#that lead kit looks sketchy as fuck

[king-vampire]

been keeping a track of the weirdest tumblr ads ive gotten...

[gubler-me-up]

Perfectionism

Request: HELLOO, I’ve had an idea for literally months in my head but I wouldn’t be able to write it as good as you 🥺 Would you mind doing a Spencer reaction to his crush having bad body dysmorphia that they’ve been hiding from the team (they’re working for bau) but at a case or smn someone they’re interviewing comments negatively on their body and they break down once they think they’re alone? But Spence sees and reaches out and it’s really wholesome and soft? I’m a sucker for angsty fluff I’m sorry 😔

A/N: Thanks for the prompt anon, much appreciated! I hope this does justice to your well thought-out idea. I hope it satisfies all your angsty fluff needs! Side note, to everyone of my followers/readers I hope you know you’re beautiful and finding love/happiness within yourself takes time, but trust the process, loves ❤️ Enjoy! 

Category: Angsty fluff

Content warning: Swearing, mention of violence, self degradation

Word count: 2.3k

---------------

You stood in front of the mirror inside the police department’s washroom. You finished applying another thick layer of foundation on your face. You knew applying this much makeup to your face wasn’t good. Your dermatologist even recommended against it and advised you to let your skin breathe for a while to prevent over clogging your pores. He didn’t understand the problem of doing that though.

Without the concealer masking the dark circles under your eyes, you’d probably look dead. Maybe even worse. Without the foundation, your acne and healing acne scars would definitely bring unwanted attention to your face. It was certain to happen.

You had to wear them all the time, especially at work. You thought of how JJ probably never had to go through this. Her face was free of any sort of marks or blemishes. She always looked alive with her bright blue eyes with no heavy bags insight. No wonder Spencer had a crush on her a few years back.

Your thoughts were interrupted by the vibrations of your phone on the bathroom counter. You looked down to see Spencer’s name pop up informing you it was time to interview the suspect. A sigh left your mouth as you started packing up your products into your travel beauty kit.

As you walked out of the door, you noticed Spencer at the end of the poorly lit hall leading back out to the main lobby. When he noticed you were walking down the hall towards him, he smiled and waved. Sometimes you thought he was the cutest genius in the world.

“Hey, didn’t know you were waiting for me,” you said.

He shrugged. “Thought it would be nice for us to walk to the interview room together.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

He nodded as you both started walking towards the interview room. You couldn’t help noticing he kept on looking at you. Especially your face. What if he saw your acne scars? Or even the acne itself? What if he was just noticing how strange your face looked?

You stopped walking. “Why do you keep staring at me?”

He stopped walking as well as he gave you a questionable look. “What?”

“Is there a reason you keep looking at my face?” You asked.

He shook his head. “No, no reason, I just-”

“You just what?” You said before he even finished his sentence.

Spencer was taken back by your tone. Your words made it seem as if he was attacking you. You could tell from his confused facial expression. Before he could get a chance to pull his words together, you started walking again.

“Forget it. Let’s just focus on this interview.”

Spencer watched as you walked by him. He trailed behind you, trying his best not to say anything else. You knew you shouldn’t have snapped at him the way you did, but you couldn’t bear the possibility of him pointing out a flaw. You just knew he could see everything you tried so hard to hide.

As you two reached the interview room door you felt Spencer gently grab your arm. You turned to him to see how concerned he looked. Before you said anything he made sure to get the first few words out.

“Y/N, I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable back there. Whatever’s troubling you I’m here to help you get through it,” he assured you.

You smiled. “Thanks. I appreciate you, Spence. For now, let’s put what happened behind us for now and go interview this guy.”

Reid smiled as he gently squeezed your arm before letting you go. It felt nice having him reassure you, but he didn’t even know what he was reassuring you about. Maybe he didn’t notice your facial imperfections at all. Maybe he was genuinely admiring your face.

You opened up the interview room to see a dark-haired, middle-aged, white man sitting across the table. He was well put together with a buttoned-up blue shirt, black tie and his hair was slicked back. Physically he matched the profile perfectly. He looked as if he exuded arrogance as your profile detected the unsure would be like. He tried to keep a cool and emotionless demeanour, but by his furrowed eyebrows and wrinkling forehead, he was becoming impatient.

“Hello, I’m agent Y/N Y/L/N and this is Dr. Spencer Reid. Adam Boyer, correct?” You said as you and Spencer took your seats.

“Glad you can read documents, agent,” he scoffed.

“I wouldn’t get so smart-mouthed yet, Boyer. According to some sketchy transactions between you, John McNeil and Robert Morrison it seems as if you have a lot to hide for someone so vocal,” you said.

He squinted his eyes at you. “What does this even have to do with anything?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but those two men are dead. You were the last person to contact both of them the day they died. A transaction of over half a million dollars goes missing and you get mad and-“

“I don’t know what you’re trying to imply, agent, but I didn’t murder my colleagues over money. My company makes more than that in a day, so spare me of your pathetic accusations.”

Before you could reply, Spencer jumped in to level out the tension between you and Boyer. He opened a file on the desk and pointed to a bank statement.

“It says here on your financial records your company is $1.5 million dollars in debt. We discovered Robert Morrison and John McNeil both gave you back their shares of the company to equate $500,000, which is legally a breach in the company’s contract for workers, including yourself, to share, distribute or give away company shares without a reasonable cause. According to the list of reasonable cause you failed to mention bankruptcy or were too arrogant at the time to force something like that happening to you,” Spencer said.

With everything he said, you could tell Boyer’s cool exterior was wearing off. He looked glossier in the face, started fidgeting with his tie and refused to look directly at Spencer. He decided to direct his attention to you instead.

“Well, isn’t that a huge mistake on my part, ain’t it?” He asked directly to you.

“Huge mistake or huge flaw in your plan of getting away with murdering your colleagues? I think it’s the second one, Boyer,” you said.

He leaned back in his chair without breaking any eye contact with you. He folded his hand in front of his chest. You had to admit he made your feel a bit uncomfortable.

“What else do you think?” He asked.

“I think you murdered your colleagues when they found out you had taken back their share of the company to pay back your debts. They would have ratted you out, got you fired from your own company or even worse, the whole company would have shut down and you’d have nothing left.”

“Nothing left,” Boyer said seemingly to himself.

“Yes, absolutely nothing. Your wife divorced you, took full custody of your two boys and now you spend your days throwing your money-approximately $1.5 million dollars-on trying to buy love from escorts,” you said.

It was as if something had woken up inside of him as he almost pounced across the table. Both you and Spencer got out of your seats with Spencer using his arm to block the front of you. It was as if it was a natural instinct for him to protect you before bracing himself.

“Sit down,” Spencer demanded.

“At least I have escorts willing to ride my dick. You couldn’t even pay a male stripper to look at that face of yours. Where’s the pretty agent who was in here before? If I’m going to be accused of a crime, I’d rather be accused by someone half decent looking. Get my fucking lawyer on the phone,” he proceeded to yell.

Though you shouldn’t have felt as bad as you did by the words he said, you did. The blunt force in his voice was vicious. The way he looked at you in disgust. His disgust was too real. He was bold enough to look at you the way everyone wanted to, but was too cautious to do it in front of your face.

“I’ll get your lawyer on the phone, you psycho,” you whispered before turning around to leave.

“Don’t forget to bring the real eye candy in as well, sweetheart,” he said.

You didn’t bother looking back at him or even Spencer. You felt your eyes get heavy with tears and knew it would be terrible to show weakness to such a vile suspect. You rushed out of the room before Spencer could stop you or even follow you close behind.

You rushed towards the washroom as your tears were at the brim of your eyes. As you reached the door, you paused. What if someone was in there? What if Emily or JJ saw you crying? You retracted your steps and decided to go to the family washroom instead.

You didn’t even wait until the door was fully closed before letting out your tears. You heavily wept to yourself as you replayed everything he had said to you. Spencer probably stood there agreeing with everything he said, word for word. Your face being hideous, JJ’s beauty surpassing the little you had, no one wanting you. You backed up against the wall to avoid the mirror, to avoid the disgusting reflection in the mirror.

The only reason you looked up was that you heard the washroom door open. You saw Spencer peak in. When he saw the tears running down your face, he didn’t hesitate to go over to you with concern written all over his face.

“Y/N, what’s wrong? I hope he didn’t get to you,” he said as he reached out his hands.

You assumed he was going to try to wipe the tears from your face, so you pushed away his hands. You couldn’t stand the thought of him touching your face if he thought it was hideous. You didn’t even want him looking at you directly. You looked down to avoid your face being in the presence of his.

He attempted to lift your head up by placing his hand on your chin. You flinched at his touch and moved your head out of his grasp. New tears started to spill from your eyes as you looked at him with despair.

“Can you stop, Spencer?” You wept.

He looked at you confused. “Stop what?”

“Looking at me. I know my face is ugly, okay? Everyone knows and it’s just degrading for you to pretend not to notice,” you snapped at him.

“Y/N, what are you talking about? There’s nothing wrong with your face.”

“Spencer, I know you see it. My acne and acne scars. It doesn’t help that my face is always shiny and my cheeks are chubby. You don’t have to pretend to be blind to it for the sake of my feelings.”

“You thought I was looking at you earlier because you think I think you’re ugly? Y/N that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

You rolled your eyes. “Then why were you looking at me? Be honest.”

“Because I think you’re gorgeous.”

“Ugh, Spencer, you don-”

He grabbed both your hands in his big ones, grasping them tightly. You looked down at your hands in his and then looked up into his eyes. He looked longingly at you. You could see the genuine look of love in his face.

“Y/N, I know what you’re going through. Body dysmorphia’s not an easy thing to fight off by yourself, but I want to assure you every day that I think you’re the most beautiful person I know; both inside and out.”

You let out a deep breath as you felt round three of tears coming to your eyes. Honestly, you couldn’t think of a moment you felt genuinely pretty. His words could move mountains.

“But if Adam Boyer could-”

“Please don’t let a psychopath make you feel unsure of yourself. He only belittled you because he lost control of the situation and decided to target you. His idea of a perfect girl is someone he can dominate, which makes him disgusting not you.”

He let go of your right hand as he wiped away a tear making its way down your face. You grasped his left hand hard as he touched your face. It still made you feel uncomfortable, but you were happy Spencer cared deeply for you.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have touched your face if you’re not comfortable with that yet. I know it takes time to breakdown this idea of what perfect is especially with so many beauty standards being pushed by society, but I’ll be here to help you realize you’re the most beautiful you. I wouldn’t want you to be any other way,” he said.

You smiled at his words as you wiped away the few stray tears running down your face. You had to admit you liked it better when he did it. You leaned your head back, took a deep breath, let it out and then looked at Spencer.

“Thank you for being you. I wouldn’t want you to be any other way as well,” you said.

He smiled. “I’ll always be here for you, Y/N. If you want me to be that is.”

“I do. I really do.”

“Maybe after we’re done with this case we can do something together to help you remember the beautiful person you are.”

“I’d love that.”

You both walked towards the washroom door. Spencer made sure not to let go of your hand until you two left the washroom. You felt as if he wanted you to grasp onto the positive energy he had for you. You felt uplifted in a way. This must be the benefit of the Spencer Reid effect.

—–

MASTERLIST

[thisisawonderfulusername]

let's save the world

season one, episode four

five hargreeves x reader

summary: after the break in, five comes back with information, and you two go to check it out.

trigger warning: cursing, drinking, a fluffy moment 👉 👈

word count: 2.5k

a/n: damn, already part four O-O. i don’t really have much to say, so, enjoy!

after getting attacked by the commission assassins, you had gone up to five’s room and passed out on the bed, not even taking the time to clean or patch it up. you told yourself that it would be fine for the night, though there was a nagging voice in the back of your head, warning of the possible infection, but you inevitably pushed it away.

your morning wasn’t too great. you were shaken violently to be woken up, and you sat up quickly, hissing and grabbing onto your leg when you felt the pain the coursed through it. looking up at five, you glare at him. “what the fuck?”

“i take it you didn’t find any clues?” he questions, the smallest hint of a smirk on his face as you groan softly. of course he would do this. you knew it meant sitting in that van all day, he actually found something, and he was ready to rub it in.

leaning on your arm to reach for the med kit, you don’t meet his eyes. “no, i didn’t.” you mutter, opening the box and pulling out the supplies to finally patch up your leg. “i assume that you did?”

glancing at him as you doused a clean rag in rubbing alcohol, you raise an eyebrow. “yup.” he grins, and you roll your eyes, pulling your skirt up a bit to pull the make shift tourniquet off and reveal the wound from the glass that so rudely decided to cut through your flesh.

“how did that happen?” five questions, cringing slightly at the sight of the injury that you quickly placed the soaked rag over, biting your lip harshly to hold back the cries of pain from the stinging pain.

once the pain settled, you took a deep breath and looked to him. “long story. people, from the commission, i’m sure of it.” you threw the rag to the side, grabbing the needle and stitching thread, quickly putting it through and getting to suturing the puncture.

he watched as you stitched the wound, staying quiet for a moment, before he decided to speak again. “remember the guy we talked to? at meritech?” he asks, and you nod simply, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, “well, he’s definitely doing something sketchy. so we need to figure out what.”

you finish the stitches before throwing the needle to the side, looking back to him. “seriously? if this leads to another dead end, i’m going to kill you.” you grab some gauze and quickly wrap it around your leg, sighing softly as you toss everything back into the medical kit.

“i’ll deserve it if i am. but i’m sure of this.” he tells you, standing from the bed beside you and holding out his hand to help you up. it hurt a bit to stand on your leg from the pain, but you had endured worse, so you could suck it up.

-

waiting on the street, you leaned against a building, following five’s gaze and staring at one of the cars that lined the street. “how do you know he’s here?” you question, crossing your arms over your chest.

“i followed him, and when he went into the vet, i figured i had time to get you.” he responds, neither of you risking a glance away from the vehicle. “there he is.” he mutters as the man walks to his car, putting his dog in the backseat and getting in himself. five grabs your hand and the next moment you’re in the car, sitting by the dog.

smiling slightly as you give him a pat, your attention is brought back to the situation when the man turned and jumped at the sight of five right next to him. within a millisecond, a knife is held to his throat. “one chance.” he snaps at him, and you purse your lips, leaning forward in your seat. “you’ve got one chance to tell me what is going on in that lab.”

obviously terrified, since he was held at knife point, the man quickly speaks. “i manufacture prosthetics for fake patients.” his eyes are wide, staring straight into five’s, “i bill the insurance companies then sell them on the black market.”

resting an arm on the head rest of his seat, you lean towards him. “including eyeballs?” you press, and his gaze flickers towards you before back to five.

“yeah-” he stutters out, his head shaking slightly, “they’re my biggest seller. i’ve got a list- a wait list- probably twenty buyers!”

five nods, “so the serial number i told you?” he raises an eyebrow.

“yes, it- it could’ve already been bought.” he tells him, his breathing shaky.

as five stared into the guy’s eyes, you swore he could see into his soul, and though you had seen it multiple times, it still unsettled you. “i need that list, lance.” the knife pushes against his skin slightly, and he visibly flinches, “names and numbers, i need it now!”

