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olivyh · 3 years ago

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Twst Species headcannons

Beastmen:

-Palms and bottoms of their feet are rougher and more padded, as well as a slightly darker shade than their normal skin tone

-Legs are built similar to the hind legs of animals (with the sharp angles and little bumps)

-Start “walking” as children on all fours because it’s more comfortable due to the way their legs are built

-Many have scars under their bottom lip due to accidentally biting it bc their fangs were longer after losing their baby teeth

-Similarly, they also have small scars across various parts of their bodies due to their claws

-They can see in the dark to an extent

-Their eyes also do the glowy thing in the dark, as well as on camera

-Beastmen have very thick and coarse hair, which makes it notoriously harder to cut

-Many lion beastmen especially do not cut their hair often, as their hair symbolizes strength within their communities

-Cutting ones hair is a sign of trust in beastmen communities, considering how guarded they are with who touches their head (Patting a beastman’s head is a quick and easy way for them to get their guard down, and it takes them off high alert) as well as their ears being within constant danger near scissors.

-Beastmen do shed, a lot, like, a lot a lot

-They have been known to growl and purr like their animal counterparts, as well as hunch their backs and snarl when threatened

-Baby beastmen will bite you, as a sign of affection. They also wrestle with their caretakers from a young age to show affection as well. Grown beastmen will let the younger beastman win, regardless of species

-They also play wrestle with mates and potential mates to show their interest and affection. Not too hard, but enough to jostle the mate around. They will be absolutely smitten if the mate does it back.

-Beastmen grow up using the same sounds their animal counterparts do, as its similar to being taught a first language that the rest of your family speaks. Most aren’t taught English (Or commonspeak since England is nonexistent in Twisted Wonderland) until later in life

-Beastmen can understand similar dialects and tones of other species, and can further understand and speak a little bit of other beastmen languages

-They cannot eat certain foods that their mother species can’t. Canine beastmen cannot eat chocolate, onions, etc, feline beastmen cannot eat onions, garlic, grapes, etc etc without having issues afterwards. (This makes them a target for pranksters on NRC’s campus. Ex: The incident of Heartslabyul’s Ace Trappola switching out all the tea for coffee during the unbirthday party and Chenya unfortunately missing the cues and drinking the whole cup)

-They are very territorial to anyone besides the clan they reside with. The only people they aren’t territorial with are young children, although they are on high alert if the child’s guardian is nearby

-Beastmen will adopt a child if they see it doesn’t have a clan to stay with, regardless of species. It’s not unheard of to see a beastchild of another species or a young human in beastman clans

-I saw a hc that said that Rook is mixed beastman/human so I’m gonna roll with that for the next one: Beastmen and human mixed babies can have the same attributes as beastmen but on a tamer scale. Their vision, hearing, sense of touch and smell could be higher than a human’s but not as high as a beastmans. The ears and tail are the more dominant gene but it’s not uncommon to see a mixed beastmen/human child with more human features

-Beastmen grow larger than most humans, with the average beastmen (under the right conditions) ranging around six ft at full height. Female hyena beastmen grow taller than their male counterparts

Mer:

-They’re hypersensitive to sunlight at first and have to wear sunglasses or something shading their eyes their first few weeks on land

-They also get dehydrated very easily even in human form, so they have to carry around water bottles

-Their skin dries out quickly, so their hands and feet especially will be very dry and potentially cracking unless they moisturize often

-They have a lot of back and leg pain because they’re not used to gravity pulling them down

-Can also see in the dark very well due to living at the bottom of the ocean

-Their hair is also very thin and silky, but separated into thick chunks, almost looking like scales from a distance. Furthermore most Mer don’t like having longer hair due to the amount of effort it takes to maintain it, with currents twisting it up and the high chances of it getting stuck between rocks and coral

-Most mer have the habit of picking up whatever’s nearby and eating it raw, due to the fact that their bodies can process it. It’s not uncommon to see a mer picking a crab off the side of their house and plopping it into their mouth.

-They have no problem with eating the fish they are associated with, and they do not consider it cannibalism since they aren’t exactly the same species. (Meaning the Tweels can eat eel and Azul can eat octopus without any problems)

-Baby mer can swim around at a very young age (from just a few days old), and mature faster than most other species in the first few weeks of their lives

-Azul has horizontal, rectangular pupils

-Aside from cecaelia, most mer do have slanted pupils that change shape depending on the danger in the area.

-Mer communicate under the water using clicks and chitters similar to echolocation, and could choose to not learn commonspeak as they don’t interact with humans as much as beastmen

-They are born with teeth and can eat smaller fish from birth (or hatching, depending on the species)

-They’re not mammals, so they don’t have nips I think

-They don’t choose to wear clothing or accessories unless it’s for a formal event or a family heirloom

-Back to the birth thing I think mer eggs are very easy to lose due to the harsh climate of the ocean. Many mer settle for only having a child or two due to how hard it is to raise a child there. Jade and Floyd also hatched from the same egg, meaning they were on the smaller side as babies

-Mer babies also bite to show affection, and will wrap their tail around their guardians when they feel scared or nervous

-Cecaelia babies are well known for sticking to their guardians for the first few weeks of their lives, and are very difficult to pry off due to the strength of their tentacles (And when they do theres little marks left across their backs, stomachs, shoulders, etc from the suction cups) (I’m sorry i cant stop picturing tired momma ashengrotto walking around w little marls on her and baby azul still stuck to her like 👁👁)

-I know this is a little far fetched and is nowhere near mentioned in the game or comic but I have a feeling the tweels have a hard time seeing out of their gray eye? Like coming from the same egg they maybe took some features from the other or they had a difficult development while in there (or maybe I just know nothing abt twins)

-Incredibly territorial, especially towards members of different species.

-Most mer have skin pigmented similar to their tail color as well as thick layers of scales (if their species permits) around their throats, their sides, their arms, and around their ear fins (It throws me off how Azul and the Tweels are the only ones with different skin tones- like you’re telling me you have two teal mer and a black and white mer but the guards at the museum had just blue tails and absolutely no other signs of being a mer??? Give us green Rielle pls and thx)

-Mer grow much larger than humans and beastmen, and don’t stop growing until their twenties.

-They also have markings on their torso, tail, and face that’s similar to others in their families. Normally you can tell which mer is from which family depending on the markings said mer has

-Similar to beastmen tails and ears, mer can be read by their fins. In extreme emotion, mer’s fins will flare out or flatten against their body when they feel threatened.

-They don’t know how to drink things when they get to the surface. I think they’d struggle with the idea since you can’t drink underwater or else the liquid will go everywhere (but then how’d Azul make those potions???)

Fae:

-Also hypersensitive to sunlight, which results in many fae being nocturnal.

-Older fae have been known to go days without any sleep with little to no repercussions. Younger fae have more difficulty with this.

-They have a stronger immunity to magic, and often potions crafted by them are well known to be more potent due to this fact

-Fae speak many languages, with many smaller species talking in little chirps and bell like noises, with bigger species talking in low growls and hissing noises. Fae on opposite sides of this cannot understand each other, but each species of small fae can understand other small fae, and larger ones can understand other large ones, even if there’s a difference in language.

-All of them can practice transformation magic without the use of a spell or potion, regardless of genetic makeup. It’s not uncommon to see large dragons or other reptiles walking the streets of the Valley pf Thorns, nor is it too uncommon to see small “floods” or floating fire balls in more secluded areas of the woods

-Fae grow the largest out of all the groups, but have control over their size due to their transformation magic. They don’t stop growing until they appear the same age as thirty (but is actually a much longer time considering their lifespans)

-Because of this fae take much longer to mature from birth/hatching (I like to think 1 normal year= 80~ years) (So An 80 y/o fae would only be equal to a one year old in any other species)

-Very reserved in their relationships with other fae and especially species. I think the cultural differences between other fae is enough to create a large gap between them, and most fae understand the difference in life span between them and other species, so they actively go out of their way to avoid forming relationships with them. (I feel like this is a part of why Sebek is so abrasive towards humans. I mean, his life span has to be different even if he’s only half, so he might be using his anger to deflect his own feelings about eventually having to lose his human father and Silver, as much as they bicker. Poor guys just in denial and trying to protect himself :(()

Human:

-Humans who grew up around magic users have more resilience to magic and potions (meaning Mc/Yuuken, who grew up in a world without magic at all, is more susceptible and will be effected longer by the side affects of potions and spells, or the spells will pack more of a punch and be potentially more dangerous)(Meaning they could take a sleeping potion meant to give the user a full nights rest and be out for a week straight)

-The chances of a human’s unique magic leaning in one direction depends on the area they live in and what resources they have available (I can’t think of anyone else’s unique magic who does this but Kalim’s oasis maker is a big example. He mentioned they had difficulty getting water on the Land of the Hot Sands so maybe that could have been a factor that altered the makeup of his magic. Like a demand and supply type deal?)

-Magical human’s pupils also change shape when they’re using their magic. I like to think that whenever it’s being used their pupils are blown wide to the point where you can hardly see their actual eye color

-Either that or their eyes glow

-Magic using humans are typically stronger, but have lower endurance than non magic users. This is due to the strain that’s put on their bodies even when magic isn’t in use. There are potions they can use to lessen these effects, and many choose to naturally boost their endurance through various activities, but they have to work harder than non magic using humans

#twisted wonderland headcannons #twisted wonderland #twst #beastman #merman #fae

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unsettlingconclusions · 3 years ago

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Conversation over pizza

Pairing: Ayna Seth x F!MC (Kennedy) Genre: Fluff Rating: T Word Count: 3k+ Notes: I got inspired by @samanthadalton and @iamsimpforpoppy talking about pizza and food one day. I know this might not be a pairing of your particular interest, but I tagged you to show my appreciation for the inspiration (if you’d like me to remove it, please just let me know!). Story is not reviewed because if I stop to review I’d never post anything. Enjoy.

“So, I decided what we can do as your introduction to fine cuisine. Pizza!”

The sound of Ayna’s excitement came all the way from the kitchen to find Kennedy comfortably nestled against the cushions in Ayna’s couch. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon and for once Ayna wasn’t swamped in deadlines or planning for classes, so they had been spending the past few hours curled up cuddling and watching cheesy romcoms. It was the perfect setting for peace and relaxation, and Kennedy would have voted to glue herself to the couch and to her girlfriend had it not been for the sound of grumbling stomachs. They were only human, afterall, and humans do need to eat.

“Pizza? Ayna, thank you for believing in me, but there’s no way I can get making pizza from scratch right.” Kennedy moved to the kitchen counter, voice a little less enthusiastic than her girlfriend’s.

But Ayna wasn’t to be deterred. “This one you can,” she replied, showcasing a package of frosted premade pizza dough. “Making it from scratch can be a challenge, I’ll admit. That’s why we’re gonna skip the make your own dough step.”

“But then it won’t be ‘fine cuisine’. It will just be like making a sandwich.”

“Ok, one, don’t talk like you even make sandwiches. And two, try to have some faith in me. Let’s make our own fresh tomato sauce. It makes a world of difference.”

It was a few weeks back when Ayna promised to teach Kennedy how to cook, starting with something easy, of course. This deal was brought by after a nice surprise romantic dinner Ayna had prepared for them in celebration of going public and finally being free to properly date.

“I thought you didn’t cook.”

“Usually I don’t, but I can make an exception if I feel the circumstances are special enough.”

“No, I mean, you said sometimes coffee is all you have.”

Ayna chuckles lightheartedly. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I can’t cook, it means I unfortunately don’t have much time for it.”

“So, does that mean I’m special?” Kennedy can't help the fluttering of her heart and the wide grin from reaching her face at the thought of Ayna dedicating so much to their date.

“You’re the most special of circumstances," resting her hands on Kennedy's shoulders, Ayna gently coaxes the younger woman towards the dinner table. "Now come, before the food gets cold. I hope you enjoy it.”

Kennedy was surprised by how rich and flavorful it all tasted, and as the thick and sweet aroma filling the air lured her into a deep sense of comfort, she was amazed to keep discovering all these layers to her girlfriend.

She learned that cooking was soothing for Ayna, as it reminded the woman of her daadi, who used to say there could be no warmth of heart with an empty stomach. Kennedy was wooed through and through that night, and if cooking was an activity Ayna enjoyed, she wanted to be able to enjoy it with her. But the truth was she couldn't cook if her life dependend on it, so by the end of the night she made Ayna agree to teach her something someday.

"Why pizza? I thought we were going for something Indian."

"You're the one who said you wanted to start easy. Let's hold on the spices for now."

"Fine, I'll trust you. Teach me like I'm one of your French girls." Kennedy grinned, doing as close to a Kate Winslet impersonation as she managed.

"Preferably not naked, though," Ayna teased as she approached Kennedy with an apron, motioning for Kennedy to pass her head through it. "Tomato sauce sometimes gets a little explosive and I don't want you to get burned", she continued as she circled around Kennedy to fasten the straps behind her back.

As expected, Ayna was no less of a teacher in the kitchen than she was in the classroom. She calmly explained everything they were doing and why, from why they needed to boil water to peel off and seed the tomatoes, to how to properly cut them and remove their stem and core to make the process easier.

“We’ll just cook them for little while so the skin comes off easier.”

Once the tomatoes had been set in the boiling water, they moved onto all the other steps. "No respectable sauce lacks onion," Ayna explained, "but chopping them can be tricky. If you get too uncomfortable, tell me and I can do it by myself."

"No way, I'm having the full experience." Kennedy replied, although her eyes did make her almost regret her choice.

When the tomatoes cooked to the right point and they shocked them in iced water, Kennedy was almost amazed by how easily the skin came off.

“Nice trick,” she remarked, as she quickly took care of her task.

“Yeah it is. And it works with potatoes too.”

“You mean I don’t have to spend an hour peeling potatoes?”

“You mean you have peeled potatoes before?” Ayna raised her eyebrows in genuine curiosity.

“Mom tried taking cooking classes once and got me into it too. It didn’t go very well,” Kennedy grinned sheepishly.

“And how is it going now?”

“A lot better. It turns out I just had the wrong teacher,” this time Kennedy offered Ayna a wink and a huge smile, being then rewarded with a peck on the lips.

“Here, let’s sievel the seeds and dice them.”

When it came to dicing the tomatoes, Kennedy felt like she finally could use a more hands-on approach to compensate the fact she was losing some precious cuddling time, so she made sure Ayna would notice she was doing it the wrong way.

“You’re cutting them too big.”

"Oh no, silly me. Can you come over here and show me how to do it? I might do it better if you guide my hand,” Kennedy stated, feigning as much innocence as she could.

"You’re just baiting me."

"Is it working?"

"Yes."

Ayna came closer from behind and wrapped her arms around Kennedy, resting her hands atop the younger woman’s, guiding her movements gently. Kennedy took advantage of the moment as she could, leaning back and sinking further into Ayna’s embrace. She would definitely sign up for more cooking sessions if it involved this kind of teaching.

After many demonstrations more than it was actually necessary, Ayna rested her hands on Kennedy’s waist and moved her head to the side so her lips could softly brush against Kennedy’s ear, “Do you think you can get it right now?” She whispered.

“Y-yeah, I think,” Kennedy stuttered, tilting her head to the side to expose more of her neck.

Ayna nuzzled her nose into Kennedy’s neck for a few seconds before saying “Good, let’s finish this.”

“Buzzkill.”

“Try hungry.”

With the ingredients now all set to go, they moved the chopped onions to a pot and let them fry for a little while. As Kennedy stirs the pot to keep the onions from burning, the sound of them sizzling mixed with its heavenly smell set such a mood of domesticity, Kennedy felt a weird sense of nostalgia for something she never really had.

“Hey, thank you for teaching me. This feels nice.”

“Of course,” Ayna smiled broadly, brushing a loose lock of Kennedy’s hair behind her ear fondly, because the truth was there was little Kennedy could ask of her that she wouldn’t give. “Here comes the tomatoes.”

A few minutes of simmering later and the sauce was ready and good to go, its bright red color contrasting with the paleness of the dough.

With Ayna’s guidance, Kennedy assembled the pizza with their homemade sauce, lots of cheese (the true secret was to use good cheese, Ayna had said) and fresh basil leaves for extra flavor, and they set it to the oven. All they had to do now was wait.

“Have you thought about what you’re gonna do now?” Ayna asked as she setted up the oven timer.

“Hmm, wait for it to bake so we can eat?”

“I mean about Vancross. You came to help your mom with the Summit, didn’t you? To make allies?” She clarified, moving to help Kennedy out of her apron and taking her own off as well.

“Not just that. I came to study really.”

Once both were free of their aprons, Ayna started going about the kitchen, storing back everything they haven’t used. “Didn’t you tell me once you weren’t sure if going into politics was really what you wanted?”

“You remember that?” Kennedy asked surprised, the memory kind of distant. It was the first time they talked outside of the classroom.

“I remember everything about you.”

“Sappy.” It really was and Kennedy wouldn’t not remark on it, but on the inside she was very much melting. Ayna only smiled in return and raised her eyebrows, challenging Kennedy to not deviate from the subject. "But you're right. I came mostly because she wanted me to."

"Well, you seemed to thrive here, so I’m just curious as to how you feel about continuing your studies."

"I haven’t thought about it yet." Kennedy replied honestly, now sitting on a high stool by the kitchen counter, eyes fixed on Ayna, watching her move around.

"I think it suits you."

"You see me as a politician?"

"Not just in the sense you’re thinking. There’s a lot to this world that doesn’t involve you actually being a candidate and running for office." With a bottle of wine in each hand, Ayna showed both to Kennedy at the same time. "Red or white?"

"Hmm, white." To Kennedy's answer, Ayna just nodded and went for a corckscrew to open it.

"You know, I’ve been listening for so long how I should follow in my mom's footsteps that I guess I never really contemplated anything else."

"You do have a knack for making people feel at ease, and I’ve seen you do great at solving issues and leaving everyone involved satisfied. And you did great at avoiding conflict too." Ayna said as she approached with two glasses of wine, offering one to Kennedy. "Watching your debate was nice, it felt like you were in your element."

Kennedy took the offered glass and spent a few seconds twirling the wine around it before sipping. "Yeah, I thought I’d be going through a minefield with that assignment, but working with Blaine was surprisingly easy and not that conflituous,” she said, reaching for and pulling Ayna closer to her, scooting backwards and giving Ayna more space to settle in the space between her legs.

“Hmpf, I’d rather not think of how exactly you avoided conflict with him.” Ayna retorted, gulping down a very big sip of her own glass of wine.

"What? You don’t like picturing me charming Blaine off?"

"Uh, no?" Ayna moved away swiftly, her demeanor challenging, as if saying “did you really just ask me that?”

“You’re cute when you’re jealous.”

