#the littler kids probably have even less of an idea what's going on than the older ones. god. do they even know where their parents are???

[everysongineverykey]

the owl house was really like oh yeah by the way a significant number of children avoided being collected solely because they were hiding out inside this one high school and all the adults in the building and a few of their classmates and friends were turned to puppets right before their eyes and taken away and they've just been alone here ever since. yeah it's been months since they've seen their families. it's unclear whether or not they're aware that the collector's been using their loved ones as toys in reenactments of the adventures of a lost friend of theirs. there are kindergarteners trapped in there. they spent a significant amount of time and effort on a meticulous, perfectly constructed stone statue honoring their collected principal who was one of the only people protecting them when the collector's spies came and it's dorky and unprofessional but they're so genuinely grateful for what he did and they never got to thank him themselves. their "leader" is the former captain of the grudgby team who's deeply traumatized and terrified 100% of the time and only took the job cause she wanted some sense of control over a nightmare situation. an adult in disguise has been manipulating her to do what she's told this entire time. their food is rotten and moldy and they were so scared of being found they put a sign up outside that said "no non-puppets inside". yeah. it's funny though. it's just a silly joke. look at luz's new palisman!

[frostbeees]

will you know me?

2023 wrappedmas day four • song: Georgia by Phoebe Bridgers

ao3 · masterpost

Nolan hasn’t seen or talked to Nick since that night almost ten years ago now.

As Nolan’s driving down the winding Michigan backroads, he thinks maybe this was a mistake. He gets the invite every year, the annual friends and family weekend at the Hughes’ Lakehouse, and for the past ten years, he’s either made up some bullshit excuse not to go or he’s been out of the country. It’s worked for him. He hasn’t had to see any of the bridges he’s burned or the broken hearts he left behind. And he’s especially been able to avoid the one person that both of those things apply to. 

But the thing is he’s grown. Or at least he thinks so. He probably hasn’t. He’s probably the same ol’ shithead that he’s been since he hit puberty all those years ago. But he’s definitely not the same fuckup who decided to “confess his love” to his best friend on the night of said best friend’s wedding so that has to count for something. 

And even if he was, he’s past that. Nolan hasn’t seen or talked to Nick since that night almost ten years ago now. He deleted all of his social media, blocked numbers in his phone, got right with God (and then decided fuck that specifically), and figured his shit out. He just never got to the "making amends" part of it all, which maybe in hindsight is why he should have ignored the invite once again.

He finally gets to the house and navigates the sprawling driveway littered with other parked cars both shiny and new, probably belonging to the guys still in the show, and others more like his, dented and chipped paint, guys who clearly couldn’t hang with the big dogs. He finds an open spot and parks his truck, turns it off, and takes a few minutes to do the breathing exercises his therapist taught him. They don’t really do the trick this time as anxiety still simmers beneath his skin but he did them more for the routine of it than anything else. 

It’s easier once he’s inside, familiar faces lighting up when they see him. Daps all around. Nolan comes across quite a few unfamiliar faces as well as he makes his way through the entryway and into the rest of the house. A couple of kids even -for fuck's sake he's old- just little tykes darting between the legs of innocent bystanders. He has no idea who they belong to but they look suspiciously like even littler Hugheses (not surprising) except for the little girl with dark, thick hair and high cheekbones that are a familiar blotchy red color from exertion. 

Nolan makes small talk with the Duke boys and Luke who are all posted up in the kitchen. They thankfully hand him a beer without him asking and he throws a salute back their way as he sneaks out the backdoor and onto the deck. 

He’s not admitting defeat yet but it is quieter out here, less overstimulating. Nolan’s stopped to talk to Zegras and Drysdale, still somehow attached at the hip even after being separated in a nasty trade deal. He’s always liked Z. He’s insane, mind still moving a mile a millisecond but he also knows how to bring a person down which is a relief. They move on eventually, Z claiming the need to find food to "keep Jimmy happy or else". He doesn’t elaborate on what the ‘or else’ means though.

Nolan’s alone for the first time since arriving at the party and he takes a minute to just lean over the railing, beer dangling in his fingers as he takes in the lake behind the house. The ambient noise of the boats on the water and the people at the party is enough to distract him from a body sidling up against him and when he glances over, he’s shocked, to say the least.  

“Long time, no see sport,” Nick says, voice careful and flat even if his face is as cheery as ever. And he’s right. It’s been a long time. 

“Hey chief,” Nolan replies, just like their old script went. 

They spend the evening catching up, eventually moving from the deck railing to some Adirondack chairs down on the beach. They occasionally get interrupted by a stray kid running down the shoreline to show off whatever gross thing they found in the water or one of the dogs bringing them a ball to toss. But they hit all the basics. Nick’s injury that finally made him retire, his new job in Columbus teaching youth hockey. Nolan’s retirement after a year of bouncing around teams that didn’t really want him, bumming around his hometown much to the dismay of his parents. They dance around the obvious subject until the sun starts to set and Nolan’s had enough beer to give him a nice, confident buzz.

“So how’s Ken–,” Nolan glances down at Nick’s ring finger which he’s now realizing is startling bare. Not even a tan line to indicate recent wearing of a ring. “Oh.”

“Ah yeah,” Nick says with a stretch. “Kendra moved out a couple of years ago now. Took the dog and left a note saying something about me never really loving her or whatever. She was probably right. Hard to love someone when you’re not over someone else.”

Nolan gives an understanding hum but Nick keeps going. “What about you? You manage to settle down with someone?”

“Nah.” The old Nolan would make some sort of joke, something about not wanting to be tied down, needing to be free. The new Nolan is different, apparently. “Hard to do when you want someone you can’t have.”

When he finally looks away from the water, Nick’s looking up at him with the most earnest expression, which is saying a lot for a man who could get mixed up with a sad puppy in a lineup. He’s not really sure what to do with it so he does the next best thing.

“You wanna?” Nolan waggles his eyebrows, making his intent super clear. He nods towards the shed down by the water. “For old time's sake?”

Nick’s quiet for a few minutes. Which– Isn’t a no, but also isn’t a yes to Nolan’s proposition.

“What if we try something new?” Nick asks and Nolan is confused. They’ve done basically everything from drunken blowies in a frat basement to sweet, drawn-out morning sex. There’s nothing sexual they didn’t check off the list in college. And anything they haven’t managed to try definitely can’t be done in a shitty shed. “Let me take you on a date? A real date.”

Nolan huffs out a laugh mostly out of surprise but also to cover up whatever his face must be doing right now. 

“Yeah, okay old man. Let’s do it right this time.”

[ayearofgoodfate]

i’m staying awake making sure my roommate doesn’t start showing od symptoms. we tend to take things too far. i have my hell day later and it’s all i can do not to fall asleep but i miss my parents house even though they didn’t always know how to be parents and i miss my little brother and sister and my dog and my bookshelf and the wall i would tape up magazine articles and photos to whenever i got sad. and i think that college fucks you up a little bit. there is so much love here. there’s also so much trauma.

when i was about nine my dad decided that he and i were going to read every single book in the middle grade section of the library. my dad had a lot of passion and not a lot of ways to harness it so every saturday he would drive me to the library and he had this old grey car that he could never tame enough to follow the speed limit. and we’d just spend hours there. my dad never talked to me a lot, we never had conversations that weren’t in a group setting. he never told me things or asked me questions but i was a talker so he learned what would work to work around that. he read to me. he’d always read to me. we’d knock out a book or two in the library, literally just sitting there for four hours straight on the old blue carpet while he’d make up voices for the characters, then we’d take about twelve more books home for the week. I’d read most of them on my own, but we’d go through one or two together throughout the week before bed. when we left the library he’d always buy girl scout cookies in quarters from whoever was outside the library selling. we’d eat the whole box. dad never made it feel like we had less than. he never ever told me that we were as poor as we were. he has done a lot of things but i will love him for that forever. i will always defend my dad.

we stopped reading together after a while. he got tired or i got old and he’d joined the church and my siblings weren’t babies and suddenly there were littler kids that needed reading time too. we didn’t finish the entire middle grade section of the library. i don’t think we even made it halfway. i don’t think dad has gone to the library since. the last book we read, we didn’t finish, and i was a bitch about it. it was this big collection of science fiction short stories and the girls in my class had been telling me that stuff was for boys and i simply wasn’t having it. dad wouldn’t have that. every book is every book, so we trudged.

i got really sick that fall. i slept for days straight. my parents couldn’t afford doctors and probably wouldn’t have taken me anyway but dad was really good at taking care of sick people. he’d sit there and watch me breathe and make me mac and cheese and read to me and i’d be half asleep. this one story was about solipsism. i was delirious, drifting in and out of his voice, letting the idea of me being the only real person in the world marinate in my mind. i woke up three days later like i’d never been sick. i needed to read that story again because i needed to know it existed because, mainly, i needed to know that dad did and mom did and baby sister and brother and my friends and the book was gone.

i looked for it for years in different libraries. big. silver. i resigned myself to the fact that it was a fever dream and then like magic it popped up on the library shelves again. i took it out and renewed it for months on end and drew in it with the invisible ink pen I stole from office depot’s back to school sale. i marked it with my name and annotated it with notes on how dad read it when i was little and it was mine until it was overdue. years later i bought a used copy i found at a yard sale. annotated. i play around in my mind with the idea of trading the books out, as if i still live in a place where i could. the point is, it’s real. we’re real. dad was real, our library trips that had been half forgotten were real, and isn’t it nice to feel real and to know everything else is too?

I miss dad. my roommate’s breathing heavy and in a few hours she will wake up sick. between my classes i’ll raid my drawers and wallet for enough coins to run to cvs and buy her some mac and cheese because that’s what we both crave when we’re not doing too good. i will never tell her i paid for it in coins and i’ll never tell her i stayed up to make sure she’d be okay. we’re a lot alike and so i’m not even mad at her for what she did tonight. she just wanted to know she was real. she is my best friend and she has a lot of passion. i take to people like that, latch onto them like a leech because i was taught to feel deeply and anyone who doesn’t i seem to repel. i will go to class and not fall asleep, and i’ll wear cute clothes and there will be circles under my eyes and no part of me will match but that’s how i am and i can’t ever in good faith tell anyone why. i play around with calling dad a lot. I look at his contact but i can’t bring myself to hear the silence. i think that’s why i went to book school in the first place. i think it’s why i’m writing this.

[hexarcana]

Clearly the boy is way more hurt than he looks, Olive knows what wounded pride and bruised ego look like, and she knows they can be just as painful as the physical kind, especially when you’re a kid.

The first time she saw the twins she knew who they were. They looked so much like Mason did back then- but she knew they had to be Filbrick’s kids. (How any woman could stand him long enough to have kids with him she’ll never understand.). She’d been nervous that the boys would be like he’d been back then but much to her relief both boys, especially the one in front of her, were good kids.

He isn’t looking at her but she’s looking at him sympathetically. She can’t help but think of another little boy sitting in front of her, sniffling about a scraped knee, a littler boy with a mop of messy blonde hair and freckles. It hurts to think about, so she doubles down her focus on the present. She glances around and she swipes a clean dish towel from an open drawer just behind her. She opens one of the water bottles and tips it against the towel.

Her expression hardens as he goes on about that Stonewall kid. Aggie had told her about him, and if she wasn’t sure it would lead to a life sentence in prison, she would have tracked the kid down herself and- Well. She’d go to jail.

“Young man,” She says, scooting her stool a bit closer to him. “You aren’t stupid. Get that outta your head right now.” She folds the wet towel and very gently (more gently than one would think she’d be capable of) starts cleaning the blood off his face. “That boy is the real idiot if he can’t see when a girl hates him. And if he thinks it’s a good idea to keep pesterin’ her and her friends.”

She’s quiet a moment before she goes on, “Ya know, I feel like crap that I can’t be out there to keep Aggie safe. She’s a smart girl, and you n’ me both know she can handle herself, but she’s fragile, ya know? And she’s gotta be careful, keep her little… Situation under wraps.” She gently tilts Stan’s face to one side to get a look at the bruise blooming under his eyes. “I’m really glad she’s got a guy like you out there with her. I was real scared she wouldn’t make friends out there but she found a real good one in you.” She gently touches the bridge of his nose, relieved to find that it’s still straight, not broken. She goes back into her med kit and pulls out a few single use alcohol pads for his remaining scrapes. “That Stonewall boy’s probably just jealous that Aggie likes you and wants to be around you, not him. Jealousy makes boys stupid, and I bet he’s gonna stay stupid.” She sighs, quickly cleaning off his cuts, “Trouble is when they’re stupid and also freakishly large…” She narrows her eyes, thinking. “If you’re gonna keep protecting my girl you’re gonna need an edge.” She stands, “If a fight ain’t fair, you even it out.” She goes to the stairs, “You wait here a sec, I’ll be right back.” She descends into the bunker without another word.

She’s gone less than a minute when she reappears, a rusty metal toolbox tucked under her arm. She drops it on the table and opens it, rifling through its contents until she finds what she’s looking for. She sets them down on the table- A set of brass knuckles, a bit smaller than average sized. They’d been Olives before she switched to heavy artillery. Her hands are pretty small, though. She’s sure they’ll fit the boy. “Try those on.” She instructs, “Nobody, no matter how tough the think they are is gonna be feelin’ too hot after being on the business end of these bad boys.” She sits again and starts packing up the med kit. “If those fit ya, they’re yours.” She lowers her voice. “Now, if I give ya these ya gotta promise to only use them if you REALLY feel like ya need to. As tempting as it is to go beat the tar outta this kid right this second ya gotta play it smart. Ya understand, Pines?”

She looks so serious, with only a ghost of her usual madness set her features. She sees no issue in arming a twelve year old boy with an illegal weapon.

It’s been a few times now, but Stan still hadn’t fully gotten used to the sensation of disappearing at one place and reappearing at another. The first time Aggie had told him about the waypoints, shortly after he had learnt about her powers, he had scoffed somewhat. That all vanished pretty sharply once she had shown him them. His hair still stood on end and he got all goosepimply whenever he passed through.

For now though, his head still swimming he was too punch-drunk to take too much notice. He just felt tired and humiliated and he wanted to just lie down. As grateful as he was to Aggie for finding him and mending his hands, a small part of him wished he was able to appear before her triumphant, having bested Jesse once and for all in combat.

Having gone through the waypoint, Stan sees Aggie’s house ahead of him, old lady Yearling herself coming out to greet them both. Stan had also been reticent about Aggies house once he had first seen it. It was tumbledown and ramshackle, but Stan leant that the somewhat intimidating exterior of barbed wire, ‘keep out signs’ and grates across the windows only added to the mystery and intrigue of it all. Especially with what Aggie had told him about the bunker below.

It was kinda like Old Lady Yearling herself, tough and a bit scary to the outside world, but get to know her and she wasn’t so bad.

“Hi Ms Yearling….” Stan mumbled in greeting, still unsure how to address her. When he had brought it up with Graunty Mabel, she had curtly replied that Old Lady Yearling probably would be fine with most things as long as you didn’t treat her like the rest of the townsfolk.

As he walks through to the kitchen, he gives Aggie a small smile that he hopes conveys thanks back as she disappears down into the bunker to retrieve some things.

He got up on the kitchen chair and tried not to look or feel too sorry for himself, difficult as it was.

“I feel fine…” Stan lied. “Just some cuts and bruises is all…”

He looks down at his blood stained t-shirt. God Jesse really had done a number on him. He was only a year older than him but he was much closer to Thistle’s height than his own, and he was twice as a broad as he was. That meant he was nearly impossible to fight properly. It was like trying to chop down a redwood with a butter knife.

A tear drop hits his already stained shirt. Why was he crying? He never cried. His father told him that boys shouldn’t cry. It was a sign of weakness. And he couldn’t be weak, not with people like Jesse about. He just found it so difficult to be strong is all.

“I’m- I’m fine Ms Yearling….I just wish I coulda…”

He stops and oh god here come the tears again. Why was he crying, why was he like this? Stupid WEAK Stanley. Babies cry. Are you a baby Stanley? I bet Jesse doesn’t cry. I bet Aggie would laugh at you if she saw you like this. I bet she would find Jesse more fun to be with if she saw you be a BABY like this.

He tries to at least look up at Old Lady Yearling but he finds his gaze is glued to the floor.

The words start pouring out of him suddenly, in a low, sad mumble he’s not even sure Olive can hear properly, his voice warbly with adolescent emotion.

“I’m sorry. Jesse was being a butthole. Saying how he could get Aggie to be his girlfriend like that-.” He clicks his fingers for emphasis. “Saying that she was just playing hard to get. How she’d see things his way if she just spent some time with him.” He sighs. “How I’m just a stupid kid who doesn’t know what I’m doing.”

He finally looks up at Olive.

“I don’t think I do.”

[2dmenenthusiast]

I can't remember if I sent this to you already but could I request headcanons for aizawa, hizashi and Toshinori finding their s/o that has a chipmunk quirk that makes her fall into hibernation when it's too cold (kinda like tsu) but when the guys find her with her heart rate low and her breathing shallow maybe they freak a little bc she didn't tell them about that part of her quirk yet

omggggg this idea is literally so cute I got so excited when I first read it. Also thank you love for comin through with the requests, I really appreciate it! <3 I also hella struggled cuz like, what can someone with a chipmunk quirk do? Stuff their cheeks? Climb up trees? Also I legit forgot what a chipmunk even looked like I had to look it up lmaoooo im so dumb it hurts

Aizawa is an intimidating fella, okay

So when you first told him about your quirk, you were lowkey embarrassed?

