#this was written at 5-6am

[mjolnirswriststrap]

Just Another Notch

Masterlist Part 2/?? Part 3

Bucky Barnes x Plus Size F!Reader

Summary: If Bucky thinks his charms will work on you, then you’re gonna put up one hell of a fight to prove him wrong.

Word Count: 1,711

Warnings: None, but will contain explicit content 18+, in future chapters, read at your own discretion.

Your alarm didn’t wake you, it was a loud knocking at your door. You jump up, tapping your phone screen to see that it was only 6am. Now you’re gonna be groggy all morning, your alarm was set for 6:45. You trudge to your door, ready to rip down whoever it was that woke you up. When you open the door you see Bucky with bright eyes, two coffees in hand. You quickly read the label and see that it’s your favorite cafe in Brooklyn. How did he get coffee from there this early?

“Good morning.” He chirps out, reaching one of the paper cups forward. You cross your arms in front of you, refusing the coffee. “How can I help you?” You say curtly. You take in his attire, he was ready for training. You could almost laugh, him and Steve take their sponsorships too seriously, can’t be seen exercising in anything other than Under Armor.

“I still felt bad about last night and thought, maybe I could repay you by helping you get a head start today.” The smirk on his lips did nothing to ease your agitated mood. “I said we’re even, it’s fine.” You say, wondering if he was being genuine. It was far too early for all of this. You rub your sleep filled eyes, pushing your hair behind your ears. “Anything else?” You say, wanting to get some more sleep before the day of literal hell you were about to endure. Physically, you were the apex, but mentally and strategically, not so much.

You couldn’t wield a gun, you’d been studying a makeshift dictionary of all the military terms Steve and Bucky say during missions. You couldn’t take directions. Besides overpowering the strongest guy in Kansas during a championship, you’d never learned how to combat fight. You have no clue where to hit someone or how hard so you don’t do fatal damage. You were written up on your first mission.

Your adrenaline was pumping and you thought the gunman was bigger than what he was, causing you to dent his chest in, instantly killing him. The punch was meant to lay him out, not kill him. You’d been reminded time and time again during initial training that the goal was to subdue, shield rehabilitates these criminals.

So now training was mainly a mental game for you. Sizing people up, you were no use against magicians or witches but physically, you worked hard to discern people’s capabilities. You’d never trained with Bucky or Steve before. You’d never fought against a super soldier, you couldn’t even imagine their strength. Therefore, you’d never opted to train with them.

“No, I’m sorry for waking you.” He says, his eyes tell a completely different story. But you hear some sincerity in his voice. Maybe you were being too harsh to him. He really hadn’t done anything wrong, yet. You were the one who assumed he was drunk, you were the one who enjoyed him innocently helping you clean his mess. If you put aside all your wild ideas, Bucky had actually been very nice to you.

While no one had made any progress in talking to you or really even introducing themselves, Bucky was willing to sit with you and enjoy a bowl of cereal, alone. No other outside force willing him to be there. He’d apologized after spilling milk on you, helped clean it. He wasn’t even looking, and you were speed walking behind him, what if it truly was just an accident. Here you were being rude to the only person who’s shown you kindness.

You wanted to hit yourself. Mentally you were painting your back porch red. Guilt was slowly filling you as you watch him drop his head, nodding as if he’s finally realizing the situation, you wanted him to leave. But not anymore, “Let me get dressed, 5 minutes!” You wait for him to look up at you before you close the door in his face, you could see his smile return, but this time it looked triumphant and genuine.

You want to play this game with him, you knew that much. So why not make a big move and wear your new sports bra set with matching spandex shorts. You’d never worn just a sports bra, and always wore leggings. Your best friend convinced you that you looked good in it, so Nike gladly took your money. This would surely prove your suspicion, were his intentions innocent?

You looked in the mirror, pushing and pulling at your breast in the tight spandex. Your cleavage had to be perfect for this to work. You rolled down the waistband of the shorts, letting it show off your curves. You run to the bathroom to do your morning routine. Walking out of your door in less than the 5 minutes you estimated. You had no idea why you had such a pep in your step. As if you were rushing back to him.

“Thanks.” You say taking the coffee from his hands. He stands there frozen as you turn for the elevator, he watches your ponytail sway across your shoulders, then he lets his eyes travel down, to see your back dimples on display. This one he would fight for, his improvised plan didn’t work last night, he’ll admit his ego was hurt a little by his advances not working. So he gave you another chance with coffee this morning.

It almost didn’t work, he was showing real sadness when you rejected him again, but out of self pity, not because you were being rude. But it worked, and you folded. Judging by the way you’re dressed, he knew you were playing along with him. He would win in the end, he always does. Besides, you’d be an adversary opponent and the best prize.

You wish you could’ve told him black coffee wasn’t really your style, but you had too much pride, sipping it empty on the way down to the training floor. Bucky would probably go left to the gym, and you’ll go right, to the simulation room. It was handy for someone like you. Training with real people was a liability, so holograms it was. “See you later.” You nod to him.

“Where you going? I thought we were training together.” He sounds disappointed. “Oh you meant like the two of us? I thought it was a wake up call, not an invite.” You scratch the back of your neck, kind of embarrassed. “I figured you could use the change of scenery.” He laughs.

You follow him into the gym, a place you’d only been once, during the orientation tour. It was huge, needing the capacity to handle super hero’s being thrown around. Bucky walks over to a bench, setting down his coffee cup and shedding his windbreaker jacket. You toss your empty cup in the trash can beside the door, slowly walking up to him. “So what did you have in mind?” You ask, nervous as to what exactly you had gotten yourself into.

“First some basic warm up drills, then I figured I could help you with that strength depth perception.” He grabs two jump ropes from the wall and tosses one your way. “Fury was worried about you at the last meeting.” You roll your eyes, of course he was.

“I didn’t know you discussed me at meetings.” You say, starting to jump rope. He joins you a second later, going miles faster than you. “We discuss everything, especially things that could be a liability.”. He wasn’t wrong, it rubbed you wrong that you couldn’t defend yourself at these meetings. But you understood why they did it, you killed a man.

“Right.” You huff out, stopping and dropping the jump rope, you had no endurance. Bucky continues for another minute, the rope turning into a blur as it whizzed around him. You ran the track around the perimeter of the gym, till you legs felt like jelly. Again, Bucky kept going, literally running laps around you.

When he came to a jog in place in front of you, you took in the fact that no sweat had formed on his brow, meanwhile you left a puddle in the floor when you stood up. “Okay, let’s start with defense.” He brings his fist to face level and you match his stance. “We both know you have offense covered. But what about protecting yourself. Other people are strong too.” He made a good point.

You had beginners luck, dodging the first punch Bucky threw at your stomach. The second, not so much. You suck in a breath when his metal fist makes contact with your rib. “You’re supposed to block!” He sounds upset, like he was the one who just got hurt. “Yeah I got that.” You wheeze out, dropping to your knees, clutching your stomach.

Just as you’ve almost composed yourself the door to the gym swings open. “Are you ready for complete destruction, son?” It’s Steve walking in, but his face immediately drops when he sees you. “Excuse me.” He’s obviously embarrassed. You just look at Bucky and try to hold in a laugh. “Seriously?” You whisper, his cheeks are red but he nods.

“I’ll take that as my cue.” You say, waddling over to the vending machine in the corner. The blue on the Aquafina label reflected in your eye. You’re gonna die if you don’t get a drink. You tap your Apple Watch to the card reader, typing in A5, as you watch your water bottle be mechanically maneuvered around through a glass window you hear whispering. “She needs a snack already?”

You don’t know who said it, just that someone did, you didn’t turn around. Preferring to pretend it didn’t happen, you grab the water from the machine, drinking the whole thing in a couple chugs. You smash it between your hands, completely flattening it to the width of paper. It was loud, the cracking of the plastic, it silenced their hushed words. As you toss it into the trash can beside the door, you turn around and address both men.

“Thirst and hunger are two different things, wouldn’t you say?” And you leave, pushing past Natasha in the hallway as you make your way to the simulation room.

Taglist: @cjand10 @winterslove1917 @honestlywork @calwitch

[from-izzy]

[03:10] | the boyz kim sunwoo

Sunwoo hums to acknowledge your thoughts. "Let's try again, okay? Together this time."

​PAIRING » tbz kim sunwoo x gn!reader (fast proofread once! lmk if i missed anything!)​ TROPE/AU » ​established relationship au!, non-idol au! GENRE​ » hurt/comfort at night (morning), fluffy fluff fluff, a sprinkle of angst, sunwoo being your understanding and patient boyfriend, sunwoo tucks your hair behind your ears (i find this so so so cute), big spoon sunwoo who protects you from the world, sunwoo tries to steal your (his) clothes because he's staying the night over and can't fit in yours WORD COUNT » 1836 ESTIMATED READING TIME » ~7 mins WARNINGS (lmk if i missed anything!) » reader has trouble sleeping, reader has a history of taking prescribed melatonin, mentions of unsupportive family, reader has medium to long hair, sunwoo is physically bigger and taller

navi/masterlist!! 🤍 part of 'especially to you...'

thank you for reading and helping with genres/warnings @sohnric !!

something that i wrote up back late december 2023 but only releasing today because it marks day 100 since i had my last melatonin pill. taking melatonin pills everyday since 2021 has had a toll on my body and i see the effects that it has on my body even more after stopping. with it, my body clock somewhat matches the time frame that society 'accepts'. without it, the birds chirp first and even though sleeping at 5-6am is exhausting, i tell myself to keep pushing on.

for another note, this story is not written to influence the audience into thinking that taking medication is bad! please take your medication properly and on time! do not be influenced and swayed by society for your health!

please always stay healthy and i'm rooting for you! hang in there! you can do this!!

You didn't need to look at the clock to know what time it was at night—or should you say at this point, day. 

You were thankful that Sunwoo wasn't asleep yet or on a call with his friends when you sent him a message, asking if he was able to come over. You debated even texting him at first, seeing that it was past midnight but you remember the time he bent down to look at you at eye level, hugging your lips with his before pulling away and telling you to always send him a message if you ever needed him at any time and anywhere.

At that point, all your worries washed away as it was the exact words that you needed to hear from your loving boyfriend.

As soon as Sunwoo read and replied to your message, it took him less than ten minutes to appear on the other side of your window—but it took you a second quicker than him to open the said window before he could knock on its frame as all you did after you turned off your phone was put your arms around your legs, resting your chin on your raised knees and watch the mocking moon in the sky.

It was so high on a cloudless night that your stomach churned with anxiety and the truth that time waits for none kicks you in the gut devastatingly. The physical time tells society to sleep and wake up because that's the universal time to keep the world going. The long hand ticks in your head while the short one follows bit by bit—like a bomb that explodes when everyone greets you a ‘goodnight’. Your body has always run at a different time and even though the moon gives so much light and comfort to the night for some, it only serves as a grim reminder for you that your seven o'clock alarm will ring in less than four hours. 

It's heartbreaking to realise your perception of the ray of light in the black night that you used to be excited for has changed as you grew older.

"Hey..." Sunwoo keeps you close to his body as soon as he jumps inside your room. One hand holds the back of your head gently, the other wrapping around your waist. He dips his head down to press a kiss to your forehead, a little smile against your skin on his soft lips, "You're okay. It'll be okay."

"I can't fall asleep, Woo..." Your hand harshly grips the leather material of his jacket at the sides of his body and the shape of your nails is most probably imprinted on his daily outwear by the number of times you've done this.

Sunwoo hums to acknowledge your thoughts. "Let's try again, okay? Together this time." His fingers that run through your hair leave you slightly breathless and you try to focus on his careful and slow action towards you, successfully easing your racing thoughts. "I'm here now, bubs."

The smile on his face grew when you nodded against his chest, still burying your face into his chest and to breath in his comforting scent that always seemed to calm your whole body. Delighted and relieved at your response, Sunwoo begins to sway his body from side to side, singing a gentle tune with his mellow singing voice that you love. He alternates between singing the romantic words straight to your ears and humming the words out as he presses multiple kisses on the parts of your face that he can reach.

"Were you sleeping when I messaged you?" You whisper guiltily to his chest.

"Don't worry about those little things." Sunwoo continued humming after. When he finishes singing the last note, your hands no longer hold onto his jacket for dear life, instead just leisurely around his waist. He pulls away just enough to finally face you in the limited light that your nightlamp gave. "Hi there, bubs."

The way Sunwoo says the pet name that you adore so much makes your heart break a little bit. You could tell at a glance that his eyelids were heavy, that he was probably trying to fight the yawn from his song and that his legs were probably trying their best not to fall asleep. Sunwoo quietly observes your trembling lips and he picks up the high possibility that you were most probably conflicted in your thoughts.

It still haunts you more than the moon outside; more than any horror movies or the amusement horror houses you’ve been in. Maybe it’s because, during all those situations, you had someone beside you. But it’s inevitable once again when your eyes won’t close that you think of the scene in the dining room. When that one artificial light hangs on the ceiling in the middle of the dining table, the square sides taken up by the other members of your family, you will never forget the disbelief and scoffs of disgust when you told them about the small white circle in the palm of your hand that your doctor prescribed.

"I'm so sorry. Maybe I should've just taken the medic—"

"Don't be like this to yourself." The moonlight behind your boyfriend highlights the tears that roll down your pale cheeks. Your heavy, shaky inhales are what prompts Sunwoo to bring yourself back to the present time. "I want to be here, okay? I want to take care of you." Your cold cheeks met the warmth of his palms, his thumbs brushing across the underside of your eyes to wipe your tears away while the rest tucked the lone strands of your hair behind your ears. "If you don't want to take the pills then you don't have to. Please don't be sorry for anything."

"But you're so tired..." It's a miracle that the sentence was comprehendable though it did break multiple times along the way.

He keeps his reassuring eye contact with you when he shakes his head, "You must be more tired than I am." 

You whimper at his thoughts, biting your bottom lip to keep your cries from growing any louder. Sunwoo shakes his head once more, resting his forehead on yours and whispering sweet nothings to you delicately. His thumb lands on the outline of your bottom lip before lightly pulling it down to free it from the pain you were inflicting on yourself. When your cries did break out from your lips, restrains fully gone, your boyfriend's kind heart completely breaks.

Sunwoo takes your breath away by giving you his own when he tilts your head slightly to meet his plump lips. He drinks all your sorrows, cupping your jawline to bring you closer, the sides of your nose brushing against each other. Your lips stop trembling, focusing on the love and patience that he gives you. Your hands unclasp from his back, moving to curl and envelop his wrists, resting the pads of your thumbs on his to feel his calming heartbeat. The muscles that made your eyebrows furrow relaxed with the way that Sunwoo held you so carefully in the now-broken, silent night.

Sunwoo learns from the number of times that you have called him in this situation that showing you gestures like these are the fastest and most effective way to ease your mind and ground yourself. His heart does little loops and jumps every time before he kisses you but he is more focused on making you feel better than anything. As much as it makes him happy to know that he's the only one who could give you the loving gesture, nothing beats the feeling of knowing that you will always feel better and be in a better state of mind afterwards.

The boy pulls away eventually, scanning your face to look for any discomfort. When he found none, his thumbs continued to brush over your skin for a little while more, trailing a series of kisses from your forehead, the shape of your nose, your eyelids that protect his favourite pair of eyes to your precious lips that his own would never get enough of.

"May need to borrow some clothes, bubs." An eyebrow raises from him and a teasing grin makes its way to his face, "Even though ‘borrow’ is a weird word as it’s mine in the first place." A chuckle fills your room melodically. "Will you lend me my clothes?"

"And if I say no?" You did a little nose scrunch, pouting after.

Sunwoo is not the strongest soldier, especially not to your cute actions that sent his heart beating erratically against his chest when your sparkling eyes met his. "Bubs, I'm not going to fit in your clothes. Even if I could, I don't think you would like it when you get it back all stretched."

"I have oversized too, you know."

"You mean my clothes that are oversized on you."

Your eyes smile at the short conversation and Sunwoo's heart feels full and content, relieved to see the beautiful sight that he has always wished you would have in long nights like these.

After Sunwoo changes, you both cover your bodies with your weighted duvet. Just like before, he holds you close to his body, resting an arm for you to lay on before bending it up to soothingly run his fingers across your scalp. You smile contently, hiding your face to his chest, pressing a kiss on his jawline.

