#since i’m working @ this new job i’ve also had less time i fear.

[spidrboots]

i’ve gotta hop off for the night but !! i’ll get to dm’s tomorrow & will probably work on cleaning up my blog when i’m not at work & have the energy. bye for the night, all ! rest easy & say it back maybe. ♡

[quietlyimplode]

ignite your bones

After the fall of General Dreykov, and the remnants of the Red Room still at large, Natasha first year at SHIELD is anything but healing. Labeled a traitor and a turncoat, Natasha tries to find her footing in a strange new world.

Whumptober 2024: Day 14 - Left for dead

Warnings: attack, blood, violence, being jumped/being beaten

Word Count: 1.2k (gif not mine)

Summary: Maria and Clint sort out the mess that is Shield and Clint goes to make amends for not visiting Natasha.

Masterlist.

Whumptober Masterlist.

<3 thank you for the comments - I hope you know who you are. You all get a very big hug and/or a crisp high five. <3

.

Clint knocks twice.

Maria opens the door, rolling her eyes when she sees his offering.

“Really? Kung pow chicken?”

Clint waves it in front of her face.

“Fine, you can come in,” she concedes.

“How’d you go?”

Maria shrugs, closing the door behind them.

“I’ve been working with Fury, more so than before, and I like the way he operates. He’s methodical. We think we’re getting closer to a full list. He’s been working with the WSC, but I fear Thompson knows something is up.”

Clint nods.

“Coulson said the same thing, there’s been less debriefs and we haven’t been sent on any more missions. He said it’s because of Natasha’s intel, but I don’t think so.”

Maria opens the box and the smell infuses the room.

“God I’m hungry,” she sighs, “have you seen Natasha yet?”

Clint shakes his head, guiltily.

“I don’t have an answer. I don’t know what I want from her. I know what I want for her, but I don’t know what I want for me. How I fit.”

Quieter, he whispers, “I don’t know if I’m up to helping her.”

Maria throws a pen at him.

“You’re an idiot.”

Clint rubs the spot where the pen hit.

“Ow.”

“You’re an idiot,” she repeats.

“Of course you’re not up to helping her.”

The bluntness makes him stare at her.

“What I mean to say is, that no one is up to that task. Why do you think in AA it’s one day at a time? None of the problems that lead to the addiction can be solved overnight, none of the problems that have come from her trauma can be solved in a day, a week or a year. It’s never ending. So if you help? Even a little? It all adds up. Just be consistent. This will be long, but it's not forever.”

Clint eats thoughtfully.

Her words reverberate in his head, and hold a truth he hadn’t considered.

“Yeah.”

Standing Maria offers him a drink.

He accepts and sips it, looking at the paperwork she’s compiled.

“Shrike’s dirty?” he asks, surprised.

Maria nods.

“Yeah, that one surprised me too. I liked him.”

“How do you know?”

“Money,” she sighs.

“I hate this,” Clint replies, flipping through the pages.

“Better to have them out, rather than relying on them and getting us killed.”

“I know.”

There’s a mutual silence that envelops the room as both finish eating and start sorting evidence.

.

Fury furrows his brow.

The hologram on his left flickers, then his right, and finally the one in front of him.

“This is highly unorthodox,” the one in front of him frowns.

There’s a sense of unease, and Fury hopes that none of the people in front of him are in cahoots with the Russians.

It was unlikely, but not impossible.

He presents his evidence.

The pictures of Dreykov standing and shaking hands with Thompson, and the one where they’re sitting at a table seemingly in a meeting, feel particularly damning.

Maria had done a good job making the information simple and concise, explaining the impact on the Council and all it stood for.

They’d need their resources if they were to have any chance at deposing Thompson.

Fury finishes on the plan for quiet infiltration. That each member would just… disappear and be replaced, to serve as a warning; he hoped.

The woman seated for the Oceania region nods along. She also fills in some gaps.

“We’ve long since suspected there was a mole in SHIELD,” she announces. “I am willing to back your cause.”

“Seconded,” comes another voice.

“Your motion is passed. We will provide the munitions and men you have asked for. The Raft will be set up for interrogation and imprisonment.”

Fury nods, pleased.

This was a good play, and he would tell Maria as such.

“Be careful,” the faceless woman tells him.

“We will be in touch.”

.

Clint walks the familiar route to see Natasha. The bag of donuts in his hand is a peace offering for not seeing her the past week.

Guilt presses down on him for it, but the reprieve and recalibration of himself was needed.

Now set up with a therapist, again, he knows that he can do better because he can show up for her.

It’s not an excuse. It's a fact.

Sharon isn’t on watch and a man he doesn’t know waves him through.

Clint doesn’t like it, but he hasn’t been here enough lately to know all the guards on rotation.

He continues on, wondering how she’s going.

A week had probably felt like a lifetime.

Maria had checked in, so had Coulson, even Fury; their report visits were minimalistic because of the circumstances.

Maria had said she was quiet.

He hopes it’s been okay.

He rounds the last corner and finds her sitting on the floor staring straight ahead.

He would say that she’s meditating.

She doesn’t move as he comes into view, she doesn’t even acknowledge him.

He waves to open the door, but nothing happens.

He looks up to the camera and waves again, not wanting to go back to see what’s happened.

Natasha is watching now.

Sharp eyes look on as he holds up donuts and smiles.

Clint hears footsteps down the hall. Automatically, he turns and sees it is the guard from down the hall, another man with him.

“Hey,” Clint greets.

They don’t return it.

The first lengthens his baton, the second shoots a taser, hitting Clint in the chest.

Pain and electricity alights his body as he tips forward.

He watches as it happens with a detachment, unable to react except to drop the donuts.

Natasha moves to the glass.

They close on him quickly.

The baton hits him, first in the body, then in the legs.

The second man just using fists.

They hit hard. They hit fast.

The beating is rough. Clint feels his breath taken away between blows and he curls himself up into a ball.

If he can wait...

If he can get control of one of them...

A blow to the head distorts time, and pain, never ending pain, radiates out. White, hot, searing pain.

He can’t hear their yelling.

His nose is bleeding, blood in his throat.

Natasha, he thinks idly, they’re going after her.

He hazards a glance up and sees her pounding on the glass. Her lips are moving, knuckles split and bleeding as she tries to break it.

It’s no use, he wants to tell her, it’s too thick.

But still she tries.

There’s a break as one of the men pauses. Clint has enough wherewithal to grabthe baton and pull it towards him.

He knows his ribs are broken.

Probably his face too.

His arm maybe from protecting his body.

Still he tries.

But the next blow feels like a car hits him.

He yells out.

As he fades into darkness, all he sees is Natasha yelling and punching the glass, blood on the wall, blood on the floor.

[vodika-vibes]

😌 idk if my first request for a fox x reader went through but i’ve been reading a lot (ofc whats new) and uh uh I found I really love fics with CX-2 (Clone Assassin) aND SO, to my favorite SW writer I ask;

How bout a soulmate au with CX-2 (?) Could be a bit of angst with a happy ending, and everyone is just wondering how reader could be with him after all the things he’s done (uh im getting sunshine!reader x grumpy character vibes)

dont have to write this! i just would love to see some more cx-2 fics after reading one just now lol also im down the rabbit hole again that its cx-2!tech whose been reconditioned, do what you feel is best but i just love that theory bc I’m a firm believer too that tech never died 😌

Protective

Summary: For a long time, your parents feared that you didn’t have a soulmate. Until, one morning, you woke up and found a wild dog curled up next to you on your bed. You named him Noir, and the people around you quickly learned that he was fiercely protective of you. However, after Noir kills an Imperial Officer after he threatens, you have no choice but to go on the run.

Pairing: CX-2 x F!Reader, background Tech x Phee

Word Count: 2799

Warnings: None

Prompt: Soulmate AU - soulmates have spirit animals representing each other.

Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni @imabeautifulbutterfly

A/N: So I wasn't able to get the angst to work, largely because I wasn't in an angsty mood. Also, as much as I love the CX-2 being Tech idea, I had a different idea for this fic, so I hope you like it!

“What d’ya have there, Noir?” You ask as you return to the small hut that has been your home for the last three months and crouch in front of your oldest companion.

Noir’s tail wags rapidly as he nudges something in your direction.

You gently rub his head, then carefully pick up his offering, “Oh, it’s a fish. Did you find dinner for us, pal?”

Noir releases a happy yip, and you laugh softly, “Good job, Noir.” You stand and carry the fish over to the rough kitchen to divvy up the portions. Most of the fish will go to Noir, while you’ll prepare your portion with some seasoning that the Wookies traded with you.

Three months ago, Noir slaughtered an Imperial Officer who threatened your life. You’ve always known that he is fiercely protective of you, and you knew that there was a chance that he would kill again if you were threatened.

The first time it happened you had still been a child. Your uncle tried to kidnap you, and Noir reacted violently. 

That time, the authorities just nodded and said it made sense, that your uncle had bad intentions. Neither you, nor Noir, were punished for the death of your uncle.

The Empire is much less understanding.

You had no choice but to take Noir and flee from Coruscant.

The pair of you bounced from planet to planet for several months and then were offered a safe house on Kashyyyk, in the Shadowlands far below the treetop homes of the Wookie people.

It’s not easy.

You are, at your heart, a city girl. Hunting and survival skills do not come naturally to you. Luckily, you have Noir. He really is the greatest equalizer.

If not for him, you’d have died several times since you moved into the small hut.

The biggest downside to this whole situation is the knowledge that you’re not likely to ever meet your soul mate.

Well, unless your soulmate is a Wookie, you suppose.

Carefully, you fillet the fish on your cutting board and toss the large majority into Noir’s bowl, the rest is set in a bowl of marinade and shoved into the fridge. 

At least you have electricity. 

Sure, you don’t have a holo, but you do have a radio that allows you to keep up to date on the current events, and, much more importantly, listen to books while you fight to keep the Shadowlands from reclaiming the hut.

You’re about to flip the radio on, when Noir releases a low growl.

A growl low enough that your hair stands on end.

You turn your gaze to Noir and see that his ears are flat against his head and his teeth are bared. Spooked, you reach for your belt and grab your blaster, and then you nudge the door open.

Noir slinks out of the hut and, cautiously, you follow him.

The forest is silent. Eerily silent. 

You scan the forest around you, not that you expect to be able to see or hear anything. It’s enough that Noir is still growling as though he’s on the verge of attacking.

There’s a rustle in a bush, and you lift your blaster, only to lower it as a small, curious-looking creature ambles out. It’s red, black, and white, and you’d almost think it was a raccoon if not for the colors.

Noir is still growling like there’s a threat, but he’s ignoring the small creature, which is still ambling towards you. It stops at your feet and raises on its hind legs, and you crouch to get a better look at it.

When Noir first appeared in your bedroom all those years ago, no one was sure what kind of animal he was. Not even the zoologists at the local university were able to determine a species.

So you spent a lot of time as a child flipping through various animal encyclopedias. And, while you’d never claim that you had a perfect memory, this little creature does look familiar.

“You’re a Red Panda, aren’t you?” You murmur as you lightly stroke the soft fur on top of her head, “Your kind isn’t native to Kashyyyk, how did you get here?” What’s more is that she’s soft, as though someone’s been taking care of her, though based on the scarring around her ankles, she’s been chained up a lot. “Are you someone’s pet?”

The red panda climbs into your arms and promptly falls asleep, nuzzling her face into your neck. “Well, you’ve clearly been socialized. Maybe I can do something about the scarring.”

Your head snaps up as there’s more rustling and Noir’s growl lowers.

Five Stormtroopers stumble into the clearing, “There it is!” One of them says as he points at the Red Panda in your arms, “Get it!”

You stumble backward as they lift their blasters and Noir launches himself at the Stormtroopers. 

You’ve always known that Noir was quick. Quick and with a strong bite, but the last time you’ve seen him move this quickly was when you were a child. He manages to kill three of the Stormtroopers before they recognize that he’s a threat.

The fourth and fifth, however, turn their blasters on him.

And, for a moment, you think that you’re going to watch Noir die. 

