#para: thea

[vanoincidence]

Z for Zinnia! || Van & Thea

TIMING: april 18. LOCATION: the common. PARTIES: @notstinky & @vanoincidence SUMMARY: van runs into thea after buying zinnias (and leaving her message on read), which most definitely are not for her! CONTENT WARNINGS: none!

It was easier to pretend that her whole life hadn’t exploded upon impact rather than to let the feelings and thoughts about it fester. She wasn’t sure if going out was a great idea considering the cabin had acted as a safe haven, but she was beginning to grow stir crazy, and she wasn’t sure how many more card games she could play with Snickers (and lose) before she’d totally go off the rails. So against her better judgment, Van left the cabin and made her way into town. A couple of days after the situation, she had gone to pick up her car from Regan’s apartment, but not before inspecting it carefully for any tracking devices. It didn’t seem like the banshees were technologically advanced enough for something like that, luckily enough. 

Work was still off the table, and surprisingly enough, Rocky was kind about it in regards to both herself and Jade. Van still felt guilty, and her money was burning a hole through her pocket, but what she went on to do today was worth it, wasn’t it? 

She stared down at the carriage of flowers, a myriad of colors to create a rainbow. The greens and yellows stared up at her with the promise that these were the right ones. After purchasing a small bouquet, Van weighed it out in her hand suddenly feeling silly. Thea had left because she needed to, and Van was going to apologize (for nothing– okay, maybe the ghosting) with flowers? To a friend? The idea that Thea was just a friend was fleeting, and the heat that rose to her cheeks as she noticed that Thea was there across from her in the common now with somebody… else? 

Oh god, this wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be happening, actually! Because this only happened in stupid movies where the girl always got the guy, but Van didn’t care about getting the guy, and there was no guy in this equation, there was just the star seeker Thea with her smile and round head, and– 

“Thea! Um, hi– I– my house blew up. I’m sorry I’ve been like, MIA.” That was smooth, totally smooth. 

She didn’t smell like marinara; it was more like wood, sweat, and something tangential to Dr. Kavanagh though less dead-body overall. Thea could pick Van out of an ocean of people—her scent had a way of pricking her. She’d lived with her long enough—just a few months, but it was enough—to know Van like her own asterism (she’d liken her to The Summer Triangle but maybe that was just her fondness for those stars). Van was more like a galaxy, anyway; too far away and too great and there was no way Thea would ever get the chance to look at all of it. Van had left her on read, which in this climate, meant that she totally hated her. So, she smelled her first, down the length of the common. Her body reacted by sweating and her legs felt numb and her throat dry and her friend (it was one of those one-sided friendships) did not want to turn around. They kept walking and the scent drew closer and closer until the Van-shape (not like the car) on the horizon was right in front of her. With flowers! 

“Are those zinnias?” Thea asked first, completely glossing over the thing with the house. Gardening was more her dad’s hobby, but she still recognized a few things. “Oh, sorry, this is…” Thea gestured to her side, to her friend. The woman with waves of fire-red hair and grass-green eyes was older than them both by several years. Pollenina, Polly to her friends and Thea, was exactly Van’s height and when she looked at her, she was unimpressed. Then her gaze fell to the bouquet and she scoffed. “Sorry,” Thea apologized for her, “Polly thinks cutting flowers is murdering them. Which it is! Technically.” Polly scoffed again and moved on, but Thea stood there, nervously picking at the threads on her sleeve. 

She should move on; that was the sort of thing a person did when their friend kept walking and the friend who didn’t like them much was there and she had flowers but they couldn’t have been for Thea, because Van didn’t like her enough to read her messages so she couldn’t have liked her enough to get flowers. The sweet floral notes of the green and yellow zinnias lifted into the air; Thea’s nose twitched. Did Van have some other friend? Some other friend that she called cute? Some other friend that she would be buying flowers for? Some other friend that watched her gamble on her phone for anime girls? Some other friend that she was playing Halo with even though she said she would play it with Thea but no, of course that was a lie. “Sorry, your house? That’s…” Terrible, obviously. Something similar happened to hers and that was terrible too, but Thea couldn’t stop herself from smiling. God, the blown up house was probably code for ‘and I was hanging out with my cool other friends who aren’t sad and don’t make weird metaphors’. Or maybe: ‘I was playing Halo with my new best friend who isn’t you and never would be you’. 

Thea sniffled, she didn’t feel good; it must have been allergies. “…great,” she said, “it’s great about your house. I mean, terrible. I mean, what are the flowers for?” 

It didn’t seem like Thea’s company was keen on sticking around, because after her gaze bore into the bouquet that she held, she was walking off, leaving behind the real reason that Van had left the cabin to begin with. “I guess.. I mean, it is, yeah.” She suddenly felt bad for buying the bouquet to begin with. Maybe she should’ve gotten Thea an actual plant. Then again, she wasn’t trying to impress Polly, and Polly didn’t matter. At all. Thea mattered here, and she thought that Thea liked flowers. Did she? Van hoped she did. 

Specifically, Van hoped that Thea liked the flowers she got her. Did Polly get her other things? Things that weren’t dead, or reminded her of the way that people just took and took? Van didn’t want to take things from the world for Thea, but she’d capture the stars for her in an instant if asked. It wasn’t possible, she knew, and so she would need to get the glow in the dark stars, maybe the pink ones, or green. 

“Um.. yeah, it was…” Now was probably not the time to tell Thea that there were banshees after them, or maybe it was. Maybe secrets weren’t good anymore, and maybe she was cruel for wanting to keep this one from Thea considering the banshee in Regan’s apartment had mentioned Thea, too. But Thea was safe now that she was no longer staying with Van, right? There was a disconnect there, and Van hoped that it would keep Thea safe. “Out of nowhere, I guess.” That wasn’t necessarily a lie. Van hadn’t anticipated that her house would be blown up, either thanks to the monster she dragged from the depths of the earth, or the banshees’ screams. 

Van’s brows furrowed as Thea seemingly stumbled over her words. “Great…?” Maybe it was great. Maybe Thea knew that deep down, Van had wanted to get rid of that house for as long as her grandmother had left back to New York. Maybe Thea could tell that every time Van spoke about her house, there was a thick layer of contempt in her voice. Maybe Thea could see things that Van couldn’t. Then again, maybe Thea had just said the wrong thing. 

“The… flowers?” She looked down at the green and yellow bouquet, realizing it suddenly felt heavier than before. Like it might exhaust every muscle in her hand to keep it upright. Would Thea even want them now that she was out with somebody else? Van shrugged, “I… just thought they were nice, you know? Um, got myself flowers because my house got blown up and stuff. A consolation… or whatever.” That would make sense, right? She could skate by on that lie, because obviously Thea didn’t want her stupid flowers. She was here with the pretty redhead and Van was here alone buying flowers for… well, the girl with stars in her eyes. “Do you um… want to smell them?” 

Relief sparked through Thea; the flowers were just for Van. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. Clearly, a lot of things were wrong with her, but in this particular instance, she didn’t know what was wrong with her. Van was a friend, Van should be allowed to have other friends. Shouldn’t she have been happy that Van had other friends? Instead, she was happy in some strange, giggly way, like she’d just had one glass of wine, but emotion felt distinctly artificial. It had to be; Thea was rarely happy at all. But she had been—the place her mind went now when it chased the emotion were the innocuous moments with Van: the anime girls, the half-asleep conversations, the ease she felt in following Van’s wild trains of thought just as Van followed hers. “Right. The house. I heard a house got…” Thea choked on her words; the flowers were oddly pungent. She cleared her throat. “I heard about something like that. I was worried but I didn’t think…I thought if it was something like that…” Van would have told her. Was it her fault for not checking in first? Thea made it all the way to Sly Slice before the marinara overwhelmed her and the only thing she could really do was try to accept the fact that Van wasn’t all that interested in her. 

“Smell them?” Thea pushed up on her toes, trying to look over Van. Polly was gone, so far down The Common that Thea knew she’d never catch up. She frowned; Polly was her ride. Was she just going to walk back to Winter’s? Thea sighed. “Sorry, the flowers?” She finally turned her attention back on to them. “They are really pretty.” But she didn’t need to lean in to smell them. Her gaze darted between Van and the flowers and a fist curled in her stomach, punching up her throat; she swallowed uselessly over the lump. She pulled her hat from her head and held it tightly. Her hair was growing in nicely though she thought she looked like a fuzzy peach. Habitually, she tucked away a strand of hair that didn’t exist and leaned in. The flowers were awfully close to Van’s face, she thought—soft, pink features, full moon eyes and ocean wave lips. She was awfully close to Van’s face. Thea closed her eyes and took in a nose-full of green and yellow zinnias. 

Up close, Thea realized the zinnias themselves smelt like nothing much, instead, the smell was overwhelmingly of cut grass; the floral notes she’d picked up seemed to come from around the flowers: the paper they were wrapped in and clinging to Van’s clothes. How long had Van spent looking at flowers? If they were just for her, would she have cared so much? Those flowers had smelled so strong just a moment ago when her attention was on Van. Did it matter? She was so happy Van was here! And that Van was okay! Even if she was a liar who totally had a new, cute friend that she was going to see. Thea pulled her head out of the flowers, opening her eyes slowly. “These aren’t actually for you, are they?” she asked, her voice hard as the lump crushed into her throat. Then, as though she hadn’t been so serious seconds ago, she broke into a wide smile. “You were staying with someone else while your house was blown up, right? Are these for them? That’s so…” Thea swallowed, perking up. “…great! Who were you with when your house blew up? It’s so wonderful that you’re getting them flowers! The sun’s so nice today. It would be such a beautiful day to walk with someone cute! Like, oh, I don’t know…a new friend.” Was Van going to meet them? Van was totally going to meet them. Who was it? Did Thea know them? Why didn’t Van tell her that she’d been replaced? 

Was Thea disappointed that she hadn’t told her what happened? Van had a lot going on, between the almost getting murdered and the fact that her childhood home had blown up while she and Jade rode the motorcycle away like some kind of low budget spy flick. However, was that any excuse to leave her (totally cute) friend on read? She wasn’t sure. Van had read Thea’s last message over and over again, committing the fact that Thea never wanted to be called anything but Thea to memory— though, the reasoning made Van’s stomach churn. She wanted Thea to be Cynthia again if she wanted, but knew it was harder to accept the fact that things had changed if she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. Van wanted Thea to love Maine because Van loved Maine, and Van wanted Thea to love the things she loved, in her own way. It was selfish, for sure, and maybe love was too strong a word, but as she looked at Thea standing in front of her, all Van could feel was relief that she hadn’t been in the apartment that night; that Thea hadn’t been in any kind of danger, as it didn’t seem like the twins had tried to seek her out after the fact. 

“I was going to tell you, but then… the news article released.” In Van’s defense, she hadn’t told anyone before the article released. Well, besides those in Ireland. She felt like they needed to know, because obviously this was all connected, especially if the twins had named Regan specifically. But Thea didn’t need to know all of that— she could be kept out of harm’s way if Van didn’t breathe a word of it, right? Still, it felt wrong to keep it from her. Thea deserved to know the truth just as Nora or Wynne did. Cass was an outlier here, too focused on keeping her at arm’s length; something that Van still hadn’t forgiven her for. Maybe that was selfish, too. Maybe Van was just incredibly selfish, but as she looked at Thea, she wanted to grow out of that. She wanted to share these things with her. 

“Smell them,” Van echoed, pushing the flowers forward. They could’ve been prettier, Van thought. She could’ve gotten something better, but now that Thea had caught her in the act (while on somebody’s arm who, in Van’s opinion seemed totally jealous in the way she sauntered away), it felt like these were the right kinds of flowers to get. Van waited for Thea to move in, and when she did, she realized that it was like, really close. She could see the light dusting of freckles that ran themselves over Thea’s nose— could see the depth to her irises. Had her eyes always been so pretty? Van was pretty sure they always had looked like that, but this close it felt different. She nearly said something about them— nearly told Thea that she had beautiful eyes, but she was closing them and Van was left to stare at her (totally cute) friend as she smelled the flowers that were totally not for her. Van wanted them to be, though. She wanted to find the courage to tell Thea that these had been purchased because she felt bad, and because she wanted to give Thea something nice because it’d been fairly obvious she was stressed about things, right? That was what was going on? 

Van waited a moment, mouth forming the words, but they were taken from her the moment Thea’s eyes snapped open and her accusations poured between them. “What?” Had Thea pinpointed that they’d been for her? Was Thea about to make fun of her for not being honest? 

No, that wasn’t what was happening. Thea thought they were for somebody else. For… Jade? Right, Thea didn’t know that it’d been Jade who she’d been with. “Um— at Regan’s apartment,  and then we went to my house.” 

Thea was acting weird, and Van wasn’t sure why. She’d never seen her like this. She seemed insistent that Van was spending her time elsewhere, when in reality, all Van wanted to do was spend her time with the girl ahead of her. “What? No! I was with Jade, and she’s like, pretty much my sister at this point, but I’m not sure if that’s true because I’m an only child so I don’t even know what having a sister feels like, but I think that’s what it feels like, being friends with Jade.” The words came out in a slur as she pulled the flowers back. She wanted so badly to close some distance, to take Thea’s hand and put the bouquet into them, to insist that these were for her, because they were. Van wanted to be honest— wanted to be true to herself and her feelings she wasn’t sure she was allowed to have. Because what if what happened to Diana happened to Thea? What if Van wasn’t strong enough to endure another heartbreak and it all fell apart because she couldn’t control the magic? 

“They were for you,” Van snapped, after a moment, overwhelmed by the feeling that she was being misinterpreted. “I got them for you. I felt bad for like, leaving you on read, but there were things happening, and I wanted to get you something nice, but you’re here with—“ She looked in the direction Polly had taken off in, but Van couldn’t even see her anymore. “They were for you.” She tightened her grip around the paper, the sound of it crinkling and snapping the delicate stems making her feel even more guilty about what was transpiring. “They are for you.” Heat rose to the back of her neck as she looked away from Thea. “My house blew up, and all I wanted to do was get you flowers. How stupid does that make me?” 

