#probably not too many folks are searching for him on tumblr

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

I just learned that Chevy Chase's real name is Cornelius Crane Chase, and that's the coolest shit ever. He looks like a man named Cornelius Crane now, an antebellum newspaper magnate like Horace Greeley

[candieduranium]

my intro post

i guess it’s about time i made one of these

(why does this have so many notes???😭/genuine)

long ass intro oml

last updated november 5, 2024

•my name is micah but i also respond to furcata and rover

•i use any pronouns except it/its. other than those, i genuinely do not care what you use for me

•im a minor

•i am a christian. i do not force it onto other people. please respect my religion.

•i make mistakes on my blog (accidentally deleting things, unbalanced polls, etc.) from time to time so please excuse if i make some errors. trying my best.

•my tag for my original posts and reblogs that i add to is “micah’s owlposting” even for stuff that isn’t owlkin-related. i have to retroactively tag my old posts with this tag so keep in mind that not all of them are tagged! i will update this post when i finish tagging.

•i am an american barn owl therian, vernid othermidst, machinehearted, and pigeonhearted.

• i am a quadrobist. i started in april of 2024.

•usually the things i post are about my alterhumanity but i also post golden texts my friends and i send each other along with some other stuff. sometimes in my posts there are mentions of sex and (mild?) sexual themes

•im also a furry. furry ≠ zoophile

•my favorite music is by greta van fleet and umbrabyte. i also just enjoy vocaloid in general, too. in fact, the original purpose i had for my blog was just to keep up with umbrabyte and her content better. here’s umbrabyte’s spotify:

•my favorite aesthetics are cybercore, mizuiro/ tenshi kaiwai, vaporwave, and rococo

•my only definite dni is if your blog is focused on nsfw, has sexually explicit images, or unsafe for minors in general. we can interact if you are in a basic dni (zoophile, radqueers, etc) but i probably won’t interact with you as much as those who arent in the dni.

•i am pro endogenic and i do not tolerate attacks on endos

•haters will be blocked unless i find them especially funny.

•im up for chatting about whatever whenever so just shoot me a dm if you feel like it (sfw, obviously)

•my hobbies and special interests are drums, classical latin, fursuit making, cosplay, and illustrating

•i’m very interested in learning how to make vtuber models and customize ball-jointed dolls

•my main fandoms are umbrabyte, tloz, pjsk, and tadc (i know some these fandoms are known for having /crazy/ and problematic fans. im not one of them)

•i have a 4 year old black cat named dumpling (i post pics of him sometimes) and a 17 year old dog named stella. i hope to get a couple of oranda goldfish someday

•i dont have a set posting schedule. i post when i post. but i generally like to stay pretty active and try to post at least once per day.

•i follow anyone who interacts with my posts positively when im not in their dni and theyre not in mine and their blog isn’t completely default/blank this is now false. i have just learned that the maximum follow count is 5k and i am already above 4k. there are too many of you for me to follow you all😭

•some random and useless stuff about me: i have mild-moderate trypophobia and a deviated septum, my favorite color is orange, i LOVE creme brulee, and my mbti is antp-t (a for ambivert)

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

mild eyestrain warning ⚠️

how the fuck does this have so many notes??😭

vent-ish/vent-adjacent warning ⚠️

here’s a copypaste from another of my posts regarding my posting schedule and status:

hey folks, i may not be posting as much going forward because my father put my email on a lifelock account, which means that he may be alerted each time i log into my tumblr account. i use tumblr on the website on safari and i frequently log in and out because im anxious that my parents will check my search history, but they very rarely ever do. im testing if they get alerted right now by logging in to ao3 and c.ai, two websites that my parents likely wont be opposed to but would tell me and ask me about it if i got an alert. deleting my account is a last resort, but it is still on the table. this change is indefinite. i have backup plans in case my parents do get alerts from lifelock, but nothing is definite. i may continue on just fine, i might not. just giving y’all a heads up in case something does happen.

tl;dr my account may be discovered by my parents and i may be punished, maybe it wont. we’ll see

and does anyone know for sure if lifelock does send alerts about logging in tumblr accounts? please dont lie to me.

my mental health is hinging largely on my tumblr account and im praying sososo hard that i wont lose all of you wonderful, amazing people. this goes for the folks i have dmed and the ones i havent. but anyway. i love you all. thank you for the time youve given me, even if it wont be for much longer.

and heres another post copypaste:

hey folks i dont know if im gonna be posting for a hot minute because im at band practice rn but im gonna have the biggest fucking argument with my mom when i get home😍 i might get my phone taken away

so basically what happened is i told her im depressed and she blew me off and didnt believe me. she also did some other stuff. i may go into greater detail at a later date.

im sorry if this discomforts or tr_gg_rs anyone but i wanted to give an explanation and warning just in case i stop posting and interacting on tumblr

thank you all for being so wonderful, truly. i hope i can get my situation sorted out quickly and remain active.

i’ll probably update this post later on since im sure there’s something i forgot. check back with me every once in a while and i might have some new content on this post

thanks for reading 👍👍

[amiharana]

ok I was reading thru your tattoo/flower shop au and I had to share the brainrot.

I hc revali as indigenous (particularly great plains native american) and oh man, what if at some point he very hesitantly brings up with link that he wants to get facial tattoos or something similar that's significant to him but he's nervous?? And Link goes out of his way to learn traditional stick-n-poke techniques so he can be the one to give revali his tattoos?? And it's like super sweet and meaningful for them both and Link feels honored that revali trusts him enough to ask? (and also revali is scared shitless and Link has to stop several times so he doesnt mess up and hurt revali more than it typically would)

like what if though???

ahem (taps mic) Hello can anyone hear me. i haven't written a tumblr ask in ages i feel ancient

first of all, i'm glad to hear that you still think of my tattoo/flower shop au haha it's been way over a year now since i wrote it. i still very much appreciate everyone who drew art for it 🫶 i've had a few passing thoughts about writing it into an actual proper multi-chaptered fic but i've been busy wrestling with school, work, and my personal demons for the past year that it's been quite difficult to even think about writing anything. thank you to anyone who's still here; i appreciate you a lot 🤍

i love the hc of revali as indigenous and i think it really fits in with the presence of the rito people as we're introduced to in the games, but i won't touch on that too much since i'm not indigenous/well-versed in indigenous culture. you know what i Am well-versed in though? these gay ass mfs

i had to reread my own au post for this Lord it's been too long, i wrote back then that i thought of revali as someone who isn't too fond of tattoos and doesn't have a great pain tolerance for them, and i still believe in that LOL. mixing that in with a hc where revali is indigenous is quite interesting, because i would assume that tattoos are an important/frequently appearing aspect of the culture? revali's parents have also passed in this au and he's alone with no family running the shop, so perhaps revali was estranged from his indigenous culture while growing up/at some point and became interested in trying to connect with it as an adult. maybe he came across the topic of traditional tattoos and after researching about it, he became interested in getting one but again because of his low pain tolerance, he thought it probably may never happen. well...

during one of their shared lunch breaks perhaps at a new cafe that's opened up on tabantha street, revali absentmindedly mentions his family and the tattoos. link immediately looks up at him from his food, those lovely blue eyes searching his face curiously.

"traditional tattoos?" he says, cocking his head at revali. revali blinks. well, of course link would have interest in the topic since he was a fellow tattoo artist himself, but the way he was looking at revali was...

"well yes," revali continues. "i suppose i haven't really talked to you much about myself personally, have i? i'm an indigenous hyrulean and my blood is descended from the rito tribe, but i'm not well-versed in my own culture." he mumbles the last few words, looking down at his coffee. "my parents and i lived on reservation land until i was 5 and then we moved away to a bigger city for work. there weren't many other rito there and so i didn't grow up with a lot of other indigenous folk. i don't know much about my family or my culture because of it, and even after my parents passed, it's never come up until now." revali glances back at link, who is now watching him with rapt attention. he looks away again, his cheeks beginning to warm. "i thought it would be nice to connect with my culture by getting a traditional tattoo of the rito tribe, perhaps something small so i can handle it. though, i wouldn't be able to travel to the reservation to find a traditional tattooist because of the shop and neither do i know of any tattoo artists nearby that could do it..."

"i'll do it," link says suddenly. revali looks at him again and blinks. link's eyes are bright and wide, blazing with determination. he's still holding his sandwich in his hands.

"i-i couldn't ask that of you," revali says, heart skipping a beat. "you'd likely have to learn an entire new and unfamiliar technique, and—"

"i'll do it," link insists, placing the sandwich down and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. his eyes are still trained on revali, just as insistent as his mouth is. revali swallows.

"use a napkin, please," he mutters, passing link one. the blond takes it and grins at him. "if it's something that you greatly desire to do... i will assist you in offering as much information as i can. i... appreciate it, link." i appreciate you, he thinks but the words get stuck in his throat. link's smile only grows.

thinking about link who researches rito tribal tattoos for a few weeks and reporting and discussing his findings with revali during their mon/wed lunch breaks. thinking about link who spends countless nights staying up compiling everything he finds into a document, the different types of tribal tattoos and their meanings, researching the materials and tools needed for traditional tattoos, sketching different tribal symbols endlessly for the perfect one for revali in between tattoo sessions with other clients, thinking about where on revali's body it would go, thinking about revali's warm skin under his hands... let's keep it PG link 🫡

the day finally arrives when link introduces the tattoo sketches to revali. link probably shows him a few ideas of a small rito symbol on his fingers, wrist, deltoid, ankle, and even ribs. HOWEVER. i really like the idea of the winged rito symbol across the back of revali's shoulders to represent his wings in canon? so what if. link who sketched a drawing of revali's back muscles with the winged rito symbol and he doesn't mean to show it to revali since it's a much bigger tattoo than revali wanted, but revali happens upon it anyway while scrolling through the sketches on link's ipad.

"what's this one?" revali says pointing at it.

link glances over at the screen and flushes. "oh, i didn't mean for you to see this one," he murmurs. he uses two fingers to zoom in on the image slightly. "i just had an idea for this particular symbol, so i sketched it out because i thought it'd look nice. i know you wanted a smaller one, so we can just focus on the first sketches—"

"it's beautiful," revali cuts him off, voice soft and still looking at the winged sketch. "how much do back tattoos hurt?" and link is jaw dropped, staring at him with hearts in his eyes LMFAOOOOOOOO

thinking about link who actually reaches out to a traditional tattooist from revali's tribe and asks if he can mentor link so he can learn their technique??? maybe link and revali who end up traveling to the reservation together so revali can visit and link can learn directly from the tattooist??? revalink road trip and sharing a bed trope??? link would probably only take a week tops to learn the technique since he's like a prodigal artist and the tattooist is impressed. also revali getting to spend time with and learn more about his culture from others from the tribe who live there 🥺

if revali does get the winged rito symbol tattoo on his back, he probably wouldn't get it as a solid color, maybe link would incorporate more tribal lineart into it like the totk zonai imagery? i've never gotten a tattoo so i don't know if back tattoos or the style of solid color tattoos would hurt, but regardless, link would make revali as comfortable as he can throughout all the sessions 🥺🥺🥺

originally when i read this ask and you mentioned facial tattoos, i thought about link gently holding revali's jaw between his pointer finger and thumb to readjust the positioning of his face in the midst of tattooing him, and revali sucking in a breath at the contact WAHHHH but with the direction i took with this post, i also thought about link laying a flat palm between revali's shoulder muscles, feeling the warmth of his skin and tracing his shoulder blades with a featherlight touch and revali getting flustered but muttering, "are you going to keep me in suspense?"

link traces a line down revali's spine. "are you sure you want to get this tattoo?" he murmurs. "we can still do the smaller ones instead if you want. i know how you feel about it, with your pain tolerance and all."

revali snorts, trying to mask his nervousness. "i've already made up my mind. it's a beautiful piece that you put a lot of thought into and i'm not backing out now. besides..." revali's voice lowers into a mumble. "i wouldn't have gone through with it if it was anyone else. i trust you."

link's cheeks pinked in the sweet way they do when revali catches him off-guard, but he can't take it back. he doesn't want to take it back, because it's true; revali trusts link for this with everything he has.

hhh . AHHHH . i just think. yeagh.

[harmonie-writes]

Endless Sol Teaser

Poly dragon!Ateez x fem! reader

Warnings: typical things that happen in raids (burning, potential death/depictions of death, abductions, forced enslavement), language, violence, blood.

AN: italics are telepathic bonds, thoughts

If you enjoy my work, please consider reblogging as tumblr is based on reblogs and not likes. (The likes are appreciated, though).

Word count: ~1.5k

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»»————-　➴　————-««

There's a place called Eris, where magic runs deep in the lands. A place where creatures of high nobility live, like elves and humans, even warlocks and faeries. Up in the mountain and deep in the caves, some dwarves dwell, that mine and smelt gold. There are even monstrous species, such as dragons and behemoths. Yet some species are slowly going extinct, like the phoenix.

Eris is a world of myth and magic, it was also once a place of peace and prosperity. Unfortunately, the plague of greed waged war for the land, and some species sought out those who could be bent to their will for their gain.

»»————-　➴　————-««

The human king, King Ainar, of Deimos, sought a cure for his ailing wife. His court physicians couldn't figure out what was wrong. No treatment seemed to work. Every remedy they tried failed. So, he sought out warlocks, witches, and the fae folk. The results were the same. No potion, tonic, or balm seemed to ease the illness that befell the Queen of Deimos. Over a year, many had failed to cure the queen, and she remained husk-like in her bed.

And then, there was one last chance the King had, a rumor at most, but it was a small grain of hope for him. There is an island called Thelea, home to the phoenix, which is a land made purely of volcanic rock and ash, except when spring arrives then there is life on the island.

King Ainar took the only lead he had and readied a fleet to storm Thelea. But why search for the phoenix? There was a myth that the bird of flames could cure or heal any ailment with a single drop of their golden blood.

»»————-　➴　————-««

Rowboats scratched against the gravel of the shore of Thelea in the dark of night. The knights that King Ainar had sent out have finally reached the land of fire, and secured as many of the phoenixes as they could.

The sound of iron boots and chain mail could be heard as the knights began the raid.

Homes were set aflame and the air turned rancid with smoke, all in attempts to flush out some of the phoenixes from their homes and out into the open. It wasn't long before startled screams and shouts filled the air, and the sound of iron nets being cast as they clinked against each other.

»»————-　➴　————-««

Small soot-stained hands clawed at the floorboard under them trying desperately to escape the support beam that fell from the rafters of her family home. Every gasp and cough that left her as she struggled left her lungs burnings. Her eyes stung from the smoke and she could only see orange and yellow flames behind her bleary eyes.

It was only a matter of time now. She knew these were probably her final moments. She could hear her parents' screams get farther and farther away.

Feeling the last of the strength leave her body, she feels heat ignite from inside her chest. It's instantaneous, the rapidly growing fire consumes the small feathered girl and leaves a pile of ash in its wake.

»»————-　➴　————-««

A small thunder of dragons flies overhead, getting ready to head back to their home in the Mountains of Altair when they notice the smoking ruins of Thelea.

"Look over there," a silver female wyvern pointed out, craning her neck in the direction of the smoke plumes.

The large black dragon at the head of the group angled his wings to land in the ruins of Thelea, the rest of the group following his lead in the descent.

The black dragon touches down first closely followed by the silver female. It's not too long after that four small hatchlings stumble upon their landings.

Among the hatchlings, there is a crimson scaled dragon, it's dark scales shimmering brightly like the lava pools in Thelea. A dragon with scales as black as the night sky and eyes that compare to the emeralds that the dwarves of Erbor mine. The third hatchling to touch down is a dragon with gold scales like the large wheat fields that cover most of Diemos. The last one to land is the youngest, a snow white wyvern, who stumbles the most out of the hatchlings since he only has two legs.

The unmistakable sounds of bones compacting and joints popping reach the ears of the thunder, and before them stands a motherly woman with silvery hair in a long braid, and a plain pleated dress.

"Amia, what are you doing?" The black dragon's voice vertebrates inside her head. It's almost loud enough that it feels like his words are bouncing off her skull.

"Looking for survivors. This isn't natural," she insists and begins to make her way to the center of town.

More popping can be heard and a mop of straw colored hair is bounding after the woman.

"Yunho!" The dragon calls, but gets ignored by the hatchling and soon the other three are following his lead.

Shaking his head the elder follows suit, quick to hurry after his wife and the four hatchlings who were supposed to be doing flight training.

Amia picks up the dress of skirt as she picks her way through the deserted town. Distress evident on her face as she walks up to one of the charred remains of a home and spots a small doll laying in a puddle, covered in soot.

The male, known as Izar, walks up to his wife, eyes scanning everything. Hoping for a sign of life, or something that'll explain what happened.

"It doesn't look like any of them are here," Izar states, placing what he hopes is a comforting hand on his wife's shoulder.

The four hatchlings have wandered over to the other side of the town square. A weird tug pulling at each of them in the direction of a house with a collapsed roof.

Seonghwa nudges Hongjoong's ribs and they share a look with each other before slowly stepping into the threshold of the house. Calculating eyes searching, but they aren't quite sure what they're looking for.

Yeosang stands on his tippy toes to look over Hongjoong’s shoulder and points at a pile of ash on the floor.

"What's that?" He asks, carefully stepping out from behind his elder.

He receives a shrug and the four of them begin to make their way to the center of the room and together the four lift the center beam.

Yunho bends down, about to touch the pile when they all hear their names being called by Izar and Amia.

"Time to go," Seonghwa mumbles, picking his way back to what would be the front door.

As the four of them begin to turn away from the strange pile of ash, they feel heat warm their backs. The heat isn't harsh, but it's warm and inviting and it makes them freeze in their place and turn around. Stunned they watch as the ashes reignite before their eyes, and in the orange glow of the fire a shape starts to take place before the fire dies out. Eyes wide and mouths agape they stare as a small bird with burgundy and gold feathers with brilliant blue eyes.

"Guys," Hongjoong looks at the other hatchlings.

Swallowing thickly, Seonghwa carefully picks up the phoenix and cradles it between his palms.

"So, what now?" He asks, turning around.

"I guess, we bring it to Amia," Hongjoong answers, leading the way back to the center of town.

The four boys hurry to find their caretakers and call out to them.

It doesn't take long for them to notice the new phoenix in Seonghwa's hands, and Amia is hurrying over to see the young one.

"Oh, Mother," Amia whispers, her hand covering her mouth.

Izar takes another look around the place before letting out a heavy sigh, "I guess we will take this one home with us. Seonghwa, will you be alright holding onto them while we fly home?"

Seonghwa nods his head, his arms holding the bird a little bit more firmly without crushing it.

"Well then," Izar announces right before shifting, "Let's head home."

Five dragons take off from Thelea heading West towards the Mountains of Altair, and perched on the back of the Izar, is Seonghwa holding the small bird made of sol.

»»————-　➴　————-««

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[ialdabaothvt]

welcome to the tumblr blog of the dreaded lich queen ialdabaoth!

good afternoon, everyone! it’s about time i posted something like this on my blog. allow me to introduce myself, shall we?

so, without further ado… hello! i am, unsurprisingly, the lich queen vtuber known as ialdabaoth (pronounced like yal • da • bay • oth, or yal • da • both if you’re a fast talker). i have a great many names; my enemies know me as the withering queen, and twitch dot tv dot com knows me as OGDemiurge (for the time being, anyway; the name is subject to change. stay tuned for info about that). but you can just call me iald, if you want.

^^ (pictured here is me with my familiar, who also doubles as a semi-living phylactery! his name is czar’gegnal’eral’ax, because fuck you. but you can call him czar for short, if you want. he probably doesn’t mind.)

little known fact about lichdom: maintaining it can be real damn hard sometimes. it’s not easy to be a literal rotting corpse, and to walk around on the street in search of souls to fill your phylactery, without people running away screaming from your spirit halloween lookin ass.

even the queen of england couldn’t keep up the act forever! you really gotta put in the work, and that’s not a particularly easy thing when you’ve focused completely on necromantic spells, and failed to add a little bit of enchantment and/or illusion and/or transmutation to the pile in order to keep your shit covered. turns out, there is such a thing as having too many cool skeletons in your cool skeleton army. and i, unfortunately, found this out the hard way.

so, um…. 🥺👉👈 your soul?? pwease?? oh pwease pwease pwease can i have it?? and put it in my phylactery?? forever??

