#part 2 coming sometime!! also really got not-that-far from done like 2 years ago just have a couple panels to fill

[makanidotdot]

ELUNE CONVO FIX IT part 1

i did it i finished!! finished enough anyway

How about instead of Tyrande getting possessed by Elune, we actually got to see them have a conversation about why tf she won't let her kill sylvanas!!! And get some real payoff for all the "hmm something's off about Elune"!! And more!!

Warning this one is long and boring. part 2 is way better lol

sry she should more serious here but w/e we're just going with 'angy' lol

i think i drew these same poses in the sylvanas one lol oop sry my brain library is not vast

ok one thing i added at the last second was elune is like pulling from tyrande's personal elune power to get her real form back to properly tell winter queen to fuck off. and that's why tyrande looks like she has spider webs on her it's just glowy elune magic

and then winter queen does go fuck off bc i didn't want to draw her anymore

End of part 1!! Also when tyrande is watching elune and WQ yell at each other I imagine it like a kid watching their mom get in a fight at the grocery store or smt lol

[bendyartistic]

Be Aware of alexbstudios. (Part 2) TW: uh.. slur, sui mention.

Recently I've been requested by some people to make another awareness post about Alex, and what has been going on since I made my last callout. So.. let's take a look. I'm gonna be honest I have been paying little to no attention to him at all since my post up until this point, didn't think I'd have to.

Ever since I made it, Alex has been talking about me a lot more, and it feels much more obsessive in a way. I think it's funny but also pretty weird considering some of the things he's said about me. Eugh.

Anyways let's get to the stuff from after my callout to the present. This is just a rundown of everything, and there is some stuff I skipped since I didn't feel it was worth mentioning. Once my post had been made, a lot of people went over and said stuff to him (Though I didn't encourage that behavior, I only wanted to make my post so people knew about him, I'm not covering those unless it's important in this.) Little afterwards he made this... post. Erh, are you stalking me and other people?? ALSO don't say the r slur man, like what.

I find it really creepy that he has this list, and has notes along with them about why/who they are. Also why'd he spell my partners name like that? 💀 Next a little after that he reblogged someone's art and introduction saying this. (I don't want to really @ people in this, nor get anyone involved unless they asked to be.)

I still don't understand how Alex views me, but saying this in a reblog no less is so strange. Reblogging another post, saying this with it...

You're right Alex, I didn't need you in my life, yet here we are. Unfortunately. Besides that, no, 12 year old's should NOT be on Tumblr at all, even with restrictions, said restriction should be having the app blocked from their device.

I'm just gonna.. move on from that. Alex reblogged an art post, where he proceeded to @ over 50 people, myself included, saying "surely you can see the problem". I can't fit the entire thing sadly. I don't get what the point in these posts are honestly, besides annoy everyone. He's done it before as well. He got into a small bit of beef with a handful of folk not too long ago, which I got @'ed in at some point I think, didn't really pay much attention to it. Basically the original post is someone talking about art supplies and asking what one's other people use, which I personally think was a very neat post. Alex comes around though for some reason going off on nonsense. Hello? Who invited you!? (Again, censoring names cuz I don't want to get ppl involved.)

I'm honestly kind of wondering why he even showed up. He pretty soon after made this dumb post as if it could have some effect on the situation.. uh?

I guess mark your calendars guys for this date, where we have to immediately forget everything and forgive him! /j And there's this response he gave to an anon responding to his ✨patience✨ post.

Dunno, so far it hasn't because he's still talking about it, so clearly he hasn't gotten over it enough to let it blow over.

He's giving me those like.. stupid sigma edit vibes sometimes. Y'know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Also I'm not sure what to say about this really, but it's pretty funny.

Context for this next one: You and the person on your lockscreen fight god..? That's a weird one.

Wdym racist though? 🤨 Genuinely kinda curious about that. Btw wouldn't that make you like.. 9?? On a different note, I saw him previously talk about this "friend" he has going to a mental hospital, but I know nothing about it, nor do I really want to, however reblogging on an art post saying this feels off. Think the emotes are what do it.

Don't joke about mental hospitals at all, I shouldn't have to explain why. I'm going to move on from all the short stuff now because I do wanna start talking instead of making short joking comments.

Alex made this post, and so it begins with him talking about me again, eh?

Alex, you're already doomed. I can't put it any other way but from what I've seen maybe only 1 or 2 people even like you. The rest either hate you or want to avoid you at all cost, and I don't blame them at all considering you act like a fool and make everyone uncomfortable.

For my thoughts on you? I don't like you, never did. I just have to put up with you because this is the internet, and you'll probably never truly leave me alone like I once hoped. It's a shame honestly that you cannot follow a simple request from anyone. Don't think I don't know about your planned "response post" you're making, I'm still waiting for it. I don't know what good it's gonna do you though. Personally I don't care if you make one, I'd just read it to see the stuff you make up in it lol. (Edit: He decided to stop working on it after seeing this post lol.)

Enough of my rambling, I should continue with this so I can stop talking about him sooner. Regrettably I had to actually look up what this was about, I felt.. iffy reading it.

Saying gyatt right afterwards wasn't funny. At all. I'm quite upset now. There was absolutely no reason for that.

I was gonna be reasonable and say something genuine but I don't feel like it anymore, this ruined my mood. All I have to say is as much as I dislike you, don't actually do that. Sadly moving to the next nonsensical thing, he made a poll post asking this. (It's still ongoing btw)

Are people like.. forced into giving a reason? Like if I for example chose Bendy, am I immediately supposed to state my reasons? What if I don't want to, are we being held at gunpoint? What's up with that? I'm too lazy to interact with the post, I don't really feel like it anyways even if I wasn't lazy. Which one would you choose though lol I'm going to be serious now again cause this last thing is really just.. what the fuck. Palestine related 🍉, someone asking for help came to Alex, and this was his response to it...

MY GOD Alex. Did you really have to respond to that in this immature, insensitive fucking manner? Could it have not been in one of your stupid rambling posts. It should've been. I'm sorry to the person and I'm sorry I had to read it. You're pretty sick honestly. You need help.

That's it. I'm done.

In conclusion:

Alex is still the same and is still never going to change probably. He still shouldn't be here and I believe he really should get off now more than ever. If not I fear what else he might do next.

All I can really tell you folks is please, DNI with Alex, just leave him alone and block him. You're again not obligated to, but I am suggesting it if you want to be left alone by him. And hey, maybe you'll make it onto his dumb creepy list too, who knows. Alright, I'm finished, I stayed up way too late for this... I'm tired. Cya.

Reblogs are much appreciated, it helps spread the word, thanks.

[activesplooger]

Progress Update on some WIPS! + teasers! :) | Doe!Reader x Alastor SMUT | Help Me: Part 3 Vox x Assistant!Reader | His New Obsession: Reader x Yandere!Vox

a few days ago i posted a screenshot of some WIPS, and i thought I’d give a progress update! + teasers! i promise im working on everything guys i just want everything to be quality :) ive also been quite busy so, yeah!

Doe!Reader x Alastor SMUT 1/2 DONE

About halfway done! Maybe a lil less than halfway? So far I’ve gotten a lot of the exposition out of the way and im starting to get onto the dirty little smutty part ;) its taking awhile bc ive been busy ALSOO smut is hard asf to write and writing deer themed smut is even harder! lmao guys the amount of deer mating season research ive done is crazy im definitely on some type of watch list now bc of my weird search history lol. I’ve gotten a lot done though! Should be out soon, I’ll let you guys know when itll be out when I get more of it done! A teaser is on my page if u wanna see it!

Help Me: Part 3 Vox x Assistant!Reader

i dont rlly have an exact fraction amount for how much is done lol. i promise i didnt forget about it guys 🙏 i have the whole story pretty much planned out! all the scenes and stuff i want to include (+ the ending duh) are all written down! perchance ill do a bigger teaser tmrw idk sometime this wknd maybeee. I have all the scenes planned out and ik how the whole story is gonna go i just have to articulate it into words and spice it up! :) stay tuned!!

teaser!:

“The Vee's empire grew exponentially and are now the three top overlords in hell. You still worked for Vox, however, your job description changed over the next few years. A lot changed over the next few years…. You went from being introduced as “This is Y/N, my friend and assistant!” to “This is an employee of mine, she won’t be a bother.”.”

this whole paragraph is subject to change, i wouldve done a bigger teaser but im just so unsure about the other paragraphs i might literally delete it all and redo them and i dont wanna edge u guys like that lol.

His New Obsession: Reader x Yandere!Vox

OK THIS ONES SO RANDOM BUT LEMME COOK LMAO. this one has SO MUCH BUT ITS NOT EVEN CLOSE LOL. its gonna be like pretty smutty i think like toxic sweater electrocute my fukin pussy type smut. its gonna be a big one bc im trying not to make it into different parts but that might change. its gonna be a fat minute till it comes out im just chipping away at it every once in awhile 4 fun! :))

teaser!:

“Yes, dear,” Vox gestures to Papermint standing idly in a corner, “This one over here will also be my assistant. You’ll handle the more personal needs of mine while Papermint handles more business related needs.”

“I see…”

Vox, completely entranced by you, puts your resume down and extends a hand out to you across the desk, “Well, that’s all I really need! Congratulations! You got the job!”. Winning sound effects could be heard from Vox’s speakers as he congratulates you.

“Oh! I-Is that it..? No questions..?”

“Nope, I’ve seen enough- Actually, what size are you?”

“Uh… Why?”

“For your uniform, of course!”

(this is also subject to change btw! im slowly doing it its just kind of a fun lil random thing i like to do when i need a break or just feel like it)

—

stay tuned folks! if u wanna be tagged for any of these lmk in the replies!

[cecilyv]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @screamlet

1. How many works do you have an AO3? 14 (and, full disclosure, all but some of the tumblr fics are with @liminalmemories21)

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 151,628

3. What fandoms do you write for? 9-1-1

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? In order: Awful quiet here since love fell asleep (9-1-1, the break up, make up fic), Atlas (bound) (9-1-1, the Buckley parents are trash fic), Baggage that goes with mine (9-1-1, Tommy begins), (I'm in love) but I do not speak the language (9-1-1, the relationship discovery one), and I'll cover you (9-1-1, part II after Baggage, when Buck and Tommy get a dog).

5. Do you respond to comments? I really try. @liminalmemories21 is much better at it than I am, but I do always intend to because each comment is my best beloved.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Erm, we don't really write angsty things? Awful quiet, Atlas and Inside, You've Got Heaven and Earth all start angsty, but don't end there?

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Oh, god, uh, probably What's with today, today? Mostly just because making them all librarians on Stuffie Day itself was an indulgent turducken of a dessert.

8. Do you get hate on fics? not so far, thankfully

9. Do you write smut? a hundred percent more than I ever imagined

10. Do you write crossovers? I drop them in Lim's chat all the time but one has never stuck. Like, the one from this week was Wolfram and Heart is based in LA and reopens and... I don't know, Lindsey sticks around with his evil hand? THNK OF BUCK AND FREAKING OUT WITH THE CURSES AND THE RESEARCH SPIRALS AND...

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? not that i know of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? nope

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Err, all of the recent ones because I am nothing (fandom-wise) without Lim

14. What's your all time favorite ship? I have no answer for this. I read like, a decade's worth of Stiles/Derek and literally never watched an episode of the show, but I watched SO MUCH Stargate because John/Rodney, my beloveds. I am still a sucker for a good Arthur/Eames. I would bow down if people brought back silver foxes Fraser/RayK. It's hard to have favorites after over 30 years in fandom.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Lim and I poke things to death, and definitely don't post a lot of them because we can't imagine things not being done before we put them out in the world -- see the Merlin fic of epicness that we started way over a decade ago and still sits in our google docs.

16. What are your writing strengths? I also think this is a thing best answered by others, like hi, Lim, how do I help? I honestly think I'm a better editor than writer? I'm not good about setting scenes, but I'm pretty good about taking drafts and massaging them?

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I always want things to feel more lived in than I feel I can accomplish on my own.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I speak english and bad english, so I am terrible about this, but I totally understand that sometimes its warranted.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Popslash and Smallville, and hi, yes, I disappeared for two decades.

20. Favorite fics you've written?

Awful quiet did exactly what I wanted that fic to when we set out to write it, and while maybe I wish some of the OCs were handled better/differently, I'm still happy with how we got from the beginning to end.

The What Binds series definitely put Tommy in a place and time, and there's a reason there's four stories worth of it (hi, I'm super proud of the detail about Tommy losing his virginity to Dave Matthew Band because, come on, people).

I know that Inside, You've Got Heaven and Earth didn't really hit with people, but it addressed something I wanted to fiddle with for Buck and Tommy, and Lim was a trooper for going there with me.

[iamheretoyell]

HEEEEEEEY

Whenever someone makes fan art for me, I wanna cry cause WHAT I LOVE Y'ALL WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU LIKE MY STUFF ENOUGH TO WANT TO DRAW IT I'M JUST A SILLY LITTLE RAT IN A TRENCH COAT ATP

(my third meeting for today got cancelled and my payroll is basically done so I'm likely going to be extra loud on here for the next 2-4 business hours (after I finish catching up on this fic))

I CAUGHT UP AND AM DOING HOMEWORK ON FUCKING PARALLAXES LIKE WHAT

I kinda wanna work on Revelations... Ignoring the voices fr rn

3:55 update, guys they fucked around and made my homework like, fun??? --- specifically the kind of fun that my neurodivergent lore-hungry ass dies for. WHY DID THEY DO THAT?? WHY AM I MAD THAT I HAVE TO DO SHIT THAT ISN'T MY HOMEWORK RIGHT NOW????

5:49, I just want you guys to know, since the game has been concepted, I will randomly just think about the ships in it, especially now that they're all tagged, and I just laugh about the fact that I literally own majority of the ship tags. And like, another two of them, I am like one of the only people who actively writes them. And that's genuinely so fucking funny to me like I always get a laugh out of that.

Don't ask me where I got them because they wrote themselves. (Except for Damien/Brimmy, and yes, there is a huge rant about it ready for the day someone opens up the Pandora's box of "how the fuck did you get a ship out of that??" I mean, it also wrote itself, but in a completely different way and there is a very clear cut progression from me having no idea who the fuck Brimmy was literally not even a year ago to them being one of my favorite doomed ships to write.)

But I bring this up because I'm killing time and laughing over this at the moment.

BUT AT SOME POINT I DO WANT TO POST A POLL BC I GEN WANNA KNOW WHAT Y'ALLS FAVORITE SHIP THAT I HAVE (QUESTIONABLY) CREATED IS. LIKE I'M SO FUCKING NOSY BC I HAVE ONES THAT LIKE--- I love as I live and breathe. And then there are ones that just like, fit for the story, are me playing around with dynamics bc I take nothing seriously and sometimes I just do that, or some other random fucking reason I've put a ship together (for example, the ship isn't even real, they're just being forced together for the sake of a manufactured story within a story, and this example is so not super specific and has nothing to do with anything I've ever written, am writing, or will write in the future).

I got off topic. Whatever. I'm taking my leave to go act like a village idiot because it's literally halloween.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE.<3

I MAY OR MAY NOT COME BACK TO DRUNKENLY POST--

Holy shit it's Friday tonight????

Let's fucking go I guess???

ANYWAYS MAY OR MAY NOT COME BACK TO DRUNKENLY POST AN ANSWER LATER.

Also p.s. if anyone's actually reading An Answer,

A. do you want to beta???? pretty please????

B. did you fall into my trap??? are you completely put off by the creek in it yet??? wait idk how far I even am post wise. WHATEVER MY POINT STANDS BC IT'S NOT EVEN JUST THE CREEK. ARE YOU PUT OFF BY THE STORY AND THE WAY IT'S BEING TOLD AND THE WAY THE CHARACTERS ACT?????

I really fucking hope so cause that's like the whole point LMAOOOO LIKE An Answer was so experimental on my part which in hindsight was maybe a bad idea because like-- we rarely get Mysterion being the villain and I was like

oh let me try something I've NEVER done before!!!

hope it carries!!!

but in the same breath, I don't really care because it will never be that serious and Kenny is also the villain in the Trin series. Maybe. Questionably. Kind of. At some point.