It all came back to Jade. Thea knew there was something fishy about her. Jade (the gem) was beautiful and Jade (the person) was also kinda pretty but deep inside there clearly lurked an ugliness. The kind of ugliness that would usurp Thea’s spot as Van’s…friend. Her very normal friend. Jade, the friend usurper, was close enough with Van to be a sister. And where did that leave Thea? As not a sister—which did fill her with peculiar relief, she didn’t want to be Van’s sister. Sisters couldn’t…hold hands! Which was exactly what Thea had been thinking about and absolutely nothing else, nevermind her rather intense gaze localized exclusively on Van’s lips; she was a mouth reader! But despite the assurance that she could still…hold Van’s hand…she couldn’t excuse Jade completely. Thea never considered herself to be a possessive person, she liked when things were hers as much as the next anxiety-ridden human being, but she had never felt a longing desire to be the only thing that mattered to someone. Not like she did now. If only she could be sure that Van’s eyes were for her only, in a normal platonic way. She wanted Van to see her, beyond her skin and bones and inside to her spinning black hole heart—but, like, in the normal way that regular friends would look into each other’s souls. Somehow, this was all Jade’s fault; maybe it was because Jade had hair and she was bald. 

Her thoughts were tangled like the overlapping braids of a cable. For as long as Thea had any awareness of herself, her mind had always been that way: one thing knotted into the next, tied to something else, bent at all the wrong angles, shot into space and gaining a mass big enough to have its own gravitational spin. If she’d been someone else, she might have asked herself what she was so jealous of. If she had ever learned how to untie one thread from the next, she would’ve realized that Van and her were talking around the same thing. Unfortunately, she was only Thea, the girl who had been a coward for much of her life and couldn’t change now. She’d told Van that she wanted to be done with pretending things were normal and okay and done with inventing new realities to soothe herself, but she wasn’t. Quietly, in the darkest place of her skull, she knew she’d never be done with that. It was always easier to run away. It was always easier to pull a new thread instead of detangling the one she had. This one said that all she was feeling were completely normal and rational platonic feelings for her cute friend Van and Thea held it tight and knew that anything else would terrify her. She was happy pretending like no other thoughts existed. 

And so, it was like that that Jade really did seem like some gargantuan threat to their friendship, as if Van couldn’t have more than one friend. Despite Thea’s smile, her eye twitched. She’d have to eat Jade for this. She needed the friendship competition to be as thin as possible because she didn’t offer much. And then Van said they were for her; Thea almost missed it. With the blood rushing to her face and her heart pounding in her ears, she almost missed it. “What?” Thea’s shoulders slackened; the fog that had settled over her yarn-ball thoughts cleared out like a blown out candle. “What?” Asking again didn’t clear anything up. She blinked rapidly. Her breath turned heavy. She was happy in that way that made her sick to her stomach, in that way she felt when she watched Van get excited when her gambling on anime girls paid off (paid off in the sense that she finally got the anime girl she wanted, not that Van was actually getting any value back). Or when she smelled marinara coming from under the door and knew Van would be walking through any minute now. It was the kind of happiness she didn’t know what to do with; the running in circles, rolling in the grass kind. 

“I..” Thea trailed off. “Not..” She swallowed. “Not stupid at all.” And she’d been the one being so weird that Van couldn’t even look at her. And she’d been the one so worried about Jade usurping her slot on Van’s friendship roster that she hadn’t bothered to comfort her friend at all after the loss of her house. Which she knew, more than anyone else, really fucking sucked. “Hey.” Thea slipped her hat back on her head and moved her hands over Van’s, trying to relax her tight grip. “Thank you. Really, thank you. You’re so…” Sweet? Nice? Kind? Cool? Amazing? Cute? Pretty? “So…much…a good friend.” She wasn’t even sure that made grammatical sense. Thea moved closer, closing her eyes and she leaned in and pressed her lips to Van’s temple, in what she was sure was a very platonic gesture, despite how she lingered. When she finally pulled back, she grinned brilliantly again. “I can’t believe you didn’t get purple flowers, for anime-girl-Grimace.”

It seemed like Thea’s mind was working against something, and suddenly Van wished she’d been born with mind reading abilities. Then again, she would then have to hear all of the terrible things people definitely thought of her, and how would that make living life? Not well, really. So after a moment about fantasizing about being able to figure out exactly what Thea was thinking, Van was glad that she couldn’t. What if Thea thought she was stupid for getting her the flowers? The mind panned to the redhead and her long, flowing hair. Van was almost positive that if Thea had hair, she’d want Polly’s and not hers. Van didn’t really want to give up her hair, but she’d definitely be offended if Thea took Polly’s hair over hers. 

But something shifted, and it was like everything fell into place. The stupidity that she felt melted away (the ground was stable beneath her for once, so this was just a feeling and not an action— wow!) 

Van watched from the corner of her eye as surprise dotted the edges of Thea’s features, watched as her earlier snarl had dissipated, replaced by something kinder. Something that stirred the butterflies in the pit of her own stomach. Her skin was vibrating as Thea seemingly heard what Van had said. It was all out in the open now, and there was no taking it back. If she pretended, if she acted like it was a joke, then what good would that do? It’d do nothing, and they’d be back where they were moments ago. She shouldn’t have been here, begging for Thea to take the flowers she had purchased. She should’ve been talking to the bank about her house, or calling her grandmother (who definitely wouldn’t pick up), or something that mattered in the moment, but all Van wanted to do was be with and near Thea. To give her something after so much had been taken from the both of them. 

She had thought about how being in public after being hunted by the banshees could’ve been considered dangerous, but Jade wasn’t confined to the cabin, so she refused to be. Van stood across from Thea, gaze moving slowly over the other girl’s hand as it came to close over top of hers. The tension she’d been holding in both her shoulders and jaw relaxed as soon as the pads of Thea’s fingers smoothed over the back of her hand. Van loosened the grip on the bouquet, not enough to let them fall to the ground, but to keep from crushing them any further. The embarrassment she felt morphed into something else— or maybe it was still embarrassment, just a different flavor. This one felt like kicking sand on a playground during the send off from a swing set and not making the landing on your feet. It was better than the embarrassment of the black hole sucking her to the depths of the earth, that was for sure. 

Thea moved closer before Van could process it. The feeling of the other girl’s lips at her temple sent static cascading over her skin. The hair at the back of her neck stood on end in anticipation for what might come next, but it was nothing— so much a good friend. It made perfect sense. Van could decipher it. That was Thea telling her she was a good friend, and that was what she was. Was Polly looking at them now? Would Polly yell at Thea after this? Tell her that she was giving Van too much hope? Hope for what, though? Van couldn’t rationalize what she wanted from Thea, just that she wanted the bald girl who talked about stars and constellations to take her stupid flowers and look at her like she was worth something. But that’s what was happening, right? 

Disappointment colored Van’s features as soon as Thea moved away, only to be replaced by minor annoyance. “You know why I didn’t. It’s because of that.” She pointed at Thea with her free hand, swallowing down the embarrassment as it rose in her again (black hole style). Her heart hadn’t quite calmed down, and Van was almost positive that she could still feel Thea’s lips at her temple; could commit it to memory. Wanted to, even. She desperately clung to the feeling and the thoughts it brought with it, warding off the black hole embarrassment and vying for the kind that would make her squeal into her pillow later. 

It took her a moment to realize she hadn’t said much else, and Van was left to clear her throat, tucking her hair behind her ears that burned bright red. “So do you um, do you— want them? Or…” She looked down at the flowers that had lost their weight— all of the weight from the situation had gone to her head, causing the right side of her face to grow numb. It was like her skin was trying to absorb what had happened. “If you don’t, I—“ Would Polly make her throw them out? “Who’s Polly? Is she…” Van looked past Thea to where Polly had disappeared to. “Is she waiting for you?” Couldn’t I be waiting for you instead, Van didn’t finish, holding the words like a capsizing boat at the back of her tongue. 

Something strange happened then: Thea didn’t want to stop touching Van. Though she should have moved her hands away, she kept them on Van’s. And though she’d just touched her lips to Van’s head—she wasn’t going to use the k-word, it was too heavy—she wanted to do it again. She felt like she’d just crawled out of a blanket on a cold night, every muscle told her to go back in. She couldn’t lip-touch her forehead again—don’t say it, don’t say it—so she lined up an array of other gestures that were almost it, almost the thing she was thinking about. Thea nudged Van’s bicep with her elbow—don’t let go of her hands, you won’t be able to take them again. “Teasing is my love-language, Van. You should know that by now,” Thea said, coating her words with the lightness she felt in her chest. Then that word—the L one—sunk down into her throat and tightened like a hungry snake. Love-languages were bullshit anyway, and whatever, so what? She didn’t mean anything by it. But it also wasn’t entirely true; teasing had been Cynthia’s love language. 

Cynthia was the one that teased her friends, because expressions of affection felt wrong on her tongue and she was always too awkward to make them work anyway. It was that bite no one expected from her; the thumbs thrust into an orange, juice spilling out. Peel back the skin and there’s the girl who liked a good joke when she wasn’t worried about being annoying, who could demonstrate how well she knew someone by their mundanities—pithy and fleshy. Thea didn’t have a love language; that would have implied she was deserving of the big L thing. Maybe Cynthia would’ve had something else to say, but Thea didn’t. And whatever, she really didn’t mean anything by it; it was another dumb thing in the galaxy of dumb things Thea said. Pay no attention to the dumb words behind the curtain, or something. Forget the tangled web of Cynthia that sat inside Thea’s writhing one. Though Van had already done it, Thea reached out and tucked phantom hair bachind Van’s burning red ears. Spring allergies were a real menace! They certainly made Van blush a lot. Her hands returned to their place on top of Van’s. 

“Polly?” The mention of the red-head jerked Thea; she glanced over Van’s head. No, Polly was well and truly gone. She knew it was generous to say she was Polly’s friend, and in the interest of being honest, she couldn’t tell Van that she was. “Polly’s a…” But it was kinda embarrassing to say that Polly definitely hated her, and tolerated her for some unknown reasons. She regularly said things like ‘I’m going to turn you into plant food’ and ‘humans are temporary, plants will be forever’ and ‘to be clear when I say I’m going to turn you into plant food I mean I’m going to kill you’ in that quirky, Polly way of hers; Thea didn’t exactly get her sense of humor. “Just someone I know.” She shrugged. “We, uh, hang out sometimes. Y’know, do…things.” But she also couldn’t tell Van that Polly mostly just drove her around, because then Van would offer her car and sweat trickled down her back at the idea of being in a tight space with Van. “A-adult things.” What she meant was that she did Polly’s taxes and laundry and helped her pay bills, as though these were all things that were completely new to her, but in the interest of honest dishonesty, Thea didn’t consider what it sounded like.  

“I do want the flowers,” Thea said. But if she took them, then she’d have no reason to keep holding Van’s hands—don’t let go. So despite saying she wanted them, she kept them in Van’s hands. “She’s not waiting for…” But if she said that, what would they do? Would Van stay with her? Could they take the day and turn it into something good? Or could she, for once in her stupid life, be actually responsible? She’d had a reason for thinking moving out of the apartment was a good idea and it wasn’t so she could be selfish now. She’d been given a very reasonable escape; yes, Polly was waiting for her—say it, say it. The tiny black hole inside of her, always spinning, was getting hungry. One year since the bite and she knew well enough what happened once it grew. All she had to do was say it and shouldn’t it have been so easy? A coward was her default classification. But she was happy, and it was hard to turn away from something so rare. 

Releasing one hand from its place on Van’s, Thea brought it to Van’s face again. This time, she rested her palm against Van’s warm cheek. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed down a different conversation. “She is,” she said, “and she’s not very patient.” That part, at least, was true. “So, I should probably…” Thea dropped her hand from Van’s face and scooped the flowers into her arms. “It was nice seeing you and I’m so glad that you’re okay and…” Her throat bobbed again. She lifted the zinnias up. “Thank you for these, and thank you for…” How many times was she going to shove different words away? “I think I like it more like this,” she said, “flowers and wood and honey and amber—when you come back from a shift, the marinara is overpowering. I think I like it more when it’s mostly Van. When it’s all Van.” She held the flowers tighter to her chest. “I think I like Van. I think I like Van a lot.” She swallowed. “The smell, I mean.”

What did that really mean, though? What did a love language mean when it came from Thea? Van stared at her, not quite sure what to say back. She wanted to say something. Knew she should say something, but no words came out of her mouth. Maybe she should have teased Thea back, should’ve told her it was hers, too, and this was all a big joke. The cherry on top would’ve been the flowers that both her’s and Thea’s hands were closed around. Why wasn’t Thea letting go? Maybe she felt guilty about being upset by the idea that they’d been for somebody else, and maybe Thea just felt bad that her house blew up. Van wasn’t sure why Thea wasn’t letting go, but she really didn’t want her to. She wanted to feel Thea’s hand on hers, didn’t want her to let go, but knew that she should– knew that she would, because Thea had finally understood her as a person and decided to leave. That was what happened, right? It had been her? It had to have been. “Okay,” Van stammered out, the words slipping like oil over her tongue. It wasn’t what she had wanted to say at all, but it was all that’d come out when in a reflection to Thea’s love language. Maybe it wasn’t that serious, and maybe Van was thinking too much into it. 

Thea touched her again in a way that mattered, and Van felt the blush deepen, could feel it scatter over the bridge of her nose. Her breath got stuck in her throat, and it wasn’t until she looked away from Thea’s eyes could she remember how to do so. Why was she acting like this? Thea was just a cute friend who paid attention to her and nothing more. There was nothing here, not in the way she wanted. However, Van wasn’t certain that she deserved to want to feel anything, especially within proximity of Thea. The last time she had cared for somebody like this (which she wasn’t even sure was real!), an argument had drawn that person to the depths of whatever hellish creature she had reimagined. Would the same happen to Thea? God, she was so toxic; pulling up demons to take care of her problems for her. She really needed to learn how to control it. Not just for Thea, but for everyone who might succumb to the power she held within. The last thing she wanted to do was open up another portal on people who didn’t deserve it. 

Polly? Polly? Polly? Polly? Polly? Polly? Polly? Polly? Polly? Polly? Polly? Polly? 