You only think that for a moment, as another man emerges from the forest. He’s clad in black armor, much unlike the stark white armor of the Stormtroopers. And you watch as he uses a blade to kill one of the Stormtroopers from behind. 

You watch as he and Noir work in concert to kill the last of the Stormtroopers.

And then you watch as Noir jumps up on the man, his tail wagging faster than you’ve ever seen before. The armored man seems surprised at how friendly Noir is, and, to be honest, you are too.

He’s so friendly with the armored man, in fact, that you can’t help but think that Noir is the representation of said armored man.

“Noir,” You say, drawing the attention of both the wild dog and the armored man, “His name is Noir.”

It’s kind of hard to read him, seeing as he’s wearing a helmet, but you’re pretty sure that he’s staring at you. “Ka’ra.” He gestures to the red panda in your arms, “She’s been a prisoner her whole life.”

“That explains the scarring,” You walk over to him and pass him his spirit animal, a small smile crossing your face as Noir drops to his paws and bounces around you. “I have some medical stuff, to wrap her scars if you want.”

He’s quiet for a long time, and then nods once, “I’d appreciate that.”

You lead him into the hut, and motion for him to take a seat anywhere while you dig around for the first aid kit.

Once you find it, you set it on the table and open it to dig through what you have left. “You know, you don’t have to leave your helmet on.” You note lightly, “This is a pretty safe place.”

The man hesitates for a moment, then he nods once and reaches up to pull off his helmet. 

You’re genuinely surprised to see that he’s a clone. He looks like every other clone you’ve ever seen, dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin…though he does have some nasty scarring along the side of his face.

He’s handsome, you decide as you focus back on your medkit. He kind of looks like Noir, if you squint.

Though, now you have to wonder if you look like his Ka’ra.

“Ah, here we go!” You pull several rolls of bandages from the bottom of the kit and some scar powder. “If I remember correctly, this needs to be added to water, and then the bandages need to soak in it for a bit before we apply them—” You mumble under your breath as you flip the bottle and squint at the instructions.

“What’s your name?” The man asks.

You glance at him and introduce yourself absently, before you squint at the directions again, “What’s yours?”

“...CX-2.”

You pause, “Well, it’s nice to meet you. I’ve never actually met another person with a soul animal before.”

“It’s rare, then?”

“One of the rarest soul bonds.” You agree, “The only one that’s more rare is the teleportation one.” You stand to grab a clean bowl and fill it with water before placing it on the table.

“I have a brother with the teleportation soul bond. He vanished one day, never saw him again.” CX replies as he watches you.

“Well, there are a lot of you.” You reply as you add some of the powder to the water and stir it in.

He doesn’t answer for a moment, “What is a human doing on Kashyyyk?”

“Ah…well.” You pause, “Noir killed an Imperial Officer who threatened me.”

CX stares at you for a long time, and then his lips curl up into an amused smile, “Good.”

You shoot him a puzzled look.

“He’s as protective of you as I would be.”

“Yeah, well…he is representative of you, right?” You reply with a small shrug.

“I didn’t expect you to be so calm about it,” CX notes, “You do realize that I’m an assassin, right?”

You start unrolling a roll of bandages, “When I was about eleven years old,” You say quietly, “My uncle tried to kidnap me from my bedroom. Noir,” You nod at the wild dog who is gnawing on a bone, “ripped his throat out before he got me out of the living room.” You look at him, “Why should I be afraid of you?”

CX looks startled for a moment, and then a quiet laugh falls from his lips, “I suppose you have good reason to not be afraid.”

You shrug, “I would prefer it if you didn’t assassinate people anymore, but I’d also prefer to not live in a hut on Kashyyyk, so—” You shrug again, and finally drop the bandages into the water.

“What would you have me do instead?”

“Mm, you can join the Rebellion?”

“Ick.”

A laugh falls from you, “I mean when the Republic was still standing, I never had to worry about Republic Officers threatening me. Within a month of the Republic turning into an Empire, I was threatened by an Imperial Officer.”

“...I suppose that it fair.”

“I’m not going to make you do anything,” You say lightly, “We can stay here if you prefer.”

“We?”

“Well, I assume that you want to stay with me?”

CX gazes at you silently, “I want you safe. So staying does make the most sense.”

You meet his gaze evenly, “I’ll definitely be safer with you, compared to away from you.” You agree.

CX is silent for a long moment, “Mandalore.”

“Beg pardon?”

“There’s a group of former Commandos who have a compound on Mandalore. They’re housing clones and their families.” He explains, “We’ll be safe there.”

“How do you know that?”

“All of the Clones know it.” He says, “Well, save for Alpha Prime, I suppose.”

“How are we supposed to get there?” You ask with a tilt of your head.

“I have a ship.”

You grin at him, and then pull the bandages out of the water, “I think it’s a great idea.”

It takes three weeks for you and CX to get to Mandalore, and it takes even longer for CX to prove that he’s not an active threat to his brothers. You’re not able to help with that, but watching him interact with you does a lot to earn him some goodwill.

You like your new home, it’s not Coruscant, but there is plenty of room for Noir to run around and get spoiled, and he does get spoiled. Not quite as much as CX’s Ka’ra, but pretty close. 

Surprisingly, CX is somewhat clingy. When he’s in the same area as you, his arms are around you, or his hand is in yours. You kind of have the feeling that he’s a little touch starved, so you don’t mind it.

On this particular day, you’re lounging in the sun, watching Noir and Ka’ra play together, while CX is sparring with Ordo (only the Nulls aren’t hesitant about sparring with CX, which is sad, but understandable).

You enjoy watching him spar largely because he tends to spar shirtless.

You’re allowed to be a simple woman when it comes to your soulmate, right?

“Watching them again?” A familiar voice pulls you out of your musing, and you tilt your head back to look up at the familiar man approaching you. “You could join them.”

“Hardly, if Ordo so much as scratched me, both Noir and CX would rip him to shreds.” You pat the ground next to you, “Have a seat, Tech. No need to hover.”

“He still wishes to be called CX?” Tech asks as he sinks to the ground next to you.

“It’s his choice.” You reply easily, “How was your physical therapy?”

“Painful,” Tech replies, matter-of-factly, “However, my healer believes that I am getting to the point where I will no longer need to see them.”

“That’s something. Are you thinking of reaching out to your brothers? Or your soulmate?”

“I am…unsure.”

“Oh?”

“I died.” He says bluntly, wincing as CX manages to flip Ordo onto his back, “I died, and my soul bond is weaker than it was before.”

“I assume your doctor has an opinion on that.”

“Of course. He says that I just need to reach out to Phee.”

“Why haven’t you?”

Tech anxiously adjusts his glasses, “What if she has found someone else?”

“Do you really think that she would?”

“...she is a beautiful and clever woman. Any man would be lucky to have her—” Tech starts.

“You’re borrowing trouble, Tech. You need to call her.”

Tech opens his mouth to reply but stops as CX jogs over.

You smile up at him adoringly, and offer him his water bottle, “Having fun, love?”

He smirks, “Ordo is bitching because I managed to flip him. So we’re having a round two.”

“Of course you are.”

He flashes a tiny grin at you and crouches so he’s able to kiss you quickly before he jogs back over to the sparring ring. His training was so different from his brothers, you can tell based on the scars covering his body, and based on the fact that he’s not quite as solid as Ordo and the other Nulls.

Not that any of that matters to you.

You love him as he is.

“It does not make sense to me how someone as kind as you ended up with someone like him,” Tech admits, “He intimidates everyone, and lashes out when pushed.”

“I’ve never been afraid of him.” You reply with a small grin, “Even when he killed someone in front of me, even when he loses his temper.”

Tech shakes his head, “I believe I understand.”

You tilt your head curiously.

“You are just as insane as he is.”

You aren’t able to help that laughter that bursts from your lips, “I suppose,” You say through your giggles, “that’s one way to view it.”

Tech flashes a crooked smile at you, and then gets back to his feet, “I am going to go send Phee a message, and hope that she forgives me. Enjoy your ogling.”

You fling a handful of grass at him but don’t deny his accusations. 

The spar ends an hour later after it gets too hot for them to continue, and CX makes his way to your side, dropping onto the ground next to you. Immediately his arms slide around your waist and he presses his face against your neck.

“Did you have fun?” You ask as you card your fingers through his curls. 

He hums in response, his arms tightening around you, “I’m glad that you don’t mind coming to these.”

“I enjoy watching you spar.”

He pulls his face away from your neck, “You enjoy watching me do anything.” 

“You are ridiculously handsome.” You shift in his grip slightly so you’re able to press your hands against his cheeks, “I’m a lucky lady.”

“Mm, is that right?” CX asks as he leans in and presses his forehead against yours.

“You’re all sweaty,” You whisper to him. 

“So maybe we should go home,” He offers with an arched brow, “You can wash my hair for me.”

A giggle falls from your lips, “Deal.”

CX grins at you, and crashes his lips against yours, knocking you back onto the grass.

Everything isn’t perfect, CX still needs gene therapy to remove the enhanced aging, not to mention regular therapy to help deal with all of his issues. But so long as you’re together, everything will be fine.

You won’t allow for anything else.

[geraltofriviacollection]

Chapter Six

Paring: Geralt x Reader

Summary: Reader is thrown into the Witcher’s world. Will she survive? Eventual smut may come about😉

A/N: This is the first part in a series. I have not edited or proofread. Please do not repost, translate or copy my work without permission. Please leave comments! ❤️

Things seem to settle into a routine. Ciri spends most of her days training with Geralt when she’s not watching me train with Vesemir. I can hold a steady orb of energy and bring it forth with ease. Tapping into the power I had the night I killed Eskel……

The knot in my stomach tightens watching Ciri train. I fear Geralt may not be enough to pull her back from the edge. Seeing her on the obstacle course makes me nervous. Watching her fall off and stand back up in pain makes me proud of her endurance. Geralt walks with her disappearing into the keep. 

A short time later I start to enter the room where Geralt is bandaging her up but ciri comes flying from the room like a bat out of hell. I start to ask if she’s alright but before the words have left she is already far down the hall. 

I turn going into the room and see Geralt kneeling by the bed and he sighs. “Do I want to know what that whole thing was about?” I ask walking further into the room.  He sighs again at my question. “So I am going to take a shot in the dark and guess that you tried to show that you care by imparting a valuable lesson and ended up saying something stupid with all 10 words you use. Did I miss something?” I challenge. 

“Must you always be like this? Such a pain in my ass.” He growls.

“Well I haven’t made any plans on changing but we shall see where the day takes us. Now spill, what did you say to her?” I ask to get back to the point. 

He looks at me for another moment before sighing and moving to sit on the bed. “I told her that she is not a Witcher and that great fighters all end up dead in the end.” He explains looking up at me. This time it's my turn to sigh. “I only told her the truth.”

“Next time less truth would be good.” I say moving to sit next to him I gently place my hand on his as he doesn’t move it from mine. “You may have told her the truth but you also managed to tell her that you don’t believe she can do it.” I told him. 

“I do believe that she will die if she doesn’t understand she isn’t a Witcher. I will not have her die to prove a point.” He says. 

“Geralt, She has lost everything she has ever known in a matter of months. She is trying to figure out her new place in this world. This is not Ciri proving a point, this is Ciri figuring out who she is again. Our job is to keep her safe while she does that. We won’t let anything happen to her. You just need to learn how to be a tiny bit softer with her.” I tell him. He sighs and squeezes my hand. “Now my next piece of advice is that you go and maybe try to talk to her again.”

A few days later I wake up with a strange pit in my stomach like something is about to change. Almost like smelling the wind before rain. In the afternoon I’m still with Vesemir practicing. I’ve learned how to throw balls of energy in my hands at a target. However my aim still has much to be desired so hitting the target is not going well. 

“Lass, I don’t think I have ever seen someone so bad at something.” He frowns at me stroking a hand down his face. 

“You say that and yet I know how you feel when Everard tries to cook a meal.” I joke wiping sweat from my brow. He laughs as he hands me water. I hop up on one of the benches in the lab. “Ves?”