AND WITH THAT I'VE ACTUALLY SAID TOO MUCH BYE FOR NOW<3

[gibblegabber]

i wrote most of this a month ago but might as well spill my personal nonsense regarding kick on his 14TH ANNIVERSARY WHHHHHHHH

nothing interesting it’s truly like a diary entry

i’ve been keeping to myself while i wind down from another hyperfixation with KB:SD, because it has to come to an end, because there’s very few people left in my life who were there in the fandom while it aired, because i get so fucking depressed when i think about it.

how do i describe this. Kick reminds me that i’m alive. he ALSO reminds me that i’m a failure. he’s the reason i finished art school and also (part of) the reason i stopped pursuing art as a career. the show’s run was the best time of my life and at the same time i was dealing with an overwhelming amount of trauma.

and i packed ALL of that into this silly 6.5/10 rated cartoon. why??? because it just happened to be THERE when I was going thru some shit?? sometimes i think “this could have been any cartoon, the timing is what mattered” and other times i’m like no…the adventures we had in mellowbrook were genuinely incredible and if it were any other fandom, i wouldn’t have met the same amazing people!!! do you know how thankful i am to have Kachiimi and Misha in my life still??? REALLY FUCKING THANKFUL. i don’t deserve them in the least!! they’ve known me at my worst and happened to also SEE me at my worst in person and they’re still my friends and i love them very much, i hope they know that.

and if anyone’s still following me that knew me during the KB years, or was friends with me during that time… 1.) i’m sorry. i was crazy LMAO and 2.) just know you made the whole experience so so awesome :) i appreciated so much that the fandom was a tight knit group of people, no drama, just a great place to be when my life was falling apart around me.

yea if i psychoanalyzed this whole thing i wouldn’t like the answer. but. it doesn’t change how much Kick means to me, and how much he’ll always mean to me!!

it had always been a bucket list thing of mine to be the number 1 fan of something at some point. ever since i was like nine years old i was like “man that’d be cool if it happened”. never in a million years would i have guessed that it would be this. but in a weird way Kick was exactly who i needed at that time. someone whose failures were just his fuel for success. someone who didn’t let his shortcomings stop him from achieving his goals. someone who kept going even if the world was against him. looking back it’s really no surprise that i got so attached.

obviously i’m far from the number 1 fan position now. who knows if i ever really was; i only knew a fraction of the fandom that called me the “queen of the KB fandom”, and Sandro had called me the number 1 fan at one point so i just took it all to heart. i would argue that Aisha took that position when school and jobs and life started consuming my life more than fandom did. or well, all of this is a moot point when you consider Jackie who is definitely 100% his number 1 fan LOL. but wow, what a time. we were so lucky to interact with the crew as much as we did.

it doesn’t seem like much but it really made me feel like i could do anything. if Kick had gotten a third season you KNOW i would’ve stopped at NOTHING to be on the team in some way shape or form. i would’ve flown out to LA in an instant and not looked back. despite everything. i would’ve done it.

kinda sucks considering uhhhh THINGS that got revealed about the director years later, so in the same vein i’m very happy that Kick did not get a season 3. but when the show ended something in me died, or i came to terms with something, idk what it was. something like: i knew i’d never feel the same way about a cartoon again so i didn’t bother trying. i stopped drawing almost entirely for 10 years.

aaaand it’s true. over a decade and i never came close to the level of obsession i had with Kick, and never really wanted to either. THEN i got slapped in the face with IZ and well…let that be a long and cheesy post for march 30th or something. :P and as much fun as it’s been and continues to be, it’s a DIFFERENT sort of experience from KB. it can’t compare. maybe in 10 years i’ll look back on IZ friends and fandom times and reminisce fondly on them too.

KB:SD is stuck where it was. if that makes any sense. there’s a lot in the show that i don’t think modern day fandom would take kindly to. there’s a lot of crack shipping and shenanigans we got up to back then that isn’t okay now. (god… okay i don’t miss that part LOL. i cringe painfully at a lot of it, but i DO miss when people understood the fucking difference between fiction and reality. it was a different time for sure.) it just is what it is.

and that’s okay. i’m gonna let it go, again, and i’ll be back on and off. it hurts. it hurts every time this happens but that’s okay because Kick taught us to live till it hurts. :) 🤘🏼✨

[callipraxia]

Well, folks, here it is. The ATOTS review. It...really could not have been done together with the NWHS review, that was a silly idea. Here is a link to a Google doc with the previous S2 reviews arranged in chronological order, if you want to catch up on those (not sure many people saw the second part of the NWHS review) and don't want to deal with wading through tags and reblogs of reblogs and such. That said...

A Tale of Two Stans

1) And now here we are. A Tale of Two Stans. Aka, the episode that proves you can break the “writing rules” if you’re good enough, since an info-dump like this would normally be a no-no, and yet…well, here we go:

2) Aww, tiny Ford. Why would there be a boarded up stash of mesoamerican gold in New Jersey? Did you also do that thing Dipper does where sometimes he doesn’t really know what a big word means? Possible reference to the whole mesoamerican salamander thing? 

3) Oh, Ford did kinda make it into the opening sequence, didn’t he? Last picture to fall on the stack before the title card of the Mystery Crew. Kinda fitting, given that despite being very important from here on out, he still holds himself a bit aloof from most of the cast for the majority of that time. 

4) I know why the writers had to include that awkward “brother!” line (so people catching up would remember, “oh, yeah, Stan said that this person was the Author of the Journals and his brother…and then the camera revealed he meant twin brother,” and so they could avoid calling Ford anything for a little while), but it was just…awkward. We see in flashbacks that Stan did sometimes call him “Stanford,” so I have to wonder if anyone would have noticed had Stan gotten halfway through the word and then gotten socked in the jaw. Or heck, even just called him “Ford” - though I’ve gathered that enough of the fandom had already guessed there were twins and one was called Stanley by this point that they might have actually said “wait, what?” upon Stan bringing forth “his” rarely-heard second syllable at the sight of his brother. 

5) …And then you see that however clubby they were in the flashback, something has clearly gone Very Wrong in the interim. Or would that be apparent to someone viewing this in isolation, I wonder? Stan’s repeatedly remarked that he’s been working on his project for thirty years, and Powers had previously implied that the machine did…something…thirty years ago in “Scaryoke.” Perhaps someone thought Mr. Mysterious Man With No Name was just very, very confused…and then got to the rest of the episode. 

…Though once you’ve seen the rest of the series and especially if you’ve spent far, far too much of your life dissecting Ford’s character on a molecular level, it is noteworthy in its way that all he did was punch Stan. Does he have a bit of a “do not shoot people who closely resemble relatives” policy? Considering the things we know about the multiverse, such a policy could probably have gotten him killed fifteen times over even assuming he didn’t stumble into a parallel Earth where the Shapeshifter had escaped, eaten Stan, and set up shop just to wait for the person it *really* wanted to kill to come back….

Hm. If the Shapeshifter stayed in one form for long enough, would it age the way that form would? I have no idea, my brain is wandering off on tangents again. Anyway, back to the episode. 

6) I am…unsure what to make of the fact Ford a) instantly recognized this individual as ‘his’ Stan, despite being aware of others existing, b) immediately figured out Stan is responsible for the portal restarting, without even checking to see if there are other people in the room, implying he isn’t altogether surprised that Stan would do this, and c) gets mad about it and launches into an argument as though picking right back up where he left off thirty years ago. And Stan goes straight from…all kind of emotions to sarcasm “some kind of…sci-fi sideburn dimension?”) with just as little hesitation. 

7) “Just because you’re family.” Dang, this makes Stan’s outburst at the end of the episode that much more painful to think about. 

8) “Stan, you didn’t tell me there were children down here.” That…would have been one of the upsides of giving the guy time to say…much of anything before you started yelling, Ford. Just saying.

9) Oh gosh, poor Dipper. Just…poor Dipper. 

10) “Also maybe the entire U.S. government.” “The WHAT?!” That…was some pretty impressive lede-burying, Stan. 

11) “Okay, it’s all right.” There’s Ford, never wanting to admit he’s completely lost control of the situation (I might not have noticed this, but happen to have reread the Ford essay of doom this morning)

12) Gotta compliment the animators on the scene where Ford (completely unaware he’s doing so) drops the bombshell that he’s not Stanley. The camera isn’t really focused on Stan in particular, but he has an utterly “oh [redacted] this is gonna go over like a lead balloon” expression on his face even before Mabel says his name is Stanford.

13) You know Stan was deliberately crafting his retelling of his childhood, focusing on the boat and how they were always a team and etc. Of course, we know from later sections that Stan isn’t necessarily telling the kids everything he remembers (he may not have narrated the scene with Crampelter to them, for instance) but his wording in the speaking bits are clearly trying to remind Ford of “good times.” 

14) If you look closely, when Stan jumps into the science fair picture, Ford momentarily looks…something. An expression of consternation is observable. Considering what he later says to Dipper about how being a twin’s a very claustrophobic experience, and the fact they both get called to the office when only one of them was wanted…yeah, I’m going with the theory that Ford wasn’t quite as happy as Stan might have liked to think for a while before the Incident proved the straw that broke the camel’s back. In the beach scene, Tiny Ford muses on whether there is a place where “freaks like me” fit in. I think this sums up a subtle but important difference in the characters: Ford wanted to find a place in society that would accept him, while Stan’s goal was just to get away from it and find a place where neither of them would need acceptance anymore. Which makes it interesting that Ford’s sometimes perceived as the ‘loner’ twin - Ford himself might want to think that, but truth is, he’s wanted to be amongst people since he was a small child, he just couldn’t figure out their social behaviors well enough to remotely compensate for having an unusual physical feature. On one hand, he can function much better when he’s truly on his own than Stan can, but on the other, one reason why Bill might have found Stan harder to manipulate is because of how very exclusive the list of people with opinions Stan actually cares about seems to be. He’s much more comfortable being an outsider…just so long as he has that little group of people on his side. Without them, however…not so much.

15) Why on Earth did the receptionist call “Pines twins” instead of just one of them? Was it just assumed Stan would show up whether called or not (if only out of confusion), or just a habit of everyone treating them as so much of a unit that even the school staff had to remind itself “oh, yeah, this isn’t actually some ‘person with two personalities’ deal, they’re separate people who are in fact capable of walking down hallways independently.”

16) Oh gosh, I just now noticed that the ears are drawn just as…blank things, and now I can’t unsee it. 

17) Hi, Principal Guy? I hate you. Just for the record. I think Caryn might agree with me; blink and you’ll miss it, but she clearly gives the guy some kind of Look when he gets to that “and his name’s Stanley” bit, and it could be interpreted as a glare.

(18) Seriously, this...the school sections just anger me for very specific reasons...not least of which is how, er, close to accurate it kinda is in some ways, regardless of how far off it is in others. I have relatives in the same age range as the Stans. One of them once had a teacher snidely remark that he’d pull the hood of his sweater up over his head, too, if he was as ugly as her; he then punished her for said rule infraction by making her walk home after school in the rain. The guy was eventually made to apologize to her very unimpressed and irate mother, but the fact remains – he felt perfectly comfortable saying that out loud to a student’s face in the seventies, just as Ford is the only person in the room here who seems to fully realize ‘wait, that was...not really so much a compliment to me as a setup for insulting Stan, and that’s kinda messed up from both directions.’ Now, I work in education, so I know the system is still seriously screwed up in lots of ways...but at least there would be a reasonable expectation of negative consequences for anyone who said something like that to a student or parent these days.)

19) Setting, briefly, aside how much I’d like to kick the principal character and then give him a lengthy lecture on why he sucks as an educator on every possible front...his remarks about Stan potentially not finishing high school are the reason why I’ve always favored the timeline which puts this in the second half of their junior year of high school instead of their senior year. If it was senior year, after all, then Stan could have continued to coast on Ford’s papers for the rest of the term, or – in the extremely unlikely event Ford just went straight to college without passing Go or collecting 200 diplomas or anything like that – just the school handwaving him through. It only makes sense if he had at least a solid, not-started semester left to fail spectacularly in, and a year left seems more reasonable.

20) This would, however, mean that Filbrick did not kick one of his kids out a couple of months before the kid was eighteen (which still would have been a deplorable thing to do), but a sixteen-year-old. So yeah, kicks and lectures to Filbrick, too.

21) Stan, you’re breaking my heart here. How. Many. Times. In this review set have I mentioned that you’d solve a lot more of your problems if you just told people what they were instead of being defensive and making attempts at jokes and just generally deflecting the situation. I mean, you probably weren’t going to get the outcome you wanted even if you had communicated, but you might have not, y’know, gotten disowned as a teenager, thrown out on the street, and left to fend for yourself and therefore almost inevitably slip into a life of crime.

22) If Stan didn’t intentionally smash the thing, he...probably shouldn’t have phrased the lead-up to the Science Fair Incident that way in his voice-over.

23) it’s kind of interesting to note how far back Stan’s tendency to talk to inanimate objects goes - one assumes he was projecting Ford onto the Journals when he would seemingly monologue to those, but who was he really talking to when he told the machine it was “all your fault!” Thinking back on what I said in my “Little Gift Shop of Horrors” reviews…his attempts to dissociate Ford’s academic giftedness from his base personality, his inability to communicate…it’s tempting to wonder if he’s kind of speaking to Ford when he’s ranting at the machine, too. He might not realize it consciously - would probably go to any lengths to avoid recognizing the fact, actually - but….

24) A lot of people have commented on how stupid the college admissions board bit is (how it’s extremely implausible that they wouldn’t at least look over the work he put into the thing, how they give their school a bad name being rude, etc.), but have an extra point from me: why was an asterfladjik perpetual motion machine being kept right out in the open with the other science fair projects, anyway? For all we know, Crampelter did the majority of the damage in the interim just for spite or something. Or Blendin, or...get the picture? The irresponsibility of whoever was in charge of the exhibits is probably at least as much to blame as anyone else for things going awry there.

25) Stan cost “our family” potential millions. Not “your brother.” “Our family.” The Pines tendency toward groupthink really isn’t just a Stan and Mabel thing, they all have it to some degree – unless, of course, one interprets things as uncharitably as possible, in which case Filbrick and Stan might both use “our family” and “this family” as a cover for “me,” to make a totally selfish objective look better….

Yeah, I know I say I have fun doing it, and I do – but too much character analysis can…kinda start to get to you after a while. Become involuntary. Prompt you to put forward these possibilities in public, as if you were still in English 400-something…Engage with caution, kids.

26) Pity Stan didn’t actually, y’know, go into sales. He managed to a) come up with a convincing-looking product as a teenager with no resources, b) presumably talk his way into an opportunity to pitch it to TV, and c) actually sell what looks like a decent number of fake clothes cleaners and shoddy pitchforks. And then just. Keep. doing it. Over and over again (the map showing glimpses of his travels indicates he got into horse racing at some point, doubtless losing his shirt as one generally eventually does when gambling, and…we probably don’t even want to know why he was being chased by guys with machetes outside the country, do we, but apparently he was also hawking lousy tennis rackets in his twenties along with the previously-viewed StanVac.). In a legit sales job, he might well have done all right for himself….

Except, of course, for it being…tricky to get a job outside of manual labor/something in a plant or mill without a diploma, and, perhaps even more importantly…Stan being Stan. His personality would render him utterly unsuited to joining a sewing plant or a cotton mill, at the very least, even if he’d been so inclined (I don’t know much about meat-packing plants or anything like that, but three generations of my family worked in the same sewing plant; decent living, but you had to have social skills more advanced than any of the Pineses demonstrated to flourish in such an environment, and of course you’d never get rich at it), and possibly for working closely with others/in a subordinate position at all. Despite his lack of self-esteem, Stan does not take orders especially well; we see when he tries and fails to call Ford for help (and then lies about it to the kids) that he’s proud as well as touchy and someone who just fundamentally…struggles to stay within the lines dictated by normal society, really. Perhaps it’s a mental illness or other mental issue (his shoplifting could well be indicative of a compulsive tendency as well as his depression and possible Issues post-homelessness, and when his behavior is looked at as a whole, I imagine it would be quite easy to make a case for him as someone with one of the major personality disorders, especially given his extreme emotional volatility. He could also reasonably be interpreted as having ADHD, with an emphasis on the poor-impulse-control aspect. Most likely, there’s more than one thing a psychiatrist could put a label on going on with him, really), but one gets the impression that Stan just…cannot help himself, or at least finds it extremely difficult to do so. Independent business probably really was his best option, all things considered - though under better circumstances, it might have consisted of something like “eventually taking over the business from the old man” or some joint venture with one of his brothers, not, er, endless con games and dodgy product sales. 

27) I do not wish to recall how much time I spent trying to google “universities that were viewed as always second-choice schools in the seventies” and similar terms, trying to pin down where Backupsmore might be/what it might be vaguely based on. 