Van took care to listen now, to pick apart the cadence of Thea’s voice as she spoke about the redhead who hadn’t cast a second glance back after leaving the two of them to argue over the (unjustly) murdered flowers. Van still felt bad about that— that she had killed something (again), even if she hadn’t pulled them from the ground herself. She’d be more mindful about flowers from now on, that was for sure. As soon as Thea began to explain who Polly was to her, the wires crossed themselves, tangling into an unrecognizable, festering snake. Y’know, do things. What did that mean? Did Polly play Honkai, too? Did Thea watch over Polly’s shoulder as she tried for her favorite characters that came back into rotation? Would Thea cheer her on, too? Adult things? Van’s mind could’ve gone to something slightly less safe for work, but it sprang over to the idea that they got meals together; cooked together— even cleaned the apartment while blasting Olivia Rodrigo together. Was this who Thea was staying with? Had she been so easily replaced? Of course she had been. Her grandmother probably found some new grandchild, too, that she hadn’t even known about. One who didn’t cry and didn’t have magic and didn’t talk back. Of course Thea would do the same. Of course. 

She hadn’t realized it, but she was holding her breath again. “Oh, she sounds… nice.” That was the opposite of what she wanted to say. Horrible, she sounds horrible. But Van didn’t want to be mean, didn’t want to be the jealous— jealous, what? They were just friends. Good friends! Cute friends! She definitely didn’t feel anything for Thea. No way! This was all just a weird friendly misunderstanding, interwoven with jealousy and… something else. Embarrassment, most definitely. “I’m glad you get to um, do adult things together.” She thought of Olivia Rodrigo blasting through Regan’s apartment as she knelt down with the dustpan as Thea navigated the broken bottle of vanilla into it. She bit the inside of her cheek, pushing the thoughts away. What did they clean up together? Polly looked like the kind of girl who liked kale shakes. It was probably that. Did Thea hate that? Or did she like it? Maybe Van should drink kale shakes. 

Her mind snapped from the make believe kitchen to Thea who was speaking again. She needed to talk more, too, didn’t she? God, Thea must’ve been so bored standing in front of her. She was probably thinking of all the conversations she could be having with Polly right now, and instead she was stuck here. 

Suddenly, the flowers held a  weight of their own and Van felt her hand sinking slightly, Thea’s still enclosed around it. She’d help support it, wouldn’t she? Even if the embarrassment engrained itself in her muscles and made her incapable of doing these kinds of things— like holding up a bouquet of flowers for the pretty girl with the pretty smile and the peach fuzz hair. Did Thea know she looked good bald? Van wanted to tell her. “You can take them, I already um— I already said that they are yours.” The words came out naturally, surprisingly enough. They didn’t slur together, mixed messages splintered across each single vowel. Instead, it was what she actually meant! She wanted Thea to have the flowers! God, she was so good at this talking thing. 

Thea’s hand came to plant itself against her cheek, and Van’s mind scrambled again. Could Thea feel the heat that was radiating off of the side of her face? Would Thea think that she was sick? Would Thea try and take care of her? Thea couldn’t come to the cabin, no way— it was full of weapons, and Snickers, and Jade was still hurt. I’m not sick, by the way. The words didn’t manage to slip from between her lips, because Thea was talking again, and the way she spoke made it seem like Thea was going to leave her. That was okay! Friends left each other all of the time, didn’t they? Cass had left her, too, standing outside of her cave with an arm full of comics. Well, she hadn’t left her, but it felt like it that day. 

Van was almost positive that even after Thea had dropped her hand, she’d still be able to memorize the way she pressed each pad of her finger into her skin. She’d try to recreate it with her own hand once she was home, but her hands were much smaller and stubbier than Thea’s and she knew it wouldn’t feel the same. But that’d be weird to do, anyway, because they were friends, and friends didn’t do that kind of stuff. But, at least Thea took the flowers. Thea took the flowers, and Van watched her do it— and in that moment, she realized she looked a lot more beautiful with them than she had imagined she would. Would Polly make her throw them out? Probably. But at least Thea had taken them! That was a win for her, wasn’t it? Her friend had taken her flowers, even after the misunderstanding. Only her flowers, and nothing else! Not her heart along with it! 

“Yeah, you should totally go and catch up with her.” Van’s throat felt scratchy and she tried to get the words out in a way that wouldn’t allude to the jealousy or embarrassment she felt. The flowers were gone from her hands, though, and the feeling was dimming down. Maybe because Thea had finally taken them, and that was a signal to something. “You’re totally welcome!” She was saying totally too much, but it was sort of her catchphrase at this point, wasn’t it? “I’m glad I’m— you’re okay, too.” She smiled, and this time it felt real— less like she was being pulled at by a fishing hook, but that the muscles in her own face had cooperated into giving her something real. Thea kept speaking even though she should’ve been leaving, and Van was left frozen with what the words could’ve actually meant. Surely she meant the smell! Yeah, that made more sense. Thea liked to smell things— always talked about it! Liked to talk about all of the soaps she had, and Van could always see the soaps she had in the bathroom at Regan’s.

(She was always careful not to use Thea’s soaps, because she wanted to smell Thea when Thea was using them, not—) 

“Yeah, I mean, they like, most definitely make um, car air fresheners in Van scent, I’m almost positive of it.” At that moment, she had referred to herself like the car, but it didn’t matter. Thea told her she smelled good, and she liked it better without the marinara, and Van was glad. Van was happy! She stood across from Thea, marionette strings pulling her to put a hand on Thea’s shoulders. “I hope you enjoy Polly, and the flowers!” That wasn’t what she meant. She only wanted Thea to enjoy the flowers. 

“But um, I’ve gotta— there are insurance people I gotta talk to. Gotta get my bag, you know? So I’ll uh, see you around, Thea!” With that, Van turned around, red in the face to saunter off to anywhere but the insurance people. 

[realmackross]

PARTIES: @notstinky, @realmackross TIMING: August 3rd at Mistwood Park SUMMARY: Waka Waka Waka Waka....Howdy Partner! WARNINGS: None!

Mistwood Park was bubbling with life; the rumbling sound of voices like a swarm of insects hung over the clatter of legos and occasional fits of laughter. Thea could pick out bits of conversation: people who had gotten narratively invested in their lego creations, people who were complaining about the heat, someone who thought a lego hot dog was a real hot dog and now had a chipped tooth. Thea had come down to watch people build their lego creations for the contest tomorrow, mesmerized by how tiny blocks could form blocky recreations and works of art. The creations ranged from lego animals to spaceships (Thea liked those best). Someone had even built a large lego castle with a winding, maze-like interior. Thea, who maintained that the most creative thing she was capable of was color coding her notes, was impressed. 

Thea walked through the park, approaching the end of the displays where a large lego Pac-Man stood, built up from hundreds of yellow legos. His accompanying ghosts and circle pellets were still being made, but she thought the scale and accuracy of the Pac-Man was impressive enough. Having walked through all of the entries to the lego building contest, Thea turned to leave when her body crashed into another’s. “Oh!” she squeaked, holding out her hands to catch the stranger if they fell. “I’m so sorry! I wasn’t looking where I was….” Thea trailed off. That was a familiar mess of blonde hair. In fact, that was a very familiar set of features. “Oh my god…” she blinked. “Wait a minute, are you Zoey Ross?” 

—

It wasn’t Mackenzie’s plan to go look at Lego sculptures in the park. In fact, the last time she had played with a Lego had been years ago, but she couldn’t stay cooped up forever after the Barbie Nightmare Sleepover fiasco. In fact, she had only recently cleaned her house. But it was nice out and instead of living life as a complete hermit, she opted to go see other people’s talent with small plastic bricks that hurt like a motherfucker when you ran one into your foot. But being dead, did this mean she was immuned now?

As she let her eyes wander up and down the rows of colorful bricked creations, she was caught off guard by a hard thud, which resulted in a Roblox type of noise escaping her mouth. If it hadn’t been for the person who bumped into her, catching her, Mack would have hit the ground, “Hey, it’s no problem. I-” Before she could finish, Mackenzie heard a squeal of recognition, but with the wrong name. It had been a while since anyone had called her Zoey. Her fellow actress on Dropped dawned the same last name, which always made for an interesting conversation after the fact, when she would have to explain the mix-up. “Uh, yeah. That would be my co-star. I’m actually Mackenzie Ross, no relation to Zoey, but I see you’re a fan of the show?” An uneasy smile crept across her features.

—

Thea didn’t watch a lot of TV, she didn’t watch a lot of anything. It was hard to stay interested when it wasn’t animated or filled with enough gore to make her sick; either she liked shows and movies intended for children or things that no child should ever watch. “Oh, um…” She willed recognition to come to her. This was not Zoey Ross, she told herself. This was someone called Mackenzie Ross. And Mackenzie Ross was famous for… Thea didn’t know. She might as well have been talking to a rock and not The Rock but a literal rock. “Oh, are you two sisters?” Thea asked with a smile. “Um, actually, I didn’t like the show. I thought it was kinda…” Thea waved her hand in the air. “Um, like unseasoned chicken.” She paused, flushing. “No offense though! I’m sure you were great in it! Not that I remember who you played—I remember Zoey Ross—but maybe it just wasn’t for me!” Thea’s hands flew around her body, trying to keep up with her rushed words. 

“W-what brings you to the LEGOs?” Thea gulped. “This, um, this Pac-Man is really nice.” She gestured to the large yellow LEGO sculpture beside them. “Um, it’s not done yet, but when they run the contest tomorrow I bet it’ll be a hit! W-what do you think, Ms. Ross-but-not-Zoey?” 

—

Mackenzie had never been so insulted yet entertained in her life. Unseasoned chicken. That was a new one, and as much as she wanted to be upset by the comment, she just couldn’t. Would this person still consider Dropped unseasoned chicken, if she had known that I had died on the set? She pushed the thought from her head. “Uh, no. We’re not related. She was just another person that worked on the show. And you know, not everybody’s gonna be a fan. I’m just not sure I’ve ever heard it be compared to unseasoned chicken before.” She laughed.

Glancing over at the huge life sized Pac-Man set up next to them, she admired the dedication it took to build it, “I think somebody has a lot of talent, and I would hate to make that thing angry if it ever came to life.” It was a LEGO sculpture, and that couldn’t happen right? I mean she knew this town was weird, but still…It was made from plastic. “And you can call me Mack.” She looked back over to the woman who was clearly nervous.

—

“Two people who worked on the show had the same last name and weren’t related?” Thea could imagine the nightmare of it. To ease the trauma she assumed Mack’s had with her last name, she smiled softly. Not that smiling ever eased any trauma, but it was the only thing Thea could offer. “I just mean it’s bland,” Thea elaborated despite the fact an elaboration wasn’t needed. “Like it wasn’t funny. For me. Or good. In my opinion. Or entertaining. To me.” Thea shrugged. “My favorite show is NOVA. Y’know? The science documentary show?” She paused, there was probably a reason she didn’t find anything live-action entertaining unless it was educational or a gore-fest.

Thea’s attention snapped away from Mack as a WAKA burst through the air. Thea stared at the Pac-Man, whose mouth was now closed. Strange. It must have always been closed, now that she thought about it. The sound must have been programmed into the stand; authentic Pac-Man noises. She turned back to Mack. “I don’t think it’ll come to life. that would be weird,” Thea laughed. “What? Would it chase us around and try to crush us under its large lego mouth?” She smiled, shaking her head. “Did you move here to lay-low?” Thea asked. “You couldn’t have picked a more normal town! I’m pretty sure, like, nothing bad happens here.” Just as she said it, something. behind her snapped. 

—

“Yeah, it wasn’t too bad considering we mostly went by our first names.” She smiled softly and wanted to keep smiling, until the insults just kept coming. The woman had definitely gotten her point across with the unseasoned chicken comment leaving Mack feeling much like Maddy from Wild ‘N Out. If this woman had said something about the actress putting raisins in her potato salad or liking mayonnaise, she was out. “Uh, yeah. Science is cool. Have you thought about talking to this guy that works at the university? His name is Gael, and he loves science. You know, it might be a little more entertaining…” Mackenzie was gritting her teeth by this point and forced a smile back onto her face.

It had come as a relief when she noticed the woman’s eyes shift to the statue rather than staying focused on Mack and insulting the show she worked so hard on and had literally died on. But Mackenzie hadn’t noticed any odd movements from the statue, since she had been so invested in trying not to slap the science out of Thea. “Yeah, it would, but I feel like stranger things in this town have happened.” The comment about the giant Pac-Man crushing them in its mouth did somewhat worry Mack though. But she couldn’t let the worry of something as silly as that- “Uh…I don’t know your name, since you were more concerned about giving me your honest opinion of my show, but I would move away from the statue if I were you…” Mackenzie motioned towards the Pac-Man that was now hovering in the air off of its stand, as she slowly began to back away.

—

The mention of university made Thea frown. If she hadn’t been bit, she would have graduated this year. Without a cure, without any semblance of control of the wolf, there was no way she could go back to school. She filed the name ‘Gael’ away, regardless, and missed the forced smile and annoyed tone; she was too far gone inside of her head. Thea picked at a loose thread at the end of her sleeve. “Um. Yeah. Maybe. Thanks,” she mumbled. 

“Thea,” she responded, still trapped in the labyrinth of her thoughts. Was it a left to clear them or a right? WAKA. WAKA. No, she must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. WAKA. WAKA. What was that about Pac-Man? Man, these sound effects were really loud. Thea turned around, her nose scraping the lip of the LEGO Pac-Man. It WAKA’d once more, pinching her nostrils. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, yeah. You’re right. We should run.” She pulled her nose free and grabbed Mack’s arm, pulling her along just enough until she was sure the actress was running too. Behind them, the Pac-Man shut its mouth with a thunderous WAKA and screeched like a rusted hinge when it opened. The ground shuddered where it carved a line through the earth, hungry for the flesh of two young women. “I don’t think this is supposed to happen!” she called out. 

—

Mackenzie’s eyes grew wide as the giant LEGO creature nibbled on Thea’s nose. Her legs continued to slowly carry her backwards, until she noticed that the woman had finally started moving away from the thing, but before she could really process it all, Mackenzie felt herself being tugged forwards by Thea.

Hearing its loud WAKA booming behind them both, Mack continued to press forward, but the neuropathy in her feet seemed to slow her down. It was a brief nip on the tush that seemed to give her the inspiration she needed to force herself to move faster. And luckily for her, running out of oxygen wouldn’t be an issue. But that thing was HUGE, and if they both didn’t pick up the pace, it was probably going to end in two flattened people and one large Pac-man destroying downtown Wicked’s Rest.