"I'll be here when you wake up. I promise."

Just like every time as an act of 'goodbye' or 'goodnight', you relish the forehead kiss that goes on for slightly longer than all the other forehead kisses. After a date and a long day, you would always pout and beg for another one, not wanting to leave his side yet. But on nights like these, when his arms would spoon your figure and you would hug his other free arm, you wouldn't need to pucker your lips to him, knowing well that it's a 'goodnight' and not a 'goodbye'.

"I love you so much, bubs."

"I love you so much too." You push your body up a little bit, careful not to crush the arm beneath you and press a final kiss to his lips before trying to reset your body clock for another day. "Thank you for coming, Woo."

"Anytime and anywhere. Never forget that."

Sunwoo did fall asleep first but his presence with his little snores and the warm exhale from his lips comforted you greatly. Your head seems to agree with your heart because when your eyelids become heavy and sleep finally overtakes your body, you're glad that the last thing two things you see before drifting off to one of the best sleeps in your life, are the sight of your intertwined hands between your bodies and the thought that you're blessed to have Sunwoo who loves you so much and so dearly. 

Wrapped in patient love, the seven o’clock alarm didn’t seem scary to you anymore.

navi/masterlist!! 🤍 'especially to you...' tags (send a dm/ask if you would like to be here or removed!): @deoboyznet 📢❤️ @k-labels 💙🤍 @k-films 🤎🎞️ @kflixnet 📺🍿 @sanaxo-o

[phoenixtakaramono]

Into the Butchlander Multiverse Threadfic - Part II

Tumblr Navigation: I | II

EXCERPTS: "Fuck being a gentleman. If I waited for you any longer, we'd both be in our eighties. ...So believe me, William. As much as this hurts me to do this...you have to be punished a little." | Like a brat who doesn't realize the consequences of his actions and that he's about to get spanked, Homelander invites with an easy grin, "Well, gentlemen, which one of you wants to go first?"

CW: 🔞 scene involving 7 Butchers sandwiching 1 Homelander, spoilers for The Name of the Game (AO3), Truce (AO3), and my other butchlander AU threadfics these 5 Butchers originate from

(You can read the rest of the threadfic update here!)

If you don’t have a Twitter account, screenshots are provided below the line break so you can read this update on Tumblr as well (contains ⚠️🔞 below, so proceed with caution if you’re out in public):

Billy recognizes the pensive look Homelander's directing over at Billy's doppelgängers, with his pretty blue eyes all expressive and forlorn.

Once Sameer wanders out of earshot, Homelander floats on over to Billy, his deep honeyed voice full of longing as he whispers, "Why can't we keep them here?"

Billy is not about to sit down and explain to Connie Butcher née Atkinson why she suddenly has a set of seven nearly-identical septuplets—when she'd only given birth to two sons.

Neither does Billy want to share his Homelander with them.

But instead of voicing his true thoughts aloud, Billy retorts calmly, "Because, John, you have me, don't you?" The moment the name fell from his lips, he knows he's gotten Homelander's attention. Billy spares him a look.

They were going to have a nice long chat about the dreams Homelander had mentioned having—but now’s clearly not the time for that conversation.

"Besides...they all got their own Homelanders to go home to.” Billy offers a smirk. “Let's not separate the lovers, eh?"

It's the smart answer, because that's what gets Homelander to reluctantly do away with any of his dark intrusive thoughts to sabotage the machine and hold all six Butchers back as some sort of f*cked up modern-day harem of Butchers to cater to him, preventing them from returning to their worlds.

But it's an answer that must've jinxed Billy’s, because the moment that all six Butchers blink out of existence in a brilliant glow, the machine starts sparking. Sameer’s shouts for a fire extinguisher are heard as a blanket of smoke buffets the air.

The overhead sprinklers came on, raining down on the sparking machinery.

But that’s not the issue. Because now, standing in the vacated space of the six Butchers who'd disappeared, six Homelanders, and his Homelander, are staring back shell-shocked at one equally stunned William J. Butcher.

(The End...?)

———

(A/N) - Y'all... Groan with me, because this writer had written completely beautiful romantic prose that'd been 58 tweets long at the end from 1AM to 6AM—when my computer decided to restart on me. 😂😥 I did my best to recreate what I could remember here, but we light candles for what could've been my best 🔞 writing for a threadfic, ahhhhhh. I did my best but this is only a 60% recreation. RIP 💀. I hope y'all enjoyed nonetheless! ✨（￣︶￣）↗　

By the way, the ending is open-ended because it teases a second follow-up to this threadfic. But it won't be till later when I start it.

[eemoo1o-animoo]

10 Grelle-based paraphernalia that I found on eBay, in no particular order but my subjective deeming of relevance or importance

Possibly part one of a series? Perhaps?

If so, then I probably won’t contain it to only eBay, and I’m going off of what comes up for someone who’s based in the UK, so maybe there’s more or less stuff available if you’re in other countries due to shipping limitations, etc.? But eBay at the moment is my main source, and I’m only doing this — work that anyone can do, nothing exceptionally thorough or insightful — because I’m just a little bored, and I know Grelle is the most valued in the fandom and TSOGTR hasn’t been writing itself for the past year and a quarter, so why would it start now?

This is written at 3AM-6AM on 29/8/2024, so if this is found long after this date then there’s a chance my sources have already been bought out or deleted for whatever reason.

1.

Grell Sutcliff Funko Pop 18 Kuroshitsuji Black Butler POP! Vinyl Anime Figure

At the time of writing this, there are no bids for this and so the price remains at £21.99 (item and shipping). The current bid is due to end on ≈1/9/2024. Wait for the last second to bid one pence higher than the asking price and you’re golden.

I actually have one of these, but it was gifted to me, and so I don’t know how much mine was sold for, but seeing as the four Black Butler Funko Pops have been vaulted and are sold for way higher in other places online, I think this is a pretty good deal.

(Fun fact, the person who gifted her to me as well as tracked down other cheap listings for the other three called her Greta. Consistently. So. Greta. Greta Sutcliff.)

As we can see from the item’s pictures, the figure has been taken out of its box, at the very least just to be show-cased or inspected, but it does appear to come with the box. Here is a listing on Amazon (9.99 GBP, excluding shipping) for 10 Funko Pop display sleeves that should match the item’s measurements.

The current conversions for this item’s price (18.99 GBP) are as follow:

25.06 USD

36.91 AUD

33.77 CAD

22.52 Euro

2,103.26 INR

855,31 Turkish Lira

39.92 NZD

3,623.33 Yen

Obviously I’m not including every conversion in here, only the most obvious/prevalent. If your country’s currency isn’t here, then my apologies, and feel free to bring it to my attention (with currency named) so that I may add it to any future episodes to this possible series, or to edit this post back with the conversions of that time.

2.

Black Butler PVC Keychain Grell

The description of this listing says that this is officially licensed and from one reverse image search to find a bunch of listings across several websites for it, I’m inclined to believe that this is actually an official piece of merch and not a fan-made item that is being resold as I had originally thought it to be. (Wow, I’m such a knowledgable Black Butler fan. I know, I know.)

There’s not much to say on this other than the fact that it’s cute and I think a few pence has been shaved off from the original selling price, though I’m not too sure. I imagine it would have easily gone for 8.99 GBP, but again I’m not too sure; it’s 3AM after all and this isn’t a serious project for me.

The current conversions go as followed:

11.87 USD

17.47 AUD

15.99 CAD

10.66 Euro

996.15 INR

405,49 Turkish Lira

18.90 NZD

1,715.62 Yen

3.

Grelle Black Butler manga plushie Anime Soft Toy

It’s not the best price, I admit. If you’re looking for something cheaper then maybe go for the 5" plush, and there’s another listing on AnimeWare, but once tax and shipping get evolved it ends up being more or less the same price, anyway.

I think this is under the same line as Plushlois comes from, and to that I say: if someone buys her, will that come back? Will Grelle’s face be remade by @fancymeatcomputers, as @nullbutler’s Plushlois once had?

Anyway, she’s super cute. Her hair is a bit too saturated, but that’s not much to lament over, and she’s pricey, but is still far less expensive than any available Plushlois listing I could find (£52!! Usually!!).

Here are the current conversions:

39.61 USD

58.30 AUD

53.35 CAD

35.58 Euro

3,323.16 INR

1,351.58 Turkish Lira

63.01 NZD

5,727.47 Yen

4.

Black Butler Kuroshitsuji Grell Undertaker Anime two sided Pillow Case Cover 250

I’d originally listed another pillow for listing number four, which goes for the same price, but decided not to as Grelle is more prominent on this one.

Not much to say about this other than as far as I can tell it’s just the pillowcase and not a case and a pillow, but if you want to add a lil extra something to your Grelle shrine or limit your chances of finding a normie partner by having this as the centrepiece to your 20-something pillow statement on your romantic four-post bed.

Here are the current conversions:

7.91 USD

11.64 AUD

10.65 CAD

7.10 Euro

663.67 INR

269.94 Turkish Lira

12.58 NZD

1,143.54 Yen

5.

Black butler Grell Sutcliffe figure Kuroshitsuji SEGA PVC Scale Anime s01

Another shambolic price, I know. But out of all the non-Funko Pop Grelle figures listed, this is definitely the cheapest.

Out of all of the non-Funko Pop Black Butler figures, it’s far from it. I think the cheapest figures went to Ciel and Sebastian, but with a massive gap between the cheapest Ciel figure versus the cheapest Sebastian figure (there’s a lot of listings for this particular figure, all with free shipping and of similar prices). There’s also a listing that sells Sebastian and Grelle together with free postage, which would value each figure as far less than what this one figure is being sold for.

The current conversions (of 130.22 GBP) go as follows:

172.00 USD

252.73 AUD

231.50 CAD

154.48 Euro

14,430.37 INR

5,874.98 Turkish Lira

273.31 NZD

24,865.90 Yen

6.

Black Butler Grell Sutcliff Cosplay Costume Red Death Men Full Set Outfits New

I’m not much of cosplayer or a cosplay fan, but from the few full cosplays I found that range from £40-50, this seems like a good price.

There’s also a good few listings for Grelle-style shoes? The cheapest of which would be here. And both the shoes and the clothing come in men’s sizes, so it’s a match if you ask me.

The current conversions of the cosplay’s price are:

23.76 USD

34.92 AUD

31.98 CAD

21.34 Euro

1,993.77 INR

811.52 Turkish Lira

37.76 NZD

3,435.09 Yen

7.

Kuroshitsuji Black Butler Madam Red Angelina Dalles Anime Figurine - Play Arts

Look. I know this isn’t a Grelle figure, but I assume that most if not all Grelle fans are also Madame Red fans. And you have to admit that this is a damn good price for a figure of this type. In fact, I’d say this figure is the second cheapest, right behind the aforementioned Ciel figure.

Also the seller has the username “welsh lady”. Surely it’d basically be treason if I didn’t promote it.

The conversions of the item price (6.99 GBP) go as follows:

9.23 USD

13.57 AUD

12.43 CAD

8.29 Euro

774.85 INR

315.29 Turkish Lira

14.68 NZD

1,336.09 Yen

8.

USED Dolk Black Butler Book of Circus Grell Sutcliff Cast Doll 700mm Japan RARE

This is a fucking awful price. It hurts just to imagine buying this. However, it seems like a rare or custom-made doll, in a fancy box, and it was the only listing I could find of it, meaning it’s not a re-sell.

There’s not much to say — as you can see I ranked it pretty low on the relevancy scale, but I don’t know: maybe someone’s into this sort of thing, especially if it comes to Grelle.

The item prices are converted as follows:

2,805.52 USD

4,123.16 AUD

3,776.66 CAD

2,519.24 Euro

235,385.31 INR

95,779.75 Turkish Lira

4,458.47 NZD

405,826.75 Yen

9.

1 x playing card Black Butler Anime Sebastian Michaelis - Jack of Hearts ZT 85

For one playing card, to me this price seems ghastly. There’s also a Sebastian variant for the exact same price, but that’s all I can find in this style. The other listings for Black Butler playing cards aren’t in this style, coming wholly in colour with patterned frames. As far as I can see, on eBay there are only two listings for this type of playing card, and I’ve already linked them both to this post.

The current conversions of the item price (2.49 GBP) are:

3.29 USD

4.83 AUD

4.43 CAD

2.95 Euro

276.04 INR

112,34 Turkish Lira

5.23 NZD

476.23 Yen

10.

Black Butler Ceramic Mug Grell, Sebastian

There’s a more expensive mug with just Grelle on it that I’d contemplated listing here instead. (And, hey! From Germany, too. The TSOGTR imagery just won’t quit.) But this one is cheaper.

Besides, enough scrubbing with some iron wool will get rid of that ugly demon mug (no pun intended) in no time, surely!

The current conversions go as follows:

19.62 USD

28.84 AUD

26.41 CAD

17.62 Euro

1,646.22 INR

669,76 Turkish Lira

31.17 NZD

2,841.32 Yen

[dragons-and-dwarves-are-nice]

The Grim Reaper's Guide to Breaking Every Rule of the Universe /// Chapter 4

ANOTHER CHAPTER IN LESS THAN A WEEK. BRING ON THE GRINDDDDDD. I will warn that my motiviation for each of my fics comes in waves, so you'll probably get chapters in random chunks ngl. Enjoy!

Summary: When touring America for the sake of it, you go to stay with your aunt in New Orleans for a while, taking up a peaceful part-time job restoring objects. But a few weeks in, a package arrives containing an old radio that's seen better days, along with a note seemingly written by someone who thinks they could fist-fight the Devil.

What you didn't know, was the hell of a path that was now set out in front of you. Not fist-fighting the Devil, but instead a very smug radio host who would have no problem spending the rest of his days driving you up the walls.

But two could play that game.

Tags: Demiromantic-Asexual Alastor x Demiromantic-Asexual OC/Reader - 1920s/30s New Orleans - fluff - angst - EXTREME slow burn - crack - Violence (It's Alastor what else)

Word Count: 4590

Warnings: Period-typical sexism, Period-typical attitudes towards neurodivergency, Swearing, Mentions of murder. MC'S RACE IS DEFINED DUE TO PLOT REASONS (also because she is based off my OC)

Taglist - comment or message to be added!

Now available on Wattpad and AO3 (please let me know if links aren't working)

< Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 // Chapter 5 >

PART 1: Chapter 4

Unconditional Violence.

Bambsquabbled (Definition): A 19th Century American slang word essentially meaning stupefied or confounded. (Adjective)

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA – Wednesday, 18th December, 1929.

You had expected the additional Tuesday Mr LeBlanc had given you off to prepare yourself for the radio company to consist of you sleeping in until 11am. But dreams are short lived when you have an aunt who insists the ass-crack of dawn is prime time for everything.

You guessed it was fun to climb onto the roof of your relative’s vast home to collect the crystals you had both put out under the full moon, before the energy given to them was whisked away by the rays of the early golden hour. But when nerves settle in like the green spirals of nausea the night before, sleep takes the hand of another, leaving you to lay there with your over-active mind as it drags you through every possibility and event that could end up with you looking like an idiot in front of your new colleagues, or worse. Can’t think of much worse. But the universe will find a way.

It always does.

When Wednesday finally rolled around, it was barely 6am and you already couldn’t wait for it to be over. Your cousins had found you curled up on the bench swing, having dragged your duvet outside as you balled yourself up like a worm, sipping on the iced tea Agnes had bought you the day before in an attempt to settle your nerves. It did. A little.

And now here you were, the first half of your new workday having gone as smoothly as your awkward self could do.

Ethel, who’s desk was closest to yours, had dubbed you the quiet one after spending an hour running her mouth at you with barely a break for you to chime in. You had also already created quite a commotion on the third floor, a few people intrigued by the new ‘foreigner’. Well – as foreign as you can get when you’re from another English-speaking country, in the biggest cultural melting pot of a city had ever seen in your rural life. But they found you interesting enough.

The oddest thing you had experienced that day, however, was a strange request from your new boss – Mr Durham himself.

“I don’t suppose you know how to pull off a local accent?” he had asked when showing you the phone on your desk.

All you could do was blink at him. “I’m sorry?”

He gestured to the phone. “Since you’re my assistant, you’re gonna be filtering through the calls I get before passing them onto me. Now, there might be an issue if someone calls expecting to hear me, but instead find themselves speaking to a British girl on the other end. Some can be impatient and might end up putting the phone down before you explain.”

