#this post brought to you by: got an email from one of the docs i went to last month that included this info

[foxgirltail]

I knew bmi was bullshit already but learning that I'm barely not considered obese using it is kinda like. Wow that's supremely bad. I don't consider myself fat, I feel like I'm barely not just a stick but this bullshit and actually useless index that doctors use to discriminate against fat people suggests I'm barely not "dangerously overweight"

[multifandomhaven]

Part II

TW: Mentions of animal neglect/abuse (nothing violent or descriptive - my heart can't take it). Also, I'm trying to get this as close to reality as possible, but I am in no way a doctor/veterinarian. Please, please, please don't use this as a guide for helping any animal.

I proofread this as best as I could (it's cross-posted as a fanfic so I changed MC's name to Y/N) so there might be an inconsistency(ies?) that I missed!

Y/N woke to the trilling song of a blue jay that had nested on the ledge of her window. The smooth chirps and whistles provided her a sense of peace, for when she heard it she knew she was safe in her cozy apartment. Standing on her toes she peeked into the ledge outside her window, as she did every morning, eagerly awaiting the small, blue eggs to hatch.

She yawned and stretched, rising from her bed. She straightened her t-shirt as best she could - there was no hope for the wrinkles. After she brushed her teeth and slipped on her fuzzy slippers she closed the bedroom door behind her. The warm, morning light streamed through the window by her barely-ever-used dining table.

She poured herself a bowl of cereal and sat down, pulling her laptop out to begin her day. There was an email from Mari, her favorite tech.

I know you're on leave and I'm not supposed to bother you, but we've got a cat and it's not looking good for him. A black and white stray, male. He looks like he's been through the wringer, Y/N. Animal control brought him in, and found him in a dumpster.

Y/N reread the email a few times before she clicked the attached video. The cat, obviously malnourished, bared its teeth and hissed at the person behind the camera, but didn't try to defend himself. He was tired, scared, and very sick.

Y/N frowned around her bite of food, her fingers darting over the keyboard as she typed out her response.

Give me an hour.

"Morning," John crooned from the doorway, his voice still thick with sleep. Y/N glanced up noting that he was already dressed and ready for the day. She gave him a small, forced smile as she read the email Mari sent back - saying that they'd be waiting for her.

Y/N sighed softly, her eyes drifting from her screen to John's eyes.

"What is it?" John asked.

Y/N's frown deepened and she placed her computer on the table. "I got an email saying that we have an abused animal at the office. I need to go make sure he's okay - see if he can be rehabilitated or if he needs to..." she trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence. Of course, she'd had many animals that she'd had to put to sleep, but never did it get any easier, "rest."

"You've not been cleared to go back to the office," John reminded her stiffly. "You're still healing, and we've yet to find who ordered the attack on you."

"I can't let him suffer if he doesn't have a chance of making it," Y/N argued, her brows furrowed. "I won't stay, I swear. I'll assess him, see what needs to be done, and come home."

John sighed deeply and stared at her as if he were weighing her words, and then gave a single nod. "Only him."

A little while later, when they arrived at the office, Y/N was taken back to where the bi-colored cat lay. He was sedated, and connected to a drip to give him a little extra hydration. Tears burned her eyes and she sniffed, trying to contain them as she looked over the animal - he was thin, critically so. His fur was faded-looking and dirty. One of the techs was cleaning and wrapping a wound on his back leg.

"He was found in a dumpster," Mari reiterated from over her shoulder. Y/N noticed how the tech's gaze settled on her own still-healing bruised eye, but she ignored it. Mari didn't comment on it, instead, she continued to fill her in on the cat's condition. "He's a little on the wild side, Doc."

Y/N nodded as she listened, her heart squeezed in her chest. She couldn't help but feel like it was destiny that brought this creature to her at this exact moment. She took a deep breath to settle her emotions. "He needs a high-protein, high-fat diet supplemented with some vitamins for a few weeks." She ran her hand through his fur softly, her fingers roving over every one of his pronounced ribs. "But, all things considered, he seems like he'd be okay to be fostered."

Mari nodded, writing in his chart. "Okay. Have you heard from any of our fosters? Know anyone who's able to take him in?"

"Yeah," Y/N said softly, her eyes flicking from the cat to John, who stood out of the way in the back of the room, but always watching. She gently stroked the cat's side and looked back down at him sadly. "I'm gonna take him home with me. Get him fed and tamed down a bit. We can give this guy a new life, I'm sure of it."

"Y/N." Mari furrowed her brows. "Are you sure? I know you have a lot going on right now..."

Y/N tore her eyes from the cat, pinning Mari with a look. "I'm taking him with me. Find a carrier and a cone while I prepare him for the ride."

"Okay, okay..." Mari sighed, obviously wanting to protest, but she kept it to herself.

Y/N carefully took the IV out of the cat's leg and bandaged it as gently as she could. It was just Y/N and John in the room now. Y/N allowed her shoulders to fall as she looked back down at the battered creature on the table. "Poor little guy."

John sighed and stepped fully into the room, his hands clasped behind his back. He was looking at her, concern clear on his face. "You sure about this?"

Y/N nodded and carefully wiped at her healing eye as tears threatened to fall. "I can handle it."

"I don't doubt it," John agreed softly, giving her upper arm a gentle squeeze. "You'll fix him up."

"Yeah," Y/N agreed quietly. "He'll be okay."

Later that evening Y/N sat on the sofa with John, both of them watching the crate the cat was in. He had begun to rouse, stretching and mewling as he looked around the new environment. Y/N smiled and moved to crouch in front of the crate. She knelt, smiling softly as the cat bared its teeth at her, hissing.

"You're okay, buddy," Y/N cooed softly. "You're safe."

Curled up in the back of the crate, the cat watched her. His large, green eyes were trained on her, his head followed her as she went to the kitchen and brought back some food for him. She opened the can up and put some of the medicine she'd gotten for him on top. The smell wrinkled Y/N's nose, but she stirred it up anyway.

She opened the door, not even flinching as the cat started hissing and swatting at her hand.

"Y/N," John warned her.

"He's just scared." She told him as she pushed the bowl closer to the cat. The cat sniffed as it caught a whiff of the food. She shut the door to the cage and sat back on her knees, watching him intently.

He kept his eyes on her as he ate quickly, mewling with every bite. Once he was done he went back to the corner of the crate and laid back down.

Y/N's heart broke as she watched him. She couldn't help but wonder if this poor creature had ever known love.

Days passed and little by little Y/N had managed to worm her way into the cat's heart. She had several scratches on her hands and a bite mark or two, but she didn't let it deter her. Instead, it made her want to work harder.

"Clover," she sang softly, opening the door to his crate. She placed his bowl of food outside the cage and sat beside it, watching as he slowly emerged. He looked around the room, spotting the litter box Y/N had put just off to the side. "Come on, buddy," she encouraged him gently.

She pushed the bowl just a bit closer to him, hoping to entice him. Wary, he inched closer, his eyes never leaving her. He bent down and began to lap up the food. Y/N held back the noise of happiness that worked its way up her throat. She bit back her smile and slowly reached out, gently stroking his back.

He startled and ran back into his crate.

"Okay, okay," Y/N cooed and held her hand up in defense. She stood quietly by the door and watched him creep back over to his food. She felt John's presence looming at her back.

"He's cross with you, isn't he?" John asked with a huff. "He hasn't looked away."

"Well, he didn't scratch or bite me this time," she reminds him with a huff of laughter. "That's a step in the right direction."

[azeriairis]

Stargate Books are up to some Bullshit

The Stargate books have some weird bullshit in them. I remember in one of the Atlantis Books we learn how Radek managed to get on the radar of the SGC and found out about the Stargate. And I'm going to tell you from the POV of the SGC because it's funnier that way. Radek got on the SGCs radar by emailing a scanned drawing of a DHD to Daniel Jackson with a little note essentially saying "I came across some of your research and thought you may want to take a look at this because I thought it may be relevant." Which almost definitely got him listed as "potential security threat of the week" because some random Czech dude emailing Dr. Jackson an image of a DHD is a bit weird even by SGC standards and probably needed an investigation to figure out what was even happening.

Turns out it was a drawing of the Gaza DHD (as in the one connected to the Gaza Stargate later used by the SGC), made by some of Napoleon's men during his Egyptian Campaign*. Radek managed to get his hands on it during a short-term job post-doc.**. Whilst doing that job he came across a document containing that image, thought it looked like a Keyboard to get a device to do something, thought that was interesting, and decided to save a digital copy of it. Years later he winds across some work by Daniel (from before Daniel worked at the SGC) which included a reference to the Diaries of the artist who drew the sketch but not a reference to the sketch itself, but was discussing advanced technology in Ancient Egypt, and Radek determines that he is probably better suited for figuring out what is going on with it and sends him an Email, a month later Jackson comes to discuss the sketch and winds up accidentally breaking confidentiality and spilling the secret of the stargate to Radek.

I really want to know how the hell the author came up with that one, because it is such bullshit, but also I love it. the Book this is brought up in is Death Game it's part of Fandemoniums Stargate Atlantis Series that takes place during the main timeline (As opposed to the SGA Legacy Series which takes place after SGA S5)

*this of course meaning that, according to the books, the DHD was still on earth and at Gaza even after the Goa'uld left, and that it remained at Gaza until at least the turn of the 19th century before it disappeared.

**The story of that being he ended up not being able to find a long-term job immediately after getting his PhD, but he managed to get a short-term job in the meanwhile, helping an Old Professor in Paris sort through some old documents and artifacts related to the development of science (He of course took it because it paid the bills and was somewhat science-related)

[deltaclaws]

Writing Scraps- Creature’s Comfort

I’ve found as I’ve started writing again that I go through two different openings before finding one that sticks, and I keep those on the doc in case I liked the previous one better.

Because I think these things are neat and it’s not quite the same as posting a sketch dump, I’m gonna share the stuff I don’t use and label them Writing Scraps for easier reference. With that, here’s two intros for an upcoming fic that I didn’t like as much but thought they’d be fun to share.

Opening #1-

Sun Wukong had seen sick mortals before. Seen sick immortals too- he himself had been severely under the weather several times in his very long life. The king could tell when a cold was from natural causes or a curse inflicted on somebody. Sun Wukong had also had front row seats for sicknesses that, to this day, leave him wanting to drag his eyes through dirt as some sort of solace to the disgusting images burned into his brain.

A thought that had only crossed his mind once in the past year was what would happen if his successor-turned-kid got ill, and that potentially disastrous line of intrusive thoughts only came about because MK told him of the cursed meatballs he ate when Wukong was away.

“So, did you actually win anything, or was that stunt purely for bragging rights?” he drawled as he leaned against a recently pulverized rock, one eyebrow quirked in a way that said 'This is hilarious and I am never letting you forget it’.

MK tapped his staff down firmly and squared up his shoulders, looking prouder than he had any right to be. “Well I had to set a new record!” he stated, before the proud stance melted into a more humbled slouch, and his student brought his hand up to rub the side of his face sheepishly. “Definitely not worth the city-shaking hiccups, or making Sandy go on a conveniently timed quest for the cure…”

Opening #2-

Sun Wukong liked keeping the technology he used limited. Not for any “The good old days were better” reasons, because indoor plumbing, WiFi, and video games are easily in his Top 5 list of best innovations and no one will ever pry those from his cold, stone hands.

It was strictly for his privacy. His lawyer had to fight him literally tooth and nail to get another computer- too many instances of people finding his one and only personal email years back had led to some very interesting letters. Letters that some lower deities would consider curses to the eyes for their content.

Because no, Sun Wukong will not be sending pictures of any kind to anyone, he will not look at any pictures his weirder fans send him, and he’d prefer to be stewed alive before he read another story that shared waaaay too much personal information.

Even with those very good reasons presented in a very professional manner to his lawyer, he was shot down.

“Handwritten letters from your Fortress of Solitude take ages to get here Wukong. I’m tired of playing Heavenly Messenger to get your approval for these licenses, Wukong.”. While he could’ve argued with that, after getting a new laptop and seeing how fast communication had gotten with computers, he conceded that it was a solid investment alone for getting his lawyer off his back. Now he just needed to answer those emails.

A laptop, a TV, and a gaming console were all he wanted. It was simple! Three easy outlets to enjoy the near infinite library of digital media, and an avenue for his contacts to message him and be promptly ignored.

Then MK became a part of his life again, almost two years went by, and now he had a phone. Arguments of ‘It’s helpful! We can contact each other without using monkey mind powers! I can send you all my favorite memes!’ wore him down faster than anything. Possibly because the kid also used the underhanded move of the puppy dog face combined with a little guilt tripping. Just dusted on top, like some guilty sugar.

[legolasghosty]

Well, I wrote a little holiday gift for @michelangelinden, who brought it to my attention the other day that I never actually posted it, I just sent them the doc. So... here it is I suppose?

This is a part of the Willie Dance Teacher AU(I say as if I've talked about it enough for that to actually mean anything to anyone). The only other posted fic in this au can be read here, but it's not really connected to the events of this one.

Word count - 2.1k Rating - G Warnings - a bit of implied past transphobia, but it's like one sentence.

Alex takes a deep breath and climbs out of his car, swinging his backpack onto his shoulder. The building itself doesn’t look scary. Just a large, off-white building with the logo above the glass front doors. The inside probably looks the same as it did online: large, open rooms with wooden floors and mirrors lining one wall. It’s definitely not terrifying enough to warrant his racing heartbeat. 

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he pulls it out. The Gay Agenda group chat he has with his friends is lighting up.

Julie Bean - Good luck Alex!!!!!! 

Candy Queen - Get in there, Mercer!

Reginald Molina - Have fun Lexi!

Guitar Boy - You got this man!

Alex chuckles at his friends’ enthusiasm. You’d think it was them heading for their first dance class in over a decade, not him. He sends back a heart emoji, then heads for the front door. He can do this. It’s not a big deal. This isn’t going to be like when he was a kid.

He’s hit with the usual wave of artificially cooled air as he enters the lobby. The mid-September breeze outside isn’t as hot as it is in the summer, but it’s still a relief to get out of it. He glances around for a door marked Studio 4, which is where the intro email he received the week before said his class would be. But the only studio door he sees is marked Center Studio, and the halls go off in both directions.

“Know where you’re going?” a voice asks.

Alex turns to see a cheerful, dark-haired woman behind the receptionist's desk. He shrugs sheepishly. “Umm, I’m looking for Studio 4?” he offers.

“Oh, you’re in Willie’s adults class,” she says, nodding in understanding. “You’re gonna take a left here, then go most of the way down. It’ll be on your right.”

“Okay, thanks,” Alex responds, giving her a grateful smile.

“No problem, you’ll love Willie, he’s great,” she says.

Alex certainly hopes so. His last dance teacher was… not great. He turns down the hall the woman indicated and quickly reaches his studio. He takes another deep breath. Reminds himself that he wants to be here. That he likes dancing. That he can get the heck out of here and never come back if this goes poorly. It’s going to be fine. Hopefully even fun.

When he enters the room, he finds about what he’d expected. Honey-colored wooden flooring, light gray walls, one covered in mirrors, and a rough circle of folding chairs set up in the middle. Alex is early, but there’s a few people already in the room. A pair of older women are seated in the circle, along with a man in his early 30’s who keeps checking his phone. The only other person in the room is a guy with long, dark hair pulled back in a bun standing in the corner and fiddling with a large speaker.

Everyone else seems to have kept their stuff with them, so he sets his backpack on the floor. Alex hesitantly takes a seat and pulls out his phone. A few more messages have come in from his friends since he checked it outside.

Bobistro - Just breathe dude. You’re gonna do great.

Flynnagain - and we’ll burn the place down if they do anything stupid

Candy Queen - What the girlfriend said.

Bobistro - … Go have fun Alex. You love dancing. It’s gonna be fine.

Alex chuckles and flips over to his solitaire app to kill time while he waits for class to start. More people trickle in around him, filling most of the chairs. Once the large clock on the wall hits 4 o'clock, the guy who’d been working on the speaker joined the circle.

“Hey everybody, I’m Willie, and welcome to the studio,” he says, giving them a wide grin. “Since most of you are new to taking classes here, I figured we’d start with some introductions.” 

Alex resists the urge to groan, icebreakers are hard. He never knows what to say.

“I know, I know,” Willie continues, raising his hands in surrender, “fancy intros are overrated and everything. But I’d like to at least know people’s names and pronouns. And if you have any pets, I would also like to know about them.”

Okay, that doesn’t seem too bad. Alex could talk about his cat for hours.

“I’ll start,” Willie adds, dropping down to sit cross-legged on the floor. “Hi, I’m Willie, my pronouns are he and they, and I have a very dramatic grey kitten named Glisandra.”

Alex feels a bit of the tension leave his shoulders as the next person starts talking. Willie is trans too. They’re open about it with their students. Alex isn’t really planning on mentioning that he wasn’t born a boy to anyone here, but it’s a relief to know that he won’t be totally alone if it does come up. And none of the other students seem weirded out by Willie using multiple sets of pronouns, so… 

He pushes down the memories of the last time he was in dance class, back in middle school. No need to remind himself of that.

“I’m Carol,” one of the older women who beat Alex here starts, pulling him back to the present. “My pronouns are… she/her?” She glances over at Willie who nods encouragingly. “Okay, good, I’m new to introducing myself that way,” she continues with a chuckle. “Oh, and I have a very old black lab named Finch.”

The woman beside Carol is Ruth, who uses she/her pronouns as well and doesn’t have any pets, though Carol protests that she might as well be a co-parent to Finch. Everyone laughs at that. Then there’s Sharon and Chris, a newly married couple who have two parakeets named Chico and Blue. After them is the middle-aged man Alex saw when he got here, Jason. He doesn’t have any pets, but does mention a 7-year-old daughter. Then is a guy in probably his mid-60s named Greg, who seems to have a whole collection of animals living on his property.

And then it’s Alex’s turn. “Hey, I’m Alex, I use he/him pronouns, and I have a grey and white cat named Cucumber.”

“Hey, another cat person!” Willie cheers, reaching over to offer Alex a fist bump. 

Alex is startled by the enthusiasm but returns the gesture. The woman on his other side(Mandy, she/her, no pets) starts talking but Alex remains focused on Willie. He’d been a bit busy freaking out before to really notice, but Willie is… really pretty. He’s still sitting on the floor, one leg pulled up to his chest as they listen to their students. They aren’t really doing anything, but the light in his eyes and the easiness of his smile and the way a few strands of hair have escaped his bun to frame their face…

“I guess that makes me last,” chuckles the tiny woman beside Willie. “I’m Sandy, she/her, and I have a turtle named Dierdra.”

“Nice!” Willie exclaims, climbing easily to his feet. ���Lovely to meet you all. Now let’s get to why we’re actually here.”

They go over some basic dance classroom etiquette and language, most of which Alex recognizes from his old ballet classes. The dress code isn’t nearly as strict though. He wonders if that’s just because it’s an adult class, or if that’s a policy the studio uses for all their classes. Or maybe it’s just a Willie thing. Either way, Alex is glad that the only requirements are not to wear anything too tight or that you could trip over.

“Last thing, this class is for you guys,” Willie says. “So if there’s something you really want to learn, let me know and I’ll try to make it work. Alternatively, if you have any injuries or medical issues or anything that makes certain movements hard, come tell me. We can modify stuff as needed so that everyone can do things safely. Sound good?”

It takes a second for everyone to realize he asked a question, but they all nod. Willie’s face splits into that wide grin again. They have a really pretty smile.

“Sweet, let’s warm up then,” Willie declares. “I’m sure you’re all sick of sitting here listening to me.”

That gets a chuckle out of Alex and some of his new classmates as they get up and move their chairs and bags to the edge of the room. Willie has them line up and turns on the music for a warm-up. The movements aren’t too complex or fast, so Alex finds himself able to follow along just fine. Willie is probably going simple on purpose since they don’t know anyone’s skill levels. It feels great though, waking up some of the muscles that Alex hasn’t used in years.

After the warm-up, Willie guides them all over to one wall to go across the floor. It’s more fun than Alex is expecting, the upbeat music providing a steady rhythm to skip and jump to. Willie calls encouragement and corrections as they go across. He’s so positive and full of life, and it’s infectious. Alex can’t fully remember why he was so worried about this.

They move into learning a simple combination and Alex takes the opportunity to watch his classmates a bit. A few of them clearly used to dance, and Sandy is definitely pretty active, but most of the class doesn’t seem to have any previous experience, or at least nothing recent. Alex wonders where he would fit in that lineup to someone else. People would probably guess he knows nothing. He wasn’t the worst dancer when he was a kid, but that was years ago. And he hadn’t been taking classes as a boy then.

He shifts his focus to Willie as they break into groups and take turns running the combination. The guy can’t be more than 25, which seems a bit young for a teacher, but Willie is clearly in his element. In between groups, they’ll point out little things to focus on and highlight what the group did a good job on. They’re always the first to applaud when a group finishes, even if no one did that well.

Carol questions them about it after she mixes up some of the steps. “Why the clapping if we sucked?” she asks, chuckling as she reaches for her water.

“Cause you tried,” Willie responds immediately. “We all suck at stuff, that’s just life. That’s how we learn. But you got up there and tried, and that’s worthy of applause.”

It’s a practiced answer. Clearly it’s something Willie has put a lot of thought into. Alex thinks back to his old teachers, who would glare down at them for a single misstep and only granted ‘Good job’s after recitals. Willie’s way seems a lot better. Maybe Willie had teachers like his when they were younger and wanted to be different. Or maybe Willie has always had amazing and supportive instructors.