“THEA! Look!” As she continued to move forward, Mackenzie spotted a castle completely made of LEGOs that was actually rather big considering what it was made out of and where it was located, “Maybe we can hide in there!” Without giving it much thought, she turned left and started running towards the drawbridge gate. If they had needed a mote, the Pac-man could certainly lay the groundwork. But Mack’s mind was on the opening that lay just a few hundred feet ahead; no thought given on if this would be a trap in itself!

—

Running out of oxygen was, however, a big issue for Thea, who couldn’t figure out how to breathe while her pulse cleaved through her body, splintering her bones from the sinew. Her feet thumped on the ground and she tried to remember how running was supposed to feel and supposed to happen and where her feet were meant to land and what her arms were meant to do. Her body moved but her mind hadn’t caught up with the logistics. Mack pivoted left and Thea stumbled as she followed, searing her palms on the gravel before she kicked up and bolted after the blonde. Thea wasn’t out-of-shape—cardio exercise was a constant in her life—but she watched Mack run like a movie star: no sweat, no heaving. Well, she supposed, Mack was exactly that. That was so unfair; Thea probably looked like a personal-sized tornado had swept across her body and Mack looked photoshoot ready. Rich people sucked.

Thea pushed herself into the LEGO castle, diving through the threshold like a baseball player hitting home plate. “Close the doors!” she called out over her shoulder. “Close those intricately made LEGO doors!” Really, the craftsmanship was something else; not only was the castle big enough to house two adult sized women, but it seemed to stretch on into more rooms and halls. The walls were adorned with block sconces outfitted with red LEDs. Thea took only a moment to consider how that was wired. “Are we…” Thea gulped. “Are we safe?” She couldn’t hear the hungry yellow monster anymore. 

—

Mackenzie had managed to slip inside, but seeing Thea barreling towards her like a bull during the Running of the Bulls alerted her to sidestepping just in time to not get smacked. But the Pac-Man was still following closely behind, and at the woman’s request, Mack used all of her strength to close the doors just in time before the thing could WAKA them to death.

“That was so fucking close!” The zombie collapsed to the floor in relief, but also because both running and closing well made LEGO doors that were lifesize had been nearly impossible for one person, “And those doors are surprisingly heavy to be made out of just plastic blocks. Geeze!” Mack looked back up at Thea, who seemed winded, “You okay, Bud? You look like shit.” A small smirk slipped across her lips at the enjoyment of finally getting to insult the brunette back; glad they were both safe, but still getting some pleasure. “So what do we do now? Just hangout here, until that thing outside gets bored and moves onto someone else?” She looked towards a window, only to see yellow slowly floating past which made her quickly look away.

—

Thea couldn’t help it; as Mack collapsed on the floor, she peered over her, inspecting her skin. She wasn’t sweating, she wasn’t flushed—what kind of a personal trainer did she have? Thea’s heart hammered in her chest and she strained to hone in on Mack with her erratic hearing—she wasn’t very good with her strange, new senses, mostly the world was a jumble of too loud, too stinky for her—and found that she couldn’t hear anything from the actress. Well, she wasn’t good at picking up heartbeats anyway. Once, she thought she might use her new senses like a lie detector and found herself listening in on the gurgle of intestines instead; bodies made a lot of weird squelching noises she’d rather not focus on. Thea stumbled back with a flush. “I don’t look like shit!” She blinked, gesturing at Mack. “Not all of us can have…uh, whatever you have going on. Like, you look like those girls in the sportswear ads? Like Nike and Adidas and stuff? You know how they’re doing sports but all their hair is tidy and they’re not sweaty or red? That’s you.” She was too exhausted to hide the amazement in her voice.  

Thea pushed herself off the ground and dusted off. She smiled at Mack, holding out a hand to help her up. “Maybe we can check this place out? I kinda want to see what all the rooms look like. It seems like they built a lot of stuff! That’s neat.” Gone, as if it had never existed, was her fear of Pac-Man. Thea was proud of her ability to deny, forget and repress; if Nike made ads for that, she could totally star in them. 

—

A compliment from Thea? Wow! That had surprised Mack, but maybe it was because of the defeat in Thea’s voice from being winded, “You know? I think that’s the first nice thing you’ve said to me since we met. I’ll take it.” Any chance to mess with the woman, she was going to take it after being humiliated by her earlier. “And hey, Thea? I was in a Nike Ad once. I’ll show you the pictures if we ever get out of here.”

Taking Thea’s hand, Mack pulled herself up and followed suit dusting off her pants, “I’m down. Besides, it’s not like I really want to go back outside right now considering you know what is lurking around the building.” She hated to think of that thing chasing them again and chomping down. Mackenzie didn’t know how much more running she could take, despite not being winded. “Whoever constructed this thing must either be a genius or practice magic. Can you imagine the time it took?” She started to move forward taking in every delicate plastic brick that had surrounded them. “How many Legos do you think it took to make this place?” She looked over at Thea.

—

“Thanks! I guess I…wait…” Thea squinted. “What do you mean ‘first nice thing’?” She thought she was being friendly. Still heaving, she searched her pounding brain for memories of their brief conversation. Yes, in there somewhere, she had accidentally insulted her acting talent. “I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being a mediocre actress?” she said, thinking more out loud than talking to Mack. “Not that you are one! I just mean, like, if you were. Hypothetically!” Her hands shot up again, waving wildly in the air. “I don’t want to see you in a Nike ad! You’d be half-naked, probably, and I don’t want to see that. I mean, not that you’re not attractive. I mean—it…” Thea gulped, flipping around and storming down the lego hall. If she physically moved on, then perhaps they could emotionally move on and forget she said anything. 

“There’s no such thing as magic!” Thea called back from over her shoulder. “That’s silly! This is obviously like, hard work and science, or something.” At the question of how many LEGOs were inside the castle, Thea started running calculations in her head. The length of the hallway, and the length of a LEGO, and the height of the room… And then she heard it. 

It was inescapable. 

“Howdy Partner.”

The roof of the castle snapped and pebbles of LEGOs rained down on them. The smiling face of a giant LEGO Sheriff Woody peered down. Thea stopped walking. “Mack,” she said, “I think we should just run out of the park now.” 

—

Mack took pleasure in witty banter with Thea. She couldn’t help but snicker under her breath, and then there it was again; an insult wrapped up in a nice pretty compliment. By now, Mack had just come to accept it. And instead of further carrying on the banter, she let it go as she watched Thea move forward.

This day had certainly turned out much different than she had expected it would, and despite the fact that they were almost eaten by a giant Pac-man, Mackenzie had found herself grateful she had decided to venture out since things had seemed to settle down. But almost as if the Gods of Wicked’s Rest had noticed her getting a little too comfortable with her surroundings, Mack quickly heard the boom “Howdy Partner” only to look up to see a giant Sheriff Woody loom down at them both.

For once, Mack had actually agreed with Thea, and without hesitation, she snatched up her new frienemy’s hand ready to haul ass out the back half of the castle to freedom and safety with the goal of them both living to see another day.

—

As Thea ran, she spared one glance at the giant Pac-man and another for the giant Sheriff Woody and one for Mack, who was still not sweaty. As they moved on from the pack, and the giant legos turned shrunk into the horizon, Thea wondered if after mercilessly insulting Mack, they could still be friends.

[exodusims]

[vengefvlx]

When: Day 7 of the 75th Games, Shortly after the Arena Break out

Where: District 2 apartment, Tribute Centre

Who: Brutus and Cadence ( @subsiist )

It had all happened so fast. First Brutus and herself had just been watching the games. They'd done this a couple of times over the course of these games. She'd actually ended up watching more of it with Brutus than Thea this year. That was not a surprise though. She'd have been more shocked if Thea had been out of the mentor Lounge. She'd watched games with Brutus before though, so it felt quite normal. What wasn't normal was the screen suddenly going blank.

"What.... that's weird...." She murmured, standing to her feet as she looks at the blacked out screen in front of her. and before she was really able to process any further Thea had appeared. Before she could talk though Thea was, and Cadie was just staring at her. "Uh....." was all she said, her mind still trying to process the arena screening going black, yet alone what her mother was saying to her.

It's only when Thea is talking to Brutus that it clicks in her mind. This black out, the screen going dead wasn't a glitch. Something was happening. Thea didn't know what, but Cadence did. It was the rebellion. And well, that meant she, they, needed to get out of there. To get to safety. "Promise me you'll meet us there?" She asked, her eyes big as she looked up at her mother. "Mo....Thea.... promise me."

And then she and Brutus were out the door. They needed to act quick. Before peacekeepers were on them. Cadence looked up at her former trainer. "I..... You have to trust me Brut. I know where we need to go. I'll explain when we get there..... but we need to hurry."

[thedragonagebigbang]

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[monnstrous]

THE CAR'S OUTSIDE .                                       allie , twenty four , she / her . 

nikolai safin. abigail jeon. aleksander blackthorn. althea de guzman.

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NIKOLAI SAFIN. you can beat the heat, if you beat the charges too.

(  cis male •  ele/dele  •  bissexual ) — Não é nenhuma surpresa ver NIKOLAI SAFIN andando pelas ruas de Arcanum, afinal, o DEMONIO DA ENCRUZILHADA precisa ganhar dinheiro como GENETICISTA. Mesmo não tendo me convidado para sua festa de IDADE DESCONHECIDA, ainda lhe acho ADAPTÁVEL e JUSTO, mas entendo quem lhe vê apenas como AMBICIOSO e CÍNICO. Vivendo na cidade HÁ DOZE ANOS, NIKO cansa de ouvir que se parece com CHOI WOO SHIK.

ABOUT / MUSINGS / VISUALS / POV'S / TASK / HEADCANONS.

ABIGAIL JEON. little did you know your home's really only the town you'll get arrested in.

(  cis woman •  ela/dela  •  bissexual ) — Não é nenhuma surpresa ver ABIGAIL JEON andando pelas ruas de Arcanum, afinal, a BRUXA DO COVEN OF THE WHISPERING WOODS precisa ganhar dinheiro como ADVOGADA. Mesmo não tendo me convidado para sua festa de OITENTA E NOVE ANOS, ainda lhe acho BENEVOLENTE e CATIVANTE, mas entendo quem lhe vê apenas como MÓRBIDA e INFIEL. Vivendo na cidade DESDE SEMPRE, ABBY cansa de ouvir que se parece com PARK SHIN HYE.

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ALEKSANDER BLACKTHORN. i can go anywhere i want, just not home.

(  cis male •  ele/dele  •  bissexual ) — Não é nenhuma surpresa ver KWON HYUK / ALEKSANDER BLACKTHORN andando pelas ruas de Arcanum, afinal, o VAMPIRO DO CLÃ DAS SOMBRAS SILENTES precisa ganhar dinheiro como DIRETOR DO ORFANATO DOS SUSSURROS ESQUECIDOS. Mesmo não tendo me convidado para sua festa de  DUZENTOS E VINTE, ainda lhe acho METICULOSO e PROATIVO, mas entendo quem lhe vê apenas como VOLÁTIL e DESLEAL. Vivendo na cidade HÁ MAIS DE UM SÉCULO, ALEK cansa de ouvir que se parece com BYEON WOO SEOK.

ABOUT / MUSINGS / VISUALS / POV'S / TASK / HEADCANONS.

ALTHEA DE GUZMAN. she's the albatross, she is here to destroy you.

(  cis woman •  ela/dela  •  bissexual ) — Não é nenhuma surpresa ver ALTHEA DE GUZMAN andando pelas ruas de Arcanum, afinal, a CAMBION precisa ganhar dinheiro como FIXER DO IMPÉRIO FORTUNATO. Mesmo não tendo me convidado para sua festa de TRINTA ANOS, ainda lhe acho DILIGENTE e ESPERTA, mas entendo quem lhe vê apenas como TEMPERAMENTAL e JUVENIL. Vivendo na cidade HÁ ALGUNS ANOS, THEA cansa de ouvir que se parece com JANE DE LEON.

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[motziedapul]

Happy Saturday

Here's a Hi Nay spoiler for an upcoming episode, but it's in Tagalog so 👍🏾

-

MARI: Dito na ako. San kayo?

THEA: Ate Chay!

MARI: Thea!

THEA: Hi po! Kamusta ka. Si Ate Ira?

MARI: Ha… okey naman. Di na kami.

THEA: Huy! Bakit?

MARI: Ay okey lang, ayaw lang daw niya ng long distance. Friends pa rin kami, pero ayun.

THEA:[whining] Ateee, ang tagal niyo nang magjowa. Ba’t ganun?

MARI: Hay, wag na nating pagusapan ha? Heto…

THEA: [sigh] Sige po Ate. [in awe] Yan ba yun?

MARI: Hindi pa. Kailangan ko pang mag-orasyon. Sigurado ka bang ngayong gabi yung raid?

THEA: Oo raw. Sabi ni Chua–sa Rotary daw yung papa niya, dun niya nalaman. Sabi ng papa niya wag raw siya lumapit dito kasi may plano silang operasyon. Marami silang huhulihin sa baranggay para magmukhang effective, pero… marami ka ring mahuhuli sa kulam mo.

MARI: O sige. [sigh] Wag ka nang sumama, ha? Masyadong delikado.

THEA: Hay naku Ate, delikado rin para sayo, diba?

MARI: Sige na, Thea. Alam mo naman yung kaya ng Nanay ko, diba? Uwi ka na. Text kita pag tapos na.

THEA: Sige… pero di muna ako uuwi. Doon muna ako sa may Alamat, para medyo malapit. Punta ka doon pag tapos na, libre kita.

MARI: Thea, alam mo naman di ako umiinom.

THEA: [teasing] Sige, tingnan natin. [more seriously] Ingat, Ate.

MARI: Ingat ka rin.

[ladyzcliina]

OPEN PARA

Arriving at the airport, Thea was more than ready for this trip to Paris. She wanted to visit some of the stores and see anything related to gaming there as well. She waited for her flight to be called and she kept to herself with her headphones on listening to her music.