“Is that why you love pushing my buttons?” Ayna asked narrowing her eyes.

“I mean, it can get pretty intense sometimes. Jealous you is hot,” Kennedy replied teasingly.

“So you really do just do it to get a rise out of me.” Annoyed, Ayna took a step back and started to fully distance herself from Kennedy’s reach.

“Hey, I’m sorry, ok?” Kennedy hurried to apologize, realizing she missed the mark on this one. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” she added, drawing Ayna back to her. To her relief, Ayna offered no resistance, and Kennedy took advantage of it wrapping her into her arms, guiding Ayna’s head to rest on her shoulder. “It was dumb of me, I’m sorry.”

“No, I am sorry. I’m not usually jealous like this, I just— oof,” Ayna shaked her head, sighing dramatically before settling back into the comfort of her girlfriend’s arms, “I’m not used to this feeling.”

“If it makes you feel better, I promise when we were working on that debate, we were really just working on the debate.”

“Really?” Ayna lifted her head up to look at Kennedy, her own eyes holding such a look of childlike hope Kennedy just found it damn adorable.

“Yes, I swear. By then, I was already completely charmed off by a certain TA. Getting you out of my head was no easy task.”

Ayna flashed a bright smile, cheeks flushing slightly as she lowered her gaze, feeling shy all of a sudden.

“See? You can’t smile like that and expect me to not think about that all day.” Kennedy exclaimed, gently lifting Ayna’s head back again and leaning in for a kiss.

It was supposed to be a quick reaffirming kiss only, but Kennedy decided she had spent far too long of today already not kissing her girlfriend, so she jumped off the stool to be able do it properly. She placed one hand on Ayna’s lower back and the other at the back of her head, entangling her fingers into Ayna’s locks and bringing their bodies as close as possible.

“We’re digressing,” Ayna grinned through the kiss.

“I like this subject better.” Kennedy replied quickly, just as quickly diving in for another kiss, only to be met with a smirking and uncooperative Ayna. “Nice try, but I’m not about to let our pizza burn. And I know where this will lead us."

“Would that be so bad?”

“It would if we end up setting the apartment on fire.”

Kennedy was ready to retort, or whine, to be more specific, when the oven timer set off. “Saved by the bell.”

To follow on the theme of having the full experience, Kennedy was the one to take the pizza out, with Ayna hovering around her fearful she would burn herself.

“Relax, I got this. Go sit by the table and let me pamper you for a little bit.”

Ayna complied, albeit reluctantly, and Kennedy did the best she could cutting and serving the pizza (it shouldn’t be that difficult, right?). The looks and smell of it were incredibly promising of a good meal. The bright yellow mixed with the few golden spots of over baked cheese coupled with the contrast given by the green leaves against the red sauce certainly provided a sight for hungry eyes, and the heavenly smell of any fresh off the oven pizza certainly didn’t hurt either.

“Whoa, this turned out to be really good,” Kennedy exclaimed in between bites, munching excitedly and occasionaly closing her eyes to further appreciate it, letting out satisfied little grunts. She would never have guessed pre made frozen dough could actually turn into a perfect crunchy crust.

With a hint of amusement at Kennedy's eagerness over pizza, Ayna teased, “You sound surprised."

“Well, yeah, it had me involved."

“Hey, don’t ditch your sous chef.” Ayna said, feigning indignation. Kennedy bends over in Ayna's direction, placing a quick chaste kiss on her cheek. "You're a really great cook. Thank you for this."

The rest of the dinner went by much in the same manner. Kennedy was reveling in the fact her audience wouldn't berate her for not being the image of the prim and proper lady, and at some point she may even have indulged in foregoing the silverware and going straight for the kill with her hands. Truth be told, Ayna was delighted by the sight, and vowed to always make sure Kennedy could be whoever she wanted to be with her.

Once they were belly filled and satisfied, they moved back to the living room, glasses of wine in hand, a recently new opened bottle resting on the coffee table. The reality of it was that none wished for their night to end just yet, and they talked about as many meaningless and trivial subjects as they could think of, conversation flowing freely. But by the time their second bottle was nearly done with, Kennedy noticed Ayna was getting more and more quiet, almost as if lost in thought.

"Penny for your thoughts?" She inquired softly, nudging Ayna lightly, trying to prompt the woman to share what had her suddenly silent.

"I was just thinking about what we were talking earlier."

"We talked about many things," Kennedy replied, leaving both their glasses on the coffee table and moving back to the couch. She sprawled herself on the lenght of it, resting her head on Ayna's lap. "What has gotten you so pensive?"

"You", Ayna stated matter of factly, adjusting herself so Kennedy could fit in better. She brought both her hands to Kennedy's hair, caressing it tenderly, before continuing. “And your mom. You don’t have to antagonize her to follow your own path but you don’t need to follow in her footsteps either."

Kennedy remained silent. She didn't know exactly what to answer to that, for one, and she was sure Ayna would have more to say. She limited herself to closing her eyes, enjoying the soothing feeling of Ayna's hands on her hair.

Taking Kennedy's silence as encouragement (or at least not discouragement), Ayna added, "Sure, you’ll always face some level of scrutiny and expectations, even when she steps down from office, but you can still make choices of your own. I’m sure your mom would be supportive and proud of you.”

“You sure about that? I doubt it sometimes.”

“She may come off as distant and nonchalant, but I think it’s just because she’s really busy. She really cares about you.”

“Yeah, I know this whole mess brought us closer, but sometimes I wonder why we drifted apart in the first place. I miss her.”

"You don’t have to miss her, she’s right there. And you don’t have to hinder your future because you decided to stick yourself with the rebel role. There’s nothing wrong with changing your mind."

“I love you so much, you know that?" Kennedy inquired, a glint of admiration in her eyes as she sits herself back up to place a kiss on Ayna's lips. She then moved to take one of Ayna's hand on hers, squeezing tightly. "You say the greatest things. And you’re right. I thought at some point about leaving just so I could go against her, but truth is I kind of enjoyed this year here”.

As Kennedy was about to drop Ayna's hand, the older woman just incresead her own hold, not letting Kennedy go. “Whatever you choose, I’m sure you’re gonna do great. You’re hard working and focused, you could make anything work. And I’ll be rooting for you every step of the way.”

“Even if it means I leave Vancross?” Kennedy tilted her head to the side, an expression of incredulity and maybe disbelief on her face.

“Why not? I want you to be happy. If you realize that’s what you want, go for it. I like believing we're strong enough to survive us not being so close together all the time.”

“I like believing that too.”

“In any case, I don't think I wish Vancross to be my endgame anymore.”

“No? But you love teaching?”

“I do. But Vancross is not the only educational institution in the world. I could finish my thesis here and leave, or I could leave and finish it somewhere else. Assuming I can have a nice recommendation from here that is.”

Kennedy's expression softened considerably after that, now holding as many emotions as the number of beats per minute her racing heart is doing. It was hope, delight, caring, love. "What are you really saying?"

"I'm saying I'll go wherever you will if you'll have me."

Goddamn. With that sentence Ayna managed to increase Kennedy’s heart rate by tenfold and the younger woman loved it. She realized she hasn’t been this excited and hopeful for the future in the longest while, and she was eager to show Ayna just how much. Smiling widely she wasted no time in straddling the TA’s lap, moving her hips against Ayna’s, just to make sure her point would come across perfectly. When she felt Ayna bringing her hands against her back, letting out a low, quiet moan, Kennedy leaned in.

"Can we go back to digressing now? There’s no more pizza left to burn."

#foreign affairs #ayna seth #ayna x mc #ayna seth x mc #mc x ayna

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keelywolfe · 4 years ago

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FIC: Just Swimmingly ch.2 (BAON)

Summary: Jeff has a lot to think about and what better place to do it than at the bar with his best buddy, Stretch?

Tags: Spicyhoney, Established Relationships, Hurt/Comfort, Additional Tags To Come

Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

~~*~~

Read it on AO3

Read it here!

~~*~~

The night wasn’t as young as it used to be, but to be fair, neither was Jeff. After a few hours of sitting on a bar stool, his tailbone would be more than willing to testify on that.

He leaned back against the bar in an effort to take some of his weight off of it, grimacing as he watched the dance floor. Colored lights flashed to the thrumming bass beat over the gyrating dancers and out in the thrashing sea of sweaty human bodies there was a head that was above almost all of them. Stretch towered over most humans and never was it more obvious than right then. The lights reflected off his smooth skull, a living disco ball, and around him other humans were laughing and cheering as they danced.

Edge would be having a conniption right about now and Jeff was a little bemused to find his anxiety having an internal dance competition of its own. Currently it was at ‘chachacha’ levels, watching all those Humans grinding up on Stretch. He didn’t want to think anyone here would hurt Stretch, intentionally or otherwise, but the threat of low HP always loomed. His trust in humanity took a pretty big dip a few months ago outside a Chinese restaurant and he had the scars to prove it.

Jeff took another sip of his drink. His straw crackled against the bottom of the glass as he finished it off, leaving only lonely ice cubes behind and he set it back on the bar as he settled back in for a little spare contemplation.

If he were honest, wasn’t a huge fan of the club scene even before he started dating Antwan. Not that he didn’t like going out but his problems with it were twofold. One, bars sucked to go to alone and back then he didn’t have a lot of real estate in the friend territory and two, it cost money. His disposable cash in those days was a lot like a pink unicorn: nonexistent.

Being friends with Stretch took care of both of those problems but a third loomed up to take their place like an unwanted acquaintance. Put bluntly, Jeff could not dance and until Kevin Bacon showed up to give him a few lessons, he probably wasn’t gonna learn how.

Not that he really minded that much. Guarding their drinks and listening to the music wasn’t a bad way to spend the night.

Besides, Stretch didn’t seem to care if he wasn’t up to evacuating the dance floor. He mostly let Jeff sit at the bar where he tried to look like someone with deep and mysterious thoughts to process instead of the person he actually was, far more likely to accidently spill his drink into his lap than anything else. On either side of him were other people doing the same, a row of wallflowers watching the dance floor with wistful envy.

Mostly Stretch left him to it but sometimes he’d bounce his way back and haul Jeff out for a song, any song, fast, slow, techno-bop, dubstep, didn’t matter to Stretch, he was an equal opportunist when it came to friendly torment and if Jeff felt a lot like Frankenstein’s monster tromping around next to Stretch’s lithe booty shake, eh, that was okay. Sacrificing a little dignity for a friend’s fun times was part of the package.

As far as he knew, Stretch didn’t go out to the clubs often either, but if there was one thing Jeff had learned when it came to Stretch, it was there were no half-measures. If he was in, he was all in, and that included drinking, dancing, and on the weekends, the occasional explosion caused by a thermal reaction. Truly a wide variety of hobbies came into play when hanging out with Stretch and going out to the bars pretty much guaranteed something interesting would happen.

Like the time they met those guys who’d come into town for the last beat poetry night. One of them mentioned liking Stretch’s Intergalactic Beastie Boys t-shirt so Stretch convinced them all to swap shirts and then swapped them around again, until they were all three shirts removed from the one they’d arrived in. Pants were a harder sell and if Stretch were ever hard up for money, he might take up selling ice to penguins because in no time they were all out on the sidewalk, firmly dismissed from Grillby’s over their rampant laughter drowning out the poet’s rambling about the burden of solitude. The Waffle House they ended up at had a less stringent dress code and all of them crammed into a booth to eat greasy breakfast food at two am in their boxer shorts. At least those were all their own and his plain cotton boxer briefs were no match against Stretch’s ‘wanna tickle my pickle’ pair.

He was pretty sure all those guys still followed Stretch on twitter.

He wondered what Edge had thought of Stretch wandering home in an entirely new wardrobe, minus pants. There was no way he didn’t notice, Edge was very intent on fashion, even Stretch’s version of it. Knowing him, he probably made Stretch strip right in the living room and soaked both him and his clothes in Lysol before burning his boxer shorts. The old-new t-shirt Jeff ended up with was hanging in closet even though it was two sizes too big for him. Antwan stole it sometimes for lounging around the house purposes and seeing him in it was always a cheap thrill.

Huh, now that he was thinking about it, he’d gone to the bar more this past year than in his whole life before. Not just with Stretch either, Blue and Papyrus had brought him along for karaoke a few times and that was an experience right there. Their singing was like a vocal interpretation of his dancing and just as painful for witnesses.

He’d even had a drink a couple of times with Red. Well, he’d been a tag along with Antwan but still. Red was still vaguely terrifying, but Jeff had gotten the occasional glimpse under his onion layers. He knew a little of what Edge and Red went through before they came here. His knowledge pretty much barely skimmed the surface, they’d both been soldiers and they might’ve gotten out alive, but not entirely unscathed. Knowing Red’s HP was similar to Stretch’s and he’d still survived? Perspective was a hell of a thing and it paid to look at Red from a slant.

Speaking of perspective, he was definitely liking the music. They were a local band and this place was close to the college, a good spot to hopefully get noticed and work their way up. The bar itself had probably been here for fifty years, the bartop pitted with scratches and scars from college students of yore, the stools definitely up for reupholstering.

It was really no surprise to find out that Stretch knew the current owner. He knew loads of people, wriggled his way into their lives a lot like he’d wriggled into Jeff’s. Only difference was, he didn’t usually let the other person wriggle back and yeah, okay, that metaphor was going in weird places, but the meaning stood. Stretch was good with shortcuts and he knew a lot of people, but he wasn’t necessarily friends with a lot. Jeff was pretty happy to be on the short list.

Knowing people came in handy, too, and bringing Stretch along always came with added perks. Catty only asked him to listen to the bands on the list to get a feel for their sound, but he’d be able to bring her a better report than that since they were going to go meet the band after their set was done. It would give him a chance feel them out, see if they were even interested in participating in the Midnight Monster Jamboree, as Catty had slyly dubbed it. After everything went down in California, they needed some serious good will.

The Monster community had been found not at fault for what happened right away, but Antwan told him court cases would be dragging on for a while yet. When Humans died, other Humans wanted someone to pay, and Monsters were easy scapegoats for unreasonable anger. His team was working their butts off on it, Antwan coming home at night so very tired, mostly falling into Jeff’s arms to sleep and yet still so grimly determined. Jeff couldn’t do much about all that, but he could try his damnedest to get their big public relations event off the ground.

The idea was to have a huge event for Humans and Monsters together and for it to be held in New New Home. Asgore thought that some of the problems with Humans might be a result of them thinking Monsters had something to hide, so what better way to show them who Monsters really were than a chance to see into their supposedly secret lives.

Jeff was on the lowest rung for planning and even from his view, it looked like a nightmare. Security details made up of both Human and Monsters, background checks, food, entertainment. Access was going to be extremely limited and the guest list was daunting; there were going to be some big names in politics and entertainment. That circled back to his job, getting some local bands together for the opening shows. Partly good public relations, but also an earnest desire to help out a few struggling locals with the kind of exposure most groups could only dream about. That was so like Monsters, trying to help others in the midst of helping themselves, but it sure was a lot of damn pegs getting shoved into so many slots.

He didn’t even want to know what Edge’s current schedule looked like.

There was a soft thud behind him and Jeff turned to see the bartender was bringing him another drink. The guy was probably somewhere around his age, unless you were gauging it by his world-weary expression, which probably put him at about right around three hundred.

He must’ve known Stretch, too. When they saw each other, he youthened to a spry two hundred and seventy after a complicated series of fist bumps. As an added bonus, he’d been keeping their drinks topped up and as someone who usually couldn’t even get a bartender to see him much less pour him a drink, Jeff sure did appreciate the VIP service.

He started reaching for his drink, but a sudden tap on his shoulder startled him. He turned around. A guy he didn’t recognize was standing there, not too bad on the eyes and weirdly nervous, enough that Jeff thought he might actually be trying to pick him up before he noticed the guy was holding something out.

“Did you drop this?” the guy said, barely loud enough to be heard over the music. It was a wallet and Jeff automatically checked his back pocket even as his eyes told him it wasn’t his.

He shook his head and the guy nodded, but instead of asking anyone else or handing it to the bartender, he wandered off towards the entrance.

Okay, that was odd. Jeff shrugged mentally, lots of weird people at the bar, maybe he was going to give it to the guy at the door in case whoever lost it noticed when they left.

He forgot about it as Stretch came back from the dance floor, sweat gleaming on his skull and face. That always gave Jeff a little pause, what exact purpose did sweating serve for a skeleton? Maybe he’d ask sometime when he was less busy with work. If Stretch didn’t know the answer to something, the journey to find out tended to be entertaining, and possibly less explosive this time around, although he wouldn’t put the chances at zero.

Stretch grinned at him, still panting, and picked up his own drink, gulping down half of it in one swallow. Jeff couldn’t remember was it was. Stretch tended to order more for the name than the taste, so it was probably something like a slippery nipple or a total screaming orgasm. Whatever it was, a skewer of fruit was floating in it and Stretch fished it out, pulling the cherry off the end with his teeth.

“so what do you think of the band?” Stretch asked, perfectly audible even over the loud music. There was another point of interest; when your voice was produced by magic, it didn’t always obey the rules of sound. “gonna give catty the thumbs up?

“I like it,” Jeff shrugged. He could barely hear his own voice, trusting that magical hearing worked the same way as speaking, “but I’m not the greatest judge of music. That’s why I bring you along.”

Stretch chuckled and propped his elbows on the bar, slouching back. It put him almost at head level with Jeff and the shirt he’d almost certainly borrowed from Edge pulled tight across his ribcage. “think i’m a better simon cowell than you?”

“No, you’re more Paula Abdul, and anyway, two heads are better than one.” Jeff played with the straw in his own drink. “Jokes aside, this is important, I don’t want to mess it up.”

“you’re not gonna mess it up.” Stretch scoffed. He bit a chunk of pineapple in half before polishing off the rest of his drink. “how even? you’re doing double-duty as it is. henry said once they’re finished, we can meet them backstage. i’ll have a chat with them, we’ll see if they’re assholes, and good to go! besides, it’s not like security isn’t gonna give ‘em a good, hard rundown, anyway.”

It was the truth and he knew it, but there was always that niggling little doubt in the back of his mind, that somehow he’d find a way to mess it up, and that would be it. This was so important to the Monster community and his chance to finally payback some of what’d they’d given him. He could do this, Jeff told himself, and he’d do it right.

The band started a new set, something with a low, growling bassline and Jeff turned back to watch, only to freeze as Stretch suddenly spoke again, the single word clear as a bell in church.

“jeff.”

The name caught his attention as much as the tone, Stretch never called him Jeff, it was always Andy or kiddo or whatever nickname was currently floating his proverbial boat. The last time he’d called Jeff by his actual name, he’d been lying in a parking lot in a pool of his own blood. The taste of hot metal was strong on the back of his tongue as he turned back to Stretch, his heart pounding, and some cringing part of him expected to see that friendly face instead as the one that appeared sometimes in his worst dreams, a deathmask with one socket dark and blank, the other strobing orange with grim intensity.