Like, here’s this grown-ass man with a badass quirk who is more than capable of taking down villains and defending himself, and here you are just-

🐿️

But you know what’s great about this man? He couldn’t give less of a shit about your quirk or anything like that. He strikes me as the type to care more about personality than anything else

concealing your quirk is fairly easy. People probably wouldn’t even know you had one if it wasn’t for the small fluffy ears popping out of the top of your head, and even then you could just cover them with a hat

But that doesn’t mean you don’t experience the effects of your own quirk just because it’s subtle

You have a mutant type quirk, so you experience certain things that actual chipmunks do

Sometimes you won’t even notice that you’re stuffing your cheeks to full capacity with whatever you’re eating before Aizawa has to cut you off and just be like

“y/n. Chew.”

Or when you’re rushing, you’re usually going so fast that Aizawa can barely even see you zooming from room to room

you can also get kinda skittish at times, your ears twitching whenever you hear a noise that sounds weird or out of place, and you’ll just look at Aizawa with wide eyes until he checks out what made a noise that he could barely hear

“y/n, it was just some kids outside.”

“Oh... sorry, Sho.”

he wants to be frustrated, but he knows it’s not your fault. And honestly? He finds you so cute that he can’t really stay mad at you

So he’ll just let out a huff before patting your head lovingly, grazing his fingers over your ears (Which he KNOWS are sensitive, that asshole)

Experiencing long periods of deep sleep is also a thing. You wouldn’t call it hibernation cuz you still have to do normal, everyday things, but there are times during the winter where you’ll sleep for a few days in a row and only get up to go to the bathroom or eat

And since you can’t actually burrow into the floor of your home, you usually make a blanket fort in the corner of your bedroom and stuff all of the pillows and blankets you can in there until it’s nice and warm, ready for you to bury yourself in

and you might’ve left that little part of your quirk out when you moved in together. whoops

So when Shouta comes home and sees the living room couch void of all of its pillows, he’s not expecting to walk into your shared bedroom and see you curled up in a blanket fort

he’s a bit curious at first, just kinda looking at you like “All right, I guess this is normal?”

and he’ll crouch down and kinda examine you for a bit before he eventually wonders if you’re even breathing? You’re burried under blankets, so he can’t really see your chest moving

eventually he’ll check and see that your breathing is abnormally slow and he kinda just... pauses and checks again to make sure he’s not going crazy.

and he wont deny that he kinda freaks out at first, his immediate thought being that he needs to get you out of there, but the second he grabs the blankets to pull them off of you he’s like wait... hold up.

then it all clicks

you’re a mutant with a chipmunk quirk...

c h i p m u n k

safe to say he’s relieved, so he just lets you be and goes about his day. 

When you wake up a few hours later to go to the bathroom, you come out of the bedroom with your clothes practically on backwards, rubbing at your eyes and stumbling past Aizawa like he’s not even there. And when you’re done, it’s right back to sleep you go

“Back to bed?” Aizawa would ask as he watches you with an amused smirk on his face

“Mhm.”

“Okay. Goodnight, y/n”

“Mm’night.

Listen, when he first heard of your quirk, he thought it was the cutest shit ever

“Your quirk is Chipmunk?! That’s SOOOOOOOO CUUUUUUUTE!”

No he’s legit your number one hype man. If you think your quirk is lame, he’s literally shouting at you how cool he thinks you are.

“You can stuff so much food in your mouth, y/n! And that’s pretty dope if you ask me! I’m totally jealous!”

speaking of food, he’ll just randomly ask you to shove as much as you can of one thing in your cheeks until they’re at full capacity.

“Hey y/n, think you can shove this whole pack of jumbo marshmallows in your cheeks?”

“But... I just bought those :(”

“I’ll buy you more, LET’S DO THIS!!!”

also asks you the dumbest questions omg. You don’t know if he’s genuinely curious or if he’s just doing it to piss you off

“So do you just eat nuts all day?”

“You’ve seen me eat, Hizashi. No.”

“Do you prefer to sleep in trees?”

“That would be extremely uncomfortable.”

“Ooh you’d probably be great frieds with Kamui Woods then.”

“Did you not hear what I just said?”

He also REALLY likes your ears. Like an unhealthy amount? Whenever you’re around he literally wont stop touching them and even tugs on them playfully until you’re swatting at his hands and telling him to go away

He can’t help that they’re so cute :(

so on a particuallry cold day in winter when he has to go to work at the school, he leaves your home while you’re sleeping, only to come home hours later to find you... still sleeping?

You haven’t moved an inch the entire time he’s been gone, so needless to say, he’s a litle concerned.

and when he checks to see if you’re still alive only to discover your heart rate is super slow, he’s A LOT concerned

His brain just goes to the most dramatic thing he can think of, which is that you’re in some weird coma and need to wake up

so rather than, i dont know, gently shaking you awake like a normal person, he grabs you buy your shoulders and starts shaking you violently while shouting your name loud as fuck

“Y/NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN”

“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!”

you literally wake up so violently, you sit right up and shove him off of you before asking what’s wrong with him, pretty sure you’ve officially gone deaf

He then explains that he thought you were in a coma or something cuz your heartbeat was so slow, and at that point you just roll your eyes because of course he would come up with this ridiculous conclusion

“Hizashi, my quirk is chipmunk and it’s a mutation quirk.”

He doesn’t even get what you’re getting at, just tilting his head in confusion as he squints at you.

“What do chipmunks do in the winter, babe?”

Cue more confused squinting

“Oh my god, they hibernate, you headass.”

it finally clicks and the look on his face makes it seem like he just learned the secret of the universe, and afterwards he’s going on about how cool that is while you just roll your eyes and lay back down to try and go back to sleep, bringing the blanket over your head to try and drown him out

He eventually gets the hint and leaves, but after a while, you kinda feel bad for blowing up on him. He was just concerned and didn’t fully understand your quirk

so letting out a huff, you pull the blanket down and call out his name, to which he immediately runs to you at the sound of, asking you what you need

you just wordlessly lift up the blanket to expose the empty side of the bed, and oh boy, the size of the grin he gets on his face is unmatched

immediately throws off his hero costume so that you can both be comfortable and jumps into bed with you, holding you impossibly close

you fall asleep in a matter of minutes while he just looks at you fondly, hand soothingly rubbing your back.

Just like the other two, he finds you incredibly cute. Like mans is in love, okay?

everytime he sees your little ears twitch, he just gets the strongest urge to touch them, but he never does without your consent becuase he knows how sensitive they are.

“Uh... y/n, do you mind if I... touched your ears?” 

Baby probably feels so awkward asking ugh PLEASE REASSURE HIM

“Oh? Yeah, of course, Toshi. Knock yourself out.”

oooh he’s excited. He’ll be super gentle about it, just lightly grazing them with his fingers before gently rubbing them between his thumb and forefinger

and at that point you’re littlerally melting, practically falling into him because him caressing your ears like this feels absolutely amazing

When he sees how it’s affecting you, he immediately becomes a blushing mess and apologizes, but you just hug him and tell him it’s okay and that you liked it

yeah he definitely rubs your ears whenever you’re feeling stressed or anxious because it’s become a quick way to relax you

only when he does it though. If anyone else randomly touches your ears, you get kinda uncomfortable

Just because they don’t look human doesn’t mean they still weren’t a part of you, dammit

Anyways, one day when you’re waiting for Toshi to come back home, you’ve got yourself wrapped up like a burrito in your blanket, sitting on the couch as you watched tv

it had been snowing all day, but luckily Toshinori had turned up the thermostat before he left, remembering how you mentioned that you’re not a huge fan of the cold

unfortunately for you, the harsh weather had no trouble taking out the power, leaving you in the dark and the cold

it didn’t take long for the cold to start seeping in through the cracks in the windows, and you quickly began to grow tired before you inevitibly passed out on the couch, still wrapped tightly in your blanket

When Toshi gets home and sees you on the couch, his first reaction is “aw, how cute.”

but then when he comes up to you and starts calling out your name to try and wake you up and you just won’t, and then he notices how much your breathing has slowed down, he quickly growns concerened.

He’s not in full panic mode yet, but he’s getting there, and he’s quick to crouch down to your level and grab your shoulders to start shaking you to wake you up

which you do, blinking groggily at him like you weren’t just in full hibernation mode

“Oh... Hey, Toshi,” you mumble, and you reach up to wrap your arms around his neck to pull him down so that you can nuzzle yourself into his warm chest

He’s not able to ask you about what happened to you before you’ve already fallen back asleep, and when the power comes back on a few minutes later, he does a quick google search on chipmunks and mutant quirks before putting two and two together

Now he’s thinking of all the ways he could make you something to burrow into during those especially cold winters

[deejadabbles]

Yu-gi-oh x Avatar:TLA

Been re-watching Avatar the past week and when I searched for it I legit couldn’t find, like, any Yugioh Duel Monster x Avatar The Last Airbender content??? I mean the search feature sucks here so maybe I’m just not seeing it, but, now I have a mighty need for this cross over, so I guess I’ll do it myself! (if anyone knows any other posts about this though please link me to them!)

So first off, Yugi is the Avatar

I don’t care if most think Yami is the main protag it just makes sense to me that Yugi is the Avatar

Much like Aang, Yugi is an airbender, but instead of being raised by a group of monks he was actually raised by his nomadic grandfather, who is also an airbender.

Yugi is basically what everyone thinks of when they think of the stereotypical airbender, he’s intelligent, prefers pacifism, would give a stranger the shirt off his back, fun loving and worldly due to his travels, etc.

On the other hand Grandpa, while kind and not prone to violence, isn’t exactly a “monkly” airbender. He’s way too familiar with gambling halls, tomb raiding, pirating, and pretty much every other seedy side of the different nations you can think of. 

While grandpa definitely toned down those..*ahem* less than virtuous adventures when he started raising Yugi, he did not shield Yugi from these things during their travels. Yugi's safety was always his priority, but he also knew it was important for Yugi to learn to take care of himself if he was going to travel the world.

Plus, I mean, when Yugi beat a pirate captain at pai sho at age 12, and won them an ancient water tribe artifact, grandpa knew his bright young airbender could handle his own.

Oh also, Yugi’s flying bison is a brown fluff-ball named Kuriboh. Kuriboh was the runt of his littler, much smaller than most male bison, but that didn’t stop Yugi from bonding with him almost immediately when they met near the air temple (in fact if probably helped them bond more), and the two are now inseparable <3

Grandpa took Yugi against the wishes of the council in charge of the Avatar. The council wanted to shelter Yugi and deprive him of a normal life (much like the monks wanted to with Aang), but grandpa basically said “F all of you” and took Yugi with him so he could have a fun, free life away from all that...at least for awhile.

When Yugi turned 16 the council tracked the boys down, finally told Yugi he’s the Avatar, and demanded he come with them to finish his airbending training and start learning the other elements.

Yugi was honestly, understandably, pretty devastated, his whole life was being stolen from him in the blink of an eye, but, he’s also heard tales of how important the Avatar is for the world and how people would suffer without the avatar, and he couldn’t handle the idea of letting the world down.

Yugi whet with the council, unknowing of that was about to come.

Okay so for Atem I have two possibilities for his role in this AU that I really like, so I’ll just list them both:

#1 is that Atem was the Avatar before Yugi, born as the son of Fire Lord Aknamkanon. 

He grew up in the lap of luxury, but never took it for granted thanks to his father, the most peaceful Fire Lord the nation had seen in a long time. 

His father dedicated his life to improving relations with the other nations and maintaining peace.

Atem’s uncle, Aknadin on the other hand, was an authoritarian jerk-wad, who thought Fire Lord Aknamkanon weak and unfit to rule the Fire Nation.

You can see where I’m going with this. Aknadin hatched a plan to assassinate both Aknamkanon and Atem, and put himself on the throne, using the death’s of the Fire Lord and Prince as cause for war.

What he did not count on though, was Atem being the Avatar. 

Atem didn’t even know he was the Avatar at this point, they were going to wait until he was 16 to tell him, like most Avatars. Atem had no idea he could bend other elements besides fire, let alone realize he had the power of the Avatar spirit. 

Even still, when Atem was attacked by his uncle’s assassins, and he was on the verge of dying, his Avatar sate kicked in.

Well, not quite. It began to kick in just before Atem was overpowered by the assassins, but not quick enough to save him. You know that whole thing about “if the avatar dies while in the avatar state, the avatar will cease to be”? Well, this was a strange In-Between.

The avatar cycle was not broken, since the avatar spirit wasn’t fully awoken, but now Atem’s soul, that incarnation of the avatar, is in a strange form of limbo.

 It was only 16 years later when the new avatar, Yugi, went into the avatar state for the first time, that his soul was finally brought out of limbo. Only now he and Yugi have a strange bond. Instead of residing somewhere deep inside Yugi’s soul like the other past avatars, Atem seems to be one with Yugi, able to commune with him like a constant companion, and even take over Yugi’s body in times of need.

In this version the new Fire Lord waited years to launch his war, gaining the trust of the other nation while slowly changing and manipulating the ideologies of his own people through propaganda and fear mongering.

Yugi fled the air temple when the firelord finally launched his attack on the air nomads in an effort to kill the new avatar, and during that tramtic ordeal is when Yugi went into the avatar state for the first time and awoke Atem’s soul. 

Now Atem’s main focus is helping train Yugi to save the world from Fire Lord Aknadin, who’s hell-bend on world domination.

 OR!

If the whole “Atem dying in a half avatar state that affected his soul” plot doesn’t work for you, I also think we could just simplify things and say that Atem is a Fire Bender dedicated to helping the avatar defeat the tyrant Fire Lord.

In this version Atem would still be a Fire Nation Prince, whose father was dedicated to peace. Only in this version Atem’s father died unexpectedly, and Atem was deemed too young to take the throne, so they put Uncle Aknadin on the throne in Atem’s place.

Atem watched for years while his uncle slowly, meticulously dismantled all of his father’s hard work for peace and was powerless to stop him. All Atem could do was train, improve his firebending, and hope that he could challenge his tyrant uncle to an agni kai for the throne someday.

During that time Atem also found it hard to hold onto his own morals, as his home was every-changing under it’s new Fire Lord, becoming more and more authoritarian and xenophobic. He became a bit harsher during that time, but deep down still held on to his core belief in peace and mercy that his father taught him.

So, when he found out that Aknadin was making plans to wipe out the Air Nomads, and thus, the new Avatar, Atem had to take action.

He fled the Fire Nation to warn the Air Nomads, and he did manage that, but it wasn’t enough to save everyone. Yugi was still too young to fight an army, or the Fire Lord, he hadn’t even begun to learn waterbending let alone anything else. So, when the Fire Lord’s soldiers attacked the temples, the monks insisted Yugi and Atem flee together, live to fight another day, and become strong enough to fight the Warmongering Fire Lord.

No matter which version of Atem we go with everything else stays virtually the same. In the version where Atem is just the spirit of the previous avatar and Yugi’s guide, the Fire Nation still attacked the Air Temples, hoping to kill the new Avatar, he just waited longer to do this, accumulating support and maybe even some alliances with other nations.  But either way, Yugi escapes (after a LOT of arguing against leaving any one, let alone everyone, behind) so he could start his avatar training and defeat this new threat.

In this AU I believe most of the gang’s time would be spent trying to train Yugi in the next elements, but also avoiding capture by the Fire Nation, who’s put a big bounty on Yugi’s head. They also aren’t sure who to trust, as sides are often picked and alliances formed during wars and they have no real way to know what nation would aid them vs the Fire Nation. Unlike the original ATLA show, this is a new war unfolding before their eyes, not one that’s been known and ongoing for 100 years. 

Now on to the rest of the cast! Honda is a non-bender, but don’t underestimate him, in a world where he constantly has to avoid the Dai Li and thugs who can earthbend, he’s learned to take care of himself. 

Jonouchi is an earthbender, and Yugi actually met both him and Honda while traveling the world with grandpa (before learning he was the avatar). 

Jou and Honda were both street kids who joined the gangs in Ba Sing Se in order to survive. Their fellow thugs tried to mug Yugi, thinking him an helpless monk. Peace-loving Yugi didn’t attack them, of course, but used his airbending to dodge their attacks with ease and grace... and ended up humiliating them all when he blew them into a fountain. 

While Jou was initially against mugging Yugi (even when he was a thug he always went on about facing opponents who at least stand a chance against you, not picking on the weak) after that incident Jou basically made it his life’s mission to make Yugi’s life hell the whole time Yugi and Grandpa were in Ba Sing Se. He’d track Yugi down pretty much every day to harass him, trying to get Yugi to “fight him like a real man” and just generally being a bully. 

Yugi always refused to fight him, even the few times Jonouchi actually landed a hit on him with his earthbending. Grandpa intervened a couple times, but ultimately left it up to Yugi to handle.

Right before Yugi and Gramps made to move on to the next city though, Yugi came across a frantic and injured Honda. 

Turns out Jou spoke out against their gang stealing from a family that was already down on their luck and said thugs decided they had enough of Jou’s mouth and wanted to “teach him a lesson”. Honda tried to stop them and defend Jou, but was overpowered just by sheer numbers.

Yugi couldn’t stand by and let this happen, of course, and together he and Honda found where the thugs had taken Jou. Despite the fact that Yugi still refused to strike a damaging blow on anyone, his and Jou’s opposing bending styles actually worked pretty well together and they were all able to escape.

That was the turning point for both boys, but especially Jou and he finally realized that he mistreated Yugi and that Yugi was someone to be admired, not mocked. They unfortunately did not get a chance to make amends then, however, since Yugi and Grandpa were gone the next day. 

So about a year later, when Yugi returns to the city after escaping the raids on the Air Temples, Jou and Honda are eager to help him and insist on joining Yugi and Atem, “as the avatar’s bodyguards” if nothing else. And despite being against the idea of endangering them, Yugi had to admit he teared up at the mere thought of friends joining him on his journey.