28) It’s also interesting to contemplate…sure, a kid might want to go to CalTech, and, for whatever reason, might not manage. This does not mean said kid could not still get into a really excellent school which could just as easily be someone else’s first choice…which, frankly, it’s hinted Backupsmore…might have been, looked at from a more objective perspective than Ford’s? Perhaps it didn’t have the good publicity of some others, but Ford seems to have flourished there both academically and (by his standards) socially. That’s where he met Fiddleford, someone he considers even brighter than himself. They had a DDMD group, and this resulted in him noting in the Journal that he had ‘friends’, plural. He made rapid progress in his studies and wrote a nationally-ranked doctoral thesis in at least one of the hard sciences at an age when a lot of folks are still working on undergraduate (we’re never given an exact number, but based on a combination of him noting that he is “in his thirties” six years after arriving in Gravity Falls and a lot of googling about how long standard programs in various areas last, I’m…guessing that to be as far ahead as he says he was, he was probably around 23-24. At most.). This is where he also apparently, for reasons unknown, a) participated in a competition to invent mind control devices for a politician and b) even knew that was what the competition was for, which was…interesting (in a fic, I made this a plot point by saying the people who sponsored that program were from the same government agency as Powers and Trigger). It’s understandable why he might be bitter about having a golden opportunity to go to The Very Best snatched away almost as soon as it was presented to him, but it doesn’t seem like Backupsmore was really all that bad of a school. The dorms comment…I never lived in a dorm, but my understanding is that it’s quite common for them to have these sorts of problems, even at good schools. Just one of those “communal living” things, particularly when the residents are at one of those ages where a lot of them are not much invested in keeping their environments clean and tidy. 

29) Tea club represent! (I am…quite enthusiastic on the subject of hot tea, so I notice when characters have it. Especially when they are Americans, as this can imply that some thought was put into the decision to draw that instead of a coffee cup)

30) “Just…going to ignore that.” Oh, gosh, poor Dipper. It’s funny - if you just watched this episode, you’d walk away with the impression Mabel and Ford were going to get along fabulously while Ford thought “...what is wrong with that one?” about Dipper. But for Gompers, I guess….

31) Just saying…Fiddleford apparently had a pretty nice house. Unless, of course, the implication is that he, Emma-May, and Tate were literally living in the garage and that the house belonged to someone else, but this seems unlikely. He also seems to have had some business going on his own already, plus whatever Emma-May might have brought in (I’ve written her as a schoolteacher before, and there’s no reason, really, why she shouldn’t be in much any profession one might wish to place her in. It was 1980. Everybody was on the Pill and women were allowed to have private bank accounts even after marriage. Maybe she was the breadwinner, I’m just noting that Fiddleford hardly seems to have been a starving visionary, one way or another)

32) I love the implication that Ford didn’t bother with comments like “hello” or “this is Stanford,” but just sprang “multi-dimensional meta-vortex” on Fiddleford in the first sentence…and Fiddleford just instantly did the calculations in his head to determine it “mathematically feasible” without missing a beat. 

33) In the field of detail work - it could be interpreted differently at the time, but we see Fiddleford being a little sloppy with where he put his feet, and them both looking grim just before launching the dummy - all in keeping with the eventual reveals that they were both extremely sleep-deprived and had just had a nasty quarrel the night before. 

34) Hate to say it, Stan, but…frame of mind your brother was in at the time, I wouldn’t have entirely ruled out biting under the right circumstances. 

35) Stan is the quickest man on two feet with a snappy comeback. Not always to his benefit, but guess you gotta work with the skills you have.

36) Ford, on one hand, you’re quite right - Stan really does have no idea what you’re up against. He exists, at this point, 90% in the mundane world, where things are…usually not as dramatic as they are in yours. Out of context, it sounds like you’re just complaining that you have dangerous enemies; Stan’s response to the mailman a few days earlier was to grab a baseball bat on the assumption that anyone who knocked on his door would be an enemy, so that much, he gets completely. On the other hand, Stan is also right - you really do have no idea what he’s been through. Heck, you both robbed the United States government and he’s the only one who got caught for it; I highly doubt you’d been to any prison (at least at this point), much less a South American prison in the seventies, and things were going pretty well for you until…well, frankly, they hadn’t been going all that well for the past two years, but you didn’t realize it until much more recently. On yet another hand, though, Stan - you looked concerned a mere scene ago that Ford might be going off the deep end, and you were kinda right about that. Man answered the door rambling about people stealing his eyes, and he just handed you some tatty, ragged-looking handwritten book that he’d glued a silhouette of his own hand onto like some kind of grade school art project, all while rambling about how you had to take it to the ends of the Earth to prevent terrible destruction. If you know about Bill, of course, this is all perfectly logical…but without that knowledge, Ford doesn’t look like someone being insensitive here, he looks like someone suffering from severe paranoid delusions, possibly having some kind of psychotic episode. Either way, it’s quite obvious there’s something…Very Wrong. 

But then we get back to the theme, boys: communication. Do some of that sometime, won’t you? I mean, you’ve tried everything else, you might as well give this a shot, yeah?

(In real terms, though…this scene is one of the painfully realistic ones. Neither party is thinking straight; for various reasons, neither party may be capable of thinking straight for a sustained amount of time. As an adult who’s seen some Stuff, Stan realizes that there is something…wrong…here…but even leaving aside how frightening it would be to find a relative in that state, and how much you’d try to deny it was as bad as it was by analogizing it to Caryn on a caffeine overdose, this is just Not Something Stan Is Remotely Equipped To Deal With, and wouldn’t really be equipped to deal with even if he didn’t have so many issues of his own. We don’t know how long he’s been traveling, but traveling will wear you out quick enough, and we know the state Ford was in. Neither of them was in anything like any condition to control his temper well even if either had had a better track record than they do, and so, you’ve got two people with anger issues who are playing with incomplete decks here, and who have a lot of personal history…one starts talking over the other, they’re exchanging shots now instead of actually discussing the issue, then next thing you know…yeah. I’ve never actually had it come to blows, but I’ve had a lot of arguments with relatives which played out depressingly similarly, where you’re trying to make a point and the other person jumps in with something else and next thing you know, neither of you is talking about the original subject at all anymore, you’re yelling about something seemingly unrelated. Or possibly even two totally different subjects at once, even though both of you think you’re on the same topic. That’s always…fun….) 

37) I know I was defending Backupsmore a few items ago, but, uh…they didn’t have a single lab safety class in there, Ford? And/or they let you in the lab after you failed one in epic fashion? Cause everything about this screams “I never read the lab safety rules in my life!” 

38) I also have to wonder if…more than just errors that are attributable to Ford being bad at lab safety was at work here, though. Fiddleford put half a foot over the safety line and got sucked in; Stan ran over it and almost to the base of the thing without it affecting him even as Ford, in the same moments, a) could throw a book hard enough to overcome the gravity suspension but b) could not stop himself from going through the Portal. 

39) “That’ll be 99 cents.” Ways You Know This Was Set Before I Was Born….

40) Y’know, I never realized it, but…Lazy Susan changed the course of history. Stan presumably would have either left the store without buying anything or (it is Stan, after all) tried to punch Ma Duskerton in the face before running out the door with the loaf of bread in question if Susan hadn’t happened to mistake him for Ford…and then Toby and Blubbs started telling stories about the “mysterious science guy”’s reputation…and next thing you know, Stan has created the basic idea for the Mystery Shack out of pure desperation. If that hadn’t happened, then nothing else in canon could have proceeded to happen: Stan would probably be dead or permanently in prison by now, Ford would have mysteriously disappeared without a trace when the Northwest Realty people finally came to knock down the door to demand overdue mortgage payments, and Dipper and Mabel would never have come to town. Aside from issues of prophecy and destiny and all that, there’s also just how it’s implied this is the first time Dipper’s had friends…basically ever. They both do a lot of personal growth over that summer, especially him, which they wouldn’t have had otherwise. All because of Lazy Susan, of all people. 

41) 1982. Bread costs 99 cents per loaf. And they all just forked over fifteen dollars apiece. That was rather good money in those days, no wonder Stan’s eyes did that thing upon seeing it presented to him. 

41) Oh, Lazy Susan also inspired “Mr. Mystery”? Dang, Susan, you are surprisingly important! 

42) I’ve noted it before, but I’ll note it again: look at the surroundings of Stan’s mirror in the aging montage. At first, we see a bunch of papers about Stan himself. Next shot, still a lot of papers about Stan/his business, but he’s also taped a picture of himself and Ford as small children to the wall beside it - motivation, I suppose. Then in the final shot, he’s replaced his own “Employee of the ‘Month’ plaque with one declaring Soos the Employee of the Year, and where the picture of himself and Ford was, there’s now a framed photograph of Dipper and Mabel on the fishing trip. I’ll be the first to point out his occasionally questionable motives and ethics and multitude of character flaws, but credit where credit is due: man built a life for himself through genuine work (hey, making up tall tales is a valid job, what else do you call what authors do?)...and then was prepared to throw it all out the window, as he *had* to know that there were going to be…issues…with having killed off his original identity if he really did get Ford back/when Ford got back and saw the length of ‘his’ alleged rap sheet for the past thirty years. He had some personal motivations, of course (he felt guilty about what had happened; he wanted the relationship they’d had as children back; etc), but considering how much he had to lose by 2012, it’s hard not to give Stan some credit when deciding whether or not he genuinely thought he was doing the right thing. 

43) “The town. My family. Your parents. Even you kids.” Ah, this is why I assumed that Stan was just airbrushed out of the family’s collective memory after his disownment and that nobody knew he was really Stanley all those years - he lumps ‘your parents’ and ‘you kids’ together as distinct units, implying that ‘my family’ would mean his own parents and presumably the twins’ grandfather. Also, I find Ford’s expression very difficult to interpret here. 

44) And then there’s one of those moments when it’s hinted that Dipper and Stan are a lot more alike than either of them might be fully comfortable with - as soon as he’s heard the story, Dipper instantly apologizes for his…actually extremely reasonable doubts and anger in the first part of the episode. It’s not just that even Stan would have trouble believing a tale as tall as the truth of his life: it’s that Stan never told them a tale to begin with, which just left them to draw their own conclusions. I…really can’t think of a sensible interpretation Dipper could have reached other than “this guy is a murdering identity thief who isn’t related to me at all and…even if he doesn’t want to end the world, this is still probably not good, whatever he’s doing” with the evidence he had at the time, especially after the conversation in “Scaryoke” where Stan ‘fessed up to lying about the town and promised that was the end of it. It would, to some extent, be fair to be a bit upset with Stan about this even after learning the truth…but he isn’t. It really was for the family, then? Oh, ok, we’re good. 

45) I know the random utility of the totem pole is a bit contrived, but I’ll give ‘em their due: we did see in “Scaryoke” that Stan had security cameras showing the exterior of the property on monitors in the lab, so that’s actually a reasonably sensible place for some electronics to have been after all, I guess.

46) Ford admittedly did a decent enough improv job right up until he fumbled the technology, but it was a good thing Powers and Trigger were a bit dazed and confused - otherwise, they…might have noticed that his “very real report” was actually a picture of Mabel, outlined in flames and apparently laughing maniacally beneath a caption of ‘what hath science wrought?!’, considering it was in plain view of everyone for several shots there. 

47) I just realized that the timeline I established once means I almost certainly wrote three novels where Ford is stuck in his just-left-the-Portal outfit: aka, high-collared black rags that make him look a bit like a vampire that’s recently been in a knife fight. I’m…sure this did wonders for him all the times it would have helped him out to be perceived as a Respectable Sort Of Person We Should Listen To….

48) Anyone else really, really want to know what they were talking about for…at least a while, considering it was sunset (but still very much not dark at all) when Soos left the porch and full dark with stars out when it cut to the infamous mirror conversation? Especially since the fact that they were still talking fairly civilly - even joking - at that point meant that the previous conversation…probably was actually going reasonably well, or at least as well as could be expected, all things considered? 

Well, there. I did it. A Tale of Two Stans, a full reaction. It only took the entire day….

....Eh, worth it.

[dndiguess-blog]

2024年7月19日 — Just starting out (again); What do I have to work with?

As someone who's been trying to learn japanese on and off for over a decade it's always a challenge to come back to it, especially after a longer break. This is the position I find myself in currently since I haven't seriously tried improving my skills or immersed myself for a few years now.

Granted, I never quite got to the point where I could naturally immerse myself in japanese on any level even when I was actively practicing, but I knew a lot of basics. When I decided a couple weeks ago to see just how rusty I had gotten it was clear that I needed a good repeat of nearly everything before I could even think about progressing. I'm sure many others that habitually cycle through different hobbies can relate to how frustrating and sad it can be to have to relearn concepts and skills that were no match to your previous self. I also have the bad habit of letting go of things when I don't feel that I progress "fast enough" (I am in no rush, this is purely a standard that arbitrarily set for myself) which adds another layer of difficulty whenever I have to start over with the basics again.

Because of these reasons I've really tried to take the time I need and make sure that I absorb everything before moving on to something else. I've honestly had a lot of fun relearning even the most surface level concepts, and I think this sort of repetition that I've been required to do be able to progress is something that I really lacked when I've been trying to learn previously. Granted, letting go of the language completely for 2+ years isn't necessary. But I think going forward that I will make a bigger effort to backtrack whenever I feel a little unsure of something and repeat concepts until every part of it feels solid.

—

Hiragana & Katakana (sort of)

So far a lot of my time has gone toward practicing hiragana until I'm completely confident in my reading abilities again. Something new that I've done this time, embarassing as it is to admit, is to go through every character's stroke order and learn them that way. Previously I haven't given stroke order much thought. This is mostly because I don't even write that much by hand in swedish/english so it didn't seem that important to me at the time (I know, I know...). Another reason is that I am left-handed. I haven't seen this ever be discussed that much so I don't know if this is just something I struggle with, but I find the correct stroke order to be difficult to write with using my dominant hand. But yes, this time I've made an effort to actually learn the characters the right way! I must admit that I still find it to be a clumsy way to write left-handed (and sometimes I still cheat, forgive me) but I must admit that practicing hiragana (more recently kanji) as steps that must be done in a specific order rather than just little pictures to memorize (I did practice writing them previously as well of course, I just kind of improvised the way I did it) has made the characters stick way quicker than they did previously.

A video that really helped me with stroke order, and generally making my hiragana look nicer and less "fonty" is this one by the channel ToKini Andy! It's a nice, long video of him and his (native japanese) wife going through each of the hiragana where he first draws the character and then she corrects any mistake he makes (which I think are very common mistakes to make, I related to many of them) and shows how she draws the same character. From what I gathered she is a calligrapher, so her handwriting might be a bit fancier than the average japanese person, but I still think it's a very good video. Andy himself stated that he has been writing hiragana for 12+ years, so regardless of where you are in your journey I would recommend checking it out!

Before moving on I'd like to quickly mention katakana: I haven't practiced katakana nearly as much as hiragana. This isn't because I don't think katakana are important, but not as immidiately mandatory as hiragana. While hiragana are necessary to know for every other step of learning japanese; katakana is something I can practice slowly over time, either actively or passively. The app I've been using to practice kanji also lets you practice katakana, so I've gone over them a few times on there (practicing stroke order as well, bonus), especially the ones I'm less confident in, and I will probably do this every now and again to make them stick.

—

Currently I have made way more progress than just hiragana, but this entry ended up being very long so I won't detail every single thing I've crossed off my list. Instead I'm going to list off the resources I've been using, and also what I think the next steps on my journey are going to be!

My resources

My physical resources at this moment is my (very old) Genki 1 text book, a very cheap grid notebook, and my Goodnotes 5 app (I'm going to have another section with the apps I use, but it felt better to group goodnotes with the rest of my notetaking things? Even though it isn't a physical resource... Oh, well). The cheap notebook is just for writing practice. I don't like combining my nice looking notes with my practice scribbles so I need a pressure free space to just scrawl as much as I want. I use goodnotes to make more put together notes where I go over concepts and write down anything I learn in detail for future reference. I didn't get the app for this purpose, I've had it for a long time and used it for all sorts of studies and hobbies. I'm not using any particular template for this purpose either, I've been using the normal grid template.

App-wise I started a bit with duolingo, mostly when I was practicing hiragana. I got annoyed at basically everything with the app very quickly though (surprise!) and decided to look for something else. At the moment this is what I have downloaded:

HeyJapan – This app is in the "duolingo-category" of language apps but it's just for japanese. It's a little janky but I like it way more than duolingo. I haven't used it as much as the other apps though, mostly because I've been using my Genki-textbook to structure my learning and it felt confusing to have two different sources at the same time.