But Stretch only looked like his normal self and when he spoke again, each word was calmly measured and deliberate. "i don't feel right. i think we should go."

Somehow, that was even more alarming, and his worry quickly overshadowed any lingering bad memories that were vying for his attention.

“Sure,” Jeff said, “right now.” He hopped down from the stool. Stretch pushed off from the bar and staggered, leaning hard against Jeff and thank fuck he was light because his height already made it awkward to hold him up. He started to call for the bartender, maybe there was someplace they could sit down in the back while he called Edge, when another guy came up next to them, helping hold Stretch up. Then another on Jeff’s side and he started to protest that he didn’t need help when a voice growled close to his ear.

"Don’t look at me. Keep your mouth shut or I'll kill you."

It was followed by the sensation of something hard butting into his ribs and this could not be happening. This did not happen in the real world, this wasn’t a Jason Bourne movie, there could not be a gun pressed to his side right now. Even his own fear was sitting on the sidelines, pushed out by disbelief as Jeff stumblingly followed the guiding arm around him leading towards the door. The crowd reluctantly parted and next to them, Stretch was shuffling along, his eye lights blown wide and fuzzily diffused. He started sagging, his skull lolling back on his shoulders and around them were murmurs, people starting to notice.

“Hey, what’s going on? Stretch?” From the direction of the bar, and Jeff glanced back wildly to catch the bartender watching with dawning concern. There was no time to say a word, to even mouth a desperate ‘help’ before he was forcibly swung back around and pushed through the door.

The cold night air was like a slap in the face, sobering, and fear was starting to sink its teeth in past his disbelief. The guy next to him was keeping back out of his line of sight and he could only barely see the one on Stretch, dark hair, taller, burly, did he have a gun, too, who were they and why—?

By the entrance, the bouncer looked up in surprise as they walked past. “Hey, Stretch, you guys, okay?”

“Fuck off!” The man holding onto Jeff barked and the gun swung towards the bouncer. There was a beat of incongruous silence broken by the strains of music coming from inside the bar, then a girl screamed, the waiting crowd scattering.

“Fuck! Get them in the car!” A different voice, loud and panicky and he caught another glimpse of dark hair before he was shoved forward again. He stumbled, almost falling to his knees among the cigarette butts that scattered the asphalt, and the memory of another parking lot was strong, the swell of panic gagging him.

He didn’t resist as he was pushed towards a van, the side door sliding open and then he was inside it, collapsing across the backseat.

Weight dropped directly on top of him with a clatter of bones and Jeff grunted, trying to push Stretch off of him enough to sit up. Only to lose his balance again as the van squealed away from the curb, the tangle of his own limbs catching with Stretch’s limp ones.

A new voice barked from the direction of the driver’s seat. “Get their phones, hurry up!”

Rough hands grabbing at them, and Jeff instinctively tried to recoil, but there was nowhere to go. His phone was yanked from his pocket and Stretch didn’t say a word, only breathing with a slurry snore into Jeff’s ear. There was the sound of a power window going down, of tires squealing against asphalt and the inside of the van was too dark to see.

Not that it mattered. Rough hands hauled Jeff upright and the person they belonged to was wearing a ski mask like a fucking heist cliché. Jeff choked back a hysterical laugh, but even panicked amusement took a backseat when ski mask demanded, “Okay, both of you need to strip.”

Jeff only stared in mute horror, barely comprehending as a duffle bag was suddenly thrust at them.

“Change into these,” Ski Mask ordered, “Don’t get any funny ideas.”

There was a pun there, Stretch would have been able to think of one. Would have if he wasn’t lying slumped across the seat. His sockets were still open, but his eye lights were dim and unseeing, the lights were on and no one was home, not quite a pun but it’d have to do.

“Please, don’t hurt him,” Jeff said. He tried not to look at the guy with the gun as he carefully opened the duffle and pulled out the clothes inside, choosing his words with the same care. “He’s…he’s fragile, just a punch and you could kill him. Please.”

“Then don’t make us do anything that’ll get him hurt.”

Good advice from a shitty source.

Jeff scrambled into the oversized t-shirt and sweatpants in the bag, then helped the other…what, kidnapper? Asshole was the strongest contender in his head and that was what Jeff went with. Helped Asshole #2 get Stretch change into his. The guy was brusque but not ungentle, at least, and the second they were finished, the van pulled up next to a dumpster. A fourth asshole sitting in the front seat hopped out, tossing all their clothes plus the bag into it. Four against two, not including guns, not the best odds. Like Jeff would have been much help even if it were mano a mano. He sure as hell wasn’t a fighter past panicked desperation and he wasn’t about to hinge Stretch’s life on that.

“Now, sit back and relax,” said Asshole With A Gun. “You two behave and no one gets hurt, okay?”

Jeff knew a lie when he heard one. He nodded anyway and huddled into the seat, one arm looped around Stretch to offer what feeble protection he could. His skull resting in Jeff’s lap was a familiar weight from movie nights and Netflix marathons. His unconsciousness was not, but he was alive, they both were. It was a place to start.

Jeff kept silent, petting the smooth curve of Stretch’s skull as he watched the streetlights flash by and waited to see what came next.

tbc

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #original undertale characters #by any other name

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commander-diomika · 3 years ago

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I am Very Tipsy (okay I'm drunk so sorry about spelling but also ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) but I just wanted to say that since I started reading your rqg series I have not been able to stop thinking about it! I mean the fucking development of it all just really gets to me it's incredible, don't get me wrong i like most interpretations of their relationship but there's just a soft spot for me when it comes to 'if I wasn't stuck with you we never would have gotten past how incredibly annoying you are' like every interaction they have pre-timeskip is deliberately pissing the other off and I feel like a lot of writers kinda side step it (again not a criticism) and I just love that you can feel the frustration when you write them. I mean in 'always forgive your enemies' you've got Zolf trying desperately to be like "no I've grown as a person it's been a long time he's clearly been through Some Stuff and maybe we'll be able to work together" and then Wilde says 1 sentence and zolfs immediately like "actually no fuck you I was right to not give a shot when you got tossed off a ship you're a tool" and the development of that to I don't like you but we've gotta work to whether to I don't dislike you but your friend sucks and no I'm not jealous what the fuck are you talking about to the terrified guilty rage if not being listened to but oh gods is he gonna be okay in 'experience' (along with just the utter heartbreak of Wilde almost reaching out to Zolf because yeah he does trust him now but then remembering that this is contagious and what if hes infected and what if it's HIS fault that Zolf gets sick and immediately shutting down and putting himself through a week in solitary IN THE ROOM HE SHARED WITH BOSIE SURROUNDED BY THOSE MEMORIES TOTALLY TRAPPED WITH THAT KNOWLEDGE BY THE PERSON HE TRUSTS BY HIS OWN ORDERS I MEAN FUCK DUDE and the kind of flirting except no I'm not but I mean if *you* were I wouldn't not be????? In 'the country' and 'talked about' and even then there's so many guards up and there's so much in the way - the blame the self loathing the guilt and the anger of it all AND the whole theres 2 people who had never met before we introduced them who shouldn't work are doing WHAT in quarantine (and also 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀) AND FUCK DUDE THE LATEST INSTALLMENT!? IVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT IT SINCE YOU RELEASED IT HOLY FUCK! THE UNFAIRNESS OF THE SITUATION THE BETRAYAL OF SOMETHING LIKE THAT HUT THE ONLY THING YOU CAN BLAME IS THE CIRCUMSTANCE THE ONLY ONES YOU CAN CURSE ARE THE GODS BECAUSE THIS ISNT HOW IT WAS SUPPOSED TO GO! THIS ISNT FAIR! WILDE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO MAKE THAT DECISION FOR HIMSELF ZOLF SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO FEEL TRUSTED THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO FEEL SAFE AND TRUSTED AND WHOLE AND TOGETHER AND THIS FUCKING INFECTION TOOK THAT! IT FORCED WILDE TO TALK ABOUT IT IN CIRCUMSTANCES HE COULDN'T CHOOSE! IT MADE ZOLF KNOW ABOUT BEFORE HED ACTUALLY BEEN TRUSTED WITH IT! AND IT WAS SO FUCKING UNFAIR AND DUDE IT WAS INCREDIBLE I JUST CANT ARTICULATE HOW I FEEL ABOUT IT AND THE WHOLE DISCUSSION JUST GOD IM YELLING IN MY OWN HEAD BUT NONE OF THE WORDS EXIST! I know a while ago you said you'd read something and you weren't sure about your own writing but Hank oh my fucking god please know that I've been thinking about what you wrote for the last month, I've been talking about it to my friends I'm so hyped for anything you have to write and I have no idea where you want to go with this or what points you plan to hit and everytime I get a notification I'm both excited and terrified and I just love it so fucking much your writing is incredible

Ooh my friend I have been waiting for your comment since I posted "Punish", I have come to enjoy your tipsy insights because yeah!! You get it! These fkn onion boys and their LAYERS of barriers they've both got up around intimacy (and yes I absolutely LOVED contrasting that with Barnes and Carter who in my head canon met like... 6 weeks ago? And just blew straight past any agonising over what it meant and got on with it. There's more of them in the next scene too BTW).

As soon as I decided I wanted to tackle the time gap with a trans Wilde, the strip inspections were the first thing I knew I'd have to wrestle with, and I KNEW it would be brutal and unfair and un-fun but also?? Absolutely one of the draws to ZolfWilde is that they've been through some absolute shit together, and exploring how instead of turning into unhealthy trauma bonding, it grows into something unlikely yet beautiful, and the fucked-up trans reveal was just another thing on the pile that they overcome or work through.

And Zolf has the thought of "this isn't how its supposed to go" but he wouldn't even be as close Wilde if not for the fucked up circumstances. There's no "supposed to". If this hadn't happened, Zolf and Wilde would have never worked together and continued to distantly think the other one was a git if they crossed paths. So it's a parodox of a thought.

Thank you for your nice words abt my writing, as always. I'm gonna go work on the next part u legend.

#Ask hank #Just realised I should tag stuff about the fic with a single tag instead of just general RQG #Strange Company

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kimiles · 4 years ago

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Onion Man

a cracky miles/kimblee drabble inspired by the discord.....dont take this too seriously....yeah

Kimblee was always cold. So when he realized he had to go north to pursue Scar, he’d dreaded it. He didn’t understand how anyone could stand living at the fort. Even with all his coats on, he was still cold. The fort was barely heated, and he had a sneaking suspicion that they’d given him a room where the heat didn��t work.

He hated the cold. So that was why he relished the times when he could corner Miles, alone, and wind him up until Miles was dragging him back to his room with a steel grip on Kimblee’s wrist. He hadn’t expected it to be so easy to get the other man totally wrapped around his finger, but all the better. Spending some… quality time with Miles always managed to warm him up. Plus, as a bonus, Miles’ room was actually properly heated.

Miles dragged Kimblee inside, shutting and locking the door, and slammed Kimblee up against it before he could catch his breath.

“You think you’re so damn clever,” Miles hissed, as he fumbled with the buttons on Kimblee’s overcoat. He continued to rant about how much of a bastard Kimblee was, which the latter was content not to interrupt. This worked best by riling up Miles, after all. “Damn buttons…” Miles muttered.

Kimblee put his hands over Miles’, struggling with the last button of his overcoat. “Let me.” Smoothly, he undid it and slid the coat from his shoulders. He was about to start unbuttoning his undercoat when he noticed Miles’ expression. “What?”

“Another coat?”

“I get cold.”

Miles just raised an eyebrow, as Kimblee continued unbuttoning his coat. “Whatever,” he muttered, bending down to take off his boots. Once he took them off, he straightened back up to see Kimblee taking off his undercoat to reveal… another coat?? “Are you kidding me?” he said.

“It’s cold here! I don’t know how you people can stand it!” Kimblee said, starting to get annoyed. He began fumbling with the buttons of his coat a bit, feeling Miles’ somewhat judging stare on him. “Forgive me for not wanting to be cold,” he said sarcastically.

“Fuck you.” Miles crossed his arms and looked awkwardly across the room, then back at Kimblee, who was still undoing another one of his ridiculous coats. “I can come back, you know.”

“No, wait!” Kimblee said, frantically throwing the coat off to reveal his vest.

Miles raised an eyebrow. “You still have your scarf on.” Kimblee hadn’t even noticed, in his struggle to remove all his layers. Miles reached out to pull the scarf off Kimblee’s neck. He flung it somewhere in the room, knowing Kimblee would complain about that later, but not really caring. At this point he was just amused, watching Kimblee trying to remove his coats.

After the vest, it was a sweater. Miles put his head in his hands. His boner had died a long time ago. He was just trying not to laugh now. “You sure you don’t want me to come back?” he said.

“No I promise I’m almost done, wait—” Kimblee was pulling the sweater over his head now, revealing a long-sleeved collared shirt.

“Where do you get all these clothes in white, anyway?” Miles asked conversationally. His only response was a glare from Kimblee. Without all his layers, Kimblee looked a lot less bulky. When he had all the coats on, including his hat, he almost looked like a fat ghost. Miles barely suppressed a laugh at the thought.

“Shut up,” Kimblee said, looking straight at him. “This is the last layer.” He started unbuttoning the shirt.

“Oh, finally, I—” Miles stopped abruptly as Kimblee unbuttoned the shirt to reveal… an undershirt. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He bent down to pick up one of the many discarded layers and threw it at Kimblee’s face.

“Hey!” Kimblee sputtered, though it was muffled by the cloth hitting his face. He glared at Miles, then suddenly whipped his undershirt off and flung it at Miles.

“Shit!” Miles ducked and the shirt went flying through the room and hit the trashcan, making it topple over and spill its contents. He turned around to face Kimblee, narrowing his eyes. “Oh, it’s on.”

Kimblee yelped and barely managed to avoid the scrunched up ball of coat that Miles threw at him next. “You’re going to get that wrinkled!” he protested.

“Like anyone’s ever gonna see it. Wasn’t that one of your middle layers anyway?” Miles grinned. “Maybe cockroach isn’t the right term for you—”

“Wait, who’s calling me cockroach?”

“—but instead it should be onion. I mean, white coats, so many layers…”

“Absolutely not. I’ll kill you if you call me that.”

“Onion man!” Miles pointed at Kimblee’s offended face and laughed. “Onion man—agh!” He got a faceful of coat.

“Two can play this game,” Kimblee sneered. Like some kind of machine, he started rapidly gathering the coats scattered around him and launching them at Miles.

“Oof,” Miles said as a big wad of coats caught him in the middle. “Thought you didn’t want them to get wrinkles?”

“I’d much rather destroy you,” Kimblee said ominously. He fired another volley of coats, one of which caught Miles in the face again, but he managed to duck under another one and catch it in midair. Using all his strength and military reflexes, he whipped it back as quick as he could, catching Kimblee so hard in the leg the man almost fell. “You’ll pay for that!” he hissed in retaliation.

Miles grinned. He could see Kimblee was running out of ammunition, and the man was cornered against the door. He was in the perfect position to strike. The moment that Kimblee picked up his overcoat and threw it at him, he rushed over to where the scarf lay. He picked it up in his hands and tugged at it experimentally. Kimblee, evidently wondering why Miles hadn’t immediately thrown the article of clothing at him, stopped. Miles took advantage of Kimblee’s confusion and crowded Kimblee against the door, drawing himself up to his full height.

“I think it’s time to end this little game,” Miles said, his voice low.

“Oh,” was all Kimblee said.

The energy in the room had changed immediately, and Miles loved how in this situation, he had so much power over Kimblee. “I guess you’re finally undressed now, huh?”

Kimblee smirked. “I guess so.”

“This could be useful,” Miles said, waving the scarf in front of Kimblee’s face. “You liked it when I tied you up last time, remember?”

Suppressing a shiver at the memory, Kimblee nodded. He started letting himself indulge in fantasies of what was about to happen, when he froze.

Miles must have noticed, because he asked, “What’s wrong?”

Kimblee’s smirk slid into an apologetic sort of grin. “Oh… my pants.”

Miles looked down and realized that Kimblee still had his pants on. “Please don’t tell me there’s another million layers under there.”

Kimblee tried putting on his best remorseful face. “My legs get cold too.”

Miles put his head in his hands.

#kimiles #mileskim #mileskimblee #kimbleemiles #miles/kimblee #kimblee/miles #fma #my writing #fic #drabble #reposting this bc it wasnt showing up in the tag #and i need internet validation because im bored lol

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cursewoodrecap · 3 years ago

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Session 22: Five-Dimensional Man-Go

This is a session I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time. I get to introduce three of my favorite characters in the entire campaign.

In the real world it’s been a while, but this was the session we officially welcomed a new chaos goblin player to the table. And damn, am I glad we did.

Valeria goes to Hoeska’s armor smiths for some upgrades, and accidentally kicks off a goth fashion montage. Her new armor has gorgeous black detailing with purple rose accents, accessorized with a brand-new Shusva-skin bag with matching claw clasp. Gral picks up a fancy Shusva-leather cloak and belt. Shoshana, realizing that a vampire’s castle is basically a Hot Topic, gets some fishnet arm warmers to accompany her fang necklace. We also get some healing potions and hope they aren’t made from lost souls or anything.

Valeria resummons Aethis, who pops back into existence in a burst of glitter that’s entirely incongruous with the local grim aesthetic. Apparently celestial gators are only mildly inconvenienced by fatalities.

As we hitch up the horses to get back on the road, we find out Ser Boris is also preparing to head out. “Woods full of many nasty creatures. Must keep hunting! Maybe I find way down to Barroch, I have heard monsters are attacking workers there.”

Gral perks up at the name of his people’s capitol. “I’m sure the orcs will treat you well. What kind of monsters are they dealing with?”

“Wolves, bears, maybe werewolf? I will find out when I get there! Cursebreakers do not have much of working relationship with orcs, so info is scattered. That is why I must investigate!”

While he heads south into orc territory, we’re gonna go north toward Sturmhearst to look into all the Key nonsense Professor Bjork told us is goin’ down. It’ll be a long trip; it’s on the coast, and we’re well into the heartland of the wood. As we get closer, we’re gonna have to look for new maps, too – the patchwork of safe zones and Curse disasters changes rapidly, and the roads that were passable a month ago might be deathtraps today.

We trek for several blessedly uneventful days. One night, in a region where a sizable number of halflings have settled, we have the fortune of seeing an inn on the horizon as night starts to fall. A sign proclaims the Fusilier’s Rest, a combination winery and inn located on a lush vineyard. Valeria’s kind of suspicious of anything too plant-based right now, but the rest of us totally want a winery tour.