“I thought we agreed that name would not be spoken aloud again.” He mumbles working on something next to me. 

“I agreed not to speak that name aloud in front of others, since I am your new favorite you have agreed to indulge me.” I grin at him. He rolls his eyes at me. 

“What is it you want to know, Lass?” He smirks. 

“Why aren’t there any woman Witcher’s?” The question hangs in the air before he responds. 

“Over the years since the Witchers came to be, women have been put in the trials. Not a single one of them have survived. Deglan believed it had something to do with the-“ 

I tense as I feel something in the air has shifted. 

“What is it, Lass?” Vesesmir interrupts himself. 

“I don’t know. Something has shifted. I can’t tell much more than that.” I stumble through my explanation. Vesemir comes in front of me and tilts my head side to side. Just then my stomach rumbles quite loudly. He smiles. 

“I think we may have found the problem.” He laughs. We walked down to the great hall only to find Lambert there. Vesemir walks over to talk to him and I naturally go in the other direction considering…. Well everything.

The door opens and Ciri comes in first with a red headed woman behind her and Geralt coming in last. She looks familiar and very pretty. I can seem to place her name. 

“I brought dinner," he says with a dead boar on his shoulders. The rumbling in my stomach halts like a foot slamming in the brakes looking at that thing. A very familiar feeling arises down south the longer I look at Geralt holding that boar. 

“More than that.” Vesemir says breaking my creepy stare and He glances over at me before turning back to the woman. “My child, what a surprise.” He walks to her and she kisses his cheek hello. 

“Oh hell, haven’t even had my fill of grog yet and ,already the women are tripling.” Lambert says. “Merigold.”

“Lambert, I see your wounds have improved but your manners have not.” Light laughter fills the air. 

“I wish you had come sooner. We all could have used you.” Vesemir says to her. Sorrow and guilt make my throat and chest tighten. 

“Hopefully, we still can.” Geralt says, turning to look at me. I’m not at all fond of that problematic transition. Her eyes follow his and she sees me standing there. Ciri sees me for the first time and comes to join me at my side. I smile down at her before looking back up at Geralt and my eyes move back to the red headed woman. 

“I’m Triss. Geralt has told me about you on our walk here.” She smiles at me. I smile back at her. 

“I imagine it couldn’t have been very much, considering that he mainly communicates in grunts.” Ciri and Tris chuckle. 

“I think I might like her.” Tris says, looking at Geralt and them me. He rolls his eyes with a slight uptick in my mouth. “It’s very nice to meet you.” She smiles again at me. “I’ll go and dress for dinner. I assume you’ll want to wash up as well?” She says to everyone. Chuckles go around again. She takes that as a no before leaving the room. 

Ciri takes a seat. “So, How do you know her?” She ask Geralt. He sighs and I smirk before intervening. 

“I'm sure he will tell you all about it after you have washed up.” I tell her. She gives me a look that calls bullshit. “Okay maybe not but that does not change the fact that if you sit here much longer you might smell worse than that boar.” Ciri grunts in discontentment before leaving the room as well.  “You know she gets that from you.” I smirk at him. He rolls his eyes again before walking off leaving me. 

Dinner with Triss is a rather uneventful occasion. I learned enough to know that I like having another female in the keep. Even though we are still woefully outnumbered, the energy has shifted into peaceful uncertainty. Something still feels like teetering on the edge of chaos like a shoe waiting to fall.

I leave the table first, stealing myself away to the armory. I stay there practicing controlling this power to avoid sleeping. The nightmares for killing Eskel haunt me when I close my eyes. Watching the life drain from him is the only part that seems to be crystal clear in my memory. My only hope at night is to push myself hard enough to have dreamless sleep.

 My fear of dreaming is not the only thing that keeps me awake at night. The longer I stay the more I have begun to feel some of my memories of the storyline fade. Not big things but smaller details. I can’t help but to feel purposeful. 

It’s late into the night by the time I leave to head to my room. I am about to turn the corner when I hear voices across the way. 

“If it’s up to me, everyone will know their names.Perhaps  they can live on in our memories. Perhaps something more.” I recognize Triss speaking. “You witchers pretend not to have emotions, but you do. I know you feel it too. All of it. Normal love, normal hatred,normal pain, normal fear and regret, normal joy and normal sadness.” I peak around the corner and across the courtyard I see Triss taking Geralt's hand in hers. “Stay with me tonight.” She says. Geralt starts to talk but Triss cuts him off. “Only stay. Let’s not be alone.” she says. 

‘Nope, don’t like that.’ I think to myself watching this unfold in front of me. I try to suppress my inner psychotic dialogue and try to attempt being reasonable. Geralt probably is lonely and Triss is sad and beautiful. Maybe he should take her up on her offer… Yeah fuck that I’m still not liking it. Just as I’m about to run over to break up whatever the hell this is, Geralt takes his hand from Triss. 

“I’m sorry.” Geralt says before walking away from her. Triss stands there a moment before walking away. I let out a sigh of relief when I heard a voice behind me and nearly hit the ceiling at the abrupt sound. 

“So are you going to tell him?” Vesemir ask once I have calmed down from my near heart attack. 

“Damn it Ves! I almost woke up the whole keep with you coming behind me like that.” I whisper yell at him. 

“From the looks of it you were about to wake the keep by fighting one of the best mages I know.” He said teasingly. 

“I don’t know what you're talking about, old man.” I say lying like a rug through my teeth and starting to turn back around. 

“You and I both know you have feelings for him. I think he might return them if you tell him.” He says, causing me to pause. I nod my head before going to my room.

The next morning I leave the keep on Roach to find a berry patch. I’ve managed to half way fill the basket when I feel the string between ciri and I tighten. The feeling travels through me so abruptly I drop my basket berries and the glow starts. I leave the basket and mount Roach and we rush back to the keep. When we finally make it back I push the reins into Lambert's hand rushing in not even hearing what he says.  I run through the halls and find her in her bed. Geralt standing next to her and Triss sitting on the edge of her bed. 

“I felt it. What happened?” I ask them but panting. 

“She went into some weird trance and passed out a second later.” Geralt explains. 

“What do you mean you felt it?” Triss asks me. 

“How long has she been like this?” I hiss looking between Geralt and Triss.

“Not long.” He tells me. I lean down and the second my hand brushes her cheek her eyes open and I jump a bit at the movement. 

“Cirilla” Geralt calls out to her moving closer. I back up and give her room to sit up. “

“I’m fine. I’m fine.” she repeats covering her face with her hands. Geralt looks at Triss before looking between Ciri and I. 

“Ciri, look at me.” I say to her firmly but gently. “You need to tell us what happened.” I say moving to wrap an arm around her. She leans into me but stays quiet. Geralt comes even closer. 

“You are brave. But let us help.” He says looking at her. She finally moves her hands from her face. 

“All right.” She sighs. “When the black Knight captured me..I was scared. I screamed. 

And that’s when the monolith cracked and fell.” She pauses and looks up at Geralt. “I toppled it.” I hugged her closer to me. I can feel the way she trembles as I hold her. 

“How can that be?” Triss ask looking at Geralt. 

“I don’t know.” Geralt replies. “I need to see it for myself.”

“I really didn’t mean to do it, Geralt.” She says pulling away from me and I can see the tears in her eyes. My chest tightens at the sight. “And if these monsters are my fault…” She trails off looking at me.

“Ciri, Nobody blames you. It was an accident.” I tell her pulling her back to me and she fully sinks in my embrace. A lone tear streaks down her pale face. 

“It’s alright. We’ll fix it.” Geralt says placing a hand on her arm not cuddled into me. She nodded her head before closing her eyes as a few more tears fall. I look up at Geralt and the look on his face tell me we need to talk. He walks out of the room. 

Tris leaves shortly after. Ciri and I sit together until the trembling stops and the tears have dried. I stay until her breathing has evened out and her eyes have closed. I pull away from her as gently as I can so I don’t wake her. 

I leave Ciri to find Geralt only to overhear another somewhat intimate conversation. 

“You are important to me, Triss. You always will be.” He says. I decide that is a good time to make my entrance because well I have heard enough of that. 

“Care to fill me in on what you plan is big guy?” I ask him walking in and effectively smashing whatever fucking vibe was just in the air.

“You’re going to Cintra.” Vesemir says, rounding the corner behind Geralt. 

“Cintra?” I question.

“You said you’d never go back there.” Vesemir says to Geralt.

“Cintra holds the answers that I need.” He says, looking at me. “Besides, no Witcher has died of old age lying in his bed dictating his will. I have a girl to protect. I can’t just stay here.”

“I have a friend who studies monoliths. I can portal you to him.” Triss offers. 

“Portals are no fun.” Is all Geralt says. 

“Do you think you could excuse us for a moment?” I ask looking at Vesemir and Triss. They both nod before leaving us. “How long will you be gone?” I ask him.

“Not long enough that you will not be annoyed with all my grunting when I come back.” He says with a slight uptick in his smile as he takes a couple of steps closer to me. 

“Under different circumstances I might not mind your grunting so much.” The words fly out of my mouth before I can catch them. I feel my face get hot. I take a look at Geralt to find an amused sort of smirky smile on his face. “I mean I wanted an answer in hours to days.”

Geralt is close enough that I can feel his body heat as he looks down at me. “A few days. Less than a week.” He says softly.

@freegardenbanananeck

[shirohige-pirates]

A Truly Mythological Christmas

Cisfem!Reader x Marco the Phoenix

Also on Wattpad // Ao3

18+ - this story is going to get steamy in ways not allowed for your holiday Lifetime specials. Swearing, cheating, assassins, intrigue - you know, all that simple small town stuff.

Chapter 13: Ice Cold

“I can’t sign that severance package.” You tell Katakuri on the phone the next day. He called right after breakfast had wrapped up and you had to leave the boys to Dadan. “The monetary parts are fantastic, but the NDAs, the limitations on what was a personal matter, are just straight up deal breakers. I can’t sign something that limits talking about my own life.”

“I’m not surprised.” He sighs. “But negotiating something different isn’t going to be easy. Mama’s declared this is a slight against the family, and isn’t being reasonable. I’m still trying to reach out to some contacts and see what I can line you up with, but your only options at this point are to come back to work after your vacation, and face pressure I won’t be able to protect you from.” He admits with a sigh.

“Or resign.” 

You sigh in turn, sitting down on the couch. “Yeah… Fuck.”

Getting the news from Katakuri meant it wasn’t going to be covered in bullshit, and false honeyed words, but it didn’t make the truth of it all any easier. The possibility of salvaging your position at the company had already been an impossibility, but now you needed enough control of your future prospects to not have to actually retire. 

And without the severance package, you would have to come back to Sphinx permanently, or at least while you spent what would probably be a couple years looking for a comparable job on your own.

“The good news, if it can be called that, is that we cannot fire you.” Katakuri says. “Mama’s been pushing for it, but there’s nothing for us to work with. Your performance reports are stellar, your attendance, your reviews, even your social media presence doesn’t give her any room.”

“Good to know my stellar track record still makes me less valuable than her son.” You grumble and you hear Katakuri snort. It’s as close as he is to get to laughing, especially in this situation.

“Hang in there Miss Curly,” he says warmly. “We’ll get it to work out by the new year.”

“With you in my corner, I don’t doubt that.” You agree, feeling at least a little better. You might not end up with the outcome that you wanted, but you won’t be job hunting almost endlessly with his support.

“Hey… I…” You make an odd sound as you chew on what you’re about to say, Kata waits patiently, in his experience letting you have an extra second always works out for the best. “This is going to sound insane.”

“I fear whatever you say may be uncomfortably sane, Miss Curly.” He says assuringly.

You grunt. “I’ve recently learned that your mother once had, we’ll say, less than savory connections. I say this because I’m good friends with Edward Newgate’s sons, and that’s how I heard about it.”

“… Ah.” Katakuri’s tone is much heavier. “He and my mother did run in similar circles at one point. It’s been a while since I’ve seen any of the Edward children.”