…yeah, if you couldn’t tell, i’ve downgraded to twitch streaming to fill that shit up. but hey, what can you do? what can you do. if you’ve gotta uwu on the internet to prevent yourself from becoming a disembodied floating skull like acererak, you’ve gotta pull yourself up by the got damn bootstraps and uwu. that’s just how the world works, kid.

so! with that being said. i’m still trying to figure out a schedule for streaming, but even still, i do not plan to allow that to put a damper on my nasty, evil schemes! and thus, i have decided that the date of my first stream will be Wednesday, March 22, 2023, at 5:30 PM CST!! yes, yes! you heard that right! mark it on your calendars, folks!

i will be playing none other than Tyranny that night, which i’ve never played before! so i hope that this will be a fun experience for all of us, and most importantly….. i hope to see you all there!

[wolfstar-in-color]

July Colorful Column: Remus is a Crip, and We Can Write Him Better.

There is one thing that can get me to close a fic so voraciously I don’t even make sure I’m not closing other essential tabs in the process. It doesn’t matter how much I’m loving the fic, how well written I think it is, or how desperately I want to know how it ends. Once I read this sentence, I am done.

It’s written in a variety of different ways, but it always goes something like this: “You don’t want me,” Remus said, “I am too sick/broken/poor/old/[insert chosen self-demeaning adjective here].”

You’re familiar with the trope. The trope is canonical. And if you’ve been around the wolfstar fandom for longer than a few minutes, you’ve read the trope. Maybe you love the trope! Maybe you’ve written the trope! Maybe you’re about to stop reading this column, because the trope rings true to you and you feel a little attacked!

Now, let’s get one thing out of the way right now: I am not saying the trope is wrong. I am not saying it’s bad. I am not saying we should stop writing it. We all have things we don’t like to see in our chosen fics. Maybe you can’t stand Leather Jacket Motorbike Sirius? Maybe you think Elbow Patch Remus is overdone? Or maybe your pet peeves are based in something a little deeper - maybe you think Poor Latino Remus is an irresponsible depiction, or that PWPs are too reductive? Whatever it is, we all have our things.

Let me tell you about my thing. When I first became very ill several years ago, there were various low points in which I felt I had become inherently unlovable. This is, more or less, a normal reaction. When your body stops doing things it used to be able to do - or starts doing things you were quite alright without, thank you very much - it changes the way you relate to your body. You don’t want to hear my whole disability history, so yada yada yada, most people eventually come to accept their limitations. It’s a very painful existence, one in which you constantly tell yourself your disability has transformed you into a burdensome, unworthy member of society, and if nothing else, it’s not terribly sustainable. Being disabled takes grit! It takes power! It takes a truly absurd amount of medical self-advocacy! Hating yourself? Thinking yourself unworthy of love? No one has time for that. 

Of course, I’m being hyperbolic. Plenty of disabled people struggle with these feelings many years into their disabilities, and never really get over them. But here’s the thing. We experience those stories ALL THE TIME. Remember Rain Man? Or Million Dollar Baby? Or that one with the actress from Game of Thrones and that British actor who seemed like he was going to have a promising career but then didn't? Those are all stories about sad, bitter disabled people and their sad, bitter lives, two out of three of which end in the character completing suicide because they simply couldn’t imagine having to live as a disabled person. (I mean, come on media, I get that we're less likely to enjoy a leisurely Saturday hike, but our parking is SUBLIME.) When was the last time you engaged with media that depicted a happy disabled person? A complex disabled person? A disabled person who has sex? No really, these aren’t hypothetical questions, can you please drop a rec in the notes?? Because I am desperate.

There are lots of problems with this trope, and they’ve been discussed ad nauseam by people with PhDs. I’m not actually interested in talking about how this trope leads to a more prevalent societal idea that disabled people are unworthy of love, or contributes to the kind of political thought processes that keep disabled people purposefully disenfranchised. I’m just a bitch on Tumblr, and I have a bone to pick: the thing I really hate about the trope? It’s boring. I’m bored. You know how, like, halfway through Grey’s Anatomy you realized they were just recycling the same plot points over and over again and there was just no WAY anyone working at a hospital prone to THAT MANY disasters would stay on staff? It's like that. I love a recycled trope as much as the next person (There Was Only One Bed, anyone?). But I need. Something. Else.

Remus is disabled. BOLD claim. WILD speculation. Except, not really. You simply - no matter how you flip it, slice it, puree it, or deconstruct it - cannot tell me Remus Lupin is not disabled. Most of us, by this point, are probably familiar with the way that One Canonical Author intended One Dashing Werewolf to be “a metaphor for those illnesses that carry stigma, like HIV and AIDS” [I’m sorry to link you to an outside source quoting She Who Must Not Be Named, but we’re professionals here]. Which is... a thing. It’s been discussed. And, listen, there’s no denying that this parallel is a problematic interpretation of people who have HIV/AIDS and all such similar “those illnesses” (though I’ll admit that I, too, am perennially apt to turn into a raging beast liable to harm anything that crosses my path, but that’s more linked to the at-least-once-monthly recollection that One Day At A Time got cancelled). Critiques aside, Remus Lupin is a character who - due to a condition that affects him physically, mentally, emotionally, and intellectually - is repeatedly marginalized, oppressed, denied political and social power, and ostracized due to unfounded fear that he is infectious to others. Does that sound familiar?

We’re not going to argue about whether or not “Remus is canonically disabled as fuck” is a fair reading. And the reason we’re not going to argue about whether or not it’s a fair reading is because I haven’t read canon in 10-plus years and you will win the argument. Canon is only marginally relevant here. The icon of this blog is brown, curly haired Remus Lupin kissing his trans boyfriend, Sirius Black. We are obviously not too terribly invested in canon. The wolfstar fandom is now a community with over 25,000 AO3 fics, entire careers launched from drawing or writing or cosplaying this non-canonical pairing. We love to play around here with storylines and universes and races and genders and sexualities and all kinds of things, but most of the time? Remus is still disabled. He’s disabled as a werewolf in canon-compliant works, he’s disabled in the AUs where he was injured or abused or kidnapped or harmed as a child, he’s disabled in the stories that read him as chronically ill or bipolar or traumatized or blind or Deaf. I’d go so far as to say that he is one of very few characters in the Wide Wonderful World of media who is, in as close to his essence as one can be, always disabled. And that means? Don’t shoot the messenger... but we could stand to be a tiny bit more responsible with how we portray him. 

Disabled people are complicated. As much as I’d like to pretend we are always level-headed, confident, and ready to assert our inherent worth, we are still just humans. We have bad days. We doubt our worth. We sometimes go out with guys who complain about our steroid-induced weight gain (it was a long time ago, Tumblr, okay??). But, we also have joy and fun and good days and sex and happiness and families and so many other things. 

Remus is a disabled character, and as such, it’s only fair that he’d have those unworthy moments. But - I propose - Remus is also a crip. What is a crip? A crip - like a queer - is someone who eschews the limited boundaries placed on their bodies, who rejects a hierarchy of oppression in favor of an intersectional analysis of lived experience, who isn’t interested in being the tragic figure responsible for helping people with dominant identities realize how good they have it. Crips interpret their disabilities however they want, rethinking bodies and medicine and pleasure and pain and even time itself. Crips are political, community-minded, and in search of liberation. 

Remus is a character who struggles with his disability, sure. But he’s also a character who leverages his physical condition to attempt to shift communities towards his political leanings, advocates for the rights of those who share his physical condition, and has super hot sex with his wrongfully convicted boyfriend ultimately goes on to build community and family. Having a condition that quite literally cripples you, over which you have no control, and through which you are often read as a social pariah? That’s disability. But using said condition as a means through which to build advocacy and community? Now that’s some crip shit. 

Personally, I love disabled!Remus Lupin. But I love crip!Remus Lupin even more. I’d love to see more of a Remus who owns his disability, who covets what makes him unique, and who never ever again tells a potential romantic partner they are too good for him because of his disability. This trope - unlike There Was Only One Bed! - sometimes actually hurts to read. Where’s Remus who thinks a potential romantic partner isn’t good enough for him? Where’s Remus who insists his partners learn more about his condition in order to treat him properly? Where’s sexy wheelchair user Remus? Where’s Remus who uses his werewolf transformations as an excuse to travel the world? Where’s crip Remus??

We don’t have to put “you don’t want me” Remus entirely to bed. It is but one of many repeated tropes that are - in the words of The Hot Priest from Fleabag - morally a bit dubious. And let’s face it - we don’t always come to fandom for its moral superiority (as much as we sometimes like to think we do). 

This is not a condemnation - it is an invitation. Able-bodied folks are all but an injury, illness, or couple decades away from being disabled. And when you get here, I sincerely hope you don’t waste your time on “you don’t want me”ing back and forth with the people you love. I’m inviting you to come to the crip side now. We have snacks, and without all the “you don’t want me” talk, we get to the juicy parts much faster. 

Colorfully,

Mod Theo

[bigfrozenfan-fanfics]

Chapter 15 - Valley of the Living Rock

Links: Chapter overview, Character list, Map, Glossar Rating: M over all Publishing cycle: each Friday at 6:00 pm CEST dst/UTC +2:00 on (link) Remarks: all my chapters contain carefully selected music tracks. It’s your own decision if you want to use them or not while reading. The purpose is to musically support the respective mood of the plot. If you can please use a browser for reading (not the Tumblr app) due to the text formatting and music.

Elsa could not avert her gaze as they passed the ice palace on her left about an hour after dark. She had placed her forearms on top of each other on the side of the wagon and supported her chin on her left hand while she visibly enjoyed the sight. A pale blue glow lit up the palace from the inside and made the filigree structure visible from afar. It was like a beacon in the night and beautiful to look at.

“This is what I should have created?” she asked Anna softly, “It is simply fantastic.”

“Yes, that was you, Elsa, all alone. I'll have to tell you the long story about it sometime after. It was your refuge and is now the home of Marshmallow and the Snowgies.”

Elsa turned to her with a questioning expression on her face. But Anna laid a hand on hers before she could ask for it and said, smiling, “Be patient. It's an exciting as well as funny story and you'll certainly have many more questions about it.”

Elsa nodded and turned around again afterwards. “All right", she said very quietly and, "I'd love to have a look at it from the inside,” more to herself than to Anna.

But Anna had heard it and said almost as softly, “You will, sis. We will visit your palace together. Hopefully very soon.”

Suddenly Anna remembered all the events when she was looking for her sister back then. Except for the pure beauty of the palace itself and the fact that she had met Kristoff on her arduous journey, however, she did not have very pleasant memories of it and she was somehow glad that Elsa did not insist on her story right now. There was plenty of time for that in another day; she thought.

But it wouldn't be easy for her to reopen her past, she knew that for sure now. She bit her lower lip slightly as she thought about it, but quickly shook the thought off again. There were more important things to do now and soon they would reach the Valley of the Living Rock. Her eyes fell on Olaf, who was sitting directly opposite her. Somehow he seemed to know exactly what she was thinking, for he nodded at her in a knowing way and looked at her sympathetically.

But as if she had guessed the right moment in advance, Kristoff just called forward in a loud voice and asked Mattias to come back to him. Both wagons stopped and Mattias rode to his side.

“I know a shortcut and we have to turn off further ahead soon. The path is hard to see, especially now in the dark. It's best if I get in front of your wagon and drive ahead. Sven also knows the way and will lead us there safely.”

“All right, Kristoff. I'll let my people know up front, and we'll come after you. How long will it take us to get there?”

“A little over an hour, I'd say. We'll have to walk the rest as soon as the road is too narrow for the wagons. Besides, the area is very rocky and there are active geysers there.”

Kristoff saw, in the flickering light of the lantern hanging outside the wagon, how Mattias looked at him in astonishment, finally just nodded and rode back. Kristoff pulled up slowly when he saw Mattias waving. The wagon in front also had a lantern hanging on the outside and as he drove by he saw two sceptical looking faces. Trygve and Kristina were obviously not very eager to meet living legends from an ancient fable story in the middle of the night. He nodded at them smiling, “Don't worry, folks. The trolls are harmless. I grew up among them.”

But Kristoff did not see them grinning at each other anymore and Trygve tapped his temple with his finger and shook his head.

Olaf climbed to the front beside Kristoff and laughed in his inimitable way: “I am looking forward to seeing everyone again, especially the little ones. They're always so funny.”

Kristoff looked over at him and was about to answer him when Anna's head appeared between them and said to Kristoff conspiratorially quietly, “Kristoff, I think it's better if you go ahead later and make sure that only Grand Pabbie is waiting for us alone. I don't want Elsa to be frightened. You know how trolls are. Maybe you should warn him about her condition right away.” Turning to Olaf, she quickly added, “I'm sorry, Olaf, but you won't be able to see the little ones tonight.”

“Never mind, Anna, we'll visit them some other time soon,” he returned happily and laughed at her.

Anna looked at Kristoff again and he nodded. “All right, Anna. I hadn't thought of that yet.”

She put a hand on his shoulder with a smile. “Thanks, honey.”

When she sat back down again, Elsa grabbed her arm and asked, “Trolls? We are going to see trolls now?”

Anna pressed her lips together with raised eyebrows and wide open eyes and felt caught. Kristoff hadn't exactly been quiet earlier, and Elsa was now certainly feeling insecure. Why hadn't she instructed Kristoff before.

“Um ... well, actually only to one troll. He is very old and wise, has great amount of knowledge. You have seen him twice before and he has known you since we were both little kids. Kristoff and I hope he can help us with your lost memories. He has certain abilities, you know? You don't have to be afraid of him, even if he looks a little ... strange at first glance.” Anna searched Elsa's face to see if she seemed afraid.

But Elsa just smiled and replied, “I think I have many more miracles to prepare for. I'm beginning to feel as if I've woken up in a fairy tale that's come to life.”

~~~

Yelana had now been on the road for hours and stopped at a lively little stream to refresh herself and give the reindeer water. The advantage of travelling cross-country, as opposed to a wagon on a reindeer, was to save time and travel. She knew the area pretty well, so there was no danger of getting lost in the woods. But despite the time saved, dusk had already fallen and she would not quite make it to Arendelle in daylight. It did not make sense to arrive there in the middle of the night.

She looked around and found a good place to spend the night. The foliage of a big tree was very dense and underneath it was a small open area that would protect her from possible rain. At least as long as it did not pour.

She led the reindeer there and tied the line of the harness to a thick branch. Then she gathered lichen, moss and some mushrooms for the animal. Unfortunately, she herself had not had time to provide for her own food, but this area here offered enough plants that were full of edible berries. She gathered enough of them to satisfy her hunger to some extent.

She then cut off some green pine branches from various trees around her and used them to make a temporary camp for the night. Finally she sat down in front of it and thought about her next steps. Would the council in Arendelle even believe her? She had to find Queen Anna first and inform her about the new situation. It would change everything and possibly endanger the newly won peace treaty between Arendelle and her people considerably. Would she be able to help her to regain her place as leader of the Northuldra?

Yelana sighed and shook her head. Probably not; she thought. In order to proceed against Kolgrimr without endangering further human lives, someone with magical abilities would be needed. Someone like Elsa. Right now they were all so dependent on their fifth spirit, however Elsa was unfortunately out of action.

Yelana reached into her bag and pulled out her scarf that she once got from her mother. She put it around her shoulders and wrapped herself tightly in it. Lost in thought, she stroked the five symbols on it and thought of her past, of the time when everything was still in balance and they all lived in harmony with themselves and everything around them. Long before the fateful day when King Runeard appeared and since then everything, but really everything, had gone out of control.

The peace had not lasted long and she would have to fight for it now, even if it cost her her own life. Once again, she had been thoroughly mistaken about someone, for as it now turned out, Gyda had been giving her son shelter for years and unnoticed. It had probably been she herself who had poisoned her son's being with her hatred and had turned him into a monster. Someone who was now even willing to kill.

Under no circumstances was Gyda allowed to lead the people of the sun. Not ever. She would make sure of it. But Yelana did not yet know how she would do it. She needed support. She needed help from Arendelle.

She gritted her teeth in annoyance and disappointment at herself as she thought back to the Norting and what she had told the men there.

Gyda had lied right into her face and she had believed everything.

~~~

Kristoff stopped the wagon and jumped off the trestle. “End of the line. We have to walk from here,” he called out.

Rocks rose up to their left and right, and the path had become narrow and rocky. Further ahead, the steam of the geysers enveloped the rest of the path.

Kristoff waved back to Mattias and the other two drivers and then went to Sven to make sure that everything was all right with him and that he felt comfortable. Mattias said something to his people and then came forward alone.

“Are we there?” he asked.

Anna replied in Kristoff's place, “Pretty much, Mattias, but Kristoff will go ahead alone first and announce our arrival.”

Mattias nodded and got off his horse to stretch his legs a little.

“I'll be back soon,” Kristoff said as he came back to them and got a torch from inside the wagon. He lit it on the lantern and disappeared shortly afterwards in the fog in front of them.

They waited and it took at least half an hour until finally the other two came to them as well. Trygve carried the lantern from the wagon and asked, “Is there a problem?”

“No, it's all right. Kristoff went ahead alone and should be back any moment,” Mattias replied to them. He saw their skeptical looks, which were directed past him to the front and said, “You don't have to come along if you don't want to.”

“It's okay, General” Kristina said, “We've been through so much already, we don't want to miss the opportunity to encounter a myth.”

She looked at her companion, who nodded affirmatively, “We'll come.”

“All right,” Mattias said, “to be honest, I feel the same way, but keep your eyes open all the time, remember our duty is to protect the royal family at all cost.”

A few minutes later, a faint reddish spot dancing up and down in the thick haze like a will-o'-the-wisp announced Kristoff's return.

After he gave his okay, they all left. Anna walked ahead at his side, followed by Elsa with Olaf, then Mattias, who looked around attentively, and in the end Trygve and Kristina, who looked visibly nervous and kept peering back over their shoulders into the dark. Kristina rubbed her wet palms against her leg dresses.

The little geysers hissed and enveloped them in their damp steam as they passed them. However, after a short time the view became clearer and the narrow path opened up into a lower, almost circular area where there was a large rock. On it sat a quirky looking creature covered with moss, wearing a chain of yellow shining crystals around his neck. It was Grand Pabbie, the king of the trolls, who looked calmly and serenely towards them and had folded his big hands in his lap.

They were already halfway to the clearing when Elsa only now noticed him and stopped in surprise. She stared at him and began to nervously knead her hands in front of her. She hadn't expected this after all. All the others behind her also stopped and waited to see what might happen. Only Olaf ran on and stood next to Anna, who now stopped right in front of the troll. She hadn't noticed anything behind her yet.

The old troll bowed before her. “Your Majesty ..., Kristoff ... it is never a dull moment with you all. Only this time you're going to give me a real challenge.” He looked at Elsa in between them and it took a few seconds before he finally said something again. “She's afraid.”

Anna's head spun around and she ran the few steps back to Elsa, took her hands in hers to calm her down and looked deep into her eyes. “Elsa, you don't have to be afraid of him, really. He only wants to help. Please come forward with me, I'll be by your side at all times,” she said softly and almost imploringly. “Trust me, there's no danger at all.”

Anna felt her sister's hands tremble slightly and for a few moments Elsa didn't react but just stared at the troll. Then her sister took a deep breath and nodded. She looked at Anna and squeezed her hands.

“Okay, let's do it. Whatever come next, we'll do it ... together.”

Anna smiled in relief and led her to Grand Pabbie, holding one hand. They stopped in front of him and Elsa scrutinized him closely, looking at every square inch of the old troll and wondering how such a creature could even exist.

He was alive, there was no doubt about that, but his hair and eyebrows seemed to be made of dry straw and there even grew a small bundle of it out of his ears. His bulbous nose was unnaturally large and the small indentations in it, which were probably the pores of his skin, looked more like the surface of a weathered stone, as did his skin, which showed traces of moss. His moss mantle looked somehow ... fresh, as if it had been harvested in the morning dew and simply peeled off in one piece as a blanket from the ground. The transparent crystals he wore around his neck on a willow rod chain glowed from inside without any visible light source and it almost seemed as if this glow was pulsating slightly.

