#the very concept of this first chapter is that it's supposed to be chaotic and terrifying and painful

[orcelito]

Rereading itnl to get back into the mindset for it and God Damn that first chapter really is smth huh

[lemontines-writing-corner]

wally darling x reader modern au series

PART 1

authors note: wally darling belongs to @/partycoffin, please support their work !

>BACK

>NEXT

🌀 Salutations Neighbor pt. 1 🌀

A loud soft thump can make a cat go alert once they’re awake. Except for you, too busy asleep without a care in the world, assuming you were the only person in your apartment.

The blue pompadour puppet sat up and dusted himself, as he looked around your living room. “Such dull colors. Less brighter than my world.”, he stood up and tried to regain balance. Ever since he practiced how to use the spiral from his TV, he managed to create his own website to connect with million other people.

He’s seen many faces, but most of them click off once they leave the guest book. Quiet sad for the puppet, he wanted to make new friends, ever since the show was forgotten it isn’t the same without people watching him and his friends.

Once he was able to regain balance and walk properly, he explored your kitchen. Unfortunately Wally wasn’t able to get up from the countertop to look through your cabinets so he decided to go to the mini dining room table to get up from the chair .

There he saw a bowl of fruit. Not just fruits, apples of course. Let’s just say his eyes dilated like a cat as he stared at the fruit bowl for the past 5 minutes.

“Oh right! I’m supposed to find neighbor.”, Wally said to himself in a monotone normal voice as he shakes his head and went to the hallway to see a door cracked open. He walked inside to see your sleeping figure, you looked like a worm when you wrapped yourself in a blanket. All comfortable and in a deep sleep, although Wally had other plans of course.

He got up to your bed and poked your nose as he stared at you like a cat, “neiiighbor…neighhhbor. Wake up”, you turned away from the poking thinking it was the air.

What caused you to wake up was when he decided to sit down on your chest area and legs straddled on your sides as he did his dilated eye stare, he smiled at you, happy that you’re awake.

However your reaction said otherwise as you lets out a scream and sat up out of fear, which caused the poor puppet to flung out across the bed, having a rough landing on the floor. Luckily he can’t feel that at all, as he laid there limp and confused, but more worried. “Neighbor? Are you alright?”, he stood up and went to the left side of your bed.

“STAY AWAY!”, you shouted and backed up, confused and more over scared that a puppet���a puppet is talking to you. Wally felt hurt and tried to calm the situation down, “neighbor, that’s not very nice”, he tilted his head in confusion, as he did his iconic half lidded expression as he frowned.

You rubbed your face and blinked at least three times, “…please tell me I’m not dreaming….”, you muttered as you put your face against your pillow. First a busy day at work, sleeping peacefully, now another chaotic situation.

“Well neighbor, clearly you aren’t”, he poked your hand, his hand felt fuzzy and plush like. He can’t harm you? Right? You should feel scared or at least burn him with gasoline and matches, but all you felt was questions running from your head.

“Why are you here? How did you get here? Are you going to harm me? Are you the only living puppet here?”, you overwhelmed Wally with so many questions as his eyes widened, “calm down neighbor, I know you must feel overwhelmed. How about we start with introducing each-other?”, Wally smiled and his half lidded eyes went back as he tilted his head.

“I am genuinely excited to meet you, I’ve always had a interest in you humans”, he sat next to you and stared at you. Silence was in the air and you started to think to yourself, “should I trust this puppet?”.

So sorry for the short chapter ! Part two will come out soon. As a thank you for reaching till the end take another concept art of you and Wally !

[alilbitlesbian]

So I'm writing a fic/ one-shot about SidonxReader.

Concept is that first Hylian in a very very long time decides to move into the Zora'a domain, and Sidon does his best to help them feel at home in the domain, but there's barely any books about Hylians and what they need, and the Hylian doesn't seem to like him much, but everyone's asking him questions and being concerned about the Hylian's health!!

So he starts to write his own journal about Hylian culture and what Hylians need to survive and whatnot, just to have a log of all the information for if someone asks.

The fic is mostly supposed to be written like you're reading his journal, with little parts of story and actual interaction with no discernible like, timeline I guess? It starts at chapter one, but I like to think Sidon is quite chaotic in the way he writes, so it jumps back and forth a little.

Anyway its very Sidon x Reader and/or Sidlink centered, wherein Sidon keeps noting down Hylian "quirks" he sees, like how Hylians twitch their ears or cut their hair, then exchanges letters with Princess Zelda and sometimes Link with questions, he even runs little social expirements to figure things out on his own!

The fun thing is that eventually other species reallyyy want to see the fabled book, because with Hyrule joined together once more, Hylians are moving in with other species more and more, and the cultures are so distinctive, and The Goron just found out that Hylians can't eat Prime Rock Roast, so it turns into a "How to care for your Hylian" type book??

Anyways, I'd love to hear any ideas you guys have on what could possibly be "problems" or cultural differences between Zora and the reader, or Sidon and the reader, or Hylians and any species! If you think of a good prompt, please reply or send me an ask, I'd love to include it in the story or write a blurb for it!!!

[lixenn]

Overview

Since I’ve come out of my introverted gremlin cave and started to actually work regularly on my writing as well as posting my stuff on here, I’ve decided to structure my blog a bit. Mostly to prevent people from getting absolutely lost in this chaotic mess.  

I will try to keep this as updated as possible but there might be a bit of a delay between me posting new content and updating this, so please keep that in mind.

General info

My Ao3 account

My Kofi

Art commissions are open! More information here.

Tags

#lixy reports Lix' daily life in a nutshell #art nook art tag #crochet corner crochet tag #ask answered ask tag (<- might change in the future)

Ask box

If you have questions about any of my projects or just want to randomly scream at me about any topic that comes to mind, my inbox is open. Bother me anytime!

Katekyo Hitman Reborn

The KHR discord server is now online! It's a general server for the fandom. If you want to join just drop me a DM and I'll send you the invite link.

KHR writing prompts

Prompts are open, just drop them in my inbox and I'll see what the nonsense generator can fabricate!

Prompt rules/intro

Dan and Celeste

Dan and Vlasta

The Housekeeping AU

#the housekeeping AU #khr daniele costa #khr dave #khr valerie rebner #khr vlasta gast #khr marina costa #khr cilmi #khr yves #khr sam #khr blaze

This is me playing around in the Varia sandbox, come and join me in my weird delusions!

Witness how the Head of Varia Housekeeping (my OC) is slowly but surely driven insane by crazy Assassin bullshit, meddling assistants (aka Dave), mountains of paperwork and Mafia politics.

(Btw the concept of my Varia Housekeeping was inspired by Umei_no_Mai whose worldbuilding is absolutely Godtier. I kneel before their greatness.)

Character profiles

Chief aka Daniele

Dave

Ottavio under edit

Valerie Rebner

Yves

The Varia Housekeeping survival guide (WIP currently updating on Ao3)

When you are the overworked and underappreciated head of Varia Housekeeping who is sick and tired of cleaning up your employees’ corpses and decide to write up an instruction manual for dealing with Varia's insanity.

Housekeeping Snippets (WIP currently updating on Ao3)

Snippets of my Housekeeping AU starring my various OCs which I posted on tumblr. These are in non-chronological order and mostly focus on character interactions and shenanigans.

Detective Dave is on the case (complete on Ao3 but might add something later on)

Dave has never been able to resist a good mystery, so when one of his informants was suddenly murdered under suspicious circumstances, what else is he supposed to do other than immediately stick his nose into other people's business? ("Can you for once in your life not poke the sleeping dragon with a stick?" "But Chief! A murder mystery! Delivered right to my front door!" "..." "Hey, we are you going? Chief? Chief! I still need you to sign these forms! Come back!" )

This is my crossover with Myell's Killer Whale AU, so if you aren't familiar with her 'verse this story might be a bit confusing, I recommend checking her stuff out first a then coming back to this one. (Shamelessly advertising my Buddy's story again hehehehe)

Unnamed Sequel (in planning stage)

Unlike the Varia survival guide, this work will hopefully have plot and a coherent story line. I’m still very much in the idea finding phase, so no clue when this is going to be published.

I now have a rough outline for the story, main plot plus romance side plot (I say side plot when the romance outline is much more detailed... *silently despairs*).

Current edited chapter count: 5/?

I will keep you updated on this project via completely unhinged ramblings, so… look forward to that (and yes, that is a threat!)

Fanfic recs

I've decided to indulge myself and finally make a list some of my favourite KHR fanfics, feel free to check it out!

Fic recs

Naruto

How Uzushio was saved by drunken seal shenanigans (WIP kinda on hold)

The story of how Uzumaki Ren – explosion specialist, seal master and everyone’s favourite mad scientist – saves his village from destruction, revolutionizes the medical field, adopts a puppy, and gives his Kage an aneurism. Not necessarily in that order.

Note: I still have stuff for this story prewritten (but nothing post-worthy just yet), but since KHR has overtaken all my brain space, I’ll probably won’t work on this for a while. I’m still super attached to my mad scientist baby Ren, so there will be more content! … Just in the very far future 😅

[athasshi]

Bound to falling in love | albecale au

By Athasshi

●○●○●○●○

Soulmate. One cliché thing that somehow is so famous among the surrounding teenagers. His classmate had talked about concept soulmate an hour ago but it still continued, saying that they would be very lucky to get soulmate.

Kim Roksoo turned to his wrist, looking at the golden colored line but strangely coated in brown as well as wrapped around the wrist like a bracelet.

This is a soulmark. Everyone who is destined to have a soulmate must have a soulmark on their body.

'It's better if I don't meet my soulmate'

Then the apocalypse happened. Destroying all of Kim Roksoo's hopes that want to be a slacker.

'Yes, it's better if I don't meet my soulmate'

❃.✮:▹　◃:✮.❃

When he first set his foot on the banquet, Alberu Crossman had to hold himself as much as possible not to fall.

This feelings..

Alberu felt his slightly itchy wrist.

'My soulmate in this banquet as well'

Alberu was sure of it. But trying to ignore, Alberu still did whatever he was supposed to do.

That is. Until he finally shake hands with Cale Henituse only to feel electric shock all over his body.

●○●○●○●○

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death

Categories: Gen , M/M

Fandom: 백작가의 망나니가 되었다 - 유려한 | Lout of Count's Family | Trash of the Count's Family - Yulyeohan

Relationship: Alberu Crossman/Cale Henituse | Kim Rok Soo

Characters: Alberu Crossman, Cale Henituse | Kim Rok Soo, Choi Han, Rosalyn, Lock, etc.

Additional Tags: Soulmate AU, albecale, hurt-comfort, Domestical Fluff, Cute, pure of love, chaotic relationship, Trauma, PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, no beta we die like the soos, Heavy Angst

Language: English | Stats Published: 2022-11-22 | Updated: 2023-01-02 |

Words:12.982 | Chapters:7/?

Read here ,★⌒ヽ(●＾､＾●)Kiss!

[soul-wanderer]

Bones and All - book review (and movie comparison)

Let me preface this by saying that I watched the movie first, and I am somewhat glad I did, because if it had been the other way around, I might not have enjoyed the movie as much.

Reading the book, I actually did not expect a lot of surprises, but in the end, the plot twists that didn’t make it into the movie and the overall differences still managed to catch me off-guard, but not in an unpleasant way. I still slightly prefer the constellation of Maren living with her mum and her dad living, even though it seems like a more typical scenario at first. Still, the dynamic between Maren and her mum in the book is a lot more emotionally loaded and paints an almost tragic picture of a mother who feels obliged to care for her daughter, but who still doesn’t think twice when eventually abandoning her the night after her birthday, which is reinforced through the fact that she is hardly mentioned again, once Maren has found her, and that it is clear that she also made no attempts to see her daughter again, after moving in with her parents.

One of the most obvious changes from book to movie is the lack of diversity, which is not surprising, but it did make the movie slightly more enjoyable, but the book isn’t any “worse” just because the author wasn’t very creative about writing the characters. 

(spoilers ahead in the following paragraph)

The fact that Sully turned out to be Maren’s grandfather did catch me off-guard, but I am still not sure if this twist actually added to the storyline, or if them leaving it out in the movie was a good idea. Because yes, it does add some meaning to why he is following Maren around, but I actually did get annoyed towards the end of the book, mainly because of the chaotic writing, which left me feeling unable to decipher his motives and felt like the author was desperately trying to attach meaning to his actions. In the movies, he is just portrayed as a lonely man, an outcast, who attaches himself to Maren, and for me that worked as an explanation. Sometimes it’s as simple as that.

Both the movie and the book require the suspension of disbelief, otherwise you will spend the entirety of the storyline wondering why some people are born as eaters, why society hasn’t caught onto them and how they could possibly eat entire human beings, especially in such a short amount of time. In short: It doesn’t make sense, but it isn’t supposed to make sense. It’s a metaphor, if you will, one that might be plain, but that still works, if you give it a chance.