We hitch up our wagon next to a post labeled Valet Parking. Aethis parks themself in the stables. Looking at the place, with its rather low doorframe and quaintly painted décor, we suspect Demish wine snootery instead of weird plant cults.

We duck through the door and take in the scene. It’s on the upscale end of totally normal, with locals sitting around eating and a huge pot of Demish onion soup bubbling on the hearth. The old halfling bartender is wearing pieces of a worn but well-cared-for blue-and-gold uniform. Two polished old pistols hang within reach on the wall, along with a pristine old Fusille musket in a place of honor behind the bar. Shiny medals in a handmade case are proudly displayed atop the bar.

As is D&D protocol, we look around for any notably wacky characters. We find them in the corner: an old man with unkempt white hair and multi-lensed, colorful glasses, engrossed in a game of Man-go against a young human doctor. We know he’s a doctor, because he’s got a stubby-beaked Sturmhearst mask pushed up to expose a tired but friendly face. His coat might once have been a lab coat, but it’s since been patched and sutured together so many times that it’s probably done a full ship-of-Theseus. His right arm is in a makeshift sling, and he’s nursing a small glass of Kevan vodka; probably the closest thing they have to rotgut moonshine in a wine-snob place like this.

We’re like, neat. Let’s eat soup.

Valeria orders a local vineyard wine and chats with the bartender about it. “The man who runs it is a madman; he thinks he can grow good wine grapes in Valdia. But he pays my sister well, she does her best.”

“Oh, don’t listen to René, his sister does marvelous work! No halfling will admit that wine grown outside Demionde will be more than spoiled grape juice,” teases one of the local barflies.

Gral asks Valeria who’s winning the Man-go game. The old man is rambling pleasantly, barely paying attention, and he is absolutely crushing the young doctor. The doctor looks like he’s totally aware he’s being taken to the cleaners, but he’s gonna let the old guy have his fun. As the game draws to a close, the younger man smiles ruefully and hands over a few coins. Meanwhile, the old fella, his eyes magnified to mismatched sizes by his funky glasses, spots our most conspicuous party member.

“Kyr! How’s the wine?” he calls, beckoning her over.

“Quite good actually!” Valeria chirps. “Was that the Kiloni maneuver?”

“Yes, or a variant I picked up somewhere! The Killam maneuver…kilometer…kilowatt? Something of the sort.”

Valeria very much wants to play him, and the old guy’s defeated opponent is happy to trade her his spot. The young man’s propped up leg hits the ground with a suspiciously loud clunk as he vacates his chair for her.

The old man peers up at her, bright-eyed even behind multiple layers of glass. “So what brings a Knight of the Rose here?”

“We’re headed to Sturmhearst, actually!”

“I see! I’ve heard the roads between here and there are pretty tricky to travel, you know.”

“No kidding. Do you have an updated map?”

He snaps his fingers. “No, but I just came from there! I’ve got an old map and I can easily update it for you kids. René is on night watch, I’ll leave it with him so you don’t have to stay up waiting for me to finish it. I know a route that’ll get you there lickety-split and safe as trousers! Now let me guess, you played at the clubs in Aurentium? You have the look about you.”

“Not the clubs, precisely…”

“Ah! Street rules, then!”

Valeria, who played Man-go against literally everyone who would have her, shrugs. “Maybe?”

“René, we’ll need some cups and a dumb hat!” the old man calls.

The young doctor wanders over to the bar and gets a refill, settling down next to Shoshana. “Hey, wanna bet on their game? The old guy’s pretty sharp.”

Shoshana laughs. “Oh, my friend is definitely gonna lose. I’ll put a silver on her, though, out of loyalty.”

It’s an odd game to spectate. Valeria falls behind early on; an insight check shows he’s not cheating, he’s just VERY good. Oh, and also Valeria’s assuming an entirely different set of house rules than this guy, and it’s tripping her up. Wait, are we doing street style, or dock style? Anyway, Valeria’s wearing the dumb hat now. At one point they both spit on the board.

“Y’know, I’ve never seen anyone from Sturmhearst take the mask off,” Shoshana says to her new drinking buddy, watching the game with confusion.

“On the clock, it’d be a safety hazard! But off the clock, eh, it’s fine. Some people get more elitist than me about it, I’m a hometown Valdian through and through.”

(You’re from Joisey, I’m from Joisey! What exit?)

“I haven’t actually been to the university since the Curse started, but I’m heading back to research some stuff I found out up in the Grammelsmarsh swamps. Some real disconcerting stuff regarding undead, and the like. The locals refer to it as the Wailing Wight.”

Shoshana gives him a once-over, rolling a decent Perception. He’s scruffy, though that could mostly be from hard travel, and definitely looks like he’s had a rough time of it. His arm’s in a sling and the little exposed skin Shoshana can see has more than its share of nicks and scars. His gait when he walked over was slightly uneven, one leg making a suspiciously heavy thunk against the wooden floor. Over his shoulder, he’s carrying a long, heavy case sealed with tar for waterproofing.

Hold up. She points to the case. “Do you have an alive guy in there?”

“…Uh.”

“You hesitated, and that’s not great.”

“Uh…no. No, I do not have an alive guy in here,” he says awkwardly.

“Okay, because the last time there was a weird bag, there was a whole-ass dude in there, and it turned into a whole thing.”

“N-no, no no no, there’s no person in the case,” he protests, not quite meeting Shoshana’s judgy cat eyes. He definitely doesn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea, even though the case has started gently twitching.

Meanwhile, old Man-Go man has proved himself quite fluent in Draco-Aquilian, though with an unmistakable mammalian accent. Gral butts into the lively conversation when it winds back to Valdian. “It seems like you’re rather well traveled. What is your profession?”

“Oh, y’know, I go here and there. I’ve been around. There’s so much to see out there!”

Valeria smiles. “I can’t fault you there. Anything in particular you’re looking for?

“I go wherever the winds take me, mostly,” he says, as if Cursewood travel isn’t the most dangerous hobby since they invented pyromancer cookoffs.

Valeria, impressively, only loses the game by a little. The old man jovially shakes her hand and promises to go get started on that map to Sturmhearst for us, springing to his feet with surprising deftness for his age and bustling up toward his room.

Gral and Shoshana, meanwhile, are busy makin’ friends with the doctor guy. “What swamp were you fighting undead in?”

“The Grammelsmarsh? It’s downriver of Mornheim.”

“Ohhh! We heard some, uh, adventurers did a purifying ritual on the river. It might help your situation?”

“That’s great, but…I dunno. Once you mix in swamp gas, things get a lot more interesting.”

“The explosions kind of interesting?”

“…Sometimes.”

The players have noticed that our doctor friend here is, like…not an NPC, there’s another guy at the table (the same player as Isadora! :D), so we start sizing each other up as travel companions.

“You seem like a pretty decent guy,” Gral says, immediately insight checking.

“I mean, you guys seem on the up-and-up too?”

Shoshana winks at him. “Well, I’m not that up-and-up but these two are very diplomatic and important.”

“If you’re also headed up to Sturmhearst, it might make sense for us to travel together? I’m not very quiet,” he admits, knocking on his knee with a clang, “but if you-“

“Hello!” Valeria, hearing clanking, has clanked over loudly to join. “Kyr Valeria Argent, at your service!”

“Uh, hi! I’m Vigdor. I’m a doctor! I mean, you knew that, with the, uh-“ He points to his bird mask. “If you need any balms or salves – I mean, I’m mostly a surgeon, but I know some herbology.”

Is that so! We chat about Dr. Ulmus and Dr. Kjeller. Everyone loves Dr Kjeller!

“I’ve heard of Dr. Kjeller! I haven’t met the guy, but he’s the leading expert on troll physiology. Getting him to come lecture hasn’t worked out so far.”

We ask René the innkeeper about any local threats. Apparently this town’s gotten lucky; the biggest threats recently have just been bandits and one overaggressive badger.

“Oh yeah, one of my cats fought one of those, it went badly,” Shoshana remembers. “For the badger, I mean. I have weird cats.”

(The inn also has cat. His name is Jean Clawed.)

Eventually we all head upstairs. As the night bears on, the girls fall asleep, presumably after painting each other’s toe claws and gossiping. Gral’s still awake, practicing his lute in the rare luxury of a single room, when he pauses. Something doesn’t sound right.

Putting his lute aside, he listens cautiously at the window and feels a deep dread grow in his stomach. The faint scent of ozone drifts in the air. The crickets and night birds have gone dead silent, and in the unsettling quiet he can hear the terrible growling, piping sound he’s heard twice before: once in a house in a hole, and once as Bullbreaker’s expedition faced its destruction.

With great urgency and no volume control, Gral sends a Message to a sleeping Shoshana: “RED ALERT, KEY SHIT’S HERE.” Shoshana wakes up and kicks Valeria.

Gral then sends a Message to our new friend Vigdor, more calmly. “If you have weapons, get them now. Something is happening, it’s going to be dangerous.”

The early warning lets Vigdor and Valeria armor up, Shoshana helping Valeria buckle on the heavy pieces in a hurry. Meanwhile, Gral sprints downstairs, casting Mirror Image as he goes.

René the innkeeper is cleaning his fusille with practiced precision, humming an old marching song. Gral can hear something moving in the kitchen behind the old halfling, so he pops another stealthy Message cantrip. “This is the orc from earlier. I think something bad is in the kitchen – I’ve heard that noise before. Hold on tight to that musket, I’m going in.”

“The back door is locked, I would have heard someone come in,” the old soldier whispers back.

“These things don’t use doors,” Gral hisses.

A 17 Persuasion convinces René, who loads a bullet into his musket. “Where are those friends of yours?”

A heavy clank from upstairs answers that question, as Vigdor and Valeria thud toward the stairs. Gral scopes out the room and sees, on the bar, a big leather map case. The map from the Man-Go guy! Then he peers into the kitchen and, yup, that’s a fleshhound, all right.

Everyone else upstairs bursts into the hall just as a second fleshhound emerges into existence next to them. Shoshana, without hesitation, hits it with a gout of flame. Its strange ethereal flesh solidifies for a moment, but then it shakes itself and charges forward, its displacement energy restored.

Meanwhile, the one downstairs doesn’t aim for Gral or René, trying to run past them. Gral plays a discordant note on his lute, using his Minor Key at the opposite frequency to its vibration and preventing it from displacing, before he strikes. A spectral, scarred orc swings a warhammer down on the creature, Thrice-Burned’s ghost getting some payback as Gral’s blade strikes true.

René takes a shot with his musket and crit-fails, understandably freaked out by the writhing mass of teleporting tentacles, the wild shot careening directly into Gral. Luckily, it only pops a Mirror Image, but everyone upstairs hears a frustrated yell of “NO. FRIEND! ME FRIEND!”

Vigdor dashes past Valeria to the stairs, his previously-motionless arm reaching out of its sling to slap her on the armor with a resounding clash of metal. A silver Jotunn rune glows through the cloth of his sleeve, and she feels Protection from Good and Evil snap into place over her. She takes the cue and stabs the hound, rose vines bursting from her trident and stabbing their long thorns into its oddly flickering flesh.

The pupils on the Eyegis snap to the space behind the beast. Our normal eyes see nothing, but the Key-aligned shield’s eyes see a magical gate, faintly connected to the hound.

As a member of the Order of the Rose, Valeria’s trained to deal with fiendish incursions. This isn’t a portal to the Hells, but she thinks it might get closed similarly. As she charges forward to deal with it, everything seems to move twice as fast as it should: the Key’s spatial distortion has made certain areas the opposite of difficult terrain, where you can move double your speed. Nyoom!

Shoshana zaps it with lightning and heads downstairs to help Gral, who’s being slapped by tentacles. The zapped one flees toward the portal, but Valeria Sentinels and stabs it to death. The downstairs hound gets its tentacles into the real Gral.

Vigdor moves to Gral’s aid, ripping away the last of his sling and clamping a large circular blade to his forearm. With the pull of a ripcord, it loudly whirs into motion. As the Buzzing Butcher slams into the displacer hound with a gory squelch, he asks about sneak attack, like a rogue!

A very, very loud rogue.

Gral breaks away from the hound’s tentacles and looks around. Through the windows, more fleshhounds have appeared outside. The space outside is warped – leaving this inn is going to be very difficult while all this nonsense is going on. The lights of the vineyard seem miles away.

However, Gral realizes, the hound responded to the sound of his lute. And when he used his Minor Key he caught a glimpse of the portal it came through. He begins to play again, using the Minor Key to try to take control of it. The GM allows him to burn a 3rd level spell slot for a colossal roll of 33. He moves the portal inside a wall, to temporarily block anything coming through.

René takes a shot at the remaining hound and misses.

Valeria, upstairs, draws her chained sword and spends a 1st level slot to try to close the portal, the same way paladins close Infernal gateways. The chains of Rack extend from the sword and stitch the portal shut.

(Gral and Valeria each gain inspiration for using Portal Trixx!)

A Thing Occurs at initiative 0, and we hear strange piping coming from the stables. We’re kind of occupied, so we trust Aethis to bite anything that bothers the horses.

Shoshana sprints down the stairs and to the bar. Aw, there’s another flesh hound coming in from the kitchen. Her Chill Touch misses, and the new monster slaps Gral.

Vigdor nyooms through a Zoom, which makes some Really Weird doppler effects happen with his clanky leg and his buzzy arm. He slides across the bar like an action hero and slams his saw down, missing the hound and showering the room in a hail of splinters.

Valeria is still upstairs, and it is LOUD downstairs. She’s gonna dash to get the heck down there and rejoin the festivities.

Gral Phantasmal Forces the new fleshhound, and in its mind, horrible liquid tendrils emerge from the soup pot and constrict around it. The soup rises to the defense of the Fusilier’s Rest!

René gets his wits about him and takes a pistol shot at the nearer fleshhound, tagging it with a bullet and keeping it in place. “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE. OUR POLICY IS NO PETS! I will not make an exception for you, you do NOT seem particularly polite!”

The fleshhound grabs the map case off the bar and starts to run for it. René hits it with the butt of his rifle. The second hound can’t attack Vigdor since it’s too busy convincing itself soup isn’t dangerous, so Vigdor’s free to draw his pistol and unload a Sneak Attack bullet into the fleeing hound’s back.

René reloads his musket. It’s been a long time since he’s done it under fire, but the Royal Fusilier Corps of Demionde does not half-ass their training.

The portal the hound’s heading for bisects a wall now, so it might be hard for the hound to get through. Before it can worry about that, though, it comes face to face with Valeria, who’s ready to rumble. She kills it, dropping the map to the ground, and skitters through the Zoomy Zone to try to trident the second hound. It displaces out of the way.

Gral seizes control of another portal, and this time decides to use it to see what’s going on. He tries to hop out to the stables, where that weird noise is coming from. He enters a weird nether space full of the flickering bodies of fleshhounds, writhing and blinking, which the DM calls the Threshold. Gral accepts psychic damage to see what’s going on, and the patterns become clearer as the Key takes hold temporarily in his brain. These portals all connect to each other and the Threshold at the same time. Whatever’s out in the stables, making that eerie piping noise, is tied to the portals – it can’t fully exist in our realm. So if you close all the portals, it’ll force that thing to leave; if you drive it away, the portals will close. Either way, the Key’s influence on this place will fade.

Oh, and that thing out in the stables? It’s the Lurke r again.

Gral’s old enemy wrests control of the portal back from Gral, who stumbles back out into the inn, reeling from the sudden whammy of Key taint.

Shosha shoots lightning at the nearest hound, which retaliates by leaping through her, disrupting her matter with its own. It’s a highly unpleasant experience. A new hound jumps out of the portal next to Valeria. As Vigdor, Shoshana, and René all attack, Gral shuts another portal with his lute’s magic. “Guys, there’s something horrible in the stables!” he shouts. “If we bust enough portals it’ll go away!”

The Lurker continues to make mysterious dice rolls, but apparently it’s rolling poorly, so we don’t quite find out what it’s up to. It peers through one of the last few portals, only visible to Gral and the Eyegis. It’s hard to get a good look at, fifth-dimensional as it is, but it’s weirdly humanoid, actually? It’s surrounded by floating lanterns and holding some sort of pipe or flute.

(The DM notes that Jean Clawed is awake and doesn’t see why any of this is his business. He’s capable of using the portals; he’s not Key tainted, that’s just how cats are.)

We exchange blows with the remaining hounds, Chromatic Orbs flying and chainsaws buzzing. René bayonets a hound to death, for the honor of all NPCs.

Gral powerslides on his knees across the Zoomy Zone, playing a complicated riff, woobling himself right through the fireplace into the kitchen. He spends another level 3 spell slot to get the portal to dance itself shut. “And that was Through the Fire and Flames!”

René reloads his gun. Shoshana blasts the hound with fire, so Vigdor’s action goes off and he chainsaws it to death, the body and spine getting caught in the spinning chain. FATALITY.

The searing light of Shoshana’s fire casts sharp shadows on the walls of the inn, which begin to writhe and re-form, swirling together into a lithe, snarling feline shape that springs toward the Lurker. It pounces with an odd, broken yowl that’s incredibly familiar – although Valeria and Gral have only ever heard it once, from underneath an overturned laundry basket.

Vigdor, who’s never met a flesh-hound OR a cursecat before, makes an arcana check to figure out what in the seven hells is going on. It seems some sort of entity is thinning the barriers between realities? Its very essence seems to be intermingled with portal; it cannot fully leave the portal or exist in this realm. Like a malevolent, sentient pair of curtains.

He’s like okay, curtains sound like something I can chainsaw. It’s curtains for you, see? (Fun fact: if he rolls 21 or higher on attack roll with chainsaw, he gets sneak attack regardless of other circumstances. Because it’s a goddamn CHAINSAW.)

The Lurker turns its attention directly on us, or at least to the enormous hissing cat hellbent on ruining its day. Gral, still strumming furiously, realizes the Lurker’s only got a couple of portals left. He’s closed a portal already; he’s gonna try to close all of them for good. The DM imposes disadvantage and a brutal pile of psychic damage, but Gral is unphased, hitting a power chord that shakes the entire inn.

The Lurker screeches and reaches for him, the space around Gral beginning to warp, but it’s too late, the portal slamming shut against it. The Zoomy Zones vanish; the portals close, the strange atmosphere fades. The road looks to be the size it was before instead of an endless stretch of packed earth; the vineyard is once again an easy ten-minute walk away.

His big solo complete, Gral sways and collapses unconscious. Valeria runs over and Lays On Hands so he doesn’t die, while Vigdor starts casting Mending on the destroyed bar furniture. Shoshana, meanwhile, just stares dumbstruck at the place where a huge spectral cat is dissipating into shadowy smoke.

“…Schmendrick?”