Finally she looked up into his night-black eyes and held her breath. His gaze seemed to penetrate her and literally nailed her to the spot. His eyebrows lifted and he stretched out his short arms towards her, palms up. He obviously wanted her to put her hands in his. She felt Anna's handshake and her thumb stroking the back of her hand.

She took her eyes off Grand Pabbie and instead looked at her sister questioningly. She now released Elsa's hand and nodded encouragingly. “Go ahead, Elsa. That's just his special way of finding out hidden things inside us. This way he can feel and see what's bothering us. He can help you with that,” Anna said and looked into the troll's face. “At least I hope so,” she then added somewhat more quietly.

Elsa hesitated but finally raised both hands and slowly lowered them onto Grand Pabbie's large four-finger palms. When she touched them, all she felt was a cold, rough surface and a gentle pressure as the troll embraced her hands and held them.

For a while, nothing happened at all, everyone just stood there and concentrated on what was happening. Grand Pabbie had now closed his eyes and his bushy eyebrows were drawn together in deep concentration. There was a tense silence.

Then the old troll suddenly moaned and stared at Elsa. “You really have a big problem, Elsa, and I'm afraid I can't help you. You're under some kind of spell. Someone with magical powers has blocked the access to your inner self along with your memories.”

~~~

---

To be continued ...  

I hope you have enjoyed this chapter! Please leave a comment if you liked the story, I would be pleased to read your opinions, even criticisms. If you want to be tagged as soon I publish the next chapter please let me know, except you are already tagged :-)

Tagging: @karma26 @whether-near-to-me-or-far @annaofthenorthernlights @igotelsapregnanthelp @the-fifth-spirit-elsa ​

[vikingqueer]

music recommendations because i have some thoughts™

i don't wanna be that person who's like "my music taste is so weird lol" but i find that very often most of my friends don't really care for the music i like so i thought i'd just make a long ass post about it on tumblr instead. Fair warning, I'm very passionate about MIKA and The Mechanisms and so this very quickly got VERY long because it is part of my ongoing campaign to convince people to listen to mika and the mechs.

1) MIKA in general, but especially My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019) and No Place In Heaven (2015) (especially the Deluxe version!!)

MIKA is a kind of British singer (half Lebanese, grew up in France blabla), and you probably know him for Grace Kelly and Relax, Take It Easy from his first album Life In Cartoon Motion from 2007. He writes a lot of FUN music, interspersed with the occasional slightly sadder song, especially when looking at an album like No Place In Heaven, which contains a lot of songs with gay themes, resulting in some songs that are just a little bit ouch. He's originally classically trained and has a frankly RIDICULOUS range and idk he just writes very good pop music. Also I have so much respect for that time he talked about how a lot of pop is very fake, with like expensive cars and stilettos and mini skirts in the snow and said "Because I walk down the street, and I don't see any of that. I see fat women and gay men. I don't know... That's real". He's written 5 albums; My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019), No Place In Heaven (2015), The Origin Of Love (2012), The Boy Who Knew Too Much (2009), and Life In Cartoon Motion (2007).

For starters, I recommend listening to Last Party, Origin Of Love, Grace Kelly, Blame It On The Girls, Blue, Happy Ending, Pick Up Off The Floor, Last Party, Underwater, Tomorrow and Tiny Love (yes this is a long list but i REALLY love MIKA). If you want a slightly broader palette that's not just my favourites, I recommend the Mika starter pack on spotify.

2) The Mechanisms. I warn you. I am making this a thing. I have been obsessed with the mechs since last march.

Boy, where to start? The Mechanisms were a British 9 member space pirate story-telling cabaret that "died" in January 2020. They rewrite songs to fit retellings of various stories. I don't even know what genre I'd describe them as, but probably folk but steam-punk?? Their 4 "main" albums are concept albums, and I honestly just recommend listening to the from beginning to end in chronological order. A good way to get into the mechs is also to listen to UDAD and then watching the live show on youtube or alternately try giving Death To The Mechanisms a listen, to get good quality live show audio of TBI and various other stuff. Also, it was streamed on YouTube and someone combined the footage with the album audio and it rocks. Really, I think the mechs' best selling points are honestly just their concept albums:

Once Upon a Time (In Space) Their first album from 2012. I'd say this is the most "easily digestible" for the general public, since it's a retelling of various fairytales. So, what if Old King Cole was in fact not merry, but rather a cold-blooded dictator, intent on colonising as much of the galaxy as possible. What if Snow White was a general, looking to avenge what King Cole did to her sister, Rose. What if Cinderella was to be wedded to Rose the day that King Cole attacked in order to kidnap Rose? But y'know, In Space and also like every other mechs album it's a beautiful tragedy. Fave songs are Old King Cole, Pump Shanty, and No Happy Ending.

Ulysses Dies at Dawn You guessed it, it's a story about Odysseus, or Ulysses because I guess Ulysses is easier to rhyme or fit in the meter or something, idk. Ulysses is a war hero of unknown gender who is said to keep something that could take down the corrupt Olympians, meanest families in the City, in a vault to which only they know the passcode. Oedipus, Heracles, Orpheus, and Ariadne have been hired by Hades, who happens to be The Mechs' quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, to get into Ulysses' vault. I didn't care much for udad at first, but honestly it's got some real bangers and the story is really good. UDAD weirdly stands out as the only of the concept albums to not feature any gay relationships, per se. Fave songs are Riddle of the Sphinx, Favoured Son, and Underworld Blues.

High Noon over Camelot This is my favourite mehcs album. So basically, this is Arthurian legend, but it's a space western and Jonny D'Ville does a bad southern accent. This is the story of the cowboy lovers Arther, Lancelot, and Guinevere searching for the Galfridian Restricted Acces Interface Login, or GRAIL, in order to stop their world from falling into the sun. Meanwhile, Mordred and Gawaine are ruling Camelot, and Mordred has convinced Gawaine to try to establish peace with the Saxons by whom Mordred was raised, but Gawaine hates viciously. If you love getting your heart broken and songs by a fucking off the rails batshit preacher I HIGHLY recommend hnoc. Fave songs are Gunfight at the Dolorous Guard, Blood and Whiskey, and Once and Future King. Honorary mention for Hellfire because it awakens something animalistic in me.

The Bifrost Incident TBI is the frankly only good adaptation of norse mythology I've ever known of, and I say that as Dane who was literally forced to learn things about norse mythology in school because it's my heritage or whatever. I've been listening to TBI a lot lately because it's VERY good. It's definitely the most refined of the mechs' albums (because it's the newest) but also I just love a little bit of cosmic horror. 80 years ago, Odin, the All-Mother, ruler of Asgaard, launched a train through the wormhole Bifrost that would reduce the travel between Asgaard and Midgaard from 3 months to 3 days, but things didn't go quite as planned. Lyfrassir Edda of the New Midgaard Transport Police is trying to solve the case of why suddenly the train has arrived 80 years late; to figure out whether it was accident or maybe it was sabotaged by Loki, who was allegedly sentence to death her murder of Baldur, by the Midgaardian resistance led by Loki's wife Sigyn, or maybe by Thor, who was to take over after Odin, and who holds quite the grudge because he used to be a friend of Loki's. You might've heard the song Thor from this album, it's apparently quite popular. Fave songs are Loki, Ragnarok III: Strange Meeting, and Ragnarok V: End of The Line. Yet again an honorary mention: Red Signal because while Lovecraft was a bitch, his invocations are fucking RAW.

Basically, the Mechanisms do all of their performances in character as captain first mate Jonny D'Ville, quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, pilot DrumBot Brian, master-at-arms Gunpowder Tim, science officer Raphaella la Cognizi, doctor Baron Marius Von Raum (neither a baron, nor a doctor), archivist Ivy Alexandria, engineer Nastya Rasputina, and The Toy Soldier, who is, as usual, present. You can find very obscure lore about the crew of the Aurora here, tidbits on Tales To Be Told and TTBT Vol. 2, such as One Eyed Jacks, The Ignominious Demise of Dr. Pilchard, Gunpowder Tim vs. The Moon Kaiser, Lucky Sevens, and Lost in the Cosmos.

If you feel like listening to a full 40-50 minute album to find out if you like a band is a bit much, I recommend listening to one of the mini stories Alice, Swan Song, or Frankenstein, which are about 12, 5 and 9:30 minutes respectively.

3) The Amazing Devil You know that guy who played Jaskier in the Witcher? I got into The Amazing Devil from spotify recommending them because I listened to the mechs, and apparently Joey Batey from The Amazing Devil is the same Joey Batey who was in the Witcher. Both him and Madeleine Hyland are VERY talented singers and songwriters and their second album The Horror and the Wild makes me go out into the forest and SCREAM. I listened to it on repeat for like a month straight. I guess they'd also be considered folk, but like. New Folk. Also yes, this is another British artist, I don't know why I'm like this. I've never really gotten that into their first album, Love Run, but King slaps. As I understand there's this whole lore about the Blue Furious Boy and Scarlet Scarlet, Joey and Madeleine respectively, but unlike the Mechanisms it's actually possible to find out things about the actual real people and harder to find the obscure lore? I'm open for people to please help me. Fave songs are The Horror and the Wild, Farewell Wanderlust, and That Unwanted Animal, which is literally a third of their second album, but again. I haven't really listened to Love Run that much, and I just LOVE the harmonies on THATW. (also im gay and dramatic leave me alone)

4) dodie I have so much love for this woman. Like many others, I first knew dodie as doddleoddle on youtube. I think I first stumbled across her in probably 2015, because I distinctly already knew her before she released her first EP Sick of Losing Soulmates in 2016. I think I watched probably every video she's ever made in the span of a few weeks. I just loved her quiet sound and was absolutely HOOKED. Also she's actually the reason I got into MIKA originally, so thanks for that. Dodie just realeased her first album Build A Problem (in addition to her three EP's; the one mentioned above, You, and Human) and it slaps. Yes dodie is also British Fave songs are probably Monster, Rainbow, and In The Middle.

5) Cladia Boleyn Unfortunately, Claudia Boleyn only has three singles and that's it. She's been making content on youtube for quite a while, and that's how I first discovered her. I don't know what genre her music is, but I like it. The songs are Celesta, George, and Mother Maiden Crone, of which the latter is my favourite. I'm not saying Claudia Boleyn invented women in 2017 when she released Mother Maiden Crone, but she did. Also you guessed it, Claudia Boleyn is British.

6) Hozier I'm not about to tell you about Hozier. You know who he is. Listen to Nina Cried Power, Angel Of Small Death & The Codeine Scene, and Shrike. Also Hozier isn't stricly British in that he is definitely from A British Isle, but Ireland is not part of the UK. Give me a break.

7) Oh Land Oh Land IS DANISH. I like her early music best, because I'm not that into the electronic sound. I guess Oh Land is just you regular old pop, but with the occasional weird vibe? Oddly enough, I like her first album Fauna best. Unfortunately I haven't really listened to her newest album Family Tree much, but it seems good? Fave songs are Frostbite, Love You Better and Family Tree. I cried on the bus, first time I listened to the Danish version of Love You Better, Elsker Dig Mer because my mother tongue always just hits harder. Also Frostbite is Oh Land doing a duet with herself which is pretty cool.

8) Oysterband This is a live recommendation. I mean they're a decent folk band and all, but they're a fucking experience live. If you like folk and you ever get the opportunity to see Oysterband live, do it. Unfortunately, yes. They are British. Either way, they are incredible on a scene and I think they deserve a mention for that.

9) Ben Platt Honestly don't know much about this guy, but he's not British and he was in Dear Evan Hansen. He released an album in 2019, Sing To Me Instead, and I just think it's a good album, there isn't really not much more to it. Fave songs are Grow As We Go, Bad Habit, and In Case You Don't Live Forever.

and thats all for now. this has been a ramble. shout out to you if you actually read all of this, especially the mechs part.

[sleepymccoy]

Aziraphale’s demon aspect

As voted by 246 people!

The winner is

Owl

with nearly 26% of the primary vote

many people added in their free form answers that they were imagining a barn owl specifically

Owl was the front runner the whole way through this survey, but most of the time by a very beatable margin. The 40 or so people who voted in the last night really tipped it over, it was a tight race! And the results are crazy split imo, a quarter of votes constitutes a win! I love the different opinions and ideas we all have so so much

Ram/sheep came in a hearty second with 16.5% of the vote

A very regal demon there.

After that it gets a little murky, so I’m going to share the second graph I made when is every animal that got more than 1% of the vote. So it’s the top six animals

Magpie and Lion holding strong! Then Moth and Goat looking very good

The second question let you vote for as many options as you thought were appropriate for Aziraphale! So, there were a lot more write-ins! It’s crazy!

I’m using google sheets so I can’t get it to show you every name, but the raw data will be in a read more so you can scroll through everyone’s beautiful imagination there

Again, Owl winds with a solid 20% of the vote. Ram/Sheep coming in with about 15%, followed by Moth, Magpie, Goat, Lion, then Tortoise.

Tortoise was 11th in the first round, tied with Snake (but pale), and managed to surprise me by coming through so strong in the second. Slow and steady, baby.

Nearly everyone who wrote in about Magpies told me that Magpies hoard stuff, so it’s nice to see the hive mind at work there!

Five people told me they were voting goat because of that one piece of art by @hollow-head​ that shows Aziraphale scaling a bookshelf like goats do cliffs. As an artist myself I found it legitimately moving that this one image had stayed with people so strongly. That’s just beautiful. Here’s an example of just one person’s comment

idk dude i just remember one person posted art of him scaling the bookstore shelves like those goats scale mountains and just eating his clothes while he reads it was so fuckin funny but anyway goat eyes are great or he could have lil stubby horns that r covered by his hair

One moth enthusiast took the time to give me a short essay on their choice of moth. I have included a portion of it, cos it was so great

So if I had to choose an insect, it would be a moth, preferably a Megalopygidae, also known as the Flannel Moth. They are fluffy, white-beige and look innocent and fluffy, but their larvae can cause painful inflammations. A poodle moth would also fit because it's almost pure white.

Here’s a flannel moth for everyone

and a poodle moth, which i honestly thought was a hoax but i looked into it just now and it seems legit? There’s not a tonne of proof, but the og pictures are from a scientists who stands by them, so like, wow

And then a DIFFERENT PERSON put this in;

the moth i had in mind is Acherontia atropos, in polish called Zmierzchnica trupia główka (meaning more or less "dusk death's head"). i have a whole symbolism planned out and stuff 

Fucking, moth fandom come through!!

I’m vaguely scared of moths, fun fact. I don’t like the thick thunking sound they make when they hit stuff.

Here is the second round but with all the animals that got four or less votes removed for ease of viewing

the one segment there at 12 o’clock that google hasn’t labeled for me is Swan at 0.9%

I cannot believe I didn’t put swan in as an option, that’s all write-ins

So, to summarise, I suggest you take a lot of this with a grain of salt. It is not meant as an instruction to fandom or to railroad creativity. I have a narrow corner of the Good Omens fandom that I interact with, and while this quiz was up for a week I’m not sure it reached a great variety of people. About 250 folks filled it out, which was tonnes more than I expected and I love each and every one of you for filling it out!! But I have noticed that Owl was first on my list and in the free form answers the example prompt I gave included, “such as a breed of owl that specifically speaks to you,“ so I think it’s possible I did that unknowing bias thing that practiced survey folk know now to do. So, grain of salt.

I also think that if animals like Swan and Cat were in the list of options they’d’ve gotten more votes because the people who voted for those were coming up with it fresh themselves. I suspect people would’ve voted for them, but it just didn’t occur to them in the moment. In much the same way it didn’t occur to me in the moment I was writing this survey.

So people know, I got the ten or so animals that I put in the survey from searching the demon!aziraphale tag on tumblr, so it was all stuff that other people had come up with. I was trying to avoid my own bias, but i think in hindsight i could’ve done better!

Having said all that, this was all so much fun and the results are clear!!! Love a good owl!aziraphale

Imma continue to draw my boy as a ram, though. Cos this was all just for a laugh <3

numbers and a few more things under the cut

So some of these have half a vote ascribed to them. That’s for people who in their freeform answer said things like this;

ngl, that one post about him being a swan still makes me laugh

Mourning Dove. Though that Scallop answer was fucking brilliant

And I kinda made a judgement call that that wasn’t a vote, but it was kind of a vote. So I gave them half a point.

There were a few situations where people would write in a specific species. If I got more than one vote for the root animal I just grouped them together, but if it stayed the only vote then it kept the species. Cat got the most specific species mentioned, and in the second vote Bat had a few species mentioned (albino bat being my fave), but I ended up grouping them all just under Cat and Bat to give them a better chance of getting on the graph. There were probably a few other examples but I can’t think of them. The one exception to this is the person who wrote-in Duolingo Owl specifically. For that one I figured Owl is already pretty solid, and that’s just fucking funny, man

I was also pretty generous about some stuff. So, this person didn’t vote for Moose but they clearly regretted it so I added a vote for Moose in the second one where you could vote for multiples. They kept their Ram and Goat votes, of course, but I added Moose for them

I get very bastard energy from my demon az headcanons. Like f-ing shit up for a laugh more than anything, but otherwise indifferent. That's kinda why I like the ram/sheep/goat thing so much because it reminds me of indifference and random chaos. Or a moose. Shit, I should have written in moose

So yeah, it’s hardly a double blind study that’d stand up to any real criticism, but it was fun and I think the essence of it is fun!! Scroll through and have a read. Imma pull a few more of my fave write-ins and put them down the bottom cos it’s great. Esp the ones that only got one vote, the reasonings were stellar on some of those

Here is the first vote results, where everyone could only vote for one animal each

Owl 63 Ram/Sheep 40 Magpie 28 Lion 26 Moth 21 Goat 17 Swan 4 Eagle 4 Dove 4 Cat 4 Tortoise 3 Snake 3 Scallop 2 Rat 2 Rabbit 2 Mongoose 2 Badger 2 Shima Enaga 1 Shark 1 Porcupine 1 Orangutan 1 Mouse 1 Long Furby 1 Hippopotomaus 1 Goose 1 Duck 1 Dragon 1 Cow 1 Cereberus 1 Boar 1 Bee 1 Bat 1 Alpaca 1

Second Vote results, where everyone could vote for as many as they wanted

Owl1 82 Ram/Sheep 136 Moth 108.5 Magpie 98 Goat 96 Lion 72 Tortoise 61 Snake 37 Eagle 33 Cat 9.5 Swan 7.5 Lizard 4 Rabbit 4 Badger 3 Mongoose 2 Dove 2 Mouse 2 Squirrel 2 Bear 2 Raccoon 2 Capybara 2 Dragon 2 Bat 1 Long Furby 1 Rat 1 Boar 1 Goose 1 Peacock 1 Pangolin 1 Lindworm 1 Moose 1 Chinchilla 1 Duolingo Owl 1 Cackatoo 1 Crow 1 Cow 1 Alpaca 1  Dodo 1 Shark 1 Big Dog 1 Snow Leopard 1 Scallop 0.5

All voting was optional. To help explain how scallop lost 1.5 votes from first to second, I believe the people who voted for it in the first question just skipped the second cos they’d said their bit.

In terms of how many people engaged with the questions, Q1 had 245 answers and one skip. Q2 had 241 answers and 5 skips, and Q3 where I just let people talk at me if they wanted to had 84 answers and 162 skips.

So please enjoy my selection of free form answers. They all made me smile but putting all 84 in seems excessive to me, so I’ve chosen the ones that are either full blown mini essays or that make me laugh. It’s still a lot, this project brought me so much joy

-

Shima enaga - It's the hair man

Cow (aka golden calf)

Scallop. He is a snack.

Swan. Elegant but very capable of fscking you up. Mates for life.

basically anything that is both gentle in nature and fiercely loyal, territorial and protective (but prone to anxiety). Also hedonistic esp. with food. For all of these reasons, I think a dog would be the best choice.

Dragon with his hoard of books

it’s about the teeth. just too sharp and too many to be human. (comment from op here, this person voted for shark, just for context)

Turkish Angora cat. Magnificently fluffy, incredibly intelligent, love heights and will jump off crazy high things and land on your head, gloriously dignified until they see a string and run into a wall, love one or maybe two persons to distraction and want everyone else to fuck off, will drape themselves over their person’s shoulders and go to sleep, range from “will jump in the sea to hunt fish and has a murder pit full of seagulls they’ve massacred” to “will fall over at the sight of a baby bird”, very particular about food and will yell at you if you get it wrong. Also the breed that some asshole took three cats from and bred parent to child to make Persians. The cautionary tale has been acknowledged and we love our crazy smart, single braincelled children.

I usually imagine him as an owl because they are nocturnal (and we know that Aziraphale can easily stay awake the whole night reading). Also the image of an owl puffed up is kind of ridiculous and reminds me of him, of how an annoyed Aziraphale would look. However the options above have made me think that a lion would suit him very well, too. A lion or just a very BIG cat. I mean, he makes pleading eyes to get what he wants, likes to be confortable, is a bit of a bastard and often puts himself in awkward situations from which he needs to be rescued. He just... acts very cat-like in my opinion. Also owls and cats are both predators, but are usually imagined (or, at least cats are) as cute little creatures, just like Aziraphale is an Angel of the Lord (a Warrior, actually) but looks all soft and cute and huggable. I dunno. Maybe I just want to pet an Aziracat.