Alex realizes he wants to know which it is. He wants to know things about Willie, about their history and what he likes and dislikes and what makes them laugh. He wants to know where they think of as home and what their favorite movie is and what he likes to do outside of dancing. Huh.

(He also really wants to meet their kitten, Glisandra, but that’s no surprise. Alex loves meeting other people’s cats.)

Willie leads them through some light yoga and stretching at the end of class as a cool-down. Alex takes a deep breath as he leans into his lunge. His ribs don’t feel as tense as they usually do. His heart rate is higher than usual, but that’s because of the exercise, not his anxiety. His limbs don’t feel so heavy. He feels… good. Relaxed. 

Huh, that’s not a common one.

“Alright, great job,” Willie says, straightening and giving them all another wide grin. “I will see you all next week, and I’m free for a bit if anyone has questions or concerns. Thank you dancers.”

Alex returns their smile, then heads over to where he left his backpack. He takes a long drink of water and heads for the door.

“Great work today, Alex,” Willie calls as he passes.

“Thanks, you’re a great teacher,” Alex responds, turning and smiling at the instructor.

Willie bows dramatically. “I live to serve,” he says.

Alex laughs. “See you next week, Willie.”

“See ya!”

Alex heads out to his car, waving goodbye to the receptionist on his way out. Once he’s in his car, he checks his phone. There’s a whole bunch of messages from his friends asking about how his class was.

Alex - Class was great! Teacher is cool! Headed home. <3

He pulls out of the parking lot and heads back toward the apartment he shares with Luke and Reggie. He’s really looking forward to class next week.

[onigiri-dorkk]

Goals + updates for 2023!

(plus sneak-talks into my future fics!)

ALRIGHT RIVAMIKA FRIENDS! This evening (now that I've finally come back from my short New Year's trip... as well as recovered from major car sickness on the way back home l o l), my birthday-week-and-writing-sabbatical (😂) officially begins!

If you've been following, I've been hustling since November with my IRL workload and it has taken time away from writing and fandom things, so I had planned that from January 1st for a whole entire week I will dedicate my time to rest in the form of writing. No work, no emails, no ads...

NOTHING except sitting in coffeeshops or beautiful places and writing stories from my heart again.

During the holidays I had a couple of technically free days, so I wanted to get a one-shot in to get myself ready and warm up for this week (and then produced last week's one-shot, The Perfect Brew, which might mark my all-time favorite one-shot I've written so far).

The hard part was deciding what the heck to focus on and commit to. I thought about keeping it free, but knew it would lead to more one-shots, which is fine too.

But after I came back home and rested, I sorted through my WIP's (which, at this point, I actually have 7! I just forgot about 4 of them omg) and I rediscovered a WIP in my Google Docs I loved and forgot about, and that is the orphanage fic.

I don't think I've shared much about it just yet, but it will be a multi-chapter fic set after Season 3, and both Historia's orphanage and castle will play a big role in the plot for Levi, Mikasa and the Scouts. Obviously I don't think I will complete the entire fic just in this week (sheesh... I can't even imagine?!) but I aim to make a good dent in it and hopefully publish something by my birthday weekend :) I believe this is the one I want to make the most progress in, and hopefully get something published from it, though I can't promise timely updates the way you got Microcosmos every week or two.

Also on the back burner that I might trudge through this week is the Ackerman (Kenny, Levi, Mikasa) short-fic, and a post-war reunion fic that will likely be a long-fic. Then deeeeeep in my backburner is also a post-war long-fic that will circle around Levi and Mikasa and gang as Paradis refugees; I foresee this as something that will be a lot darker and angstier.

I'm honestly just excited for starting 2023 dedicating passion-time to writing; it feels like me saying YES to dedicating this full year to growing as a writer. I only began writing in May so it's strange that I haven't even hit a full year of doing so... But knowing that 2023 is starting and ending with me in love with writing is just exciting. I'm PUMPED. I have other ideas (maybe starting a Rivamika-specific writers' accountability group, etc) but I'll save all of that for another time hehe.

All this to say, thank you to all of my fandom friends I've made here who have encouraged me and brought me soooo much joy and inspiration literally on the daily. You don't understand how much your presence here has helped me in my real daily life, and has sustained this newfound inspiration. It makes writing and creating art not feel like an echo-in-a-chamber. To have real people enjoying what we create together, encouraging each other in the process, and sharing their joys for it, it's just sooo important and meaningful. Thank you all!! I will continue to ~dedicate my heart~ to creating art in lots of forms for our lil community here. :)

Please look forward to another year of Onigiri's proud hyper-fixation on Rivamika ;)

(P.S. I can see my nighttimes being filled with reading all of y'alls fanfics that I haven't gotten to read yet!!! PLS!! I CANT WAIT!)

[alittledrawing]

BIG RED ONE

You know, I don’t have to put up with this. Why should I? All reasonable people have thought this while posting on the internet at one point or another. They’ve even wondered if posting on the internet is reasonable at all. Ashley’s brother maintains that anyone who habitually comments or posts on Reddit is by definition insane. He says their opinion is untrustworthy, because normal people are busy doing other things, and they live in a bubble, a hugbox, where their weird and dangerous opinions are echoed back at them enough, the upvotes resound loudly enough, their retorts so highly crafted, that they’ll never be proven wrong in their own head, no matter how irrational or harmful their ideas are. He says there’s no point in arguing.

Yet Ashley responds. It’s always the same issue, the same common-on-the-internet misconception about her community, her people, the stuff she’s lived through. She has the studies and articles and resources ready to copy-and-paste from a Google Doc, because she’s done this so many times before that she got sick of searching every link independently. This time, some total neckbeard, a goober, a numbskull, dished out the same, tired, unfactual insult that they always do, and yet, he still garnered 200 whole upvotes! 

First, she engaged politely. A simple correction, a few nice words. Ashley tried to turn back to her work, but the encounter paralyzed her mind. She checked for any new notifications, waiting for either the confirmation or denial of her correction. The voting didn’t matter, so she did not check her comment. What mattered was a reply.

Her thumbnail was bitten down to the quick, and she switched to her pinky. She typed a few worthless sentences into her work document before checking her phone again. Nothing. Ugh! Click, email. Click, work chat. Clack, excel spreadsheet. Phone, a BIG RED ONE. Aha! A reply! Her body raced with adrenaline. Would she be angry or delighted?

Angry. Another response, some mockery. She quickly copy-pasted the links from the Google Doc, then typed a scathing reply that expertly highlighted her original politeness contrasted by this scumbag’s jackassery. She knew it was exactly what his type wanted, but she imagined she was taking the high road, and any reasonable person would recognize and agree with her. Obviously.

Sent! Ha! 

Yet, even though she knew she was right, the threat of some new study, some contradictory evidence always lingered in the back of her mind. What if she couldn’t win? What if she couldn’t respond? Even delaying a few hours would make her reply seem untrustworthy, worthless, unbelievable. Or even worse, what if multiple people jumped on her comment? She had yet to deal with a dogpile, but worried about the day. Is it cooler to ignore the additional comments? Should she make an edit to the original comment? She always thought an edit looked like the person was worrying too much, but commenting too much looked like she was a loser who didn’t have anything else going on. No, she would stick to her original thread unless someone else brought up a new point. Then, she would appear composed while still covering the most ground.

She tried to get back to work, but she felt both nauseous and ignited. She grabbed her purse to run out for lunch. A coworker rushed to join her. They grabbed ready-made sandwiches from a coffee shop and sat down. The coworker jabbered on about a family party that her boyfriend would attend, nodding her head the whole time. Ashley kept glancing at her phone, waiting for a notification.

“Everything okay? You seem off today,” the coworker said.

“Oh, yeah. Totally. Just waiting for a reply,” Ashley said.

“Ugh, from Ted? He always gets back late. Usually waits until the next day. He just plays solitaire all day,” she said, and continued on in a chit-chatty drone that Ashley tuned out again.

There it is! The BIG RED ONE! Click.

No no no, not this. The guy responded with some one liner retort. The perfect response. Total dismissal, not even engaging in the idea. His response was perfectly ahead of the trend, not cringey at all. He seemed very cool to whatever trolls were reading their exchange. Even responding to this would seem try-hard. 

She clicked over to his profile. He commented lots on videogame and programming channels. Politicalcompassmemes, greentext, countryball, the usual suspects. There was no dealing with this type.

But then, at the bottom of the profile, she saw one single comment on the PAWG page, a popular porn subreddit: “you are so beautiful :)”

This is it. She had to take the chance. It would never come again.

Back to her notifications, click reply. She typed, “At least I don’t simp over some ugly OF girls. How much money have you spent on it this past year?” Enter.

She sighed and sat back in her seat.

“Everything okay?” her coworker asked again.

“Oh, yeah. Look, this idiot comments on porn accounts,” Ashley said, turning her phone screen to the woman.

“Oh, ew. Who is he? A date or something?” 

“No, just some guy I was arguing with,” Ashley said.

“Oh… well, I’ll send you the invite for that party. I gotta run,” she said, scooping up her things before rushing out the door.

Ashley vaguely recalled some family holiday party, but brushed off the embarrassment of being rude to her coworker. Whatever details she needed to know would be in the invite.

She went back to the office, head held high, feeling good about her accomplishment. On the way in, she passed Ted, who was indeed playing solitaire. 

“Ted, I need a response to that email by tomorrow, please,” she said, passing by his cubicle.

“Okay, you’ll get it tomorrow,” he replied, feet crossed on top of his desk, leaning back as far as possible in his poor office chair, sliding stacks of cards back and forth.

Ashley rolled her eyes and continued into her cubicle. She thought it was a shame that Ted was a slacker, because he was pretty cute. All he needed was to wear some chinos instead of jeans to work, and he’d bump up a couple points on the scale. 

Another couple hours were spent reveling in her victory and idly working, moving around files. She always thought the work day would be more productive at 6 hours a day, given how much time was wasted just refueling one’s attention span. She rearranged her excel sheet schedule for the third time, relying on the fact that it looked like work should anyone poke their head in. 

She checked her phone again, surprised to see another BIG RED ONE. Surely it couldn’t be the same guy. No one could come back from the simp accusation. But there, his username lingered under her notifications, with the nonplussed reply: “A guy’s gotta shoot his shot when he can ;)”

Ugh! She couldn’t win against this. He’d leaned into the creep label hard enough to seem confident again. Ashley wouldn’t even be able to respond, although she spent several minutes trying to craft a harder dunk against the nemesis. 

She checked the time and stood. Time to head home. Downstairs in the lobby, she was surprised to see at least six inches of snow had fallen, earlier in the year than usual. Yet, despite the time she had spent on her phone that day, she had neglected to check the weather. No way would her bus be coming any time soon. She huffed and puffed, shifting from one foot to the other for a minute, when Ted clasped his hand on her shoulder. 

“Need a ride?” Ted asked, pulling a jacket over his arms.

“Uh… No, I don’t mean to bother you. I can order an Uber,” Ashley said.

Ted looked into her eyes for a moment, eyebrows raised, then shrugged, and said, “Alright, see you tomorrow.”

Ted trekked out into the snow, hanging right towards the parking garage. Ashley glanced at the Uber app, only to find a half hour wait for the next ride. She propped open the tall glass door and shouted after him. “Wait! I’m coming!”

In Ted’s car, an old rusty coupe with a lot of dirt and sand on the floor but surprisingly no trash, Ashley sat and clutched her purse to her chest. The engine turned over, followed by the too loud metal music over the speakers. He turned the volume lower, murmured an apology, then drove out of the lot.

Ted tried to start up some conversation, but Ashley only spoke to give him directions.

“Weird, we live pretty close to each other,” he said, pointing out the window to the apartment complex as they passed. “That’s mine.”

Ashley nodded and glanced out the window.

“If you need a ride tomorrow, I can come pick you up,” he offered.

“Oh, no, I might just call in. That’s one of the plusses of taking the bus,” Ashley responded.

He pulled over to her townhouse, where she said a curt thanks then scurried up to her door. He waited for her to get inside, then left. Ashley watched him through the blinds on the window, suspecting he might stay parked outside for a while. 

She spent the rest of that night watching reruns of her favorite sitcom, but not feeling particularly distracted or recharged from the stress of her workday, and although she attempted to get to sleep at a reasonable time, she laid awake for two hours in bed before being able to fall asleep.

The next morning, after seeing it had snowed even more, after checking her remaining time off, and after remembering that she had taken three days off last month for an impromptu staycation, Ashley realized she would have to go into work. She checked the Uber app, but couldn’t expect a ride on time. She watched the bus stop, but the roads were beautifully, frustratingly blanketed with snow yet to be driven over, meaning the earlier busses had not stopped by either. 

Ashley considered skipping out on work despite her lack of vacation and sick days, but eventually messaged Ted on their work chat. She was shocked to see him respond fairly quickly, and he agreed to pick her up. 

Ashley was a little less tense on the ride to work. She even put her purse on the floor of Ted’s car in front of her. However, they were not yet at the point of idle chatter, despite Ted’s efforts, and Ashley left him with a formal thank you before departing to her desk. Ted seemed unbothered by her curtness. He responded to her work email from the following day around lunch, and she was able to finish that project by the end of the day. 

The snow had not let up that day, and while many main roads were plowed, the busses were running behind. Ashley had warmed up to Ted just enough to prefer him over a $30 Uber ride, and so she hopped into his car again that day. When they saw a few accidents in as many blocks, Ted suggested they could pull over and grab a bite while they wait for traffic to die down. Ashley assented.

Ted pulled over at the soonest opportunity, and the only place within walking distance was a Subway. Ted ordered a ridiculous, leaky footlong sandwich with every dressing while Angela picked at a salad bowl she custom ordered. They paid separately.

When they sat down, Ted gave his usual effort at starting a conversation, but quickly realized Ashley didn’t have much to offer, simply because she didn’t have a lot going on in her life. She revealed that her nights were normally filled with TV and takeout, and when she did manage to meet with friends, they usually got manicures or idly strolled through boutiques, chattering about politics and celebrities. 

“So, you’re into politics?” Ted asked.

“I guess so. You know, it’s hard to escape the news these days,” Ashley said.

“Yeah, I try to avoid it. I’ve had to block a ton of sites on my phone so I’m not exposed to it,” he said.

“Maybe I should do that too. Especially on Reddit, that place is the worst.”

“Oh yeah, I mainly stick to, like, specialty subs. Like programming stuff, music, that kinda thing. I never go on /all anymore.”

“Yeah, I don’t either. But I always find myself getting into arguments with idiots.”

“Oh, I like to stir shit up. People take all that so seriously,” he said. “Everyone says things online that they’d never say to someone’s face in real life, so what’s the point?”

“I mean… the point is… people form their opinions online, right? Like every site has a certain slant, like, propaganda, and we should counteract that, right? When we can?”

“You’d be taking on a full-time job with no pay. Work is stressful enough as it is, is how I see it,” Ted shrugged. He could tell Ashley was bothered by his opinion. She sat in silence, stabbing at some unstabbable lettuce.

“It’s a little rich hearing from you how stressful work is. I mean, it’s obvious you’re just playing games all day,” Ashley said, staring at her lettuce.

Ted chuckled. “I don’t know, I get all of my stuff in on time. The boss doesn’t seem to have any complaints about my work.”

Ashley shook her head.

“You’re telling me you work all day, straight through? You never check your phone or waste time?”

“I do, but… I’m not obvious about it. I don’t have solitaire open all day long,” Ashley said.

Ted laughed. “So you’re mad that I don’t hide away when I want a break? That’s ridiculous.”

“No, it’s not that,” Ashley said.

“Then what is it?” Ted asked.

“I… I don’t really know,” Ashley said. She flushed with shame, feeling caught in a corner, no way to stall to come up with a good retort, on the spot.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. I like to make things a little fun when I can. Like, next time you get into an online argument, and everything’s all heated and high stakes, why don’t you just comment FLAMINGO or something, just throw everyone off. It’ll get in their heads more than anything else, I promise. They’ll be googling it, trying to figure out if it’s a keyword or slang or something, and you can just lean back and laugh. Good, ol’ fashioned prank,” Ted smiled.

Ashley skewed her lips to one side and glanced down. 

Ted continued again. “Anyway, I was wondering if you’d want to go bowling tomorrow. They don’t have a league on Thursday, so we should be able to grab a lane if you want.”

“Bowling?” Ashley asked, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, is that okay?” Ted asked.

“I haven’t been bowling since junior high,” Ashley said.

“Then you’re due!” Ted smiled.

“Fine,” Ashley said, stifling a smile. She was flattered, and starting to warm up to Ted, who somehow made conflict feel easy, but did not want to reveal her positivity too soon.

Too late. Ted smiled at her, and her own cracked open into a toothy, dimpled grin.

The next morning, Ashley took the bus to work, spent lunch with her friend again, who reminded her about the party, then, upon returning to work, remembered what Ted had said, and decided to take her much needed mini-breaks without obscurity. Feeling foolish for openly browsing on her phone, she decided to order a Kindle book instead, and fifteen minutes later, found herself engrossed in a book for the first time in a couple years. 

At the end of the work day, she hopped in Ted’s car, and for the first time, Ted was engaged in conversation by Ashley, who was bouncing in the seat, explaining the plot of the book so far and predicting what was to come. Ted nodded along, offering his own prompts and predictions, and Ashley laughed with him.

At the bowling alley, while they both tied their tacky bowling shoes, Ashley revealed to Ted how it felt to take a break Ted’s way, and how she stopped stealing breaks on her phone, and started taking them more deliberately. There seemed to be a freedom offered with intention that otherwise was not available. 

“I might even delete my Reddit account,” Ashley said.

Ted nodded with eyebrows raised. “You could! Although, there are a lot of great book subreddits,” Ted said, listing some off.

Ashley took out her phone and started adding them one by one, then started unsubscribing from the subreddits that caused her trouble. Ted, while glancing over her shoulder, saw her username, and his face froze for a moment, but Ashley, with her attention on her screen, did not notice. Ted jokingly coughed to get her attention back, and she said, “Give me a second, will ya?” He laughed and took his turn.

Ted was winning by so much that he started rolling the ball like a grandma, or backwards, or with a huge spin, just to ease the competitive atmosphere. Ashley joined, and they enjoyed coming up with new silly ways to get the ball down the lane. 

At the end of the night, back in Ted’s car, the conversation poured forth from the duo with effortless glee, both feeling giddy. When a lull naturally arose, Ted cleared his throat.

“Ashley, I have to tell you something so it doesn’t screw anything up later,” Ted said.

“Oh no, you’re a serial killer!” Ashley joked.

Ted chuckled. “No.”

“You’re gay, then,” Ashley said, giggling in her seat.

Ted didn’t laugh again, and only a small smile remained. “Nope.”

“Okay, what is it?”

“Well, earlier in the bowling alley, I saw your username, and I recognized it right away. I’m SwiggitySwoot,” Ted said, wielding a sad smile.

Ashley paused and her eyes hardened. “You’re SwiggitySwoot?”

“Yeah. Obviously, I didn’t know it was you when we were commenting online. I mean, what are the chances?”

“What are the chances that we would be arguing over political resources in a local reddit page for our city? Relatively high, actually,” Angela said and slumped back in her chair.

“Yeah, it’s unfortunate,” he said.

“Actually, not for me, because at least I know what you’re really like. I’m kinda dodging a bullet here.”

“Because I made some jokes online? You think that’s who I really am?”

“Yeah, actually, it’s like ‘drunk words are sober thoughts,’ except online. God!” she said, clapping her hand over her eyes.

“Okay, I mean, they were just some jokes, like the FLAMINGO comment thing,” Ted said.

“Yeah, but this time, I was the joke for you. I feel very seriously about that advocacy, you know,” Ashley said.

“Yeah, and I’m not against it, I just… I was just joking around.”

“Well, you made me angry for the better part of the day with your jokes,” Ashley said. “Please start driving me home.”

Ted started the car and pulled out of the lot.

“Why did it matter to you so much what some internet stranger said to you?” Ted asked, his voice sounding a little desperate.

“I don’t know!” Ashley exclaimed. “Why is being a troll so important to you?”

Ted glanced at her and back to the road.

“You could have just, like, deleted your account, you know. You didn’t have to tell me,” Ashley said.

“So here we are again, you’re asking me to lie, just like with my breaks at the office. I’m not going to lie,” Ted said.

Ashley, this time, glanced at him then back at the road.

“Wait a minute, you commented on a porn sub! What the hell?”

“Yeah, I was like, nineteen at the time. And I don’t obsess about my post history enough, unlike you, to have remembered and deleted it,” he said. “I bet you have your fair share of embarrassing shit from 2007 on your myspace or whatever, but no one would know because you scrub everything!” 

He pulled in front of Ashley’s townhouse, where she scrambled for her things and rushed out of the car. Ted, not wanting to press anything, allowed her to leave without saying a word. Still, he waited for her to get inside before pulling away. Ashley watched him through the blinds in the window, this time sort of wishing he would have stayed and knocked on her door or something.

Ashley sat down in a huff, not knowing what to do. She didn’t feel like watching TV or browsing or trying to sleep. She did want to continue her book, but felt too distracted to read. She laid down in her bed, tossing and turning until midnight, when she finally whipped out her phone and published a post.

/r/relationships: I (23F) went on a sort-of date with my coworker (23M). We found out we have previously argued online via reddit. He was an asshole online but a sweetie in real life. What do I do?

In the first hour, several responses appeared.