“i don’t have it,” you can see his eye’s glossing, and you don’t blame him for being close to tears. “the only copy’s in my safe at the labs.” he quickly adds on, probably praying to himself that he wouldn’t die today.

smirking, you slap a hand on his arm, and he jumps at the sudden touch. “alright then, start the car, bud.” you lean back against the seats, petting the dog again. “we’re going on a trip.”

-

stopping the car just a street away from the building, all of you get out, you and five both holding onto lance’s arms to make sure he wouldn’t make a run for it. he could probably easily push you guys away, as you were practically thirteen years old, probably no muscle at all, but you assumed he was too afraid to even think about running.

as you rounded the corner, the building up ahead, your eyes widen. flames engulfed the lab, smoke pouring out of the windows. your heart practically stops. your only clue to go off of, was totally destroyed.

you could only stand in shock as lance slipped out of your grip after five ran forward, both of them looking up at the burning building. as five stood in front of the entrance, there was a sudden explosion, sending him flying back into the road.

that got you moving, quickly running to his side and crouching down next to him, ignoring the burn in your thigh. “holy shit, are you okay?” you question, slightly panicked, as it definitely wasn’t a simple fall to the ground. first of all, it was the middle of the road, concrete, and he had been knocked back pretty hard.

pushing himself up as he nods, five looks at the building. “there goes the only evidence we had.” he mutters, and you sigh softly.

standing up, you hold a hand out to him to help him up, which he gladly takes. “guess we better get to searching for another lead, then.” you glanced to the lab, pursing your lips at all the rubble that surrounded the entrance where it had exploded.

“i guess so.”

-

you sat on the floor of the library, the glass looking down at the lower floors behind your back. books surrounded the two of you, scattered around as you tried to search for any clues inside of them.

bottles of alcohol also surrounded you, which you guys weren’t holding back on. with your only piece of evidence gone, you were ready to give up and just let the world turn back to the rubble it had been when you first got stuck, as long as you didn’t have to be in it again. you didn’t know if you could handle that like you did the last time.

“you know, i thought we’d be able to figure this out faster.” five mumbles, breaking the silence between the two of you. his words were slightly slurred, from the alcohol. he sighs softly, flipping the page he had been reading to move on to the next.

taking a sip from the bottle you held, you lean your to the side to rest your head on his shoulder. “so did i.” your words are just as jumbled, maybe even worse. “but i guess the world is just... against us.” you close your eyes, feeling tired. you weren’t sure if it was from trying so hard and failing miserably, the alcohol, or actually being tired. you didn’t care.

five stayed quiet for a moment, his gaze still trapped on the book, until he glanced to you. “remember the first night? at griddy’s?” he questions softly, tracing the lip of the bottle with his finger as you nod. “you were saying something about how you felt when we were both separated in the apocalypse.”

you remembered that moment very clearly. even with a hazy mind. you had been preparing to tell him about the feelings you had had for him, before those guys crashed the party. you weren’t sure why you didn’t tell him after. probably slipped your mind after the big fight. “oh.” you sigh softly, eyes still closed as you thought, “yeah, i was just going to tell you that i used to like you. in more than a friend way.” you chuckle, sitting up and shaking your head.

“it’s so stupid.” you look at him, your head tilted to the side, “when we got stuck and i couldn’t find you, i felt like i lost the whole world- well, i guess i did, but not in the literal way.”

his eyebrow’s were furrowed at the information you gave him, probably processing it all. “you liked me?” he questions, a hint of confusion in his tone.

“well, yeah.” you take another drink from the bottle, frowning when there was only a tiny bit left. “i guess i stopped once i found out you went crazy and fell in love with a mannequin.” you laugh, motioning to the mannequin that he had brought along and sat between you two, looking up at the lights on the ceiling.

pursing his lips, five nods, humming in acknowledgment at what you said. “find anything that might help us?” he asks, and you groan, looking back to him.

“i don’t know if we ever will.” you felt like this whole mission was hopeless. you had been ready when the two of you first made it back, prepared to do whatever it took to keep the world safe, but now, all of that confidence and hope was gone. you were close to just giving up.

setting his now empty bottle down, five leans back against the glass. “maybe.” he mumbles softly, and another silence falls.

you don’t even realize when you fall asleep, slumped against his side.

-

when you wake up, it takes you a bit to feel the arms holding you up, your body bouncing slightly with each step they took. your eyes shot open, and you sigh in relief when you see that it’s just diego.

“it’s not secure.” you hear luther’s voice behind him, turning your head to see him walking behind with five in his arms. “those psychopaths could come back at any moment.”

“hey.” you mumble as your eyes fall closed again, and you groan as you feel your stomach churn. it probably wasn’t the best idea to drink that whole bottle, but your mind would clear up once it’s effect wore off a bit, and it would leave you with a killer headache. that was something to worry about later.

you hear five speak, but you can’t focus on his voice, only hearing fragments of what he says. something about puberty. and the end of the world. when he asks what they had been talking about, luther sighs. “two masked intruders attacked the academy last night.”

“they came looking for you!” diego says, the accusation clear.

sighing softly, you let your head hang, “hazel and cha-cha.” you inform him, words jumbled together, “assholes from the commission.”

“best of the best.” five adds on, chuckling, “other than us, of course.” you grin, nodding slightly.

both of the men seemed to be annoyed by your lack of genuine answers, but it’s what they get for thinking that questioning to drunks was a good idea. “the best of what?” luther urges, glaring at five.

“you know, delores always said she hates it when i drink.” five ignores the question, patting the plastic woman on the head as you groan loudly.

you grab onto diego’s arm slightly, “fucking delores. stop talking about her!” you pull yourself up a bit, looking at diego, “he’s in love with a fucking mannequin? can you believe it?” you grin, shaking your head and letting yourself fall back again.

“hey!” you jump as diego suddenly yelled, apparently down to his last straw of patience. “i need you guys to focus.” he stops in his tracks and turns so he could see five as well. “what do they want? this hazel and cha-cha.” his tone is firm, and you’re surprised he’s still expecting actual answers.

you see five’s amused grin and you laugh, but the two men don’t seem nearly as entertained. “we just want to protect you.” he adds on, tone a bit softer but still demanding.

five lets out a mocking laugh, and your grin is obvious. “protect us?” he derides, leaning forward in luther’s arms. “we don’t need your protection, diego. do you know how many people we’ve killed?”

“we’re the four fucking horsemen!” you laugh, throwing your arms up slightly, “the world is ending, and the apocalypse is coming. there’s nothing you can do to help.” you glare at him.

you hear five heave and throw up, and your nose scrunches up. “that’s fucking disgusting-” you can’t stop yourself from doing the same. both the men look at each other in irritation.

-

taglists

main: @horrorklaus​

tua: none at the moment

five: @anapocalypseinmymind @five-hargreeves-official​ @insatiable-ivy​ @coffee-e-addict​

let's save the world @aspiringwriter1​ @thetrashypanda423​ @lilacs-lavender @academy-umbrella​

if you’d like to be added to any taglists, just ask!

[shima-draws]

Different anon but I would LOVE an SAO recap if you don't mind!

Oh HELL YEAH

Alright kiddies buckle up it’s ~RECAP TIME~

Season 1: Sword Art Online/Aincrad Arc

Kirito and 10,000 other players are trapped inside SAO, a game made by Kayaba Akihiko, and are ordered to clear all 100 floors of Aincrad. There’s one catch: if they die in the game, they die in real life. Kirito meets Asuna, Klein, Agil, Silica, and Liz (#Mainsquad). Over the two years of being trapped in the game, Kirito solves some murders, rescues a lot of people, loses a lot of people (RIP Sachi you will be missed) beats up some floor bosses, goes head to head with a murder guild called Laughing Coffin, falls in love with and gets married to Asuna, buys a house, and adopts an AI daughter named Yui. Wow this kid is busy. On the 75th floor Kirito realizes that Heathcliff, the Commander of Asuna's guild, is actually Kayaba Akihiko. Kayaba offers him the option to duel, and if he wins, he will end the game early and allow everybody to log out. Kirito fights Kayaba and, after Asuna intercepts a fatal blow and dies in his arms, is able to defeat him. The game is cleared, and everyone is able to log out!! Kirito and Asuna meet up one last time as Aincrad collapses below them.

Season 1: ALfheim Online/Fairy Dance Arc

Fast forward to several months later. Kirito is on the road to recovery! Except Asuna is still asleep, and nobody can figure out why. Kirito visits the hospital only to discover that Asuna is getting married off to a nasty pedo named Sugou, who controls Rect, a company that runs VRMMORPGs. The wedding is in a week. Kirito panics and is cheered up by his younger sister Suguha. Agil sends Kirito some sketchy screenshots of what appears to be Asuna, inside of a game called ALfheim Online, which is, surprise surprise, run by Rect. Kirito dives into ALO and begins a new adventure! He teams up with Leafa (who is actually Suguha) and the two of them race towards the World Tree, where Asuna is supposedly being kept. We find out that it's Sugou who has trapped Asuna within ALO (because he pretty much runs the game. Asswipe) and is trying to manipulate her into marrying him (ew). Some minor stuff happens with the leaders of some of the fairy races but that's not too important. Eventually the truth comes out and Kirito and Leafa realize who the other is in real life and it's kind of a mess but then they make up and it's...fine? After that, Kirito makes it to the top of the World Tree with the help of all of his new fairy friends. He valiantly rescues Asuna (after some difficulty but then Kayaba's ghost shows up and gives him God Powers) and beats up Sugou who is a disgusting rapist! Kirito logs Asuna out and reunites with her in the real world. After that he distributes a special gift Kayaba had given to him called "The Seed", basically a tutorial kit to create your own VRMMORPGs. The gang logs into ALO to find out that Aincrad has been brought back as part of The Seed's release and get hyped to clear all 100 floors this time.

Season 2: Gun Gale Online/Phantom Bullet Arc

We're introduced to a new game called GGO, which is a lot darker and grungy than SAO/ALO. The star of this season is a girl named Sinon, who is a pro sniper in GGO but has an intense fear of guns in real life because of an incident years ago where she shot a robber and killed him out of self defense (poor, sweet child). She has a close friend named Shinkawa who cares about her a lot who she leans on for support. Scary shit is happening in GGO because famous players are getting shot in game by a guy named Death Gun, which apparently kills them in real life, a repeat of SAO. Kirito is brought in to investigate! He meets Sinon in-game and they sign up for a big tournament to decide who is the most top class gunner. Kirito makes a name for himself by using a laser sword in a game meant for guns (typical protag behavior), and is spooked by Death Gun because it turns out he's a formal Laughing Coffin member from SAO. During the tournament, Sinon is revealed to be one of Death Gun's next targets, so she and Kirito team up and form a bond! Eventually Kirito manages to defeat Death Gun, and he and Sinon win the tournament together (by setting off a present grenade so they die at the same time LMAO). Sinon logs out and meets up with Shinkawa, who reveals that he is one of the people running the Death Gun persona, and tries to kill her by drugging her. Kirito bursts into her apartment at the last second and rescues her. Several days later Kirito helps Sinon come to terms with her trauma, allowing her to finally heal and move on from it.

Season 2: Calibur Arc

Kirito catches word of a new quest in ALO that will allow players to chase after the legendary weapon, Excalibur. Kirito throws together a party (Asuna, Liz, Silica, Sinon, Klein, and Leafa) and aboard a giant elephant jellyfish that Leafa befriended before. The party is greeted by Urd, an NPC and the Lady of the Lake, and she asks them to retrieve Excalibur from the bottom of a frozen lake dungeon. Kirito's like hell yeah we will and so they set off for the dungeon! There they face a pair of really difficult bosses, but are able to defeat them due to the power of friendship and also stabbing them until they die. Deeper into the dungeon they run into a trapped NPC named Freyja, who Klein immediately gets heart eyes for, and although he's repeatedly informed that letting her join their party is a trap (by literally everyone in the group, go figure), decides against his better judgement that he's going to follow his samurai avatar's honor and rescue the fair maiden. Freyja actually gives them some crazy stat boosts so it was #worthit. At the bottom of the dungeon they run into the boss, Thrym, and when Kirito finds the legendary hammer Mjolnir, Freyja takes it and transforms into the god Thor (which crushes Klein beyond repair). Thrym is defeated! At the bottom of the dungeon, Kirito pulls out Excalibur, causing the dungeon to collapse, and is then rescued by Leafa's monster friend. Urd returns and gifts Kirito with Excalibur as his reward for defeating Thrym.

Season 2: Mother's Rosario Arc

Asuna is told rumors about a player in ALO named Zekken, who is so extremely powerful that they have a perfect winning streak, and has even defeated Kirito in a duel. Zekken apparently duels players every day with the promise of gifting them a phenomenal 11-hit sword skill if they can win. Asuna decides to try her chances, and although she loses, Zekken, revealed to be a young girl named Yuuki, decides Asuna is perfect to help her out on her mission. This is to defeat a floor boss with just her guild, the Sleeping Knights, in order to get all of their party's names on the Monument of Swordsmen. After several tries the guild manages to beat the floor boss all on their own. Yuuki accidentally calls Asuna "sis" and panics, logging out and not coming back. Asuna finds out that Yuuki is actually a patient at a hospital and is terminally ill--which is why she was so desperate to defeat the guild boss as a sort of last hurrah and to have her name engraved somewhere in history. Yuuki's been in a full dive machine called the Medicuboid which lets her play games virtually and helps block out her pain. Asuna gets inspired and with Kirito's help, is able to set up a probe that Yuuki can look through in order to see what school life is like in the real world. Several months pass, and the Sleeping Knights spend as much time together as they can. Finally Yuuki's health begins to decline and she logs into ALO one last time to say goodbye and to give Asuna her 11-hit sword skill, Mother's Rosario. Hundreds of other ALO players all join Yuuki to give her a proper send off and pay their respects. As Yuuki dies in Asuna's arms (it's so FUCKING SAD I cry every time I watch this scene), she tells Asuna how grateful she is to have been able to meet her and spend the past few months with her and the guild. After Yuuki's funeral, Asuna and Kirito find out that the Medicuboid she was using was created by Kayaba Akihiko, surprise!! And this leads right into season 3.

So there you go, your recap of both seasons!! Hopefully it was short enough lol I cut out a lot of less important stuff so ;)

[malereader-inserts]

How to Date a Human

Fandom: Good Omens Pairing: Crowley x Male!Reader x Aziraphale Summary: You have to admit, they’re pretty good boyfriends - you just wonder how they do it. Word Count: 2,568 A/n: I know I said I’ll do Mikaelsons for today, but I wanted to do this as a self-indulgent fic. I also said this would be a series but I decided against it also you’re a badass hunter with added upgrades lol, my mind is wild and I can’t stop until I write it. Might do a part two of this tho just to keep me happy

Part Two

When they met you, they thought you were the most adorable human being to ever exist, as they progressively got to know you, you were more dangerous than they thought, at least for a human.

You were a hunter, a pretty good one whilst you’re at it, known throughout the supernatural. You don’t associate yourself with angel business and demon stuff was sketchy that admittedly, you’ve had your share of run-ins. The supernatural was a nightmare for the almighty and the fact that a human was keeping it sane, on the down low and in control. God, herself, praised you for your work and decided to gift you.