I love all the other people's thoughts about demon!Aziraphale, but what about the honey badger? I try to explain why I have it in mind for demon!azi: its name (I think it's funny, expecially in English because 'honey' can make you imagine it's something sweet (it is for me), while the 'bad' in badger can be an alarm bell (like 'be careful! It is not like it seems!')); its face (ok, who can say its face isn't cute? I think, and hope, nobody can, and like the name, it is a misunderstanding: as always, be careful, it's not like it seems!, I think demons can say something about demon!azi as like "you don't seem like a 'good' demon, you can't be, your face (animal and human) is too f-ing disgusting sweet to be a demon!", I think maybe even angel!crowley, at the beginning, can think something like this ("how in the world somebody so cute like you can be a demon?"), then he discovered how demon!azi can be a very talented demon sometimes, but in Crowley's mind azi is still his little cutie angry furry); its furry's colour (black=demon, white/grey/silver/idkitsname= color of demon!azi's wings, because even if he fell, I can't say no to his white wings 😭); it is a snake's predator (and in my mind angel!crowley is still a snake); its solitary life (demon!aziraphale is alone and he doesn't mind it, unless it's angel!crowley we're talking about, then our cute demon minds it); its behaviour (demon!azi, even if he's cute, can be a really very talented demon: honey badger is fearless and dangerous, it can fight bigger animals if there aren't other chances and it can't escape); its skin is very tough (except for a soft/safe spot, behind its neck if I remember well, that only angel!Crowley knows and sometimes he uses it to calm demon!azi down or make azi do some good deeds); its diet (it has a sweet-thooth, for honey in primis, but it can eat everything it wants... Doesn't it resemble demon!azi?); it's smart (search for Stoffle on your browser if you don't know)... Ok,I think I finish, sorry for the novel 😅

I tend to think of animals that meet three criteria: (1) they exemplify “faults” in his character exaggerated to “sins”—gluttony, greed/hoarding, sloth, (2) they are species that favor fawning or flight as a defense mechanism but can also be bold on occasion, and (3) blend very well or have a keen affinity with human society, specifically thriving in urban (i.e., city) environments. This is mostly because I can’t see “Aziraphale” in a reverse AU that doesn’t preserve some of his core traits as an angel (a little hedonistic, hoarding, anxious, etc.). So I like city-dwelling bastard animals with bonus points for relation to scripture, like a rock dove or a fox or an owl.

Owls aren't  smart, and the pedant in me says not an owl. But, thinking on it, demon aspect, owls are perceived as smart, but designed as deadly silent predators, patient and solitary. So actually demon Aziraphale could take on more owlish aspects. I just like cockatoo better, since they are smart, and showy. Or a crow, although that does amusing things with Crowleys name.

god imagining him as a chimera is !!! (comment from op, there was this odd flurry of mythical animals being voted for one night. i think the survey hit a corner of fandom that leans that way. there was also dragon, another chimera, a griffon, and a lindworm all at the same rough time)

Magpies are great because they’re cute and fluff themselves up (go look at Sophie the magpie) and like hoarding their favorite things but also I’ve watched one just straight up kill another bird before because corvids are sneaky little bastards with no lack of a mean streak if they’re crossed

It’s the duolingo owl, I’m so sorry op but it just is. I genuinely don’t mean to clown on your post, but this take was delivered to me in a sleep induced haze and I believe it’s the god given truth. Demon Aziraphale WOULD try to make you learn a dead language and he’d go about it in a vaguely threatening way (comment from op, you’re so fucking right dude. also, shit like this is made for clowning, i’m with you 100%)

When choosing a demon aspect for a Aziraphale, I usually tried to keep in mind the artistic tradition of which animals are linked with demons. The Good Omens team seems to have drawn inspiration from that source because all the animals we do see are either reptilian or insectoid. Those species were often shown inhabiting hellish landscapes in Renaissance and Baroque paintings. However, Aziraphale never struck me as cold or slimy or hard like an exoskeleton. So if I had to choose an insect, it would be a moth, preferably a Megalopygidae, also known as the Flannel Moth. They are fluffy, white-beige and look innocent and fluffy, but their larvae can cause painful inflammations. A poodle moth would also fit because it's almost pure white.

Ok so the only reason I pick magpie is because those bastards are smart as hell but also know how and when to inconvenience the shit out of you, and if you gain their trust then they're absolute darlings but if they decide "nah, dont like ya" then you're basically done and you'll wake up every morning with shit on your car window. I also chose sheep/ram cuz I mean... idk it suits him. I don't remember my other choice but I'm sure I had a good reason.

I feel like a barn owl would suit him well but I'm not really sure why, I also think that a moth would suit him really well because of the whole "moth to a flame" thing and as a demon he would have gotten burned because of that attitude.

I write a reverse AU fic called Lambs to the Slaughter where Aziraphale's demonic aspect is an albino sheep! I imagine him as a mix between a wild Argali ram and the first woolly domestics. I chose an Argali because they're the largest species of wild sheep, but I wanted him to have traits of a domestic breed because he obtains his animal aspect from a sheep in Abel's flock which would be several generations down from the original wild species in Eden. I really think a sheep suits Aziraphale! They're an incredibly common animal and have been since they were first domesticated. Likewise, since the start of human history, Aziraphale has been living side-by-side with humans, providing for them, and protecting them. Due to how common they are, sheep are often unnoticed, which Aziraphale leans into. Crowley wants to stand out. He has a dedicated aesthetic and an obsession with human invention, where Aziraphale leans more towards simpler, known things and creature comforts. He fades into the background, and that suits him fine. He doesn't have to be outstanding to Heaven or to humans or even to Crowley -- it's enough to do his part, to trust in a bigger plan. People associate sheep (especially lambs) with innocence or ignorance which foils nicely to Crowley as the serpent tempting with knowledge, as well as with Aziraphale's own sharp mind and ongoing embers of faith in a system that is failing him, Crowley, and all of humanity. Sheep are, like Aziraphale, soft, cute, and hiding a hard-headed stubbornness and a surprising strength that makes them absolutely fearsome. Aziraphale is very much the sort to put his head down and push relentlessly forward regardless of the pressure and strain. Rams in particular have thick skulls to withstand the brutal force of headbutting one another in displays of dominance. While Aziraphale is clever, he's not above rolling up his sleeves and getting the job done, as messy and unpleasant as it might be (see: pulling a gun on the Antichrist). Also sheep are associated with Pan, a god associated with food, music, theatre, and the criticism thereof, which hit many of Aziraphale's personal interests and hobbies! I like the idea that in a reverse AU, the demon formerly named Aziraphale might be the original basis for Pan!

I wrote in Orangutan for the first question because if I remember correctly they are some of the most violent apes. Although I'd accept bonobo for him too. They fuck alll the time.

mothman aziraphale,,,,, thats it

Snowy owl, speremint's tortoise, and I just adore the goat.

moth - dusty and eats books

Long Furby the way Loni-Capri draws it.

I keep thinking about that Black Philip quote "doest thou wish to live deliciously" because... it fits so much with the general epicurean/hedonism vibe the Fandom has for him ... but in a demonic way and also I think a lot abt that art piece (already referenced many times probably but what the hell) of him climbing his own bookshelves, it's just so good!!

Albino Lion/white lion (matches his hair).  I feel like maybe I should explain why I think Lion would fit him best, lol. Lions actually are rather sedate, inactive for 20 hours of the day (see: Aziraphale reading and unmoving- yes I pulled wiki for this to make sure I didn't spout anything terribly wrong, shhh)  but also there's nomad lions. Lions that range widely and move around sporadically either alone or in pairs (*looks at Crowley after apoconope*) (pairs are more frequent among males who have been excluded from their birth pride)  but also I think of lions as protectors, defenders, and what is Aziraphale if not that? If not an angel who fiercely protects humans, crowley, earth? (When he finally overcomes heaven and it's abuse) lions don't hunt unless they're hungry, don't attack unless they're defending. They've been known to sit directly next to jeeps full of people and just watch them, not attacking or being aggresive.

I saw art once (I have no idea who the artist is) of Demon!Aziraphale climbing his bookcases like a goat and absentmindedly chewing on his sweater while he reads. I felt like the goat aspect suited him perfectly.

Honestly I wrote Az with a rat aspect because, well, it fits who I see demon Az as. He's not super powerful but he is very consequential, like rats carrying plague fleas (this also describes how I see Az tempting). He tries to blend into a crowd, which is arguably one way rats survive, and can get himself into places/situations that should be impossible or super difficult. Like snakes, rats have been unfairly maligned by our culture for a long time, even though they are very social with their colonies, smart, affectionate, and generally good beans. Finally, male pet rats are known far and wide as the lazier of the sexes while the girls are super curious and adventurous.

Somehow his tartan pattern becomes either his colour scheme or his coat/feather pattern.

Eurasian eagle owl. A big, unapologetic grump of an owl that is soft as soft can be underneath. Possessor of the glare to end all glares to be used in such dire situations as being interrupted when reading or being told one has "had enough cake".

[found--family]

not to rain on anyone's parade but I don't get why everybody is so happy to see Jensen working on The Boys, and therefor Kripke in regards to "getting away from Spn after it stabbed him in the back".. i thought Jensen called Kripke and that he talked him into "accepting the finale"? don't get me wrong I am super excited for Jensen to get more recognition and stuff but I can't help but think that^ maybe i'm missing/confusing something here?

i mean.. okay, I'm NO expert on the writers of SPN - i refer to my mutuals for the highs and lows and meta of it all, and i also haven't watched The Boys yet..

but Kripke created Supernatural. he's responsible for bringing Dean and Sam and the whole story to life, and for giving us the seasons 1-5 arc. when people fawn over *early spn* that's the era they're talking about: the writing, the character journeys, the cinematography, the visual meta, the vibe.

the thing about the different writers of SPN is - when you read the meta and look through the relative episodes - you can see who prefers focusing on what themes and characters, who is better at narrative cohesion and continuity, etc. BUT there's also TPTB (The Powers That Be) to consider, ie. The CW network folks who have the ability to make creative decisions/tweak what they don't think is on-brand for them, ie. the (conservative) audience they're trying to appease.

-- you should check out meta from @drsilverfish @mittensmorgul​ @postmodernmulticoloredcloak​ and so many others in the fandom (search "spn+meta" in tumblr and see what's what) for insight into the network/spn writer’s room because they know their stuff.

my point is: getting away from The CW and their narrative meddling is a HUGE step up for Jensen. as has been said, The CW (not Dabb, although there is debate on that too) sacrificed the ending of Supernatural on the alter of Walker, so it's understandable and also a positive thing that he's breaking free of a network that screwed over his 15 year-long commitment to them and the stellar journey of one Dean Winchester.

but YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT about Kripke trying to convince Jensen the SPN ending was good for Dean: we've seen the clips from cons + interviews of Jensen telling that story and IT HURTS. Kripke hadn't been directly involved in the show for years at that point, so was he just out-of-touch with the narrative and the fandom? or did he just want to try and get behind the ending of his baby, hype the show that did so much for his career, even if he didn't like it? or did he feel obliged to agree with whatever was pitched to him? 

(IMDB has him listed as 'executive consultant' through season 15 including the finale. I'm not sure how accurate that is or what it means exactly, but it's by no means Creative Control.)

it's obvious Jensen hated the SPN finale, but i don't think he'd squander his freedom in leaving The CW to go work with someone he doesn't trust to do justice to his new role and the narrative as a whole.

i hope some of this fandom's meta writers will enlighten us on these fronts though: Kripke's showrunning of The Boys, Amazon Prime as the distributer and what that means behind the scenes, as well as content freedoms and restrictions and what we can expect from Jensen's Soldier Boy performance! 

(btw: if anyone knows any meta writers in The Boys fandom please let us know) 

whatever the case may be with Kripke saying what he did to Jensen about the finale, we'll just have to wait and see what else comes to light about it, and what he does with Soldier Boy, and how Jensen responds to this new experience on social media, etc.

reports say we might not see season 3 of The Boys until 2022 (COVID being a factor) so we all have plenty of time to catch up on the first two seasons (and the comics too!) and delve into the meta surrounding it all.

i for one am extremely excited to see Jensen 1) in a dark superhero role 2) in whatever form-fitting costume they give him (i hear the fuckmepumps are involved!) 3) cussing his beautiful little heart out.

-- once i binge both seasons I'll probably post a bunch of wishlist items for season 3 and thoughts about the show, but for now I'm just excited and super happy for him being involved in such an awesome project. 

feel free to add your thoughts. 

[abraxos-is-toothless]

I have a fic request, pretty please! Andreil (ofc!) Anyway Neil not answering his phone (cuz it died, again, oops) and Andrew losing his shit and hunting him down!

Okay it’s 2am and this is finally, finally being posted. It should have gone up like a week ago but Tumblr wouldn’t let me answer asks at the time. I’ve changed this around so many times and I don’t know if this is what you were hoping for but I tried my best! I tweaked it a little too, so sorry.

Full Masterlist.

—————

This is Josten, I don’t want to talk to you so don’t leave a message.

This is Josten, I don’t want to talk to you so don’t leave a message.

Andrew had now called Neil’s phone about twenty fucking times and he still hadn’t answered; he always answered when Andrew called him. Everyone was in the lounge at the court since it had been at least four hours since anyone had heard from him. Nicky was almost in tears, Dan and Matt looked like they were two seconds away from calling in a search party and of course Aaron the asshole looked like he didn’t care that Neil was missing. Abby was tucked underneath Coach’s arm, her face etched with worry and taking comfort from the man. It was about fucking time they got their shit together. The man in question cleared his throat just when Andrew was about to leave and search the campus himself. “Minyard sit the fuck down, we will find him we just have to piece some things together first.”

All he did was sneer at the command but stayed nonetheless. He was itching to pull out his knives and bury them in something but Renee gave him a look as if she knew exactly what he was thinking and she shook her head at him. Nicky really was crying now and Andrew had to force himself not to roll his eyes. Yes they all cared about Neil, they were all his family, but with the reactions they were giving it was like they expected the worst. Andrew could not think like that, wouldn’t think like that because even though he hated when the idiot said it, he had to believe that Neil was fine.

“Who was the last person to see him?” Allison spoke up from the other side of the room, and so now it looked like she was getting worried. When they’d first gathered here it had only been an hour and she figured he’d turn up in the next few minutes. Oh how wrong she was. Matt forced out an answer, his leg bouncing non-stop, just like it had been after the riot two years ago and Neil had been taken to Baltimore.

“Uh I did. We walked to our first class together after morning practice.” Well that didn’t really help because the junkie had his Spanish class right after that one and then he usually went on his run after that. No one would have seen him at Fox Tower after that, because no one else was free. Actually that was wrong because-

“He was talking in Japanese. He was talking in fucking Japanese.” Because the coward that was Kevin Day had one of his classes cancelled and he’d told everyone he’d go back to the dorms and figure out a new drill they could do, not that anyone really cared. Before he could do a repeat performance of choking Kevin out, Renee was on him in a flash, restraining him from any movement. When Kevin turned to look at Andrew, he’d gone as white as a sheet, as if he realised what he’d just said and visibly swallowed. Andrew was going to kill him, and then bury his body where nobody would find it. Just as soon as the good Christian girl let go of him.

“What the fuck do you mean he was talking in Japanese, Day?” Andrew’s voice was low and smooth, promising a whole lot of pain if Kevin didn’t respond in the way he was expected to. The spineless coward looked around the room at the foxes, eyes lingering on his father, before turning back to Andrew and wringing his hands in front of him.

“When I got back to the dorms, Neil was already there. I was going to ask him if he wanted to help me come up with new drills and plays when I heard it. He didn’t sound like he normally did, it was like he was someone else and was talking in whispered Japanese like he was worried about someone hearing him.”

The fucking stupid asshole.

He was dealing with Moriyama bullshit and hadn’t even bothered to tell Andrew. They had agreed on no more lies, to trust one another. Looks like Andrew had made a mistake on that front but really, it was bound to happen. That was a lie, Neil was most likely in meltdown mode and had forgotten he had people who could help him now. Nicky was hysterical now and started yelling at Kevin, tears falling down his cheeks. “Well you speak Japanese too dickwad, what the fuck was he actually saying or are you going to wait another four hours to tell us that?”

“I don’t know what he was talking about! There were a few quick ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers and an ‘of course’ but he wasn’t actually giving information. He probably didn’t want to get into trouble.”

Oh Andrew was going to enjoy being responsible for the death of the great Kevin Day. Just as he was about to fight Renee to get to him, the sound of the door opening pushed through his senses and he swivelled to see Neil walk into the room. Nicky gave a cry of relief, getting onto his feet and joining Matt as they ran over to fuss over the redhead. Neil tried meeting Andrew’s gaze and smile, but all he could do was glare at the sight of those piercing blues. Andrew was quite angry with him, and he’d soon find that out. Wymack was also quite angry by the looks of it, arms now crossed over his chest and a face like thunder. “Where in the actual fuck have you been, Josten? And don’t give me any of your usual bullshit because it’s not going to be good enough.”

Andrew watched Neil gently extricate himself from his cuddly giants and sighed as he looked around the room at everyone. It was Wymack who’d asked for answers yes, but Neil didn’t look at anyone other than Andrew, as if it was just the two of them.

“Ichirou called. He wanted an update on his assets and to make sure we weren’t doing anything stupid. He also wanted to reiterate what would happen if we didn’t manage to attract pro teams that weren’t to his liking. I told him that he wouldn’t be let down.”

Aaron piped up for the first time since they’d all walked into the court hours ago. “It’s been literal hours Josten, a text to say ‘I’m still alive, unfortunately’ would have been great. I’ve wasted my whole day.”

“I know how long it’s been, jackass.” Neil snapped, glaring daggers into Aaron’s skull. Andrew was still vibrating with anger and couldn’t hold it back any longer.

“Everyone get the fuck out.” When they all just stared at him, not moving, he emphasised his point by unsheathing a knife and giving a firm, “Now.”

Nicky and Kevin moved like lightning and were the first to leave. Allison smirked for some stupid reason, winking at Neil as she strode out of the room. Matt and Dan looked weary but still left, Aaron on their heels. Renee gave them both gentle smiles and nodded her head. Wymack gave Neil a stern look like he wanted to say more but thought better of hit, rubbing his forehead and mumbling about being ‘too old for this shit’. Abby gave Neil a few motherly touches, which the redhead flinched away from for the first time in a long time, and then she too was gone.

Now that they were alone Neil tried explaining with an, “Andrew I...” but he trailed off, seemingly lost for words. He didn’t have a chance to think of anything else before Andrew flung himself at his stupid junkie, fists gripping at Neil’s- no Andrew’s –t-shirt and burying his head into his chest. He smelt of apples and sweetness and god, Andrew felt like he could finally fucking breathe.

“You didn’t answer your fucking phone. Why didn’t you answer the phone?” Neil’s arms moved, one wrapping around Andrew’s waist the other holding the back of his neck, keeping him against his chest.

“Ichirou had a few extra words before the call ended. He said he was ‘sorry for my loss’. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about at first but then I remembered. It’s the anniversary of mom’s death. I turned my phone off after and just ran. I came back when I turned my phone back on and saw the missed calls.”

As much as he hated Mary Hatford, he knew why Neil still mourned her sometimes. He was slowly beginning to understand that what his mother had done to him was wrong, that she had abused him for years, but she was all he had known and was the only safe thing for him. He hated it but kept quiet, not wanting to get into an argument on the matter right now. “Just let me know you’re alright next time. Kevin heard your call, heard the Japanese. I thought, I thought...”

Neil suddenly cupped his face in his scarred hands, tilting his head back so they were looking at each other, before leaning in to press their foreheads together. “I’m right here ‘Drew and I’m not going to disappear again. I’m right here.”