Anonymousie: Asshole online, asshole in real life. It’s common decency. Pass!

GunThunker28: You all are really going to let social media get in the way? That’s really sad. What’s happening to this world?

Sendpicspls: lol someone crosspost to /r/drama

Yarnbunny: Seriously, this reminds me of all of those posts about women ignoring their partner’s conservative political leanings online. Lo and behold, they almost always update later with some story about abuse. Run!

ShadowheartsGiant00s: We need context here. Was he calling for genocide or just posted a pepe?

Yarnbunny: Many see those actions as one in the same, given pepe is a verified white supremacist symbol. Not that I’d ever trust someone named after a videogame character’s breasts.

ShadowheartsGiant00s: Oh shut up. Pepe is not white supremacist. He’s not even white.

YoshiDoshi: Was he right?

Asdflkjh1209: NEVER DATE COWORKERS god people, how is this not the top comment????

TankieBitch: OP picks so many fights online, it’s impossible to tell from her post history which guy she’s talking about.

In the morning, Ashley woke up, for a moment forgetting the frustration of the previous night, before it all sank back into her mind. She reached for her phone, and, after contemplating deleting the app and going to work like nothing happened, opened Reddit.

Her post had blown up over night. As she suspected, the comments either suggested extremes like getting a new job and reporting Ted’s online behavior to management or asked for more context to verify what asshole-ish behavior means.

She sped-read through the comments before her eyes caught a username: SwiggitySwoot. God, what a bad username. Ashley was sure it was some sort of meme reference, although she wasn’t sure exactly what, especially with the account being so old. 

SwiggitySwoot: I read through the articles you linked, and I do actually agree with you, except for where funding should come from. I disagree that I was being an asshole, but I shouldn’t have dismissed you outright with a joke, especially about a serious matter. I’m sorry. I had a lot of fun bowling with you, and I hope you’ll accept another invitation out sometime. I gotta shoot my shot while I still have a very meager chance.

NekoBoi72849: OMG is this the guy? He responded to a post within the past week and they both live in WI??? Is this the guy??

YoshiDoshi: This is obviously fake. Someone with two accounts harvesting karma.

Truthertruther: /r/nothingeverhappens

Ashley glowed for a moment before responding.

Lumberjackie: FLAMINGO!!!!!! :)

[lila-rae]

NWH Thoughts (with Spoilers)

I’ve had this in my drafts and finally remembered to post it. It’s super long so you’ve been warned

I know we knew this going in but I really liked that it just immediately picked up with the daily bugle announcement. Even just having the sound under the studio logos brought you right back into the moment from the end of FFH. Of course we had to get one smug shot of Mysterio’s face (seriously would be on sight if you know any of this was real).

The swinging scenes were really well done and I know it was such a hardship for TZ to have to be stuck to each other for all those days of filming 😂. That first scene in his apartment though is still probably the most chaotic and hilarious and I just want to watch it on repeat. Happy not knowing how to handle a break up, May just trying to get him out, PJ making the most suggestive noises in their moments of panic. Shirtless Peter. May being a mood when seeing their compromising position and still going to introduce herself to MJ. Peter bouncing around to close all the windows while focusing on happy and May even though he has much bigger problems. 10/10.

I love that his legal troubles weren’t drawn out. May and MJ being on the same sunshine protector squad was amazing. Getting confirmation that MJ is Michelle Jones-Watson and he giving zero fucks when being interrogated while also driving looks. I am in love. And sweet sweet Ned. Bless him. Then Daredevil showing up at the kitchen table and catching a brick. It’s fine he’s just a really good lawyer *screams*

Happy lives like a NBA rookie who just got money and I’m here for it. And of course he lives on LI. Dum-E!!!! The whole Peter MJ face time conversation is adorable and Z’s line delivery was on point. I love playful sarcastic MJ. Honestly would watch a whole movie of them just interacting with each other.

Darnell 100% was the best part of that exterior school scene. I just love him. Still not sure how I feel about blonde flash but I do love that in a few weeks tops he’s been able to write and publish a whole ass book detailing his “best friendom” with Spider-Man.

The teachers at Midtown are always hilarious and I am so sad they cut the rest of the school scene out and we only got a minute of them. I want more of Mr. Dell and Mr. Harrington fawning all over Peter (that case though 😂) while the gym teacher hates him cause he’s team mysterio.

Rooftop PJ!! Need I say more… Also Ned being the oblivious third wheel the whole movie had me dying. He really said “okay you’ve got a girl now, what does that have to do with me?”

Them not realizing they didn’t get in to college with all those small ass envelopes… really? I know it’s been a decade since I had to do college admissions but pretty sure small envelopes are universal for rejection. Also having watched so many acceptance videos more than likely it would have been an email. So weird choice.

And now we get my least favorite part of every Spider-Man movie… Peter being a fucking idiot. He’s so smart. Like canonically he’s one of the smartest people in the world but his lack of common sense drives me up the wall. How hard would it be to just listen to Dr. Strange telling you to stop talking. Tell everyone you love your Spider-Man again and leave it alone. Better yet just ask for Everyone to forget Mysterio and everything he’s ever said. And boom done. Strange is me also when realizing he didn’t even attempt any other solution first. Like I love Peter but he’s so dumb it hurts.

The bridge fight with Doc Ock was immaculate and Peter playing with his tentacles once he gained control was probably the most comic Peter Parker we’ve ever seen him. But the real winner was protective Peter coming out ready to kill when he says “I should have killed your little girlfriend” Yeah he flipped a switch. Also MIT lady ready to read Otto the riot act also hilarious.

The jump scares in the basement scene, is that the horror moments they kept teasing cause… ok. Peter now recognizing he should ask his friends for assistance when needing to catch villains. If only you had thought to brainstorm with them before breaking the multiverse.(MJ agrees) And again Ned’s just happy to be there. Peter trying to get paint out of his suit and then deciding to just turn it inside out. But leaves it in the water and in the next breath he says he needs to go. No way your suit is dry at all but ok.

I’m so glad they didn’t keep Jamie Foxx blue. Ned and MJ were very unhelpful on video chat but I loved that he wanted them there. Peter “fixing” power lines with web. Friend I don’t think it works that way.

More protective Peter (my favorite Peter) when he gets that call from May. Only to get Norman in the kitchen stealing donuts. I love May but please let him be a kid and stop saying fixing these villains is his job. They’re grown ass men in need of therapy and he’s 17. You do it if you care so much.

Strange was right. I do not care argue with a wall. Their deaths don’t matter and they needed to just go home. Even after everything at the end the only real redeemable one feels like Doc. But I do applaud MJ for standing between Peter while running and Dr. Strange. Yes girl protect your man even if he is known for making very hasty decisions he clearly hasn’t thought through.

Still confused why exactly astral projection didn’t work on Peter but we did get “you know what’s better than magic… math” which is just so Peter but more hilarious since we know how Tom feels about “maths”.

The villains being in disbelief that Peter could pull MJ 😂 And her once again being the captain of the Peter Protection Squad while threatening them.

And moving to Happy’s apartment is when it all went to shit. And I just wanted to pull my hair out and yell at Peter for trusting them without any sort of insurance policy. Like leave them in the cages. Take them one by one. I don’t care but a whole apartment full of known villains is just disaster waiting to happen. And it did. Love the visualization of his spider sense and that’s the last nice thing I’ll say about that.

I can’t believe they fucking killed off May. May??? Are you fucking kidding me. He’s 17 barely and now he’s on his own. Did we just forget he’s a minor. That was fucking stupid and I stand by this stance. We did get her quoting the actual correct SM quote from the comics so I guess that’s something. And Marissa and Tom acted their asses off but I was just still so angry they killed her.

The aftermath of him in front of those LED billboard broke me. I was in the theatre crying with him. He just looked so broken (and fuck all the people who get a hard on for this version of Peter. And act like he hasn’t been through enough. This was enough right here and then it gets worse.) 😡

Ok so I’ll admit I wasn’t initially a fan of T and A being in the movie but Ned conjuring a portal and being Andrew in was so great to see with a crowd. Also MJ throwing bread is a mood. Ned’s Lola also a mood when she started ranting about the webs being shot. Tobey just causally walking through the portal like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Another mood.

We’re back on the rooftop and their hugging and I’m back to crying. They weren’t lying when they said this movie was emotional. Holy crap the way he breaks down while they’re holding him then grabs them either tighter until he senses something is off and then jumps up and moves MJ behind him. He’s so over everything and these assholes are still like no just fix them. No Peter be selfish and say fuck off.

I did love the lab scene. Andrew watch PJ and seeing the obvious love between them and getting dad missing Gwen (his MJ). Hearing Tobey also has a girl named MJ. Ned learning about the Spider-Man best friend to villain pipeline. Peter having no clue about that conversation but Ned vowing to never try to kill him confusing the hell out of Peter but making T and A proud. Everyone freaking out over Tobey’s organic webs, (as they should organic webbing has always been gross to me). Later the boys not letting it go and Peter asking if it comes out of anywhere else. Bless.

The final fight was absolute chaos cause they don’t know how to work in a team besides Peter. “I don’t want to brag but I will” yes Peter. And Andrew assuming the Avengers were a band 😂. Also Andrew just radiating golden retriever energy. His “I love you guys” he is the definition of just happy to be here.

Ned not knowing how to close the portals 🤦🏾‍♀️ MJ being so supportive and trying to coach him through it. I really liked that we got a lot of MJ/Ned interactions this movie. They’re hilarious together. He never gets it to close but he does bring back Stephen who is definitely impressed with Ned.

You know what’s not hilarious though MJ falling and the green goblin clipping Peter mid air. But Andrew gets to redeem himself for not catching Gwen. And we get a nice safe landing for our girl who is very confused why this grown man is about to cry just from catching her.

And now we get Dark Peter, the hottest Peter Parker has ever been probably. Cause watching him go feral and beat the absolute shit out of the Goblin was amazing and gave me something I never knew I needed. I really just wanted him to end him but you know moral high ground Tobey had to come and ruin the fun (kidding, not really)

And now the moment that ripped out my heart, part 1. Watching Peter tell the MJ and Ned they’re going to forget them. Ned and his long hand shake. And then Z gave the most heart breaking performance as she said goodbye. “I really hate magic” “I love you” “I love” “just wait and tell me when you see me again”… (cue mental breakdown). They awwed while watching the trailer. There was nothing Aww about that kiss. It was fucking heart breaking. And I just want them back together. It’s okay though he’s totally going to keep his PROMISE and tell her how he feels when he goes in the coffee shop. But wait he sees a bandaid and decided to fuck it and just keep quiet. WTF. She has a small scrape. Boy if you don’t tell her how you feel. She had that look on her face like she was putting together pieces. She’s going to figure it out and then ream your ass out and you deserve it.

Peter Parker meets Cherry…yeah that’s all I have to say about that. (Apparently the beanie exists solely because they shot that in November and his hair was too long.)

And we get lonely PP in his one room apartment with mementos from his former life. He made a new suit. (Why so shiny Peter?) And that’s how it ends. Tom Z and Jacob were going to fight because y’all kept saying it was a satisfying ending and that was the biggest load of bullshit you’ve ever said.

[catgirlxox]

Okay, I REALLY didn't want to waste my time on people who I've cut out of my life and long forgotten about, but something's been brought to my attention so I feel the need to speak for myself now.

Here's my side of the story, since they decided to leave a lot of it out.

A certain user (@transwiththeplans on tumblr) has been actively going around accusing people of several things, one of them being pedophilia. I don't remember the details, they just sent me a google drive full of weird comments and info on the alleged "pedo" one day last year as a submission to this blog.

Initially, I just kinda said "thanks I guess?", because like...it really didn't affect me either way. So, yes, I acknowledged that they sent me a weird google drive. I don't know what else I was supposed to do. But I mention it because that's something they like to keep bringing up to prove that I'm against them for...no reason. When, there is a reason.

I had no idea if they wanted me to post it because like, who sends someone just a whole google drive of info on some random person who allegedly sent you nudes...? And, as a submission too. Which, y'know, is what you use when you WANT to submit a post for the blog to post. Publicly.

And let's not forget, it's voluntary to do that.

On the topic of sexual harassment, I've been sent nudes from other people before, unsolicited and without consent, too, actually. But I just proceeded to block them and moved on with my life, never to hear from them again. It's a gross situation, but unfortunately, it happens. I'm not saying it's not wrong, but, again, it's not my business because I was never involved until they tried to involve me.

Anyway, I didn't post their submission right away in the interest of, again, not involving myself in something I really had nothing to do with in the first place. Sometime later I got another ask from them.

Again, I didn't post it, for the reasons I stated in my answer.

Fast forward a couple months, other tumblr users completely removed from this issue decided they had a problem with my posts defending Ben 10. One of them made a video attempting to criticize me for what I said in this post, again, because I was defending Ben. Long story short, apparently they misunderstood my point.

I didn't respond well to their random and uncalled for criticism of something I thought was harmless, and they didn't respond well to my reaction, either. It turned into a big argument, and that's when transwiththeplans jumped in, randomly, to take their side claiming that I'm harassing the video poster and have been harassing other people in similar disagreements I had in the past regarding Ben 10.

Which, I had, at that point, moved on from. But apparently, just like with Emma, they had taken screenshots of those arguments for some reason. Probably to "expose" me, too...for disagreeing with people online.

Since they wanted to randomly to be against me coincidentally after I hadn't done what they demanded I do with "my platform", I thought I might just show them how two faced they're being. So, I finally posted what they submitted months back.

Let me make this clear: I didn't go searching for their personal info. I didn't hunt them down. I still, to do this day, know next to nothing about them.

But, apparently, according to them, the fact that they submitted a google doc full of info on another user along with their (very non personal info threatening) email voluntarily to my blog means that I have now "doxxed" them, and NOT that they've done so to themselves (if this can even be considered doxxing) while in the process of trying to expose (and borderline doxx, by that logic) another person.

Who, again, let me make this clear, I have nothing to do with personally. I also know next to nothing about Emma so I can not confirm or deny their allegations. All I know is that transwiththeplans has a history of writing up google docs and putting together drives on people to "expose" them, and sending those google docs/drives to people on the internet, voluntarily and randomly.

That's my truth. Take what you will from this information, but I have chosen to no longer involve myself with argumentative people like this who allegedly fight for a good cause, meanwhile acting extremely hypocritical.

[ruluxe]

Hello! Your Aoki fic 'Picture Perfect' brought me to your socials because it's ah-mazing and I would love to read it's completion, but when when I went to the post with the google drive links, it says access denied? Keep writing and bLESS YOU🥺💕

Hey there! I just want to say thank you so much for coming here and reading my works, I really appreciate it! It's very sweet of you to drop a comment in my inbox like this 🧡.

In terms of completion, about a year ago when I began updating I got really sick, and I've been managing my illness since then, as well as work/personal life so I unfortunately haven't had much time to work on it since. I had gotten into aokaga again, so I wrote a bit for them but then lost steam when I got sick again earlier this year so I've been trying to recover from that and burnout. I really do plan on finishing it, even if it's years from now lol. As for why the rewritten chapters on the Google doc have been restricted, I got some not so nice comments on it and decided to keep it away from the public until I finished it entirely. I think there may only be 4 chapters there, but if you're interested in reading them and comfortable with giving me your email, I can try giving you access. But if you'd rather wait, don't worry - hang in there! I will finish it one day, I promise 💙💛

[dancer-me]

For the “weird asks that say a lot” post.

1, 20, 26, 27, 28, 98

😁

Thanks for the ask! 🥰 I found myself thinking a lot about these - I appreciate it!

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans

>_> <_< wine glasses was my rapid fire 'yes' and I feel I need to own that.

20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)?

I have actually done substantially all of my writing since I got back into fic writing at my desk in my home office. I use a Microsoft Surface, and I have it docked and connected to two external monitors. I have my Word doc I'm writing in open on one screen and my detailed outline open on the other. I've brought the keyboard attachment for my surface when I go out of town for the weekends, but I never seem to get more than a few paragraphs written at a time that way. I wrote "Pull me Under" in a notes app on my phone, which I'd say is a major outlier.

26. Favourite activity to do in warm weather

I'd like to preface this by saying, "I don't sport" is something I have been quoted by several people for saying (despite my username I lost the dancer side of me 10 years ago when I went to university). Honestly when it's warm weather I LOVE to spend time with my family at my dad's cottage. Half the time I am reading on the beach. The other half I am losing at board games or drinking games or both. My sister destroyed me in beer pong last weekend.

27. Favourite activity to do in colder weather

Oddly, I like to go for walks. Get all bundled up in my boots and jacket with a hot chocolate and stroll. It snows a lot here in the winter and it can be really beautiful out if it's not, like, worse than -30 Celsius with wind chill and freezing my face off. Bonus point of it's near Christmas or winter festival time because then I get to see all the nice light displays!

28 Five songs to describe you

😮 this was such a challenge! I could have pondered over this for hours so I decided to go with what's been most reflective of the "me" of 2020+ (Can you tell that I recently went through a major life change?) In no particular order:

1. What is this Feeling - The Cast of Wicked ("Loathing. Unconditional Loathing" to this jaunty tune is what pops into my head when I get those 'special' emails from people (clients, adult students, acquaintances) who are just testing me.)

2. The Bones - Maren Morris, Hozier ("When the bones are good, the rest don't matter" - I never vibed with this song as a love song but rather about life and important relationships in general. I listened to this a LOT when I was making a BIG change in my life a couple years ago.)

3. Wait for It - Leslie Odom Jr (from Hamilton) (my sister sent this to me a couple years ago and told me that she thought of me with the perseverance of it all (not the, you know, adultery.))

4. Out of the Old - Olivia Rodrigo (This is from HSMTMTS which is a guilty pleasure of Disney Channel pandemic entertainment but good lord did this song ever come out and slap me in the face with the relatability).

5. Catch my Breath - Kelly Clarkson (❤)

98. Favourite historical era

I have to say the Regency Era because regency romances (particularly Mary Balogh's "Slightly" Series) were hugely captivating for me in my early days of reading romance. The Era was real problematic for things like war and equality and, well, SO MANY other things but... those romance novels, tho'. Also: the outfits.

WOW. This took me a TIME but I loved answering :) HI to everyone who made it this far reading ;)

Weird asks that say a lot

[c-c-cherry]

Bucci Gang Headcanons!!!

I’m not really one to usually post this kind of stuff, but these are some lil headcanons my pal @jjadegreen and I have come up with while stuck in the same house during the quarantine!! 

These literally range from *probably would happen* to *fucking crack* so y’all have been warned...

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Giorno is one of those people that has a secret sweet-tooth. Like. An insane one where if he actually decides to indulge in it he cannot fucking stop. 

When he does go overboard, it’s usually because Bruno got his favourite ice cream flavour from the store and it’s always at some ungodly hour of the night.

He usually blames it on Mista somehow. Accidentally ate the entire tub of ice cream at 3am? No biggie. Just put the spoon on Mista’s bedside table while he’s asleep! 

Everyone blames Mista for it EVERY TIME and now he’s not allowed to eat any ice cream when they buy it. Mista thinks it’s the Sex Pistols because he swears he doesn’t remember doing it. 

Giorno just sits there like *sweats* “yeah uh no it had to be Mista, right? There’s definitely no one else it could be, right? Right??”

One time Abbacchio caught him in the act at like 4am and they have yet to bring it up.

He would spill Giorno’s big secret, but he really likes to see Mista suffer.

Narancia wears skirts sometimes and it’s not a big deal. He vibes, they all just vibe. No toxic masculinity here. 

Narancia is genuinely afraid of those “IF YOU DO NOT SEND TO 10 PEOPLE THIS WILL APPEAR AT THE END OF YOUR BED AT 3AM” emails.

One time he couldn’t do it because Bruno took his phone away and he sat in bed all night fucking trembling in fear of what chain mail monster would eat his face off this time.

Abbacchio hates geese. No one knows why. Not even Bruno.

Narancia’s real stand name IS Aerosmith, but he’s dead set on calling it Lil’ Bomber because “that’s his rapper name.”

Mista is lactose intolerant but he doesn’t know because he just thinks it’s normal to feel excruciating pain when you eat ice cream. 

“Like how pineapples hurt your mouth when you eat them.” -Mista probably

Bruno literally had to take him to the hospital one night because he inhaled too much ice cream and would not stop throwing up and Mista was like “wait this doesn’t happen to you??”

Trish hates butterflies because *fun fact!* butterflies often feed on not only nectar and fruit, but DECAYING CORPSES of animals! 

When she was a kid, she was walking in some alleyway and ran into a dead animal covered in butterflies. One landed on her arm and she fucking screamed. She will never look at them the same ever again...

Giorno loves to make things into butterflies when they all spend time together, and Trish literally has to suppress a shudder every time one goes near her.

Fugo is one of those people that is basically not afraid of anything, but when a fucking bee comes near him he will LOSE IT. He’s one of those people that will have to get up and run away from a bee when it flies near him.

If you tell him that it will leave him alone if he stops moving, he will punch you.

Giorno likes to make shit into bees sometimes just to fuck with him

Bruno does not like dogs. It probably stems from some childhood experience that went sour, but he does not care. He will be stone-faced during any mission or situation, but if a dog tries to jump up and greet him he will freak. The fuck. Out.

One time Narancia and Mista brought home a dog from the streets and mama Bruno was like “NOPE” and zipped himself out of existence.

Abbacchio found him locked in the closet under the stairs when he got home and made them get rid of it.

Leone was more of a cat person anyway.