Next, we of course have Anzu, a waterbender, and Mai, a firebender.

Anzi and Mai have a traveling act together. They combined their bending with intricate dances and make a marvel of it, sometimes doing synchronized performances that focus a lot on how their opposing elements can compliment and balance each other, other times they do solo numbers that are just as mesmerizing with Anzu’s captivating grace and Mai’s mesmerizing passion. They also wear full, intricate face paints (or sometimes even masks) while on stage to help keep them from going unnoticed when traveling.

Anzu also knows a bit of healing with her waterbending, and as they travel through towns/cities, Anzu often uses her time between shows helping heal those who can’t afford medicine. Mai sometimes goes on about how ppl will take advantage of Anzu is she isn’t careful, but secretly really admires Anzu’s kind heart.

Don’t ever underestimate these girls though, their bending isn’t just for performance, they can and will kick your ass with their bending and have held their own again a whole crew of highway men. You don’t travel the world without knowing how to defend yourself, especially if you’re women thugs think they can take advantage of.

The boys came across Anzu and Mai soon after leaving Ba Sing Se. The first glance they got at them was one of their shows and were impressed to say the least (Yugi was particularly captivated by the waterbender, like the big-hearted bi-disaster that he is).

What really impressed them though was that night, when Yugi was taking a walk through the town to clear his head. Once again he was seen as an easy target by his “weak” appearance (season 0 anyone?) and some thugs ambushed him. Before he even had the chance to defend himself though, two women came to his rescue, water-whipping and fire-blazing. It didn’t take much for Yugi to put two and two together and realize they were the dancers from the show, and, being thoroughly impressed by their bending skills, he begged Anzu to teach him waterbending.

Anzu was actually interested in the idea from the start, when they heard about the attacks on the Air Temples and the Fire Nation declaring war, she was outraged. Anzu is nothing if not compassionate and all that life being burn away gave her a slowly growing need to take action, and now the avatar himself was asking her to teach him!

Mai on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with Yugi and his “band of do-gooders” and insisted Anzu turn him down. Mai grew up in the Fire Nation during the rise of the tyrant Fire Lord Aknadin, she knows first hand how ruthless his soldiers can be, and sees it as loosing battle to resist them. In her mind, her and Anzu have a good life going for them, why change that to fight a war they aren’t going to win?

The girls argue about this for awhile, to the point that Anzu actually thinks about leaving Mai to go with Yugi without her, despite the idea of leaving Mai behind tearing her up inside.

Then the town they’re staying in is attacked by Fire Nation soldiers. Everyone, including Mai jumps into action to defend the towns people and together they’re able to fight them off. In the aftermath, having the war’s carnage brought right into her lap, Mai sees that the ruler of her homeland has to be stopped and agrees to join the gang too. 

I haven’t thought a ton about the other characters honestly, and I’m especially having trouble placing Ryou in all this, but here are some half developed/misc headcanon:

Seto is a firebender and the son of Fire Lord Aknadin, making him and Atem cousins. 

In the version where Atem is just a regular firebender and not the previous avatar, Seto and Atem grew up together. Atem tried his best to convince Seto to leave with him when he set out to warn the Air Nomads of the attack, but Seto refused, already being drawn in by Aknadin’s power-centric teachings. 

In the version where Atem is the previous avatar and shares a body with Yugi, Seto was only a few years old when his older cousin Atem was “mysteriously killed” and Seto grew up hearing stories from his father about how they could avenge the young prince and the previous fire lord.

In both versions Seto is similar to a Zuko character. He’s sent out by his father to capture the avatar, but eventually he comes to realize what a warmongering monster his father is and turns on the firelord, joining Yugi and the gang. He’s still an egotistical ass though and is basically constantly criticizing the whole gang the entire time he’s with them. The rivalry between him and Yugi/Atem is still there, because of all the times Yugi whipped him with his airbender while Seto was trying to capture him. Also, Seto honestly believes that he’d make a better avatar than Yugi and thanks to @readerinsertfanfiction now I can’t get the thought out of my head that Seto would try to science his way into becoming a second living avatar ���

I really want to include Mana and Mahad in this AU as well (since they’re my fave side characters) and thought maybe they could also be firebenders who grew up with Atem and were his close friends. Then when the tyrant Fire Lord took over they started plotting behind the scenes and formed a rebellion within the fire nation. (for real could you imagine the version where Atem was killed by his uncle and now an older Mahad and Mana, who’ve been waging a rebellion in the name of their prince and best friend, meet Yugi and can talk to Atem again and how heart wrenching a scene like that would be??)

Another possibility I thought of for Mahad and Mana was that they’re spirits of deceased airbenders who have gained some power in the spirit world. They commune with Yugi and help guide him and even step in to save him a couple times. This idea play more on the whole “Dark Magician/Dark Magician Girl Duel Monsters” side of things. Heck maybe we could do both these ideas since DM and DMG are usually considered separate entities from Mahad and Mana.

Duke/Otogi, I could image being a character similar to Jet (a charmer/flirt, who’s cunning and vengeful, at least at first? Come on I know you can see it) and maybe even having a similar story of tricking the gang into helping him do something horrible in the name of fighting the Fire Nation, then redeeming himself later.

I’m still a little unsure of Ryou’s story in this AU, but, I think I have an idea brewing involving Ryou being a waterbender who’s been processed by an evil spirit. Said spirit is thriving/feeding on the carnage of the war and often takes over Ryou’s body in order to stoke the fires of said war. This could lead to some interesting stuff involving Ryou wanting to join Yugi and the gang, but the evil spirit always stabbing them in the back. The gang, especially Yugi, would see it as a personal responsibility to save Ryou from the evil spirit and Yugi tries to learn more about his spirit powers in order to help Ryou.

I have some more vague ideas floating around my head, but I think that’s it for now. Boy, these are the longest headcanon I’ve had in while lol. I’m really loving the idea of this AU and I’m even really tempted to write an actual series surrounding it. I’d love to hear your guy’s thoughts about any of this or whether all this is even appealing at all. Please feel free to invade my inbox if yall wanna talk about this AU! <3

[doctors-star]

13 and/or 17 (... cowboys 🥺 pretty pls?) (but totally fine if u wanna do smthin else)

prompt list

cafune - the act of running your fingers through the hair of someone you love

cruore - it literally means “flowing blood”

It’s a warm day out, dusty and dry under an impossibly large, impossibly blue sky. Now that it’s early afternoon and the worst of the midday heat has burned off and dissipated, the town is bustling out again into the streets, in and out of shops and ducking around riders and carriages. It sure isn’t the ideal time to unleash a room’s worth of unruly children who’ve all been cooped up since lunchtime upon the town in the vague hope they’ll make it home in one piece, but in all honesty there’s no good time to do that and they’ve got to go eventually.

Ainsel will get ‘em reading and writing, but they sure as hell ain’t some kind of charitable institution for bored youths.

Opening the door on such brightness and warmth requires serious blinking and squinting and no small amount of internal sorrow as the wall of heat hits Ainsel square in the chest and invades their cool, shaded front room. Not for the first time, they consider the merits of simply opening one of the rear windows and posting the children out of it one by one; not for the first time, the idea is dismissed. The kids would enjoy it entirely too much. Said children are presently scrambling up off the floor and making a break for the door, slates and tin lunch pans hastily shoved into small satchels, baskets, or simply jammed under one arm, and Ainsel steps neatly to one side to allow them free access to the door. For all that the kids bullied Ainsel into teaching them, they sure are always glad to get out at the end of the day.

“See you on Monday, then,” Ainsel says easily. The elder Diaz boy and Mary Wilder both twist to wave at them over their shoulders, but then they’re back to corralling their littler siblings and trying to get them to hold hands nicely for the walk out of town and up to their family ranches. The other kids pay him no mind at all - just tumble out into the street and turn their faces to the sun like little sunflowers. Little Jesse Rainey turns a little circle in the dust, swirling her skirts carefully so as to show off the new printed calico to best effect; she’s a little too used to being the saloon’s darling, if you ask Ainsel, all dressed up in pink with blonde hot-ironed ringlets, but she’s also one of the brightest kids in the class at only six years old. Ainsel reckons she could be the next schoolteacher in ten years or so, if an established schoolmaster could be prevailed upon to examine her and find Ainsel’s informal schooling up to scratch.

Two of the boys have immediately begun a small scuffle, the way young boys are apparently wont to do; Ainsel sighs, and steps forward to separate them (curse all, if one of them isn’t a loose Wilder at that) - but is beaten to the punch. There’s a sharp whistle and the clink of spurs as boots go from horseback to street, and to Ainsel’s great surprise Max Wilder jumps back and sticks his hands in his pockets, looking up at the sky as his bare feet scuff at the dirty street. Were it not patently absurd, given the quantity of eye witnesses, Ainsel would say the boy was attempting to look entirely uninvolved.

Ainsel, amused, turns to raise an eyebrow at the newcomer. Will Williams catches their eye for a fraction of a second - enough for Will to roll his eyes, barely, in commiseration - and then he turns his unimpressed gaze upon the Wilder boy.

Max feigns surprise and delight well, for a nine-year-old of no particular theatrical bent; he beams at Williams with his hands tucked neatly behind his back. “Hiya, Doc,” he says through a gap-toothed smile. “How d’ya do.”

“All the better,” Will says, all dry and proper, “for knowing that you are safe at home after school and not fighting with the other boys, just like you promised me you would be. After all, we agreed on good behaviour if you were to come out to Plum Creek with me tomorrow. Didn’t we?”

Ainsel presses the knuckles of their fist to their mouth to ward off a smile as Max darts apologetically forward, spouting apologies and promises of better behaviour for ever and ever if only the Doc - that is, Mr Williams - wouldn’t tell his pa and would still take him out to the river to look for tracks. It’s more grovelling than Ainsel’s ever managed to extract from a pupil for bad behaviour, but then, Ainsel only ever promises letters and numbers, and Max seems under the impression that Williams is going to provide frogs and snakes and half a dozen other natural wonders, so.

Will scratches the back of his neck. “Well, alright,” he relents. “I - I am going to tell your pa, mind, but if he doesn’t say otherwise I don’t see why you shouldn’t come.” Max does a little victory dance and then returns to his classmates, bragging all the while about the things he’ll see out by the creek. Will himself tips his hat politely at Ainsel. “Afternoon.”

Ainsel is aware that they make Will Williams nervous. Many things do, but Ainsel reckons they do a better job of it than most folks; this is somewhat ironic, in many ways, as a fair few things make Ainsel anxious too. If they could get the measure of each other, Ainsel thinks they oughta be friends - they’d like a person to commiserate with about being thrust into a job they ain’t really qualified for, and not-a-doctor Will Williams seems like a good choice - but Williams keeps careful distance from Ainsel, even in broad daylight in a street full of children, and Ainsel ain’t hopeful. They offer a smile anyhow. “Afternoon, Williams. What can I do you for?”

Will nods gently at Miss Rainey, his own face turning gentle. “This one’s wanted at home,” he says with a smile and Jesse blushes and beams, pleased with the attention. “She’s to pick out a new ribbon at the store if she can keep tally of how much we spend and write it up neatly in the saloon books. How’s that, Miss Rainey?”

Jesse puffs up her chest with pride. “I shall have a blue ribbon like Mary Wilder’s,” she says with certainty.

Will offers Ainsel a flicker of a grin. “Jayne Rainey figures your schooling ought to be good for something,” he says, and if anyone else in the town had said it Ainsel would have winced - but Will’s got more books than clothes, same as Ainsel, so they offer a quick grin back. If only Ainsel could remember what they were doing before they woke up in Danser some years back: that way, they could say for sure if they went to college like Will, and Ainsel might feel a little less like, maybe, the local nice, nervous naturalist oughta be taking classes instead of the local amnesiac with a scary-clever horse and the books which they may or may not be qualified to own and read. Knowing that kind of thing, actually, might go a long way towards some kind of friendship with Will Williams, too.

“I figure so too,” Ainsel agrees, instead of voicing that, or anything like it. They beat down the impulse to seek answers, confess worries, force a confidence - to say hey, Williams - you wanna take a look at Edelweiss? Nah, nothing’s wrong; only, sometimes I don’t reckon she’s really a horse. You know anything about that? Only Will wouldn’t. Ainsel knows as much as they reckon they’re gonna, honestly - there was a trade, and for whatever they gave up they got Edelweiss in exchange. And maybe something else, too, but they’ll be damned if they know what.

Ainsel tries very hard to unthink that particular thought.

“Ainsel says I could keep a school,” Jesse is telling Will with pride.

“I’m sure you could,” Will replies with a little smile. Ainsel hadn’t figured Will as one for children, but then Jesse Rainey and Max Wilder are small forces of nature; if they take a liking to a person, it’s hard not to be endeared. And Jesse is the saloon proprietor’s daughter, and Will rents a room in the saloon, and Jesse is the saloon’s darling. Will shoots a glance at Ainsel. “You’re - you’re training up a replacement already?”

Ainsel inclines their head at Max Wilder, who is crouching in the dust with a stick and drawing around the hooves of Will’s square, broad-chested stock horse. Ainsel remembers Will defending his choice to Finn - Will’s horse looks more like a small draught horse than a good or fast rider, but she’s quiet and she stays still while he’s out watching animals - and indeed, though the horse is gently nosing at the boy, her hooves are staying obediently planted as he natters away at her about prints. “Should say you were, too.”

Will huffs gently at Max, who entirely fails to notice. “It was an accident. Alright, let’s get going before your parents come after me wondering where you kids are. Max, are - are you going to walk us home?”

Max bounces up, catching up the horse’s reins and bringing her over with the practised ease of anyone born and raised on the Wilder ranch. “Sure! Can I ride?”

Will carefully lifts Jesse up into the saddle. “Ladies have to ride, Max,” he corrects. “When I was little, my brother always-”

And though Will stutters into silence, Ainsel - sort of hears the rest of the story anyway. Their cards have made their way into Ainsel’s hands without them noticing and the odd paintings are switching and shifting before their eyes as they shuffle idly, and then stop. The card is of what might be a tower, and what might be a cart, and what is almost certainly a lady; the colours twist the eye and every line slides into the next until what had started as one thing is something else entirely by the end.

If you were going to play poker with these cards, you’d probably call this one the Queen of Spades.

Do not play poker with these cards.

But Ainsel looks at the cards, and the strange, illusory lines that leave only impressions, and sees with odd and abrupt clarity a young man with Will’s face but without his glasses and with a shadow of unruly stubble. He is perhaps broader than Will, too, but the resemblance is clear. And in the card, the young man grins and sweeps a small child up into a massive bear hug. He kisses the child’s hair - once plaited, Ainsel thinks, but now entirely loose and wild after a day of playing - and places them with great care and reverence on the back of a tall, thin black horse. The child, the little girl, giggles as the boy kisses her hand, says she is a princess, and runs an affectionate hand through her loose, dark hair to tidy it away before placing his hat on her head. The girl’s hands push the brim up out of her eyes - eyes which are doubtless, doubtless, Will Williams’ eyes - and Ainsel closes their own eyes, and wishes they had done so sooner.

When he opens them again, it’s just the Queen of Spades once more. Like nothing ever happened.

“Well, I, I guess you can ride behind and keep Miss Rainey steady,” Will is saying when Ainsel folds his fingers over the painted cards and looks up once more. He doesn’t seem quite so steady as he did before as he hoists Max up onto the horse’s back.

There’s no way to tell him what Ainsel knows. They wouldn’t, anyhow - Will never said, and wouldn’t thank them for disrupting the life Williams has carefully built for himself. But Ainsel would like, somehow, to communicate that Will’s big brother had seemed nice; that Will, as a kid, had seemed happy with him; that Will didn’t have to give up on his childhood and on the nice boy who had run his fingers so gently and fondly through his kid sibling’s hair, just because he’d changed over the years.

Ainsel kinda misses the memory of their own childhood, sometimes. Maybe someone had once been so affectionate with them, too.

Will catches Ainsel staring and tilts his head in query. Ainsel shakes themself and offers a small smile. “Y’all ride safe, now,” they say. “Oh, and Max Wilder - you tell your ma you’ll need shoes for the walk before the next week is out, ‘cause it’ll be getting colder and you can’t have Will Williams carting you home every day.”

“Sure will,” Max calls back, grinning and swinging his bare feet from high up on the horse’s broad, grey-dappled rear. “Bye, Ainsel!”

“Goodbye!” Jesse says, holding firm to the pommel as she shifts to look back. “I’ll show you my ribbon on Monday.”

Will just inclines his head and takes the reins in one hand.

Ainsel fidgets the cards in one hand. “Be seeing you, Williams,” they say carefully. As the party moves away, heading for the general store, the Wilder ranch, and home, Ainsel flips the top card over and over in their fingers, and hopes against hope that they wouldn’t be seeing Will Williams at all.

--

There are days, Ainsel knows, that they don’t sit fully right with Finn Holden. It’s a different kind of discomfort to wrong-footed Will Williams, but it’s there nonetheless - sometimes they catch Finn trying to look at them without looking at all, out of the corner of his eye or in a mirror or in the eyes of someone else who is looking at Ainsel, and they know that he knows that they know.

Like now: hunched over a little table in the saloon littered with glasses and an incomplete set of dominoes, just the two of them, and Finn’s looking over Ainsel’s shoulder. Ostensibly, eyeing up the liquor behind the bar; in reality, examining the back of Ainsel’s head in the smokey mirror behind the glasses. Ainsel prods the double six morosely and tries not to let it bother them. It does seem unfair, really, that Finn doesn’t bother people the way Ainsel does. That Ainsel bothers Finn, but not vise versa.