“Let me tell you another story then, one that can’t possibly be connected.” You say, and then tell Katakuri about the wild adventure you had with your three little brothers yesterday. When you finish the breakdown of events there’s a heavy silence from him.

After a moment he sighs. “Miss Curly, I have to ask, because I don’t know, but is pinky meat a delicacy of some sort?”

“It’s barely fit for survival food.” You balk at the idea of eating it. Once was enough, and that was a dare. “But it is a massive powder pink bird, and it’s not impossible to think someone who didn’t know better would want to bring one down.”

“Alright. I’m going to look into things on my end and I’ll get back to you. Hopefully the next time we chat I’ll have some good news for you.”

“Thanks boss, I appreciate everything, no matter how it turns out.”

“Mm, have a good day, Miss Curly.”

“You as well, Mr. Charlotte.”

Hanging up the phone you lean back and see Dadan looking down at you. “Would you eat pinky meat?”

She grunts. “I think I’d rather eat my own leg.” Pinky meat was pretty bad, but you didn’t know that you’d agree to that extent.

“Where are the boys today?” you question, changing the subject. 

“Off at the school, you were deep into your conversation with your boss and I told ‘em to leave you be.”

“Oh right, school.” You had just about forgotten about the whole concept of grade school. Dadan walks around the couch and comes over to sit in her recliner. “I’m going to be out of your hair in the afternoons, so you can have a little peace and quiet.”

“What’re you up to?”

“Gonna help out at the store.” You admit, hiding your gaze in the cup of coffee she’d handed you.

“Need the wagon?”

“Nah, it’s not that much of a walk.” You assert. “If I need a ride home I’ll give you a call, I should be back for dinner.”

“If you need a ride home it’ll be because someone nicked that SEL.” Dadan grunts and you can’t disagree.

“Yeah, yeah.” You grumble half-heartedly. 

You and Dadan don’t do much between breakfast and Lunch, letting the early morning be as slow and as lazy as possible. With yesterday’s excitement you were glad for it, and it was nice to have time to relax before going to the store. Considering how “on” you had been since you first got here, it was honestly just nice to have a lazy morning on its own.

Once you’re done with an early lunch you head out, a wave to Dadan as you set off down the driveway. Leggings under your slacks kept you warm, and the simple button up shirt you were wearing would keep you from overheating inside the store. In the meantime the wool-lined winter coat did enough to keep you warm. 

It’d have to storm, and you’d have to be stuck in it for an hour, before you’d be worried about the weather.

You: omw

Marco: Coming in a little earlier than expected?

You: Nah, walking. I’ll be there on time.

Marco: Be careful, there’s a few hunting groups in town, but we aren’t sure which ones were trying to tag that pinky.

You: the closest thing to a gunshot inside the town limits has been mom’s wagon.

Marco: Just be careful, little warrior.

You: <3 

Tucking your phone away you pick up the pace a little bit. It’s getting colder pretty fast, and with snow scheduled for tomorrow, it was lining up to be a nice white winter. But that also meant that the afternoon sun might not be enough to make the walk to the store pleasant, good wool-lined coat or not.

It’ll be nice however, to enjoy a proper snow-covered Christmas. It wasn’t really something that happened in the city. Even if you went to one of the parks there were so many people around that there weren’t just big tracts of undisturbed snow. The cold was still a part of it, and being able to watch your breath rise up into the air, or how the frost glimmered when it coated things, but that just felt like it was teasing you.

You weren’t surprised to see Marco when you reached the general store. He was carrying some bags for a lady who was, herself, carrying a small child. He put the bags in the back of the car while she got her kid settled in, and then gave you a wave as you caught up to him.

Bidding farewell to the customer, he steps away from her car, walking slow enough that you catch up easily.

“Ah that small town service,” you beam, falling in step with him.

“Ah that little bit of guilt trip from a lady who wants to leave her husband, yoi.” Marco mutters and your eyebrows nearly disappear into your hairline.

“Home wrecker,” you tease, elbowing him in the ribs a little.

“I’m precisely the opposite, yoi.” He grumbles.

“You’re just too smooth, you needed to retain some of that goofy-shit!” Your feet slip out from under you from ice you hadn’t seen against the blacktop of the parking lot. You reach out for Marco and He gets your arm, but the angle is awkward, and after a brief pause you shift inside your coat and sit hard on the ground.

There’s a loud POP! when you land and you stay seated for a moment, eyes closed before you let out a sigh.

“You alright, pretty bird?” He questions. You expected more of a teasing tone, but he sounds legitimately concerned.

“I am.” You admit, standing up with a little bit of help. “I’m just hoping that sound was the ice, and not my phone.” You clarify, pulling your phone out of your back pocket. The screen’s not cracked, and the face lights up when you turn it on.

“Well, aside from my pride, everything seems good.” You admit with a good natured sigh.

The two of you head into the store and after getting your things tucked away in his office, Marco takes you out onto the floor and gives you the run down of what’s needed. Most of it is straight forward, just putting things back where they go. People will often trade one brand for another, and sometimes trade out seemingly unrelated foods.

Non-perishables go back to where they belong, as does produce, unless they’re visibly damaged. Anything frozen or meats that aren’t cold anymore just go into waste. If you’re unsure better to pitch it than risk it, as far as Marco’s concerned. It was simple enough.

The first hour goes by with little concern, but your earlier poor luck seems to be rubbing off on the people around you today.

“Whoa!”

“Steady!” 

A heavy crash from the other side of the aisle shakes the shelves you’re working on causing you to take a quick step back in case anything fell. The first voice wasn’t familiar to you, but the second voice was Marco’s. The impact against the shelves gave you a new appreciation for how sturdy they were.

“You okay over there?” You question, looking up and down the aisle to see if anything fell.

“Yeah,” Marco’s voice sounds strained, but he continues and sounds fine. “Poor guy saw his life flash before his eyes for a second there, yoi.”

You hear a nervous chuckle from the other voice. “Sure seems so, thanks buddy.”

“Everything good over there?” Marco asks.

“Yeah, nothing fell.”

“Good, I’m going to ring this guy up, if you want to tidy up over here next.”

You grin at the professional tone. Well, you did tell him to behave while you were helping, so you can’t complain.

“Sure thing, boss.” You hum. You catch sight of Marco and the other guy, a shorter blonde in a baseball cap and a pilot’s jacket. Something about Marco’s grip on the man’s shoulder looked a little awkward, but he was smiling. Something about the other man left you with the distinct impression he said things like “Golly gosh” and “aw shucks”.

Coming around to the other aisle you see the aftermath of the impact. The Christmas tree shaped cone of soups that had been set up was caved in, and a few cans were in the aisle itself. The nearby shelves were in disarray, but not too bad. At least nothing had punctured and was leaking soup concentrate on the floor.

You set about the tedious task of tidying up, and boy Marco was not kidding. Organizing shelves like this was dull work, spacing out was about the only way to really make the time go by, unless there was someone around to talk to. Marco had been busy with customers, even with all cashiers on hand and two stockers it was still a lot. 

They were still working through lines four customers deep when you came in, and you didn’t even think that many people even lived in Sphinx.

Though the town had almost doubled in the last couple years, according to Dadan. More jobs from the tourists, more homes for the people who were working those jobs, and the number of bed and breakfasts were still going up, so it was likely the town’s expansion would continue for a while longer at least. Just slow and steady enough that the small town could adjust to it.

“Doing alright, pretty bird?” Marco asks, coming up behind you and adjusting some items on the top shelf.

“You weren’t wrong, it’s dull work, but I’m happy to be helping.” You admit. “Everything okay with the clumsy guy?”

“Yeah. Gave him a hefty discount to keep it from becoming a headache in the middle of the season.” He says, leaning down and kissing your cheek. “Let me know if you need a change of pace, yoi.”

“I’m good still,” you assure him, smacking his arm lightly. “I said behave.”

“I made no promises,” he retorts with a wink.

“You made minimal promises.” You correct, and he kisses you on the other cheek.

“Considering I’m doing the minimum of what I’d rather be doing, I’d say I’m doing exceptionally well.” His voice is low and right by your ear when he says it and you can feel the heat rush up to your face.

A soft squeeze of your arm and he leaves you in the aisle again, off to check on his cashiers. 

This time when your mind wanders, it’s thinking about the warmth of his hand traveling down your arms. The heat of his body at your back. 

Not just his body, but the warmth of that need.

That desire.

You’d only ever seen Marco angry once, really angry, and that had been when him and Thatch had pulled Teach off you. Both boys were full of rage, where Thatch would show the same level of energy while watching a sport on TV, Marco just didn’t. He wasn’t apathetic by any stretch, but even when he was a dorky kid he was pretty mild, and even-tempered.

Understanding, and supportive…

You shake your head and focus back on the task at hand. You were not going to have a moment of existential clarity in the soup aisle of Pops’ Stop. 

Despite that desire, your mind wandered right where it damn well pleased.

“This is embarrassing.” Marco mutters, face buried against the back of your shoulder as you carry him.

“There’s nothing embarrassing about being carried by a friend.” You huff.

“Everyone else can cross the stupid log, yoi.”

“You’re just afraid of falling,” you point out.

“That doesn’t stop me from falling.” He pouts.

“Then why be afraid of it?” You hum, it was the advice Mama Dadan had given you, and it seems to have worked. “If it’s gonna happen either way, there’s no need to worry about it.”

“It’s not the falling part that-.” Marco stops and sighs. “Thanks for carrying me across.” 

You let go as Marco sets a tender foot on the dirt path. “It’s not me carrying you that bugs you, is it?”

“Huh?”

“I mean like… I don’t mind carrying you. It doesn’t bother me, but I know a boy being carried by a gi-.”

“That’s not it.” He interrupts, putting his hands over his ears cause he knows they’re turning red and you’ll pick on him. “It’s cause it’s not cool to fall off the log.”

You laugh, pinching his hands so he’s not covering his ears anymore. “Why would I care about you being cool? It’s not like you gotta impress me.” 

Ah. 

Leaning your head against the shelf in front of you, you wonder for a moment if you aren’t just going to lose your mind at this rate. It’s not that you were worried about moving too, or too slow. It’s not that you weren’t willing to give it your all, or that you had misgivings about anything. You and Marco worked well together, in several different ways, you knew that. 

Right now, at this moment, it was more the fact that somehow you managed to miss all the signs for almost twenty solid years.

[bringthekaos]

I finally got around to reading Convergence and I was honestly rather disappointed with how they characterised Viktor. I know that Convergence is an AU, but still. Comparing it to his characterisation in "House on Emberflit Alley", Convergence Viktor is much more emotional - to the point that all of his major character beats are driven by emotion, he cares less about the lives of people he is supposedly trying to help with his augmentations (even being fine with them being used as cannon fodder). I couldn't see the Viktor written in Convergence helping Naph. I could see Convergence Viktor actually replacing Naph's head with a metal one, instead of shrugging off the wild imaginations of people who fear change. Convergence Viktor is simultaneously less true to who the Machine Herald is meant to be, and truer to the horror stories that Fisher folk tell their kids to make them behave. It's sad seeing him get done like that.

Oh, you’re not alone there. I don’t think any of us were real happy about how dirty they did Viktor in Convergence. Just kinda seemed like they needed a completely morally bankrupt villain, and they molded Viktor to fit the bill. It just kinda… gave us all whiplash. Like, since his LoL release, they’ve retconned him to be less of a villain and more of a tragic victim. At the base of all of his stories, he wants to help the people of Zaun—to help make their lives and their jobs easier, to make living there safer. And while yes, he does go about it wrong sometimes, gets blinders on and gets into a pattern of thinking “my way is the best way, and they will come to see that whether they like it or not.” But generally speaking, Riot has done the work of creating depth in his character. Are there holes, sometimes massive ones? Yes. It’s Riot. But he’s come a long way from the generic mad scientist they released.