You were, after all, her favourite human. 

So, you became immortal but the catch was that you still have to experience everything a human does and if you were to get injured, you cannot be healed, if you were to go to a witch. 

You’ve been dating Crowley and Aziraphale for some time now, six months of dating and a year of being friends with you. They’ve told you their secret and you’ve told your part. You three had no secrets to hide away from each other. 

Other than, the fact the two have a rule book they’ve written just about you. Affectionately called “How to Date a Human.” They have a lot of details, in case if they forget to take care of you seeing you are still human and therefore a little bit more fragile. Death is easier to grab you despite your immortality. You were immortal, not invincible.

You’d never admit, when the two were off busy for the week, you found the book. You found it touching and put it back in its place after reading some of its contents. (and yes, it does have an index page, made by Crowley himself.)

1. Make sure (Y/n) gets enough sleep.

This was the first rule made in the book, the two had noticed that you were seeing them more tired to the point you could fall asleep at your feet. You’ve out and about will latest hunts and peace treaties, they weren’t exactly knowing your sleeping pattern and they haven’t seen you for two weeks. But, from your dark eye bags and frequent yawning

They kept giving each other side-eyes, watching you sway in the middle of the bookshop.

“Alright, that’s it!” Crowley exclaims, holding you firmly at the shoulders.

“Hmh, what?” You asked, yawning, your eyes slowly shutting and then opening.

“Come ‘ere!” Crowley pulls you by the arm.

“Be careful with him, my dear boy!” Aziraphale exclaims, following the two of you into the back room. 

Crowley flops onto the sofa, then tugging you down, catching you effortlessly as you lie on top of him. Aziraphale chuckles as he kneels by you, stroking your hair as you sighed wistfully. You slowly snaked your arms around Crowley and pressed yourself closer, earning a chuckle from him.

Slowly you fell asleep, the even breathing escapes you as Crowley and Aziraphale smiled at each other at their exhausted human. That was the first time they have seen you so exhausted. 

Then it became a habit, Aziraphale had to lead you to the backroom whenever you turned up and he could see your shoulders heavy with tiredness, he’ll close the shop and hold you dear to him as he reads to you. Crowley would let you sleep in the Bentley, sometimes, if you’re around about, he’ll drive around in circle hoping it lulls you to sleep.

They always call you up at night to make sure you’re in bed and talk at you until they hear your snores.

They make sure to keep track of your sleeping habits, making sure you don’t oversleep but when needed they leave you be. You appreciate it, really you do, time is no longer a problem for you anymore but your health is always a top priority for them.

Plus, the love seeing you sleepy you get more affectionate. 

“How much sleep have you gotten last night, love?” Crowley asked just as you enter the bookshop with a cheerful smile, “By the looks of it, enough.”

“You worry too much,” You teased as you squeezed his cheeks.

“We worry just the right amount, and rightly so,” Aziraphale mentions shutting a book he was right in - the start of the rule book dedicated to you, wagging his finger at you as you beamed at him.

“I know,” You hummed, “And that’s why I love you two.”

2. Make sure (Y/n) eats.

Not your fault you forget to eat, when you’re busy and lose the track of time you forget to eat. And when you do, it’s not necessarily healthy. 

“I got’s to go,” You say, pulling your bag over your shoulder as Aziraphale knits his eyebrows together.

He had noticed you had just woken up, your hair still dishevelled and shirt ruffled, you kissed his temple as he looks at you questioningly, a slimy little bastard with his judgmental look. 

“What?”

“You haven’t eaten breakfast!” The angel asserts loudly as you shake your head, heaving out a sigh heavily.

“I’ll eat, I promise!” You say, kissing him again, “Bye, honey!”

You slam the door of your apartment, leaving the angel terribly confused. By the looks of it, you were going too busy for the day so there was no point in expecting you to join Crowley and Aziraphale to lunch that day. Whilst Aziraphale was busy during the night, Crowley was there at your apartment for your arrival.

“Heya darling!” You waved, passionately kissing him upon entrance, “How’s your day?”

Crowley shrugs his shoulders, “Could be better, hunter,” As he watches you pull off your shoes as he narrows his eyes towards you, “Angel told me to ask about what you’ve eaten today.”

“Oh,” You paused, “I haven’t.”

“You’re stupid,” Crowley announced, standing up and throwing the shoes you’ve just pulled off, “Come on we’re getting McDonald's.”

You looked at him blankly, “I don’t want McDonald's.”

“Well, do you have food here?” He snaps at you, you looked unphased as you crossed your arms over your chest like a little child, “Exactly, that’s mah point!”

“I want Subway,” You say, pouting as he raises his eyebrow above his sunglasses, “What? It’s healthy!”

“Heugh-!” He splutters and he starts making his classic noises as you wait for him to finish his outburst, “Healthy!? If I recall you haven’t eaten food and you’re talking about being healthy!”

“I...Yeah?” You sounded unsure but you could feel your demon glaring daggers at you as he yanks your arm, “Wait! I haven’t put my shoes on!”

With ease, he flings you over his shoulder, grumbling as you crossed your arms over your chest as Crolwy have a hold of your shoes. 

“Nice arse, babe.”

“Hey!” Crowley exclaims, but you couldn’t see there was a smug smile on his face as he puts you into the passenger seat and gives you your shoes.

You hated being in the car when Crowley drove and you always try and not get weirded out as he watched you eat. You huffed as you wiped your mouth and finished your foot-long sub before he pushed over six inches sub towards you.

“Hey, don’t glare at me, if it was Aziraphale he would be taking you out for a three-course meal,” Crowley shrugs as he picks up the sub and tries to force-feed you.

“I will bite you.”

“Do it, I dare you,” He hissed, knowing that he was challenging you behind his sunglasses.

You snatched the sub out of his hand and munched away with a mouth full of food., “You haven’t told Ariza, have you?”

“Manners!” You jumped at the new voice, you huffed as Aziraphale sits down in between you and Crowley. You give him a tight smile as he looks at you with a stern look, “You’re unbelievable!”

“I forgot!” 

“It’s substantial for a human, sweetheart, only an idiot would-”

“I already heard this from Crowley, I don’t need your bitchness,”

“You will get it-”

“Uh no-”

The three of you started to bicker as you continue to eat, since then, Aziraphale makes sure you text you incisively to eat and gives you disapproving looks when you’re eating unhealthily, though he will always make room for dessert with you.

3. If he returns injured, DO NOT scowl at him (if needed; do it lightly) and always tend to him because he would not do it himself

It was clear to the boys that you sometimes come home minorly injured, some cuts and bruises you couldn’t handle. They wish they could miracle it away but due to your agreement, you have to suffer.

So, every wince, every huff of pain, each complains, they also have to suffer with you. They hated seeing you in pain, even if was nothing. Sometimes you try to hide it but one of them always catch on.

However, the first time you came home with more than minor injuries. The two freaked out. You were gone for some expedition to calm down some werewolves and you had silver to warn them. You were sure you stopped the bleeding of the scratch, and you were luckily not bitten as you slowly make your way to your apartment, not noticing the Bentley parked nearby.

You opened the door of your apartment and stepped in, tiredly looking at your boyfriends.

You put your bag down and stumble over your feet as you felt some hands catch you, “Thanks Aziraph- Azi-A-,”

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” He interrupts you, looking at Crowley desperately as the demon was seething in his spot.

“Have I ever mention that I fucking hate werewolves?”

Crowley moves towards you and picks you up, gritting his teeth as you wince loudly. Aziraphale snaps his fingers as the three of you arrived at your bathroom, the tub slowly filling up with hot water and helped you to get rid of the bloody coat and shirt off you.

You sat on the side of the tub, whilst Crowley and Aziraphale stood before you.

“What were you thinking?” Crowley started to scowl, pulling out a first aid kit whilst your angel runs a hand through your hair whilst kissing you tenderly, “Going out knowing there was a full moon.”

“Very irresponsible of you!” Aziraphale added his two cents, “I thought you know better!”

“You could have been killed, you’re not invincible-!” The demon continues as you flinched when he started to stitch put your cut, “That’s what you get!”

You looked up to them as they paused, your eyes looking so fed up. You swallow and look guilty, though you looked so exhausted of just existing at that moment as you let out a shaky breath.

“I’m sorry,” You whispered, your voice broke at the end and letting out an uneven breath. 

“You just have to be more careful, (Y/n),” Aziraphale softly hums, as Crowley continues to stitch you up so carefully that you won’t flinch.

“We’re aware it’s your job, but,” Crowley struggles to speak honestly, he struggles to be soft.

“You have to come home to us, and seeing you injured...well.”

“It’s hard when we can’t miracle you better.”

The two looks at you as you looked down, looking at your shaky hands - that’s what blood loss does, “Lets clean you up then?”

You allowed yourself to get assisted to stripped as your boyfriends lavish you. Your skin scalding due to the hot waters before getting used to the temperature. Aziraphale washes your hair as Crowley lathes you, discovering smaller cuts and bruises appearing on your body.

After that, they help you get dressed comfy whilst Crowley miracles your hair dry and leading you to your bed, which was a super king bed. You lie in the middle as you shut your eyes, hoping to block the pain.

Your boyfriends lie beside you, unable to sleep as you sleep because they were more concerned about you. 

So, they vowed that you would never take of yourself so they had to do it. Most of the time when you come back pretty nastily, they remind you how they need you to come home safe but always drop compliments, or close to compliments in Crowley’s situation.

4. What to do when he has a bad day.

Aziraphale's handwriting is pretty, you think now as you stare at the writing in the book. 

There was just a list of what to do when you have a bad day, not that you have many. Also, it’s subjective to each person to what is a bad day. A sad bad day or an angry bad day differ immensely, however, Aziraphale had listed different days and what to do, which by the looks of it Crowley has taken a look of it far too many times till he got it memorized.

If he’s sad, get him to the closest soft surface. Such as a bed or sofa, even your lap.

You like sitting on the angel’s lap because he had a little more weight, you liked cuddling up to him. 

Don’t force him to speak, let him tell you when ready. (I mean it, Crowley!)

You smirked when you see the little note to Crowley, Crowley gets impatient most of the time, but as he continues to date you, his patience with you grows and his patience with Aziraphale decreases.

Cuddles! Lots of them, stroke his hair, traces on his skin, just hold him! 

Affection, if there is a medal or trophy you could give to Aziraphale because he's so soft and always a sucker for affection. Crowley likes affection when it’s for him, he struggles to give back, so if you’re the one who reaches out for him then he’ll happily give it to you but he would never insinuate it.

If it’s an angry bad day, let him blow off some steam (that does not mean you can go make him do something illegal, Crowley)

There was that one time, Crowley almost convinced you to start a fight to release your anger before Aziraphale came to the rescue. Now, you go punch a punching bag at the gym if needed, they leave you be for a few hours to let you cool down.

If it’s a frustration bad day, well, the handwriting changes to Crowley’s, let him steam it off with sex! (or alcohol) - only with his permission, obviously.

You chuckled at the demon’s eagerness for sex and alcohol, but also respectful of your boundaries and such. You were even amused that Aziraphale had not crossed out Crowley’s suggestion because it was true.

You shut the book and put it away. There were a few more rules added with the scrawls of your boyfriends, but you couldn’t possibly have the time to read all of them. You tapped your finger against the wooden desk, you looked at the book with narrowed eyes, upon the shelves wedged in between with other books owned by your angel.

You picked up your bag and checked how much money you have as you made your way to the nearest supermarket for a book also. Clean and ready for your ink to spill.

And you would affectionately call it: How to Date a Demon and an Angel.

You might have to change the “A Demon and an Angel” Bit to something shorter, it’s a working process.

[monsteronfire]

A Mystery | Pt 24

College Student!Jungkook x Reader/OC

Sometimes life presents the things you need in a mysterious way. Jungkook is a college student with a sketchy past and a debt on the rise. If he can’t get his life together he could lose not only his last year of tuition, but his future and the well-being of those he loves as well. Then along comes a ghost named A and he’s left feeling constantly uneasy and in possible danger whenever they interact, but it could be that A has what he needs to keep his life going

———

The car goes dark as soon as your screen does and you toss the phone into the glove compartment with all the others. There’s probably close to a dozen there, all of them little shields that kept the real you safe from your enemies- and your friends. It’s strange to see them now, all dark in a box. One you’ll probably never look into again once this is all over. You feel a small sense of loss. Like letting go of old friends after so many years.

But sometimes such things were necessary.

“M-miss?”

The woman behind you still trembles with fear, even after a nearly two hour drive. Parts of her face are red and slightly swollen, but thankfully you’d gotten there soon enough that they hadn’t done too much damage to her. She sits in the backseat of your car and as you stare at her in the rear view mirror now, you see a bit of Taehyung in her and it kills you a little.

“Don’t worry. I’m taking you to see your son. Get out.”

She hesitates, but you don’t, climbing out of the driver’s seat and walking to the door just behind you. You pull it open and she flinches away, making you wish she remembered you at least a little from before. Your hand goes out to her gently, beckoning her to you.

“It’s okay, I’m not going to let anyone hurt you anymore.”

Again she hesitates, but finally takes your hand and let’s you lift her out of the car. You drag her along down the back street, empty cars and old buildings giving the area an abandoned feel. You spot Jimin’s easily enough, remembering the picture when you looked it up before. It looks empty from this far and you panic for a split second, afraid that something happened or they were dumb enough to leave its safety. However, when you get closer you see them both laying back in the seats speaking quietly to each other. You almost stop when you see Taehyung, his face a storm of emotion and none of it good or happy in anyway. It tugs at your heart, but you can’t make excuses anymore. What happened, happened. All you can do now is make it right.

You rap your knuckles against the driver’s side window and both nearly jump out of their skin at the sound. Taehyung’s face instantly changes to a full on glare while Jimin works to open the window. Taehyung is too impatient to shout at you and gets out instead, only pausing when he spots his mother behind you. Just as he’s shouting for her, Jimin is opening his door and climbing out. His face holds kinder emotions for you and he hugs you when he shouts your name.

“A!”

“Oh Taehyungie!”

“Mom! Are you okay?”

Taehyung and his mom embrace each other, and you release her so that they can have their moment together. He pulls away and holds her at arm’s length, looking her over and whispering apologies to her. As if it were his fault this all happened. You only look away when Jimin releases you, his sweet smile more than you deserve.

“Are you okay? You made it out safe?”

“I’m fine. We made it out okay, but,” you pause and turn to the other two, “... we need to get you two into hiding for now.”

“For now? How long is that?” Taehyung’s anger is potent in his words and had you been anyone else it would hurt more than it does.

“You’re both still in danger. I need to keep you safe while-“

“Safe? Keep us safe?!”

Both Jimin and Taehyung’s mother speak his name lowly, trying to calm him.

“You were supposed to keep us safe years ago, A! I’m inclined to believe you don’t actually know what that word means!”

“Tae, please,” Jimin says again, putting himself halfway between you and his friend. How wonderful this boy must be to trust you so even after what you did.

“It’s okay, Jimin. He has every right, but save it for another few minutes. I need to get you into hiding. We can’t be out in the open like this for too long.”