They think maybe choice comes into it. But Ainsel doesn’t even know if they made a choice, way back whenever they did whatever it was to land them in Danser Town with a horse and cards and no recollection at all of how this came to be. They might have been totally helpless to their fate, same as Finn had said he was, when Ainsel had cornered him after two weeks and demanded to know what, exactly, the fuck had happened to Finn to make him smell permanently of clay and sawn pine planks and blood.

(If Ainsel is honest with themself, they suspect that they did have a choice. They suspect they made a deal. The knowledge that their fate has been entirely self-wrought is not helpful.)

“Hey,” Finn says, looking at the table rather than Ainsel and tacking a domino on the end of the six. Is that better? Ainsel isn’t sure. “You been...well, lately?”

Ainsel regrets that Finn has cause to have concern for him. Unfortunately, there are only so many times a person can be seen screaming blue bloody murder at a horse for being a demon in passive, judgemental mostly-horse form before people start taking that person aside and asking about how things are going at home, and that number of times is one. “Grand,” Ainsel says levelly. They’re not wholly lying, either; they haven’t found themself lost and memory-less in a forest for nearly three weeks, Edelweiss hasn’t tried to bite them for their many and varied sins today, and Johnny McPherson had offered them a friendly holler across the street that had actually done disproportionate wonders for Ainsel’s mood. But, also, Finn isn’t looking at them straight. He’s looking the way that Will says you oughta, when you’re a little too close to some creature that can kill ya but hasn’t tried yet; with the kind of caution which is always recommended in old wives’ tales about ghosts and devils and the fae.

Finn nods. “Glad.” Then, abruptly, as if bored of being careful (not unlikely) Finn slumps back in his chair and eyeballs Ainsel straight on. It’s - oddly comforting, actually. “I’m sick of dominoes. We don’t even have half the damn pieces.”

They have all bar two. Ainsel sweeps the tiles together into a pile and starts dividing them into two sets of seven and a discard pile, pushing them across the sticky table with long, pale fingertips. “You want to play that Matador game Johnny was trying to teach us?”

Finn huffs. “Tryin’ is the word. If you can remember the rules, then I’m Saint Bridget. I sure as hell can’t.”

Ainsel tips their head, conceding the point. Something about sevens, and it being annoying that their set lacked the five-two; Ainsel had been a bit drunk at the time. “Well? We’ve got to play something. I ain’t gonna just sit here and talk to ya, no-one’s got that patience.”

Finn laughs, loud and inelegant, and Ainsel grins. “Aw, you ass,” he says cheerfully, spinning his glass on the table with careful flicks. “Let’s play cards or something. I’m a demon at rummy.”

“The saloon hasn’t got any cards any more, remember?” Ainsel points out.

Finn frowns. “It don’t? Why not?”

“Jesse Rainey nicked ‘em and gave out the picture cards to the other kids as favours. And, also, as a kind of basic hierarchy system, far as I can figure it.”

“Aw, hell. Why does that kid get away with everything?”

“Y’all reckon she’s cute.”

Finn grins. “She is! It’s like being mad at the kid on the Pear’s soap ads, or a gopher.” Ainsel spreads their hands - well, there you go - and Finn laughs. “Alright. You got cards, though, right?”

Ainsel rides the sudden lurch of horror at the idea of anyone else even seeing the cards, let alone using them. But - they want Finn and Will and everyone else to see them as normal folk, they gotta Be Normal. Have a normal horse, and a normal life, and normal playing cards. Any number of things can cause amnesia - hitting your head real hard because your horse, which maybe hates you, kicked you or bucked you or something. Trauma. Heatstroke. Normal shit, which ain’t magic no matter how much you side-eye it or examine it in mirrors. Finn might’ve just - imagined it, or had a vision like some religious folks do. Ainsel could have dreamed up any number of things and thought them real - what he’d seen of Will could be nothing. Probably says more about Ainsel than it does about Will anyhow.

Be Normal. Ainsel reckons they can do that. Most all other folks seem to.

Ainsel brings out their pack from the inner pocket of their duster, shakes out their wrists with a confident movement, and manages two whole shuffles before dropping most of the pack. The beautiful cards flutter and spin as if caught by some wild, summer wind and scatter over the table and floor in an unstoppable cascade. Finn tips his head back and laughs like a hyena.

“You’re the clumsiest fuckin’ card shark I ever seen,” he says delightedly.

“I am not a card shark,” Ainsel says rather absently as they scrabble to collect up the cards on the table.

Finn snorts. “I believe it! But what else you carryin’ all these damn cards all the damn day for, huh?” He gets off his chair and drops to the saloon floor, hunting down Ainsel’s precious cards before they get trampled or lost between the boards.

“I don’t know,” they bite back rather crossly; one of the cards, the Jack of Hearts, has just jumped away from Ainsel’s grasping fingers and they have to stand and lean over the table to snatch it up from Finn’s chair. Ainsel glances at it habitually as they sit back down and briefly forgets how to breathe.

The card, like every other, is not a standard face card. The young knave depicted always seems to form out of the swirling lines upside-down, no matter how Ainsel looks at the card, with an inverted heart on his chest like a drop of ruby-rich blood. And for a moment, whilst Ainsel watches, the Jack looks out at them with Finn’s eyes that are not Finn’s eyes. The heart pulses, once, and slides away and dissipates; the eyes go dark and glazed; and Ainsel is looking at a dead man in a churchyard. Some shadow oozes into the edges of the card and at the same pace blood leaks thick and dark from the man’s chest. There is no helping him; he is gone. Ainsel knows it. And then, he sits up. Abruptly, like he’s awakening from a nightmare. He inhales hugely, or tries to, as though he had been drowning, but chokes on his own blood. The man spends quite some time on all fours, coughing and retching and hacking up blood, but this slows and he sits back on his haunches to assess the pool of blood. He wipes at his chin with the back of his hand and grimaces - not with pain, more like disgust. And then he looks up - and this time, it is Finn with Finn’s eyes who is looking straight out of the card at Ainsel.

Ainsel’s fist closes around the card, barely managing to avoid crushing it. They look up in time for Finn’s head to appear in triumph over the edge of the table, clonking his temple gently against the underside as he does. Finn brandishes a handful of cards at Ainsel with a grin, and Ainsel sees him bleed out and wake up over and over in their mind.

They take the cards. Slide the pack back together. Tuck them deep down in an inner pocket.

Finn blinks at them for a moment. “So no cards today, then.”

“No,” Ainsel says shortly.

Finn nods solemnly. “You wanna talk about it?”

Absolutely fucking not. Ainsel slides the dominoes back across the table a little too violently, sending ivory tiles skittering against their empty glasses and shoves a couple Finn’s way. Finn, who is alive and well and not all that damn normal either, so damn it all; maybe no-one in this town is normal enough to start shit with Ainsel, and everyone ought to fuckin’ remember it. Ainsel fixes their gaze on the base of a glass, in whose curving reflection they can watch Finn without actually looking at him. “Come on, Saint Bridget,” they say roughly. “Double six starts.”

There is a short pause, and then Finn’s hand closes over the glass which Ainsel is using to look at Finn without looking at him, and they can’t see Finn’s reflection anymore. “Alright,” Finn says quietly. “Matador it is.”

[phantomphangphucker]

Ectober Day 23: Smoke - Sinners Are We Chap. 5: Blow It All To Hell

So everything went wrong and everyone makes their moves

It happened early one morning, with a thick coating of smoky haze from one of the lava pits coating the city. The Poisoned Thorn Prince was spotted on the outskirts of the city and had promptly blown up a few factories seemingly for nothing more than his own twisted amusement. But if people didn’t know better that would have said he seemed to be looking for something past the smoke and haze.

There had been plenty of rumours over the sudden vanishing of the younger prince and princess from the public eye. So maybe that played into this, regardless some thought that maybe the elder prince was distracted. A target. And some members of the local resistance were a little... eager.

Orrin sighs yet smirks into his cup at the ever-familiar sound of an explosion and the smell of burning wood. Side-eyeing Dove as she hums contentedly, obviously considering it something familiar from home too. He sighs more genuinely at the loud aggressive knocking at his door.

Opening the door and leaning against the frame, “yes?”, and eyeing the dishevelled looking Rio. She looked fairly ticked off which tells him that someone went and did something they shouldn’t have and probably blew something up. How nice to know his family isn’t the only one with aggressive explosive idiots.

“That fu-darn moron”. He can’t help chuckling slightly over her ‘correcting’ herself at spotting Dove. Ahh the living were so sensitive about ‘protecting innocence’. Not that that wasn’t part of what he was attempting to do with her himself. “Jasper went and unloaded the entire artillery on that stupid poison prince”, shouldering her way in which he lets her do purely to see what might happen, “that idiot doesn’t get that it doesn’t matter what happens with that monster if we can’t take out the king”.

Orrin rolls his eyes slightly, it absolutely did matter. This little rebellion was as good as dead if his brother went down. “‘Idiot’ might be being nice I dare say”. She nods at him absently and keeps on ranting, which he doesn’t pay much mind to. Arguably this could both be in and against his interests. Dove had made quite a few friends, she seemed quite fond of them. Now the question was, would she defend them? Clearly she hardly cared for self-defence, but defence of another? If he put her in that kind of situation, what would she do? He is rather curious, but he would have rather gotten her more attached first but oh well. Brother always had to be some form of an inconvenience, didn’t he.

All three turn to the side as the window gets blown in, neither Orrin nor Dove moving or seeming all that surprised; having become rather used to sudden and largely needless destruction. Rio, however, immediately moves into a battle-ready stance and scowls deeply. Then relaxing slightly after a beat, it’s subtle but it’s there. The slight shift in stance from defending from an incoming attack to simply on high alert, “what did those boys do?! Drive that thing closer into town?!?”. She grabs Orrin with little care for his personal space and drags him off, also with little care for his personal opinions on being manhandled and shoved around like some mutt. He almost has half the mind to bash her head into the wall just a little bit. Dove hardly seems to mind it though.

“Personally, I would prefer you unhand me. I’m perfectly capable of walking away from explosions myself. In fact, I would say I am fairly adept at it”.

“Suck it up. You established you’re hard as nails a long time ago. Save all that cool calm composure for when freaking Russet isn’t here”, her scowling more, “darn demon prince”.

-

Dove tilts her head, bigger bro was here? If he found them did that mean the game was over? There was lots of bang boom and loudness. Frowning a little, but she wanted to keep playing. She liked the mortals here. She really did. None of them liked littler bro, which makes her sad. Her bro should be liked. He was very likeable. He was okay though. ‘Don’t mind’ like he always said. Maybe bigger people only liked bigger people and littler people liked littler people. And littler brother was still a big kid, a big person. Like bigger bro, not bigger like pa. No. No one was big like pa. Pa was the biggest of the bigs.

Big lady Rio makes them stop by holding out her arm in front of them as they get out of the home building. Dove hums at the destruction around, yup! Bigger bro surrounded by smoke and ash. She don’t know why Rio makes a mad face, did she not like Rusty? He did make people disappear a lot. That wasn’t very nice. She didn’t like that. He was bigger bro but littler bro was more likeable. Older not better.

Rio lady says some words Remi and Olive say are bad mean words that you shouldn’t say. Family says them a lot, so can’t be that bad right? Maybe living just no like them.

Suddenly bigger bro and someone else fly by having a boom match. The not bro man doesn’t look like he’s having fun though. Neither does the on-the-ground-man bro hits when he makes a red mess and doesn’t get up.

-

Orrin makes a point to ‘shield’ Dove, not that he truly needs to but he had an act to play. Plus, he couldn’t have her running off to that moron of a man. He is slightly thrown off by her grasping his arm tightly though. Maybe she did need to be shielded, was she truly this fragile?

Rio eyes her then whispers at him while dragging them off, “she’s never seen someone die before, has she?”. Orrin simply shakes his head, “she knows sometimes people disappear, but that is all. She has seen people get hurt, however”, Rio sends a sad sigh Dove’s way. He will never understand the living.

But... he absolutely enjoys the tenacity. Oh yes he does. Watching multiple ghost hunters and rebels blasting the high Hell out of brother dearest. Even spotting one of the secret turrets pop out. This really was a plan that would work but surely they are well aware that father will show up at this point. So what will they do? Will they launch every possible plan immediately? Take the opportunity? Or admit that they simply can not win? Quirking an eyebrow when one of the turret shots is an arrow and string, huh, so they were attempting to trap instead of only assault. Arguably smart. Father would obliterate that in less than even a fully livings heartbeat.

“I’m to guess there’s some form of a plan to deal with the big dog?”.

Rio rolls her eyes but grins almost impressively meanly, “obviously. I would have thought by now you would know we’re no joke. Besides, we got some of those freaking spooks off distracting that monster, hopefully both of them. So maybe this brat will be alone for long enough”.

Orrin blinks, well, he did not quite expect that. Particularly not on rather short knowledge. But, spotting a little black and white dot, he can’t help the sly cruel grin. Shit was about to hit the fan, so to speak, “so where are we off to?”.

She looks back at him, glancing to Dove, “getting her to the safe house, then the barax”. Ah, see that doesn’t really work well for him. In fact, it doesn’t work at all. Now that just simply won’t do.

So he grins a little more, Dove huffing at him like she does when she thinks he’s planning unpleasant things for someone. Which was fair. After all, he usually was. He certainly was now. “Ah, well then, ‘fraid that’s not something that’s gonna happen hon”, he jerks them to a stop, her whirling around on him, suspicious and confused, “I have a far better idea”, tightening his grip and yanking her towards him, “how about you-”, then spinning around and shoving her into the road, “-go play in traffic for a little while”. Orrin turns to Dove quickly, “wanna play pass?”, she gives him an unsure hum but seems interested enough. So Orrin grabs her up and turns back to the surprised and starting to look pissed off Rio, “and take the little lady with you!”, promptly throwing her at the mortal woman.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!!!”.

Orrin simply points up with a grin.

-

The city goes into absolute panic emergency mode as Phantom slams down into the ground, blue flames erupting from around him and a loud snarl ringing out over the buildings. When the dust and smoke settles enough the powerful monster of a ghost looked both pissed and incredibly giddy, which was nothing short of terrifying for the town’s folk.

The entire area transforms into a battleground in an instant, the members of the resistance and ghost hunters all effectively identifying themselves to each other. This was a situation where they either died or won, staying in the shadows wasn’t an option with Phantom here. Here in a town that had genuinely attacked one of the princes. They were as good as dead already.

But amongst all that chaos one rebel was running practically threw the centre of the battlegrounds with a wide-eyed child, wondering what the goddamn fuck the girls ‘caretaker’ was thinking; or if he even was. Regardless, not even seconds pass before Phantom is floating in the air shooting massive blasts into the city.

Nearly everyone stops as there’s a shout of, “OH RUSTY!”, in a singsong mocking voice. Giving one hunter the chance to run a distracted Russet through with a crystallised blood blossom extract spear, just as one of Phantom’s blasts destroys the turrets.

-

Dove is looking around everywhere, there are parts of mortals flying around, red everywhere, they’re making loud noises, pa is there laughing and making things go boom, bigger bro’s on the ground, lady Rio is running and whipping her face around like crazy while saying lots of mean words she thinks are about bro, when both of them and almost everyone look to her littler bro. Ori was standing on a sidewalk, against a wall, grinning wild. People always disappeared, died, when he looked like that. So she makes a sad huff when he yells bigger bro’s name but like he’s singing a lullaby.

Then Rusty’s making hurty loud noises and suddenly her and lady Rio are looking at him and there’s green and red everywhere and he doesn’t look like he likes it and pa looks mad. She tries to leans towards him so he won’t hurt no more but lady Rio turns away and holds her real tight.

“WHAT THE HELL DID YOU CALL HIM!?!?!?”.

Ori laughs, “I’m more like my grand uncle than father would like!”. Dove just sees him hold out his arms in a shrug from the corner of her eyes. “In that, I prefer to play the long game. Or entertain myself with chess and all the little pieces of it I can find, as that dead old coot would say!”. Dove can hear the grin in littler brother's voice but that doesn’t matter right now, Rusty needs help! He’s hurting!

Chunks of the road and buildings are getting blown to bits as pa stops anyone from getting near bro, protects bro. She has to get to him. Has to help him. Bro isn’t strong. She knows this. She’ll help him just like pa. She’ll be a good little girl. She knows littler bro told her not to but she hopes he won’t be mad or sad as she phases through lady Rio’s arms.

To focused on flying at her Rusty to stop at lady Rio getting blasted at the ground towards Ori. Or Olive laying missing her little legs. Or the mortals laying around without their beating sounds, in circles of red. Or noticing how the battleground paused for a split second over the floating child going at the Poisoned Thorn Prince.

-

Orrin chuckles faintly down at Rio as she struggles to stand up, a scowl on her face, “you”, coughing, “you bastard”. He just grins, flashes his glowing blue eyes, and winks cheekily. She immediately body slams him into the wall, “ah ah. I would do that if I were you”.

She practically growls at him, “and why the Hell not”.

Orrin chuckles, “don’t you have a little girl to protect? And you just let her slip through your grasp. Now what kind of mother does that I wonder”, he continues as she just snarls at him and presses him into the wall more, “besides, I can see two ways this can go. I’m equally interested in either or, frankly. Because tell me, what made those two wonderful little monsters that are mother and father dearest, the monsters they are today? Why all they had to do was watch the people they cared about die and betray them”, he grins very meanly at her paling. So he leans his head towards her face, “or perhaps, she could defend those bonds. With the living she’s met. After all, that idiot of a brother has shot her point-blank and left not even a singe to be seen”.