[thomaswtwt]

Thomas não é exatamente muito preocupado com a moda, mas é do tipo que gosta de se vestir de modo que seu estilo pessoal (composto por referências da literatura obscura e movimentos alternativos e independentes com influências no punk e gótico) se projete sem maiores dúvidas. Felizmente, sendo um filho de Tânatos, já tem lá toda a carga de expectativa das outras pessoas em vê-lo sendo sóbrio e elegante como seu pai, o que o rapaz executa muito bem, modéstia à parte; ainda assim, vez ou outra, seus ares de rebeldia dão as caras, como o que se pode observar nas vestes escolhidas para os cinco dias de evento.

Primeiro dia

Na data de abertura, como a intenção é agradar aos deuses presentes e tentar negociar alguma menção sob os holofotes deles, Thomas foi um pouco mais apresentável, mas não se poupando do estilo que lhe agrada: peças sob medida, do fundo de seu baú, ajustadas pela magia do chalé de Afrodite graças à @lovingthea. As unhas pintadas de preto, as correntes nos passadores dos cintos, um pouco de lápis de olho e voì lá. Uma homenagem nem tão sutil ao próprio pai, desaparecido no evento da noite. Detalhe: um de seus anéis possui o tom da cor dos olhos de Theodora. Referência: primeira foto da esquerda, acima.

Segundo dia

Mais modesto, ele optou por peças quase inteiramente pretas, se não fosse pelo detalhe da blusa branca, que também foi decisão da amiga homenageada nessa noite, Chloe. Detalhe: Para além das vestes, simples, mas ainda elegantes, ele também estará usando um broche que remete, sutilmente, à filha de Poseidon. Referência: Foto do meio da fileira de cima. @seachloe

Terceiro dia

Dia sem homenagens, só o Thomas sendo o Thomas: não exatamente querendo impressionar alguém, o lance é ficar tranquilo com sua jaqueta de couro, uma camiseta cinza (uma das cores principais dentre suas roupas do dia a dia) e seus bons acessórios. A bem da verdade, se a gente for levar em consideração que foi a @lovingthea que escolheu boa parte de suas produções, essa daqui também tem o dedo dela (o cadeado no colar, por exemplo, rs). Nesse dia, ele é ótimo pra se ter por perto, porque estará cheio de bolsos! Referência: Foto da direita, na fileira de baixo.

Quarto dia

Que ele é exibido, quase todo mundo sabe, então não foi exatamente surpreendente que o Thomas tenha escolhido algo mais simples, mas ainda elegante e, principalmente, sensual. As peças são de alfaiataria, mas ele não está usando camisa por baixo. Nas laterais do tronco, ele exibe as tatuagens que tem por ali, mais precisamente na altura das costelas. Referência: foto da direita na fileira de baixo. Detalhe: um colar de macramé feito pela @vinhoculto.

Quinto dia

Para o encerramento, em meio às vestes escuras, com um sobretudo pesado e muitos, muitos botões, Thomas está com um broche no formato de papoula em homenagem à queridíssima Mallory. Os anéis e outros acessórios prateados também foram decididos por Thea (porque o Thomas é um belo de um pau mandado). Referência: Foto do meio da fileira de baixo. @sleepingwithlory

[theraininthestars]

Reseña de Undercover Bromance

Después de tanto tiempo, he regresado con la reseña de la segunda parte de la serie de "El club de lectura de caballeros" de Lyssa Kay Adams.

Fue horrible.

En la segunda entrega, seguimos a Braden Mack, el fundador del club de lectura y dueño de varios clubs nocturnos y a Liv Papandreas, hermana de Thea, chef de uno de los restaurantes más populares de New York. Liv se ve envuelta en desenmascarar los crímenes de su jefe, después de ser testigo de uno de estos. Con ayuda de Branden, ambos comienzan a revelar más y más de los engaños del ex-jefe de Liv, pero también se ven más enredados entre ellos. ¿Podrá Liv encontrar la verdad y aceptarla? ¿Dejará Branden su orgullo del lado para abrirse al amor? ��Los personajes de Liv y Braden me caerá mejor? (No, de hecho ahora los odio más)

ADVERTENCIA: Hay abuso sexual laboral, victimización de víctimas de S.A., mención de abuso doméstico, mención de misoginia interiorizada y personajes hipócritas.

La reseña hará menciones de escenas, entonces habrá spoilers.

Después de leer este libro, no creí que hubiera algo bueno de este. Pero, con esta segunda lectura para rescatar ideas pude encontrar cosas que siento fueron apropiadas para la historia.

El final. Sea o no realístico, creo que es importante tener finales “felices” en historias como esta que apoyen a las víctimas y les den esperanza de tener justicia en sus casos. Al final del día, es una comedia romántica, debe tener un final feliz que pueda satisfacer y alegrar a la audiencia.

Los personajes secundarios. Ofrecían mucho y hacían la lectura mucho más amena y tolerable.

El villano es villanesco. Lo odias con todo tu ser y esperas por su caída.

Voy a empezar con la falla principal de este libro, que es la temática de fondo.

La temática de fondo es el contexto del conflicto que perjudica al protagonista y que debe de buscar solucionar. En este se incluye, el espacio donde se desarrolla la historia, el tiempo, conflictos sociales, conflictos políticos, conflictos económicos, entre otros.

La temática de fondo de este libro es el abuso $exual en el ambiente laboral y doméstico que siento que se usa como excusa para darle un final feliz a alguien que agredió a victimas.

Liv en varias ocasiones agrede verbalmente a victimas intimidándolas en exponerse al público. Aunque Liv pueda darles su apoyo y créeles, sigue juzgando y controlando la vida de otros (como en el libro pasado).

Este es el arco de Liv en libro: "juzgar menos, darle confianza y autonomía en la gente de hacer lo que puede en su vida" Pero solo twemina usando a las vícitmas como instrumentos para avanzar la trama y la vida de Liv, en vez de ayudarlas. Siento que debían reducir lo del abuso $exual, para que Liv no se viera como una persona tan detestable. Además, en varios instantes demuestra misoginia interiorizada que fastidia mucho y aunque sigue siendo un reflejo de su crecimiento como persona, nunca pide disculpas sobre ese comportamiento y termina fastidiando más al lector.

En mi opinión, Liv no debió ser la narradora de esta historia y le hubiera perdonado más cosas si fuera un personaje secundario con el mismo arco, pero en un alcance más bajo.

Braden Mack. No es secreto que él es uno de mis personajes más odiados de la saga. Pero en esta novela, lo aguantó más porque Liv le gana. Aunque sigue siendo un personaje fastidioso. La personalidad de Braden la encuentro pretenciosa e hipócrita al sentirse superior a los demás por abogar por la terapia (que él no usa). Él es la voz de la razón en muchas instancias y su historia con su madre la encuentro muy bonita. Pero la química que tiene con Liv es molesta. No soy muy fan de las peleas donde un personaje tiene la razón y el otro es obstinado a no reconocerlo porque son personas orgullosas.

La comedia fue un error en esta novela, como el no mencionar sobre posibles detonantes. Los chistes, en general, hacían énfasis al hostigamiento y situaciones de riesgo en los que estaban los personajes, que daban un ambiente de confusión y burla a un tema serio.

Spoiler de las siguiente novelas: El Ruso hace un chiste sobre secuestrar a gente en referencia a que “siempre lo hacen en Rusia”. Además de que suena xenofóbico, una persona cercana a él fue víctima de secuestro y asesinato. Entonces vuelven estos “chistes” insensibles.

A la vez, esto es algo que me molesta. La mención de muchos personajes que no hacen ningún impacto en la historia. Se nos dice que el club tiene alrededor de 20 miembros (o más), pero solo se reúne como un grupo de 6 personas. Y de esas 6 solo se llegan a enfocar en 3 o 4. Entiendo que es mejor para la narración, pero no agrega nada a la historia, más que relleno de texto.

Para terminar con algo bueno, me encantaron Alexis y Noah. Si Liv y Braden fueron lo peor del libro anterior y terminaron siendo los protagonistas de la segunda entrega, Alexis y Noah fueron de los mejores aspectos de la historia.

Amo a Alexis, su personalidad, su carisma y la forma en la que ve la vida es muy inspiradora. Creas una conexión con ella. Y Noah. Wow, tenían pocas escenas, pero me encantó como era él. Él si me daba risa, no hacía referencias a situaciones de riesgos y todo lo hacían a favor de la protección a las víctimas.

Le doy al libro un 1.75 estrellas. Me decepcionó mucho, dejó un mal sabor de boca y recomendaría a la gente, saltárselo. Especialmente si tienes algún trauma en relación a los temas discutidos. Braden y Liv funcionan mejor como personajes secundarios o de fondo. Esta fue la segunda lectura más decepcionante que tuve en el 2023, la primera se la lleva Carmilla y Laura.

[vanoincidence]

Girls With Anxiety Hang Out || Van & Thea

TIMING: mid august. LOCATION: miswood park. PARTIES: @notstinky & @vanoincidence SUMMARY: van and thea go to mistwood park for some town events. CONTENT WARNINGS: parental death, suicidal ideation.

Van had been stuck in her house for too long. That was saying a lot considering she didn’t typically mind being stuck inside, like, ever. But it was beginning to become unbearable; the weight of isolation. She needed to at least see another person that wasn’t at work. And who better to see than Thea who lived in her neighborhood? Wynne was an option, but she wasn’t sure what they were up to, and Thea had a habit of walking on the side of the road. Even if Van didn’t have her car back yet, it didn’t matter. They could make the trek together– take a bus, whatever they needed to do. 

Every Friday Mistwood Park put on a series of different events. This time, it was the LEGOs. Van had liked LEGOs as a kid. She was excited about it. She looked over to gauge Thea’s excitement about the event. “I don’t really come around here unless it’s for the stuff they put on on Fridays.” Van had a can of dented red bull in her hands and she pressed her fingers into the aluminum absentmindedly as she looked around. “I heard something about a floating LEGO set though, if you wanted to check it out?” She shot Thea a hopeful glance. 

The last time Thea went to Mistwood Park, just yesterday, a giant Pac-Man LEGO tried to eat her Logic would tell her not to go back; who knows what would try to eat her again. Unfortunately, logic did not win where people-pleasing was concerned. Van was cool. Thea was not. Thea would like to be cool. She wasn’t going to say no. “Oh, yeah! Totally!” Thea grinned, taking a small sip of her iced coffee. Maybe it was her mistake to come before the LEGOs were fully set up, anyway— maybe the Pac-Man just wasn’t ready. “Why just for the events? It’s really pretty,” Thea commented. “A botanical garden and a cemetery? I bet it’s great to hike around here.” Thea nudged Van with her elbow, gesturing at the trucks of cider and local brews. “Do you want to get one before we look at the LEGOs?” She eyed Van’s redbull and then her own iced coffee—it would be a strange mix. Then, a chilling thought occurred to her. “Wait, how old are you?” She had, all this time, assumed Van was older than her. It was her air of coolness: it tended to age people. 

“I’m not…” Van thought for a moment, about divulging the parental loss she experienced, but decided now was not the time. So what if she weren’t a fan of graveyards for that reason? She couldn’t remember the last time she had visited her parents’ sites. It’d been too long, apparently. She didn’t even know if they were getting flowers. Probably not. Who would be leaving them? Inhaling sharply, Van directed her attention back to Thea, pushing the ill-fated thoughts from her mind. No use in going down the depression hole when she was supposed to be having fun. At Thea’s comment about hiking, she snorted. “Do I look like I’d ever want to hike?” The shoes she wore even now were highly inappropriate for such a thing. “Hm? Oh… um, I think that you might need to buy it.” She pointed at herself. “I’m only twenty. Maybe I can hide. Do you think they’re going to make you wear a bracelet?” She looked over at the drink stall, watching as a woman put a wristband on the man. She frowned. “You can totally get one though if you want? My birthday isn’t until March.” She was a pisces if she’d ever seen one, that much was true. “How old…” She motioned towards Thea, expectant. She hadn’t realized just how much she didn’t know about the girls she’d help kill somebody else with. This felt like a reintroduction under better terms.

“Y-yes…?” Thea stared at Van, analyzing the question far more than it had been intended for. What did she know about Van? Van was cool, Van had a car, Van was probably short for something but she didn’t want to ask because it seemed rude, Van could longboard, Van was cool. Did cool people hike? Thea enjoyed hiking, feeling the beauty of nature pressed against her and the power of her legs carrying her wherever she wanted; humans were endurance animals, they were made to walk. It probably wasn’t cool. “No,” she amended. “You don’t look like a…hiker?” Her face strained together. “I’m sorry, I don't really know. Do I look like a hiker?” Thea stared down at her floral summer dress and chunky boots—for the practicality and, also, because she liked to hike. Fashion cohesion was not her strong suit. 

“Oh, no!” Thea threw up her hands. “It was just a suggestion, I’m not that serious about…” Her sentence fell away as the rest of Van’s words processed in her skull. “I’m…two years older than you?” Thea blinked. “My birthday’s in a few weeks. Uh, the twenty-ninth of August. I’ll be twenty-two.” She felt strange and silly and though she often felt both strange and silly, it didn’t feel particularly natural. Two years wasn’t much in any metric, but Thea felt at once that she should have been taking care of Van more; taking care of all of them. After all, she was, by a very important two years, the oldest. To Thea, that meant something. “Come on.” She nudged Van, smiling. “Let’s go look at the LEGOs! I heard there was a spaceship! I wonder if that’s like a NASA spacecraft or a sci-fi thing. I built a Hubble space telescope out of cardboard as a kid, people said it looked like a hotdog with wings.” She paused. “Did you, uh, use LEGOs as a kid? Or an adult! Young adult? They make adult LEGOs! Not, um, like…sexy LEGOs, but like–uh–Game of Thrones LEGOs.” Why was it so difficult to remember how conversations were supposed to go? Thea’s usual technique of say-thing then ask-thing felt rusted over, like a shovel left in the rain. She wanted to add that if she was trying to say there were no sexy LEGOs, Game of Thrones was the worst example, but Thea kept her mouth shut tightly and hoped she hadn’t crossed the threshold into annoying. 