Abbacchio eats raw pasta.

Fugo plays chess with himself. When Giorno joins the team he’s like “ugh finally an intellectual” but Giorno has literally never seen a fucking chess board in his life and is too scared to tell Fugo so he just keeps making up excuses as to why he doesn’t “have time” to play chess with him today.

Mista doesn’t shower but he has a BOMB-ass face-care routine. Even Trish is jealous. His face? Baby soft? Ten out of ten. The rest of him? Axe body spray out of ten.

Narancia went through a goth phase pre-canon. Abbacchio was not happy because Bruno kept referring to him as “little Abba” but he let Narancia use his good lipstick anyway.

Mista found his special hat in a street gutter on a rainy day and it matched his sweater so he decided to just keep it. Abbacchio does Trish’s makeup. They go to Sephora together. I don’t make the rules.

Giorno never really told anyone (besides Bruno) that he got his stand naturally so they all assume he got it from Polpo’s lighter and when he mentioned something off-hand about “when I was a kid Gold and I…” everyone’s just like “bitch hold up-”

Abbacchio wears coloured contacts and his ass literally cannot see without them. 

Yes they are expensive as fuck. He blows half his pay-check on them every month. 

One time he lost them right before a mission so he had to pull out his heavy prescription glasses from like 8th grade. They literally looked like this.

I think you can imagine the outcome

Growing up, Giorno only listened to three songs. 

The only reason he had access to these songs was because he found a really old Walkman on the side of the road when he was wandering around once. The tape only had three songs on it; Dancing Queen, It's Raining Men, and some song by Mozart. These were the three songs of Giorno’s childhood. 

He still has it and likes to listen to the tape when he gets sad

Narancia doesn’t know what a period is. Neither does Mista. 

Bruno forces everyone into the living room after overhearing this and makes them all watch one of those really awkward sex-ed videos from the 90s (you know the ones)

It was one of the worst days of their lives

They still have the tape and Narancia sometimes slips it in the VHS player when they all least expect it just to fuck with everyone

Bruno once held a capo meeting at their house (biggest mistake of his life) and all you could heard blasting through the walls of the other room was “YoUr bOdy MiGht Be gOiNg tHrOuGh sOmE cHaNgEs, fOr eXaMpLe yOuR P-”

On that note, Giorno was definitely that one kid who took notes during Sex-Ed

Abbacchio listens to Avril Lavigne

Giorno shaves his arms. It kind of started by accident but now he literally cannot stop or else his arms will look completely fucked up

Bruno has sensitive teeth. He can’t drink water that’s too cold cause it hurts his mouth. Abbacchio makes him tea :)

Fugo plays piano to help him with his anger. He would say that he plays saxophone too, but it’s more like violently screeching into the mouthpiece instead of actually playing it.

Narancia thinks that lesbian is a nationality

Even though Giorno lived in Japan for just a couple years, he’s still pretty fluent in the language because his mother would only speak Japanese to him growing up

The gang has no idea that Giorno is Japanese and when a foreigner is struggling Giorno just swoops in with perfect Japanese and they’re all just really confused.

Giorno doesn’t cry during movies or TV shows, but he’s one of those people who fucking BAWLS during video game credits

Mista and Narancia beat Ocarina of Time together and Giorno was watching from the sidelines and AS SOON as the credits started rolling there were tears.

When KK Slider starts to sing in Animal Crossing New Horizons and your character is brought into a music void and the credits start rolling he tears up just a little bit

Mista is squeamish around dead bugs. Not live ones. Dead ones and solely dead ones

Mista and Trish go thrifting. Mista goes to check the pockets of clothes for spare cash (cause he’s a broke bitch) and Trish goes to buy clothes

Everyone thinks that Mista doesn’t change his clothes but he actually just buys like 7 of the same outfit

Mista sneezes like a white sports dad. You know the sneeze.

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Bonus Bruabba shit because Jade and I always go fucking HARD when talking about our local mafia dads:

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Bruno ties up the little strings on Abbacchio’s tiddy shirt every morning.

They got promise rings. Leone’s trying to find a nice time to actually propose but the gang keeps fucking it up every time they try to go on a nice date together

Bruno and Leone watch thunderstorms together

-The rest of the bucci gang stay inside and play monopoly or something when’s its stormy but these two bring out blankets and sit on the front porch and just be all soft and shit watching the lightning light up the sky and listening to the rain on the roof above them.

Bucciarati and Abbacchio have been mistaken as the following: 

Bruno as a woman and Abbacchio as a man. Abbacchio as a woman and Bruno as a man. Two lesbians. But never an actual gay couple.

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Yeah so I have no idea what that was. These were taken from a google doc we have together that’s just all these jumbled, crack-filled headcanons just for fun. I’m sure you can sense the pure chaos in this. 

Go give my dude @jjadegreen a hello, sis made most of these!

uhhh let us know if you want any more from any other parts. Cause y’all know we probably got some. <3

[ghoste-catte]

multiples of 3 ✌🏼-sgmdrcklee

@sagemoderocklee you’re really trying to kill me lol

This got long as heck so I’m throwing it behind a cut. Read on for answers and fic recs! (Mostly the fic recs)

3. favorite line/scene you wrote this year

This is a tough one to answer for me generally because I tend to spit words onto the page and once I have written them I no longer remember writing them. And 2020 has stretched on so long that as I’m looking at some of the stuff I wrote in the beginning of this year, I hardly remember what’s even in it. I think at one point someone (@goblin-draws maybe?) mentioned a line in Sleeptalk with Me where the innkeeper calls Kankuro “chubby boy”, and I was like “Oh ... did I write that? Yeah, sounds like something I’d have someone say to Kankuro ...” 

It might be easier to talk about this in other terms. One of the scenes I worked the hardest on this year was the fight scene in Chapter 3 of Skeleton Key. The original draft of the scene was a lot shorter, and a lot of the backstory for Misaki’s revenge quest was elided. The scene as originally written was clunky, confusing, and as my lovely wife/beta put it sounded “like a Naruto villain” was doing the dialogue, when previously she’d found Misaki sinister and intriguing. Which wasn’t what I wanted. I basically entirely overhauled the scene and re-wrote it several times. I wouldn’t call it a ‘favorite’ scene (I hate writing fight scenes generally; having chosen to immerse myself in a fandom about ninja where much of the drama comes from battle is my eternal regret), but it is a scene that I put a lot of effort into, and I’m moderately satisfied with the improved product that resulted.  

6. least popular fic this year

By far my least popular fic by kudos ever is Pitch Perfect. Which makes complete sense to me. It’s a fic where I’ve written 2 characters who are men in canon as cis women, which pushes a lot of uncomfortable buttons for a lot of people. It contains F/F smut, which is something that a lot of people who choose to read GaaLee probably aren’t out there looking for. And people comment and kudos less on smutfics, I assume because they don’t want their username attached to porn or because they’re embarrassed (which I totally get, no shame there). It’s a modern AU with a sports twist, and AUs are often less popular than canonverse in my experience. I will say though that it has a surprisingly high number of private bookmarks compared to other fics with comparable hit and kudos counts. So I assume people are just a bit more shy because the premise is so ‘out there’. I will say as far as my fics go, it’s one of my personal favorites and probably one of the most intimate and true-to-life things I’ve written? So it actually is a little comforting to know that something so vulnerable has relatively little attention. 

9. longest wip of the year

If we’re going based on stuff that’s partially published but not complete, my Gaara-adopts-Shinki fic On My Way Home is my longest in-progress fic at just over 20k words, although technically I started it in 2019. It will probably end up being right around 40-50k when it’s complete, which might end up situating it as my longest fic ever? 

12. favorite character to write about this year

Okay, this is an easy one. I love writing Kankuro. I think he is hilarious. He is the devil on my shoulder and a creature of pure id, and every time I write a line of dialogue for him it’s the summation of my rudest thoughts about a situation put in the crudest possible terms. If there were a megaphone directly from my unfiltered brain giving running commentary, that would be Kankuro.

15. something you learned this year

I have learned SO much this year! This is only my 2nd year properly ‘focusing’ on writing fic and investing any substantial time into it. I think the biggest thing I have learned, though, is how to overcome a lot of my self-consciousness about writing stories with NSFW elements in them. Starting out, I was so extremely shy and mortified about writing fic at all, much less things like hugging or (god forbid!) kissing. So taking on the smut prompts I took this year and really buckling down on learning to write the mechanics and emotions of sex has been a massive learning experience. (And sorry, by the way, if I haven’t gotten to a prompt you sent me in January yet. I do intend to write all of them eventually!) 

18. current number of WIPs

Ah. The call-out question. My general fic process is idea -> outline -> wip -> edit -> ready to post (where the final draft sits in my docs until I gin up the courage to actually post it). So skipping fics that are just “ideas” on the big mega-list, I have 3 fics in the “outline” stage, 13 fics in the partially written “wip” stage, 1 fic in the “editing” stage, and 2 that are complete but yet-to-be-posted. So, like, 19 total in the offing. (The “ideas” list is even worse lol.)

21. most memorable comment/review

This is such a difficult question because every single comment I get makes me do a little dance for joy. That’s not an exaggeration btw I really sit there and like bounce around in my seat for a moment before I open the Ao3 email. I am not an especially emotive person irl, but there have been times I’ve been brought near tears by comments. I’ll also occasionally show them to my wife like !! look at this nice thing this person said !! and she’s indulgent enough to actually read them. There have been a couple comments that have really stuck with me, that I starred in my inbox and return to frequently, but I don’t want to bring attention to someone else without their permission. I will say there was one person recently who mentioned (not in the comments on one of my fics) that they had found someone who does physical binding of fanfiction and they were about to ask my permission to do that, but then the person who does the binding only does certain ships that she likes ... so that, just, absolutely floored me. The idea that someone might actual want a physical copy of my stupid little ninja fanfictions is, like, so truly immense and completely overwhelming?

24. favorite fic you read this year

You can’t make me pick just one!! (For reference, I have bookmarked right around 180 fics in the past year, and that’s not including fics that I just read, really enjoyed, but didn’t think I could ‘handle’ a second time around.) So, skipping over the ones that AREN’T Naruto ... here is a brief sampling of some faves:

Silica by deepestbluest (rated E, GaaLee, ShikaTema, and Kankiba) - An absolute emotional powerhouse of a fic that manages to skillfully interweave three complex relationship dynamics, satisfactorily resolve them, and give you ALL the sandsibs feels in just over 10k words. 

Childhood Not-Friends (series) by MegaWallflower (rated G, KakaGai) - @megawallflower is a KakaGai god for good reason. Absolutely adorable relationship development fics (five of them!) with the premise that Kakashi thinks he and Gai have been dating since they were kids ... Gai just hasn’t been clued into it yet. These stories will give you heart-eyes.

The Bright Side by gidget_goes (rated T, GaaLee) - This is the Buffy AU I never knew I needed, because I’ve never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But truly you don’t need any Buffy knowledge to enjoy this fic. @gidget-goes command of imagery is masterful, and the way they manage to snap from snark to tugging at your heartstrings is awe-inspiring. Gaara breaks my heart in this. And did I mention Kankuro wears a 10-gallon hat? Because Kankuro wears a 10-gallon hat. 

Nature vs. Nurture by Bidiza (rated T, GaaLee) - So introspective and so poetic. This looks like a WIP but it’s actually multiple oneshots, although by the end of the second one you’ll be dying for the rest of the promised series. 

I’m a Fool to Want You by BeelieveRosemarie (rated M, GaaLee) - Turns out @tuttiefruttiegaalee isn’t just an amazing artist, they’re a writer, too! Slow-dancing that will break your heart. Listen to the Frank Sinatra song while you read this for extra tear-jerking effect.

Let Love be Known (series) by TenTomatoes (rated G, GaaLee) - This is the twist on the arranged marriage trope and Beauty and the Beast that I didn’t realize this fandom was missing. I’m absolutely obsessed with their concept of Gaara as the Beast

I Could Be by LilacNoctua (rated T, GaaLee) - I know I big up @lilac-writes Worthwhile series a lot (deservedly so, because it’s so good it makes you look at the series and go “Why the fuck didn’t Kishimoto make this canon exactly like this?”), but this story made me absolutely die between the butterflies in my stomach and how hard I was laughing. There’s one line--you’ll know it when you read it--that absolutely bowls me over every time I re-read this. 

And Then Continue by EgregiousDerp (rated E, GaaLee) - Obviously I’m biased because this was a gift, but @egregiousderp writes some of the the best characterized porn I’ve ever read. You will read this and go “Wow! This is exactly how it would happen!” It’s such a tender, beautiful exploration of Gaara’s insecurities and a very real feeling first time, for all its soft edges. 

Cake by citronelle (rated E, KanKiba) - I don’t even know what to say about this one other than ... phew, this is extremely well written, extremely hot, and extremely in character. Just read it. I promise it’s worth it. 

Saudade by YumKiwiDelicious (rated M, GaaLee) - I’ve run around reccing this to just about every person on the face of the earth at this point. If you’re in the GaaLee Discord you probably saw everyone salivating over every new update of this fic and with good reason. The twists and turns of this fic will have you on the edge of your seat, second guessing every single moment. And it will break your heart in the meantime. What more could you want?

the love potion commotion by floating_cats (rated T, NejiSasu with background GaaLee) - One of those fics where you wish the author’s sense of humor was your own. So many hilarious moments in this story, and it brought me a new appreciation for a ship I never would have even considered. 

Finger Lickin’ Good by whazzername (rated E, GaaLee) - Whazz is another one of those authors where I literally want to rec every single thing she’s ever written, she’s just that good. (Speaking of which, if you haven’t read Fools Rush In and its sequel Degrees of Separation, you’re missing out on the best possible Metal origin story of all time. Don’t deprive yourself of this.) But this story is just ... so incredibly in character for a situation that reads like crack. It’s handled with the utmost straight-facedness and it’s so. freakin’. good. 

heart lines by winterberry_holly (rated M, NejiTen and GaaLee) - I don’t even have the words to describe how perfect this fic is. It’s a truly beautiful exploration of Tenten’s relationship with her palmistry hobby and with the people in her life. My heart ached with every single line. 

Standing on Ceremony by kuroashi (rated E, GaaLee) - This is just ... such a beautiful wedding story. So lovely, like getting the best possible warm hug from someone you love. If that love one was slightly strange and socially inept, because, well. It’s still Gaara doing Gaara-things. @baphometsss is another one of those authors whose handling of smut scenes is so stupendous it makes me wildly jealous. 

Thrall by RokiRiot (rated T, GaaLee) - Idiots-to-lovers with a magic AU twist! This is such a wonderful story, and Gaara’s internal monologue is absolutely amazing. And Lee is Deaf in this fic, which I never ever get to see and which absolutely made my entire day/week/month/life. 

Make-Out Consequences by LuxaLucifer (rated M, KakaGai with background canon Boruto ships) - I laughed so hard reading this that I had to take a breather to stop crying. That’s not an exaggeration. The characterization in this fic is impeccable and the humor is to die for. Naruto’s buffoonery truly shines here, and the author’s wit is just beyond anything I could even properly summarize. Hysterical. A++. 

Thirteen Strokes by Luna_Lee (rated T, GaaLee) - Again, like, if you aren’t reading literally everything @sagemoderocklee writes, are you even really a GaaLee fan? But this fic is beyond even for one of Eeri’s incredibly excellent writings. The worldbuilding in this, the cultural notes, the imagery ... it’s all so lush and so fulfilling and so beautiful. It’s a story about love and it’s a story that you can tell has love poured into every single line. I can’t recommend it enough. 

Checkmate by shadowstrangle (rated G, GaaLee) - The pettiness vibes ... this is so funny. Such a cute story and I love Gaara’s sense of humor here. Not a lot of writers give him a sense of humor, but I love how @shadowstrangle gives him a slightly odd, slightly left-of-center take on humor that still manages to be so funny. 

To Court a Village by FanFictionEngineer (rated G, GaaLee) - Another one where my bias is perhaps slightly obvious, but the premise of this fic is amazing. I love cultural misunderstandings, and the idea of Lee trying his hardest to court Gaara ineptly is just so perfect. 

affliction of feeling by theformerone (rated E, SakuHina) - One of those ships that it would never have occurred to me to seek out but that absolutely works with how the author’s set it up. The dynamics here are delicious. It’s so rare to find good F/F porn but this is one of them for sure. 

Tried and Tested by twentysomething (Rated M, KakaIru with background canon Boruto ships and GaaLee) - Iruka’s narration in this story is just incredible. I haven’t laughed this hard reading a fic in ages. And the concept alone (that Naruto can’t be promoted to Hokage until he passes his chuunin exams ... as an adult ... and Sasuke gets dragged along for the ride) is just brilliant. Amazing concept, amazingly executed. 

a fireside waltz by winterberry_holly (rated M, GaaLee) - I really tried not to rec a single author more than once here but for this one I had to. I got about halfway through this fic and immediately started running around ringing the town crier bell like READ THIS FIC! READ THIS FIC! An absolutely smoldering Regency AU with such beautiful, intimate dance scenes. My heart was racing every single time their fingers brushed. If you don’t read anything else on this list, at the very least read this. 

27. favorite fanfic author of the year

I really can’t pick just one. I am lucky enough that @egregiousderp passes me her drafts under the table before (or without) publishing, and getting to read those is a private treat of unparalleled proportions. Some of my favorite things I’ve read this year I can’t even rec because they’re her unpublished stuff. 

30. favorite fandom to read fic from this year

This is gonna come off strange because I just wrote such a long Naruto reclist, but I recently watched What We Do in the Shadows, and found an incredibly talented group of authors in that fandom with really amazingly good dialogue and narrative voice. I also read a lot of fic for the new It movies (even though I couldn’t watch the 2nd one for ~reasons~), and damn if there isn’t a talented crop of authors in that fandom, too. And finally with ATLA making its way onto Netflix, I had the chance to start watching that for the first time and found a ton of really good fic there as well! 

fanfic end of the year asks!

[allthelittlelostgirlsgrowup]

Love is History

*taps mic* is this thing on? (I stole that from Obama. He was still in office last time I posted my writing). 

So fun thing I did - write an angsty sequel to Love is Fiction. If you’ve never read it, it just got over 300 notes this past week. I figured it was time to dust this off from my drafts and complete it. 

I hope you like it and my voice sounds similiar to the last election year when I put this out. Honestly I’m so different now and I think this captures the changes I’ve gone through and the way I view relationships now opposed to four years ago. 

Love is History

“Art imitates Life right?” Belle closes the folder encasing a rough draft of her first few chapters.

“All good things come to an end.” Emma shrugs as if the concept of him being just a ‘good’ thing ending doesn’t devastate her. He was the best thing.

She thought she’d never write their break up.

“What’s the history?” Belle squints her eyes, nose crinkling as she watches Emma. Belle has been Emma’s ‘Editor’ since college. Now more official. She gets a paycheck, as Emma gets advances from a publishing company that started as a small mom and pop establishment. In the last four years, this little wagon wheel of a company is now a fleet of office buildings all over the US.

“You read book 3: “Wind’s Ally”” Emma leans back in her chair, studying Belle right back. “You know their history.”

Belle keeps her eyes on Emma, relaxing the tension in her face and suppressing a smirk. They’re at a bit of a stalemate here because Emma isn’t sure what more info is needed and Belle isn’t sharing her thoughts at the moment.

“Emma, I knew their history. They finished book 3 in a ‘happily ever after’ kind of way. What underlying issues could have brought them to this point? Why did Alysandra leave?” Emma considers the question. Why did she decide to destroy the happiest relationship she’s ever written? Why would a character who fell madly in love just change their mind? “Maybe, ask yourself why you left.”  

-/-

The sun is setting over the Manhattan skyline when she gets back to her apartment. She doesn’t know where she went after the meeting but her mind just got back to the present and she’s pissed.

Emma flings her keys across the kitchen island, kicking her heels off in a huff before stomping over to her bar cart. She pours his favorite whiskey into the anchor-etched old fashion glasses he got her one Christmas.

“History is a stupid word” she grunts to no one but a tilted glass, muffling the sound as the amber liquid meets her lips a second after. She’s taken up talking to herself these last few months. The first four were spent crying and avoiding her reflection. The loneliness finally set in one night and she made herself her own best friend. So she asks her best friend ‘why did you do it?’ as she feels the tension in her shoulder blades ease. Why? Why did Emma Swan leave Killian Jones seven months ago?

“Wouldn’t we all like to know?”

-/-

The nightmares finally stopped and she no longer wakes with a startle when she finds her bed bare of him. Its been 216 days. She’s cried herself to sleep at least 180. She’s been broken before, boys have left in more ways than one, and she has managed to wake up one day finding herself less damaged than all the others. Today might be that day for the Killian Jones saga.

Today is they announced the upcoming film and casting begins in a few weeks. She knows she needs to finish this novel, but she hasn’t finished much. She barely finishes lunch on most days, barely finishes a thought that isn’t dripping in Killian. It’s been seven months and he is everywhere, in everything. She thought progress was a slowly-operated escalator but she was finally on her way.

And then the congratulation calls come through. Text after text, email, voicemail and she’s sure in a week or two, she’ll get a card from Mary Margaret. She sorts through them looking for something she’ll never find and she has to rewind.

She left him. It wasn’t mutual and it wasn’t obvious. He had no clue. All the calls and texts he was going to send her were sent months ago when he was breaking down in voicemails and begging her to just tell him she was okay.

Congratulations, Emma, you saved him...from ever having to care about you again.