Memories of that one very unpleasant phone call flooded your mind. “Even if I answer: ‘Hello W.A.D Radio, this is Mr Durham’s assistant speaking’??” you replied monotonously.

“You’d be surprised.” He sighed. “But do you know how to anyway?”

Frowning, you recalled your time in the cities further in the North. “I guess..? A girl I rented a room from in New York insisted on teaching me for when we went into town, but I struggle to see how it’s important?”

The man put his hands together, pointing them at you in a prayer motion. “Just.. try it out? Talk like your colleagues when you see them, to see if you can get a hang of it – I’m sure they’ll be happy to help. Please?”

You gave him a wavering look, but sighed, finally giving in. “Fine, but they can’t make fun of me.”

He beamed, patting you on the back in satisfaction. “I’m sure they won’t! I’ll be in my office if you need anything.”

And with that, you sat in your new chair, trying to pointedly ignore the sign at the other end of the room that pointed you to the fifth floor, and began your attempt to settle in.

--

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA – Wednesday, 8th January, 1930.

There wasn’t much to celebrate when the new decade rolled around. Gone were the so-called ‘Roaring Twenties’, when you would join your parents at the parties and balls they were invited to – when it was acceptable, of course; those higher up in the class hierarchy still grasped to the dwindling standard that children should be seen, not heard. The year you turned eighteen ended up being quite interesting, when the older women who had turned snooty at the sight of your teenage self wandering around their stately homes, tried to attempt a 180°, as they congratulated you reaching adulthood with strained smiles. But you paid them no mind, too busy staring at the paintings or statues that lined their corridors – a stark contrast to the more barren and plain wallpaper that coated the walls you grew up in.

But now that was far behind you, the English garden parties in the spring and summer that you adored so much were now a mere echo in the distances of your mind. The noises of tiny forks clinking on fine china as the little birds twittered in the trees now replaced by the sputtering and groaning of automobiles as you gripped the pole of the tram, your arms tight against your chest as you tried your best to not let the swaying of the vehicle toss you about into the crowd of packed bodies around you.

Making sure the scarf was tucked safely around your neck, you grasped the small briefcase in your hand – mentally preparing yourself for you first day back at the radio station after the new year. Unfortunately for Mr Durham, a small hurricane had passed over during the holiday, and radio stations across the city were temporarily silenced as their mechanics desperately attempted to repair the damaged towers. And also unfortunately for you, only the hosts were offered a couple days off as things got back up and running, though some still showed to prepare for their shows; you, on the other hand, were still expected to show up like any other day.

So here you were, pushing open the (now familiar) double doors, giving a small wave to the receptionist, who’s name turned out to be Diana, and the woman barely raised her hand in response as she continued to tiredly shift through the concerningly large stack of papers on her desk.

You were just about to climb the wide staircase when you heard her call your name (something you were very surprised she knew, considering her tendency to ‘accidentally’ throw paperwork in the bin on the daily), and your wedge heels clacked against the tile flooring as you stumbled slightly, turning to face her as her nasally voice echoed around the large lobby.

“It’s best you stay in the shadows today.” She warned cryptically. “Trouble’s in, and the mechanic’s not happy about the damages – Durham’s getting the brunt of it, but you’ll end up in the crossfire unless you hide out during breaktimes.”

All you could do for a moment was stand and stare, a million thoughts running through your mind. Mostly about who ‘Trouble’ was, and why Diana thought you couldn’t handle the guy and the other mechanic. You did handle the radio man at the repair shop after all, and speaking of the radio, you were quite proud to say you had finished the it in time for Christmas, and had shipped it off with a very passive-aggressive note that hinted for the man to basically never return. Luckily, Mr Boudreaux hadn’t replied to any of your letters since you had begrudgingly accepted the object, but you had suspected he had called the shop once or twice, and you had left Mr LeBlanc to deal with it, mostly because he was quite terrified you would call another customer every name under the sun the second they tried to give you trouble.

Glancing back and forth between Diana and the stairs, you mumbled a slow “Oookay…” before nodding your head and turning on your heel to hurry up the steps. Reaching the third floor, you didn’t stop in your path as you neared your desk, instead dropping your briefcase onto the wooden surface as you dashed by, striding towards the door that had the golden plaque engraved with ‘Mr B. Durham’ onto it. Grasping the handle, you turned the knob, swinging the door open, only to stop in your tracks as you were met with a very empty office.

You frowned. It must be really bad if your boss was no where to be seen. Whipping around, you scanned the main room for him, but only saw a few of your colleagues, the rest still yet to arrive – you were normally expected to be in early to handle Durham’s work as soon as he began.

Throwing your coat and scarf on your chair, you strode back towards the stairs, readjusting the suspenders of your wide-legged trousers as you practically jogged up the steps, and ended up rolling the sleeves of your loose blouse to your elbows as you tried to catch your breath.

On the fourth floor, you spent a couple minutes checking all of your boss’s usual haunts or hiding places, even going as far as interrogating a couple of the workers there for his whereabouts. It wasn’t until some blonde guy that came wandering down the steps from the fifth floor that you got your answer, the man looking up to take in your slightly dishevelled and feral appearance with wide eyes as he stammered out that he was in one of the radio booths. To his further horror, you patted him on the cheek with a thanks as you rounded him, ready to take another flight of stairs to reach your – apparently – floundering boss.

Ignoring the embarrassed sputtering of the man behind you, you eye the sign nailed to the wall, the painted hand pointing upwards with a very bold ‘FIFTH FLOOR’ next to it.

“Don’t go up there until I say you’re ready, okay?” Mr Durham’s words echoed through your mind.

Buuuuut, he did say he wanted to discuss the stuff you brought in your briefcase ASAP.

Yea that’ll be your excuse. You can deal with his complaining later.

Reaching your heel-clad foot out, you took the first step, almost like you were expecting an axe to come swing down and impale your forehead. But when nothing happened, you shrugged, and simply continued up.

Recalling the path your boss had taken you on during the initial tour, you managed to find the dreaded corridor that supposedly housed your greatest nightmare.

Extroverted people.

Yeesh.

At that thought, you did consider turning around, but your urge to drag your boss’s arse back downstairs drowned that thought out, and you carried on.

Surprisingly, it was quiet, but at the same time not so much when you remembered that most of them were plating their somewhat wealthy behinds on their armchairs at home as the rest tried to fix the issues of the storm.

Reaching one of the lit rooms, you heard raised voices.

“–really expect me to know? –” “– supposed to be on in an hour! How is that –”

Cautiously, you peeked around the corner to try and witness the potential fiasco. And what a fiasco it was.

Wires, cables, and any other random parts that were used for radio technology were strewn across desks, tables and even the floor. Amongst these were two men, and there was only one you recognised.

Just like you had seen him every day for the past month, Mr Durham was stood in his washed-out blue suit and concerningly shiny shoes, and at this point one hand was on his hip, whilst the other rubbed tiredly at his face as whom you assume was the mechanic, was blabbering the poor man’s ear off as he ranted on and on about random parts and problems and he gestured frantically at said random parts and problems. Wait – nevermind, you recognised one and a half.

The man from across the street was here, with his back to you. Again. For fuck’s sake.

This time he was back in the seat you first saw him in, this time with a few strands of dark-brown hair out of place, curling slightly as if to rebel against the intense styling he had put it through. Peeking your head out slightly further, you managed to get a good look at him.

Well for one, he was a triangle. Stupidly broad shoulders that narrowed into a stupidly small waist (triangle), with lanky legs long enough that you could probably chop them off and fashion them into skis. Despite his face not revealed, you could see the semi-light tan on his hands, that were busy turning knobs and dials as he listened in to whatever was coming through the headphones on his head. He was dressed to impress, to say the least, in smart, dark-grey trousers, who’s ironed out edges looked as if they could slice through skin. His high collared cream shirt was tucked away under a relatively tight looking reddish-tan waistcoat, and to top it all off, you could see the back of the black ribbon that was most likely tied in a stupidly even bow.

You didn’t want this guy to sense your staring, so you opted to look back at the other two men who were still chuntering on about god knows what. Stepping into the light that flooded through the glass, you wave slightly to try and get your boss’s attention. A couple seconds passed, and you watched as the mechanic kept glancing at you and Mr Durham, until eventually he nudged the other man on the shoulder, pointing you out.

Turning his head, Mr Durham’s eyes met with yours, and you raised your hand with a questionable thumbs up to see if all was good, only to watch in slight confusion as his eyes widened, and he whipped his head rapidly between you and the faceless man sat at his desk, before marching over to the door and pulling it open a crack, sticking his head out.

“Hey uh,” he half-whispered, surprisingly nervous at your presence. “what’re you doing here?”

You lowered your voice to match his. “You said to come find you as soon as possible this morning, you know, to go over those statistics from that other station?”

Realisation dawned on the man’s face, and he reached up to drag his hand down the side of it. “Shit I forgot,” he cursed, and glanced over his shoulder before facing you again. “I’ll – uh… I’ll be down as soon as I get this sorted. Marty’s givin’ me a run for his money right now and the second Al takes his headphones off I’m gonna feel like I’m entering an early grave.”

Surprised, you eyed the man sat at the desk, who looked far too calm to be threatening anyone right now. “Ok… I guess it can wait. I’ll bring you some coffee up!” you chirped, and Durham went to call out that it wasn’t necessary, but faltered with a frown as he realised you were already halfway down the corridor.

--

Balancing the tray of cups and steaming jug the best you could, you reached the final step, retracing your route to the radio booth that your boss was probably getting murdered in. Walking up, you waited patiently until Mr Durham noticed you, and watched as he reluctantly trudged over to open the door.

Taking your first step in, you were hit with the very potent smell of strong black coffee, as if someone had some brewing every day, and you figured you had made the right call of fetching the same beverage as you placed the tray down on one of the tables.

The mechanic was still going off on one, and you watched out of the corner of your eye as you slowly began pouring the coffee into the cups, listening to the greasy-looking man speak.

“– there’s literally no reason that I can find that’s causing the local outage!” he spouted at your frowning boss. “The boys have already fixed the aerial, and David’s currently on-air and that’s working perfectly fine, so it has to be something in this room!”

During the man’s tirade, you noticed the rustling of papers, and looked over to see the faceless man again, still at his desk, but his hands were fiddling with no purpose, and his head was turned to the left slightly, showing his high cheekbone and the edge of his thin circular glasses.

Looked like someone else was listening in too.

Biting your smile down, you turned back towards the cups in your hand, only to have a glint of light pierce the corner of your eye, and you looked in the opposite direction to a large wooden box, with one of the panels removed, displaying the endless wires and springs that coiled and wound in every direction. But you weren’t looking at that, you were instead looking at the screwdriver that was very prominently glinting in the shine of the ceiling light. This must be the painstakingly obvious problem that the mechanic had painstakingly missed.

Giving a quick glance over at the men, you waited until they faced away, scrapping about the wire pile on the floor, and you reached for the wooden teaspoon on your tray, and inched towards the box. Knowing wood doesn’t normally conduct electricity, you raised your hand, testing it anyway against the hanging wires to see if they were live. Seemingly not, you stuck your hand further in, and began nudging at the tool, slowly loosening the wires around it as you dragged it along the bottom of the box.

When they had deemed your silence as suspicious, the mechanic and Durham turned round, only to see you elbow deep in some very expensive equipment.

“Whoa, whoa, WHOA!” the mechanic cried as he rushed over. “The hell are you doin’??”

Instead of jerking your arm back out and apologising to the man who was slowly turning purple, you gave the screwdriver one last flick, and the three of you watched as it dropped over the edge and fell to the floor with a clatter. Moments of silence passed as you all stared at it, until you decided to explain.

“It was tangled in the wires, which would’ve prevented the electricity flow,” you said plainly. “Plus, if you had tried to power it all up, it could’ve set the place on fire.”

All the mechanic could do was stare down at the tool, but Mr Durham had decided to approach, and bent down to pick up the tool.

“Nice one.” He complimented, turning the object in his hands. Though the warm smile he had put on for you quickly vanished, as his eyes set upon the name engraved on the wooden handle. He pointed at it. “This has your name on it Marty.” He said lowly, his blue eyes turning dark as he regarded the paling man with a look of thunder.

Seeing the outcome, you gestured nervously to the beverages on the table. “Coffee’s there, Mr Durham, I’ll see you downstairs.”

Just as you walked around him, he called your name. “Take ten minutes to yourself and grab some tea, whilst I deal with Marty here.”

Nodding, you curtly took your leave, swinging the door open as you power-walked out, failing to see the sharp pair of eyes following you from where they were sat at the desk.

--

You found the break room housed several curiosities that you were yet to explore in America. Apart from the atrocious fact that the tea station lacked the Yorkshire brand, you found yourself poking at what they called a teabag. Yes, surprise, surprise, the Americans invented something tea related before England or even China did, but you had to admit it was rather useful in helping you not gag at the slimy tea leaves that sat at the bottom of most of your beloved brews.

With the table to your right, you leant your hip against it, your back against the door as you rather noisily mixed the spoon around your large mug, making sure the sugar was dissolved properly before you went to strain the teabag. Lifting it carefully out of the boiling water, you gingerly held your other hand out below it to catch any stray drips from hitting the floor, scanning the room in front of you for a bin that you could chuck it into.

What you foolishly had failed to do however, was hear the footsteps that grew in volume from behind, and you hadn’t realised anything until a very uncomfortable prickle hit the side of your neck, as a very unwanted presence loomed over you. Though, that didn’t last long, as the presence decided to deafen you instead.

“So YOU’RE the new assistant!”

A banshee screech raised from your throat, the teabag flying through the air and onto the floor by your feet as you basically jumped three feet up. Instinctively, however, you didn’t realise what was happening until one elbow flew upwards, slamming into the nose of the man behind you, the other flying round to collide with his ribs. Teaspoon armed in hand, you spun around to face your assailant, only to step on the soggy teabag that was still on the floor, and you cried out again as you slipped and slammed into a very firm chest. Eyes screwed shut, you felt the two of you fall, though quickly broken by the table behind you.

Relieved that you were no longer falling, you swiftly blinked your eyes open, your dark brown ones meeting a pair of equally matching brown. Moments passed as you took in the scene in front of you, and you realised you finally had a face to put to the lanky man from earlier.

Said man was groaning as he rubbed at his nose, his lips twisted into a grimace as he checked for blood. What you noticed however, was the several poignant glances the man took to your right, and you followed, only to see you hand raised, teaspoon in hand, pointing down at him as if you had a machete, ready to stab the lights out of him.

A small gasp left your throat at the realisation, and you quickly pushed yourself off, pointedly ignoring the grunt the man let out as you knocked at his ribs. Taking several steps back, you distanced yourself from him. He had gotten close before, he wasn’t about to do so again.

You watched as he pushed himself up on his elbows, using the table as a support as he stood. To a disturbingly tall height might you add. Looks like you did just reach his nose after all.

“I’m uh,” you started as you eyed him, teaspoon machete still in hand, strangely, you instinctively used the southern accent you learnt – it was the one you used with strangers. “Sorry. I didn’t expect you to sneak up on me like that.” Reaching over, you snatched up a napkin, offering it to him. “Y’haven’t got anything…?”

Dark eyes flitting between you and the outstretched napkin offering, you watched as something seemed to switch in his demeanour, and a natural smile fell across his tan face as he raised his hands in mock surrender.

“No, no, don’t worry, it’s quite alright.” He assured, and you blinked at his prominent transatlantic accent. “I figured that wasn’t the best way to say hello to a stranger!” he laughed as he smoothed down his crumpled waistcoat. Reaching his lanky arm out whilst tucking the other behind him, he offered his hand out in greeting. “The name’s Alastor, my dear. And who do I have the most entertaining pleasure to be speaking to?”

You stared at his hand, then flicked your eyes up to him, scanning his grinning face with vigour.

Where, oh where, had you heard that voice before?

Your silence seemed to confuse this Alastor guy, however, and his eyes darted around in confusion as you continued to stare. From what you could see, he had come to a very wrong conclusion about your silence, and leaned over at you slightly, bringing his face level with yours.

“Cat got your tongue, my darling?” His growing cheshire grin reminding you of two very similar people. “You clearly must find me that dashing if your this speechless, haha!” he chortled, the condescension rolling off him in waves.