“I don’t think you look like a hiker, but I guess some people don’t look like anything and others do, you know?” Van wasn’t sure if that made any sense, but she was willing to bet Thea would think that it was cool regardless. Or maybe she’d be confused. Shit. She bit the inside of her cheek and looked around their surroundings, the sound of shouting children louder than even Thea who was standing right next to her. “I think that if you wanted to look like a hiker you could… that’s what I mean.” Didn’t they call them granola girls? Alex, from her party, that looked like a hiker. She could never. She didn’t look good in flannel. 

“Twenty-ninth of.. oh that is soon!” Van wondered if they were good enough friends for her to ask what she could possibly want as a present. Maybe she’d figure it out by hanging out with her. It wasn’t like she had a lot of money, but she could probably swing something. They both liked gacha games, so maybe Van had something in a box in her closet that she forgot about that she could repurpose. She’d need to figure out the other’s favorite character. It shouldn’t be that hard. Maybe Nora would have some insight, too. After all, on the first night they all met, Thea had been with Nora. It made Van wonder if Thea knew about Nora being a bear or not. Drifting into her thoughts about what to do for Thea’s birthday, she nearly missed the other girl telling her to follow. Van nodded. “A spaceship? That’s really cool.” As a kid, for a split second, she’d wanted to be an astronaut. Then she realized she’d have to be in the dark, and that wasn’t something she was super keen on. “Wait, really? That’s so cool.” Van almost asked if it actually worked before catching herself. “I liked LEGOs, yeah! I mean, we got like, the ones that the library gave out to people, but they were always missing pieces, but it never mattered. I liked to make really tall blocks and then tip them over.” She thought about the way her mom would yell at her for making a mess. The memory brought a small smile to her face. “Thea…” Van stopped walking, tugging on her friend’s arm. “What the hell is a sexy lego?” 

Thea considered Van’s words, tumbling them around in her head like a marble trying to find the right hole. “Do I look like anything?” She asked quietly, regarding Van. Unlike her, she had no discernable style--she wore her hair whatever way it fell, put on whatever clothes she found. Her lack of identity had troubled her in highschool; she played volleyball but she liked math and sciences just as much; she liked high-octane metal music just as much as punk rock but never felt right wearing black for two days straight. She couldn’t do art, but she liked being around the kids that could. Sometimes she ditched school to hang out at Tim Horton’s but she wasn’t a part of the regular hooky crowd. She liked comics, manga, anime and video games but didn’t have much to contribute to the conversation about them. During university, she felt more free to accept that there was nothing particularly remarkable about her. She hoped she didn’t look like anything--she didn’t want to be anything.

“Yeah, but--uh--no party or anything. I’ve um…” Thea bit down on her lip. She had never really come up with a good lie regarding her moon-issues. “I’ve got a shift at work; can’t get out of it.” That would work. “My dad got me a real telescope after.” She nodded, smiling at the memory. “I remember the first time I saw Jupiter through it; I thought I was so smart to find it. Of course, it's one of the brightest objects in the sky, it’s really easy to see. It’s actually to the east so uh…” Thea pointed up at the sky, despite it being too bright for any celestial visibility. “Right over there, somewhere, and to the west..” Thea pointed to the sky on the opposite edge. “The summer triangle: Vega, the brightest, Daneb and Altair. It’s, um, highest in the sky during the summer. Polaris, the north star, is that way but Vega is brighter so people get them confused a lot. And, actually, Vega will be the new north star in like, twelve thousand years.” Thea shrugged, then, realizing she had talked too much--more than was allotted to be polite--she flushed and stared pointedly at the ground. It took Van tugging on her for her embarrassment to untangle itself.

Thea blinked. “I dunno. Like a big lego boob? Giant lego big-booby anime girl? Do you think there are any booby anime girls here? Wouldn’t it be funny if the library gave those out instead? Then you could tip over Asuka.” 

“You look like Thea.” That was good, right? To look like someone with a name? To picture them so clearly that you could make out every feature they had? The bridge of their nose, the way their top lip might be bigger than their bottom. She thought about Nora’s hair and the crystals embedded into her face. She could picture it clearly, and she could see Cass and Ren, too. “I remember you when I don’t see you, and you’re Thea.” It was probably thanks to the memory games she’d played as a kid, alone on her bedroom floor while her parents argued in the living room. Maybe it was that, or her own fear of being forgotten, so that in response to it all, she tried her hardest to remember everyone around her. She fidgeted with a loose string on her shorts and shrugged. “I think that’s enough, right? To remember somebody and know who they are or whatever.” She was almost positive she was taking the lines from a video game she had played once, but maybe Thea wouldn’t realize it. She could pretend to be wise, even if it didn’t suit her. 

“We don’t have to, we can do whatever.” Maybe she’d bring Thea pizza after work. First, she’d want to make sure she wasn’t covered in oil (because Van was trying to convince herself, still). “I’m not a fan of parties either, so the less the better.” She smiled at Thea as the other girl recounted her story about a telescope and Jupiter– Van could only imagine. They were so small and it scared her sometimes. “I think that’s cool though. Jupiter is cool, and it’s cool that you found it.” Even if it had been pointed out to her, she didn’t think she would have been able to find it. But Van followed where Thea pointed anyway, squinting into the sky. She willed herself to see something that was there, but hidden by the sun and clouds painting the sky. Van stood next to Thea as she dragged her finger through the sky, pointing at things Van could only imagine existed. The names twisted up in her head, making a mess of memories and understandings. She tried her best to follow along. The smile that grew on her features was hard to hide. “Dude, that’s so cool that you just remember all of that. It’s all in your head?” She knew things, too, but usually it was about video games, and who cared about that? 

Whatever moment had taken them to the stars had inevitably crashed and burned, because Van’s loud barking laughter filled the space between them at the mention of boobs. She was twelve again hiding under her covers as she snapchatted her friends at school, explaining how she’d gotten her first bra finally. “Do you think the moms of Wicked’s Rest would totally destroy them? Poor Asuka, she never stood a chance.” Van made a poor attempt at blessing the thought, but gave up halfway through by pulling the neckline of her t-shirt away from her throat slightly. It was a little warm and she wished she could have gotten that cider. There were probably other things. She realized, now, that she hadn’t thought about any of the things going on in her life since arriving. Thea was a good distraction like that and she was grateful. “Wicked’s Rest moms against anime boobs… I can see the headlines now.” 

Van’s words coursed through Thea’s head like a wave lapping at a shore, carving into sand. Thea wasn’t her “real” name, whatever it meant to have something that was real. Cynthia was a name her mother concocted, the very same mother who didn’t want her. Cindy was the name her friends brewed when they decided they wanted to be closer than strangers; strangers never came up with a nickname. Thea was just a thing she called herself when the other names became too heavy. She’d gotten used to it, she’d forgotten there were more letters attached to her identity. She didn’t know what it meant to look like Thea, to look like whatever version of herself she must have appeared to be to Van, but she liked it. A smile broke through her concentrated face. “That sounds like you’re thinking of me.” Thea nudged Van with her elbow. “Do you ‘remember’ me a lot or…” Teasing Van was the only thing she could do to keep from crying; no one had ever said anything as kind or as beautiful to her, even if it sounded like something out of a Final Fantasy cutscene. “I think of you too, when I think ‘Van’...it’s just you,” she mumbled. “And then I think about a car.”

Thea didn’t mention that after she looked up Jupiter in her second-hand astronomy textbook from Value Village, she’d been so terrified that she couldn’t sleep for a week. Jupiter was a gas giant, which meant it had no real surface--it was a swirling vortex of gasses and liquids. If you somehow landed on Jupiter, you’d fall through the atmosphere, crushed by the pressure of it, frozen and tossed around a thousand times over. Jupiter was so large you could see it from Earth, which meant it was really fucking large--the moon, Venus, Mercury, Mars…all of those were visible because they were close. Jupiter was just huge. Most of space was just space, people tended to underestimate the distances because they were so unfathomably massive. And all of it was completely uninhabitable. If the deep ocean was terrifying, space was that times a million. At least weird spindly octopuses could live deep down below. “I wanted to be an astronaut,” she said quietly again. “Mostly though, I just wanted to be anywhere but here.” It felt nice to be ‘cool’; she straightened up at that, smiling.

Anime boobs were decidedly easier to talk about than the existential horror of space. “Oh, totally.” Thea smiled. “‘Get these anime boobs away from my children’.” Thea shook her fist in the air, mimicking the scandalized voice of a suburban mother of two. “Do you think they’d call anime boobs satanic? Are the anime boobs turning the kids gay?” Thea’s cheeks were starting to ache from all of her smiling; they hadn’t even looked at the LEGOs yet. Thea had completely forgotten why they were here, even as colorful, block sculptures popped up in the background as they walked. “I think anime boobs turned me gay, actually, so maybe there’s some truth to that one.” She paused. “But don’t tell the moms.” 

Van felt scarlet dance across the back of her neck and she reached towards it, brushing her fingertips gently against her skin. She didn’t want to be embarrassed in public, much less in front of Thea. Thea was nice, and Thea sometimes was covered in oil that looked like the aftermath of Debbie, but that didn’t matter. Couldn’t matter. They were in this life together. Herself, Ren, Cass, and Nora. The five of them had done something, and they had each other now, and Van tried her best to focus on that instead of everything else while in Thea’s presence. “I– you’re my friend, of course I think about you. That’s dumb.” She pushed her upper lip against her septum, squinting at Thea as the other girl offered that she thought about cars. “I’d say I came before cars, but those existed like, a really long time ago and that’s not fair.” She bumped her friend back with her hip, barely enough to make her move. “You should like, only think about me. Or think about pizza, at least.” She whined slightly and pushed her hair out of her face. 

There was a silence that fell over them, and not the uncomfortable kind. The kind that told her Thea was thinking. The kind where secrets came to the surface, or maybe it wasn’t a secret at all, but a dream that got lost a long time ago. Van nodded slowly. “I think that you would have been a really cool astronaut.” Halloween was coming up, maybe she could suggest that Thea be an astronaut. She was a little taller than the rest of them, but that shouldn’t matter. Maybe Thea would have to play the mom while the rest of them trick-or-treated. Maybe the rest of everyone would want to go, too. Van thought about the what-if’s, realizing they were consuming her to the point where she wasn’t listening. She refocused, nodding at Thea’s sentiment about wanting to be somewhere else. “I think I get that. I thought about it a lot, too. I don’t think… I don’t know if I ever wanted to be anything, but just…” Good enough, maybe. She shrugged. “Having a dream is like, really cool though. A lot of people don’t.” 

Van let out a laugh before slapping Thea’s arm. “Dude, what if one of the anime-hater-boobies-lady hears you and they kick us out? This is a family function.” Van made sure to heighten her voice an octave in a poor rendition of a British accent, butchered on purpose. Mostly. “You might be onto something. I hope that this never happens, because now I’m like, super uncomfortable.” Van shivered comically as if to reiterate her discomfort. Van couldn’t help but snort at Thea’s remark about anime boobs turning her gay, and then she remembered their conversation in her car when Van had driven her home. “Yeah, I think you might be right. For me, I think it was re-runs of Kim Possible, but mostly Shego.” Maybe that’s what she could do for non-trick-or-treating Halloween, if she let herself have anything like that. “But either way, I think the PTO moms would be super scandalized.” She didn’t bother correcting herself after realizing she hadn’t said PTA. The need for cider was fleeting now, and it was a miracle that she’d become distracted enough by Thea’s presence to not feel the ever present anxiety. 

Thea smiled. With Van, she felt achingly normal. If she’d looked up, the New England landscape would turn into the southern Ontario one that she knew—not that they were all that different to begin with. They’d be walking through High Park, and next year, Thea could promise, they’d go when the cherry blossoms were in bloom. High Park was a real park, not like the tiny parks that dotted Toronto’s landscape. Not like Queen’s Park, for example, with it’s sad scattering of trees and all the stupid fucking statues of people and the hulking form of the wolf that bit her, black as night, standing between the thin trees. Panic bubbled in Thea as a hiccup and she raised her eyes and found the landscape unchanged and the magic of being with Van incapable of transportation. “I don’t know….” Thea teased, nudging back into Van as Van numbed into her, squishing their bodies together until their sides were firmly locked. Then, because it didn’t make sense to have their shoulders bumping together, she threaded her arm around Van’s. “…if you’ve earned the power to monopolize my Van thoughts yet. I think you need to assert your Van dominance more.” 

The LEGOs pulled into view but Thea didn’t care anymore; LEGO was hardly the most interesting thing around. “I can’t be an astronaut anymore,” she hummed, lacking the trace of longing that she usually had about it. She squeezed Van’s arm lightly. “I guess you can’t really escape yourself, right? Wherever you go, you’re still you.” Thea had learned that the hard way, even for as simple an idea as it sounded. Running away meant nothing when the thing she wanted to run away from was herself. “Did you have a dream, Van?” She asked, then considered it was a strangely heavy question for their fun LEGO outing so she took it all back, a blush creeping across her face. “Um, you don’t…” she gulped “…have to answer that. If it’s, like, weird or whatever.” 

It was better that they talked about anime boobs; anime boobs were safe. “Ow, ow,” Thea winced, though she wasn’t in any actual pain. “Well, okay, first of all: Shego has that effect on young girls. Secondly, that’s just cartoon boobs, another division of the anime boob team. And once the PTO…” Thea grinned, she wouldn’t be correcting Van. “…is done with the anime boobs, they’re coming for Shego. You couldn’t even search ‘anime’ on school computers, that’s the power of the boobs.” She wasn’t sure what her point was anymore, mostly it was nonsense tumbling from her mouth, happy to be let out of her swirling head; happy to feel free enough to talk without regret stabbing every syllable. “We need to stand up for the boobs, Van.” 

For a moment, Van thought she lost Thea. There was a faraway look in her eyes and her expression changed, but Van knew not to ask questions, not if she didn’t want answers she didn’t like. She considered that maybe Thea was regretting hanging out with her, but then Thea’s expression changed again, and her arm was coming to loop through her own. “Should I go around spray painting every van? Do you think that Nora could get me spray paint?” She could probably buy it on her own, but the thought of bringing Nora along on a “trip” like that made her unexplainably excited. Nora liked to cause trouble, but usually to people who deserved it. She could probably tell Nora that she hated vans and Nora would be out there spray painting every van. Then again, it might come back to her. “Maybe not a great idea, but I’ll think of something.” She wasn’t sure where the sudden boost of confidence had come from, but she decided to settle in it. This was a hangout with a new friend she’d made– one she didn’t have to hide the situation with Debbie from. Everything else was still kept under lock and key, but not that. 