Ringotan – This is the app I've been using to practice kanji! I've actually loved it. First you pick a source to base your lessons on (you don't have to own any of the sources to use this app, this is mainly so that if you own a textbook you can practice kanji as they appear in the chapters you're studying); I chose Genki. Then you get lessons with groups of kanji based on the source you picked! The lessons consist of drawing the character using the correct stroke order with less and less guides as you progress. There's also a "Custom Review" option where you can freely pick which kanji you want to practice. This app has been great for me in particular. Since I've decided to repeat everything from the beginning (down to the concept of XはYです) I've actually used the app to study ahead in the textbook. This keeps me from getting bored while going over and reminding myself of simple concepts, and also means that I already know the kanji when I get to a new chapter in the book.

Shirabe Jisho – A dictionary. This is just the first dictionary I found when looking for recommendations, and it's been great for me so I haven't tried any other. You can search by english, romaji, hiragana and kanji. When looking at words you get direct links to the different kanji in the word, their stroke order and ON/kun-readings. Just a great dictionary!

Time to finish off this beast of a journal entry with my steps going forward. As it stands currently I have two main goals: 1. Relearn verb-grammar 2. Methodically work through the entire Genki textbook. When I last stopped actively practicing my japanese I had a pretty good grasp of the different groups of verbs and how to conjugate them. Grammar-wise I feel like that's the next big step to allow me to write more in japanese. As for the Genki textbook; I've owned this book for a long time, and I've probably read through most of it at least once. But I haven't actually ever used it in an effective way, mostly because I'm not the greatest at organizing my studies. Because of this I've made a section of my japanese notebook in goodnotes an index/checklist of the different chapters and their contents. As I'm studying a chapter I'll write down any important concepts, notes and examples in goodnotes. I'll also practice any concepts I feel shaky on, and when I feel good about a section I can cross it off the checklist. This lets me see exactly what I need to do next, and will give me a good backlog of detailed notes to look back on whenever I need to remind myself.

Hopefully this method will stick, and otherwise I'll just have to adjust it and find a way to make it work for me. But other than that I have nothing to add so:

さようなら！

[felassan]

I have a friend that has never played the games (They're very close to my heart, I forgive them this sin 😂) but they are really interested in watching Absolution. Do you have a basic run-down or know of a pre-existing post that would have the most important bullet points of the games to get the most out of the series? Appreciate your immense wealth of knowledge!! My wife and I intended on watching just the first 2 episodes and at the end all 6 were like.... that's it?! We need more 😭

hello! tysm and I know what you mean, more pls!! (๑*ᗜ*) that's a good question. the Dragon Age wiki has plot details/summaries of each of the games (DA:O, also DA:O, DAII, also DAII, DA:I, also DA:I). lots of YouTubers have done Lets Plays of the games over time. Ghil Dirthalen has a series of YouTube videos on Thedas lore here. in the one called "Nations of Thedas", the segment on Tevinter starts at timestamp 9 mins 30, and "A Brief-Complete History of Thedas" covers the history of the world. IGN did a "Dragon Age in 5 Minutes" video that covered the story so far/general broadstrokes lore up until before DA:I, Kotaku wrote a beginner's guide to all things Dragon Age article designed to help new players to DA:I who hadn't played DA2 and DA:O which could be useful, and The Kingdom has a series of 3 videos explaining the history of Tevinter (one, two, three). and to help get the most out of the series it might be helpful if they browsed the wiki pages on Tevinter, mages, blood magic and spirits/demons/possession.

I think the most important bullet points would be that:

the world is called Thedas and in it, being a mage often comes with a cost due to risk of demonic possession or perceived risk of this. because of this in most of the countries in the world mages are made to live in a system which is part of the main in-world religious organization, the Chantry, called the Circle, which keeps an eye on them and is policed by an order of knights called the Templars. however in one country, Tevinter, the country's government is made up of noble mages called Magisters, and it's effectively a magocracy. lots of bad things, dark magics and corrupt stuff goes on in Tevinter so it doesn't have a good reputation among the other nations

the Chantry religion is centered around a god called the Maker and his prophet, a human woman called Andraste

Tevinter has its own version of the Chantry, its own Chantry leader and its own Templars

Tevinter is a socially stratified society which has slavery

there are 4 races in the world, humans, elves, dwarves and Qunari (a tall horned people). elves are oppressed by humans who are the dominant race. in Tevinter elves are often enslaved. members of the other 3 races are also sometimes enslaved in Tevinter.

blood magic is a form of magic powered by blood (usually through sacrifice), it's very powerful but most people fear it and consider it to be evil. it's usually forbidden. it carries increased risk of possession. there's lots of blood magic stuff going on in Tevinter

a few years before the show begins, a corrupted ancient Tevinter magister from long ago basically came back to life and tore open part of the veil/barrier between the waking world and the magic dream world where spirits and demons live because he was A Bad Guy. this was called the Breach and demons from the other world poured through. a group of heroes got together and set up an organization with Chantry backing called The Inquisition. it was led by the Player Character from the most recent video game in the series. they could close mini-holes in the veil because of a magic mark on their hand. their title was the Inquisitor and some people thought they were chosen by Andraste so they called them The Herald of Andraste. many people joined the Inquisition to help. after closing the holes and saving the world, the Inquisition did some other stuff and then eventually disbanded.

I feel like those are the main things someone would need to know? (I tried to pare it down and put it into like, non-DA fan general fantasy terms)

I hope something here is helpful and that your friend enjoys the show ^^

[saiilorstars]

Ch.6: P.S. I Love You

Steve Rogers x OFC fic • squeeze your eyes for a Bucky Barnes x (2nd) OFC

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Story Masterlist • Seren’s Masterlist• Chloe’s Masterlist​​

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The moment Seren stepped into Steve's apartment, she couldn't imagine anyone else but him living there. It was completely him in all aspects. It was warm, cozy and very neat. She even spotted the old record player she'd gotten him for his birthday 2 years ago. Warmth blossomed across her chest knowing he actually used her gift. He had a decent amount of records to choose from, having began a collection almost immediately after getting the record player.

"Seren, do you want something to drink?"

Seren tore her gaze from the record player to find Steve waiting for her to answer. He was being cautious with her and with good reason. She was well aware of her erratic behavior tonight. "I'm good, thanks," she smiled lightly. "I like your place. Some of the furniture is familiar, actually."

Steve nodded. "Yeah, I wonder why…?" They shared a small laugh. Seren had chosen most of his furniture for his first apartment. Back when he was just getting used to the new world, she'd done almost everything for him.

"I really like it," Seren reiterated. She set her purse on the coffee table. "I think you've made it very you."

"Is that a good thing? Because I've gotten several complaints from Chloe that it could be a little less old…" Steve shook his head at the memories. Sometimes, Chloe Winters was too much.

"You can kick her out any moment," Seren said, making them laugh again. When they got past it, Seren grew serious. "I don't think I've thanked you for keeping an eye on her while I was gone. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've just been pretty rude these past days when it comes to her."

"You don't have to—"

"I know Chloe can be a handful sometimes and the fact you let her stay here — in your room while you take the couch — means a lot. Anyone else would've just sent her on her way already. So, really, thank you so much."

"I've already told you — she's become like a little sister to me. Plus, I got a secret too…" Steve made a nod towards the couch. "It's a pull-out."

"Aah," Seren chuckled.

"Better than just a normal couch. Sometimes I forget how much better this world is in terms of inventions."

Seren started making her way to the couch. "But other things are far worse, aren't they?" She gave him a sharp look just as he was about to say that it wasn't true.

"Some things could stand to change a bit…" He said with his hands raised in front of him. Seren smiled at him and sat down. She patted the empty spot beside her for him. "The cellphone things could be a little less, uh, brainwashing?" He came to sit with her. He would continue the random subjects with her if it meant easing her nerves from the event. "I've seen so many people crash into others because they won't look up from their phones."

Seren chuckled. "Yeah, that tends to happen a lot. It's so weird, when I was growing up, there weren't cell phones like these. The first ones were so big and then suddenly we switched to these small things. Early 2000s is when we got cell phones with cameras in them."

"Did you have one?"

Seren snorted. "No! They were expensive. Plus, my parents didn't want me getting used to having all that stuff around me. They thought S.H.I.E.L.D. was plenty." At the mention of the organization, Seren fell silent for the next minute. It seemed like his distraction attempt wouldn't be working out so well.

"Seren, what is it?" he asked her. "If you ask me, the night went really well. You said everything exactly how it should've been."

"Yeah, I did. Everything went perfectly," Seren nodded slowly. Her bottom lip became chewing gum at that moment. "Maybe that's the problem."

Steve tilted his head at her for that last remark. "What do you mean? I thought you wanted—"

"If I get the approval, then I'll be off to another country again. I'll be starting over, meeting new people, making new colleagues — I'll be surrounded by strangers again. And when that's done, I'll go to another country...and then another…"

"You don't know that—"

"That's the plan, Steve. Rebeca and Fury already told me," Seren said, her voice falling into a whisper. "Will I really get to have a life that way?"

Oh, that was a good question that Steve unfortunately didn't know how to answer.

"This is exactly what my parents always talked about and I never really thought about it until now." Seren drew in a breath, feeling the weight of her future the more she considered what her life would be like if she was always on the move. She wouldn't have a real home anymore. Her friends would always be changing. Her family would be so, so far away from her. She could say goodbye to everything else. Once upon a time, it didn't really matter but today...it hurt her more than anything.

"Seren, I think that whatever you want to do should be just that: what you want to do," Steve said. "It doesn't matter what the 'plans' are. You are the only one who matters and you should value your happiness over whatever plans Fury and Rebeca have." He could say that he would love to have her at home again but that would be completely selfish. He meant what he said — she was the only thing that mattered in those plans. If she was happy going on with the plans, then so be it. He'd have to learn to live completely without her and move on.

"That's what I'm confused about." Seren sighed and shifted on the couch to face him. "I have always been with S.H.I.E.L.D. I've always known where my place is, what I want to do. There's never been any doubt but...something changed."

Steve felt something in his chest. "What did?"

Seren's eyes drifted to the side, landing on the record player. She swallowed hard — she knew exactly what changed. Chloe was right. She couldn't keep on denying the truth, denying the fact she hadn't been able to move on and forget. She had to understand that her thoughts about the future had changed. She no longer saw herself alone. She never considered what it would be like to be serious about someone. There was always an underlying fear that her significant other would lash out at her because of her Celessian side. It wasn't easy getting over the fact you were dating someone who was half alien. She wouldn't lie to herself and say that she didn't have that fear — just an inkling of it — with Steve too. But for that fear to even be spoken about would imply what she wanted to be with him.

Steve absolutely hated watching Seren in this position. She was so conflicted and he had no idea what to do to help her. He followed her gaze to the record player and, for one moment, he debated whether or not to go with his first gut feeling. Usually that's what he would do on a mission but Seren always made him feel like he should do more. He should go above and beyond to see her happy, and it pained him that he was ridiculously clueless.

Just do the first thing that pops into your head. Steve knew the answer before he even finished the thought. Without saying a word, he got up from the couch and walked around.

Seren blinked when he came up to the record player. "What are you doing?"

"You know back then, I struggled so much to talk to women...it was a nightmare." He was sifting through records so he missed the look Seren sent his way.

"As far I can see, you don't seem to struggle so much anymore. Everyone loves you." Seren felt her face flush remembering what Chloe had said earlier in the night. She wasn't one of those crazy women who only saw him and a bed. He was simply so much more than that and no one had a clue. He was someone you could talk to for hours. He was someone who would listen and try to comfort you however he could. He was so kind, and so loyal. If he said he had your back, then he did. Seren's heart wanted to burst the more she thought about Steve. She could literally spend hours thinking about him, and on most days she typically did. "Steve, I lo—"

"Yeah, but that's different and I'm still not that great." Steve seemed to find exactly what he was looking for. He never noticed Seren covering her mouth behind him.

She'd almost slipped! Dear God, what the hell did I almost do? Seren felt so embarrassed, despite the fact Steve didn't notice.

"I couldn't even ask a girl out to dance. I mean, she would've probably said 'no' anyways but I could've at least tried to ask, you know?" Steve went on, chuckling to himself.

"Sometimes courage is hard..." Seren said, "Sometimes the bravest people can also be the shyest. And I definitely know that you're the bravest man I know."

"Unfortunately, it can come back and bite you. I wasted time — I did that with Peggy — but I'm trying to use that experience and everything else as a guide to right my mistakes." Steve glanced over his shoulder to see Seren had laid her arms over the top of the couch and was resting her chin over her hands. She was smiling at him, clearly listening to his every word despite them probably being all over the place (and obscure). She was always so attentive to him. He wanted to show the same gesture towards her, and perhaps more. "I don't know exactly what's confusing you but if I can say a piece of advice—"

"Please do," she practically begged him. "Anything you say will help me organize my thoughts."

"The things that have made you unhappy in the past concerning S.H.I.E.L.D. should serve as a way to help you make a better choice this time 'round. They're mistakes, try to right them in a way that makes you the happiest."

Seren considered the idea. She could look back in her life and avoid making a decision that would bring her to the worst moments. "Thank you, Steve." She met his gaze with another smile — it was even prettier this time. "So, have you been able to right some of your mistakes?"

"I'm hoping to in a way," he said as he let the record spinner finally drop. He turned to face her just as the music began to play. Put Your Head on my Shoulder. "Would you like to dance with me?"

Seren knew exactly when her blush bloomed over her face. She pulled her arms from the top of the couch as Steve came around with a hand held out for her. "You bought the song?" She couldn't help the light laugh that slipped through her lips.

"I had to. It reminded me of you." God knew that Steve wanted as many reminders of Seren as he could get, even though it probably did his heart no good.

The blush grew deeper over Seren's cheeks. "Why would you want that?" she asked.

There were a million things that Steve could say to her that would hide the truth. He gulped.

Seren saw it. Seconds of courage helped her rise from the couch with a taunting smile. Her blue satin dress seemed to shine under the light. It was just like that, that Steve felt his heart thump a bit stronger. She was beautiful..and she wasn't his.

Because he was almost like a statue, Seren walked up to him and ultimately took his hand. "I'd like a dance," she raised her head to meet his gaze. She felt a rush of pride knowing that this time, nobody else would get a chance to look at him. Only her.

Steve brought his arms around her waist and planted his hand against the small of her back. Even though he was beyond nervous — Seren had yet to lift that alluring look off him — his feet actually moved at a decent pace to the song. When her hands moved to the back of his neck and they actually touched his skin, he felt an insane heat rush through him.

"You're a better dancer than before," Seren spoke quietly, especially considering what happened the last time they danced together in London. "Have you been dancing with other people during these past 2 years?"

"Umm…" Steve raised his eyebrows as he thought, "Not...not really, no."

"Mm, I don't know, I've heard you're quite popular with the ladies…"

That was the second time she said something like that and it was only now that Steve realized it. If he wasn't completely off, one could say that it sounded like Seren was...a bit jealous? Why would she be jealous, though? They were in his apartment, slow-dancing to a song that he clearly said reminded him of her (the whole reason he even bought the record in the first place).

"I honestly don't notice that kind of stuff," he said.

She smirked. "Really? Every man always notices when women trail after them."

"I think I've made it clear that I've never been good with women. Not smart at all," he shrugged and earned himself a light chuckle from her. He felt an irrevocable surge of courage then, seeing her so casual and at ease with him. She'd been so conflicted earlier and now it seemed like a thing of the past. He was responsible for that. He had to believe it in order to keep that courage from leaving him and being unable to say what he wanted to. "If I ever had been smart, I wouldn't have let you go 2 years ago."

Seren's eyes widened, the air in her lungs stilling. "What…?" She may have been having an odd night with her internal struggles but she was pretty sure that she heard right.

Steve held her closer to his chest. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be bringing this up after such a long time but if I'm being honest, I haven't had such a good time since London. I'm terrible at this stuff and it's awful because it means my chances with you are even lower than possible."

"Wait—"

"I don't know if you've already moved on. I mean, it wouldn't be that surprising considering how much time it's been but I think you needed to know what's been going through my head. I miss you, Seren, and I would want nothing more than to be with you." Steve was terrified of what Seren would say to him. He could be very right about her moving on. If that was the case, then he just completely ruined this relationship and he would have to move on for real.

But Seren didn't answer right away. Instead, she rested her head on his shoulder. "This is our song," she whispered. "You're way braver than I am. You go out and you buy things that remind you of me. I don't. I-I can't. I never did...because the thought of having something like you but not you hurts me too much."

They swayed slowly to the song for the following seconds. Their grip on each other tightened and the music seemed to overtake the apartment completely. Neither realized what ran through the other's heads. Steve was trying to process what Seren had just said and the implications that went with it. Seren struggled to come up with a good way to express her conflict — the job proposal, her future — but neither wanted to end their dance just yet. The fact was they loved where they were and the idea of separating (again) was too painful.