-/-

She doesn’t leave the apartment again until the 245th day. It is easy to stay inside with the modern advances in technology. People will bring literally anything to your front door. Except, maybe inspiration. That she has to go out and find.

She finds herself in Harlem. The Harlem Public Library. She has to get back to her roots. Sure, this isn’t Storybrooke, and no, she’ll probably never meet a pair of eyes as blue coconut as...but her work needs her to find a way to write.

She thinks of his face.

Three hours pass and all she has in a google doc is ‘why?’

-/-

Despite the first failure to launch, she finds she quite likes that library. She’s giving herself a pep talk this time, before she finds herself staring at a blank screen wondering why again.

“I left because I had to.” She looks at her reflection in her bathroom mirror. That’s the only statement she’s made to anyone, herself included. When her friends, her agent, her editor, and her heart ask, she tells them she had to.

She makes her way through her apartment, recounting the moments, hours, days leading up to it. There are very few things her mind makes enough sense to share. Everything else is so convoluted, so tangled up in self-loathing and years of agonizing loneliness, the average person wouldn’t get it. Some days, as she’s matured and healed, she finds even she has trouble understanding it.

There’s not a day that goes by she doesn’t spend half of it feeling nothing but regret. That’s the healthy part of her, the well-adjusted adult who grew from the little lost girl. She’s sane enough to know she threw away the best relationship she’s ever had. She’s sane enough to know she saved him from future hardships with her.

The sound of the empire striking back stirs her from her thoughts. Regina gets the Darth Vader theme as a ringtone so Emma never forgets who really owns her career.

“Hey,” Emma answers as she reaches her apartment door.

“Nice of you to finally answer your phone.” She can hear the glare in Regina’s voice. “You know you pay me to do this right? Not the other way around. Get your money’s worth, why don’t you.” Emma rolls her eyes as she packs her laptop in her messenger bag.

Regina Mills is a fierce woman, as charming as she is aggressive. She can pretty much get anyone to do anything she wants. Emma doesn’t practice in the ways of the force, but she’s certain Regina knows a Jedi mind trick or two, and as her agent, that comes in handy.

What doesn’t come in handy is her tie to Killian. Regina’s husband Robin happens to be Killian’s cousin. Emma avoided Regina’s calls for months after the break-up, afraid she’ll have to answer the same question she’s been asking herself all afternoon. Once she finally started accepting calls again, it seemed Regina had moved on to bigger and better things: A movie deal.

“Right” she sighs. “What’s my money bringing me today?”

“This isn’t money related, so much as a word of warning.” Regina’s tone doesn’t seem as sass-filled as before, so it’s clear she’s not the one wielding the threat. She actually sounds a bit sympathetic. “Belle and I pulled straws to see who got to break this to you, and I, unfortunately, pulled short this time around.”

“There’s a point here.” Emma urges, feeling ill-fated all of a sudden.

“Killian just moved to NYC.” Like ripping off a band-aid. Emma braces herself for pain, but is met with an absence of feeling altogether. Her knees buckle and she finds purchase against her kitchen island. “Emma?”

“When?” She whispers.

“Just a couple of weeks. He took a job with the NYC public libraries, he’s actually doing really well and has just approached Belle with an idea to get the youth excited about writing. There’s a chance you’ll run into him at the office, so I just...we both thought a heads up was necessary.”

“Which library?” because Fate is a nosy bitch and has no business showing up and guiding her to the man she ran from.

“Emma?”

“Which library”

“I think...if I recall correctly, his home base is in  Harlem.”

“I’ll call you back.”

-/-

She thought about leaving the country. At the very least, the state. She is overwhelmed, without a question just so damn overwhelmed. She has gotten so used to tears these days, she’s a little shocked she didn’t cry the minute she heard his name.

Her body had other ideas, because although she definitely meant to get on a train going the opposite direction, she found herself in Harlem 25 minutes later.

She sits in the middle of the library at an open table, clickity clacking as loudly as she can. Part of her really believes that maybe if she saw him, she’d remember why she left.

Another part is certain that masochism is her new favorite hobby.

He never appears.

-/- “Hey” Emma answers her phone going off for the eighth time today.

“Emma?” Belle sounds more relieved than usual. “Where have you been, I’ve been calling non-stop since 3.” Emma rolls her neck to view the time on the DVR.

7:45 pm

“Sorry, I’ve been reading all day.” she hasn’t talked to anyone for another two weeks. She does this far too often to still have a support system. Emma’s not sure she’d pour the same amount of effort into anyone who went radio silent every other week.

“We had a meeting at 2:30.”

“Sorry.” She shrugs, because honestly, nothing even matters.

“I’m coming over,” Belle says decidedly.

“No, Belle, you don’t have to do that.” Emma regrets answering on the eighth attempt. “Let’s reschedule.”

“We just did, I’ll see you in thirty minutes. Open the door.” Sure, she’s a small, sweet, meek-looking woman, but what most people don’t know about Belle is she could slay dragons with pure determination alone. In a battle of wills, she's even got Regina beat.

Emma peels herself off the sofa for the first time since noon, snuggie falling to the floor as she heads for the shower. If Bella can make the journey to her apartment, Emma can at least shower. Sure enough, 30 minutes later she’s greeting Belle at the door, a pizza in hand.

“Are you okay?” She sets the pizza on the kitchen island and wraps Emma in a hug. Emma tries to pull her head far enough to keep her hair from wetting Belle.

“Yeah, just...the creative process. Ya know.” Emma trails off as the hug ends. Of course, she’s not okay. ‘Okay’ people don’t stop answering their phones for weeks, they don’t stare at blank pages until their vision blurs. They don’t behave this way. This was her first shower in days.

“He was in the office yesterday,” Belle says after a long silence, just a full 3 minutes of her studying Emma from head to toe. Do her eyes just scream ‘Killian’ every time someone looks at her. “He said he called to congratulate you on the screenplay adaptation.”

“No, he didn’t.” She’s quick to dismiss. She scoured her missed calls for days looking for his name, he never called.

“How would you know, you never answer your phone, Emma.” She sits on a counter stool, tugging Emma to join her. “He’s going to be in every day next week, and I think…”

“No.” Emma cuts her off.

“Let me finish.” Belle opens the pizza box, sliding it toward Emma. “I think you should take a vacation. Get out of the city for a while, maybe visit Storybrooke, since you know he’s not there to run into.” Emma grabs a slice of pizza, not sure when she last ate but too preoccupied with the idea of leaving the city for a while. She ran to NYC. Now she’s running back to Storybrooke. Is he just going to chase her back and forth?

“Did he say anything else about me?” she hates the desperation gnawing at her.

“He asked me why…” Belle sighs “I told him we’ll all find out in book four.”

-/-

God only knows what compelled her to do the exact opposite of what Belle suggested and show up at the publisher’s office. Probably the same thing that led her to the Harlem library a few weeks ago. She bought a new outfit. She realizes she’s barely even worn jeans over the last eight months, and now she’s in a dress and heels like she has an interview to work here. She’s wearing makeup and perfume. She’s trying her best to cover up and signs of the wreck she’s been for months.

The office seems busier than it has ever been, many new, young faces bustling about. She keeps her features calm as she scans every inch of every room she enters for him.

“Emma?” Belle is hurried as she crosses the main floor to meet her. “What are you doing here?”

“I know.” Emma returns the hushed tone Belle is using. “I reworked some chapters, delayed the breakup, and gave more of Aly’s history.” and Belle nods, but is evidently not listening.

“He’s here.” Belle looks almost frightened. “So if you want to reconsider, I would do it now. Otherwise…”

“Swan?” no one calls her Swan. She’s paralyzed. What did she think was going to happen? How did she think she was going to react? When she paced around her apartment for three hours this morning, did she think she was going to just be okay? He would be here, he would see her and suddenly everything would be okay? “Emma…” He tries softer, less shocked, more timid.

This is the moment. In every love story, angst finds its way in, rips the reader’s heart out and although they’ve been bleeding for chapters now, they can feel nothing at this moment. Time is still, the lights are dim, and all we see is Emma and him.

He looks like himself, just more professional. He’s in well-fitted gray slacks, a navy dress shirt, his hair is longer though. He’s got more scruff on his neck than normal. His eyes are too blue, truly, for anyone to notice another inch of him. They stare at her, the same shade that’s been haunting her dreams, and she still struggles to define it. Everything. They’ve always been everything, no matter if it’s more cotton candy than blue coconut.

“Killian.” She swallows. Her throat makes this awkward gurgling sound and she wants to melt into the floor. Why is she here?

It’s suddenly so quiet but so loud. She can hear her heart hammering in her eardrums. No one says anything for a long stretch of time, maybe 2 seconds, maybe 3 hours, she can’t be sure. She just knows there is so much said in the silence.

“How are you?” She asks without thought. The look on his face is devastating.

“Sorry?” He mocks a laugh. “How am I?”

She’s not completely delusional. This is a thing humans say to one another, no? Why does it feel so foreign all at once, like she’s attempting English for the first time with a local?

“Killian” she sighs, releasing the most dizzying breath.

“I’m good” he grits, suddenly covered in constrained anger. “And you?”

And now they are strangers, all dressed up and nothing to talk about.

“Me?” Her tongue drags along her lower lip to buy time. “Good.” She nods.

“I’m just pleased everyone is good.” Belle smiles sweetly. “Now, Killian and I have a brief meeting, and afterward, if you’re still available, we can go over your rewrite.”

An exit strategy. This is quite possibly the only thing she could have hoped for.

“Swan was a bright young writer once” Killian grins, wickedly. “Why don’t you attend the meeting. We’re talking about a youth writing program.” He’s obviously bating her. How dare she show up on a day he’s here and act like she didn’t destroy him…

“Sure” she agrees. Partly because she’s too stubborn to back down from a challenge, and mainly because she did destroy him and there’s that whole thing about masochism she recently discovered about herself.

Belle looks beside herself. Her eyes narrow and she puffs her chest for a moment before leading them to a meeting space. Two more individuals join them, laptops ready to jot down notes and ideas. Her meetings are only ever with Belle so, for Emma, this seems like red carpet treatment.

He has amazing ideas. He loves the idea of bringing an artistic outlet to the children of Harlem. He was always so much more than a shelfer. He was always a dreamer, with these brilliant, compassionate ideas for helping everyone feel less alone, more encouraged.

She was always a fence, holding him back from the best parts of himself.

-/-

When the meeting concludes, Belle graciously thanks Killian for coming, makes promises of action, and attempts to say goodbye.

Killian, as good-natured and kind as he can be, has always had a persistently obnoxious side. He invites himself to the next meeting.

“This is only fair, Swan.” he smiles, though his eyes are full of darkness.

They regroup in Belle’s office after a bathroom break.

As much as Emma is dying on the inside, Belle looks absolutely disturbed by this. She can’t imagine the discomfort in being the third wheel of a breakup reunion.

“So...when we uh, when we left off, you were telling me why they broke up.” Belle sighs, knowing how awful this is. Emma smiles, hoping it lets her off the hook a little. After all, Belle told her to leave town. Emma decided to torture herself.

“Right.” Emma takes a large breath in, holding it while she pulls out her folder. Only releasing once its in Belle’s hands. Killian is studying her like he has a Chemistry final to take tomorrow and she’s the only hope. “Alysandra left Atlas for his…” She’s said it to herself. She’s made hints to others, but Killian has never had a clue. “For his own good. She’s derailed him from his journey. She’s made him less of a pirate, more of a…”

“More of a what?” Killian’s breath is sharp as it floods in through his nose and out through his mouth. “What did she do to him?”

“She reduced him to a caregiver,” Belle answers from what’s written in the text. “Alysandra took over the journey of discovery. She was suddenly the main character.” Belle looks up at Emma with a look she’d only be able to classify as “delayed understanding.”

“In a story about Atlas, Aly becomes the focus. Everything he does, he does for her.” Emma can feel herself losing composure, eyes stinging with tears, throat drier than a desert. Somehow, someway, she finds her way to Killian’s eyes. “He wasn’t living for himself anymore. He had no purpose but to love her. And it was destroying everything.”

She’s not sure if it’s understanding she expects, or maybe gratitude, for saving him from the needy monster that she is. She knows neither is what she received.

“Did you ask Atlas, perhaps… perhaps that’s what made him happiest?” Killian’s eyes are drilling into her like nails, pinning her against a wall.

She is less.

Speechless, motionless, hopeless…

Less sure she did the right thing. Less firm on her decision. Just so much less than she was the day before.

There’s movement after a long pause, not by her, but Belle, gently setting the files down and moving to leave them alone.

“Aly is an orphan” Emma explains and she can see his head start to shake, but she has to be firm. “Listen. She is not the strong-willed, rebel without a cause she pretends to be. Some days the sadness from being alone for so long stunts her. She spends hours upon hours laying awake wishing she could sleep forever. She can be a wreck, a mess, an impossible woman to love.”

Does it make it easier to talk about herself as if she’s someone else? She’s been doing it for so long, all the catharsis from writing herself into stories, just to unpack the things that plague her? Maybe she can have sympathy for anyone but her, maybe its the only way she can recognize how her behavior impacts others. Maybe the book is why she left in the first place.

“You make it impossible to love you, Emma.” She’s never seen his jaw trembling like this before. “And against all odds, through resilience and patience, I’ve found a way to do the bloody impossible. You can cover it up in characters you’ve based off of us, but this isn’t fiction. I was real. What we had...what we had was real. It wasn’t easy, but when you finally let me in, it was simple. We were happy.”

“You were happy?” She brushes tears from her cheeks as she shakes her head in disagreement. “Was it simple? To come home and find I hadn’t moved from my spot on the couch? Was that the ideal relationship you dreamt of, to see all of your energy, love, and time wasted on someone who couldn’t get themselves off the couch?”

“So you got yourself off the couch now.” Killian stands, eyes frantically scanning Emma from head to toe. “Well done, it only took the motivation of ending a relationship to do it.”

“I did it for you.” and she believes that, with everything in her, she left for his own good.

“Did you now?” He seems so out of breath for standing still. “Or could you have possibly woken up one day and realized the weight of a relationship was what was pinning you to the couch. Was it that Atlas cared for Aly too much, or was it the expectation that Aly would have cared for him in return? Was breaking my heart easier than just trusting me with yours?”

And all at once in the middle of the ocean, she can see Aly waking up all alone in the captain’s quarters, searching the whole damn ship for a man who did what the men she loves always do.

“Maybe there were days you thought I was miserable” he kneels before her as the ocean finds its way to this office. His eyes are ocean blue, always changing hues depending on if the sun is shining, or a storm is brewing or they’re in the deep. “But you weren’t afraid I’d die that way, always miserable, no...some part of you thought I’d leave before I let that happen. That’s the orphan I loved. You were never a mess. You were a survivalist.”

So maybe that’s their story. Aly watched Atlas change his life for her, and realized he’s going to live to regret it. Did the last seven months hurt less because it was her choice? If he would have pulled the trigger, would the bullet do that much more damage?

“I would have died miserable.”

-/-

The history she’s writing is hers and hers alone. When she was younger, when her heart was stolen and broken, when she always ended up alone. She was writing an escape plan.

This was the first time she was the one who left, and to quell the guilt of being her own worst nightmare, she forced herself to believe she was doing it for him. How many people have left her for her own good? How many times did she think that they were doing her a favor?

She’s been sitting motionless for who knows how long when Belle comes back. Killian is long gone but his words linger like those dizzy stars after a concussion. Her head is throbbing trying to make sense of it. This wasn’t just seven months spent believing the lie. Now she’s searching for the truth.

She gets anxious in monotony, like a stench in stagnant water, she is repulsed by the concept. She’s never wanted to do the same thing every day. She doesn’t want a picket fence, she wants…She does like a cute cottagey feel with a nice picket fence, she could…she could deal with a picket fence.

She definitely does not want a husband though, or to be barefoot and pregnant, or…

There were times, she’d look at him fresh out of the shower, or in his sleep and he’d look so much younger, she’d wonder what their kids would look like. There have been times she’s searched her fingers as they moved across her keyboard and realized her ring finger would look nice with a natural stone set in some brass band. It was never anything he did that scared her. It was that she thought about more. The concept of more scared her, and the fact that she was greedy and foolish enough to want it.

Four years is a long time to not talk about marriage, but after they moved past her initial anxiety attacks over having a boyfriend, he never really pushed for much again. Moving in together was her idea. He kept enough stuff at her place and with Elsa moving abroad, it made sense to do it. That’s as far as she was going to take it. Another few years piled up and she was busy writing and he was busy being supportive of that, she recognized she was his sun. When he made sure she ate during the weeks she barely left the house, when he kept her house plants alive, when he did her laundry, reminded her to shower, and told her he’s proud of her too often to quantify, she knew she was his ship. An inanimate object, something someone can love so much and not receive the love back in return, and sure, he’s as silly as a pirate to believe a ship that holds itself together while he’s sailing on her loves him, and that’s just her role.

Hold yourself together Emma, that’s always been your role.

She started to get bitter and insecure. What is she contributing to this relationship? How is she making him any better? Has he even written many songs since they moved in together, has she gone to see him perform, has he performed? Some days she was so enthralled in her writing, she didn’t realize he wasn’t home all day. It was his day off and he was gone for longer than a workday. He could have been having an affair for all she knew. For all he did, he deserved to be having an affair, falling in love with someone who would be there for him, encouraging his dreams, and dedicating herself to him.

After that day, she started her drafts. Killian, you’re so much more than I deserved…Or Killian, your life paused the day you met me. And finally, after months, she left him with I need this to be over.

She’s a writer, a published author, an English major and an avid reader yet, through years and years of literature and just terrible romcoms, she never learned how to break up with someone. She never knew the words to say to him, so she said nothing. He called for three-five days, she’s not sure as she was in a sobbing-induced coma.  He sent texts, he sent freaking carrier pigeons, and she locked herself in a hotel room with her laptop and her broken heart. Finally, an email came in.

Emma, I’ve moved out. Everything I’ve left is yours…among the worn t-shirts you liked to sleep in and the novels we’ve collected over the years is my heart. Goodbye Love.

“Emma,” Belle brings her back to the present after a very long, painful trip into her past. “Are you okay?”

Why is that word even used to describe how ‘good’ something or someone is?

“No.” She glances over at Belle, she thinks to ask if she talked to him in the hall after he left, if he said anything, if he seemed ‘Okay’ himself but she settles back to a business mindset. Work is the only constant. “Aly left because she didn’t want to get left again.”

“And that’s how it ends?” Belle hands her the folder back. “You can do better.”

-/-

“The concept of fiction isn’t a lack of reality, it just hasn’t happened exactly that way yet.”

She hears his voice cascading down the ramp she’s sitting at the bottom of. It's been a week since Belle’s meeting and she made her way back to the library. Back to their roots. There’s so much history in this building, but the history she’s looking for lives within her. There’s a group of teenagers huddled together like they’re on a tour. Her fingers shake as she looks back down at her laptop.

“Don’t be afraid to use your own daily vernacular. It’s just as likely as any well-researched, powered by thesaurus dialogue, but it will come to you much more easily. That’s your voice.”

His voice sounds increasingly close. She wants to look but if they lock eyes now, while he’s busy, she’s back to being the center of attention. Why did she come here? Does she want to get back to being the center of his attention?

“Swan?” her stomach flips violently. She really didn’t think this through. Her neck trembles as she cranes to look up at him. “Hi.” He clears his throat, the group of teenagers studying them closely from behind him.

“Hi” she breathes. “Uhm…”

“Do you want to meet my junior author group?” He cuts in quickly.

“Hi.” She repeats, only this time her eyes travel across the young faces. “I’m Emma.”

“Emma Swan?” A young girl in the back pipes up. “You write Cap Zeph.” ‘Cap Zeph’ is a very popular Tumblr tag, Emma’s been told. She is now a mild-day D list celebrity with the news of the screenplay adaptation. She never published under her real name until this one, Killian’s idea.

“That I do.” Emma feigns a smile.

“Emma Swan” Killian begins, chest swelling “came up with the idea in a small town library.”

“Really?” another girl with wavy blonde hair tumbling around her shoulders asks.

“Yes, and Killian Jones worked there. He’s…evidently the inspiration. Hair as dark as night, eyes as blue as the sea he sails upon.”  Every girl and one boy in the group glance at Killian, amorously. Still handsome as ever. He looks down, scratching behind his ear and chuckling dryly.  She wonders if his throat burns the same way her eyes do or if this feels so natural he’s happy to fall back into it.

“Why don’t you all find some books to research personal voice from in the YA section, hmm?” He dismisses the group quickly. They share assuming glances and move to leave in pairs, surely gossiping on the way.

Being alone again is terrifying. She doesn’t know what she’s doing here. Why does she always go looking for him? What does she want? How can they come out of this okay? What is okay?

“What brings you?” Killian starts. He isn’t looking anywhere but her and the look in his eyes leaves frost on her flesh. His expression is so blank. She has no idea if he even wants her here after their last conversation.

“I was just looking for inspiration.” He nods.

“There are study rooms.” He adds, motioning in the direction she may find them. “My office is actually at a different location, or I’d…suggest…”

“Do you hate me?” it comes out without warning.

“No.” He winces. She’s not sure if it’s because he’s lying or because he wishes he were lying.

“Why not?” She asks. He flinches.

“Christ, Swan. Stop it.” He grabs a seat across from her at the small bistro-style table she’s been working on. She closes her laptop to remove barriers between them. “I hated myself for a while. I thought maybe I should have never lost sight of who you were. You’ve always been guarded. I thought I had broken down some of your walls. I should have never assumed I tore them all down.”