Van’s brows knit together as Thea explained she could no longer be an astronaut. Maybe Thea’s lactose intolerance was inhibiting her from going to space. Was that a thing? Or maybe Thea had asthma. “Maybe you could work at a museum or something instead and teach other people about space! You know a lot, and I think that’d be cool. I’d come and listen to you talk about space.” She could probably get Ren and Nora to do so, too, and Cass. The rest of their ever-growing crew, too. At Thea’s question, Van shrugged. “Not… really.” Whatever dreams she had before everything went to shit were fleeting, and even when her grandmother had tried to get out of her what she wanted from life, she had told her she didn’t know. “It’s not.. weird, I just… I guess I don’t know.” She looked down at their arms, interlocked as if mimicking the LEGOs stuck together around them. What a dumb metaphor, she thought– if it was even one of those. “I just… never really gave it any thought. I think that I liked a lot of things, but never anything enough to care about it a ton. Does that make sense?” 

“I wasn’t looking at her boobs!” It was true, she hadn’t been, “I was mostly thinking how cool her suit was, and also like, that tension between her and Kimmy? So obvious.” She shook her head, thinking about the fan fiction she’d look up between the two Disney characters. “And like, Korrasami, too, obviously is another. Oh, and Bubbeline!” She liked media, she could put herself in their shoes– could explain herself in that way. It was better to explain that she liked than who she was. “Oh, and Catradora.” She was getting off track now. “I understand these are all kind of super gay, okay.” At Thea’s comment about not being able to search up anime on school computers, Van shook her head. “You didn’t know how to do it, then. I used to put a piece of paper on the computer screen and try and trace manga to learn how to draw, but like, it was not working.” She laughed at herself, remembering those moments and how her peers had done it, too. “It was all for the anime boobs though, so I guess you’re right. You win this one.” 

“I think she could,” Thea said, “I think Nora could get anything. She has that, like, quality about her, you know?” She imagined Nora’s pockets like bottomless pits and her crypt like a magical vortex to anything. If she asked for a sandwich, Nora would have one. If she asked for The Declaration of Independence, Nora would have that too, with a snake draped over it. What Thea wasn’t saying was how jealous she was of Nora. If Van asked her for spray paint, she’d reach into her pockets and pull out a crumpled receipt from McDonald’s; she liked to eat McNuggets just as she did when she was eight and her dad kept buying them for her and she tried to spell ‘divorce’ with the sweet and sour sauce. For years it was ‘devorce’ as if they were un-vorcing. Now she spelled things like ‘wolf’, ‘eat’, ‘monster’, ‘hungry’. Those were the sorts of things she offered. She felt sorry that Van had to hang out with someone as meager as her. 

Thea rolled Van’s idea around in her head. “I guess I could,” she mumbled. It sounded plain, normal, sad: sharing the joy of space with yawning kids and couples who desperately wanted to be the kind of couples that went on museum dates. She’d never do anything spectacular. Maybe, eventually, she’d have enough money to buy a car and then she’d be the kind of person that wanted to be the sort of person that went to museums. She felt sorry for Van again, that her friend was going to turn out so plain. She’d text her things like, just went to the aviation museum in Bangor today, so cool and then a picture of a picture of a plane. Van would be a CEO. If Nora gave her magical bag vibes, Van gave her cool business woman vibes. The sort of business where she’d longboard down the halls and nod at interns and say you know we do a lot of business here at our business, but I think we can do more business. Self-assured. Casual. Philanthropic. The rational part of her brain thought she might be projecting. “I think you could do anything,” she said, “you have that quality about you.” 

Thea imagined Van tracing manga on school computers. “What kind of manga was it? Fruits Basket? Bleach? Oh my god, was it Naruto?” Temari came to life under Imaginary-Van’s paper. “You know, I’m totally a Catra apologist; I don’t care what people say about Catra, she was so angry and lonely…and…” Thea shook her head. “I’m also an Azula apologist, now that I think about it. I think I’m kinda jealous of angry women.” Thea shook her head again, then bit her lip. “I--this is getting off topic, sorry.” She wasn’t sure what the topic was, actually. “It, um, I guess you have this quality about you too; like talking is easy.” That was probably why Van gave her business woman vibes; business women did a lot of talking. “You probably could have asked me to go anywhere, I don’t even care about the LEGOs.” Which they hadn’t bothered to look at; not one pitting glance offered their way. 

“Yeah, you’re so right.” Nora had a lot of good things about her, even if she made it seem like she didn't the last time that they talked. Nora was lost, and even somebody like Van could see that clear as day. It made her feel a little less alone. Thea talking about no longer being able to be an astronaut made her feel a little less lonely, too, and Van felt guilty about that. Because if she had it her way, Thea would be an astronaut and Nora would have all of the love in the world. Ren would have all of the worms and Cass would have endless cave systems at her disposal, even if she still wasn’t exactly sure how her friend got through them without getting lost. But that didn’t matter. 

Thea seemed lost in thought again and Van thought about tugging her along— of showing her off to those around them, of pointing at her and explaining that she was an aspiring astronaut, but lactose intolerance was keeping her tethered to the earth. But Van wasn’t loud like that, not in a place where other people could see. If this were online, she’d photoshop Thea’s face onto every planet and send it to everyone she knew and explain that if they wanted to know about space, then Thea was their person for it. “I’d bring a flag that said like, number one Thea stan or something. It’d have stars on it.” She could picture it so easily, and even if it was just a dream they were conjuring up for the sake of the ones they lost to unexplained phenomena, then so be it. Van could think of Thea in this way, and Thea could think of her in whatever way she wanted, because even though Thea explained that she thought Van could do anything, Van knew the truth. “I think that you should think that about yourself, too.” She nearly brought up the lactose intolerance and what a hinderance it was, but kept her mouth shut. Probably for the better. 

“It was Sailor Moon… Jupiter, to be specific.” Van couldn’t ever get the pointed boots right. Their corners were always too rounded and their faces were too jaunty. Was that a word? It had to be. She swore she heard somebody say that before. Thea was going on about Catra and Van was nodding in agreement. “Catra was totally misunderstood, and Azula was, too. Even if she like, almost killed people, she definitely deserved better. Their dad totally sucked.” She could see herself in those who were pushed to the edge by their communities; it had happened to her more times than she could count. Even if she didn’t go around killing people for it. Well, scratch that. She had killed people— two of them, but not on purpose. One by accident, one in self defense. Not that it mattered. They continued walking and Van felt the warmth of Thea’s body against her own and she felt light— like nothing could interfere with this little moment they were sharing. 

She looked over at her friend as Thea began to explain that talking must come easy to her and Van could have fallen to her knees in a fit of laughter just there and then. “You think I’m good at talking? No, like, that’s really funny.” She stumbled over her words with most people— found it impossible to hold herself together in most instances, and here was Thea saying that she had a quality about her, like talking was easy. “Maybe it’s because we’re talking, like, the two of us and that’s easy.” She felt the blush creep up the back of her neck again and she cleared her throat. “I think LEGOs are cool, but I—“ She hadn’t wanted to go out to begin with, but Thea had made it easy. The edge of the situation had been sanded down and she was enjoying herself. “But I’m having a good time. With you, obviously.” She smiled, a real genuine toothy smile, before tugging Thea in the opposite direction of the LEGOs. “Let’s go get some food?” 

Thea was cursed. Yes, to turn into a man eating wolf on days surrounding the full moons but her real curse was to say stupid shit and think stupid thoughts. As an overthinker by most standards, it was some wonder that when she opened her mouth the stupid shit left. At night, she’d admonish her stupid shit and stupid thoughts, even though she hadn’t said those, just thinking them was enough of a dumb, stupid thing to do. Her conversation with Van had been full of stupid shit, she suddenly realized, and it would crowd into her head in the night. She could imagine it now: the pillow she would scream into, the groaning she would do as she rolled across her bed thinking about how she talked about anime boobs and asked Van about her dreams and said something about the stars that she couldn’t even remember now but knew that it was stupid shit. Her stomach twisted. (Stupid thought: why did Van like Sailor Jupiter? Mercury was right there.)

Van was saying something about a number one fan flag and Thea knew—knew—that it was the sort of thing people said to her as a child when she blabbered on about the moon—yeah, yeah, sure kid, yes, I’m your number one fan, I’ll be there while you talk about stars you’ll never see, yep, do you want me to cut up your dino nuggets for you? The thing that Van wasn’t saying, Thea could see her jaw working and relaxing and working, was about how she should shut up. She knew it. A lump crawled into her throat. (Stupid thought: would the flag be one of those hand painted ones or a fancy made-to-order one?)

Why was she sizing up Van’s shoulders imaging the shoulder pads of her business suit blazer? Why did she even think that? Thea was suddenly, horribly, aware of her arm linked with Van’s and her flesh burned where contact was being made. Why did she do that? Van’s words bounced in her head: ‘I think that you should think that about yourself, too’. What stupid thing had she said to make Van say that to her? The lump seemed to grow, jamming up her throat. Her lips parted as she stared at Van. (Stupid thought: what’s Van’s dad like?) She couldn’t say anything and waited for Van to speak and it was one simple idea that crawled into her mind and shook the lump out of her throat and untwisted her stomach: talking was easy when it was them. (Stupid thought: did she mean that?) The fantasy of a CEO Van faded and there was her, as she was: the sound of her feathery hair caught by the wind, the crinkle of her clothes, her smell of amber with marinara undertones, how short she was, how brown her eyes were. (Stupid thought: how would Van’s face feel in her hands?) “Oh,” she said. Autumn rustled around them, spilling yellow and orange leaves at their feet. 

Thea’s gaze dropped to their linked arms; Van was warm. She should untangle them, as the embarrassment of their proximity flared across her body; like when she sat too close to a friend and flung herself across the room when her dad walked in. There was nothing to see. There was nothing wrong. But something coiled up her body, sucked the water out of her mouth; some truth buried itself beyond the crust of her body. Her gaze shifted back to her friend’s face; some truth fastened itself beyond the mantle. When she’d reckon with all her stupid thoughts and stupid shit, she’d think about their arms and hate herself furiously, but for now, she wanted to imagine the world where she hadn’t noticed their arms at all. 

“I think if you don’t shut me up, I’ll probably talk your ear off. Or like, make your head explode.” Thea tried to laugh; some truth was now home inside of her core, and she wouldn’t be digging it out. (Stupid thought: did Van want to listen to music with her?) “I can do that sometimes. But it…” Thea shook her head. (Stupid thought: why was talking easier with Van?) She was worried in nauseating waves that Van would hate her and in the same sea a dichotomous calmness claimed her mind; she wanted to say everything. (Stupid thought: did Van use water metaphors too? Ocean. Tides. Moon. Body. Water.) 

“Yeah,” Thea smiled a genuine, toothy grin to match Van’s. “I could eat a horse. Oh, not literally. Please don’t take me to a horse restaurant. Unless it’s, like, horse-girl themed? Actually, I think I heard something about you and hay…” Thea’s voice continued, carried by the wind and along into her stream of flowing throats. (Stupid thought: did Van mind that she didn’t want to shut up?) 

[exodusims]

Thea recebeu de presente uma luminária de coruja, feito para afastar os monstros que vivem embaixo da cama. Já Ayelen ganhou um telescópio que tanto pediu e agora pode observar as estrelas que tanto gosta. Enquanto isso, Toto a cada dia fica mais esperto e agora aprendeu a engatinhar. Com o corpinho em movimento, ninguém o segura mais, até mesmo quando a irmã joga tinta em sua cabeça.

[lovingthea]

( Chloe Rose Robertson ) Pelos portões do Acampamento Meio-Sangue podemos ver entrar uma nova esperança. Theodora Harvelle, filha de Afrodite, com seus vinte e dois anos, será a nova luz ao nosso lado.

❥ informações básicas

nome: Theodora [ Thea ]  Harvelle idade: 23 parentesco: Afrodite signo: libra alinhamento: caótico bom mbti: ESFJ características positivas: comunicativa, espirituosa, criativa, confiante, prestativa, leal características negativas: arrogante, dramática, presunçosa, precipitada, ciumenta, tempestiva

❥ personalidade

Thea é uma pessoa gentil, sociável e amorosa que geralmente é fácil de adorar. Em contrapartida, é tempestiva quando se irrita e perde a paciência, tornando-se teimosa e sarcástica. 

Na maior parte do tempo, é bem-humorada e preza por acreditar nas coisas boas acima das ruins, mas tem temperamento volúvel, a personalidade mutável e dominadora. É prestativa e muito dedicada, sempre disposta a ajudar. Por seus amigos e família, Thea está sempre disposta a ir ao extremo, às vezes imprudentemente colocando-se em perigo e, consequentemente, deixando as pessoas que se importam com ela extremamente preocupadas e exasperadas. E, embora muitos a julguem apenas pela aparência e pela forma leviana com que se comporta, Theodora é inteligente, corajosa e muito obstinada.

Extremamente curiosa, está sempre envolvida em confusão por se meter onde não foi chamada, e mesmo que precise de ajuda para se livrar dos problemas, seu primeiro instinto é se virar sozinha, afinal seu orgulho fala sempre mais alto.

❥ backstory

William Harvelle podia até não ser um homem muito organizado em qualquer outro aspecto de sua vida — convenhamos que aos vinte e dois, não era muito organizado em coisa alguma — mas certamente tinha alguns planos para sua carreira: queria uma guitarra melhor, queria encher um estádio, queria sua música estourando nas rádios, estampar uma Rolling Stones e uma prateleira cheia de prêmios com seu nome gravado. Definitivamente ter um bebê não estava entre eles. 

Ser um astro do rock (ou quase) tinha suas vantagens e William sabia muito bem como aproveitar cada uma delas. Dono de um sorriso bonito e carregando a banda nas costas, os encontros nos bastidores escuros eram quase inevitáveis, mas na maioria das vezes, acabavam antes do final da noite. Exceto por aquela única vez, com aquela única mulher. 