Can you really do it again? Leave without looking back? The mere question terrified Seren. No, no she couldn't do it again. She barely did the first time. She raised her head from Steve's shoulder and looked up at him. "It's you," she said quietly.

"What?" He blinked.

"What I'm confused about? It's you...you and my job."

"I don't-I don't want to ever put myself between you and your job, Seren—"

"I know that, silly," she smiled sadly. "It's what we were talking about earlier. We both know that if I get the approval from the Council, I'm going to be travelling nonstop. I won't be coming to D.C. for a very long time. And I'm not sure I want that. I don't know if I want to be alone for such a long time."

"You wouldn't be. If you want to try something, I'd support you. I'd make the visits myself." He wouldn't necessarily be making a sacrifice there. He'd love to visit her wherever she was and see the sights with her.

"I know. I know that you would do God knows what just to make me happy but it's not just about us, you know? My family's here. They're in New York and if I was here, in D.C., it'd be a lot easier to see them than if I were in France or Brazil or wherever else the Council would send me to. Natasha's here, Chloe — even though her schedule is a mess — would be easier to see here. I'm just not sure if I'm willing to give up my life for this Initiative, not when I already gave up so much before." Her childhood was gone, a good and honest relationship with her parents was never going to be possible because of the Initiative. "I may be thinking of a future that might not even happen but...what if one day I want to settle down and...I don't know...have a kid or something…" Her face warmed up with the idea once it expanded to include who that possibility might be with, "...do I really want to be that mother who's never home? It's really in the future and it might not even happen but—"

"It's a valid thought, Seren, don't be ashamed of it," Steve said. It was of course very into the future but something that had to be considered. He simply hadn't realized that she was thinking about so many things.

"It was easier to say 'yes' when it was just a 2 year plan but now that it could potentially be an all-my-life plan…" Seren bit on her lower lip, "It's hard to give things up. And that's never happened to me."

"I understand. Trust me, I do." Without even thinking of the implications, Steve left a kiss on her temple and lingered there for a few seconds. He'd heard the fear in her voice admitting to that. "You've been asked to give up so many things before and it's never been fair. You deserve so much more, Seren. You deserve more than what S.H.I.E.L.D. gave you."

"You are the one thing that I can truly thank S.H.I.E.L.D. for," Seren said, lifting her gaze again. "It gave me the opportunity to meet you."

"I yelled at you when we first met…" Steve would always hate that it was how their first encounter went. That was definitely not his finest moment. "I ran out on you, actually."

"Yeah, you did," Seren chuckled. "But I completely understood you. I didn't really like the method Fury went with your awakening. And trust me, there were meetings about how we were going to wake you."

"You guys had meetings about me?" Steve blinked. He couldn't imagine having a whole room of people talking about him.

Seren giggled. "We had the CIA in there too."

"Oh God..."

"A couple of us were against the idea that was made, and, honestly, I definitely did not pull off that 40s outfit." She shuddered, making Steve laugh.

"You looked fine to me," he said and she knew that he meant it 100%.

"However it happened, I'm glad that it did," she reiterated. She licked her lips nervously and cupped his face, having to lean on her toes for it to actually be possible. "Because if it had been any other S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in that room, we might not be where we are right now. And do you know, it actually wasn't going to be me."

There were way too many things happening at once that Steve felt his head spinning. Seren's soft fingers were on his face, gently stroking his skin. She was looking at him with warm eyes and a captivating smile. Her perfume was filling the air around him, drawing him closer to her.

"Did you just say" — he was blinking fast, trying to snap himself out of the trance — "you weren't supposed to be in the room when I woke up?"

Seren seemed to know what she was doing because she leaned closer to him, pressing a kiss on his cheek. "Aha," she murmured.

Steve's heart was racing again. "I-I — who — do you — who was...who was supposed to be there?" He couldn't imagine anyone else but Seren being in that room with him.

Seren kissed the corner of his mouth and that was the end of any thoughts Steve had. "One of our friends from the CIA, but does that really matter right now?"

Nope. Steve grabbed the sides of her face and kissed her completely. He might have crashed their lips together and he would definitely apologize for the brusque manner but later. Right now, he wanted to — no, he needed to — kiss her until he ran out of breath. There were 2 years of longing to get over and luckily for him, and her, their lungs were significantly strong.

Seren moved her arms around his neck, helping deepen the kiss. Every tensed nerve she had a minute ago disappeared, and how could it not? All her heightened senses were sharp and on fire, all caused by one Steve Rogers. Any other moment she might have been embarrassed at how easily and quickly she moaned into a kiss, but it was impossible to feel uneasy around him. Even with a rough kiss, Steve held her gently and carefully. Seren almost felt like reminding him there was more to both of them than the average human.

They stumbled down on the couch and still didn't let go of each other. Steve lowered his arms around her waist, hand pressing against her back and part of her exposed skin. Her skin was so smooth it felt like a crime to grip it or mark it in the slightest. He just wanted to hold her in his arms for as long as he could — hold the moment for as long as—

Seren recognized the buzz of her phone. She'd sat right over her bag (and hadn't realized a thing until now). "I—" She actually had to take in a big breath.. The fact someone had literally managed to steal her breath away was exhilarating.

Steve couldn't make out her facial expressions and what she was feeling. His mind was still trying to catch up with what had just happened. "Seren, I'm—"

"Shh," Seren held a finger to his lips while she pulled her bag out from underneath her. "I just gotta make sure it's not Rebeca." She pulled out her phone and only a few seconds of reading the text message on her screen, her entire expression fell flat.

Steve had no idea what happened. "Are you...are you okay?"

But just like that, she smiled at him and melted his heart. "You know, I say the first thing we should do together is...plot murder." Her lips curled into a frown as she showed him the message she'd received.

Steve read it quickly — it was just two short sentences — and frowned as well. "That's definitely not Rebeca."

"No, it is not." Seren looked at the message again.

Just a note, but if you're not already making out with Steve, then I'm coming over and locking you both in the room. We've had enough.

- Chloe

"I'm going to kill her. I'm really going to do it this time." Seren dangerously gripped her phone until Steve gently took it out of her hand. "She's — eugh!" She curled her hands into fists. "Would it kill her to stay out of my life!?"

"That would be too easy," Steve said, leaving her phone on the coffee table. "Plus, I'm pretty sure it's under the duties of a best friend. God knows that Bucky screwed me over so many times just to get me to go out with girls."

Seren lifted an eyebrow at him. "And just who exactly did he put you up with?"

Steve blinked at her. How had this turned around to him now!? "I didn't — that was — weren't we — we—?" he gestured between them. "Weren't we fine a minute ago?"

A smile stretched across Seren's face watching him fumble over his words. "Lovey, you're going to be fun messing with. Forget those other girls and kiss me instead."

As soon as he heard her, Steve stopped altogether. Lovey. That same word that kept slipping from Seren each time they were in a compromising situation. It was the word that gave Steve the courage the first time to actually kiss her 2 years ago. It was her fond name for him. And he was oh-so-fond of her too.

"Yes, ma'am." He leaned over and kissed her again.

Seren happily rejoined her arms around his neck and pulled him closer to her. Their kiss was slower now, leaving room for giggles and words here and there.

"You do realize we're not getting cinnamon rolls tonight, right?" Steve said to her, pressing his forehead against hers.

"Mm, that's fine by me," Seren shrugged. "I'm suddenly not in the mood for cinnamon rolls anymore."

"New craving?"

"Something like that…" Her alluring smirk was something that Steve never thought he would need in his life.

"You are…" He started already without much breath, which led to a fit of giggles from Seren.

"Adorable?" she finished for him with a wink after.

"Something like that," he settled for. He wouldn't want to waste any precious moments with her, not when they were like this.

They kissed again and with no interruption whatsoever — maybe it was really good that no one would be coming by after all.

Seren enjoyed every minute that passed by without them fully breaking apart. It was refreshing being that close to someone without fearing an accidental display of non-human traits like extra strength. Because right now she was using every last part of her strength to keep Steve right where he was. He was, unsurprisingly, hesitant to let his hands roam when they clearly wanted to. She moved the hand reluctantly touching her left knee higher up until it was settled prominently on her thigh.

"Sorry, I—" Steve mumbled, much to her amusement.

"You're fine." She tilted her head up to capture his lips in a sweet kiss. "I've been there, trust me."

"You?" Steve raised an eyebrow at her, clearly unconvinced with her promise.

Seren pointed to the prominent star birthmark on the right side of her neck and her shoulder-bone. "Look who you're talking to, lovey. I don't have serious relationships because not everybody would be able to see past my out-of-this-world traits. I always have to hold back, whether it's the truth or physical things like strength and my powers."

"Not with me," Steve said automatically. "I don't know what's going to happen but you will never have to hide anything from me. I promise you that." He let his fingers run through her soft ginger hair. "Not even your real hair color…"

Seren burst into laughter. "Brunette-Seren thanks you."

"I mean it." Steve's fingers came down to her star birthmark at the end of her shoulder. He leaned down and pressed a soft kiss over it.

Seren's eyes closed with the contact. "Mmm…" She could have said 'yes' to anything he wanted right there and then. Burn the entire building? Sure thing. "Can I stay with you tonight?" The question slipped from her before her brain could discourage her from asking it.

Steve pulled back to look at her, of course surprised with the question. "Uh, I mean…"

Seren would soon find reality again and flush with embarrassment. "Oh my God, I'm sorry. I didn't...of course not — I don't even — I haven't even given you any explanation—"

"What explanation?" Steve said, making a face at her.

Seren sighed. "Well, you know, what happened the last time we saw each other."

"Seren, that was then. This is now. I'm not all great reading signs but I want to say that I understood this one pretty well."

"I just don't want you to think this is me changing my mind back and forth because I promise that's not it," Seren said, shaking her head. "I've...I haven't been able to forget what happened and I couldn't forget about you. It's actually pretty scary."

"Scary?" That wasn't exactly the feeling that came to Steve when he thought about her. "Why...why would it be scary? Did I do something?"

"No!" Seren exclaimed. "God no! You...of course you didn't do anything. It's my stuff, my weird out-of-this-world stuff. Look, I've said it before multiple times. I didn't exactly do a lot of dating and a huge reason for that is because of my fear. My fear of being honest about what and who I was. In the past, I've been able to push away any guy who was genuinely interested in me — and trust me that number was pretty low to begin with — and not think twice about it. I moved on like nothing. I couldn't for the life of me do that with you." She jabbed her finger against his chest. "You with your ridiculous smiles and pretty eyes and comforting ways...I...I couldn't do it. I couldn't forget about you. That's never happened to me."

Steve gently pulled her finger off of him and wrapped his entire hand around his. "I'm sorry..."

Seren chuckled, throwing her head back. "No, lovey, that's not to mean you did anything wrong. You don't have to apologize to me."

"I don't like seeing you conflicted," Steve said simply. "Especially if I'm the cause."

"But you're not — not in that way, anyways." Seren sighed, pulling her hand out of his and bringing them to rest on his shoulders. "I want you to know that this isn't something I just thought about this morning. I haven't stopped thinking about you. I'm in...I love you. I'm sorry I didn't say it before. And I'm sorry that I hurt you."

Steve's eyes had widened, his throat going completely dry. His heart was doing no better seeing as it really wanted to burst from his chest now.

Seren looked no better herself. Her eyes were filled with fear for his response. She kept talking about her mistakes, after all. She hated how stupid she'd been. "I'm sorry," she whispered, lowering her head. She felt hands slide over her cheeks not a minute later and lift her head up. The moment it happened, she had lips on hers, kissing her for dear life.

"I love you, Seren," Steve murmured against her lips. "We have one very similar flaw. We're both so afraid because of the past, because of who we are. I'm willing to try and learn a better way to live if you are..."

Seren didn't think twice as she nodded. "Yes, please," she said in a strained voice. "Can I stay with you tonight?"

Steve smiled like he had already thought about it. He never answered her, just went straight for a kiss again. Something changed in that moment. Where their kisses had slowed, they'd intensified again. Heightened senses and urges were raging to be met and appeased.

Steve kissed the crook of Seren's neck, over her star birthmark, and the second one. What she felt like she had to hide from everyone, he adored. He loved her whole and realized he could only love her with that intensity. He had no idea about the feeling until now. He needed her to know that; he needed to show her. This time, his hands roamed her body with no hesitation. He gripped her waist, pulling her on his lap. One of the straps of her dress had fallen down her shoulder. He met her gaze for a moment, making sure that she was okay. Without saying a word, she flicked her other strap down her shoulder. The act was so quick, so innocent, that it brought a laugh out of Steve.

"I love you," he said, in case she doubted him.

Seren was very proud of herself. "I love you," she spoke in a language that Steve had only heard once before. The day he caught one of her training sessions with Atria. It was Celessian.

"If I'm going to love you, I'm going to do it with all of my sides," Seren said a minute later, earnest. "And this is who I am, as much as it frightens people."

"Doesn't frighten me," Steve assured her. "I'd love to hear more of that language..." He cupped the side of her head. "Everything about it, actually."

Seren nodded, a smile growing across her face. And relief. She was guilty of testing him just to verify that he really meant what he said. It was hard letting the fear go altogether but she would have to work on it if she wanted things to work. And she really wanted things to work.

So she kissed him again. Hard. He matched her strength and soon they were ripping the zipper off her dress and the buttons off his shirt. Seren felt Steve's hands crawl down her legs until they found the straps of her heels and pulled them off her. She pulled her legs up and around Steve's waist. No words were exchanged as their mouths were practically mushed against one another's. The only real thought that would make them come out for air — maybe — was to ask whether or not they would move.

~ 0 ~

Chloe tossed and turned in bed, squeezing her eyes shut as if the extra pressure would bring her closer to a peaceful sleep. The bed was comfortable, the pillows were beyond squishy like marshmallows, the room was nice and cozy, and yet here she was still unable to sleep. Every time her eyes closed, or she got a bit comfortable, she saw flashes of places and things.

First, there was an explosion. Then, it was a highway in broad daylight. Then there were men fighting on a street. Another moment, it was a bank and she walked through it. Then there were a series of needles, flashing lights, an insane throb of pain, and she heard herself scream.

Chloe gasped and shot right up from bed. Her breathing was fast and ragged, eyes wide with shock and horror. As she calmed, she heard one more thing in her head.

'Be ready. There's a 98% chance they are coming.'

Chloe shook her head as if that would shake the thoughts out of her head altogether. She looked at the window and saw a sliver of light peaking through the curtains. For a moment, she forgot where she was and why she was there. Once she got her bearings back, she went in search of her phone. She had a bit of a headache from last night. Natasha always wins the wine competition.

Chloe got out of bed, only to get a repeat of those flashes. She stumbled back, almost falling down on the bed.

I need air. She felt like she was suffocating.

She looked around the room, seeing Seren's suitcase lying in the corner of the room. Without thinking twice, she hurried towards it and ransacked it for some more suitable day clothes. Going out in a party dress simply wouldn't do it.

Natasha was still lying on the couch, unconscious, when Chloe tiptoed towards the door.

"Hold it right there," Natasha's smooth voice stopped Chloe just as she had reached for the doorknob.

Chloe made a face and looked back at Natasha who had not moved from the couch. "Okay, how do you wake up and not have that weird morning voice?"

Natasha turned her head in Chloe's direction, opening her eyes and smirking. "Because I'm good like that." Chloe groaned. "Where are you going?" Natasha exhaled a breath and sat up on the couch, reaching for her phone on the coffee table. "It's not even 6 yet. Don't tell me you're going back to Steve's?"

"Ha, no," Chloe rolled her eyes.

Natasha looked through her phone again. "Well, I've got no death threats sent. You?"

"No, I checked."

"Then it might be safe to say mission accomplished," Natasha smirked.

"Yeah, I guess," Chloe said pretty quickly and made to open the door.

"What's up with you?" Natasha stopped her again. "Thought you'd be more happy or something?"

"No, yeah, of course I am," Chloe nodded. "Who knows, if they're eager to catch up on wasted time, we might end up with a super-soldier-half-human-half-Celessian baby 9 months from now! Whom — by the way — I," she pointed at herself, "will be the godmother to."

"Tell you what, I'll gladly step aside if you tell that to Seren's face," Natasha said, standing up from the couch. "And Steve's."

"Don't feel like dying yet, thanks." Chloe opened the door, about to step out when Natasha called her.

"Where are you going?" Natasha frowned. "If you're not heading back to Steve's, then where to? Are you wearing Seren's clothes? Bit small for you, don't you think?"