This voice within her tells her that it's no man’s job to do the work for her. Her walls are her own to remove.

“What about your walls?” Emma counters. She didn’t come for an argument, but Killian had trauma, he was damaged in theory, but always presented himself as such a well-adjusted, forgiving, kind, loving man. “Maybe you had to go brick by brick, but you knew they were there. I just watched you for years never act like anything troubled you.”

He laughs, loudly.

She’s startled more that she laughs in return than questions it.

“Emma, my love...of course I was troubled. I still am. I drink far too much and try to solve all of my problems myself without anyone’s help.” He’s still smiling as he confesses.”Hell, I didn’t tell anyone we broke up for months and it wasn’t because I thought you were coming back. I just knew I wasn’t going to let anyone worry about me.”

“You’re not troubled” she shakes her head but thinks back to every time he came home frustrated and sealed himself up before she could get a good glimpse of it. “Are you?”

“I spent an entire day at the marina grieving my dead brother, over a decade after losing him. Every time I went to leave and come home to you, I’d get upset again. I used to stay away until I could pull myself together.” His smile slips into something dark and Emma realizes all the ways they failed at communicating. “I loved you just enough to only show you my best parts. I never trusted our love enough to show you everything. And it’s not because you were sad every now and then.”

And she sees the orphan in him the moment she realizes being left behind were his worst fears, too.

“You thought I’d leave…”

“I think the term is ‘best-laid plans.’” His smile is back “Convince an author to fall in love with you, live forever. Only, with my luck, I get to read my heart get broken in the exact same way whenever I’d like. I was looking forward to your book, knowing I’d get to see us in love again.” She considers the part about him looking forward to her book.

“It’s as much my book as yours.” She means that. When she first wrote the Cap Zeph short stories, she had no plan of publishing. Killian pushed for her to immortalize this, to believe in herself and sell it. When the first went well, he convinced her to meet with Regina. “I mean, you are the entire series, after all.” He shakes his head and sighs.

She doesn’t have a response and the seconds tick by. It only takes a few before they reach an awkward silence where one person makes an excuse to leave. And then when do they see each other again?

“I should get back to my writers.” He moves to stand and she wants to jump up, but she doesn’t know what words follow that. She writes fiction. It's why this book has been so damn difficult. Writing their personalities into a fantasy of pirates and fairies, that's one thing. Writing history is another. She can build on what has already happened. This in-the-moment dichotomy, will they? Won’t they? Can they make it work? It’s disturbing.

He’s the quick thinker. Always a come-back, a pun, a literary quote…

“The only thing worse than a boy who hates you…” She opens her laptop nonchalantly, as if it won’t wound her for him to leave. “...a boy who loves you.”

Among the many novels they shared, “The Book Thief” was one of Killian’s most treasured.

He stares at her with wonder glazing his face. “If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.”

Maybe she’d burn every book in this library, for a chance to experience falling in love with Killian all over again, as if it weren’t a moment in history.

The screenplay would read ‘They share a look of longing’ and she’s not sure that’s how she’d describe it. ‘Longing’ seems more cliche and not nearly as descriptive as her quickening pulse would use.

This feels like a pivotal moment where she realizes that they don’t necessarily have to not be in love anymore. They could take a slow pace, like windchimes waiting for a breeze to bring them together. That’s all a Zephyr is.

“My number hasn’t changed.”

-/-

His number has. She gets a text around 1am. Are you up? It's odd, because Killian isn’t a booty-call kind of guy, but who knows what a breakup can do to a man.

I rarely sleep before 2. Her phone rings moments later.

“Hello?” her tone sounds like a question, but she knows it’s him.

“Swan, it’s Killian.”

“Yes, Grandpa, I’m aware.” She can’t help but chuckle. Almost too elated that he’s on the other end. She can hear him laugh on the other end.

“Do you remember the first time we started speaking on the phone? You wouldn’t give me your number until maybe the 18th date.” She didn’t trust herself then. They took things so slowly.

“You know I like a clean getaway.” Is it too soon to joke about always having one foot out the door?

“What's the escape plan this time?”  

“Probably the West Coast since you chased me here”

“I did not!” His laugh is vibrating against her ribs, setting the tempo for her heart.

Could it be easy all over again? One quote and he’s calling her? One call and they go see a movie? One date and…

And thinking about the end is how she got there, isn’t it?

“Did you plan on seeing me again? Knowing you were moving here?”

“Of course. I planned on seeing you no matter where I lived...I prepared for you to come into focus and the rest of my world to blur.” He sighs and she can hear his mattress settle as he moves. “I didn’t plan on seeing you in my library again.”

“Where else would I get inspiration. You’re my muse.”

They talk til 4am. She’s rethought every word she’s said these last seven months. She rarely moves without tension tugging at the back of her neck. Her thoughts are never clear and simple, not since she left. And here, in the darkness of her bedroom, with nothing but a familiar voice on the other end, she hasn’t second-guessed a word.

-/- She’s not sure if she should call it a date. He invites her to a scholarship meeting and sure, they’re dressed up, but because it's a business meeting. He talks to the team, Belle is in attendance, and she barely says a word.

But he asks her out for drinks afterward and suddenly she’s all he’s focused on, laughing about old times, discussing the interesting twist in literature they’ve both read recently. She asks him if he’s written any songs and he beams brightly when he tells her ‘only recently, Love.’

Sometimes love is familiar, like a book you’ve read a dozen times. There’s comfort in knowing everything and loving it anyway.

-/-

“Are you dating him?” Belle watches her from the doorway as Killian moves down the hall to his meeting. They came to the office together this time, maybe a peck on the cheek occurred before his departure, and maybe Belle witnessed it.

“I don’t know.” Emma tries not to think logistically about what’s going on. It’s been 4 weeks, she’s written 8 chapters and Aly is about to find Atlas again. “For the first time since I started, I know how book 4 will end.”

They go over the recent chapters and Belle seems subtly impressed but she’s holding back. Emma knows it's Killian-related. She just knows she can’t pry without being pried open in return.

“You don’t like it?”

“No, it's beautiful. From tragedy to triumph is the Captain Zephyr way.” Belle hands the work back to Emma with a sad smile. “What makes it different this time? True love always finds its way back to one another, but how do we know they won’t split up again?” Emma knows this isn’t about the novel. They haven’t yet gotten back together to split up.

Does she know they’ll never separate again? Of course not. Killian is dedicated, devoted like a priest to the cloth. She is very aware that his heart is not yet healed, but eager to love her all over again. A few dates and late-night phone calls don’t make forever a promise anyone could keep.

“We don’t.”

-/- He’s walking her home after another fun night at a bar near her apartment. They’ve been casually seeing each other but nothing more than a kiss on the cheek or a hug goodnight has occurred. They get to her building in record time, too preoccupied by the conversation on who in Hollywood would make a handsome Captain Zeph. “Johnny Depp doesn’t have blue eyes.” Emma laughs. “You can’t just pick the most popular actors, and he’s already a pirate in another franchise.” They’re at the doors of her building and his eyes are boring into her. “Do you want to come up?”

And maybe it's because they haven’t had a real kiss in what’s very close to being a year now, but he seems almost nervous.

“I’m afraid I miss you too much.” he scratches behind his ear and looks down the road. When he looks back at her he seems shy.

“Chris Wood,” she comments. She liked him on Supergirl. “Come upstairs.”

It's the look on his face when he studies her apartment that makes her remember they broke up. As if she had forgotten months of trying to hold herself together, he reminds her that she broke him when his face floods with that loneliness.

“Killian...”

“This is a very nice place you have.” his eyes are darting from one corner to the next, lingering on the most significant differences. “So ‘New York’ it's almost as if you’ve never lived anywhere else.”

“Your apartment isn’t ‘New York?’” it's so weird that they’ve never seen each other's place when they’ve seen each other's souls.

“It’s just a place to lay my head.” He glances back at her with something almost accusatory when he says “You’ve gone ahead and made yourself a home.” And it has never felt like that, not once, when she was hiding away, when she would run home to it.

This place, this city has always been a foster home she feels like she’ll get kicked out of if she gets too comfortable. It wasn’t like their home together. Their home felt like roots. Here she feels like an implant that won’t take to the soil.

“The designer furnishings don’t mean shit to me.” Emma moves to the bookshelf, all new and shiny but it's just a box to keep what matters most. “Only what I’ve come here with is all I care to take. She pulls out a few books, “Wuthering Heights,” “The Book Thief,” and “Emma.” She hands them to him knowing they were always his.

“I wanted you to keep them.” He starts to give them back when she waves her hand.

“What do you need to not resent this place? To know I have everything you left tucked away in all these new places?” she motions for him to follow her to the bedroom and he slowly drifts behind, setting the novels on the coffee table. Her bed is covered in pillows dressed in his t-shirts instead of pillowcases. She keeps his cologne on the bedside table as if it were some expensive aromatherapy pillow spray. The blanket Granny from the local diner in Storybrooke made them lay at the foot of the bed, an anchor crocheted into the loops.

“I only drink whiskey you like. I only sleep in your t-shirts.” she sits on her bed, reaching for his hand to pull him down with her. “I don’t know what we are, and I can’t promise you I’m not a tragedy waiting to happen. I just know that I haven’t been able to erase an inch of you.”

He kisses her then. It's not on her terms, and he has only ever waited for everything to be on her terms. So when he pulls her in, hand cupping the back of her head, mouth open and adventurous, she gasps.

His other arm wraps around her waist, pulling her closer to him, her hands pressed flat against his chest as his tongue enters her mouth with desperation. She fists his shirt in her hands, pressing even closer to him as her tongue reacts in kind. It has been the longest year without him and he’s kissing her like they’re running out of time.

All at once they’re falling as he lays her down on her back, continuing to claim her mouth as his property. Her hands start moving, tugging and fumbling with buttons and zippers and just much too much fabric for her liking. When she moves for his briefs he tugs back from her lips.

“Is this what you want?” Her response is to slip her dress over her head. Any questions to follow are puffed out in a husky tone against her ear.

Sometimes love is erotica, so she catalogs every second of it because nothing has ever happened quite like this before.

-/-

They spend the next few months together and she bangs out the rest of the book in record time. Regina and Belle throw her a submission party. She dodges questions about their future and tries to focus on the book.

“So Aly and Atlas together again,” Robin questions her as Killian returns with a drink for the both of them. She knows he’s not talking about the story. Killian has been very careful to not assume much about their status. Both of them have just stuck to ‘seeing where it goes.’

But it's not like they just met six months ago. They have history, they have four years of standing together at parties and being a couple. Do they have the luxury of casually dating? If all happiness is fleeting, do they dive face-first in it or wade in the shallow end.

“I love Killian.” She says firmly. It’s never not been true from the moment she realized it, in a foreign library miles and miles away from home. He is not easily erased, and it has become glaringly obvious it will only destroy her to try. “I always have and I always will.” Killian’s eyes have never been so doe-like. She’s never been so bold.

“I…” Robin’s face flushes, certainly not expecting her to speak so proudly.

“And I love Emma, if it isn’t ardently clear. She’s everything to me and I’m happy just to exist in her life.” He raises his whiskey to her and she follows suit like a gentlemen’s agreement has just been formed: To love one another without concern of what it means. As she takes a sip she realizes what everything means. He hasn’t pushed aside his dreams in the slightest this go around. He’s been focused and driven, ambitious and busy. Somehow, he’s still considering her ‘everything.’ Maybe what she thought was sacrifice all that time ago was really just love.

So they stay in love.

-/-

Another year goes by and the first film is set to release. Although Emma and Killian still pay rent at their separate apartments, they spend every night together. Sometimes it's downtown in Killian’s studio, and other nights it's in the heart of the city at Emma’s. Commitment isn’t measured by who gave what up. It has shifted to who stays. They both do, and every day they make the decision to stay, when it's 5 months since Killian has slept alone or 10 months since Emma had dinner without him. They stay together with one promise in mind. They love each other. And for as long as Love is Present, they will choose each other.

Love is History

“Art imitates Life right?” Belle closes the folder encasing a rough draft of her first few chapters. 

“All good things come to an end.” Emma shrugs as if the concept of him being just a ‘good’ thing ending doesn’t devastate her. He was the best thing. 

She thought she’d never write their break up. 

“What’s the history?” Belle squints her eyes, nose crinkling as she watches Emma. Belle has been Emma’s ‘Editor’ since college. Now more official. She gets a paycheck, as Emma gets advances from a publishing company that started as a small mom and pop establishment. In the last four years, this little wagon wheel of a company is now a fleet of office buildings all over the US. 

“You read book 3: “Wind’s Ally”” Emma leans back in her chair, studying Belle right back. “You know their history.”

Belle keeps her eyes on Emma, relaxing the tension in her face and suppressing a smirk. They’re at a bit of a stalemate here because Emma isn’t sure what more info is needed and Belle isn’t sharing her thoughts at the moment. 

“Emma, I knew their history. They finished book 3 in a ‘happily ever after’ kind of way. What underlying issues could have brought them to this point? Why did Alysandra leave?” Emma considers the question. Why did she decide to destroy the happiest relationship she’s ever written? Why would a character who fell madly in love just change their mind? “Maybe, ask yourself why you left.”  

-/- 

The sun is setting over the Manhattan skyline when she gets back to her apartment. She doesn’t know where she went after the meeting but her mind just got back to the present and she’s pissed. 

Emma flings her keys across the kitchen island, kicking her heels off in a huff before stomping over to her bar cart. She pours his favorite whiskey into the anchor-etched old fashion glasses he got her one Christmas. 

“History is a stupid word” she grunts to no one but a tilted glass, muffling the sound as the amber liquid meets her lips a second after. She’s taken up talking to herself these last few months. The first four were spent crying and avoiding her reflection. The loneliness finally set in one night and she made herself her own best friend. So she asks her best friend ‘why did you do it?’ as she feels the tension in her shoulder blades ease. Why? Why did Emma Swan leave Killian Jones seven months ago?

“Wouldn’t we all like to know?”

 -/-

The nightmares finally stopped and she no longer wakes with a startle when she finds her bed bare of him. Its been 216 days. She’s cried herself to sleep at least 180. She’s been broken before, boys have left in more ways than one, and she has managed to wake up one day finding herself less damaged than all the others. Today might be that day for the Killian Jones saga. 

Today is they announced the upcoming film and casting begins in a few weeks. She knows she needs to finish this novel, but she hasn’t finished much. She barely finishes lunch on most days, barely finishes a thought that isn’t dripping in Killian. It’s been seven months and he is everywhere, in everything. She thought progress was a slowly-operated escalator but she was finally on her way.

And then the congratulation calls come through. Text after text, email, voicemail and she’s sure in a week or two, she’ll get a card from Mary Margaret. She sorts through them looking for something she’ll never find and she has to rewind. 

She left him. It wasn’t mutual and it wasn’t obvious. He had no clue. All the calls and texts he was going to send her were sent months ago when he was breaking down in voicemails and begging her to just tell him she was okay. 

Congratulations, Emma, you saved him...from ever having to care about you again.

-/-

She doesn’t leave the apartment again until the 245th day. It is easy to stay inside with the modern advances in technology. People will bring literally anything to your front door. Except, maybe inspiration. That she has to go out and find. 

She finds herself in Harlem. The Harlem Public Library. She has to get back to her roots. Sure, this isn’t Storybrooke, and no, she’ll probably never meet a pair of eyes as blue coconut as...but her work needs her to find a way to write.

She thinks of his face. 

Three hours pass and all she has in a google doc is ‘why?’

-/-

Despite the first failure to launch, she finds she quite likes that library. She’s giving herself a pep talk this time, before she finds herself staring at a blank screen wondering why again. 

“I left because I had to.” She looks at her reflection in her bathroom mirror. That’s the only statement she’s made to anyone, herself included. When her friends, her agent, her editor, and her heart ask, she tells them she had to. 

She makes her way through her apartment, recounting the moments, hours, days leading up to it. There are very few things her mind makes enough sense to share. Everything else is so convoluted, so tangled up in self-loathing and years of agonizing loneliness, the average person wouldn’t get it. Some days, as she’s matured and healed, she finds even she has trouble understanding it.

There’s not a day that goes by she doesn’t spend half of it feeling nothing but regret. That’s the healthy part of her, the well-adjusted adult who grew from the little lost girl. She’s sane enough to know she threw away the best relationship she’s ever had. She’s sane enough to know she saved him from future hardships with her. 

The sound of the empire striking back stirs her from her thoughts. Regina gets the Darth Vader theme as a ringtone so Emma never forgets who really owns her career. 

“Hey,” Emma answers as she reaches her apartment door.

“Nice of you to finally answer your phone.” She can hear the glare in Regina’s voice. “You know you pay me to do this right? Not the other way around. Get your money’s worth, why don’t you.” Emma rolls her eyes as she packs her laptop in her messenger bag.

Regina Mills is a fierce woman, as charming as she is aggressive. She can pretty much get anyone to do anything she wants. Emma doesn’t practice in the ways of the force, but she’s certain Regina knows a Jedi mind trick or two, and as her agent, that comes in handy. 

What doesn’t come in handy is her tie to Killian. Regina’s husband Robin happens to be Killian’s cousin. Emma avoided Regina’s calls for months after the break-up, afraid she’ll have to answer the same question she’s been asking herself all afternoon. Once she finally started accepting calls again, it seemed Regina had moved on to bigger and better things: A movie deal. 

“Right” she sighs. “What’s my money bringing me today?” 

“This isn’t money related, so much as a word of warning.” Regina’s tone doesn’t seem as sass-filled as before, so it’s clear she’s not the one wielding the threat. She actually sounds a bit sympathetic. “Belle and I pulled straws to see who got to break this to you, and I, unfortunately, pulled short this time around.”

“There’s a point here.” Emma urges, feeling ill-fated all of a sudden. 

“Killian just moved to NYC.” Like ripping off a band-aid. Emma braces herself for pain, but is met with an absence of feeling altogether. Her knees buckle and she finds purchase against her kitchen island. “Emma?”

“When?” She whispers.

“Just a couple of weeks. He took a job with the NYC public libraries, he’s actually doing really well and has just approached Belle with an idea to get the youth excited about writing. There’s a chance you’ll run into him at the office, so I just...we both thought a heads up was necessary.” 

“Which library?” because Fate is a nosy bitch and has no business showing up and guiding her to the man she ran from.

“Emma?”

“Which library”

“I think...if I recall correctly, his home base is in  Harlem.”

“I’ll call you back.” 

-/-

She thought about leaving the country. At the very least, the state. She is overwhelmed, without a question just so damn overwhelmed. She has gotten so used to tears these days, she’s a little shocked she didn’t cry the minute she heard his name. 

Her body had other ideas, because although she definitely meant to get on a train going the opposite direction, she found herself in Harlem 25 minutes later. 

She sits in the middle of the library at an open table, clickity clacking as loudly as she can. Part of her really believes that maybe if she saw him, she’d remember why she left.

Another part is certain that masochism is her new favorite hobby.

He never appears.

-/-

“Hey” Emma answers her phone going off for the eighth time today. 

“Emma?” Belle sounds more relieved than usual. “Where have you been, I’ve been calling non-stop since 3.” Emma rolls her neck to view the time on the DVR. 

7:45 pm

“Sorry, I’ve been reading all day.” she hasn’t talked to anyone for another two weeks. She does this far too often to still have a support system. Emma’s not sure she’d pour the same amount of effort into anyone who went radio silent every other week. 

“We had a meeting at 2:30.” 

“Sorry.” She shrugs, because honestly, nothing even matters.

“I’m coming over,” Belle says decidedly. 

“No, Belle, you don’t have to do that.” Emma regrets answering on the eighth attempt. “Let’s reschedule.”

“We just did, I’ll see you in thirty minutes. Open the door.” Sure, she’s a small, sweet, meek-looking woman, but what most people don’t know about Belle is she could slay dragons with pure determination alone. In a battle of wills, she's even got Regina beat.

Emma peels herself off the sofa for the first time since noon, snuggie falling to the floor as she heads for the shower. If Bella can make the journey to her apartment, Emma can at least shower. Sure enough, 30 minutes later she’s greeting Belle at the door, a pizza in hand. 

“Are you okay?” She sets the pizza on the kitchen island and wraps Emma in a hug. Emma tries to pull her head far enough to keep her hair from wetting Belle. 

“Yeah, just...the creative process. Ya know.” Emma trails off as the hug ends. Of course, she’s not okay. ‘Okay’ people don’t stop answering their phones for weeks, they don’t stare at blank pages until their vision blurs. They don’t behave this way. This was her first shower in days. 

“He was in the office yesterday,” Belle says after a long silence, just a full 3 minutes of her studying Emma from head to toe. Do her eyes just scream ‘Killian’ every time someone looks at her. “He said he called to congratulate you on the screenplay adaptation.”

“No, he didn’t.” She’s quick to dismiss. She scoured her missed calls for days looking for his name, he never called. 

“How would you know, you never answer your phone, Emma.” She sits on a counter stool, tugging Emma to join her. “He’s going to be in every day next week, and I think…”

“No.” Emma cuts her off. 

“Let me finish.” Belle opens the pizza box, sliding it toward Emma. “I think you should take a vacation. Get out of the city for a while, maybe visit Storybrooke, since you know he’s not there to run into.” Emma grabs a slice of pizza, not sure when she last ate but too preoccupied with the idea of leaving the city for a while. She ran to NYC. Now she’s running back to Storybrooke. Is he just going to chase her back and forth? 