Só soube que seria pai quando a mulher bateu à porta de seu trailer, meses depois, após uma noite intensa e um show memorável. Primeiro, ele atribuiu a visão a mais um dos efeitos de se misturar entorpecentes, mas quanto mais ajustava os olhos à claridade do dia, mas aquele bebê gorducho e risonho se tornava real. Enroscando os pequenos dedos nos adornos dourados de Afrodite, estava Thea. Primeiro, William quis acreditar que toda a ladainha sobre deuses e monstros não passava de uma mistura de uma poderosa ressaca com uma dose de “quero me livrar da responsabilidade de ser mãe”. Mas bastava um olhar mais cuidadoso que se tornava fácil acreditar que ele tinha escapado da religião conservadora dos pais, para cair direto nas graças de uma deusa.  

Thea cresceu no ambiente de trabalho do pai, envolvida nas turnês, dramas de bastidores e assuntos de mídia.  Apesar dos esforços, William não sabia muito bem o que fazer para ser um bom pai, e o possível para ele não parecia ser o suficiente para Thea. Então, enquanto crescia, a equipe do pai se tornou para ela uma família disfuncional e instável. 

Carente, adorável e manipuladora, nunca foi preciso muito esforço para que Thea fosse amada pelas pessoas que a cercavam, mas todos sempre partiam em algum momento e ela voltava a se sentir sozinha. As promessas de que manteriam contato eram a única constante, além de compartilharem a característica de serem uma mentira.  Foi apenas com o tempo que ela entendeu que aquelas pessoas não eram sua família de verdade, que pessoas não pertenciam a ninguém.  Tem um sério problema de confiança por conta disso, e o fato de que o pai se tornava evasivo sempre que ela perguntava a respeito da mãe, apenas reforçava suas inseguranças. 

Estavam em Los Angeles para um show da banda quando sofreu seu primeiro ataque. Aos treze anos, ela tinha passado o dia flertando com o garoto da venda dos bilhetes e, quando o sol se pôs, finalmente tinha conseguido fugir da vista do pai para se encontrar com ele. Depois de um terrível primeiro beijo com sabor de tutti-frutti, um monstro a atacou, deixando uma ferida em sua costela que, mais tarde, viraria uma cicatriz fininha e esbranquiçada. 

Talvez por sua natureza bagunceira, ou pela impaciência e irritabilidade, muito se pensou que talvez ela fosse filha do deus da guerra. Passou um mês inteiro morando no chalé de Hermes antes de Afrodite reclamá-la como sua filha. A confusão de sentimentos nada mais era do que uma sorte de poderes descontrolados, que diante dos acontecimentos, estavam plenamente desequilibrados. 

Apesar de meio impaciente, Thea ainda adora se envolver nos assuntos do acampamento. É instrutora de arco para os mais novos, mas é comumente vista ajudando nas aulas de equitação, escalada, colhendo morangos e organizando a captura à bandeira. Extremamente competitiva, odeia perder neste último. Por não ter tido uma casa de fato, o acampamento é o mais próximo do que ela imagina como uma e, mesmo tendo mais contas do que seu colar possa de fato sustentar, a ideia de viver sozinha no mundo mortal a aterroriza.

Hoje em dia, mantém uma boa relação com o pai, que agora que ela é adulta parece saber lidar melhor com o fato de ter uma filha. William parece ter parado no tempo, embora tenha conquistado tudo aquilo que almejava e um pouco mais. Agora ele e Thea têm mais em comum do que em qualquer outra época de suas vidas. Ele vive em Los Angeles  e ela o visita sempre que pode.

❥ arsenal

[Grace] Um longo arco adornado com arabescos, feito a base de jade reluzente. Ao ter seu fio puxado, o arco conjura flechas de uma aljava de estoque infinito. Na maior parte do tempo, o arco e a aljava permanecem em repouso junto à semideusa na forma de um delicado body chain. 

❥ conexões

Aqui estão algumas opções de relacionamentos que gostaria de desenvolver com a Thea, mas se você achar que seu personagem não se encaixa em nenhuma, podemos combinar uma totalmente nova! E se você achar que a Thea se encaixaria em alguma do seu personagem, eu também vou adorar!

[thcdora]

        𝗌𝖼𝗋𝖾𝖺𝗆𝗂𝗇𝗀     𝗍𝗁𝖾     𝗇𝖺𝗆𝖾     𝗈𝖿     𝖺     𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒏𝒆𝒓'𝒔     𝒈𝒐𝒅    ٫                                                            𝒕͟𝒉͟𝒆͟𝗈𝖽𝗈𝗋𝒂   ,   𝖽𝖺𝗎𝗀𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗋   𝗈𝖿   𝑎𝑟𝑒𝒔

 go   yoon   jung   ?   não   !   é   apenas   theodora   cha  ,   ela   é   filha   de   ares   do   chalé   5   e   tem   22   anos   .   a   tv   hefesto   informa   no   guia   de   programação   que   ela   está   no   nível   ii    por   estar   no   acampamento   há   dezessete   anos   ,   sabia  ?   e   se   lá   estiver   certo  ,   thea   é   bastante   clemente   mas   também   dizem   que   ela   é   explosiva   .   mas   você   sabe   como   hefesto   é   ,   sempre   inventando   fake   news   pra   atrair   audiência.

　　　　 　𝗆𝗎𝗌𝗍𝖾𝗋𝗂𝗇𝗀    𝗌𝗈𝗆𝖾    𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓    𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒎    ,     𓂃 ˖ pinterest ⭑ connections ⭑ musings ⭑ demigods diaries ˖ 𓂃 　　　 　 𝗌𝗁𝖾    𝖿𝖾𝖾𝗅𝗌    𝗇𝗈    𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒍    𝗈𝖿    𝗁𝖾𝗋    𝖻𝗈𝖽𝗒    ​​​​​

⸻   one    ౨ৎ  

nome theodora cha .

idade 22 anos .

esfj  cônsul .

temperamento sanguíneo .

alinhamento moral caótico bom .

qualidades clemente , paciente , acolhedora , proativa , energética .

defeitos explosiva , reservada , desdenhosa , covarde , competitiva .

chalé 5 .

queimada membro da equipe azul .

⸻   two   ౨ৎ  

౨ৎ    ah , a história milenar sobre a atração dos opostos ou , quem sabe , carma cósmico daquela que jurava ser amante da paz , mas que se viu em um campo de guerra no auge de sua juventude e encantada por aquele que trazia apenas desgraças . a família cha imigrou para o estados unidos há várias gerações e , em consequência — e em certa parte para fugir da discriminação — , tornaram-se grandes patriotas . afinal , a grande águia do norte só os fez prosperar . a mãe de thea jurava ser o oposto do que sua família representava , se tornaram um núcleo militar e ela sabia bem que nem mesmo sua repulsa a faria desobedecer ordens diretas do patriarca , fora assim que acabara no afeganistão no início da guerra .

౨ৎ    pouco se sabe sobre o que aconteceu nos quatro meses que serviu , ela se recusava a dizer uma só palavra , inclusive sobre o enorme elefante na sala ; fora afastada do dever por conta de uma gravidez . por um tempo fora agraciada pela paz que tanto aspirava , mas este fora curto demais , não importava que havia sido exilada para o campo , junto de parentes distantes para esconder a vergonha da gravidez inesperada . theodora estava prestes a completar dois anos quando burburinhos começaram a se espalhar sobre uma outra guerra e em poucos meses se viu sem sua mãe , mais alguns meses e a falta se tornara definitiva , apenas mais um soldado caído .

౨ৎ     anos depois que fora elucidada sobre o paradeiro de sua mãe , quando começava a assimilar a realidade lhe fora entregue uma carta final deixada pela mulher , uma figura que , apesar de pouco se lembrar , traz consigo com todo o amor do mundo em uma foto borrada no relicário velho que repousa com esmero sobre seu peito tal como uma medalha de honra . na carta escrita como se a mulher soubesse que eram seus últimos momentos , é deixado claro o amor incondicional pela filha , tal como histórias de glória protagonizadas ao lado de ninguém menos do que o seu pai ! uma figura descrita quase como mística … ah , se soubesse então as verdadeiras implicações de tal sentimento , decerto que lhe pouparia tanta confusão .  

౨ৎ    como tudo que se recorda em sua vida , sua chegada ao acampamento foi precoce . não bastava que após a morte da mãe acabara sob os cuidados dos avós e thea já os considerasse verdadeiros monstros que a mantinham escondida como se fosse um segredo sujo , fora atacada pela primeira vez aos cinco anos por mero descuido , data fatídica onde sua revolta alcançou níveis estratosféricos para uma criança tão frágil , deixou a casa dos avós naquela tarde com um rasto de caos ao seu encalço e nunca mais voltou de maneira definitiva . fora um golpe de sorte do destino chegar viva ao acampamento — intervenção divina ? — quando não fazia ideia de absolutamente … nada , nem mesmo as explicações corridas oferecidas pelo sátiro que a encontrou em seu caminho sobre para onde estava levando-a surtiram muito efeito na garotinha petrificada com tudo que tinha visto .

౨ৎ    foi reclamada por seu pai aos onze anos na volta de uma expedição —  a primeira vez que havia deixado o acampamento desde que havia chego e decidiu ir atrás dos avós , não para reencontrá-los , mas sim para buscar a carta de sua mãe e seus pertences mais especiais , apenas para encontrar o lote em que moravam em ruínas e , pelo que soube de vizinhos , a tragédia havia acontecido há anos , exatamente quando thea os deu as costas em seu acesso de fúria — , a carga emocional tamanha que transformou a garotinha pacífica que fazia amizade com todos em uma bomba relógio . a explosão , guiada pelo medo , a culpa e o remorso , fora a manifestação de seu poder , seguida do símbolo vermelho aparecendo sobre sua cabeça .

౨ৎ    passou por todos os estágios do luto ali antes mesmo de mudar de chalé , embora no fundo , junto com toda a raiva e angústia que guardava sob sete chaves , soubesse a verdade , não a aceitou com facilidade . a guerra havia levado sua mãe , a guerra era seu pai . há tantas reclamações sobre seu parente divino que é uma verdadeira dádiva ela ainda não ter sido castigada por ele , despreza toda e qualquer qualidade que possa a colocar em evidência como uma verdadeira filha de ares , se mostrando uma pessoa pacífica e paciente , frequentadora ávida das atividades de meditação .

⸻   three   ౨ৎ POWER

౨ৎ  indução de paranoia , derivado de táticas defensivas de guerra , gera delírios , desconforto , desconfiança , desorientação e até mesmo crises de mania a depender da intensidade , abrindo espaço para um possível ataque ofensivo enquanto seu alvo lida com o medo gerado . o poder se manifesta em ondas de médio alcance — quanto mais próxima de seu alvo , maior será o efeito — , no entanto , sua intensidade depende de seu estado de estresse emocional , se tornando mais intensa quando está a mercê de emoções carregadas como a raiva e a angústia . a questão é , a falta de habilidade que deriva do seu medo e natureza aparentemente pacífica , faz com que seu poder acabe funcionando como uma via de mão dupla ; é atingida pelo próprio poder enquanto o usa , mesmo que em menor quantidade do que é direcionado ao inimigo . está no nível dois há um bom tempo , pois , enquanto é capaz de controlar seu poder , evita ao máximo usá-lo , criando ali uma falta de habilidade pelo desuso .

⸻   four   ౨ৎ WEAPON

౨ৎ  descoberta feita pouco depois de ser reclamada , o relicário que ganhara da mãe e o mantinha guardado com cuidado na verdade é forjado em bronze celestial e , quando arrancado do pescoço se transforma em uma maça de guerra . a esfera maciça brilha no mesmo metal reluzente do pingente , cravejado com espinhos negros e extremamente afiados . o cabo , apesar de ser robusto , é forjado de maneira que seja mais leve ao manuseá-lo . a corrente que liga a maça ao cabo é expansiva , permitindo ataques de maiores distâncias , o que complementa seu estilo mais defensivo de luta . 

[seachloe]

O equinócio tinha finalmente chegado e com ele, cinco dias de festa no acampamento. Chloe estava bastante animada para poder festejar e deixar de lado um pouco as preocupações que tinham vindo há um tempo atrás com o aparecimento surpresa do grande cachorrão. Agora, seria um momento de esfriar a cabeça. Ela já tinha se arrumado (look do meu primeiro dia) para poder desfrutar de tudo que pudesse no primeiro momento, e depois nos outros dias, focaria em atividades que envolviam um maior esforço físico. Tinha andado por alguns locais até que parou perto do Lago da Canoagem, observando a decoração que havia ajudado o chalé de Afrodite e Thea a realizar. Estava orgulhosa com o seu trabalho e, caso precisasse trabalhar como cupido ou até mesmo ajudante, iria se divertir bastante. — Aposto que Afrodite deve estar pronta para fazer novos casais. Queria saber o que se passa na mente dela agorinha. — Comentou ao vento, não sabendo se havia alguém por perto... Falando em deuses, ela lembrou que havia visto outros ali, menos o seu pai. É claro que aquilo lhe deixava chateada, mas tentava não deixar explícito, pois não queria perder a diversão por causa da ausência contínua paterna. — Fico imaginando porquê alguns deuses apareceram, e outros não. Mas ter bom senso para ser presente é uma das características inexistentes deles mesmo. — Suspirou, dando um gole na bebida que estava na sua mão esquerda.

[monnstrous]

𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐆 - 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐋 ! - i guess that flowers aren't just used for big apologies. i guess i should've been more conscious how you spoke to me.

para um starter com NIKOLAI , deixe NIKO + uma frase DAQUI, DAQUI , DAQUI, DAQUI ou DAQUI + o @ do seu personagem e OPCIONALMENTE um lugar ! ( 04/04 )

para um starter com ALTHEA , deixe THEA + uma frase DAQUI, DAQUI , DAQUI, DAQUI ou DAQUI + o @ do seu personagem e OPCIONALMENTE um lugar ! ( 02/04 )

para um starter com ALEKSANDER , deixe ALEK + uma frase DAQUI, DAQUI , DAQUI, DAQUI ou DAQUI + o @ do seu personagem e OPCIONALMENTE um lugar ! ( 03/04 )

para um starter com ABIGAIL , deixe ABBY + uma frase DAQUI, DAQUI , DAQUI, DAQUI ou DAQUI + o @ do seu personagem e OPCIONALMENTE um lugar ! ( 04/04 )

obs : o limite é dois starters por mun !