René is holding himself together, but he’s an old man and it’s been a while since he fought this much. He took a bit of damage; Valeria pat pats him some HP. “Thank you, Kyr. I…I need to check on my other guests. The old man with the Man-Go game, we must find out if he lives.”

Valeria accompanies him upstairs. Rack’s glowing rose vines are still visible, stitching the portal shut; it’s healing more quickly than Valeria’s used to seeing. The door to the old man’s room swings open under Valeria’s cautious knock. The bed is unmade but empty, and the old man’s luggage is gone. The only things left are a generous tip on the counter and his odd multicolored glasses.

As Vigdor steps outside to clean viscera off his chainsaw, Gral scopes out the stables. There’s evidence of disturbed earth around the grounds, but nothing conclusive. Aethis seems to be unbothered.

We reconvene without much to show for our investigation. But we have one last clue: Why were the hounds so interested in the old man’s map? We spread it out on one of the bar tables and crowd around. It’s a map of Valdia, but the path it shows us to take to Sturmhearst makes No Sense. It’s not even contiguous! It tells us to start here and wander north, and then the line cuts off next to some scribbled equations, the route picking up again elsewhere, where he’s drawn a symbol we don’t recognize – and so on, in strange and nonsensical disconnected paths.

Shoshana, on a hunch, puts on the multicolored glasses the old man left behind. Like 3D glasses, they reveal the hidden image. Through the kaleidoscopic lenses, she can see remnants of the Key’s influence all around the inn; the fading Zoomy Zones and closing portals light up in ultraviolet. The map, meanwhile, has gained an entirely new dimension, like a layer of holographs. NOW the shortcuts make sense – they route through other dimensions along the z-axis, with additional symbols and labels giving helpful hints.

To be honest, it does look like a much faster route. And one of the notes says it leads to the “Drowned City” – hey, isn’t that where Bullbreaker ended up? But we’re all rightfully wary of hopping right back into another flesh-hound portal disaster.

We now have the Extradimensional Map and the Stranger’s Glasses.

Oh! The map has a note for us: “Happy Journeys to a fellow master of the game. Your friend, T.T.”

We immediately rifle through our notes and realize he may have been Professor Trevor Twombly, Headmaster of Sturmhearst. Vigdor, did you know that guy?!

Vigdor didn’t recognize him. Maybe the guy looked like Twombly, if you squint? There were a lot of old men at Sturmhearst, and they wear masks most of the time? Also he had distracting glasses? So, like…maybe?

As we bicker, Vigdor snags the glasses off the table and heads to his room, opening up his case and taking a look. The lenses don’t reveal anything new about the object inside.

Unfortunately, the poor rogue didn’t bother to stealth. “Whatcha doin’ in here?” says Valeria, who followed shortly behind.

“Um, just looking at my leg, seeing if anything is weird-“

Valeria immediately checks Vigdor’s lower limbs for wounds. “I can help! An extra pair of hands can always-”

“No, no! I think I’m okay! Really!” he protests. He glances into the case again, clearly torn, and sighs. “Let me explain.”

He lifts a whole human leg out of the case, kicking and twitching.

“This is my leg, and I’m taking it to Sturmhearst. I’m not sure if it’s wholly mine anymore.”

Through his torn pants, Valeria can see a clunky clockwork leg to match his buzz-saw arm.

One player immediately yells “FULL METAL ALCHEMIST.” Another player says it again, in a slightly different voice.

Dr. Vigdor Gavril has joined the party!

#the cursewood #session recap #the key #valeria argent #gral omokk'duu #shoshana bat chaya #vigdor gavril #schmendrick #trevor twombly

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vocalfriespod · 5 years ago

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Cheaper than Therapy Transcript

[Music]

Carrie Gillon: Hi, and welcome to the Vocal Fries podcast, the podcast about linguistic discrimination!

Megan Figueroa: I’m Megan Figueroa.

Carrie Gillon: I’m Carrie Gillon.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, Carrie, I was so weirded out when I was about to say my name because we just recorded a future episode about names.

Carrie Gillon: And you’re like, “What is my own name? Ahh!”

Megan Figueroa: It’s true because sometimes I say /mɛgən/ and sometimes I say /mɛɪgən/ because I’m the weirdest Megan.

Carrie Gillon: Oh, I’ve never noticed that. But for me, I basically can’t tell the difference before a G because I think I just collapse it to one of them. So, it’s not distinctive for me.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. It is for me because it’s my name and I’ve heard it so many which ways, but when I say it, I feel like I’m collapsing them on purpose to give people the out of you can say it either way because I hear it either way all the time. Just letting people know, it’s okay if you say /mɛgən/ or /mɛɪgən/.

Carrie Gillon: That is good to say that.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah.

Carrie Gillon: Whereas, I’m like, “No. Has to be /kɛɹi/.”

Megan Figueroa: Well, my mother says /mɛgən/. If for some reason I really wanna articulate my name carefully, I think I definitely say /mɛɪgən/. I don’t actually know how my dad says it because he always says, “Mi hija.” I’m like, “I’m gonna notice next time.” Either way, ya’ll, is fine.

But speaking of language – just kidding. [Laughter] I’m so bad at these transitions. We’re always talking about language. It was a big weekend last week for Parasite at the Oscars.

Carrie Gillon: I was watching the Oscars and I actually voted for it to win all the categories that it won because I just love the movie so much. I was shocked that it won for all of the things that I said it would win for.

Megan Figueroa: You’re shocked not because it didn’t deserve it but because you just didn’t expect the academy to do it.

Carrie Gillon: Because I love it, so clearly, I think it deserves it. I just was shocked, especially after it won Best Non-English – whatever they call it now. I was like, “Ugh, it’s for sure not gonna win Best Picture,” but I chose for both for some reason and it did.

Megan Figueroa: Well, chills because it kind of – okay. This is the way the Oscars has set itself up that I have, and I think a lot of people had, the expectation that there’s no way the picture that won in Best Non-English would also win the Best Picture because it’s literally never happened.

Carrie Gillon: Right. I couldn’t remember if a movie like that had ever been nominated for both categories before. We were trying to remember – couldn’t remember.

Megan Figueroa: But not won. Certainly not won.

Carrie Gillon: Certainly not won, but possibly never even been nominated. It was definitely unprecedented in either direction. I was so happy because last year’s winner was a bit problematic.

Megan Figueroa: Was that Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood? I don’t even remember – no, no. Sorry. La La Land? What was last year?

Carrie Gillon: La La Land didn’t win. It was Moonlight, remember?

Megan Figueroa: Oh, that was the best! The chaos.

Carrie Gillon: No. Last year was The Green Book.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, yeah.

Carrie Gillon: Anyway.

Megan Figueroa: Was that like a mea culpa thing? The – Parasite – god.

Carrie Gillon: I just think – obviously, I can’t read their minds. I don’t know what happened but, honestly, I think this movie is just that good that it kinda blew the competition out of the water. I thought maybe Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood would win because it’s about Hollywood and LA loves to give itself plaudits – kind of why I thought originally La La Land had won, even though it didn’t. But, no, they went with the actually, genuinely best film.

Megan Figueroa: I haven’t seen it. I’m one of the two people –

Carrie Gillon: Get thee to a theater!

Megan Figueroa: I know. I know. So, no spoilers here. Just the fact that – I mean, again, I am glad that we’re moving a little bit forward that we can break this precedent where no non-English film has won Best Picture because of course non-English films can be best picture. C’mon.

Carrie Gillon: Well, right. Last year, Roma was nominated.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, that’s right.

Carrie Gillon: Roma probably should’ve won. It’s certainly better than Green Book.

Megan Figueroa: Did it win Best Foreign Film? Because it was called “Best Foreign Film” last year I think, wasn’t it?

Carrie Gillon: I think you’re right, and I don’t remember.

Megan Figueroa: Well, anyway.

Carrie Gillon: I don’t remember if it was nominated for both.

Megan Figueroa: I think he won for Best Director though – the Roma director – because it was like Mexico, Mexico, Mexico, that same director.

Carrie Gillon: I think that’s correct. Anyway, speaking of Parasite, John Miller – @MillerStream on Twitter – tweeted this lovely tweet, “A man named Bong Joon Ho wins #Oscar for Best Original Screenplay over Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood and 1917. Acceptance speech was, ‘Great honor. Thank you.’ The he proceeds to give the rest of his speech in Korean. These people are the destruction of America.”

Megan Figueroa: There’s – okay. [Laughter] It’s so layered, Carrie. Racism is the stinkiest onion of all. I hate that – I think, just given his tweet, he’s making a point of the quote-unquote “broken English,” right? I’m imagining him pulling it out and writing it exactly word for word what he said because what did he say?

Carrie Gillon: He claimed that Bong said, “Great honor. Thank you.” And, honestly, I don’t remember –

Megan Figueroa: If that’s what he actually said?

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. He said something along those lines, but I dunno if he’s quoting directly or not.

Megan Figueroa: I don’t have any – Alberto Rios called it “generosity of spirit.” I don’t have any generosity of spirit. I think that he’s probably mocking his English too in that little bit.

Carrie Gillon: Right. I mean, why would you give him any benefit of the doubt? He’s saying these people are the destruction of America.

Megan Figueroa: Okay. He starts out mocking his English and then being upset that how dare any other language be spoken on the Oscar stage and then othering – okay. That’s the ultimate othering. And then you’re just gonna directly other by saying, “these people.”

Carrie Gillon: I mean, it’s worse than othering. This is straight up xenophobia.

Megan Figueroa: I mean, I’m surprised he didn’t pull out some of the cockroach imagery or – you know.

Carrie Gillon: Right. I mean, the next step is that, for sure. Then, he claims in the next tweet that he’s not talking about Koreans. He says, quote, “These people,” unquote, “are obviously not Koreans, but those in Hollywood awarding a film that stokes flames of class warfare over two films I thought were more deserving simply to show how woke they are. That should be clear from the rest of what I tweeted about tonight’s production.” No. It’s not clear. And also, I think you’re lying.

Megan Figueroa: So lying. Well, because it probably went viral, he got ratioed I’m sure, hopefully.

Carrie Gillon: I can’t tell, but I’m pretty sure. It did get 32,000 likes.

Megan Figueroa: Well, there’s a lot of racists on Twitter. It’s a cesspool.

Carrie Gillon: I mean, there’re a lot of racists in general, period. And, in this case, super racists because a lot of people are racist. But anyway.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, yeah. Yes. This outwardly “I don’t want your language or you people in my Oscars or in my grocery store or anywhere in my space – in my white public space.”

Carrie Gillon: And also, no. I am sorry. Neither of those movies are more deserving. Okay. We have an email from Kelly. “Hi Megan and Carrie, I just listened to your February 3rd episode and wanted to echo something that Daniel mentioned re: one of your perspective guests he suggested to you” – the Scottish Gaelic consultant for Outlander. I’m not saying his name because I forgot to look up the pronunciation beforehand, and I don’t wanna mess it up.

“If you’re already Outlander fans, you may already know this, but if not, you might enjoy checking out the series.” I still have not seen it. I know so many people love it.

Megan Figueroa: I know. I need to watch it.

Carrie Gillon: I just have so many shows that I love that it’s hard to slot in a new one, but I do really kinda wanna hear some Scottish Gaelic.

Megan Figueroa: I know. Well, how am I supposed to fit it in when I keep watching Schitt’s Creek over and over again? [Laughter]

Carrie Gillon: At least I’m not doing that.

Megan Figueroa: Anyway, back to the email.

Carrie Gillon: One of my favorite shows is about to start again so, anyway. “He’s been a guest on a couple episodes of the Outlander podcast where he’s talked about his approach to consulting on the Scottish Gaelic used in the production. The showrunner, Ron Moore” – who’s also the show runner for Battlestar Galactica, just FYI – “also talks about the use of Scottish Gaelic in a couple of episodes of THE OFFICIAL OUTLANDER PODCAST” – all capital letters, so I think that’s actually its name – “and how they opted not to use subtitles for it to keep the audience tightly in the protagonist, Claire’s, point of view. Since she doesn’t understand the Gaelic, we don’t get subtitles for it. In other parts of the series, they’re in France and, since Claire has French, we get subtitles so that we understand the same content that she does.” That’s an interesting choice.

Megan Figueroa: That’s really interesting, yeah.

Carrie Gillon: “I just thought that was a cool and unusual way for a TV production to approach incorporating an additional language. Also, Outlander does a pretty good job overall of portraying languages and multilingualism in a positive light. One of the main characters, Jaime, is a polyglot. In the books, he’s described as having a talent for languages and he knows at least English, Scotts – Scottish Gaelic – French, German, Latin, and I think Classical Greek. Claire speaks French and English. More recent seasons also include Spanish, Mohawk and, if I remember correctly, a character who speaks Dutch. Anyhow, they build a world that includes the basic assumption that people will and should speak different languages, which is refreshing.” I agree.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah!

Carrie Gillon: “There’re still some arseholes. One scene stands out in which a bunch of British soldiers make fun of a Scotsman’s phonology, but it’s a really enjoyable series with a lot of details that language nerds can enjoy. Hope you get a chance to check it out.” Thank you, Kelly.

Megan Figueroa: Well, now I have to watch it because a listener suggested it.

Carrie Gillon: Yes. And also the language stuff does pique my interest quite a bit.

Megan Figueroa: Is it on Netflix? Do we know?

Carrie Gillon: I do not know. I’m sure listeners will let us know.

Megan Figueroa: Yes. Also, this is not an advertisement for Netflix.

Carrie Gillon: Unless they would like to. [Laughter] Yeah, Netflix, you wanna send some of those billions of dollars you’re spending on content. Doesn’t even have to be in the millions.

Megan Figueroa: No. No. We’re very humble people over here.

Carrie Gillon: Very humbled all the time by things. [Laughter] All right. Well, this week’s episode is all about storytelling. We talk with Anna Marie Trester – not Anna Maria, which I briefly mis-call her.

Megan Figueroa: Me too. What a good sport.

Carrie Gillon: Yes.

[Music]

Carrie Gillon: Today, we have Dr. Anna Marie Trester who is the founder of Career Linguist. She’s an educator, researcher, and consultant who is passionate about bringing linguistics to work. She helps linguists figure out better ways of articulating how our expertise is useful and helps a world of work use linguists to solve the kinds of puzzles we are uniquely equipped to solve. She’s also interested in storytelling as the author of Bringing Linguistics to Work: A Story Listening, Story Finding and Story Telling Approach to Your Career. Welcome, Anna Maria – Anna Marie? Anna Maria. [Laughter]

Anna Marie Trester: Oh, yeah. That has been my whole life. I answer to both. I’ve had business cards that say “Anna Maria” and I, yeah, I understand and celebrate this.

Carrie Gillon: Well, it also makes me think of Anna Maria Tremonti – a Canadian journalist – and I think that’s where I always wanna go because your name is so close.

Megan Figueroa: And you’re from southern Arizona so, like, or at least spend a lot of time.

Anna Marie Trester: I’ve lived a significant portion of my life in Tucson – high school, college. And, yeah, I still light up – I was at a book reading the other night and the author hinted that she was from Arizona. And it’s like, “Where are you from?” And she goes, “Tucson.” And ahh! [Laughter]

Megan Figueroa: I love that. Surely, you’re not the only Anna Maria in Tucson.

Carrie Gillon: Anna Marie.

Megan Figueroa: I mean – I know. That’s what I’m saying, you know?

Anna Marie Trester: Also, there’re Tresters in Tucson. My last name is quite uncommon, but when I say “Trester” in Tucson, I’m often asked, “Are you related to the So-and-So Tresters?” I am not, that I know of.

Megan Figueroa: Well, you’re so close – Rebecca Traister.

Carrie Gillon: Oh, yeah! [Laughter]

Megan Figueroa: I’m sorry. What we’re really saying is, your name is very, very perfect and interesting.

Anna Marie Trester: I love it. I teach storytelling to people, and one of the first ice breakers that I like to do is tell a story about your name. There are endless – or I do this at networking events too. We just go around and, you know, the linguists always have interesting stories to tell about their names. It’s a great way to start.

Megan Figueroa: So, you say you spend a lot of time in Tucson, but I am hearing a little bit of Minnesota.

Anna Marie Trester: I’m Canadian and mid-western. I moved around a lot when I was growing up and I blame that on why I became a linguist because every time I moved, I would have an accent, and then try to not have an accent, and then have more of an accent, and what I have now is a big mix.

Megan Figueroa: Well, I think every linguist has some sort of story or a moment where they realize that their language was X or someone else’s and they want to know the answer, and then all of a sudden, they’re down this rabbit hole of what is linguistics.

Anna Marie Trester: 30 years later.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. Sure.

Carrie Gillon: Let’s begin with Career Linguist. Why did you start that?

Anna Marie Trester: Well, it’s a funny story actually. I was teaching at Georgetown University. I was the director of a program that was focused on professional applications of linguistics – the MLC shout out, the MLC program, Masters in Language and Communication at Georgetown. I taught them a course that was called “The Professionalization Seminar.” In the course, one of the things that we did was your picked an organization and your did an ethnography – I called it a mini ethnography – where you spent some time and, if you could, get in the doors of that organization. Be an ethnographer. Talk to people who work there, spend any time that you can learning about it in any way that you can.

Anyways, we were doing this project and my students were like, “Why aren’t you doing an ethnography of an organization of interest?” It’s like, “Oh, okay. I accept that challenge.” So, they had a portfolio that was an online portfolio. I had been kinda blogging and doing some stuff but, you know, put it all together into Career Linguist. That started in, like, 20 – I mean, that was probably 20 – oh, yeah. In the aughts we said 2006.

Megan Figueroa: Yep. We sure did.

Anna Marie Trester: I mean, I first was dabbling when I was a graduate student then I guess it became – I think it became a thing in like 2012/2014 that I was Career Linguist. I even forget. Anyways, that’s how it started. Then, over the years blogging, sort of found my voice – what is this gonna be? Why am I trying to say? Who am I trying to talk to? Defining – so now I would say, yeah, it’s a resource center and it’s a blog where I share ideas about career. I think, write, and speak about career – so musings and job ads. Today I posted some job ads up there.

Megan Figueroa: What does a job ad look like that you might wanna share with people?

Anna Marie Trester: I share things that I come across that sound interesting. The ones I posted this morning were job ads for an organization called “Appen,” who’ve actually hired me recently to talk about – they wanna think about making recruiting be more human.

Megan Figueroa: Instead of algorithms and stuff?

Anna Marie Trester: Yeah. I’m actually organizing networking events in different cities where people who work at the organization come – and I’m hoping to do one in Tucson soon, or Phoenix. We’ll see. This organization hires tons of linguists. No matter where you go in the states or in Australia – they’re actually housed in Australia, this organization. I dunno if they’re gonna send me to Australia but – hey! If anyone’s listening, who wants to? That’d be great.