What did bother me about the book a bit, was the sometimes almost jarring vocabulary, which, even though it seems impossible, at points felt more unsettling (not in a horror way) than the contents of this storyline. It’s always a bit annoying when different characters use a) the same vocabulary and b) the vocabulary does not match the mood. You can see that certain words were used in an attempt to evoke certain reactions, but it just didn’t work out. If anything, it felt like a teenager trying to describe too big of a concept, but failing in the process. On the other hand, the very reduced descriptions worked very, very well in other situations, meaning the author is in no way incapable of conveying certain emotions. In the end, it is not top-notch writing, but there’s still beautifully curated moments, which make reading this book worth it.

My main issue with the book: The final chapter. I read the chapter before that and half skipped past the last sentence, only to realize on the next page that I had missed something fundamental. The final chapter feels useless and takes away from how beautifully the chapter before that ends. Had the book ended on this final sentence, it would have been perfect, but we somehow still get this epilogue, that neither gives us hope, nor paints a terrible picture of Maren’s future. It doesn’t add to the story, really, and I wish someone had ripped out those pages before I had the chance to read them.

In the end, both the movie and the book, though the book a little more, raise questions about life and love and what makes us human and what keeps us going, without sensationalising the instrument the story uses to get its point across, and it’s exactly what it takes to keep the balance between typical young adult novel and pushing the limits of what we think is right and wrong.

[vicstmichael]

Tag Game: Plotting (AKA 'do you even plot, bro?')

I was tagged by @brieflyinfatuated who also made up this fun lil tag game, so thank you very much!

So we're supposed to answer the two questions and post a photo of our plotting process. Here are my answers to the questions:

1. How do you plot your stories?

Plotting is my least favourite part of writing and also I have ADHD so my process is super chaotic.

I start out by writing out a quick premise or concept (usually in bullet points) in Google Docs and then as I get scene ideas I write them out on sticky notes and stick them to my wall so I can swap them around. That's a leftover habit from journalism, I do it with my non-fiction writing too. I don't have any photos of this part because once I have a general idea of how I want it to be I usually write them down as an outline in Google Docs and ditch the sticky notes.

After that all my projects live in Google Drive. They all look something like this:

I've pretty much finished plotting this particular project so it's hard to tell but my outline is in the "DETAILED SUMMARY" doc. Once I'm pretty sure I've nailed down how I want the scenes to play out I usually write a mock-up summary in the same document. Everything is subject to change though, I make proper use of the text styles and project outline Google Docs automatically creates so it's super easy to swap everything around if needed. And it usually is needed. 😅

My "WORKING DOC" document is written by scene, not by chapter. And it usually gets swapped around a LOT before I'm happy with it. I divvy up the chapters AFTER the first draft is done. What a mess, haha!

2. What's your favourite part of the writing process?

Not plotting, that's for sure.

Most of my writing is character-based, so I would say designing characters, creating character profiles and character arcs are my favourite. The story always comes after the characters, so I create the story around them.

This was fun, thanks again for the tag! I'll tag @artcoffeecats and @ashirisu 🖤

[be-lovas]

Switch Operation - B.B

Note : i came up with this idea, it's been on my mind for a while so I thought about dropping the first chapter to see if anyone's interested for it to become a series!!! Lemme know your thoughts about it and if you want me to create a taglist <3

Warnings : mentions of sex, some chaotic but sweet parenting and around 2K garbage

Summary: Nolan Bradshaw is the apple of Bradley Bradshaw and Y/N Kazansky's eyes. Little does he know he just triggered off chaos in his parent's life just by being a chatterbox.

Hey. Can't talk right now. Leave a-

"You've got to be kidding," you whisper as you hang up for the 6th time in a row, trying to reach Bradley. You tilt your head back against the headrest of your seat and try to let out a silent huff, but it doesn't go unnoticed by the passenger in the back of your car.

"I have keys," Nolan suggests, as if he was the responsible one in this situation.

"You're nine, I'm not leaving you here all alone," you inform him as you chew the inside of your cheek. After 30 seconds of reflection, you decide to drive to your father's house. He can go and screw himself, you think. 

When you got pregnant, he kept saying he would do everything to be the best father your child could dream of and he was, at least at the beginning. He then gradually just kept accepting to be sent all over the globe, leaving you on your own to raise your child. You knew he didn't mean to be selfish and that it was more about his sense of duty and recognition toward your father and the Navy, but your mother's instinct couldn't bear it. This led to your split three years ago, but you eventually decided that being on good terms with Bradley (or something that approximatively seems to be) was the best thing for your son and Bradley's career.

Turns out that being on good terms with your ex is a fragile concept when you take sight of his car outside of your parent's house meanwhile you've been waiting for him at his for the 30 last minutes. At the very same time, Bradley seems to have reminded himself that you were supposed to drop Nolan at his place, causing him to casually get out of the house, your brother Luke following closely behind. 

Bradley is basically your brothers' best friend, and the fact that the two of you ended your relationship has never stopped Luke and Connor from staying in touch with him. You don't mind though, you just wish sometimes they wouldn't adore him that much.

"You're gonna suffer badly man," Luke whispers to Bradley, the latter pressing his lips together as he sees you angrily sliding out of your car. He raises his hands defensively as you approach the two men, tossing your son's bag against his chest. Bradley grabs it, lightly nodding his head to greet you. You open your mouth to speak but close it a few seconds later, choosing not to insult him but to calm down. 

"Why are you at my parents' while you're supposed to be at your place, waiting for your son?" you ask him. "Hi Luke," you eventually say to your brother.

"Your brother wanted to talk about his bachelor party," he replies, glancing at Luke. Nolan approaches after carefully have closed the car door, running to his father's arms before your brother lifts him up. "Hey bud." 

You narrow your eyes. "You proposed Lizzie 3 weeks ago, Luke."

As your brother is about to answer, you just cut him. "Whatever, I don't have time for this right now," you say, reminding yourself that you're supposed to have a meeting in 20 minutes. You crouch down, opening your arms for your son. You kiss him and hug him tightly. "Be good. I love you."

He hums lightly. "I love you too," he tells you, kissing your cheek. "Uncle Luke you coming playing Playstation tonight?" Nolan asks, forgetting for a minute that Bradley had told him not to say a word to you about the Playstation he bought him last month. As he notices the features of his three relatives, Nolan scrunches his nose. You sigh loudly, getting up. Men.

"2 hours per weekend," Bradley defends himself, trying to be convincing.

You narrow your eyes, looking at your son before glancing back at Bradley. "Asshole," you mouth so that Nolan doesn't get your words. "You too," you whisper to your brother before kissing Nolan's head and heading back to your car. 

"Maybe 2 per day," Bradley ruffles his son's hair while waving at you with his other hand as your car pulls out from your parents' property. 

-

As you listen to one of your friends telling how she got promoted, you loosely let your eyes wander around the restaurant. Some hung pallets decorate the walls, and one is full of plates from every state of the country. You watch every plate cautiously, and your eyes catch one from Oregon. You remember having traveled there years ago with Bradley and Nolan: it was his first trip ever and the memories of your sweet toddler on Bradley's shoulders back at that time bring a smile out you. 

Samantha brings you back to reality as she sees you wandering: "Is Nolan at Bradley's next weekend?" 

You glance at her, brows slightly furrowed at the question since Samantha knows Nolan has spent his weekends with his father for more than a year now. "Yeah, why?"

"We're going to the fairground, and Mason wanted him to come with us," she explains. "Think Bradley would let me borrow him on Saturday?"

You say no with your head, knowing for a fact Bradley wouldn't want to lose a day with Nolan. "No," you sigh, prompting your elbow on the table and resting your chin on your knuckle. "They have already planned to go fishing."

Now she's the one furrowing her eyebrows. "Fishing?" 

"Fishing," you confirm, as if she didn't understand the first time. 

You hate to admit it, but since Bradley pulled his shit together about a year ago, he's been a good dad for Nolan. He hadn't been sent away for more than 14 months, and you could tell that their bond was getting stronger. You suspect your dad to have let off the leash when it comes to Bradley going overseas, but he has always denied it.

You feel your phone buzzing in your purse and you grab it, unlocking it before looking at Bradley's message. A picture of him and Jaime, headphones on their head and gamepads in their hands. You want to remind him of that 2 hours per weekend rule, but you feel your heart swell at the sight of the two of them having fun, resigning yourself to do so. Anna leans into your shoulder so she can have a better view of the picture. "He's the carbon copy of his dad," she comments. Your inner self wishes he would look more like you, but it is an undeniable fact that as time goes by, Nolan tends to take from his father's side. 

"Yep," you sigh, popping the p. You simply reply to Bradley by texting him "have fun (but not until too late)".

"Speaking of the devil, how is it going?" Anna asks you with suggestive eyebrows.

You shrug nonchalantly, "Fine I guess."

"What she means to ask is if you have already told your ex with whom you're having a really peculiar relationship that you left the senior club to ride dick again," Josie explains, causing to widen your eyes as Samantha scans the tables nearby to check if somebody has heard your friend speaking so freely. Anna just giggles as she sees your face turning red. 

You have been seing someone for a few weeks now, and you had let your friends into the secret for two specific reasons: 1: you don't want to screw this up and need advice given that you only dated one person in your whole life. 2, you don't want to rush things and freak everyone in your family out, so you just decided that telling your friends would be the best choice. 

You notice a woman's eyes discreetly lingering in the direction of your table. She has probably found an interest in listening to what you have to say after Josie's comment. You stare at her discreetly, hoping she understands that eavesdropping isn't polite. You see her eyes eventually drifting from where you are, and you let out a breath you didn't know you were holding.

"First of all," you talk at a very low level of sound, "we're not having a peculiar relationship like you just said. And I'm not back in the riding dick club," you whisper-shout as you playfully smack her hand lightly. 

"Not to defend Josie, but you do have a weird relationship with Bradley. You guys basically see each other almost every day, he works for your dad, and he's always hanging out with your brothers. Your goddaughter even calls him uncle," Anna winces, tilting her head slightly.

"Not to mention that you slept with him at her baptism eight months ago," Josie adds and you bite the inside of your cheek, knowing for a fact that they aren't 100% wrong. You admit that you don't know where to stand when it comes to Bradley Bradshaw. Sometimes you guys get along well just like you used to when you were a couple, and sometimes you swear that you fancy killing the man.

"That was a huge mistake that I won't make again," you state. 

You did sleep with Bradley during the event, but you both agreed that you got carried away and that this wouldn't happen again. 

Josie slowly nods her head, taking what you just said in. But you know your friend, and she doesn't seem convinced. However, you're glad to see she doesn't seem to put the matter on the table any longer when she doesn't interrupt Samantha:

"Enough about that Bradley Bradshaw matter, when are you seeing Matthew again?"

-

Bradley Bradshaw always thought of himself as someone who had no problem with authority: after all, he was in the Navy (and God knows it requires a lot of rigor). At a young age, Maverick had taught him to be upright and respectful of any form of authority, and he had always thought that this was something he would teach his children.

That's why he never expected to be the least authoritative parent to a nine-year-old boy.

"One more game? Please dad," Nolan pleads to Bradley for the third time tonight. 

He chuckles, thinking about how you would kill him if you were here. But you weren't. "Okay, one more."

Bradley takes his phone, leaving Nolan playing one last time with Luke remotely. He just keeps scrolling through his social media, not really interested in anything besides some pictures of girls strutting in bikinis along the beach. He hears Nolan and Luke speaking about some baseball stuff, but he doesn't interfere in their conversation. He's looking at his son and can't help but think that his parents would have adored their grandson: he is a joyful, caring and polite boy. To your dismay, he also looks a lot like his father. His hair lightens the same way Bradley's hair does when he spends the whole day in the sun and his eye color is exactly Bradley's. 

"Nolan, how did you get so good? I can't even compete," Luke speaks through his headphones, Nolan smirking at the sound of his uncle's voice.

"I'm helping him," Bradley lies, Nolan giggling but doesn't let the flat-screen TV out of his sight. "He's a liar."

"Then how did you get to beat your uncle, huh?"

Nolan just shrugs, "Mom doesn't see me playing on the Switch, she's busy on the phone lately."

Bradley's eyes narrow. Y/N Kazansky is so busy she forgets to check if her son didn't sneak his Switch up in his bedroom?

Neither Luke nor Bradley dares to speak, but they both know they're thinking of the same thing: something's off. Nolan quietly finishes his game before hanging up with his uncle Luke.

"Bedtime," Bradley announces as he stands up from the sofa to carry his son and throws him on his shoulder, just like every night he spends at Bradley's.

"Do you know who's mommy talking to?" Bradley dares to ask as he sits on the edge of Nolan's bed once the boy finally agrees to get into bed. He hopes the question doesn't come out cringy, but in view of Nolan's features, it does.

"Why? You're jealous?"

This caught Bradley off guard. He didn't expect this question from his son, even less that his son knew what jealousy means. He quickly wipes this away, of course he knows: he's nine. He just probably believes that his parents are still in love with each other.

You aren't in love anymore. Of course you'll always love each other, but not in a romantic way. It has more to do with caring now: Bradley deeply cares about you, and he knows you care about him the exact same way despite him getting on your nerves most of the time.