“Did he say anything else about me?” she hates the desperation gnawing at her.

“He asked me why…” Belle sighs “I told him we’ll all find out in book four.”

-/-

God only knows what compelled her to do the exact opposite of what Belle suggested and show up at the publisher’s office. Probably the same thing that led her to the Harlem library a few weeks ago. She bought a new outfit. She realizes she’s barely even worn jeans over the last eight months, and now she’s in a dress and heels like she has an interview to work here. She’s wearing makeup and perfume. She’s trying her best to cover up and signs of the wreck she’s been for months. 

The office seems busier than it has ever been, many new, young faces bustling about. She keeps her features calm as she scans every inch of every room she enters for him. 

“Emma?” Belle is hurried as she crosses the main floor to meet her. “What are you doing here?”

“I know.” Emma returns the hushed tone Belle is using. “I reworked some chapters, delayed the breakup, and gave more of Aly’s history.” and Belle nods, but is evidently not listening.

“He’s here.” Belle looks almost frightened. “So if you want to reconsider, I would do it now. Otherwise…”

“Swan?” no one calls her Swan. She’s paralyzed. What did she think was going to happen? How did she think she was going to react? When she paced around her apartment for three hours this morning, did she think she was going to just be okay? He would be here, he would see her and suddenly everything would be okay? “Emma…” He tries softer, less shocked, more timid. 

This is the moment. In every love story, angst finds its way in, rips the reader’s heart out and although they’ve been bleeding for chapters now, they can feel nothing at this moment. Time is still, the lights are dim, and all we see is Emma and him. 

He looks like himself, just more professional. He’s in well-fitted gray slacks, a navy dress shirt, his hair is longer though. He’s got more scruff on his neck than normal. His eyes are too blue, truly, for anyone to notice another inch of him. They stare at her, the same shade that’s been haunting her dreams, and she still struggles to define it. Everything. They’ve always been everything, no matter if it’s more cotton candy than blue coconut. 

“Killian.” She swallows. Her throat makes this awkward gurgling sound and she wants to melt into the floor. Why is she here?

It’s suddenly so quiet but so loud. She can hear her heart hammering in her eardrums. No one says anything for a long stretch of time, maybe 2 seconds, maybe 3 hours, she can’t be sure. She just knows there is so much said in the silence. 

“How are you?” She asks without thought. The look on his face is devastating. 

“Sorry?” He mocks a laugh. “How am I?” 

She’s not completely delusional. This is a thing humans say to one another, no? Why does it feel so foreign all at once, like she’s attempting English for the first time with a local?

“Killian” she sighs, releasing the most dizzying breath.

“I’m good” he grits, suddenly covered in constrained anger. “And you?” 

And now they are strangers, all dressed up and nothing to talk about. 

“Me?” Her tongue drags along her lower lip to buy time. “Good.” She nods.

“I’m just pleased everyone is good.” Belle smiles sweetly. “Now, Killian and I have a brief meeting, and afterward, if you’re still available, we can go over your rewrite.”

An exit strategy. This is quite possibly the only thing she could have hoped for.

“Swan was a bright young writer once” Killian grins, wickedly. “Why don’t you attend the meeting. We’re talking about a youth writing program.” He’s obviously bating her. How dare she show up on a day he’s here and act like she didn’t destroy him…

“Sure” she agrees. Partly because she’s too stubborn to back down from a challenge, and mainly because she did destroy him and there’s that whole thing about masochism she recently discovered about herself.

Belle looks beside herself. Her eyes narrow and she puffs her chest for a moment before leading them to a meeting space. Two more individuals join them, laptops ready to jot down notes and ideas. Her meetings are only ever with Belle so, for Emma, this seems like red carpet treatment. 

He has amazing ideas. He loves the idea of bringing an artistic outlet to the children of Harlem. He was always so much more than a shelfer. He was always a dreamer, with these brilliant, compassionate ideas for helping everyone feel less alone, more encouraged. 

She was always a fence, holding him back from the best parts of himself.

-/-

When the meeting concludes, Belle graciously thanks Killian for coming, makes promises of action, and attempts to say goodbye. 

Killian, as good-natured and kind as he can be, has always had a persistently obnoxious side. He invites himself to the next meeting.

“This is only fair, Swan.” he smiles, though his eyes are full of darkness. 

They regroup in Belle’s office after a bathroom break. 

As much as Emma is dying on the inside, Belle looks absolutely disturbed by this. She can’t imagine the discomfort in being the third wheel of a breakup reunion. 

“So...when we uh, when we left off, you were telling me why they broke up.” Belle sighs, knowing how awful this is. Emma smiles, hoping it lets her off the hook a little. After all, Belle told her to leave town. Emma decided to torture herself.

“Right.” Emma takes a large breath in, holding it while she pulls out her folder. Only releasing once its in Belle’s hands. Killian is studying her like he has a Chemistry final to take tomorrow and she’s the only hope. “Alysandra left Atlas for his…” She’s said it to herself. She’s made hints to others, but Killian has never had a clue. “For his own good. She’s derailed him from his journey. She’s made him less of a pirate, more of a…”

“More of a what?” Killian’s breath is sharp as it floods in through his nose and out through his mouth. “What did she do to him?”

“She reduced him to a caregiver,” Belle answers from what’s written in the text. “Alysandra took over the journey of discovery. She was suddenly the main character.” Belle looks up at Emma with a look she’d only be able to classify as “delayed understanding.”

“In a story about Atlas, Aly becomes the focus. Everything he does, he does for her.” Emma can feel herself losing composure, eyes stinging with tears, throat drier than a desert. Somehow, someway, she finds her way to Killian’s eyes. “He wasn’t living for himself anymore. He had no purpose but to love her. And it was destroying everything.”

She’s not sure if it’s understanding she expects, or maybe gratitude, for saving him from the needy monster that she is. She knows neither is what she received. 

“Did you ask Atlas, perhaps… perhaps that’s what made him happiest?” Killian’s eyes are drilling into her like nails, pinning her against a wall. 

She is less. 

Speechless, motionless, hopeless…

Less sure she did the right thing. Less firm on her decision. Just so much less than she was the day before. 

There’s movement after a long pause, not by her, but Belle, gently setting the files down and moving to leave them alone. 

“Aly is an orphan” Emma explains and she can see his head start to shake, but she has to be firm. “Listen. She is not the strong-willed, rebel without a cause she pretends to be. Some days the sadness from being alone for so long stunts her. She spends hours upon hours laying awake wishing she could sleep forever. She can be a wreck, a mess, an impossible woman to love.” 

Does it make it easier to talk about herself as if she’s someone else? She’s been doing it for so long, all the catharsis from writing herself into stories, just to unpack the things that plague her? Maybe she can have sympathy for anyone but her, maybe its the only way she can recognize how her behavior impacts others. Maybe the book is why she left in the first place. 

“You make it impossible to love you, Emma.” She’s never seen his jaw trembling like this before. “And against all odds, through resilience and patience, I’ve found a way to do the bloody impossible. You can cover it up in characters you’ve based off of us, but this isn’t fiction. I was real. What we had...what we had was real. It wasn’t easy, but when you finally let me in, it was simple. We were happy.”

“You were happy?” She brushes tears from her cheeks as she shakes her head in disagreement. “Was it simple? To come home and find I hadn’t moved from my spot on the couch? Was that the ideal relationship you dreamt of, to see all of your energy, love, and time wasted on someone who couldn’t get themselves off the couch?”

“So you got yourself off the couch now.” Killian stands, eyes frantically scanning Emma from head to toe. “Well done, it only took the motivation of ending a relationship to do it.”

“I did it for you.” and she believes that, with everything in her, she left for his own good.

“Did you now?” He seems so out of breath for standing still. “Or could you have possibly woken up one day and realized the weight of a relationship was what was pinning you to the couch. Was it that Atlas cared for Aly too much, or was it the expectation that Aly would have cared for him in return? Was breaking my heart easier than just trusting me with yours?”

And all at once in the middle of the ocean, she can see Aly waking up all alone in the captain’s quarters, searching the whole damn ship for a man who did what the men she loves always do. 

“Maybe there were days you thought I was miserable” he kneels before her as the ocean finds its way to this office. His eyes are ocean blue, always changing hues depending on if the sun is shining, or a storm is brewing or they’re in the deep. “But you weren’t afraid I’d die that way, always miserable, no...some part of you thought I’d leave before I let that happen. That’s the orphan I loved. You were never a mess. You were a survivalist.”

So maybe that’s their story. Aly watched Atlas change his life for her, and realized he’s going to live to regret it. Did the last seven months hurt less because it was her choice? If he would have pulled the trigger, would the bullet do that much more damage?

“I would have died miserable.” 

-/-

The history she’s writing is hers and hers alone. When she was younger, when her heart was stolen and broken, when she always ended up alone. She was writing an escape plan.

This was the first time she was the one who left, and to quell the guilt of being her own worst nightmare, she forced herself to believe she was doing it for him. How many people have left her for her own good? How many times did she think that they were doing her a favor?

She’s been sitting motionless for who knows how long when Belle comes back. Killian is long gone but his words linger like those dizzy stars after a concussion. Her head is throbbing trying to make sense of it. This wasn’t just seven months spent believing the lie. Now she’s searching for the truth. 

She gets anxious in monotony, like a stench in stagnant water, she is repulsed by the concept. She’s never wanted to do the same thing every day. She doesn’t want a picket fence, she wants…She does like a cute cottagey feel with a nice picket fence, she could…she could deal with a picket fence.

She definitely does not want a husband though, or to be barefoot and pregnant, or…

There were times, she’d look at him fresh out of the shower, or in his sleep and he’d look so much younger, she’d wonder what their kids would look like. There have been times she’s searched her fingers as they moved across her keyboard and realized her ring finger would look nice with a natural stone set in some brass band. It was never anything he did that scared her. It was that she thought about more. The concept of more scared her, and the fact that she was greedy and foolish enough to want it.

Four years is a long time to not talk about marriage, but after they moved past her initial anxiety attacks over having a boyfriend, he never really pushed for much again. Moving in together was her idea. He kept enough stuff at her place and with Elsa moving abroad, it made sense to do it. That’s as far as she was going to take it. Another few years piled up and she was busy writing and he was busy being supportive of that, she recognized she was his sun. When he made sure she ate during the weeks she barely left the house, when he kept her house plants alive, when he did her laundry, reminded her to shower, and told her he’s proud of her too often to quantify, she knew she was his ship. An inanimate object, something someone can love so much and not receive the love back in return, and sure, he’s as silly as a pirate to believe a ship that holds itself together while he’s sailing on her loves him, and that’s just her role.

Hold yourself together Emma, that’s always been your role.

She started to get bitter and insecure. What is she contributing to this relationship? How is she making him any better? Has he even written many songs since they moved in together, has she gone to see him perform, has he performed? Some days she was so enthralled in her writing, she didn’t realize he wasn’t home all day. It was his day off and he was gone for longer than a workday. He could have been having an affair for all she knew. For all he did, he deserved to be having an affair, falling in love with someone who would be there for him, encouraging his dreams, and dedicating herself to him.

After that day, she started her drafts. Killian, you’re so much more than I deserved…Or Killian, your life paused the day you met me. And finally, after months, she left him with I need this to be over.

She’s a writer, a published author, an English major and an avid reader yet, through years and years of literature and just terrible romcoms, she never learned how to break up with someone. She never knew the words to say to him, so she said nothing. He called for three-five days, she’s not sure as she was in a sobbing-induced coma.  He sent texts, he sent freaking carrier pigeons, and she locked herself in a hotel room with her laptop and her broken heart.

Finally, an email came in.

Emma,

I’ve moved out. Everything I’ve left is yours…among the worn t-shirts you liked to sleep in and the novels we’ve collected over the years is my heart.

Goodbye Love.

“Emma,” Belle brings her back to the present after a very long, painful trip into her past. “Are you okay?”

Why is that word even used to describe how ‘good’ something or someone is? 

“No.” She glances over at Belle, she thinks to ask if she talked to him in the hall after he left, if he said anything, if he seemed ‘Okay’ himself but she settles back to a business mindset. Work is the only constant. “Aly left because she didn’t want to get left again.” 

“And that’s how it ends?” Belle hands her the folder back. “You can do better.”

-/-

“The concept of fiction isn’t a lack of reality, it just hasn’t happened exactly that way yet.” 

She hears his voice cascading down the ramp she’s sitting at the bottom of. It's been a week since Belle’s meeting and she made her way back to the library. Back to their roots. There’s so much history in this building, but the history she’s looking for lives within her. There’s a group of teenagers huddled together like they’re on a tour. Her fingers shake as she looks back down at her laptop. 

“Don’t be afraid to use your own daily vernacular. It’s just as likely as any well-researched, powered by thesaurus dialogue, but it will come to you much more easily. That’s your voice.”

His voice sounds increasingly close. She wants to look but if they lock eyes now, while he’s busy, she’s back to being the center of attention. Why did she come here? Does she want to get back to being the center of his attention? 

“Swan?” her stomach flips violently. She really didn’t think this through. Her neck trembles as she cranes to look up at him. “Hi.” He clears his throat, the group of teenagers studying them closely from behind him.

“Hi” she breathes. “Uhm…”

“Do you want to meet my junior author group?” He cuts in quickly.

“Hi.” She repeats, only this time her eyes travel across the young faces. “I’m Emma.”

 “Emma Swan?” A young girl in the back pipes up. “You write Cap Zeph.” ‘Cap Zeph’ is a very popular Tumblr tag, Emma’s been told. She is now a mild-day D list celebrity with the news of the screenplay adaptation. She never published under her real name until this one, Killian’s idea.

“That I do.” Emma feigns a smile.

“Emma Swan” Killian begins, chest swelling “came up with the idea in a small town library.” 

“Really?” another girl with wavy blonde hair tumbling around her shoulders asks.

“Yes, and Killian Jones worked there. He’s…evidently the inspiration. Hair as dark as night, eyes as blue as the sea he sails upon.”  Every girl and one boy in the group glance at Killian, amorously. Still handsome as ever. He looks down, scratching behind his ear and chuckling dryly.  She wonders if his throat burns the same way her eyes do or if this feels so natural he’s happy to fall back into it.

“Why don’t you all find some books to research personal voice from in the YA section, hmm?” He dismisses the group quickly. They share assuming glances and move to leave in pairs, surely gossiping on the way. 

Being alone again is terrifying. She doesn’t know what she’s doing here. Why does she always go looking for him? What does she want? How can they come out of this okay? What is okay? 

“What brings you?” Killian starts. He isn’t looking anywhere but her and the look in his eyes leaves frost on her flesh. His expression is so blank. She has no idea if he even wants her here after their last conversation.

“I was just looking for inspiration.” He nods.

“There are study rooms.” He adds, motioning in the direction she may find them. “My office is actually at a different location, or I’d…suggest…”

“Do you hate me?” it comes out without warning.

“No.” He winces. She’s not sure if it’s because he’s lying or because he wishes he were lying.

“Why not?” She asks. He flinches.

“Christ, Swan. Stop it.” He grabs a seat across from her at the small bistro-style table she’s been working on. She closes her laptop to remove barriers between them. “I hated myself for a while. I thought maybe I should have never lost sight of who you were. You’ve always been guarded. I thought I had broken down some of your walls. I should have never assumed I tore them all down.”

This voice within her tells her that it's no man’s job to do the work for her. Her walls are her own to remove. 

“What about your walls?” Emma counters. She didn’t come for an argument, but Killian had trauma, he was damaged in theory, but always presented himself as such a well-adjusted, forgiving, kind, loving man. “Maybe you had to go brick by brick, but you knew they were there. I just watched you for years never act like anything troubled you.”

He laughs, loudly. 

She’s startled more that she laughs in return than questions it. 

“Emma, my love...of course I was troubled. I still am. I drink far too much and try to solve all of my problems myself without anyone’s help.” He’s still smiling as he confesses.”Hell, I didn’t tell anyone we broke up for months and it wasn’t because I thought you were coming back. I just knew I wasn’t going to let anyone worry about me.”

“You’re not troubled” she shakes her head but thinks back to every time he came home frustrated and sealed himself up before she could get a good glimpse of it. “Are you?”

“I spent an entire day at the marina grieving my dead brother, over a decade after losing him. Every time I went to leave and come home to you, I’d get upset again. I used to stay away until I could pull myself together.” His smile slips into something dark and Emma realizes all the ways they failed at communicating. “I loved you just enough to only show you my best parts. I never trusted our love enough to show you everything. And it’s not because you were sad every now and then.”

And she sees the orphan in him the moment she realizes being left behind were his worst fears, too.

“You thought I’d leave…”

“I think the term is ‘best-laid plans.’” His smile is back “Convince an author to fall in love with you, live forever. Only, with my luck, I get to read my heart get broken in the exact same way whenever I’d like. I was looking forward to your book, knowing I’d get to see us in love again.”

She considers the part about him looking forward to her book.

“It’s as much my book as yours.” She means that. When she first wrote the Cap Zeph short stories, she had no plan of publishing. Killian pushed for her to immortalize this, to believe in herself and sell it. When the first went well, he convinced her to meet with Regina. “I mean, you are the entire series, after all.” He shakes his head and sighs. 

She doesn’t have a response and the seconds tick by. It only takes a few before they reach an awkward silence where one person makes an excuse to leave. And then when do they see each other again?

“I should get back to my writers.” He moves to stand and she wants to jump up, but she doesn’t know what words follow that. She writes fiction. It's why this book has been so damn difficult. Writing their personalities into a fantasy of pirates and fairies, that's one thing. Writing history is another. She can build on what has already happened. This in-the-moment dichotomy, will they? Won’t they? Can they make it work? It’s disturbing. 

He’s the quick thinker. Always a come-back, a pun, a literary quote…

“The only thing worse than a boy who hates you…” She opens her laptop nonchalantly, as if it won’t wound her for him to leave. “...a boy who loves you.”

Among the many novels they shared, “The Book Thief” was one of Killian’s most treasured. 

He stares at her with wonder glazing his face. “If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.”

Maybe she’d burn every book in this library, for a chance to experience falling in love with Killian all over again, as if it weren’t a moment in history. 

The screenplay would read ‘They share a look of longing’ and she’s not sure that’s how she’d describe it. ‘Longing’ seems more cliche and not nearly as descriptive as her quickening pulse would use.

This feels like a pivotal moment where she realizes that they don’t necessarily have to not be in love anymore. They could take a slow pace, like windchimes waiting for a breeze to bring them together. That’s all a Zephyr is.

“My number hasn’t changed.” 

-/-

His number has. She gets a text around 1am. 

Are you up?

It's odd, because Killian isn’t a booty-call kind of guy, but who knows what a breakup can do to a man. 

I rarely sleep before 2. Her phone rings moments later.

“Hello?” her tone sounds like a question, but she knows it’s him.

“Swan, it’s Killian.” 

“Yes, Grandpa, I’m aware.” She can’t help but chuckle. Almost too elated that he’s on the other end. She can hear him laugh on the other end.

“Do you remember the first time we started speaking on the phone? You wouldn’t give me your number until maybe the 18th date.” She didn’t trust herself then. They took things so slowly.

“You know I like a clean getaway.” Is it too soon to joke about always having one foot out the door? 

“What's the escape plan this time?”  

“Probably the West Coast since you chased me here”

“I did not!” His laugh is vibrating against her ribs, setting the tempo for her heart. 

Could it be easy all over again? One quote and he’s calling her? One call and they go see a movie? One date and…

And thinking about the end is how she got there, isn’t it? 

“Did you plan on seeing me again? Knowing you were moving here?”

“Of course. I planned on seeing you no matter where I lived...I prepared for you to come into focus and the rest of my world to blur.” He sighs and she can hear his mattress settle as he moves. “I didn’t plan on seeing you in my library again.”

“Where else would I get inspiration. You’re my muse.” 

They talk til 4am. She’s rethought every word she’s said these last seven months. She rarely moves without tension tugging at the back of her neck. Her thoughts are never clear and simple, not since she left. And here, in the darkness of her bedroom, with nothing but a familiar voice on the other end, she hasn’t second-guessed a word. 

-/-

She’s not sure if she should call it a date. He invites her to a scholarship meeting and sure, they’re dressed up, but because it's a business meeting. He talks to the team, Belle is in attendance, and she barely says a word. 

But he asks her out for drinks afterward and suddenly she’s all he’s focused on, laughing about old times, discussing the interesting twist in literature they’ve both read recently. She asks him if he’s written any songs and he beams brightly when he tells her ‘only recently, Love.’

Sometimes love is familiar, like a book you’ve read a dozen times. There’s comfort in knowing everything and loving it anyway.

-/-

“Are you dating him?” Belle watches her from the doorway as Killian moves down the hall to his meeting. They came to the office together this time, maybe a peck on the cheek occurred before his departure, and maybe Belle witnessed it. 

“I don’t know.” Emma tries not to think logistically about what’s going on. It’s been 4 weeks, she’s written 8 chapters and Aly is about to find Atlas again. “For the first time since I started, I know how book 4 will end.”

They go over the recent chapters and Belle seems subtly impressed but she’s holding back. Emma knows it's Killian-related. She just knows she can’t pry without being pried open in return. 

“You don’t like it?”

“No, it's beautiful. From tragedy to triumph is the Captain Zephyr way.” Belle hands the work back to Emma with a sad smile. “What makes it different this time? True love always finds its way back to one another, but how do we know they won’t split up again?” Emma knows this isn’t about the novel. They haven’t yet gotten back together to split up.