“I’m sorry, you want me to put my anger on hold right now? Do you even have any idea-“

Your eyes close, your fear mounting into frustration.

“Taehyung!” He falls silent.

“Don’t make me knock you out again.”

He remains silent, albeit a glare still sits on his face. Regardless, you’re satisfied. You turn from the group, walking in a different direction without looking back. Jimin will make sure they follow. He trusts you for whatever reason.

“Crone will be scouring the fucking Earth looking for you two. Until he’s dealt with you need to stay hidden.”

“Why does he care so much about us anyway? Why can’t he just leave us alone?”

“Because he is a man of power. In his life he controls all. Except you two. I took that from him.”

“Not well enough it seems...”

You take them further down the street, the sound of seafulls putting you a bit more at ease. A brick wall built higher than you runs along the end of the road, a fence gate in the center and piles of massive shipping crates in the distance beyond it. The seagulls circle in the sky and off to one side behind the wall is a massive warehouse. The scent of water fills your lungs.

“A shipping yard?” Jimin asks sweetly.

“My shipping yard. Bought it years ago, though it’s set up to still look like it’s run by the city. It functions normally, still runs like it used to, but I’ve added a few tweaks to make it more useful for me.”

“What kind of tweaks?” Jimin almost sounds excited, though you suppose that doesn’t surprise you. He seems to enjoy a more atypical type of life than most, no matter how much he tries to hide it. Out of anyone he’d probably be the most curious about the inner workings of your old life.

“Mostly storage, in the crates and underground, a couple safe rooms and a holding cell. A fallout shelter.”

“Fallout shelter? Holding cell?” Jimin speeds to catch up and walk next to you. You give him a sidelong glance and smirk a little. He’s cute.

“Holding cell for those I need to lock up for a while and fallout shelter mainly in case I need to go into hiding for a bit, but not permanently. But you never know,” you wink at him and he grins, skipping closer to you.

“What’s all in there? How long can you survive down there? Have you ever used it?”

“Is that where you’re taking us?”

You glance behind you, Taheyung’s arm around his mother and a glare still on his face.

“Yes. I was going to put you in one of the safe rooms, but they’re above ground and can still be penetrated by heat detection devices. The fallout shelter is built underground far enough that nothing can detect you down there. Plus there’s first aid stuff down there so you can look after you mom.”

“Who are you,” his mother finally asks meekly. To your surprise Taehyung remains silent, looking from her back to you. Almost as if he’s curious to see how you will actually answer. You turn your attention back to the path in front of you, your expression starting to match his.

“Someone that was supposed to keep you safe the first time you ran from Crone.”

No one says anything else and you’re glad for it. You finally stop at a row of shipping crates, pausing to look around for a moment. A habit. When it looks like the coast is clear, you press your hand into the side of the blue painted container. A rectangle gives way under your touch to reveal a number pad, your fingers punching in the numbers from muscle memory alone. Nine digits and an enter button has the ground beneath you rumbling. You pull Jimin back closer to you as the earth lowers and pulls back under the crate, revealing stairs down to a small door.

“Hurry now,” you say and motion them down the stairs. The old fashioned, pressurized door opens to an elevator that takes you 30 feet underground, giving you an extra few feet to avoid thermal detection. The shelter is small, but equipped with the basics for living underground for a time; up to a year. You flip a large switch when you exit the elevator and lights flicker on one after the other to reveal the sparsely decorated interior.

“Quaint,” Taehyung mocks, leading his mother to the nearest chair.

“It was never meant to be a home.” You reply mechanically, heading past them to find the first aid kit. Jimin is silent while he looks around, awe on his face and his eyes sparkling with wonder. Now that they’re here you realize your mind is beginning to shut down. You got them to safety, but there’s still more to do and if you let emotions get involved, your chances of death and failure heighten. You have a process, like a computer working through the paths of programming when you click on something. When you leave here you’ll become a machine.

As you’d been raised to be.

You return with the white and red box, passing it to Taehyung and stepping back. You likely know more about anything medical than him, but you know if you’re ever going to win back some semblance of your friendship then you need to do this. Let him take care of his own mother.

“You ever gonna give me these answers you keep promising me? Or is it just another empty one?”

His words are harsh and they sting. It takes you a moment, your mind giving you every red flag to not open up like this. But this was a necessity; just like standing back and letting him tend to his mother. Finally you start, your fingers fiddling with themselves for just a second before your hands fall to your sides.

“I have never completely been who you thought I was. For the most part it’s always been me, but there’s always been so much more. I have never been normal-“

“That’s pretty clear,” he mumbles and your eyes narrow a bit.

“I have never been normal, nor have I ever been ordinary. I do not have parents like you do, or sisters, or brothers. Not a family, not in the traditional sense. My brothers and sisters are warriors like me. Killers, assassins, mercenaries. We are rigorously trained from the age of 7 to the age of 20 to be... the best. Combat training, weapons training, intelligence, espionage, sabotage, camouflage, all of it. Whatever’s in your books to describe a ‘spy,’ we learn. We are meant to be soldiers, to fight for her. Whatever her means, we carry them out.”

“Who is she?” Jimin asks, sitting in a chair near the other two.

“Her tale is for another time. All you need to know now is that she trained me to be deadly and I was very proficient at it. Well... all, but the killing part. It was not something I did lightly. I was better at other things. And then I left her at the age of 18.”

“Why?”

“Near the end of my time with the troupe, she grew too old to continue collecting power. She left it to her son, an idiot who was sure to botch everything up. In the transition of power from her to him, many of us left. He tried to send others out after us. Some died, some were captured and returned, and the rest- like me- were lost. We split up, intent on making new lives. I fell into information.”

“Informant,” Taehyung almost spits.

“Yes, in a way. I was a freelance information specialist. I gathered and sold info on the blackmarket.”

“So what made you start working for Crone?”

He’s still so angry, his voice still so full of venom and disdain. You pause a beat before speaking again, your eyes looking up from your hands to your friend.

“You.”

He falls silent, the anger melting away and shock taking its place. Jimin looks much the same, his gaze switching from you to his friend and then back again. Almost comically.

“When I met you and we became friends; when you asked me to help you, I did. I was only a few years out of the troupe so while I had the money and tools to save you, it was not completely. I knew Crone could still find you and I wouldn’t be able to protect you if he did. So I made a deal with him. I could give him the power he so desired as long as he left you and your mother be. He could keep tabs on you, but always out of sight and out of mind. So long as I fed him the info he needed to rise to power, he was to leave you alone.”

Everyone is silent for a long moment, Jimin looking a bit uneasy of what could happen next. Taehyung stares at his lap, quiet, thinking. You straighten as you watch him, your story coming to an end and your task coming to its beginning. You’re not finished yet.

“Why did he come to me then, what changed his mind?” Taehyung asks, but doesn’t look up at you. Jimin stares at you and you motion for him to head to the elevator. He hesitates, but then rises silently and takes slow steps.

“I’ve been working for a few years now... To complete my promise. I could never really keep you safe before, so I started working to do so. If I take down Crone, then there will be no one left to hunt you.”

He looks up at that, shocked. Did he really not expect that of you? For you not to finish this? So many emotions pass through his eyes that for a moment you see your friend. The old Taehyung that knew none of this and still cared for you as you cared for him. And so you do not stay.

Let me keep this moment, you think to yourself.

“Stay here, don’t leave this place until I send someone for you.”

“A?” He speaks as you leave.

You turn and head for the elevator where Jimin stands almost dutifully.

“I told you I had more to do.”

“A wait,” he reaches for you, standing just as he catches your wrist. You pause, but look back at him.

“I’m going to finish this, Tae. When I’m done, you’ll be able to go back to your normal life.”

He opens his mouth to speak again, but you tug your wrist from his grip and continue on. You walk quickly, shoving Jimin into the elevator and pressing the button to go back up. Taehyung calls for you again, trying to reach you before you go, but the door closes and you are left in peace. The ride up is silent and it isn’t until you reach the surface again that Jimin speaks.

“A?”

“Jimin, I have one last favor of you.”

“Anything,” he replies quietly, reaching out for your hand. You don’t have the heart to look at him, instead staring off into the distance.

“I will give you word when I take care of Crone. I’ll need you to come get Taehyung. Can you do that for me?”

He’s silent for a long moment, his other hand coming to clasp yours and squeezing it comfortingly.

“I will.”

“Thank you. Go home. Get some rest, tell the others their friend is fine.”

“Good luck, A. Come back to us.”

Finally you look at him.

“I aim to.”

———

Previous :: Next

A/N: Whew! Okay! So this turned out way longer than I expected! Like I need to learn some restraint I guess. 😅 Anyway, the next part should be out on time tomorrow. It will be much shorter. I hope you guys enjoy this one!

@deolly, @mygukandonly, @doilooklikeinoe, @j-i-m-i-n-e, @ask-blogger-miss-prussia, @titillandux, @d-noona

[imaginedeux]

Girl At The Rock Show (E.D. Imagine)

A/N: So Warped Tour happened like almost a year ago now, and I've been wanting to write something. I’ve read a couple of imagines where the reader goes to Cochella with the twins, but I haven't read them going to Warped Tour, and that’s honestly a concept. The show is going to be in San Diego, but i’ll be putting set times from when I went.

“Hey whats up guys! We’re back! Well, I’m back, Grayson is sick and can't film/ can't leave the house, but don't worry, we have four other amazing people here to help me with today’s video! Please introduce yourselves to the camera!” Ethan yelled at the camera from the passenger seat, pointing it at you.

“Hey! It’s (Y/N)! And I’m currently driving E’s car the three hour journey to San Diego.” You fake groaned, before you smiled at the camera, making sure you stayed in your lane. Your three other friends in the back seat all yelled hello before Ethan said he would update them when they got to the location.

“Awesome, now for a 3 hour nap.” Ethan sighed, putting his feet onto the dashboard.

“Oh, heck nah! You have at least three hours to learn one song from one of the bands playing today.” You explained, giving him your phone that was tethered to the car’s bluetooth. “I have a playlist on Spotify with a bunch of songs from some bands playing today, so you better get learning.”

“I’ll give you 3 seconds to guess where we are today!” Ethan yelled at his camera as you grabbed your draw string backpack from the trunk, ready to get the long day stared. “Well you’re probably wrong, or you're right cause you read the title to the video. I’m at the LAST Vans Warped Tour in San Diego! As you know a couple of months ago, Gray and I surprised (Y/N) with a ticket to Cochella, and she had the time of her life. Now a month-ish ago she surprised Gray and I with tickets to Warped Tour, but unfortunately Gray got sick, so we gave his ticket to one of (Y/N)’s friends since they didn't have the chance to buy a ticket before it sold out. So now we’re here, I’m not sure how much i’ll be able to film because it is a sold out gig and there are going to be a ton of people, I might just get (Y/N) to film for me.”

“I’ll only film for you if you end up crowd surfing, everything else is on you.” You shook your head closing the trunk of his car, after making sure everyone had what they needed. “Alright lets head out!” A five minute walk from the rather sketchy $20 parking lot later, your group came across the end of the line. “No fucking way, the entrance is literally around the block, and the doors don't open for another hour.”

“See, I told you we should have brought the cans of food, we would have gotten early entrances.” Your friend Carla, lectured as people with bags of food cans walked by.

“I completely forgot about them! I could have sworn I had them at the apartment before we left, but I couldn't find them this morning.” You explained, groaning. If you had non-perishable cans of food, or even an old cellphone, and you donated them, you'd be able to enter the grounds, about half an hour before everyone else did.

“Wait, were they all cans of corn?” Ethan asked from behind you. Turning, you gave him a look.

“Yes...” You answered squinting your eyes at him. “Did you take them?! I swear E, if you did...” You started before Ethan covered your mouth with his free hand, the other holding onto the camera recording the scene in front of him.

“No, wait, they’re in the car. They were in the cardboard boxes next to the first aid kit.” Ethan explained, pointing the camera at himself, before the group of you started to yell.

“E, can you PLEASE, go and grab them? Please! I’ll buy you a whole pineapple pizza to yourself when we get to the hotel tonight.” You pleaded, taking the camera away from him. A laugh at the group later, he was sprinting back towards the car, ready to get this long day started.

“Thank you guys for the donations, you all have a good day!” The woman taking the cans said, scanning your tickets.

“Likewise!” The lot of you smiled back, making your way towards the grounds. “So how is this going to work? Cause I know Carla, Kevin and Jack wanna go and see Crown The Empire, and it looks like they’re one of the first to play at the White Lightning Stage, and that’s on the other side of the venue.” You said looking up between the inflatable line-up and the venue map you payed way too much for. 

“Well, it looks like All Time Low is gonna be the last to play today at the Right Foot Stage at 8:30, and thats a band we all wanna see so we can meet up at the end of the day of thats what you want?” Jack, said pointing at the line up. This was one of the things about warped, most of the time the bands you wanna see play at same time and on opposite sides of the venue. 

“Wait look, Chase Atlantic is playing at 7:55, isn't that the band you wanna see?” You asked looking up at Ethan, who was looking back at the line up.

“Yeah it is, but its at 7:55, which means that we’ll be late to the band y'all wanna see.” Ethan realized, looking at how long Chase would play. “I know you’ve been wanting to see All Time Low for years, and I don't want you to miss out on them.”

“Thats nonsense, so looks like we have a plan. Jack, you, Carla and Kevin wanna see the same bands, so you can stick together. I’ll stick with Ethan, so we’ll meet you at the Right Foot Stage at around 8:30, if anything I brought an extra battery pack so I can text y'all.” You smiled at the group before the five of you split. 

“You ready to see a real rock show?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be, maybe its a good idea that Gray didn't come, he’d be freaking out about Chase, he’s the one who got me into them.” Ethan laughed as the two of you walked by multiple vendors trying to sell the two of you things you really didn't need. 

“Get your free bracelet for the opportunity to meet State Champs!” A vendor yelled as you walked by, causing you to stop dead in your tracks. You weren't sure if it was the State Champs t-shirt you decided to wear with a pair of high waisted black shorts and your trusty Sk-8 Hi black Vans, or if it was the multiple home-made SC patches that decorated our backpack, that made the lady yell the moment you passed by.

“E, give me a second.” You whispered, before you hauled ass towards the booth with the lady who was yelling. “Hi, is it true you’re giving fans a chance to meet State Champs?”

“Yup, I saw your patches and I couldn't let the opportunity pass. So, it is a free meet and greet, all you have to do is watch this video, its only 2 minutes long so it won't take too much time out of your day, then after its done, we’ll go ahead and give you a bracelet for the meet and greet at 1:30 at the tent right next door.” She explained pointing at the places that you needed to go to, to be able to meet your favorite band at the festival.

“Can I get to meet them too?” The hazel eyed boy asked from beside you.

“Sure, just go ahead and watch a quick video and I’ll give you a bracelet to meet them at 1:30 at the tent next door.” She gave him the same smile she gave you, pointing everything out. The video was short and to the point, don't smoke, it'll kill you. “Thank you so much for watching the video, and here are the bracelets you need to meet State Champs. The meet and greet will start at 1:30 so if you want to get here before hand thats alright.”