That gets her to step back, understanding flashing across her face. Good. Looks likes this was a good time to places the cookie crumbs. Not that he was anything close to subtle there. But then again, wars and battlegrounds hardly called for subtleties. “You- you planned this”.

Orrin shrugs, “oh hardly. Russet showed of his own accord. Simply doing what is in his nature to do. And frankly, you lot really do seriously underestimate how protective father is”, chuckling, “to think he would be distracted and not come immediately”.

She scowls at him but moves to pin him again, but against the ground, as the wall near them explodes. Her looking around wildly, both of them watching one of the hunters intercept Dove and try moving her away from the area. Dove squirming and trying to phase away, though unable due to the hunters' suit. Rio muttering, “if that’s- then why isn’t she attacking Jestine?”, sounding genuinely befuddled.

Orrin rolls his eyes, “she’s a pacifist”.

Rio snaps her head to him, “what?”. Which he simply rolls his eyes at again and gives her a look that says that should have been obvious. Dove didn’t have a violent bone in her body, that was more apparent every day. He decides to be truly and genuinely honest, curious what she’ll make of it, “our family would destroy her”.

Rio blinks at him, “you didn’t plan this”, standing up, “you were running away”. He doesn’t bother arguing that beyond huffing slightly indignantly, as she points at a couple of guys, “hold him, with ecto-weapons”, and runs off after Dove. Orrin simply chuckles at the two men that scowl at him.

He’ll stay put for now. He’s got a show to watch.

-

“HOLD ON! I KNOW HER!”.

“JACKET NOW! KID’S TRYING TO PHASE LIKE CRAZY! WHAT IS SHE THINKING!”.

“YOU DON’T EVEN WANT TO KNOW”.

Dove whips her head around at arms she knows wrapping around her, seeing lady Rio holding her again. But she still couldn’t get past the purple jacket! And bro was still hurting! And they were trying to make him hurt! Didn’t they know when playtime was over?!? She knows her eyes are wet as she points at bro, maybe lady Rio will understand her. But her saying, “Dove honey”, makes her stop. Lady Rio never said her name? Why?

Lady Rio swallows, the two of them huddling on the ground as chaos and loudness is everywhere around them, “or Robin if you like that. Russet, or... Rusty, has done a lot of bad and, and sometimes people who do bad things have to be punished or they’ll hurt people. Make more people disappear”. Dove doesn’t get to think on that as the ground next to them gets smashed apart and they go flying. Lady Rio rolling across the ground and not moving.

Dove doesn’t know where to look. Lady Rio is hurt, Rusty is hurt, pa got hit by something and looks not happy, Olive, and Remi, and Jasper, and Maseti, and Shilenta, and so many people. There’s too much. Too many. Where does she look? Where does she go? Mortals so easily to hurt but bro...

Was he bad? Did he ‘deserve this’? But, watching them hit him with another glowy pole thing, he couldn’t take much more. They were going to make him go away! That- no.

“YOU CAN EITHER FIGHT BACK OR WATCH ALL THE FRIENDS YOU'VE MADE HERE DIE!”. Dove snaps her head to littler bro, tears on her cheeks. “WHAT'LL IT BE! DOVE!”. Everyone snaps their heads to her then, even Rusty and pa. She almost doesn’t catch, “and what will you do to or for her, mortals? To the little Golden Princess? The youngest of the monsters you so hate?”.

Hate? Ma... and pa... and bro’s. Are they not liked? Hated? But why- snapping her head around as another purple suit grabs her arm and pulls to the side, the ground exploding again. So many were hurt. Were hurting. Because... because family was here.

“EVERYONE’S GOING TO DIE BECAUSE YOU DID NOTHING! THEY'LL ALL BE GONE!”.

No.

She doesn’t want this.

Dove tilts her head back and screams.

[thecoleopterawithana]

When you were young and your heart was an open book

Don’t Let Me Down | Paul’s Upbringing

John, because of his upbringing and his unstable family life, had to be hard, witty, always ready for the cover-up, ready for the riposte, ready with the sharp little witticism. Whereas with my rather comfortable upbringing, a lot of family, lot of people, very northern, ‘Cup of tea, love?’, my surface grew to be easy-going. Put people at their ease. Chat to people, be nice, it’s nice to be nice.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

Paul grew up in the warm embrace of a loving family. There was hardship, certainly: they were definitely working-class, and the war had been unkind to the cotton exchange business, so it fell on mother Mary to be the main bread-winner of the family, as a domiciliary housewife. Her nursing job also made it so they were always on the move, from one new outskirt council estate to the next, “always on the edge of the world” that was the rebuilding of a war-torn Liverpool. But despite this surrounding instability, the core of the family itself was a safe harbour of reliably loving parents.

I got my compassion for people from my mother. She was a midwife. I think that would probably be the most important quality. Again, respect and caring for others.

— Paul McCartney, interview w/ Jonathan Wingate for Record Collector: Paul McCartney gets back to work (July 2007).  

[My mum] was very kind, very loving. There was a lot of sitting on laps and cuddling. She was very cuddly. I think I was very close to her. My brother thinks he was a little closer, being littler. I would just be trying to be a bit more butch, being the older one. She liked to joke and had a good sense of humour and she was very warm. There was more warmth than I now realise there was in most families. [...] They aspired to a better life. That idea that we had to get out of here, we had to do better than this. This was okay for everyone else in the street but we could do better than this. She was always moving to what she saw as a better place to bring her kids up.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

Not only had this notion of rising out of their current situation been instilled in Paul and his brother Michael from an early age by his mother – by encouraging them to speak “the Queen’s English” and insist on their education, for example – his father, Jim McCartney, also did his best to pass down his values of “Toleration and Moderation”, a good education and a special emphasis on an honest and responsible work ethic.

I think I got my respect and tolerance for people from my dad, which is a pretty cool quality to inherit. He was very big on tolerance, my dad. It was a word he used to use all the time. I think I grew up with that attitude. You know, you’d say, ‘Bloody hell, I hate that guy.’ and then you’d stop and go, ‘Alright, wait a minute, maybe he’s got a point,’ and you’d try and consider it from his or her point of view. I think that was a great lesson.

— Paul McCartney, interview w/ Jonathan Wingate for Record Collector: Paul McCartney gets back to work (July 2007).

He had us out aged about nine. I was virtually a door-to-door salesman by the time I was twelve. [...] I was certainly not shy with people, I think because of all these activities my dad encouraged us into. I think it's probably very good for your confidence with people. It was all right. That was my upbringing.

[...]

My parents aspired for us, very much indeed. That is one of the great things you can find in ordinary people. My mum wanted me to be a doctor. 'My son the doctor' - and her being a nurse, too. No problem there. And my dad, who left school at fourteen, would have loved me to be a great scientist, a great university graduate. I always feel grateful for that. I mean, God, I certainly fulfilled their aspirations, talk about overachieving! That was all bred into me, that.

We had George Newnes Encyclopedias. I can still remember the smell of them. If you didn't know what a word meant or how it was spelled, my dad would say 'Look it up.' I think that's a great attitude to take with kids. It steers you in the right direction. It was part of a game where he was improving us without having had an awful lot of experience of improvement himself. But I always liked that, and I knew I would outstrip him. By going to grammar school I knew I'd fairly soon have Latin phrases or know about Shakespeare which he wouldn't know about.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

Just from these passages alone, we can spot the origins of Paul’s tolerant and caring nature, social skills, self-reliance, and tireless drive for self-improvement (with its nuances of social climbing and fierce competitiveness).

All in all, it was a good solid childhood: exploring the woods outside of his house – “Mother Nature’s Son” through and through – playing and running from Speke teds with his friend George Harrison, going to school and working the occasional odd job, helping his family and making them proud.

And then, Paul McCartney’s secure existence was shattered.

My head was in a whirl, only then I realized, I lost my little girl

On the 31st of October 1956, Mary McCartney abruptly dies from complications following her mastectomy. She’d been admitted at a far too advanced state of breast cancer after she’d kept working – while in pain – for several weeks, choosing not to divulge this symptom or the fact that she had a lump in her breast to her colleagues.

The whole family is caught unawares, but the boys especially are mostly kept in the dark.

I remember one horrible day me and my brother going to the hospital. They must have known she was dying. It turned out to be our last visit and it was terrible because there was blood on the sheets somewhere and seeing that, and your mother, it was like "Holy cow!' And of course she was very brave, and would cry after we'd gone, though I think she cried on that visit. But we didn't really know what was happening. We were shielded from it all by our aunties and by our dad and everything.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

The boys are sent away to stay with relatives, noticing that something was wrong but unaware of what was going on, unable to actually say goodbye.

Two days later, it’s too late.

Paul is 14.

As Jim comes to break the news, and his brother Michael breaks down in tears, Paul has an unexpected response.

Mum was a working nurse. There wasn’t a lot of money around – and she was half the family pay packet. My reaction was: ‘How are we going to get by without her money?’ When I think back on it, I think, ‘Oh God, what? Did I really say that?’ It was a terrible logical thought which was preceded by the normal feelings of grief. It was very tough to take.

— Paul McCartney, in Ray Coleman’s McCartney: Yesterday & Today (1996).

It would not be the last time that Paul McCartney’s initial shock response to grief is considered “flippant” or “callous” by the people around him; a fact that has haunted him throughout his life.

I’m very funny when people die. I don’t handle it at all well, because I’m so brought down that I try to bring myself up. So I don’t show grief very well. It actually leads some people to think I don’t care, and I do. I’m not good at it like some people. [...] But I’ve always been kind of inward about those things. So I just deal with it myself.

— Paul McCartney, in Ray Coleman’s McCartney: Yesterday & Today (1996).

By virtue of nature or nurture, Paul exhibits from early on an extreme difficulty or unwillingness to deal with his less pleasant emotions.

His response to the alarm that is pain is to deny that it is ringing altogether.

And this manifested not only in inadequate optimism for some situations, it most often took the shape of what appeared to be too hard and cold pragmatism. Some people, unfortunately, saw his defence-mechanism of turning completely rational in the face of crisis and mistook it for him not caring; when, in fact, he cared so much that his only solution was to try and shut it off.  

He carried with him a great burden of guilt and regret; not concerning his reaction to his mother’s death but also due to other misdemeanours and minor hurts he’d caused her when she was alive.

There's one moment that I've regretted all my life which is a strange little awkwardness for me. There was one time when she said 'ask' and she pronounced it posh. And I made fun of her and it slightly embarrassed her. Years later I've never forgiven myself. It's a terrible little thing. I wish I could go back and say, ‘I was only kidding, Mum.' I’m sure she knew. I'm sure she didn't take it too seriously.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

In retrospect, he even theorized that the lyrics to his acclaimed ‘Yesterday’ were related to his mother’s sudden departure.

With ‘Yesterday’, singing it now, I think without realising it I was singing about my mum who died five or six years previously, or whatever the timing was. Because I think now, “Why she had to go, I don’t know, she wouldn’t say, I said something wrong…”

— Paul McCartney, interview w/ Pat Gilbert for MOJO: Don’t look back in anger (November 2013).

So in the aftermath of life completely pulling the rug from under his feet, Paul was not only struggling to deal with his own emotions, trying to bury them far from sight as best as he could, he was being consumed by terrible guilt for doing exactly that.

More than that, he was under the care of his uncle and aunt for several more days, trying to rally his brother so that they wouldn’t appear ‘softies’ in their cousins' eyes, while friends and family tried to hold together a shattered Jim McCartney, “whose first thought was to join his wife”.

Seeing his father break down like that had a huge impact on Paul.

My mother's death broke my dad up. That was the worst thing for me, hearing my dad cry. I'd never heard him cry before. It was a terrible blow to the family. You grow up real quick, because you never expect to hear your parents crying. You expect to see women crying, or kids in the playground, or even yourself crying – and you can explain all that. But when it's your dad, then you know something's really wrong and it shakes your faith in everything. But I was determined not to let it affect me. I carried on. I learnt to put a shell around me at that age.

— Paul McCartney, in The Anthology (1995).

This is very important.

Not only had the only reality he’d ever known been destroyed by his mother’s sudden death, his own father – who was supposed to be this strong, unshakable pillar in his life – couldn’t be relied on to hold it together.

Paul had been let down. He was on his own.

Fear steems from a feeling of powerlessness. You feel painfully vulnerable to whatever life might throw at you, at constant risk of being hurt again, and the only solution is to be on the lookout. Be prepared.

Paul was caught unawares because the people he’d counted on to always be there suddenly weren’t. And with his compassionate and reasonable nature, he probably didn't even blame them at all. But the facts were that Paul had been left hanging, not once but twice, when he needed them the most. So he kind of lost his faith in everything.

Life is chaotic and unpredictable; and people, through no fault of their own, are just as inconstant.

And so, in order not to risk being let down again, Paul took matters into his own hands. He tried to escape the pain and dread of being powerless by seizing control of whatever he could. And that was mostly himself.

And so begins Paul McCartney’s saga of isolating independence and other control-issues.

As Paul said above, he’s “always been kind of inward” about grief and other “negative” emotions. He’d rather be alone at this stage because he doesn’t want to expose his vulnerabilities. Not to others and much less to himself. So he needs a distraction. Something to devote himself to that’ll take his mind off the pain.

The saving grace, as usual, was music.

— Paul McCartney, The Q Interview (2007).

His brother Michael, probably the closest observer we could have of this period, recounts how Paul was like in the aftermath.

Paul was far more affected by Mum’s death than any of us imagined. His very character seemed to change and for a while he behaved like a hermit. He wasn’t very nice to live with at this period, I remember. He became completely wrapped up in himself and didn’t seem to care about anything or anybody outside himself.

He seemed interested only in his guitar, and his music. He would play that guitar in his bedroom, in the lavatory, even when he was taking a bath. It was never out of his hands except when he was at school or when he had to do his homework. Even in school, he and George Harrison used to seize the opportunity every break to sit and strum.

When we left our auntie’s house and returned home, it was agreed that Dad, Paul and I would take it in turns to do the housework.

“We’re a family on our own now,” Dad said. “We’ll all have to help.”

But time after time when I came home from school, I would find that Paul hadn’t done his bit. I would go looking for him and sometimes I would find him, up in his bedroom, perhaps, sitting in the dark, just strumming away on his guitar. Nothing, it seemed, mattered to him any more. He seldom went out anywhere – even with girls. He didn’t bother much with any of his friends except his schoolmate George Harrison and John Lennon, who was at the art school next door. Work and work alone – his school books and his guitar – appeared to be the only thing that could help him to forget.

— Mike McCartney, Woman: Portrait of Paul (21 August 1965).

So Paul takes to complete dedication to work and music to help him ignore his pain. And he’d rather go through this process of burying it on his own. We see him isolate himself from his family and friends, according to Mike socializing mostly with George, also in the context of playing music. John is also mentioned; this could be a smudging of the timeline in Mike’s recollections, as Paul would only meet John the following year. That or Paul’s mourning lasted until the autumn of 1957, when John was enrolled in art college.

We also have a clue about how guarded Paul was with his “negative” emotions – how resilient he always wanted to be – that no one imagined he would be so affected by his mother’s death as he was.

This will also be a repeating theme through Paul’s life: his wish to always be strong, positive and reliable will make others and himself overestimate his imperviousness to trauma. People will then feel free to burden him with their own pain or unload their frustrations on him, without feeling that there would be consequences; because Paul is so tough as to be unaffected by all that. This proved, time and again, not to be true.

His true strength arises, in my opinion, not in the fact that he is unshakable but in his determination to quietly pick himself up again and again.

Losing my mum when I was fourteen was a major tragic event in my life. But, when I think about myself, I am, overall, pretty optimistic, pretty enthusiastic, pretty much into getting on. One of the reasons being, she would want that. I know for certain she would want that. I know Linda would want that. I know John would want that, and George would want that. My dad would want that. They were very, very positive people. And the idea that their deaths would plunge me into some sort of morose depression would bother them. I know that for a fact. So that helps me to not go there.

— Paul McCartney, interviewed by John Colapinto for the New Yorker: When I’m sixty-four (4 June 2007).

But as a 14-year-old Northern lad, his tactic of picking himself up didn’t involve dressing the wounds, which would continue to bleed silently in the recesses of his mind.

I certainly didn’t grieve enough for my mother. There was no such thing as a psychiatrist when I lost her. You kidding? I was a 14-year-old Liverpool boy. I wouldn’t have had access to one and I do now.

— Paul McCartney, interviewed by Nigel Farndale for The Telegraph: Love me do (17 May 2002).

But soon, Paul would find an even greater outlet for his love of music, almost magical in its specialness:

Someone to perform with.

[nakazonoluck]

G E N E R A L  —

HEIGHT.         arisu has always been small, only standing at 5′ feet tall. she’s been petite in height her whole life, having reach 5′ feet at 13 and not growing at all since. it doesn’t bother her, she likes being small. it’s easier to disorient & dodge in fights she believes.

WEIGHT.         while she is petite in height, she’s less so in body size. she’s fairly muscular, putting her at 140 pounds of pure muscle. it makes sense considering how far she can throw people. 

ETHNICITY.         japanese, born in tokyo.

OCCUPATION.         arisu is the matriarch of the nakazono clan, first-tier subsidiary family of the tojo clan. the family is not the largest but big enough to have a few second-tier subsidary families.  the family specializes in gambling and various other nightlife activities.

GENDER.         cis-female.

SEXUAL & ROMANTIC ORIENTATION.         arisu is bisexual/biromantic; she has gone out with several men, though has always had a preference towards other females. she has not been known to have had many “official” relationships & does not develop deep attachments in a romantic sense very quickly. 