Oh, you knew exactly where this guy was from.

Narrowing your eyes, you scrutinised him as you quietly muttered out a single word.

“Boudreaux.”

Alastor blinked, eyes darting around your face, before raising a hand to cup at his ear. “I hate to say but I didn’t quite catch that!” he exclaimed rather loudly.

You felt your brows begin to furrow, so you raise your voice slightly. “I said, Boudreaux.”

Oh you did it now. Sparkles seemed to glitter behind his chocolate eyes as he perked up with glee, straightening up to his full height. “So you do know me after all! I was starting to think you simply had nothing going on in that head of yours!”  he simpered as he tilted his head to look down at you.

Despite his clear mocking, you remained quiet for a moment longer, until you couldn’t hold it anymore.

“…You work in a radio station.” You stated flatly.

Alastor looked around, acting as if he had just realised as such. “Yes I am quite aware!” he affirmed in an obvious tone. “Did you want an award for that observation?”

You had to refrain from gaping at this man’s audacity. “… Couldn’t you have just fixed it yourself?”

The man blinked at you. “Fixed what now?”

Oh, this was it. Stepping forward, you didn’t stop until you face was a hand-lengths away from his, and you watched with satisfaction as he shifted at your invasion of his space – talk about a hypocrite as someone who clearly loved to invade the space of others. Staring at the man dead in the eye, you fully dropped the southern accent, your Yorkshire one coming back through full force.

“Your mum’s radio.” You stated simply, raising your brows to regard him with a condescending look that matched his.

You had expected him to brush it off, laughing when he realised who you were. What you hadn’t expected for his pupils to blow wide, his eyes darkening as they narrowed, scrutinising your gaze with his own, and you suddenly felt a little uneasy.

“Oh,” he said lowly. “It’s you.”

Keeping your gaze levelled, you gripped the spoon harder in your hands. That is, until your name was called.

The two of you straightened up, you leaning to look around Alastor as he spun on the spot, the both of you facing Mr Durham, who was looking between the two of you rather nervously. He called your name again.

“C’mon.” he said, refusing to take his eyes off Alastor. “Let’s go over those papers you brought.”

Without a second thought, you darted for your mug of tea, grabbing it along with an almost empty bottle of milk to put in it as you strode around Alastor, feeling the hand of your boss as he put his arm around your shoulder as he quickly led you away, and the back of your head prickled, definitely feeling the sharp eyes on your retreating back this time around.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ALASTOR'S HERE RAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Watch me disappear from the face of the earth for a week cuz of my executive dysfunction lmao (Blame my adhd not me she's a seperate entity at this point.)

I hope you've enjoyed what I've given you so far, see you soon for Chapter 5!!

Please let me know if you want to be added to the Taglist!

< Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 // Chapter 5 >

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[missys-mansion-of-mistakes]

September 10th, 2024. Tuesday.

What I accomplished today:

5 meetings attended (coach meeting, dr's appt, dr's appt, SMART recovery, team meeting for my research assistantship job)

2 Slowly letters written

3 scholarships drafted and submitted

Total time studied: 10 hours, 6am -> 4pm

🦊 A kind've bad day. The meetings all day really threw me off. Especially the doctor's appointment where they accidentally sent me to the wrong clinic, so I had to drive to another clinic 30 mins away, then they turned me away there because it was too late. Despite the receptionist calling to say I'd be late. So that really threw me off my groove.

🍉 Otherwise, survived the day. Happy I got those scholarship applications done at least. I've been really dreading those lately, so it was a nice change of pace that I was able to get them done!

[Photos: my desk setup, a postcard from @chibird's etsy]

[salty-dracon]

POV: You're a tired college student sitting in the lecture hall before Reca's class in 2.6

(written entirely based on the 2.6 trailer)

(update: I have never written anything so inaccurate in my life I wanna curl up into a ball orz )

You're attending Penacony's Paperfold University College. It's the middle of the night (it's Golden Hour, Penacony, it's always the middle of the night, good luck waking up on time for your classes LMAO) with a professor your film major buddies have only described as "passionate" and one outwardly finds super weird. You looked him up on the universe's equivalent of RateMyProfessor and he's sitting at 3.5 out of 5 stars because no one can live up to his exacting standards and also he's apparently a little crazy? Like you've had sadistic professors who loved failing their students, but you'd think they would mention that in the reviews. So who knows what that means. Hopefully nothing bad.

Anyway this is just a one-time seminar for fun so you're thankful, but the art building sucks. You're sitting in the coldest, draftiest lecture hall you've ever seen. You can hear the radiator hissing. The desks are so scratched and cut-up they look like they might give you splinters. For how many years have these desks existed? How many generations of animators and film people have been taking notes on this thing? Is this what all film majors have to suffer through? Hell, is this what all art majors have to suffer through? Thank goodness you're... not that.

And there's a chalkboard. If there's one thing you don't need when you're this exhausted, it's the sound of chalk squeaking on a chalkboard.

And while you're watching the seconds tick by, in walks a trio of people your age. and you're looking at them and you're like, none of them have ever been to a college before. (Probably offworlders.)

Like there's this guy with black hair who's just super quiet (way too quiet, and way too serious) but when's the last time you saw a college student carrying around a fresh case bound notebook that doesn't look like it was bought at the mall? Those things get destroyed if you carry them around in your bookbag for too long- you figured that out your first week. He looks way too ready to take notes amidst the background noise. He's writing the planet name, system date, and "Seminar with the film director Mr. Reca" at the top of that expensive looking notebook's second page. And the ink isn't feathering or bleeding through the page. Your animation friend would probably be obsessed with that paper, she keeps going on about how important good paper is, but you can't afford the stuff. Maybe you should ask him the brand later.

And he's being talked at by a pair of chatterboxes. One of them is, once again, way too well-dressed to be a habitual college student. She did her clothes up in blue, pink, and white to match her hair and eyes. It's pretty cute, all things considered- you wish you still had the energy to dress up like that at 6am. Maybe you should ask her for fashion advice. The pitch of her voice rises above the din of the room. "Ooooooh, I can't wait! This is going to be so cool! A seminar by a real film director! It's a shame Mr. Yang couldn't attend. He'd love this kind of stuff!".

The second chatterbox is this snarky looking person you can't really get a read on. They didn't even bring a notebook. They outright state they've never been to a college before. And now they're going on and on, trying to compare this lecture hall to buildings on planets you've never really heard of. "A museum on the cold, frosty planet Jarilo-IV"- your mind wanders for a moment as you consider what that would be like. Still, something about them seems to signal that they're a singularity of experience. They've probably seen more in a system year than you have in your entire lifetime. That might be why they keep speaking in words you don't understand. What's a 'surprised Pikachu face'? Must be one of those jokes that only makes sense if you were there to witness it.

Yeah, this strange-looking friend group is probably from off world. And they're probably adventurers at that. They probably don't want to be bothered with the ramblings of a tired college student.

The door opens. You hear leather boots on a wood floor, and the room quiets with the weight of a man's presence. He's finally here.

You sure hope everything goes smoothly. Getting stuck in the Oak Family's dream ruined your weekend that one time, but that was a long time ago. Seriously, what's the worst that could happen? The professor traps the room in some kind of film reel dimension and a horde of monkeys attacks the campus? ... Nah, that would never happen.

[mecachrome]

fic writer questions

haiii thank u @bright-and-burning for the tag :') nobody is online so i will Reflect and return with a worse image...

how many works do you have on AO3?

20 (16 on my main account, 4 on my sports account)... and then 15 more on dreamwidth 🥲

what's your total ao3 word count?

175.5k T__T

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

gurllll. no one needs to see my 11th grade k-pop fic like that

do you respond to comments? why or why not?

i try my best but i have a difficult relationship with my writing so i often block out that i wrote a fic at all after some time and it hinders my ability to acknowledge commenters directly ;__; and then i always feel awkward responding like 6 months late to someone so i just let it go even though i know no one actually minds... i really do appreciate every comment i get though and deeply cherish everyone's kind words and generosity!!!

what's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

i don't really write angsty endings tbh i just write vaguely bittersweet ambiguous stuff... perhaps sharl character study i wrote for a friend's birthday would be up there because the whole thing is just inelegant whump LOL

what's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

for my own birthday a couple of years ago i wrote an extremely self-indulgent k-pop fic with all of my favorite tropes and also coded elaborate interactive html/css elements with multimedia messages and notifications you could tap on and the whole thing was just sweet secret relationship toothrutting fluff 💗 anyway extremely cringe but i enjoyed myself and thought it was mostly cute

do you write crossovers?

i haven't for any fictional fandoms... the concept is fun though!

have you ever received hate on a fic?

not directly 2 my face !!!

do you write smut? if so, what kind?

i'm an ambiguous fade 2 black kind of guy even if i do try my best at times... TT i'm just too repressed 4 this life unfortunately. pwp writers have my major respect it really is sooo difficult to write cohesive compelling comprehensible porn 

have you ever had a fic stolen?

idts but i have had oomfs/people adjacent my circles turn out to be plagiarizers which is always an unpleasant surprise!

have you ever had a fic translated?

yasss shoutout to anyone who has translated my random fics to russian or spanish 🧡

have you ever co-written a fic before?

yes ! i wrote a bnha au for a k-pop ship with my friend once lol she wrote most of it and i kind of just contributed a scene and the concept but it was still really fun, she's a much better writer than i could ever hope to be... also helped friend finish a fic for a fest once because it was overdue and she tapped out so i was up until 6am filling in scenes randomly for her. oh to be 18 again <3

what's your all-time favorite ship?

unfortunately in f1 it is simply landoscar... all-time i don't know!!! actually i do but i don't want to say it. nvm

what's a wip that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

arghhh... all of my 814 wips at the moment honestly. especially my kidfic verse that i'm deeply attached to but tragically incapable of working on TT and the jb81 that i totally gave up on!!!

what are your writing strengths?

this is an oxymoron.... i have never written anything good in my entire life. i love to beta read other people's fic for grammar though that's always fun

what are your writing weaknesses?

poor/stiff dialogue, horrible romantic development, inconsistent scene lengths, completely flat plot, no concept of good writing practices in general, a horrible tendency to purple prose, inability to write any actual conflict, i could go on

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

ehmmm i had a lot of strong opinions on this in k-pop fandom LOL and then it was funny to see the same thing happening in f1 but just with different languages (so much random french/german dialogue...) but i think there are untranslatable or commonly recognized words that can be sprinkled in verbatim, like in k-pop it makes sense to use certain honorifics that don't have english equivalents but i draw the line at not translating existing terms like "mom" lol... but i have a lot of thoughts on how languages are communicated in fic in general (perhaps too many), like i also overthink how to communicate grammatical structure - so if i'm writing a french character speaking french but presenting the dialogue in english or same with korean in k-pop fic i usually try to make it flow in a way that is as grammatically reasonable as possible, which goes beyond simple semantics but into the actual logic of syntax + verb order... ok i'll stop actually

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

i was writing crasy fanfiction in middle school 🧡 earliest i remember though is probably naruto circa 6th/7th grade... honestly hard to say because i purged a lot of my ffdotnet output out of shame in 8th grade lmfao

what's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

I Forgor...

what's your favorite fic you've written?

for my sports fics i'm partial to my latest 814 fic because i feel like it's just generally inoffensive and not plainly awful 🤔 in general though i'm attached to some of my like most niche audience_of_2 dw fic that i've written for nugu boy groups with literally 0 fans. like a level of total nobodyness few can comprehend........... we were in the trenches

no pressure tagging @piastrisms @chelemlem @miamimaiden @liamlawsonlesbian if it would be of any interest ! 🥰

[suddencolds]

Purely Instinctive | Ki//ller Pet//er

Extremely competent assassin who handles every difficult situation inventively and with ease? What if he fell ill... 😭 (4.2k words)

This is a little different from what I usually write, but I've been reading Ki//ller Pe//ter on Webt//oon (link), and... um, this fic practically wrote itself. This might be the most self-indulgent thing I've written this year. Let's not talk about it 😭

For the sake of the fic, all characters are in their early twenties (aside from Peter, who is obviously a lot older). If you haven't read the series, they're all assassins who work for an organization called the Gl//ory Club. That's pretty much all you need to know :)

—

Here's Peter (under his current identity, Sun-Gu Kim) and Yuna:

—

The drive to the warehouse is unusually quiet.

The mission is simple—find an international spy, currently en route to escape via a ship which departs from the harbor at 6am, holding onto highly classified documents which he’s not supposed to have. The moment he steps foot off of Korean land, he will become much more difficult to apprehend—the ship the target is planning to take is a large cargo ship, its whereabouts easily tracked, but the Glory Club bounty has specified that the target will most likely part ways from the cargo ship on a small rowboat. There’s no telling at what point he’ll split off from the cargo ship, or where he’ll be headed next, which means:

They have only two hours to apprehend the subject before he becomes substantially harder to track down.

Yuna reaches up with a hand to rub her eyes. Of course, serving as part of Glory is no 9-5 job—she hadn’t expected volunteer missions to always take place at predictable times. But they’d gotten assigned to this particular mission on short notice, which meant that she’d gotten maybe three hours of sleep, tops, before having to drag herself out of bed for this.

They’d been whisked out on Sun-Gu’s motorcycle—the St. Petrus V4, she recalls. Somehow, Sun-Gu had known exactly where to head. How he’d known, with the entire city laid out in front of him, Yuna isn’t entirely sure. But he’d explained that the target’s trajectory would probably not be a straight line to the harbor—that would be too easy to intercept, and Sun-Gu had assured the target would be aware there would be someone on his trail. He’d probably avoid main roads, then, where there would be a higher chance of getting stopped by the police. Then, out of all the remaining routes from his last tracked location, it would only be feasible to get to the dock on time through six of them.

The rest had been intuition. Sun-Gu’s familiarity with the city is impressive. He barely glances at the street signs as he drives, the night warm and stagnant, his motorcycle dialed to silent, and not for the first time, Yuna wonders how he seems to know all of this.

Speaking of Sun-Gu—

Something is different about him tonight. Yuna probably would not have noticed, had she not spent the entirety of the motorcycle ride sitting behind him. He’s incredibly subtle about it. But it’s there, nonetheless—a slight change to his demeanor. Something nearly imperceptible, something she can’t quite pin down.

Had Yuna not known better, she might have attributed it to tiredness. But in the couple months she’s known Sun-Gu, she’s never seen him tired. He sleeps, like the rest of them, of course—he is only human—but for him, the transition between sleep and wakefulness seems like more of a formality. That is to say, he wakes up immediately alert, and she doesn’t think she’s ever seen him tired.

It makes her wonder, a little, if there’s a reason to it. If there was ever anything in his life which mandated being a light sleeper, that required him to be up at a moment’s notice. Either way, it’s not the reason why he’s—off isn’t the right word. Different is more suitable. Typically, he’s in better spirits. But Yuna has seen him pissed off, and this isn’t it, either.

Sun-Gu parks the motorcycle just outside of the warehouse, unclips his helmet in one swift motion, and—after Yuna gets off—takes her helmet from her and stashes them both under the motorcycle seat, which Glory has designed to be self-locking. Then, without waiting to see if they’ll follow, he makes a lap around the periphery of the warehouse.

The Dokgo brothers have tagged along too—they’re being quiet, now, which perhaps is mercy enough. Probably Sun-Gu had given them a challenge to shut up, and they’ve taken it in good faith. Now, even when they have something to comment, they keep their voices to a whisper.

“What do you think he’s off doing?” Biggie says.

Junior shrugs. “Maybe taking a walk, to relieve some stress.”

“He’s looking for signs of entry,” Yuna tells them. Then, because she can’t help it, and because she’ll be a little pissed off if they’re the ones who end up jeopardizing the mission—“Remember what he said about being quiet?”

“Ah, shit,” Biggie says. “I am quiet. Maybe you should be quiet. Have you considered that?”

She ignores the both of them and heads over to the spot where Sun-Gu stands, now, his eyebrows furrowed. A slat that’s out of place. He pushes it, and it budges.

Underground, the ground rumbles underneath them, and then settles to reveal a trap door. 

Sun-Gu beckons for them to follow him, but he doesn’t wait up for them. Yuna quickens her pace to keep up. The trap door leads them down, down. The air underground is much cooler—Yuna finds herself wishing that she’d brought a thicker jacket.