“Thank you!” The two of you yelled, walking away from the tent not sure what to do next. “So are there any bands you wanna see?” 

“DID YOU SEE THAT?!” Ethan yelled coming back up from behind you, you had to admit that you were surprised to see Ethan actually crowd surf his way to the front where Mayday Parade was playing.

“Of course I did, and you're gonna be happy I got that all on film.” You laughed at him, with the camera in your hand. You and your friends were concert goers but not brave enough to crowd surf yet. “This video is going to be killer to edit next week.”

“Dont worry I’ll get Gray to edit it since he was too sick to come along.” Ethan laughed looking over the crowd as they jumped and danced along to the band covering Blink-182′s Girl at The Rock Show. “Not even at Coachella are people this hyped to see their favorite band or artist. We need to come to more of these.”

“Some of the bands have been making music since a lot of these kids were young, they grew up hearing these bands. Warped is decently priced so this might be some of these peoples only chance of seeing their favorite band live.” You explained as the lead singer, Derek thanked the crowd for letting them play main stage, and said they would be playing their last song next, which was a fan favorite. “Come on E, Mayday’s almost done, so that means its almost 1:30, its time to meet State Champs.”

~~

“Next please!” The already annoyed merch employee yelled as some kids stepped out of the tent.

“Holy shit E, it really is them!” You mumbled covering your mouth as you and Ethan stepped into the tent.

“Hey yall, how’s warped tour going?” Derek, the lead singer asked as the two of you came face to face with one of your favorite bands in the last couple of years.

“It’s good so far, it’ll be even better once I see yall play! By the way, can I get a hug please?” You asked almost shaking, this band was the reason you got out of the comfort zone of your hometown and are the reason you moved to L.A., they gave you the courage to do everything you were scared to do before.

“Come on in here!” Ryan, one of the guitarists laughed bringing you in for a bone crushing hug. “You to my man! Hugs for everyone.” E’s laugh rumbled through the tent as the group of you came in for a group hug. You never thought that you’d ever be able to meet them, much less hug them.

“Can we get a group picture?” Ethan asked this time, you’d honestly forgotten about asking for picture with them, being in the same city as them was good enough for you.

“Sure, anything you guys wanna do?” Tyler, the other guitarist asked.

“How about 90′s rap cover group picture?” You asked shaking out of your state of shock. “Honestly its the only thing I can think of and I’m just remembering the photo of pigeons that looked like they were about to drop the greatest rap album of the century.”

“I know which one you’re talking about! Dude I honestly didn’t think anyone remembers that photo.” Tony, the bass player grinned at the thought of the pigeon photo. Handing over his phone, Ethan quickly squatted down in front of you, Derek doing the same as the rest of the band stood next to you, allowing you to be in the center of the picture. 

“Thank you again for coming to Warped Tour, thank you for being a fan of us and allowing us to come out and play all away across the country from our hometown.” Evan said giving you another hug. 

“Thank you all as well, your music gave me the courage to move out of my little hometown to L.A., without ya’ll, I don’t know where I would be.” You grinned, before you hugged all of them one last time. “Can’t wait to see yall play later!”

~~

“I still can’t believe that we met State Champs, they’re all as beautiful as they look like on Instagram.” You gushed biting into one of the ice pops the two of you bought for way too much.

“(Y/N), that was like two hours ago, you even got to see them live. How are you still going on about them?” Ethan asked chucking the stick into the nearest trashcan, it’d been a couple of hours since State Champs played and the two of you decided to wonder around the festival grounds.

“I don’t know, their music gave me so much courage to be myself, they’re the reason why i’m standing here in San Diego, because without them I wouldn’t have moved to L.A., met you, Gray, Carla, Jack, and Kevin, and without yall, I wouldnt have gotten the chance at meeting them.” You explained grinning at Ethan. “I really do owe it all to them. So, anyways, what do you wanna do now? We have a couple more hours till Chase, so we have time to do anything you want.”

“We haven’t filmed anything for the vlog in a while, why don’t we find a place to sit, and talk to the viewers.”

“Sorry it’s been a minute since we’ve updated you, but the group was disbanded so we could watch the bands we wanted to watch. What bands have we seen today?” Ethan asked, looking between you and the camera the two of you set up on an empty picnic table you were able to grab.

“We’ve seen Mayday Parade, we got to see a part of 3OH!3′s set, which was at more lit than I thought it was going to be, we saw my band State Champs, go follow them on all social media you wont regret it, when we finally got out of the pit, we got to see the last couple of songs for Simple Plan, and we just finished watching Bowling For Soup’s set. For those who dont know, Warped Tour is consisted of six different stages, the Journey’s Left Foot and Right Foot stage are the two main stages of the festival, while the other four are smaller stages, two are for the heavier bands and the other two are for smaller bands. Anyways, the reason we’ve seen 5 bands, is because they’ve been on the Left and Right stages so they’re right next to each other. Now we’re waiting for Chase Atlantic’s set and we’re going to meet back up with the group to watch All Time Low, another band you should go and follow on all social media, just follow all the bands, they’re all good.”

“Wow, talk about that plug. But I have to admit, their music has been really good, a lot of music you could work out too for sure. Oh, we also met (Y/N)’s favorite band State Champs, and they were actually really cool, they seemed really down to earth,” Ethan started before you gestured to put the photo in the video. “Insert picture here, I dont know how it looks and (Y/N), chose the pose, so if we look like idiots, blame (Y/N).”

“Hey, I’m giving them quality content, so you’re welcome.” You sassed looking down at your phone. “My friend from back home is mad at me that I’m Warped without her, and shes telling me to go check out a band if they haven’t played yet. Can I borrow your phone, to see if they’ve played yet?”

“So demanding,” Ethan joked as you grabbed his phone out of his hand. “If you have a chance at trying to come to one of these shows, do it. If you don’t mind walking around for hours, or being around large groups of people, and some of these band’s fans do go hard and start moshing, but if you don’t mind any of that, it something everyone should do at least once in their life.” 

“Hey, the band my friend is talking about is going to play in like 30 minutes, can we head over? It’s on the same page Chase Atlantic is playing at.”

~~

“We’re With Confidence, we’re all the way from Sydney, Australia, thank you so much for letting us play few songs for you guys today!” The lead singer, and also bassist said smiling. “I’m Jayden, this beautiful man on guitar is Inigo, and this equally beautiful man on drums is Josh. If you guys dont mind we’ll be meeting any one that wants to meet us, right at our tent over there, it’s big and pink you cant miss it. We’ll be signing your things and if you want, you can pre-order our album coming out at the end of the summer, and you can get both a physical and digital copy when you buy today.” 

“Oh my god, do you hear those accents? Why are they so beautiful?” You gushed as they played a new song coming out on the album they were talking about. Like most of the other songs they had played, they were all high energy, the kids up at the barricades were jumping along to the beat, and some of the kids in the middle of the crowd were opening up the pit for a circle pit, the dust flying up into the air as they ran around in a circle. That was one of the perks of being far from the barricades, and on the outside perimeter of the pit, you were able to see everything, and how the kids were reacting to the band. “I’ve never heard of this band, but they are amazing, i’m definitely signing up for a CD.”

“First, State Champs, now these guys? Who don’t you love, (Y/N)?” Ethan sighed, rolling his eyes as you got footage of the band and of the kids in the moshpit.

“I fall easily, all it takes is a pretty face and an amazing accent.” You stuck your tongue out at Ethan as the band started to play their final song.

“This entire video is going to be just you meeting bands.”  Ethan laughed as you pulled him to the meet and greet line for With Confidence.

“Hey, i’m at least giving you content E, you would have probably just pranked Gray if it wasnt for me.” You grinned at the camera knowing it was true.

“I mean true.”

“And, i’m giving your Instagram followers content as well, y’all have no idea how many times E has taken his shirt off today because of how warm it got, and he’s definitely gotten some stares from some of the kids here.”

“Hey! It’s not my fault it’s gotten warm!” He explained grabbing the camera from you, pointing it at himself as he tried to defend his actions.

“Um, I told you to wear shorts and a tank top, but no! I know how to dress for a festival, and its not going to get hot.” You mocked Ethan, grabbing the camera out of his hands as you used his cool voice. “And here he is suffering in black plaid jeans and a white long sleeve.” Laughing you showed the viewers the outfit he decided to wear to a summer festival.

“Well you’ll be the one complaining later when we go and see All Time Low, and you’re freezing.” Ethan shot back as one of the security guards started allowing the first kid to meet With Confidence.

“That’s what you think! While you were meeting some of fans, I went and bought myself an All Time Low hoodie so HA!” You laughed, shoving the camera towards Ethan to grab the hoodie you got from your favorite band. “They didnt have my size so I had to get the next size up, but its so comfortable guys.” You could already feel the shift in temperature so it was the perfect time to put on your hoodie. The hoodie reached below the hem of your shorts, and the sleeves went passed the tips of your fingers with ease, it looked like you were ready for bed, not ready to rock out at a concert.

--

Meeting With Confidence was a whole other experience, they were so happy to see people lining up to meet them. They were constantly thanking you and Ethan for being there to see them, and giving their band a chance. They were happy to hear that you were going to buy a CD and a couple of shirt from their merch stand, and were like that with the kids before and after you. A couple of heavier bands later, and Chase Atlantic started to play is when you started recording the crowd’s reaction to the band. Both you and Ethan realized that the music they’ve released, is played differently live. Rather than the sensual RnB vibe, they sounded like all the other rock bands that played that day. Midway through their set they thanked everyone for stay to see them play since they were one of the last bands playing that day, as they continued to thank the crowd, Ethan grabbed the camera and started recording the crowd from his perspective. This is something that the two of you had been doing all day, so both of you could enjoy the band, and it would give Gray more angles to edit. Its once Ethan started recording the crowd and the band that he realized how well you knew the lyrics to the songs. You swayed when the music slowed, you jumped along to the kick drum, you spun around as the lead singer sang the lyrics all the kids in the crowd knew. Ethan stepped back and started recording you as the lead singer stopped singing, allowing the crowd to sing the lyrics to one of their more famous songs. Although the temperatures continued to lower, that wasnt causing the blush on Ethan’s cheeks to appear.

“Alright, this is going to be the last song we play tonight, thank you for allowing us to play here to night, and I hope you guys have an amazing rest of the evening.” The lead singer, Mitchel, thanked as the band started playing the last song.

“E, come on! We need to head to the Right Foot Stage, Carla, Kevin and Jack are already there!” You yelled, literally pulling him out of his day dream and out of the crowd. As the two of you ran to one of the last stages still up, the two of you could hear the sea of kids singing along to some of the songs that were playing through the speakers, waiting for the final band to play. “Look, there they are!”

--

“Thank you guys so much!” Alex thanked the crowd before he started the last song of San Diego’s Warped Tour. 

“I’ve got your picture, i’m coming with you. Dear Maria count me in, theres a story at the bottom of this bottle and i’m the pen!” The entire crowd sang as, Alex, Jack and Zack jumped around the stage and around Rian, who was playing the drums. By the time the lot of you had gotten to the stage, you were a good twenty yards away from the stage, but it didnt bother you. If anything it allowed your group to step back, and be able to dance along to the songs you grew up with. It also gave Ethan the opportunity to record you guys without being shoved around in the pit. Then the song reached the long awaited climax, as Jack and Alex threw their guitars across the stage, the confetti cannons showered the crowd in multi colored paper. Although the sounds of the cannons startled Ethan, he never took his eyes off you as the pieces of paper fell around you. It was the gasp that made you stop spinning around to look at Ethan. 

He could have sworn that the sound of the crowd drowned out his gasp, but apparently it was loud enough for you to hear and stop spinning. It was the smile that put the nail in the coffin for Ethan. It was the biggest, and the realest smile he’s ever seen from you. Since the beginning of your friendship with Ethan, there was a difference in it. It wasn’t a normal friendship the two of you shared, it was something more. although the two of you refused to admit it. The two of you could lean on each other, the two of you were closer than even the fans knew about, and a majority knew how close the two of you lead on. The two of you talked about everything, from things that you saw that reminded you of each other, to desires of what you wanted to do in both the near and far future. When you started talking about how you wanted to go to the Last Cross Country Warped Tour, Ethan instantly jumped on the chance to buy the two of you tickets. So, no, Grayson wasn’t sick, he knew about the little plan his twin brother was creating. But since you weren’t aware, you invited your friends, who weren’t aware of the plan Ethan was planning either, along since they also had tickets.

The thing was, you had a plan up your sleeve as well. You knew from the very beginning that your friends were going to be watching groups you and Ethan hadnt heard of before, so you knew you would have some time with Ethan without feeling pressured by your friends to make a move. Through out the day the two of you laughed at random jokes, you shared your drinks and food with each other, you even encouraged each other to do things you’d never have the guts to do if you were by yourself. As the day continued, the two of you held on to each other as the bands you were watching played the slow song of the set. You hugged Ethan longer, and harder after meeting With Confidence, and State Champs, quietly thanking him for sharing the experience with you. With a smile still on your face, you brought Ethan in for a hug, one harder than any of the ones the two of you had shared before.

“Thank you so much. You have no idea what today means to me. It wouldnt have been the same without you.” You confessed looking up at him.

The look in your eyes were ones Ethan had never seen before. There was something about them that were different, but looked familiar.

Its the look my parents have when they look at each other. You realized as Ethan looked down at you, swaying the two of you back and forth. As the song started to fade, you started to stand on your tip toes as Ethan started to lead down. Little did the two of you know that your friends were sneakily taking a photo of the moment, something they had been doing all day. Besides seeing their favorite bands, your friends knew of the plan through Grayson, and were capturing the moments neither of you were getting on camera. What a better way to end Warped Tour in the arms of someone you cared for deeply, and that care for you the same way.

[bts-eros-and-edits-fangirls-blog]

The Mint Green Protector

The Mint Green Protector

Hybrid!Hoseok x Reader

Genre: Angst, Smut (in future chapters), a little Fluff

Walking home from work one night leads to you bumping into the local gang thinking that all hope is lost you plea for someone to help you. That’s when this guy shows up in a mint green jacket that saves you. After that any time you’re in trouble this guy saves you from it just like a mint green protector.

Chapter 1

Going to work sucks, coming home from work sucks, and in all honesty leaving your house alone sucks. You should have listened to everybody who told you not to move into your apartment but it was, and still is, cute. You love the layout, and frankly it was cheap and being a broke ass college student at the time of buying it was a good deal. A few years have passed and although it’s not a very sketchy part of town it’s still not somewhere you want to walk alone, especially at night but here we are.

Your boss needed someone to lock up at 6:30PM and you were fine with that as you thought it would still be light out, but then daylight savings just had to end. So now instead of sunlight you have moonlight that keeps leaving you since it was a cloudy night. To top it off it starts snowing with a chilling, harsh wind blowing right through you. Taking transit from work to home doesn’t take long but since this is the first snowfall of the season there seems to be only idiots on the road that end up delaying your bus. Also because the bus route isn’t usually full the city sees no need in getting a replacement bus.