The kiss that followed was soft, gentle and slow, so unlike them but it was what they needed just then. They need to be able to feel everything and to be able to feel each other. Andrew didn’t want to let go, he wanted to stay and kiss Neil until his lips went numb but exhaustion was a bitch. He pulled back, looking at Neil’s lips which were swollen from their kisses and he had a pretty red flush that had blossomed on his cheeks.

“Come on, let’s go. I’m hungry and you owe me ice cream after what you just pulled.” Neil just laughed and nodded, taking one of Andrew’s hands in his own and linking their fingers together, walking them both towards the door.

“Whatever you want ‘Drew, whatever you want and I’ll give it to you.”

—————

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[losing-victor]

The Red Strings of Fates – Solangelo Your Name AU ficlet

This story is inspired by the anime, Your Name which is a movie that depicts how the red string of fate ties the two protagonists. This story will adopt some scenes from the movie but formed to fit the storyline better. Like in Your Name, they also switch places with their bodies, at first thinking it was a dream. But after some getting used to, they manage to live with their switched lives laying down some ground rules, the ones they figured out when they learned to communicate. But there’s a greater purpose for the switch, a greater purpose in which they only realize later on. In Your Name, everything was bound to be forgotten like a dream because the switch came with a cost: a sacrifice. In this story? I do not know yet.

Maybe I’ll upload on ao3 once I’ve finished uploading all the parts in tumblr, but for now: here is the prologue (or premise Idk really) of “Red Strings of Fates”:

“According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.”

When he woke up, it was disorientating. The drab room painted in gray spun around while his vision tried so desperately to stay awake. The gust of wind outside is what woke him, making him shiver. In his head, Niccolò thinks, Bianca must’ve forgotten to close the windows again. He turns to look at the side of his cot, trying to reach for a mother that was never there. His arm relaxes and instead looks for his sister.

“You’re awake,” Her sister strode into the room, strands of hair peeking out from the laced cloth that covered the crown of her head. The loosely tied fabric was hastily done as if she had done it by herself because usually it would be done by mamma. She tightens the belt that cinches her waist and for a moment, Niccolò sees a look of conflict on her face as she glances at him.

Niccolò did not know what to make of it.

“Get dressed,” Her voice was sharp but it was forced, seeing how it quickly cracked at the end. “Your robes are already in bagno, while your hat is in the living room.” Her gaze softened when he finally stood up and looked up to meet her gaze. “Sbrigati, per piacere,” And Bianca was gone.

Niccolò looked outside of the window, his eyes glazing over the dead town. A town they would probably have to leave without knowing why. But mamma knows, Niccolò has crept up in the living room on nights he couldn’t sleep because he craved for warmth his mother so often could not give as their country is on the brink of a war. No, he corrects himself, there is war. But for some reason, they do not receive the hellfire of it. That is probably why mamma prays to God, why they go to church to pray the rosary every 6 am. Niccolò might be safe, but there’s something that makes him feel restless as he watches every reason to stay become meaningless. At 9 years old, Niccolò might have the privilege to not participate in a war, but feels like a victim.

There was the cold wind again, Niccolò tiptoed to shut the window and headed to the bathroom.

He stood before the sink of the running cold water and splashed his face. He looks in the mirror and almost slips when he sees his eyes. The bagno was thankfully small because it was the wall that his back slams against that prevented the fall. Niccolò blinks, his eyes were black again. But he could’ve sworn they were blue. He shakily straightens his body and takes the quickest shower under the cold water that for a second makes his skin feel like it was on fire. He jumps a foot in the air but for the second he wills himself to stay put.

He closes his eyes and sees blue.

Niccolò rushes out, hair dripping and his cloth belt hastily put on that the creases of his robe were certain to not appeal to his mother’s. Bianca meets him from outside holding out a hat in one hand, a brush in the other. She hands him the hat, which he takes and hugs close to his chest. Tenderly, she brushes his hair, carding her fingers through the wet mess of his unevenly trimmed locks that looked like spaghettini. She then puts her attention to the belt, fixes the crease with little to no effort at all. He wonders how she can put that much effort into him but not apply that same to her own.

“Grazie,” He says, a little ashamed.

Bianca tilts his chin in order for them to meet gazes. “You’re welcome,” She squeezes his shoulder, “You should introduce me to Anatolio, when we get to the church,” Niccolò’s eyes widened. He had male friends?

Niccolò bit his lip, how did he not remember that? Mamma said that younger boys like him if stuck around older boys, would be teased but he knew what really meant. (It meant torture.) It was why his mother says to stick around a girl. A girl he likes while Bianca had to choose a man to befriend. He doesn’t quite understand but he tries to anyway.

“Niccolò, Bianca,” the voice of his mother made him shake off the hold his sister had on him as he skips over to her, clutching on her dress as if on instinct. The palm on the back of his head was comforting. He looks up and sees her smile. “Let us go,”

They go out of the door and they keep huddled together with heads down. He wonders if from here he could still hear the shouts and screams of the tortured. He takes a glance to his side and looks down once more. He sucks a breath and wonders why he feels like he is suffocating. Then he remembers it’s the 1920s in Italy.

Everyone was holding their breath for some miracle to come, and Niccolò was no different.

-

“You’re up early,” Naomi Solace watches her son, illuminated by the dim light emanating from the open refrigerator door, freeze while getting a carton of milk when he hears her voice . The sun had barely risen but it already gave its position away, peeking from the clouds.She wrapped the cardigan closer to her body.

“Sorry, mom,” Will’s shoulders sagged, and put the carton of milk back before he gets a glass of water instead and drinks.

Naomi raised an eyebrow, her look directed at him filled with concern. Why was his son sorry for drinking milk? But it goes unnoticed by the 9-year-old boy who was now sitting at the stool bar of their kitchen island.

“I’m always telling ya to wake up early,” She walks over to him and ruffles his blond hair. “Why are ya sorry for, huh?” He doesn’t speak and only stares at the empty glass. It’s when she gets really concerned and sits at the stool beside his. “Okay, maybe I didn’t mean early as in quarter to 6 but I won’t get angry at ya, what’s wrong?”

“Bad dream,” is what he only gives. Naomi’s eyes widened at that and gave him a hug of which was warmly welcomed by her son. She could not imagine the day she loses him, Not yet, too young, she prays, “It’s so real, mom,” He sniffles in his cardigan. “And you weren’t there,”

Naomi did not understand, but she knew she had to begin to ease him into this world, a crazy world and so she sits back down the stool, the wood screeching a little when she drags it just a tad to let her be closer to her son. Naomi wipes the tears from his face with a swipe of her thumb and began,

"Honey, how much do you know about Greek Mythology?"

Will shook his head, "Not much, just these gods and they're many."

Naomi smiles, "Many indeed, how about a fun story?" She offers and he perks up significantly. She runs a hand through his shortened blond curls, and her palm rests on the side of his cheek to which he leans. She takes that as an invitation, "In Greek Mythology, there are soulmates…"

Will Solace listened intently to every word as if he was keeping it close to his heart. At 9 years old, without the knowledge of his mother, Will Solace dares to dream to find his own soulmate.

(Will will hold his breath for then until then.)

Okay folks, search for Your Name Nandemonaiya English Version by Akane Sasu Sora and you'll see why I had inspiration for this fic and mind you I think I'll have major plotholes and man, I'm gonna fuck this up, but yeah if you bear with bad writing I swear I have a point.

Actually can you just watch Your Name? Without the language barrier, it'd be oscar nominated, it's that good. Anyway, the twist in that was heart-wrenching. Okay bye, this fic is found in #RSF part whatever so yeah. Let me know if you wanna be tagged for the next one!

[is0gild]

Ice Cream and Fire Oven Pizza - Chapter 27

Pairing: Elsa x Lea/Axel || Side Pairing: Riku x OC

Summary: Modern AU. She's an introvert ball of nerves who works at Ice Palace, a mall food court ice cream shop. He's the outgoing, sassy goofball who works at the Pizza Planet across the way. Hilarity, snark, and fluffy romcom hijinks ensue.

Word Count: 10,891

FIRST CHAPTER || PREVIOUS CHAPTER || NEXT CHAPTER

Credit for super friggin’ cute and super friggin’ amazing cover art goes to the super friggin’ talented ky-jane here on tumblr!

You know that counting sheep thing?

Does. Not. Work.

Of course, maybe I'd be having better luck with it if I was able to go more than seven or eight sheep before my stupid brain would get distracted chasing some other wayward thought down the rabbit hole.

And it didn't help that there were so many wayward thoughts to choose from too. There was wondering when all that seething rage Grandfather was barely keeping in check was finally going to explode and murder me. There was confusion over Mother's actions and uncertainty as to which side she was going to end up being on, mine or that of the family's reputation. There was dread over the talk I was going to have with her and Father that had seemed to take so distressingly, painfully long to get here but now that the time was finally almost upon me, it suddenly seemed far too soon.

But probably the one that was eating away at me most of all, the one playing complete havoc with my nerves, the one that had kept me up tossing and turning all night long so far… was Anna.

I hadn't seen her for the rest of the party. To be fair, I hadn't stayed much longer after she'd fled from me. By that point, my capacity for human interaction had been maxed out and I'd needed to get out of there. Thankfully, Lea had managed to free himself from the clutches of my relations and had rejoined me, bearing two slices of cake. One look at me was all it took for him to know, then he was helping me make a quick exit. After escorting me back to my room, Lea had asked if I wanted company but I'd turned him down, saying I just wanted to go to sleep. He'd left me with a smile and one of the pieces of cake, which I'd set aside untouched on my vanity. From there, I'd changed into my nightgown and readied myself for bed, doing a poor job of it as I didn't even braid my hair. Then I'd turned off the light and crawled under the covers.

But I did not sleep.

Instead my mind whirled and raced and at the forefront of it all was Anna. What was it that had her so upset? Why couldn't she just tell me? How could it have caused such a drastic change in her attitude towards me? When had it even all begun? Was it something that she had been dealing with in silence, letting it fester for some time now and I just hadn't noticed until it'd gotten to be too much for her and she could no longer keep it hidden?

These were just a few of the questions that had kept me up. Were still keeping me up, even now as I spotted the first feeble rays of sunrise beginning to light the night sky outside my window. Honestly, this thing with Anna was stressing me out more at this point than even the idea of The Talk™ was.

But thankfully, all that sleeplessness hadn't been for naught! I had a theory now. I'd been over it again and again in my head. Mentally retracing and RE-retracing every step, every action I'd taken in the weeks between my wedding day and this very weekend, trying to figure out what it was I'd done, how I'd wronged my sister. And there was only one thing I could think of.

I should have called her sooner.

After running away, I shouldn't have waited so long to let her know that I was okay. God, she must have been going out of her mind with worry waiting to hear from me. I know I would've been, had our roles been reversed. And sure, she'd seemed fine that first day she'd tracked me down at the food court, not to mention every day that'd followed after that up to this point. But she'd probably just been keeping the fact that it had really hurt her to herself. And to make matters worse, I hadn't even ever apologized for how long it'd taken me to reach out to her. That's probably all I'd needed to do to make things okay - an acknowledgment of my thoughtlessness and a simple sorry. That was it. And it'd never even occurred to me to do that, not once, not until right now in the wee hours of early dawn.

True, it was all just a guess. But it's all that I had! Now then... how to make her feel safe and comfortable enough to open up and just tell me that? It's not like when we were kids and could just talk to each other about anything and everything. It's not like I could just magically make it all better like we'd always used to over whipping up a batch of-

I suddenly sat up with a gasp.

Because that's when I had it.

I knew what to do.

"Scotcheroos!"

"There you are!"

I didn't even glance up at the sound of Lea's voice, just paused long enough to sample a quick taste of the contents of my mixing bowl before scrunching up my face. "No, no, it's still wrong… maybe I just need to…" my muttering trailed off as I resumed pacing and stirring the concoction more furiously.

"Ya know, I take it back," he said, crossing his arms and leaning one shoulder against the kitchen door frame. "This place isn't a Clue board, it's a goddamn labyrinth. I've been wandering 'round lost in circles for who knows how long now. Luckily, I eventually came across a minotaur who I could ask directions. Good guy. Not at all as bullheaded as the stories would have you believe."

I was only half paying attention to what he was saying. Apparently, it wasn't the half that knew a lame pun when it heard it. Instead it was the half that marched up to him, shoved a small, chocolate-butterscotch coated spatula in front of his face and asked, "Does this taste right to you?"

He blinked, eyes flicking to the silicone scraper then back to me. Then he poked a finger to the goop and stuck it in his mouth. "...it tastes good?"

I huffed and pressed, "But does it taste right?"

"Yes?" he ventured a guess. I frowned and squinted up at him hard. "...and by yes, I of course mean no. Obviously!"

"I knew it!" I whirled around to slam the bowl down onto the counter. My hand came up to rub a curled finger over my chin as I groaned, "Ugh, what am I missing here?"

He was looking at me. At the nightgown I was still wearing. At my bare feet. At my hair thrown up into a loose, sloppy bun with several obstinate tendrils escaping to trail all around my face and neck. "...so is this where you've been hiding all morning?"

"All morning?" I laughed, shaking my head as I moved over to a second bowl on the stove top. Maybe I'd been on the right track with this earlier attempt. "Don't exaggerate, it's only-"

"Noon?" he offered with a half-shrug.

"Noon?!" I parroted back in disbelief. He nodded and I looked to the clock on the oven, which only further confirmed it. "But that's impossible, there's quite simply no way I've-" the words caught in my throat however, for all it took was one glance about the kitchen to verify that, yes in fact, there quite simply was way. My parent's home had a massive, king-sized kitchen to be sure but even so, I'd managed to cover almost every surface in it with many, many other bowls filled with all my previous discarded attempts. Oh gosh, you'd think I'd been at this all night, not just merely since the crack of dawn.

"Ya missed breakfast by the way," Lea said conversationally. "Man, was it awkward with only me sitting there with your folks, Gramps and a handful of your aunts and uncles. Lemme tell you, they're not as big of fans as you are of the Let Me Guess Your Fave Ice Cream game."

I winced, scratching my cheek with a tiny, "Sorry." Now that I thought about it, I did remember the cook bustling about in here as well at some point, probably making the breakfast Lea was referring to. She'd left me to my own devices, the kitchen being more than big enough to accommodate us both without getting in each others' ways. I'd only thought she'd been in here for a minute or two though.

He waved it off, "Nah, don't worry about it. I like to think your fam and I really bonded over all those crepes and long, uncomfortable silences."

I just gave a vague hmm in my throat, already distracted by the task at hand once more as I moved from one bowl to the next. This one? No… Maybe this one? No…

"I didn't know ya knew how to cook," I heard him say.

"I don't," I muttered, pulling a face at the peanut butter rice crispy batter in this pot, which was a whole other mess of problems. One minor catastrophe at a time, however. First I needed to figure out the topping, then I could work out the rest. I sidestepped to the next bowl.

Lea tipped his head to one side. "So then you just know the recipe for this one thing?"

"Not really, no."

His lips pursed to the right. "...struck in the middle of the night by the sudden, inexplicable but undeniable urge to teach yourself how to cook before the day's out?"

I paused, looking up to meet his gaze. "Yes."

He cocked an eyebrow, "Really?"

"Nope." And my search continued! Maybe in that pan over there…

"Okay seriously, whatcha doing?"

Ah-ha! Not the pan, but the gigantic bowl right next to it! I think this batch had been the closest so far. I picked it up and started walking towards Lea, declaring, "Scotcheroos!"

His brow furrowed, "Scotcha-wha?"

"Scotcheroos," I repeated, coming to a stop in front of him and shifting my hold on the container to one arm before stabbing a finger into the mixture. "Taste," I calmly demanded - his only warning before I suddenly stuck my fingertip drenched in sugary, chocolatey goodness into his mouth, forcing a small, strangled noise to choke out of his throat. Hand retracting, my eyes big and round and imploring, I asked, "What's the missing ingredient?"

"I, uh…" he cleared his throat, averting his gaze under my scrutiny as he rubbed at the nape of his neck. Then he snerked and grin, "Love?"

My eyelids drooped. "...not funny."

"It was a lil funny," he mumbled, making me scoff as I spun around and started pacing again, free hand coming up to clasp over my mouth as my index finger tapped the tip of my nose in thought. "C'mon, El, what're ya worried about? It tastes fine."

"But it doesn't taste right," I insisted, snatching up a clean spatula from a nearby utensil holder and feverishly stirring at the mixture. Was that helping? No clue. As previously stated, I didn't know the first thing about cooking. "And it has to. It must be absolutely perfect. You see, when Anna and I were children, Halima used to come over all the time and make these with us. Particularly whenever there was a squabble between us girls that she wanted to help settle. And these always, I don't know… helped… make things better. Somehow. So I thought that maybe… If I could just… Then possibly Anna would..." I stopped, puffed out a slow breath and regathered myself. "But it's been so long since she last made them with us and it just keeps coming out… wrong. I can't remember the exact recipe."

"Why not ask Halima?" he suggested, moving to stand opposite the kitchen island from me.

My eyes rolled as my feet continued to patrol back and forth. "What, at 6 a.m. when this whole madness began? Besides, I don't think she and Mattias even stayed here last night and I don't have her phone number."

"Well then, they have this fabulous invention called the internet."

"Don't you think I tried that already?" I swung up the spatula in frustration, sending some butterscotch-chocolate flying straight towards Lea. He ducked and it blurred over his head to splatter against a wall behind him. "But all the recipes out there are a little different, and none of them know Halima's secret ingredient."

He snapped his fingers, "Applesauce."

I froze midstep. Then I slowly turned to look at him, the hint of a smile tugging at one corner of my lips. "So you were listening last night."

"Course!" he beamed, hunching forward and propping his elbows on the island countertop, arms folded together. "Always do when ya got something to say."

I snorted, brushing the empty sweet talk off as I went back to pacing and stirring. "Anyway, nice try, but it's not like she uses the same secret ingredient in all her recipes. Hmm, maybe it was… honey? Or coconut oil? ...marshmallow cream...?" When I happened to glance Lea's way again, my feet came to a grinding halt once more as I gasped, "Sea salt!"

Both his eyebrows shot up his forehead. "As in the ice cream?"

"No, as in sea salt." Slapping the spatula down onto a counter, I started throwing open all the overhead cupboards in a frantic search. The upside of such a well-stocked kitchen was it had everything. The downside was it could be impossible to find the one thing you actually needed. But behold! Sea salt! There at last, in the ninth cupboard I'd check. But ugh, of course it just had to be on the top shelf, didn't it?

Swiping a finger over my cheek to brush a few strands of hair out of my face (which then promptly fell back into place), I secured the mixing bowl by hugging it tightly to my stomach with one arm while stretching the other up high over my head, reaching for the blue bottle. "It's probably not the ingredient, but it's at least one ingredient I forgot." Almost there…

A hand that wasn't mine suddenly appeared over my head to beat me to it, snatching up the little bottle of sea salt. I whipped around only to be greeted by the sight of a black band tee stretched snugly over a broad chest that I was becoming almost disturbingly all too familiar with at this point.

Pssst, Lea's eyes were up there, dummy.

Can you blame me, though? Really? I can't help it if the damn thing was always in my direct line of sight! Curse my genetics for making me so damn short!

I hastily looked up to meet his gaze as he offered me the sea salt. Gosh, he was so close. Really, the only thing separating us was my bowl. Beating my blush back with a proverbial stick, I gingerly took the small bottle with a soft, "Thank you." I then flicked the top open with my thumb and gave it a squint, wondering how much was too much. Welp, only one way to find out! I tipped it upside down over the mixture and let the pouring commence.

"So ya really think these Scotcha-thingies will get Anna to talk to you?" he shook his head slightly.

"I don't see why not." I kept dumping more and more out of the bottle. Better too much than too little, right? "It's always worked in the past. It'll work now. It has to."

"Yeah, but-"

"It has to!" I snapped desperately, slamming the bottle down on the countertop now with a loud bang that made me wince. Grimacing, I added more quietly, "Otherwise I don't know what else to do."

Lea frowned down at me. "...okay, real talk? How much sleep did you get last night?"

My nose wrinkled. "Zero, give or take an hour. Except not give, only take. Is it possible to get negative sleep?"