Ahead of her, Sun-Gu—

Takes in a sharp breath. But no, it’s not just a breath. As she watches him, he lifts a hand, pinches it to the bridge of his nose. His shoulders jerk forward, though only slightly; his back muscles tense. All in all, the entire display is soundless.

Yuna’s feels her eyebrows creep up. 

This is certainly… new for him. But she doesn’t have time to think on it right now.

When they get to the bottom of the steps, the stairway opens out into a deserted hallway: cement walls, cement floors. It’s dark, and cavernous. This whole place feels empty. It’s a little creepy, really. Why Sun-Gu suspects that their target is hiding out here, Yuna isn’t sure. It seems counterproductive to hide out somewhere like this when, according to their intel, the subject has limited time already to make it out to the harbor.

That is, unless Sun-Gu suspects the intel that they were given might be wrong.

Sun-Gu switches on a flashlight he’s carrying and heads deeper in. It’s not until he stops, looking down the hallway to survey his surroundings that he hesitates, only for a moment. He lifts the collar of his shirt over his face, his shoulders tensing.

“Hh’—nKTtt-!”

The sneeze is practically soundless. That makes two times in one night. Something is definitely up, then. Yuna looks around. Perhaps the underground space is dusty, or perhaps it’s not well-ventilated and it’s grown mold, and he’s allergic. Except, the air down here feels remarkably dry—not the sort of environment mold would thrive under—and the floors look suspiciously well-maintained. It wouldn’t make sense for it to be something else, either—some other universal irritant. Sun-Gu is the only one here who’s sneezing. 

Yuna isn’t sure she’s ever heard him sneeze before, out of the months that she’s known him. Could it be some existing condition, then—not a product of their environment, but something from earlier?

“Man,” Junior mouths, from somewhere. “How much longer are we going to have to head down these hallways? They all look the same.”

Yuna turns to glare at him, puts her finger to her lips. “Longer if you aren’t quiet about it.”

“I don’t like this,” Biggie mutters. “When can we get to the fighting? All the lead-up is boring. It feels like we’re in some kind of horror movie.” Yuna squeezes her eyes shut, prays that they’re far enough from Sun-Gu—and, by extension, the target—that they can’t be heard. 

Sun-Gu stops, abruptly. He holds a hand up behind him, as if to say, stay back.

Yuna doesn’t know what he’s noticed, at first. But a moment later, she hears it—the click of a latch being undone, somewhere overhead.

Above them, a small trap door opens, and then pulls shut. A cylinder drops from the ceiling, leeching violet plumes of smoke. On instinct, Yuna pulls her shirt up to cover her nose and mouth.

Tear gas, she realizes—or something chemically similar. It’s some sort of aerosolized compound, meant to render them both less capable of seeing and—partly by extension—less capable of fighting. Her eyes tear up almost immediately, so much that she can barely keep them open. Her lungs burn in protest as she takes in a breath.

They’re in a long corridor. There’s a finite amount of smoke coming from the canister—if they wait it out, it will inevitably thin out. So this was more just a distraction, then. A flashy entry. Just enough time for whoever they’re up against to—

It takes her a few seconds to spot the figure through the smoke. 

She thinks back to the files on the subject. Medium, reddish brown hair, pale blue eyes. 182 cm. Trained in combat. The stranger in the hallway has their face obscured by a gas mask, their hair hidden under a hood, but she can tell by the musculature of their exposed arms that they appear to be well-trained. In their right hand, they are carrying a long, slender weapon. From one end—attached to a metal chain—is a sphere, lined with spikes, each of them carved down to a sharp point.

It must weigh half a ton, from the way it drags the chain down, but the figure wields it easily, as if it weighs absolutely nothing.

“That’s our guy!” Junior yells, at the same time as Biggie shouts, “Stop right there!”

Both of them charge forwards. It all happens in a split second. The figure adjusts their grip on the weapon to turn the wooden handle of it outwards. Then, before either of the brothers have a chance to react, they’re swung outwards by the sheer momentum of the rod. Biggie hits the ceiling with enough force that the concrete above them rumbles, the impact spiderwebbing the ceiling above them. Slabs of concrete rain down from the point of contact. The figure drives Junior straight into one of the walls at an awkward angle which renders him almost immediately unconscious.

Yuna can feel her own heart pounding in her ears. She slinks back into the darkness, pressing herself to the ground so that hopefully, the stranger will forget that she is there—or that she is even a threat to begin with. Seeing what they’re capable of, she isn’t sure she could do much in this situation to begin with.

How long has it been since the last time the path split off into multiple routes? When Yuna turns to look, the hallway before them and after them seems to stretch on and on. An endless concrete tunnel, with the white, sterile lighting of a laboratory space. Nothing to shield themselves with, and nowhere to hide. It’s a strange location to pick a fight in. What exactly was this place built for? 

“I’ve been waiting for you,” the figure says to Sun-Gu, grinning. Half of their teeth have been replaced with gold tooth crowns. When they grin, the gold catches the light, winking. “Thirty seconds, huh? Your teammates couldn’t even hold their own for that long? It’s a damn shame. I didn’t even get to use the weapon as it’s intended to be used.” They tilt their head, staring down at Sun-Gu with a look of contempt. “I guess you could thank me for being merciful. But if I’m honest…”

Their smile darkens into something sharper, something hungry. “I just didn’t want to stain a flail of this quality with anyone’s blood but yours.”

Was this entire mission a setup, to get Sun-Gu into one place? Is the subject really in possession of any classified documents at all?

Sun-Gu twists away—not to evade, or not in preparation to attack. His shoulders hunch forward, his expression twisting. He coughs, roughly, down towards the ground. It’s the kind of cough that suggests that he’s been coughing like this for some time now—harsh and throat-scraping. 

That’s when it registers for Yuna.

He’s ill. It seems painfully obvious, in hindsight, now that she’s realized it. 

During the motorcycle ride here, he’d been careful not to touch her, Yuna realizes. Sun-Gu is always careful with his own space—he has an awareness of it, even outside of combat, that she thinks would be unusual for most. Even with small things—the ways he gestures, the way he holds himself—she gets the feeling that none of it is accidental. 

When she looks at him now, she notices—a slight, near-imperceptible flush to his features. He’s breathing a little more heavily than normal. Instincts he can hide. Instincts he can cover for. But there are some things which no amount of physical awareness can hide.

He has a fever, then. That’s probably why he hadn’t wanted her to touch him. He’d known that if she’d made contact with his skin, she would’ve felt it, and she thinks he probably hadn’t wanted to raise any concern.

Sun-Gu is here, on a mission, fighting a well-trained stranger on his own, equipped with nothing but a pocket knife, with no armor and no with no reinforcements. On any normal occasion, Yuna might trust him to be able to hold his own—she’s seen what he’s done, alone against a crowd of hundreds—but this time, it’s different, because Sun-Gu is unwell.

The figure looks surprised, at this. “Ah,” they say. Yuna can’t help but think they look like a predator, honing in on their prey, only to find that said prey is already bloodied and limping. Like someone surprised—but pleased—to find their job already done for them. “Don’t tell me you’re already not in tip-top shape? That’s a shame.”

Sun-Gu coughs, again, his chest shaking. Yuna feels a pang of worry in her chest. He really does look unwell—and he hasn’t said as much of a word to deny it, which is telling. She looks around for anything to help him with— If she were to call for reinforcements, she thinks it would take too long for them to find them all here, underground, in the elaborate array of tunnels.

The weapon they’re holding is heavy, which affects its maneuverability, and to some degree, its speed. But Sun-Gu’s knife is much more of a close-range weapon, which means that while Sun-Gu will have to get up close to them to even make a mark, the stranger would be theoretically able to fatally wound him while standing a meter away.

The figure presses forward. With the swing of one hand, the metal ball and the chain arc outwards neatly, directly towards Sun-Gu. For such a heavy weapon, Yuna is surprised to find that this person wields it with impressive speed. It’s nearly too fast for her eyes to track. Sun-Gu evades, easily, but the figure swings again, and again, and again. At this speed, it almost looks as though they’re slicing the air into shreds.

If Sun-Gu were to be hit, his body would stop all of the momentum at once, and the spikes would easily puncture skin, drive themselves into tissue and skin and bone. Worse, Yuna realizes, if the weapon makes it to Sun-Gu’s body—even if it’s lodged in a relatively nonfatal area—the figure will easily be able to drive it directly into a vital organ. That means that if Sun-Gu fails to dodge cleanly on just one occasion, this fight will be over.

That’s another thing, too. Sun-Gu’s radius of attack is limited by the length of his own arm. But the figure can stand in one place and swing the weapon anywhere that the length of their arm, the long rod, the chain, all put together, can reach.

“If I had a little more patience, I might even have waited for you to get back to full health, so that this could be a more memorable fight,” the figure says.

Sun-Gu’s breath hitches. His opponent is not kind enough to pretend not to notice. They drive forward, intending to use the moment of temporary weakness to their benefit, just as Sun-Gu jerks forward with a forceful, “hHh’EEZschHH-uH!”

Sun-Gu evades, but only barely. How he is able to predict the trajectory of the metal ball, even distracted, even with his eyes closed, Yuna isn’t sure. But it’s clear that he isn’t done, and by the time his eyes are already falling shut for another. He’s afforded a sharp, desperate breath, before his shoulders jerk forward again. “hH’nGKt-! Hh… hh-IIIH’DZSshH!”

He coughs, after, as if the sneezes have somehow irritated his throat further.  

The stranger grins. “...But I suppose having your head as a prize would be consolation enough.”

They sweep the chain in a wide arc, directly for Sun-Gu’s neck. Sun-Gu crouches for a moment, then takes a running leap up into the air, righting his trajectory with one foot to the wall to land behind them. He’s put his knife away, Yuna realizes. But there is nothing here—no props, no furniture—for him to repurpose into a weapon.

“Sorry,” Sun-Gu says. The expression on his face is not one of remorse. It’s one of clear, bitter irritation. He’s annoyed, she realizes. “You’re right. I’m not feeling my best today.”

It’s an admission, loud and clear, but the way he says it, it doesn’t sound like an admission of weakness. Up until now, he has been observing, Yuna realizes, as he’s done before—passively taking in the stranger’s fighting style, their handling of their weapon, their habits, their tells. 

“So,” Sun-Gu says, flatly. When the stranger swings again, Sun-Gu snags hold of the chain while it’s in mid-air, and—as if it’s weightless—yanks the stranger towards him. He takes hold of the chain with his other hand, testing its weight. The smile on his face is utterly cold. “Let’s get this over with quickly.”

—

Afterwards, when they leave the warehouse, the sun is starting to rise. Yuna finds a text from Glory Club on her phone from an hour ago, presumably from the chairman. It’s curt: Do not proceed. We have reason to doubt the motives of the group which supplied the intel. Ironically, there was not enough reception underground for their warning to reach them in time, but she thinks that Sun-Gu must’ve realized much earlier. 

Biggie and Junior are a little worse for the wear, but other than that, neither of them is concerningly injured. Biggie claims that he doesn’t have a concussion, but he doesn’t put up too much of a fight when Yuna insists that when they get back, their first stop will be to the medical ward to get fixed up. 

Speaking of Sun-Gu: he is quiet, which is not unusual. Sun-Gu has never been the most talkative person, but Yuna suspects that today, there’s more to it. 

“I can take us back,” Yuna says, trying not to make it sound pointed. It’s usually Sun-Gu who steers, but Yuna has enough experience with the St. Petrus V4 to handle a forty minute trip on paved roads, and enough experience too to know how to speed just enough to stay in control of it.

“It’s fine,” Sun-Gu says, flashing her a distracted smile. “It will be faster if I drive, because I won’t have to navigate.” He retrieves his own helmet from the seat compartment. Yuna spends a moment to watch him. He isn’t injured, nor does he look any less alert—he’d gotten out of the battle without so much as a scratch to show for.

But there are little hints, here and there, to exhaustion. The way he clears his throat before speaking, so quietly she can’t tell except for the slight bob of his throat, the slight furrow of his eyebrows. The way he pauses to clip his helmet, shielding his face with one hand from the gleam of the rising sun, as if his head is already hurting. The way he looks relieved to be sitting down, the way his hand lingers, a little shaky, on the motorcycle handles before he steadies it, looking faintly annoyed. 

Of course, for someone like Sun-Gu, where—on the battlefield—any sort of slight miscalculation could be the difference between life and death, where trusting his body to function exactly as he’s used to is crucial for his success, Yuna isn’t surprised that any sort of bodily inefficiency would be an annoyance, even more so for Sun-Gu than for most.

At the same time, as she stares at him, she has to wonder—just how long has he been unwell? Had she not been awake during the battle—had she been unconscious, then, like the other two—would she even have noticed? How many times in his life has he been ill and just proceeded? Yuna doesn’t know what his relationship to Peter is—whether he’s a long lost cousin, or someone who trained under him before, or something else. But she knows, from the way he fights, that he must’ve had years of combat experience even before he joined Glory. No one is born with that amount of expertise, that level of near-inhuman intuition.

In the past, when Sun-Gu found himself in life-or-death situations, had he proceeded like he is now—as though everything were normal? As though any affliction he was suffering through privately was not even worth the attention of his own team? It makes sense, she thinks—that he wouldn’t broadcast any weakness openly, especially for any potential adversaries to listen in on. But if he’d been so careful to hide it from all of them, how would he take it if she acknowledged it out loud?

“Is something wrong?” Sun-Gu asks, watching her now. 

“No, nothing at all!” Yuna says, quickly. Think, she tells herself. She returns his smile, a little sheepishly. “I was just thinking… I’m a little hungry. Do you think we could stop at a convenience store on the way back?”

Sun-Gu blinks, a little surprised. But then he nods. “Of course,” he says. 

She fiddles with her own helmet until it’s securely on. Then she gets onto the motorcycle, behind him, and waits for him to take off.

—

True to his word, Sun-Gu stops at a 24/7 convenience store on the way back. But when Yuna asks him if he wants anything to eat, he waves her off with another smile. “Not enough time has passed after that fight,” he says. “I’m still too worked up to eat something.”

Bullshit, she thinks, but she steps inside the store nonetheless. Inside, it’s heavily air-conditioned, pleasantly cool. She picks out a sandwich from the fridge for herself, and one for Sun-Gu, while Biggie and Dokgo—who have followed them here on their scooters—load up on containers of cup ramen and ready-made hot fried chicken. Yuna snags a bottle of water from the fridge. Then she’s sure no one is looking, she takes a blister pack of aspirin off the shelves, along with a travel pack of tissues, and pays for it through the self-checkout station.

Biggie and Junior are still inside by the time she’s done shopping, so she heads outside, the plastic bag in hand.

She finds him still seated on the motorcycle, his helmet still on. He’s sitting ramrod-straight, his shoulders stiff, his head ducked slightly to avoid the sun. To anyone else, he might look alert—perhaps even nervous—but Yuna knows better. It looks as if he is doing everything in his power not to fall asleep.

His breath hitches. He gasps, his body jerking forward with a loud, “hHHD’TSHhh-Uh!”, which seems ridiculously unrelieving for how loud it is, and sighs, tenderly massaging the bridge of his temples. So the headache from earlier hasn’t gotten any better, then. 

She watches him for a moment longer—watches him duck forward into his arm with another ticklish sneeze, and emerge with a liquid sniffle—and wonders when this had all started to feel like second nature.

Caring about him, that is.

When he hears her coming, he looks up to her. “Done with breakfast already?” 

“Not yet,” she says. “But I got you a sandwich.

“Ah, thanks,” he says. “Though, didn’t I say—”

“You’re not hungry right now, I recall,” Yuna says. “You can save it for later. But I have something else for you too.” 

She hands him the aspirin and the bottle of water. Sun-Gu stares down at them for a moment, his eyebrows furrowing.

“I am not injured,” he says, at last.

“I know,” Yuna says, casually. “The aspirin is for your headache. That’s been bothering you all morning, right? It might help with your fever, too, but I think the best antidote for that would be some proper bedrest.”

For a moment, Sun-Gu just stares at her, his eyes a little wide. Then he laughs. “You really don’t let anything past you, do you, Yuna?”

“That’s right,” she says, crossing her arms. “So you were trying to hide it.”

“Not exactly,” Sun-Gu says. “I just didn’t deem it worth mentioning.”