The rough and incredible sex you two had in the checkroom next to the banquet hall during Ella's baptism was a slip. One that made him remember the feeling rushing through his whole body as you shamelessly ached for each other's touch, but one that doesn't change how things are now: two single parents raising their son.

"No, but maybe she's just busy with work and that she had to call someone for help," he answers softly. "That's why she couldn't check on you and your Switch. But you have to promise me not to sneak it in your room anymore. Okay?"

He nods and holds out his little finger. Bradley links his, making the pinky swear. As soon as he's out of the bedroom, he hears Nolan's voice calling out for him. "What is it, bud?" He asks his son, partially opening the door.

"I think she is in love."

[the12thnightproject]

My turn, my turn!!

Okay so~ 1, 10 & 31 💜

Hi! And thank you for the ask!

1. What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read any of your work? (In other words, what do you think is the best introduction to your fics?)

Hm, since I write three types of content...

for headcanons, I'd go with "Warlords Opening Up MC's Refrigerator After She's Been Gone Three Months" because it pretty much exemplifies that kind of weird chaos that sometimes pops into my brain.

For short fiction, it would be the story I wrote for your request, A Simple Game, because I really like writing warlords interacting with each other, especially getting to put three smart sneaky warlords like Shingen, Mitsuhide, and Motonari together.

Long fic would have to be Twelve Lies I Told Shingen Takeda - it introduces the multiverse and I loved the idea of Shingen being in a relationship that grew out of friendship, kindness, and mutual respect, rather than out of physical attraction (or if someone just wants to read a smut chapter, there are a couple of those... Buttons being my favorite).

10. How do you decide what to write?

With headcanons, if they aren't an ask, it's usually something that just pops into my head, or is prompted by something that just happened in real life. Like the smoke alarm HC was prompted by being awakened at 3 a.m. by my smoke alarm's dead battery chirp.

All of the short fics on my blog were prompted either by an exchange, or by a chaotic bingo request, so with those, it's mostly noodling around with the prompts until I can think of something that fits the request. I used to do a improv and sketch comedy, so in a sense, it's a similar concept - take the audience's suggestion, and use it to jump off into a scene, but then take the scene to an unexpected twist.

With longfic, usually it starts with something that I can't stop thinking about. The original idea for the Tempest in Time series was just a bunch of scenarios that kept haunting me in the summer of 2020. They weren't leaving my head, so I had to write them down. I knew I wanted to create a multiverse with an OC who would have multiple versions of herself living in different timelines, but would be connected by a frame story involving a mission that needed to be completed across all the timelines, and that my OC would potentially encounter different versions of herself. The initial thought would be that the OC would have a route for every warlord, and I knew that Shingen had to be first, because his canon illness was going to necessitate time travel anyway, so I could take care a lot of the world building and establish the multiverse dilemma naturally (and also his story was the clearest in my mind, and also... well, it's Shingen, he's basically my favorite warlord anyway). And as such, Sasuke would need to be the final story, because it's going to involve a crap ton of time timeline hopping. The order in the middle is random, based on whichever warlord's story I can visualize the clearest. Hideyoshi was supposed to be after Mitsunari's, but what I had planned started feeling too similar to parts of Shingen's, so my next thought was to go to Ieyasu ... but then a certain Kitsune said, "I'm sorry my dear, but I insist you tell my story next," and the plot unrolled in my mind. If I can picture how a story starts, at least three points somewhere in the middle, and how it ends, that's when I know that I can start writing a long fic. Sometimes I have an idea of where somethin starts, but no clue about what happens next, so those just sort of stay marinating in my brain until I can see more of where it wants to go.

And that was a very long answer to a short question... sorry.

31. What’s your ideal fic length to write?

Heh... size doesn't matter. I've got a couple of pieces I love that are less than 500 words each, and one of the longfics clocked in at over 150,000 words (which totally shocked me... I never realized I could write that much).

There's a special challenge in writing the uber-short flash fics, especially if there is a word limit. I can spend more time tweaking a 330 word flash fic than a 3300 word chapter in a longfic.

I like to keep the short fic at less than 5000 words, only because if it starts getting longer than that, then I get tempted to do more world building and add subplots, and all of a sudden it's heading into longfic territory.

What I like about writing longfic is getting to live with a story and the characters for a long period of time. Shingen's story took me 8 months to write, Mitsunari's story took a year... I've hit the 4 month mark on the draft of Mitsuhide's... I like these characters that Cybird originated, and in longfic, I can hang out with them and really get to know them.

[bitter-sweet-coffee]

How does Infinite take care of his MAGNIFICENT GLORIOUS ASTOUNDING PERFECT hair?

hehehe, WELL FUNNILY ENOUGH—

i've mentioned this a few times, but when fused with the ruby he's not totally self aware. hygiene, sleep, hunger, motor skills, etc... are not controlled by him, so infinite's hair is perfect via illusions or glamours to both us and himself. IN MY CANON THOUGH, it's a bit of a history! let's delve into this with some very crappy doodles:

1. childhood

as a younger fella, infinite's hair was very fluffy and chaotic. it's not really comparable to human textured hair, it's just really fluffy and dense so if you cut chunks out or "thin it" nothing happens. crazy. it swirls too! not curls, hair-cinnamon-rolls:

2. older childhood

no one wants to deal with this fucker's hair anymore, there's too much of it, and infinite wants to grow it long. solution? dreads when he turns 13. he keeps these until the events of the game

3. after forces

so, it's been years, and infinite has not taken care of his locs (which you are NOT supposed to keep for this long oh my god) so they're a mess. shadow brushes them out! this is actually what prompted my entire fic universe and was the first chapter/sonic fanfic i wrote since like... 2013. yes, everything has been built around a silly hair brushing concept! here's the relaxed wip, courtesy of shadow:

4. recovering + present

now that they're free and infinite is being healthy and has autonomy, his hair benefits from being loose and gets some volume and thickness back! when shadow is nervous he braids some parts as a stim (like when he was with maria on the ARK) so some parts are styled. eventually, he puts other parts back into locs so there's more variety, and takes advantage of hair pieces since shadow loves buying hair products and accessories too, and now they're actually useful (since shadow can't wear them dksksldldks)

and that's all i have! most of the hair care is natural, but shadow is constantly brushing and styling it with the best and fanciest products and treatments, and who is infinite to complain? he went from not giving a shit and getting it damaged and dirty to not letting anyone but shadow touch it, so i suppose the secret is to make a really rich immortal badboy fall in love with you

[writingonesdreams]

Reading update

Currently reading 

Every enemies to lovers fantasy I find remotely interesting. 

Cruel Prince - I was avoiding this series for so long because I just didn’t get the fascination with faeries and I’m not a fan of dark murdering scheming. I just wanted to read the first 3 chapters and kiss this book goodbye - but the main heroine caught me in her clutches and I couldn’t stop. I got enchanted by the world, but Jude being so emotionally understanable and relatable, I just felt so much for her and her reasons for doing what she did. I’m fascinated by Madoc, he is such a complex murdering father and mentor, I love what he and Jude have together and that despite being caring he is a brutal war loving person. Cardan was scary, then got complex and at the end kinda fun, but I have seen too little of him in the first book to really feel attached to him - I’m starting Wicked King right away to see what happens. I’m still waiting to inspect what will transform Jude and Cardan from enemies to more, cause desire, jealousy and hunger for power aren’t excactly ideal base. 

Serpent & Dove - Witch and a witch hunter forced into a fake relationship and cooperation? Can’t wait what this book has in store. I loved To Kill a Kingdom, which was a siren and a siren hunting prince joining forces and this is a direct rec with high ratings. Just hope there is a magic system here, I’m missing it. 

Enchantment of Ravens - This one came to mind after Cruel Prince sold me on the fearie concept and I love the premise of powerful arrogant beings like fey not being able to create, an ability reserved for humans. And it’s supposed to be enemies to lovers as well. I’m on mission to explore this trope from all angles. Plus it’s a standalone! 

We hunt the flame - A prince who kills for his father hiding his compassion and a rebellious girl that fights to save her people in a enemies to lovers fantasy with some bromance sprinkled within? High hopes for this premise.

Finished books, Books on writing, magical books and more under the cut 

Read

Riyria Chronicles - I loved the first book of the prequels, I love Hadrian and Royce as a duo of idealistic knight and cynical assassin that work together, the banter, the hurt/comfort. I loved how their bond developed from deadly enemies to friends, that they stuck together, that there was a whole epic series of the two of them. But the completely destroyed it for me with the addition of Gwen as the love interest for Royce he was ready to leave everything else for (even just die on the spot). Hadrian, goals, the magnificent slow friendship development and new values didn’t matter because the author wanted Royce to love Gwen, so I guess we were just supposed to love her too - for no reason. She was so incomplete and her prophetic powers so convinient it was insulting. I am still salty over leaving this universe after three prequel books, but the bromance brought me to it and the action plots with royals, murders and schemes are just backround noise I can take, when the emotional arcs and relationships work - which they don’t. A shallow love interest ruined it all. 

Uprooted - I have mentioned this book before after I read it. It’s absolute brilliance, with a grumpy powerful mage who likes order and beauty and a chaotic mage apprentice who works with instincts and nature. Oh and there is that dark sentient forest trying to devour whole villages, a magical river called Spindle and a really beutiful and deep magical world. Plus the enemies to lovers romance is subtle and amazing.

Spinning Silver - Wrote a review few months back, but basically 3 very strong heroines with interconnected fates, fire demons and ice kingdoms. The world and writing are magical, but the enemies to romance is quite unsatisfactory - they are basically enemies the whole time and skip over to a wedding at the end. 

Radiance -  A cute friends to lovers story about a political marriage between a fantastical race and human royalty, that were disgusted by each other’s appearence but learned to love each other like friends and later fell in love romantically too. The bond was well-developed, and the pacing was enjoyable, with the world having some interesting ideas, but overall it was plain and underdeveloped. I can’t really put my finger on it, because everything seems right with this book, but it left me feeling empty. There was no thematic significance, no message, just a fun comfy journey, which isn’t wrong but it left me unsatisfied and not at all interested in the sequel.  

Stolen Songbird - A trilogy about the world of trolls, with the heroine being kidnapped, forced to marry a prince who only pretends to hate her while preparing a revolution and a curse that keeps them trapped underground. I loved the concept, the first half was great,...but then it went downhill. The plot started to be way too convinient, I could see the author wanting to make situations happen that made no sense for the plot and happened unnaturally, which kept breaking the story immersion. There was no setup for key events, the love went from little attraction signs and kindness to forever proclamations in two chapters...very disappointing. I finihsed the first book, but I’m dropping the series right there. The ending with the sudden relevations about magic insulted my intelligence. 

Want to read

Pick of titles about the power of books and libraries, with either characters coming to life or books being magical. 

Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep - A guy who can read characters into life, characters reflecting the interpretation of the person who read them with several versions of them running around and a story of two brothers with some tensions. 

Mr Fox - A female protagonist visits her author to convince him stop hiding behind killing all his female characters off and focus on what emotionally matters to him instead. 

The Library of Unwritten - There is a place in hell for unwritten stories and their characters sometimes try to escape to make their authors finish it. Oh and there are demons and angels and a Muse as a character. 

The Midnight Library 

The Invisible Library - Magical library that travels through time and worlds with dragon shifting assistent and maybe some romance. The crime chase isn’t really drawing me in but the concept of the profession is really cool. 

Stuck from the old to read list

Addie LaRue - It’s Schwab, it’s an amazing concept, it’s about art and immortality and devil deals. The first two chapters didn’t catch me yet, so I’m waiting for my mood for this to return. 

Magic Bites - Strong voice, great complex supernatural world, magic and vampires and shifters in one place. The murder investigation ain’t my thing though, so I got stuck on the 4th chapter and kinda forgot about it. Not a good sign, but it seems like a quality series (it has 10 parts and a huge following). 

Flowers for Algernon - A famous science fiction classic about a man who goes through an experiment to gain intelligence, becomes a genius and watches as his friendships fall apart and the world reacts a lot differently than he thought. 

Lady of Rivers - I loved the White Princess from Philippa Gregory, so the historical romance and politics here can be trusted, so I’m curious. 

On writing

Writing for social scientists - Came across this as a rec from school, but it has so much about the writing process, discipline, how to handle the need to be perfect and how to edit and work on drafts, accept criticism...lots of parallels to fiction writing, I’m stunned. 

Outlining by KM Weiland - I love KM Weiland’s blog about writing, I love her voice and tips and ways. This book is fun, well-structured, with lots of tips on organizing and structuring and it gave me, a pretty experienced outliner lots of new tricks and ideas to try. I read this and fill in for my story and it’s quite helpful. 

Writing from the Inside Out: Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within by Dennis Palumbo - Writing books are very hit and miss. I hated Bird by Bird and Thorn necklace, those are just whiny biographical essays like I care about the details of the author’s life when I don’t know them and just came for the tips. I loved Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and The Courage to write though, the two are my personal bibles. Dennis Palumbo is very to the point with his psychological take on writing and on being enough and it hits all the sore spots and makes them better. 