"If it is, you most certainly have," he snorted. "Alright, Missy, I think it's naptime for you."

A contemptuous huff escaped my nose. "Don't patronize me, I'm not a child. I'm fine."

"You have chocolate all over your face."

"I-?!" Embarrassed, my hand rushed up to scrub at my face. Lea's eyes crinkled and I could see him biting back a grin. When I lowered my hand to look at it, I figured out why. They were smeared all over in chocolate too, so I was probably only making the face situation worse.

He started lifting a hand towards me, then seemed to think better of it, using it to smother his smile instead. Then he asked, "Allow me?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. But then I sighed and tossed one hand up in an impatient gesture for him to get on with it. Snerking, he took the mixing bowl from my grasp and set it aside so he could step closer to me. His hand rose once more, gently brushing the curled knuckles of his fingers along my chin and across the tip of my nose, wiping away the smudges there. Was it just tired, sleep-deprived brain talking, or did he have that soft boyfriend look in his eyes again? Maybe he didn't even realize he was doing it. Maybe he'd forgotten how to turn it off at this point. Either way, that proverbial stick I'd mentioned earlier had snapped in two by now, making it impossible to keep the blush at bay anymore.

His hand cupped my cheek then, his thumb lightly stroking along my skin and leaving warm tingles in its wake. He let it linger there and I had to wonder at how stubborn that particular smear of chocolate must be. And still with that damn look. That thing could be considered a lethal weapon. Honestly, I was surprised I was still standing.

His lips parted, taking in a breath, about to say something and-

"Elsa dear." At the sudden sound of my mother's voice, Lea jumped and jerked back a step from me, swearing under his breath as he turned his back to us both, fingers viciously ruffling his crimson spikes. Mother arched one delicate eyebrow at me from where she had just appeared in the doorway. "Here you are. We've missed you all morning."

"Ah… yes, so I've heard. Sorry, I uh…" My hands self-consciously smoothed up and down my nightgown before clasping together as I took a quick glance about the kitchen. At the small mess I'd made here. Should I even try to explain? The more I thought about it, the more insane it sounded. "...just lost track of time, it seems," I finally settled on, hoping Mother wouldn't pry further.

Thankfully, she did not. Instead, she simply said, "Your father and I are ready for our discussion." She paused, giving my appearance a once over. "...perhaps you would like some time to freshen up first. You can join us in the Indigo Room in an hour." She tacked on a quick, "Lea," by way of greeting to him, bowing her head slightly.

"Ma'am," he returned with a weak chuckle and tiny wave. Then Mother turned and walked off, disappearing down the hallway. "Dun dun dun!" Lea mock chanted ominously, earning his shoulder a light smack from my hand and he sniggered.

Shaking my head, I muttered, "Well, guess I should go get changed."

"I'll meet ya outside your door when you're ready and we can take our lil stroll to the gallows together," he said brightly.

I gave a rueful smile, "You almost make it sound pleasant. Until then." On my way out, I ran across Gerda in the hall, who I asked to make sure no one tidied up the mess I'd left in the kitchen. Seeing as how it was a disaster zone of my own making, I preferred to clean it up myself later rather than make someone else do it. Then I headed up to my bedroom.

One would think I would be in a state of extreme panic now that the time of The Talk™ was finally upon me. However, as I switched out of my nightgown and got myself otherwise ready, I was oddly more just… numb. Huh. Perhaps I'd already used up all my crazy this morning and had nothing left in me to fret with. At least not right now, in the relative sanctuary of my old room. I'm sure I'd have no problem rustling up a fresh wave of cardiac arrest-inducing anxiety once I was standing in front of my parents.

But for now, I'd take comfort in this numbness. Who knew, maybe there really was nothing to worry about anyway. I'd been assuming the worst this whole time, but I honestly had no idea what this little chat was going to have in store for me. My parents had been doing too good of a job staying tight lipped and keeping their opinion on this matter to themselves. No big shock there, really. Who do you think invented the Conceal, Don't Feel mantra? My parents were the masters of that technique and had always been experts at keeping their cards close to the vest. But perhaps I was in for a pleasant surprise. Perhaps all they wanted to say was how proud of me they were for standing up for myself and how they would support whatever path in life I chose, as long as it made me happy!

...yeah right. All of Arendelle would freeze over in the middle of June before that happened.

Regardless, just under an hour later found me almost ready to go. I was somewhat more presentable now, dressed in a nice sundress I'd brought packed in my luggage for this weekend and with my hands and face washed clean of any remaining chocolate. I was just sitting down on the edge of my bed to tie my ankle boots when I heard my phone buzz. Retrieving it from my nightstand, one peek at the notifications informed me that Lea had sent a text:

Knock knock

I looked to my bedroom door. Then back to my phone, thumbs typing a message back.

Who's there?

There was a pause in his reply, so I tossed it onto the mattress next to me before reaching down to tug the laces of my boot tight. It wasn't until after I'd knotted the bow and moved onto the second shoe that my phone was vibrating again. I picked it up.

A dumbass

I quirked an eyebrow at that. Then tapped back:

A dumbass who?

I'd finished the other boot by the time his response came.

A dumbass who Bgan a knock knock joke w/o realizing it n so hz no punchline 4 u

One side of my mouth twitched up.

Wow, how embarrassing for you. They could revoke your snark license for that utterly epic failure.

I watched those three little dots bounce.

Shush n get ur butt out here alrdy

Snorting, I rose to my feet and pocketed my phone. A quick look around the room unfortunately revealed no further ways for me to procrastinate. Alright… guess it was time to get this over with. Heaving a heavy sigh through my nose, I exited the bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind me.

Lea was waiting just outside, one shoulder propped against the wall to my left as he scrolled through his phone. Slipping it into his back pocket, he glanced up at me with a tiny smirk but then his spine snapped straight and his eyes widened. "That dress…"

"Hm? What about it?" I looked down at myself. There didn't seem anything particularly striking about it. Just a simple white sundress with a small purple diamond pattern decorating the hem at the bottom and- "Oh! Now I remember. This is the one you said I was wearing in your little fiction you cooked up about how we met, right?"

"Yeah," he smiled softly, scratching at a spot behind his ear. "It's as pretty on you as I, uh… imagined... it would be."

"Thanks," I ducked my head shyly. Luckily I'd had time in the past hour to tape and glue my proverbial stick back together, so I was able to thwack that blush down before it ever really had a chance to even get started. Peering back up at him once more, I couldn't stop a small huff of a laugh in my throat. "Is that what you're wearing? Really?"

"Gotta problem with it?" he shrugged cheekily. He hadn't changed since the kitchen. He was still in his faded band tee, ripped and ragged skinny jeans and steel-toed boots. And yeah, I get it, there was this whole badboy aspect he was going for to keep my parents from thinking they could scare him off. But at the same time, there had to be some sort of compromise, some sort of middle ground where he wasn't also provoking them and possibly making this upcoming conversation worse than it had to be.

Suddenly, he was snapping his fingers. "But wait, you're right! Be right back!" Then he was running off down the corridor back towards the guest room he was staying in. Since it was in the same direction we needed to go anyway for the Indigo Room, I just shook my head as I followed behind more slowly.

He was popping back out of his door just as I caught up. I took one look and wanted to facepalm. "Better?" he asked, smugly flipping up the collar of his leather jacket. "But wait, there's more!" Lifting the jacket up slightly revealed the return of that silly wallet chain hanging from his hip.

Ugh, I should have just kept my mouth shut.

"And the icing on the cake!" he reached inside his jacket and started pulling out the pink, heart-shaped sungla-

"No!" I darted forward, shoving them back into his inside pocket. Crud, these dumb things were becoming the bane of my existence. I pat my palm against where I could feel them on the outside of his jacket, saying sweetly, "Why don't we just keep those tucked away for now, okay?"

"You sure? Just trynta dress to impress!"

"But you're already so very impressive. Too impressive, in fact. My parents might faint from the sheer amount of impressiveness you already are."

"Woah, I'm even more impressive than I thought and that's saying something!" he chuckled. Then with a grin, he bent at the waist into a half-bow and flourished one hand out ahead of us. "Well then, shall we?"

I nodded and we set off down the hall.

We walked along in a companionable silence. Lea seemed to realize I was using this time to mentally prepare myself and bolster my emotional defenses. My mind kept going over it again and again. The exact words I wanted to say to my parents. It'd been something I'd constantly been turning over in the back of my brain ever since Friday evening's dinner. I had a whole little speech prepared. Must have ran through it a million times in the past two days. I had to, otherwise I would just be left stuttering and floundering and drawing a complete blank before my parents. It went a little something like…

Good afternoon, Father and Mother. How are you?

(Good opening. Solid. Cordial. A classic.)

As I'm sure we're all well aware, we're here to discuss the events of my wedding day.

(Straight to the point. Very concise and clear.)

First, please allow me to apologize. I deeply regret any pain and indignity my actions may have caused you or the rest of the family.

(And thus in one fell swoop, I've demonstrated sympathy and understanding, letting them know I acknowledge their feelings, their side of things. Was I killing it with this little speech or what?)

However, please understand that I quite simply could not go through with it. I didn't love him. I wouldn't have been able to make him happy, and he certainly wouldn't have been able to make me happy. It wasn't until I ran away from my old life altogether that I realized I just wasn't happy period. That I hadn't been for some time.

(A simple and straightforward statement of the problem. Plain and direct. Uncomplicated. How could they argue with that?)

I felt smothered. Like I couldn't breathe. I needed my freedom and getting away from everything I'd previously known helped me realize that. Living somewhere new, getting a job, forging out my own path in life… I've been much happier than I have been in a long while. This is what's best for me right now and I hope that with time, you'll come to realize that too.

(And just like that, a ready-to-go solution was presented to the aforementioned problem. The hard work was already done! All my parents had to do was just hear and accept that. Easy, right?)

Thank you for your time and consideration, I now open the floor up for further discussion and questions.

(...okay, maybe that last bit was a tad overly formal and unnecessary, but you get the picture.)

I think that covered all my bases. Sure, it didn't mention Lea at all. But it didn't totally negate the alleged role he'd played either, at least as far as my parents knew. I was hoping to maintain that little fib by just avoiding discussing it with them entirely. And sure, Lea would be present, but he was just going to be there as moral support for me and a deterrent for debate from my parents. Really, the focus of the talk shouldn't be on him anyway. It was supposed to be on me, on my feelings and why I did what I did.

I was able to rehearse my speech in my head a couple more times before we at last turned a corner and I spotted it.

The doorway leading into the Indigo Room.

Ah, there it was. The spike of adrenaline. That constricting of my chest. Right on cue, panic slithered in to encircle my heart, squeezing it, causing cracks in its protective little numb bubble, seeking entry. I gulped but kept walking, my step never faltering. My hand unconsciously found Lea's, causing him to shoot me a glance out of the corner of his eye. Then he smiled as he gave it a warm, tiny squeeze.

This was it.

There was no turning back now.

Just twenty more steps and I'd be through that door and facing whatever awaited me beyond. I screwed my eyes shut, going over my speech for the umpteenth time. These words were really the only things keeping me sane at this point.

Good afternoon, Father and Mother. How are you?

Ten more steps. My heartbeat thundered in my ears.

As I'm sure we're all well aware, we're here to discuss the events of my wedding day. First, please allow me to apologize.

Five more. I sucked in a breath and held it.

I deeply regret any pain and indignity my actions may have caused…

Three… two… O-

"Ah! There you are, my boy!"

The sudden, booming, and dare I say even cheerful voice had me stumbling and snapping my eyes open wide. Was that… I could have sworn it sounded like…

...Grandfather?!

He'd just come bursting through the very door we'd been heading for, with Father and the Duke walking out behind him as well. He was holding his arms wide open and had this huge smile on his face and- my god, was that an actual skip in his step?

Who was this man and what had he done with my grandfather?

...on top of that, I was just now discovering that Loud, Smiley Grandfather was way scarier than Quiet, Scowley Grandfather.

The maneuver was swift, calculated and efficient. He clapped his hands down on Lea's shoulders, catching him off guard as he spun him one-eighty, tearing his hand from mine. Then Grandfather was slinging an arm around Lea's shoulders all chummy-like. "Come! Walk with us, lad," he rumbled with laughter, forcing Lea into a staggering march beside him as he led him away. "Have you ever had a 1939 Macallan Scotch? Or a Gurkha Black Dragon cigar? No? Would you like to? How about right now?"

"Er…" still being all but dragged away, Lea glanced back over his shoulder at me uncertainly.

Bewildered myself, I just shrugged before gesturing for him to go along with it.

I feared Lea trying to resist whatever this was might risk poking the bear.

The Duke brushed past me to follow the two of them, posture rigid and face as crotchety as ever. Father was the last to go, gracing me with a brief smile. "Go on in. They're waiting for you," he nodded back towards the Indigo Room. Then off he went with the rest of the menfolk. Watching them go left me absolutely baffled.

What on earth had that been all about?!

I had nothing. Zilch. No plausible explanation whatsoever. Well, none except for-

Oh no.

They were literally about to murder him.

Think about it. It was the only thing that made sense! Why else would-

Wait… "they?"

That's what my father had just said, right? "They're waiting for you inside." His exact words. Who was this they? Shouldn't it just be Mother in there? Either Mother had had a change of pronouns and I was about to have a completely different conversation than I'd been expecting this whole time, or…

...someone else was in there with her.

Anna, perhaps? Yeah, that had to be it. After all, despite whatever her issue with me was currently, she was supposed to be there to have my back through this. And with Lea having just been straight up kidnapped, I'd need Anna's help more than ever. Yeah, that's probably all it was. Just Mother and Anna in there.

Hoping I was just being paranoid a second ago and Lea wasn't actually off somewhere getting assassinated this very moment, I shoved such thoughts to the back of my mind and prepared to go inside. I squared my shoulders, smoothed the nonexistent creases out of my dress, swept my braid-

Fudge, I'd forgotten to braid my hair! It was still up in that crude bun. Oh well, no time to fix it now. Hopefully it wouldn't come across so much as "messy" as just "stylishly disheveled." Regathering what little courage I could muster, I took a deep breath, clenched my hands at my sides and finally, at long last, stepped through that door into the Indigo Room.

It was a sitting room that lived up to its name. Everything was a rich shade of blue-violet from the walls to the carpet to the window curtains to the two couches taking up the middle of the room, facing each other from across the long coffee table between them. Sitting together in one of those sofas were three people. Mother - of course I'd expected her. Aunt Yelena - admittedly a bit more unexpected, but actually wasn't all that shocking. And... Maren? Okay, seeing her here actually did kind of surprise me.

But even more concerning than the people I saw before me now was the one person I wasn't seeing.

Anna.

Where was she?

Mother rose to her feet, a subdued smile on her face as she folded her hands in front of her just below her waist. "Elsa. Thank you for joining us. Please," she bowed her head slightly towards the couch across from her, "have a seat."

Perhaps a better question would be, what the heck was this?

...some kind of intervention? An ambush?

Oh gosh, was that why they'd taken Lea away? Had they just been trying to separate us so they could get me alone? Divide and conquer?

I stood rooted to the spot, not budging an inch. Aunt Yelena, usual stoic expression set firmly in place, said, "Maren dear, perhaps you could assist your cousin."

Maren grimaced, making a soft noise in her throat that was half huff, half growl. Then she stood, making her way over to me to take hold of my elbow, gently guiding me over towards the empty sofa. My feet dazedly followed. "Sorry," she whispered to me. "I didn't want to be here. Grams made me." She shot Yelena a sour look as she nudged me into taking a seat before rejoining the other two on the opposite couch.

Then everything fell silent.

Well... everything, that is, except for the hammering inside of my ribcage and the shallow, raspy breaths through my nose.

Alright, fine. So what if this wasn't exactly how I'd pictured it? So what if instead of my parents, I was facing off with some sort of, I don't know… matriarchy tribunal or whatever? So what if Anna wasn't here?

...why wasn't she here? She was supposed to be here! She was supposed to-

No! Stop it! Be strong! Be brave! You can do this on your own, Elsa. Remember the speech! Just recite those words you know so well by now and everything will turn out alright, you'll see. You got this!

Inhaling slowly through my nose, I began, "Good afternoon, Father and-" Shoot, I'd already screwed it up! Wincing, I stammered, "N-Not Father! Mother! A-And Aunt Yelena and Maren too, of course! Er… h-how are you? As I'm well aware, we're here to discuss my day." I blanched, looking down at my hands as they balled into trembling fists in my lap. "Wedding day! My… my wedding day. First, please apologize. Allow! Allow me to…" Ugh, so much for the speech. Why didn't I think to bring friggin' note cards? "...that is to say, I r-regret any actions my pain and indignity may have- wait! No, I-"

Yelena suddenly cut in with a blunt, "Does that boy have you on drugs?"

"What?!" my head shot up and I gaped at her. "I am most certainly not on-"

"It's okay, child," she held up a placating hand. "You're in a safe place. You can share the truth with us, we won't judge. Please, tell us how that boy has led you astray. Debauchery, intoxication, hedonism-

"Auntie," Mother interrupted her, placing a hand over hers as she shot her a small warning look. Then her full attention was on me again, her tone calm, as if she were speaking with a small child. "Elsa, you have nothing to be ashamed of. I understand. Believe it or not, I was young and impulsive too once. I've known men like Lea. Men who are handsome, who appear mysterious and dangerous and how exciting and… alluring all that can seem. It's just a phase, that's all. He's just a phase. But it's all over and done with now."

...a phase? "No, that's not what-"

"It's done now, Elsa," she repeated more sternly, expression hardening. "You just had to get it out of your system. And now that that little indiscretion is behind us and in the past where it belongs, we can forget all about it and you can get back on the correct course and fulfill your obligations."

"...get back on the…?" I echoed quietly, my brow furrowing. Then my head rocked back, gaze widening. "You don't mean-"

"Yes," Mother's eyes closed with a solemn nod. "Be grateful that your father and I were able to speak with his parents and smooth everything over. The wedding had to be rescheduled of course, but will otherwise proceed as planned."

"You still expect me to marry him?" I asked incredulously. This was absurd! Unreal! I'd even go so far as to say I must be dreaming, that this was literally a nightmare, except I would never be so lucky. I knew without a doubt that I was fully awake, that this was real life, and that this was exactly how my family worked. I shot up to my feet, "No! I'm a full grown adult, you can't just-"

"We can and we will! Sit down, you foolish girl," Yelena snapped dryly. "We are all in agreement here that-"

"We?" Maren grumbled, slouching down further into her seat, propping her temple against her fist as she glared down at the coffee table.

Aunt Yelena narrowed her eyes on her granddaughter. "Yes, we." Her cold gaze then shifted to lock on me once again. "We are all in agreement here that your actions have shown you to be too immature to be making your own decisions and so we must make them for you. You have let that delinquent cloud your judgment and good sense. Tell us, are you even so naive as to think yourself in love? Please, lowlifes like him merely take perverse pleasure in seducing and praying on young, innocent girls and using them until they grow bored and move on."

I'd lowered myself to the couch once more. I wasn't even sure when that'd happened. I didn't remember doing it. "...no, that isn't…" I began, but then stopped with a frown. This was all wrong. This wasn't how this conversation was supposed to be going. It wasn't supposed to be about Lea. He wasn't supposed to be the main topic, just an obstacle. Well, my family had seen him as an obstacle alright - one they simply had to eradicate before everything went back to normal and I did as I was told. Shaking my head, I began again, "He isn't like that, but that's besides the-"

"Oh no?" my aunt quirked a disdainful eyebrow. Then to Mother, she said cooly, "Iduna, if you would please."

A look of unease flitted across Mother's face and she hesitated for a heartbeat. Then her hand was reaching down to her hip for something that'd been tucked away out of sight between her and Yelena. "I found this in your room," she said, eyes downcast as she laid the thing out on the low, hardwood table between us.

It was Lea's spiked choker that he'd left with me.

My fingers squeezed the edge of the couch cushions to either side of my knees. "You were going through my things?" I asked quietly, looking up at Mother. She avoided my gaze and said nothing. I felt a sharp, unpleasant twinge inside my chest.