MBTI.         entp, the debater -  No one loves the process of mental sparring more than the Debater personality type, as it gives them a chance to exercise their effortlessly quick wit, broad accumulated knowledge base, and capacity for connecting disparate ideas to prove their points. Debaters are the ultimate devil’s advocate, thriving on the process of shredding arguments and beliefs and letting the ribbons drift in the wind for all to see. They don’t always do this because they are trying to achieve some deeper purpose or strategic goal, though. Sometimes it’s for the simple reason that it’s fun.

S P E C I F I C S  —

FAVOURITE  FOOD.          arisu has an affinity towards fish: takoyaki, sashimi, etc. but he also has a big sweet tooth. if you promise her favorite candy, she might do whatever you ask. white rabbit candy is among one of her favorites.

FAVOURITE  DRINK.         as per her sweet tooth, she loves fruity sodas. melon, strawberry, etc. she loves. her favorite brand is ramune, due to all the flavors and popularity, so she’ll drink that a lot.

FAVOURITE  HOBBY.         like her father, gambling is one of her favorite hobbies. she prefers mahjong, but it’s not unlike her to play any other type of gambling game (poker, blackjack, koi-koi, etc.). she does have a reputation for suspected cheating, given that she rarely loses a game, but most lack evidence to back it up. other than that, she does love video games. if she’s not in her office, or in a gambling hall, she can almost always be found in an arcade or at her house playing a game.

FAVOURITE  SCENT.           cherry blossoms and vanilla are about tied, cherry blossoms remind her of her father while vanilla reminds her of her mother. her father because of his tattoo, and her mother because of her vanilla perfume. as for non-flower smells, she does really like bubble gum. a bit childish, but it relates to her sweet tooth. sometimes she’ll smell something like that because she’ll almost always buy a bubble gum perfume if she sees it.

FAVOURITE  PERSON.         an obvious answer is her father, given how close she was to him. but she does also really like nishitani; though she never got to meet him when he was alive, she loved hearing stories about him and looked up to him, thinking he was one of the “coolest” people alive when she was a child.

T E N   F A C T S  —

when outrun was still in the arcades, she always had the top score under the pseudonym “arn”, because she was uncreative and essentially used her initials. & she had an intense want to have the top score in most places, even going as far as sotenbori. it also gave her an excuse just to go, she always liked sotenbori for it’s entertainment strip in the norther part of the town. she liked looking at the restaurants for it’s outside decorations; like the big crab, big octopus, and the dragon that blew out smoke. 

she snuck off a lot as a child, thinking she was so cool for being able to go out alone without parents. while it tended to fly under the radar with her parents, it didn’t for her uncle. hisashi (her father’s sworn brother & top lieutenant) tended to follow her around when he could, or sent someone he trusted, making sure she stayed out of trouble and people didn’t mess with her. there were only a few times he had to step in when people would get annoyed when she would get mouthy (maybe bite) when they tried to mess with her.  she never knew this, still doesn’t know this.  whenever he’d step in, everything would either go too fast to where she couldn’t catch his face or she ran away before she could.

arisu ate a lot as a child. being so energetic, she’d burn through calories faster than she probably should’ve. she’s still this way for the most part. she’s not quite as energetic, but she tends to get into too much trouble to not burn through everything so fast.

if you were to ask her if she remembers any other tojo clan members from before she became matriarch she’d most likely say no, even if they may know her. a very rude child, she never paid attention to who any of her father’s coworkers. except maybe yayoi and sohei, but that more lies in how much she admired & had a small crush on yayoi. she didn’t know her name for a while, frustrated arisu to no end & ended up just called her an equivalent to “mrs. daigo’s mom”, same for sohei. but once she knew her name, she stopped for both. they were then known as “yayoi” & “yayoi’s husband”. if sohei ever complaned about it, she didn’t care enough to pay attention.

she definitely bullied daigo as a child & did not stop when he became chairman. she does not care she just sees him as the boy she would put in a headlock whenever she saw him.

she’s been around for four chairmans & only respected one of them. she doesn’t highly regard daigo for personal reasons, kiryu wasn’t around long enough for her to interact with, & didn’t respect terada because of how he tried to destroy the tojo clan as well as manipulating kiryu & ryuji. she didn’t know & didn’t meet ryuji, but she knew enough about what happened with him & kaoru to sympathize. sera, though, she always liked. she admired how he could be so assertive & strong without having to try hard, & how acquiring a position like that at a young age. 

arisu has a pet fox named momo. she didn’t get him in a traditional way, as in going to a breeder or a pet store (not that you can get a fox at a pet store). she found a small fox pup, probably the runt of the littler, wet & shivering in a pipe. it was hard to coax him out at first, but she didn’t leave until he walked up to her & let her pick him up. her mother & father weren’t the happiest when they saw her walking in with a small fox pup but they soon go used to him. by the events of kiwami 1, he’s only a year & a half old. she never had any other pet besides koi fish in her backyard before him.

from around 8 or 9 on, she had a group of kids who followed her around calling her “aneki”. it was a huge shock at first, going from none of the kids liking her to having a group like this. they were all boys at first, looking to be “cool” & “tough” & hanging around a yakuza’s kid meant that to them. then as she got into her teens more girls came into the group, looking for a way to rebel.  these kids are the reason for her big ego.

while she didn’t have the closest relationship with her mother, they were still fairly close in their own way. without her mother, she would’ve never learned how to fight or defend herself. they tended to bond over that, & would always spend most nights watching movies or tv shows together, but not much else.

 unless a lieutenant were to step up in place as matriarch/patriarch, the nakazono clan will end with arisu’s death. she doesn’t plan on having children, but if she did, she wouldn’t allow them to try & run the family.

FIVE  THINGS  SHE  LIKES.

tattoos

foxes

candy

family! surrogate or blood.

beating people she finds annoying up

FIVE  THINGS  SHE  DISLIKES.

being told what to do

street thugs, punk, etc.

misogynistic behavior

people who mess with her friends/ family

male strangers expecting her to help them without some kind of reward

COMMON  WORDS / PHRASES  THAT  ANNOY  THEM.          anything with telling her that she’s too young for something, or trying to limit her because of gender or sex. it’s a good way to get hit.

PERSONALITY  TYPES  THEY  PREFER.         she prefers strong, loud, & excessive personalities. people who see fun in the same ways she does. other personalities don’t deter her though, she just gravitates towards these ones more.

PERSONALITY  TYPES  THEY  AVOID.         besides ones that are very discriminatory in some way, she hates people who think they’re superior & condescending. nothing aggravates her more than to feel less than & dumber than.

WHAT  DO  YOU  FIND  DIFFERENT / DISTINCT  ABOUT  YOUR  PORTRAYAL?         she’s an oc so there’s not really anything to compare her to, but i do like to think there are a lot of things that does make her original & sets her apart from canon characters & other ocs.  

[master-sass-blast]

Tricks, Tricks, Tricks!

I hate doing intros when I’m tired bc it feels like it takes forever.

Summary: You and Wade set up a haunted house for the kids at Xavier’s --and prank Scott Summers, of course.

Pairings: Piotr Rasputin x Reader.

Rating: G. Just ignore the swear words. Pls.

Set before “Questions and Answers” but after “THIS IS HALLOWEEN.”

Taglist: @marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie, @super-darkcloudstudent, @girl-obsessed-with-things, @nebulous-leo

It’s not every day that you and Wade stumble onto a legitimately, objectively good idea.

Granted, you guys have tons of great ideas. The fallback of nearly all of them, however, is that they usually involve some sort of destruction and-slash-or generally deviant behavior.

Which, in yours and Wade’s opinions, makes the entire shebang that much more fun, but dealing with the “post brilliant idea clean-up” and the temporary social fallout among your peers –depending on who you target and piss off—isn’t quite as fun.

However.

It’s Halloween season. And the teachers at Xavier’s tend to do some sort of Halloween-y thing for the students there because a lot of places that host seasonal events –surprise, surprise—won’t admit mutants.

Plus, Piotr loves Halloween, which means the two of you have a “non-deviant” spokesperson to advocate for your plan.

And, the cherry on top of it all, is that Scott has been an absolute asshat as of late, meaning that he needs to get the shit pranked out of him to whack his massive ego back down to a more manageable size.

You and Wade grin at each other as you look up various “how to make a haunted house” tutorials. This is gonna be awesome.

 ***

 Convincing Piotr to back your idea is easy.

First, you convince him without Wade around. You’ve learned that Piotr doesn’t necessarily mind if you and Wade come up with ideas, but that Wade’s manner of “selling them” completely frustrates your darling boyfriend and puts him off even the most benign suggestions.

Second, you present the idea as something fun and seasonal for the students at Xavier’s; Piotr, essentially, is a massive mother hen that loves nothing more than making his “kids” happy, which means that he’s on board for just about anything that involves doing special stuff for the students.

Third, you’re his girlfriend and he thinks you’re cute, which means all you have to really do is bat your eyelashes at him and say please.

(And, granted, you’d had other tricks up your sleeve if he’d hesitated, but sometimes life just lets you knock one out of the park. It’s a great feeling.)

***

 With Piotr’s seal of approval, you wind up selling the idea to the rest of the X-Men with no problem –and, since Jean’s out of town visiting family, she’s not here to rat you out to Scott, either.

Granted, Xavier still could, but you’re starting to think he’s less of a “lawful good” and more of a “neutral” or “chaotic good” type than he lets on. There’s been plenty of times he could’ve sold you or Wade out on any of your pranks, but he usually keeps his mouth shut.

Ah, well. Best not to question the freebies life sends your way.

Better yet, you and Wade already have a list of ideas and necessary supplies, thanks to your “haunted house research binge” that you two did earlier. Granted, Piotr outright naysays half of the suggestions due to them being too expensive, too destructive to the building, or too gross –Wade—but all in all it’s a success.

Hell yeah.

 ***

 The official set up goes as such: on the designated “haunted house day,” you, Wade, and a few volunteers get to spend the morning and part of the afternoon setting up the haunted house in a sectioned off part of the mansion –except it’s for the elementary aged students, so it’s technically “Haunted House Lite,” but that’s fine. Then, at four in the afternoon, the elementary aged students will get to walk through, enjoy some G-rated spooks, and get little bags of candy at the end to enjoy.

Lovely. Wonderful. Wholesome.

And then the fun comes in.

Because, beknownst to Piotr only because he caught you and Wade conspiring with everyone else, you and Wade managed to get all the middle school and high school students in the room and fill them in on your idea to scare the everliving shit out of one Scott Summers.

And, because teenagers are basically little shits that run on caffeine and entropy, they’re all super down to watch Scott get pranked.

So, once the little students have had their seasonal fun and have been ushered off for dinner with everyone else, you and Wade and your volunteers have five paltry hours to beef up your haunted house with some higher grade spooks and also set up your prank for Scott.

Granted, it’s not a lot of time to work with, but the two of you have worked with less before.

 ***

 The prank itself, compared to yours and Wade’s usual fare, is… unremarkable, actually.

“Go figure,” Wade grumbles under his breath while he wrestles with one of the several smoke machines he’d purchased for the prank. “Captain Vanilla-Save-For-the-Pole-Up-His-Ass doesn’t watch horror movies. Leave it to a fucking jumpscare. Fucking stupid. He’s literally the single most boring person to exist!”

“Hey, at least it makes it easy for us,” you reason as you work on dying a bunch of cheesecloth with a massive mixing bowl of tea. “Why go through the extra effort for a dill-hole like him?”

“Fair enough. Hey, I think I got this working!” Wade tries turning on the smoke machine, then pulls a scowl when it makes an alarming grinding noise, turns it back off with a disgusted huff, and turns in his chair to shout down the hall. “Nathan! Get your ass in here and talk to your cousin! This fucking thing won’t work!”

You snort and shake your head.

(Nathan does, in fact, get the smoke machine to work, but only because he bothers to read the instructions first.

Wade calls bullshit anyway.)

 ***

 The day of is nothing short of busy.

The two of you –and your volunteers—set up shop in one of the unfinished wings meant to be proper classrooms. You’ve got the entryway, the flight of stairs going up to the second floor, the hallway, and a few of the rooms of the rooms to set up your little “house of horrors” in (along with the back stair case that leads back down to the main hallway on the first floor, but that’s only for an easy exit for everyone).

The main order of business is such: put up the most labor intensive props –curtains to black out the windows, a curtain to block off the first floor hallway from view, spiderwebs, anything hanging from the ceiling or the walls that isn’t going to be switched out—first so that the bulk of the work is done for the day, since you won’t have much time between the littler students and the older students (and, most importantly, Scott).

The smoke machines get put in next, along with any special lights –including some cool black lights you and Wade had gotten their hands on, which go next to a mirror at the end of the walkthrough so the students can see what their costumes look like under the effects of the lights.

After that is the rest of the props, which are all switch out stuff. The younger students get some relatively innocuous skeletons, some cartoonish looking zombies, a couple mummies, and a bunch of pumpkins, black cats, and otherwise tame Halloween fare. The older students get much gnarlier, gorier stuff, including a demonic clown statue that actually gives you the creeps.

You grin as Wade sings “Spooky Scary Skeletons” –the dubstep remix, no less—while the two of you fill up goody bags for the students. This is going to be great.

***

 Piotr stops by after lunch with a bag of costumes –yours and his—and some extra supplies Wade had asked for.

You kiss his cheek as he hands off the bag of decorations to Wade. “Hey, babe. Had a good day?”

He nods. “Students are very excited to go through haunted house. Especially younger ones.”

“Well, here’s hoping we can give them some good, old-fashioned, spooky fun,” you say with a grin. “Ready to get changed and transform into creatures of the night?”

He does a scarily perfect Dracula laugh and winks at you. “But of course, moya lyubov’.”

Your costumes –for today and also for this year’s Halloween—are Dracula and the bride of Dracula. Piotr made nearly all of it, save for his shirt and slacks (and your two’s shoes, obviously), and between the costumes, the makeup, and some fake fangs, the two of you actually look the part.

(And Piotr sounds the part, what with his Russian accent and all. It’s almost like he was born for the role of Dracula.)

The two of you get to set up in one of the rooms with two doors, which also boasts a cauldron with a smoke machine in it, a bunch of fake spiderwebs, a couple of fake coffins, and some skeletons hanging on the walls. You get dressed, do each other’s make up, and then Piotr helps you put on your fangs before doing his own.

“So, tell me how to do a good Russian accent,” you say, lisping slightly around your fangs. “I gotta match what you’re selling.”

“I think you do just fine,” Piotr replies as he puts a glob of denture cream into one of his fangs and sticks it to his upper canine tooth. “Just try to avoid cheesy mobster accent, and you will do great.”

“Are we gonna do the whole ‘I want to suck your blood’ thing?” you ask. “I think we probably should.”

“If you want to.”

“Okay. I’m gonna practice, you tell me how I sound.” You clear your throat, get into your mental zone, then let out an accented, ominous, “I want to suck your blood!”

Piotr chuckles as he tests the fang’s hold on his tooth. “Very nice, myshka.”

You preen, then practice a few more times at varying pitches and speeds. Then, once you’re certain Piotr’s adjusted to your fooling around, you lean in and murmur, “I want to suck your dick.”

Piotr sputters, cheeks flushing –even under the pale make up you’d put on him—and looks around for anyone that might’ve overheard you. Once he’s certain that no one heard you –especially Wade—he exhales and shakes his head. “Later.”

You giggle and kiss his cheek.

***

 Right at four, the elementary aged students are ushered into the haunted house.

You can hear them from the room where you and Piotr are set up, giggling and gasping as Ellie and Yukio –who had volunteered to walk the younger students through—escort them along.

“Alright, before we enter this room, we all need to practice our brave faces,” Yukio says outside the door furthest away from you and Piotr. “Because in this room are Dracula and his wife!”

There’s some gasps and “oohs” from the kids, along with a couple expected “Dracula isn’t real”s.

“Don’t get too close,” Ellie says warningly. “Or else they might try to suck your blood!”

You grin at Piotr as the kids gasp again –he grins back and winks at you—then put on your “game face” as Ellie opens the door so the kids can enter the room.

It’s hard to keep a straight face, though, in the presence of the elementary students. It’s easy to tell that they’re really enjoying the mini haunted house, what with how they’re bouncing and grinning, and that combined with their adorable costumes –skeletons, princesses, pirates, pumpkins, there’s even one of the kids dressed as Iron Man—makes the entire thing downright heart-melting.

The kids all gasp, giggle, and whisper amongst themselves as they approach you and Piotr, flocking together like a bunch of baby birds—

And then one of the kids in the back shouts, “That’s not Dracula! That’s Mr. Piotr!”

Ellie, Yukio, and you all snort, while Piotr just winks at the kid in question.

“What do we have here, my love?” you ask, slipping into your “vampire accent” as you make a show of looking over all the kids, which prompts another slew of gasps and giggles from them. “It seems someone has brought us a bunch of tiny treats to eat!”

Piotr “hmms” as he stands, looming over the students in his long, flowing black cloak. “So it does, moya Koroleva. I must say, I am feeling peckish. Perhaps we should have afternoon snack.”

“Oh no!” Yukio exclaims. “Do you guys think they should be able to do that?”

“No!” the group of students all shout at once (which, admittedly, is a little rough on the ears).

“Well, I think we can do whatever we want,” you retort, looking over at Piotr to make sure the two of you time everything properly. “And…”

“We want to suck your blood!” you and Piotr declare while simultaneously fake-lunging at the group of students.

The students shriek, then run out the other door at Ellie and Yukio’s encouragement.

You and Piotr “pursue” the students –which is less of an actual pursuit and more just angling yourselves in their direction—until the last of the kids “escape” into the hall, then stop and grin at each other.