And then to go and do this? Completely strip him of his motivations, his goals, and just slap him back into the role of mad scientist. It was like… ten steps backward. (And I’m not saying I didn’t like Convergence. I was honestly happy to have new Viktor content and some of the panels were memeable as FECK.) I was also glad to see the Jayce and Viktor rivalry getting new content as well (although on that front they did Jayce kinda dirty too… like, he spoke several times to Ekko about how he’d “killed” Viktor, and he just… didn’t seem to care all that much. I know comics are a different medium, and you can’t jam pack all the micro expressions into every frame like you can with animation. But still… Jayce talked about killing Viktor like it was just another banal task on a Tuesday. Come on… these two were partners for a long time. I know there’s contention now, and perhaps the care is even gone. But there are people I’ve had falling outs with that I wouldn’t give the time of fucking day to… but I don’t want them to die. I don’t want to kill them as easily as swatting a fly on the wall.)

In the end Convergence was about Ekko coming to grips with the consequences of time travel. They needed something scary, something that Ekko’s family and friends could get involved in without compromising their characters. And they chose body augments. I just feel like this story could have been told just slightly differently, and it wouldn’t have thrown both Viktor and Jayce under the bus. Like… make it Van Klegg who wanted the mind-controlling tech put into all the augments. Maybe even Viktor doesn’t know about it. And of course misunderstandings arise, conflict happens, Viktor is still painted as the villain, but he’s not, he didn’t know, but no one believes that. This route could have at least maintained a semblance of the growth Viktor’s character has made.

IDK. I don’t hate Convergence, I’m just kinda indifferent. It’s an AU, and I’m gunna treat it that way—he’s not the Viktor we know and love. Same with Jayce. So I’ll enjoy it for what it is—amazing art of my favs I can ogle when I’m starved for content between now and S2 of Arcane.

[shes-an-oddbird]

911 Lone Star Tag Game: Beginnings

(1) Which 911 Lone Star season premiere is your favorite?

Probably the season three premiere but I really liked the season two one as well. Tommy being introduced and having to get used to being back in the field. That little bit of hesitation and the discomfort with leaving the twins when she feels like they need her.

I’ve already said this but the season three premiere was just really good. A good balance of the stories, updating us on what happened over the time skip, where everyone is and reconnecting everyone throughout the episode.

(2) Which character do you think had the best introduction or first scene in the show?

I’m going to say Judd had the best introduction over the course of the 1st episode. We learn so much about him so quickly and I think the writers did a great job with it. He loses his entire house in one shot. We learn about his relationship with Grace. They give him this major conflict with Owen right off the bat and you think its going to be drawn out through the entire show but really by the end of the episode they realize they’re just not communicating well because Judd is suffering from PTSD and Owen’s dealing with his own issues but they both want to honor the old 126 and build something new.

(3) What is your favorite moment of 1x01?

My very favorite part is the interviews. They’re so much fun. It is such a quick and easy way to dump a lot of information about the characters in a short span of time and it worked well because they’re interesting characters and it sets up so much potential and if I’m being honest, a little disappointment.

First of all, Paul actually tackled a guy with a gun. I know the takeaway is supposed to be that he was able to pick the guy out in the crowd but he just, no fear, punched a guy with a gun (definitely explains why he and Marjan bonded so quickly).

Marjan doesn’t showcase enough insubordination considering it was half her interview. She says she’s allergic to poor leadership, so the takeaway is obviously that she has some respect for Owen. We do see a lot of reckless Marjan outside of work but as often as Owen acts up, I feel like we should have seen more of this side of her on calls. Also, Marjan just jumping off the pier/bridge to save someone is fantastic. Way to become the coolest character in like less than 10 seconds.

Finally, one thing I will never let go of is the fact that Mateo broke several academy records in field work. Like they brushed that off way too quickly. Even Mateo himself isn’t impressed by this fact because he can’t past the written tests. Assuming those records were in timed skills assessments like the training we see Owen and Paul go through in later episodes, why are we not actually seeing it used in the field? Maybe they could explain it away when he was a probie but he is a full-fledged firefighter now so no excuses.

Anyways the interviews were great. And TK during each interview reading over the resumes and smiling in the background. You just know he’s thinking, “I’m going to befriend you, I’m going to befriend you so much!”

(4) When did you first start watching Lone Star and how did you find out about it?

I think I started watching it somewhat inconsistently when it would come on after OG 911. It was definitely during season 2. I remember getting pulled into a few episodes and I think I finally I sat down and binge watched it in between season two and three. That’s when I got hooked. I really loved OG 911 and didn’t expect to get so much more attached to the lone star characters but I did and they’ve been living rent free in my head ever since.

(5) What is one wish you have for the season 5 premiere?

I know this is very specific but I have a very clear moment in my mind where Paul and Marjan ask TK, Nancy and Mateo who they think would make a better lieutenant and Nancy just refuses to answer because she’s a paramedic and is not qualified to say. TK attempts to get out of answering the same way and while they argue with him that he was a firefighter and could answer, Mateo just bolts and spends the rest of the episode hiding from them because he refuses to choose between them.

(Evenly distributed screentime would also be high on my wish list. I hate when an entire episode goes by and a character or worse, multiple characters only have one or two lines. I know it’s a big cast but please please please I know it can be done.)

thank you for tagging me @lonestar-s5countdown

[benmehlos]

Valedictus

Next Town Over was supposed to take five years. It took thirteen and change, and it is not an exaggeration to say when I started it I was, figuratively and literally, a different person. 

When I wrote Next Town Over I worked part time in a print shop and part time at a small game developer in what was essentially an intern level copywriting role. I was nearing 30; a perfect storm of residual 20s naivete about paying for the future and a third-life crisis about the fact that I was incredibly dissatisfied with where I was at. I didn’t intend to do Next Town Over as a webcomic; I intended it for an independent press because at the time my ideas around the legitimacy of art hinged [incorrectly] on compensation and traditional publication. I drew the first 10ish pages as part of a pitch to shop around to probably five differently small publishers, and had one taker: a brand new small press that wanted to publish it online, own 50% of it, and give me a page rate of $100/page. (A sidebar for context and transparency: these days I work quite a bit with creator-owned small publishers and in the year of our Lord 2024 I’m lucky to command $100/page; NTO less its supplementals would have paid me $41,000+ in page rates before any royalties or sales, and while $41k is a pittance it’s also probably more than I’ve made off the comic in 13 years.) But I was incredibly naive and ridiculously optimistic about its appeal and my ability to find it an audience – and in my partial defense the creative economy was in a drastically different place than it is today – and I decided that if this publisher could make enough in ad revenue, etc., publishing it as a webcomic, I could surely do it myself while retaining full ownership.

Neither of my then-jobs paid very much but at the time I lived with the person I’d marry a year later, whose job was good money and moreover good insurance.  In the shelter of that headspace I asked that then-partner what he thought of me quitting the print job to focus on cranking out Next Town Over, as a webcomic, since we were sufficiently set financially to take the risk and anyway look at all the money creatives are making off Google AdSense (put a pin in that).

He agreed to this; I slapped together a Wordpress-with-Comicpress website and scheduled those first 10 pages to drop weekly. That seemed like a more-than-doable rate at which to buffer a bunch of pages (it was; NTO’s buffer was, for awhile, a now unimaginable 20 pages). This first website did indeed have AdSense advertising (and Project Wonderful ads; remember those?), and it did indeed appear encouragingly lucrative in the early months given its newness. The comic got a few enthusiastic write ups. Kris Straub shouted it out on Chainsawsuit. I became internet friends with a bunch of other creators of similarly-scoped comics (almost none of which ultimately survived). I quit my other job, at the game studio, which didn’t seem to be going anywhere anyway.  (In the glow of this era I like to think fear I helped inspire friends to attempt their own longform comic projects in web form.)

I no longer remember or particularly care how many months into this enterprise Google killed my AdSense account for “invalid click activity”, a ruling I unsuccessfully attempted to appeal about 4 times over the years – a ruling which eventually affected almost every single creator of those similarly-scoped comics. This not only killed most of the revenue on NTO but also locked me out of earning money via Google in perpetuity; I’d go on to have YouTube videos with 750k views I could never monetize, etc.. Project Wonderful earned, but not like AdSense. Patreon was two years away. Next Town Over was now making me basically nothing.  I’d quit my Jobs for Adults because I felt called to make art and it was going about how they warn you it will, and in the absence of any kind of financial validation I was honestly feeling pretty bad about it. Full time comics was supposed to have solved the aimlessness and ennui I’d felt my whole life and it had decisively not. 

In 2011 I had a near-fatal health crisis I’ll decline to get into, but mention because the existential scare forced me to reexamine once again what I was doing, what I wanted to do, what was important to me. The answer to all of these seemed to just be “I don’t know”; I had never had a plan for or even a vision of what my future could look like. But at 30 I felt like doors were closing, and doing something was better than doing nothing. So in rapid succession I asked my partner to marry me, we had a child, and I ran a Kickstarter to collect the first four books of Next Town Over into a print edition.

With a new child it just made sense for me to continue staying home and taking care of him and the house with my ultimately flexible independent artist schedule and relatively terrible earning potential – terrible earning potential that would ultimately compound itself over a decade out of the traditional work force. 

Having a family and focusing on being a stay-at-home parent didn’t fix the ennui, the sense of estrangement from my own life. It made it worse. I assumed because I wasn’t contributing to our household financially in any kind of significant way, an item of increasing friction and resentment in my marriage. I was taking freelance work here and there, but never consistently enough to replace a real job, and of course I kept puttering away at drawing Next Town Over. 

In 2013 Patreon launched, a new paradigm in supporting creators. I was incredibly hopeful I could make enough on this new platform to meaningfully supplement our earnings and, in my thinking, thereby feel validated in what I was doing with my life. At the beginning I shared a lot of sketch and conceptual materials from NTO, a lot of worldbuilding extras and a few process videos. NTO stalwarts were quick to support me on Patreon – many of whom are still supporting me an unthinkable 10 years later, a fact I’m constantly aware of/grateful for – but my monthly support never went gangbusters in the manner promised by the early optimism of the platform (to this day my Patreon is an amount that’s been immensely helpful and allowed me to purchase, among other things, the iPad Pro that transformed my art workflow – I’ll talk about this in a Patron-exclusive, process-focused postmortem that’s yet to come – but I generally make more off a single commission or item of work for hire than I do in a month’s worth of Patreon pledges.)

I continued like this for years, mostly focused on my kid but sidelining comics and occasional work for hire. I thought for awhile maybe independent publishing was my thing, and in addition to a second crowdfunded Next Town Over collection, I curated, edited, and did two stories for a frontier fantasy anthology with some of my friends: Poor Wayfaring Strangers. It funded successfully and my friends’ contributions to it are lovely so I don’t regret making it for an instant, but it proved remarkably sales proof post-Kickstarter. 

From about 2015 onwards I was convinced the great misstep in my life was leaving the little intern level job at the game developer, because my prime hobby and favorite storytelling medium was perennially videogames, not comics, and I really was drawn to making those. I started doing more and more hobbyist game development, mostly with a partner. We did a few game jams, embarked on several too-big projects that were never completed. I became about 70% of a 2D technical artist, and started thinking maybe that was my real calling, the thing I’d neglected all this time. I started thinking when NTO wrapped, and my kid was older, that would be what I’d try to focus on before I was dead. 

In fall of 2018 I started feeling minor numbness in my fingers, which progressed pretty quickly to worse numbness, radiating up my arms and into my neck and head, eventually becoming tingling and then worsening pain. Working in a desk chair became nearly unbearable and NTO started experiencing the first chronic disruptions to its previously clockwork update schedule in almost 8 years of drawing and posting it. We spent thousands on neurologists and rheumatologists, physical therapists and acupuncturists. I had autoimmune disease symptoms including abnormal bloodwork but I was never formally diagnosed with anything. A sports medicine provider told me I had thoracic outlet syndrome and I muddled through the suggested courses of PT but saw very little improvement. My chronic low grade depression worsened tremendously; I felt like shit and moreover I felt crazy without any concrete diagnosis. I didn’t want to move and not moving made it worse. 