“Three to five days of bedrest, and lots of warm fluids!” Yuna says, jabbing a finger into his chest, accusingly. “That’s what people recommend for illnesses like this. Not a killer mission first thing in the morning!”

“You are very prudent,” Sun-Gu says, looking mildly amused.

“You don’t think it might’ve helped to mention your illness to someone you trust? The chairman, or even me?”

“I fail to see how that would’ve made any difference. It’s not as though the mission could have waited.”

“Fine, then.” Yuna says. “You might not agree to take it easy. But I’ll keep noticing as long as you keep being irresponsible.” She means it as a threat—that in the future, if he ever dares to be so reckless, she’ll be the first to notice. And if Yuna thinks he should be resting, instead of on a mission, she’s not going to keep her mouth shut about it. 

But when she looks over at Sun-Gu, he is smiling. 

[dollsonmain]

Ok, so I work tomorrow at lunch time, then I start training all over again for opening and am to be there at 6am 5-days a week next week. Don't know how long the shift will be, though. Either way that kind of sucks because it's too late to have That Guy drop me off and if I'm getting off work 4 hours later, it's way too early for him to pick me up, too, meaning I'm going to be walking to and from work. I tried to get some better work shoes but Walmart didn't have any in my size. there's not room for insoles in the shoes I have, so I'm kind of stuck with the ouch shoes for a while, yet. I can run to Kohl's or something on the weekend and get some walking shoes maybe. Should be better than what I have, anyway.

-

I don't get mad easily but Son pissed me off. I got a call from school asking me why he already has 5 unexcused absences.

He's been at school every day and is obsessed with getting perfect attendance.

He hasn't been answering when roll is called.

Now I have to call the school and be like "No, he's there. You can verify that with the bus driver and all of his teachers throughout the day, especially Theater Teacher. You must need reminding that he's autistic and non-compliance is written into his IEP. Again. Like every year." but honestly, I don't expect them to adjust his attendance and he's going to have to deal with it.

[savethegrishaverse]

For our next twitter party, we want to celebrate our #FandomWithAFuture! We've come a long way since the books were written, since the show debuted, and since it was cancelled; but, we still have so much more to achieve! Our fandom has only just gotten started! Come prepared with your best tweets, questions, comments, gifs, memes, and more. Let's make some noise! 🗣️

#SaveShadowAndBone and #SixOfCrowsSpinoff TWEETING PARTY 5/31 at 12PM! Come check it out here!

Remember to:

Only use three hashtags.

Enjoy and be engaging with your tweets! Keep sharing! Timezones under read more.

If you cannot attend, you can always schedule tweets ahead of time on desktop in order to help out still!

ALL TIMEZONES: Friday, May 31: 9am PST 10am MST 11am CST 12pm EST 2pm -03 5pm GMT 6pm CET 8pm MSK 9pm +04 10:30pm IST

Saturday, Jun 1: 1am CST 2am JST 4am AEST 6am NZST

[babypudge]

Pudge’s 2023 “Good Boy Calendar” Rules

Pudge must wear diapers whenever possible throughout 2023 and can have his diaper checked at anytime 6am-10pm PST via @diapercheckpudge - he must reply as soon as he’s able.

Every day from January 16th until the end of the year, Pudge’s “good boy calendar” will be marked with the following:

Happy Face = diapers worn all day, removed only for bathing and changing

Half Happy Face = a single break of less than 4 hours (underwear) or 8 hours (pull-ups) was taken from wearing/using diapers (only for social or professional reasons, all other breaks receive an automatic sad face - two half faces count as 1 whole happy face)

Sad Face = A break from diapers was taken for longer than the allotted time, or no diapers were worn

Gold Star = Pudge was a good boy and didn’t make sticky diapers all day.

No Gold Star = Pudge was a naughty boy and made sticky diapers.

Paw Print Sticker aka “Puppy Points” = Pudge was an extra good boy and stayed in diapers for a long errand, social or professional event that he could have worn underwear/pull-ups to. Minimum one hour spent in public spaces. Collect 5 and get and extra star sticker to put towards a future month’s tally.

Less than 26 happy faces or 24 gold stars at the end of the month = randomly selected punishment from the “bad boy jar”, which contains several slips of paper with various punishments written on them. All punishments will be documented and posted online. If both happy faces and stars are below minimum, two punishments will be taken. No exceptions for shorter months. (I plan to be a very good boy, so don’t get your hopes up on any of these happening)

By the end of the first weekend of each month, Pudge will post the previous month’s results to his Tumblr page. Any punishments earned must be completed and posted during that same month.

Exceptions: Trips out of town, serious life or medical events and certain other situations will qualify for a “pause” period, whereby those days will be subtracted from the total stars and happy faces needed to avoid punishment. Only 7 of such days are permitted each month and more than 4 occurrences over the year will be considered its own punishable offense. January star/face numbers will be adjusted for the mid-month start.

[courtingchaos]

Rent the Space Inside My Mind

1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Female!Reader

Summary: This is quite the eventful day your both having, huh? I wonder what winter wonderland delights await you in the evening.

A/N: Ha ha ha this took so long oh my god. I'm still not happy with this, but it is what it is. The format is a little funky but it's because this was written in chunks and also frankensteined together a bit. I do hope everyone has fun though! I'm almost done with the next part, mainly because this was such a struggle and I ended up writing ahead of myself. Thank you my lovelies!

Warnings: Nothing I can think of, just a little self love ;) still 18+ minors g t f o please

The dim blues of the too early morning paint the wall, a small patch of pink sunlight glinting off the tacks holding up the posters there. It’s 6am, a whole hour before you’d normally be up but you’d gone to bed late and it’s bled through with a night of restless sleep. Those first couple of bleary minutes the only time your brain feels quiet and still. 

The chill of the morning lingers, tips of your fingers cold where you groggily try to move your arms and hands to warm them up against your stomach under your shirt. 

It’s when the grogginess is gone but you’re eyes haven’t adjusted to the light that you start the little patterns, dragging your finger tips over your skin and slowly inching the hem of your t-shirt up. Under the blanket is warm and you wiggle in further to tuck your nose below the edge of the comforter. Fingers continue their featherlight dance across your ribs, pulling goosebumps up along their wake and in the quiet alone you have for another hour, you can pretend they’re not your own. 

Heavier, bigger. Thumbs calloused, rough where they drag just under the swell of your breast and the shiver runs right up the back of your neck, over the crown of your head. A little sigh and one hand roams lower, splayed wide and flat against the soft skin of your belly. Traces over your hip and up your thigh where it digs into the supple skin there, pulls it out and down towards the bed. The hand still at your chest pulls up on the shirt to get a handful of your tits, rolls the already hard nipple between thumb and forefinger earning a low gasp from you. 

Haven’t even gotten to the good part yet. 

You’d asked Eddie once, jokingly, just what he was doing to keep these girls around. 

“Need pointers?” He’d laughed when you’d pushed his shoulder. Shrugged all cool and casual, chewing on the straw of his drink for moment.

“Got a talent for eating out.” A smug grin across his face when you’d coughed, choking on the sip you’d just taken. 

“What, too crass? Are you blushing?!”

That had turned into a night of secret spilling and Eddie finding out you’d slept with some ‘real fuckin’ losers’, his opinion.  

“So they just like, never offered?”

“No? Why would they? We were already fucking.” You’d mumbled that into the worn cushion of the couch, face down to hide your embarrassment. 

“Because it’s fun?”

Fun. 

He’d said it was fun. 

Head buried between thighs and mouth searching, hands grabbing. 

Hands that move from the inside of your thigh to your underwear to slide under the band and dip right into the heat of you, running lazy fingers through your folds, dipping lower to tease and gather slick to pull back up and right over your clit. Your head slides to the edge of your pillow and you let it hang over the short edge while a string of curses float out of you. 

You imagine him in a dozen different ways. Hovering over you, laying kisses from your cheek down your neck and finally to your chest. Nipple between teeth while he buries his fingers deep in you. 

Or leaned back on his heels, watching himself spread you open while he lazily jerks off, heavy cock twitching in his palm, whispering all the things your desperate to hear him say. 

Mostly you picture his halo of curls, laying soft across your lap. Thick fingers dug into the meat your thighs pulling you closer to his face, keeping you pinned to the bed. Tongue hot while he runs the point of it through your folds, smiling against you when that sigh escapes you again. 

The slow circles you’ve been working over yourself speed up, hand still kneading your breast and you hone in on the things you are familiar with. 

The heat of him standing close. How his hands feel against you. The smell of clean laundry and smoke and whatever the hell deodorant he wears. That impish grin with his stupid dimples bracketing his pink lips. His mouth that never fucking stops. All the little personal ways he hangs around your life you play on repeat. 

The white noise of quiet in your room turns to ringing in your ears, drowns out the pathetic little whines and moans falling out of you. The heat that’s been building low finally breaks, burns up through your abdomen and licks up your spine. A breathy sigh of “Eddie” and the heat hits your face, the blush creeping in fast enough to make you feel lightheaded. 

There’s a few minutes where you’re locked up, knees pulled in tight together and back arched up off the bed while you come back down to earth. 

Under the covers is still warm. Your limbs are pliant now. Your brain is buzzing and awake. 

The clock is loud when it goes off next to your head, pulling you out of any kind of daze you were lingering in. A sigh puffs the blanket up around your face and you ignore the knot of guilt starting to form under your ribs. 

Cold bites through your open coat while you dig around the inside pockets for your zippo. The two of you are close, leaned up against the front of Eddie’s van to absorb the left over heat. 

“I think I left it at home.” You look up and he flicks his lighter to life in front of you, grinning over the flame. 

“Figured.” 

Cupping your hand around it to shade it from the wind gives you a little kiss of warmth from the fire. The early morning sun warming the back of your neck where it peaks out of the clouds. The van warming your thigh through your jeans. It’s cozy, this little moment. A breath in and a puff of smoke escapes your lips. Eddie pockets his lighter but doesn’t lean away so you stay close too and ask him if he actually did his homework for English. Share the cigarette between the two of you, foggy breath and smoke mingle with your voices while he tells you about his essay. 

“It’s probably fine, I got wordy again, you know how O’Donnell feels about that. Figure I can scrape a C out of it.”

“Just a C?”

“She fuckin’ hates me.” He laughs and you let your eyes wander over his smile, watching the cigarette move in the corner of his mouth. “You wanna see it?” He’s digging through his bag where it’s propped on the small hood. 

“Yeah, lemme see it.” 

His fingers brush yours again when you grab for the smoke and you think about your early morning solo tryst. You cast your face down briefly so he doesn’t catch the stupid little grin on your face. He’s unaware when he fishes out his notebook and flips it open for you to glance at. You scan the page fast, it looks like yours and honestly, he might slide a B out of this. 

Maybe. 

“I think this was just busy work before break, so you might get lucky.” 

“For once in my life.” He scoffs and you let out a sour little laugh. 

Oh, just once?

“What?”

“Aren’t you always getting lucky?” 

“Oh come on.” His grin is shy and he reaches out and snatches the cigarette right out of your mouth, earning him a gasp. 

“Excuse me?” You slap at his chest and mange to push his shoulder away from you but he’s planted firmly in place. He raises his eyebrows at you, still grinning and laughing. Another little push and you hold your hand out, waiting for him to drop the cigarette back between your fingers. 

“It’s not all the time.” 

“Oh only when she sends out the call to arms?” 

Eddie just sighs at you. Shakes his head and takes one last pull before handing the cigarette back. Around a mouthful of smoke he says, “You can kill it.” He gathers up his bag, stuffing the notebook back in and starts to turn around the corner of the van. 

“Hey, I wasn’t trying to upset you.” You’re voice is small behind him and your tug on his bag slung over his shoulder makes him pause to look back at you. “I was just teasin’.”

“I’m not upset, I promise.” His expression is soft. 

“Come on, I don’t want O’Dick bitching at me for being late too.” He flicks his head toward the front of the school, setting off again and you stub out the smoke, hot on his heels. 

Her footsteps are light in the crunch of the gravel walking over the trail that leads out to the picnic table in the woods. Normally she tries to not meet him during school, just sneaking over to his van after the last bell before anyone can see. Today though she’d slipped a note in his locker when the hallways were dead. 

‘Picnic during 3rd?’

She’s not embarrassed to be seen with Eddie. Well, not exactly. He’s just not her type per se, if he’s anyone’s really. She just doesn’t want to be seen with him is all. It’ll cause a fight and everyone will talk and that’s the last thing she needs, especially if Mark is actually trying to ask her to prom.

Look. Eddie is just…Eddie. He’s loud and obnoxious and arrogant and always smells like cigarettes and his hair is too long and and and-

And what. 

He’s a nice guy. He didn’t make fun of her like her teammates when she didn’t even know how to smoke. He’d talked her through how to roll it, how to smoke it, how to hold her breath in till it didn’t hurt. All smiles and small talk and by the end of it they were something like acquaintances. 

So back she went, another $30 in hand, to the picnic table in the woods and he’d been all jokes again. Asked if she needed help again. Made her feel comfortable again. 

And then he had to go and ask her out. 

Not out-out. He knew better than that. This was one of those quiet things that she’d heard some of the other girls talk about. 

Fool around when parents aren’t home kind of thing. 

Date with the back of his van kind of thing. 

A little stoned stargazing and wandering hands at the lake kind of thing. 

Still, she’d said no. She didn’t want secondhand dates, she wanted Mark and his first class ones. 

Mark and Gwen. Gwen and Mark. 

But Mark hadn’t said anything yet, all she had were the cheer teams whispers and her own intuition to go on. 

(Maybe she did want those dates.)

Cornering him at his van, angled so no one could see her, she’d gone back on her own promise. 

“Does that offer still stand?”

Of course it did, and she was sure he could draw a map from memory of her room by now. Eddie was fun because he was nice and because he was different but she could see the pit just in front of her now. How easy it’d be to say fuck it and walk him out in public in front of everyone. Show him off to all her teammates and turn her nose up at anyone who scoffed. Take a swan dive right into the dark depths of that chasm. Eddie was nice and he was good, and he was very nice and very good to her. He could be her little trailer park boyfriend and when she would inevitably ship off to Barnard next year she could drag him with her to New York and then!

And then? What? That pit again. Eddie was good and nice but he was what, a drug dealer? A failing senior? A trailer park kid with a dad in jail and a dead mom? Eddie was a pit. 

Mark’s mom was a librarian downtown and his dad was a property lawyer for Harrington Development. He lived in Loch Nora, two streets from her own home. He didn’t even smoke weed, that’s how committed he was to basketball and making varsity. He was gonna go to Purdue and be a Boilermaker. 

Gwen stops short when the table comes into view and she sees the back of your head, dark locks spilling onto the splintered wood. 

“Oh.” It falls from her mouth before she can really think and you spin around, eyes wide and cigarette hanging from your lips. 

“Hey! Uh are you-“

“Did Eddie send you?” Gwen’s gripping the straps on her backpack in an attempt to stop her stomach from plummeting. Did he send you out here to…to what? Beat her up? She’s heard about your temper and how short your fuse is and-

“What? No, this is my free period I just snuck out to smoke.” You’re up now, holding the cigarette in front of you as evidence. Gwen unwinds a little. “I didn’t know you two were meeting out here, sorry. I’ll make myself scarce.” You shoot her a tight smile and go to grab your stuff, ready to head back the way she just came. 

“Wait, please?” 

You pause, eyebrows raised in question. 

“Can I…ask you something? Or talk?” She doesn’t even know what she wants to say to you. Gwen’s interactions with you have been third party through Eddie and she’s gotten the vibe that she wasn’t quiet popular with you or the rest of the gang. 

“Sure.”

“You and Eddie aren’t like-“ 

“I’m gonna stop you right there.” You hold a hand up to her. You look annoyed and now she’s starting to feel it too. 

“I’m just asking.”

“I know, and I’m telling you. We’re not an item, never have been. Just friends.” You’ve shifted back to sitting, this time facing her, leaned forward on your arms. Gwen keeps watching the cherry on the cigarette your fiddling with between your clasped hands like it’s keeping her focused. “I get what it looks like but he doesn’t-we don’t feel that way about each other.” Her eyes snap up to yours and she swears she can see a hint of panic in the crease of your forehead. 

He doesn’t he doesn’t he doesn’t. 

Gwen nods lightly and makes for the opposite bench. A long sigh escapes when she sits down before looking up at you again. 