But just get people to talk about “You work here. What’s it like to work here? I’m thinking about working here,” just bringing it to an interpersonal interaction. Then, I posted another job. I have been really interested in Nextdoor. I dunno if you know this app. It’s big out here and – I live in Silicon Valley area. They seem to be very thoughtful about what that app can do. It builds community. They’re always asking, and they listed: sociologist, psychologist, anthropologist.

And I’m like, “Hello! You’re looking for a linguist.” They want people who are thoughtful about community and are theorizing about community and the role of social media in organizing community. They cite Bowling Alone, extensively – you never see this in a job ad where they’re doing a lit review and citing research, so I need to meet whoever this is that’s writing these job ads.

It’s an app where people can get to know their neighbors, ask things like –

Carrie Gillon: This one, yes!

Anna Marie Trester: You’ll ask like, “Is there a power outage?” This kind of thing. “Did somebody just hear a noise? What was that?”

Megan Figueroa: I joined that and then, as someone who likes true crime as – like, I’m one of those women that listen to true crime for my anxiety – I thought that it was really scary because people were like, “Why are the cops” – so I was informed of every situation in which the cops were involved.

Anna Marie Trester: This is why they need a social – they know that they need people to be thoughtful –

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. That’s good.

Anna Marie Trester: Yeah! They’re aware.

Megan Figueroa: Right. And it was a little bit racist.

Carrie Gillon: Oh, there’re a lot of people on there who’re racist, yeah.

Megan Figueroa: I was like, “Why are you informing me that a sketchy-looking person was walking through the neighborhood?” Let people walk through fucking neighborhoods, you know?

Anna Marie Trester: Well, if that conversation happens there, it’s a tool, it’s a platform, so people have these conversations. Exactly this conversation happens weekly, daily.

Megan Figueroa: This kind of job would be to see what people – you kinda wanna be behind the scenes and see how that can be facilitated or prevented or what is that, do you think?

Anna Marie Trester: I have so many different jobs, but the one that I posted was about – so they call it the “product.” This is how Silicon Valley talks about the community as a product. So, these people are thinking about how the technology, I guess, could be structured. I’m not a tech person, but I like to think about how tech needs us because they do.

So, I mean, kudos to them. They’re realizing they need someone who’s aware of social science and human theory to think about how they’re developing this technology so that, if there is that – if that is making certain conversations really easy to have – maybe we can shape that.

Megan Figueroa: Absolutely. Then, you need – this is great – you need linguists because – or people that think about these questions – because then you’re like, “Okay. At what point is it hate speech, and when can we flag that, and when are encroaching on the first amendment?” and all of that.

Carrie Gillon: Well, it doesn’t encroach on first amendment because it’s not the government.

Megan Figueroa: Ah. Good point. Yes. But that’s not – so I did a, how do you say it, a consultation with a tech company and they were asking me these questions about their avatars and if people can talk to each other about these things, when will people feel like their first amendment rights are being encroached upon?

It’s not just that maybe they know, perhaps, that they can do whatever they want, but they don’t want people to feel like their rights are being encroached upon because then people get pissy.

Carrie Gillon: Yes. They do. Because they don’t understand what the law actually is.

Megan Figueroa: As I just showed. [Laughter] I’m just in the presence of Anna Marie and I’m thinking about all these ways linguists can help people in other sorts of jobs.

Anna Marie Trester: Absolutely.

Megan Figueroa: I mean, who thinks – we don’t think about it enough.

Anna Marie Trester: We have something to say in every – we are thoughtful about language and communication and how it means, like, how language does things everywhere. No matter where you are, if you’re working, you’re using language, so you could use a linguist. You need a linguist. I’ll say it.

Carrie Gillon: Everyone needs a linguist. They just don’t know that they need one.

Anna Marie Trester: They just don’t know it.

Megan Figueroa: Just put that linguist in your pocket. You need one. Just carry it around.

Anna Marie Trester: I think a lot about job ads, right? I actually was writing – I’m putting an activity in my new book where I’m calling it, “Put yourself into conversation with a job ad.” This is an activity that I like to do. There was a job that I saw recently at Earthjustice, this is a law firm that focuses on climate change. Their tagline, I love it, is “Because the earth needs a good lawyer.”

Megan Figueroa: Aw, that’s awesome!

Anna Marie Trester: That’s their organizational catchphrase. But then they’ve realized that they need people to be helping them communicate internally, like within the organization, and the way that they wrote this job ad, it’s just – I’m putting it in my book. I’m using it as an example of when you see a job ad like this, it almost is – they’re not asking for a linguist, but they are saying what they need is someone who can help them be thoughtful about how they are talking to each other in ways that can be excluding or –

You know, when people think about diversity, they’re like, “Oh, yeah. We need to hire more. Yeah. It’s great. Hire more diverse teams.” Then, the work really begins when we start talking about thinking about how does the way that interact, talk inclusivity into being. It’s gonna happen all day every day, a thousand times a day, that there’s gonna be a million interactions that we can all be more thoughtful about.

Megan Figueroa I’m actually impressed that they got to that point because a lot of places will check the box of being quote-unquote “diverse” because they hired someone that doesn’t look like everyone else or whatever. Then, it stops there.

Anna Marie Trester: It starts there.

Megan Figueroa: Exactly, right? Yeah!

Carrie Gillon: Well, I think it’s actually certain kinds of organizations are more thoughtful about this than others. Universities are possibly – I might as well say the worst – but they’re way behind some kind of organizations because they’re just – they’re like, “Well, we’re good. We have all these students from all over the place.”

Anna Marie Trester: Carrie, I love that you say that because – so a lot of people reach out to me with questions about applying for jobs. They’ll see a job ad or have an interaction with somebody where they’re like, “This person isn’t very thoughtful about – they’re telling me I need to get more training in Python.” And you’re gonna encounter plenty of people who don’t get it, but we have to be okay – better than okay – we have to welcome this opportunity to talk about who we are, or what we do, what we can bring.

A lot of people aren’t gonna get it, and that doesn’t mean that we need to stop. That’s why we need to keep talking about why we care about what we care about and what we can offer because we have – I say, the world needs us. The world needs more of us.

Megan Figueroa: I was thinking recently about what happened because I’m on a campus and there was an ad for an accent modification workshop, and I was just thinking, it’s like, “Someone probably asked for that or require” – I don’t know who on the uppers wanted it. But why can’t there be someone that’s like, “If we’re gonna do that, we need to do accent accommodation workshops too” or something like that? If this is something that we’re really gonna keep doing – because I see it all the time, and I don’t see it dying.

Anna Marie Trester: Well, so my dissertation research was on improv, so I take a “Yes, and…” approach always to life. It’s how I think. When I was at Georgetown, the business school approached me. Somebody went to a conference and learned about ethnography, and then they came back and looked at the course calendar – who’s teaching ethnography – and it was me. They brought me over for a meeting and they were like, “We wanna have some resources for our international students.” And I was like, “Yes, and what I see here is an opportunity to talk to everybody about what we all can learn about” –

To their credit, they took me up on it and that turned into a five-year project that we called “Talking Business” where we all learned – and we have so much that we can learn from the experience of an international student who can tell us so much about what they’re learning and observing about how we communicate.

Megan Figueroa: Perhaps here how when they’re in class, how hard it is for them when they’re listening to an American accent. I mean, just these things that would make others more empathetic toward others.

Anna Marie Trester: Well, at the end of the day, we just have to realize that our ways of speaking are always unique. We decide that there is a way that we talk to one another, but that is always contextually situated and negotiated and constructed.

Megan Figueroa: “Talking Business” – I love that. I’m happy to hear to there are some places that are running with this idea of we’re all in this together, basically, as cheesy as it sounds.

Anna Marie Trester: It is so much fun. They really opened their doors to us. What we did was they let us record all of their interactions. Then, when somebody in that group wanted to know – we just would offer it to them. Like, “If you would like to have a conversational style consult, let us know.” If they said yes to us – and I’m gonna be reaching out to these folks because it’s now been 10 years, so how has this – has this helped? I hope that it has.

We would be able to pull up – we had video. And I had, at that time, a team of seven research assistants, so we could cue up the video and we could find an example of them, like, “This is how you have an argument with a classmate,” “This is how you make a persuasive presentation,” “This is how you” – and we could help them be thoughtful and reflective on, “This is how you are using language. Here’s some ways that could be interpreted, misinterpreted. There’s ways that this makes a lot of sense in this context, how could this” –

I had one student, he was about to become a Dean, and he realized that he had to totally recalibrate – moving from being a student to being a Dean – he had to totally recalibrate how you do humility, for example. When invested with a lot of institutional power, it’s totally different how you be folksy.

Megan Figueroa: That’s something I didn’t even think about because I just don’t have a lot of power, Anna Marie, so I don’t have to think about how I talk when it comes – how am I gonna sound more down to earth? Well, I couldn’t be further down here.

Carrie Gillon: There’s always lower you could be.

Megan Figueroa: I know. I’m sure. [Laughter]

Anna Marie Trester: With Career Linguist, I find I’m often experimenting with trying on a little bit more power. There’s ways that, especially women – and we live in a world where what gets heard as “confident,�� and I’m using air quotes. People love to tell women, “You need to change the way that you talk You need to sound more confident. And you need to” – you know?

Megan Figueroa: Right. Plus vocal fry.

Anna Marie Trester: Aye yae yae. Okay. Let’s think about what gets heard as confident. I’m working on this new book that is – right now, I’m calling it, “Employing Linguistics,” we’ll see how that – I want there to be that ambiguity because it’s about work, but it’s not just about work. It’s how you use linguistics.

I’m starting off with a story from a woman who’s just starting off her professional life. She just graduated. She’s got a masters in linguistics, and she’s launching her own business. And I do workshops. I travel and do workshops at linguistics departments around the country and world, now. I went to Finland last –

Megan Figueroa: Ooo!

Anna Marie Trester: It was so great. Yeah. In Finland, they were saying, “Maybe it’s just here, but we have a hard time projecting power.” Like, “Yeah, no, it’s not just here.” But I was playing them this interview from this woman because they were saying, “She doesn’t sound confident.” And I’m like, “And yet, I’m telling you, this woman is launching her own business. She knows what the hell she’s doing. She’s doing it.” Okay. We need to really question what we are saying when we say, “That person sounds” –

Megan Figueroa: Going back to job ads, some of the language they use in job ads is so off-putting.

Carrie Gillon: It makes it sound really boring, a.), and then b.), yeah, it’s like, “Oh, I don’t think they want someone like me.”

Megan Figueroa: Or I’m like, “Is there some tinge of sexism or something here?” And I’m like, “Do I wanna work for them?”

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. That’s kinda what I meant.

Anna Marie Trester: This is where I mean we have to – I like to say that we linguists, we lean in when we hear miscommunication, misunderstanding – yeah. There are problems, and they need us. I mentioned that collaboration. I’m finding this organization, Appen, they’re open to me talking with them about even it starts with the job ad. When you’re talking about who you’re looking for, there’s gonna be – we all have a way that we can become more aware of how we’re using language and embedding our own perspective. This is a process that we all need to be working.

Megan Figueroa: Someone emailed me and asked me for some perspective on a job that they were sending out. My first thought was, “Can you explicitly put that ‘You may read these job qualifications and think that you’re not qualified. Try anyway’?”

Anna Marie Trester: Nice.

Megan Figueroa: Because I’m like – this is something that I run into where I’m like – and I have to be like, “All right. Put on your cap and think about all the people that are just like” – you know, more confidently.

Anna Marie Trester: “I have one of those things.”

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. Just be more like that because you never know. I wanted them to put that specifically because it’s women or other minoritized people that are going to read that and say, “I’ll pass on even applying.”

Anna Marie Trester: Absolutely. A thousand times, yes.

Megan Figueroa: I was happy just to know that someone was reaching out, that people are being more thoughtful about this.

Anna Marie Trester: People are. They need help. And we’re gonna make mistakes. We’re gonna make a couple of mistakes. We need to get better at – this is where my improv, I think, is such a boon to me because it really taught me how to make mistakes and to be a little bit easier about “I messed that up and we need to try again.”

Megan Figueroa: What? Are you telling me that improv is basically therapy? Is that what you’re saying? Because it’s like, that’s where I learned that!

Anna Marie Trester: What if I told you my improv troupe was called “Cheaper Than Therapy”? [Laughter]

Megan Figueroa: Oh, perfect. Well, I mean, it’s funny because you said you’re always “Yes, and…” because my therapist taught me that.

Carrie Gillon: So, your therapist is probably from improv because –

Megan Figueroa: I think that’s what they’re teaching now to people that go this route – all these new techniques. But it’s like, sure –

Carrie Gillon: Someone from improv started that.

Megan Figueroa: The facilitator of what workshop or whatever.

Anna Marie Trester: I taught improv for about 10 years in Washington, DC. I got so many people, they would tell me, that they came into improv because their therapist told them to come to improv. I started having relationships with therapists who were recommending their clients come to work with me because they knew that I was thoughtful and welcoming, particularly embracing of this kind of work.

Megan Figueroa: I mean, it applies to anything, right? Just thinking of getting to the jobs ads, maybe you’re looking at these qualifications and you might say to yourself, “Ah, I don’t have the two years of experience. Yes, and I have so much experience in X.” It’s just a way to remind yourself that – I dunno. It’s a way to be kind to yourself. That’s what I’ve learned, for sure.

Anna Marie Trester: I call job ads a wish list. That’s some committee’s wish list. That’s great. They can ask for their purple unicorn. That’s fine. This is the real world, and you’re gonna get somebody who’s gonna have 10%, 20%, 30% of what you’re asking for.

Megan Figueroa: I just helped a friend. I was like, “No. You need to apply for this. I don’t care that you think that you’re not – you really want it. Try.”

Anna Marie Trester: Absolutely. There’s often – I dunno if you’ve read the book, there’s a book written by Stanford Design School professors called Designing Your Life. They are kind of down on job applications. They say don’t even look at them. But I say do look at them because that’s enough to look at and see if there is a spark. If there is any interest, then go for it and use that to start a conversation, use that to launch in.

But the truth is, so few jobs actually – when you look at the hiring process – or [pɹoʊsɛs] – there’s such a misalignment. There’s so few job ads that actually correspond to the thing that gets hired. I look at their book to talk about the numbers. I’m not the most quantitatively oriented person. But it’s a lot. Know that if you find a slight interest, a slight alignment, apply, and it could well be that there’s another job or a different job or a new job that they see when they see your materials. They think, “Oh, we didn’t even know that we were looking for this person. Let’s create a job for them.”

Megan Figueroa: You have clients. Are your clients the companies that are looking for linguists?

Anna Marie Trester: Sometimes. It’s a new thing started last year where I have this organization that’s trying to – I would like for it to be both. But it has been, for many years, that I’ve been working with universities to help their students or individual jobseekers to help make their materials –

Megan Figueroa: So, someone could send you their materials and you’d be pointing out, “Why aren’t you talking about how great you are at this? Obviously, you have this skill.”

Anna Marie Trester: Yeah. I feel like I give – I hope I give – a different – I’m not your typical resume helper person. I’ll look at a cover letter and I’ll notice things like you are not shifting your dietic center the way that you should be. This is a classic thing. In cover letters, people write about why this will be a great job for me – this will be a wonderful opportunity for me. It’s understandable, right? You’re in your head and you’re thinking about “Wow, I speak French. This will be a great opportunity to practice my French.”

What you have to do in job materials or at large, but especially in a cover letter, you need to say, “You need someone who speaks French because think about how that’s gonna help you with this initiative that I see you talking about in the press.” That signals a lot of things. That signals that you’ve been reading about them, you’ve been thinking about them, and that you’re thinking about how your skills help them.

Megan Figueroa: Because they are their center, right? They’re thinking about them, so make sure you appeal to them.

Anna Marie Trester: Yeah.

Megan Figueroa You do work with the Linguistics Society of America?

Anna Marie Trester: For four years, and now I stepped down. Anastasia Nylund and I were the co-organizers of a special interest group for “Linguistics Beyond Academia.”

Megan Figueroa: Okay. That was you.

Anna Marie Trester: We restarted it. It had been started a long time ago. We sort of breathed new life into it in 2014. We carried the torch for four years. Now, we’ve passed it off to a team that has a ton of energy and they are just kicking butt. We just had the meeting – were you there?

Megan Figueroa: I wasn’t there, no. It was my first time. I haven’t been in a while. I had a little bit of fomo but – yeah.

Anna Marie Trester: I was telling Carrie, one of the top tweets for a long time about the conference at the #LSA2020, one of the top tweets from a presentation that one of our SIG members made to a department chair meeting where it was a list of dos and don’ts for when your students get a non-academic job. The big don’t was – and somebody took a picture of this. It was Lauren Collister, and her tweet blew up. It was, “Don’t say ‘We’ll miss you.’ Say, ‘How wonderful! You got a job that I hope you’ll come back and tell us about. Keep us connected to you. Keep coming back and telling our students.’” That’s an act of erasure that is probably not intended. How othering is that? That is so common.

Carrie Gillon: It happened to me after I decided, “You know what? Fuck this shit.” One of my Facebook friends, who I’d known since I was an undergrad, he was like, “Oh, we’ll miss you.” And I was like, a.) I still have stuff coming out. Still. I still do. And b.) what? We’re still connected on Facebook. We’re still gonna be –

Megan Figueroa: You’re not not a linguist anymore.

Carrie Gillon: Right. I’m still a linguist. I’m still doing stuff with language. I dunno. I was mad.

Megan Figueroa: As you should be, yeah. When I graduated, someone told me, “It’s a shame because you’re such a good researcher.” And I was like –

Carrie Gillon: Like you can’t do research anywhere else?

Megan Figueroa: I still am. I don’t have a tenure track job or I’m not a postdoc, but I’m still doing research. It was like, “Ugh. I know you mean so well.” I can tell that you think that’s a very – you’re speaking highly of me, and I get it, but it hurts. I’m glad that you brought that up because I just want to say to all of the undergrads and grad students listening that you don’t have to go into academia. If someone shames you for it, that’s some of their stuff going on.

Carrie Gillon: It’s part of the cult of academia, right?

Megan Figueroa: It is. Absolutely. I hope you have an advisor that is comfortable enough with whatever. I know the numbers look good when you have, “Oh, look. My student went to tenure track.” I know that’s what’s underpinning all of this, but it’s like, academia doesn’t look like it did 30 years ago. Not everyone wants to be a professor. All these things. It has to be okay.

Anna Marie Trester: I have to say it again, the world needs us. On this panel that we had at the LSA, we had an asylum officer talking about how his linguistics – of course, his linguistics skills come into play a thousand times a day as an asylum officer. The world has some wicked problems.