Letters to a young novelist - Philosophical book on writing in letter style that reads nicely if a bit heavily sometimes. I love the format and the thoughts, but it requires focused reading and quiete enviroment to understand everything. 

[peeterparkr]

perennial;tom holland|four.

chapter four: yellow carnation

↳ flower meaning: disappointment

chapter summary: the one with the denial. 

pairing: tom holland x y/n

warnings: angsty, mentions of sex, swearing,  lol cherry 

word count: 8k

SOCIAL MEDIA BEFORE THE CHAPTER:

masterlist & profiles   three: in which y/n and Emma thought it would be a good day.

previous chapter next chapter   perennial masterlist.

perfidy  ( series masterlist)

wanna be tagged?

“So you saw Emma?” Harry asked, for the third time.

Harry and Tom were both certain they had both fucked up. Different context, same type of concept of idiocy. 

Tom was an idiot. 

Harry was an idiot. 

But Harry was more aware that Tom was even more of an idiot than he was. 

Tom thought so, too. 

That was the only thing he was certain of at the moment. He had screwed up so many times before but he really didn’t want to this time. Not that he had meant to the last times but this time he was going to make sure he wouldn’t fuck it up. 

Though, he was confused. Very, very confused. As to why he’d gotten the reaction he’d gotten. It seems ironic, even. But he had missed her. So, so, so much. 

He hadn’t realized how much he had missed her perfume. Something so simple, but so powerful. A scent he’d never be able to ever forget. 

He had imagined it differently, honestly, their encounter. He thought it would’ve been nicer or prettier. Instead, it was chaotic. Not poetic.

Tom had fucked up, he knew that. Not this one time. Well, maybe this one time. Maybe this other time, too. Had they run out of chances? Because Tom had fucked up the first time, she had fucked up the second time. 

But they’d been building up this one relationship that was so chaotic, that was so different. Maybe that’s why it had been so hard. 

Tom had been through breakups before but none of them had felt like this one, not even when he’d given her the third yellow flowers. It was so confusing, to think you’d give out your heart completely when they were just there to hurt you. He’d been hurt before but not like this. Not this breathtaking, piercing pain. Pain that didn’t go away.

Now Tom knew how it felt, how it felt to be told that your body is physically healthy but your heart is so broken that your body is bringing you down.

But he missed her too much to even think about that. He had forgiven her, in some kind of way. He knew that she’d be the medicine.

He’d forgiven her, in a way. In the way that he needed to be with her to work it out.

Though he was still nervous about it. Especially because of Tim. 

That bothered him the most. She’d run away from him. Leaving it all behind. But he had heard her. He probably didn’t have to worry, right? 

He had brought the letter. 

He had probably memorized every line by now. Probably to use it as some kind of weapon-No, they had to stop thinking of it as a weapon. But it was his backup, using her own words to get to her. 

He had read the script now. That was the only proof he needed. He thought. Because there was that constant thought in his head, Timmy. 

Tom hated Tim for many reasons, but the main one was that Tim had taken the chance TOm had let go off after that club night. He couldn’t hate him for making y/n so happy but he hated him because Tom knew that was supposed to be him. Now he hated him more because if he had proposed it meant he wanted to keep y/n forever. 

He remembered how y/n was when Tim had been around, back when they were dating. As if y/n was in some sort of charm. One single look and he’d made y/n blush, and smile. 

Tom and Harry were pitying themselves on a bar, a beer in their hands.

“Yes, I saw Emma,” Tom said.  

“Did she ask about me?”

“No.” 

Harry sighed. 

“Y/N didn’t want to talk to me, but she was--” Tom gulped. “Kind of swooning over me before she saw I arrived.” 

Harry rolled his eyes. “I told you not to go.” 

“Why not? You were going to look out for Emma!” 

“But I didn’t! Because it was stupid! It was clear they weren’t happy we were there!” Harry rolled his eyes. 

“But why not?” 

“She bloody fainted!” Harry pointed out. 

Tom chuckled, but Harry glared at him.

“I’m sorry, but it’s cause, I just… Fuck I had missed her and she looked so pretty and-” 

“Tom.” 

“I thought she’d be happy to see me!” Tom said cockily. 

Harry was getting tired of his brother. 

“I mean she technically was happy right?” Tom asked.

“No,” Harry rolled his eyes. 

“but… Why didn’t she… I thought she’d be happy we’d be directing it,” Tom pointed out. “She says we’ll end up ruining it.” 

Harry sighed heavily.. “Honestly we didn’t think this through.” 

“But it was the only way to see them,” Tom snapped. 

Harry rolled his eyes, “No it wasn’t.” 

“And fuck, okay, Emma didn’t tell me anything about Tim.” 

“Why do you care so much about him?” Harry asked.

Because he was jealous. So, so jealous. Always been jealous. Because Timmy managed to get the girl before he did. 

“He looks like some stupid Victorian boy and he’s not even hot and yet he had y/n drooling over him, and this is the fucking second time that when things are screwed with y/n he takes the chance to make her happy.” 

Harry watched him. “Huh, so you’re jealous.” 

“Yes,” Tom hissed.

“Why are you even jealous--?” 

“Because I can be, first thing she did was run back to her ex, that’s so fucking stupid,”Tom pointed out. 

“As far as I know he was the only one to reach out for her to see if she’s okay,” He said. 

Tom clenched his jaw. Well, was he supposed to reach out? But Tom hadn’t run to any of his exes, because that’s not what he was supposed to do. 

“And honestly, I think it’s coincidental, even James said it,” Harry pushed. “She didn’t run to him, Tim offered her to run away with him, she didn’t, she ran after her dream.  He’s just her roommate.” 

Tom wasn’t happy about this statement. Yes, of course he knew that but Tim was still … He didn’t want to see it. No. 

 “I—I am just angry that y/n wasn’t happy because I’ve been—dying to see her okay? It’s so stupid.” 

“You are stupid, may I remind you about Cherry?” Harry asked. 

Tom hadn’t been making the best decisions, either. The heart often fucks up especially when it's hurt. The heart tends to be louder than the mind, and it’s irrational. He hadn’t been reasoning. He regretted many decisions he had made. That last decision was haunting him, that one particular decision. 

The heart is stupid. The heart is very stupid. Tom was even more stupid. When one's heart feels lonely it tends to search for something that feels like love in places where it seems easy. Some go for drinks in a late night pub, others shut themselves from the dark. Others try to soothe the pain by trying to ignore it. Some listen to music, others ignore. We all deal with heartbreak differently, with your head under water, we all try to find our own way of trying to get out, though we truly don’t. 

Tom had reached out for love when someone had offered a trial for love, without feeling anything. A free pass, if you may. Someone who didn’t ask for anything in return because they wouldn’t give anything either. 

It’s not love, though. It’s not love. It’s not love, but it’s good enough to make the heart feel like it’s complete, to cease the crying or to change the feeling . Trying to find their faces in places where it’s less likely to see it. Something remotely close to warm the heart, something that can make us feel like we’re fooling our heart, trick ourselves into believing we’re happy. Trying to get some sort of happiness, even if it’s only a hoax for just a few hours. To make our bodies warm, and trick one’s mind into thinking it’s pleasure. He hadn’t meant it, but he really needed a reason to keep his mind off y/n, and the closest thing had presented itself. With no strings attached offered, with only that offer of blowing his mind enough to forget about his sorrow. But one must be careful with one’s lies and one must be careful because you really can’t fool the heart. 

You can’t try to mend it with something that looks like love, it’s like trying to glue it back with barely anything that can make it stick, like trying to glue something with dirt, it only makes it hurt more. When one is broken, we don’t see it, but what Tom had done with his heart had only made it worse, hurting it even more. When one is brokenhearted the heart tends to try and make it good, but this had only made it bad. 

Tom had slept with Cherry. Yes, that was the truth. It had been a mistake of a series of unfortunate decisions. 

Cherry. 

“It was stupid,” Tom said. “I… I feel so bad about it.” 

And he did. But it had been so… easy. It was so simple, so so simple. Cherry was well aware that she had been a ‘rebound’ of sorts. Honestly, she was looking for a rebound of her own. It had been their agreement, hanging out. But it seemed like one shouldn’t play with fire, playing with two broken hearts is very very risky. But you know when one is lonely and confused and angry and then the dark comes and the way that her body moved and the way that she wouldn’t hurt him, they’d come up that far. He never knew it would lead there. 

Tom had slept with Cherry. Yes, that was the truth. Tom had fucked it up the most, that was no surprise. But his mistake had only made both of them realize that it had been a clear dumb mistake. 

Tom had slept with Cherry. Yes, that was the truth. Only once, though. But there were a lot of things to consider. A friendship of two broken hearts, of two hearts that still remembered someone they loved. 

It was easy for Cherry, and it was different. 

It had been very immature and stupid. But Tom had missed y/n’s lips, y/n’s delicate fingers walking down his body, or the way that she’d smile against her neck, and the way she’d place her forehead against his.  The way he’d get butterflies when they were going after the thousandth kiss. 

Maybe that had been the closest thing he could get to.  

Tom didn’t know why he had slept with Cherry, though he hadn’t… It had been pathetic, honestly. He didn’t know why he let himself do that. Sure, at the beginning it felt fine. As a new adventure, a new person that didn’t know anything about it. But he ignored it, at first. Her flirting. He had said it was only a friend. And then they kept hanging out, more and more. And suddenly he was taking off her shirt and kissing his way down her body. 

But he hadn't stopped thinking about y/n, that had been the problem. 

All the damned time, and it gave him a lot of time to think about them, the whole idea of ‘Tom and y/n’. Y/N was crazy, Tom was an asshole. And time after time, their pride and their immaturity won, over and over. Maybe love or something quite similar to love had sentenced them to fall. 

But he missed her, and not even cold showers could make her memory go. Tom thought about it, maybe it was too stupid to even think about it. Tom and y/n. 

But her memory haunted him each night, and even if it didn’t make any sense, even if they were meant to fall, y/n was his best mistake. 

It felt like a different time, and Cherry had pointed it out. “You’re always expecting a call.” 

He did. And it didn’t make any sense, if he was trying to get over y/n, then why was y/n always in his mind? Why was he always expecting to listen to her voice? It was so pathetic, if he was starting out something new… If he was faking his happiness, why didn’t he feel happy? Why did he still miss her so much? 

And he had wanted to call, but he was too proud to do it. What would he even say? Because he never got to say goodbye, because he never got to say he was sorry. Because he never really got to say that it didn’t matter. 

But maybe ‘y/n and Tom’ wasn’t logical. 

Harry frowned. “Yeah.” 

“I’m just… She can’t know about it,” Tom said. “I’ll find a way to tell her.” 

Harry watched him, “maybe it wasn’t the best idea to direct her script.” 

“I just—I wanted to find a way back to her.” 

“If you had just listened to me,” Harry rolled his eyes. “I know y/n, she probably wanted you to show up in the rain with a thousand roses—“

“Yellow flowers.”

“Yellow flowers whatever, but she probably wanted you to stand there shaking in the rain—“

“It’s not raining—“Tom interrupted again. 

Harry took a deep breathe. “She probably only wanted you to run after her and love her and have some big romantic movie gesture, a film like moment, like the ones in her script where William runs over to her and they dance under the rain—“

“But she told me not to come here.” 

“She didn’t fucking mean it, or not… Yes, she wanted to heal but then you should’ve reached out to her!” 

“I just wanted to be a big part of her dream you know?” Tom looked away. 

Harry was so stressed about it. “I told you that if you bloody wanted to do something with her script just to audition for it.” 

“She’s not only angry about the script,” Tom said. “I know her.” 

“You know her now?” Harry scoffed 

“If I’ve learned something about her is to know what she’s pissed for and she’s not only pissed about me directing,” Tom snapped. “There’s something else bothering her.” 

Harry scoffed. 

“What?” Tom frowned. 

“You’re going to get away with it, again,” Harry pushed. 

“What?” 

“Please, Tom you’re not the one in trouble,” Harry frowned. “Can you stop talking about y/n for five minutes please?” 

“What do you mean I’m not the one in trouble?” Tom frowned. 

“Because it’s you and her,” Harry stated, as if the statement alone explained everything. 

“What?” 

Harry sighed heavily as he ran a hand through his face. He downed the beer in front of him and then turned to his older brother. “Please Tom, I’ve seen this story before it’ll only take you to make her laugh once and she’ll run back to you and she will be swooning over you that’s how you work, you fight, you bully each other,  you fucking get into a big argument, she gets angry you get cocky, you smile at her one and she’ll be on her bed listening to a song that reminds her of you and then you’ll be okay! She’ll be back in love with you into that endless cycle.” 

Tom listened and frowned. “That’s not true.” 

“Yes it’s true, she’s so deeply in love with you that it won’t matter whatever happens she’ll end up running back to you, especially now that she knows you love her,” Harrys said. “I just.. now my problem is that my ex fiancé doesn’t even want to talk to me and I fucked up with her so badly and I’m an idiot because I let the best thing that’s ever happened to me for… someone who-” 

“You have it easier.” 

“No, I don’t,” Harry snapped. “I love Emma, and I’m an idiot and… And I’m I don’t even know if y/n told her I kissed her which would only make things worse because I-” 

“Why… why did she give the ring back?” Tom asked, interrupting his brother again. 