Thankfully your place isn’t too far away that you can walk and you have your heavy winter clothes on so it won’t be too bad, but still shit. You make your way along the main roads to go home but that wasn’t the part that had you worried. It was that in order to get to the street your apartment is on, you needed to go through a dark alley. That alleyway is also one of the sketchier parts of the street, but it’s the only way you can access it by walking at least, or add another 30-45 minutes onto the trip.

Encouraging yourself to take on the dark, long, creepy alleyway you can’t help but think, or more so wish, that you had some sort of bodyguard to protect you. ‘Course this was real life and people don’t appear out of thin air. Lost in your thoughts about being able to just teleport home, or anywhere really, someone knocks into you hard enough that you fall on your butt and your hat goes down your head and covers your eyes.

You hear an angry man’s voice telling someone to stop and when you get your hat out of your eyes you are met face to face with a knife attached to a man holding his finger to his mouth telling you to be quiet. You comply because there be some crazy people around where you live. The disembodied male voice that was yelling comes closer and closer to you till you see the person the voice belongs to.

The two men in front of you seem to be like the pair of cartoon villains you always see on tv with one being tall and lanky and the other being short and fat.  The tall one was holding the knife and the short man was yelling. When the shorter man sees you on the ground with the knife pointed at you, he smiles. Shit, you think to yourself. These two must work together. The short man approaches closer and the tall man grabs your coat and pulls you off the ground while still having the knife pointed at you. By now they are each an arm’s length away and you just wish that someone would save you.

You see a flash of white and think it’s your life passing before your eyes, but then you see green followed by blue and more white. And in this confusion, you realize that you’re no longer being held or have a knife aimed at you, in fact you have a white thing in front of you. A white big bushy tail. You hear two loud thuds that snap you out of the trance that you have with the tail. You look to where the sound of the thuds came and see your two attackers on the ground. Then you see a figure in a mint green hoodie and navy jeans with white things poking out of the butt and head.

The figure turns to you and asks if you’re alright. Before you can respond, someone attacks the guy who just saved you. Thinking quickly, you run but not before grabbing your saviors’ hand and leading him towards the exit. Unbeknownst to you though, a group of gang members are waiting outside of the alleyway. You know right away though as they start attacking you, and once again mint green guy saves the day. Punches and kicks are getting thrown but no harm comes to you as the random mint green guy takes hits and equally throws them right back. After majority of the guys stay down from the attacks, this time mint green guy is the one to grab your hand and run.

Somehow the guy leads you right to your apartment and before you can ask how or mutter a thanks he falls to the ground unconscious. You can hear the gang members fast approaching so you grab mint green guy and bring him up to your apartment. You close the door and throw the guy on the couch before going back to the door to lock it tight with your five different locks to make sure they stay out. You don’t turn on any lights or look out the window as don’t want to alert them that someone is in here. A good 10-20 minutes pass by until you hear some of the members and the voice that belongs to the short guy from before talking, saying that they don’t know where you’ve gone and that they’re going back to the alley to see if they can get the next person. Then you hear sirens coming closer so the gang members just yell out “fuck it” and you assume leave.

Now in peace, with your heart not beating out of your chest, you go to turn the lights on. Now getting a good look at your hero, you see that the white wasn’t fur on his hoodie or a hat but ears and a tail. Thinking they’re fake you rub the ear facing you between your thumb, pointer, and middle fingers. Feeling the soft fur and just petting it for a few moments, it satisfies the curiosity you have for it. Turning away from him you get a glass of water, some leftover pasta - that you had to reheat, and the first aid kit as he has a lot of scratches on his face.

You take off your winter clothes and change into sweats with a hoodie on top. After that you’re sitting in an armchair beside the couch reading a book until he wakes up. You’re half way finished the book when you hear him gasp and sit up quickly. He glares at you with his ears down and you sit there, staring back as you really did not think this far ahead as you didn’t know how the dude would react.

“Hi. My name is Y/N and I’m the person you saved in the alleyway and brought back to my house. You collapsed and they were chasing us, so I brought you up to my apartment.” You explain.

Mint green guy doesn’t say or respond in any way so you continue.

“I got you some water and food to have and brought a first aid kit to well, aid you.”

He looks at the things in front of him then glares back at you. You don’t move or speak anymore just watching him as he does to you. Then with quick reflexes he grabs the pasta and starts eating, or rather, stuffing his face with it. He stops glaring but is still staring intensely at you. You get up and grab some napkins and a wash cloth as he’s spilling everywhere and also another glass of water. You bring them back over and place them on the table next to the now empty takeout container. Just like you thought, he downed the first glass then quickly drank the other glass as well then wipes his face and any mess he made.

Again, you both sat there in complete silence just staring at each other. Then like the last time you speak first “Do you want me to patch up your wounds and scratches?”

He continues staring until he responds with a curt “Sure.”

You nod your head, grab the first aid kit, and sit beside him on the couch. Neither of you speak as you patch him up. Then when you’re done you put back the first aid kit and sit back in the armchair.

“Thank you for saving me, I don’t know what would have happened if you didn’t step in,” you admitted. “If you don’t mind, can you tell me your name? I would like to know the name of the person who saved me.”

He’s about to answer when there’s a loud knock at the door and someone yelling “police.” You get up to answer the door and the police ask if you saw anything near by about a gang fight. You say no and they excuse themselves. When you shut the door, you turn back to the couch to see it empty and the window to the fire escape open with no trace of your mint green protector.

[thatbluegibson]

CH 85

Happy Birthday to you...

Happy Birthday to you...

Liz sunk into Nate's side and blushed fiercely as the crowd at La Féline drunkenly sang to her, led by the band on stage that now included Taylor and Dave. They had been spotted by the lead singer and asked to come jam, and though Dave had only promised a couple songs, he got carried away by playing in such a small venue to a crowd that he could actually interact with.

He leaned into the microphone and looked out towards Liz, "You got any requests, birthday girl?"

"Lumberjack!" she yelled back, making everyone at their table laugh loudly.

He heard Taylor bark a laugh from the kit behind him then swing the mic to his face. "By Jackyl?"

Liz nodded eagerly and Dave tried his hardest to hold her stare, but out of the literally millions of songs in existence, she chose the one with a fucking chainsaw solo. Taylor's giggle broke him and it was all he could do to play the first few notes of It's Late, knowing she'd love that one just as much.

Once they finally left the stage, he slid into the booth next to her and furrowed his brow when she winced. "What's wrong?"

"I'm fine," she insisted. "Just a little sore." A wave of guilt hit him when her forced smile gave away that she was grimacing. He had been so rough with her the night before and though she insisted that she loved every moment of it, he felt awful about taking his frustrations out on her. After she had fallen asleep he had snuck out to the terrace to smoke and overthink his life, dwelling on how bizarre it felt to be in the same hotel with Jordyn, but in very separate spaces. When he crawled back into bed with Elizabeth, he spied the dark blue stain blossoming across her hipbones and shoved back the covers to get a better look.

"Fuck," he swore and traced the outline of her bruise with his finger.

"What?... what's the matter?" she slurred in her sleep.

"Nothing, baby," he covered her back up and lay beside her, stroking her back to lull her into a deep sleep, but the moment he was sure she was out he wept into her hair for the second time in 24 hours.

That morning, Liz had dragged Josie and Rami up to the hotel room under the guise of picking out a birthday outfit, but when Josie darted into the bathroom with her makeup bag Dave knew Liz had asked her help in covering it up. As he and Rami sat on the terrace drinking coffee, he contemplated why she felt the need to hide it. He needed to apologize, but he sure as hell couldn't do it now, not with all the work she was putting in to cover his tracks. But, it was obvious she was taking steps in ensuring he wouldn't feel badly about the night before, especially considering the headspace he was in at the time and he bit back the snide comment he had ready when she emerged wearing her usual jeans and t-shirt instead of some creation of her stylist.

"Wooo!" Josie's scream yanked him out of his thoughts. "It's your birthday, Liz! You shouldn't walk right for a week! Right, Dave?"

Liz laughed and clinked her whiskey glass against her friend's while Dave rolled his eyes and struck up a conversation with Nate. The group at their table consisted of the band and some tour crew along with their girlfriends or wives, mostly enticed by the idea of live music and booze but also feeling a little obligated to join the party for their boss's girlfriend.

Though they were in two separate conversations and faced away from each other, his arm was still around her waist and her hand was settled on his thigh with her little finger drawing circles on the fabric on his jeans. Eventually, the flash of Liz checking her phone every few minutes under the table between them became distracting. "Are you waiting for a text?"

Liz shook her head and flipped her phone to vibrate, then held it between her knees. "No, sorry. Just checking the time."

Dave scanned the table to make sure no one was watching and pressed his lips against her ear. "Are you in that big of a hurry to get out of here? Cause we can-"

Her shoulders twitching interrupted him and she whipped out her phone so fast that all he was able to read was an incoming call, though not from who. "I have to take this," she muttered and quickly ducked under the table in her rush to get outside.

"Ugh!" Josie groaned and slumped back into Rami. "That better not be fucking Kyle." She said his name with such venom that Dave immediately shoved Taylor out of the booth so he could follow Liz.

He found her in the alley next to the bar grinning happily at her phone and all of his fears vanished when she excitedly waved him over. "Hi, Daddy!" she called into the speakerphone and dragged Dave the remaining few feet to her side.

Her father's laugh echoed from the phone, "You ready, kiddo?"

"Yep!"

Dave raised his eyebrows when he heard drumsticks click against each other and then a band launch into a punk version of the Beatles' Birthday. Liz laughed and shook her head, but when she touched her fingertips to her lips, Dave knew she was struggling. He loosely put his arms around her so he could see her face and kissed her forehead when she let a tear fall. When the song finished, they could hear the other musicians laughing and a few of them wishing Liz a happy birthday before it went quiet and a door clicked shut.

"Hey, sunshine," her dad finally said. "Happy birthday!"

"Thanks, Dad. And thanks for the song."

"I sang that to you the day you were born and I told you I'd always sing it to you on your birthday, doesn't matter if you're here or in Paris or on the moon."

"Sometimes it feels like the moon," she said sadly.

Dave felt like he shouldn't be listening to this conversation, but he couldn't let her go.

"What's yours look like tonight?" her dad asked.

"Uh...," Liz moved in Dave's arms until she could see the moon above the trees. "Waxing gibbous."

"That's funny," her dad said, sounding exactly like Liz when he was teasing. "Mine's a waxing gibbous, too!"

"That is funny, Dad," she rolled her eyes making Dave smile.

Her father chuckled and the squeak of an office chair rang through the phone. "How's Dave?"

"He's-"

"He's never been happier," Dave said suddenly, wondering if it was the whiskey or the beer that made him pull that move.

There was a stunned silence from both Liz and her father before her dad spoke again. "Well that's good to hear," he said. "Kiddo, will you take me off speakerphone and give the phone to Dave?"

"Sure thing," she said quietly, though anxiousness was written all over her face. Oh shit.

"Dave?"

Oh fuck, what do I call him? What was her last name again? Finsen? Mr. Finsen? He panicked and finally decided on, "Yep?"

"I want to thank you for taking care of my daughter when she was in London."

"Oh... it was really nothing," he lied, staring at the wall just above Liz's head.

"No, it was definitely something," her father laughed. "She's a colossal pain the ass when it comes to things like following orders and doing as she's told. I'm afraid she gets that special trait from her mother."

Dave laughed before he could stop himself and Liz was leaned over, trying to listen in. "Well, she's healing and that's all I care about," he replied.

"Mmmhmmm...," her dad hummed like Liz did when she was deep in thought and finally said, "Well, I'll let you two get back to your festivities. I hope she'll let me meet you soon."

"Likewise. She said something about a CalJam family reunion," Dave searched Liz's face as he said it, hoping he wasn't overstepping.

"Oh she did?" he chuckled. "That might be something we could arrange. If you'll have us on such short notice, that is."

"Absolutely." Dave did the quick math in his head and determined that CalJam would be the ideal place to meet her family. There were so many excuses and places he had to be that he could just jet if things got awkward.

"Excellent. We'll see you in October then, Dave."

"Sounds great...," he hesitated,

"Steve," her dad finally said with an obvious grin. "Call me Steve."

"Sounds great, Steve," he said quickly. "I'll hand you back to Li... your daughter."

Liz snatched the phone from him and pressed it to her ear, "Hey... I know... okay... yes, Dad... I know he is... Of course, I do! Paris is a hell of a long way to go for someone, Daddy... all right I'll tell him... I love you too. See you on the full moon. Bye, Daddy."

She let out a long, relieved breath as she ended the call and shoved the phone in her back pocket. "He says thanks for the CalJam hook up."

"And?" he pressed, curious about her 'long way to go for someone' comment.

"And... he says you're a 'keeper'," she rolled her eyes and air quoted him, "and then he wanted to know if I love you."

"And?"

"And I do," she said quietly, her eyes fixed on his lips as he leaned into her. "A lot."

"Hey!" Taylor's voice startled them. "Break it up for a second!"

Dave flipped him off and continued kissing Liz, but she was giggling too hard to reciprocate and pulled away.

"We're going to a place up the street," Taylor explained. "The band recommended it. You guys down?"

Dave groaned inwardly, dreading what the next place might be like. He had pretended not to notice that the lead guitarist, drummer, and vocalist were all doing lines while he and Taylor were on stage and just knew it was going to be some sketchy dance club full of people lit on various club drugs.

"It's up to Liz," Dave shrugged and looked back at her as she nodded.

"Sure, let's go."

*

Dave and Liz walked behind the significantly smaller crowd of friends, her arm around his and their hands linked in his hoodie pocket. Most of their group had bailed off to either stay at La Feline or head back to the hotel to prepare for the trip to Italy.

"Here we go!" Josie sang several feet ahead of them and dragged Rami towards a nondescript door where a bouncer stood guard. He looked the group over with a distinct look of disapproval until his eyes landed on Dave, Taylor, and Liz.

"Suis moi," he grunted and pulled open the heavy wooden door to reveal a long, dark hallway.  

Their group filed in two-by-two with Liz and Dave just behind Josie and Rami. "This better not be a sex club, Josephine," Liz hissed at her.

"No, I'll never take you to one of those ever again," Josie muttered.

Rami stopped so quickly that Dave nearly ran into the back of him. "Wait, what?"

Dave felt Liz's grip on his hand tighten when Josie took a breath to explain, but the muffled bass from the club exploded into the hallway when the bouncer opened the VIP door for them and drowned out her voice. They had just made it to their reserved table when Josie squealed and jumped onto Liz's back. "Liz, they have absinthe!"

"Oh... goody!" Liz laughed sarcastically and held Josie up by the back of her legs. "We'll be at the bar!"

He frowned when Liz turned away, but Josie caught him and pointed in his face. "You have her all night, bucko! Just give me ten minutes to get her nice and drunk. Giddy up!"

Ally went to follow but first leaned across the table to where Dave and Taylor had settled. "You guys want something?"

"Whiskey," they said simultaneously.

"We have a set ride back right?" Dave asked, leaning his head back against the booth and closing his eyes. He was drunk, drunk enough that the room was beginning to spin, but another whiskey was exactly what he needed to quit caring about the terrible trance-mix of pop songs blaring around them.