I made a bunch of adjustments to how I work, including overhauling my desk geometry and starting to do art more seriously on an iPad Pro (thanks Patrons!), which allowed for more flexibility in work configurations. Over a period of about 2 years the symptoms lessened and I also just got used to a baseline level of low grade neck and back pain; anyone with chronic pain can probably attest that at some point you just sort of acclimate to some background level of it and soldier on but it’s always there like a rock in your shoe, making you irritable, making you exhausted. I’d always felt like that though: irritable, exhausted, an indefinable rock in my shoe. In a way this was nothing new. It was more of the same.  

Heading into the dread 2020 I wasn’t in the best place but I was fairly comfortable, had just started a solo Unity game, was looking forward to Next Town Over’s homestretch so I could focus on my true calling. I resumed working on Patron-only comic Cutter and Ironwood, and started thinking about returning to trying to stream. I was doing more lucrative freelance work. 

But you know what 2020 was like.  

My kid and my spouse came home from school and work. My kid’s schooling was virtual for a year and change. I was banished from the office where my work/dev/streaming setup was as my spouse [needfully] took it over to work from home. Approaching its 10th anniversary, Next Town Over, which I expected to be concluding, was so decisively backburnered the usually 52-updates-a-year comic updated 21 times in 2020. Then 11 times in 2021.  As the comic slid, so did my mood. I had been almost 30 when I quit my day jobs to do NTO. Now I was almost 40. I had an 8 year old. And nothing I’d done in the intervening decade had moved the needle on my creeping discontent. If anything it was worse. 

And after the years of cloistered introspection COVID forced on everyone, at the beginning of 2022 it went critical. 

This could be its own 2500 word memoir, but the cliff notes version is at the start of 2022 I was forced to confront, agonizingly, over the course of a couple traumatic life events, some therapy, and writing the first draft of Every Hole, that The Problem With Me was that I was a trans man. It is now practically a cliché to have understood yourself as trans because of the pandemic, but annoyingly it was the Cinderella slipper that slid with irrefutable ease over the shape of my lifetime of depression and alienation. 

The good news is pretty much the moment I stopped pruning off any new growth to fit in the comfortable, unchallenging container of my previous existence, things started to turn around for me mentally. Over the course of 3 months I wrote the 115,000 word rough draft for Every Hole – a comic (a comic I’ll be eternally grateful to for its role in the Figuring Out) after years of certainty I was done with comics the second I put down Next Town Over. Unbottling my identity simultaneously uncorked my energy reservoirs for making shit – and also my functionally unexplored sexuality, and by July I’d successfully pitched an erotica short to Filthy Figments, to start running that October. Throughout 2022 I transitioned my ass off along with working on Every Hole, on Positive Feedback, on freelance art, and yes: on Next Town Over. It didn’t hit 52 updates that year but it did hit 24, the most I’d managed in years, and alongside over 60 pages of comics work elsewhere.  60 is also roughly how many pounds I lost in the process of becoming Ben; I’m now over 40 but I am also in generally the best shape I’ve been in since my 20s. This has had the knock-on effect of diminishing the still-there neck and back pain to a whisper I can almost always ignore – still more fuel for the accelerating engine of my want to make art again. 

But it did cost me my partner.

In many ways my marriage ran perfectly parallel to Next Town Over. In a tidy bookend to marrying the year after starting NTO – a comic at its core about a dysfunctional marriage – I’m divorcing in the year following finishing it. My marriage was built on a fault line, its dissolution an inevitability, but it has been slow-motion, and largely amicable. 

My future feels precarious in a way I’m not sure it ever has. But I have to admit the precarity is exciting, and unlike the first half of my life where I just sort of drifted on the current and couldn’t picture any kind of future, I can now envision not one but any number of futures for myself. I have been, and am, both Vane, riding off into the wilderness to find and forget, and John, tirelessly chasing his passion at any cost. 

When I started Next Town Over I was an aimless, childless single straight girl who could ride a horse. 13 years later I’m a middle-aged queer man and father with chronic pain and a 12 year marriage in my rearview. (I assume I can still ride a horse, but it’s been awhile.) Next Town Over was the backdrop to such an unbelievable amount of change in my life that when I think about the sum of the change that has inevitably happened in the combined lives of all of you, its readers, in that same span of time, it is nothing short of overwhelming. 

Thanks for reading, thanks for listening, for commenting, for buying the books or supporting the Patreon, for creating fan works, for retweeting updates or talking in the Discord when the Discord was active because we were all locked up hiding together from a global pandemic. Thanks for coming along. 

For many of us this will likely be where we part ways. My gratitude for those of you is undiminished; if you want a final fix of frontier fantasy and you aren’t a Patron, check out Cutter and Ironwood 0; I intended to do more with these characters and I haven’t ruled it out but it’s unlikely to happen any time soon as I am headed elsewhere, at least for awhile. Watch this space (wherever you’re reading this) if you want to know when I crowdfund a print edition of NTO #9-13, which will be the chunkiest NTO book by far.  

If you’d like to stay on, follow or subscribe to my Patreon if you aren’t already; I have just started Every Hole Book 2; Patrons of all levels get Book 1 for free or you can catch up standalone buying it off my itch.  If NTO was a comic about marriage, Every Hole is a comic about rekindling your power in midlife. I hope to not be working on it for 13 years but if I am I guess that’s fine, too. 

I hope you’re looking forward to or already living in one of any number of futures you envisioned for yourself. 

Happy trails.

Ben May 2024

[compassionatereminders]

I have GAD, clinical depression, and panic disorder. Im also pregnant and my psychiatrist has been telling me since before I was pregnant that he will not let me take Zoloft past 20 weeks “it’s too dangerous for the fetus” well im at 19 weeks, just lowered the dosage for the first time and had my first panic disorder episode in years. My OBGYN has told me she’s completely fine with me taking Zoloft the whole pregnancy and the “fears” this guy has been yelling about are rare and that my health actually needs to come before the fetus’s since my health literally directly affects the fetus. So I put my fucking foot down today and sent him a message not asking, but telling him I will not be stopping Zoloft. I may have to quickly get a new psychiatrist if he decides his campaign against psych medications (which��is a major part of his job but ok) is more important than my mental and yes PHYSICAL well-being (brain fog, eye strain, fatigue and headache today made me unable to do any of my work for my job or even basic functions to care for myself like bathing or brushing my teeth) is less important than the fetus which would not grow at all without me, but I’ve just had enough. It’s going to be a bitch and a half to find a new psychiatrist and start all over again with someone but I can’t take him anymore. I’m in the U.S. btw. I just can’t stand people who stigmatize and demonize mental and emotional illness as somehow optional for treatment because of “ooo scary drugs are bad” mentality even when they WORK IN PSYCHIATRY AND HAVE ACCESS TO THE ACTUAL, PRESENT DAY DATA SHOWING HOW MEDICATIONS WORK. It should be the person’s choice what their treatment is and how they pursue it, medication or not. My womb doesn’t make me a second class citizen either and I’m so tired of that mentality as well. Sorry I just really needed to rant and felt like you’d understand where I was coming from on this. Ugh. Anyway, I am wishing you all the best in your recovery from your recent traumas and continued contentment, peace, and happiness!

I fully support you. In the end it should be up to you whether to go off a medication, pregnant or not. He can make suggestions and have his opinions, but you should have the final say. And if he's not letting you decide, you're in your full right to go see someone else. Especially if there's not even medical consensus that the med might actually harm the fetus.

[kyunsies]

life update

hello my beloved friends, i have neglected this blog for quite some time. i’ve had a lot of things happening in my life it seems for the past 6 months and it has taken me all but now to finally come here and write down my thoughts. i want to first say i’m really sorry for not making content as much as i used to — i was always one to say to myself “no matter how busy life gets, i will always make time for tumbly and my mutuals here!”. however, things have gone really differently and before i knew it time was really slipping away from me and i found myself not having much energy to come here :( but life works in silly ways and i am met with another new chapter in my life, and i’ve wanted to share it with you all for a while now, so without further ado, here’s what i’ve been up to, here’s what i’ve been dealing with day to day, so grab a snackie or a coffee and i’ll update you with my life <3

the biggest change that has occurred is that i have decided to switch from inpatient hospital nursing (working in the hospital) to a new outpatient nursing opportunity. as you know, i moved away from my family not only to receive my nursing degree, but to also start my dream job working in one of the most prestigious children’s hospitals in the country, working in the neonatal intensive care unit. those who have known me well here know that this was literally my dream job and i wanted so badly to work at this hospital. my orientation would be 6 months and i would feel prepared to take on the sickest of babies. things were going well until i started to care for sicker, more critical infants. all the medication, the constant monitoring, the stress of screwing something up, the fear of having to quite literally revive a baby if they were to deteriorate — it was a lot for me. i thought i could handle it, but month after month i would start to fear what type of assignments i would get. i got very little sleep due to stress and i took it home with me every day, not to mention the crippling self doubt i felt as a new graduate nurse in an intensive care unit. i wasn’t happy, i was dreading work, and i was stressed beyond belief. i really talked this out with my family and best friend/roommate (who is also a nurse) and we came to this conclusion: life is too short to be miserable, and nursing can burn you out in a week, a month, or even years. what was the point of going on if i was so miserable and unhappy inside? i didn’t want the stress anymore, i couldn’t bare it and my mental health was suffering. so with that, i took a leap of faith and landed a job in a pediatric office that gives me a better work-life balance, as well as less stress. i actually start tomorrow !!!! so i’m excited to move on, to not be disappointed with myself, and to heal :)

another huge change in my personal life is that i have found love <3 i have been dating my current boyfriend since the beginning of january and i honestly have never been this content with my personal life ever :) i have been spending a lot of time with him and he makes me so incredibly happy, makes me very loved and treats me with respect and patience and most of all kindness. i’m being cringe as HELL but we love each other dearly and i’m gonna tell you something i’ve learned about falling in love: you realize how insignificant a lot of things are and that you’ll do a lot of things with someone you care about <3 i’ve found myself gravitating less and less to my phone when we spend time together, and honestly it’s probably healthy. so yeah, don’t wanna be too fringe but ya girl is in a happy healthy and committed relationship 10/10 would recommend hehe :)

i’ve been healing. ever since i’ve had this turmoil with my job, it has made me think a lot about what my worth as a nurse is. like, will people ever think less of me as a nurse if i’m not stressing myself to the max at a really difficult floor in a top hospital? i felt like i was being shamed by choosing to work in a pediatric office. i felt like my identity as a nurse was stripped away just because i’m not pursuing conventional nursing paths. i still have a long ways to go mentally as i navigate this weird transition in my life. there have been a lot of tears, a lot of doubt, a lot of sadness and frustration, but i’m just realizing that again, life is too short to be miserable and i need to do things that make me happy and give me fulfillment. i’m hoping i can heal my mental health and start focusing on my path as opposed to what others think of me, and i encourage you all to do that as well <3

so, what’s next?

i’m really going to try my best and be back on here! try giffing some content i’ve neglected and pave more present bc i do really miss blogging and creating at the end of the day! i miss interacting with you all and goofing around :) it might take a while but i’ll be here popping in and around don’t you worry! i just want to say this before i go — pls prioritize your mental health and happiness over anything else. i love you all very much and see you soon xx

[deusexmachinawitch]

I gathered all the courage I could to write this post, especially because it deals with my triggers and insecurities. I am really grateful towards the law but at the same time, dealing with the reactions of others can be difficult.

TW: Weight talk.

Before I discovered the law, I was 25 kgs above my healthiest weight. It was a mix of stress, unhealthy eating, health issues and depression. I didn’t mind it until I saw pictures from a work meeting and started feeling insecure, SP also started looking at other girls and I think that was part of why I manifested our separation unconsciously among other things (I refuse to use the term “breakup”, we are just separated).

When I started following the law, I didn’t manifest many physical related things. I just manifested eternal youth, weight loss, less noticeable eye bags and small things like that, besides being pampered with free treatments.

I got the eternal youth part and also lost 11 kgs, I’m losing more and more in a steady way because my mind still falls into the trap of logic sometimes and I affirm to lose in a steady way out of fear of losing my gallbladder or having any health complications when I could just… Manifest fast weight loss without complications. I really need to work on that limiting belief but I know I will be able to do so.