...was this the real reason she'd come to visit me a couple nights ago? Not because she'd missed me or wanted some time alone with me, but to… snoop? What, to look for something, anything that could be used against me, no matter how small or ridiculous?

"I shudder to think what other horrors we might uncover in a more thorough search of whatever squalor you're using as a poor excuse for living arrangements at the moment," Yelena tsked. "Tell us, what other depraved acts did that boy use to beguile you? Substance abuse, carnality-"

"Oh god, Aunt Yelena, no!" I buried my face in my hands. I take it back… this was, in fact, a nightmare. This was ludicrous. All this fuss over a stupid, cheap piece of goth jewelry. Puffing out a breath, I gestured towards the collar, "That, right there? It's nothing. It was just a joke, okay? It's-"

"The crumbling state of your future is no joking matter, young lady!" she huffed back, for the first time showing a crack in her stone cold mask. "Look at you! I don't even recognize you anymore. Gone is the sophisticated and well-mannered woman we all nurtured and helped you grow into. We're left with nothing but this pathetic, disgraceful shadow of what you once were. Your actions are mindless. Your behavior is deplorable. Your appearance is appalling." My appearance? What on earth was wrong with- oh for the love of… curse you, you cruddy bun! I just knew you'd be my downfall! "There is little doubt in our minds that this is all that degenerate's doing. He's got you all turned around, making questionable decisions and not taking care of yourself. And you let him. Why? Just what do you have to say for yourself?"

It's funny… now that I was at last being given a real chance to speak, I found I could no longer string even two words together. My lips parted, but nothing came out. My throat had closed up, my voice had abandoned me. I glanced to Mother, but she still wouldn't look me in the eye. As for Maren, she just gave me the barest of shrugs and mouthed another silent 'sorry' to me.

My mouth was dry. Blood rushed in my ears. This was all wrong. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Leading my family to believe that Lea was my boyfriend had been a mistake. It hadn't helped, it'd only made things worse. Now I'd been backed into a corner where I'd either have to defend the lie or come clean with the truth, and I didn't see either option turning out particularly well for me. My hands were wringing at the skirt of my dress, mangling and abusing the fabric. The corner of my eyes stung. This should have all been going so differently. Lea should have been here. Anna should have been here. Where-

Suddenly the door to the room crashed open, making all four of us jolt. I twisted around in my seat to see Lea storming in, a dark scowl marring his features. I blinked.

He was angry.

I'd never seen him angry before.

I hadn't even thought a single angry bone existed in his body.

"Come back here, you vulgar, deadbeat hooligan!" the Duke snarled as he too came in, hot on Lea's heels, his mustache swishing in an agitated frenzy. Lea ignored him and kept going.

Grandfather was next to arrive. Gone was the smile from earlier, replaced by pure unadulterated rage as he roared, "We told you to stop! Did you not hear us?! Or are you as deaf as you are brainless?"

"Lea?" I asked as he at last came to a halt next to me, my wide eyes darting back and forth between him and them. "What's going on?"

"Get your things," he ground out through grit teeth, grabbing my hand and pulling me up to my feet. "We're leaving."

"Wha-?" That was all I got out before he was on the move again, tugging me into a stumble after him.

Grandfather and the Duke were still bellowing their outrage, hurling insults that were getting lost in a jumbled torrent of words as the two of them tried to talk over each other. By now, Father had entered the room as well but unlike the other two, he only narrowed his eyes and remained grimly silent.

"Lea," I tried again, my free hand going to his arm as I struggled to keep up with his long, hurried strides, "tell me what happened."

"Oh, I'll tell you what happened alright. What happened is Gramps here," Lea came to an immediate stop in front of the man in question, glaring daggers at him, "tried to pay me off to ditch you and disappear for good."

Both eyebrows shot up my forehead. "...Grandfather, is that true?"

"Of course it is!" Grandfather snapped, jabbing a finger into Lea's chest. "That's all you're looking for, isn't it?!" Another jab. "A nice, plump handout to make you hit the road and stop sullying my granddaughter's honor!" And yet again. "Well, what's the matter, dolt?!" Jab, jab, jab. "What, were you hoping for more munny?! Not enough zeroes for you on that check, hm?!"

Lea's right eye twitched. "Swear to god, Gramps, if you poke me with that fucking finger one more damn time-"

"You mean to tell me you didn't take the munny?" a new voice, slow and dubious, interjected into the conversation. We all turned to see that Aunt Yelena had left the couch to join us, squinting at Lea with a skeptical frown.

"Shit no! What's wrong, you buncha geezers, hearing aids on the fritz? How many times do I have to fucking say it?! I don't want a damn cent of your stupid, stinking munny. Next person to ask will hear me telling 'em just exactly where they can take their munny and shove it! C'mon El, let's go already!" And he was off again, charging out the door and taking me with him.

I had to hand it to Lea. The tension in his shoulders, the flaring of his nostrils, the flash to his green eyes… he certainly had the whole offended boyfriend act down pat. He'd almost even had me fooled for a second there, but clearly it was all just for show. I mean... pretty sure it was, anyway. It's not like he'd actually-

Thud!

That was the sound of me faceplanting into Lea's back as he came to an abrupt and unexpected stop just as we exited into the hallway. Ow. With a tiny wince, I looked past him to see what the roadblock was only to discover we'd almost had a head-on collision with-

"Anna?" I gasped softly. "Where have you-" The words died on my tongue.

She was shifting her weight from one foot to the other as a small, nervous smile flashed across her face. But that's not what I was looking at. No, what I was looking at was her shoulders. More specifically, at the arm wrapped around her shoulders. More, more specifically, at the person attached to the arm wrapped around her shoulders.

My eyebrows knit together. "...Hans?"

Hans Westergaard. That's right, those Westergaards. As in the owners of the multi-billion dollar corporation Southern Isles Exports. As in long time business partners and allies of the Fryse family stretching back generations upon generations. As in this was their son before me, right here, right now. As in a boy I'd known since I was a child and had grown up with into teenagers. As in the teenager I'd began dating in highschool and started calling boyfriend. As in the boyfriend who'd proposed and became my fiancé. As in the fiancé who I'd left at the altar.

...as in my now ex-fiancé who currently had his arm wrapped around my little sister's shoulders.

I don't know how long I just stood there, staring and not blinking. It felt like an eternity, like time was standing still. But in reality, it was probably only a second, maybe two before I heard myself asking, "...what is this?"

Hans visibly stiffened, awkwardly removing his hand from Anna. His fingers scratched against one auburn sideburn at his temple as he muttered to her, "You... haven't told her yet?"

"Told me what?"

I knew. Deep down inside, I knew. It was so painfully obvious now, how could I not? But still, I needed to hear Anna say it.

"Told you that…" she stretched the last word out before trailing off, gnawing on her bottom lip as she poked the tips of her index fingers together and her eyes darted frantically about. Finally, in a voice so tiny I almost couldn't hear it, she blurted out, "Hans is my new boyfriend?"

Annnnd there it was.

...wait, was this what she'd been freaking out about all weekend? It was, wasn't it? Oh gosh, it all made so much sense now! Why she always seemed to change the subject whenever I'd asked her about the new guy she was seeing, why she kept clamming up whenever I'd approached her, why she ran away practically every time I'd so much as uttered a single word to her. It wasn't anything I'd done, she was the one who felt like she'd-

...hang on, back up a second. Rewind to the conversation I'd just been having in the Indigo Room. Hadn't Mother said… I could have sworn… Had I misunderstood? No… no, I don't think so…

Pretty sure it had been stated in no uncertain terms that I was still expected to marry Hans.

But that didn't make any sense! Not unless-

I looked at her sharply. "His parents don't know. Father and Mother don't either."

"We don't what?"

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of Mother's voice. I'd forgotten about her. Really, I'd forgotten about everyone else. Mother, Father, the rest of my family, even Lea who's hand I was still holding… every last one of them, completely wiped from my brain. For a moment there, all I'd been aware of was my sister, my ex-fiancé, and me. Now the rest of them were crowding out the door behind Lea and me, many still with scowls twisting their faces. Mother's expression, on the other hand, was that of surprise as she spotted who was standing next to Anna. "Hans? We didn't know you were coming by today. To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?"

As Hans gave a weak smile and struggled for some sort of polite response, Anna piped up with, "Could everyone excuse Elsa and me real quick? We'll just be a sec, promise!" She grabbed me by the arm and dragged me several steps away, leaving Hans looking rather distraught at being left to fend for himself before our family.

Well… our family and Lea, but I doubt Hans was going to be getting much assistance from that corner.

Once Anna and I were far enough away where a hushed conversation would not be overheard, she snatched my shoulders and whispered hastily, "Sis! I was gonna tell you, I swear! Mom and Dad too. But it just… it never seemed like the right time, ya know? I-"

"How long?" I cut her off, my voice flat.

Her forehead wrinkled. "...how long…?"

"How long have you and Hans been…" I looked away, my nose scrunching up slightly.

"Oh! After you two broke up, definitely, definitely after!" she insisted with several firm nods. Then her face blanched, "You weren't thinking that...that he and I would've... before you and he... No! No, we'd never do that to you! Not ever! Not in one billion, trillion years! Never, ever, ever, ever-"

"How long after we broke up?" I pressed, meeting her eyes now with a frown.

Here she grimaced, sucking in a breath through her teeth and turning her head away as she rubbed her elbow. "...the day after?"

...okay, I didn't mind the fact that Hans had moved on. It was actually almost kind of shocking how little I cared. I guess it was just further confirmation that I'd made the right decision by not going through with the wedding. Besides, how hypocritical of me would it be if I did care? Here I was, crushing on Lea for crying out loud! But that's all it was - a crush. And at least in my case, it'd taken several weeks to develop.

Hans had waited a day to move on. And he hadn't moved on with just anyone, he'd moved on with my sister. And since then, the two of them had probably been… doing things, ugh! To think, the guy I'd been engaged to for a year, doing god only knows what with my baby sister less than twenty-four hours after I'd-

...well, to be fair… he probably knew the "Lea and me" story by now, so he'd probably thought I'd been cheating on him for months now...

...then again, Hans didn't know about "Lea and me" the day after I broke it off. Heck, I didn't know about "Lea and me" the day after I broke it off! I didn't even actually know Lea then! So it's not even like Hans had had the moral high ground when he'd… when he and Anna had…

"-not like we meant for it to happen, it just sorta, ya know… happened!" Apparently, Anna was mid-babble as I tuned back into whatever she was saying. "I mean, I always thought his eyes were kinda dreamy, but he was your fiancé so I was all, woah there girl, hands off, no touchy, big friggin' no-no there! But then, all of a sudden, he wasn't your fiancé, and well… I was there, and he was there, and we just… happened!"

...there was something…

"And I wanted to tell you, oh my gawd, you have no idea how badly I wanted to tell you! I didn't want either of our parents to find out before you did, I wanted you to be the first to know and for you to hear it from me! But we just kept putting it off and off and off-"

...something… something my subconscious was trying to tell me right now…

"-and off until finally! This weekend! I said it's now or never, damn it! It was going to be Friday night, I was going to have him over for dinner with Mom and Dad at the same time you brought over Lea! But then I just… dunno, I chickened out and told him to stay away!"

...scratching, picking at the back of my mind…

"So then I said Saturday! Definitely Saturday! At Grandfather's birthday party! Think of it, it would have been perfect, like… like our grand debut! But then I friggin' wimped out again! I was just really scared how you might react… I didn't want to see you hurt or…"

...god, what was it? I almost had it, it was literally on the tip of my-

"But finally, I said you know what? I just gotta rip off that stupid bandaid! Today! It had to be today! That's why I brought Hans here, now, so we could finally just-"

"Why today?" I asked abruptly.

She blinked once, then twice. "...what?"

I fixed her with a hard stare. "Why did it have to be today? Why this weekend? Why… when Lea was here?"

She froze, eyes growing round. Then she was tugging at one of her pigtail braids, looking anywhere but at me. "I don't know what you-"

"This is why you convinced me to trick Father and Mother into believing I was dating Lea." My frown deepened. She flinched and said nothing. I was breathing heavily through my nose now as my chest burned. "It is, isn't it? You knew our parents wouldn't have approved of you two. That they still wanted me, as the eldest, to marry Hans. So you thought that... that if I showed up on their doorstep with a boyfriend who was their worst nightmare, that it would somehow… what, make you and Hans not look as bad? Lessen the blow? That Mother and Father would use up all their freaking out on me and have none left over for you?"

She gave a small "...no?" with a half-hearted shrug. My eyelids drooped. Then she sighed, "Okay, maybe a little bit… but that was just a small part of it! The smallest part! A teensy-weensy, itty-bitty smidge of it, I swear! The main, big reason I suggested the Lea plan was because I really thought it would help you! That it would be just the boost you needed to stand up to Mom and Dad and get you through this big talk with them and-" Anna's words drowned in sharp gasp. "Frick, the talk!" Her eyes drifted back over to where the rest of our family was still gathered. You could see her putting two and two together, could all but hear the gears beginning to turn in her mind. "...was that happening right now? I didn't miss it, did I?"

That was it.

Right there.

The last straw, apparently.

I was done. So done. Done with the lies, the expectations, the not getting any sleep, the panic, the stress, the fear, all of it… I just let it all go. I don't know how. I'd never been able to before. It had always seemed impossible, but now it was so simple, so easy. All of it, just gone with a tiny snap inside my brain. In its place, an almost eerie peace had settled over my heart. I knew what to do now. It was so clear, so obvious. I turned away from Anna and started to walk calmly back towards the others.

"Sis?" I heard Anna whisper after me, but I just kept going. "...Elsa? What are you-"

"Father. Mother," I came to a stop in front of them, pulling their attention away from whatever discussion they were in with the rest of the group. All eyes turned to me now. I could sense it in all of their looks - the curiosity from my parents, the thinly-worn patience of my aunt, the simmering fury coming off both Grandfather and the Duke in waves. Normally all of it would be enough to break me, but not this time. Instead, I just let it all wash harmlessly over me. I could feel Lea at my side and I took what little comfort I could from that. Then I drew in a long, deep breath and began.

"Lea and I aren't dating. We never were." I stated it simply, as if I were merely discussing the weather. Mother's and Father's gazes widened in shock while low grumbles and murmurs passed amongst my other relatives. I went on, "I didn't even meet him until after I ran away from my wedding. He's just a friend, one who was willing to go along with a ridiculous and what I can see now was quite honestly pointless plan.

"I didn't run away because of him, he had nothing to do with it. I ran away because of me. I did it for me. I wasn't happy. I didn't want it… not the wedding, not the life you'd laid out for me, not the future you'd so carefully planned, none of it. I needed to be on my own, I needed the freedom and space to make my own decisions and to be me, to decide what I wanted and what was best for me. It's my life. I get to decide how I want to live it and none of you get a say in it. Period." I stood a little taller now, hitching my chin and narrowing my eyes, "And if you don't like it, well then that's too bad."

A hush fell all around us. My parents' brows were furrowed as they exchanged glances. Father was the first to speak, "Elsa, perhaps we should take a seat somewhere and talk about th-"

"How dare you, you ungrateful girl?!" Grandfather suddenly erupted in a snarl, face a dark, blotchy red as he stomped forward. "I will not stand for such insolence in my presence! No granddaughter of mine is allowed to speak to us in such a manner ever, you hear me?"

My eyelashes twitched. An almost imperceptible wince. The only reaction I gave to his outburst. My gaze then shifted from him back over to my parents. Whether or not they were in agreement with Grandfather's statement, they kept it to themselves, remaining mute on the subject with small grimaces. Locking my eyes on Grandfather once more, I said evenly, "Very well then. I guess that makes me no granddaughter of yours."

I started to turn to leave, but then paused. Looking back to my parents one final time, I tacked on, "Oh, and the next time you try to marry me off to someone, you might want to make sure he's not in another relationship already."

Both their postures snapped straight at that. "Hans?" Mother asked, turning her focus on him now. "What does she mean by that?"

"I, uh…" he laughed feebly, sidestepping in a poor attempt to hide behind Anna. As for her, she just gaped at me as I turned my back on them all and walked away. I could see Maren out of my peripheral, her jaw slack as well, but with a smile tugging up at the corners of her lips as she brought her hands together in a slow, silent clap.

"You stop right there, young lady!" Grandfather was shouting after me, but I did not stop. "You will do as you're told or so help me, that's it for you! Step one foot outside this house and you're cut off! Disowned! We'll have nothing more to do you with, you hear me?! Nothing!"

Still, I kept walking. I could hear a single pair of footsteps behind me. Once they caught up to walk along beside me, I glanced over, knowing I'd be greeted by Lea's grinning face. I told him, "You can put them on now."

He cocked his head at my words. But then it clicked, and his grin stretched wider. "You sure?"

"Positive," I said flatly, staring straight ahead once more. I could still hear Grandfather yelling his tantrum after me back there. "Go nuts."

"Oh hell yeah!" He reached inside his leather jacket, whipping out the heart-shades and slipping them onto his nose. Then he spun into an about-face, striding along backwards next to me now. "Suck it, bitches!" he crowed back at them all, throwing his hands up to flip the double bird as we turned to disappear around a corner.

That's right.

Suck it, bitches.

Author's Note: So THAT's why Anna's been acting all squirrelly! How 'bout it ya'll, didja see it coming from a mile away? xD Hopefully I surprised at least one or two of you with that lil twist xP And oh gosh, when it rains, it friggin' POURS! So much being thrown at Elsa all at once xD Hope the drama turned out okay! As you've read through 27 chapters of my writing by now (at least! I'm sure there's those of you who've read my other stuff too tho xP), you've probably gathered by now that I'm more about the sass, humor, and mindless fluff and less about… *gestures towards last half of above chapter* THIS. But I did the best I could and that's all anyone can ask for! Also… those damn heart-shaped sunglasses, I swear xD They were just supposed to be a one time throw away gag for the yacht chapter, but apparently my Lea muse liked them so much that he kept finding an excuse to bring them back every damn chance he got! It wasn't supposed to be a running gag, it really wasn't! But hot damn, if the Fire Boi wouldn't look good in those puppies xD

So, it's official… Elsa is finally done with all of it. Done with the lies, done with the family BS, all of it. Next time, what's she gonna do now that she's finally at long last well and truly free? So many possibilities! Where will she go? What will she do? Will she and Anna ever be able to patch things up between them? What's next for her and Lea now that their lil fake dating scheme is kaput? DOES that sheep counting thing ACTUALLY work for anyone? I mean, seriously?! Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading, I super duper appreciate it! And an extra BIG thank you to those of you who’ve liked, reblogged, and followed so far, seeing those lil notifications always brings the biggest, goofiest smile to my face!

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[author-archive]

Author Interview: awickedplacethisis

Name: Simon

Tumblr: @awickedplacethisis​

Where else you can find them: ao3

What is the main pairing you write for?

Harringrove - Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington from Stranger Things

What inspired you to start writing for them?

The obvious tension between them in the show, and all the queer subtext I could see in Billy’s character! Plus, of course, all the amazing creators I found in the fandom. I wanted to contribute too!

Do you remember the first fic you ever wrote?

The first fic I ever wrote was definitely something Harry Potter related. The first fic I SHARED was a Simon vs. fic I wrote when the book came out, when that fandom was even smaller than it still is.

What fic/scene has been the hardest for you to write and why?

Billy’s relationship with his dad is always a challenge for me to write. Because we saw so little of it, and the little we saw was a mess. There’s a lot that hits close to home, whenever I write Billy in general. When I look back to the first time I ever wrote their relationship, I just want to go back and change it all. It’s a struggle, to capture something real, there.

What inspires you?

When I write, I get a lot of inspiration from thoughts running around in my own head, true events or just random things that COULD happen, to me. To someone LIKE me. But also, a lot of the beautiful fanart in the fandom give me real good ideas for fics. Just generally in life, my inspiration comes from fiction, I think. I’ve always read a lot, and that feeling of seeing something on paper that could happen to you, or would never ever happen, having that grip you and keep you in a whole different world, that feeling means a lot to me. Literature plays a big part in all aspects of my life, in the end.

Do you have a writing process? If so, what's it like?