“I know you don’t really like me.”

“I never said-“

“Let me finish. I know Eddie’s canceled some plans with you guys because of us and that isn’t going to win me any favors. I also know y’all aren’t stupid. You know what this is. I’m not part of your little group of misfits. He’s your friend first, I get it, and I’m not…I’m not his girlfriend,” another big sigh and she shakes her head to clear it, “and I-I don’t want to be.” 

Oof. 

The silence sticks like the snow clinging to the roots around the trees out here. Gwen is still looking at you, looking for a response. Anger maybe, on behalf of your friend who’s being used. Sadness or jealousy even, over something you’ll never have with him. What she’s not expecting is the loud laugh you bark out. Loud enough to startle a bird out of the tree near you two. You take a long drag and rub a hand over your eyes. 

“Listen, Gwen. I don’t hate you, but you don’t belong here.” You gesture at the space between the two of you. “That little confession isn’t news, did you think Eddie was trying to go steady with you?” There’s no cruelty in your voice and that stuns her more than if there was. 

“I-I mean-“

“Sorry I know how that sounds, but Eddie? This isn’t his first time playing this game with your type. You guys fool around for a while and then you dump him when prom rolls around, or some jock finally notices you and takes you on a real date.” It’s so matter of fact, like you’d read her mind on the walk over. 

Am I that transparent?

“I mean, he’s like king of the nerds around here and still pulling cheerleaders. Do you really think he cares about having to also take you on a date?” Okay that one was a little harsh, Gwen can feel the teeth sinking in to bite. 

“He did ask me out, that first time.” She snaps. 

He did ask me out. 

“I don’t doubt that. He still hasn’t learned his lesson from Francesca. You don’t date cheerleaders if you don’t have a Letter.” 

Fran had been one of the girls who’d told Gwen about Eddie, albeit a little cruelly. 

“I took his virginity, your welcome.” She’d giggled at Gwen over her lunch, swatting playfully at her hand. “He’s a lot of fun, but he gets all googly-eyed if you’re too nice to him. Gets it in his head he has a chance.” The group had laughed and Gwen had felt a little cold. 

“I wasn’t trying to hurt him.”

You stub out your cig in front of you and neatly avoid her gaze. 

“I didn’t think you were. It’s…look, you’re breaking it off right?”

She nods. 

“Better offer?”

Gwen wishes you wouldn’t say it like that. There’s no pretense anymore though. 

“Yeah.”

You hum and nod a few times and cast a look over her shoulder, past her into the woods. 

“Is he nice?”

Gwen’s taken aback again. Why would you care?

“I think so. His name’s Mark. I don’t know if you know him, but he plays basketball and he’s….the JV…” She’s trying to keep the quiet at bay but just trails off softly. Feels stupid for talking. 

You pick at the table, face screwed up in thought. You’re quiet for a little too long and it has her looking around, wondering if Eddie even got the note. 

“I don’t hate you Gwen, I’m just…jealous?” That brings her head snapping back around and you wave her off with an air of avoidance. “Don’t read into that. I’m glad you found your basketball prince or whatever just, don’t be mean to Eddie.”

“I won’t.” She means it, she was just going to be truthful. 

There’s a beat before you slap the table and stand up. “Okay, I’m gonna get the fuck out of here because I don’t really need to see that in person. Try not to ruin his whole day, yeah?” You’ve already gathered your bag and started towards the trail back to the baseball field. All Gwen can do is nod, the nerves seeping back in with the cold that’s climbing up her legs. 

Ahead of you there’s the shuffling of dragging feet through gravel and the familiar huff of someone who never runs the mile in gym. Eddie sees you first though, coming to a stop a few feet ahead of you. 

“Hey trouble, what are you doing out here?” His face is screwed up in confusion, wondering if he’s misunderstood who the note was from when he sees your face pull into a tight frown. 

“Ditching the library but I ran into your girl.”

“She’s not my girl.” Too quick to respond and he sees you chuckle. 

“Yeah not for long man.” He wouldn’t say it’s glee written across your face, but there isn’t any regret there that’s for sure. 

“The hell does that mean?” Eddie has an idea, had a feeling in the pit of his stomach this morning when he woke up. He’d planned on telling Gwen it was over by Friday, but it looks like she’s beat him to it. There’s a small sympathetic smile on your lips and you cross the space between the two of you to clap a hand on his shoulder. 

“Just let me know if you need to drink about it later.”

He nods and rolls his eyes, a big sigh working it’s way out of his chest. The knot that’d been sitting heavy loosens a little under the warmth of your fingers. 

He wants to walk back up to the school with you, leave this sphere of guilt out in the woods where he can forget it. He could just slide your hand off his shoulder and link it with his to drag you back up the trail and the two of you don’t even need to go back to class. It’s cold out, but he still has blankets in the back of his van and he can think of a few ways to keep you two warm. 

Another nod, this one final and he steps around you to go find Gwen out in the clearing. 

You don’t see him again until lunch when you rush him. So engrossed with whatever Gareth is telling him he doesn’t hear the squeak of your converse barreling up beside to tackle him into the wall. 

“Jesus Christ!” Eddie’s elbow comes down in the middle of your shoulders and you just laugh. Bent over and smushed up into his ribs you get a face full of leather and clean laundry. Gareth jumps away to avoid his flailing but he’s laughing. Everyone else around you seems unimpressed with the display. You give him a big squeeze before letting go. 

“Oh unclench.” You say to a passing group, all holding on to their lunch trays like your gonna slap them on the floor. 

“You coulda broken my ribs.” Eddie is rubbing his side, mock hurt pulling at his features. 

“You have flipped me clean over your shoulder and I’m fine! You’ll live.” You see Gareth’s eyebrows raising and before he can open his mouth you shove his face away, eliciting another laugh from him. 

“Don’t be a pervert.” 

Eddie is uncharacteristically quiet during lunch, both Gareth and you keeping an eye on him. He told you two the gist of it, his little woodland meeting. 

“She told me about Mark.” He sticks his tongue out. “I should have know, prom is right around the corner.” He’s creeping in on himself, shoulders pulling down. “It’s whatever. I was getting bored anyways.”

The way he says it sits weird with you. 

“Bored with sex?” You’re trying to lighten the mood. Gareth laughs into his pudding cup and he’s just full of giggles today it would seem. Eddie kicks him under the table. 

“No, that’s not what I said.” Eddie is blushing now, floundering for his next words. You keep looking at him and it keeps making him stumble and blush more and mission accomplished. 

“What, were you gonna break up with her?” Gareth asks like it’s the dumbest thing in the world. Yeah, why would he break up with the hot cheerleader?

When he doesn’t answer or look up from his chips, Gareth drops the sarcasm. 

“Oh shit you were.” 

Eddie does shoot him a look then, a silent ‘shut up’ if you ever saw one. 

You keep it to yourself, but there’s a warmth that grows up the inside of you with the knowledge that he’d made the decision this time before it was made for him. 

The crumpled up paper all over his floor is a testament to his stupidity. At least he thinks so because why god why is it so hard to write a letter to someone. He’s tried every iteration of ‘I’m obsessed with you, will you please kiss me’. Some of them had turned into half ramblings about some dream he’d had and he’s absolutely not giving you some R rated fantasy to try to win you over. 

(The thought keeps crossing his mind though.)

In desperation he’d even thought about trying to write out some kind of solo player campaign that involved a maze and a riddle. He’d been halfway to writing it, stressed and sleep deprived when he realized how long it’d take and this was supposed to be a love letter for fucks sake.  

He hadn’t given himself a timeline really, had just been thinking in afters. After he called it off with Gwen. After he wrote you an epic poem. After he got his head out of his ass. 

But one of the afters, the most important really, had kind of happened out of step and it left him adrift. 

When would he tell you? He couldn’t let this go on much longer, he’d run out of little trinkets to steal from you. He’d collapse in on himself if he had to suppress any urge around you much longer. He figures two weeks off of school would give him time to clear his head. Get to the new year. Hell, maybe even make his and yours New Years Eve a nice memorable one for once.

With one after out of the way he thinks maybe he doesn’t need the others. 

Maybe…maybe it didn’t need to be a letter. He could just tell you. Just lay himself out, heart on his sleeve. 

(Head would be firmly out of ass too.) 

Even if you said no he knows you wouldn’t be cruel, not to him. 

What if she doesn’t want to be friends anymore?

No. No he won’t let that happen because he’s so good at pretending. Pretending everything is fine and pretending he’s okay and that nothing is going wrong ever for him. Pretending that he’d be over you in an instant. 

She’s gonna see right through that, genius. 

Okay new thought. 

You say yes. Of course you’d say yes, it’s Eddie! You’re already up each others asses enough everyone thinks your dating anyways. You’re comfortable around each other, you share secrets like you share food and drinks (and that lollipop that one time.) There’s no one else he’d rather hang out with normally, except maybe Gareth but he’s never wanted to pin him up against a wall and kiss him till he can’t breathe. 

He’s pacing his room, small little lazy circles in the cramped space, chewing on a hangnail on his thumb. He’s lost in thought enough that he almost misses the phone ringing and he bounds down the hallway to the kitchen. 

“Hello?”

“Took you long enough. What, were you jerkin’ off? Too busy to answer me?” You joke around a mouthful of something. Eddie can hear the clink of a spoon in a bowl from your end. 

“Ha ha.”

“Seriously, what are you up to?” You cut to the chase. It’s Thursday so both Wayne and your mom are working overnight and Eddie’s brain starts working overtime. Could just tell you tonight, force his own hand and spill his guts. Could be a Christmas miracle instead, one thing going his way for once. 

“Nothing special. Wanna come over and waste a perfectly good evening?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

20 minutes later he hears you outside, coming up the steps and before you can knock he swings the door open. 

“Thanks for dressing up.” He smirks, looking you up and down. Ratty jeans under oversized hoodie under secondhand peacoat. You scoff hard, one of his favorite sounds you make. 

“Oh fuck you Munson. I bring you booze and you critique my attire?” You half pull out a bottle from the folds of you coat to show him. “Like you’ve got any room to talk.”

“My apologies, I didn’t know we were partying.” His hand slaps against his chest and you push him out of the way, smiling as you filter into the trailer. The bottle goes on the kitchen counter and you toss your coat over the back of the recliner. 

“I figure we could skip tomorrow. Last day before break, you know we aren’t doing shit. Also I figured you could use a drink or three.” You’re busying yourself in the kitchen, finding glasses and grabbing a soda out of his fridge. Eddie hasn’t said anything because he’s realizing a fatal flaw in his plan, where if he tells you how he feels then you’ll know how he feels. Having you in the same room as his thoughts makes it evident that he needs to figure his shit out. 

“I told you I’m fine.”

“I know, but getting dumped for Mark the Hoop King can’t feel great.”

“I mean, honestly I wasn’t that invested.” He shrugs, coming over to lean on the outside of the counter and watching you crack open the fifth of jack you definitely stole from your mom. You shoot him a doubtful look under the cabinets. He feels like he might start vibrating if he keeps thinking about telling you anything ever. 

“If you say so.” The glass you push towards him is more liquor than soda and Eddie grimaces before even taking a sip. Knows it’ll burn. Knows it’ll loosen his tongue. He downs half before he can talk himself out of it. You cheers the air in front of you and follow suit, sucking your teeth when the glass hits the countertop. 

“What are we watching tonight?” The strain on your voice makes him chuckle, your own drink working against you. 

“I got The Dead Zone if you want to watch something horror, and I also snagged the last copy of Year Without a Santa Claus because I know you can’t get enough of the snow miser.” 

You let out a gasp and clap your hands together, gathering up your glass and shimmying over to the couch. You look at him expectantly where he’s still leaned up against the counter and gesture at the tv set. 

“Well come on! Santa’s not gonna get fat without us.” 

Eddie gives you another smile and heads to his room to grab the cassettes off of his dresser. On his way back into the living room he sees you pulling your feet up onto the cushion, adjusting around until you’re comfortable. 

Down deep he lets himself have a moment. 

He can pretend when he sits down next you he could snake his arm around you and pull you close. Smush his nose into your hair while some claymation character sings about the joy of the season. 

Instead he grabs the bottle from the kitchen after getting the tape set up and drops down on the opposite side of you. Swings his legs up to shove his socked feet under your calf. You laugh through your nose and settle into the couch further and he supposes this is good too. 

When the credits roll the both of you are tipsy, more so you since you’d taken Eddie up on his game. Any time you felt the need to recite along with the movie, he’d pour a little more into your glass, effectively turning it all into whiskey. He took a few swigs in solidarity with you but he was finding your rosy cheeks and giggles a little distracting, loosing count of how many sips behind he was. 

“Laugh at me all you want, I love Rankin and Bass. There’s an Easter one I’m gonna make you watch in April.” You’ve stretched out alongside Eddie, feet wiggling beside his shoulder while you nurse the half full cup clasped between your hands. 

“You’re not gonna make me do shit.” His laugh rumbles quiet in his chest. He sounds a little buzzed, voice deeper from the drinks. His own feet are stuffed behind your back and he moves them around, jostling you lightly. You laugh and tell him to stop, slapping his knee. 

“I’m gonna spill my drink!” 

He does it again and you dip your fingers into your cup and flick the liquid at him. 

“That’s low!” 

“Stop kicking me!”

He sits up and leans forward, hands reaching for your glass and you try to pull it away but he hooks a finger on the rim. 

“Ed-!“ and tips it forward right into his lap. Neither of you jump to move out of the way, accepting the sticky fate right off. The hand you’ve slapped over your mouth is doing nothing to hide the laugh that’s shaking your shoulders. Eddie stares down at this lap and then back up to you which seems to send you into a harder fit of giggles. 

“Here let me-“

“I just need to move my legs-“ It’s a scramble to get off the couch before anything sinks too deep into the cushion. You can see Eddie trying to hold back laughter himself but refusing to break a smile in front of you. He stands awkwardly in the middle of the living room with his hands out to his side and you just can’t seem to stop laughing at his awkwardness. 

“Okay. I’m gonna go change, try not to make any more messes while I’m gone?”

“Me?!”

He’d shuffled around his room before heading into the bathroom and you’d taken the opportunity to switch the movie out. Standing in front of the tv waiting for the credits to roll you notice a wet patch on your hoodie that’s soaked through to your shirt. “Ah, Eddie what the shit.” Wobbling slightly down the hallway to his room to root around for a t-shirt that would fit, you hear the shower kick on. 

It makes you pause, the haze of liquor whispering at you to lean forward. Press your ear up against the door lightly. There’s shuffling and a small bump followed by Eddie’s quiet cursing. The shower curtain pulling open and closed. The heavy thud of your heartbeat in your ear. You trail a finger down the door, hand hovering near the handle before you startle and pull your hand back. 

What are you doing?

Getting a shirt. Yeah. A head shake to get your brain right, you aren’t even drunk what are you doing?

You shut the bedroom door behind you and strip off your sweatshirt and top, pulling open the bottom drawer of his dresser where all his shirts are shoved in haphazardly. 

“How do you find anything in here.” Mumbling while shuffling through all his shit, you find a faded out ren fair shirt and when you stand up a glint of metal catches your eye. His little secret drawer he was gatekeeping his weed in is ajar and just inside is…your zippo? You’d thought you’d just left it at home this morning but now it’s here. 

You shove the shirt on and open the drawer completely to see, yep, your silver VFW zippo slide fully into view. 

Along with an assortment of things. 

Frowning, you sift through some smaller hair clips that you swore you’d lost at school or in the chaos of your car. There’s two eyeliner pencils that you’ve replaced twice now. A lipstick you’d bitched about misplacing. 

And your tiefling minifig. 

Eddie had been adamant you hadn’t left it at his or Hellfire. Had said he hadn’t seen the little purple figure you’d spent a few hours painting delicately. 

What the fuck. 

You wrench the drawer open all the way and and see a handful of picks and two rings you reallythought you’d lost in the mayhem of the locker room after gym. Some folded up notes you’ve passed him in classes. There’s fabric bunched up at the back that you shake out. It’s the Dead Kennedys shirt you’ve been missing for months. 

What the fuck Eddie. 

You pick up the little wooden box, expecting to find more of your shit in it but it’s what’s underneath that catches your attention. 

You only pause for a moment, an upside down polaroid could be anything, or anyone really, but you don’t care right now because he has a drawer of your shit and-

The edges are worn a little like it’s been handled frequently, a corner of the white tab bent just a little. 