“I think that went well,” you say –quietly, so as not to disrupt the students’ experience.

“I agree.” Piotr holds out his arm to you. “Shall we, moya Koroleva?”

You giggle and place your hand on his arm. “Absolutely, my love.”

The two of you head out the door at the far end of the room –the door the students had originally entered in—and into the hall. Fortunately, there are a couple curtains blocking the rest of the hall from view, meaning that there’s no risk of anyone seeing the two of you sneaking through the hallway and down the stairs to the main floor.

Piotr ducks into one of the storage closets by the staircase and pulls out a box with various goody-bags stashed in it. “These looks very nice, moya lyubov’.”

“Thank you. I tried to make sure everyone got one of everything –oh, wait a second.” You reach into the closet and pull out a bag you’d stashed separately from everyone else’s. “This one’s Timothy’s. I wanted to make sure it didn’t get mixed up and he get peanuts by accident.”

“Good thinking.” Piotr sets the main box of treats on a nearby table, then turns back to you and kisses the top of your head. “How are you feeling, dorogoy?”

“I’m feeling good; I’m really looking forward to the big prank tonight!” The corner of your mouth turns up when he makes a “hmmm” of disapproval. “I take it you’re not a fan?”

“I just… I am concerned about how you and Wade target Scott,” Piotr says diplomatically. “The two of you seem to ignore everyone else.”

“Well, there’s not really a need to prank everyone else,” you reason. “And it’s not like we prank Scott all the time, either.”

“I would just worry about team dynamics.”

“He already fucks that up by being an asshole, honey,” you argue, careful to keep your voice down so the kids don’t hear you swearing. “Scott’s a total dick! He’s objectively horrible to Wade; he’s also a jerk to Russell. Like, massively.”

Piotr sighs. “I… I do not think pranking helps the situation.”

“Look, sometimes when people refuse to listen to polite conversation, you have to smack them around a little to keep them from letting their asshole behavior ooze all over everyone.” You grin. “Wade and I are just the smacking team.”

Piotr glances towards the door where the back staircase opens onto the main floor; there’s sounds of little voices and footsteps, meaning the kids are almost done. “Just… be considerate. That is all I ask.”

“Already done, baby,” you reassure him. “It’s a super basic jumpscare prank. Nothing about him, nothing about being a mutant, all Halloween themed. I made sure Wade didn’t get too crazy or destructive this time around.”

Piotr relaxes a little at that and kisses your temple—

And then the door opens, and the group of students rush into the main hallway.

“I told you it was them!” one of the students shouts, prompting everyone else to laugh.

“It was,” you admit, foregoing the vampire accent. “Did you guys like the haunted house?”

“Yeah!” the group choruses at once.

You and Piotr both grin, then work on handing out bags of candy to the students –and make sure that Timothy gets his special bag, no allergy episodes today, no sir—

And it’s good. Life is good.

 ***

 Once the younger students exit for dinner, everything switches to a mad scramble to flip the space for the second walkthrough.

Granted, it doesn’t sound like much, until you realize that it involves taking down basically all the props and putting new ones in.

It’s sweaty work, and by the time you’re done you have to reapply all your vampire make-up –because you and Piotr are still doing the vampire bit. And then—

And then.

Once the older teams exit the “vampire room,” you’ll sneak out the “entry” door and down the hall, then hover over the door everyone exits out into the main floor hall at the end of the walkthrough, and when they do, you’ll drop down next to Scott and scare the everliving shit out of him.

Simple. Stress-free. Borderline stupid.

It’s gonna be great.

 ***

 The second walkthrough is just as much of a success as the first one. The older students aren’t as giggly or excitable as the younger group, but it’s still easy to tell they’re enjoying the haunted house –at least, if the occasional screams and comments about “how cool” everything looks is anything to go by.

Better yet is that Scott is jumping and gasping at, like, everything. He’s so easily scared that you won’t even have to try when you drop down next to him. He’s so easily scared that the prank almost isn’t fun.

Keyword being: almost.

You and Piotr do your vampire schtick again –which, unlike what you did for the elementary students, this round involves the two of you lunging out of dark corners and acting, objectively, much scarier—and when the older teens and Scott run out, you grin, give Piotr a kiss, then dart out the other door.

It takes basically zero time to get positioned over the door everyone exits out of. You tuck yourself up into the corner where the walls and ceiling meet, then resign yourself to being bored while the older students finish their haunted house walkthrough.

Scott, predictably, is the first one out of the door. He looks annoyed by the entire situation, and is trying to brush fake cobwebs off his shirt.

Perfect.

You wait until there are a couple of students in the hall as well –you can’t have the prank go unwitnessed—then count down from five before dropping down next to Scott while screaming “Trick or treat!” at the top of your lungs.

He jumps five feet into the air and shrieks like a teenage girl in a horror movie, and the students laugh.

Mission: accomplished.

[victorluvsalice]

What I’d Want Out Of Sims 5

So, thanks to renovation madness kicking in, I only had one mini-update for you guys regarding what’s actually happening in my Sims game. To fill the gap, I figured I’d give you all a quick list of what I’d like to see out of a semi-idealized Sims 5 (I say “semi-” because these ideas are made with the assumption that this is a game company looking for profit and thus paid expansions will always be a thing). I’m doing my best to keep this simple, as I could go on for probably literal HOURS on the subject of what I’d like to see done, but this should sum up what I think would be best:

1. CAS -- I think most of us would agree that Sims 4 CAS is actually pretty good, and that being able to make changes directly on the Sim is a great development. Where it falls a little short is in the personality section. To whit, I propose the following:

-->Bring back favorites from The Sims 3 (like favorite food, color, etc)

-->Bring back turn-ons and turn-offs from The Sims 2 (like a Sim likes blondes and glasses, but dislikes tattoos)

-->Rejigger how many traits each age group gets (I was thinking that toddlers should keep their one toddler-specific trait; children get two traits but one HAS to be picked from a short list of traits that fit with the toddler trait they got; teenagers get three, possibly four traits, plus the bonus trait from their aspiration category; young adults and up get five traits plus the bonus trait. I’ve also seen people suggest implementing “fatal flaws” like the ones from The Sims Medieval, or possibly going back to the point-build system of the first two games. Maybe you could even combine traits with the point build?)

-->Bring back hair physics because come on (I like the more cartoony style but come on)

-->Keep the CAS Story randomizer but unlock the bonuses so players can put them on Sims manually at will (like I would like to)

2. Aspirations -- I actually like that Sims can switch between lots of different aspirations between categories, but I do agree that it can make Sims feel less special, and I do kind of miss the aspiration system as it was in Sims 2. Therefore I propose the following compromise: You still have multiple aspirations grouped under larger categories, but your Sim can only choose two categories to focus on (like, they can be a Knowledge Sim with a lesser focus on Family, or a Romance Sim with a lesser focus on Popularity). They can do all the aspirations in those categories, but if they want access to more categories, they have to earn unlocking them through some sort of challenge. (Or have their players cheat them in.)

Also, bring back wants and fears, lifetime wants, the aspiration meters, aspirational breakdowns, and the silly items you could unlock with aspiration points (the potions are fine, but I kinda want my zappy needs-filling machine back). Sims 2 really had it going on!

3. Worlds -- Okay, I LOVE that all worlds are available in a single save file now, and that my Sims can visit all of them. If we can keep that and just reduce/speed up the loading screens. . . I personally can live without a proper “open world” a la Sims 3, but being able to visit my next-door neighbor without a loading screen would be nice.

4. Expansions -- The Seasons, University, and Pets expansions should always be the FIRST expansions worked on, as they’re some of the most popular and really change how the game is played (particularly Seasons!) For some specific thoughts on each:

-->Seasons should have the calendar and holidays from the Sims 4 version, the seasonal festivals from the Sims 3 version, and the relationship/skill boosts from the Sims 2 version. Also snow should have depth.

-->Pets should include cats, dogs, horses, and a variety of small pets (birds, lizards, rodents, rabbits) -- and if you MUST give the small pets their own separate thing, DON’T TIE MOST OF THE CONTENT TO THE MAIN PETS PACK. Nobody wants My First Pet Stuff again.

-->University should probably follow the Sims 4 model, but maybe add in the occasional active class, and make the University world a bit bigger -- or maybe add in more worlds with a university? Hmmm. . .

Related to that point, I would also suggest that vacations in SimWorld be revamped so you can just vacation in specific spots in other residential worlds, as well as having specific outside places to go (as I like Sulani, but I’d like it more if it was a vacation destination).

5. Activities -- Starting from the top:

-->Just put in cars from the start, or fit them into an early expansion, as people want them no matter what

-->All Sims of all ages should have a variety of hobbies in the mode of The Sims 2 Freetime, with magazines, private clubs, and whatnot

-->Children in particular should have child-friendly objects like the muffin oven and the lemonade stand from Sims 2 to give them more to do

-->Bring private school and the admission challenge with the headmaster back from Sims 2

-->Give all careers “active” days where you can join the Sim for a special event (like a musician Sim doing a big concert) -- I actually think this makes more sense than having plain old “active” careers, as I’ve discovered that going with your Sim to work all the time can get -- repetitive. You could also do this with school days for littler Sims.

-->Also, personal pet peeve, but Musician should have its own career path where you can choose to be a rock star or a classical musician -- Entertainer then can focus on Stand-up Comedy or something else.

-->Related, Woodworking should be its own skill and not lumped under Handiness.

-->We have responded surprisingly well to laundry, so maybe include more chores linked to specific items? My specific ideas are for a vacuum cleaner that makes floors dirty, and a lawnmower that makes grass sprout and weeds appears in the lawn.

7. Occults -- Okay, this one is probably gonna be at least a little controversial, but I’ll put it out there:

I firmly believe every occult life state should have its own game pack where it can be explored to the fullest.

Reason? Sims 4 Vampires. It is my absolute favorite take on vampires in the whole series and I feel like all occults should follow its model. Imagine if we’d gotten a mermaid game pack where they had an underwater world! Or an alien pack with even more to Sixam! Realm of Magic comes close, but I feel like the Magical Realm should really be bigger. . .also Spellcasters should have permanent weaknesses, not just curses one can dispel with the right potion or spell; potions should need more ingredients and be harder; and familiars should be treated as a special category of small pet. (Let me interact with the cute dragon, damn it!)

Also, children should be allowed to participate in occult life states, even if their powers are a little different -- I mean, come on, Sims 1 had a whole set of kid spells for your junior spellcaster! How is it that’s the only game where that’s happened?!

Aaaand okay, I am indeed starting to ramble. Yes, this is what happens when I try to keep it SHORT on this subject. *facepalm* I promise to go back to picture updates next week!

[hello-vaishublog-stuff-blog]

Online Shopping for Women's Clothing

The idea of internet garments stores is downright a transformation – it has changed the elements of shopping and economy totally. Furthermore, on the off chance that you are somebody who adores window shopping, there could be not much. From dress proposals, online preliminary rooms, fitting associates, and visit bolster, shopping on the web is no not exactly a three-dimensional ordeal. There's nothing you'd miss aside from congested roads! While a few people contend that disconnected stores dispose of the odds of you abhorring the item you purchased, I advocate web based shopping and trust the advantages dwarf the negatives. However, I get it, you should make sure of the site you are shopping from, the nature of the garments, its size diagrams, conveyance time, merchandise exchanges, and so on. Before you begin agonizing over not realizing such a large number of good locales to shop from, let me give you some uplifting news. We are posting them full scale today to improve your web based shopping background. How about we uncover in and find what are the best web based attire stores out there. At this time period every women choose online shopping for women's clothing.

In the event that you live in India, this is the principal store that strikes a chord when you even consider internet shopping. It is presumably India's most looked for after web based garments store that rooftops like a million brands. It's a one-stop look for men, ladies, kids, home stylistic layout, embellishments, beautifiers, kitchenware, and so forth. It offers you apparel in all extents. What's more, it doesn't stop there; its deals and offers are amazing, in addition to a large portion of its items fit the bill with the expectation of complimentary transportation. When women want to go in event and if they want to wear new clothes then they choose online shopping for women's clothing.  

On the off chance that, by any shot, you've been sleeping in the Himalayas, you probably won't think about it, however else, you will and should know about this site. JT store is a standout amongst the best web based dress stores out there and is for all intents and purposes improving the form world a place by bringing brands from everywhere throughout the world accessible readily available. It offers realistic T-shirts, hoodies, bathing suits, pants, pants, dresses or whatever else you can consider. The plans make it difficult to pick and pick only one; and the costs essentially fall under the 'shoddy' class, yet the quality is incredible. Shein is making a great deal of buzz for all the correct reasons, and I'm one glad soul. I've been accumulating my closet and my Shein truck unendingly – can't stop. When women think about to buy new cloth then they search women clothing online shopping store.

The advanced and contemporary Indian lady cherishes her sarees or dresses the same amount of as she adores her Western wear. Be that as it may, the possibility of ethnic wear is currently switching gears as expanding number of ladies wear a handloom or hand painted saree over an overwhelming lehenga.JT store is enveloping that component into its image, handpicking structures and textures that are rich or tasteful as well as amazingly reasonable. It is practically similar to it knows the sweet spot we search for in our ethnic wear.

It's only one out of every odd day that you see extravagance ethnic wear being sold on the web, particularly not every one of them at one place. Be that as it may, that has been taken into account too, because of online stores like JT store.

There's nothing more bothering than requesting something on the web and acknowledging it doesn't fit. But, obviously, when you go to re-arrange it in another size just to find that it's sold out.

The issue is that regardless of whether you know your size, each brand fits contrastingly and a great deal of online business destinations tailor, stick, or correct their garments in photographs to make them appear as though they fit superior to anything they really do. All things considered, there are traps that can enable you to restrain your fit-disillusionment.

1. Peruse the fit notes.

Most sites have fit notes that reveal to you how tall the model is and what measure she is wearing, which can be especially useful in case you're attempting to make sense of where the neck area, hemline, or waistline of a specific article of clothing will fit on you. On the off chance that you are shorter than the model, you know everything will be somewhat more. In case you're taller, everything will be somewhat shorter. The fit notes may likewise let you know whether the piece of clothing is especially free or tight, so you know whether you have to scrutinize or down. Mostly time women need perfect dress according to shape and size measurement, so they find women clothing online shopping store.

2. Purchase various sizes of a similar thing.

Restoring the remains can be somewhat irritating, yet in the event that a site offers free transporting and returns, you should exploit it. Simply remember that it takes much longer to get cash attributed back to a check card than a Mastercard.

3. Abstain from anything with creases that should go straightforwardly under your bosoms.

Except if you are totally level chested, anything with bending or corner to corner creases under the chest is most likely going to cut you gravely (for example over your chest rather than under it).

4. Stick to thicker textures for fitted pieces.

Unstable textures are not in any way lenient, particularly in progressively fitted outlines. They quite often must be changed to fit legitimately and still, after all that the fit may at present be somewhat off. Spare lightweight textures for looser, less custom-made pieces.

5. Search for dresses that reflect the characteristic state of your body.A dress that as of now pursues the regular state of your body is bound to fit and will require less alterations. This implies in case you're littler to finish everything, you presumably need to adhere to A-line outlines. In case you're thrilling, you need to search for dresses with implicit abdomens, and so on. It isn't so much that different shapes can't work, it's simply that it's harder to know how they fit without first attempting them on.

6. Make fitting piece of your shopping procedure.

This is particularly essential in the event that you are awe-inspiring or bigger on the best than you are on the base (or visa versa). I feel compelled to pressure this as much as possible. Most cleaners have flawlessly skilled on location tailors who can deal with no less than 90 percent of your requirements at a truly sensible cost.

7. Stick to straightforward outlines that are anything but difficult to tailor.

Fitting can get extremely costly if the tailor needs to really dismantle the article of clothing and recut the individual pieces. A clean, A-line dress with a zipper in the back and creases as an afterthought is MUCH simpler to tailor than something with a ton of hanging or creases or concealed side zippers. Sleeves and shoulders are additionally extremely hard to modify.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

Isnt eno like.. 10 years older then kip and knew him when he was a kid?? Or did i misunderstand ;;

i’m not sure there’s an Official Current Age for eno. a haphazard estimate would be 5-7 yrs older, 10 is possible i suppose

and whats also official is that eno knew kent and the rest of them at least say like, eight years ago? as kent died when kip was eighteen, probably the Shit was happening for a year or two prior to that and kip was dating pascal for at least a bit of time prior to the fire. like i feel its reasonable to take a guess that eno and kent would be close the same age, maybe they became friends in school or something, probably they were friends before getting involved in The Mystery together. im guessing its a combination of how long they all knew eno and how much of an mvp eno proved himself to be during any difficult times that contributes to how much kip feels he can count on him.

anyways i’m assuming you’re asking if these things mean a 23 yr old kip couldnt be ~involved~ with him. i’m not seeing anything to suggest eno was kip’s adopted father back in earlier years? and the other point just kinda turns into that parks and rec joke about “he wouldve been a baby. i don’t know anything about child care. my god. i could’ve killed him.” idk if this is all what you’re asking buuut…yeah? it’s true it wouldn’t work if eno views his relationship with kip exactly the same as he did say like 15 yrs ago, if they’ve known each other that long—and vice versa, it wouldnt work if kip is still seeing eno in the way he did when he (kip) was, like, seven or smthing. but idk already it’s pretty clear that they don’t exist in a suspended state where kip is a child and looks to Older People as caretakers for him. obv kip/eno doesn’t mean they’ve been in love the whole history of their lives? regardless of trying to ship it or not i like to headcanon that kip, as a littler gay who didn’t have this fully figured out yet, sort of looked to eno with a mashup of admiration and aspiration and fuzzy crush feelings, what with eno being Older In A Cool Way and very clearly radiating gay energy that ppl can pick up on even before it becomes about kissing and stuff. yknow, confusing “i want to be that, seems amazing, i love it” with “oh i already am that.” yet that is about self realization. idk am i supposed to swear that kip and eno would never have dated when they were possibly 6 and 16 respectively? b/c, of course? i think i can promise that is canon? they never…dated before???

speaking of canon everything i do here is assuming that it will never be canon. i’d love for kip to have 28 boyfriends but this is a cursed path that leads to at least 27 disappointments, not counting the loss of the less quantifiable satisfaction of having some polyam shit in the mix. so like am i being asked if i think eno/kip is canon? if it could ever be canon? if it ever was? because no, i guess but probably not lbr, and no? again: i am going to make a bold assumption and assert that kip and eno have never dated. if i suggest that they could NOW, this doesn’t change that?

i suppose, tldr; you are kind of asking if i’m assuming that the whole part of their pre-fire history together is, like, the courtship / basis of the idea of a current “romantic” relationship? b/c although it still exists in their pasts, people change a lot as they get older and that is why kip is no longer a child even tho he is still the same amount of years younger than eno, whatever that is. and frankly their current interactions alone show that kip and eno are close in many ways even without knowing that eno’s known kip for a while. which is nice efficient characterization and again shows that a relationship could conceivably stem from what they have right now alone

didnt even mention how eno is his therapist. or how eno is getting in the rapidly growing line of “people who are going to look like they’re betraying kip”

sorry everyone for going on and on but thats me all the time, and nobody ever asks about eno. except for one anon & then my essay got zero notes :(

[vcg73]

Kadam Fic: Greetings From Las Vegas

Decided I should probably answer at least one or two of the Kadam Week prompts before too much time passed.  :)

The prompt was this one   The story is pure fluffy fluff.