People noticed my change and I got many dating proposals from many people of both genders plus job offers and such. I got ranked favorite several times in my job and got the pretty privilege thing like I mentioned a few posts ago.

The thing is, I have this workmate who can be really insensitive/rude and masks it with “I’m just being honest” but cries when someone is actually honest with her and says they are rude and bullying her. Yes, that type. The thing is that she said she was shocked because I looked so young and good looking, plus thinner looking. Then she started nonstop bashing my old appearance and that opened a lot of past wounds, including the one with SP. Especially because she mentioned that she could understand him feeling disenchanted with me suddenly before but he should regret leaving me now.

She did this all weekend thinking she was praising me to the point people had to stop her by calling her rude and she did her usual number.

Now I’m back home and because I’m used to saving up strong emotions at work because I will never give anyone the honor of having a reaction out of me, I didn’t feel anything about her comments until I was home. I’ve been feeling not hungry since I’ve came back and I’ve refused several meal invitations as well.

I think that once I feel better, I’ll manifest her not coinciding with me or not working alone with her ever again, always having several people around us. I’ll also continue manifesting my own beauty at my pace and everyone loving me the way I am, including SP. After all, I talked about this with @pearlygrace and because I didn’t manifest my physical change to be something that people already got used to, I might have scared my SP by looking so young and beautiful suddenly while he looked so rough. So I have to affirm that he adores the way I am from head to toe, he adores my mind and personality as well and he always loved me in the past and even the new me.

I also have to see the positive, I received my Wonyoung circle lenses and they look amazing on me! 💜

Thanks to all who have actually gave their time to read this, it is something I wanted to open up so people learn that when you manifest a physical change, you do have to revise others as well. If not, you might end up with unwanted comments that may trigger you and hate your old self. While your old self is the old story, it’s a part of you that can help you figure out your current desires. It’s a memory that reminds you of how far you’ve got. Have gratitude towards it and as a reminder that through the law and your power as a God, you finally got a better life and a better you.

[powerofmettatonneo]

Happy Birthday Jason!/An Announcement + Bonus Content

After half a month of no updates on What Measure is a Non-Human, I finally have one! And, since y'all have been dedicated enough to follow my Tumblr, y'all get to be the first ones to know (all one of you currently; hi IYP! Thanks for all the support!).

I've been hard at work writing the story, but not spending as much time editing it as I would like, so I'm currently sitting on two-three chapters. This is because the mental downtime I have at my job gives me a lot of time to think of ideas that I want to immediately write down before I forget them, but the physical time I spend there takes away from the time I can spend editing it. I could hypothetically release them with less editing done on them, but I want to hold myself to a higher standard of what I release into the world and do genuinely enjoy the editing process. However, with that all being said, I have three days off in a row, and I'm going to use this chance to buckle down and try and get them ready for publication by Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, I can't promise anything, but I do have other news that I can make assurances on.

I've decided that Valentine's Day is Jason's birthday. I wanted to give most of the major characters birth months, at least, just for chronological cohesion; I chose this day in particular for Jason because I have personal history with the day that, when combined with the fact that he's the mc of a romance story, made it the perfect day for him. In celebration of his birthday, I have written out a 7k word prequel one-shot all about the confession/first kiss that I will be posting on Valentine's Day, come hell or high water.

I actually wrote a first draft of the first kiss portion all the way back in December, right after the second chapter, and as a bonus for those of you who take the time to find this post, whether now or in the future, I'm going to share it with you. Most of it will be repetitive to the last bit of the finished story, so beware of spoilers I guess (but this is a prequel anyways so like do they even matter), but I have added enough to the final product to make it stand out and above. Really, this is largely just to archive it as I think it's interesting to see how any story evolves over time, much less my own, and I hope y'all feel the same way. See y'all on Valentine's Day, and without further ado, here goes the original first kiss scene (also fair warning, there's still no smut, but it does get more explicit than I've previously allowed it to):

…Hazel reached up and kissed him. Jason entered a state of shock, freezing in place. At first, his mind went completely and totally blank, but that quickly changed into a series of scattered thoughts as his mind tried to reconfigure itself. I'm being kissed. By Hazel. Who is a Pokemon. Oh Arceus, I’m being kissed by a Pokemon—and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever felt. As soon as he returned to coherent thought, however, the kiss ended. Hazel pulled away, and Jason could see that she looked… scared. The look in her eyes was the same that he had when he confessed his feelings to her. It hit him then; the kiss was her idea of a response, and he had just frozen in place like an idiot. He could imagine the doubts and fears rushing through her at his complete lack of a reaction. He also knew exactly how to alleviate them.

Jason narrowed the gap between them and restarted the kiss. He could clearly feel the surprise in his partner and just as clearly feel it melt away as she returned it. Her lips felt velvety against his as they both pushed against each other with all their might. All of the nerves, the adrenaline, the raw energy they were feeling was channeled into the kiss. They fell back onto the bed, Hazel on top, and didn't stop for a second. It felt like they were melting together, becoming one.

Hazel broke from the kiss, and before Jason had a chance to react, she dragged her tongue across his lips. She moved it down, trailing along his chin and neck, resulting in a small moan escaping his mouth. When she arrived at his shirt, she grabbed it with her teeth and began tugging at it.

“S-stop,” Jason gasped, lightly pushing his partner back. Hazel let go of his shirt and stared at him, a look of disappointment in her eyes. It hurt him to see it, but he had read enough ‘romance’ stories to know where this was going.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t do this right now,” he said, trying to let her down gently.

“Umbre,” she whimpered, looking down at her feet. She felt ashamed at herself for pushing so hard so fast and afraid of what her best friend would think of her for it. Or, she did, until the implication of those last two words hit her. She jolted her head back back up and was met with a worried smile on Jason’s face.

“I’m not saying never,” he started, “but I don’t think I’m ready for something like that yet, and I’m pretty sure mom would just straight up kill us if she found out.” Hazel just sighed at that, but even the vague hope of “not never” sent a small shiver up her spine. She laid down on top of him, enjoying his warmth. They sat there in a comfortable silence for a while, simply enjoying each other’s touch in the wake of the roller coaster of emotions they had both just experienced, and soon drifted off to sleep, not caring what tomorrow might bring so long as they had each other.

[Also, one final super extra bonus note: my beta only left one comment on this original draft when I showed it to her, and it was too funny not to mention: on the line "Her lips felt velvety against his", she simply wrote "I refuse to consider the mechanics of this", to which I simply responded "coward".]

[milo-is-rambling]

Continueing the adventure of my last posts tags and reliving my childhood fears and general existence in my family which I have subconsciously packed away and literally have not been able to remember chunks of my childhood even when trying to remember what I did as a kid 👍 anyways back to it. Snuck into the bathroom. Didn’t puke. Win for drunk and high Milo. The bathroom door however is the loudest creakiest door in existence. Getting in here she for sure knows I’m awake. Now it’s her choice to attack with the trying to talk to me or to completely ignore me or to continue waiting and watching to attack her bait (me trying to exist without her involvement for like any amount of time) also there’s been a development. It wasn’t the living room or kitchen lights on making the hallway light up it was her bedroom door open with her bedroom light on. So good news bad news. Good news. She’s not in the living room. Less of a chance of her trying to talk to me. Bad news. Shes in her room and the door is exactly fully visible from the loud ass creaky bathroom door so if she’s in the main part of her room she will see me if she looks for me. I could camp out in the bathroom until her lights turn off. (Side note. All of this. Is how I legitimately thought of my life as a child. I was a mommy issues ninja. I was sneaking from room to room when her back was turned and trying to sneak away to read my book in silence or make my dolls have gay sex.) this reminds me so vividly of my childhood. My brothers bedroom had one of those humidifiers that had fish in it (not real fish they’re plastic like 2D fish) (someone please know what I’m talking about) but he had it and it kind of made like a bubbly sound and I would hear that through my bedroom wall all night and I would hear sounds of light traffic outside cause we lived in a small town it was mostly nature sounds and crickets and frogs and occasional dog barks. And the sound of my window fan going constantly on high and I would climb in and out of bed and watch the way the moon lit up the neighbors roof and I would watch the grass blow in the wind and in the morning I would walk barefoot through the dew and pick dandelions and walk to the bus stop in the cold with my cute little jacket and backpack and it felt like home and it felt safe and I was happy and I had friends I can’t believe life isn’t that anymore. I just heard my mom close her bedroom door score!!! We outlasted her. Also ps I’ve been sitting in the bathroom on the floor with the bathroom light off and the door completely closed and locked. I have mental health issues. I’m on a stealth mission my mother isn’t aware of at all and it literally just living her life and doesn’t care whatsoever what I’m doing. Anyways. Yeah. Being a kid in Maine everything just felt right and I’ve gone back to Maine and it’s just changed. We couldn’t even go inside the house I grew up in. And even if we could it would have all been different. We sold half our shit when we moved to New Hampshire when I was nine. Mom and dad couldn’t find work. But they found a job working at the same company together in New Hampshire so we sold half our shit and moved and rented a house that we went on to buy and call home for eight years. And then we moved to Florida and dad died and I went to Maine for the service. The house was different. Even from the outside. My grandmothers house no longer felt like home either. I was too tall. My head hit the ceiling fan when I walked. My grandparents were now at least six inches shorter than me and nothing in their lives had changed since I was a kid. Except for the heavy thick layer of grief and the feeling of death looming at the door. Now I know that’s dark but my grandfather is on his way out and my grandmother is losing her marbles. And both their kids died before them so like yknow I’m cutting them some slack here. They can live the same exact routine in life for twenty years who am I to judge if they get the same brand of puppy calendar every year with the same dogs in the same themed photos for every month just the

Dates are switched who am I to judge. Or when my grandfather buys a bar of hersheys dark chocolate and stores it in the fridge so it’ll break apart instead of melt in your mouth. Or how every night they watch the local news the weather then whelk of fortune and jeopardy back to back and then my grandmother puts me to bed (idk what she does now) and my grandfather shuffles his way to the dining room they never use that they only really use for storage and a singular big table and chairs set with a laptop on it (and a weird podium looking thing with a penguin candy jar on it all year round for some reason??) to watch his random shows or long ass documentary YouTube videos for hours and get seventy old person only computer viruses that we then have to help him deal with cause that laptop if the biggest source of joy in that man’s life. And then my grandmother gets ready for bed and eats a little dessert on the stool at the foot of her bed where her personal teeny tiny tv is to watch her law and order or her ncis or her bones or her whatever show is always on at night and plays the same like two seasons as reruns back to back. God I love them and their silly little simple life and I’m so glad I have that little slice of home. I will always be welcome there even if I am too big for the house and everything in it is fragile and all the furniture literally rattled when I walk bc my grandmother has weird taste that is like 70% china and 30% glass. Anyways. I love them and I love that house but I don’t feel like a kid there. I feel so so so out of place if anything it makes me sad to come back and realize that the only thing that’s changed that whole time is me. And now dad being gone obviously. And their health getting worse. But yknow. It’s there. And I’m thankful for that. I just wish I was still close with anyone there. We have my moms friend who I knew when I was a kid and don’t get me wrong I love their house and they’re so nice and goofy and redneck as fuck but the daughter I was once close friends with as a small child now doesn’t even talk to me or like look my way at all if I’m there so it also feels completely out of place now. They even fucking replaced the playground at the middle school. Like there is no where in my original home town that I can go back to and feel like a kid and it tears me up. I cannot physically describe how badly I need to go back to my elementary school in Maine and just walk through the halls and sit in the library and the computer lab and play outside on the playground. Truly the ages of 6-8 were the best years of my life cause when I turned nine we were either getting ready to move or had moved so eight was when I could still me a kid. Fuck. And then I finally felt like I was setting roots in New Hampshire and felt like I could almost breathe again they told me we were moving to a hot humid retirement / party state with alligators and sand instead of NORMAL GRASS and pine trees (sorry I am a proud sod hater give me real grass I hate not feeling like I can walk outside barefoot it is all rocks and fire ants and fake grass and spikes cactus evilness.) and now I live here. And my mom loves it. She is so happy and I just feel like I have no where else to go. I have no family or friends in the part of New Hampshire where we lived. I have no choice but to start over here. Either I start over here fully or I have to start here long enough to get out of here and start someone else to be broke and scared except also now you’re completely alone. And not even your mom who you adore but also kind of hate and you think she hates you but you know it’s just your brain saying that bc of course she loves you but also like… does she tho? Or is she holding the vow to you the same way she did to her husband. Telling anyone who would listen “I promised god and my dad that I was married to that man til death do us part” and then right after he died she’s like welp time to get back out there and she’s all happy glad about all this freedom she has now I know she’s like that with me I know she only loves me because