Harry looked away. Tom had seen that Harry had avoided that question over and over. 

“Because I’m an idiot,” Harry snapped. His eyes were glazed now as he avoided his brother’s glance. “I’m an idiot because when she asked me about it… About how I felt about y/n… and I said I didn’t know.” 

Tom stayed quiet. 

“And she asked if I would’ve married her instead, and I stayed quiet,” Harry recalled, looking down. “I should’ve kissed her right there and then.” 

Tom kept quiet.

 “And—I don’t even remember how the conversation went. I just know I broke her heart because I was too confused for my own sake,” Harry admitted. 

“I dunno what to tell you, man,” Tom said. “I'm not exactly the best at—“

“And I still have to get used to this, you know? You and y/n.” 

“There’s not even anything going on,” Tom recalled. “But you and Emma have more hope.” 

“No, because unlike y/n, Emma did run away,” Harry reminded him. “Unlike y/n, Emma didn’t have a reason to leave and she searched for it, Emma did give up on me.” 

“You think it’s lost?” Tom asked. “Because I don’t.” 

“Dunno,” Harry said. “I want to test the waters and try to fix the fixable.” 

“Which is?” 

“My friendship with y/n, and I know that if I manage to win her back as a friend she’ll help me out with Emma.”

Tom sighed. “But what about--?” 

“Look, I’ll see what she says, just don’t try to ruin it, okay? If she doesn’t want to talk to you right now, don’t push it,” Harry warned. “We will see it tomorrow, how she reacts this time.” 

“How do you think she’s doing?” Tom asked. 

Girls wanna have fun. You know? Yet, y/n and Emma didn’t want any fun that night. How could they? The day had been utter bullshit. Y/N and Emma had stayed with her aunt. Y/N had left some clothes with her aunt so she could stay some nights there. And she had decided that that night was the perfect night to stay there, she didn’t need to do this to her heart. Seeing Timothée would only bring Y/N’s heart more sore. She didn’t need that. 

Her mind kept going back to Cherry, she hadn’t really addressed it, what she knew that her aunt knew the answer to. Her aunt hadn’t said anything about before, really.

But it didn’t matter that night. 

“Girls I won’t let you pity yourselves all night crying over men, alright?” Eliza said. 

Emma, laying down on the couch upside down, nibbling on the popcorn y/n had in her hands looked up and laughed. 

Y/N was on the floor, right beside Emma, too emotionally drained from the past 24 hours. She didn’t want to even look up. 

“You see,” Emma said. “I’m not crying, I’m in denial,” Emma explained. “And I can’t believe they’d show up.” 

“I can’t believe I’m still swooning over him,” Y/N said. “I don’t understand it, like… He showed up and I just wanted to kiss his entire face.” 

Eliza sat down in front of them and chuckled to herself. “Girls, you can’t be like this.” 

“It’s cause he… He dared to do this, and I’m angry because I’ve cried over him so many times in my life, and I thought I had made up my mind already that I wouldn’t… That I’d be over him, And just look at me! I’m still so...smittened, like I can’t believe that I just… I just feel this way and literally if I see him tomorrow and he fucking dares to smile at me like that again I’ll run to his arms and…I just wish I had never let him go, I  feel like an idiot for leaving, but then again, I had a reason right? I was angry and I was sad and he was too,” She rubbed her face. “But then but but… Here’s the thing,” y/n stood up. 

“Oh, god, she’s gonna monologue,” Emma sat up to lay down on the couch. Eliza gave Emma a knowing look and chuckled. 

“Emma!” Y/N chuckled. “ I don’t understand this, I can’t… I can't. Why don’t I have any self control? Like literally when he touched my face I was about to-” 

“Yes I saw, you were about to open your legs right there and let him do anything to you,” Emma pointed out. 

Eliza laughed. 

“That’s not-”Y/N blushed, letting out a shy snicker. “Emma!” 

“Please, y/n, you have no self control I know that tomorrow you’ll end up making out with him,” Emma said. “And I can't blame you because I saw him and I just wanted to forget everything and I actually imagined my life beside him and—“

“Girls—“Eliza tried to interrupt again. 

“And now I have—Flowers. Flowers?” Y/n sighed. “Pink and yellow peonies, he had to choose peonies? And now what the hell am I supposed to tell Tim?” 

Emma chuckled. “Listening to your misery y/n is making me feel better, I thought I was fucked but at least my problem is a one thing problem,” Emma laughed. 

“I hate you,” y/n rolled her eyes. “Are you still in denial or do you want to talk about it?” 

“Still in denial,” she winked at y/n. “do you have ice cream El? Never had ice cream and wine before, is there any ice cream?” Emma asked as she walked to the kitchen opening the fridge, welcomed by all kinds of organic food. But she found an ice cream, or a sort of ice cream. 

Y/N laughed. “What the hell am I going to do?” 

“Well,” Eliza sighed as she walked over and sat beside y/n, as now Emma plopped herself on the single couch as she took a big spoonful of the ice cream pint. “What does your heart tell you?” 

“Give up and go to Greece,” y/n laughed. 

Eliza chuckled, as she hugged her legs, watching her niece. Expecting her to elaborate. 

“I don’t know, you know they say time heals but I’m still hurting so much, but--” Y/N sighed. “It’s strange.” 

“Love is strange,” Eliza acknowledged. “Think of it as a-” 

“Flower?” Emma asked. 

“No,” Eliza sighed. “Think of it as if someone is weaving in your heart, and sometimes the heart is senseless, and irrational, and they keep weaving, or knitting , they knit their way to imprint in your life. That’s why they stay there.” 

“Tom didn’t knit or weave he used a bloody industrial sewing machine and then stapled himself and then industrial glued himself  and then with cement and—“

“We get the point y/n,” Emma smirked. “Tom basically owns your heart.” 

“Yeah.” 

“What I see in both of you is that both of your hearts have a surplus of love,” Eliza said. 

Y/N looked up. 

“You girls were ready to love more for more time , your hearts were prepared to stay in love for a longer time and to give them both so much love and even though the time spent with both of them left your hearts weaved so kindly...now they ripped it apart so, it’s understandable, to feel that way. Like a ripped old unused cardigan.” 

Emma sighed. “Yes, but being angry and in love?” 

“Being angry doesn’t cancel love, dear,”Eliza explained. “Whenever we get into a fights it doesn’t mean we stop loving them, you’re both angry because you still love them and want to fix this but they’re men and, though we love them, we shall always remember that they’re rather stupid.” 

Emma and y/n chuckled. “Yes.” 

“But I fucked up,” y/n said. “I should be the one apologizing to him.” 

“Yes dear, you did something wrong, and yes, you should apologize, but the first person you should apologize to is yourself. You’ve been too harsh on yourself because you made one mistake, and yet you’ve forgiven all of his.” 

Y/N looked, down thinking to herself. Maybe she had been right. 

“And you Emma,” Eliza turned to her. “You should at least let yourself feel,” she said. Emma nodded as she made her way to sit beside Eliza. “We all need a hug from time to time.” 

Both girls leaned against each of Eliza’s shoulders. 

“You know,” Emma said. “Before Harry,” she started. “I didn’t really… know love, you know?” She explained. 

Both y/n and Eliza turned to see her. Emma never really spoke Harry’s name. Y/N had probably heard Emma refer to Harry as ‘him’. Never speaking his name out loud. She never really talked about it. Y/N had probably only heard Emma say his name that same day, maybe once in a while sporadically. But never talk about the subject, never addressing it. Just ignoring it. Always going: My life after him. 

‘Him’. 

So different from how y/n always referred to Tom, and how she tried to speak Tom’s name as many times as she could 

“Before Harry,” Emma continued. “I thought love was very substantial, you know? Very… Not Splendid, just written by the book, that kind of stupid teenage love that involves kissing and wearing matching bracelets, and baking each other cookies from time to time,” Emma continued. “The kind of love that is all: oh they didn’t text back, or hey, we need to see each other every Friday. Very… not love like.”

“Before Harry,” Emma said. “I’ve never… cared about stuff, you know, I was kind of a goody two shoes with my parents, and then Harry came along and there I was telling little white lies to my parents, my friends, to Tim so I could sneak out to see him at ungodly hours, keeping secrets, and… You know my past relationships were merely… Physical, and then it was Harry, and it was just staring into his eyes and feeling the whole world was stopping, and I was swooning over him, talking about nonsense. And then hours felt like seconds, but he showed me how to stop time just so I could make him smile once more. Him and his stupid camera that he carries around everywhere.”

Y/N and Eliza watched her. Her voice had cracked as she was speaking, as if each word was taking away her life. Emma was… sad. And Emma was never one to be sad. 

“And then when I thought everything was okay, when I thought I finally could… Love and be loved by someone. And I thought, this is stupid, why do I feel like this, you know?” Emma laughed. 

“I dated way too many guys before Harry, and then I was changed, daydreaming, smiling to myself, sighing romantically. I had changed, for good. And I thought, hey, he’s just a man, you know?” Emma bit her lip. “He’s just a man,” Emma repeated. “Yet, I was… I wanted to do all the cute things, and I just initially didn’t want to give in to him, but I just simply and unequivocally fell in love with Harry, so easily, and I didn’t understand why, but I didn’t have to understand.” 

Y/N had always doubted Emma because of her first impression. Because Emma initially wasn’t the type of girl Harry would date. She was too different. Y/N was wrong.

“It was…” Emma gulped. “Perfect, and then…” She paused to look down. “They snatched it away from me, and then the man who I thought loved me for who I was apparently didn’t, and he loved someone else, someone pretty, someone smart, someone who… Someone who my own best friend said was perfect, and then I thought I wasn’t… worth it, you know? Then I felt used and I saw the girl and she just… She was perfect, and then he said it, he confirmed it, how he had indeed been in love with that girl who was seamlessly perfect. With that girl who had known him his whole life, with that girl he had always cared for…And it was that question, is there something wrong with me? Why can’t I be her? Why does she get to… have him? But it wasn’t on her,” Emma continued. 

Y/N felt bad, she hadn’t really stopped to see it. How Emma’s heart had been broken because of her. How y/n had apologized, and how she’d taken Emma’s friendship for granted. That Emma had grown from the problem because they both needed a friend. 

“And I thought I could work it all out,” Emma sighed. “Him,” Emma chuckled to herself. “He said it, how confused he was, how he didn’t know where his heart was,  how he said he needed to try it, try to get that thought out of his head, that he needed to know why he’d lost the chance with her. How he thought…” Emma took a deep breath as a single tear was streaming down her face. “How he thought that I was his endgame but if he never knew what it would feel like to be loved by his first love he’d never be happy,” Emma ran out of breath by then, she looked down, her eyes still glazed. “He’d never be happy with me. And I asked him if he would marry her instead if he had the chance, and he didn’t answer.” 

Y/N reached out of her hand, as Eliza hugged them both. 

They didn’t really say much after that, what could they really say? And the night washed away their thoughts. Eventually Eliza had gone to sleep leaving the two girls to their own despair. Both laying down on different sides of the room, hugging pillows, confused. 

“I’m sorry,” Y/N said softly. “For Harry.” 

Emma gulped and shrugged. “Yeah, no, it’s not your fault.” 

“But it is,” y/n said, sitting up. “I did write about it.” 

Emma stayed quiet. “Yes, and I… I understand it, that feeling I guess,” Emma chuckled. “I felt that way with Tim at some point, too.” 

Y/N didn’t want to look up. 

“The whole… If this is the person I’m supposed to love and if this person is good enough for me, why can’t… I?” Emma pushed. 

Y/N eventually looked up. “Did you and Tim ever tried it?” 

“Yeah,” Emma laughed. “And it just confirmed to both of us that we were supposed to be friends. I mean we only went on one date and when we tried to kiss it felt… Like ugh, no,” Emma chuckled. 

That was something that she didn’t know. 

“Maybe that was what Harry needed, you know,” Emma said. “Make sure he didn’t…” 

But Harry had tried again. He had reached out, and he had asked y/n, if it could ever be him. Maybe y/n had ignored that thought in her head, probably because she didn’t want to even get deep in that thought. 

“And I’ve seen you, you’re in too deep for Tom,” Emma said. “Poor Tim.” 

Y/N frowned. “I’m not trying to hurt him.” 

“No, I know,” Emma said. “You can’t help it, but… I always knew it, and I never.. When Tim told me about you and Tom I was… Firstly relieved because that was the confirmation I needed because somehow I always knew you were in love with Tom, I didn’t know about him, he was very good at hiding it, but you just… I don’t know.” 

Y/N had a secret, one which she didn’t know if she had to share with Emma or not. 

“Harry texted me,” y/n said it, as simply as she could. 

Emma gulped. “What?” 

“Yeah, he said he was going to reach out for you but he knew it was a stupid idea, and he.. Wants to talk to me.” 

“Yeah, you should talk,” Emma nodded. “Save your friendship.” 

Was there really any friendship to be saved?  Y/N didn’t know if she even wanted to sort it out. She didn’t even want to see them the next day. 