Chloe tugged on her shirt. It barely covered her waist. "Give me a break, I'm like 4 inches taller than Seren. I'm surprised her pants fit me and even then they're a bit snug."

"Where are you going?"

"On a walk, sheesh. What is this? Twenty-one questions?" Chloe didn't stick around and headed out.

Even then, she continued to see the same images in her head, hearing her screams.

~0~

She was doing everything she could to free her mind. Meditation, counting, stretching — it didn't work.

Chloe sat down on the grassy ground and leaned against a tree. She groaned. She was going to go crazy if she didn't get any sleep soon. She balled her fists and pressed them above her head.

You need to sleep. I also need to get my shit together.

"Well, well, well, the not-running girl around here — again?"

Chloe lowered her hands and opened her eyes just as Sam was walking over. "Sam, hey…" She was about to pull herself up bit Sam made a gesture that she stay there.

"What are you doing here? I thought you don't run?" Sam set his hands on his waist. "Or did Steve drag you out here again?"

"Nah, he's busy this morning," Chloe shrugged. "It's just me today."

"And you ran?"

"Hey, I don't appreciate the tone there…" Chloe mock-glared at Sam, making him laugh.

"Sorry, last time I heard you weren't the running kind. Almost thought you'd murder Steve that day."

"I would, but my best friend would be pretty pissed then — it's a whole thing."

Sam chuckled again. "Alright, so why are you here then? The real reason, because I'm not buying the 'I came for a walk'."

"So do you just think I'm fucking lazy or something?" Chloe made a face.

"I think you look like someone who could do with some rest..." Sam remarked, leaving Chloe quiet for a moment. "I know the faces — I see them all the time down at the center."

"Right..." Chloe sighed.

"You okay?" Sam asked her gently, but not at all prying. Chloe figured he had tons of experience with that too.

"Yeah..." she leaned her head against the tree, bending one leg up. "It's just been a hard couple of nights. I keep, uh, having bad dreams." At least she hoped that they were just dreams. She didn't forget the fact she saw the bomb coming on the Lemurian ship.

"What do you do for work again?" Sam said.

"SHIELD, like Steve. There's a lot of things I see and sometimes it just gets to me. Nothing new."

"For some reason, I don't quite buy it..." Sam remarked, earning a glare from Chloe. "You're out here, early, and without your track-star friend. You don't want him to see you."

Chloe swallowed. "I like being alone. For your information, I actually do a lot of my mission solo."

"Oh, age doesn't deceive me," Sam said, hands raised in front of him. "Age doesn't matter when you're skilled. But it does lead to a higher risk of getting hurt. Bet SHIELD doesn't know about this, right?"

"Seriously, you know everything or something?" Chloe cocked her head to the side. Sam smirked.

"Call it experience."

Chloe groaned. "Trust me, you don't have experience on this matter. Nobody does."

"Try me," Sam said, and began to sit down on the grass in front of Chloe. She lifted an eyebrow at him, not quite believing he would give her the time of day for this stuff.

"You're a weird kind of guy, Sam Wilson," she said.

"Yeah," Sam half smiled at her. "But I'm a good listener too."

"I'm sure that you are..." nodded Chloe, "But my stuff, it's a whole thing and...I don't even tell my friends about it. No offence but I barely know you."

Instead of being offended, Sam laughed. "Well, sometimes it's actually easier to tell your problems to a stranger. C'mon, try it. What's the worst that could happen?"

"You could send me to the psych ward."

Sam smirked. "Try me."

Chloe raised an eyebrow at him. She didn't expect his determination but maybe he did have a point. She had the worst trouble trying to come clean to Steve, Seren, Natasha and just about anyone else. Tony was easier because she didn't see him every day...

Maybe this guy's smarter than he looks, she thought. She met Sam's gaze and smirked. "If you send me to the psych ward, I'll kick your ass."

Sam chuckled. "Lay it on me."

~ 0 ~

When Seren woke up, she was in the best of moods. Granted, she was still a little sleepy when she felt a kiss in the crook of her shoulder, but she would make an exception.

"Good morning to you too, lovey," she turned in bed with a grin to see Steve already looking a her.

"You're cheerful even in the morning..." he noted.

Seren watched him reach a hand on her cheek. "That a bad thing?"

"Not at all. Chloe's not a morning person. I'm used to the morning grumps."

Seren laughed lightly. "Yeah, well, not with me — at least when I get my full sleep. Although, with my schedule, that doesn't happen a lot. Anyways, good morning."

"Good morning." Steve rubbed gentle circles on Seren's cheek, just taking the moment in. Just as he neared her lips for a kiss, he heard a quiet grumble of a stomach. He pulled back, meeting Seren's gaze, and chuckled as she groaned.

"And leave it to me to ruin the moment!" She pulled the covers over her face.

"What are you talking about, Seren? Trust me, nothing can ruin this moment." Steve gently pulled the covers down, though it was a momentary tugging match between him and Seren. Ultimately, he won and he was able to see her face again. "It sounds like you need some breakfast. You didn't actually eat dinner last night, did you? At the event?"

Seren shook her head. "You stopped me from having drinks, remember?"

"Oh, so now it's my fault?" Steve laughed. "Well, since it's my fault then, let me take you to breakfast! A date."

Seren nodded right away. She really was hungry (and she may have worked an appetite). "I'll have to borrow clothes from Chloe..."

Steve's brows raised when he remembered the state of her satin blue dress that was in the living room. "I will — I will definitely get you a new one. Sweetheart, I'm so sorry—"

Seren grabbed the sides of his face and kissed him. "I'm not," she whispered. "Let's see what Chloe has in the closet. You want to help me?" She smirked seeing how quickly the red tint spread across Steve's face.

The two ultimately got out of bed to get dressed and ready to head out. Seren found a dress amongst Chloe's things that she could more or less wear. It was slightly bigger than her normal size but decent. The shoes were a bit more difficult but she managed.

"You look adorable," Steve laughed when she came out into the living room. The dress was big, period.

Seren groaned. "I know it fits weird. Why is Chloe so frikin tall? She's like a pipe-cleaner with blonde hair!"

"You really do look adorable," Steve insisted as he grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss on the back of it. "I'm thinking cinnamon rolls. I do owe you some from last night."

"That sounds great to me!" Seren nodded quickly.

With that decided, they headed out of the apartment. Just as they were coming into the hallway, one of the other tenants was coming down the opposite end.

"Morning, Kate," Steve politely greeted the woman.

"Morning Ste—" Kate stopped in her tracks when she met Seren's gaze. The latter froze as well.

As surprised as Seren was, confusion soon seeped through when she realized what Steve had called the woman. "Hold on, Ka—"

"Nice to meet you, I'm Kate." The woman held her hand out to shake with Seren.

With brows pinched together, Seren slowly shook Kate's hand. "Seren...?"

Kate seemed to swallow hard, though she quickly smiled at the two. "You guys heading out?"

Steve nodded. "Breakfast. Did you just get back from a shift?"

"Mhm..." Kate said. Her eyes would flicker to Seren every so often.

"Kate's a nurse," Steve told Seren, "And about the only friend I have in the building."

"Mhm..." Seren hummed, "Nurse." Kate ducked her head.

"You must be tired, Kate. We'll see you later," Steve said and started leading Seren down the hall.

Seren looked over her shoulder and saw 'Kate' getting her keys out. "Hey Steve, I forgot to grab my phone. Can I go back quickly?"

"I'll get it for you, sweetheart," Steve said, dropping a kiss on her temple.

Seren stopped him from leaving. "Actually, I can get it. It's fine."

"But I—"

"I can get it, Steve, it's fine," Seren smiled. "Keys?"

Steve reluctantly handed her the keys to the apartment, still volunteering to go get her phone for her. Seren assured him that she could do it and she would catch up with him downstairs.

As soon as he was going down the stairs, Seren was heading back to the apartment. It seemed like Kate had overheard because she stood by her apartment door...waiting. When she saw Seren, she leaned off the door and walked to meet Seren halfway.

"I didn't know you were back in town," Kate said, taking note of the odd dress on Seren. She was pretty sure it was Chloe's.

Seren instinctively tugged on her dress as if it was anything close to being short. "I came back a few days ago to present the new team I created in London." Seren leveled a hard look on the woman. She was familiar with 'Kate', crossed paths occasionally but not enough to be on a friendship basis. "Did Fury post you here?" She went straight to business, and she wasn't happy about it.

Kate closed her mouth and just nodded.

Seren's lips curled down into a frown. "And Chloe?"

"She knows who I am. Natasha too."

"And they didn't tell Steve anything?"

"Fury gave the order, Seren. You know how it goes."

"I do but this isn't any ordinary agent, Sharon." Seren rubbed her fingers against her temples. "Steve has never trusted SHIELD to begin with and when he finds out that Fury put a frikin bodyguard next door to him—"

"He can't know about this," Sharon said, shaking her head. "He thinks Fury stopped."

"Stopped?" Seren made a face and before she could ask what Sharon had meant, she got a delightful piece of news.

"Fury had Steve's apartment bugged."

"Bugged?" Seren brought a hand over her chest, feeling absolutely mortified. "Like—like the whole apartment?"

Sharon nodded. "But Chloe took them down. Fury was not happy about it."

Suddenly, Seren forgave Chloe for absolutely everything she'd ever done in the past. She would just die if that apartment had been bugged.

"Chloe negotiated with Fury about this stuff, alright? You can be mad all you want but I'm just following orders from Fury. If you're worried that I'll say something about you guys—"

"I don't care," Seren said flatly. "Fury has nothing to do with what Steve and I do, okay? You report what you gotta report." She turned to leave when Sharon called her back.

"Wait! Are you going to tell Steve?"

"Uh, I sort of have to!" Seren snapped. "Steve hates being lied to and I don't exactly like it either!"

"Seren, if you tell him who I am, he'll be furious!"

"I'll talk to him, I know what it's like following orders. It'll go back to Fury."

"And Chloe," Sharon pointed out. "She's known the whole time."

Seren shook her head. No, she didn't want Steve to be upset with Chloe but she didn't want to be part of the unnecessary lie. It was so pointless having a bodyguard. Fury was being ridiculous.

"Seren, please..." Sharon said, looking genuinely fearful of the matter.

Seren sighed. "I'm sorry, but I'm telling him. I can't lie to him — not anymore. I'll take the heat from Fury but trust me, he'll have a lot more coming from Steve than you will from them both. I'll make sure of that." She turned away again and went to catch up with Steve downstairs.

~ 0 ~

As much as they ate at the pastry shop as well as having samples — Seren was guilty of beating Steve in that aspect — they decided to bring back another box of cinnamon rolls to continue munching on at home. All throughout their date, Seren tried finding the right moment to tell Steve about Sharon and what Fury had ordered her to do. She didn't want to ruin their perfect morning, especially not with SHIELD business. But apparently, Steve knew her better than she thought.

They had just returned to the apartment when he brought up her strange, shifty feet.

"My feet aren't shifty," Seren argued weakly. "And even if they happened to be, it's because these are Chloe's shoes."

Steve chuckled at her. He dropped the box of cinnamon rolls on the coffee table. "Maybe, but you're still acting weird. Did I do something? Did you change your mind?"

"No, of course not!" Seren exclaimed. What she wasn't going to allow was for SHIELD to ruin something so good between them. "Come here..." She took his hands and sat down on the couch together. "I, uh, I need to tell you something but...it's...it's not going to make you happy."

"And it's not about us...?" Steve needed to make sure that nothing had changed between them. Anything else didn't matter.

"It's not," Seren assured him again. "You, um, you know that neighbor of yours? Kate?"

Steve nodded. "Yeah, what about her?"

"I really hate to be the one to tell you this, and honestly it makes me feel like a snitch but—"

"Is there something going on with Kate? I-I don't understand—"

"She's a SHIELD agent, Steve," Seren blurted. She squeezed his hands while he reacted. "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry to tell you but I can't — I can't lie to you. It feels so wrong after everything and I—"

"She's a SHIELD agent?" Steve said slowly, eyes flickering towards his door. "Kate?"

"Her name's actually Sharon..."

"Sharon?"

Seren nodded.

"Did—why? I don't..." Seren saw the exact moment it donned on Steve and braced herself for his true reaction. "It was Fury wasn't it?" His voice hardened. Seren nodded. "What? She's supposed to be my babysitter?"

"I know it's irritating but you shouldn't get upset with Sharon — or even Chloe, or Natasha—"

"They both knew!?" Steve gawked. "Are you kidding me!?"

Seren squeezed his hands again. "They were following orders, Steve. Fury was the one who commanded it."

"Of course!" Steve scowled. "You know, I'm getting real tired of Fury and all his secrets. And Chloe — and Natasha — they just keep secrets so easily and I—"

"I know, I know," Seren sighed. "But it comes with the job and it sucks but it's the truth. I'm sorry."

"What? Seren, it's not your fault. You weren't even here..." And for that matter, Steve tried his best to calm down. As angry as he was, it had nothing to do with Seren. "I'm gonna have a word with Fury next time I see him..."

"Please don't get into arguments because of this..." Seren could only plead at this point. "I know it's irritating but—"

"It's for another moment," Steve said, deciding to push the matter away. "Right now...you're here, and I want to take full advantage of that."

"Are you — we could go to SHIELD right now if you want? I can come with you and we can—"

Steve was shaking his head already, refusing the idea. "I am not going to give SHIELD any of my time when you're around." He pulled his hands out from hers and slid them over her face. He had priorities now, and he was learning from past mistakes. He would not waste anymore of his time. "Besides, the cinnamon rolls might get cold..." He pressed a kiss on her lips.

"Well...who can deny a kiss..." Seren sought out another kiss from him, and got one...and then two...

Before they knew it, they were lost in a series of kisses.

"Mm, the cinnamon rolls?" Seren murmured, bringing her hands over his on her face.

"Right..." Steve leaned back, clearing his throat. He'd left the box on the table and grabbed it.

"Oh! Chloe's chocolates, remember?" Seren spotted the box of chocolates she'd left on the table last night. "Good thing we can take the sugar, right?"

Steve chuckled. "I'll say."

Seren opened up the box of chocolates and was delighted to see a dozen little pieces assorted inside. "Where to start, hmm?"

Steve watched her go through a process just to pick one piece. She was so adorable...

"Chloe's too lucky," Seren said after taking a bite. "Girl gets gifts left to right from admirers."

"Oh, I've noticed," hummed Steve. Even though Chloe was always in and out of D.C., he was often around her when she was being flirted with or given the occasional gift. It was bemusing to see such straightforwardness but Chloe seemed quite at home with it.

"She's got the Angel face, you know?" Seren shook her head. "She used to be head cheerleader in high school and I'm sure a popular girl too."

"I remember those girls, sans the cheerleaders. Those were hard to talk to…of course none of them were ever really in the mood to talk to me."

Seren scooted herself closer to him. "I think you and I would've been good friends if we were in school together."

Steve would have loved the idea but given his history, he doubted it would happen. "I don't know about that…"

"I'm sure of it. Those eyes of yours, one charming smile, the 'ma'am' thing and I would've been all yours." Seren popped in another chocolate piece.

"Really?" He was already smiling at her with fondness. None of those traits were enhanced with the super serum.

"Mhm. They're my favorite things about you!"

"Things would've been very different if you'd been around back then." The first thing Steve thought of was the horrible double-dates Bucky always set him up on. Of course then he realized how nervous he'd be having an actual date with Seren in those days.

"What?" Seren raised an eyebrow at him once his thoughts started seeping through his face. "You wouldn't have liked me?"

"What?" Steve laughed. "Are you kidding me? I was just thinking how nervous I'd be asking you out on a date."

Seren cocked her head. "Seriously?"

"You better believe it. I'm sure I'd be fumbling over my words — don't be fooled, I might be doing that in the future too."

"Duly noted." It was Seren's turn to laugh.

"That's funny to you?"

"Kind of, yeah…but sweet too!" Seren cleared her throat after swallowing another chocolate piece. She decided to try one of their cinnamon rolls instead.

Steve wrapped an arm around her waist as she took one cinnamon roll from the box. He imagined all the dates they would have with cinnamon rolls and grinned from ear to ear.

"Oh gosh, they're so good..." Seren hummed, "I love them!"

"I can tell," Steve chuckled. Seren flushed and tried to slow down on her eating. "Keep eating, sweetheart. They're for you." He leaned over and kissed her forehead

Seren cleared her throat again, feeling like something had gotten stuck. She started rubbing circles on her chest, and coughed.

"You okay?" Steve watched her for a moment.

"Yeah," she cleared her throat. "Um, I just…" She lowered the cinnamon roll in her hand, and took in a breath only to come halfway. She shifted on the couch to try and get a better position to take in a bigger breath.