She has to she only loves me because I came out of her and me and my brother are all she has of my dad but my brother looks like him but acts like my mom but I act like my father and look like her so there’s that added self hatred if she looks at me and sees herself and wants to fix fix fix what isn’t hers to change about my life. And then I act like him and then there she is living alone with her dead husband again except no it’s his bitch of a daughter who will never love you as much as he did and it will forever be in the back of your mind even when you love me I will always be his child too. And you will never forgive me for that. She would leave me if I could handle it out there in the big bad world alone. I am the runt of this litter and I haven’t quite decided if I really want to survive it or not. It being life without constant attention care and devotion. And survive meaning is it better to have caused the pain now and make her proud later when I could just stop trying and let myself turn to dust in this room locked in from the outside watching shadows under doors and listening to the frogs croak outside. Summer heat settling in across my bedroom as I sneak out of bed and read my book with my flashlight until my mother walks by and yells to go to bed again. And the pink nightlight is illuminating the corner of my room with my Barbie’s and I want to play and feel like a kid again. I wish I could trade and be that kid for a day again. I want to play and feel free again and run just to run before my body started to hurt and ache and before I ever cut myself or held the gun in my hands and had to put it back down. I wish I could tell the childhood version of me that it gets better and it gets worse. You have to remember it all cause it’s gonna get lost in there. Really try to remember it all. And enjoy it. I’m proud of you for just being you.

I think I should drink every day forever actually if it makes me suddenly remember my childhood I’ve repressed for some reason that would be nice I could therapise myself thru poetry and long rambles that I throw poetic shit into and then call poetry even tho there’s really like three lines that weren’t completely off the dome. Anyways goodnight sorry for being your most annoying mutual forever ily I might delete this tomorrow

[jodilinbio]

Part 46

Written in 2011

Much of 2011 was not a good year, and I am determined to make 2012 better.

Tom got laid off again in early March. Once again, we were thrust into the endless cycle of poverty with no apparent way out, like being stuck on an endless merry-go-round.

Shortly after the layoff, I dreamed he wouldn’t return to work until September. It turned out to be another premonition, as I feared. We were on edge for a couple of weeks before he got hired on as a temp at $13 an hour in a warehouse. I began to feel that the hardship we endured at the motel years ago was meant to prepare me for more challenges. The day we were told our unemployment benefits had ended before he found another job was almost more than I could handle. I honestly don’t know if I would have survived it without what we went through in 2007.

Despite the fears and anxieties that kept me up at night, I became angry that anything that might be up there would allow us to endure so much despite trying to live good lives. It was one thing to not have much extra money; it was another to wonder if we could afford food and rent.

I was also furious with our government for its willingness to send billions of tax dollars overseas while refusing to take care of its own citizens. Doctors were dispatched to aid earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan, Haiti, and elsewhere, but we remained uninsured.

Believing our choices were to slowly starve off on the streets or die more comfortably at home, we even planned to seal ourselves in the bedroom and light charcoal to end things with carbon monoxide poisoning. After half a year of job-hunting, we didn’t believe a miracle was coming.

But it was. Unemployment cut us off on September 16th, and less than two weeks later, Tom was working again. This job seems the most promising yet.

Tom describes the work as physical and some of his coworkers as incompetent, which makes things challenging, but he says it’s not the worst job he’s had. At Christmastime, they had a raffle, and he won a Kindle Fire. I’ve been hooked on it ever since, vowing never to read a physical book again. I love how it doesn’t take up space or collect dust, and how it remembers where I left off.

Another highlight of 2011 was getting books published through Amazon and Smashwords. It was exciting at first, but due to not making a lot of money that way, I decided it was pointless to turn a fun hobby into a job and just write for myself. I still share at times on my blog, though. Plus, there was the risk of pirating.

I’m still in touch with my parents and Tammy, though not her kids or my brother, and I don’t want to be. Tolerating Tammy is hard enough. I do it for my parents’ sake and for whatever inheritance they may want to leave us, but I don’t expect much. I’ve been teased enough with the promise of money to not get my hopes up.

My extended family has mostly shunned me, but I don’t care about them any more than they care about me. There are a lot of bad memories there. Still, I have to admit that without them, I don’t know how we would have made it through some tough times.

Tom’s family doesn’t reach out to us, not even with a simple “hello” from time to time. I hope his mother’s final days are miserable, and I don’t feel the least bit guilty for saying so.

I’m still friends with Andy, Adonis, Maliheh, Alison, Kim, Christine, and Mitch, though Maliheh has been distant, blaming it on illness and busyness. Christine is a blogging friend from Ohio, and Adonis is a nice guy in the Netherlands. Irene and Christiane are friends of Nane that I communicate with that times. Christiane lives in Leipzig and Irene lives in Austria. She met Nane when they both lived in New York. Nane worked on Wall Street and Irene was an au pair.

After 15 months, Nane decided to end things. Andy, Alison, and I think she was toying with my feelings unfairly. When things got rough last fall, she initially seemed supportive. But after two months of silence, she told me she thought I was using her for attention, which hurt and angered me.

On top of that, Kim, Aly, myself, and others are still stalked and harassed by Molly. Last summer, her mother even joined in, making all kinds of bogus legal threats.

[desperate4dopamines]

In work, nothing makes me happier than hearing a thank you, or someone apologising for taking up my time and I get to say “it’s what I’m here for!” Or telling people that I’m willing to work on (thing) for as long as they’re willing to wait. I’ll do my best to help, as there’s nothing more fulfilling.

In my job, I do get to help, but it’s also sales. Which, yeah I help people pick out the perfect gift, I get repairs going for them, I clean their belongings and more… but it’s also sales. And sales is kinda slimey, even at the best of times.

I’m incentivised to have people spend the most they can. I don’t like that. I don’t like handling money, and I don’t like possibly coercing people into getting add ons, which, while they mostly are good deals, I don’t like being encouraged to use slimey (but of course legal) methods. Like my manager says not to give prices up front, but the prices with insurance included. To assume they will want to get it until they themselves say no. For reference, this can be an extra charge of just 20 or hundreds depending on the item.

Its also very anxiety inducing, handling expensive merchandise, and customer belongings. As much as I try my best, things happen. The mess ups I’m guilty of haven’t been too bad in the grand scheme of things, but I have been using unhealthy coping mechanisms and had a couple anxiety attacks. You could argue it’s good for me to go through this experience, but it still sucks.

The other day a customer claims to have gotten the wrong quote for some custom work. We always call to ask if the price is okay before going ahead with said work, but he is adamant he was told a lower price. A price 600 bucks lower. I wasn’t at fault, I was just the messenger. The general consensus is that he’s most likely misremembered or misinterpreted because there’s no way we said the price he thought, given all of the checks and balances in place. But still, he was angry and of course blamed us. Idk what I would do if I was responsible for such an error. Just being the messenger, I was terrified.

I need to look out for a job that isn’t like this… I’ve been looking at vet receptionist jobs. Those seem great for a pet lover like me. There’s only a couple near me that are hiring tho so I gotta think of what else I could do because the stress of this job is too much for my anxious body to handle. Which is a shame since I adore my coworkers, and fear that any new job will be a less friendly environment.

[blonkk]

i get so emotionally turbulent in the airport. maybe it’s because i’m always going off 2 hours of sleep and it takes me 2 hours to drive to the airport and i always book 6am flights and i always drink the night before. anyways i read this reddit post where this kids stepdad always financially provides fairly for him and his bio kids but excludes the stepson from special trips etc. he told the stepson it’s bc those are his bio kids and he wants to spend time with them and show them they mean more to him by virtue of being blood etc. he raised the stepson since he was one and shows preferential treatment to his bio kids, one of whom is the stepsons half sister. so the stepson responded by calling him by his first name rather than “dad” and stepdad got upset and hurt…anyways that story made me cry. idk i guess maybe it’s “natural” to other a kid who’s not “yours” biologically but jesus christ. you can’t treat a kid that way, exclude them, let them know they are less loved….irresponsible and cruel imo, no matter how you truly feel….

so there’s that. and then i saw this old dude handing presumably his wife a box of timbits and i got all gushy. and this older couple across from me is so cute the lady is just resting on her man’s chest and he’s just sitting there doing his thang. idk man i’m probably pmsing. i also have been reflecting on my loneliness and it’s imminent return LOL all my friends are leaving where i live soon and i’ll be alone..but i guess that’s my lot in life? that’s the way it is. there’s a lot of people i really love and appreciate even if they’re not the ideal friends/what have you. one being my roommate, a 50yo dude who does nothing but drink beer and smoke weed and talks about missing his daughter who he goes to see like once a year. i don’t agree with that aspect of his life (go see your KID instead of buying a new dirt bike !!) but man i have a lot of affection for him. he’s very generous and caring and kind and he channels his misplaced fatherly energy towards myself and the other younger workers on the mountain. i genuinely get along with him, and when he was with his daughter over the weekend i missed him…like i would get home and be like damn drew’s not here :/ and literally all we do is yap after-work style and sometimes watch shows. but idk he’s my favourite roommate this far which is crazy. idk it’s weird you never know who the people who actually make a difference in your life will be; it would have been so easy to write him off had i not bothered getting to know him. he’s a redneck, a sort of absent dad (he pays child support and knows everything ab her and supports her hobbies . he loves his daughter but. he’s gotta try harder to see her despite her living a few hours away) , he smokes cigs like a fiend, drinks beer like water, he passes out on the couch every single night of his life to dirt bike videos/sasquatch stories/random singing shows, is a typical tradesman. like it would be natural for me to judge his character based on those things. he’s actually one of the people who consistently takes my side when feminism comes up and always tells the other dudes “she’s right” etc. idk i just really am thankful to live somewhere where i’m comfortable with someone lol

& the other people i’ve met within the last year of my life have made me a better person and a happier person. somehow i really recovered a lot in the shithole where i live. dead end job, unfamiliar types of people , weird isolation. a lot of the shame i’ve carried my whole life has dissipated. i’ve been more myself than any other time in my life; and i don’t fear people’s rejection if i say what i truly believe or feel. sometimes there’s disagreements and some arguing, but it never ends badly, and weirdly i know i have peoples respect, even if they don’t agree with me or understand me. that’s what the key is i think — all my life with my family i’ve feared their rejection, their scrutiny, and their wrath. i’ve been scared to lose their love and respect because i was constantly threatened with it, and i experienced it countless times. the things the members of my immediate family have said to me, the things they’ve called me, the ways they’ve rejected me and punished me for being who i am has really damaged me and i always lived with it, bringing it into other relationships and friendships, not understanding that it was impacting literally every aspect of my life; how i interact with people being the main thing. it’s impacted my self esteem to such a degree with i could never make genuine friends and connections because i always went along with what other people said so they wouldn’t punish me. i let people treat me like dogshit because it’s what i was used to and what i thought love/acceptance costed. it even affected how i performed at work and what type of work i’ve tried to succeed at as an adult. it’s why i’m so lost and messed up and rootless. it’s why i have no idea what i want, and why for so many years i had no idea who i was.

for the first time in my life i feel accepted , if not loved. it’s enough to make me extremely emotional. it’s enough to make me happy because i could literally never imagine feeling so safe in my life. i love my parents and family but my god. what they’ve done to me can’t be reversed, though some things are beginning to repair

also i’m listening to the divorced dad playlist on spotify and it’s hitting. live laugh love!!!!