She hadn’t slept, at all. Her mind kept roaming between Tom, Tim and Harry. The different problems she’d had to face with each. 

Emma didn’t go with her the next day to the studio. And there she was, all alone walking to them. Tom hadn’t looked up to see her this time. Alessandra, Josh, other people were there as Tom and Harry were awaiting for y/n. 

“Good morning,” were the only words y/n had spoken towards them. The meeting started, Tom had avoided any possible type of eye contact towards y/n. Harry hadn’t. He’d done most of the talking, about the project, the ideas, the production. The inspiration. 

“I just…” Tom said, eventually. “As I read the script,” he continued with poison. “I think we deserve to know more about William’s side of the story.” 

Y/N looked up, deciding whether that bothered her or not. She decided it didn’t, because she knew his side of the story was a mystery to her, too. 

 “I couldn’t help but wonder if there could be a scene with William’s heartbreak,” Tom continued. 

“Yes, of course, the ending, is something we’ve been working on,” Alessandra said. “I think that would add a bit more. Maybe even reflecting her first heartbreak, the one with the montage” 

“Reflecting Valerie’s heartbreak, yes,” William said. “Almost mirroring it.” 

“Well, I mean, mirroring it could work in a matter of film like symbolism, but I think William’s heartbreak is not the same as hers, I think-” 

“No you’re right, his heartbreak comes from what he thought was a relationship,” Tom said. “I think we should work on something like that. His heartbreak is real.” 

“I’m not saying it’s not real, I’m saying it shouldn’t mirror it,” y/n said. “I’m saying all heartbreaks are different.” 

“Maybe you’re right. I think his heartbreak deserves its own spotlight.” 

Y/N nodded. “Yeah.” 

“But it’s not the same,” Alesandra. “After all William hurt Valerie more times, I think--” 

“THat’s why we deserve to know his side of the story, otherwise he’s just an asshole and it wouldn’t make any sense as to why she loves him,” Tom said. 

And yet she does, y/n thought. 

The meeting went too decent. Y/N guessed Tom had understood that she really didn’t want to talk to him. Y/N was ready to leave, she didn’t want to see them. She didn’t want to see him. 

She didn’t want to see Harry because how could she make things better? 

But Harry had rushed over to her as soon as the meeting ended. Tom walked past them, scrolling in his phone. Y/N only watched him stand by close. 

“Hey,” Harry said. 

Y/N wasn’t aware why she was so damn selfish or why she couldn’t make up her mind, and she didn't know why it had bothered her so much that he hadn’t talked to her. That he was avoiding her. After all, that’s what she’d asked him to. 

She wanted to run to him, honestly. Kiss him, even. But then again the first thing he did was try to change the story. 

Y/N kept staring at Tom, but then turned to Harry. “Hi.” 

“Did…” Harry gulped. “Did Emma come today?” 

“No,” y/n said. 

“I… uh,” Harry continued. Tom looked up, but then proceeded to keep walking as his brother glared at him. “I was going to ask if you wanted to go out for lunch or something… So we can uh.” 

“Yeah,” Y/N said watching Tom. “Only us?” 

Harry looked up at Tom, who didn’t even flinch before walking away. 

It made y/n sad but she knew that she had been the one to ask for it, besides she needed to talk to Harry alone. 

They ended up at a diner, one of y/n’s favorite places. She had discovered it with Emma and Timmy, a 24/7 diner that had welcomed the three of them after a night out in the city. Best burgers and waffles they’d ever had. Maybe they weren’t that good, but when you’re drunk and it’s late anything serves. 

It was 50’s themed, like most diners are. Black and white tiled floors, blue booths and pink walls. 

Harry smiled to himself as he looked around. “Why am I not surprised you like this place?” He chuckled. 

“Food is good,” she said. 

Harry watched her. “Tom wanted to come.” 

Y/N sighed. “Of course he did,” she pointed out hiding behind the menu. 

“Coffee?” The waitress offered. They both accepted it. Neither of them had slept the night before. 

“He is very stupidly annoyingly in love with you,” Harry shot it. He knew he had to start with that. 

Y/N let down the menu to face him. “And I was annoyingly and stupidly in love with him,” she said. “I am… Am, not was,” she corrected herself. “But I need to get over him soon because I had assumed he moved on,” she sighed and then bit her lip. “But you say he’s still in love so I am very confused by your statement,” she admitted. “But right now I don’t want to see his pretty face around because he is the biggest idiot to walk into this planet and I really am angry he’s directing and probably here to ruin the biggest chance in my life so I’m going to ignore you just said he is in love with me because he is an idiot and I probably am too but right now he is more of an idiot because directing my script—” 

“So you’re angry,” Harry said as he sipped from the hot coffee they had served him. 

“Not at you,” she lifted the menu again. “I am actually not angry at you directing, you’re talented, and I trust you, I would’ve even called you,” she confessed. “But well—yeah, but I’d trust you with my eyes closed even if we… if that thing happened.” 

Harry cleared his throat. “Yeah.” 

“And I assume we are going to talk about that,” she let down the menu again. 

“Yeah.” 

The waitress interrupted them again as she took their orders. Y/N didn’t order pancakes. Waffles. She hadn’t really eaten any pancakes for a while, though it was her favorite food. 

They just stared at each other, not sure where they were standing. How were they supposed to act? 

“I’m sorry,” they both said at the same time. They both chuckled. 

“No,  you go first,” Harry said. 

“No,I’m sorry Harry I just—I feel like it’s on me, I ruined your engagement,” she started. 

“No, I ruined my engagement-” Harry interrupted. 

“No, but it’s on me, with that script--” 

“No, yeah but that’s on Tom not wanting to talk about it,” Harry said. 

“No, it’s not.” 

“No, I know.” 

“I’m sorry,” y/n said again. 

Harry knew it, they were both in denial, neither of them wanted to address the actual situation. 

“I’m sorry,” Harry said. 

But neither of them were sure where to start their apologies. They’d said ‘no’ seven times. For sure, they were in denial. 

“Yeah.” 

“I’ve got to…” She took a deep breath. “I… When I wrote it, I guess, I wanted to understand it, you know?” She admitted. “As if I was trying to…” 

“But,” Harry said. “I don’t think it--” 

“Makes sense, no, it doesn’t,” y/n finished his sentence. “And look I… was confused and I just, when I wrote it I just… Went through with scenes in my life but...But-Harry-” 

“It’s Tom, I know,” Harry said it. “And… It’s Emma, and I can’t believe I… I can’t believe I wasted on some stupid...Sorry, sorry-”Harry chuckled as y/n faked to be offended. “Not what I meant.” 

“No, I know,” she laughed. “And before--” 

“I know I asked you for an answer but,” Harry sighed. “I… I don’t know, I was confused, very confused, because it didn’t make any sense and I guess I was just too overwhelmed with the situation, I mean I had been in love with you my whole life and,” he sighed. “It’s difficult, being in love with someone and then realizing they could’ve loved you or that they loved you at some point is just…” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I guess anyone would do anything for a chance but I guess we have to accept that… Sometimes the heart is wrong, right?” 

Y/N sighed. “Yeah, the heart is stubborn.” 

Harry watched her, curiously. “I just need… I just guess I do need an answer.” 

Y/N didn’t know what to say, whatever answer she gave him it would hurt him. She remembered it, the last time she’d seen him. How he was confused and broken and barely saying anything, and just throwing words in the air with little hope, begging for an explanation. And what explanation could a brokenhearted y/n give him? How could she ever give him an answer when her mind and heart was too stubborn and too attached to Tom. 

She decided she’d rather stay quiet. 

“Is it silly to think about it?” Harry asked. 

“I guess not,” y/n sighed. “It’s the whole... “ Y/N sighed. “But I am too stubborn to keep you in my life Harry, if something like that had ever happened, it would’ve ended up in disaster, and I’m not sure if I could handle another disaster.” 

He nodded. “Love shouldn’t hurt,” he said. “And God knows how much I’ve hurt from loving you.” 

“It’s Tom,” y/n said with all her pain in her heart. “That’s your answer,” she said. “And I can’t help but think how terrified I am that it was the last chance we ever had and I was the one to fuck it up, and I can’t help but think about the places we’ve cursed and how I’ll never be able to ever go to New York again, and how I’ll never be able to look at you and know I hurt you so many times and I couldn’t… I couldn’t ever love you the way you wanted me to.” 

Harry stayed quiet. 

“But there is someone,” y/n said. “There was someone who loved you the way you are supposed to be loved, and who is exactly the person I think—“

“Yeah, leave it to me to fuck it all up,” Harry sighed. “I—she won’t love me anymore right?” 

“If she’s as stupid as I am, then she might,” y/n chuckled 

Harry sighed. “I can’t believe I made her feel like she wasn’t the one most important person in my life, I—“

Y/n watched him, “you know it won’t be easy, right?” 

Harry looked up. “WhAt?” 

“She’s been having a real rough time,” Y/n said, “but—“

“That one sounds hopeful.” 

“It might be,” she nodded. “I just want you to be happy and I want her to be happy.” 

Hardy nodded. “Should I give a hopeful but to Tom, too?” 

Y/n didn’t answer. She wanted to say yes. But instead the question she wanted to ask came out instead. “What’s up with Tom and Cherry?”

Harry paled as if he’d seen a ghost. “What?”

That was the only confirmation she needed. She needed to ask no further questions because Harry had answered it, there was something going on between them. 

“There it is,” y/n clicked her tongue.

“What? No,  how do you—?what do you—what? No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” 

“If you’re asking those questions it means there is something going on,” y/n commented. 

“I—no,” Harry 

The waitress arrived and gave them their food. Harry tried to ignore the conversation by giving a big bite to his burger. 

“Harry,” y/n pushed. 

“There’s nothing going on,” Harry stated. 

“Did something happen?” She asked again. 

Harry started to sweat, as he finally stared at her. “Why are you asking this?”

Y/N didn’t know why she was asking this. She was barely reacting to it. She didn’t feel the heartbreak, she didn’t feel the pain throughout her chest. 

“So it did,” y/n nodded.

“Why—“

“Lets call it a sixth sense,” she hissed. 

“I am not the one who’s supposed to tell you this,” Harry said. 

“Something did happen huh,” she bit her lip. Maybe that’s when it hit her. That feeling of someone hitting her with a truck.

“N—Y/N, I’m not—“

“Did they sleep together?” Y/N pushed. 

Harry wasn’t giving her an answer yet she knew they had. His palms were sweating, he was blushing, and he was cracking his hands..

“Y/n—“

“You know you can’t lie to me,” y/n stated again.

“I cant lie to you, you’re right,” Harry admitted as he sighed heavily. 

“Then?”

“I’m not saying anything,” Harry said. “It’s not my issue and—“

Y/N knew she couldn’t cry in front of Harry. How different things were.

“I didn’t tell Cherry about Tom,” she said after a while of staring at the sweaty and nervous Harry.

Y/n couldn’t get angry, she knew that. It wasn’t cheating. It did hurt, though. But not as much as she thought it would, probably because she had known it already. Or maybe she was avoiding it right now because she needed to act tough with Harry. 

But it did hurt. The thoughts invaded her head. How prettier Cherry was, how perfect Cherry was. And then the image went to her head, to Cherry’s slim fingers walking through Tom’s chest, and him liking her touch more than y/n’s. How her lips had probably kissed that sweet spot Tom had right under his chin. How probably their sweaty bodies had collided and how Tom probably hadn’t thought about her. Not at all. 

And how easy y/n was to get over. That’s what she thought. How he had moved on because he could. And how stupid she felt. 

Harry stayed quiet. 

“I didn’t want to. It was too painful to talk about it, too complicated, too,” y/n continued. “and I assume he didn’t tell her about me either.” 

“No…” Harry admitted. 

Y/N was sure her eyes were filling up with tears but she wanted to inform them as she stared at her food. How stupid it seemed, a breakfast food. She pushed the plate away, she definitely wasn’t hungry now.

“Yeah,” her voice was dry, so she only sipped from her water. “and I know that as long as it concerns Cherry, I was dating you.”

“What?” But even if that question carried a sense of confusion it also carried some understanding as if suddenly it had made sense. As if something out of the blue had popped into his head and clicked the story together. 

“I don’t know where she got that from but I just didn’t want to explain anything to her, didn’t think I had to,” y/n continued.

“What?” Harry asked again. 

“She assumed it was you who I was dating and who I had an ugly breakup with,” y/n continued.

“Why did you let her—“

“Because I didn’t want to give out my story with Tom,” y/n said. “Though I thought she’d get it from the flowers, guess she didn’t,” y/n bit her lip. “I don’t understand anything about it, so—guess she just saw a pretty boy and—“

“I—“

“Did they sleep together?” Y/n asked again looking into Harry’s eyes.

No answer..

“Harry did Tom and Cherry fuck?” And she’d used that word because she wanted to believe that it was only that.

“I—y/n—“

“You’re not denying it.” 

“Because it’s not my place to deny those statements,” Harry said. 

“That means they did,” y/n bit her bottom lip. “It’s fine. I mean. I’m as guilty, I guess.” 

