own car? No. I don’t drive. Who was the last person who drew you a picture? I commissioned someone on deviantART to draw My Child Jaw and it is so FUCKING beautiful. Would you rather hold a scorpion or a snake? I love snakes, so guess. How do you usually get your exercise? I don’t, but that’s going to change when we FINALLY fuckin move. I’m going to walk as much as I possibly can because we have a sidewalk. Who are your godparents? Idk if I even have any. Are any of your siblings married? Three are and one is engaged. What does your phone case look like, if you have one? It came with a plain purple one. What is something you can draw really well? I think I’m pretty good at meerkats. Best field trip experience? The zoo in the 5th grade. One and only time I’ve seen meerkats irl. What is the most amount of money you’ve spent on a meal before? Idr. It’s very rare I can pay for anything because I don’t have an income, but with gifted money and stuff, it was probably when I paid for my mom and I to eat at Olive Garden. I don’t recall how much it was, but OG isn’t cheap, so. Who was (or is) the teacher that gave you the hardest time in school? Idk. I had good teachers. What is the strangest thing you’ve ever seen outside of your house? I don’t know. Nothing exciting. Do you ever feel self-conscious when you eat around other people? Not really, no. There are cases where I do, like if I take too big a bite or something, but generally I don’t. Everyone has to eat. What is the worst thunderstorm you’ve experienced? I recall one in particular during my era of being terrified of them when we were on the way home from a friend’s house and there was INSANE lightning. I was crying so much in the back seat. I think I have experienced worse ones, that’s just the one I remember because of how much it terrified me. How quickly can you write an essay? Pretty damn quickly once I get into the groove of it. Have you ever had problems falling asleep in class? No. What bug frightens you most? Oh yikes, idk. A lot of bugs scare me, honestly, particularly if they surprise me. Probably rhinoceros beetles. Are your parents supportive of you? Very. Have you ever participated in a mock trial, or a real trial? No. Have you ever had sex in someone else’s bed/bedroom? lol oops Have you ever had sex on your bedroom floor? How about your living room floor? YIKES this survey getting frisky but anyway idk. When you kiss someone, do you like to play with their hair? Yeah. Do you regret sleeping with anyone? No. Do you ever brush your hair before you go to bed? No…? Your hair is just gonna get messy while sleeping. Have you ever asked anyone out? Do you prefer to do the asking out, or wait to see if the other person will ask? Yes. I don’t really have a preference. Have your parents ever disapproved of anyone you had a relationship with? Not to my knowledge. When’s the last time you ran? HUNNY Brittany doesn’t RUN. Have you ever stayed online for a long time waiting for someone? Oh yes, I did that A LOT with Mini back when we were younger and RPed together like every day. Who or what sleeps with you? Roman, my cat. Would you wear a boy/girlfriend’s clothes? I somehow wound up with quite a few of Jason’s pj pants?????? But anyway yeah sure, I would. If it fit, anyway. Do you return your cart? I am a lazy person. But not that lazy. Do it. What noise do you hear? I’m currently listening to NateWantsToBattle’s cover of “Feel Good Inc.” Would you survive in prison? No. No. I know I’d try to commit suicide. Do you remember the last movie you saw while on a date? The IT remake with Girt. Have you ever cheated on someone? No sir. Do you kiss on the first date? I never have, but not saying I wouldn’t. BUT I most likely would not just because I reserve kisses for someone I really, really like. Usually by the first date I wouldn’t know that yet. Are you into sports? Nope. Have you ever used your bra to hold things like you would a pocket? HAHA I don’t think so. Who knows a secret about you that no one else does? My ex-therapist. What is your longest relationship to date? 3 ½ years. Who ended the last relationship you were in? It was brought up by her, but it came to be a mutual decision. Have you ever gotten back with an ex? No. Who was your first prom date? Jason. Have you ever dated someone more than three years older than you? For less than a day. Have you ever been used? I don’t think so. Do you like when I guy takes you by surprise and kisses you? This is making quite a few assumptions, but anyway, if we’re in a stable relationship, generally yes. It’s cute. Would you be more likely to date a redneck or a goth? My dream partner would be a goth, hnnnnnnnnGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. Has anyone ever sung to you? Yes. Do you like massages? EW don’t touch me like that unless you’re my s/o. Have you ever been skinny dipping? No. When was the last time you spent the night at someone else's house? The last time I was at Sara’s. What scares you more, spiders or snakes? Spiders. Does it matter if a guy has a sense of humor? If he’s a romantic interest, yeah. Would you ever get implants? No. Have you ever had a crush on a sibling's friend? No. Have you ever dated someone with a child? No. I’m quite sure I wouldn’t. Have you ever dated someone of another race? For less than a day. Have you kissed anyone today? No. What was the last topic you read about? I beliiieeeve… Metallica’s new album. Have you ever participated in a fundraising campaign? I think? Again, I don’t have an income though so I’m unsure. Do you know how to knit? No. What’s your go-to order from KFC? I don’t go there. What was the last album you listened to in full? Oh man, there’s no telling. I generally don’t do that. Do you use pepper to season your food? Sure, that’s a common enhancement. Do you know anyone who has an unusual pet? Probably somebody. Have you ever known anyone who was homeless? My mother, Nicole, and I technically were at one point, we just had spectacular people let us live with them until we got a new place. Did you have a treehouse when you were younger? No. One does not simply build a treehouse in pine trees. Have you ever played Magic: The Gathering? Guys. Guys. For many many months now I’ve been dying to and idk why. That game was one of Jason’s favorite things in the world and so he taught me it how to play, though I never fully got it because there are a LOT of rules. When I had my PS3, I had one of the Duels of the Planeswalkers games, and I miss that shit. What are your thoughts on role playing games? Fun fun. What is a band you can't stop listening to right now? I’ve been seriously into 3TEETH lately, as well as Solence. Have you ever had a panic attack? LOTS!!!!!!!! Have you ever entered a talent competition? Naw, I don’t have an exceptional talent. Are you indecisive? Ridiculously so. Are you smiling in your Facebook profile picture? It’s actually one of my brightest smiles I’ve ever taken a selfie with. I look way happier than I am lmaooo. Describe your hometown. What's it like there? Small, notoriously dangerous. Do you have any expensive hobbies? You could say photography given the various lenses and other materials available, plus editing software subscriptions. What is the oldest online account that you still use? My email, probably. What was the last video game you beat? I wanna say it was the last time I replayed Silent Hill 2. Long time ago. What's your favorite Studio Ghibli film? I actually haven’t seen any. Have you ever been really passionate about something but then lost interest? If so, what was it? Yeah, sure, like various entertainers/bands/musicians, TV shows…

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