"Yeah, Gus has an SUV waiting whenever we need it," Taylor replied, but Dave wasn't listening. Rami was reiterating Josie's story to a couple of their techs and there were far more details than Dave had anticipated.

"... So they go to this club and of course they get right in because look at them, but it took Johnny like ten minutes to-"

"Wait, Johnny who?" Pat's guitar tech leaned forward, hanging on every word.

"Depp," Rami said quickly, "Josie was seeing him before me. Anyways, he gets in and they end up in this crazy room-"

Dave stared at Rami, watching his mouth move and his hands wave around, but all he could hear was a rushing sound similar to the one he got when he spent too much time directly in front of the speakers at a gig.

Then Taylor's voice came through the void, "Disco... come on, man."

He let Taylor pull him out of the booth and followed him outside. "Have a cigarette, calm the fuck down."

"I am calm," he grumbled.

"Yeah? Is that why you looked like you were going to commit a homicide in there?"

"She told me she didn't fuck him!"

"Who said she did?!" Taylor yelled back. "You're projecting again!"

"Goddamnit, Hawkins! Enough with your psychoanalyzing therapy bullshit!"

Taylor crossed his arms over his chest and bitterly chuckled as he stared at his shoes. "Yeah, heaven forbid I try to save you from losing the girl that 'made everything worth it again'."

Dave glared harshly at him, furious that he would throw his words back at him like that. He had said them the night he and Taylor got stoned on a balcony overlooking a Swedish river, talking about the women in their lives, both past and present.

"You know she didn't fuck him, dude. And even if she did, who fucking cares? It's in the past! Besides, she told Ally she only had you and her ex-husband under her belt... no pun intended, and she has no reason to lie to Ally."

Dave's hand that was holding his cigarette to his lips went limp. "She said what?"

Taylor only shrugged, waiting for him to come to the realization that once again, he had jumped the gun on being angry. "Look," he sighed. "You're the most compulsive motherfucker I've ever met and usually that works well for you, but right now? Slow your goddamn roll before Liz takes off for good."

"I have to hear it from her," he muttered and pushed away from the wall.

Just as he rounded the corner, he heard Taylor faintly whisper, "Stubborn motherfucker."

He stopped at the bar in VIP to put himself completely under the influence of whiskey and had just received his drink when Liz touched his elbow.

"Hey, can we talk?"

"Great plan," his voice was biting, unable to control his anger once again. "So you went to a fuck den with Depp?"

Liz paused for a moment, trying to catch her brain up, but to him it sounded like a hesitation. "I'm sorry, a what?"

He tossed the straw out of his glass and took a long drink, refusing to look at her. "Did you fuck him?"

"Dave, no," she pleaded, her hands now on his arm. "Now is not a good time for this..."

He slammed his drink back on the wooden bar and turned his body towards her, hunching his shoulders just enough that his eyes were level with hers. "Answer me!"

Her stare shifted off of him to a point over his shoulder before her eyes glazed over a bit. "I need some air," she mumbled and ducked her head, letting her hair fall in her face before turning away from him. He tried to grab for her arm, but she shrugged him off and disappeared into the crowd.

"Fuck!" he slammed his hand onto the bar next to his drink and raked his hand through his hair when he felt a delicate touch on his back.

"Hey," Jordyn said gently. "Trouble in paradise?"

[pegasus-ghost]

New Hobby.

So today, all my preorders for the items I bought for my new hobby just came in.

Also, fyi, I was at my parents house and had to travel all the way to Liam's house to get those parcels. Problem was, I already reached the damn house before I realized I left Liam's house keys at my parents place. Fuck me. Had to drive back all the way to get the keys, then drove all the way back to Liam's place again. Fml.

Ok so I unpacked those items at my parents place. Both my brothers were the excited ones. Kept telling me to open them, and Adam even offered to help wear the clothes and accessories for one of the female figurine. I let him.

Oh and my new scratch cards just came in. Liam was like, can I have one pwease? Geez. I told him fine, take one.

Then my parents came down and saw my new toys. They were like, why are you still playing with dolls as an adult? Then they tried holding the figurines and were surprised that they were heavy and good in quality, and seamless. They expected it to be plastic like those Barbie dolls. I told them these are dolls for adults. It even has private parts, they're figurines. Adult toys.

My dad even went and grab the boobs and show my mom how real it looked. My mom on the other hand, was like, "don't you make those dolls do naughty stuff! You know ghosts could haunt dolls and they could reside in your dolls. It's not good to keep these things! It's a waste of money to buy toys like this, you're not a kid anymore, you should spend your money buying proper mature stuff."

I just kept quiet, just not wanting to argue my mom's ridiculous logic. She has an old people mindset that I cannot change. So it's best to just ignore them. Weird thing is, my mom then suddenly asked me what their name was. I felt awkward but I told her anyway.

I got so excited once both of my girls were all dressed up.

Fuck. They're both so fucking beautiful in their own way. It looks like my fucking characters came to life in physical form.

The first female figurine, she is The love interest and female heroin for my sequel. she is an assassin and does sketchy missions, so she wears black all the time, a color she got used to. But her hair is blonde because of genetics, and she refuses to dye her hair black just to prove to her dads (who are also assassins) that her hair color is not a handicap to her skills. I got tons of black outfits for her, bad ass ones, and two most bad asses ones are still on the way.

Meanwhile the other female.figurine, she's the heroin and love interest for my current novel. A lost princess who lost her voice due to rape trauma when she was a child. Soon ended up as a personal handmaiden to my protagonist and both fell in love with each other, then later became pregnant of future heir of the protagonist which will be an extremely important piece in my sequel and the following sequel after that.

Fuck, I did not regret buying these shit.

Oh by the way, I only manage to get 2 hours of sleep last night because I couldn't breathe from the sudden severe flu I got. At first I thought it was justu normal allergy reaction to dusts and cat furs. It's not the first time this happens. I'm prone to getting infected and having nose blocks.

But just now, Liam suddenly forward a news article saying that blocked nose and flu could actually be signs of getting infected by the delta variant of covid.

Fuck.

It shook me a little there, thinking I was gonna die, not gonna lie. But I already got my 2nd dose of vaccine and I've passed 2 weeks after my 2nd dose. Even if I get infected, I hope it's just mild symptoms and not gonna be anything serious.

But, I did suddenly have a mild asthma attack.

Normally I just think it's my allergic reaction to dusts and cat fur because that's usually how I get flu and nose blocked, which typically would lead to asthma attack due to the mucus from my flu

But now I'm suddenly paranoid if it's actually covid.

I knew I wasn't careful enough.

But they say covid would lose sense of smell.

I was a able to smell Adams new perfume today which just arrived. Does that means not infected?

I'm not taking any chances. I'm gonna go buy a self test kit for covid tomorrow at the pharmacy and check out if I'm positive.

Fuck I hope I'm not. Because I would have to report this to the government otherwise and might be taken away for quarantine.

Fuck me.

[keepingup-withthetargaryens]

S7, E4:

Damn. God damn HBO.

I haven’t been writing these because I feel like everything is all a bit more straightforward these days, and people don’t need recaps because everyone is an ~expert~. I got close last week because it was such a badass episode, but this one. I. AM. Shook. 

The before-the-show “remember this” previews always get me because, i.e., in this one, we see Qyburn talking about a “solution” for the dragons, you see Dany getting frustrated, and you’re like SHIT NOT THE DRAGONS. 

But let’s back up.

So we begin at Highgarden (RIP OLENNA) with Jaime paying his debts to Bronn. I hate to say this, because as much as I hated the sand snakes (overall and just... overall) I kind of wanted Bronn to ride off to King’s Landing to save Tyene... somehow. Wishful thinking, because Bronn sends him off to help Dickon Tarly yell at people.

Now on to Cersei. Tycho, this guy from the Iron Bank, is hella creepy. He reminds me of my student loan officer from college who was like “if you take that fifth year, think about all you can accomplish”. And now 1/3 of my monthly income goes away to pay it off. Anyway.

Cersei is still possessed with the idea of controlling the “continent” which at this point sounds incredibly stupid given what we know is to come with the War for the Dawn. But, semantics.

Okay, this dagger situation. Littlefinger is being smarmy, and talking about how Bran almost died, and Catelyn did die. It’s almost as bad as when Bran was like “Hey Sansa, remember how beautiful you were when you were raped?”  It also sounds really “off” to hear Petyr call him “Brandon” because only Cat did that when she was yelling at him for climbing around Winterfell. 

I’m so glad that Meera interrupts the smarm-sesh because Bran isn’t really waving him off. And tbh whenever I see Meera, I just hope they’re not going to go down the “Jon and Meera” twins crackpot theory road. The one where they decide that there were TWO babies at the Tower of Joy, and Ned took one, and Howland took the other? I hate that theory. Let us have Jon. Meera’s a badass, but... THEN she starts talking about how when “they” (the white walkers) come, she needs to be with her family. Ah, yes, her father, THE Howland Reed, who killed Arthur Dayne, who was the only other living person not a baby who was there at the Tower when Lyanna made Ned swear to protect Jon’s true identity. 

Can SOMEONE please just tell this boy he’s a Targaryen already?! I’ve waited 12 years and that’s long enough.

Back to Bran. Bran is still being very Jaden Smith-like and it’s getting old because he’s not really helping anyone. Bran, this is why we left you out of an entire season. Remember that? The North does. 

So, now Arya is here, and maybe she can knock some sense into raisin-Bran. 

Arya looking at the Stark crest, though. *Tears up*

I’m upset that we’ve come so far that nobody knows who Rodrick is. SER RODRICK. I miss those mutton chops.

Arya and Sansa! Together! Being sassy! I love it! Except I only see Maisie and Sophie together, and not their characters, and I’ve forgotten that Arya and Sansa didn’t exactly get along all those years ago.

They talk about how Jon would be SO happy to see Arya, and I hope we get to that point. Arya says that Ned’s statue doesn’t look him him, just as Robert remarked that Lyanna’s looks nothing like her, so that seems to be a trend in the Stark crypt.

I like how Sansa is essentially WTF about her siblings’ new personalities. Bran is a fortune-telling raisin, and Arya is an assassin who broke bread with Ed Sheeran.

THREE STARKS IN ONE FRAME. AT WINTERFELL. I CAN’T.

Clearly Bran has seen Arya do something with this dagger, or he wouldn’t be so creepy about giving it to her. He ~knows. I’m glad Sansa perks up and says something about how Littlefinger has to be up to something, because for a minute there it looked like she was on board with him.

I love how Jon literally interrupts girl talk here, and Missandei is like “well talk later”. 

I also love how Dany just waltzes in there with him, and is apparently fully on board with trusting him at this point.

And we all know how much Jon Snow loves caves. *wink*

I like how he thinks he’s showing her a bit of her heritage, but really, he’s discovering his own as well. 

How CONVENIENT that there are markings showing white walkers, the very things she doesn’t believe in, though?

When Jon touches Dany I literally just wanted to scream “THEY ARE TOUCHING. WHO TOUCHES THE QUEEN” like this is 2005 Pride and Prejudice and Darcy is helping Elizabeth into the carriage.

That look.

I want someone to touch my arm and lead me gently around a cave where I learn about history.

So much tension.

So. much. tension.

People were like “they have no chemistry!” Me: *Gestures at this scene*

Also, the parallels: 

“I will fight for you. I will fight for the North. When you bend the knee.”

There are tears welling up in my eyes.

DAMN, DANY. Don’t ask Jon to bend the knee in a cave because he’s already done that and we saw how that went. But honestly I could totally see them turning this around and having him “bend the knee” some other way, especially because of that tension. DAMN.

~Lingering looks and soft music~

But I don’t know how they’re going to get around the incest factor. It’s not a big deal on GoT but there’s really no way of making it normal between two beloved characters even if they are Targaryens.

In the books, Viserys yells at Dany for not being born earlier so she could marry Rhaegar (normal) because then he wouldn’t have run off with Lyanna (Jon’s mom).

And then they exit the cave so closely it almost looks like they’re holding hands from the angle, but they aren’t, don’t worry. But we’ve come a long way in one episode.

Tyrion’s like, what do you want, good news or bad news first? Varys is like, my hands are cold.

Okay, I feel bad that Dany digs into Tyrion like that, but she has a right to be pissed. I also like how she says Jon and Davos should stay because they’re essentially part of her small council now.

“Enough with clever plans. I have three large dragons. I’m going to fly them to the Red Keep”.

I like how she says “large”. Not just that she has dragons, but like they’re LARGE. Anyway.

AND THEN SHE LOOKS TO JON. TO JON.

He’s like “who, me?” Missandei and Varys are like “who, him?” 

Help me Jon Snow. You’re my only hope.

And he gives her a speech about doing impossible things, which he has ALSO done. The layers. (I’m not just saying layers because the Onion knight is right there.)

Every time we see dragons I’m like “can Rhaegal come say hi to Jon” like we’re at the damn pet store.

Arya. Sparring with Brienne. I also can’t. If you think back to when Ned was telling Arya she’d make a fine lady one day, and she told him that’s not who she was, so he hired Syrio, and she was getting somewhat decent, but she wasn’t great. Now... on par with Brienne. We’ve come so far. *ANTM fist pump*

Pod’s like “damnnnn”.

Sansa’s like “who is my sister”. 

Littlefinger’s like “oh fuck”.

THIS. IS. GAME. OF. THRONES. 

Honestly you can tell this was so fun to shoot for the two of them, and I love it. I’m living.

Omg Jon acting like he’s in middle school: “who?” YOUR CRUSH JON. YOUR CRUSH. “I’ve seen you staring at her good heart”. ARE YOU SERIOUS WITH THIS DIALOGUE, D&D?

Okay, two things are happening here. 

1. Davos CONTINUES to mention Missandei OF NAATH. Not just, Missandei. While it’s common to mention where people are from, nothing on this show is coincidental. He even talks about if she wanted to sail home to Naath. Just FYI - if you want to know something slightly sketchy, look up the butterflies of Naath.

2. They talk about names, which Jon is like “semantics”. Are they setting us up for his Targaryen name reveal?! “My mother and father weren’t married”. BUT WERE THEY?! Ugh I can’t wait to get into this and talk about how they probably were but this post is long enough as it is.

Missandei speaks 19 languages. And she doesn’t know what a bastard is. Okay.

Jon’s aggression toward Theon. YAS. There’s my little warrior bb. His expression is the epitome of “over this shit”.

I’m honestly surprised Theon had the balls to walk toward Jon at all. Okay not funny.

Okay, sidebar: sometimes I just think about Kit in Pompeii. Running around. Being a gladiator. I’m done now.

“The Queen is gone.”

OH MY GOD DANY IS GOING TO GET THE LANNISTERS. 

“If the head of the line is ambushed, the tail will never be able to reinforce it in time” - Randyll Tarly, you foreshadower, you. Head. Tail. Dragon. I see you.

“Rickon.”

“Dickon.”

Bronn: *Cackles. Is all of us*

I like how Jaime continues to call him by dead Stark names - previously, Rickard, and now Rickon. 

But then. Hoofbeats. DAMN, DAMN. I hate the Lannisters but I like Jaime and Bronn and I know what a shitstorm is coming for them and ARE THEY GOING TO MAKE IT?!