~*~*~*~*~*~

“Come on, come on . . . just one more little crossbones . . .   Eeee . . . YES!  Oh my gosh! Come to papa, you lovely little doubloons!”

Adam grinned at Kurt, who was bouncing in his chair and pumping both fists. He leaned over to look at his boyfriend’s blinking, clanging slot machine and his eyes opened wide with surprise. “Oh my goodness. Kurt, you’ve just made $500 on a single spin!  If I’d known you would be so lucky, I’d have brought you to Vegas ages ago.”

Bouncing on his red leather bar-style chair, Kurt pondered the cartoon pirate that had just popped up daring him to spin again and double his winnings. He had been slightly reluctant to try the ‘Pirate Booty’ slot machine at first, a little turned off by the ‘buxom wench’ decorating it, but since Adam was already playing the Haunted House game next to it, he had decided to give it a whirl. Much to his delight, the machine had proved to be a hot one. He had built his original twenty dollar investment into nearly six hundred dollars over the course of an hour. He had been making small steady gains until he finally got a chance at a bonus round.

Adam had not done as well with his own machine, but he had managed to make a slim profit, and he had picked up a hundred dollars playing blackjack that morning so he had no complaints.  Watching Kurt’s growing delight over an amazing streak of beginner’s luck had him enjoying their shared casino experience even more.

Kurt poised his finger over the Spin button, bit his lip, glanced at Adam, and abruptly changed his mind and punched Cash Out instead. “I just can’t,” he explained. “It’s really tempting, but I feel like all the littler wins were just leading up to this one, and I would be so disappointed in myself if I pushed my luck and lost everything.”

“A wise decision,” Adam agreed, pleased to see that Kurt’s sensible side had not been overridden by the lure of easy money. “I seem to be at an impasse with this machine. I’ve been winning and losing the same five dollars for the last thirty minutes, so I suggest we try something different. Would you like to play another game, or should we go somewhere else for a while?”

Eyes shining, Kurt replied, “I didn’t actually expect to win any money on this trip. I brought along the cash from my tips, figuring I could stand to lose that much, but instead I’ve been winning like crazy!  And since I did win, I think we should let ourselves be frivolous for once, and blow some of it on something completely fun and Vegasy.”

Adam laughed. “An excellent idea, and I agree. I also assumed we’d do no more than break even, so I’ve been careful to insure that my own funds would still stretch far enough to cover our hotel room and meals.”

“I’d be happy to share the costs,” Kurt reminded him. “Don’t forget, you covered the flight too.”

Shaking his head at Kurt’s offer, he said, “No, no, darling. I don’t want you to do that. As I told you when I booked the flight, I had a few air miles I needed to use up before they expired, and this is my gift to you. I won’t have you paying your own way on your birthday. I’ve got us.” 

“All right, I won’t push. Just know that the offer stands if you do need help. ”  Kurt sighed happily. “I still can’t believe you overheard me telling Rachel that I’ve always wanted to see Las Vegas, and saved up your money and those air miles that I know you were going to use to visit home, just so you could bring me here for my birthday.”

Adam shrugged, as if the sacrifice had been nothing at all. “Don’t think I had enough to reach Heathrow, and mum and dad are going to be in Madrid for a combined medical conference and couples retreat this summer, so they wouldn’t be disappointed if I skipped. Besides, my gesture wasn’t entirely selfless. I’d been longed for a holiday with just the two of us.”  

“Me too, just don’t even try to tell me this isn’t amazing,” Kurt said, giving his hand a squeeze. “Because it is, and so are you.” 

He did not say it out loud, but the grandness of the gift itself meant less to him than the knowledge that Adam must have spent months planning and budgeting just for the joy of giving it. His last boyfriend had loved making grand gestures, but they had largely been empty spectacles designed to make Blaine look good, and deflect any anger or hurt that might justifiably be aimed at him. Adam had no such ulterior motive. He was caring and thoughtful to everyone, and he hadn’t even told anyone what he was planning until it came time to book the airline tickets, and then he had confessed his plan in time to make sure that going to Vegas was something that Kurt actually wanted to do. 

Adam gave him a quick peck on the cheek and brushed away the admiration with a bright smile and a cheery, “All right then, big spender. If you’re going to treat us to a night on the town, what shall we do with it?  Sky-high roller coasters, Cirque du Soleil, a comedy act, the wax museum, Thundah From Down Undah...”

He hitched his eyebrows as he spoke the final suggestion in an exaggerated Aussie accent, clearly joking, and something about it brought out a streak of mischief in Kurt. “Oooh! That sounds fun!  Let’s do that!”

Adam blinked. “Darling, that’s  . . . you do know it’s a male strip show?”

“Of course I do. I saw their poster in the lobby of our hotel. They’re all sewper hawt , and Rachel will be so jealous, and I can’t wait to tell everyone back home! Can we, Adam? Can we, can we, please?”

Adam had been staring at him blankly, looking as if he was not quite sure he was hearing right. But when Kurt began play-begging, he laughed. “For a moment you had me going, love. I assume you are joking, but if I’m wrong and you really do want to go and see what those fellows are packing down under, we can absolutely do that.”

For a split second Kurt was tempted to accept, suspecting that it would be fun to watch Adam get all overheated and squirmy at the sight of a dozen nearly naked Aussie hunks, but then he laughed. “Who am I kidding? The minute some oiled-up beefcake started thrusting his g-string at us, I’d be so embarrassed I’d spend the rest of the show hiding my face in your shoulder.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad,” Adam said with a fond smile.

“No,” Kurt agreed, “it doesn’t.  But if you don’t mind, the only handsome hunk I want to spend time with tonight is you. Do you mind if we go see Cirque?”

Adam wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “I don’t mind at all.  What do you say we go grab supper first, then we’ll hunt up tickets to whatever performance is playing closest. Or did you have your heart set on a particular one?”

“LOVE?” he said hopefully.  

“The Beatles show?” Adam asked.  When Kurt nodded, he smiled. “Makes sense, given what a fan you are. All right, then. I believe the tourist guide you picked up at the hotel showed a 9 pm performance at the Mirage. You don’t suppose they offer a native Englishman’s discount, do you?”

Kurt beamed. In spite of his country of origin, Adam was not a major fan of the Beatles. Just the same, the idea of seeing a whole show centered around their music clearly did not bother him. It was so nice to be with someone who was willing to give the things Kurt liked a fair try, without immediately arguing for something they liked better. It made him eager to return the favor whenever he could, and he had been rewarded with a number of interesting experiences that he otherwise might have missed. “Probably not, but we can give it a try.”

“All right, then. Let’s go cash in your fortune and grab a bite. Maybe we’ll make one last pass through the casinos on our way back tonight and see if your lucky streak is still in business. How are you at craps?”

“I’m better at poker,” he confessed as they began winding their way through the aisles of slot machines and oblivious gamblers. At Adam’s questioning glance, he said, “I used to play with my dad and his mechanics. They taught me the basics, but Dad says I have a pretty good poker face, and I could usually bluff them all by the time I hit my teens.”

Adam pondered that, studying his boyfriend’s innocent looking features and recalling a few stories he’d heard from Kurt’s former school chums about him backing down bullies twice his size. In his unguarded moments, everything Kurt felt showed in his face, but when he had his guard up?  “I believe it. And I think I’d like to witness your skill at the tables for myself. Just don’t let yourself get caught up in any all-night poker tournaments, hmm?”

“Why not?  Got other plans for me?” he asked with a smile, giving Adam’s waist a firm squeeze. 

“Always,” he returned with a teasing wink. “But in fact, I want you to get a good night’s sleep tonight so you’ll have lots of energy for tomorrow.”

Excitement flared in Kurt’s eyes. “What’s happening tomorrow?”

“It’s a surprise,” he said with maddening nonchalance. Seeing Kurt’s pout, he smiled. “I won’t give it away, but I’ll give you a little hint to chew on. This particular surprise is not mine. The daytime portion comes courtesy of Rachel and Santana. And for the nighttime half, you can thank your dad and step-mum.  Since you couldn’t be with them on your birthday, they all wanted to be sure that you would spend it doing something you’ll love. The girls helped me pack you up an appropriate outfit for tomorrow, since I had directed you to bring only casual wear.”

Equal parts puzzled and intrigued, Kurt fell silent for the rest of the walk out of the casino and out into the warm spring night, as Adam steered him safely along the Strip with a hand planted at the small of his back. 

They made a striking picture walking together. Adam, with his golden blond hair and newly-acquired suntan, firm muscular body showed off to good effect by a tight white cotton button down and jeans; and Kurt with his reddish brown hair and still-pale skin catching the rays of late evening sunshine, tall and slender in his tight black jeans and patterned navy shirt, its sleeves rolled up to show off a pair of nicely defined biceps. 

“I can’t think of anything Dad would get excited about in Vegas,” Kurt admitted at last, coming back to earth as Adam pointed to a neon sign garishly blinking advertisement for a buffet restaurant. He nodded, then finished his thought, “unless they got us tickets to Caesar’s Palace, and I know he’s not sending me to a boxing match!”

Adam’s face remained utterly innocent, but a twitch in his cheek had Kurt asking, “What?”

“Promise you won’t tell Burt I let the cat out of the bag?” Kurt nodded eagerly. “Right location, wrong event.”

Kurt chewed on that clue while Adam paid for two all-inclusive dinners and they took their place in line.  After a moment, he gasped, and by the time they had filled their plates and found a table, he was trembling with suppressed excitement. Staring Adam straight in the eye, he nearly whispered, “Adam, they didn’t. They couldn’t have. Did they?  Adam, are . . . are we going to see Celine tomorrow night?”

A grin he could not keep at bay anymore spread across Adam’s handsome face. “I should have known you would guess it.”

“Oh my God!” Kurt shrieked, clapping a hand over his mouth when the exclamation startling an old couple walking past their table. He called, “Sorry!” then turned back to Adam. “Are you serious?”

He laughed. “Absolutely. The ladies have prepaid a luxury package for you at the day spa attached to our hotel, and I will leave you to their tender mercies for a couple of hours while I check on certain arrangements that I’ve made. Then in the evening, we’ll head over to Caesar’s to see the show.”

The smile on Adam’s face was rather smug, as well it should have been. Kurt could not imagine what he had done to deserve such a wonderful boyfriend. He did not doubt for a moment that it had been Adam who put the thought of buying tickets to one of Kurt’s all time favorite divas into Dad and Carole’s heads. His parents were wonderful people, but their musical taste rarely ventured past the 80′s classic rock station. 

Wishing he felt daring enough to lean across the table and plant kisses all over Adam’s face, Kurt settled for squeezing his hand and saying, “I love you, Adam. Thank you so much for giving me this. And I don’t just mean the concert and things.”

Clearly knowing just what he was trying to say, Adam lifted Kurt’s hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “You’re welcome, darling. Happy Birthday.”

THE END

A/N: I ended it here because I’ve never seen either of the entertainments they’re about to experience, nor do I know how to play poker. So we’ll just imagine they had an amazing time at everything, went home to New York richer in both money and experience, and that Adam is going to get very very lucky for many many nights.  :)

[dorotheian]

List grabbed from @animate-mush

1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?

Seeing as I purged my bookshelves several times over the years, I think the oldest book that I still have (that isn’t a children’s book, which is stored in my brother’s room, muahaha!) is either The Pushcart War or The Ordinary Princess by M.M. Kaye...although that might be on my mom’s shelf....whatever! It was hers first. Point is, it is equally meaningful for me as an adult as a child and I will have it. I also have one book I inherited from her that’s falling apart at the seams called Moonraker’s Bride, so it’s the oldest, but she didn’t introduce me to it until much later in my life. The books that I have had longest that I bought for myself are Ella Enchanted and the Guardians of Ga’Hoole Series.

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?

Last read? Song of the Basilisk. Current read? October Daye, book ten. Next read? If I can manage it, Ghost in the Shell.

3. Which book does everyone like and you hated?

I doubt that anybody likes the books that I hate most. I dislike messy goofy kids books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Captain Underpants but....eh. Not my cup of tea.

Not that I never like crass or boyish humor—I do very occasionally—but I prefer it hidden, re: Artemis Fowl or Catherine Jinks, so that it doesn’t affect the shape of the plot from the outset.

4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but probably won’t?

Dr. Norrell and Mr. Strange. SOMEDAY. Watching the TV show helped.

5. Which book are you saving for “retirement”?

Retirement? What’s that?

6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?

Depends. If it’s a stressful book, sometimes I’ll read it from both sides in. Don’t ask me how that works. I don’t do that as often anymore, but it happens.

7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?

I like the short ones. I’ll often skim the long ones for, oh, idk, the names of their editors or agents (not to be a creep or anything) or the organizations they researched with and so forth.

8. Which book character would you switch places with?

 ...Some characters jive with me mentally (Hermione; Emrys; Meliara; Harimad; etc.), but I don’t usually want to trade lives. My own life is puzzling enough. I have my own adventures to navigate!

Except maybe Harimad. Re-reading her story was very strange recently because I’ve been, and will be soon, walking out the cultural crossing-over that she experienced in her story.

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?

Spirits That Walk in Shadow — it was a dark time in my life. The “emotional vampirism” depicted in the book was a concept that helped me make sense of the fear and depression I faced during that time. I forget, now, but I used to feel like life and happiness was being chronically sucked out of me. (It helped, despite everything about this book being quite un-Christian. Sometimes things we need to know can be found in uncomfortable places. I determine what to reject and what to accept in any given thing that I watch, consume, or read.)

Actually, dementors are quite similar in concept, but in HP they were much more manageable: they were something you could point to and do something about. I needed a concept that was a lot more amorphous and messy.

10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.

Nothing to report, sadly.

11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?

Sure. What do you mean by special? It’s especially fun to give books to my littler cousins.

12. Which book has been with you to the most places?

I have no idea. Probably Howl’s Moving Castle. Or else, Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, or something from my shelf of “how to write” books.

13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?

I don’t think so, and I plan not to revisit any. Maybe M Butterfly, but I think more realistically I will just keep coming up with new reasons to despise it.

Maybe in fifty years it will be soon enough to re-appreciate Animal Farm but by now that story is in my bones and it may not be soon enough to forget the pain. I almost wish it wasn’t, because current events wouldn’t be so unbearable.

14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?

I’ve found iTunes gift cards before. There have been stranger things I can’t remember.

15. Used or brand new?

Generally I prefer new, but for things that are common or non-urgent, I’ll wait for a used copy.

16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?

I could care less. He’s not my writer. Go argue about him somewhere off my lawn.

17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?

Yes...trying to think...well, the easiest example is Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events, both TV (better) and movie (okay) versions, which are pleasingly condensed. With I, Robot and Bicentennial Man I can’t figure out which version I like more.

Definitely Stardust. Death of a Salesman, The Great Gatsby (recent), and The Hours are literary classics that I had greater appreciation of in film form. 

There are others, especially in cases where I never went back to read the original books. Like Cyrano de Bergerac (I have a feeling I’ll be annoyed and the story will lose its magic).

18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?

I’m not keen on the movie Eragon. It totally misses out on what makes the book unique. Ender’s Game was probably my most recent disappointment... Guardians of Ga’Hoole too... (that one probably hurt most)... Mm, and I happened to watch The Little Prince on Netflix and wasn’t fussed with the frame story. I hate it when movies do that. I wanted to watch more poetry unfold!

Other than that I’m not sure. In most cases there is some quality that made the movie worth watching even if it wasn’t the whole thing.

19. Have you ever read a book that’s made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?

Like clockwork, every time I read A Wizard Alone and I reach the “Nita reads about abdals while eating a banana” scene, it makes me want a banana. And maybe a coke. Nita drinks a lot of coke in that series.

I think it works on me because it’s not so off from something I would normally do. Bananas are multi-tasking food.

20. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?

I don’t have anybody in particular anymore. Which is pretty sad really.