Carrie Gillon: I think lawyers should hire linguists on retainer because we can help you a lot.

Anna Marie Trester: Sometimes, I show up at a school and people are like, “I’m gonna get an academia job!” And I’m like, “Okay. Wonderful.” I’m not trying to take that away from anybody. I was scared too when I – so I started this job, I was one of those PhD students who was gonna get an academic job and I just knew it. I had magical thinking it was just gonna work out. When I was graduating, there was this program that was starting at Georgetown, and my advisor, Deborah Schiffrin – well, she was one of my committee members. She was not my advisor. Sorry, Natalie. Natalie was my advisor. Deborah Schiffrin was on my committee.

She advised me in that moment to apply for this job. She said, “This is why you’d be good at it.” Again, talking about how we don’t think about our own expertise. Before grad school, I had worked in an investment bank. I had some industry experience and I came to linguistics from that. Anyways, I was good at that job, but the whole time I was still applying for academic jobs, and I was gonna get an academic job, and I was convinced that was the path that I was on and, gradually, started to realize that –

Oh, now I remember what I was gonna say. The point I was gonna make was that Debbie Schiffrin, when she was getting me started with this job, she was like, “Okay. The first thing you’re gonna do is have 50 informational interviews.” And I was like, “What’s an informational interview? Huh?” I didn’t know. One of the reasons I wouldn’t have thought to apply for that job is I dunno how to help grad students figure out non-academic careers.

So, I just started – well, “Yes, and…” – having these informational interviews where I went and talked to alum and said, “What do you do? How does your linguistics come here?” One of the first ones I went to was an alum who worked at the Census Bureau. She’s like, “I have the best job, right? Of all the people that you’ve talked to, I have the best one, right?” And I was like, “You’re the first one. I don’t know! Maybe? You seem really happy.”

She was so happy with her job, and so in touch with how her work was really having real world – she had done research in Chinese – well, she was, herself, a speaker of Mandarin, I believe, and she was helping the Census Bureau think about, as they were bringing surveys to Chinese-speaking communities, there was a way that they were gonna need to restructure the letters so a, quote-unquote, “American style” – like a white, non-thinking-about-it style would be to say, “Please complete this survey because blah, blah, blah.”

But in the discourse style of Chinese-speaking communities, you needed to structure the request such that it said, “Background, background, background, background, background, build up to the request.” The survey, when it was restructured that way, was getting a much higher – people were actually responding and getting the data that the data that the Census Bureau needed.

Megan Figueroa: And she did that. She helped with that.

Anna Marie Trester: She did that.

Megan Figueroa: Awesome. Especially since it’s so fucking important – the census.

Anna Marie Trester: Yeah.

Megan Figueroa: That’s awesome.

Carrie Gillon: I’m looking forward to it coming. I like filling those things out.

Megan Figueroa: I know! I do too. I remember being 10 years old or, like, 13, and being like, “Can I fill it out, Dad? Can I be the one? Can I do it?” Such a nerd.

Anna Marie Trester: They have a bunch of linguists working there.

Megan Figueroa: That’s good. That’s awesome. Doesn’t every state have their own little census bureau too? I mean, I’m just thinking about all of – there’s so many places for linguists. It’s not just like there’s one centralized census bureau. Every state has something that’s working on these things and all of that. So many jobs.

You collect stories for your books?

Anna Marie Trester: It’s one of the things that I do, yeah.

Megan Figueroa: That’s the kind of stories that you’re collecting?

Anna Marie Trester: As a community, we need to hear more stories. I think through stories we learn about the different kinds of things that people can do with their skills and training in linguistics. That’s why I’m writing this book now, again, another one, because I felt like the last book I wrote didn’t have enough stories. It had, like, five, but now I wanna have 50 because I wanna tell a story of career diversity.

That’s one of the ways that – I have this approach where I think about story telling, story listening, and story finding. The story telling part of that work is just getting lots of stories out there. Then, I advocate for an approach that is more ongoing. It’s sort of like what I was talking about when I’m talking about that job at Earthjustice that I see having such potential. We could learn a lot from paying attention to the stories, listening to the stories that are being told in a job application, at the workplace. Adopting a story listening approach could be really informative about anything.

I always think about Charlotte Linde’s work when I think about story listening. She was hired for many years by NASA to – well, I always say she was chasing astronauts around, but I think that’s not exactly what she did all day. She could capture the stories of missions when they were being retired. It was one of the things that she did. They had her having her job responsibility, they called it “Knowledge Management.” But, as a linguist, she has expertise in what is the knowledge – the expert knowledge – that is contained in these stories that will not – they will not be codified when these people retire, or leave, or this mission gets retired.

Having someone who’s listening for a story and being very thoughtful about the knowledge and wisdom and institutional best practices that are contained in – so, again, everybody needs one of those linguists story listening at their organization.

Carrie Gillon: That’s amazing.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. I wanna work for NASA!

Anna Marie Trester: I visited her one day and I was like, “Charlotte, you are doing nothing to dissuade me from saying you have the coolest job in the world” because she took me to the Mars model and we were chasing around –

Carrie Gillon: Oh, man! [Laughter] Dream job.

Megan Figueroa: I was gonna say, isn’t every little nerdy kid’s dream job NASA? You don’t even know what part of NASA. You’re just like – NASA!

Carrie Gillon: Well, when I first went to university, I went into engineering because I was like, “Star Trek. Yeah. I’m gonna build shuttles.” Then, I was like, “Nope. Hate this.” But if linguistics could’ve gotten me there – oh, man!

Megan Figueroa: Yeah! You’d want her job the whole time.

Anna Marie Trester: Linguistics got Charlotte Linde to NASA twice. Twice! You’ll have to read her story in my book to learn how. In the book, I’m telling stories about how people use their linguistics as a Mom, or how people use their linguistics in bystander activism. It’s not just at work. But, for many of us, work is gonna be the way that we bring – I grew up in a family that doesn’t have a ton of money, so my job was gonna be how I travelled. It was gonna be how I got to try on different worlds and explore. Career has been a major way that I have expressed my sense of contributing to the world.

For many of us, it is that too. It is not just our livelihood – but it is also our livelihood – but if you’re trying to use your career to express meaning and purpose and find that broader “What do I wanna give to the world?” it’s gonna be more bottom up, I think. It’s both. It’s top down and bottom up.

Carrie Gillon: That, I think, is particularly for people who went into academia. That’s really important for us is that we wanna be doing meaningful work.

Anna Marie Trester: One of my favorite networking groups – I participate in this group here in the Bay Area called “Ethnobreakfast.” A lot of them are –

Megan Figueroa: That’s just nerdy.

Anna Marie Trester: It’s so nerdy. All right. Professors who are listening, do this. This was a professor of anthropology. She has kept such a tight, close community of her grads that, every month, one of them invites a group of nerds into their workplace. We all trudge out to Facebook or to Workday, and we sit for an hour. We read – well, whatever the host gets to decide what we’re gonna read. We all read something. Then, we talk about some theoretical thing or.

They get to invite their colleagues who get to learn a little bit more about “I always knew that you had this anthropology or ethnography or linguistic interest, but I didn’t know how you used it or how it came” – they get to learn about us. We get to learn about them. I think this should be happening everywhere.

Carrie Gillon: That sounds amazing.

Anna Marie Trester: It’s breakfast, so it is early in the morning. But it doesn’t cut into anybody’s workday. We have it from 8:30 to 9:30 on a Friday which, let’s be honest, who can start to work at 9:00 a.m. on a Friday anyway? We all bring – it’s a potlatch. It doesn’t cost anyone anything. Those are the conversations that we need to be – okay. So, story finding. Talk about a little cue that I left for a long time. That’s what I think of when I think of story finding. Let’s look for places where conversations could be happening but aren’t and let’s build spaces for them.

Megan Figueroa: I would totally go to that breakfast.

Carrie Gillon: Me too.

Anna Marie Trester: It’s the best. Make one! So many alum from U of A are doing so many interesting things. For the record, I think that that’s what your podcast is also – a story finding thing. You’re out there making space for conversations that should be happening, but they haven’t been.

Carrie Gillon: I agree. It’s also story telling by letting the rest of the world who are not linguists know that, hey, these are things to think about. We should think about that more carefully than we have, but absolutely.

Anna Marie Trester: It seems like what we’re talking about are these tiny little interactions. I was inspired – I was telling Carrie – by Anne Charity Hudley’s amazing plenary at the LSA. She was sharing this model, and this is a social activism model, where it’s tiny little changes, when they are amplified a hundred-fold and consistently reinforced, that’s a movement. I think we’re engaged in a movement. It’s gonna be tiny little things, but they are happening all over the place. When you hear those little moments, or those little moments where you caught yourself being an asshole or –

Carrie Gillon: Which we all do.

Anna Marie Trester: Try to adopt that mindset of like, “Here’s a moment. Here’s a tiny moment.” We can be easy about it, and we can admit that we make mistakes and learn – after Anne’s plenary, I went up and tried to say this, so I’ll say what I sort of said that we all have to adopt a learning mindset. It's so powerful.

We’re bringing these messages to people with power so, especially people with power out there, remember, when you have power, it is especially important that you adopt this learning mindset and remember that it feels – I think sometimes people with power, it feels very dangerous to let go of any of that power or to admit that you could make a mistake.

Megan Figueroa: That’s why I was afraid of this podcast. I mean, this is my little bit of power, right, too, where I was like, “What if I say something wrong?”

Carrie Gillon: A.) we can edit.

Megan Figueroa: It was very scary.

Carrie Gillon: B.) we can learn!

Megan Figueroa: Yes. The learning part has been very – I thought it would be scary, but it’s actually very freeing.

Anna Marie Trester: It’s like this for me. It’s human.

Megan Figueroa: It is, yeah. Absolutely.

Anna Marie Trester: I remember K-Cat – Kathryn Campbell-Kibler – at a session at LSA a couple years ago where she invited us to come practice in the lobby. They had a panel on ethics. Then, she was like, “Meet me in the lobby.” And I was like, “Oh my god! I’ll be there.” I was there early. “Let’s practice having these conversations.” It was just – let’s practice having these conversations where we just say, “Huh. That wasn’t great” or “We can do better,” however we learn how to say these things.

Megan Figueroa: Absolutely. I think that all boils down to, don’t be an asshole, right?

Anna Marie Trester: It is absolutely how you do, don’t be an asshole. That’s how we all make sure that happens. We’re all responsible for it. Yeah!

Carrie Gillon: Acknowledging that you made a mistake is Step 1, and it’s good to acknowledge.

Anna Marie Trester: What a life-affirming conversation.

Carrie Gillon: I know! This has been great.

Anna Marie Trester: Go be awesome.

Megan Figueroa: I’m gonna cancel therapy on Tuesday.

Anna Marie Trester: Go share your power with the world.

Megan Figueroa: Yes. Go be empowered, for sure. Thank you so much for being our guest today.

Anna Marie Trester: Thank you guys.

Carrie Gillon: It was so great.

Megan Figueroa: It’s been so lovely.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. Don’t be an asshole.

Megan Figueroa: Don’t be an Asshole.

Anna Marie Trester: Yes, and…

[Music]

Carrie Gillon: The Vocal Fries podcast is produced by me, Carrie Gillon, for Halftone Audio, theme music by Nick Granum. You can find us on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @vocalfriespod. You can email us at [email protected] and our website is vocalfriespod.com.

#transcript #linguistics #linguist #careers #career linguist

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sweetblink · 6 years ago

Text

Beauty is Pain.

___________________

Chuck Clayton x Reader.

Requested by: Anon

#12 on prompt list #2 for chuck clayton from Riverdale

#12. "Oh my god, Y/N what have you done!" ... "What? I was bored, and I already did my makeup and you were asleep, it was perfect."

Warnings: fluff, cute chuck clayton, small cursings

____________________

If there was one thing that everyone in the school knew for sure, was that Y/N L/N was an amazing at makeup along with SFX, Betty being right behind, which that alone surprised many people. So honestly, Chuck should’ve known what he was getting himself into.

“What are you talking about, you want to what, what?” Chuck asked you, frowning in confusion.

You let out a small giggle and nodded. “I want to do your makeup, I want to see if you like a bad bish.”

“Baby, I already look like a bad bitch.” Chuck teased, you rolled your eyes at him and he laughed. “But why would you want to do my makeup?”

You just stare at him and then smiled. “Well, mainly because I want to see if you’d look prettier than me, also because I’m bored, and I want to see how amazing you’d look with glam makeup.”

Chuck smiled and shook his head. “Are you sure that’s the main thing? And not about your “secret” Instagram page, that I found.”

You let out a small gasp and looked at him eye wide. “You found that?” you asked.

“Well I didn’t, till I heard Cheryl, Toni and Betty talking about it. Did you know that Cheryl has a YouTube channel?”

You frowned. “She does?”

Chuck nodded and laughed. “Yeah, I heard her say so and I found it. It was the weirdest experience of my life honestly, like she sounds genuine and nice.”

You laughed. “Oh my god, she is nice, just that, she’s like an onion, she has many layers.”

“Can’t believe you made a Shrek reference.” He teased.

You giggled and smiled. “So, what do you say, would you allow me to do your make up, and maybe post it on my personal Instagram page.”

“Why don’t you just create a YouTube channel, like Cheryl did, I know you can do better videos that just making them for about short amount of time.”

“You really think that I have what it takes to be one of those Beauty Gurus on YouTube?” you asked him, sitting on his lap. Chuck smiled and wrapped his arm around your waist.

“Baby, I’ve seen all the makeup looks that you’ve done, and that also includes all those Halloween looks, I want you to be able to share that to the world.”

You giggled and leaned down to kiss him. “God, I love you so very much” you breathed out, pecking his lips. Chuck smiled and stood up throwing you over his shoulder.

“I love you too, but c’mon, we’re going out, we’re gonna make you famous.” He teased. You just giggled and slapped his butt.

*************************

Y/N stared at themselves in the mirror and turned her head side to side to see if you had gotten your contour correctly, smiling, you just left if there and started to grab your eyeshadow palettes. Chuck came in through your door and did a small double take.

“Oh, now that’s talent.” He said, stepping closer to you know, and watched as your eyebrow were finally twinning. “Babe, you finally manage to get them as twins.”

You let out a small giggle and rolled your eyes. “I know, guess how long it took me to do it.” Chuck rubbed his chin and tilted his head a bit.

“Last time you took about two hours to even get them close to twin, so I’m guess about three hours max.”

You shook your head, smiling. “It actually took me about thirty minutes, this time.”

“Shut up, you’re lying.”

“I kid you not.”

“Shut up, that’s fake, seriously how long did it take you this time.” Chuck said, coming to stand right behind you. You just elbowed him, and he chuckled, he leaned down and kissed your hair, before moving away. “So where are you going?”

You looked at him through the mirror and shrugged. “Nowhere, I just felt the need to do my makeup, I’m thinking of what more I can improve or make a new look on.”

Chuck nodded and let out a small yawn. “You continue to do that, I’m gonna take a small nap on your bed.”

You stared at him as he made his way towards your bed and sent him a small glare. “Did you seriously come over just so you can sleep on my bed?”

Chuck smiled. “No, I came over so we can both sleep on your bed, but since your busy, I’m still gonna take that nap.”

You just giggled and shook your head. “You’re a literal piece of work, you know that?”

Chuck just sent a small wink and got comfortable on your bed, watching as you went back to doing your make up, debating on what type of look you want to do, after a few minutes of just watching you, he finally fell asleep.

About thirty minutes have gone by and you finally finished doing your makeup, looking at Chuck through your mirror, an idea popped in your head, grabbing the little small basket that Chuck had gotten you, you grabbed certain eyeshadow palettes, brushes, lipstick, and the correct tone of foundation and powder you had gotten specifically for him.

Letting out a small giggle you took your things and joined him on the bed, setting the basket on the stand besides your bed, you settled right besides him and grabbed the moisturizer, and began to start on his make, for once you thank the heavens above that he was a heavy sleeper, as you began to work on his eyebrows.

After an hour doing beating his face, and blending everything, you finished the look by painting his lips. Smiling you looked down at your masterpiece and took a picture, after the small mini shoot that you took, you stood up and started to put everything away and joined Chuck.

You sat besides him, playing with his hair, while on your phone as well. Chuck let out a small groan and he slowly started to wake up. Smiling you prepared you went on your snapchat, ready to film, as he fully woke up.

“Good morning sleeping beauty.” You cooed, filming him already.

Chuck just let out a small grunt stood up to stretch. “Damn right I’m a beauty.” He mumbled out.

You stopped recording him, giggling and posted the story, you held your phone up again. Chuck smacked his lips and frowned. “Why does my lips feel a bit heavy?”

You giggled and shrugged. “Did you put on some Chapstick before you got here?” Chuck shook his head and narrowed his eyes at you.

“You did not.”

You giggled even more and shook your head. “I don’t know what your talking about.”

Chuck turned to the mirror and you started to record him, Chuck began to walk towards the mirror and stared at himself, he let out a small gasp of shock and turned to you, by now you started to giggle even louder. “BABE!”

You posted it on your snapchat and shrugged. “Beauty is pain.”

Chuck just stared at you. “Oh my god, Y/N what have you done!"

"What? I was bored, and I already did my makeup and you were asleep, it was perfect." You replied, smiling at him.

Chuck looked at himself once more in the mirror, and you held up your phone once again, recording him. He finally turned back at you and smiled.

“I look good.”

You burst into loud giggles and posted the final video and stood up, making your way towards him. “You do look good, I told you that you’d look pretty.” You replied, wrapping your arms around his neck. Chuck smiled and wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you closer to him.

“That you did.” Chuck replied, leaning down to kiss you, but then stopped. “I’ll kiss you later, I actually don’t want to ruin my lipstick. You just laughed at him for the longest time.

Later, you posted a picture of the both of you, with the caption of being the most glam couple there is, it blew up, and it turned to be your most liked post. _________________________

Ya’ll its been a while since I’ve seen Riverdale, I’m kinda putting it off due to school and also cause Luke Perry (rip my mans), but I’ll get back to it soon.

Masterlist.