I like how you can hear the Dothraki screaming from that far away, before you can even see them. Remember this conversation that Robert and Cersei had in season 1? Robert: I do know this: If the Targaryen girl convinces her horselord husband to invade and the Dothraki horde crosses the Narrow Sea...We won't be able to stop them. Cersei: The Dothraki don't sail. Every child knows that. They don't have discipline, they don't have armor, they don't have siege weapons. Robert: It's a neat little trick you do. You move your lips and your father's voice comes out. Cersei: Is my father wrong? Robert: Let's say Viserys Targaryen lands with 40,000 Dothraki screamers at his back. We hole up in our castles. A wise move. Only a fool would meet the Dothraki in an open field. They leave us in our castles. They go from town to town, looting and burning, killing every man who can't hide behind a stone wall, stealing all our crops and livestock, enslaving all our women and children. How long do the people of the Seven Kingdoms stand behind their absentee king, their cowardly king hiding behind high walls? When do the people decide that Viserys Targaryen is the rightful monarch after all?

Those payoffs, though.

It all looks quite stormy, as though this battle will go in favor of Daenerys Stormborn.

Sidebar: they did a fantastic job with the CGI background, here.

Jaime, if Bronn is telling you to go, you go. He doesn’t play around.

“DRACARYS”

DAMN, DANY.

And people are shook. People are stepping over each other’s ashes like it’s Pompeii (shout out, Kit) while the Dothraki mow over them.

I’ve watched a lot of war movies.

I’ve watched a lot of battle scenes.

And, damn.

Big question: Are Rhaegal and Viserion at home, or?

Sidebar: this must have been EXPENSIVE for all that fire power.

Archers with regular arrows: nope

Bronn with the scorpion: SHIT

SHIT ARE YOU KIDDING ME WE HAVE TO WATCH BRONN SHOOT DROGON WHILST DANY RIDES HIM. THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN. I feel like this is the worst kind of dread because you KNOW it’s going to happen.

Bronn is 100% “if I were into that, I’d be into that.” Like, if I were into guys with issues and lots of war wrinkles, I’d be into him. Which means I slightly am. Anyway.

And after Dany and Drogon almost gets hit, SHE DOESN’T LEAVE? SHE DOESN’T LEARN FROM THE FIGHTING PIT SCENE? GO, GO, GO.

As much as I am in agony I’m also like THIS IS PRIME GAME OF THRONES. BRONN, AIMING A GIANT CROSSBOW THING AT A DRAGON WHILE DANY RIDES IT AND TRIES TO BURN HIM TO A CRISP? THIS. IS. GAME. OF. THRONES. BITCHES.

Sidebar: How does Bronn know how to operate this thing and dramatically throw the sides down like that?!

TYRION IS HERE? SHIT. THAT MEANS BAD THINGS FOR DANY AND/OR JAIME BECAUSE HE IS HERE TO WATCH.

“Your people can’t fight” A) Does Tyrion now speak Dothraki? He’s terrible at Valyrian. B) Is this also a reference to the fact that Tyrion MAY not be a Lannister after all? C) Is that a hint of the Rains of Castamere in the background? But like a slow remix? Um... who is going to die

Jaime, watching his soldiers crumble away like ash. Third Pompeii reference.

Bronn, shooting at Dany.

The music swells.

Drogon roars.

Tyrion watches with interest.

Bronn loads the scorpion.

SHIT. SHIT. SHIT.

He hits Drogon. He moves to strike again.

DANY AND DROGON ARE FALLING.

Okay, Drogon burns the scorpion to a crisp, but IS HE OKAY?! BB!

Dany’s really going to pull that thing out herself?

No, JAIME. DON’T DO IT.

You one-handed idiot.

But honestly that shot of Jaime galloping along the burning riverbanks toward Dany is cinematic goals.

Dany actually looks scared, but Drogon’s got her.

BAM.

BOOM.

P.S. If they killed Jaime off, I feel like they’d tell us. They were outright with Olenna... they weren’t outright with Jon. Jaime still has a lot to do.... Valonquar, anyone?

UNTIL NEXT WEEK. P.S. If you like my recaps as much as Davos loves Jon Snow, please let me know and I’ll continue writing them.

[redwingandaprayer]

1armed-and-dangerous​:

redwingandaprayer​:

Sam waited patiently for Bucky to put the gauze in place and held out his hand for the aforementioned shirt.  “...might as well soak it now, right?” he said with a tired smile. As soon as Bucky handed the Henley to him, he started back to the small bathroom. He hadn’t even really looked himself over with the exception of the ribs and the eye-he was fairly numb. The Vibranium Falcon-no Cap suit protected him from most injuries, but not very well from the weather. As soon as he was back in the tiny bathroom, he dropped the shirt into the sink and filled it with water. The clunking and banging from the other room meant that either the heater was going to work or Bucky’d decided to start beating on something. He was hoping for the former. Warming up meant that every inch of him was hurting. How many dudes did they go up against?  Satisfied with what Sam could see, he gathered up the med kit and came out into the room proper, setting it down onto the small table thing next to Bucky. 

“Hey.” he said. All form of color or humor gone from his usual tone. “I got hit somewhere.” Sam said, pointing at his once white right sock. “can’t see it and my ribs are fucked. I think the same giant dude who got you got lucky twice.”

@1armed-and-dangerous​

“That dude was huge.” Bucky agreed. “Musta been eating his Wheaties or something..” 

Sam had been half right on both counts, of the heater getting started and of Bucky beating on things. A solid kick when it had started groaning heavily at the first few moments of pushing heavy oil through the coils of the old-school radiator had resulted in a cacophony of protest noises throughout the piping.

It would take a little while for the heat to dry the air and take the chill out of it, but it would do fine once the warmth had enough time to accumulate.

“Seriously. What are they putting in their breakfast cereal these days.”   Bucky sat up a bit more in his seat and motioned for Sam to do a turn-around. it was hard to see in the dim light on Sam’s dark skin, but a glint of light on fresh blood trailing down the calf of his leg lead Bucky’s eyes up to a gash in the man’s leg, just below the knee and thankfully, between the connective tissue. Right in the muscle of his calf.

Bucky hissed. “Yep. He got you, too.. Calf. Can’t see how deep though.” 

Sam’s overall appearance had him worried. His veins weren’t full of the super soldier serum like he or Natasha or Steve. That bruising looked serious and if he’d broken ribs...? They’d take months to heal properly if he didn’t have some of Shuri’s magic Nanites on his person. Sam didn’t know, but he carried them around for situations just like this one.

Not that he thought the other man was weak, but they were going up against Monsters. Super Soldier wanna-bes. The kinds of things no ordinary human could live through and yet... there he was. Putting that suit on and throwing himself headfirst into whatever it was to keep people safe.

“How’s your breathing? Any rattling?”

He frowned when he realized just how slow the damn heater was going to take. His teetee used to have an old oil heart like that. Gooseflesh rose on Sam’s legs as he slowly turned for Bucky.

"Wheaties?" he chuckled and let out a low groan, regretting the motion that caused his ribcage to shutter.  A slow breath to gather himself in front of Bucky and he was shaking his head. “Seriously Buck, does anyone even eat Wheaties anymore?” Were they even made? Sam looked around the room again, wishing they’d landed somewhere a little plusher...or at least somewhere with a bit more light. The way this place was-dim light, sketchy carpeting and sheets--you’d almost be happier the less you could see. “You know...I think they may have been enhanced somehow. That one threw me like a football. And that was after I knocked him around a handful of times.”

Sam wasn’t going to mention how close he was to being down for the count after that throw. But he’d gotten back up on his feet somehow. As much shit as Bucky had gone through in his life, that’s one thing he admired about the man. He never stayed down. Ever. Even when he and Steve had wished he would-not that he wanted to think about that time of their lives. Sam was thankful now that he hadn’t lost Bucky too.

“Shit. I know I’ve got a few nicks here and there that I need to patch, but-” He tried to twist around and see the back of his leg. It was a bad idea at best. Not that he’d admit it. Sam turned and leaned on the desk, back to Bucky. It was handy for him to do so-so that the other man could look at his calf, but also convenient since he couldn’t see the frustrated sear of pain across Sam’s face. 

“-breathing’s fine.” he said too quickly. “I’m okay Bucky, stop your worrying. I just wanna get warm and sleep. I appreciate the concern. What about you? You good?”

@1armed-and-dangerous​

[cessanderson]

A Girl and her Tent http://bit.ly/2SrRopk

Well, technically, it’s really a girl, her tent, and another 30 lbs of gear strapped to her back (while she hikes up a mountain) but who’s counting, really?

(Uh. I am, you guys. I am counting Every. Single. Ounce. in that pack, because those are big fucking mountains sometimes.)

Up until a couple of years ago, my most amazing life experiences– the things that really taught me to dig deep and take a hard look at who I am when shit gets tough— those experiences all happened on the farm. Or when I lived in a garage for 18 months and built a house in my spare time. Or, you know, during any one of the numerous “what the fuck were you thinking?” projects I’ve taken on over the last two decades.

I’ve documented most of those things on this website, so trust me when I say that I find it as strange as anyone that in the last year or so those amazing life experiences–the ones that have taught me to dig deep, and take a hard look at myself when shit gets tough– well, they’ve mostly happened when I leave the farm entirely. When I hike out into the wilderness where there are no projects, or power tools, or big responsibilities.

When I’m just a girl with her tent.

And I guess maybe it isn’t that surprising that after 15 years of finding bigger and crazier ways to challenge myself through house projects, that eventually I’d be so comfortable in this space that I’d start challenging myself elsewhere.

But I never would have guessed it would be camping.

I mean, previously in my life, when people suggested I might like “camping”,  they were met with, at best, polite incredulity. After all, I have all of the benefits of camping in my backyard (wide open spaces, bonfires, a beautiful view) along with a king-sized mattress and indoor plumbing just a few steps away. Sooo… camping? Hard pass. Thanks though.

You guys, I also once said, definitively, that I would never own a house because it was too much work. So, I mean, when I’m wrong, I am wrong.

But, to be fair, all of my previous experiences with tents had been in “car camping” settings, and there’s a big difference between car camping and backpacking.

For the uninitiated:

Car camping typically means sleeping in a tent at a drive-up campground that, more often than not, has tiny, cramped campsites, and at least one annoying group of kids that stays up way too late drinking beer and talking VERY LOUDLY (because I am a cranky old lady who has wicked insomnia at home, but also has a very strict bedtime when I’m in a tent. Obviously.) To be fair, I’ve actually done quite a bit of car camping in the last two years when I go outdoor climbing–enough that I have a designated car camping tent– and I’ll tolerate it (with earplugs), but I don’t love it the way I love backpacking.

Backpacking, on the other hand, means hiking out to places you cannot reach by car– which also means you have to carry, on your back, everything you need to survive— and either “dispersed camping” (i.e. pitching a tent in places where there are no designated campsites) or staying at rustic campsites that tend to be private and have basically no amenities (other than maybe a bear locker to store your food in so an actual bear doesn’t mistake your tent for a human-sized snicker bar one night.) And this, it turns out, is one of my very favorite activities.

Here’s why:

For me, there’s typically months of prepping that lead up to a hike. Prepping for the travel (finding a good trail, figuring out the best time to hike it, planning for flights or drive-time there, and figuring out how to best get to the trailhead and back.)

Then there’s the physical prep. Studying elevation maps of the trail, and making sure I’m both strong enough and have the endurance to hike 12-20 miles a day, sometimes straight up, or, worse, down hill, always carrying a ~35lb pack, occasionally with not as much oxygen as I’m used to at sea level.

I spend a lot of lunch breaks on a stairmaster with a weight vest on…

It also means prepping my gear, which entails a lot of studying the terrain, understanding the weather, putting together meals with the minimum amount of weight and maximum amount of calories, making adjustments to my gear list based on lessons learned in previous hikes, and always, always trying drop the weight in my pack. (Trust me, on your 20th mile of the day, every ounce counts.)

And then, the adventure.

So, so many late night or early morning flights. I don’t think I’ve ever started a hike well-rested.

You can’t fly with fuel canisters, so there’s always a “where the hell can I get a fuel canister” panic when I get to my destination. (Legit walked 7 miles to 3 different stores in Reykjavik the night before a hike to find fuel once.)

Then, getting to the trailhead.

I’ve rented cars at the airport, dropped them off at the closest rental to the trailhead, and walked the last few miles (a pre-hike, hike.) I’ve rented a van with strangers, who after 4 hours in the car became friends, and spent the weekend hiking with them. I’ve taken busses, and, once, a ferry (sea-sick is a fun way to start a hike, let me tell you.)

There’s always some confusion as to where the hell the trail actual starts, and then, after all that…

The hike.

This is the moment, every single time, where all the chaos of travel and over-thinking falls away. This is the point where you pick up your pack– everything you need for 3-5 days right there on your back– and start walking.

I love every part of this. I love the minute the uncertainty fades away, when the map and compass and trail all line up, and I know I’m headed in the right direction. I love feeling the physical training kicking in after just a few miles on the trail, when my body responds to the hard work of carrying a pack uphill and falls into a rhythm of “hell yeah, we’ve got this.” I love when civilization and day-hikers fade away, and I’m the only person as far as the eye can see. I love that moment, when it really sets in that I’m out there, on my own, and everything I do counts. Every decision I make is vitally important to survival.

There are no takebacks on the trail. No “oops I forgot” and running to the store. But (as I learned on my first solo hike) you can’t be the nervous nelly who packs 50 pounds of gear “just in case” and expect to get anywhere either.

I’m not a person who has ever been able to relax on a beach for more than a few hours, or “shut off” from work for more than a day or two, so being out on the trail is the only time in my life when I’ve been truly able to unplug. Not because I don’t have service (I mean, that too) but because my immediate needs become paramount. Do I have enough water? Where’s the next good place to refill? Am I still on the trail? Have I consumed enough calories? Am I feeling steady on this sketchy path with a 2000 ft drop off both sides? Do I need a rest? How many miles before dark?

Have I said I love every minute of it? Because, guys, I love every minute of it. Even the minutes when I want to quit. When I realize I didn’t bring the right blister-pads for my feet and that shit is going to hurt for the next 30 miles. When my water runs low because I didn’t fill up at the last stream. When I literally fall asleep on my feet, while walking, in the middle of the day. When I’m counting every step of the last mile down a treacherous hill, swearing under my breath every time I lose my footing.

When it goes from a humid 65 degrees at sea level, to freezing rain at 4000 ft, all inside of a couple of hours.

And also when I find myself in the most beautiful places.

Because I’ll tell you this, I’ve structured my life on the farm in a way that tests me. That very often asks me to do hard things and be the best version of myself. But it doesn’t quite compare to this. Adventuring this way, out in the wilderness on my own, it isn’t just that I’m asking myself to be smart, and strong, and capable in general. It’s the immediacy of it. There is no choice but to be smart and strong and capable in this moment.

And that is an incredible feeling.

When I reflected on my life on the farm in 2018, it made me stronger, but in a way that felt disconnected from the things I love about the farm. This part of 2018 though? This made me stronger in a way that grounded me, right to the core.

Kit