“What?”

“I slept with Tim.”

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[lieutenant-amuel]

Who is your favorite OC to write?

Hi! Thank you so much for asking!

I would say Ángel! He's honestly a favourite OC of mine, so writing him is a true pleasure for me. He's expressive and emotional, so it's always interesting and enjoyable to describe his actions and manner of speech (really, I swear he's actually much more expressive in my head, I just can't convey it through writing ×)).

Plus, I love his personality. This positive, chaotic, and fun kind of characters is really close to what I like (even though I'm nothing like those characters myself ×)), so I simply write the character I want to have in my fanfiction. Although, I don't want him to have over too bubbly personality, so he's also quite confident, independent, and is not afraid expressing his opinion, which also makes me enjoy writing him.

Maybe, it's not really noticeable for now, but Ángel is supposed to have a quite interesting character development, since I gave him a bunch of flaws in the first chapter he appears (like recklessness, irresponsibility, tactlessness, laziness, plus a bit of selfishness), so he has a very good potential for growing and becoming better in the future (which I already try to do).

Ángel doesn't know what he wants to do in life and barely had any interests in his early childhood, so exploring his possible future hobbies and self-awareness also are supposed to be interesting, and I have a quite image of how it's going to happen. Plus, he's got a bit sad backstory, which also affected him a lot and will find its impact in the future.

Oh, and yeah. I actually love Ángel that much that even want to start writing random one shots about him, but this is a very vague idea and the whole complex of reasons won't allow me to do that, so it probably will never come to life.

In conclusion, I just love Ángel's personality and general concept of him with his endless gesticulating and talkativeness. It really helped me a lot to get a genuine interest in him, so now, he's actually the best developed character of mine and I think about him the most. I love him and enjoy writing more than other of my OCs 💛

[hopeassassin]

Rally’s Scribbles in the Work

So after that lovely anon blew my mind away with their kind words and wonderful support, and because I keep telling you guys about my writing plans without actually giving you even a teensy little detail, I have decided to stop being coy and actually likely get your hopes up a bit by dilvulging small details and bits of plots of what is currently going on in my G-Drive. 

This will be a brief recount of what I have currently baking in the AoMomo oven, so let’s dive right into it! Please note that the numbers are in no particular order - I just keep revisiting each of these stories and writing a bit more to them whenever I feel like it. So there’s no ranking and no importance, just a number to keep proper count.

1. “Knight of Renown” Dragons and Knighthood AU, based on that one AoMomo pic with Momo ithe Knight and Dragon Aomine that I reblogged a while back and I actually let me imagination go a bit too much in the tags. I ended up actually rather enjoying the premise I set up in the tags so I actually started writing that one out!  Completion rate at about: 5%? I’d say? Less? :D 

2. AoMomo Music AU - a dearly beloved project that I am pouring a lot of love and attentioin to. That’s why it’s coming along super slow. It’s been in the making since November and I chewed it and mulled through it so thoroughly that I’ve grinded to a halt with it. Intending for there to be 2 chapters, and I am at about 25-30% of chapter 1 currently ready currently. At the pace I’m going, it might be another full year before you actually get to see this bad boy up, but when you do, I’m sure you’ll see all the care and effort that went into making it perfect. Honestly, no joke here, I am intending for this to be one of my rare masterpieces in this tag. So I’m not gonna rush it!

3. AoMomo Car Accident AU where Daiki barely manages to save Satsuki from being run over by a hit-and-run and ends up being the one run over instead. This was my first piece of writing after coming back to AoMomo last summer and yet completion rate is a sad thing. I want it to be flawless, a perfectly agonizing, thrilling type of torturous read that gives you a great sense of relief by the end of it. Needless to say, the clusterfuck of negative feelings is a bit difficult to hold onto for a prolonged period of time and the work is coming along slowly. Planned at about 5 chapters, I have 2 complete ones and the 3rd one is at about ... 30%? Hopefully before this year’s whumptober, we’ll have a finished piece!

4. AoMomo bond character study, which went in a direction I did NOT expect nor intend. It was suppsoed to be an idea that you will see also listed below. But I started this one from their early childhood and somehow, instead of focusing on the kids and their bond and their weird interactions with each other and their first moments of realizing they are of opposite genders, it turned into something much too fun to let go of and the ideas for scenes just kept piling. It’s going to be a long one, very explorative and very in-depth character study on the bond between these two and how it changed over the years, and their first encounters with their sexuality inbetween (because that was really the main idea that I started with... xDDD;;;) Currently at 1 chapter complete, chapter 2 somewhere around 50-60% completion, and at least 6-7 chapters to come after that, soooo.... :’DDDD YEAH. THIS ONE AIN’T SEEING THE LIGHT OF DAY ANYTIME SOON.

5. AoMomo deciding to practice stuff on each other, because I am a sucker for this trope.THIS will be what the idea under previous number 4 was SUPPOSED to be like, but it instead spun out of control. So this one, under number 5, is going to be the smutty, idiots bumbling through physicality to discover that they actually have serious feelings for each other kind of piece. Chapters are planned at about at least 6-7 or so, but not my usual monstrocities! :D First we start with practice kissing, and we move our way up from there! 

6. “The Evil of Humanity” AU - a dystopian futuristic kinda mecha AU, sort of an amalgamation of some of my favourite anime in the genre - a bit of NGE, a bit of Gurren-Lagann, a lot of Darling in the Franxx rewrite and improvement, in distinctly AoMomo colors. I poured a lot of thought and love into initial outline of main moments for this one, and I really hope to make it an epic, thrilling action/adventure with a big dash of romance kind of read! Chapters currently not even planned properly, because I need to sit down and consider this seriously. It will definitely be more than 10-15 though, and they will be my usual chapter lengths so.... likely no time soon. :D 

7. Aomine Fanclub - I got a plot bunny some time ago and I shared it here and my friends were spurring me on with it, so I started trying it out a little more. I’ve written out like... maybe 30% of this one as well, but need to re-read and reconceptualize to get it back on track. The issue with this one is that I’m not really sure where I want to take it, thus it’s on the back burner at the moment.

8. KagaKuro AoMomo double-date kind of story, where Aomine is asking some curious questions of Taiga about going to America and pondering if any of his immediate friends know what Satsuki wants to do with her life. I’m really invested in this one but haven’t started properly writing it out yet beyond just sketching out the idea so I don’t forget it. (I’d say 1% complete here.) Really looking forward to using the idea of Kagami being super impressed with AoMomo perfect sync when playing as a team in arcade games!

9.Laws of Attraction Chapter 2 - You might be surprised at this, but I’m actually super invested in this one. Likely the reason why I am delaying so much working on it - I feel like all my great scene ideas are just too chaotic and I have a hard time starting the chapter flowing properly. I had like 4-5 false starts already and I’m feeling a bit skittish with picking it up. But I have such AMAZING concepts on where to take it after it revvs up the engine, so... Maybe sometime this year! Completion rate: 0% written, but at least about 30% ideas built up for the installment!

10. AoMomo college rooming together story - sort of an expansion on my fill for one of the prompts way back those years ago in AoMomo week. I really dig the concept and the trope of sharing spaces with someone you consider nothing more than a friend and then gradually learning to appreciate each other for something so much more. I am definitely doing this one some day, but not anytime soon, likely.

11. A random idea bit me the other day (read: a month ago) and I actually wrote out like... maybe 25% of it already as well. A random comment from Wakamatsu miffs Satsuki but then she realizes why he’s asking dumb questions and she comes to realize that something is wrong with the equation: either Dai-chan likes someone really close to them and she hasn’t realized, which is unlikely, or Dai-chan likes HER and is super blase about it in a way that betrays his feelings not at all, which is even more unlikely. Being a curious  individual, she sets out to find which it is! Some hilarity should ensue but mostly just some mess-with-Dai-chan fun!

12. Touou summer training camp at the sea - progress is practically 0, I wanted to write a summery piece and set my mind on this, but nothing beyond has come to me, so I’m not forcing it.

13. AoMomo cultural festival fic in second year of high school (meaning something approx end of Oct -> beginning of Nov.) with Daiki being in a distinctly Haruhu Suzumiya role at that festival (has anyone even seen this anime? I adored that episode to freaking bits, man, it’s engraved upon my soul) and singing Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell” and one more song just like Haruhi did. And Satsuki just beholding the phenomenon he becomes in no time flat while he lays bare his passion for life for all the student body to see. Shippiness will happen in private afterwards!

14. You Can Leave Your Hat On Chapter 2 - Probably like 2-3 years ago while I was still in the damn woodwork and wrestling with real life and adulting being crap, I remembered this AU premise and I got super hyped on the idea of Club Owner Dai-chan being a flirt with innocent Satsuki who got dragged to his joined and fell in love at first sight with his shenanigans. I’ve already played around for like 7k words with the second chapter of this but I’m still not where I want to be at, so it will take a while longer to flesh it out.

15. Idol Worship - a story that I promised my mate aricana some 6 years ago the premise for which I am super hyped for but not quite engaging with it yet. The idea was that Momoi finally starts gettiing the dates she has been pesting Kuroko for for years, and Daiki feeling terrible about beholding that, whilst Kise is being pestered by Horikita Mai for a date and instead ditches her with Daiki because he knows his former Teikou classmate is a huge fan of her. Mai-chan isn’t particularly happy but somehow ends up enjoying her time with Daiki and starts considering actually pursuing him instead of Kise when she sees what an interesting soul he is, with the torch that he’s carrying for some girl in his life he doesn’t really talk about but is evident from the little things he drops off as hits. AoMomo shenanigans will start to ensue properly when Satsuki realizes that Daiki is actually having a close female friend who is not her but is Horikita Mai instead, Dai-chan’s perfect woman, practically. She doesn’t take well to the news and has to grapple with why that is! And what to do with these newfound frustrating emotions!

16. Obstruction of Justice Chapter 3 - MAYBE SOME DAY, I WILL GET TO WRITING THIS. Last summer I inteded to do just that but instead, Wild Side of Justice was born. And it became a spin off of sorts on its own. ORZ. I WILL FINISH THIS SOME DAY, I do have some plans for it and I do have the desire to pursue them. I just need to be in the right headspace for it ahsjkfhkjaf

17. A PWP story of Kagami arriving early for a practice match at Touou and somehow walking in on AoMomo getting busy with each other in very unexpected and explicit ways that Kagami did not see headed his way. Because, we need more PWP in this fandom, honestly.

18. And since we DO need more PWP, recently when checking the 30 lemons community on LJ (shut up, I’m not ancient, YOU’RE ANCIENT) I was wondering how exactly a smut plot around the “Taken by the Faceless Stranger” could work for Aomomo and I came up with this Masquerade ball that they end up both attending because of their friends and meeting each other and hitting off fantastically just chatting the night and then banging in a niche in the long castle-like premise of the ball. :’DDDD Cuz it’s me and if I don’t have something like that in the works, you know i’m likely sick.

ALL OF THESE I am planning on eventually finishing one day. ONE DAY!

For now they are in various states of completion and in various stages of being cared for and improved on with more ideas added and fleshed out.

I am not joking when I say I am very invested in this fandom. I just have difficulty getting to writing out these ideas when I spend like 60% of my free time playing my mobile games. :D 

So there you have it. I didn’t want to say anything about these because 1) I don’t want to get your hopes up. You Can Leave Your Hat On 2, for one, has been in the making for 3 years, very on-again-off-again kind of way, and I just... can’t do that to you guys. I have decided against posting any incomplete fics so I don’t torture you guys and my muse doesn’t abandom me forever for them. So when something is complete, it gets posted promptly for your viewing pleasure!

And 2) If I divulge too much of the story, I feel like my hype of it may disappear completely. Ehh, my muse is a willful creature, what can I tell you... 

So let’s hope at least SOME of these get to see the light of day soon!

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 119

Insight into the writing process for the last.... Sixtyish? chapters of this story: @baelpenrose and I have a couple days a week set aside where we hop into the shared documents for our various projects, and we will work on one chapter for me and one chapter for Bael, while the other is either on the phone or in a chat, riffing away.  It’s super interactive, usually fun, and sometimes heartwrenching.

Due to scheduling conflicts with the holidays and living on opposite coasts, we weren’t able to ‘live-beta’ this chapter, unfortunately. However, our wonderful friend @charlylimph-blog stepped in to work with me on this chapter.  Real-Charly is arguable more of a delight than fictional-Charly, so...

HUGE warning for your ribs hurting. Please consume this chapter responsibly.

(Also: Shoutout to @zommbiebro, as always, for Jokul.)

“Arrows are better for distance though!” Charly insisted as she, Tyche, and I headed to the gym for a workout.  After spending the day figuring out schedules for meeting with my new mentees and deciding what they can and cannot be privy to just yet, Tyche and I had plenty of pent up frustration and energy to get out, and Charly was always willing to come spar with us.

We had the weirdest concept of a girls’ night, in retrospect, but it worked for us.

“If I’m that far away from them, I’ll run or hide or both,” Tyche waved off the objection. “Besides, I can set snares for hunting, so really a knife is much better. Very all-purpose.”