Oh... I don’t think I even know my own process, really. I try to always have something at hand, a phone or computer or notebook, so I can write down ideas as soon as inspiration hits. That’s probably the only consistent thing, I write down all my ideas, big ones or small ones, because I know I forget them within the minute if I don’t. And from there, I usually try to find the “eye of the storm” first. What does the whole fic revolve around? How does it come to that place? Why does it change? Honestly, my projects are messes right until they’re done. Snippets of dialogue here, some author notes to myself there, delusional 2 am writing hidden away in a corner.

How would you describe your writing style?

My writing style is... messy. But that’s why I like it. It’s filled with cut off thoughts and italics, ‘cause that’s how I think. And that’s how I’d like to imagine those characters think. It’s also slightly influenced by the poetry I read, and just other literature in general. All though I try to be careful when it comes to that, ‘cause I’d rather something be plain when it comes to wording, than to be all fancy in a way the characters would never think. My writing style is like mundane poetry, if that makes sense.

Is there anyone that influences your style?

Not really, at least not consciously. I definitely take up tips from other writers, both in fandom and published authors. I see things I like in someone else’s writing and remember it for the next time I write. Something I think influences me a little is “The book of disquiet” by Fernando Pessoa.

What's your favourite line that you've written? This was a tough one, really. Probably this one, from my fic “the first time I saw the ocean (it was in your eyes)”

“to find darker blue in the lighter, specs of green so vivid that it’s weird he’s never seen them before. Maybe he’s never really looked , before.”

It’s really not a deep line or anything, but it really just captures Steve’s unknowing longing. The way he wants but he doesn’t know what. The way he sees so much that he’s never seen before, doesn’t really know what to do with that.

What do you find to be the easiest part of writing?

I don’t know if it counts, but nsfw content is definitely the easiest and non challenging stuff for me to write. ‘Cause just on a base level, it doesn’t really hold any depth. It can, depending on what you do with it, how you write the characters inner turmoil and everythin’. Other than that, I feel like it’s easy for me to write dialogue, all sorts of it. As a theatre kid, scripts have always had a big appeal, I guess.

What's the hardest?

The hardest is definitely getting to the point. I’ll spend too many words on building up a backstory, and then the actual plot just never happens. Backstory can be nice, but some fics call for that “being plunged right into the chaos”, from the start.

Why do you write?

I write ‘cause I’ve learnt no one else is going to give me the fiction I want. No ones gonna write characters like me if I do nothing. Sure, it’s starting, the whole diversity thing. But I won’t sit around and hope someone will write a book or script a movie with characters I can see myself in. I’ll write it myself. Of course, writing is a passion of mine. It’s not just that I wanna see myself on a page or a screen. The way we have languages, ways of creating stories and immortalize them, it’s so amazing to me. And I love it.

Why do you share your work?

I share my work in hope to make someone feel something. I want people to read words I’ve put together and feel things, feel pain or happiness or sadness or hope. Anything. ‘Cause it’s so baffling to me that words can DO that. I also want other people to be able to see themselves in something. A lot of people turn to fanfiction to find some kinda story they can see themselves in, and if I make even one person feel like they belong thanks to my work, I’ve succeeded.

Is there anything you’d like to share from a current WIP?

I’ve got quite a few of ‘em, and too little organization to finish them. Here’s an excerpt from my fic “the first time you said sorry (you used all the wrong words)” - part 2 of my “a series of firsts (in a way)”

“Nothing changes, except Steve can’t stop thinking about it. And he’s great at not thinking about it, but blue eyes and rough hands and deft fingers keep following him. That feeling, too. The one that gripped him, locked him in place. It choked him, left him heaving. Maybe it’s ‘cause it was Hargrove. He’d find some way of hurting him, even if he didn’t pound his face in. Maybe it’s the queer thing. The thing he’s never, ever thought about. The thing he locked away, kept away. Maybe it’s a sign that he’s not, that it’s so wrong that his body protested against it, locked itself in.”

(Italics got removed, but you can imagine I overuse the hell outta them)

Question from an anon: as a gay man, how do you feel about straight women who enjoy m/m fanfiction?

Now, this is quite the heated subject. And I do have a lot of feelings about that. Both as a gay man, and as a fanfiction writer. First, and most importantly, if what you enjoy is not harmful to you or anyone else, it’s okay to enjoy it. I’m all for enjoying things. As a content provider, my whole goal is for people to enjoy themselves. And I’d never restrict my content to one group of people, ‘cause everyone has the right to consume free media, and I want to share my work with everyone.

Straight women have the same right to enjoy content as any other person. Whatever floats your boat, do that. But, one thing needs to be clear. Enjoying m/m fanfiction in itself is nothing more than that. It doesn’t make you an ally of the community, and it doesn’t make you apart of it. Honestly, its just fetishizing. If you consume gay porn, it’s ‘cause it gets you going. If a straight woman consciously searches out gay porn or m/m fan fiction, its fetishizing.

And the extreme fetishizing of gay men in media is a problem. We’ve been given breadcrumbs of representation only to now be used as bait for straight girls who think it’s just sooo cute to see Timothée Chalamet get fucked on screen. And I get angry about that. I get angry that the representation we need is redirected to other people, people who really don’t care about the community as a whole further than their cute gay (and cis, and white) couples. I hate that. But i can’t sit and pretend like I have some sort of moral high ground. ‘Cause I make content that feeds into that. But it’s different, with fanfiction. I make content for MYSELF, and then whoever sees it, good for them. If all of my readers were straight women, I’d be fine with that. As long as they know that all they do is enjoy porn that fits their fetish. Or, if its not the smut, its still to an extent that. Fetishizing or romanticizing a group of people. And you do you, as long as you know that’s all you do.

Enjoy the harmless content you want to enjoy. And fanfiction is harmless. Just, this is the important part, don’t act like you’re doing more than that. You’re not a gay icon or an ally or super woke for reading about two fictional characters who interacted once fuck. You’re enjoying yourself, and thats fine. But in the end, its nothing more than that.  We’re a community, and you gotta stick up for everyone if you think you’re even close to an ‘ally’. Queer folk stick together. And when i say i don’t mind straight women reading my work, I gotta make one thing clear:

My work is to LGBT+ people, from someone in the community. I write because we deserve to see authentic people like us in fiction. And I’m doing my part to make at least one person feel like they can see a character and think “this is me”.

[shayprose]

On Sobriety, my Quiet Place, and the Sliver

It’s difficult to wrap my mind around where I am now. Not the physical — my body is in Somerville, MA. That’s easy. I’m talking about the bits in between where my body is and where my mind drifts; the emotional and the spiritual, the elusive two states that are hardest to describe.

I’m sober, you see, and with that comes the immensity of where I was. You can’t think of one without the other, and the shoe that drops on the other side of sobriety is — well, it’s a topic that sells sad artists a lot of albums. The little golden medallion I carry around with me to signify that I’ve made it through a year of “recovery” is so heavy in my pocket because of its significance. It’s a little metallic tomb full of memories made manifest of a very, very dark time.

But if I’m practicing radical honesty, then it — “it” — is actually the pinnacle of so many other things, so many other memories, all interwoven into one point. The threads of a long life of good things and bad things, all culminating in the reason I carry that medallion around with me, despite its heft.

It all started when the quiet place I used to go to, deep inside myself, the safe place with all of its carefully hewn comforts, where pleasant memories and dreams were the wallpaper and the rosewood floors, was destroyed in a 9-alarm fire called addiction. And I miss it there, so, so much.

This thought dump is rambling already, but bear with me. I suppose the nature of what I’m saying is the rambling point I’m trying to make: so much of my days now are made up of trying to grapple onto the thoughts that started spiraling around me like a hurricane when I let myself black out every night. Rambling is par for the course.

Right before I tipped over the edge, after a night (or an afternoon) of drinking, I remember thinking every so often, “Self, you’re really fucking up, my dude,” and having the actual sensation that my mind was melting. It was a vibration that ran through my face, surged through my brain, and then ricocheted down into my outer extremities. A few times, that shockwave made me panic and I filled up my Google search with things like, “Effects of alcoholism on the brain,” and “Can I lose my mind from alcohol?”

Scary stuff, right? I think the scariest thing, though, is that after a while, I stopped Googling those things. It didn’t really matter anymore, after all — neurodegeneration was, according to my 2 a.m. panic-laden internet searching, impossible to reverse, so fuck it, right? Black out, self. Go for it. Let it all fall away, and if you remember anything from the night before, well, try harder to forget next time. The recipe can always be tweaked, after all! Don’t stop at three shots after your four martinis. Add a fourth, and chase it with a Truly. Add a beer if it’s a work night — they fill you up so you don’t have to eat dinner.

The quiet place was still accessible in those early days of my downward spiral, to some degree, fragmented though it was. And then, it wasn’t.

The most painful part of my shredded humanity, I think, was when I tried one day to make the journey to my quiet place, through meditation and soft music, and I stumbled over the corpses of the things that I sacrificed for him. There was Dignity, her face bruised and slapped around, still beautiful in death. Over there was Desire, who held all of my dreams on his back, now reduced to a crumpled-up heap on the floor, barely recognizable anymore. The hardest body to see was Hope, whose glowing effulgence used to be the light that powered my quiet place, her soft illumination the fuel for all the pretty candles that lit up the darkness. Her light was snuffed out completely in death.

And so, my light was dimmed in life.

When I finally waded through the mistakes and the tragedies, I arrived at a place I called home for so many years, the place inside myself I built through all of my childhood traumas, to find the windows shattered, the garden ransacked, the curtains torn. Every square inch of my safe haven was hollowed out. In November, 2019, the last time I tried to go there before I let it go completely, I remember thinking, “You did your best, and it wasn’t good enough. You’re free.”

I had woken up at 3 a.m. to make sure he was safe, and when I saw that he wasn’t, I drowned the terror in half a handle of gin. The next morning, when I got to work, I started packing my desk because I didn’t want anyone else to have to deal with it. A few cigarettes, a few pills, a few coffees later, I unpacked my desk, went to a few meetings, and then purposefully forgot the way back to my quiet place.

In therapy, I learned that something like my “quiet place” is a very real trauma response folks can develop. My therapist explained that I was wise beyond my years to have taken so much pain in my childhood and translated it into a lighthouse, where I could always go if I needed to escape. “It’s healthy,” he said, “to know that you are safe inside yourself. What changed?”

What indeed. Before I started writing this, I took a trip through the pages of this old tumblr and remembered where I used to be then, emotionally and spiritually, and the difference seems to be that back then, when I thought I was giving myself wholly to whatever mission I was on, I still held back just enough to keep the quiet place alive. A sliver of my mind was always tethering me to safety, and I think I knew that. I took comfort in that. It was me remembering to spare some energy to keep my own lights on. Good job, me.

There’s no sense in trying to rationalize addiction, and that’s not what I was doing when I flipped through these pages — people spend their entire careers trying to decipher the origins of that disease, and I’m not going to crack the code by rereading a young adult’s foibles. However, I do think there’s something important in the work of sifting through the examples I’ve left behind for myself. To maybe see where the path I walked so carefully through life became so twisted.

The sliver I mentioned before, the place in my mind that tethered me to safety, took a risk. He reached out a hand to someone who said they needed me, and in a state of perfect trust, I allowed him to free fall. After all, who’s wouldn’t after hearing these things?

“I will always love you. It’s just you and me now. Don’t worry; I got you.”

A running leap over a cliff, and then

“This terrible thing is part of me. I understand if you want to leave, but I can’t stop crying. Do you want to leave me?”

eyes closed,

“It’s not your turn right now — I love him, too — but someday, I’ll give you what you need. I love you.”

I let myself fall.

“I tried to kill myself — it was all set up, and I was ready. But your face is what stopped me. I didn’t because of you. I need you.”

I knew I shouldn’t have jumped, but

“I promise I’m trying to get better. Therapy just doesn’t work for me; meetings just don’t work for me. But I’ll do it for you.”

if I could help someone, someone who needed me,

“I told you I’m working on it. If you don’t believe me, then you are hurting me, and hurting me will just lead me back to the darkness. Don’t hurt me.”

then who cares if I get hurt.

“They don’t love you like I do. Let’s go get breakfast, and I’ll teach you how to take care of yourself.”

I fell. That sliver, that tether, fell farther and farther, until I couldn’t see him anymore. He was weighed down by all of the affirmations, all the promises of love and safety, all the hollow words. And the cruelest:

“This is a risk for me, too, but that’s why it’s so important that we do this together; no one else understands.”

Without that tether, without the quiet place, I was numb. And I liked being numb. I kept adjusting the recipe to be number longer, and that was how I lived.

So much of AA is about putting yourself into the shoes of your peers who are going through the same thing. Everyone has a story like mine. They might not think about it the way I do, with personification and magic, but their stories all have a similar energy to them, which is accompanied by a familiar far-away look in their eyes. Every story also has something that ties us all together —

— when all of us felt a spark. A tiny mote of light that flickers behind our eyes and tells us that there’s another path, less twisty and less dark, where we can take a deep breath, if we’ll just follow it. A moment when the free fall stops, even for a second.

Mine came when I woke up next to him one morning, the day after I sobbed my way home on a bus from NYC. We had gotten too drunk at a bottomless brunch, and we went to another bar (probably at my pressuring). I spilled a martini, I fell off my stool, we left, and then the memory becomes hazier. We fucked in our hotel room? We ran through Manhattan to the bus terminal? We almost missed it? My memory picks back up with me weeping because I was confused. Where are we? What are we doing? Please don’t be mad at me — I hate me, too. Will you marry me? Please? When is your next trip? Will you please be safe? Will you be safer if we’re married? I’ll protect you. Just think about me. Am I enough?

My spark ignited. The day after that trip, I looked down at him and, as if I were waking up from a nightmare, I thought, “You will never change. But I can. And fuck you.”

As I climbed out of bed that day, my brain fried from my hangover, I grabbed my phone and sent a message to a friend who had gotten sober the year before. He told me we could get coffee so I could ask him questions. I went. That’s when he told me about a meeting he was chairing. “Come,” he said. “It’ll be easier to explain if you just see it for yourself.”

So I did. My nightmare came with me, supported my decision, held my hand, and while I was watching my friend chair the meeting, as I listened to the stories of everyone in that church basement, I realized I wouldn’t be whole, I wouldn’t be safe, unless I didn’t need that hand in mine anymore.

A year has gone by since then. Over time, the spark grew into a candle flame, which exploded into a fire, and I haven’t had a drink or a drug since. The medallion is heavy, and it brings me back to NYC, to the thousandfold traumas of emotional abuse, to the guilt of allowing myself to be caught up in a whirlwind of self-doubt, but I’m learning to find comfort in the weight of it.

This is the first time I’ve written anything like this since I lost my footing. It isn’t anything like my other posts — my therapist says I’ll probably never get that same easygoing talent back, not without a lot of effort, and so I suppose that’s what this is. My therapist inspired this post, actually. He’s sober, too, and knows what I mean when I talk about not being able to wrap my mind around where I am; when I talk about the weight of the medallion, and the two sides of that coin. He says to me, over and over:

“You can trust yourself again now. You never lost your quiet place, it’s all still there. It’s just different now.”

I’m pleased to report that my new quiet place is in bloom. Hope is alive again and her light is as gentle and steadfast as ever. Desire and Dignity are rebuilding my gardens, and the Sliver, the little tether I hold closest of all, is the gatekeeper, the star in the sky, and the only thing that matters to me anymore. His name is Shay, and I love him again. I can’t wait for you to meet him.

[richardwrights]

@divine-and-decaying Ruster this is so fucking long oh my G o d

1. What Are You Wearing? Uh a white shirt and some old ass red gym shorts from like over ten years ago lmaoooo (I sleeps in them so that’s why)

2. Ever been in love? Too many times

3. Ever had a terrible breakup? Too many times

4. How tall are you? 5'6″

5. How much do you weigh? Like 130# or something I don’t really keep track of it

6. Any tattoos you want? Yeah I want the CA Cliff House somewhere on my body and I want to redo my Umbreon and I want a horse tat and I want the Dark Side prism going around my left bicep and I want something on my ankle

7. Any piercings you want? I’ve pretty much gotten all the ones I want but I still think about repiercing my tongue sometimes cause I kind of miss it

8. OTP? That One Pairing and BJ/Hawkeye somewhat but idk I’m not really into that as much anymore

9. Favorite show(s)? MASH ofc and at the moment Arrow

10. Favorite Band? Gosh I just really don’t know it’s a complete mystery isn’t it

11. Something you miss? Being able to go through life without Worrying. About every fucking thing. And being in my room and listening to music and learning new things about this new band that I just got into called Pink Floyd and learning how to write because I wanted to read more stories about them. Simpler times :[

12. Favorite song(s)? Always Sorrow by PF, currently Wildfire Part II by Sonata Arctica

13. How old are you?  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Guess

14. Zodiac sign? Aquarius like Nicholas Mason~

15. Hair color? Naturally dark brown but currently black with blue streaks

16. Favorite quote? “I find it’s better not to say anything at all than to say something ridiculous.” I will not tell you where that’s from and you can try to search it but you won’t find it~

17. Favorite singer? Tony Kakko atm

18. Favorite color? Bloo

19. Loud music or soft music? Depends on the mood. I listened to Pink Floyd for the better part of ten years but then started listening to metal so???? Explain that

20. Where do you go when youre sad? Night nights in my bed bed

21. How long does it take you to shower? Depends if I’m shaving, I can do it in ten but it’s usually around 20-25 minutes. The fastest I ever showered in my life was about five minutes

22. How long does it take you to get ready in the morning? Depends on what time I go in to work but a typical day is about 10-15 minutes

23. Have you ever been in a physical fight? Hm not a serious one that mattered

24. Turn on(s)? Long hair, beards, piercings/tats in moderation which is an entirely subjective word, eyeliner

25. Turn off(s)? Being carelessly messy, selfishness, basically any of my last ex’s traits lmaooo fuck him

26. The reason i joined tumblr? To find more [redacted] to read lmaoooo

27. Fears? Creepy crawlies, humiliation, heights that don’t have any reassurance that I won’t Die

28. Last thing that made you cry? I don’t remember tbh, probably Richard Day?

29. last time you cried? It’s been a few months I think, if not then it was July 18th of this year

30. The meaning behind your url? IT’S DICK BOY BABEYYYY

31. Last book you read? I started Flowers in the Attic but I didn’t get more than a few pages in tbh

32. Last song you listened to? Storm the Sorrow by Epica

33. Last show you watched? Legend of Korra

34. Last person you talked to? In person was my dad, in general it’s the folks in the PF Discord server

35. Your relationship to the person you last texted? My fren Leah

36. Favorite food? CHEESE

37. Place you want to visit? Cambridge, England

38. Last place you were? Norfolk

39. Do you have a crush? Nah

40. Last time you kissed someone? About a year ago

41. When's the last time you were insulted and what was it? The details are still a little unclear but apparently one of my “friends” said it was surprising that I hadn’t killed myself yet because I’m so weird so that was fun. Kind of hurt but like that’s a weird fucking insult so it didn’t really bother me much LMAO

42. What color underwear are you wearing? It green

43. What color shirt are you wearing? See first question

44. What color bottoms are you wearing? See first question AGAIN

45. Wearing any bracelets? A beaded one that Leah made for me that says Rickums Dickums :33333

46. Last sport you played? Softball

47. Last song you sang? See question 32

48. Last prank call you remember making? I don’t think I ever have

49. Last time you hung out with someone? With Leah and her bf yesterday

50. Favorite movie(s)? Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii lmaooo but idk I don’t really have a favorite I guess, it’s more like several that I could watch an infinite number of times and never get tired of them. Ghibli movies come to mind right at the moment

I’m not tagging anybody because this is mega hefty and I won’t do that to you all UNLESS you truly desire to, then by all means have at it. Tag me if you do end up doing it tho~