The wooden box is clutched against your chest, knuckles white with the tightness of your fist holding it to you. 

You’ve never seen this photo. You’ve got an idea of when it was taken, you’ve only dressed up like Elvira the one time. 

Your eyes are roaming the photo, looking for…what? Your hand in the bottom of the photo keeps snagging your attention. Dark nails dug into dark denim. 

Is this how he saw you? There’s an itch at the base of your skull that feels like fire and your mind rolls in it. Maybe you weren’t crazy after all, pining after Eddie Munson. Your stomach does a somersault at the notion. 

The trailer is quiet around you, some truck going by outside but otherwise nothing. The creak of the hinges being flexed under your hand where you’re blanking out in the quiet. 

You don’t hear the bathroom door open or Eddie wandering out to living room to see you gone. 

Mind going a mile a minute piecing the puzzle together. 

This was last year, so he’s had this for a whole year and then a drawer full of shit he said he hadn’t seen and my zippo that I just talked about this morning did he take it out of my pocket-

“I see how it is, you snoop while I’m in the shower.” Eddie’s voice is a clear cut through the tornado sirens going off in your mind. The door opens behind you and you see him in the mirror toweling off his hair. 

“I keep telling you you’re gonna find-“ He’s dropped the towel and pushed his hair out of his eyes to see your back to him, watching him in the reflection of his mirror. His eyes flick down to the top of his dresser where the contents of the drawer are sprawled out. Panic blooms over his face when his eyes find yours again and he notices your hands in the mirror, clutching the box and-

Oh my god no. 

He thinks his heart has ceased beating, might even have brain leaking out of his ears. He watches you turn around, sees your eyebrows drawn together. He can’t tell if you’re angry or worried or scared? Maybe all three. Holds his breath till you say something because he hadn’t thought about this outcome. Had thought he’d been good about keeping it hidden, his stupid fucking crush on you. Tucked under boxes of weed or in pages of books. Under a mattress. In a breast pocket. 

Eddie can hear the deep breaths you’re taking and he wonders how you’re finding oxygen in this room. 

Your voice is quiet when your eyes search his, holding up the picture. 

“Ed?”

💕Tag List💕

@edsforehead, @fracturedarkness, @munsonsguitarpick, @bebe0701, @ali-r3n, @cantreadbutcute, @marjoriea13, @demeterlindavis, @eddiethesexy, @fckyeahlames, @tiannamortis, @munsonzzgf, @emma77645, @starrywhitenight, @e0509, @chelebelletx,

[foxes-that-run]

2019 Haylor Timeline

Timeline Tag, Back to 2018

1 January - Taylors New Years Eve costume party she dresses as Ariel

3 January - MH asks to produce Harry's next album... via twitter.... and says Harry has blocked him.

6 January - Taylor in LA at Golden Globes afterparty

9 January - Harry still in Japan

Miss Americana filmed between Rep tour and Lover, released in 2020.

16 January - Kiko Mizuhara says she has never met Harry, then

2 February - Kiko at Harry's birthday party they may or may not have dated.

18 January - Taylor seen at recording studio in NYC (suggested Me!, but I think that's too late, it was released as a single in April)

26 January - Harry still in Japan

1 February - Harry's 25th Birthday “I had a very Murakami birthday because I ended up staying in Tokyo on my own. I had grilled fish and miso soup for breakfast, then I went to this cafe. I sat and drank tea and read for five hours.” (Harry Styles on his 25th birthday, Rolling Stone 2019)

10 February - Joe and Taylor go to Harry's local, the Spaniards Inn Hampstead Heath ...... Harry was in LA on the 12th. Seen walking in Paris in March and not again for 7 months.

12 February - Joe and Taylor attend the BAFTAS Taylor is photographed having dinner with Liam Payne

5 March - Taylor things before 30 article, includes that Andrea is again in treatment

14 March - Harry arriving at gym in London

28 March - Harry JFK airport, then hotel in NY

29 March - Harry and Xander dinner Ny

5 April - Harry in LOndon

23 April - Taylor plays Time 100 show setlist is Style, Delicate, Love Story, NYD and Shake it off

26 April Me! Video released, just before April 29 anniversary... Joe not seen with Taylor till October.

2 May - Taylor Zane Lowe Me! Interview

3 May - Harry in LA

5 May - Harry Anna Wintour's apartment, pre-met Gala dinner

7 May - Harry hosts his only met gala attendance, Taylor’s doesn’t go anymore. Adore you and Lights up written in May. Harry and Kendall have after party and both leave at 6am and both stayed at the Bowery hotel. Jeff and Xander also there.

May - 6 July Joe filming A Christmas Carol in Hampstead Heath and stays in London after. Taylor in US, billboard awards, Lover media

15 May Harry was in the studio, Harry writes Adore You, Lights up, Treat People with Kindness, starts Boyfriends.

18 May - Harry driving a bright yellow vintage ferrari in Malibu, you can practically hear golden in that photo.

20 May (Haylor anniversary #1), still in studio, Harry wears a white horses shirt and fearless gold shorts on the beach in Malibu. While Horse is a Fearless song he also references in the Daylight video. Fine Line then complete

21 May - Gucci Swan Campaign released

24 May - Taylor in Paris with Joe, she recreates scenes from Begin Again which are later in the TV version of Taylor Swift Live in the City of Lover, except the concert was filmed months later when Joe was not there.

3, 6 June - Harry in London,

9 June - Blind that Taylor & Joe double date was PR setup

30 June Big Machine Records sold with Taylor’s masters.

2-6 July - Taylor in Virgin Isles with her mum, Ashley and the Haim sisters, Joe still filming UK.

10 July Taylor Performs at Amazon Prime event in NYC, points at a figure in Delicate thought to be Joe.

15-17 June - Harry visits Xander in Philly, airport photos

18 July - Harry sells LA house at a loss after 2 years on market

20 July - Taylor in NYC

29 July - Harry in NYC for Rolling Stone shoot in Hawaiian shirt (the eternal sunshine of Harry styles story with Rob Sheffield)

1 August - Gucci fragrance campaign where Harry plays with a ring and leans his head on a blonde lady with a cat masks shoulder. This mask is vintage, there is a Tiktok of the guy who owns it. Taylor wore a similar mask in the LAWYMMD video and was filming cats. We don't know who's in the mask, Harris Reed is on the set and I wonder if it is her.

4 August - Harry shot Lights Up music video in Mexico

6 August - Harry in philli

19 August - stories that KK falling out was she threw a party in Taylor’s NY house

23 August - Lover released. Lover Video released with quite clear Haylor references. Taylor says relationship not up for discussion. in NYC Taylor poses next to a photo of One Direction backstage at a signing in Brooklyn New York.

29 August - Taylor films BBC Live Lounge in NY with emotional performance of London Boy, Lover, The Archer, I can’t stop loving you (Phil Collin’s), Holy Ground and YNTCD. Holy Ground and ICSlY are particularly emotional and Taylor talks about loving someone even if they don’t love you back and that she chose Holy Ground because it refers to NY.

2 September - Harry in London, then disappears for 10 days. Gucci Fragrance Campaign where Harry wore the Haylor Ring.

7 September - both at Ed Sheeran's wedding in a big top. Joe maybe there - Niall followed Joe 8 Sept; Joe back 21 Sept

9 September - Taylor records City of Lover in Paris. Live setlist #7 was DBAC and #13 was Style, also played Love Story, Delicate, ATW, Red, Style and Shake it Off. Joe in Toronto.

11 September - Blind that Joe wasn't able to talk about Taylor, about stilted showing at Favorite premiere

12 September - Harry seen in London and MIA till LAX on 17th

14 September - Joe and Taylor Rhode Island and fly to London

17 September - Harry private club Hollywood

24 September - Harry seen with Xander in LA

26 September - Harry Miami with Xander

28 September - Harry leaves Miami with Gucci Mickey Mouse suitcase.

29 September - Harry in London gallery with Georgia Ritz and her BF (Xander’s sister)

4 October - Harry seen with fans in London. Matty Healy says he wants to produce Taylors record (said about Harry earlier the year) and went on to say 'that taylor swift song about supporting gay people, when it came out we already knew that."

5 October Joe hold hands at Taylors SNL appearance, Elle comments 'their version of PDA at least' which is holding hands. Do you know who you are starts. Taylor performs Lover at SNL, the arrangement is acoustic and slow, she's wearing green, with a green piano and green floor, walls and nails! The music sheets look like paper planes. False God also.

11 October - lights up released

14 October - Harry at John Mayer concert at O2 London, John posts backstage photo.

21 October - A Fashion designer said they met Harry at the Bowery Hotel

27 October - Harry goes on stage at Kasey Musgraves last concert, wearing an all black version of the Fine Line Outfit.

28 October - Taylor's tiny desk concert, her CD is still in the background for Harry's in March.

5 November - Harry announced Fine Line

12, 17 November - Harry in New York

13 November - Joe and Taylor Thai restaurant Hampstead

16 November - Watermelon Sugar released as promotional single. Harry with Xander NY

20 November - Harry filmed the cross walk concert

22 November - sponsored tweets for Eroda Tourism started ❤️ Scooter wrote open letter to Taylor wanting a resolution saying his family was being threatened

23 November Harry's Zane Lowe interview (SNL 16 Nov)

1 December - Taylor on cover of British Vogue

3 December - Harry announced Adore you confirming Eroda is related.

7 December - Harry performs at Capitals Jingle Bell Ball, London

8 December - Taylor performs at Capitals Jingle Bell Ball, London

11 December - Kendall and Harry on Spill your guts

13 December - Fine Line released, Taylor’s birthday, Harry performed it in LA that night Harry Styles ‘Fine Line’ Concert at Forum in L.A. – Rolling Stone. Photos of Harry in Japan released. Taylor also performed that night but at MSG NY, making of photos. Rumour Xander there. Taylor performs in NY for Jingle Bell Ball and tells Fletcher "She had mentioned to me how much she loved the lyrics [to Undrunk]. I nearly fainted and passed away at that moment." Undrunk is about wanting to be over an ex.

15 December - Taylor’s 30th birthday party in NY with all the famous people, tiny pupils and a cat face cake. Media says Joe there, but:

16 December - Joe is in London, not at Taylor's birthday

18 December - Cats premiere, Taylor has a swollen lip. Joe attends holds hands as they leave. Flakes answering about holiday plans. Joe does Christmas Carol interview where he says he jumps in Hampstead Heath Pond every year. What convenient cross marketing, the film is shot in Hampstead, Paper Rings refers to icy outdoor pools. I wonder if he ran into Harry there. Harry at BBC Live Lounge recorded Juice cover

31 December - Joe, Taylor and friends at Maldives for New Years, Harry first wore the But Daddy I love him shirt on New Years Eve video of him dancing with no shoes and tipped a bartender $2020 in Anguilla in the Caribbean

Continue in 2020

[amethystina]

i've been staying up till 6am for the past 2 days to finish WWTD and oh my god? I love your brain? When i say the devil judge brainrot for me is bad, it's BAD. No fic has provided me this level of yearning and slow burn. You could make it a hundred chapters and update over the course of 5 years but I will still be there. Your brain is beautiful

Are you okay? That doesn't sound entirely healthy x'D

That said, I'm so glad you liked the fic! It probably comes as no surprise that I have a serious case of brainrot as well when it comes to these two — and this fic in particular. Right now I'm actually trying to keep myself from writing on it because I have other projects I need to finish first. It's a true struggle x'D

Because that's the thing with Who Holds the Devil: I have never — not once in the two and a half years I've been writing it — actually been bored of it or not wanted to write on it. I can sometimes procrastinate and my health often gets in the way and makes the experience less than ideal (because I sometimes push a little harder than I should) but I love this fic.

(I almost said "more than you all do" but that might be a lie at this point tbh x'D )

It's simultaneously one of the hardest and easiest works I've ever written. Hardest because it's so long and I (like most creatives) struggle with bad self-esteem sometimes, plus it's just draining to write something this long. But it's also the easiest because I have such a clear image in my mind of what I'm doing and where I'm going that I never have to hesitate. I rarely get stuck while writing it since, once I get started, it basically just flows without any effort at all. And so while it is exhausting and I have to take breaks sometimes, there's still no doubt in my mind that I'll continue. Because I'm so invested and still enjoy it so, so much.

So even if I make it a hundred chapters and will have to keep going for another couple of years, I'll still be here, too. Because I love this fic and I really, really want to see it through to the end. Partly because I want to give these characters the happy ending they deserve, but also because I think it's one of the best things I've ever written. Not in terms of pacing (there is no dramatic curve at all at this point x'D) but in... well, everything else, basically.

It is, at least currently, my magnum opus.

So thank you so much for joining me on this journey! I hope you will enjoy the rest as well. Thank you so much for the kind words 💜

[shadyhouse]

venting about work things are AWFUL right now and i just need to scream about it

i got this new job a few months ago thinking that it was gonna help me get out of this financial mess im in, i started with full time hours the first few months and things were good! but suddenly everything is just WORSE now. sure it pays slightly more but i got absolutely no hours this month bc youre expected to "earn" hours bc its all "performance based" like. i work at a fucking gas station. their literal actual excuse for me when i asked about it was "we hired more people during your shift and they wanted full time" so i just get completely thrown under the bus bc you dont deem me deserving of full time hours??? because i dont go extremely above and beyond ???????? AT A GAS STATION???? WHERE I ALREADY DO WHAT IM TOLD AND MAKE SURE ALL MY WORK IS DONE RIGHT AND PROPERLY AND THATS ALL IT HAS TO BE?????

this place's expectations are so high and corporate has their heads so far up their own asses that they treat it like youre working at the greatest establishment ever conceived and youre just undeserving and unappreciative of their generosity if you dont make their brand your entire fucking life. like okay you have this brand recognition but its still a Fucking gas station. this place is so cultish. you have to sell your soul to the company and if you desire a work/life balance or dont take it as seriously as the managers do youre punished for it.

i seriously dont know how i went from working full time to working 3 days in a single month, ive asked for more hours but they expect ME to CALL all the stores in the area to ask if they need help (most of which i cannot get to! because i dont have a car! and they know this!) and even then im only allowed to work for 4 hour shifts bc thats the rules with covering. like seriously what the fuck kind of setup is this. if im gonna spend $15 on a lyft to get to work at least let me work a full shift????????

im on day 5 of 5 days off in a row, and then after tomorrow i have 5 more days off in a row, and then i work an 8 hr shift on wednesday and a 5 hr shift on sunday. which is a day that from the start ive requested off. i have plans that weekend. so theyre straight up ignoring my availability. literally all i did was ask if i could work 8am-4:30pm instead of 6am-2:30pm because i have to wake up at 4am to catch the bus and its been really difficult for me. thats literally all i asked for and now suddenly i get less than 20 hours in a single month.

like this was so abrupt and sudden and i cant think of a single thing that would make them turn on me so hard. i do my job!?!?!? last time i was at work my boss was really short with me for no reason and she even wrote me up for something that 1) i never even got properly trained on 2) for a station that i have asked time and time again to NOT put me on because im NOT good at it. either put me in the kitchen or have me clean or have me stock, dont put me at register because i suck at it and it stresses me out. every single shift ive had for the last 2 weeks has been register. and then they blame me and write me up for things that im actively asking not to do bc i Know ill fuck it up. and we've had conversations about it. i was told that theyd put me in places im more comfortable in. and yet here i am getting written up for stupid reasons over things we've already discussed. they want to fire me SO BADLY

im honestly really upset and i dont know what to do anymore and it sucks bc every job ive had since 2022 has treated me like absolute garbage and i dont know what the fuck im doing wrong????? i start, i get told im a good worker, and then everything does a 180 and im forced to look for a new job. the cycle will never stop this is just what my life is. i dont know what to do or how to fix this. i dont even WANT to work at a gas station im here out of desperation bc my last job that i thought was going to be a career treated me so badly i just left to the first job i could find that paid more 💀

on top of everything my bank account is deep in the negatives and im scared to keep on asking for help because like. im sick of this too!!!! everything sucks!!!! everyone is broke!!!!! the good news i guess is that i applied for a better job at my roommate's place that pays a lot more and its an actual Real job but who knows if thatll actually happen..... ugh only time will tell. things HAVE to get better they NEED to 😭😭