“Hand knives are usually not balanced for throwing though,” I pointed out. “There’s a lot of compensation going on with that.”

Tyche flicked a small dagger out of, apparently, the ether and started flipping it through her fingers. “This one does both, and very well. I should know.” Smirking, she held it out, handle-first for Charly to inspect.

With a comically grudging sigh, she took it before inspecting it closely.  Balancing it across one finger, she jiggled it slightly. “The center is still half an inch toward the handle,” she grumbled before handing it back.

Tyche grinned sunnily. “I knew you’d like it!”

“I still have all ten toes, so I’m going to assume you don’t have that out for me,” a sardonic voice intoned, interrupting our conversation. We turned around to see Arthur, Jokul, and Ivan behind us. “Three way spar today?” Arthur asked, nodding at Charly.

“Weights and hand-to-hand,” I confirmed.

“Someone’s stressed.” His eyebrows lifted in slight surprise.

I nodded before eyeballing the other two men. “What about y’all? Don’t you normally spar with Conor if you want a third?”

“They want to work on grappling and wrestling techniques today,” Ivan smiled and waved. “So, first we’re going to show cutie-pie here the basics, then we’ll show Conor.” He elbowed Jokul jokingly.

Jokul looked down and shuffled his feet.  It was almost cute.  Clearing his throat, he looked up and very pointedly looked at me and Tyche, but not Charly. “Grappling is a gap in my defense,” he confessed. “Even Conor is better at it, for all that he lacks technique.”

“Oh, Ivan can definitely help you with that,” Charly confirmed, ignoring being ignored. “He taught me how. He’s an excellent teacher. No offense, Mr. Farro.”

Arthur smirked and assured her, “None taken.”

Oddly, Jokul seemed to pale as he glanced down at Ivan. “You know each other?” he asked with barely-concealed panic.

“Oh, absolutely,” Ivan agreed, to Jokul’s apparent horror. Thankfully, the taller man was standing slightly behind his partner and couldn’t see his expression. “When she found out I’m a blacksmith, she practically demanded that I make her something for kettle corn. She had all the designs drawn up and everything. It was really cool.”

Tyche and I glanced at each other as the final piece clicked. This is the man responsible for the whirlypop.

Charly nodded enthusiastically. “Yep! And then one night, we got drunk, someone dared us to wrestle, and -“

“And she won,” Ivan cut off, winking at Charly. “The less said about that the better. Someone here fights dirty!”

“Did she bite you, too?” Arthur asked, more curious than sympathetic.

Charly, Tyche, and I all three automatically shouted in unison, “THAT WAS ONE TIME!”

“Wait, she bit you?” Ivan asked Arthur, eyebrows rocketing upwards. Arthur shook his head before gesturing toward Jokul. Ivan turned, finally, to his partner. “You!? What did you do to make her bite you, mister?”  His scolding tone gave me second hand embarrassment as I watched Jokul turn practically neon red.

“There was… a misunderstanding.” Jokul stammered out. “Of sorts. It was before, when I had… issues, with Councilor Reid, and Ms. Harper pushed her out of the way, and - “

“Okay, I get it,” Ivan cut him off mercifully. “You took a swing at her friend, she took the hit, then she bit you.” Gently stroking Jokul’s hair, he made reassuring noises. “It’s okay. I swear she’s not that scary.  She only bites in emergencies.”

“Or for fun,” Charly chimed in.

“Or for fun, with consent,” Ivan added. “I’ve sparred with her loads of times and she never bit me in the process.”

All I could do was nod in agreement, while Tyche pointed at herself and did the same.

“To be fair, it was a real fight and you’re twice my size. I wanted to get your focus off Sophia and end the fight. So, overwhelming force,” Charly pointed out.  Slowly, she walked over to Jokul, eyes glued on his reaction the entire time. “But, we’re friends now, right? Ate lunch together and everything? Well, you ate Sophia’s lunch and I ate mine, but still.”

Jokul squinted at her skeptically, nodding slowly.

Arthur patted him roughly on the back. “I know, it takes getting used to.  Generally she uses her chaotic necromancy for good, though.”

“No necromancy in the house!” Tyche gasped, jokingly swatting Charly on the arm. “We talked about this.”

“But how am I supposed to find my cleaning supplies!? I don’t want to carry them all over the ship!”

“Store them next to the mustaches and the popcorn?”

“Those are kept next to the reanimated corpse of the Elder God in the basement,” Charly sighed. “I guess I’ll need new ones.”

“New mustaches?”

“New corpses.”

“Is she like this all the time?” Jokul asked, panic melting into confusion as he glanced between Arthur and Ivan. “Mustaches… a basement?”

“You get used to it, cutie,” Ivan chuckled.

Arthur nodded. “And there are far more otters and boba tea involved than biting, I’ve found.”

“Otters? Tea?” The confusion devolved into complete bewilderment.

I explained Charly’s pranking tendencies, including hacking the settings on Arthur’s datapad. “And sparkly pens,” I added, making Arthur groan.

“They were pink!” he cried, throwing his hands in the air dramatically. “Of all the colors! Pink!”

Jokul arched an eyebrow at Arthur’s antics, looking more like his normal, imperious self. “Miss Harper. Please tell me more about the boba tea and otters portion of this. I do believe we could negotiate a truce.”

“Jokul, those were pranks she played on people,” I warned him.

He waved a hand at me. “I want to see what is necessary to get polar bear cubs,” he insisted before dangling an offer that made me groan: “I will teach you to throw axes.”

Charly cackled with glee as she hooked her arm through his. “Why, Mr. Bjornson! I believe this may be the start of a beautiful friendship!  Throw in a sparring match or two and you shall have all the baby polar bears you could dream of.”

“Heeee’s doomed,” Arthur pronounced, not even bothering to be quiet about it. “He’s negotiating with a chaos entity who is quite likely from another dimension. He. Is. Toast.”

“Yep,” Ivan, Tyche, and I agreed in unison.

“And Charly is going to learn how to throw an axe,” I pointed out.

A round of collective sighs preceded another “Yep.”

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[xcziel]

get to know me

tagged by @vishcount (thank you!!) and i'll follow her format bc making two posts seems a little much - i'm not that interesting!!

(hilariously, this post shows up as blocked for me bc of the tag 'joker' which? tumblr?????)

Part I

name: i'm an internet old, so i never use my real name online, mainly because it's spelled in a very unique way (thanks mom & dad) - i mean like, if you googled it you could find my home address in a few seconds kind of unique - but also, though i do enjoy the spelling, i actually don't like it very much when it's said out loud? (is it weird that my name written down is 'me', but my name aloud has never felt like 'me'?) always wanted a nickname but never acquired one :/

at any rate, i've had the username xcziel forever and i go by that 😊 (pronounced ex-SEE-zee-el, similar to etc. or ex-SET-er-ah! thanks @xia-xueyi for pointing out that it can be confusing to guess!)

rest behind a cut because it got long!

pronouns: she/her

star sign: i don't ... really *do* astrology? but technically saggitarius

height: 5'4" (162.5cm for the intl folks)

time: 5:43pm but these thing take me forever to type out so ... ???

birthday: playing the 'internet old' card again .. but it floats around american Thanksgiving depending on the year

nationality: american

fave bands/groups/solo artists: lumping these together because i just .. don't really do music much anymore. if you had asked me this back in my 20s i'm sure i would have had all kinds of opinions and things to share, but these days i actually mostly prefer to listen music from when i was a kid. part of it is also that as an old, i prefer to buy my music, even digitally, and i don't really use spotify - which does so much to enable diverse music exploration i admit! but i mostly have earplugs in all the time and music does not work for me as background noise, so...

so i guess my answer would be 70s disco and classic rock and 80s new wave artists? i've never liked any artist's entire discography and prefer greatest hits-type compilations, but i guess duran duran and def leppard and depeche mode would be considered formative? i love new order but specifically late 80s new order, NOT joy division. the only concert t-shirt i've ever worn was the cult? i loved sonic temple but i can't listen to most of it anymore though i still adore love removal machine. i think maybe if you get old enough, for some of us there's TOO MUCH good music and we can't pare it down anymore

song stuck in your head: jamiroquai's canned heat

last movie you watched: re: the above, i re-watched center stage, the 2000 one with zoe saldana and the mandy moore soundtrack, bc it's a happy comfort movie and i just got a digital version

last show you binged: i can't really "binge" very often bc after a couple of hours i need a break, so i guess i'd say the tgcf donghua on netflix since it was short enough to get through all in one go

when you created your blog: in 2012 i stopped lurking so i could post about the avengers movie

the last thing you googled: 5'4" in cm? lol before that it was chinese wrapped street food

other blogs: everything is here! i discovered i compartmentalize about as well as i tag reliably (😓) but i do have several automated ao3feed-tag style sideblogs. and i did, very briefly, have a *winces* hockey sideblog too

why i chose my url: ooh i know i've done this before, sorry if it's repetitive, basically it was the username i picked back when my family first got aol: short, unique combo of letters - 14-year-old me really thought about it! and then it wouldn't let me use anything other than my name. thirty-some-odd years later, trying to come up with a livejournal username that wasn't already taken and getting fed up, i plugged it in and went: good enough!

how many people are you following: like 760-something last i checked? although many, many, many of them are deactivated

how many followers do you have: idk i don't like looking at that stuff, but way fewer than i am following

average hours of sleep: it varies too much day by day, my sleep schedule is too wonky, i have no idea what the average would be

lucky numbers: 7? cliché i know, and again not really buying into it, but somewhere in my hindbrain i like it that my first, middle, and last names all have seven letters

instruments: none. i like singing

what i'm currently wearing: giant black t-shirt and baggy black drawstring shorts, standard sitting around the house gear

dream job: don't have one. if i did it would give me something to be working towards *sigh* this is how you end up in retail for decades, kids! but also, to quote a random post i saw in true tumblr fashion "i simply do not dream of labor"

dream trip: covered this one before but: back to the uk and some railway daytrips, or a really fancy northern cruise, atlantic/pacific either one

fave food: uhhh, don't really have a favorite but i'm almost always in the mood for pizza

top three fictional universe you'd like to live in: none really, if i had to still be me..maybe some kind of actually utopian future? but the pandemic has confirmed for me that i do NOT like living in interesting times, so most fictional story universes are RIGHT out. my favorites to read about like discworld or diana wynne jones' worlds would be way to chaotic for my comfort. possibly diane duane's young wizards universe would be safe enough to be okay?

Part II

last song: watching center stage made me think of my dance playlist so sunrise by simply red

last movielast stream: i don't watch streams or youtube often, so it was the same as you, vish! liu chang's birthday stream was SO enjoyable i screenrecorded the entire thing just so i could play it back (and maybe gif sometime if i ever get the drive to actually do it)

currently reading: well i just finished the translated quan qiu gao kao or global university entrance exam novel, which was sparked purely from catching a single rec post here on tumblr and basically just *falling* into this 166 chapter epic that is *amazing* and not coming up for air until i got to the end, which is typical novel-reading behavior for me (yes i was the kid who read through lunch period and got hassled by people who kept pestering me with "what're you reading" questions and yes i realize probably a lot of you on tumblr were too) plus, the new murderbot novel is out tomorrow!!!!! so that'll be where i end up next!

currently watching: the entire dmbj verse (that i can get my hands on) but ... sporadically and stopping at random different parts because the thing is ... this type of show is not really the kind i enjoy so much? so since it's more for "research" and learning character arcs (and let's be honest: shots of liu sang), etc. it's easy to get distracted by other stuff. i'm also watching the sleuth of the ming dynasty, mr queen, bromance, the expanse, re-watching farscape and stargate sg-1, just finished the falcon and the winter soldier, and then anytime something new and short gets introduced it jumps the queue. there are just. so. many. things. to. watch! (now i have to look into anti-fraud league too!? you all are cruel ...)

what is antipoetry to you: i ... don't really think much about poetry? i know what i prefer is usually the more basic rhymed kind like lewis carroll, emily dickinson, poe, coleridge, etc. so i suppose i don't have much use for classifying non-rhyming verse? i can appreciate stuff like rupi kaur which i guess would qualify? or that william carlos williams plums poem? but it doesn't really stick with me the way lyric-like verse does

currently craving: i never know what exactly this is meant to be in reference to ... hmmm, i would love a new high-concept, high production-quality movie like say, pacific rim, to be released, just for that massive, excited energy that comes with something new that hasn't already got tons of disappointing or conflicting history behind it - that would be so fun!!

other than that, right now, i mostly kinda want some fried fish? but that will have to wait until i go to get my second vaccine shot on wednesday since it's on the way there. i'd also like my internal body parts to settle down and fly right but it's been more than a month and they don't seem inclined :(((( maybe once i'm fully vaxxed i'll think about consulting somebody about it

tagging @foxofninetales @xia-xueyi @momosandlemonsoda @memorydragon @thewindsofsong @elvencantation @mylastbraincql @hesayshesgotboyfriend @aurawolfgirl2000 @smaragdine-galaxy and anyone who wants to! but never feel obligated and if you don't get around to it for like half a year that's totally fine, i am still interested!!!