Steve grew concerned the more he watched her continue to take these breaths only halfway. She let her cinnamon roll drop on the ground suddenly and tried taking in an even bigger breath but, just like before, she couldn't do it.

"Okay, Seren, what's wrong?" Steve didn't know whether to help move her to an easier breathing position or anything else.

"I-I don't know but I can't…" Seren started clutching her neck, mouth wide open and gasped for breath. "I can't breathe! Steve, I can't breathe!"

[mary-is-writing]

An update about The Monsters Only We See

+ my future writing

Things have happened in the last couple of days and I have some news for you. They're not bad news, but relevant ones. It's about the near future of both my current project TMOWS and my future project that I'll announce soon. This is a long one, so I'll put it under a read more.

TMOWS taglist +/-: @gabelish @mel-writes-with-her-dragons

(hey sorry I don't use the taglist a lot 😬 I'll try to use it more and it's still open for anyone who wants to get added)

Things have happened and decisions have been made so sit with me for a second.

As you may know if you follow me, one of my goals for this year was that I wanted to publish The Monsters Only Wee See. I finished the final version of it around April or May (and the English translation not too long ago) and since then I wanted to get the register for copyright, ISBN and self publish of it done before this year ended. I thought I could do it in a few months at max, but then irl stuff just kept happening to me and I had to kept pushing back starting the process. Recently tho, I finally did and I got the first step done: get a special signature required for the registration. However, an unexpected turn of events occurred.

While reading about the process of it in order to know what to do next, something very troublesome caught my attention: the process could be started online, but has to be finished in person in the offices of the copyright organization for my country. This is all reasonable, of course you'd want to do an in-person procedure when it comes to giving the rights of a thing to someone. That isn't the problematic part.

The problem is that the offices are only in the capital of the country. Only there. ONLY there.

There's not like, a building per state and then HQ is in the capital like I imagined, no. Only there they are. And the capital is very, very far away from where I live. Going there by bus in NOT an option, and the plane can be expensive. I have to double check to make sure there's absolutely no option to do the procedure online, and talking to a parent about this situation, I've come to a decision.

The Monsters Only Wee See will not be published this year.

Tbh, this sucks. I really wanted to get this out by this year, but it's simply not realistic. Next year there will probably come a time where I have to move for a period of time near the capital, and then going back and forth in order to do the registration will be easier, so it'll have to wait till then. It sucks that I have to keep pushing back this project's end, but I also wanna do right by it, by getting the copyright and the ISBN and publish it properly. And who knows, maybe by then I'll be working so I'd have money to pay an actual book cover artist for the cover!! Silver linings, y'all.

So. What now? Well, since I thought I'd publish it during this year, I've also been pushing back introducing my next wip, the one I'll work in now alongside WCB. I did so as a way to keep my ADHD from ADHD-ing so I could focus on getting TMOWS out first and then working on the next one. However, since TMOWS is not gonna come out any time soon...I can now put it in the back burner and work on the next one! So that's what I'll do!!

Thus I'll be introducing a new wip sometime soon. I have to get the final details ready (like a mood board lol) in order to do a proper wip intro, but you'll be seeing it sooner than later. This also means I'll start writing the first draft for it that, technically, I've already started, but I can't decide on the hook so I've haven't done any progress at all.

So the posts about my wips will look something like this from now on:

TMOWS - Updates about the progress in the registration process.

WCB - Little excerpts and/or posts about the writing of Book 2.

New wip - Intro post for the wip and the characters, and little excerpts and/or posts about writing the first draft.

That's all I wanted to say, just an explanation of why TMOWS won't come out this year, why I'm putting it on hold for now and some preparation for the new wip. Thank you if you read until the end, and we'll see again soon.

Stay safe, stay healthy and happy writing!!

[asoulofatlantis]

Finally, instead of pretending that we do not know... Falcom makes a joke of it that we do in fact know XD They've learned their lesson with how they failed with the likes of Azure Siegfried ^^'

Falcom is known for reusing old ideas but I think they certainly did way better with copying this whole mask-ordeal than they did when copying Kloes "not royaltie at all" - acts over to Musse. They do not hide here that the same trick was used, while with Musse no one really ever mentioned that she just copied Kloe to get away with her plans. And I also like the idea of making it two sisters in dept here, instead of two very close friends on a lot of pressure here. It is still a reused idea, but they certainly tried harder this time to make it still somewhat more unique and surprising.

This sentence did not make much sense back then at all... and makes so much more sense nowadays...

Van has a "don't touch Agnes" - rule and most enemies love to push that button ^^' (Which leads to their demise because that usually summons Grendel...)

You've already got a shitload of Kai Spoilers from me at this point, so what is one more? (BTW... I did say I wanted to see what Daybreak has in store for me after watching Kai, so if you did come here not expecting spoilers, joke is on you!) Because someone Data-Mined Kai no Kiseki... and for whatever reason Falcom hide some Spoilers in there. Like the Identity of the Masked people who have not been revealed to us yet - and it makes no sense to me whatsoever to do that in Kais Data, if it wasn't needed there at all, but what the hell do I know about how programming works? So in any case. They did reveal there that Mare is in fact the Holy beast of the Time-Septerion. I am honestly not sure how this all works yet, but it puts one thing into question: HOW ON EARTH IS IT POSSIBLE TO INTERFERE WITH A HOLY BEAST LIKE THAT?! My only explanation would be that whatever caused Mare to be in this Hollow-Core-State has been binding her powers or something. The Genesis and Agnes as rightful heir has been resonating with her, for obvious enough reasons but it didn't manage to release her full powers? The question also obviously is how she became a Hollowcore and what happened to her actual body? Not to mention obviously also, how the hell get Marduk their Hands on her? SO. MANY. QUESTIONS! (And here we are waiting like two years for an answer...)

Poor Girl. It has been her job to gather the Genesis to ultimately fulfill her final mission but the cost was high. Every Genesis did cost at least one life, as far as I can remember and as we know from Kuro 2 that wasn't even the end of it all. Ultimativly, it had to be done. If not we would literally ALL be back to point Zero. But the price for saving our timeline was high. And so is the pressure on my poor girl.

Well... at least through that whole journey, "die Kleene" was never really alone. I am very grateful for that. Her time might run out eventually, but I think Van and the others, despite all the ordeals, helped her to make the best out of it.

I really can not blame the guy. Not one of his assistants has even asked if he wants or can afford another part-timer. I know its a running-gag and its supposed to be because Van by himself would likely not say yes, because of who he is and how he thinks... but it still is a bit mean sometimes and at this point gets kind of obnoxious.

To be fair... all the people studying under Epsteins Disciples are bit... uh... special ^^' (I do not even exclude my dear Tita here...)

Who or what even is Aldra? O.o I am glad to hear that ZCF are doing good and all... but who is that even that they are working with? ^^'

They did mention it here that the Calvardian revolution has been only 100 years ago but when it came up in Kai that Sheena Dirke was still alive when Judiths Grandmother was still a child it sounded absolutely ridicioulus to me because I was sure that happened like 1000 years ago or so ^^' Which makes no sense given circumstances but I wasn't the only one surprised. The whole chat was like: "What? She was still alive back then? O.O" So I guess that is one again an Information we totally discarded...

Now here is an interesting fact about Kai: The masked woman who took of her mask right at the end was first believed to be Agnes mother, do to a simular Hair- and Skincolor. The Data-Mining revealed that it was Sheena Dirke tho, probably in a younger state then when she met Domenique tho. HOWEVER the game makes a big point out of Van mentioning that Agnes Mother and Grandmother basically look just like her... I would not fully agree with that but what if Agnes is related to Sheena Dirke? She might not exactly be her great-great-grandmother but some sister of her great-great-grandmother maybe? I mean, we needed the name "Claudel" apparently but... I don't know... things seems odd here. The game made a huge point out of not showing Sheenas older face, even tho we have seen her younger face in pictures before. Like there were trying to hide something we would not have paid attention to before.

I am just fishing for answers here... but... giving everything we know it certainly is not out of the question ^^'

I'd say XD Not just that her biological family lives there, she also is close to the SSS and she has been living there for a while herself. Going to Crossbell would not be educational, it would be like going home XD

No one would do it like the society XD Heck, to this day no one even gets how the society survived with those kind of "rules" ^^'

I found it quiet funny that Marduks high in development came ultimately from finding her and she had no idea about it until close to the end of Kai.

[frozaru]

Hello and welcome!

A lot happened yesterday in the new Nintendo Direct from many of the big franchises. It had started off weak imo but credit where it's due, got better as things went on! I have much to talk about so let's get on with the show.

𝙋𝙄𝙆𝙈𝙄𝙉 4

The game to kick off this direct. I will admit that it does look visually pretty, and the new pooch is certainly cute! There's chances for a lot of chaotic fun no doubt. I've never tried a Pikmin game before, and whilst it does not interest me enough to say "buy now", I hope people will enjoy this game. We already know a certain blue puppet went crazy over this. 😉 Perhaps I'll take another look when Pikmin 4 goes on sale one day. The game releases on July 21st, 2023.

𝙎𝘼𝙈𝘽𝘼 𝘿𝙀 𝘼𝙈𝙄𝙂𝙊: 𝙋𝘼𝙍𝙏𝙔 𝘾𝙀𝙉𝙏𝙍𝘼𝙇

An unexpected surprise from Sega happened! This will be the first Samba De Amigo game since 23 YEARS AGO (as of Dreamcast release). Dancing games are not really my thing but hey, maybe this one will be unique enough to consider me giving it a shot! It releases sometime this summer.

𝙎𝙋𝙇𝘼𝙏𝙊𝙊𝙉 3: 𝙀𝙓𝙋𝘼𝙉𝙎𝙄𝙊𝙉 𝙋𝘼𝙎𝙎

If anything, this announcement was the main course for me! Just...wow. ♡ As someone who started within Splatoon 2, it's going to be so fascinating to explore Inkopolis Plaza for my very first time! Also SQUID SISTER SPLATFESTS ARE BACK! I already know @atlantisportal2 is about to have a nostalgia trip. I'm so freaking excited! 😁 Not only that...but Side Order is looking VERY intriguing for me.

Could this be a corrupt version of what happened if Team Order won Splatoon 2: Final Splatfest? Also Pearl and Marina baby, woohoo! Very glad seeing them back along with what looks to be Agent 8. Also you better believe I purchased it ASAP! With that said, wave 1 is set to release sometime in Spring with wave 2 inkcoming (haha) somewhere on the holidays (according to placeholder dates).

𝘼𝘿𝙑𝘼𝙉𝘾𝙀 𝙒𝘼𝙍𝙎 1+2: 𝙍𝙀-𝘽𝙊𝙊𝙏 𝘾𝘼𝙈𝙋

I haven't got much to say about these games, however, I did like what they've shown so far and looking to pick it up sometime in future if reviews are looking good. Like the artstyle they're going for! They will be avaliable on April 21st.

𝙉𝙎𝙊: 𝙂𝘼𝙈𝙀 𝘽𝙊𝙔+𝙂𝘼𝙈𝙀 𝘽𝙊𝙔 𝘼𝘿𝙑𝘼𝙉𝘾𝙀

More games for the service? Yes freaking please! It took a while but now they're here. The games really whizzed by and it would be impossible to put them all here, so if you'd like a glimpse of what I'm personally interested in, take a look. Take your time. 😊 *Tick tick tick* Oh, you're back? Lovely! Nintendo really popped off with the choices imo (looking at you Wario Land 3 and Mario+Luigi Superstar Saga). Some of these games are being released today with others being added in the future.

𝙋𝙇 𝘼𝙉𝘿 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙉𝙀𝙒 𝙒𝙊𝙍𝙇𝘿 𝙊𝙁 𝙎𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙈

A miracle has happened!! After tragic events with both Level 5 and the original creator years ago, Professor Layton is looking to make a return. I've not played any of these games yet which judging by general buzz, I'm missing out! Hope to see more details soon as they come and maybe look into this considered-to-be underrated series in future. A release date has not been confirmed yet.

𝙏𝙇𝙊𝙕: 𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙍𝙎 𝙊𝙁 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙆𝙄𝙉𝙂𝘿𝙊𝙈

GANON IS BACK AND MORE TERRIFYING THAN EVER! With an amazing reveal of more info, this game is shaping up to be something great already. The visuals, music, and maybe even voice acting...it leaves me impressed. The gameplay could even be a step up with new weapon types and tools among other things (we can make our own cars legit now!?) However, it also reminds me that I need to finish BOTW someday. 😅 I'll be sure to look into this game at some point. Sharpen your blade and prepare for adventure on 12th May, 2023...

(Tysm for getting up to this point reader, it's been wonderful writing it all. I'm still not done yet though and might do part 2 in future. Take care! 👋

🎴My Carrd

[lyrabythelake]

Ghost Wind AU

part 1 || part 2

These heroes can be real idiots sometimes, Wind thinks dully as he watches yet another poorly concocted plan pan out exactly as terribly as he had foretold it would. This one even involves explosives for that added spice of death.

“For Hylia’s sake,” he says out loud as Sky throws his sailcloth over Hyrule’s hair which is literally on fire.

“Well done everyone,” Time praises once all flames are successfully smothered. They look a mess, the lot of them. Hyrule’s hair is missing chunks and still smoking a little bit, Wild is sporting both a wide grin and a broken arm and Legend is noticeably limping as he joins the rest of the group where they’re congregated.

“I would say that was a pretty successful ambush. We managed to take out all the enemies—”

“And half the mountain,” Wind adds.

“—we may have to work on bringing down casualties on our side, but that’s something we can talk about for next time. Right now, I say we take a well-earned rest. Sky, can you distribute potions to those who need them, please?”

“Pretty successful?” Wind screeches incredulously, following Time as he separates himself from the rest of them and sits down with his back leaning against a tree, lowering himself with a groan like the dramatic old man he pretends he isn’t.

“Pretty successful?!” That was a disaster! I’m better at planning attacks than all of you put together and I have the mind of a fourteen-year-old.”

Time takes off one of his boots with a relieved sigh, wrinkling his nose at the smell. Most of Wind’s senses are dulled these days, but he swears even he can smell the stench coming from those socks.

“You should have attacked from the side,” Wind tells him, settling next to him with his chin in his hand. Time starts to remove his weaponry from the belt around his torso. “I know coming from above seems like the obvious attack, but you could have been stealthier if you’d come from the left. You probably wouldn’t have any casualties and you wouldn’t have caused that landslide.”

Time brings up a finger to clean the wax out of one of his ears and then proceeds to take off his shoulder pads and chest plate.

“I mean, I know Warriors is your best tactician, but he can also be as much of a pyromaniac as Hyrule sometimes, so you’ve got to be the voice of reason.”

Time settles back into the tree trunk, watching the others distantly as they set up camp for the night. It’s a peaceful scene, one much needed after the chaos and volume of the battle.

“Yeah, it’s probably not all that fun being the leader, huh?” Wind nods in understanding. “You do a good job really; who knows where the others would be if they were left to their own devices.”

Time grunts as if to agree and then rummages in his bag for a few seconds before pulling out a large, red apple.

“Now that’s just rude,” Wind mutters as he takes a bite, “you know how long it’s been since I’ve been able to eat an apple? Two hundred years, that’s how long, and you decide to eat one right in front of me. I’d kill to be you right now.”

Wind folds his arms as he watches him with a wistful frown. Even the memory of what an apple tastes like faded for him long ago. Food is something he misses most about being alive.

“This is torture,” he murmurs after a while and he pries his eyes away from Time to look around at his surroundings. The sun is low on the horizon, the faintest blush of pink starting to creep into the clear blue sky and the other heroes, having finished setting up camp, are laughing and chatting amongst themselves by the fire. They’re just far enough away that he can’t hear exactly what they’re saying, but they sound happy.

He stares at them longingly for a while before he realises there’s one missing.

“Huh. Where’s our resident ranch hand?” he asks nobody. He scans the treeline, pausing when he notices a flash of movement heading into the woods a small distance away.

“Or should I say our resident wolf?”

He pushes himself off the ground and heads in the direction he’s certain the wolf went. It’s not long before he catches up to him (he’s able to forgo weaving through the trees in favour of phasing right through them), and once he’s in his sights it’s relatively easy to keep up.

He’s curious about where he might be going; it’s not often that Twilight transforms into the wolf unless absolutely necessary. He probably just wants some time to his self; he’s sure sharing space with seven other heroes is probably quite taxing, so he’s likely after some peace and quiet.

“I don’t blame you,” he says out loud, “those lot are exhausting.”