Does she know they’ll never separate again? Of course not. Killian is dedicated, devoted like a priest to the cloth. She is very aware that his heart is not yet healed, but eager to love her all over again. A few dates and late-night phone calls don’t make forever a promise anyone could keep.

“We don’t.” 

-/-

He’s walking her home after another fun night at a bar near her apartment. They’ve been casually seeing each other but nothing more than a kiss on the cheek or a hug goodnight has occurred. They get to her building in record time, too preoccupied by the conversation on who in Hollywood would make a handsome Captain Zeph. 

“Johnny Depp doesn’t have blue eyes.” Emma laughs. “You can’t just pick the most popular actors, and he’s already a pirate in another franchise.” They’re at the doors of her building and his eyes are boring into her. “Do you want to come up?”

And maybe it's because they haven’t had a real kiss in what’s very close to being a year now, but he seems almost nervous. 

“I’m afraid I miss you too much.” he scratches behind his ear and looks down the road. When he looks back at her he seems shy.

“Chris Wood,” she comments. She liked him on Supergirl. “Come upstairs.” 

It's the look on his face when he studies her apartment that makes her remember they broke up. As if she had forgotten months of trying to hold herself together, he reminds her that she broke him when his face floods with that loneliness. 

“Killian...” 

“This is a very nice place you have.” his eyes are darting from one corner to the next, lingering on the most significant differences. “So ‘New York’ it's almost as if you’ve never lived anywhere else.” 

“Your apartment isn’t ‘New York?’” it's so weird that they’ve never seen each other's place when they’ve seen each other's souls. 

“It’s just a place to lay my head.” He glances back at her with something almost accusatory when he says “You’ve gone ahead and made yourself a home.” And it has never felt like that, not once, when she was hiding away, when she would run home to it. 

This place, this city has always been a foster home she feels like she’ll get kicked out of if she gets too comfortable. It wasn’t like their home together. Their home felt like roots. Here she feels like an implant that won’t take to the soil. 

“The designer furnishings don’t mean shit to me.” Emma moves to the bookshelf, all new and shiny but it's just a box to keep what matters most. “Only what I’ve come here with is all I care to take. She pulls out a few books, “Wuthering Heights,” “The Book Thief,” and “Emma.” She hands them to him knowing they were always his. 

“I wanted you to keep them.” He starts to give them back when she waves her hand. 

“What do you need to not resent this place? To know I have everything you left tucked away in all these new places?” she motions for him to follow her to the bedroom and he slowly drifts behind, setting the novels on the coffee table. 

Her bed is covered in pillows dressed in his t-shirts instead of pillowcases. She keeps his cologne on the bedside table as if it were some expensive aromatherapy pillow spray. The blanket Granny from the local diner in Storybrooke made them lay at the foot of the bed, an anchor crocheted into the loops.

“I only drink whiskey you like. I only sleep in your t-shirts.” she sits on her bed, reaching for his hand to pull him down with her. “I don’t know what we are, and I can’t promise you I’m not a tragedy waiting to happen. I just know that I haven’t been able to erase an inch of you.”

He kisses her then. It's not on her terms, and he has only ever waited for everything to be on her terms. So when he pulls her in, hand cupping the back of her head, mouth open and adventurous, she gasps. 

His other arm wraps around her waist, pulling her closer to him, her hands pressed flat against his chest as his tongue enters her mouth with desperation. She fists his shirt in her hands, pressing even closer to him as her tongue reacts in kind. It has been the longest year without him and he’s kissing her like they’re running out of time.

All at once they’re falling as he lays her down on her back, continuing to claim her mouth as his property. Her hands start moving, tugging and fumbling with buttons and zippers and just much too much fabric for her liking. When she moves for his briefs he tugs back from her lips. 

“Is this what you want?” Her response is to slip her dress over her head. Any questions to follow are puffed out in a husky tone against her ear. 

Sometimes love is erotica, so she catalogs every second of it because nothing has ever happened quite like this before. 

-/-

They spend the next few months together and she bangs out the rest of the book in record time. Regina and Belle throw her a submission party. She dodges questions about their future and tries to focus on the book. 

“So Aly and Atlas together again,” Robin questions her as Killian returns with a drink for the both of them. She knows he’s not talking about the story. Killian has been very careful to not assume much about their status. Both of them have just stuck to ‘seeing where it goes.’ 

But it's not like they just met six months ago. They have history, they have four years of standing together at parties and being a couple. Do they have the luxury of casually dating? If all happiness is fleeting, do they dive face-first in it or wade in the shallow end. 

“I love Killian.” She says firmly. It’s never not been true from the moment she realized it, in a foreign library miles and miles away from home. He is not easily erased, and it has become glaringly obvious it will only destroy her to try. “I always have and I always will.” Killian’s eyes have never been so doe-like. She’s never been so bold. 

“I…” Robin’s face flushes, certainly not expecting her to speak so proudly.

“And I love Emma, if it isn’t ardently clear. She’s everything to me and I’m happy just to exist in her life.” He raises his whiskey to her and she follows suit like a gentlemen’s agreement has just been formed: To love one another without concern of what it means. As she takes a sip she realizes what everything means. He hasn’t pushed aside his dreams in the slightest this go around. He’s been focused and driven, ambitious and busy. Somehow, he’s still considering her ‘everything.’ Maybe what she thought was sacrifice all that time ago was really just love.

So they stay in love. 

-/-

Another year goes by and the first film is set to release. Although Emma and Killian still pay rent at their separate apartments, they spend every night together. Sometimes it's downtown in Killian’s studio, and other nights it's in the heart of the city at Emma’s. Commitment isn’t measured by who gave what up. It has shifted to who stays. They both do, and every day they make the decision to stay, when it's 5 months since Killian has slept alone or 10 months since Emma had dinner without him. They stay together with one promise in mind. They love each other. And for as long as Love is Present, they will choose each other. 

[tk9336]

My Curatorial Internship at MSI Part 2

In a very bittersweet conclusion, I finished my internship this past Thursday. It culminated in a visit Friday, August 6th with my family and friends getting a VIP tour of the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago. My younger brother and his Australian co-worker flew in from D.C. and we picked them up from O’Hare on the way to MSI. We met with Director Kathleen McCarthy first thing after getting and to my utter disbelief got us onboard U-505 as a thank you for all my help this summer. She then let me run the tour onboard a German U-Boat... I am still feeling beyond honored for a privilege like that. She then let me give the tour of Collections and it really brought my short time with MSI full circle. I was asked to continue working on a project regarding a “Reichkriegsflagge” flag someone emailed us that they believe is linked to U-505. So as you can imagine I am thrilled... I broke down the history we have on the flags MSI has in storage and on exhibit. I emailed no fewer than four separate institutions; the German Maritime Museum, the US Naval Academy Museum (who has U-505′s actual War flag it was flying when captured in 1944), the Smithsonian, and to Keith Gill who was the chief Curator of U-505 when it was restored and interred in it’s final resting place within the 37 million dollar McCormick Foundation Exhibit.

What will follow is Weeks 7 - 9:

Week 7: 7/19-22/2021

Monday: I was not feeling well and decided to email Voula at 8AM as I got back home from the train station. I am glad I made this decision because I had a stomach that was in knots and there was plenty of material to work on from home. I worked on the U-505 artifacts list.

Tuesday: I came into the office and had my normal weekly meeting with Voula at 10 AM. We discussed the past week and the week ahead. Fortuitously since I had finished the massive transcription I was available to help on a more pressing issue that came up. The U.S. Navy was coming to give inert certificates and certify any munitions we had that still needed them. This was great because it was an opportunity to work with the Registrar Deanna, and do registration/collections management work. I got half way through the huge U.S. Navy loan files. I will continue next week in office, as tomorrow I am not working but will be on location.

Wednesday: I am not working Wednesday, as I am taking a long time friend and his family from my organization, the 501st Legion downtown. I will hopefully get to show them what I do in Collections; my office, the staff who are in my department and a brief walk through storage. I can't wait to see their faces... they have been following the posts I have been making to share my excitement of this incredible opportunity. The visit went well, and the parents Neil and Andrea are big World's Fair fans (both Colombian Exposition and 1933 Century of Progress.) They were former patron members of MSI before COVID.

Thursday: Working from home I was tasked with making a list of the artifacts on exhibition from the transcription of the U505 exhibit. So taking out the artifacts and making it into a separate word doc that I am sure helps the team when needing quick reference to what is on the floor.

Saturday: I continued the work from the U505 artifacts list and now am porting it to a excel workbook which seems to be the preferred file extension used by Kathleen and Voula (and perhaps Collections in general). Not strenuous academic work (since I already did that) but a lot busy work plugging, copying, pasting, etc.

Week 8: 7/26-29/2021

Monday: I came into the office today and resumed my work on going through the large U.S. Navy loan folders Deanna gave me in a effort to find relevant materials on the German, and American torpedoes as well as a Soviet Cruise Guided Missile, the "STYX." I gathered all my materials and presented them to her, and she looked through and helped me reduce the gathered documents for the most relevant to inertion. I found an actual donation file for the STYX to MSI from the Navy... not everyday you find a piece of paper saying this million dollar, surface to ship missile from the Cold War. This took me to the end of the day.

Tuesday: I came into the office and had my weekly meeting with Voula. This would be our last in person meeting as she is going to Greece with her family this Friday. I made sure to really emphasize how much this opportunity meant to me and that I was going to go the extra mile to wrap up all my projects and try to be as much use to MSI as possible. I had finishing helping Deanna yesterday with the inert reference materials to help her with the U.S. Navy guys coming in next Monday.

Wednesday: I worked from home since I have no shortage of stuff to work on. Voula tasked me with writing labels for the Fire Fighting artifacts I that I made a long project of at the beginning of the internship. Since I created all that in a long, well organized word doc, I can then, like a professional curator, work from my research to create 1-2 sentence labels for each item. I will take that and then input it into a excel workbook which seems to be the preferred file extension for reference purposes.

Thursday: We had another MSI Zoom round-table, and this time we how to brand, and what branding means professionally speaking, and to Museums like MSI specifically. Thankfully being Zoom was able to attend while working from home, which is an absolute godsend (in regards to not having to commute to Chicago, from Wauconda, IL... not that I don't like being at MSI- the commute is long.) I continued buttoning up and polishing all that I worked on so far. This isn't the normal college assignment where I don't re-read it once and make quick improvements (being honest here!) I re-read them about 3 times each, as I am very proud of what little I can contribute to MSI.

Week 9: 8/2-5/2021

Monday: I worked from home buttoning up and polishing all my work for MSI that I've done this summer in addition to finishing the label writing for the Fire Fighting artifacts list. I will port that into a Excel workbook like the U505 artifacts list, just to be consistent (as providing a word doc copy as well.) Long day in front of the computer... I worked roughly 10 hours. I just really want to leave a good, and lasting impression on MSI as a show of the supreme gratitude I have for them and this opportunity.

Tuesday: Today I came in feeling a little bit disappointed it is my last week, and endevour to take as much advantage of it as possible. With my Zoom meeting with Voula (who is in Greece right now) we discussed any last questions I had, and she wanted to say that she will be available as a reference and contact for me going forward which means the world over. Today is my day to talk, and work with the Registrar Deanna. She let me know my work on the Russian Cruise missile STYX was very helpful to the gentlemen from Navy doing the inert certifications. That felt really good. Kathleen also forwarded me a project involving one of the flags of U505! The very SAME one I took a photo with learning how to handle textile artifacts. I am over the moon, call it fate that I sought that flag out earlier. (As a former Combat Arms 11Bravo serviceman, holding the captured colors of an enemy combatant captured in combat is nothing short of incredible. So much so the words escape me. A significant emotional experience for me, personally.) We handled the additional two flags, both of which are the correct dimensions for being a port flag, meaning it was flown in dock, and around friendly waters when not on patrol. We handled both, and I took photos showing the measuring tape next to the artifacts to certify these are what they appear to be, the real McCoy. I will follow up with the author of a book about Hans Goebeler, one of the U505 sailors and find out more about this additional Reichskreigflagge he signed! To be entrusted to do this by Kathleen is very empowering. To help Deanna she had me scan all the Black Creativity Juried Art files from 2020 from artists. These were receipts of artwork we kept, or returned. The scanner allows you save files in it that are available to the department computers via wifi. If she has to pull a receipt on a artwork it is catalogued. Not the most exciting work, but work that needs doing. Glad I got to get a flavor of what it entails to be the registrar and put on a different hat, albeit a simple busy-work one for me to get a grasp at how her work differs from the curators.

Wednesday: I had to work from home this day because of issues with my car. Normally not an issue with the battery but with my dad being out of town for work I didn't have a back up vehicle. I still had plenty to work on to finish up.

Thursday: This is my last scheduled work day for the Curatorial internship at MSI. It is completely bittersweet, bitter that it is over, and sweet in the way that I have all these contacts and incredible experiences under my belt. I have a tour scheduled with Mike Welsh whose in charge of facilities, buildings and grounds. Additionally we will have the opportunity to do a in person round table with Chevy Humphrey, President and CEO of MSI. The day began with a little party/meeting hosted by Kathleen for the new assistant curator, registrar and preparator to help with the projects being undertaken by each position. We also celebrated my last day which was very nice. I got to help unpack a 3D photo studio that was massive, and will be a big help photographing these artifacts for cataloguing and being put online. The meeting with Chevy went well if a little underwhelming because I was the only one asking questions! But, hard to pass up a mostly 1:1 dialogue with the CEO and President of MSI. I came back to collections in which Kathleen presented me some gifts from MSI in appreciation of my help for the summer. What a grand and wonderful experience.

Friday: I took my Family, family friends Mike and Kathy, as well as my visiting younger brother the Assistant director of marketing and communications for Atlas Network in DC with his Australian co-worker Vale to see MSI from top to bottom. It began with Kathleen getting us ONBOARD U-505 and let me give the tour. I had never been so honored, and not to mention the onboard for the sub is temporarily closed for COVID. This meant the world, and it was so very cool to share this with my family. It's one thing to talk about a German U-Boat... it's another to be inside a REAL one. She then took us to Collections and again let me give the tour in Storage and was very generous with her time. I then took them to the Henry Crown Space Center, then into the Smart Home Park to grab a drink. I took them to the Science of Storms exhibit and then used the special staff elevator to speedily get me back to Collections to use my work laptop to do the final meeting with Studio Institute. I had to leave the meeting right near the end because we needed to get home and take care of our 14 year old dog Ziggy, and equally old visiting Griffin. It was great to share my presentation with the rest of the Chicago/Memphis interns. This was the first time Chicago was included on the program and I believe the stars aligned to put where I am today, and what I got to do this summer. Thank you. I will try to make an album on Tumblr of images of my internship this summer and I took them with a storyteller’s eye. It’s a pretty cool linear progression of what I found over the course of the internship!

[onisiondrama]

Onision: IRL EP: 2 - Onision’s Response videos summary Part 4 (Final part for his Reacts channel responses to episode 2.)

These videos are all over the place with everyone referring to Kai with different names and using different pronouns. I'm just going to refer to him by his current name and pronouns.

In the video summaries, I’m going to refer to James as “Onision” during documentary clips and “James” during his responses. Hopefully that makes things easier to read.

"Onision Documentary Dead Names and Misgenders Trans Man Repeatedly" (7 of 8)

Clip from the documentary plays. BigMoneyOnision says Onision is the most reviled person on the internet and someone needs to hold him accountable. James insults BMO’s appearance and says, "what the hell is this creature?" BMO says he's been following Onision for over a decade. James calls him a loser. They play a clip of Jaclyn Glenn saying Onision calls himself honest as a shield so he can be a dick. James plays a clip of Jaclyn saying she wishes him the best that he has a beautiful family. James says she doesn't sound like a very consistent person. He says one day she hates him, the next she doesn't, and now she is hating him again.

That clip of Jaclyn came from her response to his 2018 public apology to her. Hmm.. first he hates her, then he likes her, now he hates her. Seems inconsistent. 🤔🙄

Steven says Onision's relationship to Kai was his longest and most complicated relationship. James says he doesn't know what he's talking about. He says they're still married to this day. He points out they deadnamed Kai and says Kai hates everyone involved with this documentary. Steven continues to talk about Kai, but every time he misgenders Kai, James pauses it to point it out and tells them to stop misgendering transgender people. Steven says Kai would constantly reply to Onision's twitter. 

In the beginning of the second episode, the documentary has this text:

I don't buy it. Everyone who misgendered and deadnamed Kai during the storytelling parts continued to misgender Kai throughout the rest of the documentary. It's a mess and people call Kai by three different names throughout the whole show. I think the people who made the documentary were too lazy to tell the interviewees to either consistently misgender / deadname during the appropriate times for story telling / timeline purposes or to get everyone to call Kai by his current name and correctly gender him. Everyone who was interviewed seem to be on a completely different page when it comes to talking about Kai.

Steven says by December 2012, Onision and Kai are married and Kai's parents don't understand why a man nearly 10 years older married Kai within months of meeting. James says that's a lie and he's on good terms with his in-laws. He says they all flew across the country to be at "my” wedding. He calls Steven a dumb-ass. James shows a photo from his wedding and points out Kai's father, mother, step-dad, and sister. He says Steven recklessly said they don't support their unity, yet here they are supporting their unity. He says, "you guys are an embarrassment to journalism."

So James' #1 evidence that Kai's family is on good terms with him is the fact that they showed up to their child's wedding 8 years ago? James is conveniently leaving out the multiple videos he's made about how Kai's father tried to break them up while they were dating due to their age gap (17 and 26) and the grudge he’s held against his father for years. James even banned him from their home a few years ago.

"Onision Documentary Slander, Complete Embarrassment to Journalism, Discovery +" (8 of 8)

Doc plays. Clip of Repzion saying he didn't write the letter. They show a clip of Onision saying Repzion is the reason people are afraid to post videos online, because of psycho, creepy stalkers like him. James shows the email from Repzion apologizing to him back in 2017. He says Repzion is admitting to sending his in-laws an email and apologizing for it. He says his in-laws are no-doubt disgusted by him.

I just want to point out, the clip of Repzion was from when James was accusing him of sending his in-laws a physical letter in the mail. Repzion admitted to sending them a Facebook message and denied sending the letter. DSSCTM admitted to sending the letter.

James shows this on screen:

Edwin says Onision was pressuring Kai to date a girl. James says Edwin is being transphobic by misgendering Kai. Steven says we don't understand what was going on behind the scenes, but whoever Kai was is gone. James says they don't understand what went on behind the scenes, yet they make a whole documentary about it. He says himself and Kai don't talk to the doc because they are idiots that self-admittedly talk about things they don't understand.

Shiloh says she watched Onision break Kai like he broke her. James says he never called the cops on Billie or Sarah, yet he called them multiple times on Shiloh because she's a "psycho bitch." He says everyone else he dated were all way better than her. He shows thumbnails of videos he uploaded with Shiloh to his main channel and he says you don't see someone being broken. He says in the "My Girlfriend Is Beautiful" video, you see her have a mental breakdown and him being supportive. He says she thinks she can just eliminate his entire video library that proves their final videos were all positive and she fabricated the entire abuse concept. He says she got caught cheating and getting pregnant with another man's baby and she didn't like getting caught so she fabricated the abuse story. He references his page about Shiloh and goes over points he's already made in previous videos. He says she's proven a pathological evil liar.

Doc plays a clip of James and Kai with Kai looking uncomfortable. James jokingly says, "add that to the abuse reel." Edwin says he believes James is molding Kai. James says Edwin has no excuse for misgendering because they just announced Kai identifies as a guy. He says Edwin continues to misgender Kai because he's a piece of shit.

Shiloh says she no longer believes that Kai is a victim, she thinks Kai is a predator. James says it's a waste of time to speculate and it's an opinion reel.

The doc tells the story of Alicia Kozakiewicz. James says it's inappropriate they brought up a story that has nothing to do with himself and Kai. He says he's a law abiding former US air force cop.

He goes through his Sarah page on his website to prove she wasn't groomed. He says he found more texts and is going to update the page. He says Chris Hansen and anti-o's are morons for believing anything illegal happened.

Alicia K says she believes Onision and Kai found venerable victims. James says they're using the chick who was beaten and violated to speculate they are bad people. Alicia says they became friends with the girls, then they took away their power. James challenges Alicia to do research and look at his Sarah page. He says they blatantly ignore the texts he shared because they want to cash in on a fraudulent #metoo. He says there literally no actual victims.

Text on screen says in 2012, Kai begins an online relationship with 15-year-old fan, Regina. James says Kai was 17 for the majority of 2012, so it was a 2 year age gap. He says the first time he was Regina was on Chris Hansen's interview. He says they apparently dressed up as a dude to be on the show twice. [He plays the same clips as every other time he accused Regina of this. 🙄] He says the documentary admits Kai never met Regina.

I don’t think this needs to be said, but Regina did not pretend to be another person to get on Hansen’s show. Also, James was so upset the documentary misgenders Kai, but he keeps misgendering Regina.

Regina says they initially lied about their age to Kai. Regina told him they were 19 when they were really 15. James says Regina admits they'll lie to your face. He calls Regina a "stone cold liar."

Even though Kai did the same exact thing to James that same year? He lied to James about his age, yet Kai is not a stone cold liar?

Regina says they asked their mom if they could visit Kai, but she said no. James says he doesn't know what Regina is talking about. He says that's news to him. He doesn't know why Regina would visit them. He plugs his Sarah page again.