#chuck clayton imagines #chuck clayton imagine #chuck clayton x reader #chuck clayton x you #reader x chuck clayton #you x chuck clayton #chuck clayton #riverdale #riverdale cw #riverdale imagine #riverdale imagines #betty cooper #toni topaz #cheryl blossom

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semirahrose · 7 years ago

Note

First off I would like to thank you for answering my ask and directing me to some pretty awesome Sam-questioning-reality fanfiction. Second is what I wish the Supernatural writers did for the last six or seven seasons (so it's gonna be long and ranty.) So I noticed that after season 5 Supernatural didn't seem to know where it wanted to take the show. For the first five season there was the overarching story of starting and ending the apocalypse. It did have a monster of the week going on but

each monster of the week added something to either characters, lore, or plot. They also had an overarching theme of Hell going on. The watchers are introduced to demons and demon deals, two major characters enter demon deals, two characters go to hell and the third gets to go to the center of Hell at the end of season 5. But after season 5 the writers just seemed lost like they didn't know what to do with the show or the characters. (Especially Sam). So the next 7 seasons it kind of seemed like

they were just wandering around saying 'oh this seems cool lets add this' or 'this will bring the drama so lets do that.' There was no overarching story or theme. What I wished (since you can't go back in time and change the future yet) they did was a 5 season theme arch about purgatory. The boys would learn about the history of monsters (I know they kind of did that with eve but it was not very in depth like they did with hell.) Learn about souls, more about angels and the seasons actually

having a story over arching the whole five season instead of 'oh this seems cool to do.' I also wound't drop important character plots (cough Sam's Sanity cough) like hot iron (or give them lame conclusions *I never liked the idea of Cas just being able to take on the hell memories and they never bother Sam again, it just seemed like a cop out*). What i also wished was for consequences. For awhile now there haven't really been any weighty consequences for any of the characters. Even Death is

irrelevant. Kevin dies, it's okay he's now a ghost, the brothers can totally still talk to him (I know it was only one episode but it made his death seem kind for the shock value.) Cas dies (nope he's in another universe). Charlie dies (she hasn't returned but if she dies it will be in a convoluted way. It's getting to comics level with characters dying and coming back to life). Mary coming back to life destroys the tension (and I do like Mary, it interesting to see the interaction between her

and the boys) but her being back is bad writing. We all know that if we want a character back all the writers would have to do was invent some magic wand and all the dead characters would be back. So I miss consequences and having what character do matter. For the purgatory story arch the soul-less-Sam thing would lasted a whole season or close to (insane Sam the following season with a better less lame conclusion) The writers could even keep in the leviathans and have Dean go to Purgatory and

Sam has to go to Purgatory to get Dean. (Purgatory was another cool plot concept that the writers flung in to left field). The next five season theme would be heaven (hey, this is reminding me of Dante's Inferno). This is where the heaven civil war comes in (and Cas character arch would make more sense if the overarching theme was about Heaven. It could have the trials at the end (you could have even brought back Mary and John and any other characters in the purgatory arch) so when they do the

the trials they would have to lose all the family they got back during the purgatory arch. (this is good writing. When a character has to lose something to gain something, it gives more tension and depth to the characters.) So if they want to close hell Sam and Dean would lose their parents (and any other character that came out of purgatory) it would also be an interesting morality question (is it selfish to keep you parents and not close the gates of Hell *which had been there for all of human

history*) After the Heaven Arch there could even be a Mortal Arch that all about what Sam and Dean do after saving the world several times over. It would be about how you return to just hunting ghosts/spirits after dealing with heaven, hell and purgatory. And It would probably be the final arch/5 season as well. (Hey that would have been a good 20 season. That's 20 years playing the same character, the actors might want to do something different or pass the torch to new characters (like charlie)

So what do you think? Would that have been better then the meandering story line we have today? Sorry this was so long but it really needed to be said. I always hear people complain about Supernatural when things don't go their way (whether its Sam, Dean, Cas or Other) but I don't always hear people give solutions or a 'what i would have done' (then again the internet is a big place I'm sure I just missed the corner the solutions to all my problems are). So thoughts? Sorry about the length.

No worries! I love that you took the time to share this. Gonna put this under a cut because I may also talk a bit and I fear this might get long...

Those are some really cool ideas! I think the way the first five seasons melded Heaven, Hell, and our favorite mortal fellas’ fates together really made them what they were. The first five seasons had direction, consequences, originality, and a world that we learned more about with each episode. Like you said, the later seasons don’t work that way.

Instead of—sorry for the tired metaphor—peeling pack the layers of the onion until we get to the core of things, the later seasons just dart off in random directions hoping to strike ratings gold. I’ll be honest and say there are parts of seasons six, seven, eight, and eleven that I liked quite a bit, but later seasons have fallen into the trap of... basically neutering heaven and hell, making them into the butts of every joke.

The writers took away all the mystery and mysticism and terror and awe that made both heaven and Hell such interesting places to contemplate. Now they’re just suit-wearing big corporations. The wonder and fear I felt in the earlier seasons is gone. This show hasn’t been genuinely scary in years. The earlier seasons capitalized on the fear of the unknown. The pacing was solid, and as viewers, we were always aware that we were working toward something. They’d either defy fate or they’d go down in flames.

The later seasons have fallen into the trap of believing that having a bigger, badder villain will make the show better.

Really, for a long time now, they’ve been needing to look inside.

The characters have been made into plot puppets rather than real people who drive the action with their choices and desires and fears.

The show has also lacked cohesion and (as you mentioned!) consequences.

It really does just feel like they’re sliding from one thing to the next, trying to one-up themselves. Mark of Cain --> God’s Sister --> Lucifer’s kid --> ???

And it’s just a pale imitation of what it used to be.

I’m not sure if dedicating five seasons to each arc would work, since it might get predictable and formulaic if the writers weren’t careful, but I’m loving the idea of a Dante’s Divine Comedy sorta structure.

The thing is, I feel like some of the things the writing team has actually come out with could have been interesting under a competent showrunner and with writers who had a solid concept both of show canon and of consistency and consequence.

I love that there are so many people out there who love this show so much that they want to see it go on forever. I think that’s amazing and courageous.

I would rather see the show end than ruin everything that made it beautiful to me, though. If the writers could competently handle the story, I’d watch it for 100 seasons, but the show is losing amazing writers as fast as it gets them. (Nancy Won, anyone?)

Ack, sorry that this is kind of depressing.

Your ideas are wonderful and I think the writers could benefit from having the sense of balance you have. Thanks for sharing. :D

#spn #show critical #wank for ts #ish?#bitter sam girl is bitter #and maybe my thoughts are just salty and subjective #fatcat1991 #semirah replies

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sigurdjarlson · 7 years ago

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It would be cool to have a rundown of Guin’s relationships with all the companions (including maxson and whoever else you’re close to of course) ((I would say Lucille but I don’t know much about her sorrz)) like I know you don’t like deacon but does guin get along with him? Is she sneaky or all melee and mouthy like Hancock? Just curious!

!!!!!!!! Certainly :D

She’s mostly all melee (and mouthy) She is very fond of her rocket powered sledgehammer. And damn it but this girl LOVES a good fight. It’s great cuz she’s usually really nice so she’ll be like covered in raider blood and cuddling with a puppy.

She’s absolutely vicious with enemies though. Well, i suppose we all have to work off our inner turmoil somehow.

(hilariously these are all simplified summaries of her relationship with these people. there are a lot of other things I didn’t discuss with some of them cuz it would just be..too long. So many layers to all these relationships and characters..like endless onions.)

I’m gonna start with Shaun briefly.

Shaun: Guinevere never knew she could love something as much as she loved that little baby in her arms. He was everything to her. Despite honestly wanting to curl up and give up after getting out of the Vault she kept going for her son. Part of her reasoning for accepting Danse’s request to join the BoS was because..a military organization? They had to be the best chance to find her son right?

Then..she meets Father. She’s thrown for a loop but..he’s still her son? She tries. She REALLY does. She begs him to stop. When they attack and she finds him in his pod thing she begs him to come with her. She can save him just PLEASE come with her. His rejection devastated her and his death even more so.

She knows the Institute needs to be stopped though so she swallows everything down and goes on with the plan. It very nearly killed her. She’s..suicidal afterwards and has come really close to ending it all. How can she live with herself? Killing her own SON? Her son was the only thing keeping her going. She’s always been reckless simply because she doesn’t care if she lives or die but it gets much worse after the Institute. (she also feels a lot of guilt for destroying the Railroad too tbh. She feels guilt for a lot of things..but mostly her son)

However she has synth Shaun and..he’s Shaun. She doesn’t blink at taking him in as her son because he IS. She absolutely spoils him. Maybe some part of her is trying to make up for everything and it comes out as her trying to give him everything. Well, that and she simply loves him more than anything. He keeps her going.

Danse: He’s her best friend first. She falls for him pretty damn fast and why wouldn’t she? Under all that gruffness is a genuinely good man. She’s amazed by the complete and utter faith in her he shows when he brings her into the BoS. She’s only ever had that from Jax and maybe a couple other people pre-war.

He’s loyal to a fault, brave, and he genuinely cares for the people under his command as well as the people of the Commonwealth (only the people he considers people however..Which is where they would clash. Ideals. She has absolutely no problem with non-hostile synths and ghouls. She really doesn’t. She doesn’t like the way Danse treats them, she doesn’t like the way the BoS sees them and she’s honestly not afraid to make sure he knows it.

At the same time she’s too forgiving, a little too willing to look away from the reality of just how shitty the BoS is because..she loves them. It’s her family. Danse and Maxson? She’s in love with them. Surely things can change right? It can get better..she needs to believe they can. (random: its not surprising she latched onto the BoS after going through so much damn trauma. flaws aside it’s a very tight knit group, she feels like she has a family again)

Anyway back to Danse in particular.. if they argue it’s probably about non-humans. Or her generally being self-destructive and reckless.

However, BB comes and honestly there isn’t even a second where she considers hurting him. He’s Danse. He’s her Danse. It doesn’t matter if he’s a synth. She loves him and she knows him. She left the Prydwen knowing she was going to do whatever it takes to save him.

Danse..he loves her. She’s so caring (too caring sometimes), loyal, loving, brave, honorable. She’s also stubborn, reckless, hot-headed, sometimes a tiny bit arrogant and self-destructive.

But her good qualities outshine her flaws in his opinion. God knows he has his and…well, she wouldn’t be HER without them.

She brings a good amount of humor/lightness to his life. While she can of course be serious when she needs to be, she’s usually a bit of a goof and while he probably chastises her he’s usually amused by her antics. He’s baffled by the amount of affection/love she has for him too. what did he do to deserve that? he doesn’t know.

They’re head over heels in love okay. She’s flirty and it would leave him speechless more often than not. It still does even when they’re in a relationship sometimes. But she’s always there for him despite everything she’s facing? He doesn’t know how he could ever repay that..except by being there for her too.

He’ll also stomp your ass if you hurt his girl. Like don’t do it, man. He will fuck you up. He’s a “little” overprotective sometimes. He’s terrified of losing her and she doesn’t exactly put his mind at ease by being as reckless (and downright self-destructive sometimes) as she is

As time goes on after BB he learns a lot from her, she helps him come to terms with his identity and..she just makes him happy. Life isn’t..easy. It never will be and god knows he’s hurting and so is she but..they have each other. That’s enough.

Also they’re both a little bloodthirsty. Who doesn’t enjoy a good fight? Nothing like smashing some skulls and ridding the Commonwealth of assholes with your best friend and lover. #cutecouplethings

Maxson: She immediately liked him a bit..if only because he’s a dork named Arthur who named his Blimp the Prydwen. As a fellow Arthurian Legend nerd she loves that. And also there’s something..hilariously ironic about them meeting. Arthur? Guinevere? Fate is funny like that sometimes, eh?

But then she really meets him and he’s passionate as fuck and it’s impossible not to get swept up in that. And she sees someone who genuinely does care when he tells her “I care about them, you know. The People of the Commonwealth.” She believes him and she wants the same thing.

She’s intrigued after that first meeting. He’s..gruff but she still remembers the young man who looked so vulnerable during their first meeting. And for all the flaws she grows to learn he has? She still believes in that man. She believes he can be better. He just needs to..stop being a bigot and she believes that’s possible.

She’s idealistic in that way. Perhaps a better word for it is naive?

But in canon I have my doubts on if they could be “endgame” BB kind of put a huge damper on things aklfdkhfdh. She loves him still and she tentatively forgives him if only because he didn’t kill Danse. She knows he cares for Danse. She KNOWS that there’s a good man in there. She just wants..him to let himself be one. Why can’t he just LISTEN.

However this strange balancing act she has to do with the both of them post-BB is bound to end badly. You can only stuff things down and ignore them for so long and eventually their different ideals are going to clash. ESPECIALLY because Synth Shaun is now in the picture. If there’s anything she loves more than Danse and Maxson it’s her son. She loves Shaun more than anything.

I think it’s obvious why that might put a strain on her and Maxson’s relationship. ashgfdh

Sigh. Perhaps it’s an unpopular opinion but I believe there’s hope for Maxson. And the only way they’re going to be able to stay together is if he changes at least somewhat. If not, she’ll have to leave him eventually. And the BoS. Which..hurts her more than anything. Since that’s her family..and she does truly, genuinely love Maxson with all her heart but..she has to do what’s right for her and her family.

So in reality she’d probably end up with Danse and just Danse. She’d miss him till the day she dies though.

Maxson..he’s..got a soft spot a mile wide whether he realizes it or not. Honestly let’s be real no one would get away with the shit in BB and still get promoted to SENTINEL except her.

He absolutely admires and respects her as a person and a soldier. She’s..a pain in the ass sometimes but she’s courageous, strong mentally as well as physically, deadly on the battlefield, and kind (sometimes to those who don’t deserve it in his mind. god fuck you maxson) They butt heads sometimes just because they’re both stubborn and hot-headed but it usually doesn’t escalate into actual fighting.

He falls in love with her. He doesn’t know how to show it or express it but he does. It scares the shit out of him but he craves it all the same. Like Danse he’s incredibility protective to the point of being annoying.

She brings out some of his better qualities really. Since he’s always so serious it’s good to get a little lightness in his life and she genuinely does make him laugh. (and even smile).

They clash on ideals. They’re both extremely stubborn and hot-headed. They honestly don’t fight often but when they do you can be sure it’s probably about differing ideals. That can get nasty.

Elder Maxson is..very different from Arthur Maxson. She’s so very in love with Arthur Maxson. That’s a big thing for him. He can be Arthur. He doesn’t have to be Elder Maxson with her. It means..a lot to him. He hasn’t really ever had that?

He tries to be professional of course. To act as if he doesn’t have..feelings but he’s not as good at that as he thinks. It shows if you know what to look for.

Random but he admires her mama bear attitude. She’s wonderful with the squires and they adore her. The way she searches so tirelessly for her son and then even adopts that..”thing” (in maxson’s asshole mind) and loves it? Sometimes, if only for a moment, he wonders what it would have been like to have a mother who loved him that much (NOT A MOMMY KINK THING THO FDHKDFh)

They love each other very deeply but my heart breaks because they don’t exactly have the most promising future in canon. (*latches onto my happy AU’S*)

Codsworth: Robot son. She loves Codsworth just as much as she loves Shaun. They’re very close and he’s always fretting over her. I almost forgot him and even though this one is short I want to stress he is very important to her.

Nick: Nick is her best friend. He’s not exactly..happy she’s in the BoS for obvious reasons but he knows she doesn’t share their views. She actively pushes back against them in fact. Like her he’s an idealist, an optimist and he believes that maybe, she will make the BoS a better organization. If anyone can, it’s her in his opinion.

She loves Nick. He’s been there for her through her whole journey pretty much. He’s always there to offer a helping hand or a shoulder to lean on. He’s always helping someone despite the fact people are cruel to him. He’s an amazing person and she’d lay down her life for him without question.

They “bicker” constantly which is just playful bantering back and forth. They’re very close though.

Maccready: Her best friend. Neither really knew what to expect when they signed up together? But they quickly bonded. He reminds her of her late husband, Jax to be honest. He’s goofy, a bit morally dubious but he’s also loving and loyal to those he loves. They’re both goofballs too.

They particularly bonded over the fact that they’ve both lost a spouse. They’re both parents and they connect over that. He’s there for her when she kills her psychopath of a son, when she adopts this..synthetic version of him. And he’s there for her and she’s there for him.

She’s never met Duncan but she already loves him as if he’s her own. Amusingly enough she probably would have ended up with Maccready if she wouldn’t have met Danse and Maxson.

Hancock: Like Nick he isn’t exactly happy she’s in the BoS but he knows her enough to know who she is. They get along right away. They’re both dorks. They’re both goofs and they both want to ultimately do good. He’s a “terrible influence” according to her boys and well..they’re not wrong. Like Mac they do get themselves into trouble a lot. She swears up and down she doesn’t do chems with him but she does lmao. More importantly though? He’s got her back and she has his.

Piper: They’re both quite high strung. Passionate. So they get along really well. Piper finds her a blast to travel with and hey someone who’s fun to travel with and who also wants to help the Commonwealth? Doubly awesome! Guin tries to mother Nat sometimes who finds it a bit irritating. Piper finds it endearing.

Preston: They’re good friends and he’s more often than not quietly chuckling at her antics. They have a very soft, chill friendship. Sometimes they just sit and enjoy each other’s company. He admires her for her kindness and she admires him for his.

Curie: She’s extremely protective of Curie. How can she not be? She’s so soft, gentle and endlessly kind. She nearly bit Danse’s head off for his comment about donating herself for dissection to the BoS. Curie loves her just as much. She makes her feel safe, loved and she’s an endless inspiration to her.

Cait: RIDE OR DIE BITCH. The only thing Cait doesn’t like about her tbh is the fact that’s she way too..giving sometimes. She bitches about it but she usually just rolls her eyes and moves on. However they’re close friends and like Hancock and Mac..they get into trouble together (even after she’s clean heheh). Cait loves when she’s feisty. They both enjoy fighting a bit too much tbh.

But it’s the unconditional love she shows her that gets Cait. She has no idea what she’s done to deserve it but..she’s glad she has it. And she loves her just as much.

Ada: She like..adopted Ada the moment she met her.

Old Longfellow: They’re good friends. He finds her a bit exhausting to travel with but in a good way.

Gage: I honestly have never traveled with Gage so I can’t really say

Strong: He hates the men in metal suits..but he respects her. She’s a strong leader and she’s helping him find the milk of human kindness. He’ll smash all super mutants for her damn it

Deacon: She never met Deacon. She never encountered the railroad until she was ordered to kill them. I think I can say they would have..gotten along to some to degree if things had been different. She wouldn’t like his dishonesty though. Not at all.

X6: ^same as Deacon. She met him but never really traveled with him or became close to him. She probably didn’t even realize it was him she was killing.

Also just for fun I want to mention.

She has a huge crush on Ingram.

#asks #ch: guinevere #my ocs #otp: as i am #otp: I know your heart #otp: I loved them both #.i think that was the tag for them as an ot3..#I guess it makes them feel like they’re good ppl I dunno #its 4am so im not sure if any of these even make sense fdikhkdfh #sigh #my girl loves extremely passionately. unconditionally and..that's not always a good thing #she's just a very passionate person #when she loves she loves hard #when she hates she hates hard #(hammer time)

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