Wolfie suddenly stops and stands stock still, ears twitching.

“You hear something?” Wind asks inquisitively, coming to a halt just behind him. He hadn’t heard anything himself, but that means nothing considering the proficiency of Wolfie’s ears compared to his own.

Wolfie perks up once more and twists around so his head faces in Wind’s direction, and if Wind didn’t know better, he would have been certain his eyes were locked straight onto his.

“What do you see?” he asks, his curiosity mounting. Wolfie lets out a small whine which turns into a bark before tilting his head ever so slightly to the left. His eyes still seem to look right at him, as if… but no, that’s impossible.

It is impossible. Wind hasn’t managed to gain the attention of anyone since his death over two hundred years ago, he’s accepted that’s how things are supposed to be now.

But what if…

“This is ridiculous,” he mutters to himself before taking a deep breath. He might as well prove to himself that interaction with the living world is just as impossible now as it’s always been. “Okay. Wolfie, bark twice if you can hear me.”

Wolfie barks twice.

Wind’s eyes widen so far, his non-existent eyeballs are in danger of falling out of their sockets.

“Holy shit.”

If Wind had a working heart, he’s sure it would be thumping hard right now.

“Wait… how do I know that wasn’t a coincidence? Er… Wolfie, bark five times if you can see me.”

Wolfie doesn’t bark, but instead lets out a low growl and Wind’s heart sinks. It was stupid to get his hopes up, of course he can’t see him, that would make no sense at all.

The air fills with dark particles and all of a sudden, a man stands where the wolf once did.

“I know you’re there,” Twilight says, “I can’t see you now, but I can as the wolf.”

Well this… this certainly changes things.

[hansolmates]

champagne lane | 06

banner made by the iconic @dnrequests​ / @dee-ehn​

summary; you and jungkook have your own little celebration by the lake pairing; dilf!jk x best friend!reader (f) genre/warnings; angst, longing, pining, mc is a homebody, unrequited love (or is it?), potential idiots 2 lovers, best friends 2 lovers, mentions of sex, alcohol use, profanity w/c; 1.4k a/n; yes im excited to say part one is done! as i was thinking of the title i was like “wow this really sounds like mc and jk had s*x” but they not tehy’re not omg >_< also i know that sometimes it feels like things are omitted with sena/jk’s drama and whatnot, but i think that’s the fun of it since it’s a drabble series! you can envision and put the pieces n’clues together to see how far severe their relationship is. part 2 will start on tuesday, enjoy your weekend!  [day by day masterpost]

A little beacon in the moonlight, Jungkook watches you curl up by the lake, your head popping up right where the moon leaps over the water. Making sure the baby monitor is connected up and running to the guest bedroom, he sneaks around the kitchen island, on a mission to find his peace offering. 

“You literally ran the party from top to bottom, why the hell are you still up?” 

You look up from the little nest you’ve created in the outdoor patio glider, and Jungkook holds up a chilled wine bottle and two champagne glasses. 

Holding up your phone you reply, “I just got off the phone with a cousin of mine. Figured I’d enjoy the view for a few minutes before heading off, but a nightcap won’t hurt.” 

Jungkook carefully pours the amber liquid in each of your glasses, making sure the bubbles don’t overflow at the lip. He sits gently on the swing, making sure not to jostle the two of you. Gently brushing his fingers to yours to hand you your drink, he gestures to his glass so they clink together softly. 

He watches as your body curls underneath the blanket you brought, feet disappearing and brushing against his thighs. Planting one foot on the soft grass, Jungkook gently swings the both of you into a soft rhythm. 

“So, did you like the party?” 

“Of course, I’ll never forget it,” Jungkook smacks his lips together, enjoying the warmth the sweet liquid brings to his face, “did you?” 

Jungkook genuinely hopes you had a good time. Everytime Haru smiled, tried something new, jumped like a maniac in the bounce house, Jungkook would turn around half-expecting you to be there and share the moment. Sena was there, and his parents were there, which was also great. But it was you that searched town to search for all the new desserts Haru would like, you that booked the bounce house, you that made Haru so happy on her special day. 

“Yeah, I’m happy no one poked the bounce house with those lamb skewers,” you relax against the swing, kicking your bare legs. “Would kill us if we didn’t get that security deposit back.” 

“I felt like I had a little too much fun,” Jungkook scrunches his nose, eyes clinging to the beautiful reflection of the moon-filled lake, “you did way too much work, you know that?” 

You continue to swing your legs mindlessly, “You had a crazy year. You deserved to be happy with your daughter on her first birthday.” 

He doesn’t understand how you could downplay how awesome you are. Amazing, completely. Even dressed down in a ratty old college t-shirt and shorts, you still are a dynamite human. 

“So, where’s Sena?” 

He almost forgets about the events that conspired not two hours ago. He slumps forward, his shoulders feeling heavy as he reflects on his last conversation with Sena. 

“She left,” Jungkook shrugs, swirling the honey in his glass, “got a call from her manager and took the first flight out of here. I think it’s decided,” Jungkook affirms, “she’s not coming back.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” and you truly sound sorry. You put your finished glass down on the ground, and you reach over to put your free hand over his, “I know how much you wanted this to work,” you bite your lip nervously, “and I may have told her off today at the party. So it could be partially my fault.”

This interests Jungkook greatly. He raises a brow, running a hand through his dark chocolate tresses. “You, telling someone off? And I had to miss that?” 

"It was probably for the best," you rub your neck sheepishly, lowering your head, "I just told her that if she wants to be part of you and Haru's life, she needs to be all in or all out. I'm sorry if that's overstepping—”

“You’re my backbone,” Jungkook slices through your rambling, pointedly looking at you and hoping you'd reach his eyes. 

“It’s just one party, Kook. No big deal—”

“No, you’ve always been my backbone, you know that?” Jungkook says, tone serious, “I know, it’d be selfish for me to expect that you’ll be around forever. I thought maybe you'd be around for a week after I called you, but twelve months later for some reason you're still coming around," he chuckles, "but honestly? I wouldn't have wanted to do this with anyone but you, including Sena." 

"Kook, you don't mean that—”

He squeezes your hand purposefully, "I do. Even if I date and find someone new, I still want you to be a part of Haru's life. Thank you so much, for taking care of her." 

"Oh Jungkook," you lean your head on his shoulder, wrapping your arms around his waist. The warmth of your skin seeps between his sweatshirt, and he subconsciously tenses at the intimacy, "you know that I'm not doing it just for Haru. I'm doing it because I care about you too." 

"Fuck, don't make me cry," he half jokes, but he's thankful you're looking at the moon because he does feel his eyes grow wet. He shoves his cheek against the crown of your head, relishing in your touch. Of course, the intuitive person you are, you squeeze tighter around his body when you sense his need for affection, "so, we're good?" 

"Yeah, we're good." 

The two of you relax against each other's warmth, silently admiring the beautiful night. The stars manage to seep its way through the navy blanket in the countryside, illuminating the backyard with speckles of glitter. Jungkook doesn't know how long he sits there, swinging lightly with you. 

A familiar ring tone startles the both of you apart, recognizing the familiar chime coming from the baby monitor app. 

"It's Haru," he gets up, grabbing empty glasses and wine, "probably needs a change or something." 

"Oh, can I please do it?" despite being tired through your bones and muscles, you pop out eagerly and follow him inside, "I barely saw her today."

Jungkook smiles fondly, "Of course." 

The both of you pad barefooted into Namjoon's house, careful not to wake up the other guests. In Jungkook's bed, there's a pillow fence casing Haru around the perimeter of the mattress, making sure she doesn't fall off. 

She isn't crying or anything, just awake. She kicks and swings her body around like a starfish, suddenly interested in the lace trim blanket that looks transparent around her ankles. 

"Hello bubby," you whisper excitedly, using the rocker on the wall to bathe the room in a low yellow light. 

You don't think twice, scooping Haru in your arms spinning slowly around the room. You do all the checks, running your fingers over her onesie for any drool or sweat, you pinch her diaper to see if it needs to be changed, and most importantly, you give her a little kiss in greeting. 

"Bu bu," Haru says, a big smile on her face, “Mama!” 

He watches from the doorhenge, as if he's intruding on a moment. Jungkook half-expects you to correct her. He watches your expression carefully, ready to take Haru away from you if need be. 

But instead you snuggle her tighter and murmur, "Yeah, I'm here." 

bonus. 

For some inexplicable reason, Jungkook is still awake. You’ve occupied his guest room, snuggling with Haru. The bed is big enough for the three of you, but he’s still plagued with thoughts, caught by how picturesque the two of you looked, warm and comfortable. 

“Yo,” Yoongi is sleeping on the couch, dressed in only his boxers and an oversized sweatshirt. He stumbles into the kitchen, reaching for the water container and a plastic cup. 

Jungkook watches Yoongi pad through the island, as if he’s walking through molasses, thick with sleep. He’s gotten to know Yoongi more closely up until Sena left during her first visit, not intentionally, only because whenever he invited you, Yoongi attached himself at the hip. 

Jungkook supposes Yoongi is a good guy, even after the heartbreak in college. He still holds a minor vendetta to that for hurting you, but since you’re all smiles and laughs he supposes he can call it a truce. 

Yet his bittersweet thoughts materialize without a second thought, “Are you and her dating?” 

Yoongi doesn’t miss a beat, chuckles as he wipes his lips with the back of his hand, “No.” 

“Oh, are you planning to ask her out?” 

“Nah.” 

“Why not,” Jungkook’s face falls, so much with disdain Yoongi fights the urge to reel back, “she’s a great woman. Any guy or girl would be lucky to have her.”

“Yeah, but not the woman for me.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“You’ll figure it out.”

[balkanradfem]

The basics of growing food

So, growing food sounds very intimidating, and in reality, it's something people knew how to do thru all history, and it's made even easier by new methods of 'no till' and 'no dig' garden. I didn't know almost anything about it until 3 years ago, when I got a plot in a community garden and started growing food with no experience. Still it went good! Here's what I learned:

The basics are as simple as 'if you put a seed underground and keep it wet, it's going to come out.' If you start off from that, even if you know nothing else, eventually you will succeed. The additional stuff is done to ensure success. The biggest actual issue of gardening isn't how, but when. When are you supposed to put all the seeds underground to get good harvest? For most of the plants, it can be as simple as 'Spring'. For others, it's very important just when in the spring you plant it.

Let's say you want to start your first garden, you want to plant some onions, lettuce, peas, green beans, tomatoes, peppers and zucchini. All of these can be planted in the spring! But these plants are sorted in 2 categories: Those who can survive a frost, and those who cannot. We call these 'frost hardy' (those who survive the frost) and frost-tender (those plants will die if they're exposed to lower than 0 temperatures). From the ones I listed, onions, lettuce and peas are frost hardy! It means you can plant them very early in spring, such as February and March, and they can be hit with snow and ice and be just fine. They can also be planted in autumn, and they only really start growing in the spring.

Green beans, tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini are frost-tender, meaning you absolutely can't grow them before the chance of freezing temperatures is gone. This is known in gardening as 'the last frost date'. Every area has a different last-frost date, so it's good to google yours to be sure you're planting these when it's safe to do so. For me it's mid-April.

Now, since it's a long time to wait for your plants to grow if you've only planted the seeds in mid April, people have found a way around it by planting the seeds in little containers inside of their house, or in a greenhouse, so they grow in a nice warm place on a windowsill, and are moved out in the ground when it's warm and safe. This is a very fun thing to do as you will have bunch of little plants growing in your home. Important thing to know about it is to use really light and airy soil, not garden soil, (you can use forest soil!) and to make sure you're not over-watering them and you give them as much light as possible.

Soil is another big thing in gardening, the grass grows so easily from it, but you can't exactly plant your seeds into the grass; they will get suffocated. For a long time people have tilled the ground to make it empty of all the weeds and easy to handle; however this isn't healthy for the soil, because it ruins the quality of top-soil, exposes it to sun and wind erosion, and it dries up very easily. Here are some beneficial methods of gardening: mulching and no-dig. Mulching means adding stuff like hay, straw, tree leaves, woodchips, pine needles on top of the soil. You're protecting your soil from sun, wind, erosion, drying out, and if your mulch is thick and dark enough, no weeds will grow in your garden. You are gardening by science.

So what does this mean for you, when you're standing before a patch of grass, thinking of turning it into a garden? You need to do this months before the actual planting, using time to your benefit is the smartest thing a gardener can do. You pick a patch of land and bring in everything you can on top: cut grass, hay, tree leaves you raked or found, straw if you have any, woodchips, anything that will stop the grass from growing. If you really want to build up your soil you can bring in compost too! All that organic material will eventually turn into compost and fertilize your garden as it degrades to soil. It's important to not mix it with the soil, and to only keep it on top of the plants. Mixing it will deplete the soil of nitrogen, and you need nitrogen to grow anything green. If you keep bringing in organic material for years of gardening, and on top of that put some compost as well, in 3-5 years your soil will become so rich and soft you will no longer have to use tools to plant in it.

But, hey, if it's your first time, you don't need to aim for perfection. If you didn't prepare your soil in the fall, whatever! You can still pull the weeds, dig around a little to make some clear soil, and plant your stuff! I've done this last-minute planting and it works just fine. Mulching and adding organic material is only the easiest, most scienc-y way to garden.

The next big thing in gardening is spacing and depth: how far apart should your plants be? And how deep to plant them? For depth, the rule of the thumb is 'twice as deep as the seed is tall'. But I've seen people pull various shit in this area and succeed so do what you want. As of spacing, I would also say, try out what fits for you. It takes a year of gardening to get a sense of just how big the plants get, and what would be ideal spacing for each of them. I decided only on my third year to plant tomatoes VERY far apart, because I realized in this case, one plant will give me more than 8kg tomatoes and it's much less work than planting 3 times as many plants that are close together. Peas seem to like to grow close tho, for some reason. Sometimes you can decide you want a bunch of tiny plants because you'll eat them young, so you don't space them on purpose, people do that with lettuce, leeks, spinach. If you want your plants as big as possible with as much yield as possible, give them half a meter and see what happens.

Fertilization is another big thing in gardening; if you add a lot of compost and mulch your garden consistently, you won't need a lot more; however there's a cool free trick you can do (if you're not currently sick): you can mix your urine with 10x water, and water your plants with that. And I really mean mix it with 10x water! Plants can get very fried by it and start to wilt if they're bombed with too much fertilizer at once! There are rules for this: use it when you want your plants to grow a lot of greenery, not if you want them to flower or produce fruit. This fertilizer is rich in nitrogen, and nitrogen inspires plants to grow more leaves! If you wanna fertilize them later in their growth, put a lot of nettle plants in a big container with water, leave it in the sun for 10 days; when it starts to smell real bad, it's ready. (you can also do this with comfrey). Also dilute it with 10x water! Don't use these fertilizers on bean or pea plants, or any legume, they don't like it.

Now I've given you so much info at once, you're probably struggling to take it all in, so here's a good youtube channel where I learned all I know: Roots and Refuge. If you watch this lady garden for long enough, she will tell you all of the secrets.

I remember being a first time gardener overwhelmed with worry; what if I fail, what if nothing grows, what if I kill all the plants, what if I have a black thumb, what if the plants die because I am stupid, what if I put all of this work in and get nothing, what if people make fun of me, what if I run into problems I won't be able to solve. Here are some of the answers to these!

A part of what you grow will DEFINITELY DIE. I can guarantee it, it happens to everyone, every single garden in the world has had plants die, sometimes for no reason at all, but in no case will EVERYTHING die. We all count on a part of our plants dying, becoming slug food, not doing well in general, and we always plant 30% more than we absolutely need. Even if you are personally responsible for killing the plants, the plants will not hold it against you! Plants appreciate you spreading their seed regardless of success, they understand that by trying multiple times you will eventually succeed and they absolutely want you to learn thru occasional failure. The answer is again to plant a lot, and it never ever happened that nothing came out of it. Most often, it's not going to be your fault at all. Sometimes the year will be good for tomatoes and carrots, and bad for peas. It's all okay! Because you just planted extra peas, and you'll get more tomatoes than you expected to have.

If you have the desire to plant food, you do not have a black thumb; the green thumb is in the heart that yearns to grow. You're not stupid if your plants die, plants die for everyone. And people are likely to come at you with million advice; listen to no one, try everything yourself. If they make fun of you, they're gonna look real stupid when you have home-grown food. Any problem you might run into while gardening is google-able! Or you can join a page of gardeners and they'll be happy to identify the issue.

The real main issue with gardening are slugs and bug-type pests, and that is a problem for another day because all I know to do is to yeet those away by hand and shake my finger very sternly at them. Hope this helps!